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<p><a href="http://36s81n24kn0c1i9se62v6acw.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Andrew_McKIllop-2.jpg" type="external" />Andrew McKillop <a href="http://wp.me/p3bwni-695" type="external">21st Century Wire</a></p>
<p>In 1992, globalist academic Francis Fukuyama speculated in his book,&#160; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man" type="external">The End of History</a>, how the end of the Cold War would usher in a new and permanent prevailing paradigm.&#160;</p>
<p>“What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the&#160;Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such”, said Fukuyama.</p>
<p>But in 2014, the world has become more dynamic and complex than ever, and likewise, the global playbook for geopolitics is changing rapidly.</p>
<p>In this new multi-polar world, understanding what geopolitical architects in history had in mind back then, is essential to reading the tea leaves for what is to come…</p>
<p>Air power, Sea power, Land power</p>
<p>In a Dec 4, 2013 editorial, Bloomberg reported US military analysts saying that Chinese military action to control the airspace around several small uninhabited islands and sub-sea rocks it claims “are only a prelude to more action”.&#160; They say China wants to enable wide-area cover for warships to operate along what China calls the First Island Chain. These lie across one of the two direct channels between China’s coast and the blue-water Pacific. Recent air-zone declarations by President Xi Jinping’s government show its determination to firstly obtain Air Supremacy, then move on to exerting maritime power, with a blue-water navy capable of operating across all deep oceans.</p>
<p>US Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan</p>
<p>History tells us that there have been differing schools of thought on this…</p>
<p>US Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914)&#160; is credited by Sir Halford Mackinder (1861-1947) as being one of the key original geopolitical thinkers. Throughout his life, Mahan argued for US sea power, and on several occasions sharply disagreed with Mackinder – who claimed that sea power would be trumped and replaced by land transport and mass population movements across borders, deciding who would be the world’s master or Hegemon.</p>
<p>Mahan disagreed. He said that from the 17th century era of European expansion, called the Age of Exploration, only the nation-states that firstly mastered sea power achieved great power status. He backed this contention by arguing that trade power and mercantile trade surpluses – enabling economic dominance – depended on sea transport more than land. Seaborne transportation was not only critical during wartime, he said, but also in times of peace. For Mahan, the first country able to build a warfleet that could destroy an enemy’s main force in a single battle would become the world Hegemon.</p>
<p>As we know, China is already the undisputed master of world trade, with the world’s biggest trade surplus and biggest FX reserves. It already has extensive and growing land route access to all-Asia, Logically therefore, if global power was decided as the early geopolitical thinkers, especially Mahan said it would be, China must now become a major naval military power.</p>
<p>Erasing Borders and Nations</p>
<p>Critic’s of Mahan’s “traditional geopolitics” revert to Mackinder’s also-traditional theories, arguing that while commercial maritime assets remain a major factor in global economic power, the scramble for overseas markets has diminished – despite the economic growth and globalisation of the past few decades. World economic change and technology change, they say, have not only changed the relation of markets to transport, but have erased the role and concept of geographic borders and the need for control over maritime access.</p>
<p>China almost certainly disagrees. India probably also disagrees. Rather certainly the US and Russia disagree. Commercial expansion through physical trade of any kind, and the political-economic goal of running either or both mercantile trade surplus and capital surplus, remain major drivers for national trade policy, economic policy and military strategy in today’s world. The globalising ‘No Border’ concept underlying sea power was essential in Mahan’s 19th century theory of hegemonic power, but Mahan saw this seaborne hegemony as the exact opposite of a zero-sum game. Under the Hegemon – for Mahan it would be the US –&#160; its future undisputed sea power would also enable it to share and spread economic success.</p>
<p>He on occasions went further by arguing that competing rival navies could, or might, bring about the same final state of free and permanent global access for civil maritime fleets. This would be due to permanent stand-off between “second-rank” naval powers.</p>
<p>Where Mahan agreed with MacKinder was that both believed in the concept of <a href="" type="internal">The World Heartland</a>, basically Eurasia, with constantly changing and disputed western and southern frontiers. Mahan believed the US could overcome its geographic weakness of being “an outlying continent”, distant from the Eurasian Heartland, through building and maintaining massive naval military power. Along with other contemporary, and later geopolitical theorists, both Mahan and Mackinder believed that human population growth, plus economic growth, would always result in border conflicts and the quest for Lebensraum or “lifespace”, by the Hegemon.</p>
<p>Supporting the argument for always increasing a nation’s naval military power, geopolitical theorists like German thinkers Friedrich Ratzel – and Karl Haushofer whose theories were totally adopted by the German Nazi party – argued that sea power, unlike land power was self-sustaining. These advocates of naval military hegemony maintained it could easily be paid for by maritime trade and hinterland colonial development in conquered lands.</p>
<p>Demographic and Technology Shock</p>
<p>The 19th and early 20th century geopolitical theorists developed their concepts at a time of strong economic growth and continued population growth. European geopoliticians like Ratzel were heavily influenced by traveling through America in the late 19th century, whose population tripled in less than a century. They were also impressed by the growth of industrial power and scientific theory – notably including Darwin’s evolution theory and its quick mutation, by social scientists such as Herbert Spencer, into “Social Darwinism”.</p>
<p>The motor roles of population growth and economic growth were fundamental to them. The early geopoliticians, and also the German school of economic geography argued that “robust population growth”, and what they saw as directly linked and dependent economic growth, were essential in a perpetual struggle for survival between competing nations and states. Nation states, they said, could either grow or die, in the second case losing influence in direct proportion to their declining capacity for militarily defeating rivals.</p>
<p>This ideology was later be instrumental in Imperialism, Nazism, Fascism and Stalinism.</p>
<p>As we know all of the western nations, including the former great powers, have experienced sometimes radical decline in birthrates, and economic growth, for the past 30 years. In some cases, like Japan, the lack of interest by a growing number of persons below 40 years age in pastimes and activities like sex, marriage and childrearing has reached epidemic proportions. On current trends, Japan is losing about 1 million of its national population every 4 years. Russia is losing population at about twice the Japanese rate, and Germany at about one-half that rate. US birthrates, in 2013, reached their lowest rate since national fertility data started being compiled in 1919. All European nations excluding recent immigrant cohorts, have birthrates far below the needed average of 2.2 children per female person during her reproductive life to assure a stable, neither declining nor rising, national population.</p>
<p>Maritime commercial power is logical where industrial production capacities need to be centralized and localized – but when industry becomes “footloose” or “go anywhere” the model loses credibility. This technology-driven change of the global economy, making China’s present trade hegemony only due to its now declining industrial labor cost advantage against OECD countries – and not due to any intrinsic Chinese industrial or technological superiority –&#160; also erases the key role of what geopolitical theorists call ‘Centrality’.</p>
<p>The geopolitical concept of&#160;“Mittel-Europa” (see map, above), for example, argued that Europe had a central core-entity composed of the Germanic countries at the western extremity of the Eurasian Heartland, and these countries could be united to create a formidable force. Arguments for this concept (eg. by Neumann) said this entity had always been the target for attack from outside Europe, and was also the key defence of Europe. German geopoliticians argued Mittel Europa had the economic, political and ideological capacity to stave off all attacks – for example by the Ottoman Empire, then seen as the biggest external threat to, and potential ally for Mittel-Europa.</p>
<p>Removing central core-entities like Mittel Europa, for any reason and by any process of change, strips away the logic this concept might have originally had.</p>
<p>Lands, Borders, Peoples in a Complex Future</p>
<p>Nineteenth century geopolitical theory was like Darwin’s theory quickly used to serve political-ideological quests, including British Imperialism, German Nazism, Italian Fascism, Russian Stalinism, Israeli Zionism and other ethnic-based centralized nation state concepts and doctrines. The idea of an ethnic or racial center of the world, for example in Central Europe, also generated the fear that the world center was always under attack by inferior or jealous races and nations.</p>
<p>The exact opposite model is ‘nationless’ regions with ever-moving, ethnically mixed population masses, called the ‘Complexity Paradigm’. This second model is much closer to (for example) today’s concept of a Federal Europe formed by bringing together the present EU28 member states, destroying their national identities, and enabling and encouraging the maximum-possible amount of population movement inside Europe. The earlier, exactly opposing concept of “Volk”, first defined by Swedish geopolitician Rudolf Kjellen in 1917, necessarily had a counterparty of “living space” for the Volk, but when or if neither the volk, nor its living space exist, no strategic military defence or strong centralized governmental systems will be needed.</p>
<p>For several early geopolitical theorists, there could be no state without nationalism, and the easiest or quickest way to build nationalist sentiment is by racism.&#160; Consequently, to promote the interests of the nation-state was also to promote the interests of a particular people or specific racial group, making geopolitics into “ethno-politics”. This race-based concept was underlain by the constant paranoid fear of racial elimination or racial disappearance through competitive breeding.</p>
<p>With little surprise, the Volk theory of hegemonic dominance favored and favors the cult of very strong central government which will always advance the interest of the state against all other interests.</p>
<p>Even in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, critics of “ethno-geopolitics” pointed out that creating extremely orthodox authoritarian states in which all power was held by the central government and in which no dissent was tolerated would necessarily need an ‘Autarkic’, or&#160;self sufficient) economy. Self reliance would become the supreme economic goal. Trade dependence would be treated as a sign of weakness, due to trade creating the risk of trade deficits, monetary devaluation and capital loss.</p>
<p>Used in the original version of Keynesianism (by Keynes himself in the 1920s and 1930s), and by Neo-Keynesians of today in 2014, the exact opposite is preached as the way to go. Keynes observed that in the 1920s and 1930s, a form of economic autarchy was operated by most developed countries, seeking to reduce their trade deficits to zero and if possible obtain a mercantile trade surplus, but this did not take place in a vacuum or level playing field. At the time, and a somber warning of what was to come for the Liberal Democracies both Germany, Italy, Japan and the USSR were pursuing global hegemonistic policies with a totalitarian command economy. Crushing trade deficits to zero was a goal to be achieved by any means, for example by establishing “the siege economy’.</p>
<p>Imperialism versus Complexity</p>
<p>Certainly by the early 1920s, Halford Mackinder, then a professor of geography at Oxford University had defined his concept of the World Heartland. He said this was the geographical pivot of history, which also made it certain that national frontiers are subject to change and flux – Mackinder said the map of the world was and will be continually redrawn. He warned that any German alliance with Russia, or a China-Japan alliance, would signal the end of west European-US or “Atlantic” hegemony, adding the forecast that the new and more-powerful hegemonic alliances would reflect a world shift east, towards Asia, for future global dominance.</p>
<p>Today, both in the US and Europe, and in Japan, the fear of Chinese and possibly Indian economic dominance and ‘permanent’ trade surplus status runs alongside the fear of Chinese military dominance of Asia. In the past, the geopolitical defensive action was Imperialism.</p>
<p>IMAGE: Well organised pro-EU protesters in the Ukraine are demanding entry into Europe.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>MacKinder’s theory of the Eurasian Heartland is arguably still dominant in strategic thinking in the West today. It implies that the “Atlantic states” of the US and western Europe must ally with Russia, inheritor of the Heartland area formerly occupied by the Soviet Union. Yet at this moment in early 2014, <a href="" type="internal">an epic political and ideological struggle pits the European Union and the US, against Russia for control of Ukraine</a>.</p>
<p>When, or if, the Ukraine “falls into the western sphere”, Russia will suffer another loss of its southern “buffer zone”, and be forced further back into the remains of its ex-Soviet heartland – further weakening it’s power. As we know, Russia’s southern frontiers are also threatened by the Islamic revolt, fanned by Saudi Arabia. Putin’s Russia “hangs tough” concerning the Bashr al-Assad regime in Syria for reasons including Russia’s Tartus naval base on the Syrian coast – its only access to “warm waters”.</p>
<p>For Mackinder, the world has and will experience three unique geopolitical periods. The closed Heartland of Eurasia was the previous – and future – geographical pivot of Humanity. Control of this Heartland was obligatory for establishing global control. He argued the seaborne stage of hegemonic power was the age of maritime exploration, which began with Columbus, but drew to a close with the 19th century – for reasons which included industrial development and transport technology. Mackinder argued that the following stage would feature land transportation technology and would reinstate land-based power, as opposed to sea power, as essential to global political dominance.</p>
<p>Eurasia would be resurgent because it was adjacent to the borders of so many important countries, although Mackinder did not specifically mention either China or India. For him, the Eurasian mega-region was strategically and economically buttressed by an inner and outer crescent of land masses, resources and peoples. He therefore proposed an evolutionary process or cycle of geopolitical dominance starting with land-based, moving to sea-based, and then back to land-based power. For American geopolitical theorists, including the present, this reading of the process shaping global dominance directly leads to the theory of ‘Containment’.</p>
<p>Limits to Containment</p>
<p>Containment Theory can be called a neo-imperalist strategy, or surrogate for Imperialism. It is still highly current, and certainly underlays US and Russian posture relating to the Syrian civil war, among other issues. As we know, NATO was created with the main goal of containing the Soviet threat to the “Atlantic states”. The US-USSR cold war of 1948-1991 was often described by American military strategists as Soviet Asian containment.&#160; Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, any number of senior advisers to presidents of the United States, such as the Dulles brothers, Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski were committed to maintaining the containment policy.</p>
<p>Nicholas Spykman is considered to be the founding theorist of containment, along with other political scientists such as George F. Kennan. These analysts utilised concepts such as the heartland, the disputed frontier rimlands, the isolated or offshore continents, and the dynamics of Eurasia – now obligatorily including China and India.</p>
<p>Although the vocabulary of Mahan and Mackinder is still used, the containment theorists reject the argument that the Eurasian Heartland can and will be unified, even politically united, firstly through a dense and wide-area land transport system. One main argument of the containment school is that the frontier zones, disputed by Eurasia and the isolated continents and especially the US/North America, will inevitably be more innovative and more flexible to economic, technological and social change, than the Heartland. Some rimland zones, especially the Arab Middle East and North Africa (MENA), rich in resources but low in population, would according to containment theorists arbitrate critical stages of the conflict for world hegemony.</p>
<p>Other rimlands rich in resources, especially Sub Saharan Africa and Australia, would also play an over-sized role in shaping world geopolitics relative to what Mackinder believed possible. However, Spykman recognized that these rimland regions or isolated continents had not achieved anything of significance in terms of great power status, politics or reach. Spykman focused the United States, Great Britain and Japan as the key containment powers opposing Eurasian dominance. Along with some other containment geopoliticians, Spykman argued that a sort of “coalition of the willing” including the US, Russia, Japan and the EU would at some stage form one alliance, in order contain Chinese and-or Indian expansion.</p>
<p />
<p>Spykman was in 1942, able to predict before World War II came to a close – that Japan and Germany would lose the war and China would emerge as a major power in Asia and oppose Japan, finally by war, and that there would be ongoing conflict between the United States and the USSR. He was convinced that conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union was inevitable, because both countries had inevitably conflicting geopolitical destinies.</p>
<p>Karl Haushofer, whose geopolitical theories were adopted by the German Nazi party in 1938, developed a special form a containment theory for the Third Reich, whereby the “Aryans” must pre-emptively invade and colonize the USSR, before this Eurasian Heartland devours Germany and Europe. The Haushofer theory was ‘Kill or Be Killed’ approach. His approach to Lebensraum can be said to have gone beyond previous concepts of race-based colonial expansion, due to his theory that the European Volk, enabled by German Nazi victory, would break down and replace all former concepts of nation, race, ethnic identity and religion.</p>
<p>This special form of containment theory represented a new approach to colonial imperialism. Inside the new Eurasian Heartland, both resources and population densities would be leveled and evenly divided, but the initial stages of creating the new Heartland would necessarily utilise economic autarchy. Haushofer defined autarky as a system in which a country used its economic power to protect itself from aggression by others through imposing tariffs on them, obtaining trade surplus for the Hegemon.</p>
<p>Gateways and Shatterbelts</p>
<p>Since the 1970s, geopolitical theory has moved to consider post-Imperial complex power systems which by definition are transient.</p>
<p>Former hegemonic strategy, always finally military, was defined by geopoliticians like Haushofer as including key goals such as winning strategic control over key geographic areas and transport corridors. Examples included control over the Suez or Panama Canals, needing either colonial occupation or permanent military resources in-zone. To be sure, these two cited sea transport corridors remain strategic along with others such as the Straits of Hormuz and Malacca, but present and future hegemonic dominance also requires the imposition of the Hegemon’s economic and ideological will on others levers of power, with proven dominance in other key areas, such as science and technology.</p>
<p>The former “static model” of geopolitical power was for example, symbolized by the British Empire, the Soviet Union and the sphere of influence for the US defined by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine" type="external">Monroe Doctrine</a>.</p>
<p>This previous model, which held until about the 1970s, did not incorporate “Shatter Belt regions”, where enormous and endemic political volatility exist, but defined them as mostly-passive “rimlands”. Modern theory accepts the reality that world shatter belts have their own internal dynamic and share the common feature of treating dominant world powers as threatening entities which must be resisted. This is a more realistic approach to the ongoing MENA-Middle East and North African process of regional shattering, which can easily spread outside the region. At the same time, several shatter belts are also gateways, points of entry to autonomous or semi-autonomous regional heartlands. The eastern Europe and the Balkans of Mittel-Europa theorists, for example, are both shatter belts and gateways. Also, the two states or categories are interchangeable.</p>
<p>Put another way, when a local or regional heartland destabilizes, its gateways will also destabilize, and vice versa. When the Cold War ended in 1989, large-area destabilization was in no way forecast, but geopoliticians of today argue that the 1948-1989 cold war had only stifled or frozen large-area geopolitical dynamics across a vast area of the world. These forces are now free, generating new conflicts in the world. Lines of fracture are complex and multivariate, from culture and ideology to economic and monetary power. Single-theme theories such as Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” have already been weakened or disproved, due to complexity. The potential, for example, of shatter belts becoming semi-autonomous and durable entities, with local industrial capability, is no longer fanciful as another direct consequence of the end of the Cold War, technology change and the rise of economic globalisation.</p>
<p>‘Peace in the Feud’</p>
<p>Former Israeli leader Ariel Sharon (right), and Oded Yinon (left).</p>
<p>Defined and published as a geopolitical doctrine for Israel by then-foreign ministry adviser Oded Yinon (photo, left) at the time of Ariel Sharon’s disastrous invasion of Lebanon and occupation of Beirut, the ‘Yinon Plan’ called for the decapitation of Arab state governments, in order to create what ethnologists call “the peace in the feud” within and between smaller, localised powers – all unable to oppose Israel. Hegemons applied a form of this doctrine, for example by traditional colonial rule using “divide-and-rule”, but the present and emerging de facto world geopolitical context of shatter belts and gateways lends itself to a forecast of this becoming a global paradigm.</p>
<p>The decline of nationalism and national identities, mass migration population movements and economic globalisation all hinder or prevent previous or “classic” hegemonic rivalry and conflict, and create an outlook for possibly rapid change of existing national borders and territories. Examples certainly include the MENA region but may also include entities such as the European Union – as one current example, the partition of Ukraine into a pro-EU western segment, and a pro-Russian eastern segment forming two new countries is logically possible, of course with conflict. Several EU member states, such as the UK, Spain and Belgium also face democratic-based and powerful separatist movements inside their national territories. In “classic” hegemonic theory, the Hegemon wielded major economic and monetary power and controlled a large contiguous land area with essentially no internal frontiers – but this final state is also possible by ongoing processes of change, but without a World Hegemon. Extreme high debt levels for the central power of Russia, similar to the US debt crisis, also favor the loss of regional power for Russia and increasing isolationism for the “outlying continent” USA.</p>
<p>The link between the present geopolitical state of flux and the early geopolitical theories of Mahan and Mackinder is found in the current process being a continuous state of change. As Mahan said, maritime power enabled permanent go-anywhere access, and large-area hegemonic power across land areas enabled the same access, but as Mackinder was able to accept, from the 1920s there will always be disputed rimlands and frontiers. In today’s world, these are radically expanding, and the 19th and 20th century hegemons are forced back into smaller heartlands, which for example makes it extremely difficult to imagine that China can become the 21st century Hegemon.</p>
<p>Modern geopolitcal theorists note that the “cold war bipolar model” was only transient, and will be succeeded by other models and processes. As entities like G-20 and the WTO prove, the world is now multi-polar, but relics of previous hegemonic entities act like icebergs for the new multi-polar Titanic, which will inevitably generate new multi-polar forms and types of conflict.</p>
<p>READ MORE NWO NEWS AT: <a href="" type="internal">21st Century Wire NWO Files</a></p> | true | 4 | andrew mckillop 21st century wire 1992 globalist academic francis fukuyama speculated book160 end history end cold war would usher new permanent prevailing paradigm160 may witnessing end the160cold war passing particular period postwar history end history said fukuyama 2014 world become dynamic complex ever likewise global playbook geopolitics changing rapidly new multipolar world understanding geopolitical architects history mind back essential reading tea leaves come air power sea power land power dec 4 2013 editorial bloomberg reported us military analysts saying chinese military action control airspace around several small uninhabited islands subsea rocks claims prelude action160 say china wants enable widearea cover warships operate along china calls first island chain lie across one two direct channels chinas coast bluewater pacific recent airzone declarations president xi jinpings government show determination firstly obtain air supremacy move exerting maritime power bluewater navy capable operating across deep oceans us admiral alfred thayer mahan history tells us differing schools thought us admiral alfred thayer mahan 18401914160 credited sir halford mackinder 18611947 one key original geopolitical thinkers throughout life mahan argued us sea power several occasions sharply disagreed mackinder claimed sea power would trumped replaced land transport mass population movements across borders deciding would worlds master hegemon mahan disagreed said 17th century era european expansion called age exploration nationstates firstly mastered sea power achieved great power status backed contention arguing trade power mercantile trade surpluses enabling economic dominance depended sea transport land seaborne transportation critical wartime said also times peace mahan first country able build warfleet could destroy enemys main force single battle would become world hegemon know china already undisputed master world trade worlds biggest trade surplus biggest fx reserves already extensive growing land route access allasia logically therefore global power decided early geopolitical thinkers especially mahan said would china must become major naval military power erasing borders nations critics mahans traditional geopolitics revert mackinders alsotraditional theories arguing commercial maritime assets remain major factor global economic power scramble overseas markets diminished despite economic growth globalisation past decades world economic change technology change say changed relation markets transport erased role concept geographic borders need control maritime access china almost certainly disagrees india probably also disagrees rather certainly us russia disagree commercial expansion physical trade kind politicaleconomic goal running either mercantile trade surplus capital surplus remain major drivers national trade policy economic policy military strategy todays world globalising border concept underlying sea power essential mahans 19th century theory hegemonic power mahan saw seaborne hegemony exact opposite zerosum game hegemon mahan would us 160 future undisputed sea power would also enable share spread economic success occasions went arguing competing rival navies could might bring final state free permanent global access civil maritime fleets would due permanent standoff secondrank naval powers mahan agreed mackinder believed concept world heartland basically eurasia constantly changing disputed western southern frontiers mahan believed us could overcome geographic weakness outlying continent distant eurasian heartland building maintaining massive naval military power along contemporary later geopolitical theorists mahan mackinder believed human population growth plus economic growth would always result border conflicts quest lebensraum lifespace hegemon supporting argument always increasing nations naval military power geopolitical theorists like german thinkers friedrich ratzel karl haushofer whose theories totally adopted german nazi party argued sea power unlike land power selfsustaining advocates naval military hegemony maintained could easily paid maritime trade hinterland colonial development conquered lands demographic technology shock 19th early 20th century geopolitical theorists developed concepts time strong economic growth continued population growth european geopoliticians like ratzel heavily influenced traveling america late 19th century whose population tripled less century also impressed growth industrial power scientific theory notably including darwins evolution theory quick mutation social scientists herbert spencer social darwinism motor roles population growth economic growth fundamental early geopoliticians also german school economic geography argued robust population growth saw directly linked dependent economic growth essential perpetual struggle survival competing nations states nation states said could either grow die second case losing influence direct proportion declining capacity militarily defeating rivals ideology later instrumental imperialism nazism fascism stalinism know western nations including former great powers experienced sometimes radical decline birthrates economic growth past 30 years cases like japan lack interest growing number persons 40 years age pastimes activities like sex marriage childrearing reached epidemic proportions current trends japan losing 1 million national population every 4 years russia losing population twice japanese rate germany onehalf rate us birthrates 2013 reached lowest rate since national fertility data started compiled 1919 european nations excluding recent immigrant cohorts birthrates far needed average 22 children per female person reproductive life assure stable neither declining rising national population maritime commercial power logical industrial production capacities need centralized localized industry becomes footloose go anywhere model loses credibility technologydriven change global economy making chinas present trade hegemony due declining industrial labor cost advantage oecd countries due intrinsic chinese industrial technological superiority 160 also erases key role geopolitical theorists call centrality geopolitical concept of160mitteleuropa see map example argued europe central coreentity composed germanic countries western extremity eurasian heartland countries could united create formidable force arguments concept eg neumann said entity always target attack outside europe also key defence europe german geopoliticians argued mittel europa economic political ideological capacity stave attacks example ottoman empire seen biggest external threat potential ally mitteleuropa removing central coreentities like mittel europa reason process change strips away logic concept might originally lands borders peoples complex future nineteenth century geopolitical theory like darwins theory quickly used serve politicalideological quests including british imperialism german nazism italian fascism russian stalinism israeli zionism ethnicbased centralized nation state concepts doctrines idea ethnic racial center world example central europe also generated fear world center always attack inferior jealous races nations exact opposite model nationless regions evermoving ethnically mixed population masses called complexity paradigm second model much closer example todays concept federal europe formed bringing together present eu28 member states destroying national identities enabling encouraging maximumpossible amount population movement inside europe earlier exactly opposing concept volk first defined swedish geopolitician rudolf kjellen 1917 necessarily counterparty living space volk neither volk living space exist strategic military defence strong centralized governmental systems needed several early geopolitical theorists could state without nationalism easiest quickest way build nationalist sentiment racism160 consequently promote interests nationstate also promote interests particular people specific racial group making geopolitics ethnopolitics racebased concept underlain constant paranoid fear racial elimination racial disappearance competitive breeding little surprise volk theory hegemonic dominance favored favors cult strong central government always advance interest state interests even late 19th early 20th centuries critics ethnogeopolitics pointed creating extremely orthodox authoritarian states power held central government dissent tolerated would necessarily need autarkic or160self sufficient economy self reliance would become supreme economic goal trade dependence would treated sign weakness due trade creating risk trade deficits monetary devaluation capital loss used original version keynesianism keynes 1920s 1930s neokeynesians today 2014 exact opposite preached way go keynes observed 1920s 1930s form economic autarchy operated developed countries seeking reduce trade deficits zero possible obtain mercantile trade surplus take place vacuum level playing field time somber warning come liberal democracies germany italy japan ussr pursuing global hegemonistic policies totalitarian command economy crushing trade deficits zero goal achieved means example establishing siege economy imperialism versus complexity certainly early 1920s halford mackinder professor geography oxford university defined concept world heartland said geographical pivot history also made certain national frontiers subject change flux mackinder said map world continually redrawn warned german alliance russia chinajapan alliance would signal end west europeanus atlantic hegemony adding forecast new morepowerful hegemonic alliances would reflect world shift east towards asia future global dominance today us europe japan fear chinese possibly indian economic dominance permanent trade surplus status runs alongside fear chinese military dominance asia past geopolitical defensive action imperialism image well organised proeu protesters ukraine demanding entry europe 160 mackinders theory eurasian heartland arguably still dominant strategic thinking west today implies atlantic states us western europe must ally russia inheritor heartland area formerly occupied soviet union yet moment early 2014 epic political ideological struggle pits european union us russia control ukraine ukraine falls western sphere russia suffer another loss southern buffer zone forced back remains exsoviet heartland weakening power know russias southern frontiers also threatened islamic revolt fanned saudi arabia putins russia hangs tough concerning bashr alassad regime syria reasons including russias tartus naval base syrian coast access warm waters mackinder world experience three unique geopolitical periods closed heartland eurasia previous future geographical pivot humanity control heartland obligatory establishing global control argued seaborne stage hegemonic power age maritime exploration began columbus drew close 19th century reasons included industrial development transport technology mackinder argued following stage would feature land transportation technology would reinstate landbased power opposed sea power essential global political dominance eurasia would resurgent adjacent borders many important countries although mackinder specifically mention either china india eurasian megaregion strategically economically buttressed inner outer crescent land masses resources peoples therefore proposed evolutionary process cycle geopolitical dominance starting landbased moving seabased back landbased power american geopolitical theorists including present reading process shaping global dominance directly leads theory containment limits containment containment theory called neoimperalist strategy surrogate imperialism still highly current certainly underlays us russian posture relating syrian civil war among issues know nato created main goal containing soviet threat atlantic states usussr cold war 19481991 often described american military strategists soviet asian containment160 collapse soviet union number senior advisers presidents united states dulles brothers henry kissinger zbigniew brzezinski committed maintaining containment policy nicholas spykman considered founding theorist containment along political scientists george f kennan analysts utilised concepts heartland disputed frontier rimlands isolated offshore continents dynamics eurasia obligatorily including china india although vocabulary mahan mackinder still used containment theorists reject argument eurasian heartland unified even politically united firstly dense widearea land transport system one main argument containment school frontier zones disputed eurasia isolated continents especially usnorth america inevitably innovative flexible economic technological social change heartland rimland zones especially arab middle east north africa mena rich resources low population would according containment theorists arbitrate critical stages conflict world hegemony rimlands rich resources especially sub saharan africa australia would also play oversized role shaping world geopolitics relative mackinder believed possible however spykman recognized rimland regions isolated continents achieved anything significance terms great power status politics reach spykman focused united states great britain japan key containment powers opposing eurasian dominance along containment geopoliticians spykman argued sort coalition willing including us russia japan eu would stage form one alliance order contain chinese andor indian expansion spykman 1942 able predict world war ii came close japan germany would lose war china would emerge major power asia oppose japan finally war would ongoing conflict united states ussr convinced conflict united states soviet union inevitable countries inevitably conflicting geopolitical destinies karl haushofer whose geopolitical theories adopted german nazi party 1938 developed special form containment theory third reich whereby aryans must preemptively invade colonize ussr eurasian heartland devours germany europe haushofer theory kill killed approach approach lebensraum said gone beyond previous concepts racebased colonial expansion due theory european volk enabled german nazi victory would break replace former concepts nation race ethnic identity religion special form containment theory represented new approach colonial imperialism inside new eurasian heartland resources population densities would leveled evenly divided initial stages creating new heartland would necessarily utilise economic autarchy haushofer defined autarky system country used economic power protect aggression others imposing tariffs obtaining trade surplus hegemon gateways shatterbelts since 1970s geopolitical theory moved consider postimperial complex power systems definition transient former hegemonic strategy always finally military defined geopoliticians like haushofer including key goals winning strategic control key geographic areas transport corridors examples included control suez panama canals needing either colonial occupation permanent military resources inzone sure two cited sea transport corridors remain strategic along others straits hormuz malacca present future hegemonic dominance also requires imposition hegemons economic ideological others levers power proven dominance key areas science technology former static model geopolitical power example symbolized british empire soviet union sphere influence us defined monroe doctrine previous model held 1970s incorporate shatter belt regions enormous endemic political volatility exist defined mostlypassive rimlands modern theory accepts reality world shatter belts internal dynamic share common feature treating dominant world powers threatening entities must resisted realistic approach ongoing menamiddle east north african process regional shattering easily spread outside region time several shatter belts also gateways points entry autonomous semiautonomous regional heartlands eastern europe balkans mitteleuropa theorists example shatter belts gateways also two states categories interchangeable put another way local regional heartland destabilizes gateways also destabilize vice versa cold war ended 1989 largearea destabilization way forecast geopoliticians today argue 19481989 cold war stifled frozen largearea geopolitical dynamics across vast area world forces free generating new conflicts world lines fracture complex multivariate culture ideology economic monetary power singletheme theories samuel huntingtons clash civilizations already weakened disproved due complexity potential example shatter belts becoming semiautonomous durable entities local industrial capability longer fanciful another direct consequence end cold war technology change rise economic globalisation peace feud former israeli leader ariel sharon right oded yinon left defined published geopolitical doctrine israel thenforeign ministry adviser oded yinon photo left time ariel sharons disastrous invasion lebanon occupation beirut yinon plan called decapitation arab state governments order create ethnologists call peace feud within smaller localised powers unable oppose israel hegemons applied form doctrine example traditional colonial rule using divideandrule present emerging de facto world geopolitical context shatter belts gateways lends forecast becoming global paradigm decline nationalism national identities mass migration population movements economic globalisation hinder prevent previous classic hegemonic rivalry conflict create outlook possibly rapid change existing national borders territories examples certainly include mena region may also include entities european union one current example partition ukraine proeu western segment prorussian eastern segment forming two new countries logically possible course conflict several eu member states uk spain belgium also face democraticbased powerful separatist movements inside national territories classic hegemonic theory hegemon wielded major economic monetary power controlled large contiguous land area essentially internal frontiers final state also possible ongoing processes change without world hegemon extreme high debt levels central power russia similar us debt crisis also favor loss regional power russia increasing isolationism outlying continent usa link present geopolitical state flux early geopolitical theories mahan mackinder found current process continuous state change mahan said maritime power enabled permanent goanywhere access largearea hegemonic power across land areas enabled access mackinder able accept 1920s always disputed rimlands frontiers todays world radically expanding 19th 20th century hegemons forced back smaller heartlands example makes extremely difficult imagine china become 21st century hegemon modern geopolitcal theorists note cold war bipolar model transient succeeded models processes entities like g20 wto prove world multipolar relics previous hegemonic entities act like icebergs new multipolar titanic inevitably generate new multipolar forms types conflict read nwo news 21st century wire nwo files | 2,432 |
<p>Photo by Pete Birkinshaw | <a href="" type="internal">CC BY 2.0</a></p>
<p>A Response to Bhaskar Sunkara</p>
<p>At the end of June, in the midst of a growing discussion about socialism in the United States, Bhaskar Sunkara published an <a href="" type="internal">important op-ed</a> in the New York Times entitled “Socialism’s Future May Be Its Past.”</p>
<p>Sunkara, editor of Jacobin magazine and a Vice Chair of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), attempts to draw out lessons from the Russian Revolution and take up the relevance of socialist and radical ideas in our time. It was a distinctly different and more sympathetic assessment than other recent articles in the same publication addressing the 100-year anniversary of that historic event. As one point of comparison, a week earlier, the New York Times printed an article by right-wing author Sean McMeekin which sought to revive the long ago discredited “Lenin was a German spy” conspiracy theory.</p>
<p>It should come as no surprise that a large section of the mainstream media and pro-capitalist commentators are again devoting time and resources to distort and discredit socialist ideas, including no less than the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as Sunkara points out. This distortion campaign is a response to the revival of socialism which has begun to take place in the U.S. on the heels of the incredibly popular campaign of Bernie Sanders.</p>
<p>Sanders called out for a “political revolution” against Wall Street and the 1%, and in so doing galvanized millions of workers and young people who have been radicalized by the deep social crisis of capitalism and have begun to question the viability of the system. An estimated 1.3 million people attended Sanders’ mass rallies. In another welcome development, left and socialist organisations, like Socialist Alternative, have grown rapidly. The Democratic Socialists of America has grown three-fold, from roughly 8,000 to nearly 25,000 members since Trump was elected last November.</p>
<p>In his op-ed, Sunkara generally defends the Russian Revolution as a positive development, and the mere fact of the article being published in the U.S. “paper of record” is itself a sign of the changing times. As Sunkara’s article suggests, in order to turn the tide against the bankrupt status quo today we will need to look back and learn the key lessons from the history of the global working-class movement. We must equip ourselves with the best ideas in order to defeat Trump and the worldwide capitalist offensive on our living standards and democratic rights. Unfortunately, in his article Sunkara does not offer a rounded-out socialist alternative. Instead he seems to argue that a “regulated market”, a foundation stone of capitalism, should continue in the society socialists should be striving to create.</p>
<p>There is an important tradition of socialists having a fraternal discussion on important issues of strategy, tactics and program. This has played an essential role in educating socialists, other activists and the general public about the best methods to change society. We offer this article as part of that tradition, not to distort points of view, but instead to contrast different approaches to issues.</p>
<p>Sunkara’s Three “Stations”</p>
<p>In his discussion of the state of modern politics, Bhaskar paints a picture of the key trends that dominate the politics of the capitalist class today: One is the “Singapore Station” which he casts as the logical conclusion of the politics of mainstream neoliberals like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. A second, “Budapest Station,” represents the ultimate destination of right-wing populism like Donald Trump’s. The third, “Finland Station,” is of course the main subject of his article and a reference to the Russian Revolution and the endpoint of Vladimir Lenin’s historic train journey back from abroad in early 1917.</p>
<p>Sunkara’s critique of neoliberalism in the “Singapore Station” section makes important points, but also reveals limitations in his approach. While acknowledging its undemocratic character and relentless drive for neoliberal austerity, he portrays it as relatively benign by understating its brutality and real human costs: “The Singapore model is not the worst of all possible endpoints. It’s one where experts are allowed to be experts, capitalists are allowed to accumulate, and ordinary workers are allowed a semblance of stability. But it leaves no room for the train’s passengers to yell ‘Stop!’ and pick a destination of their own choosing.” This dramatically understates the character of neoliberalism and results of its worship of unrestrained capitalism: the vicious driving down of workers’ living standards in the name of profit, the loss of access to vital services like health care, the loss of millions of lives from wars over resources, the many and varied disasters of de-regulation (like that recently at Grenfell Towers in London), and finally to neoliberalism’s complete inability to offer a future for youth and working people around the world.</p>
<p>It is precisely this model’s instability and brutality that opens the door to the “Budapest station” of right wing populists like Trump (and the authoritarian regimes in Hungary, Poland and elsewhere), in the desperate search of middle and working class people for some alternative to the dominant “Singapore” route of capitalism.</p>
<p>In his article, Bhaskar gets into what his own “Finland Station” vision of socialism would look like. He explains that it would entail “Worker-owned cooperatives, still competing in a regulated market; government services coordinated with the aid of citizen planning; and the provision of the basics necessary to live a good life (education, housing and health care) guaranteed as social rights. In other words, a world where people have the freedom to reach their potentials, whatever the circumstances of their birth.”</p>
<p>Without a doubt, such changes would represent a significant step forward despite being under threat of attack every time capitalism entered into one of its periodic crises. But this is not the same as the goal of socialism: a global, classless society which does away with capitalism’s organized apparatus of repression and replaces it with a new political order based on mass democratic organs of working people and the oppressed. This has always been the destination called for by the socialist and Marxist movement. Many today, even on the left, may see this vision as hopelessly utopian. But as Marx argued, it is the massive development of human productivity under capitalism which has laid the material basis to eradicate class division and oppression rooted in scarcity.</p>
<p>Marxism and the State</p>
<p>Bhaskar also states: “Stripped down to its essence, and returned to its roots, socialism is an ideology of radical democracy.&#160; In an era when liberties are under attack, it seeks to empower civil society to allow participation in the decisions that affect our lives.”</p>
<p>Yet a central tenet of Marxism is that capitalist democracy is only a form of state rule. And Marx argues the dominant class in society is the one that controls the state apparatus. Marxists have long championed the most far-reaching, radical democracy. But Marxism has also explained that democracy does not exist in abstract. It must be understood in connection with the dominant economic system. Under capitalism, democracy is always severely curtailed by the domination of the small propertied elite which uses their power to prevent the majority from touching the foundations of their wealth and privilege. In other words, championing “radical democracy” can only be done consistently if it is linked to ending the undemocratic rule of the capitalist class and transferring power into the hands of the working class and the oppressed.</p>
<p>Bhaskar does not clarify this. In his “broad outline” of a future socialism, which is dominant: market forces or the workers’ cooperatives? Bhaskar further states: “This social democracy would involve a commitment to a free civil society, especially for oppositional voices; the need for institutional checks and balances on power; and a vision of a transition to socialism that does not require a ‘year zero’ break with the present.”</p>
<p>However, if we are talking about ending the brutal and decaying capitalist system, how can this be done without having a fundamental, thoroughgoing break with the present order and its deeply undemocratic and repressive state apparatus? Instead, it appears that Bhaskar is arguing against this when he says his vision of a transition to socialism does not require a “year zero” break with the present. It was this central point that Lenin argued for when he returned to Russia in 1917. Lenin stated that the feeble capitalists in Russia could not and would not deliver benefits for the working class. He called for the working class and poor peasants to break the power of the landlords and capitalists over society, and appeal to workers in other countries to follow this example and begin the construction of a socialist society based on workers’ democracy.</p>
<p>Fighting for Reforms</p>
<p>As Marxists, we in Socialist Alternative fight for every gain that working people can win under capitalism. This can be seen in our leadership in the fight for $15, with Socialist Alternative member and Seattle City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant leading <a href="" type="internal">Seattle to become the first major city to pass a $15 minimum wage</a>. Two weeks ago, <a href="" type="internal">we helped make Minneapolis</a> the first Midwest city to pass $15, this time under the leadership of socialist City Council candidate, <a href="https://gingerjentzen.nationbuilder.com/" type="external">Ginger Jentzen</a>. And just last week, Sawant and Seattle Socialist Alternative helped bring about another nationally important victory, this time a local measure to <a href="" type="internal">tax the rich</a> <a href="" type="internal">t</a>o help fund affordable housing, education and other <a href="" type="internal">v</a>i <a href="" type="internal">t</a>a <a href="" type="internal">l</a> <a href="" type="internal">s</a>e <a href="" type="internal">r</a>v <a href="" type="internal">i</a>c <a href="" type="internal">e</a>s.</p>
<p>In April of 2017, Kshama Sawant responded to questions in the Huffington Post about her <a href="" type="internal">views on socialism</a>:</p>
<p>…There are limits to reforming a system that is dominated by these massive and rapacious corporations. On the basis of capitalism, victories like raising the minimum wage are only temporary. Big business has many tools to make us pay for the crisis of their system. Again, a permanent and sustainable solution to all the problems facing working people is possible only by taking the biggest companies into democratic ownership, and reorganizing the economy on a planned basis. Under such a system we could democratically decide how to allocate resources. We could rapidly transition away from fossil fuels, develop massive jobs programs to rebuild the country’s rotting infrastructure, and begin to build a whole new world based on meeting the needs of the majority, not the profits of a few.</p>
<p>The issues raised by Sunkara about reform and revolution are not just abstract questions of historical interest. Which “station” we end up at today is intimately linked to how we assess the defeats and successes of the past.</p>
<p>After World War II, in an era of post-war reconstruction and huge economic growth, and under the enormous pressures of mass socialist and communist parties and radical labor struggles, important gains for working people were won in most Western countries. But the tenuous economic landscape of today is radically different, with capitalism incapable of enjoying a sustained upswing, relentlessly attacking unions and working conditions, and demanding deep budget cuts in order to just maintain profitability and survive.</p>
<p>The new parties of the left can end up at a neoliberal “Singapore Station” in the present even as they look to “Finland Station” of the past, if they fail to draw the correct lessons. If left parties are elected to government without a definite program for an alternative to capitalism and a strategy to achieve it, they will inevitably be driven instead into attempting to manage capitalism, which can mean carrying out neoliberal austerity dressed up with kind words of compassion. Reform-minded, anti-austerity governments will ultimately be forced to choose between accepting the demands of big business or implementing radical and socialist measures.</p>
<p>As Rosa Luxemburg explained in 1900 in her <a href="" type="internal">pamphlet</a> Reform or Revolution these two choices are not just “different roads” to the same station. Because to be successful, the struggle for reform cannot be an end unto itself—serious reforms only come about as a by-product of serious social struggle. The capitalist class needs to be genuinely fearful of a wider revolt before it will grant major concessions like Medicare for All or a federal $15 minimum wage.</p>
<p>Further, if the struggle for reform is not used to develop the consciousness of working people and prepare the ground for a thoroughgoing socialist transformation of society, the capitalists will look to roll back the reforms which have been won, or to destroy those working class forces which defend them. The ruling class will not hesitate to engage in economic war or even military coups against elected left governments. Left governments seeking to carry out their programs will run headlong into the brick wall of capitalist ownership and control of the key resources in society, as well as the capitalist state apparatus. This can be clearly seen in what happened to SYRIZA in Greece.</p>
<p>Bashkar appears to implicitly reject the idea of a radical, revolutionary transformation of society when he says his vision of a transition to socialism “does not require a ‘year zero’ break with the present.” But the view that capitalism can be gradually changed in the direction of a just order flies in the face of the experience of the past 100 years, and specifically to the neoliberal assault on the gains of the working class. Capitalism in decay means that there are real limits to reform and that even the most popular, hard-won gains are reversible.</p>
<p>The Rise and Fall of SYRIZA</p>
<p>In Greece, SYRIZA, a left coalition party, saw its support grow exponentially from 4.9% in 2009 to being elected on an anti-austerity program to lead the Greek government in January 2015. Yet a few months later its leader Alexis Tsipras utterly capitulated, ignoring an over 61% “No” vote against austerity in the referendum his government called, and agreed to the demands of the capitalists and the European Union for further savage cuts to living standards. This was a serious blow against the left internationally which had looked to SYRIZA and Greece to lead the struggle against austerity. The betrayal of SYRIZA’s leadership and its virtual transformation into a neoliberal prop is a bucket of cold water which shows that decisions about program, strategy and tactics are not abstract but have real life consequences.</p>
<p>In a recent <a href="" type="internal">article</a> from Xekinima, Socialist Alternative’s sister organization in Greece through the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI), there is a description of the current situation in Greece:</p>
<p>The attack on the living standards and rights of the Greek people is actually deepening under the Syriza government. It tries to hide this by speaking of ‘hard negotiations’ and ‘doing everything possible’ against the ‘Institutions’, the new name for the troika of the EU Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). But this is just theater. The latest agreement of June 15 released €8.5 billion to Greece (out of which €8.2 will be used immediately to pay back loans). It added nothing to the Institutions’ proposals made at the Eurogroup meeting on May 22.</p>
<p>The latest agreement puts additional burdens of around €5 billion on the masses between 2019 and 2022….. It has increased indirect taxation on everything, including the most basic goods like Greek coffee and traditional souvlaki, by 20%. It is cutting pensions by a further 9% on average. It is applying measures that (former ruling parties) ND and Pasok found impossible to get through, with the biggest privatization program ever. The labor market remains a jungle where the huge majority of private-sector workers are owed months of wages and exploitation has reached indescribable conditions….</p>
<p>As a result, the prevailing feelings of working people are mass anger and, at the same time, mass demoralization.</p>
<p>Responding to the question of whether capitulation was inevitable, the article continues:</p>
<p>The capitulation of Syriza to the troika was not unavoidable. It was the result of the leadership’s lack of understanding of the real processes taking place, the naive if not criminal perception that they would ‘change Greece and the whole of Europe,’ as Tsipras boasted. It was the lack of understanding of the class nature of the EU and a complete lack of confidence in the working class and its ability to change society. When Tsipras came face to face with what it really means to clash with the ruling class he fell into despair and capitulated, completely unprepared.</p>
<p>The alternative which was developed and advocated by some Greek left organizations—including Xekinima—pointed to the need for policies that would break with capitalism and begin a socialist reconstruction of society. As Xekinima explained, a genuine left government should:</p>
<p>Impose capital controls; refuse to pay the debt; nationalize the banks; move speedily towards a national currency (drachma); use the liquidity provided by that currency to finance major public works, to stop the continuous contraction of the economy and put it back on the path of growth; cancel the debts of small businesses crushed by the crisis and provide loans under favorable conditions so they can get back into activity and provide a quick spur to the economy.</p>
<p>Nationalize the commanding heights of the economy; plan the economy, including a state monopoly of foreign trade, so that it acquires sustained growth and does not serve the profits of a handful of ship owners, industrialists and bankers, but is in the service of the 99%. Create special planning committees in every sector of industry and mining, and put particular attention into agriculture and tourism which are key to the economy and have huge potential. Establish democracy in the functioning of the economy, through workers’ control and management in every field and level. Appeal to the workers of the rest of Europe for support and solidarity, calling on them to launch a common struggle against the EU of the bosses and the multinationals. For a voluntary, democratic, socialist union of the peoples of Europe. In short, an anti-capitalist, anti-EU offensive on a socialist program and class internationalist solidarity was the answer to the troika’s blackmail.</p>
<p>We see from the experience of SYRIZA that new left formations can set out toward Bhaskar’s version of “Finland” but instead end up in “Singapore” station. In order to effectively fight against austerity in a time of capitalist crisis, we need a Marxist program for fundamental change and a plan to mobilize workers, young people and the poor to fight for it.</p>
<p>Consciousness Today</p>
<p>Despite the tremendous struggles that we have seen recently in Greece, Spain and Portugal as well as the rise of Jeremy Corbyn in Britain—which represents nothing less than a political revolt of the working class and youth—it must be said that there has not as yet emerged a mass socialist consciousness. The consciousness among activists is still mostly anti-corporate and sometimes anti-capitalist, but unclear as to the way forward. This is important because it is a point of departure not only for analysis but also for accurately mapping the struggles ahead.</p>
<p>Capitalism has been discredited among young people, but there is little understanding about how to fight the system or what it could be replaced with. Most people at protests have little experience with ongoing movements, organizations or struggles that can win victories. This flows from the defeats inflicted on the workers’ movement in recent decades with declining union density and setbacks on an international scale.</p>
<p>It wasn’t always like this. Bhaskar says that “across the West, workers came to accept a sort of class compromise” in the 20th century. In reality, working people in Europe built movements countless times in attempts to overthrow capitalism, from Germany after World War I to the Spanish Civil War to the revolutionary upturns in France in 1968 and Portugal in 1974. The social democratic and Stalinist leaders in fact held these movements back with their outlook of “gradual” change, and the result was often rampant right-wing reaction.</p>
<p>By the end of the 20th century, the collapse of Stalinism and its monstrous bureaucracy was being used to discredit any idea of a planned economy and opened the door for a massive campaign against socialism in order to drive home the message that “there is no alternative” to capitalism and the market. While the systems in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in no way represented genuine socialism, this collapse was nonetheless a serious political defeat for the working class internationally.</p>
<p>In recent decades, the social democratic parties swung dramatically to the right and implemented austerity, destroyed their democratic structures and lost the vast majority of their activist base even before the financial crash of 2008. In this context, the Committee for a Workers’ International posed the need for new, broad parties of the left and the working class.</p>
<p>The recent surge of left populist ideas – as reflected by the stunning election results for Jeremy Corbyn in Britain, the Mélenchon campaign in the recent French elections, but also the rise of the left in PODEMOS in Spain, the important gains by the revolutionary left in Ireland, and the historic campaign of Sanders in the U.S. (and including the growth of DSA and other socialist forces). All these developments reflect the beginnings of a search for a radical socialist direction, on the part of the youth and sections of the working class seeking a path out of the morass of capitalism.</p>
<p>Bolshevism Is Not Stalinism</p>
<p>If genuine socialist ideas are to once again become the international rallying cry for a new society, inevitably we will have to seriously and honestly discuss the experience of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks, and Lenin.</p>
<p>The Russian Revolution shaped the entire political history of the last 100 years and represented a colossal effort to establish a new socialist world. Millions internationally were inspired to fight not just for a more “manageable” version of capitalism but for a new socialist world based on solidarity, and without war and exploitation. Many of the gains and reforms working people won across the globe including the 8-hour day, voting rights for women, free education, healthcare, and a broad social safety net, came in the aftermath of the revolutionary wave unleashed by the Russian Revolution.</p>
<p>The Russian Revolution was thoroughly democratic with workers, soldiers and peasant councils (called “soviets”) built from below with all left parties represented. The Bolsheviks went from being a small minority in the soviets to the leading force in the revolution through the course of 1917 by democratically winning over the masses of people to their program to defeat reaction, war and poverty.</p>
<p>Workers councils, built from below, have been a feature of revolutionary struggles since the Paris Commune of 1871 and the first Russian revolution in 1905. Similar features developed in China in the period 1925-27, the Spanish revolution of 1931-37, France 1968, and Chile before the 1973 coup, just to name a few examples. We have seen similar phenomena of “revolutionary democracy” in virtually every major upheaval centered on the working class across the globe.</p>
<p>Bhaskar seems to be unaware of the democratic role of the soviets, while implying there was something fundamentally undemocratic about the Russian Revolution. While appealing for a return to the “Finland station” he insists that things will be different this time around. The key difference, he says, is that “This time, people get to vote. Well, debate and deliberate and then vote”. But the Bolsheviks did “debate and deliberate and then vote,” quite often in fact. If they hadn’t done that, both internally and in the soviets, the October revolution would not have been successful.</p>
<p>The strategy and tactics of the Bolsheviks corresponded to a rapidly changing situation in 1917. They fought under the banner of “Peace, Land and Bread” as they sought to undermine illusions in the different pro-capitalist “provisional governments,” which refused to act on any of the key issues which brought about the February revolution. The Bolsheviks helped hold back a premature July attempt of the Petrograd working class to seize power that would have been drowned in blood. When the vast majority of the movement turned fully against the Provisional Government, the Bolsheviks boldly mobilized exploited and oppressed people to end the war, seize the holdings of the big landlords and establish a planned economy. All of these strategies and tactics were debated and voted on not only within the Bolshevik party but also with the mass democratic participation of workers, soldiers and peasants in the soviets and other bodies like the factory shop committees.</p>
<p>Bhaskar appears to imply in his op-ed that the totalitarian Stalinist regime which developed later was a logical continuation of Lenin and the Bolshevik party when he writes “One hundred years after Lenin’s sealed train arrived at Finland Station and set into motion the events that led to Stalin’s gulags.” On this point both the Stalinists and the capitalist propaganda in the West are in complete agreement.</p>
<p>The main argument of most of those who attack the Bolsheviks is that they supposedly wanted to centralize all power and to eliminate all opposition. But this was not at all what happened in Russia in 1917, which was in reality the most democratic revolutionary upheaval that has ever taken place. It was after the Bolsheviks had come to power in October, with the overwhelming support of the soviets, that other political parties went over, one by one, to the side of the armed counter-revolution and helped plunge the country into civil war. At the same time, twenty one armies invaded the Soviet Union, including the U.S., Britain, France, and Japan. Alongside international solidarity, the only thing that allowed the Bolsheviks to survive the prolonged civil war, invasions, famine and destruction of the country was the fact that they enjoyed the overwhelming support of the population, who fought back against the murderous, pro-capitalist reaction.</p>
<p>How Stalinism Developed</p>
<p>Leon Trotsky, who along with Lenin was a key leader of the Russian Revolution, wrote that a “river of blood” separated the Bolsheviks from Stalinism. The Bolshevik party was arguably—and new historical research further confirms this—the most democratic party of working people so far in history, and at the same time the most successful in leading the working class to power. Lenin and Trotsky perceived the revolution in Russia as a prelude to the European revolution and beyond, and understood that socialism could only be based on an international and voluntary federation of socialist countries which included the most economically developed societies. They understood that capitalism globally would fight back against a new workers’ state, and that one socialist country (and particularly one as economically backward as Russia) could not survive on its own.</p>
<p>Stalinism <a href="https://www.socialistalternative.org/russia-bureaucracy-seized-power/introduction/" type="external">did not arise from Bolshevism</a> but from the isolation of the revolution in the young Soviet republic, famine, backward economic and cultural conditions, and the perishing of the most self-sacrificing worker leaders in the course of the civil war. The disappointment of the masses with the failures of the European revolutions was a key factor, especially in Germany from 1918-1923.</p>
<p>These conditions allowed the rise of Stalinism as the Soviet officialdom increasingly controlled the use and distribution of scarce resources, thereby enabling themselves to become privileged. A precondition for the rise of this privileged Stalinist bureaucracy was the destruction of the democratic traditions of Bolshevism, including the crushing of soviet democracy, mass repression of the Left Opposition, the extermination of virtually the entire Bolshevik Central Committee of 1917, and ultimately the assassination of Leon Trotsky in 1940. The rise of Stalinism first undermined the planned economy by destroying the democracy necessary to its function, and&#160; eventually led to its destruction in what Trotsky had explained as the bureaucracy “consuming” the first workers’ state.</p>
<p>Not only did Leninism not usher in Stalinism, it took in fact a bloody counterrevolution by the bureaucracy to reverse many of the democratic gains of the Russian Revolution and impede the struggle of workers worldwide for socialism. The Communist parties around the world ceased to struggle for fundamental change, instead becoming props for Stalin and the needs of his bureaucracy, ideologically defended by his policy of “socialism in one country.” Socialists today will be confronted with questions about the Russian Revolution and the totalitarian caricatures of “communism.” We need to have clear answers to these historical issues and effectively apply these lessons from 1917 to the workers’ movement today, which is operating in very different and rapidly-shifting conditions.</p>
<p>Two Souls of Social Democracy</p>
<p>Bhaskar expresses some sympathy for the Bolsheviks in his op-ed. However, he also says, “[we] may choose to see them as well-intentioned people trying to build a better world out of a crisis, but we must work out how to avoid their failures.” Certainly we must learn from mistakes, but the same principle must also apply to the political decisions of the Second International of the early 20th century that Sunkara seeks to replicate. Bhaskar correctly states early in his article that the communist movement was “born out of a sense of betrayal by the more moderate left-wing parties of the Second International.” He goes on to explain how those social democratic parties betrayed the working class with their refusal to oppose the slaughter of World War I.</p>
<p>Yet there is no attempt by Bhaskar to explain why the parties of the social democracy “abetted the slaughter [of World War I] that claimed 16 million lives.”</p>
<p>Bhaskar points out that “the Bolsheviks once called themselves ‘social democrats.’” This is true on the surface, in the sense that, to use Bhaskar’s wording, the Bolsheviks were “part of a broad movement of growing parties that aimed to fight for greater political democracy and using the wealth and the new working class created by capitalism, extend democratic rights into the social and economic sphere, which no capitalist would permit.”</p>
<p>But here too there is an important distinction. The early social democrats—from the time of the inception of the Second International in 1889, helped by the guidance of Engels until his death—maintained at least in words a revolutionary Marxist view on key issues and stood for the overthrow of capitalism and for socialism. Today, the term “social democrat” has come to mean a path of reform within capitalism and an explicit rejection of revolution, Marxism, and Leninism.</p>
<p>An ideological battle between the ideas of reform and revolution did take place in the broad tent of “social democracy” in Lenin’s time before 1917. This can be most clearly shown in the prolonged debate that erupted inside the social democracy against “revisionism” over the question of how the working class would come to power.</p>
<p>The main reformist theorist of social democracy of that time was Eduard Bernstein, who argued that there was no need for workers to take power and socialism would come through the gradual extension of democratic rights, co-ops, trade unions and public services. Other reformists argued that workers would in effect “take power” using the existing parliamentary democratic institutions. Bernstein said that “the final aim of socialism, whatever it may be, means nothing to me; it is the movement itself which is everything.” Rosa Luxemburg, along with Karl Kautsky before he began to “renege” on his previous positions in 1910, rejected these views and argued that the working class needed to seize power and to overthrow capitalism as the only way to defeat the resistance of the ruling class and defend the new workers’ state.</p>
<p>These reformist views did not fall from the sky, they reflected the conservative outlook of the parliamentary, trade union and party functionaries who had begun to integrate into the capitalist regime under the conditions of the prolonged period of economic boom before World War I, when capitalism was still capable of developing society’s productive forces. When the crisis of capitalism led to war between the capitalist powers, the betrayal by the social democratic leaders in supporting their “own” ruling class completely disoriented the working class and the labor movement across Europe and internationally.</p>
<p>It was Lenin and the Bolshevik party, along with a handful of internationalists like Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in Germany, that opposed World War I and defended the traditions of “revolutionary social democracy” and Marxism. The discrediting of capitalism during the three-year slaughter of 16 million people in the battlefields of Europe helped prepare the way for revolution across Europe, starting with Russia. Millions around the world rallied to support the Russian Revolution and the new Third International.</p>
<p>When we discuss the history of social democracy, we must make a clear distinction between the early revolutionary social democracy as opposed to the conservative, reformist social democracy that opened the door to war and aligned itself with capitalism against the revolutionary movements of the working class.</p>
<p>The Continuing Debate Today</p>
<p>Successfully translating mass opposition to austerity and the ills of the capitalist system into effective action against racism, sexism, war, poverty and joblessness, depends on adopting a bold fighting program, strategies and tactics. Just as the Bolsheviks did in 1917, we must analyze a fast-moving situation to find the best proposals and slogans that can move people into action. This also requires workers’ developing their own mass independent party, democratically run, which can unite young people, the working class and poor to wage a determined struggle against the billionaire class.</p>
<p>History shows that ideas, program and leadership matter, and opportunities to challenge capitalism will only be fully successful if the ideas of Marxism can take hold in the working class with an organized socialist left.</p>
<p>Socialists in the U.S., while starting from building a movement against the attacks of Trump and the Republicans in power, must also continue to engage in constructive debate about how to build the movement and political power for working people. Movements here today will not happen exactly the same way as in Greece the past few years or the Russian Revolution 100 years ago, but there are important lessons to be learned from all these experiences.</p>
<p>Today the socialist movement faces dual tasks. One the one hand, we need to bring together socialist, progressive, and fresh forces into broad and united action, struggle and resistance to defeat the right wing and the neoliberal offensive. But we also must seek to win the advanced layers of working people and youth to the understanding that a bold socialist program is the only way out of the crisis of capitalism, and of the need to building a revolutionary organization capable of leading the fight to win such a program.</p>
<p>Crucial debates like this one around working-class history, international struggle, strategy and program must continue as we work together to defeat the billionaire class and rebuild a powerful socialist movement.</p> | true | 4 | photo pete birkinshaw cc 20 response bhaskar sunkara end june midst growing discussion socialism united states bhaskar sunkara published important oped new york times entitled socialisms future may past sunkara editor jacobin magazine vice chair democratic socialists america dsa attempts draw lessons russian revolution take relevance socialist radical ideas time distinctly different sympathetic assessment recent articles publication addressing 100year anniversary historic event one point comparison week earlier new york times printed article rightwing author sean mcmeekin sought revive long ago discredited lenin german spy conspiracy theory come surprise large section mainstream media procapitalist commentators devoting time resources distort discredit socialist ideas including less president us chamber commerce sunkara points distortion campaign response revival socialism begun take place us heels incredibly popular campaign bernie sanders sanders called political revolution wall street 1 galvanized millions workers young people radicalized deep social crisis capitalism begun question viability system estimated 13 million people attended sanders mass rallies another welcome development left socialist organisations like socialist alternative grown rapidly democratic socialists america grown threefold roughly 8000 nearly 25000 members since trump elected last november oped sunkara generally defends russian revolution positive development mere fact article published us paper record sign changing times sunkaras article suggests order turn tide bankrupt status quo today need look back learn key lessons history global workingclass movement must equip best ideas order defeat trump worldwide capitalist offensive living standards democratic rights unfortunately article sunkara offer roundedout socialist alternative instead seems argue regulated market foundation stone capitalism continue society socialists striving create important tradition socialists fraternal discussion important issues strategy tactics program played essential role educating socialists activists general public best methods change society offer article part tradition distort points view instead contrast different approaches issues sunkaras three stations discussion state modern politics bhaskar paints picture key trends dominate politics capitalist class today one singapore station casts logical conclusion politics mainstream neoliberals like hillary clinton barack obama second budapest station represents ultimate destination rightwing populism like donald trumps third finland station course main subject article reference russian revolution endpoint vladimir lenins historic train journey back abroad early 1917 sunkaras critique neoliberalism singapore station section makes important points also reveals limitations approach acknowledging undemocratic character relentless drive neoliberal austerity portrays relatively benign understating brutality real human costs singapore model worst possible endpoints one experts allowed experts capitalists allowed accumulate ordinary workers allowed semblance stability leaves room trains passengers yell stop pick destination choosing dramatically understates character neoliberalism results worship unrestrained capitalism vicious driving workers living standards name profit loss access vital services like health care loss millions lives wars resources many varied disasters deregulation like recently grenfell towers london finally neoliberalisms complete inability offer future youth working people around world precisely models instability brutality opens door budapest station right wing populists like trump authoritarian regimes hungary poland elsewhere desperate search middle working class people alternative dominant singapore route capitalism article bhaskar gets finland station vision socialism would look like explains would entail workerowned cooperatives still competing regulated market government services coordinated aid citizen planning provision basics necessary live good life education housing health care guaranteed social rights words world people freedom reach potentials whatever circumstances birth without doubt changes would represent significant step forward despite threat attack every time capitalism entered one periodic crises goal socialism global classless society away capitalisms organized apparatus repression replaces new political order based mass democratic organs working people oppressed always destination called socialist marxist movement many today even left may see vision hopelessly utopian marx argued massive development human productivity capitalism laid material basis eradicate class division oppression rooted scarcity marxism state bhaskar also states stripped essence returned roots socialism ideology radical democracy160 era liberties attack seeks empower civil society allow participation decisions affect lives yet central tenet marxism capitalist democracy form state rule marx argues dominant class society one controls state apparatus marxists long championed farreaching radical democracy marxism also explained democracy exist abstract must understood connection dominant economic system capitalism democracy always severely curtailed domination small propertied elite uses power prevent majority touching foundations wealth privilege words championing radical democracy done consistently linked ending undemocratic rule capitalist class transferring power hands working class oppressed bhaskar clarify broad outline future socialism dominant market forces workers cooperatives bhaskar states social democracy would involve commitment free civil society especially oppositional voices need institutional checks balances power vision transition socialism require year zero break present however talking ending brutal decaying capitalist system done without fundamental thoroughgoing break present order deeply undemocratic repressive state apparatus instead appears bhaskar arguing says vision transition socialism require year zero break present central point lenin argued returned russia 1917 lenin stated feeble capitalists russia could would deliver benefits working class called working class poor peasants break power landlords capitalists society appeal workers countries follow example begin construction socialist society based workers democracy fighting reforms marxists socialist alternative fight every gain working people win capitalism seen leadership fight 15 socialist alternative member seattle city councilwoman kshama sawant leading seattle become first major city pass 15 minimum wage two weeks ago helped make minneapolis first midwest city pass 15 time leadership socialist city council candidate ginger jentzen last week sawant seattle socialist alternative helped bring another nationally important victory time local measure tax rich help fund affordable housing education vi ta l se rv ic es april 2017 kshama sawant responded questions huffington post views socialism limits reforming system dominated massive rapacious corporations basis capitalism victories like raising minimum wage temporary big business many tools make us pay crisis system permanent sustainable solution problems facing working people possible taking biggest companies democratic ownership reorganizing economy planned basis system could democratically decide allocate resources could rapidly transition away fossil fuels develop massive jobs programs rebuild countrys rotting infrastructure begin build whole new world based meeting needs majority profits issues raised sunkara reform revolution abstract questions historical interest station end today intimately linked assess defeats successes past world war ii era postwar reconstruction huge economic growth enormous pressures mass socialist communist parties radical labor struggles important gains working people western countries tenuous economic landscape today radically different capitalism incapable enjoying sustained upswing relentlessly attacking unions working conditions demanding deep budget cuts order maintain profitability survive new parties left end neoliberal singapore station present even look finland station past fail draw correct lessons left parties elected government without definite program alternative capitalism strategy achieve inevitably driven instead attempting manage capitalism mean carrying neoliberal austerity dressed kind words compassion reformminded antiausterity governments ultimately forced choose accepting demands big business implementing radical socialist measures rosa luxemburg explained 1900 pamphlet reform revolution two choices different roads station successful struggle reform end unto itselfserious reforms come byproduct serious social struggle capitalist class needs genuinely fearful wider revolt grant major concessions like medicare federal 15 minimum wage struggle reform used develop consciousness working people prepare ground thoroughgoing socialist transformation society capitalists look roll back reforms destroy working class forces defend ruling class hesitate engage economic war even military coups elected left governments left governments seeking carry programs run headlong brick wall capitalist ownership control key resources society well capitalist state apparatus clearly seen happened syriza greece bashkar appears implicitly reject idea radical revolutionary transformation society says vision transition socialism require year zero break present view capitalism gradually changed direction order flies face experience past 100 years specifically neoliberal assault gains working class capitalism decay means real limits reform even popular hardwon gains reversible rise fall syriza greece syriza left coalition party saw support grow exponentially 49 2009 elected antiausterity program lead greek government january 2015 yet months later leader alexis tsipras utterly capitulated ignoring 61 vote austerity referendum government called agreed demands capitalists european union savage cuts living standards serious blow left internationally looked syriza greece lead struggle austerity betrayal syrizas leadership virtual transformation neoliberal prop bucket cold water shows decisions program strategy tactics abstract real life consequences recent article xekinima socialist alternatives sister organization greece committee workers international cwi description current situation greece attack living standards rights greek people actually deepening syriza government tries hide speaking hard negotiations everything possible institutions new name troika eu commission european central bank ecb international monetary fund imf theater latest agreement june 15 released 85 billion greece 82 used immediately pay back loans added nothing institutions proposals made eurogroup meeting may 22 latest agreement puts additional burdens around 5 billion masses 2019 2022 increased indirect taxation everything including basic goods like greek coffee traditional souvlaki 20 cutting pensions 9 average applying measures former ruling parties nd pasok found impossible get biggest privatization program ever labor market remains jungle huge majority privatesector workers owed months wages exploitation reached indescribable conditions result prevailing feelings working people mass anger time mass demoralization responding question whether capitulation inevitable article continues capitulation syriza troika unavoidable result leaderships lack understanding real processes taking place naive criminal perception would change greece whole europe tsipras boasted lack understanding class nature eu complete lack confidence working class ability change society tsipras came face face really means clash ruling class fell despair capitulated completely unprepared alternative developed advocated greek left organizationsincluding xekinimapointed need policies would break capitalism begin socialist reconstruction society xekinima explained genuine left government impose capital controls refuse pay debt nationalize banks move speedily towards national currency drachma use liquidity provided currency finance major public works stop continuous contraction economy put back path growth cancel debts small businesses crushed crisis provide loans favorable conditions get back activity provide quick spur economy nationalize commanding heights economy plan economy including state monopoly foreign trade acquires sustained growth serve profits handful ship owners industrialists bankers service 99 create special planning committees every sector industry mining put particular attention agriculture tourism key economy huge potential establish democracy functioning economy workers control management every field level appeal workers rest europe support solidarity calling launch common struggle eu bosses multinationals voluntary democratic socialist union peoples europe short anticapitalist antieu offensive socialist program class internationalist solidarity answer troikas blackmail see experience syriza new left formations set toward bhaskars version finland instead end singapore station order effectively fight austerity time capitalist crisis need marxist program fundamental change plan mobilize workers young people poor fight consciousness today despite tremendous struggles seen recently greece spain portugal well rise jeremy corbyn britainwhich represents nothing less political revolt working class youthit must said yet emerged mass socialist consciousness consciousness among activists still mostly anticorporate sometimes anticapitalist unclear way forward important point departure analysis also accurately mapping struggles ahead capitalism discredited among young people little understanding fight system could replaced people protests little experience ongoing movements organizations struggles win victories flows defeats inflicted workers movement recent decades declining union density setbacks international scale wasnt always like bhaskar says across west workers came accept sort class compromise 20th century reality working people europe built movements countless times attempts overthrow capitalism germany world war spanish civil war revolutionary upturns france 1968 portugal 1974 social democratic stalinist leaders fact held movements back outlook gradual change result often rampant rightwing reaction end 20th century collapse stalinism monstrous bureaucracy used discredit idea planned economy opened door massive campaign socialism order drive home message alternative capitalism market systems soviet union eastern europe way represented genuine socialism collapse nonetheless serious political defeat working class internationally recent decades social democratic parties swung dramatically right implemented austerity destroyed democratic structures lost vast majority activist base even financial crash 2008 context committee workers international posed need new broad parties left working class recent surge left populist ideas reflected stunning election results jeremy corbyn britain mélenchon campaign recent french elections also rise left podemos spain important gains revolutionary left ireland historic campaign sanders us including growth dsa socialist forces developments reflect beginnings search radical socialist direction part youth sections working class seeking path morass capitalism bolshevism stalinism genuine socialist ideas become international rallying cry new society inevitably seriously honestly discuss experience russian revolution 1917 bolsheviks lenin russian revolution shaped entire political history last 100 years represented colossal effort establish new socialist world millions internationally inspired fight manageable version capitalism new socialist world based solidarity without war exploitation many gains reforms working people across globe including 8hour day voting rights women free education healthcare broad social safety net came aftermath revolutionary wave unleashed russian revolution russian revolution thoroughly democratic workers soldiers peasant councils called soviets built left parties represented bolsheviks went small minority soviets leading force revolution course 1917 democratically winning masses people program defeat reaction war poverty workers councils built feature revolutionary struggles since paris commune 1871 first russian revolution 1905 similar features developed china period 192527 spanish revolution 193137 france 1968 chile 1973 coup name examples seen similar phenomena revolutionary democracy virtually every major upheaval centered working class across globe bhaskar seems unaware democratic role soviets implying something fundamentally undemocratic russian revolution appealing return finland station insists things different time around key difference says time people get vote well debate deliberate vote bolsheviks debate deliberate vote quite often fact hadnt done internally soviets october revolution would successful strategy tactics bolsheviks corresponded rapidly changing situation 1917 fought banner peace land bread sought undermine illusions different procapitalist provisional governments refused act key issues brought february revolution bolsheviks helped hold back premature july attempt petrograd working class seize power would drowned blood vast majority movement turned fully provisional government bolsheviks boldly mobilized exploited oppressed people end war seize holdings big landlords establish planned economy strategies tactics debated voted within bolshevik party also mass democratic participation workers soldiers peasants soviets bodies like factory shop committees bhaskar appears imply oped totalitarian stalinist regime developed later logical continuation lenin bolshevik party writes one hundred years lenins sealed train arrived finland station set motion events led stalins gulags point stalinists capitalist propaganda west complete agreement main argument attack bolsheviks supposedly wanted centralize power eliminate opposition happened russia 1917 reality democratic revolutionary upheaval ever taken place bolsheviks come power october overwhelming support soviets political parties went one one side armed counterrevolution helped plunge country civil war time twenty one armies invaded soviet union including us britain france japan alongside international solidarity thing allowed bolsheviks survive prolonged civil war invasions famine destruction country fact enjoyed overwhelming support population fought back murderous procapitalist reaction stalinism developed leon trotsky along lenin key leader russian revolution wrote river blood separated bolsheviks stalinism bolshevik party arguablyand new historical research confirms thisthe democratic party working people far history time successful leading working class power lenin trotsky perceived revolution russia prelude european revolution beyond understood socialism could based international voluntary federation socialist countries included economically developed societies understood capitalism globally would fight back new workers state one socialist country particularly one economically backward russia could survive stalinism arise bolshevism isolation revolution young soviet republic famine backward economic cultural conditions perishing selfsacrificing worker leaders course civil war disappointment masses failures european revolutions key factor especially germany 19181923 conditions allowed rise stalinism soviet officialdom increasingly controlled use distribution scarce resources thereby enabling become privileged precondition rise privileged stalinist bureaucracy destruction democratic traditions bolshevism including crushing soviet democracy mass repression left opposition extermination virtually entire bolshevik central committee 1917 ultimately assassination leon trotsky 1940 rise stalinism first undermined planned economy destroying democracy necessary function and160 eventually led destruction trotsky explained bureaucracy consuming first workers state leninism usher stalinism took fact bloody counterrevolution bureaucracy reverse many democratic gains russian revolution impede struggle workers worldwide socialism communist parties around world ceased struggle fundamental change instead becoming props stalin needs bureaucracy ideologically defended policy socialism one country socialists today confronted questions russian revolution totalitarian caricatures communism need clear answers historical issues effectively apply lessons 1917 workers movement today operating different rapidlyshifting conditions two souls social democracy bhaskar expresses sympathy bolsheviks oped however also says may choose see wellintentioned people trying build better world crisis must work avoid failures certainly must learn mistakes principle must also apply political decisions second international early 20th century sunkara seeks replicate bhaskar correctly states early article communist movement born sense betrayal moderate leftwing parties second international goes explain social democratic parties betrayed working class refusal oppose slaughter world war yet attempt bhaskar explain parties social democracy abetted slaughter world war claimed 16 million lives bhaskar points bolsheviks called social democrats true surface sense use bhaskars wording bolsheviks part broad movement growing parties aimed fight greater political democracy using wealth new working class created capitalism extend democratic rights social economic sphere capitalist would permit important distinction early social democratsfrom time inception second international 1889 helped guidance engels deathmaintained least words revolutionary marxist view key issues stood overthrow capitalism socialism today term social democrat come mean path reform within capitalism explicit rejection revolution marxism leninism ideological battle ideas reform revolution take place broad tent social democracy lenins time 1917 clearly shown prolonged debate erupted inside social democracy revisionism question working class would come power main reformist theorist social democracy time eduard bernstein argued need workers take power socialism would come gradual extension democratic rights coops trade unions public services reformists argued workers would effect take power using existing parliamentary democratic institutions bernstein said final aim socialism whatever may means nothing movement everything rosa luxemburg along karl kautsky began renege previous positions 1910 rejected views argued working class needed seize power overthrow capitalism way defeat resistance ruling class defend new workers state reformist views fall sky reflected conservative outlook parliamentary trade union party functionaries begun integrate capitalist regime conditions prolonged period economic boom world war capitalism still capable developing societys productive forces crisis capitalism led war capitalist powers betrayal social democratic leaders supporting ruling class completely disoriented working class labor movement across europe internationally lenin bolshevik party along handful internationalists like rosa luxemburg karl liebknecht germany opposed world war defended traditions revolutionary social democracy marxism discrediting capitalism threeyear slaughter 16 million people battlefields europe helped prepare way revolution across europe starting russia millions around world rallied support russian revolution new third international discuss history social democracy must make clear distinction early revolutionary social democracy opposed conservative reformist social democracy opened door war aligned capitalism revolutionary movements working class continuing debate today successfully translating mass opposition austerity ills capitalist system effective action racism sexism war poverty joblessness depends adopting bold fighting program strategies tactics bolsheviks 1917 must analyze fastmoving situation find best proposals slogans move people action also requires workers developing mass independent party democratically run unite young people working class poor wage determined struggle billionaire class history shows ideas program leadership matter opportunities challenge capitalism fully successful ideas marxism take hold working class organized socialist left socialists us starting building movement attacks trump republicans power must also continue engage constructive debate build movement political power working people movements today happen exactly way greece past years russian revolution 100 years ago important lessons learned experiences today socialist movement faces dual tasks one one hand need bring together socialist progressive fresh forces broad united action struggle resistance defeat right wing neoliberal offensive also must seek win advanced layers working people youth understanding bold socialist program way crisis capitalism need building revolutionary organization capable leading fight win program crucial debates like one around workingclass history international struggle strategy program must continue work together defeat billionaire class rebuild powerful socialist movement | 3,171 |
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<p>The Pentagon has announced plans to send several thousand specialists into Iraq to join the search for those “weapons of mass destruction” of Saddam Hussein’s–remember the ones that Iraq was supposedly brimming over with, and which were the stated reason for America’s invasion? But while it is stepping up that effort, the Pentagon says it has no intention to do anything about the consequences of America’s own “dirty bomb” campaign against Iraq. Although the U.S. and Britain reportedly dropped as much as 2000 tons of depleted uranium weapons on Iraq, including in the center of densely populated Baghdad, a Pentagon spokesman last month told the BBC that it has “no plans to do a DU clean-up in Iraq.”</p>
<p>Nor is the U.S. allowing inspectors from the U.N. environmental Program into Iraq to look for signs of DU contamination. It seems that just as the U.S. government doesn’t want U.N. weapons inspectors to come into Iraq where they might undermine any U.S. claims to have found evidence of Saddam’s WMDs, they don’t want any U.N. environmental inspectors to come in and find evidence of U.S. use of a weapon that the U.N. has condemned as a weapon of mass destruction.</p>
<p>If U.N. estimates of the quantity of depleted uranium ordinance used in the current war in Iraq are correct, it would mean six times as much of the super-toxic and carcinogenic substance was used this time as in 1991, and already there are disturbing reports of dramatically higher incidences of cancer and birth defects in Southern Iraq following the 1991 war. But at least in that war, virtually all the DU ammo was used against Iraqi armor out in the desert. This time, bunker busting bombs and anti-tank weapons were used in Iraqi cities, including Baghdad, putting in jeopardy tens or hundreds of thousands of civilians who might come in contact with the radioactive dust from those explosions. Of course, U.S. troops, now playing the role of an occupying army in those bombed cities, are also at risk. Many veterans of the last Iraq war suspect that the notorious “Gulf War Syndrome” that many came home with was the result of their having breathed in or injested uranium dust from the weapons used in that war.</p>
<p>The U.S. has been firing off “dirty bombs” in the form of depleted uranium (DU) weapons now since the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq. Depleted uranium, a radioactive metal that is part of the waste stream from nuclear weapons, turns out to be a highly effective armor-piercing material. 1.7 times as dense as lead, it also has the unusual property of self-sharpening: as a rod of the stuff slams into a sheet of steel or a wall of reinforced concrete, instead of mushrooming into a flat, broad projectile that then is slowed or stopped by the obstacle, uranium sheds its exterior layers and becomes sharper as it is propelled by momentum deeper and deeper into its target. Uranium is also highly flammable at the kinds of high temperature generated by a high-velocity collision, and so it incinerates whatever target it hits.</p>
<p>In the 1991 Gulf War, depleted uranium was used extensively in two types of weapons–the 120 mm anti-tank shells fired by Abrams tanks and other anti-tank cannons, and the 30 mm anti-armor guns on the A-10 Warthog ground attack jets. An estimated 300 tons of the stuff was fired off in the Iraqi and Kuwaiti desert during that war. In Kosovo, the same weapons were used, this time reportedly a total of about 12 tons, mostly in the form of small 30 mm projectiles fired by aircraft.</p>
<p>In Afghanistan, in addition to those two kinds of shells, the Pentagon introduced a third category of uranium weapon–the so-called bunker-busting bomb–a depleted uranium “smart bomb” or missile that can burrow deep into the ground or through thick concrete walls to hit heavily shielded shelters or cave hideouts. The Petagon has not released information about how much depleted uranium was used in weapons in Afghanistan, but estimates have ranged from several hundred tons to as much as 1000 tons–and this was in conflict that was tiny compared to the likely war in Iraq.</p>
<p>Critics of depleted uranium weapons–and these run the gamut from the U.N. World Health Organization to Gulf War veterans groups–note that the new use of uranium bunker buster bombs raises the danger of radioactive contamination dramatically, because of where such bombs get used.</p>
<p>For the most part, anti-tank weapons, at least to date, have been used where tanks are generally deployed, which is out in the open, where population density is low. Although when a depleted uranium round explodes, the uranium is incinerated, becoming a dangerous aerosol of minute inhalable particles of uranium oxide, out in the desert the risks are relatively low of many people becoming contaminated. Absent a wind, most of that radioactive residue settles within 50-100 yards of the target.</p>
<p>Even so, there are reports from both the Basra area of Southern Iraq, where use of depleted uranium shells by British and U.S. forces in 1991 was heavy, and in Afghanistan, of higher than anticipated cancer rates and birth defects. There is also some suspicion that at least some of the cases of what has become known as Gulf War Syndrome among returned U.S. Gulf War veterans is the result of their having inhaled the residue of uranium weapons. Researchers from a British non-profit organization, the <a href="http://www.umrc.net/projectAfghanistan.asp" type="external">Uranium Medical Research Center</a>, for example, claim that during an investigation of bombed areas in Kabul and especially Jalalabad, Afghanistan, they encountered widespread evidence of illnesses and birth defects which they said were consistent with uranium poisoning and radioactive contamination. They also reported finding elevated levels of uranium in the vicinity. They called their findings “shocking”. Similar findings have been claimed in the area around southern Iraq where uranium anti-tank weapons were widely used.</p>
<p>But these reports of dirty bomb aftereffects could be dwarfed once reports start coming in of the effects of DU contamination in urban areas of Iraq. For one thing, the amount of uranium vaporized in an explosion of one bunker busting bomb would be vastly greater than any anti-tank shell. There are, for example, only about three kilograms of uranium in 120mm anti-tank round.</p>
<p>But the DU explosive charges in the guided bomb systems used in Afghanistan and now Iraq (for example Raytheon’s Bunker Buster – GBU-28) reportedly can weigh as much as one and a half metric tons. Besides, U.S. troops, which had to fight their way into Baghdad and other heavily fortified Iraqi cities, made use of their uranium anti-tank weapons there too, not just out in the desert approaches to urban centers.</p>
<p>The notion of Baghdad, a city of five million, being dusted with uranium oxide, is grim, as it will likely produce widespread injuries and death, particularly among children, who are closer to the ground and who routinely play in the dirt.</p>
<p>No wonder the U.S. government is so anxious to keep U.N. environmental experts at bay. The risks of uranium weapons to soldiers and civilians is a topic of some controversy, even among critics, though no one except the Pentagon and NATO disputes that it is a health threat.</p>
<p>Indeed, the Royal Society, whose studies the Pentagon spokesman cited in saying that fears of DU health threats have been debunked since 1991, pointedly disagreed, saying that in the society’s view, DU poses both short and long-term risks in Iraq.</p>
<p>A government study prepared for Congress in the mid 1990s offered the following assessment of the dangers of the radioactive weapons: “As much as 70 percent of a DU penetrator can be aerosolized when it strikes a tank. Aerosols containing DU oxides may contaminate the area downwind. DU fragments may also contaminate the soil around the struck vehicle.” It adds that there are many paths by which the resulting particles may enter the body – by inhalation, ingestion, or through open wounds. The report then states, “If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences. The risks associated with DU in the body are both chemical and radiological.”</p>
<p>Once inside the lungs or kidneys, uranium particles tend to stay, causing illnesses such as lung cancer and kidney disease that may take decades to show up. According to Dr. J. W. Gofman, a leading expert and critic of low-level radiation risks, particles of uranium smaller than 5 micron in diameter can become permanently trapped in the lungs. By one estimate, a trapped, single uranium oxide particle of this size could expose the adjacent lung tissue to approximately 1,360 rem per year–about 8,000 times the annual radiation dosage considered safe by federal regulations for whole body exposure.</p>
<p>Uranium, which besides being carcinogenic is also highly toxic chemically (like lead or mercury), also concentrates in the kidneys and reproductive organs if ingested orally. Even Dan Fahey, of the Persian Gulf War Veterans Resource Center, a Navy veteran who has criticized some anti-war organizations’ charges concerning the dangers of uranium weapons, says that they were “probably a contributor to Gulf War Syndrome” among returning U.S. Gulf War veterans. Although he debunks as “propaganda and science fiction,” a report by the Uranium Medical Research Center, a U.K.-based organization which claims to have found uranium contamination and signs of radiation-sickness and radiation-induced birth defects in people who live around suspected uranium weapon targets in Kabul and Jalalabad, Afghanistan, Fahey himself is critical of the U.S. military’s ever-expanding use of these weapons. In one article he wrote on the subject, he quotes a 1990 Pentagon memo on the health risks of exploded uranium ordinance which concludes that, in order to avoid criticism of the weapons’ battlefield use, “we should keep this sensitive issue at mind when after action reports are written.”</p>
<p>His conclusion, “The military’s view is that unless you can prove something is dangerous, we’ll keep using it. My view is that given the known health concerns about depleted uranium weapons, unless you can prove it’s safe,don’t use it.”</p>
<p>There is no question about whether or not the US and British are using uranium weapons in the current war against Iraq. Robert Fisk quoted a U.S. general on the eve of battle as saying, “We have already begun to unwrap our depleted uranium anti-tank shells.” (In the 1991 Gulf War, one in seven Iraqi tanks destroyed by the U.S. was hit by a uranium projectile. This time, the percentage of Iraq’s 1800 tanks hit by uranium weapons was clearly far higher. As for the more serious use of uranium-tipped missiles and bombs in urban settings, the best evidence that they were used is that the Pentagon, absent rules that limit its behavior, uses whatever it has in its arsenal that the generals think works best–and clearly uranium-tipped weapons outperform any alternative in terms of their ability to penetrate armor and other heavy shielding. According to Pentagon studies, uranium projectiles are at least 10 percent more effective at penetrating shielded bunkers and armor than the next-best alternative–tungsten clad weapons. That alone was a powerful incentive to use them.</p>
<p>The Center for Defense Information reports that the patents for America’s bunker-busting bombs include both tungsten and uranium-cladded versions, making it clear that these weapons exist in the U.S. military arsenal.</p>
<p>Given the Pentagon’s public stance that uranium weapons pose no appreciable health risk, there is no reason to believe that these dangerous weapons of mass destruction were not used. Moreover, given the controversy surrounding DU, it seems likely that if the Pentagon had decided not to use DU weapons inside Iraqi cities, it would have trumpeted that fact. No such disavowal was made.</p>
<p>Civilians in the future “liberated” Iraq will likely be paying the price for years–maybe generations–to come. Meanwhile, after they’re through watching their president play soldier on an aircraft carrier, American veterans of the Iraq war might want to consider the fate of those soldiers whom the Pentagon sent to participate in early nuclear weapons tests. Fifty years later, after most of those soldier/guinea pigs have died, many of them from suspicious cancers, the government is finally admitting that they received far larger radiation doses than it ever was willing to acknowledge.</p>
<p>DAVE LINDORFF is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567512283/counterpunchmaga" type="external">Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal</a>. A collection of Lindorff’s stories can be found here: <a href="http://www.nwuphilly.org/dave.html" type="external">http://www.nwuphilly.org/dave.html</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | 160 pentagon announced plans send several thousand specialists iraq join search weapons mass destruction saddam husseinsremember ones iraq supposedly brimming stated reason americas invasion stepping effort pentagon says intention anything consequences americas dirty bomb campaign iraq although us britain reportedly dropped much 2000 tons depleted uranium weapons iraq including center densely populated baghdad pentagon spokesman last month told bbc plans du cleanup iraq us allowing inspectors un environmental program iraq look signs du contamination seems us government doesnt want un weapons inspectors come iraq might undermine us claims found evidence saddams wmds dont want un environmental inspectors come find evidence us use weapon un condemned weapon mass destruction un estimates quantity depleted uranium ordinance used current war iraq correct would mean six times much supertoxic carcinogenic substance used time 1991 already disturbing reports dramatically higher incidences cancer birth defects southern iraq following 1991 war least war virtually du ammo used iraqi armor desert time bunker busting bombs antitank weapons used iraqi cities including baghdad putting jeopardy tens hundreds thousands civilians might come contact radioactive dust explosions course us troops playing role occupying army bombed cities also risk many veterans last iraq war suspect notorious gulf war syndrome many came home result breathed injested uranium dust weapons used war us firing dirty bombs form depleted uranium du weapons since 1991 gulf war iraq depleted uranium radioactive metal part waste stream nuclear weapons turns highly effective armorpiercing material 17 times dense lead also unusual property selfsharpening rod stuff slams sheet steel wall reinforced concrete instead mushrooming flat broad projectile slowed stopped obstacle uranium sheds exterior layers becomes sharper propelled momentum deeper deeper target uranium also highly flammable kinds high temperature generated highvelocity collision incinerates whatever target hits 1991 gulf war depleted uranium used extensively two types weaponsthe 120 mm antitank shells fired abrams tanks antitank cannons 30 mm antiarmor guns a10 warthog ground attack jets estimated 300 tons stuff fired iraqi kuwaiti desert war kosovo weapons used time reportedly total 12 tons mostly form small 30 mm projectiles fired aircraft afghanistan addition two kinds shells pentagon introduced third category uranium weaponthe socalled bunkerbusting bomba depleted uranium smart bomb missile burrow deep ground thick concrete walls hit heavily shielded shelters cave hideouts petagon released information much depleted uranium used weapons afghanistan estimates ranged several hundred tons much 1000 tonsand conflict tiny compared likely war iraq critics depleted uranium weaponsand run gamut un world health organization gulf war veterans groupsnote new use uranium bunker buster bombs raises danger radioactive contamination dramatically bombs get used part antitank weapons least date used tanks generally deployed open population density low although depleted uranium round explodes uranium incinerated becoming dangerous aerosol minute inhalable particles uranium oxide desert risks relatively low many people becoming contaminated absent wind radioactive residue settles within 50100 yards target even reports basra area southern iraq use depleted uranium shells british us forces 1991 heavy afghanistan higher anticipated cancer rates birth defects also suspicion least cases become known gulf war syndrome among returned us gulf war veterans result inhaled residue uranium weapons researchers british nonprofit organization uranium medical research center example claim investigation bombed areas kabul especially jalalabad afghanistan encountered widespread evidence illnesses birth defects said consistent uranium poisoning radioactive contamination also reported finding elevated levels uranium vicinity called findings shocking similar findings claimed area around southern iraq uranium antitank weapons widely used reports dirty bomb aftereffects could dwarfed reports start coming effects du contamination urban areas iraq one thing amount uranium vaporized explosion one bunker busting bomb would vastly greater antitank shell example three kilograms uranium 120mm antitank round du explosive charges guided bomb systems used afghanistan iraq example raytheons bunker buster gbu28 reportedly weigh much one half metric tons besides us troops fight way baghdad heavily fortified iraqi cities made use uranium antitank weapons desert approaches urban centers notion baghdad city five million dusted uranium oxide grim likely produce widespread injuries death particularly among children closer ground routinely play dirt wonder us government anxious keep un environmental experts bay risks uranium weapons soldiers civilians topic controversy even among critics though one except pentagon nato disputes health threat indeed royal society whose studies pentagon spokesman cited saying fears du health threats debunked since 1991 pointedly disagreed saying societys view du poses short longterm risks iraq government study prepared congress mid 1990s offered following assessment dangers radioactive weapons much 70 percent du penetrator aerosolized strikes tank aerosols containing du oxides may contaminate area downwind du fragments may also contaminate soil around struck vehicle adds many paths resulting particles may enter body inhalation ingestion open wounds report states du enters body potential generate significant medical consequences risks associated du body chemical radiological inside lungs kidneys uranium particles tend stay causing illnesses lung cancer kidney disease may take decades show according dr j w gofman leading expert critic lowlevel radiation risks particles uranium smaller 5 micron diameter become permanently trapped lungs one estimate trapped single uranium oxide particle size could expose adjacent lung tissue approximately 1360 rem per yearabout 8000 times annual radiation dosage considered safe federal regulations whole body exposure uranium besides carcinogenic also highly toxic chemically like lead mercury also concentrates kidneys reproductive organs ingested orally even dan fahey persian gulf war veterans resource center navy veteran criticized antiwar organizations charges concerning dangers uranium weapons says probably contributor gulf war syndrome among returning us gulf war veterans although debunks propaganda science fiction report uranium medical research center ukbased organization claims found uranium contamination signs radiationsickness radiationinduced birth defects people live around suspected uranium weapon targets kabul jalalabad afghanistan fahey critical us militarys everexpanding use weapons one article wrote subject quotes 1990 pentagon memo health risks exploded uranium ordinance concludes order avoid criticism weapons battlefield use keep sensitive issue mind action reports written conclusion militarys view unless prove something dangerous well keep using view given known health concerns depleted uranium weapons unless prove safedont use question whether us british using uranium weapons current war iraq robert fisk quoted us general eve battle saying already begun unwrap depleted uranium antitank shells 1991 gulf war one seven iraqi tanks destroyed us hit uranium projectile time percentage iraqs 1800 tanks hit uranium weapons clearly far higher serious use uraniumtipped missiles bombs urban settings best evidence used pentagon absent rules limit behavior uses whatever arsenal generals think works bestand clearly uraniumtipped weapons outperform alternative terms ability penetrate armor heavy shielding according pentagon studies uranium projectiles least 10 percent effective penetrating shielded bunkers armor nextbest alternativetungsten clad weapons alone powerful incentive use center defense information reports patents americas bunkerbusting bombs include tungsten uraniumcladded versions making clear weapons exist us military arsenal given pentagons public stance uranium weapons pose appreciable health risk reason believe dangerous weapons mass destruction used moreover given controversy surrounding du seems likely pentagon decided use du weapons inside iraqi cities would trumpeted fact disavowal made civilians future liberated iraq likely paying price yearsmaybe generationsto come meanwhile theyre watching president play soldier aircraft carrier american veterans iraq war might want consider fate soldiers pentagon sent participate early nuclear weapons tests fifty years later soldierguinea pigs died many suspicious cancers government finally admitting received far larger radiation doses ever willing acknowledge dave lindorff author killing time investigation death row case mumia abujamal collection lindorffs stories found httpwwwnwuphillyorgdavehtml 160 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<p>So, what really happened to Lou Dobbs? According to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/business/media/12dobbs.html" type="external">The New York Times</a>: "Months ago the president of CNN/U.S., Jonathan Klein, offered a choice to Lou Dobbs ... [he] could vent his opinions on radio and anchor an objective newscast on television, or he could leave CNN." This after months of intense pressure from those concerned with the content broadcast nightly on Dobbs' CNN program -- leading some in the press to describe the host as a "publicity nightmare" for the network. It is in that environment, that Dobbs <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aI-8DwjDgk" type="external">announced</a> last night his immediate departure from CNN, his cable news home for nearly 30 years.</p>
<p>Media Matters <a href="/press/releases/200911110049" type="external">released</a> the following statement responding to the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aI-8DwjDgk" type="external">late breaking news</a>:</p>
<p>"For too long, CNN provided Lou Dobbs with its stamp of approval as he pursued a dangerous, one-sided and all too often false conspiracy tinged crusade against immigrants," said Eric Burns, president of Media Matters. "This is a happy day for all those who care about this nation of immigrants and believe in the power of media to elevate the political discourse."</p>
<p>Since CNN's Lou Dobbs first began spreading false, racially charged conspiracy theories about President Obama's birth certificate in July of this year, Media Matters for America has published <a href="/search/index?qstring=&amp;from=07%2F01%2F2009&amp;to=&amp;tags=lou_dobbs&amp;tags=&amp;tags=&amp;tags=" type="external">299</a> research items, video/audio clips, column, and blog posts about his misinformation and hate speech. Below are some of the most significant examples of work Media Matters has done -- this year and in the past -- to combat Dobbs' pernicious influence on the national dialogue.</p>
<p>The Drop Dobbs campaign and other efforts. Media Matters played a leading role in the Drop Dobbs Coalition ( <a href="http://DropDobbs.com/" type="external">DropDobbs.com</a>), which was launched to call attention to Dobbs' incendiary hate speech and falsehoods. Through this coalition, Media Matters worked successfully behind the scenes to persuade major corporations to stop advertising on Lou Dobbs Tonight. The coalition includes numerous national civil rights and other groups concerned about the kind of hate promoted daily by Dobbs on his television and radio programs. In addition to Media Matters in partnership with NDN, the coalition, representing over 2 million people, includes the National Council of La Raza, LULAC, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, America's Voice Education Fund, The Hispanic Institute, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Netroots Nation, Voto Latino, Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, the Center for New Community, Reform Immigration for America, the Dolores Huerta Foundation, the National Puerto Rican Coalition and the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials. There were also many others around the country involved in complementary efforts including the amazing grassroots organizing and activism conducted by <a href="http://Presente.org/" type="external">Presente.org</a> through their <a href="http://www.bastadobbs.com/" type="external">BastaDobbs</a> campaign.</p>
<p>Media Matters released ads -- which CNN refused to run -- calling for Dobbs to be held accountable. In August, CNN <a href="/press/releases/200908040007" type="external">refused to air</a> a Media Mattes <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjBA5H4RBHA" type="external">ad</a> calling on the network to credibly address Dobbs' continued promotion of birther conspiracy theories. In October, CNN <a href="/press/releases/200910150026" type="external">refused to air</a> an <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmgN83Cs49s" type="external">ad</a> produced by America's Voice and Media Matters calling out the network for giving Dobbs a prominent platform. Both ads ultimately ran on competing cable networks.</p>
<p>Dobbs repeatedly advanced false conspiracy theories about Obama's birth certificate. As Media Matters extensively <a href="/research/2009/07/24/media-matters-captain-lou-and-the-birther-briga/152459" type="external">documented</a>, Dobbs <a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0907/15/ldt.01.html" type="external">suggested</a> on his July 15, 2009, CNN show that the birth certificate Obama provided to <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html" type="external">FactCheck.org</a> was not "the real document" and <a href="/research/2009/07/17/dobbs-repeatedly-makes-obama-birth-certificate/152170" type="external">suggested</a> on his radio show that day that it was not "the real deal." After asking if Obama should be "more forthcoming" about his birth certificate, Dobbs added: "One of our callers, by the way, pointed out that he didn't release -- he didn't release his medical records, either. Now isn't that interesting? And hasn't produced some other documents. What's the deal? What is the deal here? I'm starting to think we have a -- we have a document issue. Do you suppose he's un -- no, I won't even use the word undocumented. It wouldn't be right." On his July 21, 2009, radio show, Dobbs <a href="/research/2009/08/12/updated-despite-air-america-blackout-companies/153220" type="external">faulted</a> "certain quarters of the national liberal media" for "absolutely trying to knock down the issue of President Obama's birth certificate." On his July 23, 2009, radio show, Dobbs addressed media reports on his conspiracy theories by <a href="/research/2009/08/12/updated-despite-air-america-blackout-companies/153220" type="external">declaring</a>, "I do believe in a national left-wing media conspiracy in which they work in concert and attack like hell."</p>
<p>Dobbs used CNN to engage in wild conspiracy theories and legitimize hate groups. Dobbs' birth certificate obsession wasn't the first outrageous theory that he promoted on CNN. As Media Matters documented, Dobbs has <a href="/research/2007/08/22/cnns-malveaux-said-conspiracy-theorists-talk-ab/139648" type="external">repeatedly</a> <a href="/video/2009/10/29/dobbs-still-highlighting-north-american-union-c/156296" type="external">accused</a> the U.S. government of secretly plotting with the governments of Mexico and Canada to merge the three countries into a "North American Union" -- a charge his own CNN colleagues <a href="/research/2009/07/23/cnn-conspiracy-theorist-lou-dobbs-discredits-hi/152393" type="external">labeled</a> a "conspiracy theor[y]." Dobbs has <a href="/research/2009/07/23/cnn-conspiracy-theorist-lou-dobbs-discredits-hi/152393" type="external">promoted</a> the smear that Mexican immigrants are conspiring to reclaim the U.S. Southwest for Mexico and at one point illustrated this theory by using a graphic sourced to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a hate group that " <a href="http://cofcc.org/introduction/statement-of-principles/" type="external">oppose[s]</a> all efforts to mix the races of mankind." Dobbs famously aired a <a href="/research/2009/07/23/cnn-conspiracy-theorist-lou-dobbs-discredits-hi/152393" type="external">false report</a> about a purported spike in leprosy cases linked to illegal immigration and repeatedly defended his show's reporting even after it had been proven wrong.</p>
<p>Dobbs had close ties to "hate group" FAIR. In September, Dobbs <a href="/research/2009/09/15/at-hate-group-event-dobbs-embraces-discredited/154623" type="external">helped</a> <a href="/press/releases/200908280026" type="external">lead</a> the annual "Hold Their Feet to the Fire" radio host rally organized by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) -- an organization the Southern Poverty Law Center has <a href="http://www.splcenter.org/news/item.jsp?aid=295" type="external">designated</a> a " <a href="http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/type.jsp?DT=27" type="external">hate group</a>." On August 28, Media Matters president Eric Burns wrote an <a href="/press/releases/200908280026" type="external">open letter</a> to CNN president Jonathan Klein urging him to prohibit Dobbs from participating in the FAIR event. Media Matters also documented that Dobbs used his CNN show to report on the FAIR rally <a href="/video/2009/09/15/dobbs-sylvester-mention-fair-rally-without-noti/154626" type="external">without disclosing</a> during those reports that he was helping lead it. A year earlier, Dobbs had <a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0809/10/ldt.01.html" type="external">broadcast</a> his CNN show from the FAIR rally. In addition, the group <a href="http://www.fairus.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&amp;id=16290&amp;security=1601&amp;news_iv_ctrl=172" type="external">has given</a> Dobbs an award for "his continued efforts in leading the immigration reform movement through both his talk radio show and his television show." In the past year, Dobbs has cited FAIR as a credible source on immigration issues at least six times and has routinely failed to disclose his close association with the group.</p>
<p>Dobbs smeared U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce as sympathetic to "Mexico's export of drugs and illegal aliens." On March 10, 2009, Dobbs <a href="http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2009/03/10/ldt.sylvester.obama.education.cnn" type="external">criticized</a> Obama for delivering a speech on education to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Dobbs <a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0903/10/ldt.01.html" type="external">accused</a> Obama of "pandering to the pro-amnesty open-borders lobby" and aired a clip of a FAIR spokesman saying, "We don't want the president to make it appear as if he's favoring one particular group in the disposition of public benefits." Dobbs also said, "Making a decision to talk about a national initiative on education from the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which is effectively an organization that is interested in the export of American capital and production to Mexico, and Mexico's export of drugs and illegal aliens to the United States. This is crazy stuff." On March 17, 2009, Dobbs <a href="/video/2009/03/17/dobbs-apologizes-for-claiming-us-hispanic-chamb/148360" type="external">said</a> he "made a mistake," explaining, "I, of course, do not believe that the chamber supports or condones either drug or human trafficking. My apologies to the ... U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and I hope that they will forgive me for that misspeaking."</p>
<p>Report: CNN's Lou Dobbs problem and the immigration debate. In September, Media Matters released a <a href="/research/2009/09/14/report-cnns-lou-dobbs-problem-and-the-immigrati/154479" type="external">report</a> on the most egregious conspiracy theories, hate speech, and undisclosed conflicts of interest in Dobbs' immigration reporting. Among other things, Media Matters <a href="/research/2007/05/09/hosting-segment-from-hazleton-pa-dobbs-did-not/138822" type="external">documented</a> that Dobbs used his CNN show to report on and praise a Hazleton, Pennsylvania, ordinance targeting undocumented immigrants without disclosing that he had been helping to fundraise for the town's legal defense fund.</p>
<p>Report: "Dobbs' immigration obsession out of step with CNN's news coverage." In July, Media Matters released a <a href="/research/2009/07/27/report-dobbs-immigration-obsession-out-of-step/152522" type="external">report</a> documenting the extent to which Dobbs' broadcast was consumed by the topic of immigration, and undocumented immigrants specifically. Media Matters showed that over a period of six months, Dobbs had more than three times as many broadcast hours that included briefs, segments, and panel discussions on immigration -- often focusing on undocumented immigrants -- as The Situation Room, which is three times as long as Dobbs. In word count, the difference was even starker, with Dobbs devoting about 528 words per hour to discussions of immigration -- 13 times more than The Situation Room's 40 words-per-hour average.</p>
<p>Report: Conservative guests outnumber progressives on Lou Dobbs Tonight. In May, Media Matters released a <a href="/research/2009/05/19/study-conservative-guests-again-outnumber-progr/150087" type="external">report</a> documenting that in the first four months of 2009, 52 percent more Republicans and conservatives appeared as guests on Lou Dobbs Tonight than Democrats and progressives. These results were consistent with a 2006 Media Matters <a href="/research/2006/03/27/the-lineup-on-lou-dobbs-tonight-overwhelmingly/135242" type="external">study</a> on Dobbs' guest lineup.</p>
<p>Lou Dobbs' right-wing war on health care reform. In August, Media Matters released a <a href="/research/2009/08/06/lou-dobbs-right-wing-war-on-health-care-reform/153001" type="external">report</a> documenting Dobbs' repeated use of discredited right-wing smears about health care reform efforts, including the notions that end-of-life counseling could lead to "euthanasia" and that Obama said he "doesn't even know what's in" the House health care bill. Dobbs also touted GOP Sen. John Barrasso as "one of the leading experts on ... health care" and provided a forum for serial misinformer Betsy McCaughey to falsely claim that the economic recovery package would allow the federal government to eliminate "whatever" it deems to be "unnecessary" health care.</p>
<p>Dobbs declared, "Mexico has become our enemy." As Media Matters documented, Dobbs complained on his March 3, 2009, radio show that there are people "trying to control our political agendas" and "social agendas with political correctness, trying to control thought, and, of course, speech through political correctness." He added that while it may be "politically incorrect," it is "absolutely factually correct" that "Mexico has become our enemy."</p>
<p>Online videos used to boost campaign against Dobbs. Media Matters effectively used its <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/mediamatters4america" type="external">official YouTube channel</a> to generate pressure against Dobbs through new media outlets. The ad addressing Dobbs' continued promotion of birther conspiracy theories that CNN refused to air in August generated nearly <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjBA5H4RBHA" type="external">168,000 views</a> online, and at the same time, led to a huge media presence both in the traditional and new media. Moreover, a mini-documentary Media Matters produced for DropDobbs.com received more than <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9endvlpBny4" type="external">60,000</a> views since the launch of that site. In late July, when Dobbs was repeatedly advancing false conspiracy theories about Obama's birth certificate, Media Matters was able to expose his efforts through rapid response videos, releasing four videos from July 27 through July 30 on its YouTube channel <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NZj5v1U1js" type="external">exposing</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOpDw70s54g" type="external">CNN's</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moNiajrKX7I" type="external">Dobbs</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMbFYMOPw2g" type="external">problem</a>; the videos generated well over 80,000 views. All together, Media Matters' special rapid response videos exposing Dobbs have generated well over 300,000 views.</p>
<p>So, what's next for Dobbs? In October, The New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/business/media/12fox.html" type="external">reported</a> that "Dobbs ... met for dinner with Roger E. Ailes, the chairman of Fox News, last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of the meeting" and that one of those sources "said Mr. Dobbs is a potential hire for the Fox Business Network." Well, that move may be a bit tough to pull off. Fox News' Geraldo Rivera recently ripped Dobbs for his Latino-bashing rhetoric <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/25/rivera-vs-lou-dobbs/" type="external">saying</a> he "is not coming to Fox News." Following news of Dobbs' resignation, Fox Business anchor Liz Claman <a href="/blog/2009/11/12/fox-business-anchor-claman-clearly-geraldo-won/156911" type="external">tweeted</a>, "Clearly Geraldo won." Rivera is by no means Dobbs' only obstacle. Dobbs had recently been involved in an on-air spat with new Fox Business hire John Stossel. After the former reporter of ABC's 20/20 <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/21/john-stossel-lou-dobbs/" type="external">said</a> "I don't subscribe to Lou Dobbs-kind of rants about immigrants wrecking America," Dobbs went on the attack, calling Stossell a "self important ass" <a href="/video/2009/10/22/dobbs-on-fox-business-self-important-ass-john-s/156047" type="external">and his criticism</a>, "myopic idiocy."</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | really happened lou dobbs according new york times months ago president cnnus jonathan klein offered choice lou dobbs could vent opinions radio anchor objective newscast television could leave cnn months intense pressure concerned content broadcast nightly dobbs cnn program leading press describe host publicity nightmare network environment dobbs announced last night immediate departure cnn cable news home nearly 30 years media matters released following statement responding late breaking news long cnn provided lou dobbs stamp approval pursued dangerous onesided often false conspiracy tinged crusade immigrants said eric burns president media matters happy day care nation immigrants believe power media elevate political discourse since cnns lou dobbs first began spreading false racially charged conspiracy theories president obamas birth certificate july year media matters america published 299 research items videoaudio clips column blog posts misinformation hate speech significant examples work media matters done year past combat dobbs pernicious influence national dialogue drop dobbs campaign efforts media matters played leading role drop dobbs coalition dropdobbscom launched call attention dobbs incendiary hate speech falsehoods coalition media matters worked successfully behind scenes persuade major corporations stop advertising lou dobbs tonight coalition includes numerous national civil rights groups concerned kind hate promoted daily dobbs television radio programs addition media matters partnership ndn coalition representing 2 million people includes national council la raza lulac national hispanic media coalition americas voice education fund hispanic institute southern poverty law center netroots nation voto latino labor council latin american advancement center new community reform immigration america dolores huerta foundation national puerto rican coalition georgia association latino elected officials also many others around country involved complementary efforts including amazing grassroots organizing activism conducted presenteorg bastadobbs campaign media matters released ads cnn refused run calling dobbs held accountable august cnn refused air media mattes ad calling network credibly address dobbs continued promotion birther conspiracy theories october cnn refused air ad produced americas voice media matters calling network giving dobbs prominent platform ads ultimately ran competing cable networks dobbs repeatedly advanced false conspiracy theories obamas birth certificate media matters extensively documented dobbs suggested july 15 2009 cnn show birth certificate obama provided factcheckorg real document suggested radio show day real deal asking obama forthcoming birth certificate dobbs added one callers way pointed didnt release didnt release medical records either isnt interesting hasnt produced documents whats deal deal im starting think document issue suppose hes un wont even use word undocumented wouldnt right july 21 2009 radio show dobbs faulted certain quarters national liberal media absolutely trying knock issue president obamas birth certificate july 23 2009 radio show dobbs addressed media reports conspiracy theories declaring believe national leftwing media conspiracy work concert attack like hell dobbs used cnn engage wild conspiracy theories legitimize hate groups dobbs birth certificate obsession wasnt first outrageous theory promoted cnn media matters documented dobbs repeatedly accused us government secretly plotting governments mexico canada merge three countries north american union charge cnn colleagues labeled conspiracy theory dobbs promoted smear mexican immigrants conspiring reclaim us southwest mexico one point illustrated theory using graphic sourced council conservative citizens hate group opposes efforts mix races mankind dobbs famously aired false report purported spike leprosy cases linked illegal immigration repeatedly defended shows reporting even proven wrong dobbs close ties hate group fair september dobbs helped lead annual hold feet fire radio host rally organized federation american immigration reform fair organization southern poverty law center designated hate group august 28 media matters president eric burns wrote open letter cnn president jonathan klein urging prohibit dobbs participating fair event media matters also documented dobbs used cnn show report fair rally without disclosing reports helping lead year earlier dobbs broadcast cnn show fair rally addition group given dobbs award continued efforts leading immigration reform movement talk radio show television show past year dobbs cited fair credible source immigration issues least six times routinely failed disclose close association group dobbs smeared us hispanic chamber commerce sympathetic mexicos export drugs illegal aliens march 10 2009 dobbs criticized obama delivering speech education us hispanic chamber commerce dobbs accused obama pandering proamnesty openborders lobby aired clip fair spokesman saying dont want president make appear hes favoring one particular group disposition public benefits dobbs also said making decision talk national initiative education us hispanic chamber commerce effectively organization interested export american capital production mexico mexicos export drugs illegal aliens united states crazy stuff march 17 2009 dobbs said made mistake explaining course believe chamber supports condones either drug human trafficking apologies us hispanic chamber commerce hope forgive misspeaking report cnns lou dobbs problem immigration debate september media matters released report egregious conspiracy theories hate speech undisclosed conflicts interest dobbs immigration reporting among things media matters documented dobbs used cnn show report praise hazleton pennsylvania ordinance targeting undocumented immigrants without disclosing helping fundraise towns legal defense fund report dobbs immigration obsession step cnns news coverage july media matters released report documenting extent dobbs broadcast consumed topic immigration undocumented immigrants specifically media matters showed period six months dobbs three times many broadcast hours included briefs segments panel discussions immigration often focusing undocumented immigrants situation room three times long dobbs word count difference even starker dobbs devoting 528 words per hour discussions immigration 13 times situation rooms 40 wordsperhour average report conservative guests outnumber progressives lou dobbs tonight may media matters released report documenting first four months 2009 52 percent republicans conservatives appeared guests lou dobbs tonight democrats progressives results consistent 2006 media matters study dobbs guest lineup lou dobbs rightwing war health care reform august media matters released report documenting dobbs repeated use discredited rightwing smears health care reform efforts including notions endoflife counseling could lead euthanasia obama said doesnt even know whats house health care bill dobbs also touted gop sen john barrasso one leading experts health care provided forum serial misinformer betsy mccaughey falsely claim economic recovery package would allow federal government eliminate whatever deems unnecessary health care dobbs declared mexico become enemy media matters documented dobbs complained march 3 2009 radio show people trying control political agendas social agendas political correctness trying control thought course speech political correctness added may politically incorrect absolutely factually correct mexico become enemy online videos used boost campaign dobbs media matters effectively used official youtube channel generate pressure dobbs new media outlets ad addressing dobbs continued promotion birther conspiracy theories cnn refused air august generated nearly 168000 views online time led huge media presence traditional new media moreover minidocumentary media matters produced dropdobbscom received 60000 views since launch site late july dobbs repeatedly advancing false conspiracy theories obamas birth certificate media matters able expose efforts rapid response videos releasing four videos july 27 july 30 youtube channel exposing cnns dobbs problem videos generated well 80000 views together media matters special rapid response videos exposing dobbs generated well 300000 views whats next dobbs october new york times reported dobbs met dinner roger e ailes chairman fox news last month according two people direct knowledge meeting one sources said mr dobbs potential hire fox business network well move may bit tough pull fox news geraldo rivera recently ripped dobbs latinobashing rhetoric saying coming fox news following news dobbs resignation fox business anchor liz claman tweeted clearly geraldo rivera means dobbs obstacle dobbs recently involved onair spat new fox business hire john stossel former reporter abcs 2020 said dont subscribe lou dobbskind rants immigrants wrecking america dobbs went attack calling stossell self important ass criticism myopic idiocy | 1,228 |
<p>It is now conventional wisdom to say that the Pentagon budget is higher in “real” dollars <a href="" type="internal">[1]</a> than at any point since the end of World War II.&#160; The $635 billion appropriated in fiscal year 2007 is $31 billion, or 5 percent, above the previous high water mark, 1952 at $604 billion.&#160; 2008 will be higher still at about $670 billion, <a href="" type="internal">[2]</a> and 2009 will likely be more again.</p>
<p>What is not conventional wisdom – but should be – is that at today’s historic high level of spending, our military forces are smaller than they have ever been since the end of World War II; equipment is – on average – older than it ever has been before, and key elements of our most important fighting forces are not fully prepared for combat.&#160; Recently, the addition of substantial additional sums of money – separate from the additional funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – have made things not better, but worse.</p>
<p>For the budget data, little if any analysis is required, they are all readily available in an annual DOD publication, known as the “Greenbook.” <a href="" type="internal">[3]</a> &#160;It consists of a couple hundred pages of Pentagon budget and related data going back as much as 60 years.&#160; With the aid of this volume, people in Washington “analyze” Pentagon budgets: often merely by transcribing the Pentagon’s numbers onto a spreadsheet, if not directly into an article or commentary.</p>
<p>Important basic data not included in the Greenbook are the numbers that comprise the force structure of US Armed Forces.&#160; Here and there, one can find how many divisions were in the Army for a given year; how many aircraft are in the Air Force, how many ships in the Navy, the nuclear bombers in the so-called strategic forces, and so on.&#160; Sometimes the Congressional Research Service (CRS) will crank out the numbers in a year by year table for a specified – but relatively short – period of time.&#160; The Defense Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee has published numbers for each of the military services for several years, and one can find various numbers in the budget justification materials the Armed Forces send to Capitol Hill.&#160; However, no one publishes the data in a reliable manner in annual increments for the post-World War II period for the key military forces; what data that are available from then to now jump from one way of counting the “beans” to another.&#160; There is no apples-to-apples, comparable set of numbers that reliably show the changes over time.</p>
<p>For example, data for the Army sometimes addresses only divisions; sometimes the data include independent combat brigades or regiments; sometimes it is unclear whether the numbers do or do not include the Army Reserve and/or National Guard.&#160; For the Navy, some presidential administrations anxious to inflate the numbers (such as the Reagan Administration when John Lehman was Secretary of the Navy) have included logistics ships in the “battle fleet;” others did not.&#160; Some include ships in the Naval Reserve; some will include lesser patrol craft; some do not.&#160; The differences from one year’s listing to another are rarely made clear.</p>
<p>The biggest mess in the data appears to be in the Air Force.&#160; The historical data that is publicly available sometimes addresses “Primary Aircraft Authorization” (PAA); sometimes it counts “Total Available Inventory” (TAI, a number that can be significantly different from the PAA count).&#160; Sometimes the data for the “tactical” Air Force conflates attack aircraft along with fighter aircraft, and sometimes it is not clear what is included.&#160; Phone calls and e-mails to the Air Force’s historical offices at Bolling and Maxwell Air Force Bases only confirmed the confusion: “No, we have no consistent data base;” “Sometimes aircraft are just aircraft.”&#160; One would think the Air Force’s detailed count in its so-called “Statistical Digest” would help, but parts of it are not available to the public, and the parts that are would seem to require mysticism to interpret, rather than mere familiarity with Arabic numbers.</p>
<p>Therefore, a simple – even simplistic – analysis that tracks the budgets of the military services (readily available from the Greenbook) together with the annual force structure of the Army, Navy, and Air Force is not easy to put together.&#160; Unless, that is, if you consult a remarkable analysis by Franklin C. Spinney, “Defense Death Spiral,” put together in the late 1990s and available at <a href="" type="internal">http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/defense_death_spiral/contents.htm</a>.</p>
<p>While I should reveal that Spinney is a personal friend and a colleague over the years, I must also say his extraordinary analysis is far from simplistic; using unclassified data available inside the Pentagon, he put together a comprehensive work of 75 briefing slides.&#160; It addresses the Pentagon’s budget, the military services’ force structure and modernization programs, military readiness and training, and the resources spent for each.&#160; Inter alia, it stands alone as an evaluation of what we get for our money.&#160; Its conclusion – that America’s defense forces have been shrinking, aging, and becoming less ready to fight, at increasing cost – is unassailable.</p>
<p>The problem is that Spinney’s briefing is now several years old.&#160; It does not include two important subsequent developments:&#160; 1) the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the additional money appropriated for them, along with the additional stress the wars have imposed on the people and equipment in our armed forces, and 2) the additional funding that has been put into the Pentagon’s budget, other than what has been spent in Iraq and Afghanistan.&#160; One would hope that, despite the human and material stress of the wars, the fundamentally negative trends Spinney found in the1990s would have been ameliorated.&#160; Indeed, the so-called baseline (or “base”) DOD budget, which is supposed to exclude war-related spending, has increased – in constant dollars – from $370.8 billion in 2001 to $518.3 billion, <a href="" type="internal">[4]</a> a 40 percent increase, in 2009. &#160;It would be hoped that one of the largest increases in “peacetime” military spending since World War II would have brought some redress to the shrinking, aging, less ready nature of the higher cost military that Spinney found and documented.</p>
<p>However, the increase in non-war spending since 2001 has been significantly larger than the 40 percent cited above.&#160; Both the military services and Congress have crammed non-war spending into the “war” supplementals that have been enacted each year since 2002.&#160; Items such as additional C-17, V-22, F-16, and other aircraft, which are highly unlikely to ever see service in Iraq or Afghanistan, have been added as well as money for a reorganization of the Army, initiated well before the wars started, an expansion of the Army and Marine Corps, which also is unlikely to show any presence in the wars, plus much else.&#160; The problem is that no specific measurement has been made of this non-war spending in the “war supplemetals.”&#160; Each year’s war funding measures contain several billions that are readily identifiable, plus other amounts that are not so easily identified and which would require a detailed analysis of budget data that are not publicly available. <a href="" type="internal">[5]</a></p>
<p>Were anyone with access to the detailed Pentagon accounts to set out upon that analysis, they would encounter the chaos of the Pentagon’s financial records.&#160; Finding just what that has actually been spent for the wars, and what has not, will be no easy task.&#160; The financial books are literally incompetent – according to all too many years of reporting by GAO, CRS, and the Pentagon’s own Inspector General (DOD IG).&#160; The precise amount of non-war spending in the war supplementals could only be identified after many, many man hours of auditing and investigation, and it may never be fully known, thanks to the Pentagon’s very deficient self-management.</p>
<p>We can only say at this point that the 40% increase in the baseline Pentagon budget is an understatement of how much has been available to address the concerns Spinney identified.&#160; Understatement or not, the amount is considerable.&#160; Comparing actual Pentagon base budgets to the base budgets planned when George W. Bush came to office for the years from 2001 to 2005 (and extrapolating out the same planned rate of increase to 2009) computes to over $770 billion <a href="" type="internal">[6]</a> added to the base Pentagon spending plan since 2001.</p>
<p>In other words, almost three quarters of a trillion dollars over has been added above the level of Defense Department spending planned just before George W. Bush was inaugurated; none of it has been specified for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; it is a “peacetime” addition to the defense budget.&#160; One would hope that it has been used effectively to address the problems – the shrinking, the aging, the reduced readiness – that Spinney identified.</p>
<p>But it has not; the added money has not reversed these trends, some of which are now significantly worse.</p>
<p>WINSLOW T. WHEELER spent 31 years working on Capitol Hill with senators from both political parties and the Government Accountability Office, specializing in national security affairs. Currently, he directs the Straus Military Reform Project of the Center for Defense Information in Washington and is author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/159114938X/counterpunchmaga" type="external">The Wastrels of Defense</a>.</p>
<p>Notes</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">[1]</a> “Real” dollars are those adjusted for inflation.&#160; In dollars not adjusted for inflation, the 2008 budget (at $670 billion) is 63 times higher than the post-World War II 1947 Pentagon budget of $10.6 billion. <a href="" type="internal">[2]</a> If one were to also count Department of Energy nuclear weapons costs ($17 billion) and miscellaneous defense costs in other federal agencies ($3.8 billion), the total so-called “National Defense” budget function, used by OMB, would come to $693.2 billion.&#160; If other defense-related costs in the Departments of Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and State,&#160; some retirement costs in the Department of the Treasury, and DOD’s share (21%) of the annual interest on the national debt were also to be counted, the grand total for all national security related costs for the 2008 federal budget would come to $926.8 billion. <a href="" type="internal">[3]</a> This publication, officially titled “National Defense Budget Estimates” can be found for recent fiscal years at the website of the Defense Department’s Comptroller at <a href="" type="internal">http://www.defenselink.mil/comptroller/defbudget/fy2009/index.html</a>. <a href="" type="internal">[4]</a> Constant 2009 dollars. <a href="" type="internal">[5]</a> That analysis is not performed here; it would best be done by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the Government Accountability Office (GAO), or any of the hundreds of hired “professional staffers” on Capitol Hill working for committees and subcommittees purporting to exercise oversight of the defense budget.&#160; Each of those entities has access to the requisite detailed budget data. <a href="" type="internal">[6]</a> The dollars counted here are “current year” dollars.&#160; The calculation in 2008 or 2009 dollars would be a larger number.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | conventional wisdom say pentagon budget higher real dollars 1 point since end world war ii160 635 billion appropriated fiscal year 2007 31 billion 5 percent previous high water mark 1952 604 billion160 2008 higher still 670 billion 2 2009 likely conventional wisdom todays historic high level spending military forces smaller ever since end world war ii equipment average older ever key elements important fighting forces fully prepared combat160 recently addition substantial additional sums money separate additional funding wars iraq afghanistan made things better worse budget data little analysis required readily available annual dod publication known greenbook 3 160it consists couple hundred pages pentagon budget related data going back much 60 years160 aid volume people washington analyze pentagon budgets often merely transcribing pentagons numbers onto spreadsheet directly article commentary important basic data included greenbook numbers comprise force structure us armed forces160 one find many divisions army given year many aircraft air force many ships navy nuclear bombers socalled strategic forces on160 sometimes congressional research service crs crank numbers year year table specified relatively short period time160 defense subcommittee house appropriations committee published numbers military services several years one find various numbers budget justification materials armed forces send capitol hill160 however one publishes data reliable manner annual increments postworld war ii period key military forces data available jump one way counting beans another160 applestoapples comparable set numbers reliably show changes time example data army sometimes addresses divisions sometimes data include independent combat brigades regiments sometimes unclear whether numbers include army reserve andor national guard160 navy presidential administrations anxious inflate numbers reagan administration john lehman secretary navy included logistics ships battle fleet others not160 include ships naval reserve include lesser patrol craft not160 differences one years listing another rarely made clear biggest mess data appears air force160 historical data publicly available sometimes addresses primary aircraft authorization paa sometimes counts total available inventory tai number significantly different paa count160 sometimes data tactical air force conflates attack aircraft along fighter aircraft sometimes clear included160 phone calls emails air forces historical offices bolling maxwell air force bases confirmed confusion consistent data base sometimes aircraft aircraft160 one would think air forces detailed count socalled statistical digest would help parts available public parts would seem require mysticism interpret rather mere familiarity arabic numbers therefore simple even simplistic analysis tracks budgets military services readily available greenbook together annual force structure army navy air force easy put together160 unless consult remarkable analysis franklin c spinney defense death spiral put together late 1990s available httpwwwdninetfcsdefense_death_spiralcontentshtm reveal spinney personal friend colleague years must also say extraordinary analysis far simplistic using unclassified data available inside pentagon put together comprehensive work 75 briefing slides160 addresses pentagons budget military services force structure modernization programs military readiness training resources spent each160 inter alia stands alone evaluation get money160 conclusion americas defense forces shrinking aging becoming less ready fight increasing cost unassailable problem spinneys briefing several years old160 include two important subsequent developments160 1 wars iraq afghanistan additional money appropriated along additional stress wars imposed people equipment armed forces 2 additional funding put pentagons budget spent iraq afghanistan160 one would hope despite human material stress wars fundamentally negative trends spinney found the1990s would ameliorated160 indeed socalled baseline base dod budget supposed exclude warrelated spending increased constant dollars 3708 billion 2001 5183 billion 4 40 percent increase 2009 160it would hoped one largest increases peacetime military spending since world war ii would brought redress shrinking aging less ready nature higher cost military spinney found documented however increase nonwar spending since 2001 significantly larger 40 percent cited above160 military services congress crammed nonwar spending war supplementals enacted year since 2002160 items additional c17 v22 f16 aircraft highly unlikely ever see service iraq afghanistan added well money reorganization army initiated well wars started expansion army marine corps also unlikely show presence wars plus much else160 problem specific measurement made nonwar spending war supplemetals160 years war funding measures contain several billions readily identifiable plus amounts easily identified would require detailed analysis budget data publicly available 5 anyone access detailed pentagon accounts set upon analysis would encounter chaos pentagons financial records160 finding actually spent wars easy task160 financial books literally incompetent according many years reporting gao crs pentagons inspector general dod ig160 precise amount nonwar spending war supplementals could identified many many man hours auditing investigation may never fully known thanks pentagons deficient selfmanagement say point 40 increase baseline pentagon budget understatement much available address concerns spinney identified160 understatement amount considerable160 comparing actual pentagon base budgets base budgets planned george w bush came office years 2001 2005 extrapolating planned rate increase 2009 computes 770 billion 6 added base pentagon spending plan since 2001 words almost three quarters trillion dollars added level defense department spending planned george w bush inaugurated none specified wars iraq afghanistan peacetime addition defense budget160 one would hope used effectively address problems shrinking aging reduced readiness spinney identified added money reversed trends significantly worse winslow wheeler spent 31 years working capitol hill senators political parties government accountability office specializing national security affairs currently directs straus military reform project center defense information washington author wastrels defense notes 1 real dollars adjusted inflation160 dollars adjusted inflation 2008 budget 670 billion 63 times higher postworld war ii 1947 pentagon budget 106 billion 2 one also count department energy nuclear weapons costs 17 billion miscellaneous defense costs federal agencies 38 billion total socalled national defense budget function used omb would come 6932 billion160 defenserelated costs departments homeland security veterans affairs state160 retirement costs department treasury dods share 21 annual interest national debt also counted grand total national security related costs 2008 federal budget would come 9268 billion 3 publication officially titled national defense budget estimates found recent fiscal years website defense departments comptroller httpwwwdefenselinkmilcomptrollerdefbudgetfy2009indexhtml 4 constant 2009 dollars 5 analysis performed would best done congressional budget office cbo congressional research service crs government accountability office gao hundreds hired professional staffers capitol hill working committees subcommittees purporting exercise oversight defense budget160 entities access requisite detailed budget data 6 dollars counted current year dollars160 calculation 2008 2009 dollars would larger number 160 160 160 160 160 160 | 1,012 |
<p>Ten days after taking office, Pres. Donald Trump’s ordered his first foreign military initiative, a covert counterterrorism operation&#160;by Navy’s SEAL&#160;Team 6 in Yemen. &#160;He apparently approved the attack following discussions with his principle “strategist,” Stephen Bannon.&#160; Trump is about the only person who still claims it was a “great” success even though it led to the death of 24 innocent civilians and a U.S. serviceman, let alone the reported $75 million cost of a helicopter.</p>
<p>The war in Afghanistan is now in its 16th year, the longest war in U.S. history.&#160; Who knows how long it will drag on under Trump, the Commander-and-Chief of all U.S. military – intelligence and nuclear – forces.&#160; Since the war-monger troika of Pres. George Bush, VP Dick Chaney and Sec. of War Donald Rumsfeld reigned supreme, a reported 6,800 U.S. troops have died in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq between 2003 and 2015.</p>
<p>This is a relatively tiny body-count compared to the losses of American lives sacrificed in the Vietnam War, 48,000, and in World War II, 292,000.&#160; One can only wonder if, for most Americans, the war in Afghanistan is not unlike what Romans likely felt about the Middle East wars taking place during the time of Jesus.&#160; Out of media sight, out of the minds of most Americans.</p>
<p>The American media’s attention span is a nanosecond, the moment between the latest scandal and the next hyped press release.&#160; Its currently consumed by the Shakespearian soap opera playing out on the White House stage, let alone foreign engagements like the battle against Isis, the Syrian civil war and the battle for Mosul being waged in Iraq.&#160; So, what about Afghanistan?</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>In 1893, the Agreement Between Great Britain and Afghanistan was signed in Kabul, reconfirming the 1873 Agreement that launched the Great Game. &#160;A century later, in 1979, the Game saw the former Soviet Union invade Afghanistan and withdraw in defeat a decade later, in 1989.&#160; As portrayed in Mike Nichols’ movie, Charlie Wilson’s War, the CIA’s secret support for the Afghan&#160;mujahideen defeated the Soviet military. &#160;Now, nearly 16 years after September 11th attacks, the U.S. flounders in the latest round of the Great Game.&#160; Will Trump, like Nixon in Vietnam, proclaim victory and withdraw in the face of defeat?</p>
<p>There are about 9,800 U.S. troops and some 5,000 troops from allied countries still fighting in Afghanistan, with their service split between fighting terrorist groups and propping up a faltering government. &#160;In February, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Chairman of the Armed Service Committee, lamented the state of the war in Afghanistan: “I want to know why we’re losing, and what we need to do to start winning.”</p>
<p>Had the good Senator simply read the January 30, 2016, report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), he would have gotten his answer.&#160; It <a href="" type="internal">states</a>:</p>
<p>The Taliban now controls more territory than at any time since 2001. Vicious and repeated attacks in Kabul this quarter shook confidence in the national-unity government. A year after the Coalition handed responsibility for Afghan security to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), American and British forces were compelled on several occasions to support ANDSF troops in combat against the Taliban.</p>
<p>The lack of security has made it almost impossible for many U.S. and even some Afghan officials to get out to manage and inspect U.S.-funded reconstruction projects.</p>
<p>In December 2016, the Dept. of Defense reported to Congress that the U.S.-backed Afghan government controlled about 20&#160;percent of the Afghan population and the</p>
<p>Taliban controlled only 10&#160;percent.&#160; Politico <a href="" type="internal">reports</a> that as of November 2016, the Afghan government controlled just more than half (57%) of the country’s districts.&#160; Most alarming, U.S.-backed government-controlled districts have 21 percent of its former district-control since a year earlier, November 2015.</p>
<p>Writing in <a href="" type="internal">Foreign Policy</a>, Jason Dempsey paints an eye-opening — if disappointing — view of the current situation in Afghanistan: “The United States military failed America in Afghanistan. It wasn’t a tactical failure. It was a failure of leadership.”</p>
<p>James Mattis, Sec. of Defense, a retired Marine Corps general, oversees the nation’s war machine and is among the failed Afghan “leadership.”&#160; He spent over four decades in the military, with commands in the Persian Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan.&#160; He garnered his nickname, “Mad Dog,” for his role in 2004 battle of Fallujah, Iraq, the same year he ordered an attack on a “suspected foreign fighter safe house” in a small Iraqi village, Mukareeb, that led to the killing of 42 people attending a wedding ceremony.&#160; From 2010-2013, he was Commander of U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM), but forced out by Pres. Obama over his hardline, hawkish stance on Iran.</p>
<p>Mattis is famous for his pithy statements and one he made to fellow officers is notorious: “… there are some assholes in the world that just need to be shot. There are hunters and there are victims. By your discipline, cunning, obedience and alertness, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim. It’s really a hell of a lot of fun. You’re gonna have a blast out here!”</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>During Mattis’ Senate confirmation hearing, a retired Green Beret officer and a fellow at the New America think tank, Jason Amerine, raised a question of Mattis’ leadership.&#160; Amerine claimed that “Mad Dog” hesitated sending medical evacuation flights and left soldiers to die during a 2001 friendly-fire incident in Afghanistan.&#160; Staff Sgt. Brian Cody Prosser and at least two Afghans died after they were hit by a U.S. bomb outside of Kandahar.&#160; “He was indecisive and betrayed his duty to us, leaving my men to die during the golden hour when he could have reached us,” wrote Amerine. &#160;Mattis now leads Americans long-failed campaign in the Middle East and North Africa, let alone the rest of the world.</p>
<p>The current Afghan government of Ashraf Ghani (president) and Abdullah Abdullah (chief executive) is mired in age-old&#160;corruption with embezzlement and bribery siphoning billions of U.S. dollars to private bank accounts and pay-offs to warlords and Taliban.&#160; Equally troubling, unemployment is estimated at 40 percent and millions of Afghans have fled to Pakistan, Iran and Europe.&#160;More disturbing, over the last 15 years that U.S. has “invested” $8.5 billion to fight opium cultivation and trafficking, but Afghan’s illegal opium industry is booming.&#160; The SIGAR report found, “Afghan farmers are growing more opium than ever”; they account for an estimated 90 percent of the world’s illicit opiates like heroin.&#160; The UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime&#160;reported that Afghan opium production jumped 43 percent over the last year.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Trump has been in office for two months and has laid out no new military plan for Afghanistan. Nor has the new Sec. of War issued a comprehensive plan addressing the conditions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Isis, let alone Iran and Pakistan.</p>
<p>However, over the last few years, Trump has made repeated – if often confusing – statements about the war in Afghanistan. The following are some of his gems:</p>
<p>“We made a terrible mistake getting involved there [Afghanistan] in the first place. We had real brilliant thinkers that didn’t know what the hell they were doing. And it’s a mess. It’s a mess. And at this point, you probably have to [stay] because that thing will collapse about two seconds after they leave. Just as I said that Iraq was going to collapse after we leave.”</p>
<p>“I never said that. OK, wouldn’t matter, I never said it. Afghanistan is a different kettle. Afghanistan is next to Pakistan, it’s an entry in. You have to be careful with the nuclear weapons. It’s all about the nuclear weapons. By the way, without the nukes, it’s a whole different ballgame.”</p>
<p>“I would stay in Afghanistan. I hate doing it. I hate doing it so much. But again, you have nuclear weapons in Pakistan, so I would do it.”</p>
<p>“I don’t trust him [Putin]. But the truth is, it’s not a question of trust. I don’t want to see the United States get bogged down. We’ve spent now $2 trillion in Iraq, probably a trillion in Afghanistan. We’re destroying our country.”</p>
<p>“Afghanistan is not like what’s happening in Chicago. &#160;People are being shot…”</p>
<p>A plan for Afghanistan will likely be announced after Trump fulfills his campaign promises with one executive order after another.&#160; Its outline might be suggested by the three U.S. military outposts in operations – 1,000&#160;soldiers&#160;in Kuwait, 400 marines in Syria&#160;and 1,000&#160;(of a promised 4,000)&#160;troops in Poland.&#160; And the civilian-causality continues to mount with a minimum of <a href="https://airwars.org" type="external">2,543 civilians</a> killed by Coalition forces.</p>
<p>It appears that Pres. Obama was a restraining force not only against the inherent war-making tendencies of the military leadership, but also – during his first term – a hawkish Sec. of State.&#160; With Trump, the gloves are off and the military can do whatever it wants.&#160; “Mad Dog” seems to be following the Obama line of cautious probes with a limited number of military personnel, but backed by extensive military aid and air support.</p>
<p>One can only wonder if Trump and his advisers share a common fantasy to renew the Great Game by committing a sizable force of the U.S. military to battle insurgent forces of anti-modernism, of local corruption and 1st-world exploitation.&#160; We’ll learn more when the plan comes out – if it ever does.&#160; Scarier still, the only Congressional leaders to likely hold back the worse-instincts of Mattis and Trump (with Steve Bannon) from a still-deeper engagement in Afghanistan, or another war zone, is Senators McCain and Lindsey Graham, two conservative, militarist Republicans.&#160; Scary times.</p> | true | 4 | ten days taking office pres donald trumps ordered first foreign military initiative covert counterterrorism operation160by navys seal160team 6 yemen 160he apparently approved attack following discussions principle strategist stephen bannon160 trump person still claims great success even though led death 24 innocent civilians us serviceman let alone reported 75 million cost helicopter war afghanistan 16th year longest war us history160 knows long drag trump commanderandchief us military intelligence nuclear forces160 since warmonger troika pres george bush vp dick chaney sec war donald rumsfeld reigned supreme reported 6800 us troops died wars afghanistan iraq 2003 2015 relatively tiny bodycount compared losses american lives sacrificed vietnam war 48000 world war ii 292000160 one wonder americans war afghanistan unlike romans likely felt middle east wars taking place time jesus160 media sight minds americans american medias attention span nanosecond moment latest scandal next hyped press release160 currently consumed shakespearian soap opera playing white house stage let alone foreign engagements like battle isis syrian civil war battle mosul waged iraq160 afghanistan 1893 agreement great britain afghanistan signed kabul reconfirming 1873 agreement launched great game 160a century later 1979 game saw former soviet union invade afghanistan withdraw defeat decade later 1989160 portrayed mike nichols movie charlie wilsons war cias secret support afghan160mujahideen defeated soviet military 160now nearly 16 years september 11th attacks us flounders latest round great game160 trump like nixon vietnam proclaim victory withdraw face defeat 9800 us troops 5000 troops allied countries still fighting afghanistan service split fighting terrorist groups propping faltering government 160in february sen john mccain raz chairman armed service committee lamented state war afghanistan want know losing need start winning good senator simply read january 30 2016 report special inspector general afghanistan reconstruction sigar would gotten answer160 states taliban controls territory time since 2001 vicious repeated attacks kabul quarter shook confidence nationalunity government year coalition handed responsibility afghan security afghan national defense security forces andsf american british forces compelled several occasions support andsf troops combat taliban lack security made almost impossible many us even afghan officials get manage inspect usfunded reconstruction projects december 2016 dept defense reported congress usbacked afghan government controlled 20160percent afghan population taliban controlled 10160percent160 politico reports november 2016 afghan government controlled half 57 countrys districts160 alarming usbacked governmentcontrolled districts 21 percent former districtcontrol since year earlier november 2015 writing foreign policy jason dempsey paints eyeopening disappointing view current situation afghanistan united states military failed america afghanistan wasnt tactical failure failure leadership james mattis sec defense retired marine corps general oversees nations war machine among failed afghan leadership160 spent four decades military commands persian gulf war iraq afghanistan160 garnered nickname mad dog role 2004 battle fallujah iraq year ordered attack suspected foreign fighter safe house small iraqi village mukareeb led killing 42 people attending wedding ceremony160 20102013 commander us central command uscentcom forced pres obama hardline hawkish stance iran mattis famous pithy statements one made fellow officers notorious assholes world need shot hunters victims discipline cunning obedience alertness decide hunter victim really hell lot fun youre gon na blast 160 mattis senate confirmation hearing retired green beret officer fellow new america think tank jason amerine raised question mattis leadership160 amerine claimed mad dog hesitated sending medical evacuation flights left soldiers die 2001 friendlyfire incident afghanistan160 staff sgt brian cody prosser least two afghans died hit us bomb outside kandahar160 indecisive betrayed duty us leaving men die golden hour could reached us wrote amerine 160mattis leads americans longfailed campaign middle east north africa let alone rest world current afghan government ashraf ghani president abdullah abdullah chief executive mired ageold160corruption embezzlement bribery siphoning billions us dollars private bank accounts payoffs warlords taliban160 equally troubling unemployment estimated 40 percent millions afghans fled pakistan iran europe160more disturbing last 15 years us invested 85 billion fight opium cultivation trafficking afghans illegal opium industry booming160 sigar report found afghan farmers growing opium ever account estimated 90 percent worlds illicit opiates like heroin160 uns office drugs crime160reported afghan opium production jumped 43 percent last year trump office two months laid new military plan afghanistan new sec war issued comprehensive plan addressing conditions afghanistan iraq syria isis let alone iran pakistan however last years trump made repeated often confusing statements war afghanistan following gems made terrible mistake getting involved afghanistan first place real brilliant thinkers didnt know hell mess mess point probably stay thing collapse two seconds leave said iraq going collapse leave never said ok wouldnt matter never said afghanistan different kettle afghanistan next pakistan entry careful nuclear weapons nuclear weapons way without nukes whole different ballgame would stay afghanistan hate hate much nuclear weapons pakistan would dont trust putin truth question trust dont want see united states get bogged weve spent 2 trillion iraq probably trillion afghanistan destroying country afghanistan like whats happening chicago 160people shot plan afghanistan likely announced trump fulfills campaign promises one executive order another160 outline might suggested three us military outposts operations 1000160soldiers160in kuwait 400 marines syria160and 1000160of promised 4000160troops poland160 civiliancausality continues mount minimum 2543 civilians killed coalition forces appears pres obama restraining force inherent warmaking tendencies military leadership also first term hawkish sec state160 trump gloves military whatever wants160 mad dog seems following obama line cautious probes limited number military personnel backed extensive military aid air support one wonder trump advisers share common fantasy renew great game committing sizable force us military battle insurgent forces antimodernism local corruption 1stworld exploitation160 well learn plan comes ever does160 scarier still congressional leaders likely hold back worseinstincts mattis trump steve bannon stilldeeper engagement afghanistan another war zone senators mccain lindsey graham two conservative militarist republicans160 scary times | 925 |
<p>Mother Jones guest blogger Mark Armstrong is the founder of <a href="http://www.longreads.com/" type="external">Longreads</a>, a site devoted to uncovering the best long-form nonfiction articles available online. And what better time to curl up with a great read than over the weekend?&#160;Below, a hand-picked bouquet of five interesting stories, including word count and approximate reading time. (Readers can also <a href="http://www.longreads.com/subscribe" type="external">subscribe to The Top 5 Longreads of the Week by clicking here</a>.)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/magazine/mag-24Obama-t.html?ref=magazine&amp;pagewanted=all" type="external">1. Obama’s Young Mother Abroad</a> | Janny Scott | New York Times Magazine | April 20, 2011 | 25 minutes (6,215 words)</p>
<p>Scott conducted nearly 200 interviews over two and a half years to examine the life and relationships of Stanley Ann Dunham, a white mom with a half-African son, living in Indonesia at the height of unrest in the country in the late 1960s. She never got to see Barry become president:</p>
<p>“In the preface to the 2004 edition of ‘Dreams From My Father,’ issued nine years after the first edition and nine years after Dunham’s death (in 1995), Obama folded in a revealing admission: had he known his mother would not survive her illness, he might have written a different book — ‘less a meditation on the absent parent, more a celebration of the one who was the single constant in my life.’</p>
<p>“Dunham, for whom a letter in Jakarta from her son in the United States could raise her spirits for a full day, surely wondered about her place in his life. On rare occasions, she indicated as much — painfully, wistfully — to close friends. But she would not have been inclined to overstate her case. As she told him, with a dry humor that seems downright Kansan, ‘If nothing else, I gave you an interesting life.'”</p>
<p><a href="http://nymag.com/print/?/news/politics/70829/" type="external">See also: “The West Wing, Season II” (John Heilemann, New York Magazine, Jan. 2011)</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/magazine/mag-24Obama-t.html?ref=magazine&amp;pagewanted=all" type="external" /></p>
<p><a href="http://deadspin.com/#!5793919" type="external">2. How These Two White Guys Wound Up In This Kendrick Perkins Family Photo</a> | Alan Siegel | Deadspin | April 20, 2011 | 11 minutes (2,663 words)</p>
<p>Former Boston Celtic Kendrick Perkins befriends two goofy kids who run a fan blog; they end up invited to his wedding, his bachelor party, his house and the NBA Finals:</p>
<p>“Perk married his girlfriend, Vanity Alpough, on July 25, 2009, near Houston. Brian and Justin, who was bound for Providence College that fall, were guests. They flew out a few days before the ceremony and showed up at Perk’s house in The Woodlands, a posh planned community. Their luggage had been lost, and Brian wore an oversized white T-shirt he’d bought at a drug store. Justin was in a Star Wars shirt he’d worn on the plane.</p>
<p>“They figured they’d be able to hang out, relax, and then crash at the hotel. They were wrong. As soon as Brian and Justin arrived, they were told to get ready for the bachelor party. ‘These white dudes are my boys from Boston,’ Perk explained to his assembled friends, among them Rajon Rondo. ‘They run Perk is a Beast,’ Perk said. ‘They’re from out of town. They don’t know how we do it.’ Justin and Brian soon found out how it was done. ‘We’re [at a club] in downtown Houston, with a cavalcade of the hardest-looking dudes you’ve ever seen,’ Brian said. ‘Right behind Perk is Justin, in a Stormtrooper T-shirt and shorts.'”</p>
<p><a href="http://deadspin.com/#!5763002/the-loneliness-of-the-american-college-transfer-student" type="external">More Deadspin: The Loneliness of the American College Transfer Student (Drew Magary, Feb. 17, 2011)</a></p>
<p><a href="http://deadspin.com/#!5793919" type="external" /></p>
<p><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/04/25/110425fa_fact_bilger?currentPage=all" type="external">3. The Possibilian</a> | Burkhard Bilger | The New Yorker | April 18, 2011 | 37 minutes (9,275 words)</p>
<p>Neuroscientist David Eagleman uses a studio full of drummers and a Zero Gravity thrill ride to test how we perceive time passing, and how our senses report back to the brain. For his amusement park experiment, Eagleman aimed to show how fear can cause time to slow down:</p>
<p>“One of the seats of emotion and memory in the brain is the amygdala, he explained. When something threatens your life, this area seems to kick into overdrive, recording every last detail of the experience. The more detailed the memory, the longer the moment seems to last. ‘This explains why we think that time speeds up when we grow older,’ Eagleman said—why childhood summers seem to go on forever, while old age slips by while we’re dozing. The more familiar the world becomes, the less information your brain writes down, and the more quickly time seems to pass.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/24/081124fa_fact_bilger?currentPage=all" type="external">More Bilger: “A Better Brew: The Rise of Extreme Beer” (Nov. 2008)</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/04/25/110425fa_fact_bilger?currentPage=all" type="external" /></p>
<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/04/17/where_does_good_come_from/?page=full" type="external">4. Where Does Good Come From?</a> | Leon Neyfakh | Boston Globe | April 17, 2011 | 9 minutes (2,349 words)</p>
<p>Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson, at 81, offers an alternative explanation on the origins of altruism—countering the widely accepted evolutionary theory that it’s a product of “kin selection”—that we help others because of our genetic link to fellow humans. Wilson now calls the kin selection theory a “gimmick”:</p>
<p>“The alternative theory holds that the origins of altruism and teamwork have nothing to do with kinship or the degree of relatedness between individuals. The key, Wilson said, is the group: Under certain circumstances, groups of cooperators can out-compete groups of non-cooperators, thereby ensuring that their genes — including the ones that predispose them to cooperation — are handed down to future generations. This so-called group selection, Wilson insists, is what forms the evolutionary basis for a variety of advanced social behaviors linked to altruism, teamwork, and tribalism — a position that other scientists have taken over the years, but which historically has been considered, in Wilson’s own word, ‘heresy.'”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2011/03/20/out_of_options/?page=full" type="external">More Neyfakh: Out of Options: The Surprising Culprit in the Nuclear Crisis (March 20, 2011)</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/04/17/where_does_good_come_from/?page=full" type="external" /></p>
<p><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/21/elif-batuman-bestseller-life" type="external">5. Elif Batuman: Life After a Bestseller</a> | Elif Batuman | The Guardian | April 21, 2011 | 13 minutes (3,211 words)</p>
<p>Having a critically acclaimed bestseller doesn’t make social gatherings any easier. Batuman writes about a long voyage from her home in Turkey to New York City for the National Book Critics Circle awards, where she reconnects with an old flame and, during a dinner, asks Jonathan Franzen if he has any weed:</p>
<p>“‘Wheat?’ Franzen’s agent repeated, frowning. ‘Why would you need wheat?’</p>
<p>“‘Not wheat – weed.’</p>
<p>“She stared at me blankly.</p>
<p>“‘Weed,’ my agent repeated.</p>
<p>“‘There’s some in my freezer,’ Franzen said. ‘But it’s all the way uptown.’</p>
<p>“The night began to unwind with increasing rapidity, like a spool of thread. A and my agent were debating whether I should hire a young, impoverished writer to be my personal assistant. My agent thought that writers made great assistants, because of their communication skills, but A felt that writers couldn’t be relied on to leave any employment without producing a tell-all memoir.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/magazine/26kafka-t.html?_r=1&amp;hp=&amp;pagewanted=all" type="external">More Batuman: “Kafka’s Last Trial” (New York Times, Sept. 2010)</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/21/elif-batuman-bestseller-life" type="external" /></p>
<p>Featured Longreader: Michelle Legro <a href="http://twitter.com/michellelegro" type="external">@michellelegro</a></p>
<p>Michelle is an associate editor at <a href="http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/" type="external">Lapham’s Quarterly</a></p>
<p>“I was sixteen when I first saw Titus Andronicus, the slasher of a Shakespeare tragedy that gets no respect. It was a film adaptation of a stage play by an ambitious director who luxuriated in blood-red banners, fascist architecture, and metal breastplates. I loved it. And I’m worried that the woman who directed it, Julie Taymor, may go down in theater history as getting no respect, either. Her well-documented failures, both on stage and on screen, are something to think about because they don’t fail out of laziness or lack of vision. In <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/may/12/why-she-fell/?pagination=false" type="external">‘Why She Fell,’</a> Daniel Mendelsohn deconstructs her latest disaster Spiderman: Turn off the Dark with the usual grandiosity of a NYRB review—Ovid! Leitmotifs!—but it’s worth reading about the sad fall of an artist who began her career working with the simplest shadow puppets, only to let them take over her entire world.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/may/12/why-she-fell/?pagination=false" type="external">Why She Fell</a> | Daniel Mendelsohn | New York Review of Books | April 22, 2011 | 16 minutes (4,012 words)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/may/12/why-she-fell/?pagination=false" type="external" /></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | mother jones guest blogger mark armstrong founder longreads site devoted uncovering best longform nonfiction articles available online better time curl great read weekend160below handpicked bouquet five interesting stories including word count approximate reading time readers also subscribe top 5 longreads week clicking 1 obamas young mother abroad janny scott new york times magazine april 20 2011 25 minutes 6215 words scott conducted nearly 200 interviews two half years examine life relationships stanley ann dunham white mom halfafrican son living indonesia height unrest country late 1960s never got see barry become president preface 2004 edition dreams father issued nine years first edition nine years dunhams death 1995 obama folded revealing admission known mother would survive illness might written different book less meditation absent parent celebration one single constant life dunham letter jakarta son united states could raise spirits full day surely wondered place life rare occasions indicated much painfully wistfully close friends would inclined overstate case told dry humor seems downright kansan nothing else gave interesting life see also west wing season ii john heilemann new york magazine jan 2011 2 two white guys wound kendrick perkins family photo alan siegel deadspin april 20 2011 11 minutes 2663 words former boston celtic kendrick perkins befriends two goofy kids run fan blog end invited wedding bachelor party house nba finals perk married girlfriend vanity alpough july 25 2009 near houston brian justin bound providence college fall guests flew days ceremony showed perks house woodlands posh planned community luggage lost brian wore oversized white tshirt hed bought drug store justin star wars shirt hed worn plane figured theyd able hang relax crash hotel wrong soon brian justin arrived told get ready bachelor party white dudes boys boston perk explained assembled friends among rajon rondo run perk beast perk said theyre town dont know justin brian soon found done club downtown houston cavalcade hardestlooking dudes youve ever seen brian said right behind perk justin stormtrooper tshirt shorts deadspin loneliness american college transfer student drew magary feb 17 2011 3 possibilian burkhard bilger new yorker april 18 2011 37 minutes 9275 words neuroscientist david eagleman uses studio full drummers zero gravity thrill ride test perceive time passing senses report back brain amusement park experiment eagleman aimed show fear cause time slow one seats emotion memory brain amygdala explained something threatens life area seems kick overdrive recording every last detail experience detailed memory longer moment seems last explains think time speeds grow older eagleman saidwhy childhood summers seem go forever old age slips dozing familiar world becomes less information brain writes quickly time seems pass bilger better brew rise extreme beer nov 2008 4 good come leon neyfakh boston globe april 17 2011 9 minutes 2349 words harvard biologist edward wilson 81 offers alternative explanation origins altruismcountering widely accepted evolutionary theory product kin selectionthat help others genetic link fellow humans wilson calls kin selection theory gimmick alternative theory holds origins altruism teamwork nothing kinship degree relatedness individuals key wilson said group certain circumstances groups cooperators outcompete groups noncooperators thereby ensuring genes including ones predispose cooperation handed future generations socalled group selection wilson insists forms evolutionary basis variety advanced social behaviors linked altruism teamwork tribalism position scientists taken years historically considered wilsons word heresy neyfakh options surprising culprit nuclear crisis march 20 2011 5 elif batuman life bestseller elif batuman guardian april 21 2011 13 minutes 3211 words critically acclaimed bestseller doesnt make social gatherings easier batuman writes long voyage home turkey new york city national book critics circle awards reconnects old flame dinner asks jonathan franzen weed wheat franzens agent repeated frowning would need wheat wheat weed stared blankly weed agent repeated theres freezer franzen said way uptown night began unwind increasing rapidity like spool thread agent debating whether hire young impoverished writer personal assistant agent thought writers made great assistants communication skills felt writers couldnt relied leave employment without producing tellall memoir batuman kafkas last trial new york times sept 2010 featured longreader michelle legro michellelegro michelle associate editor laphams quarterly sixteen first saw titus andronicus slasher shakespeare tragedy gets respect film adaptation stage play ambitious director luxuriated bloodred banners fascist architecture metal breastplates loved im worried woman directed julie taymor may go theater history getting respect either welldocumented failures stage screen something think dont fail laziness lack vision fell daniel mendelsohn deconstructs latest disaster spiderman turn dark usual grandiosity nyrb reviewovid leitmotifsbut worth reading sad fall artist began career working simplest shadow puppets let take entire world fell daniel mendelsohn new york review books april 22 2011 16 minutes 4012 words 160 | 758 |
<p>Last November, over 300 Christian leaders (theologians, seminary professors, bishops and other&#160;denominational heads) issued The Boston Declaration, which challenges “the corruption of US Christianity.” &#160;Especially corrupting, they point out, is the white supremacy of evangelical Christians, which leads them to support politicians whose promotion of policies of “exclusion, exploitation, and hatred” promises to maintain white privilege and “the normalizing of oppression.” &#160;This distortion of Christianity is contrary to one of Jesus’ fundamental teachings: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” <a href="" type="internal">(‘PRESS RELEASE- THE BOSTON DECLARATION,’</a> thebostondeclaration.com, Nov. 20, 2017)</p>
<p>The Boston Declaration’s condemnation of white evangelical Christianity’s support of exclusionary nationalistic policies is laudable as far as it goes. &#160;A litany of “false ideologies” are rightly rejected, including: “the false ideology of empire building and the myth of racial laziness and substance abuse that harms the people of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the US territories;” peace and security “through military strength and . . . violence;” “the corporate ruling class that services . . . the US military” and marginalizes “poor communities of color;” “American exceptionalism and the evil of political corruption;” equating “whiteness with Christianity, true humanity, and United States citizenship;” “antisemitism, which is driving much of white Christian nationalism;” “patriarchal and misogynistic legacies that subject women to continual violence, violation, and exclusion . . . including sexual abuse in the highest offices of power;” stripping the resources of the Earth and polluting it; economic policies that favor the wealthy and deny the many; “Islamophobia and &#160;anti-Muslim bigotry;“ “homophobia and transphobia and all violence against the LGBTQ community;” and “all anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies that fail to recognize the contributions of immigrants . . . [that] strengthen the fabric of this nation.” <a href="https://thebostondeclaration.com/" type="external">(‘THE BOSTON DECLARATION,’</a> thebostondeclaration.com, Nov. 20, 2017)</p>
<p>The Boston Declaration’s “Call to Action” is also admirable up to a point.&#160; Following “the Jesus Way” is about “reject[ing] all political and social movements that do not lead to life.”&#160; Positively, following Jesus is about “welcoming the stranger and ‘treating the foreigner with love, for we were once foreigners in Egypt’ (Deut. 10:19).”&#160; It is about bearing witness to a “God who is neither male nor female and who embraces all people regardless of their identity.”&#160; About “discover[ing] the gift of being creatures not as something to be overcome, but embraced, discovering the fullness of our humanity in the flourishing of all women.” &#160;“Embrac[ing] a future where the legacies of white supremacy are dismantled.”&#160; Orienting “our power . . . toward mutual community,” not “empire.”&#160; Making “love and mutuality be the marks of our lives together, our community building, our budgets, and our public policies.”&#160; Caring for the earth and all of creation. &#160;“Stand[ing] in solidarity with our Muslim sisters and brothers and all immigrants, fighting against Islamophobia and Xenophobia.”&#160; And the Declaration’s final vow: “May we continue to stand with anyone who calls for justice, mercy, and love in the world.” (Ibid)</p>
<p>The Boston Declaration’s “Prophetic Appeal to Christians in the United States” cites numerous critical justice issues, but suffers from vagueness and generalizations, stopping short of naming names, of identifying and elaborating on specific oppressive governmental policies, and of proposing concrete actions.&#160; In this respect, it is evident that the ecclesiastical superiors of a number of the Declaration’s signatories are casting a shadow over their deliberations.</p>
<p>The test of being prophetic is whether faith leaders speak reality and moral truth to political power — &#160;and not just bind up the wounds of those fallen victim to that power, which is also critical.&#160; The test is great because some members of a faith leader’s own congregation may have voted that political power into office.&#160; An even greater challenge is that prophetic-minded faith leaders must also deal with their own religion’s superiors, many of whom serve as guardians of the status quo, and disapprove of political friction that could disaffect certain complaining and influential congregants and also create conflict in the larger community&#160;&#160; A great fear of many superiors is the loss of members and thus money and status.&#160; And the cardinal doctrine dictating the behavior of many clergy is not faith in the grace of God, but fear of falling out of the good graces of superiors who have power over their employment.&#160; You can’t have a hierarchy without a lowerarchy.&#160;&#160; Clergy often get ahead by going along.&#160; Thus, for self-protective reasons, “Keep religion out of politics!” is deeply embedded in the spiritual psyche of numerous clergy.&#160; The Boston Declaration is to be lauded as far as it goes, and is instructive because of where it stops.</p>
<p>Certain of the Declaration’s statements are inspiring, even courageous, but lack grounding.&#160; Such as “the Jesus Way,” which calls for “confronting evil wherever evil exists, to combat ignorance wherever ignorance has led people astray and to place our lives and our bodies on the line with whoever is being threatened, beat down, or oppressed in any way, anywhere.” (italics added)&#160; Also, “We declare that following Jesus today means fighting poverty, economic exploitation, racism, sexism, and all forms of oppression (italics added) from the deepest wells of our faith.” (Ibid)</p>
<p>“All forms of oppression” is an example of a number of generalizations found in the Boston Declaration. The signatories rightly “stand against the manufacturing and proliferation of weapons which continue to drown the planet in the blood of millions through global war and the terrorism of domestic mass shootings.” (Ibid)&#160; But the Boston Declaration signatories say nothing about the worst war crime of the 21st Century, committed by a United Methodist: former president George W. Bush’s unnecessary, falsely-based pre-emptive invasions of defenseless Afghanistan and Iraq.&#160; The invasion of Iraq alone drowned that country in the blood of over one million civilians killed, uprooted millions more, sacrificed the lives of thousands of America’s young men and women military persons on the altar of capitalistic greed, and gave rise to the brutal ISIS.</p>
<p>The signatories’ abstract reference to “global war” also fails to identify the “evil” that spawned the criminal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan: America’s so-called “global war on terrorism,” launched by President Bush, ostensibly to avenge the horrible 9/11 attacks against America. &#160;In reality, those attacks served as a cover for our bipartisan government’s capitalistic pursuit of world domination.&#160; The fact that Iraq’s tremendous oil reserves are now controlled by Western oil companies is not about freeing the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator — Saddam Hussein who was once America’s ally — as Bush repeatedly claimed, but about freeing up their energy resources for the profit of Western firms, lining the pockets of the military, industrial, intelligence complex, and paving the way for white evangelical Christian carpetbaggers to convert Muslims to their Christ.</p>
<p>The signatories could have faulted white evangelical Christians for supporting President Bush’s criminal invasion of Iraq.&#160;&#160; A high majority of them saw it as an excellent opportunity to convert Iraqi Muslims to Christ.</p>
<p>It is assumed that many of the signatories themselves, and their denominations, strongly opposed invading Iraq.&#160; But once American military boots were on the ground in Iraq it would have been quite risky to continue to forcibly speak reality and moral truth to political — and denominational — power about that war.</p>
<p>The Boston Declaration signatories’ “prophetic appeal” includes a confession of their own shortcomings.&#160; Their sins, however, consist of detached theological generalizations: “We acknowledge the manifold and complicated ways we participate in these systems, even as we are often complicit in them.” &#160;They “confess that the Church, in a variety of forms, has too often failed to follow the way of Jesus and perform the good news.”&#160; And, “We are people who are still discovering the ways we participate with death and evil, even while we continue to seek the good, to choose life again and again” (Ibid)</p>
<p>A representative group of the signatories “put on sackcloth and ashes to dramatically grieve over the corruption of US Christianity and to call the country into a time of reflection and action to end oppression.” <a href="" type="internal">(‘PRESS RELEASE – THE BOSTON DECLARATION,’</a> Ibid) &#160;Timely also would have been a call for specific national soul searching.&#160; Much “oppression” could have been exposed and addressed by such examination.&#160; &#160;Beginning with former President Bush’s explanation of the motivation of those who attacked America on 9/11: “Make no mistake about it,” Bush declared, “these are evil doers.&#160; They have no justification for their actions.”&#160; The self-appointed theologian-in-chief then doubled down: “There’s no religious justification, there’s no political justification.&#160; The only motivation is evil.” <a href="" type="internal">(“International Campaign Against Terror Grows: Remaks by President Bush and Prime Minister Koizumi of Japan in Photo Opportunity,”</a> The White House, Sept. 25, 2001)</p>
<p>The motivation for the 9/11 attacks against America is not about “evil” — if one dares to really examine the “death and evil” caused by our own bipartisan government.&#160; The Boston Declaration signatories would have done well to call for a national confession based on the Pentagon’s own advisory panel’s report, whose findings were revealed after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. &#160;According to the report, “Muslims do not hate our freedom, but rather they hate our policies.”&#160; Those policies include America’s “one-sided support in favour of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, ever-increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf States.&#160; Thus,” the report continues, ”when American public policy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy.” <a href="" type="internal">(“U.S. Fails to Explain Policies to Muslim World, Panel Says,”</a> By Thom Shanker, The New York Times. Nov. 24, 2004; <a href="" type="internal">“US ‘alienating world’s Muslims,”</a> BBC NEWS, Nov. 25, 2004)</p>
<p>Contrary to President Bush justifying his criminal wars by saying that “freedom is God’s gift to every man and woman in the world,” the Pentagon’s advisory panel found “no yearning-to-be-liberated-by-the-U.S. groundswell among Muslim societies – except to be liberated perhaps from what they see as apostate tyrannies that the U.S. so determinedly promotes and defends.”&#160; The report’s bottom line: “In the eyes of Muslims, American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq have not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering.” (Ibid)</p>
<p>President Bush’s bipartisan-supported “global war on terrorism” continues.&#160; A war seemingly against much of the world, violating countries’ national sovereignty, killing “whoever,” “wherever,” “anywhere.”&#160; President Barack Obama followed in George W. Bush’s footsteps, pursuing the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, and reportedly “launched airstrikes or military raids in at least seven countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.” <a href="http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-na-pol-obama-at-war/" type="external">http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-na-pol-obama-at-war/</a> By Christi Parsons and W. J. Hennigan, &#160;Los Angeles Times, Jan. 13, 2017)&#160; Obama intensified the use of drone warfare that killed countless innocents.&#160; He also created a “kill list,” giving himself executive power to identify and assassinate so-called “terrorists,” including Americans, without due process.</p>
<p>Donald Trump succeeded President Obama, promising to kill the family members of ISIS.&#160; He kept that promise, outdoing Obama.&#160; As reported, “According to the research from the nonprofit monitoring group Airwars, the first seven months of the Trump administration have already resulted in more civilian deaths than under the entirety of the Obama administration.” <a href="https://theconversation.com/under-the-trump-administration-us-airstrikes-are-killing-more-civilians-85154" type="external">(“Under the Trump administration, US airstrikes are killing more civilians,”</a> theconversation.com, Oct. 13, 2017)</p>
<p>A psychopathic and delusions of grandeur-driven President Trump is just getting started. &#160;Last August he said that nuclear weapons-pursuing “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” or “they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” <a href="" type="internal">(“What Donald Trump’s ‘fire and fury’ on North Korea might signify,”</a> By Chris Cillizzi, CNNPolitics, Aug. 8, 2017) Then, two months before the signatories issued The Boston Declaration, Trump said, in a United Nations speech:“ If the United States “is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea” — a country of over 25 million people. <a href="" type="internal">(“Trump Threatens to ‘Totally Destroy’ North Korea in First U.N. Speech,”</a> by Ali Vitali, nbcnews.com, Sept. 21, 2017)</p>
<p>Never mind that North Korea is building nuclear weapons to defend itself against the United States, having witnessed the grisly murder of Col. Muammar Gaddafi and the US-led military destruction of Libya after Gaddafi gave up his nuclear weapon.&#160; Also witnessing Trump’s trashing of the nuclear weapons freeze agreement President Obama made with Iran, and calling Iran “a corrupt dictatorship” and “murderous regime . . . whose main export is violence.” <a href="" type="internal">(“Trump calls Iran a ‘corrupt dictatorship’ and exporter of violence,”</a> Middle East Eye, Sept. 20, 2017)&#160; And witnessing what happened to Iraq after being falsely accused of having weapons of mass destruction.</p>
<p>In the face of all of this criminality, the original architect of “the global war on terrorism,” the one who said, “Christ changed my heart,” is not only walking around free, but admired by many people of faith.&#160; The United Methodist Church also named a library and museum after him at Southern Methodist University.&#160; And he even shows up in newspaper headlines, with stories quoting his moral advice for President Donald Trump: “We’ve seen the return of isolationist sentiments, forgetting that American security is directly threatened by the chaos and despair of distant places.” <a href="" type="internal">(“Without Saying ‘Trump,’ Bush and Obama Deliver Implicit Rebukes,”</a> By Peter Baker, The New York Times, Oct. 19, 2017)</p>
<p>Never mind “the chaos and despair of distant places” that George W. Bush sowed — that continue to fester, and to cause blowback violence against America and its allies.&#160; For the Boston Declaration, it is as if the “death-dealing powers” the Bush administration unleashed don’t count.&#160; A number of the signatories are United Methodist seminary professors and other of the denomination’s leaders.&#160; It is assumed that including the above history on President George W. Bush in the Declaration probably would not have gone over well with the ecclesiastical superiors of these signatories – nor probably with the denominational superiors of certain other signatories.</p>
<p>The same evasive dynamic appears to have guided The Boston Declaration’s statement on the Jews and Palestinians.&#160; The signatories state, “May we stand in solidarity against anti-Semitism and the use of any&#160; language and actions that threaten the lives of our Jewish sisters and brothers while standing with the plight for human rights with our Palestinian brothers and sisters.” <a href="" type="internal">(“The Boston Declaration,”</a> Ibid) &#160;However, the signatories do not address Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians — with US government support — which is the cause of the Palestinians’ human rights plight.</p>
<p>Renowned political analyst and activist Noam Chomsky has stated that Palestinians in Gaza are “subject to random terror and arbitrary punishment, with no purpose other than to humiliate and degrade,” turning Gaza into “the world’s largest open-air prison.” <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/12635-noam-chomsky-my-visit-to-gaza-the-worlds-largest-open-air-prison" type="external">(“Noam Chomsky: My Visit to Gaza, the World’s Largest Open-Air Prison,”</a> By Noam Chomsky, <a href="http://www.truth-out.org" type="external">www.truth-out.org</a>, Nov. 9, 2012)&#160; The building of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank continues, shrinking any viable Palestine nation in the long proposed two-state solution.&#160; And President Trump’s recent unilateral selection of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital — in the face of the Palestinians’ claiming east Jerusalem as their future capital — further undermines any real two-state solution. &#160;The Boston Declaration signatories avoided these moral realities, perhaps out of fear of being called “anti-Semitic” or of alienating certain would be signatories or of rocking their denominational boats.</p>
<p>The Boston Declaration’s political references are characterized by safe generalizations. Such as, “Death and evil seem to reign supreme in the United States, when those with the power of a uniform or the president’s pen or a position of authority or fame or economic tricks of capitalization and interest of sheer brute force . . . again and again choose death rather than life.”&#160; And, “When many who confess Christ advocate evil, we believe the followers of the Jesus Way are called to renounce, denounce, and resist these death-dealing powers . . . not to embrace or promulgate them.”&#160; Also, “As followers of Jesus, it is vital that we take action when our government seeks to continuously harm life made in God’s image by cutting social safety-nets and forcing the poorest and most powerless among us to spiral into an abyss of desperation.”&#160; Finally, “We reject the false ideology of empire building.” <a href="" type="internal">(‘THE BOSTON DECLARATION,’ Ibid)</a></p>
<p>Relevant would have been The Boston Declaration specifying the $700 billion budgeted for the military to continue America’s “global war on terrorism” — this amount is more than seven times that of the next eight countries combined.&#160; Also pertinent are the tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans, with an eye down the road to pay for the deficits incurred by cutting the Medicare and Social Security benefits of millions of Americans.</p>
<p>Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. provides a model here.&#160; In a speech on <a href="" type="internal">‘THE CAUSALTIES OF THE WAR IN VIETNAM,’</a> he was very specific and inclusive about government action that “harm[s] life made in God’s image.”&#160; He expressed empathy for the Vietnam people, declaring, “Whether we realize it or not our participation in the war in Vietnam is an ominous expression of our lack of sympathy for the oppressed, our paranoid anti-Communism, our failure to feel the ache and anguish of the Have Nots.”&#160; He said the Vietnam War “reveals our willingness to continue participating in neo-colonial adventures&#160; . . . and turn the clock of history back and perpetuate white colonialism.” (AFRICAN-AMERICAN INVOLVEMENT IN THE VIETNAM WAR, Feb. 25, 1967)</p>
<p>Dr. King connected the Vietnam War to the quality of life in America, saying that “the promises of the Great Society have been shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.”&#160; He became specific: “The pursuit of this widened war has narrowed domestic welfare programs, making the poor, white and Negro, bear the heaviest burdens both at the front and at home.”&#160; King then provided a prophetic statement for us Americans today: “The security we profess to seek in foreign adventures we will lose in our decaying cities.&#160; The bombs in Vietnam explode at home.&#160; They destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America.” (Ibid)</p>
<p>When Dr. King globalized the civil rights movement, connecting&#160; the “Have Nots” of Vietnam to the narrowing of “welfare programs” at home, he became an even more dangerous, politically-focused, prophet of all the people.&#160; As he said in his <a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm" type="external">“I’ve been to the mountaintop</a>” speech, “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life.&#160; . . .&#160; I’ve seen the Promised Land.&#160; I may not get there with you.” (“Martin Luther King Jr: Top 100 Speeches,” www.americanrhetoric.com)</p>
<p>The Boston Declaration itself is modeled after a declaration that confronted the state and the church: the Barmen Declaration of 1934, formulated by German faith leaders to challenge the complicity of German Christians with Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party.&#160; Faith leaders, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Karl Barth and Martin Niemoller, called out the false “pro-Nazi” doctrines of Christians that “glorified Adolf Hitler as a ‘German prophet’ and preached that racial consciousness was a source of revelation alongside the Bible.” <a href="http://clclibrary-org.tripod.com/Barmen.html" type="external">(“The Barmen Declaration, 1934,”</a> clclibrary-org,tripod.org.)&#160; The Berman Declaration not only challenged the accommodation of German Christians to the “death-dealing powers” of Adolf Hitler; it confronted the Nazi regime itself, which led to the execution of Bonhoeffer and others, and to the imprisonment of Niemoller and many clergy and laypersons.</p>
<p>The Boston Declaration’s “prophetic appeal to Christians of the United States” should focus on political leaders, who wield power, not just on white evangelical Christians, who seek access to that power to impose their exclusionary, oppressive Biblically-based beliefs on society.&#160; A risky, and crucial, prophetic imperative is calling into question America’s endless “global war on terrorism,” and demanding that diplomacy, not military force, guide U.S. foreign policy.&#160; To be challenged here is the militarization of America, magnified by President Bush after the 9/11 attacks, and continued by President Obama and, now, President Trump.&#160; It is about following the money from the militarization of America to the “global war on terrorism” to the military/industrial/energy, intelligence/religious complex.&#160; Militarization that fuels America’s imperialistic “global war on terrorism” in pursuit of global domination, normalizes the killing of innocents abroad, and justifies the neglect of our own “Have Nots” at home.&#160; Militarization that merges “God and country.”</p>
<p>The Boston Declaration leaders’ press release states that they “will strategize throughout the United States to interrogate both Democratic and Republican 2018 candidates on their commitment to concerns addressed in the pronouncement.” <a href="" type="internal">(‘PRESS RELEASE – THE BOSTON DECLARATION,’</a> thebostondeclaration.com, Ibid))&#160; That strategy is a much needed action.</p>
<p>Along with focusing on political leaders, the Boston Declaration signatories should also be speaking reality and moral truth to their own denominational powers, i.e., to their council of bishops, conference of bishops and other executive ecclesiastical leaders. &#160;The signatories should demand that their own bishops and other ecclesiastical superiors state the specific reasons for and demand the removal from office of a psychopathically lying, omnipotence-deluded, capricious, racially divisive, president.</p>
<p>It is important, but not enough, to condemn President Trump’s blatant racist statements about immigrants.&#160;&#160; Like his reported “referr[ing] to Haiti and African nations as ‘shithole countries,’” which “included El Salvador” as well.&#160; And his, “Why do we need more Haitians, take them out.” ( <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-referred-haiti-african-countries-shithole-nations-n836946" type="external">“Trump referred to Haiti and African Nations as ‘shithole’ countries,”</a> by Ali Vitali, Kasie Hunt and Frank Thorp V, nbcnews.com, Jan/ 12, 2018)&#160;&#160; Such obvious racism is safe to criticize.</p>
<p>The United Methodist Church’s Council of Bishops condemned President Trump’s racist comments in a statement that is timely.&#160; The Bishops “call upon all Christians, especially United Methodists, to condemn this characterization and further call for President Trump to apologize.”&#160; They remind everyone: “We just celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ, whose parents during his infancy, had to flee to Africa to escape the wrath of King Herod. &#160;Millions of immigrants across the globe are running away from such despicable and life-threatening events.&#160; Hence,” the bishops declare, “we have the Christian duty to be supportive of them as they flee political, cultural and social dangers in their native homes.” <a href="http://www.pnwumc.org/news/united-methodist-bishops-condemn-president-trumps-offensive-remarks-against-immigrants/" type="external">(“United Methodist bishops condemn President Trump’s ‘offensive’ remarks against immigrants,”</a> Council of Bishops, The United Methodist Church, <a href="http://www.umc.org" type="external">www.umc.org</a>, Jan. 12, 2018)</p>
<p>But the bishops do not identify today’s “King Herod”.&#160; Nor do they specify and challenge the “despicable and life-threatening events” caused by our own government that have contributed greatly to uprooting citizens and causing them to flee their countries.&#160; Being prophetic is about opposing war-making policies that cause people to “flee political, cultural, and social dangers in their native homes,” along with “support[ing]” those who flee.</p>
<p>At this moment, The United Methodist Church is threatening to split over its decades-long discriminatory position on homosexuality.&#160; Hopefully, the Council of Bishops will help enable the Church to remove from its Book of Discipline the “despicable” words about and discriminatory practices against LGBTQ persons. &#160;Specifically: “Para 304.3: The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.&#160; Therefore self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be certified as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church.” <a href="http://www.umc.org/what-we-believe/homosexuality-full-book-of-discipline-statements" type="external">(“Homosexuality: Full Book of Discipline statements,”</a> The United Methodist Church) &#160;Also “Para 341.6: Ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches.” <a href="http://www.umc.org/what-we-believe/what-is-the-denominations-position-on-homosexuality" type="external">(“What is the denomination’s position on homosexuality?,”</a> www.umc.org)</p>
<p>Day after day the danger authoritarian President Trump presents grows.&#160; He promised to “drain the swamp” in Washington.&#160; Instead, with his barriers, bans, budget and nuclear button, he is turning America into a white supremacy “shithole.”</p>
<p>Calling for the removal of President Trump from office would no doubt alienate some church members, who would jump ship and join more conservative churches. &#160;That should not be seen as a bad thing.&#160; Because, other, more “love your neighbor as yourself”-motivated people may find churches guided by reality and moral truth more prophetically appealing.</p>
<p>The test of being prophetic is that of speaking reality and moral truth to both political and religious power on behalf of the “Have Nots.”&#160; For Christians, it is about being “followers of the Jesus Way”: welcoming strangers, feeding the hungry and caring for the sick and imprisoned ( <a href="" type="internal">Matthew 25: 35-37,</a> preaching good news to the poor and setting at liberty the oppressed ( <a href="" type="internal">Luke 4: 18</a>), and being peacemakers ( <a href="" type="internal">Matthew 5: 9</a>)&#160; It is fundamentally about empathy: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” ( <a href="" type="internal">Matthew 7: 12</a>)</p> | true | 4 | last november 300 christian leaders theologians seminary professors bishops other160denominational heads issued boston declaration challenges corruption us christianity 160especially corrupting point white supremacy evangelical christians leads support politicians whose promotion policies exclusion exploitation hatred promises maintain white privilege normalizing oppression 160this distortion christianity contrary one jesus fundamental teachings love neighbor press release boston declaration thebostondeclarationcom nov 20 2017 boston declarations condemnation white evangelical christianitys support exclusionary nationalistic policies laudable far goes 160a litany false ideologies rightly rejected including false ideology empire building myth racial laziness substance abuse harms people puerto rico virgin islands us territories peace security military strength violence corporate ruling class services us military marginalizes poor communities color american exceptionalism evil political corruption equating whiteness christianity true humanity united states citizenship antisemitism driving much white christian nationalism patriarchal misogynistic legacies subject women continual violence violation exclusion including sexual abuse highest offices power stripping resources earth polluting economic policies favor wealthy deny many islamophobia 160antimuslim bigotry homophobia transphobia violence lgbtq community antiimmigrant rhetoric policies fail recognize contributions immigrants strengthen fabric nation boston declaration thebostondeclarationcom nov 20 2017 boston declarations call action also admirable point160 following jesus way rejecting political social movements lead life160 positively following jesus welcoming stranger treating foreigner love foreigners egypt deut 1019160 bearing witness god neither male female embraces people regardless identity160 discovering gift creatures something overcome embraced discovering fullness humanity flourishing women 160embracing future legacies white supremacy dismantled160 orienting power toward mutual community empire160 making love mutuality marks lives together community building budgets public policies160 caring earth creation 160standing solidarity muslim sisters brothers immigrants fighting islamophobia xenophobia160 declarations final vow may continue stand anyone calls justice mercy love world ibid boston declarations prophetic appeal christians united states cites numerous critical justice issues suffers vagueness generalizations stopping short naming names identifying elaborating specific oppressive governmental policies proposing concrete actions160 respect evident ecclesiastical superiors number declarations signatories casting shadow deliberations test prophetic whether faith leaders speak reality moral truth political power 160and bind wounds fallen victim power also critical160 test great members faith leaders congregation may voted political power office160 even greater challenge propheticminded faith leaders must also deal religions superiors many serve guardians status quo disapprove political friction could disaffect certain complaining influential congregants also create conflict larger community160160 great fear many superiors loss members thus money status160 cardinal doctrine dictating behavior many clergy faith grace god fear falling good graces superiors power employment160 cant hierarchy without lowerarchy160160 clergy often get ahead going along160 thus selfprotective reasons keep religion politics deeply embedded spiritual psyche numerous clergy160 boston declaration lauded far goes instructive stops certain declarations statements inspiring even courageous lack grounding160 jesus way calls confronting evil wherever evil exists combat ignorance wherever ignorance led people astray place lives bodies line whoever threatened beat oppressed way anywhere italics added160 also declare following jesus today means fighting poverty economic exploitation racism sexism forms oppression italics added deepest wells faith ibid forms oppression example number generalizations found boston declaration signatories rightly stand manufacturing proliferation weapons continue drown planet blood millions global war terrorism domestic mass shootings ibid160 boston declaration signatories say nothing worst war crime 21st century committed united methodist former president george w bushs unnecessary falselybased preemptive invasions defenseless afghanistan iraq160 invasion iraq alone drowned country blood one million civilians killed uprooted millions sacrificed lives thousands americas young men women military persons altar capitalistic greed gave rise brutal isis signatories abstract reference global war also fails identify evil spawned criminal invasions iraq afghanistan americas socalled global war terrorism launched president bush ostensibly avenge horrible 911 attacks america 160in reality attacks served cover bipartisan governments capitalistic pursuit world domination160 fact iraqs tremendous oil reserves controlled western oil companies freeing iraqi people brutal dictator saddam hussein americas ally bush repeatedly claimed freeing energy resources profit western firms lining pockets military industrial intelligence complex paving way white evangelical christian carpetbaggers convert muslims christ signatories could faulted white evangelical christians supporting president bushs criminal invasion iraq160160 high majority saw excellent opportunity convert iraqi muslims christ assumed many signatories denominations strongly opposed invading iraq160 american military boots ground iraq would quite risky continue forcibly speak reality moral truth political denominational power war boston declaration signatories prophetic appeal includes confession shortcomings160 sins however consist detached theological generalizations acknowledge manifold complicated ways participate systems even often complicit 160they confess church variety forms often failed follow way jesus perform good news160 people still discovering ways participate death evil even continue seek good choose life ibid representative group signatories put sackcloth ashes dramatically grieve corruption us christianity call country time reflection action end oppression press release boston declaration ibid 160timely also would call specific national soul searching160 much oppression could exposed addressed examination160 160beginning former president bushs explanation motivation attacked america 911 make mistake bush declared evil doers160 justification actions160 selfappointed theologianinchief doubled theres religious justification theres political justification160 motivation evil international campaign terror grows remaks president bush prime minister koizumi japan photo opportunity white house sept 25 2001 motivation 911 attacks america evil one dares really examine death evil caused bipartisan government160 boston declaration signatories would done well call national confession based pentagons advisory panels report whose findings revealed invasions afghanistan iraq 160according report muslims hate freedom rather hate policies160 policies include americas onesided support favour israel palestinian rights longstanding everincreasing support muslims collectively see tyrannies notably egypt saudi arabia jordan pakistan gulf states160 thus report continues american public policy talks bringing democracy islamic societies seen selfserving hypocrisy us fails explain policies muslim world panel says thom shanker new york times nov 24 2004 us alienating worlds muslims bbc news nov 25 2004 contrary president bush justifying criminal wars saying freedom gods gift every man woman world pentagons advisory panel found yearningtobeliberatedbytheus groundswell among muslim societies except liberated perhaps see apostate tyrannies us determinedly promotes defends160 reports bottom line eyes muslims american occupation afghanistan iraq led democracy chaos suffering ibid president bushs bipartisansupported global war terrorism continues160 war seemingly much world violating countries national sovereignty killing whoever wherever anywhere160 president barack obama followed george w bushs footsteps pursuing wars afghanistan iraq reportedly launched airstrikes military raids least seven countries afghanistan iraq syria libya yemen somalia pakistan httpwwwlatimescomprojectslanapolobamaatwar christi parsons w j hennigan 160los angeles times jan 13 2017160 obama intensified use drone warfare killed countless innocents160 also created kill list giving executive power identify assassinate socalled terrorists including americans without due process donald trump succeeded president obama promising kill family members isis160 kept promise outdoing obama160 reported according research nonprofit monitoring group airwars first seven months trump administration already resulted civilian deaths entirety obama administration trump administration us airstrikes killing civilians theconversationcom oct 13 2017 psychopathic delusions grandeurdriven president trump getting started 160last august said nuclear weaponspursuing north korea best make threats united states met fire fury like world never seen donald trumps fire fury north korea might signify chris cillizzi cnnpolitics aug 8 2017 two months signatories issued boston declaration trump said united nations speech united states forced defend allies choice totally destroy north korea country 25 million people trump threatens totally destroy north korea first un speech ali vitali nbcnewscom sept 21 2017 never mind north korea building nuclear weapons defend united states witnessed grisly murder col muammar gaddafi usled military destruction libya gaddafi gave nuclear weapon160 also witnessing trumps trashing nuclear weapons freeze agreement president obama made iran calling iran corrupt dictatorship murderous regime whose main export violence trump calls iran corrupt dictatorship exporter violence middle east eye sept 20 2017160 witnessing happened iraq falsely accused weapons mass destruction face criminality original architect global war terrorism one said christ changed heart walking around free admired many people faith160 united methodist church also named library museum southern methodist university160 even shows newspaper headlines stories quoting moral advice president donald trump weve seen return isolationist sentiments forgetting american security directly threatened chaos despair distant places without saying trump bush obama deliver implicit rebukes peter baker new york times oct 19 2017 never mind chaos despair distant places george w bush sowed continue fester cause blowback violence america allies160 boston declaration deathdealing powers bush administration unleashed dont count160 number signatories united methodist seminary professors denominations leaders160 assumed including history president george w bush declaration probably would gone well ecclesiastical superiors signatories probably denominational superiors certain signatories evasive dynamic appears guided boston declarations statement jews palestinians160 signatories state may stand solidarity antisemitism use any160 language actions threaten lives jewish sisters brothers standing plight human rights palestinian brothers sisters boston declaration ibid 160however signatories address israels occupation palestinians us government support cause palestinians human rights plight renowned political analyst activist noam chomsky stated palestinians gaza subject random terror arbitrary punishment purpose humiliate degrade turning gaza worlds largest openair prison noam chomsky visit gaza worlds largest openair prison noam chomsky wwwtruthoutorg nov 9 2012160 building jewish settlements occupied west bank continues shrinking viable palestine nation long proposed twostate solution160 president trumps recent unilateral selection jerusalem israels capital face palestinians claiming east jerusalem future capital undermines real twostate solution 160the boston declaration signatories avoided moral realities perhaps fear called antisemitic alienating certain would signatories rocking denominational boats boston declarations political references characterized safe generalizations death evil seem reign supreme united states power uniform presidents pen position authority fame economic tricks capitalization interest sheer brute force choose death rather life160 many confess christ advocate evil believe followers jesus way called renounce denounce resist deathdealing powers embrace promulgate them160 also followers jesus vital take action government seeks continuously harm life made gods image cutting social safetynets forcing poorest powerless among us spiral abyss desperation160 finally reject false ideology empire building boston declaration ibid relevant would boston declaration specifying 700 billion budgeted military continue americas global war terrorism amount seven times next eight countries combined160 also pertinent tax cuts corporations wealthiest americans eye road pay deficits incurred cutting medicare social security benefits millions americans rev dr martin luther king jr provides model here160 speech causalties war vietnam specific inclusive government action harms life made gods image160 expressed empathy vietnam people declaring whether realize participation war vietnam ominous expression lack sympathy oppressed paranoid anticommunism failure feel ache anguish nots160 said vietnam war reveals willingness continue participating neocolonial adventures160 turn clock history back perpetuate white colonialism africanamerican involvement vietnam war feb 25 1967 dr king connected vietnam war quality life america saying promises great society shot battlefield vietnam160 became specific pursuit widened war narrowed domestic welfare programs making poor white negro bear heaviest burdens front home160 king provided prophetic statement us americans today security profess seek foreign adventures lose decaying cities160 bombs vietnam explode home160 destroy hopes possibilities decent america ibid dr king globalized civil rights movement connecting160 nots vietnam narrowing welfare programs home became even dangerous politicallyfocused prophet people160 said ive mountaintop speech like anybody would like live long life160 160 ive seen promised land160 may get martin luther king jr top 100 speeches wwwamericanrhetoriccom boston declaration modeled declaration confronted state church barmen declaration 1934 formulated german faith leaders challenge complicity german christians adolf hitlers nazi party160 faith leaders including dietrich bonhoeffer karl barth martin niemoller called false pronazi doctrines christians glorified adolf hitler german prophet preached racial consciousness source revelation alongside bible barmen declaration 1934 clclibraryorgtripodorg160 berman declaration challenged accommodation german christians deathdealing powers adolf hitler confronted nazi regime led execution bonhoeffer others imprisonment niemoller many clergy laypersons boston declarations prophetic appeal christians united states focus political leaders wield power white evangelical christians seek access power impose exclusionary oppressive biblicallybased beliefs society160 risky crucial prophetic imperative calling question americas endless global war terrorism demanding diplomacy military force guide us foreign policy160 challenged militarization america magnified president bush 911 attacks continued president obama president trump160 following money militarization america global war terrorism militaryindustrialenergy intelligencereligious complex160 militarization fuels americas imperialistic global war terrorism pursuit global domination normalizes killing innocents abroad justifies neglect nots home160 militarization merges god country boston declaration leaders press release states strategize throughout united states interrogate democratic republican 2018 candidates commitment concerns addressed pronouncement press release boston declaration thebostondeclarationcom ibid160 strategy much needed action along focusing political leaders boston declaration signatories also speaking reality moral truth denominational powers ie council bishops conference bishops executive ecclesiastical leaders 160the signatories demand bishops ecclesiastical superiors state specific reasons demand removal office psychopathically lying omnipotencedeluded capricious racially divisive president important enough condemn president trumps blatant racist statements immigrants160160 like reported referring haiti african nations shithole countries included el salvador well160 need haitians take trump referred haiti african nations shithole countries ali vitali kasie hunt frank thorp v nbcnewscom jan 12 2018160160 obvious racism safe criticize united methodist churchs council bishops condemned president trumps racist comments statement timely160 bishops call upon christians especially united methodists condemn characterization call president trump apologize160 remind everyone celebrated birth jesus christ whose parents infancy flee africa escape wrath king herod 160millions immigrants across globe running away despicable lifethreatening events160 hence bishops declare christian duty supportive flee political cultural social dangers native homes united methodist bishops condemn president trumps offensive remarks immigrants council bishops united methodist church wwwumcorg jan 12 2018 bishops identify todays king herod160 specify challenge despicable lifethreatening events caused government contributed greatly uprooting citizens causing flee countries160 prophetic opposing warmaking policies cause people flee political cultural social dangers native homes along supporting flee moment united methodist church threatening split decadeslong discriminatory position homosexuality160 hopefully council bishops help enable church remove book discipline despicable words discriminatory practices lgbtq persons 160specifically para 3043 practice homosexuality incompatible christian teaching160 therefore selfavowed practicing homosexuals certified candidates ordained ministers appointed serve united methodist church homosexuality full book discipline statements united methodist church 160also para 3416 ceremonies celebrate homosexual unions shall conducted ministers shall conducted churches denominations position homosexuality wwwumcorg day day danger authoritarian president trump presents grows160 promised drain swamp washington160 instead barriers bans budget nuclear button turning america white supremacy shithole calling removal president trump office would doubt alienate church members would jump ship join conservative churches 160that seen bad thing160 love neighbor yourselfmotivated people may find churches guided reality moral truth prophetically appealing test prophetic speaking reality moral truth political religious power behalf nots160 christians followers jesus way welcoming strangers feeding hungry caring sick imprisoned matthew 25 3537 preaching good news poor setting liberty oppressed luke 4 18 peacemakers matthew 5 9160 fundamentally empathy everything others would sums law prophets matthew 7 12 | 2,371 |
<p>&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/63126465@N00/117048243/"&gt;Joe Gratz&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
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<p>In the latest issue of The New Yorker, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/05/21/120521fa_fact_toobin" type="external">Jeffrey Toobin explores</a> how Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a seemingly narrow case about political attack ads, ended up fundamentally changing campaign finance law and becoming the signature decision of the Roberts court. So what could be the next Citizens United? Here’s a look at some of the biggest campaign finance cases working their way through the federal court system, and what they could mean for those who’d like to reform the current system (and roll back Citizens United):</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Van Hollen v. FECOutlook for reformers: Promising Last month, a district court closed a major loophole that allowed outside groups producing election ads (for example, <a href="" type="internal">Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS</a>) to avoid disclosing their donors. On Monday, a three-judge panel of the DC&#160;Circuit Court of Appeals <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/15/campaign-finance-disclosure_n_1518285.html?ref=tw" type="external">rejected a request to stay the decision</a>, putting an end to the secret financing of ads airing within 60 days of a general election—that is, if <a href="" type="internal">the notoriously ineffective</a> Federal Election Commission enforces it.</p>
<p><a href="http://electionlawblog.org/" type="external">Rick Hasen</a>, an election law expert at the University of California-Irvine, says the case remains a “moving target,” but he suspects the request for a stay will <a href="http://electionlawblog.org/?p=34256" type="external">wind up before the Supreme Court</a>, which voted 8-1 to uphold disclosure laws in Citizens United. Fred Wertheimer, president of the watchdog group <a href="http://www.democracy21.org/" type="external">Democracy 21</a> and one of the lawyers who filed suit against the FEC, considers the case “the first major breakthrough in the battle to restore disclosure of contributions being spent to influence federal elections.” Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Democracy 21 are <a href="http://www.democracy21.org/index.asp?Type=B_PR&amp;SEC=%7B91FCB139-CC82-4DDD-AE4E-3A81E6427C7F%7D&amp;DE=%7B7236E78F-D490-4BFA-ADB4-EB8F6E733141%7D" type="external">considering bringing a second lawsuit</a> that would take aim at the disclosure rules for outside ads that specifically call for the election or defeat of candidates.</p>
<p>United States v. Danielczyk Outlook for reformers: UncertainDanielczyk began as a criminal indictment against two businessmen charged with funneling corporate treasury funds to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign. The accused responded by arguing that direct corporate donations to candidates are—contrary to <a href="" type="internal">a century of federal law</a>—protected by the First Amendment. A district court judge agreed, <a href="http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202537087080" type="external">ruling that</a> “for better or worse, Citizens United held that there is no distinction between an individual and a corporation with respect to political speech.” The government has appealed, contending that the courts should abide by a 2003 Supreme Court ruling, FEC&#160;v. Beaumont, which upheld the ban on corporate donations to candidates.&#160;</p>
<p>Hasen expects the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold the ban, calling the district court ruling an “outlier.” If the case comes before the Supreme Court, however, he says “all bets are off.” Tara Malloy, a lawyer at the <a href="http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/" type="external">Campaign Legal Center</a>—which filed an amicus brief with Democracy 21 supporting the government’s case—is more hopeful. She points to <a href="http://www.brennancenter.org/blog/archives/rnc_v._fec_a_win_for_democracy/" type="external">Republican National Committee v. FEC</a>, a failed challenge to the ban on political parties taking and spending unlimited campaign money that the Supreme Court declined to review in 2010. Also, the Roberts court has been inconsistent in its interpretation of what defines political speech: Despite ruling in Citizens United that the identity of the political speaker/donor doesn’t matter, it declined to hear Blumen v. FEC, in which the plaintiffs argued that foreign nationals living in the United States should be able to make campaign donations.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Wagner v. FEC Outlook for reformers: ExcellentThe Wagner case, supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, involves three individuals with federal government research contracts who, as a result, are barred from donating money to federal candidates and parties. They argue that the ban violates their First Amendment rights as well as&#160; their equal-protection rights under the Fifth Amendment, since federal employees without government contracts are allowed to donate money to federal campaigns.</p>
<p>The case is currently held up in a Washington district court. In April it <a href="http://www.fec.gov/pages/fecrecord/2012/may/wagnervfec.shtml" type="external">denied the plaintiffs a preliminary injunction</a> to delay enforcement of the contribution ban until the case was decided, on the grounds that their claims were unlikely to withstand legal scrutiny. Still, Hasen believes that the money-as-political-speech issue in Wagner is similar to that in Danielczyk, meaning it’s not clear how the Supreme Court would rule on the case, should it go that far.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>American Tradition Partnership v. BullockOutlook for reformers: Not very promising In Citizens United, the Supreme Court’s five-justice majority maintained, without much evidence, that independent political spending by corporations does not corrupt the democratic process. Last December, Montana’s Supreme Court <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/15/montana-supreme-court-citizens-united_n_1280240.html" type="external">thumbed its nose at the opinion</a>, affirming state Attorney General Steve Bullock’s claim ( <a href="http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/MontanaAG.pdf" type="external">PDF</a>) that the state’s Corrupt Practices Act of 1912 remained valid because it “has safeguarded the republican form of government in Montana for a century from the scourge of political corruption.”</p>
<p><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/02/18/428619/supreme-court-stays-montana-decision-undermining-citizens-united/" type="external">The Supreme Court stayed the Bullock case</a> in February. But because it so directly confronts the reasoning behind Citizens United, the high court will come back to it. Most likely, the justices will summarily reverse the Montana high court’s decision without hearing arguments. However, the court could take Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer’s advice ( <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/02/18/428619/supreme-court-stays-montana-decision-undermining-citizens-united/" type="external">PDF</a>) and <a href="http://prospect.org/article/not-montana" type="external">consider reinterpreting Citizens United</a> on the grounds that Bullock’s documentation of the century-long fight against political corruption in his state ( <a href="http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/MontanaSupremeCourtWTP.pdf" type="external">PDF</a>)&#160;contradicts Citizens United‘s contention that unlimited third-party expenditures “do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.”</p>
<p>Hasen doesn’t think the Montana challenge has any chance of succeeding without a change in the make-up of the Supreme Court. Likewise, Malloy says, “The Montana AG is fighting the good fight, but I guess one could argue that he’s sort of tilting at windmills.” If the Montana Supreme Court ruling goes down, it would undoubtedly add a new sense of urgency to the movement to roll back Citizens United <a href="" type="internal">through a constitutional amendment</a>.</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | lta hrefhttpwwwflickrcomphotos63126465n00117048243gtjoe gratzltagtflickr latest issue new yorker jeffrey toobin explores citizens united v federal election commission seemingly narrow case political attack ads ended fundamentally changing campaign finance law becoming signature decision roberts court could next citizens united heres look biggest campaign finance cases working way federal court system could mean whod like reform current system roll back citizens united 160 van hollen v fecoutlook reformers promising last month district court closed major loophole allowed outside groups producing election ads example karl roves crossroads gps avoid disclosing donors monday threejudge panel dc160circuit court appeals rejected request stay decision putting end secret financing ads airing within 60 days general electionthat notoriously ineffective federal election commission enforces rick hasen election law expert university californiairvine says case remains moving target suspects request stay wind supreme court voted 81 uphold disclosure laws citizens united fred wertheimer president watchdog group democracy 21 one lawyers filed suit fec considers case first major breakthrough battle restore disclosure contributions spent influence federal elections rep chris van hollen dmd democracy 21 considering bringing second lawsuit would take aim disclosure rules outside ads specifically call election defeat candidates united states v danielczyk outlook reformers uncertaindanielczyk began criminal indictment two businessmen charged funneling corporate treasury funds hillary clintons 2008 campaign accused responded arguing direct corporate donations candidates arecontrary century federal lawprotected first amendment district court judge agreed ruling better worse citizens united held distinction individual corporation respect political speech government appealed contending courts abide 2003 supreme court ruling fec160v beaumont upheld ban corporate donations candidates160 hasen expects 4th circuit court appeals uphold ban calling district court ruling outlier case comes supreme court however says bets tara malloy lawyer campaign legal centerwhich filed amicus brief democracy 21 supporting governments caseis hopeful points republican national committee v fec failed challenge ban political parties taking spending unlimited campaign money supreme court declined review 2010 also roberts court inconsistent interpretation defines political speech despite ruling citizens united identity political speakerdonor doesnt matter declined hear blumen v fec plaintiffs argued foreign nationals living united states able make campaign donations 160 wagner v fec outlook reformers excellentthe wagner case supported american civil liberties union involves three individuals federal government research contracts result barred donating money federal candidates parties argue ban violates first amendment rights well as160 equalprotection rights fifth amendment since federal employees without government contracts allowed donate money federal campaigns case currently held washington district court april denied plaintiffs preliminary injunction delay enforcement contribution ban case decided grounds claims unlikely withstand legal scrutiny still hasen believes moneyaspoliticalspeech issue wagner similar danielczyk meaning clear supreme court would rule case go far 160 american tradition partnership v bullockoutlook reformers promising citizens united supreme courts fivejustice majority maintained without much evidence independent political spending corporations corrupt democratic process last december montanas supreme court thumbed nose opinion affirming state attorney general steve bullocks claim pdf states corrupt practices act 1912 remained valid safeguarded republican form government montana century scourge political corruption supreme court stayed bullock case february directly confronts reasoning behind citizens united high court come back likely justices summarily reverse montana high courts decision without hearing arguments however court could take justice ruth bader ginsburg stephen breyers advice pdf consider reinterpreting citizens united grounds bullocks documentation centurylong fight political corruption state pdf160contradicts citizens uniteds contention unlimited thirdparty expenditures give rise corruption appearance corruption hasen doesnt think montana challenge chance succeeding without change makeup supreme court likewise malloy says montana ag fighting good fight guess one could argue hes sort tilting windmills montana supreme court ruling goes would undoubtedly add new sense urgency movement roll back citizens united constitutional amendment | 599 |
<p>When a filmmaker, especially an unknown filmmaker wants their film to be seen and picked up for distribution, they enter it into as many film festivals as they can in hopes that it will gain enough notice to be picked up for distribution. Currently making the rounds following its acclaimed debut last spring at South By Southwest is BANG! The Bert Berns Story. If the name Bert Berns doesn’t register familiarity, the songs he wrote will because many of them were huge hits in the 1960s: A Little Bit Of Soap, Twist and Shout, Tell Him, Cry Baby, Everybody Needs Somebody To Love, Cry To Me, Hang On Sloopy, Here Comes The Night, Are You Lonely For Me and Piece Of My Heart. There’s many, many more.</p>
<p>Bang! was made by Berns’ son Brett, and co-directed by him and San Francisco based filmmaker Bob Sarles who has made several music documentaries including Sweet Blues: A Film About Mike Bloomfield, Fly Jefferson Airplane, John Lee Hooker: Come And See About Me, Feed Your Head: The Psychedelic Era and Soulsville as well as the short films at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, the EMP Museum in Seattle and the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis.</p>
<p>The film uses interviews with various musicians, songwriters, others involved in the music business in various ways and members of Berns’ family to convey his story. Among those interviewed are Van Morrison, Ronald Isley, Keith Richards, Solomon Burke, Paul McCartney, Jerry Ragovoy, Wilson Pickett, Mike Stoller, Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich and San Francisco music critic Joel Selvin who wrote Here Comes the Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues as well as the narration for the film spoken by Steve Van Zandt, who as the film unfolds is ultimately the perfect voice to tell this story.</p>
<p>Through the various interviews, a very clear picture is provided of the New York music business in the first half of the ’60s, both the creative side and the seamy side. The seamier side is represented by Carmine “Wassel” Denoia was a manager and a bookie, and when he needed to be, an enforcer, especially when it came to getting people paid or collecting royalties. His interview segments are among the most colorful in the movie. He is clearly someone who knew how to make offers that couldn’t be refused.</p>
<p>The creative side is represented by the stories and also a couple of clips, both audio and film of Berns in the studio. While Berns heart was clearly in songwriting, he turned out to be a formidable producer who knew how to get the best out of his artists. He also had the magic touch for creating hits. He knew what to add or what to change it a song to make it a hit almost instinctively.</p>
<p>Berns was born in the Bronx and suffered rheumatic fever as a youth, which permanently damaged his heart. He wasn’t expected to live past 21. He studied piano and started writing songs without success. He became enthralled by the Mambo craze of the ’50s and went to Cuba because of the music, and opened a nightclub, and apparently met Fidel Castro. He returned to the US right before Castro took over. The Latin influence on his music can be heard in many of his songs, one of the most obvious being the verse section of “Here Comes The Night.”</p>
<p>Finally in 1961, one of his songs, “A Little Bit Of Soap” became a hit for the Jarmels, and another song “Twist And Shout” was recorded by the Top Notes and became an even bigger hit the following year by the Isley Brothers and a hit again the next year by The Beatles. Soon he was hired as a songwriter by Atlantic Records where he also became a staff producer, at first mentored by Jerry Wexler, perhaps the greatest record producer of all time. One of the best stories in the film is about recording “Cry To Me,” a hit for Solomon Burke. Burke wanted to do something upbeat and Berns changed the song to accommodate him. Wexler disapproved, but Berns went ahead and recorded it anyway, resulting in a hit. Similar scenarios happened again and again.</p>
<p>Wexler was also a brilliant judge of talent, but could be a ruthless prick when it came to paying people causing various artists to leave the label along with songwriters such as Lieber and Stoller who were owed thousands of dollars.</p>
<p>Eventually Berns grew tired of Wexler interfering with his productions and it was decided he would have his own label, BANG Records. (The name was an anagram of the owners’ first names, Bert, Ahmet Ertegun, Nesuhi Ertegun and Gerald Wexler.) Immediately the company had hits by the McCoys, a young songwriter, Neil Diamond and later with “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison. Berns however missed recording rhythm and blues and soon formed an offshoot label, Shout, and quickly had a hit with Freddie Scott, “Are You Lonely For Me.”</p>
<p>Somewhere around the time BANG was formed, Berns met in a chance encounter Thomas “Tommy Ryan” Eboli, who was a Caporegime in the Genovese family and they became good friends. As BANG and Shout became more and more successful, Wexler became less and less pleased and finally told Berns he either had to leave or buy everyone out for $300,000. Berns found the money and bought the company. But as Morrison, engineer Brooks Arthur and others in the movie point out, when you went to the BANG office, there were all kinds of people hanging out who had nothing to do with music. Disputes with artists became increasingly common. When Neil Diamond tried to leave the label after a dispute over which single to release, he found out it wasn’t done without serious repercussions. In other interviews Morrison has mentioned hiding out from the mob, and for anyone who read those interviews and wondered, what’s he talking about, it wasn’t bullshit.</p>
<p>In one of the more moving parts of the film, Morrison talks about calling up Berns, and Berns asking what he was doing and Morrison said, “Working on new songs,” to which Berns responded, “That’s what I’d like to do. I’d like to write songs.”</p>
<p>One of the last songs Bern wrote which was completed by Jerry Ragovoy was “Piece of My Heart,” a hit for Erma Franklin. Not long after, one afternoon, Berns told his wife he wasn’t feeling well. He went to sleep and died of a heart attack. He was 38.</p>
<p>BANG! The Bert Berns Story will be shown at the following film festivals:</p>
<p>Orlando Film Festival (Oct. 22 8:15pm) &#160;</p>
<p>San Diego Jewish Film Festival (SPECIAL SCREENING) (Oct. 27th)&#160;</p>
<p>Denver Film Festival (Nov. 10 @ 4pm, Nov. 12 @ 9pm) &#160;</p>
<p>Sound Unseen (Minneapolis) (Nov. 15, 7pm The Trylon Microcinema) &#160;</p>
<p>St. Louis International Film Festival (Nov. 12 @ 6pm)&#160;</p>
<p>DOC ’N’ Roll Film Festival (London) London/UK Premiere (Nov. 6) &#160;</p>
<p>DOC NYC Film Festival (Nov. 11) &#160;</p>
<p>Gold Coast International Film Festival (Long Island) (Nov. 12) &#160;</p>
<p>Hamptons Take 2 Documentary Film Festival (Dec. TBA) &#160;</p> | true | 4 | filmmaker especially unknown filmmaker wants film seen picked distribution enter many film festivals hopes gain enough notice picked distribution currently making rounds following acclaimed debut last spring south southwest bang bert berns story name bert berns doesnt register familiarity songs wrote many huge hits 1960s little bit soap twist shout tell cry baby everybody needs somebody love cry hang sloopy comes night lonely piece heart theres many many bang made berns son brett codirected san francisco based filmmaker bob sarles made several music documentaries including sweet blues film mike bloomfield fly jefferson airplane john lee hooker come see feed head psychedelic era soulsville well short films rock roll hall fame cleveland emp museum seattle stax museum american soul music memphis film uses interviews various musicians songwriters others involved music business various ways members berns family convey story among interviewed van morrison ronald isley keith richards solomon burke paul mccartney jerry ragovoy wilson pickett mike stoller jeff barry ellie greenwich san francisco music critic joel selvin wrote comes night dark soul bert berns dirty business rhythm blues well narration film spoken steve van zandt film unfolds ultimately perfect voice tell story various interviews clear picture provided new york music business first half 60s creative side seamy side seamier side represented carmine wassel denoia manager bookie needed enforcer especially came getting people paid collecting royalties interview segments among colorful movie clearly someone knew make offers couldnt refused creative side represented stories also couple clips audio film berns studio berns heart clearly songwriting turned formidable producer knew get best artists also magic touch creating hits knew add change song make hit almost instinctively berns born bronx suffered rheumatic fever youth permanently damaged heart wasnt expected live past 21 studied piano started writing songs without success became enthralled mambo craze 50s went cuba music opened nightclub apparently met fidel castro returned us right castro took latin influence music heard many songs one obvious verse section comes night finally 1961 one songs little bit soap became hit jarmels another song twist shout recorded top notes became even bigger hit following year isley brothers hit next year beatles soon hired songwriter atlantic records also became staff producer first mentored jerry wexler perhaps greatest record producer time one best stories film recording cry hit solomon burke burke wanted something upbeat berns changed song accommodate wexler disapproved berns went ahead recorded anyway resulting hit similar scenarios happened wexler also brilliant judge talent could ruthless prick came paying people causing various artists leave label along songwriters lieber stoller owed thousands dollars eventually berns grew tired wexler interfering productions decided would label bang records name anagram owners first names bert ahmet ertegun nesuhi ertegun gerald wexler immediately company hits mccoys young songwriter neil diamond later brown eyed girl van morrison berns however missed recording rhythm blues soon formed offshoot label shout quickly hit freddie scott lonely somewhere around time bang formed berns met chance encounter thomas tommy ryan eboli caporegime genovese family became good friends bang shout became successful wexler became less less pleased finally told berns either leave buy everyone 300000 berns found money bought company morrison engineer brooks arthur others movie point went bang office kinds people hanging nothing music disputes artists became increasingly common neil diamond tried leave label dispute single release found wasnt done without serious repercussions interviews morrison mentioned hiding mob anyone read interviews wondered whats talking wasnt bullshit one moving parts film morrison talks calling berns berns asking morrison said working new songs berns responded thats id like id like write songs one last songs bern wrote completed jerry ragovoy piece heart hit erma franklin long one afternoon berns told wife wasnt feeling well went sleep died heart attack 38 bang bert berns story shown following film festivals orlando film festival oct 22 815pm 160 san diego jewish film festival special screening oct 27th160 denver film festival nov 10 4pm nov 12 9pm 160 sound unseen minneapolis nov 15 7pm trylon microcinema 160 st louis international film festival nov 12 6pm160 doc n roll film festival london londonuk premiere nov 6 160 doc nyc film festival nov 11 160 gold coast international film festival long island nov 12 160 hamptons take 2 documentary film festival dec tba 160 | 704 |
<p>The official jobs reports released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics had something for everyone. It gave optimists hope and pessimists ammunition, and it provided ballast for President Obama and the Democrats while simultaneously providing the Republicans with more fuel for their assault on the White House. Two things are clear, however: this trend may help Obama politically, and it is unlikely to result in any meaningful change in a structural unemployment problem in America that many people now recognize but which is essentially denied by our political class.</p>
<p>For those who see economic activity in the U.S. slowly stabilizing and moving ahead, the report offered the figure of 120,000 new jobs added, along with upward revisions to prior months, along with a headline unemployment rate that dropped sharply from 9.1 percent to 8.6 percent.</p>
<p>For those who believe that the statistical entity know as the U.S. economy is stagnant and showing no signs of life, the report offered the sobering fact that wages remain flat, the pace of job creation isn’t enough to employ all those who enter the workforce every year, and the only reason that the headline rate went down was because more people simply gave up and ceased looking for jobs. In the real world, that makes them unemployed, possibly in despair, and in grave economic trouble; in the statistical universe of government figures, they simply cease to exist as part of the workforce.</p>
<p>Each side reacted accordingly: the Democrats, the White House, and assorted economists hailed the report as a sign of stability and recovery and pointed to various other data showing modest strength in economic activity. They also said that the report added urgency to the need to continue policies such as payroll-tax breaks and extended unemployment benefits to stimulate further activity and deal with the plight of many millions still unemployed. The Republicans, ranging from Speaker John Boehner to presidential candidate Mitt Romney, assailed the report as proof that three years into the Obama administration, joblessness is chronic, spending has failed, debt has soared, and America is at sea.</p>
<p>For Obama, however, the report and the numbers are not only good but maybe essential for his reelection. In the first weeks after he assumed office in January 2009, Obama demanded a stimulus program of nearly $800 billion on the promise that the result would be “3.5 million new jobs.” Nearly three years later, there are perhaps 2 million new jobs and the labor force has shrunk. While the White House has tried, it is hard to campaign on the platform that things would have been much worse had those actions not been taken. People do not live in the hypothetical, and while the argument that the situation would have been direr in the absence of the stimulus may be true, “it could have been worse” is not a vote-getter.</p>
<p>Given that economic growth isn’t likely to be much more than OK next year, Obama needs proof that the employment situation is improving steadily in order to campaign on his record. Sure, he can borrow from Harry Truman's 1948 playbook and attack Congress for inaction and the wealthy for taking more than their share. But being able to point to his own record would be better still. In that sense, the official statistical picture of a declining unemployment rate is a much-needed wind at his sails.</p>
<p>That said, there is nothing about the underlying data of this report and of employment in general that should suggest anything but chronic, structural, and deep unemployment issues in the United States that remain unaddressed and unresolved. A statistic that goes down because more people are out of work and no longer even have the will to look for a job is a looking-glass number. And people know it—hence the Occupy Wall Street protests, amorphous though they are, and strong populist strains in the Republican Party, not to mention survey after survey that finds Americans anxious about the viability of this system going forward. The political class and the public discussion continue to point fingers and assign blame for joblessness on bad policies.</p>
<p>This angry discordant debate makes it seem as if we could rectify this problem just by electing the right people. Would that it were so. That would be so much easier. Cut taxes, cut the deficit, raise taxes, spend more—if only some magical combination of those would suddenly create jobs. But that is not how it works. Current levels of joblessness are a potent mix of changing global patterns of manufacturing and technology, making many 20th-century jobs unnecessary.</p>
<p>This is an employment crisis not of college-educated women (just read into the data compiled by the BLS every month) who have an unemployment rate of barely more than 4 percent and decent wages. This is a crisis of men who did not go to college, who do not have the tools and never acquired the skills—knowing how to learn—that are so needed today. They have the skills to build homes that aren’t being built and to man the factories of yesterday rather than the high-tech lines of today. No set of Washington policies enacted in the near term will fix that. What growth there is in economic life comes from highly efficient business, not robust demand for goods and services.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the political class offers only payroll tax breaks and extended stimulus, which are good for getting elected and pretty useless for job creation. Washington and the campaigns remains locked in battle over who is to blame combined with vague promises of a new era if only we get the politics right. But even with better short-term policies, why would the private sector create jobs when there is more than enough spare manufacturing capacity and muted demand, when government is shedding workers from payrolls, and when there is no indication of an uptick in demand?</p>
<p>What we do need is for Obama, or Romney, or the next great electoral hope, to stand up and say, “Many jobs that have been lost will never come back, anymore than telegraph operators and buggy whip manufactures did a century ago. Government cannot create those jobs, but it can be a constructive force in laying the groundwork for the new economy of tomorrow.”</p>
<p>Then, we need a Congress that will actually address unemployment and underemployment as a long-term challenge resulting from structural shifts and not just because of the greed and incompetence of Wall Street and Washington. And finally, we need to each of us accept that there is only so much government can do. That’s what we need, and that’s what this and every recent jobs report tells us we need. it is, however, unlikely that it's what we are going to get.</p> | true | 4 | official jobs reports released friday bureau labor statistics something everyone gave optimists hope pessimists ammunition provided ballast president obama democrats simultaneously providing republicans fuel assault white house two things clear however trend may help obama politically unlikely result meaningful change structural unemployment problem america many people recognize essentially denied political class see economic activity us slowly stabilizing moving ahead report offered figure 120000 new jobs added along upward revisions prior months along headline unemployment rate dropped sharply 91 percent 86 percent believe statistical entity know us economy stagnant showing signs life report offered sobering fact wages remain flat pace job creation isnt enough employ enter workforce every year reason headline rate went people simply gave ceased looking jobs real world makes unemployed possibly despair grave economic trouble statistical universe government figures simply cease exist part workforce side reacted accordingly democrats white house assorted economists hailed report sign stability recovery pointed various data showing modest strength economic activity also said report added urgency need continue policies payrolltax breaks extended unemployment benefits stimulate activity deal plight many millions still unemployed republicans ranging speaker john boehner presidential candidate mitt romney assailed report proof three years obama administration joblessness chronic spending failed debt soared america sea obama however report numbers good maybe essential reelection first weeks assumed office january 2009 obama demanded stimulus program nearly 800 billion promise result would 35 million new jobs nearly three years later perhaps 2 million new jobs labor force shrunk white house tried hard campaign platform things would much worse actions taken people live hypothetical argument situation would direr absence stimulus may true could worse votegetter given economic growth isnt likely much ok next year obama needs proof employment situation improving steadily order campaign record sure borrow harry trumans 1948 playbook attack congress inaction wealthy taking share able point record would better still sense official statistical picture declining unemployment rate muchneeded wind sails said nothing underlying data report employment general suggest anything chronic structural deep unemployment issues united states remain unaddressed unresolved statistic goes people work longer even look job lookingglass number people know ithence occupy wall street protests amorphous though strong populist strains republican party mention survey survey finds americans anxious viability system going forward political class public discussion continue point fingers assign blame joblessness bad policies angry discordant debate makes seem could rectify problem electing right people would would much easier cut taxes cut deficit raise taxes spend moreif magical combination would suddenly create jobs works current levels joblessness potent mix changing global patterns manufacturing technology making many 20thcentury jobs unnecessary employment crisis collegeeducated women read data compiled bls every month unemployment rate barely 4 percent decent wages crisis men go college tools never acquired skillsknowing learnthat needed today skills build homes arent built man factories yesterday rather hightech lines today set washington policies enacted near term fix growth economic life comes highly efficient business robust demand goods services meanwhile political class offers payroll tax breaks extended stimulus good getting elected pretty useless job creation washington campaigns remains locked battle blame combined vague promises new era get politics right even better shortterm policies would private sector create jobs enough spare manufacturing capacity muted demand government shedding workers payrolls indication uptick demand need obama romney next great electoral hope stand say many jobs lost never come back anymore telegraph operators buggy whip manufactures century ago government create jobs constructive force laying groundwork new economy tomorrow need congress actually address unemployment underemployment longterm challenge resulting structural shifts greed incompetence wall street washington finally need us accept much government thats need thats every recent jobs report tells us need however unlikely going get | 604 |
<p>Baghdad</p>
<p>Seven years after the US and Britain invaded Iraq the country remains &#160;highly unstable and fragmented. So divided are parties and communities &#160;that no government has emerged from the general election three months &#160;ago, which was intended to be a crucial staging post in Iraq’s return to &#160;normality. Political leaders have not even started serious negotiations on &#160;sharing power.</p>
<p>“I have never been so depressed about the future of Iraq,” said one &#160;former minister. “The ruling class which came to power after 2003 &#160;is terrible. They have no policy other than to see how far they can rob the &#160;state.” &#160;None of this is very apparent to the outside world because US policy &#160;since 2008 has been to declare a famous victory and withdraw its troops. &#160;This week the US troop level drop to 92,000, lower for the first time than the number of American soldiers in Afghanistan. The US military wants to &#160;maintain the myth that it somehow turned round the war in Iraq by means &#160;of ‘the surge’ and emerged successfully from the conflict.</p>
<p>This claim was always exaggerated. The insurgency against the US &#160;occupation was rooted in the Sunni Arab community and when this was &#160;defeated by Shia government and militia forces in 2006-7 the Sunni had &#160;little choice but look for an accommodation with the Americans. The most &#160;important change in Iraq was more to do with outcome of the Shia-Sunni &#160;struggle than US military tactical innovations. This is why Americans &#160;generals are finding that the ‘surge’ in Afghanistan this year, supposedly &#160;emulating success in Iraq, is showing such disappointing results.</p>
<p>The foreign policy dominance of the military over civilian arm of the US &#160;government was reinforced by the Iraq war. Only this week the US Senate &#160;voted an extra $33 billion for the military ‘surge’ in Afghanistan, while the &#160;State Department only gets an extra $4 billion. This is on top of $130 &#160;billion for Iraq and Afghanistan this year already voted by Congress.</p>
<p>In Iraq violence is far less than three years ago and in this sense the &#160;country is ‘better’ than it was when 3,000 bodies of people killed in the &#160;sectarian slaughter were being buried every month. But periodic al-Qa’ida &#160;attacks are still enough to create a sense of unease. To prevent them the &#160;streets of Baghdad are so clogged with checkpoints and concrete blast &#160;walls that it is difficult to move through the city.</p>
<p>It is not so much the continuing, though much diminished, level of &#160;violence which worries Iraqis. The failure to replace the lame duck &#160;government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki highlights the depth of &#160;sectarian and ethnic divisions between Shia, Sunni and Kurd. It was easy &#160;enough to forecast the outcome of the election by assuming that most &#160;voters would vote according to their communal loyalties. &#160;&#160;&#160;These divisions, exacerbated by recent massacre, are not going to go &#160;away. But what makes them so destructive is the poor quality of &#160;leadership of the political parties, with the partial exception of the Kurds. &#160;The former minister quoted above said that his fear was that Iraq had &#160;acquired a kleptomaniac ruling elite who run the government as a racket.</p>
<p>Some Iraqis cynically take refuge in the belief that the state is so &#160;dysfunctional at the best of times that the failure to put in place a new &#160;government makes little difference. There is something in this argument, &#160;but there are signs in Baghdad that the failure to agree a new &#160;government is beginning to paralyse Iraq’s rickety administrative machine. &#160; For instance 111,000 news state jobs cannot be filled without a decision &#160;by parliament and even minor decisions are not taken. One political leader &#160;complained that he could not even get somebody to renew the permits for &#160;his bodyguards’ weapons.</p>
<p>The communal divisions and political paralysis lead some Iraqis to fear &#160;that Iraq is turning into another Lebanon. Power will be so fragmented &#160;that no decision can be taken, job allocated or long term policy pursued. &#160;The Iraqi commentator and political scientist Ghassan Attiyah believes “a &#160;de facto partition will happen.” &#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;As in Lebanon internal divisions opens the way to foreign intervention. &#160;The Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari points to the increasing role of &#160;Iraq’s neighbors led by Iran and Turkey whom Iraqi politicians have &#160;invited in. “As a result it was not just an Iraqi election but a regional &#160;election,” says Mr Zebari. As in Lebanon the involvement of foreign &#160;powers, with their own interests at heart, may stabilize the situation &#160;temporarily but also complicate and institutionalizes Iraq’s problems.</p>
<p>The analogy with Lebanon can be overdrawn. Unlike Lebanon or &#160;Afghanistan Iraq has oil and the revenues to create a strong state and &#160;army. “Iraqis are so volatile and so violent that only the oil will keep them &#160;together,” says Mr Attiyah. The under-exploited super giant oil fields which &#160;international oil companies are now developing means that oil revenues &#160;should start increasing rapidly in about two years time. &#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;Iraq does not have to solve all or even the majority of its problems to &#160;make life better for its people who have endured 30 years of foreign and &#160;civil wars, occupation and sanctions. Iraqi Kurdistan, so autonomous that it &#160;is almost independent, has many of the failings of the rest of Iraq such as &#160;corruption and a vast government payroll that leaves little money for &#160;investment. But the Kurdish political leadership is strong enough and &#160;security good enough for the region to begin to boom. Cranes dominate &#160;the skyline of Arbil, the Kurdish capital while there are still very few visible &#160;in Baghdad.</p>
<p>The reign of the present ruling elite in Iraq may be temporary. Many of &#160;the returning immigrants seem to want to plunder as much as they can as &#160;soon as they can before relocating to Europe, the US or some sympathetic &#160;Arab capital. They may have abler successors. But the failure to form a &#160;new government, and the growing perception that the present one is &#160;illegitimate, is making Iraq so unstable that it cannot reconstruct itself.</p>
<p>PATRICK COCKBURN is the Ihe author of “ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1416551476/counterpunchmaga" type="external">Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq</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 | baghdad seven years us britain invaded iraq country remains 160highly unstable fragmented divided parties communities 160that government emerged general election three months 160ago intended crucial staging post iraqs return 160normality political leaders even started serious negotiations 160sharing power never depressed future iraq said one 160former minister ruling class came power 2003 160is terrible policy see far rob 160state 160none apparent outside world us policy 160since 2008 declare famous victory withdraw troops 160this week us troop level drop 92000 lower first time number american soldiers afghanistan us military wants 160maintain myth somehow turned round war iraq means 160of surge emerged successfully conflict claim always exaggerated insurgency us 160occupation rooted sunni arab community 160defeated shia government militia forces 20067 sunni 160little choice look accommodation americans 160important change iraq outcome shiasunni 160struggle us military tactical innovations americans 160generals finding surge afghanistan year supposedly 160emulating success iraq showing disappointing results foreign policy dominance military civilian arm us 160government reinforced iraq war week us senate 160voted extra 33 billion military surge afghanistan 160state department gets extra 4 billion top 130 160billion iraq afghanistan year already voted congress iraq violence far less three years ago sense 160country better 3000 bodies people killed 160sectarian slaughter buried every month periodic alqaida 160attacks still enough create sense unease prevent 160streets baghdad clogged checkpoints concrete blast 160walls difficult move city much continuing though much diminished level 160violence worries iraqis failure replace lame duck 160government prime minister nouri almaliki highlights depth 160sectarian ethnic divisions shia sunni kurd easy 160enough forecast outcome election assuming 160voters would vote according communal loyalties 160160160these divisions exacerbated recent massacre going go 160away makes destructive poor quality 160leadership political parties partial exception kurds 160the former minister quoted said fear iraq 160acquired kleptomaniac ruling elite run government racket iraqis cynically take refuge belief state 160dysfunctional best times failure put place new 160government makes little difference something argument 160but signs baghdad failure agree new 160government beginning paralyse iraqs rickety administrative machine 160 instance 111000 news state jobs filled without decision 160by parliament even minor decisions taken one political leader 160complained could even get somebody renew permits 160his bodyguards weapons communal divisions political paralysis lead iraqis fear 160that iraq turning another lebanon power fragmented 160that decision taken job allocated long term policy pursued 160the iraqi commentator political scientist ghassan attiyah believes 160de facto partition happen 160160160160as lebanon internal divisions opens way foreign intervention 160the iraqi foreign minister hoshyar zebari points increasing role 160iraqs neighbors led iran turkey iraqi politicians 160invited result iraqi election regional 160election says mr zebari lebanon involvement foreign 160powers interests heart may stabilize situation 160temporarily also complicate institutionalizes iraqs problems analogy lebanon overdrawn unlike lebanon 160afghanistan iraq oil revenues create strong state 160army iraqis volatile violent oil keep 160together says mr attiyah underexploited super giant oil fields 160international oil companies developing means oil revenues 160should start increasing rapidly two years time 160160160160iraq solve even majority problems 160make life better people endured 30 years foreign 160civil wars occupation sanctions iraqi kurdistan autonomous 160is almost independent many failings rest iraq 160corruption vast government payroll leaves little money 160investment kurdish political leadership strong enough 160security good enough region begin boom cranes dominate 160the skyline arbil kurdish capital still visible 160in baghdad reign present ruling elite iraq may temporary many 160the returning immigrants seem want plunder much 160soon relocating europe us sympathetic 160arab capital may abler successors failure form 160new government growing perception present one 160illegitimate making iraq unstable reconstruct patrick cockburn ihe author muqtada muqtada alsadr shia revival struggle iraq 160 words stick 160 | 584 |
<p>We are witnessing an extraordinary and potentially historic transformation in Egypt and the Arab world.&#160; Sparked by the Tunisian pro-democracy movement and toppling of the Ben Ali regime, the rulers of Egypt, Jordan, Yemen and Syria are facing popular demands for reform. As the Gallup World Poll, the largest and most systematic poll of the Muslim world representing the voices of a billion Muslims, reported, majorities in most countries, including Egypt, want democratic freedoms.</p>
<p>President Mubarak and other nervous Arab rulers, warn that the choice is between security and stability on the one hand and demands for greater democratization and liberty on the other. Their trump card with Western governments has always been to cast this choice as one between a tried and true ally or an Islamist takeover. Images of the thousands who turned out to meet Rachid Ghannoushi, leader of Tunisia’s banned Ennahda (Renaissance) Movement, on his return from political exile in London and the significant role Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood in Egyptian politics and society, have raised concerns among Arab and Western governments, Israel and others about the role of religion, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, in a future Egyptian government.&#160; Will the departure of Mubarak mean the “threat” of an Islamist takeover, instability and social chaos?</p>
<p>Gallup World Poll polling found that while majorities of Egyptian Muslims believe religion is important to their spiritual lives and to progress, they also want greater democratization, freedoms and the rule of law. In fact those in the region were the most likely to say that greater democracy and attachment to spiritual and moral values would contribute to a brighter future. But, does regime change mean a Muslim Brotherhood takeover?</p>
<p>Since the late 20th century, far from being advocates of religious extremism, the Muslim Brotherhood like other Islamically-oriented candidates and political parties in Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia have opted for ballots, not bullets. Among the Brotherhood’s most vigorous critics (and enemies) have been Egyptian militants, including Al-Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiry. For decades the Muslim Brotherhood, though officially illegal, has proven to be the largest and most effective non-violent opposition movement, politically and socially within mainstream Egyptian society.&#160; It and other Islamic organizations have provided an effective social service network of schools, medical clinics, and youth camps, an effective alternative an indictment of the government’s inability to deliver. Politically, despite government persistent provocation — harassment, arrest, imprisonment and violence against the Brotherhood, it has remained non-violent. The government regularly arrests Muslim Brothers before presidential and parliamentary elections, detaining them until after elections. Despite lack of access to media and the ability to hold public political rallies etc., the Brotherhood managed to emerge as the most effective opposition in Egypt’s rigged elections. In 2005, it took 20 per cent of parliamentary seats despite official intimidation and limits on its candidates. But what about the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in this period of political change and in a post-Mubarak Egypt?</p>
<p>Because Egypt’s repressive political context, political parties have remained weak. The National Democratic Party (NDP), founded by Anwar Sadat and then led by Mubarak, has enjoyed uncontested power in state politics. At the same time, the government has controlled the creation and functioning of political parties, the government registers political parties and can and does intervene. The net result is that the Muslim Brotherhood, though technically illegal and not a political party, has been the main opposition movement.</p>
<p>However, the Brotherhood did not initiate nor led the pro-democracy protest. While the Brotherhood, like many others was caught off guard and initially did not as an organization support the protest, members of the Brotherhood have participated in protest demonstrations. &#160;The Brotherhood supports El Baradei’s current leadership role and has been invited along with other opposition spokesperson to dialogue with Vice President Omer Suleiman. While the Brotherhood will no doubt continue to have an influential role, in a new more open and pluralistic political climate, they will be one of many potential political players and parties. The Muslim Brotherhood and Tunisia’s Ennahada as many other Islamist parties in the past elections, absent other political choices, were the only game in town. They garnered the votes not only of their members and supporters but also of those who wanted to express their opposition or disfavor with the government. Though it has a strong following, its religious conservatism, as witnessed by a 2007 draft political program that proposed setting up an Islamic council to vet laws and banning women and Christians running for president, will not appeal to many other Egyptians.</p>
<p>Though it subsequently backed off the idea of an advisory Islamic council, it will need to be more explicit on issues of the full equality of all citizens, the acceptance of religious and political pluralism, and its understanding of the role of Shariah.</p>
<p>But, what about fears that a post-Mubarak Egypt will become an Iran? Egypt is not Iran. The Iranian revolution was dubbed an Islamic revolution because of the heavy use of Islamic symbols, slogans, and reliigously legitimate ideology and its leadership and infrastructure, the Ayatollh Khaomeini and the mullah-mosque network. In contrast, Egypt’s pro-democracy popular revolution is not primarily about religion. It is about democracy and the rule of law. What is taking place is not an attempt at an Islamist takeover but a broad based call, supported by secular and religiously minded, young and old, men and women, Muslim and Christian, the poor, middle and upper classes. As their signs, placards, statements and demands demonstrate protesters want Egyptian unity, speak of one Egypt and sing the Egyptian national anthem; they wave Egyptian flags not Islamist placards.</p>
<p>Religious leaders have not been at the forefront of the protest nor publically spoken out and rallied support. If anything prominent religious leaders have been silent or publically not been supportive. However, diverse, they are driven by longstanding political and economic issues and grievances: the lack of democracy, a growing gap between a rich minority and the middle class and poor, rampant corruption, rising food prices, high unemployment levels, and lack of opportunity and a sense of a future for young people.</p>
<p>For too long, Western governments have supported authoritarian regimes and subordinated the desire of peoples in Egypt and many other parts of the Arab world for broader political participation and human rights. As a result, majorities in some 35 Muslim nations surveyed by the Gallup World Poll did not believe that the U.S. was serious about the establishment of democratic systems in the region. Only 24 per cent in Egypt and Jordan and only 16 per cent in Turkey agreed that the United States was serious about establishing democratic systems. As Amb. Richard Haas, a senior State Department official in the George W, Bush administration, noted prior to the invasion of Iraq, America for decades had practiced “democratic exceptionalism” in its promotion of democracy, what then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a speech at the American University in Cairo on June 20, 2005 described as</p>
<p>America’s record of supporting regional tyrants for six decades. Barack Obama, recognizing Egypt as a center of gravity for the region, went to Cairo early in his presidency and affirmed his commitment to democratic freedoms and human rights: “no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other.” Obama stressed, “That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people…. I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.” America and Europe must press Hosni Mubarak to exit now and thus enable Egyptians to sort out their future. Regrettably, thus far the administration seems to have succumbed to the Achilles heal of US foreign policy in the Middle East, opting for a policy of “perceived” stability more than democracy, driven more by fear of the unknown, of a process whose outcome it cannot control, than support for our principles of self-determination, democracy and human rights.</p>
<p>In the political transition that follows, emerging governments and reformers in Tunisia and Egypt will be challenged to form a national unity government, to demonstrate commitment to political liberalization, civil society and human rights by fostering the development of those civil institutions and values that support democratization. The litmus test will be the extent to which their policies and actions reflect an acceptance of basic democratic freedoms, diversity of opinion, multiple political parties and civil society organizations, as well as an appreciation for the concept of a “loyal opposition” rather than viewing alternative voices and political visions as a threat to the political system.</p>
<p>JOHN L. ESPOSITO is Professor of Religion &amp; International Affairs at Georgetown University and founding director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, author of <a href="" type="internal">The Future of Islam</a> and co-author with Dalia Mogahed of <a href="" type="internal">Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think</a>. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p /> | true | 4 | witnessing extraordinary potentially historic transformation egypt arab world160 sparked tunisian prodemocracy movement toppling ben ali regime rulers egypt jordan yemen syria facing popular demands reform gallup world poll largest systematic poll muslim world representing voices billion muslims reported majorities countries including egypt want democratic freedoms president mubarak nervous arab rulers warn choice security stability one hand demands greater democratization liberty trump card western governments always cast choice one tried true ally islamist takeover images thousands turned meet rachid ghannoushi leader tunisias banned ennahda renaissance movement return political exile london significant role egypts muslim brotherhood egyptian politics society raised concerns among arab western governments israel others role religion particularly muslim brotherhood future egyptian government160 departure mubarak mean threat islamist takeover instability social chaos gallup world poll polling found majorities egyptian muslims believe religion important spiritual lives progress also want greater democratization freedoms rule law fact region likely say greater democracy attachment spiritual moral values would contribute brighter future regime change mean muslim brotherhood takeover since late 20th century far advocates religious extremism muslim brotherhood like islamicallyoriented candidates political parties algeria tunisia morocco egypt lebanon turkey jordan kuwait bahrain pakistan malaysia indonesia opted ballots bullets among brotherhoods vigorous critics enemies egyptian militants including alqaedas ayman alzawahiry decades muslim brotherhood though officially illegal proven largest effective nonviolent opposition movement politically socially within mainstream egyptian society160 islamic organizations provided effective social service network schools medical clinics youth camps effective alternative indictment governments inability deliver politically despite government persistent provocation harassment arrest imprisonment violence brotherhood remained nonviolent government regularly arrests muslim brothers presidential parliamentary elections detaining elections despite lack access media ability hold public political rallies etc brotherhood managed emerge effective opposition egypts rigged elections 2005 took 20 per cent parliamentary seats despite official intimidation limits candidates role muslim brotherhood period political change postmubarak egypt egypts repressive political context political parties remained weak national democratic party ndp founded anwar sadat led mubarak enjoyed uncontested power state politics time government controlled creation functioning political parties government registers political parties intervene net result muslim brotherhood though technically illegal political party main opposition movement however brotherhood initiate led prodemocracy protest brotherhood like many others caught guard initially organization support protest members brotherhood participated protest demonstrations 160the brotherhood supports el baradeis current leadership role invited along opposition spokesperson dialogue vice president omer suleiman brotherhood doubt continue influential role new open pluralistic political climate one many potential political players parties muslim brotherhood tunisias ennahada many islamist parties past elections absent political choices game town garnered votes members supporters also wanted express opposition disfavor government though strong following religious conservatism witnessed 2007 draft political program proposed setting islamic council vet laws banning women christians running president appeal many egyptians though subsequently backed idea advisory islamic council need explicit issues full equality citizens acceptance religious political pluralism understanding role shariah fears postmubarak egypt become iran egypt iran iranian revolution dubbed islamic revolution heavy use islamic symbols slogans reliigously legitimate ideology leadership infrastructure ayatollh khaomeini mullahmosque network contrast egypts prodemocracy popular revolution primarily religion democracy rule law taking place attempt islamist takeover broad based call supported secular religiously minded young old men women muslim christian poor middle upper classes signs placards statements demands demonstrate protesters want egyptian unity speak one egypt sing egyptian national anthem wave egyptian flags islamist placards religious leaders forefront protest publically spoken rallied support anything prominent religious leaders silent publically supportive however diverse driven longstanding political economic issues grievances lack democracy growing gap rich minority middle class poor rampant corruption rising food prices high unemployment levels lack opportunity sense future young people long western governments supported authoritarian regimes subordinated desire peoples egypt many parts arab world broader political participation human rights result majorities 35 muslim nations surveyed gallup world poll believe us serious establishment democratic systems region 24 per cent egypt jordan 16 per cent turkey agreed united states serious establishing democratic systems amb richard haas senior state department official george w bush administration noted prior invasion iraq america decades practiced democratic exceptionalism promotion democracy secretary state condoleezza rice speech american university cairo june 20 2005 described americas record supporting regional tyrants six decades barack obama recognizing egypt center gravity region went cairo early presidency affirmed commitment democratic freedoms human rights system government imposed upon one nation obama stressed lessen commitment however governments reflect people unyielding belief people yearn certain things ability speak mind say governed confidence rule law equal administration justice government transparent doesnt steal people freedom live choose american ideas human rights support everywhere america europe must press hosni mubarak exit thus enable egyptians sort future regrettably thus far administration seems succumbed achilles heal us foreign policy middle east opting policy perceived stability democracy driven fear unknown process whose outcome control support principles selfdetermination democracy human rights political transition follows emerging governments reformers tunisia egypt challenged form national unity government demonstrate commitment political liberalization civil society human rights fostering development civil institutions values support democratization litmus test extent policies actions reflect acceptance basic democratic freedoms diversity opinion multiple political parties civil society organizations well appreciation concept loyal opposition rather viewing alternative voices political visions threat political system john l esposito professor religion amp international affairs georgetown university founding director center muslimchristian understanding author future islam coauthor dalia mogahed speaks islam billion muslims really think reached jle2georgetownedu 160 | 880 |
<p>Beyond the barren Judean Mountain range, east from Jerusalem, lies the Jordan Valley, an area which receives almost no media coverage, despite being home to 52,000 Palestinians and accounting for 30% of West Bank territory.</p>
<p>I am taken there by Stop the Wall campaign, in a battered mini bus with Egyptian music blaring out of the radio and the blazing heat burning our skin through the window. As we drop down from the mountains vast plantations of palm trees, citrus fruits and grape vines stretch as far as the eye can see. Every plantation is also surrounded by electrical fencing, barbed wire and “Danger” signs, because these oases of intensive production have been created on stolen land, grown by over-exploitation of water, farmed and owned by illegal settlers.</p>
<p>The lack of international attention means the land grab in the Valley goes unnoticed, for despite being on the Jordanian side of Palestine, Israel has invested large sums of money making this area a permanent part of their state, and a permanent obstacle to the emergence of Palestine.</p>
<p>One million palm trees have been planted here and one million more are planned in the next five years, while the number of Settlers will double in the next two. Israel has poured $58million into making their presence in the Valley viable since 2004, and at that price it is unlikely to have any intention of giving it up any time soon. Israeli Prime Minister Olmert admitted as much in February when he spoke in a TV interview of annexing the Jordan Valley to Israel, cutting any proposed Palestinian state into further enclaves, and preventing it from having direct contacts with its neighbours.</p>
<p>This scale of production has had enormous implications on water supply. All surrounding areas traditionally depend on the Jordan river for water, but the river’s resources have been drained by two enormous reservoirs which pull water from across the Valley. As we drive past we notice that one reservoir was donated by the Women’s Zionist Organisation of America, an organisation which faces no threat of sanctions despite funding projects which clearly violate international law. For the Palestinians meanwhile, stealing this water carries a hefty fine.</p>
<p>We continue down the valley, along the Ghandi Road, appropriately named not after the Indian resistance leader but the ironic nickname of Rehavam Zeevi, Sharon’s former far-right Tourism Minister who openly supported the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, famously comparing them to “lice” and “cancer”. Pepsi advertisements encourage drivers to “live life to the max” ­ something the Settlers appear to have taken to heart.</p>
<p>The mostly state-owned Carmel-Agrexco packing houses prepare fruit, herbs, flowers, palm oil and wine for export, much bound for Europe, where it will be displayed on supermarket shelves as ‘Made in Israel’, despite the fact that it is produced in militarily occupied Palestine. In fact business is booming for Agrexco, which handles 60-70% of all goods produced in the illegal Settlements, and who have increased their exports by 72% in the last three years. The food which isn’t exported is dumped on Palestinian markets, forcing out of business local producers unable to compete with subsidised goods being produced at their expense.</p>
<p>The finite land and waters resources in the Jordan Valley mean that Palestinians have lost all that Israel has gained, and are now packed into villages surrounded by closed military zones, bereft of land and water. Even their jobs as wage labourers on their occupier’s plantations are under threat. Settlers are beginning to import labourers from the Far East to work the Settlements, though it makes little sense economically. As one Palestinian farmer tells us “They will pay more just to get rid of us”.</p>
<p>We meet Hasan Jermy, the Mayor of one such Palestinian village, Zubadat. Hassan’s profession is teaching, and he tells us how this marks him out for particular humiliation when trying to cross the checkpoints along the Ghandi Road. He tells us how Palestinians used to export their produce to Jordan and Israel, but this is now unthinkable, partly because of lack of land and water and partly because it can take several days for Palestinian goods to cross the checkpoints of the Valley, costing money and leaving produce unusable.</p>
<p>Many Palestinians in the area now scrape together their basic needs from the few sheep they own or tiny and infertile plots of land. Even the sheep are in danger ­ if they wander into the closed military zone they’re likely to end up in what our guide calls “an animal prison”, from which the farmer must pay five Jordanian Dinars to recover their animal.</p>
<p>Few have lost as much as Faisal’s family, once local landowners, who now have a small house in an Oasis, from which they can see but not access the land they used to own. Faisal is growing aubergines in his field, but they are dry and shrivelled compared to the well watered grapes that grow on the plantations which have been stolen from him. “The water these plants constantly get comes through my land” he tells us “yet I have no access to it.”</p>
<p>Then there is the housing shortage. The Oslo Agreement demarcated only 0.5% of the Valley as Palestinian residential area. Palestinians are never granted permits to build new homes, so all new Palestinian homes are considered illegal by the Israeli Army and can be demolished at any time. Those who refuse to be forced out can be seen living in shacks, under plastic and corrugated tin roofs, or even in the back of lorries.</p>
<p>There are few words which can be used to describe 52,000 people living without livelihood, surrounded by plantations rich with food for export to the West. Or to compare the lifestyle of the illegal Settlers, enjoying a free education, unlimited water, suburban gardens and even discounted mobile phone deals, while Palestinians are crammed into villages, with no rights or services, fetching water from dirty ponds and organising their own education in tents in the desert. One word increasingly used to describe this situation across Palestine, and indeed in Israel itself, is Apartheid.</p>
<p>As we head back, our Mini Bus is held at a checkpoint as we’re questioned about our purpose here. Shiny saloon cars with Israeli licence plates speed through at the nod of a soldiers’ head.</p>
<p>Hasan Jermy has a simple message “for Bush, for Blair, for Putin and for Kofi Annan: Don’t close all the windows. The Palestinians want the chance to work our own land and to live our lives in peace.” But the action of Israel and the international community leave young people with few options ­ starvation, crime or violence.</p>
<p>As the West seems increasingly intent on shutting out the last rays of light that give the Palestinian people hope, groups like Stop the Wall go on mobilising peaceful resistance to the injustices they face. They have little choice. For the people of the Jordan Valley their struggle is not only for equality and justice, but a struggle to prevent the eradication of their very identity and existence.</p>
<p>NICK DEARDEN works for the London-based <a href="http://www.waronwant.org/palestine" type="external">War on Want</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 | beyond barren judean mountain range east jerusalem lies jordan valley area receives almost media coverage despite home 52000 palestinians accounting 30 west bank territory taken stop wall campaign battered mini bus egyptian music blaring radio blazing heat burning skin window drop mountains vast plantations palm trees citrus fruits grape vines stretch far eye see every plantation also surrounded electrical fencing barbed wire danger signs oases intensive production created stolen land grown overexploitation water farmed owned illegal settlers lack international attention means land grab valley goes unnoticed despite jordanian side palestine israel invested large sums money making area permanent part state permanent obstacle emergence palestine one million palm trees planted one million planned next five years number settlers double next two israel poured 58million making presence valley viable since 2004 price unlikely intention giving time soon israeli prime minister olmert admitted much february spoke tv interview annexing jordan valley israel cutting proposed palestinian state enclaves preventing direct contacts neighbours scale production enormous implications water supply surrounding areas traditionally depend jordan river water rivers resources drained two enormous reservoirs pull water across valley drive past notice one reservoir donated womens zionist organisation america organisation faces threat sanctions despite funding projects clearly violate international law palestinians meanwhile stealing water carries hefty fine continue valley along ghandi road appropriately named indian resistance leader ironic nickname rehavam zeevi sharons former farright tourism minister openly supported ethnic cleansing palestinians famously comparing lice cancer pepsi advertisements encourage drivers live life max something settlers appear taken heart mostly stateowned carmelagrexco packing houses prepare fruit herbs flowers palm oil wine export much bound europe displayed supermarket shelves made israel despite fact produced militarily occupied palestine fact business booming agrexco handles 6070 goods produced illegal settlements increased exports 72 last three years food isnt exported dumped palestinian markets forcing business local producers unable compete subsidised goods produced expense finite land waters resources jordan valley mean palestinians lost israel gained packed villages surrounded closed military zones bereft land water even jobs wage labourers occupiers plantations threat settlers beginning import labourers far east work settlements though makes little sense economically one palestinian farmer tells us pay get rid us meet hasan jermy mayor one palestinian village zubadat hassans profession teaching tells us marks particular humiliation trying cross checkpoints along ghandi road tells us palestinians used export produce jordan israel unthinkable partly lack land water partly take several days palestinian goods cross checkpoints valley costing money leaving produce unusable many palestinians area scrape together basic needs sheep tiny infertile plots land even sheep danger wander closed military zone theyre likely end guide calls animal prison farmer must pay five jordanian dinars recover animal lost much faisals family local landowners small house oasis see access land used faisal growing aubergines field dry shrivelled compared well watered grapes grow plantations stolen water plants constantly get comes land tells us yet access housing shortage oslo agreement demarcated 05 valley palestinian residential area palestinians never granted permits build new homes new palestinian homes considered illegal israeli army demolished time refuse forced seen living shacks plastic corrugated tin roofs even back lorries words used describe 52000 people living without livelihood surrounded plantations rich food export west compare lifestyle illegal settlers enjoying free education unlimited water suburban gardens even discounted mobile phone deals palestinians crammed villages rights services fetching water dirty ponds organising education tents desert one word increasingly used describe situation across palestine indeed israel apartheid head back mini bus held checkpoint questioned purpose shiny saloon cars israeli licence plates speed nod soldiers head hasan jermy simple message bush blair putin kofi annan dont close windows palestinians want chance work land live lives peace action israel international community leave young people options starvation crime violence west seems increasingly intent shutting last rays light give palestinian people hope groups like stop wall go mobilising peaceful resistance injustices face little choice people jordan valley struggle equality justice struggle prevent eradication identity existence nick dearden works londonbased war want reached ndeardenwaronwantorg 160 160 | 662 |
<p>Costas Lapavitsas is a professor in economics at the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies. He teaches the political economy of finance, and he's a regular columnist for The Guardian. Costas is also a former parliamentarian for Syriza in Greece.</p>
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<p /> PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore.
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<p />This is our first town hall. We just opened up the studio a few days ago, and we're going to do our first town hall about how finance exploits all of us. It's a very important topic for us at The Real News, because one of the main reasons we came to Baltimore was to take up one critical question, which is, more or less: what would you do if you ran Baltimore in the interests of the majority of its people? Of course, there's sort of a built-in assumption there that it's not currently the case. But that's what we think. I think the facts would lead one there. But if in fact you had a mayor, a city counselor, if you had a governor, a state assembly, and their only interest was the majority of the people's well-being, what with that public policy actually look like? It's easy to critique the existing system. It's perhaps not so easy to say what you would really do. And over the next year, two, or three years, we want to do investigative journalism. We're going to do town hall discussions and debates and talks and film screenings and all manner of formats, but all directed at the same basic objective: what would public policy look like if it was only in the interests of ordinary people?
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<p />So we're going to kick it off tonight and talk about how finance exploits all of us with our guest, Costas Lapavitzas. The topic is very important, and it's a very good topic particularly for Baltimore, because Baltimore is the home of the subprime mortgage. Most people that follow this know that the 2008 financial crisis was triggered by a banking crisis that to a large extent was triggered by subprime mortgages, people that were lent money, banks knowing they could never repay the mortgages, and not really caring if the mortgages were ever repaid, because they would package hundreds and even thousands of these mortgages, sell them on the derivatives markets to pension funds and other banks, and the whole thing was a house of cards. And I guess they had either an underlying belief that American real estate could never collapse or they didn't care, 'cause they were making such fees on the whole thing they really didn't care if the whole thing came down, because most of the people playing this game cashed out very well and they make money before the crash and they make money after the crash.
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<p />And Baltimore was the target of all this, not in the 2000s, but in the 1990s. This is where the whole subprime experiment began, and it was all targeted at African Americans, deliberately so. And it's come out in court documents since a lawsuit that the City of Baltimore launched against Wells Fargo Bank. It came out that it was specifically targeted to African Americans. They would higher African American loan officers to sell this stuff. They would not care at all whether people could pay. They would promise low interest rates to start, and then later, of course, it would balloon up and people would lose their houses. In the year 2000, subprime mortgages was the number one cause of foreclosures in Baltimore long before it became a national phenomenon.
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<p />So this is sort of an example of how we want to tie systemic issues like big banks, predatory lending, and how this appears locally and how it screws up people's lives, and over time start talking about what an alternative financial system--and not just financial but other ways of my managing a city and a state and, someday, a country--might look like.
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<p />So without further ado, I'd like to introduce our guest tonight, and he is Costas Lapavitsas. And he's a professor of economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. He's a member of Research on Money Finance (RMF) and the lead author of the new RMF report "Breaking Up? A Route Out of the Euro Zone Crisis". His previous publications include Crisis in the Eurozone; Social Foundations of Markets, Money, and Credit; and Political Economy of Money and Finance. And Costas is going to speak for 15, 20 minutes or so, and then we'll have a Q&amp;A. And I look forward to hearing it all.
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<p />So go ahead, Costas.
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<p />COSTAS LAPAVITSAS, ECONOMICS PROFESSOR, UNIV. OF LONDON: I will present to you some ideas that I have dealt with in my new book, Profiting without Producing, which has just come out, which discuss finance and the rise of finance. I can't tell you very much about Baltimore because I don't know about it, but I will tell you quite a few things about what I call the financialization of capitalism, which impacts on Baltimore and on many other places.
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<p />So, getting on with it, and very quickly because time is short, I think it's fair to say and all of us would agree that finance has an extraordinary presence in contemporary mature economies. It's very clear in the case of the U.S., but equally clear in the case of the United Kingdom, where I live, Japan, about which I know quite a bit, Germany, and so on. There's no question at all about it. Finance is a sector of the economy in mature countries which has grown enormously in terms of size relative to the rest of the economy, in terms of penetration into everyday lives of ordinary people, but also small and medium businesses and just about everybody. And in terms of policy influence, finance clearly influences economic policy on a national level in country after country. The interests of finance are paramount in forming economic policy. So that is clear. Finance has become extraordinarily powerful. And that, in a sense, is the first immediate way in which we can understand financialization. Something has happened there, and modern mature capitalism appears to have financialized.
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<p />Now, what is this financialization? The best I can do right now is to give you the gist of this argument of mine in my book. And I will come clean immediately and tell you that I think financialization is basically a profound historical transformation of modern capitalism. This is the way I understand it. It's a profound historical transformation that really began in the 1970s, and it's now been running for about four decades.
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<p />How to understand, then, the profound historical transformation, how to go about it, what concepts do we need? I think we need first of all to look at some economic processes, some economic change that is taking place, fundamental economic change, and then we need to look at some changes in politics and institutions and combine the two in order to grasp the historical change.
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<p />So let me start with economic changes, the economic foundations of this transformation. I think there are three key root changes here.
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<p />The first, funnily enough, doesn't relate to finance itself, but it relates to industry and commerce. In other words, it relates to nonfinancial economic activity. One must start there to understand the historical transformation. So what has happened to big business in particular? Well, what's happened to big business is very interesting. Two things have happened to it. First, big business has become increasingly capable of financing investment out of retained earnings. It retains its profits, and on a net basis it finances investment pretty much out of that. Of course, it still uses banks, but it doesn't rely on banks on a net basis to finance investment. That gives it independence, a certain degree of independence from banks.
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<p />In addition to that, big business has made so much in retained profits--currently U.S. big business is sitting on piles of cash. It has made so much in retained profits that it can use those funds to play financial games, to engage in financial transactions and financial activities on its own account. So big business has financialized. The key element that we've got to understand first is the financialization of big business. Large enterprises have acquired some of the character of financial institutions, have become bank-like, and they engage in these transactions, and they change the structure of their own organization as they do that. So that's the first thing.
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<p />Second economic change, and very, very important, too, relates to banks. If big businesses is doing that, banks must do something else to make profit. Banks are profit-making institutions. So if big business becomes increasingly independent of banks, banks must do something else. What have banks done? It's very clear what they've done. They lend less to businesses for investment and so on, and they play more games in the financial markets. They become transactors in financial assets, and they make profits increasingly not from lending but from fees, commissions, and trading. They become traders in financial assets.
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<p />At the same time, banks have also turn households. Households have become a very profitable activity of banks, a new activity. This is a new phenomenon in the development of capitalism. So that much about banks.
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<p />The third change has to do with households, workers, ordinary people. And what we see there in the last three to four decades is that ordinary people have been qdrawn into the former financial system like never before. Households have become financialized. Finance has become a fundamental part of household life--like I say, like never before.
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<p />Why is that? Partly because wages have been stagnant. And therefore--I mean, nowhere more stagnant than in this country. I mean, real wages have been absolutely flat in this country for decades. So partly because of that, people have turned to debt. But also people have got assets, financial assets.
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<p />So the financialization of everyday life, of households, is a bit of a complex story. What is actually happening there, I think, is not simply that you borrow in order to consume. That also happens. It's a more complex story than that. What is actually happening is people need access to health, education, housing, and a variety of other needs. Every country has systems of provision for these things. Each country differs from the next country, but pretty much there are similarities. These modes of provision have historically, traditionally, incorporated public provision, some methods of public provision, for everything--for housing, for health, for education, and so on. What we've witnessed the last three to four decades is a retreat of public provision. Public provision has retreated. Private provision has taken its place. As this is happened, finance has emerged as the facilitator of that. So we turn to private provision to solve our housing needs, our health needs, our education needs, and finance makes profits out of that, basically, without having any skills in doing these things. So this to me is the financialization of households, the third major trend.
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<p />So non-financials have financialized, banks have changed, and households have been drawn into the financial system. These changes together have basically transformed the economy, transformed the foundations of the economy. This is a new type of capitalism.
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<p />At the same time, we've had changes in institutions and in ideology. These you would have heard about and you would be familiar with. The changes in institutions are very clear. We've had wave after wave of deregulation. Labor market has become more deregulated, and financial markets have become more deregulated.
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<p />And in addition to deregulation what we've had is the rise of the ideology of neoliberalism. Deregulation goes hand in hand with neoliberalism, the idea that the market is good, the state is bad. In this country, this is a very powerfully held idea, more powerfully here than anywhere else. Actually, it's extraordinary how powerful this perception is and how a lot of social issues are understood in this way.
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<p />The point I want to make you is that neoliberalism is very, very powerful and sustains financialization, but neoliberalism is not really about asserting the merits of the market over the state. Actually, it's more complex than that and it's more crafty than that, because neoliberals are not the enemies of the state. Neoliberals want to take over the state. The actual content of neoliberal ideology is to take over the state and to use the state to protect the market, to make the market bigger, to effect market-favoring, market-conducive changes. So this has also been going on the last three to four decades. And that to me is the core of financialization.
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<p />So what have we got after four decades of this? These changes, seen very clearly in the United States, have created, firstly, a deeply unequal country, a deeply unequal society. Financialization is fundamentally about inequality. We see this inequality in terms of income, where the top 10 percent and the top 1 percent draw an extraordinary proportion of income annually. But we see it in terms of the functional distribution, the distribution of income between capital and labor, where labor has lost--and lost dramatically--during the last three to four decades in this country and in just about every other mature capitalist country that has financialized.
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<p />So this is a deeply unequal system. It generates inequality. Finance has acted as a key lever in increasing it inequality. Finance is a vital mechanism in increasing inequality. You can see it in terms of the profits it creates. Financial profit has become a huge part of total profit through these activities that I've just discussed by markets, households, and so on--a huge part of total profit. And the rich in this country and elsewhere typically become rich through financial methods; the way in which you acquire great wealth and you cream off the surplus is basically through financial methods, through access to financial assets, privileged ways of trading financial assets, and privileged position in of the financial system that allows you to extract vast returns, which appear as salaries and wages, in other words, remuneration for labor. Come on. What kind of remuneration for labor is this allows someone to draw tens of millions of dollars annually? For what kind of labor? This isn't labor. This is a kind of rent, this is a kind of surplus accruing because of power and position in the financial system or access to finance. And that is typical of financialization in this country and elsewhere.
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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 | costas lapavitsas professor economics university london school oriental african studies teaches political economy finance hes regular columnist guardian costas also former parliamentarian syriza greece paul jay senior editor trnn welcome real news network im paul jay baltimore first town hall opened studio days ago going first town hall finance exploits us important topic us real news one main reasons came baltimore take one critical question less would ran baltimore interests majority people course theres sort builtin assumption currently case thats think think facts would lead one fact mayor city counselor governor state assembly interest majority peoples wellbeing public policy actually look like easy critique existing system perhaps easy say would really next year two three years want investigative journalism going town hall discussions debates talks film screenings manner formats directed basic objective would public policy look like interests ordinary people going kick tonight talk finance exploits us guest costas lapavitzas topic important good topic particularly baltimore baltimore home subprime mortgage people follow know 2008 financial crisis triggered banking crisis large extent triggered subprime mortgages people lent money banks knowing could never repay mortgages really caring mortgages ever repaid would package hundreds even thousands mortgages sell derivatives markets pension funds banks whole thing house cards guess either underlying belief american real estate could never collapse didnt care cause making fees whole thing really didnt care whole thing came people playing game cashed well make money crash make money crash baltimore target 2000s 1990s whole subprime experiment began targeted african americans deliberately come court documents since lawsuit city baltimore launched wells fargo bank came specifically targeted african americans would higher african american loan officers sell stuff would care whether people could pay would promise low interest rates start later course would balloon people would lose houses year 2000 subprime mortgages number one cause foreclosures baltimore long became national phenomenon sort example want tie systemic issues like big banks predatory lending appears locally screws peoples lives time start talking alternative financial systemand financial ways managing city state someday countrymight look like without ado id like introduce guest tonight costas lapavitsas hes professor economics school oriental african studies university london hes member research money finance rmf lead author new rmf report breaking route euro zone crisis previous publications include crisis eurozone social foundations markets money credit political economy money finance costas going speak 15 20 minutes well qampa look forward hearing go ahead costas costas lapavitsas economics professor univ london present ideas dealt new book profiting without producing come discuss finance rise finance cant tell much baltimore dont know tell quite things call financialization capitalism impacts baltimore many places getting quickly time short think fair say us would agree finance extraordinary presence contemporary mature economies clear case us equally clear case united kingdom live japan know quite bit germany theres question finance sector economy mature countries grown enormously terms size relative rest economy terms penetration everyday lives ordinary people also small medium businesses everybody terms policy influence finance clearly influences economic policy national level country country interests finance paramount forming economic policy clear finance become extraordinarily powerful sense first immediate way understand financialization something happened modern mature capitalism appears financialized financialization best right give gist argument mine book come clean immediately tell think financialization basically profound historical transformation modern capitalism way understand profound historical transformation really began 1970s running four decades understand profound historical transformation go concepts need think need first look economic processes economic change taking place fundamental economic change need look changes politics institutions combine two order grasp historical change let start economic changes economic foundations transformation think three key root changes first funnily enough doesnt relate finance relates industry commerce words relates nonfinancial economic activity one must start understand historical transformation happened big business particular well whats happened big business interesting two things happened first big business become increasingly capable financing investment retained earnings retains profits net basis finances investment pretty much course still uses banks doesnt rely banks net basis finance investment gives independence certain degree independence banks addition big business made much retained profitscurrently us big business sitting piles cash made much retained profits use funds play financial games engage financial transactions financial activities account big business financialized key element weve got understand first financialization big business large enterprises acquired character financial institutions become banklike engage transactions change structure organization thats first thing second economic change important relates banks big businesses banks must something else make profit banks profitmaking institutions big business becomes increasingly independent banks banks must something else banks done clear theyve done lend less businesses investment play games financial markets become transactors financial assets make profits increasingly lending fees commissions trading become traders financial assets time banks also turn households households become profitable activity banks new activity new phenomenon development capitalism much banks third change households workers ordinary people see last three four decades ordinary people qdrawn former financial system like never households become financialized finance become fundamental part household lifelike say like never partly wages stagnant thereforei mean nowhere stagnant country mean real wages absolutely flat country decades partly people turned debt also people got assets financial assets financialization everyday life households bit complex story actually happening think simply borrow order consume also happens complex story actually happening people need access health education housing variety needs every country systems provision things country differs next country pretty much similarities modes provision historically traditionally incorporated public provision methods public provision everythingfor housing health education weve witnessed last three four decades retreat public provision public provision retreated private provision taken place happened finance emerged facilitator turn private provision solve housing needs health needs education needs finance makes profits basically without skills things financialization households third major trend nonfinancials financialized banks changed households drawn financial system changes together basically transformed economy transformed foundations economy new type capitalism time weve changes institutions ideology would heard would familiar changes institutions clear weve wave wave deregulation labor market become deregulated financial markets become deregulated addition deregulation weve rise ideology neoliberalism deregulation goes hand hand neoliberalism idea market good state bad country powerfully held idea powerfully anywhere else actually extraordinary powerful perception lot social issues understood way point want make neoliberalism powerful sustains financialization neoliberalism really asserting merits market state actually complex crafty neoliberals enemies state neoliberals want take state actual content neoliberal ideology take state use state protect market make market bigger effect marketfavoring marketconducive changes also going last three four decades core financialization got four decades changes seen clearly united states created firstly deeply unequal country deeply unequal society financialization fundamentally inequality see inequality terms income top 10 percent top 1 percent draw extraordinary proportion income annually see terms functional distribution distribution income capital labor labor lostand lost dramaticallyduring last three four decades country every mature capitalist country financialized deeply unequal system generates inequality finance acted key lever increasing inequality finance vital mechanism increasing inequality see terms profits creates financial profit become huge part total profit activities ive discussed markets households ona huge part total profit rich country elsewhere typically become rich financial methods way acquire great wealth cream surplus basically financial methods access financial assets privileged ways trading financial assets privileged position financial system allows extract vast returns appear salaries wages words remuneration labor come kind remuneration labor allows someone draw tens millions dollars annually kind labor isnt labor kind rent kind surplus accruing power position financial system access finance typical financialization country elsewhere end disclaimer please note transcripts real news network typed recording program trnn guarantee complete accuracy | 1,249 |
<p>Privacy is eroding fast as technology offers government increasing ways to track and spy on citizens.&#160; The Washington Post reported there are 3,984 federal, state and local organizations working on domestic counterterrorism.&#160; Most collect information on people in the US.&#160; Here are thirteen examples of how some of the biggest government agencies and programs track people.</p>
<p>One.&#160; The National Security Agency (NSA) collects hundreds of millions of emails, texts and phone calls every day and has the ability to collect and sift through billions more.&#160; WIRED just reported NSA is building an immense new data center which will intercept, analyze and store even more electronic communications from satellites and cables across the nation and the world.&#160; Though NSA is not supposed to focus on US citizens, it does.</p>
<p>Two.&#160; The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) National Security Branch Analysis Center (NSAC) has more than 1.5 billion government and private sector records about US citizens collected from commercial databases, government information, and criminal probes.</p>
<p>Three.&#160; The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Times recently reported that cellphones of private individuals in the US are being tracked without warrants by state and local law enforcement all across the country.&#160; With more than 300 million cellphones in the US connected to more than 200,000 <a href="" type="internal" />cell phone towers, cellphone tracking software can pinpoint the location of a phone and document the places the cellphone user visits over the course of a day, week, month or longer.</p>
<p>Four.&#160; More than 62 million people in the US have their fingerprints on file with the FBI, state and local governments.&#160; This system, called the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), shares information with 43 states and 5 federal agencies. &#160; This system conducts more than 168,000 checks each day.</p>
<p>Five.&#160; Over 126 million people have their fingerprints, photographs and biographical information accessible on the US Department of Homeland Security Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT).&#160; This system conducts about 250,000 biometric transactions each day.&#160; The goal of this system is to provide information for national security, law enforcement, immigration, intelligence and other Homeland Security Functions.</p>
<p>Six.&#160; More than 110 million people have their visas and more than 90 million have their photographs entered into the US Department of State Consular Consolidated Database (CCD). &#160; This system grows by adding about 35,000 people a day.&#160; This system serves as a gateway to the Department of State Facial Recognition system, IDENT and IAFSIS.</p>
<p>Seven.&#160; DNA profiles on more than 10 million people are available in the FBI coordinated Combined DNA index System (CODIS) National DNA Index.</p>
<p>Eight.&#160; Information on more than 2 million people is kept in the Intelligence Community Security Clearance Repository, commonly known as Scattered Castles.&#160; Most of the people in this database are employees of the Department of Defense (DOD) and other intelligence agencies.</p>
<p>Nine.&#160; The DOD also has an automated biometric identification system (ABIS) to support military operations overseas.&#160; This database incorporates fingerprint, palm print, face and iris matching on 6 million people and is adding 20,000 more people each day.</p>
<p>Ten.&#160; Information on over 740,000 people is included in the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) of the National Counterterrorism Center.&#160; TIDE is the US government central repository of information on international terrorist identities.&#160; The government says that less than 2 percent of the people on file are US citizens or legal permanent residents.&#160; They were just given permission to keep their non-terrorism information on US citizens for a period of five years, up from 180 days.</p>
<p>Eleven.&#160; Tens of thousands of people are subjects of facial recognition software.&#160; The FBI has been working with North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles and other state and local law enforcement on facial recognition software in a project called “Face Mask.”&#160; For example, the FBI has provided thousands of photos and names to the North Carolina DMV which runs those against their photos of North Carolina drivers.&#160; The Maricopa Arizona County Sheriff’s Office alone records 9,000 biometric mug shots a month.</p>
<p>Twelve.&#160; The FBI operates the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative (SAR) that collects and analyzes observations or reports of suspicious activities by local law enforcement. &#160; With over 160,000 suspicious activity files, SAR stores the profiles of tens of thousands of Americans and legal residents who are not accused of any crime but who are alleged to have acted suspiciously.</p>
<p>Thirteen.&#160; The FBI admits it has about 3,000 GPS tracking devices on cars of unsuspecting people in the US right now, even after the US Supreme Court decision authorizing these only after a warrant for probable cause has been issued.</p>
<p>The Future&#160;</p>
<p>The technology for tracking and identifying people is exploding as is the government appetite for it.</p>
<p>Soon, police everywhere will be equipped with handheld devices to collect fingerprint, face, iris and even DNA information on the spot and have it instantly sent to national databases for comparison and storage.</p>
<p>Bloomberg News reports the newest surveillance products “can also secretly activate laptop webcams or microphones on mobile devices,” change the contents of written emails mid-transmission, and use voice recognition to scan phone networks.</p>
<p>The advanced technology of the war on terrorism, combined with deferential courts and legislators, have endangered both the right to privacy and the right of people to be free from government snooping and tracking.&#160; Only the people can stop this.</p>
<p>Bill Quigley&#160;is a human rights lawyer who teaches at Loyola University New Orleans and works with the Center for Constitutional Rights.&#160; A version of this article with full sources is available. He is a contributor to&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion</a>, forthcoming from AK Press.&#160;You can reach Bill at q <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | privacy eroding fast technology offers government increasing ways track spy citizens160 washington post reported 3984 federal state local organizations working domestic counterterrorism160 collect information people us160 thirteen examples biggest government agencies programs track people one160 national security agency nsa collects hundreds millions emails texts phone calls every day ability collect sift billions more160 wired reported nsa building immense new data center intercept analyze store even electronic communications satellites cables across nation world160 though nsa supposed focus us citizens two160 federal bureau investigation fbi national security branch analysis center nsac 15 billion government private sector records us citizens collected commercial databases government information criminal probes three160 american civil liberties union new york times recently reported cellphones private individuals us tracked without warrants state local law enforcement across country160 300 million cellphones us connected 200000 cell phone towers cellphone tracking software pinpoint location phone document places cellphone user visits course day week month longer four160 62 million people us fingerprints file fbi state local governments160 system called integrated automated fingerprint identification system iafis shares information 43 states 5 federal agencies 160 system conducts 168000 checks day five160 126 million people fingerprints photographs biographical information accessible us department homeland security automated biometric identification system ident160 system conducts 250000 biometric transactions day160 goal system provide information national security law enforcement immigration intelligence homeland security functions six160 110 million people visas 90 million photographs entered us department state consular consolidated database ccd 160 system grows adding 35000 people day160 system serves gateway department state facial recognition system ident iafsis seven160 dna profiles 10 million people available fbi coordinated combined dna index system codis national dna index eight160 information 2 million people kept intelligence community security clearance repository commonly known scattered castles160 people database employees department defense dod intelligence agencies nine160 dod also automated biometric identification system abis support military operations overseas160 database incorporates fingerprint palm print face iris matching 6 million people adding 20000 people day ten160 information 740000 people included terrorist identities datamart environment tide national counterterrorism center160 tide us government central repository information international terrorist identities160 government says less 2 percent people file us citizens legal permanent residents160 given permission keep nonterrorism information us citizens period five years 180 days eleven160 tens thousands people subjects facial recognition software160 fbi working north carolina department motor vehicles state local law enforcement facial recognition software project called face mask160 example fbi provided thousands photos names north carolina dmv runs photos north carolina drivers160 maricopa arizona county sheriffs office alone records 9000 biometric mug shots month twelve160 fbi operates nationwide suspicious activity reporting initiative sar collects analyzes observations reports suspicious activities local law enforcement 160 160000 suspicious activity files sar stores profiles tens thousands americans legal residents accused crime alleged acted suspiciously thirteen160 fbi admits 3000 gps tracking devices cars unsuspecting people us right even us supreme court decision authorizing warrant probable cause issued future160 technology tracking identifying people exploding government appetite soon police everywhere equipped handheld devices collect fingerprint face iris even dna information spot instantly sent national databases comparison storage bloomberg news reports newest surveillance products also secretly activate laptop webcams microphones mobile devices change contents written emails midtransmission use voice recognition scan phone networks advanced technology war terrorism combined deferential courts legislators endangered right privacy right people free government snooping tracking160 people stop bill quigley160is human rights lawyer teaches loyola university new orleans works center constitutional rights160 version article full sources available contributor to160 hopeless barack obama politics illusion forthcoming ak press160you reach bill q uigley77gmailcom160 | 582 |
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<p>November 20 marks the anniversary of the Mexican Revolution of 1910‐1920. The party created by that event, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), is in power today. Yet, over the last nine years 60,000 people have been killed and 25,000 forcibly disappeared in the drug wars, while more than half the population lives in poverty. Foreign investment pours into Mexico to take advantage of wages lower than China’s, while the country is controlled by a handful of billionaires. One has to wonder: What happened to the Mexican Revolution?</p>
<p>The dictator Porfirio Díaz, who ruled Mexico from 1876 to 1910, caused the revolution. He and his cabinet of wealthy landowners and businessmen took land from the peasants and violently repressed any dissent. They also invited foreign capitalists from the United States, Britain, and France to invest in Mexican mines, railroads, oil, and agriculture until foreign corporations controlled much of the economy.</p>
<p>In 1906, anarchist revolutionary Ricardo Flores Magón of the Mexican Liberal Party organized armed uprisings accompanied by strikes that shook but did not topple Díaz’s &#160;dictatorship. Four years later, Francisco I. Madero, a wealthy landlord and industrialist, ran for president against Díaz but ended up in jail. Escaping, he called upon the people to rise up in revolution on November 20, 1910.</p>
<p>Madero represented the modernizing bourgeoisie of Mexico, northern farmers and manufacturers influenced by U.S. capitalism who resented Díaz and his cronies cornering the market. When Madero called for revolution, not only the Mexican business class but also the plebeian classes, heard him. Ranchers, peasants, factory workers, miners and railroad workers picked up the gun and rode with Francisco “Pancho” Villa and Emiliano Zapata. The nation rose up and drove Díaz from the country.</p>
<p>In Mexico’s first‐ever democratic election in 1911, Madero won the presidency, but his moderation and temporizing failed to satisfy the peasants and workers, while his suggestion of reform outraged the old ruling elite. Mexican conservatives, with the collusion of the U.S. ambassador, overthrew and assassinated Madero and put</p>
<p>Victoriano Huerta in power in 1913. In a second wave of revolution, led by another northern landlord and businessman, Venustiano Carranza, the forces of Villa and&#160;Zapata were again victorious and Huerta was toppled.</p>
<p>The revolutionary forces then divided: modernizing capitalist state builders led by Carranza against the plebeian armies of Zapata and Villa. The great irony of the revolution is that Carranza made an alliance with the anarchist House of the World Worker to provide troops in exchange for recognition of workers’ unions. So workers went off to fight peasants and lifted the modernizing capitalist to power.</p>
<p>Carranza, however, failed to satisfy workers and peasants with his new government, and was soon overthrown by General Álvaro Obregón. Obregón and his successor Plutarco Elías Calles were finally able to end the violent stage of the revolution by 1920 on the basis of concessions to the society’s underdogs.</p>
<p>The revolution had been fought over four fundamental issues: peasants’ demands for land, workers’ demands for unions, society’s demand for education, and the nation’s demand to control its natural resources. The Constitution of 1917 responded to all of those issues, but no action was taken on them until 1934 when Lázaro Cárdenas became president. Cárdenas carried out a massive land distribution, recognized the labor unions, and seized and nationalized Standard Oil and Royal Dutch Shell in Mexico. Schools were built throughout the country. So, one can say that the revolution was finally accomplished and fulfilled in 1940, improving the lives of millions.</p>
<p>Cárdenas also reformed the state, incorporating into the ruling party the&#160;Confederation of Mexican Workers, the National Peasant Confederation, and the public employees’ unions. The PRI government became a one‐party state. When Cárdenas stepped down in 1940, he was succeeded by conservative leaders who favored foreign and domestic business over Mexico’s working people.</p>
<p>By 1960, Mexico faced new problems. The population grew dramatically and millions moved to the cities. Modernization created new social classes. Now, there were not just peasants, ranchers, and industrial workers, but also white‐collar workers, university students, technicians, and new layers of management. The PRI’s one‐party state was challenged, and when students demonstrated in 1968 on the eve of the Olympic Games, demanding democracy, the government killed hundreds. A new left developed in Mexico in the 1970s, organizing among students, peasants, and workers; the government responded by disappearing some 500 in the country’s “dirty war.”</p>
<p>Beginning in the 1980s, the PRI adopted neoliberal policies, and Cuauhtémoc&#160;Cárdenas (son of Lázaro) led a split in an attempt to preserve the nationalist economic model. Though Cárdenas won the 1988 election, computer fraud put Carlos Salinas of the PRI in the presidency. Still, resistance persisted. In January 1994, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation led an uprising in an attempt to overthrow the government, but its rebellion was contained in the state of Chiapas.</p>
<p>Not allowed to elect a president from the left, to break the power of the PRI the&#160;Mexican people voted for Vicente Fox of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), who became president of Mexico in 2000. Fox proved a failure for his own party and for the people of Mexico. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, populist leader of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), challenged him and won the 2006 election, but, despite massive protests, vote fraud kept him from power. Felipe Calderón became president and launched his war on the drug cartels, unleashing the terrible violence that has taken so many lives.</p>
<p>So, in 2012 Enrique Peña Nieto was elected president and the PRI was back in power, passing a neoliberal program of education, labor, and energy counter-reforms. His government has not gone unchallenged. The murder of six and kidnapping of 43 students of the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College in September 2014 led to massive demonstrations against the government. At the same time, Mexican teachers have been striking against the education reform program. Still, though Mexico surely needs another revolution, the forces that might bring it about have not yet developed.</p>
<p>*Dan La Botz is a teacher, writer, and activist, editor of&#160; <a href="http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/index.php" type="external">Mexican Labor News and Analysis</a>, and a member of Solidarity.&#160;This article first appeared on the <a href="http://www.dsausa.org/what_happened_to_the_mexican_revolution_dl" type="external">Democratic Left blog</a>.</p>
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<p><a href="/filter/tips" type="external">More information about formatting options</a></p> | true | 4 | november 20 marks anniversary mexican revolution 19101920 party created event institutional revolutionary party pri power today yet last nine years 60000 people killed 25000 forcibly disappeared drug wars half population lives poverty foreign investment pours mexico take advantage wages lower chinas country controlled handful billionaires one wonder happened mexican revolution dictator porfirio díaz ruled mexico 1876 1910 caused revolution cabinet wealthy landowners businessmen took land peasants violently repressed dissent also invited foreign capitalists united states britain france invest mexican mines railroads oil agriculture foreign corporations controlled much economy 1906 anarchist revolutionary ricardo flores magón mexican liberal party organized armed uprisings accompanied strikes shook topple díazs 160dictatorship four years later francisco madero wealthy landlord industrialist ran president díaz ended jail escaping called upon people rise revolution november 20 1910 madero represented modernizing bourgeoisie mexico northern farmers manufacturers influenced us capitalism resented díaz cronies cornering market madero called revolution mexican business class also plebeian classes heard ranchers peasants factory workers miners railroad workers picked gun rode francisco pancho villa emiliano zapata nation rose drove díaz country mexicos firstever democratic election 1911 madero presidency moderation temporizing failed satisfy peasants workers suggestion reform outraged old ruling elite mexican conservatives collusion us ambassador overthrew assassinated madero put victoriano huerta power 1913 second wave revolution led another northern landlord businessman venustiano carranza forces villa and160zapata victorious huerta toppled revolutionary forces divided modernizing capitalist state builders led carranza plebeian armies zapata villa great irony revolution carranza made alliance anarchist house world worker provide troops exchange recognition workers unions workers went fight peasants lifted modernizing capitalist power carranza however failed satisfy workers peasants new government soon overthrown general Álvaro obregón obregón successor plutarco elías calles finally able end violent stage revolution 1920 basis concessions societys underdogs revolution fought four fundamental issues peasants demands land workers demands unions societys demand education nations demand control natural resources constitution 1917 responded issues action taken 1934 lázaro cárdenas became president cárdenas carried massive land distribution recognized labor unions seized nationalized standard oil royal dutch shell mexico schools built throughout country one say revolution finally accomplished fulfilled 1940 improving lives millions cárdenas also reformed state incorporating ruling party the160confederation mexican workers national peasant confederation public employees unions pri government became oneparty state cárdenas stepped 1940 succeeded conservative leaders favored foreign domestic business mexicos working people 1960 mexico faced new problems population grew dramatically millions moved cities modernization created new social classes peasants ranchers industrial workers also whitecollar workers university students technicians new layers management pris oneparty state challenged students demonstrated 1968 eve olympic games demanding democracy government killed hundreds new left developed mexico 1970s organizing among students peasants workers government responded disappearing 500 countrys dirty war beginning 1980s pri adopted neoliberal policies cuauhtémoc160cárdenas son lázaro led split attempt preserve nationalist economic model though cárdenas 1988 election computer fraud put carlos salinas pri presidency still resistance persisted january 1994 zapatista army national liberation led uprising attempt overthrow government rebellion contained state chiapas allowed elect president left break power pri the160mexican people voted vicente fox conservative national action party pan became president mexico 2000 fox proved failure party people mexico andrés manuel lópez obrador populist leader party democratic revolution prd challenged 2006 election despite massive protests vote fraud kept power felipe calderón became president launched war drug cartels unleashing terrible violence taken many lives 2012 enrique peña nieto elected president pri back power passing neoliberal program education labor energy counterreforms government gone unchallenged murder six kidnapping 43 students ayotzinapa rural teachers college september 2014 led massive demonstrations government time mexican teachers striking education reform program still though mexico surely needs another revolution forces might bring yet developed dan la botz teacher writer activist editor of160 mexican labor news analysis member solidarity160this article first appeared democratic left blog 160 160 information formatting options | 627 |
<p>Hosni Mubarak had his first meeting with President George W Bush in Washington on 2 April, 2001. This was the usual time of year for the presidential visit to the United States, and the time of year for various groups of expatriate Copts to start noisy accusations of persecution of Egypt’s Christian minority. On 22 March Copts were “marching for justice in Washington DC on behalf of the persecuted Copts in Egypt,” according to The Pen vs The Sword&#160;( <a href="" type="internal">1</a>). This year there has been much to march about. On 4 February a court ruling found none of 96 defendants guilty of murder during the worst sectarian clashes in the country’s recent history, when at least 20 Christians and one Muslim were killed in the small Upper Egyptian town of al-Khosheh early last year. The Prosecutor General announced that he would appeal against the verdict, possibly because of Coptic anger.</p>
<p>On 24 February, while that judicial storm was still resounding, the Coptic community was again furious because the authorities demolished a church building on the outskirts of Cairo because its bishop had failed to comply with a much-criticised law requiring presidential permission to build churches.</p>
<p>To cap it all, on 22 March a semi-governmental American body, the US Commission of International Religious Freedom, arrived in Cairo to investigate religious discrimination, causing uproar on both sides: what right had the US to be meddling in Egypt’s internal affairs? Was there not enough discrimination within America itself to keep it busy? It was not helpful that the commission was headed by former assistant secretary of state Elliott Abrams who has written admiringly of Ariel Sharon.</p>
<p>All this invited the intervention of the Coptic Patriarch, Pope Shenouda III, a highly intelligent man who learned early on in his office, when President Sadat confined him to his monastery for four years, how to play a shrewd political hand. Shenouda (along with Egypt’s chief Muslim cleric, Sheikh Tantawi of al-Azhar) was one of the few people who agreed to meet with the commission. In an open letter to the press&#160;( <a href="" type="internal">i</a>), he also asked Coptic expatriates in the US to refrain from “ill-advised actions” that might compromise the presidential visit. He reminded Copts that the al-Khosheh verdict was a judicial one and had been referred to the country’s highest court of appeal: “We cannot ask the state for more than that”. He also spoke about the demolition of the church building at Shubra al-Kheima, one of the poorest areas of Greater Cairo. “I don’t deny there are problems,” he conceded, but “they are settled and resolved as soon as the president knows about them”.</p>
<p>The “Coptic question” is sensitive because of its international ramifications. There are large emigré communities, in particular in the US, Canada, Europe and Australia. Although most confine their activities to their church communities, they often also protest publicly. On 10 April a group in Sydney, Australia, rallied 2,000 Copts to parade with 20 black coffins with pictures of the Khosheh martyrs under a banner “Stop the silent genocide”. There is, in addition, a small but powerful fringe of extremists in the US who promote anti-Muslim hate groups, such as Michael Meunier’s Pen vs The Sword and Shawki Karras, who has Zionist connections.</p>
<p>Such people are an embarrassment to Copts inside Egypt, especially at a time when the country is in shock because of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians since the intifada, resulting in Cairo recalling its ambassador to Tel Aviv. And when the problem of Islamic extremism still continues. After all, Copts inside Egypt know that they have to pay part of the price for the fight against the Islamists.</p>
<p>President Mubarak cannot be seen to be making too many concessions to the Copts when he has crushed the armed Islamists and is taking all possible measures to prevent their resurgence, as well as keeping the non-violent but politically dynamic Muslim Brotherhood in check through such repressive measures as arrests and trials before military courts. Reforms for Copts are part of a complex game between the Islamists and the government, but also between Israel, the US and Egypt, which must defend its regional position while depending on US aid.</p>
<p>Thus Pope Shenouda’s statement that he “would not visit Jerusalem so long as it remains under Israeli occupation”&#160;( <a href="" type="internal">i</a>) resounded powerfully among Egypt’s Coptic community. For the Copts are, before all else, Egyptian: indeed, they are the original Egyptians, descendants of the Pharaohs. They are also the largest Christian community in the Middle East dating its origin to 42 AD when Saint Mark is believed to have founded the first church in Alexandria. Until the Arab conquest in 640 AD all Egyptians were known as “Copts” – derived from the Greek word for Egypt, Aegyptos. They belong to the minority of the population which chose not to convert to Islam and represent nearly 10% of the present population of 64m. Most follow the Coptic Orthodox church&#160;( <a href="" type="internal">2</a>).</p>
<p>This history is as important as the part Copts played in the emergence of nationalism and the creation of the modern state. The Copts joined the 1919 Revolution, when the Wafd party unified the nation against British occupation, and they provided two prime ministers before the second world war. That was the Coptic golden age. Then Nasser and his Free Officers took power in July 1952. “Their slogan of Egyptianisation [aimed at the numerous foreign minorities, Italian, Greek, etc] made the Copts wary that their turn might be coming”, says Milad Hanna, a leading secular figure in the Coptic community. Nasser’s nationalisation policies affected Copts more than Muslims. In addition, religion was introduced as a compulsory school subject and, more significantly, Copts were not included in the regime. But still people lived together, ate together, went to each other’s weddings, funerals, feast days. Copts played down discrimination, and in that sense they were, and are, much like any minority anywhere.</p>
<p>But in the dust and sunshine of Egypt, “minority” is not a word that is used, rejected by both Copts and the Muslim establishment. Sociologist Saadeddin Ibrahim discovered this to his cost when he organised a conference on minorities in 1994 (he is now on trial on various charges related to human rights activities). In Egypt, the word “minority” is felt to have ethnic or sectarian connotations – as though it somehow diminishes the Copts’ profoundly Egyptian identity.</p>
<p>The specificity of the Copts lies in that identity, which risks being compromised by the international dimension caused by waves of migration since Nasser. But it was above all his successor, Sadat, who shattered the existing implicit compact by defining Egypt as an Islamic country. It was a green light for the radical Islamist groups – and the consequent sectarian strife in the south (Upper Egypt) – but also for a flourishing of conservative Islam. As Muslims began to rally around the mosque, Copts rallied around the church. For Muslim and Christian children and teenagers, separate social clubs and sports centres organised by mosque and church replaced school as the common meeting ground. Just like the Islamists, the Christians became active in education, health and professional training. They also asserted their religious identity: as veils were donned and beards sprouted among the Muslims, small blue crosses were discreetly tattooed on a hand or a wrist and there was a flowering of Christian names.</p>
<p>There is no sign of any abatement in Muslim and Christian religious fervour. The churches are packed, women on the right, no fewer men on the left, some with their arms half-raised, hands half-open, lost in prayer. The churches often have a cupola above the altar painted brilliant blue and decorated with a giant head and outstretched arms of Christ. The singing and chanting in the Coptic language&#160;( <a href="" type="internal">3</a>) mesmerise, as do the thick, dizzying clouds of incense. In Lent Copts fast until three in the afternoon, and do not eat meat, fish or dairy products.</p>
<p>They flock to the churches, rich and poor. But they flock in their hundreds to St Mark’s, the former cathedral, in Cairo to see Father Makari casting out demons on Friday evenings. And in their thousands to hear Father Saman on Thursday nights in his huge basilica carved into the sheer rockface of the Mokattam hills. They travel in buses – large, small, old, new – out of the city, past the acrid fumes of the shanty town of the zebelin (the Christians who collect all Cairo’s garbage and -among towering bags of rubbish – rescue and recycle riches from the trash, creating employment for upholsterers, leather-makers, tailors, dressmakers, earning them enough piastres for an evening visit to the barbers and a narguile).</p>
<p>“Faith-healing is part of our tradition,” says Mary Asad, a psychologist and a former deputy secretary-general at the World Council of Churches (Geneva). “So are charismatic priests; the Pope closes his eyes to Father Saman who invokes his work with the zebelin.”</p>
<p>Search for God</p>
<p>From last August to this January, in the Upper Egyptian city of Assiut, St Mark’s Church had its own apparition. “The Virgin Mary appeared night after night within a strange, bright light over the church, accompanied by flying doves,” explains Father Zakka. “We’ve been keeping medical records documenting miraculous cures reported by some of those who saw the vision. So many people came from all over the world that we had to section off the roads around to separate the women and men.”</p>
<p>The Reverent Girgis over the road at the (Protestant) First Evangelical Church does not believe in faith healing. “And I’m not commenting on the apparition,” he adds. His church runs a free clinic for 35,000 patients, staffed by volunteer doctors. The evangelical movement, introduced by foreign missionaries and concentrating on good works, has established itself within all the denominations and, like the rest of the Church, has been thriving since the 1970s. “It’s all part of the Egyptians’ search for God,” says Rafik Habib, author of two books on political Christianity. “It’s a direct parallel to the Islamic movement”.</p>
<p>“The most worrying problem in Egypt is the prejudice on both sides which has grown over the last 25 years and is still growing,” he continues. “But the Copts are the ones who feel it, because they’re the minority; and the government is unable to deal with it.” Nowhere is that plainer than in Upper Egypt’s largest city, Assiut (1.75m with a Christian majority). Assiut governorate borders that of Sohag in which the events of al-Khosheh took place. On 14 August 1998 two Copts were murdered in this small tribal town of 25,000 on the banks of the Nile. In an attempt to frame a Christian (thereby avoiding sectarian unrest), the police rounded up more than a thousand Copts and beat or even tortured them to secure confessions. Nothing was more likely to lead to further trouble. On 31 December 1999 riots developed after a Christian shopkeeper insulted a Muslim woman from the Hawara tribe.</p>
<p>The unsatisfactory February verdict on the second event has caused extreme tension in neighbouring Assiut. Security was already tight: the fear of a recurrence of the bad old days of Islamic militancy is evident. “For Copts, the problem is internalised because there’s no way of expressing it,” explains Hala, who is a Copt. “We’re a majority here, but at the same time we’re part of the overall minority. Since the violence in the 1980s Christians have started leaving, going to Cairo or Alexandria or leaving the country.” Then she adds in a whisper: “They sell their land to Muslims in secret – it’s a very sensitive subject”.</p>
<p>“In al-Khosheh,” she continues, “85% are Christian, they own everything, even the streets have Christian names; the Muslims just work the fields, that’s the problem. Sohag is a particular problem because it’s so tribal. But in general, relations are easier in villages where there’s a better demographic balance, a better economic balance – and less education. Muslim education teaches prejudice and hatred.” (It is clear, however, from talking to a number of Christian clerics, that Muslims have no monopoly on prejudice.)</p>
<p>“In Upper Egypt the Copts are sandwiched between two extremist forces, the Islamists, who blackmail them, and state security,” says Saadeddin Ibrahim. “They are dealt with by the department of security attached to the ministry of the interior, rather than by, say, the department of religious endowment. It’s a form of collective paranoia in which any call for reform is construed as an imminent danger to the state.”</p>
<p>How much need for reform is there? By most estimates the Copts account for approaching 10% of the nation, over 20% of the economy, but only 1.5% of public office. That is the main grievance: Copts are barred from the higher echelons of the army, police, intelligence, judiciary, governorates. In Assiut, a maths teacher earns 200 Egyptian pounds a month ($56): an officer in the security forces, no better qualified, earns 850 pounds a month. It is sometimes more of an invisible barrier, for instance in certain university departments. Although it is possible to seek redress through the courts, it is hard to enforce a ruling.</p>
<p>However, things are slowly changing. At Christmas and Easter the Coptic mass is now broadcast on television. Nearly 900 feddans of Coptic land taken by the Islamic waqf has been returned to the Coptic Church. The missing 600 years of pre-Islamic Coptic history is being added to the curriculum of children in primary (6-12) and preparatory school (12-15). Youssef Sidhom, editor of the Coptic weekly Watani and a member of the Supreme Coptic Council, does not think the moment has yet come to push for its inclusion in secondary school (15-18): “Too much trouble already for the minister of education from the Islamists”, he says.</p>
<p>There are two further issues that he thinks are still too sensitive to campaign for as yet: removing religion from ID cards and ending the forced conversion of girls under 18 to Islam (this can happen if a girl falls for a Muslim boy). Although this concern is high on the expatriate agenda, he has only heard of three or four such cases in the last six years. As another observer remarks, in the reverse situation, a Muslim girl would be driven to crime or suicide.</p>
<p>’Time of flowers’</p>
<p>There is one significant change: the taboo on discussing the “Coptic question” has ended. That makes it easier to campaign for further reforms. The change began in the media in February 1999 with a ground-breaking issue of the English-language weekly Cairo Times devoted to the Copts. This winter TV viewers were riveted by a soap opera that, for the first time ever, explored the subject of mixed marriage -still a complete taboo for even the most sophisticated and secular Copts. In Time of Flowers Rose, a Christian girl, falls in love and marries a young Muslim diplomat&#160;( <a href="" type="internal">4</a>). Their daughter Amal then marries a Muslim and that couple’s baby son is kidnapped. The two families are brought together by the drama.</p>
<p>Religious conservatives on both sides were duly outraged. But “the Pope met the cast and asked whether in the end Rose had regrets,” recounts the series’ (Muslim) author, Walid Hamid: “’Yes’, he was told; ’That’s all right then’, he replied”. Most people agree, with a smile, that it is indeed all right. But Ihab Gaurd, 25, a Copt from the village of Abu Tik in Upper Egypt, says that though he liked the series, “the story’s a bit far-fetched. People don’t intermarry here. And how am I supposed to imagine a Christian women teaching her child about Islam? They should have had a story about Christians and Muslims doing normal things together.” Hamid says that the minister of information readily agreed to the series and did not interfere at any stage; now several Copts have asked him to do a second series.</p>
<p>There remains the deeply-felt problem of the demolition of the church building in the poor Cairo suburb of Shubra al-Kheima, where 350,000 Christians live among 4m Muslims. While Muslims need no permit for opening a mosque, the president still has to approve new church building, although he has now passed decisions for permits for repairs and renewal down to the governorate level. Bishop Marcos, who has 28 churches in his diocese in the suburb, explains the difficulties: “More than a year ago I started a church building for social use (nursery, clinic, hall for social events)”. He admits it was illegal but: “I couldn’t ask for a permit because once the Muslims know what we’re doing, they immediately find a nearby apartment where they can set up a place of prayer without any permit. They do it to stop us because, once there’s a mosque in the area, you won’t get a permit for a church building. Furthermore, to get a licence for a new church building, you need a land certificate and mostly these just don’t exist.”</p>
<p>“On 19 February, once the building was finished,” he continues, “I applied for the permit in the normal way. Five days later the police and governorate came and pulled it down. I complained to the governor; then I appealed, via the Pope, to President Mubarak who ordered it to be rebuilt at the governor’s expense. Yes, it’s a victory, but would we have won it without the press? If the president receives the right information, he’ll take action. But who’s to make sure he gets it?” We adjourn to the evening service, its congregation summoned by discreet peal of a single church bell. On leaving, all sound is drowned by the call of the nearby muezzin.</p>
<p>What do the Copts see as their best way forward? Munir Fakhri Abdennour, a wealthy businessman and one of three Copts elected to parliament last year, thinks that “Copts need to get involved in the political and social life of the country. And to advocate Egyptian nationalism before Coptic issues.” If Copts are absent from political life, it is not just because the ruling National Democratic Party passes them over as candidates. Copts are reluctant to go into politics. A high percentage are educated, successful, affluent; they also have easy access to foreign visas and often enter professions open to them in any country. Although there are two Coptic ministers, Copts never reach the top jobs (Former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali did not rise beyond minister of state for foreign affairs though he was the best qualified for the top ministerial post).</p>
<p>Most Copts in Egypt want dialogue, not confrontation. Some secular Copts like Youssef Sidhom want to “reduce the role of the Pope”; he cites the previous Patriarch, Cyril VI, “a pious man who did not involve himself in affairs between Coptic citizens and the state”. However, the charismatic Shenouda III is at present very much in charge. This much-admired “Pope of the Arabs” runs the Church much as Mubarak runs the state, and maintains an effective, if opaque, channel between church hierarchy and government. At the same time he allows the outspoken Bishop Wissa, a folk hero in Upper Egypt, to air his views.</p>
<p>The more radical element embodied by Wissa is echoed by lawyer Mamdouh Nakhla, who campaigns exclusively on Coptic issues through his Word Centre for Human Rights. He, like many of the emigré groups, calls for representation for Copts in every sphere, including politics, based on their percentage of the population. This is anathema to most Copts inside Egypt, who agree with Sidhom that “that would create hostility between Copts and Muslims and turn Egypt into another Lebanon”.</p>
<p>The quiet dialogue of the moderate Copts within Egypt is actually working. But when Bishop Wissa speaks of the injustices of Upper Egypt, the international Coptic communities listen. And, as many Copts within Egypt privately admit, because of the high-profile US connection, the government also listens.</p>
<p>Does the government have a policy regarding the Copts? Mostapha el-Feqqi, vice-chair of the parliamentary international relations committee and a former presidential aide, is one of the few officials prepared to speak about the Coptic question. He rightly points to the positive changes. But he also needs to explain that, having battled with Sadat’s Islamist legacy, the government cannot deal with the Copts except as a security issue linked to its policy for dealing with the Islamists. The results of that approach are felt most keenly in Upper Egypt. But there are younger elements coming to the fore within the establishment who perceive Egypt’s need to open up economically, politically and culturally, to reduce poverty, tackle ignorance and prejudice through better education. To that extent it is not just a Coptic question, it is an Egyptian question.</p>
<p>Notes.</p>
<p>( <a href="" type="internal">1</a>)&#160; <a href="http://www.islamreview.com/" type="external">http://www.islamreview.com</a>.</p>
<p>( <a href="" type="internal">i</a>) Al-Ahram , Cairo, 27 March 2001,&#160;Al-Ahram Weekly, Cairo, 29 March-4 April 2001.</p>
<p>( <a href="" type="internal">i</a>) Al-Mushahid Assiyasi, 26 March 2000, published in&#160;Mideast Mirror, London, 23 March 2000.</p>
<p>( <a href="" type="internal">2</a>) There are also Protestants and Roman Catholics who together make up 15% of the Christian community. In the 7th century the Copts seceded from the Orthodox Church of Constantinople and established their own doctrine on the single nature of Christ.</p>
<p>( <a href="" type="internal">3</a>) Descended from ancient Egyptian and written in 24 Greek letters with Coptic phonetic values and seven additional letters of Coptic form.</p>
<p>( <a href="" type="internal">4</a>) By law she is not obliged to convert. In the reverse situation, a Christian man may not marry a Muslim woman and must therefore convert.</p>
<p>This essay originally appeared in <a href="" type="internal">Le Monde Diplomatique</a>.</p> | true | 4 | hosni mubarak first meeting president george w bush washington 2 april 2001 usual time year presidential visit united states time year various groups expatriate copts start noisy accusations persecution egypts christian minority 22 march copts marching justice washington dc behalf persecuted copts egypt according pen vs sword160 1 year much march 4 february court ruling found none 96 defendants guilty murder worst sectarian clashes countrys recent history least 20 christians one muslim killed small upper egyptian town alkhosheh early last year prosecutor general announced would appeal verdict possibly coptic anger 24 february judicial storm still resounding coptic community furious authorities demolished church building outskirts cairo bishop failed comply muchcriticised law requiring presidential permission build churches cap 22 march semigovernmental american body us commission international religious freedom arrived cairo investigate religious discrimination causing uproar sides right us meddling egypts internal affairs enough discrimination within america keep busy helpful commission headed former assistant secretary state elliott abrams written admiringly ariel sharon invited intervention coptic patriarch pope shenouda iii highly intelligent man learned early office president sadat confined monastery four years play shrewd political hand shenouda along egypts chief muslim cleric sheikh tantawi alazhar one people agreed meet commission open letter press160 also asked coptic expatriates us refrain illadvised actions might compromise presidential visit reminded copts alkhosheh verdict judicial one referred countrys highest court appeal ask state also spoke demolition church building shubra alkheima one poorest areas greater cairo dont deny problems conceded settled resolved soon president knows coptic question sensitive international ramifications large emigré communities particular us canada europe australia although confine activities church communities often also protest publicly 10 april group sydney australia rallied 2000 copts parade 20 black coffins pictures khosheh martyrs banner stop silent genocide addition small powerful fringe extremists us promote antimuslim hate groups michael meuniers pen vs sword shawki karras zionist connections people embarrassment copts inside egypt especially time country shock israels treatment palestinians since intifada resulting cairo recalling ambassador tel aviv problem islamic extremism still continues copts inside egypt know pay part price fight islamists president mubarak seen making many concessions copts crushed armed islamists taking possible measures prevent resurgence well keeping nonviolent politically dynamic muslim brotherhood check repressive measures arrests trials military courts reforms copts part complex game islamists government also israel us egypt must defend regional position depending us aid thus pope shenoudas statement would visit jerusalem long remains israeli occupation160 resounded powerfully among egypts coptic community copts else egyptian indeed original egyptians descendants pharaohs also largest christian community middle east dating origin 42 ad saint mark believed founded first church alexandria arab conquest 640 ad egyptians known copts derived greek word egypt aegyptos belong minority population chose convert islam represent nearly 10 present population 64m follow coptic orthodox church160 2 history important part copts played emergence nationalism creation modern state copts joined 1919 revolution wafd party unified nation british occupation provided two prime ministers second world war coptic golden age nasser free officers took power july 1952 slogan egyptianisation aimed numerous foreign minorities italian greek etc made copts wary turn might coming says milad hanna leading secular figure coptic community nassers nationalisation policies affected copts muslims addition religion introduced compulsory school subject significantly copts included regime still people lived together ate together went others weddings funerals feast days copts played discrimination sense much like minority anywhere dust sunshine egypt minority word used rejected copts muslim establishment sociologist saadeddin ibrahim discovered cost organised conference minorities 1994 trial various charges related human rights activities egypt word minority felt ethnic sectarian connotations though somehow diminishes copts profoundly egyptian identity specificity copts lies identity risks compromised international dimension caused waves migration since nasser successor sadat shattered existing implicit compact defining egypt islamic country green light radical islamist groups consequent sectarian strife south upper egypt also flourishing conservative islam muslims began rally around mosque copts rallied around church muslim christian children teenagers separate social clubs sports centres organised mosque church replaced school common meeting ground like islamists christians became active education health professional training also asserted religious identity veils donned beards sprouted among muslims small blue crosses discreetly tattooed hand wrist flowering christian names sign abatement muslim christian religious fervour churches packed women right fewer men left arms halfraised hands halfopen lost prayer churches often cupola altar painted brilliant blue decorated giant head outstretched arms christ singing chanting coptic language160 3 mesmerise thick dizzying clouds incense lent copts fast three afternoon eat meat fish dairy products flock churches rich poor flock hundreds st marks former cathedral cairo see father makari casting demons friday evenings thousands hear father saman thursday nights huge basilica carved sheer rockface mokattam hills travel buses large small old new city past acrid fumes shanty town zebelin christians collect cairos garbage among towering bags rubbish rescue recycle riches trash creating employment upholsterers leathermakers tailors dressmakers earning enough piastres evening visit barbers narguile faithhealing part tradition says mary asad psychologist former deputy secretarygeneral world council churches geneva charismatic priests pope closes eyes father saman invokes work zebelin search god last august january upper egyptian city assiut st marks church apparition virgin mary appeared night night within strange bright light church accompanied flying doves explains father zakka weve keeping medical records documenting miraculous cures reported saw vision many people came world section roads around separate women men reverent girgis road protestant first evangelical church believe faith healing im commenting apparition adds church runs free clinic 35000 patients staffed volunteer doctors evangelical movement introduced foreign missionaries concentrating good works established within denominations like rest church thriving since 1970s part egyptians search god says rafik habib author two books political christianity direct parallel islamic movement worrying problem egypt prejudice sides grown last 25 years still growing continues copts ones feel theyre minority government unable deal nowhere plainer upper egypts largest city assiut 175m christian majority assiut governorate borders sohag events alkhosheh took place 14 august 1998 two copts murdered small tribal town 25000 banks nile attempt frame christian thereby avoiding sectarian unrest police rounded thousand copts beat even tortured secure confessions nothing likely lead trouble 31 december 1999 riots developed christian shopkeeper insulted muslim woman hawara tribe unsatisfactory february verdict second event caused extreme tension neighbouring assiut security already tight fear recurrence bad old days islamic militancy evident copts problem internalised theres way expressing explains hala copt majority time part overall minority since violence 1980s christians started leaving going cairo alexandria leaving country adds whisper sell land muslims secret sensitive subject alkhosheh continues 85 christian everything even streets christian names muslims work fields thats problem sohag particular problem tribal general relations easier villages theres better demographic balance better economic balance less education muslim education teaches prejudice hatred clear however talking number christian clerics muslims monopoly prejudice upper egypt copts sandwiched two extremist forces islamists blackmail state security says saadeddin ibrahim dealt department security attached ministry interior rather say department religious endowment form collective paranoia call reform construed imminent danger state much need reform estimates copts account approaching 10 nation 20 economy 15 public office main grievance copts barred higher echelons army police intelligence judiciary governorates assiut maths teacher earns 200 egyptian pounds month 56 officer security forces better qualified earns 850 pounds month sometimes invisible barrier instance certain university departments although possible seek redress courts hard enforce ruling however things slowly changing christmas easter coptic mass broadcast television nearly 900 feddans coptic land taken islamic waqf returned coptic church missing 600 years preislamic coptic history added curriculum children primary 612 preparatory school 1215 youssef sidhom editor coptic weekly watani member supreme coptic council think moment yet come push inclusion secondary school 1518 much trouble already minister education islamists says two issues thinks still sensitive campaign yet removing religion id cards ending forced conversion girls 18 islam happen girl falls muslim boy although concern high expatriate agenda heard three four cases last six years another observer remarks reverse situation muslim girl would driven crime suicide time flowers one significant change taboo discussing coptic question ended makes easier campaign reforms change began media february 1999 groundbreaking issue englishlanguage weekly cairo times devoted copts winter tv viewers riveted soap opera first time ever explored subject mixed marriage still complete taboo even sophisticated secular copts time flowers rose christian girl falls love marries young muslim diplomat160 4 daughter amal marries muslim couples baby son kidnapped two families brought together drama religious conservatives sides duly outraged pope met cast asked whether end rose regrets recounts series muslim author walid hamid yes told thats right replied people agree smile indeed right ihab gaurd 25 copt village abu tik upper egypt says though liked series storys bit farfetched people dont intermarry supposed imagine christian women teaching child islam story christians muslims normal things together hamid says minister information readily agreed series interfere stage several copts asked second series remains deeplyfelt problem demolition church building poor cairo suburb shubra alkheima 350000 christians live among 4m muslims muslims need permit opening mosque president still approve new church building although passed decisions permits repairs renewal governorate level bishop marcos 28 churches diocese suburb explains difficulties year ago started church building social use nursery clinic hall social events admits illegal couldnt ask permit muslims know immediately find nearby apartment set place prayer without permit stop us theres mosque area wont get permit church building furthermore get licence new church building need land certificate mostly dont exist 19 february building finished continues applied permit normal way five days later police governorate came pulled complained governor appealed via pope president mubarak ordered rebuilt governors expense yes victory would without press president receives right information hell take action whos make sure gets adjourn evening service congregation summoned discreet peal single church bell leaving sound drowned call nearby muezzin copts see best way forward munir fakhri abdennour wealthy businessman one three copts elected parliament last year thinks copts need get involved political social life country advocate egyptian nationalism coptic issues copts absent political life ruling national democratic party passes candidates copts reluctant go politics high percentage educated successful affluent also easy access foreign visas often enter professions open country although two coptic ministers copts never reach top jobs former un secretarygeneral boutros boutrosghali rise beyond minister state foreign affairs though best qualified top ministerial post copts egypt want dialogue confrontation secular copts like youssef sidhom want reduce role pope cites previous patriarch cyril vi pious man involve affairs coptic citizens state however charismatic shenouda iii present much charge muchadmired pope arabs runs church much mubarak runs state maintains effective opaque channel church hierarchy government time allows outspoken bishop wissa folk hero upper egypt air views radical element embodied wissa echoed lawyer mamdouh nakhla campaigns exclusively coptic issues word centre human rights like many emigré groups calls representation copts every sphere including politics based percentage population anathema copts inside egypt agree sidhom would create hostility copts muslims turn egypt another lebanon quiet dialogue moderate copts within egypt actually working bishop wissa speaks injustices upper egypt international coptic communities listen many copts within egypt privately admit highprofile us connection government also listens government policy regarding copts mostapha elfeqqi vicechair parliamentary international relations committee former presidential aide one officials prepared speak coptic question rightly points positive changes also needs explain battled sadats islamist legacy government deal copts except security issue linked policy dealing islamists results approach felt keenly upper egypt younger elements coming fore within establishment perceive egypts need open economically politically culturally reduce poverty tackle ignorance prejudice better education extent coptic question egyptian question notes 1160 httpwwwislamreviewcom alahram cairo 27 march 2001160alahram weekly cairo 29 march4 april 2001 almushahid assiyasi 26 march 2000 published in160mideast mirror london 23 march 2000 2 also protestants roman catholics together make 15 christian community 7th century copts seceded orthodox church constantinople established doctrine single nature christ 3 descended ancient egyptian written 24 greek letters coptic phonetic values seven additional letters coptic form 4 law obliged convert reverse situation christian man may marry muslim woman must therefore convert essay originally appeared le monde diplomatique | 1,993 |
<p>Faced with a lame-duck president and a do-nothing Congress, social justice advocates took a DIY approach to making change in 2014.</p>
<p>Congress failed to raise <a href="" type="internal">the federal minimum wage</a>, but cities and states, bowing to pressure from workers’ rights groups, <a href="" type="internal">enacted their own minimum-wage hikes</a>.</p>
<p>And, while waiting for <a href="" type="internal">executive action</a> from President Barack Obama on immigration, immigrant rights groups secured legislation&#160;that provides <a href="" type="internal">access to driver’s licenses</a> and in-state tuition&#160;for some undocumented immigrants and gives protection particularly on the <a href="" type="internal">city</a> and <a href="" type="internal">county</a> levels from detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.</p>
<p>For Immigrants, Bittersweet Relief</p>
<p>November brought a historic change for millions of families around the nation as Obama&#160;unveiled executive actions on immigration. Undocumented immigrants who have been in the U.S. for more than five years but whose children are citizens or lawful permanent residents are the action’s main beneficiaries.</p>
<p>After passing background checks and paying fees, those individuals can now be granted relief from deportation for three years and apply for work permits. The administration expects about 4.1 million people to qualify.</p>
<p>“It’s sort of bittersweet for us,” said Juanita Valdez-Cox, executive director of La Unión del Pueblo Entero in San Juan, Texas. “We were happy and at the same time sad – sad that not all were going to be able to apply.”</p>
<p>Obama is also broadening the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, his 2012 directive that deferred deportation for some young immigrants who entered the country without documents. Obama will expand eligibility to people who arrived in the U.S. as minors before 2010, instead of the current cutoff of 2007, and will lift the requirement that applicants be under 31. The expansion is expected to affect about 300,000 people.</p>
<p>Immigrant rights groups, who voiced strong concern in 2014 <a href="" type="internal">about the 2 million people who have been deported</a> since Obama became president, noted that the president’s executive actions still leave more than half of the 11 million people living in the U.S. without immigration documents&#160;in limbo.</p>
<p>“Potential immigrants, parents of people who have DACA, are not included in this,” said Efrén C. Olivares, an attorney with the South Texas Civil Rights Project. “That is a gap right now.”</p>
<p>Olivares also pointed out that executive action is temporary and conditional and is not the same as a law passed by Congress. Without more permanent changes to the nation’s immigration laws, the action could create a group of second-class citizens, he said.</p>
<p>Martha Arevalo, executive director of CARECEN, a community center that helps Central Americans in Los Angeles, added that Obama’s action does nothing <a href="" type="internal">to increase accountability</a> and transparency within the U.S. Border Patrol.</p>
<p>“We have a very militarized border, where we have the largest enforcement agency in the country that, for the most part, goes unchecked. We have not seen a real effort to curtail that or to investigate those issues,” she said.</p>
<p>She added that any proposal for permanent changes to U.S. immigration laws will likely include a push for increased border security.</p>
<p>“That is speaking to special interests, to the prison industrial complex, the defense companies that are going to make the guns and the drones that are proposed for the border,” Arevalo said.</p>
<p>Obama’s long-promised action on <a href="" type="internal">immigration reform grabbed headlines</a> in 2014, but immigrant rights groups also notched wins at the state level.</p>
<p>Florida Immigrant Coalition members and the United We Dream youth-led coalition <a href="" type="internal">helped Florida become the 20th state</a> to provide some type of in-state college tuition rate for undocumented youth. In Virginia,&#160; <a href="" type="internal">a similar tuition plan</a> for immigrants – which United We Dream worked on – also was cleared by state officials.</p>
<p>In California, Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Los Angeles were strong supporters of <a href="" type="internal">California Assembly Bill 817</a>, which provides nearly 3 million voters with access to bilingual poll workers.</p>
<p>And, thanks to the California Transparency and Responsibility Using State Tools (TRUST) Act, California counties can opt out of the federal Secure Communities program, an information-sharing partnership between ICE and the FBI that critics say has been used to detain&#160;undocumented immigrants not accused of any crime.</p>
<p>That <a href="" type="internal">law went into effect in 2014</a> and one study showed that it is slowing down deportations in California.</p>
<p>That legislation was supported by a coalition that included Causa Justa :: Just Cause, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles and Consejo de Federaciones Mexicanas en Norteamérica.</p>
<p>Low Pay is Not OK</p>
<p>Immigrants represent a growing segment of the American workforce, and in 2014 they became an increasingly vocal part of a resurgent movement of low-wage workers.</p>
<p>“For us, it’s a no-brainer,” said Arevalo, of CARECEN. “The people that we assist every day, the people that come to our programs are people who are low-wage workers, people who work in fast-food restaurants. Whenever we’re talking about having an impact against poverty and helping immigrants have a better life and a better future, the minimum wage is a key piece of that.”</p>
<p>Immigrants account for 28 percent of the 2 million home care workers across the country, according to a report by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Despite filling a need for in-home care among the aging baby boom and greatest generations, home care workers were classified as “companions” and thus excluded from the minimum wage and overtime pay protections offered under the <a href="http://www.dol.gov/whd/flsa/" type="external">Fair Labor Standards Act</a>&#160;(FLSA).</p>
<p>National Domestic Workers Alliance and its partner organization, Jobs With Justice, successfully advocated in 2013 for the extension of FLSA to home care workers. The U.S. Department of Labor <a href="" type="internal">announced in September 2013</a>&#160;that FLSA protections for home care workers would begin in January 2015.</p>
<p>“These new regulations are a historic step forward toward a future in which our families and communities can be supported by a strong and stable care workforce,” Ai-jen Poo, director of National Domestic Workers Alliance and co-director of Caring Across Generations, said in a statement.</p>
<p>In October, federal officials said these wage and overtime pay protections <a href="" type="internal">would be enforced starting in July 2015</a>.</p>
<p>In June, domestic workers in Massachusetts won <a href="" type="internal">legislative protection under a bill of rights</a>, which includes vacation and sick days and mandatory rest and meal breaks.</p>
<p>The living wage movement’s first big victory came in June, when the Seattle City Council approved a phasing in of <a href="" type="internal">a minimum wage of $15 an hour</a>. The phase-in period begins April 2015 and extends over a two- to seven-year period depending on a business’s size and other factors.</p>
<p>In November, voters in San Francisco – the first U.S. city to establish a minimum hourly wage of more than $10 – approved increasing, in increments, the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour&#160;by 2018. Workers in Michigan, Massachusetts and New Jersey and in the cities of <a href="" type="internal">Oakland, California</a>&#160;and Las Cruces, New Mexico, are among those who will see wage hikes as a result of state and municipal minimum-wage legislation.</p>
<p>The Chicago City Council agreed to raise the minimum wage in the city to $13 an hour by 2019 and extended its minimum-wage law to cover <a href="" type="internal">domestic workers</a>. The minimum-wage hike will help people like Robert Wilson Jr., who works at Target and makes $8.84 an hour.</p>
<p>“A $13 minimum wage is going to make a big difference in my life and the lives of other workers, but we’re not done yet,” Wilson said in a statement. “This is one victory, but we’re going to be fighting for the next one – $15 an hour.”</p>
<p>Grassroots action also nudged big business to make changes. Ikea, the furniture and design chain, announced that about half of its 11,000&#160; <a href="" type="internal">U.S. hourly workers will see higher pay starting in January</a> 2015. Gap Inc. also promised to pay its workers a minimum of $10 an hour starting in June 2015. In October, Starbucks announced it would raise starting-pay rates for its workers, beginning in January 2015, and reassess employees’ pay rates annually.</p>
<p>Wins for workers weren’t limited to pay rates. For years, advocates for low-wage workers have been fighting wage theft – an employer not paying a worker at all or failing to pay the mandated minimum wage or overtime pay.</p>
<p>In Florida, several state legislators proposed bills that would have prevented local governments from passing wage theft ordinances, but members of Equal Voice for Florida’s Families Coalition thwarted them.</p>
<p>And, in Texas, undocumented workers persuaded El Paso’s city leaders <a href="" type="internal">to consider a wage theft ordinance</a> modeled on one passed by the Houston City Council in 2013. Houston’s law established a process that allows employees to bring wage claims against companies.</p>
<p>In California, workers – including ones in the fast-food and farming industry – <a href="" type="internal">will receive paid sick leave protection</a>, thanks to a bill signed into law in September. On the criminal justice reform front, voters in California rolled back the idea of putting more people in prison by approving Proposition 47.</p>
<p>Proposition 47 shifts money away from prisons and toward community programs and <a href="" type="internal">reclassifies certain low-level felonies</a> to misdemeanors. Supporters say that will help reduce the number of people in California in prison.</p>
<p>In terms of housing, advocates in <a href="" type="internal">Chicago</a> and <a href="" type="internal">San Jose, California</a> won victories in their work to preserve and make more affordable lodging available for working individuals and families.</p>
<p>Black Lives Matter</p>
<p>For much of 2014, the <a href="" type="internal">issue of race and fatal force by police</a> was front and center in the country. Michael Brown, Eric Garner and <a href="" type="internal">Tamir Rice</a> are among the unarmed Black males who died at the hands of police officers in 2014.</p>
<p>A grand jury <a href="" type="internal">declined to indict</a> Ferguson, Missouri, Police Officer Darren Wilson for killing Michael Brown. There was <a href="" type="internal">also no indictment</a> for New York City Police Department Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who used a chokehold on Eric Garner that the medical examiner ruled contributed to his death.</p>
<p>Nationwide protests sprung up in the wake of those decisions, bringing unprecedented attention to the call for police reform in the United States.</p>
<p>U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in December released updated Justice Department <a href="" type="internal">guidelines aimed at ending racial profiling</a> but advocates called them “flawed.”</p>
<p>For Tari Williams, it couldn’t come soon enough. In <a href="" type="internal">her essay</a> in Equal Voice News, the Birmingham, Alabama, parent&#160;recounts a conversation she had with her 15-year-old son, Asa, after the grand jury’s decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson was announced.</p>
<p>“I explained to Asa that it is easy to assume the worst. It is easy to hurt and even kill something or someone you feel no attachment to, have no feelings for and see no value or meaning in. And, that’s what happened in these cases. For me, this wasn’t as much of a race issue as it was an issue of being [a] human being and valuing life.”</p>
<p>___________</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Amy Roe</a> is the reporter for Equal Voice News. Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.</p>
<p>2014 © Equal Voice for America’s Families Newspaper</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Contact author</a></p>
<p>&#160;&#160; <a href="" type="internal">CARECEn</a>, <a href="" type="internal">community policy victories</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Efrén C. Olivares</a>, <a href="" type="internal">grassroots advocates</a>, <a href="" type="internal">grassroots policy wins</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Immigration Reform</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Juanita Valdez-Cox</a>, <a href="" type="internal">La Union del Pueblo Entero</a>, <a href="" type="internal">living wage</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Martha Arevalo</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Minimum wage</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Texas Civil Rights Project</a></p> | true | 4 | faced lameduck president donothing congress social justice advocates took diy approach making change 2014 congress failed raise federal minimum wage cities states bowing pressure workers rights groups enacted minimumwage hikes waiting executive action president barack obama immigration immigrant rights groups secured legislation160that provides access drivers licenses instate tuition160for undocumented immigrants gives protection particularly city county levels detention us immigration customs enforcement immigrants bittersweet relief november brought historic change millions families around nation obama160unveiled executive actions immigration undocumented immigrants us five years whose children citizens lawful permanent residents actions main beneficiaries passing background checks paying fees individuals granted relief deportation three years apply work permits administration expects 41 million people qualify sort bittersweet us said juanita valdezcox executive director la unión del pueblo entero san juan texas happy time sad sad going able apply obama also broadening deferred action childhood arrivals daca program 2012 directive deferred deportation young immigrants entered country without documents obama expand eligibility people arrived us minors 2010 instead current cutoff 2007 lift requirement applicants 31 expansion expected affect 300000 people immigrant rights groups voiced strong concern 2014 2 million people deported since obama became president noted presidents executive actions still leave half 11 million people living us without immigration documents160in limbo potential immigrants parents people daca included said efrén c olivares attorney south texas civil rights project gap right olivares also pointed executive action temporary conditional law passed congress without permanent changes nations immigration laws action could create group secondclass citizens said martha arevalo executive director carecen community center helps central americans los angeles added obamas action nothing increase accountability transparency within us border patrol militarized border largest enforcement agency country part goes unchecked seen real effort curtail investigate issues said added proposal permanent changes us immigration laws likely include push increased border security speaking special interests prison industrial complex defense companies going make guns drones proposed border arevalo said obamas longpromised action immigration reform grabbed headlines 2014 immigrant rights groups also notched wins state level florida immigrant coalition members united dream youthled coalition helped florida become 20th state provide type instate college tuition rate undocumented youth virginia160 similar tuition plan immigrants united dream worked also cleared state officials california asian americans advancing justice los angeles strong supporters california assembly bill 817 provides nearly 3 million voters access bilingual poll workers thanks california transparency responsibility using state tools trust act california counties opt federal secure communities program informationsharing partnership ice fbi critics say used detain160undocumented immigrants accused crime law went effect 2014 one study showed slowing deportations california legislation supported coalition included causa justa cause coalition humane immigrant rights los angeles consejo de federaciones mexicanas en norteamérica low pay ok immigrants represent growing segment american workforce 2014 became increasingly vocal part resurgent movement lowwage workers us nobrainer said arevalo carecen people assist every day people come programs people lowwage workers people work fastfood restaurants whenever talking impact poverty helping immigrants better life better future minimum wage key piece immigrants account 28 percent 2 million home care workers across country according report institute womens policy research despite filling need inhome care among aging baby boom greatest generations home care workers classified companions thus excluded minimum wage overtime pay protections offered fair labor standards act160flsa national domestic workers alliance partner organization jobs justice successfully advocated 2013 extension flsa home care workers us department labor announced september 2013160that flsa protections home care workers would begin january 2015 new regulations historic step forward toward future families communities supported strong stable care workforce aijen poo director national domestic workers alliance codirector caring across generations said statement october federal officials said wage overtime pay protections would enforced starting july 2015 june domestic workers massachusetts legislative protection bill rights includes vacation sick days mandatory rest meal breaks living wage movements first big victory came june seattle city council approved phasing minimum wage 15 hour phasein period begins april 2015 extends two sevenyear period depending businesss size factors november voters san francisco first us city establish minimum hourly wage 10 approved increasing increments citys minimum wage 15 hour160by 2018 workers michigan massachusetts new jersey cities oakland california160and las cruces new mexico among see wage hikes result state municipal minimumwage legislation chicago city council agreed raise minimum wage city 13 hour 2019 extended minimumwage law cover domestic workers minimumwage hike help people like robert wilson jr works target makes 884 hour 13 minimum wage going make big difference life lives workers done yet wilson said statement one victory going fighting next one 15 hour grassroots action also nudged big business make changes ikea furniture design chain announced half 11000160 us hourly workers see higher pay starting january 2015 gap inc also promised pay workers minimum 10 hour starting june 2015 october starbucks announced would raise startingpay rates workers beginning january 2015 reassess employees pay rates annually wins workers werent limited pay rates years advocates lowwage workers fighting wage theft employer paying worker failing pay mandated minimum wage overtime pay florida several state legislators proposed bills would prevented local governments passing wage theft ordinances members equal voice floridas families coalition thwarted texas undocumented workers persuaded el pasos city leaders consider wage theft ordinance modeled one passed houston city council 2013 houstons law established process allows employees bring wage claims companies california workers including ones fastfood farming industry receive paid sick leave protection thanks bill signed law september criminal justice reform front voters california rolled back idea putting people prison approving proposition 47 proposition 47 shifts money away prisons toward community programs reclassifies certain lowlevel felonies misdemeanors supporters say help reduce number people california prison terms housing advocates chicago san jose california victories work preserve make affordable lodging available working individuals families black lives matter much 2014 issue race fatal force police front center country michael brown eric garner tamir rice among unarmed black males died hands police officers 2014 grand jury declined indict ferguson missouri police officer darren wilson killing michael brown also indictment new york city police department officer daniel pantaleo used chokehold eric garner medical examiner ruled contributed death nationwide protests sprung wake decisions bringing unprecedented attention call police reform united states us attorney general eric holder december released updated justice department guidelines aimed ending racial profiling advocates called flawed tari williams couldnt come soon enough essay equal voice news birmingham alabama parent160recounts conversation 15yearold son asa grand jurys decision indict officer darren wilson announced explained asa easy assume worst easy hurt even kill something someone feel attachment feelings see value meaning thats happened cases wasnt much race issue issue human valuing life ___________ amy roe reporter equal voice news information associated press used report 2014 equal voice americas families newspaper 160 contact author 160160 carecen community policy victories deferred action childhood arrivals efrén c olivares grassroots advocates grassroots policy wins immigration reform juanita valdezcox la union del pueblo entero living wage martha arevalo minimum wage texas civil rights project | 1,145 |
<p>In recent weeks, Hillary Clinton’s campaign strategy appears increasingly centered on proving she has the cojones to ruthlessly pursue U.S. imperial interests the world over. With Barack Obama nipping at her polling numbers by invoking his opposition to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Clinton steadfastly refuses to pander to the antiwar movement by admitting she made a mistake in voting to authorize the war in 2002.</p>
<p>These days, Clinton misses no opportunity to demonstrate her own combative stance on foreign affairs, whatever the subject under discussion. After pledging to work toward energy independence at a March 18 mid-Manhattan fundraiser, Clinton told an audience laden with Wall St. financiers that each time she switches off a light bulb in her own home, she mutters, “‘Take that, Iran,’ and ‘Take that, Venezuela.’ We should not be sending our money to people who are not going to support our values.”</p>
<p>And Clinton has made clear she has no intention of ending the occupation of Iraq if elected president. In an interview published by the New York Times on March 15, she was explicit on this issue-sounding remarkably like, well, George Bush. A complete U.S. withdrawal from Iraq could turn it into “a petri dish for insurgents and Al Qaeda,” she said, adding, “It is right in the heart of the oil region. It is directly in opposition to our interests, to the interests of regimes, to Israel’s interests.”</p>
<p>Clinton would downsize the U.S. troop presence, pulling them out of urban combat to minimize U.S. casualties while preserving enough troops “for our antiterrorism mission, for our northern support mission, for our ability to respond to the Iranians, and to continue to provide support, if called for, for the Iraqis.”</p>
<p>As the Times reported, “Mrs. Clinton said the scaled-down American military force that she would maintain would stay off the streets in Baghdad and would no longer try to protect Iraqis from sectarian violence – even if it descended into ethnic cleansing.” Indeed, Clinton responded coldly to the prospect of such a mass sectarian bloodletting: “This is an Iraqi problem; we cannot save the Iraqis from themselves.”</p>
<p>Clinton’s candid Times interview seems to place her well to the right of other Congressional Democrats, currently absorbed in an apparently principled fight to pass antiwar legislation through the House and Senate. On March 13, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remarked, “The administration’s answer to continuing violence in Iraq is more troops and more treasure from the American people.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stated defiantly that Bush “must change course, and it’s time for the Senate to demand he do it.”</p>
<p>But behind the scenes, Democratic Party Congressional leaders were maneuvering frantically to avoid conflict with the Bush administration’s war aims. On March 13, Democrats announced plans to remove a requirement that Bush gain Congressional approval before taking military action against Iran in its military spending bill. Democrats, not Republicans, stymied the Iran proposal during a meeting held behind closed doors, objecting to possible opposition from Israel. As Nevada Rep. Shelley Berkley explained, “It would take away perhaps the most important negotiating tool that the U.S. has when it comes to Iran.”</p>
<p>The spending bill to be debated in the House this week includes nearly $100 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan-more than Bush requested. Its antiwar provisions require most U.S. combat troops to be withdrawn by August 31, 2008. But the President “may waive” these requirements for reasons of “national security,” according to the now toothless legislation.</p>
<p>In concrete terms, three months after establishing a majority in Congress, the Democrats have little to show for themselves. The House managed to pass a single non-binding resolution against Bush’s troop surge on February 16, while the Senate failed even to accomplish that much. This is hardly what the antiwar majority has in mind.</p>
<p>Rhetoric aside, how much political distance separates Hillary Clinton from her more impassioned Congressional counterparts? Less than it might appear.</p>
<p>The notion of withdrawing most combat troops is less dramatic than it seems. Although the House resolution currently up for debate calls for removing most combat troops from Iraq by September 2008 (presidential waivers aside), it also acknowledges the need to maintain the presence of a “limited” number of U.S. soldiers for purposes including “targeted counterterrorism operations.” Obama has admitted that he, too, might decide to retain some U.S. troops in Iraq as president.</p>
<p>No major Democratic Party presidential candidate has so far called for a complete U.S. troop withdrawal, and with good reason: the party’s powerbrokers aim to salvage, not renounce, U.S. war aims in Iraq. As the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) notes on its website, “A rapid and complete withdrawal from Iraq isn’t really a Plan B: it’s a ‘Plan Zero’ for liquidating the whole Iraq engagement as hopeless.”</p>
<p>The Times noted that Clinton’s plan is not a new one-and has already been advocated by Dov S. Zakheim, the Pentagon’s comptroller under Rumsfeld, who estimated that roughly 75,000 “non-combat” troops would be required to fulfill this limited set of strategic U.S. aims in Iraq.</p>
<p>The Democrats, like the Republicans, are biding time in Iraq, in the hopes of consolidating a long-term U.S. military presence there-while leaving open the option of attacking Iran as a bargaining chip. Clinton stated recently, “No option can be taken off the table” against Iran’s alleged nuclear threat, while presidential rivals John Edwards and Obama echoed, “All options on the table.”</p>
<p>The aim of a continued military presence in Iraq is a given for both Democrats and Republicans. Rarely has the U.S. fought a major war without leaving permanent military bases behind.</p>
<p>No longer referred to as “permanent bases” in Iraq, the Pentagon has successively described U.S. military bases as “Enduring Bases” and then as “Contingency Operating Bases” since February 2005. The purpose remains the same. As a former Pentagon official told the New York Times, Clinton’s Iraq plan, by minimizing U.S. troop casualties, would make it politically possible to sustain a long-term military presence in the Middle East Region.</p>
<p>Only a complete withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq can end the occupation–and prevent a region-wide Middle East war. Don’t count on the Democrats to make it happen, rhetoric aside.</p>
<p>SHARON SMITH is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1931859116/counterpunchmaga" type="external">Women and Socialism</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/193185923X/counterpunchmaga" type="external">Subterranean Fire: a History of Working-Class Radicalism in the United States</a>. She can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | recent weeks hillary clintons campaign strategy appears increasingly centered proving cojones ruthlessly pursue us imperial interests world barack obama nipping polling numbers invoking opposition 2003 us invasion iraq clinton steadfastly refuses pander antiwar movement admitting made mistake voting authorize war 2002 days clinton misses opportunity demonstrate combative stance foreign affairs whatever subject discussion pledging work toward energy independence march 18 midmanhattan fundraiser clinton told audience laden wall st financiers time switches light bulb home mutters take iran take venezuela sending money people going support values clinton made clear intention ending occupation iraq elected president interview published new york times march 15 explicit issuesounding remarkably like well george bush complete us withdrawal iraq could turn petri dish insurgents al qaeda said adding right heart oil region directly opposition interests interests regimes israels interests clinton would downsize us troop presence pulling urban combat minimize us casualties preserving enough troops antiterrorism mission northern support mission ability respond iranians continue provide support called iraqis times reported mrs clinton said scaleddown american military force would maintain would stay streets baghdad would longer try protect iraqis sectarian violence even descended ethnic cleansing indeed clinton responded coldly prospect mass sectarian bloodletting iraqi problem save iraqis clintons candid times interview seems place well right congressional democrats currently absorbed apparently principled fight pass antiwar legislation house senate march 13 house speaker nancy pelosi remarked administrations answer continuing violence iraq troops treasure american people senate majority leader harry reid stated defiantly bush must change course time senate demand behind scenes democratic party congressional leaders maneuvering frantically avoid conflict bush administrations war aims march 13 democrats announced plans remove requirement bush gain congressional approval taking military action iran military spending bill democrats republicans stymied iran proposal meeting held behind closed doors objecting possible opposition israel nevada rep shelley berkley explained would take away perhaps important negotiating tool us comes iran spending bill debated house week includes nearly 100 billion wars iraq afghanistanmore bush requested antiwar provisions require us combat troops withdrawn august 31 2008 president may waive requirements reasons national security according toothless legislation concrete terms three months establishing majority congress democrats little show house managed pass single nonbinding resolution bushs troop surge february 16 senate failed even accomplish much hardly antiwar majority mind rhetoric aside much political distance separates hillary clinton impassioned congressional counterparts less might appear notion withdrawing combat troops less dramatic seems although house resolution currently debate calls removing combat troops iraq september 2008 presidential waivers aside also acknowledges need maintain presence limited number us soldiers purposes including targeted counterterrorism operations obama admitted might decide retain us troops iraq president major democratic party presidential candidate far called complete us troop withdrawal good reason partys powerbrokers aim salvage renounce us war aims iraq democratic leadership council dlc notes website rapid complete withdrawal iraq isnt really plan b plan zero liquidating whole iraq engagement hopeless times noted clintons plan new oneand already advocated dov zakheim pentagons comptroller rumsfeld estimated roughly 75000 noncombat troops would required fulfill limited set strategic us aims iraq democrats like republicans biding time iraq hopes consolidating longterm us military presence therewhile leaving open option attacking iran bargaining chip clinton stated recently option taken table irans alleged nuclear threat presidential rivals john edwards obama echoed options table aim continued military presence iraq given democrats republicans rarely us fought major war without leaving permanent military bases behind longer referred permanent bases iraq pentagon successively described us military bases enduring bases contingency operating bases since february 2005 purpose remains former pentagon official told new york times clintons iraq plan minimizing us troop casualties would make politically possible sustain longterm military presence middle east region complete withdrawal us troops iraq end occupationand prevent regionwide middle east war dont count democrats make happen rhetoric aside sharon smith author women socialism subterranean fire history workingclass radicalism united states reached sharoninternationalsocialistorg 160 | 639 |
<p>Minqi&#160;Li is an associate professor of economics at the University of Utah. He is the author of The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy (Pluto Press, 2009) and the editor of Red China Website (a leading Chinese leftist website).&#160;&#160;Minqi&#160;Li has published many articles in the filed of political economy, the Chinese economy, global capitalist crisis, peak oil, and climate change.</p>
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<p /> PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore.
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<p />The presidential debate that took place on Monday night with President Obama and candidate Romney, Governor Romney, focused in its final section about U.S.-China relations. Now joining us to give us his take on this portion of the debate is Minqi Li. He's a associate professor at the University of Utah, specializing in political economy, world systems, and the Chinese economy. He was a political prisoner in China from 1990 to '92. And he's the author of the book After Neoliberalism: Empire, Social Democracy, or Socialism?. Thanks for joining us, Minqi.
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<p />MINQI LI, ASSOC. PROF. ECONOMICS, UNIV. UTAH: Thank you, Paul.
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<p />JAY: So what do you make of this competition to see which candidate is going to get tougher on China?
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<p />LI: Well, basically, since the early 2000s we have this kind of division of labor in the global capitalist system. So, while the U.S. is going to specialize in the making of financial profits, the Chinese capitalism is specializing in the exploitation of China's cheap labor force. Of course, right now this division of labor is running into contradictions because of the breakout of the global financial crisis, and so I don't think either of the two candidates really have a solution to this, but both of them pretend that they are quite angry about China. But I don't think they are going to do anything really serious about that.
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<p />JAY: So what do you think of Romney's plan? He says he's going to—on day one of his presidency he's going to declare China a currency manipulator and, he said in the other debate, if necessary, put tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States if they don't deal with their currency issue. What do you make of that?
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<p />LI: Well, Romney might do that or not, depending on whether he is going to be in the presidential office. But I don't think it is going to seriously affect the U.S.-China economic relationship. Of course, in terms of currency manipulator, we know that the U.S. Federal Reserve has been doing this quantitative easing, first round, second round, and third round. And that might be the greatest currency manipulator in the current global economy.
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<p />JAY: Yeah, in terms of trying to lower the value of the U.S. dollar in relationship to other currencies—
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<p />LI: Exactly.
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<p />JAY: —and, overtly, to promote American exports. And what about President Obama? He's also talking about going after—that China doesn't follow the rules, China has to be on the same playing field. What do you make of that?
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<p />LI: Well, the question is, you know, why the U.S. is in a position to decide what should be the global rules. And I do want to mention one thing, that is, four years ago, when Obama is becoming the president, he made a famous announcement this is [incompr.] when the sea level, the global sea level stops rising, and referring to his commitment to climate change—but now in the current election, since this climate change issue has all disappeared—and, in fact, Obama tries to claim credit for the U.S. shale oil and shale gas boom, which of course in the long run would make this, the global climate situation, even more dangerous—.
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<p />JAY: Yeah, there used to be critique of China that it wasn't paying attention or interested in the climate change issue. And I think, in fact, now, in terms of aternative energy, China's probably ahead of the United States in terms of what it's doing on this whole front.
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<p />LI: Right.
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<p />JAY: But underlying all of this is there's this fundamental problem, I guess, is that they see China as a geopolitical strategic rival. China, becoming this major economic power, surpassing, I think, now Japan in terms of the size of its economy, is a real powerhouse in Asia. On the other hand, the American economy's completely entwined with the Chinese economy. And all these jobs that have shipped off didn't magically show up in China; it's 'cause American companies went to China and set up shop.
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<p />LI: Well, one of the underlying issue about this election is that—or about this debate is that the U.S. has been losing its position of hegemonic power, and as a result the U.S. has got less and less control over the global geopolitics, and most importantly the growing instability in the Middle East area. So in that respect I don't see that China is going to be a immediate threat to the U.S. position right now. But potentially in the future, if we also have growing contradiction within China, if the Chinese capitalism also become unstable, that could be a tougher challenge for the U.S. capitalism.
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<p />JAY: Now, President Obama has done his—what he's—he referred to it in that debate Monday night and he's talked about it before, this pivot towards Asia and this growing alliance with India, which is rather overtly about China on this geopolitical strategic level—United States is very much looking at some sort of encirclement of China and putting a lot of effort into it. And, in fact, President Obama's virtually bragging about it.
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<p />LI: I don't think the U.S. is going to enter into a military conflict with China very soon, but from the U.S. point of view it may do no harm to remind China that the U.S. is still controlling China's oil-supply lifeline.
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<p />JAY: But, also, what do you make of the growing alliance and beefing up of India's, you know, armed forces? They recently bought a nuclear submarine. And this all seems to be, as President Obama said a few—you know, about a year ago, I guess, when he went to Australia, that, you know, we're—and he said again in the debate Monday night, China had better not forget we're a Pacific power.
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<p />LI: Well, again, that's part of the U.S. strategy, to remind the Chinese capitalist class that U.S. has still got the strategic upper hand. But I don't think the U.S. and China is going to enter into a conflict very soon. But I do think that in the future, if the Chinese capitalism become unstable, that could be a bigger threat to the U.S. capitalism.
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<p />JAY: Right. And in terms of these charges against China in terms of violating what they call the fair rules and such, is there anything to these charges?
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<p />LI: Well, I think in this case probably both Obama and Romney to some extent try to pretend to be the defender of the interests of U.S. working class, as well small business. And Obama actually have his chance after 2009, during the 2009 crisis, if he could have, for example, nationalized much of the banking sector and reregulate the U.S. capitalism. But, you know, instead he used the U.S. government money to bail out the corporate business. And so that might be the indication of to what extent they really care about the interests of U.S. working class.
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<p />JAY: So you think this anti-China stuff is mostly—it's easier to have some rhetoric about China than to, for example, nationalize some banks.
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<p />LI: I do think so.
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<p />JAY: Alright. Well, thanks very much for joining us, Minqi.
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<p />LI: Thank you very much.
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<p />JAY: 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 | minqi160li associate professor economics university utah author rise china demise capitalist world economy pluto press 2009 editor red china website leading chinese leftist website160160minqi160li published many articles filed political economy chinese economy global capitalist crisis peak oil climate change paul jay senior editor trnn welcome real news network im paul jay baltimore presidential debate took place monday night president obama candidate romney governor romney focused final section uschina relations joining us give us take portion debate minqi li hes associate professor university utah specializing political economy world systems chinese economy political prisoner china 1990 92 hes author book neoliberalism empire social democracy socialism thanks joining us minqi minqi li assoc prof economics univ utah thank paul jay make competition see candidate going get tougher china li well basically since early 2000s kind division labor global capitalist system us going specialize making financial profits chinese capitalism specializing exploitation chinas cheap labor force course right division labor running contradictions breakout global financial crisis dont think either two candidates really solution pretend quite angry china dont think going anything really serious jay think romneys plan says hes going toâon day one presidency hes going declare china currency manipulator said debate necessary put tariffs chinese products coming united states dont deal currency issue make li well romney might depending whether going presidential office dont think going seriously affect uschina economic relationship course terms currency manipulator know us federal reserve quantitative easing first round second round third round might greatest currency manipulator current global economy jay yeah terms trying lower value us dollar relationship currenciesâ li exactly jay âand overtly promote american exports president obama hes also talking going afterâthat china doesnt follow rules china playing field make li well question know us position decide global rules want mention one thing four years ago obama becoming president made famous announcement incompr sea level global sea level stops rising referring commitment climate changeâbut current election since climate change issue disappearedâand fact obama tries claim credit us shale oil shale gas boom course long run would make global climate situation even dangerousâ jay yeah used critique china wasnt paying attention interested climate change issue think fact terms aternative energy chinas probably ahead united states terms whole front li right jay underlying theres fundamental problem guess see china geopolitical strategic rival china becoming major economic power surpassing think japan terms size economy real powerhouse asia hand american economys completely entwined chinese economy jobs shipped didnt magically show china cause american companies went china set shop li well one underlying issue election thatâor debate us losing position hegemonic power result us got less less control global geopolitics importantly growing instability middle east area respect dont see china going immediate threat us position right potentially future also growing contradiction within china chinese capitalism also become unstable could tougher challenge us capitalism jay president obama done hisâwhat hesâhe referred debate monday night hes talked pivot towards asia growing alliance india rather overtly china geopolitical strategic levelâunited states much looking sort encirclement china putting lot effort fact president obamas virtually bragging li dont think us going enter military conflict china soon us point view may harm remind china us still controlling chinas oilsupply lifeline jay also make growing alliance beefing indias know armed forces recently bought nuclear submarine seems president obama said fewâyou know year ago guess went australia know wereâand said debate monday night china better forget pacific power li well thats part us strategy remind chinese capitalist class us still got strategic upper hand dont think us china going enter conflict soon think future chinese capitalism become unstable could bigger threat us capitalism jay right terms charges china terms violating call fair rules anything charges li well think case probably obama romney extent try pretend defender interests us working class well small business obama actually chance 2009 2009 crisis could example nationalized much banking sector reregulate us capitalism know instead used us government money bail corporate business might indication extent really care interests us working class jay think antichina stuff mostlyâits easier rhetoric china example nationalize banks li think jay alright well thanks much joining us minqi li thank much jay thank joining us real news network end disclaimer please note transcripts real news network typed recording program trnn guarantee complete accuracy | 712 |
<p>Five years after the events of September 11, 2001, conspiracy theories abound as an anxious public seeks to find a comprehensible story for that day and more broadly for their socio-political world. People need reliable foundations upon which to base the many assumptions and conventions they use to carry on their lives.</p>
<p>Half a century ago, public anxiety about the danger of atomic energy and the terror of thermonuclear war exhibited itself in sightings of flying saucers, and a fad of monster movies. C. G. Jung wrote about flying saucer sightings as an instance of “mass psychosis”: a “psychological infection” that spreads among people who lack sufficient understanding to rationalize fearsome political forces and unstable social conditions (Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth, 1958). Jung was sensitive to any indication that another “psychological epidemic” might erupt, as Nazism did, among a population whose government possessed awesome military power. Mass psychosis is a myth held in common, which releases the population from the “normal” restraints of rationality and international social conventions, so they can pursue their mythical vision. The ignorance — and the fears that spring from it as prejudices — of the entranced population is “projected” onto “enemies” whose destruction is sought in the irrational effort to eliminate the actual problem of psychological tensions, (1)</p>
<p>A more entertaining expression of popular anxiety is the monster movie. “Godzilla,” “Rodan,” “Them,” “The Thing” and many others safely frightened viewers with stories of monsters whose introductions into human society were caused by atomic bomb testing, or were accompanied by radioactivity. For most Americansthe major source of any knowledge of physics is probably this type of motion picture.</p>
<p>The myths we construct to express our understanding of the realities we are immersed in are limited by the range of our knowledge. When the myths are meant to cover over fears about forces beyond our control, they can be conspiracy theories. Consider these pairings of fears and rationalizations:</p>
<p>fear of political power –&gt; conspiracy theories;</p>
<p>metaphysical fear (fear of death) –&gt; religion, a theological conspiracy ;</p>
<p>fear of personal inadequacy–&gt;racism,</p>
<p>fear of strange cultures–&gt; ultra-nationalism</p>
<p>Certainly, so long as there are more than two people on Earth, conspiracies will occur. But too often we invoke a conspiracy in constructing our story of the world because we lack specific information about the sciences, economics, history and other relevant fields of specialized knowledge. Experience has shown that if the evidence allows for several explanations to a given problem then the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions is most probably correct. This principle is called Occam’s Razor and is attributed to the 14th-century English logician and Franciscan friar William of Occam (c. 1295­1349) (2).</p>
<p>The events of September 11, 2001, were unsettling for many Americans because their existing myths were shattered; these myths had provided comfort and lain undisturbed in consciousness since indoctrination had lodged them there. The increasing power of communications technology –global telephone networks, the Internet –and the accelerating disregard of subtlety by the elite in its management of public perceptions about government policies has eroded the myths –or illusions –of many Americans. So, trust in government has been broken, fear of its power is vivid, and understanding of the physical mechanisms of Nature is limited. This psychology will naturally sprout conspiracy theories about 9/11.</p>
<p>The aim of this article is to supply some understanding of physics as it relates to several of the features of the 9/11 events, so that readers can expand their range of rationality and hence their political maturity.</p>
<p>The reports on the investigations of the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (originally the National Bureau of Standards) are to be found at a special NIST website (“ <a href="http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/#draft" type="external">NIST &amp; The World Trade Center, Final Report</a>(Sept. 2005),”</p>
<p>This multi-volume Final Report, issued in September 2005, is the “official word.” There is a vast amount of dry text, much data, descriptive summaries of detailed calculations of the impact ruptures, fires and heating, subsequent deformation, load-shifting, buckling and ultimate failure of the buildings. NIST addressed the sequence of events and shifting of loads leading up to the failure that allowed the upper blocks to drop; it did not proceed to a detailed simulation of the collapses to the ground. NIST justified this on the grounds that there was sufficient energy in the descending blocks to crush the lower structures, once failures had occurred.</p>
<p>The controlled demolition hypothesis for the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings is described at length in a Wikipedia article (“ <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_demolition_hypothesis_for_the_collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center" type="external">Controlled demolition hypothesis for the collapse of the World Trade Center</a>,”</p>
<p>The popularity of 9/11 conspiracy theories (also outlined in a useful Wikipedia entry) has prompted NIST to present a very nice webpage addressing the usual questions of the conspiracy viewpoint, and providing clear descriptions in non-technical English of the physics and engineering explanations embodied in the NIST WTC Towers Final Report . Summary of NIST Findings</p>
<p>The World Trade Center Towers (WTC 1, WTC 2) were tall square buildings with supporting columns grouped along the vertical axis (center) and closely spaced along the perimeter (building faces). A “hat truss,” at the top of each building, tied the outer walls to the central columns; and this truss had a height equal to that of five stories.</p>
<p>A hijacked airliner was crashed into each building about 10 or 20 stories down from the top. The columns along one face of the building were sheared for a height of several floors, as were many of the columns at the core. The exploding fuel from the airliner ignited fires throughout the levels within the impact zone, as well as dropping fire down the stairwells and elevator shafts at the building’s core, and billowing up to higher levels. The shocks of impact and detonation loosened the “fire protection” thermal insulation on steel beams in the impact zone.</p>
<p>The damaged core columns in the impact zone could no longer hold up all the weight they were meant to carry. The core columns in the upper block now found it necessary to partially hang from the hat truss. The hat truss pressed down much more forcefully on the perimeter columns, transferring the load of the hanging weight. The added compression of the perimeter columns could only be distributed to the three undamaged faces, and because of the irregularity of the damage one face assumed a much higher load than the other two.</p>
<p>The fuel fire burned up to 1,100 degrees C (2,000 degrees F) for perhaps 10 minutes. It ignited the many plastic furnishing (carpets, curtains, furniture, equipment cases, clothing, fixtures, office ceilings and partitions), paper items (paper supplies, books, pressed wood), and some structural elements (gypsum wall boards, plastic plumbing), which then continued the fire. The exposed steel beams in the impact zone heated to between 700 C to 1,000 C. Steel at 700 C has 50 per cent to 70 per cent of its strength at habitable temperatures; and steel at 1,000 C has between 10 per cent to 30 per cent.</p>
<p>The floors in the impact zone sagged because of broken joints to central columns, heat causing their metal framing to soften, weaken and expand; also because of the weight of debris fallen from above . The sagging floors twisted their joints to the perimeter columns (on the three intact faces); the length of column above a floor joint being twisted inward. For one face of the building, the combined stress of the original weight above it, the added compression from the hat truss, and the torque from the sagging floors were too much. Its perimeter beams were bent inward to the point of failure, and they buckled.</p>
<p>The NIST investigation was an extremely detailed analysis by 200 engineers and building professionals, describing the conditions of the buildings from the instant an airplane collided to the moment a collapse began. The next section of this CounterPunch report carries the story downward from the point where NIST leaves off. NIST concentrated its resources on the greatest uncertainty: what initiated the collapse? It was understood that once an upper block of the building was in motion the structure below would be unable to counter the dynamic forces, and collapse would proceed to the ground.</p>
<p>Physics Problem Number 1 — Free Fall of the WTC Towers</p>
<p>“How could the WTC towers collapse in only 11 seconds (WTC 1) and 9 seconds (WTC 2), speeds that approximate that of a ball dropped from a similar height in vacuum (with no air resistance)?” (NIST FAQ #6)</p>
<p>The suspicion behind this question is that the Towers were weakened by surreptitious, controlled demolitions. In this view, the structure below the impact zone (where airplanes collided, exploded, and fires burned) “should have” provided resistance to the descent of the block above the impact zone, slowing or even stopping the collapse.</p>
<p>The NIST response is that the lower structure was only designed to hold up the weight above any given floor statically, not dynamically. The force imparted by the collision of the upper block was beyond the limits of the lower structure to resist. The lower structure was essentially crumbled by a “hammer” of descending material, and the mass of this hammer increased during the course of the collapse.</p>
<p>Let’s explore further.</p>
<p>¦ Problem 1, Force Balance</p>
<p>Once the framing in the impact zone has failed, the upper block is accelerated by gravity until it crashes into the lower structure below the impact zone. Labeling the mass of the upper block m, and its speed v, the block would have a momentum m*v and an energy of (1/2)*m*v^2. Its weight would be m*g, where g is the constant of gravitational acceleration (9.81 meters/second^2).</p>
<p>The balance of forces on the upper block as it impacts the lower structure is presented here as the impulse momentum form of Newton’s 2nd Law:</p>
<p>The time rate of change of momentum = The sum of the forces,</p>
<p>[m*v(final) – m*v(initial)]/dt = F – m*g.</p>
<p>Here, positive direction, velocity and force are taken to be vertically upward; dt is a label for “delta t”, a very brief time interval during which the impact occurs and the momentum changes from m*v(initial) to m*v(final); and F is the force of resistance by the lower structure. If A is the net horizontal cross-sectional area of the load-bearing columns of the lower structure, then F/A is the average compressive stress across that area.</p>
<p>This type of force balance is applied to the impact at each floor, sequentially, by redefining m as the mass above it, v(initial) as the outcome of the alternating floor impacts and free falls during prior compaction, and v(final) as the outcome of the latest impact.</p>
<p>We can regroup the terms of the force balance as follows:</p>
<p>F = m*g + m*[v(final) – v(initial)]/dt,</p>
<p>F = m*g*[1 + {v(final) – v(initial)}/(g*dt)],</p>
<p>F/(m*g) = 1 + {v(final) – v(initial)}/(g*dt).</p>
<p>Before each building was perturbed, the upper block did not have any motion, v(initial) = v(final) = 0, and the magnitude of the upward-directed, resisting force of any part of the structure was equal to the weight of material above it; F/(m*g) = 1.</p>
<p>When an upper block drops through an impact zone that has lost structural strength, and crashes into the rigid lower structure, it imparts a dynamic force in addition to its weight. The dynamic force is the second term in the last expression for F. The total force, F, acts during the time interval dt during which the momentum of the upper block is reduced (in magnitude) from m*v(initial) to m*v(final). Clearly, the lower structure will crumble when F is greater than the maximum force it can support, or when F/A is greater than the maximum stress it can withstand.</p>
<p>¦ Problem 1, Numerical Example of Progressive Collapse</p>
<p>Free fall without air resistance from a height H takes time T, given by</p>
<p>T = square root [(2*H)/g].</p>
<p>At any time 0 &lt; t &lt; T during the free fall, the velocity is given by</p>
<p>v(t) = -g*t, (negative sign for downward direction),</p>
<p>and position is given by</p>
<p>h(t) = H – (1/2)*g*t^2.</p>
<p>So, for H = 440 m (=1443 feet) the free fall time is T = 9.5 s, and the velocity slamming into the ground is -92.9 m/s = -208 mph.</p>
<p>What actually happened in the buildings? We consider a suggestive numerical example.</p>
<p>With the onset of failure, the upper block drops through a space of L = 3 meters, taken to be the distance between floors. Starting from rest at time t = 0, the block reaches a velocity of v = -7.7 m/s at t = 0.78 s. The descending block makes contact with the topmost stationary floor of the lower structure.</p>
<p>We will assume these floor structures to be dL = 1 meter thick (1 meter = 3.28 feet). Each floor structure is a framework of steel below and within a layer of concrete. The floors spanned a distance of between 10 m and 20 m between the outer square perimeter (63.4 m a side) and the core support along the axis of the building, which housed elevator shafts, stairwells and support columns, within a rectangular area of [42 m x 27 m].</p>
<p>Impact is a very brief process whose duration is dt = 1/100 s. During the impact, energy ripples through the floor structure as elastic waves in the steel and concrete; the velocity of these stress waves is V(steel) = 1900 m/s and V(concrete) = 930 m/s; the wave speed is a property of the material (P-waves). The waves traverse the thickness of the floor structure in a time dL/V = 5/10,000 s for steel and 1/1000 s for concrete, so they can bounce between 10 to 20 times across the 1 m thickness; and they can run along the span of the floor within 0.005 to 0.01 s.</p>
<p>The waves alert the volume of the floor structure to the imposition of a new load, and infuse that volume with much higher stress. The floor structure is deflected downward a distance d = -0.077 meters (3 inches) during impact. In becoming stressed, the floor structure absorbs some of the energy of the descending block, slowing it by dv = 0.5 m/s (in this example). Within dt = 1/100 s, the floor structure has transmitted the force of the new load to its joints with the building’s core and periphery.</p>
<p>Recalling the last form of the force balance, and inserting the numbers from this example, we find the magnitude of the total reaction force to be</p>
<p>F/(m*g) = 1 + dv/(g*dt) = 1 + 0.5/(9.81*0.01) = 6.1,</p>
<p>a load of six times the weight of the upper block.</p>
<p>I continued this particular calculation, floor by floor, as a sequence starting from rest: free fall for 3 m, impact delays transit for 0.01 s and decreases descent velocity by 0.5 m/s, free fall for 3 m, transit delay and velocity decrement as before, and so on. The block reaches the ground in 10 s with a total of 87 floor impacts. The collapse of 344 m (1128 feet) accelerates from -7.2 m/s (-16 mph) after the initial impact, to -46 m/s (-104 mph) at the ground.</p>
<p>Now, a little bit more about waves.</p>
<p>¦ Problem 1, Wave Trains and Stress Concentration</p>
<p>Elastic waves are launched from the collapse front (the leading edge of descending material, like “weather front”) at the moment of first impact. Within 0.01 s, a stress wave has traveled through the metal framework to five levels below the collapse front, a distance of 20 m. These lower levels experience a rapid –dare I say explosive? –increase in the stress within their frames. Bolts and rivets may be sheared, and joints ruptured by the resulting impulsive forces.</p>
<p>For example, assume a carbon steel (HR 0.45C) bolt or rivet of 1 inch diameter is used to support a force of 8,000 kilograms, equivalent to a stress of 22,500 pounds-per-square-inch (psi). This stress is only one quarter of that material’s tensile strength of 90,000 psi; an apparently conservative design. However, an unexpected increase in load by a factor of five, to a total of 48,000 kg, or 135,000 psi, would probably rupture the joint.</p>
<p>The stress wave from the initial impact races down the lower structure, arriving at ground level in 0.18 s (we continue with the numerical example). During that time, the collapse front has descended another 1.3 m. The stress wave is like a messenger telling the material it passes to “move down and compress” in response to the advancing collapse front. On reaching the ground, the wave could transmit some of its energy past the building’s foundation to radiate as a seismic wave through the earth, and another portion of its energy would reflect back up (the major effect, especially if the foundation is more rigid than the building it supports). The message of the upward running wave is “compress even more, dead-end down below.”</p>
<p>Elastic waves launched by an impulsive load on a structure that remains intact –like a bell being struck –will ripple back and forth, spreading out the initially concentrated stress of the strike. If the load is suddenly imposed and then remains constant, as with a book being dropped on a sturdy table, then the elastic waves die out into a fairly uniform distribution of stress throughout the volume. If the load is a short pulse, like striking a bell, then the waves will eventually die out as a fairly uniform heating of the material.</p>
<p>Just as there are ripples on wavelets, and wavelets on big rollers across the surface of the ocean, so will each elastic wave launched by the collapse be a jumble of waves of different size grouped together. The many individual collisions of material that make up the global impact of the upper block into a floor structure will each send off their own ripples, which all build up into a composite for the elastic wave.</p>
<p>A new elastic wave is launched with each impact between the collapse front and a stationary floor structure. As the collapse front accelerates, the time interval between wave launchings decreases. The building below the collapse front experiences an increasing level of stress and becomes filled with intersecting wave trains moving up and down by the time of the second impact at 1.13 s. Elastic waves that pass through each other will produce a heightened stress where they coincide, just like crossing water waves that mound noticeably.</p>
<p>This agitated lacework of stresses ahead of the collapse front will probably cause many fractures and break many joints prior to the arrival of the front. The sudden shifts in the volume of rooms and office spaces being compressed and twisted by the elastic wave trains can easily expel jets of air and dust out of windows, perhaps giving the impression of smoke from a gun barrel. The collapse front will push a blast of air down before it and also produce lateral jets of air from the building below it. These air streams are analogous to the water expelled sideways and into vortexes alongside a paddle pushing a canoe through still water.</p>
<p>All these wave effects occur in the upper block as well, from the moment of first impact. The upper block will quickly fill with elastic waves, which will rupture internal joints; the block shatters, as is vividly seen in the video recordings of the WTC collapses. The shorter length of the upper block, and its lack of firm connection (like a foundation), will contribute to the speed of its disintegration. In a very real sense the upper block was “blown up,” but naturally by elastic waves rippling a destructive compression through it rather than artificially by intentional controlled demolition.</p>
<p>Pancaking, Buckling and Hyping (Red Herring #1)</p>
<p>Two days after the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, Zdenek P. Bazant, a civil engineering professor at Northwestern University, publicized his theory of the collapse initiation. His conjectures about loosened fire insulation and heated steel losing strength survived the subsequent scrutiny by NIST. However, NIST rejected Bazant’s proposed mechanism for the initiation of the collapse, referred to subsequently as the “pancake model” or “pancaking.” Because of its early appearance on the scene, Bazant’s model was widely circulated. Critics of NIST and the “official” story will point to the divergence of NIST’s conclusions from Bazant’s, four years earlier, as an indication of ignorance, confusion –or worse –complicity and cover-up on the part of the “government” people.</p>
<p>Bazant’s pancake model is shown in Figure 1 of his report . Bazant assumed that interior columns within the impact zone would weaken from heating, buckle, and then the upper block would fall through the impact zone onto the lower structure. This impact would cause the columns in the immediate levels below (“3 to 10 seems likely”) to bow, or in Bazant’s words:</p>
<p>“This causes failure of an underlying multi-floor segment of the tower, in which the failure of the connections of the floor-carrying trusses to the columns is either accompanied or quickly followed by buckling of the core columns and overall buckling of the framed tube, with the buckles probably spanning the height of many floors, and the upper part possibly getting wedged inside an emptied lower part of the framed tube.”</p>
<p>In other words, the upper block falls within the perimeter columns onto a lower floor, and that shock pops the floor joints around the perimeter and at the core for 3 to 10 floors below. Once in motion, this process would crush all beneath it.</p>
<p>NIST concludes:</p>
<p>“NIST’s findings do not support the pancake theory of collapse[The] investigation showed conclusively that the failure of the inwardly bowed perimeter columns initiated collapse and that the occurrence of this inward bowing required the sagging floors to remain connected to the columns to pull the columns inwards. Thus, the floors did not fail progressively to cause a pancaking phenomenon.”</p>
<p>For a shot from the hip two days after the collapse, Bazant did pretty well. But, after the NIST legion did all the necessary homework, we now have an accurate result. NIST shows pictures of the inward buckle of the perimeter wall, taken from a police helicopter. Pancaking versus NIST is a nonexistent technical argument only to be found in the imagination of some conspiracy-minded people. The technical community migrated from early hypotheses of the initiation, like pancaking, to the NIST conclusions as a consequence of doing the hard work required. And, there was always unanimity on what drove the collapse once it was initiated: excess dynamic force produced from the gravitational potential energy contained within even one level spacing. Once the top began to fall, it was going to crush the building below it, regardless. The Absurdity of “Controlled Demolition” (Red Herring #2), by Pierre Sprey</p>
<p>Pierre Sprey is CounterPunch’s technical reviewer of this report. His comments about the controlled demolition hypothesis are so cogent that I include them here.</p>
<p>Sprey:</p>
<p>There is not the slightest need to postulate pre-placed explosive charges to explain why the towers collapsed at near free fall speeds. Let me note a few practical aspects of explosive demolitions that make the explosive charge hypothesis improbable to the point of absurdity:</p>
<p>1. Any demolitions expert concocting a plan to hit a tall building with an airplane and then use pre-placed explosives to UNDETECTABLY ensure the collapse of the building would never place the explosives 20, 30 and 60 floors below the impact point. Obviously, he would put the explosives on one or more floors as close as possible to the planned impact level.</p>
<p>2. It is inconceivable that our demolitions expert would time his surreptitious explosions to occur HOURS after the aircraft impact. He couldn’t possibly be absolutely certain that the impact fires would even last an hour. Quite the opposite: to mask the booster explosions, he’d time them to follow right on the heels of the impact.</p>
<p>3. To ensure collapse of a major building requires very sizable demolition charges, charges that are large enough to do a lot more than emit the “puffs of smoke” cited as evidence for the explosives hypothesis. I’ve seen both live and filmed explosive building demolitions. Each explosion is accompanied by a very visible shower of heavy rubble and a dense cloud of smoke and dust. Just that fact alone makes the explosives hypothesis untenable; no demolitions expert in the world would be willing to promise his client that he could bring down a tall building with explosions guaranteed to be indistinguishable from the effects of an aircraft impact.</p>
<p>My Conclusions</p>
<p>The WTC towers collapsed at speeds approaching that of free fall because:</p>
<p>1. The dynamic force created out of the gravitational potential energy within the space of just one level spacing was far in excess of the static force the framing was designed to support, and</p>
<p>2. Elastic waves launched from the collapse front quickly filled the building –both lower structure and upper block –with large dynamic stresses, which weakened and ruptured joints well in advance of that material entering the collapse front.</p>
<p>The towers shattered, and the pieces fell to the ground.</p>
<p>In <a href="" type="internal">part 2</a> of this report I address the topic of heat, a prominent feature of many conspiracy theories about the collapse of the WTC buildings. In part 3 I address <a href="" type="internal">the collapse of WTC 7</a></p>
<p>Manuel Garcia a native New Yorker who works as a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California with a PhD Aerospace &amp; Mechanical Engineering, from Princeton His technical interests are generally in fluid flow and energy, specifically in gas dynamics and plasma physics; and his working experience includes measurements on nuclear bomb tests, devising mathematical models of energetic physical effects, and trying to enlarge a union of weapons scientists. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>CounterPunch Special Report: Debunking the Myths of 9/11</p>
<p>Alexander Cockburn here assembles his two prime commentaries in a final, expanded essay, “ <a href="" type="internal">The 9/11 Conspiracists and the Decline of the Left.</a>”</p>
<p>Manuel Garcia Jr, physicist and engineer, presents his three separate reports, undertaken for CounterPunch.</p>
<p>Part One is his report on the <a href="" type="internal">Physics of 9/11</a>.</p>
<p>Part Two (published here for the first time) is his report on the <a href="" type="internal">Thermodynamics of 9/11</a>.</p>
<p>Part Three, “ <a href="" type="internal">Dark Fire</a>“, is his report on the collapse of the World Trade Center’s Building 7.</p>
<p>JoAnn Wypijewski wrote her essay “ <a href="" type="internal">Conversations at Ground Zero</a>” after a day spent with people at the site on 9/11/2006.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | five years events september 11 2001 conspiracy theories abound anxious public seeks find comprehensible story day broadly sociopolitical world people need reliable foundations upon base many assumptions conventions use carry lives half century ago public anxiety danger atomic energy terror thermonuclear war exhibited sightings flying saucers fad monster movies c g jung wrote flying saucer sightings instance mass psychosis psychological infection spreads among people lack sufficient understanding rationalize fearsome political forces unstable social conditions flying saucers modern myth 1958 jung sensitive indication another psychological epidemic might erupt nazism among population whose government possessed awesome military power mass psychosis myth held common releases population normal restraints rationality international social conventions pursue mythical vision ignorance fears spring prejudices entranced population projected onto enemies whose destruction sought irrational effort eliminate actual problem psychological tensions 1 entertaining expression popular anxiety monster movie godzilla rodan thing many others safely frightened viewers stories monsters whose introductions human society caused atomic bomb testing accompanied radioactivity americansthe major source knowledge physics probably type motion picture myths construct express understanding realities immersed limited range knowledge myths meant cover fears forces beyond control conspiracy theories consider pairings fears rationalizations fear political power gt conspiracy theories metaphysical fear fear death gt religion theological conspiracy fear personal inadequacygtracism fear strange culturesgt ultranationalism certainly long two people earth conspiracies occur often invoke conspiracy constructing story world lack specific information sciences economics history relevant fields specialized knowledge experience shown evidence allows several explanations given problem hypothesis fewest assumptions probably correct principle called occams razor attributed 14thcentury english logician franciscan friar william occam c 12951349 2 events september 11 2001 unsettling many americans existing myths shattered myths provided comfort lain undisturbed consciousness since indoctrination lodged increasing power communications technology global telephone networks internet accelerating disregard subtlety elite management public perceptions government policies eroded myths illusions many americans trust government broken fear power vivid understanding physical mechanisms nature limited psychology naturally sprout conspiracy theories 911 aim article supply understanding physics relates several features 911 events readers expand range rationality hence political maturity reports investigations collapse world trade center buildings conducted national institute standards technology originally national bureau standards found special nist website nist amp world trade center final reportsept 2005 multivolume final report issued september 2005 official word vast amount dry text much data descriptive summaries detailed calculations impact ruptures fires heating subsequent deformation loadshifting buckling ultimate failure buildings nist addressed sequence events shifting loads leading failure allowed upper blocks drop proceed detailed simulation collapses ground nist justified grounds sufficient energy descending blocks crush lower structures failures occurred controlled demolition hypothesis collapse world trade center buildings described length wikipedia article controlled demolition hypothesis collapse world trade center popularity 911 conspiracy theories also outlined useful wikipedia entry prompted nist present nice webpage addressing usual questions conspiracy viewpoint providing clear descriptions nontechnical english physics engineering explanations embodied nist wtc towers final report summary nist findings world trade center towers wtc 1 wtc 2 tall square buildings supporting columns grouped along vertical axis center closely spaced along perimeter building faces hat truss top building tied outer walls central columns truss height equal five stories hijacked airliner crashed building 10 20 stories top columns along one face building sheared height several floors many columns core exploding fuel airliner ignited fires throughout levels within impact zone well dropping fire stairwells elevator shafts buildings core billowing higher levels shocks impact detonation loosened fire protection thermal insulation steel beams impact zone damaged core columns impact zone could longer hold weight meant carry core columns upper block found necessary partially hang hat truss hat truss pressed much forcefully perimeter columns transferring load hanging weight added compression perimeter columns could distributed three undamaged faces irregularity damage one face assumed much higher load two fuel fire burned 1100 degrees c 2000 degrees f perhaps 10 minutes ignited many plastic furnishing carpets curtains furniture equipment cases clothing fixtures office ceilings partitions paper items paper supplies books pressed wood structural elements gypsum wall boards plastic plumbing continued fire exposed steel beams impact zone heated 700 c 1000 c steel 700 c 50 per cent 70 per cent strength habitable temperatures steel 1000 c 10 per cent 30 per cent floors impact zone sagged broken joints central columns heat causing metal framing soften weaken expand also weight debris fallen sagging floors twisted joints perimeter columns three intact faces length column floor joint twisted inward one face building combined stress original weight added compression hat truss torque sagging floors much perimeter beams bent inward point failure buckled nist investigation extremely detailed analysis 200 engineers building professionals describing conditions buildings instant airplane collided moment collapse began next section counterpunch report carries story downward point nist leaves nist concentrated resources greatest uncertainty initiated collapse understood upper block building motion structure would unable counter dynamic forces collapse would proceed ground physics problem number 1 free fall wtc towers could wtc towers collapse 11 seconds wtc 1 9 seconds wtc 2 speeds approximate ball dropped similar height vacuum air resistance nist faq 6 suspicion behind question towers weakened surreptitious controlled demolitions view structure impact zone airplanes collided exploded fires burned provided resistance descent block impact zone slowing even stopping collapse nist response lower structure designed hold weight given floor statically dynamically force imparted collision upper block beyond limits lower structure resist lower structure essentially crumbled hammer descending material mass hammer increased course collapse lets explore problem 1 force balance framing impact zone failed upper block accelerated gravity crashes lower structure impact zone labeling mass upper block speed v block would momentum mv energy 12mv2 weight would mg g constant gravitational acceleration 981 meterssecond2 balance forces upper block impacts lower structure presented impulse momentum form newtons 2nd law time rate change momentum sum forces mvfinal mvinitialdt f mg positive direction velocity force taken vertically upward dt label delta brief time interval impact occurs momentum changes mvinitial mvfinal f force resistance lower structure net horizontal crosssectional area loadbearing columns lower structure fa average compressive stress across area type force balance applied impact floor sequentially redefining mass vinitial outcome alternating floor impacts free falls prior compaction vfinal outcome latest impact regroup terms force balance follows f mg mvfinal vinitialdt f mg1 vfinal vinitialgdt fmg 1 vfinal vinitialgdt building perturbed upper block motion vinitial vfinal 0 magnitude upwarddirected resisting force part structure equal weight material fmg 1 upper block drops impact zone lost structural strength crashes rigid lower structure imparts dynamic force addition weight dynamic force second term last expression f total force f acts time interval dt momentum upper block reduced magnitude mvinitial mvfinal clearly lower structure crumble f greater maximum force support fa greater maximum stress withstand problem 1 numerical example progressive collapse free fall without air resistance height h takes time given square root 2hg time 0 lt lt free fall velocity given vt gt negative sign downward direction position given ht h 12gt2 h 440 1443 feet free fall time 95 velocity slamming ground 929 ms 208 mph actually happened buildings consider suggestive numerical example onset failure upper block drops space l 3 meters taken distance floors starting rest time 0 block reaches velocity v 77 ms 078 descending block makes contact topmost stationary floor lower structure assume floor structures dl 1 meter thick 1 meter 328 feet floor structure framework steel within layer concrete floors spanned distance 10 20 outer square perimeter 634 side core support along axis building housed elevator shafts stairwells support columns within rectangular area 42 x 27 impact brief process whose duration dt 1100 impact energy ripples floor structure elastic waves steel concrete velocity stress waves vsteel 1900 ms vconcrete 930 ms wave speed property material pwaves waves traverse thickness floor structure time dlv 510000 steel 11000 concrete bounce 10 20 times across 1 thickness run along span floor within 0005 001 waves alert volume floor structure imposition new load infuse volume much higher stress floor structure deflected downward distance 0077 meters 3 inches impact becoming stressed floor structure absorbs energy descending block slowing dv 05 ms example within dt 1100 floor structure transmitted force new load joints buildings core periphery recalling last form force balance inserting numbers example find magnitude total reaction force fmg 1 dvgdt 1 05981001 61 load six times weight upper block continued particular calculation floor floor sequence starting rest free fall 3 impact delays transit 001 decreases descent velocity 05 ms free fall 3 transit delay velocity decrement block reaches ground 10 total 87 floor impacts collapse 344 1128 feet accelerates 72 ms 16 mph initial impact 46 ms 104 mph ground little bit waves problem 1 wave trains stress concentration elastic waves launched collapse front leading edge descending material like weather front moment first impact within 001 stress wave traveled metal framework five levels collapse front distance 20 lower levels experience rapid dare say explosive increase stress within frames bolts rivets may sheared joints ruptured resulting impulsive forces example assume carbon steel hr 045c bolt rivet 1 inch diameter used support force 8000 kilograms equivalent stress 22500 poundspersquareinch psi stress one quarter materials tensile strength 90000 psi apparently conservative design however unexpected increase load factor five total 48000 kg 135000 psi would probably rupture joint stress wave initial impact races lower structure arriving ground level 018 continue numerical example time collapse front descended another 13 stress wave like messenger telling material passes move compress response advancing collapse front reaching ground wave could transmit energy past buildings foundation radiate seismic wave earth another portion energy would reflect back major effect especially foundation rigid building supports message upward running wave compress even deadend elastic waves launched impulsive load structure remains intact like bell struck ripple back forth spreading initially concentrated stress strike load suddenly imposed remains constant book dropped sturdy table elastic waves die fairly uniform distribution stress throughout volume load short pulse like striking bell waves eventually die fairly uniform heating material ripples wavelets wavelets big rollers across surface ocean elastic wave launched collapse jumble waves different size grouped together many individual collisions material make global impact upper block floor structure send ripples build composite elastic wave new elastic wave launched impact collapse front stationary floor structure collapse front accelerates time interval wave launchings decreases building collapse front experiences increasing level stress becomes filled intersecting wave trains moving time second impact 113 elastic waves pass produce heightened stress coincide like crossing water waves mound noticeably agitated lacework stresses ahead collapse front probably cause many fractures break many joints prior arrival front sudden shifts volume rooms office spaces compressed twisted elastic wave trains easily expel jets air dust windows perhaps giving impression smoke gun barrel collapse front push blast air also produce lateral jets air building air streams analogous water expelled sideways vortexes alongside paddle pushing canoe still water wave effects occur upper block well moment first impact upper block quickly fill elastic waves rupture internal joints block shatters vividly seen video recordings wtc collapses shorter length upper block lack firm connection like foundation contribute speed disintegration real sense upper block blown naturally elastic waves rippling destructive compression rather artificially intentional controlled demolition pancaking buckling hyping red herring 1 two days collapse world trade center towers zdenek p bazant civil engineering professor northwestern university publicized theory collapse initiation conjectures loosened fire insulation heated steel losing strength survived subsequent scrutiny nist however nist rejected bazants proposed mechanism initiation collapse referred subsequently pancake model pancaking early appearance scene bazants model widely circulated critics nist official story point divergence nists conclusions bazants four years earlier indication ignorance confusion worse complicity coverup part government people bazants pancake model shown figure 1 report bazant assumed interior columns within impact zone would weaken heating buckle upper block would fall impact zone onto lower structure impact would cause columns immediate levels 3 10 seems likely bow bazants words causes failure underlying multifloor segment tower failure connections floorcarrying trusses columns either accompanied quickly followed buckling core columns overall buckling framed tube buckles probably spanning height many floors upper part possibly getting wedged inside emptied lower part framed tube words upper block falls within perimeter columns onto lower floor shock pops floor joints around perimeter core 3 10 floors motion process would crush beneath nist concludes nists findings support pancake theory collapsethe investigation showed conclusively failure inwardly bowed perimeter columns initiated collapse occurrence inward bowing required sagging floors remain connected columns pull columns inwards thus floors fail progressively cause pancaking phenomenon shot hip two days collapse bazant pretty well nist legion necessary homework accurate result nist shows pictures inward buckle perimeter wall taken police helicopter pancaking versus nist nonexistent technical argument found imagination conspiracyminded people technical community migrated early hypotheses initiation like pancaking nist conclusions consequence hard work required always unanimity drove collapse initiated excess dynamic force produced gravitational potential energy contained within even one level spacing top began fall going crush building regardless absurdity controlled demolition red herring 2 pierre sprey pierre sprey counterpunchs technical reviewer report comments controlled demolition hypothesis cogent include sprey slightest need postulate preplaced explosive charges explain towers collapsed near free fall speeds let note practical aspects explosive demolitions make explosive charge hypothesis improbable point absurdity 1 demolitions expert concocting plan hit tall building airplane use preplaced explosives undetectably ensure collapse building would never place explosives 20 30 60 floors impact point obviously would put explosives one floors close possible planned impact level 2 inconceivable demolitions expert would time surreptitious explosions occur hours aircraft impact couldnt possibly absolutely certain impact fires would even last hour quite opposite mask booster explosions hed time follow right heels impact 3 ensure collapse major building requires sizable demolition charges charges large enough lot emit puffs smoke cited evidence explosives hypothesis ive seen live filmed explosive building demolitions explosion accompanied visible shower heavy rubble dense cloud smoke dust fact alone makes explosives hypothesis untenable demolitions expert world would willing promise client could bring tall building explosions guaranteed indistinguishable effects aircraft impact conclusions wtc towers collapsed speeds approaching free fall 1 dynamic force created gravitational potential energy within space one level spacing far excess static force framing designed support 2 elastic waves launched collapse front quickly filled building lower structure upper block large dynamic stresses weakened ruptured joints well advance material entering collapse front towers shattered pieces fell ground part 2 report address topic heat prominent feature many conspiracy theories collapse wtc buildings part 3 address collapse wtc 7 manuel garcia native new yorker works physicist lawrence livermore national laboratory california phd aerospace amp mechanical engineering princeton technical interests generally fluid flow energy specifically gas dynamics plasma physics working experience includes measurements nuclear bomb tests devising mathematical models energetic physical effects trying enlarge union weapons scientists reached mangoidiomcom counterpunch special report debunking myths 911 alexander cockburn assembles two prime commentaries final expanded essay 911 conspiracists decline left manuel garcia jr physicist engineer presents three separate reports undertaken counterpunch part one report physics 911 part two published first time report thermodynamics 911 part three dark fire report collapse world trade centers building 7 joann wypijewski wrote essay conversations ground zero day spent people site 9112006 160 160 160 | 2,502 |
<p>Couric: Members "getting an earful" from those opposed to health reform; "at least 200 showed up" at recent town meeting. Couric reported: "[M]embers of Congress are getting an earful from constituents opposed to the president's plan. Many of them worried about the price tag and who will pay for it." She then aired clips of people at a Mississippi town meeting saying, "I don't see how they can put another government-funded health care plan out there and efficiently run it," and, "We can't spend any more money. We've got to stop altogether." Couric noted, "That town meeting in Mississippi normally draws a couple of dozen people. Last night, though, at least 200 showed up." [CBS Evening News with Katie Couric; 8/4/09]</p>
<p>Baier: Dem rep "got an ... earful" from "overflow crowd"; "roaring chants deafened" attempts to explain health reform. Baier reported: "Wisconsin Democratic Congressman Steve Kagen got an ear fill -- earful, rather -- during a town hall meeting in Green Bay Monday night. An overflow crowd jammed a public library, most to voice strong opposition to current plans for health care reform." After airing a brief clip from the meeting, Baier noted, "The Green Bay Post Press-Gazette [sic] reports, quote, 'If the event were a shouting match, the mob won. Kagen tried talking about the health care bill but the roaring chants deafened his attempts. Several elderly people covered their ears and grimaced at the level of noise.' " He added, "While you can see there and throughout the country, many people do oppose health care reform because of a belief it gives the government too much power. There are those who think current proposals do not go far enough, however. Liberals and others want the government to run almost everything." [Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier; 8/4/09]</p>
<p>Baier reported on "public venting" at health care town halls for the second night in a row. The previous night -- August 3 -- Baier reported on the "public venting" occurring at town hall meetings, while correspondent Shannon Bream stated that "skeptical Americans across the country are pushing back" against the legislation. As Media Matters for America <a href="/research/2009/08/05/special-report-says-public-venting-at-health-ca/152896" type="external">documented</a>, Baier ignored the conservative strategy to pack town hall events with health care opponents with the support of conservative media figures and outlets like Limbaugh and the Fox Nation. [Special Report; 8/3/09]</p>
<p>NY Times: Town hall protests organized by groups including FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity. The New York Times reported: "The [health care reform] protests, organized by loose-knit coalition of conservative voters and advocacy groups, were a raucous start to what is expected to be weeks of political and ideological clashes over the health care overhaul President Obama is trying to push through Congress. The conservative groups, including FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, are harnessing social networking Web sites to organize their supporters in much the same way Mr. Obama did during his election campaign." [The New York Times; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/health/policy/04townhalls.html?_r=1&amp;ref=politics" type="external">8/3/09</a>]</p>
<p>Conservatives for Patients' Rights (CPR) reportedly "confirmed that it has undertaken a concerted effort to get people out to the town hall meetings to protest reform." Greg Sargent reported: "In response to my questions, a spokesman for the group confirmed that it has undertaken a concerted effort to get people out to the town hall meetings to protest reform. The spokesperson, Brian Burgess, confirmed that CPR is emailing out 'town hall alert' flyers, and schedules of town hall meetings, to its mailing list. These efforts -- combined with CPR's effort to enlist Tea Party-ers, as <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/08/inside-the-tea-partiers-anti-health-care-organizing-campaign.php" type="external">reported yesterday</a> by TPM -- provide a glimpse into the ways anti-reform groups are trying to create a sense of public momentum in their favor. CPR spokesman Burgess confirmed that the group had set up a list serv designed to reach out to 'third party groups' involved in the health care fight, including the Tea Party activists. And in a statement emailed to me, Scott, who was <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/10/AR2009051002243.html?hpid=topnews" type="external">ousted</a> as a health-care exec amid a 1990s fraud probe, took credit for the town hall showings." [Sargent, The Plum Line; <a href="http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/health-care/anti-reform-group-takes-credit-for-helping-gin-up-town-hall-rallies/" type="external">8/4/09</a>]</p>
<p>Tea party protester, conservative PAC founder authored memo calling for people to disrupt town halls. A memorandum authored by Robert MacGuffie, a conservative activist, " <a href="http://teapartypatriots.ning.com/profile/BobMacGuffie" type="external">Tea Party Patriot</a>," and co-founder of the conservative PAC <a href="http://www.rightprinciples.com/about.html" type="external">RightPrinciples.com</a>, described a "potential playbook" to put members of Congress "on the defensive" at town hall meetings. The <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/townhallactionmemo.pdf" type="external">memo</a> urged people to "yell out" repeatedly and <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/08/inside-the-tea-partiers-anti-health-care-organizing-campaign.php?ref=fpblg" type="external">reportedly</a> circulated among anti-reform groups. From the memo:</p>
<p>You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep's presentation. Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep's statements early. If he blames Bush for something or offers other excuses -- call him on it, yell back and have someone else follow-up with a shout-out. Don't carry on and make a scene -- just short intermittent shout outs. The purpose is to make him uneasy early on and set the tone for the hall as clearly informal, and free-wheeling. It will also embolden others who agree with us to call out and challenge with tough questions. The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right down. Look for those opportunities before he even takes questions. [MacGuffie memorandum]</p>
<p>Anti-health care reform protesters using same disruption tactics as birthers:</p>
<p>Rush Limbaugh: Town hall protesters doing "exactly what Obama taught people to do ... disrupt 'em." Limbaugh defended the town hall protesters as being "orderly people," not the "unruly mobs" he claims Democrats are describing them as. He continued: "These are genuine voting American citizens. It is -- what these Democrats are accusing you of doing, who go to these town hall meetings, is exactly what Obama taught people to do. He's the community agitator. He's the community organizer. Obama is the guy who taught people how to show up at events like this over and over again and rip 'em apart and tear 'em down, disrupt 'em, and make sure they don't happen. And now the tables have been turned. It's happening to him, only this time, it's not ginned up; it's genuine. It's real." [Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show; <a href="/video/2009/08/04/limbaugh-defends-health-care-protests-its-not-g/152867" type="external">8/4/09</a>]</p>
<p>Limbaugh: If town hall disruptions are "an orchestrated event," it's "about damn time." On August 3, Limbaugh offered his "reaction" to a caller who noted that media outlets have reported the town hall protests are coordinated: "About damn time. We have had groups like ACORN and Democrat rent-a-mobs making up excuses and lying about things they oppose to affect public policy for years, while people like me haven't had time because we work. We do not protest for a living. We do not rent ourselves out to be part of mobs. So, if this is actually an orchestrated event, then I'm glad somebody on our side's getting in gear." Limbaugh later added: "It doesn't matter to me one way or the other [if the protests are coordinated]. The people who are showing up are genuinely angry. And if their transportation is being facilitated -- about damn time. You've got to take these people on the way they play the game. The aggressor sets the rules in a conflict." [The Rush Limbaugh Show; 8/3/09]</p>
<p>Hannity: Recess "creates the best opportunity for people to go like they did to Claire McCaskill's town hall meeting." On July 29, Hannity said: "There's going to be no floor vote immediately" on health care reform "so members have time to go home and read the bill, which, by the way, creates the best opportunity for people to go like they did to <a href="http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/07/sen-mccaskills-office-holds-town-hall.html" type="external">Claire McCaskill's town hall meeting</a> or go to [Rep. Russ] Carnahan's town hall meeting or go show up wherever there's any representative. That -- this is your moment, your opportunity to stop this thing." [ABC Radio Networks and Premiere Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show; 7/29/09]</p>
<p>Hannity: "Now, so far at these town hall meetings, you're doing terrific." Following reports of several town hall disruptions occurring nationwide, Hannity declared on August 3: "This is what's going to stop this. You are. You're gonna make it happen." He went on to say: "Now, so far at these town hall meetings, you're doing terrific. You're standing up to these bureaucrats. You're standing up to their phony platitudes, talking points, and bumper stickers. The polls are now turning against Obama, [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi, and [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid, so now they're bringing out their own pollster to lie to you and find out a way how they can win the PR battle, and they're telling them that they've got to attack the insurance companies." [The Sean Hannity Show; 8/3/09]</p>
<p>Fox &amp; Friends host Johnson to protesters: "[W]e thank you for representing Americans, and we hope that other Americans get out there." From Fox &amp; Friends' guest co-host Peter Johnson's interview of two people who said they questioned Specter and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at the Philadelphia town hall event:</p>
<p>CAROL O'BRIEN: I think they were -- well, personally, I think they were very unprepared for that meeting. I think they were asked questions, and they did not have valid responses. They stayed on message. Even though part of my question -- I asked them please not to insult my intelligence by staying on message, but to give us an honest answer. They did not do that. And I think if you look at their facial expressions during the town hall meeting, you could tell that they were not happy with the response of the crowd.</p>
<p>JOHNSON: Well, O'Briens, we're all looking for honest answers, and we thank you for representing Americans, and we hope that other Americans get out there and voice their opinions. Let's check in with you as time goes on and see what kind of progress we are making. John and Carol O'Brien, thank you so much. [Fox &amp; Friends; 8/4/09]</p>
<p>Fox News' Doocy: "If you want to contact your congressmembers and sound off, go to FoxNation.com." During a segment on the Philadelphia town hall, Steve Doocy suggested people go to FoxNation.com to contact members of Congress: "That's right. So, anyway, if you want to contact your congressmembers and sound off, go to FoxNation.com. It is a great interactive website where you can sound off, and you'll also find your lawmakers' phone numbers and email there. Hmm, very handy. [Fox &amp; Friends; <a href="/video/2009/08/03/fair-amp-balanced-fox-amp-friends-guest-host-fe/152796" type="external">8/3/09</a>]</p>
<p>Fox onscreen text: "Hold Congress accountable! Now is the time to speak your mind."</p>
<p />
<p>Fox Nation: "More Town Hall Opposition! Watch This!"</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | couric members getting earful opposed health reform least 200 showed recent town meeting couric reported members congress getting earful constituents opposed presidents plan many worried price tag pay aired clips people mississippi town meeting saying dont see put another governmentfunded health care plan efficiently run cant spend money weve got stop altogether couric noted town meeting mississippi normally draws couple dozen people last night though least 200 showed cbs evening news katie couric 8409 baier dem rep got earful overflow crowd roaring chants deafened attempts explain health reform baier reported wisconsin democratic congressman steve kagen got ear fill earful rather town hall meeting green bay monday night overflow crowd jammed public library voice strong opposition current plans health care reform airing brief clip meeting baier noted green bay post pressgazette sic reports quote event shouting match mob kagen tried talking health care bill roaring chants deafened attempts several elderly people covered ears grimaced level noise added see throughout country many people oppose health care reform belief gives government much power think current proposals go far enough however liberals others want government run almost everything fox news special report bret baier 8409 baier reported public venting health care town halls second night row previous night august 3 baier reported public venting occurring town hall meetings correspondent shannon bream stated skeptical americans across country pushing back legislation media matters america documented baier ignored conservative strategy pack town hall events health care opponents support conservative media figures outlets like limbaugh fox nation special report 8309 ny times town hall protests organized groups including freedomworks americans prosperity new york times reported health care reform protests organized looseknit coalition conservative voters advocacy groups raucous start expected weeks political ideological clashes health care overhaul president obama trying push congress conservative groups including freedomworks americans prosperity harnessing social networking web sites organize supporters much way mr obama election campaign new york times 8309 conservatives patients rights cpr reportedly confirmed undertaken concerted effort get people town hall meetings protest reform greg sargent reported response questions spokesman group confirmed undertaken concerted effort get people town hall meetings protest reform spokesperson brian burgess confirmed cpr emailing town hall alert flyers schedules town hall meetings mailing list efforts combined cprs effort enlist tea partyers reported yesterday tpm provide glimpse ways antireform groups trying create sense public momentum favor cpr spokesman burgess confirmed group set list serv designed reach third party groups involved health care fight including tea party activists statement emailed scott ousted healthcare exec amid 1990s fraud probe took credit town hall showings sargent plum line 8409 tea party protester conservative pac founder authored memo calling people disrupt town halls memorandum authored robert macguffie conservative activist tea party patriot cofounder conservative pac rightprinciplescom described potential playbook put members congress defensive town hall meetings memo urged people yell repeatedly reportedly circulated among antireform groups memo need rocktheboat early reps presentation watch opportunity yell challenge reps statements early blames bush something offers excuses call yell back someone else followup shoutout dont carry make scene short intermittent shout outs purpose make uneasy early set tone hall clearly informal freewheeling also embolden others agree us call challenge tough questions goal rattle get prepared script agenda says something outrageous stand shout sit right look opportunities even takes questions macguffie memorandum antihealth care reform protesters using disruption tactics birthers rush limbaugh town hall protesters exactly obama taught people disrupt em limbaugh defended town hall protesters orderly people unruly mobs claims democrats describing continued genuine voting american citizens democrats accusing go town hall meetings exactly obama taught people hes community agitator hes community organizer obama guy taught people show events like rip em apart tear em disrupt em make sure dont happen tables turned happening time ginned genuine real premiere radio networks rush limbaugh show 8409 limbaugh town hall disruptions orchestrated event damn time august 3 limbaugh offered reaction caller noted media outlets reported town hall protests coordinated damn time groups like acorn democrat rentamobs making excuses lying things oppose affect public policy years people like havent time work protest living rent part mobs actually orchestrated event im glad somebody sides getting gear limbaugh later added doesnt matter one way protests coordinated people showing genuinely angry transportation facilitated damn time youve got take people way play game aggressor sets rules conflict rush limbaugh show 8309 hannity recess creates best opportunity people go like claire mccaskills town hall meeting july 29 hannity said theres going floor vote immediately health care reform members time go home read bill way creates best opportunity people go like claire mccaskills town hall meeting go rep russ carnahans town hall meeting go show wherever theres representative moment opportunity stop thing abc radio networks premiere radio networks sean hannity show 72909 hannity far town hall meetings youre terrific following reports several town hall disruptions occurring nationwide hannity declared august 3 whats going stop youre gon na make happen went say far town hall meetings youre terrific youre standing bureaucrats youre standing phony platitudes talking points bumper stickers polls turning obama house speaker nancy pelosi senate majority leader harry reid theyre bringing pollster lie find way win pr battle theyre telling theyve got attack insurance companies sean hannity show 8309 fox amp friends host johnson protesters thank representing americans hope americans get fox amp friends guest cohost peter johnsons interview two people said questioned specter health human services secretary kathleen sebelius philadelphia town hall event carol obrien think well personally think unprepared meeting think asked questions valid responses stayed message even though part question asked please insult intelligence staying message give us honest answer think look facial expressions town hall meeting could tell happy response crowd johnson well obriens looking honest answers thank representing americans hope americans get voice opinions lets check time goes see kind progress making john carol obrien thank much fox amp friends 8409 fox news doocy want contact congressmembers sound go foxnationcom segment philadelphia town hall steve doocy suggested people go foxnationcom contact members congress thats right anyway want contact congressmembers sound go foxnationcom great interactive website sound youll also find lawmakers phone numbers email hmm handy fox amp friends 8309 fox onscreen text hold congress accountable time speak mind fox nation town hall opposition watch | 1,035 |
<p>Sometimes you just have to go spiritual to keep from going postal. For me “going spiritual” has always been to put down the newspaper and pick up a book. Or to turn off CNN/Fox News and put on some music. That isn’t the same thing as burying your head in the sand. You can do THAT reading the New York Times or tuning in to The O’Reilly Factor.</p>
<p>This past week was one of those weeks for me. I needed a reprieve from the taxation of maintenance living. So I dusted off a 34 year-old album that I remembered liking but couldn’t remember why, an 11 year-old bootleg by a band with a lead singer who took self-pity to the ultimate extreme, and a 13 year-old book about what is possibly the most complex “simple” song ever recorded.</p>
<p>Fleetwood Mac fans are mostly divided into two camps these days, the smaller one consisting of guitar obsessives who favor the blues styling of Peter Green. By far the larger of the two fan bases is the one that favors the latter (post ’74) line-up fronted by the smart pop sensibilities of guitarist Lindsay Buckingham and the enticing sexuality of a chanteuse-turned-arena warbler, Stevie Nicks. This version of the band took the concept of celebrity-as-art to new levels with their Rumours album, arguably the introduction of tabloid rock. The self-indulgent dynamics of that album wouldn’t be surpassed until Kurt Cobain wrote “Rape Me” 18 years later and followed it up with a blast to the head.</p>
<p>Sandwiched in between there was another Fleetwood Mac –one with a shifting line-up and varying styles. It was one that was hard to get a handle on, but also one that got beyond its inconsistency to record some of the best (and most overlooked) songs in the group’s history. It’s easy to forget that the band recorded 6 albums of new material in the post-Green, pre-Nicks era (1970-1974)</p>
<p>For the first 3 of those albums, Danny Kirwin, who will never be known as a household name in the annals of rock ‘n’ roll, played a significant part in providing some of the best tracks. The first venture into life-after-Green, Kiln House, primarily served as an exorcism of the remaining members’ rock ‘n’ roll roots (buried for years as a mostly slow to mid-tempo blues outfit under Green). But it also yielded the stunning “Station Man” –more of a pre-cursor to modern-day jam bands than anything by the Grateful Dead ever was. If Kirwin was not a particularly adept improvisational guitarist, he was, at the very least, one that could come up with a lyrical 6-string component that could carry a song for 5 or 6 minutes. As well as a wordsmith who kept things deceptively simple. Much of the charm of Kirwin’s lyrics were in their tempered optimism.</p>
<p>Try applying the lyrics of “Station Man” to the Underground Railroad (quite possibly intended). It took 100 years for the Civil Rights Movement to get past the lies of “emancipation” to reach fruition. In 1972 Jim Crow hadn’t even reached Oldie status yet. Add to that the ongoing battle against a criminal war. Kirwin states the dilemma.</p>
<p>“Where I’m going I don’t know”</p>
<p>Then he takes a page from Black history and applies it to the human race.</p>
<p>I see it’s coming And bringing something This train of lovin’ I see it’s comin’ I feel it’s runnin’ This train of lovin’ From ages past</p>
<p>Without some form of hope all is doomed. But if those hopes are Pollyannaish, all is doomed anyway. Everything will not turn out right if folks just sit back and bask in optimism. One has to get on board.</p>
<p>It was not Kiln House that I dusted off, though. It was Bare Trees, Kirwin’s final opus with the band. Mostly noted for the sugar substitute, low-calorie flavorings of “Sentimental Lady,” Kirwin’s influence in the band was waning. But the album’s title track, a two-line chorus, a two-line lyric and an outburst of Pentecostalic exuberance penned by Kirwin, dwarfs Bob Welch’s nonsensical paean to gentle love.</p>
<p>The lyrics of “Bare Trees” are anything but sweet. Using an economy of words, Kirwin paints a cold picture. Then the words stop and the spirit lifting begins.</p>
<p>Bah do dah, do dah da do da do Bah do dah, do dah da do wah wah</p>
<p>It’s sung with such fervor that it reduces the rest of the lyrics to lies. It’s a cold world? Bah do dah bullshit. You are at the mercy of others? Do dah da do da do. Don’t you believe it. The truth doesn’t always come in the form of words. Lies always do.</p>
<p>“I think I see a guy with a cassette-a-phone out there. We know that people who bootleg shoes or sell bootleg t-shirts are all pedophiles. They support murder in the third world. They torture children. That’s a reason not to support bootleggers.”</p>
<p>Kurt Cobain uttered these words to an audience in Rome on February 22, 1994, a show broadcast on Italian radio. Give the bootleggers who documented the performance on “The Final Fix” credit for cheek by leaving the comment intact. It made sense for them to do so. Bootleggers, by their very being, are anti-censorship. Even if those words perpetuate the RIAA propaganda that bootleggers are sub-human creatures, void of morals, who have direct links to terrorism. And, as indicated by the date of the show, the terrorism charges started long before 9/11. They are about as absurd as saying that all rock artists are self-indulgent suicidal drug addicts.</p>
<p>Later in the show Cobain seems to recant the statement by saying that “All my comments tonight come from a book called ‘How to be Witty at Parties.'”</p>
<p>The RIAA has never recanted their claims of bootleg connections to terrorism. It’s a staple of their campaign of fear against anyone who stands in their way of profits and control. They have supported every piece of intrusive legislation to come down the pike. You think George Bush is the first person to tap into someone’s computer without a search warrant? The RIAA launched several thousand lawsuits against music lovers, claiming the same right to invade personal computers that Bush now claims. Also, without search warrants. And for basically the same reason –that civilization would come to an end if they didn’t. Rama lamma fa fa fuck that shit!</p>
<p>While there may exist, somewhere, some evidence that a street peddler of pirated cassettes in Kabul gave some cash at a local Al Quada fundraiser, it is doubtful to the point of laughter that any merchant of unauthorized live recordings ever gave one bloody cent to terrorists. As the editor of Live! Music Review in the ’90s, I came to know a boatload of bootleggers. At best they operated for a love of music. At worst, they operated with the same incentives as the companies that fund the RIAA –capitalize on the works of artists.</p>
<p>This isn’t the first time that the record industry and their allies in government have perpetuated the hoax that it is up to them to save us from our own immoralistic selves. A full documentation of one example can be found in Dave Marsh’s book, “Louie Louie.”</p>
<p>The FBI investigated that notorious song for a full 2 _ years, cementing the myth that it contained obscene lyrics to such an extent that over 4 decades later there are still high school principals trying to ban it from the repertoire of their marching bands.</p>
<p>At the time, the governor of Indiana made the fantastic statement that his attempts to get radio programmers in the state from playing it were not meant to be censorship. The irony is that “Louie Louie,” as recorded by The Kingsmen, was unintelligible at any speed. They might as well have been singing “a wop bop a lu bop a lop bam boom.” But in all its innocence, it was subversive. Maybe what scared the Feds more than anything were the words that were most clearly stated. “Let’s give it to ’em, right now!”</p>
<p>In the years between then and now, the record industry has fallen into step with government yahoos by circumventing parental involvement – applying warning labels and releasing “clean” versions of new releases. And redefining sharing as “stealing.”</p>
<p>As I neared the end of my sabbatical from the rat race this week, I remembered what it was about “Bare Trees” that I liked. Like “Tutti Frutti,” “Rocket Reducer No. 62,” “Louie Louie” and countless other songs that invoke “speaking in tongues,” bah-do-dah lifted my spirits. And it didn’t lie to me.</p>
<p>BILL GLAHN is the RIAA Watch columnist for Counterpunch. He was the publisher and editor of Live! Music Review from 1993–2000. Commentary and requests for back-ssues ($2 each, most still available) can be made to <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | sometimes go spiritual keep going postal going spiritual always put newspaper pick book turn cnnfox news put music isnt thing burying head sand reading new york times tuning oreilly factor past week one weeks needed reprieve taxation maintenance living dusted 34 yearold album remembered liking couldnt remember 11 yearold bootleg band lead singer took selfpity ultimate extreme 13 yearold book possibly complex simple song ever recorded fleetwood mac fans mostly divided two camps days smaller one consisting guitar obsessives favor blues styling peter green far larger two fan bases one favors latter post 74 lineup fronted smart pop sensibilities guitarist lindsay buckingham enticing sexuality chanteuseturnedarena warbler stevie nicks version band took concept celebrityasart new levels rumours album arguably introduction tabloid rock selfindulgent dynamics album wouldnt surpassed kurt cobain wrote rape 18 years later followed blast head sandwiched another fleetwood mac one shifting lineup varying styles one hard get handle also one got beyond inconsistency record best overlooked songs groups history easy forget band recorded 6 albums new material postgreen prenicks era 19701974 first 3 albums danny kirwin never known household name annals rock n roll played significant part providing best tracks first venture lifeaftergreen kiln house primarily served exorcism remaining members rock n roll roots buried years mostly slow midtempo blues outfit green also yielded stunning station man precursor modernday jam bands anything grateful dead ever kirwin particularly adept improvisational guitarist least one could come lyrical 6string component could carry song 5 6 minutes well wordsmith kept things deceptively simple much charm kirwins lyrics tempered optimism try applying lyrics station man underground railroad quite possibly intended took 100 years civil rights movement get past lies emancipation reach fruition 1972 jim crow hadnt even reached oldie status yet add ongoing battle criminal war kirwin states dilemma im going dont know takes page black history applies human race see coming bringing something train lovin see comin feel runnin train lovin ages past without form hope doomed hopes pollyannaish doomed anyway everything turn right folks sit back bask optimism one get board kiln house dusted though bare trees kirwins final opus band mostly noted sugar substitute lowcalorie flavorings sentimental lady kirwins influence band waning albums title track twoline chorus twoline lyric outburst pentecostalic exuberance penned kirwin dwarfs bob welchs nonsensical paean gentle love lyrics bare trees anything sweet using economy words kirwin paints cold picture words stop spirit lifting begins bah dah dah da da bah dah dah da wah wah sung fervor reduces rest lyrics lies cold world bah dah bullshit mercy others dah da da dont believe truth doesnt always come form words lies always think see guy cassetteaphone know people bootleg shoes sell bootleg tshirts pedophiles support murder third world torture children thats reason support bootleggers kurt cobain uttered words audience rome february 22 1994 show broadcast italian radio give bootleggers documented performance final fix credit cheek leaving comment intact made sense bootleggers anticensorship even words perpetuate riaa propaganda bootleggers subhuman creatures void morals direct links terrorism indicated date show terrorism charges started long 911 absurd saying rock artists selfindulgent suicidal drug addicts later show cobain seems recant statement saying comments tonight come book called witty parties riaa never recanted claims bootleg connections terrorism staple campaign fear anyone stands way profits control supported every piece intrusive legislation come pike think george bush first person tap someones computer without search warrant riaa launched several thousand lawsuits music lovers claiming right invade personal computers bush claims also without search warrants basically reason civilization would come end didnt rama lamma fa fa fuck shit may exist somewhere evidence street peddler pirated cassettes kabul gave cash local al quada fundraiser doubtful point laughter merchant unauthorized live recordings ever gave one bloody cent terrorists editor live music review 90s came know boatload bootleggers best operated love music worst operated incentives companies fund riaa capitalize works artists isnt first time record industry allies government perpetuated hoax save us immoralistic selves full documentation one example found dave marshs book louie louie fbi investigated notorious song full 2 _ years cementing myth contained obscene lyrics extent 4 decades later still high school principals trying ban repertoire marching bands time governor indiana made fantastic statement attempts get radio programmers state playing meant censorship irony louie louie recorded kingsmen unintelligible speed might well singing wop bop lu bop lop bam boom innocence subversive maybe scared feds anything words clearly stated lets give em right years record industry fallen step government yahoos circumventing parental involvement applying warning labels releasing clean versions new releases redefining sharing stealing neared end sabbatical rat race week remembered bare trees liked like tutti frutti rocket reducer 62 louie louie countless songs invoke speaking tongues bahdodah lifted spirits didnt lie bill glahn riaa watch columnist counterpunch publisher editor live music review 19932000 commentary requests backssues 2 still available made billglahngmailcom 160 | 804 |
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<p>I suppose we’ll just have to see what happens with the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/22/AR2005082200101.html" type="external">new Iraqi constitution</a> over the next few days, as the legislature bickers over crossing t’s and dotting i’s, and getting the darn thing translated from <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/22/AR2005082200101.html" type="external">English to Arabic</a>. At this point, though, most commentary will be very tentative, since in the past most political negotiations in Baghdad have followed the same pattern—everyone maximalizing their demands, everything looking hopelessly gridlocked, and then at the last moment they all pull back for a big compromise and group photo op. Maybe that will happen again; maybe not. Right now, it seems that “federalism” still seems to be the big constitutional sticking point. Nathan Brown <a href="http://www.carnegieendowment.org/wp-content/uploads/Finalupdate.pdf" type="external">explains</a> what this oft-bandied word actually means:</p>
<p />
<p>The disputed questions would probably even strike a veteran Israeli-Palestinian negotiator as complicated and difficult. How will Iraq be divided into regions and provinces? What will the authority of the various units be? Is the union a voluntary matter or one that is incontestable? What will be the role of regional security forces? Will the units have authority to reach agreements with foreign states and other actors, and, if so, in what areas? How will revenue be divided? What will be the relationship between federal and regional law? How will disputes be settled? Will other areas of the country be able to form units that are as autonomous as the Kurdish region?</p>
<p>I’m not a constitutional lawyer, so I can’t make heads or tails of exactly how these issues were specifically resolved in the <a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-iraq-constitution-text,0,5305551,print.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines" type="external">draft constitution</a> (the text of which isn’t even a “proper draft,” as Washington Post‘s Ellen Knickmeyer <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2005/08/22/DI2005082200830.html" type="external">tells us</a>, but someone’s scribbled notes), but apparently the Sunnis on the committee, “who had been shut out of the negotiations for much of the past week,” don’t like the end result. Spencer Ackerman <a href="http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w050822&amp;s=ackerman082305" type="external">gets at</a> some of the dynamics involved here: If the Sunnis get locked out of the final draft, they may try to shoot the constitution down in referendum this fall, although Juan Cole and others <a href="http://www.juancole.com/2005/08/coup-in-baghdad-unfinished.html" type="external">have noted</a> that they probably don’t have the numbers to do it. (Maybe they can link up with Muqtada al-Sadr and other assorted rejectionists and disgruntleds.) What seems clear is that any constitution that truly angers the Sunnis will lead to a lot of bloodshed down the road: in addition to the diehard rejectionists and Sunni Islamists, even moderate Sunnis may now start aiding and abetting the insurgency.</p>
<p>Perhaps the Shiites aren’t worried about all this, because they think that either the United States will stick around to defend them, or that their own militias will protect them against a Sunni onslaught. Ezra Klein <a href="http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2005/08/russ_makes_sens.html" type="external">says</a> the Sunnis would be stupid to take on the Shiites in Iraq; they’d get trounced. Well, maybe. Then again, maybe not. The insurgency’s pretty large and pretty sophisticated, it has plenty of officers experienced in war, and with enough money pouring in from Saudi charities, Sunni warlords could probably purchase a few tanks and other goodies on the open market. Or maybe they can hire out the services of those <a href="http://plumer.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_plumer_archive.html#112417162953652678" type="external">privatized military firms</a> that are so hot these days. Either way, I wouldn’t count the Sunnis out. Plus, whether they can survive an all-out butcher-fest or not seem pretty irrelevant; what matters is whether they’re crazy enough to try—and in this case, the answer seems like “yes, they are”.</p>
<p>So it’s all fucked up. Withdrawal advocates have noted before that if the United States threatened to pull-out, say, right this very second, it might terrify the Shiite leadership into softening some of its constitutional demands, so as not to anger too many Sunnis. Up until now, I haven’t been convinced that this was necessary—Ayatollah Sistani’s men, at least, have always seemed liked they wanted to bargain. Now, it might be time for brinksmanship. As callous as it seems, at this point the U.S. owes the Shiites absolutely nothing. They owe the people of Iraq a stable state, if one can be produced, and if the Shiite leadership is intent on leading Iraq “into the abyss,” as Ackerman puts it, then it’s time to stop coddling and protecting them.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, on the question of women’s rights, yes, the current constitution—at least what we can decipher of it from the early notepad doodlings— <a href="http://www.juancole.com/2005/08/coup-in-baghdad-unfinished.html" type="external">fails miserably</a>. (Except, happily, in Kurdistan, where women’s rights will be secure.) Echidne <a href="http://echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_echidneofthesnakes_archive.html#112470131751721555" type="external">unleashes</a> outrage and fury over this state of affairs far more eloquently than I ever could. Honestly, though, I don’t know why people are getting so surprised now. Iraqi women were condemned to second-class status the day Sistani’s fundamentalist party took power in January. Not to downplay how bad this all is, but I can’t envision any scenario in which the Bush administration actually forced the Shiites to accept a non-Islamist constitution. Hopefully 20 years from now, mainstream Shiite jurisprudence will have evolved to the point where women get treated as equals. Or, since the constitution sets aside 25 percent of its seats for women, perhaps future elections will bring in a majority coalition of urban and secular Iraqis, including women, who have 20th century ideas about gender. Until then, we have what we expected: a fundamentalist American government sanctioned a fundamentalist Iraqi constitution. What a surprise.</p>
<p>So what else can be done, besides threatening to withdraw and hope the Shiites try to appease the Sunnis out of fear? Some observers have pointed out that Iraq might be best served if the parliament dissolved itself and held new elections—Juan Cole <a href="http://www.juancole.com/2005/08/coup-in-baghdad-unfinished.html" type="external">finds</a> an az-Zaman report noting that Allawi’s more urbane list, along with some Kurds, might try to band with the Sunnis to pursue this option. That seems like an awful idea. It would prolong the occupation even further, and whether or not one thinks that a “stay the course” approach could just barely dodge the “manpower meltdown” <a href="http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&amp;name=ViewWeb&amp;articleId=10154" type="external">bullet</a> that’s approaching 36 months from now, it seems wholly unlikely that the US could stay through yet another round of parliamentary elections. Also, it might not change anything. The Shiite and Kurdish militias have an increasingly <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/20/AR2005082000940_pf.html" type="external">iron grip</a> on their respective regions, while violence in the Sunni provinces has only worsened since January. My guess: hold another election, and thugs from SCIRI, the Mehdi Army, and the peshmerga would, um, “persuade” people to vote their way, insurgents would intimidate Sunnis from voting, and you’d get essentially the same cast of characters back in power. Perhaps not, but that’s my guess. All in all, a real mess.</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | suppose well see happens new iraqi constitution next days legislature bickers crossing ts dotting getting darn thing translated english arabic point though commentary tentative since past political negotiations baghdad followed patterneveryone maximalizing demands everything looking hopelessly gridlocked last moment pull back big compromise group photo op maybe happen maybe right seems federalism still seems big constitutional sticking point nathan brown explains oftbandied word actually means disputed questions would probably even strike veteran israelipalestinian negotiator complicated difficult iraq divided regions provinces authority various units union voluntary matter one incontestable role regional security forces units authority reach agreements foreign states actors areas revenue divided relationship federal regional law disputes settled areas country able form units autonomous kurdish region im constitutional lawyer cant make heads tails exactly issues specifically resolved draft constitution text isnt even proper draft washington posts ellen knickmeyer tells us someones scribbled notes apparently sunnis committee shut negotiations much past week dont like end result spencer ackerman gets dynamics involved sunnis get locked final draft may try shoot constitution referendum fall although juan cole others noted probably dont numbers maybe link muqtada alsadr assorted rejectionists disgruntleds seems clear constitution truly angers sunnis lead lot bloodshed road addition diehard rejectionists sunni islamists even moderate sunnis may start aiding abetting insurgency perhaps shiites arent worried think either united states stick around defend militias protect sunni onslaught ezra klein says sunnis would stupid take shiites iraq theyd get trounced well maybe maybe insurgencys pretty large pretty sophisticated plenty officers experienced war enough money pouring saudi charities sunni warlords could probably purchase tanks goodies open market maybe hire services privatized military firms hot days either way wouldnt count sunnis plus whether survive allout butcherfest seem pretty irrelevant matters whether theyre crazy enough tryand case answer seems like yes fucked withdrawal advocates noted united states threatened pullout say right second might terrify shiite leadership softening constitutional demands anger many sunnis havent convinced necessaryayatollah sistanis men least always seemed liked wanted bargain might time brinksmanship callous seems point us owes shiites absolutely nothing owe people iraq stable state one produced shiite leadership intent leading iraq abyss ackerman puts time stop coddling protecting meanwhile question womens rights yes current constitutionat least decipher early notepad doodlings fails miserably except happily kurdistan womens rights secure echidne unleashes outrage fury state affairs far eloquently ever could honestly though dont know people getting surprised iraqi women condemned secondclass status day sistanis fundamentalist party took power january downplay bad cant envision scenario bush administration actually forced shiites accept nonislamist constitution hopefully 20 years mainstream shiite jurisprudence evolved point women get treated equals since constitution sets aside 25 percent seats women perhaps future elections bring majority coalition urban secular iraqis including women 20th century ideas gender expected fundamentalist american government sanctioned fundamentalist iraqi constitution surprise else done besides threatening withdraw hope shiites try appease sunnis fear observers pointed iraq might best served parliament dissolved held new electionsjuan cole finds azzaman report noting allawis urbane list along kurds might try band sunnis pursue option seems like awful idea would prolong occupation even whether one thinks stay course approach could barely dodge manpower meltdown bullet thats approaching 36 months seems wholly unlikely us could stay yet another round parliamentary elections also might change anything shiite kurdish militias increasingly iron grip respective regions violence sunni provinces worsened since january guess hold another election thugs sciri mehdi army peshmerga would um persuade people vote way insurgents would intimidate sunnis voting youd get essentially cast characters back power perhaps thats guess real mess | 585 |
<p>Protesters at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. (Michael Nigro / Truthdig)</p>
<p>The 2016 Democratic National Convention was in Philadelphia on July 25 to July 28. Truthdig had six team members reporting on the ground — Editor in Chief Robert Scheer, columnist Chris Hedges, contributor Sonali Kolhatkar, cartoonist Mr. Fish, photojournalist Michael Nigro and assistant editor Alex Kelly — along with three editors in our newsroom headquarters in Los Angeles. Experience all of Truthdig’s coverage from the Democratic convention below.</p>
<p>DAY 1 Multimedia <a href="" type="internal">Live Blog: From Boos to Everyone Loves Hillary Clinton</a> Day 1 of the Democratic National Convention started with chaos and ended with Bernie Sanders endorsing the former secretary of state. Will his supporters follow his lead?</p>
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal">A Lens on the Democratic Convention: Dispatches from Philadelphia on Day 1</a> Photojournalist Michael Nigro provides an on-the-ground perspective from the convention.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Video/Photo/Illustration: Democratic National Convention Demonstrators Led by Chris Hedges, Cornel West</a> Demonstrators march from Philadelphia City Hall down Broad Street. Alex Reed Kelly captures video footage of the march, originally streamed live on Facebook. Mr. Fish then creates an illustration based on the footage. Photojournalist Michael Nigro captures snapshots of the scene.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Video: Thousands Demonstrate Outside Democratic Convention, With Some Arrests</a> Sonali Kolhatkar joins a massive group of demonstrators just outside the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia to record the sights and sounds of dissent against the Democratic Party.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Video: Truthdig Speaks With Sanders Delegates on First Day of the Democratic National Convention</a> Sonali Kolhatkar interviews Bernie Sanders delegates on how they feel about Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s resignation and how they plan to show their dissent at the convention.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Video: Protesters Take to the Streets of Philadelphia in ‘March for Our Lives’</a> Sonali Kolhatkar reports from the march organized by the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign and interviews protesters. Chris Hedges gives a speech.</p>
<p>Cartoons/Illustrations <a href="" type="internal">Mr. Fish: Pride Walk</a> The illustration is of a lone marcher along the Pride sidewalk on Broad Street. The most intriguing aspect of the moment, aside from the protester’s isolation and odd spelling of Hillary Clinton, was the fact that he was wearing only one sock.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Mr. Fish: CVS</a> The illustration is based on a series of photographs that Alex Kelly took while trapped inside the CVS across the street from the Democratic National Convention and a thunderstorm raged outside. This was a private moment between two drenched protesters whose Bernie Sanders sign resonated beautifully with all the other surrounding signage. The woman was carrying roses.</p>
<p>DAY 2 Multimedia <a href="" type="internal">Live Blog: Hillary Clinton Clinches the Democratic Nomination</a> The second day of the Democratic convention began with many hefty questions still unanswered. But by the afternoon, Hillary Clinton had made history as the nation’s first female presidential nominee from a major party.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">A Lens on the Democratic Convention: Legitimate Anger in Philadelphia</a> The protests on the streets are far more organized, populated and energized than anything we saw in Cleveland during the Republican National Convention.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Video: Bernie Rebels Are Fed Up With Democratic Party’s Corporate Values</a> Some Sanders supporters still do not like Hillary Clinton, and even though she is the Democratic presidential nominee, they are not going to follow the senator’s lead and vote for her.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Video: Jill Stein Says ‘Floodgates Opened Into Our Campaign’ After Bernie Sanders Endorsed Hillary Clinton</a> Sonali Kolhatkar caught up with the Green Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, who managed to gain entry to the Democratic convention—and gain a significant security detail.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Video: Bernie Sanders Inspires Millennials Who Now Refuse to Go Along With the Party Line</a> Sonali Kolhatkar talks to a young Sanders delegate while attending the California delegates meeting.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Live Video: Thomas Frank and Robert Scheer on the Democratic Party Establishment</a> Hillary Clinton “really believes” that “Wall Street banks are in fact run by fine, upstanding individuals who are opening up the doors of possibility for the poor people of the world,” the author of “Listen, Liberal” told Truthdig at the Democratic convention.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Live Video: Robert Scheer on Democratic Party Failures and Progressive Solutions</a> The Truthdig editor in chief explains how past economic failures have created the need for a truly progressive Democratic Party.</p>
<p>Columns <a href="" type="internal">Chris Hedges: The 1 Percent’s Useful Idiots</a> Bernie Sanders, by capitulating to the corporate machine, sold us out. By calling on us to accept “reality,” he mocked the reality his followers made possible. We will have to carry out the political revolution on our own.</p>
<p>DAY 3 Multimedia <a href="" type="internal">Live Blog: Balancing Unity, Positivity and the Threat of Trump</a> Top speakers, including President Obama, called for party unity and optimism to combat any chance of a Donald Trump presidency.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">A Lens on the Democratic Convention: Neoliberals vs. Progressives</a> It’s a tug of war. Bernie Sanders let go of the rope. Elizabeth Warren, too. And yet the “I’m With Her” crowd cannot believe that anyone on the left is not voting for Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Video: Uber Gets Special Treatment in Philadelphia, Thanks to the Democratic Party</a> Until two weeks prior to the Democratic convention, Uber was illegal in the city, but the ride-sharing company cut a deal with the parking authority and Democratic National Committee.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Video: Bill Clinton’s Convention Speech About Hillary Clinton Was Filled With Inaccuracies</a> Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) co-founder Jeff Cohen dissected the former president’s 43-minute talk and found many of the policy claims he made to be wrong.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Video: Are Progressives Failing to Put Their Ideas Into Action?</a> Sonali Kolhatkar and journalist Arun Gupta consider what’s different about this Democratic nomination summit and question the direction some among the political left are taking — or not taking.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Live Video: Chris Hedges and Jill Stein Speak at Socialist Convergence During Democratic Convention</a> What should progressive-minded citizens do after everyone leaves Philadelphia? Our Truthdig columnist and the Green Party presidential candidate share their thoughts.</p>
<p>Cartoons/Illustrations <a href="" type="internal">Mr. Fish: Graffiti at Marconi Plaza</a> The Democratic convention had many signs of protest in Philadelphia. This illustration offers a comment on the state of resistance in the United States.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Mr. Fish: A Nonpolitical Moment of Humanity at Dilworth Park in Philadelphia</a> This illustration shows children playing in the fountains at at City Hall to remind us what is poetic about who we are, as people, as compared to what we pretend to be, as partisans.</p>
<p>DAY 4 Multimedia <a href="" type="internal">Live Blog: Live Blog: Hillary Channels Bernie to End Democratic Convention</a> The Democratic presidential nominee has been known as a polarizing figure for most of her public life. She took a step toward being a uniter to close the convention.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">A Lens on the Democratic Convention: Two Americas</a> The Democratic and Republican conventions showed the great divide between insiders and outsiders. If what was happening inside a political convention could be merged with what was happening outside, perhaps such gatherings would be more representative of our country.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Live Video: Robert Scheer, Jeff Cohen, Norman Solomon on Dissatisfied Delegates</a> The Truthdig editor in chief sat down with two special guests — the longtime political activist/author (Solomon) and FAIR founder (Cohen) — to discuss dissatisfaction among Bernie Sanders’ delegates.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Video: Code Pink Activist Kicked Out of Democratic Convention</a> Medea Benjamin explains how Ariel Gold, a Code Pink activist, was kicked out of the convention hall for protesting New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s opposition to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against the Israeli occupation of Palestine.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Video: Activist Shines Light on Clinton’s Dirty Foreign Policy in Honduras</a> Sha Grogan Brown explains how neither of the major-party candidates represents the interests of Grassroots Global Justice Alliance members.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Video: A Working-Class Fisherman Travels to Philly, Rooting for Bernie</a> Inspired by the Sanders political revolution, John Ainsworth left his home in Rhode Island to protest at the Democratic convention.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Video: Norman Solomon on the Dynamics Between Political Parties and Movements</a> The writer, activist and media critic spoke with Truthdig contributor Sonali Kolhatkar.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Video: Former Philadelphia Police Capt. Ray Lewis Speaks Out on Poverty in His City</a> The retired officer was one of the thousands of activists who participated in demonstrations outside the Wells Fargo Center.</p>
<p>Cartoons/Illustrations <a href="" type="internal">Mr. Fish: This Is What a Sedate Police Force Looks Like</a> This illustration shows police officers moving through Franklin D. Roosevelt Park, where convention protesters camped just outside the Wells Fargo Center.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Mr. Fish: Serve With Cheese</a> This illustration shows how progressivism has been put through the metaphoric meat grinder by the Democratic Party.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Mr. Fish: The Mural of the Story</a> On Day 3 of the convention, visitors to Philadelphia’s City Hall courtyard were invited to express themselves and create huge murals that demonstrate the power and significance of art.</p>
<p>Columns <a href="" type="internal">Sonali Kolhatkar: How the Democratic Party Befriended Megacorporation Uber for Its Convention</a> It’s no mistake that the Democratic Party, which historically has claimed a stake in labor unions’ interests, has cozied up to Uber, one of the least worker-friendly businesses, to service its national convention.</p>
<p>POST-CONVENTION Columns <a href="" type="internal">Sonali Kolhatkar: Disruptions by Angry Bernie Sanders Delegates Were the Best Part of the Democratic Convention</a> The Vermont senator’s supporters provided vital reminders of reality amid the carefully orchestrated political theater.</p> | true | 4 | protesters 2016 democratic national convention philadelphia michael nigro truthdig 2016 democratic national convention philadelphia july 25 july 28 truthdig six team members reporting ground editor chief robert scheer columnist chris hedges contributor sonali kolhatkar cartoonist mr fish photojournalist michael nigro assistant editor alex kelly along three editors newsroom headquarters los angeles experience truthdigs coverage democratic convention day 1 multimedia live blog boos everyone loves hillary clinton day 1 democratic national convention started chaos ended bernie sanders endorsing former secretary state supporters follow lead lens democratic convention dispatches philadelphia day 1 photojournalist michael nigro provides ontheground perspective convention videophotoillustration democratic national convention demonstrators led chris hedges cornel west demonstrators march philadelphia city hall broad street alex reed kelly captures video footage march originally streamed live facebook mr fish creates illustration based footage photojournalist michael nigro captures snapshots scene video thousands demonstrate outside democratic convention arrests sonali kolhatkar joins massive group demonstrators outside wells fargo center philadelphia record sights sounds dissent democratic party video truthdig speaks sanders delegates first day democratic national convention sonali kolhatkar interviews bernie sanders delegates feel debbie wasserman schultzs resignation plan show dissent convention video protesters take streets philadelphia march lives sonali kolhatkar reports march organized poor peoples economic human rights campaign interviews protesters chris hedges gives speech cartoonsillustrations mr fish pride walk illustration lone marcher along pride sidewalk broad street intriguing aspect moment aside protesters isolation odd spelling hillary clinton fact wearing one sock mr fish cvs illustration based series photographs alex kelly took trapped inside cvs across street democratic national convention thunderstorm raged outside private moment two drenched protesters whose bernie sanders sign resonated beautifully surrounding signage woman carrying roses day 2 multimedia live blog hillary clinton clinches democratic nomination second day democratic convention began many hefty questions still unanswered afternoon hillary clinton made history nations first female presidential nominee major party lens democratic convention legitimate anger philadelphia protests streets far organized populated energized anything saw cleveland republican national convention video bernie rebels fed democratic partys corporate values sanders supporters still like hillary clinton even though democratic presidential nominee going follow senators lead vote video jill stein says floodgates opened campaign bernie sanders endorsed hillary clinton sonali kolhatkar caught green partys presumptive presidential nominee managed gain entry democratic conventionand gain significant security detail video bernie sanders inspires millennials refuse go along party line sonali kolhatkar talks young sanders delegate attending california delegates meeting live video thomas frank robert scheer democratic party establishment hillary clinton really believes wall street banks fact run fine upstanding individuals opening doors possibility poor people world author listen liberal told truthdig democratic convention live video robert scheer democratic party failures progressive solutions truthdig editor chief explains past economic failures created need truly progressive democratic party columns chris hedges 1 percents useful idiots bernie sanders capitulating corporate machine sold us calling us accept reality mocked reality followers made possible carry political revolution day 3 multimedia live blog balancing unity positivity threat trump top speakers including president obama called party unity optimism combat chance donald trump presidency lens democratic convention neoliberals vs progressives tug war bernie sanders let go rope elizabeth warren yet im crowd believe anyone left voting hillary clinton video uber gets special treatment philadelphia thanks democratic party two weeks prior democratic convention uber illegal city ridesharing company cut deal parking authority democratic national committee video bill clintons convention speech hillary clinton filled inaccuracies fairness accuracy reporting fair cofounder jeff cohen dissected former presidents 43minute talk found many policy claims made wrong video progressives failing put ideas action sonali kolhatkar journalist arun gupta consider whats different democratic nomination summit question direction among political left taking taking live video chris hedges jill stein speak socialist convergence democratic convention progressiveminded citizens everyone leaves philadelphia truthdig columnist green party presidential candidate share thoughts cartoonsillustrations mr fish graffiti marconi plaza democratic convention many signs protest philadelphia illustration offers comment state resistance united states mr fish nonpolitical moment humanity dilworth park philadelphia illustration shows children playing fountains city hall remind us poetic people compared pretend partisans day 4 multimedia live blog live blog hillary channels bernie end democratic convention democratic presidential nominee known polarizing figure public life took step toward uniter close convention lens democratic convention two americas democratic republican conventions showed great divide insiders outsiders happening inside political convention could merged happening outside perhaps gatherings would representative country live video robert scheer jeff cohen norman solomon dissatisfied delegates truthdig editor chief sat two special guests longtime political activistauthor solomon fair founder cohen discuss dissatisfaction among bernie sanders delegates video code pink activist kicked democratic convention medea benjamin explains ariel gold code pink activist kicked convention hall protesting new york gov andrew cuomos opposition boycott divestment sanctions movement israeli occupation palestine video activist shines light clintons dirty foreign policy honduras sha grogan brown explains neither majorparty candidates represents interests grassroots global justice alliance members video workingclass fisherman travels philly rooting bernie inspired sanders political revolution john ainsworth left home rhode island protest democratic convention video norman solomon dynamics political parties movements writer activist media critic spoke truthdig contributor sonali kolhatkar video former philadelphia police capt ray lewis speaks poverty city retired officer one thousands activists participated demonstrations outside wells fargo center cartoonsillustrations mr fish sedate police force looks like illustration shows police officers moving franklin roosevelt park convention protesters camped outside wells fargo center mr fish serve cheese illustration shows progressivism put metaphoric meat grinder democratic party mr fish mural story day 3 convention visitors philadelphias city hall courtyard invited express create huge murals demonstrate power significance art columns sonali kolhatkar democratic party befriended megacorporation uber convention mistake democratic party historically claimed stake labor unions interests cozied uber one least workerfriendly businesses service national convention postconvention columns sonali kolhatkar disruptions angry bernie sanders delegates best part democratic convention vermont senators supporters provided vital reminders reality amid carefully orchestrated political theater | 973 |
<p />
<p>Last week, the Pentagon unveiled its newest weapon: the Vehicle Mounted Active Denial System (VMADS). It’s being billed as a kinder, gentler weapon; “ <a href="http://iis.marcorsyscom.usmc.mil/jnlwd/" type="external">non-lethal</a>,” “less than lethal,” or “soft kill” in Pentagon parlance. In other words it usually doesn’t kill people; it just hurts them enough to make ’em run away. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, doesn’t it?</p>
<p>Well, it makes you warm, anyway. VMADS shoots a concentrated beam of electromagnetic energy at human targets — sort of like a tank-mounted microwave oven set on high with the door left open.</p>
<p>According to an Air Force spokesman at the unveiling, “ <a href="http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010301/pl/new_weapon_1.html" type="external">It’s the kind of pain you would feel if you were being burned</a>. It’s just not intense enough to cause any damage.”</p>
<p>But according to scientists at Loma Linda University Medical Center, <a href="http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=165654" type="external">long-term effects of exposure to the weapon</a> are unknown, and may include cancer and cataracts. “[The Pentagon’s] claims are a bunch of crap,” said Prof. W. Ross Adey. “We’ve known that many forms of microwaves at levels below heating can cause significant health effects in the long term.”</p>
<p>And that’s if the new weapon is used properly. According to the <a href="http://www.marinetimes.com/stories/mar_story_229238.html" type="external">Marine Times,</a> the VMADS — called the “people zapper” — may be capable of inflicting far more than brief discomfort when not used as directed; that is, for no more than three seconds. “The amount of time the weapon must be trained on an individual to cause permanent damage or death is classified.” (In other words, it only takes one 18-year-old recruit with a sick curiosity or a slow watch to turn the thing deadly.)</p>
<p>In 1995, in fact, a military spokesman <a href="http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Feb1995/x021795_x0217nlw.html" type="external">qualified the concept</a> of “non-lethal” weapons: “[I]t’s really less lethal … because these weapons if improperly used could be lethal.” Marine Col George Fenton, likewise, is <a href="http://www.ndia.org/natdef/2000May/feature6.htm" type="external">on record in the May 2000 National Defense Magazine</a>saying the term “non-lethal … does not mean that they can’t kill or injure.” Reassuring, isn’t it?</p>
<p>Think you have nothing to worry about because you have no plans to join the army of some rogue state? You may be surprised one day to see VMADS — or a civilian law-enforcement version of the weapon — on a city street near you. VMADS and its “non-lethal” kin are being hyped by the Pentagon as “crowd dispersal” devices, which makes them a <a href="http://www.leadingedgenews.com/Nonlethalwarfare.htm" type="external">handy tool for quelling civil unrest</a>, without the fuss and muss of rubber bullets and tear gas. According to the defense journal Jane’s, “The ‘non-lethal’ nature of these weapons might … encourage military forces to use them directly against civilians and civilian targets.” Indeed: A July 2000 Army newsletter featured a section called “ <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:call.army.mil/call/newsltrs/00-7/00-7appa.htm" type="external">Civil Disturbances; Incorporating Non-Lethal Technologies</a>.”</p>
<p>So instead of donning bullet-proof vests and gas masks, activists at <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/ccarch/ccyau004.htm" type="external">the next Seattle-style protest</a> might strap frozen HungryMan dinners to their bodies when they take to the streets. At least they’ll get a hot meal while they wait to post bail.</p>
<p>Critics also note that the US loves to <a href="/arms/" type="external">export its weapons</a> technology. In Le Monde in 1999, <a href="http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/en/1999/12/09wright" type="external">Steve Wright argued</a> that the spread of non-lethal weapons like VMADS will “spawn ever more <a href="http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/nlw/censdera.html#6" type="external">advanced techniques of repression</a>. And if democratic countries let their arms manufacturers develop these techniques, they will be exported to places less concerned about brutalizing their populations.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.janes.com/press/pc001214.shtml" type="external">International law seems fuzzy on this point</a>. Although the Geneva Convention doesn’t address the science-fictionesque subject of laser weapons, an amendment added in 1949 did ban “ <a href="http://diana.law.yale.edu/diana/db/4198-1.html" type="external">weapons, projectiles and materials and methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.</a>”</p>
<p>VMADS is just the tip of the non-lethal iceberg. In 1995, the <a href="http://www.cdi.org/adm/Transcripts/850/" type="external">Center For Defense Information</a> listed possible non-lethal weapons under consideration by the Pentagon, including “super acids, goop guns, blinding lasers, non-nuclear electromagnetic pulses, high power microwaves, laser weapons, infrasound, computer viruses, and metal-eating microbes.”</p>
<p>Human Rights Watch has been fighting the international development of “blinding lasers” designed to <a href="http://www.hrw.org/hrw/about/projects/arms.html" type="external">cause irreversible eye damage</a>. In 1995, the US agreed to an international ban on blinding lasers, but continued development of “ <a href="http://www.hrw.org/hrw/press98/july/laser729.htm" type="external">dazzling lasers</a>” or “dazzlers,” another form of laser weapon targeting human eyes. (Law enforcement groups are developing applications of this type of weapon for police use, giving the high-tech toys groovy names like “ <a href="http://www.nlectc.org/techproj/oletc_p5.html" type="external">The Laser Dissuader</a>“).</p>
<p>And then there’s the <a href="http://hsvt.org/Defensenews.html" type="external">Anti-Personnel Beam Weapon</a> that can stun or immobilize humans from a distance of 100 yards by sending an electrical current through a high-speed channel of ionized air.</p>
<p>According to one <a href="http://www.weeklywire.com/ww/06-01-98/alibi_opinion.html" type="external">Web source</a>, the US is also developing a sonic weapon which causes “the bowels of enemy troops to spasm and their contents to liquefy, thus reducing millions of soldiers to, as one government report says, ‘quivering diarrhetic messes.'”</p>
<p>Finally, the US military is developing non-lethal low-frequency radio technologies — which conspiracy theorists suspect have <a href="http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n1345.cfm" type="external">mind-control capabilities</a> — such as the much-criticized <a href="http://server5550.itd.nrl.navy.mil/projects/haarp/" type="external">High Frequency Active Auroral Project</a> (HAARP).</p>
<p>It’s easy to forget that the US military and intelligence communities are run by a bunch of boys playing with really big toys. The Hanssen spy case, after all, revealed that even after the Cold War was over, the CIA was actually <a href="http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010306/ts/crime_spying_dc_35.html" type="external">tunneling under DC streets and into the Russian embassy</a>. Makes one wonder if Tom Clancy has been writing policy for the past 20 years. <a href="/discuss/" type="external">What do you think?</a></p>
<p>Bits and Pieces</p>
<p>INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY “ <a href="http://www.web.amnesty.org/web/news.nsf/WebAll/860F133039AFA848802569C9003CD514?OpenDocument" type="external">According to World Bank figures,</a> at least 20 percent of women have been physically or sexually assaulted,” reports Amnesty. “Official reports in the US say a women is battered every 15 seconds and 700,000 are raped each year. In India more than 40 percent of married women reported being kicked, slapped or sexually abused for reasons such as their husbands’ dissatisfaction with their cooking or cleaning, jealousy, or other motives. In Egypt, 35 percent of women reported being beaten by their husbands.”</p>
<p>MORE UPLIFTING NEWS Loggers in Mexico, angry over a government setaside of wooded land for Monarch butterfly sanctuaries, apparently <a href="http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010306/sc/environment_butterflies_dc_1.html" type="external">wiped out some 22 million</a> of the insects with a pesticide.</p>
<p>HIGH-TECH CONTRACEPTIVE In San Diego, some clever entrepreneurs have come up with <a href="http://www.coastweekly.com/article.asp?section=1001&amp;view=&amp;ref=6445" type="external">Baby Think It Over</a>, a lifelike doll designed to teach teenagers about the downside of unprotected sex. The doll has a chip which tracks the care it’s given, and in addition to crying, eating, and messing its diaper, this doozy screams in the middle of the night.</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | last week pentagon unveiled newest weapon vehicle mounted active denial system vmads billed kinder gentler weapon nonlethal less lethal soft kill pentagon parlance words usually doesnt kill people hurts enough make em run away makes feel warm fuzzy doesnt well makes warm anyway vmads shoots concentrated beam electromagnetic energy human targets sort like tankmounted microwave oven set high door left open according air force spokesman unveiling kind pain would feel burned intense enough cause damage according scientists loma linda university medical center longterm effects exposure weapon unknown may include cancer cataracts pentagons claims bunch crap said prof w ross adey weve known many forms microwaves levels heating cause significant health effects long term thats new weapon used properly according marine times vmads called people zapper may capable inflicting far brief discomfort used directed three seconds amount time weapon must trained individual cause permanent damage death classified words takes one 18yearold recruit sick curiosity slow watch turn thing deadly 1995 fact military spokesman qualified concept nonlethal weapons really less lethal weapons improperly used could lethal marine col george fenton likewise record may 2000 national defense magazinesaying term nonlethal mean cant kill injure reassuring isnt think nothing worry plans join army rogue state may surprised one day see vmads civilian lawenforcement version weapon city street near vmads nonlethal kin hyped pentagon crowd dispersal devices makes handy tool quelling civil unrest without fuss muss rubber bullets tear gas according defense journal janes nonlethal nature weapons might encourage military forces use directly civilians civilian targets indeed july 2000 army newsletter featured section called civil disturbances incorporating nonlethal technologies instead donning bulletproof vests gas masks activists next seattlestyle protest might strap frozen hungryman dinners bodies take streets least theyll get hot meal wait post bail critics also note us loves export weapons technology le monde 1999 steve wright argued spread nonlethal weapons like vmads spawn ever advanced techniques repression democratic countries let arms manufacturers develop techniques exported places less concerned brutalizing populations international law seems fuzzy point although geneva convention doesnt address sciencefictionesque subject laser weapons amendment added 1949 ban weapons projectiles materials methods warfare nature cause superfluous injury unnecessary suffering vmads tip nonlethal iceberg 1995 center defense information listed possible nonlethal weapons consideration pentagon including super acids goop guns blinding lasers nonnuclear electromagnetic pulses high power microwaves laser weapons infrasound computer viruses metaleating microbes human rights watch fighting international development blinding lasers designed cause irreversible eye damage 1995 us agreed international ban blinding lasers continued development dazzling lasers dazzlers another form laser weapon targeting human eyes law enforcement groups developing applications type weapon police use giving hightech toys groovy names like laser dissuader theres antipersonnel beam weapon stun immobilize humans distance 100 yards sending electrical current highspeed channel ionized air according one web source us also developing sonic weapon causes bowels enemy troops spasm contents liquefy thus reducing millions soldiers one government report says quivering diarrhetic messes finally us military developing nonlethal lowfrequency radio technologies conspiracy theorists suspect mindcontrol capabilities muchcriticized high frequency active auroral project haarp easy forget us military intelligence communities run bunch boys playing really big toys hanssen spy case revealed even cold war cia actually tunneling dc streets russian embassy makes one wonder tom clancy writing policy past 20 years think bits pieces international womens day according world bank figures least 20 percent women physically sexually assaulted reports amnesty official reports us say women battered every 15 seconds 700000 raped year india 40 percent married women reported kicked slapped sexually abused reasons husbands dissatisfaction cooking cleaning jealousy motives egypt 35 percent women reported beaten husbands uplifting news loggers mexico angry government setaside wooded land monarch butterfly sanctuaries apparently wiped 22 million insects pesticide hightech contraceptive san diego clever entrepreneurs come baby think lifelike doll designed teach teenagers downside unprotected sex doll chip tracks care given addition crying eating messing diaper doozy screams middle night | 644 |
<p>This week the world officially commemorated one of the pivotal events of modern history with deafening silence. On August 23, 1791, a group of slaves in Haiti led by a man named Boukman ignited a revolt that changed the world. They attacked their French masters, and kept fighting until Haiti wrested independence from Napoleon in 1804. Haiti’s rebellion metastasized: the independent nation run by former slaves inspired people held in bondage throughout the world, and forever undermined the “moral” and philosophical underpinnings of slavery. Slavery held on for decades- more than seven decades in the U.S. – but from that time on it was fighting a losing battle.</p>
<p>The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) proclaims August 23 the official “International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition,” but there is little behind the proclamation. The UNESCO website’s link to “Activities Worldwide” shows a blank page for the United States. France, alone among former slave trading countries, has an activity listed, but that is for last March’s launch of a virtual UNESCO exhibit, aptly titled: “Lest We Forget.” The link to the virtual exhibit does not work. There is no mention of the anniversary in any major U.S. media outlets, and very little even on the internet.</p>
<p>In contrast, the film Amazing Grace, about William Wilberforce and the fight to end the slave trade in the British Empire, made a big splash when it opened last February. In less than four months, enough people saw the film in the United States for the movie to gross $21 million.</p>
<p>Wilberforce, a wealthy member of the British Parliament, risked his reputation, his political career and even his health in a long struggle to convince his colleagues to pass the Slave Trade Act. The Act became a critical step in ending slavery when enacted in 1807, and both Wilberforce and the Act deserve an important place in history.</p>
<p>But neither deserves to overshadow the Haitians and their revolution. Haitians risked their lives as well as their health and careers- over 300,000 Haitians died fighting for abolition, many cruelly tortured and mutilated along the way. Haitians actually ended slavery in the country, for good, while the Slave Trade Act only ended the transport of slaves by ship in the British Empire (the Empire did not actually abolish slavery until 1834). But it is the Slave Trade Act, not Haiti’s revolution, which is widely celebrated as the beginning of the end of slavery.</p>
<p>The orator, statesman and emancipated slave Frederick Douglass was appointed U.S. Minister to Haiti, where he saw the disservice that history was already doing to the country. In an 1893 address to the Chicago World’s Fair, Douglass acknowledged the contributions of Wilberforce and the other abolitionists in England and the United States. But he reminded his listeners that:</p>
<p>“Until Haiti struck for freedom, the conscience of the Christian world slept profoundly over slavery. Until she spoke no Christian nation had given to the world an organized effort to abolish slavery….. Until she spoke, the slave trade was sanctioned by all the Christian nations of the world, and our land of liberty and light included.”</p>
<p>Amazing Grace actually advanced the process of writing Haiti out of the history of abolition. I caught only one reference to Haiti in the film- a sentence about the revolution’s outbreak in a scene from the early 1790’s. The film managed to chronicle the abolition movement’s progress through to 1807 without even mentioning 1804’s actual abolition.</p>
<p>The world had another chance to give Haiti its due three years ago, during the bicentennial of the nation’s independence. On the big day, January 1, 2004, Thabo Mbeki, President of the most powerful African nation, South Africa, came to celebrate. But the former slaveholding nations, led by the United States, disliked the economic policies of the people Haitians had elected to serve them, so they boycotted the events. They also forced the less powerful countries of Africa and the Caribbean to stay away, so Haiti’s historic celebration was muted.</p>
<p>Instead of sending congratulations to Haiti’s government, the United States sent guns and money to those trying to overthrow it. When the international spotlight did arrive in Haiti seven weeks later, it came to witness the violent return of another brutal U.S.-supported dictatorship. That dictatorship led to another 4,000 Haitians dying in political violence.</p>
<p>I enjoyed Amazing Grace despite its slighting of Haiti, and found it a compelling and inspiring film. That might be because I, like most moviegoers, am a lot closer socially and economically to William Wilberforce than to Boukman and his comrades, or even to their descendants in Haiti today. I am willing to work hard for what I believe in, but I do not put my life on the line. At the end of a hard day’s fight I sleep in a comfortable bed with a full stomach.</p>
<p>We all risk being closer morally to John Newton, the slave-ship captain turned preacher who wrote the hymn that gave Amazing Grace its title. Newton had a series of religious conversions that led him to abandon slave-trading and eventually become a prominent abolitionist. But he traces his original conversion to 1748, while he continued to work on slave ships until 1754. By some accounts, he continued to profit from investments in slave-trading companies for decades more.</p>
<p>Haiti has always challenged Americans by embodying conflicts between our espoused ideals and our limited willingness to implement them. In Douglass’ youth, we had declared all men created equal, but we refused to recognize Haiti because it was governed by men with the wrong skin color. In 2004, our government proclaimed that democracy was worth establishing in Iraq by brutal force, but not protecting in Haiti. Our peace and human rights movements protested the Bush Administration’s violations of international law in overthrowing Iraq’s dictator, but silently accepted the same Administration’s overthrow of Haiti’s elected president. In 2007, we make and watch movies that celebrate the end of slavery, but we refuse to allow the slaves credit for their own liberation.</p>
<p>They say that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Americans cannot or will not accurately remember our own past, or Haiti’s, but it is the Haitians who are condemned when we repeat the past. They pay the price for our coups d’etat, our development assistance embargos, and our occupations. We cannot take back the previous punishment we have inflicted on Haiti, but we can remember it, and thereby do our best to avoid repeating it.</p>
<p>BRIAN CONCANNON Jr. is a human rights lawyer and directs the Institute for Justice &amp; Democracy in Haiti, <a href="http://www.ijdh.org/" type="external">www.ijdh.org</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | week world officially commemorated one pivotal events modern history deafening silence august 23 1791 group slaves haiti led man named boukman ignited revolt changed world attacked french masters kept fighting haiti wrested independence napoleon 1804 haitis rebellion metastasized independent nation run former slaves inspired people held bondage throughout world forever undermined moral philosophical underpinnings slavery slavery held decades seven decades us time fighting losing battle united nations educational scientific cultural organization unesco proclaims august 23 official international day remembrance slave trade abolition little behind proclamation unesco websites link activities worldwide shows blank page united states france alone among former slave trading countries activity listed last marchs launch virtual unesco exhibit aptly titled lest forget link virtual exhibit work mention anniversary major us media outlets little even internet contrast film amazing grace william wilberforce fight end slave trade british empire made big splash opened last february less four months enough people saw film united states movie gross 21 million wilberforce wealthy member british parliament risked reputation political career even health long struggle convince colleagues pass slave trade act act became critical step ending slavery enacted 1807 wilberforce act deserve important place history neither deserves overshadow haitians revolution haitians risked lives well health careers 300000 haitians died fighting abolition many cruelly tortured mutilated along way haitians actually ended slavery country good slave trade act ended transport slaves ship british empire empire actually abolish slavery 1834 slave trade act haitis revolution widely celebrated beginning end slavery orator statesman emancipated slave frederick douglass appointed us minister haiti saw disservice history already country 1893 address chicago worlds fair douglass acknowledged contributions wilberforce abolitionists england united states reminded listeners haiti struck freedom conscience christian world slept profoundly slavery spoke christian nation given world organized effort abolish slavery spoke slave trade sanctioned christian nations world land liberty light included amazing grace actually advanced process writing haiti history abolition caught one reference haiti film sentence revolutions outbreak scene early 1790s film managed chronicle abolition movements progress 1807 without even mentioning 1804s actual abolition world another chance give haiti due three years ago bicentennial nations independence big day january 1 2004 thabo mbeki president powerful african nation south africa came celebrate former slaveholding nations led united states disliked economic policies people haitians elected serve boycotted events also forced less powerful countries africa caribbean stay away haitis historic celebration muted instead sending congratulations haitis government united states sent guns money trying overthrow international spotlight arrive haiti seven weeks later came witness violent return another brutal ussupported dictatorship dictatorship led another 4000 haitians dying political violence enjoyed amazing grace despite slighting haiti found compelling inspiring film might like moviegoers lot closer socially economically william wilberforce boukman comrades even descendants haiti today willing work hard believe put life line end hard days fight sleep comfortable bed full stomach risk closer morally john newton slaveship captain turned preacher wrote hymn gave amazing grace title newton series religious conversions led abandon slavetrading eventually become prominent abolitionist traces original conversion 1748 continued work slave ships 1754 accounts continued profit investments slavetrading companies decades haiti always challenged americans embodying conflicts espoused ideals limited willingness implement douglass youth declared men created equal refused recognize haiti governed men wrong skin color 2004 government proclaimed democracy worth establishing iraq brutal force protecting haiti peace human rights movements protested bush administrations violations international law overthrowing iraqs dictator silently accepted administrations overthrow haitis elected president 2007 make watch movies celebrate end slavery refuse allow slaves credit liberation say remember past condemned repeat americans accurately remember past haitis haitians condemned repeat past pay price coups detat development assistance embargos occupations take back previous punishment inflicted haiti remember thereby best avoid repeating brian concannon jr human rights lawyer directs institute justice amp democracy haiti wwwijdhorg 160 | 623 |
<p>In this week’s episode of “ <a href="https://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/scheer-intelligence/viet-thanh-nguyen-the-sympathizer" type="external">Scheer Intelligence</a>,” host and Truthdig Editor in Chief <a href="" type="internal">Robert Scheer</a> sits down with Pulitzer Prize-winning author&#160;Viet Thanh Nguyen. Nguyen tells Scheer how he strove to accurately reflect Vietnamese culture in his 2016 novel “The Sympathizer,” and the two go on to discuss U.S. power over Vietnam and the country’s political future.</p>
<p />
<p>“The Sympathizer” <a href="" type="internal">Purchase in the Truthdig Bazaar</a></p>
<p>Nguyen explains that a main takeaway from “The Sympathizer” is that “you actually have to work through the contradictions and complications of revolution.”</p>
<p>“If we’re talking about self-determination, and ‘let’s get the West out of these other countries’ and so on, it can’t simply be a conversation between Westerners,”&#160;Nguyen continues. “Self-determination is important, independence is important, but also the refusal to romanticize, or dominate, other populations is important too. Because once people have the right to determine their own futures, you can’t tell what they’re going to do.”</p>
<p />
<p>Listen to the full conversation in the player above, and read the transcript below. You can also find past episodes of “Scheer Intelligence” <a href="" type="internal">here</a>.</p>
<p>–Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Emma Niles</a></p>
<p>RS: Hi, it’s another edition of Scheer Intelligence, where the intelligence comes from my guests. In this case, Viet Thanh Nguyen, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for an incredible book called The Sympathizer. He’s written a number of nonfiction, important books; The Refugee, and the other one—</p>
<p>VN: Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War.</p>
<p>RS: —Nothing Ever Dies, about memory, and a lot about cemeteries. And he teaches here at USC, where I’m recording this from, as an English professor. And it is an incredible book; I’ve just reread it for the second time in preparation for this, so I stayed up all night reading it. Is—I know this may sound like a corny, dumb question. Is there a positive message here?</p>
<p>VN: Oh, of course I think there’s a positive message here. [Laughs] I think that the positive message out of The Sympathizer, if we’re talking about politics and revolution and things like that, is that you actually have to work through the contradictions and the complications of revolution. You know, that time period that we have stereotypically called the 1960s, when people were waving the Viet Cong flag and supporting the NLF and all these kinds of things, that was very positive, but it was also kind of simplistic, at least in relationship to what was happening in Vietnam. So I think that a more hopeful leftist politics, which is I think what the book is working towards, actually has to confront the failures of revolution in order to renew it. And that’s what I think is the positive part of the book.</p>
<p>RS: Well, let me ask you another question. Because we do have the Ken Burns 17-part series, I forget how long it is—</p>
<p>VN: Eighteen hours, 10 parts.</p>
<p>RS: Eighteen hours. And the problem with that documentary, for my money—and I should say I did visit and write about Vietnam beginning in 1964 and then ‘65, ‘66 I was a, as a reporter, and then I was in the south as well; I spent time in Cambodia and Laos and so forth. And I happened to talk to you before this discussion, and as predictable, I brought up Graham Greene’s The Quiet American. And I like all of Graham Greene’s writings for one important—politically I like them, aside from being a good writer, not as good as you, I have to say—</p>
<p>VN: Oh [Laughs], thank you.</p>
<p>RS: No, I think this is an incredibly well-written book, The Sympathizer. You know, incredible piece of literature. What I got out of Graham Greene’s writings, all of his writings, whether it was about Mexico or Haiti or about Cuba, about Vietnam—was really a message of caution: Don’t intervene in other people’s history. You’re only going to make it worse. Not that they’re going to make it wonderful and beautiful; they’re going to have their own conflicts. After all, the Vietnamese and the Cambodians and the Laotians and the Chinese and everyone else managed to find lots to fight about, and within their countries fight a lot about. But as a caution against intervention. That you don’t know the culture, you don’t know the history, you don’t know the nuances, and you don’t really love the people and care about their survival and their freedom. So stop kidding yourself. Isn’t that basically the message of your writing, both your fiction and nonfiction on Vietnam?</p>
<p>VN: I’m a big fan of Graham Greene. I’ve been reading Graham Greene since I was in high school, and find many of his novels very powerful. The Quiet American is an interesting case, exception for me, because I think I’m very close to the topic of The Quiet American, and it was actually writing against The Quiet American when I was an undergraduate that helped me to clarify some of my thinking, or begin to help me clarify some of my thinking about what was potentially wrong with the liberal or the left take on the situation in Vietnam, the Vietnam War and what came before it. Of course I think you’re right; you know, Greene is a cynic, and he’s cautioning us against the arrogance of Western imperialism and so on, American imperialism also. But you know, I think as a writer, what he does in The Quiet American, and maybe in other works, is that he foregrounds the subjectivity of the West. I mean, he’s critical of the West, but he’s also foregrounding that subjectivity; so it’s all a drama about what’s wrong with the West, and that also continues to force us to talk about the West. And if you read The Quiet American from an Asian-American or Vietnamese perspective, it’s hard not to see that the Vietnamese are still the backdrop for this debate between Anglo-Americans, right. And The Sympathizer, while it shares many of the politics of Graham Greene, is very critical of continuing to return to the subjectivity of Westerners, when in fact what we’re talking about is, if we’re talking about self-determination and let’s get the West out of these other countries and so on, it can’t simply be a discussion between Westerners. And that’s where The Sympathizer really departs from The Quiet American.</p>
<p>RS: People have, I guess, a right to make their own history. They certainly have the intimate knowledge of who they are. I mean, just reading—reading, I shouldn’t say just reading—one of the delights of reading your books is the nuance. You know, and the texture, and whether it’s a different urban city, whether it’s this group or that group, or north or south or what have you. And you could spend a lifetime trying to absorb that. And I should point out you were born in Vietnam and then you left; you know, I guess you were born in ‘71, four or five years before the war officially ended. And then you ended up having refugee status in the United States. I don’t know, that could be a very important takeaway of self-determination for other people. And the other thing I think your book asserts is that they’re fully human—you know [Laughs], fully human, and complex. And you turn this whole question, is it the mysterious East, or the—well, they’re all mysterious. OK? But the fact is, we assume we have the right to make our own history in the United States or in France or what have you, and this is an assumption we don’t easily extend to others. And I think it’s continued in the Burns documentary; again, yes, there are, as you did in your play, in the book you were advising on the making of a movie about Vietnam. And I think Apocalypse Now must have been the model, right?</p>
<p>VN: Ah, you know, I think Apocalypse Now formed the model, but the movie that’s being satirized in the novel is a compilation of the entire Vietnam War genre from Hollywood.</p>
<p>RS: Yeah, it’s the Hamlet. But again, I remember, because I read that script from Frances Coppola, he asked me to read it before it had become a movie, and he asked Frances Fitzgerald to read it, ‘cause she knew it. And both of us had the same reaction: wait a minute, you don’t really get the Montagnards, and the label itself doesn’t quite work, and you’re trying to make a movie about Heart of Darkness in Africa, and it doesn’t fit, and it’s a very different culture, and so forth. And I just wonder whether that’s the lesson we really haven’t learned because we’re everywhere, whether we go into Iraq or Libya. And not just us, of course; any other nation that goes and intrudes. It’s the intrusion that I think this book is offended by.</p>
<p>VN: It’s the intrusion. It’s also this idea—and I absolutely agree with you; obviously, self-determination is important, independence is important—but also the refusal to romanticize or dominate other populations is important, too. Because once you, once people have the right to determine their own futures, you can’t tell what they’re going to do. And one of the points that the book makes is that, you know, once the Vietnamese had their own independence, what did they do? The victorious Vietnamese turned around and tortured and imprisoned and persecuted the defeated Vietnamese. That’s what you do when you have independence, right? And there’s a way in which the way that the West has discussed Southeast Asia, what we call Indochina or something, that obscures that. But you know, once you grant people the capacity to determine their own futures, what you are doing is you’re granting them the same kind of humanity that you claim for yourself. And you know, from our own debates within the West we know that the West is capable of good and bad types of things, a full range of human and inhuman behavior. Well, that was happening in Vietnam, in Cambodia, in Laos too. That’s what the novel is foregrounding, that it’s easy to talk about let’s have independence in these other countries, but are we really willing to confront what that means when these populations, these nations, do what they want to do with their own independence, whether it’s in politics or whether it’s in telling stories.</p>
<p>RS: Let me just cut to some of the things that are really troubling in your book, as far as a political analysis. It’s the prevalence of torture. It’s the contempt for sacrifice of human life, whether it’s using napalm and destroying whole villages, or it’s killing a friend in Orange County, or someone you knew because it’s convenient to some larger plan of your own survival or political survival. And really, this is an anti-war novel as much as anything.</p>
<p>VN: Absolutely. Well, it’s an anti-war novel, and it’s also a novel that is deeply concerned with ideology, what it means to believe. And I’m speaking as someone who came of age in Berkeley [Laughs], much later than you were there, but still we had that whole idea that we as students in the 1990s, what we were embarking on was a political struggle. You know, and whether that happened to be through electoral politics or movement politics or the law or literature and so on. So we were all, my friends and I, committed to this idea of struggle. But I was also remembering the legacy of the Vietnam War from the perspective of the defeated Vietnamese people. Now—the southern Vietnamese people. I disagreed with southern Vietnamese political ideology, but I’m very sympathetic to what happened to them at the hands of their victors. And what that taught me was that there is no nobility, necessarily, inherent in any ideology. I mean, ideologies are ways of looking at the world, of trying to get people to do stuff to change the world. But it’s a truism that power corrupts, was evident to me in looking at Vietnam and Cambodia, for example. And if that was the case, we have to be suspicious of any kind of ideology, even our own. And that’s really hard for people to do, whether we’re on the left or the right or whatever kind of ideological position that we take. It’s always easier to look at someone else’s ideology from the outside and say, you know, those guys are blind to what they’re doing, and they’re just conformists to their ideology, and so on—well, we are, too. Or the people that we’re following, or our allies, are too. That’s what the novel is also investigating. It’s not just a critique of how excessive this war was from all sides, and the deployment of torture from all sides; but also, everybody, all the different factions’ total investments in their own ideologies.</p>
<p>RS: Well, I think it’s also important to get into this question of cultural arrogance. I mean, the book is very—you can’t control your contempt for cultural arrogance. The book is just, all of your writing just reeks of it. And I mean, on the most simple level, your nonfiction books, just the recognition they too have dead, they too bury them, they too honor them, they too have history. They have complexity, you know? They also have a sex drive, they also love poetry, they also care about the nuances of food, right? I mean, this—the one-dimensional view of the enemy is critical to the waging of war.</p>
<p>VN: Absolutely. And you know, I mean, obviously from my perspective as someone who is both an American but is an outsider to some extent to American culture, I can easily see that when it’s applied to the Vietnamese or to Southeast Asians or Asians in general. That Western representations of them, whether we’re talking about politics or journalism or popular culture, reduces other people to simplifications and stereotypes. But they’re very powerful, because I—you know, I have to sometimes work against my own tendency to flatten and simplify other peoples and other cultures that I’m not familiar with. And I’m someone who’s sensitive to those kinds of mechanisms. So we have a lot of work to do, and it’s hard work, to understand the humanity and the complexities and the contradictions and failures of other peoples with whom we know, with whom we have no relationship with, or minimal relationship with.</p>
<p>RS: Well, there’s a simple caution that one could assert. I mean, Ho Chi Minh did start with the words of the Declaration of Independence in his original Declaration of Independence. And we do have a model, in our own American Constitutional experience, of non-intervention. We violate it in relation to Native Americans, we’ve violated it in a number of places increasingly through our history with great abandon. But this idea that you mention of power corrupting, and absolute power corrupting absolutely, is the caution. And the answer is limited government, the answer is restraint, the answer is respecting the rights of the individual, including a ban on torture, unreasonable punishment, the respect of privacy. So there is, if by ideology we mean some grand idea, there is an ideological alternative, which is: Hold power in check.</p>
<p>VN: Well, here’s another one, which is: Live up to our ideals! I mean, how about that? You know, so instead of intervention, military intervention, building bases, occupation, this kind of stuff, maybe we could just try to help people by, you know, giving them assistance, giving them development, without strings attached. Helping them economically with the recognition that this kind of aid is just as beneficial for us as it is for them. That maybe they would actually care more for us as Americans, if that’s the perspective we’re talking from—if we help people, versus forcing them to do things.</p>
<p>RS: I’m talking with Viet Thanh Nguyen, and we were talking originally about The Sympathizer. The main insight is that individuals have individual personalities, tastes, desires; they come up against cultures in complex ways. One particular theme that appealed to me in your book is the notion of the bastard. And your hero is somebody who has a French father and a Vietnamese mother; a French priest seduces his parishioner. And that’s a theme that runs right through The Sympathizer. And it hit me, because I am also a love-child. And my German Protestant father and my Jewish Russian mother produced me, and my father had another family and so forth. And growing up in World War II, can’t say my experiences were similar to your main character, but I was always torn. Because the conventional wisdom in the United States, before the rise of Hitler—and I was born in ‘36, so I can even remember that as a young child—the Germans were the best educated, the most enlightened people in the world; they had the finest music, the finest science. And there was a large number of people—and they had the largest immigrant group in the United States, still do, actually. And there was a feeling like, they can’t possibly become barbarians, right? We had no trouble accepting the Japanese as barbarians, you know; suicide bombers and so forth, and we rounded up large numbers of Japanese and put them in concentration camps even though they’d been here longer than many of the Germans, and were farmers and so forth. But we had an idea of the ideal society, and Germany was pretty close to it, OK? And yet they—you know, one half of my family, like one half of the character in your book, they became the enemy, you know; he was the French priest. And then the victim, in my case my mother’s Jewish family in Russia, were all wiped out. And so the greatest barbarism was done by one half of my family. So your book resonated with me, because it denies that any one culture, any one religion, will form desirable traits. It’s the interplay between that and reality and how you respond to it, that will shape you.</p>
<p>VN: Absolutely. And you know, it was a very deliberate choice to make him a bastard, or someone of mixed-race descent, for a number of different reasons. One of them has to do with exactly what you just talked about, which is—you used a German example. Well in this case, my character’s father is a French priest, and there’s both Catholicism and colonialism involved here; that both of these projects brought to Vietnam and to Laos and Cambodia were supposed to civilize the Indochinese, or the Southeast Asians, and elevate them, not quite to the level of the French, but close to them, right beneath them. And so of course the point here is that France, just like Germany, has a civilizing mission, but it’s also, it’s also riddled by that contradiction of the potential for savagery, which is what happens in colonialism, regardless of how the French think about it or how they’ve denied that. And then the other reason to make him mixed is also something that you implied, which is the refusal for purity. I think people who have pure identities, whatever those happen to be, and take their identities for granted, are sometimes very potentially dangerous people. Because they take it for granted that they know who they are, and that there is such a thing as being homogenous. Those who are of mixed race can see, because they’ve been subjected to discrimination and epithets and things like that, that within these high-falutin civilizations there is built within them, most of them, the potential to denigrate, to marginalize, to persecute, and so on. And that’s what the narrator experiences: his awareness of how he falls between the cracks of these civilizations, and therefore his skepticism about the rhetoric of civilization, whether it’s from the French side or from the Vietnamese side.</p>
<p>RS: You know, it’s interesting. In your book, The Sympathizer, humanity is expressed in the mundane, in the ordinary; the affair between the secretary in the department and the young student—actually a celebration, believe it or not, of autoeroticism as a release, and as a common phenomenon of different cultures. The admission that food can motivate the person who was about to be killed, but enjoyed his meal, and the food, the nuances of different people’s food, and how they’re prepared, whether prepared by the mother of the main character or by the person who’s, well, the wife of the person who’s about to be killed. And throughout that, you have a sense that the ordinary life should be respected. That the daily culture should be respected, you know? Whether it’s traditional, whether it’s modern, the music that attends to it, the weddings, the family—that there’s a texture of life that ought not to be ripped asunder. And that the capacity to tear it apart exists in all of us. There’s a barbarism in all of us, which I think The Sympathizer evokes, as meaningfully as almost anything I’ve ever read.</p>
<p>VN: Well there’s both, for me, culture is both civilization and barbarism all at the same time. And again, there’s nothing that sets Americans apart from the Vietnamese in this regard, except for the degree of power that Americans hold versus the Vietnamese or other small countries. And certainly growing up, again, in the United States as someone who was both being raised as an American but was also a refugee and an outsider, I completely sympathized with American culture. I completely, I think I completely understood all these aspects of American culture. And I felt great warmth and attachment to American culture. But then I thought, well, why don’t Americans reciprocate that? Why don’t they see that in the cultures of other countries that they’re involved with, particularly in Vietnam, but also other places too? And so yes, the novel is deliberately looking at both the best and the worst aspects of American and Vietnamese cultures, all these issues that you indicated. And while there’s great criticism of American culture in this book, I hope there’s also great love for it as well. You know, great knowledge of the details of American culture. And there’s also great knowledge of the terrible things that the Vietnamese did as well</p>
<p>RS: There’s one important distinction. They’re doing it to themselves. You know? They’re making their own history, for better or worse. OK? And they had lots of shots at it; you know, there was Bao Dai, and the old mandarin reform, you know, who resented the French. And there had been lots of different periods and lots of different ways of suggesting Vietnam should develop. And at the end of the day, in victory and our great defeat, the exact opposite happened of what we predicted in overall terms, strategic terms. The excuse for the Vietnam War was we had to stop dominoes from falling; well actually, they stopped with victory. And the Vietnamese communists and the Chinese communists went to war, they didn’t go conquer San Diego or something. So the political analysis was just dead wrong, you know? And it had to be known in real time that it was wrong, that these were primarily nationalist movements; you may not like them and so forth, but at the end we’re going to defend their borders or fight over islands, which the Vietnamese and Chinese communists are doing right now, you know. And so the basic structure was idiotic, which I think Graham Greene captured; but the Pentagon Papers captured, which were kept from us. But what is left out of the piece, and I think I wanted to mention something about the Ken Burns thing, it opens with a statement about these were good people with good intentions, the American policy-makers. And that’s what I deny, categorically. You know, I was in Saigon in ‘64 and ‘65, I was in that area. No; they didn’t have good intentions. They claimed that Ngo Dinh Diem was a great liberator of his country, they found him in a Maryknoll Seminary in New Jersey, they brought him there, and then they killed him, chased him through the sewers of Saigon brutally, and he was executed, you know? And then they went with another corrupt general, another corrupt leader, and so forth. And I don’t think this was a failure of good intentions. I think it was indifference. And that’s, I think, the message—I don’t want to read a message into your book, but you know, this sort of cultural arrogance, and it really translates into a criminal indifference; you don’t really care who you’re bombing. And you know, we should not forget we dropped more bombs on Laos, a little tiny primitive country—when I visited Laos in ‘64, pencils were a gift you could bring to some villages. You know, and we dropped more bombs there than we did on Japan, not to mention what we dropped on Vietnam and Cambodia and so forth. So this is genocide that is somehow cloaked as a failure of good intentions. And the big difference is, the Vietnamese, the Cambodians, the Laotians—they didn’t drop napalm on New Jersey and Chicago. OK? We’d have a different discussion now. And I think with the Ken Burns movie and others, there’s a tendency to forget that: we, with our enormous power, visited the greatest destruction that we’ve actually seen in such a small area. And whether the figure is three and a half million died, the figure McNamara used is up to six million, as others used—this was genocide, was it not?</p>
<p>VN: No, absolutely, and the book is actually very clear about that. And this is something I do share with Graham Greene in The Quiet American, obviously; that book is very well known for its depiction of American innocence as a fundamental character flaw. [Laughs] That the Americans actually are not innocent, but they believe in their innocence even as they’re doing terrible things, right? They can excuse themselves for doing that. And so that Ken Burns documentary, at least in the way that you’re talking about it, follows in that tradition. We didn’t do anything out of meanness or spite or arrogance or anything like that; we did it because we made mistakes out of our noble intentions. And in The Sympathizer, it’s very clear in saying that Americans are contradictory. That on the one hand they believe in their eternal innocence when it comes to going abroad, or even within the United States obviously, in terms of settler colonialism. But they also believe in the fact that they are a Christian country that’s already fallen, you know. So these two things are in tension at the same time. So Americans, at least in their own self-depiction, are always playing out these psychodrama between being fallen and being innocent. So the movie Apocalypse Now, that is being satirized in this book, in my book, is completely acceptable to Americans. You know, on the one hand Americans can watch the Ken Burns documentary and say, yes, we’re good and we just made mistakes; but they can also watch Apocalypse Now, which depicts Americans doing some really horrifying things, and think, yes, we can do that too. These are two aspects of the American character that I think Americans are, mmm, somewhat comfortable with.</p>
<p>RS: This whole idea, again, the third force, that America is not colonialist, it’s democratic, it’s the melting pot of all the world, well, we have Vietnamese here that we know, and so forth, we care about everyone, and we are championing universal rights. And what your book suggests is that these people are really boobs. They’re foolish. I mean, that’s an idea we don’t like to entertain. You know, that you can actually be powerful and foolish, dangerously foolish. You didn’t even know anything about these people. That’s—your book has anger in it, and the anger is, you don’t even understand them in Orange County, California; I mean, you don’t get them. And you don’t ascribe any, or attribute any complexity, any significance to their relations, to whether mothers love their children—anything. Whether their religious values, or their complexity. I mean, you do feel that, no?</p>
<p>VN: Yeah. But I think the United States has always been that way, powerful and foolish at the same time, except that in the history of the United States, the power has often been triumphant over the foolishness; you know, in the United States, Americans, or whatever, white settlers, didn’t know anything about Native Americans either; they still wiped them out, they had enough power to do it. So it’s not that foolishness is irreconcilable with power; it’s just that by the time the United States got to Vietnam, circumstances had changed in a variety of ways. And the United States finally met an opponent or a geography or a situation in which the application of U.S. power simply didn’t work anymore. So the figures that are depicted in characters like Pyle, or Claude the CIA agent, they were doing what had always worked—except now it didn’t work, in the case of Vietnam or Indochina. And it’s still not working. So this is where I think what happened to the United States in Southeast Asia marks a turning point in American history. That all of the typical set of patterns and beliefs that Americans have always used, finally started to fall apart, started to—the contradictions within them started to be exhibited. And we’re still dealing with the fallout of that in the contemporary perpetual war, forever war that we’re waging in Iraq and Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle East.</p>
<p>RS: The great success of The Sympathizer, and I suspect it’s why it won the Pulitzer, why it’s getting a big international audience, I mean, why it’s a classic book—is it forces us to deal with the complexity of the individual human experience, no matter where you’re born, OK? Your hero, such as he is, his mother was very poorly educated, she’s a woman who was exploited by a French priest. But she’s, we are introduced to her as a loving, caring, complex, devoted human being. And so all of the people in this book have the capacity, and exhibit it within their own life, of being, you know, good and bad. And even when you make the categories of what, of which Vietnamese are to be tortured in the American-sponsored program—oh, maybe VC, tending to VC, or possibly—you know, or maybe we got the wrong one but so what, they’re all wrong ones, and all that. And it really challenges, I guess as a good closing point, it challenges the arrogance of the empire builders. In saying you really, at least in that case and probably any other, don’t know what you’re talking about. You really don’t know what you’re doing, you know? And to play on The Sympathizer, you’re not really sympathetic to the aspirations, needs, complexities of others. And as a result, you end up being barbaric and you end up being genocidal. Is that a fair—?</p>
<p>VN: Well, no, of course it’s a fair assertion. But can I use four-letter words on this show?</p>
<p>RS: Yeah. Ah—yeah.</p>
<p>VN: Well, there’s a very key line that was very important to me in The Sympathizer, that takes place towards the end. Which is that one of the successful revolutionaries says to one of the defeated revolutionaries, you know, we’ve won the right to independence and freedom, and what that means is that the French and the Americans are no longer screwing us—I’m substituting the word that I actually use in the book—we’re now capable of screwing ourselves. That’s what it means to be independent. And that, I think, is one of the harsh but also liberating truths I hope that The Sympathizer puts forth. That one of the ways it means to be free, and to be independent, we control our fate; which means we also can control—we can also destroy our future at the same time.</p>
<p>RS: On that note, I want to thank Viet Thanh Nguyen for writing his great books, beginning with The Sympathizer. Please read them. Our producers have been Josh Scheer and Rebecca Mooney, our engineers Mario Diaz and Kat Yore at KCRW. And here at USC at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Sebastian Grubaugh, the exemplary engineer who’s taken us through this. See you next week.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | weeks episode scheer intelligence host truthdig editor chief robert scheer sits pulitzer prizewinning author160viet thanh nguyen nguyen tells scheer strove accurately reflect vietnamese culture 2016 novel sympathizer two go discuss us power vietnam countrys political future sympathizer purchase truthdig bazaar nguyen explains main takeaway sympathizer actually work contradictions complications revolution talking selfdetermination lets get west countries cant simply conversation westerners160nguyen continues selfdetermination important independence important also refusal romanticize dominate populations important people right determine futures cant tell theyre going listen full conversation player read transcript also find past episodes scheer intelligence posted emma niles rs hi another edition scheer intelligence intelligence comes guests case viet thanh nguyen winner pulitzer prize incredible book called sympathizer hes written number nonfiction important books refugee one vn nothing ever dies vietnam memory war rs nothing ever dies memory lot cemeteries teaches usc im recording english professor incredible book ive reread second time preparation stayed night reading isi know may sound like corny dumb question positive message vn oh course think theres positive message laughs think positive message sympathizer talking politics revolution things like actually work contradictions complications revolution know time period stereotypically called 1960s people waving viet cong flag supporting nlf kinds things positive also kind simplistic least relationship happening vietnam think hopeful leftist politics think book working towards actually confront failures revolution order renew thats think positive part book rs well let ask another question ken burns 17part series forget long vn eighteen hours 10 parts rs eighteen hours problem documentary moneyand say visit write vietnam beginning 1964 65 66 reporter south well spent time cambodia laos forth happened talk discussion predictable brought graham greenes quiet american like graham greenes writings one importantpolitically like aside good writer good say vn oh laughs thank rs think incredibly wellwritten book sympathizer know incredible piece literature got graham greenes writings writings whether mexico haiti cuba vietnamwas really message caution dont intervene peoples history youre going make worse theyre going make wonderful beautiful theyre going conflicts vietnamese cambodians laotians chinese everyone else managed find lots fight within countries fight lot caution intervention dont know culture dont know history dont know nuances dont really love people care survival freedom stop kidding isnt basically message writing fiction nonfiction vietnam vn im big fan graham greene ive reading graham greene since high school find many novels powerful quiet american interesting case exception think im close topic quiet american actually writing quiet american undergraduate helped clarify thinking begin help clarify thinking potentially wrong liberal left take situation vietnam vietnam war came course think youre right know greene cynic hes cautioning us arrogance western imperialism american imperialism also know think writer quiet american maybe works foregrounds subjectivity west mean hes critical west hes also foregrounding subjectivity drama whats wrong west also continues force us talk west read quiet american asianamerican vietnamese perspective hard see vietnamese still backdrop debate angloamericans right sympathizer shares many politics graham greene critical continuing return subjectivity westerners fact talking talking selfdetermination lets get west countries cant simply discussion westerners thats sympathizer really departs quiet american rs people guess right make history certainly intimate knowledge mean readingreading shouldnt say readingone delights reading books nuance know texture whether different urban city whether group group north south could spend lifetime trying absorb point born vietnam left know guess born 71 four five years war officially ended ended refugee status united states dont know could important takeaway selfdetermination people thing think book asserts theyre fully humanyou know laughs fully human complex turn whole question mysterious east thewell theyre mysterious ok fact assume right make history united states france assumption dont easily extend others think continued burns documentary yes play book advising making movie vietnam think apocalypse must model right vn ah know think apocalypse formed model movie thats satirized novel compilation entire vietnam war genre hollywood rs yeah hamlet remember read script frances coppola asked read become movie asked frances fitzgerald read cause knew us reaction wait minute dont really get montagnards label doesnt quite work youre trying make movie heart darkness africa doesnt fit different culture forth wonder whether thats lesson really havent learned everywhere whether go iraq libya us course nation goes intrudes intrusion think book offended vn intrusion also ideaand absolutely agree obviously selfdetermination important independence importantbut also refusal romanticize dominate populations important people right determine futures cant tell theyre going one points book makes know vietnamese independence victorious vietnamese turned around tortured imprisoned persecuted defeated vietnamese thats independence right theres way way west discussed southeast asia call indochina something obscures know grant people capacity determine futures youre granting kind humanity claim know debates within west know west capable good bad types things full range human inhuman behavior well happening vietnam cambodia laos thats novel foregrounding easy talk lets independence countries really willing confront means populations nations want independence whether politics whether telling stories rs let cut things really troubling book far political analysis prevalence torture contempt sacrifice human life whether using napalm destroying whole villages killing friend orange county someone knew convenient larger plan survival political survival really antiwar novel much anything vn absolutely well antiwar novel also novel deeply concerned ideology means believe im speaking someone came age berkeley laughs much later still whole idea students 1990s embarking political struggle know whether happened electoral politics movement politics law literature friends committed idea struggle also remembering legacy vietnam war perspective defeated vietnamese people nowthe southern vietnamese people disagreed southern vietnamese political ideology im sympathetic happened hands victors taught nobility necessarily inherent ideology mean ideologies ways looking world trying get people stuff change world truism power corrupts evident looking vietnam cambodia example case suspicious kind ideology even thats really hard people whether left right whatever kind ideological position take always easier look someone elses ideology outside say know guys blind theyre theyre conformists ideology onwell people following allies thats novel also investigating critique excessive war sides deployment torture sides also everybody different factions total investments ideologies rs well think also important get question cultural arrogance mean book veryyou cant control contempt cultural arrogance book writing reeks mean simple level nonfiction books recognition dead bury honor history complexity know also sex drive also love poetry also care nuances food right mean thisthe onedimensional view enemy critical waging war vn absolutely know mean obviously perspective someone american outsider extent american culture easily see applied vietnamese southeast asians asians general western representations whether talking politics journalism popular culture reduces people simplifications stereotypes theyre powerful iyou know sometimes work tendency flatten simplify peoples cultures im familiar im someone whos sensitive kinds mechanisms lot work hard work understand humanity complexities contradictions failures peoples know relationship minimal relationship rs well theres simple caution one could assert mean ho chi minh start words declaration independence original declaration independence model american constitutional experience nonintervention violate relation native americans weve violated number places increasingly history great abandon idea mention power corrupting absolute power corrupting absolutely caution answer limited government answer restraint answer respecting rights individual including ban torture unreasonable punishment respect privacy ideology mean grand idea ideological alternative hold power check vn well heres another one live ideals mean know instead intervention military intervention building bases occupation kind stuff maybe could try help people know giving assistance giving development without strings attached helping economically recognition kind aid beneficial us maybe would actually care us americans thats perspective talking fromif help people versus forcing things rs im talking viet thanh nguyen talking originally sympathizer main insight individuals individual personalities tastes desires come cultures complex ways one particular theme appealed book notion bastard hero somebody french father vietnamese mother french priest seduces parishioner thats theme runs right sympathizer hit also lovechild german protestant father jewish russian mother produced father another family forth growing world war ii cant say experiences similar main character always torn conventional wisdom united states rise hitlerand born 36 even remember young childthe germans best educated enlightened people world finest music finest science large number peopleand largest immigrant group united states still actually feeling like cant possibly become barbarians right trouble accepting japanese barbarians know suicide bombers forth rounded large numbers japanese put concentration camps even though theyd longer many germans farmers forth idea ideal society germany pretty close ok yet theyyou know one half family like one half character book became enemy know french priest victim case mothers jewish family russia wiped greatest barbarism done one half family book resonated denies one culture one religion form desirable traits interplay reality respond shape vn absolutely know deliberate choice make bastard someone mixedrace descent number different reasons one exactly talked isyou used german example well case characters father french priest theres catholicism colonialism involved projects brought vietnam laos cambodia supposed civilize indochinese southeast asians elevate quite level french close right beneath course point france like germany civilizing mission also also riddled contradiction potential savagery happens colonialism regardless french think theyve denied reason make mixed also something implied refusal purity think people pure identities whatever happen take identities granted sometimes potentially dangerous people take granted know thing homogenous mixed race see theyve subjected discrimination epithets things like within highfalutin civilizations built within potential denigrate marginalize persecute thats narrator experiences awareness falls cracks civilizations therefore skepticism rhetoric civilization whether french side vietnamese side rs know interesting book sympathizer humanity expressed mundane ordinary affair secretary department young studentactually celebration believe autoeroticism release common phenomenon different cultures admission food motivate person killed enjoyed meal food nuances different peoples food theyre prepared whether prepared mother main character person whos well wife person whos killed throughout sense ordinary life respected daily culture respected know whether traditional whether modern music attends weddings familythat theres texture life ought ripped asunder capacity tear apart exists us theres barbarism us think sympathizer evokes meaningfully almost anything ive ever read vn well theres culture civilization barbarism time theres nothing sets americans apart vietnamese regard except degree power americans hold versus vietnamese small countries certainly growing united states someone raised american also refugee outsider completely sympathized american culture completely think completely understood aspects american culture felt great warmth attachment american culture thought well dont americans reciprocate dont see cultures countries theyre involved particularly vietnam also places yes novel deliberately looking best worst aspects american vietnamese cultures issues indicated theres great criticism american culture book hope theres also great love well know great knowledge details american culture theres also great knowledge terrible things vietnamese well rs theres one important distinction theyre know theyre making history better worse ok lots shots know bao dai old mandarin reform know resented french lots different periods lots different ways suggesting vietnam develop end day victory great defeat exact opposite happened predicted overall terms strategic terms excuse vietnam war stop dominoes falling well actually stopped victory vietnamese communists chinese communists went war didnt go conquer san diego something political analysis dead wrong know known real time wrong primarily nationalist movements may like forth end going defend borders fight islands vietnamese chinese communists right know basic structure idiotic think graham greene captured pentagon papers captured kept us left piece think wanted mention something ken burns thing opens statement good people good intentions american policymakers thats deny categorically know saigon 64 65 area didnt good intentions claimed ngo dinh diem great liberator country found maryknoll seminary new jersey brought killed chased sewers saigon brutally executed know went another corrupt general another corrupt leader forth dont think failure good intentions think indifference thats think messagei dont want read message book know sort cultural arrogance really translates criminal indifference dont really care youre bombing know forget dropped bombs laos little tiny primitive countrywhen visited laos 64 pencils gift could bring villages know dropped bombs japan mention dropped vietnam cambodia forth genocide somehow cloaked failure good intentions big difference vietnamese cambodians laotiansthey didnt drop napalm new jersey chicago ok wed different discussion think ken burns movie others theres tendency forget enormous power visited greatest destruction weve actually seen small area whether figure three half million died figure mcnamara used six million others usedthis genocide vn absolutely book actually clear something share graham greene quiet american obviously book well known depiction american innocence fundamental character flaw laughs americans actually innocent believe innocence even theyre terrible things right excuse ken burns documentary least way youre talking follows tradition didnt anything meanness spite arrogance anything like made mistakes noble intentions sympathizer clear saying americans contradictory one hand believe eternal innocence comes going abroad even within united states obviously terms settler colonialism also believe fact christian country thats already fallen know two things tension time americans least selfdepiction always playing psychodrama fallen innocent movie apocalypse satirized book book completely acceptable americans know one hand americans watch ken burns documentary say yes good made mistakes also watch apocalypse depicts americans really horrifying things think yes two aspects american character think americans mmm somewhat comfortable rs whole idea third force america colonialist democratic melting pot world well vietnamese know forth care everyone championing universal rights book suggests people really boobs theyre foolish mean thats idea dont like entertain know actually powerful foolish dangerously foolish didnt even know anything people thatsyour book anger anger dont even understand orange county california mean dont get dont ascribe attribute complexity significance relations whether mothers love childrenanything whether religious values complexity mean feel vn yeah think united states always way powerful foolish time except history united states power often triumphant foolishness know united states americans whatever white settlers didnt know anything native americans either still wiped enough power foolishness irreconcilable power time united states got vietnam circumstances changed variety ways united states finally met opponent geography situation application us power simply didnt work anymore figures depicted characters like pyle claude cia agent always workedexcept didnt work case vietnam indochina still working think happened united states southeast asia marks turning point american history typical set patterns beliefs americans always used finally started fall apart started tothe contradictions within started exhibited still dealing fallout contemporary perpetual war forever war waging iraq afghanistan rest middle east rs great success sympathizer suspect pulitzer getting big international audience mean classic bookis forces us deal complexity individual human experience matter youre born ok hero mother poorly educated shes woman exploited french priest shes introduced loving caring complex devoted human people book capacity exhibit within life know good bad even make categories vietnamese tortured americansponsored programoh maybe vc tending vc possiblyyou know maybe got wrong one theyre wrong ones really challenges guess good closing point challenges arrogance empire builders saying really least case probably dont know youre talking really dont know youre know play sympathizer youre really sympathetic aspirations needs complexities others result end barbaric end genocidal fair vn well course fair assertion use fourletter words show rs yeah ahyeah vn well theres key line important sympathizer takes place towards end one successful revolutionaries says one defeated revolutionaries know weve right independence freedom means french americans longer screwing usim substituting word actually use bookwere capable screwing thats means independent think one harsh also liberating truths hope sympathizer puts forth one ways means free independent control fate means also controlwe also destroy future time rs note want thank viet thanh nguyen writing great books beginning sympathizer please read producers josh scheer rebecca mooney engineers mario diaz kat yore kcrw usc annenberg school communication journalism sebastian grubaugh exemplary engineer whos taken us see next week 160 160 | 2,546 |
<p>Americans Elect</p>
<p />
<p>Nearly two years ago, former junk-bond financier <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-04/internet-picks-u-s-presidential-candidate-if-peter-ackerman-gets-his-way.html" type="external">Peter Ackerman</a> founded Americans Elect in hopes of fielding an independent presidential candidate in 2012. The organization’s big idea was that a diverse field of contenders would compete in a series of online caucuses, bypassing the party system and “politics as usual.” The resulting “nonpartisan” ticket, consisting of a Democrat and a Republican, would seize the popular imagination and the rest would be history.</p>
<p>Yet by last week, not a single candidate had qualified for Americans Elect’s first online caucus, forcing the group to push it back to May 15. This week, after a midnight deadline passed on Tuesday morning and there were still no qualified candidates, the caucus was moved again, to May 22.</p>
<p>This isn’t Americans Elect’s first stumble. It got off to a rocky start when it switched from being a 527 group, which must disclose its donors, to <a href="" type="internal">a secretive 501(c)(4</a>), a dark-money group that <a href="" type="internal">does not</a>. Campaign finance watchdogs say the group is actually a political party and should be registered as such. In March, AE <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedpolitics/americans-elect-is-raising-money-to-repay-its-mill" type="external">quietly changed its bylaws</a> so that no single donor could cover more than 20 perecent of its total budget, meaning that future small donors would be reimbursing the group’s wealthy angels. Its website <a href="https://secure.americanselect.org/give" type="external">does not accept</a> donations over $10,000. Ackerman, who has reportedly contributed $8 million of AE’s $40 million budget, says the new rules will ensure that big donors don’t unduly influence the process.</p>
<p>And then there’s the question of whether AE can effectively challenge the two-party system. “The Democratic and Republican parties have, over the years, been able to build huge barriers to entry for any other organization or individual who wants to compete in the election process,” says <a href="http://www.snrdenton.com/people/s/sragow_darry_a.aspx" type="external">Darry Sragow</a>, a Democratic strategist and member of Americans Elect’s <a href="http://www.americanselect.org/who-we-are" type="external">board of advisers</a> who spent four months discussing the group with prospective high-profile candidates last fall. Sragow says that every politician he spoke with agreed that the political process was broken and left their meeting with a “high level of comfort” with the group’s goal of chipping away at the two-party duopoly. “We briefed one sitting United States senator who said, ‘If I was running for reelection, I would vote against myself. The system’s gridlocked, and I think we ought to throw everybody out,'” Sragow recalls. “He literally said that.” Yet ultimately, every potential candidate was too “risk-adverse”&#160;to ditch their party and pursue an independent presidential bid.</p>
<p>As it stands, former Louisiana Gov. <a href="" type="internal">Buddy Roemer</a> is the front-runner among the declared candidates on the Americans Elect’s website. About 4,900 people have cast preliminary “support clicks” for him, far short of the 1,000 clicks from 10 different states he needs to qualify for the caucus. Former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson comes in second with about 3,000 supporters, but because Americans Elect’s rules deem him less qualified, he needs <a href="http://blog.nola.com/politics/print.html?entry=/2012/05/americans_elect_cancels_round.html" type="external">50,000 clicks</a> to qualify. (As spelled out <a href="http://static.americanselect.org/sites/wp-content/uploads/official-documents/pre-election_convention_rules_2012-03-05.pdf" type="external">here</a> [PDF], former members of Congress, cabinet members, mayors of large cities, CEOs, union officials, and high-ranking military officers require less support to run in AE’s primary.)</p>
<p>Online voters also have the option of nominating their own candidates. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) leads that category with more than 9,000 supporters, but he has expressed no interest in a third-party bid. The next runners-up are former Republican candidate Jon Huntsman, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), President Barack Obama, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.</p>
<p>The Americans Elect website <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/05/03/americans_elect_canceling_caucuses_has_no_candidates/" type="external">cost a staggering $9 million</a> to build, yet it appears not to be attracting the swarms of visitors it’s designed to handle. Both Roemer and Sragow told me that the considerable lengths AE has gone to in order to protect its voting process from hackers are likely turning away some would-be participants. To vote, users must verify their eligibility with their current address, date of birth, and the last four digits of their Social Security number.</p>
<p>Assuming it does field a candidate, Americans Elect has secured ballot access in 26 states and is awaiting word from 8 more, according to spokeswoman Ileana Wachtel. It maintains that its eventual nominee will be on the ballot in all 50 states by Election Day.</p>
<p>“I’m a reform candidate. They [Americans Elect] don’t seem to be [interested in] a reform candidate. All they’re focusing on is getting on the ballot,” opines Roemer, who’s running as a crusader against big money in politics. But he believes the group is making a good-faith effort to voice the concerns of citizens who feel disempowered. “I think that they are imperfect but are making a noble effort to improve the system, and I want to be a part of that attempt,” he says. He adds the caveat that should he get AE’s nomination, he would pay back any money it gives his campaign.</p>
<p>“I think Americans Elect is a major step forward toward the goal of creating a more competitive election process,” Sragow says, comparing it to the tea party and the reform-oriented <a href="http://nolabels.org/whoweare" type="external">No Labels</a>. “Over time, it would certainly be reasonable to assume that these efforts will gain traction, they’ll become more significant, and ultimately we’ll see government addressing the problems people face in their day-to-day lives.”</p>
<p>Americans Elect’s online convention, where its final presidential ticket will be decided, is scheduled to begin on June 12.</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | americans elect nearly two years ago former junkbond financier peter ackerman founded americans elect hopes fielding independent presidential candidate 2012 organizations big idea diverse field contenders would compete series online caucuses bypassing party system politics usual resulting nonpartisan ticket consisting democrat republican would seize popular imagination rest would history yet last week single candidate qualified americans elects first online caucus forcing group push back may 15 week midnight deadline passed tuesday morning still qualified candidates caucus moved may 22 isnt americans elects first stumble got rocky start switched 527 group must disclose donors secretive 501c4 darkmoney group campaign finance watchdogs say group actually political party registered march ae quietly changed bylaws single donor could cover 20 perecent total budget meaning future small donors would reimbursing groups wealthy angels website accept donations 10000 ackerman reportedly contributed 8 million aes 40 million budget says new rules ensure big donors dont unduly influence process theres question whether ae effectively challenge twoparty system democratic republican parties years able build huge barriers entry organization individual wants compete election process says darry sragow democratic strategist member americans elects board advisers spent four months discussing group prospective highprofile candidates last fall sragow says every politician spoke agreed political process broken left meeting high level comfort groups goal chipping away twoparty duopoly briefed one sitting united states senator said running reelection would vote systems gridlocked think ought throw everybody sragow recalls literally said yet ultimately every potential candidate riskadverse160to ditch party pursue independent presidential bid stands former louisiana gov buddy roemer frontrunner among declared candidates americans elects website 4900 people cast preliminary support clicks far short 1000 clicks 10 different states needs qualify caucus former salt lake city mayor rocky anderson comes second 3000 supporters americans elects rules deem less qualified needs 50000 clicks qualify spelled pdf former members congress cabinet members mayors large cities ceos union officials highranking military officers require less support run aes primary online voters also option nominating candidates rep ron paul rtexas leads category 9000 supporters expressed interest thirdparty bid next runnersup former republican candidate jon huntsman sen bernie sanders ivt president barack obama new york mayor michael bloomberg americans elect website cost staggering 9 million build yet appears attracting swarms visitors designed handle roemer sragow told considerable lengths ae gone order protect voting process hackers likely turning away wouldbe participants vote users must verify eligibility current address date birth last four digits social security number assuming field candidate americans elect secured ballot access 26 states awaiting word 8 according spokeswoman ileana wachtel maintains eventual nominee ballot 50 states election day im reform candidate americans elect dont seem interested reform candidate theyre focusing getting ballot opines roemer whos running crusader big money politics believes group making goodfaith effort voice concerns citizens feel disempowered think imperfect making noble effort improve system want part attempt says adds caveat get aes nomination would pay back money gives campaign think americans elect major step forward toward goal creating competitive election process sragow says comparing tea party reformoriented labels time would certainly reasonable assume efforts gain traction theyll become significant ultimately well see government addressing problems people face daytoday lives americans elects online convention final presidential ticket decided scheduled begin june 12 | 534 |
<p>“He’s Not Gonna Take It” was CNN‘s homepage headline that led to this <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/31/politics/donald-trump-political-attacks-hit-back-harder/index.html" type="external">story</a>.</p>
<p>“He’s Not Gonna Take it,” CNN blared on its homepage yesterday, above a large close-up photo of Donald Trump. Beneath the picture, CNN placed a headline with a&#160;link to the article, “ <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/31/politics/donald-trump-political-attacks-hit-back-harder/index.html" type="external">When Donald Trump hits back, he hits back hard</a>.”</p>
<p>CNN, in essence, was pumping up the indomitable image that Donald Trump wants the media to portray of him. He and his campaign flacks consistently account for any of Trump’s reprehensible and coarse portrayals of individuals and groups by asserting that he is a “counterpuncher.” How that excuses racism, misogyny, bigoted pronouncements and childish name-calling is what the mass corporate media should be examining in their own reporting.</p>
<p>However, such reporting is the exception rather than the rule. This was exemplified in the coverage of Donald Trump’s Tuesday news conference, in which he lacerated the press for questioning the sincerity of his commitment to raising money for veterans’ charities—including a personal million-dollar contribution he pledged in January.</p>
<p>The New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/01/us/politics/donald-trump-veterans-affairs-donation.html" type="external">provided an account</a> of the Tuesday spectacle:</p>
<p>He called a news conference ostensibly to answer questions about his fund-raising for charities that benefit military veterans. But&#160; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/donald-trump-on-the-issues.html?inline=nyt-per&amp;version=meter+at+1&amp;module=meter-Links&amp;pgtype=article&amp;contentId=&amp;mediaId=&amp;referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F&amp;priority=true&amp;action=click&amp;contentCollection=meter-links-click" type="external">Donald J. Trump</a> instead spent most of his time on live television Tuesday berating the journalists covering his presidential campaign in unusually vitriolic and personal terms.</p>
<p>“You’re a sleaze,” he told a reporter for ABC.</p>
<p>“You’re a real beauty,” he told a reporter for CNN, snidely denigrating the man’s competence.</p>
<p>For 40 minutes, Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, assailed those reporting on his candidacy with a level of venom rarely seen at all, let alone in public, from the standard-bearer of a major political party. Then he warned that a Trump White House would feature more of the same.</p>
<p>Trump’s use of the media as pawns in the usual scrum of national live cable coverage of all things Trump speaks to how the corporate media press corps is eating at his trough. After all, this particular media event was convened by Trump to counter accusations that he had not donated a million dollars to a veterans’ group until prodded by reporters. Furthermore, millions of other dollars that Trump raised in a television fundraiser were—until press inquiries—unaccounted for.</p>
<p>“The Washington Post and other media outlets had pressed Trump and his campaign for details about how much the fundraiser had actually raised and whether Trump had given his portion.”</p>
<p>The likely precipitating factor for the press event was a&#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/05/24/four-months-later-donald-trump-says-he-gave-1-million-to-veterans-group/?version=meter+at+1&amp;module=meter-Links&amp;pgtype=article&amp;contentId=&amp;mediaId=&amp;referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F&amp;priority=true&amp;action=click&amp;contentCollection=meter-links-click" type="external">May 24 Washington Post article</a>&#160;that raised the issue of the disposition of the donations:</p>
<p>Almost four months after promising $1 million of his own money to veterans’ causes, Donald Trump moved to fulfill that pledge Monday evening—promising the entire sum to a single charity as he came under intense media scrutiny….</p>
<p>As recently as last week, Trump’s campaign manager had insisted that the mogul had already given that money away. But that was false: Trump had not.</p>
<p>In recent days, the Washington Post and other media outlets had pressed Trump and his campaign for details about how much the fundraiser had actually raised and whether Trump had given his portion.</p>
<p>The candidate refused to provide details. On Monday, a Post reporter used Twitter—Trump’s preferred social-media platform—to search publicly for any veterans groups that had received Trump’s money.</p>
<p>By Monday afternoon, The Post had found none. But it seems to have caught the candidate’s attention.</p>
<p>The implication of the Post reporting is that Trump only disbursed much of the money raised for veterans’ groups—and finally coughed up his own million-dollar pledge—after a week of intense press scrutiny. Then, he convened the media and cudgeled them. In the end, Trump got the headlines that he wanted, blaming the media for not praising him for his philanthropic effort on behalf of former military men and women. After all, headlines such as the ones cited above on CNN make Trump sound heroic, not like a con man who got caught failing to fulfill his promise.</p>
<p>Furthermore, Trump’s constituency is largely thought to believe that the media, in general, has a liberal bias. As a result, the details of Trump’s lack of transparency, for several months—in regards to his veterans’ fundraiser—ended up being used by him to manipulate the media into making him sounding caring and patriotic, while portraying the media as nitpicking and disreputable.</p>
<p>Rather than airing a speech by Hillary Clinton, CNN, Fox and MSNBC “each chose to broadcast a live feed of an empty podium in North Dakota, on a stage where Mr. Trump was about to speak.”</p>
<p>Yet the mainstream media appears drawn to being lacerated by Trump like a moth to a flame. The New York Times&#160; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/31/business/media/television-networks-struggle-to-provide-equal-airtime-in-the-era-of-trump.html?_r=0" type="external">recently posted an analysis</a>&#160;that pondered why “television networks struggle to provide equal airtime in the era of Trump”:</p>
<p>Still, the presence of Mr. Trump can be irresistible, especially in an election in which viewership and advertising rates have soared, generating tens of millions of dollars in additional revenue for an industry threatened by digital competition.</p>
<p>Last week, none of the three major cable news networks—CNN, Fox News or MSNBC—carried Mrs. Clinton’s speech to a workers’ union in Las Vegas, where she debuted sharp new attack lines against Mr. Trump.</p>
<p>Instead, each chose to broadcast a live feed of an empty podium in North Dakota, on a stage where Mr. Trump was about to speak.</p>
<p>Another New York Times story <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/01/arts/television/to-understand-trump-and-the-news-media-watch-the-clips-of-harambe-the-gorilla.html" type="external">estimated</a> that Trump has received $2 billion in free media publicity that other candidates would have to have invested in ads:</p>
<p>Mr. Trump is not the first candidate to bash the news media while craving its attention. He’s just made the contradiction, like everything he builds, bigger and gaudier….</p>
<p>Viewers are clearly following along. Prime-time advertising rates spiked at the major cable news networks in the first quarter of the year, rising 45 percent at CNN and 23 percent at MSNBC, compared with the same period the year before, according to Kantar Media, which tracks ad spending.</p>
<p>In the end, the billionaire celebrity candidate knows that the corporate media reporters will knowingly attend a media event that is going to consist of them being lambasted—and facilitate an avalanche of coverage that benefits Trump’s messaging to his voters. This irony was not lost on the New York Times, which observed in its coverage of Trump’s Tuesday press event:</p>
<p>So it is with Mr. Trump and the news media, and their volatile symbiosis. Tuesday morning, he was in raging silverback mode, glowering, posturing and verbally dragging the press around his gilded Manhattan lair.</p>
<p>But viewed from another vantage point, it can look as if he were holding them very close.</p>
<p>Reporters may be asking the questions, but it’s Trump who is framing the story to his advantage.</p>
<p>Mark Karlin is the editor of Buzzflash at Truthout, where this article originally appeared ( <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/media-loves-getting-beat-up-by-trump-as-veterans-news-conference-shows" type="external">6/1/16</a>). Not to be reposted without permission of Truthout.</p> | true | 4 | hes gon na take cnns homepage headline led story hes gon na take cnn blared homepage yesterday large closeup photo donald trump beneath picture cnn placed headline a160link article donald trump hits back hits back hard cnn essence pumping indomitable image donald trump wants media portray campaign flacks consistently account trumps reprehensible coarse portrayals individuals groups asserting counterpuncher excuses racism misogyny bigoted pronouncements childish namecalling mass corporate media examining reporting however reporting exception rather rule exemplified coverage donald trumps tuesday news conference lacerated press questioning sincerity commitment raising money veterans charitiesincluding personal milliondollar contribution pledged january new york times provided account tuesday spectacle called news conference ostensibly answer questions fundraising charities benefit military veterans but160 donald j trump instead spent time live television tuesday berating journalists covering presidential campaign unusually vitriolic personal terms youre sleaze told reporter abc youre real beauty told reporter cnn snidely denigrating mans competence 40 minutes mr trump presumptive republican presidential nominee assailed reporting candidacy level venom rarely seen let alone public standardbearer major political party warned trump white house would feature trumps use media pawns usual scrum national live cable coverage things trump speaks corporate media press corps eating trough particular media event convened trump counter accusations donated million dollars veterans group prodded reporters furthermore millions dollars trump raised television fundraiser wereuntil press inquiriesunaccounted washington post media outlets pressed trump campaign details much fundraiser actually raised whether trump given portion likely precipitating factor press event a160 may 24 washington post article160that raised issue disposition donations almost four months promising 1 million money veterans causes donald trump moved fulfill pledge monday eveningpromising entire sum single charity came intense media scrutiny recently last week trumps campaign manager insisted mogul already given money away false trump recent days washington post media outlets pressed trump campaign details much fundraiser actually raised whether trump given portion candidate refused provide details monday post reporter used twittertrumps preferred socialmedia platformto search publicly veterans groups received trumps money monday afternoon post found none seems caught candidates attention implication post reporting trump disbursed much money raised veterans groupsand finally coughed milliondollar pledgeafter week intense press scrutiny convened media cudgeled end trump got headlines wanted blaming media praising philanthropic effort behalf former military men women headlines ones cited cnn make trump sound heroic like con man got caught failing fulfill promise furthermore trumps constituency largely thought believe media general liberal bias result details trumps lack transparency several monthsin regards veterans fundraiserended used manipulate media making sounding caring patriotic portraying media nitpicking disreputable rather airing speech hillary clinton cnn fox msnbc chose broadcast live feed empty podium north dakota stage mr trump speak yet mainstream media appears drawn lacerated trump like moth flame new york times160 recently posted analysis160that pondered television networks struggle provide equal airtime era trump still presence mr trump irresistible especially election viewership advertising rates soared generating tens millions dollars additional revenue industry threatened digital competition last week none three major cable news networkscnn fox news msnbccarried mrs clintons speech workers union las vegas debuted sharp new attack lines mr trump instead chose broadcast live feed empty podium north dakota stage mr trump speak another new york times story estimated trump received 2 billion free media publicity candidates would invested ads mr trump first candidate bash news media craving attention hes made contradiction like everything builds bigger gaudier viewers clearly following along primetime advertising rates spiked major cable news networks first quarter year rising 45 percent cnn 23 percent msnbc compared period year according kantar media tracks ad spending end billionaire celebrity candidate knows corporate media reporters knowingly attend media event going consist lambastedand facilitate avalanche coverage benefits trumps messaging voters irony lost new york times observed coverage trumps tuesday press event mr trump news media volatile symbiosis tuesday morning raging silverback mode glowering posturing verbally dragging press around gilded manhattan lair viewed another vantage point look holding close reporters may asking questions trump framing story advantage mark karlin editor buzzflash truthout article originally appeared 6116 reposted without permission truthout | 667 |
<p />
<p>It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon in early spring, and fashionably dressed Baku residents are strolling along the city’s Caspian Sea coast. Others are sipping tea in the outdoor cafés that line the pedestrian esplanade downtown, amid 19th-century sandstone buildings whose exquisite facades — European in structure, Asian in style — evoke the storied past of this small, oil-rich land, coveted and conquered for centuries by Russian czars and Persian Shahs.</p>
<p>But when I arrive at the headquarters of the Azerbaijan Democratic Party, one of the country’s leading opposition groups, I find Natiq Jabiyev and other senior party brass at work, oblivious to the fine weekend weather. They shake my hand firmly and give me a tour of their office — a modest space, sparsely furnished, with worn Asian rugs covering parquet floors. Last autumn, during Azerbaijan’s presidential campaign, enthusiastic campaign workers packed these rooms. But they are long gone. Left behind are the pictures on the walls — pictures that suggest obstacles inconceivable for politicians in the West.</p>
<p>In the meeting hall is a floor-to-ceiling painting depicting Rasul Guliyev in front of a billowing flag. Guliyev, a former speaker of the Azerbaijani Parliament, is the party’s chairman and would-be presidential candidate, and it’s in this room that he rallies his supporters — by phone from New York, where he lives. He hasn’t actually been to Baku for nearly a decade. The powerful regime that has ruled Azerbaijan for 10 years accuses him of embezzling millions from state coffers. The party says the charges are false, pointing out that the regime failed in its attempts to convince Western officials to extradite him. Yet if Guliyev did return to Azerbaijan, he’d almost certainly be imprisoned. The country’s courts, like most of Azerbaijan’s institutions, take their orders from the regime.</p>
<p>In another room is a photo gallery of some 70 smartly dressed party supporters. “These are people who’ve been beaten, detained, or tortured,” Jabiyev explains. “We put a gold star on the photos for each incident.” Jabiyev — soft-spoken, thoughtful, and wearing a pinstriped suit — hardly fits the profile of a repeat offender. On his photo I count five stars.</p>
<p>Next, we head for the office of party Secretary General Sardar Jalaloglu, who leads the party while Guliyev is in exile. On the wall is a black-and-white poster of his face with the words “Free Sardar Jalaloglu.” Since a few days after the election last October 15, Jalaloglu has been spending his time with other opposition politicians: in prison.</p>
<p>The party officials are eager to talk to an American journalist, and they do so for the next seven hours. They want their colleagues released. They also want the world to know about the October election, in which Azerbaijan’s strongman, Heydar Aliyev, passed the reins to his son Ilham, in what some have called the former Soviet Union’s first dynastic suc- cession. In the months preceding the election, the international community had touted the vote as a crucial test for Azerbaijan, particularly important as the country — a key ally in the war on terrorism and a major emerging oil producer — becomes more closely involved with the West.</p>
<p>The former Soviet republics surrounding the Caspian Sea sit on oil reserves totaling as much as 200 billion barrels, or $4 trillion worth (Saudi Arabia, by comparison, has roughly 250 billion barrels). Azerbaijan is the bottleneck through which the United States has insisted the region’s oil must flow, skirting shorter, riskier routes crossing Russia or Iran. BP, the largest investor in Azerbaijan, is building a 1,000-mile pipeline from Azerbaijan’s Caspian coast to the Turkish port of Ceyhan; at the time of the October election, hundreds of millions of dollars in public financing for the project — from the World Bank and the U.S. government’s Export-Import Bank and Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) — were awaiting final approval.</p>
<p>The election was an opportunity for the Aliyev regime, whose previous polls had been marred by cheating, to show the world that it could behave like a mature democracy. The balloting was also an early test for the “forward strategy of freedom” that President Bush was then rolling out for the Muslim world. “Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe,” Bush declared last fall, “because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty.”</p>
<p>Yet in the Azerbaijan election, stability ultimately trumped liberty. International monitors condemned the election as a sham, replete with voter intimidation, violence, ballot box stuffing, and brutal repression. U.S. officials had promised that vote cheaters would be punished. But the administration — and particularly Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who before taking his post in the Bush administration served as a consultant for U.S. companies doing business in Azerbaijan — has continued to support its friends in Baku, embracing the regime even as it stole the election and jailed and tortured its critics.</p>
<p>At the Azerbaijan Democratic Party headquarters, my hosts wanted me to watch news footage of the election — especially the events that night outside the downtown headquarters of the Musavat Party, the leading opposition group. Rather than a typical election-night scene, the images resemble medieval warfare.</p>
<p>In most democracies, party supporters gather at their headquarters after an election. “But here this was looked upon as, at best, suspicious and, at worst, as some attempt to start a coup d’etat,” says a European diplomat. The rally morphed into a protest, growing tense as Musavat supporters learned how rampant the election fraud had been. After midnight, the video shows police in riot gear storming the peaceful crowd, breaking through a cordon of European election observers bravely attempting to keep the peace. To a soundtrack of panicked screaming, the police chase unarmed women and men down the street, knocking them down and battering them with truncheons. In one scene, police clobber dozens of downed Musavat sup- porters at the front door of the party headquarters. Their shirts stained crimson, their bodies curled in fetal position, the protesters beg for mercy.</p>
<p>Even before the election, 2003 had been an odd year for Azerbaijan. In April, President Heydar Aliyev, then 80, collapsed while delivering a speech, and by mid-July he had disappeared from public view. This was a monumental development: Aliyev essentially was the government. A former KGB general ruthless enough to have been regularly promoted under Stalin, he rescued Azerbaijan from mayhem in 1993, seizing control of a failed government that was losing the five-year war with the Armenians over the province of Nagorno-Karabakh. Within a year he had negotiated a cease-fire. He installed friends and family members in positions of power and marginalized or imprisoned his rivals. Throughout his 10-year rule, Aliyev’s subjects were constantly reminded of his omnipotence through billboards featuring his image, bearing slogans such as “Heydar is the nation, the nation is Heydar.”</p>
<p>Early on, Aliyev began negotiating with oil companies interested in exploiting the country’s estimated reserves of 7 to 13 billion barrels. In 1994 he signed the $7.4 billion “contract of the century” with 10 companies, including BP, Unocal, and Pennzoil. He showed he meant business by having Parliament ratify the contract as national law, since the post-communist republic lacked an adequate commercial code. Contracts with other oil companies, including ExxonMobil and Chevron, followed. To date, Western oil companies have poured nearly $4 billion into the Maine-size country — an amount equivalent to two-thirds of Azerbaijan’s 2002 gross domestic product. At least $10 billion more is expected in the next few years, and by 2008 the country is scheduled to triple its output to 1 million barrels per day (ranking it just below Libya).</p>
<p>To improve his position in the United States, Aliyev also adopted a West-friendly patina — appearing to tolerate opposition parties, for example, while simul- taneously undermining them. At first, his efforts to curry favor in Washington were hamstrung by the powerful Armenian lobby, but it didn’t take long for Aliyev to learn the Beltway game. Amoco helped him score his first meeting with President Clinton, and oil companies pushed for a resumption of U.S. aid to his government (which Congress had cut off during the war with Armenia). A pantheon of U.S. policymakers-turned-consultants also chipped in on behalf of the regime — men such as Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, as well as then-Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney and Armitage, whose clients at the time included several Western companies looking to profit from the oil rush.</p>
<p>The war on terrorism helped the Aliyevs gain even better standing in Washington. Azerbaijan has granted overflight rights to U.S. warplanes en route to Central Asian bases, and it is one of the few Muslim nations to support the Iraq invasion. In return, the administration has resumed military aid to Azerbaijan.</p>
<p>Even Aliyev’s critics laud his strategic triumphs. His economic record, however, has been more controversial. The non-oil economy shrank dramatically through the late 1990s, and half the population lives on less than $26 per month. Pervasive official extortion preys on the forgotten rural poor, among them nearly a million refugees from the Karabakh war, some of whom have spent the past decade living in railroad cars or holes in the ground. The watchdog group Transparency International calls Azerbaijan one of the world’s most crooked countries; the Aliyev government is implicated in a major bribery scandal. It is this corruption and desperation that fuels support for opposition parties such as Musavat.</p>
<p>Last August, a month after Heydar Aliyev vanished from public view, a letter from him instructed Parliament to elevate his son to prime minister. Ilham, 41 at the time, was known until recent years as a playboy with a weakness for women, gambling, and expensive cars. Yet over the past decade it had become clear that Aliyev père intended to groom Ilham as his successor. The son assumed a series of high-profile positions, including one as a senior executive at the state oil company. To bolster his gravitas, he jetted around, camera crew in tow, to tête-à-têtes with oil-industry-friendly pol-iticians such as Cheney and French president Jacques Chirac. Both Aliyevs remained candidates for president until only a couple of weeks before the October election, when the father dropped out, endorsing his son. Heydar died two months after the election.</p>
<p>Despite the election-night violence, thousands mobilized the next day to protest. The re- gime had reported a preliminary victory for Ilham Aliyev, claiming 80 percent of the vote. Tempers flared, and the demonstra- tion soon turned into a riot, with protesters beating police officers and the security forces retaliating ferociously. News footage shows soldiers pummeling bloodied victims. Fleeing protesters run a gauntlet of swinging truncheons. Security forces grin, pump fists in the air, and, like latter-day gladiators, drum their plastic shields in celebration. The violence left at least one protester dead, according to Human Rights Watch and the U.S. State Department, and more than 300 others seriously wounded.</p>
<p>Robbed of the opportunity to have their voices heard via the ballot box, Azerbaijan’s democracy advocates pinned their hopes on pressure from the international community. From several quarters, it came. One group of 188 observers, fielded by the Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe, expressed “outrage at the election fraud, intimidation, and political repression,” adding that “if the word ‘elections’ is to retain its meaning, the events of October 15 in Azerbaijan must be described by a different term.”</p>
<p>The United States had spent more than $2 million to support fair elections in Azerbaijan. It hung posters throughout the country, bearing the U.S. Embassy seal and depicting ballot cheaters behind prison bars. But the American response to the violence was muted at best. The day after the protest, in a phone call to Ilham Aliyev, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage noted Ilham’s “strong performance at the polls and reiterated [America’s] desire to work closely with him and with Azerbaijan in the future,” according to a statement. The call was widely reported by Azerbaijan’s government-dominated media as a congratulatory handshake from the regime’s patrons in Washington.</p>
<p>The State Department, in response to bad press, later issued a clarification indicating that “the bulk of the conversation consisted of Mr. Armitage reminding Mr. Aliyev of the importance of government restraint.” But if Armitage’s call included any such tough love, the dose wasn’t strong enough. In the days that followed, the government arrested, beat, and tortured dozens of opposition figures, including the Azerbaijan Democratic Party’s Sardar Jalaloglu and Natiq Jabiyev. Close to 1,000 people were jailed, among them not only opposition politicians, but also journalists and even election officials who refused to go along with the vote fraud. Nearly all of the Musavat Party’s top deputies were imprisoned. One Musavat supporter told Human Rights Watch that he had been strapped into an electric chair: “I felt the current going through me — my artificial teeth fell out. My tongue came out and my nose started bleeding.” Testimony gathered by Human Rights Watch suggests that many other opposition figures were tortured.</p>
<p>Yet the Bush administration quickly resumed business as usual. During a December visit to Baku, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld congratulated Ilham Aliyev on winning the presidency. At a press conference, Rumsfeld dodged questions about the election. In November, with U.S. backing, the World Bank approved the loan for the BP pipeline through Azerbaijan. Financing from the U.S. government’s Export-Import Bank and OPIC came through a few months later.</p>
<p>The Bush administration contends that it has worked hard to promote democracy and human rights in Azerbaijan, routinely bringing these issues up with senior officials. But “building a democracy is not like pulling down a Lenin statue,” embassy spokesman Tristram Perry told me; rather, he said, it takes time and energy to overturn the legacy of the Soviet Union. As examples of the progress that the Aliyev regime has made, he pointed out that “there are at least 10 new buildings in the capital since I arrived a year ago” and volunteered that as an observer during the October elections, he was impressed by the lack of cheating at his particular polling station.</p>
<p>“It’s not a question of us being interested in Azerbaijan only because of oil or its strategic interests,” a State Department spokes- woman adds. “We’re very eager to see the country become democratic and West-leaning, and to make sure that it follows international practices of human rights and democracy. That’s not to say that reform is an easy thing. It’s going to take a long time.” She argues that the United States is not soft-pedaling the regime’s abuses, pointing out that they were detailed in the State Department’s most recent human rights report, issued in February.</p>
<p>During a visit to Baku in March, Armitage finally seemed to show concern about the repression by holding a meeting with opposition leaders. Yet in a press conference, he downplayed the postelection crisis. The human rights situation is “not as good as it could be or should be,” he said. But “we have no doubt that it will change and will change for the better.”</p>
<p>Key members of Parliament from Ilham Aliyev’s party, for their part, deny that anyone was tortured or wrongly arrested, or that the elections were falsified. They label opposition officials “fascists” and dismiss the Human Rights Watch report as the work of a small, insignificant organization working on behalf of Azerbaijan’s archenemy, the Armenians.</p>
<p>When I visited Azerbaijan this spring, Sardar Jalaloglu was still in prison, pending an investigation into his involvement in the October 16 protests. (Jalaloglu says that he had no involvement, nor did he attend.) He and scores of others still detained face possible prison terms of up to 12 years.</p>
<p>“I think the U.S. government has played a great role in this turmoil,” Jalaloglu’s wife, Fatma, told me, after describing how government thugs bearing Kalashnikovs beat her husband and dragged him from their home. “They have been the foundation of the Aliyevs’ power in Azerbaijan. Before the elections, we were led to have great expectations from the United States. But they have smothered our democracy, and now we know we can’t rely on them.”</p>
<p>When Armitage made his congratulatory call on October 17, it is likely that Ilham Aliyev would have recognized his voice. For much of the 1990s, Armitage had cultivated close ties with the Aliyev family. Business in Azerbaijan follows a schoolyard logic: A close relationship with the ruling clique brings lavish rewards, which is why multinational companies pay top dollar for well-connected consultants.</p>
<p>Armitage, Colin Powell’s best friend and second in command at Foggy Bottom, is no stranger to the murky world of American overseas adventurism. “Big, bald, brassy, built like an anvil, he looked as if he could step into the ring next Saturday at the World Federation of Wrestling,” Powell wrote of him in his memoirs. It’s an image that Armitage appears to cultivate: During the 2000 presidential campaign, he described his role on Bush’s foreign policy team as “the guy with the mud, the blood, and the beer.” Armitage was a Pentagon adviser to the Shah of Iran in the 1970s, and he held senior foreign policy and defense posts under presidents Reagan and Bush. The elder Bush chose him as secretary of the Army, but he withdrew his nomination, reportedly to avoid answering questions about the Iran-contra affair. Armitage declined to be interviewed for this article.</p>
<p>When Clinton took office, Armitage did what political appointees typically do when their party loses the White House: He set up a consultancy, Armitage Associates, to cash in on his name and Rolodex. As the former head of the U.S. government’s aid effort for the region, he had already won favor with Central Asian heads of state, putting him a step ahead of the swashbuckling American oilmen who smelled money in the former Soviet Union. He seized the opportunity. His clients included Unocal, Texaco, and Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., according to financial disclosure forms submitted when he was appointed deputy secretary. All of these companies invested in Azerbaijan in the 1990s.</p>
<p>From 1995 until he took his post in the Bush administration, Armitage served on the board of — and for a time co-chaired — the U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce, an oil-industry-dominated group that promotes economic ties between the two countries. Ilham Aliyev has been a regular guest at its events.</p>
<p>The chamber’s roster of advisers attests to the Aliyevs’ ability to attract name-brand in-fluence in Washington. It includes former secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and James Baker as well as former Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen and George Bush Sr.’s chief of staff, John Sununu. Among its trustees are former Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle and Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. Cheney also formerly served as an adviser to the chamber.</p>
<p>Heydar Aliyev was known to like flattery, and under Armitage’s stewardship in the 1990s, the chamber put a premium on caressing his ego, granting him awards three times for such accomplishments as “outstanding leadership.” (Another prominent honoree was Cheney, who won the group’s Freedom Support Award for his lobbying in the mid-1990s when Halliburton was negotiating several multimillion-dollar contracts in Azerbaijan.) Armitage also played into the Aliyevs’ hands when he was invited to testify before Congress in 1995 and 1996, warning about potential Kremlin destabilization in Azerbaijan and urging a more robust American diplomatic role there. The advice was heeded both times.</p>
<p>Armitage maintained his friendly relationship with the Aliyevs after he assumed his duties at the State Department. In a speech to the chamber in 2002, he declared, “For a long time, it was the U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce that was the real link between our two nations. I think now we’ve got a pretty solid government-to-government link.”</p>
<p>Indeed, not only did Ilham Aliyev get the U.S. support he needed after the disputed October elections, but the Bush adminis-tration has implemented the policies that Cheney, Armitage, and other Aliyev allies were advocating during the 1990s: restoring foreign assistance, supporting public financing for the pipeline, and tightening military and diplomatic ties with the regime, despite its record on human rights and democracy. Bush hosted Heydar Aliyev in the Oval Office in 2003.</p>
<p>In Baku, the American most vociferously criticized by Azerbaijani opposition politicians and human rights monitors — besides Armitage — is Stanley Escudero, a career diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to the country from 1997 to 2000. These days, Escudero wears many hats in Azerbaijan. As an entrepreneur (he imports Heineken, among other ventures), as a consultant for multinationals (his clients include Texas-based Moncrief Oil and British American Tobacco), and as president of the Baku chapter of the American Chamber of Commerce, he trades in a commodity even more valuable than oil: close ties with the Aliyevs. He’s even hunted wild boar and pheasant with Ilham.</p>
<p>“We welcome foreign businessmen,” Isa Gambar, the Musavat Party’s presidential candidate, told me. But Escudero’s case, he said, raises questions about whether the former ambassador had used his position to develop connections with the regime that he is now using for business.</p>
<p>Over baklava and tea at his Baku villa, Escudero says he’s been careful to abide by government ethics regulations since retiring in 2000. He does, however, admit to being an unabashed supporter of the regime. “Ilham Aliyev is pursuing what is precisely the right course for the country,” he says. “When Heydar Aliyev returned to power in 1993, this country was engaged in a war with Armenia, in which it was losing territory on a daily basis. There were three separate civil insurrections in addition to the war. Inflation was running at 1,642 percent per year. There were no contracts signed with foreign oil companies. In the United States and elsewhere, pundits were writing off Azerbaijan as a failed state which would soon be divided between Russia, Armenia, and Iran. Heydar Aliyev brought this country back to existence.”</p>
<p>He points out that many of the people who ran the country into the ground are the same ones who currently lead the Musavat Party. If they were to rise to power, he argues, the country would risk returning to chaos. While he insists that Aliyev is not a tyrant, he notes that “I really don’t follow this sort of thing,” when I ask about imprisoned opposition members. As for the stolen election, he says, give democracy a generation to ripen: “The fabric of societies like this one are inherently fragile, and if one tries to push change too fast, you run the very strong risk of rending that fabric.”</p>
<p>Escudero knows the region — he was a diplomat for more than three decades, serving in Pakistan, India, Egypt, and Iran before becoming ambassador to Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and finally Azerbaijan — and his views are vintage State Department. They reflect the commitment to stability that often steers American diplomacy — the fear of just how bad things could get, or how radical the opposition could be, that persuades Washington to embrace “our SOB,” which at various times has included rulers such as Saddam Hussein, the Saudi royal family, Iran’s Shahs, and Indonesia’s Suharto.</p>
<p>There is one diplomat who wins unanimous praise from opposition activists in Baku: Norwegian ambassador Steinar Gil. Last October, anticipating violence following the election, the gray-haired Gil and his wife, along with Norwegian Embassy staff, spread out around Baku to monitor the situation. “When one sees a lack of basic rights, it is our opinion that we should speak openly about that,” Gil told me in an interview in his office in Baku’s cobblestoned old city. “What I saw personally was quite excessive police violence,” he continued. “But so far I haven’t heard of any policemen brought to account.”</p>
<p>I asked him about Deputy Secretary Armitage congratulating Ilham Aliyev the day after the violence in Baku. He drew his lips into a narrow smile and paused for a moment. “I wouldn’t like to comment on that,” he said. “We didn’t make any statements congratulating anyone. We made it clear from the beginning that the election was falsified.</p>
<p>“The government’s argument has been that ‘you must give us time.’ But the principle of one man, one vote has to be respected. You don’t need 30 years to learn that.” During the postelection wave of arrests, Gil used his official residence to provide sanctuary to a journalist and a respected local imam; they left when the regime agreed to refrain from mistreating them, though both were eventually arrested.</p>
<p>Mubariz Qurbanly, a prominent member of Parliament from Ilham Aliyev’s party, says the government doesn’t worry too much about Ambassador Gil, as Norway is “only a small country, like Azerbaijan.” However, he says, “if the U.S. ambassador had done the same thing, we would have likely paid more attention, since the United States is big and powerful.”</p>
<p>Ironically, Gil has even closer ties with oil executives than his American counterpart: The Norwegian state oil company is the second-largest investor in Azerbaijan. “When you have great economic interests, of course you are interested in stability,” he says. “You can keep [stability] by force or repression, but if you want a predictable situation, you should work hard to create a truly democratic society. There’s no contradiction between human rights and oil interests. Our oil company stands for the same values as the government of Norway.”</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | sunny sunday afternoon early spring fashionably dressed baku residents strolling along citys caspian sea coast others sipping tea outdoor cafés line pedestrian esplanade downtown amid 19thcentury sandstone buildings whose exquisite facades european structure asian style evoke storied past small oilrich land coveted conquered centuries russian czars persian shahs arrive headquarters azerbaijan democratic party one countrys leading opposition groups find natiq jabiyev senior party brass work oblivious fine weekend weather shake hand firmly give tour office modest space sparsely furnished worn asian rugs covering parquet floors last autumn azerbaijans presidential campaign enthusiastic campaign workers packed rooms long gone left behind pictures walls pictures suggest obstacles inconceivable politicians west meeting hall floortoceiling painting depicting rasul guliyev front billowing flag guliyev former speaker azerbaijani parliament partys chairman wouldbe presidential candidate room rallies supporters phone new york lives hasnt actually baku nearly decade powerful regime ruled azerbaijan 10 years accuses embezzling millions state coffers party says charges false pointing regime failed attempts convince western officials extradite yet guliyev return azerbaijan hed almost certainly imprisoned countrys courts like azerbaijans institutions take orders regime another room photo gallery 70 smartly dressed party supporters people whove beaten detained tortured jabiyev explains put gold star photos incident jabiyev softspoken thoughtful wearing pinstriped suit hardly fits profile repeat offender photo count five stars next head office party secretary general sardar jalaloglu leads party guliyev exile wall blackandwhite poster face words free sardar jalaloglu since days election last october 15 jalaloglu spending time opposition politicians prison party officials eager talk american journalist next seven hours want colleagues released also want world know october election azerbaijans strongman heydar aliyev passed reins son ilham called former soviet unions first dynastic suc cession months preceding election international community touted vote crucial test azerbaijan particularly important country key ally war terrorism major emerging oil producer becomes closely involved west former soviet republics surrounding caspian sea sit oil reserves totaling much 200 billion barrels 4 trillion worth saudi arabia comparison roughly 250 billion barrels azerbaijan bottleneck united states insisted regions oil must flow skirting shorter riskier routes crossing russia iran bp largest investor azerbaijan building 1000mile pipeline azerbaijans caspian coast turkish port ceyhan time october election hundreds millions dollars public financing project world bank us governments exportimport bank overseas private investment corporation opic awaiting final approval election opportunity aliyev regime whose previous polls marred cheating show world could behave like mature democracy balloting also early test forward strategy freedom president bush rolling muslim world sixty years western nations excusing accommodating lack freedom middle east nothing make us safe bush declared last fall long run stability purchased expense liberty yet azerbaijan election stability ultimately trumped liberty international monitors condemned election sham replete voter intimidation violence ballot box stuffing brutal repression us officials promised vote cheaters would punished administration particularly deputy secretary state richard armitage taking post bush administration served consultant us companies business azerbaijan continued support friends baku embracing regime even stole election jailed tortured critics azerbaijan democratic party headquarters hosts wanted watch news footage election especially events night outside downtown headquarters musavat party leading opposition group rather typical electionnight scene images resemble medieval warfare democracies party supporters gather headquarters election looked upon best suspicious worst attempt start coup detat says european diplomat rally morphed protest growing tense musavat supporters learned rampant election fraud midnight video shows police riot gear storming peaceful crowd breaking cordon european election observers bravely attempting keep peace soundtrack panicked screaming police chase unarmed women men street knocking battering truncheons one scene police clobber dozens downed musavat sup porters front door party headquarters shirts stained crimson bodies curled fetal position protesters beg mercy even election 2003 odd year azerbaijan april president heydar aliyev 80 collapsed delivering speech midjuly disappeared public view monumental development aliyev essentially government former kgb general ruthless enough regularly promoted stalin rescued azerbaijan mayhem 1993 seizing control failed government losing fiveyear war armenians province nagornokarabakh within year negotiated ceasefire installed friends family members positions power marginalized imprisoned rivals throughout 10year rule aliyevs subjects constantly reminded omnipotence billboards featuring image bearing slogans heydar nation nation heydar early aliyev began negotiating oil companies interested exploiting countrys estimated reserves 7 13 billion barrels 1994 signed 74 billion contract century 10 companies including bp unocal pennzoil showed meant business parliament ratify contract national law since postcommunist republic lacked adequate commercial code contracts oil companies including exxonmobil chevron followed date western oil companies poured nearly 4 billion mainesize country amount equivalent twothirds azerbaijans 2002 gross domestic product least 10 billion expected next years 2008 country scheduled triple output 1 million barrels per day ranking libya improve position united states aliyev also adopted westfriendly patina appearing tolerate opposition parties example simul taneously undermining first efforts curry favor washington hamstrung powerful armenian lobby didnt take long aliyev learn beltway game amoco helped score first meeting president clinton oil companies pushed resumption us aid government congress cut war armenia pantheon us policymakersturnedconsultants also chipped behalf regime men brent scowcroft james baker zbigniew brzezinski well thenhalliburton ceo dick cheney armitage whose clients time included several western companies looking profit oil rush war terrorism helped aliyevs gain even better standing washington azerbaijan granted overflight rights us warplanes en route central asian bases one muslim nations support iraq invasion return administration resumed military aid azerbaijan even aliyevs critics laud strategic triumphs economic record however controversial nonoil economy shrank dramatically late 1990s half population lives less 26 per month pervasive official extortion preys forgotten rural poor among nearly million refugees karabakh war spent past decade living railroad cars holes ground watchdog group transparency international calls azerbaijan one worlds crooked countries aliyev government implicated major bribery scandal corruption desperation fuels support opposition parties musavat last august month heydar aliyev vanished public view letter instructed parliament elevate son prime minister ilham 41 time known recent years playboy weakness women gambling expensive cars yet past decade become clear aliyev père intended groom ilham successor son assumed series highprofile positions including one senior executive state oil company bolster gravitas jetted around camera crew tow têteàtêtes oilindustryfriendly politicians cheney french president jacques chirac aliyevs remained candidates president couple weeks october election father dropped endorsing son heydar died two months election despite electionnight violence thousands mobilized next day protest gime reported preliminary victory ilham aliyev claiming 80 percent vote tempers flared demonstra tion soon turned riot protesters beating police officers security forces retaliating ferociously news footage shows soldiers pummeling bloodied victims fleeing protesters run gauntlet swinging truncheons security forces grin pump fists air like latterday gladiators drum plastic shields celebration violence left least one protester dead according human rights watch us state department 300 others seriously wounded robbed opportunity voices heard via ballot box azerbaijans democracy advocates pinned hopes pressure international community several quarters came one group 188 observers fielded institute democracy eastern europe expressed outrage election fraud intimidation political repression adding word elections retain meaning events october 15 azerbaijan must described different term united states spent 2 million support fair elections azerbaijan hung posters throughout country bearing us embassy seal depicting ballot cheaters behind prison bars american response violence muted best day protest phone call ilham aliyev us deputy secretary state richard armitage noted ilhams strong performance polls reiterated americas desire work closely azerbaijan future according statement call widely reported azerbaijans governmentdominated media congratulatory handshake regimes patrons washington state department response bad press later issued clarification indicating bulk conversation consisted mr armitage reminding mr aliyev importance government restraint armitages call included tough love dose wasnt strong enough days followed government arrested beat tortured dozens opposition figures including azerbaijan democratic partys sardar jalaloglu natiq jabiyev close 1000 people jailed among opposition politicians also journalists even election officials refused go along vote fraud nearly musavat partys top deputies imprisoned one musavat supporter told human rights watch strapped electric chair felt current going artificial teeth fell tongue came nose started bleeding testimony gathered human rights watch suggests many opposition figures tortured yet bush administration quickly resumed business usual december visit baku secretary defense donald rumsfeld congratulated ilham aliyev winning presidency press conference rumsfeld dodged questions election november us backing world bank approved loan bp pipeline azerbaijan financing us governments exportimport bank opic came months later bush administration contends worked hard promote democracy human rights azerbaijan routinely bringing issues senior officials building democracy like pulling lenin statue embassy spokesman tristram perry told rather said takes time energy overturn legacy soviet union examples progress aliyev regime made pointed least 10 new buildings capital since arrived year ago volunteered observer october elections impressed lack cheating particular polling station question us interested azerbaijan oil strategic interests state department spokes woman adds eager see country become democratic westleaning make sure follows international practices human rights democracy thats say reform easy thing going take long time argues united states softpedaling regimes abuses pointing detailed state departments recent human rights report issued february visit baku march armitage finally seemed show concern repression holding meeting opposition leaders yet press conference downplayed postelection crisis human rights situation good could said doubt change change better key members parliament ilham aliyevs party part deny anyone tortured wrongly arrested elections falsified label opposition officials fascists dismiss human rights watch report work small insignificant organization working behalf azerbaijans archenemy armenians visited azerbaijan spring sardar jalaloglu still prison pending investigation involvement october 16 protests jalaloglu says involvement attend scores others still detained face possible prison terms 12 years think us government played great role turmoil jalaloglus wife fatma told describing government thugs bearing kalashnikovs beat husband dragged home foundation aliyevs power azerbaijan elections led great expectations united states smothered democracy know cant rely armitage made congratulatory call october 17 likely ilham aliyev would recognized voice much 1990s armitage cultivated close ties aliyev family business azerbaijan follows schoolyard logic close relationship ruling clique brings lavish rewards multinational companies pay top dollar wellconnected consultants armitage colin powells best friend second command foggy bottom stranger murky world american overseas adventurism big bald brassy built like anvil looked could step ring next saturday world federation wrestling powell wrote memoirs image armitage appears cultivate 2000 presidential campaign described role bushs foreign policy team guy mud blood beer armitage pentagon adviser shah iran 1970s held senior foreign policy defense posts presidents reagan bush elder bush chose secretary army withdrew nomination reportedly avoid answering questions irancontra affair armitage declined interviewed article clinton took office armitage political appointees typically party loses white house set consultancy armitage associates cash name rolodex former head us governments aid effort region already favor central asian heads state putting step ahead swashbuckling american oilmen smelled money former soviet union seized opportunity clients included unocal texaco japan petroleum exploration co according financial disclosure forms submitted appointed deputy secretary companies invested azerbaijan 1990s 1995 took post bush administration armitage served board time cochaired usazerbaijan chamber commerce oilindustrydominated group promotes economic ties two countries ilham aliyev regular guest events chambers roster advisers attests aliyevs ability attract namebrand influence washington includes former secretaries state henry kissinger james baker well former treasury secretary lloyd bentsen george bush srs chief staff john sununu among trustees former assistant secretary defense richard perle senator sam brownback rkan member foreign relations committee cheney also formerly served adviser chamber heydar aliyev known like flattery armitages stewardship 1990s chamber put premium caressing ego granting awards three times accomplishments outstanding leadership another prominent honoree cheney groups freedom support award lobbying mid1990s halliburton negotiating several multimilliondollar contracts azerbaijan armitage also played aliyevs hands invited testify congress 1995 1996 warning potential kremlin destabilization azerbaijan urging robust american diplomatic role advice heeded times armitage maintained friendly relationship aliyevs assumed duties state department speech chamber 2002 declared long time usazerbaijan chamber commerce real link two nations think weve got pretty solid governmenttogovernment link indeed ilham aliyev get us support needed disputed october elections bush administration implemented policies cheney armitage aliyev allies advocating 1990s restoring foreign assistance supporting public financing pipeline tightening military diplomatic ties regime despite record human rights democracy bush hosted heydar aliyev oval office 2003 baku american vociferously criticized azerbaijani opposition politicians human rights monitors besides armitage stanley escudero career diplomat served us ambassador country 1997 2000 days escudero wears many hats azerbaijan entrepreneur imports heineken among ventures consultant multinationals clients include texasbased moncrief oil british american tobacco president baku chapter american chamber commerce trades commodity even valuable oil close ties aliyevs hes even hunted wild boar pheasant ilham welcome foreign businessmen isa gambar musavat partys presidential candidate told escuderos case said raises questions whether former ambassador used position develop connections regime using business baklava tea baku villa escudero says hes careful abide government ethics regulations since retiring 2000 however admit unabashed supporter regime ilham aliyev pursuing precisely right course country says heydar aliyev returned power 1993 country engaged war armenia losing territory daily basis three separate civil insurrections addition war inflation running 1642 percent per year contracts signed foreign oil companies united states elsewhere pundits writing azerbaijan failed state would soon divided russia armenia iran heydar aliyev brought country back existence points many people ran country ground ones currently lead musavat party rise power argues country would risk returning chaos insists aliyev tyrant notes really dont follow sort thing ask imprisoned opposition members stolen election says give democracy generation ripen fabric societies like one inherently fragile one tries push change fast run strong risk rending fabric escudero knows region diplomat three decades serving pakistan india egypt iran becoming ambassador tajikistan uzbekistan finally azerbaijan views vintage state department reflect commitment stability often steers american diplomacy fear bad things could get radical opposition could persuades washington embrace sob various times included rulers saddam hussein saudi royal family irans shahs indonesias suharto one diplomat wins unanimous praise opposition activists baku norwegian ambassador steinar gil last october anticipating violence following election grayhaired gil wife along norwegian embassy staff spread around baku monitor situation one sees lack basic rights opinion speak openly gil told interview office bakus cobblestoned old city saw personally quite excessive police violence continued far havent heard policemen brought account asked deputy secretary armitage congratulating ilham aliyev day violence baku drew lips narrow smile paused moment wouldnt like comment said didnt make statements congratulating anyone made clear beginning election falsified governments argument must give us time principle one man one vote respected dont need 30 years learn postelection wave arrests gil used official residence provide sanctuary journalist respected local imam left regime agreed refrain mistreating though eventually arrested mubariz qurbanly prominent member parliament ilham aliyevs party says government doesnt worry much ambassador gil norway small country like azerbaijan however says us ambassador done thing would likely paid attention since united states big powerful ironically gil even closer ties oil executives american counterpart norwegian state oil company secondlargest investor azerbaijan great economic interests course interested stability says keep stability force repression want predictable situation work hard create truly democratic society theres contradiction human rights oil interests oil company stands values government norway | 2,470 |
<p>Photo by thierry ehrmann | <a href="" type="internal">CC BY 2.0</a></p>
<p>The radiation effects of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant triple meltdowns are felt worldwide, whether lodged in sea life or in humans, it cumulates over time. The impact is now slowly grinding away only to show its true colors at some unpredictable date in the future. That’s how radiation works, slow but assuredly destructive, which serves to identify its risks, meaning, one nuke meltdown has the impact, over decades, of 1,000 regular industrial accidents, maybe more.</p>
<p>It’s been six years since the triple 100% nuke meltdowns occurred at Fukushima Daiichi d/d March 11th, 2011, nowadays referred to as “311”. Over time, it’s easy for the world at large to lose track of the serious implications of the world’s largest-ever industrial disaster; out of sight out of mind works that way.</p>
<p>According to Japanese government and TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) estimates, decommissioning is a decade-by-decade work-in-progress, most likely four decades at a cost of up to ¥21 trillion ($189B). However, that’s the simple part to understanding the Fukushima nuclear disaster story. The difficult painful part is largely hidden from pubic view via a highly restrictive harsh national secrecy law (Act on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets, Act No. 108/2013), political pressure galore, and fear of exposing the truth about the inherent dangers of nuclear reactor meltdowns. Powerful vested interests want it concealed.</p>
<p>Following passage of the 2013 government secrecy act, which says that civil servants or others who “leak secrets” will face up to 10 years in prison, and those who “instigate leaks,” especially journalists, will be subject to a prison term of up to 5 years, Japan fell below Serbia and Botswana in the Reporters Without Borders 2014 World Press Freedom Index. The secrecy act, sharply criticized by the Japanese Federation of Bar Associations, is a shameless act of buttoned-up totalitarianism at the very moment when citizens need and in fact require transparency.</p>
<p>The current status, according to Mr. Okamura, a TEPCO manager, as of November 2017: “We’re struggling with four problems: (1) reducing the radiation at the site (2) stopping the influx of groundwater (3) retrieving the spent fuel rods and (4) removing the molten nuclear fuel.” (Source: Martin Fritz, The Illusion of Normality at Fukushima, Deutsche Welle–Asia, Nov. 3, 2017)</p>
<p>In short, nothing much has changed in nearly seven years at the plant facilities, even though tens of thousands of workers have combed the Fukushima countryside, washing down structures, removing topsoil and storing it in large black plastic bags, which end-to-end would extend from Tokyo to Denver and back.</p>
<p>As it happens, sorrowfully, complete nuclear meltdowns are nearly impossible to fix because, in part, nobody knows what to do next. That’s why Chernobyl sealed off the greater area surrounding its meltdown of 1986. Along those same lines, according to Fukushima Daiichi plant manager Shunji Uchida: ”Robots and cameras have already provided us with valuable pictures. But it is still unclear what is really going on inside,” Ibid.</p>
<p>Seven years and they do not know what’s going on inside. Is it the China Syndrome dilemma of molten hot radioactive corium burrowing into Earth? Is it contaminating aquifers? Nobody knows, nobody can possibly know, which is one of the major risks of nuclear meltdowns, nobody knows what to do. There is no playbook for 100% meltdowns. Fukushima Daiichi proves the point.</p>
<p>“When a major radiological disaster happens and impacts vast tracts of land, it cannot be ‘cleaned up’ or ‘fixed’.” (Source: Hanis Maketab, Environmental Impacts of Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Will Last ‘decades to centuries’ – Greenpeace, Asia Correspondent, March 4, 2016)</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the world nuclear industry has ambitious growth plans, 50-60 reactors currently under construction, mostly in Asia, with up to 400 more on drawing boards. Nuke advocates claim Fukushima is well along in the cleanup phase so not to worry as the Olympics are coming in a couple of years, including events held smack dab in the heart of Fukushima, where the agricultural economy will provide fresh foodstuff.</p>
<p>The Olympics are PM Abe’s major PR punch to prove to the world that all-is-well at the world’s most dangerous, and out of control, industrial accident site. And, yes it is still out of control. Nevertheless, the Abe government is not concerned. Be that as it may, the risks are multi-fold and likely not well understood. For example, what if another earthquake causes further damage to already-damaged nuclear facilities that are precariously held together with hopes and prayers, subject to massive radiation explosions? Then what? After all, Japan is earthquake country, which defines the boundaries of the country. Japan typically has 400-500 earthquakes in 365 days, or nearly 1.5 quakes per day.</p>
<p>According to Dr. Shuzo Takemoto, professor, Department of Geophysics, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University: “The problem of Unit 2… If it should encounter a big earth tremor, it will be destroyed and scatter the remaining nuclear fuel and its debris, making the Tokyo metropolitan area uninhabitable. The Tokyo Olympics in 2020 will then be utterly out of the question,” (Shuzo Takemoto, Potential Global Catastrophe of the Reactor No. 2 at Fukushima Daiichi, February 11, 2017).</p>
<p>Since the Olympics will be held not far from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident site, it’s worthwhile knowing what to expect, i.e., repercussions hidden from public view. After all, it’s highly improbable that the Japan Olympic Committee will address the radiation-risk factors for upcoming athletes and spectators. Which prompts a question: What criteria did the International Olympic Committee (IOC) follow in selecting Japan for the 2020 Summer Olympics in the face of three 100% nuclear meltdowns totally out of control? On its face, it seems reckless.</p>
<p>This article, in part, is based upon an academic study that brings to light serious concerns about overall transparency, TEPCO workforce health &amp; sudden deaths, as well as upcoming Olympians, bringing to mind the proposition: Is the decision to hold the Olympics in Japan in 2020 a foolish act of insanity and a crude attempt to help cover up the ravages of radiation?</p>
<p>Thus therefore, a preview of what’s happening behind, as well as within, the scenes researched by Adam Broinowski, PhD (author of 25 major academic publications and Post Doctoral Research Fellow, Australian National University): “ <a href="" type="internal">Informal Labour, Local Citizens and the Tokyo Electric Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Crisis: Responses to Neoliberal Disaster Management</a>,” Australian National University, 2017.</p>
<p>The title of Dr. Broinowski’s study provides a hint of the inherent conflict, as well as opportunism, that arises with neoliberal capitalism applied to “disaster management” principles. (Naomi Klein explored a similar concept in The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Knopf Canada, 2007).</p>
<p>Dr. Broinowski’s research is detailed, thorough, and complex. His study begins by delving into the impact of neoliberal capitalism, bringing to the fore an equivalence of slave labor to the Japanese economy, especially in regards to what he references as “informal labour.” He preeminently describes the onslaught of supply side/neoliberal tendencies throughout the economy of Japan. The Fukushima nuke meltdowns simply bring to surface all of the warts and blemishes endemic to the neoliberal brand of capitalism.</p>
<p>According to Professor Broinowski: “The ongoing disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station (FDNPS), operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), since 11 March 2011 can be recognised as part of a global phenomenon that has been in development over some time. This disaster occurred within a social and political shift that began in the mid-1970s (ed. supply-side economics, which is strongly reflected in America’s current tax bill under consideration) and that became more acute in the early 1990s in Japan with the downturn of economic growth and greater deregulation and financialisation in the global economy. After 40 years of corporate fealty in return for lifetime contracts guaranteed by corporate unions, as tariff protections were lifted further and the workforce was increasingly casualised, those most acutely affected by a weakening welfare regime were irregular day labourers, or what we might call ‘informal labour.”</p>
<p>In short, the 45,000-60,000 workers recruited to deconstruct decontaminate Fukushima Daiichi and the surrounding prefecture mostly came off the streets, castoffs of neoliberalism’s impact on “… independent unions, rendered powerless, growing numbers of unemployed, unskilled and precarious youths (freeters) alongside older, vulnerable and homeless day labourers (these groups together comprising roughly 38 per cent of the workforce in 2015)&#160;found themselves not only (a) lacking insurance or (b) industrial protection but also in many cases (c) basic living needs. With increasing deindustrialisation and capital flight, regular public outbursts of frustration and anger from these groups have manifested since the Osaka riots of 1992.” (Broinowski)</p>
<p>The Osaka Riots of 25 years ago depict the breakdown of modern society’s working class, a problem that has spilled over into national political elections worldwide as populism/nationalism dictate winners/losers. In Osaka 1,500 rampaging laborers besieged a police station (somewhat similar to John Carpenter’s 1976 iconic film Assault on Precinct 13) over outrage of interconnecting links between police and Japan’s powerful “Yakuza” or gangsters that bribe police to turn a blind eye to gangster syndicates that get paid to recruit, often forcibly, workers for low-paying manual jobs for industry.</p>
<p>That’s how TEPCO gets workers to work in radiation-sensitive high risks jobs. Along the way, subcontractors rake off most of the money allocated for workers, resulting in a subhuman lifestyle for the riskiest most life-threatening jobs in Japan, maybe the riskiest most life-threatening in the world.</p>
<p>Japan has a long history of assembling and recruiting unskilled labor pools at cheap rates, which is typical of nearly all large-scale modern industrial projects. Labor is simply one more commodity to be used and discarded. Tokyo Electric Power Company (“TEPCO”) of Fukushima Daiichi fame adheres to those long-standing feudalistic employment practices. They hire workers via layers of subcontractors in order to avoid liabilities, i.e. accidents, health insurance, safety standards, by penetrating into the bottom social layers that have no voice in society.</p>
<p>As such, TEPCO is not legally obligated to report industrial accidents when workers are hired through complex webs or networks of subcontractors; there are approximately 733 subcontractors for TEPCO. Here’s the process: TEPCO employs a subcontractor “shita-uke,” which in turn employs another subcontractor “mago-uke” that relies upon labor brokers “tehaishilninpu-dashi.” At the end of the day, who’s responsible for the health and safety of workers? Who’s responsible for reporting cases of radiation sickness and/or death caused by radiation exposure?</p>
<p>Based upon anecdotal evidence from reliable sources in Japan, there is good reason to believe TEPCO, as well as the Japanese government, suppress public knowledge of worker radiation sickness and death, as well as the civilian population of Fukushima. Thereby, essentially hoodwinking worldwide public opinion, for example, pro-nuke enthusiasts/advocates point to the safety of nuclear power generation because of so few reported deaths in Japan. But, then again, who’s responsible for reporting worker deaths? Answer: Other than an occasional token death report by official sources, nobody!</p>
<p>Furthermore, TEPCO does not report worker deaths that occur outside of the workplace even though the death is a direct result of excessive radiation exposure at the workplace. For example, if a worker with radiation sickness becomes too ill to go to work, they’ll obviously die at home and therefore not be reported as a work-related death. As a result, pro-nuke advocates claim Fukushima proves how safe nuclear power is, even when it goes haywire, because there are so few, if any, deaths, as to be inconsequential. That’s a boldfaced lie that is discussed in the sequel: Fukushima Darkness – Part 2.</p>
<p>“As one labourer stated re Fukushima Daiichi:&#160;‘TEPCO is God. The main contractors are kings, and we are slaves’.&#160;In short, Fukushima Daiichi clearly illustrates the social reproduction, exploitation and disposability of informal labour, in the state protection of capital, corporations and their assets.” (Broinowski)</p>
<p>Indeed, Japan is a totalitarian corporate state where corporate interests are protected from liability by layers of subcontractors and by vested interests of powerful political bodies and extremely harsh state secrecy laws. As such, it is believed that nuclear safety and health issues, including deaths, are underreported and likely not reported at all in most cases. Therefore, the worldview of nuclear power, as represented in Japan at Fukushima Daiichi, is horribly distorted in favor of nuclear power advocacy.</p>
<p>Fukushima’s Darkness – Part 2 sequel, to be published at a future date, discusses consequences.</p> | true | 4 | photo thierry ehrmann cc 20 radiation effects fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant triple meltdowns felt worldwide whether lodged sea life humans cumulates time impact slowly grinding away show true colors unpredictable date future thats radiation works slow assuredly destructive serves identify risks meaning one nuke meltdown impact decades 1000 regular industrial accidents maybe six years since triple 100 nuke meltdowns occurred fukushima daiichi dd march 11th 2011 nowadays referred 311 time easy world large lose track serious implications worlds largestever industrial disaster sight mind works way according japanese government tepco tokyo electric power company estimates decommissioning decadebydecade workinprogress likely four decades cost 21 trillion 189b however thats simple part understanding fukushima nuclear disaster story difficult painful part largely hidden pubic view via highly restrictive harsh national secrecy law act protection specially designated secrets act 1082013 political pressure galore fear exposing truth inherent dangers nuclear reactor meltdowns powerful vested interests want concealed following passage 2013 government secrecy act says civil servants others leak secrets face 10 years prison instigate leaks especially journalists subject prison term 5 years japan fell serbia botswana reporters without borders 2014 world press freedom index secrecy act sharply criticized japanese federation bar associations shameless act buttonedup totalitarianism moment citizens need fact require transparency current status according mr okamura tepco manager november 2017 struggling four problems 1 reducing radiation site 2 stopping influx groundwater 3 retrieving spent fuel rods 4 removing molten nuclear fuel source martin fritz illusion normality fukushima deutsche welleasia nov 3 2017 short nothing much changed nearly seven years plant facilities even though tens thousands workers combed fukushima countryside washing structures removing topsoil storing large black plastic bags endtoend would extend tokyo denver back happens sorrowfully complete nuclear meltdowns nearly impossible fix part nobody knows next thats chernobyl sealed greater area surrounding meltdown 1986 along lines according fukushima daiichi plant manager shunji uchida robots cameras already provided us valuable pictures still unclear really going inside ibid seven years know whats going inside china syndrome dilemma molten hot radioactive corium burrowing earth contaminating aquifers nobody knows nobody possibly know one major risks nuclear meltdowns nobody knows playbook 100 meltdowns fukushima daiichi proves point major radiological disaster happens impacts vast tracts land cleaned fixed source hanis maketab environmental impacts fukushima nuclear disaster last decades centuries greenpeace asia correspondent march 4 2016 meanwhile world nuclear industry ambitious growth plans 5060 reactors currently construction mostly asia 400 drawing boards nuke advocates claim fukushima well along cleanup phase worry olympics coming couple years including events held smack dab heart fukushima agricultural economy provide fresh foodstuff olympics pm abes major pr punch prove world alliswell worlds dangerous control industrial accident site yes still control nevertheless abe government concerned may risks multifold likely well understood example another earthquake causes damage alreadydamaged nuclear facilities precariously held together hopes prayers subject massive radiation explosions japan earthquake country defines boundaries country japan typically 400500 earthquakes 365 days nearly 15 quakes per day according dr shuzo takemoto professor department geophysics graduate school science kyoto university problem unit 2 encounter big earth tremor destroyed scatter remaining nuclear fuel debris making tokyo metropolitan area uninhabitable tokyo olympics 2020 utterly question shuzo takemoto potential global catastrophe reactor 2 fukushima daiichi february 11 2017 since olympics held far fukushima daiichi nuclear accident site worthwhile knowing expect ie repercussions hidden public view highly improbable japan olympic committee address radiationrisk factors upcoming athletes spectators prompts question criteria international olympic committee ioc follow selecting japan 2020 summer olympics face three 100 nuclear meltdowns totally control face seems reckless article part based upon academic study brings light serious concerns overall transparency tepco workforce health amp sudden deaths well upcoming olympians bringing mind proposition decision hold olympics japan 2020 foolish act insanity crude attempt help cover ravages radiation thus therefore preview whats happening behind well within scenes researched adam broinowski phd author 25 major academic publications post doctoral research fellow australian national university informal labour local citizens tokyo electric fukushima daiichi nuclear crisis responses neoliberal disaster management australian national university 2017 title dr broinowskis study provides hint inherent conflict well opportunism arises neoliberal capitalism applied disaster management principles naomi klein explored similar concept shock doctrine rise disaster capitalism knopf canada 2007 dr broinowskis research detailed thorough complex study begins delving impact neoliberal capitalism bringing fore equivalence slave labor japanese economy especially regards references informal labour preeminently describes onslaught supply sideneoliberal tendencies throughout economy japan fukushima nuke meltdowns simply bring surface warts blemishes endemic neoliberal brand capitalism according professor broinowski ongoing disaster fukushima daiichi nuclear power station fdnps operated tokyo electric power company tepco since 11 march 2011 recognised part global phenomenon development time disaster occurred within social political shift began mid1970s ed supplyside economics strongly reflected americas current tax bill consideration became acute early 1990s japan downturn economic growth greater deregulation financialisation global economy 40 years corporate fealty return lifetime contracts guaranteed corporate unions tariff protections lifted workforce increasingly casualised acutely affected weakening welfare regime irregular day labourers might call informal labour short 4500060000 workers recruited deconstruct decontaminate fukushima daiichi surrounding prefecture mostly came streets castoffs neoliberalisms impact independent unions rendered powerless growing numbers unemployed unskilled precarious youths freeters alongside older vulnerable homeless day labourers groups together comprising roughly 38 per cent workforce 2015160found lacking insurance b industrial protection also many cases c basic living needs increasing deindustrialisation capital flight regular public outbursts frustration anger groups manifested since osaka riots 1992 broinowski osaka riots 25 years ago depict breakdown modern societys working class problem spilled national political elections worldwide populismnationalism dictate winnerslosers osaka 1500 rampaging laborers besieged police station somewhat similar john carpenters 1976 iconic film assault precinct 13 outrage interconnecting links police japans powerful yakuza gangsters bribe police turn blind eye gangster syndicates get paid recruit often forcibly workers lowpaying manual jobs industry thats tepco gets workers work radiationsensitive high risks jobs along way subcontractors rake money allocated workers resulting subhuman lifestyle riskiest lifethreatening jobs japan maybe riskiest lifethreatening world japan long history assembling recruiting unskilled labor pools cheap rates typical nearly largescale modern industrial projects labor simply one commodity used discarded tokyo electric power company tepco fukushima daiichi fame adheres longstanding feudalistic employment practices hire workers via layers subcontractors order avoid liabilities ie accidents health insurance safety standards penetrating bottom social layers voice society tepco legally obligated report industrial accidents workers hired complex webs networks subcontractors approximately 733 subcontractors tepco heres process tepco employs subcontractor shitauke turn employs another subcontractor magouke relies upon labor brokers tehaishilninpudashi end day whos responsible health safety workers whos responsible reporting cases radiation sickness andor death caused radiation exposure based upon anecdotal evidence reliable sources japan good reason believe tepco well japanese government suppress public knowledge worker radiation sickness death well civilian population fukushima thereby essentially hoodwinking worldwide public opinion example pronuke enthusiastsadvocates point safety nuclear power generation reported deaths japan whos responsible reporting worker deaths answer occasional token death report official sources nobody furthermore tepco report worker deaths occur outside workplace even though death direct result excessive radiation exposure workplace example worker radiation sickness becomes ill go work theyll obviously die home therefore reported workrelated death result pronuke advocates claim fukushima proves safe nuclear power even goes haywire deaths inconsequential thats boldfaced lie discussed sequel fukushima darkness part 2 one labourer stated fukushima daiichi160tepco god main contractors kings slaves160in short fukushima daiichi clearly illustrates social reproduction exploitation disposability informal labour state protection capital corporations assets broinowski indeed japan totalitarian corporate state corporate interests protected liability layers subcontractors vested interests powerful political bodies extremely harsh state secrecy laws believed nuclear safety health issues including deaths underreported likely reported cases therefore worldview nuclear power represented japan fukushima daiichi horribly distorted favor nuclear power advocacy fukushimas darkness part 2 sequel published future date discusses consequences | 1,285 |
<p>Photo Credit: Pete Souza/White House</p>
<p>The record-breaking drought in California — brought about by a severe lack of precipitation, especially mountain snows — has exacted a $2.7 billion toll on the state’s economy because of agricultural losses, researchers said Tuesday.</p>
<p>During a briefing for the California Department of Food &amp; Agriculture, scientists from the University of California, Davis, told officials that based on their <a href="https://watershed.ucdavis.edu/files/biblio/2015Drought_PrelimAnalysis.pdf" type="external">preliminary research</a> and modeling, the drought is resulting in a harder economic pinch this year than it was in 2014.</p>
<p>The drought, they found, will lead this year to 32 percent more acres of land laid fallow, an increase in groundwater pumping to make up for the lack of water in rivers and reservoirs, and total job losses of 18,600.</p>
<p>The losses from this drought aren’t spread out evenly across the state, the researchers added, with areas like the <a href="//ca.water.usgs.gov/projects/central-valley/tulare-basin.html" type="external">Tulare Lake Basin</a> in the southern San Joaquin Valley bearing much of the brunt.</p>
<p>Californians are hoping that an El Nino event that seems to be gaining strength will finally change weather patterns and bring a wet winter that could &#160;spell an end to the drought, though a full recovery will likely take many years. Scientists also are studying whether climate change could mean more such deep droughts in the future and whether it made the current one worse.</p>
<p>The drought in California has been building for more than four years, as winter precipitation deficits slowed streams to a trickle and sent reservoir levels dipping, while unusually warm temperatures increased water demand. Now, more than two-thirds of the state is in the worst two categories of drought established by the <a href="//droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Home/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?CA" type="external">U.S. Drought Monitor</a>.</p>
<p>The drought particularly metastasized over the past two years, which saw dismal winter precipitation. At the end of this winter, the state recorded its <a href="//www.climatecentral.org/news/california-snowpack-obliterates-record-low-18847" type="external">all-time lowest snowpack</a>, which measured only 6 percent of normal on April 1. That number recently dropped to 0 percent of normal, meaning there is virtually no snow left to help replenish reservoirs during the summer months.</p>
<p>The terrible snowpack and low reservoir levels prompted Gov. Jerry Brown in April to call for the first statewide mandatory water restrictions for cities and towns. Farmers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta recently <a href="//www.nytimes.com/2015/05/23/us/some-california-farmers-to-cut-water-use-to-ease-drought.html" type="external">volunteered to cut their water entitlement</a> by 25 percent this year, with the understanding that the state government won’t ask for further reductions beyond that amount.</p>
<p>Farmers will have about 33 percent less surface water available to them this year than they would in a normal year, and is more than the shortage faced last year, the UC Davis team said. About 70 percent of that will be made up for with groundwater pumping, which will mean extra costs to farmers, to the tune of about $600 million statewide.</p>
<p>So much <a href="//www.climatecentral.org/news/groundwater-california-drought-report-17771" type="external">groundwater pumping</a> raises issues, though, as it pushed the water table lower and lower, causing shallower wells to dry up and deeper and deeper wells to be drilled. There is also the problem of not knowing just how much groundwater the state has and exactly how much is being pumped, which the state just last year instituted measures to better monitor.</p>
<p>Another way farmers are dealing with the water shortage is by leaving land unused. The amount of cropland not planted this year is expected to increase 33 percent over last year, the UC Davis researchers said, to cover about 564,000 acres.</p>
<p>The dairy industry will be particularly hit this year as the higher milk prices that buffered losses last year have dropped.</p>
<p><a href="//assets.climatecentral.org/images/made/6_2_15_Andrea_CAdroughtcosts_1050_799_s_c1_c_c.jpg" type="external" /></p>
<p />
<p>Estimates of economic losses related to agriculture in California for 2015.</p>
<p>Click image to enlarge.&#160;Credit: Howitt RE, Medellín-Azuara J, MacEwan D, Lund JR and Sumner DA. 2015. “ <a href="https://watershed.ucdavis.edu/files/biblio/2015Drought_PrelimAnalysis.pdf" type="external">Preliminary Analysis: 2015 Drought Economic Impact Study</a>,” UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences.</p>
<p>The combined costs from crop, livestock and dairy revenue losses and groundwater pumping amount to $1.8 billion. When indirect costs to the economy are included the costs statewide amount to $2.7 billion. Updated numbers will be released in July.</p>
<p>While the overall job losses from the drought come primarily in contract farm labor, the overall employment picture for the state is better, with an overall employment increase of 2 percent last year, according to the <a href="//www.edd.ca.gov/" type="external">Employment Development Department</a>.</p>
<p>The drought has prompted louder and louder calls for California to rethink how it handles and allocates its water supply, particularly in a climate that is warming and changing and could bring more such droughts in the future.</p>
<p>The relationship between climate change and any drought is a complex one, as many factors feed into creating and perpetuating drought conditions. The clearest impact of warming on drought is when higher temperatures cause more evaporation and increase water demand, as has happened with this drought. California, in fact, recorded its warmest year on record in 2014, followed by its warmest winter ever this year.</p>
<p>One way the state could get a better handle on its water situation would be to better use the technology available to it to understand things like how much groundwater it has and more detailed information on crops, said <a href="https://watershed.ucdavis.edu/people/howitt" type="external">Richard Howitt</a>, a professor emeritus, with UC Davis Agricultural &amp; Resource Economics. While the state has one of the epicenters of technological innovation in Silicon Valley, when it comes to “one of our absolutely critical resources, water, we’re running in the blind,” he said.</p>
<p>Andrea Thompson is a Senior Science Writer at Climate Central, focusing on extreme weather and climate change. Previously, Andrea was a writer and reporter for Live Science and Space.com, reporting on climate change, weather and other science-related topics. Follow Andrea on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/andreatweather" type="external">@AndreaTWeather</a>.</p> | true | 4 | photo credit pete souzawhite house recordbreaking drought california brought severe lack precipitation especially mountain snows exacted 27 billion toll states economy agricultural losses researchers said tuesday briefing california department food amp agriculture scientists university california davis told officials based preliminary research modeling drought resulting harder economic pinch year 2014 drought found lead year 32 percent acres land laid fallow increase groundwater pumping make lack water rivers reservoirs total job losses 18600 losses drought arent spread evenly across state researchers added areas like tulare lake basin southern san joaquin valley bearing much brunt californians hoping el nino event seems gaining strength finally change weather patterns bring wet winter could 160spell end drought though full recovery likely take many years scientists also studying whether climate change could mean deep droughts future whether made current one worse drought california building four years winter precipitation deficits slowed streams trickle sent reservoir levels dipping unusually warm temperatures increased water demand twothirds state worst two categories drought established us drought monitor drought particularly metastasized past two years saw dismal winter precipitation end winter state recorded alltime lowest snowpack measured 6 percent normal april 1 number recently dropped 0 percent normal meaning virtually snow left help replenish reservoirs summer months terrible snowpack low reservoir levels prompted gov jerry brown april call first statewide mandatory water restrictions cities towns farmers sacramentosan joaquin river delta recently volunteered cut water entitlement 25 percent year understanding state government wont ask reductions beyond amount farmers 33 percent less surface water available year would normal year shortage faced last year uc davis team said 70 percent made groundwater pumping mean extra costs farmers tune 600 million statewide much groundwater pumping raises issues though pushed water table lower lower causing shallower wells dry deeper deeper wells drilled also problem knowing much groundwater state exactly much pumped state last year instituted measures better monitor another way farmers dealing water shortage leaving land unused amount cropland planted year expected increase 33 percent last year uc davis researchers said cover 564000 acres dairy industry particularly hit year higher milk prices buffered losses last year dropped estimates economic losses related agriculture california 2015 click image enlarge160credit howitt medellínazuara j macewan lund jr sumner da 2015 preliminary analysis 2015 drought economic impact study uc davis center watershed sciences combined costs crop livestock dairy revenue losses groundwater pumping amount 18 billion indirect costs economy included costs statewide amount 27 billion updated numbers released july overall job losses drought come primarily contract farm labor overall employment picture state better overall employment increase 2 percent last year according employment development department drought prompted louder louder calls california rethink handles allocates water supply particularly climate warming changing could bring droughts future relationship climate change drought complex one many factors feed creating perpetuating drought conditions clearest impact warming drought higher temperatures cause evaporation increase water demand happened drought california fact recorded warmest year record 2014 followed warmest winter ever year one way state could get better handle water situation would better use technology available understand things like much groundwater detailed information crops said richard howitt professor emeritus uc davis agricultural amp resource economics state one epicenters technological innovation silicon valley comes one absolutely critical resources water running blind said andrea thompson senior science writer climate central focusing extreme weather climate change previously andrea writer reporter live science spacecom reporting climate change weather sciencerelated topics follow andrea twitter andreatweather | 564 |
<p>What lies behind the Pavlovian regularity with which Arabs try to hurt and impede each other rather than uniting behind a common purpose, asks Edward Said</p>
<p>Underlying most of the findings in the much cited 2002 UNDP Arab Human Development Report is the extraordinary lack of coordination between Arab countries. There is considerable irony in the fact that the Arabs are discussed and referred to both in this report and elsewhere as a group even though they seem rarely to function as one, except negatively. Thus the report correctly says that there is no Arab democracy, Arab women are uniformly an oppressed majority, and in science and technology every Arab state is behind the rest of the world. Certainly there is little strategic cooperation between them and virtually none in the economic sphere. As for more specific issues like policy towards Israel, the US and the Palestinians, and despite a common front of embarrassed hand-wringing and disgraceful powerlessness, one senses a frightened determination first of all not to offend the US, not to engage in war or in a real peace with Israel, not ever to think of a common Arab front even on matters that affect an over-all Arab future or security. Yet when it comes to the perpetuation of each regime, the Arab ruling classes are united in purpose and survival skills.</p>
<p>This shambles of inertia and impotence is, I am convinced, an affront to every Arab. This is why so many Egyptians, Syrians, Jordanians, Moroccans and others have taken to the streets in support of the Palestinian people undergoing the nightmare of Israeli occupation, with the Arab leadership looking on and basically doing nothing. Street demonstrations are demonstrations not only of support for Palestine, but also protests at the immobilising effects of Arab disunity. An even more eloquent sign of the common disenchantment is the frequent, wrenchingly sad television scene of a Palestinian woman surveying the ruins of her house demolished by Israeli bulldozers, wailing to the world at large “ya Arab, ya Arab” (“oh you Arabs, you Arabs”). There is no more eloquent testimony to the betrayal of the Arab people by their (mostly unelected) leaders than that indictment, which is to say: “why don’t you Arabs ever do anything to help us?” Despite money and oil aplenty, there is only the stony silence of an unmoved spectator.</p>
<p>Even on an individual level, alas, disunity and factionalism have crippled one national effort after the other. Take the saddest of all instances, the case of the Palestinian people. I recall wondering during the Amman and Beirut days why it was necessary for somewhere between eight to 12 Palestinian factions to exist, each fighting over uselessly academic issues of ideology and organisation while Israel and the local militias bled us dry. Looking back over the Lebanese days that came to a terrible end in Sabra and Shatilla, whose purpose did it serve to have the Popular Front, Fatah, and the Democratic Front — to mention only three factions — fighting among each other, to have leaders within Fatah proclaiming needlessly provocative slogans like “the road to Tel Aviv goes through Jounieh” even as Israel allied itself with the right-wing Lebanese militias to destroy the Palestinian presence for Israel’s purposes? And what cause has been served by Yasser Arafat’s tactics of creating factions, subgroups and security forces to war against each other during the Oslo process and leave his people unprotected and unprepared for the Israeli destruction of the infrastructure and re- occupation of Area A?</p>
<p>It’s always the same thing, factionalism, disunity, the absence of a common purpose for which in the end ordinary people pay the price in suffering, blood and endless destruction. Even on the level of social structure, it is almost a commonplace that Arabs as a group fight among themselves more than they do for a common purpose. We are individualists, it is said by way of justification, ignoring the fact that such disunity and internal disorganisation in the end damages our very existence as a people. Nothing can be more disheartening than the disputes that corrode Arab expatriate organisations, especially in places like the US and Europe, where relatively small Arab communities are surrounded by hostile environments and militant opponents who will stop at nothing to discredit the Arab struggle. Still, instead of trying to unite and work together, these communities get torn apart by totally unnecessary ideological and factional struggles that have no immediate relevance, no necessity at all so far as the surrounding field is concerned.</p>
<p>A few days ago, I was startled by a discussion programme on Al-Jazeera television in which the two participants and a needlessly provocative moderator vehemently discussed Arab-American activism during the present crisis. One man, a certain Mr Dalbah, identified vaguely as a “political analyst” in Washington (without apparent affiliation or institutional connection) spent all of his time discrediting the one serious national Arab-American group, the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), which he accused of ineffectiveness and its leaders of egoism, opportunism and personal corruption. The other gentleman, whose name I didn’t catch, admitted that he has only been in the US for a very few years and didn’t seem to know much about what was going on, except of course to argue that he had better ideas than all the other community leaders. Although I only watched the first and last parts of the programme, I was thoroughly disillusioned and even disgraced by the discussion. What was the point, I asked myself? In what way is it useful to tear down an organisation that has been doing by far the best work in a country where Arabs are outnumbered and out-organised not only by all the many, much larger and extremely well- financed Zionist organisations, but also where the society itself and its media are so hostile to Arabs, Islam, and their causes in general? None at all, of course. Yet there remains this pernicious factionalism by which, with almost Pavlovian regularity, Arabs try to hurt and impede each other rather than uniting behind a common purpose. If there is little justification for such behavior in the Arab lands themselves, surely there is less reason for it abroad, where Arab individuals and communities are targeted and threatened as undesirable aliens and terrorists.</p>
<p>The Al-Jazeera programme was more offensive by its gratuitous inaccuracy and the needless personal harm it did to the late Hala Salam Maksoud, who literally gave her life to the cause of ADC, and to its current president Dr Ziad Asli, a public-spirited physician who voluntarily gave up his medical practice to run the organisation on a pro bono basis. Dalbah kept insinuating that both these activists were motivated by reasons of personal monetary gain, and that whatever ADC did it did badly. Aside from the scandalous untruth of such allegations, Dalbah’s idle and malicious gossip — it was no more than that — harmed the collective Arab cause, leaving anger and more factionalism in its wake. Moreover, it should be noted that given the extremely inhospitable American political setting to the Arab cause, ADC has been very successful in Washington and nationally as an organisation rebutting charges against Arabs in the media, protecting individuals from government persecution after 9/11, and keeping Arab-Americans involved and participating in the national debate. Because of this success under Asli, factionalism has infected the organisation’s employees who suddenly embarked on a campaign of personal vilification masked as ideological argument. Of course everyone has the right to criticise but why in the face of such threats as those we face in the US should we splinter and weaken ourselves like this, when it is clear that the only beneficiary is the pro-Israel lobby? Organisations like ADC are first of all American organisations and cannot function as partisans in struggles of the kind that recall those of Fakahani in the mid-seventies.</p>
<p>Perhaps the main reason for Arab factionalism at every level of our societies, at home and abroad, is the marked absence of ideals and role models. Since Abdel-Nasser’s death, whatever one may have thought of some of his more ruinous policies, no figure has captured the Arab imagination or had a role in setting a popular liberation struggle. Look at the disaster of the PLO, which has been reduced from the days of its glory to an old unshaven man, sitting at a broken-down table, in half a house in Ramallah, trying to survive at any cost, whether or not he sells out, whether or not he says foolish things, whether what he says means anything or not. (A couple of weeks ago, he was quoted as saying that he now accepts the 2000 Clinton plan, though the only problem is that it is now 2002 and Clinton is no longer president.) It has been years since Arafat represented his people, their sufferings and cause, and like his other Arab counterparts, he hangs on like a much-too-ripe fruit without real purpose or position. There is thus no strong moral centre in the Arab world today. Cogent analysis and rational discussion have given way to fanatical ranting, concerted action on behalf of liberation has been reduced to suicidal attacks, and the idea if not the practice of integrity and honesty as a model to be followed has simply disappeared. So corrupting has the atmosphere exuded from the Arab world become that one scarcely knows why some people are successful while others are thrown in jail.</p>
<p>As a terribly shocking instance, consider the Egyptian sociologist Saadeddin Ibrahim’s fate. Released by a civil court a few months ago, he has now been tried, found guilty and sentenced to a cruelly unjustified sentence by the state security court for exactly those “crimes” for which he was earlier released. Where is the moral justification for such toying with a person’s life, career and reputation? A matter of months ago, he was a trusted adviser to the government and on the boards of several Arab institutes and projects. Now he is considered to be a condemned criminal. Whose interests, whether by virtue of national unity, or coherent strategy, or moral imperative, does his gratuitous punishment in this way serve? More factionalism, more disintegration, more sense of drift and fear and a pervading sense of frustrated justice.</p>
<p>Arabs have for so long been deprived of a sense of participation and citizenship by their rulers that most of us have lost even the capacity of understanding what personal commitment to a cause bigger than ourselves might mean. The Palestinian struggle — that a people should endure such unremitting cruelty from Israel and still not give up, is a collective miracle — but why can’t the lessons of living (as opposed to suicidal, nihilistic) resistance be made clearer, and more possible to follow? This is the real problem, the absence all over the Arab world and abroad of a leadership that communicates with its people, not via communiques that express an impersonal, almost disdainful disregard of them as citizens, but through the actual practice of concerted dedication and personal example. Unable to move the US from its illegal support of Israel’s crimes, Arab leaders simply throw out one “peace” proposal (the same one) after another, each of which is dismissed derisively by both Israel and the US. Bush and his psychopathic henchman Rumsfeld keep leaking news of their impending invasion for “regime change” in Iraq, and the Arabs have still not communicated a unified deterrent position against this new American insanity. When individuals and organisations like ADC try to do something on behalf of a cause they are gunned down by troublemakers who have little else to do but destroy and disturb.</p>
<p>Surely the time has come to start thinking of ourselves as a people with a common history and goals, and not as a collection of cowardly delinquents. But that is up to each one, and it’s no good sitting back blaming “the Arabs” since, after all, we are the Arabs.</p>
<p>Edward Said writes a weekly column for the Cairo-based <a href="http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/" type="external">al-Ahram</a>. New Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively to Subscribers:</p>
<p>War Talk As White Noise: Anything to Get Harken and Halliburton Out of the Headlines; First Hilliard, Then McKinney: Jewish Groups Target Blacks Brave Enough to Talk About Justice in the Middle East; Intimidation is the Name of the Game; Smearing “Insane” McKinney As Muslims’ Pawn; The Missing Terrorist? Calling Scotland Yard: “Where’s Atif?” They Never Booed Dylan!: Tape Transcript Shows Famed Newport Folkfest Dissing of Electric Dylan Not True. The Catcalls were for Peter Yarrow! New Shame from the Liffey Shrike</p> | true | 4 | lies behind pavlovian regularity arabs try hurt impede rather uniting behind common purpose asks edward said underlying findings much cited 2002 undp arab human development report extraordinary lack coordination arab countries considerable irony fact arabs discussed referred report elsewhere group even though seem rarely function one except negatively thus report correctly says arab democracy arab women uniformly oppressed majority science technology every arab state behind rest world certainly little strategic cooperation virtually none economic sphere specific issues like policy towards israel us palestinians despite common front embarrassed handwringing disgraceful powerlessness one senses frightened determination first offend us engage war real peace israel ever think common arab front even matters affect overall arab future security yet comes perpetuation regime arab ruling classes united purpose survival skills shambles inertia impotence convinced affront every arab many egyptians syrians jordanians moroccans others taken streets support palestinian people undergoing nightmare israeli occupation arab leadership looking basically nothing street demonstrations demonstrations support palestine also protests immobilising effects arab disunity even eloquent sign common disenchantment frequent wrenchingly sad television scene palestinian woman surveying ruins house demolished israeli bulldozers wailing world large ya arab ya arab oh arabs arabs eloquent testimony betrayal arab people mostly unelected leaders indictment say dont arabs ever anything help us despite money oil aplenty stony silence unmoved spectator even individual level alas disunity factionalism crippled one national effort take saddest instances case palestinian people recall wondering amman beirut days necessary somewhere eight 12 palestinian factions exist fighting uselessly academic issues ideology organisation israel local militias bled us dry looking back lebanese days came terrible end sabra shatilla whose purpose serve popular front fatah democratic front mention three factions fighting among leaders within fatah proclaiming needlessly provocative slogans like road tel aviv goes jounieh even israel allied rightwing lebanese militias destroy palestinian presence israels purposes cause served yasser arafats tactics creating factions subgroups security forces war oslo process leave people unprotected unprepared israeli destruction infrastructure occupation area always thing factionalism disunity absence common purpose end ordinary people pay price suffering blood endless destruction even level social structure almost commonplace arabs group fight among common purpose individualists said way justification ignoring fact disunity internal disorganisation end damages existence people nothing disheartening disputes corrode arab expatriate organisations especially places like us europe relatively small arab communities surrounded hostile environments militant opponents stop nothing discredit arab struggle still instead trying unite work together communities get torn apart totally unnecessary ideological factional struggles immediate relevance necessity far surrounding field concerned days ago startled discussion programme aljazeera television two participants needlessly provocative moderator vehemently discussed arabamerican activism present crisis one man certain mr dalbah identified vaguely political analyst washington without apparent affiliation institutional connection spent time discrediting one serious national arabamerican group arabamerican antidiscrimination committee adc accused ineffectiveness leaders egoism opportunism personal corruption gentleman whose name didnt catch admitted us years didnt seem know much going except course argue better ideas community leaders although watched first last parts programme thoroughly disillusioned even disgraced discussion point asked way useful tear organisation far best work country arabs outnumbered outorganised many much larger extremely well financed zionist organisations also society media hostile arabs islam causes general none course yet remains pernicious factionalism almost pavlovian regularity arabs try hurt impede rather uniting behind common purpose little justification behavior arab lands surely less reason abroad arab individuals communities targeted threatened undesirable aliens terrorists aljazeera programme offensive gratuitous inaccuracy needless personal harm late hala salam maksoud literally gave life cause adc current president dr ziad asli publicspirited physician voluntarily gave medical practice run organisation pro bono basis dalbah kept insinuating activists motivated reasons personal monetary gain whatever adc badly aside scandalous untruth allegations dalbahs idle malicious gossip harmed collective arab cause leaving anger factionalism wake moreover noted given extremely inhospitable american political setting arab cause adc successful washington nationally organisation rebutting charges arabs media protecting individuals government persecution 911 keeping arabamericans involved participating national debate success asli factionalism infected organisations employees suddenly embarked campaign personal vilification masked ideological argument course everyone right criticise face threats face us splinter weaken like clear beneficiary proisrael lobby organisations like adc first american organisations function partisans struggles kind recall fakahani midseventies perhaps main reason arab factionalism every level societies home abroad marked absence ideals role models since abdelnassers death whatever one may thought ruinous policies figure captured arab imagination role setting popular liberation struggle look disaster plo reduced days glory old unshaven man sitting brokendown table half house ramallah trying survive cost whether sells whether says foolish things whether says means anything couple weeks ago quoted saying accepts 2000 clinton plan though problem 2002 clinton longer president years since arafat represented people sufferings cause like arab counterparts hangs like muchtooripe fruit without real purpose position thus strong moral centre arab world today cogent analysis rational discussion given way fanatical ranting concerted action behalf liberation reduced suicidal attacks idea practice integrity honesty model followed simply disappeared corrupting atmosphere exuded arab world become one scarcely knows people successful others thrown jail terribly shocking instance consider egyptian sociologist saadeddin ibrahims fate released civil court months ago tried found guilty sentenced cruelly unjustified sentence state security court exactly crimes earlier released moral justification toying persons life career reputation matter months ago trusted adviser government boards several arab institutes projects considered condemned criminal whose interests whether virtue national unity coherent strategy moral imperative gratuitous punishment way serve factionalism disintegration sense drift fear pervading sense frustrated justice arabs long deprived sense participation citizenship rulers us lost even capacity understanding personal commitment cause bigger might mean palestinian struggle people endure unremitting cruelty israel still give collective miracle cant lessons living opposed suicidal nihilistic resistance made clearer possible follow real problem absence arab world abroad leadership communicates people via communiques express impersonal almost disdainful disregard citizens actual practice concerted dedication personal example unable move us illegal support israels crimes arab leaders simply throw one peace proposal one another dismissed derisively israel us bush psychopathic henchman rumsfeld keep leaking news impending invasion regime change iraq arabs still communicated unified deterrent position new american insanity individuals organisations like adc try something behalf cause gunned troublemakers little else destroy disturb surely time come start thinking people common history goals collection cowardly delinquents one good sitting back blaming arabs since arabs edward said writes weekly column cairobased alahram new print edition counterpunch available exclusively subscribers war talk white noise anything get harken halliburton headlines first hilliard mckinney jewish groups target blacks brave enough talk justice middle east intimidation name game smearing insane mckinney muslims pawn missing terrorist calling scotland yard wheres atif never booed dylan tape transcript shows famed newport folkfest dissing electric dylan true catcalls peter yarrow new shame liffey shrike | 1,111 |
<p>Philippe Wojazer/Zuma</p>
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<p>Update 2, April 23, 10:50 p.m. EST: With <a href="https://www.wsj.com/graphics/france-presidential-election-results-2017/" type="external">nearly all the votes counted</a> in the first round of the French presidential elections, it’s clear that centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen are headed for a runoff next month. Macron will be the favorite. <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/le-pen-is-in-a-much-deeper-hole-than-trump-ever-was/" type="external">As Nate Silver notes</a>, “The…polls show Macron in a dominant position in the runoff. He leads Le Pen by <a href="http://www.thecrosstab.com/france-2017/" type="external">26 percentage points</a> in polls testing the two-way matchup, according to data compiled by G. Elliott Morris of The Crosstab.”</p>
<p>Update, April 23, 2:15 p.m. EST: Early projections in the first round of French presidential elections on Sunday indicated that Emmanuel Macron, a centrist candidate, and Marine Le Pen, the leader of the country’s far-right movement, are positioned to head into an intensely fought runoff election on May 7—one with big implications for the future of Europe.</p>
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<p>You can follow all the action via France 24 (in English) on YouTube:</p>
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<p>French citizens went to the polls Sunday to vote for a new president. The election will have profound reverberations around the world. Will France take a nationalist turn to the right? Will it seek to withdraw from the European Union and restrict immigration? Will a young candidate with a pro-Europe, pro-immigration message convince enough of his voters to actually show up? Will the “French Bernie Sanders” upset the establishment and convince voters that his left-wing populism is the way to go?</p>
<p>Voters could choose between <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38220690" type="external">11 candidates</a>, with four clear front-runners: right-wing nationalist Marine Le Pen, independent centrist Emmanuel Macron, center-right conservative François Fillon, and left-wing populist Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Sunday’s election will narrow the field to the top two vote-getters (unless one candidate earns more than 50 percent of the vote), who will then go head-to-head in a runoff election on May 7.</p>
<p>According to recent polling <a href="https://ig.ft.com/sites/france-election/polls/" type="external">from the Financial Times</a>, Macron led the pack last week at 24 percent, just 1 point up on Le Pen. But Mélenchon, who had been hovering just above the 10 percent mark for months, saw a late surge in popularity, bringing him into a tie for third place with Fillon at 19 percent. The polling backs up the consensus narrative out of France that Le Pen and Macron will face off in the May 7 election, but Mélenchon’s steep rise over the last month could upset that outcome.</p>
<p>Here are some key points about each of the leading candidates to keep in mind:</p>
<p>Marine Le Pen: The far-right firebrand has been getting a lot of the attention during the race, and polls show she is likely to get through to the second round. The 48-year-old daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the far-right National Front party, Le Pen is riding a wave of anti-immigration and anti-globalization policy that could make her France’s next president. She’s <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/world/2017/04/19/a-youth-revolt-in-france-boosts-the-far-right/?utm_term=.8bf9a1955b99" type="external">doing well with the youths of France</a>, who face high unemployment and, according to Marion Maréchal-Le Pen—Le Pen’s niece, who is a member of the French Parliament—resent immigrants because of the sense of losing their own, French, identity.</p>
<p>While polls showing Le Pen doing well in Sunday’s free-for-all election, she consistently lags behind both Macron and Fillon in <a href="http://ig.ft.com/sites/france-election/polls/" type="external">polls</a> of runoff scenarios. While the National Front has historically been associated with anti-immigration zealotry, Le Pen has recently stirred controversy for aligning herself with an outsider: Russian President Vladimir Putin. Under Le Pen’s leadership, National Front took out <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/21/marine-le-pens-russian-links-us-scrutiny/" type="external">a $30 million loan</a> from a Russian bank. Le Pen <a href="http://time.com/4627780/russia-national-front-marine-le-pen-putin/" type="external">told reporters</a> that she had to do so because French, American, and English banks won’t lend her money. She says her stance toward Russia is more about reducing American and European Union control over the world and elevating other nations to be more on equal footing with the United States. She’s also taken several pro-Russian positions, including supporting Russia’s annexation of Crimea, pulling France out of NATO and the European Union, and dropping sanctions against Russian interests.</p>
<p>Emmanuel Macron: A former investment banker, Macron, 39, is the country’s former economy minister. Where Le Pen favors a France-first, populist approach, Macron is pro-European Union and pro-NATO and has <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-macron-trump-idUSKBN14W006" type="external">supported increasing sanctions</a> against Russia if the country does not follow through on plans to address its actions in the Ukraine. The knock on Macron is that he’s too boring, and his platform is trying to be all things to all people, <a href="http://www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macron-platform-news-election-analysis-france-reforms/" type="external">according to Politico</a>, balancing “the big paradox of French political life. Voters want radical change—but they also want candidates to put forward realistic, bordering on safe, platforms.”</p>
<p>Macron is <a href="http://ig.ft.com/sites/france-election/polls/" type="external">polling</a> nearly 30 points higher than Le Pen in a two-way race. He’s currently about a point up on Le Pen for Sunday’s race, so it’s likely he’ll make it through to the May 7 final election.</p>
<p>Jean-Luc Mélenchon: The “French Bernie Sanders,” as Mélenchon is often called by the US press, is a comparison that isn’t totally accurate, as <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/04/18/frances-bernie-sanders-started-his-own-party-and-is-surging-in-the-polls/" type="external">pointed out by the Intercept</a>. Mélenchon is running from outside the main political parties, whereas Sanders ran for the Democratic Party nomination in 2016. But that hasn’t seemed to hurt&#160;Mélenchon’s chances. The 65-year-old supporter of Hugo Chavez and the Castros in Cuba seems to be riding a growing wave of popularity among “disgruntled, blue collar voters” who, despite their troubles with the status quo in France, “do not want to vote for Le Pen,” <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/12/who-is-jean-luc-melenchon-the-man-now-surging-in-french-polls/" type="external">according to</a> <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/12/who-is-jean-luc-melenchon-the-man-now-surging-in-french-polls/" type="external">Foreign Policy</a>.</p>
<p>If he were to edge ahead of Macron, French voters would likely be left to choose between a far-right and a far-left candidate, a prospect that the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-le-pen-melenchon-runoff-investors-nightmare-scenario-in-france-1492583401" type="external">Wall Street Journal</a>called “a nightmare scenario for investors.” The theory underpinning the investor-worry is that both candidates in that scenario would advocate policies that would scare investors from servicing France’s debt, lower the value of its currency, and stunt economic growth. According to the <a href="https://ig.ft.com/sites/france-election/polls/" type="external">Financial Times polling data</a>, Mélenchon is polling 18 points ahead of Le Pen if the two were to compete in May.</p>
<p>Still, there are many in France who agree with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/10/jean-luc-melenchon-shakes-up-frances-presidential-race" type="external">his message</a>—similar to Sanders’ during the 2016 US presidential election—that wealth in France is concentrated in too few hands at the top of the food chain. Mélenchon has proposed a 32-hour work week, cutting the retirement age from 62 to 60, and a 100 billion euro ($107 billion) stimulus plan. But he also proposes pulling France from NATO, a move that would remove <a href="http://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing-nato-members.asp" type="external">one of the alliance’s strongest members</a>. Mélenchon isn’t as anti-European Union as Le Pen, <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/20/jean-luc-melenchon-may-be-just-as-bad-for-france-as-marine-le-pen.html" type="external">but he says</a> he wants to reform the European Central Bank to respond more to political interests than economic interests.</p>
<p>François Fillon: As a former prime minister, the conservative 63-year-old was an early favorite to win the race. But his support plummeted after it <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/14/europe/francois-fillon-investigation/" type="external">came to light</a> that he’d gotten his wife and two of his adult children more than $1 million in parliamentary payments for jobs they didn’t really do. Fillon insists he did nothing wrong, but <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/world/europe/francois-fillon-france-election.html" type="external">some have called on him</a> to bow out of the race. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/world/europe/francois-fillon-france-election.html" type="external">The New York Times reported in early March</a> that “hundreds of Mr. Fillon’s former backers have distanced themselves from him,” and recent polling has put him at either third or fourth place behind Le Pen, Macron, and, at times, Mélenchon.</p>
<p>As far <a href="http://time.com/4578232/francois-fillon-france-republicains-president-election/" type="external">as policy positions</a>, Fillon has strong support from Catholics and other social conservatives for opposing same-sex marriage. He’s proposed increasing the retirement age, slashing public benefits, getting rid of the 35-hour work week, and cutting 600,000 public-sector jobs. He has also said he’s ready to battle the country’s strong unions. He’s pro-European Union but has <a href="http://www.politico.eu/article/west-provoked-russia-says-former-french-pm-francois-fillon/" type="external">advocated better relations with Russia</a> in order to defeat ISIS.</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | philippe wojazerzuma update 2 april 23 1050 pm est nearly votes counted first round french presidential elections clear centrist candidate emmanuel macron farright candidate marine le pen headed runoff next month macron favorite nate silver notes thepolls show macron dominant position runoff leads le pen 26 percentage points polls testing twoway matchup according data compiled g elliott morris crosstab update april 23 215 pm est early projections first round french presidential elections sunday indicated emmanuel macron centrist candidate marine le pen leader countrys farright movement positioned head intensely fought runoff election may 7one big implications future europe follow action via france 24 english youtube french citizens went polls sunday vote new president election profound reverberations around world france take nationalist turn right seek withdraw european union restrict immigration young candidate proeurope proimmigration message convince enough voters actually show french bernie sanders upset establishment convince voters leftwing populism way go voters could choose 11 candidates four clear frontrunners rightwing nationalist marine le pen independent centrist emmanuel macron centerright conservative françois fillon leftwing populist jeanluc mélenchon sundays election narrow field top two votegetters unless one candidate earns 50 percent vote go headtohead runoff election may 7 according recent polling financial times macron led pack last week 24 percent 1 point le pen mélenchon hovering 10 percent mark months saw late surge popularity bringing tie third place fillon 19 percent polling backs consensus narrative france le pen macron face may 7 election mélenchons steep rise last month could upset outcome key points leading candidates keep mind marine le pen farright firebrand getting lot attention race polls show likely get second round 48yearold daughter jeanmarie le pen founder farright national front party le pen riding wave antiimmigration antiglobalization policy could make frances next president shes well youths france face high unemployment according marion maréchalle penle pens niece member french parliamentresent immigrants sense losing french identity polls showing le pen well sundays freeforall election consistently lags behind macron fillon polls runoff scenarios national front historically associated antiimmigration zealotry le pen recently stirred controversy aligning outsider russian president vladimir putin le pens leadership national front took 30 million loan russian bank le pen told reporters french american english banks wont lend money says stance toward russia reducing american european union control world elevating nations equal footing united states shes also taken several prorussian positions including supporting russias annexation crimea pulling france nato european union dropping sanctions russian interests emmanuel macron former investment banker macron 39 countrys former economy minister le pen favors francefirst populist approach macron proeuropean union pronato supported increasing sanctions russia country follow plans address actions ukraine knock macron hes boring platform trying things people according politico balancing big paradox french political life voters want radical changebut also want candidates put forward realistic bordering safe platforms macron polling nearly 30 points higher le pen twoway race hes currently point le pen sundays race likely hell make may 7 final election jeanluc mélenchon french bernie sanders mélenchon often called us press comparison isnt totally accurate pointed intercept mélenchon running outside main political parties whereas sanders ran democratic party nomination 2016 hasnt seemed hurt160mélenchons chances 65yearold supporter hugo chavez castros cuba seems riding growing wave popularity among disgruntled blue collar voters despite troubles status quo france want vote le pen according foreign policy edge ahead macron french voters would likely left choose farright farleft candidate prospect wall street journalcalled nightmare scenario investors theory underpinning investorworry candidates scenario would advocate policies would scare investors servicing frances debt lower value currency stunt economic growth according financial times polling data mélenchon polling 18 points ahead le pen two compete may still many france agree messagesimilar sanders 2016 us presidential electionthat wealth france concentrated hands top food chain mélenchon proposed 32hour work week cutting retirement age 62 60 100 billion euro 107 billion stimulus plan also proposes pulling france nato move would remove one alliances strongest members mélenchon isnt antieuropean union le pen says wants reform european central bank respond political interests economic interests françois fillon former prime minister conservative 63yearold early favorite win race support plummeted came light hed gotten wife two adult children 1 million parliamentary payments jobs didnt really fillon insists nothing wrong called bow race new york times reported early march hundreds mr fillons former backers distanced recent polling put either third fourth place behind le pen macron times mélenchon far policy positions fillon strong support catholics social conservatives opposing samesex marriage hes proposed increasing retirement age slashing public benefits getting rid 35hour work week cutting 600000 publicsector jobs also said hes ready battle countrys strong unions hes proeuropean union advocated better relations russia order defeat isis | 771 |
<p>July 4 is the birthday of the United States, the date when the Continental Congress adopted a Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, which turned an ongoing revolt against Britain’s oppressive policies into an anti-colonial and anti-monarchical revolution.</p>
<p>Jefferson and George Washington were wealthy planters and slave owners from Virginia. Nearly all the leaders of the American Revolution – known ever since as “the Founding Fathers” – were members of the upper classes: rich merchants, investors, landowners, planters, judges and lawyers. But Thomas Paine – the man whose writings won over the country to the idea of independence and helped rally the army and the people to defeat the powerful British Empire – was the exception.</p>
<p>John Adams once said that without the pen of Thomas Paine, the sword of George Washington “would have been raised in vain.” In 2012, when the rights of workers are under attack in the United States, it is important for us to remember that Tom Paine was one of us: a worker, an immigrant, a consistent foe of oppression and of privilege, and one who called himself “a citizen of the world.”</p>
<p>YOUTH IN ENGLAND</p>
<p>Paine was born in 1737 in Thetford, in the English region of East Anglia. His parents were of different religions – his mother a member of the establish Church of England, and his father a believer in one of the “dissenting” Protestant sects, the Quakers. The Quakers opposed violence, militarism, and aristocracy, and their influence helped shape Paine’s later political and religious views. Paine’s father Joseph was a staymaker (corset maker), and at age 13 Paine apprenticed to his father in that craft. Young Paine worked for several years as a corset maker, but he had a difficult time making a living at the trade.</p>
<p>Thetford and the surrounding countryside was under the thumb of the local aristocratic family, the Fitz Roys, who ruled as the Dukes of Grafton. Thetford’s two seats in Parliament were controlled by the Duke, and for decades one of them was always held by a Fitz Roy. The poverty of the area was attributable to the Graftons, who even in Paine’s youth continued the process, which began in the days of Henry VIII, of enclosure – privatizing the land, driving off the peasants, and barring the commoners from access to forests, pastures and other common lands.</p>
<p>Thetford was also the site of the Lenten Assizes, an annual court in which poor and working-class prisoners were often sentenced to hang for minor offenses against property: stealing a packet of tea, a bushel of wheat, or a few shillings. The hangings took place on Gallows Hill, within sight of the Paine family cottage. Growing up in the presence of such injustice helped make Paine a fighter against class oppression, and though not a pacifist, an opponent of capital punishment and vengeful violence.</p>
<p>In 1761 Paine became a public employee, an excise officer, collecting taxes on imports, exports and domestic industrial products. The duties of excise officers included detecting and arresting smugglers. Despite their high level of responsibility, excise officers were poorly paid and frequently had to move to other parts of the country, at their own expense. In 1772 excise officers began organizing to petition Parliament for better pay and working conditions, and on behalf of his co-workers Paine wrote and published a pamphlet, The Case of the Officers of Excise. For helping to organize, in effect, a public employee union, Paine was fired, and soon found himself in a desperate financial condition. But in 1774, he was introduced in London to Benjamin Franklin, the prominent American leader from Philadelphia, who urged him to emigrate.</p>
<p>COMMON SENSE AND REVOLUTION</p>
<p>Two months after his arrival in Philadelphia, he was hired as editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine. The articles he wrote for the magazine show not only Paine’s talent as a writer, but his political courage and developing radicalism. In March 1775 he published one of the earliest anti-slavery articles, “African Slavery in America.” With the American colonists revolting against Britain’s encroachments on their freedom, Paine asked, “With what consistency, or decency, they complain so loudly of attempts to enslave them, while they hold so many hundred thousands in slavery, and annually enslave many thousands more…?” In this period he also published a denunciation of Britain’s brutal conquest of India.</p>
<p>In January 1776 Paine anonymously published a short pamphlet, <a href="" type="internal">Common Sense</a>, that established him, for his time and for history, as one of the greatest political writers and revolutionaries. It argued for the independence of the North American colonies from Britain. The pamphlet was a huge success – the first edition sold out in two weeks; within three months, 100,000 copies were circulating; and it was talked about everywhere. People who couldn’t read had it read to them. Paine wrote to be <a href="" type="internal" />understood by the common people, in a clear style that avoided the embellishments that characterized English political writing in his time. “In addition to the brilliantly plain style,” writes Paine biographer John Keane, “the striking originality of the political ideas helped to magnetize American readers.” Historian Peter Linebaugh adds, “The shock and power of the pamphlet arises from its ridicule of kingship… and of English kings in particular.” Common Sense so changed the political discourse that, by July even the most cautious and conservative delegates to the Continental Congress were ready to approve and sign a Declaration of Independence.</p>
<p>Immediately after its publication in English, Common Sense was translated into German, and it was widely circulated in both languages. Contrary to the propaganda of anti-immigrant and “English-only” demagogues today, the U.S. was not founded on monolingualism. In 1776 many in the colonies – especially Pennsylvania – spoke and read only German, even though their ancestors had immigrated from Germany more than 100 years earlier. When Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, it had that document also published in German as well as English.</p>
<p>“THE TIMES THAT TRY MEN’S SOULS”</p>
<p>In late 1776 the Continental Army suffered a string of major defeats, losing New York City and retreating into Pennsylvania. Paine wrote a very short but powerful pamphlet, The American Crisis, printed and reprinted up and down the Atlantic Coast, that raised morale among civilians and soldiers. Washington had it read to his troops on Christmas Day; its opening words are among the best-remembered in U.S. history:</p>
<p>“These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”</p>
<p>Hours after hearing these words, Washington’s troops crossed the Delaware River and won the Battle of Trenton, New Jersey, regaining the military initiative. <a href="" type="internal">The American Crisis</a> became the first of a series of pamphlets, with the same title but numbered 1 through 13, which Paine wrote through the course of the war, helping to rally the country.</p>
<p>Paine became friends with many of the political and military leaders of the Revolution, and in 1777 he became secretary to the Continental Congress’s committee for foreign affairs. But he lost many of his powerful friends, and his job with Congress, in what was known as the Silas Deane affair. When France became an ally of the new nation in its war against Britain, Congress sent Deane to France to purchase supplies. But Paine soon found evidence, which he publicly exposed, that Deane and a Frenchman named Beumarchais had charged the U.S. for guns, ammunition and other supplies that the French government had donated as gifts to the new nation. To Paine, such profiteering at public expense violated “republican virtue.” Paine lived by that ethic all his life, never profiting from his public service, subsisting on modest salaries, making almost no money from his writings, and often living on the brink of poverty. For blowing the whistle on Deane, Paine was vilified and ostracized by members of Congress and other powerful men, but years later some of them admitted that Paine had been right.</p>
<p>In 1776, Pennsylvania adopted the most democratic constitution in America, written by radical allies of Paine, which removed property-ownership requirements for voting and holding office. The new constitution was attacked by wealthy conservatives but defended by Paine. Paine again came under fire from the rich and powerful when in 1779, he supported a movement for price controls on food and other necessities. Rapidly rising prices were impoverishing working people, and Paine reminded his opponents, the wealthy merchants, that labor is the source of wealth. Paine also served for a time as a clerk to the Pennsylvania legislature, and worked with his allies in the assembly on legislation to abolish slavery in the state. He was disappointed that the best they could achieve was a law mandating gradual emancipation.</p>
<p>THE RIGHTS OF MAN</p>
<p>In 1787 Paine returned to London, and took great interest in the French Revolution when it broke out in 1789. (He also welcomed the Haitian Revolution, the world’s first successful slave uprising, which began two years later.) The conservative political thinker Edmund Burke in 1790 wrote Reflections on the Revolution in France, which he attacked, arguing that monarchy and hereditary aristocracy were needed to save civilization from “the swinish multitude.” Paine responded with his second great work, The Rights of Man, a brilliant defense of the French Revolution, republicanism and democracy. While Burke’s book was written in pompous language for an audience of aristocrats, Paine wrote in a straightforward, democratic style to reach the broadest readership – which his book did.</p>
<p>The Rights of Man quickly became a huge best seller in Britain — even bigger in Ireland — and helped spark the growth of a democratic, anti-royalist political movement among the working and lower-middle classes. Subverting the British monarchy and the system of class rule was clearly Paine’s intent, and the government of King George III and Prime Minister William Pitt came to view him as a serious threat. The government instigated a hate campaign – including the publication of a slanderous “biography” of Paine, other attacks in the press, and right-wing “church-and-king” mobs that physically attacked Paine’s friends, burned copies of Rights of Man, and burned or hung effigies of Paine. Warned that his life was in danger, and with his arrest pending on charges of “seditious libel,” Paine crossed the English Channel to France on September 14, 1792. After he fled, the Pitt government tried and convicted Paine in absentia, in a rigged trial. He never saw his native country again.</p>
<p>Revolutionary France welcomed Paine as a hero to the cause of liberty, and despite his inability to speak French, he was elected to the National Convention. He encouraged the French to depose the king and declare a republic. But consistent with his lifelong opposition to capital punishment, he argued against executing Louis XVI. The words of Thomas Paine carried considerable weight in the Convention, and the motion to execute the king passed by only a few votes. This earned him enemies among the more extremist Jacobin faction, and when Paine’s political allies fell from power and the Jacobins took control of the government, led by Maximilien Robespierre, Paine was arrested, and he barely escaped execution on the guillotine.</p>
<p>While in France, and partly while in prison, Paine wrote a book about religion, <a href="" type="internal">The Age of Reason</a>, in which he articulated the doctrine of Deism – a rationalist religion shared by Jefferson, Washington and others of the revolutionary generation. Deists believed in God, but rejected established religions, including Christianity. Paine, who had detailed knowledge of the Bible, argued in The Age of Reason that the scriptures are the work of men, not the word of God, and that they misrepresent God.</p>
<p>ECONOMIC JUSTICE</p>
<p>In France Paine also wrote <a href="" type="internal">Agrarian Justice</a>, his most radical economic work. Paine was not a socialist, but he believed that inequalities in wealth caused social injustice, and that government action was needed to eliminate poverty. He had articulated these ideas in <a href="" type="internal">The Rights of Man</a>, but expanded them in Agrarian Justice. Land, he wrote, was “the common property of the human race,” but in modern society most people have lost their birthright in land, whose ownership has been concentrated in a few hands (a process he witnessed as a boy in Thetford.) Paine admired the Native Americans, and wrote that because they held land in common, there was not among them “any of those spectacles of human misery which poverty and want present to our eyes in all the towns and streets in Europe.” To remedy poverty and injustice, Paine proposed an inheritance tax on landed property. This tax would create a fund from which every person, upon reaching age 21, would receive a payment of £15 to help get started in life; and beginning at age 50, each person would receive an annual pension payment of £10.</p>
<p>With this proposal for a public pension plan funded by taxing the rich, Paine was far ahead of his time – and far ahead of many politicians in our time. (For years, the Social Security Administration has posted the full text of Agrarian Justice on its website — obviously someone in that agency views Paine’s pamphlet as a philosophical herald of the Social Security program.)</p>
<p>Paine returned to the U.S. in 1802, at the invitation of President Thomas Jefferson. Paine was shunned by members of the Federalist Party for his radical democratic political ideas, and by some Christians for his religious views. (He was often falsely called an atheist.) He died in 1809 at age 72 in Greenwich Village, New York, in relative obscurity. Only six mourners attended his funeral, two of whom were African American.</p>
<p>But with the beginnings of a labor movement in the U.S. in the 1820s and ’30s, there also came a Paine revival. Labor activists held annual dinners on Paine’s birthday (January 29), toasting the memory and ideas of the great revolutionary. Thomas Paine’s writings have much to offer us today – most of all his faith in the ability of people, acting together, to overcome injustice. As he told us in Common Sense, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”</p>
<p>Al Hart is Managing Editor of <a href="http://www.ranknfile-ue.org/uenewsupdates.html?news=688" type="external">UE News</a> (United Electrical, Radio &amp; Machine Workers of America), where this essay originally appeared.</p>
<p>FURTHER READING</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Tom Paine: A Political Life</a>, by John Keane (1995, Little, Brown and Co., 644 pages) There are many biographies of Paine; this is one of the best.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Tom Paine and Revolutionary America</a>, by Eric Foner (1976, Oxford University Press, 368 pages). An excellent study of Paine’s role in the American Revolution.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">The Rights of Man and Common Sense: Peter Linebaugh Presents Thomas Paine</a> (2009, Verso, 314 pages.) There are also many collections of Tom Paine’s basic writings. This recent one includes an excellent introduction by Peter Linebaugh, who teaches history at the University of Toledo, and includes the complete texts of Common Sense, The Rights of Man, and Agrarian Justice.</p>
<p>The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine (2 volumes), edited by Philip S. Foner (Citadel Press, 1969). All of Paine’s writings, filling more than 3,000 pages.</p> | true | 4 | july 4 birthday united states date continental congress adopted declaration independence drafted thomas jefferson turned ongoing revolt britains oppressive policies anticolonial antimonarchical revolution jefferson george washington wealthy planters slave owners virginia nearly leaders american revolution known ever since founding fathers members upper classes rich merchants investors landowners planters judges lawyers thomas paine man whose writings country idea independence helped rally army people defeat powerful british empire exception john adams said without pen thomas paine sword george washington would raised vain 2012 rights workers attack united states important us remember tom paine one us worker immigrant consistent foe oppression privilege one called citizen world youth england paine born 1737 thetford english region east anglia parents different religions mother member establish church england father believer one dissenting protestant sects quakers quakers opposed violence militarism aristocracy influence helped shape paines later political religious views paines father joseph staymaker corset maker age 13 paine apprenticed father craft young paine worked several years corset maker difficult time making living trade thetford surrounding countryside thumb local aristocratic family fitz roys ruled dukes grafton thetfords two seats parliament controlled duke decades one always held fitz roy poverty area attributable graftons even paines youth continued process began days henry viii enclosure privatizing land driving peasants barring commoners access forests pastures common lands thetford also site lenten assizes annual court poor workingclass prisoners often sentenced hang minor offenses property stealing packet tea bushel wheat shillings hangings took place gallows hill within sight paine family cottage growing presence injustice helped make paine fighter class oppression though pacifist opponent capital punishment vengeful violence 1761 paine became public employee excise officer collecting taxes imports exports domestic industrial products duties excise officers included detecting arresting smugglers despite high level responsibility excise officers poorly paid frequently move parts country expense 1772 excise officers began organizing petition parliament better pay working conditions behalf coworkers paine wrote published pamphlet case officers excise helping organize effect public employee union paine fired soon found desperate financial condition 1774 introduced london benjamin franklin prominent american leader philadelphia urged emigrate common sense revolution two months arrival philadelphia hired editor pennsylvania magazine articles wrote magazine show paines talent writer political courage developing radicalism march 1775 published one earliest antislavery articles african slavery america american colonists revolting britains encroachments freedom paine asked consistency decency complain loudly attempts enslave hold many hundred thousands slavery annually enslave many thousands period also published denunciation britains brutal conquest india january 1776 paine anonymously published short pamphlet common sense established time history one greatest political writers revolutionaries argued independence north american colonies britain pamphlet huge success first edition sold two weeks within three months 100000 copies circulating talked everywhere people couldnt read read paine wrote understood common people clear style avoided embellishments characterized english political writing time addition brilliantly plain style writes paine biographer john keane striking originality political ideas helped magnetize american readers historian peter linebaugh adds shock power pamphlet arises ridicule kingship english kings particular common sense changed political discourse july even cautious conservative delegates continental congress ready approve sign declaration independence immediately publication english common sense translated german widely circulated languages contrary propaganda antiimmigrant englishonly demagogues today us founded monolingualism 1776 many colonies especially pennsylvania spoke read german even though ancestors immigrated germany 100 years earlier congress approved declaration independence document also published german well english times try mens souls late 1776 continental army suffered string major defeats losing new york city retreating pennsylvania paine wrote short powerful pamphlet american crisis printed reprinted atlantic coast raised morale among civilians soldiers washington read troops christmas day opening words among bestremembered us history times try mens souls summer soldier sunshine patriot crisis shrink service country stands deserves love thanks man woman tyranny like hell easily conquered yet consolation us harder conflict glorious triumph hours hearing words washingtons troops crossed delaware river battle trenton new jersey regaining military initiative american crisis became first series pamphlets title numbered 1 13 paine wrote course war helping rally country paine became friends many political military leaders revolution 1777 became secretary continental congresss committee foreign affairs lost many powerful friends job congress known silas deane affair france became ally new nation war britain congress sent deane france purchase supplies paine soon found evidence publicly exposed deane frenchman named beumarchais charged us guns ammunition supplies french government donated gifts new nation paine profiteering public expense violated republican virtue paine lived ethic life never profiting public service subsisting modest salaries making almost money writings often living brink poverty blowing whistle deane paine vilified ostracized members congress powerful men years later admitted paine right 1776 pennsylvania adopted democratic constitution america written radical allies paine removed propertyownership requirements voting holding office new constitution attacked wealthy conservatives defended paine paine came fire rich powerful 1779 supported movement price controls food necessities rapidly rising prices impoverishing working people paine reminded opponents wealthy merchants labor source wealth paine also served time clerk pennsylvania legislature worked allies assembly legislation abolish slavery state disappointed best could achieve law mandating gradual emancipation rights man 1787 paine returned london took great interest french revolution broke 1789 also welcomed haitian revolution worlds first successful slave uprising began two years later conservative political thinker edmund burke 1790 wrote reflections revolution france attacked arguing monarchy hereditary aristocracy needed save civilization swinish multitude paine responded second great work rights man brilliant defense french revolution republicanism democracy burkes book written pompous language audience aristocrats paine wrote straightforward democratic style reach broadest readership book rights man quickly became huge best seller britain even bigger ireland helped spark growth democratic antiroyalist political movement among working lowermiddle classes subverting british monarchy system class rule clearly paines intent government king george iii prime minister william pitt came view serious threat government instigated hate campaign including publication slanderous biography paine attacks press rightwing churchandking mobs physically attacked paines friends burned copies rights man burned hung effigies paine warned life danger arrest pending charges seditious libel paine crossed english channel france september 14 1792 fled pitt government tried convicted paine absentia rigged trial never saw native country revolutionary france welcomed paine hero cause liberty despite inability speak french elected national convention encouraged french depose king declare republic consistent lifelong opposition capital punishment argued executing louis xvi words thomas paine carried considerable weight convention motion execute king passed votes earned enemies among extremist jacobin faction paines political allies fell power jacobins took control government led maximilien robespierre paine arrested barely escaped execution guillotine france partly prison paine wrote book religion age reason articulated doctrine deism rationalist religion shared jefferson washington others revolutionary generation deists believed god rejected established religions including christianity paine detailed knowledge bible argued age reason scriptures work men word god misrepresent god economic justice france paine also wrote agrarian justice radical economic work paine socialist believed inequalities wealth caused social injustice government action needed eliminate poverty articulated ideas rights man expanded agrarian justice land wrote common property human race modern society people lost birthright land whose ownership concentrated hands process witnessed boy thetford paine admired native americans wrote held land common among spectacles human misery poverty want present eyes towns streets europe remedy poverty injustice paine proposed inheritance tax landed property tax would create fund every person upon reaching age 21 would receive payment 15 help get started life beginning age 50 person would receive annual pension payment 10 proposal public pension plan funded taxing rich paine far ahead time far ahead many politicians time years social security administration posted full text agrarian justice website obviously someone agency views paines pamphlet philosophical herald social security program paine returned us 1802 invitation president thomas jefferson paine shunned members federalist party radical democratic political ideas christians religious views often falsely called atheist died 1809 age 72 greenwich village new york relative obscurity six mourners attended funeral two african american beginnings labor movement us 1820s 30s also came paine revival labor activists held annual dinners paines birthday january 29 toasting memory ideas great revolutionary thomas paines writings much offer us today faith ability people acting together overcome injustice told us common sense power begin world al hart managing editor ue news united electrical radio amp machine workers america essay originally appeared reading tom paine political life john keane 1995 little brown co 644 pages many biographies paine one best tom paine revolutionary america eric foner 1976 oxford university press 368 pages excellent study paines role american revolution rights man common sense peter linebaugh presents thomas paine 2009 verso 314 pages also many collections tom paines basic writings recent one includes excellent introduction peter linebaugh teaches history university toledo includes complete texts common sense rights man agrarian justice complete writings thomas paine 2 volumes edited philip foner citadel press 1969 paines writings filling 3000 pages | 1,450 |
<p>One hundred years ago, on June 12, 1917, Hubert Harrison founded the Liberty League of Negro-Americans at a rally attended by thousands at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, 52-60 W. 132nd Street in Harlem. It was the first organization of the militant “New Negro Movement.”&#160;Several weeks later, on July 4, at a large rally at&#160;Metropolitan Baptist Church, 120 W. 138th Street,&#160;Harrison founded the movement’s first paper —&#160;The Voice:&#160;A Newspaper for the New Negro.</p>
<p>The Liberty League’s Bethel rally was called around the slogans “Stop Lynching and Disfranchisement” and “Make the South ‘Safe For Democracy.’” Listed speakers included Harrison, the young activist Chandler Owen, and Dr. Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. (of Abyssinian Baptist Church). Marcus Garvey, a relatively unknown former printer from Jamaica also spoke at the rally in what was his first talk before a major Harlem audience.</p>
<p>The League’s stated purpose was to take steps “to uproot” the twin evils of lynching and disfranchisement and “to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”&#160; It aimed to “carry on educational and propaganda work among Negroes” and “exercise political pressure wherever possible” in order to “abate lynching.”&#160; Harrison said it offered “the most startling program of any organization of Negroes in the country” as it demanded democracy at home for “Negro-Americans” before&#160;they would be expected to enthuse over democracy in Europe.</p>
<p>Two thousand people packed the Bethel church meeting and the audience rose in support during Harrison’s introduction when he demanded “that Congress make lynching a Federal crime.”&#160; Resolutions were passed calling the government’s attention to the continued violation of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments&#160;(regarding slavery and involuntary servitude, citizenship rights, and voting rights); to the existence of mob law from Florida to New York; and to the demand that lynching be made a federal crime.&#160; In his talk Harrison also called for retaliatory self-defense whenever Black lives were threatened by mobs.</p>
<p>The Liberty League&#160;emphasized “a special sympathy” for&#160;&#160;“our brethren in Africa” and pledged to “work for the ultimate realization of democracy in Africa — for the right of these darker millions to rule their own ancestral lands — even as the people of Europe — free from the domination of foreign tyrants.”&#160;&#160;The League also adopted a tricolor flag.&#160; Harrison explained, because of the “Negro’s” “dual relationship to our own and other peoples,” we “adopted as our emblem the three colors, black brown and yellow, in perpendicular&#160;stripes.”&#160; These colors were chosen because the “black, brown and yellow, [were] symbolic of the three colors of the Negro race in America.”&#160; They were also, he suggested, symbolic of people of color worldwide.</p>
<p>Garvey, his fellow Jamaican and future&#160;Negro World&#160;editor W. A. Domingo, and other leading activists, including a number of important future leaders of the Garvey movement, joined Harrison’s Liberty League. From the Liberty League and the&#160;Voice&#160;came many core progressive ideas later utilized by Garvey in both the Universal Negro Improvement Association and the&#160;Negro World. Contemporaries readily acknowledged that Harrison’s work laid groundwork for the Garvey movement. Harrison claimed that from the Liberty League “Garvey appropriated every feature that was worthwhile in his movement” and that the secret of Garvey’s success was that he “[held] up to the Negro masses those things which bloom in their hearts” including “race-consciousness” and “racial solidarity” – “things taught first in 1917 by the&#160;Voice&#160;and The Liberty League.”</p>
<p>The July 4 meeting at which&#160;The Voice&#160;appeared came in the wake of the vicious white supremacist attacks (Harrison called it a “pogrom”) on the African American community of East St. Louis, Illinois (which is twelve miles from Ferguson, Missouri). Harrison again advised “Negroes” who faced mob violence in the South and elsewhere to “supply themselves with rifles and fight if necessary, to defend their lives and property.”&#160; According to the&#160;New York Times&#160;he received great applause when he declared that “the time had come for the Negroes [to] do what white men who were threatened did, look out for themselves, and kill rather than submit to be killed.”&#160; He was quoted as saying: “We intend to fight if we must . . . for the things dearest to us, for our hearths and homes.”&#160; In his talk he encouraged “Negroes” everywhere who did not enjoy the protection of the law to arm in self-defense, to hide their arms, and to learn how to use their weapons.&#160; He also reportedly called for a collection of money to buy rifles for those who could not obtain them themselves, emphasizing that “Negroes in New York cannot afford to lie down in the face of this” because “East St. Louis touches us too nearly.” According to the&#160;Times, Harrison said it was imperative to “demand justice” and to “make our voices heard.”&#160;This call for armed self-defense and the desire to have the political voice of the militant New Negro heard were important components of Harrison’s militant “New Negro” activism.</p>
<p>The Voice&#160;featured Harrison’s outstanding writing and editing and it included important book review and “Poetry for the People” sections. It contributed significantly to the climate leading up to Alain LeRoy Locke’s 1925 publication&#160;The New Negro.</p>
<p>Beginning in August 1919 Harrison edited&#160;The New Negro:&#160;A Monthly Magazine of a Different Sort,&#160;which described itself as “A Magazine for the New Negro,” published “in the interest of the New Negro Manhood Movement,” and “intended as an organ of the international consciousness of the darker races — especially of the Negro race.”</p>
<p>In early 1920&#160;Harrison assumed “the joint editorship” of the&#160;Negro World&#160;and served as principal editor of that globe-sweeping newspaper of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (which was a major component of the “New Negro Movement”).</p>
<p>Then, in August 1920, while serving as editor of the&#160;Negro World, Harrison completed&#160;When Africa Awakes: The “Inside Story” of the Stirrings and Strivings of the New Negro in the Western World.&#160;Many of Harrison’s most important “New Negro Movement” editorials and reviews from the 1917-1920 period were reprinted in&#160;When Africa Awakes. The book, recently republished in expanded form by Diasporic Africa Press, makes clear&#160;his pioneering theoretical, educational, and organizational role in the founding and development of the militant “New Negro Movement.”</p>
<p>Brief Biographical Background Pre the Founding of Militant “New Negro Movement”</p>
<p>St. Croix, Virgin Islands-born, Harlem-based, Hubert Henry Harrison (1883-1927) was a brilliant, class conscious and race conscious, writer, educator, orator, editor, book reviewer, political activist, and radical internationalist.&#160;Historian J. A. Rogers in&#160;World’s Great Men of Color&#160;described him as an “Intellectual Giant” who was “perhaps the foremost Aframerican intellect of his time.”&#160;Labor and civil rights activist A. Philip Randolph, referring to a period when Harlem was considered an international “Negro Mecca” and the “center of radical black thought,” described him as “the father of Harlem radicalism.”&#160;Richard B. Moore, active with the Socialist Party, African Blood Brotherhood, Communist Party, and movements for Caribbean independence and federation, described Harrison as “above all” his contemporaries in his steady emphasis that “a vital aim” was “the liberation of the oppressed African and other colonial peoples.”</p>
<p>Hubert Harrison played unique, signal roles in the largest class radical movement (socialism) and the largest race radical movement (the “New Negro”/Garvey movement) of his era. He was a major influence on the class radical Randolph, on the race radical Garvey, and on other militant “New Negroes” in the period around World War I. W. A. Domingo, a socialist and the first editor of Garvey’s&#160;Negro World&#160;newspaper explained, “Garvey like the rest of us [A. Philip Randolph, Chandler Owen, Cyril Briggs, Grace Campbell, Richard B. Moore, and other “New Negroes”] followed Hubert Harrison.” Historian&#160;Robert A. Hill refers to Harrison as “the New Negro ideological mentor.”&#160;Considered the most class conscious of the race radicals and the most race conscious of the class radicals in those years, he is a key link in the two great trends of the Civil Rights/Black Liberation struggle – the labor and civil rights trend associated with Randolph and Martin Luther King Jr. and the race and nationalist trend associated with Garvey and Malcolm X. (King marched on Washington with Randolph at his side and Malcolm’s father was a Garveyite preacher and his mother was a reporter for Garvey’s&#160;Negro World,&#160;the newspaper for which Harrison had been principal editor.)</p>
<p>From 1911 to 1914 Harrison served as the leading Black theoretician, speaker, and activist in the&#160;Socialist Party of America.&#160;Party statements and practices —&#160;including events at the 1912 convention where Socialists failed to address the “Negro Question” and supported Asian exclusion as “legislation restricting the invasion of the white man’s domain by other races” — caused him to leave the Socialist Party in 1914. After departing, he offered&#160;what is arguably the most profound, but least heeded, criticism in the history of the United States left — that Socialist Party leaders, like organized labor leaders, put the “white race” first, before class, that they&#160;put the [“white’] “Race First and class after.”</p>
<p>Harrison was a pioneering Black activist in the Freethought, Free Speech, and Birth Control Movements and two years after leaving the Socialist Party he turned to concentrated, race conscious work in the Black community. Beginning in 1916, he served as the intellectual guiding light of the militant “New Negro Movement” — the race and class conscious, internationalist, mass based, autonomous, militantly assertive movement for “political equality, social justice, civic opportunity, and economic power.”</p>
<p>For Additional Information.</p>
<p>Those interested in additional information on Hubert Harrison and the founding of the militant “New Negro Movement” are encouraged to read Jeffrey B. Perry,&#160;Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918&#160;(Columbia University Press);&#160;A Hubert Harrison Reader&#160;(Wesleyan University Press); and the new, expanded, Diasporic Africa Press edition of Hubert H. Harrison,&#160;When Africa Awakes: The “Inside Story” of the Stirrings and Strivings of the New Negro in the Western World.</p> | true | 4 | one hundred years ago june 12 1917 hubert harrison founded liberty league negroamericans rally attended thousands bethel african methodist episcopal church 5260 w 132nd street harlem first organization militant new negro movement160several weeks later july 4 large rally at160metropolitan baptist church 120 w 138th street160harrison founded movements first paper 160the voice160a newspaper new negro liberty leagues bethel rally called around slogans stop lynching disfranchisement make south safe democracy listed speakers included harrison young activist chandler owen dr adam clayton powell sr abyssinian baptist church marcus garvey relatively unknown former printer jamaica also spoke rally first talk major harlem audience leagues stated purpose take steps uproot twin evils lynching disfranchisement petition government redress grievances160 aimed carry educational propaganda work among negroes exercise political pressure wherever possible order abate lynching160 harrison said offered startling program organization negroes country demanded democracy home negroamericans before160they would expected enthuse democracy europe two thousand people packed bethel church meeting audience rose support harrisons introduction demanded congress make lynching federal crime160 resolutions passed calling governments attention continued violation thirteenth fourteenth fifteenth amendments160regarding slavery involuntary servitude citizenship rights voting rights existence mob law florida new york demand lynching made federal crime160 talk harrison also called retaliatory selfdefense whenever black lives threatened mobs liberty league160emphasized special sympathy for160160our brethren africa pledged work ultimate realization democracy africa right darker millions rule ancestral lands even people europe free domination foreign tyrants160160the league also adopted tricolor flag160 harrison explained negros dual relationship peoples adopted emblem three colors black brown yellow perpendicular160stripes160 colors chosen black brown yellow symbolic three colors negro race america160 also suggested symbolic people color worldwide garvey fellow jamaican future160negro world160editor w domingo leading activists including number important future leaders garvey movement joined harrisons liberty league liberty league the160voice160came many core progressive ideas later utilized garvey universal negro improvement association the160negro world contemporaries readily acknowledged harrisons work laid groundwork garvey movement harrison claimed liberty league garvey appropriated every feature worthwhile movement secret garveys success held negro masses things bloom hearts including raceconsciousness racial solidarity things taught first 1917 the160voice160and liberty league july 4 meeting which160the voice160appeared came wake vicious white supremacist attacks harrison called pogrom african american community east st louis illinois twelve miles ferguson missouri harrison advised negroes faced mob violence south elsewhere supply rifles fight necessary defend lives property160 according the160new york times160he received great applause declared time come negroes white men threatened look kill rather submit killed160 quoted saying intend fight must things dearest us hearths homes160 talk encouraged negroes everywhere enjoy protection law arm selfdefense hide arms learn use weapons160 also reportedly called collection money buy rifles could obtain emphasizing negroes new york afford lie face east st louis touches us nearly according the160times harrison said imperative demand justice make voices heard160this call armed selfdefense desire political voice militant new negro heard important components harrisons militant new negro activism voice160featured harrisons outstanding writing editing included important book review poetry people sections contributed significantly climate leading alain leroy lockes 1925 publication160the new negro beginning august 1919 harrison edited160the new negro160a monthly magazine different sort160which described magazine new negro published interest new negro manhood movement intended organ international consciousness darker races especially negro race early 1920160harrison assumed joint editorship the160negro world160and served principal editor globesweeping newspaper marcus garveys universal negro improvement association major component new negro movement august 1920 serving editor the160negro world harrison completed160when africa awakes inside story stirrings strivings new negro western world160many harrisons important new negro movement editorials reviews 19171920 period reprinted in160when africa awakes book recently republished expanded form diasporic africa press makes clear160his pioneering theoretical educational organizational role founding development militant new negro movement brief biographical background pre founding militant new negro movement st croix virgin islandsborn harlembased hubert henry harrison 18831927 brilliant class conscious race conscious writer educator orator editor book reviewer political activist radical internationalist160historian j rogers in160worlds great men color160described intellectual giant perhaps foremost aframerican intellect time160labor civil rights activist philip randolph referring period harlem considered international negro mecca center radical black thought described father harlem radicalism160richard b moore active socialist party african blood brotherhood communist party movements caribbean independence federation described harrison contemporaries steady emphasis vital aim liberation oppressed african colonial peoples hubert harrison played unique signal roles largest class radical movement socialism largest race radical movement new negrogarvey movement era major influence class radical randolph race radical garvey militant new negroes period around world war w domingo socialist first editor garveys160negro world160newspaper explained garvey like rest us philip randolph chandler owen cyril briggs grace campbell richard b moore new negroes followed hubert harrison historian160robert hill refers harrison new negro ideological mentor160considered class conscious race radicals race conscious class radicals years key link two great trends civil rightsblack liberation struggle labor civil rights trend associated randolph martin luther king jr race nationalist trend associated garvey malcolm x king marched washington randolph side malcolms father garveyite preacher mother reporter garveys160negro world160the newspaper harrison principal editor 1911 1914 harrison served leading black theoretician speaker activist the160socialist party america160party statements practices 160including events 1912 convention socialists failed address negro question supported asian exclusion legislation restricting invasion white mans domain races caused leave socialist party 1914 departing offered160what arguably profound least heeded criticism history united states left socialist party leaders like organized labor leaders put white race first class they160put white race first class harrison pioneering black activist freethought free speech birth control movements two years leaving socialist party turned concentrated race conscious work black community beginning 1916 served intellectual guiding light militant new negro movement race class conscious internationalist mass based autonomous militantly assertive movement political equality social justice civic opportunity economic power additional information interested additional information hubert harrison founding militant new negro movement encouraged read jeffrey b perry160hubert harrison voice harlem radicalism 18831918160columbia university press160a hubert harrison reader160wesleyan university press new expanded diasporic africa press edition hubert h harrison160when africa awakes inside story stirrings strivings new negro western world | 979 |
<p>Recently, at Maxwell Air Force Base, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates admonished his Air Force audience to adapt better to the changed circumstances of war in the 21st century. Six weeks later, he fired its two most senior leaders, the Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne and Chief of Staff T. Michael Moseley. Then on June 18, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) told the Air Force its selection process for a new air refueling tanker aircraft was so deeply flawed it should start the process all over again – for the third time.</p>
<p>Ostensibly, these events were about technology: using more unmanned aerial drones (how most press interpreted the speech at Maxwell), mishandling nuclear weapon components (the stated reasons for firing Secretary Wynne and General Moseley), and what air refueling tanker better meets the Air Force’s hardware needs. However, to see the underlying issues as technological is to misunderstand the crossroads the Air Force has come to.</p>
<p>The epitome of the Air Force’s self-image is the F-22 fighter. At $355 million for each of the 184 purchased, it is history’s most expensive fighter aircraft, but it is yet to fly its first sortie in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it likely never will. As an air-to-air fighter, it is irrelevant to those conflicts. It may even be a gigantic flop against the non-existent major conventional air force it is designed to fight: too few are affordable to deal with such a foe; it is an aerodynamic performer that on close inspection is a huge disappointment; and it relies on a radar-based “beyond visual range” air-to-air combat hypothesis that has failed time and time again to deliver meaningfully effective results in real air combat.</p>
<p>However, the shadow over the Air Force is darker than arguments over its technology. Despite the F-22’s irrelevance to real world wars, the Air Force’s leadership dedicated virtually the entire institution to advocating more of them than the Pentagon was willing to buy. Unauthorized Air Force lobbying for more F-22s had become so commonplace on Capitol Hill and in oblique (and not-so-oblique) comments to the press that it was clear the Air Force saw the Pentagon’s (and the President’s) budget as just the starting point for grabbing more dollars.</p>
<p>The Air Force engaged in equally extracurricular, behind-the-back cheerleading for C-17 cargo aircraft. Despite its non-optimal range, payload and size for either intercontinental or intra-theater transport, the Air Force blatantly winked, nodded and cheered as Congress bought C-17s above and beyond what Secretary Gates had approved.</p>
<p>Despite being the least involved American military service in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Air Force has been seeking the biggest of all unauthorized supplements to its already historically huge annual budget. Shortly before he was fired, Moseley submitted a list of “unfunded requirements” (better known as his “wish list”) to complement the $143.7 billion budget he was authorized to support by the Pentagon. At $18.7 billion, the Air Force’s “wish list” was more than twice the size of the Navy’s ($7 billion), and it was more than four times the size of the war-engaged Army’s ($3.9 billion).</p>
<p>Each of the military services deem themselves free of any pretense of restraint by budgets approved by the president and secretary of defense, but the Air Force has put itself in a category all its own for its unbridled lust for extracurricular money.</p>
<p>Nowhere has the Air Force’s sense of self-entitlement been more obvious than in the unending scandals surrounding the acquisition of new air refueling tankers. Its 2001 plan to “lease-purchase” Boeing 767 airliners as tankers at costs well above the price of just purchasing them came to a demise only after Sen. John McCain. R-Ariz., and the Justice Department found an Air Force official colluding with a Boeing corporate manager (both were subsequently jailed). With that grimy background and the world watching, one would have expected the Air Force acquisition process to be on its best behavior when it re-started its tanker acquisition. It did so – properly at first – with a solicitation for competing bids from Boeing and Northrop-Grumman-Airbus. Despite voluminous assurances from the top of the Air Force – and the Pentagon – that the competition was fought and won fair and square, the GAO’s June 18 report was extraordinarily strongly worded, ruling that the Air Force contract award process was in fact heavily biased, this time in favor of Northrop-Grumman.</p>
<p>These are not technical, or even technological, flaws. They are instead failures of intellect and – much more importantly – ethics. Secretary Gates has done the right thing by calling the Air Force leadership into account. However, it is very unclear how far he is willing to go to explain his firings and to fix what that is really wrong. This is especially apparent in his decision to permit the Air Force to try again on the tanker contract – supervised only by the same top Pentagon officials who – supposedly – supervised the process last year. Instead, the time has come to make a constructive example of the Air Force and to take the tanker contract award decision out of its hands entirely. Instead, give it to a special panel, appointed by the Secretary of Defense, consisting of military – not just Air Force – and civilian people who have committed not to accept any future relationship with Boeing, Northrop-Grumman-EADS, or their major suppliers. That new dawn is long overdue.</p>
<p>Looking at the individuals Secretary Gates has nominated to lead the Air Force now, they come from backgrounds that offer some hypothetical hope. Gen. Norton Schwartz will, if confirmed by the Senate, be the service’s first-ever chief of staff to come from something other than the service’s fighter or bomber bureaucracies. He does, however, come from the Transport Command, where under-the-table lobbying for those C-17s has been rife. The new secretary of the Air Force, Michael Donley, has an accounting background, but as the Air Force comptroller, he did not clean out the Augean stables of the service’s financial non-accountability, which continues to this day.</p>
<p>In his speech at Maxwell Air Force Base, Secretary Gates described the abiding ethic of American military reformer and strategist Col. John R. Boyd, whose legacy includes the F-15 and F-16 fighters and, more importantly, a new way of thinking about human conflict. Among many things, Boyd taught that the moral choices one makes are what really determines who wins and who loses. As Gates put it – accurately – Boyd said you can choose “to be” somebody – to become a member of the club but also to make crippling moral compromises. Or, you can choose “to do,” that is to sacrifice personal and bureaucratic interests in favor of actions that address the real needs of the nation and the Air Force, even – nay, especially – when almost no one else sees it that way.</p>
<p>Gates summarized Boyd in saying, “In life there is often a roll call. That’s when you have to make a decision: to be or to do.”</p>
<p>The Air Force came – reluctantly but ultimately completely – to embrace the aircraft Boyd gave it, but the service ignored his broader teaching. Now, the Air Force is reaping the consequences. It remains very unclear if the Air Force now has the leadership that Col. Boyd and his work epitomized, or whether it will just be a matter of time before the service’s new leadership presides over yet another embarrassment that comes from its long term focus on being, not doing.</p>
<p>It is not time that will tell; time is too short, to act is the thing.</p>
<p>WINSLOW T. WHEELER spent 31 years working on Capitol Hill with senators from both political parties and the Government Accountability Office, specializing in national security affairs. Currently, he directs the Straus Military Reform Project of the Center for Defense Information in Washington and is author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/159114938X/counterpunchmaga" type="external">The Wastrels of Defense</a>. &#160;</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | recently maxwell air force base secretary defense robert gates admonished air force audience adapt better changed circumstances war 21st century six weeks later fired two senior leaders secretary air force michael wynne chief staff michael moseley june 18 government accountability office gao told air force selection process new air refueling tanker aircraft deeply flawed start process third time ostensibly events technology using unmanned aerial drones press interpreted speech maxwell mishandling nuclear weapon components stated reasons firing secretary wynne general moseley air refueling tanker better meets air forces hardware needs however see underlying issues technological misunderstand crossroads air force come epitome air forces selfimage f22 fighter 355 million 184 purchased historys expensive fighter aircraft yet fly first sortie wars iraq afghanistan likely never airtoair fighter irrelevant conflicts may even gigantic flop nonexistent major conventional air force designed fight affordable deal foe aerodynamic performer close inspection huge disappointment relies radarbased beyond visual range airtoair combat hypothesis failed time time deliver meaningfully effective results real air combat however shadow air force darker arguments technology despite f22s irrelevance real world wars air forces leadership dedicated virtually entire institution advocating pentagon willing buy unauthorized air force lobbying f22s become commonplace capitol hill oblique notsooblique comments press clear air force saw pentagons presidents budget starting point grabbing dollars air force engaged equally extracurricular behindtheback cheerleading c17 cargo aircraft despite nonoptimal range payload size either intercontinental intratheater transport air force blatantly winked nodded cheered congress bought c17s beyond secretary gates approved despite least involved american military service wars iraq afghanistan air force seeking biggest unauthorized supplements already historically huge annual budget shortly fired moseley submitted list unfunded requirements better known wish list complement 1437 billion budget authorized support pentagon 187 billion air forces wish list twice size navys 7 billion four times size warengaged armys 39 billion military services deem free pretense restraint budgets approved president secretary defense air force put category unbridled lust extracurricular money nowhere air forces sense selfentitlement obvious unending scandals surrounding acquisition new air refueling tankers 2001 plan leasepurchase boeing 767 airliners tankers costs well price purchasing came demise sen john mccain rariz justice department found air force official colluding boeing corporate manager subsequently jailed grimy background world watching one would expected air force acquisition process best behavior restarted tanker acquisition properly first solicitation competing bids boeing northropgrummanairbus despite voluminous assurances top air force pentagon competition fought fair square gaos june 18 report extraordinarily strongly worded ruling air force contract award process fact heavily biased time favor northropgrumman technical even technological flaws instead failures intellect much importantly ethics secretary gates done right thing calling air force leadership account however unclear far willing go explain firings fix really wrong especially apparent decision permit air force try tanker contract supervised top pentagon officials supposedly supervised process last year instead time come make constructive example air force take tanker contract award decision hands entirely instead give special panel appointed secretary defense consisting military air force civilian people committed accept future relationship boeing northropgrummaneads major suppliers new dawn long overdue looking individuals secretary gates nominated lead air force come backgrounds offer hypothetical hope gen norton schwartz confirmed senate services firstever chief staff come something services fighter bomber bureaucracies however come transport command underthetable lobbying c17s rife new secretary air force michael donley accounting background air force comptroller clean augean stables services financial nonaccountability continues day speech maxwell air force base secretary gates described abiding ethic american military reformer strategist col john r boyd whose legacy includes f15 f16 fighters importantly new way thinking human conflict among many things boyd taught moral choices one makes really determines wins loses gates put accurately boyd said choose somebody become member club also make crippling moral compromises choose sacrifice personal bureaucratic interests favor actions address real needs nation air force even nay especially almost one else sees way gates summarized boyd saying life often roll call thats make decision air force came reluctantly ultimately completely embrace aircraft boyd gave service ignored broader teaching air force reaping consequences remains unclear air force leadership col boyd work epitomized whether matter time services new leadership presides yet another embarrassment comes long term focus time tell time short act thing winslow wheeler spent 31 years working capitol hill senators political parties government accountability office specializing national security affairs currently directs straus military reform project center defense information washington author wastrels defense 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 | 733 |
<p>One rarely hears words like righteousness and dignity in conversations among those on the secular, progressive left.&#160; Unfortunately, in sidelining those words, along with honor, virtue, and even goodness,&#160; with their serious religious and moral overtone, we have demeaned exactly the human qualities needed to respond to the dire and threatening times we live in.&#160; While we are urged over and over by the those willing to report to us the full ongoing catastrophe, to take to the streets and protest, there is a prior action needed if the response is to be more than a return, politically, to “lesser evilism,”to the emptiness of so much of “progressive” politics.</p>
<p>We, the “bourgeois” ones with access to higher education,&#160; were supposed to know the system has failed us, to be counter cultural. Thus, there is something of the chickens coming home to roost in this current abominable incarnation of national leadership.&#160; We are the ones who could have understood the system in the way that leads one to act because one understands the system – in our case the neoliberal corporate capitalist system, the military industrial complex –&#160; is injurious to the humanity of all of us.</p>
<p>We’ve heard the warnings, from Dr. King, from Eisenhower’s farewell address,&#160; from James Baldwin, from Cornel West, from Noam Chomsky, from indigenous peoples.&#160; We are supposed to have this understanding, and we did not get it.&#160; We did not truly educate ourselves.&#160; It was up to us, the educated and better off, to understand the system is corrupt, cannot be reformed, is harmful to the common good, and we evaded our responsibility.&#160; Not with a shrug, perhaps with a sigh, we’ve said, Let someone else lead, I have my work and my family.</p>
<p>When the system has gone off the deep end, revolution is one option.&#160; On the other hand, disobedience, in the manner of Henry David Thoreau’s act of opposition to slavery and to war with Mexico, is another.&#160; Thoreau stated: “Know all men by these presents that I, Henry Thoreau, do not wish to be regarded as a member of any incorporated society which I have not joined.”&#160; That is, when your country is “no longer itself,” such an act of self-alienation is the justified action of a righteous man.</p>
<p>Thoreau’s act of disobedience, as Curtis White points out in <a href="" type="internal">The Spirit of Disobedience</a>(2006), was not revolutionary.&#160; It is rather, refusal:”I will live as if your world has ended, as indeed it deserves to end.&#160; I will live as if my gesture of refusing your world has destroyed it.”&#160;&#160; Thoreau’s self-imposed exile to Walden was based, says White,&#160; in “the need to create a society…. that he could willingly join.”</p>
<p>That is, it was based first in a quite astonishing (if you think about it) level of trust in his own self worth. It was a moral position taken not in submission to a religious rule or shared understanding,&#160; but in concert with his own instinctual being.&#160; For first he had to make a choice independent of everyone else, including his friend, mentor and fellow Concord person of genius, Ralph Emerson, to do as his conscience bid.&#160; Each of us has this option, as long as we can find in ourselves the place of righteous refusal in the manner of Thoreau.&#160; We can participate in the building of the new world to replace this failed one.&#160; Conscientious disobedience coming from one’s self-acknowledged dignity as a human being, is a very different act than that of partisan fighting over the Russians influencing our politics, absorbing as that is, or identity politics that depends for its energy on the victim condition of the individual or group.&#160; It suggests that the important and necessary work for men and women is to locate our innate righteousness so we can turn to creating a society “we can willingly join.”</p>
<p>This is the work to be taken up once we have turned our servile, prostrate will away from its habitual customary deference to the given standards of “good behavior,” which, after all, are really no more demanding than do your job, don’t make waves, collect your salary and benefits, buy stuff, let your pesky passion be satisfied with deciding between android vs iphone, or Wall St.-approved Democrat vs. Wall St.-approved Republican.&#160; Creating the new, human-worthy society awaits us once&#160; we’ve confessed our powerlessness over our addiction to TV and mass media, an industry flourishing in the age of Trump, a bizarre celebrity who holds peoples’ fascination in the same way as do car wrecks or burning buildings.&#160; When we avidly follow a national news that matches, in its effect on our adrenal system, the lurid ‘scoops’ promised on the covers of magazines at the checkout line at the supermarket,&#160; we can be sure it is not information we’re after as responsible citizens, but a “turn on” to feed our addiction.</p>
<p>In these times when we are cut off from a context or a genuine culture that could&#160; nourish and encourage our humanity, many of of us get trapped into taking what the consumer culture offers.&#160; Captive in a dehumanizing culture, this is the way we take care of ourselves.&#160; It is not the way free, dignified, sovereign people answer their rightful wants and needs.</p>
<p>Thus the first task is the daunting one; ending our existence as servile addicts and finding in ourselves the worthy and righteous man or woman who can refuse this America, and create the America (or more locally, our own town or city or farm, or home on the edge of a pond) worthy of our souls, and of the souls of all of us including those fervently joining in the politics of hate.&#160; This is not survivalism; it cannot be undertaken in order to be among the post-apocalyptic remnant.&#160; Being righteous is not being “more righteous than thou.” It is serving the greatness inherent in the lowly individual soul, acting as the expressive organ for its aberrant goodness,&#160; a morality always checked against ego inflation by the “impossible” demand that one is – bottom line – supposed to counter and vanquish the crushing sense of personal unworthiness.</p>
<p>This weekend, thanks to nearby Hamilton College,&#160; we got to see a production by The Acting Company of the play X, or Betty Shabazz vs. The Nation, by Marcus Gardley.&#160; Seeing this outstanding production of a really excellent play, I was reminded of the passion I’d had for Malcolm X as a great man and a great leader after reading The Autobiography back in the 90’s.&#160; In the play, Malcolm gradually and with difficulty reaches his decision to leave the Nation of Islam and his spiritual father Elijah Muhammad who had mentored Malcolm’s transformation from petty criminal to powerful leader.&#160; We witnessed the struggle of the righteous man who must stand up for his righteousness even at the risk of opposing “God,” or he who, in one’s own mind, has occupied the place of perfection for so long it has become accepted truth.&#160; It has become – in effect – dogma.</p>
<p>Being finally presented with incontrovertible evidence that Muhammad was not perfect, by means of his meeting, at his wife Betty’s urging, with several young women who’d been impregnated by the Nation’s leader,&#160; Malcolm was forced to make a break that he did not want to make.&#160; Loyalty to The Nation and to Elijah Muhammad was the guiding principle of a principled man; Malcolm’s personal popularity, which exceeded that of Elijah Muhammad – the celebrity which means so much in public life today – meant relatively little to him&#160;&#160; He chose to separate himself when the organization had become unrecognizable to him; it was “no longer itself,” or what he had understood it as.&#160; The action would not make him popular; it guaranteed he would be an ambivalent figure in history, as indeed he already was.&#160; He was one of those geniuses whose path is not straight, but whose efforts to ‘self-correct,’ to challenge his own current dogma, never ceased. He did not understand himself as “perfect” and did not hold himself to that impossible standard, the trap in which Elijah Muhammad got caught.</p>
<p>Not his charisma or his eloquence, but his adhering faithfully to his own righteousness, to the inner moral compass, is what made him great (or honorable, as his wife calls him in the play), a great leader, and made his death – as well as that of ML King’s – a loss from which, in the area of leadership, America has never recovered. That I see these qualities in Malcolm X&#160; may seem speculative to some, but perhaps they are difficult to see when we have learned to honor not virtue, not honor, not righteousness,&#160; but those who can convince us that being crude louts “just like the rest of us,” lets the rest of us,&#160; so reduced in our sense of personal worth, off the hook.</p>
<p>Obediently we have kept questions of moral and character development, the traditional realm of religion, at the fringe of our concerns.&#160; We have been obediently religiophobic in a way that is not simply a critique of institutional religion but which frees us from any sense of a moral obligation to our own inner being, leaving it sequestered in shame. The success of Trump is attributable to our failure to understand and appreciate true greatness out of our sheepish inclination to be let off from our personal responsibility to realize the true genius each is born with and – in a human-worthy society – supposed to manifest. That our society has failed to teach us this means, as Thoreau and Malcolm exemplify, it is time to create the one we can willingly join.</p> | true | 4 | one rarely hears words like righteousness dignity conversations among secular progressive left160 unfortunately sidelining words along honor virtue even goodness160 serious religious moral overtone demeaned exactly human qualities needed respond dire threatening times live in160 urged willing report us full ongoing catastrophe take streets protest prior action needed response return politically lesser evilismto emptiness much progressive politics bourgeois ones access higher education160 supposed know system failed us counter cultural thus something chickens coming home roost current abominable incarnation national leadership160 ones could understood system way leads one act one understands system case neoliberal corporate capitalist system military industrial complex 160 injurious humanity us weve heard warnings dr king eisenhowers farewell address160 james baldwin cornel west noam chomsky indigenous peoples160 supposed understanding get it160 truly educate ourselves160 us educated better understand system corrupt reformed harmful common good evaded responsibility160 shrug perhaps sigh weve said let someone else lead work family system gone deep end revolution one option160 hand disobedience manner henry david thoreaus act opposition slavery war mexico another160 thoreau stated know men presents henry thoreau wish regarded member incorporated society joined160 country longer act selfalienation justified action righteous man thoreaus act disobedience curtis white points spirit disobedience2006 revolutionary160 rather refusali live world ended indeed deserves end160 live gesture refusing world destroyed it160160 thoreaus selfimposed exile walden based says white160 need create society could willingly join based first quite astonishing think level trust self worth moral position taken submission religious rule shared understanding160 concert instinctual being160 first make choice independent everyone else including friend mentor fellow concord person genius ralph emerson conscience bid160 us option long find place righteous refusal manner thoreau160 participate building new world replace failed one160 conscientious disobedience coming ones selfacknowledged dignity human different act partisan fighting russians influencing politics absorbing identity politics depends energy victim condition individual group160 suggests important necessary work men women locate innate righteousness turn creating society willingly join work taken turned servile prostrate away habitual customary deference given standards good behavior really demanding job dont make waves collect salary benefits buy stuff let pesky passion satisfied deciding android vs iphone wall stapproved democrat vs wall stapproved republican160 creating new humanworthy society awaits us once160 weve confessed powerlessness addiction tv mass media industry flourishing age trump bizarre celebrity holds peoples fascination way car wrecks burning buildings160 avidly follow national news matches effect adrenal system lurid scoops promised covers magazines checkout line supermarket160 sure information responsible citizens turn feed addiction times cut context genuine culture could160 nourish encourage humanity many us get trapped taking consumer culture offers160 captive dehumanizing culture way take care ourselves160 way free dignified sovereign people answer rightful wants needs thus first task daunting one ending existence servile addicts finding worthy righteous man woman refuse america create america locally town city farm home edge pond worthy souls souls us including fervently joining politics hate160 survivalism undertaken order among postapocalyptic remnant160 righteous righteous thou serving greatness inherent lowly individual soul acting expressive organ aberrant goodness160 morality always checked ego inflation impossible demand one bottom line supposed counter vanquish crushing sense personal unworthiness weekend thanks nearby hamilton college160 got see production acting company play x betty shabazz vs nation marcus gardley160 seeing outstanding production really excellent play reminded passion id malcolm x great man great leader reading autobiography back 90s160 play malcolm gradually difficulty reaches decision leave nation islam spiritual father elijah muhammad mentored malcolms transformation petty criminal powerful leader160 witnessed struggle righteous man must stand righteousness even risk opposing god ones mind occupied place perfection long become accepted truth160 become effect dogma finally presented incontrovertible evidence muhammad perfect means meeting wife bettys urging several young women whod impregnated nations leader160 malcolm forced make break want make160 loyalty nation elijah muhammad guiding principle principled man malcolms personal popularity exceeded elijah muhammad celebrity means much public life today meant relatively little him160160 chose separate organization become unrecognizable longer understood as160 action would make popular guaranteed would ambivalent figure history indeed already was160 one geniuses whose path straight whose efforts selfcorrect challenge current dogma never ceased understand perfect hold impossible standard trap elijah muhammad got caught charisma eloquence adhering faithfully righteousness inner moral compass made great honorable wife calls play great leader made death well ml kings loss area leadership america never recovered see qualities malcolm x160 may seem speculative perhaps difficult see learned honor virtue honor righteousness160 convince us crude louts like rest us lets rest us160 reduced sense personal worth hook obediently kept questions moral character development traditional realm religion fringe concerns160 obediently religiophobic way simply critique institutional religion frees us sense moral obligation inner leaving sequestered shame success trump attributable failure understand appreciate true greatness sheepish inclination let personal responsibility realize true genius born humanworthy society supposed manifest society failed teach us means thoreau malcolm exemplify time create one willingly join | 798 |
<p>Buying a used car was once quite a tradeoff. While initial purchase price was much less, buying used was a risky investment. There was always that chance that the car could be unreliable, especially if the previous owner didn’t take good care of it. However, cars are more reliable than ever before and last much longer (even if not well maintained previously). They can be easy on your budget through the entire ownership experience.</p>
<p>However, you should be careful when you go out to buy a used car, as dealerships often take advantage of customers, sometimes ripping them off. You can read about the perils of purchasing a used car from a dealership <a href="" type="internal">here</a>.</p>
<p>With that caveat, here are four good reasons why you should buy a used car over a new one.</p>
<p>1. Sustainability. From a sustainability perspective, it definitely makes more sense to buy a used car that gets good fuel economy over a new one, as the building and disposal of an automobile has a significant environmental impact. The automotive industry's own studies have shown that between 12 and 28 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions generated during a car's lifecycle occur during manufacturing and initial shipment. Every time a consumer opts for a used car over a new one, that's one car that’s already passed through those phases and one less vehicle headed to the scrap heap.</p>
<p>And while you might think buying a new hybrid might be more ecologically sound that buying a used car, hybrids actually have a much larger environmental impact to build than comparable non-hybrids, as those lithium-ion, lead-acid, or Nickel-Metal Hydride batteries are no friends of the environment. And electric cars like the Tesla and Nissan Leaf are emission free only if the electrical power comes from a source that is renewable, like solar or wind. It’s much more likely that the electricity will come from a &#160;coal- or natural-gas burning power plant.</p>
<p>So, buying a used car could be your greenest choice.</p>
<p>2. Value. As far as value is concerned, the old adage rings true: A car loses value as soon as you drive it off the dealership lot—up to 15% depending on the vehicle. It doesn't stop there; by the time it's four years old, the typical car retains only about half of its value. After that, however, the depreciation curve is much less steep.</p>
<p>So, buying a three or four-year-old car, which should still have years of dependability, makes plenty of sense. It’s even possible to buy a car at this age, drive it for a year and resell it with little or no loss in equity. However, once cars are six-years old, the depreciation curve increases again, and cars of that age are less reliable.</p>
<p>It also cost less to insure a used car, as used vehicles have less value than a new model. You can also save more money once the car becomes older by dropping collision and theft coverage, if you choose.</p>
<p>Depending on the state you live in, you also might save money on vehicle registration fees. In many states, the fee they charge to register a car is based on the car’s sales price.</p>
<p>As a rule of thumb, you shouldn’t put money toward repairs once they surpass more than half of a car’s value. So, for example, if you have a nine-year-old car valued at $4,500, a $2,300 repair bill is probably better spent as a down payment on your next used car.</p>
<p>So, the most cost effective way to own a car is to buy one that’s about 3- or 4-years old and drive it until it’s no longer driveable or worth the cost to maintain.</p>
<p>3. Dependability. Overall, car dependability has improved considerably over the past decade. A five-year-old vehicle is likely to have about a third fewer problems than one would have had a decade back. Engine, transmission and exhaust problems, which once plagued older cars, have decreased dramatically, according to automotive research groups. When properly maintained, a vehicle built in 2011 should easily last another six to eight years without needing any major repairs. Modern cars can last 150,000 miles or even much longer when properly maintained.</p>
<p>One downside to owning used car is that it is typically out of warranty, and you'll have to pay for repairs yourself. However, most will be for wear items such as brakes, batteries and tires.</p>
<p>Used-car dealers try to push certified pre-owned cars as the next best thing to buying new and they’ve been very popular with budget-conscious drivers who want new-car dependability without paying the new-car price. But a certified pre-owned car typically costs $2,000 to $2,500 more than an identical non-certified car, and the extra price you pay is often more than what you would likely spend on repairs during the car’s warranty period. So, these cars are really nothing more than used cars with an expensive extended warranty tacked onto the price.</p>
<p>With relatively newer used cars in particular, certification doesn’t make much sense as most cars are relatively trouble-free in their first three to six years. Your best bet when buying a used car is to take it to an independent mechanic for an inspection and skip the in-house certification and expensive warranty and put that money into a rainy-day fund for the car if something goes wrong.</p>
<p>4. Safety. Only a few years ago, buying a three- or four-year-old used car meant that you had to give up advanced safety features like electronic stability control, anti-lock brakes, and side-curtain air bags, but those features can now found on most cars manufactured after 2009. However, you should still do some research to make sure any car you’re interested in has such safety features, do not even consider a car without stability control, which is a critically important safety feature that can keep a car on its intended path by preventing it from sliding sideways in a turn.&#160;</p>
<p>Stability control has been found to reduce the risk of fatal-single car accidents by more than 50%. Near half of all fatal car crashes involve just one vehicle&#160;colliding with a tree or another obstacle after leaving the road.</p>
<p>All vehicles manufactured from 2012 on have stability control as a standard feature, mandated by the National Highway Safety Administration.&#160;</p>
<p>If you are thinking about buying a used car, we recommend referring to J.D. Power &amp; Associates' <a href="//autos.jdpower.com/ratings/dependability.htm" type="external">list of vehicles</a> rated highly for dependability. You should also refer to Edmunds.com’s <a href="//www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/consumer-ratings-reviews.html" type="external">Consumer Ratings and Reviews</a> to read about other owners' personal experiences with their vehicles.</p>
<p>Cliff Weathers is a former senior editor at AlterNet and served as a deputy editor at&#160;Consumer Reports. Twitter&#160; <a href="https://twitter.com/cliffweathers" type="external">@cliffweathers</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | buying used car quite tradeoff initial purchase price much less buying used risky investment always chance car could unreliable especially previous owner didnt take good care however cars reliable ever last much longer even well maintained previously easy budget entire ownership experience however careful go buy used car dealerships often take advantage customers sometimes ripping read perils purchasing used car dealership caveat four good reasons buy used car new one 1 sustainability sustainability perspective definitely makes sense buy used car gets good fuel economy new one building disposal automobile significant environmental impact automotive industrys studies shown 12 28 percent carbon dioxide emissions generated cars lifecycle occur manufacturing initial shipment every time consumer opts used car new one thats one car thats already passed phases one less vehicle headed scrap heap might think buying new hybrid might ecologically sound buying used car hybrids actually much larger environmental impact build comparable nonhybrids lithiumion leadacid nickelmetal hydride batteries friends environment electric cars like tesla nissan leaf emission free electrical power comes source renewable like solar wind much likely electricity come 160coal naturalgas burning power plant buying used car could greenest choice 2 value far value concerned old adage rings true car loses value soon drive dealership lotup 15 depending vehicle doesnt stop time four years old typical car retains half value however depreciation curve much less steep buying three fouryearold car still years dependability makes plenty sense even possible buy car age drive year resell little loss equity however cars sixyears old depreciation curve increases cars age less reliable also cost less insure used car used vehicles less value new model also save money car becomes older dropping collision theft coverage choose depending state live also might save money vehicle registration fees many states fee charge register car based cars sales price rule thumb shouldnt put money toward repairs surpass half cars value example nineyearold car valued 4500 2300 repair bill probably better spent payment next used car cost effective way car buy one thats 3 4years old drive longer driveable worth cost maintain 3 dependability overall car dependability improved considerably past decade fiveyearold vehicle likely third fewer problems one would decade back engine transmission exhaust problems plagued older cars decreased dramatically according automotive research groups properly maintained vehicle built 2011 easily last another six eight years without needing major repairs modern cars last 150000 miles even much longer properly maintained one downside owning used car typically warranty youll pay repairs however wear items brakes batteries tires usedcar dealers try push certified preowned cars next best thing buying new theyve popular budgetconscious drivers want newcar dependability without paying newcar price certified preowned car typically costs 2000 2500 identical noncertified car extra price pay often would likely spend repairs cars warranty period cars really nothing used cars expensive extended warranty tacked onto price relatively newer used cars particular certification doesnt make much sense cars relatively troublefree first three six years best bet buying used car take independent mechanic inspection skip inhouse certification expensive warranty put money rainyday fund car something goes wrong 4 safety years ago buying three fouryearold used car meant give advanced safety features like electronic stability control antilock brakes sidecurtain air bags features found cars manufactured 2009 however still research make sure car youre interested safety features even consider car without stability control critically important safety feature keep car intended path preventing sliding sideways turn160 stability control found reduce risk fatalsingle car accidents 50 near half fatal car crashes involve one vehicle160colliding tree another obstacle leaving road vehicles manufactured 2012 stability control standard feature mandated national highway safety administration160 thinking buying used car recommend referring jd power amp associates list vehicles rated highly dependability also refer edmundscoms consumer ratings reviews read owners personal experiences vehicles cliff weathers former senior editor alternet served deputy editor at160consumer reports twitter160 cliffweathers 160 | 638 |
<p>“I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the names of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.”</p>
<p>George W. Bush at the Dedication Ceremony for the George Bush Center for Intelligence, April 26, 1999</p>
<p>“President George W. Bush has no plans to ask his staff members whether they played a role in revealing the name of an undercover CIA officer.”</p>
<p>Washington Post, 9/29/03</p>
<p>Don’t bother him with details! Nobody’s totally consistent! If you remember long ago, in 2000 to be precise, George W. Bush eschewed expensive and ambitious projects like nation building and called for less spending on overseas operations not directly connected to immediate US interests. He called himself a “compassionate conservative” and pledged, among other things, to “leave no child behind.” One wit reminded me that Bush had not left one child behind; rather, he’d left millions of kids in far worse shape than before he took office.</p>
<p>It’s because of the economy, stupid! In 1980, his daddy shouted “Voodoo economics” when Republican candidate for President, Ronald Reagan, announced his “no tax and spend freely” program as the cure-all for America.</p>
<p>Boola Boola economics (the Yale Fight Song thought to have come from a Hawaiian island) might better describe W’s version. A rich kid from Yale majors in cheer leading and during the Harvard game cheers as he sips from the hip flask. “Bring ’em on,” he roars as the Harvard eleven emerge. He remembers the phrase before a presidential TV appearance and repeats it, now referring to Iraqi resistance fighters. He would fight them just as he did his hated Ivy League rival vicariously.</p>
<p>After the football games W always looked forward to tearing down the goal posts a metaphor for what he’s doing to the US economy.</p>
<p>Although he supposedly now steers the ship of state from the Oval Office, logic still eludes him. He has developed a monster-sized spending habit in Afghanistan and Iraq while slashing government revenue — taxes. He still claims unqualified success for his Iraq policy while he and his staff ferret in the halls of the United Nations for help to get out of the Iraq mess.</p>
<p>As Iraq looks daily more like a quagmire than a liberating success story, the deficit rockets upward and job losses continue. With his Alfred E. Newman grin, W tells the public not to worry because the brave but economically poor — servicemen and women and those in the reserve will forgo their pleasures and fight, die and sacrifice for the filthy rich that just got rewarded by his tax plan.</p>
<p>Bush seems unaware of the pain “out there.” His dad couldn’t very well teach him how the average American lived. Remember when Bush 41 encountered a zebra code in a supermarket and asked what the funny black and white thingydoo was for?</p>
<p>But under Daddy, the economy may have sputtered, but didn’t lose jobs. W is the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over an economy with a net 2.7 million payroll job loss, the heaviest hit taken by the manufacturing sector (New York Times Week in Review, September 28, 2003 p.3.). His speech writers had him promise that “he will not be satisfied until every American who’s looking for a job can find a job.” He simultaneously assured the public that he had a “comprehensive plan for job creation all over America.”</p>
<p>Even some Wall Street conservatives don’t understand how cutting taxes for people who least need or deserve them will produce jobs. Just as W falsely reiterated that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and close links with the 9/11 ghouls, W now repeats his economic mantra: somehow, some way, through his zany economic plan God will bless the unemployed by finding them a job.</p>
<p>Instead of describing the newest tax cut plan as simply one more sleazy means of satisfying the plutocrats who put up big money for his campaign, Bush infused his policy with an aura of nobility. On April 24, 2003, he said that “the whole purpose of the [tax cuts] package is…to create the conditions for job growth, so people can find work.” “This is a jobs program,” agreed Stan Collender, Budget Analyst at Fleishman-Hillard, but it’s “for two people, the president and the vice president, as they face their re-election” (January 7, 2003).</p>
<p>For all his assurances that lower taxes would help everyone, Bush’s plan demonstrably hurt the poor. A new Center for Budget and Policy Priorities report demonstrates that between 1995-98 the nation’s top 400 taxpayers more than doubled their average income to $110 million average and they did even better during 2001-3, under Bush.</p>
<p>Between 1979-97, the top 1% of the country’s rich had already made more than $414,000 (per family) thanks to government tax policies. During that same period, the bottom 20% had lost about $100. The wealthy benefited from low-taxed capital gains and a fall in the federal tax rate for the upper high income levels from 30 to 22 percent. Under the years of lucrative stock options, where CEOs routinely made tens of millions on “legal” insider trading, the elite figuratively snorted money as if it was lines of powdered cocaine. But the majority of the nation’s population actually paid more in overall taxes.</p>
<p>By cutting the overall domestic budget, the federal grants to the states also diminished. Programs like health care for the poor and mentally ill disappeared. Funds for schools and parks and even police forces diminished. Bus routes disappeared in city after city. Cost cutting measures affected negatively public services in every sector. The rich don’t use any of these so it doesn’t matter to them.</p>
<p>Vociferous anti-tax advocates, who have come close to adding “thou shalt not pay taxes” as the eleventh commandment, laud Bush. Mountebanks like Rush Limbaugh, Larry Elder and Sean Hannity fill the air waves with righteous “conservative” palaver about how honest citizens give their hard earned dollars to the no-goodniks of government. These same self proclaimed Christian screamers have little sympathy for the poor. Why should the rich pay anything to those whom God has decided to occupy lower rungs of the income ladder?</p>
<p>The poor had their chance and blew it, the compassionate conservatives implicitly allege. When these low income types get tax refunds, they spend them meaning creating jobs and kick-starting the economy. But, according to economists like William Dudley, who directs domestic research at Goldman Sachs, the ultra rich tend to horde or invest their massive tax gains in non-productive entities (New York Times, September 28, 2003 p.3).</p>
<p>George W. Bush, loyal to his class, wants to rid the plutocrats not only of the burden of taxes on income, but those on estates and dividends as well. He wants the well-born to enjoy ever greater pleasure when they read and re-read and the gloat over their monthly financial statements.</p>
<p>The average American worker, on the other hand, struggles to make a yearly $40,000 for his or her family. “Why,” asks New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, “does the administration, even on its own estimates, need to offer $500,000 in tax cuts for each job created? If it’s all about jobs, wouldn’t it be far cheaper just to have the government hire people?” (April 22, 2003).</p>
<p>Don’t confuse W with facts or logic. More than 400 economists, including 10 Nobel Prize-winners, agreed that Bush’s tax plan would not produce meaningful job growth. Rather, they reported “its purpose is a permanent change in the tax structure,” that favors the already favored (“Economists’ Statement Opposing the Bush Tax Cuts,” February 10, 2003).</p>
<p>One Bush Administration critic, Dr. Lawrence Mishel, told the House Education and Workforce Committee on February 12, 2003 that the President’s plan will generate growth in GDP and in jobs in the first two years i.e., a plan geared for reelection rather than real job growth. Indeed, Mishel predicted that the plan would raise unemployment higher than would otherwise be the case from 2005-2007.</p>
<p>Mark Zandi, Chief Economist at Economy.com, claimed that the Bush plan would result in 750,000 fewer jobs by 2013 (Economy.com, February 2003).</p>
<p>Boola Boola economics purveyors will continue to pretend that tax cuts have noting to do with government’s ability to meet the needs of the average American. They will try to sell that line to meat packers and food processing workers, supermarket checkers and Walmart clerks whose needs have grown acute. W hailed firefighters and cops for their 9/11 heroism and used them for photo ops, but slashed programs that would help them and their families.</p>
<p>By accumulating a $200 million campaign chest for 2004, the Bushies plan to bamboozle the electorate, and, if necessary, chad enough votes to win four more years to make four more wars. Politically, the Bush gang aims to create the sense of utter hopelessness in the minds of the poor. That way the downtrodden will not have the will to vote and the rich will no longer face even a remote electoral challenge. Yeah, “bring ’em on.”</p>
<p>SAUL LANDAU is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. He teaches at Cal Poly Pomona University. For Landau’s writing in Spanish visit: <a href="http://www.rprogreso.com/" type="external">www.rprogreso.com</a>. His new book, <a href="" type="internal">PRE-EMPTIVE EMPIRE: A GUIDE TO BUSH S KINGDOM,</a> has just been published by Pluto Press. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | nothing contempt anger betray trust exposing names sources view insidious traitors george w bush dedication ceremony george bush center intelligence april 26 1999 president george w bush plans ask staff members whether played role revealing name undercover cia officer washington post 92903 dont bother details nobodys totally consistent remember long ago 2000 precise george w bush eschewed expensive ambitious projects like nation building called less spending overseas operations directly connected immediate us interests called compassionate conservative pledged among things leave child behind one wit reminded bush left one child behind rather hed left millions kids far worse shape took office economy stupid 1980 daddy shouted voodoo economics republican candidate president ronald reagan announced tax spend freely program cureall america boola boola economics yale fight song thought come hawaiian island might better describe ws version rich kid yale majors cheer leading harvard game cheers sips hip flask bring em roars harvard eleven emerge remembers phrase presidential tv appearance repeats referring iraqi resistance fighters would fight hated ivy league rival vicariously football games w always looked forward tearing goal posts metaphor hes us economy although supposedly steers ship state oval office logic still eludes developed monstersized spending habit afghanistan iraq slashing government revenue taxes still claims unqualified success iraq policy staff ferret halls united nations help get iraq mess iraq looks daily like quagmire liberating success story deficit rockets upward job losses continue alfred e newman grin w tells public worry brave economically poor servicemen women reserve forgo pleasures fight die sacrifice filthy rich got rewarded tax plan bush seems unaware pain dad couldnt well teach average american lived remember bush 41 encountered zebra code supermarket asked funny black white thingydoo daddy economy may sputtered didnt lose jobs w first president since herbert hoover preside economy net 27 million payroll job loss heaviest hit taken manufacturing sector new york times week review september 28 2003 p3 speech writers promise satisfied every american whos looking job find job simultaneously assured public comprehensive plan job creation america even wall street conservatives dont understand cutting taxes people least need deserve produce jobs w falsely reiterated saddam weapons mass destruction close links 911 ghouls w repeats economic mantra somehow way zany economic plan god bless unemployed finding job instead describing newest tax cut plan simply one sleazy means satisfying plutocrats put big money campaign bush infused policy aura nobility april 24 2003 said whole purpose tax cuts package isto create conditions job growth people find work jobs program agreed stan collender budget analyst fleishmanhillard two people president vice president face reelection january 7 2003 assurances lower taxes would help everyone bushs plan demonstrably hurt poor new center budget policy priorities report demonstrates 199598 nations top 400 taxpayers doubled average income 110 million average even better 20013 bush 197997 top 1 countrys rich already made 414000 per family thanks government tax policies period bottom 20 lost 100 wealthy benefited lowtaxed capital gains fall federal tax rate upper high income levels 30 22 percent years lucrative stock options ceos routinely made tens millions legal insider trading elite figuratively snorted money lines powdered cocaine majority nations population actually paid overall taxes cutting overall domestic budget federal grants states also diminished programs like health care poor mentally ill disappeared funds schools parks even police forces diminished bus routes disappeared city city cost cutting measures affected negatively public services every sector rich dont use doesnt matter vociferous antitax advocates come close adding thou shalt pay taxes eleventh commandment laud bush mountebanks like rush limbaugh larry elder sean hannity fill air waves righteous conservative palaver honest citizens give hard earned dollars nogoodniks government self proclaimed christian screamers little sympathy poor rich pay anything god decided occupy lower rungs income ladder poor chance blew compassionate conservatives implicitly allege low income types get tax refunds spend meaning creating jobs kickstarting economy according economists like william dudley directs domestic research goldman sachs ultra rich tend horde invest massive tax gains nonproductive entities new york times september 28 2003 p3 george w bush loyal class wants rid plutocrats burden taxes income estates dividends well wants wellborn enjoy ever greater pleasure read reread gloat monthly financial statements average american worker hand struggles make yearly 40000 family asks new york times columnist paul krugman administration even estimates need offer 500000 tax cuts job created jobs wouldnt far cheaper government hire people april 22 2003 dont confuse w facts logic 400 economists including 10 nobel prizewinners agreed bushs tax plan would produce meaningful job growth rather reported purpose permanent change tax structure favors already favored economists statement opposing bush tax cuts february 10 2003 one bush administration critic dr lawrence mishel told house education workforce committee february 12 2003 presidents plan generate growth gdp jobs first two years ie plan geared reelection rather real job growth indeed mishel predicted plan would raise unemployment higher would otherwise case 20052007 mark zandi chief economist economycom claimed bush plan would result 750000 fewer jobs 2013 economycom february 2003 boola boola economics purveyors continue pretend tax cuts noting governments ability meet needs average american try sell line meat packers food processing workers supermarket checkers walmart clerks whose needs grown acute w hailed firefighters cops 911 heroism used photo ops slashed programs would help families accumulating 200 million campaign chest 2004 bushies plan bamboozle electorate necessary chad enough votes win four years make four wars politically bush gang aims create sense utter hopelessness minds poor way downtrodden vote rich longer face even remote electoral challenge yeah bring em saul landau fellow institute policy studies teaches cal poly pomona university landaus writing spanish visit wwwrprogresocom new book preemptive empire guide bush kingdom published pluto press reached landaucounterpunchorg 160 | 943 |
<p />
<p>Introduction by Tom Engelhardt</p>
<p>A.I.G. is, of course, back in the news—and how! Not that it was ever too far off the radar screen. Having received yet one more massive infusion of federal tax dollars, as everyone from here to hell now knows, the insurance giant <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/business/17bailout.html" type="external">handed out</a> yet another round of lucrative bonuses. Over the last year, company management has doled out about $1 billion in such payments, roughly half to employees in the financial products subsidiary that concocted the type of high-risk, highly-leveraged deals in derivatives which helped send the company, and Wall Street, and most of the rest of us into steep decline last year.</p>
<p>Bonuses went to 418 employees, 73 “retention bonuses” of <a href="http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200903171544DOWJONESDJONLINE000628_FORTUNE5.htm" type="external">$1 million or more</a> each to members of that subsidiary (including 11 who have left the firm) to help “unravel” the deals they created. How’s that for an A.I.G. mea culpa to the taxpayers and the newly unemployed who officially “own” 80% of the company (which might well be 80% of next to nothing)?</p>
<p>Meanwhile, there’s been a drumbeat of headlines about mass layoffs of public employees. In California, more than 26,000 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/us/15layoffs.html" type="external">public school teachers</a> were given notice last Friday that they might not have jobs next year. An additional 15,000 school bus drivers, janitors, and administrators might be in the same boat. Unions turned members out across the state for <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/13/BA2F16DFBI.DTL&amp;hw=layoffs&amp;sn=017&amp;sc=248" type="external">“Pink Slip Friday”</a> protests.</p>
<p>In Michigan, Pontiac’s school board <a href="http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090311/SCHOOLS/903110374/1026" type="external">voted</a> to lay off every one of the district’s more than 600 employees. In both cases, officials claim that not all those who received notices will, in fact, be laid off, yet such notifications speak to the enormity of the problem that local and state governments face. Nobody, of course, asks schoolteachers and bus drivers to stay on (with lucrative bonuses) to unravel the crises they created. Oh, maybe that’s because, unlike A.I.G.’s traders, they didn’t do anything wrong.</p>
<p>The insurance giant isn’t the only company feeling its oats in bad times, however. As journalist Robert Eshelman suggests below, while mass layoffs are grabbing headlines—and for good reason—businesses may have opened up a new front in the war on labor, hiding behind horrific economic news the way an advancing army might use a smoke screen.</p>
<p>How big is the problem? Well, we just don’t know. As newspapers continue to <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29731700/" type="external">disappear</a> or scale back—the Washington Post recently <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE52C5NP20090314" type="external">did in</a> its stand-alone business section—the reporters that remain on the economic beat may not be paying enough attention to a war against workers that lurks just below the surface of the headlines. Tom</p>
<p />
<p>The Unemployment Story No One Notices By Robert S. Eshelman</p>
<p>Juanita Borden, 39 and jobless, patiently waits as her résumé methodically works its way, line by line, through a fax machine at a state-run job center in downtown Philadelphia. Lying open before her on a round conference table is a neatly organized folder. “This is my résumé and everywhere I’ve been faxing to. This is how I keep track of what day I’ve sent them on, so I can call and check back,” she says, leafing through pages of fax cover sheets. “I usually give five business days before I inquire whether or not they’ve received it and whether or not they’re interested.”</p>
<p>Juanita was fired last October, when her employer found out that her driver’s license—a job requirement—had expired. “It was only a matter of twenty-six dollars. I was under the impression that it expired in November of ’08, but it was actually November of ’07, and because I hadn’t been driving I wasn’t aware of it.” The one occasion on which she was required to drive, though, she couldn’t, and that was all her employer needed to fire her for failing to fulfill her employment responsibilities. She has since renewed her license and says with an air of futility, “I’d like to have my job back if they would give it to me.”</p>
<p>She hasn’t been asked back and, despite her persistent efforts, she hasn’t received a single call from a prospective employer either. “The good thing,” she says, remaining remarkably buoyant despite her misfortune, “is that usually when I interview I get the job. So… I’m hoping for an interview soon.” Until then, her carefully managed folder serves as a small measure of control over an otherwise steady drift into poverty and homelessness.</p>
<p>Juanita isn’t the only one at this job center on the precipice of acute need. And she isn’t alone in relating a story about being fired for what would seem to many a frivolous reason. Chris Topher, 25 and making his first visit here, was axed in March of last year. The telecommunications company he had been working for sent him packing when, as he tells it, he installed cable equipment a customer hadn’t ordered. It didn’t matter that the mistake was on the work order Chris was given. “It was the best job I had since I graduated high school and I’ve had a few: Turnpike Commission, working in a Senator’s office. I’ve had some nice jobs, but that one, I enjoyed it the most.”</p>
<p>And there was good reason to enjoy it. Chris pulled down $1,200-1,300 every two weeks in addition to receiving a full benefits package. He thought of contesting his termination, but at the time it looked like a long, uphill battle that he wasn’t eager to take on. It’s a fight that, in hindsight, he thinks he could have won and that his employer probably knew he would win as well. “And that’s why I believe I was approved by my employer for unemployment,” he says.</p>
<p>Under unemployment eligibility requirements, an employer must certify whether an employee committed a “fault” on the job and was therefore terminated. If an employer indicates that no fault was committed and the employee meets several other requirements, including being physically able to work, states grant an unemployment claim. In other words, Chris’s former employer granted him a small concession, while otherwise turning his life upside down amid the worst job market since 1983.</p>
<p>“Unemployment is the pits pretty much,” says Chris, whose unemployment compensation is significantly less than half what he made as a cable installer. Still, he’s better off than Juanita, who has applied for unemployment twice and been denied both times. She is now appealing, but her employer is conceding nothing. In a recent arbitration hearing, Juanita says, her former supervisor claimed that, if she had only told them about her expired license, they would have allowed her renewal time. If only.</p>
<p>Now, Juanita lives with her brother and his wife, but they, too, have financial problems. “My brother is working part time and it’s driving him crazy, because it’s causing money problems between him and his wife,” she explains. “And with me being there,” she hesitates, “…it’s a little constrained.”</p>
<p>Ratcheting Up the Fear</p>
<p>The mainstream media has generally sketched a picture of a labor market in which, under the pressure of an economic meltdown, workers succumb to two types of downsizing. In one, a fierce recession forces businesses, desperate to cut costs in terrible times, to lay off workers. They, in turn, face grim prospects for gainful employment elsewhere. In a kinder, gentler version of the same, employers, desperate to cut costs in terrible times, offer—or sometimes force workers to take—”furloughs,” salary cuts, union give-backs, four-day work weeks, or un-paid holidays rather than axing large numbers of them.</p>
<p>In this case, tough as it may be, workers benefit, retaining at least some of their income, while businesses wait out the recession. In both cases, businesses are largely depicted as unenthusiastic dispensers of pink-slips. Managers and bosses are just facing up to an unpalatable reality and unavoidable pressures imposed on them by the worst economic moment in recent memory.</p>
<p>A visit to a job center is hardly a scientific survey. The experiences of Juanita and Chris, along with those of other unemployed people I spent time with while in Philadelphia, may be purely anecdotal evidence. But they do raise questions about a subject of no small importance, and it’s not one you’re likely to read about in your daily paper—not yet anyway. If a deepening recession weighs down and threatens businesses, some of those businesses are undoubtedly also making convenient use of the times to do things they might have wanted to do, but were unable to do in better conditions.</p>
<p>In some cases, under the guise of “recession” pressure, they may be waging a secret war against their own workers, using even the most innocuous transgressions of work-place rules as the trigger for firings—and so, of course, putting the fear of god into those who remain. In this way, company payrolls are not only being reduced by mass layoffs, but workers are being squeezed for ever greater productivity in return for lower wages, worse hours, and less benefits. The weapon of choice is the specter of unemployment, a kind of death by a thousand (or a million) cuts.</p>
<p>Companies stand to gain a lot these days from such small-scale but decisive actions. After all, they reap a double benefit. Not only do they pare down the size of their payroll, often without needing—as in Juanita’s case—to consent to unemployment compensation, but they also contribute to a climate of intensifying fear. Workers who remain on the job are now not only on edge about lay-offs or scaled-back hours, but also know that a late return from a bathroom or lunch break might mean being shown the door, becoming another member of the legions of unemployed—now at 12.5 million and rising fast.</p>
<p>This dynamic is, of course, hardly new. Countless critics of working conditions have written about it since the dawn of the industrial age. But at the moment, even as the latest unemployment figures make screaming headlines, this is a subject that seldom comes up. Consider, though, that in December, Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, settled <a href="http://ca.news.finance.yahoo.com/s/23122008/2/biz-finance-wal-mart-agrees-pay-workers-640-million-settle.html" type="external">63 outstanding class-action lawsuits</a> that alleged massive wage and hours violations. Fearing termination, Wal-Mart workers, according to their testimony in the lawsuits, labored through lunch breaks and past their scheduled hours for just above minimum wage pay, with little hope of getting enough hours to qualify for the company’s health benefits.</p>
<p>As a condition of the settlement, Wal-Mart will pay out as much as $640 million to those workers. If corporations were able to exert such coercive power when the unemployment rate was around 5%, what can they do in a job market in which <a href="http://www.cbpp.org/3-6-09ui-stmt.htm" type="external">14.8%</a> of the population can’t find adequate work?</p>
<p>In fact, the world’s largest retailer is one of the few American corporations doing well in dark times. While retail sales slid almost everywhere, the company’s <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123625531533739283.html" type="external">same-store sales</a> went up 5.1% in February (when compared with February 2008 sales). Yet, in that same month, it announced a move to “realign its corporate structure and reduce costs.” It cut 700 to 800 jobs at its Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club home offices, in effect acting no differently than any of the companies being battered by the deepening recession.</p>
<p>Free-Firing Zone</p>
<p>Rodney Green, a soft-spoken 52-year-old, comes to the job center three times a week to search on-line job listings. He describes his decades-long drift from full-time employee with benefits to marginalized temp-worker with no benefits and, finally, to the category of unemployed for an extended period.</p>
<p>From the late 1970s until the early 1990s, he worked for Bell Telecommunications, where he earned a good salary and full benefits. Since Bell laid him off, he’s worked periodically as a forklift operator for various companies, getting temporary placements through an employment agency. Most recently, he earned $12 an hour working for a deli meat and artisanal cheese producer. No benefits were provided. A year’s work, he explained, would mean a week’s vacation, “but they don’t keep you that long. They lay you off or rotate you into another job before then.”</p>
<p>Today, as he’s discovered, even such temp jobs are becoming scarce. “In the eighties, it wasn’t as bad as it is now,” he comments from the unemployment heartland of what, in 2009, is a deeply de-industrialized Philadelphia. “The city had jobs, but then the jobs moved to the suburbs. Now they’re moving overseas. Back then, say, you applied for a job, maybe fifty others applied, too. Today, that same job, you’re going to have hundreds—I mean, a thousand for that one job. It’s hard. It’s depressing.”</p>
<p>For the past year and a half, Rodney has been collecting unemployment periodically, and in that time, he hasn’t landed a single interview. Recently, because the Bush administration finally acquiesced to grassroots and Congressional pressure to lengthen unemployment benefits, he received a thirteen-week extension, providing him a little cushion (unlike equally interview-less Juanita). “That helped me a lot. Times are hard right now. I hear there are over four million people collecting unemployment. That’s kind of high.”</p>
<p>If Juanita and Chris are casualties of the intensified war of attrition businesses are quietly waging on workers, Rodney represents a deeper unraveling of jobs and job security, thanks to a globalized economy in which the hard-pressed workers in this country are pitted against cheaper labor pools in Latin America, South Asia, China, and even the American South. In such a job environment, what is one to do?</p>
<p>Someone I interviewed prior to my job center visit described her reaction when she heard that her company had recently closed a plant in the Midwest: “The first thing I thought, and I felt bad for thinking it,” she recalled, somewhat sheepishly, “was that means more work for us—at least for the time being.”</p>
<p>Her comment speaks volumes, as does her request not to be identified. Who needs union busters, patrolling shop-stewards, or legions of high-paid lawyers fighting wage and hours claims when a worker is so anxious about job security that she responds positively to the laying off of those she imagines as potential competitors? When employees police their own behavior for fear of the axe—monitoring their time checking email or using the bathroom—bad times distinctly have an upside for management.</p>
<p>In this job environment, it’s easy to turn not just on others, but on yourself. Reflecting on what she will do without a job and unemployment benefits, Juanita wonders if the problem isn’t the economy, but the choices she made in life. “I left home when I was sixteen and lived in my own places, had my children, and got married,” she says nervously, continually folding and refolding a local newspaper. “I should have gone to school and did a lot more things to make myself more marketable earlier in life. Now I’m left having to start over again.”</p>
<p>A look at corporate opposition to <a href="http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/" type="external">the Employee Free Choice Act</a> (EFCA), whose passage in Congress is a central demand of organized labor, offers a glimpse of how persistently companies seek to disadvantage their workers. EFCA would allow workers to form a union when a majority of them sign union cards in a given workplace. “Card check,” as it is frequently called, enables them to organize unions without the need for an election. In a November column <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122705706314639537.html?mod=googlenews_wsj" type="external">surveying</a> the business elite’s response to the Act, Wall Street Journal op-ed columnist Thomas Frank wrote: “Card check is about power. Management has it, workers don’t, and business doesn’t want that to change.”</p>
<p>In Frank’s estimation, the current struggle over EFCA is the latest incarnation of a constantly evolving struggle between workers and employers. For the under- or unemployed crowding into this center in Philadelphia, the current recession isn’t a time-out from the normal struggle, it’s more like a new open season for corporate attacks on them.</p>
<p>Right now, for Juanita, Chris, and others at this center, there are actually two wars going on, and only one of them seems to have caught the attention of labor and business reporters. The headlines about the first read: Desperate Companies Forced to Cut Jobs. But many here seem to be experiencing a second war in which businesses are using bad times to act in ways they couldn’t in the best of times.</p>
<p>Shouldn’t reporters be heading out in search of this one-sided, covert struggle? Isn’t it time for the second business war of our moment to make a few headlines of its own?</p>
<p>Robert S. Eshelman is an independent journalist and audio host at TomDispatch.com. His articles have appeared in the Nation, In These Times, and Abu Dhabi’s the National. He can be emailed at [email protected].</p>
<p>Copyright 2009 Robert S. Eshelman</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | introduction tom engelhardt aig course back newsand ever far radar screen received yet one massive infusion federal tax dollars everyone hell knows insurance giant handed yet another round lucrative bonuses last year company management doled 1 billion payments roughly half employees financial products subsidiary concocted type highrisk highlyleveraged deals derivatives helped send company wall street rest us steep decline last year bonuses went 418 employees 73 retention bonuses 1 million members subsidiary including 11 left firm help unravel deals created hows aig mea culpa taxpayers newly unemployed officially 80 company might well 80 next nothing meanwhile theres drumbeat headlines mass layoffs public employees california 26000 public school teachers given notice last friday might jobs next year additional 15000 school bus drivers janitors administrators might boat unions turned members across state pink slip friday protests michigan pontiacs school board voted lay every one districts 600 employees cases officials claim received notices fact laid yet notifications speak enormity problem local state governments face nobody course asks schoolteachers bus drivers stay lucrative bonuses unravel crises created oh maybe thats unlike aigs traders didnt anything wrong insurance giant isnt company feeling oats bad times however journalist robert eshelman suggests mass layoffs grabbing headlinesand good reasonbusinesses may opened new front war labor hiding behind horrific economic news way advancing army might use smoke screen big problem well dont know newspapers continue disappear scale backthe washington post recently standalone business sectionthe reporters remain economic beat may paying enough attention war workers lurks surface headlines tom unemployment story one notices robert eshelman juanita borden 39 jobless patiently waits résumé methodically works way line line fax machine staterun job center downtown philadelphia lying open round conference table neatly organized folder résumé everywhere ive faxing keep track day ive sent call check back says leafing pages fax cover sheets usually give five business days inquire whether theyve received whether theyre interested juanita fired last october employer found drivers licensea job requirementhad expired matter twentysix dollars impression expired november 08 actually november 07 hadnt driving wasnt aware one occasion required drive though couldnt employer needed fire failing fulfill employment responsibilities since renewed license says air futility id like job back would give hasnt asked back despite persistent efforts hasnt received single call prospective employer either good thing says remaining remarkably buoyant despite misfortune usually interview get job im hoping interview soon carefully managed folder serves small measure control otherwise steady drift poverty homelessness juanita isnt one job center precipice acute need isnt alone relating story fired would seem many frivolous reason chris topher 25 making first visit axed march last year telecommunications company working sent packing tells installed cable equipment customer hadnt ordered didnt matter mistake work order chris given best job since graduated high school ive turnpike commission working senators office ive nice jobs one enjoyed good reason enjoy chris pulled 12001300 every two weeks addition receiving full benefits package thought contesting termination time looked like long uphill battle wasnt eager take fight hindsight thinks could employer probably knew would win well thats believe approved employer unemployment says unemployment eligibility requirements employer must certify whether employee committed fault job therefore terminated employer indicates fault committed employee meets several requirements including physically able work states grant unemployment claim words chriss former employer granted small concession otherwise turning life upside amid worst job market since 1983 unemployment pits pretty much says chris whose unemployment compensation significantly less half made cable installer still hes better juanita applied unemployment twice denied times appealing employer conceding nothing recent arbitration hearing juanita says former supervisor claimed told expired license would allowed renewal time juanita lives brother wife financial problems brother working part time driving crazy causing money problems wife explains hesitates little constrained ratcheting fear mainstream media generally sketched picture labor market pressure economic meltdown workers succumb two types downsizing one fierce recession forces businesses desperate cut costs terrible times lay workers turn face grim prospects gainful employment elsewhere kinder gentler version employers desperate cut costs terrible times offeror sometimes force workers takefurloughs salary cuts union givebacks fourday work weeks unpaid holidays rather axing large numbers case tough may workers benefit retaining least income businesses wait recession cases businesses largely depicted unenthusiastic dispensers pinkslips managers bosses facing unpalatable reality unavoidable pressures imposed worst economic moment recent memory visit job center hardly scientific survey experiences juanita chris along unemployed people spent time philadelphia may purely anecdotal evidence raise questions subject small importance one youre likely read daily papernot yet anyway deepening recession weighs threatens businesses businesses undoubtedly also making convenient use times things might wanted unable better conditions cases guise recession pressure may waging secret war workers using even innocuous transgressions workplace rules trigger firingsand course putting fear god remain way company payrolls reduced mass layoffs workers squeezed ever greater productivity return lower wages worse hours less benefits weapon choice specter unemployment kind death thousand million cuts companies stand gain lot days smallscale decisive actions reap double benefit pare size payroll often without needingas juanitas caseto consent unemployment compensation also contribute climate intensifying fear workers remain job edge layoffs scaledback hours also know late return bathroom lunch break might mean shown door becoming another member legions unemployednow 125 million rising fast dynamic course hardly new countless critics working conditions written since dawn industrial age moment even latest unemployment figures make screaming headlines subject seldom comes consider though december walmart worlds largest retailer settled 63 outstanding classaction lawsuits alleged massive wage hours violations fearing termination walmart workers according testimony lawsuits labored lunch breaks past scheduled hours minimum wage pay little hope getting enough hours qualify companys health benefits condition settlement walmart pay much 640 million workers corporations able exert coercive power unemployment rate around 5 job market 148 population cant find adequate work fact worlds largest retailer one american corporations well dark times retail sales slid almost everywhere companys samestore sales went 51 february compared february 2008 sales yet month announced move realign corporate structure reduce costs cut 700 800 jobs walmart sams club home offices effect acting differently companies battered deepening recession freefiring zone rodney green softspoken 52yearold comes job center three times week search online job listings describes decadeslong drift fulltime employee benefits marginalized tempworker benefits finally category unemployed extended period late 1970s early 1990s worked bell telecommunications earned good salary full benefits since bell laid hes worked periodically forklift operator various companies getting temporary placements employment agency recently earned 12 hour working deli meat artisanal cheese producer benefits provided years work explained would mean weeks vacation dont keep long lay rotate another job today hes discovered even temp jobs becoming scarce eighties wasnt bad comments unemployment heartland 2009 deeply deindustrialized philadelphia city jobs jobs moved suburbs theyre moving overseas back say applied job maybe fifty others applied today job youre going hundredsi mean thousand one job hard depressing past year half rodney collecting unemployment periodically time hasnt landed single interview recently bush administration finally acquiesced grassroots congressional pressure lengthen unemployment benefits received thirteenweek extension providing little cushion unlike equally interviewless juanita helped lot times hard right hear four million people collecting unemployment thats kind high juanita chris casualties intensified war attrition businesses quietly waging workers rodney represents deeper unraveling jobs job security thanks globalized economy hardpressed workers country pitted cheaper labor pools latin america south asia china even american south job environment one someone interviewed prior job center visit described reaction heard company recently closed plant midwest first thing thought felt bad thinking recalled somewhat sheepishly means work usat least time comment speaks volumes request identified needs union busters patrolling shopstewards legions highpaid lawyers fighting wage hours claims worker anxious job security responds positively laying imagines potential competitors employees police behavior fear axemonitoring time checking email using bathroombad times distinctly upside management job environment easy turn others reflecting without job unemployment benefits juanita wonders problem isnt economy choices made life left home sixteen lived places children got married says nervously continually folding refolding local newspaper gone school lot things make marketable earlier life im left start look corporate opposition employee free choice act efca whose passage congress central demand organized labor offers glimpse persistently companies seek disadvantage workers efca would allow workers form union majority sign union cards given workplace card check frequently called enables organize unions without need election november column surveying business elites response act wall street journal oped columnist thomas frank wrote card check power management workers dont business doesnt want change franks estimation current struggle efca latest incarnation constantly evolving struggle workers employers unemployed crowding center philadelphia current recession isnt timeout normal struggle like new open season corporate attacks right juanita chris others center actually two wars going one seems caught attention labor business reporters headlines first read desperate companies forced cut jobs many seem experiencing second war businesses using bad times act ways couldnt best times shouldnt reporters heading search onesided covert struggle isnt time second business war moment make headlines robert eshelman independent journalist audio host tomdispatchcom articles appeared nation times abu dhabis national emailed robertseshelmangmailcom copyright 2009 robert eshelman | 1,502 |
<p>Robert Naiman is Policy Director of Just Foreign Policy. Naiman has worked as a policy analyst and researcher at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. He has masters degrees in economics and mathematics from the University of Illinois and has studied and worked in the Middle East. Naiman edits the Just Foreign Policy daily news summary and writes a blog on Huffington Post.</p>
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<p /> JESSICA DESVARIEUX, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jessica Desvarieux in Baltimore.
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<p />The United States and U.K. have ordered all of their embassy staff to evacuate Yemen. This was following a likely U.S. drone strike which killed four alleged al-Qaeda terrorists. The drone strikes on Tuesday were the fourth strikes in two weeks. According to at least one local journalist, a U.S. drone strike on August&#160;1 killed four civilians, including a child.
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<p />Here to discuss all this is Robert Naiman. Robert is the policy director at Just Foreign Policy, and he writes on U.S. foreign policy for Huffington Post, Truthout, Al Jazeera English, and other publications. Thanks for being with us, Robert.
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<p />ROBERT NAIMAN, POLICY DIRECTOR, JUST FOREIGN POLICY: It's good to be with you.
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<p />DESVARIEUX: So my first question, Robert, is whether or not the Obama administration has even recognized taking responsibility for this drone strike. And what exactly is the Obama administration's policy related to drones in Yemen?
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<p />NAIMAN: Well, those are great questions. You know, it's still the case, even after President Obama made his speech at National Defense University, where he was understood to pledge to bring the war on terror within the rule of law, where he pledged to be more transparent about the drone strike policy, where he pledged that no drone strike would be conducted unless it was virtually certain that there would be no civilian casualties, it's still the case that U.S. officials refuse to comment publicly for the record acknowledging particular drone strikes, answer questions about particular drone strikes. So we still don't have the transparency that was promised.
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<p />We don't know for sure when a drone strike occurs that it's actually a drone strike. We just infer that from reports on the ground. People say, well, we think this was a drone strike. The U.S. doesn't acknowledge it. So we can't really tell for sure between--often we can't tell for sure between a U.S. drone strike, a U.S. man strike, a Yemen Air Force strike, a Saudi Air Force strike. All these things are happening in Yemen. But we think that this was a drone strike because that's how it was described in press reports.
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<p />What is the policy in Yemen? Again, that's a good question which is hard to nail down precise answers to. Remember, this is a covert action, quote-unquote covert action. So that means that--obviously it's not really a secret, because we know that it's happening. It means that U.S. officials generally don't discuss it publicly on the record, saying that it's a classified CIA operation. That was supposed to change, again, after President Obama's NDU speech, particularly in Yemen. The drone strikes were supposed to be transferred from the CIA to the military and become more transparent. That hasn't happened yet.
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<p />So, for example, one of the most controversial aspects of the drone strike policy is the use of so-called signature strikes, where, you know, the official story is, we're just going after top-level terrorist leaders, you know, guys we need, bad guys. We know who they are. They're plotting against the United States, plotting to hurt Americans. That's the official public story. Well, in fact, you know, press have reported that there's this whole other kind of strike, so-called signature strike, where they don't know who they're targeting. Signature means they're inferring who they think the person is from signals intelligence and human intelligence. They have an intelligence signature that indicates that they are engaged in terrorist-like behavior.
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<p />We met, when I was on a delegation recently to Yemen, with the U.S. ambassador. We asked him about this implicit promise. And many people understood that signature strikes were going to end. And he said, Ambassador Feierstein, we don't do signature strikes in Yemen. That's something that happened in Pakistan. In Yemen, we know every single person that we're targeting. We know who they are. Well, everybody that I reported this--everybody I told, Yemenis, Western journalists, they laughed. That's ridiculous. This is something that was reported in Western press. That shows you the disconnect between what Obama administration officials are saying and what independent press is reporting.
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<p />So what is the drone strike policy in Yemen, U.S. drone strike policy in Yemen? Who knows. I can tell you what the Obama administration is saying it is. I can tell you what Western press reports are saying it is. But those are two completely different things.
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<p />DESVARIEUX: What we do know is that the Obama administration ordered for their entire staff in Yemen to evacuate. And already there's been a firing down of a Yemeni military helicopter that killed eight people on board. And apparently this military helicopter was safeguarding oil installations. Can you talk to us a little bit about whether or not the U.S. policy in Yemen has anything to do with oil? And also, does the U.S. drone policy actually increase the likelihood of more terrorist actions down the road?
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<p />NAIMAN: Well, first of all, about oil, you know, ultimately oil is the backdrop of all U.S. policy in the Middle East. So all U.S. policy in the Middle East relates to oil. Even if in a particular case, you know, you can't explain a particular U.S. action in light of oil, the whole posture of the U.S. in the region for the last 50 years, since the Second World War, revolves around oil, revolves around the fact that Saudi Arabia in particular is a huge oil producer and is regarded by the U.S. as a strategic prize, not about putting gas in our fuel tanks in the United States; about controlling what's considered to be strategic asset in terms of geopolitics. It's about our relationship with--U.S. relationship with Europe and Asia, because that's where most of that oil is being exported. It's not about our cars; it's about U.S. geopolitical strategy and control of this strategic prize.
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<p />Yemen is not a significant oil producer. It's a poor country. But it lies athwart, as they say, a strategic waterway through which--the straits of Aden, through which a large part of the international oil traffic flows, and in the adjoined Saudi Arabia, which is the real prize. And the two countries influence each other. There's a lot of--you know, there's culture in common. There are tribes in common. Al-Qaeda guys who were expelled from Saudi Arabia took up residence in Yemen. It's sort of the base of operations for them. So all these things are related.
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<p />DESVARIEUX: Okay. And also we have that President Obama came out earlier this year saying that drone strikes are legal. But then there is a U.S.-sponsored initiative called Yemen's National Dialogue Conference, and they voted to criminalize drone strikes. Do you see these drone strikes undermining the legitimacy of U.S. policy in Yemen?
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<p />NAIMAN: Well, first of all, this question of whether drone strikes are legal is something that should be interrogated. You know, the United States, everybody acknowledges that the United States has a war in Afghanistan. Whatever one thinks of it, it is generally recognized to be a legal war, a declared war, officially declared war. It doesn't mean that it's a good thing. It doesn't mean that every single act within it is legal. Illegal actions happen in legal wars. But the war itself is internationally recognized as a legal war.
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<p />The United States is not internationally recognized to be conducting a legal war in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. Congress passed an authorization in 2001, the Authorization for Use of Military Force, which preceded the U.S. military entry into Afghanistan. Both the Bush and the Obama administrations claim that this authorization gives them authority to conduct military actions all over the world, including in Yemen and Pakistan and Somalia. But that is highly contested around the world and in the United States.
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<p />Is it counterproductive? Many people think so. Many people, including, like, you know--the former U.S. ambassador to Yemen signed a letter along with a bunch of other policy experts in the Obama administration saying this policy has become counterproductive in Yemen, this drone strike policy has become counterproductive in Yemen. It's undermining long-term goals, turning people in Yemen against the United States. Other experts have said the same thing about U.S. policies in Pakistan. Whatever one thought about this in the past, this policy has become counterproductive to U.S. interests by undermining the relationship between, in this case, the Yemeni government, the Pakistani government undermining the legitimacy of the Yemeni government in the eyes of many Yemenis. This is seen as facilitating these U.S. drone strikes which kill civilians, are perceived by many Yemenis as to violate the Yemeni sovereignty, even though they're approved, drone strikes are approved by the government of Yemen. This is a very controversial policy in Yemen, widely hated across the political spectrum.
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<p />The National Dialogue Conference in Yemen is like a constitutional convention. It includes every political party, includes a broad cross-section of Yemenis society, youth groups that participated in the uprising against Saleh, independent women's groups. This body passed a proposal criminalizing extrajudicial institutions in Yemen, including drone strikes. And it was supported even by representatives of Yemen's ruling party, who are participating in the national conference. That tells you how controversial these drone strikes are in Yemen.
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<p />Now, this proposal doesn't go into effect immediately, but the government of Yemen is, under the agreement that established the National Dialogue Conference, obligated ultimately to put this in place. So we see there is a collision course. You know, the National Dialogue Process in Yemen is supported by the United States and funded by the United States. It is supported by a UN Security Council resolution backed by the United States. So two parts of U.S. policy are crashing into each other. We have a U.S. policy which is supposed to be supporting democracy in Yemen and supporting the ability of--the capacity of the Yemeni government to be responsible for security in the whole country, and the same time we have a U.S. policy of the drone strike that runs completely counter to that.
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<p />DESVARIEUX: Okay. Thanks so much for joining us, Robert.
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<p />NAIMAN: Good to be with 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 | robert naiman policy director foreign policy naiman worked policy analyst researcher center economic policy research public citizens global trade watch masters degrees economics mathematics university illinois studied worked middle east naiman edits foreign policy daily news summary writes blog huffington post jessica desvarieux trnn producer welcome real news network im jessica desvarieux baltimore united states uk ordered embassy staff evacuate yemen following likely us drone strike killed four alleged alqaeda terrorists drone strikes tuesday fourth strikes two weeks according least one local journalist us drone strike august1601 killed four civilians including child discuss robert naiman robert policy director foreign policy writes us foreign policy huffington post truthout al jazeera english publications thanks us robert robert naiman policy director foreign policy good desvarieux first question robert whether obama administration even recognized taking responsibility drone strike exactly obama administrations policy related drones yemen naiman well great questions know still case even president obama made speech national defense university understood pledge bring war terror within rule law pledged transparent drone strike policy pledged drone strike would conducted unless virtually certain would civilian casualties still case us officials refuse comment publicly record acknowledging particular drone strikes answer questions particular drone strikes still dont transparency promised dont know sure drone strike occurs actually drone strike infer reports ground people say well think drone strike us doesnt acknowledge cant really tell sure betweenoften cant tell sure us drone strike us man strike yemen air force strike saudi air force strike things happening yemen think drone strike thats described press reports policy yemen thats good question hard nail precise answers remember covert action quoteunquote covert action means thatobviously really secret know happening means us officials generally dont discuss publicly record saying classified cia operation supposed change president obamas ndu speech particularly yemen drone strikes supposed transferred cia military become transparent hasnt happened yet example one controversial aspects drone strike policy use socalled signature strikes know official story going toplevel terrorist leaders know guys need bad guys know theyre plotting united states plotting hurt americans thats official public story well fact know press reported theres whole kind strike socalled signature strike dont know theyre targeting signature means theyre inferring think person signals intelligence human intelligence intelligence signature indicates engaged terroristlike behavior met delegation recently yemen us ambassador asked implicit promise many people understood signature strikes going end said ambassador feierstein dont signature strikes yemen thats something happened pakistan yemen know every single person targeting know well everybody reported thiseverybody told yemenis western journalists laughed thats ridiculous something reported western press shows disconnect obama administration officials saying independent press reporting drone strike policy yemen us drone strike policy yemen knows tell obama administration saying tell western press reports saying two completely different things desvarieux know obama administration ordered entire staff yemen evacuate already theres firing yemeni military helicopter killed eight people board apparently military helicopter safeguarding oil installations talk us little bit whether us policy yemen anything oil also us drone policy actually increase likelihood terrorist actions road naiman well first oil know ultimately oil backdrop us policy middle east us policy middle east relates oil even particular case know cant explain particular us action light oil whole posture us region last 50 years since second world war revolves around oil revolves around fact saudi arabia particular huge oil producer regarded us strategic prize putting gas fuel tanks united states controlling whats considered strategic asset terms geopolitics relationship withus relationship europe asia thats oil exported cars us geopolitical strategy control strategic prize yemen significant oil producer poor country lies athwart say strategic waterway whichthe straits aden large part international oil traffic flows adjoined saudi arabia real prize two countries influence theres lot ofyou know theres culture common tribes common alqaeda guys expelled saudi arabia took residence yemen sort base operations things related desvarieux okay also president obama came earlier year saying drone strikes legal ussponsored initiative called yemens national dialogue conference voted criminalize drone strikes see drone strikes undermining legitimacy us policy yemen naiman well first question whether drone strikes legal something interrogated know united states everybody acknowledges united states war afghanistan whatever one thinks generally recognized legal war declared war officially declared war doesnt mean good thing doesnt mean every single act within legal illegal actions happen legal wars war internationally recognized legal war united states internationally recognized conducting legal war yemen pakistan somalia congress passed authorization 2001 authorization use military force preceded us military entry afghanistan bush obama administrations claim authorization gives authority conduct military actions world including yemen pakistan somalia highly contested around world united states counterproductive many people think many people including like knowthe former us ambassador yemen signed letter along bunch policy experts obama administration saying policy become counterproductive yemen drone strike policy become counterproductive yemen undermining longterm goals turning people yemen united states experts said thing us policies pakistan whatever one thought past policy become counterproductive us interests undermining relationship case yemeni government pakistani government undermining legitimacy yemeni government eyes many yemenis seen facilitating us drone strikes kill civilians perceived many yemenis violate yemeni sovereignty even though theyre approved drone strikes approved government yemen controversial policy yemen widely hated across political spectrum national dialogue conference yemen like constitutional convention includes every political party includes broad crosssection yemenis society youth groups participated uprising saleh independent womens groups body passed proposal criminalizing extrajudicial institutions yemen including drone strikes supported even representatives yemens ruling party participating national conference tells controversial drone strikes yemen proposal doesnt go effect immediately government yemen agreement established national dialogue conference obligated ultimately put place see collision course know national dialogue process yemen supported united states funded united states supported un security council resolution backed united states two parts us policy crashing us policy supposed supporting democracy yemen supporting ability ofthe capacity yemeni government responsible security whole country time us policy drone strike runs completely counter desvarieux okay thanks much joining us robert naiman good desvarieux thank joining us real news network end disclaimer please note transcripts real news network typed recording program trnn guarantee complete accuracy | 1,005 |
<p>By Lois Beckett, ProPublica</p>
<p>How many Americans have been shot over the past 10 years? No one really knows. We don’t even know if the number of people shot annually has gone up or down over that time.</p>
<p>The government’s own numbers seem to conflict. One source of data on shooting victims suggests that gun-related violence has been declining for years, while another government estimate actually shows an increase in the number of people who have been shot. Each estimate is based on limited, incomplete data. Not even the FBI tracks the total number of nonfatal gunshot wounds.</p>
<p>“We know how many people die, but not how many are injured and survive,” said Dr. Demetrios Demetriades, a Los Angeles trauma surgeon who has been studying nationwide gunshot injury trends.</p>
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<p>While the number of gun murders hasdecreased in recent years, there’s debate over whether this reflects a drop in the total number of shootings, or an improvement in how many lives emergency room doctors can save.</p>
<p>Doctors and researchers have been advocating for better gun injury data since the late 1980s. But <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/republicans-say-no-to-cdc-gun-violence-research/" type="external">fierce political battles</a> over gun violence research — including <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/republicans-say-no-to-cdc-gun-violence-research/" type="external">pressure</a> from congressional Republicans that put an end to some government-funded studies on firearms — has meant that we still don’t know <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/meet-the-doctor-who-gave-1-million-to-keep-his-gun-research-going/" type="external">many basic facts</a> about gun violence in America.</p>
<p>“In the absence of real data, politicians and policymakers do what the hell they want,” Dr. David Livingston, the director of the New Jersey Trauma Center at University Hospital in Newark. said “They do what the hell they want anyway,” he added, “but in the absence of data, they have nobody to call them on it.”</p>
<p>An initial push to create a national database of firearm injuries in the late 1980s and early 1990s was <a href="http://www.joycefdn.org/assets/1/7/creating_NVDRS.pdf" type="external">slowed by the political fight</a> over Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding for gun research, according to a <a href="http://www.joycefdn.org/assets/1/7/creating_NVDRS.pdf" type="external">history of the project</a> written by researchers who worked on it. To make the effort more <a href="http://www.joycefdn.org/assets/1/7/creating_NVDRS.pdf" type="external">politically viable,</a> as well as more scientifically rigorous, researchers decided to collect data on all violent deaths, not just firearm deaths.</p>
<p>And to <a href="http://www.joycefdn.org/assets/1/7/creating_NVDRS.pdf" type="external">cut costs</a>, they decided to focus only on fatal injuries. Even that more limited effort has languished without full congressional funding — the database currently covers fewer than half of all states.</p>
<p>Most discussions of crime trends in America look back 20 years, to 1993, when violent crime of all kinds hit its peak. Compare 1993 to today, and the <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware/" type="external">picture looks bright</a>: The number of murders is down nearly 50 percent, and other kinds of violent crime have dropped even further.</p>
<p>The Department of Justice has estimates of nonfatal shootings that suggest a similar trend: Its <a href="http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf" type="external">National Crime Victimization Survey</a> shows a decline, from an average of about 22,000 nonfatal shootings in 2002, to roughly 12,000 a year from 2007 to 2011, according to a Department of Justice statistician.</p>
<p>But over the same time period, CDC estimates show that the number of Americans coming to hospitals with nonfatal, violent gun injuries has actually gone up: from an estimated 37,321 nonfatal gunshot injuries in 2002 to 55,544 in 2011.</p>
<p>The contrast between the two estimates is hard to clear up, since each data source has serious limitations.</p>
<p>Experts say that household data-gathering efforts, like the National Crime Victimization Survey, likely miss the Americans who are most likely to be victims of gun violence.</p>
<p>Shooting victims are “disproportionately young men of color who are living unstable lives and often involved in underground markets or criminal activity, and this is a group that is incredibly difficult to survey,” said Philip Cook, a gun violence expert at Duke University. “A lot of them are in jail at any point in time, or if they’re not in jail, they have no stable address.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the CDC numbers are based on a representative sample of 63 hospitals nationwide, and the margin of error for each estimate is very large. The CDC’s best guess for the number of nonfatal intentional shootings in 2012 is somewhere between 27,000 and 91,000.</p>
<p>“Uncertainty in the estimates <a href="http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1776998" type="external">precludes definitive conclusions</a>,” one group of medical researchers explained in a back-and-forth in a journal on internal medicine last year.</p>
<p>The FBI also gathers data on gun crime from local police departments, but most departments do not track the number of people who are shot and survive. Instead, shootings are counted as part of the broader category of “aggravated assault,” which includes a range of gun-related crimes, from waving a gun at threateningly to actually shooting someone.</p>
<p>There were about 140,000 firearm aggravated assaults nationwide in 2012, according to the FBI’s report. How many of those assaults represent someone actually getting shot? There’s no way to tell.</p>
<p>The lack of a clear number of nonfatal shootings has caused confusion.</p>
<p>A frequently cited 2012 Wall Street Journal <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324712504578131360684277812" type="external">article</a> attributed the falling murder rate to advances in trauma care: “In Medical Triumph, Homicides Fall Despite Soaring Gun Violence.” The article based its conclusion — that “America has become no less violent” over the past two decades — on the CDC’s shooting estimates.</p>
<p>The article did not cite the <a href="http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-12-12/news/bal-is-gun-violence-really-soaring-in-baltimore-signs-point-to-no-20121212_1_gun-violence-baltimore-police-shock-trauma" type="external">other estimates</a> of gun violence that show <a href="http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf" type="external">shootings</a> <a href="http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/The-312/December-2012-1/Trauma-Care-and-Death-as-the-Ultimate-Data-Point/" type="external">trending</a> down, or the level of uncertainty in the CDC’s own data.</p>
<p>Livingston, the Newark trauma surgeon, said that it’s “very nice” when journalists give trauma surgeons credit for saving more lives. “I think that improvements in trauma care clearly have made a great difference,” he said. “On the other hand, if you don’t know the extent of all of the patients, and all of the data, you can make some erroneous conclusions.”</p>
<p>At University Hospital, which treats the vast majority of shooting victims from Newark and surrounding towns, Livingston and other doctors decided to do their own research.</p>
<p>“It’s easy to count dead people. But counting people who are merely injured? The data was all over the place, and, frankly, terrible,” Livingston said.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24368351" type="external">paper</a> published early this year, they looked back at their own hospital’s records and logged every gunshot wound patient from 2000 to 2011.</p>
<p>What they found was that the number of patients injured by guns had actually held roughly steady over the past decade. But the injuries were getting worse. The percentage of patients who came in with multiple bullet wounds had increased from only 10 percent in 2001 to 23 percent in 2011. The incidence of brain and spinal cord injuries almost doubled.</p>
<p>And though trauma care has advanced over the past decade, the mortality rate for gunshot wound patients in Newark had actually increased, from 9 percent to 14 percent.</p>
<p>With more severe gunshot injuries came <a href="http://links.lww.com/TA/A321" type="external">increased costs</a>. The researchers estimated the total cost over 10 years for their hospital was at least $115 million — and three quarters of that was unreimbursed, which meant that taxpayers ultimately paid the bills.</p>
<p>In total, the hospital had treated an average of 527 patients with intentional violent gunshot injuries each year: “unrelenting violence,” as the researchers termed it.</p>
<p>Are the trends that the Newark researchers observed an anomaly? Or are gunshot wound injuries across the county becoming more severe, as they have at this one hospital? The Newark researchers looked for national data and could not find it.</p>
<p>After the <a href="http://apps.americanbar.org/poladv/letters/107th/health092601senate.html" type="external">American Bar Association</a> and medical and public health groups collaborated on an <a href="http://www.joycefdn.org/assets/1/7/creating_NVDRS.pdf" type="external">extensive campaign</a> — with the message, “what we don’t know is killing us” — Congress did approve funds to begin building a National Violent Death Reporting System in 2002. The push was inspired by a successful effort to track highway vehicle accidents, which experts say has helped reduce the number of deaths from car crashes.</p>
<p>But until last year, the system had only received enough congressional funding to collect detailed data on deaths in 18 states. Then after the Sandy Hook shootings, Congress approved an additional nearly $8 million for database, though that still isn’t enough to detail violent deaths in all 50 states.</p>
<p>President Obama has asked for enough funding next year — <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/fmo/topic/Budget%20Information/appropriations_budget_form_pdf/FY2015_CJ_CDC_FINAL.pdf" type="external">$23.5 million</a> — to allow the CDC to finally begin to collect violent death data nationwide.</p>
<p>As for tracking the number of Americans who are violently injured and survive, CDC spokeswoman Courtney Lenard, said simply, that “is something that may be considered in the future.”</p>
<p>Funding a CDC effort to track nonfatal violence is not the only path to getting a better answer. Livingston and Demetriades, the Los Angeles trauma surgeon, suggested that independent medical associations could also help collect national nonfatal gun injury data, supported by government funding, and perhaps by legislation. In order to get a clear picture of gun violence, injury data from hospitals should be combined with local law enforcement data about crimes, they said.</p>
<p>Another solution might be better FBI data. “In my opinion, the FBI’s UniformCrime Reports system should be changed so that it tracks nonfatal gunshot woundings in criminal assaults,” said Daniel Webster, a gun violence researcher at Johns Hopkins University.</p>
<p>“If the FBI could get local agencies to include nonfatal criminal shootings into its UCR system, you have the capacity to track information that hospitals couldn’t — distinguishing domestic shootings, from gang shootings, from robbery shootings.”</p>
<p>An FBI spokesman said that changes in data collection practices could be made through congressional mandate or through the Criminal Justice Information Services Division Advisory Process, which would require buy-in from an advisory board of local, state and national law enforcement representatives.</p>
<p>In the past, changes to UCR data collection methods have been rare, the spokesman said. But several changes have been made in recent years, including <a href="http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/recent-program-updates/new-rape-definition-frequently-asked-questions" type="external">changing the definition of rape</a>, and changing how <a href="http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/data-collection-manual" type="external">data about hate crimes</a> is collected.</p>
<p>Cook, the Duke University researcher, said that the first step should be to find out why CDC data shows a different trend than other measures, and clarifying whether the ways hospitals collect data — or changes in the willingness of patients with minor gunshot wounds to come to the hospital for treatment — might explain the disparity.</p>
<p>“We have a variety of other evidence that gun violence is going down,” Cook said. “By Occam’s razor, I’d have to believe that the simplest explanation is that the nonfatal woundings are going down, too.”</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | lois beckett propublica many americans shot past 10 years one really knows dont even know number people shot annually gone time governments numbers seem conflict one source data shooting victims suggests gunrelated violence declining years another government estimate actually shows increase number people shot estimate based limited incomplete data even fbi tracks total number nonfatal gunshot wounds know many people die many injured survive said dr demetrios demetriades los angeles trauma surgeon studying nationwide gunshot injury trends number gun murders hasdecreased recent years theres debate whether reflects drop total number shootings improvement many lives emergency room doctors save doctors researchers advocating better gun injury data since late 1980s fierce political battles gun violence research including pressure congressional republicans put end governmentfunded studies firearms meant still dont know many basic facts gun violence america absence real data politicians policymakers hell want dr david livingston director new jersey trauma center university hospital newark said hell want anyway added absence data nobody call initial push create national database firearm injuries late 1980s early 1990s slowed political fight centers disease control prevention funding gun research according history project written researchers worked make effort politically viable well scientifically rigorous researchers decided collect data violent deaths firearm deaths cut costs decided focus fatal injuries even limited effort languished without full congressional funding database currently covers fewer half states discussions crime trends america look back 20 years 1993 violent crime kinds hit peak compare 1993 today picture looks bright number murders nearly 50 percent kinds violent crime dropped even department justice estimates nonfatal shootings suggest similar trend national crime victimization survey shows decline average 22000 nonfatal shootings 2002 roughly 12000 year 2007 2011 according department justice statistician time period cdc estimates show number americans coming hospitals nonfatal violent gun injuries actually gone estimated 37321 nonfatal gunshot injuries 2002 55544 2011 contrast two estimates hard clear since data source serious limitations experts say household datagathering efforts like national crime victimization survey likely miss americans likely victims gun violence shooting victims disproportionately young men color living unstable lives often involved underground markets criminal activity group incredibly difficult survey said philip cook gun violence expert duke university lot jail point time theyre jail stable address meanwhile cdc numbers based representative sample 63 hospitals nationwide margin error estimate large cdcs best guess number nonfatal intentional shootings 2012 somewhere 27000 91000 uncertainty estimates precludes definitive conclusions one group medical researchers explained backandforth journal internal medicine last year fbi also gathers data gun crime local police departments departments track number people shot survive instead shootings counted part broader category aggravated assault includes range gunrelated crimes waving gun threateningly actually shooting someone 140000 firearm aggravated assaults nationwide 2012 according fbis report many assaults represent someone actually getting shot theres way tell lack clear number nonfatal shootings caused confusion frequently cited 2012 wall street journal article attributed falling murder rate advances trauma care medical triumph homicides fall despite soaring gun violence article based conclusion america become less violent past two decades cdcs shooting estimates article cite estimates gun violence show shootings trending level uncertainty cdcs data livingston newark trauma surgeon said nice journalists give trauma surgeons credit saving lives think improvements trauma care clearly made great difference said hand dont know extent patients data make erroneous conclusions university hospital treats vast majority shooting victims newark surrounding towns livingston doctors decided research easy count dead people counting people merely injured data place frankly terrible livingston said paper published early year looked back hospitals records logged every gunshot wound patient 2000 2011 found number patients injured guns actually held roughly steady past decade injuries getting worse percentage patients came multiple bullet wounds increased 10 percent 2001 23 percent 2011 incidence brain spinal cord injuries almost doubled though trauma care advanced past decade mortality rate gunshot wound patients newark actually increased 9 percent 14 percent severe gunshot injuries came increased costs researchers estimated total cost 10 years hospital least 115 million three quarters unreimbursed meant taxpayers ultimately paid bills total hospital treated average 527 patients intentional violent gunshot injuries year unrelenting violence researchers termed trends newark researchers observed anomaly gunshot wound injuries across county becoming severe one hospital newark researchers looked national data could find american bar association medical public health groups collaborated extensive campaign message dont know killing us congress approve funds begin building national violent death reporting system 2002 push inspired successful effort track highway vehicle accidents experts say helped reduce number deaths car crashes last year system received enough congressional funding collect detailed data deaths 18 states sandy hook shootings congress approved additional nearly 8 million database though still isnt enough detail violent deaths 50 states president obama asked enough funding next year 235 million allow cdc finally begin collect violent death data nationwide tracking number americans violently injured survive cdc spokeswoman courtney lenard said simply something may considered future funding cdc effort track nonfatal violence path getting better answer livingston demetriades los angeles trauma surgeon suggested independent medical associations could also help collect national nonfatal gun injury data supported government funding perhaps legislation order get clear picture gun violence injury data hospitals combined local law enforcement data crimes said another solution might better fbi data opinion fbis uniformcrime reports system changed tracks nonfatal gunshot woundings criminal assaults said daniel webster gun violence researcher johns hopkins university fbi could get local agencies include nonfatal criminal shootings ucr system capacity track information hospitals couldnt distinguishing domestic shootings gang shootings robbery shootings fbi spokesman said changes data collection practices could made congressional mandate criminal justice information services division advisory process would require buyin advisory board local state national law enforcement representatives past changes ucr data collection methods rare spokesman said several changes made recent years including changing definition rape changing data hate crimes collected cook duke university researcher said first step find cdc data shows different trend measures clarifying whether ways hospitals collect data changes willingness patients minor gunshot wounds come hospital treatment might explain disparity variety evidence gun violence going cook said occams razor id believe simplest explanation nonfatal woundings going | 1,005 |
<p />
<p>So my big sister calls me this week.</p>
<p>My sister is a major bonus. Great sense of humor. Heart oversized like movie popcorn. And really, really smart.</p>
<p>Anybody who doesn’t like my sister has no business being on this planet.</p>
<p>Sis calls me up because she’s trying to be a good citizen and has therefore watched hours of TV news reports about the Crisis In Kosovo. Big sis has endured dozens of furrowed brows, scores of scary pictures, and hours of flashy graphics. CNN’s special Kosovo theme-music churns like a bellicose jingle in her head.</p>
<p>And sis calls because after days of Fox and MSNBC telling her what just blew up, she still doesn’t quite follow how exactly the whole mess really started, how it might best end, or what to think about it in any case, other than it’s obviously really bad.</p>
<p>Just like most Americans. Including the ones in Washington.</p>
<p>My sister’s one of the smartest people I know. Her only mistake was in believing, as most of us have been trained to believe since birth, that TV is a good way to learn about a subject in depth.</p>
<p>It is not.</p>
<p>TV is a good way to learn about which subjects are on fire.</p>
<p>Here’s how mindless Kosovo coverage can be:</p>
<p>You remember when the news came in last Wednesday that three U.S. servicemen had been captured by the Serbs. Soon, CNN showed Serbian videotape of the prisoners.</p>
<p>CNN also reported that the three captured servicemen had not yet been identified. CNN’s anchors repeated this several dozen times for over two hours, often as the Serbian video was playing on the air.</p>
<p>Hello?</p>
<p>The names of all three servicemen were right there on the videotape — in Serbian, granted, but in HUGE OBVIOUS PRINT — directly under the faces of each soldier as they were shown individually.</p>
<p>Duh.</p>
<p>Figuring this out was hardly a stretch. Serbian is phonetic, albeit with Cyrillic characters. Any speaker of Russian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Macedonian, or several other Slavic languages could read the names instantly. I speak maybe thirty or forty words in all those languages combined, and even I could read the prisoners’ names easily.</p>
<p>Evidently, during a state of war with Serbia, there’s not a single person at supposedly the world’s leading TV news outlet who speaks Serbian. Or Russian. Or any Slavic language.</p>
<p>Would CNN have covered World War II without anyone on staff who could translate Mein Kampf?</p>
<p>Is it possible that the classy news joint that brings us Bob Novak, Al Hunt, and John Sununu doesn’t employ a single person who at least knows enough to realize all that fancy writing probably means something? Or even owns a freaking dictionary with which to transliterate a freeze frame?</p>
<p>OK. Maybe that’s asking too much. Fine.</p>
<p>But how about this: the soldiers’ surnames were also plainly visible in the videotape — and in English — above the right shirt pocket of their uniforms.</p>
<p>And the TV anchors, who are presumably neither blind nor stupid — although I’m learning to keep an open mind — prattled over and over that they had no information as to the men’s identities.</p>
<p>DUH.</p>
<p>I don’t mean to pick on CNN per se. I only have one TV — which feels a little like saying, “I only have one flesh-eating bacterial infection” — so I didn’t get the chance to see if Fox or MSNBC or maybe somebody on the Weather Channel figured out what all those funny letters meant. Probably not.</p>
<p>We live in an era where war reporting consists largely of Pentagon-approved reporters repeating Pentagon statements and press releases over combat footage provided by the Pentagon.</p>
<p>Which affects public opinion. Which affects national policy. And eventually, it affects even our ability to think for ourselves.</p>
<p>If the Pentagon says that three captured servicemen have not been identified, then their identities are indeed unknown — even when their names are right in front of our eyes.</p>
<p>My sister now understands better what’s going on in Kosovo, precisely because she’s no longer waiting around for Laurie Dhue and Laura Ingraham to show her more scary pictures. She’s reading up on the subject and forming her own opinion.</p>
<p>Word is that Bill Clinton has recently started reading a book on the history of the region, too.</p>
<p>How thoughtful, after bombing it for a week.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>And now, something completely unrelated…</p>
<p>All over Alabama, people are buzzing with joy: thanks to a District Court ruling, sex toys are again legal.</p>
<p>Let’s back up here. Actually, Alabama was home to two bizarre political stories this week, both of which revolve around issues usually best kept private.</p>
<p>Weird story #1: Lieutenant Governor Steve Windom presides over a thin majority in the Alabama state Senate, where there was a petty squabble over the house rules. And Windom realized that his opposition would seize the moment and take control if he so much as took a bathroom break.</p>
<p>So he didn’t.</p>
<p>Instead, he brought along a pitcher, and for two days the Senate chamber also served as Windom’s personal water chamber. Eventually, the opposition relented, possibly just from the smell.</p>
<p>This is why the Lieutenant Governor is called the Number Two man in the state.</p>
<p>At least the dude sticks to principle, among other things. I’d suggest a run at the White House, but frankly, naming the guy king might be more appropriate. After all, he’s already proven he can preside over a throne.</p>
<p>Weird story #2: The state of Alabama actually tried to outlaw sex toys. Of course, then only outlaws will have sex toys, and frankly, you don’t want the criminals having all the fun.</p>
<p>The law, written by state Senator Tom Butler — who obviously has more issues than National Geographic — punished the sale of such devices with up to a year in prison. And what a fine place to clear up any unusual sexual habits prison can be.</p>
<p>It wasn’t long before the law was challenged in District Court by six women, each of whom either who sells, distributes, or just really really likes the device in question. As Sherri Williams, the owner of a store called Pleasures, explained, “I’m not just going to lay down and die.”</p>
<p>Certainly not in the Shakespearean sense, anyway.</p>
<p>Fortunately, the judge ruled the law was — in sophisticated legal terms — insane.</p>
<p>Good thing, too. Otherwise, Alabama law would have an unusual set of priorities:</p>
<p>In Alabama, it would be OK for the Lieutenant Governor to spend two solid days peeing into an armload of tupperware in front of the entire state Senate.</p>
<p>But he couldn’t touch himself with a vibrator.</p>
<p>That would be indecent.</p>
<p>In Alabama, vibrators would be considered dangerous to the public and therefore outlawed.</p>
<p>Handguns would be fine. Handguns would be considered constitutionally protected. But not vibrators. Not unless you can get so worked up you can fire a bullet.</p>
<p>Which is doubtful.</p>
<p>In Alabama, the Attorney General, a Republican, would have argued successfully that there is no fundamental right to sell, advertise, or purchase a product solely in pursuit of sexual pleasure.</p>
<p>Ever heard of Viagra?</p>
<p>Gee, I guess Alabama would have to lock up Bob Dole.</p>
<p>Thank God someone is finally trying to stand up to these dangerous sex criminals.</p>
<p />
<p>Bob Harris is a radio commentator, political writer, and humorist who has spoken at almost 300 colleges nationwide.</p>
<p>To receive a free e-mail subscription to The Scoop, just a blank e-mail to <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>. Or visit his <a href="http://www.bobharris.com" type="external">Web site</a>.</p>
<p />
<p /> | true | 4 | big sister calls week sister major bonus great sense humor heart oversized like movie popcorn really really smart anybody doesnt like sister business planet sis calls shes trying good citizen therefore watched hours tv news reports crisis kosovo big sis endured dozens furrowed brows scores scary pictures hours flashy graphics cnns special kosovo thememusic churns like bellicose jingle head sis calls days fox msnbc telling blew still doesnt quite follow exactly whole mess really started might best end think case obviously really bad like americans including ones washington sisters one smartest people know mistake believing us trained believe since birth tv good way learn subject depth tv good way learn subjects fire heres mindless kosovo coverage remember news came last wednesday three us servicemen captured serbs soon cnn showed serbian videotape prisoners cnn also reported three captured servicemen yet identified cnns anchors repeated several dozen times two hours often serbian video playing air hello names three servicemen right videotape serbian granted huge obvious print directly faces soldier shown individually duh figuring hardly stretch serbian phonetic albeit cyrillic characters speaker russian bulgarian ukrainian macedonian several slavic languages could read names instantly speak maybe thirty forty words languages combined even could read prisoners names easily evidently state war serbia theres single person supposedly worlds leading tv news outlet speaks serbian russian slavic language would cnn covered world war ii without anyone staff could translate mein kampf possible classy news joint brings us bob novak al hunt john sununu doesnt employ single person least knows enough realize fancy writing probably means something even owns freaking dictionary transliterate freeze frame ok maybe thats asking much fine soldiers surnames also plainly visible videotape english right shirt pocket uniforms tv anchors presumably neither blind stupid although im learning keep open mind prattled information mens identities duh dont mean pick cnn per se one tv feels little like saying one flesheating bacterial infection didnt get chance see fox msnbc maybe somebody weather channel figured funny letters meant probably live era war reporting consists largely pentagonapproved reporters repeating pentagon statements press releases combat footage provided pentagon affects public opinion affects national policy eventually affects even ability think pentagon says three captured servicemen identified identities indeed unknown even names right front eyes sister understands better whats going kosovo precisely shes longer waiting around laurie dhue laura ingraham show scary pictures shes reading subject forming opinion word bill clinton recently started reading book history region thoughtful bombing week something completely unrelated alabama people buzzing joy thanks district court ruling sex toys legal lets back actually alabama home two bizarre political stories week revolve around issues usually best kept private weird story 1 lieutenant governor steve windom presides thin majority alabama state senate petty squabble house rules windom realized opposition would seize moment take control much took bathroom break didnt instead brought along pitcher two days senate chamber also served windoms personal water chamber eventually opposition relented possibly smell lieutenant governor called number two man state least dude sticks principle among things id suggest run white house frankly naming guy king might appropriate hes already proven preside throne weird story 2 state alabama actually tried outlaw sex toys course outlaws sex toys frankly dont want criminals fun law written state senator tom butler obviously issues national geographic punished sale devices year prison fine place clear unusual sexual habits prison wasnt long law challenged district court six women either sells distributes really really likes device question sherri williams owner store called pleasures explained im going lay die certainly shakespearean sense anyway fortunately judge ruled law sophisticated legal terms insane good thing otherwise alabama law would unusual set priorities alabama would ok lieutenant governor spend two solid days peeing armload tupperware front entire state senate couldnt touch vibrator would indecent alabama vibrators would considered dangerous public therefore outlawed handguns would fine handguns would considered constitutionally protected vibrators unless get worked fire bullet doubtful alabama attorney general republican would argued successfully fundamental right sell advertise purchase product solely pursuit sexual pleasure ever heard viagra gee guess alabama would lock bob dole thank god someone finally trying stand dangerous sex criminals bob harris radio commentator political writer humorist spoken almost 300 colleges nationwide receive free email subscription scoop blank email bobharrissubscribelistbotcom visit web site | 709 |
<p>Photo by Jamie C2009 | <a href="" type="internal">CC by 2.0</a></p>
<p>I listened with interest to CBC call-in shows about the mass killing in Las Vegas. Caller after caller, some who’d been there months before, or never, described confusion, guilt about surviving, helplessness. A commentator spoke of one person shielding another with his body: “Therein lies the hope for our species”, she said. One person sacrificing for another.</p>
<p>The radio commentator said people come together under existential threat. Maybe. But the threat is exceptional, or so we should believe. That’s why it was the call-in topic on two successive days.</p>
<p>Cuban independence leader and philosopher, José Martí, distinguished north and south Americas by the fact that the US was born behind a plough and the south was born out of panic and trauma. It was born out of terror. He said that for this reason there are two, and only two, Americas. <a href="#_edn1" type="external">[i]</a></p>
<p>He drew heavily upon Nátuatl imagery, inspired by his time in Guatemala. <a href="#_edn2" type="external">[ii]</a> Martí’s poetry is replete with images of volcanic eruptions, lava and swords. The eruptions symbolize “la energía original” or humanness. Lava is disruptive. It seems to come from nowhere.</p>
<p>It burns. Náhuatl culture, dominated by the myth of Quetzalcátl, relies on images of fire and sun to portray freedom. Martí’s image of the “warrior whose path leads to the heavens” is nonetheless still “fiery and devastating”. In the Náhuatl dialectic of lava, fire and glittering swords lies, Cuban philosopher Cintio Vitier argues, the “key” to Martí’s poetry: its americanness.</p>
<p>The other America. &#160;When we hear about solidarity after disasters like Las Vegas, we are supposed to be comforted. Hope for the species.&#160; In Martí’s poetry, the “lengua de lava” does not get a chance to cool. It emerges into human consciousness as a sword that becomes sheathed in the sun. Nature’s chaos is real, and acts upon us according to the laws of nature. But we can respond with sacrifice.</p>
<p>The sacrifice noted on CBC is what Martí, following the Náhuatl, calls “love”. It is how to escape what Marx called “alienation”: separation from humanness. <a href="#_edn3" type="external">[iii]</a> Martí’s americanness is realistic. “Hope” for humanity is not something soft and fuzzy for extraordinary moments of trouble. Humanness must be discovered. It takes work, and can be as disruptive as nature’s unpredictable and devastating events.</p>
<p>Che Guevara also referred to love as sacrifice. He was murdered 50 years ago this week by US agents. Che Guevara is criticized for what he said about sacrifice, just as he is criticized for much else. His vision is little understood. It is deeply philosophical. It matters today.</p>
<p>Che wrote that solidarity “has something of the bitter irony of the plebeians cheering on the gladiators in the Roman circus”. It is not enough “to wish the victim success”, he wrote. Instead, “one must share his or her fate…. in victory or death”. <a href="#_edn4" type="external">[iv]</a></p>
<p>We don’t like reference to death. We prefer “pathological upbeatness”, <a href="#_edn5" type="external">[v]</a> believing in (our own) survival no matter what. Antonio Gramsci called such an attitude lazy.</p>
<p>It’s easy. It means we don’t have to think about solidarity as we might when survival is threatened.</p>
<p>It always is. The truth is that we are all in the path of an oncoming train, just as in Alex Colville’s famous painting. Che Guevara said, “at the risk of seeming ridiculous” that revolutionaries have to be guided by “great feelings of love”.&#160; He meant the sacrifice sort.</p>
<p>But he wasn’t referring to dramatic events.</p>
<p>Speaking to medical workers in 1960, Che told them: “If we all use the new weapon of solidarity … then the only thing left for us is to know the daily stretch of the road and to take it. Nobody can point out that stretch … in the personal road of each individual; it is what he will do every day, what he will gain from his individual experience”.</p>
<p>“What he will do every day”. The sacrifice part of Guevara’s message about solidarity, about love, is a day by day affair. This is what you find in the Nátuatl cosmology. Images of fire and volcanoes are coupled with images of liberation. It is realistic, like Martí’s poetry, like Che’s “new person”. It must be.</p>
<p>Che compared the “self-made man” to an invisible cage: we are enslaved by socially produced beliefs and values and we call that “freedom”. Like Martí, he took the question of freedom to be about how to get out of the cage without creating another one. Put differently, how do you respond to slavery without reasons and acts drawn from the same enslavement?</p>
<p>Critics say Che Guevara is naïve, expecting a new type of being. Instead, he is practical, as the other America has always had to be. He knows an ancient dialectic, in which we have to lose – or sacrifice – in order to gain – truth.&#160; The “new person” recognizes the dialectic of sacrifice, called “love”. Such practical (not moral) insight is lost in the only “America” most now recognize.</p>
<p>Drawing upon his America, Martí wrote: “Despídete de ti mismo, y vivirás”. <a href="#_edn6" type="external">[vi]</a> It needn’t be so remarkable an inclination that only a horror like that of Las Vegas brings it to attention.</p>
<p>Ana Belén Montes is an example, urgently relevant. <a href="#_edn7" type="external">[vii]</a> She’s in jail in the US. Please sign petition <a href="" type="internal">here.</a></p>
<p>Notes.</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref1" type="external">[i]</a> Cited in Juan Marinello, “Discurso en la clausura del 11 semanario juvenile nacional de estudios martianos” ACEM 1974</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref2" type="external">[ii]</a> Cintio Vitier, “Lava, espada, alas (en torno a los versos libres)” in José Martí: Edición al cuidado de Ana Cairo Ballestar (Havana: Casa de las Américas, 2007) 211-225</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref3" type="external">[iii]</a> Vitier, op. cit. 216</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref4" type="external">[iv]</a> Che Guevara, “Create two, three, many Vietnams”, The Che Guevara Reader (Ocean Press, 1997) 316</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref5" type="external">[v]</a> Terry Eagleton, Reason, faith and revolution (Yale University Press, 2009) 138</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref6" type="external">[vi]</a> ‘Say good-bye to yourself, and you will live”</p>
<p><a href="#_ednref7" type="external">[vii]</a> <a href="http://www.prolibertad.org/ana-belen-montes" type="external">http://www.prolibertad.org/ana-belen-montes</a>. For more information, write to the [email protected] or [email protected]</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | photo jamie c2009 cc 20 listened interest cbc callin shows mass killing las vegas caller caller whod months never described confusion guilt surviving helplessness commentator spoke one person shielding another body therein lies hope species said one person sacrificing another radio commentator said people come together existential threat maybe threat exceptional believe thats callin topic two successive days cuban independence leader philosopher josé martí distinguished north south americas fact us born behind plough south born panic trauma born terror said reason two two americas drew heavily upon nátuatl imagery inspired time guatemala ii martís poetry replete images volcanic eruptions lava swords eruptions symbolize la energía original humanness lava disruptive seems come nowhere burns náhuatl culture dominated myth quetzalcátl relies images fire sun portray freedom martís image warrior whose path leads heavens nonetheless still fiery devastating náhuatl dialectic lava fire glittering swords lies cuban philosopher cintio vitier argues key martís poetry americanness america 160when hear solidarity disasters like las vegas supposed comforted hope species160 martís poetry lengua de lava get chance cool emerges human consciousness sword becomes sheathed sun natures chaos real acts upon us according laws nature respond sacrifice sacrifice noted cbc martí following náhuatl calls love escape marx called alienation separation humanness iii martís americanness realistic hope humanity something soft fuzzy extraordinary moments trouble humanness must discovered takes work disruptive natures unpredictable devastating events che guevara also referred love sacrifice murdered 50 years ago week us agents che guevara criticized said sacrifice criticized much else vision little understood deeply philosophical matters today che wrote solidarity something bitter irony plebeians cheering gladiators roman circus enough wish victim success wrote instead one must share fate victory death iv dont like reference death prefer pathological upbeatness v believing survival matter antonio gramsci called attitude lazy easy means dont think solidarity might survival threatened always truth path oncoming train alex colvilles famous painting che guevara said risk seeming ridiculous revolutionaries guided great feelings love160 meant sacrifice sort wasnt referring dramatic events speaking medical workers 1960 che told use new weapon solidarity thing left us know daily stretch road take nobody point stretch personal road individual every day gain individual experience every day sacrifice part guevaras message solidarity love day day affair find nátuatl cosmology images fire volcanoes coupled images liberation realistic like martís poetry like ches new person must che compared selfmade man invisible cage enslaved socially produced beliefs values call freedom like martí took question freedom get cage without creating another one put differently respond slavery without reasons acts drawn enslavement critics say che guevara naïve expecting new type instead practical america always knows ancient dialectic lose sacrifice order gain truth160 new person recognizes dialectic sacrifice called love practical moral insight lost america recognize drawing upon america martí wrote despídete de ti mismo vivirás vi neednt remarkable inclination horror like las vegas brings attention ana belén montes example urgently relevant vii shes jail us please sign petition notes cited juan marinello discurso en la clausura del 11 semanario juvenile nacional de estudios martianos acem 1974 ii cintio vitier lava espada alas en torno los versos libres josé martí edición al cuidado de ana cairo ballestar havana casa de las américas 2007 211225 iii vitier op cit 216 iv che guevara create two three many vietnams che guevara reader ocean press 1997 316 v terry eagleton reason faith revolution yale university press 2009 138 vi say goodbye live vii httpwwwprolibertadorganabelenmontes information write cnccanadiannetworkoncubaca cincoheroeslistascujaeeducu 160 | 572 |
<p>Laura Flynn is the co-author of a new pamphlet on Haiti called ‘We Will Not Forget’. The report details the accomplishments and gains made by the Haitian people during the tenure of the Lavalas Party and Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was overthrown last year in a coup backed by the United States, France and Canada.</p>
<p>DERRICK O’KEEFE: The new pamphlet that you have co-authored is titled ‘We Will Not Forget.’ What were some of the main gains made before the 2004 coup that you’ve outlined?</p>
<p>Laura Flynn: I guess the most important gains were probably in the areas of health care and education. There were more schools built between 1994 and 2004 than there were in the first two hundred years of Haiti’s independence.</p>
<p>In addition, there were major AIDS prevention and treatment programs that had been internationally lauded and were receiving support from the UN AIDS program.</p>
<p>There were also major gains at the level of democratic freedoms, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, and the fact that Haiti had successful democratic elections for a period of ten years which included two peaceful transfers of power from one democratically elected president to another. There’s a whole lot more outlined in the pamphlet, but I would say that those are some of the major high points.</p>
<p>O’Keefe: What was the character of the rebellion against Aristide in early 2004 that led up to the coup? Who was behind it?</p>
<p>Flynn: I would say that it was sort of a coalition effort. The major players were the United States and France, on the international level. Within Haiti, the coup was very much financed and supported by the relatively small business elite who had never supported Aristide and were particularly upset during the last year before the coup at his attempts to raise the minimum wage.</p>
<p>Both of those groups then used the former military. In 1995, Aristide actually dismantled Haiti’s military, which for two hundred years had basically been a repressive force within the country. And, although the military was dismantled – and this was a military that was responsible for the death of over 3000 Haitians during the first coup from 1991 to 1994 — you still had a lot of people around. They didn’t have jobs and they were angry about what had happened. So that force was then utilized by the elites and their international sponsors to create this coup.</p>
<p>O’Keefe: People wonder about the motivations of the United States and others for removing Aristide when they did. Had he started to ‘disobey’ some of the restrictions put on him when he was returned to power in 1994?</p>
<p>Flynn: That’s actually kind of a myth that he was placed under certain restrictions. There was never an explicit, you know, ‘you will go back and you will not be able to do these things’. They knew what his politics were. I think the restriction is sort of always in place, that Haiti is 600 miles from the United States, the United States has always played a disproportionate role in Haiti, and Haiti like every single other Third World country has to negotiate with the World Bank and IMF. And World Bank and IMF policies throughout the Third World are pretty horrendous.</p>
<p>I think part of the reason for this real upsurge in anti-Aristide sentiment in the U.S. has a great deal to do with the change in the administration in the U.S. I don’t think that the Clinton administration was supportive, but they were not nearly as hostile as the Bush administration has been to Lavalas and to Aristide in particular.</p>
<p>This time you also had very strong support from France and that was somewhat of a new element. About a year before he was overthrown, Aristide had started calling for the repayment of an onerous debt that Haiti had been forced to pay at the time of its independence – the independence debt, or independence blackmail. After Haiti got its independence in 1804, France only agreed to recognize the new independent nation if Haiti agreed to repay the French landowners who had lost land and property, meaning actually slaves, to the tune of about 90 million French francs.</p>
<p>So the Haitian government actually paid that debt, and what Aristide was saying was that this was a case where the damages of colonization could be really clearly calculated. We know exactly what we paid and we know who we paid it to. And in today’s money that added up to $21 billion, which Haiti was beginning to take legal steps, going through the World Court, to try and make a claim against the French. And, from the moment that began, France upped its support, funnelling a lot of money into the Haitian opposition to destabilize the Haitian government.</p>
<p>O’Keefe: And we also have had some work done here in exposing Canada’s involvement in both planning and carrying out the coup. What groups are fighting for the restoration of Aristide? Who is resisting this occupation?</p>
<p>Flynn: Let me just say one thing about Canada. I think it’s certainly true that Canada has been very supportive of this coup and has been a full partner, and that is different from the 1991 to 1994 period in which Canada played a relatively positive role. And I honestly don’t have a very strong sense of the motivation for that but my guess is that it has to do with Canada wanting to perhaps, like France, have a place where they can be on the side of the United States. If they are in conflict on other issues, they are willing to sacrifice Haiti – that might be part of the motivation.</p>
<p>In terms of what’s going on right now on the ground, Lavalas, which is a huge political party, remains very strong in the sense that if there was a legal election I’m sure Lavalas candidates would certainly win. That means you have 70 to 80 percent of the population that’s diametrically opposed to this coup. At the same time, the repression against them is massive and heavy, and people are not only risking their lives but losing their lives to continue to resist.</p>
<p>I don’t even know if it would be true to say groups, but throughout the country there is active resistance, demonstrations in the north of the country, and in Port-au-Prince, where people literally get killed almost every time there is a major demonstration. People continue to march and demonstrate and protest against what’s happening. And there’s particularly strong movements in the poorest areas of Port-au-Prince, which are heavily populated and which have been traditional strongholds of support for Lavalas and for Aristide.</p>
<p>O’Keefe: You have obviously touched on it somewhat, but could you elaborate on the human rights situation in Haiti today, which has recently been documented in the Griffin Report?</p>
<p>Flynn: Well, as I was saying before, there has been massive repression going on throughout Haiti. The reason for the repression is directly related to the fact that there is strong resistance. The repression is as bad as it is because the de facto regime knows that if they do not maintain that repression they won’t be able to stay in power. If there was no repression, I’m sure that in a very short period of time the government would fall.</p>
<p>So there are various levels of targeting of high level officials of Lavalas, many of whom have been jailed. There were over 700 people in jail. I don’t know exact numbers now, but probably somewhere in that vicinity, the vast majority of whom have never been charged with any crime and certainly have not been tried. That includes the former Prime Minister and the Minister of the Interior who were on a hunger strike for a period of about twenty days. They are actually currently in a UN hospital but they have not been released by the Haitian authorities, so they continue to be held, for almost nine months at this point, with no actual charges being filed against them. They are just the most prominent cases.</p>
<p>At another level, we have sort of more brutal sweeps that are targeting the poor en masse. So literally going into poor neighbourhoods and opening fire, or going after known militants, organizers, local leaders in the community, and hunting them down. Nobody really knows how many people have been killed, but we know that just in March [2004], the first month after the coup, the morgue in Haiti had over 1000 bodies disposed of, and a normal month would be like a hundred. So the rate of killing is just astronomical, it’s far worse that the ’91-94 period, and some human rights people within Haiti estimate that as many as 10 000 people have been killed since February 29 of last year.</p>
<p>O’Keefe: Have you found that public opinion in the United States has started to shift toward opposition to the coup?</p>
<p>Flynn: I think that public opinion is shifting. First of all, what we really have is a news blackout in the current moment. There was massive media coverage of Haiti leading up to the coup, and then – it’s hard to imagine that it’s not a purposeful blackout. For instance, Yvonne Neptune was on hunger strike for twenty-one days. He’s the former Prime Minister, a person who had been in international forums all over the world, well known. He’s in jail with no charges, and there’s not been a major news media story in the United States on that situation. Maxine Waters, U.S. Congresswoman, went down and visited him in jail and spoke out about it. The New York Times hasn’t even mentioned this, nor have any of the other papers, except I think a little bit out of Miami.</p>
<p>So in that sense I think what we’re facing is a kind of clampdown to say this situation does not exist. What is coming out is starting to acknowledge what is happening. I think the Griffin Report was a major breakthrough, because it’s hard to deny when you see those photographs. In that sense, I would say that in progressive communities, information is starting to get out. I live in Minneapolis, and our numbers of people coming out to events on Haiti are far larger than they used to be.</p>
<p>O’Keefe: Aristide was restored in 1994. Is it possible that he will come back again? What are the prospects for the return of the constitutional government in Haiti?</p>
<p>Flynn: Yes, I think it is possible. He remains the constitutionally elected president of the country. His support in Haiti remains strong. During his three years in exile [1991-94], at the beginning of that time nobody thought that it would be possible. So I don’t think there’s any reason to give up hope at this point. I really have to take my direction from the people in Haiti, that the sort of bottom line is his physical return to the country. That’s what they’re demonstrating for. I mean, they are demonstrating for democracy, for recognition of their rights, but they have said he physically has to come back to Haiti. So I don’t think anyone here should be throwing that option away for them, because it really is up to them.</p>
<p>DERRICK O’KEEFE is an activist and founding editor of <a href="http://www.SevenOaksMag.com/" type="external">Seven Oaks Magazine</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 | laura flynn coauthor new pamphlet haiti called forget report details accomplishments gains made haitian people tenure lavalas party jeanbertrand aristide overthrown last year coup backed united states france canada derrick okeefe new pamphlet coauthored titled forget main gains made 2004 coup youve outlined laura flynn guess important gains probably areas health care education schools built 1994 2004 first two hundred years haitis independence addition major aids prevention treatment programs internationally lauded receiving support un aids program also major gains level democratic freedoms freedom assembly freedom speech fact haiti successful democratic elections period ten years included two peaceful transfers power one democratically elected president another theres whole lot outlined pamphlet would say major high points okeefe character rebellion aristide early 2004 led coup behind flynn would say sort coalition effort major players united states france international level within haiti coup much financed supported relatively small business elite never supported aristide particularly upset last year coup attempts raise minimum wage groups used former military 1995 aristide actually dismantled haitis military two hundred years basically repressive force within country although military dismantled military responsible death 3000 haitians first coup 1991 1994 still lot people around didnt jobs angry happened force utilized elites international sponsors create coup okeefe people wonder motivations united states others removing aristide started disobey restrictions put returned power 1994 flynn thats actually kind myth placed certain restrictions never explicit know go back able things knew politics think restriction sort always place haiti 600 miles united states united states always played disproportionate role haiti haiti like every single third world country negotiate world bank imf world bank imf policies throughout third world pretty horrendous think part reason real upsurge antiaristide sentiment us great deal change administration us dont think clinton administration supportive nearly hostile bush administration lavalas aristide particular time also strong support france somewhat new element year overthrown aristide started calling repayment onerous debt haiti forced pay time independence independence debt independence blackmail haiti got independence 1804 france agreed recognize new independent nation haiti agreed repay french landowners lost land property meaning actually slaves tune 90 million french francs haitian government actually paid debt aristide saying case damages colonization could really clearly calculated know exactly paid know paid todays money added 21 billion haiti beginning take legal steps going world court try make claim french moment began france upped support funnelling lot money haitian opposition destabilize haitian government okeefe also work done exposing canadas involvement planning carrying coup groups fighting restoration aristide resisting occupation flynn let say one thing canada think certainly true canada supportive coup full partner different 1991 1994 period canada played relatively positive role honestly dont strong sense motivation guess canada wanting perhaps like france place side united states conflict issues willing sacrifice haiti might part motivation terms whats going right ground lavalas huge political party remains strong sense legal election im sure lavalas candidates would certainly win means 70 80 percent population thats diametrically opposed coup time repression massive heavy people risking lives losing lives continue resist dont even know would true say groups throughout country active resistance demonstrations north country portauprince people literally get killed almost every time major demonstration people continue march demonstrate protest whats happening theres particularly strong movements poorest areas portauprince heavily populated traditional strongholds support lavalas aristide okeefe obviously touched somewhat could elaborate human rights situation haiti today recently documented griffin report flynn well saying massive repression going throughout haiti reason repression directly related fact strong resistance repression bad de facto regime knows maintain repression wont able stay power repression im sure short period time government would fall various levels targeting high level officials lavalas many jailed 700 people jail dont know exact numbers probably somewhere vicinity vast majority never charged crime certainly tried includes former prime minister minister interior hunger strike period twenty days actually currently un hospital released haitian authorities continue held almost nine months point actual charges filed prominent cases another level sort brutal sweeps targeting poor en masse literally going poor neighbourhoods opening fire going known militants organizers local leaders community hunting nobody really knows many people killed know march 2004 first month coup morgue haiti 1000 bodies disposed normal month would like hundred rate killing astronomical far worse 9194 period human rights people within haiti estimate many 10 000 people killed since february 29 last year okeefe found public opinion united states started shift toward opposition coup flynn think public opinion shifting first really news blackout current moment massive media coverage haiti leading coup hard imagine purposeful blackout instance yvonne neptune hunger strike twentyone days hes former prime minister person international forums world well known hes jail charges theres major news media story united states situation maxine waters us congresswoman went visited jail spoke new york times hasnt even mentioned papers except think little bit miami sense think facing kind clampdown say situation exist coming starting acknowledge happening think griffin report major breakthrough hard deny see photographs sense would say progressive communities information starting get live minneapolis numbers people coming events haiti far larger used okeefe aristide restored 1994 possible come back prospects return constitutional government haiti flynn yes think possible remains constitutionally elected president country support haiti remains strong three years exile 199194 beginning time nobody thought would possible dont think theres reason give hope point really take direction people haiti sort bottom line physical return country thats theyre demonstrating mean demonstrating democracy recognition rights said physically come back haiti dont think anyone throwing option away really derrick okeefe activist founding editor seven oaks magazine reached sankara83hotmailcom 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 | 930 |
<p>Several sad parallels can be found in the bumbling way Washington dealt with raising the debt ceiling and averting financial catastrophe, and the US’s overall handling of the search for Israeli-Palestinian peace.</p>
<p>When Standard and Poor’s downgraded the US’s bond rating, one of the main reasons they cited for their action were the dysfunctionalities the world had observed in the way politics in Washington impeded decision-making. The inability to make the compromises needed to address the country’s fiscal crisis had shaken confidence. As a result of “the political brinksmanship” on display in Washington in recent months, Standard and Poor’s judged the system to be “broken”, arguing that the partisan standoff was “not a serious way to run a country”.</p>
<p>It had been, by any measure, a sorry sight. On the one side there was the president willing to compromise to achieve a “grand bargain” that would have resulted in a 10-year $4.3 trillion reduction in spending. But because the president’s plan included some increases in revenues, Republicans rejected the proposal, refusing to negotiate any plan that might combine cuts in spending with any form of an increase in taxes. The result was a near fatal game of “chicken”, as the clock ticked down to the day when the US would run out of cash and the ability to borrow money in order to pay its bills.</p>
<p>In the end, the US administration blinked and a compromise, of sorts, was reached making only limited cuts in spending, while passing off the tough decisions still to be made to a bi-partisan Congressional committee whose prospects for success will be limited by the same ideological constraints that have just played out. And so given this stand-off between “all or nothing” and a willingness to compromise, Standard and Poor’s demonstrated its loss of confidence in the ability of Washington to get its financial house in order by downgrading the US’s bond rating.</p>
<p>Much the same scenario has been playing out in the US’s approach to Israeli- Palestinian peace, reaching its climax in the dramatic “Netanyahu/Obama smackdown” that took place in late May. It was a sad and even disturbing spectacle.</p>
<p>In the first scene, President Obama, recognising that the clock was ticking on the possibility to achieve a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, laid down, in a 19 May speech, what by any measure was a modest marker: the notion that “1967 borders, with mutually agreed upon land swaps” should form the basis for any Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.</p>
<p>Israel and its supporters in Washington not only balked, but also mounted a direct challenge to the president. Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu went to the White House and “lectured” Obama on the unacceptability of the US president’s marker. The Israeli leader then accepted an invitation from the Republican leadership in Congress to address a joint session where he again challenged Obama and was greeted by repeated standing ovations by members of both parties.</p>
<p>The impact of this “schooling” of the president by Congress in support of the position of the leader of a foreign country was shocking to the rest of the world, revealing, as it did, the dysfunctional nature of Washington’s partisan politics and the inability of the US to provide even a modest challenge to Israel. All of this resulted in a loss of confidence in America’s ability to exercise strong independent leadership in the search for peace.</p>
<p>Because we began our recent poll of Arab world attitudes toward the US just a few days after this drama had finished playing out, the record low favourable ratings given to both the US and President Obama can be understood as similar to Standard and Poor’s downgrade of the US’s bond rating. In this instance, it was a downgrade in America’s leadership abilities as well as an indictment of the brokenness of politics in Washington.</p>
<p>In both the handling of the debt ceiling and the blocking of the president’s peace-making efforts, politics was to blame. It was the way playing of politics trumped rational problem-solving that placed impediments in the way of finding real solutions to serious matters of state; cavalierly took America and the world to the brink of crises without attention to the consequences of such reckless behaviour; shook the world’s confidence in the US’s ability to act effectively and decisively to avert a disaster; and resulted in a degrading of the US’s rating and standing as a respected leader.</p>
<p>What is both tragic and irritating is the way Republicans have reacted in the face of both self-inflicted wounds. When our poll results were first released, some Conservative publications were positively gleeful. From the beginning, they had wanted President Obama to fail in his efforts to reverse the damage done by the Bush administration across the Middle East and change America’s relationship with the Arab and Muslim worlds. Blinded by their embrace of the neoconservative’s approach to the region, they wanted to continue the very policies that had dug deep holes, in effect, digging them deeper. They celebrated the low ratings Arabs were giving to President Obama as evidence that their efforts to stymie or weaken his initiatives were succeeding.</p>
<p>Similarly, they greeted the Standard and Poor’s downgrade not as an indictment of their intransigence, but as a club they could use to beat the president. In doing so, they ignored the fact that 80 per cent of the current debt faced by the US was the result of the failed policies they had embraced during the Bush years (tax cuts that drained the Treasury of needed revenues, two costly wars, and an unfunded prescription drug plan that had been designed to benefit pharmaceutical companies more than senior citizens). Here, too, their response was to propose more tax cuts and more war, digging deeper the holes they had already dug.</p>
<p>If America is to re-establish confidence, either in its financial stability or its ability to demonstrate constructive leadership in the search for peace, this dysfunction must end. A dramatic change in direction is desperately needed.</p>
<p>James Zogby&#160;is president of the Arab American Institute.</p> | true | 4 | several sad parallels found bumbling way washington dealt raising debt ceiling averting financial catastrophe uss overall handling search israelipalestinian peace standard poors downgraded uss bond rating one main reasons cited action dysfunctionalities world observed way politics washington impeded decisionmaking inability make compromises needed address countrys fiscal crisis shaken confidence result political brinksmanship display washington recent months standard poors judged system broken arguing partisan standoff serious way run country measure sorry sight one side president willing compromise achieve grand bargain would resulted 10year 43 trillion reduction spending presidents plan included increases revenues republicans rejected proposal refusing negotiate plan might combine cuts spending form increase taxes result near fatal game chicken clock ticked day us would run cash ability borrow money order pay bills end us administration blinked compromise sorts reached making limited cuts spending passing tough decisions still made bipartisan congressional committee whose prospects success limited ideological constraints played given standoff nothing willingness compromise standard poors demonstrated loss confidence ability washington get financial house order downgrading uss bond rating much scenario playing uss approach israeli palestinian peace reaching climax dramatic netanyahuobama smackdown took place late may sad even disturbing spectacle first scene president obama recognising clock ticking possibility achieve negotiated twostate solution israelipalestinian conflict laid 19 may speech measure modest marker notion 1967 borders mutually agreed upon land swaps form basis israelipalestinian peace agreement israel supporters washington balked also mounted direct challenge president israels prime minister netanyahu went white house lectured obama unacceptability us presidents marker israeli leader accepted invitation republican leadership congress address joint session challenged obama greeted repeated standing ovations members parties impact schooling president congress support position leader foreign country shocking rest world revealing dysfunctional nature washingtons partisan politics inability us provide even modest challenge israel resulted loss confidence americas ability exercise strong independent leadership search peace began recent poll arab world attitudes toward us days drama finished playing record low favourable ratings given us president obama understood similar standard poors downgrade uss bond rating instance downgrade americas leadership abilities well indictment brokenness politics washington handling debt ceiling blocking presidents peacemaking efforts politics blame way playing politics trumped rational problemsolving placed impediments way finding real solutions serious matters state cavalierly took america world brink crises without attention consequences reckless behaviour shook worlds confidence uss ability act effectively decisively avert disaster resulted degrading uss rating standing respected leader tragic irritating way republicans reacted face selfinflicted wounds poll results first released conservative publications positively gleeful beginning wanted president obama fail efforts reverse damage done bush administration across middle east change americas relationship arab muslim worlds blinded embrace neoconservatives approach region wanted continue policies dug deep holes effect digging deeper celebrated low ratings arabs giving president obama evidence efforts stymie weaken initiatives succeeding similarly greeted standard poors downgrade indictment intransigence club could use beat president ignored fact 80 per cent current debt faced us result failed policies embraced bush years tax cuts drained treasury needed revenues two costly wars unfunded prescription drug plan designed benefit pharmaceutical companies senior citizens response propose tax cuts war digging deeper holes already dug america reestablish confidence either financial stability ability demonstrate constructive leadership search peace dysfunction must end dramatic change direction desperately needed james zogby160is president arab american institute | 534 |
<p>Illustration: Edwin Fotheringham</p>
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<p>ON A DUSTY MORNING in the holy city of Qom, I went looking for a shrine in a walled cemetery of martyrs known as Sheikhan. The graveyard’s walls are lined with glass cases containing the framed photos of soldiers felled by the <a href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/iran-iraq.htm" type="external">Iran-Iraq war</a>. The shrine, I’d been told, is a hangout for women seeking temporary marriage, an intriguing mechanism in Shiite Islam for relieving sexual frustration. In the Islamic Republic of <a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5314.htm" type="external">Iran</a>, sex outside of marriage is a crime, punishable by up to 100 lashes or, in the case of adultery, death by stoning. Yet the purpose of a temporary marriage is clear from its name in Arabic—mut’a, pleasure. A man and a woman may contract a mut’a for a finite period of time—from minutes to 99 years or more—and for a specific amount, mehr in Farsi, which the man owes the woman.</p>
<p>Inside the shrine, I struck up a conversation with a 55-year-old woman and asked whether she had ever contracted a temporary union. She had. A man in white clerical robes standing nearby seemed to perk up, so we moved aside for privacy, sitting cross-legged on the ground. The woman, a widow, asked that I use only her first name—Robabeh.</p>
<p>Six years earlier, Robabeh was leaving Sheikhan when a young man introduced himself. They chatted, and Robabeh learned that he was a seminary student. She told him she wanted to go on a pilgrimage to Syria. The student, 25 years her junior, promised to take her, proposing a sigheh, the Farsi word for a temporary marriage. Robabeh agreed, and they negotiated terms: eight months, and the mehr would be a trip to Syria.</p>
<p>Robabeh’s black socks and thick rubber sandals peeked out from under her black head-to-toe chador. (It is rumored that women at shrines wear chadors inside out to signal their availability for temporary dalliances.) The only adornment on her kindly, owlish face was a pair of round black glasses. “My children asked where I was going,” she said, laughing. “I told them I was going as a cook.” Robabeh said that after being a widow for four years, she enjoyed the company and the opportunity to travel—not to mention the physical benefits. She considers the temporary marriage a blessing, even though she has kept it secret. “People say it’s bad,” she said. “Although it’s in the Koran and people know about it, they still feel ashamed about doing it.” However, Robabeh said she has no regrets, adding firmly, “I liked it.”</p>
<p>Remarkably, Iran’s Shiite clerics not only tolerate sigheh, but actively promote it as an important element of the country’s official religion. “Temporary marriages must be bravely promoted,” the <a href="http://www.humanrights-geneva.info/Temporary-Marriages-Degrading-for,1901" type="external">interior minister said</a> at a clerical conference in Qom in 2007. “Islam is in no way indifferent to the needs of a 15-year-old youth in whom God has placed the sex drive.” Yet the Iranian mullahs’ efforts to rehabilitate sigheh have met a stubborn core of resistance—particularly from feminists, who decry the practice as a kind of “Islamic prostitution.” Which is it—an empowering possibility for women, or a back door to exploitation? How Iranians answer that question provides a glimpse into the surprisingly fluid attitudes toward the authority of the clerics who back President <a href="/kevin-drum/2009/06/who-voted-ahmadinejad" type="external">Mahmoud Ahmadinejad</a>.</p>
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<p>AT THE TIME of the prophet Muhammad, in the late sixth and early seventh centuries, temporary marriage was already common in Arabia, and many Islamic scholars believe he recommended it in circumstances such as pilgrimage, travel, and war. Most Shiites go a step further, maintaining that the practice is endorsed by the Koran. The second caliph, Umar, banned temporary marriage, but Shiites reject his authority because they believe he usurped Muhammad’s rightful heir, his son-in-law Ali.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.iranchamber.com/history/mohammad_rezashah/mohammad_rezashah.php" type="external">Pahlavi shahs</a>, who ruled Iran until 1979, sought to delegitimize temporary unions as backward, but after the revolution, the Islamic authorities moved to reclaim the tradition. In 1990, President <a href="http://www.iranchamber.com/history/arafsanjani/akbar_rafsanjani.php" type="external">Hashemi Rafsanjani</a> offered a widely noted sermon on the practice, emphasizing that sexual relations aren’t shameful. <a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&amp;dat=19901207&amp;id=hrorAAAAIBAJ&amp;sjid=R6AFAAAAIBAJ&amp;pg=2519,3483805" type="external">He encouraged</a> young couples to contract marriages “for a month or two”—and to do it entirely on their own if they felt shy about going to a mullah to register the union.</p>
<p>Two decades later, Iran’s Shiite clerics continue to endorse temporary marriage as a sexual escape valve. (Sunni variations on the theme are also on the rise throughout the Middle East.) In an interview at his home in Qom, the conservative ayatollah Sayyid Reza Borghei Mudaris offered a list of who might benefit from temporary marriage: a financially strapped widow; a young widow—”She answers her needs because if she doesn’t, she will have psychological problems”; a man who cannot afford a permanent marriage; and a married man with domestic problems who needs “a kind of medicine.”</p>
<p>Sigheh has worked well for Habib, a 48-year-old businessman from a small city in northeastern Iran. A balding man with a compensatory mustache and an eager smile, Habib counts his blessings, which he believes have been multiplied by his many temporary marriages—15 or 16; he has lost track. “I do sigheh with women who need financial help. Instead of giving money for charity, I marry them in this way and financially support them,” he said over tea at a hotel in Tehran. “I believe when I do this, God helps me and I get more wealth.”</p>
<p>Habib has never had sex outside marriage. “Even if I wanted to have an hour-long relationship with a woman, I want to do it in a religious framework,” he said. “When you set the time in a temporary marriage, you follow all the Islamic codes and regulations. The woman is also satisfied and content.” Everyone is happy, Habib said—except, truth be told, his permanent wife of 29 years. Habib told her about one of his temporary wives, but she has no idea about the others. “If she knew, she would decapitate me,” he said with a cheery lack of concern. “She cannot even stand the first one.”</p>
<p>Presently, Habib had two temporary wives. He wanted to permanently marry the first—a 21-year-old law student who is the daughter of a poor family he’d been helping—but his full-time wife said no. Undaunted, Habib and the law student contracted a sigheh of 99 years, with a mehr of 124 gold coins. The second is a divorcée he met in 2007. She was suing her ex-husband for alimony, and before Habib knew it, he was in another commitment—this one for three months and $2,000 for a deposit on a house for the young mother.</p>
<p>Iranian feminists <a href="http://www.groundreport.com/World/Iranian-Women-Fight-Polygamy-Proposal/2917066" type="external">ardently oppose</a> sigheh. In the summer of 2008, they were infuriated by President Ahmadinejad’s attempts to push through a new <a href="http://www.irwomen.info/spip.php?article6119" type="external">“family protection” law</a> that would have made it easier for men to contract temporary marriages. Many of those activists took to the streets after his contested reelection the following June. “One of the main attributes of marriage is publicity and the celebration of it,” said Ziba Mir-Hosseini, a legal anthropologist who wrote a study of Islamic family law. “Women who enter this kind of marriage never talk about it. That’s why I call it a socially defective marriage.” While the ayatollahs see temporary marriage as good for both sexes, feminists point out its lopsided nature: It is largely the prerogative of wealthy married men, and the majority of women in sighehs are divorced, widowed, or poor. Only a man has the right to renew a sigheh when it expires—for another mehr—or to terminate it early. While women may have only one husband at a time, men may have four wives and are permitted unlimited temporary wives. Rezvan Moghadam, the director of a women’s health nonprofit, put it bluntly: “Men do it for fun. Women do it for money; they don’t enjoy it at all.”</p>
<p>Yet women do derive some benefits from sigheh. Children born of sighehs are considered legitimate, and entitled to a share of their father’s inheritance. In a permanent marriage, the family usually negotiates a dowry on the bride’s behalf; a woman entering a temporary marriage sets her own terms. A temporary wife has no right to maintenance or inheritance, but she also has fewer obligations than her permanent counterpart—her duty to obey her husband encompasses only sex.</p>
<p>Saeedah, who is 32 and works in the film industry, decided to do a sigheh at her boyfriend’s suggestion, but her eyes welled up at the memory of her visit to the registry. She felt the mullah’s eyes on her, she recalled, as if she were “like meat” and he, too, might get a taste. She was also disappointed by her girlfriends’ reaction. “They think it’s cheap,” she said.</p>
<p>Zahra, an unemployed 47-year-old widow from Qom, entered a sigheh with a doctor. She didn’t tell her four children about the union, explaining, “People don’t like it. Because of this, I also don’t like it.” Tuba, a widow who lives with her two grown sons in a small room in one of Tehran’s poorest neighborhoods, would prefer a permanent marriage, but the 55-year-old is certain that her temporary husband—a taxi driver three decades younger—will never propose one.</p>
<p>In spite of the stigma, the women I spoke with were ultimately content with their choice. Saeedah felt more secure knowing she could show the police her marriage certificate. Zahra enjoyed sharing her feelings with someone else, as well as the physical intimacy. Tuba, for her part, is delighted that her taxi driver, who lives in the north, visits once a month and calls daily. “Sigheh is not a good thing in our society,” she said. “But I’m a relaxed person, so I don’t give a shit what people think.”</p>
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<p>THE CLASH over the <a href="/politics/2009/06/clash-islam-and-democracy-iran?page=1" type="external">June 2009 presidential vote</a> was a reminder of how deeply divided Iranian society is. The schism between Iranians who believe in the legitimacy of the Islamic republic and those who never will is also reflected in attitudes toward sigheh. Many young Iranians reject it precisely because it’s promoted by the clerics.</p>
<p>“Most of us, we like to imitate all things from Western countries,” said 27-year-old Sina Ahmadinejad (no relation to the president). “Being boyfriend and girlfriend is much fancier than sigheh.” For young liberals like him, dating has become an act of protest, while sigheh remains inescapably Islamic—and uncool.</p>
<p>Still, some young Iranians are beginning to experiment with sigheh in a way that can feel like defiance. Three years ago, Amir, an English teacher, and his girlfriend, Tara, decided to move in together. “It’s impossible to rent an apartment with your girlfriend,” Amir said. “They check if you are officially married.” So Tara proposed a sigheh. After a quick trip to the registry, they broke the news to their friends over pizza and champagne.</p>
<p>The real celebration came later, when they began planning a trip together. Usually, unmarried heterosexual couples have to engage in elaborate stratagems to go on vacation, often coordinating with friends so that men and women travel in separate cars and check into different hotel rooms, only to reconfigure in coed pairs behind closed doors. For the first time in their adult lives, Amir and Tara wouldn’t need to go through those contortions.</p>
<p>Barely an hour into the drive, a policeman pulled them over. In the trunk of Amir’s car was a bottle of whiskey. Drinking alcohol is punishable by 80 lashes or, after repeated offenses, death. The officer eyed the couple suspiciously, demanding, “Are you married or are you single?”</p>
<p>“Tara is my wife,” Amir answered calmly, presenting his gold-lettered marriage certificate.</p>
<p>“Okay, go,” the officer ordered, and the newlyweds drove on.</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | illustration edwin fotheringham dusty morning holy city qom went looking shrine walled cemetery martyrs known sheikhan graveyards walls lined glass cases containing framed photos soldiers felled iraniraq war shrine id told hangout women seeking temporary marriage intriguing mechanism shiite islam relieving sexual frustration islamic republic iran sex outside marriage crime punishable 100 lashes case adultery death stoning yet purpose temporary marriage clear name arabicmuta pleasure man woman may contract muta finite period timefrom minutes 99 years moreand specific amount mehr farsi man owes woman inside shrine struck conversation 55yearold woman asked whether ever contracted temporary union man white clerical robes standing nearby seemed perk moved aside privacy sitting crosslegged ground woman widow asked use first namerobabeh six years earlier robabeh leaving sheikhan young man introduced chatted robabeh learned seminary student told wanted go pilgrimage syria student 25 years junior promised take proposing sigheh farsi word temporary marriage robabeh agreed negotiated terms eight months mehr would trip syria robabehs black socks thick rubber sandals peeked black headtotoe chador rumored women shrines wear chadors inside signal availability temporary dalliances adornment kindly owlish face pair round black glasses children asked going said laughing told going cook robabeh said widow four years enjoyed company opportunity travelnot mention physical benefits considers temporary marriage blessing even though kept secret people say bad said although koran people know still feel ashamed however robabeh said regrets adding firmly liked remarkably irans shiite clerics tolerate sigheh actively promote important element countrys official religion temporary marriages must bravely promoted interior minister said clerical conference qom 2007 islam way indifferent needs 15yearold youth god placed sex drive yet iranian mullahs efforts rehabilitate sigheh met stubborn core resistanceparticularly feminists decry practice kind islamic prostitution itan empowering possibility women back door exploitation iranians answer question provides glimpse surprisingly fluid attitudes toward authority clerics back president mahmoud ahmadinejad 160 time prophet muhammad late sixth early seventh centuries temporary marriage already common arabia many islamic scholars believe recommended circumstances pilgrimage travel war shiites go step maintaining practice endorsed koran second caliph umar banned temporary marriage shiites reject authority believe usurped muhammads rightful heir soninlaw ali pahlavi shahs ruled iran 1979 sought delegitimize temporary unions backward revolution islamic authorities moved reclaim tradition 1990 president hashemi rafsanjani offered widely noted sermon practice emphasizing sexual relations arent shameful encouraged young couples contract marriages month twoand entirely felt shy going mullah register union two decades later irans shiite clerics continue endorse temporary marriage sexual escape valve sunni variations theme also rise throughout middle east interview home qom conservative ayatollah sayyid reza borghei mudaris offered list might benefit temporary marriage financially strapped widow young widowshe answers needs doesnt psychological problems man afford permanent marriage married man domestic problems needs kind medicine sigheh worked well habib 48yearold businessman small city northeastern iran balding man compensatory mustache eager smile habib counts blessings believes multiplied many temporary marriages15 16 lost track sigheh women need financial help instead giving money charity marry way financially support said tea hotel tehran believe god helps get wealth habib never sex outside marriage even wanted hourlong relationship woman want religious framework said set time temporary marriage follow islamic codes regulations woman also satisfied content everyone happy habib saidexcept truth told permanent wife 29 years habib told one temporary wives idea others knew would decapitate said cheery lack concern even stand first one presently habib two temporary wives wanted permanently marry firsta 21yearold law student daughter poor family hed helpingbut fulltime wife said undaunted habib law student contracted sigheh 99 years mehr 124 gold coins second divorcée met 2007 suing exhusband alimony habib knew another commitmentthis one three months 2000 deposit house young mother iranian feminists ardently oppose sigheh summer 2008 infuriated president ahmadinejads attempts push new family protection law would made easier men contract temporary marriages many activists took streets contested reelection following june one main attributes marriage publicity celebration said ziba mirhosseini legal anthropologist wrote study islamic family law women enter kind marriage never talk thats call socially defective marriage ayatollahs see temporary marriage good sexes feminists point lopsided nature largely prerogative wealthy married men majority women sighehs divorced widowed poor man right renew sigheh expiresfor another mehror terminate early women may one husband time men may four wives permitted unlimited temporary wives rezvan moghadam director womens health nonprofit put bluntly men fun women money dont enjoy yet women derive benefits sigheh children born sighehs considered legitimate entitled share fathers inheritance permanent marriage family usually negotiates dowry brides behalf woman entering temporary marriage sets terms temporary wife right maintenance inheritance also fewer obligations permanent counterparther duty obey husband encompasses sex saeedah 32 works film industry decided sigheh boyfriends suggestion eyes welled memory visit registry felt mullahs eyes recalled like meat might get taste also disappointed girlfriends reaction think cheap said zahra unemployed 47yearold widow qom entered sigheh doctor didnt tell four children union explaining people dont like also dont like tuba widow lives two grown sons small room one tehrans poorest neighborhoods would prefer permanent marriage 55yearold certain temporary husbanda taxi driver three decades youngerwill never propose one spite stigma women spoke ultimately content choice saeedah felt secure knowing could show police marriage certificate zahra enjoyed sharing feelings someone else well physical intimacy tuba part delighted taxi driver lives north visits month calls daily sigheh good thing society said im relaxed person dont give shit people think 160 clash june 2009 presidential vote reminder deeply divided iranian society schism iranians believe legitimacy islamic republic never also reflected attitudes toward sigheh many young iranians reject precisely promoted clerics us like imitate things western countries said 27yearold sina ahmadinejad relation president boyfriend girlfriend much fancier sigheh young liberals like dating become act protest sigheh remains inescapably islamicand uncool still young iranians beginning experiment sigheh way feel like defiance three years ago amir english teacher girlfriend tara decided move together impossible rent apartment girlfriend amir said check officially married tara proposed sigheh quick trip registry broke news friends pizza champagne real celebration came later began planning trip together usually unmarried heterosexual couples engage elaborate stratagems go vacation often coordinating friends men women travel separate cars check different hotel rooms reconfigure coed pairs behind closed doors first time adult lives amir tara wouldnt need go contortions barely hour drive policeman pulled trunk amirs car bottle whiskey drinking alcohol punishable 80 lashes repeated offenses death officer eyed couple suspiciously demanding married single tara wife amir answered calmly presenting goldlettered marriage certificate okay go officer ordered newlyweds drove | 1,075 |
<p>However much more time the UN Security Council now extends to inspections in Iraq, the US has already made clear that their findings will be of little relevance. “President George Bush is determined to go to war with Saddam Hussein in the next few weeks, without UN backing if necessary, according to authoritative sources in Washington and London,” the Guardian reports on January 24th. The only debate within the Bush administration centers along the much-hyped Rumsfeld-Powell divide, with the former “[wanting] Mr. Bush to set a clear and imminent deadline” while the Secretary of State is “resisting, asking for a little more time for diplomatic coalition-building” before bombing this suffering, miserable country.</p>
<p>Whenever they may be implemented, the Bush administration’s war plans reflect well-established precedents familiar to the people of Iraq and the Middle East: the death and misery of millions of people to ensure Western control over the region’s oil resources. The basic aim helps explain why the US has supported dictatorial regimes throughout the region, Saddam no exception.</p>
<p>Less than a year after Saddam used poison gas to massacre 5000 Iraqi Kurds in March 1988, newly inaugurated president George Bush Sr. called for establishing close ties with the Iraqi dictator, explaining that “normal relations between the United States and Iraq would serve our longer term interests and promote stability in both the Gulf and the Middle East,” and encouraging “economic and political incentives for Iraq to moderate its behaviour and to increase our influence.”</p>
<p>Bush Sr.’s overtures were by no means novel; six years earlier President Reagan had dispatched special envoy Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad to visit “with the explicit aim of fostering better relations between the United States and Iraq,” as John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard note in the January 2003 issue of Foreign Policy. Soon after, “Saddam was gassing Kurds and Iranians,” all with US cooperation and support, progressing into direct “facilitat[ion] of Iraq’s efforts to develop biological weapons by allowing Baghdad to import disease-producing biological materials such as anthrax, West Nile virus, and botulinal toxin.”</p>
<p>The authors, two respected scholars well within the mainstream, invoke this crucial background to illustrate the limited tactical point that Saddam can still be deterred today — as indicated by his selective instances of gassing innocents and attacking neighbours only when he could count on the support of his patron superpower [Kuwait included ­ just before the invasion U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie had told Saddam that “[W]e have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait”], leaving the obvious moral questions aside. Nevertheless, their point is significant: echoing nearly every serious intelligence analysis on record, Saddam “has no more incentive to give al Qaeda nuclear weapons than the United States does-unless, of course, the country makes clear it is trying to overthrow him”, an observation that extends to all terrorist acts that Saddam could possibly take. In other words, as the CIA pointed out in an October 7th letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee, “Should Saddam conclude that a U.S.-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist action.”</p>
<p>Perhaps picking up on these disaproving analyses, the Bush administration has once again tried to push the alleged links between Iraq and al-Qaeda. The idea was raised with much fervor in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, with much of the focus centering on allegations of a prior meeting between Iraqi officials and Mohammed Atta in the Czech republic. But the business section of the New York Times reported on October 26, 2001 that “Czech officials said they had been asked by Washington to comb their records to determine whether Mr. Atta met with an Iraqi diplomat or agent here. They said they had told the United States they found no evidence of any such meeting. … Petr Necas, chairman of the parliamentary defense committee, said, ‘I haven’t seen any direct evidence that Mr. Atta met any Iraqi agent’.”</p>
<p>Yet addressing the media on Monday, January 28th, “[Press Secretary Ari] Fleisher and {Secretary of State Colin] Powell repeated the president’s long-held beliefs that Iraq has been a refuge for al-Qaida and that Iraqis have trained terrorists in the use of chemical weapons,” the Associated Press reports. When pressed for details, Fleisher could offer only the very telling line of “it’s a story that’s unfolding,” as it no doubt is in the imaginations of the speechwriters and PR managers that have been attempting to spin it for a long while, in the continued effort to scare the American population into accepting war. (Ron Fournier, “Bush Address Won’t Include New Iraq Data”, AP, Monday Jan 27) Of course, even expecting fabricated evidence to justify the attack before it begins might even be asking too much. The day that Hans Blix submitted his progress report to the UN, the Financial Times, citing a “senior western security official”, informs us that “strong evidence of Iraq’s success in hiding its WMD programme will also emerge only after foreign troops have occupied the areas in which its alleged chemical and biological weapons programmes have been carried out,” ­ entrusting the foreign invading army to provide the evidence after it has taken over the country. It is unclear why the US does not simply to pass on its intelligence of these alleged areas of WMD programmes to the UN inspections regime right now. Perhaps because “US administration officials stress that just because certain sites are not operating does not mean that they will not be used for WMD production in the future,” a logic that would thus have us bomb anywhere in the world if it was actually taken seriously. (Mark Hubbard and Charles Clover, “Full evidence on Iraq arms only after war”, FT, Jan 27). That no citizenship outside of the United States seems to accept these transparencies are remarkable achievements of domestic US propaganda, as Noam Chomsky has pointed out. But that public opinion polls in the US continue to disagree with the Bush administration’s extreme stance is also a tribute to the growing anti-war sentiment that has been displayed in the country. The widespread public opposition to war is also considerable here in Canada, given how much effort has been made in the mainstream to convince us of the merits of subordination to US power and greed. Globe and Mail Washington Bureau chief John Ibbitson provides an apt example in posing the “basic” dilemma facing Canada, asking the profound question of whether “we stand with the United States when they need us,” or do we choose to make our own decisions, “acting with the United States only when we agree with its aims and actions?”</p>
<p>It’s difficult to reconcile, he writes, when we are amongst the select group that embodies the “liberal and democratic traditions [that] are almost exclusively the preserve of what Winston Churchill called ‘the English-speaking peoples’: Great Britain and its major settler colonies,” who are “leading the world toward a future of universal democracy, open markets, and collective peace.” We thus face a challenge “when the leader of this coalition, the United States, concludes that they, we, and everyone else are in imminent danger from a rogue state and that action must be taken.” It’s a challenge that has undoubtedly been faced by any state that has lacked the values of universal democracy and human rights to not to submit itself stronger, imperial powers bent on decimating local populations and taking over their resources.</p>
<p>As always, the business press offers a more honest account of the real questions faced in this war. “Executives of US oil companies are conferring with officials at the White House, the Department of Defense and the State Department to figure out how to best jump-start Iraq’s oil industry following a war,” Thaddeus Herrick reports in the Wall Street Journal. “With oil reserves second only to Saudi Arabia’s, Iraq would offer the oil industry enormous opportunity should a war topple Saddam Hussein,” an opportunity that will likely go, incidentally, to “oil services firms such as Halliburton Co., where Vice-President Dick Cheney formerly served as Chief Executive for what could be as much as $1.5 billion in contracts.” But in case anyone might get the wrong idea, Larry Goldstein, “president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation in New York”, an industry lobby group, dismisses any misconceptions: “If we go to war, it’s not about oil,” he explains. “But the day the war ends, it has everything to do with oil.” (“U.S. Oil Wants to work in Iraq,” WSJ, January 16 2003).</p>
<p>The background illustrates a Western policy guided by narrow self-interest that is easy enough to document and denounce; what is more difficult is to capture in words is just how much suffering it has caused. One does not have to venture into the devastated hospitals and decaying infrastructure of Iraqi society to get an idea ­ <a href="http://www.web-light.nl/VISIE/extremedeformities.html" type="external">it is beyond words to look at pictures of Iraqi babies born with severe deformities due to exposure to depleted uranium from US bombing</a> . Under US/UK-led sanctions and periodic bombings since the Gulf War, 400,000 Iraqi civilians have lost their lives, taking the conservative estimates. A comprehensive August 2002 report by 13 religious and non-governmental associations conducted in partnership with Save the Children (UK) on the humanitarian consequences of the Iraqi sanctions notes that while Saddam’s regime holds considerable responsibility for the suffering in his country, “many” of its problems “can be attributed to the sanctions.” The bombings have caused “Electricity shortages, [which] in addition to shutting down water-treatment, seriously disrupt hospital care Sanctions also result in shortages of medical equipment and spare parts, blockages of certain important medicines, shortages of skilled medical staff, and more.” The health crisis that Iraqis endure is worsened by “sanctions that deepen that crisis as a cause and also block measures that could mitigate it through public health measures and curative medical procedures.”</p>
<p>An attack launched on Iraq would only increase this suffering. “This is going to be a major undertaking for us,” the World Food Programme’s Khaled Mansour tells the Associated Press of the likely humanitarian effort required in event of an attack. “This is not going to be a small crisis from the humanitarian perspective. The need will be huge, because the population is already highly vulnerable.” (Timothy Appleby, Associated Press/Globe and Mail, Jan. 15).</p>
<p>That there is even a question of whether we are to participate in bringing about this crisis is shameful in itself; a telling indication of the direction that “universal democracy” and “collective peace” have taken under its Western leadership. Whether these values can come to have some remote meaning today certainly begins with the ongoing efforts to oppose the planned attack on Iraq. This opposition is crucial — given our leaders’ overall indifference to whatever real dangers face either us or the intended victims, our public dissent stands as the only real chance to ensure that our destructive polices do not continue on their well-established course.</p>
<p>AARON MATÉ is Vice-President (campaigns) of the Concordia Student Union in Montreal. 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 | however much time un security council extends inspections iraq us already made clear findings little relevance president george bush determined go war saddam hussein next weeks without un backing necessary according authoritative sources washington london guardian reports january 24th debate within bush administration centers along muchhyped rumsfeldpowell divide former wanting mr bush set clear imminent deadline secretary state resisting asking little time diplomatic coalitionbuilding bombing suffering miserable country whenever may implemented bush administrations war plans reflect wellestablished precedents familiar people iraq middle east death misery millions people ensure western control regions oil resources basic aim helps explain us supported dictatorial regimes throughout region saddam exception less year saddam used poison gas massacre 5000 iraqi kurds march 1988 newly inaugurated president george bush sr called establishing close ties iraqi dictator explaining normal relations united states iraq would serve longer term interests promote stability gulf middle east encouraging economic political incentives iraq moderate behaviour increase influence bush srs overtures means novel six years earlier president reagan dispatched special envoy donald rumsfeld baghdad visit explicit aim fostering better relations united states iraq john j mearsheimer university chicago stephen walt harvard note january 2003 issue foreign policy soon saddam gassing kurds iranians us cooperation support progressing direct facilitation iraqs efforts develop biological weapons allowing baghdad import diseaseproducing biological materials anthrax west nile virus botulinal toxin authors two respected scholars well within mainstream invoke crucial background illustrate limited tactical point saddam still deterred today indicated selective instances gassing innocents attacking neighbours could count support patron superpower kuwait included invasion us ambassador april glaspie told saddam opinion arabarab conflicts like border disagreement kuwait leaving obvious moral questions aside nevertheless point significant echoing nearly every serious intelligence analysis record saddam incentive give al qaeda nuclear weapons united states doesunless course country makes clear trying overthrow observation extends terrorist acts saddam could possibly take words cia pointed october 7th letter senate intelligence committee saddam conclude usled attack could longer deterred probably would become much less constrained adopting terrorist action perhaps picking disaproving analyses bush administration tried push alleged links iraq alqaeda idea raised much fervor immediate aftermath 911 much focus centering allegations prior meeting iraqi officials mohammed atta czech republic business section new york times reported october 26 2001 czech officials said asked washington comb records determine whether mr atta met iraqi diplomat agent said told united states found evidence meeting petr necas chairman parliamentary defense committee said havent seen direct evidence mr atta met iraqi agent yet addressing media monday january 28th press secretary ari fleisher secretary state colin powell repeated presidents longheld beliefs iraq refuge alqaida iraqis trained terrorists use chemical weapons associated press reports pressed details fleisher could offer telling line story thats unfolding doubt imaginations speechwriters pr managers attempting spin long continued effort scare american population accepting war ron fournier bush address wont include new iraq data ap monday jan 27 course even expecting fabricated evidence justify attack begins might even asking much day hans blix submitted progress report un financial times citing senior western security official informs us strong evidence iraqs success hiding wmd programme also emerge foreign troops occupied areas alleged chemical biological weapons programmes carried entrusting foreign invading army provide evidence taken country unclear us simply pass intelligence alleged areas wmd programmes un inspections regime right perhaps us administration officials stress certain sites operating mean used wmd production future logic would thus us bomb anywhere world actually taken seriously mark hubbard charles clover full evidence iraq arms war ft jan 27 citizenship outside united states seems accept transparencies remarkable achievements domestic us propaganda noam chomsky pointed public opinion polls us continue disagree bush administrations extreme stance also tribute growing antiwar sentiment displayed country widespread public opposition war also considerable canada given much effort made mainstream convince us merits subordination us power greed globe mail washington bureau chief john ibbitson provides apt example posing basic dilemma facing canada asking profound question whether stand united states need us choose make decisions acting united states agree aims actions difficult reconcile writes amongst select group embodies liberal democratic traditions almost exclusively preserve winston churchill called englishspeaking peoples great britain major settler colonies leading world toward future universal democracy open markets collective peace thus face challenge leader coalition united states concludes everyone else imminent danger rogue state action must taken challenge undoubtedly faced state lacked values universal democracy human rights submit stronger imperial powers bent decimating local populations taking resources always business press offers honest account real questions faced war executives us oil companies conferring officials white house department defense state department figure best jumpstart iraqs oil industry following war thaddeus herrick reports wall street journal oil reserves second saudi arabias iraq would offer oil industry enormous opportunity war topple saddam hussein opportunity likely go incidentally oil services firms halliburton co vicepresident dick cheney formerly served chief executive could much 15 billion contracts case anyone might get wrong idea larry goldstein president petroleum industry research foundation new york industry lobby group dismisses misconceptions go war oil explains day war ends everything oil us oil wants work iraq wsj january 16 2003 background illustrates western policy guided narrow selfinterest easy enough document denounce difficult capture words much suffering caused one venture devastated hospitals decaying infrastructure iraqi society get idea beyond words look pictures iraqi babies born severe deformities due exposure depleted uranium us bombing usukled sanctions periodic bombings since gulf war 400000 iraqi civilians lost lives taking conservative estimates comprehensive august 2002 report 13 religious nongovernmental associations conducted partnership save children uk humanitarian consequences iraqi sanctions notes saddams regime holds considerable responsibility suffering country many problems attributed sanctions bombings caused electricity shortages addition shutting watertreatment seriously disrupt hospital care sanctions also result shortages medical equipment spare parts blockages certain important medicines shortages skilled medical staff health crisis iraqis endure worsened sanctions deepen crisis cause also block measures could mitigate public health measures curative medical procedures attack launched iraq would increase suffering going major undertaking us world food programmes khaled mansour tells associated press likely humanitarian effort required event attack going small crisis humanitarian perspective need huge population already highly vulnerable timothy appleby associated pressglobe mail jan 15 even question whether participate bringing crisis shameful telling indication direction universal democracy collective peace taken western leadership whether values come remote meaning today certainly begins ongoing efforts oppose planned attack iraq opposition crucial given leaders overall indifference whatever real dangers face either us intended victims public dissent stands real chance ensure destructive polices continue wellestablished course aaron matÉ vicepresident campaigns concordia student union montreal reached aaronjmateyahoocom 160 160 | 1,088 |
<p>“He [the Hezbollah leader] knows that every dead Lebanese baby, the fruit of Hezbollah’s cynicism and death cult, will be laid in righteous anger at Israel’s door by Europe’s political and media classes . . . .”</p>
<p>— Douglas Davis, The Spectator (London)</p>
<p>The Spectator is a good magazine (and full marks for ditching the little creep Mark Steyn), but it appeals to a lot of Frog-bashing Brits who admire George Bush, think Israel’s a plucky little country, and enjoy the vulgar fruits of bonus-land. (It has a tacky section called ‘You’ve Earned It’.) Its readers, however, do include some members of the ‘political and media classes’ who Mr Davis imagines are particularly keen to give Israel a bad name by revealing that US-supplied Israeli weapons have been killing Lebanese and Palestinian children. But distaste for bombing babies is not limited to this select few, as a report of July 31 in Haaretz, an Israeli daily newspaper, makes clear :</p>
<p>“The Israeli Defense Forces [IDF] have killed 97 people in the Gaza Strip since the fighting began in Lebanon. Most of them were armed, and the rest were civilians : children, women, men, the elderly. The large number of fatalities suggests the IDF is engaged in indiscriminate killings in the north under the cover of the war in the south.”</p>
<p>“Indiscriminate killings” says an Israeli newspaper. Haaretz appears to be guilty of the righteous anger against killing kids that Mr Davis finds so peculiar when exhibited by Europeans. And it has to be said that righteous anger is something that Mr Davis seems to know a bit about. In one of his earlier pieces he displayed outrage that anyone should dare to criticize Israel : “Those who knock Israel are motivated by hate and malice” wrote Mr Davis in a fit of righteous anger.</p>
<p>There is no reason why Mr Davis should not support Israel or vent his spleen on anything he dislikes, but the Spectator is reticent about his background. It is the usual practice of the journal to place a bit of information about writers at the end of their pieces, especially controversial ones. You know the sort of thing : “Perunu Grendel is Reader in Coprology at the University of Holawaka”. This informs us that the writer is an expert in his or her field, and from this we can draw our own conclusions as to any display of partiality. But the Spectator omitted to inform us that Mr Davis writes for the Jerusalem Post and is author of ‘Israel in the World’ (with Helen Davis, foreword by Rupert Murdoch ; who else?) and a lot of other pro-Israeli material. Perish the thought that the magazine sought to disguise the writer’s leanings, but impressions are important, as Mr Davis knows.</p>
<p>I have bought The Spectator for over forty years and continue my subscription because it has many excellent writers. But in its choice and presentation of some articles it echoes, albeit in a minor fashion, the asinine tactics of Donald Rumsfeld.</p>
<p>Dead babies in Iraq, as Rumsfeld would have it, are the fabrication of an awe-inspiring propaganda monster. Like Mr Davis, he is full of righteous anger, but not about dead babies. They don’t register with Rumsfeld because, as he declared to the American Legion last week :</p>
<p>“Our enemies . . . frequently invoke the names of Beirut or Somalia — places they see as examples of American retreat and American weakness. And as we’ve seen — even this month — in Lebanon, they design attacks and manipulate the media to try to demoralize public opinion. They doctor photographs of casualties. They use civilians as human shields. And then they try to provoke an outcry when civilians are killed in their midst, which of course was their intent.” I’m not sure how one can “demoralize public opinion”, which is particularly stupid phrase, and his pronouncement about civilian casualties is contemptible. But he cannot be dismissed as a mere oaf whose ignorance, spite and malevolence plumb new depths in the US polity. He remains a dangerous man who still has much influence in spite of encouraging an illegal war that has killed almost 3000 US troops and fifty times that number of Iraqi civilians.</p>
<p>Washington’s fundamentalists are guilty of many crimes, and one of the worst of these is sending young Americans to their deaths in Iraq for a fabricated Cause. And another is spreading hate propaganda. This was a specialty of the National Socialists, the Nazis, in Germany in 1933-1945, to whom Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush compare those who realize that their policies have created international chaos and unprecedented hatred of America.</p>
<p>Rumsfeld declared that the US faces “challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism” and Bush told the Legion that “This nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation.” (Fascism was Italian nationalist doctrine, in fact : Mussolini’s gift to the world ; but let’s accept the Washington linkage with Nazism.) The ever-biddable Rice announced to the Legion that “the root cause of September 11th was the violent expression of a global extremist ideology” and Cheney managed to use the word ‘appeasement’ and get in a quotation by Franklin Roosevelt about Nazis when he spoke to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. There must be a central pool of speechwriters who has been told to string together all the references they can think of about fascism, Nazism and extremist ideology. (‘Appeaser’ is now standard White House Newspeak for its opponents.)</p>
<p>It seems that White House propaganda spinners think the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars are important, which is why Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice gave speeches to them. And why not? — Well, no good reason apart from the fact that any red-blooded self-respecting member of the VFW or the Legion should on principle leave the room when the draft-dodging Cheney enters it.</p>
<p>How a member or former member of any US armed service can respect Cheney is beyond comprehension. It is bizarre that the Legion and the VFW so energetically support a president and a vice president who could have fought for their country but declined to do so. Their president wangled his way out of overseas service and went absent without leave from a cushy Reserve billet, and their vice-president managed to obtain deferment after deferment until the draft went away. No foreign wars for them, thanks very much. They are, not to put too fine a point on it, cowards. They’re great on trail bikes and bird-shoots, but not so good on stepping up to serve their country in a war in which they could have been shot at.</p>
<p>But the Legion isn’t always so devoted to its Commander-in-Chief. It depends on who he is. Here’s part of a letter from the Legion to President Clinton (also a draft-dodger) :</p>
<p>Mr. President, the United States Armed Forces should never be committed to wartime operations unless the following conditions are fulfilled:</p>
<p>1. That there be a clear statement by the President of why it is in our vital national interests to be engaged in hostilities; 2. Guidelines be established for the mission, including a clear exit strategy; 3. That there be support of the mission by the U.S. Congress and the American people; and 4. That it be made clear that U.S. Forces will be commanded only by U.S. officers which we acknowledge are superior military leaders.</p>
<p>It is the position of The American Legion, which I am sure is shared by the majority of Americans, that three of the above listed conditions have not been met in the current joint operation with NATO (“Operation Allied Force”).</p>
<p>In no case should America commit its Armed Forces in the absence of clearly defined objectives agreed upon by the U.S. Congress in accordance with Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution of the United States.</p>
<p>Sincerely, Harold L. “Butch” Miller National Commander</p>
<p>Why hasn’t the Legion’s National Commander written a Dear President letter to Bush on similar lines? Where is the exit strategy from the debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq that was demanded (quite rightly) by the Legion concerning US operations in the Balkans? Can the Legion claim there is “support of the mission by the US Congress and the American people” concerning the bloodbath in Iraq and the shambles in Afghanistan?</p>
<p>What a bunch of humbugs.</p>
<p>Talking with a close friend, an American general whose service in Vietnam coincided with mine (in the Australian army), I asked him how on earth he could support the draft-dodger Clinton. He looked at me, shrugged, then sketched a salute with his right hand while holding his nose with the left.</p>
<p>Is that how the Legion and the VFW support Bush? It appears not, because Bush and Cheney were greeted with enthusiastic applause by former warriors who now endorse the deaths of American soldiers who were sent to war by two cowards.</p>
<p>So the Legion’s applause for Rumsfeld and Rice is not surprising. The first is an Olympic-size humbug because he had cordial discussions with Saddam Hussain on behalf of President Reagan and now tries to say that he encouraged war on Iraq because Saddam was a bloody-handed dictator. The fact that Rumsfeld shook Saddam’s bloody hand is ignored. And Rice is out of her depth. As I quoted a year ago :</p>
<p>In an exclusive interview with Israel’s daily Yediot Aharonot . . . Dr Condoleezza Rice said that ‘the security of Israel is the key to security of the world.’ Rice added that she feels ‘a deep bond to Israel.’ Asked if her feelings toward Israel stem from her religious convictions, Dr. Rice said ‘That is a very deep question. I first visited Israel in 2000. I already then felt that I am returning home despite the fact that this was a place I never visited. I have a deep affinity with Israel. I have always admired the history of the State of Israel and the hardness and determination of the people that founded it’ . . .</p>
<p>After such an exhibition of sloppy adulation for the Jewish State there is not the slightest chance that Rice could be regarded as an honest broker by any Arab, or, indeed, by any other intelligent person.</p>
<p>Mr Davis and many others denounce critics of Israel, and Ms Rice rhapsodizes over “returning home” to the country that has destroyed all chances of peace in the Middle East for decades to come. Bush and Cheney encouraged Israel in its vindictive destruction of Lebanese oil stores, generators, roads and bridges, and Rumsfeld welcomes “challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism”, apparently presented by Muslim nations. Washington is determined to continue its bellicose policies in Iraq and Afghanistan. These people are unconcerned about the hideous consequences of their impassioned and unequivocal support for war as the solution to all that disturbs them. Dead babies are irrelevant, and their righteous anger is reserved for those who criticize Israel and for the “appeasers” who object to slaughter of Lebanese, Iraqi and Afghan civilians.</p>
<p>The US propaganda machine grinds on over the dead babies and the unexploded US-Israeli cluster bombs that will continue to maim children. Apologists for the brutal follies of Israel and America will carry on broadcasting their conviction that the world is a better place because of the wars that have devastated so much of Iraq and Lebanon. Many people, like the American Legion, will believe them. Truth-destruction, as practiced by the Nazis, seems to pay dividends. But the Nazis lost, in the end.</p>
<p>BRIAN CLOUGHLEY lives in France.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | hezbollah leader knows every dead lebanese baby fruit hezbollahs cynicism death cult laid righteous anger israels door europes political media classes douglas davis spectator london spectator good magazine full marks ditching little creep mark steyn appeals lot frogbashing brits admire george bush think israels plucky little country enjoy vulgar fruits bonusland tacky section called youve earned readers however include members political media classes mr davis imagines particularly keen give israel bad name revealing ussupplied israeli weapons killing lebanese palestinian children distaste bombing babies limited select report july 31 haaretz israeli daily newspaper makes clear israeli defense forces idf killed 97 people gaza strip since fighting began lebanon armed rest civilians children women men elderly large number fatalities suggests idf engaged indiscriminate killings north cover war south indiscriminate killings says israeli newspaper haaretz appears guilty righteous anger killing kids mr davis finds peculiar exhibited europeans said righteous anger something mr davis seems know bit one earlier pieces displayed outrage anyone dare criticize israel knock israel motivated hate malice wrote mr davis fit righteous anger reason mr davis support israel vent spleen anything dislikes spectator reticent background usual practice journal place bit information writers end pieces especially controversial ones know sort thing perunu grendel reader coprology university holawaka informs us writer expert field draw conclusions display partiality spectator omitted inform us mr davis writes jerusalem post author israel world helen davis foreword rupert murdoch else lot proisraeli material perish thought magazine sought disguise writers leanings impressions important mr davis knows bought spectator forty years continue subscription many excellent writers choice presentation articles echoes albeit minor fashion asinine tactics donald rumsfeld dead babies iraq rumsfeld would fabrication aweinspiring propaganda monster like mr davis full righteous anger dead babies dont register rumsfeld declared american legion last week enemies frequently invoke names beirut somalia places see examples american retreat american weakness weve seen even month lebanon design attacks manipulate media try demoralize public opinion doctor photographs casualties use civilians human shields try provoke outcry civilians killed midst course intent im sure one demoralize public opinion particularly stupid phrase pronouncement civilian casualties contemptible dismissed mere oaf whose ignorance spite malevolence plumb new depths us polity remains dangerous man still much influence spite encouraging illegal war killed almost 3000 us troops fifty times number iraqi civilians washingtons fundamentalists guilty many crimes one worst sending young americans deaths iraq fabricated cause another spreading hate propaganda specialty national socialists nazis germany 19331945 rumsfeld cheney bush compare realize policies created international chaos unprecedented hatred america rumsfeld declared us faces challenges efforts confront rising threat new type fascism bush told legion nation war islamic fascists use means destroy us love freedom hurt nation fascism italian nationalist doctrine fact mussolinis gift world lets accept washington linkage nazism everbiddable rice announced legion root cause september 11th violent expression global extremist ideology cheney managed use word appeasement get quotation franklin roosevelt nazis spoke veterans foreign wars must central pool speechwriters told string together references think fascism nazism extremist ideology appeaser standard white house newspeak opponents seems white house propaganda spinners think american legion veterans foreign wars important bush cheney rumsfeld rice gave speeches well good reason apart fact redblooded selfrespecting member vfw legion principle leave room draftdodging cheney enters member former member us armed service respect cheney beyond comprehension bizarre legion vfw energetically support president vice president could fought country declined president wangled way overseas service went absent without leave cushy reserve billet vicepresident managed obtain deferment deferment draft went away foreign wars thanks much put fine point cowards theyre great trail bikes birdshoots good stepping serve country war could shot legion isnt always devoted commanderinchief depends heres part letter legion president clinton also draftdodger mr president united states armed forces never committed wartime operations unless following conditions fulfilled 1 clear statement president vital national interests engaged hostilities 2 guidelines established mission including clear exit strategy 3 support mission us congress american people 4 made clear us forces commanded us officers acknowledge superior military leaders position american legion sure shared majority americans three listed conditions met current joint operation nato operation allied force case america commit armed forces absence clearly defined objectives agreed upon us congress accordance article section 8 constitution united states sincerely harold l butch miller national commander hasnt legions national commander written dear president letter bush similar lines exit strategy debacles afghanistan iraq demanded quite rightly legion concerning us operations balkans legion claim support mission us congress american people concerning bloodbath iraq shambles afghanistan bunch humbugs talking close friend american general whose service vietnam coincided mine australian army asked earth could support draftdodger clinton looked shrugged sketched salute right hand holding nose left legion vfw support bush appears bush cheney greeted enthusiastic applause former warriors endorse deaths american soldiers sent war two cowards legions applause rumsfeld rice surprising first olympicsize humbug cordial discussions saddam hussain behalf president reagan tries say encouraged war iraq saddam bloodyhanded dictator fact rumsfeld shook saddams bloody hand ignored rice depth quoted year ago exclusive interview israels daily yediot aharonot dr condoleezza rice said security israel key security world rice added feels deep bond israel asked feelings toward israel stem religious convictions dr rice said deep question first visited israel 2000 already felt returning home despite fact place never visited deep affinity israel always admired history state israel hardness determination people founded exhibition sloppy adulation jewish state slightest chance rice could regarded honest broker arab indeed intelligent person mr davis many others denounce critics israel ms rice rhapsodizes returning home country destroyed chances peace middle east decades come bush cheney encouraged israel vindictive destruction lebanese oil stores generators roads bridges rumsfeld welcomes challenges efforts confront rising threat new type fascism apparently presented muslim nations washington determined continue bellicose policies iraq afghanistan people unconcerned hideous consequences impassioned unequivocal support war solution disturbs dead babies irrelevant righteous anger reserved criticize israel appeasers object slaughter lebanese iraqi afghan civilians us propaganda machine grinds dead babies unexploded usisraeli cluster bombs continue maim children apologists brutal follies israel america carry broadcasting conviction world better place wars devastated much iraq lebanon many people like american legion believe truthdestruction practiced nazis seems pay dividends nazis lost end brian cloughley lives france available counterpunch books case israel michael neumann 160 click order michael neumanns devastating rebuttal alan dershowitz grand theft pentagon tales greed profiteering war terror jeffrey st clair 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 | 1,090 |
<p>Allison V. Smith/New York Times/ReduxIf there’s a controversial new anti-immigration law that’s captured national attention, chances are that it has Kris Kobach’s imprimatur. A telegenic law professor with flawless academic credentials—Harvard undergrad, Yale Law School—Kobach <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/opinion/29kobach.html" type="external">helped</a> Arizona lawmakers craft the infamous immigration law that passed in the spring of 2010. He’s coached legislators across the country in their efforts to pass dozens of similar measures, <a href="http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/when-mr-kobach-comes-to-town/the-cases-a-timeline-of-key-events" type="external">ranging</a> from Alabama, Georgia, and Missouri to the small town of Fremont, Nebraska, pop. 26,000. His record has helped <a href="http://fremonttribune.com/news/local/article_ab6fd3fa-e761-11df-a6ff-001cc4c03286.html" type="external">propel</a> him into elected office, becoming Kansas’ secretary of state just six months after the passage of Arizona’s SB 1070.</p>
<p>Kobach routinely denies that he’s the progenitor of the anti-immigration laws he’s drafted or defended. Rather, he insists he simply assists officials already committed to tougher enforcement policies. “I did not generate the motivation to pass the law…I am merely the attorney who comes in, refines, and drafts their statutes,” he says.</p>
<p />
<p>But advocates on both sides of the immigration debate agree that Kobach’s influence has been far-reaching. Rosemary Jenks of NumbersUSA, an anti-immigration group, calls Kobach “instrumental in helping states and localities deal with the federal government’s authority.” Vivek Malhotra, a lawyer who worked for the American Civil Liberties Union when it tussled with Kobach in court, says, “What Kris Kobach has done as a lawyer is really gone out to localities around the country and really used them as experimental laboratories for pushing questionable legal theories about how far states and local governments can go.”</p>
<p>Kobach, 45, has spent much of his professional life developing the legal framework that a growing number of officials have used to justify laws further criminalizing illegal immigration. A rising star in the Republican establishment, Kobach <a href="http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/when-mr-kobach-comes-to-town/the-man-a-biography-of-kris-kobach" type="external">joined</a> John Ashcroft’s Justice Department just days before 9/11. Over the next two years, he helped create a <a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights-racial-justice/homeland-security-suspends-ineffective-discriminatory-immigrat" type="external">program</a> that required all visiting citizens from 25 mostly Arab countries to be fingerprinted and monitored—a policy that critics said amounted to racial profiling.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="" type="internal">See the rest of the flowchart</a>.During those years, Kobach advanced an idea that had long been circulating in conservative legal circles: that local and state officials have the “inherent authority” to enforce federal immigration laws. This unorthodox notion bucked the prevailing view—long held by both Republican and Democratic administrations—that the federal government has principal jurisdiction over immigration under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. If local and state governments were to strike out on their own, they could undermine federal efforts, create jurisdictional chaos, and detract from law enforcement efforts by discouraging immigrants from cooperating with police, critics argue. In 2002, however, Ashcroft’s Office of Legal Counsel issued a <a href="http://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/secret-immigration-enforcement-memo-exposed" type="external">memo</a>, which Kobach helped review, supporting the “inherent authority” theory.</p>
<p>After leaving the Bush administration in 2003, Kobach joined the Immigration Reform Law Institute and began working with local officials across the country to combat illegal immigration on the ground level. He also pitched in as a defense attorney when such measures were <a href="http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/when-mr-kobach-comes-to-town/the-cases-a-timeline-of-key-events" type="external">challenged</a> in court, defending legislation in Pennsylvania and Texas that would revoke operating licenses for businesses that hired illegal immigrants and fine landlords who rented to them. In 2006, he <a href="http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/05/31/20100531arizona-immigration-law-kris-kobach.html#ixzz1jOI2xEoJ" type="external">landed</a> his first major gig in Arizona, hired by state officials to defend a law that made immigrant smuggling a state crime.</p>
<p>Kobach has worked hard to develop laws that can withstand court challenges. “[Arizona SB 1070] was very carefully crafted to track many provisions in federal law—it creates a plausible case for proponents to say we’re not doing anything new,” says Mary Giovagnoli, director of the Immigration Policy Center. “It’s a disingenuous argument, to say if it’s illegal in the federal law, it’s okay when it’s illegal in state law…but it’s very clever lawyering.” In fact, Kobach scored a big victory last year when the Supreme Court upheld a separate Arizona law he helped craft that punished employers who hired illegal immigrants.</p>
<p>That said, Obama’s Department of Justice has aggressively challenged the major laws that Kobach has helped author. In addition to filing <a href="http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/August/11-ag-993.html" type="external">lawsuits</a> against the Arizona and Alabama laws, the DOJ has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/us/arizona-sheriffs-office-unfairly-targeted-latinos-justice-department-says.html?pagewanted=all" type="external">taken</a> action against Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose officers Kobach helped train in immigration enforcement. In December, Arpaio’s officers were forced to <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-12-21/joe-arpaio-illegal-inmate-status/52151316/1" type="external">hand</a> in their federal credentials due to complaints about their immigration enforcement tactics, which the DOJ called illegal and discriminatory.</p>
<p>But such legal challenges haven’t slowed down Kobach, who has <a href="http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2012/jan/11/kobach-endorses-romney-president/" type="external">endorsed</a> Mitt Romney and provided the candidate his immigration talking points. In his first year in office as secretary of state, he successfully shepherded through a new Kansas voter ID <a href="http://www.kake.com/news/headlines/Cimarron_Voters_Test_New_I-D_Law_137055343.html" type="external">law</a>, claiming that the current laws allowed immigrants to commit voter fraud—a new front in the immigration wars that parallels the conservative push for stricter voting laws. He’s now advising Kansas legislators on a bill that would give local police far more latitude in checking the status of suspected illegal immigrants—effectively bringing Arizona’s law to his own backyard.</p> | true | 4 | allison v smithnew york timesreduxif theres controversial new antiimmigration law thats captured national attention chances kris kobachs imprimatur telegenic law professor flawless academic credentialsharvard undergrad yale law schoolkobach helped arizona lawmakers craft infamous immigration law passed spring 2010 hes coached legislators across country efforts pass dozens similar measures ranging alabama georgia missouri small town fremont nebraska pop 26000 record helped propel elected office becoming kansas secretary state six months passage arizonas sb 1070 kobach routinely denies hes progenitor antiimmigration laws hes drafted defended rather insists simply assists officials already committed tougher enforcement policies generate motivation pass lawi merely attorney comes refines drafts statutes says advocates sides immigration debate agree kobachs influence farreaching rosemary jenks numbersusa antiimmigration group calls kobach instrumental helping states localities deal federal governments authority vivek malhotra lawyer worked american civil liberties union tussled kobach court says kris kobach done lawyer really gone localities around country really used experimental laboratories pushing questionable legal theories far states local governments go kobach 45 spent much professional life developing legal framework growing number officials used justify laws criminalizing illegal immigration rising star republican establishment kobach joined john ashcrofts justice department days 911 next two years helped create program required visiting citizens 25 mostly arab countries fingerprinted monitoreda policy critics said amounted racial profiling see rest flowchartduring years kobach advanced idea long circulating conservative legal circles local state officials inherent authority enforce federal immigration laws unorthodox notion bucked prevailing viewlong held republican democratic administrationsthat federal government principal jurisdiction immigration supremacy clause constitution local state governments strike could undermine federal efforts create jurisdictional chaos detract law enforcement efforts discouraging immigrants cooperating police critics argue 2002 however ashcrofts office legal counsel issued memo kobach helped review supporting inherent authority theory leaving bush administration 2003 kobach joined immigration reform law institute began working local officials across country combat illegal immigration ground level also pitched defense attorney measures challenged court defending legislation pennsylvania texas would revoke operating licenses businesses hired illegal immigrants fine landlords rented 2006 landed first major gig arizona hired state officials defend law made immigrant smuggling state crime kobach worked hard develop laws withstand court challenges arizona sb 1070 carefully crafted track many provisions federal lawit creates plausible case proponents say anything new says mary giovagnoli director immigration policy center disingenuous argument say illegal federal law okay illegal state lawbut clever lawyering fact kobach scored big victory last year supreme court upheld separate arizona law helped craft punished employers hired illegal immigrants said obamas department justice aggressively challenged major laws kobach helped author addition filing lawsuits arizona alabama laws doj taken action arizonas sheriff joe arpaio whose officers kobach helped train immigration enforcement december arpaios officers forced hand federal credentials due complaints immigration enforcement tactics doj called illegal discriminatory legal challenges havent slowed kobach endorsed mitt romney provided candidate immigration talking points first year office secretary state successfully shepherded new kansas voter id law claiming current laws allowed immigrants commit voter frauda new front immigration wars parallels conservative push stricter voting laws hes advising kansas legislators bill would give local police far latitude checking status suspected illegal immigrantseffectively bringing arizonas law backyard | 519 |
<p>Donald Trump will soon announce his pick for deputy Secretary of State. The leading contender appears to be Elliott Abrams, despite Abrams having been an outspoken advocate of the #NeverTrump crowd and calling Trump unfit for the office.</p>
<p>Abrams, a neocon hawk, would be one more disastrous addition to Team Trump. In his prior positions under Reagan and George W. Bush, he supported the most thuggish regimes and covered up the human rights violations of US government allies. A crook who was convicted of lying to Congress, his policy decisions have left death, destruction and deceit in their wake.</p>
<p>1. Abrams is infamous for his involvement in the nefarious <a href="https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/documents/abrams.pdf" type="external">Iran-Contra scandal</a>, the secret and illegal scam in the 1980s to siphon profits from Iranian weapons sales to support the right-wing Contra rebels trying to overthrow the Sandinista government. Despite the fact that supplying weapons to the Contras was expressly prohibited by Congress, Abrams pushed the scheme and when caught, lied to Congress. Abrams <a href="" type="internal">pleaded guilty</a> in 1991 to withholding information from Congress. He was later <a href="" type="internal">pardoned</a> by President Bush in 1992 in order to prevent further investigation into the scandal, which could potentially have been traced back to the president himself.</p>
<p>2. Abrams was a hardline believer in taking <a href="" type="internal">“whatever means necessary”</a> to win the Cold War. As Reagan’s Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs from 1981-1985, he loudly condemned Soviet human rights violations while <a href="http://fair.org/extra/human-rights-and-the-media/" type="external">ignoring the violent actions of US allies</a>, such as the apartheid regime in South Africa. This ideological stance, along with his firm support for U.S. military interventions and “nation-building”, later garnered him the position of George W. Bush’s Deputy National Security Adviser in order to “spread democracy” abroad.</p>
<p>3. Among the criminal leaders Abrams defended while serving under Reagan was the Guatemalan General Efraín Ríos Montt. Ríos Montt’s violent government crackdown on the indigenous Ixil Mayan people of Guatemala was so brutal it was later called a <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/an-actual-american-war-criminal-may-become-our-second-ranking-diplomat/" type="external">genocide</a> by the United Nations. At precisely the time that the mass killings were taking place, Abrams pushed Congress to provide more military aid to Ríos Montt’s bloody regime.</p>
<p>4. Abrams denied the devastating El Mozote massacre where, in 1981, the US-supported Salvadoran military slaughtered hundreds of villagers, and he pushed for continued US support of the notoriously brutal Salvadoran government. Not only did Abrams deny the brutality of the Salvadoran government, he also claimed in a 1994 interview that <a href="" type="internal">“the administration’s record in El Salvador is one of fabulous achievement.”</a></p>
<p>5. As a member of George W. Bush’s National Security Council staff, Abrams <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/an-actual-american-war-criminal-may-become-our-second-ranking-diplomat/" type="external">encouraged</a> the military coup against the democratically elected government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in 2002, poisoning the US relationship with Chavez when the coup was reversed and Chavez returned to power.</p>
<p>6. Abrams promoted the disastrous invasion of Iraq, a war that President Trump says he opposed. Abrams was eager for a war with Iraq even before 9/11. In 1998, as a member of the neoconservative think tank Project for a New American Century, Abrams submitted a <a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5527.htm" type="external">letter</a> to President Clinton encouraging him to intervene in Iraq in order to depose Saddam Hussein. And as the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director at the National Security Council under George W. Bush, Abrams was an outspoken <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/elliott-abrams-state-department-baffling" type="external">supporter</a> of the president’s call to invade Iraq.</p>
<p>7. Abrams is vehement supporter of the Israeli government and is anti-Palestinian. As George Bush’s aide on the National Security Council, Abrams did everything he could to <a href="" type="internal">thwart peace negotiations</a>. He repeatedly undercut any American pressure on Israel to stop the building of settlements &#160;and cited the Holocaust as justification for Israel’s killings of Palestinians (Jews are “a people who had learned from history what happens to Jews without security”). Abrams <a href="" type="internal">condemned</a>the U.S. abstention from the UN vote that called for an end to the building of settlements in the West Bank. He is also quick to accuse people of anti-Semitism, including Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, if they voice any criticism of Israeli policies.</p>
<p>8. Abrams supported the 2007 Israeli bombing of a nuclear reactor in Syria, citing it as a way of “restoring their credibility after the annus horribilis of 2006 with the Second Lebanon War and then the 2007 Hamas takeover of Gaza.” He said that “ <a href="https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/bombing-the-syrian-reactor-the-untold-story/" type="external">there is no substitute for military strength and the will to use it</a>…. Israel was right to bomb that reactor before construction was completed, and President Bush was right to support its decision to do so.”</p>
<p>9. Abrams was a champion of the U.S. overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, <a href="" type="internal">pressuring President Obama</a> to intervene. Echoing the tactics used by the neocons for intervention in Iraq, Abrams joined in an effort in 2011 calling for the United States to immediately prepare military action to bring down the Gaddafi regime. The call came from a group called the Foreign Policy Initiative, a successor to the infamous Project for the New American Century. The poor Libyan people are today paying the price for yet another disastrous intervention pushed by Abrams and his neocon gang.</p>
<p>10. Abrams <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/elliott-abrams-enabler-of-massacres-in-latin-america-is-back-shilling-for-war-with-iran" type="external">opposition to the Iran Deal</a>is epitomized by his attempts to encourage Israel to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites before negotiations became too serious. The bomb-enthusiast bemoaned that Israel’s capacity to impede the deal “is already being narrowed considerably by the diplomatic thaw, because it is one thing to bomb Iran when it appears hopelessly recalcitrant and isolated and quite another to bomb it when much of the world — especially the United States — is optimistic about the prospect of talks.”</p>
<p>Republican Senator Rand Paul is, so far, the only senator who has come out <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/318211-rand-paul-urges-trump-not-to-open-state-department-to-the-neocons" type="external">appealing to Trump</a> not to nominate Abrams. More senators, and the public, should quickly pile on. How much more proof do we need that Elliott Abrams is unfit for public office?</p> | true | 4 | donald trump soon announce pick deputy secretary state leading contender appears elliott abrams despite abrams outspoken advocate nevertrump crowd calling trump unfit office abrams neocon hawk would one disastrous addition team trump prior positions reagan george w bush supported thuggish regimes covered human rights violations us government allies crook convicted lying congress policy decisions left death destruction deceit wake 1 abrams infamous involvement nefarious irancontra scandal secret illegal scam 1980s siphon profits iranian weapons sales support rightwing contra rebels trying overthrow sandinista government despite fact supplying weapons contras expressly prohibited congress abrams pushed scheme caught lied congress abrams pleaded guilty 1991 withholding information congress later pardoned president bush 1992 order prevent investigation scandal could potentially traced back president 2 abrams hardline believer taking whatever means necessary win cold war reagans assistant secretary state human rights humanitarian affairs 19811985 loudly condemned soviet human rights violations ignoring violent actions us allies apartheid regime south africa ideological stance along firm support us military interventions nationbuilding later garnered position george w bushs deputy national security adviser order spread democracy abroad 3 among criminal leaders abrams defended serving reagan guatemalan general efraín ríos montt ríos montts violent government crackdown indigenous ixil mayan people guatemala brutal later called genocide united nations precisely time mass killings taking place abrams pushed congress provide military aid ríos montts bloody regime 4 abrams denied devastating el mozote massacre 1981 ussupported salvadoran military slaughtered hundreds villagers pushed continued us support notoriously brutal salvadoran government abrams deny brutality salvadoran government also claimed 1994 interview administrations record el salvador one fabulous achievement 5 member george w bushs national security council staff abrams encouraged military coup democratically elected government hugo chavez venezuela 2002 poisoning us relationship chavez coup reversed chavez returned power 6 abrams promoted disastrous invasion iraq war president trump says opposed abrams eager war iraq even 911 1998 member neoconservative think tank project new american century abrams submitted letter president clinton encouraging intervene iraq order depose saddam hussein special assistant president senior director national security council george w bush abrams outspoken supporter presidents call invade iraq 7 abrams vehement supporter israeli government antipalestinian george bushs aide national security council abrams everything could thwart peace negotiations repeatedly undercut american pressure israel stop building settlements 160and cited holocaust justification israels killings palestinians jews people learned history happens jews without security abrams condemnedthe us abstention un vote called end building settlements west bank also quick accuse people antisemitism including secretary defense chuck hagel voice criticism israeli policies 8 abrams supported 2007 israeli bombing nuclear reactor syria citing way restoring credibility annus horribilis 2006 second lebanon war 2007 hamas takeover gaza said substitute military strength use israel right bomb reactor construction completed president bush right support decision 9 abrams champion us overthrow muammar gaddafi libya pressuring president obama intervene echoing tactics used neocons intervention iraq abrams joined effort 2011 calling united states immediately prepare military action bring gaddafi regime call came group called foreign policy initiative successor infamous project new american century poor libyan people today paying price yet another disastrous intervention pushed abrams neocon gang 10 abrams opposition iran dealis epitomized attempts encourage israel bomb irans nuclear sites negotiations became serious bombenthusiast bemoaned israels capacity impede deal already narrowed considerably diplomatic thaw one thing bomb iran appears hopelessly recalcitrant isolated quite another bomb much world especially united states optimistic prospect talks republican senator rand paul far senator come appealing trump nominate abrams senators public quickly pile much proof need elliott abrams unfit public office | 579 |
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<p>A cartoon published in The New York World during the Great Steel Strike of 1919. &#160;</p>
<p>During the 1950s, American workers went on strike an average of 350 times each year. In the past decade, the average number of strikes each year fell to 20. In his new book <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9781935439240-0" type="external">Reviving the Strike: How Working People Can Regain Power and Transform America</a>, veteran union negotiator and Working In These Times Contributor Joe Burns argues that grinding industries to a halt is the last, best hope for workers and their unions. Visit this site each Monday in June for exclusive excerpts from the book. Previous excerpts are <a href="" type="internal">here</a> and <a href="" type="internal">here</a> and <a href="" type="internal">here</a>. —Working In These Times Editor Jeremy Gantz</p>
<p>After watching the labor movement—and the strike—wither over the past 30 years, trade unionists today need to answer several big questions if they wish to revitalize unions in this country. How should the labor movement deal with the current system of labor control? How should human labor be treated in relationship to capital? How can workers act as a class to advance their common interests? What are the best forms of organization to carry on the fight for workers’ rights? And finally, what is the role of the strike?&#160; The answers—or non-answers—to these fundamental questions will shape labor’s future in America.&#160;</p>
<p>To point the labor movement in a new direction will require more than fostering discussion, however; it will require a large group of people willing to challenge the status quo, people who have the ideas, organizational skills and self-confidence to give voice to a workers’ movement capable of transforming America.</p>
<p>This will have to start with the activists in the movement—shop floor militants, progressive union staffers and officers, worker centers’ activists, and friendly academics. However, the debate over the future of trade unionism must grow beyond this committed, but small group if the there is to be a true labor revival in this country.</p>
<p>So how does one build such a trend? Again, we can learn from labor history. In the 1920s and early 1930s, the labor movement was stuck in a narrow form of craft unionism that was unable to win gains from employers. Craft unionists viewed only skilled workers as deserving of union representation, and they rejected attempts to organize all workers into one union.</p>
<p>However, a countercurrent developed which argued that industrial unionism was the road forward for the labor movement. This trend toward industrial unionism was driven by the political left of the era (socialists, anarchists and communists), who had a program that, although varying in its approaches, shared one guiding principle: the strength of the overall trade union movement.</p>
<p>This trend toward industrial unionism did not spring out of thin air, however, as these left-wing groups had spent the first several decades of the 20th century agitating—both inside and outside of the labor movement—for their aims. On the outside, the Industrial Workers of the World had strongly supported industrial unionism in both deed and action, while within the American Federation of Labor (AFL), William Z. Foster and John Kirkpatrick of the Chicago Federation of Labor had organized the great 1919 nationwide steel strike. No matter the battle or the union, the idea behind it was always the same for these industrial trade unionists—one employer, one union.</p>
<p>Eventually, the years of agitation paid off as the idea of industrial unionism gained popularity, first at a grassroots level, and then broadly within the entire working class. Thus, when the economic crisis of the 1930s hit, workers were ready to embrace a new form of unionism. In "Heroes of Unwritten Story," Henry Kraus, the editor of an early autoworkers’ newsletter, recounts how workers in the 1930s rejected the narrow AFL craft unionism and fought to establish industrial organization.</p>
<p>Kraus talks about how he was sitting in a local autoworker’s union office shortly after the great sit-down strike at General Motors when a delegation of six workers from a sausage pickling plant came in. After determining where they worked, Kraus tried to direct the workers to an AFL craft union. Despite the fact that 500 of their fellow workers were sitting down at the plant to demand union recognition, these workers vehemently rejected the AFL, snarling “we don’t want no truck with the AFL.”</p>
<p>The task today is to build such a broad-based understanding within the labor movement of the need to change the present system.</p>
<p>How can this be done? During the decades-long push to establish industrial unionism in the first half of the twentieth century, industrial union activists repeatedly raised their issues at union conventions. Following their historical lead, trade unionists today could adopt the position that the system of labor control is illegitimate, and support efforts to break free from it. This could take the form of convention resolutions as a way of raising the debate within the movement. Just as it was once official AFL policy to disobey injunctions, trade unionists today could debate whether or not to comply with the different facets of the system of labor control.</p>
<p>No matter the issues, reviving the strike—and by extension, the labor movement—will require a single-minded focus by trade unionists. Right now, the left wing of the labor movement lacks a common agenda, as it advances a hodge-podge of ideas of what it will take to save unionism in this country. If one agrees with the analysis in this book, then the one unifying factor that can achieve the myriad goals of the labor movement is the revival of the effective, production-halting strike. This must become labor’s primary focus.</p>
<p>Additionally, if trade unionists ever decide to embrace a new militancy in order to smash the system of labor control, they will need the support of their union brothers and sisters. Historian Nelson Lichtenstein, in the conclusion of his influential history of the labor movement, State of the Union, lists the failure to support militancy as one of the major weaknesses of the modern labor movement. Discussing what the movement needs to succeed, Lichtenstein writes,</p>
<p>The first is militancy. The union movement needs more of it, but even more important, American labor as a whole needs to stand behind those exemplary instances of class combat when and if they occur. The 1980s were a tragic decade for unions, not because workers did not fight, but where labor did take a stand—at International Paper in Jay, Maine; at Phelps Dodge in Ariz.; at Hormel in Austin, Minn.; at Continental and Greyhound—their struggles were both physically isolated and ideologically devalued.</p>
<p>Instead of being engulfed in the solidarity of their fellow trade unionists, workers today who choose to fight back often do so on lonely picket lines, with little support from the official labor movement. Without a broad trend that promotes effective tactics, striking workers are not exposed to ideas that can help them win strikes, nor are they supported when they engage in militancy.&#160;</p>
<p>In the past, even during labor’s darkest hours, workers were able to reach deep down to create new methods of struggle that transformed the political landscape, methods that relied on worker militancy and solidarity, supported by an effective strike.</p>
<p>While the strike might seem like a relic of the past to much of the contemporary labor movement, as labor historian Peter Rachleff writes, “it would be a mistake to leap to the conclusion that strikes are on their way to the dustbin of history. As long as the capitalist economy rests on the employment and exploitation of labor, the organized withdrawal of labor is bound to remain a central expression of working class protest and power.”</p>
<p>From <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9781935439240-0" type="external">REVIVING THE STRIKE: How Working People Can Regain Power and Transform America</a> by Joe Burns. Copyright (c) 2011 by Joe Burns. Reprinted with permission of <a href="http://www.igpub.com/" type="external">Ig Publishing, Inc</a>.</p> | true | 4 | email name recipients email comma separated message captcha cartoon published new york world great steel strike 1919 160 1950s american workers went strike average 350 times year past decade average number strikes year fell 20 new book reviving strike working people regain power transform america veteran union negotiator working times contributor joe burns argues grinding industries halt last best hope workers unions visit site monday june exclusive excerpts book previous excerpts working times editor jeremy gantz watching labor movementand strikewither past 30 years trade unionists today need answer several big questions wish revitalize unions country labor movement deal current system labor control human labor treated relationship capital workers act class advance common interests best forms organization carry fight workers rights finally role strike160 answersor nonanswersto fundamental questions shape labors future america160 point labor movement new direction require fostering discussion however require large group people willing challenge status quo people ideas organizational skills selfconfidence give voice workers movement capable transforming america start activists movementshop floor militants progressive union staffers officers worker centers activists friendly academics however debate future trade unionism must grow beyond committed small group true labor revival country one build trend learn labor history 1920s early 1930s labor movement stuck narrow form craft unionism unable win gains employers craft unionists viewed skilled workers deserving union representation rejected attempts organize workers one union however countercurrent developed argued industrial unionism road forward labor movement trend toward industrial unionism driven political left era socialists anarchists communists program although varying approaches shared one guiding principle strength overall trade union movement trend toward industrial unionism spring thin air however leftwing groups spent first several decades 20th century agitatingboth inside outside labor movementfor aims outside industrial workers world strongly supported industrial unionism deed action within american federation labor afl william z foster john kirkpatrick chicago federation labor organized great 1919 nationwide steel strike matter battle union idea behind always industrial trade unionistsone employer one union eventually years agitation paid idea industrial unionism gained popularity first grassroots level broadly within entire working class thus economic crisis 1930s hit workers ready embrace new form unionism heroes unwritten story henry kraus editor early autoworkers newsletter recounts workers 1930s rejected narrow afl craft unionism fought establish industrial organization kraus talks sitting local autoworkers union office shortly great sitdown strike general motors delegation six workers sausage pickling plant came determining worked kraus tried direct workers afl craft union despite fact 500 fellow workers sitting plant demand union recognition workers vehemently rejected afl snarling dont want truck afl task today build broadbased understanding within labor movement need change present system done decadeslong push establish industrial unionism first half twentieth century industrial union activists repeatedly raised issues union conventions following historical lead trade unionists today could adopt position system labor control illegitimate support efforts break free could take form convention resolutions way raising debate within movement official afl policy disobey injunctions trade unionists today could debate whether comply different facets system labor control matter issues reviving strikeand extension labor movementwill require singleminded focus trade unionists right left wing labor movement lacks common agenda advances hodgepodge ideas take save unionism country one agrees analysis book one unifying factor achieve myriad goals labor movement revival effective productionhalting strike must become labors primary focus additionally trade unionists ever decide embrace new militancy order smash system labor control need support union brothers sisters historian nelson lichtenstein conclusion influential history labor movement state union lists failure support militancy one major weaknesses modern labor movement discussing movement needs succeed lichtenstein writes first militancy union movement needs even important american labor whole needs stand behind exemplary instances class combat occur 1980s tragic decade unions workers fight labor take standat international paper jay maine phelps dodge ariz hormel austin minn continental greyhoundtheir struggles physically isolated ideologically devalued instead engulfed solidarity fellow trade unionists workers today choose fight back often lonely picket lines little support official labor movement without broad trend promotes effective tactics striking workers exposed ideas help win strikes supported engage militancy160 past even labors darkest hours workers able reach deep create new methods struggle transformed political landscape methods relied worker militancy solidarity supported effective strike strike might seem like relic past much contemporary labor movement labor historian peter rachleff writes would mistake leap conclusion strikes way dustbin history long capitalist economy rests employment exploitation labor organized withdrawal labor bound remain central expression working class protest power reviving strike working people regain power transform america joe burns copyright c 2011 joe burns reprinted permission ig publishing inc | 748 |
<p>How do I even start this? How do I write about my Beirut? My heartbreak, my home, my safety, my loss. again.</p>
<p>I suppose I just start.</p>
<p>I have experienced true terror a handful of times. The first was in 1983. The first time I evacuated Beirut. We had gone to visit my jiddo Emile, my teta Hilda, as we did every summer. Just after we arrived,the airport was shut down, Israeli soldiers were everywhere, the mountains were filling with smoke. We spent the next week in the staircase of our building as shells fell around us.&#160; My brother Wadie was almost hit by shrapnel.</p>
<p>My father, Edward, was in Switzerland. He knew we were in danger. I had no idea he wasn’t with us because he was Palestinian. I didn’t understand. Although I was born in 1974, I never knew about the war until the summer of ’82 — the first summer we didn’t go. The summer we spent in Illinois. I did cartwheels in the living room trying to get Mommy and Daddy’s attention. But all they did was watch the news and eat nuts and look worried. I wish I’d known how my Mommy’s heart was breaking. I know now.</p>
<p>We got on the boat and fled to Cyprus leaving my family behind. The boat was filled with pilgrims going to Mecca. I didn’t know what they were. I didn’t understand. I didn’t know Muslim&#160; or Christian or Jew. I didn’t know anything. I knew fear and I knew confusion. I knew the sound of bombs. An inexplicable sound if you haven’t felt it before, for it is a sound you feel and not a sound you hear. It is TERRIFYING. Your body shakes. You feel helpless and you cry, that’s what happens. No sound effect can really replicate what it feels like when they’re real.</p>
<p>I never thought I’d hear that sound again. I went into my Mommy’s bed the night before we left. I was scared. The balcony door was open because there was no A.C., no electricity. As the curtains fluttered behind me I shivered and shook in my non-existent sleep. I felt the breeze behind my back and knew for certain the bombs would get me as I lay there vulnerable. But I was frozen in terror. Shivering and shaking, teeth chattering.</p>
<p>I wanted to move to the other side, switch places with Mommy, have her wrap her arms around me and keep me safe — but then she would feel the bombs on her back, I reasoned, and she would die. I can’t lose mommy, I thought. I’d rather die than lose Mommy. I’m so so so scared.</p>
<p>I wrote about that experience and it got me into Princeton. Wadie, my brother, did too. I didn’t see Beirut again till 1992. I was 18. It was awful, destroyed. Where were the beaches, the fruits, the vegetables, the clean water, the fun, the bikinis, the people the joy? I remember feeling like I had walked into a cobweb-ridden home, frozen in time. I cried.</p>
<p>Each year after, though, I went back. It got better and better. It became home again. All the things I loved: the cucumbers and apricots and watermelon and sunshine and beaches and laughter and love and warmth and family and perseverance and resilience and strength and beauty and joy. They were there, and they continued to come back, along with the people who had fled, stronger than ever, year after year.</p>
<p>The most wonderful summer ever was twenty years after the scary escape. In 2003: Mommy, Daddy, me, Wadie, his wife Jennifer, all of us were in Beirut laughing, playing fighting, eating, drinking, beaching — being a family. Back home. My parents originally fell in love in Beirut. In the late 60s/early70s. In fact, Daddy who is so so so revered as a “great arab,” actually rediscovered the Middle East he had lost as a child through Lebanon, through Mommy, who is, as I love to say, 3000% Lebanese.</p>
<p>And so we buried Daddy there, 4 months later. In Brummana, in the mountains next to Jiddo’s home. In the Quaker family cemetery. That’s where he wanted to be.</p>
<p>It was terror that came back to me when Daddy died, and, oddly, beautifully, it was&#160; Lebanon that saved me from it. It was the same quaking shaking shivering feeling I had had in the bed with mommy 20 years earlier. When Jenn walked into my bedroom and said we were going “to go say goodbye” I fell to the ground with the same feeling I had then, in Beirut, in ‘83, convulsing shaking crying gasping.</p>
<p>But the beauty was that when Daddy died, Lebanon became what I had. All I had. My safety, security, my home, my family, my everything. My good times, my laughter, my healing, my wholeness, my fun. My roots. My security…That’s the only word I can write.</p>
<p>And now this summer. Evacuated again. Throwing up shaking fearing, hurting&#160; crying. Again. And again the feeling I keep having is that terror. That terror that I had twice before. The feeling that it’s gone, it’s over.</p>
<p>You summon your courage, your optimism, your humor — the things that people love you for — you decide that tomorrow Beirut will be back, that you will see Daddy again (oh how I kept turning my brain away from thoughts of him when he died — it was too difficult to fathom the reality) the idea that you will never see something or someone you love again is unbelievably terrifying&#160; when you know really that&#160; it’s over, it’s gone and it’s getting worse every day.</p>
<p>And now I’m here in an internet cafe in Damascus. And what now? This is what I think of when I think of Arab terror. My terror. Our terror. Do people know how much we hurt?</p>
<p>NAJLA SAID is a founding member of Nibras, the Arab-American theatre collective, whose inaugural production, Sajjil (Record) won best ensemble production at the 2002 New York International Fringe Festival. Najla is an actress, comedian, and writer whose work has appeared in such publications as Mizna, an Arab-American Literary Journal, and HEEB magazine. She trained at The Shakespeare Lab at the Public Theatre and The Actors Center in New York, and graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University with a degree in comparative literature and a certificate in Theatre and Dance. This spring she won ecstatic reviews for&#160; her starring&#160; role in the Seattle Repertory Theatre’s&#160; presentation of Heather Raffo’s 9 Parts of Desire.&#160; She can be reached through <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | even start write beirut heartbreak home safety loss suppose start experienced true terror handful times first 1983 first time evacuated beirut gone visit jiddo emile teta hilda every summer arrivedthe airport shut israeli soldiers everywhere mountains filling smoke spent next week staircase building shells fell around us160 brother wadie almost hit shrapnel father edward switzerland knew danger idea wasnt us palestinian didnt understand although born 1974 never knew war summer 82 first summer didnt go summer spent illinois cartwheels living room trying get mommy daddys attention watch news eat nuts look worried wish id known mommys heart breaking know got boat fled cyprus leaving family behind boat filled pilgrims going mecca didnt know didnt understand didnt know muslim160 christian jew didnt know anything knew fear knew confusion knew sound bombs inexplicable sound havent felt sound feel sound hear terrifying body shakes feel helpless cry thats happens sound effect really replicate feels like theyre real never thought id hear sound went mommys bed night left scared balcony door open ac electricity curtains fluttered behind shivered shook nonexistent sleep felt breeze behind back knew certain bombs would get lay vulnerable frozen terror shivering shaking teeth chattering wanted move side switch places mommy wrap arms around keep safe would feel bombs back reasoned would die cant lose mommy thought id rather die lose mommy im scared wrote experience got princeton wadie brother didnt see beirut till 1992 18 awful destroyed beaches fruits vegetables clean water fun bikinis people joy remember feeling like walked cobwebridden home frozen time cried year though went back got better better became home things loved cucumbers apricots watermelon sunshine beaches laughter love warmth family perseverance resilience strength beauty joy continued come back along people fled stronger ever year year wonderful summer ever twenty years scary escape 2003 mommy daddy wadie wife jennifer us beirut laughing playing fighting eating drinking beaching family back home parents originally fell love beirut late 60searly70s fact daddy revered great arab actually rediscovered middle east lost child lebanon mommy love say 3000 lebanese buried daddy 4 months later brummana mountains next jiddos home quaker family cemetery thats wanted terror came back daddy died oddly beautifully was160 lebanon saved quaking shaking shivering feeling bed mommy 20 years earlier jenn walked bedroom said going go say goodbye fell ground feeling beirut 83 convulsing shaking crying gasping beauty daddy died lebanon became safety security home family everything good times laughter healing wholeness fun roots securitythats word write summer evacuated throwing shaking fearing hurting160 crying feeling keep terror terror twice feeling gone summon courage optimism humor things people love decide tomorrow beirut back see daddy oh kept turning brain away thoughts died difficult fathom reality idea never see something someone love unbelievably terrifying160 know really that160 gone getting worse every day im internet cafe damascus think think arab terror terror terror people know much hurt najla said founding member nibras arabamerican theatre collective whose inaugural production sajjil record best ensemble production 2002 new york international fringe festival najla actress comedian writer whose work appeared publications mizna arabamerican literary journal heeb magazine trained shakespeare lab public theatre actors center new york graduated magna cum laude princeton university degree comparative literature certificate theatre dance spring ecstatic reviews for160 starring160 role seattle repertory theatres160 presentation heather raffos 9 parts desire160 reached najlasaidgmailcom 160 160 160 160 | 554 |
<p>Imagine that an opposition organizer were murdered in broad daylight in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador or Venezuela by masked gunmen, or kidnapped and murdered by armed guards of a well-known supporter of the government.&#160; It would be front page news in the&#160;New York Times, and all over the TV news. &#160;The U.S. State Department would issue a strong statement of concern over grave human rights abuses.&#160; If this were ever to happen.</p>
<p>Now imagine that 59 of these kinds of political killings had taken place so far this year, and 61 the previous year.&#160; Long before the number of victims reached this level, this would become a major foreign policy issue for the United States, and Washington would be calling for international sanctions.</p>
<p>But we are talking about Honduras, not Bolivia or Venezuela.&#160; So when President Porfirio Lobo of Honduras came to Washington last month, President Obama&#160; <a href="" type="internal">greeted him warmly and said</a>:</p>
<p>“Two years ago, we saw a coup in Honduras that threatened to move the country away from democracy, and in part because of pressure from the international community, but also because of the strong commitment to democracy and leadership by President Lobo, what we’ve been seeing is a restoration of democratic practices and a commitment to reconciliation that gives us great hope.”</p>
<p>Of course, President Obama refused to even meet with the democratically elected president that was overthrown in the coup that he mentioned, even though that president came to Washington three times seeking help after the coup.&#160; That was Mel Zelaya, a left-of-center president who was overthrown by the military and conservative sectors in Honduras after instituting a number of reforms that people had voted for, like raising the minimum wage and laws promoting land reform.</p>
<p>But what angered Washington most was that Zelaya was close to the left governments of South America, including Venezuela.&#160; He wasn’t any closer to Venezuela than Brazil or Argentina was, but this was a crime of opportunity.&#160; So when the Honduran military overthrew Zelaya in June of 2009, the Obama Administration did everything it could&#160; <a href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/obamas-latin-america-policy-continuity-without-change" type="external">for the next six months</a>&#160;to&#160; <a href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&amp;-columns/op-eds-&amp;-columns/top-ten-ways" type="external">make sure that the coup succeeded</a>.&#160; The “pressure from the international community” that Obama referred to in the above statement came from other countries, mainly the left-of-center governments in South America.&#160; The United States was on the other side, fighting — ultimately successfully — to&#160; <a href="" type="internal">legitimize the coup government through an “election”</a>&#160;that the rest of the hemisphere refused to recognize.</p>
<p>In May of this year, Zelaya &#160; <a href="" type="internal">stated publicly</a>&#160;what most of us who followed the events closely already guessed was true:&#160; that Washington was behind the coup and helped bring it about.&#160; While no one will likely bother to investigate the U.S. role in the coup, this is quite plausible given the overwhelming circumstantial evidence.</p>
<p>Porifiro Lobo took office in January 2010, but most of the hemisphere refused to recognize the government because his election took place under conditions of serious human rights violations.&#160; In May 2011 an agreement was finally brokered in Cartegena, Colombia, that allowed Honduras back into the Organization of American States. But the Lobo government has not complied with its part of the Cartegena accords, which included human rights guarantees for the political opposition.</p>
<p>Here are two of the dozens of political killings that have occurred during Lobo’s presidency, as&#160; <a href="http://www.cepr.net/documents/honduras-assasinations.pdf" type="external">compiled by the Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America</a>&#160;(CRLN):</p>
<p>“Pedro Salgado, vice-president of the Unified Campesino Movement of Aguán (MUCA), was shot then beheaded at about 8:00 p.m. at his home in the La Concepción empresa cooperative. His spouse, Reina Irene Mejía,&#160;was also shot to death at the same time. Pedro suffered a murder attempt in December 2010. . . Salgado, like the presidents of all the cooperatives claiming rights to land used by African palm oil businessmen in the Aguán, had been subject to constant death threats since the beginning of 2011.”</p>
<p>The courage of these activists and organizers in the face of such horrific violence and repression is amazing.&#160; Many of the killings over the past year have been in the Aguán Valley in the Northeast, where small farmers are struggling for land rights against one of Honduras’ richest landowners, Miguel Facussé.&#160; He is producing biofuels in this region on disputed land.&#160; He is close to the United States and was an important backer of the 2009 coup against Zelaya. His private security forces, together with U.S.-backed military and police, are responsible for the political violence in the region.&#160; U.S. aid to the Honduran military has increased since the coup.</p>
<p>Recent U.S. diplomatic&#160; <a href="" type="internal">cables released by Wikileaks</a>&#160;show that U.S. officials have been aware since 2004 that Facussé has also been trafficking large quantities of cocaine. &#160;Dana Frank, a professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz who is an expert on Honduras, <a href="" type="internal">summed it up for&#160;The Nation</a>&#160;last month: “U.S. ‘drug war’ funds and training, in other words, are being used to support a known drug trafficker’s war against campesinos.”</p>
<p>The U.S. militarization of the drug war in the region is also pushing Honduras down the disastrous path of Mexico, in a country that already has one of the highest murder rates in the world.&#160; The&#160; <a href="" type="internal">New York Times&#160;reports</a>&#160;that 84 percent of cocaine that reaches the U.S. now crosses through Central America, as compared with 23 percent in 2006, when Calderon took office in Mexico and launched his drug war. The Times <a href="" type="internal">also notes</a>&#160;that “American officials say the 2009 coup kicked open the door to [drug] cartels” in Honduras.</p>
<p>When I voted for Barack Obama in 2008 I never thought that his legacy in Central America would be the return of death squad government, of the kind that Ronald Reagan so vigorously supported in the 1980s. &#160;But that seems to be the case for Honduras.</p>
<p>The Administration has so far ignored pressure from Democratic Members of Congress to respect human rights in Honduras.&#160; These efforts will continue, but Honduras needs help from the South. It was South America that spearheaded the efforts to reverse the 2009 coup.&#160; Although Washington ultimately defeated them, they cannot abandon Honduras while people no different from their friends and supporters at home are being murdered by a U.S.-backed government.</p>
<p>Mark Weisbrot&#160;is an economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He is co-author, with Dean Baker, of&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Social Security: the Phony Crisis</a>.</p>
<p>This article originally appeared in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/" type="external">The Guardian</a>.</p> | true | 4 | imagine opposition organizer murdered broad daylight argentina bolivia ecuador venezuela masked gunmen kidnapped murdered armed guards wellknown supporter government160 would front page news the160new york times tv news 160the us state department would issue strong statement concern grave human rights abuses160 ever happen imagine 59 kinds political killings taken place far year 61 previous year160 long number victims reached level would become major foreign policy issue united states washington would calling international sanctions talking honduras bolivia venezuela160 president porfirio lobo honduras came washington last month president obama160 greeted warmly said two years ago saw coup honduras threatened move country away democracy part pressure international community also strong commitment democracy leadership president lobo weve seeing restoration democratic practices commitment reconciliation gives us great hope course president obama refused even meet democratically elected president overthrown coup mentioned even though president came washington three times seeking help coup160 mel zelaya leftofcenter president overthrown military conservative sectors honduras instituting number reforms people voted like raising minimum wage laws promoting land reform angered washington zelaya close left governments south america including venezuela160 wasnt closer venezuela brazil argentina crime opportunity160 honduran military overthrew zelaya june 2009 obama administration everything could160 next six months160to160 make sure coup succeeded160 pressure international community obama referred statement came countries mainly leftofcenter governments south america160 united states side fighting ultimately successfully to160 legitimize coup government election160that rest hemisphere refused recognize may year zelaya 160 stated publicly160what us followed events closely already guessed true160 washington behind coup helped bring about160 one likely bother investigate us role coup quite plausible given overwhelming circumstantial evidence porifiro lobo took office january 2010 hemisphere refused recognize government election took place conditions serious human rights violations160 may 2011 agreement finally brokered cartegena colombia allowed honduras back organization american states lobo government complied part cartegena accords included human rights guarantees political opposition two dozens political killings occurred lobos presidency as160 compiled chicago religious leadership network latin america160crln pedro salgado vicepresident unified campesino movement aguán muca shot beheaded 800 pm home la concepción empresa cooperative spouse reina irene mejía160was also shot death time pedro suffered murder attempt december 2010 salgado like presidents cooperatives claiming rights land used african palm oil businessmen aguán subject constant death threats since beginning 2011 courage activists organizers face horrific violence repression amazing160 many killings past year aguán valley northeast small farmers struggling land rights one honduras richest landowners miguel facussé160 producing biofuels region disputed land160 close united states important backer 2009 coup zelaya private security forces together usbacked military police responsible political violence region160 us aid honduran military increased since coup recent us diplomatic160 cables released wikileaks160show us officials aware since 2004 facussé also trafficking large quantities cocaine 160dana frank professor university california santa cruz expert honduras summed for160the nation160last month us drug war funds training words used support known drug traffickers war campesinos us militarization drug war region also pushing honduras disastrous path mexico country already one highest murder rates world160 the160 new york times160reports160that 84 percent cocaine reaches us crosses central america compared 23 percent 2006 calderon took office mexico launched drug war times also notes160that american officials say 2009 coup kicked open door drug cartels honduras voted barack obama 2008 never thought legacy central america would return death squad government kind ronald reagan vigorously supported 1980s 160but seems case honduras administration far ignored pressure democratic members congress respect human rights honduras160 efforts continue honduras needs help south south america spearheaded efforts reverse 2009 coup160 although washington ultimately defeated abandon honduras people different friends supporters home murdered usbacked government mark weisbrot160is economist codirector center economic policy research coauthor dean baker of160 social security phony crisis article originally appeared guardian | 607 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> Andre Vltchek driving in Afghanistan</p>
<p>Andre Vltchek <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/afghanistan-is-right-here-lies-myths-and-legends/5602208" type="external">Global Research</a></p>
<p>It often appears that “true Afghanistan” is not here in Kabul and not in Jalalabad or Herat either; not in the ancient villages, which anxiously cling to the steep mountainsides.</p>
<p>Many foreigners and even Afghans are now convinced that the “true” Afghanistan is only what is being shown on the television screens, depicted in magazines, or what is buried deep in the archives and libraries somewhere in London, New York or Paris.</p>
<p>It is tempting to think that the country could be only understood from a comfortable distance, from the safety of one’s living room or from those books and publications decorating dusty bookshelves and coffee tables all over the world.</p>
<p>“Afghanistan is dangerous,” they say. “It is too risky to travel there. One needs to be protected, escorted, equipped and insured in order to function in that wild and lawless country even for one single day, or just a few hours.”</p>
<p>When it comes to Afghanistan, conditioned Western ‘rational brains’ of tenure or emeritus professors (or call them the ‘regime’s intellectual gatekeepers’) often get engaged, even intertwined with those pathologically imaginative minds of the upper class ‘refugees’, the ‘elites’, and of course their offspring. After all,&#160;crème de la crème&#160;‘refugees’ speak perfect English; they know the rules and nuances of the game. The results of such ‘productive interaction’ are then imprinted into countless books and reports.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> Deep ravines of Afghanistan (Photo: Andre Vltchek)</p>
<p>Books of that kind become, in turn, what could be easily defined as the ‘official references’, a ‘certified way’ to how our world perceives a country like Afghanistan. Their content is being quoted and recycled.</p>
<p>How often I heard, from the old veteran opinion makers (even those from the ‘left’) – people that I actually used to respect in the past:</p>
<p>“The Soviet era in Afghanistan was of course terrible, but at least many girls there had access to the education…”</p>
<p>It is no secret that ‘many girls had access to education’ in those distant days, but was it really “terrible”, that era? Was it “of course, terrible?” Baseless clichés like this are actually shaping ‘public opinion’, and can be much more destructive than the hardcore propaganda.</p>
<p>Most of those old gurus never set foot in Afghanistan, during the Soviet era or before, let alone after. All their ‘experience’ is second or third-hand, constructed mainly on sponging up bitterness from those who betrayed their own country and have been collaborating with the West, or at least on the confusion and mental breakdowns of their children.</p>
<p>Based on such recycled unconfirmed ‘facts’, bizarre theories are born. According to them, Afghanistan is ‘officially’ wrecked; it is hopelessly corrupt; it is beyond salvation and repair. It is ‘so divided, ethnically and otherwise’, that it can never function again as one entity.</p>
<p>Then come liberals, and the children of corrupt Afghan diplomats and exiled ‘elites’, who commonly justify their passivity by blaming the entire world for the destruction of their nation: “every country in the world just wants to harm Afghanistan, take shamelessly advantage of it.”</p>
<p>Naturally, if everybody is responsible, than nobody truly is. Therefore, as expected, ‘the grand conclusion’ is – “There is absolutely no hope.” Everyone who can is trying to leave; who in his or her right mind would want to dwell in such mayhem?”</p>
<p>Let’s just write the entire place off! Chapter closed. One of the greatest cultures on Earth is finished. Nothing can be done about it. Goodbye, Afghanistan!&#160;Ciao, bella!</p>
<p>For some, especially for those who left the country and slammed the door, it is a tempting and ‘reassuring’ way of looking at the state of things. It justifies their earlier decision. If one accepts such views, than nothing has to be done, because no matter what, things would never improve, anyway. For many, especially for those who are benefiting (even making careers) from doing absolutely nothing to save Afghanistan, such an approach and such theories are actually perfect. Very little of it matters to them, that almost all of this is total rubbish!</p>
<p>I never saw any of those professors from the MIT or Cornell University anywhere near the dusty roads cutting through Samar Khel or Charikar. I never saw any reporters from the Western mass media outlets here, in the deepest villages that keep changing hands between Taliban and the government forces, either. If they were here, I’d definitely spot them, as they tend to travel ‘in style’, like some buffoons from bygone eras: wearing ridiculous helmets, bulletproof vests, and PRESS insignias on all imaginable and unimaginable parts of their bodies, while being driven around in armored vehicles, often even with a full military escort.</p>
<p>It would be quite difficult to talk to Afghan people looking like that. There is not much one could actually even see from such an angle and perspective, but that’s the only one they are choosing to have, that is if they come here at all.</p>
<p>Samar Khel</p>
<p>Let me back-track a bit: in case my readers in the West or elsewhere have never heard about Samar Khel. Well, it is a dusty town not far from Jalalabad, a former ‘grave’ for the Soviet forces and the National Afghan Army. During the “Soviet era”, the US and the Saudi-backed Mujahedeen used to fire between 500 and 1,000 missiles from here, all directly towards the city of Jalalabad, day after day.</p>
<p>It is very hard to imagine what went on and what went wrong in Afghanistan during the 1980’s, without feeling that 43º&#160;C heat of the desert, without chewing dust, without facing those bare, hostile mountains, and without speaking to people who used to live here during ‘those days’, as well as people who have been existing, barely surviving here now.</p>
<p>It is also absolutely impossible to understand the Soviet Union and its ‘involvement’ in Afghanistan, without driving through the countryside and all of a sudden spotting in some ancient and god-forsaken village, a mighty and durable water duct built by Soviet engineers several decades ago, with electricity towers and high voltage wires still proudly spanning above.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> Soviet tank cemetery. (Photo: Andre Vltchek)</p>
<p>By now I know that I don’t want to write another academic book. I wrote two of them, one about Indonesia and one about that enormous sprawl of water dotted with fantastic but devastated islands and atolls of the South Pacific – “Oceania”. To write academic books is time consuming and it is, in many ways, ‘selfish’. The true story gets buried under an avalanche of tedious facts and numbers, under footnotes and recycled quotes. Once such a book is read and returned to its place on a shelf, no one is really inspired or outraged, no one is terrified and no one is ready to build barricades and fight.</p>
<p>But most academic books and are never even read from cover to cover.</p>
<p>I see no point in writing books that wouldn’t inspire people to raise flags, to fight for their country and humanity.</p>
<p>I don’t work in Afghanistan in order to compile indexes and footnotes. I am there because the country itself is a victim of the most brutal and ongoing imperialist destruction in modern history. As an internationalist, I’m not here only to document; I’m here to accuse and to confront the venomous Western colonialist narrative frontally.</p>
<p>Afghanistan is Bleeding</p>
<p>Afghanistan is bleeding, assaulted and terribly injured. Therefore it deserves to be fought for and not just to be analyzed and described. No cold and detached historic accounts, no texts written from a safe distance, can help this beautiful country to stand on its own feet, to regain its pride and hope, and to fly as it used to in the not so distant past.</p>
<p>It doesn’t need more and more nihilism. On the contrary, it is thirsting for optimism, for new friends, for hope.</p>
<p>Not all countries are the same. Even now, Afghanistan has friends, true friends, no matter how much this fact is being obscured by the Western propagandists, no matter how much pro-Western Afghan elites are trying to prove otherwise.</p>
<p>This is not what you are supposed to be reading. All remembrances of the “Soviet Era” in Afghanistan have been boxed and then labeled as “negative”, even “toxic”. No discussion on the topic is allowed in ‘polite circles’, at least in the West and in Afghanistan itself.</p>
<p>Afghanistan is where the Soviet Union was tricked into, and Afghanistan is where the Communist superpower received its final blow. ‘The victory of capitalism over communism’, the official Western narrative shouted. A ‘temporary destruction of all progressive alternatives for our humanity’, replied others, but mostly under their breath.</p>
<p>After the horrific, brutal and humiliating period of Gorbachev/Yeltsin, Russia shrunk both geographically and demographically, while going through indescribable agony. It hemorrhaged; it was bathing in its own excrement, while the West celebrated its temporary victory, dancing in front of the world map, envisioning the re-conquest of its former colonies.</p>
<p>But in the end Russia survived, regained its bearings and dignity, and once again became one of the most important countries on Earth, directly antagonistic to the global Western imperialist designs.</p>
<p>Afghanistan has never recovered. After the last Soviet combat troops left the country in 1989, it bled terribly for years, consumed by a brutal civil war. Its progressive government had to face the monstrous terror of the Western and Saudi-backed&#160;Mujahedeen, with individuals like Osama bin Laden in command of the jihadi genocide.</p>
<p>Socialists, Communists, secularists as well as almost all of those who were educated in the former Soviet Union or Eastern Block countries, were killed, exiled, or muzzled for decades.</p>
<p>Most of those who settled in the West simply betrayed; went along with the official Western narrative and dogma.</p>
<p>Even those individuals who still claimed to be part of the left, repeated like parrots, their pre-approved fib:</p>
<p>“Perhaps the Soviet Union was not as bad as the Mujahedeen, Taliban, or even the West, but it was really bad enough.”</p>
<p>I heard these lines in London and elsewhere, coming from several mouths of the corrupt Afghan ‘elites’ and their children. From the beginning I was doubtful. And then my work, my journeys to and through Afghanistan began. I spoke to dozens of people all over the country, doing exactly what I was discouraged to do: driving everywhere without an escort or protection, stopping in the middle of god-forsaken villages, entering fatal city slums infested with narcotics, approaching prominent intellectuals in Kabul, Jalalabad and elsewhere.</p>
<p>“Where are you from?” I was asked on many occasions.</p>
<p>“Russia,” I’d reply. It was a gross simplification. I was born in Leningrad, now St Petersburg, but an incredible mixture of Chinese, Russian, Czech and Austrian blood circles through my veins. Still, the name “Russia” came naturally to me, in the middle of Afghan deserts and deep gorges, especially in those places where I knew that my life was hanging on a thin thread. If I were to be allowed to utter one last word in this life, “Russia” was what I wanted it to be.</p>
<p>But after my declaration, the faces of the Afghan people would soften, unexpectedly and suddenly. “Welcome!” I’d hear again and again. An invitation to enter humble homes would follow: an offer to rest, to eat, or to just drink a glass of water.</p>
<p>‘Why?’ I often wondered. “Why?” I finally asked my driver and interpreter, Mr. Arif, who became my dear friend.</p>
<p>“It’s because in this country, Afghans love Russian people,” he replied simply and without any hesitation.</p>
<p>“Afghans love Russians?” I wondered. “Do you?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” he replied, smiling. “I do. Most of our people here do.”</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> Andre Vltchek in Afghanistan</p>
<p>What Afghans Really Say about Russia</p>
<p>Two days later I was sitting inside an armored UNESCO Land Cruiser, talking to a former Soviet-trained engineer, now a simple driver, Mr. Wahed Tooryalai. He allowed me to use his name; he had no fear, just accumulated anger, which he obviously wanted to get out of his system:</p>
<p>“When I sleep, I still sometimes see the former Soviet Union in my dreams. After that, I wake up and feel happy for one entire month. I remember everything I saw there, until now…”</p>
<p>I wanted to know what really made him so happy ‘there’?</p>
<p>Mr. Wahed did not hesitate:</p>
<p>“People! They are so kind. They are welcoming… Russians, Ukrainians… I felt so much at home there. Their culture is exactly like ours. Those who say that Russians ‘occupied’ Afghanistan have simply sold out. The Russians did so much for Afghanistan: they built entire housing communities like ‘Makroyan’, they built factories, even bakeries. In places such as Kandahar, people are still eating Russian bread…”</p>
<p>I recalled the Soviet-era water pipes that I photographed all over most of the humble Afghan countryside, as well as the elaborate water canals in and around cities like Jalalabad.</p>
<p>“There is so much propaganda against the Soviet Union,” I said.</p>
<p>“Only the Mujahedeen and the West hate Russians,” Mr. Wahed explained. “And those who are serving them.”</p>
<p>Then he continued:</p>
<p>“Almost all poor Afghan people would never say anything bad about Russians. But the government people are with the West, as well as those Afghan elites who are now living abroad: those who are buying real estate in London and Dubai, while selling their own country…those who are paid to ‘create public opinion.’”</p>
<p>His words flowed effortlessly; he knew precisely what he wanted to say, and they were bitter, but it was clearly what he felt:</p>
<p>“Before and during the Soviet era, there were Soviet doctors here, and also Soviet teachers. Now show me one doctor or teacher from the USA or UK based in the Afghan countryside! Russians were everywhere, and I still even remember some names: Lyudmila Nikolayevna… Show me one Western doctor or nurse based here now. Before, Russian doctors and nurses were working all over the country, and their salaries were so low… They spent half on their own living expenses, and the other half they distributed amongst our poor… Now look what the Americans and Europeans are doing: they all came here to make money!”</p>
<p>I recall my recent encounter with a Georgian combatant, serving under the US command at the Bagram base. Desperate, he recalled his experience to me:</p>
<p>“Before Bagram I served at the Leatherneck US Base, in Helmand Province. When the Americans were leaving, they even used to pull out concrete from the ground. They joked: “When we came here, there was nothing, and there will be nothing after we leave…” They prohibited us from giving food to local children. What we couldn’t consume, we had to destroy, but never give to local people. I still don’t understand, why? Those who come from the US or Western Europe are showing so much spite for the Afghan people!”</p>
<p>What a contrast!</p>
<p>Mr. Wahed recalled how the Soviet legacy was abruptly uprooted:</p>
<p>“After the Taliban era, we were all poor. There was hunger; we had nothing. Then the West came and began throwing money all around the place. Karzai and the elites kept grabbing all that they could, while repeating like parrots: “The US is good!” Diplomats serving Karzai’s government, the elites, they were building their houses in the US and UK, while people educated in the Soviet Union couldn’t get any decent jobs. We were all blacklisted. All education had to be dictated by the West. If you were educated in the USSR, Czechoslovakia, East Germany or Bulgaria, they’d just tell you straight to your face: Out with you, Communist! At least now we are allowed to at least get some jobs… We are still pure, clean, never corrupt!”</p>
<p>“Do people still remember?” I wonder.</p>
<p>“Of course they do! Go to the streets, or to a village market. Just tell them: “How are you my dear?” in Russian. They’d immediately invite you to their homes, feed you, embrace you…”</p>
<p>I tried a few days later, in the middle of the market… and it worked. I tried in a provincial town, and it worked again. I finally tried in a Taliban-infiltrated village some 60 kilometers from Kabul, and there it didn’t. But I still managed to get away.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> Soviet water pipe in the village, Nangarhar Province (Photo: Andre Vltchek)</p>
<p>I met Mr. Shakar Karimi in Pole Charkhi Village. A local patriarch, he used to be a district chief in Nangarhar Province.</p>
<p>I asked him, what the best system ever implemented in modern Afghanistan was?</p>
<p>First he spoke about the Khan dynasty, but then referred to a left-wing Afghan leader, who was brutally tortured and murdered by Taliban after they entered Kabul in 1996:</p>
<p>“If they’d let Dr. Najib govern in peace, that would have been the best for Afghanistan!”</p>
<p>I asked him about the Soviet invasion in 1979.</p>
<p>“They came because they were given wrong information. The first mistake was to enter Afghanistan. The second, fatal mistake was to leave.”</p>
<p>“What was the main difference between the Russians and Westerners during their engagement in Afghanistan?”</p>
<p>“The Russian people came predominately to serve, to help Afghanistan. The relationship between Russians and Afghans was always great. There was real friendship and people were interacting, even having parties together, visiting each other.”</p>
<p>I didn’t push him further; didn’t ask what was happening now. It was just too obvious. “Enormous walls and high voltage wires,” would be the answer. Drone zeppelins, weapons everywhere and an absolute lack of trust… and the shameless division between the few super rich and the great majority of the desperately poor… the most depressed country on the Asian continent.</p>
<p>Later I asked my comrade Arif, whether all this was really true?</p>
<p>“Of course!” He shouted, passionately. “100% true. The Russians built roads, they built homes for our people, and they treated Afghans so well, like their brothers. The Americans never did anything for Afghanistan, almost nothing. They only care about their own benefits.”</p>
<p>“If there would be a referendum right now, on a simple question: ‘do you want Afghanistan to be with Russia or with the United States, the great majority would vote for Russia, never for the US or Europe. And you know why? I’m Afghan: when my country is good, then I’m happy. If my country is doing bad, then I suffer! Most people here, unless they are brainwashed or corrupted by the Westerners, know perfectly well what Russia did for this country. And they know how the West injured our land.”</p>
<p>Of course this is not what every single Afghan person thinks, but most of them definitely do. Just go and drive to each and every corner of the country, and ask. You are not supposed to, of course. You are told to be scared to come here, to roam through this “lawless” land. And you are not supposed to go directly to the people. Instead you are expected to recycle the writings of toothless, cowardly academics, as well as servile mass media reports. If you are liberal, you are at least expected to say: “there is no hope, no solution, no future.”</p>
<p>At Goga Manda village, the fighting between the Taliban and government troops is still raging. All around the area, the remnants of rusty Soviet military hardware can be found, as well as old destroyed houses from the “Soviet era” battles.</p>
<p>The Taliban is positioned right behind the hills. Its fighters attack the armed forces of Afghanistan at least once a month.</p>
<p>Almost 16 years after the NATO invasion and consequent occupation of the country, this village, as thousands of other villages in Afghanistan, has no access to electricity, and to drinking water. There is no school within walking distance, and even a small and badly equipped medical post is far from here, some 5 kilometers away. Here, an average family of 6 has to survive on US$130 dollars per month, and that’s only if some members are actually working in the city.</p>
<p>I ask Mr. Rahmat Gul, who used to be a teacher in a nearby town, whether the “Russian times” were better.</p>
<p>He hesitated for almost one minute, and then replied vaguely:</p>
<p>“When the Russians were here, there was lots of shooting… It was real war… People used to die. During the jihad period, the Mujahedeen were positioned over there… they were shooting from those hills, while Soviet tanks were stationed near the river. Many civilians were caught in the crossfire.”</p>
<p>As I got ready to ask him more questions, my interpreter began to panic:</p>
<p>“Let’s go! Taliban is coming.”</p>
<p>He’s always calm. When he gets nervous, I know it is really time to run. We ran; just stepping on the accelerator and driving at breakneck speed towards the main road.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> Just before the Taliban moved in. (Photo: Andre Vltchek)</p>
<p>Before we parted, Mr. Wahed Tooryalai grabbed my hand. I knew he wanted to say something essential. I waited for him to formulate it. Then it came, in rusty but still excellent Russian:</p>
<p>“Sometimes I feel so hurt, so angry. Why did Gorbachev abandon us? Why? We were doing just fine. Why did he leave us? If he hadn’t betrayed us, life in Afghanistan would be great. I wouldn’t have to be a UN driver… I used to be the deputy director of an enormous bread factory, with 300 people working there: we were building our beloved country, feeding it. I hope Putin will not leave us.”</p>
<p>Then he looked at me, straight into my eyes, and suddenly I got goose bumps as he spoke, and my glasses got foggy:</p>
<p>“Please tell Mr. Putin: do hold our hand, as I’m now holding yours. Tell him what you saw in my country; tell him that we Afghans, or at least many of us, are still straight, strong and honest people. All this will end, and we will send the Americans and Europeans packing. It will happen very soon. Then please come and stand by us, by true Afghan patriots! We are here, ready and waiting. Come back, please.”</p>
<p>A son of the super elite Afghan ‘exiles’ living in London, once ‘shouted’ at me, via Whatsapp, after I dared to criticize one of the officially-recognized gurus of the Western anti-communist left, who happened to be his religiously admired deity:</p>
<p>“I’m completely amazed that you’d do such a thing. Then again, you’re Russian… And Russians held a strange superiority complex about dominating the whole Asian &amp; African continents – even when nobody invited or asked them to. Historical examples are plenty… Don’t go to a country to report about what’s actually going on when you can’t even speak the language!”</p>
<p>This was his tough verdict on Russia and on my work; a verdict of ‘Afghan man in London’, who never even touched work in his entire life, being fully sustained by his morally corrupted family. He never travelled much, except when his father took him on one of the official diplomatic visits. He has been drinking, taking drugs and hating everything that fights, that defies the Empire. From President Duterte in the Philippines, to Maduro in Venezuela, and Assad in Syria. After he was taken out of Afghanistan at an extremely early age, he never set foot on its soil.</p>
<p>All of his knowledge was accumulated ‘second-hand’, but he is quick to pass endless moral judgments, and he is actually taken seriously by one of the most influential and famous ‘opposition’ figures in the West. It is because he is an Afghan, after all, and because he has a perfect English accent, and his ‘conclusions’ are ‘reasonable’, at least to some extent acceptable by the regime, and therefore trustworthy. He and others like him know perfectly well when to administer the required dose of anti-Soviet and anti-Russian sentiments, or when to choose well-tolerated anarcho-syndicalism over true revolutionary fervor.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> Streets of Kabul blocked after bombing. (Photo: Andre Vltchek)</p>
<p>Again in London, a lady from an Afghan diplomatic circle, who still takes pride in being somehow left-leaning (despite her recent history of serving the West), recalled with nostalgia and boasting pride:</p>
<p>“Once when I got sick, I travelled with my husband from Kabul to Prague, for medical treatment. It was in 80’s, and we took with us 5,000 dollars. You know, in those days in Czechoslovakia this was so much money! Our friends there never saw so much cash in their lives. We really had great time there.”</p>
<p>I listened politely and thought: ‘Damn, in those days, my two Czech uncles were building sugar mills, steel factories and turbines for developing countries like Syria, Egypt, Lebanon. I’m not sure whether they also worked in Afghanistan, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. It was their internationalist duty and they were hardly making US$500 per month. The salary of my father, a leading nuclear scientist, who was in charge of the safety of VVR power plant reactors, was at that time (and at the real exchange) well under US$200 a month. These were very honest, hard-working people, doing their duty towards humanity. And then someone came from Kabul, from the capital of one of the poorest countries in Asia, recipient of aid and internationalist help from basically all Soviet Block countries, and blows 5.000 bob in just a few days!’</p>
<p>In those days, socialist Czechoslovakia was helping intensively, various revolutionary and anti-colonialist movements, all over the world. Even Ernesto&#160;Che&#160;Guevara was treated there, between his campaign in Congo, and his final engagement in Bolivia.</p>
<p>But the lady did not finish, yet:</p>
<p>“Once we crossed the border and travelled to the Soviet Union by land. You cannot imagine the misery we encountered in the villages, across the border! Life was much tougher there than on our side. Of course Moscow was different: Moscow was the capital, full of lights, truly impressive…”</p>
<p>Was that really so? Or was this official narrative that has been injected through the treasonous elites into the psyche of both Afghans and foreigners?</p>
<p>I listened, politely. I like stories, no matter from which direction they are coming. I took mental notes.</p>
<p>Then, back in Afghanistan, I asked Mr. Shakar Karimi point blank:</p>
<p>“You were travelling back and forth, between Afghanistan and the former Soviet Union. Was life in the Afghan countryside better than in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan?”</p>
<p>He stared at me, shocked. When my question finally fully sank into his brain, he began laughing:</p>
<p>“Soviet villages were so much richer, there could not be any comparison. They had all necessary facilities there, from electricity to water, schools and medical posts, even public transportation: either train or at least a bus. No one could deny this, unless they’d be totally blind or someone would pay them not to see! Of course Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan, was totally different story: it was a huge and very important Soviet city, with theaters, museums, parks, hospitals and universities. But even the villages were, for us, shockingly wealthy. Culture at both sides of the border was, however, similar. And while the Soviets were engaged here in Afghanistan, things began developing at our side of the border, too.”</p>
<p>But who would listen to Mr. Shakar Karimi from Pole Charkhi Village, on the outskirts of Kabul. He hardly spoke English, and he had no idea how to be diplomatic and ‘acceptable’ to Londoners or New Yorkers. And what he was saying was not what was expected from the Afghans to say.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> Wreckage of Soviet tank. (Photo: Andre Vltchek)</p>
<p>During my previous trip to Afghanistan, over the phone from Kabul, I suggested to my friend, another ‘elite’ Afghan exile, that the next time she should come with me, at least for a few days, in order to reconnect, to breath the air of the city that she has been claiming she missed so desperately, for so many years. Reply was curt, but somehow predictable:</p>
<p>“Me, coming back like this; incognito? You don’t understand, my family is so important! When I finally go back, it will be a big, big deal!”</p>
<p>It is very strange, but Afghans that I know from Afghanistan are totally different from those I meet in Europe and North America. So are Afghans who are going back, regularly, to their beloved country, and who are ‘connected’, even engaged.</p>
<p>In Rome, I met Afghan Princess Soraya. I was invited to Italy by several left-wing MP’s representing&#160;5 Stelli&#160;(‘5 Star Movement’) and during our lunch together, when learning about my engagement in Afghanistan, they exclaimed: “You have to meet ‘our’ Afghan Princess!”</p>
<p>They called her on a mobile phone. She was in her 60s, but immediately she jumped on her bicycle and pedaled to the Parliament area in order to meet me. She was shockingly unpretentious, and endlessly kind. With her, nothing was a ‘big deal’. “Come meet me in the evening in the old Jewish Ghetto,” she suggested. “There will be an opening of a very interesting art exhibition there, in one of the galleries.”</p>
<p>We met again, in the evening. She was very critical of the occupation of her country by the NATO forces. She had no fear, nothing to hide. She had no need to play political games.</p>
<p>“I’m going back to Kandahar, in couple of weeks. Please let me know when you are going back to my country. I’ll arrange things for you. We’ll show you around Kandahar.”</p>
<p>In the meantime, I got used to Afghanistan; to its terrain, its stunning beauty, to its bitter cold in the winter and stifling heat of the summers, to its curtness, its exaggerated politeness and even to its hardly bearable roughness, which always surfaces at least once in a while. But I never got used to all of those upper-class ‘refugees’, people who have left Afghanistan permanently; to those who later betrayed, and then betrayed again, spreading false information about their country, serving Western media/propaganda outlets or as diplomats of the puppet state abroad, making a lucrative living out of their treason and out of the misery of their own people. I don’t think that I will ever get used to them. In a way, they are even worse than NATO, or at least equally as bad, and more deadly and venomous than the Taliban.</p>
<p>There are many ways how one can betray his or her country. There are also countless reasons and justifications for treason. Historically, Western colonialists developed entire networks of local, “native” collaborators, all over the world. These people have been ready and willing to run down their devastated countries, on behalf of the European and later, US imperialists, in exchange for prominent positions, titles and ‘respect’. Unfortunately, Afghanistan is not an exception.</p>
<p>On 21 January 2010, even&#160;Kabul Press&#160;had apparently enough, and it published damning article “ <a href="https://www.kabulpress.org/article4590.html" type="external">Afghan UN Ambassador’s $4.2 million Manhattan apartment</a>”,&#160;referring to the super-luxury residence of then Afghan UN Ambassador, Zahir Tanin:</p>
<p>“Among the billions of dollars being spent propping up the Karzai government are some choice bits of New York City real estate. Number 1 is a 2,400 sq. ft. 3-bedroom corner apartment in the Trump World Tower, one of the world’s most expensive addresses. It was chosen by Zahir Tanin, Afghanistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations, who lives there with his wife.”</p>
<p>“According to Kabul press sources, eight other diplomats working in the Mission’s offices live about one hour away. The average rent for them is over $20,000 per month—extremely pricey even for Manhattan real estate. The previous Ambassador, Mr.&#160;Farhadi paid only $7,000 per month for all rent and expenses.”</p>
<p>“Other ambassadors, like Taib Jawad (Afghan Abmassador to the U.S.) are living in luxury residences, why not me?” our source quotes Tanin as saying.”</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> Poppy growing next to US airforce base in Bagram. (Photo: Andre Vltchek)</p>
<p>So many Afghans have left, many betrayed, but others are refusing to bend, remaining proud and honest.</p>
<p>During my previous visit to the country, I worked along the road separating the districts 3 and 5 in Kabul, photographing literally decomposing bodies of drug-users.</p>
<p>In June 2017 I returned, but this time I dared to film the people living under the bridges, and in deep infested hovels. Later I walked on the riverbank, trying to gain some perspective and to film from various angles.</p>
<p>Someone was making threatening gestures from the distance; someone else aimed a gun at me. I ducked for cover.</p>
<p>“Not very welcoming place, is it?” I heard loud laughter behind my back. Someone spoke perfect English.</p>
<p>I turned back. A well-dressed man approached me. We exchanged a few words. I explained what I was doing here and he understood immediately.</p>
<p>“Here is my card,” he said. “Muhammad Maroof (Sarwan), Vice-President of the Duniya Construction Company,” it read. He continued:</p>
<p>“I came to this warehouse here to deliver my products, and I saw you filming. You’re lucky you were not hit by a bullet.”</p>
<p>“I want to talk,” he said, pointing his hand at the bridge. “Don’t film me, just take notes. You can quote me, even use my name.”</p>
<p>He explained that he used to work for the US military, as an interpreter.</p>
<p>Then he began speaking, clearly and coherently:</p>
<p>“The biggest mafias here are directly linked to both UK and US. The West lies that they want to stop trade with drugs in Afghanistan; they never will allow it to stop.”</p>
<p>“My brother is a writer and he has images of the U.S. army giving water pumps, studs and other basic stuff, for the growth of poppies. The biggest supporter of drugs production in Afghanistan, and the export, is the UK government. They are dealing directly with the locals, even giving them money… The UK is also the major market for the export. Helmand, Kandahar, you name it, from there, directly, transport planes are taking off and going straight towards Europe, even the US. The Westerners are people who physically put drugs into the airplane at our airports.”</p>
<p>“My relative was an interpreter for the British… He was killed by them, after he had been witnessing and interpreting at a meeting between the UK officials, and the local drug mafias.”</p>
<p>I was wondering whether he was certain he wanted to speak on the record. My interpreter was standing by, apparently impressed by what he was witnessing. Mr. Maroof did not hesitate:</p>
<p>“I have nothing to hide. They are destroying my country right in front of my eyes. What could be more horrifying than that? The Western occupation is ruining Afghanistan. I want the world to be aware of it, and I don’t care what could happen to me!”</p>
<p>Not all the opposition to the present regime in Kabul is fighting for true independence and progressive ideals. Some have close links with the West, or /and with the Mujahedeen.</p>
<p>In Kabul, in June 2017, inside a makeshift camp built near the site of a devastating explosion which in May killed at least 90 people, injuring 400, I met with Ramish Noori, the spokesperson of Haji Zahir Qadir’s “Uprising for Change”. The powerful “Uprising” counts on at least a 1,000-men strong militia, one which is locked in brutal combat with ISIS (Daesh), and which has already beheaded several terrorist fighters in ‘retaliatory’ actions.</p>
<p>Mr. Noory clearly indicated that the goal of his group is to force the present government to resign, even if that would have to happen with the help of foreign countries:</p>
<p>“We were shot at in Kabul and 6 protesters were killed, 21 injured. Professional Special Forces of Ashraf Ghani shot those who were killed point blank, in the face. Instead of killing terrorists, this government is killing innocent protesters; people who came to demand security after that barbaric terrorist attack which took lives of 90 people. We actually believe that many government officials are responsible for the killings. We also think that the government is helping to coordinate attacks of the terrorists.”</p>
<p>Mr. Samir, one of the protesters, began shouting in anger:</p>
<p>“The government is killing its own people, and so we want both Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah to resign. We want an entire reset of the Afghan system. Look what is happening all around the country: killings, bomb blasts and unbridled corruption!”</p>
<p>But when I press them hard, I feel that behind their words there is no sound ideology, just geographically swappable ‘civil society talk’. And perhaps some power struggle as well.</p>
<p>I don’t know who is supporting them, who is behind them, but I feel that someone definitely is. What they say is right, but it is how they say it that worries me.</p>
<p>I ask Ramish Noori about the NATO occupation of Afghanistan, and suddenly there is a long pause. Then a brief answer in a slightly uncomfortable tone of voice:</p>
<p>“We are ready to work with any country that is supporting our position.”</p>
<p>“Can I stop by later today?” I ask.</p>
<p>“Of course. Anytime. We’ll be here till the morning. We are expecting the Mujahedeen to join us in the early hours.”</p>
<p>“Mujahedeen?”</p>
<p>Next time I will investigate further.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> Eerie sight near May explosion in Kabul. (Photo: Andre Vltchek)</p>
<p>I visited the British Cemetery in Kabul. Not out of some perverse curiosity, but because, during my last visit, I was given this tip by a Russian cultural attaché:</p>
<p>“See how patient, how tolerant Afghan people are… After all that has been done to them…”</p>
<p>I’m glad that I went. The cemetery puts the events of the last 2 centuries into clear perspective. To a clear British perspective…</p>
<p>Full of patriotic sentimentality,&#160;The Telegraph&#160;once described this place as:&#160;“Afghanistan: The corner of Kabul that is forever England.”</p>
<p>There was no repentance, no soul-searching, no questions asked, like: What was England doing here, thousands of miles away from its shores, again and again… and again?”</p>
<p>Above the names of fallen English soldiers, there was a sober but unrepentant dedication:</p>
<p>“This memorial is dedicated to all those British officers and soldiers who gave their lives in the Afghan wars of the 19th&#160;and 20th&#160;Century. Renovated by the officers and soldiers of the British Contingent of the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul. February 2002. “We Shall Remember Them””</p>
<p>The cemetery is well kept. There is no vandalism and no graffiti. In Afghanistan, the death of Englishmen, Spaniards and other foreigners is respected.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the death of Afghan people is not even worth commemorating, anymore.</p>
<p>How many Afghans did those British troops massacre, in two long centuries? Shouldn’t there be a monument, somewhere in Kabul, to those thousands of victims of British imperialism? Perhaps there will be… one day, but not anytime soon.</p>
<p>Again I drove to Bagram, filming the monstrous walls of the US military and air force base.</p>
<p>Again I saw children with toy guns, running and imitating landing combat helicopters.</p>
<p>Again I saw misery, right next to the gates of the base; poor women covered by burkas, babies in their arms, sitting in stifling heat on speed bumps, begging.</p>
<p>I saw amputees, empty stares of poor local people.</p>
<p>All this destitution, just a few steps away from tens of billions of dollars wasted on high-tech military equipment, which has succeeded in breaking the spirit of millions of Afghan people, but never in ‘liberating the country from terrorism’, or poverty.</p>
<p>I drove to the village of Dashtak, in Panjshir Valley, to hear more stories about those jihadi cadres who were based here during the war with the Soviet Union.</p>
<p>I was stopped, detained, interrogated, on several occasions, sometimes ten times per day: On the Afghan-Pakistani border which has recently experienced fighting between two countries, in Kabul, Jalalabad, Bargam. I lost track of who was who: police, army, security forces, local security forces, or militias?</p>
<p>In front of Jalalabad Airport I tried to film an enormous US blimp drone, on its final approach before landing. I asked my driver to make a U-turn, my drift HD camera ready. One minute later, the military stopped the car, aiming its guns at us. I had to get out, put my hands on a wall, and surrender my mobile phones. After our identity was verified from Kabul, one of the soldiers explained:</p>
<p>“Yesterday, exactly the same Toyota Corolla drove by, made the same U-turn and then blew itself up, next to this wall…”</p>
<p>In Jalalabad, I spoke to a police officer wounded at the national Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA) station, during a terrorist attack.</p>
<p>It all felt surreal. The entire country seems to be dissolving; yet it is refusing to fall, to collapse. It is still standing. And despite rubble, fighting and the insane cynicism of the elites, there is still hope, and even some optimism left.</p>
<p>I’m trying to understand.</p>
<p>“Afghans living abroad keep spreading false rumors that we are finished, that everybody wants to leave,” explains Arif, my driver and interpreter. “But it’s not true. More and more people want to stay home, to improve things, to rebuild our motherland. She is beautiful, isn’t she?”</p>
<p>We are passing through a winding road, enormous mountains on both sides, and a river with crystal-clear water just a few meters away.</p>
<p>“She is,” I say. “Of course she is.”</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> Conflict at Afghan-Pakistani border. (Photo: Andre Vltchek)</p>
<p>We stopped near a small mosque, almost clinging to a cliff. It was the month of Ramadan. Arif was diligent; he went to pray. I also left the car and went to look into a deep and stunning ravine. Another car arrived; an off-roader, most likely an armored vehicle. The driver killed the engine. Three heavily armed men descended. They left their machine guns near the entrance to the mosque, washed their feet, and then went inside to pray.</p>
<p>Before they entered, we all nodded at each other, politely.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, I did not feel threatened. I never did, in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>The scenery reminded me of South America, most likely of Chile – tremendous peaks, a deep valley, serpentines and powerful river down below.</p>
<p>I felt strong and alive in Afghanistan. Many things have gone wrong in this country, but almost everything was clear, hardly any bullshit. Mountains were mountains, rivers were rivers, misery was misery and fighters were fighters, good or bad. I liked that. I liked that very much.</p>
<p>“Arif,” I asked, sipping Argentinian&#160;yerba&#160;mate&#160;from my elaborate metal straw, as we were gradually approaching Kabul. It was Malta Cruz, a common, harsh&#160;mate, but a decent one.</p>
<p>“Do you think I can get Afghan citizenship if we kick out Yanks and Europeans, defeat Taliban and Daesh, and rebuild socialist paradise here?”</p>
<p>I was joking, just joking, after a long and exhausting day of work around Jalalabad.</p>
<p>However, Arif looked suddenly very serious. He slowed the car down.</p>
<p>“You like? You like Afghanistan that much?”</p>
<p>“Hmmm,” I nodded.</p>
<p>“I think, if we win, they’ll make sure to give you Afghan nationality,”&#160;he finally concluded.</p>
<p>We were still very far from winning. After returning me to my hotel, he categorically refused to take money for his work. I insisted, but he kept refusing.</p>
<p>It all felt somehow familiar and good. Back in my hotel room, exhausted, I collapsed onto the bed, fully dressed. I fell asleep immediately.</p>
<p>Then, late at night, there were two loud explosions right under the hill.</p>
<p>Afghanistan is here. You love it or hate it, or anything in between. But you cannot cheat: you are here and if you know how to see and feel, then you slowly begin to know. Or you are not here, and you cannot understand or judge it at all. No book can describe Afghanistan, and I’m wondering whether even films can. Maybe poetry can, maybe a theatre play or a novel can, but I’m not sure, yet.</p>
<p>All I know is that it is alive, far from being finished. Its heart is pulsating; its body is warm. If someone tells you that it is finished, don’t trust him. Come and see for yourself; just watch and listen.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Andre Vltchek&#160;is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are revolutionary novel&#160; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Aurora-Andre-Vltchek/dp/6027354364/" type="external">“Aurora”</a>&#160;and two bestselling works of political non-fiction: “ <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Exposing-Lies-Empire-Andre-Vltchek/dp/6027005866" type="external">Exposing Lies Of The Empire</a>” and “ <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fighting-Against-Western-Imperialism-Vltchek/dp/6027005823" type="external">Fighting Against Western Imperialism</a>”. View his other books&#160; <a href="http://andrevltchek.weebly.com/books.html" type="external">here</a>. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Al-Mayadeen. Watch <a href="https://vimeo.com/ondemand/rwandagambit" type="external">Rwanda Gambit</a>, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo. After having lived in Latin America, Africa and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his&#160; <a href="http://andrevltchek.weebly.com/" type="external">website</a>&#160;and his&#160; <a href="https://twitter.com/AndreVltchek" type="external">Twitter</a>.</p>
<p>READ MORE AFGHANISTAN NEWS AT:&#160; <a href="" type="internal">21st Century Wire Afghanistan Files</a></p>
<p>SUPPORT 21WIRE AND ITS WORK BY SUBSCRIBING AND BECOMING A MEMBER @ &#160; <a href="https://21wire.tv/membership/plans/" type="external">21WIRE.TV</a></p> | true | 4 | andre vltchek driving afghanistan andre vltchek global research often appears true afghanistan kabul jalalabad herat either ancient villages anxiously cling steep mountainsides many foreigners even afghans convinced true afghanistan shown television screens depicted magazines buried deep archives libraries somewhere london new york paris tempting think country could understood comfortable distance safety ones living room books publications decorating dusty bookshelves coffee tables world afghanistan dangerous say risky travel one needs protected escorted equipped insured order function wild lawless country even one single day hours comes afghanistan conditioned western rational brains tenure emeritus professors call regimes intellectual gatekeepers often get engaged even intertwined pathologically imaginative minds 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going indescribable agony hemorrhaged bathing excrement west celebrated temporary victory dancing front world map envisioning reconquest former colonies end russia survived regained bearings dignity became one important countries earth directly antagonistic global western imperialist designs afghanistan never recovered last soviet combat troops left country 1989 bled terribly years consumed brutal civil war progressive government face monstrous terror western saudibacked160mujahedeen individuals like osama bin laden command jihadi genocide socialists communists secularists well almost educated former soviet union eastern block countries killed exiled muzzled decades settled west simply betrayed went along official western narrative dogma even individuals still claimed part left repeated like parrots preapproved fib perhaps soviet union bad mujahedeen taliban even west really bad enough heard lines london elsewhere coming several mouths corrupt afghan elites children beginning doubtful work journeys afghanistan began spoke dozens people country exactly discouraged driving everywhere without escort protection stopping middle godforsaken villages entering fatal city slums infested narcotics approaching prominent intellectuals kabul jalalabad elsewhere asked many occasions russia id reply gross simplification born leningrad st petersburg incredible mixture chinese russian czech austrian blood circles veins still name russia came naturally middle afghan deserts deep gorges especially places knew life hanging thin thread allowed utter one last word life russia wanted declaration faces afghan people would soften unexpectedly suddenly welcome id hear invitation enter humble homes would follow offer rest eat drink glass water often wondered finally asked driver interpreter mr arif became dear friend country afghans love russian people replied simply without hesitation afghans love russians wondered yes replied smiling people andre vltchek afghanistan afghans really say russia two days later sitting inside armored unesco land cruiser talking former soviettrained engineer simple driver mr wahed tooryalai allowed use name fear accumulated anger obviously wanted get system sleep still sometimes see former soviet union dreams wake feel happy one entire month remember everything saw wanted know really made happy mr wahed hesitate people kind welcoming russians ukrainians felt much home culture exactly like say russians occupied afghanistan simply sold russians much afghanistan built entire housing communities like makroyan built factories even bakeries places kandahar people still eating russian bread recalled sovietera water pipes photographed humble afghan countryside well elaborate water canals around cities like jalalabad much propaganda soviet union said mujahedeen west hate russians mr wahed explained serving continued almost poor afghan people would never say anything bad russians government people west well afghan elites living abroad buying real estate london dubai selling countrythose paid create public opinion words flowed effortlessly knew precisely wanted say bitter clearly felt soviet era soviet doctors also soviet teachers show one doctor teacher usa uk based afghan countryside russians everywhere still even remember names lyudmila nikolayevna show one western doctor nurse based russian doctors nurses working country salaries low spent half living expenses half distributed amongst poor look americans europeans came make money recall recent encounter georgian combatant serving us command bagram base desperate recalled experience bagram served leatherneck us base helmand province americans leaving even used pull concrete ground joked came nothing nothing leave prohibited us giving food local children couldnt consume destroy never give local people still dont understand come us western europe showing much spite afghan people contrast mr wahed recalled soviet legacy abruptly uprooted taliban era poor hunger nothing west came began throwing money around place karzai elites kept grabbing could repeating like parrots us good diplomats serving karzais government elites building houses us uk people educated soviet union couldnt get decent jobs blacklisted education dictated west educated ussr czechoslovakia east germany bulgaria theyd tell straight face communist least allowed least get jobs still pure clean never corrupt people still remember wonder course go streets village market tell dear russian theyd immediately invite homes feed embrace tried days later middle market worked tried provincial town worked finally tried talibaninfiltrated village 60 kilometers kabul didnt still managed get away soviet water pipe village nangarhar province photo andre vltchek met mr shakar karimi pole charkhi village local patriarch used district chief nangarhar province asked best system ever implemented modern afghanistan first spoke khan dynasty referred leftwing afghan leader brutally tortured murdered taliban entered kabul 1996 theyd let dr najib govern peace would best afghanistan asked soviet invasion 1979 came given wrong information first mistake enter afghanistan second fatal mistake leave main difference russians westerners engagement afghanistan russian people came predominately serve help afghanistan relationship russians afghans always great real friendship people interacting even parties together visiting didnt push didnt ask happening obvious enormous walls high voltage wires would answer drone zeppelins weapons everywhere absolute lack trust shameless division super rich great majority desperately poor depressed country asian continent later asked comrade arif whether really true course shouted passionately 100 true russians built roads built homes people treated afghans well like brothers americans never anything afghanistan almost nothing care benefits would referendum right simple question want afghanistan russia united states great majority would vote russia never us europe know im afghan country good im happy country bad suffer people unless brainwashed corrupted westerners know perfectly well russia country know west injured land course every single afghan person thinks definitely go drive every corner country ask supposed course told scared come roam lawless land supposed go directly people instead expected recycle writings toothless cowardly academics well servile mass media reports liberal least expected say hope solution future goga manda village fighting taliban government troops still raging around area remnants rusty soviet military hardware found well old destroyed houses soviet era battles taliban positioned right behind hills fighters attack armed forces afghanistan least month almost 16 years nato invasion consequent occupation country village thousands villages afghanistan access electricity drinking water school within walking distance even small badly equipped medical post far 5 kilometers away average family 6 survive us130 dollars per month thats members actually working city ask mr rahmat gul used teacher nearby town whether russian times better hesitated almost one minute replied vaguely russians lots shooting real war people used die jihad period mujahedeen positioned shooting hills soviet tanks stationed near river many civilians caught crossfire got ready ask questions interpreter began panic lets go taliban coming hes always calm gets nervous know really time run ran stepping accelerator driving breakneck speed towards main road taliban moved photo andre vltchek parted mr wahed tooryalai grabbed hand knew wanted say something essential waited formulate came rusty still excellent russian sometimes feel hurt angry gorbachev abandon us fine leave us hadnt betrayed us life afghanistan would great wouldnt un driver used deputy director enormous bread factory 300 people working building beloved country feeding hope putin leave us looked straight eyes suddenly got goose bumps spoke glasses got foggy please tell mr putin hold hand im holding tell saw country tell afghans least many us still straight strong honest people end send americans europeans packing happen soon please come stand us true afghan patriots ready waiting come back please son super elite afghan exiles living london shouted via whatsapp dared criticize one officiallyrecognized gurus western anticommunist left happened religiously admired deity im completely amazed youd thing youre russian russians held strange superiority complex dominating whole asian amp african continents even nobody invited asked historical examples plenty dont go country report whats actually going cant even speak language tough verdict russia work verdict afghan man london never even touched work entire life fully sustained morally corrupted family never travelled much except father took one official diplomatic visits drinking taking drugs hating everything fights defies empire president duterte philippines maduro venezuela assad syria taken afghanistan extremely early age never set foot soil knowledge accumulated secondhand quick pass endless moral judgments actually taken seriously one influential famous opposition figures west afghan perfect english accent conclusions reasonable least extent acceptable regime therefore trustworthy others like know perfectly well administer required dose antisoviet antirussian sentiments choose welltolerated anarchosyndicalism true revolutionary fervor streets kabul blocked bombing photo andre vltchek london lady afghan diplomatic circle still takes pride somehow leftleaning despite recent history serving west recalled nostalgia boasting pride got sick travelled husband kabul prague medical treatment 80s took us 5000 dollars know days czechoslovakia much money friends never saw much cash lives really great time listened politely thought damn days two czech uncles building sugar mills steel factories turbines developing countries like syria egypt lebanon im sure whether also worked afghanistan wouldnt surprised internationalist duty hardly making us500 per month salary father leading nuclear scientist charge safety vvr power plant reactors time real exchange well us200 month honest hardworking people duty towards humanity someone came kabul capital one poorest countries asia recipient aid internationalist help basically soviet block countries blows 5000 bob days days socialist czechoslovakia helping intensively various revolutionary anticolonialist movements world even ernesto160che160guevara treated campaign congo final engagement bolivia lady finish yet crossed border travelled soviet union land imagine misery encountered villages across border life much tougher side course moscow different moscow capital full lights truly impressive really official narrative injected treasonous elites psyche afghans foreigners listened politely like stories matter direction coming took mental notes back afghanistan asked mr shakar karimi point blank travelling back forth afghanistan former soviet union life afghan countryside better uzbekistan tajikistan stared shocked question finally fully sank brain began laughing soviet villages much richer could comparison necessary facilities electricity water schools medical posts even public transportation either train least bus one could deny unless theyd totally blind someone would pay see course tashkent capital uzbekistan totally different story huge important soviet city theaters museums parks hospitals universities even villages us shockingly wealthy culture sides border however similar soviets engaged afghanistan things began developing side border would listen mr shakar karimi pole charkhi village outskirts kabul hardly spoke english idea diplomatic acceptable londoners new yorkers saying expected afghans say wreckage soviet tank photo andre vltchek previous trip afghanistan phone kabul suggested friend another elite afghan exile next time come least days order reconnect breath air city claiming missed desperately many years reply curt somehow predictable coming back like incognito dont understand family important finally go back big big deal strange afghans know afghanistan totally different meet europe north america afghans going back regularly beloved country connected even engaged rome met afghan princess soraya invited italy several leftwing mps representing1605 stelli1605 star movement lunch together learning engagement afghanistan exclaimed meet afghan princess called mobile phone 60s immediately jumped bicycle pedaled parliament area order meet shockingly unpretentious endlessly kind nothing big deal come meet evening old jewish ghetto suggested opening interesting art exhibition one galleries met evening critical occupation country nato forces fear nothing hide need play political games im going back kandahar couple weeks please let know going back country ill arrange things well show around kandahar meantime got used afghanistan terrain stunning beauty bitter cold winter stifling heat summers curtness exaggerated politeness even hardly bearable roughness always surfaces least never got used upperclass refugees people left afghanistan permanently later betrayed betrayed spreading false information country serving western mediapropaganda outlets diplomats puppet state abroad making lucrative living treason misery people dont think ever get used way even worse nato least equally bad deadly venomous taliban many ways one betray country also countless reasons justifications treason historically western colonialists developed entire networks local native collaborators world people ready willing run devastated countries behalf european later us imperialists exchange prominent positions titles respect unfortunately afghanistan exception 21 january 2010 even160kabul press160had apparently enough published damning article afghan un ambassadors 42 million manhattan apartment160referring superluxury residence afghan un ambassador zahir tanin among billions dollars spent propping karzai government choice bits new york city real estate number 1 2400 sq ft 3bedroom corner apartment trump world tower one worlds expensive addresses chosen zahir tanin afghanistans ambassador united nations lives wife according kabul press sources eight diplomats working missions offices live one hour away average rent 20000 per monthextremely pricey even manhattan real estate previous ambassador mr160farhadi paid 7000 per month rent expenses ambassadors like taib jawad afghan abmassador us living luxury residences source quotes tanin saying poppy growing next us airforce base bagram photo andre vltchek many afghans left many betrayed others refusing bend remaining proud honest previous visit country worked along road separating districts 3 5 kabul photographing literally decomposing bodies drugusers june 2017 returned time dared film people living bridges deep infested hovels later walked riverbank trying gain perspective film various angles someone making threatening gestures distance someone else aimed gun ducked cover welcoming place heard loud laughter behind back someone spoke perfect english turned back welldressed man approached exchanged words explained understood immediately card said muhammad maroof sarwan vicepresident duniya construction company read continued came warehouse deliver products saw filming youre lucky hit bullet want talk said pointing hand bridge dont film take notes quote even use name explained used work us military interpreter began speaking clearly coherently biggest mafias directly linked uk us west lies want stop trade drugs afghanistan never allow stop brother writer images us army giving water pumps studs basic stuff growth poppies biggest supporter drugs production afghanistan export uk government dealing directly locals even giving money uk also major market export helmand kandahar name directly transport planes taking going straight towards europe even us westerners people physically put drugs airplane airports relative interpreter british killed witnessing interpreting meeting uk officials local drug mafias wondering whether certain wanted speak record interpreter standing apparently impressed witnessing mr maroof hesitate nothing hide destroying country right front eyes could horrifying western occupation ruining afghanistan want world aware dont care could happen opposition present regime kabul fighting true independence progressive ideals close links west mujahedeen kabul june 2017 inside makeshift camp built near site devastating explosion may killed least 90 people injuring 400 met ramish noori spokesperson haji zahir qadirs uprising change powerful uprising counts least 1000men strong militia one locked brutal combat isis daesh already beheaded several terrorist fighters retaliatory actions mr noory clearly indicated goal group force present government resign even would happen help foreign countries shot kabul 6 protesters killed 21 injured professional special forces ashraf ghani shot killed point blank face instead killing terrorists government killing innocent protesters people came demand security barbaric terrorist attack took lives 90 people actually believe many government officials responsible killings also think government helping coordinate attacks terrorists mr samir one protesters began shouting anger government killing people want ghani abdullah abdullah resign want entire reset afghan system look happening around country killings bomb blasts unbridled corruption press hard feel behind words sound ideology geographically swappable civil society talk perhaps power struggle well dont know supporting behind feel someone definitely say right say worries ask ramish noori nato occupation afghanistan suddenly long pause brief answer slightly uncomfortable tone voice ready work country supporting position stop later today ask course anytime well till morning expecting mujahedeen join us early hours mujahedeen next time investigate eerie sight near may explosion kabul photo andre vltchek visited british cemetery kabul perverse curiosity last visit given tip russian cultural attaché see patient tolerant afghan people done im glad went cemetery puts events last 2 centuries clear perspective clear british perspective full patriotic sentimentality160the telegraph160once described place as160afghanistan corner kabul forever england repentance soulsearching questions asked like england thousands miles away shores names fallen english soldiers sober unrepentant dedication memorial dedicated british officers soldiers gave lives afghan wars 19th160and 20th160century renovated officers soldiers british contingent international security assistance force kabul february 2002 shall remember cemetery well kept vandalism graffiti afghanistan death englishmen spaniards foreigners respected unfortunately death afghan people even worth commemorating anymore many afghans british troops massacre two long centuries shouldnt monument somewhere kabul thousands victims british imperialism perhaps one day anytime soon drove bagram filming monstrous walls us military air force base saw children toy guns running imitating landing combat helicopters saw misery right next gates base poor women covered burkas babies arms sitting stifling heat speed bumps begging saw amputees empty stares poor local people destitution steps away tens billions dollars wasted hightech military equipment succeeded breaking spirit millions afghan people never liberating country terrorism poverty drove village dashtak panjshir valley hear stories jihadi cadres based war soviet union stopped detained interrogated several occasions sometimes ten times per day afghanpakistani border recently experienced fighting two countries kabul jalalabad bargam lost track police army security forces local security forces militias front jalalabad airport tried film enormous us blimp drone final approach landing asked driver make uturn drift hd camera ready one minute later military stopped car aiming guns us get put hands wall surrender mobile phones identity verified kabul one soldiers explained yesterday exactly toyota corolla drove made uturn blew next wall jalalabad spoke police officer wounded national radio television afghanistan rta station terrorist attack felt surreal entire country seems dissolving yet refusing fall collapse still standing despite rubble fighting insane cynicism elites still hope even optimism left im trying understand afghans living abroad keep spreading false rumors finished everybody wants leave explains arif driver interpreter true people want stay home improve things rebuild motherland beautiful isnt passing winding road enormous mountains sides river crystalclear water meters away say course conflict afghanpakistani border photo andre vltchek stopped near small mosque almost clinging cliff month ramadan arif diligent went pray also left car went look deep stunning ravine another car arrived offroader likely armored vehicle driver killed engine three heavily armed men descended left machine guns near entrance mosque washed feet went inside pray entered nodded politely surprisingly feel threatened never afghanistan scenery reminded south america likely chile tremendous peaks deep valley serpentines powerful river felt strong alive afghanistan many things gone wrong country almost everything clear hardly bullshit mountains mountains rivers rivers misery misery fighters fighters good bad liked liked much arif asked sipping argentinian160yerba160mate160from elaborate metal straw gradually approaching kabul malta cruz common harsh160mate decent one think get afghan citizenship kick yanks europeans defeat taliban daesh rebuild socialist paradise joking joking long exhausting day work around jalalabad however arif looked suddenly serious slowed car like like afghanistan much hmmm nodded think win theyll make sure give afghan nationality160he finally concluded still far winning returning hotel categorically refused take money work insisted kept refusing felt somehow familiar good back hotel room exhausted collapsed onto bed fully dressed fell asleep immediately late night two loud explosions right hill afghanistan love hate anything cheat know see feel slowly begin know understand judge book describe afghanistan im wondering whether even films maybe poetry maybe theatre play novel im sure yet know alive far finished heart pulsating body warm someone tells finished dont trust come see watch listen andre vltchek160is philosopher novelist filmmaker investigative journalist covered wars conflicts dozens countries three latest books revolutionary novel160 aurora160and two bestselling works political nonfiction exposing lies empire fighting western imperialism view books160 andre making films telesur almayadeen watch rwanda gambit groundbreaking documentary rwanda drcongo lived latin america africa oceania vltchek presently resides east asia middle east continues work around world reached his160 website160and his160 twitter read afghanistan news at160 21st century wire afghanistan files support 21wire work subscribing becoming member 160 21wiretv | 3,920 |
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<p>Radio sucks. That’s the inescapable conclusion of all too many people in cities and towns of all sizes these days: folks fed up with stale music, predictable banter, or the <a href="http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/990215.tart.html" type="external">insufferable smugness</a> of National Public Radio.</p>
<p>Since the <a href="http://artcon.rutgers.edu/papertiger/articles/article1.html" type="external">Communications Act of 1996</a>, it’s gotten even worse, as huge conglomerates buy each other out, creating chains of hundreds of co-owned stations.</p>
<p>With the trading frenzy since 1996, station values have soared, making station ownership in cities of any size unaffordable for all but the corporate few. The <a href="http://www.955klos.com/personalities/index.html?fcn=personalitiesview&amp;personalities_id=1377" type="external">homogenized result</a> deprives audiences of local voices, local perspectives, and any meaningful variety in the choices available on the radio dial. Some stations, in fact, employ satellite technology that allows remote-control networks and DJs to pretend to be local in hundreds of cities at once. Meanwhile, so-called noncommercial stations have scrambled to compete by adding thinly disguised commercials (“underwriting”) and, as with Pacifica Radio, drumming out voices of political or cultural dissent.</p>
<p>Amidst this deadening of the airwaves, some hardy souls have fought back. Because the <a href="http://www.radio4all.org/how-to.html" type="external">technology is simple and relatively cheap</a>, the 1990s have seen a resurgence of hundreds of “pirate” radio signals — unlicensed, low-power operators around the country that start their own stations, with crappy (and illegal) homemade equipment, erratic broadcast schedules, and even more erratic content. That content can, on its best days, do what radio has largely forgotten it is capable of: Serve as direct contact within a community, giving a voice to the unheard. It can also, of course, be <a href="http://www.cco.caltech.edu/%7Ebranvan/brandons.cds.html" type="external">self- indulgent crap</a>. As with public-access television, that’s the beauty of it. It’s not the same old McRadio.</p>
<p>For the Federal Communications Commission, the microradio (a.k.a. “pirate”) wave has been a nightmare. The FCC fines operators and sometimes seizes equipment. But finding and silencing the stations, especially on a limited enforcement-budget, has been like trying to plug a crumbling dike. Even worse, <a href="http://artcon.rutgers.edu/papertiger/nyfma/str/lawsuit.html" type="external">legal challenges</a>, like the one brought by <a href="http://www.freeradio.org/" type="external">Free Radio Berkeley</a> operator Stephen Dunifer, have threatened to overturn the FCC’s 21-year-old ban on low-power FM signals.</p>
<p>Microradio advocates have charged — with some hints of success in court — that the FCC is being disingenuous when it claims that the ban is meant to keep all radio interference-free. In fact low-power stations are perfectly feasible (they’re legal in Canada, Europe, and Japan). The ban amounts to a restraint on free speech — reserving publicly owned airwaves for free use by only the wealthiest corporate operators.</p>
<p>In response, on January 28, the FCC took the first big step toward legalizing low-power broadcasting, and, as a result, possibly transforming the nature of radio as we know it. The FCC (which currently only allows commercial stations of the equivalent of 6,000 watts and up) <a href="http://www.fcc.gov/mmb/prd/lpfm/" type="external">proposes</a> to open up new classes of 100 to 1,000 (an 8- to 15-mile listening radius), 10 to 100 (two to seven miles), and one to 10 watt (one to two miles) stations. The first two would be new commercial services, and their impact would be substantial. . The tiny signals are the equivalent of the neighborhood service micro-radio pirates have aspired to. The FCC reports having received over 13,000 inquiries in the last year from what <a href="http://www.fcc.gov/Speeches/Kennard/Statements/stwek908.html" type="external">FCC chair William Kennard calls</a> “churches, community groups, elementary schools, universities, small businesses, and minority groups…who want to use the airwaves.”</p>
<p>Such an onslaught of new signals would revolutionize radio. The smallest of the low-power radio outlets would mean stations with clear-signal radiuses of only a mile or two — hundreds in one city. Potentially. The FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM, Docket 99-25), with a public comment deadline of April 12, proposes that operators be noncommercial, not rebroadcast existing signals, not own stations in the same market, and operate no more than five or ten stations total. Licenses would be granted electronically in a matter of days. Operators previously busted for running pirate stations would be at the end of the line.</p>
<p>But it’s unclear how the FCC will choose among competing stations for the same license: through competitive hearings, as is now done for AM and FM radio, or auction, as is done for cellular and microwave signals. A competitive hearing involves the FCC weighing which, among competing applicants, would best serve the public interest; auction, on the other hand, is a fundraising mechanism that favors the broadcast applicants with the deepest pockets. All of these facets are up for public comment, and in response, <a href="http://www.nab.org/PressRel/Releases/1698.htm" type="external">the broadcast industry</a>, both commercial and non-commercial, is mortified.</p>
<p>They claim that micro-radio poses a technical hazard and will interfere with existing stations. But the real fear is that they will interfere with profits. NPR stations — which are supposed to be the nation’s alternative to commercial radio — fear the loss both of audience and the long strings of rebroadcasters (“translators”) many stations maintain. (Why listen to Cokie Roberts speculate about Monica when the guy across the street does a better job?) For the big corporations that own large chains of stations, even minute losses of audience mean lost revenue. Worse, as National Association of Broadcasters spokesman Dennis Wharton sniffs, “if everybody owns a radio station, then nobody hears anything.”</p>
<p>That, of course, is exactly the point — people can actively communicate, as opposed to passively absorbing drivel. But as with the Internet — a technology that’s rapidly merging with broadcast technology — the multitude of voices has the potential to dramatically change how we get information, or how we talk with our neighbors. If the Internet represents the coming global village, low-power radio is a revival of the old-fashioned, local kind of communication. The revolution, in this case, means talking with your neighbor.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, low-power radio is far from a done deal. Given the industry opposition, it’s in some respects surprising that the FCC, under new commissioner Kinneard, even proposed the deal. But public demand, and the activism of more than a few broadcast outlaws, forced it, and hopefully, public demand will carry the day when the FCC makes its decision. Hopefully also, the shape of that decision will exclude both existing broadcast chains — who’ve already bored us to tears — and parasitic nonprofit chains, such as universities and religious networks, who already have their <a href="http://www.familyradio.com/" type="external">air pulpits</a>. Maybe, just maybe, this will be a chance for the public to not only hear something different, but to be heard themselves.</p>
<p>If nothing else, it may mean that public demand for genuinely local radio that doesn’t rely on national music services, programming consultants, and preternaturally smooth diction will finally be heard. Whether we get such relief depends on whose voices are the loudest over the next several weeks before the FCC decides.</p>
<p>Information on the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and how to offer public comment is available through the <a href="http://www.fcc.gov" type="external">FCC’s Web site</a>. Also, check the Web site of low-power radio advocates at <a href="http://www.radio4all.org" type="external">www.radio4all.org</a>.</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | radio sucks thats inescapable conclusion many people cities towns sizes days folks fed stale music predictable banter insufferable smugness national public radio since communications act 1996 gotten even worse huge conglomerates buy creating chains hundreds coowned stations trading frenzy since 1996 station values soared making station ownership cities size unaffordable corporate homogenized result deprives audiences local voices local perspectives meaningful variety choices available radio dial stations fact employ satellite technology allows remotecontrol networks djs pretend local hundreds cities meanwhile socalled noncommercial stations scrambled compete adding thinly disguised commercials underwriting pacifica radio drumming voices political cultural dissent amidst deadening airwaves hardy souls fought back technology simple relatively cheap 1990s seen resurgence hundreds pirate radio signals unlicensed lowpower operators around country start stations crappy illegal homemade equipment erratic broadcast schedules even erratic content content best days radio largely forgotten capable serve direct contact within community giving voice unheard also course self indulgent crap publicaccess television thats beauty old mcradio federal communications commission microradio aka pirate wave nightmare fcc fines operators sometimes seizes equipment finding silencing stations especially limited enforcementbudget like trying plug crumbling dike even worse legal challenges like one brought free radio berkeley operator stephen dunifer threatened overturn fccs 21yearold ban lowpower fm signals microradio advocates charged hints success court fcc disingenuous claims ban meant keep radio interferencefree fact lowpower stations perfectly feasible theyre legal canada europe japan ban amounts restraint free speech reserving publicly owned airwaves free use wealthiest corporate operators response january 28 fcc took first big step toward legalizing lowpower broadcasting result possibly transforming nature radio know fcc currently allows commercial stations equivalent 6000 watts proposes open new classes 100 1000 8 15mile listening radius 10 100 two seven miles one 10 watt one two miles stations first two would new commercial services impact would substantial tiny signals equivalent neighborhood service microradio pirates aspired fcc reports received 13000 inquiries last year fcc chair william kennard calls churches community groups elementary schools universities small businesses minority groupswho want use airwaves onslaught new signals would revolutionize radio smallest lowpower radio outlets would mean stations clearsignal radiuses mile two hundreds one city potentially fccs notice proposed rulemaking nprm docket 9925 public comment deadline april 12 proposes operators noncommercial rebroadcast existing signals stations market operate five ten stations total licenses would granted electronically matter days operators previously busted running pirate stations would end line unclear fcc choose among competing stations license competitive hearings done fm radio auction done cellular microwave signals competitive hearing involves fcc weighing among competing applicants would best serve public interest auction hand fundraising mechanism favors broadcast applicants deepest pockets facets public comment response broadcast industry commercial noncommercial mortified claim microradio poses technical hazard interfere existing stations real fear interfere profits npr stations supposed nations alternative commercial radio fear loss audience long strings rebroadcasters translators many stations maintain listen cokie roberts speculate monica guy across street better job big corporations large chains stations even minute losses audience mean lost revenue worse national association broadcasters spokesman dennis wharton sniffs everybody owns radio station nobody hears anything course exactly point people actively communicate opposed passively absorbing drivel internet technology thats rapidly merging broadcast technology multitude voices potential dramatically change get information talk neighbors internet represents coming global village lowpower radio revival oldfashioned local kind communication revolution case means talking neighbor unfortunately lowpower radio far done deal given industry opposition respects surprising fcc new commissioner kinneard even proposed deal public demand activism broadcast outlaws forced hopefully public demand carry day fcc makes decision hopefully also shape decision exclude existing broadcast chains whove already bored us tears parasitic nonprofit chains universities religious networks already air pulpits maybe maybe chance public hear something different heard nothing else may mean public demand genuinely local radio doesnt rely national music services programming consultants preternaturally smooth diction finally heard whether get relief depends whose voices loudest next several weeks fcc decides information fccs notice proposed rulemaking offer public comment available fccs web site also check web site lowpower radio advocates wwwradio4allorg | 664 |
<p>Tell me it’s a sick joke: Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, the guy who tops the list of those responsible for sabotaging the world’s economy, is lobbying to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. But no, it makes perfect sense, since Summers has long succeeded spectacularly by failing.</p>
<p>Why should his miserable record in the Clinton and Obama administrations hold him back from future disastrous adventures at our expense? With Ben Bernanke set to step down in January, and Obama still in deep denial over the pain and damage his former top economic adviser Summers brought to tens of millions of Americans, this darling of Wall Street has yet another shot to savage the economy.</p>
<p>Summers was one of the key players during the Clinton years in creating the mortgage derivative bubble that ended up costing tens of millions of Americans their homes and life savings. This is the genius who, as Clinton’s Treasury secretary, supported the banking lobby’s successful effort to make the sale of unregulated bundles of mortgage securities and the phony insurance swaps that backed them perfectly legal and totally unmonitored. Those are the toxic bundles that the Federal Reserve is still unloading from the banks at a cost of trillions of dollars.</p>
<p>But back on July 30, 1998, when he was deputy Treasury secretary, Summers assured the Senate agriculture committee that the “thriving” derivatives market was the driving force of American prosperity and would be fatally hurt by any government regulation of the sort proposed by Brooksley Born, the stunningly prescient chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.</p>
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<p>Summers opined that “the parties to these kinds of contracts are largely sophisticated financial institutions that would appear to be eminently capable of protecting themselves from fraud and counterparty insolvencies. … ”</p>
<p>Consider the astounding stupidity of that statement and the utter ignorance upon which it was based. One financial CEO after another has testified to not knowing how the derivatives were created and why their worth evaporated. Think of AIG and the other marketers of these products that were saved from disaster only by the injection of government funds not available to foreclosed homeowners whose mortgages were wrapped into those toxic securities.</p>
<p>Most of those dubious financial gimmicks were marketed by the too-big-to-fail banks made legal by another piece of legislation supported by Summers and passed a year later when Clinton tapped him to be Treasury secretary. Summers was an ardent proponent of repealing the Glass-Steagall Act that prevented the merger of highflying investment houses with traditional commercial banks entrusted with the government insured deposits of ordinary folks.</p>
<p>The first result of destroying that sensible barrier to too-big-to-fail banks was the creation of Citigroup as the biggest bank in the world. Threatened by its wild derivative trading, it had to be saved from bankruptcy with an infusion by taxpayers of $45 billion in U.S. government aid and a guarantee for $300 billion of its toxic assets.</p>
<p>Summers had condemned Glass–Steagall as an example of “archaic financial restrictions” and called instead for “allowing common ownership of banking, securities and insurance firms.” A decade later, while in the Obama administration, Summers worked to prevent a return to the Glass–Steagall prohibition in the Dodd-Frank legislation.</p>
<p>The need to restore that reasonable banking regulation implemented by President Franklin Roosevelt in response to the Great Depression was acknowledged by bipartisan legislation introduced last week in the Senate by Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and John McCain, R-Ariz. “It will take a lot of tools to get rid of too-big-to-fail, but one of them ought to be that if you want to do high-stakes gambling, good on you, but you do not get access to people’s checking accounts and savings accounts,” Warren told Bloomberg News on Friday in urging the return of Glass-Steagall.</p>
<p>As opposed to Summers, who continued to insist on the wisdom of ending essential financial regulation, McCain, who had voted for the repeal, has seen the error of that decision. “Since core provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act were repealed in 1999, shattering the wall dividing commercial banks and investment banks, a culture of dangerous greed and excessive risk-taking has taken root in the banking world,” the senator said in a press release Thursday announcing the legislation.</p>
<p>Even Sanford Weill, who headed Citigroup after pushing for the reversal of Glass-Steagall, had the good sense to acknowledge his mistake, saying in a statement a year ago: “What we should probably do is go and split up investment banking from banking. Have banks do something that’s not going to risk the taxpayer dollars, that’s not going to be too big to fail.” Richard Parsons and John Reed, two other former high-ranking officers of Citigroup, also have called for the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall.</p>
<p>The question then is why Summers, the man who got it all wrong, would imagine that he could be in the running to head the Federal Reserve? Why would he ever fantasize that President Obama might turn to someone who always gets it wrong to right a still struggling economy?</p>
<p>Maybe because he knows Obama better than we do. After all, it was a massive infusion of Wall Street money that helped Obama get elected both times. And Wall Street, which showered Summers with almost $8 million in speaking fees and hedge fund profits during the 2008 campaign while he advised Obama, clearly would approve of this greed enabler as the next Fed chairman.</p> | true | 4 | tell sick joke former us treasury secretary lawrence summers guy tops list responsible sabotaging worlds economy lobbying next chairman federal reserve makes perfect sense since summers long succeeded spectacularly failing miserable record clinton obama administrations hold back future disastrous adventures expense ben bernanke set step january obama still deep denial pain damage former top economic adviser summers brought tens millions americans darling wall street yet another shot savage economy summers one key players clinton years creating mortgage derivative bubble ended costing tens millions americans homes life savings genius clintons treasury secretary supported banking lobbys successful effort make sale unregulated bundles mortgage securities phony insurance swaps backed perfectly legal totally unmonitored toxic bundles federal reserve still unloading banks cost trillions dollars back july 30 1998 deputy treasury secretary summers assured senate agriculture committee thriving derivatives market driving force american prosperity would fatally hurt government regulation sort proposed brooksley born stunningly prescient chair commodity futures trading commission summers opined parties kinds contracts largely sophisticated financial institutions would appear eminently capable protecting fraud counterparty insolvencies consider astounding stupidity statement utter ignorance upon based one financial ceo another testified knowing derivatives created worth evaporated think aig marketers products saved disaster injection government funds available foreclosed homeowners whose mortgages wrapped toxic securities dubious financial gimmicks marketed toobigtofail banks made legal another piece legislation supported summers passed year later clinton tapped treasury secretary summers ardent proponent repealing glasssteagall act prevented merger highflying investment houses traditional commercial banks entrusted government insured deposits ordinary folks first result destroying sensible barrier toobigtofail banks creation citigroup biggest bank world threatened wild derivative trading saved bankruptcy infusion taxpayers 45 billion us government aid guarantee 300 billion toxic assets summers condemned glasssteagall example archaic financial restrictions called instead allowing common ownership banking securities insurance firms decade later obama administration summers worked prevent return glasssteagall prohibition doddfrank legislation need restore reasonable banking regulation implemented president franklin roosevelt response great depression acknowledged bipartisan legislation introduced last week senate elizabeth warren dmass john mccain rariz take lot tools get rid toobigtofail one ought want highstakes gambling good get access peoples checking accounts savings accounts warren told bloomberg news friday urging return glasssteagall opposed summers continued insist wisdom ending essential financial regulation mccain voted repeal seen error decision since core provisions glasssteagall act repealed 1999 shattering wall dividing commercial banks investment banks culture dangerous greed excessive risktaking taken root banking world senator said press release thursday announcing legislation even sanford weill headed citigroup pushing reversal glasssteagall good sense acknowledge mistake saying statement year ago probably go split investment banking banking banks something thats going risk taxpayer dollars thats going big fail richard parsons john reed two former highranking officers citigroup also called reinstatement glasssteagall question summers man got wrong would imagine could running head federal reserve would ever fantasize president obama might turn someone always gets wrong right still struggling economy maybe knows obama better massive infusion wall street money helped obama get elected times wall street showered summers almost 8 million speaking fees hedge fund profits 2008 campaign advised obama clearly would approve greed enabler next fed chairman | 513 |
<p>&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45976898@N02/4575184210/"&gt;Nevele Otseog&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
<p />
<p>Even before Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. opened his mouth to argue that Arizona’s harsh anti-illegal immigration law should be struck down as unconstitutional, Chief Justice John Roberts laid down a bright red line.</p>
<p>“I just want to make clear what this law is not about,” Roberts said. “No part of your argument has to do with racial or ethnic profiling, does it?”</p>
<p>That preemptive strike on critics of Arizona’s SB 1070 set the tone for today’s Supreme Court arguments over whether or not <a href="" type="internal">four parts of the law are unconstitutional</a>. One of the Democratic appointees to the court, Justice Elena Kagan, has recused herself from the case. So even if the remaining Democratic appointees join with one of the court’s conservatives to vote to strike down the law, the result will merely be a 4-4 tie that won’t result in an opinion. It’s possible some parts of the law will survive but not others. That result seems optimistic, however, because today’s oral arguments sounded like they could have been broadcast by Fox News.</p>
<p>Although most of the justices took pains to avoid discussing the law’s actual impact on the population it targets, they were comfortable describing that population in the most unflattering terms possible. The justices—including Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court’s first Latina—frequently referred to unauthorized immigrants as “illegal aliens” or an “illegal person.” Justice Antonin Scalia defended Arizona’s right to “defend its borders,” <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/us/arizona-immigration-law-debated-in-senate-hearing.html?_r=1&amp;partner=rss&amp;emc=rss" type="external">echoing the rhetoric</a> of the law’s champion, now-deposed Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce, who refers to illegal immigration as “an invasion.” Going even further, Scalia offered an analogy in which he compared unauthorized immigrants to armed thieves, suggested that the Obama administration’s prioritizing of undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes was like saying “we may only want to go after the professional bank robbers.”</p>
<p>The Obama administration says SB 1070’s provisions infringe on the federal government’s authority to enforce immigration laws. Arizona claims SB 1070 actually complements federal law, rather than interfering with it. And although the Constitution gives the federal government wide authority over immigration and previous cases have reinforced that interpretation, the justices often appeared rather sympathetic to Arizona on Wednesday. When Verrilli argued that the framers of the Constitution gave the federal government authority over immigration laws because immigration is inherently related to foreign affairs, Scalia snapped, “So we have to enforce our laws in a way that pleases Mexico.”</p>
<p>Nor was Scalia pleased when Verrilli pointed out that Arizona’s Latino population was implicitly targeted by the law. “Sounds like racial profiling to me,” he grumbled, before crying out, “Are you objecting to harassing the people who have no business being here? Surely you’re not concerned about harassing them.” That American citizens of Latino descent in Arizona might be subject to harassment was irrelevant to Scalia. The government did not claim in its brief that the Arizona law would result in racial discrimination, but Scalia made it clear that he would not care if it did. The law explicitly forbids racial profiling, but it possesses no supernatural power to erase from the minds of authorities their conception of what a stereotypical unauthorized immigrant looks like.</p>
<p>Former Solicitor General Paul Clement, who distinguished himself arguing on behalf of Obamacare opponents in March, was there for a rematch of sorts with Verrilli. Clement argued that the Arizona law didn’t preempt federal law but rather enhanced or complemented it, an argument the justices seemed receptive to. He also subtly accused the Obama administration of hypocrisy, saying, “The federal government doesn’t like this law, but they’re very proud of their <a href="http://www.ice.gov/secure_communities/" type="external">Secure Communities program</a>.” It was remarkable that Clement was the only one in the court today who alluded to the incredible amount resources the Obama administration has deployed to stop illegal immigration, often to the frustration of immigration reform activists.</p>
<p>When Verrilli argued that allowing police to question the immigration status of those arrested would not conflict with federal law if done on an individual rather than a systemic basis, Justice Sotomayor offered him a little advice: “You can see [that’s] not selling very well…Why don’t you come up with something else?”</p>
<p>Verrilli tried to point out that making it an Arizona state crime to be without federal registration papers would impact individuals without legal residency whom the federal government doesn’t want to deport—such as undocumented women fleeing abusive partners who may be eligible for legal status. He pointed out that the part of the Arizona law that criminalizes undocumented immigrants who seek employment were acting in a manner “we would expect law abiding people to do, which is feed their families.” It was the only moment during the oral arguments in which unauthorized immigrants were discussed as anything other than criminals.</p>
<p>As with the health care arguments, the exchanges often went past the legal conflict over state and federal authority and into the realm of politics. And here, as ever, the conservative justices on the court showed signs of living in a Fox News cocoon. The facts on the ground—that the federal government has deported more than a <a href="" type="internal">million unauthorized immigrants</a> in the past three years and net migration from <a href="http://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/04/23/net-migration-from-mexico-falls-to-zero-and-perhaps-less/" type="external">Mexico has reached zero</a> and possibly even reversed—didn’t seem to matter.</p>
<p>The chief justice himself offered a dispatch from a conservative alternate universe where a giant statue of Obama stands astride the US-Mexico border like the Colossus of Rhodes, wearing a sombrero and bearing a giant neon sign that reads “¡Bienvenido!” “It sounds to me,” Roberts sniffed, “like the federal government just doesn’t want to know who’s here illegally or not.”</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | lta hrefhttpwwwflickrcomphotos45976898n024575184210gtnevele otseogltagtflickr even solicitor general donald b verrilli jr opened mouth argue arizonas harsh antiillegal immigration law struck unconstitutional chief justice john roberts laid bright red line want make clear law roberts said part argument racial ethnic profiling preemptive strike critics arizonas sb 1070 set tone todays supreme court arguments whether four parts law unconstitutional one democratic appointees court justice elena kagan recused case even remaining democratic appointees join one courts conservatives vote strike law result merely 44 tie wont result opinion possible parts law survive others result seems optimistic however todays oral arguments sounded like could broadcast fox news although justices took pains avoid discussing laws actual impact population targets comfortable describing population unflattering terms possible justicesincluding justice sonia sotomayor courts first latinafrequently referred unauthorized immigrants illegal aliens illegal person justice antonin scalia defended arizonas right defend borders echoing rhetoric laws champion nowdeposed arizona state sen russell pearce refers illegal immigration invasion going even scalia offered analogy compared unauthorized immigrants armed thieves suggested obama administrations prioritizing undocumented immigrants committed crimes like saying may want go professional bank robbers obama administration says sb 1070s provisions infringe federal governments authority enforce immigration laws arizona claims sb 1070 actually complements federal law rather interfering although constitution gives federal government wide authority immigration previous cases reinforced interpretation justices often appeared rather sympathetic arizona wednesday verrilli argued framers constitution gave federal government authority immigration laws immigration inherently related foreign affairs scalia snapped enforce laws way pleases mexico scalia pleased verrilli pointed arizonas latino population implicitly targeted law sounds like racial profiling grumbled crying objecting harassing people business surely youre concerned harassing american citizens latino descent arizona might subject harassment irrelevant scalia government claim brief arizona law would result racial discrimination scalia made clear would care law explicitly forbids racial profiling possesses supernatural power erase minds authorities conception stereotypical unauthorized immigrant looks like former solicitor general paul clement distinguished arguing behalf obamacare opponents march rematch sorts verrilli clement argued arizona law didnt preempt federal law rather enhanced complemented argument justices seemed receptive also subtly accused obama administration hypocrisy saying federal government doesnt like law theyre proud secure communities program remarkable clement one court today alluded incredible amount resources obama administration deployed stop illegal immigration often frustration immigration reform activists verrilli argued allowing police question immigration status arrested would conflict federal law done individual rather systemic basis justice sotomayor offered little advice see thats selling wellwhy dont come something else verrilli tried point making arizona state crime without federal registration papers would impact individuals without legal residency federal government doesnt want deportsuch undocumented women fleeing abusive partners may eligible legal status pointed part arizona law criminalizes undocumented immigrants seek employment acting manner would expect law abiding people feed families moment oral arguments unauthorized immigrants discussed anything criminals health care arguments exchanges often went past legal conflict state federal authority realm politics ever conservative justices court showed signs living fox news cocoon facts groundthat federal government deported million unauthorized immigrants past three years net migration mexico reached zero possibly even reverseddidnt seem matter chief justice offered dispatch conservative alternate universe giant statue obama stands astride usmexico border like colossus rhodes wearing sombrero bearing giant neon sign reads bienvenido sounds roberts sniffed like federal government doesnt want know whos illegally | 543 |
<p>&lt;a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/5666065982/in/photolist-9CG51N-9CG6KA-5Tmnbt-anav9X-8JLdax-6Gxutt-5tYSbD-6GByWA-9CD6Mi-9CFWzW-bbPTZc-9CFTxm-SqR2n-8RYehh-dLV9LE-524rby-4WrJkA-5aogZ3-5UfqRN-52RpXn-i5mYXm-HNuAj-4s5uqS-fk4DoJ-fk4Dp5-c195YW-9CD8pT-9CCUAT-5HG4kC-5Aux2J-9rjm6Q-h8iZ3-bmK1z3-iixBH-5tfxCg-bRqLNe-6nWR63-86S8jf-5THEeR-5eSBWW-6YC8ae-gHyEw3-ua2e8-6mfrUK-NSJME-NSKi5-hjHN41-iixHq-iixD7-iixL4"&gt;DonkeyHotey&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
<p>This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175942/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external" /></p>
<p>Dear Aspiring Ranger,</p>
<p>You’ve probably just graduated from high school and you’ve undoubtedly already signed an Option 40 contract guaranteeing you a shot at the Ranger indoctrination program (R.I.P.). &#160;If you make it through R.I.P. you’ll surely be sent off to fight in the Global War on Terror. You’ll be part of what I often heard called “the tip of the spear.”</p>
<p>The war you’re heading into has been going on for a remarkably long time. Imagine this: you were five years old when I was first deployed to Afghanistan in 2002. Now I’m graying a bit, losing a little up top, and I have a family. &#160;Believe me, it goes faster than you expect.</p>
<p>Once you get to a certain age, you can’t help thinking about the decisions you made (or that, in a sense, were made for you) when you were younger. I do that and someday you will, too. Reflecting on my own years in the 75th Ranger regiment, at a moment when the war you’ll find yourself immersed in was just beginning, I’ve tried to jot down a few of the things they don’t tell you at the recruiting office or in the pro-military Hollywood movies that may have influenced your decision to join. Maybe my experience will give you a perspective you haven’t considered.</p>
<p>I imagine you’re entering the military for the same reason just about everyone volunteers: it felt like your only option. Maybe it was money, or a judge, or a need for a rite of passage, or the end of athletic stardom. Maybe you still believe that the US is fighting for freedom and democracy around the world and in existential danger from “the terrorists.” Maybe it seems like the only reasonable thing to do: defend our country against terrorism.</p>
<p>The media has been a powerful propaganda tool when it comes to promoting that image, despite the fact that, as a civilian, you were more likely to be killed by <a href="http://blogs.forward.com/jj-goldberg/176043/more-killed-by-toddlers-than-terrorists-in-us/" type="external">a toddler</a> than a terrorist. &#160;I trust you don’t want regrets when you’re older and that you commendably want to do something meaningful with your life. I’m sure you hope to be the best at something. That’s why you signed up to be a Ranger.</p>
<p>Make no mistake: whatever the news may say about the changing cast of characters the US is fighting and the changing motivations behind the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Terror" type="external">changing names</a> of our military “operations” around the world, you and I will have fought in the same war. It’s hard to believe that you will be taking us into the 14th year of the Global War on Terror (whatever they may be calling it now). I wonder which one of the <a href="http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/The-Changing-Face-of-Empire" type="external">668 US military bases</a> worldwide you’ll be sent to.</p>
<p>In its basics, our global war is less complicated to understand than you might think, despite the difficult-to-keep-track-of enemies you will be sent after—whether al-Qaeda (“central,” al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, in the Magreb, etc.), or the Taliban, or al-Shabab in Somalia, or ISIS (aka ISIL, or the Islamic State), or Iran, or the al-Nusra Front, or Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. Admittedly, it’s a little hard to keep a reasonable scorecard. Are the Shia or the Sunnis our allies? Is it Islam we’re at war with? Are we against ISIS or the Assad regime or both of them?</p>
<p>Just who these groups are matters, but there’s an underlying point that it’s been too easy to overlook in recent years: ever since this country’s first Afghan War in the 1980s (that spurred the formation of the original al-Qaeda), our foreign and military policies have played a crucial role in creating those you will be sent to fight. Once you are in one of the three battalions of the 75th Ranger Regiment, the chain-of-command will do its best to reduce global politics and the long-term good of the planet to the smallest of matters and replace them with the largest of tasks: boot polishing, perfectly made beds, tight shot groupings at the firing range, and your bonds with the Rangers to your right and left.</p>
<p>In such circumstances, it’s difficult—I know that well—but not impossible to keep in mind that your actions in the military involve far more than whatever’s in front of you or in your gun sights at any given moment. Our military operations around the world—and soon that will mean you—have produced all kinds of blowback. Thought about a certain way, I was being sent out in 2002 to respond to the blowback created by the first Afghan War and you’re about to be sent out to deal with the blowback created by my version of the second one.</p>
<p>I’m writing this letter in the hope that offering you a little of my own story might help frame the bigger picture for you.</p>
<p>Let me start with my first day “on the job.” &#160;I remember dropping my canvas duffle bag at the foot of my bunk in Charlie Company, and almost immediately being called into my platoon sergeant’s office. &#160;I sprinted down a well-buffed hallway, shadowed by the platoon’s “mascot”: a Grim-Reaper-style figure with the battalion’s red and black scroll beneath it. It hovered like something you’d see in a haunted house on the cinder block wall adjoining the sergeant’s office. &#160;It seemed to be watching me as I snapped to attention in his doorway, beads of sweat on my forehead. “At ease… Why are you here, Fanning? Why do you think you should be a Ranger?” All this he said with an air of suspicion.</p>
<p>Shaken, after being screamed out of a bus with all my gear, across an expansive lawn in front of the company’s barracks, and up three flights of stairs to my new home, I responded hesitantly, “Umm, I want to help prevent another 9/11, First Sergeant.” It must have sounded almost like a question.</p>
<p>“There is only one answer to what I just asked you, son. That is: you want to feel the warm red blood of your enemy run down your knife blade.”</p>
<p>Taking in his military awards, the multiple tall stacks of manila folders on his desk, and the photos of what turned out to be his platoon in Afghanistan, I said in a loud voice that rang remarkably hollowly, at least to me, “Roger, First Sergeant!”</p>
<p>He dropped his head and started filling out a form. “We’re done here,” he said without even bothering to look up again.</p>
<p>The platoon sergeant’s answer had a distinct hint of lust in it but, surrounded by all those folders, he also looked to me like a bureaucrat. Surely such a question deserved something more than the few impersonal and sociopathic seconds I spent in that doorway.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463915/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />Nonetheless, I spun around and ran back to my bunk to unpack, not just my gear but also his disturbing answer to his own question and my sheepish, “Roger, First Sergeant!” reply. Until that moment, I hadn’t thought of killing in such an intimate way. I had indeed signed on with the idea of preventing another 9/11. Killing was still an abstract idea to me, something I didn’t look forward to. He undoubtedly knew this. So what was he doing?</p>
<p>As you head into your new life, let me try to unpack his answer and my experience as a Ranger for you.</p>
<p>Let’s start that unpacking process with racism: That was the first and one of the last times I heard the word “enemy” in battalion. The usual word in my unit was “Hajji.” Now, Hajji is a word of honor among Muslims, referring to someone who has successfully completed a pilgrimage to the Holy Site of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. In the US military, however, it was a slur that implied something so much bigger.</p>
<p>The soldiers in my unit just assumed that the mission of the small band of people who took down the Twin Towers and put a hole in the Pentagon could be applied to any religious person among the more than 1.6 billion Muslims on this planet. The platoon sergeant would soon help usher me into group-blame mode with that “enemy.” I was to be taught <a href="http://www.pcc.edu/staff/pdf/602/PSY216Chapter6PPT(introandcauses).pdf" type="external">instrumental aggression</a>. The pain caused by 9/11 was to be tied to the everyday group dynamics of our unit. This is how they would get me to fight effectively. I was about to be cut off from my previous life and psychological manipulation of a radical sort would be involved. This is something you should prepare yourself for.</p>
<p>When you start hearing the same type of language from your chain-of-command in its attempt to dehumanize the people you are off to fight, remember that <a href="http://twocircles.net/2008feb26/politics_not_piety_dictate_radicals_muslim_world_poll.html#.VKbCKlqSUyw" type="external">93% of all Muslims</a> condemned the attacks on 9/11. And those who sympathized claimed they feared a US occupation and cited political not religious reasons for their support.</p>
<p>But, to be blunt, as George W. Bush <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1781/james_carroll_the_bush_crusade" type="external">said early on</a> (and then never repeated), the war on terror was indeed imagined in the highest of places as a “crusade.” When I was in the Rangers, that was a given. The formula was simple enough: al-Qaeda and the Taliban represented all of Islam, which was our enemy. Now, in that group-blame game, ISIS, with its mini-terror state in Iraq and Syria, has taken over the role. Be clear again that <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/10/05/uk-mideast-crisis-britain-idUKKCN0HT0CB20141005" type="external">nearly all Muslims</a> reject its tactics. Even Sunnis in the region where ISIS is operating are increasingly <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/07/world/middleeast/promise-is-seen-in-deals-with-tribes-in-iraqs-battle-against-isis.html?_r=1" type="external">rejecting the group</a>. And it is those Sunnis who may indeed take down ISIS when the time is right.</p>
<p>If you want to be true to yourself, don’t be swept up in the racism of the moment. Your job should be to end war, not perpetuate it. Never forget that.</p>
<p>The second stop in that unpacking process should be poverty: After a few months, I was finally shipped off to Afghanistan. We landed in the middle of the night. As the doors on our C-5 opened, the smell of dust, clay, and old fruit rolled into the belly of that transport plane. I was expecting the bullets to start whizzing by me as I left it, but we were at Bagram Air Base, a largely secure place in 2002.</p>
<p>Jump ahead two weeks and a three-hour helicopter ride and we were at our forward operating base. The morning after we arrived I noticed an Afghan woman pounding at the hard yellow dirt with a shovel, trying to dig up a gaunt little shrub just outside the stone walls of the base. Through the eye-slit of her burqa I could just catch a hint of her aged face. My unit took off from that base, marching along a road, hoping (I suspect) to stir up a little trouble. We were presenting ourselves as bait, but there were no bites.</p>
<p>When we returned a few hours later, that woman was still digging and gathering firewood, undoubtedly to cook her family’s dinner that night. We had our grenade launchers, our M242 machine guns that fired 200 rounds a minute, our night-vision goggles, and plenty of food—all vacuum-sealed and all of it tasting the same. We were so much better equipped to deal with the mountains of Afghanistan than that woman—or so it seemed to us then. But it was, of course, her country, not ours, and its poverty, like that of so many places you may find yourself in, will, I assure you, be unlike anything you have ever seen. You will be part of the most technologically advanced military on Earth and you will be greeted by the poorest of the poor. Your weaponry in such an impoverished society will feel obscene on many levels. Personally, I felt like a bully much of my time in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Now, it’s the moment to unpack “the enemy”: Most of my time in Afghanistan was quiet and calm. Yes, rockets occasionally landed in our bases, but most of the Taliban had surrendered by the time I entered the country. I didn’t know it then, but as Anand Gopal has <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175837/anand_gopal_how_the_U.S._created" type="external">reported</a> in his groundbreaking book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805091793/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">No Good Men Among the Living</a>, our war on terror warriors weren’t satisfied with reports of the unconditional surrender of the Taliban. So units like mine were sent out looking for “the enemy.” Our job was to draw the Taliban—or anyone really—back into the fight.</p>
<p>Believe me, it was ugly. We were often enough targeting innocent people based on bad intelligence and in some cases even seizing Afghans who had actually pledged allegiance to the US mission. For many former Taliban members, it became an obvious choice: fight or starve, take up arms again or be randomly seized and possibly killed anyway. &#160;Eventually the Taliban did regroup and today they are <a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/12/29/7464111/afghanistan-war-failure" type="external">resurgent</a>. I know now that if our country’s leadership had truly had peace on its mind, it could have all been over in Afghanistan <a href="http://us.macmillan.com/nogoodmenamongtheliving/anandgopal" type="external">in early 2002</a>.</p>
<p>If you are shipped off to Iraq for our latest war there, remember that the Sunni population you will be targeting is reacting to a US-backed Shia regime in Baghdad that’s done them dirty for years. ISIS exists to a significant degree because the largely secular members of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party were labeled the enemy as they tried to surrender after the US invasion of 2003. Many of them had the urge to be reincorporated into a functioning society, but no such luck; and then, of course, the key official the Bush administration sent to Baghdad <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/05/23/sprj.nitop.army.dissolve/" type="external">simply disbanded</a> Saddam Hussein’s army and tossed its <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/05/23/sprj.nitop.army.dissolve/" type="external">400,000</a> troops out onto the streets at a time of mass unemployment.</p>
<p>It was a remarkable formula for creating resistance in another country where surrender wasn’t good enough. The Americans of that moment wanted to control Iraq (and its oil reserves). &#160;To this end, in 2006, they backed the Shia autocrat Nouri al-Maliki for prime minister in a situation where Shia militias were increasingly intent on ethnically cleansing the Sunni population of the Iraqi capital.</p>
<p>Given the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-baghdad-middle-class-sunnis-say-they-prefer-militants-to-maliki/2014/07/11/fa0b66a7-1b09-409a-a5ed-ab580bc93a4a_story.html" type="external">reign of terror</a> that followed, it’s hardly surprising to find former Baathist army officers in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/11/-sp-isis-the-inside-story" type="external">key positions</a> in ISIS and the Sunnis choosing that grim outfit as the lesser of the two evils in its world. Again, the enemy you are being shipped off to fight is, at least in part, a <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175888/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_the_escalation_follies/" type="external">product</a> of your chain-of-command’s meddling in a sovereign country. And remember that, whatever its grim acts, this enemy presents no existential threat to American security, at least so <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/international/219659-biden-terrorism-no-existential-threat-to-us" type="external">says</a> Vice President Joe Biden. Let that sink in for a while and then ask yourself whether you really can take your marching orders seriously.</p>
<p>Next, in that unpacking process, consider noncombatants: When unidentified Afghans would shoot at our tents with old Russian rocket launchers, we would guesstimate where the rockets had come from and then call in air strikes. You’re talking 500-pound bombs. And so civilians would die. Believe me, that’s really what’s at the heart of our ongoing war. Any American like you heading into a war zone in any of these years was likely to witness what we call “collateral damage.” That’s dead civilians.</p>
<p>The number of non-combatants killed since 9/11 across the Greater Middle East in our ongoing war has been breathtaking and horrifying. Be prepared, when you fight, to take out more civilians than actual gun-toting or bomb-wielding “militants.” At the least, an estimated <a href="http://costsofwar.org/article/civilians-killed-and-wounded" type="external">174,000 civilians</a> died violent deaths as a result of US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan between 2001 and April 2014. In Iraq, over <a href="http://costsofwar.org/article/civilians-killed-and-wounded" type="external">70%</a> of those who died are estimated to have been civilians. So get ready to contend with needless deaths and think about all those who have lost friends and family members in these wars, and themselves are now scarred for life. A lot of people who once would never have thought about fighting any type of war or attacking Americans now entertain the idea. In other words, you will be perpetuating war, handing it off to the future.</p>
<p>Finally, there’s freedom and democracy to unpack, if we’re really going to empty that duffel bag: Here’s an interesting fact that you might consider, if spreading freedom and democracy around the world was on your mind. Though records are incomplete on the subject, the police have killed something like <a href="http://thefreethoughtproject.com/americans-killed-cops-outnumber-americans-killed-iraq-war/" type="external">5,000</a> people in this country since 9/11—more, in other words, than the number of American soldiers killed by “insurgents” in the same period. In those same years, outfits like the Rangers and the rest of the US military have killed countless numbers of people worldwide, targeting the poorest people on the planet. &#160;And are there fewer terrorists around? Does all this really make a lot of sense to you?</p>
<p>When I signed up for the military, I was hoping to make a better world. Instead I helped make it more dangerous. I had recently graduated from college. I was also hoping that, in volunteering, I would get some of my student loans paid for. Like you, I was looking for practical help, but also for meaning. I wanted to do right by my family and my country. Looking back, it’s clear enough to me that my lack of knowledge about the actual mission we were undertaking betrayed me—and you and us.</p>
<p>I’m writing to you especially because I just want you to know that it’s not too late to change your mind. I did. I became a war resister after my second deployment in Afghanistan for all the reasons I mention above. I finally unpacked, so to speak. Leaving the military was one of the most difficult but rewarding experiences of my life. My own goal is to take what I learned in the military and bring it to high school and college students as a kind of counter-recruiter. There’s so much work to be done, given the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Irregular-Army-Recruited-Neo-Nazis-Criminals/dp/1844678806" type="external">10,000 military recruiters</a> in the US working with an almost <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/war-and-peace-in-30-seconds-how-much-does-the-military-spend-on-ads/252222/" type="external">$700 million</a> advertising budget. After all, kids do need to hear both sides.</p>
<p>I hope this letter is a jumping off point for you. And if, by any chance, you haven’t signed that Option 40 contract yet, you don’t have to. You can be an effective counter-recruiter without being an ex-military guy. Young people across this country desperately need your energy, your desire to be the best, your pursuit of meaning. Don’t waste it in Iraq or Afghanistan or Yemen or Somalia or anywhere else the Global War on Terror is likely to send you.</p>
<p>As we used to say in the Rangers…</p>
<p>Lead the Way,</p>
<p>Rory Fanning</p>
<p>Rory Fanning, a <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175912/tomgram%3A_rory_fanning,_why_do_we_keep_thanking_the_troops/" type="external">TomDispatch regular</a>, walked across the United States for the Pat Tillman Foundation in 2008-2009, following two deployments to Afghanistan with the 2nd Army Ranger Battalion. Fanning became a conscientious objector after his second tour. He is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463915/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Worth Fighting For: An Army Ranger’s Journey Out of the Military and Across America</a> (Haymarket, 2014). To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com <a href="http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&amp;id=1e41682ade" type="external">here</a>.</p>
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Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Rebecca Solnit’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464962/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Men Explain Things to Me</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> | true | 4 | lta hrefhttpswwwflickrcomphotosdonkeyhotey5666065982inphotolist9cg51n9cg6ka5tmnbtanav9x8jldax6gxutt5tysbd6gbywa9cd6mi9cfwzwbbptzc9cftxmsqr2n8ryehhdlv9le524rby4wrjka5aogz35ufqrn52rpxni5myxmhnuaj4s5uqsfk4dojfk4dp5c195yw9cd8pt9ccuat5hg4kc5aux2j9rjm6qh8iz3bmk1z3iixbh5tfxcgbrqlne6nwr6386s8jf5theer5esbww6yc8aeghyew3ua2e86mfruknsjmenski5hjhn41iixhqiixd7iixl4gtdonkeyhoteyltagtflickr story first appeared tomdispatch website dear aspiring ranger youve probably graduated high school youve undoubtedly already signed option 40 contract guaranteeing shot ranger indoctrination program rip 160if make rip youll surely sent fight global war terror youll part often heard called tip spear war youre heading going remarkably long time imagine five years old first deployed afghanistan 2002 im graying bit losing little top family 160believe goes faster expect get certain age cant help thinking decisions made sense made younger someday reflecting years 75th ranger regiment moment war youll find immersed beginning ive tried jot things dont tell recruiting office promilitary hollywood movies may influenced decision join maybe experience give perspective havent considered imagine youre entering military reason everyone volunteers felt like option maybe money judge need rite passage end athletic stardom maybe still believe us fighting freedom democracy around world existential danger terrorists maybe seems like reasonable thing defend country terrorism media powerful propaganda tool comes promoting image despite fact civilian likely killed toddler terrorist 160i trust dont want regrets youre older commendably want something meaningful life im sure hope best something thats signed ranger make mistake whatever news may say changing cast characters us fighting changing motivations behind changing names military operations around world fought war hard believe taking us 14th year global war terror whatever may calling wonder one 668 us military bases worldwide youll sent basics global war less complicated understand might think despite difficulttokeeptrackof enemies sent afterwhether alqaeda central alqaeda arabian peninsula magreb etc taliban alshabab somalia isis aka isil islamic state iran alnusra front bashar alassads regime syria admittedly little hard keep reasonable scorecard shia sunnis allies islam war isis assad regime groups matters theres underlying point easy overlook recent years ever since countrys first afghan war 1980s spurred formation original alqaeda foreign military policies played crucial role creating sent fight one three battalions 75th ranger regiment chainofcommand best reduce global politics longterm good planet smallest matters replace largest tasks boot polishing perfectly made beds tight shot groupings firing range bonds rangers right left circumstances difficulti know wellbut impossible keep mind actions military involve far whatevers front gun sights given moment military operations around worldand soon mean youhave produced kinds blowback thought certain way sent 2002 respond blowback created first afghan war youre sent deal blowback created version second one im writing letter hope offering little story might help frame bigger picture let start first day job 160i remember dropping canvas duffle bag foot bunk charlie company almost immediately called platoon sergeants office 160i sprinted wellbuffed hallway shadowed platoons mascot grimreaperstyle figure battalions red black scroll beneath hovered like something youd see haunted house cinder block wall adjoining sergeants office 160it seemed watching snapped attention doorway beads sweat forehead ease fanning think ranger said air suspicion shaken screamed bus gear across expansive lawn front companys barracks three flights stairs new home responded hesitantly umm want help prevent another 911 first sergeant must sounded almost like question one answer asked son want feel warm red blood enemy run knife blade taking military awards multiple tall stacks manila folders desk photos turned platoon afghanistan said loud voice rang remarkably hollowly least roger first sergeant dropped head started filling form done said without even bothering look platoon sergeants answer distinct hint lust surrounded folders also looked like bureaucrat surely question deserved something impersonal sociopathic seconds spent doorway nonetheless spun around ran back bunk unpack gear also disturbing answer question sheepish roger first sergeant reply moment hadnt thought killing intimate way indeed signed idea preventing another 911 killing still abstract idea something didnt look forward undoubtedly knew head new life let try unpack answer experience ranger lets start unpacking process racism first one last times heard word enemy battalion usual word unit hajji hajji word honor among muslims referring someone successfully completed pilgrimage holy site mecca saudi arabia us military however slur implied something much bigger soldiers unit assumed mission small band people took twin towers put hole pentagon could applied religious person among 16 billion muslims planet platoon sergeant would soon help usher groupblame mode enemy taught instrumental aggression pain caused 911 tied everyday group dynamics unit would get fight effectively cut previous life psychological manipulation radical sort would involved something prepare start hearing type language chainofcommand attempt dehumanize people fight remember 93 muslims condemned attacks 911 sympathized claimed feared us occupation cited political religious reasons support blunt george w bush said early never repeated war terror indeed imagined highest places crusade rangers given formula simple enough alqaeda taliban represented islam enemy groupblame game isis miniterror state iraq syria taken role clear nearly muslims reject tactics even sunnis region isis operating increasingly rejecting group sunnis may indeed take isis time right want true dont swept racism moment job end war perpetuate never forget second stop unpacking process poverty months finally shipped afghanistan landed middle night doors c5 opened smell dust clay old fruit rolled belly transport plane expecting bullets start whizzing left bagram air base largely secure place 2002 jump ahead two weeks threehour helicopter ride forward operating base morning arrived noticed afghan woman pounding hard yellow dirt shovel trying dig gaunt little shrub outside stone walls base eyeslit burqa could catch hint aged face unit took base marching along road hoping suspect stir little trouble presenting bait bites returned hours later woman still digging gathering firewood undoubtedly cook familys dinner night grenade launchers m242 machine guns fired 200 rounds minute nightvision goggles plenty foodall vacuumsealed tasting much better equipped deal mountains afghanistan womanor seemed us course country poverty like many places may find assure unlike anything ever seen part technologically advanced military earth greeted poorest poor weaponry impoverished society feel obscene many levels personally felt like bully much time afghanistan moment unpack enemy time afghanistan quiet calm yes rockets occasionally landed bases taliban surrendered time entered country didnt know anand gopal reported groundbreaking book good men among living war terror warriors werent satisfied reports unconditional surrender taliban units like mine sent looking enemy job draw talibanor anyone reallyback fight believe ugly often enough targeting innocent people based bad intelligence cases even seizing afghans actually pledged allegiance us mission many former taliban members became obvious choice fight starve take arms randomly seized possibly killed anyway 160eventually taliban regroup today resurgent know countrys leadership truly peace mind could afghanistan early 2002 shipped iraq latest war remember sunni population targeting reacting usbacked shia regime baghdad thats done dirty years isis exists significant degree largely secular members saddam husseins baath party labeled enemy tried surrender us invasion 2003 many urge reincorporated functioning society luck course key official bush administration sent baghdad simply disbanded saddam husseins army tossed 400000 troops onto streets time mass unemployment remarkable formula creating resistance another country surrender wasnt good enough americans moment wanted control iraq oil reserves 160to end 2006 backed shia autocrat nouri almaliki prime minister situation shia militias increasingly intent ethnically cleansing sunni population iraqi capital given reign terror followed hardly surprising find former baathist army officers key positions isis sunnis choosing grim outfit lesser two evils world enemy shipped fight least part product chainofcommands meddling sovereign country remember whatever grim acts enemy presents existential threat american security least says vice president joe biden let sink ask whether really take marching orders seriously next unpacking process consider noncombatants unidentified afghans would shoot tents old russian rocket launchers would guesstimate rockets come call air strikes youre talking 500pound bombs civilians would die believe thats really whats heart ongoing war american like heading war zone years likely witness call collateral damage thats dead civilians number noncombatants killed since 911 across greater middle east ongoing war breathtaking horrifying prepared fight take civilians actual guntoting bombwielding militants least estimated 174000 civilians died violent deaths result us wars iraq afghanistan pakistan 2001 april 2014 iraq 70 died estimated civilians get ready contend needless deaths think lost friends family members wars scarred life lot people would never thought fighting type war attacking americans entertain idea words perpetuating war handing future finally theres freedom democracy unpack really going empty duffel bag heres interesting fact might consider spreading freedom democracy around world mind though records incomplete subject police killed something like 5000 people country since 911more words number american soldiers killed insurgents period years outfits like rangers rest us military killed countless numbers people worldwide targeting poorest people planet 160and fewer terrorists around really make lot sense signed military hoping make better world instead helped make dangerous recently graduated college also hoping volunteering would get student loans paid like looking practical help also meaning wanted right family country looking back clear enough lack knowledge actual mission undertaking betrayed meand us im writing especially want know late change mind became war resister second deployment afghanistan reasons mention finally unpacked speak leaving military one difficult rewarding experiences life goal take learned military bring high school college students kind counterrecruiter theres much work done given 10000 military recruiters us working almost 700 million advertising budget kids need hear sides hope letter jumping point chance havent signed option 40 contract yet dont effective counterrecruiter without exmilitary guy young people across country desperately need energy desire best pursuit meaning dont waste iraq afghanistan yemen somalia anywhere else global war terror likely send used say rangers lead way rory fanning rory fanning tomdispatch regular walked across united states pat tillman foundation 20082009 following two deployments afghanistan 2nd army ranger battalion fanning became conscientious objector second tour author worth fighting army rangers journey military across america haymarket 2014 stay top important articles like sign receive latest updates tomdispatchcom follow tomdispatch twitter join us facebook check newest dispatch book rebecca solnits men explain things tom engelhardts latest book shadow government surveillance secret wars global security state singlesuperpower world | 1,620 |
<p>Just a year ago, Attorney General John Ashcroft pointed to the Iraqi prison system as a shining example of the freedoms that the U.S. would bring to Iraq.</p>
<p>He said, “Now, all Iraqis can taste liberty in their native land, and we will help make that freedom permanent by assisting them to establish an equitable criminal justice system, based on the rule of law and standards of basic human rights.”</p>
<p>The rhetoric of law and justice was in full force after the fall of Saddam Hussein, but now, in the wake of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, the discourse concerning Iraqi prisons has become far removed from the self-congratulatory statements of Ashcroft. As U.S. credibility disintegrates in Iraq, there is public outcry to assign blame to those responsible for torture, rape and murder.</p>
<p>There are the obvious culprits: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his initiation of a special access program that encouraged harsher interrogations at Abu Ghraib, the government officials who pestered lawyers with questions about the legality of torture, and the U.S. prison guards turned soldiers who let the dogs loose, literally and figuratively.</p>
<p>But as the military continues to shift the blame up and down the chain of command, some lesser known officials have managed to slip past public scrutiny. Their involvement implicates the American government and its domestic policy of mass imprisonment and brutalization in the torture of Iraqi prisoners.</p>
<p>History of ICITAP</p>
<p>In May 2003, Ashcroft appointed an envoy of mostly American prison officials to help “restore law and order in Iraq” by chipping away at Hussein’s much feared torture chambers until they resembled something closer to American prisons. For six months, the envoy would take on the monumental task of preparing preexisting Iraqi prisons for prisoners. Through the International Criminal Investigative Training Program (ICITAP), these officials would decide details such as the number of bunks per prison and the training of Iraqi prison guards.</p>
<p>ICITAP is based in the Department of Justice, but receives funding for individual projects through the Department of State. ICITAP has embarked on many missions since its inception in 1986, from the former Soviet Union to Haiti to Indonesia.</p>
<p>The missions change locations, but their teams have managed to accrue a consistent record of questionable activities while operating under the guise of rebuilding criminal justice systems.</p>
<p>Typically, ICITAP serves to prop up the police and prison systems of American client states. It is a successor to the police training program run by the Agency for International Development. That program was halted in the mid-70’s after the Watergate scandal when it became public knowledge that U.S. AID officials were training police and prison officials around the world in techniques of murder and torture, mostly for use against leftist insurgencies. The activities of ICITAP are not new, only the name is.</p>
<p>In Russia throughout the mid-90’s, Department of Justice officials were accused of illegally acquiring visas for their Russian girlfriends, sharing classified information with uncleared parties and cronyism, in what the Department’s inspector general summed up as “egregious misconduct.”</p>
<p>ICITAP has had a continuous role in Haiti. ICITAP has been sent to train the Haitian police force and restore the criminal justice system. After millions of dollars in funding, the Haitian police force was still deemed “largely ineffective” and accused of serving only “a small segment of the population,” according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.</p>
<p>Terry Stewart</p>
<p>Terry Stewart accepted his invitation to participate in the ICITAP mission to Iraq. Like the others serving on the team, Stewart had numerous years of experience in prisons, both as former director of the Arizona Department of Corrections (1995-2002) and as a consultant for the private prison firm Advanced Correctional Management.</p>
<p>Donna Hamm, founder and Executive Director of Middle Ground Prison Reform, witnessed Stewart in action in Arizona, where he accumulated many accusations of human rights violations. She said, “Twenty years of credentials is just one year repeated 20 times. There’s no change.”</p>
<p>In 1995, after prisoners set fire to buildings at Safford Arizona State Prison in response to unacceptable conditions, all 613 prisoners were gathered in a central area outside, handcuffed and forced to lie face down. During the first day, prisoners claimed that prison guards would not allow them to eat or to use the bathroom, and, as a result, they urinated and defecated on themselves. Prisoners also suffered from severe sunburns and heat strokes. The prisoners were kept outside for a total of four days. Eventually, the case went to trial, but the jury sided with the Department of Corrections, claiming that the department’s actions were “rational.”</p>
<p>Though the abuses weren’t attributed to Stewart directly, Hamm said that the director’s attitude sets the climate within the department. “They don’t have to adopt a policy of abuse, it’s a given that people will not be fired and will not be held accountable. The guards abuse the prisoners, and they know that they won’t be charged under the current director.”</p>
<p>In a reference to Abu Ghraib, Hamm said, “This isn’t a leash on the neck, but the intent is the same: degradation, humiliation and complete denial of humanity.”</p>
<p>Stewart’s record in Arizona did not prevent him from obtaining a position on the ICITAP team sent to Iraq. A documented record of human rights abuse seems to be a boon for overseas employment by ICITAP, not a hindrance. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., has recently criticized the Department of Justice for allowing individuals with checkered pasts, like Stewart, to assist with prison oversight in Iraq.</p>
<p>In June 2004, Schumer said, “When you ask yourself why is there a mess in the Iraqi prisons, just look at the kind of oversight and checking that was done with the people that were put in charge – hardly any, obviously, or these people wouldn’t have been put in the prison system. With these kind of people in charge, was there any hope that the prison system would be run in a decent way? Absolutely not.”</p>
<p>Upon arrival in Baghdad, Stewart and the ICITAP team found that out of 151 prisons, none were operational. Coalition Provisional Authority Administrator L. Paul Bremer informed them that they were to start assessing and re-opening prisons immediately. One of those prisons was Abu Ghraib. In a corrections.com interview, Stewart said that at Abu Ghraib, “The CPA, at the request of the Iraqi people, took the execution chamber and made a memorial out of it.” Stewart also put together a three-day training program for future Iraqi prison workers on human rights and anti-corruption. “I gave them an eight-hour course on human rights and anti-corruption and the daily regiment of prisons,” Stewart said. “It was interesting teaching through an interpreter. And when I said, ‘You can’t physically hit an inmate,’ I thought the staff would riot. They said, ‘How can we control them?'”</p>
<p>DeLand of DeFree</p>
<p>Gary DeLand arrived in Iraq three weeks after Terry Stewart. DeLand’s history in prisons, though abundant, was mired with allegations of misdeeds and abuse. As director of the Utah Department of Corrections in the 80’s, DeLand faced numerous charges of denying prisoners adequate medical treatment and subjecting them to cruel and unusual punishment.</p>
<p>Attorney Brian Barnard tried civil action suits against DeLand while he was head of the Utah Department of Corrections. During DeLand’s reign, Barnard claims he would receive at least two to three letters a week of complaints from prisoners, which could possibly stem from what Barnard calls DeLand’s philosophy: “to lock [prisoners] up until they were too old to commit crimes.” DeLand met up with the rest of the ICITAP team in Baghdad and then set out to do the most fundamental task of re-opening prisons: hiring prison employees. The ICITAP team posted recruitment flyers and passed out applications to Iraqis, and when they ran out of applications, DeLand claims, “The [Military Police] had to run over and fire shots in the air because the crowd got so angry.”</p>
<p>Finding willing Iraqis to fill prison positions was not a problem, but, according to DeLand, training new Iraqi employees was filled with obstacles. “We had a very high attrition rate. Some people found out they couldn’t take bribes and just got up and left. We explained that this was a new system and that this is how we did things in the United States. They would get up and walk out. Or they would ask, ‘What happens when an inmate has a problem, don’t you beat them up?’ We would tell them that we just don’t do that in the U.S.,” DeLand said in a <a href="http://www.corrections.com/" type="external">corrections.com</a> interview.</p>
<p>Maybe DeLand was confused by the question, because prisoners endured horrendous treatment under his watch at the Utah Department of Corrections. In 1981, a prisoner brought a lawsuit against DeLand, both individually and as supervisor at the Salt Lake City County Jail, for cruel and unusual punishment.</p>
<p>The man, who was suffering from a mental illness, had been arrested and charged with disorderly but nonviolent conduct. While in detainment, the prisoner was kept naked for 56 days in a “strip cell,” described in court documents as having “no windows, no interior lights, no bunk, no floor covering, and no toilet except for a hole in the concrete floor which was flushed irregularly from outside the cell.”</p>
<p>John J. Armstrong</p>
<p>Before John J. Armstrong became the assistant director of operations of American prisons in Iraq he was the commissioner of Connecticut’s Department of Corrections from 1995- 2003. Like Stewart and DeLand, Armstrong was appointed to his post by a Republican governor, John G. Rowland, who has since been impeached. Governor Rowland complained that prisons in Connecticut resembled “Club Med-style” resorts; he wanted a commissioner that would toughen up the prisons that, he claimed, had gone soft under the previous commissioner.</p>
<p>Armstrong vowed to put security above all else, and, during his first months in office, he oversaw the opening of Connecticut’s first “Supermax” prison, Northern Correctional Institution. The Connecticut Department of Corrections website describes Northern as a “highly structured, secure and humane environment,” while a representative from National Prison Project called Northern a “high-tech dungeon” in a 1996 Hartford Courant article.</p>
<p>Northern is an autocratic guard’s dream: prisoners locked up in their closet- sized cells for 23 hours a day, and almost everything can be operated by remote control. Though the prison was intended to house only prisoners who pose “a threat to the safety and security of the community, staff and other inmates,” many prisoners were sent there on minor offenses, like participating in a work stoppage protest.</p>
<p>During Armstrong’s command, it wasn’t necessary to travel to Northern to find examples of abuse. In a 2001 Amnesty International report studying abuse of women in prisons, Connecticut was used as an example of how not to treat female prisoners. At the York Correctional Institution in Niantic, there were numerous allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct by male guards against female prisoners, including sexual assault and voyeurism.</p>
<p>In 1999, Timothy Perry, a 21-year-old mentally ill prisoner, was beaten to death by guards at Hartford Correctional Center. Perry put up no resistance when guards entered his cell and beat him to death. To cover up the murder, the guards continued to act as if Perry was alive and put him in four-point restraints. A nurse even injected Perry’s corpse with Thorazine, a psychotropic drug that he was allergic to. At no time did anyone bother to call a doctor or to check if Perry was breathing. All was caught on film.</p>
<p>None of the staff involved in Perry’s murder were disciplined. The state of Connecticut paid $2.9 million to Perry’s estate for the murder.</p>
<p>To ease the burden of overcrowding on the prison population, Armstrong initiated the exodus of 484 prisoners to Virginia’s “Supermax” Wallens Ridge Prison in 1999. Some contended that it was principally minorities being sent to Wallens Ridge, but Armstrong maintained that the numbers being sent were representative of the prison population. As the prisoners settled in at Wallens Ridge, allegations of mistreatment began to fly. Yet these charges went ignored by Armstrong, and it was the prisoners who paid the price for his negligence.</p>
<p>In April 2000, guards at Wallens Ridge saw a prisoner in his cell jump from his top bunk. Four minutes later, the guards entered the cell of David Tracy, 20, and found that he had hung himself with his bed sheet. Tracy had been transferred to Wallens Ridge from Northern Correctional Institute with Connecticut officials knowing that the transfer would endanger both his mental health and life.</p>
<p>Before his transfer, Tracy had attempted suicide three times and even requested to be placed on suicide watch. As a result of his actions and mental illnesses, his mental health status had been classified as “Mental Health 4,” the highest level possible. Wallens Ridge would not be able to meet Tracy’s needs and Connecticut officials knew it. At Wallens Ridge, Tracy was not given frequent access to mental health staff and was not monitored.</p>
<p>Months after Tracy’s suicide, James Lawrence Frazier, another transferred prisoner, went into a diabetic shock and was shocked repeatedly with 50,000 volts of a stun gun. Days later, Frazier died of heart failure. After two years, two deaths, an ACLU class action suit, and over 70 other lawsuits, the prisoners were brought back to Connecticut. Now, public attention was focused on the multiple charges of sexual harassment brought upon Armstrong and others by female prison employees.</p>
<p>Armstrong was implicated both directly and indirectly in sexual harassment. Female prison employees asserted that there was a sustained atmosphere of disrespect towards women in the department, with charges ranging from male guards watching pornographic movies while on duty to vandalism and theft of female employee’s belongings.</p>
<p>In one incident, Deputy Warden Murdoch made explicit comments in front of 80 employees. He said that women are sensitive during “that time of the month” and that he would keep a box of underwear in his office in case any women had “an accident at work.” At staff meetings, others made similar comments, and Armstrong was aware of and condoned the behavior.</p>
<p>When female employees would file sexual harassment complaints, many were called “snitches” or would face further retaliation from their harassers. Armstrong claimed that sexual harassment would not be tolerated within the department, but many of the perpetrators were never disciplined and were sometimes promoted.</p>
<p>While Armstrong left office in a cloud of controversy, it did not impact his ability to find employment with ICITAP.</p>
<p>Lane McCotter</p>
<p>Lane McCotter has been shuffled in and out of the prison business for the past three decades. He has been director of corrections in three states, Texas (1985-1987), New Mexico (1987- 1991) and Utah (1992-97) and is currently working as the director of business development for Management and Training Corporation, a private, Utah-based prison firm that operates 16 facilities.</p>
<p>In 2003, McCotter was appointed to the ICITAP team headed to Iraq. McCotter may feel comfortable in many of America’s prisons, but according to a corrections.com interview, flying in the plane headed to Iraq felt just “like coming home.” He did two tours in Vietnam and worked as an MP.</p>
<p>McCotter and DeLand both oversaw the rebuilding of Abu Ghraib prison and attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony when the first 500 beds were opened. The team had started rebuilding Abu Ghraib when they saw that it was “the only place that we agreed as a team was truly closest to an American prison,” according to a corrections.com interview. McCotter said that he spent $1.9 million dollars in government funds reconstructing Abu Ghraib so it could house prisoners captured by the U.S. military.</p>
<p>On his experience in Iraq, McCotter said in a 2003 corrections.com interview, “It was almost like you have been preparing for something like this your whole life ­ to bring together everything you have ever learned and to put an entire system together and watch it come to life from absolute and utter chaos and destruction and operate the way you know it should or could. It was such a fascinating and personally rewarding experience for all of us.” When McCotter left for Iraq, he was leaving behind an extensive record of misdeeds in American prisons.</p>
<p>In Texas, where McCotter served as director of the Department of Corrections for two years, he faced allegations in 1985 of erasing the parts of a video that showed the beating of a prisoner by a guard. McCotter said that it was an “accident,” but the incident leading up to and after the beating were still on the tape. McCotter was only in the nascent stages of his prison administrator career, and, by the time he arrived in Utah, he was a seasoned prison official. In Utah, McCotter served five years as director of the Director of Corrections. In July 1994, prisoner Lonnie Blackmon was stabbed 67 times by another prisoner in a Utah state prison while eight guards looked on and did nothing. The lawsuit filed by Blackmon’s family said that Blackmon was placed in an area of the prison that housed a majority of white supremacist gang members. Guards cuffed Blackmon and left him in the area “defenseless.” While Blackmon was being stabbed, cameras were recording everything. The guards had a high-pressure hose and weapons at their disposal, yet no one acted.</p>
<p>In March 1997, the death of another prisoner was also caught on tape. Michael Valent, a 29-year-old schizophrenic, died of a blood clot that had formed in his legs and traveled to his lungs after being strapped naked to a restraining chair for 16 hours. Prison officials claimed that Valent had been restrained in the chair because he was banging his head against the wall and posing a threat to his own safety.</p>
<p>The videos show the 115-pound Valent in his cell with a pillowcase wrapped around his head, some claim to shut out the voices in his head, while the guards forcibly remove him from his cell and cut off his clothing. He was then strapped to the chair, the leg restraints strapped to the tightest level. After 16 hours, Valent was removed from the chair, and he died in the shower three hours later. Valent’s death was ruled a homicide, and his mother received a $200,000 settlement McCotter claimed that Valent could’ve developed those clots anywhere.</p>
<p>The photographic evidence showing American soldiers subjecting Iraqi prisoners to sexual abuse, assault and torture; at least 20 known murders of prisoners; and hiding prisoners from the International Committee of the Red Cross have been seen around the world. These well-documented abuses were carried out after the ICITAP team had refurbished the Iraqi prison system and prepared it for its new users.</p>
<p>The four American leaders of the ICITAP team have a lot in common. They were all Republican Party-connected prisoncrats with lengthy track records of brutality throughout their careers in American prisons. Internationally, the U.S. runs one of the most regressive prison systems in the world. Something positive may come from the international exposure of the Abu Ghraib scandal: educating the world about what the term “human rights” means, and has meant, for American prisoners and what other countries can expect under U.S. occupation.</p>
<p>Torture continues</p>
<p>In January, 2004, President Bush said of Iraq, “One thing is for certain: there won’t be any more mass graves and torture rooms and rape rooms.”</p>
<p>On June 29, 2004, an Oregon National Guard unit told a different story. According to an article in The Oregonian, a solider saw several Iraqi prisoners blindfolded and bound at the Iraqi Interior Ministry. They were being beaten and tortured by Iraqi officials.</p>
<p>The soldier radioed for assistance, and the unit was sent to the Interior Ministry to investigate. When they arrived, the soldiers passed out water and moved the prisoners far from the Iraqi officials. The bound Iraqis said they hadn’t eaten anything in days. Upon further investigation, the unit found metal rods and other torture mechanisms.</p>
<p>They also found 78 more Iraqi prisoners in a 20-by-20 foot room. The Iraqi officials claimed that they hadn’t beaten anyone and the unit was soon ordered by their superiors in the U.S. military to return the prisoners back to the officials. Several of the soldiers took pictures showing Iraqi prisoners being beaten by officials. Since then, there have been no new developments on the status of the Iraqi prisoners.</p>
<p>Contrary to what President Bush has said, the rape and torture rooms of Iraq haven’t closed. They’re just open for business under new management.</p>
<p>LEAH CALDWELL lives in Austin, Texas. This article originally appeared in <a href="http://www.prisonlegalnews.org/" type="external">Prison Legal News</a>. She can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | year ago attorney general john ashcroft pointed iraqi prison system shining example freedoms us would bring iraq said iraqis taste liberty native land help make freedom permanent assisting establish equitable criminal justice system based rule law standards basic human rights rhetoric law justice full force fall saddam hussein wake prisoner abuse abu ghraib discourse concerning iraqi prisons become far removed selfcongratulatory statements ashcroft us credibility disintegrates iraq public outcry assign blame responsible torture rape murder obvious culprits secretary defense donald rumsfeld initiation special access program encouraged harsher interrogations abu ghraib government officials pestered lawyers questions legality torture us prison guards turned soldiers let dogs loose literally figuratively military continues shift blame chain command lesser known officials managed slip past public scrutiny involvement implicates american government domestic policy mass imprisonment brutalization torture iraqi prisoners history icitap may 2003 ashcroft appointed envoy mostly american prison officials help restore law order iraq chipping away husseins much feared torture chambers resembled something closer american prisons six months envoy would take monumental task preparing preexisting iraqi prisons prisoners international criminal investigative training program icitap officials would decide details number bunks per prison training iraqi prison guards icitap based department justice receives funding individual projects department state icitap embarked many missions since inception 1986 former soviet union haiti indonesia missions change locations teams managed accrue consistent record questionable activities operating guise rebuilding criminal justice systems typically icitap serves prop police prison systems american client states successor police training program run agency international development program halted mid70s watergate scandal became public knowledge us aid officials training police prison officials around world techniques murder torture mostly use leftist insurgencies activities icitap new name russia throughout mid90s department justice officials accused illegally acquiring visas russian girlfriends sharing classified information uncleared parties cronyism departments inspector general summed egregious misconduct icitap continuous role haiti icitap sent train haitian police force restore criminal justice system millions dollars funding haitian police force still deemed largely ineffective accused serving small segment population according report us government accountability office terry stewart terry stewart accepted invitation participate icitap mission iraq like others serving team stewart numerous years experience prisons former director arizona department corrections 19952002 consultant private prison firm advanced correctional management donna hamm founder executive director middle ground prison reform witnessed stewart action arizona accumulated many accusations human rights violations said twenty years credentials one year repeated 20 times theres change 1995 prisoners set fire buildings safford arizona state prison response unacceptable conditions 613 prisoners gathered central area outside handcuffed forced lie face first day prisoners claimed prison guards would allow eat use bathroom result urinated defecated prisoners also suffered severe sunburns heat strokes prisoners kept outside total four days eventually case went trial jury sided department corrections claiming departments actions rational though abuses werent attributed stewart directly hamm said directors attitude sets climate within department dont adopt policy abuse given people fired held accountable guards abuse prisoners know wont charged current director reference abu ghraib hamm said isnt leash neck intent degradation humiliation complete denial humanity stewarts record arizona prevent obtaining position icitap team sent iraq documented record human rights abuse seems boon overseas employment icitap hindrance sen charles schumer dny recently criticized department justice allowing individuals checkered pasts like stewart assist prison oversight iraq june 2004 schumer said ask mess iraqi prisons look kind oversight checking done people put charge hardly obviously people wouldnt put prison system kind people charge hope prison system would run decent way absolutely upon arrival baghdad stewart icitap team found 151 prisons none operational coalition provisional authority administrator l paul bremer informed start assessing reopening prisons immediately one prisons abu ghraib correctionscom interview stewart said abu ghraib cpa request iraqi people took execution chamber made memorial stewart also put together threeday training program future iraqi prison workers human rights anticorruption gave eighthour course human rights anticorruption daily regiment prisons stewart said interesting teaching interpreter said cant physically hit inmate thought staff would riot said control deland defree gary deland arrived iraq three weeks terry stewart delands history prisons though abundant mired allegations misdeeds abuse director utah department corrections 80s deland faced numerous charges denying prisoners adequate medical treatment subjecting cruel unusual punishment attorney brian barnard tried civil action suits deland head utah department corrections delands reign barnard claims would receive least two three letters week complaints prisoners could possibly stem barnard calls delands philosophy lock prisoners old commit crimes deland met rest icitap team baghdad set fundamental task reopening prisons hiring prison employees icitap team posted recruitment flyers passed applications iraqis ran applications deland claims military police run fire shots air crowd got angry finding willing iraqis fill prison positions problem according deland training new iraqi employees filled obstacles high attrition rate people found couldnt take bribes got left explained new system things united states would get walk would ask happens inmate problem dont beat would tell dont us deland said correctionscom interview maybe deland confused question prisoners endured horrendous treatment watch utah department corrections 1981 prisoner brought lawsuit deland individually supervisor salt lake city county jail cruel unusual punishment man suffering mental illness arrested charged disorderly nonviolent conduct detainment prisoner kept naked 56 days strip cell described court documents windows interior lights bunk floor covering toilet except hole concrete floor flushed irregularly outside cell john j armstrong john j armstrong became assistant director operations american prisons iraq commissioner connecticuts department corrections 1995 2003 like stewart deland armstrong appointed post republican governor john g rowland since impeached governor rowland complained prisons connecticut resembled club medstyle resorts wanted commissioner would toughen prisons claimed gone soft previous commissioner armstrong vowed put security else first months office oversaw opening connecticuts first supermax prison northern correctional institution connecticut department corrections website describes northern highly structured secure humane environment representative national prison project called northern hightech dungeon 1996 hartford courant article northern autocratic guards dream prisoners locked closet sized cells 23 hours day almost everything operated remote control though prison intended house prisoners pose threat safety security community staff inmates many prisoners sent minor offenses like participating work stoppage protest armstrongs command wasnt necessary travel northern find examples abuse 2001 amnesty international report studying abuse women prisons connecticut used example treat female prisoners york correctional institution niantic numerous allegations inappropriate sexual conduct male guards female prisoners including sexual assault voyeurism 1999 timothy perry 21yearold mentally ill prisoner beaten death guards hartford correctional center perry put resistance guards entered cell beat death cover murder guards continued act perry alive put fourpoint restraints nurse even injected perrys corpse thorazine psychotropic drug allergic time anyone bother call doctor check perry breathing caught film none staff involved perrys murder disciplined state connecticut paid 29 million perrys estate murder ease burden overcrowding prison population armstrong initiated exodus 484 prisoners virginias supermax wallens ridge prison 1999 contended principally minorities sent wallens ridge armstrong maintained numbers sent representative prison population prisoners settled wallens ridge allegations mistreatment began fly yet charges went ignored armstrong prisoners paid price negligence april 2000 guards wallens ridge saw prisoner cell jump top bunk four minutes later guards entered cell david tracy 20 found hung bed sheet tracy transferred wallens ridge northern correctional institute connecticut officials knowing transfer would endanger mental health life transfer tracy attempted suicide three times even requested placed suicide watch result actions mental illnesses mental health status classified mental health 4 highest level possible wallens ridge would able meet tracys needs connecticut officials knew wallens ridge tracy given frequent access mental health staff monitored months tracys suicide james lawrence frazier another transferred prisoner went diabetic shock shocked repeatedly 50000 volts stun gun days later frazier died heart failure two years two deaths aclu class action suit 70 lawsuits prisoners brought back connecticut public attention focused multiple charges sexual harassment brought upon armstrong others female prison employees armstrong implicated directly indirectly sexual harassment female prison employees asserted sustained atmosphere disrespect towards women department charges ranging male guards watching pornographic movies duty vandalism theft female employees belongings one incident deputy warden murdoch made explicit comments front 80 employees said women sensitive time month would keep box underwear office case women accident work staff meetings others made similar comments armstrong aware condoned behavior female employees would file sexual harassment complaints many called snitches would face retaliation harassers armstrong claimed sexual harassment would tolerated within department many perpetrators never disciplined sometimes promoted armstrong left office cloud controversy impact ability find employment icitap lane mccotter lane mccotter shuffled prison business past three decades director corrections three states texas 19851987 new mexico 1987 1991 utah 199297 currently working director business development management training corporation private utahbased prison firm operates 16 facilities 2003 mccotter appointed icitap team headed iraq mccotter may feel comfortable many americas prisons according correctionscom interview flying plane headed iraq felt like coming home two tours vietnam worked mp mccotter deland oversaw rebuilding abu ghraib prison attended ribboncutting ceremony first 500 beds opened team started rebuilding abu ghraib saw place agreed team truly closest american prison according correctionscom interview mccotter said spent 19 million dollars government funds reconstructing abu ghraib could house prisoners captured us military experience iraq mccotter said 2003 correctionscom interview almost like preparing something like whole life bring together everything ever learned put entire system together watch come life absolute utter chaos destruction operate way know could fascinating personally rewarding experience us mccotter left iraq leaving behind extensive record misdeeds american prisons texas mccotter served director department corrections two years faced allegations 1985 erasing parts video showed beating prisoner guard mccotter said accident incident leading beating still tape mccotter nascent stages prison administrator career time arrived utah seasoned prison official utah mccotter served five years director director corrections july 1994 prisoner lonnie blackmon stabbed 67 times another prisoner utah state prison eight guards looked nothing lawsuit filed blackmons family said blackmon placed area prison housed majority white supremacist gang members guards cuffed blackmon left area defenseless blackmon stabbed cameras recording everything guards highpressure hose weapons disposal yet one acted march 1997 death another prisoner also caught tape michael valent 29yearold schizophrenic died blood clot formed legs traveled lungs strapped naked restraining chair 16 hours prison officials claimed valent restrained chair banging head wall posing threat safety videos show 115pound valent cell pillowcase wrapped around head claim shut voices head guards forcibly remove cell cut clothing strapped chair leg restraints strapped tightest level 16 hours valent removed chair died shower three hours later valents death ruled homicide mother received 200000 settlement mccotter claimed valent couldve developed clots anywhere photographic evidence showing american soldiers subjecting iraqi prisoners sexual abuse assault torture least 20 known murders prisoners hiding prisoners international committee red cross seen around world welldocumented abuses carried icitap team refurbished iraqi prison system prepared new users four american leaders icitap team lot common republican partyconnected prisoncrats lengthy track records brutality throughout careers american prisons internationally us runs one regressive prison systems world something positive may come international exposure abu ghraib scandal educating world term human rights means meant american prisoners countries expect us occupation torture continues january 2004 president bush said iraq one thing certain wont mass graves torture rooms rape rooms june 29 2004 oregon national guard unit told different story according article oregonian solider saw several iraqi prisoners blindfolded bound iraqi interior ministry beaten tortured iraqi officials soldier radioed assistance unit sent interior ministry investigate arrived soldiers passed water moved prisoners far iraqi officials bound iraqis said hadnt eaten anything days upon investigation unit found metal rods torture mechanisms also found 78 iraqi prisoners 20by20 foot room iraqi officials claimed hadnt beaten anyone unit soon ordered superiors us military return prisoners back officials several soldiers took pictures showing iraqi prisoners beaten officials since new developments status iraqi prisoners contrary president bush said rape torture rooms iraq havent closed theyre open business new management leah caldwell lives austin texas article originally appeared prison legal news reached leahmcaldwellyahoocom 160 | 1,975 |
<p>Since the run-up to the election of 2016, the ruling elite in America who control the two wings of the single Corporate Party of America (CPA)—the Republican and Democratic Parties—have been battling it out with ‘right populist’ challengers over who will define US policy in the decade ahead. Thus far in 2017 the elite have been clearly winning.</p>
<p>The likely sacking this coming week of Breitbart News’s CEO, Steve Bannon—which follows his banishment from the White House earlier in 2017—is but the latest example of the elite’s post-election objective of bringing their right populist challengers to heel, and in the process herding Trump himself back under their policy umbrella. (see my prior prediction, ‘Taming Trump’, this blog November 30, 2016)</p>
<p>The history of the traditional elite vs. right populist challengers goes back at least to the emergence of the so-called ‘Contract with America’ in 1994 followed soon thereafter by their effort to impeach then president, Bill Clinton. Clinton’s hard shift to the right after 1994 on economic, social and foreign policy deflated the challengers’ offensive, albeit temporarily. Then there was the so-called ‘Tea Party’ faction after 2001 that ran primary candidates and disrupted the elite Republican wing’s electoral strategy. With the assistance of the Business Council and US Chamber of Commerce, the Teaparty version of ‘right populist’ challengers were purged in 2014 from Republican primary races and candidacies. The challengers were not defeated, however. With the financial and organizational aid of the power behind the so-called ‘populist right’—i.e. the Koch brothers, the Mercers, Adelsons, Paul Singers and other radical right big financial supporters backing them—they returned with a vengeance in the 2016 election backing Trump, who opportunistically welcomed their organizational, media and ideological support as the traditional elite consistently rejected him. They bet their Trump Card and gained the White House. The contest did not stop there, however.</p>
<p>In 2017 the contest with the Republican wing of the elite continued. The ‘right populist’ mouthpiece within Congress, the US House ‘Freedom Caucus’, was able to prevail over other Republican colleagues and launch a full frontal assault on repealing Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act. They recklessly rolled the dice on their first toss…and lost. Check one for the traditional elite right out of the box in early 2017.</p>
<p>Another subsequent 2017 ‘win’ by the Republican wing of the elite was to get Trump to go slow on reversing NAFTA and other free trade agreements. Another was the driving of Steve Bannon and his allies from their perch as White House advisers. Yet another elite 2017 success was to convince Trump to back off from campaign promises to reorganize NATO and reset relations with Russia, and instead to continue providing strategic weapons to east Europe and, most recently, the Ukraine. That policy shift is now in acceleration mode. Then there was the defeat of Moore for Senator in Alabama, who Trump and the right populists both endorsed. The Republican wing of the traditional elite—both in and out of Congress—abandoned Moore and joined with the Democrat wing to ensure Moore’s defeat. To have supported Moore would have signaled that the Republican elite’s strategy since 2014, a strategy denying right radicals from formal Republican (and Chamber of Commerce) support, was no longer in effect. A Moore victory would have brought even more radicals from the right demanding to run on Republican electoral tickets. The Chamber could not permit that again.</p>
<p>But the very latest event in the internal battle was last week’s public rift between former right populist Trump election strategist and White House adviser, Steve Bannon, and Trump himself. A rift that, this writer predicts, will almost certainly lead to Bannon’s sacking as CEO of the influential right populist media organ, Breitbart News, this coming week or soon thereafter.</p>
<p>The Bannon sacking will clearly reveal that Bannon is not the driving force behind Breitbart. Nor is the radical ‘right populist’ movement itself an independent force. Bannon and Breitbart are but a mouthpiece. For what? For the real force behind the Breitbart media outlet, Bannon, and similar media organizations and talking heads pushing far right political alternatives and economic policies—i.e. the billionaire money interests that fund them and make the strategic decisions for them behind the scenes. It is the billionaires who sit on the Breitbart board, and other boards of similar right populist organizations who fund the Breitbarts, the Bannons, and those like them that came before and will come after.</p>
<p>It is those billionaires in particular who have become super-wealthy since the 1990s by speculating in commercial property and trusts and shadow banking; the billionaires over-represented from the ranks of private equity firms, real estate REITs, hedge fund capitalists, asset management companies, etc. On the level of individual capitalists, it is the Adelsons, Paul Singers, the Mercers, the Mays, and others—all billionaires—who have been bankrolling the ‘right populists’ from the very beginning, giving them a public soapbox with which to promote their views, ideology, and mobilize public opinion. More traditional economic sector billionaires, like the Kochs, are also among their ranks, of course. But they are especially over-populated with speculators and financial manipulators (much like Trump himself) who want a more deregulated, winner-take-all kind of capitalism they see as necessary to compete with challengers globally in the coming decades.</p>
<p>These billionaires are the election campaign financiers that all the major candidates for national office trek to every election cycle, genuflect before, hold out their hats to for donations. And with their money comes a ‘Faustian’ bargain: they are allowed to define policies once their candidates get elected. They are the silent sources that Trump regularly calls in the early morning hours from the White House to ask their advice and input.</p>
<p>Late last week, the billionaire Mercer family, that bankrolls and finances Breitbart News let it be known it was breaking relations with Bannon. Bannon quickly and contritely offered a public statement supporting Trump and calling him a ‘great man’, which Trump just as quickly retweeted. The Bannon retreat followed a reported statement he made to author Michael Wolf, who in his new book out last week quoted Bannon as saying Trump was psychologically unbalanced and “had lost it”. Calls for Breitbart News to fire Bannon as its CEO quickly followed, and the Mercers statement was made public in turn.</p>
<p>So Bannon’s days are numbered and perhaps in hours not days. He will be gone, relegated to the speech circuit for right wing demagogues, joining the Glenn Becks, Rush Limbaughs, and others that occasionally over-estimate their influence with the capitalist ruling elite and their usefulness to them. And then find themselves on the outside looking in.</p>
<p>What the Bannon sacking will represent is that the ‘right populist’ movement will now ebb, albeit temporarily once more. It will be resurrected when needed, with another figure(talking)head replacing Bannon. The Becks, the Limbaughs, the Hannitys and the Bannons are all expendable, and replaceable with another cookie-cutter ideologue whenever the elite consider it necessary.</p>
<p>The Bannon development more importantly signals that more traditional Republican elite policies and legislation will now ever further supplant the right populist initiatives in Congress. The Trump tax cuts just passed benefit clearly the wealthiest 1% and their corporations, and not the middle class, the embittered blue collar workers of the Midwest and Great Lakes, or any other voting constituency in America.</p>
<p>The demise of Bannon also signals that Donald Trump, if he wishes to continue as president will agree to continue his shift toward policies adopted by the Republican wing of the elite. He has been in synch totally with the recent passage of the Trump Tax Cut act—the elite’s #1 policy objective which is now achieved. Trump will now continue to back off of radical restructuring of free trade, especially NAFTA. He will fall in line with NATO and policies toward east Europe and Russia. He’ll provide more advanced weaponry to eastern Europe and the Ukraine. He will be satisfied with a token Wall and back off from disrupting immigration relations. And he will continue to soft-pedal his tweeting with regard to North Korea and support trade deals with China the elite want him to deliver.</p>
<p>This does not mean Trump’s troubles with the traditional elite are over, however. The events of the past year, culminating in the Bannon purge, only reflect Trump coming to terms with the Republican wing of the elite, as he tactically moves under their political protective umbrella. The Democrat wing of the elite will continue trying to build a case against him.</p>
<p>The Democratic wing of the elite will continue to exert pressure on Trump through its powerful media organs and its deep connections with and influence within the State bureaucracy (FBI, NSA, State and Justice departments, DEA, military intelligence arms, etc.). This second front against Trump and his former right populist allies is reflected in the on-going investigation into a Russia-Trump connection during the 2016 election cycle—which that wing of the elite hopes will lead, if not to outright collusion, then to evidence of some form of obstruction of justice by Trump; or perhaps uncover in the process past criminal activity by the Trump business organization with regard to tax evasion or foreign bribes for contracts with Russian oligarchs and mafia. This second front has recorded some success over the past year, as former FBI director, Mueller, has been able to extract evidence from suspected principals, Michael Flynn, Paul Monafort, and Papadopoulos.</p>
<p>The second major development of the past week was the publication of the Michael Wolf book on Trump. With the publication a new issue has been thrown into the political hotpot: Now it is not just whether Trump has colluded with the Russians, or obstructed Justice to stop the Mueller investigation, or engaged in illegal bribes and deals with Russian oligarchs. Now the new mantra is Trump is psychologically unbalanced—as evidenced in his own Tweets and in the constant flow of leaked statements by his own administration about his basic ‘child-like character’(Senator Corker), his ability to function at a level of ‘an idiot’ (Secretary of State ), or that he “has lost it” (Bannon).</p>
<p>In the months ahead the Republican wing—for whom Trump has nicely delivered in the form of tax cuts in the trillions of dollars and with whom Trump is now playing ball with regard to free trade—will circle the wagons on behalf of Trump. The Republican party wing of the elite don’t want to drive Trump from the White House. They want him tamed and continuing to deliver to policy agenda. So they have already begun to circle the wagons on Trump’s behalf—and to launch a counteroffensive in his defense. The past week’s reopening of the investigation of Clinton’s foundation and demands to indict the author of the ‘Trump dossier’ are but two examples of the counteroffensive.</p>
<p>And watch what happens after Trump eventually fires FBI investigator, Mueller. They’ll block the appointment of an independent prosecutor once Mueller is gone. And that means there won’t be any impeachment in 2018. All that could change, however, should Trump’s historic low approvals slip still further and result in the Republican loss of either the House or Senate in November 2018. Then watch the two wings of the elite unite in efforts to push Trump out.</p> | true | 4 | since runup election 2016 ruling elite america control two wings single corporate party america cpathe republican democratic partieshave battling right populist challengers define us policy decade ahead thus far 2017 elite clearly winning likely sacking coming week breitbart newss ceo steve bannonwhich follows banishment white house earlier 2017is latest example elites postelection objective bringing right populist challengers heel process herding trump back policy umbrella see prior prediction taming trump blog november 30 2016 history traditional elite vs right populist challengers goes back least emergence socalled contract america 1994 followed soon thereafter effort impeach president bill clinton clintons hard shift right 1994 economic social foreign policy deflated challengers offensive albeit temporarily socalled tea party faction 2001 ran primary candidates disrupted elite republican wings electoral strategy assistance business council us chamber commerce teaparty version right populist challengers purged 2014 republican primary races candidacies challengers defeated however financial organizational aid power behind socalled populist rightie koch brothers mercers adelsons paul singers radical right big financial supporters backing themthey returned vengeance 2016 election backing trump opportunistically welcomed organizational media ideological support traditional elite consistently rejected bet trump card gained white house contest stop however 2017 contest republican wing elite continued right populist mouthpiece within congress us house freedom caucus able prevail republican colleagues launch full frontal assault repealing obamacare affordable care act recklessly rolled dice first tossand lost check one traditional elite right box early 2017 another subsequent 2017 win republican wing elite get trump go slow reversing nafta free trade agreements another driving steve bannon allies perch white house advisers yet another elite 2017 success convince trump back campaign promises reorganize nato reset relations russia instead continue providing strategic weapons east europe recently ukraine policy shift acceleration mode defeat moore senator alabama trump right populists endorsed republican wing traditional eliteboth congressabandoned moore joined democrat wing ensure moores defeat supported moore would signaled republican elites strategy since 2014 strategy denying right radicals formal republican chamber commerce support longer effect moore victory would brought even radicals right demanding run republican electoral tickets chamber could permit latest event internal battle last weeks public rift former right populist trump election strategist white house adviser steve bannon trump rift writer predicts almost certainly lead bannons sacking ceo influential right populist media organ breitbart news coming week soon thereafter bannon sacking clearly reveal bannon driving force behind breitbart radical right populist movement independent force bannon breitbart mouthpiece real force behind breitbart media outlet bannon similar media organizations talking heads pushing far right political alternatives economic policiesie billionaire money interests fund make strategic decisions behind scenes billionaires sit breitbart board boards similar right populist organizations fund breitbarts bannons like came come billionaires particular become superwealthy since 1990s speculating commercial property trusts shadow banking billionaires overrepresented ranks private equity firms real estate reits hedge fund capitalists asset management companies etc level individual capitalists adelsons paul singers mercers mays othersall billionaireswho bankrolling right populists beginning giving public soapbox promote views ideology mobilize public opinion traditional economic sector billionaires like kochs also among ranks course especially overpopulated speculators financial manipulators much like trump want deregulated winnertakeall kind capitalism see necessary compete challengers globally coming decades billionaires election campaign financiers major candidates national office trek every election cycle genuflect hold hats donations money comes faustian bargain allowed define policies candidates get elected silent sources trump regularly calls early morning hours white house ask advice input late last week billionaire mercer family bankrolls finances breitbart news let known breaking relations bannon bannon quickly contritely offered public statement supporting trump calling great man trump quickly retweeted bannon retreat followed reported statement made author michael wolf new book last week quoted bannon saying trump psychologically unbalanced lost calls breitbart news fire bannon ceo quickly followed mercers statement made public turn bannons days numbered perhaps hours days gone relegated speech circuit right wing demagogues joining glenn becks rush limbaughs others occasionally overestimate influence capitalist ruling elite usefulness find outside looking bannon sacking represent right populist movement ebb albeit temporarily resurrected needed another figuretalkinghead replacing bannon becks limbaughs hannitys bannons expendable replaceable another cookiecutter ideologue whenever elite consider necessary bannon development importantly signals traditional republican elite policies legislation ever supplant right populist initiatives congress trump tax cuts passed benefit clearly wealthiest 1 corporations middle class embittered blue collar workers midwest great lakes voting constituency america demise bannon also signals donald trump wishes continue president agree continue shift toward policies adopted republican wing elite synch totally recent passage trump tax cut actthe elites 1 policy objective achieved trump continue back radical restructuring free trade especially nafta fall line nato policies toward east europe russia hell provide advanced weaponry eastern europe ukraine satisfied token wall back disrupting immigration relations continue softpedal tweeting regard north korea support trade deals china elite want deliver mean trumps troubles traditional elite however events past year culminating bannon purge reflect trump coming terms republican wing elite tactically moves political protective umbrella democrat wing elite continue trying build case democratic wing elite continue exert pressure trump powerful media organs deep connections influence within state bureaucracy fbi nsa state justice departments dea military intelligence arms etc second front trump former right populist allies reflected ongoing investigation russiatrump connection 2016 election cyclewhich wing elite hopes lead outright collusion evidence form obstruction justice trump perhaps uncover process past criminal activity trump business organization regard tax evasion foreign bribes contracts russian oligarchs mafia second front recorded success past year former fbi director mueller able extract evidence suspected principals michael flynn paul monafort papadopoulos second major development past week publication michael wolf book trump publication new issue thrown political hotpot whether trump colluded russians obstructed justice stop mueller investigation engaged illegal bribes deals russian oligarchs new mantra trump psychologically unbalancedas evidenced tweets constant flow leaked statements administration basic childlike charactersenator corker ability function level idiot secretary state lost bannon months ahead republican wingfor trump nicely delivered form tax cuts trillions dollars trump playing ball regard free tradewill circle wagons behalf trump republican party wing elite dont want drive trump white house want tamed continuing deliver policy agenda already begun circle wagons trumps behalfand launch counteroffensive defense past weeks reopening investigation clintons foundation demands indict author trump dossier two examples counteroffensive watch happens trump eventually fires fbi investigator mueller theyll block appointment independent prosecutor mueller gone means wont impeachment 2018 could change however trumps historic low approvals slip still result republican loss either house senate november 2018 watch two wings elite unite efforts push trump | 1,072 |
<p>I <a href="" type="internal">heartily supported the Catalonian referendum</a> on secession even though I was almost arrested the only time I visited Barcelona.</p>
<p>I hit Spain as the next-to-last country in a 5000-mile hitchhiking jaunt in the summer of 1977. Within 10 minutes of getting dropped off south of the French border, I realized that my two years of Spanish classes in Warren County High School were not worth a busted piñata. (Admittedly, I was the worst student in the class.) Barcelonans spoke so quickly while thrashing the air with their hands that I could only nod or sigh. Seven hundred words a minute was brisker than I had heard growing up in the Appalachian Mountains.</p>
<p>I spent four pleasant days roaming Barcelona while staying in a dirt cheap pension where I was the only guest without a thunderous TB-cough. Spain was definitely the most backward country I visited (dictator Francisco Franco had died only two years earlier). The clearest proof it was still in the Dark Ages: hitchhiking was illegal. But I tried not to let that bias me against Spaniards. I viewed such prohibitions simply as transaction costs, the 1970s equivalent of traffic speed cameras.</p>
<p>When time came to head back north, I staked out a spot on the last street before the Autopista (motorway) entrance. Traffic was light and relatively slow so my thumb posed no safety hazard to drivers.</p>
<p>No luck in the first hour. Then I got more fraternizing than I wanted. A finger-wagging policeman with the glummest face I saw all summer descended on me. I reached deep within and retrieved my entire Spanish vocabulary – Lo siento (I’m sorry), No comprendo, and Que lastima (That’s too bad). I didn’t know enough Spanish to ask him if he got his job ‘cause he was a pal of Franco. But by the time he walked away, it was clear that I understood I’d be jailed if he caught me out there again. And from my prior experience in the U.S., I knew that regulation-size handcuffs fit poorly on my large wrists.</p>
<p>I respectfully waited two minutes after he vanished before resuming hitchhiking.</p>
<p>Half an hour later, I glanced up and saw the same cop a block away, closing fast, and looking too irate for his own good.</p>
<p>In the nick of time, a sickly orange British car (with a wrong-side steering wheel) pulled over and the driver signaled me to hop in. His vehicle could have fit in the trunk of a Lincoln Continental. I jammed my pack into his back seat and had 15 seconds to spare before I got busted.</p>
<p>As we sped away, the pasty, tussle-headed driver announced: “I’m not going very far tonight. I’m really tired.”</p>
<p>“Is that because you’ve been working hard?” I asked.</p>
<p>“No, I’ve been drinking for three days.”</p>
<p>That explained the empty liquor bottles on the back seat. Unfortunately, the car was heading up the Pyrenees Mountains – not the easiest stretch of driving on the continent.</p>
<p>Twenty miles later, I was still comparing the risks of riding with a besotted driver versus being gamahooched in a Spanish slammer when the Brit announced: “TEA TIME!” He pulled off the road, stepped out of the car, and fetched out a large plastic cup. He retrieved a fifth of gin from under the seat, poured eight ounces into the cup, and topped if off with two ounces of orange juice – “to make sure I get my Vitamin C,” he explained.</p>
<p>“Would you like a sip?” he jovially offered.</p>
<p>“I’ll pass.”</p>
<p>He slugged it down, smacked his lips, and proclaimed it was time to forge on to France. As we ascended steep mountains, he was driving in the right lane much slower than most of the other traffic. I kept leaning in his direction, ready to seize the steering wheel if he lost control. But he had plenty experience driving smashed.</p>
<p>I kept the conversation rattling along to keep him alert. He told me that his family remained at their home on the Isle of Wight while he vacationed in Spain. He explained that he drank too much because he was having a very rough time letting his college-aged kids leave home and go their own way. Or at least that was the excuse this 45-year-old guy offered for not weaning himself from a bottle. I eventually persuaded him to pull off the road so we could get some beer and chips.</p>
<p>After we entered a roadside bistro, an 18-year-old British lad came over to our table and was instantly bosom buddies with the driver.&#160; The driver was a Conservative Party member and the young guy supported the Liberal Party but the two agreed that England was the greatest, freest nation and that everybody in the world learned democracy from Britain. The only thing necessary to transform one’s country into utopia is to leave it briefly and drink heavily. The young guy related how Bobbies in his hometown&#160;used their nightsticks to pummel teenage miscreants and he and the driver agreed that was a good thing because the boys usually deserved it. &#160;I was mystified that anyone would idealize official beatings.</p>
<p>The dipsomaniac launched into an anti-Teutonic tirade, swearing that the only good German was a dead German. He declared that he’d fight any German in the room. But he didn’t say it very loud, so I didn’t have to dissuade anyone from stomping him. When he wasn’t slurping down ale or boasting about his homeland, his eyes radiated a desperate fear that he had failed in life. (An Englishman later told me that the Isle of Wight was known as “80,000 drunks on a rock.”)</p>
<p>As the evening ended and we went our separate ways, I noticed the young Brit had no knapsack. I asked about that and he declared that he didn’t want to be bogged down carrying a lot of things. He slept on a concrete slab at a closed gas station that night. I felt like I was traveling first class because, after finding a nook in nearby woods, my knapsack was as comfy as the best pillow in a four-star European hotel.</p>
<p>Forty years down the road, I’m still waiting for the United Nations to recognize anti-hitchhiker bias as a human rights violation.</p>
<p>This article is adapted from James Bovard’s book <a href="" type="internal">Public Hooligan</a>.</p> | true | 4 | heartily supported catalonian referendum secession even though almost arrested time visited barcelona hit spain nexttolast country 5000mile hitchhiking jaunt summer 1977 within 10 minutes getting dropped south french border realized two years spanish classes warren county high school worth busted piñata admittedly worst student class barcelonans spoke quickly thrashing air hands could nod sigh seven hundred words minute brisker heard growing appalachian mountains spent four pleasant days roaming barcelona staying dirt cheap pension guest without thunderous tbcough spain definitely backward country visited dictator francisco franco died two years earlier clearest proof still dark ages hitchhiking illegal tried let bias spaniards viewed prohibitions simply transaction costs 1970s equivalent traffic speed cameras time came head back north staked spot last street autopista motorway entrance traffic light relatively slow thumb posed safety hazard drivers luck first hour got fraternizing wanted fingerwagging policeman glummest face saw summer descended reached deep within retrieved entire spanish vocabulary lo siento im sorry comprendo que lastima thats bad didnt know enough spanish ask got job cause pal franco time walked away clear understood id jailed caught prior experience us knew regulationsize handcuffs fit poorly large wrists respectfully waited two minutes vanished resuming hitchhiking half hour later glanced saw cop block away closing fast looking irate good nick time sickly orange british car wrongside steering wheel pulled driver signaled hop vehicle could fit trunk lincoln continental jammed pack back seat 15 seconds spare got busted sped away pasty tussleheaded driver announced im going far tonight im really tired youve working hard asked ive drinking three days explained empty liquor bottles back seat unfortunately car heading pyrenees mountains easiest stretch driving continent twenty miles later still comparing risks riding besotted driver versus gamahooched spanish slammer brit announced tea time pulled road stepped car fetched large plastic cup retrieved fifth gin seat poured eight ounces cup topped two ounces orange juice make sure get vitamin c explained would like sip jovially offered ill pass slugged smacked lips proclaimed time forge france ascended steep mountains driving right lane much slower traffic kept leaning direction ready seize steering wheel lost control plenty experience driving smashed kept conversation rattling along keep alert told family remained home isle wight vacationed spain explained drank much rough time letting collegeaged kids leave home go way least excuse 45yearold guy offered weaning bottle eventually persuaded pull road could get beer chips entered roadside bistro 18yearold british lad came table instantly bosom buddies driver160 driver conservative party member young guy supported liberal party two agreed england greatest freest nation everybody world learned democracy britain thing necessary transform ones country utopia leave briefly drink heavily young guy related bobbies hometown160used nightsticks pummel teenage miscreants driver agreed good thing boys usually deserved 160i mystified anyone would idealize official beatings dipsomaniac launched antiteutonic tirade swearing good german dead german declared hed fight german room didnt say loud didnt dissuade anyone stomping wasnt slurping ale boasting homeland eyes radiated desperate fear failed life englishman later told isle wight known 80000 drunks rock evening ended went separate ways noticed young brit knapsack asked declared didnt want bogged carrying lot things slept concrete slab closed gas station night felt like traveling first class finding nook nearby woods knapsack comfy best pillow fourstar european hotel forty years road im still waiting united nations recognize antihitchhiker bias human rights violation article adapted james bovards book public hooligan | 560 |
<p>Brad Evans: Throughout your work you have dealt with the dangers of ignorance and what you have called the violence of “organized forgetting.” Can you explain what you mean by this and why we need to be attentive to intellectual forms of violence?</p>
<p>Henry Giroux: Unfortunately, we live at a moment in which ignorance appears to be one of the defining features of American political and cultural life. Ignorance has become a form of weaponized refusal to acknowledge the violence of the past, and revels in a culture of media spectacles in which public concerns are translated into private obsessions, consumerism and fatuous entertainment. As James Baldwin rightly warned, “Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”</p>
<p>The warning signs from history are all too clear. Failure to learn from the past has disastrous political consequences. Such ignorance is not simply about the absence of information. It has its own political and pedagogical categories whose formative cultures threaten both critical agency and democracy itself.</p>
<p>What I have called the violence of organized forgetting signals how contemporary politics are those in which emotion triumphs over reason, and spectacle over truth, thereby erasing history by producing an endless flow of fragmented and disingenuous knowledge. At a time in which figures like Donald Trump are able to gain a platform by promoting values of “greatness” that serve to cleanse the memory of social and political progress achieved in the name of equality and basic human decency, history and thought itself are under attack.</p>
<p>Once ignorance is weaponized, violence seems to be a tragic inevitability. The mass shooting in Orlando is yet another example of an emerging global political and cultural climate of violence fed by hate and mass hysteria. Such violence legitimates not only a kind of <a href="" type="internal" />inflammatory rhetoric and ideological fundamentalism that views violence as the only solution to addressing social issues, it also provokes further irrational acts of violence against others. Spurrned on by a complete disrespect for those who affirm different ways of living, this massacre points to a growing climate of hate and bigotry that is unapologetic in its political nihilism.</p>
<p>It would be easy to dismiss such an act as another senseless example of radical Islamic terrorism. That is too easy. Another set of questions needs to be asked. What are the deeper political, educational, and social conditions that allow a climate of hate, racism, and bigotry to become the dominant discourse of a society or worldview? What role do politicians with their racist and aggressive discourses play in the emerging landscapes violence? How can we use education, among other resources, to prevent politics from being transformed into a pathology? And how might we counter these tragic and terrifying conditions without retreating into security or military mindsets?</p>
<p>B.E.:&#160;You insist that education is crucial to any viable critique of oppression and violence. Why?</p>
<p>H.G.:&#160;I begin with the assumption that education is fundamental to democracy. No democratic society can survive without a formative culture, which includes but is not limited to schools capable of producing citizens who are critical, self-reflective, knowledgeable and willing to make moral judgments and act in a socially inclusive and responsible way. This is contrary to forms of education that reduce learning to an instrumental logic that too often and too easily can be perverted to violent ends.</p>
<p>So we need to remember that education can be both a basis for critical thought and a site for repression, which destroys thinking and leads to violence. Michel Foucault wrote that knowledge and truth not only “belong to the register of order and peace,” but can also be found on the “side of violence, disorder, and war.” What matters is the type of education a person is encouraged to pursue.</p>
<p>It’s not just schools that are a site of this struggle. “Education” in this regard not only includes public and higher education, but also a range of cultural apparatuses and media that produce, distribute and legitimate specific forms of knowledge, ideas, values and social relations. Just think of the ways in which politics and violence now inform each other and dominate media culture. First-person shooter video games top the video-game market while Hollywood films ratchet up representations of extreme violence and reinforce a culture of fear, aggression and militarization. Similar spectacles now drive powerful media conglomerates like 21st Century Fox, which includes both news and entertainment subsidiaries.</p>
<p>As public values wither along with the public spheres that produce them, repressive modes of education gain popularity and it becomes easier to incarcerate people than to educate them, to model schools after prisons, to reduce the obligations of citizenship to mere consumption and to remove any notion of social responsibility from society’s moral registers and ethical commitments.</p>
<p>B.E.:&#160;Considering Hannah Arendt’s warning that the forces of domination and exploitation require “thoughtlessness” on behalf of the oppressors, how is the capacity to think freely and in an informed way key to providing a counter to violent practices?</p>
<p>H.G.:&#160;Young people can learn to challenge violence, like those in the antiwar movement of the early ’70s or today in the Black Lives Matter movement.</p>
<p>Education does more than create critically minded, socially responsible citizens. It enables young people and others to challenge authority by connecting individual troubles to wider systemic concerns. This notion of education is especially important given that racialized violence, violence against women and the ongoing assaults on public goods cannot be solved on an individual basis.</p>
<p>Violence maims not only the body but also the mind and spirit. As Pierre Bourdieu has argued, it lies “on the side of belief and persuasion.” If we are to counter violence by offering young people ways to think differently about their world and the choices before them, they must be empowered to recognize themselves in any analysis of violence, and in doing so to acknowledge that it speaks to their lives meaningfully.</p>
<p>There is no genuine democracy without an informed public. While there are no guarantees that a critical education will prompt individuals to contest various forms of oppression and violence, it is clear that in the absence of a formative democratic culture, critical thinking will increasingly be trumped by anti-intellectualism, and walls and war will become the only means to resolve global challenges.</p>
<p>Creating such a culture of education, however, will not be easy in a society that links the purpose of education with being competitive in a global economy.</p>
<p>B.E.:&#160;Mindful of this, there is now a common policy in place throughout the education system to create “safe spaces” so students feel comfortable in their environments. This is often done in the name of protecting those who may have their voices denied. But given your claim about the need to confront injustice, does this represent an ethically responsible approach to difficult subject matters?</p>
<p>H.G.:&#160;There is a growing culture of conformity and quietism on university campuses, made evident in the current call for safe spaces and trigger warnings. This is not just conservative reactionism, but is often carried out by liberals who believe they are acting with the best intentions. Violence comes in many forms and can be particularly disturbing when confronted in an educational setting if handled dismissively or in ways that blame victims.</p>
<p>Yet troubling knowledge cannot be condemned on the basis of making students uncomfortable, especially if the desire for safety serves merely to limit access to difficult knowledge and the resources needed to analyze it. Critical education should be viewed as the art of the possible rather than a space organized around timidity, caution and fear.</p>
<p>Creating safe spaces runs counter to the notion that learning should be unsettling, that students should challenge common sense assumptions and be willing to confront disturbing realities despite discomfort. The political scientist Wendy Brown rightly argues that the “domain of free public speech is not one of emotional safety or reassurance,” and is “ not what the public sphere and political speech promise.” A university education should, Brown writes, “ call you to think, question, doubt” and “ incite you to question everything you assume, think you know or care about.”</p>
<p>This is particularly acute when dealing with pedagogies of violence and oppression. While there is a need to be ethically sensitive to the subject matter, our civic responsibility requires, at times, confronting truly intolerable conditions. The desire for emotionally safe spaces can be invoked to protect one’s sense of privilege — especially in the privileged sites of university education. This is further compounded by the frequent attempts by students to deny some speakers a platform because their views are controversial. While the intentions may be understandable, this is a dangerous road to go down.</p>
<p>Confronting the intolerable should be challenging and upsetting. Who could read the testimonies of Primo Levi and not feel intellectually and emotionally exhausted? Or Martin Luther King Jr.’s words, not to mention those of Malcolm X? It is the conditions that produce violence that should upset us ethically and prompt us to act responsibly, rather than to capitulate to a privatized emotional response that substitutes a therapeutic language for a political and worldly one.</p>
<p>There is more at work here than the infantilizing notion that students should be protected rather than challenged in the classroom; there is also the danger of creating a chilling effect on the part of faculty who want to address controversial topics such as war, poverty, spectacles of violence, racism, sexism and inequality. If American society wants to invest in its young people, it has an obligation to provide them with an education in which they are challenged, can learn to take risks, think outside the boundaries of established ideologies, and expand the far reaches of their creativity and critical judgment. This demands a pedagogy that is complicated, taxing and disruptive.</p>
<p>B.E.:&#160;You place the university at the center of a democratic and civil society. But considering that the university is not a politically neutral setting separate from power relations, you are concerned with what you term “gated intellectuals” who become seduced by the pursuit of power. Please explain this concept.</p>
<p>H.G.:&#160;Public universities across the globe are under attack not because they are failing, but because they are they are considered discretionary — unlike K-12 education for which funding is largely compulsory. The withdrawal of financial support has initiated a number of unsavory responses: Universities have felt compelled to turn towards corporate management models. They have effectively hobbled academic freedom by employing more precarious part-time instead of full-time faculty, and they increasingly treat students as consumers to be seduced by various campus gimmicks while burying the majority in debt.</p>
<p>My critique of what I have called “gated intellectuals” responds to these troubling trends by pointing to an increasingly isolated and privileged full-time faculty who believe that higher education still occupies the rarefied, otherworldly space of disinterested intellectualism of Cardinal Newman’s 19th century, and who defend their own indifference to social issues through appeals to professionalism or by condemning as politicized those academics who grapple with larger social issues. Some academics have gone so far as to suggest that criticizing the university is tantamount to destroying it. There is a type of intellectual violence at work here that ignores and often disparages the civic function of education while forgetting Hannah Arendt’s incisive admonition that “education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it.”</p>
<p>Supported by powerful conservative foundations and awash in grants from the defense and intelligence agencies, such gated intellectuals appear to have forgotten that in a democracy it is crucial to defend the university as a crucial democratic public sphere. This is not to suggest that they are silent. On the contrary, they provide the intellectual armory for war, the analytical supports for gun ownership, and lend legitimacy to a host of other policies that lead to everyday forms of structural violence and poverty. Not only have they succumbed to official power, they collude with it.</p>
<p>B.E.:&#160;I feel your recent work provides a somber updating of Arendt’s notion of “dark times,” hallmarked by political and intellectual catastrophe. How might we harness the power of education to reimagine the future in more inclusive and less violent terms?</p>
<p>H.G.:&#160;The current siege on higher education, whether through defunding education, eliminating tenure, tying research to military needs, or imposing business models of efficiency and accountability, poses a dire threat not only to faculty and students who carry the mantle of university self-governance, but also to democracy itself.</p>
<p>The solutions are complex and cannot be addressed in isolation from a range of other issues in the larger society such as the defunding of public goods, the growing gap between the rich and the poor, poverty and the reach of the prison-industrial complex into the lives of those marginalized by class and race.</p>
<p>We have to fight back against a campaign, as Gene R. Nichol puts it, “to end higher education’s democratizing influence on the nation.” To fight this, faculty, young people and others outside of higher education must collectively engage with larger social movements for the defense of public goods. We must address that as the welfare state is defunded and dismantled, the state turns away from enacting social provisions and becomes more concerned about security than social responsibility. Fear replaces compassion, and a survival-of-the-fittest ethic replaces any sense of shared concern for others.</p>
<p>Lost in the discourse of individual responsibility and self-help are issues like power, class and racism. Intellectuals need to create the public spaces in which identities, desires and values can be encouraged to act in ways conducive to the formation of citizens willing to fight for individual and social rights, along with those ideals that give genuine meaning to a representative democracy.</p>
<p>Any discussion of the fate of higher education must address how it is shaped by the current state of inequality in American society, and how it perpetuates it. Not only is such inequality evident in soaring tuition costs, inevitably resulting in the growing exclusion of working- and middle-class students from higher education, but also in the transformation of over two-thirds of faculty positions into a labor force of overworked and powerless adjunct faculty members. Faculty need to take back the university and reclaim modes of governance in which they have the power to teach and act with dignity, while denouncing and dismantling the increasing corporatization of the university and the seizing of power by administrators and their staff, who now outnumber faculty on most campuses.</p>
<p>In return, academics need to fight for the right of students to be given an education not dominated by corporate values. Higher education is a right, and not an entitlement. It should be free, as it is in many other countries, and as Robin Kelley points out, this should be true particularly for minority students. This is all the more crucial as young people have been left out of the discourse of democracy. Rather than invest in prisons and weapons of death, Americans need a society that invests in public and higher education.</p>
<p>There is more at stake here than making visible the vast inequities in educational and economic opportunities. Seeing education as a political form of intervention, offering a path toward racial and economic justice, is crucial in reimagining a new politics of hope. Universities should be subversive in a healthy society. They should push against the grain, and give voice to the voiceless the powerless and the whispers of truth that haunt the apostles of unchecked power and wealth. Pedagogy should be disruptive and unsettling, while pushing hard against established orthodoxies. Such demands are far from radical, and leave more to be done, but they point to a new beginning in the struggle over the role of higher education in the United States.</p>
<p>Brad Evans, a senior lecturer in international relations at the University of Bristol in England, is the founder and director of the&#160; <a href="http://www.historiesofviolence.com/" type="external">Histories of Violence</a>&#160;project ( <a href="http://twitter.com/histofviolence" type="external">@histofviolence</a>), dedicated to critiquing the problem of violence in the 21st century. His most recent books include “ <a href="" type="internal">Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of Spectacle</a>,” with Henry A. Giroux, and “ <a href="" type="internal">Resilient Life: The Art of Living Dangerously</a>,” with Julian Reid.</p>
<p>This interview original ran in the <a href="" type="internal">New York Times</a>.</p> | true | 4 | brad evans throughout work dealt dangers ignorance called violence organized forgetting explain mean need attentive intellectual forms violence henry giroux unfortunately live moment ignorance appears one defining features american political cultural life ignorance become form weaponized refusal acknowledge violence past revels culture media spectacles public concerns translated private obsessions consumerism fatuous entertainment james baldwin rightly warned ignorance allied power ferocious enemy justice warning signs history clear failure learn past disastrous political consequences ignorance simply absence information political pedagogical categories whose formative cultures threaten critical agency democracy called violence organized forgetting signals contemporary politics emotion triumphs reason spectacle truth thereby erasing history producing endless flow fragmented disingenuous knowledge time figures like donald trump able gain platform promoting values greatness serve cleanse memory social political progress achieved name equality basic human decency history thought attack ignorance weaponized violence seems tragic inevitability mass shooting orlando yet another example emerging global political cultural climate violence fed hate mass hysteria violence legitimates kind inflammatory rhetoric ideological fundamentalism views violence solution addressing social issues also provokes irrational acts violence others spurrned complete disrespect affirm different ways living massacre points growing climate hate bigotry unapologetic political nihilism would easy dismiss act another senseless example radical islamic terrorism easy another set questions needs asked deeper political educational social conditions allow climate hate racism bigotry become dominant discourse society worldview role politicians racist aggressive discourses play emerging landscapes violence use education among resources prevent politics transformed pathology might counter tragic terrifying conditions without retreating security military mindsets be160you insist education crucial viable critique oppression violence hg160i begin assumption education fundamental democracy democratic society survive without formative culture includes limited schools capable producing citizens critical selfreflective knowledgeable willing make moral judgments act socially inclusive responsible way contrary forms education reduce learning instrumental logic often easily perverted violent ends need remember education basis critical thought site repression destroys thinking leads violence michel foucault wrote knowledge truth belong register order peace also found side violence disorder war matters type education person encouraged pursue schools site struggle education regard includes public higher education also range cultural apparatuses media produce distribute legitimate specific forms knowledge ideas values social relations think ways politics violence inform dominate media culture firstperson shooter video games top videogame market hollywood films ratchet representations extreme violence reinforce culture fear aggression militarization similar spectacles drive powerful media conglomerates like 21st century fox includes news entertainment subsidiaries public values wither along public spheres produce repressive modes education gain popularity becomes easier incarcerate people educate model schools prisons reduce obligations citizenship mere consumption remove notion social responsibility societys moral registers ethical commitments be160considering hannah arendts warning forces domination exploitation require thoughtlessness behalf oppressors capacity think freely informed way key providing counter violent practices hg160young people learn challenge violence like antiwar movement early 70s today black lives matter movement education create critically minded socially responsible citizens enables young people others challenge authority connecting individual troubles wider systemic concerns notion education especially important given racialized violence violence women ongoing assaults public goods solved individual basis violence maims body also mind spirit pierre bourdieu argued lies side belief persuasion counter violence offering young people ways think differently world choices must empowered recognize analysis violence acknowledge speaks lives meaningfully genuine democracy without informed public guarantees critical education prompt individuals contest various forms oppression violence clear absence formative democratic culture critical thinking increasingly trumped antiintellectualism walls war become means resolve global challenges creating culture education however easy society links purpose education competitive global economy be160mindful common policy place throughout education system create safe spaces students feel comfortable environments often done name protecting may voices denied given claim need confront injustice represent ethically responsible approach difficult subject matters hg160there growing culture conformity quietism university campuses made evident current call safe spaces trigger warnings conservative reactionism often carried liberals believe acting best intentions violence comes many forms particularly disturbing confronted educational setting handled dismissively ways blame victims yet troubling knowledge condemned basis making students uncomfortable especially desire safety serves merely limit access difficult knowledge resources needed analyze critical education viewed art possible rather space organized around timidity caution fear creating safe spaces runs counter notion learning unsettling students challenge common sense assumptions willing confront disturbing realities despite discomfort political scientist wendy brown rightly argues domain free public speech one emotional safety reassurance public sphere political speech promise university education brown writes call think question doubt incite question everything assume think know care particularly acute dealing pedagogies violence oppression need ethically sensitive subject matter civic responsibility requires times confronting truly intolerable conditions desire emotionally safe spaces invoked protect ones sense privilege especially privileged sites university education compounded frequent attempts students deny speakers platform views controversial intentions may understandable dangerous road go confronting intolerable challenging upsetting could read testimonies primo levi feel intellectually emotionally exhausted martin luther king jrs words mention malcolm x conditions produce violence upset us ethically prompt us act responsibly rather capitulate privatized emotional response substitutes therapeutic language political worldly one work infantilizing notion students protected rather challenged classroom also danger creating chilling effect part faculty want address controversial topics war poverty spectacles violence racism sexism inequality american society wants invest young people obligation provide education challenged learn take risks think outside boundaries established ideologies expand far reaches creativity critical judgment demands pedagogy complicated taxing disruptive be160you place university center democratic civil society considering university politically neutral setting separate power relations concerned term gated intellectuals become seduced pursuit power please explain concept hg160public universities across globe attack failing considered discretionary unlike k12 education funding largely compulsory withdrawal financial support initiated number unsavory responses universities felt compelled turn towards corporate management models effectively hobbled academic freedom employing precarious parttime instead fulltime faculty increasingly treat students consumers seduced various campus gimmicks burying majority debt critique called gated intellectuals responds troubling trends pointing increasingly isolated privileged fulltime faculty believe higher education still occupies rarefied otherworldly space disinterested intellectualism cardinal newmans 19th century defend indifference social issues appeals professionalism condemning politicized academics grapple larger social issues academics gone far suggest criticizing university tantamount destroying type intellectual violence work ignores often disparages civic function education forgetting hannah arendts incisive admonition education point decide whether love world enough assume responsibility supported powerful conservative foundations awash grants defense intelligence agencies gated intellectuals appear forgotten democracy crucial defend university crucial democratic public sphere suggest silent contrary provide intellectual armory war analytical supports gun ownership lend legitimacy host policies lead everyday forms structural violence poverty succumbed official power collude be160i feel recent work provides somber updating arendts notion dark times hallmarked political intellectual catastrophe might harness power education reimagine future inclusive less violent terms hg160the current siege higher education whether defunding education eliminating tenure tying research military needs imposing business models efficiency accountability poses dire threat faculty students carry mantle university selfgovernance also democracy solutions complex addressed isolation range issues larger society defunding public goods growing gap rich poor poverty reach prisonindustrial complex lives marginalized class race fight back campaign gene r nichol puts end higher educations democratizing influence nation fight faculty young people others outside higher education must collectively engage larger social movements defense public goods must address welfare state defunded dismantled state turns away enacting social provisions becomes concerned security social responsibility fear replaces compassion survivalofthefittest ethic replaces sense shared concern others lost discourse individual responsibility selfhelp issues like power class racism intellectuals need create public spaces identities desires values encouraged act ways conducive formation citizens willing fight individual social rights along ideals give genuine meaning representative democracy discussion fate higher education must address shaped current state inequality american society perpetuates inequality evident soaring tuition costs inevitably resulting growing exclusion working middleclass students higher education also transformation twothirds faculty positions labor force overworked powerless adjunct faculty members faculty need take back university reclaim modes governance power teach act dignity denouncing dismantling increasing corporatization university seizing power administrators staff outnumber faculty campuses return academics need fight right students given education dominated corporate values higher education right entitlement free many countries robin kelley points true particularly minority students crucial young people left discourse democracy rather invest prisons weapons death americans need society invests public higher education stake making visible vast inequities educational economic opportunities seeing education political form intervention offering path toward racial economic justice crucial reimagining new politics hope universities subversive healthy society push grain give voice voiceless powerless whispers truth haunt apostles unchecked power wealth pedagogy disruptive unsettling pushing hard established orthodoxies demands far radical leave done point new beginning struggle role higher education united states brad evans senior lecturer international relations university bristol england founder director the160 histories violence160project histofviolence dedicated critiquing problem violence 21st century recent books include disposable futures seduction violence age spectacle henry giroux resilient life art living dangerously julian reid interview original ran new york times | 1,455 |
<p>In the hours after a powerful fertilizer bomb blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Office Building on April 19, 1995, killing 168 people, the U.S. government mounted a massive manhunt—for Islamic terrorists. Three Arabs were supposedly seen fleeing the scene. Cable news shows, fed by tips from a former CIA official, reported that the bombing may have been the work of Saddam Hussein.</p>
<p>The FBI would no doubt have been looking for suspicious Arabs for some time—and likely would have locked up a few—had it not been for a sharp-eyed Oklahoma state trooper named Charlie Hanger. That same day, Hanger pulled over a beat-up Mercury Marquis with no license plates cruising down a highway headed to Kansas. When the driver, a fresh-faced Army vet with a Glock pistol, inexplicably got out of the car, Hanger ordered him to lift his hands and pointed his gun.</p>
<p>"My weapon is loaded," the driver, Timothy McVeigh, told Hanger. "So is mine," shot back the trooper.</p>
<p>The story of the Murrah building bombing receives its most comprehensive accounting yet in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061986445/thedaibea-20/" type="external">Oklahoma City: What the Investigation Missed-and Why it Still Matters</a>—a new book by journalists Andrew Gumbel and Roger G. Charles. It is a cautionary and at times startling tale, filled with bizarre characters from the outer fringes of American political life, with continuing relevance today. The feds certainly had legitimate reason to be worried about Islamic extremists in the mid-1990's. But there was an equally menacing threat that was being largely ignored by federal law enforcement, a resurgent movement of loosely connected extremist hate groups, Christian Identity fanatics, and gun-toting militia members, all convinced that American liberty was in grave peril.</p>
<p>As Gumbel and Charles amply document, U.S. law enforcement had plenty of warning signals that these groups were planning violent attacks—and even that the Murrah Building itself might well be one of the targets. One of the movement's most charismatic leaders, a white supremacist Arkansas death-row inmate named Richard Wayne Snell, had plotted to blow up the Murrah building years earlier. Snell, a convicted double murderer fond of quoting Rudolf Hess, had warned prison guards there would be "hell to pay" on April 19, his execution date. One of Snell's most devoted acolytes, Louis Beam, also talked about "something big" that would take place that day—which was also the anniversary of the FBI assault on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. This law-enforcement debacle had become a rallying cry for the far right, but for reasons ranging from bureaucratic rivalries to political timidity, few in Washington were paying any attention.</p>
<p>Timothy McVeigh was a product of this far-right subculture, a brooding sociopath who, as an army gunner, relished mowing down surrendering Iraqi soldiers during Operation Desert Storm. After leaving the military, McVeigh hit the gun-show circuit, where he tried to earn money selling blast simulators, smoke grenades, and copies of his favorite book, The Turner Diaries, a virulent screed that celebrates the fictional efforts of a group of valiant race warriors who blow up the FBI building in Washington, D.C. It was on the gun-show circuit that McVeigh went into business with Terry Nichols, his hapless convicted confederate who ultimately helped him assemble the bomb that destroyed the Murrah building. (Nichols always denied prior knowledge of exactly what McVeigh had in mind.) It was also at an Arizona gun show in the spring of 1993 that McVeigh met Andreas Strassmeir, one of the more intriguing stealth characters in this tale. Strassmeir, a German citizen, was the grandson of one of the founders of the Nazi Party (his membership card number was lower than Hitler's.) Strassmier was then serving as chief of security at Elohim City, a cultish compound of racist oddballs in the remote hills of eastern Oklahoma City whose leader, Robert "Grandpa" Millar had been Snell's "spiritual adviser." Strassmier gave McVeigh his business card and phone number and invited him to stop by anytime. The biggest question that continues to hang over the Oklahoma City bombing is whether McVeigh was freelancing—or whether he was part of a broader conspiracy that extended beyond Nichols.</p>
<p>For all their painstaking research, Gumbel and Charles can never quite answer this question. (For his part, McVeigh, until his death by lethal injection in 2001, always insisted he was acting alone.) More than two dozen witnesses described seeing McVeigh in the months before the bombing with a mysterious stocky character who looked vaguely like an American-Indian and was identified by the FBI as John Doe Number 2. But nobody ever found him and federal officials ultimately explained away the eyewitness reports as unreliable or confused. Some of the FBI's top investigators were never satisfied.</p>
<p>"If only one person had seen it, or two or three ... but 24?" former FBI veteran Danny Coulson told the authors. "Twenty four people say, yes, I saw him with someone else? That's pretty powerful."</p>
<p>McVeigh's telephone calling card shows he called Elohim City on April 5, just two weeks before the Murrah bombing. Did he ever visit? Was anybody at Elohim City involved?</p>
<p>What we do know is that the feds had ample reason to be closely monitoring events at the compound—and never did. Carol Howe, a former Tulsa debutante and undercover federal informant, had reported to her handler that there was talk about "assassinations, bombings, mass shootings" by Strassmier and others at the compound. (Howe had gained Strassmier's confidence by flashing the inky blank swastika tattoo on her shoulder.) But Howe worked for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms—an agency at virtual war with Louis Freeh's FBI. The two agencies barely talked, much less shared intelligence about the radical right. A month before Oklahoma City, the ATF cut Howe off, concluding she was unstable, and a pipeline into Elohim City dried up. Before the bombing, the ATF never told the FBI about what it knew about Elohim City. "Shame on them. In upper case—SHAME ON THEM," Danny Defenbaugh, the FBI agent who ended up overseeing the Oklahoma City bombing investigation, told the authors. Yet the Bureau had its own intel about Elohim City and never followed up either. Especially after Waco, the political risks of delving too deeply into the radical right were too great. "Everybody just walked in fear of domestic-terrorism cases," Horace Mewborn, another former bureau official told the authors. "They were positive they were going to blow up in their face."</p>
<p>In the years since Oklahoma City and especially after Barack Obama's election, the radical race hatred and anti-government paranoia that infused McVeigh continues to thrive—on Internet chat rooms, in militia hideouts, and at obscure rural compounds like the one that was at Elohim City. Three years ago, a Homeland Security intelligence analyst wrote a scary report warning that right-wing extremist groups were making a comeback and needed to be more closely tracked.</p>
<p>Conservative critics in Congress were outraged, accusing Homeland Security of preparing to monitor American citizens exercising their constitutional rights. Homeland Security scrapped the report and the analyst, Daryl Johnson, soon left his job, only to pop up in the news again last year when a demented anti-Muslim fanatic in Norway blew up government buildings and shot scores of children at a Labor Party youth camp. It was the worst act of terrorism in a Western country in recent years. Such killings "could easily happen here," Johnson told reporters.</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>As Gumbel and Charles remind us, they already have.</p> | true | 4 | hours powerful fertilizer bomb blew alfred p murrah federal office building april 19 1995 killing 168 people us government mounted massive manhuntfor islamic terrorists three arabs supposedly seen fleeing scene cable news shows fed tips former cia official reported bombing may work saddam hussein fbi would doubt looking suspicious arabs timeand likely would locked fewhad sharpeyed oklahoma state trooper named charlie hanger day hanger pulled beatup mercury marquis license plates cruising highway headed kansas driver freshfaced army vet glock pistol inexplicably got car hanger ordered lift hands pointed gun weapon loaded driver timothy mcveigh told hanger mine shot back trooper story murrah building bombing receives comprehensive accounting yet oklahoma city investigation missedand still mattersa new book journalists andrew gumbel roger g charles cautionary times startling tale filled bizarre characters outer fringes american political life continuing relevance today feds certainly legitimate reason worried islamic extremists mid1990s equally menacing threat largely ignored federal law enforcement resurgent movement loosely connected extremist hate groups christian identity fanatics guntoting militia members convinced american liberty grave peril gumbel charles amply document us law enforcement plenty warning signals groups planning violent attacksand even murrah building might well one targets one movements charismatic leaders white supremacist arkansas deathrow inmate named richard wayne snell plotted blow murrah building years earlier snell convicted double murderer fond quoting rudolf hess warned prison guards would hell pay april 19 execution date one snells devoted acolytes louis beam also talked something big would take place daywhich also anniversary fbi assault branch davidian compound waco texas lawenforcement debacle become rallying cry far right reasons ranging bureaucratic rivalries political timidity washington paying attention timothy mcveigh product farright subculture brooding sociopath army gunner relished mowing surrendering iraqi soldiers operation desert storm leaving military mcveigh hit gunshow circuit tried earn money selling blast simulators smoke grenades copies favorite book turner diaries virulent screed celebrates fictional efforts group valiant race warriors blow fbi building washington dc gunshow circuit mcveigh went business terry nichols hapless convicted confederate ultimately helped assemble bomb destroyed murrah building nichols always denied prior knowledge exactly mcveigh mind also arizona gun show spring 1993 mcveigh met andreas strassmeir one intriguing stealth characters tale strassmeir german citizen grandson one founders nazi party membership card number lower hitlers strassmier serving chief security elohim city cultish compound racist oddballs remote hills eastern oklahoma city whose leader robert grandpa millar snells spiritual adviser strassmier gave mcveigh business card phone number invited stop anytime biggest question continues hang oklahoma city bombing whether mcveigh freelancingor whether part broader conspiracy extended beyond nichols painstaking research gumbel charles never quite answer question part mcveigh death lethal injection 2001 always insisted acting alone two dozen witnesses described seeing mcveigh months bombing mysterious stocky character looked vaguely like americanindian identified fbi john doe number 2 nobody ever found federal officials ultimately explained away eyewitness reports unreliable confused fbis top investigators never satisfied one person seen two three 24 former fbi veteran danny coulson told authors twenty four people say yes saw someone else thats pretty powerful mcveighs telephone calling card shows called elohim city april 5 two weeks murrah bombing ever visit anybody elohim city involved know feds ample reason closely monitoring events compoundand never carol howe former tulsa debutante undercover federal informant reported handler talk assassinations bombings mass shootings strassmier others compound howe gained strassmiers confidence flashing inky blank swastika tattoo shoulder howe worked bureau alcohol tobacco firearmsan agency virtual war louis freehs fbi two agencies barely talked much less shared intelligence radical right month oklahoma city atf cut howe concluding unstable pipeline elohim city dried bombing atf never told fbi knew elohim city shame upper caseshame danny defenbaugh fbi agent ended overseeing oklahoma city bombing investigation told authors yet bureau intel elohim city never followed either especially waco political risks delving deeply radical right great everybody walked fear domesticterrorism cases horace mewborn another former bureau official told authors positive going blow face years since oklahoma city especially barack obamas election radical race hatred antigovernment paranoia infused mcveigh continues thriveon internet chat rooms militia hideouts obscure rural compounds like one elohim city three years ago homeland security intelligence analyst wrote scary report warning rightwing extremist groups making comeback needed closely tracked conservative critics congress outraged accusing homeland security preparing monitor american citizens exercising constitutional rights homeland security scrapped report analyst daryl johnson soon left job pop news last year demented antimuslim fanatic norway blew government buildings shot scores children labor party youth camp worst act terrorism western country recent years killings could easily happen johnson told reporters start finish day top stories daily beast speedy smart summary news need know nothing dont gumbel charles remind us already | 773 |
<p>On Tuesday, the House will vote on legislation that would ban abortion after 20 weeks. The bill, called&#160; “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” was sponsored by Sen. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and would make it a crime to perform or attempt an abortion after 20 weeks. Abortion providers could be fined or spend five years in prison or both, <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/352454-house-to-vote-on-20-week-abortion-ban" type="external">according to</a> The Hill.</p>
<p>Similar bills passed the House in 2013 and 2015, but were blocked by Senate Democrats both times.&#160;The latest bill is unlikely to make it through the Senate this year, but its revival still represents a real threat to reproductive rights.&#160;President Donald Trump said he would sign the legislation if it were to pass, and 21 states have already enacted this ban, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights (bans in two states, <a href="" type="internal">Arizona</a> and <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/243446-court-nixes-idahos-20-week-abortion-ban" type="external">Idaho</a>, have been permanently blocked by a court order and are not in effect).</p>
<p>“It is a priority of the anti-choice movement to see these types of abortion bans,” said Amy Friedrich-Karnik, senior federal policy adviser at the Center for Reproductive Rights.&#160;“It has been a trend in states for many years now but it popped up on federal level around 2013. What we noticed is that it popped up often at times when the-anti choice majority in Congress feels like they need to give something to their base.”</p>
<p>It’s not clear why the House is trying to push this latest ban, given court rulings in Arizona and Idaho. In 2014, the Supreme Court&#160; <a href="" type="internal">declined to hear</a> the case on Arizona’s 20-week ban. The Court deferred to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling, which struck down Arizona’s law on the grounds that it violated multiple U.S. Supreme Court rulings, including Roe v. Wade&#160;defines the point of viability around 24 weeks of pregnancy.</p>
<p>“It’s blatantly unconstitutional but it doubles down and goes further than banning the type of care that women really need and might face at a certain point in their pregnancy,”&#160;Friedrich-Karnik said. “Providers who are in these situations where they need to provide a constitutional right that they have to help people access this care, are being threatened with jail, so it is cruel upon cruel to women seeking care and providers trying to provide it.”</p>
<p>Friedrich-Karnik said she definitely does not expect the Senate to take up the issue.</p>
<p>Elizabeth Nash, senior state issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute, said the states began passing 20 week bans in 2010, when a number of very conservative lawmakers were elected to state legislatures.</p>
<p>“We had this, for lack of a better term, a movement type of election and the legislature shifted pretty dramatically to the right. As a result, the abortion restrictions flied through state legislatures so in 2011 we started to see states pass it and then it almost seemed to be as soon as it passed in one state, you saw it in another state,” Nash said. “There’s a real connection between how conservative the legislature is and the kind of abortion restrictions we were seeing.”</p>
<p>Nash said the effort to pass a 20-week ban may be part of a wider effort to set up another U.S. Supreme Court fight on abortion. But even if it were to pass and the issue made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, Nash said the court’s decision not to hear the Arizona case in 2014 and its 2016 decision in <a href="" type="internal">Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt</a>&#160;suggests that arguments for the ban would not be successful. In the latter case, the court struck down two&#160;provisions of Texas’&#160;HB 2, a sweeping abortion law which put burdensome requirements on abortion providers and threatened to&#160;greatly reduce the number of the&#160;state’s abortion clinics. In the majority opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer said there was no <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/27/us-supreme-court-rules-texas-abortion-case/" type="external">evidence</a> to support the idea that the restriction benefited patients in any way.</p>
<p>“With the U.S. Court decision [on Hellerstedt]&#160;they said evidence is incredibly important when weighing abortion restrictions,” Nash added. “Looking at the evidence around the burden on women and factual basis for these restrictions, it does nothing to help the safety and health of women who need an abortion and it based on unproven claims.”</p>
<p>“[Twenty week bans] challenge the U.S. Supreme Court’s standards on abortion in three fundamental ways: by challenging the viability standard, by using a specific week standard, and by using extremely limited exceptions,” Nash said.&#160;“While it looks like Congress is clearly interested in banning abortion, it’s also interested in setting up challenge to Roe.”</p>
<p>There are a lot of concerns about the 20 week ban, including&#160;what the <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/02/the-supreme-courts-blockbuster-term-215666" type="external">makeup</a> of the U.S. Supreme Court would be if such a case made it to the highest court in the near future. Already, the Supreme Court has upheld a ban on a second trimester abortion procedure called <a href="http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/partial+birth+abortion" type="external">Intact Dilation &amp; Extraction</a> (D&amp;X).</p>
<p>In addition, one of the biggest reasons why this type of ban is so dangerous is that it is layered on top of all of the other abortion restrictions passed by conservative legislatures that make it difficult for women to access abortion earlier in their pregnancy. Several&#160; <a href="" type="internal">states are targeting</a> a safe second trimester procedure called <a href="https://www.webmd.com/women/dilation-and-evacuation-de-for-abortion" type="external">Dilation &amp; Evacuation</a> (“D&amp;E”).&#160;A few states only have one abortion clinic. Many states require waiting periods before getting an abortion and parental consent and put onerous <a href="" type="internal">requirements</a> on clinics that provide abortions that make it more difficult for those clinics to operate. Often, people have to go to other states to access care, which puts an extra <a href="" type="internal">financial burden</a> on them and may <a href="" type="internal">further</a> <a href="" type="internal">delay</a> their abortions.</p>
<p>“There are restrictions and bans and all kinds of challenges to accessing abortions earlier on in many states and there are laws that make it difficult to access a clinic, and so it may be difficult for someone to access an abortion early in their pregnancy,” Friedrich-Karnik said.&#160;“Then a little later you have these kinds of bans that make it difficult for women to access care later.&#160;It’s really a maze we’ve created for women to access care.”</p> | true | 4 | tuesday house vote legislation would ban abortion 20 weeks bill called160 paincapable unborn child protection act sponsored sen trent franks raz would make crime perform attempt abortion 20 weeks abortion providers could fined spend five years prison according hill similar bills passed house 2013 2015 blocked senate democrats times160the latest bill unlikely make senate year revival still represents real threat reproductive rights160president donald trump said would sign legislation pass 21 states already enacted ban according center reproductive rights bans two states arizona idaho permanently blocked court order effect priority antichoice movement see types abortion bans said amy friedrichkarnik senior federal policy adviser center reproductive rights160it trend states many years popped federal level around 2013 noticed popped often times theanti choice majority congress feels like need give something base clear house trying push latest ban given court rulings arizona idaho 2014 supreme court160 declined hear case arizonas 20week ban court deferred 9th us circuit court appeals ruling struck arizonas law grounds violated multiple us supreme court rulings including roe v wade160defines point viability around 24 weeks pregnancy blatantly unconstitutional doubles goes banning type care women really need might face certain point pregnancy160friedrichkarnik said providers situations need provide constitutional right help people access care threatened jail cruel upon cruel women seeking care providers trying provide friedrichkarnik said definitely expect senate take issue elizabeth nash senior state issues manager guttmacher institute said states began passing 20 week bans 2010 number conservative lawmakers elected state legislatures lack better term movement type election legislature shifted pretty dramatically right result abortion restrictions flied state legislatures 2011 started see states pass almost seemed soon passed one state saw another state nash said theres real connection conservative legislature kind abortion restrictions seeing nash said effort pass 20week ban may part wider effort set another us supreme court fight abortion even pass issue made way us supreme court nash said courts decision hear arizona case 2014 2016 decision whole womans health v hellerstedt160suggests arguments ban would successful latter case court struck two160provisions texas160hb 2 sweeping abortion law put burdensome requirements abortion providers threatened to160greatly reduce number the160states abortion clinics majority opinion justice stephen breyer said evidence support idea restriction benefited patients way us court decision hellerstedt160they said evidence incredibly important weighing abortion restrictions nash added looking evidence around burden women factual basis restrictions nothing help safety health women need abortion based unproven claims twenty week bans challenge us supreme courts standards abortion three fundamental ways challenging viability standard using specific week standard using extremely limited exceptions nash said160while looks like congress clearly interested banning abortion also interested setting challenge roe lot concerns 20 week ban including160what makeup us supreme court would case made highest court near future already supreme court upheld ban second trimester abortion procedure called intact dilation amp extraction dampx addition one biggest reasons type ban dangerous layered top abortion restrictions passed conservative legislatures make difficult women access abortion earlier pregnancy several160 states targeting safe second trimester procedure called dilation amp evacuation dampe160a states one abortion clinic many states require waiting periods getting abortion parental consent put onerous requirements clinics provide abortions make difficult clinics operate often people go states access care puts extra financial burden may delay abortions restrictions bans kinds challenges accessing abortions earlier many states laws make difficult access clinic may difficult someone access abortion early pregnancy friedrichkarnik said160then little later kinds bans make difficult women access care later160its really maze weve created women access care | 572 |
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>DUBLIN. Bono (blessed be his name) seems at last to have employed the services of a weatherman. Having thus discerned which way the wind blows, and lifting his purple wraparound shades long enough to wink at the Nobel committee, U2’s frontman has finally outed himself, ever so carefully, as antiwar.</p>
<p>You wouldn’t have guessed when the tabloid Ireland on Sunday blared its ‘exclusive’ Bono antiwar interview on February 23 that the ‘outspoken’ Bono would actually hedge his criticisms so thoroughly. But reading through the article all you find is implied criticism of excessive tactics when dealing with ‘terrorism’, contained in a simplistic history lesson. “I think the way terrorism in Ireland was encouraged by a very over the top British response is a good example. You had 300 active service members of the Provisional IRA in the ’70s and ’80s and they sent in 30,000 troops. They also interned everybody who was suspicious without fair access to trial lawyers. Internment was the thing that actually grew the IRA.”</p>
<p>Bono’s surging concern) about civil rights and liberties in Ireland will come as some surprise to people who actually campaigned for them during the Troubles. Back then Bono was just another of the establishment voices in the Republic who worked hard to ensure that republicanism was marginalized and criminalized. (Remember his re-assuring “This is not a rebel song!” on the live version of ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’?) Like most of that Irish establishment, and sharing its complete lack of compunction about changing tune now that the IRA has ended its campaign, Bono is now an moist-eyed spokesman for dialogue, negotiation, addressing the causes of conflict, bringing people in from the cold, etc etc. He even offers “Irish people” (himself?) as experts on call to President Bush: “It would be wise at this moment in time to think about the mistakes that have been made. Irish people have a little bit of experience with terrorism, and America has none.”</p>
<p>In any case, Bono’s comments were certainly more akin to “Steady on there, George and Tony” than “No blood for oil!” Around the same time he was chatting to Ireland on Sunday, he was attending a ‘MusiCares’ benefit in New York City, where he was honoured for his tirelessly self-promoting ‘humanitarian work’. There he told the crowd: “The war against terrorism is bound up with the war against poverty.” Which, when you think about it, sounds less like a criticism than a plea for a piece of the action.</p>
<p>At the same celeb-studded event, Bono introduced Bill Clinton as “more of a rock star than any in this room”. Was this some caustic reference to the ex-prez’s sexual proclivities? He’s such a messer, that Bono; he sure knows how to afflict the comfortable.</p>
<p>Last week Bono was at it again in Paris, when he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor (which definitely sounds better than ‘MusiCares Person of the Year’) for, you guessed it, his ‘humanitarian work’. This time Jacques Chirac was the duly appointed flatteree, and Bono did not disappoint. Did he approve of Chirac’s stance on Iraq? “How can you not be for peace? I think America has no experience with terrorism or even with war. In Europe, we know a little bit more about these things. We must not make a martyr out of Saddam Hussein He’s good at propaganda. Let’s not make it easier for him.”</p>
<p>The press reports don’t say whether he dropped his American drawl in favor of a European accent (Dublin middle-class will do), but his pulling of historical rank in favor of ‘old Europe’ still left him with Tony Blair to address. Bono did so with his customary tongue-work: “Tony Blair is not going to war for oil,” he said. “Tony Blair is to me a great politician. He is sincere in his convictions about Iraq but, in my opinion, he is sincerely wrong.”</p>
<p>Compare this patented Bonoblather to the maturing outlook of fellow superstar Bruce Springsteen, who upset some fans last year when he was mealy-mouthed about the Afghan campaign. (Check out <a href="" type="internal">Garry Leupp’s excellent August open letter to Springsteen</a> on the subject.) In recent months, Bruce has been opining away in interviews against an Iraq invasion and domestic repression; opening his recent gig in Austin, Texas, with Edwin Starr’s ‘War’; and giving his props to the late Joe Strummer from the Grammy stage with a version of ‘London Calling’. (Since February 15 no one can be in any doubt about what London’s saying when it calls.)</p>
<p>Still, you might say, better late than never from Bono. Except that here in his own country, Ireland, antiwar activists may be suffering from the notorious curse that afflicts those associated with the Wailing One. (Just ask his erstwhile travelling companion, ex-US treasury secretary Paul O’Neill.) Let’s look at the record: less than three weeks ago, well over 100,000 people turned out on the streets of Dublin to oppose the war. Since then, Bono has revealed that He is On Our Side, and the movement here has descended into argument and sniping about the admissibility or otherwise of ‘direct action’ tactics, divisions gleefully exploited by the media. This belated confirmation of Brendan Behan’s too-oft-quoted maxim about how an Irish agenda begins with the split led to a disappointing turnout of fewer than 2,000 protesters (in two separate groups) at Shannon ‘Warport’ on March 1.</p>
<p>Coincidence? Nah. Sure, you could explain the middle-class likes of the Labor Party and the Greens running a hundred miles from a demonstration where the ‘violence’ of wirecutters applied to a runway fence might be employed. But Sinn Fein (the IRA’s political brethren) taking a stand against ‘direct action’? They can only have been spellbound by the Curse of Bono.</p>
<p>HARRY BROWNE lectures in the school of media at Dublin Institute of Technology. He can be contacted at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | 160 dublin bono blessed name seems last employed services weatherman thus discerned way wind blows lifting purple wraparound shades long enough wink nobel committee u2s frontman finally outed ever carefully antiwar wouldnt guessed tabloid ireland sunday blared exclusive bono antiwar interview february 23 outspoken bono would actually hedge criticisms thoroughly reading article find implied criticism excessive tactics dealing terrorism contained simplistic history lesson think way terrorism ireland encouraged top british response good example 300 active service members provisional ira 70s 80s sent 30000 troops also interned everybody suspicious without fair access trial lawyers internment thing actually grew ira bonos surging concern civil rights liberties ireland come surprise people actually campaigned troubles back bono another establishment voices republic worked hard ensure republicanism marginalized criminalized remember reassuring rebel song live version sunday bloody sunday like irish establishment sharing complete lack compunction changing tune ira ended campaign bono moisteyed spokesman dialogue negotiation addressing causes conflict bringing people cold etc etc even offers irish people experts call president bush would wise moment time think mistakes made irish people little bit experience terrorism america none case bonos comments certainly akin steady george tony blood oil around time chatting ireland sunday attending musicares benefit new york city honoured tirelessly selfpromoting humanitarian work told crowd war terrorism bound war poverty think sounds less like criticism plea piece action celebstudded event bono introduced bill clinton rock star room caustic reference exprezs sexual proclivities hes messer bono sure knows afflict comfortable last week bono paris made knight legion honor definitely sounds better musicares person year guessed humanitarian work time jacques chirac duly appointed flatteree bono disappoint approve chiracs stance iraq peace think america experience terrorism even war europe know little bit things must make martyr saddam hussein hes good propaganda lets make easier press reports dont say whether dropped american drawl favor european accent dublin middleclass pulling historical rank favor old europe still left tony blair address bono customary tonguework tony blair going war oil said tony blair great politician sincere convictions iraq opinion sincerely wrong compare patented bonoblather maturing outlook fellow superstar bruce springsteen upset fans last year mealymouthed afghan campaign check garry leupps excellent august open letter springsteen subject recent months bruce opining away interviews iraq invasion domestic repression opening recent gig austin texas edwin starrs war giving props late joe strummer grammy stage version london calling since february 15 one doubt londons saying calls still might say better late never bono except country ireland antiwar activists may suffering notorious curse afflicts associated wailing one ask erstwhile travelling companion exus treasury secretary paul oneill lets look record less three weeks ago well 100000 people turned streets dublin oppose war since bono revealed side movement descended argument sniping admissibility otherwise direct action tactics divisions gleefully exploited media belated confirmation brendan behans toooftquoted maxim irish agenda begins split led disappointing turnout fewer 2000 protesters two separate groups shannon warport march 1 coincidence nah sure could explain middleclass likes labor party greens running hundred miles demonstration violence wirecutters applied runway fence might employed sinn fein iras political brethren taking stand direct action spellbound curse bono harry browne lectures school media dublin institute technology contacted harrybrowneeircomnet 160 | 526 |
<p>The wild success of the upbeat musical Hamilton and the wide interest in a downbeat book by Sebastian Junger, entitled Tribe, are two facets of a current America longing for a more perfect union. Our sense of loss and disunity cuts across geography, age, and party. Hamilton offers a promising path forward, while Tribe explains the nature of our alienation and discontent.</p>
<p>In one of its chapters, Tribe interprets the psychology of veterans who falsely claim post-traumatic stress disorder. Men and women who served in the military with patriotism and loyalty, and who would never cheat the fellow members of their military units, are willing to cheat their fellow citizens in civilian life by lying about their medical conditions. Veterans are feeling alienated and isolated in contemporary America. They prefer their anxiety-filled wartime experiences among close-connected comrades to their current meaning-deprived existences.</p>
<p>This paradox is explained, Junger argues, by the loss in modern America of a basic psychological fulfillment—a feeling of group solidarity and a sense of belonging. He cites scientific experts who propose an evolutionary explanation for such a need—a tribal instinct that has ensured human survival over eons by endowing us with emotions that value the survival of the group over that of the individual, including even one’s individual self. Our Darwinian past has left a psychological mark on us whereby the lack of a strong group attachment leaves us with a sense of emptiness and disorientation.</p>
<p>The alienating character of life in the modern era is not a new theme. It has been a subject of sociology since the nineteenth century, when Émile Durkheim identified it with the term “anomie” (roughly, “rootlessness”). Durkheim focused on a correlation between anomie and suicide. The current and ever-rising suicide rate among returning war veterans has gained our horrified attention, and lends support to Junger’s thesis. That same sense of rootlessness and disorientation is also on the rise in America among members of the white lower middle class, who are also committing suicide in larger percentages. As Durkheim explained, an increased suicide rate correlates with economic decline and the absence of a supportive community. Many whites in the United States no longer consider themselves to be a key part of a unified nation. They feel overtaken not just by economic insecurity but also by immigrant hordes who, as they see it, steal their jobs and dismantle their sense of a national community. The same sense of alienation is no doubt felt by many non-whites, but who, never having been near the top, feel less resentment.</p>
<p>In contrast to this gloomy backdrop, Hamilton tells the upbeat story of a poor immigrant boy who makes good in a big way and helps to found a nation. It is the archetypal American story captured in the phrase “the American Dream.” Blacks and Latinos—cast members whose identities have been conceived as non-mainstream subcultures—play the roles of Anglo Founding Fathers and Mothers. The multiethnic cast of Hamilton exhibits the potential of the United States to form a union from diverse cultures and races, underlining the hope that America, despite its ethnic diversity, can become one unified society—a special, new kind of big-tented tribe. The idiom of Hamilton is modern rap and hip-hop in Standard American English with a salty vocabulary. The play has been praised on the left and the right. It is hard to buy a ticket for Hamilton at a reasonable price. Arrangements are being made for showings in various American cities, with separate productions and casts being prepared in the Midwest and Far West.</p>
<p>The image of America as a melting pot is now almost universally rejected as an outdated conception. It’s said that a better metaphor is that of a mosaic. That’s indeed a more fitting image than melting pot for our variegated nation. But mosaics are highly unified works of art, put together with glue and grout. In the United States, those binding elements are our national language and its public culture, including laws, loyalties, and shared sentiments, that make the language intelligible. If the sense of national unity now seems to be threatened, it is not just because of globalization, economic change, and new technologies—the usual explanations. Another causal factor needs to be adduced.</p>
<p>Over the past six decades, changes in the early grades of schooling have contributed to the decline of communal sentiment. Under the banner of “Teach the child not the subject!” and with a stress on skills rather than content, the decline in shared, school-imparted knowledge has caused reading comprehension scores of high school students to decline. Between the 1960s and 1980s, scores dropped half a standard deviation and have never come back. In addition, school neglect of factual knowledge, including American history and its civic principles, joined with a general de-emphasis of “rote learning” and “mere fact,” induced a decline in widely shared factual knowledge among Americans. This not only weakened their ability to read and communicate; it has left them with weaker patriotic sentiments, and with a diminished feeling that they are in the same boat with Americans of other races, ethnicities, and political outlooks.</p>
<p>My calling attention to these educational outcomes is something one might expect from a political conservative who is complaining about political correctness and a decline of patriotism. But my intended primary target audience is my fellow liberals. Ever since the war protests of the Vietnam era, in which I joined, the left has been leery of overt patriotism and boosterism. But as Richard Rorty presciently observed in a New York Times op-ed in 1997, a high-minded, unpatriotic left will not manage to get much done, and will be despised by other Americans for its lack of simple civic sentiment. Rorty distinguished between the old union-led left that he and I shared, and that achieved practical improvements, with the new, academic left that tries to “stay as angry as possible.”</p>
<p>I seek to address those whose main political and social objectives include greater equality of education and income, and higher status for previously neglected or despised groups. I’m not chiefly addressing readers who equate American patriotism with flag waving and competitive forms of tribalism, but rather with those who subscribe to the best of our Enlightenment ideals that have made us in fact the greatest country in the world—as judged by, for instance, our effective assimilation of widely diverse persons, which Hamilton exemplifies.</p>
<p>My thesis is that our young people’s low opinion of their own country has been intensified by the current disrepute of nationalism in any form in our schools and universities. This anti-nationalism has been a big mistake, a self-inflicted wound on our individual and collective state of mind, as documented in Tribe. The political and psychological stakes are high. In an ambitious series on the disintegrating Middle East published by The New York Times, a major reason offered for the disintegration of the countries in that region is the “lack of an intrinsic sense of national identity.” Such lack of national identity in a modern nation leaves the field open to narrow ethnic enmities and political polarizations.</p>
<p>Anti-nationalism, far from being an advanced view that prefigures a new global era, leads to the kinds of tribalism that are the worst blights on human history—in sharp contrast to the post-Enlightenment kind of nationalism that the American experiment attempted to achieve. Group adherence to the right kind of nationalism is not only a great tonic for the human psyche; it is also an inherent necessity of the modern era. Nationhood is not going to be dissolved into some fanciful brave new globalized world. That point is well worth expanding upon, since, without accepting the inherent necessity of nationalism in the modern world, a new American sense of community cannot, in the present atmosphere, be achieved.</p>
<p>That a big republic like ours requires the common school to keep it unified was a theme of the American founders including George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, the male heroes of Hamilton. It was also a big theme of the common-school movement of the nineteenth century. Our earlier common school, for all of its shortcomings, was a necessary agent in making the United States a success. That was a subject of my 2010 book, The Making of Americans. As scholars of modernity have shown, the common school continues to be a necessary feature of successful nations—helping to combine the economic and political necessities of industrial-age society with the psychological necessities of the tribal instinct.</p>
<p>The schoolmasters of early America and their intellectual leaders, like Noah Webster, understood this. Webster composed, in addition to his Dictionary, hugely popular schoolbooks. The early schoolmasters and mistresses saw themselves as nation-builders devoted to instilling common values and loyalties in the citizens of the new nation, and a sense of solidarity with fellow Americans. True, this aim did not fully apply to blacks and American Indians in every part of the country. But that too would come to change. It was a system that in the early twentieth century produced some of the highest national reading scores in the world.</p>
<p>Why so? And why the subsequent decline? The reading scores of high school students are well correlated with their general academic achievement and competence, including an ability to communicate well with others, and gain knowledge from the writing and speech of others. Reading comprehension scores are good indicators of a citizen’s general knowledge and ability to learn—the most accurate single indicator of a citizen’s competence. Since speech and writing require huge amounts of silently shared knowledge that is implicitly present but unspoken and unwritten, the students who will read best are those who have most fully mastered the unspoken knowledge that is taken for granted by other members of the speech community. The breadth of knowledge that can be taken for granted in a nation determines its literacy level. But under the new, child-centered education, widely introduced in the United States after 1945, our dominance in reading scores evaporated.</p>
<p>Our schools now exhibit a diminished sense, once widely held, that a central goal of American schooling is to foster national cohesion—“out of many, one.” The loss of that sense of mission in the early grades has occurred because of two intellectual changes that have gained ascendancy during the past 80 or so years. The first and most important change was a shift, starting in the 1920s and ’30s, from an emphasis on initiating children into the mores of the national tribe to an emphasis on developing the nature of the individual child.</p>
<p>That change is reflected in the changing architecture of our elementary schools. Early twentieth-century school buildings in America are imposing civic structures. They have high flights of steps surmounted by grand columns that fairly shout: “The school is important to the local and national community.” Each morning, in the old massive schools, you can still see the small figures of the children climbing the high steps, the whole scene symbolizing a focus on the important place of schooling in the community. And not just in the local community: The design always includes a tall-standing American flag, to which the children pledge allegiance every morning.</p>
<p>After World War II, under the influence of child-centered education, American school architecture changed. The design of the elementary school came to be centered on the child. There were no longer high steps to climb, but direct, child-level paths into bright, low-slung, welcoming buildings, often with gaily colored architectural elements. The new architecture signaled that although the school was devoted to the larger community, and although the Pledge of Allegiance was still recited, the main emphasis was on the children’s world, on encouraging their imaginations and developing their individual interests and personalities.</p>
<p>This hyperindividualism of “teach the child, not the subject” came into American schooling only gradually in the early twentieth century, taking over completely only in the 1950s and ’60s. It was a fundamental shift. Current political correctness in education is an updated variation on the theme of individualism. The social version of “teach the child, not the subject” became “respect the home ethnicity of the child; don’t impose an Anglo culture that is alien to his or her background and personality.” And the psychological version of individualism became: “Adjust the subject matters to the child’s interests and abilities.” Both multiculturalism and multiple-intelligence theory caught on like wildfire in recent decades. More recently, one’s individuality has become conceived through “intersectionality.” A child is to be understood as an intersection of multiple essential groups and tribes—“Hispanic and gay,” for example—not as an “American,” which is assumed to be a nonessential trait.</p>
<p>After individualism, the second most important intellectual change in our early schools after World War II, and especially during and after the Vietnam war, was an explicit anti-nationalism. This was not anti-patriotism. It was conceived as a higher patriotism, as an effort to make our nation fairer and better. Nationalism came into disrepute for various reasons. It was associated with militarism and exclusionary racism—as exemplified in Nazi Germany, and in wars of ethnic cleansing. It was decried as a device to keep the moneyed class on top. It became associated with the flag-draped military adventures of Western imperialism. This anti-nationalist attitude reached a climax in our universities and teacher-training institutions during the deadly Vietnam adventure of the 1960s and ’70s.</p>
<p>As a result, the sentiments of “Our country right or wrong,” and “Our country is the greatest in the world” (not very admirable sorts of jingoistic nationalism) got replaced by a recitation of the ways that our country failed to treat everyone as an equal, and how it mistreated whole classes of its people: American Indians, blacks, women, Japanese. “Our country is pretty bad.”</p>
<p>Let me be clear: This self-criticism was overdue, and it remains a necessary prelude to the country’s self-improvement, which will depend on all our communities looking like the multiracial, multiethnic yet altogether Americanized young people I see every week on the lawn of Jefferson’s University. One characteristic these diverse young people share is that their English reading comprehension scores are pretty good. Otherwise they would not be admitted and could not pass their courses. Such mastery of formal and informal American English is a prerequisite to equal opportunity, and all other equalities in the nation.</p>
<p>The right kind of modern nationalism is communal, intent on including everyone. The wrong, exclusivist kind, exemplified by the racism of the Nazis, gave all nationalism a bad name and helped turn the post-Vietnam left away from nationalism of any sort. The sentiment was that most countries are pretty bad, especially big ones that prey on little ones.</p>
<p>This critical attitude to nationhood was intensified by a lack of basic knowledge among many of us antiwar protestors. Their schooling, according to surveys, had left them with a blank ignorance of the facts of American history and governance. “Teach the child, not the subject” had discouraged traditional recitations and the shared knowledge of basic facts of American history and its institutions of self-government. “Rote-learned” facts weren’t really important, said progressive education, compared to critical thinking and the natural development of the individual child. The new trend was well-described in 1987 as “tot sociology” by the educational historian, Diane Ravitch:</p>
<p>In 1982 I began to research the condition of history instruction in the public schools.&#160;The more closely I examined the social studies curriculum, the more my attention was drawn to the curious nature of the early grades, which is virtually content-free.&#160;The social studies curriculum for the K-3 grades is organized around the study of the relationships within the home, school, neighborhood, and local community.&#160;This curriculum of “me, my family, my school, my community” now dominates the early grades in American public education. It contains no mythology, legends, biographies, hero tales, or great events in the life of this nation or any other.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, the National Assessment of Educational Progress reports that Americans’ factual knowledge about this nation’s history, its ideals, and the details of its form of government has declined sharply since the 1970s. We who are to govern the nation know little about its history and workings. That is not the fault of present-day citizens, but of their education under the pedagogical ideas that continue to animate our early classrooms.</p>
<p>Americans’ sense of community has thus experienced a double whammy in the early grades: declining national pride is coupled with declining knowledge of national history and ideals. Ignorance of the historical ideals that have animated our imperfect realization of them has thus been accompanied by a strong suspicion of any form of nationalism, including our own. According to the Pew Foundation, our citizens now inhabit a vaguely delineated geographical and political homeland that is not as good to all its citizens as it should be. They believe their country exists within a new global order in which every person has a right to his or her home culture and personal identity. Moreover, children’s good opinion of their own country has been declining. A Pew survey showed that today just 15 percent of young people say that the United States is the greatest country in the world—down from 27 percent in 2011.</p>
<p>This summer, Judith Kogan of NPR produced a report for the Fourth of July featuring interviews with Massachusetts schoolchildren who had not the slightest acquaintance with, indeed had never heard of, “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” or “America the Beautiful” or “God Bless America.” Kogan interviewed teachers who explained that songs like “The Star-Spangled Banner” were too militaristic, and that “God Bless America” mentioned God. Other patriotic songs, they said, were too narrowly nationalistic, and might offend children from other nations and cultures.</p>
<p>Nationalism is essential to effective human existence in the modern world. Those who have come to grips with Ernest Gellner’s pathbreaking work Nations and Nationalism will agree with that assertion. Even his critics concede the truth of this major point. Gellner, a professor of philosophy and, later, professor of anthropology in various prestigious universities, was unconstrained by language barriers or conventional thought. He wrote about Islam as easily as about France. His book on nationalism came out in 1983, when most people regarded it as an unnecessary evil that breeds colonialism and war.</p>
<p>Over several decades and many subsequent books, Gellner explained why the rise of the post-agrarian age that we now inhabit requires a new sort of economic arrangement in which the chief economic unit is a nation state that offers universal education on the use of the standard written and spoken national language. A post-agrarian economy, as Adam Smith had explained, is specialized and spread out. Nails are made in one place, timbers are cut and planed in another. The nail-makers and timber-planers have to communicate over time and space. Before universal literacy and language standardization, this widely spread communication had not been possible. This explains why independent efforts at language standardization and universal literacy arose autonomously in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The United States was formed just after this language-normalizing effort had been completed. We were the first major nation to be created with an already well-standardized print language and the principle of universal schooling.</p>
<p>Critics of Gellner have complained that his functional account of the necessity of shared language and shared laws fails to consider the emotional power of nationalism in modern times—the need for a sense of belonging. But that correction simply amplifies and strengthens Gellner’s main argument. The modern nation serves a necessary function not just for the modern economy and its political system, as Gellner has argued, but it also fulfills an emotional need for community in the large, modern, anonymous, specialized economy.</p>
<p>To Gellner’s analysis may be added a linguistic footnote: Once a standard national language and its associated national culture have become established in schools, by hundreds of thousands of writers and speakers, and in millions of books, pamphlets, and blogs, it becomes extremely difficult to change radically or expunge. Such language stability is a novelty in human history. Before universal literacy and the modern nation, languages changed as a matter of course and adjusted themselves to the tongue of the current conquerors. After the eighteenth century, that changed. National academies and dictionary-makers fixed the standardized print languages. Individual vocabulary items have since disappeared and new ones have come into being, but, once established, no widespread national print language has been extinguished, or even changed significantly.</p>
<p>This explains why the current anti-nationalistic orientation of our schools is emphatically not justified by ideas like “the new global economy” and “globalism.” Individuals across the world are not happily communicating with one another in a unified global culture and a shared global language. The nation-state with its national standard language remains the dominant social, economic, and emotional entity of the present day, and is likely to remain so. The global economy is multinational, in which global corporations have to follow national laws, and communicate in national languages.</p>
<p>Shared language is a vehicle of emotional fulfillment across the world. People are attached to their nations by a sense of belonging to a language community and its accompanying set of values and traditions. The writer who has best captured this dimension of nationalism is Benedict Anderson, in his 1983 book, Imagined Communities. A shared linguistic culture enables people to imagine a community that extends far beyond one’s locality. For all of these reasons—the economic imperative invoked by Gellner, the communitarian imperative described by Anderson and Junger, and the stable inertia of print languages—the nation-state remains the key unit of the contemporary world. Acculturation into a national culture (which may of course include plenty of international knowledge) is still the chief task and duty of national systems of schooling. Our schools believe that they are valiantly teaching the national language, but as I shall show in the next section, the current “word-study” and “strategy-study” approaches of schools needs to be abandoned in favor of “knowledge-study.”</p>
<p>National cultures, like national languages, have been deliberately invented. The American literate culture that is widely shared by successful citizens was consciously formed in the beginning by people like Noah Webster and Parson Weems, and by those schoolmasters who followed them in the early nineteenth century. The school innovators of the present day are in a somewhat different position from those early culture builders. They have to contend with the inertial mass of existing usages and assumptions. The early school leaders and teachers were national culture creators. Once that culture became established over time and space, it could not be changed rapidly, since it had already become the political and economic common language, known and used by millions of adults.</p>
<p>Millions of Americans now inhabit a well-established national culture and public sphere. Those who are proficient in that language and culture are on average the best communicators and the wealthiest citizens. A national culture is a club that rewards its most proficient members. Those who have not mastered it suffer loss of opportunity. The aims of social justice and equality of opportunity therefore require subtlety in attempting significant cultural change in our present-day schools. To be effective as citizens and workers, every schoolchild needs to gain access to the public sphere and its standardized language, as well as to share a sense of belonging to a country that is worthy of devotion. This public sphere can be changed and improved—but only gradually, and with tact. It is important to abolish evil elements of our past culture, but it’s also important to offer every child access to the currently shared public culture.</p>
<p>The proof that our schools are not currently doing so is the low average literacy level of our school graduates, and the large reading-proficiency gaps that persist between social groups in the United States. These equity gaps show that current American schools have not fully grasped their acculturative responsibilities. The usual reason given—poverty—cannot be a fully adequate explanation, because some national school systems, for instance Japan’s, educate children of poverty very well. I believe that our current schools have not understood how great a quantity of specific knowledge is needed to gain mastery of the written and spoken national language. This insight has been fully understood only since the 1960s. It is an insight of paramount importance for understanding how to narrow our literacy gaps, as well as for overcoming our extreme polarizations and gaps in communal sentiment.</p>
<p>To read the text of Hamilton is to be bowled over by the genius of Lin-Manuel Miranda in forming the structure of the play and its language. Its mode is rap and hip-hop, but its language is Standard American English, which makes Hamilton an incarnation of the multicultural American society foreseen by Herman Melville in 1849: “On this Western Hemisphere all tribes and people are forming into one federated whole; and there is a future which shall see the estranged children of Adam restored as to the old hearthstone in Eden. . . .  Then shall the curse of Babel be revoked, a new Pentecost come, and the language they shall speak shall be the language of Britain.” Melville imagined the “federated” unity of the future American mosaic as a unity that would be consolidated by language.</p>
<p>Print literacy is acknowledged by everyone as a primary aim of schooling. But not everyone has drawn out the implications of that accepted truth. We now know more about the implications that follow from the fact that a common standardized language is an economic and social political necessity based on silently shared knowledge. Although the economic imperative had produced language standardization and ever-broader schooling in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was not until the 1960s that psycholinguistics was to make fully clear that the successful use of a common language requires a huge store of unspoken shared beliefs, facts, and attitudes. Note the unspoken assumptions a reader needs to fully understand that last sentence. Anyone will understand its meaning better who knows that current American schools have been treating reading comprehension as a technical skill involving general comprehension strategies—a failed policy inconsistent with the scientific understanding of language comprehension as a domain-specific form of expertise, dependent on domain-specific knowledge.</p>
<p>Two decades after this basic research into the need for unspoken knowledge, in the 1980s, Walter Kintsch and Teun A. van Dijk published a pathbreaking book that generalized the earlier insight and caused it to be widely accepted in cognitive science. The authors summarized the principle as follows:</p>
<p>One of the major contributions of psychology is the recognition that much of the information needed to understand a text is not provided by the information expressed in the text itself but must be drawn from the language user’s knowledge of the person, objects, states of affairs, or events the discourse is about.</p>
<p>A text is “like a picnic to which the author brings the words and the reader the meanings,” said the literary critic Northrop Frye. And those meanings are not compelled by the words, which are highly ambiguous items. The words can only be disambiguated and made coherent by the reader’s relevant knowledge—unspoken knowledge that is shared between the author and reader, speaker, and listener. The reason that Google Translate so often does such a poor job, despite the billions spent on machine translation over the years, is its inability to guess what relevant knowledge and context is being taken for granted. Dictionaries and grammar are not enough. If they were, Google Translate would do a far better job.</p>
<p>The recent scientific consensus about the role of unspoken shared knowledge in the language transaction has implications for educational policy that American educators have not yet been willing to draw. If shared background knowledge is essential for effective reading, writing, speaking, and listening in a nation, then the schools of a nation need to be common schools that teach this shared knowledge of the public sphere. They must do so if all citizens are to be literate. It doesn’t mean that all schools must be exactly the same, but it does imply that along the way, and in their own ways, the schools must impart a core of knowledge that is the same for all. Otherwise huge literacy gaps will remain among Americans.</p>
<p>That necessary logic must not be clouded by the current debates over the so-called Common Core initiative in the United States. Those debates are largely about everything except shared knowledge. The language standards of the Common Core do not require specific knowledge. Neither do the literacy standards of individual states. Specific knowledge is the last thing that our educational experts (under the reign of progressivism) wish to define. They prefer to close off that issue by saying it’s a local political issue and by asking this embarrassing question: “Who decides?”</p>
<p>There is a clear answer to that conversation stopper. Writers like Lin-Manuel Miranda and other influential language users have already decided. The public sphere is de facto the knowledge and language in use by those who can read and communicate effectively. They receive high scores on reading tests. They can read Hamilton (in the print version even if they can’t get a ticket), and they can read The New York Times. The content-impoverished skill and vocabulary exercises conducted by the schools continue to leave large reading gaps between social groups. That’s because the reading gaps are knowledge gaps—the results of schooling that rests on empty skill practice and slogans like “Who decides?”</p>
<p>An inherent logic can thus be applied to answer the question “Who decides?” We can start with the psycholinguistic insight that effective language use requires speaker and listener to share common knowledge, sentiments, and beliefs. Then, as the philosopher of language H. P. Grice showed analytically, the speaker has to know what the listeners know and the listeners have to know that the speaker assumes they know it. This shared knowledge is what competent listeners and speakers, readers and writers, possess, and which they know their co-language-users possess. This is the very knowledge that makes them competent. This shared knowledge is limited; if it were not it couldn’t be shared. It is necessarily known to all competent speakers and writers. Thus, the core of knowledge has already been largely decided by a lot of competent language users over time. The schools need to perpetuate that competence for all—even as they may try to amplify, amend, and improve our commonly shared knowledge, sentiments, and beliefs. The schools can and should improve culture, but without (as now occurs) leaving many of their students incompetent because they are ignorant.</p>
<p>Partly because of inadequate theories about education and language, an understanding of the basic acculturative duty of the schools in a liberal democracy has receded. The main responsibility of a nation’s elementary schools is not to develop and nurture each child’s individuality. Individuality is made not born. It is a late product of socialization and education, as the noted pragmatist philosopher G. H. Mead rightly held. Only through children’s mastery of the public sphere and its language can all children be offered a fair chance in the modern economy, and thus a chance to fully develop their individualities. Moreover, mastery of shared knowledge is also a necessary part of a shared sense of community in a nation.</p>
<p>The popularity of Hamilton offers hope that recent educational ideas of hyperindividualism and anti-nationalism may be open to revision. The admirable post-Vietnam attack against prejudice, tribalism, and stereotypes needs to be freed from its unnecessary admixture of nation-bashing that marches under the banner of “multiculturalism.” This trend so disturbed the liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. that he paused in his scholarly labors to write an alarmist pamphlet entitled The Disuniting of America (1991). It induced the celebrated liberal philosopher, Richard Rorty, to write in 1994 a pungent op-ed in The New York Times titled “The Unpatriotic Academy” and four years later a passionate book, Achieving Our Country.</p>
<p>These two distinguished writers of the older, labor-union left attacked the self-righteous, ivory-tower intellectualism of the new academic left. In Achieving Our Country, Rorty warned that such anti-national disdain, with its lack of practical engagement with the plight of American workers, would open the country to full-scale resentment against political correctness, and make the nation vulnerable to the demagogy of some fascist strongman who would play on their discontent and defensive prejudices:</p>
<p>The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for—someone to assure them that once he is elected the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodern professors will no longer be calling the shots. . . . All the sadism which the academic left has tried to make unacceptable to its students will come flooding back.</p>
<p>Both Rorty and Schlesinger were strong nationalists of the federated kind. Melville adopted the word “federated”—putting him squarely on the side of Hamilton and Washington, the leading Federalists of the early era. They were intent on creating a strong cohesive nation out of the disparate parts—without erasing the parts. Necessity had forced the American founders to federalism—to a compromise between strong localities and a strong central government: “Out of many, one,” but without erasing the many. This unity-in-diversity idea has greatly helped American political and economic growth. It has helped us to avoid the worst excesses of tribal nationalism. The American idea that local autonomies can coexist with national unity signaled from the beginning that we are not a melting pot but a mosaic. The federal principle is reflected in our flag. What other national flag is so visually busy, so like a mosaic?</p>
<p>American federalism had accidentally hit upon a deep insight about human groups. Sociologists have found it useful to distinguish two kinds of social arrangements using the German terms Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. Gemein means shared, common; a Gemeinschaft is a society with common cultural and even kinship ties. It is a cozy, often local arrangement with a powerful sense of group identity and loyalty. It fulfills the psychological need for group identity and even for personal identity, the sort of feeling Sebastian Junger describes in Tribe. The German word Gesell, by contrast, does not mean common; but instead means fellow or companion—like a fellow passenger on a train, or a fellow worker in a company. Gesellschaft is a German term for a commercial company. Mono-cultural nationalism of the Gemeinschaft type justifiably got a bad name by being associated with racial and tribal feelings as in Hitler’s Germany, or with the hate-filled nationalist wars in the Balkans and elsewhere with their “ethnic cleansing.” The Gemeinschaft sort of nationalism leads to an us-versus-them mentality, hatred of the other, and to war. Such tribalism is deeply ingrained, and has left a bloody track through history, even while it has fulfilled the deep-seated need for community. The successes of the American experiment are partly owing to federalism, an idea that offers the practicality of a Gesellschaft while retaining the emotional fulfillment of a Gemeinschaft. Our federalism has managed to induce a vigorous, unifying public culture without abolishing the cozier cultures of the home and the locality.</p>
<p>Federalism is a delicate balancing act and a continuing work in progress. It is the model for the successful modern nation. Gellner puts the matter succinctly: “Nationalism is a phenomenon of&#160;Gesellschaft&#160;using the idiom of Gemeinschaft:&#160;a mobile anonymous society simulating a closed cozy community. It is engendered basically by two facts: the dissolution of the old rigid hierarchical order in which most men knew their place and were glued to it, and the fact that the new order, because of the nature of work within it, needs to operate in a [common public] culture.”</p>
<p>This national public culture is an invented construct that is sustained and improved by the schools of a nation. Our schools have played a key role in our past national success. But the Americanization project of the schools got waylaid by individualistic education and anti-nationalism. Hamilton, written by a genius who is the product of American schooling, shows that the schools have not fully abandoned their democratic responsibilities. But it is clear to a growing number of experts that those responsibilities must include teaching the national public culture to all, and encouraging loyalty to the national community and to its best ideals.</p>
<p>That will require American schools to teach a lot more history and civics, including the basic Enlightenment principles of the nation. The bloody and successful civil rights movement of the recent past was predicated on everyone knowing those principles. Even the Black Panthers quoted them. During the civil rights movement, national pride was not only consistent with national progress; it was part of its originating force.</p>
<p>The sense of belonging diminishes the sense of alienation from the group. It also diminishes the sense of alienation from the individuals within the group. The sentiment of membership in a big-tented America enhances a sense of connection with the Other. The alarming persistence, even intensification, of racism in the United States can be overcome only by enhancing, not diminishing, our national sense of solidarity.</p>
<p>If the old patriotic songs for the schools don’t now pass muster, why is no one writing new ones? Perhaps someone is. But, really, what is wrong with “America the Beautiful,” which aims to “crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea?” Brotherhood surely includes sisterhood, and is a reasonable translation of “Gesellschaft as Gemeinschaft.” But if that doesn’t appeal, our schools nonetheless need to agree on some other patriotic songs to put in the place of “America the Beautiful” and “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” Maybe “This Land Is Your Land” and “We Shall Overcome”—any songs that reaffirm the nation’s Enlightenment ideal of “freedom and justice for all.” That ideal is still something to be proud of.</p>
<p>Maybe Lin-Manuel Miranda will write a great rap-hip-hop version of “America the Beautiful” celebrating the stars-and-stripes national community. The federated American idea continues to be, as Abraham Lincoln said, the “last best hope of earth.” The “disuniting of America” has been an unfruitful effort. The individualism of our schools coupled with the divisive anti-nationalist pieties of the recent past have encouraged polarization and helped make our internal politics tribal rather than federated. Our elementary schools need to stop abetting that ominous trend and instead become the first line of defense against them.</p> | true | 4 | wild success upbeat musical hamilton wide interest downbeat book sebastian junger entitled tribe two facets current america longing perfect union sense loss disunity cuts across geography age party hamilton offers promising path forward tribe explains nature alienation discontent one chapters tribe interprets psychology veterans falsely claim posttraumatic stress disorder men women served military patriotism loyalty would never cheat fellow members military units willing cheat fellow citizens civilian life lying medical conditions veterans feeling alienated isolated contemporary america prefer anxietyfilled wartime experiences among closeconnected comrades current meaningdeprived existences paradox explained junger argues loss modern america basic psychological fulfillmenta feeling group solidarity sense belonging cites scientific experts propose evolutionary explanation needa tribal instinct ensured human survival eons endowing us emotions value survival group individual including even ones individual self darwinian past left psychological mark us whereby lack strong group attachment leaves us sense emptiness disorientation alienating character life modern era new theme subject sociology since nineteenth century Émile durkheim identified term anomie roughly rootlessness durkheim focused correlation anomie suicide current everrising suicide rate among returning war veterans gained horrified attention lends support jungers thesis sense rootlessness disorientation also rise america among members white lower middle class also committing suicide larger percentages durkheim explained increased suicide rate correlates economic decline absence supportive community many whites united states longer consider key part unified nation feel overtaken economic insecurity also immigrant hordes see steal jobs dismantle sense national community sense alienation doubt felt many nonwhites never near top feel less resentment contrast gloomy backdrop hamilton tells upbeat story poor immigrant boy makes good big way helps found nation archetypal american story captured phrase american dream blacks latinoscast members whose identities conceived nonmainstream subculturesplay roles anglo founding fathers mothers multiethnic cast hamilton exhibits potential united states form union diverse cultures races underlining hope america despite ethnic diversity become one unified societya special new kind bigtented tribe idiom hamilton modern rap hiphop standard american english salty vocabulary play praised left right hard buy ticket hamilton reasonable price arrangements made showings various american cities separate productions casts prepared midwest far west image america melting pot almost universally rejected outdated conception said better metaphor mosaic thats indeed fitting image melting pot variegated nation mosaics highly unified works art put together glue grout united states binding elements national language public culture including laws loyalties shared sentiments make language intelligible sense national unity seems threatened globalization economic change new technologiesthe usual explanations another causal factor needs adduced past six decades changes early grades schooling contributed decline communal sentiment banner teach child subject stress skills rather content decline shared schoolimparted knowledge caused reading comprehension scores high school students decline 1960s 1980s scores dropped half standard deviation never come back addition school neglect factual knowledge including american history civic principles joined general deemphasis rote learning mere fact induced decline widely shared factual knowledge among americans weakened ability read communicate left weaker patriotic sentiments diminished feeling boat americans races ethnicities political outlooks calling attention educational outcomes something one might expect political conservative complaining political correctness decline patriotism intended primary target audience fellow liberals ever since war protests vietnam era joined left leery overt patriotism boosterism richard rorty presciently observed new york times oped 1997 highminded unpatriotic left manage get much done despised americans lack simple civic sentiment rorty distinguished old unionled left shared achieved practical improvements new academic left tries stay angry possible seek address whose main political social objectives include greater equality education income higher status previously neglected despised groups im chiefly addressing readers equate american patriotism flag waving competitive forms tribalism rather subscribe best enlightenment ideals made us fact greatest country worldas judged instance effective assimilation widely diverse persons hamilton exemplifies thesis young peoples low opinion country intensified current disrepute nationalism form schools universities antinationalism big mistake selfinflicted wound individual collective state mind documented tribe political psychological stakes high ambitious series disintegrating middle east published new york times major reason offered disintegration countries region lack intrinsic sense national identity lack national identity modern nation leaves field open narrow ethnic enmities political polarizations antinationalism far advanced view prefigures new global era leads kinds tribalism worst blights human historyin sharp contrast postenlightenment kind nationalism american experiment attempted achieve group adherence right kind nationalism great tonic human psyche also inherent necessity modern era nationhood going dissolved fanciful brave new globalized world point well worth expanding upon since without accepting inherent necessity nationalism modern world new american sense community present atmosphere achieved big republic like requires common school keep unified theme american founders including george washington alexander hamilton male heroes hamilton also big theme commonschool movement nineteenth century earlier common school shortcomings necessary agent making united states success subject 2010 book making americans scholars modernity shown common school continues necessary feature successful nationshelping combine economic political necessities industrialage society psychological necessities tribal instinct schoolmasters early america intellectual leaders like noah webster understood webster composed addition dictionary hugely popular schoolbooks early schoolmasters mistresses saw nationbuilders devoted instilling common values loyalties citizens new nation sense solidarity fellow americans true aim fully apply blacks american indians every part country would come change system early twentieth century produced highest national reading scores world subsequent decline reading scores high school students well correlated general academic achievement competence including ability communicate well others gain knowledge writing speech others reading comprehension scores good indicators citizens general knowledge ability learnthe accurate single indicator citizens competence since speech writing require huge amounts silently shared knowledge implicitly present unspoken unwritten students read best fully mastered unspoken knowledge taken granted members speech community breadth knowledge taken granted nation determines literacy level new childcentered education widely introduced united states 1945 dominance reading scores evaporated schools exhibit diminished sense widely held central goal american schooling foster national cohesionout many one loss sense mission early grades occurred two intellectual changes gained ascendancy past 80 years first important change shift starting 1920s 30s emphasis initiating children mores national tribe emphasis developing nature individual child change reflected changing architecture elementary schools early twentiethcentury school buildings america imposing civic structures high flights steps surmounted grand columns fairly shout school important local national community morning old massive schools still see small figures children climbing high steps whole scene symbolizing focus important place schooling community local community design always includes tallstanding american flag children pledge allegiance every morning world war ii influence childcentered education american school architecture changed design elementary school came centered child longer high steps climb direct childlevel paths bright lowslung welcoming buildings often gaily colored architectural elements new architecture signaled although school devoted larger community although pledge allegiance still recited main emphasis childrens world encouraging imaginations developing individual interests personalities hyperindividualism teach child subject came american schooling gradually early twentieth century taking completely 1950s 60s fundamental shift current political correctness education updated variation theme individualism social version teach child subject became respect home ethnicity child dont impose anglo culture alien background personality psychological version individualism became adjust subject matters childs interests abilities multiculturalism multipleintelligence theory caught like wildfire recent decades recently ones individuality become conceived intersectionality child understood intersection multiple essential groups tribeshispanic gay examplenot american assumed nonessential trait individualism second important intellectual change early schools world war ii especially vietnam war explicit antinationalism antipatriotism conceived higher patriotism effort make nation fairer better nationalism came disrepute various reasons associated militarism exclusionary racismas exemplified nazi germany wars ethnic cleansing decried device keep moneyed class top became associated flagdraped military adventures western imperialism antinationalist attitude reached climax universities teachertraining institutions deadly vietnam adventure 1960s 70s result sentiments country right wrong country greatest world admirable sorts jingoistic nationalism got replaced recitation ways country failed treat everyone equal mistreated whole classes people american indians blacks women japanese country pretty bad let clear selfcriticism overdue remains necessary prelude countrys selfimprovement depend communities looking like multiracial multiethnic yet altogether americanized young people see every week lawn jeffersons university one characteristic diverse young people share english reading comprehension scores pretty good otherwise would admitted could pass courses mastery formal informal american english prerequisite equal opportunity equalities nation right kind modern nationalism communal intent including everyone wrong exclusivist kind exemplified racism nazis gave nationalism bad name helped turn postvietnam left away nationalism sort sentiment countries pretty bad especially big ones prey little ones critical attitude nationhood intensified lack basic knowledge among many us antiwar protestors schooling according surveys left blank ignorance facts american history governance teach child subject discouraged traditional recitations shared knowledge basic facts american history institutions selfgovernment rotelearned facts werent really important said progressive education compared critical thinking natural development individual child new trend welldescribed 1987 tot sociology educational historian diane ravitch 1982 began research condition history instruction public schools160the closely examined social studies curriculum attention drawn curious nature early grades virtually contentfree160the social studies curriculum k3 grades organized around study relationships within home school neighborhood local community160this curriculum family school community dominates early grades american public education contains mythology legends biographies hero tales great events life nation unsurprisingly national assessment educational progress reports americans factual knowledge nations history ideals details form government declined sharply since 1970s govern nation know little history workings fault presentday citizens education pedagogical ideas continue animate early classrooms americans sense community thus experienced double whammy early grades declining national pride coupled declining knowledge national history ideals ignorance historical ideals animated imperfect realization thus accompanied strong suspicion form nationalism including according pew foundation citizens inhabit vaguely delineated geographical political homeland good citizens believe country exists within new global order every person right home culture personal identity moreover childrens good opinion country declining pew survey showed today 15 percent young people say united states greatest country worlddown 27 percent 2011 summer judith kogan npr produced report fourth july featuring interviews massachusetts schoolchildren slightest acquaintance indeed never heard country tis thee america beautiful god bless america kogan interviewed teachers explained songs like starspangled banner militaristic god bless america mentioned god patriotic songs said narrowly nationalistic might offend children nations cultures nationalism essential effective human existence modern world come grips ernest gellners pathbreaking work nations nationalism agree assertion even critics concede truth major point gellner professor philosophy later professor anthropology various prestigious universities unconstrained language barriers conventional thought wrote islam easily france book nationalism came 1983 people regarded unnecessary evil breeds colonialism war several decades many subsequent books gellner explained rise postagrarian age inhabit requires new sort economic arrangement chief economic unit nation state offers universal education use standard written spoken national language postagrarian economy adam smith explained specialized spread nails made one place timbers cut planed another nailmakers timberplaners communicate time space universal literacy language standardization widely spread communication possible explains independent efforts language standardization universal literacy arose autonomously seventeenth eighteenth centuries united states formed languagenormalizing effort completed first major nation created already wellstandardized print language principle universal schooling critics gellner complained functional account necessity shared language shared laws fails consider emotional power nationalism modern timesthe need sense belonging correction simply amplifies strengthens gellners main argument modern nation serves necessary function modern economy political system gellner argued also fulfills emotional need community large modern anonymous specialized economy gellners analysis may added linguistic footnote standard national language associated national culture become established schools hundreds thousands writers speakers millions books pamphlets blogs becomes extremely difficult change radically expunge language stability novelty human history universal literacy modern nation languages changed matter course adjusted tongue current conquerors eighteenth century changed national academies dictionarymakers fixed standardized print languages individual vocabulary items since disappeared new ones come established widespread national print language extinguished even changed significantly explains current antinationalistic orientation schools emphatically justified ideas like new global economy globalism individuals across world happily communicating one another unified global culture shared global language nationstate national standard language remains dominant social economic emotional entity present day likely remain global economy multinational global corporations follow national laws communicate national languages shared language vehicle emotional fulfillment across world people attached nations sense belonging language community accompanying set values traditions writer best captured dimension nationalism benedict anderson 1983 book imagined communities shared linguistic culture enables people imagine community extends far beyond ones locality reasonsthe economic imperative invoked gellner communitarian imperative described anderson junger stable inertia print languagesthe nationstate remains key unit contemporary world acculturation national culture may course include plenty international knowledge still chief task duty national systems schooling schools believe valiantly teaching national language shall show next section current wordstudy strategystudy approaches schools needs abandoned favor knowledgestudy national cultures like national languages deliberately invented american literate culture widely shared successful citizens consciously formed beginning people like noah webster parson weems schoolmasters followed early nineteenth century school innovators present day somewhat different position early culture builders contend inertial mass existing usages assumptions early school leaders teachers national culture creators culture became established time space could changed rapidly since already become political economic common language known used millions adults millions americans inhabit wellestablished national culture public sphere proficient language culture average best communicators wealthiest citizens national culture club rewards proficient members mastered suffer loss opportunity aims social justice equality opportunity therefore require subtlety attempting significant cultural change presentday schools effective citizens workers every schoolchild needs gain access public sphere standardized language well share sense belonging country worthy devotion public sphere changed improvedbut gradually tact important abolish evil elements past culture also important offer every child access currently shared public culture proof schools currently low average literacy level school graduates large readingproficiency gaps persist social groups united states equity gaps show current american schools fully grasped acculturative responsibilities usual reason givenpovertycannot fully adequate explanation national school systems instance japans educate children poverty well believe current schools understood great quantity specific knowledge needed gain mastery written spoken national language insight fully understood since 1960s insight paramount importance understanding narrow literacy gaps well overcoming extreme polarizations gaps communal sentiment read text hamilton bowled genius linmanuel miranda forming structure play language mode rap hiphop language standard american english makes hamilton incarnation multicultural american society foreseen herman melville 1849 western hemisphere tribes people forming one federated whole future shall see estranged children adam restored old hearthstone eden shall curse babel revoked new pentecost come language shall speak shall language britain melville imagined federated unity future american mosaic unity would consolidated language print literacy acknowledged everyone primary aim schooling everyone drawn implications accepted truth know implications follow fact common standardized language economic social political necessity based silently shared knowledge although economic imperative produced language standardization everbroader schooling seventeenth eighteenth centuries 1960s psycholinguistics make fully clear successful use common language requires huge store unspoken shared beliefs facts attitudes note unspoken assumptions reader needs fully understand last sentence anyone understand meaning better knows current american schools treating reading comprehension technical skill involving general comprehension strategiesa failed policy inconsistent scientific understanding language comprehension domainspecific form expertise dependent domainspecific knowledge two decades basic research need unspoken knowledge 1980s walter kintsch teun van dijk published pathbreaking book generalized earlier insight caused widely accepted cognitive science authors summarized principle follows one major contributions psychology recognition much information needed understand text provided information expressed text must drawn language users knowledge person objects states affairs events discourse text like picnic author brings words reader meanings said literary critic northrop frye meanings compelled words highly ambiguous items words disambiguated made coherent readers relevant knowledgeunspoken knowledge shared author reader speaker listener reason google translate often poor job despite billions spent machine translation years inability guess relevant knowledge context taken granted dictionaries grammar enough google translate would far better job recent scientific consensus role unspoken shared knowledge language transaction implications educational policy american educators yet willing draw shared background knowledge essential effective reading writing speaking listening nation schools nation need common schools teach shared knowledge public sphere must citizens literate doesnt mean schools must exactly imply along way ways schools must impart core knowledge otherwise huge literacy gaps remain among americans necessary logic must clouded current debates socalled common core initiative united states debates largely everything except shared knowledge language standards common core require specific knowledge neither literacy standards individual states specific knowledge last thing educational experts reign progressivism wish define prefer close issue saying local political issue asking embarrassing question decides clear answer conversation stopper writers like linmanuel miranda influential language users already decided public sphere de facto knowledge language use read communicate effectively receive high scores reading tests read hamilton print version even cant get ticket read new york times contentimpoverished skill vocabulary exercises conducted schools continue leave large reading gaps social groups thats reading gaps knowledge gapsthe results schooling rests empty skill practice slogans like decides inherent logic thus applied answer question decides start psycholinguistic insight effective language use requires speaker listener share common knowledge sentiments beliefs philosopher language h p grice showed analytically speaker know listeners know listeners know speaker assumes know shared knowledge competent listeners speakers readers writers possess know colanguageusers possess knowledge makes competent shared knowledge limited couldnt shared necessarily known competent speakers writers thus core knowledge already largely decided lot competent language users time schools need perpetuate competence alleven may try amplify amend improve commonly shared knowledge sentiments beliefs schools improve culture without occurs leaving many students incompetent ignorant partly inadequate theories education language understanding basic acculturative duty schools liberal democracy receded main responsibility nations elementary schools develop nurture childs individuality individuality made born late product socialization education noted pragmatist philosopher g h mead rightly held childrens mastery public sphere language children offered fair chance modern economy thus chance fully develop individualities moreover mastery shared knowledge also necessary part shared sense community nation popularity hamilton offers hope recent educational ideas hyperindividualism antinationalism may open revision admirable postvietnam attack prejudice tribalism stereotypes needs freed unnecessary admixture nationbashing marches banner multiculturalism trend disturbed liberal historian arthur schlesinger jr paused scholarly labors write alarmist pamphlet entitled disuniting america 1991 induced celebrated liberal philosopher richard rorty write 1994 pungent oped new york times titled unpatriotic academy four years later passionate book achieving country two distinguished writers older laborunion left attacked selfrighteous ivorytower intellectualism new academic left achieving country rorty warned antinational disdain lack practical engagement plight american workers would open country fullscale resentment political correctness make nation vulnerable demagogy fascist strongman would play discontent defensive prejudices nonsuburban electorate decide system failed start looking around strongman vote forsomeone assure elected smug bureaucrats tricky lawyers overpaid bond salesmen postmodern professors longer calling shots sadism academic left tried make unacceptable students come flooding back rorty schlesinger strong nationalists federated kind melville adopted word federatedputting squarely side hamilton washington leading federalists early era intent creating strong cohesive nation disparate partswithout erasing parts necessity forced american founders federalismto compromise strong localities strong central government many one without erasing many unityindiversity idea greatly helped american political economic growth helped us avoid worst excesses tribal nationalism american idea local autonomies coexist national unity signaled beginning melting pot mosaic federal principle reflected flag national flag visually busy like mosaic american federalism accidentally hit upon deep insight human groups sociologists found useful distinguish two kinds social arrangements using german terms gemeinschaft gesellschaft gemein means shared common gemeinschaft society common cultural even kinship ties cozy often local arrangement powerful sense group identity loyalty fulfills psychological need group identity even personal identity sort feeling sebastian junger describes tribe german word gesell contrast mean common instead means fellow companionlike fellow passenger train fellow worker company gesellschaft german term commercial company monocultural nationalism gemeinschaft type justifiably got bad name associated racial tribal feelings hitlers germany hatefilled nationalist wars balkans elsewhere ethnic cleansing gemeinschaft sort nationalism leads usversusthem mentality hatred war tribalism deeply ingrained left bloody track history even fulfilled deepseated need community successes american experiment partly owing federalism idea offers practicality gesellschaft retaining emotional fulfillment gemeinschaft federalism managed induce vigorous unifying public culture without abolishing cozier cultures home locality federalism delicate balancing act continuing work progress model successful modern nation gellner puts matter succinctly nationalism phenomenon of160gesellschaft160using idiom gemeinschaft160a mobile anonymous society simulating closed cozy community engendered basically two facts dissolution old rigid hierarchical order men knew place glued fact new order nature work within needs operate common public culture national public culture invented construct sustained improved schools nation schools played key role past national success americanization project schools got waylaid individualistic education antinationalism hamilton written genius product american schooling shows schools fully abandoned democratic responsibilities clear growing number experts responsibilities must include teaching national public culture encouraging loyalty national community best ideals require american schools teach lot history civics including basic enlightenment principles nation bloody successful civil rights movement recent past predicated everyone knowing principles even black panthers quoted civil rights movement national pride consistent national progress part originating force sense belonging diminishes sense alienation group also diminishes sense alienation individuals within group sentiment membership bigtented america enhances sense connection alarming persistence even intensification racism united states overcome enhancing diminishing national sense solidarity old patriotic songs schools dont pass muster one writing new ones perhaps someone really wrong america beautiful aims crown thy good brotherhood sea shining sea brotherhood surely includes sisterhood reasonable translation gesellschaft gemeinschaft doesnt appeal schools nonetheless need agree patriotic songs put place america beautiful country tis thee maybe land land shall overcomeany songs reaffirm nations enlightenment ideal freedom justice ideal still something proud maybe linmanuel miranda write great raphiphop version america beautiful celebrating starsandstripes national community federated american idea continues abraham lincoln said last best hope earth disuniting america unfruitful effort individualism schools coupled divisive antinationalist pieties recent past encouraged polarization helped make internal politics tribal rather federated elementary schools need stop abetting ominous trend instead become first line defense | 3,560 |
<p>There seemed to have been two elections in Palestine on Sunday: the one conducted in the West Bank and Gaza, and the one in Jerusalem.</p>
<p>Voting day in the West Bank and Gaza was marked in many places by a mood of ebullience and celebration. There was singing, dancing, the firing of guns into the air, families strolling together to the polling stations. Palestinian women’s organizations had spent weeks encouraging women to vote, and many women did show up for their first election, especially in urban centers. While not all checkpoints were eased and not all Palestinians wanted to vote under an occupation regime, the overall climate was one of hope and a new beginning.</p>
<p>Voting day in Jerusalem, on the other hand, was marked by a flawed process. The Israeli government could not prevent Jerusalem’s Palestinian residents from participating in the elections, but it wanted to avoid the appearance of Jerusalem being part of the Palestinian Authority. Therefore, the authorities designed a voting system that was a pearl of Talmudical caginess, allowing for the vote, but giving it the appearance of an absentee ballot being cast in Jerusalem for sending to a Palestinian state that was “somewhere else”. Therefore, voting was carried out only in post offices, where marked ballots were handed to postal clerks who inserted them into special mailboxes, presumably to be “mailed” to Palestine. Special attention was given to the location of the slot. The Israeli authorities felt strongly that a slot on the top of the box would give the appearance of a real ballot box. Therefore, these mailboxes had slots on the side. Here’s a photo (left) I took of a man at one of these red mail-ballot-boxes, behind a glass pane and inaccessible to the voter. Note also the lack of privacy, with the clerk looking on as he leans on the counter marking his ballot, and the next voter edging closer. Worst of all, only 6,000 Jerusalemites out of 125,000 were allowed to vote in town, with the rest dispatched to voting stations out of town, to which access through checkpoints was eased, but still not easy.</p>
<p>Under these conditions, many Palestinians in Jerusalem refused to vote. And many were afraid to vote, in fear that Israel would regard that as grounds for canceling their Jerusalem residency rights. It’s no wonder that a Palestinian woman carrying a bunch of bananas stood outside the main post office on the Palestinian side of Jerusalem, handing out flyers that called Israel a “banana republic democracy”.</p>
<p>I too wanted to see the excitement on the other side of town, so I answered the call of Bat Shalom, a women’s peace organization, to help keep the extremist Israeli right from carrying out their threat to disrupt the proceedings. As six of us walked together toward the Palestinian side of Jerusalem, an Israeli police officer stopped us, said he knew of our plan, and that our presence would “provoke counter-demonstrations”. We argued for a while, and then he announced we were under arrest, to prevent us from ‘disturbing the peace’. We were shocked, but a moment later he was distracted by a phone call, so we simply slipped away and melted into the side streets, splitting up so we would be less obvious if he sent a posse. One would think the police had better villains to worry about.</p>
<p>Despite the many difficulties and Israel’s grudging cooperation, the vote did take place, leaving many Palestinians and even Israelis with a sense of elation. A real election was held ­ with real competition and no mud slinging ­ and the candidate who consistently called for an end to the violence and negotiation of a real peace was swept into power with 62% of the vote. Now the proverbial ball is in Israel’s court, and the excuse for not negotiating is long dead and buried.</p>
<p>Other good news</p>
<p>24 hours later and on the Jewish side of town, the new Israeli government ­ comprising Likud, Labor, and United Torah Judaism, an ultra-Orthodox party ­ was sworn in, thanks to Sharon’s wily brinkmanship with the extremists from his own party who oppose the disengagement from Gaza. The government will now have the parliamentary strength it needs to get out of Gaza, and Shimon Peres is back in power, defying age, wisdom, and public incredulity.</p>
<p>And the anti-evacuation settlers are digging their own graves. Once considered the last of the idealists, support for the settler movement has plummeted among Israelis in the wake of recurring violent clashes with Israeli soldiers evacuating settler outposts. Today, the settlers are regarded as the anti-democratic, lunatic fringe. In truth, the vast majority of settlers are far more moderate, and would leave the territories in a heartbeat for the price of their property, but the fanatics are now setting the tone and image.</p>
<p>By the way, in a small meeting this evening where former US President Jimmy Carter, chief election observer in the Middle East, spoke to the participants of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program (which I was lucky to have attended), this honorable man berated people for using the term “fence”. Said Jimmy, “Israel has successfully convinced the United States that this is an innocuous fence, as if it were a fence around a cow pasture, but this is really a dividing wall and we should refer to it as suchThis wall is one of the most vivid vulnerabilities of Prime Minister Sharon’s policies.” Bravo, Mr. Carter, for more plain talk.</p>
<p>Monday was also a red letter day for supporters of human rights, as Israel’s High Court ruled that lesbian couples may now officially adopt each other’s children. We are all grateful to Tal and Avital Yaros-Hakak, who sacrificed their privacy to establish this important precedent.</p>
<p>Finally, the tragedy in the Indian Ocean, and it takes a religious extremist to have figured it out: A Muslim cleric announced that the Zionists caused the Tsunami. This was practically confirmed by a rabbi in Israel, who announced that God doesn’t like non-Jews, and that’s why he dropped all this water on them. Jewish-Muslim consensus, at last, helping us understand the mystery of God’s ways.</p>
<p>GILA SVIRSKY is a peace and human rights activist in Jerusalem. She can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | seemed two elections palestine sunday one conducted west bank gaza one jerusalem voting day west bank gaza marked many places mood ebullience celebration singing dancing firing guns air families strolling together polling stations palestinian womens organizations spent weeks encouraging women vote many women show first election especially urban centers checkpoints eased palestinians wanted vote occupation regime overall climate one hope new beginning voting day jerusalem hand marked flawed process israeli government could prevent jerusalems palestinian residents participating elections wanted avoid appearance jerusalem part palestinian authority therefore authorities designed voting system pearl talmudical caginess allowing vote giving appearance absentee ballot cast jerusalem sending palestinian state somewhere else therefore voting carried post offices marked ballots handed postal clerks inserted special mailboxes presumably mailed palestine special attention given location slot israeli authorities felt strongly slot top box would give appearance real ballot box therefore mailboxes slots side heres photo left took man one red mailballotboxes behind glass pane inaccessible voter note also lack privacy clerk looking leans counter marking ballot next voter edging closer worst 6000 jerusalemites 125000 allowed vote town rest dispatched voting stations town access checkpoints eased still easy conditions many palestinians jerusalem refused vote many afraid vote fear israel would regard grounds canceling jerusalem residency rights wonder palestinian woman carrying bunch bananas stood outside main post office palestinian side jerusalem handing flyers called israel banana republic democracy wanted see excitement side town answered call bat shalom womens peace organization help keep extremist israeli right carrying threat disrupt proceedings six us walked together toward palestinian side jerusalem israeli police officer stopped us said knew plan presence would provoke counterdemonstrations argued announced arrest prevent us disturbing peace shocked moment later distracted phone call simply slipped away melted side streets splitting would less obvious sent posse one would think police better villains worry despite many difficulties israels grudging cooperation vote take place leaving many palestinians even israelis sense elation real election held real competition mud slinging candidate consistently called end violence negotiation real peace swept power 62 vote proverbial ball israels court excuse negotiating long dead buried good news 24 hours later jewish side town new israeli government comprising likud labor united torah judaism ultraorthodox party sworn thanks sharons wily brinkmanship extremists party oppose disengagement gaza government parliamentary strength needs get gaza shimon peres back power defying age wisdom public incredulity antievacuation settlers digging graves considered last idealists support settler movement plummeted among israelis wake recurring violent clashes israeli soldiers evacuating settler outposts today settlers regarded antidemocratic lunatic fringe truth vast majority settlers far moderate would leave territories heartbeat price property fanatics setting tone image way small meeting evening former us president jimmy carter chief election observer middle east spoke participants ecumenical accompaniment program lucky attended honorable man berated people using term fence said jimmy israel successfully convinced united states innocuous fence fence around cow pasture really dividing wall refer suchthis wall one vivid vulnerabilities prime minister sharons policies bravo mr carter plain talk monday also red letter day supporters human rights israels high court ruled lesbian couples may officially adopt others children grateful tal avital yaroshakak sacrificed privacy establish important precedent finally tragedy indian ocean takes religious extremist figured muslim cleric announced zionists caused tsunami practically confirmed rabbi israel announced god doesnt like nonjews thats dropped water jewishmuslim consensus last helping us understand mystery gods ways gila svirsky peace human rights activist jerusalem reached gsvirskynetvisionnetil 160 | 564 |
<p>Lawmakers are engaged in a precarious back-and-forth over health care funding for nine million children across the United States after letting the program expire last week.</p>
<p>Funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, ended on September 30 after Congress allowed the program to expire without renewal. CHIP, which provides low-cost health care coverage to millions of children (and pregnant parents) around the country, has long enjoyed bipartisan support. That’s been crucial to the program’s survival — while CHIP does receive some state funding, the majority of the program’s budget is federally-funded.</p>
<p>But bitter divides over the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have dominated Congress for months, and President Donald Trump has also worked actively to reduce funding for the program. The president’s <a href="" type="internal">2018 budget proposal advocated cutting $1.7 trillion from CHIP and other vital programs</a>, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and both&#160;Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). With Congress waylaid by ACA repeal efforts and the president uninterested in actively pursuing CHIP renewal, the program’s renewal date came and went, with no plan in place.</p>
<p>Now, politicians on both sides of the aisle are working to reinstate funding for CHIP. But that process itself has become controversial, falling victim to wider politicking.&#160;On Monday, House Republicans proposed tacking $1 billion in aid for hurricane-stricken Puerto Rico onto a proposal funding CHIP for the next five years. That proposal more generally calls for a number of measures, including raising Medicare rates for higher-income senior Americans as well as redirecting the ACA’s prevention funds, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/10/02/house-republicans-propose-puerto-rico-funding-as-part-of-chip-bill/?utm_term=.a8fa9513a0de" type="external">according to the Washington Post</a>.</p>
<p>That hasn’t gone over well with Democrats, who overwhelmingly support the program but don’t want money taken from the ACA or Medicare. On Wednesday, policymakers fought over the Republican proposal, which eventually migrated out of the&#160;House Energy and Commerce Committee on a party-line vote of 28 to 23, with Democrats all in opposition. Republicans argue that the bill is more than fair, pointing to the proposal’s hike on Medicare costs as a necessary action.</p>
<p>“Folks that earn a half-million dollars a year and are over 65, they can pay a little bit more for Medicare,” said Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI). “And you know what? If they don’t want to pay, they don’t have to enroll. That’s a choice they will have.”</p>
<p>The House’s bill would have other implications. Namely, it could impact lower-income Medicaid recipients who win the lottery, which is distributed as a lump-sum amount and not counted as long-term income by Medicaid under current rules — something Republicans are pushing for. Democrats, by contrast, are angered by the proposal’s hefty tax cuts, which many lawmakers have deemed unacceptable.</p>
<p>Another proposal to fund CHIP has also cleared a Senate committee, backed by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR). That bill would keep CHIP funded for five years, which advocates support. But it’s unclear how lawmakers plan to cover the bill, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/27/16373494/chip-funding-reauthorization-congress" type="external">estimated to cost between $5 billion and $10 billion</a>. It also needs to clear the House — a dubious outcome given ongoing warfare over the ACA.</p>
<p>“[Republican CHIP proposals] will likely mean more delay and possibly no action in Congress until the end of the year as part of an omnibus appropriations bill,” said Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ) on Wednesday.</p>
<p>Democrats have also offered their own proposals. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is encouraging colleagues to attach CHIP funding to a wider bill stabilizing the ACA, which has yet to be agreed upon.</p>
<p>“[Senate Majority] Leader [Mitch] McConnell should immediately put this bill to the Senate floor for a vote and include much-needed bipartisan provisions to stabilize the markets, lower premiums in 2018, and renew funding for community health centers and numerous other important health provisions that expired over the weekend,” Schumer said Wednesday.</p>
<p>Hatch opposes Schumer’s suggestion, <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/chuck-schumer-calls-for-chip-to-be-added-to-obamacare-stabilization-bill/article/2636521" type="external">accusing the New York senator of jeopardizing children’s health</a>. CHIP advocates are also wary; fighting over the ACA already allowed the program to expire, a situation that further association with the health care effort is unlikely to change.</p>
<p>That stalemate has left no clear path forward on funding CHIP — leaving millions uninsured.</p>
<p>While politicians spar over funding, the very real consequences of failing to fund CHIP are set to kick in very soon. Passed in 1997, CHIP has helped lower the national percentage of uninsured children from <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/10/01/9-million-kids-get-health-insurance-under-chip-congress-just-let-it-expire/?utm_term=.4273bb611513" type="external">nearly 14 percent to around 4.5 percent by 2015</a>. &#160;Numerous states, along with Washington, D.C., <a href="https://www.macpac.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Federal-CHIP-Funding_When-Will-States-Exhaust-Allotments.pdf" type="external">are set to exhaust their CHIP funds by next March</a>, which would leave millions of young patients without coverage for routine check-ups, prescriptions, dental and vision care, emergency services, and a number of other vital health care needs. CHIP’s services extend beyond children, allowing states to extend CHIP to cover expecting parents — the current policy of 19 states. Upwards of 37,000 pregnancies are covered by the program, which advocates say is crucial for lower income parents.</p>
<p>More populous states are among those who stand to lose the most if CHIP goes unfunded. In Texas, which is both the most uninsured state in the nation and has&#160; <a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-worst-maternal-mortality-rate-developed-world-lawmakers-priorities/" type="external">the distinction of claiming the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world</a>, nearly 400,000 people are covered by CHIP. Texas has enough federal funding to keep the program going until February — but after that, officials say, it’s unclear what will happen.</p>
<p>“CHIP is a critical part of the health care safety net in Texas,” wrote Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s chief deputy executive commissioner, Cecile Erwin Young,&#160; <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2017/10/02/congress-fails-renew-chip-program-funds-expected-exhaust-february/" type="external">in September</a>, urging the program’s renewal.&#160;“CHIP has a proven track record of success, stemming from its adherence to the fundamental principles of state administrative flexibility, personal responsibility, and innovation aimed at enhancing health outcomes for beneficiaries.”</p>
<p>California is facing a similar problem. <a href="https://www.bustle.com/p/will-chip-expire-republicans-were-too-busy-pushing-obamacares-repeal-to-fund-it-2479559" type="external">With around 800,000 children covered by CHIP</a>, the state is also set to run out of funds if the program isn’t renewed.</p>
<p>“The Children’s Health Insurance Program ensures that 800,000 kids in California get quality care,” wrote Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) last week on Twitter. “We must fund #CHIP now.”</p>
<p />
<p>California is likely to be among those states most immediately impacted by the funding hold-up as the state’s CHIP allotment dwindles. Minnesota is also facing a crisis — the state has already spent its CHIP funds this year. While the&#160;Centers for Medicare &amp; Medicaid Services are giving Minnesota $3.6 million in unspent national funds to cover the state’s children, officials are worried about another vulnerable group: <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/10/03/555166767/lapse-in-federal-funding-imperils-children-s-health-coverage" type="external">the 1,700 pregnant Minnesotans</a> who aren’t eligible for Medicaid but would otherwise be covered by CHIP.</p>
<p>According to the non-partisan Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, Arizona, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C., along with the already-dry Minnesota, are <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-congress-children-health-insurance-20171004-story.html" type="external">all set to deplete their CHIP funds by December</a>.</p> | true | 4 | lawmakers engaged precarious backandforth health care funding nine million children across united states letting program expire last week funding childrens health insurance program chip ended september 30 congress allowed program expire without renewal chip provides lowcost health care coverage millions children pregnant parents around country long enjoyed bipartisan support thats crucial programs survival chip receive state funding majority programs budget federallyfunded bitter divides affordable care act aca dominated congress months president donald trump also worked actively reduce funding program presidents 2018 budget proposal advocated cutting 17 trillion chip vital programs like supplemental nutrition assistance program snap both160social security disability insurance ssdi supplemental security income ssi congress waylaid aca repeal efforts president uninterested actively pursuing chip renewal programs renewal date came went plan place politicians sides aisle working reinstate funding chip process become controversial falling victim wider politicking160on monday house republicans proposed tacking 1 billion aid hurricanestricken puerto rico onto proposal funding chip next five years proposal generally calls number measures including raising medicare rates higherincome senior americans well redirecting acas prevention funds according washington post hasnt gone well democrats overwhelmingly support program dont want money taken aca medicare wednesday policymakers fought republican proposal eventually migrated the160house energy commerce committee partyline vote 28 23 democrats opposition republicans argue bill fair pointing proposals hike medicare costs necessary action folks earn halfmillion dollars year 65 pay little bit medicare said rep fred upton rmi know dont want pay dont enroll thats choice houses bill would implications namely could impact lowerincome medicaid recipients win lottery distributed lumpsum amount counted longterm income medicaid current rules something republicans pushing democrats contrast angered proposals hefty tax cuts many lawmakers deemed unacceptable another proposal fund chip also cleared senate committee backed sens orrin hatch rut ron wyden dor bill would keep chip funded five years advocates support unclear lawmakers plan cover bill estimated cost 5 billion 10 billion also needs clear house dubious outcome given ongoing warfare aca republican chip proposals likely mean delay possibly action congress end year part omnibus appropriations bill said rep frank pallone jr dnj wednesday democrats also offered proposals senate minority leader chuck schumer dny encouraging colleagues attach chip funding wider bill stabilizing aca yet agreed upon senate majority leader mitch mcconnell immediately put bill senate floor vote include muchneeded bipartisan provisions stabilize markets lower premiums 2018 renew funding community health centers numerous important health provisions expired weekend schumer said wednesday hatch opposes schumers suggestion accusing new york senator jeopardizing childrens health chip advocates also wary fighting aca already allowed program expire situation association health care effort unlikely change stalemate left clear path forward funding chip leaving millions uninsured politicians spar funding real consequences failing fund chip set kick soon passed 1997 chip helped lower national percentage uninsured children nearly 14 percent around 45 percent 2015 160numerous states along washington dc set exhaust chip funds next march would leave millions young patients without coverage routine checkups prescriptions dental vision care emergency services number vital health care needs chips services extend beyond children allowing states extend chip cover expecting parents current policy 19 states upwards 37000 pregnancies covered program advocates say crucial lower income parents populous states among stand lose chip goes unfunded texas uninsured state nation has160 distinction claiming highest maternal mortality rate developed world nearly 400000 people covered chip texas enough federal funding keep program going february officials say unclear happen chip critical part health care safety net texas wrote texas health human services commissions chief deputy executive commissioner cecile erwin young160 september urging programs renewal160chip proven track record success stemming adherence fundamental principles state administrative flexibility personal responsibility innovation aimed enhancing health outcomes beneficiaries california facing similar problem around 800000 children covered chip state also set run funds program isnt renewed childrens health insurance program ensures 800000 kids california get quality care wrote sen dianne feinstein last week twitter must fund chip california likely among states immediately impacted funding holdup states chip allotment dwindles minnesota also facing crisis state already spent chip funds year the160centers medicare amp medicaid services giving minnesota 36 million unspent national funds cover states children officials worried another vulnerable group 1700 pregnant minnesotans arent eligible medicaid would otherwise covered chip according nonpartisan medicaid chip payment access commission arizona north carolina washington dc along alreadydry minnesota set deplete chip funds december | 713 |
<p>I have to laugh – in-between the tears, of course – when I listen to regressives speak of the likes of Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in terms of Stalinesque autocrats or thuggish mafia bosses.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure that the elites who propagate this nonsense through mouthpieces such as Limbaugh or Beck know just how absurd and contradictory to pesky reality those assertions are.&#160; But the regressive hoi polloi – as idiotic and ill-informed a bunch of bots as you’ll find anywhere this side of the Borg – well, they eat this stuff up whole hog.</p>
<p>It’s really astonishing, because I can hardly think of three wimpier or more politically anemic drenched noodles than these Democratic buffoons, along with the rest of their pathetic pity party.&#160; And also because America actually has had some pretty tough progressives in its history.&#160; Harry Truman would eat Harry Reid for breakfast, and still be hungry again before lunch.&#160; Lyndon Johnson could teach Barack Obama a few (thousand) things about how to move a legislative agenda through a balky Congress, and it wouldn’t involve getting his ass kicked by Joe Lieberman, I can tell you that.&#160; Franklin Roosevelt would surely be able to school Nancy Pelosi on the finer points of national leadership.</p>
<p>Democrats have been playing the weakness game for nearly a half-century now, ever since Johnson was driven from office in 1968.&#160; That has meant very bad things for the country, which has now been all but completely captured by economic oligarchs, via their wholly-owned human levers in both parties.</p>
<p>What is more remarkable is what it has meant for the Democratic Party, which seems incapable of being assertive even when it comes to preserving its own interests.&#160; And what it has meant for the Democrats is more or less that they lose elections, except when the default governing party of the GOP screws up so badly that the public has no other choice than to go with the feeble ones for a while.&#160; Republicans then get a few years to rehabilitate themselves, during which time they incessantly shred the Dems from the sidelines, and then the cycle begins anew.</p>
<p>This is precisely where we are now.&#160; It absolutely defies the imagination that the Republican Party hasn’t been sentenced to death by hanging, drawing and quartering after the crimes of the last decade.&#160; But no, remarkably, they are in the midst of an amazing revitalization now, courtesy of their aggressive deceits and the utter capitulation of the party nominally in charge.</p>
<p>There are three things that Democrats absolutely don’t understand about the notion of assertive leadership.&#160; First, if you don’t do it, you won’t achieve anything.&#160; The American political system, as created by the Founders, is designed to produce utter stasis, the only exception being, well, exceptional moments.&#160; Second, no one will follow you, if you don’t lead.&#160; Leadership is crucial to substantive achievements, but it also has its own intrinsic rewards.&#160; People want to be led, and they want to believe in their leaders.&#160; Indeed, they will follow strong leaders, like Ronald Reagan for example, even when they disagree with their politics.&#160; On the other hand, if you project fecklessness, they will tend to despise you, sometimes even though they like your ideas.</p>
<p>Finally, if Democrats don’t lead, the aggressive ogres in the opposition who care not the least about the corrosive effects of deceit and destruction on the institutions of democracy will go ahead and define you to the country, and not in a pretty way either.&#160; Sound familiar?</p>
<p>This came clear once again this week, as the demons of the regressive right came out trumpeting the most scurrilous of lies and the most inflammatory of rhetoric during a national security threat.&#160; Yet again.&#160; On a plane headed to Detroit we had another ignorant and insecure kid, indoctrinated with a toxic brew of bad religion and even worse politics (no, no – I don’t mean a Palin supporter), trying to blow up an airliner in the name of some jive deity or another.</p>
<p>Undoubtedly the Obama administration could have handled the national hand-holding circus that follows such events a lot better than they did.&#160; He waited too long to say something, and when he did, it took his usual passionless form that could put the audience to sleep at a Rage Against The Machine concert.&#160; (Doesn’t this guy ever get pissed off at anything?&#160; He makes Mike Dukakis look like a meth-crazed pro wrestler by comparison.)&#160; Then there was the minor matter of Janet Napolitano, reminding everyone how, ahem, well the system actually had worked in preventing a terrorist attack.&#160; Apparently, unbeknownst to all of us, the government had secretly hired the Dutch passenger a couple seats over who leapt onto Umar Abdulmutallab to put out the flames.&#160; Wow!&#160; Those TSA spooks are everywhere!&#160; But all of this administration verbiage is after the fact, and doesn’t change a thing about what happened.&#160; It’s the theater of reassurance.&#160; It’s not like Obama would have been saving lives by speaking on the day of the incident, rather than waiting two days longer.</p>
<p>So what happened next?&#160; What else would happen in an American political system populated by vicious Republicans and pathetic Democrats?&#160; The GOP thugs came out swinging, attacking the Obama administration for being weak on national security.&#160; It reminds me precisely of what Bush did.&#160; No, I mean what his father did.&#160; No, I mean what Reagan did.&#160; No, it’s what Nixon did.&#160; No wait, wasn’t this McCarthy’s stock trick?&#160; Get it?&#160; This is not exactly cutting edge, newfangled politics in America, though you’d never know it watching Democrats deal with this stuff.</p>
<p>Anyhow, right like clockwork, out trotted Dick “Dick” Cheney to rally around the American president at the moment that the country was under attack.&#160; Well, not quite.&#160; Even though I’ve been assured by the former Vice President’s office that he really is a patriot.&#160; You know, even though he “had better things to do” than go fight in Nam and all.&#160; Sorry.&#160; I must have inadvertently slipped into a parallel universe there, where retired vice presidents maintain their dignity.&#160; Back in our galaxy, however, this is what the man actually had to say:&#160; “As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war.&#160; He seems to think if he has a low key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war.&#160; We are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe.&#160; Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war?&#160; It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office.&#160; It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency – social transformation – the restructuring of American society.”</p>
<p>Nor was he alone.&#160; Back on the Cheney Gang, other Republicans and the scary lot in the punditocracy who hold their coats voiced similar indignation.&#160; And more.&#160; Congressman Pete Hoekstra seemed to think that the very best expression his patriotism could to take would be in the form of a fundraising letter built around the terrorist attack.&#160; Can you say ‘noble’?&#160; Nah, me neither.&#160; But I’ve heard of the concept.</p>
<p>The lunatic right in America (and let’s face it, nowadays what other kind is there?) has been absolutely champing at the bit for a good national security crisis with which to hammer this president as weak on defense, resorting once again to the seemingly inexhaustible campaign theme for them all down the ages.&#160; That’s why they leapt on this incident – which of course is not minor, but neither is it anything like Pearl Harbor or 9/11.&#160; And that’s why Cheney’s been singing this song for this whole last year.&#160; He knew something would happen, and he was laying the groundwork.</p>
<p>But there are just a few things they left out, no doubt absolutely unintentionally:</p>
<p>* They forgot to tell you that while it took Obama an inexcusable three days to make a statement on this event (as if that would change anything, anyhow), it took Cheney’s marionette nearly a full week to say anything about the shoe bomber case, an incident almost identical to this one, except worse because it came just a few months after 9/11.&#160; Bush was on vacation (what else is new?), and didn’t even make a statement about Richard Reid – he just mentioned him offhandedly in a press availability that he did six days after the attack.</p>
<p>* Cheney lambasted Obama for treating the latest incident as a legal matter.&#160; What he didn’t mention is that the Bush people did exactly the same thing with Reid, and then bragged about the conviction they got in the courts.</p>
<p>* Cheney lied (yeah, really!) both outrageously and ridiculously when he said that Obama is trying to pretend the country is not at war.&#160; Obama has been saying that the country is at war since at least when he was a state senator.&#160; He said it throughout last year as president – beginning with his inaugural address:&#160; “Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred” – and he said it throughout the year prior as a candidate.&#160; He typically doesn’t use the ‘war on terror’ construction when he talks about it, but presumably that’s because he realizes it’s an idiotic phrase.</p>
<p>* Somehow, as well, the folks who want you to believe that Obama is afraid to really fight a war also want you not to notice that he just announced his second major escalation of the – what would you call it? – the thingy in Afghanistan that involves lots of soldiers and weapons and blood and people dying.&#160; This little bit of attempted legerdemain is not exactly shocking anymore, is it?&#160; The day that cognitive dissonance goes out of fashion is the day there are no more conservatives.</p>
<p>* Another thing Cheney probably doesn’t want you to know is that some of the folks who probably plotted the attack in Yemen were actually released from Guantánamo by … oops, the Bush administration.&#160; Yeah, Bushco sent some of them to Saudi Arabia to participate in an “art therapy rehabilitation program”.&#160; You think I’m making that up, don’t you?</p>
<p>* I’m also pretty sure that Cheney won’t be mentioning who set up the anti-terrorist national security system that failed so miserably to put the pieces together on Abdulmutallab last week.&#160; Remind me again, which administration was in office for most of the last decade?&#160; Which one reshuffled the bureaucratic architecture to make the system work properly after the 9/11 debacle?</p>
<p>* Of course, perhaps that wasn’t the problem.&#160; Maybe the thing was that the system works fine, as long as someone is in charge.&#160; There actually is a nominee to lead TSA who has been readily approved by two Senate committees, but has had his nomination process stopped dead by that radical left-wing friend of Muslim terrorists, Jim DeMint, of South Carolina.&#160; Funny, you don’t hear a lot about that from Cheney and his clones.&#160; So why is this critical nomination being held up?&#160; DeMint is waiting for a promise that TSA workers won’t be allowed to unionize.&#160; And, really, that makes sense, if you think about it.&#160; Gotta keep our priorities straight, folks!&#160; Can’t have the worker bees earning a respectable wage now, can we?</p>
<p>* The last thing that probably isn’t going to get a lot of mention is the fact that the worst foreign terrorist attack in history was sustained on the watch of – wait for it now – a certain team known as the Bush-Cheney administration.&#160; Not only that, but in fact the only such attack of major proportions was during their presidency.&#160; And not only that, but there is a huge raft of evidence – including the testimony of their own top terrorism and intelligence people – that they didn’t give a crap about it while the warning bells were ringing at 120 decibels.</p>
<p>Whew.&#160; Can I stop now?</p>
<p>The point of all this is that the radical right’s arguments about national security this week are entirely absurd, and that’s on a good day.&#160; Most of the rest of the time they are completely contradictory and utterly hypocritical.</p>
<p>But this kind of thing goes on all the time.&#160; Obama is labeled a big spender for trying to use Keynesian tactics to rescue the economy from the disaster bequeathed us by a regressive goon who doubled the size of the national debt in just eight years.&#160; Democrats are called socialists for adding 35 million instant coerced customers to private insurance rolls, rather than creating a public healthcare plan, like just about every other developed country in the world.&#160; Obama is supposedly weak on national defense, according to the folks who ran two wars against third world countries right out of the tenth century, and succeeded in getting nowhere almost a decade later, while the US military is spent and the national treasury depleted.</p>
<p>It’s unreal.&#160; But worst of all, this stuff actually gets traction.&#160; Loads of it.&#160; Tens of millions of Americans swallow it whole, and many more are added to the ranks every day.</p>
<p>These are the wages of wimpiness.&#160; These are the perils of passivity.</p>
<p>This should never have happened, and a year ago it would have seemed almost inconceivable to anyone (except those actually familiar with the Democratic Party of the last generation or two).&#160; Even so, it is absolutely astonishing that these punks don’t realize the imperative of throwing punches, of naming enemies, of framing a narrative.&#160; All the more so because this is not a case of politics for politics’ sake.&#160; I couldn’t care less about the Democratic Party, other than wishing that most of them rot in Hell.&#160; However, they are the ‘opposition’ to the full-on nightmare scenario, and we’re semi-stuck with them as the would-be voice of sanity.</p>
<p>My god, though, if you can’t trash George W. Bush after this last decade, if you can’t demonize Wall Street bankers who learned greed by stealing marbles from other kids in kindergarten, if you can’t remind voters of what cowards Cheney and the chickenhawk chorus actually are – when the hell can you do it?</p>
<p>Democrats are inept, the public knows it, and that will be a major part of their undoing in the next two election cycles.</p>
<p>But the other part of what will get them is that they’ll absolutely let anyone say anything about them, and just take it.</p>
<p>Just in case the Dems are wondering if they’re in trouble or not, there’s an old political adage that says, “Your know you’re toast when your party gives a nice benefit to seniors but you let the other side define that as murderous government death panels”.</p>
<p>Well, okay.&#160; It’s not an old adage.&#160; In fact, it’s not an adage at all.</p>
<p>But at this rate, it will be soon.</p>
<p>DAVID MICHAEL GREEN is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York.&#160; He is delighted to receive readers’ reactions to his articles ( <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond.&#160; More of his work can be found at his website, <a href="http://www.regressiveantidote.net" type="external">www.regressiveantidote.net</a>.</p> | true | 4 | laugh inbetween tears course listen regressives speak likes barack obama harry reid nancy pelosi terms stalinesque autocrats thuggish mafia bosses im pretty sure elites propagate nonsense mouthpieces limbaugh beck know absurd contradictory pesky reality assertions are160 regressive hoi polloi idiotic illinformed bunch bots youll find anywhere side borg well eat stuff whole hog really astonishing hardly think three wimpier politically anemic drenched noodles democratic buffoons along rest pathetic pity party160 also america actually pretty tough progressives history160 harry truman would eat harry reid breakfast still hungry lunch160 lyndon johnson could teach barack obama thousand things move legislative agenda balky congress wouldnt involve getting ass kicked joe lieberman tell that160 franklin roosevelt would surely able school nancy pelosi finer points national leadership democrats playing weakness game nearly halfcentury ever since johnson driven office 1968160 meant bad things country completely captured economic oligarchs via whollyowned human levers parties remarkable meant democratic party seems incapable assertive even comes preserving interests160 meant democrats less lose elections except default governing party gop screws badly public choice go feeble ones while160 republicans get years rehabilitate time incessantly shred dems sidelines cycle begins anew precisely now160 absolutely defies imagination republican party hasnt sentenced death hanging drawing quartering crimes last decade160 remarkably midst amazing revitalization courtesy aggressive deceits utter capitulation party nominally charge three things democrats absolutely dont understand notion assertive leadership160 first dont wont achieve anything160 american political system created founders designed produce utter stasis exception well exceptional moments160 second one follow dont lead160 leadership crucial substantive achievements also intrinsic rewards160 people want led want believe leaders160 indeed follow strong leaders like ronald reagan example even disagree politics160 hand project fecklessness tend despise sometimes even though like ideas finally democrats dont lead aggressive ogres opposition care least corrosive effects deceit destruction institutions democracy go ahead define country pretty way either160 sound familiar came clear week demons regressive right came trumpeting scurrilous lies inflammatory rhetoric national security threat160 yet again160 plane headed detroit another ignorant insecure kid indoctrinated toxic brew bad religion even worse politics dont mean palin supporter trying blow airliner name jive deity another undoubtedly obama administration could handled national handholding circus follows events lot better did160 waited long say something took usual passionless form could put audience sleep rage machine concert160 doesnt guy ever get pissed anything160 makes mike dukakis look like methcrazed pro wrestler comparison160 minor matter janet napolitano reminding everyone ahem well system actually worked preventing terrorist attack160 apparently unbeknownst us government secretly hired dutch passenger couple seats leapt onto umar abdulmutallab put flames160 wow160 tsa spooks everywhere160 administration verbiage fact doesnt change thing happened160 theater reassurance160 like obama would saving lives speaking day incident rather waiting two days longer happened next160 else would happen american political system populated vicious republicans pathetic democrats160 gop thugs came swinging attacking obama administration weak national security160 reminds precisely bush did160 mean father did160 mean reagan did160 nixon did160 wait wasnt mccarthys stock trick160 get it160 exactly cutting edge newfangled politics america though youd never know watching democrats deal stuff anyhow right like clockwork trotted dick dick cheney rally around american president moment country attack160 well quite160 even though ive assured former vice presidents office really patriot160 know even though better things go fight nam all160 sorry160 must inadvertently slipped parallel universe retired vice presidents maintain dignity160 back galaxy however man actually say160 ive watched events last days clear president obama trying pretend war160 seems think low key response attempt blow airliner kill hundreds people wont war160 war president obama pretends arent makes us less safe160 doesnt want admit war160 doesnt fit view world brought oval office160 doesnt fit seems goal presidency social transformation restructuring american society alone160 back cheney gang republicans scary lot punditocracy hold coats voiced similar indignation160 more160 congressman pete hoekstra seemed think best expression patriotism could take would form fundraising letter built around terrorist attack160 say noble160 nah neither160 ive heard concept lunatic right america lets face nowadays kind absolutely champing bit good national security crisis hammer president weak defense resorting seemingly inexhaustible campaign theme ages160 thats leapt incident course minor neither anything like pearl harbor 911160 thats cheneys singing song whole last year160 knew something would happen laying groundwork things left doubt absolutely unintentionally forgot tell took obama inexcusable three days make statement event would change anything anyhow took cheneys marionette nearly full week say anything shoe bomber case incident almost identical one except worse came months 911160 bush vacation else new didnt even make statement richard reid mentioned offhandedly press availability six days attack cheney lambasted obama treating latest incident legal matter160 didnt mention bush people exactly thing reid bragged conviction got courts cheney lied yeah really outrageously ridiculously said obama trying pretend country war160 obama saying country war since least state senator160 said throughout last year president beginning inaugural address160 nation war farreaching network violence hatred said throughout year prior candidate160 typically doesnt use war terror construction talks presumably thats realizes idiotic phrase somehow well folks want believe obama afraid really fight war also want notice announced second major escalation would call thingy afghanistan involves lots soldiers weapons blood people dying160 little bit attempted legerdemain exactly shocking anymore it160 day cognitive dissonance goes fashion day conservatives another thing cheney probably doesnt want know folks probably plotted attack yemen actually released guantánamo oops bush administration160 yeah bushco sent saudi arabia participate art therapy rehabilitation program160 think im making dont im also pretty sure cheney wont mentioning set antiterrorist national security system failed miserably put pieces together abdulmutallab last week160 remind administration office last decade160 one reshuffled bureaucratic architecture make system work properly 911 debacle course perhaps wasnt problem160 maybe thing system works fine long someone charge160 actually nominee lead tsa readily approved two senate committees nomination process stopped dead radical leftwing friend muslim terrorists jim demint south carolina160 funny dont hear lot cheney clones160 critical nomination held up160 demint waiting promise tsa workers wont allowed unionize160 really makes sense think it160 got ta keep priorities straight folks160 cant worker bees earning respectable wage last thing probably isnt going get lot mention fact worst foreign terrorist attack history sustained watch wait certain team known bushcheney administration160 fact attack major proportions presidency160 huge raft evidence including testimony top terrorism intelligence people didnt give crap warning bells ringing 120 decibels whew160 stop point radical rights arguments national security week entirely absurd thats good day160 rest time completely contradictory utterly hypocritical kind thing goes time160 obama labeled big spender trying use keynesian tactics rescue economy disaster bequeathed us regressive goon doubled size national debt eight years160 democrats called socialists adding 35 million instant coerced customers private insurance rolls rather creating public healthcare plan like every developed country world160 obama supposedly weak national defense according folks ran two wars third world countries right tenth century succeeded getting nowhere almost decade later us military spent national treasury depleted unreal160 worst stuff actually gets traction160 loads it160 tens millions americans swallow whole many added ranks every day wages wimpiness160 perils passivity never happened year ago would seemed almost inconceivable anyone except actually familiar democratic party last generation two160 even absolutely astonishing punks dont realize imperative throwing punches naming enemies framing narrative160 case politics politics sake160 couldnt care less democratic party wishing rot hell160 however opposition fullon nightmare scenario semistuck wouldbe voice sanity god though cant trash george w bush last decade cant demonize wall street bankers learned greed stealing marbles kids kindergarten cant remind voters cowards cheney chickenhawk chorus actually hell democrats inept public knows major part undoing next two election cycles part get theyll absolutely let anyone say anything take case dems wondering theyre trouble theres old political adage says know youre toast party gives nice benefit seniors let side define murderous government death panels well okay160 old adage160 fact adage rate soon david michael green professor political science hofstra university new york160 delighted receive readers reactions articles dmgregressiveantidotenet regrets time constraints always allow respond160 work found website wwwregressiveantidotenet | 1,322 |
<p>Today I am going to come out of the closet as a Bi-Coastal pot consumer.</p>
<p>I lead two lives; one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast.</p>
<p>In Fort Lauderdale, I own a townhouse where I have resided for over a quarter of a century. In this community, I am a lawyer and a spokesman for NORML, very active in drug law reform. But I cannot practice what I preach. That would be illegal.</p>
<p>In California, however, I found a small town near Berkley, east of San Francisco Bay, where I may retire. It is Walnut Creek, a hamlet, I understand, that has more open public spaces than any other village in America. &#160;There, I may eventually choose to grow my own pot. I am allowed to do so.</p>
<p>In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where I practice law, and get people out of trouble for growing pot, I have to defend people who do what I am entitled to do in California legally. You see, the rules are different here. Life can thus be a bit conflicted.</p>
<p>In early 2006, my Florida roommate, after learning he was HIV positive, decided to move back to his hometown of San Francisco. As a pot consumer, he realized he could now get a medicinal recommendation for marijuana and grow pot legally under California law. The Florida laws are not so kind or generous. Cultivation of any amount is a second degree felony.</p>
<p>We went to San Francisco together, to a community I have visited and loved since the early 1970’s, from my first spectacular drive up the Pacific Coast highway. We found and rented a small apartment in the Haight.</p>
<p>It has been thirteen years since California voters enacted Proposition 215, which allowed citizens to utilize marijuana for medical purposes if a person had a legitimate need. As a recovering cancer patient, I more than qualified for a medical marijuana recommendation.</p>
<p>I sought out a legitimate physician, not one running a medical marijuana mill. &#160;I came with a full set of medical records tracking my unenviable medical past, including recent spinal surgery. The doctor thoughtfully reviewed with me the medical risks associated with the use of cannabis. Not that I did not have a little experience. I mean, I am 60 years old this year. My friends’ kids go to Bonnaroo. I lived through Woodstock.</p>
<p>After the screening, my physician then appropriately certified me as an individual who could benefit from the medical use of cannabis. Just like that, I became patient number 380206011. I then proceeded to a medical dispensary, proudly armed with a State of California Medical Marijuana Identification Card.</p>
<p>As a California patient, I am empowered to acquire cannabis lawfully at medical dispensaries. Under the California Health and Safety Code, I am also entitled to grow up to six plants of my own in my little apartment on the bay. I do not have to hide them from the authorities.</p>
<p>I joined the Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative, and was issued a Growers Certificate. It affirms that any herbs I cultivate at home would be grown for my personal medical use. I was now at liberty to grow my own medicine. It is still called pot in Florida. We call it medicine in California.</p>
<p>Today, therefore, the same medicine I can consume lawfully in California I have to prevent people from going to jail for in Florida. It makes no sense. Fourteen states and scores of communities across our country have either decriminalized or ‘medicalized’ marijuana. It is not good enough. Americans still face one very large federal stumbling block.</p>
<p>A state may pass its own laws, but so too may the federal government pass laws which preempt those state laws. In the case of marijuana, that is what Washington has done. Our federal government claims marijuana is not medicine. As such, it criminalizes all marijuana possession, use, or cultivation, regardless of what the states do.</p>
<p>At first, patients were lucky. In 2003, the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal government had no right to arrest or prosecute medical marijuana patients- as long as what they possessed was for personal use. The United States Supreme Court reversed that ruling in 2005. Thus, as we sit here today, in 2009, federal law enforcement officials can prosecute medical marijuana patients, even if state authorities will not; even if they reside in a state where medical marijuana use is protected by state law.</p>
<p>Under our Constitution, the police power of the state is to be exercised by the state. California authorities are not disobeying federal laws by not enforcing them. They are not legally obligated to do so. Nor is Florida obligated to follow California laws. Just because you have a medical right to possess cannabis in California does not give you a legal right to grow or possess it in Florida. Though some clients of mine have tried, you can’t get stopped for smoking in Miami Beach and pull out a medical marijuana card from Santa Monica. It won’t fly. Tell it to your bondsman.</p>
<p>Welcome then to my conflicted life. I am permitted to grow my own medicine lawfully in my California apartment. &#160;If I were to do that in Florida, police could raid my house and the Florida Bar could seize my card. Instead of representing a grower, I would need a lawyer to represent me. Florida would not care that I am patient number 380206011 in California. What is wrong with that picture?</p>
<p>The cannabis I purchase in a dispensary in Berkeley I can carry in my car and consume in my living room. If I am flying back to Florida though, I cannot carry it with me. That would be a federal crime. But if I am relaxing at an airport bar in either San Francisco or Fort Lauderdale, I can order and consume Crown Royal and Coke. What I can’t get on both coasts is justice. That is far more elusive, and does not come in a bottle.</p>
<p>One national reform group has spent 40 years trying to stem the tide of repression and advance the rights of marijuana consumers. They say it is normal to smoke pot. Their name is NORML, the National Organization to Reform the Marijuana Laws. If there was ever a time to be part of their effort, it is now, as the new administration in Washington has said they are going to put an end to the drug war madness. They have said they will end the raids on medical dispensaries.</p>
<p>We need to see that deed and action follows words and promises.</p>
<p>We need to send a message to our legislators that the silent majority of Americans support vast and overriding changes to repressive drug laws which have incarcerated too many for too long. Join NORML in that cause</p>
<p>We need to show that moral authority is on our side.</p>
<p>Spread the word and it will spread the seed.</p>
<p>NORM KENT, a criminal defense attorney in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, publishes The Broward Law Blog, <a href="http://www.browardlawblog.com/" type="external">www.browardlawblog.com</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | today going come closet bicoastal pot consumer lead two lives one east coast one west coast fort lauderdale townhouse resided quarter century community lawyer spokesman norml active drug law reform practice preach would illegal california however found small town near berkley east san francisco bay may retire walnut creek hamlet understand open public spaces village america 160there may eventually choose grow pot allowed fort lauderdale florida practice law get people trouble growing pot defend people entitled california legally see rules different life thus bit conflicted early 2006 florida roommate learning hiv positive decided move back hometown san francisco pot consumer realized could get medicinal recommendation marijuana grow pot legally california law florida laws kind generous cultivation amount second degree felony went san francisco together community visited loved since early 1970s first spectacular drive pacific coast highway found rented small apartment haight thirteen years since california voters enacted proposition 215 allowed citizens utilize marijuana medical purposes person legitimate need recovering cancer patient qualified medical marijuana recommendation sought legitimate physician one running medical marijuana mill 160i came full set medical records tracking unenviable medical past including recent spinal surgery doctor thoughtfully reviewed medical risks associated use cannabis little experience mean 60 years old year friends kids go bonnaroo lived woodstock screening physician appropriately certified individual could benefit medical use cannabis like became patient number 380206011 proceeded medical dispensary proudly armed state california medical marijuana identification card california patient empowered acquire cannabis lawfully medical dispensaries california health safety code also entitled grow six plants little apartment bay hide authorities joined oakland cannabis buyers cooperative issued growers certificate affirms herbs cultivate home would grown personal medical use liberty grow medicine still called pot florida call medicine california today therefore medicine consume lawfully california prevent people going jail florida makes sense fourteen states scores communities across country either decriminalized medicalized marijuana good enough americans still face one large federal stumbling block state may pass laws may federal government pass laws preempt state laws case marijuana washington done federal government claims marijuana medicine criminalizes marijuana possession use cultivation regardless states first patients lucky 2003 us ninth circuit court appeals ruled federal government right arrest prosecute medical marijuana patients long possessed personal use united states supreme court reversed ruling 2005 thus sit today 2009 federal law enforcement officials prosecute medical marijuana patients even state authorities even reside state medical marijuana use protected state law constitution police power state exercised state california authorities disobeying federal laws enforcing legally obligated florida obligated follow california laws medical right possess cannabis california give legal right grow possess florida though clients mine tried cant get stopped smoking miami beach pull medical marijuana card santa monica wont fly tell bondsman welcome conflicted life permitted grow medicine lawfully california apartment 160if florida police could raid house florida bar could seize card instead representing grower would need lawyer represent florida would care patient number 380206011 california wrong picture cannabis purchase dispensary berkeley carry car consume living room flying back florida though carry would federal crime relaxing airport bar either san francisco fort lauderdale order consume crown royal coke cant get coasts justice far elusive come bottle one national reform group spent 40 years trying stem tide repression advance rights marijuana consumers say normal smoke pot name norml national organization reform marijuana laws ever time part effort new administration washington said going put end drug war madness said end raids medical dispensaries need see deed action follows words promises need send message legislators silent majority americans support vast overriding changes repressive drug laws incarcerated many long join norml cause need show moral authority side spread word spread seed norm kent criminal defense attorney fort lauderdale florida publishes broward law blog wwwbrowardlawblogcom 160 | 616 |
<p>Nazareth.</p>
<p>For more than a decade, since the collapse of the Camp David talks in 2000, the mantra of Israeli politics has been the same: “There is no Palestinian partner for peace.”</p>
<p>This week, the first of hundreds of leaked confidential Palestinian documents confirmed the suspicions of a growing number of observers that the rejectionists in the peace process are to be found on the Israeli, not Palestinian, side.</p>
<p>Some of the most revealing papers, jointly released by Al-Jazeera television and Britain’s Guardian newspaper, date from 2008, a relatively hopeful period in recent negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.</p>
<p>At the time, Ehud Olmert was Israel’s prime minister and had publicly committed himself to pursuing an agreement on Palestinian statehood. He was backed by the United States administration of George W Bush, which had revived the peace process in late 2007 by hosting the Annapolis conference.</p>
<p>In those favourable circumstances, the papers show, Israel spurned a set of major concessions the Palestinian negotiating team offered over the following months on the most sensitive issues in the talks.</p>
<p>Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, has tried unconvincingly to deny the documents’ veracity, but has not been helped by the failure of Israeli officials to come to his aid.</p>
<p>According to the documents, the most significant Palestinian compromise – or “sell-out”, as many Palestinians are calling it – was on Jerusalem.</p>
<p>During a series of meetings over the summer of 2008, Palestinian negotiators agreed to Israel’s annexation of large swaths of East Jerusalem, including all but one of the city’s Jewish settlements and parts of the Old City itself.</p>
<p>It is difficult to imagine how the resulting patchwork of Palestinian enclaves in East Jerusalem, surrounded by Jewish settlements, could ever have functioned as the capital of the new state of Palestine.</p>
<p>At the earlier Camp David talks, according to official Israeli documents leaked to the Haaretz daily in 2008, Israel had proposed something very similar in Jerusalem: Palestinian control over what were then termed territorial “bubbles”.</p>
<p>In the later talks, the Palestinians also showed a willingness to renounce their claim to exclusive sovereignty over the Old City’s flashpoint of the Haram al-Sharif, the sacred compound that includes the al-Aqsa mosque and is flanked by the Western Wall. An international committee overseeing the area was proposed instead.</p>
<p>This was probably the biggest concession of all – control of the Haram was the issue that “blew up” the Camp David talks, according to an Israeli official who was present.</p>
<p>Saeb Erekat, the PLO’s chief negotiator, is quoted promising Israel “the biggest Yerushalayim in history” – using the Hebrew word for Jerusalem – as his team effectively surrendered Palestinian rights enshrined in international law.</p>
<p>The concessions did not end there, however. The Palestinians agreed to land swaps to accommodate 70 per cent of the half a million Jewish settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and to forgo the rights of all but a few thousand Palestinian refugees.</p>
<p>The Palestinian state was also to be demilitarised. In one of the papers recording negotiations in May 2008, Erekat asks Israel’s negotiators: “Short of your jet fighters in my sky and your army on my territory, can I choose where I secure external defence?” The Israeli answer was an emphatic: “No.”</p>
<p>Interestingly, the Palestinian negotiators are said to have agreed to recognise Israel as a “Jewish state” – a concession Israel now claims is one of the main stumbling blocks to a deal.</p>
<p>Israel was also insistent that Palestinians accept a land swap that would transfer a small area of Israel into the new Palestinian state along with as many as a fifth of Israel’s 1.4 million Palestinian citizens. This demand echoes a controversial “population transfer” long proposed by Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s far-right foreign minister.</p>
<p>The “Palestine Papers”, as they are being called, demand a serious re-evaluation of two lingering – and erroneous – assumptions made by many Western observers about the peace process.</p>
<p>The first relates to the United States’ self-proclaimed role as honest broker. What shines through the documents is the reluctance of US officials to put reciprocal pressure on Israeli negotiators, even as the Palestinian team make major concessions on core issues. Israel’s “demands” are always treated as paramount.</p>
<p>The second is the assumption that peace talks have fallen into abeyance chiefly because of the election nearly two years ago of a rightwing Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu. He has drawn international criticism for refusing to pay more than lip-service to Palestinian statehood.</p>
<p>The Americans’ goal – at least in the early stages of Mr Netanyahu’s premiership – was to strong-arm him into bringing into his coalition Tzipi Livni, leader of the centrist opposition party Kadima. She is still widely regarded as the most credible Israeli advocate for peace.</p>
<p>However, Ms Livni, who was previously Mr Olmert’s foreign minister, emerges in the leaked papers as an inflexible negotiator, dismissive of the huge concessions being made by the Palestinians. At a key moment, she turns down the Palestinians’ offer, after saying: “I really appreciate it”.</p>
<p>The sticking point for Ms Livni was a handful of West Bank settlements the Palestinian negotiators refused to cede to Israel. The Palestinians have long complained that the two most significant – Maale Adumim, outside Jerusalem, and Ariel, near the Palestinian city of Nablus – would effectively cut the West Bank into three cantons, undermining any hopes of territorial contiguity.</p>
<p>Ms Livni’s insistence on holding on to these settlements – after all the Palestinian compromises – suggests that there is no Israeli leader either prepared or able to reach a peace deal – unless, that is, the Palestinians cave in to almost every Israeli demand and abandon their ambitions for statehood.</p>
<p>One of the Palestine Papers quotes an exasperated Mr Erekat asking a US diplomat last year: “What more can I give?”</p>
<p>The man with the answer may be Mr Lieberman, who unveiled his own map of Palestinian statehood this week. It conceded a provisional state on less than half of the West Bank.</p>
<p>JONATHAN COOK is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “ <a href="" type="internal">Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East”</a> (Pluto Press) and “ <a href="" type="internal">Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair</a>” (Zed Books). His website is <a href="http://www.jkcook.net" type="external">www.jkcook.net</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | nazareth decade since collapse camp david talks 2000 mantra israeli politics palestinian partner peace week first hundreds leaked confidential palestinian documents confirmed suspicions growing number observers rejectionists peace process found israeli palestinian side revealing papers jointly released aljazeera television britains guardian newspaper date 2008 relatively hopeful period recent negotiations israel palestinians time ehud olmert israels prime minister publicly committed pursuing agreement palestinian statehood backed united states administration george w bush revived peace process late 2007 hosting annapolis conference favourable circumstances papers show israel spurned set major concessions palestinian negotiating team offered following months sensitive issues talks mahmoud abbas palestinian authority president tried unconvincingly deny documents veracity helped failure israeli officials come aid according documents significant palestinian compromise sellout many palestinians calling jerusalem series meetings summer 2008 palestinian negotiators agreed israels annexation large swaths east jerusalem including one citys jewish settlements parts old city difficult imagine resulting patchwork palestinian enclaves east jerusalem surrounded jewish settlements could ever functioned capital new state palestine earlier camp david talks according official israeli documents leaked haaretz daily 2008 israel proposed something similar jerusalem palestinian control termed territorial bubbles later talks palestinians also showed willingness renounce claim exclusive sovereignty old citys flashpoint haram alsharif sacred compound includes alaqsa mosque flanked western wall international committee overseeing area proposed instead probably biggest concession control haram issue blew camp david talks according israeli official present saeb erekat plos chief negotiator quoted promising israel biggest yerushalayim history using hebrew word jerusalem team effectively surrendered palestinian rights enshrined international law concessions end however palestinians agreed land swaps accommodate 70 per cent half million jewish settlers west bank east jerusalem forgo rights thousand palestinian refugees palestinian state also demilitarised one papers recording negotiations may 2008 erekat asks israels negotiators short jet fighters sky army territory choose secure external defence israeli answer emphatic interestingly palestinian negotiators said agreed recognise israel jewish state concession israel claims one main stumbling blocks deal israel also insistent palestinians accept land swap would transfer small area israel new palestinian state along many fifth israels 14 million palestinian citizens demand echoes controversial population transfer long proposed avigdor lieberman israels farright foreign minister palestine papers called demand serious reevaluation two lingering erroneous assumptions made many western observers peace process first relates united states selfproclaimed role honest broker shines documents reluctance us officials put reciprocal pressure israeli negotiators even palestinian team make major concessions core issues israels demands always treated paramount second assumption peace talks fallen abeyance chiefly election nearly two years ago rightwing israeli government benjamin netanyahu drawn international criticism refusing pay lipservice palestinian statehood americans goal least early stages mr netanyahus premiership strongarm bringing coalition tzipi livni leader centrist opposition party kadima still widely regarded credible israeli advocate peace however ms livni previously mr olmerts foreign minister emerges leaked papers inflexible negotiator dismissive huge concessions made palestinians key moment turns palestinians offer saying really appreciate sticking point ms livni handful west bank settlements palestinian negotiators refused cede israel palestinians long complained two significant maale adumim outside jerusalem ariel near palestinian city nablus would effectively cut west bank three cantons undermining hopes territorial contiguity ms livnis insistence holding settlements palestinian compromises suggests israeli leader either prepared able reach peace deal unless palestinians cave almost every israeli demand abandon ambitions statehood one palestine papers quotes exasperated mr erekat asking us diplomat last year give man answer may mr lieberman unveiled map palestinian statehood week conceded provisional state less half west bank jonathan cook writer journalist based nazareth israel latest books israel clash civilisations iraq iran plan remake middle east pluto press disappearing palestine israels experiments human despair zed books website wwwjkcooknet 160 | 601 |
<p>Photo by Meg Chang | <a href="" type="internal">CC BY 2.0</a></p>
<p>There is no such thing as a good war, especially not in 2018. History, both recent and otherwise, has proven this statement. No war in the past seventy years has made the world a better place. In fact, in most cases those wars have made the world more dangerous. Furthermore, these wars—most of them waged by the United States and its clients—have wreaked environmental destruction, made life even more difficult for those who have little to begin with, and created an economy whose very existence not only demands but depends on the waging of and preparation for war and more war. In other words, a permanent war economy.</p>
<p>According to most commentators on the subject, the term “permanent war economy” was first discussed in detail by Edward Sard in a 1944 article in Politics magazine. (Politics, 1:2 (February 1944), pp. 11–17, writing as W. Oakes.) His understanding of the phenomenon was that this type of economy is a form of military Keynesianism. In other words, it is a way to transfer wealth from the working classes to capital by means of government taxation. He further argued that developing a permanent war economy was the only way contemporary capitalism could survive. As any reasonable thinker would acknowledge today, not only has capitalism survived, its reach is so ubiquitous there is essentially no alternative to its deadly but profitable presence.</p>
<p>In the wake of the US defeat in Vietnam, the Vietnamese economy became part of the international capitalist economy. China, whose economy once represented an alternative to the monopoly capitalism dominated by US money and power, is now a capitalist economy vying with the United States for world economic dominance. The majority of the former republics of the Soviet Union find themselves in a similar position, especially in the case of Russia. Yet, the world’s doomsday clock is closer to midnight than it has been since the height of the Cold War in the 1980s between Washington and the nominally communist Soviet Union. Why is that? If every nation’s economy is capitalist, then why don’t they cooperate to exploit the world’s already exploited even more?</p>
<p>The answer is actually quite simple. The reason we are closer to war than we have been in decades is precisely because all of these powerful nations are capitalist. They are not arguing or battling over ideology like they were in previous decades; they are arguing and battling over profits and markets, resources and control. In other words, the current arguments, trade wars, military positioning and conflicts potential and real are elements of imperialism. Just like competition is essential to capitalism, so is it essential to imperialism, which is nothing but capitalism on a national/international scale. The difference between the competitive rivalries between local capitalists and capitalist nations is measured in body counts and blood. In other more general terms there is no difference. In other words, the working people lose and the most powerful capitalists win.</p>
<p>Let me get back to the situation at hand. By this I am referring to Syria and the situation in that nation’s cities and countryside. As I write this, unverified stories of a chemical attack in a rebel-held section near Damascus are being used to justify an attack on that already beleaguered people and nation. Even if this chemical attack did occur and even if the perpetrators are those the western media are quick to blame, the military action by the US and other western nations is unlikely to do anything but further inflame the situation. This is especially true if Russian or other foreign troops allied with the Syrian government are killed in any such attack. Indeed, if that occurs, the likelihood of a greater conflict reflecting the current state of inter-imperialist rivalry increases to a level that is incomprehensible to most US residents alive today, most of whom have little or no memory of the US wars on Korea and Vietnam and have little connection to the current conflicts waged by US forces today. Unfortunately, this lack of historical memory means many of those residents can be manipulated into supporting not only an attack on Syria, but a greater conflict with other forces the US war machine considers the enemy, if only because they are not supplicant to Washington’s foreign ambitions. Some will support it simply because they see themselves as patriots who must support the military no matter what. Others, many of them liberals and even leftist, will support it (if only tacitly) in the name of human rights.</p>
<p>The fault with this latter premise is that US capitalism tramples human rights every second of the day. It does so when it supports authoritarian regimes in countries where it has investments. It does so when it supports the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the Israeli military’s murder of Palestinians. It does so when it signs trade agreements that encode the exploitation of labor and the destruction of local environments. It does so when it abrogates those agreements and allows even greater exploitation and destruction. It violates human rights when its police forces kill unarmed residents and then sanctions those murders. It violates human rights when its immigration police pick up and detain immigrants based on their appearance and separate parents from their children. It violates human rights every time an armed drone kills an individual in a foreign land and every time a Special Forces unit kicks in the door of some family’s home somewhere in the world. Then there is the reality of invasion and war, neither of which are humanitarian in nature no matter what the neocons and neoliberals say. This list could go on for pages, but the reader should get my point.</p>
<p>Capitalism does not care about human rights. Capitalist nations do not wage wars for human rights. Capitalist nations engage in military conflicts to serve the needs of those that rule those nations. They may do so directly via invasion and armed drone attacks or via proxy forces they train, fund and provide public relations cover for. Recent examples of this latter approach by the US include the contra forces in Nicaragua, the mujahedin in Afghanistan (including Bin Laden and his forces), and various tribal, religious and ethnic militias in Iraq and Syria. Some intelligence sources have also stated that ISIS is such an operation, although the truth of this possibility may never be known, for somewhat obvious reasons. These operations have proven murderous beyond comprehension. Any deeper involvement of US forces would only intensify the catastrophe.</p> | true | 4 | photo meg chang cc 20 thing good war especially 2018 history recent otherwise proven statement war past seventy years made world better place fact cases wars made world dangerous furthermore warsmost waged united states clientshave wreaked environmental destruction made life even difficult little begin created economy whose existence demands depends waging preparation war war words permanent war economy according commentators subject term permanent war economy first discussed detail edward sard 1944 article politics magazine politics 12 february 1944 pp 1117 writing w oakes understanding phenomenon type economy form military keynesianism words way transfer wealth working classes capital means government taxation argued developing permanent war economy way contemporary capitalism could survive reasonable thinker would acknowledge today capitalism survived reach ubiquitous essentially alternative deadly profitable presence wake us defeat vietnam vietnamese economy became part international capitalist economy china whose economy represented alternative monopoly capitalism dominated us money power capitalist economy vying united states world economic dominance majority former republics soviet union find similar position especially case russia yet worlds doomsday clock closer midnight since height cold war 1980s washington nominally communist soviet union every nations economy capitalist dont cooperate exploit worlds already exploited even answer actually quite simple reason closer war decades precisely powerful nations capitalist arguing battling ideology like previous decades arguing battling profits markets resources control words current arguments trade wars military positioning conflicts potential real elements imperialism like competition essential capitalism essential imperialism nothing capitalism nationalinternational scale difference competitive rivalries local capitalists capitalist nations measured body counts blood general terms difference words working people lose powerful capitalists win let get back situation hand referring syria situation nations cities countryside write unverified stories chemical attack rebelheld section near damascus used justify attack already beleaguered people nation even chemical attack occur even perpetrators western media quick blame military action us western nations unlikely anything inflame situation especially true russian foreign troops allied syrian government killed attack indeed occurs likelihood greater conflict reflecting current state interimperialist rivalry increases level incomprehensible us residents alive today little memory us wars korea vietnam little connection current conflicts waged us forces today unfortunately lack historical memory means many residents manipulated supporting attack syria greater conflict forces us war machine considers enemy supplicant washingtons foreign ambitions support simply see patriots must support military matter others many liberals even leftist support tacitly name human rights fault latter premise us capitalism tramples human rights every second day supports authoritarian regimes countries investments supports israeli occupation palestine israeli militarys murder palestinians signs trade agreements encode exploitation labor destruction local environments abrogates agreements allows even greater exploitation destruction violates human rights police forces kill unarmed residents sanctions murders violates human rights immigration police pick detain immigrants based appearance separate parents children violates human rights every time armed drone kills individual foreign land every time special forces unit kicks door familys home somewhere world reality invasion war neither humanitarian nature matter neocons neoliberals say list could go pages reader get point capitalism care human rights capitalist nations wage wars human rights capitalist nations engage military conflicts serve needs rule nations may directly via invasion armed drone attacks via proxy forces train fund provide public relations cover recent examples latter approach us include contra forces nicaragua mujahedin afghanistan including bin laden forces various tribal religious ethnic militias iraq syria intelligence sources also stated isis operation although truth possibility may never known somewhat obvious reasons operations proven murderous beyond comprehension deeper involvement us forces would intensify catastrophe | 573 |
<p>“No,” the Oscar-nominated film starring Mexican actor Gael García Bernal, dramatizes a curious moment in Latin American politics: the 1988 referendum whose defeat resulted in the fall of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. That campaign marked a bittersweet victory for the nation’s largely communist opposition coalition. On the one hand, it finally rid the country of a feared and hated tyrant. On the other, it was a win that was due in no small part to the marketing savvy of the slick young ad men the coalition was forced to hire.</p>
<p>The film’s apparently pro-capitalist theme might seem an odd fit for Bernal, an outspoken leftist who has played Che Guevara not once, but twice. The actor, director and producer is also a human rights advocate and the co-founder of <a href="http://www.ambulante.com.mx/index.php?i=en" type="external">Ambulante</a>, a muckraking documentary festival that brings movies — and perhaps even more important, filmmakers and filmmaking workshops — to remote locations such as jungles and even prisons in which the people have little or no access to cinema. So how did he end up starring in a film that would appear, on the surface at least, to be a celebration of 20th century free-market economics?</p>
<p>García Bernal met with Truthdig in Michoacan, Mexico, after “No’s” national premiere at the Morelia International Film Festival in November. Thankfully free of the ’80s rattail he sports in the film, the 33-year-old spoke openly about propaganda, Ambulante and his own reading of the movie in which his character is based on two real life mad men.</p>
<p>Sheerly Avni: The campaign won because it successfully sold the idea of “happiness” to the Chilean people. Did taking on this role challenge or reaffirm your negative opinions about marketing and advertising?</p>
<p />
<p>Gael García Bernal: It did both! I think that the marketing aspect of the film is not unique to one side or another. Propaganda can be a tool of any party, any movement, any organization. Look at the most famous images from the Cuban revolution. Why were they so iconic and so cool? Because they were staged, put together after the fact, after the fighting was over. And those kids in Cuba were so shaggy and hip and happy and they were showing the world that a group of young people could topple a government and run themselves. They sold it.</p>
<p>Avni: You could almost say that in this film, the advertising industry, and by extension capitalism, emerge as the “good guy.”</p>
<p>Bernal: Is it the good guy, or is it just that capitalism is Pinochet’s self-implanted poison? Because it was his own system that eventually undid him. He put in place a system of supply and demand, market structure and of course advertising, and it turned out that in this system, the ad men were much more savvy than the members of the military junta.</p>
<p>The men my character represents knew how to sell products, and when it came to selling democracy, they knew what to do. And as the film dramatizes, working with them was perhaps one of the biggest compromises that the communists and anti-Pinochet architects of the movement were forced to make.</p>
<p>Avni: Hiring a publicist?</p>
<p>Bernal: Yes, one thing you don’t see in the film, which begins with the No campaign itself, is that the referendum was made possible in part by all of the grass-roots work that Pinochet’s opponents had been doing — for years, going from town to town, asking people to speak up, share their opinions, stand up for themselves. But now when it came to an actual vote, the Chilean people were really terrified.</p>
<p>Avni: Why?</p>
<p>Bernal: There was a great deal of fear around voting in general at the time. In Venezuela, for example, you voted with your thumbprint. And in a recent election in Venezuela, the government had been able to seek out and investigate who had voted for whom. So people were frightened of the very idea of going to the polls.</p>
<p>Then there was a legitimate fear of rigging, especially among young people, because in 1983, there had been an election that was a complete nightmare — a fraud. So Chileans didn’t believe this referendum would be any different. Finally, there was another problem, which was that older Chileans had lived through the military coup and didn’t want to have to go through another crisis. And so it was the task of the No campaign to convince these two groups to come together and vote. They knew they would need to come in like — well, this is the ’80s, so — like Ghostbusters.Avni: Some of the film’s funniest moments come when your character is seeking out the perfect jingle to sell the idea of democracy. It’s absurd and delightful but also a bit cynical.</p>
<p>Bernal: And in a sense, any “free election” is always about selling a product. Look back at the first debate between Romney and Obama. Afterwards, the focus was not on the issues that the candidates had debated but on their performances. It was just “Romney was more secure, Obama seemed like he was somewhere else,” etc. It was all about who sells the better image. It seemed as if Obama had forgotten that it was not about content, but about being a good actor. … Or, if not acting, at least appearing decisive, confident, presidential.</p>
<p>Democracy has become really perverted. You saw this clearly in the No campaign, as if the competition were merely a Manichean decision of Pepsi vs. Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola equals happiness and Pepsi equals the new generation, so which do you like better?</p>
<p>And that degradation is not necessarily new. The philosophers who first articulated the concepts of democracy, from the Greeks through the French and the Germans in the Enlightenment, they all ran into a point where they hit a brick wall — saying, “shit, the electoral process in some way perverts the essence of democracy.”</p>
<p>Avni: This is a dark reading, both of the electoral process and the film itself.</p>
<p>Bernal: It is very dark. But that was 1988. Back in the day, the jingle was everything. Communications and advertising were at a different stage. As you see in the film, in 1988, you could sell the public on the idea that a simple kitchen appliance could change your life.</p>
<p>But now, you could make a promise like that, and we know it’s not true — not for a washing machine, not for a candidate. The public is losing that credulity. I personally never believe any campaign or anything I see on TV. And so my feeling is that the true political engagement happens day to day, in a much more complex, less Manichean way than what is offered by a referendum or an election. Otherwise it’s a waste, like watching Obama spend his entire first term campaigning for his second term.</p>
<p>“No” is a film that — at least in my reading of it — calls for the democratic process as a day-to-day phenomenon. True democracy is not just about a campaign, it comes from constructing movement, dialogue and confrontation as well, and by constructing involvement that ultimately might not even need an election.</p>
<p>Avni: So what does “involvement” mean? For example, your own festival, Ambulante, aren’t you just taking films that espouse a progressive point of view out to the masses? Couldn’t Ambulante be called the ultimate in propaganda?</p>
<p>Bernal: I think Ambulante is the direct opposite of propaganda. Or rather, it combines a form of propaganda with a form of engagement. Of course we are selling a product. We’re selling Ambulante — the idea that you should watch documentaries, or when we program, we are telling audiences, “You should watch this documentary, it’s incredible.” But the documentaries we choose, and the context in which we choose them, for example by hosting debates and encouraging audience interaction, invites audiences to think critically about what they see.</p>
<p>Part of the reason why Mexico has developed a critical, educated group of people is because of organizations like Ambulante.</p>
<p>Avni: And so despite the success of the campaign in the film, are you saying you are against these kinds of campaigns?</p>
<p>Bernal: Are you trying to make me choose for or against, one or the other, just like in the film?</p>
<p>Avni: Yes!</p>
<p>Bernal: That’s exactly the problem, because an ad campaign is not about content. And you know, I’m more interested in content. [Laughs.] Aren’t you?</p>
<p>To read Truthdig’s interview with “No” director Pablo Larraín, click <a href="" type="internal">here</a>.</p> | true | 4 | oscarnominated film starring mexican actor gael garcía bernal dramatizes curious moment latin american politics 1988 referendum whose defeat resulted fall chilean dictator augusto pinochet campaign marked bittersweet victory nations largely communist opposition coalition one hand finally rid country feared hated tyrant win due small part marketing savvy slick young ad men coalition forced hire films apparently procapitalist theme might seem odd fit bernal outspoken leftist played che guevara twice actor director producer also human rights advocate cofounder ambulante muckraking documentary festival brings movies perhaps even important filmmakers filmmaking workshops remote locations jungles even prisons people little access cinema end starring film would appear surface least celebration 20th century freemarket economics garcía bernal met truthdig michoacan mexico nos national premiere morelia international film festival november thankfully free 80s rattail sports film 33yearold spoke openly propaganda ambulante reading movie character based two real life mad men sheerly avni campaign successfully sold idea happiness chilean people taking role challenge reaffirm negative opinions marketing advertising gael garcía bernal think marketing aspect film unique one side another propaganda tool party movement organization look famous images cuban revolution iconic cool staged put together fact fighting kids cuba shaggy hip happy showing world group young people could topple government run sold avni could almost say film advertising industry extension capitalism emerge good guy bernal good guy capitalism pinochets selfimplanted poison system eventually undid put place system supply demand market structure course advertising turned system ad men much savvy members military junta men character represents knew sell products came selling democracy knew film dramatizes working perhaps one biggest compromises communists antipinochet architects movement forced make avni hiring publicist bernal yes one thing dont see film begins campaign referendum made possible part grassroots work pinochets opponents years going town town asking people speak share opinions stand came actual vote chilean people really terrified avni bernal great deal fear around voting general time venezuela example voted thumbprint recent election venezuela government able seek investigate voted people frightened idea going polls legitimate fear rigging especially among young people 1983 election complete nightmare fraud chileans didnt believe referendum would different finally another problem older chileans lived military coup didnt want go another crisis task campaign convince two groups come together vote knew would need come like well 80s like ghostbustersavni films funniest moments come character seeking perfect jingle sell idea democracy absurd delightful also bit cynical bernal sense free election always selling product look back first debate romney obama afterwards focus issues candidates debated performances romney secure obama seemed like somewhere else etc sells better image seemed obama forgotten content good actor acting least appearing decisive confident presidential democracy become really perverted saw clearly campaign competition merely manichean decision pepsi vs cocacola cocacola equals happiness pepsi equals new generation like better degradation necessarily new philosophers first articulated concepts democracy greeks french germans enlightenment ran point hit brick wall saying shit electoral process way perverts essence democracy avni dark reading electoral process film bernal dark 1988 back day jingle everything communications advertising different stage see film 1988 could sell public idea simple kitchen appliance could change life could make promise like know true washing machine candidate public losing credulity personally never believe campaign anything see tv feeling true political engagement happens day day much complex less manichean way offered referendum election otherwise waste like watching obama spend entire first term campaigning second term film least reading calls democratic process daytoday phenomenon true democracy campaign comes constructing movement dialogue confrontation well constructing involvement ultimately might even need election avni involvement mean example festival ambulante arent taking films espouse progressive point view masses couldnt ambulante called ultimate propaganda bernal think ambulante direct opposite propaganda rather combines form propaganda form engagement course selling product selling ambulante idea watch documentaries program telling audiences watch documentary incredible documentaries choose context choose example hosting debates encouraging audience interaction invites audiences think critically see part reason mexico developed critical educated group people organizations like ambulante avni despite success campaign film saying kinds campaigns bernal trying make choose one like film avni yes bernal thats exactly problem ad campaign content know im interested content laughs arent read truthdigs interview director pablo larraín click | 692 |
<p>Shawn Helton <a href="http://wp.me/p3bwni-83P" type="external">21st Century Wire</a></p>
<p>Following the apparent ‘vanishing act’ of Malaysian Airlines flight <a href="" type="internal">MH370</a>, many investigators and researchers began to question the&#160;likelihood of such an event happening in today’s high-tech world.</p>
<p>At 21WIRE, we’ve also looked into the unprecedented <a href="" type="internal">disappearance of MH370</a> and the <a href="" type="internal">subsequent downing of MH17</a>, as certain details have come to light regarding the history of the remote autopilot function installed within Boeing commercial airliners (a subject which also opens the door to the events of 9/11).</p>
<p>The Boeing 777 along with other Boeing models, can in fact be flown remotely through the use of independent embedded software and satellite communication.&#160;Once this advanced system is engaged, it can&#160;disallow any pilot or potential hijacker from controlling a plane, as the rooted setup uses digital signals that communicate with air traffic control, satellite links, as well as other government entities for the remainder of a flight’s journey.</p>
<p>This technology is known as the Boeing Honeywell ‘Uninterruptible’ Autopilot System.</p>
<p>The mere existence of this technology would most certainly provide the final piece to a number of seemingly unsolved airline disaster puzzles in recent years…</p>
<p>IMAGE: ‘A jet for the 21st century’ – An interior view of a Boeing 777-200 ER cockpit (Photo: <a href="http://becuo.com/boeing-777-200-cockpit" type="external">becuo</a>.com) In the case of MH370,&#160;the aircraft’s Rolls Royce Trent 892 Engines sent ‘automated pings’ independent of the plane’s transponder, to a British <a href="http://www.inmarsat.com/" type="external">Inmarsat</a> satellite for several hours after subsequently losing contact with air traffic controllers. The automated information gave an up-to-date diagnosis as to the well-being of the two engines, which according to data received, were fully operational and showed no signs of electrical damage. Rolls Royce has a partnership that requires the engine to transmit live data to its global engine health monitoring center in Derby, UK, every 30 minutes. Investigators are said to have used the ACARS information uploaded to the engine maker.</p>
<p>Uninterruptible flight control</p>
<p>On December 4th of 2006, it was announced that Boeing had won a patent on an uninterruptible autopilot system for use in commercial aircraft. This was the first public acknowledgment by Boeing about the existence of such an autopilot system.</p>
<p>The new autopilot patent was reported by John Croft for Flight Global, with the news piece subsequently linked by a&#160; <a href="http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/boeing-wins-patent-uninterruptible-autopilot-system" type="external">Homeland Security News Wire</a>&#160;and other British publications around the same time. According to the DHS release, it was disclosed that “dedicated electrical circuits” within an onboard flight system could control a plane without the need of pilots, stating that the advanced avionics would fly the aircraft remotely, independently of those operating the plane:</p>
<p>“The “uninterruptible” autopilot would be activated – either by pilots, by onboard sensors, or even remotely via&#160;radio or satellite links by government agencies like the&#160; <a href="https://www.cia.gov/" type="external">Central&#160;Intelligence Agency</a>, if terrorists attempt to gain control of a flight deck.”</p>
<p>The Flight Global news wire goes on to report that the uninterruptible autopilot system was designed for increased security in the event of a manual hijacking situation, as Boeing itself describes the feature as a preventative measure, keeping unauthorized persons out of a cockpit, setting the stage for an industry wide safety protocol:</p>
<p>“There is a need in the industry for a technique that conclusively prevents unauthorised persons for gaining access to the controls of the vehicle and therefore threatening the safety of the passengers onboard the vehicle, and/or other people in the path of travel of the vehicle, thereby decreasing the amount of destruction individuals onboard the vehicle would be capable of causing.” Additionally, in the article entitled, “ <a href="http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/diagrams-boeing-patents-anti-terrorism-auto-land-system-for-hijacked-210869/" type="external">Diagrams: Boeing patents anti-terrorism auto-land system for hijacked airliners</a>,” Croft outlines the clandestine oversight that government has with respect to the uninterruptible autopilot, making note of the auto-land function of the system and stating that the technology has&#160;its own power supply self-sufficient of any electrical systems on the plane:</p>
<p>“To make it fully independent, the system has its own power supply, independent of the aircraft’s circuit breakers. The aircraft remains in automatic mode until after landing, when mechanics or government security operatives are called in to disengage the system.”</p>
<p />
<p><a href="http://www.flightglobal.com/assets/getasset.aspx?itemid=15742" type="external" /> IMAGE: The United States patent for the Boeing Honeywell Uninterruptible Autopilot dated November, 28th 2006 (Photo: <a href="http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/diagrams-boeing-patents-anti-terrorism-auto-land-system-for-hijacked-210869/" type="external">flightglobal</a>.com)</p>
<p>Boeing and Honeywell have been heavily involved in UAV technology for both civilian and military applications for many decades and in the case of Honeywell, they’ve cornered the aerospace market through the consolidation of many avionics based companies along with their patents. Some researchers have suggested that both corporations could ‘recoup’ the cost of their applied science technology for military development from the commercial sector. It has also been said that Boeing and Honeywell developed existing patents for the Department of Defense for over 40 years including the BHAUP system.</p>
<p>A pilotless pursuit with precision guided munitions</p>
<p>The idea of remote controlled avionics is nothing new.</p>
<p>In actuality, ‘fly-by-wire‘&#160;electronic signal technology has its roots in the early 20th Century and if you go back even further the realization of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) takes us back to&#160;1849, where Austria was said to have launched 200 pilot-less bomb filled balloons over the city of Venice, resulting in the&#160;Republic of San Marco being&#160;besieged by Austrian forces less than a week later. Additionally, in&#160;1898, the well-known&#160;inventor and engineer Nikola Tesla, had successfully demonstrated remote control technology through the creation of two small radio powered boats.</p>
<p>The advancement of radio controlled unmanned aircraft was seen during WW1 with the ‘pilot-less’ biplane and aerial torpedo known as the Kettering Bug, a primitive UAV that according to some estimates, was capable of hitting ground targets nearly 40 miles away.</p>
<p>The ‘Bug’ had a similar method to the Wright Brothers&#160;dolly track system powered flights of the early 1900’s but needed a better autopilot function, which prompted Kettering to enlist American engineer and inventor Elmer Sperry with his gyroscopic stabilizers that revolutionized the autopilot feature and with it the concept of remote control flight.</p>
<p>IMAGE: ‘Blood &amp; Bones’ – Charles Kettering’s ‘Bug’ UAV, he was also known for his discovery and production of tetra-ethyl lead or TEL apparently left over 5 million&#160;toxic tons of the substance within the United States. It has been said there were vast implications of TEL genetically speaking, particularly in terms of the amount of lead exposure in humans, leading to blood, bone and cell toxicity (Photo: <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_F._Kettering.jpg" type="external">commons.wikimedia</a>.org)</p>
<p>Coincidentally, as Charles Kettering‘s ‘Bug’ biplane gained notoriety, Kettering’s research team discovered the high-octane booster called&#160;&#160;tetra-ethyl lead (TEL) which prompted the interest of several manufacturer’s from around the globe, notably, the Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company, GM, Ethyl Gasoline Corporation and&#160; <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/03/25/the-man-who-poisoned-us-all/" type="external">the Nazi-linked chemical corporation IG Farben before the second world war</a>. A consortium of American companies were openly engaged in fueling the development of many of the Nazi party’s military pursuits, as the occupying faction latched on to the pilot-less Kettering Bug concept, creating a fleet of their own unmanned flying-projectiles known as Buzz Bombs, which&#160;tormented London during WW2.</p>
<p>Later, under Operation&#160;Paper Clip,&#160;the&#160;Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency&#160;(JIOA) employed many of the scientists and engineers affiliated with the applied military development for the Nazi party, including a division of scientists working on&#160;remote control technology. The former German operatives were scrubbed and ‘bleached’ of their dark past, as they were allowed to work for the United States government unbeknownst to the vast majority of public at the time.</p>
<p>In the mid 1940’s, there was a strong push for remote controlled flying vehicles like the GB-1 Glide Bomb, along with several other UAV drone-types that had been developed for various military operations towards the end of the World War. The GB-4 could engage targets via a television camera located underneath its warhead but could only function properly in the best weather conditions.</p>
<p>Around this same time, the disastrous&#160;Operation Aphrodite&#160;was conducted using B-17’s and B-24’s with a gutted interior. They were fully loaded with Torpex explosives. While manned crews operated the first part of the journey, later the crew would attempt to parachute out over the English Channel, giving control of the craft over to a manned mothership remotely, communicating with ground control units.</p>
<p>In 1944, apparently flying a B17 Flying Fortress (although some suggest it could have been a different aircraft),&#160;Lt&#160;Joseph Kennedy&#160;and co-pilot Lt&#160;Wilford John Willy&#160;failed the manned portion of their mission, as the pair were unable to parachute out before the aircraft’s explosives detonated supposedly due to an electrical malfunction, marking the demise of the military operation. Kennedy’s alleged target was the underground Nazi military complex, the&#160;Fortress of Mimoyecques. The operation is said to have had only one successful mission after a dozen or so failed flights operations.</p>
<p>In 1946, the Pilotless Aircraft Branch was created during the rise of the RAND corporation’s first classified projects, as it has been said that RAND research began looking into satellite controlled vehicles, noting that satellites could be applied to all types of military and civilian applications in the future.</p>
<p>The creation of combat UAV’s&#160;</p>
<p>In March of 1996, the RQ-3&#160;DarkStar&#160;drone manufactured by Lockeed Martin and Boeing,&#160; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_RQ-3_DarkStar" type="external">could make an entirely human free flight</a>, with its operating ‘sensors’ acquiring targets and the transmission of flight path information in a ‘fully autonomous’ way.&#160;It is also important to note that the programming language used in a Boeing 777, is the same language used for Boeing’s DarkStar drone – Ada-95 programming.</p>
<p>The blend of old bomb-based UAV’s and surveillance drones took shape in the late 90’s with many advancements made to the electronic systems during the 80’s, including the addition of real-time spy capabilities.</p>
<p>The creation of the War on Terror, along with 9/11, ushered in a whole new realm of defense spending for armed drone technology, marking the age of weaponized UAV’s, with&#160;the Global Hawk, Predator and Reaper drones used in the extrajudicial killing of targeted individuals and enemy combatants with or without a ‘hot’ battlefield, which has become the most lucrative business model for defense contractors and the military industrial complex since the turn of the century.</p>
<p>IMAGE: ‘Battle of the Atlantic’ – &#160;The Royal Air Force Consolidated B-24 Liberator. The RAF operated most of the first production of the B-24’s when they were completed. During&#160;Operation Aphrodite some were converted to be used in manned/unmanned missions&#160;(Photo: <a href="http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/alaska-and-the-airplane-69899341/" type="external">airspacemag</a>.com) IMAGE: ‘Combat Dawn’ The Ryan Aeronautical&#160;Lightning Bug, along with the Ryan&#160;Firebee drone missions consisted primarily of intelligence gathering, radio monitoring and reconnaissance. Both were controlled remotely to&#160;spy on China, North Korea and&#160;Vietnam,&#160;during the 60’s and 70’s.&#160;The Vietnam War spy drones were the basis for the use of modern drones&#160;(Photo: <a href="http://understandingempire.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/drone-origins-world-war-ii-and-vietnam-era-remotely-piloted-vehicles/" type="external">understandingtheempire</a>.com) Remote control over commercial aircraft</p>
<p>The NASA Dryden Flight Research Center and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) joined efforts for a remote controlled flight experiment called the Controlled Impact Demonstration (CID), in 1984.</p>
<p>The test conducted included the use of a remote controlled Boeing 720 aircraft to study the ‘effectiveness’ of anti-misting kerosene or (AMK), during what was considered to be a survivable impact. The AMK was added to standard jet fuel to suppress the explosion upon the purposeful impact. This is the description of what happened during the <a href="http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Movie/CID/" type="external">flight experiment according to NASA’s own website</a>:</p>
<p>“On the morning of December 1, 1984, a remotely controlled Boeing 720 transport took off from Edwards Air Force Base&#160;(Edwards, California), made a left-hand departure and climbed to an altitude of 2300 feet. It then began a descent to-landing&#160;to a specially prepared runway on the east side of Rogers Dry Lake. Final approach was along the roughly 3.8 degree&#160;glide slope. The landing gear was left retracted. Passing the decision height of 150 feet above ground level (AGL), the aircraft&#160;was slightly to the right of the desired path. Just above that decision point at which the pilot was to execute a “go-around,” there appeared to be enough altitude to maneuver back to the centerline of the runway. Data acquisition systems had been activated, and the aircraft was committed to impact. It contacted the ground, left wing low. The fire and smoke took over an hour to extinguish.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/CID/Small/ECN-28307.jpg" type="external" /> IMAGE: ‘ Remotely Downed’ – This was an interior picture of the Boeing 720 that was used in the Controlled Impact Demonstration in 1984 via remote control telemetry systems (Photo: <a href="http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/CID/Small/ECN-28307.jpg" type="external">dfrc.nasa</a>.gov)</p>
<p>The controlled impact operation was outlined as an innocuous flight study for safety but its important to keep in mind that this was one of the first pieces of evidence that a large commercial airliner could be flown by remote <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/pdf/87940main_H-1133.pdf" type="external">uplink and ‘pulse code modulated’ downlink telemetry systems</a> – a full 17 years before 9/11, and 30 years before the apparent disappearance of MH370.</p>
<p>Uplink signals were sent from a ground cockpit control to the aircraft’s omnidirectional antenna proving a large Boeing could be flown remotely nearly two decades before the September 11th tragedy:</p>
<p>“The aircraft was remotely flown by NASA research pilot Fitzhugh (Fitz) Fulton from the NASA Dryden Remotely Controlled&#160;Vehicle Facility. Previously, the Boeing 720 had been flown on 14&#160;practice flights with safety pilots onboard. During the 14&#160;flights, there were 16 hours and 22 minutes of remotely piloted vehicle control, including 10 remotely piloted takeoffs,&#160;69 remotely piloted vehicle controlled approaches, and 13 remotely piloted vehicle landings on abort runway.”</p>
<p>IMAGE: ‘Drone Jet’ –&#160;NASA’s&#160;N833NA, was&#160;a remotely-piloted Boeing 720 airliner, here you see it making a practice approach over the impact zone on Rogers Dry Lake, California on December 1st, 1984, following 4 years of preparation. The crash test was widely regarded as a complete failure in terms of&#160;the flame-reducing fuel additive, but the real prize was remotely flying a huge airliner, which was a soaring success&#160;(Photo: <a href="http://www.thisdayinaviation.com/1-december-1984/" type="external">thisdayinaviation</a>.com)</p>
<p>The YouTube video below has the original footage of the CID crash test conducted in 1984, showing that the Boeing 720 was remote controlled with ease before its intended impact…</p>
<p />
<p>Raytheon and JPALS conducted 6 automated landings with the JPALS feature configured on the Boeing 727:</p>
<p>“The FedEx Express 727-200 aircraft at Holloman successfully conducted a total of sixteen Category I approaches. After completing a number of pilot flown approaches for reference the aircraft conducted six full autolands using the JPALS ground station. “The consistency of the approaches allowed us to proceed to actual autolandings with very little delay,” said Steve Kuhar, Senior Technical Advisor Flight Department for FedEx Express.”</p>
<p>9/11 &amp; remote technology</p>
<p>After the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, President Bush called for the creation of remote control systems in commercial airliners in the event of an emergency, granting air traffic controllers along with other government agencies control over an aircraft – for its final intended destination.</p>
<p>Based on history, we know that the Flight Management Systems within Boeing models are capable of assisting the entire flight through its remote autopilot functions at least since 1984, well before Bush’s politically charged ‘remote control’ flight claim in the aftermath of 9/11.</p>
<p>In the mid-80’s, the coded software on the plane would send data to ground control stations, accepting any return flight information or auto-land command. In addition to civilian aircraft being flown remotely before it was acknowledged, the U.S. Air Force apparently constructed an F-106 Delta Dart fighter to be controlled remotely on a combat mission in&#160;1959 under the direction of the&#160;North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).</p>
<p>There is also a long-held theory that the company Lufthansa, Germany’s state-owned airline, had their onboard flight controls stripped from its fleet during the mid 1990’s for fear that the American government could hack into the airline’s autopilot systems. This idea has been loosely associated with the interview of former German Defense Minister&#160;Andreas von Bülow conducted by Stephan Lebert&#160;for <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/" type="external">the German Daily</a> discussing some of the major anomalies in the events surrounding 9/11:</p>
<p>“There is also the theory of one British flight engineer:&#160;According to this, the steering of the planes was perhaps taken out of the&#160;pilots’ hands, from outside. The Americans had developed a method in the&#160;1970s, whereby they could rescue hijacked planes by intervening into the&#160;computer piloting [automatic pilot system].”</p>
<p>Von&#160;Bülow&#160;continued by <a href="https://fr.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/CongoVista/conversations/messages/18967" type="external">outlining the difficulty of pulling off such a cataclysmic plot</a>&#160;without a massive support apparatus from state-run operations:</p>
<p>&#160;“I can state: the planning of the attacks was&#160;technically&#160;and&#160;organizationally a master achievement. To hijack four huge airplanes within&#160;a few minutes and within one hour, to drive them into their targets, with&#160;complicated flight maneuvers! This is unthinkable, without years-long&#160;support from secret apparatuses of the state and industry.”</p>
<p>It’s difficult to know if Von&#160;Bülow’s account of the alleged British flight engineer is true, but many researchers and investigators have cited a man by the name of Joe Vallis, as the apparent insider engineer, who <a href="http://www.illuminatiapocalypse.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Jim%20Marrs%20-%20The%20Terror%20Conspiracy.pdf" type="external">according to other sources</a>, was said to have spilled state secrets about the alleged remote control ‘Home Run’ technology supposedly involving two American multinational corporations and DARPA, during the 1970’s.</p>
<p>Critics have charged that Vallis was nothing more than an agent provocateur with ties to British intelligence, sending internet sleuths on a fruitless journey.</p>
<p>Whether or not Vallis was a real whistleblower&#160; – or a partially mythologized creation following 9/11, its important to remember that there are autopilot patents similar to the kind that were supposedly discussed by Vallis and when you couple that with the entire history remote control technology, a compelling case begins to emerge, as advanced uninterruptible autopilot avionics could have been in full use prior to 9/11. Here’s a YouTube clip of the&#160;former German Member of Parliament and Government Defense Minister discussing the manufactured nature of 9/11 and the profitable War on Terror that followed…</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>“The observed turn stability favors the use of autopilot operation, either functioning in a conventional course control mode or in Control Wheel Steering (CWS) mode. The probability that either of these two control systems were used is discussed. Flight deck images of United and American airlines 757s and 767s suggest that such CWS functions may have been disabled circa 2001. Constant radius turns utilizing plotted way-points during commercial aviation operations are routinely supported by augmented GPS navigation service and related commercial Flight Management Systems (FMS) available circa 2001.”</p>
<p>The information below, provides historical context to the Boeing Honeywell Uninterruptible Autopilot Patent…</p>
<p>In 1914, the&#160;American multinational&#160;conglomerate&#160;known as Honeywell, began acquiring and merging with various companies to create&#160;Honeywell Aerospace&#160;and was well on its way to becoming the largest manufacturer of aircraft engines and avionics.</p>
<p>Historically speaking, the&#160;Sperry Corporation&#160;held the very first autopilot patent in&#160;1916 and in August of&#160;1956, Honeywell had its first autopilot patent, ushering the race for future UAV technology in its multifaceted applications with the&#160;Automatic control apparatus for aircraft patent US 2953329 A.&#160;Through Honeywell’s acquisition of many aerospace and avionics based companies a number of patents for future use were consolidated under their ownership. From the 1950’s through the 1980’s Honeywell had many technological breakthroughs, whether it was the&#160;Ring&#160;Laser Gyroscope in 1958, a device that determined acceleration information for navigation and better flight control, or the Glass Cockpit digital displays of 1980, which was driven by the Electronic Flight Instrument System (EFIS) software, both of these advances in avionics were vital to the creation of the uninterruptible autopilot, as its combined precursor.</p>
<p>Boeing filed for a patent called “ <a href="https://www.google.com/patents/US2883125" type="external">Composite Aircraft</a>” in 1954 that related to the ‘method and means’ to control an airliner. In <a href="https://www.google.com/patents/EP0186965A1?cl=en" type="external">1984</a>and <a href="https://www.google.com.au/patents/US4760530" type="external">1986</a>, Honeywell had two very important patents pertaining to the modernization of Flight Management System technology, both helping with the integration of automated flight digital data processing and in 1995, Boeing filed a patent for an “ <a href="https://www.google.com.au/patents/US5842142" type="external">alternate destination planner</a>,”&#160;to be used in conjunction with other Honeywell patents.</p>
<p>In 1995, Boeing and Honeywell participated in the&#160; <a href="http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&amp;arnumber=185863&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp%3Farnumber%3D185863" type="external">Category III-b flight test conducted at NASA’s Wallops Island</a>, Virginia, using a Boeing 757 completing a number of automated landings. The functionality of automated flight returns benefited greatly from the realization of global positioning systems (GPS) around that time.</p>
<p>There are many other patents between Boeing and Honeywell that also aided in the development of the BHAUP system. Airline manufacturers and avionics makers benefited greatly from the Technological Revinvestiment Project&#160;TRP) that was put in place by President Clinton in 1993, as the TRP was said to grant funds to certain companies of ‘merit’ for products that had both a civilian&#160;and military purpose. In a YouTube report by James Corbett we see a how the questions of MH370, could lead us to the answers of 9/11…</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>The idea of an uninterruptible remote controlled commercial airliner may be shocking to some, but during 21WIRE’s examination of missing flight MH370, we came across retired pilot,&#160;Field McConnell, a 35-year flight veteran&#160;who suggested that since 1995 this kind of advanced technology has been in use, culminating with McConnell testifying before a US court as to the existence of such systems.</p>
<p>There is some evidence to suggest that these may have been operational in some Airbus planes since 1989.&#160;At the start of this article, there were several publications that discussed the controversial autopilot feature a year prior to&#160;a subsequent lawsuit by McConnell in February of 2007, and according to his documents, the&#160;modification was reported to the FAA, NTSB and ALPA ( airline pilots association).</p>
<p>Apparently, due to McConnell’s lawsuit, Boeing was is said to&#160;have stated that by end of 2009&#160;all Boeing planes would be fitted with the BHUAP&#160;–&#160;making them impossible to manually hijack within the plane but susceptible to remote control by the military, according the flight veteran.&#160;</p>
<p>In addition to the advanced avionics avoiding manual hijack through its systems, the&#160; <a href="http://www.rockwellcollins.com/sitecore/content/Data/Products/Controls/Autopilot/AFDS-770_Autopilot_Flight_Director_System.aspx" type="external">AFDS-770 Autopilot Flight Director System</a>, according McConnell, is said to be a ‘slave’ of the Flight Management System making the ‘remote hijacking’ of anything other than entities linked to the FMS and its fellow operating systems unlikely – if not impossible. Boeing’s Areo Magazine described the FMS as “designing and implementing automated flight paths.” Although the investigative site&#160;Abel Danger&#160;has had many controversial claims over the years through the collaborative work of McConnell and Forensic Economist&#160;David&#160;Hawkins, it&#160;does seem as though the lid has come off in regards to the historical record of the Boeing Honeywell uninterruptible autopilot, as numerous references have surfaced online recently, including a brand new&#160; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Honeywell_Uninterruptible_Autopilot" type="external">Wikipedia page created in July</a>. While Wikipedia itself isn’t considered a noted reliable source, the page for BHAUP does have links to other major media outlets discussing the glass cockpit system, including Boeing’s own acknowledgement of the system. There was even an article that appeared 11 years ago in August of 2003, on the popular technology site for Wired magazine, linked to a Wall Street Journal report entitled, “ <a href="http://archive.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2003/08/59988" type="external">Flying Safety Put on Auto-Pilot</a>,” a feature that discussed the auto-pilot systems already in place:</p>
<p>“Airbus and Honeywell are close to perfecting technology that takes control of airplanes to prevent them from crashing into obstacles,&#160;The Wall Street Journal&#160;reports. When audible warnings from crash-avoidance systems are ignored, the system overrides actions by the pilot and takes evasive maneuvers, the newspaper said.”</p>
<p>“The system would link crash-warning devices, already common on airliners, with cockpit computers that could automate flying to prevent collisions, executives from Honeywell (HON) said.”</p>
<p>Another development that helped with flight navigation of airliners was the Future Air Navigation System (FANS) with Boeing and Honeywell once again at the precipice of &#160;avionics advancement, as FANS used GPS to navigate through remote areas or oceans of &#160;the world. The feature was also said to have given an airline operator the ability to upload alternate flight paths.</p>
<p>In November of 2013, there was a federal register for 777-200 ER Boeing’s, stating that there were modifications done to the electrical based systems to prevent <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/11/18/2013-27343/special-conditions-boeing-model-777-200--300-and--300er-series-airplanes-aircraft-electronic-system" type="external">unauthorized internal access in the aircraft.</a></p>
<p>Other documented evidence of communication development within a Boeing 777, comes from Philip Birtles, in his book, “ <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=CILNWqZskckC&amp;q=honeywell#v=snippet&amp;q=honeywell&amp;f=false" type="external">Boeing 777 – Jetliner for a New Century</a>:”</p>
<p>“Honeywell’s massive effort on the 777 involved over 550 software developers. The company built the&#160;AIMS computer as a custom platform based on the AMD 29050 processor. It was unique among aviation systems for integrating the other computers’ functions; in other systems, each function resides in a different box [the central maintenance had its own box with its own input/output (I/O), its own central processing unit (CPU), etc.]. AIMS combines all these functions and shares the CPU and I/O among them: it uses the same signals for flight management and for displays, so that the data comes in only once instead of twice; one input circuit provides data to all of the functions.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sovereignindependentuk.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/field_mcconnell2.jpg" type="external" /> In McConnell’s message about the airline industry, he has claimed that are other examples of aircraft being downed remotely, including&#160;Air France’s flight 447, Adam Air 574,&#160;Kenya Airways 507.</p>
<p>McConnell also mentions the ‘autoland’ and ‘autobrake’ feature for Boeing 777 plane, as it was referenced in the above NASA portion of this article. Additionally, the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777’s are outfitted the ACARS communication systems as well as satellite links through SATCOM according to Honeywell. The satellite/GPS based autopilot features of today owe quite a bit the Quartz Rate Sensor used primarily in drone UAV’s.</p>
<p>Some of McConnell’s latest findings along with his partner Hawkins,&#160;have connected&#160;MH370’s disappearance to&#160;British multinational Serco,&#160;as many of the UK’s defense functions were granted to Serco throughout the years, including “ <a href="http://www.abeldanger.net/2014/04/1915-marine-links-mi-3-red-switch.html" type="external">Skynet satellite military communications necessary for a remotely-controlled hijack</a>.” Over the years, Serco has been&#160;outsourced to&#160;provide support for&#160;various enterprises by&#160;governments all over the world, heading up air traffic control services throughout many parts of the globe, maritime security, outfitting operations for modes of transportation such as buses and metro systems, running security operations for private prisons, all while overseeing Britain’s military ballistic munitions and nuclear arsenal since 1964 – as a complex project management provider.&#160;</p>
<p>Here’s a YouTube video looking at McConnell’s case information as it relates to BHUAP…</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>There is an established relationship between Serco, “the global support services company,” and the British satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat, a company who was responsible for the satellite data used to track down MH370 through its ‘handshake’ links, data which has subsequently turned up empty, prompting many to question the various business arrangements involving the support services company Serco and Inmarsat.</p>
<p>Other connections between Serco and Inmarsat bring us to Former Royal Air Force Electronics Engineer,&#160;Gordon McMillan,&#160;who 1995, was the&#160;Operations Director for Serco Aerospace as he later moved on to Inmarsat’s Director of Government services from 2006-2011 and is now the director of Inmarsat’s <a href="http://www.boeing.com/boeing/defense-space/space/bss/factsheets/702/Inmarsat-5/Inmarsat-5.page" type="external">GX Programme which is partnered up with Boeing to finish the development of the three remaining broadband Inmarsat-5&#160;</a> <a href="http://www.boeing.com/boeing/defense-space/space/bss/factsheets/702/Inmarsat-5/Inmarsat-5.page" type="external">satellites</a>.&#160;In 2013, Serco was scrutinized as they were under investigation for fraud.</p>
<p>Mass media distortion</p>
<p>On March 28th, 20 days after the apparent disappearance of MH370, the Boeing uninterruptible autopilot system was openly discussed on air during&#160;CNN’s ‘The Situation Room’ with&#160;Wolf Blizter.&#160;Here is <a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1403/28/wolf.01.html" type="external">&#160;the link to the CNN transcript</a>&#160;posted below. What the show failed to disclose with those familiar with Boeing’s integrated avionics, is that the pilots themselves do not have to trigger anything manually in order to have this system engaged, as it is fully independent of an airliner’s power supply. Boeing like Rolls Royce, has been virtually silent on the issue of MH370, aside from some misleading information as to the whereabouts of MH370. See how the mainstream media tiptoes around the BHUAP:</p>
<p>BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: “Wolf, it’s called the uninterruptible Autopilot System. This was reported on about seven years ago by the Homeland Security Newswire and by The Daily Mail. According to these reports, Boeing got a patent for some technology that would enable the plane to be flown by remote control from the ground in the event of an emergency. Now, in a situation of distress in this scenario, the pilot could flick a switch or maybe some kind of a sensor could trigger the autopilot. The autopilot could then be activated by radio or satellite. And our aviation analyst, Mark Weiss, explains what would happen next.”</p>
<p>MARK WEISS, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: “Everything now that the pilots would try to do would be inconsequential because the ground controller would be handling its flight path, its landing gear, its flap system, configuring the aircraft for a landing to a safe place and really taking away the hostile threat.”</p>
<p>TODD: “Now, Mark Weiss says that if that technology was in place now, if this was in all planes and this had widespread capability now, there’s a chance — a chance, Wolf, that this could have saved Malaysia Air Flight 370, but also it may not have. Again, we don’t know a lot of detail about what happened in that cockpit. But if this had been in place then, that’s why we’re raising this now, that it may have played a factor in possibly saving that plane in a certain scenario.”</p>
<p>“We have to say, Boeing is giving us absolutely no comment on this. We’ve come back to them repeatedly, tell us about this patent, tell us about this technology, are you still pursuing it. Nothing. They want nothing to say — they have nothing to say about it right now.”</p>
<p>Hacking, propaganda &amp; security contracts in the aftermath of a disaster</p>
<p>IMAGE: ‘Hack in the Box Origami’ – Hugo Teso works as a security consultant in Berlin, Germany at n.runs AG. He became a media sensation in April of 2013, when he claimed that he could hack into a plane’s Flight Management Systems via his smartphone (Photo: <a href="http://niunpeloderubia.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/hugo-teso-i-could-hijack-aircrafts-from-land-with-my-smartphone/" type="external">niunpeloderubia</a>.wordpress.com)</p>
<p>In April of 2013, Hugo Teso, an apparent former commercial pilot turned IT security-hack-guru, made waves when he told a crowd gathered at the ‘Hack in the Box’ computer security and hacker conference held in Amsterdam, that he could hack into a plane’s ACARS flight system. According to the applied science used in flight management this would be unprecedented.</p>
<p>Below is a YouTube video of Teso at the Hack in the Box conference located in Amsterdam, discussing his controversial his apparent plane hack…</p>
<p />
<p>It was recently announced in late July that the <a href="http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2014/07/faa_agrees_with_inspector_generals_recommendations_to_implement_nextgen.html" type="external">FAA was looking to launch its next generation GPS</a>,&#160;“satellite-based air traffic control system.” Again the timing here is incredible, as the roll-out for autonomous flight control has been an arduously slow process, taking full advantage of aviation disasters along the way:</p>
<p>“The FAA has been gradually implementing elements of the new, so-called NextGen system to replace a radar-based system used since the end of World War II. NextGen incorporates global positioning technology similar to systems on smart phones and car dashboards, allowing air traffic controllers to track aircraft more precisely. The system’s enhanced precision, say proponents, reduces the space and time between planes taking off or landing.”</p>
<p>It appears as though the FAA has opened the door for the eventual full disclosure of the BHUAP, communications with satellite GPS systems, planes and air traffic control that have already been in use. This could have been a premeditated slow roll-out to get the public to accept the reality of this technology.</p>
<p><a href="http://aerosociety.com/Assets/Images/Insight%20Blog/Protecting%20airliners%20from%20missiles/C-MUSIC%20-web.jpg" type="external" /> IMAGE: ‘Sky Shield’ – C-Music counter defense laser system will be used against MANPADS. The pod is located under the plane’s fuselage.</p>
<p>The Israeli defense electronics company&#160;Elbit Systems, has managed to have some timely new developments in the wake of MH17’s apparent downing this past July. Elbit has been able to create a wide range of avionics for dual use in military and civilian aircraft use. Below as an excerpt from <a href="http://aerosociety.com/News/Insight-Blog/2345/Defending-airliners-against-missiles" type="external">Royal Aeronautical Society</a>:</p>
<p>“Given then these lethal threats – can anything be done for civil airliners? Modern military aircraft carry a wide range of defensive aids, from electronic jamming pods, to chaff and flare dispensers to spoof incoming missiles. Larger aircraft such as tankers, transports and VIP assets also can be equipped with DIRCM (directed infra-red countermeasures) a laser in a turret able to burn an IR missile seeker out. However, against radar-guided missiles, HVA (high value assets) such as transport aircraft, would in the first instance, be kept well away from these threats.”</p>
<p>The Royal Aeronautical Society goes on to discuss other more determined and lethal options in the throes of conflict following the <a href="" type="internal">highly controversial downing of MH17</a>:</p>
<p>“There is one other related point that the loss of MH17 and military aircraft to SAMs over Ukraine highlights – that is the need for stealth aircraft, EW and SEAD to effectively counter these ground-based threats in modern conflicts.”</p>
<p>Despite mainstream media’s revisionist claims that MH17 had to fly over a known warzone, we know that the Kiev-based Ukrainian Air Traffic Control (ATC) ordered&#160;MH17 off of its original flight path&#160;along the international air route, known as&#160;L980. The media has stated&#160;that MH17 was flying its intended route, even though there is evidence of the contrary.</p>
<p>The anomalies surrounding MH370, MH17, along with the hijacked airliners on 9/11, are closer to being understood as more information continues to be pieced together from exploratory investigation. Below is an interview with flight veteran Field McConnell on 21WIRE’s <a href="" type="internal">The Sunday Wire</a>&#160;radio show uncovering more details about the&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Boeing Uninterruptible Autopilot</a>&#160;and how it works.</p>
<p>SEE MORE WAR ON TERROR NEWS AT:&#160; <a href="" type="internal">21st Century Wire War on Terror Files</a></p>
<p>READ MORE MH17 NEWS AT:&#160; <a href="" type="internal">21st Century Wire MH17 Files</a></p>
<p>SUPPORT OUR&#160;WORK BY SUBSCRIBING &amp; BECOMING A MEMBER&#160; <a href="https://21wire.tv/membership/plans/" type="external">@21WIRE.TV</a></p> | true | 4 | shawn helton 21st century wire following apparent vanishing act malaysian airlines flight mh370 many investigators researchers began question the160likelihood event happening todays hightech world 21wire weve also looked unprecedented disappearance mh370 subsequent downing mh17 certain details come light regarding history remote autopilot function installed within boeing commercial airliners subject also opens door events 911 boeing 777 along boeing models fact flown remotely use independent embedded software satellite communication160once advanced system engaged can160disallow pilot potential hijacker controlling plane rooted setup uses digital signals communicate air traffic control satellite links well government entities remainder flights journey technology known boeing honeywell uninterruptible autopilot system mere existence technology would certainly provide final piece number seemingly unsolved airline disaster puzzles recent years image jet 21st century interior view boeing 777200 er cockpit photo becuocom case mh370160the aircrafts rolls royce trent 892 engines sent automated pings independent planes transponder british inmarsat satellite several hours subsequently losing contact air traffic controllers automated information gave uptodate diagnosis wellbeing two engines according data received fully operational showed signs electrical damage rolls royce partnership requires engine transmit live data global engine health monitoring center derby uk every 30 minutes investigators said used acars information uploaded engine maker uninterruptible flight control december 4th 2006 announced boeing patent uninterruptible autopilot system use commercial aircraft first public acknowledgment boeing existence autopilot system new autopilot patent reported john croft flight global news piece subsequently linked a160 homeland security news wire160and british publications around time according dhs release disclosed dedicated electrical circuits within onboard flight system could control plane without need pilots stating advanced avionics would fly aircraft remotely independently operating plane uninterruptible autopilot would activated either pilots onboard sensors even remotely via160radio satellite links government agencies like the160 central160intelligence agency terrorists attempt gain control flight deck flight global news wire goes report uninterruptible autopilot system designed increased security event manual hijacking situation boeing describes feature preventative measure keeping unauthorized persons cockpit setting stage industry wide safety protocol need industry technique conclusively prevents unauthorised persons gaining access controls vehicle therefore threatening safety passengers onboard vehicle andor people path travel vehicle thereby decreasing amount destruction individuals onboard vehicle would capable causing additionally article entitled diagrams boeing patents antiterrorism autoland system hijacked airliners croft outlines clandestine oversight government respect uninterruptible autopilot making note autoland function system stating technology has160its power supply selfsufficient electrical systems plane make fully independent system power supply independent aircrafts circuit breakers aircraft remains automatic mode landing mechanics government security operatives called disengage system image united states patent boeing honeywell uninterruptible autopilot dated november 28th 2006 photo flightglobalcom boeing honeywell heavily involved uav technology civilian military applications many decades case honeywell theyve cornered aerospace market consolidation many avionics based companies along patents researchers suggested corporations could recoup cost applied science technology military development commercial sector also said boeing honeywell developed existing patents department defense 40 years including bhaup system pilotless pursuit precision guided munitions idea remote controlled avionics nothing new actuality flybywire160electronic signal technology roots early 20th century go back even realization unmanned aerial vehicles uavs takes us back to1601849 austria said launched 200 pilotless bomb filled balloons city venice resulting the160republic san marco being160besieged austrian forces less week later additionally in1601898 wellknown160inventor engineer nikola tesla successfully demonstrated remote control technology creation two small radio powered boats advancement radio controlled unmanned aircraft seen ww1 pilotless biplane aerial torpedo known kettering bug primitive uav according estimates capable hitting ground targets nearly 40 miles away bug similar method wright brothers160dolly track system powered flights early 1900s needed better autopilot function prompted kettering enlist american engineer inventor elmer sperry gyroscopic stabilizers revolutionized autopilot feature concept remote control flight image blood amp bones charles ketterings bug uav also known discovery production tetraethyl lead tel apparently left 5 million160toxic tons substance within united states said vast implications tel genetically speaking particularly terms amount lead exposure humans leading blood bone cell toxicity photo commonswikimediaorg coincidentally charles ketterings bug biplane gained notoriety ketterings research team discovered highoctane booster called160160tetraethyl lead tel prompted interest several manufacturers around globe notably rockefellers standard oil company gm ethyl gasoline corporation and160 nazilinked chemical corporation ig farben second world war consortium american companies openly engaged fueling development many nazi partys military pursuits occupying faction latched pilotless kettering bug concept creating fleet unmanned flyingprojectiles known buzz bombs which160tormented london ww2 later operation160paper clip160the160joint intelligence objectives agency160jioa employed many scientists engineers affiliated applied military development nazi party including division scientists working on160remote control technology former german operatives scrubbed bleached dark past allowed work united states government unbeknownst vast majority public time mid 1940s strong push remote controlled flying vehicles like gb1 glide bomb along several uav dronetypes developed various military operations towards end world war gb4 could engage targets via television camera located underneath warhead could function properly best weather conditions around time disastrous160operation aphrodite160was conducted using b17s b24s gutted interior fully loaded torpex explosives manned crews operated first part journey later crew would attempt parachute english channel giving control craft manned mothership remotely communicating ground control units 1944 apparently flying b17 flying fortress although suggest could different aircraft160lt160joseph kennedy160and copilot lt160wilford john willy160failed manned portion mission pair unable parachute aircrafts explosives detonated supposedly due electrical malfunction marking demise military operation kennedys alleged target underground nazi military complex the160fortress mimoyecques operation said one successful mission dozen failed flights operations 1946 pilotless aircraft branch created rise rand corporations first classified projects said rand research began looking satellite controlled vehicles noting satellites could applied types military civilian applications future creation combat uavs160 march 1996 rq3160darkstar160drone manufactured lockeed martin boeing160 could make entirely human free flight operating sensors acquiring targets transmission flight path information fully autonomous way160it also important note programming language used boeing 777 language used boeings darkstar drone ada95 programming blend old bombbased uavs surveillance drones took shape late 90s many advancements made electronic systems 80s including addition realtime spy capabilities creation war terror along 911 ushered whole new realm defense spending armed drone technology marking age weaponized uavs with160the global hawk predator reaper drones used extrajudicial killing targeted individuals enemy combatants without hot battlefield become lucrative business model defense contractors military industrial complex since turn century image battle atlantic 160the royal air force consolidated b24 liberator raf operated first production b24s completed during160operation aphrodite converted used mannedunmanned missions160photo airspacemagcom image combat dawn ryan aeronautical160lightning bug along ryan160firebee drone missions consisted primarily intelligence gathering radio monitoring reconnaissance controlled remotely to160spy china north korea and160vietnam160during 60s 70s160the vietnam war spy drones basis use modern drones160photo understandingtheempirecom remote control commercial aircraft nasa dryden flight research center federal aviation administration faa joined efforts remote controlled flight experiment called controlled impact demonstration cid 1984 test conducted included use remote controlled boeing 720 aircraft study effectiveness antimisting kerosene amk considered survivable impact amk added standard jet fuel suppress explosion upon purposeful impact description happened flight experiment according nasas website morning december 1 1984 remotely controlled boeing 720 transport took edwards air force base160edwards california made lefthand departure climbed altitude 2300 feet began descent tolanding160to specially prepared runway east side rogers dry lake final approach along roughly 38 degree160glide slope landing gear left retracted passing decision height 150 feet ground level agl aircraft160was slightly right desired path decision point pilot execute goaround appeared enough altitude maneuver back centerline runway data acquisition systems activated aircraft committed impact contacted ground left wing low fire smoke took hour extinguish image remotely downed interior picture boeing 720 used controlled impact demonstration 1984 via remote control telemetry systems photo dfrcnasagov controlled impact operation outlined innocuous flight study safety important keep mind one first pieces evidence large commercial airliner could flown remote uplink pulse code modulated downlink telemetry systems full 17 years 911 30 years apparent disappearance mh370 uplink signals sent ground cockpit control aircrafts omnidirectional antenna proving large boeing could flown remotely nearly two decades september 11th tragedy aircraft remotely flown nasa research pilot fitzhugh fitz fulton nasa dryden remotely controlled160vehicle facility previously boeing 720 flown 14160practice flights safety pilots onboard 14160flights 16 hours 22 minutes remotely piloted vehicle control including 10 remotely piloted takeoffs16069 remotely piloted vehicle controlled approaches 13 remotely piloted vehicle landings abort runway image drone jet 160nasas160n833na was160a remotelypiloted boeing 720 airliner see making practice approach impact zone rogers dry lake california december 1st 1984 following 4 years preparation crash test widely regarded complete failure terms of160the flamereducing fuel additive real prize remotely flying huge airliner soaring success160photo thisdayinaviationcom youtube video original footage cid crash test conducted 1984 showing boeing 720 remote controlled ease intended impact raytheon jpals conducted 6 automated landings jpals feature configured boeing 727 fedex express 727200 aircraft holloman successfully conducted total sixteen category approaches completing number pilot flown approaches reference aircraft conducted six full autolands using jpals ground station consistency approaches allowed us proceed actual autolandings little delay said steve kuhar senior technical advisor flight department fedex express 911 amp remote technology 911 attacks pentagon world trade center president bush called creation remote control systems commercial airliners event emergency granting air traffic controllers along government agencies control aircraft final intended destination based history know flight management systems within boeing models capable assisting entire flight remote autopilot functions least since 1984 well bushs politically charged remote control flight claim aftermath 911 mid80s coded software plane would send data ground control stations accepting return flight information autoland command addition civilian aircraft flown remotely acknowledged us air force apparently constructed f106 delta dart fighter controlled remotely combat mission in1601959 direction the160north american aerospace defense command norad also longheld theory company lufthansa germanys stateowned airline onboard flight controls stripped fleet mid 1990s fear american government could hack airlines autopilot systems idea loosely associated interview former german defense minister160andreas von bülow conducted stephan lebert160for german daily discussing major anomalies events surrounding 911 also theory one british flight engineer160according steering planes perhaps taken the160pilots hands outside americans developed method the1601970s whereby could rescue hijacked planes intervening the160computer piloting automatic pilot system von160bülow160continued outlining difficulty pulling cataclysmic plot160without massive support apparatus staterun operations 160i state planning attacks was160technically160and160organizationally master achievement hijack four huge airplanes within160a minutes within one hour drive targets with160complicated flight maneuvers unthinkable without yearslong160support secret apparatuses state industry difficult know von160bülows account alleged british flight engineer true many researchers investigators cited man name joe vallis apparent insider engineer according sources said spilled state secrets alleged remote control home run technology supposedly involving two american multinational corporations darpa 1970s critics charged vallis nothing agent provocateur ties british intelligence sending internet sleuths fruitless journey whether vallis real whistleblower160 partially mythologized creation following 911 important remember autopilot patents similar kind supposedly discussed vallis couple entire history remote control technology compelling case begins emerge advanced uninterruptible autopilot avionics could full use prior 911 heres youtube clip the160former german member parliament government defense minister discussing manufactured nature 911 profitable war terror followed observed turn stability favors use autopilot operation either functioning conventional course control mode control wheel steering cws mode probability either two control systems used discussed flight deck images united american airlines 757s 767s suggest cws functions may disabled circa 2001 constant radius turns utilizing plotted waypoints commercial aviation operations routinely supported augmented gps navigation service related commercial flight management systems fms available circa 2001 information provides historical context boeing honeywell uninterruptible autopilot patent 1914 the160american multinational160conglomerate160known honeywell began acquiring merging various companies create160honeywell aerospace160and well way becoming largest manufacturer aircraft engines avionics historically speaking the160sperry corporation160held first autopilot patent in1601916 august of1601956 honeywell first autopilot patent ushering race future uav technology multifaceted applications the160automatic control apparatus aircraft patent us 2953329 a160through honeywells acquisition many aerospace avionics based companies number patents future use consolidated ownership 1950s 1980s honeywell many technological breakthroughs whether the160ring160laser gyroscope 1958 device determined acceleration information navigation better flight control glass cockpit digital displays 1980 driven electronic flight instrument system efis software advances avionics vital creation uninterruptible autopilot combined precursor boeing filed patent called composite aircraft 1954 related method means control airliner 1984and 1986 honeywell two important patents pertaining modernization flight management system technology helping integration automated flight digital data processing 1995 boeing filed patent alternate destination planner160to used conjunction honeywell patents 1995 boeing honeywell participated the160 category iiib flight test conducted nasas wallops island virginia using boeing 757 completing number automated landings functionality automated flight returns benefited greatly realization global positioning systems gps around time many patents boeing honeywell also aided development bhaup system airline manufacturers avionics makers benefited greatly technological revinvestiment project160trp put place president clinton 1993 trp said grant funds certain companies merit products civilian160and military purpose youtube report james corbett see questions mh370 could lead us answers 911 idea uninterruptible remote controlled commercial airliner may shocking 21wires examination missing flight mh370 came across retired pilot160field mcconnell 35year flight veteran160who suggested since 1995 kind advanced technology use culminating mcconnell testifying us court existence systems evidence suggest may operational airbus planes since 1989160at start article several publications discussed controversial autopilot feature year prior to160a subsequent lawsuit mcconnell february 2007 according documents the160modification reported faa ntsb alpa airline pilots association apparently due mcconnells lawsuit boeing said to160have stated end 2009160all boeing planes would fitted bhuap160160making impossible manually hijack within plane susceptible remote control military according flight veteran160 addition advanced avionics avoiding manual hijack systems the160 afds770 autopilot flight director system according mcconnell said slave flight management system making remote hijacking anything entities linked fms fellow operating systems unlikely impossible boeings areo magazine described fms designing implementing automated flight paths although investigative site160abel danger160has many controversial claims years collaborative work mcconnell forensic economist160david160hawkins it160does seem though lid come regards historical record boeing honeywell uninterruptible autopilot numerous references surfaced online recently including brand new160 wikipedia page created july wikipedia isnt considered noted reliable source page bhaup links major media outlets discussing glass cockpit system including boeings acknowledgement system even article appeared 11 years ago august 2003 popular technology site wired magazine linked wall street journal report entitled flying safety put autopilot feature discussed autopilot systems already place airbus honeywell close perfecting technology takes control airplanes prevent crashing obstacles160the wall street journal160reports audible warnings crashavoidance systems ignored system overrides actions pilot takes evasive maneuvers newspaper said system would link crashwarning devices already common airliners cockpit computers could automate flying prevent collisions executives honeywell hon said another development helped flight navigation airliners future air navigation system fans boeing honeywell precipice 160avionics advancement fans used gps navigate remote areas oceans 160the world feature also said given airline operator ability upload alternate flight paths november 2013 federal register 777200 er boeings stating modifications done electrical based systems prevent unauthorized internal access aircraft documented evidence communication development within boeing 777 comes philip birtles book boeing 777 jetliner new century honeywells massive effort 777 involved 550 software developers company built the160aims computer custom platform based amd 29050 processor unique among aviation systems integrating computers functions systems function resides different box central maintenance box inputoutput io central processing unit cpu etc aims combines functions shares cpu io among uses signals flight management displays data comes instead twice one input circuit provides data functions mcconnells message airline industry claimed examples aircraft downed remotely including160air frances flight 447 adam air 574160kenya airways 507 mcconnell also mentions autoland autobrake feature boeing 777 plane referenced nasa portion article additionally malaysian airlines boeing 777s outfitted acars communication systems well satellite links satcom according honeywell satellitegps based autopilot features today owe quite bit quartz rate sensor used primarily drone uavs mcconnells latest findings along partner hawkins160have connected160mh370s disappearance to160british multinational serco160as many uks defense functions granted serco throughout years including skynet satellite military communications necessary remotelycontrolled hijack years serco been160outsourced to160provide support for160various enterprises by160governments world heading air traffic control services throughout many parts globe maritime security outfitting operations modes transportation buses metro systems running security operations private prisons overseeing britains military ballistic munitions nuclear arsenal since 1964 complex project management provider160 heres youtube video looking mcconnells case information relates bhuap established relationship serco global support services company british satellite telecommunications company inmarsat company responsible satellite data used track mh370 handshake links data subsequently turned empty prompting many question various business arrangements involving support services company serco inmarsat connections serco inmarsat bring us former royal air force electronics engineer160gordon mcmillan160who 1995 the160operations director serco aerospace later moved inmarsats director government services 20062011 director inmarsats gx programme partnered boeing finish development three remaining broadband inmarsat5160 satellites160in 2013 serco scrutinized investigation fraud mass media distortion march 28th 20 days apparent disappearance mh370 boeing uninterruptible autopilot system openly discussed air during160cnns situation room with160wolf blizter160here 160the link cnn transcript160posted show failed disclose familiar boeings integrated avionics pilots trigger anything manually order system engaged fully independent airliners power supply boeing like rolls royce virtually silent issue mh370 aside misleading information whereabouts mh370 see mainstream media tiptoes around bhuap brian todd cnn correspondent wolf called uninterruptible autopilot system reported seven years ago homeland security newswire daily mail according reports boeing got patent technology would enable plane flown remote control ground event emergency situation distress scenario pilot could flick switch maybe kind sensor could trigger autopilot autopilot could activated radio satellite aviation analyst mark weiss explains would happen next mark weiss cnn aviation analyst everything pilots would try would inconsequential ground controller would handling flight path landing gear flap system configuring aircraft landing safe place really taking away hostile threat todd mark weiss says technology place planes widespread capability theres chance chance wolf could saved malaysia air flight 370 also may dont know lot detail happened cockpit place thats raising may played factor possibly saving plane certain scenario say boeing giving us absolutely comment weve come back repeatedly tell us patent tell us technology still pursuing nothing want nothing say nothing say right hacking propaganda amp security contracts aftermath disaster image hack box origami hugo teso works security consultant berlin germany nruns ag became media sensation april 2013 claimed could hack planes flight management systems via smartphone photo niunpeloderubiawordpresscom april 2013 hugo teso apparent former commercial pilot turned securityhackguru made waves told crowd gathered hack box computer security hacker conference held amsterdam could hack planes acars flight system according applied science used flight management would unprecedented youtube video teso hack box conference located amsterdam discussing controversial apparent plane hack recently announced late july faa looking launch next generation gps160satellitebased air traffic control system timing incredible rollout autonomous flight control arduously slow process taking full advantage aviation disasters along way faa gradually implementing elements new socalled nextgen system replace radarbased system used since end world war ii nextgen incorporates global positioning technology similar systems smart phones car dashboards allowing air traffic controllers track aircraft precisely systems enhanced precision say proponents reduces space time planes taking landing appears though faa opened door eventual full disclosure bhuap communications satellite gps systems planes air traffic control already use could premeditated slow rollout get public accept reality technology image sky shield cmusic counter defense laser system used manpads pod located planes fuselage israeli defense electronics company160elbit systems managed timely new developments wake mh17s apparent downing past july elbit able create wide range avionics dual use military civilian aircraft use excerpt royal aeronautical society given lethal threats anything done civil airliners modern military aircraft carry wide range defensive aids electronic jamming pods chaff flare dispensers spoof incoming missiles larger aircraft tankers transports vip assets also equipped dircm directed infrared countermeasures laser turret able burn ir missile seeker however radarguided missiles hva high value assets transport aircraft would first instance kept well away threats royal aeronautical society goes discuss determined lethal options throes conflict following highly controversial downing mh17 one related point loss mh17 military aircraft sams ukraine highlights need stealth aircraft ew sead effectively counter groundbased threats modern conflicts despite mainstream medias revisionist claims mh17 fly known warzone know kievbased ukrainian air traffic control atc ordered160mh17 original flight path160along international air route known as160l980 media stated160that mh17 flying intended route even though evidence contrary anomalies surrounding mh370 mh17 along hijacked airliners 911 closer understood information continues pieced together exploratory investigation interview flight veteran field mcconnell 21wires sunday wire160radio show uncovering details the160 boeing uninterruptible autopilot160and works see war terror news at160 21st century wire war terror files read mh17 news at160 21st century wire mh17 files support our160work subscribing amp becoming member160 21wiretv | 3,350 |
<p>From Washington DC we hear brave talk about Uncle Sam leading the charge for democracy across the Arab world, and thus restoring himself to high esteem in Arab eyes as something other than the sponsor of tyranny and torture by neoliberalism, the electrode and the waterboard.</p>
<p>The only people fooled by this kind of talk are themselves. Barack Obama may have zig-zagged his way towards some tougher talk to tyrants, but there was no shilly-shallying about&#160; the lonely US Feb. 18 veto in the UN Security Council of resolutions condemning Israeli settlements. You think al-Jazeera did not broadcast that across the world?</p>
<p>(Washington invokes Twitter and Facebook, made-in-America tools in the struggle for democracy in the Middle East. Compared in significance to al-Jazeera they are like a couple of ticks on the rump of a water buffalo.)</p>
<p>Back in the fall of 2001, Osama bin Laden habitually cited among al Qaeda’s motives for the September 11 attacks the following: &#160;America’s oppression of the Muslim world, most specifically at that time of Iraq with sanctions (Albright’s “we think the price is worth it” was the single greatest recruiting line in the history of Terror) &#160;and bombing; &#160;the condition of Saudi Arabia as a satrapy of the American empire; and Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.</p>
<p>Unroll the map of the Middle East and North Africa ten years later. As Vijay Prashad puts it in our new newsletter:</p>
<p>“The U. S. war in Iraq handed the country over to a pro-Iranian regime. In late January, the Hezbollah-backed candidate (Najib Mikati) became Prime Minister of Lebanon, and Hamas’ hands were strengthened as the Palestine Authority’s remaining legitimacy came crashing down when al-Jazeera published the Palestine Papers. Ben Ali and Mubarak’s exile threw Tunisia and Egypt out of the column of the status quo states – [ie satrapies of Empire]. Libya’s Qaddafi and Yemen’s Saleh have been loyal allies in the War on Terror.”</p>
<p>And here’s the Saudi King, watching al-Jazeera and looking out at the encirclement: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon. Yemen unstable, Bahrein very dodgy, with all those Shia the other side of the causeway.</p>
<p>But are the Arab masses rallying towards a new Caliphate, as tremulously advertised by Glen Beck? Of course not. As Prashad writes:</p>
<p>“As the status quo withered, its loyal dogs tried out the old chant about the threat of Islamic Fundamentalism. Mubarak’s chorus about the Muslim Brotherhood was off key. When Sheikh Yusuf al Qaradawi returned from his exile in Qatar, he did not play the part of Khomeini. The Sheikh opened his sermon in Tahrir Square with a welcome to both Muslims and Christians. Qaddafi’s shrieks about a potential al-Qaeda in the Maghreb being formed in the eastern part of Libya repeated the paranoid delusions of the AFRICOM planners.”</p>
<p>I imagine Osama is happy enough at the present turmoil, and we can add to Prashad’s list the growing US desire to cobble together some kind of excuse to get out of Afghanistan, with plans dissected by our dashing and very well informed former brigadier, Shaukat Qadir, also in our current newsletter. Petraeus is a fading force. Want to see a general with more brains and less gold braid and medals?</p>
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<p>Those signs of solidarity and mutual support in Tahrir Square and around the Capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin&#160; have a solid economic underpinning.&#160; The boost in confidence, respect&#160; and self-esteem&#160; the Empire of Capital&#160; got from the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 is relentlessly deflating as neoliberalism creates its hundreds of billionaires and&#160; its billions of paupers across the world.</p>
<p>As Andrew Levine write in our new newsletter, apropos the importance of Madison:</p>
<p>“What is at stake is the endgame of the so-called Reagan Revolution. A victorious assault on organized labor would settle the matter once and for all. Scott Walker and his ilk know what the stakes are.&#160; Thanks to his predations, workers and their allies now know too. …the financialization of contemporary capitalism, the globalization of manufacturing and trade, and, more generally, the world-wide assault on social and economic advances gained at great cost over the past century and a half.&#160; The problem, in short, is that to survive, capitalism must expand – and, with so few areas left for expansion, the public sphere has become a target too tempting to resist.&#160; What is under attack is the public sphere itself.&#160; Public unions are its first (and last?) line of defense.”</p>
<p>What would have been good to see around the Capitol building in Madison would be signs – maybe I missed them – of support for the students of the University of Puerto Rico who have endured military occupation, imprisonment and beatings for their strikes against higher fees and increasing privatization. Amid the upsurge in Egypt students and faculty went on strike for the second time in a year and forced the governor, attending the Republican CPAC conference in Washington to return and pull the military off the campus.</p>
<p>I always thought the Piven-Cloward 60s recipe for bankrupting capitalism by everyone going on welfare was reformist battiness. Capital could figure out that one. End welfare! Put in Bill Clinton to wipe out AFDC and then have that nice black man Obama to square up to Medicare and maybe Social Security. Osama had a better idea. Let war bleed the Empire dry. Think of that confetti on Petraeus’s left breast as the growth of the military budget since Eisenhower’s modest decorations.</p>
<p>The next Petraeus churned up the ladder of promotion will have to have an aide haul a tailor’s dummy behind him to accommodate all the medals symbolizing the US military budget as it will look a decade or so down the road.</p>
<p>Yes, Our Latest Newsletter is a Must!</p>
<p>I trust you’re getting the correct idea from the foregoing —&#160; that our new newsletter is a must read, with Esam al-Amin and Vijay Prashad rounding off their fantastic reports on this website with newsletter special reviews of what’s happened and what is to come, plus Shaukat Qadir and Andrew Levine, cited above.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/Annual_Subscriptions.html" type="external">Subscribe now!</a> And have this newsletter in your inbox, swiftly deliveredas a pdf, or – at whatever speed the US Postal Service first-class delivery system may muster – in your mailbox.</p>
<p>And once you have discharged this enjoyable mandate I also urge you strongly to click over to our <a href="http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Books.html" type="external">Books</a> page, most particularly for our latest release, Jason Hribal’s truly extraordinary Fear of the Animal Planet – introduced by Jeffrey St Clair and already hailed by Peter Linebaugh, Ingrid Newkirk (president and co-founder of PETA) and Susan Davis, the historian of Sea World,&#160; who writes that “Jason Hribal stacks up the evidence, and the conclusions are inescapable. Zoos, circuses and theme parks are the strategic hamlets of Americans’ long war against nature itself.”</p>
<p>ALEXANDER COCKBURN can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | washington dc hear brave talk uncle sam leading charge democracy across arab world thus restoring high esteem arab eyes something sponsor tyranny torture neoliberalism electrode waterboard people fooled kind talk barack obama may zigzagged way towards tougher talk tyrants shillyshallying about160 lonely us feb 18 veto un security council resolutions condemning israeli settlements think aljazeera broadcast across world washington invokes twitter facebook madeinamerica tools struggle democracy middle east compared significance aljazeera like couple ticks rump water buffalo back fall 2001 osama bin laden habitually cited among al qaedas motives september 11 attacks following 160americas oppression muslim world specifically time iraq sanctions albrights think price worth single greatest recruiting line history terror 160and bombing 160the condition saudi arabia satrapy american empire israels oppression palestinians unroll map middle east north africa ten years later vijay prashad puts new newsletter u war iraq handed country proiranian regime late january hezbollahbacked candidate najib mikati became prime minister lebanon hamas hands strengthened palestine authoritys remaining legitimacy came crashing aljazeera published palestine papers ben ali mubaraks exile threw tunisia egypt column status quo states ie satrapies empire libyas qaddafi yemens saleh loyal allies war terror heres saudi king watching aljazeera looking encirclement iraq syria lebanon yemen unstable bahrein dodgy shia side causeway arab masses rallying towards new caliphate tremulously advertised glen beck course prashad writes status quo withered loyal dogs tried old chant threat islamic fundamentalism mubaraks chorus muslim brotherhood key sheikh yusuf al qaradawi returned exile qatar play part khomeini sheikh opened sermon tahrir square welcome muslims christians qaddafis shrieks potential alqaeda maghreb formed eastern part libya repeated paranoid delusions africom planners imagine osama happy enough present turmoil add prashads list growing us desire cobble together kind excuse get afghanistan plans dissected dashing well informed former brigadier shaukat qadir also current newsletter petraeus fading force want see general brains less gold braid medals signs solidarity mutual support tahrir square around capitol building madison wisconsin160 solid economic underpinning160 boost confidence respect160 selfesteem160 empire capital160 got soviet unions collapse 1991 relentlessly deflating neoliberalism creates hundreds billionaires and160 billions paupers across world andrew levine write new newsletter apropos importance madison stake endgame socalled reagan revolution victorious assault organized labor would settle matter scott walker ilk know stakes are160 thanks predations workers allies know financialization contemporary capitalism globalization manufacturing trade generally worldwide assault social economic advances gained great cost past century half160 problem short survive capitalism must expand areas left expansion public sphere become target tempting resist160 attack public sphere itself160 public unions first last line defense would good see around capitol building madison would signs maybe missed support students university puerto rico endured military occupation imprisonment beatings strikes higher fees increasing privatization amid upsurge egypt students faculty went strike second time year forced governor attending republican cpac conference washington return pull military campus always thought pivencloward 60s recipe bankrupting capitalism everyone going welfare reformist battiness capital could figure one end welfare put bill clinton wipe afdc nice black man obama square medicare maybe social security osama better idea let war bleed empire dry think confetti petraeuss left breast growth military budget since eisenhowers modest decorations next petraeus churned ladder promotion aide haul tailors dummy behind accommodate medals symbolizing us military budget look decade road yes latest newsletter must trust youre getting correct idea foregoing 160 new newsletter must read esam alamin vijay prashad rounding fantastic reports website newsletter special reviews whats happened come plus shaukat qadir andrew levine cited subscribe newsletter inbox swiftly deliveredas pdf whatever speed us postal service firstclass delivery system may muster mailbox discharged enjoyable mandate also urge strongly click books page particularly latest release jason hribals truly extraordinary fear animal planet introduced jeffrey st clair already hailed peter linebaugh ingrid newkirk president cofounder peta susan davis historian sea world160 writes jason hribal stacks evidence conclusions inescapable zoos circuses theme parks strategic hamlets americans long war nature alexander cockburn reached alexandercockburnasiscom | 646 |
<p>The view from the south rim of the Grand Canyon, smogged up as it is these days, still retains the power to prompt even the most secular of visitors into transcendentalist reveries as they cast theirs eyes toward Shiva’s Temple and Wotan’s Throne. Now tourists at the federal park in northern Arizona will be greeted with scriptural passages affixed to park signs to help interpret the religious experience of gazing into God’s mighty chasm.</p>
<p>This autumn Donald Murphy, deputy director of the National Park Service, ordered three bronze plaques featuring quotes from Psalms 68:4, 66:4 and 104:24 placed on viewing platforms on the south rim of the Canyon. The plaques were made and donated by the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary in Phoenix, who live in a convent called Cannan in the Desert. The convent was founded in 1963 by Mother Basilea, who visited the Sinai where said said she conversed with the Supreme Diety about the moral decline of the western world.</p>
<p>The nuns’ website warns that “avalanche of moral decay is upon us… our society is disintegrating.” As evidence, the nuns point to the removal of Judge Roy Moore’s monument to the 10 Commandments in the lobby of the Alabama Supreme Court and to the appearance of the Dalai Lama at the National Cathedral-“another illustration of how God’s commandments are pushed aside, step by step. May Jesus help us and guard our hearts!”</p>
<p>At the urging of the sisters, Murphy overturned a decision to ban the plaques by the Park’s superintendent, who contended the religious messages violated the US Constitution.</p>
<p>That’s not all. Now, after soaking in the grandeur of the canyon, visitors can retire to the Park bookstore where they can broze through the diaries of John Wesley Powell, Edward Abbey’s Down the River, historian Stephen Pyne’s excellent How the Canyon Became Grand and numerous volumes on the geology of the canyon. After all, the Grand Canyon has long been viewed as a kind of living encyclopedia of geological forces, a layered history of the Earth that debunked fundamentalist dogma on the age of the earth. “Nowhere on the earth’s surface, so far as we know, are the secrets of its structure revealed as here,” wrote the great American geologist John Strong Newberry.</p>
<p>But startng this summer the Park’s bookstore began offering a volume titled The Grand Canyon: a Different View. The view is indeed different. This book of lavish photographs and essays presents the creationist account of the origins of the great canyon of the Colorado River. The book is edited by Tom Vail, a river guide, who offers Christian float trips through the canyon. “For years, as a Colorado River guide I told people how the Grand Canyon was formed over the evolutionary time scale of millions of years,” Vail writes in the introduction to the book. “Then I met the Lord. Now, I have “a different view” of the Canyon, which, according to a biblical time scale, can’t possibly be more than about a few thousand years old.”</p>
<p>One of the contributors is creation “scientist” Dr. Gary Parker who observes: “Where did the Grand Canyon itself come from? The Flood may have stacked the rock like a giant layer cake, but what cut the cake? One thing is sure: the Colorado River did not do it.”</p>
<p>Earlier this year, the Bush administration prevented park rangers from publishing a rebuttal to the book for use by interpretive staff and seasonal employees who are often confronted during tours by creationist zealots.</p>
<p>In southern California, a similar battle is raging over a Latin cross erected on the Sunrise Rocks in the Mojave National Preserve. Apparently, the cross was erected by the Veterans of Foreign Wars and has since become a site for sunrise Easter services and a meeting ground for Wise-Use ranchers associated with the Christian Identity movement.</p>
<p>In December 2000, Park Service managers agreed to remove the cross based on advice from the Justice Department that the icon violated the Constitution and Park Service regulations. But the Park Service backed down after Congressman Jerry Lewis, the right wing firebrand from San Diego, intervened. The ACLU sued the Park Service in March of 2001 and won an injunction. The Bush Administration appealed and the case remains pending before the Ninth Circuit.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in the nation’s capital the Park Service has bowed to pressure from the religious right to rewrite the history of protests on the national mall. Since 1995, the interpretive center at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington has shown an 8-minute long film depicting various demonstrations and gatherings at the monument, including anti-war protests, concerts and Martin Luther King’s most famous speech. Last month, the Park Service bowed to demands from Christian groups to edit out footage of anti-Vietnam War protests and images of gay rights and pro-choice demonstrations. In a letter to the Park Service, the Christian groups charged that the film implied that “Lincoln would have supported homosexual and abortion ‘rights’ as well as feminism.”</p>
<p>The Park Service HQ responded that they would edit the film to present a “more balanced” version. The new film will included footage of rallies by anti-abortion and Christian groups, such as the Promisekeepers, and shots of a pro-Gulf War demonstration. Neither of these events took place at the Lincoln Memorial.</p>
<p>“The Park Service leadership now caters exclusively to conservative Christian fundamentalist groups,” says Jeff Ruch, director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “The Bush Administration appears to be sponsoring a program of Faith-Based Parks.”</p>
<p>What’s next? Live reenactments of the witchtrials at Salem National Historical Park, presided over by John Ashcroft?</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | view south rim grand canyon smogged days still retains power prompt even secular visitors transcendentalist reveries cast eyes toward shivas temple wotans throne tourists federal park northern arizona greeted scriptural passages affixed park signs help interpret religious experience gazing gods mighty chasm autumn donald murphy deputy director national park service ordered three bronze plaques featuring quotes psalms 684 664 10424 placed viewing platforms south rim canyon plaques made donated evangelical sisterhood mary phoenix live convent called cannan desert convent founded 1963 mother basilea visited sinai said said conversed supreme diety moral decline western world nuns website warns avalanche moral decay upon us society disintegrating evidence nuns point removal judge roy moores monument 10 commandments lobby alabama supreme court appearance dalai lama national cathedralanother illustration gods commandments pushed aside step step may jesus help us guard hearts urging sisters murphy overturned decision ban plaques parks superintendent contended religious messages violated us constitution thats soaking grandeur canyon visitors retire park bookstore broze diaries john wesley powell edward abbeys river historian stephen pynes excellent canyon became grand numerous volumes geology canyon grand canyon long viewed kind living encyclopedia geological forces layered history earth debunked fundamentalist dogma age earth nowhere earths surface far know secrets structure revealed wrote great american geologist john strong newberry startng summer parks bookstore began offering volume titled grand canyon different view view indeed different book lavish photographs essays presents creationist account origins great canyon colorado river book edited tom vail river guide offers christian float trips canyon years colorado river guide told people grand canyon formed evolutionary time scale millions years vail writes introduction book met lord different view canyon according biblical time scale cant possibly thousand years old one contributors creation scientist dr gary parker observes grand canyon come flood may stacked rock like giant layer cake cut cake one thing sure colorado river earlier year bush administration prevented park rangers publishing rebuttal book use interpretive staff seasonal employees often confronted tours creationist zealots southern california similar battle raging latin cross erected sunrise rocks mojave national preserve apparently cross erected veterans foreign wars since become site sunrise easter services meeting ground wiseuse ranchers associated christian identity movement december 2000 park service managers agreed remove cross based advice justice department icon violated constitution park service regulations park service backed congressman jerry lewis right wing firebrand san diego intervened aclu sued park service march 2001 injunction bush administration appealed case remains pending ninth circuit meanwhile nations capital park service bowed pressure religious right rewrite history protests national mall since 1995 interpretive center lincoln memorial washington shown 8minute long film depicting various demonstrations gatherings monument including antiwar protests concerts martin luther kings famous speech last month park service bowed demands christian groups edit footage antivietnam war protests images gay rights prochoice demonstrations letter park service christian groups charged film implied lincoln would supported homosexual abortion rights well feminism park service hq responded would edit film present balanced version new film included footage rallies antiabortion christian groups promisekeepers shots progulf war demonstration neither events took place lincoln memorial park service leadership caters exclusively conservative christian fundamentalist groups says jeff ruch director public employees environmental responsibility bush administration appears sponsoring program faithbased parks whats next live reenactments witchtrials salem national historical park presided john ashcroft 160 | 543 |
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<p>Speculation as to why and how The New Republic writer and associate editor Stephen Glass was able to dupe a once well-regarded journal into printing articles based on forged notes and fictitious sources has mainly focused on the magazine’s dubious level of professionalism. (Another TNR writer, Ruth Shalit, admitted in 1995 to having plagiarized other publications several times.)</p>
<p>Hindsight’s perfection made it easy for us to spot the sources that are unlikely to have made it past Mother Jones’ fact-checkers. “It never would have happened here,” we told ourselves when the story broke. Considering that Glass was assigned (but never submitted) a story for the very issue you hold in your hands, such Monday-morning editing is especially gratifying.</p>
<p>But never mind the rigors of our fact-checking process. Glass’ work fails even the simple test of logic: So many of his stories are illustrated with so much vibrant “I was there” detail that it is nearly impossible to believe that even the most energetic 25-year-old could survive such an itinerary. Still, the reason Glass got away with what he did for as long as he did has little to do with the empty and grandiose facts he cited. Instead, consider the ideas he presented. Glass regularly used stereotypical characters to feed other stereotypes, a process that nurtured the magazine’s—and its readership’s—elitist sense of entitlement, and that served to reassure their cynicism.</p>
<p>It’s not ironic but simply galling that over the years a number of The New Republic‘s readers pointed out just how facile both Glass’ arguments and his supporting evidence appeared to be. That he might have invented and then ridiculed characters who mouthed heresy is understandable. Every elite needs straw men. His success can be attributed to the fact that the alleged sources he quoted made contemptuous critiques that would not have seemed out of place as editorial asides—especially in The New Republic, a magazine that never really restricted itself to sober, objective statements of fact to begin with.</p>
<p>Some people have defended Glass as being “at least a good writer of fiction.” But as fiction, Glass’ stories come across as propaganda, predictably reheating the same tired rhetoric that resides in the rest of the magazine. As journalism, his stories gave credence to the assumptions his editors and readers already wanted to believe.</p>
<p>—Ana Marie Cox</p>
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<p>Glass’ stories are full of references to official-sounding organizations. We attempted to verify the existence of two of them:</p>
<p>The Union of Concerned Santas and Easter Bunnies (“Probable Claus,” Jan. 6, 1997), a group that “fights malls that tinker with tradition, but promotes sensitivity training for Santas,” was supposedly founded by former mall Santa and South Carolina resident Richard Claus. Searches of standard databases, such as Lexis-Nexis, and reference books, such as the Encyclopedia of Associations, turned up nothing. There is no phone listing for Richard Claus in South Carolina, and a spokeswoman for a national Santa training school in Midland, Mich., said the union was only “plausible if you’re a nut.”</p>
<p>A hunt for Successories Hurt Employees (“Writing on the Wall,” March 24, 1997), a group that believes the motivational posters manufactured by Successories Inc. “boost employee cynicism” also proved fruitless. Matthew Budman, author of a trade publication article about Successories that Glass appears to have based his story on, says he thinks the group must not exist. “I can’t imagine people feeling that strongly about [Successories],” he says. The CEO of Successories also said he is unfamiliar with the group.</p>
<p>From “Spring Breakdown” (March 31, 1997), Glass’ account of a conservative political convention at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C.:</p>
<p>“One of the young men, an Ohioan, is wearing a green-and-white button that reads: ÔSave the Males.’ The minibar is open and empty little bottles of booze are scattered on the carpet….On Friday night, 40 of the young conservatives ditch Lott’s speech and pack a sweaty hotel room on the second floor….Again, the bathtub is filled with beer, and a thick cloud of marijuana smoke hangs above the crowd. A redheaded guy….tries unsuccessfully to program the pay-per-view to show an X-rated movie. Almost everyone in the room says they supported Phil Gramm or Pat Buchanan in last year’s election.”</p>
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<p>In his 21/2 years at The New Republic, Glass claims, for starters, to have gone on the road in Georgia with a Baptist believer intent on converting Jews, visited the Chicago apartment of an enraptured Paul Tsongas devotee, attended the services of the First Church of George Herbert Walker Christ, posed as an expert on “biting” for a radio call-in show, observed the unveiling of a 10-by-5-foot “Newt-O-Meter” in a Capitol-area basement, and acted as a “weather watcher” for a radio station. In a piece he wrote for Harper’s Magazine (Feb. 1998), Glass recounts his 21/2-month stint as a phone psychic.</p>
<p>In TNR‘s “Taxis and the Meaning of Work” (Aug. 5, 1996), Glass introduces cabbie Edward Murdock, who tells him that young blacks don’t want to drive cabs because they don’t believe “that grueling work…is better than no work.” He quotes Murdock: “If they took up driving…they could get out of the ghetto. It’s a confusion of respect and the dignity in working hard.” Another cabbie Glass rides with gets held up by a young black man: “I didn’t notice, at first, the knife our passenger was now holding to [the driver’s] neck.”</p>
<p>In a letter (Sept. 9, 1996) responding to “Taxis and the Meaning of Work,” a reader noted the article’s hackneyed politics. “I predicted the traditional ‘hide behind old black guys to criticize young white guys’ opener,” she wrote. “‘Great,’ I thought, ‘now it can’t end until a brother robs him.'”</p>
<p>In another letter to the editor (May 5, 1997), the chairman of the American Conservative Union commented that in “Spring Breakdown” Glass uses anecdotes to “prove to your readers that conservatives—and particularly young conservatives—are barely human.” Glass, he wrote, sounds “as if he must have been in the room with them counting the empties,” even though at the time there were “no minibars in any of the rooms at the Omni.”</p>
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<p>Additional reporting by Katie Isenberg</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | speculation new republic writer associate editor stephen glass able dupe wellregarded journal printing articles based forged notes fictitious sources mainly focused magazines dubious level professionalism another tnr writer ruth shalit admitted 1995 plagiarized publications several times hindsights perfection made easy us spot sources unlikely made past mother jones factcheckers never would happened told story broke considering glass assigned never submitted story issue hold hands mondaymorning editing especially gratifying never mind rigors factchecking process glass work fails even simple test logic many stories illustrated much vibrant detail nearly impossible believe even energetic 25yearold could survive itinerary still reason glass got away long little empty grandiose facts cited instead consider ideas presented glass regularly used stereotypical characters feed stereotypes process nurtured magazinesand readershipselitist sense entitlement served reassure cynicism ironic simply galling years number new republics readers pointed facile glass arguments supporting evidence appeared might invented ridiculed characters mouthed heresy understandable every elite needs straw men success attributed fact alleged sources quoted made contemptuous critiques would seemed place editorial asidesespecially new republic magazine never really restricted sober objective statements fact begin people defended glass least good writer fiction fiction glass stories come across propaganda predictably reheating tired rhetoric resides rest magazine journalism stories gave credence assumptions editors readers already wanted believe ana marie cox glass stories full references officialsounding organizations attempted verify existence two union concerned santas easter bunnies probable claus jan 6 1997 group fights malls tinker tradition promotes sensitivity training santas supposedly founded former mall santa south carolina resident richard claus searches standard databases lexisnexis reference books encyclopedia associations turned nothing phone listing richard claus south carolina spokeswoman national santa training school midland mich said union plausible youre nut hunt successories hurt employees writing wall march 24 1997 group believes motivational posters manufactured successories inc boost employee cynicism also proved fruitless matthew budman author trade publication article successories glass appears based story says thinks group must exist cant imagine people feeling strongly successories says ceo successories also said unfamiliar group spring breakdown march 31 1997 glass account conservative political convention omni shoreham hotel washington dc one young men ohioan wearing greenandwhite button reads Ôsave males minibar open empty little bottles booze scattered carpeton friday night 40 young conservatives ditch lotts speech pack sweaty hotel room second flooragain bathtub filled beer thick cloud marijuana smoke hangs crowd redheaded guytries unsuccessfully program payperview show xrated movie almost everyone room says supported phil gramm pat buchanan last years election 212 years new republic glass claims starters gone road georgia baptist believer intent converting jews visited chicago apartment enraptured paul tsongas devotee attended services first church george herbert walker christ posed expert biting radio callin show observed unveiling 10by5foot newtometer capitolarea basement acted weather watcher radio station piece wrote harpers magazine feb 1998 glass recounts 212month stint phone psychic tnrs taxis meaning work aug 5 1996 glass introduces cabbie edward murdock tells young blacks dont want drive cabs dont believe grueling workis better work quotes murdock took drivingthey could get ghetto confusion respect dignity working hard another cabbie glass rides gets held young black man didnt notice first knife passenger holding drivers neck letter sept 9 1996 responding taxis meaning work reader noted articles hackneyed politics predicted traditional hide behind old black guys criticize young white guys opener wrote great thought cant end brother robs another letter editor may 5 1997 chairman american conservative union commented spring breakdown glass uses anecdotes prove readers conservativesand particularly young conservativesare barely human glass wrote sounds must room counting empties even though time minibars rooms omni additional reporting katie isenberg | 591 |
<p>The biggest problem facing <a href="/content/dailybeast/articles/2010/08/11/lebron-james-hires-rabbi-yishayahu-yosef-pinto.html" type="external">LeBron James</a> isn’t whether or not he cried in the <a href="/content/dailybeast/cheats/2010/07/08/lebron-signs-with-miami-heat.html" type="external">Miami Heat</a>’s loss Sunday to the Chicago Bulls after missing a game-winning layup. It isn’t that the supposedly seamless mesh between James and Dwyane Wade has become a confusing mush in which the only solution may be to let the Heat play offense with two balls so both can shoot whenever they want. It isn’t the fact that the Heat are shooting 1-for-18 in the final 10 seconds to win or tie a game.</p>
<p>James’ problem is far more overreaching than all of that.</p>
<p>For the first time in his life he is under true pressure to perform. But James doesn’t know pressure. And there is no reason he would, given the way he has been treated, a lifetime of idolization now routinely resulting in last-second self-immolation.</p>
<p>Ever since he first touched a basketball as a kid, virtually everyone around him has been terrified—terrified to coach him because of his gifts, terrified to get in his face, terrified to get him to work on aspects of his game that still need work.</p>
<p>The result is a player who is psychologically soft, not a leader, still a cut-up kid masked by the physical maturity of his body, always placed on a pedestal by his coaches and teammates even when he deserves to be knocked off and dressed down and told that he has the stuff of a loser, not a winner.</p>
<p>The evidence of that is glaring this season: in a recent span of 11 days he has missed four game-winning shots in the final seconds. He can still own a game unlike anyone else, and in the final five minutes of close contests had the best statistics in the league last year, according to 82games.com. But when it comes to final-second game winners, this year in particular has been a disaster because more is at stake for James than ever before. If James was crying after the loss to the Bulls, it may well stem from a creeping fear that he cannot be counted on when it counts the most.</p>
<p>It is what happens when you are ordained with immortality from the time you are 9 years old. It is what happens when you land on the cover of Sports Illustrated as a junior at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron. It is what happens when up until this season, all you ever basically hear about yourself in the National Basketball Association is your brilliance.</p>
<p>If James was crying after the loss to the Bulls, it may well stem from a creeping fear that he cannot be counted on when it counts the most.</p>
<p>He is the byproduct of too many men on tippy-toes on the sidelines watching him with their mouths agape. By bypassing college to go directly into the NBA, he made hundreds of millions of dollars when he was still 18. That was his right. But by not going to college he not only stunted his emotional maturity, but also missed the opportunity to play under the tutelage of a Mike Krzyzewski at Duke or a Roy Williams, then of Kansas. They had coached great players in their lifetimes and they would not have coddled or cooed at him.</p>
<p>In the entirety of his basketball career, spanning the age of 9 to the current age of 26, James has had only one person to actually coach him. His name was Keith Dambrot, who came to James’ high school after being disgraced out of a job at the Division 1 college program of Central Michigan. As was related to me in the book I co-wrote with James in 2009, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B004KAB6NQ/thedaibea-20/" type="external">Shooting Stars</a> about his formative years through high school, Dambrot was profane, a prick, and refused to praise James even when he was doing everything right. Dambrot knew James could play in the NBA, and he felt it was his responsibility to draw every ounce of talent out of him, not simply for James’ sake but also his own.</p>
<p>Dambrot coached for only two years at St. Vincent-St. Mary before leaving for an assistant’s job at the University of Akron. When he departed, so did any real challenge to James as a player.</p>
<p>As for being a team leader, the very notion is a joke. James doesn’t have the presence; his affect is flat and dull, eager to avoid confrontation because of a difficult childhood in the Akron projects in which his only goal was to stay away from trouble. For all the endless hype, he wasn’t even a leader on his high school team. The role belonged to a fiery point guard name Dru Joyce III, who routinely got into fights with teammates during practice. James was a silly kid, fond of passing gas with booming impact.</p>
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<p>In going to the Cleveland Cavaliers, he was the prodigal son playing in his homeland. The team was lousy when he got there in 2003. There were no expectations upon him; even as the team got better and better there were still no expectations upon him. It was a perfect situation for him, an excuse in every pocket of his finely tailored trousers—“I don’t have the right teammates,” “I don’t have the right coach,” “I can’t do it all by myself.” The only moment of grumbling came last season after the Cavaliers’ loss to the Boston Celtics in the fifth game of the Eastern Conference semifinals. James literally quit that night, delivering perhaps the worst playoff performance ever turned in by a superstar. There were some boos, but desperate fans of Cleveland quickly resumed praying at his feet.</p>
<p>Then came the much-hyped free agency, where James made a decision he may well live to regret. Instead of staying in Cleveland where he always would have been nurtured and beloved, or going to the Chicago Bulls where the fit would have been instantly better, he went to the superstarland of the Heat with Wade and Chris Bosh. Now he could not avoid pressure. It only intensified, too, because of the ridiculous way in which his free agency was handled, with James allowing himself—because of intellectual insecurity—to be pushed around by his manager and master puppeteer, Maverick Carter.</p>
<p>The free agency saga, culminating in the single worst hour in the history of television, <a href="/content/dailybeast/articles/2010/07/08/lebron-james-espn-show-in-defense-of-the-special.html" type="external">The Decision</a> on ESPN in which James announced he was going to Miami, caused me to go cold on him. He showed an arrogance I had not seen during the writing of the book, and I felt duped. <a href="/content/dailybeast/articles/2010/07/11/lebron-james-to-miami-heat-hes-the-emperor-without-clothes.html" type="external">I was not the only one</a>. I felt he had no obligation to stay in Cleveland, but at least he could have thanked the folks there without appearing catatonic.</p>
<p>For someone who had spent his life hating to be alone and desperate to be liked, he suddenly became one of the <a href="/content/dailybeast/articles/2010/10/28/lebron-james-its-time-to-stop-hating-him.html" type="external">most disliked players</a> in the league. It has worn on him. So has the woefully inconsistent play of the Heat, great against teams with sub-.500 records but as of this week, 1 and 9 against teams with a winning percentage of .700 or better. And anyone expecting James to be the spark plug and catalyst of the Heat is woefully mistaken. He doesn’t have the innards.</p>
<p>This is the defining season of LeBron James. He must deliver an NBA championship. It is his eighth year and his career pivots on a pyramid. Jordan won in his eighth season. Magic Johnson won in his first. Larry Bird won in his second. They had the cast they needed and so does James. The trouser pockets are empty of excuses.</p>
<p>The more game-winning shots he misses, the more he gives way to the pressure, the more it seems likely that King James will never be the king of anything except the court and castle of adulation.</p>
<p>It makes him great. Which isn’t remotely close to greatness.</p>
<p>Buzz Bissinger, a sports columnist for The Daily Beast, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B001HXDFFG/thedaibea-20/" type="external">Friday Night Lights</a> and Three Nights in August. He is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair.</p> | true | 4 | biggest problem facing lebron james isnt whether cried miami heats loss sunday chicago bulls missing gamewinning layup isnt supposedly seamless mesh james dwyane wade become confusing mush solution may let heat play offense two balls shoot whenever want isnt fact heat shooting 1for18 final 10 seconds win tie game james problem far overreaching first time life true pressure perform james doesnt know pressure reason would given way treated lifetime idolization routinely resulting lastsecond selfimmolation ever since first touched basketball kid virtually everyone around terrifiedterrified coach gifts terrified get face terrified get work aspects game still need work result player psychologically soft leader still cutup kid masked physical maturity body always placed pedestal coaches teammates even deserves knocked dressed told stuff loser winner evidence glaring season recent span 11 days missed four gamewinning shots final seconds still game unlike anyone else final five minutes close contests best statistics league last year according 82gamescom comes finalsecond game winners year particular disaster stake james ever james crying loss bulls may well stem creeping fear counted counts happens ordained immortality time 9 years old happens land cover sports illustrated junior st vincentst mary high school akron happens season ever basically hear national basketball association brilliance james crying loss bulls may well stem creeping fear counted counts byproduct many men tippytoes sidelines watching mouths agape bypassing college go directly nba made hundreds millions dollars still 18 right going college stunted emotional maturity also missed opportunity play tutelage mike krzyzewski duke roy williams kansas coached great players lifetimes would coddled cooed entirety basketball career spanning age 9 current age 26 james one person actually coach name keith dambrot came james high school disgraced job division 1 college program central michigan related book cowrote james 2009 shooting stars formative years high school dambrot profane prick refused praise james even everything right dambrot knew james could play nba felt responsibility draw every ounce talent simply james sake also dambrot coached two years st vincentst mary leaving assistants job university akron departed real challenge james player team leader notion joke james doesnt presence affect flat dull eager avoid confrontation difficult childhood akron projects goal stay away trouble endless hype wasnt even leader high school team role belonged fiery point guard name dru joyce iii routinely got fights teammates practice james silly kid fond passing gas booming impact start finish day top stories daily beast speedy smart summary news need know nothing dont going cleveland cavaliers prodigal son playing homeland team lousy got 2003 expectations upon even team got better better still expectations upon perfect situation excuse every pocket finely tailored trousersi dont right teammates dont right coach cant moment grumbling came last season cavaliers loss boston celtics fifth game eastern conference semifinals james literally quit night delivering perhaps worst playoff performance ever turned superstar boos desperate fans cleveland quickly resumed praying feet came muchhyped free agency james made decision may well live regret instead staying cleveland always would nurtured beloved going chicago bulls fit would instantly better went superstarland heat wade chris bosh could avoid pressure intensified ridiculous way free agency handled james allowing himselfbecause intellectual insecurityto pushed around manager master puppeteer maverick carter free agency saga culminating single worst hour history television decision espn james announced going miami caused go cold showed arrogance seen writing book felt duped one felt obligation stay cleveland least could thanked folks without appearing catatonic someone spent life hating alone desperate liked suddenly became one disliked players league worn woefully inconsistent play heat great teams sub500 records week 1 9 teams winning percentage 700 better anyone expecting james spark plug catalyst heat woefully mistaken doesnt innards defining season lebron james must deliver nba championship eighth year career pivots pyramid jordan eighth season magic johnson first larry bird second cast needed james trouser pockets empty excuses gamewinning shots misses gives way pressure seems likely king james never king anything except court castle adulation makes great isnt remotely close greatness buzz bissinger sports columnist daily beast pulitzer prizewinning journalist author friday night lights three nights august contributing editor vanity fair | 675 |
<p>Originally published on <a href="http://www.latinorebels.com/2015/12/05/the-case-for-latinx-why-intersectionality-is-not-a-choice/" type="external">Latino Rebels</a> and republished here with their permission.&#160;</p>
<p>Over the last few years, the use of the identifier “Latinx” (pronounced “Latin-ex”), born out of a collective aim to move beyond the masculine-centric “Latino” and the gender inclusive but binary embedded “Latin@,” has received increasing attention and usage in popular to scholarly spheres.</p>
<p>Earlier this year,&#160; <a href="http://www.latina.com/lifestyle/our-issues/why-we-say-latinx-trans-gender-non-conforming-people-explain" type="external">Latina&#160;</a> <a href="http://www.latina.com/lifestyle/our-issues/why-we-say-latinx-trans-gender-non-conforming-people-explain" type="external">magazine</a>&#160;headlined a short blog by <a href="" type="internal">Raquel Reichard</a> on the burgeoning term, as did the <a href="http://columbiaspectator.com/news/2015/10/07/student-groups-shift-toward-use-latinx-include-all-gender-identities" type="external">Columbia Spectator</a>&#160;in a longer report, both featuring quotes by scholars and activists who hailed its importance in disrupting the traditional gender binary and acknowledging the vast spectrum of gender and sexual identities.</p>
<p>The social media popular Latino Rebels has published more pieces with usage of the term, including a&#160;recent thoughtful essay&#160;by <a href="http://www.latinorebels.com/2015/10/14/the-audacity-of-the-latinx-voice-and-the-purpose-of-the-latinx-intellectual-tradition/" type="external">Blanca E. Vega</a>, as are advocacy and academic conference programs incrementally evidencing its application.</p>
<p>But with a newer, burgeoning identifier also comes opposition and resistance. Recently, the National Institute of Latino Policy e-blasted just that, <a href="http://swarthmorephoenix.com/2015/11/19/the-argument-against-the-use-of-the-term-latinx/" type="external">“The Argument Against the Use of the Term ‘Latinx,”</a>&#160;written by Gilbert Guerra and Gilbert Orbea of Swarthmore College, which equally came to our attention by colleagues and social media.</p>
<p>As scholars, whose interdisciplinary work independently addresses the intersections of gender, race and class, with one of us identifying as a genderqueer Puerto Rican, we would like to address what essentially surmounts to a reactionary response that fails to substantively consider intersecting areas of privilege and oppression.</p>
<p>We feel it is representative of the reiterations of these very arguments we not only hear and read in our own personal and academic circles, arguments that will not disappear anytime soon, but equally hold implications for the future of Latinx-based scholarship, advocacy and policy formation.</p>
<p>Thus we reapply sections of Guerra and Orbea’s arguments as follows, with our own specific responses:</p>
<p>The identifier “Latinx,” as a new standard, should be discouraged because it is a buzzword that fails to address any of the problems within the Spanish language on a meaningful scale….</p>
<p>As Latinos, we are proud of our heritage, that were raised speaking Spanish. We are not arguing against gender-inclusive language. We have no prejudice towards non-binary people.</p>
<p>We see, however, a misguided desire to forcibly change the language we and millions of people around the world speak, to the detriment of all.</p>
<p>Let us be frank from the get-go.</p>
<p>The authors are excluding a large part of the population that they are claiming to be part of: Latinxs that were not raised speaking Spanish.</p>
<p>The use of the Spanish language variants does not make one an authentic Latinx, in the same way the use of North American variants of the English language do not define “American.”</p>
<p>Not all people who self-identify as Latinx, or Latino/Hispanic, or whichever term is used on Census or job/college application forms, actually speak Spanish.</p>
<p>In fact, a recent report by the <a href="http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/05/12/english-proficiency-on-the-rise-among-latinos/" type="external">Pew Research Center (Krogstad, Stepler and Lopez, 2015)</a> underscores the changing dynamics of Spanish and English language proficiency among people who self-report as “Hispanic/Latino” in the United States, with the political implication that there isn’t, as one of the above study authors was quoted, “a single Latino profile.”</p>
<p>Identity is fluid and dynamic and is rarely if ever understood in static, rigid terms, nor based on absolute markers.</p>
<p>By reducing Latinx to a “buzzword,” the suggestion that we should not strive to make our language and culture more inclusive because “Latinx” does not address systemic change is remarkably disturbing.</p>
<p>This is an argument often used by people of privilege to resist “progressive” structural change.</p>
<p>Can we really be comfortable implying that we should continue to marginalize sections of our people while we figure out a way to stop doing it in a manner that is “really” meaningful? Guerra and Orbea seem to imply that otherwise, the temporary inconvenience is not worth it.</p>
<p>For those who hold unexamined privilege, this is probably true. Without a commitment to liberation and solidarity, why would someone who holds gender privilege (due to their gender identity and/or conformity) shift the way they speak, read, or think if it is not useful for them?</p>
<p>Privilege affords us the ability to choose to ignore those who are oppressed and while marginalized by our linguistic practices, allows us to argue that our “inconvenience” is more important than their suffering.</p>
<p>And to “the detriment of all?” This is another statement that clearly seeks to invisibilize non-binary and trans people of Latin American descent. Why make most people uncomfortable to include people who are already invisible?</p>
<p>Throughout the article, Guerra and Orbea make no acknowledgement of their own privilege, only of their oppressed identities. Both of us, for example, are <a href="" type="internal">light-skinned Latinxs</a>, and experience the same kind of empirically well-documented privilege that links “lightness” or “whiteness” among Latinxs, with more favorable treatment in institutional and economic spheres (see <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504850210149133?journalCode=rael20" type="external">Passing on Blackness by Darity, Dietrich and Hamilton,</a> for example)</p>
<p>This can happen at the same time, both in the same or in other “spaces,” where our gender identity, use of language and other social “identifiers” can work for or against us.</p>
<p>Thus, while we both experience privilege due to the lightness of our skin, privilege does not look the same for both of us due to how it intersects with other dimensions of our identities, including gender and gender conformity.</p>
<p>The blindness of unexamined privilege trips Guerra and Orbea into perpetuating oppressions along gender lines, despite their disclaimers. It is similar to saying, “ <a href="" type="internal">I am not racist</a>, however…”</p>
<p>The use of the term Latinx is a blatant form of linguistic imperialism. It is a result of forcing U.S. ideals upon a language in a way that does not grammatically or orally correspond with it.</p>
<p>Let us be frank again. What happened after&#160;1492?</p>
<p>What is the most blatant form of linguistic imperialism for Latin Americans?</p>
<p>Spanish.</p>
<p>Are we not aware that upon the arrival of the conquistadores and subsequent acts of genocide, a few thousand indigenous languages existed in the Americas, and a few resilient hundred continue to be spoken today?&#160;Not to mention the attempted erasure of African languages via the violence of slavery and colonialism.</p>
<p>Moreover, indigenous languages in Latin America (and throughout the world) range from the genderless to the multigendered, going beyond the binary.</p>
<p>This is another instance in which Guerra and Orbea, while claiming to denounce imperialism, actually fall into one of the markers of colonization: the erasure of indigenous history and its cultural legacy.</p>
<p>English-speaking people that are also resisting linguistic inclusion have similar <a href="" type="internal">arguments against using “they”</a> for people that do not conform to the binary: it is not grammatically correct, it is a mouthful, it makes it hard to follow discourse, it is… hard.</p>
<p>We certainly appreciate taking a decolonizing approach to language, but the authors are not really engaging in this. Part of engaging in a decolonizing approach is that you have to first acknowledge that the reality of people that have been colonized (including that of the authors and ourselves) is marked by multiple paradoxes, including the very paradox that language can act simultaneously as oppressor and liberator.</p>
<p>Even as we resist colonization, our genealogy, our language, our innermost fibers of being contain multiple contradictions: <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-94-6209-446-8_12" type="external">we are at once colonized and colonizer</a>. As <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=kw0Dv3N5ciYC&amp;pg=PA139&amp;lpg=PA139&amp;dq=ser+y+no+querer+ser+esa+es+la+divisa&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=ccUe4JWf0I&amp;sig=Mii3bkw8zP2eW_RhJCIaJF-DbP8&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjb6rfmksXJAhVHdR4KHe6XCbgQ6AEIPTAE#v=onepage&amp;q=ser%20y%20no%20querer%20ser%20esa%20es%20la%20divisa&amp;f=false" type="external">Julia de Burgos beautifully depicts</a>: Ser y no querer ser… esa es la divisa.</p>
<p>Part of our process of colonization implies that we have internalized the power dichotomies of the oppressor, the tendency to make invisible the margins instead of centering them.</p>
<p>The authors’ discourse perpetuates imperialist/colonialist ideology by advocating for continuing a status quo (imposed by colonization) that marginalizes and invisibilizes those that do not adhere to hegemonic masculinity and gender conformity.</p>
<p>The term “Latinx” is used almost exclusively within the United States. According to Google trend data, “Latinx” came into popular use in October of 2014 and has since been widely popularized by American blogs and American institutions of higher education.</p>
<p>The term is virtually nonexistent in any Spanish-speaking country.</p>
<p>We both know of several Puerto Rican writers and scholars that use Latinxs and/or use “x” in other gendered articles and pronouns instead of “a/o” or even “@”. Lissette Rolón Collazo, Beatriz Llenin Figueroa and Jaime Géliga Quiñones are among the first ones that come to mind.</p>
<p>Moreover, a simple Google search of “lxs” + a Latin American country brings up hundreds of thousands of websites, articles, and blogs written by Latin Americans living in their countries of origin that are using this gender-inclusive article in Central and South American as well as the Caribbean.</p>
<p>Another google search of “lxs” + psicología produces almost 60,000 results that include the works of scholars and references to teaching materials —such as those by Yuderkys Espinosa Miñoso (Dominican-born, residing in Argentina) and Adriana Gallegos Dextre (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú)— in addition to newspaper articles, blogs, descriptions of groups, all using the gender inclusive article “lxs.”</p>
<p>Thus, while it is not by any means mainstream, the use of&#160;the gender-inclusive “x” within Latin America is far from “non-existent.”</p>
<p>If you take the gender out of every word, you are no longer speaking Spanish. If you advocate for the erasure of gender in Spanish, you then are advocating for the erasure of Spanish.</p>
<p>This argument is incredibly problematic, because now the agenda becomes clear.</p>
<p>It is not that Latinx fails to address any of the problems within Spanish on a meaningful scale, as argued earlier, it is that Guerra and Orbea really do not want any change at all.</p>
<p>To change the Spanish language to include others is deemed as a threat to the whole Latinx culture and their identities. This is certainly another symptom of unexamined privilege and internalized colonization.</p>
<p>Moreover, it also implies that our Latinx identity is so frail that without protecting the integrity of the language of our colonizers, we risk losing the main instrument of colonization that still binds many of us.</p>
<p>What then, is the solution if not “Latinx”? It may surprise you to learn that a gender-neutral term to describe the Latin-American community already exists in Spanish.</p>
<p>Ready for it? Here it is: Latino. Therefore, according to the grammatical rules of Spanish, the term “Latinos” is already all-inclusive in terms of gender.</p>
<p>The solution to a problem of exclusion is to do… nothing. Really?</p>
<p>The authors’ argument seems to suggest that it is better to not make uncomfortable the privileged majority and keeps things as they are. In other words, according to a linguistic system that is oppressive and marginalizing for non-binary people, Latinos already includes everyone it should include.</p>
<p>We shouldn’t reflect on the fact that masculine is the default that needs to be named, let’s ignore how it reflects hegemonic masculinity.</p>
<p>Yes, let’s forget the intersection of sexism, heterosexism and ethnicity.</p>
<p>All is good. Let’s move on.</p>
<p>The motivations behind this argument are not at all different from the rationale behind <a href="" type="internal">“All Lives Matter” versus “Black Lives Matter.”</a> Advocates from “All Lives Matter” propose that the “All” includes “Black” as well.</p>
<p>This argument is born out of unexamined privilege and lack of awareness about systemic oppression. When we hold privilege, we are used to being represented and thus we are not used to being excluded.</p>
<p>“Black Lives Matter” made people that hold unexamined privilege uncomfortable because they felt left out, as if it was saying that their lives didn’t matter.</p>
<p>Bowing to the impetus to accommodate and keep comfortable people that experience discomfort when they are faced with their privilege, the “All Live Matters” language appeared. The erasure of difference, the argument of people that claim to be <a href="" type="internal">“colorblind,”</a> has been identified as a type of aversive racism.</p>
<p>Similarly, to claim that the masculine Latinos should not be changed because it is meant to include “all people of Latin American descent,” including women and non-binary people, is a reactionary argument that perpetuates sexisms and hegemonic masculinity by acritically maintaining a status quo that marginalizes those that do not hold privilege in this area.</p>
<p>In summary, in the <a href="http://latinousa.org/2015/05/22/the-invention-of-hispanics/" type="external">same way that the state used and imposed the terms</a> “Spanish,” “Hispanic” and “Latino” as identifiers of peoples of Latin American descent, were challenged in succession and met with “Latino/a” and “Latin@” under concerted attempts toward inclusivity, we are now at a similar juncture with intersectionality-inclusive “Latinx.”</p>
<p>Latinx-based student clubs, academic departments, educational institutions overall (including our own), non-profit advocacy group, policy-related organizations, and independent to corporate media outlets, if not already, will engage in debate over the identifier.</p>
<p>And once again, opposition to this newer term, however imperfect it is, comes from a place of unexamined intersectionality of privilege and oppression, one that completely furthers oppression and marginalization of non-binary and trans people from Latin American descent.</p>
<p>Recognizing the intersectionality of our identities as well as our locations within the various systems of privilege and oppression —on a personal and social level— fosters solidarity with all of our Latinx community and is also necessary to engage in liberatory praxis.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>María R. Scharrón-del Río, Ph.D. is Associate Professor and Program Coordinator of the School Counseling Program in the Department of School Psychology, Counseling, and Leadership (SPCL) at Brooklyn College, City University of New York (CUNY). Maria’s research focuses on ethnic and cultural minority psychology and education, including mental health disparities, multicultural competencies, intersectionality, LGBTQ issues, gender variance, spirituality, resiliency, and well-being.</p>
<p>Alan A. Aja is Associate Professor and Deputy Chair in the Department of Puerto Rican and Latin@ Studies at Brooklyn College, CUNY (City University of New York). Alan’s research focuses on inter-group economic and social disparities, with attention to the politics of race, class and gender in the Latinx community.</p>
<p>Filed Under: <a href="" type="internal">Articles</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Posts</a> Tagged With: <a href="" type="internal">Race &amp; Ethnicity</a></p> | true | 4 | originally published latino rebels republished permission160 last years use identifier latinx pronounced latinex born collective aim move beyond masculinecentric latino gender inclusive binary embedded latin received increasing attention usage popular scholarly spheres earlier year160 latina160 magazine160headlined short blog raquel reichard burgeoning term columbia spectator160in longer report featuring quotes scholars activists hailed importance disrupting traditional gender binary acknowledging vast spectrum gender sexual identities social media popular latino rebels published pieces usage term including a160recent thoughtful essay160by blanca e vega advocacy academic conference programs incrementally evidencing application newer burgeoning identifier also comes opposition resistance recently national 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popular use october 2014 since widely popularized american blogs american institutions higher education term virtually nonexistent spanishspeaking country know several puerto rican writers scholars use latinxs andor use x gendered articles pronouns instead ao even lissette rolón collazo beatriz llenin figueroa jaime géliga quiñones among first ones come mind moreover simple google search lxs latin american country brings hundreds thousands websites articles blogs written latin americans living countries origin using genderinclusive article central south american well caribbean another google search lxs psicología produces almost 60000 results include works scholars references teaching materials yuderkys espinosa miñoso dominicanborn residing argentina adriana gallegos dextre pontificia universidad católica del perú addition newspaper articles blogs descriptions groups using gender inclusive article lxs thus means mainstream use of160the genderinclusive x within latin america far nonexistent take gender every word longer speaking spanish advocate erasure gender spanish advocating erasure spanish argument incredibly problematic agenda becomes clear latinx fails address problems within spanish meaningful scale argued earlier guerra orbea really want change change spanish language include others deemed threat whole latinx culture identities certainly another symptom unexamined privilege internalized colonization moreover also implies latinx identity frail without protecting integrity language colonizers risk losing main instrument colonization still binds many us solution latinx may surprise learn genderneutral term describe latinamerican community already exists spanish ready latino therefore according grammatical rules spanish term latinos already allinclusive terms gender solution problem exclusion nothing really authors argument seems suggest better make uncomfortable privileged majority keeps things words according linguistic system oppressive marginalizing nonbinary people latinos already includes everyone include shouldnt reflect fact masculine default needs named lets ignore reflects hegemonic masculinity yes lets forget intersection sexism heterosexism ethnicity good lets move motivations behind argument different rationale behind lives matter versus black lives matter advocates lives matter propose includes black well argument born unexamined privilege lack awareness systemic oppression hold privilege used represented thus used excluded black lives matter made people hold unexamined privilege uncomfortable felt left saying lives didnt matter bowing impetus accommodate keep comfortable people experience discomfort faced privilege live matters language appeared erasure difference argument people claim colorblind identified type aversive racism similarly claim masculine latinos changed meant include people latin american descent including women nonbinary people reactionary argument perpetuates sexisms hegemonic masculinity acritically maintaining status quo marginalizes hold privilege area summary way state used imposed terms spanish hispanic latino identifiers peoples latin american descent challenged succession met latinoa latin concerted attempts toward inclusivity similar juncture intersectionalityinclusive latinx latinxbased student clubs academic departments educational institutions overall including nonprofit advocacy group policyrelated organizations independent corporate media outlets already engage debate identifier opposition newer term however imperfect comes place unexamined intersectionality privilege oppression one completely furthers oppression marginalization nonbinary trans people latin american descent recognizing intersectionality identities well locations within various systems privilege oppression personal social level fosters solidarity latinx community also necessary engage liberatory praxis maría r scharróndel río phd associate professor program coordinator school counseling program department school psychology counseling leadership spcl brooklyn college city university new york cuny marias research focuses ethnic cultural minority psychology education including mental health disparities multicultural competencies intersectionality lgbtq issues gender variance spirituality resiliency wellbeing alan aja associate professor deputy chair department puerto rican latin studies brooklyn college cuny city university new york alans research focuses intergroup economic social disparities attention politics race class gender latinx community filed articles posts tagged race amp ethnicity | 1,256 |
<p>Chicago School now means – market good, government bad.</p>
<p>But that was Chicago School hijacked by Milton Friedman, Robert Bork, and Richard Posner.</p>
<p>There was a Chicago School before Friedman, Bork and Posner.</p>
<p>“The Chicago School began with the view that in order to have a properly functioning free market, the government must drastically curtail the ability of businesses to build and maintain concentrated economic power,” writes Kenneth Davidson in his new book Reality Ignored: How Milton Friedman and Chicago Economics Undermined American Institutions and Endangered the Global Economy (2011). “Early incarnations advocated forbidding corporations to retain their earnings or to purchase other businesses. The explicit fear was that the disproportionate power of big businesses would distort commercial markets and corrupt political freedoms.”</p>
<p>That sounds more like Ralph Nader than the Chicago School.</p>
<p>“It was Henry Simons and Aaron Director,” Davidson told Corporate Crime Reporter in an interview last night.</p>
<p>“Aaron Director was very close to Milton Friedman. Henry Simons was one of his teachers during the 1930s.”</p>
<p>“Both Director and George Stigler were students of Simons. Simons wrote an essay called A Positive Program for Laissez Faire.”</p>
<p>“It was in the middle of the depression. At that time, people thought that many of the problems affecting the economy in the United States and the rest of the world were due to the growth of the then relatively new giant corporation.”</p>
<p>“They had this ideal that the market would work and would perfectly, but only if you could take out of the market the giant firms that dominated through their economic power.”</p>
<p>“And they saw that economic power as a great threat to the nation and national freedom.</p>
<p>That was essentially a Jeffersonian notion of the market. The market would regulate itself if everybody was a farmer, a yeoman farmer, a small businessman.”</p>
<p>“They thought it would be automatic.”</p>
<p>“By the time Friedman wrote his book – Capitalism and Freedom – in 1962, they had totally changed their minds.”</p>
<p>“The problem was not big business. The problem was government.”</p>
<p>Henry Simons thought the market had to be pretty rigidly controlled. It was bad to allow companies to keep their profits. The profits should be given back to the shareholders every year. And the businesses should have to sell the market every year on whatever their development plans are and raise new capital.”</p>
<p>“Friedman just swept that away. The government could not make a decision that would be correct. He and Stigler were adamant on the fact that the government was not only incompetent to make these decisions, but that whatever regulatory organizations were created would inevitably be dominated by big businesses.”</p>
<p>“So, it was better to let the businesses fight it out themselves in a survival of the fittest mode.”</p>
<p>One hundred years ago, antitrust policy was a populist policy. It was seen as a way not just to break up cartels, but to challenge concentrated economic and political power. Now, antitrust seems weak in comparison. The Chicago School has eviscerated its powers. Antitrust today seems to challenge power only at the edges.</p>
<p>“It’s true,” Davidson said. “The objectives of antitrust when passed were directed at political and social corporate power.”</p>
<p>“People feared the power of the large businesses. Some of those fears went away with the countervailing power of unions.”</p>
<p>“And some went away with the increased income and economic growth of the United States.”</p>
<p>“But we are now seeing much of the same kinds of fears re-emerging out of the deregulation, not only of antitrust as a social and political force, but also the deregulation of the financial sector.”</p>
<p>“The Supreme Court in the Credit Suisse decision two years ago said that antitrust can’t go after misbehavior in the stock markets.”</p>
<p>“Robert Bork, in his book The Antitrust Paradox, denies the history of the antitrust laws – he denies the social and political foundations.”</p>
<p>“To the extent that he would admit the legislative history, he says – that’s just words, it doesn’t make any sense.”</p>
<p>“And he invents or applies a Chicago theory about how the economy works and redefines antitrust.”</p>
<p>“And he says – if its not about this and only this, we should get rid of the antitrust laws.”</p>
<p>“Richard Posner comes along and writes the same thing – it’s about prices, it’s not about power.”</p>
<p>“They are simply making up this history, which then becomes the foundation for saying – when we look at mergers, we don’t look at the consolidation of corporate power, or the enhancement of corporate power. Instead, we look at the question of whether the price of individual products is going to go up or not. And that’s the only thing we look at.”</p>
<p>Do you see any chance for a new trust busting politician like Teddy Roosevelt coming down the pike?</p>
<p>“No,” Davidson said. “I don’t see the President taking the kind of leadership that Roosevelt took in the early 1900s that created antitrust as a political force in the United States.”</p>
<p>“President Obama is much more cautious in the way he goes about these things.”</p>
<p>“What inevitably causes the shift in the political winds is overreaching.”</p>
<p>“And we are seeing overreaching by these large corporations. I very much fear that the temporary resolution on Wall Street of our economic crisis, which ended up in the merger of even larger banks, which are going to be even more susceptible to disastrous failure, is eventually going to cause another crash, and this time the governments will have to break them up.”</p>
<p>“They will have to see that the original Chicago School theory that smaller is better is in fact better.”</p>
<p>“The idea that we let commercial private institutions get bigger and bigger is a recipe for disaster to the economy.”</p>
<p>[For the complete transcript of the Interview with Kenneth Davidson, see 24 <a href="http://corporatecrimereporter.com/" type="external">Corporate Crime Reporter</a> 14(12), April 4, 2011, print edition only.]</p>
<p>RUSSELL MOKHIBER edits the <a href="http://corporatecrimereporter.com/" type="external">Corporate Crime Reporter</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | chicago school means market good government bad chicago school hijacked milton friedman robert bork richard posner chicago school friedman bork posner chicago school began view order properly functioning free market government must drastically curtail ability businesses build maintain concentrated economic power writes kenneth davidson new book reality ignored milton friedman chicago economics undermined american institutions endangered global economy 2011 early incarnations advocated forbidding corporations retain earnings purchase businesses explicit fear disproportionate power big businesses would distort commercial markets corrupt political freedoms sounds like ralph nader chicago school henry simons aaron director davidson told corporate crime reporter interview last night aaron director close milton friedman henry simons one teachers 1930s director george stigler students simons simons wrote essay called positive program laissez faire middle depression time people thought many problems affecting economy united states rest world due growth relatively new giant corporation ideal market would work would perfectly could take market giant firms dominated economic power saw economic power great threat nation national freedom essentially jeffersonian notion market market would regulate everybody farmer yeoman farmer small businessman thought would automatic time friedman wrote book capitalism freedom 1962 totally changed minds problem big business problem government henry simons thought market pretty rigidly controlled bad allow companies keep profits profits given back shareholders every year businesses sell market every year whatever development plans raise new capital friedman swept away government could make decision would correct stigler adamant fact government incompetent make decisions whatever regulatory organizations created would inevitably dominated big businesses better let businesses fight survival fittest mode one hundred years ago antitrust policy populist policy seen way break cartels challenge concentrated economic political power antitrust seems weak comparison chicago school eviscerated powers antitrust today seems challenge power edges true davidson said objectives antitrust passed directed political social corporate power people feared power large businesses fears went away countervailing power unions went away increased income economic growth united states seeing much kinds fears reemerging deregulation antitrust social political force also deregulation financial sector supreme court credit suisse decision two years ago said antitrust cant go misbehavior stock markets robert bork book antitrust paradox denies history antitrust laws denies social political foundations extent would admit legislative history says thats words doesnt make sense invents applies chicago theory economy works redefines antitrust says get rid antitrust laws richard posner comes along writes thing prices power simply making history becomes foundation saying look mergers dont look consolidation corporate power enhancement corporate power instead look question whether price individual products going go thats thing look see chance new trust busting politician like teddy roosevelt coming pike davidson said dont see president taking kind leadership roosevelt took early 1900s created antitrust political force united states president obama much cautious way goes things inevitably causes shift political winds overreaching seeing overreaching large corporations much fear temporary resolution wall street economic crisis ended merger even larger banks going even susceptible disastrous failure eventually going cause another crash time governments break see original chicago school theory smaller better fact better idea let commercial private institutions get bigger bigger recipe disaster economy complete transcript interview kenneth davidson see 24 corporate crime reporter 1412 april 4 2011 print edition russell mokhiber edits corporate crime reporter 160 160 | 534 |
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<p>Video by Studio REV- featuring Marisa Jahn. Produced in collaboration with&#160;Creative Time Reports, 2014.</p>
<p>Natalicia Tracy came to Boston from Brazil in her late teens, lured by a family that offered to provide food and shelter in exchange for her labor as a nanny and housekeeper. She found herself working around the clock, earning $25 a week and sleeping on a three-season porch regardless of the weather. Her employers took away her passport and wouldn’t let her call her family in Brazil. Working two jobs, Tracy eventually raised enough money to put herself through school. Years later she became the executive director of the <a href="//www.braziliancenter.org/" type="external">Brazilian Immigrant Center</a>, a nonprofit organization that represents, supports and organizes Brazilian day laborers, migrant workers and domestic workers in the Boston metropolitan region and Connecticut. Tracy is one of many former and current domestic workers who, by speaking out, have become leaders of today’s movement for domestic worker justice.</p>
<p>Domestic work touches everyone’s lives, making much of what we value possible. By caring for children and the elderly and cleaning homes, domestic workers allow parents to go to work and enable families to have leisure time. Yet despite the contributions they make to our society, domestic workers in the United States have shockingly few rights. Most do not have the right to file charges if they’ve experienced abuse. Most do not have the right to file for unemployment (that’s because at least 70 percent do not have written job descriptions or contracts). As a workforce concealed in the privacy of the home, 36 percent of live-in workers report that they have been verbally harassed in the previous year ( <a href="//www.domesticworkers.org/sites/default/files/HomeEconomicsEnglish.pdf" type="external">PDF</a>), and many others have been threatened, subjected to racial slurs or sexually abused. Despite this high rate of abuse, most domestic workers do not have any legal recourse.</p>
<p>Since President Roosevelt passed New Deal labor legislation in the 1930s, working conditions in most sectors of the economy have improved, but the lot of domestic workers has not. Considered the most important set of laws shaping labor today, the National Labor Relations Act, Social Security Act and Fair Labor Standards Act granted most workers the 40-hour work week, days of rest, minimum and overtime pay, Social Security, the right to collective bargaining and more. However, Southern congressmen seeking to control the African-American workforce would not sign these bills unless domestic and agricultural labor—professions largely held by African-Americans—were specifically excluded. As an outrageous form of institutionalized racism, this discrimination against domestic workers continues today. If we consider dignified and safe labor conditions a fundamental right, how can we accept that domestic workers alone are denied this right?</p>
<p>Domestic work cuts across issues in an urgent way: this struggle is about immigrant rights, civil rights, feminism and working families. That’s because the historical denial of domestic workers’ rights has always reinforced race and gender hierarchies in the labor market. When the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was established in 1971, domestic workers were excluded from its protections because home care work wasn’t thought of as “real work.” This rationale falls flat when one considers the occupational hazards that caretakers face, such as lifting elderly patients out of slippery bathtubs, taking care of sick infants or administering intravenous medication to patients with blood-borne diseases. OSHA covers a variety of occupations in which workers perform less physically demanding tasks than these, yet inexplicably, domestic workers remain largely invisible in the eyes of the law.</p>
<p>Presently, as the baby boomer generation retires, Congress has an opportunity to demonstrate that it values those who care for our families by creating, strengthening and reinforcing laws to protect domestic workers. Care work is the&#160; <a href="//homehealthcarenews.com/2013/03/phi-home-care-workers-to-become-nations-fastest-growing-occupation/" type="external">fastest-growing occupation</a>&#160;in the nation, not only in health care but across all occupations. Currently there are two million caregivers, and to adequately care for tomorrow’s seniors, we will need to add two million more skilled care worker jobs within the next six years ( <a href="//www.phinational.org/sites/phinational.org/files/clearinghouse/PHI%20Facts%203.pdf" type="external">PDF</a>). Given our nation’s persistently high unemployment, this need could be seen as an opportunity, but if all those jobs come with low wages and no benefits or rights, the graying of America will further darken our economy.</p>
<p>We are morally obligated to take care of those who coparent our children and provide dignified end-of-life care for our parents.</p>
<p>Beginning on January 1, 2015, some caregivers of the elderly will be covered by OSHA laws, but many domestic workers will remain excluded. Among other exemptions, those who spend more than 20 percent of their time performing housework or preparing meals will not be covered by these laws. Why? Despite the fact that maintaining a clean home and providing food are critical functions that ensure the health of their elderly clients, the government classifies these caregivers as housekeepers, who do not fall under OSHA jurisdiction. Rather than rationalize why&#160;any&#160;domestic workers should be excluded from basic labor rights, we should do the right thing and treat domestic workers as any of us would want to be treated.</p>
<p>Recent worker-led movements have achieved victories, such as the landmark New York Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights in 2010, followed by similar legislation in California and Hawaii in 2013 and Massachusetts in 2014. Domestic workers’ rights are also seeing increased public support: the&#160;New York Times&#160;editorial board recently&#160; <a href="//www.nytimes.com/2014/09/27/opinion/labor-rights-for-home-care-workers.html?partner=rssnyt&amp;emc=rss&amp;_r=0" type="external">championed the rights of home care workers</a>, and the activist Ai-jen Poo, who was instrumental in the passage of the laws mentioned above, was just&#160; <a href="//www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/09/18/macarthur-fellow-ai-jen-poo-on-why-she-fights-for-the-rights-of-domestic-workers/" type="external">awarded</a>&#160;a MacArthur “genius” grant.</p>
<p>On a statewide level, then, policymakers, domestic employers, workers and their allies can build on previous victories and urge their state legislatures to adopt their own version of the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, which will ensure that domestic workers have the same rights as most other workers. Further, state and federal policymakers should allocate more resources to increase the visibility of laws protecting domestic workers. Despite the fact that New York passed the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights in 2010, 98 percent of domestic workers don’t know about their entitlement to time-and-a-half overtime wages. This is unacceptable; we are morally obligated to take care of those who coparent our children and provide dignified end-of-life care for our parents.</p>
<p>In addition to redressing the structural forms of inequality, we need a cultural shift in the way we view domestic work. As part of an informally organized, isolated workforce, many domestic workers do not identify as such until they hear other domestic workers tell their stories. The same goes for domestic employers. Until we self-identify as domestic employers and workers, we cannot translate our individual experiences into the larger global patterns in which we are implicated—and which we have the ability to shape.</p>
<p>There are historical precedents for the strength of today’s domestic worker movement in the United States. Two decades after the end of the Civil War, 20 black washerwomen in Atlanta gathered to form a trade organization called the&#160; <a href="//www.aflcio.org/About/Our-History/Key-Events-in-Labor-History/Atlanta-s-Washerwomen-Strike" type="external">Washing Society</a>&#160;to advocate for higher pay at a standard rate. With the support of black ministers, they knocked on doors and within three weeks’ time increased their membership to 3,000 laundresses, black and white. As a major workforce at a time when laundering was one of the most dangerous of household labors (imagine bending over to pick up a tub filled with gallons of soapy, steaming water), the group gained enough support from the city’s business and political establishment and other household laborers (cooks, maids, nurses) that they threatened to call a general strike capable of shutting down the city by preventing their employers from going to work. Can you imagine the impact if the 200,000 domestic workers in New York City went on strike?</p>
<p>Special thanks to Anjum Asharia, Larry Lieberman and the&#160; <a href="//www.domesticworkers.org/" type="external">National Domestic Workers Alliance</a>&#160;for their contributions to this piece.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | video studio rev featuring marisa jahn produced collaboration with160creative time reports 2014 natalicia tracy came boston brazil late teens lured family offered provide food shelter exchange labor nanny housekeeper found working around clock earning 25 week sleeping threeseason porch regardless weather employers took away passport wouldnt let call family brazil working two jobs tracy eventually raised enough money put school years later became executive director brazilian immigrant center nonprofit organization represents supports organizes brazilian day laborers migrant workers domestic workers boston metropolitan region connecticut tracy one many former current domestic workers speaking become leaders todays movement domestic worker justice domestic work touches everyones lives making much value possible caring children elderly cleaning homes domestic workers allow parents go work enable families leisure time yet despite contributions make society domestic workers united states shockingly rights right file charges theyve experienced abuse right file unemployment thats least 70 percent written job descriptions contracts workforce concealed privacy home 36 percent livein workers report verbally harassed previous year pdf many others threatened subjected racial slurs sexually abused despite high rate abuse domestic workers legal recourse since president roosevelt passed new deal labor legislation 1930s working conditions sectors economy improved lot domestic workers considered important set laws shaping labor today national labor relations act social security act fair labor standards act granted workers 40hour work week days rest minimum overtime pay social security right collective bargaining however southern congressmen seeking control africanamerican workforce would sign bills unless domestic agricultural laborprofessions largely held africanamericanswere specifically excluded outrageous form institutionalized racism discrimination domestic workers continues today consider dignified safe labor conditions fundamental right accept domestic workers alone denied right domestic work cuts across issues urgent way struggle immigrant rights civil rights feminism working families thats historical denial domestic workers rights always reinforced race gender hierarchies labor market occupational safety health administration osha established 1971 domestic workers excluded protections home care work wasnt thought real work rationale falls flat one considers occupational hazards caretakers face lifting elderly patients slippery bathtubs taking care sick infants administering intravenous medication patients bloodborne diseases osha covers variety occupations workers perform less physically demanding tasks yet inexplicably domestic workers remain largely invisible eyes law presently baby boomer generation retires congress opportunity demonstrate values care families creating strengthening reinforcing laws protect domestic workers care work the160 fastestgrowing occupation160in nation health care across occupations currently two million caregivers adequately care tomorrows seniors need add two million skilled care worker jobs within next six years pdf given nations persistently high unemployment need could seen opportunity jobs come low wages benefits rights graying america darken economy morally obligated take care coparent children provide dignified endoflife care parents beginning january 1 2015 caregivers elderly covered osha laws many domestic workers remain excluded among exemptions spend 20 percent time performing housework preparing meals covered laws despite fact maintaining clean home providing food critical functions ensure health elderly clients government classifies caregivers housekeepers fall osha jurisdiction rather rationalize why160any160domestic workers excluded basic labor rights right thing treat domestic workers us would want treated recent workerled movements achieved victories landmark new york domestic workers bill rights 2010 followed similar legislation california hawaii 2013 massachusetts 2014 domestic workers rights also seeing increased public support the160new york times160editorial board recently160 championed rights home care workers activist aijen poo instrumental passage laws mentioned just160 awarded160a macarthur genius grant statewide level policymakers domestic employers workers allies build previous victories urge state legislatures adopt version domestic workers bill rights ensure domestic workers rights workers state federal policymakers allocate resources increase visibility laws protecting domestic workers despite fact new york passed domestic workers bill rights 2010 98 percent domestic workers dont know entitlement timeandahalf overtime wages unacceptable morally obligated take care coparent children provide dignified endoflife care parents addition redressing structural forms inequality need cultural shift way view domestic work part informally organized isolated workforce many domestic workers identify hear domestic workers tell stories goes domestic employers selfidentify domestic employers workers translate individual experiences larger global patterns implicatedand ability shape historical precedents strength todays domestic worker movement united states two decades end civil war 20 black washerwomen atlanta gathered form trade organization called the160 washing society160to advocate higher pay standard rate support black ministers knocked doors within three weeks time increased membership 3000 laundresses black white major workforce time laundering one dangerous household labors imagine bending pick tub filled gallons soapy steaming water group gained enough support citys business political establishment household laborers cooks maids nurses threatened call general strike capable shutting city preventing employers going work imagine impact 200000 domestic workers new york city went strike special thanks anjum asharia larry lieberman the160 national domestic workers alliance160for contributions piece 160 | 774 |
<p>The top U.S. government official in charge of arms control advocates the offensive use of nuclear weapons and has deep roots in the neoconservative political camp . Moving into John Bolton’s old job, Robert G. Joseph is the right-wing’s advance man for counterproliferation as the conceptual core of a new U.S. military policy. Within the administration, he leads a band of counterproliferationists who-working closely with such militarist policy institutes as the National Institute for Public Policy and the Center for Security Policy-have placed preemptive attacks and weapons of mass destruction at the center of U.S. national security strategy.</p>
<p>Joseph replaced John Bolton at the State Department as the new undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs. Like the controversial Bolton, Joseph has established a reputation for breaking or undermining arms control treaties, rather than supporting or strengthening international arms control. Joseph, too, has long believed that U.S. military strategy should be more offensive than defensive.</p>
<p>Over his long career in government service starting soon after receiving his doctorate from Columbia, Joseph has advocated a military policy that extends beyond deterrence to preemptive first strikes. The Bush administration has given free rein to Robert Joseph’s militarist and treaty-breaking convictions.</p>
<p>In his positions as special assistant to the president and director for Proliferation Strategy, Counterproliferation, and Homeland Defense, Joseph was a central figure in formulating the U.S. government’s new counterproliferation strategy (including launching the Security Proliferation Initiative together with John Bolton). He led the effort to formulate and implement the U.S. National Strategy to Combat Weapons and the U.S. National Strategy for BioDefense.</p>
<p>According to the National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP), where he serves as director of studies, Joseph had the “principal staffing role in the U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty” in 2001. Joseph also was the lead administration figure in such “presidential initiatives” as the passage of the UN Security Council resolution (UNSCR 1540) criminalizing proliferation activities by countries not sanctioned by the United States and other great powers to possess WMD capabilities. Joseph has also led the administration’s “development and deployment of counterproliferation capabilities, both biological defenses and ballistic missile defenses.” (17) Missing the Terrorists While Hawking Missile Defense</p>
<p>In arguing his case for the deployment of an ambitious national missile defense system, Joseph frequently cites the findings of the 1998 Donald Rumsfeld-chaired Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, whose findings have been widely disputed. (7)</p>
<p>“The unanimous findings of the bipartisan Rumsfeld Commission and the most recent assessments of the intelligence community leave little reasonable doubt about the growing challenges to the security of the American homeland from missile attack,” said Joseph.</p>
<p>The House of Representatives established the Rumsfeld missile defense commission in response to congressional pressure from right-wing Republicans, orchestrated by such groups as the Center for Security Policy, the SAFE Foundation (Safeguarding America for Everyone), and American Conservative Union. At the urging of Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, Newt Gingrich included a plank in the 1994 Contract with America that called for the rapid deployment of a missile defense system-the only plank in the Republican campaign platform that addressed foreign or military policy.</p>
<p>Strong advocates of missile defense dominated the commission. Among the named commission members associated with the Center for Security Policy were Donald Rumsfeld, William Graham, William Schneider, Jr., and James Woolsey. Stephen Cambone, who is DOD Secretary Rumsfeld’s undersecretary for intelligence, served as Rumsfeld’s staff director when he chaired the missile defense commission in the late 1990s.</p>
<p>Joseph, who is a member of the national advisory committee of the neocon-led Council for Security Policy echoes the alarmist arguments of CSP, NIPP, and other leading advocates of an extensive national missile defense system that includes theatre defense bases around the world. In their view, the missile threat to the U.S. homeland is greater now than it was during the Cold War. According to Joseph, “there is today substantial consensus” that the threat from long-range missiles is “both real and expanding.” (7)</p>
<p>But Joseph’s alarmism and exaggerated threat assessments do not count on any consensus whether in the U.S. military or among foreign policy analysts, let alone among the U.S. public. Like John Bolton, Joseph disdains diplomacy and treaties as instruments of U.S. national security strategy. “There will always be those who deny the threat or who promote the vain hope for a quick and easy political ‘fix’,” wrote Joseph when representing the Bush administration at a SAFE Foundation forum for the immediate deployment of a national missile defense system, including “sea and space-based approaches.”</p>
<p>“We face a much more diverse and less predictable set of countries than we did in the Cold War. These states are governed by leaders who are much more prone to taking risks than were Soviet leaders. That doesn’t make them irrational-only gamblers, like Hitler and the Japanese militarists in the 1930s,” stated Joseph. “Long-range missiles become particularly valuable as instruments of coercion to hold American and allied cities hostage, and thereby deter us from intervention. The tremendous disparity in our favor in both conventional capabilities and nuclear weapon stockpiles simply doesn’t matter in this type of calculation. Our adversaries need only hold a handful of our cities at risk.”</p>
<p>Since the early 1990s Joseph has been arguing that the threats to U.S. national security are greater in the post-Cold War world. “The dynamics of deterrents are much different than in the Cold War,” explained Joseph in October 2002. “Remember that we wanted to keep the Soviet Union from expanding outwards. Our new adversaries want to keep us out of what they consider to be their regions, to deny us the ability to come to the assistance of our friends and allies in these vital regions if they are attacked.”</p>
<p>Joseph’s warnings, however, are reminiscent of the Cold War alarmism and paranoia of anticommunist militarists. “By their own calculations, these leaders [from China to Iran] believe that they can do this by holding a few of our cities hostage. This is not about a quest about a first strike capability against the United States as we knew it in the old days. Rather, our new adversaries seek only enough destructive power to blackmail us so that we will not come to the help of our friends who would then become the victims of aggression.” (5)</p>
<p>Two decades ago, Joseph and other Bush administration officials formed part of the militarist faction in the Reagan administration that argued against détente and for an offensive or rollback strategy against the “evil empire” of the Soviet Union. Today, Joseph says that the Soviet Union was a competitor we could reason and forge deals with, unlike the leaders of rogue states and China. Such countries as North Korea “are much more prone to risk-taking than was the Soviet leadership” and there is no possibility for establishing security relationships based on “mutual understandings, effective communications, and symmetrical interest and risks.”</p>
<p>U.S. security strategy, then, should “not include signing up for arms control for the sake of arms control. At best that would be a needless diversion of effort when the real threat requires all of our attention. At worst, as we discovered in the draft BWC Protocol that we inherited, an arms control approach would actually harm our ability to deal with the WMD threat.”</p>
<p>Before the 9/11 attacks, proponents of national missile defense and a more “flexible” nuclear defense strategy focused almost exclusively on the WMD threat from “competitor” states such as Russia and especially China, and from “rogue” states such as Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and North Korea. Joseph and other hard-line strategists advocated large increases in military spending to counter these threats while paying little or no attention to the warnings that the most likely attack on the United States and its armed forces abroad would come from nonstate terrorist networks.</p>
<p>Instead of advocating improved intelligence on such terrorist networks like al-Qaida, which had an established record of attacking the United States, militarist policy institutes such as NIPP and CSP focused almost exclusively on proposals for high-tech, high-priced items such as space weapons, missile defense, and nuclear weapons development. After 9/11 Joseph and other administration militarists quickly placed the threat from terrorism at the center of their threat assessments without changing their recommendations for U.S. security strategy. Moving in Neoconservative Circles Within and Outside Government</p>
<p>Joseph points to Iran and North Korea, as well as China, as the leading post-Cold War missile threats to the U.S. homeland. Typical of strategists who identify with the neoconservative political camp, Joseph continually raises the alarm about China, alleging that China is the “country that has been most prone to ballistic missile attacks on the United States.” (7)</p>
<p>Although not self-identified as a neoconservative, Joseph moves in the same circles as other military strategists such as the CSP’s Frank Gaffney, Richard Perle, and Paul Wolfowitz. In a Washington Post article (May 2, 2002), “Who’s Pulling the Foreign Policy Strings,” Dana Milbank wrote: “The vice president sometimes stays neutral but his sympathies undoubtedly are with the Perle crowd. Cheney deputies Lewis “Scooter” Libby and Eric Edelman relay neoconservative views to Rice at the National Security Council. At the NSC, they have a sympathetic audience in Elliott Abrams, Robert Joseph, Wayne Downing, and Zalmay Khalilzad.”</p>
<p>Joseph participated as a team member in crafting the influential 2001 report by the National Institute for Public Policy titled Rationale and Requirements for U.S. Nuclear Forces and Arms Control. The report recommended that the U.S. government develop a new generation of “usable” lower-yield nuclear arms. (14) At the same time, the NIPP study recommended that the government expand the nuclear “hit list” to include countries without nuclear capacity themselves as well as expanding the array of scenarios that would justify U.S. nuclear strikes. (15) The NIPP study served as the blueprint for George W. Bush’s controversial Nuclear Posture Review. (4) (5) (10)</p>
<p>In addition to Joseph, other NIPP study team participants entered the Bush administration as officials or advisers, including Stephen Hadley and Stephen Cambone, both of whom oversaw the administration’s Nuclear Review Process; and Kurt Guthe, LintonBrooks, James Woolsey, and Keith Payne who served on the Deterrence Concepts Advisory Panel during Bush’s first term.</p>
<p>Joseph was instrumental in inserting the concept of counterproliferation into the center of the Bush administration’s national security strategy. Counterproliferation is the first of the three pillars of the administration’s WMD defense strategy, as outlined in the National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction-a document that Joseph helped draft-and in the White House’s National Security Strategy. Arms Controls as Counterproliferation</p>
<p>Although Joseph has long worked on proliferation and arms control issues, he believes that the United States needs total freedom to develop, test, and use the weapons it sees fit-even nuclear warheads and other weapons of mass destruction.</p>
<p>In 1999 Joseph told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the country was unprepared to defend the homeland against new WMD threats. He recommended that the “United States acquire the capabilities to deny an enemy the benefits of these weapons. These capabilities-including passive and active defenses as well as improved counterforce means such as the ability to destroy mobile missiles-offer the best chance to strengthen deterrence, and provide the best hedge against deterrence failure.”</p>
<p>Joseph, the founder and director of the Counterproliferation Center at the National Defense University, told the senate committee: “We are making progress in improving our ability to strike deep underground targets, as well as in protecting the release of agents [meaning radioactive fallout]. We are revising joint doctrine for the conduct of military operations in an NBC environment [meaning one in which nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons are the weapons of choice], based on the assumption that chemical and biological use will be a likely condition of future warfare.” According to Joseph, “The regional CINCs [the armed forces’ regional commands] are embedding counterproliferation in their planning and training.”</p>
<p>Joseph describes counterproliferation as a “counterforce” strategy to complement strategic deterrence. It means the commitment “to develop and deploy the capabilities to deter and defend against the full spectrum of WMD threats.” According to Joseph, “We must insure that key capabilities, detection, active and passive defenses, and counter-force capabilities are integrated into our defense and homeland security posture.”</p>
<p>In an October address at Fletcher University, Joseph said:</p>
<p>“Counterproliferation must also be an integral part of the basic doctrine, training, and equipping of our forces as well as those of our allies to insure that we can operate and prevail in any conflict with WMD-armed adversaries. Counterproliferation can no longer be a specialty or an afterthought. The threat to the homeland, to our friends and allies, and to our military forces abroad, will not allow this luxury.” (5)</p>
<p>For Joseph, diplomacy, deterrence, and international agreements are at best weak instruments of U.S. national security. He believes that the concept of defense has to be updated “in light of the new threats we face” from WMDs, particularly because “many of our adversaries will be targeting, not military forces alone, but also our civilian populations. We simply can’t wait until that occurs before we protect ourselves.”</p>
<p>“In the new world we have entered, the only path to peace and security is the path of action,” concludes Joseph-and that action includes the U.S. preemptive use of WMDs.</p>
<p>Writing in the New York Times Magazine, Bill Keller compared the skepticism of counterproliferationists like Joseph about nuclear disarmament and arms control to the convictions of the National Rifle Association, resembling ” the tautology of an N.R.A. bumper sticker: If nukes are outlawed, only outlaws will have nukes. The Bush policy is to worry about the outlaws rather than the nukes.”</p>
<p>According to Keller, “The senior policy makers in the area of arms control-at the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House-are pretty uniformly of the diplomacy-has-failed school. The principal players, like Under Secretary John Bolton at State, Under Secretary Douglas Feith and Assistant Secretary J.D. Crouch at Defense, and Robert Joseph, who runs the nuclear franchise at the National Security Council, have voluminous records as fierce critics of the arms-control gospel from their days on the outside.” (18) Reaganesque “Peace Through Strength”</p>
<p>Not a high-profile hardliner like Bolton or Feith, Joseph successfully avoided the public limelight-that is until the scandal of the 16 words in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union Address about Iraq’s alleged nuclear weapons development program. According to president, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”</p>
<p>The State of the Union Address, which laid out the administration’s case for a preemptive invasion of Iraq, used unconfirmed intelligence reports about Iraq’s WMD programs. Press reports and congressional testimony by CIA officials later revealed that the CIA had vigorously protested the inclusion of any assertion that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons since their intelligence would not support such a conclusion. Alan Foley, the CIA’s top expert on weapons of mass destruction, told Congress that Robert Joseph repeatedly pressed the CIA to back the inclusion in Bush’s speech of a statement about Iraq’s attempts to buy uranium from Niger. Following these revelations about the inclusion of erroneous and disputed intelligence estimates in this major speech that readied the U.S. public for war against Iraq, Joseph said he did not recall Foley’s raising concerns about the credibility of the information to be included in the speech. (11) (12) (13) (14)</p>
<p>In his 1999 testimony to the emerging threats subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Joseph helped lay the groundwork for the 2003 counterproliferation action against Iraq by misrepresenting the extent and character of Iraq’s WMD programs. According to Joseph, “The alarming size and scope of the Iraqi NBC [nuclear, biological, and chemical] programs, revealed only after its defeat in war, reflect the value ascribed to these weapons by rogue states.” Furthermore, “we know that state programs, such as in Iraq, have overcome technical challenges. For this reason, access by terrorists to state programs-or to key individuals from such programs-should be of greatest concern.” (16)</p>
<p>Frank Gaffney, head of the Center for Security Policy, defended Joseph’s role in the incident that went to the heart of the credibility of the administration’s alarmism about the threat from Iraq. In a National Review Online op-ed, Gaffney wrote: “It should come as no surprise that bureaucracies that are hostile to President Bush have taken a dim view of Joseph and others who have proven so effective in helping him to articulate and advance his Reaganesque philosophy of international peace through American strength. Neither should anyone be surprised that the NSC counterproliferation chief’s foes would try to take him out, or at least diminish his authority, by making him a scapegoat for the present controversy. The CIA’s efforts to make Joseph the fall guy for the present imbroglio should fail [and] Joseph’s name should be cleared and his considerable contribution to the national security should be able to continue undiminished for years to come.” (6)</p>
<p>Joseph is likely to be a more effective arms control undersecretary than his predecessor. John Bolton’s blusters, blunders, and bluntness undermined his ability to implement the administration’s security agenda-one that is not about global arms control but ensuring uncontested U.S. global dominance. Contrary to Bolton’s claims during his confirmation hearings and elsewhere, it was Robert Joseph, not Bolton, who spearheaded the administration’s Proliferation Security Initiative. This Is a U.S.-guided counterproliferation alliance that operates outside of the United Nations and sidelines international law, treaty, and norms by having a “coalition of the willing” assume authority to interdict suspected WMD shipments on the high seas.</p>
<p>Bolton also took credit for the administration’s drive to dismantle Libya’s WMD programs, even though he himself opposed the initiative because it involved engagement with Libya rather than just bullying. A former senior administration official credited Joseph with implementing the Libya strategy.</p>
<p>Joseph attempted to pick up the pieces of the U.S. strategy regarding the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) conference in May 2005. Over the years, Bolton has become so involved in pursuing his pet projects such has his personal albeit unsuccessful campaign to drive Mohamed ElBaradei from his position as chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Bolton was so fixated on denying the highly regarded ElBaradei a third term as IAEA director that, according to a source quoted by Newsweek, he “fumbled preparations for the NPT conference,” leading to another in a lengthening series of international embarrassments for the administration. Joseph vainly tried to salvage the U.S. agenda at the NPT conference, which included revamping the NPT to deny selected non-nuclear states like Iran the capacity to develop nuclear energy plants. (9)</p>
<p>The new undersecretary of state for arms control has said that his “starting point and first conclusion” in formulating national security strategy is the fact that “nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons are a permanent feature of the international environment.” As his second conclusion, Joseph asserted that nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons “have substantial utility,” adding as a corollary that a versatile U.S. WMD capability is essential “to deny an enemy of these weapons” since “the threat of retaliation or punishment that formed the basis for our deterrent policy in the Cold War is not likely to be sufficient.”</p>
<p>Arms control chief Joseph is a new breed of militarist who believes that in a world where weapons of mass destruction may be proliferating, it behooves the United States to bolster its own WMD arsenal and then use it against other proliferators.</p>
<p>TOM BARRY is policy director of the International Relations Center (IRC), online at <a href="http://www.irc-online.org/" type="external">www.irc-online.org</a>, and an associate of the IRC Americas Program.</p> | true | 4 | top us government official charge arms control advocates offensive use nuclear weapons deep roots neoconservative political camp moving john boltons old job robert g joseph rightwings advance man counterproliferation conceptual core new us military policy within administration leads band counterproliferationists whoworking closely militarist policy institutes national institute public policy center security policyhave placed preemptive attacks weapons mass destruction center us national security strategy joseph replaced john bolton state department new undersecretary state arms control international security affairs like controversial bolton joseph established reputation breaking undermining arms control treaties rather supporting strengthening international arms control joseph long believed us military strategy offensive defensive long career government service starting soon receiving doctorate columbia joseph advocated military policy extends beyond deterrence preemptive first strikes bush administration given free rein robert josephs militarist treatybreaking convictions positions special assistant president director proliferation strategy counterproliferation homeland defense joseph central figure formulating us governments new counterproliferation strategy including launching security proliferation initiative together john bolton led effort formulate implement us national strategy combat weapons us national strategy biodefense according national institute public policy nipp serves director studies joseph principal staffing role us withdrawal 1972 antiballistic missile treaty 2001 joseph also lead administration figure presidential initiatives passage un security council resolution unscr 1540 criminalizing proliferation activities countries sanctioned united states great powers possess wmd capabilities joseph also led administrations development deployment counterproliferation capabilities biological defenses ballistic missile defenses 17 missing terrorists hawking missile defense arguing case deployment ambitious national missile defense system joseph frequently cites findings 1998 donald rumsfeldchaired commission assess ballistic missile threat united states whose findings widely disputed 7 unanimous findings bipartisan rumsfeld commission recent assessments intelligence community leave little reasonable doubt growing challenges security american homeland missile attack said joseph house representatives established rumsfeld missile defense commission response congressional pressure rightwing republicans orchestrated groups center security policy safe foundation safeguarding america everyone american conservative union urging frank gaffney founder president center security policy newt gingrich included plank 1994 contract america called rapid deployment missile defense systemthe plank republican campaign platform addressed foreign military policy strong advocates missile defense dominated commission among named commission members associated center security policy donald rumsfeld william graham william schneider jr james woolsey stephen cambone dod secretary rumsfelds undersecretary intelligence served rumsfelds staff director chaired missile defense commission late 1990s joseph member national advisory committee neoconled council security policy echoes alarmist arguments csp nipp leading advocates extensive national missile defense system includes theatre defense bases around world view missile threat us homeland greater cold war according joseph today substantial consensus threat longrange missiles real expanding 7 josephs alarmism exaggerated threat assessments count consensus whether us military among foreign policy analysts let alone among us public like john bolton joseph disdains diplomacy treaties instruments us national security strategy always deny threat promote vain hope quick easy political fix wrote joseph representing bush administration safe foundation forum immediate deployment national missile defense system including sea spacebased approaches face much diverse less predictable set countries cold war states governed leaders much prone taking risks soviet leaders doesnt make irrationalonly gamblers like hitler japanese militarists 1930s stated joseph longrange missiles become particularly valuable instruments coercion hold american allied cities hostage thereby deter us intervention tremendous disparity favor conventional capabilities nuclear weapon stockpiles simply doesnt matter type calculation adversaries need hold handful cities risk since early 1990s joseph arguing threats us national security greater postcold war world dynamics deterrents much different cold war explained joseph october 2002 remember wanted keep soviet union expanding outwards new adversaries want keep us consider regions deny us ability come assistance friends allies vital regions attacked josephs warnings however reminiscent cold war alarmism paranoia anticommunist militarists calculations leaders china iran believe holding cities hostage quest first strike capability united states knew old days rather new adversaries seek enough destructive power blackmail us come help friends would become victims aggression 5 two decades ago joseph bush administration officials formed part militarist faction reagan administration argued détente offensive rollback strategy evil empire soviet union today joseph says soviet union competitor could reason forge deals unlike leaders rogue states china countries north korea much prone risktaking soviet leadership possibility establishing security relationships based mutual understandings effective communications symmetrical interest risks us security strategy include signing arms control sake arms control best would needless diversion effort real threat requires attention worst discovered draft bwc protocol inherited arms control approach would actually harm ability deal wmd threat 911 attacks proponents national missile defense flexible nuclear defense strategy focused almost exclusively wmd threat competitor states russia especially china rogue states iran iraq libya syria north korea joseph hardline strategists advocated large increases military spending counter threats paying little attention warnings likely attack united states armed forces abroad would come nonstate terrorist networks instead advocating improved intelligence terrorist networks like alqaida established record attacking united states militarist policy institutes nipp csp focused almost exclusively proposals hightech highpriced items space weapons missile defense nuclear weapons development 911 joseph administration militarists quickly placed threat terrorism center threat assessments without changing recommendations us security strategy moving neoconservative circles within outside government joseph points iran north korea well china leading postcold war missile threats us homeland typical strategists identify neoconservative political camp joseph continually raises alarm china alleging china country prone ballistic missile attacks united states 7 although selfidentified neoconservative joseph moves circles military strategists csps frank gaffney richard perle paul wolfowitz washington post article may 2 2002 whos pulling foreign policy strings dana milbank wrote vice president sometimes stays neutral sympathies undoubtedly perle crowd cheney deputies lewis scooter libby eric edelman relay neoconservative views rice national security council nsc sympathetic audience elliott abrams robert joseph wayne downing zalmay khalilzad joseph participated team member crafting influential 2001 report national institute public policy titled rationale requirements us nuclear forces arms control report recommended us government develop new generation usable loweryield nuclear arms 14 time nipp study recommended government expand nuclear hit list include countries without nuclear capacity well expanding array scenarios would justify us nuclear strikes 15 nipp study served blueprint george w bushs controversial nuclear posture review 4 5 10 addition joseph nipp study team participants entered bush administration officials advisers including stephen hadley stephen cambone oversaw administrations nuclear review process kurt guthe lintonbrooks james woolsey keith payne served deterrence concepts advisory panel bushs first term joseph instrumental inserting concept counterproliferation center bush administrations national security strategy counterproliferation first three pillars administrations wmd defense strategy outlined national strategy combat weapons mass destructiona document joseph helped draftand white houses national security strategy arms controls counterproliferation although joseph long worked proliferation arms control issues believes united states needs total freedom develop test use weapons sees fiteven nuclear warheads weapons mass destruction 1999 joseph told senate armed services committee country unprepared defend homeland new wmd threats recommended united states acquire capabilities deny enemy benefits weapons capabilitiesincluding passive active defenses well improved counterforce means ability destroy mobile missilesoffer best chance strengthen deterrence provide best hedge deterrence failure joseph founder director counterproliferation center national defense university told senate committee making progress improving ability strike deep underground targets well protecting release agents meaning radioactive fallout revising joint doctrine conduct military operations nbc environment meaning one nuclear biological chemical weapons weapons choice based assumption chemical biological use likely condition future warfare according joseph regional cincs armed forces regional commands embedding counterproliferation planning training joseph describes counterproliferation counterforce strategy complement strategic deterrence means commitment develop deploy capabilities deter defend full spectrum wmd threats according joseph must insure key capabilities detection active passive defenses counterforce capabilities integrated defense homeland security posture october address fletcher university joseph said counterproliferation must also integral part basic doctrine training equipping forces well allies insure operate prevail conflict wmdarmed adversaries counterproliferation longer specialty afterthought threat homeland friends allies military forces abroad allow luxury 5 joseph diplomacy deterrence international agreements best weak instruments us national security believes concept defense updated light new threats face wmds particularly many adversaries targeting military forces alone also civilian populations simply cant wait occurs protect new world entered path peace security path action concludes josephand action includes us preemptive use wmds writing new york times magazine bill keller compared skepticism counterproliferationists like joseph nuclear disarmament arms control convictions national rifle association resembling tautology nra bumper sticker nukes outlawed outlaws nukes bush policy worry outlaws rather nukes according keller senior policy makers area arms controlat pentagon state department white houseare pretty uniformly diplomacyhasfailed school principal players like secretary john bolton state secretary douglas feith assistant secretary jd crouch defense robert joseph runs nuclear franchise national security council voluminous records fierce critics armscontrol gospel days outside 18 reaganesque peace strength highprofile hardliner like bolton feith joseph successfully avoided public limelightthat scandal 16 words bushs 2003 state union address iraqs alleged nuclear weapons development program according president british government learned saddam hussein recently sought significant quantities uranium africa state union address laid administrations case preemptive invasion iraq used unconfirmed intelligence reports iraqs wmd programs press reports congressional testimony cia officials later revealed cia vigorously protested inclusion assertion iraq developing nuclear weapons since intelligence would support conclusion alan foley cias top expert weapons mass destruction told congress robert joseph repeatedly pressed cia back inclusion bushs speech statement iraqs attempts buy uranium niger following revelations inclusion erroneous disputed intelligence estimates major speech readied us public war iraq joseph said recall foleys raising concerns credibility information included speech 11 12 13 14 1999 testimony emerging threats subcommittee senate armed services committee joseph helped lay groundwork 2003 counterproliferation action iraq misrepresenting extent character iraqs wmd programs according joseph alarming size scope iraqi nbc nuclear biological chemical programs revealed defeat war reflect value ascribed weapons rogue states furthermore know state programs iraq overcome technical challenges reason access terrorists state programsor key individuals programsshould greatest concern 16 frank gaffney head center security policy defended josephs role incident went heart credibility administrations alarmism threat iraq national review online oped gaffney wrote come surprise bureaucracies hostile president bush taken dim view joseph others proven effective helping articulate advance reaganesque philosophy international peace american strength neither anyone surprised nsc counterproliferation chiefs foes would try take least diminish authority making scapegoat present controversy cias efforts make joseph fall guy present imbroglio fail josephs name cleared considerable contribution national security able continue undiminished years come 6 joseph likely effective arms control undersecretary predecessor john boltons blusters blunders bluntness undermined ability implement administrations security agendaone global arms control ensuring uncontested us global dominance contrary boltons claims confirmation hearings elsewhere robert joseph bolton spearheaded administrations proliferation security initiative usguided counterproliferation alliance operates outside united nations sidelines international law treaty norms coalition willing assume authority interdict suspected wmd shipments high seas bolton also took credit administrations drive dismantle libyas wmd programs even though opposed initiative involved engagement libya rather bullying former senior administration official credited joseph implementing libya strategy joseph attempted pick pieces us strategy regarding nuclear nonproliferation treaty npt conference may 2005 years bolton become involved pursuing pet projects personal albeit unsuccessful campaign drive mohamed elbaradei position chief international atomic energy agency iaea bolton fixated denying highly regarded elbaradei third term iaea director according source quoted newsweek fumbled preparations npt conference leading another lengthening series international embarrassments administration joseph vainly tried salvage us agenda npt conference included revamping npt deny selected nonnuclear states like iran capacity develop nuclear energy plants 9 new undersecretary state arms control said starting point first conclusion formulating national security strategy fact nuclear biological chemical weapons permanent feature international environment second conclusion joseph asserted nuclear biological chemical weapons substantial utility adding corollary versatile us wmd capability essential deny enemy weapons since threat retaliation punishment formed basis deterrent policy cold war likely sufficient arms control chief joseph new breed militarist believes world weapons mass destruction may proliferating behooves united states bolster wmd arsenal use proliferators tom barry policy director international relations center irc online wwwirconlineorg associate irc americas program | 1,964 |
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<p>Below is the Barack Obama quote our question refers to (from a February 12 speech). The participants’ answers follow.</p>
<p>Nothing worthwhile in this country has ever happened unless somebody, somewhere is willing to hope. Somebody is willing to stand up. Somebody who is willing to stand up when they are told “No you can’t” and instead they say, “Yes we can.”</p>
<p>That’s how this country was founded. A group of patriots declaring independence against a mighty British empire—nobody gave them a chance—but they said, “Yes we can.” That’s how slaves and abolitionists resisted that wicked system, and how a new president charted a course to ensure we would not remain half slave and half free.</p>
<p>That’s how the greatest generation—my grandfather fighting in Patton’s Army, my grandmother staying at home with a baby and still working on a Bomber assembly line—how that greatest generation overcame Hitler and fascism, and also lifted themselves up out of a Great Depression.</p>
<p>That’s how pioneers went West when people told them it was dangerous, they said, “Yes we can.” That’s how immigrants traveled from distant shores when people said their fates would be uncertain, “Yes we can.” That’s how women won the right to vote, how workers won the right to organize, how young people like you traveled down South to march and sit in and go to jail, and some were beaten and some died for freedom’s cause. That’s what hope is. That’s what hope is.</p>
<p>That’s what hope is. That moment when we shed our fears and our doubts. When we don’t settle for what the cynics tell us we have to accept. Because cynicism is a sorry sort of wisdom. When we instead join arm in arm and decide we are going to remake this country, block by block, precinct by precinct, county by county, state by state. That’s what hope is.</p>
<p>There’s a moment in the life of every generation, when that spirit has to come through if we are to make our mark on history. And this is our moment. This is our time.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/columns/asimjabari/" type="external">Jabari Asim</a>Editor of <a href="http://www.thecrisismagazine.com/" type="external">The Crisis</a> magazine Talcott Garland, the introspective narrator of Stephen Carter’s novel The Emperor of Ocean Park, describes another character as “a type common to the darker nation: smart, ambitious, well educated, utterly dedicated to the romanticism of the long-shattered civil rights movement, living on the fringes of what remains.” It’s a harsh assessment, to be sure, but eloquently points to a sort of misbegotten nostalgia that occasionally threatens to overwhelm the movement’s valuable lessons, a sensibility apparently found most often among elders of the African American community—those actually old enough to remember those bloody, world-changing battles or to still bear scars from being a frontline participant.</p>
<p>Those of us in Obama’s generation are left to tiptoe gently among these veterans, paying tribute to them without appearing to ride lazily on their coattails, offering sober assessments of the movement’s triumphs and shortcomings without seeming ungrateful or disrespectful. Obama continues to walk that fine line with the skill and diplomacy that has defined his political career thus far and, in reasonably describing his campaign as a logical extension of the civil rights movement, continues to maintain admirable balance. It’s hard to imagine a perspective that doesn’t regard his pursuit of the presidency as the fruitful harvest of seeds sown in those marches, sit-ins, legal challenges, and strategic campaigns of not so long ago.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-baumgardner" type="external">Jennifer Baumgardner</a>Author, <a href="/arts/books/2007/01/look_both_ways.html" type="external">Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics</a> Barack Obama is saying “Yes we can…support a biracial (Ivy-educated, male, lawyer) candidate for the highest office in the nation,” which shouldn’t be confused with “Yes we can…wage a social justice revolution in which everybody has health care, the death penalty is considered an abomination, and we won’t bomb Pakistan.”</p>
<p>Symbolically, I find it inspiring to have someone raised by a teen single mom in a blended family, who isn’t white, who admits to drug use on his journey to becoming the responsible father he is now as my potential president. But Obama’s campaign is quite clearly not a social justice movement. What is he abolishing? Who is he freeing? What goal of citizenship is on the line with him as its champion? What is he risking by taking a stand? What “stand” is he taking?</p>
<p>Any viable candidate for President—and whether he wins or not, Barack Obama is clearly viable—isn’t waging a revolution for peace, truth, and justice when he runs. He is relentlessly calibrating complicated positions about even more complex issues and balancing as carefully as possible on messages of change that aren’t, in fact, too changey. I don’t find this realpolitik disturbing, but I find the message of “hope” he conveys empty and even besides the point, especially as he proves in the general election to have exactly Hillary Clinton’s positions. Fortunately, having Clinton’s positions isn’t a bad thing for the country. It may not be a movement, but Obama’s campaign is at the very least movement—toward a commitment to the middle class, better health care options, and an incredibly reasonable and thoughtful man in the White House.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.buchanan.org/" type="external">Pat Buchanan</a>Columnist It is absurd to argue that the nomination or an election of Barack Obama would be as important a historical event as the liberation of 3 million slaves after the bloodiest war in American history, that took 600,000 lives and set the South back a century. As for the civil rights movement, that completed the emancipation of people of color, and has dramatically affected American politics for a half-century. Barack Obama’s election would be about as significant to US history as Jackie Robinson’s appearance at second base was for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Yet that, according to liberals, was the most important event in the history of baseball. This whole exercise testifies to what Lenin called “an infantile disorder” of the American left. Give it a rest.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.eleanorclift.com/" type="external">Eleanor Clift</a>Author, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Founding-Sisters-Nineteenth-Amendment-Turning/dp/0471426121" type="external">Founding Sisters and the 19th Amendment</a> Better left to others to make the comparison, but I think it’s valid. We have to ask ourselves how reform is made. It takes acts of courage by countless unsung people to collectively create the conditions for a leader to take hold. Cultural change of this magnitude doesn’t occur until millions of people come to a consensus that it is needed, and it’s not about race or ethnicity. The excesses of the last eight years have brought us to the point where the voters have had enough.</p>
<p>Howard Dean tapped into the same wellspring of fury in 2004, but wasn’t able to translate Internet money into political activity. Using the power of Barack Obama’s persona and personal history, his campaign created a community of people with the energy and the power to affect elections. Obama has taken back the electoral process from the big-money interests and returned it to the people. He doesn’t treat his donors like an ATM; he makes them feel they are part of something bigger than themselves. With the power of the people a computer click away, Obama is on track if he wins the presidency to restore the balance between the demands of the special interests and the needs of the people. By my lights, that’s the definition of a movement in the great progressive tradition.</p>
<p><a href="http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/" type="external">Ta-Nehisi Coates</a>Author, <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780385520362.html" type="external">The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood</a> Well, I think he’s exaggerating, in the sense that it’s hard to understand a great, substantive moment in history while it’s still happening. We knew 9/11 was a historic moment, if only because nothing like that had ever happened. But we didn’t know—and maybe still don’t completely know—what that actually meant. So in the sense that all people who compare the ongoing, shifting, malleable present with the past, he is indeed exaggerating. Let me just state the obvious—electing a black president will be historic, and I guess quasi-progressive. But the substance of what his presidency will be for America just isn’t known yet.</p>
<p>Folding on FISA certainly doesn’t put you in a great progressive tradition. But pushing efforts to ameliorate the wealth gap might. It’s really up to Obama to determine whether or not he’s exaggerating. He is a politician, and thus prone to political rhetoric. I say that as one of his supporters, and charges of Kool-Aid imbibing aside, I think most of us know that too. If Obama goes forth and really reorients the country away from anti-intellectualism, fake patriotism, and craven powermongering toward a path of honest debate, muscular patriotism, and simple common sense, then he will be right in claiming the best of the progressive tradition. If not then it’ll just be rhetoric. It’s really up to him.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/history/dallek/" type="external">Robert Dallek</a>Author, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/books/review/Lawrence-t.html" type="external">Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power</a> I find the question impossible to answer. How can we possibly know at this point what Obama’s campaign means? Is it the equivalent of some of the great progressive events of the past you cite? To answer would be to get way ahead of ourselves. First he has to win, and then we will see what he accomplishes. I certainly hope he is successful, but I don’t want to predict what his achievements will be.</p>
<p><a href="/people/Debra-Dickerson.html" type="external">Debra Dickerson</a>Author, <a href="http://www.debradickerson.com/" type="external">The End of Blackness</a> Kudos to Obama for reaching transcendence, but no way is the undeniable excitement he’s generated anything remotely resembling America’s past great progressive movements. To point out the obvious, the very examples he’s invoking had specific purposes—winning World War II, ending slavery then Jim Crow, enfranchising women. Beyond dethroning Bush II, worthy though it is, what’s his goal? Even were he to peg his entire candidacy on ending the Iraq War, that wouldn’t transform America the way past convulsive movements did. At best, electing Obama might be seen as the final death throes of a racism that still dares to speak its name, but it might just be best if he stopped playing to his fellow citizens’ lazy vanity—look, Ma! I’m changing America without sacrificing anything in the least!—and kept what he represents in perspective. His nearness to the presidency is an amazing, wondrous thing, but America won’t be much different afterward, blasphemous as that sounds.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/harold-evans-these-grand-designs-must-have-stories-to-back-them-up-872642.html" type="external">Harold Evans</a>Author, <a href="http://www.powells.com/review/2001_06_28.html" type="external">The American Century</a> The great progressive movements in American history, not excluding the populists, all had specific programs to deal with definable evils and restrictions, all to make America more of a functioning democracy, truer to the ideals in the Declaration of Independence rather than the rule of the elites envisaged by the founding fathers. One thinks of the clear programs set out by William Jennings Bryan—and hooted down—for federal income tax, direct election of senators, regulation of the railroads, and importantly, release from the deflations inevitable when the currency was based on gold. Obama has rhetoric to match Bryan’s, but while the statements are gratifying, even glorious, they are not all well-enough defined yet to constitute anything comparable to the great progressive movements that gave us our present.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.carnegieendowment.org/experts/index.cfm?fa=expert_view&amp;expert_id=193" type="external">John Judis</a>Journalist I think Obama has run a brilliant campaign, but not necessarily a “great progressive” one. Purely in policy terms, he is running a center-left campaign similar, say, to Jimmy Carter in 1976 and far less bold than, say, Bill Clinton in 1992. All the stuff about reforming Washington is very much in the line of Carter-John Anderson-Ross Perot. His main economic plans were slightly to the right of John Edwards and Hillary Clinton, and his foreign policy (except for his biographical claim to have been against the war in 2002) was indistinguishable from those of other Democrats. His is certainly not a path-breaking campaign like that of Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 or Franklin Roosevelt in 1936.</p>
<p>But that’s not to say his campaign isn’t significant or important. First of all, he is the first major-party African American candidate. That’s no small thing in a country long divided by race, but his running will not have the same kind of impact as the civil rights movement of the ’50s, which successfully attacked the structure of racial discrimination. Second, he has accelerated trends toward a Democratic realignment that began earlier. He has been particularly successful in bringing young people and professionals into the fold, and in advancing the cyber technology of political campaigns, including the use of the Internet for fundraising, which began, I think, under Perot in 1996, and was then used to advantage by Howard Dean in 2004. So it is a very significant campaign. I just wouldn’t go overboard about its being a “great progressive” one.</p>
<p><a href="http://explore.georgetown.edu/people/mk8/" type="external">Michael Kazin</a>Author, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Godly-Hero-William-Jennings-Bryan/dp/0375411356" type="external">A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan</a> To state the obvious: A presidential campaign is not a social movement; its objective is to elect an individual, not to win rights or power or cultural influence for a large group of people who have a set of deep-seated grievances. But Obama’s campaign and the success he’s achieved, so far, does depend on the size, ardor, and creativity of the progressive movement that has been growing since the 2000 election.</p>
<p>That connection between movement and candidate is essential to achieving any meaningful degree of social and political change. But one shouldn’t fall for the illusion that the politician (or any single leader) can substitute for the movement. Neither can accomplish great things alone. But the alliance is nearly always a contentious one—witness the relationship between FDR and organized labor or LBJ and the black freedom movement. Obama’s current attempt to shed his image as a gun-controlling opponent of capital punishment is just the latest demonstration that even the most admirable politicians are captives of the majorities they need to win. They move when movements move them.</p>
<p><a href="http://mikekinsley.com/homepage/bio_and_photo.htm" type="external">Michael Kinsley</a>Columnist Of course he’s exaggerating. That is not a crime. In fact, it’s almost required in a presidential candidate. If you don’t have some grandiose historical moment in your pocket, you get nailed as Ted Kennedy famously did for lacking “vision.” But all of Obama’s examples in the passage you quote involve one overwhelming and crystalline issue. There is no such one issue at stake in this election, or if there is, Obama has not articulated it. Abolition, women’s suffrage, and civil rights were all movements that started outside of conventional politics and had built up considerable momentum before being taken up by a president or presidential candidate.</p>
<p>There is a good case to be made that various issues are actually related and together they do make this a watershed election. The common thread is digesting the huge events of the last part of the 20th century, which have turned out to be mixed blessings—or possibly, to Mother Jones readers, neither mixed nor blessings. The end of the Cold War was supposed to have left us a “unipolar” world where the United States faced no threats to its power, and the spread of democracy and capitalism would be inevitable. Instead, we are struggling to figure out our role in a world where we matter less and less. The bill is coming due for a generation of staggering fiscal irresponsibility——mostly attributable to Republican public officials, but the American people have been their enablers. The second industrial revolution, which has brought us computers and miracle drugs, has also apparently ended the era when “a rising tide lifts all boats.” That delinking of prosperity and equality will make us a different kind of country, and we have no idea what, if anything, to do about that. And meanwhile yet another bill is finally coming due for the first industrial revolution, in the form of global warming, the energy shortage, and so on, —even as that revolution spreads to new parts of the world.</p>
<p>As a “world man,” who has excited and inspired people all over the globe without actually doing anything yet, Obama has the potential to weave these issues together and prepare people for the “change” they think they want—much of which they won’t like when they see it close-up. The test of a leader is whether he or she can lead people somewhere they don’t want to go. Whether Obama can do that, or even wants to, remains unclear. In short, whether this is an important historical moment or just another election is up to Barack Obama.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.naomiklein.org/main" type="external">Naomi Klein</a>Author, <a href="http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine" type="external">The Shock Doctrine</a> What all transformative movements have in common is the quality of speaking up to an aspirational public, to our best possible selves. Transformative movements act like the world is better than it is, and—when they work—they inspire the world to live up to this partial projection. The Obama campaign, has, in moments, embodied precisely that quality: Obama conjures a better America and that better America shows up for him. But political moments do more than speak to our best selves; they harness that quasi-mystical power to make radical demands to transform the real world. The Obama campaign has not done this, not on any issue at the core of our current crisis. Not on global warming, the war in Iraq, the housing crisis, health care, underemployment, or the assaults on civil liberties. Not a single Obama policy is unequivocal in its clarity and morality, which is the essential quality of a transformative movement.</p>
<p>The campaign’s most radical demand, even if unstated, is the idea of electing Obama himself. It is Obama—and not his plans for the presidency—that is the ultimate expression of the “movement.” If the process ends there, the Obama campaign becomes less like the civil rights movement and more like the lifestyle brands in the late ’90s—the Nikes, Microsofts, and Starbucks that expertly captured the transcendent quality of past liberation movements, and our desire for meaning in our lives, to build their brands.</p>
<p>Of course the real fault is not Obama’s, but ours. We have forgotten the kind of risk and work it takes to build transformative mass movements, and so settle for iconography instead. That said, he’d better win.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.newamerica.net/people/michael_lind" type="external">Michael Lind</a>Fellow, <a href="http://www.newamerica.net/" type="external">New American Foundation</a> This is indeed a historic moment in American political history. The conservative era that began with Nixon has ended with George W. Bush, and the new era in public policy, as distinct from electoral politics, has already begun. The next reform era is more likely to emphasize common concerns, public efforts, and the national good, like the progressive era and the New Deal era, than individual emancipation, like the abolition, suffrage, and civil rights movements, whose gains are now secure. While his campaign did not create the next-era wave, Sen. Obama has proven his skills in besting his rival surfers on the Democratic team. Whether or not Obama rides the wave to victory in November, the tsunami will proceed, and the reactionary right will be no more able to reverse its course than King Canute was able to command the tide to retreat.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.econ.brown.edu/fac/Glenn_Loury/louryhomepage/" type="external">Glenn Loury</a>Professor of economics, <a href="http://www.brown.edu/" type="external">Brown University</a> Is Barack Hussein Obama a transformative American leader on questions of race? Not when compared to Lyndon Baines Johnson.</p>
<p>A shocking degree of historical amnesia/ignorance has been revealed in the gushing press commentary on Obama’s “race” speech. It seems to me that people are confusing something that is akin to a cult of personality with an actual political movement that is informed by a comprehensive ideological vision and that is capable of making lasting institutional reforms. Obama’s address given in Philadelphia last March—in the aftermath of the initial firestorm created by the public exposure of some of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s more controversial remarks—has been called the greatest public oration on the question of race since Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, given at the 1963 march on Washington. This claim is, I think, demonstrably false.</p>
<p>I offer as counterexample to this claim LBJ’s speech given as a commencement address at Howard University in 1965. These two instances of public rhetoric were motivated by very different forces: Obama’s was given under duress, in the midst of a primary campaign, in an effort to control the damage to his electoral prospects from his association with Rev. Wright. LBJ, by contrast, was speaking as a sitting president, articulating a guiding vision that would inform those aspects of his legislative agenda, the war on poverty, that dealt with racial themes. But this is precisely my point. Unlike Obama, LBJ staked out a political position that has had consequences: That the people of the United States were obligated to undertake a massive expansion of social investment for the disadvantaged in American society, and that this obligation rested at least in part on the historical necessity that we act so as to reduce racial inequality in our country. Obama sometimes gives the impression that the less said about our mutual obligation as Americans to act so as to reduce inequality of social outcomes between the races in the country, in the jails as well as the schools, the better. And yet, it was LBJ’s rhetoric, coupled with a focused legislative agenda and the political acumen/muscle to get it enacted, that really constitutes the stuff of historical transformation. And the success of Johnson’s efforts, while limited, to be sure, nevertheless represents the kind of thing that can be accomplished when the apparatus of a political party is harnessed with an ideological vision that has teeth, and that is willing to take a stand on the great questions about the role of government and about the moral imperatives of our imperfect history. What LBJ had to say in that late-spring afternoon, 43 years ago—about race, history, policy, and social obligation—has echoed down through the decades. It was a piece of his war on poverty, with the establishment of federal aid to education and federally financed health care for the poor and the elderly, and with those legislative capstones of the civil rights revolution that LBJ, but not JFK, was able to get enacted.</p>
<p>Of course, nobody can expect Obama to argue for a return of the Great Society. Still, his speech—and more broadly his views about race and American social obligation, whatever their merits—are not in the same league with LBJ’s, not even close.</p>
<p>Will Obama’s effective renegotiation of America’s implicit racial contract redound to the long-term benefit of African American people? Not necessarily, especially to the extent that it lets the American mainstream off the hook in terms of their responsibilities to narrow the racial gap.</p>
<p>Barack Obama, in this campaign, is engaged in a de facto renegotiation of the implicit American racial contract. What, one may ask, might that implicit racial contract be? Well, in a word, it is the broad recognition and acceptance by governing elites in this country—in the press, in the courts and legal establishment, in the academy and in the broader political culture—that structural impediments exist to the equal participation of blacks in American life, and that government-sponsored initiatives—whether race-specific or universal in character—are an appropriate vehicle for redress in this situation. It is the recognition that, despite the huge social transformation occurring in this society under the pressures of immigration, globalization, and rising economic insecurity—which are, as Obama points out, changes affecting all of us, regardless of race or ethnicity—despite this new reality, we nevertheless have unfinished business here on the race front. It is the willingness to constantly interrogate our institutions as to whether their actual practice is consistent with our professed ideals concerning equality and social justice. It is an acknowledgement that, imperatives of personal and communal responsibility notwithstanding, the American nation-state nevertheless bears a collective, political responsibility for the social disasters and the human suffering that are unfolding even as we speak, and that can be so readily observed in the centers of our cities. This responsibility extends to immigrants who have joined our society in recent decades no less so than to those with American ancestry extending back many generations. Just as present generations—immigrants and natives alike—are obligated to service a national debt incurred by their predecessors, so too are those who prosper within our social order obligated to contribute to the fair resolution of social problems deeply rooted in the nation’s historical experience. This unfinished racial business, I would argue, is a part of what you inherit when you become an American.</p>
<p>While there has never been unanimity on these matters, there nevertheless has been a consensus view—a view, I might add, that was recently reaffirmed by a relatively conservative US Supreme Court in the University of Michigan affirmative action cases. This consensus has been under attack for a generation, and now it is, in effect, being renegotiated by Barack Obama in this political campaign. Look for him to throw affirmative action under the bus by advocating that we transition to a scheme based on class and not race come September. Some may object that Obama’s campaign rhetoric and speeches clearly reveal his appreciation of the structural bases for racial inequality. They will say that his view is nuanced, pragmatic, and historically well informed. This all may be true, but the question that matters is not whether Barack Obama knows anything about history or sociology. The critical question is, What are the American people prepared to do next, if anything, about these matters? And how will Obama’s purportedly transformative vision of American politics promote progress?</p>
<p>The answers to these questions are far from clear. What we are witnessing in this campaign is, in effect, that Obama’s very person has been taken by many Americans to be a site for public expiation of collective racial sin! I fully understand why many Americans would leap at the chance for such cheap grace. Still, I fail to see why serious advocates of the interests of black people must fall into the same swoon. Here’s my bottom line: Obama’s authenticity as a representative of the black experience before the American public, even at this late date, is not self-evident—far from it. Saying this does not make me some kind of racemongering black radical. This is not even a criticism of him. It is merely a statement of fact. Nor is it an imputation to him of any invidious motives. Sure, he is ambitious. And yes, he is a politician, doing what politicians must do to get themselves elected. But this issue—concerning what consequences will ensue from the heated discourses of this campaign, for the American civic obligation to pursue greater racial equality in the decades and generations to come—this is a vitally important matter for reflection and discussion.</p>
<p>These concerns are not merely the whining of an older generation that is unwilling to accept that things have changed. If “change” in our racial sensibilities means accommodating the weariness of many Americans with our long, historic, and still unfinished pursuit of racial justice, then I have no trouble standing athwart such progress. Nor am I here blaming Obama for the fact that formulations and arguments that may be forced upon him, by the political logic of his quest for the presidency, can nevertheless have deleterious consequences for black people in this country. Neither do I hold that he, or any other single person, speaks for all of black America. Nevertheless, none of this obviates the fact that pronouncements by prominent persons who are received, de facto, as representatives of a group can enter into the public vernacular, become part of our unexamined political vocabulary, shape how people understand and respond to the social reality within which we are embedded, and in this manner reverberate so as deleteriously to affect other group members.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-clarencepage,0,815496.columnist" type="external">Clarence Page</a>Columnist So far Obama has not spelled out a progressive platform that compares to the earth-moving ideologies of great progressive movement. Lately he’s been backpedaling away from the left and back toward the wobbly middle to expand his support among independent swing voters. Nevertheless, as an African American old enough to have drunk from “colored” water fountains in the South, I am convinced that the election of a progressively minded black—or, if you prefer, biracial—president will mark the capstone of what the civil rights movement was all about. Whether Obama wins or not, he already has changed our national mindset about racial possibilities, revitalized the image and energy of liberal politics, and improved our nation’s image around the world. That’s not small potatoes.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.chrisrabb.com/" type="external">Chris Rabb</a>Blogger, <a href="http://www.afro-netizen.com/" type="external">Afro-Netizen</a> Obama’s candidacy is not a movement, no matter how historic and unique it may be. It is a fascinating and noteworthy social phenomenon, which is not the same as a movement.</p>
<p>Movements do not revolve around individuals nor elections. Obama is conflating his once-insurgent campaign’s hope to clinch the Democratic nomination and the presidency with the type of movement building it will take to forge meaningful social change in society at large.</p>
<p>From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, from the Beltway to Hollywood, from the military industrial complex to the political industrial complex, structural change will not likely occur.</p>
<p>The tone, tenor, and nuance of discussions around important, but somewhat controversial, topics may change. Rhetoric around such topics may change—even improve. But there is little hope of impacting the foundation of structural inequality. The cynicism of this critique is not necessarily based on my judgment of Obama’s candidacy or his agenda; rather, it is based on the reality that social movements are not predicated on election cycles or politicians, but on broad swaths of a given generation to radically alter some aspect of society as we know it.</p>
<p>Nothing radical will come from either major party in the modern electoral landscape irrespective of the unconventionality of a given candidate.</p>
<p><a href="http://home.sprynet.com/~rshenkman/" type="external">Rick Shenkman</a>Editor of <a href="http://hnn.us/" type="external">History News Network</a> and author, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Just-How-Stupid-Are-We/dp/0465077714" type="external">Just How Stupid Are We?</a> In time-honored fashion, I’ll answer this question with a question. My question is: What was the lesson of the civil rights movement? Was it that you can appeal to the conscience of America? That you have to mobilize activists by high-minded appeals to a cause? That you have to fight like hell for your rights because people in power do not make concessions just because you ask for them politely? That a leader can inspire people to action? Or that it helps immensely to have an archenemy, like Bull Connor?</p>
<p>My answer is: All of the above. Barack Obama comes across like a civil rights movement leader. His rhetoric inspires people the way Dr. King did. But he seems to be selective in his reading of the movement’s lessons. He seems to believe that appeals to reason are ALL that is necessary. The civil rights movement demonstrated that change also requires a good old-fashioned enemy who can be easily ridiculed, hardball tactics, and the willingness to exert pressure on the weak points of the people in power who are blocking change. Politics is not a tea party.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nndb.com/people/961/000090691/" type="external">Roger Wilkins</a>Professor of history, <a href="http://www.gmu.edu/" type="external">George Mason University</a> William Faulkner once observed, “The past is never dead; it’s not even past.” In judging Obama’s prediction, I pair Faulkner with a recent note from a brilliant young black man who wrote after viewing friendship circles on the Internet, “What struck me was how few blacks are in the networks of the young professional types…even Democrats and progressive types…we still have a long way before the fundamental sociocultural segregation of our society is relieved.”</p>
<p>I’m old enough to remember how those barriers cracked some when in the late ’30s Joe Louis knocked out the German champion Max Schmeling in the first round. And I remember how a decade later Jackie Robinson’s pioneering performance on the Brooklyn Dodgers cracked them even more.</p>
<p>If two superb black athletes could significantly lessen the “sociocultural segregation of our society,” a superb black president could significantly lessen even more the hold the past has on us, and that presidency would forever be regarded as one of the brightest lights in our national life.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/patricia_j_williams" type="external">Patricia Williams</a>Professor of law, <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/" type="external">Columbia University</a> Years ago a Vietnamese friend whose parents had sent her to boarding school in India to escape the war spoke to me of her amazement at the then-still-emergent intertwining of Gandhi’s and Martin Luther King’s philosophies. From her vantage point, the most remarkable thing about what became the American civil rights movement of the 1960s was that it was a revolution based on love. “How counterintuitive is that?” she asked. “How many times in history has that happened?”</p>
<p>It’s not that the struggle wasn’t attended by its quantum of brutality and violent backlash, she mused, but rather that King framed his goal as uniting a “beloved community” rather than bringing down a common enemy. It was a battle for recognition of the humanity that resided within every heart, “even Bull Connor’s.”</p>
<p>I don’t think it is at all an exaggeration to say that Barack Obama’s campaign is rooted in and furthers that kind of embracing progressive American story. The Bush administration has brought us to a very dangerous precipice: The world has been divided into good guys and bad guys, the due process promised in the Bill of Rights has been all but suspended by executive whimsy, and the use of torture has gained a stature in American discourse that it has not had since the good old days of public lynchings. Yet for a dangerous few years, public opposition was nonexistent in the face of manipulations like “you’re with us or against us.” Color-coded fearmongering silenced some of us; cynicism and a feeling of helplessness paralyzed others.</p>
<p>Barack Obama has done more to cut through the Orwellian garble of that frozen moment than any other public figure. He has given eloquent voice to the widespread unease at the course our government has pursued; he has done so with grace, without anger. And he has brought enough reasoned good sense back to the discussion that “diplomacy” is no longer a curse word.</p>
<p>If we are to pull back from the cliff’s edge to which George W. Bush has shepherded us, I think it will be because the most redemptive moments in American history have always been rooted in the deepest promise of the First Amendment. I mean not merely the reductive right of frat boys to yell epithets, but the profound commitment to the propagation of ideas about how we constitute ourselves as a nation; the profound power of imagined political possibility; the profound freedom to exchange thoughts without fear of punishment. From the Puritan jeremiads to the Gettysburg address, from Harriet Tubman to FDR’s fireside chats, from Abigail Adams to “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” our most interesting social transformations have always been given life by our most intelligent rhetoricians. Within that tradition, Barack Obama could be our Nelson Mandela—not a magician, but the page-turner to a more encompassing future for all.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nybooks.com/authors/85" type="external">Garry Wills</a>Author, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/books/review/Gibson-t.html" type="external">What the Gospels Meant</a> It is true that Obama is facing a task of historic scale and difficulty, but he has not sufficiently identified it. The task is to restore a Constitution shredded by secrecy, illegal detention, and torture. The real question is whether he can convince the American people that these atrocities must be wiped out—and he has not begun to do that.</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | barack obama quote question refers february 12 speech participants answers follow nothing worthwhile country ever happened unless somebody somewhere willing hope somebody willing stand somebody willing stand told cant instead say yes thats country founded group patriots declaring independence mighty british empirenobody gave chancebut said yes thats slaves abolitionists resisted wicked system new president charted course ensure would remain half slave half free thats greatest generationmy grandfather fighting pattons army grandmother staying home baby still working bomber assembly linehow greatest generation overcame hitler fascism also lifted great depression thats pioneers went west people told dangerous said yes thats immigrants traveled distant shores people said fates would uncertain yes thats women right vote workers right organize young people like traveled south march sit go jail beaten died freedoms cause thats hope thats hope thats hope moment shed fears doubts dont settle cynics tell us accept cynicism sorry sort wisdom instead join arm arm decide going remake country block block precinct precinct county county state state thats hope theres moment life every generation spirit come make mark history moment time jabari asimeditor crisis magazine talcott garland introspective narrator stephen carters novel emperor ocean park describes another character type common darker nation smart ambitious well educated utterly dedicated romanticism longshattered civil rights movement living fringes remains harsh assessment sure eloquently points sort misbegotten nostalgia occasionally threatens overwhelm movements valuable lessons sensibility apparently found often among elders african american communitythose actually old enough remember bloody worldchanging battles still bear scars frontline participant us obamas generation left tiptoe gently among veterans paying tribute without appearing ride lazily coattails offering sober assessments movements triumphs shortcomings without seeming ungrateful disrespectful obama continues walk fine line skill diplomacy defined political career thus far reasonably describing campaign logical extension civil rights movement continues maintain admirable balance hard imagine perspective doesnt regard pursuit presidency fruitful harvest seeds sown marches sitins legal challenges strategic campaigns long ago jennifer baumgardnerauthor look ways bisexual politics barack obama saying yes cansupport biracial ivyeducated male lawyer candidate highest office nation shouldnt confused yes canwage social justice revolution everybody health care death penalty considered abomination wont bomb pakistan symbolically find inspiring someone raised teen single mom blended family isnt white admits drug use journey becoming responsible father potential president obamas campaign quite clearly social justice movement abolishing freeing goal citizenship line champion risking taking stand stand taking viable candidate 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brooklyn dodgers yet according liberals important event history baseball whole exercise testifies lenin called infantile disorder american left give rest eleanor cliftauthor founding sisters 19th amendment better left others make comparison think valid ask reform made takes acts courage countless unsung people collectively create conditions leader take hold cultural change magnitude doesnt occur millions people come consensus needed race ethnicity excesses last eight years brought us point voters enough howard dean tapped wellspring fury 2004 wasnt able translate internet money political activity using power barack obamas persona personal history campaign created community people energy power affect elections obama taken back electoral process bigmoney interests returned people doesnt treat donors like atm makes feel part something bigger power people computer click away obama track wins presidency restore balance demands special interests needs people lights thats definition movement great progressive tradition tanehisi coatesauthor beautiful struggle father two sons unlikely road manhood well think hes exaggerating sense hard understand great substantive moment history still happening knew 911 historic moment nothing like ever happened didnt knowand maybe still dont completely knowwhat actually meant sense people compare ongoing shifting malleable present past indeed exaggerating let state obviouselecting black president historic guess quasiprogressive substance presidency america isnt known yet folding fisa certainly doesnt put great progressive tradition pushing efforts ameliorate wealth gap might really obama determine whether hes exaggerating politician thus prone political rhetoric say one supporters charges koolaid imbibing aside think us know obama goes forth really reorients country away antiintellectualism fake patriotism craven powermongering toward path honest debate muscular patriotism simple common sense right claiming best progressive tradition itll rhetoric really robert dallekauthor nixon kissinger partners power find question impossible answer possibly know point obamas campaign means equivalent great progressive events past cite answer would get way ahead first win see accomplishes certainly hope successful dont want predict achievements debra dickersonauthor end blackness kudos obama reaching transcendence way undeniable excitement hes generated anything remotely resembling americas past great progressive movements point obvious examples hes invoking specific purposeswinning world war ii ending slavery jim crow enfranchising women beyond dethroning bush ii worthy though whats goal even peg entire candidacy ending iraq war wouldnt transform america way past convulsive movements best electing obama might seen final death throes racism still dares speak name might best stopped playing fellow citizens lazy vanitylook im changing america without sacrificing anything leastand kept represents perspective nearness presidency amazing wondrous thing america wont much different afterward blasphemous sounds harold evansauthor american century great progressive movements american history excluding populists specific programs deal definable evils restrictions make america functioning democracy truer ideals declaration independence rather rule elites envisaged founding fathers one thinks clear programs set william jennings bryanand hooted downfor federal income tax direct election senators regulation railroads importantly release deflations inevitable currency based gold obama rhetoric match bryans statements gratifying even glorious wellenough defined yet constitute anything comparable great progressive movements gave us present john judisjournalist think obama run brilliant campaign necessarily great progressive one purely policy terms running centerleft campaign similar say jimmy carter 1976 far less bold say bill clinton 1992 stuff reforming washington much line carterjohn andersonross perot main economic plans slightly right john edwards hillary clinton foreign policy except biographical claim war 2002 indistinguishable democrats certainly pathbreaking campaign like theodore roosevelt 1912 franklin roosevelt 1936 thats say campaign isnt significant important first first majorparty african american candidate thats small thing country long divided race running kind impact civil rights movement 50s successfully attacked structure racial discrimination second accelerated trends toward democratic realignment began earlier particularly successful bringing young people professionals fold advancing cyber technology political campaigns including use internet fundraising began think perot 1996 used advantage howard dean 2004 significant campaign wouldnt go overboard great progressive one michael kazinauthor godly hero life william jennings bryan state obvious presidential campaign social movement objective elect individual win rights power cultural influence large group people set deepseated grievances obamas campaign success hes achieved far depend size ardor creativity progressive movement growing since 2000 election connection movement candidate essential achieving meaningful degree social political change one shouldnt fall illusion politician single leader substitute movement neither accomplish great things alone alliance nearly always contentious onewitness relationship fdr organized labor lbj black freedom movement obamas current attempt shed image guncontrolling opponent capital punishment latest demonstration even admirable politicians captives majorities need win move movements move michael kinsleycolumnist course hes exaggerating crime fact almost required presidential candidate dont grandiose historical moment pocket get nailed ted kennedy famously lacking vision obamas examples passage quote involve one overwhelming crystalline issue one issue stake election obama articulated abolition womens suffrage civil rights movements started outside conventional politics built considerable momentum taken president presidential candidate good case made various issues actually related together make watershed election common thread digesting huge events last part 20th century turned mixed blessingsor possibly mother jones readers neither mixed blessings end cold war supposed left us unipolar world united states faced threats power spread democracy capitalism would inevitable instead struggling figure role world matter less less bill coming due generation staggering fiscal irresponsibilitymostly attributable republican public officials american people enablers second industrial revolution brought us computers miracle drugs also apparently ended era rising tide lifts boats delinking prosperity equality make us different kind country idea anything meanwhile yet another bill finally coming due first industrial revolution form global warming energy shortage even revolution spreads new parts world world man excited inspired people globe without actually anything yet obama potential weave issues together prepare people change think wantmuch wont like see closeup test leader whether lead people somewhere dont want go whether obama even wants remains unclear short whether important historical moment another election barack obama naomi kleinauthor shock doctrine transformative movements common quality speaking aspirational public best possible selves transformative movements act like world better andwhen workthey inspire world live partial projection obama campaign moments embodied precisely quality obama conjures better america better america shows political moments speak best selves harness quasimystical power make radical demands transform real world obama campaign done issue core current crisis global warming war iraq housing crisis health care underemployment assaults civil liberties single obama policy unequivocal clarity morality essential quality transformative movement campaigns radical demand even unstated idea electing obama obamaand plans presidencythat ultimate expression movement process ends obama campaign becomes less like civil rights movement like lifestyle brands late 90sthe nikes microsofts starbucks expertly captured transcendent quality past liberation movements desire meaning lives build brands course real fault obamas forgotten kind risk work takes build transformative mass movements settle iconography instead said hed better win michael lindfellow new american foundation indeed historic moment american political history conservative era began nixon ended george w bush new era public policy distinct electoral politics already begun next reform era likely emphasize common concerns public efforts national good like progressive era new deal era individual emancipation like abolition suffrage civil rights movements whose gains secure campaign create nextera wave sen obama proven skills besting rival surfers democratic team whether obama rides wave victory november tsunami proceed reactionary right able reverse course king canute able command tide retreat glenn louryprofessor economics brown university barack hussein obama transformative american leader questions race compared lyndon baines johnson shocking degree historical amnesiaignorance revealed gushing press commentary obamas race speech seems people confusing something akin cult personality actual political movement informed comprehensive ideological vision capable making lasting institutional reforms obamas address given philadelphia last marchin aftermath initial firestorm created public exposure rev jeremiah wrights controversial remarkshas called greatest public oration question race since martin luther kings dream speech given 1963 march washington claim think demonstrably false offer counterexample claim lbjs speech given commencement address howard university 1965 two instances public rhetoric motivated different forces obamas given duress midst primary campaign effort control damage electoral prospects association rev wright lbj contrast speaking sitting president articulating guiding vision would inform aspects legislative agenda war poverty dealt racial themes precisely point unlike obama lbj staked political position consequences people united states obligated undertake massive expansion social investment disadvantaged american society obligation rested least part historical necessity act reduce racial inequality country obama sometimes gives impression less said mutual obligation americans act reduce inequality social outcomes races country jails well schools better yet lbjs rhetoric coupled focused legislative agenda political acumenmuscle get enacted really constitutes stuff historical transformation success johnsons efforts limited sure nevertheless represents kind thing accomplished apparatus political party harnessed ideological vision teeth willing take stand great questions role government moral imperatives imperfect history lbj say latespring afternoon 43 years agoabout race history policy social obligationhas echoed decades piece war poverty establishment federal aid education federally financed health care poor elderly legislative capstones civil rights revolution lbj jfk able get enacted course nobody expect obama argue return great society still speechand broadly views race american social obligation whatever meritsare league lbjs even close obamas effective renegotiation americas implicit racial contract redound longterm benefit african american people necessarily especially extent lets american mainstream hook terms responsibilities narrow racial gap barack obama campaign engaged de facto renegotiation implicit american racial contract one may ask might implicit racial contract well word broad recognition acceptance governing elites countryin press courts legal establishment academy broader political culturethat structural impediments exist equal participation blacks american life governmentsponsored initiativeswhether racespecific universal characterare appropriate vehicle redress situation recognition despite huge social transformation occurring society pressures immigration globalization rising economic insecuritywhich obama points changes affecting us regardless race ethnicitydespite new reality nevertheless unfinished business race front willingness constantly interrogate institutions whether actual practice consistent professed ideals concerning equality social justice acknowledgement imperatives personal communal responsibility notwithstanding american nationstate nevertheless bears collective political responsibility social disasters human suffering unfolding even speak readily observed centers cities responsibility extends immigrants joined society recent decades less american ancestry extending back many generations present generationsimmigrants natives alikeare obligated service national debt incurred predecessors prosper within social order obligated contribute fair resolution social problems deeply rooted nations historical experience unfinished racial business would argue part inherit become american never unanimity matters nevertheless consensus viewa view might add recently reaffirmed relatively conservative us supreme court university michigan affirmative action cases consensus attack generation effect renegotiated barack obama political campaign look throw affirmative action bus advocating transition scheme based class race come september may object obamas campaign rhetoric speeches clearly reveal appreciation structural bases racial inequality say view nuanced pragmatic historically well informed may true question matters whether barack obama knows anything history sociology critical question american people prepared next anything matters obamas purportedly transformative vision american politics promote progress answers questions far clear witnessing campaign effect obamas person taken many americans site public expiation collective racial sin fully understand many americans would leap chance cheap grace still fail see serious advocates interests black people must fall swoon heres bottom line obamas authenticity representative black experience american public even late date selfevidentfar saying make kind racemongering black radical even criticism merely statement fact imputation invidious motives sure ambitious yes politician politicians must get elected issueconcerning consequences ensue heated discourses campaign american civic obligation pursue greater racial equality decades generations comethis vitally important matter reflection discussion concerns merely whining older generation unwilling accept things changed change racial sensibilities means accommodating weariness many americans long historic still unfinished pursuit racial justice trouble standing athwart progress blaming obama fact formulations arguments may forced upon political logic quest presidency nevertheless deleterious consequences black people country neither hold single person speaks black america nevertheless none obviates fact pronouncements prominent persons received de facto representatives group enter public vernacular become part unexamined political vocabulary shape people understand respond social reality within embedded manner reverberate deleteriously affect group members clarence pagecolumnist far obama spelled progressive platform compares earthmoving ideologies great progressive movement lately hes backpedaling away left back toward wobbly middle expand support among independent swing voters nevertheless african american old enough drunk colored water fountains south convinced election progressively minded blackor prefer biracialpresident mark capstone civil rights movement whether obama wins already changed national mindset racial possibilities revitalized image energy liberal politics improved nations image around world thats small potatoes chris rabbblogger afronetizen obamas candidacy movement matter historic unique may fascinating noteworthy social phenomenon movement movements revolve around individuals elections obama conflating onceinsurgent campaigns hope clinch democratic nomination presidency type movement building take forge meaningful social change society large wall street silicon valley beltway hollywood military industrial complex political industrial complex structural change likely occur tone tenor nuance discussions around important somewhat controversial topics may change rhetoric around topics may changeeven improve little hope impacting foundation structural inequality cynicism critique necessarily based judgment obamas candidacy agenda rather based reality social movements predicated election cycles politicians broad swaths given generation radically alter aspect society know nothing radical come either major party modern electoral landscape irrespective unconventionality given candidate rick shenkmaneditor history news network author stupid timehonored fashion ill answer question question question lesson civil rights movement appeal conscience america mobilize activists highminded appeals cause fight like hell rights people power make concessions ask politely leader inspire people action helps immensely archenemy like bull connor answer barack obama comes across like civil rights movement leader rhetoric inspires people way dr king seems selective reading movements lessons seems believe appeals reason necessary civil rights movement demonstrated change also requires good oldfashioned enemy easily ridiculed hardball tactics willingness exert pressure weak points people power blocking change politics tea party roger wilkinsprofessor history george mason university william faulkner observed past never dead even past judging obamas prediction pair faulkner recent note brilliant young black man wrote viewing friendship circles internet struck blacks networks young professional typeseven democrats progressive typeswe still long way fundamental sociocultural segregation society relieved im old enough remember barriers cracked late 30s joe louis knocked german champion max schmeling first round remember decade later jackie robinsons pioneering performance brooklyn dodgers cracked even two superb black athletes could significantly lessen sociocultural segregation society superb black president could significantly lessen even hold past us presidency would forever regarded one brightest lights national life patricia williamsprofessor law columbia university years ago vietnamese friend whose parents sent boarding school india escape war spoke amazement thenstillemergent intertwining gandhis martin luther kings philosophies vantage point remarkable thing became american civil rights movement 1960s revolution based love counterintuitive asked many times history happened struggle wasnt attended quantum brutality violent backlash mused rather king framed goal uniting beloved community rather bringing common enemy battle recognition humanity resided within every heart even bull connors dont think exaggeration say barack obamas campaign rooted furthers kind embracing progressive american story bush administration brought us dangerous precipice world divided good guys bad guys due process promised bill rights suspended executive whimsy use torture gained stature american discourse since good old days public lynchings yet dangerous years public opposition nonexistent face manipulations like youre us us colorcoded fearmongering silenced us cynicism feeling helplessness paralyzed others barack obama done cut orwellian garble frozen moment public figure given eloquent voice widespread unease course government pursued done grace without anger brought enough reasoned good sense back discussion diplomacy longer curse word pull back cliffs edge george w bush shepherded us think redemptive moments american history always rooted deepest promise first amendment mean merely reductive right frat boys yell epithets profound commitment propagation ideas constitute nation profound power imagined political possibility profound freedom exchange thoughts without fear punishment puritan jeremiads gettysburg address harriet tubman fdrs fireside chats abigail adams letter birmingham jail interesting social transformations always given life intelligent rhetoricians within tradition barack obama could nelson mandelanot magician pageturner encompassing future garry willsauthor gospels meant true obama facing task historic scale difficulty sufficiently identified task restore constitution shredded secrecy illegal detention torture real question whether convince american people atrocities must wiped outand begun | 3,122 |
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<p>It was a tiny Reuters’ news item last week but there was a lot more to it than a first glance might reveal. “The administration arranged for some 75 House members and 25 senators to visit Iraq in recent weeks. Most returned supporting Bush’s $87 billion proposal.” Nothing much in that, apparently, other than the fact that a great deal of taxpayers’ money was spent on a series of unproductive visits. Unproductive, that is, save for convincing the converted that they must continue to support Bush, which is the major factor in White House management during the run-up to next year’s election; and thereby hangs the tale, which is not only important for America but for all of us out here.</p>
<p>A hundred US legislators visited Iraq, but, as Reuters recorded, the number did not include “Senator Christopher Dodd and three other Democrats critical of administration policy”. Why? Well, the official Washington answer was that they were denied permission to visit Iraq because there were “logistical problems”. There were what? This is the army that drove into Iraq and took over in a couple of weeks and it can’t arrange a visit by four Democrats because its logistics aren’t up to it? This is an Air Force with 126 C-5s and 539 C-130s plus another 1000 or so transports of various types and so many helicopters they would eclipse the Washington sun at midsummer midday were they to hover concentrically round the Memorial. But there is no space for four people to be taken to Iraq?</p>
<p>How could there possibly be logistical problems about a journey of four US legislators, or four anybodies, indeed, to Iraq? There is a public relations machine whirring in top gear to cater for all the visitors to Baghdad and much else besides. CNN reported Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle’s observation that “We were told an airplane was not available, but Britain offered an airplane . . . If Britain can offer United States senators an airplane, you would think the United States government could do so as well.” What can be going on?</p>
<p>First, there is the lie. It is patently absurd and blatantly insulting to expect anyone to believe that “logistical problems” prevented United States senators from visiting US soldiers in Iraq and receiving briefings from people on the ground concerning a major financial commitment about which they should be well-informed before voting on it. Senators Dodd and Daschle seemingly don’t want to have an undignified squabble with the White House and the Pentagon over this almost unbelievable incident involving denigratory and vulgar treatment of elected representatives of the American people, and the matter has been quietly put aside. But it gives a very good idea of the depths to which Bush administration apparatchiks will stoop in their control freakery. (And make no mistake about responsibility in this, because minions — even high mucky-muck minions — do not insult senators without approval of somebody.)</p>
<p>So the second point revealed by this example of Bush administration contempt for the norms of politeness towards political opponents is that if you do not agree with its every word and deed you are an enemy and must be punished. Even distinguished US senators must get into administration lockstep or they will be subject to treatment more usually associated with dysfunctional schoolyard bullies than with those at the highest levels in the capital of the most powerful nation in the world. Bush was not speaking lightly two years ago when he said “You’re either with us or against us in the fight against terror”. Although the threat at the time was unnecessary (and indeed stupidly offensive to many nations – remember the 9/11 headline in the French newspaper Le Monde : “We are all Americans now”?), most of us thought the Bush expression of intimidation was concerned solely with the ‘war on terrorism’. But it has developed a much, much wider intent. Down in the depths of his rancid little psyche, Bush has conjured up a new war which is uncannily reminiscent of the Nixon years.</p>
<p>Stephen Ambrose, in his book about Nixon 1962-1972, records that ” . . . late in the first term, Nixon was sitting round with Kissinger, Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Colson. They were discussing some of Nixon’s enemies, in this case antiwar [anti Vietnam war] Democratic senators. Nixon said ‘One day we will get them — we’ll get them on the ground where we want them. And we’ll stick our heels in, step on them hard and twist — right. Chuck, right?’ Colson nodded assent. ‘Henry knows what I mean,’ Nixon went on. ‘Get them on the floor and step on them, crush them, show no mercy.’ Kissinger smiled and nodded”.</p>
<p>Nobody can claim that such a scene has ever occurred in the present White House with Bush, Rice and Rove discussing anti war (anti Iraq war) Democratic Senators Dodd, Daschle and the others. Heaven forbid it should or could. All Washington would be shocked — shocked — if it did. But the tenor of events is eerily parallel with those of thirty years ago, when Nixon “accused the press of being liberal, softheaded, idealistic and out to get him . . . Nixon saw all criticisms of his policy as a criticism of his person brought on by the reporters’ hatred of him.” According to Kissinger in his modest ‘Years of Upheaval’ , Nixon’s reaction to the attitude of the press was “we should draw the wagons round the White House.” Move forward thirty years, and Bush’s reaction to the attitude of the press is “There’s a sense that the people in America aren’t getting the truth.”</p>
<p>Indeed there are efforts to prevent the American people being told the whole truth and nothing but the truth about Iraq (and much else besides), because the White House demands that unsavory matters remain under wraps, especially those that might place Bush himself in a poor light. Otherwise, revelation of truth has to be selective and, in the words of Bush, must indicate “there is a positive thing that is taking place inside of Iraq.” On the day he made that pronouncement there were at least seven incidents of violence directed at occupation forces in Iraq. (There may have been more. The system of reporting attacks on US troops is far from transparent, and there have been instances of engagements whose details would not have seen the light of day had it not been for the presence of media representatives. In one egregious case, the killing of an Iraqi interpreter by a casual shot fired by a soldier who has not faced disciplinary proceedings would have remained unreported had it not been that a distinguished foreigner was covered in the blood of his dying assistant.)</p>
<p>The beginning of the Bush campaign aimed at improving public awareness of all that is Good in Iraq involved despatch of the Commerce Secretary, Don Evans, to Baghdad for forty-eight hours, during which extended period of deep exposure to the country he decided that “I’m not scared here. I feel very safe here, quite frankly” (CNN October 14).</p>
<p>October 14 was the day on which three US soldiers were killed (in, respectively, Tikrit, Baiji and on a road fifteen miles north east of Baghdad). But the valiant Evans, surrounded by bodyguards, stuck to his guns, as it were (having overnighted in Kuwait), and announced that these were merely “isolated acts of terror”. He scolded the media and said “You have to look beyond these isolated incidents that are occurring”. Mike Allen of the Washington Post reported that “Asked if he had seen any problems Evans said ‘No, I have not. There’s lots to be done, in terms of rebuilding the economy of Iraq’.” So in 48 hours in Iraq, fearless Don Evans saw no problems. Mind you, as a Texas oil magnate Friend of George who directed the Bush 2000 election campaign, Evans could hardly be expected to see problems of any sort in Bush policy.</p>
<p>One positive thing about the Evans’ exploit is he demonstrated beyond doubt that he is a patronising oaf. When he saw two boys selling soft drinks he brought his convoy to a halt and bought one. Reuters reported “he called the youngsters symbols of Iraq’s entrepreneurial spirit and said ‘We need to bring more capital into this country . . . to develop the private sector’.” It would have been more to the point if he had asked why the kids weren’t at school, but his attitude epitomises the Bush approach to news : get a quick soundbite headline whenever you can. His proposal about bringing capital into Iraq is a reasonable one. Perhaps it might make up for the destruction by US troops of people’s livelihoods.</p>
<p>As reported by Patrick Cockburn in the Independent (UK) the day before dauntless Don dropped in, “US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as lemon and orange trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops . . . The children of one woman who owned some fruit trees lay down in front of a bulldozer but were dragged away, according to eyewitnesses . . . When a reporter . . . tried to take a photograph of the bulldozers at work a soldier grabbed his camera and tried to smash it . . .”</p>
<p>Of course any farmer who dared tell US troops about guerrillas would be signing his death warrant, as anyone with a shred of common sense would realise. Further, but seemingly irrelevant to modern US practice, Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states “No protected person [civilians under occupation rule] may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited [as are] reprisals against protected persons and their property.” An Iraqi newspaper quoted a US officer, Lt-Colonel Springman, as saying “We asked the farmers several times to stop the attacks or to tell us who was responsible but the farmers didn’t tell us.” So he destroyed their livelihoods. Little wonder occupation forces are hated by so many Iraqis. But we are assured by Evans there are no problems in Iraq and, as White House spokesman Scott McClellan said three days after the trees were destroyed to the sound of blaring jazz, “We’re making great progress about improving the lives of the people there in Iraq . . . ”</p>
<p>After spending four days in Baghdad, Rep George Nethercutt (R-Wash) told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on 13 October that “The story of what we’ve done in the post-war period is remarkable. It is a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day.” Oh my. There’s real compassion for you. For anyone to talk casually of “losing a couple of soldiers a day” is disgusting. But he is on message, just like Rep Greg Walden (R-Ore) who returned from his visit enthusing about “restoration of a water pumping station that is now irrigating 150,000 acres of farmland”. Pretty good. But a pity it isn’t irrigating the fields where all the fruit trees were bulldozed. (And obviously Reps Nethercutt and Walden are more important than Senators Daschle and Dodd.)</p>
<p>The vice-president and other administration figures have made speeches claiming much the same as Nethercutt, Evans and Walden : there is nothing new out of Iraq except good news and anything bad is the fault of the media. “There is a positive thing that is taking place inside of Iraq” is the Bush mantra of the moment, and an assault on middle America is being made to spread that message. But those who would try to deceive us end up deceiving themselves. In the words of Bush, “The people in America aren’t getting the truth”. He is quite right. Washington’s private self-deception is manifesting itself as public propaganda, and this is dangerous for the whole world, not just America.</p>
<p>BRIAN CLOUGHLEY writes about defense issues for CounterPunch, the Nation (Pakistan), the Daily Times of Pakistan and other international publications. His writings are collected on his website: <a href="http://www.briancloughley.com/" type="external">www.briancloughley.com</a>.</p>
<p>He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | 160 tiny reuters news item last week lot first glance might reveal administration arranged 75 house members 25 senators visit iraq recent weeks returned supporting bushs 87 billion proposal nothing much apparently fact great deal taxpayers money spent series unproductive visits unproductive save convincing converted must continue support bush major factor white house management runup next years election thereby hangs tale important america us hundred us legislators visited iraq reuters recorded number include senator christopher dodd three democrats critical administration policy well official washington answer denied permission visit iraq logistical problems army drove iraq took couple weeks cant arrange visit four democrats logistics arent air force 126 c5s 539 c130s plus another 1000 transports various types many helicopters would eclipse washington sun midsummer midday hover concentrically round memorial space four people taken iraq could possibly logistical problems journey four us legislators four anybodies indeed iraq public relations machine whirring top gear cater visitors baghdad much else besides cnn reported senate minority leader tom daschles observation told airplane available britain offered airplane britain offer united states senators airplane would think united states government could well going first lie patently absurd blatantly insulting expect anyone believe logistical problems prevented united states senators visiting us soldiers iraq receiving briefings people ground concerning major financial commitment wellinformed voting senators dodd daschle seemingly dont want undignified squabble white house pentagon almost unbelievable incident involving denigratory vulgar treatment elected representatives american people matter quietly put aside gives good idea depths bush administration apparatchiks stoop control freakery make mistake responsibility minions even high muckymuck minions insult senators without approval somebody second point revealed example bush administration contempt norms politeness towards political opponents agree every word deed enemy must punished even distinguished us senators must get administration lockstep subject treatment usually associated dysfunctional schoolyard bullies highest levels capital powerful nation world bush speaking lightly two years ago said youre either us us fight terror although threat time unnecessary indeed stupidly offensive many nations remember 911 headline french newspaper le monde americans us thought bush expression intimidation concerned solely war terrorism developed much much wider intent depths rancid little psyche bush conjured new war uncannily reminiscent nixon years stephen ambrose book nixon 19621972 records late first term nixon sitting round kissinger haldeman ehrlichman colson discussing nixons enemies case antiwar anti vietnam war democratic senators nixon said one day get well get ground want well stick heels step hard twist right chuck right colson nodded assent henry knows mean nixon went get floor step crush show mercy kissinger smiled nodded nobody claim scene ever occurred present white house bush rice rove discussing anti war anti iraq war democratic senators dodd daschle others heaven forbid could washington would shocked shocked tenor events eerily parallel thirty years ago nixon accused press liberal softheaded idealistic get nixon saw criticisms policy criticism person brought reporters hatred according kissinger modest years upheaval nixons reaction attitude press draw wagons round white house move forward thirty years bushs reaction attitude press theres sense people america arent getting truth indeed efforts prevent american people told whole truth nothing truth iraq much else besides white house demands unsavory matters remain wraps especially might place bush poor light otherwise revelation truth selective words bush must indicate positive thing taking place inside iraq day made pronouncement least seven incidents violence directed occupation forces iraq may system reporting attacks us troops far transparent instances engagements whose details would seen light day presence media representatives one egregious case killing iraqi interpreter casual shot fired soldier faced disciplinary proceedings would remained unreported distinguished foreigner covered blood dying assistant beginning bush campaign aimed improving public awareness good iraq involved despatch commerce secretary evans baghdad fortyeight hours extended period deep exposure country decided im scared feel safe quite frankly cnn october 14 october 14 day three us soldiers killed respectively tikrit baiji road fifteen miles north east baghdad valiant evans surrounded bodyguards stuck guns overnighted kuwait announced merely isolated acts terror scolded media said look beyond isolated incidents occurring mike allen washington post reported asked seen problems evans said theres lots done terms rebuilding economy iraq 48 hours iraq fearless evans saw problems mind texas oil magnate friend george directed bush 2000 election campaign evans could hardly expected see problems sort bush policy one positive thing evans exploit demonstrated beyond doubt patronising oaf saw two boys selling soft drinks brought convoy halt bought one reuters reported called youngsters symbols iraqs entrepreneurial spirit said need bring capital country develop private sector would point asked kids werent school attitude epitomises bush approach news get quick soundbite headline whenever proposal bringing capital iraq reasonable one perhaps might make destruction us troops peoples livelihoods reported patrick cockburn independent uk day dauntless dropped us soldiers driving bulldozers jazz blaring loudspeakers uprooted ancient groves date palms well lemon orange trees central iraq part new policy collective punishment farmers give information guerrillas attacking us troops children one woman owned fruit trees lay front bulldozer dragged away according eyewitnesses reporter tried take photograph bulldozers work soldier grabbed camera tried smash course farmer dared tell us troops guerrillas would signing death warrant anyone shred common sense would realise seemingly irrelevant modern us practice article 33 fourth geneva convention states protected person civilians occupation rule may punished offence personally committed collective penalties likewise measures intimidation terrorism prohibited reprisals protected persons property iraqi newspaper quoted us officer ltcolonel springman saying asked farmers several times stop attacks tell us responsible farmers didnt tell us destroyed livelihoods little wonder occupation forces hated many iraqis assured evans problems iraq white house spokesman scott mcclellan said three days trees destroyed sound blaring jazz making great progress improving lives people iraq spending four days baghdad rep george nethercutt rwash told seattle postintelligencer 13 october story weve done postwar period remarkable better important story losing couple soldiers every day oh theres real compassion anyone talk casually losing couple soldiers day disgusting message like rep greg walden rore returned visit enthusing restoration water pumping station irrigating 150000 acres farmland pretty good pity isnt irrigating fields fruit trees bulldozed obviously reps nethercutt walden important senators daschle dodd vicepresident administration figures made speeches claiming much nethercutt evans walden nothing new iraq except good news anything bad fault media positive thing taking place inside iraq bush mantra moment assault middle america made spread message would try deceive us end deceiving words bush people america arent getting truth quite right washingtons private selfdeception manifesting public propaganda dangerous whole world america brian cloughley writes defense issues counterpunch nation pakistan daily times pakistan international publications writings collected website wwwbriancloughleycom reached beecluffaolcom 160 | 1,092 |
<p>Earlier this month, the sixth season of CBS’ Big Brother premiered with the subtitle “Summer of Secrets.” The reality show, premised on the hypervisibility of a tightly controlled domestic space, must’ve realized that voyeuristic pleasure in total surveillance was no longer satisfying. Consequently, they distributed a variety of “zones of imperceptibility” into their game: hidden rooms, clandestine pacts, and covert operations/rules. Little did the producers of the show know just how prescient they were in capturing the zeitgeist of Summer 2005.</p>
<p>Take, for instance, the “Secret Group of Al-Qaeda in Europe” (the “organization” that originally claimed responsibility for the London bombings). The name speaks volumes. Why call it the “secret” groupis it opposed to the “public” group? If it were more in tune with the times, it whould be called the Super-Secret Group. The moniker sounds like an unintended effect of Western cultural imperialism; namely, too many comic book-inspired movies. What next, “The Fantastic 4 Allah”? It all sounds like a continuation of 2003’s Legion of Doom-named Iraqi villains, “Chemical Ali” and “Dr. Germ”. It makes one wonder if Stan Lee is now working for the Rendon Group!</p>
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<p>Downing the Rabbit Hole</p>
<p>One of the biggest mysteries of the early summer was eventually lost amid the shuffle of other major stories. The Downing Street Memo (DSM) was remarkable not for its content but for the fact that so little attention was paid to it by mainstream media. Pundits spent more time dismissing the memo than following up on it. Christopher Hitchens, that neo-centrist perception manager, added to his portfolio on dissent-bashing with a piece on the DSM as “conspiracy theory.”</p>
<p>It should come as no surprise that mainstream journalism didn’t set the agenda with the DSM. Looking back on the past year of state/press relations, how could corporate journalism do anything but? Oh, Bush Administration, you want to consistently lie to us humble journalists in order to start a war? Well we just might have to write an indignant all-too-late op-ed piece and then come back for some more abuse! Tightly control press conferences with pre-selected questions? Well, we appreciate any access, so I guess that’s the best we can get right now. Manipulate our reporters with anonymous leaks and dirty tricks? Ok, we forgive you, but you watch out next time, ya big lug! Plant a fake journalist among our ranks? Naughty, naughty, but thanks for giving us a diversionary homoerotic titillation!</p>
<p>How many more mea culpas can we tolerate from these lapdogs? When our own friends end up repeating self-destructive behaviors (going in and out of addictive drug-hazes, returning to a toxic and abusive partner) we will draw a line. Why do we allow these guests, who are supposed to be working in our name, to get away with more? We’ve been extremely patient during their bouts of recovery. It’s about time we recognize the decades-long exodus of journalistic consumers not as “apathy” but as the self-affirming popular decision to stop sticking around a user. No need here for a collective intervention: professional journalism should be shown some tough love and the door.</p>
<p>Embedded journalism, from this bitter-medicine perspective, was corporate journalism’s last gasp to purify itself. This may seem counterintuitive at first, but I’m just updating Jean Baudrillard’s insights on Disney: embedded journalism exists to make us think that the rest of mainstream journalism is not embedded. So let’s not look to these dependent dinosaurs for our hope or moral edification. We should begin with the assumption that all mainstream journalism is embedded journalism until it can prove otherwise. Without this symbolic dependency, we can begin candidly assessing journalism’s relationship with secrecy.</p>
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<p>The Plame Game</p>
<p>Calls for Karl Rove’s firing for leaking Valerie Plame’s name have been met with Republican Party line retorts that no “clear evidence” can be found. After much evasion and prevarication by press secretary Scott McLellan, Bush finally announced that the threshold of Rove tolerance would be juridical: Rove would have to have committed a crime in order to be axed. Drawing a distinction between legal and ethical standards seemed not to matter.</p>
<p>More than Rove’s actual legal status, we can begin asking questions about the nature of evidence in the court of public opinion. What is the status of evidence in a context of epistemological uncertainty? What can count as proof, and what effects does proof have? The Downing Street Memo shows that proof is itself contestable-what is evidence of evidence?</p>
<p>Crime and evidence have taken on new cultural functions. The US is rife with anti-lawyer sentiments, from the rise in lawyer jokes to the smearing of John Edwards’ vice-presidential campaign with charges that he was an “ambulance chaser.” Interestingly, these sentiments are primarily targeted at criminal defense attorneys or civil prosecutors, while overzealous criminal prosecutors rarely get scapegoated. The notable recent exception here is Michael Jackson’s legion of supporters, who themselves became the target of derision and insult.</p>
<p>More than humor, rightwing pundits now have taken on Defense Attorney status with the Bush administration in the court of public opinion. The party line on Rove was delivered with univocality, making the old Soviet Politburo seem like a teeming marketplace of ideas. As virtual defense lawyers, the rightwing apparatchiks may know their client’s guilt, but will act as apologists at all costs. Any criticism of their client, then, must be founded on prosecutorial evidential standards.</p>
<p>At the same time, other much looser standards are applied to make the case against official Terror/War enemies. Much ink has been spilled on the flimsy, fixed, and fabricated evidence of the need to invade Iraq. Insinuations, when strongly worded, repeatedly uttered, and widely distributed stand in as evidence of a “vague connection” or “some kind of link”. Take the scandalous story of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the newly elected Iranian president. Ahmadinejad was accused of being one of the hostage takers during the 1979 siege of the US embassy in Iran. Four days after his election, a handful of the former hostages (seemingly spontaneously, but actually with prompting from the oppositional “news” organization Iran Focus) reported that he looked exactly like one of their captors. Even while other former detainees and forensic experts denied the link, the power of suggestion was visually anchored through the side-by-side juxtaposition of two photos for over 24 hours. Ultimately disproven, the truth mattered little as the flood coverage secured an image-link. The effects are yet to be seen but we can speculate that defining Iran as a terrorist state in need of regime change just got easier.</p>
<p>An even looser evidential standard comes via the metaphorical use of the classic incontrovertible identifying trace of a criminal: the fingerprint.</p>
<p>Immediately after the 7/7 London bombing, we were told that terror experts were looking for a “signature” or fingerprints to identify the perpetrators. Perhaps on a post-binge high after watching a CSI marathon, these Global Security forensic artists came up with some doozies. The flimsiest of details became proof: the targeting of “transportation” was seen as an Al-Qaeda fingerprint. Never mind that Europe has known mass transit to be a target at least since the 1980 bombing of the Bologna railway station (purportedly by the Red Brigades, but subsequently shown to have murkier origins).</p>
<p>Simultaneous bombings? “Must be Al-Qaeda!” sayeth the security sleuths. It’s such an ingenious method that not only could no one else have invented it, no one else could even mimic it! Instead of being glued to forensic drama television, these “trace” theorists would be wise to review virtually every action thriller film from the 1960s onwards, paying particular attention to the phrase “Let’s synchronize our watches.”</p>
<p>Perhaps the silliest, yet potentially sinister, bit of proof is occurring around the desperate search for Al-Qaeda links between 7/7 and the “failed copycat” bombings of 7/21. Plainclothes information officers came up with this Eureka: the suspects used the same brand of bookbag! Consumerist ideology now influences terrorism investigations, with their shared assumption that an individual’s uniqueness is expressed through consumer purchases. Are you a budding bomber but tired of generic rucksacks that easily tear, exposing your telltale wires? Want to stand out in the “transit-terror” crowd (but blend in at the same time)? No fear, Land’s End is here! And if you happen to own one of these for, say, school or travelling, never mind the “random” searches likely to come your way. Think of it as a value-added service (quasi-celebrity attention) associated with wearing the right label.</p>
<p>Public rhetorical tactics like these (loud insinuation, forensic metaphors, “expert” dependence) are effective because they are publicly irrefutable-they disguise themselves as evidence. What’s worse, the fingerprint metaphor rarely transfers to domestic skullduggery. False stories, disinformation campaigns, and hoaxes are perpetrated in US media (e.g. the Dan Rather memo, Jeff Gannon plant, Iranian president/hostage taker link). Rarely will anyone in corporate journalism utter the word “fingerprints” regarding Rove or any other psy operative. When the praetorian media guard proclaim “there are no smoking guns here,” they command top billing. Ultimately, it’s not about producing more evidence, but being able to determine the situations in which particular standards of evidence can be applied. Karl, Kevlar Konsultant</p>
<p>Perhaps the problem is with the overreliance on evidence itself. Facts on their own have no necessary effects on an audience. For instance, what does evidence do for a people lacking will and memory? The same facts, which in one context are testimony to wrongdoing, can become evidence of invincibility. Without the proper circumstances of popular will and/or organizational channels, power absorbs these attacks as confirmation of its own unassailability. Rove’s mischief in the Plame Game, rather than being a telltale sign of perfidy, becomes proof of his ingenious craft of plausible deniability. Newsweek reporter Dana Milbank exclaimed on MSNBC that Rove was “too big to fail” (7/11). Other pundits noted that, good or bad, Rove was ‘Bush’s Brain’, insinuating that it would be an impossible extrication. To counter this impossibility, may we kindly recommend Anthony Hopkins’ surgical/culinary treat for Ray Liotta in the closing scenes of Hannibal.</p>
<p>The scandals that surrounded the Clinton White House (often coded through naturalizing terms like “cloud,” “climate,” or “fog”) were in large part due to incessant media attention. Not only is this natural haze not enveloping the Bush White House, thanks to “liberal media” it has morphed into armor. If Ronald Reagan was the Teflon President, Rove is the Kevlar Konsultant. Actually, Kevlar doesn’t quite capture the process. In a world of techno-organic fusion, we might better look to a sci-fi image: an armor that absorbs and reintegrates artillery directed at it, leaving a bio-synthetic “scar” that hardens the material.</p>
<p>Rove’s fate is a watershed symptom, not the least for what it says about totalitarianism’s immune system. If he stays on, his power grows stronger after a failed attack. Like the staged assassination attempts of ancient regimes, it will further numb popular will, at least when it comes to electoral politics. If Rove is fired, he would likely stick around, withdrawing even further into “double supersecret background” where he could secrete influence from the protective cover of shadows.</p>
<p>Reliance on evidence in the court of public opinion is important, but excessive faith in it may also limit our strategies. It narrows our understanding of the current era to events in the public sphere. Guy Debord, that premiere analyst of the spectacle and secrecy, recommended that people “make use of what is hidden” from them. If we don’t expand our analysis to what might be called the “secret sphere,” we will continue to grope in the dark while believing everything is illuminated.</p>
<p>JACK Z. BRATICH is assistant professor at Rutgers University. He is currently writing a book on conspiracy panics, as well as doing research on public secrecy and popular occulture. His fingerprints are all over this essay. 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 | earlier month sixth season cbs big brother premiered subtitle summer secrets reality show premised hypervisibility tightly controlled domestic space mustve realized voyeuristic pleasure total surveillance longer satisfying consequently distributed variety zones imperceptibility game hidden rooms clandestine pacts covert operationsrules little producers show know prescient capturing zeitgeist summer 2005 take instance secret group alqaeda europe organization originally claimed responsibility london bombings name speaks volumes call secret groupis opposed public group tune times whould called supersecret group moniker sounds like unintended effect western cultural imperialism namely many comic bookinspired movies next fantastic 4 allah sounds like continuation 2003s legion doomnamed iraqi villains chemical ali dr germ makes one wonder stan lee working rendon group 160 downing rabbit hole one biggest mysteries early summer eventually lost amid shuffle major stories downing street memo dsm remarkable content fact little attention paid mainstream media pundits spent time dismissing memo following christopher hitchens neocentrist perception manager added portfolio dissentbashing piece dsm conspiracy theory come surprise mainstream journalism didnt set agenda dsm looking back past year statepress relations could corporate journalism anything oh bush administration want consistently lie us humble journalists order start war well might write indignant alltoolate oped piece come back abuse tightly control press conferences preselected questions well appreciate access guess thats best get right manipulate reporters anonymous leaks dirty tricks ok forgive watch next time ya big lug plant fake journalist among ranks naughty naughty thanks giving us diversionary homoerotic titillation many mea culpas tolerate lapdogs friends end repeating selfdestructive behaviors going addictive drughazes returning toxic abusive partner draw line allow guests supposed working name get away weve extremely patient bouts recovery time recognize decadeslong exodus journalistic consumers apathy selfaffirming popular decision stop sticking around user need collective intervention professional journalism shown tough love door embedded journalism bittermedicine perspective corporate journalisms last gasp purify may seem counterintuitive first im updating jean baudrillards insights disney embedded journalism exists make us think rest mainstream journalism embedded lets look dependent dinosaurs hope moral edification begin assumption mainstream journalism embedded journalism prove otherwise without symbolic dependency begin candidly assessing journalisms relationship secrecy 160 plame game calls karl roves firing leaking valerie plames name met republican party line retorts clear evidence found much evasion prevarication press secretary scott mclellan bush finally announced threshold rove tolerance would juridical rove would committed crime order axed drawing distinction legal ethical standards seemed matter roves actual legal status begin asking questions nature evidence court public opinion status evidence context epistemological uncertainty count proof effects proof downing street memo shows proof contestablewhat evidence evidence crime evidence taken new cultural functions us rife antilawyer sentiments rise lawyer jokes smearing john edwards vicepresidential campaign charges ambulance chaser interestingly sentiments primarily targeted criminal defense attorneys civil prosecutors overzealous criminal prosecutors rarely get scapegoated notable recent exception michael jacksons legion supporters became target derision insult humor rightwing pundits taken defense attorney status bush administration court public opinion party line rove delivered univocality making old soviet politburo seem like teeming marketplace ideas virtual defense lawyers rightwing apparatchiks may know clients guilt act apologists costs criticism client must founded prosecutorial evidential standards time much looser standards applied make case official terrorwar enemies much ink spilled flimsy fixed fabricated evidence need invade iraq insinuations strongly worded repeatedly uttered widely distributed stand evidence vague connection kind link take scandalous story mahmoud ahmadinejad newly elected iranian president ahmadinejad accused one hostage takers 1979 siege us embassy iran four days election handful former hostages seemingly spontaneously actually prompting oppositional news organization iran focus reported looked exactly like one captors even former detainees forensic experts denied link power suggestion visually anchored sidebyside juxtaposition two photos 24 hours ultimately disproven truth mattered little flood coverage secured imagelink effects yet seen speculate defining iran terrorist state need regime change got easier even looser evidential standard comes via metaphorical use classic incontrovertible identifying trace criminal fingerprint immediately 77 london bombing told terror experts looking signature fingerprints identify perpetrators perhaps postbinge high watching csi marathon global security forensic artists came doozies flimsiest details became proof targeting transportation seen alqaeda fingerprint never mind europe known mass transit target least since 1980 bombing bologna railway station purportedly red brigades subsequently shown murkier origins simultaneous bombings must alqaeda sayeth security sleuths ingenious method could one else invented one else could even mimic instead glued forensic drama television trace theorists would wise review virtually every action thriller film 1960s onwards paying particular attention phrase lets synchronize watches perhaps silliest yet potentially sinister bit proof occurring around desperate search alqaeda links 77 failed copycat bombings 721 plainclothes information officers came eureka suspects used brand bookbag consumerist ideology influences terrorism investigations shared assumption individuals uniqueness expressed consumer purchases budding bomber tired generic rucksacks easily tear exposing telltale wires want stand transitterror crowd blend time fear lands end happen one say school travelling never mind random searches likely come way think valueadded service quasicelebrity attention associated wearing right label public rhetorical tactics like loud insinuation forensic metaphors expert dependence effective publicly irrefutablethey disguise evidence whats worse fingerprint metaphor rarely transfers domestic skullduggery false stories disinformation campaigns hoaxes perpetrated us media eg dan rather memo jeff gannon plant iranian presidenthostage taker link rarely anyone corporate journalism utter word fingerprints regarding rove psy operative praetorian media guard proclaim smoking guns command top billing ultimately producing evidence able determine situations particular standards evidence applied karl kevlar konsultant perhaps problem overreliance evidence facts necessary effects audience instance evidence people lacking memory facts one context testimony wrongdoing become evidence invincibility without proper circumstances popular andor organizational channels power absorbs attacks confirmation unassailability roves mischief plame game rather telltale sign perfidy becomes proof ingenious craft plausible deniability newsweek reporter dana milbank exclaimed msnbc rove big fail 711 pundits noted good bad rove bushs brain insinuating would impossible extrication counter impossibility may kindly recommend anthony hopkins surgicalculinary treat ray liotta closing scenes hannibal scandals surrounded clinton white house often coded naturalizing terms like cloud climate fog large part due incessant media attention natural haze enveloping bush white house thanks liberal media morphed armor ronald reagan teflon president rove kevlar konsultant actually kevlar doesnt quite capture process world technoorganic fusion might better look scifi image armor absorbs reintegrates artillery directed leaving biosynthetic scar hardens material roves fate watershed symptom least says totalitarianisms immune system stays power grows stronger failed attack like staged assassination attempts ancient regimes numb popular least comes electoral politics rove fired would likely stick around withdrawing even double supersecret background could secrete influence protective cover shadows reliance evidence court public opinion important excessive faith may also limit strategies narrows understanding current era events public sphere guy debord premiere analyst spectacle secrecy recommended people make use hidden dont expand analysis might called secret sphere continue grope dark believing everything illuminated jack z bratich assistant professor rutgers university currently writing book conspiracy panics well research public secrecy popular occulture fingerprints essay reached jbratichrcirutgersedu 160 160 | 1,143 |
<p>Mitt Romney ventured into Miami this week and at a campaign stop at Palacios de los Jugos, only a day after introducing his running mate Congressman Paul Ryan.</p>
<p>Romney, without Ryan, did not mention “Cuba”, once. It was a check-the-box visit to a key constituency in a swing state. That the venue was owned by a federally convicted coke smuggler (reported by Miami New Times) serves to remind that when considering Florida politics, Miami is ground zero. It is where the 2000 presidential election was stolen. It is where the housing boom materialized. It is the mortgage fraud capital of the United States. It is where backstories deserve attention.</p>
<p>Romney was introduced by Florida senator Marco Rubio, a political offspring of Castro hatred. Rubio has plenty of company; he is a West Dade boy through and through. The bona fides against Castro are so important in Miami politics that Rubio’s resume includes serious misrepresentations of his parents’ experiences prior to becoming exiles from Cuba.</p>
<p>On one level the primary purpose of anti-Castro fervor was used to enlist support in Congress for re-taking the island nation and then, to grind its economy to dirt. A more important purpose, though less recognized by the rest of the nation, was to organize control of Miami-Dade politics, including contracts flowing from its multi-billion dollar budget. Jorge Mas Canosa, the founder of the Cuban America National Foundation in Miami, became renown for the railing against the Castro regime, but he was wealthy through political connections at County Hall. There were two important purposes of that control: first, to influence infrastructure contracts and, second, to rezone farmland to development. Both cemented political alliances. Anti-Castro sentiment was easier to mine in the Mas generation because the wounds were so fresh. Over time, and after Miami-Dade politics was locked down by Cuban American campaign funders from the development community, the demographics began to change. Mas Canosa (and Miami’s) economic base was suburban sprawl, places like West Dade where Marco Rubio grew up. As suburbs moved further and further from real jobs at the airport or downtown, the new buyers in those former Everglades wetlands were less likely to be Cuban than flight capital from other parts of the Americas.</p>
<p>The person who most closely followed Mas’ leadership in the business community, at the intersection of local politics and zoning control, was a Cuban American developer, Sergio Pino. Pino and his allies exerted control through the Latin Builders Association and through support of Spanish AM radio personalities who specialized in riling up voting blocs with anti-Castro venom. In contrast to Mas, Pino was and is all business. And business is non-partisan (although in Miami it leans heavily GOP). Chris Korge — prominent Democratic fundraiser– and Rodney Barreto — Jeb Bush lieutenant — found wealth following in Pino’s “lobbyist, first, developer later” footsteps.</p>
<p>Two factors are in play, in the “post-ideology” Miami. First, demographics. Younger Cuban Americans are eager to help family left behind in Cuba and view the Miami-Dade political ladder with cynicism. It carries over to indifference and even animosity toward the embargo. The second is economics. The housing crash severely hobbled suburban sprawl in west Dade. Many of the principal actors — like Pino — have been pinned down by debt. The housing crash collapsed Miami businesses based on sprawl. Pino founded US Century Bank to compliment his production home building juggernaut, US Century Homes. The bank, during the boom boom years, grew quickly to over a billion dollars in deposits and a reputation as the insider piggy-bank, but now hobbles along — its Tier One Capital supported by the largest contribution of federal TARP money in the state of Florida.</p>
<p>In Miami New Times, the owner of Palacios de los Jugos Reinaldo Bermudez, who served three years in federal prison, observed, “Here in Miami there are a lot of people with money who have had problems with the law… Thankfully, we all have the opportunity in this country to re-enter society when we’ve done something wrong.”</p>
<p>But there are also a few people who organized vast economic wealth around local political levers that operated according to hatred of Castro which wasn’t illegal in the slightest. It is supported by US foreign policy. They, too, are looking for a way back in the game and in the way that agnostic application of politics most benefits: dropping the embargo against Cuba. There is no money to be made building suburbs in Miami. Havana? Not yet.</p>
<p>There are external factors at work. The collapse of real estate and banking in Spain has had an important effect on local Miami deal makers who successfully exported their business models to Spain, where US-style ghost suburbs now litter the landscape. There has been very little examination of this phenomenon through which a compelling argument can now be made, by Republicans, that lifting the embargo is needed to revive fortunes that were lost in the crash.</p>
<p>Who, exactly, gets to “control” access to Cuba from Miami is the question.</p>
<p>So long as the Cuban American developers were printing money by rezoning farmland to sprawl, the embargo served the purpose to organize Miami and Florida politics to their bidding. Now that sprawl is dead in the dust, the rationale for opposing trade with Cuba has vanished. It requires some leadership in the Cuban American community to reorganize the story line, in order to drop the embargo. The Romney agreement to deploy Marco Rubio, a surrogate for Jeb Bush, to deliver his introduction at the upcoming Republican National Convention applies. Rubio in the spotlight focuses on the electoral value of Florida. But that ignores the backstory. Behind the scenes, it sets the stage for a reversal of the embargo in a way that advantages the GOP if Romney wins.</p>
<p>It is anyone’s guess how Cuba will react to withdrawing the embargo under a Romney presidency. Insiders in Cuba have also benefited from the intractable status quo. But if Republicans vote to bring down the wall, deals will be made regarding access. The stakes are so high in Miami that Republican leaders may decide to sit on the issue until after the election. On the other hand, there is Paul Ryan who was sent to Iowa instead of appearing as expected with Romney in Miami. Delaying support for dropping the embargo could cost Romney the election. Why? Because Romney desperately needs Hispanic votes. Were he to signal support for his running mate’s opposition to the embargo, there would be a rainbow effect with Hispanic voters in western states. Is there a plan afoot to hold down Florida, by Rubio, while Romney ventures across the states?</p>
<p>Timing is everything. Were Romney to play the drop-the-embargo card and lose, it would give President Obama — in his second term — political cover to take down the wall. But the Republicans would not be in control. Democratic senator Bob Menendez (NJ), would. And because of that risk, Florida GOP leaders like Bush and Rubio may sit on their hands this cycle, stop Romney from talking about Cuba or only give him talking points that rehash the same old garbage and let him fight for the Hispanic vote on his own. So what?</p>
<p>Miami Republicans have waited fifty years for Cuba, deploying US foreign policy gridlock to mine political benefits like a Ditch Witch while extracting massive wealth from suburban sprawl. What’s another four more years?</p>
<p>ALAN FARAGO, conservation chair of&#160; <a href="http://www.everglades.org/" type="external">Friends of the Everglades</a>, lives in south Florida. He can be reached at:&#160; <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | mitt romney ventured miami week campaign stop palacios de los jugos day introducing running mate congressman paul ryan romney without ryan mention cuba checkthebox visit key constituency swing state venue owned federally convicted coke smuggler reported miami new times serves remind considering florida politics miami ground zero 2000 presidential election stolen housing boom materialized mortgage fraud capital united states backstories deserve attention romney introduced florida senator marco rubio political offspring castro hatred rubio plenty company west dade boy bona fides castro important miami politics rubios resume includes serious misrepresentations parents experiences prior becoming exiles cuba one level primary purpose anticastro fervor used enlist support congress retaking island nation grind economy dirt important purpose though less recognized rest nation organize control miamidade politics including contracts flowing multibillion dollar budget jorge mas canosa founder cuban america national foundation miami became renown railing castro regime wealthy political connections county hall two important purposes control first influence infrastructure contracts second rezone farmland development cemented political alliances anticastro sentiment easier mine mas generation wounds fresh time miamidade politics locked cuban american campaign funders development community demographics began change mas canosa miamis economic base suburban sprawl places like west dade marco rubio grew suburbs moved real jobs airport downtown new buyers former everglades wetlands less likely cuban flight capital parts americas person closely followed mas leadership business community intersection local politics zoning control cuban american developer sergio pino pino allies exerted control latin builders association support spanish radio personalities specialized riling voting blocs anticastro venom contrast mas pino business business nonpartisan although miami leans heavily gop chris korge prominent democratic fundraiser rodney barreto jeb bush lieutenant found wealth following pinos lobbyist first developer later footsteps two factors play postideology miami first demographics younger cuban americans eager help family left behind cuba view miamidade political ladder cynicism carries indifference even animosity toward embargo second economics housing crash severely hobbled suburban sprawl west dade many principal actors like pino pinned debt housing crash collapsed miami businesses based sprawl pino founded us century bank compliment production home building juggernaut us century homes bank boom boom years grew quickly billion dollars deposits reputation insider piggybank hobbles along tier one capital supported largest contribution federal tarp money state florida miami new times owner palacios de los jugos reinaldo bermudez served three years federal prison observed miami lot people money problems law thankfully opportunity country reenter society weve done something wrong also people organized vast economic wealth around local political levers operated according hatred castro wasnt illegal slightest supported us foreign policy looking way back game way agnostic application politics benefits dropping embargo cuba money made building suburbs miami havana yet external factors work collapse real estate banking spain important effect local miami deal makers successfully exported business models spain usstyle ghost suburbs litter landscape little examination phenomenon compelling argument made republicans lifting embargo needed revive fortunes lost crash exactly gets control access cuba miami question long cuban american developers printing money rezoning farmland sprawl embargo served purpose organize miami florida politics bidding sprawl dead dust rationale opposing trade cuba vanished requires leadership cuban american community reorganize story line order drop embargo romney agreement deploy marco rubio surrogate jeb bush deliver introduction upcoming republican national convention applies rubio spotlight focuses electoral value florida ignores backstory behind scenes sets stage reversal embargo way advantages gop romney wins anyones guess cuba react withdrawing embargo romney presidency insiders cuba also benefited intractable status quo republicans vote bring wall deals made regarding access stakes high miami republican leaders may decide sit issue election hand paul ryan sent iowa instead appearing expected romney miami delaying support dropping embargo could cost romney election romney desperately needs hispanic votes signal support running mates opposition embargo would rainbow effect hispanic voters western states plan afoot hold florida rubio romney ventures across states timing everything romney play droptheembargo card lose would give president obama second term political cover take wall republicans would control democratic senator bob menendez nj would risk florida gop leaders like bush rubio may sit hands cycle stop romney talking cuba give talking points rehash old garbage let fight hispanic vote miami republicans waited fifty years cuba deploying us foreign policy gridlock mine political benefits like ditch witch extracting massive wealth suburban sprawl whats another four years alan farago conservation chair of160 friends everglades lives south florida reached at160 afaragobellsouthnet 160 | 723 |
<p>Mass solidarity is absolutely vital to the success of any social movement.</p>
<p>It is precisely the lack of such solidarity, however, that’s prohibiting mobilization in favor of socialized medicine.&#160; Rather than demand meaningful reform, Americans have left the question of whether there will be a public option or Medicare for all system to politicians – the vast majority of which are reluctant to fight for universal health care.</p>
<p>Congressional Democrats are set to pass a health care bill within the next month through the “reconciliation process” – which seeks to merge competing versions of health care reform previously passed in the House and Senate, and also allows Democrats to circumvent any possible filibuster attempt by Republicans.&#160; President Obama postponed a trip to Indonesia and Australia in order to lead a last PR effort to win over those in the general public who are still undecided on health care.&#160; Obama recently explained that “The United States Congress owes the American people a final, up or down vote on health care… It’s time to make a decision. The time for talk is over. We need to see where people stand.”</p>
<p>Whatever compromise is achieved by Democrats in the final House and Senate bill, it may not contain a public option, and undoubtedly will not include a provision establishing a single payer, Medicare-for-all system.&#160; It’s worth reflecting upon why Democrats consider universal health care to be beyond reach.&#160; It should be noted that opposition doesn’tspring primarily from the American public.&#160; Most Americans have long supported the idea of a public option.&#160; Additionally, universal health care programs such as Medicare are widely popular among a majority of the public.&#160; Primary opposition comes not from the grassroots level – as the tea party would have us believe – but from political officials and corporate America.&#160; America’s political-business class views progressive taxation in the name of universal health care as an unfair burden on the wealthy.&#160; It is this group that has led a successful media coup to convince a growing number of the middle class to oppose reform.</p>
<p>It is increasingly the case that elitist values are supplanting those of the middle class, as recent public opinion surveys demonstrate.&#160; I dub this the empathy problem – average Americans are sympathetic to health care reform in principle, yet they oppose health care reform more generally, and are unwilling to participate in a mass social movement to force officials to implement universal health care.&#160; Increasingly, the well off – those with decent to well paying jobs and with medical coverage – are taken in by fear mongering about health care “rationing,” “death panels” and government socialism (see “ <a href="http://www.zcommunications.org/war-of-the-words-by-anthony-dimaggio" type="external">War of the Words: How Town Hall Crashers, Media, and Pollsters are Transforming Public Opinion</a>”).&#160; These individuals do not represent the heart and soul of corporate America.&#160; Nonetheless, they are being used by the wealthy to stifle any changes that would cost the leaders of corporate America a significant portion of their wealth.</p>
<p>As recent public opinion polls demonstrate, those who pay closer attention to the media’s reporting on the health care debate in Congress are not only more likely to be confused about the specific reforms being proposed, they’re also more likely to oppose the health care reform (see the Pew Research Center health care surveys from July 2009, September 2009, and March 2010).&#160; In short, reactionary officials and media are actively manipulating Americans into opposing even limited health care reform.&#160; This is all the more disturbing considering that polls show that, while Americans increasingly oppose health care reform, they support the specific provisions promoted by Democrats, including establishing a public option, providing government subsidies for those who can’t afford health care, prohibiting insurance companies from dropping customers for pre-existing conditions, requiring employers to provide health care to all employees, expanding Medicare to cover those 55 and over, expanding state child health insurance programs, and expanding of Medicaid (see Kaiser Foundation Aug. 2009 polling, McClatchy &amp; CNN’s polling from November 2009, and Newsweek’s Feb. 2010 polling).</p>
<p>The indoctrination of middle America on health care reform is evident in public opinion surveys.&#160; Some quick statistical work, employing surveys produced by the Pew Research Center over the last year, put this problem into better perspective.&#160; These surveys demonstrate that there are systematic differences between middle America and those who are struggling to get by:</p>
<p>-Those who have no problems paying for their medical bills or for prescription drugs are more than twice as likely to deny that the medical system needs to be “completely rebuilt.”&#160; In terms of the hard numbers, 59 percent of those with trouble paying for drugs want to see health care completely rebuilt, while just 31 percent of those with no prescription problems feel the same way.&#160; Similarly, 63 percent of those with problems paying for medical care more generally support completely restructuring health care, but just 29 percent of those without problems support such restructuring (see the June 2009, Pew Research Center health care survey).</p>
<p>-Those that already have health care coverage are consistently more likely to oppose Congressional Democrats’ and Obama’s efforts to promote health care reform.&#160; The insured are more likely to oppose a government plan or public option, and less likely to trust the government in general in dealing with reform. &#160;Opposition to reform reaches a majority for the privileged, with 57 percent of those with health care coverage opposing reform, and 60 percent of the uninsured supporting reform (see the July 2009, Pew Research Center survey).</p>
<p>-Following the 2008 economic crisis, wealthier middle class Americans are consistently more likely to oppose increased government spending on social services.&#160; While 55 percent of those making less than $30,000 a year support increasing social services, support declines to just 34 percent among those making more than $50,000 a year.&#160; Wealthier Americans, in addition to the highly educated, are more likely to put their faith in “free markets” over the government when it comes to interventions in their personal lives (see the March 2009, Pew Research Center survey).</p>
<p>The empathy problem extends beyond the figures above.&#160; Privileged Americans tend to think the economy is in better shape than those who are struggling to get by.&#160; This problem is not new, as President Harry Truman famously said about the public’s perceptions of troubled times: “It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose yours.” &#160;Public denial about the dire economic state of contemporary America is strongest among the privileged:</p>
<p>-As of early 2009, Americans who reported strong personal finances and no credit problems were consistently more likely to be optimistic about the future of the economy.&#160; Wealthier middle class earners were more likely to be angry at homeowners for taking out sub-prime mortgages they couldn’t afford, and more likely to be angry about the budget deficit, but were no more likely to harbor anger about the bank bailout.&#160; These trends are precisely what one would expect in a country where well off middle America is indoctrinated by upper class propaganda.&#160; Paradoxically, wealthier middle class earners are enraged about the budget deficit (a common feeling among political and business elites), but not about the bank bailout that contributed greatly to the deficit.&#160; Increasingly, wealthier middle class earners are turning their anger toward social welfare programs – such as health care reform (see the statistics on public opinion and health care above).&#160; This is a common strategy among business and political elites – direct public outrage toward budget deficits that result from social welfare spending, cry and moan about the unsustainability of “entitlement programs,” and direct attention away from growing deficits that are fueled by corporate welfare.</p>
<p>-As of mid 2009 (more than 8 months after the economic collapse), a substantial minority of Americans (39 percent) still thought the U.S. economy was in fair shape. &#160;Those who had no problems paying for medical bills and those who reported stronger personal finances were consistently more likely to say the economy was in decent shape.&#160; The gap here remains tremendous – with those enjoying “good” or “excellent” personal finances nearly twice as likely to think&#160; the economy was in “fair” shape when compared to those with “poor” finances (June 2009, Pew Research Center).</p>
<p>Unfortunately, public opinion polls in the United States do not effectively distinguish between well off middle class earners and the decadently rich.&#160; Survey questions about individuals’ family income contain seven different categories measuring those who make between $0 and $100,000 a year, and no categories distinguishing those who make more than $150,000 a year.&#160; As a result, we are left to assume that a well off married couple – for example two well established public school teachers making a combined $150,000 a year – are to be counted the same as the average CEO making $10.9 million in 2008.&#160; Assuming that the two cases are the same is absurd, although this isn’t widely acknowledged by pollsters.&#160; Current measurement methods in public opinion surveys do, however, allow us to measure how well business elites’ values are reflected in the general population, and among those who are relatively more or less privileged.&#160; My analysis has shown that the values of business elites are very much transferred to the wealthier part of the middle class.&#160; This is a tremendous problem for those seeking progressive reform, since those who make less than $150,000 a year share far more in common with the poor and disadvantaged than they do with the richest 1 percent, made up overwhelmingly of corporate executives and investors.&#160; Even well off families are in danger of losing their jobs in a bad market.&#160; They’re susceptible to the same economic hardships that plague the poor, considering that unemployment brings with it a loss of health insurance coverage and an inability to pay one’s mortgage and bills.</p>
<p>It’s no longer enough to say that the majority of the public supports health care reform.&#160; It’s one thing for an American to admit in a telephone survey that they think health care for all is a good idea in principle; it’s quite another for them to go out in the streets and to the voting booth and actually fight for that reform.&#160; As progressives, we need to recognize that a mass movement for health care reform should begin with the poor and disadvantaged, but also must win over a majority of those who are relatively well off – those in middle America who are well paid but&#160; have much to potentially gain from universal health care.&#160; Developing and maintaining mass support for real reform is absolutely vital come election time.&#160; Grassroots pressures for socialized medicine need to be backed up by electoral retaliations against any officials who oppose reform.&#160; Until we get past the empathy problem that afflicts the American public, there will be little hope for radical change.</p>
<p>ANTHONY DiMAGGIO teaches American and Global Politics at Illinois State University.&#160; He is the author of <a href="" type="internal">Mass Media, Mass Propaganda</a> (2008) and the forthcoming <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583671994/counterpunchmaga" type="external">When Media Goes to War</a> (2010).&#160; He can be reached at <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>
<p /> | true | 4 | mass solidarity absolutely vital success social movement precisely lack solidarity however thats prohibiting mobilization favor socialized medicine160 rather demand meaningful reform americans left question whether public option medicare system politicians vast majority reluctant fight universal health care congressional democrats set pass health care bill within next month reconciliation process seeks merge competing versions health care reform previously passed house senate also allows democrats circumvent possible filibuster attempt republicans160 president obama postponed trip indonesia australia order lead last pr effort win general public still undecided health care160 obama recently explained united states congress owes american people final vote health care time make decision time talk need see people stand whatever compromise achieved democrats final house senate bill may contain public option undoubtedly include provision establishing single payer medicareforall system160 worth reflecting upon democrats consider universal health care beyond reach160 noted opposition doesntspring primarily american public160 americans long supported idea public option160 additionally universal health care programs medicare widely popular among majority public160 primary opposition comes grassroots level tea party would us believe political officials corporate america160 americas politicalbusiness class views progressive taxation name universal health care unfair burden wealthy160 group led successful media coup convince growing number middle class oppose reform increasingly case elitist values supplanting middle class recent public opinion surveys demonstrate160 dub empathy problem average americans sympathetic health care reform principle yet oppose health care reform generally unwilling participate mass social movement force officials implement universal health care160 increasingly well decent well paying jobs medical coverage taken fear mongering health care rationing death panels government socialism see war words town hall crashers media pollsters transforming public opinion160 individuals represent heart soul corporate america160 nonetheless used wealthy stifle changes would cost leaders corporate america significant portion wealth recent public opinion polls demonstrate pay closer attention medias reporting health care debate congress likely confused specific reforms proposed theyre also likely oppose health care reform see pew research center health care surveys july 2009 september 2009 march 2010160 short reactionary officials media actively manipulating americans opposing even limited health care reform160 disturbing considering polls show americans increasingly oppose health care reform support specific provisions promoted democrats including establishing public option providing government subsidies cant afford health care prohibiting insurance companies dropping customers preexisting conditions requiring employers provide health care employees expanding medicare cover 55 expanding state child health insurance programs expanding medicaid see kaiser foundation aug 2009 polling mcclatchy amp cnns polling november 2009 newsweeks feb 2010 polling indoctrination middle america health care reform evident public opinion surveys160 quick statistical work employing surveys produced pew research center last year put problem better perspective160 surveys demonstrate systematic differences middle america struggling get problems paying medical bills prescription drugs twice likely deny medical system needs completely rebuilt160 terms hard numbers 59 percent trouble paying drugs want see health care completely rebuilt 31 percent prescription problems feel way160 similarly 63 percent problems paying medical care generally support completely restructuring health care 29 percent without problems support restructuring see june 2009 pew research center health care survey already health care coverage consistently likely oppose congressional democrats obamas efforts promote health care reform160 insured likely oppose government plan public option less likely trust government general dealing reform 160opposition reform reaches majority privileged 57 percent health care coverage opposing reform 60 percent uninsured supporting reform see july 2009 pew research center survey following 2008 economic crisis wealthier middle class americans consistently likely oppose increased government spending social services160 55 percent making less 30000 year support increasing social services support declines 34 percent among making 50000 year160 wealthier americans addition highly educated likely put faith free markets government comes interventions personal lives see march 2009 pew research center survey empathy problem extends beyond figures above160 privileged americans tend think economy better shape struggling get by160 problem new president harry truman famously said publics perceptions troubled times recession neighbor loses job depression lose 160public denial dire economic state contemporary america strongest among privileged early 2009 americans reported strong personal finances credit problems consistently likely optimistic future economy160 wealthier middle class earners likely angry homeowners taking subprime mortgages couldnt afford likely angry budget deficit likely harbor anger bank bailout160 trends precisely one would expect country well middle america indoctrinated upper class propaganda160 paradoxically wealthier middle class earners enraged budget deficit common feeling among political business elites bank bailout contributed greatly deficit160 increasingly wealthier middle class earners turning anger toward social welfare programs health care reform see statistics public opinion health care above160 common strategy among business political elites direct public outrage toward budget deficits result social welfare spending cry moan unsustainability entitlement programs direct attention away growing deficits fueled corporate welfare mid 2009 8 months economic collapse substantial minority americans 39 percent still thought us economy fair shape 160those problems paying medical bills reported stronger personal finances consistently likely say economy decent shape160 gap remains tremendous enjoying good excellent personal finances nearly twice likely think160 economy fair shape compared poor finances june 2009 pew research center unfortunately public opinion polls united states effectively distinguish well middle class earners decadently rich160 survey questions individuals family income contain seven different categories measuring make 0 100000 year categories distinguishing make 150000 year160 result left assume well married couple example two well established public school teachers making combined 150000 year counted average ceo making 109 million 2008160 assuming two cases absurd although isnt widely acknowledged pollsters160 current measurement methods public opinion surveys however allow us measure well business elites values reflected general population among relatively less privileged160 analysis shown values business elites much transferred wealthier part middle class160 tremendous problem seeking progressive reform since make less 150000 year share far common poor disadvantaged richest 1 percent made overwhelmingly corporate executives investors160 even well families danger losing jobs bad market160 theyre susceptible economic hardships plague poor considering unemployment brings loss health insurance coverage inability pay ones mortgage bills longer enough say majority public supports health care reform160 one thing american admit telephone survey think health care good idea principle quite another go streets voting booth actually fight reform160 progressives need recognize mass movement health care reform begin poor disadvantaged also must win majority relatively well middle america well paid but160 much potentially gain universal health care160 developing maintaining mass support real reform absolutely vital come election time160 grassroots pressures socialized medicine need backed electoral retaliations officials oppose reform160 get past empathy problem afflicts american public little hope radical change anthony dimaggio teaches american global politics illinois state university160 author mass media mass propaganda 2008 forthcoming media goes war 2010160 reached adimaggilstuedu 160 words stick | 1,088 |
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<p>Photo by Jim Mattis | <a href="" type="internal">CC BY 2.0</a></p>
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<p>President Donald Trump is being reviled for wildly exaggerating the peril of Muslim refugees. Some commentators fret that his rhetoric signals a new fascist era descending on America. A recent Washington Post news analysis derided Trump’s fearmongering: “Playing upon the nation’s anxieties about what might happen also stands as a stark contrast to how presidents have lifted the country out of actual crisis in the past.” But presidential fearmongering has a long and sordid history.</p>
<p>We cannot understand the perils that Trump poses without recognizing how prior presidents used similar ploys. Unfortunately, much of the media is dismally failing at this task.&#160; Many Washington reporters and pundits write as if they were not born until January 20, 2017. For instance, that Washington Post article hailed George W. Bush as one of the presidents “who seemed to grow into the job as they summoned the nation to defy what it feared rather than succumb to it.”</p>
<p>But Bush relied on shameless fearmongering to pull the nation into a war against Iraq that continues to destabilize much of the Middle East. Administration officials knowingly exaggerated the perils from Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, climaxing with Vice President Dick Cheney’s ludicrous assertion that Saddam Hussein possessed reconstituted nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>There are ample reasons to be wary of Trump nominees such as Jeff Sessions, with his unbridled lust for asset forfeiture and the drug war. But nothing that Trump’s team has yet said or suggested compares to Attorney General John Ashcroft’s declaration to a Senate committee in December 2001: “To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty… your tactics only aid terrorists for they erode our national unity and… give ammunition to America’s enemies.” The newly-created Department of Homeland Security subsequently urged local police departments to view critics of the war on terrorism as potential terrorists, urging them to keep an eye on anyone who “expressed dislike of attitudes and decisions of the U.S. government.”&#160; The Bush administration often showed contempt for protestors and critics alike while unleashing the National Security Agency to illicitly destroy Americans’ privacy.</p>
<p>Many folks now wringing their hands over Trump’s rhetoric have forgotten the low-ball 2004 presidential race. A Bush re-reelection television ad showed a pack of wolves coming to attack home viewers as an announcer warns that “weakness attracts those who are waiting to do America harm.” Moises Naim, editor of Foreign Policy, observed that the Bush 2004 campaign was “using the fear factor almost exclusively… It’s nothing but a reflection that it works.”</p>
<p>But the 2004 campaign was downright mellow compared to the 1964 Lyndon Johnson presidential campaign TV ad which showed a young girl “picking the petals off a daisy before the screen was overwhelmed by a nuclear explosion and then a mushroom cloud and Mr. Johnson declared, ‘These are the stakes.’” The ad implied that a victory by Republican nominee Barry Goldwater would annihilate humanity. LBJ was running as the Peace Candidate – which was ironic, considering how he subsequently plunged the nation far more deeply into the Vietnam War.</p>
<p>That Post article praised President Barack Obama for avoiding some of the inflammatory phrases used by Trump.&#160; But Obama often greatly exaggerated threats to push his pet causes. In a speech last year at the funeral of slain Dallas police officers, he asserted, “We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book.”&#160; But Amazon doesn’t deliver Glocks to your doorstep. Washington Post fact checkers noted that “there’s no minimum age or a background check required to get a book or use the computer for free at a public library” and awarded the president Three Pinocchios.</p>
<p>Obama also frequently invoked the threat from terrorism, using it to create a new prerogative for presidents to serve as judge, jury, and executioner for suspected bad guys. More than a thousand people were slain by Obama-authorized drone attacks, including some Americans and far too many innocent civilians. By the end of his presidency, the Nobel Peace Prize winner was bombing seven foreign nations.&#160; The Obama administration exploited the fear from one blundering would-be underwear bomber to entitle Transportation Security Administration agents to pointlessly grope millions of travelers. More recently, the Obama team warned of horrific consequences unless the feds were permitted to hack into everyone’s iPhone.</p>
<p>Rather than an odious novelty, fearmongering has practically been the job description for presidents. H. L. Mencken observed a century ago: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence, clamorous to be led to safety—by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” Mencken’s quip was inspired by President Woodrow Wilson, whose administration whipped up public fury during World War One against beer, sauerkraut, and teaching German in schools.</p>
<p>Trump’s opponents should beware of presuming that prior presidents as a mythical combination of George Washington and Jesus.&#160; But presidents are most dangerous when they seek to frighten us into submission.&#160; Citizens cannot cower on presidential cue without forfeiting any possibility of keeping rulers on a leash. History proves that bogus fears can produce real servitude.</p>
<p>An earlier version of this column ran in <a href="http:/www.usatoday.com" type="external">USA Today</a>.</p> | true | 4 | photo jim mattis cc 20 160 president donald trump reviled wildly exaggerating peril muslim refugees commentators fret rhetoric signals new fascist era descending america recent washington post news analysis derided trumps fearmongering playing upon nations anxieties might happen also stands stark contrast presidents lifted country actual crisis past presidential fearmongering long sordid history understand perils trump poses without recognizing prior presidents used similar ploys unfortunately much media dismally failing task160 many washington reporters pundits write born january 20 2017 instance washington post article hailed george w bush one presidents seemed grow job summoned nation defy feared rather succumb bush relied shameless fearmongering pull nation war iraq continues destabilize much middle east administration officials knowingly exaggerated perils iraqi weapons mass destruction climaxing vice president dick cheneys ludicrous assertion saddam hussein possessed reconstituted nuclear weapons ample reasons wary trump nominees jeff sessions unbridled lust asset forfeiture drug war nothing trumps team yet said suggested compares attorney general john ashcrofts declaration senate committee december 2001 scare peaceloving people phantoms lost liberty tactics aid terrorists erode national unity give ammunition americas enemies newlycreated department homeland security subsequently urged local police departments view critics war terrorism potential terrorists urging keep eye anyone expressed dislike attitudes decisions us government160 bush administration often showed contempt protestors critics alike unleashing national security agency illicitly destroy americans privacy many folks wringing hands trumps rhetoric forgotten lowball 2004 presidential race bush rereelection television ad showed pack wolves coming attack home viewers announcer warns weakness attracts waiting america harm moises naim editor foreign policy observed bush 2004 campaign using fear factor almost exclusively nothing reflection works 2004 campaign downright mellow compared 1964 lyndon johnson presidential campaign tv ad showed young girl picking petals daisy screen overwhelmed nuclear explosion mushroom cloud mr johnson declared stakes ad implied victory republican nominee barry goldwater would annihilate humanity lbj running peace candidate ironic considering subsequently plunged nation far deeply vietnam war post article praised president barack obama avoiding inflammatory phrases used trump160 obama often greatly exaggerated threats push pet causes speech last year funeral slain dallas police officers asserted flood communities many guns easier teenager buy glock get hands computer even book160 amazon doesnt deliver glocks doorstep washington post fact checkers noted theres minimum age background check required get book use computer free public library awarded president three pinocchios obama also frequently invoked threat terrorism using create new prerogative presidents serve judge jury executioner suspected bad guys thousand people slain obamaauthorized drone attacks including americans far many innocent civilians end presidency nobel peace prize winner bombing seven foreign nations160 obama administration exploited fear one blundering wouldbe underwear bomber entitle transportation security administration agents pointlessly grope millions travelers recently obama team warned horrific consequences unless feds permitted hack everyones iphone rather odious novelty fearmongering practically job description presidents h l mencken observed century ago whole aim practical politics keep populace alarmed hence clamorous led safetyby menacing endless series hobgoblins imaginary menckens quip inspired president woodrow wilson whose administration whipped public fury world war one beer sauerkraut teaching german schools trumps opponents beware presuming prior presidents mythical combination george washington jesus160 presidents dangerous seek frighten us submission160 citizens cower presidential cue without forfeiting possibility keeping rulers leash history proves bogus fears produce real servitude earlier version column ran usa today | 543 |
<p>For the remainder of President Obama’s term in office countless experts will debate his successes and failures and how he ranks in the pantheon of presidents, but arguably his most significant achievement will probably continue to fly under the radar—and may not persist beyond his presidency. Obama’s presidency has psychologically enfranchised large swaths of America’s electorate—reshaping our democracy—who previously opted to stay home and focus on the day-to-day struggles of life instead of showing up to the polls and becoming politically active.</p>
<p>During Obama’s presidential campaigns, his get-out-the-vote efforts, specifically targeting African Americans, were incredibly <a href="http://cookpolitical.com/story/8666" type="external">successful</a>. He turned a voting base that has historically voted at a lower percentage than white Americans to one that surpassed them. In 1996 only 53 percent of eligible African-American voters voted compared to 63 percent for whites. During Obama’s 2008 campaign 65 percent of eligible African-American voters voted and 66 percent for whites. In a little over a decade African-American representation had increased by 12 percent and in 2012 it increased further to 66 percent, surpassing the percentage of white voters—for the first time in history—by 2 percent.</p>
<p>In 2008 just over 16 million African Americans voted ( <a href="https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p20-568.pdf" type="external">PDF</a>), and in 2012 nearly 18 million voted, and in both cases their support for Obama helped swing the election in his favor. In 2000 only 12.9 million (57 percent) African Americans voted, and in 2004 only 14 million (60 percent) voted. Essentially, the difference between 2004 and 2008 was only 2 million votes out of the roughly 130 million votes cast, but in the minds of countless African Americans and other marginalized voters their votes helped decide an election in their favor.</p>
<p>Each and every African-American voter who voted for Obama in 2008 felt upon his election that they had assisted in making the previously thought impossible reality of electing a black man to be President of the United States come true. They could feel the power and significance of their vote, and they felt like an enfranchised population that could make an impact on the national scale. This represents a significant change in the mindset of an African-American electorate that has historically been more accustomed to an American democracy that has worked to discourage and disenfranchise them.</p>
<p>In 2012 after the euphoria of Obama’s election had mostly worn off, nearly 2 million more African Americans voted for Obama than in 2008, so the importance of voting was not lost on this electorate during the ensuing four years. And as one minority group revels in the newly found authority of their vote, so too will others. The habit of voting is becoming ingrained throughout marginalized and minority communities, and this represents a significant shift in our electoral process.</p>
<p>2016 is already being described as an election that could be decided by the Latino <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2015/09/17/121325/top-6-facts-on-the-latino-vote/" type="external">vote</a>, and Democrats know they need to work hard to keep the African-American vote. Two election cycles where African Americans showed up to the polls in large numbers make it more likely that they will do the same thing the third time around, but this psychologically enfranchised electorate now demands more from candidates if they intend to earn their vote.</p>
<p>Prior to Obama’s presidency African Americans could never expect a presidential candidate to fully understand the issues that acutely plague this community. Black voters previously could only hope that a white candidate would decide to listen to their voice, and hopefully enact policies that benefited the community.</p>
<p>However, during this election cycle it is obvious that black voters expect the candidates who hope to earn their votes to do more than just listen, and they need to feel that the candidate truly understands the problems that ails their communities. Settling for listening, which used to be the status quo, is no longer acceptable. The rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and the controversies and clashes that BLM has had with presidential candidates shows how the expectations, demands, and civic and political engagement has increased within the African-American community since the significance of their votes has become evident.</p>
<p>Additionally, the Latino community has taken a much larger role in the political process since 2008. Much of their growing significance can be attributed to their steady rise in population, but their population growth coincides with a rise in minority representation and participation in our electoral process.</p>
<p>In 2000 African Americans were only 10 percent of the electorate, but by 2008 they were 13 percent, and have stayed at this level ever since. Likewise, Latinos were only 7 percent, but have increased their representation by 1 percent in each election cycle. In 2016 Latinos could represent over 11 percent of the electorate, but they still would need to increase their voter participation by a sizable margin. In 2012, a <a href="http://www.pewhispanic.org/2013/06/03/inside-the-2012-latino-electorate/" type="external">record</a> 11.2 million Latinos voted, but that was only 48 percent of Latino voters, and a decrease from the 49.9 percent from 2012. Essentially, Latino voter participation is increasing, but their voter participation percentage has decreased as their population grows. It will be next to impossible for their percentage of eligible voters who vote to match the mid to high 60s of the white and African-American communities, but an increase to over 50 percent could help them decide an election.</p>
<p>And while it is difficult to attribute a shifting national perspective to any one person, we cannot ignore the efforts that Obama has taken make people aware, specifically minorities and African Americans, of how important their votes can be. And we also cannot discredit the impact upon Americans of seeing a minority occupy the highest office in the land.</p>
<p>The convergence of these two realities has given many Americans not just a sense of being connected to and valued within their society, but also an additional incentive to participate in the democratic process. The previously thought impossible became possible with Obama’s election, and then it became more and more routine throughout his presidency. Additionally, the growing influence of African Americans has provided a pathway for other minorities to create their own influential path toward influencing American society.</p>
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<p>However, the conundrum surrounding this new electoral and enfranchisement map is whether it can be sustained after Obama’s presidency. All three Democrat candidates have struggled to relate to African-American and Latino voters, and the GOP has spent more time demonizing these minorities than trying to connect to them. Already black <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/21/opinion/campaign-stops/the-missing-black-millennials.html" type="external">millennials</a> are exhibiting the political angst and indifference that has inclined many members of this generation to abstain from voting and the political process. Additionally, they are confronting the new reality that their next president will not be black, and may be more of a bureaucrat than an inspirational, transcendent figure.</p>
<p>For America’s new inclusive, diverse, and enfranchised voting body to retain its power for election cycles to come, this new electorate must have a new purpose for making it to the polls, and the institutional support for speaking up to fight the injustices in their communities. Obama proved to be the catalyst for this new era of democratic enfranchisement, but now the responsibility to sustain it must fall on other shoulders. Let’s hope that the commitment to the democratic process, civil engagement, and diversity can be sustained for generations to come.</p> | true | 4 | remainder president obamas term office countless experts debate successes failures ranks pantheon presidents arguably significant achievement probably continue fly radarand may persist beyond presidency obamas presidency psychologically enfranchised large swaths americas electoratereshaping democracywho previously opted stay home focus daytoday struggles life instead showing polls becoming politically active obamas presidential campaigns getoutthevote efforts specifically targeting african americans incredibly successful turned voting base historically voted lower percentage white americans one surpassed 1996 53 percent eligible africanamerican voters voted compared 63 percent whites obamas 2008 campaign 65 percent eligible africanamerican voters voted 66 percent whites little decade africanamerican representation increased 12 percent 2012 increased 66 percent surpassing percentage white votersfor first time historyby 2 percent 2008 16 million african americans voted pdf 2012 nearly 18 million voted cases support obama helped swing election favor 2000 129 million 57 percent african americans voted 2004 14 million 60 percent voted essentially difference 2004 2008 2 million votes roughly 130 million votes cast minds countless african americans marginalized voters votes helped decide election favor every africanamerican voter voted obama 2008 felt upon election assisted making previously thought impossible reality electing black man president united states come true could feel power significance vote felt like enfranchised population could make impact national scale represents significant change mindset africanamerican electorate historically accustomed american democracy worked discourage disenfranchise 2012 euphoria obamas election mostly worn nearly 2 million african americans voted obama 2008 importance voting lost electorate ensuing four years one minority group revels newly found authority vote others habit voting becoming ingrained throughout marginalized minority communities represents significant shift electoral process 2016 already described election could decided latino vote democrats know need work hard keep africanamerican vote two election cycles african americans showed polls large numbers make likely thing third time around psychologically enfranchised electorate demands candidates intend earn vote prior obamas presidency african americans could never expect presidential candidate fully understand issues acutely plague community black voters previously could hope white candidate would decide listen voice hopefully enact policies benefited community however election cycle obvious black voters expect candidates hope earn votes listen need feel candidate truly understands problems ails communities settling listening used status quo longer acceptable rise black lives matter movement controversies clashes blm presidential candidates shows expectations demands civic political engagement increased within africanamerican community since significance votes become evident additionally latino community taken much larger role political process since 2008 much growing significance attributed steady rise population population growth coincides rise minority representation participation electoral process 2000 african americans 10 percent electorate 2008 13 percent stayed level ever since likewise latinos 7 percent increased representation 1 percent election cycle 2016 latinos could represent 11 percent electorate still would need increase voter participation sizable margin 2012 record 112 million latinos voted 48 percent latino voters decrease 499 percent 2012 essentially latino voter participation increasing voter participation percentage decreased population grows next impossible percentage eligible voters vote match mid high 60s white africanamerican communities increase 50 percent could help decide election difficult attribute shifting national perspective one person ignore efforts obama taken make people aware specifically minorities african americans important votes also discredit impact upon americans seeing minority occupy highest office land convergence two realities given many americans sense connected valued within society also additional incentive participate democratic process previously thought impossible became possible obamas election became routine throughout presidency additionally growing influence african americans provided pathway minorities create influential path toward influencing american society start finish day top stories daily beast speedy smart summary news need know nothing dont however conundrum surrounding new electoral enfranchisement map whether sustained obamas presidency three democrat candidates struggled relate africanamerican latino voters gop spent time demonizing minorities trying connect already black millennials exhibiting political angst indifference inclined many members generation abstain voting political process additionally confronting new reality next president black may bureaucrat inspirational transcendent figure americas new inclusive diverse enfranchised voting body retain power election cycles come new electorate must new purpose making polls institutional support speaking fight injustices communities obama proved catalyst new era democratic enfranchisement responsibility sustain must fall shoulders lets hope commitment democratic process civil engagement diversity sustained generations come | 684 |
<p>Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author whose articles and video documentaries have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, The Nation, The Guardian, The Independent Film Channel, The Huffington Post, <a href="http://salon.com/" type="external">Salon.com</a>, Al Jazeera English and many other publications. His most recent book is Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel. His other book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Republican-Gomorrah-Inside-Movement-Shattered/dp/1568583982" type="external">Republican Gomorrah: Inside The Movement That Shattered The Party</a>, is a New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller. Max is co-host of the podcast Moderate Rebels.</p>
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<p /> MAX BLUMENTHAL, AUTHOR, JOURNALIST, AND BLOGGER: It's election day in Newark, New Jersey, and a financially troubled city plagued with violent crime is set to decide its next mayor.
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<p />The election has become a referendum on the Wall Street- and Silicon Valley- funded education reform movement that has turned the mostly African-American city into a virtual laboratory for its agenda.
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<p />CHRIS CHRISTIE, GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY: I'm in charge of the public schools. In the city of Newark, as governor, I'm going to empower Mayor Booker to develop that plan and to implement it with a superintendent of schools that we're going to pick together.
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<p />OPRAH WINFREY, TV HOST: I think that is so fantastic.
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<p />BLUMENTHAL: Local residents' anger is focused on Newark schools superintendent Cami Anderson.
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<p />CAMI ANDERSON, SUPERINTENDENT, NEWARK PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Nobody is excited about school closures. I get that, because it's very emotional. At the same time--.
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<p />BLUMENTHAL: An education reform cadre who works under Chris Christie with no accountability to the local community. That anger boiled over when she introduced her One Newark school reorganization plan, a recipe for school closures and mass teacher firings.
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<p />Ras Baraka, a local school principal and council member, has channeled the indignation into his campaign for Newark mayor.
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<p />RAS BARAKA, MAYORAL CANDIDATE, NEWARK, N.J.: They don't have the right to come in our city and tell us what to do. They don't have a right to come in our city and tell us they're going to close our neighborhood schools and then tell you it's reform.
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<p />BLUMENTHAL: Established political bosses who control New Jersey politics rallied around Baraka's opponent, a civil rights lawyer and former assistant state attorney general named Shavar Jeffries.
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<p />SHAVAR JEFFRIES, MAYORAL CANDIDATE, NEWARK, N.J.: Too many of our schools continue to struggle to provide our young people with the high-quality education they deserve.
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<p />BLUMENTHAL: As a cofounder of the TEAM Academy charter school network, Jeffries has also won fervent support from the powerful education reform movement.
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<p />At Jeffries' Central Ward headquarters, we met his wife, Tenagne Jeffries, a local businesswoman who has taken an active role in campaign strategy.
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<p />TENAGNE JEFFRIES, WIFE OF SHAVAR JEFFRIES: [Shavar] is totally--I mean, he served the district as school board president because he believes in public schools. He happened to start and he founded TEAM Charter Schools because he believed in choice.
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<p />Ras is trying to create this story about Shavar that's one that's so fictitious, you know, that he's--you know, him and Christie are in bed with each other. Bottom line is that Shavar is going to work with whoever the leadership is that he needs to work with, but he's very bold and independent. He was the underdog. If you look at it, Shavar was always counted out. He's the one. He is the grassroots movement of Newark.
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: Jeffries has received over $2 million in funding from Wall Street education reform supporters through a super PAC called Newark First.
<p />
<p />On election day, rumors circulated around the city about a last-minute $300,000 cash injection by Newark First to pay students to canvass for Jeffries.
<p />
<p />~~~
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: Is it true that they're being paid $150 a day from Newark First?
<p />
<p />LUPE TODD, JEFFRIES CAMPAIGN SPOKESPERSON: I wouldn't know that. It's an [FIE?]. We wouldn't know.
<p />
<p />~~~
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: On a street corner in the city's Central Ward, we confirmed the payments.
<p />
<p />~~~
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: Are you, like, campaign volunteers? Or they hooked you guys up?
<p />
<p />SHAVAR JEFFRIES SUPPORTER: Yeah.
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: They paid you? What did they pay you?
<p />
<p />SHAVAR JEFFRIES SUPPORTER: One-fifty.
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: One-fifty? So they paid you each $150? Are you in school or--.
<p />
<p />SHAVAR JEFFRIES SUPPORTER: No, they didn't pay us yet.
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: What's that? They didn't pay you yet? Did they tell you, like, "We'll pay you when you're done"?
<p />
<p />SHAVAR JEFFRIES SUPPORTER: They teach us about him. They tell us--they ask us if we want to do it.
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: They taught you about Jeffries and then said, you know, you thought he was cool and said, we'll do it?
<p />
<p />SHAVAR JEFFRIES SUPPORTER: You guys want to, yeah, hold the poles.
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: Oh. Okay.
<p />
<p />SHAVAR JEFFRIES SUPPORTER: Then we said--.
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: That's good money, man. A hundred fifty bucks--that's more than I make.
<p />
<p />~~~
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: But not all student canvassers were so forthcoming.
<p />
<p />~~~
<p />
<p />JAISAL NOOR, TRNN PRODUCER: Hey, how much are you guys getting paid?
<p />
<p />JOSHUA, SHAVAR JEFFRIES SUPPORTER: Put the camera down. What is that for?
<p />
<p />NOOR: How much are you guys getting paid?
<p />
<p />JOSHUA, SHAVAR JEFFRIES SUPPORTER: What is that for?
<p />
<p />NOOR: We're with The Real News.
<p />
<p />JOSHUA, SHAVAR JEFFRIES SUPPORTER: The Real News? So if I snatch your shit and I break it--.
<p />
<p />SHAVAR JEFFRIES SUPPORTER: Josh. Joshua.
<p />
<p />JOSHUA: Why are you filming me, my nigga?
<p />
<p />SHAVAR JEFFRIES SUPPORTER: Come on.
<p />
<p />NOOR: I'm just asking how much you're getting paid today.
<p />
<p />JOSHUA, SHAVAR JEFFRIES SUPPORTER: That's not for you to ask me, my brother.
<p />
<p />UNIDENTIFIED: We can't answer that. We can't. Can you just, like, drive off? Thank you.
<p />
<p />JOSHUA, SHAVAR JEFFRIES SUPPORTER: Get the fuck out of my face.
<p />
<p />~~~
<p />
<p />AKILI BUCHANAN, VP, NEWARK TEACHERS UNION: They are hiring high school kids to cut school in various high schools around this town, cut school and to--.
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: Hold up the Jeffries sign and--.
<p />
<p />BUCHANAN: Yes, hold up Jeffries sings and--.
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: We saw them around.
<p />
<p />BUCHANAN: Yeah. I mean, I think that's outrageous. They're going after major cities like Newark and Philadelphia and Detroit because most of the people there are poor, powerless people of color and they want to make examples of these major cities. And then their intention is to go across the nation with this. It is one of the most dangerous retrograde moves in history I've ever seen.
<p />
<p />~~~
<p />
<p />BRIAN HOHMANN, FMR. NEWARK PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER: I mean, who knows? I mean, Newark has a history dating back to 1967 where there was a revolt. You know. And I wouldn't claim that there or predict there is one on the way, but, you know, the conditions seem to be moving in a direction where they're--you know, a certain ordinary action could lead to a combustible result.
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: We're here at Ras Baraka campaign headquarters. The election is about to be decided between him and Shavar Jeffries. Right now we know that about half of precincts have reported and Baraka's up. The mood is very confident. And what people are telling us here over and over again is that this election is a campaign on the future of public employee unions and public schools in this city.
<p />
<p />BOB BRAUN, BOBBRAUNSLEDGER.COM: Well, if Baraka wins, I think it's obviously going to be a much needed boost to the Teacher's Union that has had some rough times in the last couple of years. If it loses, I've got to tell you, I think public employee unionism will have taken a serious, serious blow, I mean, you know, right up there with Scott Walker in Wisconsin.
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: With exit polls showing Ras Baraka in the lead, the excitement began to build.
<p />
<p />~~~
<p />
<p />RAS BARAKA SUPPORTER: He's up by--.
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: By about six points, with about 120 out of 162.
<p />
<p />RAS BARAKA SUPPORTER: Yeah.
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: That's pretty good.
<p />
<p />RAS BARAKA SUPPORTER: That's excellent.
<p />
<p />~~~
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: What does it mean if Ras wins for you?
<p />
<p />RAS BARAKA SUPPORTER: That means he's going to straighten up the town, get rid of the people that don't supposed to be here. We need a new school system. We need a new superintendent. We need to straighten up. But he can't do it by himself. It's going to take a yard to build a house, honey.
<p />
<p />~~~
<p />
<p />RAS BARAKA SUPPORTER: Because just like Wisconsin, in New Jersey civil rights, labor rights are under attack, and today, labor and the community fought back and we won.
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: At shortly after 10 p.m., Baraka was announced as the victor.
<p />
<p />~~~
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: So what does this mean? What does this victory mean to you?
<p />
<p />CHARLES BARRON, FMR. NYC COUNCIL MEMBER: Well, this means a whole lot to us. It says that money doesn't vote; people vote. It says that the people will decide their leaders, not Wall Street, not hedge funds. And it says that the Jeffries can try to spread themselves all over, but the people are not going to go for it.
<p />
<p />~~~
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: Baraka made his way to the stage with his most established supporter, former governor Richard Codey closely behind him
<p />
<p />RAS BARAKA, MAYOR ELECT, NEWARK, NJ: Today we told them all over the state of New Jersey that the people of Newark are not for sale, that people outweigh money in a democracy all the time, that in a democracy the people should be more important than money, and that Broad Street should be more important than Wall Street.
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: As soon as his victory speech was over, Baraka led his supporters on a dramatic march down Newark's Broad Street to City Hall.
<p />
<p />RAS BARAKA SUPPORTER: [incompr.] we become mayor. We are the people. We become mayor.
<p />
<p />RAS BARAKA SUPPORTER: [incompr.] excited with our new mayor.
<p />
<p />RAS BARAKA SUPPORTER: Number one, I was behind Ras Baraka since 2010.
<p />
<p />BLUMENTHAL: The victory parade has reached City Hall in downtown Newark, pouring out of the election victory party of Ras Baraka, the newly elected mayor of New Jersey's largest city, Newark. It is now day one of the Baraka administration.
<p />
<p />For The Real News, I'm Max Blumenthal.
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />End
<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 | max blumenthal awardwinning journalist bestselling author whose articles video documentaries appeared new york times los angeles times daily beast nation guardian independent film channel huffington post saloncom al jazeera english many publications recent book goliath life loathing greater israel book republican gomorrah inside movement shattered party new york times los angeles times bestseller max cohost podcast moderate rebels max blumenthal author journalist blogger election day newark new jersey financially troubled city plagued violent crime set decide next mayor election become referendum wall street silicon valley funded education reform movement turned mostly africanamerican city virtual laboratory agenda chris christie governor new jersey im charge public schools city newark governor im going empower mayor booker develop plan implement superintendent schools going pick together oprah winfrey tv host think fantastic blumenthal local residents anger focused newark schools superintendent cami anderson cami anderson superintendent newark public schools nobody excited school closures get emotional time blumenthal education reform cadre works chris christie accountability local community anger boiled introduced one newark school reorganization plan recipe school closures mass teacher firings ras baraka local school principal council member channeled indignation campaign newark mayor ras baraka mayoral candidate newark nj dont right come city tell us dont right come city tell us theyre going close neighborhood schools tell reform blumenthal established political bosses control new jersey politics rallied around barakas opponent civil rights lawyer former assistant state attorney general named shavar jeffries shavar jeffries mayoral candidate newark nj many schools continue struggle provide young people highquality education deserve blumenthal cofounder team academy charter school network jeffries also fervent support powerful education reform movement jeffries central ward headquarters met wife tenagne jeffries local businesswoman taken active role campaign strategy tenagne jeffries wife shavar jeffries shavar totallyi mean served district school board president believes public schools happened start founded team charter schools believed choice ras trying create story shavar thats one thats fictitious know hesyou know christie bed bottom line shavar going work whoever leadership needs work hes bold independent underdog look shavar always counted hes one grassroots movement newark blumenthal jeffries received 2 million funding wall street education reform supporters super pac called newark first election day rumors circulated around city lastminute 300000 cash injection newark first pay students canvass jeffries blumenthal true theyre paid 150 day newark first lupe todd jeffries campaign spokesperson wouldnt know fie wouldnt know blumenthal street corner citys central ward confirmed payments blumenthal like campaign volunteers hooked guys shavar jeffries supporter yeah blumenthal paid pay shavar jeffries supporter onefifty blumenthal onefifty paid 150 school shavar jeffries supporter didnt pay us yet blumenthal whats didnt pay yet tell like well pay youre done shavar jeffries supporter teach us tell usthey ask us want blumenthal taught jeffries said know thought cool said well shavar jeffries supporter guys want yeah hold poles blumenthal oh okay shavar jeffries supporter said blumenthal thats good money man hundred fifty bucksthats make blumenthal student canvassers forthcoming jaisal noor trnn producer hey much guys getting paid joshua shavar jeffries supporter put camera noor much guys getting paid joshua shavar jeffries supporter noor real news joshua shavar jeffries supporter real news snatch shit break shavar jeffries supporter josh joshua joshua filming nigga shavar jeffries supporter come noor im asking much youre getting paid today joshua shavar jeffries supporter thats ask brother unidentified cant answer cant like drive thank joshua shavar jeffries supporter get fuck face akili buchanan vp newark teachers union hiring high school kids cut school various high schools around town cut school blumenthal hold jeffries sign buchanan yes hold jeffries sings blumenthal saw around buchanan yeah mean think thats outrageous theyre going major cities like newark philadelphia detroit people poor powerless people color want make examples major cities intention go across nation one dangerous retrograde moves history ive ever seen brian hohmann fmr newark public school teacher mean knows mean newark history dating back 1967 revolt know wouldnt claim predict one way know conditions seem moving direction theyreyou know certain ordinary action could lead combustible result blumenthal ras baraka campaign headquarters election decided shavar jeffries right know half precincts reported barakas mood confident people telling us election campaign future public employee unions public schools city bob braun bobbraunsledgercom well baraka wins think obviously going much needed boost teachers union rough times last couple years loses ive got tell think public employee unionism taken serious serious blow mean know right scott walker wisconsin blumenthal exit polls showing ras baraka lead excitement began build ras baraka supporter hes blumenthal six points 120 162 ras baraka supporter yeah blumenthal thats pretty good ras baraka supporter thats excellent blumenthal mean ras wins ras baraka supporter means hes going straighten town get rid people dont supposed need new school system need new superintendent need straighten cant going take yard build house honey ras baraka supporter like wisconsin new jersey civil rights labor rights attack today labor community fought back blumenthal shortly 10 pm baraka announced victor blumenthal mean victory mean charles barron fmr nyc council member well means whole lot us says money doesnt vote people vote says people decide leaders wall street hedge funds says jeffries try spread people going go blumenthal baraka made way stage established supporter former governor richard codey closely behind ras baraka mayor elect newark nj today told state new jersey people newark sale people outweigh money democracy time democracy people important money broad street important wall street blumenthal soon victory speech baraka led supporters dramatic march newarks broad street city hall ras baraka supporter incompr become mayor people become mayor ras baraka supporter incompr excited new mayor ras baraka supporter number one behind ras baraka since 2010 blumenthal victory parade reached city hall downtown newark pouring election victory party ras baraka newly elected mayor new jerseys largest city newark day one baraka administration real news im max blumenthal end disclaimer please note transcripts real news network typed recording program trnn guarantee complete accuracy | 983 |
<p>This will be the first year that Congressional Leadership and the President of the United States do not travel to the Gulf Coast to honor the anniversary of our nation’s largest disaster. Hurricane Katrina caused over 1,800 deaths, more than $150 billion in damages and displaced over one million Americans from their homes. Four years and three hurricanes later, many communities along the Gulf Coast are still devastated.</p>
<p>If they did visit today, they certainly would find some progress. This Administration has succeeded in clearing up bureaucratic squabbles stalling millions of dollars for projects such as rebuilding Southern University in New Orleans. Yet if they visited places like East Biloxi or the Lower Ninth Ward and met with the region’s most vulnerable people — residents with disabilities, poor, elderly, minority and immigrant communities —they would find that the federal government still has a long fight ahead to make good on promises to rebuild a stronger, safer and more equitable Gulf Coast.</p>
<p>Thousands of residents still live in toxic government-issued trailers as they struggle to rebuild their homes. Affordable housing construction has ground to a halt with the crash of financial markets. Homelessness has doubled in New Orleans since 2005 to roughly 12,000. Health care facilities, particularly in mental health where needs have skyrocketed, remain limited. Eighty percent of our nation’s coastal erosion each year occurs along the Gulf of Mexico, destroying tens of thousands of acres of wetlands. When combined with climate change, the very existence of coastal communities and cultures which depend on the vitality of the bayous for their livelihood and flood protection are now at stake. Tens of thousands of internally displaced survivors lack the resources to return and reunite with family and many more are unable to access proper training and living wage work to lift their families out of poverty. The result is a domestic human rights crisis.</p>
<p>These issues have implication even beyond our borders. After the United States joined the U.N. Human Rights Council in April, the first report heard by the body castigated the U.S. for abuses including discriminatory recover policies and failing to provide displaced survivors of Hurricane Katrina with the resources they need to return and rebuild. The treatment of hurricane survivors continues to be a black mark on our nation’s reputation and threatens to undermine America’s ability to lead the world on human rights issues.</p>
<p>Without stepping foot on the ground and talking with survivors it is difficult fully grasp the enormity and diversity of the challenges still facing Gulf Coastfamilies and the vital need for new solutions. Leaders in Washington could still learn from community leaders on the ground working every day to restore their neighborhoods.</p>
<p>To fill the gaps left by the federal and local government response, heroic community and faith-based organizations, backed by thousands of volunteers, have responded to this crisis with innovative and cost effective programs to rebuild lives across Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. They have led some of the most successful efforts in the recovery to date but unfortunately often the lack of funding to grow their efforts in scale.</p>
<p>Looking to build on local successes and tackle recovery issues, diverse grassroots leaders from across the region working with students, policy experts, and a bipartisan group of legislators including Representatives Zoe Lofgren, Rodney Alexander, Joseph Cao, Charlie Melancon, Gene Taylor and Bennie Thompson developed the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act. This legislation would create 100,000 green job and training opportunities for residents and displaced survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to rebuild and sustain their communities. The federal government would partner directly with local officials and non-profits to address remaining challenges like infrastructure, affordable housing and flood protection. It would focus on building resilience to climate change, mitigating the effects of future deadly storms and confronting poverty. This plan is supported by 250 community, faith, environmental and human rights organizations along the Gulf Coast and across the nation like the NAACP, ACLU, National Council of Churches, Jewish Council on Public Affairs, NETWORK, Global Green, 1SKY, the Equity &amp; Inclusion Campaign, Oxfam American and Amnesty International USA. Last September over 100 Catholic, Evangelical, Jewish, Mainline Protestant and Muslim leaders urged Congress and the next Administration to support this innovative policy as a national moral priority.</p>
<p>Over 30 members of the U.S. House are now urging their colleagues on Capitol Hill and at the White House to remember the people of the Gulf Coastand our duty as Americans to ensure every community has a right to recovery with this legislation. As we approach the 4th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, there is no better way to utilize the lessons learned since 2005 and support our brothers and sisters along the Gulf Coast than by passing and funding the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Click here</a> to support to urge your Member of Congress to support the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act.</p>
<p>JEFFREY BUCHANAN is the Information Officer at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, a co-founder of the Gulf Coast Civic Works Campaign. He is also a Taproots Fellow at the Center for Community Change and a contributor to the upcoming book “Rebuild America: Solving the Economic Crisis Through Civic Works”</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | first year congressional leadership president united states travel gulf coast honor anniversary nations largest disaster hurricane katrina caused 1800 deaths 150 billion damages displaced one million americans homes four years three hurricanes later many communities along gulf coast still devastated visit today certainly would find progress administration succeeded clearing bureaucratic squabbles stalling millions dollars projects rebuilding southern university new orleans yet visited places like east biloxi lower ninth ward met regions vulnerable people residents disabilities poor elderly minority immigrant communities would find federal government still long fight ahead make good promises rebuild stronger safer equitable gulf coast thousands residents still live toxic governmentissued trailers struggle rebuild homes affordable housing construction ground halt crash financial markets homelessness doubled new orleans since 2005 roughly 12000 health care facilities particularly mental health needs skyrocketed remain limited eighty percent nations coastal erosion year occurs along gulf mexico destroying tens thousands acres wetlands combined climate change existence coastal communities cultures depend vitality bayous livelihood flood protection stake tens thousands internally displaced survivors lack resources return reunite family many unable access proper training living wage work lift families poverty result domestic human rights crisis issues implication even beyond borders united states joined un human rights council april first report heard body castigated us abuses including discriminatory recover policies failing provide displaced survivors hurricane katrina resources need return rebuild treatment hurricane survivors continues black mark nations reputation threatens undermine americas ability lead world human rights issues without stepping foot ground talking survivors difficult fully grasp enormity diversity challenges still facing gulf coastfamilies vital need new solutions leaders washington could still learn community leaders ground working every day restore neighborhoods fill gaps left federal local government response heroic community faithbased organizations backed thousands volunteers responded crisis innovative cost effective programs rebuild lives across alabama louisiana mississippi texas led successful efforts recovery date unfortunately often lack funding grow efforts scale looking build local successes tackle recovery issues diverse grassroots leaders across region working students policy experts bipartisan group legislators including representatives zoe lofgren rodney alexander joseph cao charlie melancon gene taylor bennie thompson developed gulf coast civic works act legislation would create 100000 green job training opportunities residents displaced survivors hurricanes katrina rita rebuild sustain communities federal government would partner directly local officials nonprofits address remaining challenges like infrastructure affordable housing flood protection would focus building resilience climate change mitigating effects future deadly storms confronting poverty plan supported 250 community faith environmental human rights organizations along gulf coast across nation like naacp aclu national council churches jewish council public affairs network global green 1sky equity amp inclusion campaign oxfam american amnesty international usa last september 100 catholic evangelical jewish mainline protestant muslim leaders urged congress next administration support innovative policy national moral priority 30 members us house urging colleagues capitol hill white house remember people gulf coastand duty americans ensure every community right recovery legislation approach 4th anniversary hurricane katrina better way utilize lessons learned since 2005 support brothers sisters along gulf coast passing funding gulf coast civic works act click support urge member congress support gulf coast civic works act jeffrey buchanan information officer robert f kennedy center justice human rights cofounder gulf coast civic works campaign also taproots fellow center community change contributor upcoming book rebuild america solving economic crisis civic works 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 | 552 |
<p>We've made important strides towards a bold vision. What we still need to do is build the power to fully achieve that vision, by organizing with people in all parts of Illinois.</p>
<p>Like a tornado, right-wing ideologues have swept through statehouses across the Midwest leaving devastation in their wake. Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Mike Pence in Indiana and Bruce Rauner in Illinois came into office with dreams of slashing government services and destroying worker protections. In order to implement their austerity agendas, they worked to create crisis and chaos.</p>
<p>In Illinois, residents experienced this strategy firsthand during a historic budget impasse that made national headlines. Gov. Rauner held the state hostage in an attempt to force the legislature to pass his austerity agenda. As a result, <a href="http://www.responsiblebudget.org/sites/default/files/RBC%20Factsheet%20FINAL%203.24.17.pdf" type="external">over one&#160;million Illinois residents lost access to critical services</a>. Rape crisis centers were shut down, seniors were forced into nursing homes, homeless families were turned away from shelters and young people lost access to life-saving, anti-violence programs.</p>
<p>A collapsing social service and public education infrastructure was exactly what Rauner wanted. The governor made his fortune, in large part, by taking over corporations and breaking them into pieces: Destruction is his formula for profit. He issued <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-gov-bruce-rauner-turnaround-agenda-met-20161122-story.html" type="external">extreme demands</a>, including insisting on multiple state constitutional amendments in exchange for a budget. However, this strategy didn't work. After three long years, members of his own party defected this month, allowing the Illinois legislature to override his veto of the state budget and to finally end the impasse.</p>
<p>The budget that passed falls short. It insufficiently funds many critical services, cutting $3 billion from current spending levels, according to state Rep. Greg Harris. Furthermore, it relies on Illinois families to foot the bill by imposing an increase in the state's flat tax instead of requiring the wealthy to pay their fair share. Only two very modest corporate loopholes were closed.&#160;Progressive revenue solutions'such as closing the carried interest loophole, closing significant corporate loopholes, or implementing a progressive tax structure'remain sidelined.</p>
<p>This means that, for now, Illinois will continue to have one of the most unfair tax systems in the country, in which low and middle income families pay a greater percentage of their income than the state's most wealthy residents. Even though Rauner was unsuccessful in perpetuating the impasse, his fingerprints can be seen all over the final product of an austerity budget.</p>
<p>To build statewide power in the face of austerity, organizers need to do two things: craft a bold vision for full funding under a rights framework and build the electoral power that demands that vision. In Illinois, we've made real progress, creating a <a href="http://grassrootscollaborative.org/illinois-peoples-agenda/" type="external">People's Agenda</a> laying out our vision of where we need to get to, making the bold demands for what our communities have the right to, and building coalitions willing to move the ball forward when progress seems impossible.</p>
<p>Instead of caving to lowered expectations, Illinois residents came together like never before. Social-service providers who normally remain apolitical rallied in the streets, not to advocate for one budget line item over another, but to say the wealthy should pay their fair share so we can expand services instead of cutting them. A group of residents being hurt by the budget impasse marched 200 miles to Springfield. Unions strengthened alliances with community organizations. The <a href="http://grassrootscollaborative.org/" type="external">Grassroots Collaborative</a>, <a href="http://www.faireconomyillinois.org/about/" type="external">Fair Economy Illinois</a>, <a href="http://www.icirr.org/" type="external">Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/gemcoalition/" type="external">Grassroots Education Movement</a>, the <a href="http://15forillinois.org/" type="external">Fight for 15</a> and others advanced aspirational demands during a period that could have easily been purely defensive.</p>
<p>In the midst of the crisis and chaos created by Governor Rauner, we pushed an Illinois progressive agenda farther than ever before and made historic progress. Illinois became the first state to <a href="http://www.sj-r.com/news/20170530/illinois-house-approves-15-minimum-wage" type="external">pass a $15 minimum wage</a> in both the upper and lower houses. The Illinois Senate passed a bill to <a href="http://chicagoreporter.com/bill-targets-carried-interest-loophole-to-make-finance-titans-pay-fair-share/" type="external">close the carried interest loophole</a> by placing a privilege tax on Wall Street money managers, becoming the first legislative body in the country to do so. Together, a broad coalition passed a bill to give Chicago an <a href="https://www.ctunet.com/legislative/bill-elected-school-board" type="external">elected representative school board</a>, something that Chicago parents have been demanding for decades. The General Assembly also passed the <a href="http://www.icirr.org/news-events/news/details/2096/illinois-trust-act-goes-to-gov-rauner-s-desk-as-national-model-for-common-sense" type="external">Illinois Trust Act</a> that would expand protections of Illinois immigrant community running directly counter to Governor Rauner's <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chapman/ct-bruce-rauner-illinois-syrian-refugees-suspended-met-1117-20151116-story.html" type="external">anti-immigrant anti-refugee policies</a>.</p>
<p>We've made important strides towards a bold vision. What we still need to do is build the power to fully achieve that vision, by organizing with people in all parts of Illinois. To this end, Grassroots Collaborative is experimenting with building progressive statewide infrastructure, beginning with developing grassroots leaders and engaging sporadic voters of color in Peoria. Working families, women and people of color must be at the center of our agenda. And unless we build meaningful relationships across the state, Rauner will continue to manipulate a racist anti-Chicago narrative, and keep the state divided against itself.</p>
<p>There is still much work to do. Many of the bills we've passed are still at risk of being vetoed by Rauner. Illinois will still not be able to make the needed investment in our people unless we win more progressive revenue. But the strides made during the Illinois budget impasse should be a lesson to all of us operating in states run by right-wing ideologues like Rauner. We cannot make progress without issuing bold demands for what our communities need. And we can't win our bold visions without building formidable grassroots power that demands a new way forward. That is the big task that lies before all of us as we head into the 2018 elections.</p>
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<p>Amisha Patel is the Executive Director of the <a href="http://www.thegrassrootscollaborative.org/" type="external">Grassroots Collaborative</a> and <a href="http://takebackchicago.org/AboutGIA" type="external">Grassroots Illinois Action</a>.</p> | true | 4 | weve made important strides towards bold vision still need build power fully achieve vision organizing people parts illinois like tornado rightwing ideologues swept statehouses across midwest leaving devastation wake scott walker wisconsin mike pence indiana bruce rauner illinois came office dreams slashing government services destroying worker protections order implement austerity agendas worked create crisis chaos illinois residents experienced strategy firsthand historic budget impasse made national headlines gov rauner held state hostage attempt force legislature pass austerity agenda result one160million illinois residents lost access critical services rape crisis centers shut seniors forced nursing homes homeless families turned away shelters young people lost access lifesaving antiviolence programs collapsing social service public education infrastructure exactly rauner wanted governor made fortune large part taking corporations breaking pieces destruction formula profit issued extreme demands including insisting multiple state constitutional amendments exchange budget however strategy didnt work three long years members party defected month allowing illinois legislature override veto state budget finally end impasse budget passed falls short insufficiently funds many critical services cutting 3 billion current spending levels according state rep greg harris furthermore relies illinois families foot bill imposing increase states flat tax instead requiring wealthy pay fair share two modest corporate loopholes closed160progressive revenue solutionssuch closing carried interest loophole closing significant corporate loopholes implementing progressive tax structureremain sidelined means illinois continue one unfair tax systems country low middle income families pay greater percentage income states wealthy residents even though rauner unsuccessful perpetuating impasse fingerprints seen final product austerity budget build statewide power face austerity organizers need two things craft bold vision full funding rights framework build electoral power demands vision illinois weve made real progress creating peoples agenda laying vision need get making bold demands communities right building coalitions willing move ball forward progress seems impossible instead caving lowered expectations illinois residents came together like never socialservice providers normally remain apolitical rallied streets advocate one budget line item another say wealthy pay fair share expand services instead cutting group residents hurt budget impasse marched 200 miles springfield unions strengthened alliances community organizations grassroots collaborative fair economy illinois illinois coalition immigrant refugee rights grassroots education movement fight 15 others advanced aspirational demands period could easily purely defensive midst crisis chaos created governor rauner pushed illinois progressive agenda farther ever made historic progress illinois became first state pass 15 minimum wage upper lower houses illinois senate passed bill close carried interest loophole placing privilege tax wall street money managers becoming first legislative body country together broad coalition passed bill give chicago elected representative school board something chicago parents demanding decades general assembly also passed illinois trust act would expand protections illinois immigrant community running directly counter governor rauners antiimmigrant antirefugee policies weve made important strides towards bold vision still need build power fully achieve vision organizing people parts illinois end grassroots collaborative experimenting building progressive statewide infrastructure beginning developing grassroots leaders engaging sporadic voters color peoria working families women people color must center agenda unless build meaningful relationships across state rauner continue manipulate racist antichicago narrative keep state divided still much work many bills weve passed still risk vetoed rauner illinois still able make needed investment people unless win progressive revenue strides made illinois budget impasse lesson us operating states run rightwing ideologues like rauner make progress without issuing bold demands communities need cant win bold visions without building formidable grassroots power demands new way forward big task lies us head 2018 elections like youve read subscribe times magazine make taxdeductible donation fund reporting amisha patel executive director grassroots collaborative grassroots illinois action | 588 |
<p>It’s been a long five years for Stephen Harper as prime minister of a minority government. Long and infuriating, I am sure, because for all that time he has had to pretend that he was governing. He had to masquerade as someone who believed that government could be a force for good. He even “stimulated” the economy – though only under pressure from the opposition. All the things he really hated about government and wanted to get rid of were out of reach.</p>
<p>He couldn’t slash Medicare or gut the Canada Health Act. He couldn’t cut cash transfers to the provinces, or further weaken Unemployment Insurance. He left the public service unions with their rights intact. He had to leave education alone (more or less). And he couldn’t risk slashing the civil service he hates so much.&#160; Even the CBC was spared (though the Conservatives raised millions from their loyalists attacking it in fundraising letters).</p>
<p>The frustration level must have been almost unbearable. Remember, this is a man who got so frustrated being in Opposition as right-hand man to the old reform Party’s Preston Manning, that in 1997 that he bolted from politics altogether. The place he chose to cleanse himself after all those years having to play the democrat was the National Citizens Coalition, by a big margin the most right-wing organization on the national scene. He said he was glad to be out of politics so he could say what he really thought.</p>
<p>Harper was hoping for revenge in the last election and blew it by attacking culture and angering voters in Quebec. He’s eager for another try. And if you want to see what real revenge looks like, give Harper a majority and he will unleash the most destructive, nation-changing blitzkrieg in living memory. I can still remember the night that Conservative Leader Brian Mulroney won the historic free trade election 1988. It was devastating for progressives. But Mulroney was a kindergarten teacher compared to Stephen Harper. Free trade started us down the road to Americanization. Harper will take us to the end of that road and beyond.</p>
<p>Every once in a while, some right-wing pundit will opine (hoping to lull us) that Harper has actually gotten accustomed to governing, that his hard edges have been worn down by the day to day responsibility of running a country.</p>
<p>There is nothing to suggest that Harper has mellowed. He is still the past-president of the National Citizens Coalition and that is where his heart and mind remain. He will apply its slogan “More freedom through less government” with an efficient and ruthless dedication.</p>
<p>Harper’s “governing” style has done more to put our arcane and anti-democratic voting system under a spotlight, and a solid majority of Canadians now support a proportional representation system of voting. Our first-past-the-post voting system (Harper won the last election with 38 per cent of the vote) combined with cabinet government has always been vulnerable to executive dictatorship. But no one really imagined what that could look like until Harper took the reigns.</p>
<p>What would happen with a Harper majority?&#160; That dictatorship description would look more and more real and less and less hyperbolic.</p>
<p>One of the few checks on Harper’s power has been the parliamentary committee structure, where the Opposition — which controlled the committees through their numerical majority — could accomplish far more than they could in the House of Commons: deciding what issues would be investigated, calling witnesses (and even subpoenaing them), demanding documents and shining the public eye on otherwise secretive workings. The committees infuriated Harper the control-freak, to the point where he produced a book of dirty tricks for his MPs to use to scuttle the committees’ work.</p>
<p>With a majority, all of that will end. The committees will be effectively shut down. The Conservative majority will decide what’s discussed, who testifies and what documents are asked for. There will be no Afghan detainee torture scandal, because the relevant committee (if it still exists) won’t be asking for any embarrassing documents.</p>
<p>Forever funded, and closed off</p>
<p>One of the few positive legacies of the Liberal era of Jean Chretien era was the banning of corporate (and union) donations to political parties and the public funding of those parties – through a formula based on the number of votes received in the last election. That would be one of the first things to go under a Harper majority. The Conservatives’ superior fundraising machine (and its extremely dedicated Christian funding base) will mean that the Conservatives will be able to outspend the other parties for the foreseeable future — and be able to campaign year round between elections.</p>
<p>For all his talk about Senate reform, it is extremely unlikely that it will ever happen now that Harper has shoveled a truck load of hyper-partisan neo-cons into the red chamber. The body of sober second thought has already showed its hand by making the almost unprecedented move of killing a climate change bill with no committee hearing or debate, a bill passed by the House of Commons. There will be nothing in the previously-august chamber to slow down anything coming from a majority Harper government.</p>
<p>Numerous critics, including government agencies, have been extremely critical of the government’s handling of Access to Information requests. In July 2009, Sebastien Togneri, then director of parliamentary affairs for Public Works Minister Christian Paradis, ordered civil servants to “unrelease” documents already released under the act. He is still under police investigation for his actions. There is widespread belief that such orders are actually routine across the government. With a majority government, information could dry up completely.</p>
<p>Groups with charitable status — environmental organizations, anti-poverty groups, progressive think-tanks, women’s organizations — cannot spend more than 10 per cent of their staff time on advocacy activity on pain of possibly losing their charitable status. Before the last election, many of these groups received warning letters about participating in any way in the election. It is a virtual certainty that Harper will toughen up rules regulating civil society groups.&#160; They could use the defunding strategy applied to women’s groups and international development organizations to every sector, including First Nations organizations. The Canadian International Development Agency – already politicized by the government – &#160;will simply become a blunt instrument of Harper’s extremist foreign policy.</p>
<p>The various watch-dog agencies – including those watching the military, the RCMP, and the nuclear industry – have already effectively silenced by the appointment of weak and compliant directors. Their work will be further emasculated by the rewriting of legislation, budget slashing, withholding of information and more intimidation. Watch kittens.</p>
<p>This one really counts</p>
<p>Harper doesn’t have to do much about the fourth estate, as the media has been largely quiescent over the past five years, virtually never drawing the obvious conclusion from all the individual scandals and abuses of power: that we have a rogue government run by a sociopathic, hateful prime minister who has deliberately poisoned our democratic system. There’s just one thing left to do and it is both substantive and symbolic: get rid of the public broadcaster, the CBC.</p>
<p>With a majority government, and a senate full of Conservative hacks willing to throw democratic convention out the door, one of the few institutions left that can serve as a check on executive power are the courts. Harper has already replaced hundreds of 1,100 federal judges who sit on superior and appeal courts in each province, as well as the Federal Court, and the Federal Court of Appeal. Many, though not all, were small or large C conservatives. with a minority government Harper had to be cautious. But by the end of this year, the Supreme Court of Canada, which Harper has accused of being “too left-leaning,” will see eight of its nine judges eligible for retirement, leaving a Harper majority free to replace them with the most conservative candidates it can find.</p>
<p>And that’s just his plans for democracy. I haven’t even talked about his actual policies. Citizens who care about their country should be very afraid. They need to drop everything, learn about Harper’s background and past actions, work on the election, open their check books, talk to their friends and colleagues, insist that they pay attention — and vote. (Only 58 per cent did so last time.) They need to tell them if they don’t, they’ll be personally responsible for the resulting dictatorship and the end of the country as we know it.</p>
<p>MURRAY DOBBIN, now living in Powell River, BC has been a journalist, broadcaster, author and social activist for over forty years. He has been a columnist for the Financial Post and Winnipeg Free Press, contributes guest editorials to the Globe and Mail and other Canadian dailies and now writes a bi-weekly column for the on-line journals the Tyee and rabble.ca. 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 | long five years stephen harper prime minister minority government long infuriating sure time pretend governing masquerade someone believed government could force good even stimulated economy though pressure opposition things really hated government wanted get rid reach couldnt slash medicare gut canada health act couldnt cut cash transfers provinces weaken unemployment insurance left public service unions rights intact leave education alone less couldnt risk slashing civil service hates much160 even cbc spared though conservatives raised millions loyalists attacking fundraising letters frustration level must almost unbearable remember man got frustrated opposition righthand man old reform partys preston manning 1997 bolted politics altogether place chose cleanse years play democrat national citizens coalition big margin rightwing organization national scene said glad politics could say really thought harper hoping revenge last election blew attacking culture angering voters quebec hes eager another try want see real revenge looks like give harper majority unleash destructive nationchanging blitzkrieg living memory still remember night conservative leader brian mulroney historic free trade election 1988 devastating progressives mulroney kindergarten teacher compared stephen harper free trade started us road americanization harper take us end road beyond every rightwing pundit opine hoping lull us harper actually gotten accustomed governing hard edges worn day day responsibility running country nothing suggest harper mellowed still pastpresident national citizens coalition heart mind remain apply slogan freedom less government efficient ruthless dedication harpers governing style done put arcane antidemocratic voting system spotlight solid majority canadians support proportional representation system voting firstpastthepost voting system harper last election 38 per cent vote combined cabinet government always vulnerable executive dictatorship one really imagined could look like harper took reigns would happen harper majority160 dictatorship description would look real less less hyperbolic one checks harpers power parliamentary committee structure opposition controlled committees numerical majority could accomplish far could house commons deciding issues would investigated calling witnesses even subpoenaing demanding documents shining public eye otherwise secretive workings committees infuriated harper controlfreak point produced book dirty tricks mps use scuttle committees work majority end committees effectively shut conservative majority decide whats discussed testifies documents asked afghan detainee torture scandal relevant committee still exists wont asking embarrassing documents forever funded closed one positive legacies liberal era jean chretien era banning corporate union donations political parties public funding parties formula based number votes received last election would one first things go harper majority conservatives superior fundraising machine extremely dedicated christian funding base mean conservatives able outspend parties foreseeable future able campaign year round elections talk senate reform extremely unlikely ever happen harper shoveled truck load hyperpartisan neocons red chamber body sober second thought already showed hand making almost unprecedented move killing climate change bill committee hearing debate bill passed house commons nothing previouslyaugust chamber slow anything coming majority harper government numerous critics including government agencies extremely critical governments handling access information requests july 2009 sebastien togneri director parliamentary affairs public works minister christian paradis ordered civil servants unrelease documents already released act still police investigation actions widespread belief orders actually routine across government majority government information could dry completely groups charitable status environmental organizations antipoverty groups progressive thinktanks womens organizations spend 10 per cent staff time advocacy activity pain possibly losing charitable status last election many groups received warning letters participating way election virtual certainty harper toughen rules regulating civil society groups160 could use defunding strategy applied womens groups international development organizations every sector including first nations organizations canadian international development agency already politicized government 160will simply become blunt instrument harpers extremist foreign policy various watchdog agencies including watching military rcmp nuclear industry already effectively silenced appointment weak compliant directors work emasculated rewriting legislation budget slashing withholding information intimidation watch kittens one really counts harper doesnt much fourth estate media largely quiescent past five years virtually never drawing obvious conclusion individual scandals abuses power rogue government run sociopathic hateful prime minister deliberately poisoned democratic system theres one thing left substantive symbolic get rid public broadcaster cbc majority government senate full conservative hacks willing throw democratic convention door one institutions left serve check executive power courts harper already replaced hundreds 1100 federal judges sit superior appeal courts province well federal court federal court appeal many though small large c conservatives minority government harper cautious end year supreme court canada harper accused leftleaning see eight nine judges eligible retirement leaving harper majority free replace conservative candidates find thats plans democracy havent even talked actual policies citizens care country afraid need drop everything learn harpers background past actions work election open check books talk friends colleagues insist pay attention vote 58 per cent last time need tell dont theyll personally responsible resulting dictatorship end country know murray dobbin living powell river bc journalist broadcaster author social activist forty years columnist financial post winnipeg free press contributes guest editorials globe mail canadian dailies writes biweekly column online journals tyee rabbleca reached mdobbintelusnet 160 160 160 160 | 806 |
<p>Photo Credit: Pathdoc / Shutterstock.com</p>
<p>The following is an excerpt from the new book&#160; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Myth-ADHD-Child-Revised-Attention/dp/0143111507/?tag=alternorg08-20" type="external">The Myth of the ADHD Child: 101 Ways to Improve Your Child’s Behavior and Attention Span without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion</a>&#160;(TarcherPerigee, 2017), available for purchase from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Myth-ADHD-Child-Revised-Attention/dp/0143111507/?tag=alternorg08-20" type="external">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780143111504?aff=alternet" type="external">IndieBound</a> and <a href="//www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/538610/the-myth-of-the-adhd-child-revised-edition-by-thomas-armstrong-phd/9780143111504" type="external">Penguin</a>:</p>
<p>The Big Payoff in Promoting ADHD Drugs</p>
<p>Drug companies give financial support, sometimes without public knowledge, to individuals and groups that are key players in the research, diagnosis, and treatment of ADHD. The parent advocacy group Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD), for example, which was instrumental in helping get ADD (as it was then called) designated as a handicapping condition under federal disability laws in the 1990s, was secretly taking money from pharmaceutical companies for years before disclosing its financial connections after a 1995 PBS broadcast revealed its underhanded dealings with drug companies.[i] It now regularly reports the amount it receives each year from Big Pharma. In the 2008–2009 fiscal year, for example, it took in $1,174,626 from Eli Lilly, Johnson &amp; Johnson’s McNeil division, Novartis, Shire US, and UCB, spending $330,000 on its annual conference, $114,950 on its twentieth anniversary gala, and $187,747 on a salary for its chief executive officer.[ii] Between 2006 and 2009, Shire alone paid CHADD $3 million to have CHADD’s bimonthly magazine, Attention, distributed to doctors’ offices nationwide.[iii]</p>
<p>The doctors who do the diagnosing and prescribing of ADHD and its many drugs are another key link in the marketing chain employed by big pharmaceutical firms. Drug companies typically hold “professional development” seminars for doctors where the benefits of the firm’s new products are touted. New York Times reporter <a href="//www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/health/the-selling-of-attention-deficit-disorder.html" type="external">Alan Schwarz described one such meeting sponsored by Shire to promote Adderall XR</a>, in which a psychiatrist from Denver paid by the company to speak proceeded to give inaccurate information about ADHD and Adderall XR to the seventy-five doctors attending. According to Schwarz’s report, the doctor told his colleagues to educate their patients on the lifelong nature of the disorder, despite evidence that many, if not most, individuals cease to meet the criteria for ADHD after adolescence. He also claimed that stimulants were not drugs of abuse (despite the fact that they are restricted by the federal government because of their abuse potential), and that side effects of Adderall XR were “generally mild” despite clinical evidence of insomnia, significant appetite suppression, and mood swings.[iv]</p>
<p>Big Pharma also influences doctors’ decisions about ADHD drugs through the frequent contacts that physicians have with company sales representatives. One salesman interviewed in Schwarz’s report, Brian Lutz, a Shire representative who sold Adderall XR between 2004 and 2009, said he met individually every two weeks with around seventy psychiatrists in his Oakland, California, territory, adding up to about thirty to forty sessions with each psychiatrist each year. Lutz told Schwarz that if he was asked by a doctor about side effects or about potentials for abuse he downplayed them, referring the physicians to the small print on the drug’s box. While feeling that he never lied about the product to the doctors, he regretted his role in promoting the drugs, saying: “We sold these pills like they were cars, when we knew they weren’t just cars.”[v]</p>
<p>Even more troubling is evidence showing that the very scientists who have engaged in legitimating ADHD and its various drug treatments through their so-called objective research have themselves been subsidized by drug companies. In 2008, a Senate investigation revealed that Joseph Biederman, Timothy E. Wilens, and Thomas J. Spencer, three of the most prolific and highly respected researchers in the ADHD community, had been substantially subsidized by drug companies and failed to report much of their income.[vi] Big Pharma paid $1.6 million alone to Biederman in speaking and consulting fees. Their research was then used by the pharmaceutical companies in their marketing and promotional efforts. As Schwarz observed specifically in regard to Biederman’s research: “Those findings typically delivered three messages: The disorder was underdiagnosed; stimulants were effective and safe; and unmedicated ADHD led to significant risks for academic failure, drug dependence, car accidents and brushes with the law.”[vii] The three researchers were eventually punished by their institutions, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, for violations of conflict of interest policies through their nondisclosures.[viii] Maintaining transparency regarding his own involvement with drug companies, Russell Barkley, arguably the single most respected and trusted researcher in the ADHD world and author of the best-selling book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Taking-Charge-ADHD-Third-Authoritative/dp/1462507891/?tag=alternorg08-20" type="external">Taking Charge of ADHD</a>, disclosed during a 2009 PowerPoint presentation his own financial relationships with Eli Lilly, Shire, Medice, McNeil, Janssen-Ortho, Janssen-Cilag, and Novartis.[ix] Finally, and perhaps most shocking of all, the very organization that has established the criteria for ADHD in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the American Psychiatric Association, itself receives significant funding from drug companies.[x]</p>
<p>Excerpted with permission from&#160; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Myth-ADHD-Child-Revised-Attention/dp/0143111507/?tag=alternorg08-20" type="external">The Myth of the ADHD Child: 101 Ways to Improve Your Child’s Behavior and Attention Span without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion</a>, by Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D. © 2017 by Thomas Armstrong. TarcherPerigee, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. Available for purchase from&#160; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Myth-ADHD-Child-Revised-Attention/dp/0143111507/?tag=alternorg08-20" type="external">Amazon</a>&#160;and&#160; <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780143111504?aff=alternet" type="external">Indiebound</a>.&#160;&#160;</p>
<p>[i] The PBS broadcast covering the links between CHADD and drug companies originally aired on October 13, 1995, and was part of John Merrow’s regularly featured segment “Learning Matters” on PBS NewsHour. It was titled “A.D.D.—A Dubious Diagnosis?” and produced by John Tulenko. The video can be accessed at learningmatters.tv/blog/documentaries/watch-add-a-dubious-diagnosis/640. A written transcript can be retrieved from add-adhd.org/ritalin_CHADD_A.D.D.html.</p>
<p>[ii] Figures on CHADD money from drug companies and expenditures on conference, gala, and CEO salary are taken from Pringle and Rosenberg, “Big Pharma’s Newest Money-Making Scheme: Adult ADHD.”</p>
<p>[iii] The $3 million from Shire pharmaceutical to fund CHADD’s monthly magazine is taken from Schwarz, “The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder.”</p>
<p>[iv] The story on the professional development seminar for psychiatrists paid for Shire pharmaceuticals is told in Schwarz, “The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder.”</p>
<p>[v] The account of ADHD drug representative Brian Lutz’s relations with Oakland-area psychiatrists is from Schwarz, “The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder.”</p>
<p>[vi] The account of Biederman, Wilens, and Spencer’s failure to disclose support from ADHD drug companies is given in Gardiner Harris and Benedict Carey,” Researchers Fail to Reveal Full Drug Pay,” New York Times, June 8, 2008. Retrieved from nytimes.com/2008/06/08/us/08conflict.html.</p>
<p>[vii] Schwarz is quoted from his article, “The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder.”</p>
<p>[viii] A report of disciplinary measures taken against ADHD researchers Biederman, Wilens, and Spencer is given in Xi Yu, “Three Professors Face Sanctions following Harvard Medical School Inquiry,” Harvard Crimson, July 2, 2011. Retrieved from thecrimson.com/article/2011/7/2/school-medical-harvard-investigation.</p>
<p>[ix] Drug company support disclosures are provided in a PowerPoint presentation by Russell A. Barkley titled “Deficient Emotional Self-Regulation Is a Core Component of ADHD: Evidence and Treatment Implications,” 2009. Retrieved from ccf.buffalo.edu/pdf/BarkleySlides_CCFSpeakerSeries0910.pdf.</p>
<p>[x] The American Psychiatric Association’s links to drug companies are reported in Schwarz, “The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder.”</p>
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<p>Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of the American Institute for Learning and Human Development, and an award-winning author and speaker who has been an educator for over forty years. Over one million copies of his books are in print in English on issues related to learning and human development.</p> | true | 4 | photo credit pathdoc shutterstockcom following excerpt new book160 myth adhd child 101 ways improve childs behavior attention span without drugs labels coercion160tarcherperigee 2017 available purchase amazon indiebound penguin big payoff promoting adhd drugs drug companies give financial support sometimes without public knowledge individuals groups key players research diagnosis treatment adhd parent advocacy group children adults attentiondeficithyperactivity disorder chadd example instrumental helping get add called designated handicapping condition federal disability laws 1990s secretly taking money pharmaceutical companies years disclosing financial connections 1995 pbs broadcast revealed underhanded dealings drug companiesi regularly reports amount receives year big pharma 20082009 fiscal year example took 1174626 eli lilly johnson amp johnsons mcneil division novartis shire us ucb spending 330000 annual conference 114950 twentieth anniversary gala 187747 salary chief executive officerii 2006 2009 shire alone paid chadd 3 million chadds bimonthly magazine attention distributed doctors offices nationwideiii doctors diagnosing prescribing adhd many drugs another key link marketing chain employed big pharmaceutical firms drug companies typically hold professional development seminars doctors benefits firms new products touted new york times reporter alan schwarz described one meeting sponsored shire promote adderall xr psychiatrist denver paid company speak proceeded give inaccurate information adhd adderall xr seventyfive doctors attending according schwarzs report doctor told colleagues educate patients lifelong nature disorder despite evidence many individuals cease meet criteria adhd adolescence also claimed stimulants drugs abuse despite fact restricted federal government abuse potential side effects adderall xr generally mild despite clinical evidence insomnia significant appetite suppression mood swingsiv big pharma also influences doctors decisions adhd drugs frequent contacts physicians company sales representatives one salesman interviewed schwarzs report brian lutz shire representative sold adderall xr 2004 2009 said met individually every two weeks around seventy psychiatrists oakland california territory adding thirty forty sessions psychiatrist year lutz told schwarz asked doctor side effects potentials abuse downplayed referring physicians small print drugs box feeling never lied product doctors regretted role promoting drugs saying sold pills like cars knew werent carsv even troubling evidence showing scientists engaged legitimating adhd various drug treatments socalled objective research subsidized drug companies 2008 senate investigation revealed joseph biederman timothy e wilens thomas j spencer three prolific highly respected researchers adhd community substantially subsidized drug companies failed report much incomevi big pharma paid 16 million alone biederman speaking consulting fees research used pharmaceutical companies marketing promotional efforts schwarz observed specifically regard biedermans research findings typically delivered three messages disorder underdiagnosed stimulants effective safe unmedicated adhd led significant risks academic failure drug dependence car accidents brushes lawvii three researchers eventually punished institutions harvard medical school massachusetts general hospital violations conflict interest policies nondisclosuresviii maintaining transparency regarding involvement drug companies russell barkley arguably single respected trusted researcher adhd world author bestselling book taking charge adhd disclosed 2009 powerpoint presentation financial relationships eli lilly shire medice mcneil janssenortho janssencilag novartisix finally perhaps shocking organization established criteria adhd diagnostic statistical manual dsm american psychiatric association receives significant funding drug companiesx excerpted permission from160 myth adhd child 101 ways improve childs behavior attention span without drugs labels coercion thomas armstrong phd 2017 thomas armstrong tarcherperigee imprint penguin random house llc available purchase from160 amazon160and160 indiebound160160 pbs broadcast covering links chadd drug companies originally aired october 13 1995 part john merrows regularly featured segment learning matters pbs newshour titled adda dubious diagnosis produced john tulenko video accessed learningmatterstvblogdocumentarieswatchaddadubiousdiagnosis640 written transcript retrieved addadhdorgritalin_chadd_addhtml ii figures chadd money drug companies expenditures conference gala ceo salary taken pringle rosenberg big pharmas newest moneymaking scheme adult adhd iii 3 million shire pharmaceutical fund chadds monthly magazine taken schwarz selling attention deficit disorder iv story professional development seminar psychiatrists paid shire pharmaceuticals told schwarz selling attention deficit disorder v account adhd drug representative brian lutzs relations oaklandarea psychiatrists schwarz selling attention deficit disorder vi account biederman wilens spencers failure disclose support adhd drug companies given gardiner harris benedict carey researchers fail reveal full drug pay new york times june 8 2008 retrieved nytimescom20080608us08conflicthtml vii schwarz quoted article selling attention deficit disorder viii report disciplinary measures taken adhd researchers biederman wilens spencer given xi yu three professors face sanctions following harvard medical school inquiry harvard crimson july 2 2011 retrieved thecrimsoncomarticle201172schoolmedicalharvardinvestigation ix drug company support disclosures provided powerpoint presentation russell barkley titled deficient emotional selfregulation core component adhd evidence treatment implications 2009 retrieved ccfbuffaloedupdfbarkleyslides_ccfspeakerseries0910pdf x american psychiatric associations links drug companies reported schwarz selling attention deficit disorder 160 thomas armstrong phd executive director american institute learning human development awardwinning author speaker educator forty years one million copies books print english issues related learning human development | 751 |
<p>Janine Jackson interviewed Holly Sklar about business and the minimum wage for the <a href="" type="internal">November 13 CounterSpin</a>. This is a lightly edited transcript.</p>
<p>Holly Sklar: “Small businesses understand very well that workers are also consumers.” (image: BillMoyers.com)</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">MP3 Link</a></p>
<p>Janine Jackson: Whether the federal minimum wage should be raised was the first question of the recent Republican presidential candidates’ debate. Unsurprisingly, the responses ranged from no to hell no, but given a media environment in which some pundits claim that there is no wage too low to pay someone, it’s significant that the question even came up.</p>
<p>When you think of the fight to raise the minimum wage, you might think of fast food workers who’ve been at the forefront of the Fight for $15 movement that’s put a higher wage on the agenda in places like Seattle and Los Angeles and here in New York. You don’t, most likely, think of business owners, as media’s standard presentation often pits business owners, with their eyes supposedly on profits, against workers looking to earn enough to live on.</p>
<p>That’s where my guest comes in. Holly Sklar is CEO of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, and author of, among other titles, Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies that Work for All of Us. She joins us now by phone from Boston. Welcome to CounterSpin, Holly Sklar.</p>
<p>Holly Sklar: Thanks, great to be here.</p>
<p>(cc photo: Joe Lustri)</p>
<p>JJ: Support for raising the minimum wage is seen by some as a call for social policy to trump purely economic reasoning, as if economic policy were ever neutral vis-à-vis social goods; but put crudely, it’s seen as workers’ interest versus owners’ interest. So the very existence of your group would seem to complicate that presentation of things.</p>
<p>HS: Well, certainly, and that’s what we intend. There’s a big misunderstanding that there needs to be some kind of a split between business and workers on raising the minimum wage, or on the economics of it, but in fact we are a national network of business owners, executives and business alliances who do believe a fair minimum wage makes good business sense. That’s what we’re about.</p>
<p>JJ: I don’t think that anyone truly believes that Walmart would have to go out of business if they paid workers more; it seems more like an ideological argument that if they can make a squillion dollars, then they are entitled to every penny. But the rhetoric often tells us that it’s the smaller businesses that would suffer, that wouldn’t be able to hire or wouldn’t be able to grow—and that seems to be what you are countering fairly directly.</p>
<p>HS: Yes, in general we know that it is absolutely the case that you cannot build a strong economy on a falling wage floor; and the minimum wage, adjusted for the cost of living, has fallen dramatically—at the federal level, $7.25, &#160;is actually lower, adjusted for inflation, than the minimum wage of 1950, and it’s a third lower than 1968. And so you cannot build a strong economy, and you cannot really build a strong business for the long haul, on falling real wages. Most businesses in the country are small businesses, and so by definition most of our members are small businesses, although we have some very large businesses as well, and we have business alliances—for example, the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce, which represents about 30,000 businesses—that support raising the minimum wage.</p>
<p>Small businesses understand very well that workers are also consumers. If there’s not enough money in the wage base of the economy of the people they are hoping will come in and buy their goods and services, they feel that every day. And they also feel very directly what it’s like to have a worker who, if they’re underpaid, if they’re not really earning enough to even keep a roof over head, put food on the table, buy the winter jacket of a growing kid, they’re distracted by this financial stress that’s continual. So they believe very strongly that the workers should earn enough so that they can focus on the business, on the customer, and not be constantly worried about just how are they going to make ends meet, how are they going to make the rent and so on.</p>
<p>JJ: You’ve just talked about the history, and I think it’s interesting—Donald Trump and his ilk seem to connect holding down wages to this idea of “making America great again,” and that’s more than ironic given the actual history.</p>
<p>HS: Yeah, well, my point is that’s a big myth that has been sold. &#160;I mean, if cutting wages and cutting benefits and this whole notion that the more you can squeeze out of the workers—at the same time, in the giant corporation, not in the small business but in the bigger corporations, you go in the exact opposite way; you have more and more of the revenue of the company going to fewer and fewer hands at the top—you know, we’ve already tested that. That’s my point, that that model is delivering us worse economic growth, that model is giving us a shrinking middle class, and that model is what produced the greatest economic meltdown since the Great Depression. There’s nothing theoretical about that. We have seen what this business model, this economic model, produces—and it’s terrible. It’s terrible for workers and it’s also terrible for most businesses.</p>
<p>The biggest thing businesses have complained about in recent years is that they’re just not seeing enough consumer demand; they’re not seeing enough consumer buying power; they need more. You need people to buy what they are making in order to sustain the business and to grow the business, and there’s obviously a direct connection—I say obviously, but folks like Donald Trump ideologically don’t want to see it as obvious—you need people to have enough wages to be able to buy what they need. And if you are going to have a growing middle class, you need people to be able to buy more than just the bare necessities, right? And that’s what we’ve lost sight of.</p>
<p>JJ: And yet you can open any paper and find somebody saying:&#160; Well, yes, you know, ideally workers might make more, but the tough reality is if companies raise wages that will lead to joblessness, that jobs will be destroyed. And they present studies and numbers and charts that seem to make that argument. Is it really something where the economics are debated or highly contentious of how this would work?</p>
<p>HS:&#160;&#160;&#160; At our website <a href="http://www.businessforafairminimumwage.org/" type="external">BusinessForAFairMinimumWage.org</a>, there’s actually a research summary, the most rigorous research on whether raising minimum wage causes job loss, and it does not. In other words, if you look at all the actual minimum wage increases in recent decades—so, not projecting forward and saying, “based on my particular, often ideological-driven economic assumptions going forward,” but if we’re looking back and looking at actual minimum wage increases. And not being simplistic and saying, “I’ll just pretend there wasn’t an economic meltdown in 2008 when I’m looking at the consequences of minimum wage,” but factoring things out. Anyway, the point is that this rigorous research on actual minimum wage increases really does show that there is either no effect or a slightly positive effect or in some cases a slightly negative effect, but when you look at it overall, on balance it does not cause job loss.</p>
<p>Just in the last year or two, the states that have raised the minimum wage are actually showing stronger job growth—now, I’m saying that, that is not one of those rigorous studies—but there is a reason for this, there is this direct connection: &#160;You can’t expect people to buy what’s being produced by business, to continue to buy that at that level or more, if you’re driving down wages; it doesn’t work. And one of the ways this was masked for a while was people were using their home equity, for example, going deeper into debt to try and get by when wages were going down, to maintain living standards. That lasted for a while, but as we know, that doesn’t last forever, and we saw the consequences in the economic meltdown.</p>
<p>JJ: Finally, making the argument that a higher minimum wage is good for business doesn’t preclude the social justice argument that people simply deserve to be able to survive on their paycheck, does it?</p>
<p>HS: No, if you work a full-time job, you shouldn’t be earning a poverty wage. I mean, it’s as simple as that. You shouldn’t be earning a poverty wage in general, but of course, if you work full time, at the end of the month it should add up to what you need to pay rent and other basics that you have.</p>
<p>And the other thing, if I could just add, because this is important as to why so many of our businesspeople feel so very strongly about this, is businesses that are using this better business model, one that invests in their workers, they really see things like stronger productivity, stronger customer service, they see dramatic reduction often in worker turnover. So there are all these factors that are also internal to the business, that bring real improvements in just the way the business is operating that are really important to the bottom line as well.</p>
<p>JJ: We’ve been speaking with Holly Sklar of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage. They’re online at <a href="http://www.businessforafairminimumwage.org/" type="external">BusinessForAFairMinimumWage.org</a> . Holly Sklar, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.</p>
<p>HS: Thank you.</p>
<p>Subscribe: <a href="" type="internal">Android</a> | <a href="" type="internal">RSS</a></p> | true | 4 | janine jackson interviewed holly sklar business minimum wage november 13 counterspin lightly edited transcript holly sklar small businesses understand well workers also consumers image billmoyerscom mp3 link janine jackson whether federal minimum wage raised first question recent republican presidential candidates debate unsurprisingly responses ranged hell given media environment pundits claim wage low pay someone significant question even came think fight raise minimum wage might think fast food workers whove forefront fight 15 movement thats put higher wage agenda places like seattle los angeles new york dont likely think business owners medias standard presentation often pits business owners eyes supposedly profits workers looking earn enough live thats guest comes holly sklar ceo business fair minimum wage author among titles raise floor wages policies work us joins us phone boston welcome counterspin holly sklar holly sklar thanks great cc photo joe lustri jj support raising minimum wage seen call social policy trump purely economic reasoning economic policy ever neutral visàvis social goods put crudely seen workers interest versus owners interest existence group would seem complicate presentation things hs well certainly thats intend theres big misunderstanding needs kind split business workers raising minimum wage economics fact national network business owners executives business alliances believe fair minimum wage makes good business sense thats jj dont think anyone truly believes walmart would go business paid workers seems like ideological argument make squillion dollars entitled every penny rhetoric often tells us smaller businesses would suffer wouldnt able hire wouldnt able growand seems countering fairly directly hs yes general know absolutely case build strong economy falling wage floor minimum wage adjusted cost living fallen dramaticallyat federal level 725 160is actually lower adjusted inflation minimum wage 1950 third lower 1968 build strong economy really build strong business long haul falling real wages businesses country small businesses definition members small businesses although large businesses well business alliancesfor example greater new york chamber commerce represents 30000 businessesthat support raising minimum wage small businesses understand well workers also consumers theres enough money wage base economy people hoping come buy goods services feel every day also feel directly like worker theyre underpaid theyre really earning enough even keep roof head put food table buy winter jacket growing kid theyre distracted financial stress thats continual believe strongly workers earn enough focus business customer constantly worried going make ends meet going make rent jj youve talked history think interestingdonald trump ilk seem connect holding wages idea making america great thats ironic given actual history hs yeah well point thats big myth sold 160i mean cutting wages cutting benefits whole notion squeeze workersat time giant corporation small business bigger corporations go exact opposite way revenue company going fewer fewer hands topyou know weve already tested thats point model delivering us worse economic growth model giving us shrinking middle class model produced greatest economic meltdown since great depression theres nothing theoretical seen business model economic model producesand terrible terrible workers also terrible businesses biggest thing businesses complained recent years theyre seeing enough consumer demand theyre seeing enough consumer buying power need need people buy making order sustain business grow business theres obviously direct connectioni say obviously folks like donald trump ideologically dont want see obviousyou need people enough wages able buy need going growing middle class need people able buy bare necessities right thats weve lost sight jj yet open paper find somebody saying160 well yes know ideally workers might make tough reality companies raise wages lead joblessness jobs destroyed present studies numbers charts seem make argument really something economics debated highly contentious would work hs160160160 website businessforafairminimumwageorg theres actually research summary rigorous research whether raising minimum wage causes job loss words look actual minimum wage increases recent decadesso projecting forward saying based particular often ideologicaldriven economic assumptions going forward looking back looking actual minimum wage increases simplistic saying ill pretend wasnt economic meltdown 2008 im looking consequences minimum wage factoring things anyway point rigorous research actual minimum wage increases really show either effect slightly positive effect cases slightly negative effect look overall balance cause job loss last year two states raised minimum wage actually showing stronger job growthnow im saying one rigorous studiesbut reason direct connection 160you cant expect people buy whats produced business continue buy level youre driving wages doesnt work one ways masked people using home equity example going deeper debt try get wages going maintain living standards lasted know doesnt last forever saw consequences economic meltdown jj finally making argument higher minimum wage good business doesnt preclude social justice argument people simply deserve able survive paycheck hs work fulltime job shouldnt earning poverty wage mean simple shouldnt earning poverty wage general course work full time end month add need pay rent basics thing could add important many businesspeople feel strongly businesses using better business model one invests workers really see things like stronger productivity stronger customer service see dramatic reduction often worker turnover factors also internal business bring real improvements way business operating really important bottom line well jj weve speaking holly sklar business fair minimum wage theyre online businessforafairminimumwageorg holly sklar thank much joining us week counterspin hs thank subscribe android rss | 851 |
<p>General Petraeus’s surge is widely credited with bringing down violence in Iraq to a level that allows for political development and the withdrawal of some US troops. The impact of the surge has recently entered into the presidential campaign, but the matter should not be another partisan issue debated with slogans. It is central to understanding developments in Iraq and expectations in Afghanistan, where the principles of the surge are likely to be put into practice. US officials think that they have written the pages of recent Iraqi history, but important passages have been written with Saudi and Persian pens.</p>
<p>The surge increased US troop levels in the Sunni center in order to begin a counterinsurgency program. Based on British and French experiences late in the colonial era, it sought to rid a small area of insurgents through military force then win over local support by providing government services and stimulating economic development. Upon consolidation in one locale, the cycle would be repeated in surrounding areas, spreading out gradually across the country in a manner that counterinsurgency advocates liken to an oil spot spreading across water. Looking at the political and military dynamics reverberating through Iraq over the last two years or so, one can see other forces at work that reduced violence – forces unrelated to the surge and the counterinsurgency principles upon which it rests.</p>
<p>A considerable portion of the violence in Iraq over the last several years did not stem from the insurgency or al Qaeda, rather it stemmed from animosities between the Sunnis and Shi’as. Those animosities developed into internecine sectarian fighting, triggered in part by spectacular al Qaeda bombings of Shi’a shrines and neighborhoods. Sectarian fighting led to Sunni emigrations into adjacent countries and to Sunnis and Shi’as abandoning mixed neighborhoods in favor of homogeneous ones guarded by local militias. These population shifts made sectarian violence less likely, and provided a breathing space during which both sides could ponder where civil war was taking them. This internal Iraqi dynamic accounts for a considerable amount of the decline in violence, especially in Baghdad.</p>
<p>The Sunni Arab tribes of Anbar and Diyala provinces shifted away from being important parts of the insurgency to partnering with the US against al Qaeda. It is difficult to link these events in Anbar and Diyala to the surge. There was no cycle of security-services-expansion as in counterinsurgency programs; instead, whole regions quickly and unexpectedly turned on al Qaeda. More importantly, the Sunni tribes began their cooperation with the US several months before the surge began. Al Qaeda’s operations in those provinces and nearby Baghdad caused large numbers of Sunni casualties; and its personnel demonstrated little respect for the customs of local tribes. Tribal leaders approached US officers in the region and forged various local working relationships to expel al Qaeda, first in Anbar and later in Diyala.</p>
<p>There was an external dynamic in turning the Sunnis against al Qaeda. Saudi Arabia warned the US long ago that ousting Saddam Hussein would destabilize the region and open it up to Shi’a and Iranian influence if not domination. Wishing to stabilize a neighboring country and turn it into a new obstacle to Shi’ism and Iran, the Saudis used tribal diplomacy and monetary inducements (the two go hand in hand) with the elders of the Dulayim tribe, whose domain sprawls throughout Anbar and across the frontier into Saudi Arabia. Subsequent US inducements and counterinsurgency programs have sustained the working relationships, but the change was well underway and nicely funded beforehand. Perhaps at some later date we will be able to discern which was more important in the turnabout: US troops, who alternately use heavy-handed and benign methods; or the Saudis, who have long practice in dealing with coreligionists and tribal leaders.</p>
<p>Over sixty percent of Iraqis are Shi’a, most of whom live in the south – a region that has not had a significant US presence. The south was left to the British whose practices, after many arduous years in Northern Ireland, drew from counterinsurgency programs and placed emphasis on respecting the local population and avoiding insensitive uses of firepower – principles not always foremost in the minds of American troops until recently.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the Shi’a regions are greatly influenced by Iran, which of course follows the same branch of Islam. Key Shi’a political groups and their associated militias were formed in Iran during the long war between the two states; others were formed later under similar tutelage. Most if not all continue to obtain money from Iran. Since Saddam’s ouster in 2003, trade has thrived between the two former enemies. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has long been conducting its own systematic policies to expand Iranian influence in southern Iraq. IRGC officers train and advise Shi’a militias; political cadres work with locals on development projects. In many ways, the US counterinsurgency effort parallels the IRGC program, which of course had been in effect for several years before the US program began in early 2007.</p>
<p>Iranian influence has kept disparate Shi’a factions, whose inclination is to settle matters through violence, reasonably in line – considering the chaos brought on in 2003. This has helped Prime Minister Maliki’s frail government navigate through several political tempests. The IRGC has brokered ends to fighting between warring Shi’a militias and also between the Sadrists and the mainly Shi’a army, nominally under Maliki. Though no US official will ever admit it in public, it is clear that Iran has played a vital and unappreciated role in reducing violence and setting the stage for political development.</p>
<p>This represents a shift in Tehran’s approach to bringing about a US departure from Iraq. No longer does Iran seek to oust the US by supplying weapons to militias and encouraging them to attrit American forces until the US public forced withdrawal. That approach was obviated by tepid opposition to the war in the US, the astonishing cohesion of US combat units, the decline of the Sunni insurgency, and the threat of devastating US air strikes. Iran now seeks to bring about as much stability in Iraq as possible and then to encourage the Shi’a parties to press for the US’s departure.</p>
<p>Attention on the surge over the last eighteen months has entailed several costs. Various arrangements between US troops and tribal groups in the Sunni center have largely circumvented Sunni political parties, which were never as coherent as Shi’a counterparts. It might be quickly added, however, that the Shi’a parties are understandably wary of a strong Sunni region, and that they might find a fractured though reasonably stable Sunni region to be less threatening than a more or less unitary one after elections are held in the fall.</p>
<p>Concentrating on the Sunni region has come at the expense of allowing Iran to expand its influence with Shi’a parties and militias. Perhaps most importantly, fixation on the surge has rendered events in Afghanistan, at least until recently, into secondary if not tertiary issues. Meanwhile, the Taliban and al Qaeda have consolidated sanctuaries along the Pakistani frontier that are more formidable than anything the North Vietnamese had in Cambodia and Laos. From those sanctuaries, they have expanded their control of the Pashtun countryside in the south and enclaves in the north.</p>
<p>Events in Iraq are bewildering complex. When this is combined with personal vanity and bureaucratic parochialism, which typically overstate the influence of prized projects, administrative officials and key commanders might fail to grasp just what has happened in Iraq over the last two years. The fog of war and official mindsets are not conducive to understanding complex events, and the surge’s impact on reducing violence is greatly inflated in Washington and the Green Zone alike. Similarly, much of the American public subscribes to this attractive storyline, resonant as it is with popular views of the resourcefulness and determination of their military. To paraphrase the venerable caution on simple causality: Post Petraeum, ergo propter Petraeum.</p>
<p>A likely though possibly harmful consequence of this is that General Petraeus, on becoming CENTCOM commander this fall, will confidently use the surge play book in Afghanistan, where the important if not decisive attendant dynamics might not be present.</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>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | general petraeuss surge widely credited bringing violence iraq level allows political development withdrawal us troops impact surge recently entered presidential campaign matter another partisan issue debated slogans central understanding developments iraq expectations afghanistan principles surge likely put practice us officials think written pages recent iraqi history important passages written saudi persian pens surge increased us troop levels sunni center order begin counterinsurgency program based british french experiences late colonial era sought rid small area insurgents military force win local support providing government services stimulating economic development upon consolidation one locale cycle would repeated surrounding areas spreading gradually across country manner counterinsurgency advocates liken oil spot spreading across water looking political military dynamics reverberating iraq last two years one see forces work reduced violence forces unrelated surge counterinsurgency principles upon rests considerable portion violence iraq last several years stem insurgency al qaeda rather stemmed animosities sunnis shias animosities developed internecine sectarian fighting triggered part spectacular al qaeda bombings shia shrines neighborhoods sectarian fighting led sunni emigrations adjacent countries sunnis shias abandoning mixed neighborhoods favor homogeneous ones guarded local militias population shifts made sectarian violence less likely provided breathing space sides could ponder civil war taking internal iraqi dynamic accounts considerable amount decline violence especially baghdad sunni arab tribes anbar diyala provinces shifted away important parts insurgency partnering us al qaeda difficult link events anbar diyala surge cycle securityservicesexpansion counterinsurgency programs instead whole regions quickly unexpectedly turned al qaeda importantly sunni tribes began cooperation us several months surge began al qaedas operations provinces nearby baghdad caused large numbers sunni casualties personnel demonstrated little respect customs local tribes tribal leaders approached us officers region forged various local working relationships expel al qaeda first anbar later diyala external dynamic turning sunnis al qaeda saudi arabia warned us long ago ousting saddam hussein would destabilize region open shia iranian influence domination wishing stabilize neighboring country turn new obstacle shiism iran saudis used tribal diplomacy monetary inducements two go hand hand elders dulayim tribe whose domain sprawls throughout anbar across frontier saudi arabia subsequent us inducements counterinsurgency programs sustained working relationships change well underway nicely funded beforehand perhaps later date able discern important turnabout us troops alternately use heavyhanded benign methods saudis long practice dealing coreligionists tribal leaders sixty percent iraqis shia live south region significant us presence south left british whose practices many arduous years northern ireland drew counterinsurgency programs placed emphasis respecting local population avoiding insensitive uses firepower principles always foremost minds american troops recently furthermore shia regions greatly influenced iran course follows branch islam key shia political groups associated militias formed iran long war two states others formed later similar tutelage continue obtain money iran since saddams ouster 2003 trade thrived two former enemies iranian revolutionary guard corps irgc long conducting systematic policies expand iranian influence southern iraq irgc officers train advise shia militias political cadres work locals development projects many ways us counterinsurgency effort parallels irgc program course effect several years us program began early 2007 iranian influence kept disparate shia factions whose inclination settle matters violence reasonably line considering chaos brought 2003 helped prime minister malikis frail government navigate several political tempests irgc brokered ends fighting warring shia militias also sadrists mainly shia army nominally maliki though us official ever admit public clear iran played vital unappreciated role reducing violence setting stage political development represents shift tehrans approach bringing us departure iraq longer iran seek oust us supplying weapons militias encouraging attrit american forces us public forced withdrawal approach obviated tepid opposition war us astonishing cohesion us combat units decline sunni insurgency threat devastating us air strikes iran seeks bring much stability iraq possible encourage shia parties press uss departure attention surge last eighteen months entailed several costs various arrangements us troops tribal groups sunni center largely circumvented sunni political parties never coherent shia counterparts might quickly added however shia parties understandably wary strong sunni region might find fractured though reasonably stable sunni region less threatening less unitary one elections held fall concentrating sunni region come expense allowing iran expand influence shia parties militias perhaps importantly fixation surge rendered events afghanistan least recently secondary tertiary issues meanwhile taliban al qaeda consolidated sanctuaries along pakistani frontier formidable anything north vietnamese cambodia laos sanctuaries expanded control pashtun countryside south enclaves north events iraq bewildering complex combined personal vanity bureaucratic parochialism typically overstate influence prized projects administrative officials key commanders might fail grasp happened iraq last two years fog war official mindsets conducive understanding complex events surges impact reducing violence greatly inflated washington green zone alike similarly much american public subscribes attractive storyline resonant popular views resourcefulness determination military paraphrase venerable caution simple causality post petraeum ergo propter petraeum likely though possibly harmful consequence general petraeus becoming centcom commander fall confidently use surge play book afghanistan important decisive attendant dynamics might present 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 160 160 160 | 828 |