New income figures: richest get even richer

By G. Dunkel

Published Dec 8, 2006 11:03 PM

The old Marxist aphorism is being proven yet again. The rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. In fact, the richest of the rich in the United States are getting wealthier faster than just the merely rich, while people in the bottom 90 percent have basically seen their incomes stagnate over the past 15 years, moving up and down with the economic tides.

The most detailed technical analysis of the income gap comes from two academic economists, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, who rely on data released by the IRS. These figures have a two-year lag, but the authors point out that press reports and anecdotal data show the trends established between 1990 and 2004 have if anything intensified over the past two years. (elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/pikettyqje.pdf)

There was a deep chasm in 2004 between the very wealthy, the people in the top 1 percent whose family incomes averaged $326,270, and the rest of this country. The median family income that year was $43,389, meaning half the population earned less than that, and generally reflected the earnings of two or more people working in the household.

In constant dollars adjusted for inflation, the mean income has actually declined slightly since 1990, even as the incomes of the wealthy have vastly expanded. (wikipedia.org)

From 1990 to 2004, according to Piketty and Saez, the average family income of the top 1 percent of the population grew by 53 percent, while the bottom 90 percent saw their total incomes increase by just 2 percent. But the richer people were, the more their incomes increased. So the top one-tenth of 1 percent—with average family incomes of $2,018,910—enjoyed an increase of 85 percent over the same time period. And, dividing even further, the top one-tenth of that group wallowed in a jump of 112 percent. These top of the top have an average family income of $12,775,016.

This data is very broad and doesn’t catch income disparities based on gender. It doesn’t reflect what has happened to Black people in the United States, who average about 73 percent the income of their white counterparts, according to the Urban League.

It doesn’t distinguish between wage income of workers and the income of capitalists, who get their wealth mostly through various forms of profits. Wages alone put very few people into the top 1 percent. And it is not just income, but ownership of the means of production, that defines who become part of the ruling class.

These figures also don’t reflect the increased costs of housing, health care and education that are leaving so many workers deep in debt.

What the figures do show, however, is that income disparity in the U.S. in recent years has become greater than at any time since 1929—the year the bubble burst and the Great Depression began.

That disaster laid the basis for a huge working class struggle that spurred the formation of industrial unions and eventually won government social programs to alleviate poverty—like welfare, unemployment insurance, the minimum wage and Social Security. While these programs helped workers survive and get a living wage, they did not change the underlying tendency of capitalism to create poles of extreme wealth and extreme poverty, which will continue until another great working class struggle erupts.

E-mail: gdunkel@workers.org

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‘Enhanced’ temporary workers launch ‘enhanced’ fight

Fired & fed up at Illinois Chrysler plant

Published Dec 8, 2006 11:06 PM

Imagine being one of 10,000 people applying for 1,000 jobs. Imagine passing a five-hour written test, an eight-hour manual dexterity and physical ability test, a background check, a medical exam and a grueling interview. Imagine abruptly quitting your current job because the DaimlerChrysler Corporation has informed you that you must report for work immediately—you are one of “the chosen few.”

This was the scenario earlier this year for hundreds of workers in Belvidere, Ill., buoyant at the good fortune of getting a job in auto. Their exhilaration was tempered, to say the least, the day of their orientation. There they were informed that they were being hired as “Enhanced Temporary Employees” (ETEs).

An ETE is paid two-thirds the wage of a permanent hourly production worker. An ETE gets no raises, has no dental or vision coverage, no pension credits and no sick pay. There is no health insurance for eight months, and then it is not the same as that of a permanent, UAW-represented employee.

When ETEs are laid off, they cannot receive supplemental unemployment benefits or be placed in the jobs bank; they have no recall rights; if they work fewer than 40 hours they do not receive short work pay. They have no seniority rights and almost no access to the grievance procedure—and they can be fired for the slightest infraction.

Sexual harassment is rampant; women who complain have been fired. Injuries are commonplace, but injured workers have not been able to collect workers’ compensation, nor can they collect unemployment because they are unable to work. Workers have literally collapsed while working the lines.

The most logical conclusion would be, “They ought to form a union.” Sadly, they are already in a union. They were trapped in a web of deception spun by the DaimlerChrysler Corporation (DCX) with the cooperation of the governor of Illinois and the leadership of the United Auto Workers.

Much media fanfare accompanied the 2005 announcement by DCX that they would be adding 1,000 jobs at the Belvidere assembly plant, with the launch of the Dodge Caliber.

The launch had a hefty price tag—$416 million to retool Belvidere Assembly for the new model. The cost to DCX was reduced by nearly 25 percent with close to $100 million in state “opportunity returns grants.” For 11 months the well-kept secret, never disclosed to future workers nor publicized in the media, was that the burden of further cost reductions would be borne by “the chosen few.”

“Nothing in the contract applies to us,” Kathy Hungness—one of the 800 or so who were actually hired as ETEs—told Workers World. Hired in June and kept in the dark about her temporary status until the last minute, she was terminated in October.

She’s not alone. Some 250 workers have been terminated so far, recently 50 in just one week. They can apply for unemployment, but so far none have seen a check, and they cannot apply for emergency public assistance until their status with unemployment is clarified. They cannot go back to the jobs they gave up, and jobs are hard to find. “We have families to feed,” stated Hungness. “They’re throwing us away.”

Hungness is not just fired, however. She’s fired up and has organized rank-and-file ETEs into the group Enhanced Fight.

Now 150 have joined Hungness in a class-action lawsuit against DCX and the UAW, and more are joining every day. The first organizing meeting of Enhanced Fight was a huge success, with many volunteering for fundraising, membership, phone tree and community-action committees. They hope to have a public protest sometime in the future.

Hungness had a message for this writer, who is a 19-year DCX employee in Twinsburg, Ohio: “If we don’t stand up for our rights that were broken here, this will come to you. Enough of concessions, enough, enough!”

Messages of support for Enhanced Fight can be sent to Sister Hungness at kpsd1968@yahoo.com.

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"Let's Impeach The President", by Neil Young

This Modern World's Highly Subjective "Year In Review"

Click On Image For Larger Pic

No relief from the Iraq Study Group

Turmoil in Baghdad and Washington

By John Catalinotto

Published Dec 7, 2006 1:40 AM

The Iraqi resistance continues handing setbacks to U.S. occupation and Iraqi puppet forces. With 10 GIs reported killed on Dec. 3, including deaths from a helicopter crash the Pentagon claims was “mechanical,” official U.S. troop deaths are over 2,900. Car bombings leave Baghdad in turmoil. U.S. forces in Anbar Province once again are striking residential areas with bombs, rockets and artillery, killing children and other civilians although they allege their targets are fighters.

U.S. aggression in Iraq has led to disaster. Most of all, disaster for the Iraqi people. How bad it is was hinted at by outgoing United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, who broke a taboo by telling the BBC on Dec. 4 that it is worse now for ordinary Iraqis than under Saddam Hussein. Annan added that U.N. inspectors sent to Iraq could have avoided the war “if they had more time,” that is, if the Bush administration had not been hell-bent to carry out a criminal invasion.

But it is also a disaster for the Bush administration’s original scheme to conquer an entire region, monopolize its resources and use it as a base of expansion. Instead, the invasion and occupation have exposed U.S. political and military weaknesses to the world, in what former President Jimmy Carter calls “one of the greatest blunders that [U.S.] American presidents have ever made.”

Washington has its own kind of turmoil these days as ruling circles there battle over how to cut U.S. losses. Attention is now focused on the upcoming Dec. 6 report from the Iraq Study Group, set up by Congress last March to study ways to change U.S. fortunes in Baghdad.

Led by former Secretary of State James Baker, who is now an adviser to former President George H.W. Bush, and made up of five Republicans and five Democrats, the ISG has become a point of reference for all Washington. According to leaks—which have been frequent in Washington lately—the ISG will offer some compromise programs that add up to a gradual drawback of U.S. combat forces from Iraq, replacing them with U.S. military advisers to the Iraqi puppet troops.

These programs include the possibility of negotiating with Iran and Syria, but also allow U.S. military commanders flexibility to keep U.S. troops in Iraq, as determined by conditions there. It is also unclear how the ISG will impose its program on the administration. But already the news from Iraq is that more U.S. advisers—even though they are not specially trained for the job—are now attached to Iraqi units. (New York Times, Dec. 5)

Iraq out of U.S. control

Revealing U.S. weaknesses are recent statements by U.S. diplomats and officials regarding the bleak prospects that ISG “solutions” will lead anywhere. One of the harshest critiques came from Richard C. Holbrooke, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Holbrooke is a hard-nosed imperialist diplomat. In 1995 he brokered the Dayton Accords by using threats of continued NATO bombing to force the Yugoslav government to make serious concessions to Washington’s ongoing attempt to break up that country.

Of Iraq, Holbrooke said: “For all the excitement in Washington, this will be decided on the ground in Baghdad. The United States has lost its capacity to shape the events on the ground, regardless of what’s recommended by the commission, regardless of what’s done by the U.S. military and the president.” (Washington Post, Dec. 1)

Strangely enough, one of the warlords who finally realized his Iraq policy had ended in shambles is recently fired Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In a classified memo written to the White House on Nov. 6, two days before he was dismissed—this one leaked to the New York Times—Rumsfeld noted: “In my view it is time for a major adjustment. Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough.”

Rumsfeld’s memo is a list of often contradictory proposals that create an illusion that he was being flexible, but also indicate how desperate the U.S. position is. Some of the media report that Rumsfeld’s memo was growing closer to the Democratic Party position.

Even Bush had to pay lip service to his problems in Iraq in his Dec. 2 Saturday radio address. “I recognize that the recent violence in Iraq has been unsettling,” he said. “Many people in our country are wondering about the way forward.”

But while Bush talks of more flexibility, his stance is to keep stalling. His public position is that as long as the U.S. has the will to stay, it can “win” in Iraq.

Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), an ex-Marine officer with close ties to the Pentagon who first raised objections to the Iraq occupation a year ago, called the Iraq Study Group’s plan “unacceptable to me” because it would not begin to withdraw troops immediately. “If it depends on circumstances on the ground, it’s not a lot different than what President Bush is saying,” he told CNN on Nov. 30.

Murtha, who earlier asked the U.S. to pull its forces out of Iraq and into neighboring countries from where it can use air power, is one of the few Democrats in Congress to criticize the ISG. Now in control of Congress, most Democratic Party leaders have avoided taking a strong stand. They deny even thinking about withholding funds from the military—their only lever of power—or of demanding anything more than a lengthy timetable for pulling out troops.

No one can expect quick relief for Iraqis or even for U.S. troops to come from a decision by the Bush administration. The debates playing out in Washington are among forces that are all representatives of U.S. imperialist interests. They can’t find any tactical measures that can be guaranteed to protect those interests, which points to a continuation of the occupation. Only the exhaustion of U.S. forces or a popular upheaval at home against the war can hasten its end.

E-mail: jcat@workers.org

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It Had To Happen...

MEANWHILE, OBAMA has blown his cover. The NY Daily News reports his assessment of what happened when cops fired 50 bullets at an innocent man. Using the weasel wording beloved by the Washington establishment, Obama said it "strikes me as excessive."

No one asked him how many bullets into an innocent victim the police should be allowed to shoot, but added that the police operate with restraint 99 percent of the time.

And this is a guy from Chicago. 

Hugo Chávez beats the spread

By Joshua Holland
Posted on December 4, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/joshua/45097/

It looks like Evan beat me to the punch here (I'm apartment hunting and have a bad internet connection), but let me add a couple of points.

Two weeks ago, the Washington Post was managing expectations leading up to yesterday's presidential elections in Venezuela. "Setbacks" for Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, the WaPo's Juan Forero told us, were emboldening the opposition. While Chávez led most polls by at least 15-20 points, "there [were] signs the government is anxious about a strong showing by the opposition." The implication was that a win by, say, ten percentage points would have represented a rebuke of Chávez' policies.

It was a variation on a familiar theme about What Elections In Latin America Really Mean, and it goes like this: everything in Latin American politics is a reflection on Hugo Chávez' style. There are no issues that move voters from Mexico to Brazil except for Chávez' populism and ideological clashes with the United States. Whenever a candidate to the left of Pinochet loses -- anywhere -- it's because the people have renounced Hugo's divisive brand of neo-socialism. At the same time, any win for a candidate on the left only resulted because he or she distanced him or herself from Chávez. So, while an American president who takes 51 percent of the vote has a mandate -- elections matter, we're told -- a Chávez victory in anything less than a landslide is actually a defeat for his Bolivarian revolution. Ho hum.

Anyway, it looks like Chávez beat the spread; with 78 percent of the votes counted, electoral authorities announced last night that Chávez had won 61.3 percent of the vote to 38.4 percent for his opponent Manuel Rosales. That's slightly higher than Chávez last win, but within the same 60 percent range that he's gotten in 1998, 2000 and 2004.

Rosales, who ran a tough campaign and got in some good shots on Chávez where he was weakest -- on Venezuela's high level of violent crime and on the charge that Hugo is too concerned with foreign policy -- conceded to Chávez without charging fraud, an unusual move for the Venezuelan opposition (this election was watched by hundreds of independent monitors from the U.S., Latin America and Europe).

There are isolated reports of opposition gangs attacking celebrating Chavistas, but overall the opposition looks as if its handling its loss reasonably well. That's important, as some observers warned (scroll down to November 21 entry) that a coup might immediately follow a Chávez win. Crucial to the plans that were allegedly hatched by some members of the opposition -- with Washington's backing -- would be the emergence of widespread allegations of fraud, leading to massive street protests culminating in an "Orange Revolution" scenario. But with Chávez' margin of victory over 20 points, the losing candidate stopping short of declaring fraud and election monitors reporting few significant problems, that dog is unlikely to hunt.

As in previous elections, yesterday's vote will leave Chávez in a stronger position, and he's promised to redouble his efforts to redistribute Venezuela's impressive wealth. We'll hear a lot about why the opposition lost -- they weren't organized, or they came together too late or the government spent tons of money on Chávez' campaign. The truth is that Chávez won because the Venezuelan people are more hopeful than they've been in past elections, the economy is booming, the private sector is adding jobs at a breakneck rate, poverty has fallen dramatically and the opposition' promises apparently were not credible for six out of ten Venezuelan voters.

In the coming weeks, we'll likely hear quite a bit about Chávez' talk of changing the Venezuelan Constitution to allow him to seek re-election in 2013. It's just talk so far, and a change would require a national referendum on a new Constitution. I oppose it in principle -- 15 years is plenty of time in office for any one individual -- but if it were to come about with the consent of the majority of the Venezuelan people in a free and fair vote, well, that's just democracy.

Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer.

© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/joshua/45097/

Dispatch From BushCo's Police State

As Economic Crisis Grows

By Monica Moorehead
New York

Published Dec 5, 2006 10:37 PM

The Nov. 25 police shootings of three unarmed young African-American men in Queens, N.Y., continue to evoke deep-seated feelings of righteous anger and distrust towards the New York Police Department and the city administration.

Charles Barron speaks to the media Dec. 4 on rampant police brutality in NYC. Viola Plummer is to his left. WW photo: Monica Moorehead

Several undercover police officers emptied 50 bullets into a moving car at 4 a.m., resulting in the death of 23-year-old Sean Bell and the wounding of two of his friends: Joseph Guzman, shot 11 times, and Trent Benefield, shot three times. The three men were leaving a bachelor party for Bell, who was scheduled to be married later that same day, when they were confronted by plain-clothes police.

Guzman and Benefield were reportedly handcuffed to their hospital beds before they were operated on for their wounds.

These tragic shootings are the latest in a long list of deadly police shootings of Black, Latin@ and Asian people in New York over several decades. Similar to many other urban areas, the police in this city are viewed as a repressive, occupying force that follows up racial profiling with terror, especially in the working-class communities of color.

Police who carry out acts of brutality against people of color are very seldom brought up on felony charges, much less indicted. District attorneys put enormous pressure on grand juries to find some excuse to let the police off the hook.

Since the police are central to the criminal justice system, the laws are written to protect them and not the people victimized by them. In the case of the Nov. 25 shootings, the police involved have been put on administrative leave but are still on the payroll.

Black activists call for citywide protest

On Dec. 4, leaders of the Brooklyn-based December 12 Movement along with City Councilperson Charles Barron held a press conference at One Police Plaza, the headquarters of the NYPD. The main purpose of this event was to announce the first in a series of protests to “Resist Fascism and the Rise of the American Police State,” to be held Dec. 6 at One Police Plaza.

Attorney Roger Wareham from D12 stated that the protest had been planned for a month in response to increased complaints of police abuse. He characterized Bell’s death as an “execution.” The protest will demand the firing of Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Assistant Police Chief Anthony J. Izzo, head of the NYPD’s Organized Crime Control Bureau.

Councilperson Barron spoke on how the city is running out of chances to stop an angry explosion of Black people, who are fed up with police brutality. Barron recalled the many Black people who have been killed by the cops but never received any kind of justice—that is, no police were sent to jail—including Eleanor Bumpurs, Malcolm Ferguson, Timothy Stansbury Jr., Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond.

Barron answered critics who stated that the shootings of Bell, Guzman and Benefield were not racially motivated because two of the cops involved were also Black. “The victims’ having Black skin makes the shootings racist. Race is alive and well in New York City,” he said.

He went on to say that just because certain Black people hold high positions, like U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas or former NYPD Police Commissioner Benjamin Ward, doesn’t mean that institutionalized racism is over. Barron called for all grand juries that focus on police killings to be made public.

Viola Plummer, a leader of D12 and a former political prisoner, stated, “Unless the people take over the reins of power on a federal, state and local level, the fascistic nature of the state will not abate.” She also talked about how the so-called war on terror was just another excuse to target Muslims, Arabs and South Asians along with Black, Latin@, poor and working people.

Police repression and economic crisis

The Nov. 25 shootings not only impacted the lives of Bell, Guzman and Benefield and their families and friends but the larger Black community throughout every borough in New York.

Gentrification is deepening in Harlem and Brooklyn, driving out the poor to make room for the wealthy and affluent; unemployment and underemployment are intensifying poverty and despair, especially for young people, with the unemployment rate for young Black men in New York close to 50 percent; students of color are dropping out of school at astronomical rates while the police treat them like criminals; hospitals and clinics are closing their doors, especially in the poorest areas. It is no coincidence that police brutality and occupation have become even more omnipresent.

These deplorable conditions are part of the overall assault on workers’ rights, including low wages, disappearing pensions, little to no health care, speed-ups, layoffs, the demonizing of immigrant workers and much more.

The police exist as an armed force separate and apart from the people to keep order on behalf of the wealthy owners of industry, banking and commerce. Maintaining “order” means using all kinds of repressive measures to keep the masses down and divided.

Poverty, racism and suffering have sown the seeds of rebellion, as history has shown. The police and the class interests they protect fear the rebellions that are sure to come—whether they are in the oppressed communities or during a strike. This makes it even more important for working people and progressive movements to come out in solidarity with the oppressed communities to fight against police brutality wherever it rears its ugly head.

E-mail: mmoorehead@workers.org

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Despite protests, bear hunt still set for Friday, Saturday

You'll notice that AP didn't feel the need to reveal that the "hunt" would be taking place on a national wildlife refuge until the end of the piece.--Pete

By the Associated Press

November 29, 2006

SUFFOLK, Va. -- A black bear hunt in 21,000 acres of the Great Dismal Swamp will proceed as planned Friday and Saturday, despite opposition from animal rights groups, officials said.

In Defense of Animals and the Animal Welfare Institute have sought to cancel the hunt with a letter-writing drive and online petition.

The two groups sent a 14-page letter, along with the American Environment Foundation, on Tuesday to the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife. In it, they wrote that the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife "failed to comply with proper procedures and has ignored its duties under federal law to evaluate the environmental impacts of the hunt."

John Stasko, a refuge supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the department will review the letter but go forward with the hunt. He said the department followed federal law and has provided information to the groups regarding its environmental assessment studies.

Stasko also said the groups had an opportunity over the last three years to raise objections but launched a final-week attempt to stop the hunt.

Suzanne Baird, the manager for the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, has said the refuge worked with biologists and concluded that the hunt "won't be a significant impact to the population" of black bears.

One-hundred hunters were selected through a lottery for the right to kill 20 bears. The hunt does not extend to the North Carolina portion of the refuge.

Fishin' For Nazis!

Via Alternet

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/45079/

In the wake of this latest episode of cowardly behavior by American bigots, liberal DC talk show host Jerry Klein ripped the proverbial sheet off a number of heads with his on-air modest proposal to force Muslims to wear crescent armbands or to simply tattoo them.

Listeners, unable to comprehend their own Nazi sympathies, piled on. From Rock Strongo:

"Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their forehead but you ship them out of this country ... they are here to kill us."

Another said that tattoos, armbands and other identifying markers such as crescent marks on driver's licenses, passports and birth certificates did not go far enough. "What good is identifying them?" he asked. "You have to set up encampments like during World War Two with the Japanese and Germans."

Then, after listening to earnest statements like this for 30 minutes, not to mention at least one caller outraged by the prospect, Klein came clean (I've condensed the show to a 7-minute segment you can listen to or download below the video above. It contains the proposal, a caller, and the revelation...):

"I can't believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said. For me to suggest to tattoo marks on people's bodies, have them wear armbands, put a crescent moon on their driver's license on their passport or birth certificate is disgusting. It's beyond disgusting.

Because basically what you just did was show me how the German people allowed what happened to the Jews to happen ... We need to separate them, we need to tattoo their arms, we need to make them wear the yellow Star of David, we need to put them in concentration camps, we basically just need to kill them all because they are dangerous."

Stop the bloodbaths!

By Nikos Raptis, ZNet
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2006-11/24raptis.cfm

The (latest and current) bloodbaths are: 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Madrid bombing, London bombings, Lebanon, Gaza (again), ...

The killing of Americans, British, Spaniards, and other Westerners by non-Americans is called "terrorism".

The killing of non-Americans by Americans, British, and other Westerners is called "war on terror".

Bush (the Second) stated that the non-Americans (mostly the Arab Muslims) started the bloodbaths because they hate the Americans for being free, democratic, etc.

Assuming that humans are rational, there is no doubt that they wish that the bloodbaths should stop. Also, being rational, they wish to stop the killing without using violence.

George W. Bush (and his collaborators) claim that the only way to stop the bloodbaths perpetrated by the "terrorists" is through violence (even preemptive violence).

The "terrorists" claim that as long as the American Government (et al) are murdering their children they are obliged to retaliate by kill ordinary Americans (and their "willing" collaborators).

But, does the American Government kill Arab children, etc? And, if it does, are the ordinary Americans aware of these killings. An effort to answer both questions was made in previous (ZNet) Commentaries starting with the one of December 13, 2001. The answer to both questions, then, was that: Yes! They are aware. The results of the US congressional elections confirm that this claim is correct. The US elites and their collaborators (Israelis, British, Australians, etc) kill innocent people and the ordinary Americans are aware of it.

So, how do we (all the peoples of the World) put an end to the bloodbaths?

Let us start with the (ordinary) Americans: "If there was ever a time for [the US] to look closely at itself in the mirror, now is the time... Shame on us if we don't have a very aggressive debate about what we should be... We need to take responsibility as a people..." Who uttered these words is irrelevant. If an individual states that 2 plus 3 equals 5 the truth of the statement supercedes the education, the profession, etc of the individual.

The above quoted statement, after replacing [the US] with the correct original word "Louisiana", belongs to Mitch Landrieu, the lieutenant governor of Louisiana and the occasion was a meeting funded by the United Engineering Foundation and organized and hosted by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and several other universities in the region to discuss the rebuilding of New Orleans.

What would the ordinary Americans see in the mirror, if they were to decide to look in it? They would see a people that did not react MASSIVELY:

- When Madeleine Albright, after killing half a million Iraqi infants (through Clinton's embargo), said: "We think it was worth it."

- When Barbara Bush, mother of George W. Bush, said that the New Orleans blacks were lucky to be in the luxury of the "Louisiana Superdome", after Katrina drove them away from their miserable homes.

- When the son of Barbara said that only 35,000 Iraqi civilians were killed (obviously, an insignificant number) and that the number of 650,000 of Johns Hopkins University was inaccurate.

One could argue that the ordinary Americans did react massively with their votes on November 7. Or, even, that Johns Hopkins is an American university that had the moral power to come up with the above number. The answer to this is that the reaction of the ordinary Americans has to be deep. Very deep! Not the rather shallow (if not irrelevant) "traditional" electoral process, no matter how praiseworthy the Johns Hopkins report.

But let us now turn to the other side, the (so-called) "terrorists". There are two kinds of them. To the first kind belong those that hit towers, bomb subways, etc. To the second kind belong those that resist a foreign force that invades and occupies their country. Therefore, the term "terrorists" does not apply to them. For example, in (the brutal) reality of Iraq they should be considered Resistance Fighters (comparable to the Resistance Fighters against he Nazis during the Second World War).

Historically it has been proven that the first kind, who indiscriminately kill civilians, etc, are nothing but "assistants" to the murderous dominant powers. If there was no 9/11, Bush (the second) would have been non-existent, Ashcroft would not have released his religiously psychotic "patriotisms", Rumsfeld would have impressed with his virile postures no one but the ladies of his local Christian congregation, Rove, etc, etc.

So, if the first kind of reaction (through indiscriminant killing) is not only immoral but also helps the murderous dominant powers, then what can those harmed by them do? The only answer is found in the overwhelming power that resides in the number (the massive number) of the women and the men of the world.

The ordinary Americans have this power and they have the moral duty to use it in order to bring about a deep, a very deep, change. This duty becomes even more imperative due to the fact that they are free to exercise it. A freedom that in reality does not exist in other "democracies".

This very deep change will be accomplished by bringing to justice the war criminals: Bush, Blair, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rove, Rice, and the rest of the murderous individuals who were responsible for the killing, raping, and torturing of hundreds of thousands of humans.

What is important is not which will be the tribunal that will judge them, or how this is going to be accomplished, or if there are legal "tools" available. What is of paramount importance is that the American women and men should make known to the war criminals that they DEMAND their punishment. The use of terms as the International Criminal Court (of Rome), the Geneva Accords, etc only weaken the effort. There is a single word that describes in the most powerful and most accurate way the (moral) intentions of the women and men not only of America but of the entire word. The word is: NUREMBERG! This should be the motto for all of us. Nuremberg for all the war criminals and their minions.

The first step has already been taken!

A few days ago (on November 14, 2006), German and American lawyers "asked a German prosecutor to investigate Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on allegations of war crimes..." [International Herald Tribune, Nov. 15, '06]. It is up to ALL of us to elevate this moral struggle to a higher level and not let it become only "a lingering irritant" for Rumsfeld, "who is soon to lose the legal protection of his cabinet post...should he decide to travel overseas as a private citizen..." [IHT, page 8]

However, this effort should aim even higher than Nuremberg. The American people and the rest of the world should find the moral courage to face the fundamental problem between them:

- The American people should apologize to the world for the grave crimes that the American Governments have been committing against the peoples of the world (at least) for the last 60 years, in the name of the American people.

- The peoples of he world who have been harmed by the American Governments should accept this apology and should declare that they will stop exercising active Resistance by violent means against the Americans and their collaborators.

Thus, without "terrorism" as a weapon in the hands of Bush (and any future Bush) to terrorize the ordinary Americans this could become a more peaceful and moral world. [Note 1: To be really successful, an effort to stop the bloodshed should take into account the following tragic and unbelievable fact: "By the beginning of the 1990s the income of those in the top 20 percent worldwide was almost 60 times as much as the income of those in the bottom 20 percent". (This according to the Worldwatch Institute). However, I am told that the correct number is close to 600 or 700 times!]

[Note 2: The Katrina case of New Orleans is equally instructive as the numbers in the above Note 1. An estimated 460,000 pre-Katrina residents have not returned. "Nearly 79,000 families have applied to the $7.5 million program to rebuild Louisiana. Only 1,721 have been told how much grant money they will receive. And just 22 have received access to the cash, which was provided by federal taxpayers..." (New York Times, Nov. 11, '06). Meanwhile, $ 32.5 million were spent to restore the Louisiana Superdome (of Barbara Bush fame). Finally, it is reasonable to wonder if, as an adult, Rumsfeld has ever thought how much human misery could have been eliminated with the money he spends for a single week in Iraq? End of Notes.]

Hatred of Muslims Runs High in U.S.

REUTERS - When radio host Jerry Klein suggested that all Muslims in the United States should be identified with a crescent-shape tattoo or a distinctive arm band, the phone lines jammed instantly. The first caller to the station in Washington said that Klein must be "off his rocker." The second congratulated him and added: "Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their forehead but you ship them out of this country ... they are here to kill us."

Another said that tattoos, armbands and other identifying markers such as crescent marks on driver's licenses, passports and birth certificates did not go far enough. "What good is identifying them?" he asked. "You have to set up encampments like during World War Two with the Japanese and Germans."

At the end of the one-hour show, rich with arguments on why visual identification of "the threat in our midst" would alleviate the public's fears, Klein revealed that he had staged a hoax. . . "I can't believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said," he told his audience on the AM station 630 WMAL, which covers Washington, Northern Virginia and Maryland

"For me to suggest to tattoo marks on people's bodies, have them wear armbands, put a crescent moon on their driver's license on their passport or birth certificate is disgusting. It's beyond disgusting. Because basically what you just did was show me how the German people allowed what happened to the Jews to happen ... We need to separate them, we need to tattoo their arms, we need to make them wear the yellow Star of David, we need to put them in concentration camps, we basically just need to kill them all because they are dangerous.". . .

A Gallup poll this summer of more than 1,000 Americans showed that 39 percent were in favor of requiring Muslims in the United States, including American citizens, to carry special identification. Roughly a quarter of those polled said they would not want to live next door to a Muslim and a third thought that Muslims in the United States sympathized with al Qaeda, the extremist group behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

Reagan’s NSA chief speaks out

Retired general asks, What’s wrong with cutting and running?
By Corey Pein

Some would have you believe that only terrorists and San Francisco liberals want the U.S. out of Iraq. Retired Lt. Gen. William Odom proves otherwise. Odom ran the National Security Agency — a major employer here in Augusta — for three years under President Ronald Reagan. Now he is a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute. He is also an outspoken opponent of the invasion of Iraq and the “war on terrorism,” which he derides as “a slogan” that made Al Qaeda “far more effective.” The Metro Spirit interviewed him recently.

Metro Spirit: What are your feelings on the NSA’s program of warrantless wiretapping of American citizens?

William Odom: It didn’t happen under my watch. And I’m still puzzled why somebody hasn’t tried to impeach the president for doing it. Any conservative in the United States who values his life [ought to be outraged]. In fact, the South seceded in defense of minority rights — why the hell have they forgotten them now? Ben Franklin said, “somebody who values security over liberty deserves neither.”

MS: What do you say to people, and there are plenty here in Augusta, who say that cutting and running from Iraq is traitorous act?

WO: Well, just tell ‘em they’re full of shit. They're traitors. You know what lemmings are? Yeah, they’re lemmings. We went to war for our enemies’ best interests. You ask those people why it makes sense that we went to war to advance the interests of Iran and Al Qaeda.

MS: Will the Democrat-controlled Congress change anything?

WO: No, not much. I think that what’s gonna change the course is that we’re losing the war. It’s not the Congress that’s changing things. I’ve never seen much spine on the part of the Democrats. What’s gonna change it, if anything, is that [Defense Secretary nominee Robert] Gates has thought that we have a ridiculous policy toward Iran, because they’re going to get nuclear weapons anyway. He has never thought the war made any sense.

MS: Do you think President Bush wants to invade Iran?

WO: The prime minister of Israel was here begging him [Bush] to do it. People down there in Augusta, they’re just being led around by the snout. I grew up in East Tennessee. I know what Georgians are like. I’m a redneck, and there are a lot of stupid rednecks. You can quote me saying that. Ask ‘em if they know that the United States is one of the greatest supporters of terrorism in the globe. I’m all for my terrorists, I’m just against their terrorists.

MS: So you think the Israel lobby, as you put it, was the reason we invaded Iraq?

WO: The religious right here pushed it. I don’t think the oil issue has much to do with it. Your enemies will sell you oil. Do we need to own a country to get oil from it? As much as [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chavez hates us, he gives us oil. The oil issue by and large is a red herring. Ask those guys after what we’ve done in Iraq, if anybody who’s gonna run Iraq is gonna be pro-American. The Iranians have been telling the Shiites, “Do what the Americans tell you.” Do you know why? Because the American democracy program was gonna put Shiites in charge. There are more Shiites in the country. Now they can kill off the Sunnis.

MS: It’s been said that Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi exile whose bogus intelligence helped build American support for war, was an Iranian agent. Do you think so?

WO: Of course he’s working for Iran. He’d work for anybody against anybody else. You got all those hardliners in Augusta who are suckers for any kinda city slicker. They’re suckers for this criminal banker from Jordan.

MS: You say the Iranians will get nukes no matter what we do.

WO: Just like North Korea got ‘em.

MS: So, then, what should we do? Should we pressure Israel to disarm its nuclear weapons?

WO: I don’t care whether they disarm or not. Why don’t you ask Israel to give up their weapons if the Iranians will give ‘em up, too? The Iraq war has made Israel much less secure. Al Qaeda can operate in Iraq now. How stupid can you be? The crowd I don’t know what to do about is the religious right who believe in the Book of Revelations. They used to tell me the Earth was flat. There must be some smart rednecks down there. It’s time for them to stand up.

---

From the Nov. 30 issue of the Augusta, Ga. Metro Spirit. Visit www.metrospirit.com. Find Odom's articles at niemanwatchdog.org.

Private Sector and its PR wing, the Mainstream Media, Wrong On Social Security

DEAN BAKER, PROSPECT - Chris Farrell demonstrated the incredible contempt with which the elites view the American public in his comments on Market Place this morning. He assured us that "everyone" agrees on what a solution to the Social Security solvency problem looks like.

At the top of his list was raising the retirement age. All the polls that I have seen show that large majorities of the public (more than 60 percent) strongly oppose raising the retirement age beyond 67 (the age reached in 2022 in current law). This leaves one wondering who is the "everyone" in Mr. Farrell's world spread so much ill-founded fear about its future. . .

Maybe one day, the vast majority of the public, who strongly support Social Security, will get to be somebody on Market Place Radio.

http://www.prospect.org/deanbaker/

San Diego to ban Wal-Mart Supercenters

By ELLIOT SPAGAT, AP Business

The City Council here voted late Tuesday to ban certain giant retail stores, dealing a blow to Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s potential to expand in the nation's eighth-largest city.

The measure, approved on a 5-3 vote, prohibits stores of more than 90,000 square feet that use 10 percent of space to sell groceries and other merchandise that is not subject to sales tax. It takes aim at Wal-Mart Supercenter stores, which average 185,000 square feet and sell groceries.

Mayor Jerry Sanders will veto the ban if the Council reaffirms it on a second vote, which will likely happen in January, said mayoral spokesman Fred Sainz. The Council can override his veto with five votes.

"What the Council did tonight was social engineering, not good public policy," Sainz said.

Supporters of the ban argued that Wal-Mart puts smaller competitors out of business, pays workers poorly, and contributes to traffic congestion and pollution. Opponents said the mega-retailer provides jobs and low prices and that a ban would limit consumer choice.

"Quite simply, I do not think it is the role of the San Diego City Council to dictate where families should buy their groceries," said Councilman Kevin Faulconer, who opposed the ban.

Councilman Tony Young, who joined the 5-3 majority, countered, "I have a vision for San Diego and that vision is about walkable, livable communities, not big, mega-structures that inhibit people's lives."

Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin McCall said the Bentonville, Ark.-based company may consider a legal challenge or voter referendum if the measure becomes law.

"Certainly we're disappointed but there's still a number of steps left in this process," he said. "We need to look at what our options are."

The ban is modeled on a law in Turlock, a city of 70,000 people 85 miles southeast of San Francisco. Turlock prohibited big-box stores over 100,000 square feet that devote at least 5 percent of their space to groceries.

Wal-Mart recently dropped its challenge to the Turlock ordinance, which prevented it from building a planned 225,000-square-foot Supercenter store. In July, a federal judge in Fresno said Turlock's zoning law did not infringe on the company's constitutional rights. The state Supreme Court refused to hear the case.

Wal-Mart has about 2,000 Supercenter stores, including 21 in California, but none in the San Diego area. The retailer has 18 regular Wal-Mart stores in the San Diego area, including four within limits of the city of 1.3 million people.

Wal-Mart has not disclosed plans for a Supercenter store in San Diego area. Sainz, the mayoral spokesman, said the retailer probably wants to expand.

"It's complete and total guesswork but I'm inclined they would," Sainz said. "Everything I've seen and heard from them makes me think they would."

San Diego's move comes two months after the Chicago City Council failed to override Mayor Richard Daley's veto of a so-called "living-wage" ordinance that would have required giant retailers to pay their workers higher wages.

Dispatch From Sheep Informant Central

AP, COLORADO - Last week, a couple were threatened with fines of $25 a day by their homeowners' association unless they removed a four-foot wreath shaped like a peace symbol from the front of their house. The fines have been dropped, and the three-member board of the association has resigned, according to an e-mail message sent to residents on Monday.

Two board members have disconnected their telephones, apparently to escape the waves of callers asking what the board could have been thinking, residents said. The third board member, with a working phone, did not return a call for comment.

In its original letter to the couple, Lisa Jensen and Bill Trimarco, the association said some neighbors had found the peace symbol politically "divisive."

A board member later told a newspaper that he thought the familiar circle with angled lines was also, perhaps, a sign of the devil.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/29/us/29wreath.html?ref=us

Protect Homeless From Poisoning By Starving Them To Death

RADLEY BLAKO, REASON - Virginia wants to protect its homeless people from food poisoning. Apparently by letting them go hungry: "Under a tough new Fairfax County policy, residents can no longer donate food prepared in their homes or a church kitchen -- be it a tuna casserole, sandwiches or even a batch of cookies -- unless the kitchen is approved by the county, health officials said yesterday.

They said the crackdown on home-cooked meals is aimed at preventing food poisoning among homeless people." The crackdown came after someone apparently complained that some churches in Fairfax were serving food to homeless people that was prepared in uninspected kitchens. Never mind that there hasn't been a single reported case of homeless shelter food poisoning. About half the churches and shelters now operating will have to close, because they don't meet the restaurant-grade requirements -- donated casseroles, cakes, cookies, and the like are also now forbidden.

Says one county Health Department rep: "We're trying to protect those people.". . . The director of one area shelter responds: "We're very aware that a number of homeless people eat out of dumpsters, and mom's pot roast has got to be healthier than that."

http://www.reason.com/blog

A FEW THINGS WRONG WITH NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND

1. Misdiagnoses the causes of poor educational development, blaming teachers and students for problems over which they have no control.

2. Assumes that competition is the primary motivator of human behavior and that market forces can cure all educational ills.

3. Mandates data driven instruction based on gamesmanship to undermine public confidence in our schools.

4. Uses pseudo science and media manipulation to justify pro-corporate policies and programs, including diverting taxes away from communities and into corporate coffers.

5. Ignores the proven inadequacies, inefficiencies, and problems associated with centralized, "top-down" control.

6. Places control of what is taught in corporate hands many times removed from students, teachers, parents, local school boards, and communities.

7. Requires the use of materials and procedures more likely to produce a passive, compliant workforce than creative, resilient, inquiring, critical, compassionate, engaged members of our democracy.

8. Reflects and perpetuates massive distrust of the skill and professionalism of educators.

9. Allows life-changing, institution-shaping decisions to hinge on single measures of performance.

10. Emphasizes minimum content standards rather than maximum development of human potential.

11. Neglects the teaching of higher order thinking skills which cannot be evaluated by machines.

12. Applies standards to discrete subjects rather than to larger goals such as insightful children, vibrant communities, and a healthy democracy.

13. Forces schools to adhere to a testing regime, with no provision for innovating, adapting to social change, encouraging creativity, or respecting student and community individuality, nuance, and difference.

14. Drives art, foreign language, career and technical education, physical education, geography, history, civics and other non-tested subjects, such as music, out of the curriculum, especially in low-income neighborhoods.

15. Produces multiple, unintended consequences for students, teachers, and communities, including undermining neighborhood schools and blurring the line between church and state.

16. Rates and ranks public schools using procedures that will gradually label them all "failures," so when they fail to make Adequate Yearly Progress, as all schools eventually will, they can be "saved" by vouchers, charters, or privatization.

COMMENTS BY PETITION SIGNERS
http://www.petitiononline.com/1teacher/petition.html

HALF OF PRISON GROWTH DUE TO FAILED WAR ON DRUGS

AP - A record 7 million people - or one in every 32 American adults - were behind bars, on probation or on parole by the end of last year, according to the Justice Department. Of those, 2.2 million were in prison or jail, an increase of 2.7 percent over the previous year, according to a report released Wednesday. More than 4.1 million people were on probation and 784,208 were on parole at the end of 2005. Prison releases are increasing, but admissions are increasing more. . . From 1995 to 2003, inmates in federal prison for drug offenses have accounted for 49 percent of total prison population growth.

Article Here

Latest Salvo In NYT's Media Offensive Against Troop Wthdrawal

December 1, 2006
News Analysis
Idea of Rapid Withdrawal From Iraq Seems to Fade
By DAVID E. SANGER

This is apparently a news analysis like it says above. I can't see any analysis. In the first paragraph, this author makes the blanket statement that "one reality now appears clear...troop withdrawal is fast receding as a viable option". The media use themselves as the true barometers of reality - take for example the fact that we can call this three-year civil war a civil war because it now carries the Seal of Lauer. The NYT's continued attack on any notion of withdrawal as a precursor to "all-out" civil war is ludicrous, since it can't get any more chaotic than it has been since the beginning of this criminal travesty. Withdrawal or no, this war will be waged for ages to come. Pax Americana, baby!--Pete

WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 — In the cacophony of competing plans about how to deal with Iraq, one reality now appears clear: despite the Democrats’ victory this month in an election viewed as a referendum on the war, the idea of a rapid American troop withdrawal is fast receding as a viable option.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff are signaling that too rapid an American pullout would open the way to all-out civil war. The bipartisan Iraq Study Group has shied away from recommending explicit timelines in favor of a vaguely timed pullback. The report that the panel will deliver to President Bush next week would, at a minimum, leave a force of 70,000 or more troops in the country for a long time to come, to train the Iraqis and to insure against collapse of a desperately weak central government.

Even the Democrats, with an eye toward 2008, have dropped talk of a race for the exits, in favor of a brisk stroll. But that may be the only solace for Mr. Bush as he returns from a messy encounter with Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

In the 23 days since the election, the debate in Washington and much of the country appears to have turned away from Mr. Bush’s oft-repeated insistence that the only viable option is to stay and fight smarter. The most talked-about alternatives now include renewed efforts to prepare the Iraqi forces while preparing to pull American combat brigades back to their bases, or back home, sometime next year. The message to Iraq’s warring parties would be clear: Washington’s commitment to making Iraq work is not open-ended.

Yet if Mr. Bush’s words are taken at face value, those are options still redolent of timetables — at best, cut-and-walk. Standing next to Mr. Maliki on Thursday in Amman, Jordan, Mr. Bush declared that Iraqis need not fear that he is looking for “some kind of graceful exit out of Iraq.” But a graceful exit — or even an awkward one — appears to be just what the Iraq Study Group, led by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, tried to design in the compromise reached by Republicans and Democrats on the panel on Wednesday.

The question now is whether Mr. Bush can be persuaded to shift course — and whether he might now be willing to define victory less expansively.

“What the Baker group appears to have done is try to change the direction of the political momentum on Iraq,” said Stephen P. Cohen, a scholar at the Israel Policy Forum. “They have made clear that there isn’t a scenario for a democratic Iraq, at least for a very long time. They have called into question the logic of a lengthy American presence. And once you’ve done that, what is the case for Americans dying in order to have this end slowly?”

In the days just after the Republican defeat on Nov. 7, Mr. Bush had suggested that he was open to new ideas about Iraq. “It’s necessary to have a fresh perspective,” he said in nominating Robert M. Gates to succeed the ousted Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense secretary.

But more recently, the president has, if anything, seemed to harden his position again. In Hanoi, Vietnam, nearly two weeks ago, he suggested that he would regard the recommendations from the Baker-Hamilton group as no more than a voice among many. In Riga, Latvia, two days ago he all but pounded the lectern as he declared, “There’s one thing I’m not going to do: I’m not going to pull the troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete.”

On the way home from Jordan, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, said Mr. Maliki was told that the Baker-Hamilton report “was going to be one input” — a clear signal that no matter how senior the group’s members, no matter how bipartisan the group, no matter how close Mr. Baker is to the president’s father, the recommendations would not be regarded as sacrosanct.

In private, some members of the Iraq Study Group have expressed concern that they could find themselves in not-quite-open confrontation with Mr. Bush. “He’s a true believer,” one participant in the group’s debates said. “Finessing the differences is not going to be easy.”

The group never seriously considered the position that Representative John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who is a leading voice on national security issues, took more than a year ago, that withdrawal should begin immediately. The group did debate timetables, especially after a proposal, backed by influential Democratic members of the commission, that a robust diplomatic strategy and better training of Iraqis be matched up with a clear schedule for withdrawal. But explicit mention of such a schedule was dropped.

In statements on Thursday, Democrats from former President Bill Clinton to Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, seemed to agree that hard timelines could invite trouble. Nonetheless, some areas of potential conflict with Mr. Bush seem clear.

“I think that what’s clearly being implied in the study group’s report is what some of us have been saying for a while,” said Senator Jack Reed, a hawkish Democrat from Rhode Island with a military record, which has made him a spokesman for the party on Iraq. “A phased redeployment — one that begins in six months or so — is where we need to head. And what’s different now is that redeployment has become the consensus view,” save for inside the White House. “The debate is at what pace.”

There is evidence that more and more Republicans are likely to line up with the Iraq Study Group’s conclusions, even if some find the military prescriptions vague and the group’s idea of talking directly to Iran and Syria repugnant. After all, the Republicans have little interest in facing another election, in two years, where Iraq becomes the overarching issue.

But Mr. Bush faces no more elections. And he has not been one to back down, even when offered a “graceful exit.” He has staked his presidency on remaking Iraq, and with it, the Middle East. Every day, the chances of that seem more remote. With only two years left, this may be his last moment for a real change of strategy.

NYT Article


Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company