By Paul Armentano, AlterNet
Posted on February 10, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/47815/
American taxpayers are now spending more than a billion dollars per year to incarcerate its citizens for pot. That's according to statistics recently released by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics.
According to the new BJS report, "Drug Use and Dependence, State and Federal Prisoners, 2004," 12.7 percent of state inmates and 12.4 percent of federal inmates incarcerated for drug violations are serving time for marijuana offenses. Combining these percentages with separate U.S. Department of Justice statistics on the total number of state and federal drug prisoners suggests that there are now about 33,655 state inmates and 10,785 federal inmates behind bars for marijuana offenses. The report failed to include estimates on the percentage of inmates incarcerated in county and/or local jails for pot-related offenses.
Multiplying these totals by U.S. DOJ prison expenditure data reveals that taxpayers are spending more than $1 billion annually to imprison pot offenders.
The new report is noteworthy because it undermines the common claim from law enforcement officers and bureaucrats, specifically White House drug czar John Walters, that few, if any, Americans are incarcerated for marijuana-related offenses. In reality, nearly 1 out of 8 U.S. drug prisoners are locked up for pot.
Of course, several hundred thousand more Americans are arrested each year for violating marijuana laws, costing taxpayers another $8 billion dollars annually in criminal justice costs.
According to the most recent figures available from the FBI, police arrested an estimated 786,545 people on marijuana charges in 2005 -- more than twice the number of Americans arrested just 12 years ago. Among those arrested, about 88 percent -- some 696,074 Americans -- were charged with possession only. The remaining 90,471 individuals were charged with "sale/manufacture," a category that includes all cultivation offenses, even those where the marijuana was being grown for personal or medical use.
These totals are the highest ever recorded by the FBI, and make up 42.6 percent of all drug arrests in the United States. Nevertheless, self-reported pot use by adults, as well as the ready availability of marijuana on the black market, remains virtually unchanged.
Marijuana isn't a harmless substance, and those who argue for a change in the drug's legal status do not claim it to be. However, pot's relative risks to the user and society are arguably fewer than those of alcohol and tobacco, and they do not warrant the expenses associated with targeting, arresting and prosecuting hundreds of thousands of Americans every year.
According to federal statistics, about 94 million Americans -- that's 40 percent of the U.S. population age 12 or older -- self-identify as having used cannabis at some point in their lives, and relatively few acknowledge having suffered significant deleterious health effects due to their use. America's public policies should reflect this reality, not deny it. It makes no sense to continue to treat nearly half of all Americans as criminals.
This article originally appeared in the Washington Examiner.
Paul Armentano is the senior policy analyst for the NORML Foundation in Washington, DC. (norml.org, 888-67-NORML).
© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/47815/
Saturday, February 10, 2007
The Corporate Media Propaganda Blitz Begins!
I forgot - who's providing "lethal support" to the invading coalition armies?--Pete
February 10, 2007
Deadliest Bomb in Iraq Is Made by Iran, U.S. Says
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
NYT Article Here
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 — The most lethal weapon directed against American troops in Iraq is an explosive-packed cylinder that United States intelligence asserts is being supplied by Iran.
The assertion of an Iranian role in supplying the device to Shiite militias reflects broad agreement among American intelligence agencies, although officials acknowledge that the picture is not entirely complete.
In interviews, civilian and military officials from a broad range of government agencies provided specific details to support what until now has been a more generally worded claim, in a new National Intelligence Estimate, that Iran is providing “lethal support” to Shiite militants in Iraq.
The focus of American concern is known as an “explosively formed penetrator,” a particularly deadly type of roadside bomb being used by Shiite groups in attacks on American troops in Iraq. Attacks using the device have doubled in the past year, and have prompted increasing concern among military officers. In the last three months of 2006, attacks using the weapons accounted for a significant portion of Americans killed and wounded in Iraq, though less than a quarter of the total, military
officials say.
More Here
February 10, 2007
Deadliest Bomb in Iraq Is Made by Iran, U.S. Says
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
NYT Article Here
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 — The most lethal weapon directed against American troops in Iraq is an explosive-packed cylinder that United States intelligence asserts is being supplied by Iran.
The assertion of an Iranian role in supplying the device to Shiite militias reflects broad agreement among American intelligence agencies, although officials acknowledge that the picture is not entirely complete.
In interviews, civilian and military officials from a broad range of government agencies provided specific details to support what until now has been a more generally worded claim, in a new National Intelligence Estimate, that Iran is providing “lethal support” to Shiite militants in Iraq.
The focus of American concern is known as an “explosively formed penetrator,” a particularly deadly type of roadside bomb being used by Shiite groups in attacks on American troops in Iraq. Attacks using the device have doubled in the past year, and have prompted increasing concern among military officers. In the last three months of 2006, attacks using the weapons accounted for a significant portion of Americans killed and wounded in Iraq, though less than a quarter of the total, military
officials say.
More Here
Friday, February 09, 2007
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Quarantine U.S.A - Part Three
The Avian Flu Fright is Politically Timed A Public Health Warning and Political Essay By Dr. Leonard Horowitz | |
Global Research, October 12, 2005 | |
Tetrahedron | |
Abstract The Avian Flu Fright: Politically Timed for Global “Iatrogenocide” If avian flu becomes more than a threatened pandemic, it will have done so by political and economic design. This thesis is supported by current massive media misrepresentations, profiteering on risky and valueless vaccines, gross neglect of data evidencing earlier similar man-made plagues including SARS, West Nile Virus, AIDS and more; continuance of genetic studies breeding more mutant flu viruses likely to outbreak, inside trading scandals involving pandemic savvy White House and drug industry officials, curious immunity of these pharmaceutical entities over the past century to law enforcement and mainstream media scrutiny, and published official depopulation objectives. With the revelations and assertions advanced herein, the public is forewarned against this physician-assisted mass murder best termed “iatrogenocide.”* This genocidal imposition is expected to serve mainly economic and political depopulation objectives.
In April, 2003, a social experiment called SARS, said to have arrived from Asia, heavily struck Toronto. I was there throughout most of this Asian flu-foreshadowing fright. This bizarre new pneumonia-like illness was named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. It was said to be the latest threat in an ongoing series of attacks on humanity by mysteriously mutating "supergerms." A careful study of the scientific and medical-sociological correlates and antecedents of this “outbreak” revealed something amiss far more insidious than SARS. I critically considered Toronto’s media reaction as any Harvard-trained public health expert in media persuasion behavioral science might. The scourge had all the earmarks of a novel social experiment conducted by white-collar bioterrorist. It seemed clear to me that this unprecedented population manipulation effectively indoctrinated the mass mind in support of a grossly ineffective, albeit legislated, public health response in advance of the arrival of "the Big One." Throughout the “SARS Scam,”(1) repeated references were made to biological agents that might facilitate decimation of approximately a third to half of the world's population. Having extensively reviewed political population control literature and contemporary objectives of leading global industrialists, I noted these predictions were in close keeping with current official population reduction objectives.(2) Canada’s response to SARS in 2003 was, for the first time in history, directed by the United Nations and World Health Organization (WHO). Having reviewed the intimate financial and administrative ties between these organizations, the Rockefeller family, Carnegie Foundation, and the world’s leading drug makers, “the fox,” in essence, reigned over Canada’s “chickens.” The truth about plagues includes the fact that “no grand pandemic ever evolved divorced from major socio-political upheaval." SARS advanced a political agenda more than a public health emergency. If public health officials earnestly intended to prevent these new emerging diseases, or successfully treat them at their roots, I repeated, they would study their obvious origins from the merged military-medical-biotechnology arena. A basic course in medical sociology simply justifies this utilitarian counsel. "Experts" had been predicting the arrival of a super-plague for decades. What was HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS about the mysterious and terrifying arrival of SARS, however, was its timing. It synchronously arrived with the global war on terrorism, and the Anglo-American war with Iraq. It seemed a convenient distraction from the fact that the earlier Bush administration had shipped Saddam Hussein most of his deadly biological weapons arsenal including anthrax and West Nile Virus. SARS was pathognomonic (i.e., symptomatic and characteristic) of what I had predicted and explained in the book, Death in the Air: Globalism, Terrorism and Toxic Warfare (Tetrahedron Publishing Group, 2001; http://www.healthyworlddistributing.com/), a prophetically-titled text that predated the 9-11 attacks on America by several months, and provided a contextual analysis of certain globalists’ links to recent “outbreaks.” In essence, I provided insight into the broad application of a new form of institutionalized "bioterrorism" consistent with state sponsored biological warfare. Saddam Hussein was said to have exposed populations in his and adjacent lands with biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction. SARS and the current avian flu fright is sanctioned by military-medical-pharmaceutical-petrochemical industrialists likewise operating above the law in many documented instances. Having testified before the U.S. Congress, I personally experienced how premiere pharmaceutical industrialists direct our political-economic representatives in government. Emerging diseases complement the political "War on Terrorism," and our bioterror-influenced culture. This agenda serves two primary objectives: profitability and population-reduction. Political Reality Versus Mass-Mediated Myths The ever increasing madness around us is eerily consistent with globalist think tank recommendations for the current "conflicts short of war." Beginning in the late 1960s, "economic substitutes for standard militarization" were sought and found by leading global industrialists. New biological threats, the “war on terrorism,” and increasing numbers of “natural disasters” including space-based threats and superstorms were considered economically and politically expedient compared with the first and second world wars. These “conflicts short of war” were decidedly more manageable and economically viable. For this reason, especially their profitability, they were leading options among Anglo-American policy makers. Nelson Rockefeller’s protégé, Henry Kissinger, for instance, as National Security Advisor (NSA) under Richard Nixon, oversaw foreign policy while considering Third World population reduction "necessities" for the U.S., Britain, Germany, and other allies. This Bush nominee to direct the 9-11 conspiracy investigation, a reputed war criminal, then selected the option to have the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) develop biological weapons, according to the U.S. Congressional Record of 1975. Among these new man-made biological weapons were germs far deadlier than the avian flu. For example, by 1968, when Kissinger requested and received updated intelligence on useful “synthetic biological agents“ for germ warfare and population control, mutant recombinant flu viruses had just been engineered by Special Virus Cancer Program researchers O’Conner, Stewart, Kinard, Rauscher and others.(3) During this program, influenza and parainfluenza viruses were recombined with quick acting leukemia viruses (acute lymphocytic leukemia) to deliver weapons that potentially spread cancer, like the flu, by sneezing. These researchers also amassed avian cancer (sarcoma) viruses and inoculated them into humans and monkeys to determine their carcinogenicity. In related efforts, Raucher et al. used radiation to enhance avian virus’s cancer-causing potential. These incredible scientific realities have been officially censored and generally neglected by the media’s mainstream. Similarly, the Institute of Science in Society (IoSS) in London raised the genetic engineering question in the origin of SARS. “Could genetic engineering have contributed inadvertently to creating the SARS virus?” they asked. “This point was not even considered by the expert coronavirologists called in to help handle the crisis, now being feted and woed by pharmaceutical companies eager to develop vaccines.” Those living in glass houses should not throw stones. The above emphasis is added to show IoSS they had “not even considered” intentional SARS deployment in their scientific, allegedly unbiased, purview.(4) Conflicts short of war, like the "War on AIDS," "War on Drugs," "War on Terrorism," "War on Cancer," and now “War on the Avian Flu” require sophisticated propaganda programs employing fear campaigns for social acceptance and popular support of legislated policies. These psychological operations (officially termed PSYOPS) for “command and control warfare” (technically called C2W), experts advise, best support the emerging "Revolution in Military Affairs" (RMA). The RMA‘s capabilities include "a form of human slavery" in which the world’s captive populations would not know they are enslaved.(2) The RMA undoubtedly incorporates the use of debilitating biologicals and chemical agents most generously on behalf of drug and vaccine makers. A classic example is the toxic carcinogenic organophosphate pesticides deployed against human populations, said to target “mosquitoes,” in the "War Against the West Nile Virus." Such "non-lethal warfare" agents, as these are militarily termed, are indeed deadly, but mortality results slowly from toxic exposures allowing more profits to be made by allied pharmaceutical and medical industrialists. Victims of the "non-lethal" exposures die slowly from chronic debilitating diseases. Expensive hospitals and long-term care facilities are virtual concentration camps. The ailments generated for “iatrogenocide” include the plethora of autoimmune diseases and newer cancers virtually non-existent 50 years ago. This fact, alone, strongly suggests a genocidal socio-economic and political agenda. Avian Flu for Profit In response to SARS, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, Michael Fumento, published an economic thesis in Toronto related to the one I advance here. The "Super-bug or Super Scare," he wrote was published in Canada’s National Post. Canadians were warned to "quarantine themselves," wear masks, and in some cases stay home. The Ontario Health Minister declared a "health emergency," as the media dubbed the "mysterious killer" a "super-pneumonia.” Recoiling from the hype, Fumento asked and answered a few “real questions . . . How lethal, how transmissible, and how treatable is this strain?” The answers, he concluded, “leave no grounds for excitement, much less panic.” The same may be said for this new curse of avian flu.(1) | |
© Copyright Leonard Horowitz, Tetrahedron, 2005
Quarantine U.S.A - Part Two
Bird Flu: A Corporate Bonanza for the Biotech Industry Tamiflu, Vistide and the Pentagon Agenda By F. William Engdahl | |
Global Research, November 6, 2005 | |
On November 1, President George W. Bush went to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland to hold a high profile press conference, to announce a 381-page plan, officially called the Pandemic Influenza Strategic Plan. It was no ordinary Bush photo opportunity. This one was meant to be a big splash event. The President was surrounded by almost half his cabinet, including Secretary of State Condi Rice, joined by the Secretaries of Homeland Security, Agriculture, Health & Human Services, Transportation and, interestingly enough, Veteran Affairs. And, just to underscore that this was a big deal, the White House invited the Director-General of the World Health Organization, who flew in from Geneva for the occasion. The President began his remarks with the now-obligatory scare-story from 1918: ‘At this moment, there is no pandemic influenza in the United States or the world. But if history is our guide, there is reason to be concerned. In the last century, our country and the world have been hit by three influenza pandemics -- and viruses from birds contributed to all of them. The first, which struck in 1918, killed over half-a-million Americans and more than 20 million people across the globe…’ He was remarkably candid about the imminent danger to the American people: ‘Scientists and doctors cannot tell us where or when the next pandemic will strike, or how severe it will be, but most agree: at some point, we are likely to face another pandemic. And the scientific community is increasingly concerned by a new influenza virus known as H5N1 -- or avian flu…’ Mr. Bush went on to stress, ‘At this point, we do not have evidence that a pandemic is imminent. Most of the people in Southeast Asia who got sick were handling infected birds. And while the avian flu virus has spread from Asia to Europe, there are no reports of infected birds, animals, or people in the United States. Even if the virus does eventually appear on our shores in birds, that does not mean people in our country will be infected. Avian flu is still primarily an animal disease. And as of now, unless people come into direct, sustained contact with infected birds, it is unlikely they will come down with avian flu.’ Despite the admission of absence of a clear and present danger to the American public, the President called on Congress to immediately pass a new $7.1 billion in emergency funding to prepare for that not-imminent, not-pandemic, possible-in-the-future danger. The speech was an exercise in the Administration’s now-famous ‘pre-emptive war,’ this one against Avian Flu. As with the other pre-emptive wars, there is a multiple agenda—one might say, killing two birds with one stone, were it not so tasteless. Prominent among the President’s list of emergency measures was a call for Congress to appropriate another $1 billion explicitly for Tamiflu. Conflict of interest or insider trading? The saga of Tamiflu is just the tip of a big iceberg. As we noted in an earlier article, the real point of interest is the company in California who developed Tamiflu, Gilead Sciences, listed on the NASDAQ as (GILD). As we also noted, US Secretary of Defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, was Chairman of the Board of Gilead Sciences from 1997 until early 2001 when he became Defense Secretary. Rumsfeld had been on the board of Gilead since 1988, some thirteen years. A as-yet-unconfirmed report is that Rumsfeld recently purchased additional stock in his former company, Gilead Sciences, worth $18 million, making him one of its largest if not the largest stock owners today. Whether that is true or not, earlier this year, when the Bird Flu scare was just heating up, according to a report in the November 14 Fortune magazine, the Defense Secretary decided not to sell his many shares in Gilead so as to ‘avoid being accused of insider trading.’ If true, that means Mr. Rumsfeld, apparently not one to shy away from turning a fast buck, has bagged an eye-popping windfall, as demand for Tamiflu worldwide explodes. Today it is the hottest drug in the world market. On October 6, the Pentagon announced it had stockpiled quantities of Tamiflu for members of the military. Since early 2001 when Rumsfeld left the board of Gilead Sciences to become Defense Secretary, Gilead’s stock price has gone from around $7 per share to just a hair above $50 a share today. The future price direction? The stratosphere, especially since the President made it an explicit goal of the US ‘flu defense pre-emptive war’ on November 1. Gilead, which signed over the world marketing rights to Hoffmann-LaRoche, gets 10% of every dose of Tamiflu sold. Gilead is presently in a legal battle to retake 100% marketing control as well. From $7 to $50 translates into a neat 720% profit for Mr. Rumsfeld’s Gilead stock holdings since he went to Washington four-and-a-half years ago. Since the start of the carefully orchestrated current Bird Flu hysteria this March, Rummy’s Gilead stocks have gained a neat 56% alone. That might explain why, instead of dumping his shares as one might expect from an honest government official wanting to avoid a conflict of interest, he instead opted to buy another $18 million worth. Curiously, the Secretary waited until October 26, 2005 before issuing an official Department of Defense press statement that he had ‘recused’ himself from involvement in any future Pentagon decisions involving Gilead Sciences. By then, of course, the horse had long burst out of the barn door and the price of Gideon was racing at full gallop as the Pentagon and the Administration had already decided to stockpile millions of doses of Tamiflu. In March the reliable Washington friend, Britain’s Tony Blair, ordered the UK Government to buy enough Tamiflu drugs to supply 25% of the 56 million British citizens. Mr Blair seems always ready to help his friends in Washington whether backing Washington’s war against WMD in Iraq or Tamiflu. In Washington it’s called the ‘Anglo-American Special Relationship.’ The Secretary of Defense, the man who allegedly supported the use of contrived intelligence to justify the war on Iraq, who oversaw billions of dollars in Pentagon no-bid contracts to Bechtel and Halliburton corporations, is now poised to reap huge gains for a flu panic his Administration has done everything it can to promote. It would be useful to know whether the Pentagon’s successor to Douglas Feith’s Office of Special Plans developed the strategy of bio-warfare that is evidently behind the current Avian Flu panic. An enterprising Congressional committee in ordinary times would already be looking into the entire subject of plausible conflicts of interest regarding Secretary Rumsfeld, except for the fact the Congress is controlled by Mr Rumsfeld’s own party. Gilead Sciences is no small-time biotech startup, either. Helped by the propaganda from its friends in Washington and other high places, today Gilead has a total market capitalization of $ 22 billion. Its board today includes Bechtel Corporation director and former Secretary of State, George P. Shultz. According to Fortune, Shultz turned a neat $7 million profit earlier this year in insider selling of some of his Gilead stock. Bechtel is right up there with Halliburton in grabbing the lion’s share of Pentagon sweetheart contracts to rebuild Iraq. Most certainly it did not hurt Bechtel’s business that Shultz and Rumsfeld knew each other from their common days on the board of Gilead. The Gilead Sciences board also includes Gordon Moore of Intel, and Viscount Etienne Davignon, the Belgian Count who seems to be involved in everything big and Atlanticist, whether it be Bilderberg meetings or Trilateral Commissions, and now, profiting from the Bird Flu panic. The Gilead model also suggests a parallel to the Halliburton Corporation, whose former CEO is Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney’s company has so far gotten billions worth of US construction contracts in Iraq and elsewhere. Is it just a coincidence that Cheney’s closest political friend is Defense Secretary and Avian Flu beneficiary, Donald Rumsfeld? Vistide, Small Pox, Big Bucks The Defense Secretary is an accomplished hand at getting the government to buy vaccines from companies in which he has a direct financial interest. Recall the scare just following the events of September 11, 2001. One of the terror scenarios discussed widely by the Administration was a possible release of a deadly smallpox attack that would devastate the American population. In November 2001 the Administration reversed a two decade policy. On the advice of the Pentagon and others in the Administration, the President ordered that the US’ remaining stock of smallpox microbes, stored at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, not be destroyed as he world community had been urging, but be kept until new vaccines were developed. The United States and Russian Governments at the time held the only known smallpox microbe stocks known. The disease had long since been eradicated. The Administration announced at the time it was backing development of a new vaccine for smallpox that could be given the entire population. The major media from Judith Miller in the New York Times, to more widely read papers, carried horror stories. Typical was one from Knight-Ridder which began, ‘When counterterrorism officials compare notes on what keeps them awake at night, the weapon they most fear is not a nuclear bomb or poison gas, but a disease that was wiped off the planet 20 years ago. They worry about smallpox, a lethal, super-contagious virus that, if unleashed, would spread quickly…’ The scare around smallpox and what to do was curiously similar then as it is today against Bird Flu pandemics. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld at that time ordered members of the Armed Forces to be inoculated against smallpox, an inoculation with horrendous side-effects. Rumsfeld’s smallpox package also included ordering Pentagon stockpiling of a drug named Vistide, supposedly to minimize side-effects of smallpox infection should it occur. The Bush Administration had made repeated attempts to convince the public and above all, the health and medical profession to go with mass inoculation against smallpox. In 2002 the CDC and certain high Administration officials were calling for pre-emptive smallpox inoculation of broad sectors of the population against threat of terrorists unleashing the pox. The Government began stockpiling hundreds of millions of smallpox vaccine doses. It also stockpiled Vistide. With every official statement by members of the Administration, population panic regarding smallpox threats grew. Fear was driving the debate. Yet the reality was that, contrary to what was being said, smallpox was not a highly contagious disease. As Dr. Kuritsky, MD, director of the National Immunization Program and Early Smallpox Response and Planning at the CDC put it, ‘Smallpox has a slow transmission and is not highly contagious.’ Even were someone exposed to a known bio-terrorist attack with smallpox, it would not mean that he would contract smallpox, Kuritsky added. The signs and symptoms of the disease would not occur immediately, and there was time to plan. Increasingly, experienced US health professionals began going public with the dangers of the side effects from the smallpox immunization itself. These included ‘serious brain and heart diseases, autism, abnormal chromosomal changes, diabetes, various cancers and leukemias, plus demyelination of nerve tissue years after vaccination.’ Many thought it better to run the risk of a bio-terror attack than take the ‘cure.’ The Administration mass vaccination campaign for smallpox was a flop. Yet in the meantime millions of doses of Vistide were produced and sold to the US government, to ‘ease’ the effects of smallpox should such an hypothetical attack materialize. The Pentagon was one of the major purchasers of Vistide at the time. The smallpox terror scenario fear-mongering reached a peak in the run-up to the February 2003 war in Iraq, with scare stories speculating that Saddam Hussein may have been holding stolen Russian stocks of the smallpox virus ready to unleash an attack on the American public. In his January 2003 State of the Union Address, the President proposed creation of Project BioShield to develop vaccines and drugs against bio-terror attack including anthrax and smallpox. On July 21, 2004 President Bush signed into law Project BioShield, to provide ‘new tools to improve medical countermeasures protecting Americans against a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) attack.’ The fiscal year 2004 appropriation for the Department of Homeland Security included $5.6 billion over 10 years for the purchase of next generation countermeasures against anthrax and smallpox as well as other CBRN agents. Mr Rumsfeld knew well what he was prescribing for his soldiers. Vistide was also a product of Gilead Sciences, Mr. Rumsfeld’s former company. Rumsfeld was the person who signed off on the decision to give US Troops Vistide. That decision was obviously not made out of benevolence, or concern for the health of the troops on the part of the Defense Secretary, who had been personally involved with the side-efects of Vistide at Gilead since the company first developed it in the late 1990’s as an AIDS treatment. As Rumsfeld well knew, Vistide had some pretty hefty side effects. According to Dr. Christopher J Hogan, MD, Professor at the Department of Emergency Medicine, Medical College of Virginia, complications of Vistide include renal toxicity, neutropenia, fever, anemia, headache, hair loss, uveitis and/or iritis, and abdominal pain. Yet, despite the fact of who is making millions on the fears being stirred over smallpox or Avian Flu, it would be a dangerous diversion to think the end of the story is personal or corporate greed. The alarming aspect to this Tamiflu, Vistide and proposed new legal regimes for the ‘vaccine industry,’ is the fact that it all fits, evidently, into a far larger strategy that the Administration seems to have been developing for some time. During the smallpox scare three years ago, the Administration got Republican Congressmen to insert a paragraph into the Homeland Security bill that would give immunity for liability to drug companies who manufacture smallpox vaccine. Abolishing the Nuremburg Code on Human Rights in Experimentation Now the Bush Administration is seeking to vastly expand that drug company immunity, using the climate of fear around Avian Flu. The President, in his November 1 NIH pandemic speech, proposed completely exempting drug makers from being sued for their products. Explicitly he termed it ‘liability protection for the makers of life-saving vaccines.’ Stripped of its nice-sounding noble rhetoric, it means drug makers can produce and promote whatever they choose to foist on the public, whether it be Vistide, Tamiflu or Thalidomide, and fear no legal consequences. One need only think for a minute about the consequences of removing the gains of more than a Century of bitter battles to establish even minimal controls over what drugs can be sold to the public. During the 1960’s in Germany, Dr. Heinrich Mueckter, an infamous Nazi doctor, wanted by the Polish government for hideous experiments using live Typhus on concentration camp inmates, founded a drug company in West Germany where he developed a drug he marketed as a harmless sleeping tablet. His product, Contergan, was advertised as so harmless that it could be sold over-the-counter and one million Germans used it daily to sleep. He specially marketed his drug for ‘pregnant mothers’ having sleep problems. The results were soon clear in the form of tens of thousands of grotesquely deformed births. The drug he developed contained Thalidomide. At that time, German law left regulation of such drugs to the industry, a kind of self-policing, or to local government. Or consider the huge scandals surrounding the anti-arthritic drug, VIOXX, which was being used by more than two million people around the world when it was pulled from the market by Merck & Co. last September, after serious studies indicated VIOXX users had a 400% increased risk of heart attack or stroke. Threat of litigation was clearly a major factor leading Merck to pull VIOXX. Merck & Co. began in Germany in the late 1800’s by selling products including morphine, codeine, quinine and strychnine as ‘medications.’ There were no regulations on drug makers then. The German aspirin inventor, Bayer Company, in 1898 sold heroin labelled as a ‘superior cough suppressant.’ It probably was, but they also didn’t speak of side effects in those days. This was before many such scandals and serious consequences on the public forced governments to begin regulating what was sold as drugs. In 1962, in response to the Thalidomide scandals, Senator Estes Kefauver drafted and got passed the Kefauver-Harris Drug Amendments of 1962, tightening drug safety requirements and requiring pharmaceutical makers, or as George Bush prefers to call it, ‘the vaccine industry,’ to prove a given drug is effective before it can be sold to the public. Drugs were required to be registered with the US Food and Drug Administration, and the FDA was given ‘explicit authority to require compliance with good manufacturing practices.’ Safety and purity standards were defined. It also required drug makers explicitly state risks in their products. In 1948 the member countries of the United Nations adopted the so-called Nuremburg Code following the military trial in Nuremburg Germany in 1946 of 23 Nazi doctors for crimes against humanity and experimentation with drugs and viruses on human subjects. It was recognized as international common law guiding medical research. With the grant of legal immunity from lawsuits for effects of their drugs, pharmaceutical companies would succeed in rolling back not only the Nuremburg Code but also more than a Century of bitterly-fought gains in public safety in the regulation of drug manufacturing and promotion. In promoting drug industry immunity from legal damage suits, the President claims he is ‘breaking down barriers to vaccine production.’ In reality he is taking steps to create an environment which not even the Nazi doctors and drug companies during the Third Reich enjoyed—they had to be secretive about their actions. This is a very alarming precedent should it become law. The real question to ask is what could be so important to compel the President of the United States to put his own population at risk in such an unfettered drug environment? That there exists a virulent viral strain affecting birds especially in parts of Vietnam and China is not the issue at hand here. Rather it is the politicization of such a condition to introduce a wholly other agenda, one whose ultimate consequences on human life and well-being are potentially far more damaging than any conceived damage from H5N1 or other virus strains
Related article: Is Avian Flu another Pentagon Hoax? by F. William Engdahl | |
Quarantine U.S.A
Bird Flu Panic and Profiteering
By MIKE WHITNEY
http://counterpunch.org/whitney02052007.html
Man, these guys give me the creeps.
On Friday there was an article in the New York Times ("In a Daylong Drill, an Agency Tries to Prepare for a Real Outbreak of Avian Flu", Donald McNeil Jr.) that gave the details of the drills that are being conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (C.D.C.) in case a full-blown pandemic breaks out in the United States. The exercises were supervised by CDC chief, Dr. Julie Gerberding, the agency's director. A number of disastrous scenarios were simulated to test the judgment of the supervisors and the strengths of the system.
I'm sure everyone is relieved that the C.D.C. and Dr. Gerberding are practicing their routine in the event of an outbreak of lethal influenza. After all, Gerberding may confront a situation where she will be asked to decide whether or not to quarantine cities or, perhaps, entire states to prevent the spread of an epidemic, like Avian Flu.
So, why is this so weird?
Well, when was the last time Bush-Cheney devoted millions of dollars to anything that served the public interest? That is an oddity in itself.
They refuse to provide the recommended security-measures for the nation's nuclear power plants from terrorist attack, and they waged a bitter battle over legislation that required the checking of cargo coming into US ports. They even fought congress on the issue of air-port screeners following the attacks on 9-11?!?
So now they're spending millions on drills for a potential outbreak of Bird Flu?
Why? Why this sudden interest in the health and welfare of the American people?
Of course, we know what the administration REALLY thinks of the American people as evinced in their reaction to Hurricane Katrina. That's when tens of thousands of people were (intentionally?) cut-off from food, water, and medical supplies while Bush blew kisses to his people from 30,000 feet from Air-force 1.
And, what ever happened to the zillions of dollars that congress provided to rebuild New Orleans after the storm?
My guess is that it vanished into a Republican black-hole like the trillions earmarked for Iraqi reconstruction.
The only thing that's been rebuilt in New Orleans is the one house that was used in the photo-op of Bush pounding nails in his shirtsleeves.
So, what is the real motive behind these C.D.C. drills and why did Bush the media involved? According to the NY Times:
"Four reporters, from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Associated Press and The Canadian Press, were allowed to watch the exercise (and even to comment on how well C.D.C. public affairs officers played reporters during a mock news conference)"
In fact, Dr Gerberding even chirped, "This is new for us. A lot of people feel it's really high-risk to let the press look inside the sausage factory while the sausage is being made."
"High risk"?!? No way. The Bush administration is doing what they always do; manipulating public perceptions by releasing tidbits that prepare people for disaster.
Isn't that true?
And why are privately-owned corporations like MPRI overseeing Dr. Gerberding's work?
That's right; according to the article in the New York Times:
"Although Dr Gerberding was nominally in charge, the man pulling the strings was in a little room upstairs known as the Simulation CellHe was Pete Taylor, a 69 year old retired general who spent 34 years running war games for the Pentagon and now does it for MPRI, a consulting group with many former military officers on staff."
(MPRI was formerly known as Military Professionals Resources Inc is covered in the New York Times "America's For-Profit Secret Army" Leslie Wayne 10-13-02)
"War games"?!?
Is that what this is?
And, why are former military officers overseeing drills that are needed to best protect the American people from an epidemic?
Is this another crackpot Bush scheme to seal the borders, lockdown entire regions of the country, establish martial law, and put us all under quarantine?
And, for what? Bird Flu?
Doesn't this all sound a bit fishy?
Like I said before; these guys give me the creeps.
Note: Francis A. Boyles' new book "Biowarfare and Terrorism" cites a number of organizations both inside and outside the U.S. which are conducting illegal bioweapons research--one even got a grant from the EPA. Another lab is in earthquake-prone San Francisco where an accident could release some of these lethal agents and start a plague.
Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com
By MIKE WHITNEY
http://counterpunch.org/whitney02052007.html
"Officials gassed tens of thousands of turkeys and extended restrictions on the movement of poultry on Sunday to prevent the spread of deadly bird flu from a farm in Suffolk. The discovery of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of avian flu on a farm run by Europe's largest turkey producer surprised experts and raised questions about how the virus had been introduced into a sealed shed". (Reuters)
Man, these guys give me the creeps.
On Friday there was an article in the New York Times ("In a Daylong Drill, an Agency Tries to Prepare for a Real Outbreak of Avian Flu", Donald McNeil Jr.) that gave the details of the drills that are being conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (C.D.C.) in case a full-blown pandemic breaks out in the United States. The exercises were supervised by CDC chief, Dr. Julie Gerberding, the agency's director. A number of disastrous scenarios were simulated to test the judgment of the supervisors and the strengths of the system.
I'm sure everyone is relieved that the C.D.C. and Dr. Gerberding are practicing their routine in the event of an outbreak of lethal influenza. After all, Gerberding may confront a situation where she will be asked to decide whether or not to quarantine cities or, perhaps, entire states to prevent the spread of an epidemic, like Avian Flu.
So, why is this so weird?
Well, when was the last time Bush-Cheney devoted millions of dollars to anything that served the public interest? That is an oddity in itself.
They refuse to provide the recommended security-measures for the nation's nuclear power plants from terrorist attack, and they waged a bitter battle over legislation that required the checking of cargo coming into US ports. They even fought congress on the issue of air-port screeners following the attacks on 9-11?!?
So now they're spending millions on drills for a potential outbreak of Bird Flu?
Why? Why this sudden interest in the health and welfare of the American people?
Of course, we know what the administration REALLY thinks of the American people as evinced in their reaction to Hurricane Katrina. That's when tens of thousands of people were (intentionally?) cut-off from food, water, and medical supplies while Bush blew kisses to his people from 30,000 feet from Air-force 1.
And, what ever happened to the zillions of dollars that congress provided to rebuild New Orleans after the storm?
My guess is that it vanished into a Republican black-hole like the trillions earmarked for Iraqi reconstruction.
The only thing that's been rebuilt in New Orleans is the one house that was used in the photo-op of Bush pounding nails in his shirtsleeves.
So, what is the real motive behind these C.D.C. drills and why did Bush the media involved? According to the NY Times:
"Four reporters, from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Associated Press and The Canadian Press, were allowed to watch the exercise (and even to comment on how well C.D.C. public affairs officers played reporters during a mock news conference)"
In fact, Dr Gerberding even chirped, "This is new for us. A lot of people feel it's really high-risk to let the press look inside the sausage factory while the sausage is being made."
"High risk"?!? No way. The Bush administration is doing what they always do; manipulating public perceptions by releasing tidbits that prepare people for disaster.
Isn't that true?
And why are privately-owned corporations like MPRI overseeing Dr. Gerberding's work?
That's right; according to the article in the New York Times:
"Although Dr Gerberding was nominally in charge, the man pulling the strings was in a little room upstairs known as the Simulation CellHe was Pete Taylor, a 69 year old retired general who spent 34 years running war games for the Pentagon and now does it for MPRI, a consulting group with many former military officers on staff."
(MPRI was formerly known as Military Professionals Resources Inc is covered in the New York Times "America's For-Profit Secret Army" Leslie Wayne 10-13-02)
"War games"?!?
Is that what this is?
And, why are former military officers overseeing drills that are needed to best protect the American people from an epidemic?
Is this another crackpot Bush scheme to seal the borders, lockdown entire regions of the country, establish martial law, and put us all under quarantine?
And, for what? Bird Flu?
Doesn't this all sound a bit fishy?
Like I said before; these guys give me the creeps.
Note: Francis A. Boyles' new book "Biowarfare and Terrorism" cites a number of organizations both inside and outside the U.S. which are conducting illegal bioweapons research--one even got a grant from the EPA. Another lab is in earthquake-prone San Francisco where an accident could release some of these lethal agents and start a plague.
Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Media skeptical of Bush Admin lying about Iran
By Evan Derkacz
Posted on February 6, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/47662/
It's 4 years and a day since Colin Powell gave his "damning" and almost entirely false speech to the UN that put the final nail in the coffin of what is now over 3,000 American soldiers and over a half million Iraqis.
The press lapped it up, coming as it did from the administration's most skeptical cabinet-member and resident "centrist."
As Iraq devolves into a chaos (the long-awaited 2007 National Intelligence Estimate uses the term "Civil War" to describe parts of Iraq) and the administration marches toward war on Iran, the press has yawned and stretched and tried to come to life. To paraphrase Dolly Parton.
The following is the transcript of the video to the right, featuring two reporters tired of being jerked around by a duplicitous White House. They simply don't trust them. No pumping fists here... just a "finally you're doing your job."
Hat tip to Editor & Publisher for finding this exchange.
***
Q: Steve, in 2002 and 2003, in the run-up to the Iraq war, the administration made statements that were obviously not borne by facts subsequently. And it later came out that caveats from the intelligence community, caveats from Energy Department analysts, those were left out of public statements of Vice President Cheney, the President, others in the administration. Now when it comes to Iran, you've been saying for months that Iran is a key driver of violence in Iraq. You've said there is evidence tying Iran to attacks in Iraq. You've said that you'd make that evidence public. That supposed to be made public on the 31st.
MR. HADLEY: Right.
Q: It wasn't.
MR. HADLEY: That's correct.
Q: Now you have this report saying it contributes in some way, so does Syria, so do other factors, but it is not, in and of itself, causing the violence, nor would the violence stop if Iranian influence stopped.
MR. HADLEY: I didn't read it that way...
Q: You see it on the second --
MR. HADLEY: "Iraq's neighbors influence and are influenced by events within Iraq. But the involvement of these outside -- is not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospect for stability because of the self-sustaining character of Iraq's internal sectarian dynamics."
We need to get control of that. Now, to the extent Iraqi support -- sorry, Iranian support is going to extremist groups that are participating in that sectarian violence, it is obviously a factor. And as we talked about it more broadly, they are, of course, a disruptive factor in the region.
The reason we put the intelligence briefing on hold was really two reasons. One, we thought we'd better get the NIE out so people could see the full context, which you now can. And secondly, quite frankly, we want to make sure that if we put out intelligence, the intelligence community and MNFI can stand behind it, because we are sensitive to try and put out the facts as accurately as we can.
Q: When will that be, that briefing?
MR. HADLEY: When this process gets done, the briefing will be -- will come out.I don't think there's a timetable on this point since it's slipped a couple times. We want to get the work done so that we can get people a firm date and that we won't have to change.
Q: Even though it was already scheduled and officials in Baghdad gave a date, they gave a time, and in some cases, they gave a place?
MR. HADLEY: Correct.
Q: And now it's been pushed back. Can we conclude anything from that other than people looked at the intelligence that was set to offered and said, this is not good enough?
MR. HADLEY: No, I wouldn't --
Q: Does that mean there was a willingness to overstate it?
MR. HADLEY: The truth is, quite frankly, we thought the briefing overstated. And we sent it back to get it narrowed and focused on the facts. And that's not a criticism of anybody. It was, in some sense, an attempt to do and address some of the issues in the NIE in a briefing on intelligence of Iranian activity in Iraq. And we thought, hey, why are we doing this? Let's get the NIE out, the coordinated intelligence judgment of the intelligence community. And then with that as context, get a briefing that is focused on and one that we're confident everyone can stand behind.
Q: Mr. Hadley, given the track record on weapons of mass destruction, and recent events that have alleged that intelligence has been cherry-picked and pulled selectively, how can the public be assured that intelligence is driving the policy and not the other way around, that it's being tailored to what the President and the Vice President want the policy to be?
MR. HADLEY: By putting out things like this, the coordinated judgment of the intelligence community, so you can see the intelligence on which the policy was based.
Q: How can we be assured that this wasn't written for that purpose?
MR. HADLEY: Well, you can talk to the intelligence community. This came from the NIC -- the National Intelligence Council. And it came out of that process. It was not a result of a policy process. It was a result of the intelligence process. And there was no effort to put a policy spin on that by the White House. This is a thing we got roughly a day or two before you.
Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.
© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/47662/
Posted on February 6, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/47662/
It's 4 years and a day since Colin Powell gave his "damning" and almost entirely false speech to the UN that put the final nail in the coffin of what is now over 3,000 American soldiers and over a half million Iraqis.
The press lapped it up, coming as it did from the administration's most skeptical cabinet-member and resident "centrist."
As Iraq devolves into a chaos (the long-awaited 2007 National Intelligence Estimate uses the term "Civil War" to describe parts of Iraq) and the administration marches toward war on Iran, the press has yawned and stretched and tried to come to life. To paraphrase Dolly Parton.
The following is the transcript of the video to the right, featuring two reporters tired of being jerked around by a duplicitous White House. They simply don't trust them. No pumping fists here... just a "finally you're doing your job."
Hat tip to Editor & Publisher for finding this exchange.
***
Q: Steve, in 2002 and 2003, in the run-up to the Iraq war, the administration made statements that were obviously not borne by facts subsequently. And it later came out that caveats from the intelligence community, caveats from Energy Department analysts, those were left out of public statements of Vice President Cheney, the President, others in the administration. Now when it comes to Iran, you've been saying for months that Iran is a key driver of violence in Iraq. You've said there is evidence tying Iran to attacks in Iraq. You've said that you'd make that evidence public. That supposed to be made public on the 31st.
MR. HADLEY: Right.
Q: It wasn't.
MR. HADLEY: That's correct.
Q: Now you have this report saying it contributes in some way, so does Syria, so do other factors, but it is not, in and of itself, causing the violence, nor would the violence stop if Iranian influence stopped.
MR. HADLEY: I didn't read it that way...
Q: You see it on the second --
MR. HADLEY: "Iraq's neighbors influence and are influenced by events within Iraq. But the involvement of these outside -- is not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospect for stability because of the self-sustaining character of Iraq's internal sectarian dynamics."
We need to get control of that. Now, to the extent Iraqi support -- sorry, Iranian support is going to extremist groups that are participating in that sectarian violence, it is obviously a factor. And as we talked about it more broadly, they are, of course, a disruptive factor in the region.
The reason we put the intelligence briefing on hold was really two reasons. One, we thought we'd better get the NIE out so people could see the full context, which you now can. And secondly, quite frankly, we want to make sure that if we put out intelligence, the intelligence community and MNFI can stand behind it, because we are sensitive to try and put out the facts as accurately as we can.
Q: When will that be, that briefing?
MR. HADLEY: When this process gets done, the briefing will be -- will come out.I don't think there's a timetable on this point since it's slipped a couple times. We want to get the work done so that we can get people a firm date and that we won't have to change.
Q: Even though it was already scheduled and officials in Baghdad gave a date, they gave a time, and in some cases, they gave a place?
MR. HADLEY: Correct.
Q: And now it's been pushed back. Can we conclude anything from that other than people looked at the intelligence that was set to offered and said, this is not good enough?
MR. HADLEY: No, I wouldn't --
Q: Does that mean there was a willingness to overstate it?
MR. HADLEY: The truth is, quite frankly, we thought the briefing overstated. And we sent it back to get it narrowed and focused on the facts. And that's not a criticism of anybody. It was, in some sense, an attempt to do and address some of the issues in the NIE in a briefing on intelligence of Iranian activity in Iraq. And we thought, hey, why are we doing this? Let's get the NIE out, the coordinated intelligence judgment of the intelligence community. And then with that as context, get a briefing that is focused on and one that we're confident everyone can stand behind.
Q: Mr. Hadley, given the track record on weapons of mass destruction, and recent events that have alleged that intelligence has been cherry-picked and pulled selectively, how can the public be assured that intelligence is driving the policy and not the other way around, that it's being tailored to what the President and the Vice President want the policy to be?
MR. HADLEY: By putting out things like this, the coordinated judgment of the intelligence community, so you can see the intelligence on which the policy was based.
Q: How can we be assured that this wasn't written for that purpose?
MR. HADLEY: Well, you can talk to the intelligence community. This came from the NIC -- the National Intelligence Council. And it came out of that process. It was not a result of a policy process. It was a result of the intelligence process. And there was no effort to put a policy spin on that by the White House. This is a thing we got roughly a day or two before you.
Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.
© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/47662/
Why they hate us [VIDEO]
Perhaps you've heard that "they" hate us for our Freedom™.
The video on the right, courtesy of Crooks and Liars, is of a U.S. Humvee navigating Baghdad traffic. It shows there may be other factors at play.
Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Finally, A Paper Trial...
February 5, 2007
Editorial
Good Election News From Florida
NYT Article Here...
Florida, famous for doing so much wrong in its elections, is poised to take two very important right steps. First, Gov. Charlie Crist says he plans to end the use of touch-screen voting machines that do not produce a paper record. Florida’s move may finally sound the death knell for these unreliable, inherently antidemocratic voting machines.
After the 2000 election, there was a rush to eliminate the punch-card machines that produced the infamous hanging chads. But many states replaced them with paperless touch-screen machines that require voters to accept on faith that the reported vote totals accurately reflect the votes cast.
It has been hard to have faith. There have been widespread reports of “vote flipping,” in which machines record votes cast for one candidate as votes for the opponent. The Florida courts are still trying to resolve a challenge to a Congressional race last fall in which as many as 18,000 votes may have disappeared. The race was extremely close, and the possibly missing votes were in the losing candidate’s strongest county.
Governor Crist is asking the Legislature to finance the purchase of new optical-scan machines, and it is expected to agree. Choosing optical scans is Governor Crist’s second good move. In optical-scan voting, voters mark a paper ballot that is then read by a computer. Polling place lines are shorter, because many voters can fill out ballots at the same time. These paper ballots are the official ballots, and can be recounted by hand to resolve a dispute.
More than half the states — including large ones like California, New York, Illinois and Ohio — require computerized voting machines to produce a paper record. The addition of Florida would be a major defeat for election officials and voting-machine companies that have stubbornly opposed paper-trail requirements.
Governor Crist’s move should provide further momentum for a bill that Representative Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, plans to introduce in Congress today that would require voting machines nationwide to produce voter-verified paper records.
With the Democrats in control of Congress, the bill has a good chance of passing. But it is gratifying that Florida’s shift is led by a Republican governor, and expected to pass a Republican-controlled Legislature. This has for too long been considered a Democratic issue. It shouldn’t be. It is, as Governor Crist said, “common sense.”
Editorial
Good Election News From Florida
NYT Article Here...
Florida, famous for doing so much wrong in its elections, is poised to take two very important right steps. First, Gov. Charlie Crist says he plans to end the use of touch-screen voting machines that do not produce a paper record. Florida’s move may finally sound the death knell for these unreliable, inherently antidemocratic voting machines.
After the 2000 election, there was a rush to eliminate the punch-card machines that produced the infamous hanging chads. But many states replaced them with paperless touch-screen machines that require voters to accept on faith that the reported vote totals accurately reflect the votes cast.
It has been hard to have faith. There have been widespread reports of “vote flipping,” in which machines record votes cast for one candidate as votes for the opponent. The Florida courts are still trying to resolve a challenge to a Congressional race last fall in which as many as 18,000 votes may have disappeared. The race was extremely close, and the possibly missing votes were in the losing candidate’s strongest county.
Governor Crist is asking the Legislature to finance the purchase of new optical-scan machines, and it is expected to agree. Choosing optical scans is Governor Crist’s second good move. In optical-scan voting, voters mark a paper ballot that is then read by a computer. Polling place lines are shorter, because many voters can fill out ballots at the same time. These paper ballots are the official ballots, and can be recounted by hand to resolve a dispute.
More than half the states — including large ones like California, New York, Illinois and Ohio — require computerized voting machines to produce a paper record. The addition of Florida would be a major defeat for election officials and voting-machine companies that have stubbornly opposed paper-trail requirements.
Governor Crist’s move should provide further momentum for a bill that Representative Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, plans to introduce in Congress today that would require voting machines nationwide to produce voter-verified paper records.
With the Democrats in control of Congress, the bill has a good chance of passing. But it is gratifying that Florida’s shift is led by a Republican governor, and expected to pass a Republican-controlled Legislature. This has for too long been considered a Democratic issue. It shouldn’t be. It is, as Governor Crist said, “common sense.”
10 Portents of Washington DC's Possible War on Iran
10. Intelligence reports are skewed when publicly reported.
9. Policymakers do not discuss an alternative future.
8. Diplomatic opportunities are not pursued.
7. Psychological Operations Hour has replaced FOX News.
6. The "state sponsored terrorism" argument is back in play.
5. Iran tops the list of "preeminent threats".
4. US politicians are in-fighting about who should attack Iran.
3. US Strategic Command has mobilised its plans for bomb targeting.
2. The US peace movement is drawing up counter-plans.
1. The US Presidential election is 600+ days away . . .
From The Disinformation Newsletter
9. Policymakers do not discuss an alternative future.
8. Diplomatic opportunities are not pursued.
7. Psychological Operations Hour has replaced FOX News.
6. The "state sponsored terrorism" argument is back in play.
5. Iran tops the list of "preeminent threats".
4. US politicians are in-fighting about who should attack Iran.
3. US Strategic Command has mobilised its plans for bomb targeting.
2. The US peace movement is drawing up counter-plans.
1. The US Presidential election is 600+ days away . . .
From The Disinformation Newsletter
Sunday, February 04, 2007
"Enabling" a False Perception: Hugo Chavez, the Press and the "Rule By Decree" Meme
By Eric Wingerter
Did you hear that President Chavez is going to Rule by Decree for the next 18 months? The very idea evokes a picture of a not-too-distant South American past, one in which all-powerful executives live out their capricious whims and mete out brutal retribution against political enemies. It's all so dramatic and perverse and larger than life. Somewhere Andrew Lloyd Webber is already mapping out the musical score.
But it this case, it's just not true. Of course, if you've been reading the newspapers lately, you'd have a hard time figuring that out. The Miami Herald headline blares: "Chavez Granted Power to Rule by Decree." Time Magazine asks "Is Chavez Becoming Castro?" And those are the restrained ones. The right-wing rags have headlines like "A Dictatorship Rises," and "Hugo Chavez Kills Democracy." So you'd be forgiven for not getting the nuances in this storyline.
Here's what's actually happening: The Venezuelan assembly is poised to pass a law that will give the executive branch greater leeway to establish norms on a certain range of issues. Most of these involve guidelines for the president's own cabinet-level agencies. In other words, the Venezuelan version of the IRS will map out the country's tax structure; the Transportation department will devise its own strategic plan for public transit nationwide, etc. This represents a shift of certain powers from the legislative branch to the executive, to be sure, but on paper they don't seem to stray too far from the powers that the executive branch in the United States already has. Venezuelanaysis.com has a full listing of the ten issue areas that are affected.
It is important to note that this type of power-transfer is allowed under the Venezuelan constitution of 1999, which expressly permits the President to issue executive orders specifically within these issue areas. Of course, the constitution continues to guide the country's overall legal framework, which is to say that no "decree" can supercede constitutional law.
What's more, this "enabling law" is not new to the current constitution. Venezuela's previous constitution allowed for similar powers shifts to the executive, and you can be sure that past presidents took advantage of this authority on multiple occasions throughout the 70's, 80's and 90's. Here are a few examples:
� In 1974, Congress gave President Carlos Andres Perez the right to "rule by decree" on a number of economic matters, which he used to pass a slew of new regulations-instituting a minimum wage increase, freezing the market price of "necessary" goods, instating tax relief on agricultural activities, increasing government pensions, and even establishing new state institutions, including the National Institute of Housing and an Industrial Development Fund.
But Perez was a close ally of the US government, so there was little controversy from Washington.
� Ten years later, in May 1984, Congress again gave authority to the President, this time Jaime Lusinchi, to deal with the country's financial crisis by decree. He enacted a complicated exchange scheme, which was different for various sectors. For example, he extended a fixed exchange rate (4.3 bolivars to the dollar) for the payment of foreign debt and for Venezuelan students studying abroad; a second rate (6 bolivars to the dollar) for trade in the oil and iron industries; and a third (7.5 to 1) for the commercial and financial sectors. A fourth, "fluctuating dollar," constantly changing by market forces, was in use for everything else.
Nobody balked at all this, certainly not on the international scene. Lusinchi is remembered for hosting the first-ever visit of a Pope to Venezuela, and left office a few years later with what at the time was the highest approval ratings of an outgoing Venezuelan president.
� In 1993, interim President Ramon Jose Velasquez used these special "decree" powers to retool the country's debt and reform the financial system. Once again, nobody-well, nobody remembers much about Velasquez at all. He was sort of a historical footnote, serving only 8 months in office.
So why all the finger-wagging, hand-wringing and label-slinging this time around? In short: because it's Chavez. The Bush administration has long been on a campaign to brand him a despot. His influence throughout Latin America is seen as a threat to U.S. power in the region, and after failed attempts to overthrow him by force, sabotage the nation's economy, and finance opposition parties, the label game is the last arrow they have in their increasingly feeble anti-Chavez quiver.
For their part, the international press is all too eager to go along for the ride. You'll be shocked (shocked!) to hear that they often take the Bush Administration's analyses at face value, with little of the digging that would provide balance or context to the story.
But more than that, the Caracas-based correspondents for the big newspapers are hampered by their lack of familiarity with Venezuelan history. How many of them would know offhand that Velazquez "ruled by decree" ten years ago, much less be familiar with similar instances in the 80s or the 70s? And the Venezuelan elites they go to for context are not about to highlight this. They've got a government to undermine.
So for those itching to see a musical Chavez biopic in the works, it's going to be a little less "Evita" and a little more "1776."
Authors Website: www.BoRev.Net
Authors Bio: I am a freelance writer with a special focus on Latin America. My blog, www.BoRev.net deals with Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution and its portrayal in the U.S. press.
Who's Helping the Terrorists?
By Robert Parry
Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter Liz was given prime space on the Washington Post’s Op-Ed page to question the wisdom and the patriotism of Americans who disagree with George W. Bush’s long war against Muslim militants.
To Liz Cheney, who surely qualified on merit for her former job as principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, there’s only one option – to stay the course in Iraq and to remain firmly in line behind President Bush.
“We are at war,” she wrote in bold type. “America faces an existential threat. … Quitting [Iraq] helps the terrorists. … Retreat from Iraq hurts us in the broader war. … Our soldiers will win if we let them.” [Washington Post, Jan. 23, 2007]
In normal type, Liz Cheney also reprised one of Bush’s favorite refrains about how the American people must listen to what al-Qaeda says and do the opposite. Since al-Qaeda’s leaders supposedly want a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, so they can build a giant caliphate “from Spain to Indonesia,” as Bush says, the United States must stay in Iraq and fight.
“Let’s be clear,” Liz Cheney wrote. “If we restrict the ability of our troops to fight and win this war, we help the terrorists. Don’t take my word for it. Read the plans of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Ayman Zawahiri to drive America from Iraq, establish a base for al-Qaeda and spread jihad across the Middle East.”
But U.S. intelligence knows that al-Qaeda’s public statements must be taken with a grain of salt.
By contrast, analysts give more weight to intercepted al-Qaeda communiqués describing the leaders' private views. Those messages reveal that – even as al-Qaeda baits the United States about leaving Iraq – the group actually worries that a sudden U.S. withdrawal could collapse its position.
Intelligence analysts estimate that al-Qaeda's forces account for only five percent or less of the armed opposition fighting U.S. and allied forces – and many of those young jihadists are not considered committed fighters.
As Zawahiri said in one captured letter, a rapid American military withdrawal could cause al-Qaeda’s new foreign jihadists, who have gone to Iraq to battle the Americans, to simply give up the fight and go home.
“The mujahaddin must not have their mission end with the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq, and then lay down their weapons, and silence the fighting zeal,” Zawahiri wrote, according to a text of a July 9, 2005, letter released by the office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence.
Bogged Down
According to the internal communications, al-Qaeda’s real wish is for the United States to stay bogged down in Iraq, so the terrorist group can continue recruiting and training young jihadists while buying time to overcome the hostility of Iraqis toward outsiders.
In another captured letter, dated Dec. 11, 2005, “Atiyah,” a top aide to Osama bin Laden, described the work that must be done to overcome the many obstacles facing al-Qaeda in Iraq. Atiyah then added, “Prolonging the war is in our interest.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Al-Qaeda’s Fragile Foothold.”]
So, if the Bush administration truly based its decisions on doing the opposite of what al-Qaeda wanted, it would immediately withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq and let al-Qaeda in Iraq either disintegrate or get decimated by angry Iraqis who would no longer find al-Qaeda’s anti-American brutality particularly useful.
But Bush and fellow hard-liners, like Liz Cheney, are selective in deciding when Americans should heed the words of al-Qaeda and do the opposite, i.e. only when that matches what the administration wants to do in the first place.
That selectivity was demonstrated again after Bush announced his decision to escalate U.S. troop levels by more than 20,000 soldiers. Zawahiri issued a public statement offering mocking praise for Bush’s decision and urging him to expand the U.S. commitment even more.
“I ask him, why send 20,000 only – why not send 50,000 or 100,000?” Zawahiri said. “Send your entire army to be annihilated at the hands of the holy warriors to free the world from your evil.” [AP, Jan. 22, 2007]
Following the Bush/Liz Cheney logic, one would have to conclude that the advocates of Bush’s “surge” or the neoconservatives who want an even bigger escalation are doing exactly what Zawahiri wants. Conversely, those who call for a phased withdrawal are actually the ones thwarting al-Qaeda’s desires.
Of course, the “logic” behind Bush’s insistence that Americans must do the opposite of what al-Qaeda wants was never meant to be logical.
It was a rhetorical device to intimidate Americans into falling in line behind Bush – or they would face the intimidating question, as expressed in Liz Cheney's words: Why are you trying to “help the terrorists”?
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'
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Saturday, February 03, 2007
Castro's Legacy
Wayne S. Smith
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/02/02/castros_legacy.php
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/02/02/castros_legacy.php
February 02, 2007
Wayne S. Smith is now a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C. and an Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He was Chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana from 1979 to 1982.
Raúl Castro has been acting president of Cuba since July 31, 2006. His brother, Fidel, passed the office to him then because of a serious illness. At this point, it is not clear whether Fidel Castro will recover and resume the presidency. It seems unlikely. But regardless of whether he does or not, he is now 80 and in poor health. One way or the other, his almost half-century rule in Cuba is nearing an end. What will be his legacy? Has the Cuba he leaves behind registered gains over Cuba as it was when he took power in 1959? Will it have a brighter future? And is it supported by the Cuban people?
The answers to those questions are mixed. Castro first and foremost is and always has been a committed egalitarian. He despises any system in which one class or group of people lives much better than another. He wanted a system that provided the basic needs to all—enough to eat, health care, adequate housing and education. The authoritarian nature of the Cuban Revolution stems largely from his commitment to that goal. Castro was convinced that he was right, and that his system was for the good of the people. Thus, anyone who stood against the revolution stood also against the Cuban people and that, in Castro’s eyes, was simply unacceptable. There is, then, very little in the way of individual freedoms –especially freedom of expression and assembly. And there are political prisoners—those who have expressed positions against the revolution—though today only some 300, down markedly from the number at the outset of the revolution.
And did the system provide that promised better way of life? It can be said that during the years of the Cuban-Soviet alliance, when Cuba enjoyed most favorable terms of trade with the Soviet Union, resulting in what amounted to a subsidy of five to six billion dollars a year, the Cuban people were indeed well off. They had free (and excellent) health care, education up through the post-graduate level, adequate housing, enough to eat, and various other benefits. Then came the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of Cuba’s subsidy. Cuba went through some very difficult years—years of serious shortages of almost everything—of 18-hour-a-day blackouts and other difficulties.
It is a tribute to the durability of the Cuban people, and to a number of reforms to the economy carried out by the government, that they survived. But survive they did, and survive also did the revolution. At this point, the Cuban economy is making a strong comeback, thanks in part to new economic relationships with Venezuela and China, to a possible new oil field off the north coast, with other nations already bidding for drilling rights, to the fact that the price of nickel, Cuba’s largest export, is at an all-time high and that tourism continues to flourish and bring in much-needed hard currency despite U.S. travel controls blocking American tourists. The economy grew by at least eight percent in 2005 and closer to 12 percent in 2006.
For the average Cuban, life is still difficult. There are still shortages of almost all the basic necessities. Few go hungry, but the diet tends to be monotonous. Even so, the blackouts are now a thing of the past and there is renewed hope for the future. And they still have their free health care and education—something they do not want to give up!
Expectations in Miami and Washington had been that once Fidel Castro disappeared from the scene, the Revolution would crumble. But that, of course, has not been the case. Six months after Fidel passed the baton to Raúl, there has been no sign whatever of unrest. The Cuban people have accepted the transition with calm maturity—indicating a higher level of support for the Revolution than the exiles in Miami or the Bush administration had thought possible. Indeed, a recent Gallup poll conducted in Cuba indicated that 49 percent of the Cuban people supported Fidel Castro. Cuban officials strongly contest that finding, insisting that the percentage of supporters is much, much higher. But even as it stands, the poll indicates that a higher percentage of Cubans support Fidel than the percentage of Americans who support President Bush!
And what about Cuba’s place, its prestige, on the world stage? Here the gains are unquestionable. Before 1959, Cuba was considered as something of a banana republic. It played virtually no role in the international arena. But under Castro, it has played a prominent role, indeed at times a role that often resembled that of a world power.
It played a crucial part, for example, in bringing about revolutionary change in South Africa—and, indeed, throughout Africa. At the all-out battle of Cuito Cuanavale in Angola in 1987, Cuban forces defeated South Africa. The Cubans showed that the “white giants” could be beaten. All else followed from that. The South Africans decided to negotiate. Angola and Namibia became independent and vast internal changes began in South Africa itself. By 1994, Nelson Mandela was president. As Mandela put it in a speech on September 4, 1998, change was made possible “… because of Cuba’s selfless support for the struggle to free all of South Africa’s people and the countries of our region from the inhumane and destructive system of apartheid. For that we thank the Cuban people from the bottom of our heart.”
Cuba no longer exerts influence abroad by military means. The world situation has changed. But its influence is still felt around the world, nonetheless, now increasingly through a vast plan of medical assistance it began in 1998. Cuba now has some 25,000 medical personnel abroad, providing assistance in over 68 countries, with 14,000 in Venezuela alone. Indeed, it has more medical personnel deployed around the world than has the World Health Organization, and is training doctors and nurses for a broad range of countries at the huge Latin American Medical School in Havana. It has received kudos from a diverse range of leaders such as President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.
And, finally, Cuba’s standing in Latin America has perhaps never been higher. Wherever Castro has gone in the hemisphere over the past few years, he has been received with warm applause. Why? Because he stood up to the United States, has defied Washington and gone his own way. That is something virtually all Latin Americans respect and admire.
Fooled Again...?
The following comes from a NYT article concerning the theory that an off-shoot of the Mahdi army was behind the attack in Karbala that killed five U.S. soldiers. This is the entire sourcing:
While we're watching, listening to and reading this all-too-familiar line of propaganda, it would serve us well to do our own investigative reporting. While we wish for our media to do that as well, we are becoming more used to the idea that the mainstream media is the mouthpiece of the powerful and falls into the role of propaganda dissemination when the powerful have an agenda that it desires public support for - such as extending the disastrous Iraq war to Iran. You would think that they would want to consult experts who could shed light on anonymous administration official's claims that don't make any sense in the context of what is known about Iran's influence in Iraq.
For instance, the Congressional Research Service reported (9/29/06) that Iran was encouraging Shiite participation in electoral politics ("To that extent, Iran's goal in Iraq differs little from the main emphasis of U.S. policy in Iraq"), and that Iran's closest links in Iraq are to two large Shiite factions firmly connected to the U.S.-backed government: the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Da'wa Party, of which Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is part. And the Iranian government has engaged in wide-ranging negotiations with the Maliki government regarding trade, diplomacy and military training. This information is important to consider alongside U.S. allegations that Iran is engaged in fomenting violence in Iraq.
And University of Michigan professor Juan Cole wrote recently in Salon.com (1/30/07) that there many reasons to be skeptical of U.S. claims:
That said, let's watch for more deception in the form of repeated claims from anonymous officials, and take the station, newspaper, and radio editorial departments to task for their lazy stenography, shall we?
"Investigators say...according to American and Iraqi officials knowledgeable...The officials said...Officials cautioned... A senior Iraqi official said... An Iraqi knowledgeable about the investigation said... the Iraqi said... the senior Iraqi official said, citing information directly from the prime minister's office... Another senior Iraqi official said... the official said ...the American military has said... the military said... An American military official said... the military official said... officials say... Two American officials in Washington confirmed... One of those officials said... The second official said...."
While we're watching, listening to and reading this all-too-familiar line of propaganda, it would serve us well to do our own investigative reporting. While we wish for our media to do that as well, we are becoming more used to the idea that the mainstream media is the mouthpiece of the powerful and falls into the role of propaganda dissemination when the powerful have an agenda that it desires public support for - such as extending the disastrous Iraq war to Iran. You would think that they would want to consult experts who could shed light on anonymous administration official's claims that don't make any sense in the context of what is known about Iran's influence in Iraq.
For instance, the Congressional Research Service reported (9/29/06) that Iran was encouraging Shiite participation in electoral politics ("To that extent, Iran's goal in Iraq differs little from the main emphasis of U.S. policy in Iraq"), and that Iran's closest links in Iraq are to two large Shiite factions firmly connected to the U.S.-backed government: the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Da'wa Party, of which Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is part. And the Iranian government has engaged in wide-ranging negotiations with the Maliki government regarding trade, diplomacy and military training. This information is important to consider alongside U.S. allegations that Iran is engaged in fomenting violence in Iraq.
And University of Michigan professor Juan Cole wrote recently in Salon.com (1/30/07) that there many reasons to be skeptical of U.S. claims:
"To begin with, some 99 percent of all attacks on U.S. troops occur in Sunni Arab areas and are carried out by Baathist or Sunni fundamentalist (Salafi) guerrilla groups. Most of the outside help these groups get comes from the Sunni Arab public in countries allied with the United States, notably Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies. Washington has yet to denounce Saudi aid to the Sunni insurgents who are killing U.S. troops.
"Meanwhile, the most virulent terror network in Iraq, which styles itself 'Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia,' has openly announced that its policy is to kill as many Shiites as possible. That the ayatollahs of Shiite Iran are passing sophisticated weapons to these, their sworn enemies, is not plausible.
"If Iran is providing materiel to anyone, it is to U.S. allies. Tehran may be helping the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and its Badr Corps paramilitary, but the U.S. is not fighting that group (their leaders were, in fact, granted an audience at the White House recently). By sale or barter, some weaponry originally given to the Badr Corps might be finding its way to other groups, such as the Mahdi Army of nationalist Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, that do sometimes come into conflict with the U.S. That problem, however, must be a relatively small one, and cannot explain Bush's hyperbolic rhetoric about Iran."
That said, let's watch for more deception in the form of repeated claims from anonymous officials, and take the station, newspaper, and radio editorial departments to task for their lazy stenography, shall we?
Friday, February 02, 2007
Holding Bush Back from Attacking Iran
By Marjorie Cohn, AlterNet
Posted on February 2, 2007, Printed on February 2, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/47519/
As Congress and the American people protest the travesty Bush created in Iraq, our President is gunning for a confrontation with Iran. Bush is rattling the sabers and opting for gunboat diplomacy by pledging to "seek out and destroy" Iranian networks "providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies" in Iraq. But he has produced no hard evidence that Iran is supplying forces in Iraq with such weapons or manufacturing their own nuclear weapons.
When I say "gunboat diplomacy," I mean that literally. Bush recently sent US warships and Patriot missile batteries to the Persian Gulf and moved US attack aircraft to Turkey and other countries on Iran's borders. US forces stormed the Iranian consulate in northern Iraq and captured six Iranian nationals, and Bush announced he will go after any Iranians he considers a threat. There are also indications the Bush administration would support military action by Israel against Iran.
On Tuesday, the administration stepped up its inflammatory rhetoric. US officials said Iranians may have trained attackers who killed five Americans in Karbala on January 20. They also implicated the Mahdi Army, the militia controlled by Moktada al-Sadr. It's very interesting that the New York Times characterized the focus on Iran and the Mahdi Army as "convenient from the point of view of the Bush administration."
Investigators were stumped at how the attackers, who wore American-style uniforms, secured forged US identity cards and American-style M-4 rifles, and used stun grenades like those used only by US forces. They are also confounded at the way the attackers' convoy of S.U.V.'s gave the impression that it was American and slipped through Iraqi checkpoints. Wednesday's article in the Times cites a theory that "a Western mercenary group" may have been involved. In the past the US government used the CIA to covertly overthrow governments, such as Iran's in 1953 and Chile's in 1973. Could mercenaries now be doing the Bush administration's dirty work?
The plan to attack Iran has been in the works since Bush inaugurated that country into his "axis of evil" in January 2002. Bush's 2006 National Military Strategy says, "We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran." In April 2006, Seymour Hersh revealed the US military was making preparations for an invasion of Iran. "Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups," Hersh learned from current and former American military intelligence officials.
One of the military proposals calls for the use of bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapons against underground nuclear sites in Iran. That would mean "mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years," a former senior intelligence official told Hersh. A Pentagon adviser said the Air Force would strike many hundreds of targets in Iran, 99 percent of which have nothing to do with nuclear proliferation.
A former defense official who still advises the Bush administration informed Hersh the military planning was grounded in the belief that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government." That's the same faulty logic the US government has used to justify its cruel embargo and blockade of Cuba since Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution.
Congress has the responsibility to prevent Bush from attacking Iran. In view of congressional opposition to his war in Iraq, Bush will not likely ask permission to make war on Iran. We can expect Bush to provoke -- or even fabricate a la Tonkin Gulf -- an incident with Iran and then claim he's responding to Iranian aggression. Senior Pentagon officials reported in Wednesday's Los Angeles Times that Air Force and Navy fighter planes along the Iran-Iraq border may be used more aggressively. Bush will then try to bootstrap the September 2001 and October 2002 congressional authorizations for force in Afghanistan and Iraq respectively into consent to attack Iran.
Offensive military action against Iran would be illegal under the United Nations Charter, which requires that members settle international disputes by peaceful means. The UN Charter is a treaty ratified by the US and thus part of American law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. Under the Charter, a country can attack another only in self-defense or with the blessing of the Security Council. Moreover, the use of nuclear weapons would violate our obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Congress should immediately pass a binding resolution reaffirming the United States' legal obligations and informing the Bush administration that it will not concur in any invasion or military action against Iran, would refuse to approve any funding for it, and would consider actions taken in contravention of the resolution as impeachable offenses.
Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, president of thCowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law, will be published in June.
© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/47519/
A Field Guide To Devolution, Part 2
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH & SUBSIDIARITY
WIKIPEDIA - The principle of subsidiarity holds that government should undertake only those initiatives which exceed the capacity of individuals or private groups acting independently. The principle is based upon the autonomy and dignity of the human individual, and holds that all other forms of society, from the family to the state and the international order, should be in the service of the human person. Subsidiarity assumes that these human persons are by their nature social beings, and emphasizes the importance of small and intermediate-sized communities or institutions, like the family, the church, and voluntary associations, as mediating structures which empower individual action and link the individual to society as a whole. "Positive subsidiarity," which is the ethical imperative for communal, institutional or governmental action to create the social conditions necessary to the full development of the individual, such as the right to work, decent housing, health care, etc., is another important aspect of the subsidiarity principle.
The principle of subsidiarity was developed in the encyclical Rerum Novarum of 1891 by Pope Leo XIII, as an attempt to articulate a middle course between the perceived excesses of laissez-faire capitalism on the one hand and the various forms of totalitarianism, which subordinate the individual to the state, on the other. The principle was further developed in Pope Pius XI's encyclical Quadragesimo Anno of 1931, and Economic Justice for All by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
A Field Guide To Devolution
INTRODUCTION
ALTHOUGH CRITICISM abounds concerning the rapid concentration of governmental power, world trade, domestic commerce and police authority - just to name a few - there is a stunning lack of alternatives proposed or even mentioned by media, politicians or intellectuals. Even among those who despise these trends there seems an almost tacit acceptance of their inevitability. A few examples:
- One of the greatest assaults on the Tenth Amendment's protection of state powers - No Child Left Behind - is broadly supported by both Republicans and Democrats. The Tenth Amendment, in fact, has almost become the Forgotten Law.
- America's right to determine the values and politics of the rest of the world, even to the point of invasion, has wide acceptance among Democrats and Republicans, limited only by the caveat that it may not be as big a disaster as is Iraq.
- The gross conglomeration of the American media - the broadcast media in particular - has raised few objections saved from those hardy groups that still believe in a free press.
- Many corporations use America mainly as a mailing address as they seek to do to the world what Starbucks has done to many urban neighborhoods.
- The cultural values of Americans is increasingly based on the idea that bigger is better. We have been taught to worship grandiosity and ridicule the modest.
Obviously, these are not universally held values although one might easily think so. In fact, underneath the surface of mainstream megalomania are numerous examples of groups and people still acting in, or striving for, human scale. They are, in fact, about some of the most important business of a human: reversing the gigantism that has not only hurt our lives but is threatening the whole planet.
Collectively these alternatives can be called examples of devolution or subsidiarity, the dispersal of authority to the lowest practical level, an increasing proximity of people to power, the return of commerce, politics and policing to human scale.
Nothing could be more important and no idea is more in need of a movement.
You didn't have to explain this in the 1960s and 70s when community power and control were well up on the left's agenda only to be wiped from memory by a generation of accumulators, self-aggrandizers and monopolizers preaching the human heresies of Thatcher, Friedman and Reagan like so many hustling evangelicals.
This journal has joined innumerable fights on this matter over the years. It argued for urban neighborhood government, it published a series of articles on devolution in other countries (including a prediction of the break-up of the Soviet Union) by Thomas Martin, and we have raised the flag for more urban states.
The best way to think about devolution is to remember that it refers to what Martin has called "the ideology of scale." This ideology functions in a three-dimensional fashion with traditional ideologies. For example, one can be a progressive decentralist or a conservative who believes in centralized authority. Thus conservatives and progressives may agree that much power needs to be returned to a local level, but might disagree violently on how it should be handled once it gets there.
What works so well in the manufacture of a Ford Taurus -- efficiency of scale and mass production -- fails to work in social policy because, unlike a Taurus, humans think, cry, love, get distracted, criticize, worry or don't give a shit. Yet we keep acting as though such traits don't exist or don't matter. We have come to accept the notion that the enormous institutions of government, media, industry and academia are natural to the human condition and then wonder why they don't work better than they do. In fact, as ecological planner Ernest Callenbach pointed out, "we are medium-sized animals who naturally live in small groups -- perhaps 20 or so -- as opposed to bees or antelopes who live in very large groups. When managers or generals or architects force us into large groups, we speedily try to break them down into sub-units of comfortable size."
Today, if you want to tell it to the boss, you may have to travel a couple of thousand miles just to get to the receptionist. All of our systems appear to be on steroids. And like the drugged athlete, nature eventually pulls the plug. The institutions that have imposed a tyranny of size upon us not only fail to accomplish what they set out to do but are themselves disintegrating. The troubles of such huge institutions is a primary characteristic of our times. Consider the Soviet Union, Sears, General Motors and, yes, the United States itself.
We see it and yet we don't. Our loyalty to our assumptions and ideologies as well as our natural difficulty in accepting mortality even in non-human systems lead us to underrate such changes, to keep trying to do things the old way one more time.
Over the coming weeks, the Review will be presenting examples of devolution that works and some that doesn't. We invite further examples and will post a field guide to these matters on this page.
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