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January 2007 Articles
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DV Articles
November 2003
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Shortly after President Bush's State of the
Union address last week Jim Webb, the freshman Senator from Virginia,
delivered the Democrats' televised response to Bush's annual speech. Many
antiwar progressives were pleased to hear a Democrat confront the Bush
rhetoric head-on. Media critic
Jeff Cohen went even further and argued that Webb's riposte was not
only aimed at the Bush administration, but also at Democratic candidates
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. "Whether intended or not," wrote Cohen,
"Webb was offering a way for Democrats to win elections -- a script for
any presidential candidate who wants to distinguish him or herself in the
primaries, and then defeat the Republicans in Nov. 2008." Cohen and I must
have been watching different programs.....(full
article)
The State of the Anti-War
Movement Surely I'm not alone in being frustrated and angry about the pitiful level of anti-war organizing over the last four years? Back in March of 2003, as the war in Iraq got rolling and all of the massive demonstrations focused on preventing its start faded into memory, I proposed that my local anti-war group in Santa Rosa, north of the San Francisco Bay Area in Sonoma County, start a series of non-violent direct action blockades of local businesses who had military supply contracts. The purpose would be to give us a local focus that might have a direct impact (down the road, eventually) on the prosecution of the war. The hope is to raise the cost of pursuing the war to a level not acceptable to the American people. There are various reasons these actions were never taken. Organizers were burning out. The locations of the businesses were not in central areas of our town. Quite a few people had already been arrested in a blockade of a major intersection or at one of two or three shutdowns of the local Armed Forces Recruiting Center. I point out some of the larger reasons below. There has been some discussion as to why the anti-war/peace movement is so marginal to the national debate. At least it was until the results of the Fall 2006 mid-term Congressional elections and George Bush and the Republican Party lost their majority in both houses.....(full article)
Last week Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) spoke
with strength, clarity and emotion about the need for every senator to
take a stand on the Iraq War. There are moments in the Iraq War dialogue
that create a paradigm shift in the Congress and the nation, e.g. when
Rep. Murtha called for withdrawal. The statement by Sen. Hagel, whose
comments are rooted in the experience of Vietnam, should be one of those
moments. And, if he runs for president he may turn the election upside
down with a Republican anti-war candidate running against a Democrat who
is fuzzy on the war.....
Four years ago, Bush
told us that we were going to Iraq to liberate the Iraqi people from the
repressive regime of Saddam Hussein. And now the "insurgents" are fighting
to liberate the Iraqi people from the repressive regime of George W. Bush.
We've done enough damage. Rebuilding is not on the table. The American
people want us out of Iraq. The Iraqi people want us out of Iraq. The
Iraqi government wants us out of Iraq. And we have no legitimate reason to
stay. Furthermore, we can leave Iraq without leaving a hopeless mess
behind, if only we can do it right, and that means diplomacy. To that end,
Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) seems to have the solution, in the form of H.R.
508, which will "require United States military disengagement from Iraq,
[and] provide United States assistance for reconstruction and
reconciliation in Iraq.".....(full article)
A Good Enough House:
How a Single Mom and Her Three Kids
A wise woman I know said, "If you don't bake
at least weekly, something's wrong in your life." My family lives by that
credo. Picture lazy mornings with two older children surprising mom and
their little brother with a spread of yummy foods, good tea and a happy,
"Surprise!" This describes a common morning scene at my house. The rest of
the day can involve writing stories, reading, playing, meeting friends at
parks, attending community dances, listening to mom's band playing old-timey
bluegrass, or picking the brains of a city councilman while the kids
reveal their ideas for transitional housing to help homeless people find
their way off the streets. Living on a very low income in the San
Francisco Bay Area, where the average house price is a cool $616,000 this
week, and landlords routinely refuse to rent to people with kids, I had to
get creative when we suffered a bogus eviction.....
After six years of
incompetence and cronyism, a failed war against terrorism, the quagmire
that is Iraq, wars against science, the environment, corporate regulation
and the public's right-to-know, a chummy working relationship with the
country's most reactionary conservative evangelical Christians, a
politicized faith-based initiative, giveaways to the energy industry, tax
relief for the wealthy, a culture of corruption culminating in the forced
resignations and imprisonment of some of the administrations key soldiers,
and an attack on fundamental democratic rights and values, the Bush
Administration is hatching plans to celebrate itself with a $500 million
library (the costliest presidential library ever) to be built after Bush's
second term is over. In what is being called "their final campaign,"
Bush's "truest believers" are aiming to raise a half-billion dollars for
the mother of all presidential libraries. The library and an attached
think tank -- which will pay for conservative research -- is being
earmarked for the Dallas, Texas campus of Southern Methodist University,
where First Lady Laura Bush is an alumna and a trustee.....
“A man without a country,” is what Judge Maryanne Trump Barry called the hapless stowaway, Salim Yassir, who was born in Palestine, exiled to Libya, and jailed in the USA. Four years after foiling Yassir's 2000 attempt to enter the USA, immigration authorities were still claiming they should keep him in jail while they looked for a country that would take him. But Judge Barry (the Donald's older sister) put an end to that legal purgatory in 2004 when she ruled that a man without a country has rights, too. Yassir could just as easily live outside jail while authorities pursued their executive agendas. In some ways, Yassir's story is similar to one now being lived by three Texas families of Palestinian heritage. They are people without a country. From Palestine they have fled to the USA, sometimes through other countries. Immigration authorities have denied them asylum, ordered them deported, and they are being jailed indefinitely in legal purgatory while some country is found to take them. But the Texas families are not stowaways. They entered the USA with visas and have always lived public lives in their pursuit of asylum in the USA, growing their opportunities and their families along the way. The Ibrahim family, for example, arrived with four children, gave birth to a fifth, and are expecting a sixth. For the Ibrahim children who have lived in Palestine, memories are not so good, and they fear going back to a place where they are subject to so many military assaults.....(full article)
The New York Times states "public financing system for presidential campaigns, the best way to rid politics of the corrupting influence of money, may have quietly died over the weekend." The NYT's examination of the public financing of politics is, in fact, an inquiry into the nature of so-called democracy. Eschewing the constraints of public funding, Senator Hillary Clinton of New York has opted for private funding for her presidential bid. The NYT calls this a declaration of Clinton's confidence that she can attract much more than the approximately $150 million that would be provided through public financing. Importantly, the NYT notes, "Mrs. Clinton makes it difficult for other serious candidates to participate in the system without putting themselves at a significant disadvantage."....(full article)
As cheerleaders for Israel go, it is hard to
beat Alan Dershowitz. If ever there was a coward and a hypocrite -- it has
to be this Likudnik operator who postures as a 'liberal' in search of an
'honest debate' on the merits of tormenting the Palestinians. Debate this,
Alan. On March 28, 1988, the Seattle Times published your article
titled "Israel is still a genuine democracy." I recall the article because
I responded to it with an editorial of my own. I challenge you to defend
that article in a public forum. In that particular work of fiction, you
characterized the repression of the Palestinians as "occasional
overreactions." Dr. Jennifer Leaning of the Harvard Medical School had a
different take. Commenting on the behavior of the Israeli troops during
the first Intifada, she reported that "they do not appear to be out of
control. That is one of the darker things we saw. These are not
aberrations. The pattern is controlled, a systematic pattern over a wide
geographical area. It's as if they've been instructed.".....(full
article)
When Israel's Supporters Suppress Speech,
US Policy is the Loser . . . So when former New York Mayor Edward Koch and Rafael Medoff ask incredulously in a recent commentary critical of President Jimmy Carter's recent book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid "Are Jews suppressing speech?" -- or when 14 Carter Center advisory board members resign in protest of the president's positions -- the answer, for me, is not so straightforward. The fact is that "Jews" are not suppressing speech. Michael Himovitz certainly didn't suppress my father's attempts to explain the Palestinian perspective to his fellow citizens. Many American Jews hold views not dissimilar to my father's -- supporting peace, reconciliation and equal rights for Palestinians and Jews. Yet, a minority of Jews, backed by some non-Jewish supporters, stridently protests any unflattering portrayal of Israel, often with unfounded accusations of anti-Semitism. Indeed, insinuations of anti-Jewish bias are now being unfairly raised against Carter. And some supporters of Israel, apparently, are willing to exploit economic clout to punish those who, like my father, buck the trend and defend Palestinian rights.....(full article)
In the years since the invasion of Iraq, many documentaries have attempted to record its consequences: the violence; the occupation; the plunder. The focus has ranged from the anthropological to geopolitical, just as the production has varied from the bland to the spectacular. With the urgency of the political reality taking preeminence, the myriad documentary renderings have hitherto failed to present a sustained portrait of life in occupied Iraq. Iraq in Fragments -- the distilled product of more than two years and 300 hours of filming -- is James Longley's splendid contribution towards filling this void.....(full review)
After the initial “Last Sunday” gathering in November, many people made the observation that it was a mostly white audience, and then asked the question, “How can we attract more people of color to the event?” The observation about the complexion of the group was important to acknowledge, but I think it was diversionary to move right away to that question. Instead of asking how to diversify the event, it’s crucial that we white folks be able to ask: (1) “Why are there so few non-white people here?” and (2) “What is our motivation in wanting more non-white people here?” I think only after we have dealt with those questions can we start to work to transform Last Sunday -- and other predominantly white events, groups, and movements -- in ways that challenge white supremacy rather than reinforce white privilege. Put more bluntly: The goal shouldn’t be just diversity but the end of white supremacy, a much more ambitious goal but one that can be the basis for real hope.....(full article)
The organizers with United for Peace and Justice and all of those participating have once again pulled off a giant protest march and rally. As has happened every few months since the invasion of Afghanistan, hundreds of thousands of people have converged for a national protest, this time in Washington, DC. The major media outlets decided this time that the protest was worth covering. This time it was aired on CSPAN, reviewed by the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Houston Chronicle, and even recognized as the socially diverse crowd that it was -- young and old, veteran activists and first-time protesters, soccer moms and socialists. As usual, crowd estimates given by the major media varied wildly from “thousands” to “tens of thousands” to “just under 100,000.” Some, including the New York Times, dared mention one estimate of 400,000. This is particularly notable since the NY Times was one of the many outlets guilty of barely reporting on past protests, and frequently using vague terms like “thousands” when reporting on crowds that had virtually filled Central Park.....(full article)
Revolutionaries hate the word and everything it stands for. I've seen my friends wrinkle their faces and spit out the "blagh!" like a 9-year-old when I suggested they use it on behalf of a better world. It's no wonder. Some of the worst evils visited upon the world have been perpetrated by marketers willing to sacrifice people, the planet and everything else sacred to make a buck. Excellent books like Toxic Sludge is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies, and the Public Relations Industry have nailed the PR profession to the wall for its willingness to prostitute itself to shameful corporate goals, and its lack of meaningful ethical standards. What I ask my face-twisting friends is, "If someone lies to you, does that make talking bad?" The obvious answer is, "no." The same holds true of public relations, marketing and merchandising tactics.....(full article)
I'd like to offer a few tips about vegetarian and left wing dating sites, especially to my fellow vegans. Credit card in hand, you're ready to open yourself up to the universe of online dating. Almost immediately you get hit with a really low blow: years ago, before this great thing -- the internet -- came along, when you had your back turned, somebody married you! Bummer! This typical rookie mistake can be remedied by not putting your picture on your ad and writing text that ranges from vague to barefaced lies and (a personal favorite) listing several cities that you live in and jet between. Just keep it a little consistent and plausible -- don't put "Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo and Big Bone Lick, Kentucky." Conversely, if you really are single, you can capture the feeling of having an affair by forgetting what and how much you've told several people. You get the lies and finagling and maybe even the guilt but without any of the sex! Online dating involves very little "meeting" in the 20th century sense. It's mostly about something I've always been really lousy at -- typing. Now you are ready. Here are the basic rules.....(full article)
If you watched freshman
Virginia Sen. Jim Webb deliver the Democratic response to Bush’s State of
the Union speech, you witnessed something historic -- a Democrat on
national TV unabashedly ripping into six years of Bush rule for an
uninterrupted 10 minutes. With no O’Reilly or Hannity to disrupt or
out-shout him. Webb offered a populist, anti-corporate stand on economics
and a blunt attack on Bush for “recklessly” dragging our country into the
Iraq war -- a sharply-worded address that must have startled millions of
TV viewers accustomed to Democrat vacillation. It was the kind of stirring
appeal, both progressive and patriotic, that could win over voters at
election time -- including swing voters, NASCAR dads, soccer moms, even
Republican leaners. The new Senator -- a novelist and former Secretary of
the Navy -- reportedly discarded the speech handed him by Democratic
leaders, and wrote his own. But
Webb’s speech was not just a rebuttal to Bush. It was also a pointed
response to the tepid pablum that comes out of the mouths of mainstream
media-anointed Democratic presidential candidates: Hillary Clinton and
Barack Obama.....(full article)
The Crunchy Mystique
Review of
Crunchy Cons: The New Conservative Counterculture and its Return to
Roots
I promised myself I would listen to Tuesday night's “State of the Union” speech with an open mind, and I must now report that armed with a rare combination of honeyed rhetoric and steel-trap logic, the president won me over entirely to his point of view. It’s an admission I make with no small degree of humility, as I have spent the past seven years mercilessly lampooning Mr. Bush, intimating that he's the sort of imbecile who could weather a brainstorm without getting the inside of his head wet. Now, of course, I feel compelled to recant such unjust pronouncements and offer him my sincere apologies. The president’s speech was brilliant, prophetic, and jam-packed with innovative and ingenious strategies designed to address a whole litany of seemingly insurmountable problems plaguing our beleaguered nation. In short, I liked what he had to say, and I loved the way he said it! First of all, it was comforting to hear from the mouth of our stockholder-in-chief that the economy is on solid ground. This came as a welcome relief to me personally, as my wife and I recently borrowed 4.3 million dollars in the form of cash advances on our combined Citibank cards, which we in turn used to purchase variable-rate mortgages on several ski chalets atop scenic Mt. Kilimanjaro. I’m confident that this impeccably sound investment plan will provide the two of us with a fairly secure nest-egg for our retirement, but just to be on the safe side, I’ve decided to give up teaching and pursue a career in rhinoceros hunting. Not only is it safer, but given the provisions of Mr. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” legislation, it frankly offers more job security.....(full article)
Prior to the onset of European colonization a century ago, generations of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Palestinians cohabited in the Holy Land with little or no conflict. Zionism's arrival opened a vein of intolerance that eventually grew into a river of bloodshed that flows directly into the sea of violence and chaos gripping the region today. Like their present-day descendants, early Zionist colonizers glorified Jewish separation from non-Jews. They set themselves apart from the people and dreamed openly of claiming all of Palestine for the Jews. Foreign intruders and a law unto themselves, they posed a self-declared threat to the lives and land of the indigenous population.....(full article)
There was that tongue again. When the
President lies he's got this weird nervous tick: He sticks the tip of his
tongue out between his lips. Like a little boy who knows he's fibbing.
Like a snake licking a rat. In his State of the Union tonight the
President did his tongue thing 124 times -- my kids kept count. But it
wasn't all rat-licking lies.....(full article)
Nothing is More Important This Moment in
History George Bush's State of the Union speech provided every single US resident that opposes the war in Iraq with a reason to take that opposition into the streets. His argument that ending the US military involvement in that nation would lead to extremists running the world is nothing new, but his insistence that this would create an environment that provided "an emboldened enemy with new safe havens, new recruits, new resources and an even greater determination to harm America" is certainly a step up in his rhetoric. According to Mr. Bush and his advisers, the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq would spell the end of the world for all freedom-loving Americans and place them in a never-seen-before danger.....(full article)
Against
a backdrop of fresh bloodshed in Iraq, the death of Watergate burglar E.
Howard Hunt, the accusation in the opening salvo of the Plamegate case
that Vice President Dick Cheney set Scooter Libby up for the fall, with
Cheney hovering over one shoulder and Speaker Nancy Pelosi over the other,
our beleaguered president proclaimed, “Our state of the union is strong and our
cause in the world is right.” Tragically, the president remains in a state
of delusion. The state of the union is grave and
deteriorating and our conduct in the world is the primary cause.....(full article)
World Social Forum Diary This week, tens of thousands of people, representing nearly every nation and people, are gathered to strategize, debate and struggle for solutions to worldwide problems of injustice and inequality. For the first time, the World Social Forum has come to Nairobi, Kenya. The global conference is situated in a massive sports complex neighboring the slum of Korogocho, where tens of thousands of Kenyans live in abject poverty, a vivid demonstration of the themes discussed at the Forum, and a contrast to the wealth of many of the conference participants from the so-called "developed world." As with many Nairobi slums, Korogocho began when squatters built shacks on empty government land. Most of these original squatters later rented these small structures out to families who pay up to $10 per month in rent to live in a space with no running water, stolen electricity, and the constant threat of government eviction. Nairobi has at least 200 slums, where almost half its population lives, according to local activists.....(full article)
January 11 marked a shameful anniversary for the U.S. On that day, five years before, the first prisoners from the U.S. "war on terror" began arriving at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In all, more than 750 men and boys (some as young as 13) from 40 countries have been brought to Guantanamo. Approximately 400 remain imprisoned there today. None has been tried or convicted of any crime. Only 10 have even been charged with a crime. The Bush administration says these detainees are the "worst of the worst" -- and has fought to keep them in a legal no man's land. But human rights and civil liberties activists around the world say that the lack of legal rights, combined with abysmal conditions and even torture, has made Guantanamo a potent symbol of the worst abuses of the Bush administration.....(full article)
We often hear that
the Pentagon exists to defend our freedoms. But the Pentagon is moving
against press freedom. Not long ago, journalist
Sarah Olson received a subpoena to testify next month in the
court-martial of U.S. Army Lt. Ehren Watada, who now faces prosecution for
speaking against the Iraq war and refusing to participate in it.
Apparently, the commanders at the Pentagon are so eager to punish Watada
that they’ve decided to go after reporters who have informed the public
about his statements.....(full article)
The People Lead When Their
Leader's Freeze Tacoma, Washington is a modest sized city a few miles north of Fort Lewis. On the weekend of January 21 – 22, 2007, Tacoma stood tall in the people's efforts to find truth while their political leaders dither, bob and weave in the nation's capitol. The Citizen's Hearing on the Legality of U.S. Action in Iraq focused on the war on Iraq, its continuing occupation and, specifically, the case of U.S. Army Lt. Ehren Watada. Lt. Watada is the first U.S. Army officer to refuse orders to deploy to Iraq. He has refused orders on the basis that the war is illegal and unconstitutional and because his oath of office prohibits him from obeying illegal orders. He also understands that if he obeys an order that is illegal, that, too, could implicate him in war crimes or crimes against humanity. Lt. Watada is scheduled to be court-martialed at Ft. Lewis on February 5th. Many of us will be there to bear witness to the charade of justice. He is charged with disobeying orders to deploy to Iraq, with conduct unbecoming an officer by publicly stating his opinions and by expressing public disagreement with the war policy of Mr. Bush. The colonel in charge of the legal proceedings has ruled in preliminary hearings that Lt. Watada will not be allowed to put on evidence or testimony regarding the falsity of the premises for war in Iraq, its illegality under U.S. and international law or the illegality of the continued occupation of the country. In short, Lt. Watada will be tried, convicted and sentenced to prison without an opportunity to defend himself. The purpose of the Citizen's Hearing was to put on in public and under oath the testimony that Lt. Watada has been forbidden to present in his own defense.....(full article)
Not so many years ago, perhaps five, there was a country known as "Iraq." That Iraq no longer exists. It has been replaced by two Iraqs. No, I am not referring here to the Kurdish Autonomous Region, nor to the nascent Shia statelet likely about to be created in the south, though either of these could be considered as break-up products of that former country. I am, rather, referring to the two zones into which Iraq has become divided, the Green Zone and the Red Zone. The Green Zone, a.k.a. the "International Zone," the "Ultimate Gated Community," or more appropriately, the "United States of Iraq," is the place where the various would-be rulers of Iraq have congregated since the March-April 2003 invasion. The colonial administration, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), set up its headquarters here. After the June 2004 handover of "sovereignty" but little power to an Iraqi Interim Government with its Prime Minister forced upon United Nations officials nominally in charge by the United States, this government made its home in the Green Zone. The current "elected," but largely powerless, Shia-dominated government also "rules" from this zone. For the Americans there, life in the Green Zone resembles life in the United States, with just enough of an exotic tinge to make it interesting. Night clubs serve liquor, women jog in shorts and sports bras, and pool parties sometimes get wild. McDonalds and Burger King are available, though, just as in many modern American cities, kebabs served by real natives are available for the daring.....(full article)
John Pilger describes the warnings of genocide in Gaza, and the suffering of 1.4 million Palestinians living a "life in a cage" as the world looks on. He quotes Israeli journalist Amira Hass on the experience of her mother in a Nazi concentration camp and the Germans who watched, "looking from the side."......(full article)
Following recent American air strikes in Somalia, the words “Black Hawk Down” have been mentioned dozens of times across the UK national press, and more than 100 times in the US press, over the last month. The words refer, of course, to the Hollywood film based on the October 3, 1993 raid by US forces on Mogadishu, the Somali capital. Press coverage has focused on two aspects of that raid: the claim that it was part of a humanitarian mission motivated to relieve famine, and the fact that 18 US rangers lost their lives. With near-perfect consistency across both the US and UK press, other facts and claims have simply been ignored. Noam Chomsky has reported the body count from US fire in Somalia in 1993: "The official estimate was 6-10,000 Somali casualties in the summer of 1993 alone, two-thirds women and children." (Chomsky, The New Military Humanism: Lessons From Kosovo, Pluto Press, 1999, p.68) Charles Maynes, the editor of Foreign Policy, wrote in 1995: “CIA officials privately conceded that the US military may have killed from 7,000 to 10,000 Somalis.”.....(full article)
Prominent pundits seem ecstatic over Hillary Clinton’s entry into the presidential race just days after Barack Obama’s media-created candidacy became official. Media talking heads are having so much fun lately they don’t seem to notice that our political system is failing to address ever-worsening problems: social, environmental, fiscal and imperial. Indeed, our country’s political decline in recent decades has been abetted by the decline in mainstream media. The same media outlets that were complicit in the disastrous Iraq war are bent on turning politics into an insular celebrity club in which only they get to anoint frontrunners. If the torch of leadership passes from Bush I to Clinton I to Bush II to Clinton II, it will be a loss for our country -- but a victory for a corrupt Beltway press corps that abhors fresh ideas, especially those that challenge its power and privilege. It was a frightened national press corps that vilified the netroots supporters of Democratic outsider Ned Lamont in defense of pro-war warhorse Joe Lieberman.....(full article)
The senior defense department official who suggested that major corporations should stop doing business with large law firms who represent Guantanamo Bay detainees without charge has apologized for his remarks, but his apology has failed to satisfy some legal and human rights advocates. The remarks were made on a Washington, DC radio program last Tuesday by Charles D. “Cully” Stimson, a deputy assistant secretary of defense and a former Navy defense lawyer. They drew an avalanche of anger from lawyers, legal ethics specialists, and bar association officials, who said they found his comments repellent and displayed an ignorance of the duties of lawyers to represent people in legal trouble. Lawyers expressed outrage at that, asserting that they are not being paid and that Mr. Stimson had tried to suggest they were by innuendo. Of the approximately 500 lawyers coordinated by the Center for Constitutional Rights, no one is being paid. One Washington law firm, Shearman & Sterling, which has represented Kuwaiti detainees, has received money from the families of the prisoners, but Thomas Wilner, a lawyer there, said they had donated all of it to charities related to the September 2001 terrorist attacks.”.....(full article)
After months of being missing in action from
the debate on the issue, a group of Christian conservatives are now
staking out a position on immigration. Families First on Immigration, a
coalition led by former Republican Party presidential hopeful Gary Bauer,
who heads up a group called American Values, former Bush advisor to
Catholic voters, Deal Hudson of the Morley Institute for Church & Culture,
and David Keene of the American Conservative Union, are advancing what
they call religiously grounded positions on immigration. In early January,
Families First on Immigration sent letters to President George W. Bush and
to leaders of the new Democratic controlled Congress urging them "to adopt
a grand compromise on the divisive issue that includes strong border
security, an amnesty for illegals already here who are relatives of
citizens and an end to birthright citizenship," the Washington Times
reported. "Our position really is consistent with Christian teachings and
with the rule of law," said Manuel Miranda, chairman of the Third Branch
Conference (as of January 9, the group's website "is currently under
construction") a coalition of over 150 grasstop leaders, who has brought
together more than 30 top shelf conservatives on this issue. "Out of
concern for keeping families together, the religious leaders propose
granting citizenship to any illegal aliens in the country who are related
to U.S. citizens. This would include anyone who has had a child born here,
often referred to as an 'anchor baby,'" the Washington Times
reported. "In return, the federal government would end birthright
citizenship, which automatically grants U.S. citizenship to anyone born
here, regardless of his parents' legal status. The 14th Amendment says
'all persons born or naturalized in the United States . . . are citizens
of the United States.'".....
I've been extremely fortunate to attract an amazing mix of regulars to my blog . . . a crew self-dubbed "The Expendables." The conversations range from serious to silly and often have nothing to do with my post for the day. The topic du jour on Friday, January 19 was a certain Venezuelan president. Paul M. wrote: "Hello all Expendables. What do you make of the latest accusations leveled at Chavez?" Paul was referring a BBC News report, "Rule by decree passed for Chavez" (Subtitled: "Venezuela's National Assembly has given initial approval to a bill granting the president the power to bypass congress and rule by decree for 18 months"). The article began: "President Hugo Chavez says he wants 'revolutionary laws' to enact sweeping political, economic, and social changes." In the name of strengthening his "Bolivarian revolution," it seems Chavez has said he wants to "nationalize key sectors of the economy and scrap limits on the terms a president can serve." He also wants to see "major Venezuelan power and telecoms companies come under state control . . . (and) an end to foreign ownership of lucrative crude oil refineries in the Orinoco region.".....(full article)
You can't make this stuff up. George Bush
believes that "the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of
gratitude." On the other side of the political divide, Presidential
hopeful Joseph Biden -- a sponsor of the anti-surge legislation pending
before Congress -- maintains that we've "done enough for the Iraqis." What
a strange war we're having Iraq. After four years of shifting rationales,
Americans remain clueless about why Bush opened this Pandora's box. The
cold math that led to this disastrous imperial project is just too much
for the pundits to own up to. Far too many Americans trip over whatever
happens to be the latest rationale for sending half our army half way
around the world to fight a people that did us no harm. Even the anti-war
camp is crowded with pundits whose gripe de jour is that Bush is a
messianic Samaritan idealist who miscalculated the cost of exporting
liberty to Iraqi ingrates. Don't get me wrong. It's very gratifying to see
the war party's constituency dwindle to an irredentist thirty percent of
the population. It wasn't so long ago that opponents of the Iraq war were
rewarded with scarlet letters identifying them as subversive Al-Qaeda
apologists. But if Gerald Ford went to the great beyond believing that
Bush's Iraqi expedition was motivated by a desire to 'free people' -- we
have a serious problem on our hand. Because that was hardly the mission in
Iraq......(full article)
The War Becomes More Unholy A stepped up military offensive that targets mosques, religious leaders and Islamic customs is leading many Iraqis to believe that the US-led invasion really was a "holy war." Photographs are being circulated of black crosses painted on mosque walls and on copies of the Quran, and of soldiers dumping their waste inside mosques. New stories appear frequently of raids on mosques and brutal treatment of Islamic clerics, leading many Iraqis to ask if the invasion and occupation was a war against Islam. Many Iraqis now recall remarks by US President George W. Bush shortly after the events of Sep. 11, 2001 when he told reporters that "this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while." "Bush's tongue 'slipped' more than once when he spoke of 'fascist Islamists' and used other similar expressions that touched the very nerve of Muslims around the world," Sheikh Abdul Salam al-Kubayssi of the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), a leading Sunni group, told Inter Press Service in Baghdad. "We wish they were just mere slips, but what is going on repeatedly makes one think of crusades over and over.".....(full article)
George W. Bush's position on Iran is "disturbing" and "dangerous", reads a position paper written in late 2005 by American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). One year ago the Bush administration accepted a Russian proposal to allow Iran to continue to develop nuclear energy under Russian supervision. Needless to say, AIPAC wasn't the least bit happy about the compromise. In a letter to congressional allies, mostly Democrats, the pro-Israel organization admitted is was "concerned that the decision not to go to the Security Council, combined with the U.S. decision to support the 'Russian proposal,' indicates a disturbing shift in the Administration's policy on Iran and poses a danger to the U.S. and our allies.".....(full article)
Thirteen people killed in a helicopter crash yesterday in Iraq. Four other soldiers and one marine were also killed. 30 people dead in the last two days in a war that Senator Hillary Clinton has supported since she first voted "yea" to give Bloody George carte-blanche to invade Iraq and her continuing support via her "yea" votes on giving the war-addict in the White House the key to the treasury. Soon after Camp Casey in August, 05, I was meeting with some Hollywood people who pretended that they supported me, but really were big money donors and supporters of Hillary. I was told that the Senator was really against the war, but she was waiting for the politically correct time to come out against it. I was told that she was the best hope for the Democrats in 2008, and I should give her a break.....(full article)
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me a couple
of dozen times, and shame on me -- but also shame on what passes for
journalism on television. This truism comes to mind after my appearance on
Paula Zahn Now on CNN this week to discuss the Duke rape case. I'm
not naive about these kinds of shows -- which I know are not really about
journalism but about ratings, most easily obtained through sensationalism
and playing to the prejudices of the audience. But over the past 20 years
I've gone on a number of them to discuss my work as a sociologist on
issues of racism and sexism in media. Like many progressives, I do that
with eyes wide open, knowing the limits but realizing it's one of the few
shots we have at a mass audience......
Two prominent labor organizations have sued the Bush administration for failing to protect nearly 20 million workers from job injuries. In 1999 the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) proposed a rule requiring employers to pay for protective clothing, face shields, gloves and other equipment used by workers. But before the proposal became a standard Mr. Bush was elected to office. Since then, the Department of Labor has neglected to enact the standard and has consistently failed to ensure the safety of America's working men and women. The personal protective equipment (PPE) rule would require employers to pay for safety items that protect workers from job hazards. Many workers in the nation's most dangerous industries, including meatpacking, poultry, and construction, who have high rates of injury, are forced by their employers to pay for their own safety gear because of the failure of OSHA to implement the PPE rule. According to OSHA's own figures, 400,000 workers have been injured and 50 have died owing to the lack of the PPE rule.....(full article)
When I published my book Blood and Religion last year, I sought not only to explain what lay behind Israeli policies since the failed Camp David negotiations nearly seven years ago, including the disengagement from Gaza and the building of a wall across the West Bank, but I also offered a few suggestions about where Israel might head next. Making predictions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might be considered a particularly dangerous form of hubris, but I could hardly have guessed how soon my fears would be realized. One of the main forecasts of my book was that Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line -- those who currently enjoy Israeli citizenship and those who live as oppressed subjects of Israel's occupation -- would soon find common cause as Israel tries to seal itself off from what it calls the Palestinian "demographic threat": that is, the moment when Palestinians outnumber Jews in the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. I suggested that Israel's greatest fear was ruling over a majority of Palestinians and being compared to apartheid South Africa, a fate that has possibly befallen it faster than I expected with the recent publication of Jimmy Carter's book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. To avoid such a comparison, I argued, Israel was creating a "Jewish fortress," separating -- at least demographically -- from Palestinians in the occupied territories by sealing off Gaza through a disengagement of its settler population and by building a 750km wall to annex large areas of the West Bank.....(full article)
Our taxi dropped us off at the checkpoint outside Nablus so we could then walk through the checkpoint and take another taxi into the city. With the travel restrictions and hundreds of checkpoints everywhere, this is the way you have to travel, if you’re lucky enough to be allowed to travel at all. There, on the outskirts of this ancient Palestinian city, as with every other city in the West Bank, was a heavily-armed gang of young Israeli men and women in green IDF uniforms. One of the men inspected my passport, and spent a few minutes trying to discourage me from entering Nablus. “It’s crazy in there. There are Arab terrorists. There are bombs every night. It’s not safe.” I thanked him for his warning, and thought to myself that he might have an entirely different experience in Nablus if he visited the city in a role other than that of occupation soldier......(full article)
Act 1 scene 1 Cemeteries of the world are filled with ghosts meeting and discussing; ghosts in sheets of red, ghosts in black and red; some with gaping wounds, others without limbs, some beheaded and blinded. Some came from forgotten weed patches, others from under monumental tombstones. Some speak loud and clear, other curse under their breath -- but all are filled with angry indignation. From near and far they all declare.....(full play)
If,
tomorrow, the Times of London decides to write about the employment
rate among teenagers in Birmingham, then that is news. Teenagers have
always been around in Birmingham, but until they got into the Times
they were not news. That is to say they were not considered worthy of
being served up with breakfast to half the population of Britain. Why they
should now be served up is an entirely arbitrary matter. The Times
might as well have served up Icelandic folk dancing or the Pope’s views on
transubstantiation or the contents of the yellow pages for all it really
matters to you. But once something shows up in the papers, it immediately
becomes of the greatest importance to every literate adult in the area --
and most of the illiterate ones as well. They forget their own private
affairs -- the loan that must be repaid, the garden that must be mowed,
the friend who must be visited -- and instead they give themselves over to
earnest cogitation over matters about which they know nothing.
Then,
they come to believe whatever humbug is being dished out by the guardians
of public morals in the press. And before you know it, there is a
full-blown moral panic in swing, with every good citizen looking for
devils in his closet and under his bed.
We turn to a moral panic of the past, those who write the stories of
yesteryear have no more of a grip on it than those who keep us up to date
with pending business. In history, we encounter a genre of fiction so
bizarre that we would wince if we found it within the covers of a book.
Such was the case of witchcraft in 17th century Europe as told by novelist
Aldous Huxley.....
Contradiction is the essence of life and love. Hence the nature of love affairs. And life itself. Politics, too, is a conflict of contradictions which, like love and life, is sometimes volatile and sometimes not. Kim Jensen's novel, The Woman I Left Behind, is about all of these. A story of contradictions loosely tied together inside the framework of a love affair, it is the story of a woman and man coming of age. The story of two young activists -- he a Palestinian refugee and she a well-to-do US citizen with a social conscience derived from guilt and righteous anger -- Jensen's story is one of love and politics. Requisite arguments over the small things lovers argue about occasionally become recriminatory bouts of metaphorical debate between the oppressor and the oppressed. In the mind of the Palestinian Khalid identity politics are just so much privileged nonsense -- an excuse to avoid the genuine issues of class and imperialism. For Irene, a young US woman of privilege, they are the opening lights to a new politically charged world where her ideas make a difference.....(full review)
If the recent summit between a mirth master (O'Reilly) and his amusing apprentice (Colbert) proved anything, it was the sheer comedic brilliance of Fox's sardonic culture warrior. For a full decade now, Bill O'Reilly has been living out -- in public -- the greatest impersonation of a knee-jerk right-winger since Senator McCarthy waved his lists of communists . . . and it's long overdue he receive the credit he deserves.....(full article)
This is how it works: The increasingly decadent and profit-driven book publishing business, which is "more concerned with the sensational than the sensible" publishes Dinesh D'Souza's new book. (Quote is from Alan Wolfe's review in the January 21, 2007, New York Times Book Review.) The book provides conclusive evidence, not only that D'Souza is an ignoramus -- although earlier evidence was already quite persuasive -- but also that the Hoover Institution hires hacks, provided they are conservative extremists. Yet, notwithstanding numerous scathing reviews -- for example, Professor Wolfe writes that D'Souza is "a childish thinker and writer tackling subjects about which he knows little to make arguments that reek of political extremism. His book is a national disgrace." -- newspaper editors and TV talk show hosts from around the country pimp for the book, as though they were paid advertisers. Alexander Solzhenitsyn called such people "smatterers" (although he was referring to the debased intelligentsia that pimped for the Soviet state).....(full article)
“The Fastest-Growing Humanitarian Crisis
in the World” The US occupation of Iraq is generating one of the largest refugees crises in decades. Reports from Refugees International, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) document in terrifying detail the desperate plight of Iraqis forced to flee their homes. Close to two million Iraqis have already fled the country, and the rate of the exodus -- currently at as many as 100,000 a month -- shows every sign of increasing. That's only the tip of the iceberg. Another 1.7 million Iraqis have been driven by sectarian violence to leave their homes in integrated areas to live in an ethnic community inside Iraq. This internally displaced population is expanding by 50,000 each month, and the UNHCR predicts it could reach 2.7 million people by the end of 2007. All told, nearly 4 million people out of a prewar population of 26 million have become either refugees or internally displaced. Almost one out of every six Iraqis has fled their homes since the US invaded in 2003. "The current exodus," according to the UNHCR, "is the largest long-term population movement since the displacement of the Palestinians following the creation of Israel in 1948." Kenneth Bacon, president of Refugees International, said Iraq represents the "fastest-growing humanitarian crisis in the world. The United States and its allies sparked the current chaos in Iraq, but they are doing little to ease the humanitarian crisis."......(full article)
I
wonder if Alan Greenspan takes a copy of the business page along with him
on the chair lift at the Aspen, so he can read about the plummeting
housing market before swooshing down the well-groomed bunny slopes at his
favorite ski resort. After all, no one played a larger role in inflating
what the Economist called the “biggest equity bubble in history”
than the retired Fed-master. His low interest rate bonanza triggered a
stampede of speculation in the real estate market sending prices through
the stratosphere and setting the stage for the biggest economic bust in
American history. The whole catastrophe was cooked up by Sir Alan and his
coterie of brandy-drooling elites at the Federal Reserve. Thanks, guys.
Greenspan has undoubtedly taken note of the sudden spike in foreclosures,
which have set off alarm bells from Wall Street to the American heartland.
The effects of his “cheap money” policies are finally sending tremors
through America’s fragile economic landscape. In September 2006 the US
Foreclosure Market Report released a statement that over 112,000 homes had
entered some stage of foreclosure -- “a 63% increase from September 2005”!
September was the second straight month in which more than 110,000 new
foreclosure filings were reported nationwide, evidence that the spike in
August was not just a “one-month anomaly.”.....(full article)
Killing the Golden Goose: A Look at The
Iraq Study Group Report “The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating.” With these terse yet understated words the Iraq Study Group begins its Report. The Group is a ten-person consensus committee headed by former Congressman Lee H. Hamilton and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III. Its Report was released to the world on December 6. The Report is a quick read -- its 79 recommendations are introduced and presented in about 100 pages. If Mr. Bush were to read it, he'd find little new information about Iraq. Rather he would find a counter-assessment of the war -- one he wouldn't hear from the yes men and chickenhawks and ideologues with whom he surrounds himself. The Report would reveal the thinking and anxieties of the US foreign policy establishment. It would reflect their disenchantment with the President's Iraq "strategy." Although convened in June 2006 under the auspices of the United States Institute of Peace, the Iraq Study Group is no gaggle of pacifists or humanitarians; check out the 18 pages -- about one sixth of the entire text -- devoted to their respective curricula vitae. The Group, while on a different page than Mr. Bush, is in the same chapter: it perpetuates the denial and the imperial mindset behind the US invasion and protracted occupation of Iraq. If Mr. Bush were winning in Iraq -- that is, if he somehow were imposing his will on that unruly region and handing over control of its vast oil reserves to US corporations -- this Group would feel no need to speak out.....(full article)
If there was ever any doubt about who is really running the war in Iraq, George Bush erased it last Wednesday night. Subsequent testimony before Congress by administration spokespeople and various news reports make it clear that the White House and the Pentagon are firmly in control of making policy and military decisions regarding that debacle. Indeed, hints have been dropped by Secretary of State Rice and Secretary of Defense Gates that if the current regime in Baghdad drags it feet in helping the US military institute its raids and lockdowns of the city it could find itself no longer in power......(full article)
You can read all about the nasty business of washing war crimes at the Washington Post. They start with fixing the headline "Death in Haditha" -- not "Mass Murder in Haditha" or "Another American Atrocity in Iraq." Next, forget the damning details, screw the truth and give the perpetrators all the room in the world to blame their conduct on "mistakes" made in the heat of battle amidst the fog of war. There never was any mystery about what happened in Haditha. Four of the victims were students and the fifth was a taxi driver giving them a lift back from school. One of the Marines involved in the executions later urinated on the bodies. The same company of Marines continued their killing spree by butchering twenty other civilians, including women and children. As usual, the Pentagon managed to cover up the story for a few months. Fortunately, in this instance, the survivors got to tell their story.....(full article)
Since the Bush administration took control of the FDA, editorial pages in the major newspapers, along with respected medical journals, have broadcast outrage over the agency’s failure to protect the public from an industry focused on profits only. According to a May 2006 poll conducted by the Wall Street Journal and Harris Interactive, the majority of adults in the US think the FDA's most important function is to ensure the safety and efficacy of new prescription drugs. However, the poll found that the public has come to doubt the FDA's ability to do its job, with 7 out of 10 adults giving the agency a negative rating and a large majority saying the FDA’s decisions is influenced more by politics than science. Experts from all over the country have been openly expressing their concerns about the FDA and urging lawmakers to act. On October 9, 2006, Dr. Curt Furberg of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center was one of five current and former members of the FDA's Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee, who called on Congress to change how the FDA polices Big Pharma, in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Because of the FDA's poor performance in regulating the industry, Dr. Furberg said, "new drugs are introduced on the market with inadequate safety documentation.".....(full article)
“Mirage” is the best metaphor for Barack Obama. He shimmers on the horizon, a promise of . . . something. But as one draws closer, Obama dissipates into nothingness -- which is his purpose. Like a mirage, Obama floats as an illusion in the political intersections between hot and cool air. It is the place he seeks: the deliberately chosen -- yet ever-shifting -- layer between other forces that are themselves constantly moving across the landscape. As the Illinois Senator this weekend announced his intention to create a presidential “exploratory committee,” corporate pundits pegged him as nestled in the Democratic niche between Hillary Clinton, to his right -- based her relatively “hot” air on Iraq -- and the much cooler, if not frigid, temperatures at the base of the party. That’s Obama’s intermediary comfort zone -- a place of ever-interpretable impressions. "I've been struck by how hungry we all are for a different kind of politics,” said Obama in a video posted on his website. “So I spent some time thinking about how I could best advance the cause of change and progress we so desperately need.” Ahh, so that’s what the period between now and February 10, when he will make his presidential intentions official, is all about: thinking time. Obama is known for choosing his words very carefully. His admirers say that’s a sign of his conscientious nature, that he doesn’t want to inadvertently say the wrong thing, to speak irresponsibly. The truth is, Obama is determined to say next to nothing substantive at all, unless it is designed to position himself in some mellow region between opposing forces.....(full article)
Americans do not want to know this. They have been successfully brainwashed to fear exactly what their revered Constitution gives them the right to have. Those smart Framers of the Constitution decided that we needed exactly what the establishment, pro-status quo elitists who run our plutocracy do NOT want us to have. There is even a well funded semi-secret group organized to prevent what we the people have a right to. Has the brainwashing worked? (full article)
Everyone knows George W. Bush loves Jesus. You might even say he's crazy about him. As governor of Texas, he went as far as to proclaim June 10, 2000 to be "Jesus Day," for chrissake. "I urge all Texans to answer the call to serve those in need," Dubya declared. "By volunteering their time, energy or resources to helping others, adults and youngsters follow Christ's message of love and service in thought and deed." Everyone also knows George W. Bush does not love evil-doers. "Our war against terror is a war against individuals whose hearts are full of hate," the president says. His administration has also made no secret of its disdain for so-called "domestic terrorists" and "eco-terrorists," and they have the recently passed Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) to prove it. Oddly, the AETA is one of the many places where the whole "Jesus Day" thing comes back to bite Georgie in the ass.....(full article)
For years the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
has been mired by a series of failed peace negotiation, enmeshing Israeli
Jews and Palestinians in a seemingly intractable struggle. Even 59 years
after the creation of the state of Israel the quest for Jewish security
has not been realized, while Palestinians -- those dispossessed in 1948,
1967, and the 3.8 million living under Israeli occupation -- have not seen
a just resolution to a conflict that has marred their history and shaped
their identity. The international community, including many Israeli and
Palestinians, still subscribe to the notion that the two-state solution is
the only way to settle the conflict. Ali Abunimah's new book, One
Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse,
exposes the impracticality of partition and presents an alternative
vision, one that encompasses both peoples on the basis of equal rights.
The vision Abunimah presents is a one state solution.....(full
article) January 17
Last October in a speech at the University of Alabama Gen. Wesley Clark again recounted his conversation with a general at the Pentagon in November 2001. I said, "Are we still going to invade Iraq?" "Yes, Sir," he said, "but it's worse than that." I said, "How do you mean?" He held up this piece of paper. He said, "I just got this memo today or yesterday from the office of the Secretary of Defense upstairs. It's a, it's a five-year plan. We're going to take down seven countries in five years. We're going to start with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, then Libya, Somalia, Sudan, we're going to come back and get Iran in five years. I said, "Is that classified, that paper?" He said, "Yes Sir." I said, "Well, don't show it to me, because I want to be able to talk about it."
This was of course
just two months after 9-11, when Americans' attention was focused on
al-Qaeda and preparations for an invasion of Afghanistan where
Osama bin Laden lived as a guest of the Taliban. Five years and two months
have passed. The plan to "take down" all those countries is behind
schedule, and has even been modified somewhat. Libya has left the target
list due to Muammar Qaddafi's agreement to dismantle his WMD programs in
2003. (Bush has tried to take credit for that, although patient British
diplomacy deserves more credit. During Anglo-American negotiations with
Libya the British were so disgusted with John Bolton's behavior they asked
that Bush's envoy be removed from the talks.) But the U.S. did indeed take
down Iraq, and all the other countries listed remain in the
crosshairs.....(full article)
Obama and the Middle East:
The Next Big Bamboozler?
So I guess we know what the buzz is going to
be for the next, ah, year or so. It looks like Barack Obama, the rookie
Senator from Illinois, is going to run for president. He has received a
plethora of accolades from key primary states in recent weeks for his
(alleged) tenacity and willingness to shoot it straight -- not unlike the
great bamboozler before him, Bill Clinton, who seemed to fool most
everyone into believing his words actually meant something.....(full
article)
The Michelle Manhart Video: US Air Force
Recruitment Tool? It is okay to be a peeping Tom in the armed services, but not to be naked. In fact, it is worse to be photographed naked than to be a sexual predator. Nudity may result in discharge, sexual misconduct is disciplined administratively, with a reduction in rank or forfeiture of pay. Our armed services deserve a lot of respect. They put their lives on the line for the rest of us. Due to the war in Iraq, recruitment has become very difficult and President Bush's announcement that he will send additional troops to the area has not made it easier to enroll new soldiers. In steps a savior: Michelle Manhart. (Video here.) ............(full peep)
The slogan "Support Our Troops" has come to symbolize gas-guzzling SUV's with magnetic yellow ribbons on the back and American flag decals in the window. In an effort to guard themselves against accusations they are unpatriotic, Progressives have co-opted that phrase and added the words "Bring Them Home Now." The intention of this new slogan is to claim the troops as our own, not just pawns of the right wing. We support them by wanting to end the war and bring them home. Implicit in this support is the notion that they deserve our unflagging gratitude and enthusiasm because they are not responsible for their situation. They are only following orders. It is up to us to see to it that they are extricated from the desperate circumstances our politicians have created for them. Both uses of this sound bite ignore the despotic nature of the military industrial complex in this country. Both are wrong......(full article)
On the 2005 National Conference for Media Reform, I noted that media reformers were preparing for what they called "the perfect storm." By "the perfect storm," they were referring to when the FCC and Congress would make crucial decisions about the future of the media, specifically in relation to the Internet. It was expected that the huge telecommunications lobby would aggressively push to sway these decisions to their favor, whilst the public (rallied by media reform groups and independent media) would be evermore informed and engaged in media issues. This amounts to what Robert McChesney called "a moment of danger and a moment of spectacular opportunity." The perfect storm is now upon us and it was evident with the explosive atmosphere of the 2007 National Conference for Media Reform that took place in Memphis, Tennessee on January 12-14. Media activists, educators, journalists, policymakers and concerned citizens from many countries, and nearly every state in the US attended the National Conference for Media Reform, an event that aimed to move media issues to the forefront of public discourse in the United States.....(full article)
The last time I was in Arizona was late July. About the same time that I was leaving Tucson and driving toward El Paso, 13-year-old Julio Hernandez was found in Sunland Park, New Mexico. He had dragged his dead mother's body through the desert after she collapsed. Adela Hernandez was 46-years-old. According to the one newspaper report I found on her death, she appeared to have died of dehydration or exposure to heat. She and her son were from somewhere in central Mexico, and were on their way to Florida where her husband and Julio's father worked. Adela Hernandez died from a lack of security, and, simultaneously, from too much of it. That she died from both a lack and an overabundance of security is not a play on words. Rather, it highlights that there are different types of security, and that depending on how it is defined -- geographically and socially -- that security for some can and often does lead to profound insecurity for others -- and that's what I want to discuss with you. Security here in the United States is what some have referred to as a "God-word" -- something universally embraced, | |
