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March 2005 Articles
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DV Articles
November 2003
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A
commission appointed by President Bush to analyze intelligence failures will
be releasing its report tomorrow, Thursday, March 31. According to The
New York Times the report “includes a searing critique of how the C.I.A.
and other agencies never properly assessed Saddam Hussein's political
maneuverings or the possibility that he no longer had weapon stockpiles.”
But despite its criticism the report really served to protect the Bush
administration....
Traditionally, Western journalists give massive emphasis to acts of violence committed by official enemies of the West, while lightly passing over Western responsibility for often far more extreme violence. As Robert Fisk has noted: “The atrocities of yesterday -- the Beslan school massacre, the Bali bombings, the crimes against humanity of 11 September 2001, the gassings of Halabja -- can still fill us with horror and pity, although that sensitivity is heavily conditioned by the nature of the perpetrators. In an age where war has become a policy option rather than a last resort, where its legitimacy rather than its morality can be summed up on a sheet of A4 paper, we prefer to concentrate on the suffering caused by ‘them’ rather than ‘us’.” (Fisk, “When weeping for religious martyrs leads to the crucifixion of innocents,” The Independent, 26 March, 2005) By contrast, the journalist Dahr Jamail recently interviewed an Iraqi doctor from Fallujah who describes atrocities committed by US forces during their assault on that city last November. The doctor, now a refugee in Jordan and speaking on condition of anonymity, insists his testimony is backed up by video and photographic evidence. . . . On 15th February, Media Lens contacted the BBC’s director of news, Helen Boaden, and asked whether the BBC was investigating these specific allegations of US atrocities. Her response came via a BBC spokesperson....(full article)
It really is a shame neoconservative Douglas Feith, current undersecretary for policy for the Department of Defense (“Death Dealer, Level IV” on the federal government pay scale, I believe), is so dangerous, ‘cause the guy comes up with stuff that would otherwise be hilarious. Feith, whom General Tommy R. Franks once called “the dumbest ******* guy on the planet” (no small achievement, considering Dubya also is an Earthling, probably), recently uttered this gem, according to the Los Angeles Times’ John Hendren: “[I] don't think that there's anything in our Constitution that says that the president should not protect the country unless he gets some non-American's participation or approval of that.”. . . . Feith’s wacky crack alludes to the Pentagons’ formal approval, per Hendren, of “provisions for launching preemptive strikes against nations thought to pose a threat to the United States.”....(full article)
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. Flynn recently spoke to Derrick O'Keefe of Seven Oaks about the occupation of Haiti, Aristide's legacy and the prospects for his return....(full interview)
Three seemingly unrelated recent events highlight the imperial nature of the Bush administration's foreign policy: U.S. F-16 sales to Pakistan, the creation of an office in the State Department to plan for future U.S. military interventions in developing nations and the indefinite detention in Guantanamo prison of a German man held on the basis of secret evidence that even U.S. intelligence disputes....(full article)
Members of the Miami
University Students for Peace and Justice group traveled to Nicaragua
March 11th-20th on a Witness for Peace delegation to learn about United
States foreign policy. While in Managua, the delegation visited a protest
camp of several thousand banana and sugar cane farmers who have been
lethally infected by the chemical Nemagon. Nemagon is a virulent pesticide
used in banana and sugar cane plantations in Central America, the
Caribbean, and the Philippines. Approximately 5000 protesters, who are
living in makeshift tents of black plastic and sticks across the street
from the National Assembly, say that they will not leave until their
government has acted justly by recognizing the horrible conditions in
which they've been left to die, covering their burgeoning medical costs,
and discontinuing the use of all pesticides that contain Nemagon....
Fundamentalist Christians whether Falwell, Dobson, Robertson, or Bauer have all made their religion a political issue by seeking to impose their fundamentalist dogma through legislative mandate. So, they MUST BE CHALLENGED to defend their religion and tactics! (full article)
As Israeli Arabs mark Land Day this week, Ariel Sharon's government announced what everybody already knew since last summer. The Israeli government is going to expand the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement bloc in the West Bank by 3,500 housing units. With other development measures in place, it will effectively separate the West Bank and leave any open corridor under Israeli control as well as redraw the boundaries of Jerusalem. Other policies such as the construction of the Separation Wall will continue unabated. Despite positive policy developments since the recent Palestinian elections and the death of Yasser Arafat, this recent announcement brought back the reality of the old days and the original playbook of the Israeli right: act unilaterally, expand the settlements, make a land grab and blame the Palestinians for everything....(full article)
It has been nearly two months since Iraqis voted in the much-lauded national elections for the new National Assembly. Two months and still no government. The closest the National Assembly came to forming a new government was at its opening session on March 16, 2005. That session started with mortar attacks and air-raid sirens and ended without a date to reconvene and without electing any officials. Several times party officials have set a date for the Assembly to reconvene. Each time, the date has passed without a meeting. The Assembly finally reconvened on March 29, 2005. Expectations for the meeting were low in light of reports that Kurdish and Shiite political leaders failed to reach an agreement on divvying up the government between them. The results of the meeting fell below those already low expectations when journalists were kicked out when the Assembly erupted in anger after the Kurds and Shiites failed to reach any agreement on the make-up of the government. What's behind all of the delays and haggling? (full article)
On March 18, the Pentagon released the new “National Defense Strategy of the United States of America,” (NDS) a sixteen page guide to US military policy outlining both the strategic objectives and the methods of attaining those objectives. While John Bolton’s new UN ambassadorship and “the U.S. withdrawal from the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for cases involving the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations,” on their own make the case for that the US remains in a unilateralist stance, Jim Lobe, writing for the Inter-Press Service, contends that the new document solidifies the continuation. Concentrating on the unilateralist aspects of the document misses the grim reality contained within. Unilateralism may be the means by which the strategic objectives presented can be met, but those means are not the objectives themselves....(full article)
Taking
the long view, and trying to perceive how a particular set of phenomena
impact society over an arc of time, seems to be a dying art in political
analysis just about anywhere on the political spectrum these days. That’s
why a documentary series released two years ago by the BBC called
The Century of the Self deserves a much wider audience here than
it seems to be getting, showing at little rep cinemas like San Francisco’s
Roxie Theater, where I saw it recently. It is a four-part series tracing
the progress of Sigmund Freud’s ideas about the human psyche, as they were
first used by his nephew Edward Bernays to form the basis of the public
relations industry, then later applied by American corporations to create
lifestyle-based marketing, and most recently, by political strategists to
create focus group-based campaign strategy in the U.S. and Britain. If
this sounds dry or tedious, or anything less than absolutely central to an
understanding of where we are as a society today, it isn’t. On the
contrary, series producer Adam Curtis turns the social applications of
Freudian (and anti-Freudian) psychology into the political story of our
times, giving the bloody, chaotic and often contradictory 20th
century an unexpectedly coherent through-line. It becomes clear that the
ideological battle that most profoundly shaped American society over the
last hundred years was not primarily left-right, or capitalist-socialist,
but between two fundamentally different conceptions of human nature, one
stressing collective identity and rationalism, the other, individualism
and the dominance of a personal, irrational subconscious....
One hour before 16-year-old Jeff Weise began shooting his classmates, I was standing in a high school hallway a thousand miles due south of Red Lake, Minnesota, staring at the image of another young man in a flak jacket brandishing an assault weapon. The US Navy recruiting poster, the largest item on a bulletin board labeled "Student Activities," was captioned with the slogan, "The Timid Need Not Apply." The slogan was printed in digital-style lettering -- an appeal, I expect, to the geeky and the gawky alike. According to reports, Jeff Weise was some of both. While I can't say whether the increased militarization of US high schools played a role in Weise's fateful decision to go on a killing spree, the mixed messages students receive in school about guns and killing are bound to influence this impressionable age group in significant and sometimes deadly ways....(full article)
Counter-recruitment has become a key battleground in the effort to stop the war in Iraq and prevent future military adventures by President Bush and a compliant Congress. Last week, the U.S. Army admitted that it expects to miss its recruiting goals this month and next and is working on a revised sales pitch appealing to the patriotism of parents. Nationwide demonstrations kicked off in Washington, DC two weeks ago including an event at an Army recruitment center and in many cities demonstrations were held outside of recruitment offices. The Army keeps saying it is planning no return of the draft, but more and more commentators are seeing the choice for the U.S. government might become withdraw from Iraq or enact a military draft. The Army has already increased the “backdoor draft” announcing today that more people in the Individual Ready Reserve -- those no longer in uniform and not obligated to train -- are going to be called up for duty....(full article)
The
anti-war movement may finally find some concurrence inside part of the
Bush administration. On March 28, columnist Robert Novak, who has a long
history of credible reporting and strong contacts in the Bush
administration, reported in The Chicago Sun-Times that there is
“determination in the Bush administration to begin irreversible withdrawal
of U.S. troops from Iraq this year.” Novak gives credit primarily to
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who he says “is expected to support
administration officials who want to leave even if what is left behind
does not constitute perfection.”....(full
article)
Stop the Massacres in Iraq! Bring the
Murderers Home! The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has been met with steadily strengthening resistance. Amazingly, for a people who have long suffered under the curse of Western “influence,” even those Iraqis who are not participants in or supporters of direct attacks on the U.S./U.K. occupation forces and its mercenary adjuncts have one key demand: the end of occupation and the removal of all occupation forces....(full article)
As children, we were taught that the military protected us in times of war. We learned about soldiers being killed and wounded by 'the enemy', and how people died if they got shot or if a bomb landed on them. Sometimes innocent people got killed during a war, but the fact that most victims were civilians was carefully hidden from us by our elders. They knew that children are smart enough to understand that there is a big moral difference between killing other soldiers and killing ordinary people. That a significant number of deaths were caused not by a weapon's impact, but by its toxicity and by military pollution, was never mentioned. We did not learn that military toxins know no boundaries, that they don't just kill the enemy, they kill our military personnel and people living near military bases, that they pollute the water, land and air. We were not taught and still aren't told today that military toxins go anywhere and kill everything, that they are in fact the quintessential universal soldier....(full article)
In the American academy, there is currently an organized campaign by some public figures to vilify prominent researchers and departments that are regarded as “anti-American” or even as “anti-Semitic” because their research and teaching are not in accordance with the views of the recent American administration. Universities are especially at risk if their faculty members are of Arab or -- even “worse” -- of Palestinian origin. The recent scandalous decision of the New York City Department of Education to bar Rashid Khalidi, one of Columbia University’s finest scholars, from instructing public school teachers is an example of this effort. Indeed Khalidi, a first-rate academic and a genuine intellectual, has often spoken of both the discriminatory laws within Israel that favor Jews and of the oppression of Palestinians in the occupied territories, facts that no honest and informed person would contest. One the other hand, he has consistently condemned suicide bombings as "war crimes," while asserting the right of Palestinians to resist the occupation without harming Israeli civilians. Many Jewish intellectuals in Israel and around the world share these completely legitimate opinions....(full article)
In April 9, 2003, Howard Dean all but endorsed George W. Bush’s pre-emptive (preventive) doctrine. Though Dean didn’t join in the hawks’ celebration of Bush’s “liberation of Iraq” that day, he stressed the necessity of pressuring Iran and North Korea, saying he would not rule out the use of military force to do so. As Glen Johnson of the Boston Globe quoted Dean as saying on April 10, 2003, “Under no circumstances can we permit North Korea to have a nuclear program ... Nor, under any circumstances, can we allow Iran to have nuclear weapons.” By conceding that effective containment of such rogue states may necessitate the use of force, Dean endorsed a pre-emptive creed that has had the effect of isolating the United States from the international community. It goes without saying that by embracing the doctrine, Dean’s foreign policy vision would not have reversed this trend....(full article)
The Supreme Court
last week refused to interfere with the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui,
the only person charged in connection to the 9-11 attacks. The court’s
rebuff of Moussaoui’s appeal remands his case to 4th Circuit Court of
Appeals and deprives him of his 6th amendment rights. When Moussaoui’s
case resumes, he will be barred from his fundamental right “for obtaining
witnesses in his favor,” a right that could very well acquit him of the
crimes for which he is being prosecuted. Once again, the Bill of Rights is
being savaged in full view of the American public without a whimper of
dissent. And once again, the Supreme Court is eviscerating basic
Constitutional protections in the name of national security....(full
article)
Bhagwati, Globalization and Hunger
Just before the failed Cancun WTO Ministerial in September 2003, there was a flurry of activity in establishment economic circles. Studies came out concluding that any drastic reduction in agricultural subsidies in the rich and developed countries would not make any appreciable impact on global commodity prices. The timing of the reports was crucial. The underlying premise was crystal clear. Prominent economists in the developed countries (and their clones in the developing countries) had ganged up to throw a protective ring around much of the US $320 billion agricultural subsidies that farmers (in reality the big transnational companies) in the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) were getting....(full article)
There are certain human needs that are so basic, that in a civilized society, to be deprived of such is nothing less than criminal. One of these needs is water. In a democracy, if citizens are deprived of water, then that democracy must be taken back. Control must be returned to those whom the democracy is intended to serve: the people. This exact scenario occurred during April 2000 in the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia. It is a success story, which led to victory for the masses in Cochabamba. This triumph is now referred to as “The Water War” and has inspired activists in social movements around the world....(full article)
“The big question that everyone asks is, yes or no to globalization. For me, this isn’t the question. The real question is a good globalization versus a bad globalization.” Such was the perspective of Mohammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi economist who invented The Grameen Bank, or The People’s Bank. This bank involves lending small amounts of money to economically challenged people who want to start up their own community projects or businesses. The transaction is based on trust and word of mouth; there are no signatures or paper work. The idea is to infuse confidence into the lending process and empower the borrower. Yunus developed this lending process after observing that poor families, especially women, could not receive credit by using the traditional financial banking system. He realized that many poor people were living in a viscous cycle that would not allow them to escape from poverty. Many were creative and had a huge capacity to work and produce, but because of their poverty and a lack of credit, they were unable to rise above their situation....(full article)
Putting aside your view of the Schiavo story, it's clear that right-wing "pro-life" protesters scored a media coup in terms of attention and coverage. On television, their voices and leaders have been front and center in the story -- their acts of civil disobedience widely broadcast. Their presence has been used as a backdrop for the TV theater. Segments have often opened with on-the-scene reporters assessing the mood of the protesters, whether "hopeful" or "agitated" or "angry." At times, TV correspondents have seemed to be embedded with the protesters. The good news is: Despite polls showing that the American people are overwhelmingly on the side of Terri Schiavo's husband, TV has nevertheless given sympathetic (and unprecedented) attention to the views of street demonstrators, even civil disobedients, representing a distinct minority of the public. The bad news is: For decades, such coverage has not been afforded to progressive demonstrators....(full article)
One would have to be a recent arrival from the planet Grornak (which is pretty far away -- at least a couple million miles or so), to not know George W. Bush has anointed himself -- or, rather, considered himself anointed by the Great Anointer -- the protector of some weird form of Christianity. When asked once to name his favorite philosopher, Bush said, “Christ.” I’ve often wished there’d immediately been a follow-up to determine if Dubya meant the purported Son of God, or Charles Manson during his messianic phase. ‘Cause if we’re talkin’ mass murder, George’s body count puts ol’ Charlie’s to shame. I’m going to take a flier here and wager I’m not the first to notice that lying a nation into war that, so far, is responsible for the deaths of around 100,000 humans (even if they are, ya know, only Muslims), doesn’t exactly keep with Christian principles, unless there’s some secret “Christians for Killing” cult of which I’m not aware. The more cynical amongst us might even wonder if Bush’s use of the exceedingly incendiary term “crusade” shortly after 9/11 was a mistake, after all....(full article)
My neighbor’s poodle died the other day. It’s very sad, of course. What’s worse is now I have to take my dog out back and shoot him. He’s not ill. In fact, he’s in perfect health. But because my neighbor has endured a loss, I must now similarly suffer. (So must the dog, too, one could convincingly argue.) Lunacy, you say? Bizarre? A little mean, even? (full article)
Three women were released from captivity on Friday, March 4. Depending on your perspective, each could easily be considered a profile in courage. However, considering the disparate tabloid press coverage, apparently only one -- Martha Stewart -- deserves our attention. Courage has nothing to do with it. The envious and hostile media has been after Stewart for years, eager to see her get a comeuppance for thinking she could compete with corporate men in a corporate men's world and get away with it....(full article)
Did they say “cassia” or “cassis?” Did they say alcohol or absinthe? Did they say shotgun or revolver, suicide or resistance? Never mind: Psalm 45, “A Song for the King's Marriage,” addressed “To the chief Musician upon Shoshan'nim, for the sons of Korah, Maschil, A Song of loves” (and not a word about “Jesus,” by the way): “My heart is indicting a good matter…my tongue is the pen of a ready writer. … Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father's house …” You heard the man -- it’s the literal Word of God: Forget thy father’s house. Thy father has nothing to do with it anymore, and neither dost thy mother, thy brother Bobby, thy parents’ attorneys, the President of the United States, his shills in Congress, his brother Jeb, Randall Terry, Tom DeLay, the whores of the media or anyone but thy Husband, to whom thou art enslaved -- remember? -- for better or worse....(full article)
here is a certain allure when an icon vanishes at the peak of his fame. The myth of early death has elevated legends like Marilyn Monroe, Bruce Lee, and Jim Morrison to veritable sainthood. However, there is something even more tangible in this myth when a figure simply “walks away” from fame. Greta Garbo and J.D. Salinger made self-imposed exile their greatest career move. Like royalty in exile, Bobby Fischer is no less reclusive....(full article)
Sure, I’ve read the articles about how we live in an on-demand, just-in-time world. Some grouse about the pitfalls of the trend, others talk in glowing terms about how technology allows us to do more, and more quickly. So, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when I saw a news report citing a study showing that something like 20% of adults eat at least one meal a day while riding somewhere, and fully one-third of us eat some of our meals standing up. Apparently, we’re all in a hurry to do more, more quickly, including eating. Yet we didn’t need some exhaustive study to know this: Just hop on public transit: Buses, subways, commuter train passengers have turned them into a moveable feast: A clattering, jolting, squealing series of rancid coffee shops, greasy snack bars and foul-smelling sandwich wagons. The bus has become Meals On Wheels....(full article)
At this late date, the attribution to the widely used “anti-depression” drug Prozac of a role in the recent murders in Red Lake, Minnesota, should not surprise. The young shooter had recently had an increase in the dosage of this drug, and its role in both incidents of violence and suicide -- especially among young people -- is well-documented. Despite bland assurances by the pharmaceutical firm manufacturing and marketing this emotional dynamite, there can be no “appropriate recommendation” for a drug that did not complete the clinical trials required by law, and that was approved by a panel primarily consisting of persons with ties to the very industry that produced it. All the more damning is the fact that this chemical -- the precise neurological function of which is not even understood by contemporary science -- performed barely better than a sugar placebo in some of its FDA trials. The by-now infamous rhapsodizing by the pharmaceutical industry’s de facto mouthpiece, Dr. Peter Kramer, takes on an unintended and ghoulish cast when set alongside the procession of murders (here, here, and here), suicides, physical dependence, and less well-documented human tragedies directly tied to the use of this “wonder drug.” What has become of a society that risks not only its mental health, but life itself in order to achieve drugged “happiness”? There is a grim paradox in the pandemic prescription of drugs for “emotional problems” that used to be treated by human concern, companionship, talk, and love. Psychological suffering has not been banished in the manner suggested by Peter Kramer’s idiotic rhapsodizing; instead, it has simply been transformed into a disease mediated by corporate profits, trials, and official denials....(full article)
The New Freedom Commission was established
by executive order on April 29, 2002. At a speech in New Mexico that day,
Bush said mental health centers and hospitals, homeless shelters, the
justice and school systems have contact with individuals suffering from
mental disorders but that too many Americans fall through the cracks of
the current system and so he created the Commission to ensure “that the
cracks are closed.”
On July 22, 2003 the
NFC recommended redesigning the mental health system in all fifty states
and said in a press release, “Achieving this goal will require ... a
greater focus on mental health care in institutions such as schools, child
welfare programs, and the criminal and juvenile justice systems. The goal
is integrated care that can screen, identify, and respond to problems
early.” Despite a nearly 500% increase in mental health drugs being
prescribed to children in the previous six years, the NFC recommended a
plan of mandatory mental health screening for all public school students
and follow-up treatment with drugs when needed. The fact is, this is
nothing more than another elaborate profiteering scheme hatched by Bush
and the pharmaceutical industry to convert the millions of people in
public systems into customers for new psychiatric drugs in order to funnel
more tax dollars to Pharma....(full
article) Recently, progressives who supported the Democratic Party in 2004 are expressing dissatisfaction with how Democratic elected officials are voting on the funding of the Iraq war, minimizing bankruptcy protections for working families, weakening the right to file class action lawsuits against abusive corporations, and shying away from environmental protection as well as how the party leadership is moving away from fully protecting a women's right to choose. Progressives need to recognize they just can't blame the Democrats for this -- it is the liberal intelligentsia that led them down the path of supporting a candidate for president who opposed progressives on many important issues who deserve a large share of the blame. By giving their support to a candidate who openly disagreed with progressives, they sent a message that Democrats will get their vote for nothing -- in other words, progressives could be taken for granted....(full article)
“Following the money” reveals a host of right wing organizations, many affiliated with the right wing Philanthropy Roundtable, abundantly funding the Terri Schiavo case....(full article)
CNN among others have been giving heavy airtime to some “right to life” folks and organizations that generally get little coverage of their extremism. Randall Terry has made threatening overtures to sitting politicians over the Terri Schiavo drama, “there will be hell to pay”; and Pat Mahoney has bemoaned the “judicial activism” in this case. Much of the news coverage has delved into the emotional aspects of the case and it has made for tear-jerking drama on television. It is also a ready made commercial for those who seek money for so-called “right to life” causes. A quick search of the internet for donation sites related to the Terri Schiavo case has revealed the following....(full article)
The feeding tube
frenzy swirling around “America's Most Wanted Desperate Housewife,” Terri
Schiavo, just goes to show how rightwing ideologues only spare their
“compassion” for those who can't raise their voices and speak out against
these unctuous vultures smothering them in false piety i.e.: aborted
fetuses, murdered moppets, coma victims and dead Jesus. (Clearly, the Mel
Gibson meat puppet version of Christ does a better job promoting the
Republican agenda than the living, breathing, political agitator who
scorned the wealthy and believed in taxes.) Similarly, these
angels of death have made martyrs out of Jon Benet Ramsey, Laci Peterson and
now Terri Schiavo -- people they had no interest in in life, but whom they
now fetishize in death. Necrophilia has always been at the center of wingnut
ideology, as evidenced by their preoccupations with the unborn and the
undead. And no one personifies the rightwing death cult agenda more than
Peggy Noonan, who has made a career insinuating herself with corpses: Ronald
Reagan, the late Senator Paul Wellstone (on whom she performed a
post-mortem act of ventriloquism and had him criticizing his mourners for
their “partisan” eulogies at his own funeral). Ms. Noonan now leads
America's professional class of funeral mourners -- the paid strangers who
will sob over an open coffin to give the impression that their intended
victims merit these public convulsions of fake compassion....(full
article)
It was
just over two years ago that I learned a little known “antiwar” Democrat
from Vermont was planning to run for President. At a rally on the eve of
Bush's Iraq invasion, a fellow protestor handed me a leaflet touting the
now infamous Howard Dean, hoping that the propaganda would entice me to
support his forthcoming candidacy. Of course, I was intrigued. Few other
Democrats were speaking out against the imminent war on Iraq. Luckily, I
ended up not taking the bait. Nevertheless many other activists
unabashedly latched onto the Dean campaign in hopes he would represent
their interests in Washington. Luckily for Howard, they all had credit
cards and Internet access. But as the story goes, Dean was embarrassingly
sacked during the primaries and his followers were told to traverse the
pro-war Kerry trail instead....(full article)
Can the PDA Move the Democrats Left? In a recent fundraising appeal on behalf of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), Global Exchange and Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin urged support for the PDA’s effort to “take over and transform the Democratic Party.” But this is only the latest in a long line of attempts to “take over and transform the Democratic Party.” If history is any guide, the PDA’s attempt will end like all the others -- in failure....(full article)
The blurring of
political distinctions between America’s two major political parties,
achieved through Democratic acquiescence to Republican ideas on every
major national question, has prompted some progressives to conclude that
Democrats and Republicans are now essentially identical. This conflation
is a dangerous error: it is too kind an evaluation of the Democratic
Party. For to view Democrats as mere Republican clones is to discount the
far more pernicious role they play in encouraging a politically
conservative framework that traps and demoralizes many Americans into
adopting right-wing positions in the first place....(full
article)
UC Service Workers Strike Appears
Imminent
Over 7,300 service
workers are bracing for a strike against the University of California, as
negotiations between the AFSCME Local 3299 and University appear to be
heading towards an impasse. After union members on nine campuses voted 92%
statewide to authorize a strike on March 17, 2005, the Bargaining
Committee and UC are participating in a state-mandated “fact-finding
process.” This process, which is estimated to conclude in late March, is
followed by a ten-day renegotiation period. “If we don’t settle within
that ten days, the Union is free to strike,” says Paul Worthman, Statewide
Negotiator for AFSCME Local 3299 (www.afscme3299.org).
Worthman has been an organizer with various unions for 30 years. “And it
doesn’t look good,” he adds, regarding the prospect of reaching middle
ground with the University who he says is not showing willingness to
“move.” Meanwhile, two UC Irvine Medical Center workers claim to have been
wrongly harassed for wearing buttons and posting flyers supporting the
strike on March 10, 2005, according to an affidavit obtained by the
present columnist....(full article)
Little Reporting on Paranoia in High
Places Journalists often refer to the Bush administration’s foreign policy as “unilateral” and “preemptive.” Liberal pundits like to complain that a “go-it-alone” approach has isolated the United States from former allies. But the standard American media lexicon has steered clear of a word that would be an apt description of the Bush world view. Paranoid. Early symptoms met with tremendous media applause in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Skepticism from reporters and dissent from pundits were sparse while President Bush quickly declared that governments were either on the side of the USA or “the terrorists.” Since then, the paranoiac scope of the administration’s articulated outlook has broadened while media acceptance has normalized it -- to the point that a remarkable new document from the Pentagon is raising few media eyebrows. Released on March 18 with a definitive title -- “The National Defense Strategy of the United States of America” -- the document spells out how the Bush administration sees the world. Consider this key statement: “Our strength as a nation state will continue to be challenged by those who employ a strategy of the weak using international fora, judicial processes, and terrorism.”(full article)
To judge by the political discourse, being a leftist in Israel today means supporting Ariel Sharon. Even when his government decides yet again to postpone the evacuation of the illegal outposts to an unknown future date, the pundits explain that the mere fact that he even raised the matter for discussion in the government is indicative of the seriousness of his intentions. Sharon will evacuate Gaza first, they say, and afterwards the outposts, and in the end maybe even the West Bank. And those who most believe that Sharon will dismantle settlements are the parties of the Left. On what basis? (full article)
In the world of imperialism, hypocrisy abounds. The corporate media cover imperialist pronouncements calling on the invited Syrian forces to end their occupation of Lebanon (a country that treacherously came into existence because of a broken promise by France and Britain to its Arab allies in World War I) while ignoring the fact that the US is occupying Iraq and Afghanistan among others, and Zionists are occupying Palestine (also known as Israel), Syrian territory, and Lebanese territory. Simultaneously, Iran is being berated by the nuclear-armed US and Israel for pursuing a uranium-enrichment program. The double standard extends to the world of elementary school students. An essay written in Arabic by an elementary school student in Ottawa has raised the hackles of the Canadian media and Jewish establishment....(full article)
I remember a time when I felt exasperation when a New Yorker would ask me how Dorothy, Toto, and the tornadoes were. Not anymore. Somebody please razz me about being from the Land of Oz. I need to hear that so I can forget that Kansas has become a hotbed of bigotry, homophobia, and Christian fundamentalism....(full article)
Once again the Democratic Party has demonstrated how out of touch it is with the U.S. American people. Polls have shown that about 2/3 are against what the Republican-led Congress did by attempting to intervene in the Terry Schiavo case. If the Democrats were in touch with those they claim to be representing, and if they were willing to speak up clearly in support of their views, this latest example of despicable Republican opportunism could be backfiring on them the same way Bush's sputtering Social Security privatization campaign is. And how about all those House Democrats who voted for the $81 billion to continue the Iraq war, not even attempting to put any conditions on it? Back in October of 2002, because of a massive, grassroots pressure campaign, 135 of them voted no to the war authorization vote. 2½ years and tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths later, only 43 voted against another huge check for war and occupation. Two months ago, I will admit that I thought more was possible. A grassroots pressure effort had led to the successful challenging in Congress of the Ohio Electoral College vote on January 6th, and it seemed that this was a model for other issues. But the war vote is a clear indication that we are not going to make political progress on a range of different progressive issues unless we use a wide range of tactics. Strengthening the movement for an exit strategy for progressive Democrats has got to be a key one....(full article)
Silence.
President George W. Bush has remained silent in the aftermath of the
school shooting in Red Lake, Minnesota that claimed the lives of ten
people, including the shooter, 16-year-old Jeff Weise. In April 1999,
President Bill Clinton addressed the nation just hours after the Columbine
High School massacre, sending his condolences to the families of those
killed and injured, and to the country, which was in shock. Clinton
continued to pay close attention to the case, discussing it again several
days later in his regular radio address. He gave the country time to
heal, but stayed close to the issue, proposing new gun control laws and
new security measures to keep America's schools as safe as possible.
President Bush has the opportunity to bring Americans together on several
key issues this week, such as the astounding proportion of Native American
families living under the federal poverty line and how this contributes to
the breakdown of the family unit and leads to psychological problems and
unnecessary violence....(full article)
Turning Out the Lights on the
Enlightenment
The government's reaction to and
intervention in the sad tale of Terri Schiavo is but the latest indication
that the United States is gradually slipping farther and farther away from
the moorings of the Enlightenment: rationality and empiricism over faith
and religion. This dimming of the Enlightenment ideals upon which the U.S.
was founded is spearheaded by Bush and the Republicans, who profess to be
conservatives but behave like zealots....
The Terri Schiavo case is an example of
radical Bush Republicanism at its very worst. In spite of the fact that
virtually all polls show that a substantial majority of Americans disagree
with the GOP on this one, don’t be fooled; Republicans are doing exactly
what they set out to do. One striking feature of this new Republican Party
is its absolute willingness -- even eagerness -- to take get their hands
dirty in order to achieve the desired results....
This is a subject that I should not be writing about. The life and death situation of Terri Schiavo and the dispute between her husband and her family are tragic and also personal. It’s no business to you, me, President Bush nor the United States Congress. But to remain silent against what the Los Angeles Times has correctly called “a constitutional coup d’etat.” is to condone demagoguery, hypocrisy, and the trashing of principle, compassion and constitutional law. There is a legal process for settling life and death family disputes. That process has been utilized with admirable care and respect in the Schiavo case. Ms. Schiavo’s tragedy is now being exploited by right-wing Republicans for partisan gain. Have they no decency? Is there nothing sacred in the Republican Party’s quest for political power? (full article)
Last year, President Bush nominated Thomas B. Griffith to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals. Senate Democrats prevented a vote on his nomination. Consequently, President Bush re-nominated Mr. Griffith in February. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on his nomination on March 8, and is expected to vote on his confirmation in April. Senate Democrats were correct in not furthering his previous nomination. Mr. Griffith has a strong record of opposition to women’s rights, as regards public education. Additionally, he practiced law, both in the District of Columbia and in Utah, although he was not authorized to do so. Equally troubling, he gave false answers while under oath regarding his practice of the law....(full article)
When I look at my brother, a kind man, an essentially brave and hardworking one, exemplary of all those things an American is supposed to be, I see that one of the biggest and most overlooked political events in America is how millions of people such as him and his flock were moved out of the apolitical camp into Christian activism. And how, despite all their claims of independence, these churches were so deeply shaped by modern zealots of the past thirty years. Yet the churches are unaware that the original source of their theological ideas is the dark, strange coterie of reconstructionist Christians, who want to stone homosexuals, kill disobedient children and build a theocratic state through the establishment of “Biblical Law” in America. . . Via Presbyterian oriented educators, the Baptist school headmasters and pastors, and the charismatic telecommunications system, the radicals have managed to shape hundreds of thousands of Pentecostals and charismatic Christians, as well as many fundamentalist Baptists, not merely as voters, but as ideological activists for a reconstructed “Biblical world view” in government, law, education, the arts and foreign policy....(full article)
In the pre-dawn hours of March 21, 2005, and after being awakened to do so, President Bush signed into law the legally-questionable and politically-motivated bill entitled “An Act for the relief of the parents of Theresa Marie Schiavo.” The bill allowed the family of Terri Schiavo to file suit in federal court in the hopes that her life could be forcibly sustained. Upon signing the bill President Bush declared, “[W]here there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws, and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life.” An interesting statement from the man who, while Governor of Texas, presided over more executions of convicted felons than occurred in all the other States combined. A particularly hypocritical statement since, while Governor of Texas, Bush refused to grant clemency even in cases with serious questions and substantial doubts....(full article)
The business/owning class has always been institutionalized as the state and the custodians of the entire American social and political process. History as we learn it in school is the owning class’ version as they see it. Despite what we were taught, America’s very Constitution is mainly a property rights document, and those with the most property are naturally ascendant at all times in this country. Generation after generation of this was bound to lead to dangerous hubris such as Bush’s “ownership society,” in which everyone has their own mobile home, credit card debt and a Dell…not to mention the reestablishment of debtor’s prisons and poor houses through “bankruptcy reform” and “Social Security reform.” How could it not have? So it’s no wonder that when faced by an honest-to-god resistance from parts of the world outside the self-serving scope of their own property-based system, whether it be Vietnam or the Middle East, or the global anti-Iraq War movement, they are nonplussed. Dickie and his elite set are absolutely goddamned baffled. They have not one scrap of experiential or intellectual wherewithal to grasp what is going on. (And to those who will surely say I am being an apologist for the rich, let me remind you that, as a bona fide inbred redneck, I am far more likely to shoot their feeble feckless asses than you are. It’s in my blood, though I manage to restrain myself.)....(full article)
The nomination of Paul Wolfowitz to the World Bank has brought on the widespread gnashing of teeth among America’s liberals, but there’s no real reason for despair. The World Bank has never operated according to its mandate (to reduce poverty in the developing countries through financial assistance), so it’s better to have someone like Wolfowitz at the top-spot where the activities of the bank draw greater public scrutiny. His appointment will serve the same purpose as a warning label on medicine vial; cautioning needy third world states that overuse could be hazardous....(full article)
In a frame on my desk I have a statement that I came across on March 23, 2003. The invasion of Iraq had just begun and my brother, a sergeant in the Army, was over there, somewhere. My brother's reasons for joining the Army were his own, but he was my brother and I was sickened by the prospect of him killing and dying, particularly for a lie. That is why the following statement rang so true for me and why it still sits framed on my desk two years later....(full article)
Can you fool all of the people all of the time? The politics of Social Security suggest not in 2005. Despite the Bush White House’s many calls of doom and gloom for the popular program, the fact that it is not broken now nor in danger of breaking soon is becoming stronger in the public mind, bombarded with the administration’s sales pitches to fix what is fine. Ordinary Americans are increasingly rejecting the GOP’s message, according to recent public opinion polls. But as a famous philosopher once said, it ain’t over until it’s over. Case in point is the White House targeting African Americans as a group who stand to benefit from changing Social Security from a program of social insurance to one of private investments in the stock market....(full article)
Nishrin Hussain lives in the United States. She is the daughter of
Ahsanhusain A. Jafri of Gujarat, former Member of Parliament, who was
tortured, decapitated, and murdered in 2002. The events of Gujarat 2002
have placed Nishrin in exile. Zaheera Sheik, who experienced the trauma of
her family’s murder and was present for the Best Bakery ordeal, was
coerced and intimidated by the Sangh Parivar. Bilkis Yakoob Rasool (Bilkis
Bano) of Randhikpur village was gang-raped. She was five months pregnant
at the time of her rape and lost 14 family members, including her
three-year-old child, mother, and two sisters. Since then, she has been
forced to move 20 times due to threats against her. These and other women
of Gujarat live and relive the violence of 2002, their families and
futures devastated. Such realities compelled the formation of the
Coalition Against Genocide (CAG). CAG was formed in February 2005 to
protest the planned business visit to the US in March 2005 of Narendra
Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, and demand accountability and justice
in response to the Gujarat genocide....
Billings, Montana -- There is a lot to be said for nowhere. Snow is falling with the glimmer of the Crazy Mountains in the distance. A frigid wind cuts through my thin jacket. I notice that ice is beginning to form on the brim of my hat as I race to my warm car. My body heat has melted the fallen snow, and now the moisture is fast turning to ice. It was warm out earlier in the day and I thought I could get this little hike in before sunset, but this storm -- which will soon turn into a blizzard -- has darkened the Big Sky. Welcome to Montana. Some things rarely change out here, the unpredictability of the weather being one. There are, however, aspects of life in Montana that the public can help determine. The Red State label that the politicos have given to places like this is not etched in stone. Things can and do change....(full article)
With the Pentagon launching its own cable network, thrilling new viewing opportunities are endless. James Charles reviews some of the Pentagon's upcoming lineup, guaranteed to shock and awe you....(full article)
John Manley, prominent Liberal politician in Canada, has shown a stunning lack of judgment in chairing a private group proposing a new security-economic regime for Canada, Mexico, and the United States. One hopes the proposal is not a feeler for something quietly supported by Paul Martin's government. We do know that Mr. Martin's goal of improving relations with George Bush has been a bit of a runaway train, gone off the tracks. The Prime Minister is almost certainly looking for ways to right the engine and fire up the boilers. I could dwell on the difficulty of anyone's improving relations with a man of Mr. Bush's remarkably unpleasant character. After all, Canada has produced no more affable or charming politician than former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, and Mr. Chretien it seems could not entirely disguise a sense of repulsion. I am sure he did not greatly miss his cancelled invitation to share charred cow, root beer, and sermons from the Book of Revelations down in Crawford, Texas. Of course, no matter how unpleasant the current President is, Canada must have a decent relationship with America. Geography dictates this, but so does Canada's basic national character. Canada does not make enemies, which is why so many Americans traveling in Europe and other places wear Maple Leaf patches on their backpacks or pins in their lapels....(full article)
Mercury-based thimerosal, used as a preservative in childhood vaccines until recently, is now being blamed for a host of neurological problems, including autism, ADD, ADHD, and other learning disabilities. The number of children with these problems can vary greatly depending on who you listen to. Some experts say there are about 800,000 learning disabled children in the US, while others put the number as high as eight million, according to Dr. Jay Gordon. Dr. Gordon is a California pediatrician who has worked as a consultant for CBS on children's programming. He was ABC’s medical correspondent for the Home Show for five years and has appeared on Good Morning America to discuss vaccines. On his website, appropriately called Dr. Jay Gordon, he addresses many of the issues related to vaccine policies in the US. Granted, there are plenty of research studies to document the fact that some vaccines are necessary to protect against serious diseases. However, there is very little data to support the methods that are used to vaccinate children in the US....(full article)
Fast food, family values, the Christian
right and the Bush Administration....
Vancouver, Canada -- In February, Vancouver became the first city in North America to begin clinical trials for heroin prescription. This step, which required an exemption of Section 56 of the Controlled Drug and Substances Act, came a year and a half after Vancouver had opened North America's first safe injection site. Dr. David Marsh, a UBC Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Healthcare and Epidemiology says, “Each research subject will be on either heroin or another approved treatment substitute such as methadone.” According to him, Switzerland and Netherlands have already approved regular treatment with heroin maintenance as part of the continuum of care after over 20,000 patient years of research. Marsh himself has worked for eight years in Canada to have the North American Opiate Medication Initiative (NAOMI) study approved....(full article)
There's something profoundly disturbing -- sickening, really -- about watching a bully at work. You feel either complicit, or powerless, or both. The global bully, the United States, has just coerced Guatemala, its latest victim, into repealing an important law to lower the price of pharmaceuticals and promote generic competition. The U.S. ambassador to Guatemala acknowledged that the Guatemalan law was intended to advance public health objectives. But, no matter, he said -- U.S. commercial interests in the form of Big Pharma demanded that the law go. Here's how this went down, what it will mean, and what can be done:...(full article)
Facing execution for his role in the murder
of more than 1 million people, many of them children, Auschwitz
commandant, Rudolf Hoess, reflected on his life and works: “Today, I
deeply regret that I did not spend more time with my family.” (Hoess,
“Auschwitz, The Nazis and the Final Solution,” BBC2, February 15, 2005)
Hoess of course lies at the extreme end of the spectrum, but his inability
to recognize the extraordinary horror of what he had done is by no means
exceptional. Mike Wallace of CBS News interviewed a participant in the
American massacre of Vietnamese women and children at My Lai. . . . One of
the delusions promoted by our society is the idea that great
destructiveness is most often rooted in great cruelty and hatred. In
reality, evil is not merely banal, it is often free of any sense of
being evil -- there may be no sense of moral responsibility for
suffering at all....
The rationale for Taser International’s stuns guns is that they are non-lethal and help cops subdue dangerous suspects with minimal force. But reports show plenty of suspects have died almost immediately after being stunned. Not the least of these deaths was twenty-one year old Andrew Washington from Vallejo, California who on September 15, 2004 after trying to flee from the police, was shot repeatedly with 50,000 volts while his was body lying in a trickle of water....(full article)
What is The Meaning of Hockey and why do Canadians care so much about the sport? What is the connection between union organizing and writing fiction? Will a novel about a former star hockey player going through male menopause be of interest to feminists? Can a hockey novel really replace the NHL playoffs? These and other questions are answered as Yves Engler interviews his father Gary Engler about the online serialized (free) version of his novel that began Wednesday March 2 on the www.thetyee.ca web site. A new chapter will appear each Monday, Wednesday and Friday for sixteen weeks....(full interview)
Mark Bradley attends an event featuring CA Congressman Dan Lungren (R) and gets the opportunity to pitch the kind of tough questions about the Republican drive to privatize Social Security that mainstream press stenographers fail to ask....(full article)
In the few days before Palm Sunday, Hasam Jubran has a lot to do. As co-director of the Peace and Reconciliation Department for the Holy Land Trust in Bethlehem, much work falls on his shoulders to make sure things go well when Palestinian children begin a peace march to Jerusalem. First, there are the children themselves who thought up the idea. Then there are the adults from Palestine, Europe, and the USA who will carry the march into an Israeli checkpoint where delicate strategic decisions must be made. And finally, who can forget the donkeys? (full article)
On 1 March 2005, the night Tabare Vazquez was inaugurated as President of Uruguay, a sea of people, flags and drum brigades pressed through the streets of the capital, Montevideo. Fireworks pounded the air and car horns shrieked. The city bubbled with a cathartic happiness. In Uruguay, 30 per cent of the three million people live below the poverty line, 15 per cent are unemployed and economic activity staggers along at a level 20 per cent below what it was in 1990. The country has the highest proportion of people aged over 60 in Latin America: 15 per cent -- most of them young -- have left the country in search of work....(full article)
The profit-hungry banks and credit card
companies wrote the legislation themselves. And now, their friends in
Washington have delivered. So-called bankruptcy “reform” legislation
passed its final hurdle last week, winning approval in the Senate by a
wide margin that included Republicans and Democrats. George W. Bush will
soon sign it into law....(full article)
Why Iraq Withdrawal Makes Sense
President Bush just told reporters that he
has no intention of setting any timetable for withdrawal. “Our troops will
come home when Iraq is capable of defending herself,” he said. Powerful
pundits keep telling us that a swift pullout of U.S. troops would be
irresponsible. And plenty of people have bought into that idea --
including quite a few progressives. Such acceptance is part of what Martin
Luther King Jr. called “the madness of militarism.” Sometimes, an unspoken
assumption among progressive activists is that the occupation of Iraq must
be tolerated for tactical reasons -- while other issues, notably domestic
ones, are more winnable on Capitol Hill. But this acceptance means going
along with many of the devastating effects of a militarized society: from
ravaged budgets for social programs to more authoritarian attitudes and
violence in communities across the country....
Two-Year Anniversary of Iraq War Kicks
Off in Washington, DC
Demonstrations
against the Iraq War scheduled to occur in nearly 600 cities in all 50
states this weekend kicked off this Thursday across the street from the
White House in Washington, DC as representatives of veterans groups and
others signed a document pledging to encourage and support soldiers who,
of their own conscience, refuse orders to fight in the Iraq War. The
declaration violates United States Code 18, Section 2387, which makes
support and encouragement of soldiers resisting their orders illegal, and
which carries a maximum penalty of $10,000 or ten years in prison....
When I saw Paul Wolfowitz’s smug grin in the January 17 issue of The New York Times, trouble was clearly on the horizon. The photo showed him in tsunami-stricken Indonesia, accompanying the country’s defense minister, Juwono Sudarsono. His visit was under the guise of humanitarianism. But as always with Wolfowitz and Indonesia, a more nefarious project is in the offing: strengthening Washington’s ties with the Indonesian military (TNI)....(full article)
Having failed to moderate the president's environmental agenda, what makes former EPA head Christine Todd Whitman think she can moderate the GOP?(full article)
Don’t look now, but Bush’s house-of-cards
economy is about to come crashing to earth. Just yesterday the Commerce
Department announced that the trade deficit soared to an all time high of
$665 billion in 2004 -- a whopping 25% increase from the previous year.
America’s gluttonous appetite for cheap foreign goods and its inability to
produce more of what it consumes is quickening the country’s inevitable
day of reckoning. Despite the rosy projections from the Bush clan and
their friends in the media, the probability of an economic meltdown
becomes more likely every day....
As the generals of
Europe sent their youth to die in the gaping furnace-mouths of Verdun and
the Somme, a young man named Alvin York roamed the hills of Tennessee
unaware that his government was making plans to send him to those same
muddy fields. When the U.S. military drafted York in 1917, he refused to
go to war and filed for status as a Conscientious Objector (CO). His
application was unsuccessful. Draft boards, like military recruiters
today, had trouble meeting their quotas and found any excuse to send men
to Europe; CO review boards helped make that effort easier. His
application for CO status refused, despite his protestations, he went to
fight in the First World War and returned home to a hero’s welcome. York’s
commonly known exploits as a “reluctant hero” were eventually immortalized
by Gary Cooper, who won an Academy Award for Best Actor in the 1941
box-office hit Sergeant York. When put in its proper context,
York’s life story helps shed light on the current Iraq War and the role
that COs play in American society. If we learn about and demystify the
dominant image of York, he can help us understand a man like Army Sergeant
Kevin Benderman. In late 2004, Benderman applied for CO status and soon
after refused to re-deploy with his unit to Iraq (www.bendermandefense.org).
York’s story, like Benderman’s, communicates that a GI’s choice—and
right—to seek the status of a CO needs to be understood, protected, and
supported....
While apologists for Bush's and Blair's murderous adventure in Iraq see a “silver lining” in pseudo-events in the Middle East, real events in Colombia illuminate the universal nature of their “mission”. The latest | |
