By Evan Derkacz
Posted on June 12, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/37460/
Several weeks back, Truthout investigative reporter Jason Leopold reported that a source informed him of an imminent Rove indictment in the Valerie Plame investigation.
As you know, that indictment never occurred. A flurry of "ohmygod are there hacks in the progressive media?" questions ensued and Leopold's reputation (along with Truthout's) hung in the balance.
Neither TO nor Leopold budged and now reveal that they have a case number for the indictment. Hmm. Via Dave Johnson at Seeing the Forest:
As of Friday afternoon that indictment, returned by the grand jury the week of May 10th, remains under seal - more than a month after it was handed up by the grand jury.
The case number is "06 cr 128." On the federal court's electronic database, "06 cr 128" is listed along with a succinct summary: "No further information is available."
Johnson writes: "He is not backing off. Truthout isn't either. Maybe there is something to this." (SeeingTheForest)
Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/37460/
Monday, June 12, 2006
Thursday, June 08, 2006
WE DID IT! THE FMA HAS BEEN DEFEATED!
In the battle for fairness, the Federal Marriage Amendment suffered a resounding defeat this morning in the U.S. Senate.
Not only did not a single Senator from the compromised left buckle to pressure and advertising campaigns from right-wing groups to switch their vote, but we gained two Senators, Senators Gregg (R-NH) and Specter (R-PA), who voted the other way in 2004.
President Bush and the Republican leadership gambled their dwindling political capital on a discriminatory amendment and came up empty.
To read the coverage in the press, visit http://www.hrc.org/voteno/headlines.htm.
Not only did not a single Senator from the compromised left buckle to pressure and advertising campaigns from right-wing groups to switch their vote, but we gained two Senators, Senators Gregg (R-NH) and Specter (R-PA), who voted the other way in 2004.
President Bush and the Republican leadership gambled their dwindling political capital on a discriminatory amendment and came up empty.
To read the coverage in the press, visit http://www.hrc.org/voteno/headlines.htm.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Tomdispatch Interview: Ehrenreich, The Prey and the Predators
A Guided Tour of Class in America
A Tomdispatch Interview with Barbara Ehrenreich
You turn into a middle-class, suburban housing project on the periphery of Charlottesville, Virginia, and at a row of attached homes, you pull up in front of the one with the yellow "for sale" sign on the tiny patch of grass. Ushered inside, you take in an interior of paint cans, a mop and pail, and cleaning liquids. On the small porch that overlooks a communal backyard, workmen are painting the weathered wood railings a nice, clean white. Later, when they're gone, we step out for a minute, on a balmy late spring afternoon, and she says, "You know what I need out here? Flowers!" And it's true, the nearest neighbor's small porch is a riot of red, orange, and purple blooms, while hanging from her railing are three plant holders with only dirt and the scraps of dead vegetation in them.
Not surprising really. Barbara Ehrenreich, our foremost journalist of, and dissector of class is regularly not here. Practically a household name since she entered the low-wage working class disguised as herself and, in her already classic account, Nickel and Dimed, reported back on just how difficult it is for so many hard-working Americans to get by. Then, a few years later, she repeated the process with the middle class, only to find herself not in the workforce but among the desperately unemployed who had fallen out of an ever meaner corporate world. Her most recent book, Bait and Switch, The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream, was the result. Now, she spends much time traveling the country talking to audiences about her -- and their -- experiences. She has become a blogger, is involved in launching a new group to help organize the middle-class unemployed, and in her spare time she's even finished a new book.
Now, after four years in Virginia (at least some of the time), she's about to head north. She gestures at the bookshelves. "There are a lot fewer books this week than last. I'm giving them to the Virginia Organizing Project." And it's true, the place is clearly being stripped down for sale. But you have the feeling, looking around, that it was a no-frills life to begin with, as Ehrenreich herself, in her short hair, jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers, presents a distinctly no-frills look. (Suddenly, imagining her with an image make-over advisor in Bait and Switch trying to give herself that perfect corporate look of employability seems amusing.)
Her mind is wide-ranging and daring indeed. Some years back, in a book entitled Blood Rites, she even managed to turn traditional ideas about the origins of war on their head. She is a thoroughly no-nonsense national resource.
Looking forward to a trip to the local gym followed by a visit with her two grandchildren (the daughters of her daughter Rosa Brooks, a law professor and columnist for the Los Angeles Times), we sit down at a paper-and-book cluttered dining-room table, which shows no evidence of having held a meal in some time, and -- eye on the clock, no fooling around -- begin.
Tomdispatch: You were at a graduation ceremony recently where the students were bouncing beach balls in the stands. The college president leaned over and whispered, "This is the problem with having the commencement in the afternoon. Some of these people have been partying for hours." In response, you wrote: "There are reasons, whether the graduates know them or not, to want to greet one's entrance into the work world with an excess of Bud." Could you start by explaining why an excess of Bud might be an appropriate response to leaving college today?
Barbara Ehrenreich: Well, a lot of graduates are simply not going to find jobs appropriate to their credentials. They're going to be wait staff. They're going to be call-center operators. Their twenties could be spent like that. I recently got Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute to do some research on this. It's still tentative, but he found that 17% of people in jobs that do not require college degrees have them. Those are very often people in their twenties who can't get professional-type employment, or people in their fifties who have been through one too many lay-off and are no longer employable because they're quote too old. So I was thinking of that, and then I was thinking that for a lot of those who do get jobs, you know, the fun is over. They're going to be sitting in cubicles and they won't be able to bounce balls around when they're in boring meetings with their bosses.
TD: The real earnings of college graduates fell by 5% between 2000 and 2004, so they also have that to look forward to.
Ehrenreich: There still is a real big earnings gap between college and non-college graduates, but it's begun to shrink. Jared tells me that the reason it was growing so fast in the nineties was not that college graduates were doing so well, but that low-wage people, blue-collar people, were doing so poorly. Their wages were being held down -- and that remains true.
TD: In 1989, you published a book about the middle class, or the professional-managerial class as you call them, entitled Fear of Falling. The book was way ahead of its time. If you were titling a work on the subject today you might just call it, Falling.
Ehrenreich: What I was thinking about then was the fear of intergenerational falling, the fear a lot of upper-middle class people have that their children will not get into the same class, because you can't just bequeath your class status to them. They can't inherit. They have to go through this whole education thing. Now, it could be Free Fall, though it isn't quite that bad… yet.
TD: In Bait and Switch, the book where, as an investigative reporter, you sought a corporate job and found yourself in the world of the middle-class unemployed or anxiously employed, you wrote, "On many fronts, the American middle class is under attack as never before." What happened to the middle class between then and now?
Ehrenreich: In Fear of Falling, I was concerned with the distance between the professional managerial class and the traditional working class. I thought I saw a new class developing. The strict Marxist idea is: You've got the bourgeoisie. Everybody else is a wage earner and they're not that different, whether they're accountants or laborers. And I was saying, no, there's a real difference here. The white-collar worker who sits at a desk is telling other people what to do in one way or another. Such workers are in positions of authority when compared to blue and pink-collar people.
Back then, I was emphasizing the differences. Today, in Bait and Switch, what I'm emphasizing is the lack of difference, that the security the professional-managerial class thought it had is gone. The safest part of that class, when I was writing in the eighties, seemed to be the professionals and managers with corporate positions. Then something happened in the nineties. Companies began to look at even those people as expenses to be eliminated rather than assets to be nurtured. What I was seeing in the late eighties was this pretty tight middle class where, really, the only problem was to get your kids into it, too.
Much More here...
A Tomdispatch Interview with Barbara Ehrenreich
You turn into a middle-class, suburban housing project on the periphery of Charlottesville, Virginia, and at a row of attached homes, you pull up in front of the one with the yellow "for sale" sign on the tiny patch of grass. Ushered inside, you take in an interior of paint cans, a mop and pail, and cleaning liquids. On the small porch that overlooks a communal backyard, workmen are painting the weathered wood railings a nice, clean white. Later, when they're gone, we step out for a minute, on a balmy late spring afternoon, and she says, "You know what I need out here? Flowers!" And it's true, the nearest neighbor's small porch is a riot of red, orange, and purple blooms, while hanging from her railing are three plant holders with only dirt and the scraps of dead vegetation in them.
Not surprising really. Barbara Ehrenreich, our foremost journalist of, and dissector of class is regularly not here. Practically a household name since she entered the low-wage working class disguised as herself and, in her already classic account, Nickel and Dimed, reported back on just how difficult it is for so many hard-working Americans to get by. Then, a few years later, she repeated the process with the middle class, only to find herself not in the workforce but among the desperately unemployed who had fallen out of an ever meaner corporate world. Her most recent book, Bait and Switch, The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream, was the result. Now, she spends much time traveling the country talking to audiences about her -- and their -- experiences. She has become a blogger, is involved in launching a new group to help organize the middle-class unemployed, and in her spare time she's even finished a new book.
Now, after four years in Virginia (at least some of the time), she's about to head north. She gestures at the bookshelves. "There are a lot fewer books this week than last. I'm giving them to the Virginia Organizing Project." And it's true, the place is clearly being stripped down for sale. But you have the feeling, looking around, that it was a no-frills life to begin with, as Ehrenreich herself, in her short hair, jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers, presents a distinctly no-frills look. (Suddenly, imagining her with an image make-over advisor in Bait and Switch trying to give herself that perfect corporate look of employability seems amusing.)
Her mind is wide-ranging and daring indeed. Some years back, in a book entitled Blood Rites, she even managed to turn traditional ideas about the origins of war on their head. She is a thoroughly no-nonsense national resource.
Looking forward to a trip to the local gym followed by a visit with her two grandchildren (the daughters of her daughter Rosa Brooks, a law professor and columnist for the Los Angeles Times), we sit down at a paper-and-book cluttered dining-room table, which shows no evidence of having held a meal in some time, and -- eye on the clock, no fooling around -- begin.
Tomdispatch: You were at a graduation ceremony recently where the students were bouncing beach balls in the stands. The college president leaned over and whispered, "This is the problem with having the commencement in the afternoon. Some of these people have been partying for hours." In response, you wrote: "There are reasons, whether the graduates know them or not, to want to greet one's entrance into the work world with an excess of Bud." Could you start by explaining why an excess of Bud might be an appropriate response to leaving college today?
Barbara Ehrenreich: Well, a lot of graduates are simply not going to find jobs appropriate to their credentials. They're going to be wait staff. They're going to be call-center operators. Their twenties could be spent like that. I recently got Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute to do some research on this. It's still tentative, but he found that 17% of people in jobs that do not require college degrees have them. Those are very often people in their twenties who can't get professional-type employment, or people in their fifties who have been through one too many lay-off and are no longer employable because they're quote too old. So I was thinking of that, and then I was thinking that for a lot of those who do get jobs, you know, the fun is over. They're going to be sitting in cubicles and they won't be able to bounce balls around when they're in boring meetings with their bosses.
TD: The real earnings of college graduates fell by 5% between 2000 and 2004, so they also have that to look forward to.
Ehrenreich: There still is a real big earnings gap between college and non-college graduates, but it's begun to shrink. Jared tells me that the reason it was growing so fast in the nineties was not that college graduates were doing so well, but that low-wage people, blue-collar people, were doing so poorly. Their wages were being held down -- and that remains true.
TD: In 1989, you published a book about the middle class, or the professional-managerial class as you call them, entitled Fear of Falling. The book was way ahead of its time. If you were titling a work on the subject today you might just call it, Falling.
Ehrenreich: What I was thinking about then was the fear of intergenerational falling, the fear a lot of upper-middle class people have that their children will not get into the same class, because you can't just bequeath your class status to them. They can't inherit. They have to go through this whole education thing. Now, it could be Free Fall, though it isn't quite that bad… yet.
TD: In Bait and Switch, the book where, as an investigative reporter, you sought a corporate job and found yourself in the world of the middle-class unemployed or anxiously employed, you wrote, "On many fronts, the American middle class is under attack as never before." What happened to the middle class between then and now?
Ehrenreich: In Fear of Falling, I was concerned with the distance between the professional managerial class and the traditional working class. I thought I saw a new class developing. The strict Marxist idea is: You've got the bourgeoisie. Everybody else is a wage earner and they're not that different, whether they're accountants or laborers. And I was saying, no, there's a real difference here. The white-collar worker who sits at a desk is telling other people what to do in one way or another. Such workers are in positions of authority when compared to blue and pink-collar people.
Back then, I was emphasizing the differences. Today, in Bait and Switch, what I'm emphasizing is the lack of difference, that the security the professional-managerial class thought it had is gone. The safest part of that class, when I was writing in the eighties, seemed to be the professionals and managers with corporate positions. Then something happened in the nineties. Companies began to look at even those people as expenses to be eliminated rather than assets to be nurtured. What I was seeing in the late eighties was this pretty tight middle class where, really, the only problem was to get your kids into it, too.
Much More here...
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Today's Quote
"Enough details have emerged from survivors and military personnel to conclude that in the town of Haditha last November, members of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment perpetrated a massacre. The killings may have been in retaliation for the death of a Marine lance corporal, but this was not the work of soldiers gone berserk. The targets (children from 3 to 14, an old man in a wheelchair, taxi passengers), the hours-long duration of killings, the number of Marines involved, the careful mop-up--all amount to willful, targeted brutality designed to send a message to Iraqis. As Representative John Murtha has pointed out, the patently false story floated afterward, blaming the killings on roadside bombs, and Marine payoffs to survivors imply a cover-up that may extend far up the chain of command."
~~ The Nation Editors, Why Haditha Matters
CNN's White Supremacist Sourcing
By Evan Derkacz
Posted on May 24, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/36625/
The thin, thin line between Lou Dobbs' punitive conservative views on immigration and unabashed bigotry was crossed, erased and spat upon yesterday.
Bill Scher writes:
The above map that accompanied the report was provided by the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens classified as a hate group by the ADL.
Dave Neiwert explains the fundamental misunderstanding in hysterical reporting and rightwing gumflapping on the "reconquista" issue:
Silly Dave. This is called nuance and rationality, two qualities melting away from the public discourse like polar ice caps in a quaint belief system once known as "science." (LiberalOasis, Orcinus)
--Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/36625/
Posted on May 24, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/36625/
The thin, thin line between Lou Dobbs' punitive conservative views on immigration and unabashed bigotry was crossed, erased and spat upon yesterday.
Bill Scher writes:
During a piece about illegal immigrants in Utah, reporter Casey Wian said, "Utah is also part of the territory some militant Latino activists refer to as Aztlan, the portion of the southwest United States they claim rightfully belongs to Mexico."
The above map that accompanied the report was provided by the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens classified as a hate group by the ADL.
Dave Neiwert explains the fundamental misunderstanding in hysterical reporting and rightwing gumflapping on the "reconquista" issue:
The belief that the Southwest is part of their historical homeland is a legitimate belief for most Latinos, and the marchers [the Washington Times] cite[s] seem to be expressing that point. They're also expressing the belief that this historical claim overrides the latter-day borders that would deny them their heritage. What's utterly absent is any claim that they intend to retake the Southwest for Mexico, which is what the reconquista theory is all about. On the contrary, they seem intent on becoming American -- but they also are claiming they have a right, by virtue of their heritage, to become one.
Silly Dave. This is called nuance and rationality, two qualities melting away from the public discourse like polar ice caps in a quaint belief system once known as "science." (LiberalOasis, Orcinus)
--Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/36625/
From the "Wha', Where?" File...
During an interview with the Early Show concerning BushCo's new bid for isolationism in the U.S. while rampant corporate globalization is shoved down the throat of "developing" nations, one can actually see immigrants jumping the "most technologically advanced" border barrier ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BqDtHOE5zs
Priceless!
Thanks to Jack Spellman (and Bryan, whoever you are)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BqDtHOE5zs
Priceless!
Thanks to Jack Spellman (and Bryan, whoever you are)
Friday, June 02, 2006
Kennedy: 2004 Election was rigged
Via Alternet
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/36993/
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. writes, in Rolling Stone:
On Exit Polls:
On Ohio:
There's more. Much more.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/36993/
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. writes, in Rolling Stone:
...what is most anomalous about the irregularities in 2004 was their decidedly partisan bent: Almost without exception they hurt John Kerry and benefited George Bush. After carefully examining the evidence, I've become convinced that the president's party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004. Across the country, Republican election officials and party stalwarts employed a wide range of illegal and unethical tactics to fix the election.
On Exit Polls:
On the evening of the vote, reporters at each of the major networks were briefed by pollsters at 7:54 p.m. Kerry, they were informed, had an insurmountable lead and would win by a rout: at least 309 electoral votes to Bush’s 174, with fifty-five too close to call. In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair went to bed contemplating his relationship with President-elect Kerry.
As the last polling stations closed on the West Coast, exit polls showed Kerry ahead in ten of eleven battleground states – including commanding leads in Ohio and Florida – and winning by a million and a half votes nationally. The exit polls even showed Kerry breathing down Bush’s neck in supposed GOP strongholds Virginia and North Carolina. Against these numbers, the statistical likelihood of Bush winning was less than one in 450,000.
On Ohio:
[Ohio Sec of State Kenneth Blackwell] has openly denounced Kerry as ''an unapologetic liberal Democrat,''(50) and during the 2004 election he used his official powers to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Ohio citizens in Democratic strongholds. In a ruling issued two weeks before the election, a federal judge rebuked Blackwell for seeking to ''accomplish the same result in Ohio in 2004 that occurred in Florida in 2000.''
There's more. Much more.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
If Free Borders Are Good Enough For Corporations, Then Why Not For People, Too?
JONATHAN ROWE - There is an egregious disconnect in the case for the global economy, corporate version. We are told that the world should be without borders, for corporations and stuff. Borders are clogs in the celestial mechanism of the market. They are protectionism, which is darkness to the market's light.
But when the discussion turns to people, somehow the argument flips. Then it's troops, fences, regulations up the kazoo. Corporations get magic visas; cars and video games get them too. But when an actual human being tries to cross the border - well, call out the National Guard.
To which one has to say, "Wait a minute." If the world should be borderless for artificial persons called corporations, then why not for real people? If Ford can go to Mexico to find cheaper labor, then why should not Mexican workers be able to come to the U.S. to find higher-paying jobs - or jobs period? The proponents of global corporatism think that real people should be content with second-class status. I don't think so.
http://onthecommons.org/node/904
But when the discussion turns to people, somehow the argument flips. Then it's troops, fences, regulations up the kazoo. Corporations get magic visas; cars and video games get them too. But when an actual human being tries to cross the border - well, call out the National Guard.
To which one has to say, "Wait a minute." If the world should be borderless for artificial persons called corporations, then why not for real people? If Ford can go to Mexico to find cheaper labor, then why should not Mexican workers be able to come to the U.S. to find higher-paying jobs - or jobs period? The proponents of global corporatism think that real people should be content with second-class status. I don't think so.
http://onthecommons.org/node/904
Morning Line
Courtesy of Sam Smith, The Progressive Review
WE'RE SURPRISED by how many are dismissing the FBI raid on Capitol Hill as permissible law enforcement. The danger is not just the threat of blackmail, but the broader intimidation of Congress by the executive branch. As former House solicitor Charles Tiefer pointed out, "The framers, who were familiar with King George III's disdain for their colonial legislatures, would turn over in their graves." . . .
Now details of the raid suggest the FBI was up to far more than an ordinary search. They were in the office for 18 hours without any legal representation from the Congress and they downloaded all of Rep. Jefferson's computer files.
Let's say, to be kind, that 5% of the material related to bribery or other malfeasance. That means 95% of what the FBI was up to was spying on Congress' constitutional operations and documents that it had no business viewing. Not to mention the possibility that Jefferson's files contain memos outlining Democratic strategy for the next election and, as Tiefer notes, the personal business of "countless innocent constituents."
This is far worse than the Valerie Plame affair. This involves executive branch thuggery designed to intimidate Congress now and perhaps blackmail some of its members later.
Let's impeach the motherfucker already! --Pete
WE'RE SURPRISED by how many are dismissing the FBI raid on Capitol Hill as permissible law enforcement. The danger is not just the threat of blackmail, but the broader intimidation of Congress by the executive branch. As former House solicitor Charles Tiefer pointed out, "The framers, who were familiar with King George III's disdain for their colonial legislatures, would turn over in their graves." . . .
Now details of the raid suggest the FBI was up to far more than an ordinary search. They were in the office for 18 hours without any legal representation from the Congress and they downloaded all of Rep. Jefferson's computer files.
Let's say, to be kind, that 5% of the material related to bribery or other malfeasance. That means 95% of what the FBI was up to was spying on Congress' constitutional operations and documents that it had no business viewing. Not to mention the possibility that Jefferson's files contain memos outlining Democratic strategy for the next election and, as Tiefer notes, the personal business of "countless innocent constituents."
This is far worse than the Valerie Plame affair. This involves executive branch thuggery designed to intimidate Congress now and perhaps blackmail some of its members later.
Let's impeach the motherfucker already! --Pete
Santorum's Harpies
Santorum: The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the result of anal sex. (http://www.spreadingsantorum.com/)--Pete
By Lindsay Beyerstein
Posted on June 1
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/lindsay/36957/
Will Bunch reports that the five "angry young women" who were ejected from Rick Santorum's book signing last August have filed suit. Hat tip to Crooks and Liars.
In other Santorum-related news, AMERICAblog reports that Santorum is 23% behind Bob Casey in PA Senate race.
[Attytood, Crooks and Liars, AMERICAblog]
Lindsay Beyerstein a New York writer blogging at Majikthise.
By Lindsay Beyerstein
Posted on June 1
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/lindsay/36957/
Will Bunch reports that the five "angry young women" who were ejected from Rick Santorum's book signing last August have filed suit. Hat tip to Crooks and Liars.
In other Santorum-related news, AMERICAblog reports that Santorum is 23% behind Bob Casey in PA Senate race.
[Attytood, Crooks and Liars, AMERICAblog]
Lindsay Beyerstein a New York writer blogging at Majikthise.
America's Shame
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Editorial
Jun 1, 2006
The United States being hauled up before the U.N. Committee Against Torture in Geneva last month was a sharp reminder of how America's reputation as a beacon of human rights has sagged in recent years.
There was a time when the United States could go on the offensive in international forums against countries that were human rights violators. It could do that since its position was solidly based on a strong record of respect of civil rights and deeply entrenched rule of law at home.
That base now no longer exists, and American professions of indignation at other countries' violations of human rights have a tinny ring in the light of what has happened to the United States in that regard. It isn't so much that the United States has taken strong measures at home and abroad in response to the 9/11 attacks and to seek to preclude other such events. That was normal. It is rather the degree to which the United States has violated its own previous standards of justice, in the name of 9/11, in the name of what is sold to the American public as defense of U.S. national security.
What it appears took place at U.S. military detention facilities that include Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and in the CIA's secret prisons in Europe, plus the practice of U.S. captors turning prisoners over to countries where torture is openly practiced, are a shame to America.
At home, the Bush administration's disregard of law in designating American citizens as enemy combatants, thus putting them outside of normal, traditional U.S. due process of law; its disregard of the legal requirement that a court approve wiretaps; and the hundreds of times that President Bush has followed signature of a law passed by Congress with a statement that he might, or he might not, carry out that law as Congress passed it are simply some of the ways in which this U.S. government has riddled governance by law in the United States over the past five years with holes like a rural highway sign that has stopped a shotgun blast.
And so the United States gets hauled up before a U.N. human rights tribunal. There is almost always an element of dishonesty in such U.N. institutions, given that their membership frequently includes countries whose own records on such subjects are morally degenerate _ the Zimbabwes, Sudans and Myanmars of this world.
All the worse that the U.S. record in that regard is now so bad that America, the land of the free, ends up in the dock, for torture.
Jun 1, 2006
The United States being hauled up before the U.N. Committee Against Torture in Geneva last month was a sharp reminder of how America's reputation as a beacon of human rights has sagged in recent years.
There was a time when the United States could go on the offensive in international forums against countries that were human rights violators. It could do that since its position was solidly based on a strong record of respect of civil rights and deeply entrenched rule of law at home.
That base now no longer exists, and American professions of indignation at other countries' violations of human rights have a tinny ring in the light of what has happened to the United States in that regard. It isn't so much that the United States has taken strong measures at home and abroad in response to the 9/11 attacks and to seek to preclude other such events. That was normal. It is rather the degree to which the United States has violated its own previous standards of justice, in the name of 9/11, in the name of what is sold to the American public as defense of U.S. national security.
What it appears took place at U.S. military detention facilities that include Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and in the CIA's secret prisons in Europe, plus the practice of U.S. captors turning prisoners over to countries where torture is openly practiced, are a shame to America.
At home, the Bush administration's disregard of law in designating American citizens as enemy combatants, thus putting them outside of normal, traditional U.S. due process of law; its disregard of the legal requirement that a court approve wiretaps; and the hundreds of times that President Bush has followed signature of a law passed by Congress with a statement that he might, or he might not, carry out that law as Congress passed it are simply some of the ways in which this U.S. government has riddled governance by law in the United States over the past five years with holes like a rural highway sign that has stopped a shotgun blast.
And so the United States gets hauled up before a U.N. human rights tribunal. There is almost always an element of dishonesty in such U.N. institutions, given that their membership frequently includes countries whose own records on such subjects are morally degenerate _ the Zimbabwes, Sudans and Myanmars of this world.
All the worse that the U.S. record in that regard is now so bad that America, the land of the free, ends up in the dock, for torture.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
True Patriotism Emerges
By Sean Gonsalves, AlterNet
Posted on May 30, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/36875/
Most dictionaries define a patriot as a person who loves, supports and defends his or her country.
But, according to Ambrose Bierce's "Devil's Dictionary," a patriot is "one to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors." Cynical as it is, the truth of Bierce's definition is plain, especially in light of the my-country-right-or- wrong mentality that has blossomed under President Bush.
Immediately following 9/11, it was hard to tell the difference between jingoistic "patriotism," which puts feelings of trust above truth, and the true patriotism that is emerging at this moment, triggered by the Bush administration's disregard for the Constitution.
It's not news to any reader of this column that I've never been a Bush supporter. I have a laundry list of reasons why, but what's far more interesting and important than my own sense of historical and spiritual consciousness is the burgeoning constitutional consciousness of ordinary citizens who once counted themselves among Bush supporters.
Glenn Greenwald is just such a citizen. A constitutional lawyer who lived and worked in Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001, Greenwald speaks for many in the preface of his new book "How Would A Patriot Act?" Like many Americans, Greenwald felt like the Constitution prevented any serious abuses of power from either party and that since both parties had their share of extremists, "I was never sufficiently moved to become engaged in the electoral process."
Over the past five years, "all that has changed." Greenwald sees extremism shredding the Constitution, which once served to keep him from becoming politically engaged.
"This extremism is neither conservative or liberal in nature, but is instead driven by theories of presidential power wholly alien, and antithetical, to the core political values that have governed this country since its founding," Greenwald writes.
He goes on to talk about his initial faith, even admiration, in Bush's leadership, which crystallized when the president wrapped his arm around a firefighter on top of a pile of Ground Zero rubble.
What first began to shake his "faith" was the Jose Padilla case, in which the Bush administration claimed it could hold a U.S. citizen indefinitely without issuing a charge or providing access to counsel. The Iraq WMD farce really threw Greenwald for a loop. Then came Abu Ghraib.
In October 2005, Greenwald started the "Unclaimed Territory" blog as a way to uphold "the supremacy of our constitutional principles and the corresponding duty of every American citizen to defend these liberties when they are under assault."
Greenwald's analysis, particularly of the NSA wiretapping debacle, is something that should be pondered by all those whose reaction to the NSA program is: "If you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about."
Greenwald walks the reader through how the Bush administration successfully urged Congress to broaden presidential powers with the Patriot Act, including the expansion of eavesdropping powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
After it was passed, the president said he had all the tools he needed to fight the war on terror. So when Bush admitted that he authorized the NSA eavesdropping program without going to the FISA court, he did so "in violation of the very act he had just signed into law," Greenwald said.
"When George Bush ordered the secret NSA program," he continues, "it was not the first time an American president had acted illegally. But what is so astounding, and so profoundly alarming, about the president's behavior is not that he just violated the law deliberately but that he did so repeatedly over the course of many years, and when he was caught he defiantly insisted he had the right to do so."
Though exploring that one fact alone makes Greenwald's 144-page book worth reading, his argument doesn't rest solely on the NSA example. Rather, by analyzing the plethora of constitutional violations committed by the Bush administration over the past five years,
Greenwald's book is important because it raises a fundamental question about patriotism: Loyalty to Bush or to the Constitution?
Sean Gonsalves is a Cape Cod Times staff reporter and a syndicated columnist.
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/36875/
Posted on May 30, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/36875/
Most dictionaries define a patriot as a person who loves, supports and defends his or her country.
But, according to Ambrose Bierce's "Devil's Dictionary," a patriot is "one to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors." Cynical as it is, the truth of Bierce's definition is plain, especially in light of the my-country-right-or- wrong mentality that has blossomed under President Bush.
Immediately following 9/11, it was hard to tell the difference between jingoistic "patriotism," which puts feelings of trust above truth, and the true patriotism that is emerging at this moment, triggered by the Bush administration's disregard for the Constitution.
It's not news to any reader of this column that I've never been a Bush supporter. I have a laundry list of reasons why, but what's far more interesting and important than my own sense of historical and spiritual consciousness is the burgeoning constitutional consciousness of ordinary citizens who once counted themselves among Bush supporters.
Glenn Greenwald is just such a citizen. A constitutional lawyer who lived and worked in Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001, Greenwald speaks for many in the preface of his new book "How Would A Patriot Act?" Like many Americans, Greenwald felt like the Constitution prevented any serious abuses of power from either party and that since both parties had their share of extremists, "I was never sufficiently moved to become engaged in the electoral process."
Over the past five years, "all that has changed." Greenwald sees extremism shredding the Constitution, which once served to keep him from becoming politically engaged.
"This extremism is neither conservative or liberal in nature, but is instead driven by theories of presidential power wholly alien, and antithetical, to the core political values that have governed this country since its founding," Greenwald writes.
He goes on to talk about his initial faith, even admiration, in Bush's leadership, which crystallized when the president wrapped his arm around a firefighter on top of a pile of Ground Zero rubble.
What first began to shake his "faith" was the Jose Padilla case, in which the Bush administration claimed it could hold a U.S. citizen indefinitely without issuing a charge or providing access to counsel. The Iraq WMD farce really threw Greenwald for a loop. Then came Abu Ghraib.
In October 2005, Greenwald started the "Unclaimed Territory" blog as a way to uphold "the supremacy of our constitutional principles and the corresponding duty of every American citizen to defend these liberties when they are under assault."
Greenwald's analysis, particularly of the NSA wiretapping debacle, is something that should be pondered by all those whose reaction to the NSA program is: "If you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about."
Greenwald walks the reader through how the Bush administration successfully urged Congress to broaden presidential powers with the Patriot Act, including the expansion of eavesdropping powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
After it was passed, the president said he had all the tools he needed to fight the war on terror. So when Bush admitted that he authorized the NSA eavesdropping program without going to the FISA court, he did so "in violation of the very act he had just signed into law," Greenwald said.
"When George Bush ordered the secret NSA program," he continues, "it was not the first time an American president had acted illegally. But what is so astounding, and so profoundly alarming, about the president's behavior is not that he just violated the law deliberately but that he did so repeatedly over the course of many years, and when he was caught he defiantly insisted he had the right to do so."
Though exploring that one fact alone makes Greenwald's 144-page book worth reading, his argument doesn't rest solely on the NSA example. Rather, by analyzing the plethora of constitutional violations committed by the Bush administration over the past five years,
Greenwald's book is important because it raises a fundamental question about patriotism: Loyalty to Bush or to the Constitution?
Sean Gonsalves is a Cape Cod Times staff reporter and a syndicated columnist.
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/36875/
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Probe Finds Marines Killed Unarmed Iraqi Civilians
By Tony Perry
LA Times Staff Writer
May 26, 2006
SAN DIEGO — Marines from Camp Pendleton wantonly killed unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, and then tried to cover up the slayings in the insurgent stronghold of Haditha, military investigations have found.
Officials who have seen the findings of the investigations said the filing of criminal charges, including some murder counts, was expected, which would make the Nov. 19 incident the most serious case of alleged U.S. war crimes in Iraq.
An administrative inquiry overseen by Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell found that several infantry Marines fatally shot as many as 24 Iraqis and that other Marines either failed to stop them or filed misleading or blatantly false reports.
The report concludes that a dozen Marines acted improperly after a roadside bomb explosion killed a fellow Marine, Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas.
Looking for insurgents, the Marines entered several homes and began firing their weapons, according to the report.
In its initial statement to the media, the Marine Corps said the Iraqi civilians were killed either by an insurgent bomb or by crossfire between Marines and insurgents.
But after Time magazine obtained pictures showing dead women and children and quoted Iraqis who said the attack was unprovoked, the Marine Corps backtracked on its explanation and called for an investigation.
The Marines, many of whom were on their third deployment to Iraq, are part of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment of the 1st Marine Division.
The battalion commander and two company commanders were relieved of duty last month because, a spokesman said, Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, commanding general of the division, had lost confidence in their leadership.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which conducted a separate investigation, is expected to call for criminal charges, including murder, negligent homicide, dereliction of duty and filing a false report.
After the roadside bomb killed Terrazas, the Marines conducted a sweep of the area, a common military tactic. But instead of following the Geneva Convention rules about identifying combatants, the Marines killed Iraqis in homes and five sitting in a vehicle, reportedly without provocation, the investigation found.
Bargewell's report is to be given soon to Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the top operational commander in Baghdad. Chiarelli will make recommendations involving leadership, training and filing reports. Compensation has already been paid to families of some of the slain Iraqis.
Marine officials also confirmed Thursday that an investigation had been opened into an April 26 incident in which troops allegedly killed a civilian in the town of Hamandiya, west of Baghdad.
Marine Commandant Gen. Michael Hagee flew to Iraq on Thursday to talk to Marines and remind them of long-standing orders to protect Iraqi civilians and follow the Geneva Convention.
Hagee is emphasizing "the importance of our core values" and reminding troops about the laws of war, a Marine Corps statement said.
The Marine commandant planned to read to officers and enlisted personnel a statement reminding them: "We must regulate force and violence, we only damage property that must be damaged, and we protect the noncombatants we find on the battlefield."
Hagee last week briefed key congressional leaders on the upcoming report. One of those, Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a retired Marine colonel, said later that Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood."
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, held a news conference last Friday to plead with reporters, politicians and the public not to judge U.S. troops by the action "of one squad, in one city, on one morning."
The Marines have had more than 700 personnel killed in Iraq.
In his statement, Hagee said that Marines should overcome the tendency "of becoming indifferent to the loss of a human life" in their dealings with Iraqi civilians.
Article...
LA Times Staff Writer
May 26, 2006
SAN DIEGO — Marines from Camp Pendleton wantonly killed unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, and then tried to cover up the slayings in the insurgent stronghold of Haditha, military investigations have found.
Officials who have seen the findings of the investigations said the filing of criminal charges, including some murder counts, was expected, which would make the Nov. 19 incident the most serious case of alleged U.S. war crimes in Iraq.
An administrative inquiry overseen by Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell found that several infantry Marines fatally shot as many as 24 Iraqis and that other Marines either failed to stop them or filed misleading or blatantly false reports.
The report concludes that a dozen Marines acted improperly after a roadside bomb explosion killed a fellow Marine, Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas.
Looking for insurgents, the Marines entered several homes and began firing their weapons, according to the report.
In its initial statement to the media, the Marine Corps said the Iraqi civilians were killed either by an insurgent bomb or by crossfire between Marines and insurgents.
But after Time magazine obtained pictures showing dead women and children and quoted Iraqis who said the attack was unprovoked, the Marine Corps backtracked on its explanation and called for an investigation.
The Marines, many of whom were on their third deployment to Iraq, are part of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment of the 1st Marine Division.
The battalion commander and two company commanders were relieved of duty last month because, a spokesman said, Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, commanding general of the division, had lost confidence in their leadership.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which conducted a separate investigation, is expected to call for criminal charges, including murder, negligent homicide, dereliction of duty and filing a false report.
After the roadside bomb killed Terrazas, the Marines conducted a sweep of the area, a common military tactic. But instead of following the Geneva Convention rules about identifying combatants, the Marines killed Iraqis in homes and five sitting in a vehicle, reportedly without provocation, the investigation found.
Bargewell's report is to be given soon to Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the top operational commander in Baghdad. Chiarelli will make recommendations involving leadership, training and filing reports. Compensation has already been paid to families of some of the slain Iraqis.
Marine officials also confirmed Thursday that an investigation had been opened into an April 26 incident in which troops allegedly killed a civilian in the town of Hamandiya, west of Baghdad.
Marine Commandant Gen. Michael Hagee flew to Iraq on Thursday to talk to Marines and remind them of long-standing orders to protect Iraqi civilians and follow the Geneva Convention.
Hagee is emphasizing "the importance of our core values" and reminding troops about the laws of war, a Marine Corps statement said.
The Marine commandant planned to read to officers and enlisted personnel a statement reminding them: "We must regulate force and violence, we only damage property that must be damaged, and we protect the noncombatants we find on the battlefield."
Hagee last week briefed key congressional leaders on the upcoming report. One of those, Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a retired Marine colonel, said later that Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood."
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, held a news conference last Friday to plead with reporters, politicians and the public not to judge U.S. troops by the action "of one squad, in one city, on one morning."
The Marines have had more than 700 personnel killed in Iraq.
In his statement, Hagee said that Marines should overcome the tendency "of becoming indifferent to the loss of a human life" in their dealings with Iraqi civilians.
Article...
STUDY FINDS POT DOES NOT INCREASE RISK OF CANCER
HEATHER BURKE BLOOMBERG NEWS - People who smoke marijuana may be at less risk of developing lung cancer than tobacco smokers, according to a new study. The study of 2,200 people in Los Angeles found that even heavy marijuana smokers were no more likely to develop lung, head or neck cancer than non-users, in contrast with tobacco users, whose risk increases the more they smoke.
The findings are a surprise because marijuana smoke has some of the same cancer-causing substances as tobacco smoke, often in higher concentrations, said the senior researcher, Donald Tashkin, a professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California-Los Angeles.
One possible explanation is that THC, a key ingredient in marijuana not present in tobacco, may inhibit tumor growth, he said in an interview. .
.
About 1,200 adults under age 60 with cancer of the lung, tongue, mouth, throat or esophagus, took part in the study, as well as about 1,000 without cancer, between 1999 and 2003.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/health/271359_marijuana24.html
The findings are a surprise because marijuana smoke has some of the same cancer-causing substances as tobacco smoke, often in higher concentrations, said the senior researcher, Donald Tashkin, a professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California-Los Angeles.
One possible explanation is that THC, a key ingredient in marijuana not present in tobacco, may inhibit tumor growth, he said in an interview. .
.
About 1,200 adults under age 60 with cancer of the lung, tongue, mouth, throat or esophagus, took part in the study, as well as about 1,000 without cancer, between 1999 and 2003.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/health/271359_marijuana24.html
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Sunday, May 21, 2006
ANTI-UNION SMEAR CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED
PR WATCH - The new industry-funded front group from lobbyist Rick Berman, the Center for Union Facts, has launched its first TV ad campaign. The 30-second spot, running on Fox News and local markets, has "actors posing as workers" saying "sarcastically what they 'love' about unions," like paying dues, union leaders' "fat-cat lifestyles," and discrimination against minorities. The ad campaign cost $3 million, which was raised "from companies, foundations and individuals that Mr. Berman won't identify." Another TV ad will be filmed in June. Labor and economics professor Harley Shaiken said the effort "to create an anti-union atmosphere" more generally, as opposed to business-funded ads against a particular union organizing drive or strike, "is a new wrinkle."
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4817
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4817
Ward Sutton and Sutton Impact: The Case of the Capitulating Corporate Media
Click pic for larger image
Friday, May 19, 2006
Irony alert: Bush asks people to pray for peace
From Alternet
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/36399/
From our you've-gotta-be-kidding-me file, George W. Bush on Tuesday issued a formal presidential proclamation designating May 29 -- Memorial Day -- as "a day of prayer for permanent peace."
"Those who lost their lives in the defense of freedom helped protect our citizens and lay the foundation of peace for people everywhere," reads the proclamation, signed by Bush on May 16. "On Memorial Day, a grateful Nation pays tribute to their personal courage, love of country, and dedication to duty."
In conjunction with a joint resolution of Congress issued in 1950 that compels the president to issue such a proclamation each year, Bush designated "…the hour beginning in each locality at 11:00 a.m. of that day as a time to unite in prayer." The proclamation also requests that all Americans observe a National Moment of Remembrance on Memorial Day at 3:00 PM local time.
As a Veteran, I observe Memorial Day in a private and personal way and, while I understand Bush's responsibility for issuing this proclamation, I don’t think it's any secret why this received almost zero mention in the media. Nobody wants to breach the dignity of Memorial Day and George W. Bush declaring any day a time to wish for peace is just dripping with too much sick irony to acknowledge.
Isn’t this just a bit like Charles Manson declaring a mental-health day or Rush Limbaugh proclaiming a certain date as a time to renounce recreational Oxycontin? How seriously are we suppose to take a pray-for-peace proclamation from a man who lied us into a pointless war and who has the blood of tens of thousands of human beings on his hands?
But I don’t think Bush has anything to worry about as most of the country has been praying for peace on a daily basis ever since he took office. In that way, May 29 will just be another day.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/36399/
From our you've-gotta-be-kidding-me file, George W. Bush on Tuesday issued a formal presidential proclamation designating May 29 -- Memorial Day -- as "a day of prayer for permanent peace."
"Those who lost their lives in the defense of freedom helped protect our citizens and lay the foundation of peace for people everywhere," reads the proclamation, signed by Bush on May 16. "On Memorial Day, a grateful Nation pays tribute to their personal courage, love of country, and dedication to duty."
In conjunction with a joint resolution of Congress issued in 1950 that compels the president to issue such a proclamation each year, Bush designated "…the hour beginning in each locality at 11:00 a.m. of that day as a time to unite in prayer." The proclamation also requests that all Americans observe a National Moment of Remembrance on Memorial Day at 3:00 PM local time.
As a Veteran, I observe Memorial Day in a private and personal way and, while I understand Bush's responsibility for issuing this proclamation, I don’t think it's any secret why this received almost zero mention in the media. Nobody wants to breach the dignity of Memorial Day and George W. Bush declaring any day a time to wish for peace is just dripping with too much sick irony to acknowledge.
Isn’t this just a bit like Charles Manson declaring a mental-health day or Rush Limbaugh proclaiming a certain date as a time to renounce recreational Oxycontin? How seriously are we suppose to take a pray-for-peace proclamation from a man who lied us into a pointless war and who has the blood of tens of thousands of human beings on his hands?
But I don’t think Bush has anything to worry about as most of the country has been praying for peace on a daily basis ever since he took office. In that way, May 29 will just be another day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)