"Schools, With Few Classes, Build Hoop Dreams" cries the front page of this morning's New York Times. And what do papers, with few stories, build?
So after blowing off the entire week, on its final day, the Times tries to get its act together and produce something that indicates that everyone's earned a paycheck. They haven't but unless you think they could get real jobs, let is pass. (They need to eat and it's not like they set the standards at the paper -- they just follow them.)
We'll start with Carlos H. Conde's "Emergency Rule in Philippines After Failed Coup Is Cited" which tells you what you already knew (if you went elsewhere other than the Times for your news) that in the Phillipines, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declared emergency rule and is saying there are attempts at a coup:
Ignoring the ban on rallies, former President Corazon Aquino, who remains a popular figure here, led thousands of demonstrators in a march through the financial district calling for Mrs. Arroyo's resignation. The opposition has crystallized around allegations that Mrs. Arroyo rigged national elections in 2004, as well as charges of government corruption and human rights abuses, charges that she vigorously denies.
Mrs. Aquino urged Mrs. Arroyo to "make the supreme sacrifice by resigning." Dozens of demonstrators were arrested.
Political analysts, meanwhile, suggested that the coup threat was overstated and that the government's reaction could backfire.
Do political analysts suggest that? I see business analysts commenting. I see a professor commenting. Oh well, the Times uses "reporter" so loosely, why not "political analyst" as well?
What you won't see is the paper quoting any citizens. Is there a coup being plotted? What's the mood in the country? I'm not sure that anyone outside of the Times really expects the answer on that to come from a "consulting firm for companies doing business in Asia."
Did you notice the "Mrs." by the way? I wasn't kidding when I said it was a lengthy battle to get the Times to use "Ms." and you'll note that they still can't do it uniformly. (Laura Bush is never "Ms." -- she's always "Mrs.") Which sort of defeats the purpose of "Ms." For those too young to remember before the days of the term's widespread use, you were (if female) "Miss" or "Mrs." depending upon your marital status. You were (if male) "Mister" regardless of your marital status. The Times has finally stepped away from "Miss"; however, they still insist on "Mrs." when dealing with "wife of"s. There's no consistency to their use. And you'd think by the time you're dealing with two female presidents (one current, one former), you could just use "Ms." but not in the Times' still sexist minds. Maybe in the next hundred years they can find a style "element" and stick with it?
So the paper's late to the dance and it's reporting reads like the journalist just emerged from an hour of watching the coverage on CNN International. You've got the US State Dept. weighing in, you've got international business weighing in, you've got some military in the Phillipines, some official spokespeople for Arroyo and that's really it. There's nothing in this story to indicate that it was filed from the Phillipines other than the dateline -- so why did the paper even bother to file from there? It's lazy reporting even for the Times which can never do an international story without rushing to reassure (sometimes falsely) what the Zogby poll always calls the "investor class." And Arroyo? She's probably wishing she was still entertaining Bully Boy and Laura, that they (including her husband) were still seated around the table drinking from wine glasses whatever that beverage was (but we're sure it was non-alcoholic). I believe it was BuzzFlash that linked to those photos. (May of 2003?)
The Washington Post carries a Reuters' report that Martha notes. It's entitled "Philippines, Under State Of Emergency, Recalls Revolt:"
Early on Saturday, police raided a pro-opposition newspaper, the Daily Tribune, gathering documents, confiscating copies of the paper from the printing press and padlocking the office.
"They just swooped down, went inside," Editor in Chief Ninez Cacho Olivares said on the radio. "This is like martial law."
Police also went to the offices of the Abante tabloid, but Elvira Altez, a member of its board, said the officers left after seeing crews from two TV stations.
No, you didn't read a word of that in Conde's "reporting."
In other bad reporting, Thom Shankar contributes "Bush Sees a Tough Test for the Skills of the Iraqi Troops." Shankar quotes bits and pieces of Bully Boy's speech to the American Legion yesterday. Bully Boy didn't focus on Iraq, despite what Shankar tells you. The White House has a transcript of the speech posted online. How many sentences before Bully Boy makes his first glaring error? Five. (Check my math.)
I'm proud to be with my fellow Legionnaires.
His fellow Legionnaires? What's that supposed to mean? When Bully Boy was AWOL from the Guard he got so tanked he accidentally ended up Vietnam? Bully Boy saw combat when? Shankar's not fact checking, he's not even reporting. He's fluffing.
(Sidebar, anyone else remembering when the American Legion, in 1999, was calling for the withdrawal of American forces from the former Yugoslavia? Telling Bill Clinton there had to be clear support from the people for the war? Yesterday, they cheered and applauded Bully Boy and seemed to have no concerns over clear support from the people re: Iraq.)
What did Bully Boy speak about? (Shankar must have been out of the hall during the bulk of the speech.) Hurricane Katrina and health benefits. He spun on both topics. In paragraph thirteen he finally mentions Afghanistan and Iraq. And the remarks? The same canned ones he's been giving for months. There's no real difference in this and the televised speech in June that Ava and I reviewed at The Third Estate Sunday Review. Then he declared: "The war reached our shores on September the 11th, 2001." Yesterday he declared: "The war reached our shores on September the 11th, 2001, when our nation awoke to a sudden attack." It's the same, old same-old but an official said it, the Times wants to peddle it, and we're falsely told it's news. He's drawing comparisons yet again between 9-11 and Iraq and Shankar's not even up to refuting it.
The paper's motto: "When officials speak, we jot!" Which is a good transitional note to remind everyone that Wally took on the speech (via "Bully Boy Press") at The Daily Jot yesterday.
Neil A. Lewis offers up "Former Aide to Cheney Gains Access to His Notes." Here's the gist of that, Scooter Libby's trying to use every legal trick in the book to walk away from the charges. (The Times doesn't note this, but he's even saying that Patrick Fitzgerald's post wasn't lawful. Yes, the Bully Boy blunders so much that even Dick Cheney's former right hand now tries to hide behind the administration's loose grasp of the law.) So Scoots will get his own notes but not the PDBs he's been requesting. Now Scoots has every right to toss out every principle in the book and try to save his own ass. That's what a criminal defendent does (and that's what Scoots is) but note that the so-called Law & Order Republicans who will decry the same to-be-expected behavior by someone not of their "crowd" falls silent on the issue of Scoots. Fred Thompson himself signs on to help out Scoots.
And try to remember that Scoots, someone in the administration until his criminal indictment (let's say that one more time: criminal indictment), expects to have access to the PDBs. Does everyone remember the song and dance, the teeth pulling, it took for the 9-11 Commission to get ahold of the August 2001 PDB that began "bin Laden determined to strike . . ."? Hopefully, people are noting that all the "principles" the administration supposedly stands on go out the window when it's their own ass in the fire. (The Times, if it notices, doesn't comment.)
So what's today? They have some topics to cover. They blew off the whole week and today everyone rushes to file and prove that they weren't asleep on the job. Reading the "reporting," you think they've only demonstrated that you need not be awake to type. (And I thought only I proved that.)
If anyone put in a day's work at the paper, it was probably David S. Cloud who files "Military Contractor Pleads Guilty to Bribery:"
A military contractor pleaded guilty Friday to paying a California congressman more than $1 million in bribes and to hiring the son of a Pentagon official in a scheme that helped bring his firm more than $150 million in military contracts since 2002.
The contractor, Mitchell Wade, founder and former president of MZM Inc. in Washington, admitted in an appearance before Judge Ricardo M. Urbina of Federal District Court that he bribed the congressman, former Representative Randy Cunningham, with cash, cars and antiques.
Mr. Cunningham, a Republican, resigned from Congress last November, after pleading guilty to taking bribes from Mr. Wade, among others.
[. . .]
Mr. Wade also admitted that he did favors for a Defense Department official, whom lawyers involved in the case have identified as William S. Rich Jr., the former director of the Army's National Ground Intelligence Center in Charlottesville, Va.
Nicole notes Griff Witte's "A First Look Back at the Horror" (The Washington Post):
Afghanistan's first war crimes trial has brought emotional pleas from witnesses and a lengthy catalogue of charges against Sarwari, a communist-era intelligence chief who is accused of ordering executions in the late 1970s. But no one who testified at the hearing saw him commit a crime.
Lack of evidence is one of many problems that have arisen as Afghanistan attempts to confront its violent past, conducting the first such trial after a quarter-century of conflict that claimed at least a million lives.
Until recently, the country had seemed more intent on burying its history than reliving it through potentially explosive investigations and trials. That is beginning to change. But as the process gets underway, it is revealing unpleasant truths about the present as well as the past.
In many ways, the Sarwari case has degenerated into a farce. The defendant, who has been imprisoned for 14 years, has had difficulty keeping an attorney because lawyers are pressured not to represent him. The prosecutors have presented scant evidence. Witnesses have spoken at length about what they heard from relatives or friends, but none has produced evidence.
For news on Iraq, we go to Dahr Jamail's "Who Benefits?" (Iraq Dispatches) which a number of members note but it looks like Keesha was the first to note it:
The most important question to ask regarding the bombings of the Golden Mosque in Samarra on the 22nd is: who benefits?
Prior to asking this question, let us note the timing of the bombing. The last weeks in Iraq have been a PR disaster for the occupiers.
First, the negative publicity of the video of British soldiers beating and abusing young Iraqis has generated a backlash for British occupation forces they've yet to face in Iraq.
Indicative of this, Abdul Jabbar Waheed, the head of the Misan provincial council in southern Iraq, announced his councils’ decision to lift the immunity British forces have enjoyed, so that the soldiers who beat the young Iraqis can be tried in Iraqi courts. Former U.S. proconsul Paul Bremer had issued an order granting all occupation soldiers and western contractors immunity to Iraqi law when he was head of the CPA...but this province has now decided to lift that so the British soldiers can be investigated and tried under Iraqi law.
This deeply meaningful event, if replicated around Iraq, will generate a huge rift between the occupiers and local governments. A rift which, of course, the puppet government in Baghdad will be unable to mend.
The other huge event which drew Iraqis into greater solidarity with one another was more photos and video aired depicting atrocities within Abu Ghraib at the hands of U.S. occupation forces.
Also on Iraq, Rita notes Mark Engler's "Commentary: Finding the tipping point for Vietnam -- and for Iraq" (Mother Jones):
In the center of the CostOfWar.com home page, an upward-racing ticker, presented in a large, red font, keeps a steady tally of the money spent for the U.S. war in Iraq. Every time I visit, it takes a moment to sort through the counter's decimal places and make sense of it. The hundreds of dollars fly by too quickly to track. The thousands change a little faster than once a second. As I write, the ticker reads $239,302,273,144.
It is worth staring at the site for a while to see the vast sums accumulate. Yet this exercise in wartime accounting quickly becomes unsatisfying. First of all, few Americans have any frame of reference for evaluating a number like $239 billion. The National Priorities Project, the organization hosting the counter, attempts to remedy this by allowing visitors to compare war costs with expenditures on pre-school, health care, and public housing, noting, for example, that this much money could provide basic immunizations for every child born worldwide in the next 79 years. Even then, the incomprehensibly large number ticking away on screen turns out to be no measure at all of what we will eventually pay for the war. Depending on what estimate you use, it could be off by almost a factor of ten. After all, it lacks a place for the trillions.
So how much will the war cost? The question occasionally appears in the media, never a new issue, never a settled one either. Still, there are some certainties about the costs of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. One is that it keeps going up. The President has now submitted a "guns over butter" budget to Congress that increases Pentagon spending to $440 billion, while taking away funds from social services at home and development assistance abroad. One of the great curiosities of this huge sum is that it does not include funding for the wars we are actually fighting. Those are appropriated separately -- this year, the White House will reportedly be asking for another $120 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, roughly equal to what it spent in 2005.
Another certainty of wartime accounting is that the cost of the war in Iraq will remain far higher than the Bush administration wants anyone to think. It's already stratospherically beyond the initial estimate of $50-60 billion used to sell its war to the public. That number was meant to conjure memories of the previous Gulf War -- Operation Desert Storm -- an engagement Americans recall as swift and relatively painless, in part because an array of allies helped pay for it. The U.S. ponied up only $7 billion for that conflict. The administration's other magic trick was taking Larry Lindsey, the White House economic advisor who publicly suggested in late 2002 that a military return to Iraq would cost closer to $100-200 billion, and making him disappear.
In the years since Baghdad fell, several analysts have sought better estimates for the war's true cost. In August 2005, Phyllis Bennis and Erik Leaver at the Institute for Policy Studies issued a paper predicting that the total cost could reach $700 billion at the then-current spending level of $5.6 billion per month. Like the CostOfWar.com tally, this figure included only direct expenditures.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
the new york times
david s. cloud
neil a. lewis
thom shankar
carlos h. conde
reuters
griff witte
the washington post
dahr jamail
mark engler
mother jones
iraq
scooter libby
plamegate
the daily jot
the third estate sunday review
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Friday, February 24, 2006
Haywood T. "The Kid" Kirkland: ""But you knew all of that was murder anyway."
I got drafted on November 22, 1966. I had been working for a book distributor and as a stock boy in some stores coming out of high school. A lot of dudes were trying to do things to get deferments. One of my brothers put some knd of liquid in his eye and said he had an eye problem at his physical. He never went.
I didn't try anything. I knew when I got drafted I was going to Vietnam, no matter what I did. I knew because of the vision I had when I was twelve.
As soon as I hit boot camp in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, they tried to change your total personality. Transform you out of that civilian mentality to a military mind.
Right away they told us not to call them Vietnamese. Call everybody gooks, dinks.
Then they told us when you go over in Vietnam, you gonna be face to face with Charlie, the Viet Cong. They were like animals, or something other than human. They ain't have no regard for life. They'd blow up little babies just to kill one G.I. They wouldn't allow you to talk about them as if they were people. They told us they're not to be treated with any type of mercy or apprehension. That's what they engraved into you. That killer instinct. Just go away and do destruction.
Even the chaplains would turn the thing around in the Ten Commandments. They'd say, "Thou shall not murder," instead of "Thou shall not kill." Basically, you had a right to kill, to take and seize territory, or to protect the lives of each other. Our conscience was not to bother us once we engaged in that kind of killing. As long as we didn't murder, it was like the chaplain would give you his blessing. But you knew all of that was murder anyway.
The above is Haywood T. "The Kid" Kirkland. It's originally from Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans and I'm pulling it from Voices of a People's History of the United States edited by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove. (Haywood T. "The Kid" Kirkland appears on pages 440-442.) The intro to Kirkland's section notes that although African-Americans made up 12.6% of "Army personnel in Vietnam" they "accounted for more than 20 percent of the fatalities."
For President's Day, Democracy Now! did a special broadcast:
"Readings From Howard Zinn's 'Voices of a People's History of the UnitedStates:'"
Today we spend the hour with readings from a Voices of a People's History of the United States edited by historian Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove. It is the companion volume to Zinn's legendary People's History of the United States which has sold over a million copies.We will hear dramatic readings of speeches, letters, poems, songs, petitions, and manifestos. These are the voices of people throughout U.S.history who struggled against slavery, racism, and war, against oppression and exploitation, and who articulated a vision for a better world. Performances include Danny Glover as Frederick Douglass, Marisa Tomei as Cindy Sheehan, Floyd Red Crow Westerman as Tecumseh and Chief Joseph, Sandra Oh as Emma Goldman and Yuri Kochiyama, and Viggo Mortensen as Bartolomeo de Las Casas and Mark Twain.
We'll close out this entry by (again) noting Howard Zinn's "After the War" (The Progressive):
Vietnam, however, proved to be a sobering experience, in which the American public, over a period of several years, began to see through the lies that had been told to justify all that bloodshed. The United States was forced to withdraw from Vietnam, and the world didn’t come to an end. One half of one tiny country in Southeast Asia was now joined to its communist other half, and 58,000 American lives and millions of Vietnamese lives had been expended to prevent that. A majority of Americans had come to oppose that war, which had provoked the largest anti-war movement in the nation’s history.
The war in Vietnam ended with a public fed up with war. I believe that the American people, once the fog of propaganda had dissipated, had come back to a more natural state. Public opinion polls showed that people in the United States were opposed to send troops anywhere in the world, for any reason.
The Establishment was alarmed. The government set out deliberately to overcome what it called "the Vietnam syndrome." Opposition to military interventions abroad was a sickness, to be cured. And so they would wean the American public away from its unhealthy attitude, by tighter control of information, by avoiding a draft, and by engaging in short, swift wars over weak opponents (Grenada, Panama, Iraq), which didn't give the public time to develop an anti-war movement.
I would argue that the end of the Vietnam War enabled the people of the United States to shake the "war syndrome," a disease not natural to the human body. But they could be infected once again, and September 11 gave the government that opportunity. Terrorism became the justification for war, but war is itself terrorism, breeding rage and hate, as we are seeing now.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
haywood t. kirkland
haywood t.the kid kirkland
bloods an oral history of the vietnam war by black veterans
howard zinn
anthony arnove
voices of a peoples history of the united states
democracy now
war
I didn't try anything. I knew when I got drafted I was going to Vietnam, no matter what I did. I knew because of the vision I had when I was twelve.
As soon as I hit boot camp in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, they tried to change your total personality. Transform you out of that civilian mentality to a military mind.
Right away they told us not to call them Vietnamese. Call everybody gooks, dinks.
Then they told us when you go over in Vietnam, you gonna be face to face with Charlie, the Viet Cong. They were like animals, or something other than human. They ain't have no regard for life. They'd blow up little babies just to kill one G.I. They wouldn't allow you to talk about them as if they were people. They told us they're not to be treated with any type of mercy or apprehension. That's what they engraved into you. That killer instinct. Just go away and do destruction.
Even the chaplains would turn the thing around in the Ten Commandments. They'd say, "Thou shall not murder," instead of "Thou shall not kill." Basically, you had a right to kill, to take and seize territory, or to protect the lives of each other. Our conscience was not to bother us once we engaged in that kind of killing. As long as we didn't murder, it was like the chaplain would give you his blessing. But you knew all of that was murder anyway.
The above is Haywood T. "The Kid" Kirkland. It's originally from Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans and I'm pulling it from Voices of a People's History of the United States edited by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove. (Haywood T. "The Kid" Kirkland appears on pages 440-442.) The intro to Kirkland's section notes that although African-Americans made up 12.6% of "Army personnel in Vietnam" they "accounted for more than 20 percent of the fatalities."
For President's Day, Democracy Now! did a special broadcast:
"Readings From Howard Zinn's 'Voices of a People's History of the UnitedStates:'"
Today we spend the hour with readings from a Voices of a People's History of the United States edited by historian Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove. It is the companion volume to Zinn's legendary People's History of the United States which has sold over a million copies.We will hear dramatic readings of speeches, letters, poems, songs, petitions, and manifestos. These are the voices of people throughout U.S.history who struggled against slavery, racism, and war, against oppression and exploitation, and who articulated a vision for a better world. Performances include Danny Glover as Frederick Douglass, Marisa Tomei as Cindy Sheehan, Floyd Red Crow Westerman as Tecumseh and Chief Joseph, Sandra Oh as Emma Goldman and Yuri Kochiyama, and Viggo Mortensen as Bartolomeo de Las Casas and Mark Twain.
We'll close out this entry by (again) noting Howard Zinn's "After the War" (The Progressive):
Vietnam, however, proved to be a sobering experience, in which the American public, over a period of several years, began to see through the lies that had been told to justify all that bloodshed. The United States was forced to withdraw from Vietnam, and the world didn’t come to an end. One half of one tiny country in Southeast Asia was now joined to its communist other half, and 58,000 American lives and millions of Vietnamese lives had been expended to prevent that. A majority of Americans had come to oppose that war, which had provoked the largest anti-war movement in the nation’s history.
The war in Vietnam ended with a public fed up with war. I believe that the American people, once the fog of propaganda had dissipated, had come back to a more natural state. Public opinion polls showed that people in the United States were opposed to send troops anywhere in the world, for any reason.
The Establishment was alarmed. The government set out deliberately to overcome what it called "the Vietnam syndrome." Opposition to military interventions abroad was a sickness, to be cured. And so they would wean the American public away from its unhealthy attitude, by tighter control of information, by avoiding a draft, and by engaging in short, swift wars over weak opponents (Grenada, Panama, Iraq), which didn't give the public time to develop an anti-war movement.
I would argue that the end of the Vietnam War enabled the people of the United States to shake the "war syndrome," a disease not natural to the human body. But they could be infected once again, and September 11 gave the government that opportunity. Terrorism became the justification for war, but war is itself terrorism, breeding rage and hate, as we are seeing now.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
haywood t. kirkland
haywood t.the kid kirkland
bloods an oral history of the vietnam war by black veterans
howard zinn
anthony arnove
voices of a peoples history of the united states
democracy now
war
Highlight-fest
Because I was sick this week, the highlights really fell to the wayside. New member Marissa wondered if no one was suggesting highlights? They were suggested, I just rarely had time because I was sick. For anyone who's new, members suggest the highlights. Or, sometimes, a blog will suggest them. If I'm noting something I type, "I'll note . . ." If a member doesn't want to be credited, the highlights are just tossed out there. Due to the number of suggestions, everything that's recommended doesn't get highlighted. It helps if you write something about why the highlight is important to you. Don't expect that I'll read it and understand.
For instance, you may pull the passage that spoke the most to you for the excerpt and without knowing what came before, I may miss the power of the passage. Another reality is that I do not know everything (by any means) and if this is a new subject/topic to me, I may not grasp why the highlight is important. If it's important to you and you explain why in the e-mail, it goes up. Zach always picks the excerpt, always notes why it's important to him and usually writes one or two sentences why. So Zach's tend to go up quite often. (And Zach does choose good highlights.) Long term members who don't suggest very often also get their suggestions highlighted. On any given day, there are many worthy things that are worth highlighting but there just isn't time. I've said this before but it's been a few months: If you feel like your suggestions do not get noted, e-mail about it so we can figure out what's going on. I may not be grasping what you're sending, I may not be getting what you're sending, or I may put it off for another entry and then forget.
The last one does happen. Robert Parry and Matthew Rothschild are voices that speak to the community, but if I'm pressed for time, they're likely to be passed over. They use a different font at their sites (Consortium News and The Progressive) which makes dashes, parenthesis and more turn into squares. On that, I'm not going back in and correcting font anymore and I've asked others to stop doing it as well. With the DN! entries, for some reason they are running together when the font is fixed (or anything on them). Tuesday's entry was one that has been "fixed" several times now. The first time for font. The other times to try to get the spacing right. So those will just be left alone from now on unless there's a factual error.
Grace Lee Boggs is another one who can be set aside and I end up forgetting. The reason for setting her aside is that if the person has copy and pasted from The Boggs Center, her column tends to run in one straight line and throw the entire site off. Three paragraphs suddenly become one long line. So if you're suggesting Grace Lee Boggs or anyone else from The Boggs Center, go to The Michigan Citizen Daily and copy and paste from there. Otherwise, it does get put off if I'm working on the DN! entry (which is almost always e-mailed). More often than not, it's probably me forgetting after I've set a highlight aside so if you're suggestions aren't showing up, let me know.
Do I have to agree with every word of every highlight? No. And there are times I don't. In those cases, the issue is whether or not the person is a) of the left and b) making a point that no one else may be making. There were two entries this week that I asked Jess to e-mail on and explain that there was a thought in the thing that was suggested but that it added nothing. Let's say someone had a thought on gentically modified crops but the thought began in the first sentence and then it was just marking time until the end. While I think gmc is a serious issue, something (no one e-mailed on that this week) that has nothing to offer to the conversation won't go up.
On the left. We're a site for the left. We highlight from left sources. Sometimes that may mean that if a left site posts someone not of the left, we can highlight it. If a member thinks it's important enough, we can highlight it. That's up to members to make that case because part of the resource/review of this site is to make sure that everyone's aware of how many voices on the left are out there. You probably don't see them on the chat & chews or hear them on NPR, but they do exist. And if we're not highlighting them, then who else should?
Erika had a question in her e-mail this evening. It's a good question. She noted that the last few days, the morning entries have included several links to the Washington Post and wondered if alternative voices were being left aside?
I worried about that as well. But on those mornings, I felt the New York Times was utterly worthless. (Maybe it wasn't, maybe it was my opinion because I was sick.) The point I was attempting to make with those entries was, yes, we know that alternative media can and does do a better job than the paper of record. But to show how bad of a job I felt the Times was doing, I was attempting to contrast it with another mainstream, daily paper.
My opinion was that the Times wasn't breaking any news, wasn't offering any perspective on anything that mattered to our lives. I was attempting to demonstrate that not only when compared to alternative media were they falling down on the job, but also when compared to a close approximation, they were doing a lousy job.
I thought that point was coming through (remember I was sick with a high fever) but obviously that wasn't the case because Erika's very astute and if the point was stated or implied, she would have grasped it.
Oh, one more thing. I haven't explained this clearly in awhile and it's popping up again. If you want a Bob Herbert, Paul Krugman or Maureen Dowd column highlighted, you need to write something to share with the community. I'm not linking to them otherwise. (And remember that if people don't subscribe to the paper they won't be able to read them at the Times' website.) That's always been the policy here. I also avoid the editorials as best as I can. If you want to weigh in, you're welcome to, just note that it's to go up at the site and it will go up.
This is one of two planned entries for tonight. This one is a highlight-fest where I'm dropping back into the e-mailed suggestions for some of the things we missed this week. If I miss something on a good day, we don't drop back. There's too much going on to keep playing catch up. But this week, highlights were hardly present because I was rushing to finish the entries and either get back in bed or else run to the bathroom.
Mia noted Norman Solomon's "The Unreal Death of Journalism" (CounterPunch):
The reporting about the death penalty is usually light years from what really goes on. We're accustomed to those kinds of gaps. By the time we become adults, we've seen thousands of televised narratives -- from entertainment shows to newscasts -- that purport to depict death but actually do nothing of the sort. It's not hard to watch because so much about death is hidden from media viewers.
For those who champion death-dealing policies as solutions, whether administered by the "Department of Defense" or the "Department of Corrections," euphemisms are vital. Fog prevents acuity about what can't stand the light of day.
"Government officials don't want the American public to view the death penalty as a lethal, destructive, violent act that isn't really necessary," says Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama. "Therefore we sanitize and obscure the act of killing a person, who is no longer a threat to anyone, with protocols and procedures that are aimed at comforting the public. The problem is that intentionally killing another human being is always painful and shocking. As medical doctors, correctional staff and anyone who gets close to capital punishment quickly discover, there is no comfortable way to kill a human being who doesn't have to die."
But there are plenty of comfortable ways for news media to report on the killing of human beings.
Chad noted that Tom Hayden's website has several timelines on the sixties. To view, click the link.
Belinda noted the following (in full because it's an announcement and we should get the word out) from Democratic Underground:
Your friends here at DU have launched our new online literary magazine!
Posted by joeybee12
Added to homepage Fri Feb 24th 2006, 08:09 AM ET
Those of us who visit the Writing Forum have lunched our first issue of our online literary magazine, The Necessary Language. You can visit it (and we hope you will) at www.thenecessarylanguage.com We started this as a way for us unpublished and under-published writers to get a forum for our work. We also see it as a learning experience, so we do not edit pieces submitted.
The magazine will be quarterly, and if you’re interested in submitting to future issues, you can PM me (although I leave tomorrow for 3 weeks in Europe!) and I can give you more information. We ask that submissions be sent in plain text to necessarylanguage@yahoo.com Currently we take fiction--short stories, short shorts, poetry, artwork and photos. In the future we may take non-fiction and essays if there's a great interest in this.
In the meantime, have a look, and tell your friends. We want EVERYONE to read this!
Brianna wanted to note something from the Green Party and we'll also note it in full because a) it's a press release and b) we don't note the Green Party enough here:
"Dissent, Freedoms, Privacy Under Sustained Assault by Bush"
GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@greens.org
Greens see political dissent under sustained attack by the Bush AdministrationPlanned detention centers, expanded USA Patriot provisions, specious charges of 'eco-terrorism', no-fly lists, warrantless domestic surveillance, and invasions of privacy are destroying freedom and the rule of law, say Greens
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Green Party leaders called on all Americans to recognize and stand up to various attacks by the Bush White House on the right to political dissent.
Greens noted expanded government power to block and crush protest, President Bush's order for the NSA to spy on U.S. citizens without obtaining warrants in accord with FISA, surveillance of library records, and evidence (such as the no-fly list) that the U.S. government is compiling databases on Americans who disagree with Bush policies.
Among more recent and less known threats:
Arrests of demonstrators at "special events of national significance"
A new provision in the USA Patriot Act bill would allow authorities to arrest demonstrators on felony charges at any "special event of national significance" if they are caught breaching a security perimeter. The measure would extend the power of the Secret Service, allowing agents to arrest people who enter an arbitrarily defined restricted area at an event, even when the President or any other official protected by the Secret Service isn't present. No hearings are planned on the provision."The new provision will empower the Secret Service to declare any area at any given time the site of an event of 'national significance' in order to arrest people expressing unwelcome political ideas and charge them with a felony," said Jody Grage Haug, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States and founder of the Nonviolent Peacekeeper Pool in Seattle. "It'll crush the kind of civil protest that was necessary to advance the civil rights movement. The purpose of the new Patriot Act provision is not security, but intimidation and suppression of political speech."
Greens are urging Congress to vote down the current version of the USA Patriot Act, citing the 'security perimeter' provision as well as other warrantless invasions of privacy.
Defining vandalism as "eco-terrorism"
In the wake of criminal property destruction by small number of environmental activists, the U.S. Department of Justice has called such acts 'eco-terrorism', even though such actions have nothing to do with inflicting injury and fear on human beings. (The Green Party supports neither violent protest nor vandalism.)"When public officials label vandalism and other property crimes 'terrorism', then terrorism ceases to have any useful meaning -- except as a tool for making the public see all dissent, including nonviolent civil disobedience and legitimate environmental protest, as criminal behavior," said Richard Scott, Online Fundraising and Outreach Coordinator for the Green Party.
Justice Alito's support for Bush Administration on domestic spying
During his February 7 confirmation hearing, Judge Samuel Alito declared "I stand behind this President being commander-in-chief, to pursue fifth column movements," defining fifth column as "a movement known to every war where American citizens will sympathize with the enemy and collaborate with the enemy."Since the Bush Administration has accused its critics of expressing sympathy with America's enemies, Judge Alito's comments imply that the Court should uphold White House efforts to spy on, intimidate, and suppress political dissent. Judge Alito also espouses an "unitary executive" theory of an imperial presidency that stands above the law and beyond the oversight of Congress and the courts.
"When Judge Alito talks about fifth column movements, he means all Americans who protested the invasion of Iraq and who will protest the impending U.S. assault on Iran," said Rebecca Rotzler, co-chair of the Green Party and participant in the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle as a member of the Mid-Hudson (New York) Direct Action Network.
Detention centers
On January 24, Halliburton subsidiary KBR announced that the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement component has awarded KBR a five-year $385 million contract to build and maintain detention centers to deal with "an emergency influx of immigrants, or to support the rapid development of new programs" -- possibly in response to political unrest."In recent years, peaceful protesters against global trade authorities and against the war on Iraq have increasingly found themselves detained for over 24 hours without charge. We know that FEMA has sought bids from major real estate and engineering firms to construct giant internment facilities, ostensibly to deal with disasters and attacks on the U.S. But evidence that FEMA also claims the power to detain political protesters goes back to the Iran-Contra hearings in the 1980s. The American people should recognize these developments as ominous in the era of endless 'war on terror', military occupation of Iraq, and a likely U.S. military attack on Iran," said said Sundiata Tellem, co-chair of the Green Party Black Caucus.
Greens noted that some leaders in Congress, including Democrats, are already backing down from holding President Bush accountable for his illegal order for domestic spying without warrant or congressional oversight."These threats to our freedoms and to the rule of law are more dire than at any time in U.S. history, because of surveillance technology, training of civilian police forces in military tactics as ordered by President Clinton in the mid 1990s, and the control of media by conglomerates that benefit from such policies. The Green Party has already called for impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney for various crimes and abuses of power. But it will take a very loud 'No!' from the American people and a concerted effort to remove the Bush regime from power if we're going to regain our rights and freedoms," said Marc Sanson, co-chair of the Green Party and former director of the Heartland Peace Center in Springfield, Illinois.
MORE INFORMATION
Green Party of the United Stateshttp://www.gp.org
1700 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 404
Washington, DC 20009.
202-319-7191, 866-41
GREENFax 202-319-7193
Green Party rebuttal to President Bush's 2006 State of the Union Address (Video News Release) http://www.gp.org/video/2006stateofunion/
Charlie noted that Patricia J. Williams had a column up available to all at The Nation. (Usually Williams' columns are available to subscribers only.) It's entitled "Emotional Truth" and focuses on the truths and "truths" that may be revealed through DNA testing:
If there is value to this kind of "emotional truth"--if I can be permitted that term--it is important not to confuse it with the sort of truth that DNA tells us. So while DNA can undoubtedly pinpoint certain aspects of our ancestry, it does not make literal sense to say, as Gates does to Oprah Winfrey: "You've got education in your genes." Of course, he was speaking metaphorically at that moment, using the human genome as a metaphor for a pattern of socialization, a family habit, a thirst for knowledge modeled by parents. But at other points in the program that metaphoric dimension is applied rather more carelessly--and more dangerously. "I'm 50 percent white," says Gates. But there is no more an allele for "whiteness" than there is for "education." "White" is a malleable social designation with a freighted history. Were his Ashkenazi ancestors to appear before us today, they might be called white, but as Eastern or Southern Europeans coming to America a hundred years ago, they probably would not have been considered so.
It behooves us to be less romantic about what all this DNA swabbing reveals. I worry about the craving to "go back to Africa," to "connect with our Yiddishness" or to feel like new doors have been opened if we have an Asian ancestor. The craving, the connection, the newness of those doors is in our heads, not in our mitochondria. Rather, it is the process of superimposing the identities with which we were raised upon the culturally embedded, socially constructed imaginings about "the Other" we could be. The fabulous nature of what is imagined can be liberating, invigorating--but it is fable. If we read that story into the eternity of our blood lines, if we biologize our history, we will forever be less than we could be.
Martha notes that Ms. has a look back at some of the pioneers who have passed away "including Rosa Parks, Molly Yard, Coretta Scott King, Wendy Wasserstein, Shirley Chisholm and C. DeLores Tucker." Click here to view the index page which contains links.
Martha also wondered why I didn't ask her and Shirley to help out with the e-mails? I know they would have and I appreciate that. I honestly hadn't planned to ask anyone. Jim and Dona asked if it was okay for them to help Jess and Ava and I was just glad to have it off my hands. Ty was surprised and when he found out that I took Jim and Dona up on their kind offer, he volunteered as well. I know that it would have only taken an e-mail to Martha or Shirley (only one e-mail, they would have handled it between them after that) but I was really too sick for even that one e-mail. Throwing up, I'm used to. So used to it, that if I'm nervous before speaking, I can rush to the bathroom (if I can make it to one in time), throw up and then go speak. But this was different. It wasn't the throwing up that bothered me, it was my stomach which sometimes felt like I had jagged edges of glass dragging through it, other times like I had a sheet of ice in it that was breaking and, other times, it just felt sore. Standing was a problem. (As was sitting.) I spent most of my time on my side, curled up in a ball. If I was lucky enough to have the energy to grab it, I'd have a heating pad on my stomach. (By the way, thank you to Krista. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to do the column for the gina & krista round-robin and Krista called and offered to let me dictate it to her. Today, I could probably write it but there was no way before this morning that I was going to be able to type up one myself and e-mail it.)
Brady noted Molly Ivins' latest:
Cynics are fond of meditating on the evil done in the name of reform. I'm a great believer in perpetual reform myself, on the theory that political systems, like houses, are always in want of some fixing. However, I have seen some pluperfect doozies passed off as reform in recent years, starting with "Social Security reform."
Conservatives used to oppose reform on principle, correctly regarding it as a vile plot by goo-goo good government forces to snatch away their perks. This once led to a colorful scene in the Texas legislature in which the letters R*E*F*O*R*M appeared on the rear ends of six female members of a baton drill team, who turned and perched their derrieres pertly on the brass rail of the House gallery.
Reform follows scandal as night the day, except in these sorry times when it appears we may not get a nickel's worth of reform out of the entire Jack Abramoff saga. Sickening. A real waste of a splendid scandal. When else do politicians ever get around to fixing huge ethical holes in the roof except when they're caught red-handed? Do not let this mess go to waste! Call now, and demand reform!
Sheesh. Tom DeLay gets indicted, and all the Republicans can think of is a $20 gift ban. Forget the people talking about "lobby reform." The lobby does not need to be reformed, the Congress needs to be reformed. This is about congressional corruption, and it is not limited to the surface stuff like taking free meals, hotels and trips. This is about corruption that bites deep into the process of making laws in the public interest. The root of the rot is money (surprise!), and the only way to get control of the money is through public campaign financing.
Doug noted Joshua Frank's "The Democrat's Pull Out Method" (CounterPunch):
Dean is in part is being honest; they certainly are not cutting and running. But the plan Dean is touting is anything but sensible as he claims, and the antiwar movement should not, I repeat, should not support this ugly thing. The "plan", if that's what you want to call it, does not ask for immediate withdrawal -- it would be phased. And more importantly it's not a withdrawal at all -- it's a call for redeployment of armed forces to other outposts in the Middle East.
According to the policy report itself, which is titled, "Strategic Redeployment: A Progressive Plan for Iraq and the Struggle Against Violent Extremists", put out by the Center for American Progress which Rep. John Murtha supports, redeployment isn't all that better than the Republican's plan to "stay the course":
"As redeployments begin, the remaining forces in Iraq would focus on our core missions: completing the training of Iraqi forces; improving border security; providing logistical and air support to Iraqi security forces engaged in battles against terrorists and insurgents; serving as advisors to Iraqi units; and tracking down terrorists and insurgent leaders with smaller, more nimble Special Forces units operating jointly with Iraqi units...
"By the end of 2007, the only US military forces in Iraq would be a small Marine contingent to protect the US embassy, a small group of military advisors to the Iraqi Government, and counterterrorist units that works closely with Iraqi security forces. This presence, along with the forces in Kuwait and at sea in the Persian Gulf area will be sufficient to conduct strikes coordinated with Iraqi forces against any terrorist camps and enclaves that may emerge and deal with any major external threats to Iraq ... 14,000 troops would be positioned nearby in Kuwait and as part of a Marine expeditionary force located offshore in the Persian Gulf to strike at any terrorist camps and enclaves and guard against any major acts that risk further destabilizing the region."
There it is, spelled out in frightening detail. The Democrat's election year stunt is just more of the same. This is what we should have expected from the beleaguered and directionless Democratic Party, and the antiwar movement should in no way get excited about their meager offering. They still want US military bases in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. And US troops won't be coming home anytime soon. They'll just be transferred from one imperialist venture to the next.
Lastly, Melanie wrote twice with this highlight. It was supposed to be included in the entry with only one highlight this week (the DN! entry) but my stomach was killing me. My apologies to Melanie who chose the excerpt, labeld that it was a highlight in the title and explained why this article was something that spoke to her. In short, she did everything you should have to do to get something highlighted. What she and I didn't count on was my stomach. Here's Werther's
"A Half-Dozen Questions About 9/11 They Don't Want You to Ask" (CounterPunch):
The events of September 11, 2001 evoke painful memories, tinged with a powerful nostalgia for the way of life before it happened. The immediate tragedy caused a disorientation sufficient to distort the critical faculties in the direction of retrospectively predictable responses: bureaucratic adaptation, opportunism, profiteering, kitsch sentiment, and mindless sloganeering.
As 9/11, and the report of the commission charged to investigate it, fade into history like the Warren Commission that preceded it, the questions, gaps, and anomalies raised by the report have created an entire cottage industry of amateur speculation--as did the omissions and distortions of the Warren Report four decades ago. How could it not?
While initially received as definitive by a rapturous official press, the 9/11 Report has been overtaken by reality, not only because of unsatisfying content--like all "independent" government reports, it is fundamentally an apology and a coverup masquerading as an exposé--but because we now know more: more about the feckless invasion of Iraq, more about the occupation of Afghanistan and the purported hunt for Osama bin Laden, more about the post-9/11 stampede to repeal elements of the Bill of Rights, more about the rush to create the Department of Homeland Security, an agency to "prevent another 9/11," which, in retrospect, is plainly about cronyism, contracts, and Congressional boodle.
Many of the amateur sleuths of the 9/11 mystery have based their investigations on microscopic forensics regarding the publicly released video footage, or speculations into the physics of impacting aircraft or collapsing buildings. But staring too closely at the recorded traces of subatomic phenomena involved in a one-time event can deceive us into finding the answer we are looking for, as Professor Heisenberg once postulated. Over 40 years on, the Magic Bullet is still the Magic Bullet: improbable, yes, but not outside the realm of the possible. But there is surprisingly little discussion of the basic higher-order political factors surrounding 9/11, factors that do not require knowledge of the melting point of girder steel or the unknowable piloting abilities of the presumed perpetrators. Let us proceed, then, in a spirit of detached scientific inquiry, to ask questions the 9/11 Commission was unprepared to ask.
I think those were the ones members wrote passionately about. If there's something that's been overlooked, e-mail.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
norman solomon
patricia j. williams
molly ivins
joshua frank
tom hayden
ms. magazine
the green party
democratic underground
werther
For instance, you may pull the passage that spoke the most to you for the excerpt and without knowing what came before, I may miss the power of the passage. Another reality is that I do not know everything (by any means) and if this is a new subject/topic to me, I may not grasp why the highlight is important. If it's important to you and you explain why in the e-mail, it goes up. Zach always picks the excerpt, always notes why it's important to him and usually writes one or two sentences why. So Zach's tend to go up quite often. (And Zach does choose good highlights.) Long term members who don't suggest very often also get their suggestions highlighted. On any given day, there are many worthy things that are worth highlighting but there just isn't time. I've said this before but it's been a few months: If you feel like your suggestions do not get noted, e-mail about it so we can figure out what's going on. I may not be grasping what you're sending, I may not be getting what you're sending, or I may put it off for another entry and then forget.
The last one does happen. Robert Parry and Matthew Rothschild are voices that speak to the community, but if I'm pressed for time, they're likely to be passed over. They use a different font at their sites (Consortium News and The Progressive) which makes dashes, parenthesis and more turn into squares. On that, I'm not going back in and correcting font anymore and I've asked others to stop doing it as well. With the DN! entries, for some reason they are running together when the font is fixed (or anything on them). Tuesday's entry was one that has been "fixed" several times now. The first time for font. The other times to try to get the spacing right. So those will just be left alone from now on unless there's a factual error.
Grace Lee Boggs is another one who can be set aside and I end up forgetting. The reason for setting her aside is that if the person has copy and pasted from The Boggs Center, her column tends to run in one straight line and throw the entire site off. Three paragraphs suddenly become one long line. So if you're suggesting Grace Lee Boggs or anyone else from The Boggs Center, go to The Michigan Citizen Daily and copy and paste from there. Otherwise, it does get put off if I'm working on the DN! entry (which is almost always e-mailed). More often than not, it's probably me forgetting after I've set a highlight aside so if you're suggestions aren't showing up, let me know.
Do I have to agree with every word of every highlight? No. And there are times I don't. In those cases, the issue is whether or not the person is a) of the left and b) making a point that no one else may be making. There were two entries this week that I asked Jess to e-mail on and explain that there was a thought in the thing that was suggested but that it added nothing. Let's say someone had a thought on gentically modified crops but the thought began in the first sentence and then it was just marking time until the end. While I think gmc is a serious issue, something (no one e-mailed on that this week) that has nothing to offer to the conversation won't go up.
On the left. We're a site for the left. We highlight from left sources. Sometimes that may mean that if a left site posts someone not of the left, we can highlight it. If a member thinks it's important enough, we can highlight it. That's up to members to make that case because part of the resource/review of this site is to make sure that everyone's aware of how many voices on the left are out there. You probably don't see them on the chat & chews or hear them on NPR, but they do exist. And if we're not highlighting them, then who else should?
Erika had a question in her e-mail this evening. It's a good question. She noted that the last few days, the morning entries have included several links to the Washington Post and wondered if alternative voices were being left aside?
I worried about that as well. But on those mornings, I felt the New York Times was utterly worthless. (Maybe it wasn't, maybe it was my opinion because I was sick.) The point I was attempting to make with those entries was, yes, we know that alternative media can and does do a better job than the paper of record. But to show how bad of a job I felt the Times was doing, I was attempting to contrast it with another mainstream, daily paper.
My opinion was that the Times wasn't breaking any news, wasn't offering any perspective on anything that mattered to our lives. I was attempting to demonstrate that not only when compared to alternative media were they falling down on the job, but also when compared to a close approximation, they were doing a lousy job.
I thought that point was coming through (remember I was sick with a high fever) but obviously that wasn't the case because Erika's very astute and if the point was stated or implied, she would have grasped it.
Oh, one more thing. I haven't explained this clearly in awhile and it's popping up again. If you want a Bob Herbert, Paul Krugman or Maureen Dowd column highlighted, you need to write something to share with the community. I'm not linking to them otherwise. (And remember that if people don't subscribe to the paper they won't be able to read them at the Times' website.) That's always been the policy here. I also avoid the editorials as best as I can. If you want to weigh in, you're welcome to, just note that it's to go up at the site and it will go up.
This is one of two planned entries for tonight. This one is a highlight-fest where I'm dropping back into the e-mailed suggestions for some of the things we missed this week. If I miss something on a good day, we don't drop back. There's too much going on to keep playing catch up. But this week, highlights were hardly present because I was rushing to finish the entries and either get back in bed or else run to the bathroom.
Mia noted Norman Solomon's "The Unreal Death of Journalism" (CounterPunch):
The reporting about the death penalty is usually light years from what really goes on. We're accustomed to those kinds of gaps. By the time we become adults, we've seen thousands of televised narratives -- from entertainment shows to newscasts -- that purport to depict death but actually do nothing of the sort. It's not hard to watch because so much about death is hidden from media viewers.
For those who champion death-dealing policies as solutions, whether administered by the "Department of Defense" or the "Department of Corrections," euphemisms are vital. Fog prevents acuity about what can't stand the light of day.
"Government officials don't want the American public to view the death penalty as a lethal, destructive, violent act that isn't really necessary," says Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama. "Therefore we sanitize and obscure the act of killing a person, who is no longer a threat to anyone, with protocols and procedures that are aimed at comforting the public. The problem is that intentionally killing another human being is always painful and shocking. As medical doctors, correctional staff and anyone who gets close to capital punishment quickly discover, there is no comfortable way to kill a human being who doesn't have to die."
But there are plenty of comfortable ways for news media to report on the killing of human beings.
Chad noted that Tom Hayden's website has several timelines on the sixties. To view, click the link.
Belinda noted the following (in full because it's an announcement and we should get the word out) from Democratic Underground:
Your friends here at DU have launched our new online literary magazine!
Posted by joeybee12
Added to homepage Fri Feb 24th 2006, 08:09 AM ET
Those of us who visit the Writing Forum have lunched our first issue of our online literary magazine, The Necessary Language. You can visit it (and we hope you will) at www.thenecessarylanguage.com We started this as a way for us unpublished and under-published writers to get a forum for our work. We also see it as a learning experience, so we do not edit pieces submitted.
The magazine will be quarterly, and if you’re interested in submitting to future issues, you can PM me (although I leave tomorrow for 3 weeks in Europe!) and I can give you more information. We ask that submissions be sent in plain text to necessarylanguage@yahoo.com Currently we take fiction--short stories, short shorts, poetry, artwork and photos. In the future we may take non-fiction and essays if there's a great interest in this.
In the meantime, have a look, and tell your friends. We want EVERYONE to read this!
Brianna wanted to note something from the Green Party and we'll also note it in full because a) it's a press release and b) we don't note the Green Party enough here:
"Dissent, Freedoms, Privacy Under Sustained Assault by Bush"
GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@greens.org
Greens see political dissent under sustained attack by the Bush AdministrationPlanned detention centers, expanded USA Patriot provisions, specious charges of 'eco-terrorism', no-fly lists, warrantless domestic surveillance, and invasions of privacy are destroying freedom and the rule of law, say Greens
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Green Party leaders called on all Americans to recognize and stand up to various attacks by the Bush White House on the right to political dissent.
Greens noted expanded government power to block and crush protest, President Bush's order for the NSA to spy on U.S. citizens without obtaining warrants in accord with FISA, surveillance of library records, and evidence (such as the no-fly list) that the U.S. government is compiling databases on Americans who disagree with Bush policies.
Among more recent and less known threats:
Arrests of demonstrators at "special events of national significance"
A new provision in the USA Patriot Act bill would allow authorities to arrest demonstrators on felony charges at any "special event of national significance" if they are caught breaching a security perimeter. The measure would extend the power of the Secret Service, allowing agents to arrest people who enter an arbitrarily defined restricted area at an event, even when the President or any other official protected by the Secret Service isn't present. No hearings are planned on the provision."The new provision will empower the Secret Service to declare any area at any given time the site of an event of 'national significance' in order to arrest people expressing unwelcome political ideas and charge them with a felony," said Jody Grage Haug, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States and founder of the Nonviolent Peacekeeper Pool in Seattle. "It'll crush the kind of civil protest that was necessary to advance the civil rights movement. The purpose of the new Patriot Act provision is not security, but intimidation and suppression of political speech."
Greens are urging Congress to vote down the current version of the USA Patriot Act, citing the 'security perimeter' provision as well as other warrantless invasions of privacy.
Defining vandalism as "eco-terrorism"
In the wake of criminal property destruction by small number of environmental activists, the U.S. Department of Justice has called such acts 'eco-terrorism', even though such actions have nothing to do with inflicting injury and fear on human beings. (The Green Party supports neither violent protest nor vandalism.)"When public officials label vandalism and other property crimes 'terrorism', then terrorism ceases to have any useful meaning -- except as a tool for making the public see all dissent, including nonviolent civil disobedience and legitimate environmental protest, as criminal behavior," said Richard Scott, Online Fundraising and Outreach Coordinator for the Green Party.
Justice Alito's support for Bush Administration on domestic spying
During his February 7 confirmation hearing, Judge Samuel Alito declared "I stand behind this President being commander-in-chief, to pursue fifth column movements," defining fifth column as "a movement known to every war where American citizens will sympathize with the enemy and collaborate with the enemy."Since the Bush Administration has accused its critics of expressing sympathy with America's enemies, Judge Alito's comments imply that the Court should uphold White House efforts to spy on, intimidate, and suppress political dissent. Judge Alito also espouses an "unitary executive" theory of an imperial presidency that stands above the law and beyond the oversight of Congress and the courts.
"When Judge Alito talks about fifth column movements, he means all Americans who protested the invasion of Iraq and who will protest the impending U.S. assault on Iran," said Rebecca Rotzler, co-chair of the Green Party and participant in the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle as a member of the Mid-Hudson (New York) Direct Action Network.
Detention centers
On January 24, Halliburton subsidiary KBR announced that the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement component has awarded KBR a five-year $385 million contract to build and maintain detention centers to deal with "an emergency influx of immigrants, or to support the rapid development of new programs" -- possibly in response to political unrest."In recent years, peaceful protesters against global trade authorities and against the war on Iraq have increasingly found themselves detained for over 24 hours without charge. We know that FEMA has sought bids from major real estate and engineering firms to construct giant internment facilities, ostensibly to deal with disasters and attacks on the U.S. But evidence that FEMA also claims the power to detain political protesters goes back to the Iran-Contra hearings in the 1980s. The American people should recognize these developments as ominous in the era of endless 'war on terror', military occupation of Iraq, and a likely U.S. military attack on Iran," said said Sundiata Tellem, co-chair of the Green Party Black Caucus.
Greens noted that some leaders in Congress, including Democrats, are already backing down from holding President Bush accountable for his illegal order for domestic spying without warrant or congressional oversight."These threats to our freedoms and to the rule of law are more dire than at any time in U.S. history, because of surveillance technology, training of civilian police forces in military tactics as ordered by President Clinton in the mid 1990s, and the control of media by conglomerates that benefit from such policies. The Green Party has already called for impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney for various crimes and abuses of power. But it will take a very loud 'No!' from the American people and a concerted effort to remove the Bush regime from power if we're going to regain our rights and freedoms," said Marc Sanson, co-chair of the Green Party and former director of the Heartland Peace Center in Springfield, Illinois.
MORE INFORMATION
Green Party of the United Stateshttp://www.gp.org
1700 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 404
Washington, DC 20009.
202-319-7191, 866-41
GREENFax 202-319-7193
Green Party rebuttal to President Bush's 2006 State of the Union Address (Video News Release) http://www.gp.org/video/2006stateofunion/
Charlie noted that Patricia J. Williams had a column up available to all at The Nation. (Usually Williams' columns are available to subscribers only.) It's entitled "Emotional Truth" and focuses on the truths and "truths" that may be revealed through DNA testing:
If there is value to this kind of "emotional truth"--if I can be permitted that term--it is important not to confuse it with the sort of truth that DNA tells us. So while DNA can undoubtedly pinpoint certain aspects of our ancestry, it does not make literal sense to say, as Gates does to Oprah Winfrey: "You've got education in your genes." Of course, he was speaking metaphorically at that moment, using the human genome as a metaphor for a pattern of socialization, a family habit, a thirst for knowledge modeled by parents. But at other points in the program that metaphoric dimension is applied rather more carelessly--and more dangerously. "I'm 50 percent white," says Gates. But there is no more an allele for "whiteness" than there is for "education." "White" is a malleable social designation with a freighted history. Were his Ashkenazi ancestors to appear before us today, they might be called white, but as Eastern or Southern Europeans coming to America a hundred years ago, they probably would not have been considered so.
It behooves us to be less romantic about what all this DNA swabbing reveals. I worry about the craving to "go back to Africa," to "connect with our Yiddishness" or to feel like new doors have been opened if we have an Asian ancestor. The craving, the connection, the newness of those doors is in our heads, not in our mitochondria. Rather, it is the process of superimposing the identities with which we were raised upon the culturally embedded, socially constructed imaginings about "the Other" we could be. The fabulous nature of what is imagined can be liberating, invigorating--but it is fable. If we read that story into the eternity of our blood lines, if we biologize our history, we will forever be less than we could be.
Martha notes that Ms. has a look back at some of the pioneers who have passed away "including Rosa Parks, Molly Yard, Coretta Scott King, Wendy Wasserstein, Shirley Chisholm and C. DeLores Tucker." Click here to view the index page which contains links.
Martha also wondered why I didn't ask her and Shirley to help out with the e-mails? I know they would have and I appreciate that. I honestly hadn't planned to ask anyone. Jim and Dona asked if it was okay for them to help Jess and Ava and I was just glad to have it off my hands. Ty was surprised and when he found out that I took Jim and Dona up on their kind offer, he volunteered as well. I know that it would have only taken an e-mail to Martha or Shirley (only one e-mail, they would have handled it between them after that) but I was really too sick for even that one e-mail. Throwing up, I'm used to. So used to it, that if I'm nervous before speaking, I can rush to the bathroom (if I can make it to one in time), throw up and then go speak. But this was different. It wasn't the throwing up that bothered me, it was my stomach which sometimes felt like I had jagged edges of glass dragging through it, other times like I had a sheet of ice in it that was breaking and, other times, it just felt sore. Standing was a problem. (As was sitting.) I spent most of my time on my side, curled up in a ball. If I was lucky enough to have the energy to grab it, I'd have a heating pad on my stomach. (By the way, thank you to Krista. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to do the column for the gina & krista round-robin and Krista called and offered to let me dictate it to her. Today, I could probably write it but there was no way before this morning that I was going to be able to type up one myself and e-mail it.)
Brady noted Molly Ivins' latest:
Cynics are fond of meditating on the evil done in the name of reform. I'm a great believer in perpetual reform myself, on the theory that political systems, like houses, are always in want of some fixing. However, I have seen some pluperfect doozies passed off as reform in recent years, starting with "Social Security reform."
Conservatives used to oppose reform on principle, correctly regarding it as a vile plot by goo-goo good government forces to snatch away their perks. This once led to a colorful scene in the Texas legislature in which the letters R*E*F*O*R*M appeared on the rear ends of six female members of a baton drill team, who turned and perched their derrieres pertly on the brass rail of the House gallery.
Reform follows scandal as night the day, except in these sorry times when it appears we may not get a nickel's worth of reform out of the entire Jack Abramoff saga. Sickening. A real waste of a splendid scandal. When else do politicians ever get around to fixing huge ethical holes in the roof except when they're caught red-handed? Do not let this mess go to waste! Call now, and demand reform!
Sheesh. Tom DeLay gets indicted, and all the Republicans can think of is a $20 gift ban. Forget the people talking about "lobby reform." The lobby does not need to be reformed, the Congress needs to be reformed. This is about congressional corruption, and it is not limited to the surface stuff like taking free meals, hotels and trips. This is about corruption that bites deep into the process of making laws in the public interest. The root of the rot is money (surprise!), and the only way to get control of the money is through public campaign financing.
Doug noted Joshua Frank's "The Democrat's Pull Out Method" (CounterPunch):
Dean is in part is being honest; they certainly are not cutting and running. But the plan Dean is touting is anything but sensible as he claims, and the antiwar movement should not, I repeat, should not support this ugly thing. The "plan", if that's what you want to call it, does not ask for immediate withdrawal -- it would be phased. And more importantly it's not a withdrawal at all -- it's a call for redeployment of armed forces to other outposts in the Middle East.
According to the policy report itself, which is titled, "Strategic Redeployment: A Progressive Plan for Iraq and the Struggle Against Violent Extremists", put out by the Center for American Progress which Rep. John Murtha supports, redeployment isn't all that better than the Republican's plan to "stay the course":
"As redeployments begin, the remaining forces in Iraq would focus on our core missions: completing the training of Iraqi forces; improving border security; providing logistical and air support to Iraqi security forces engaged in battles against terrorists and insurgents; serving as advisors to Iraqi units; and tracking down terrorists and insurgent leaders with smaller, more nimble Special Forces units operating jointly with Iraqi units...
"By the end of 2007, the only US military forces in Iraq would be a small Marine contingent to protect the US embassy, a small group of military advisors to the Iraqi Government, and counterterrorist units that works closely with Iraqi security forces. This presence, along with the forces in Kuwait and at sea in the Persian Gulf area will be sufficient to conduct strikes coordinated with Iraqi forces against any terrorist camps and enclaves that may emerge and deal with any major external threats to Iraq ... 14,000 troops would be positioned nearby in Kuwait and as part of a Marine expeditionary force located offshore in the Persian Gulf to strike at any terrorist camps and enclaves and guard against any major acts that risk further destabilizing the region."
There it is, spelled out in frightening detail. The Democrat's election year stunt is just more of the same. This is what we should have expected from the beleaguered and directionless Democratic Party, and the antiwar movement should in no way get excited about their meager offering. They still want US military bases in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. And US troops won't be coming home anytime soon. They'll just be transferred from one imperialist venture to the next.
Lastly, Melanie wrote twice with this highlight. It was supposed to be included in the entry with only one highlight this week (the DN! entry) but my stomach was killing me. My apologies to Melanie who chose the excerpt, labeld that it was a highlight in the title and explained why this article was something that spoke to her. In short, she did everything you should have to do to get something highlighted. What she and I didn't count on was my stomach. Here's Werther's
"A Half-Dozen Questions About 9/11 They Don't Want You to Ask" (CounterPunch):
The events of September 11, 2001 evoke painful memories, tinged with a powerful nostalgia for the way of life before it happened. The immediate tragedy caused a disorientation sufficient to distort the critical faculties in the direction of retrospectively predictable responses: bureaucratic adaptation, opportunism, profiteering, kitsch sentiment, and mindless sloganeering.
As 9/11, and the report of the commission charged to investigate it, fade into history like the Warren Commission that preceded it, the questions, gaps, and anomalies raised by the report have created an entire cottage industry of amateur speculation--as did the omissions and distortions of the Warren Report four decades ago. How could it not?
While initially received as definitive by a rapturous official press, the 9/11 Report has been overtaken by reality, not only because of unsatisfying content--like all "independent" government reports, it is fundamentally an apology and a coverup masquerading as an exposé--but because we now know more: more about the feckless invasion of Iraq, more about the occupation of Afghanistan and the purported hunt for Osama bin Laden, more about the post-9/11 stampede to repeal elements of the Bill of Rights, more about the rush to create the Department of Homeland Security, an agency to "prevent another 9/11," which, in retrospect, is plainly about cronyism, contracts, and Congressional boodle.
Many of the amateur sleuths of the 9/11 mystery have based their investigations on microscopic forensics regarding the publicly released video footage, or speculations into the physics of impacting aircraft or collapsing buildings. But staring too closely at the recorded traces of subatomic phenomena involved in a one-time event can deceive us into finding the answer we are looking for, as Professor Heisenberg once postulated. Over 40 years on, the Magic Bullet is still the Magic Bullet: improbable, yes, but not outside the realm of the possible. But there is surprisingly little discussion of the basic higher-order political factors surrounding 9/11, factors that do not require knowledge of the melting point of girder steel or the unknowable piloting abilities of the presumed perpetrators. Let us proceed, then, in a spirit of detached scientific inquiry, to ask questions the 9/11 Commission was unprepared to ask.
I think those were the ones members wrote passionately about. If there's something that's been overlooked, e-mail.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
norman solomon
patricia j. williams
molly ivins
joshua frank
tom hayden
ms. magazine
the green party
democratic underground
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