Will Your Community Lose Its Hospital?

By Anna Kirsch and Jim Anderson, AlterNet
Posted on October 17, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/64343/

All across the country, a new epidemic is threatening people's health -- the culprit is the closure of community hospitals and those most at risk are low-income and people of color.

"This is the hospital that I take my 94-year-old mother to. This is the hospital that I was born in ... this is the hospital that I take my nieces and nephews to, the hospital where most everyone in my community goes and where all my loved ones and family members have been and still get treated," said Jim Anderson, describing the Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo, N.Y., just one of many community hospitals across the nation that are slated to be shut down within the next year.

"This hospital is located in the heart of the black community here, and it serves any and everybody ... it has its problems, but the answer is not to shut it down," said Anderson, a New York correspondent for Poor Magazine and the PoorNewsNetwork (PNN), a grassroots media organization based in San Francisco dedicated to reframing the news and views around issues of racism and poverty.

I first heard Anderson speak in one of Poor Magazine's community newsroom meetings at the United States Social Forum in Atlanta this June, where he talked about the struggle he has faced in getting any sort of healthcare as a poor African-descendent man in this country.

As he spoke to crowd of folks struggling with poverty, racism and disability about the hospital closure crisis facing poor communities of color across the entire state of New York, one hand after another shot up in the air.

"The same thing is happening in ... New Orleans ... Nashville ... Philadelphia ... Los Angeles ... right here in Atlanta with Grady Memorial Hospital," folks from all over chimed in to share stories about their struggle to keep their community hospitals open.

Grady Memorial Hospital, which is the largest publicly funded hospital in the state of Georgia, was located just a few miles away from our meeting that day in Atlanta and is often referred to as the "only hospital that treats poor people."

Rev. Calvin E. Peterson, a formerly houseless, disabled man who was born at Grady Hospital in 1948 and also worked with the hospital on their accessibility plan, said that the entire poor, black community would be in an uproar if the state closed it down.

The hospital is facing mounting financial problems and could be closed by the end of the year if an agreement is not reached. This could leave thousands, such as Peterson, suffering and without a place to receive care.

Although Grady has been criticized by many for its inadequate services, if the state hospital could receive the much-needed funding -- that is currently being denied -- it could hire the necessary staff and make improvements.

Other folks expressed similar concerns for their own low-income communities all across the nation. Where would these people go for emergency treatment? What would happen to the hospital staff that had become an integral part of the community it served? Why couldn't a state-run "public" hospital get the necessary funding to treat residents?

As a person living without health insurance, I, like so many in this country, live in fear of facing any serious illness or accident, one that would put me in lifelong debt. Like Anderson and his family, I too am dependent on these community hospitals, and even though they are plagued with problems -- they are all we have.

Connecting the dots in Atlanta

"In Buffalo, some people are mistakenly thinking that this issue isn't touching anyone else, but in Atlanta I learned that this is not an isolated incident," said Anderson who explained that he believed the nationwide closure of hospitals serving communities of color is not a coincidence, but rather a calculated effort by the government to get rid of what it's calling a "surplus of unused hospital beds."

State governments all across the country are conducting "studies" largely behind closed doors to "restructure" healthcare facilities, which has resulted in numerous plans for closures and forced mergers.

For example, in New York, the Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century was created by the governor and is made up of 54 members, each appointed by either the governor, the senate or the speaker of the assembly. The commission was left with the task of "restructuring and rightsizing the healthcare industry" in the state and held most of tits meetings in secret -- a fact that has caused an uproar in local communities and caused two hospitals to sue.

With hardly any input from the community that would be the most affected by its decisions, such as the hospital workers themselves, the commission released dozens of recommendations in 2006 ultimately affecting the entire public hospital and nursing home system in New York. (The commission's full report can be read online.) In the Buffalo area alone, six hospitals -- almost all of which serve high needs communities of color, low-income people, disabled persons and seniors -- are slated for closure.

"Shutting down these hospitals will destabilize whole communities," said Anderson. "Smaller clinics are going to have to absorb the drop-off and they just don't have the resources to do so," he added.

Erie County Medical Center, like so many others facing possible closure in the country, definitely has its problems, including a serious lack of funding and staff. But changes, not forced closures and forced mergers, need to be made, said Anderson. The hospital has long been addressing health problems largely faced by the black community, like the high rate of heart disease, Anderson added, and has the best heart surgery survival rates in Western New York.

Hardly anyone would argue with the commission report's claim that the "healthcare system is broken and needs repair," however in the past, hospital mergers have created chaos and disastrous results in New York and other states. It's also interesting to note that the hospitals run by New York City's Health and Hospitals Corp. didn't face any closures or forced mergers under the commission's recommendations; the majority of hospitals that did are public, nonprofit providers.

Information from Health Care that Works reported that in New York City, "New Yorkers who live in predominantly minority communities face greater geographic barriers to accessing a hospital than those who live in predominantly white communities. These problems were made worse by the fact that six of the eight hospitals that closed between 1995 and 2005 were located in or near communities of color."

Most of these public hospitals are considered "safety net" hospitals, meaning they provide treatment to those who are uninsured and cannot afford to pay the full cost -- people like Anderson's family and mine. As more and more of these safety net hospitals, like Erie County Medical Center, close, it is less likely that people without insurance will be able to access any sort of medical care.

As a recent study conducted by a committee of interns, residents and directors of the Health Reform Program at Boston noted, "Hospital closings have harmed access to care -- particularly in underserved areas and communities of color ... the effects of hospital closings on access to care have been poorly studied and systematically downplayed by advocates of closing."

This is a fact that Anderson and other community members know all too well. When a financial crisis occurs in any industry, the poor are the first to face cuts in services. In America's longstanding trend of privatizing services that were once considered public, healthcare is the next in line. More and more, the truth is becoming that if you don't have the money, you don't get the treatment.

A nationwide epidemic

The story is the same all over the nation -- the most recent crisis occurring in South Central L.A., where the Martin Luther King Harbor Hospital will be closed. This historic hospital, which is predominately staffed by and serves African descendent folks, used to be a place of pride in the community, but has recently -- like Grady Memorial and Erie County Medical Center -- come under intense scrutiny for its care.

Now the emergency department at King has been shut down and the entire hospital is soon to follow. As Earl Ofari Hutchinson wrote for the L.A. Times:

The currently downsized King treats at least 100 emergency patients daily, nearly 1,000 in a week ... It has one of the highest emergency patient loads of any urban hospital. At one point, King provided sustained care for more than 10,000 patients, and it treated nearly 170,000 as outpatients. That equals the population of a small city. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which cited King for deficiencies, has never stated that King was a threat to patients' lives.

Who are these patients the hospital serves? They are mainly African-Americans and Latinos who have a per capita income below the federal poverty rate. Many lack adequate private transportation. King is not one of the few options they have for medical care; it's their only option.

King served over 47,000 patients last year, now these patients will be forced to travel farther distances in life-threatening situations and overwhelm other already understaffed hospitals.

And where would these people go? Hutchinson writes:

In 2005, University of California researchers looked at hospital closures in L.A. County between 1997 and 2002. They found that the closures overwhelmed staff and facilities at the county's four general hospitals, which included King. The closures triggered a stampede of patients to doctor's offices, clinics and emergency rooms. They increased the time and distance that patients had to travel to get to a healthcare provider.

That meant that fewer patients saw doctors, fewer children had checkups, patients were less likely to seek and get preventive care, and there was a jump in the number of deaths from injuries and heart attacks. This virtually guaranteed that the number of people who suffered from acute illnesses would climb. These ailments are more costly to treat. In the case of King, there are even more deadly consequences. It treats more victims of life-threatening gunshot wounds than any other area hospital.

Across the country, the story is much the same. The hospital where I was born in Norfolk, Va., is facing serious downsizing and possible closure. Depaul Hospital, a nonprofit Catholic hospital run by the Bon Secours Health System that has been a fixture in my own community for over 150 years, is the latest target in the attack on community hospitals.

Now, in Virginia, just as in New York, a private advisory board called the Eastern Virginia Health Systems Agency, which was set up years ago, is about to release a set of recommendations early this month. The results could be disastrous for the local community, just like in Buffalo and Los Angeles.

Also similarly, the state is claiming this hospital must close or downsize to save money, yet it has been proven over and over again, by numerous researchers at places such as Boston University, that closing hospitals does in fact not save money. This fact seems to have been ignored by state governments all across the nation, as "financial reasons" is the claim most often stated by proponents of the closures.

Again, the solution does not seem to be to simply close this hospital's door, but rather provide better funding and develop more staff to meet the health needs of our citizens. As Anderson said, "We need to use these hospitals to train our own community members how to be culturally sensitive in their treatment and care of patients ... the opportunity for these hospitals to be successful exists if only we provide what's necessary. We are capable of doing our own analysis, our own studies, because in the end it's our loved ones who have been and will continue to be mis-served and underserved."

Anderson has a vision of not just preventing hospital closures but seeing a better community healthcare model.

"Imagine culturally sensitive, inclusive hospitals that are really capable of addressing healthcare needs by providing equitable quality care, diverse staffing, preventive healthcare and real community services," he said.

The possibility to save these hospitals does exist if only we, the community, refuse to be silenced and together create a vision for the future. These hospitals are meant to be for us and our communities, and we have all got to demand that the doors stay open and the facilities receive the proper and necessary funding to provide real care and service for people of all income levels.

"The real question to the public is: 'What are you prepared to do to stop these closures?' said Anderson. "We need people to share stories about what's happening in their hometowns with their own community hospital ... we need people to pay attention to reports and actions occurring in other communities, and people must challenge state and national political office holders to address this issue," he added.

It's time to demand a stop to the closures of community hospitals and, along with it, to demand a real cure for our hospitals and our healthcare system.

If a hospital is closing in your community, and you are interested in nationally organizing please email Anna (anna@poormagazine.org) or Jim (aqejim@aol.com). Poor Magazine is an online news service dedicated to providing media access to communities of color struggling with poverty locally and globally, as well as scholarship on issues of poverty, racism, disability, immigration and youth justice from people who struggle with and resist these positions of oppression every day.

Anna Kirsch is a graduate of Poor Magazine's Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute and is a PNN community journalist. Jim Anderson is race and poverty scholar, community activist, social justice advocate and PNN New York Correspondent.

© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/64343/

The Bombs Away Mentality

Bush's Catastrophic Rhetoric

By RALPH NADER

Mired in the disastrous Iraq quagmire, opposed by a majority of Americans, George W. Bush has reached new depths of reckless, belligerent bellowing. At a recent news conference, he volunteered that he told our allies that if they're "interested in avoiding World War III," Iran must be prevented from both developing a nuclear weapon or having "the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

To what level of political insanity has this Washington Caesar descended? Only two countries can start World War III-Russia and the United States. Is Bush saying that if Russia, presently opposed to military action against Iran, persists with its position, Bush may risk World War III? If not, why is this law-breaking warmonger, looking for another war for American GIs to fight, while his military-age daughters bask in the celebrity lime light?

Why is he using such catastrophic language?

Surely he does not think Iran could start World War III. His own intelligence agencies say that, even assuming that the international inspectors are wrong and Iran is moving toward developing the "knowledge" of such weapons, it can't build its first such weapon before 3 to 5 years at the earliest.

Why would a regime ruling an impoverished country risk suicide, surrounded as it is by countries armed to the nuclear teeth, such as Israel and the United States? This nation of nearly 80 million people hardly needs to be reminded that the U.S. overthrew its popular premier in 1953, installing for the next 27 years the brutal regime of the Shah.

They recall that President Reagan and his Vice President, George Herbert Walker Bush urged, funded and equipped Saddam Hussein in his invasion of Iran-a nation that has not invaded any country in over 250 years-which took around 700,000 Iranian lives.

Moreover, the undeniable historical record shows that U.S. companies received licenses from the Department of Commerce, under Reagan, to ship Saddam the raw materials necessary to make chemical and biological weapons. Saddam used such lethal chemical weapons, with the tolerance of Reagan and Rumsfeld, on Iranians to devastating effect in terms of lives lost.

Then George W. Bush labels Iran a member of the "axis of evil" along with Iraq, ignoring a serious proposal by Iran in 2003 for negotiations, and shows what his language means by invading Iraq.

The authoritarian Iranian government is frightened enough to hurl some defiant rhetoric back at Washington and widen its perimeter defense. Seymour Hersh, the topflight investigative reporter for the New Yorker magazine has written numerous articles on how the crowding of Iran, including infiltrating its interior, has become an obsession of the messianic militarist in the White House.

The Pentagon is more cautious, worrying about our already drained Army and the absence of any military strategy and readiness for many consequences that would follow Bush's "bombs away" mentality.

Then there is the matter of the Democrats in Congress. After their costly fumble on Iraq, the opposition Party should make it very constitutionally clear, as recommended by former New York Governor, Mario Cuomo in a recent op-ed, that there can be no funded attacks on any country without a Congressional declaration of war, as explicitly required by the framers of our Constitution.

But the Democrats are too busy surrendering to other Bush demands, whether unconstitutional, above the law or just plain marinated in corporate greed. Some of this obeisance was all too clear in the Democrats questioning of Bush's nominee for Attorney General, Michael B. Mukasey.

After the two days of hearings, no Democrat has yet announced a vote against Mukasey, even after he evaded questions on torture and argued for the inherent power of the President to act contrary to the laws of the land if he unilaterally believes he has the inherent constitutional authority to do so.

This position aligns Mukasey with the imperial views of Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft and Gonzales on the "unitary Executive." In short, reminiscent of the divine right of Kings, the forthcoming Attorney General believes Bush can say that 'he is the law' regardless of Congress and the judiciary.

After two recent lead editorials demonstrating its specific exasperation over the Democrats' kowtowing to the White House, the New York Times added a third on October 20, 2007 titled "With Democrats Like These" The editorial recounted the ways Democrats, especially in the Senate, have caved on critical constitutional and statutory safeguards regarding the Bush-Cheney policies and practices of spying on Americans without judicial approval and accountability.

Accusing the Democrats of "the politics of fear," the Times concluded: "It was bad enough having a one-party government when the Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. But the Democrats took over, and still the one-party system continues."

There is more grist coming for the Times' editorial mill. Last week, the first African-American chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, Charles Rangel (D-NY), declared that Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, Jr., fresh from Wall Street, had persuaded him, during a decade of increasing record profits, to lower the porous corporate income tax rate from 35% to 25%.

"We can live with that," Chairman Rangel declared.

Would the working families in his District, who would be paying a higher tax rate on their modest income, agree?

Ralph Nader is the author of The Seventeen Traditions

DC Madam Invesitigation Leads to Monica Goodling, Attorney Firings

By Phoenix Woman
Posted on October 23, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/woman/65882/

This post, written by Pheonix Woman, originally appeared onFireDogLake

Poor David Vitter. The job security of Deborah Jeane Palfrey's most prominent client just got a bit shakier.

See, the main (if not only) reason his fellow Republicans aren't currently trying to boot him like they are Larry "Wide Stance" Craig is because a Democrat is -- for the next couple of months -- governor of Louisiana. But when Piyush "Bobby" Jindal is sworn in as governor of the Pelican State, Louisiana will join Larry Craig's state of Idaho in having a Republican governor, one that will appoint a Republican to replace Vitter should he be forced to leave his seat for any reason.

And his reasons for doing so just got a bit hotter, with the heating up of the long-simmering "DC Madam" case:

CLG exclusive: Citizens for Legitimate Government (CLG) has learned that a US Judge will hear a selective prosecution argument made by the so-called DC Madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, on Monday. Palfrey told CLG that Monica Goodling "likely will be subpoenaed in this matter - along with many others at Justice - in the near future."

Oh, my. And get this:

According to Mr. Sibley, to support this contention, Ms. Palfrey "will be offering a composite exhibit of statements, news articles and a memo from Monica Goodling which collectively detail the politicization of the Department of Justice in a manner which lends credence to Jeane's argument of selective prosecution. At the conclusion of the argument, Jeane will be asking the Court to issue subpoenas and conduct an evidentiary hearing into these allegations."

Double oh my.

This ought to be interesting.

Phoenix Woman is a regular blogger for FireDogLake

© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/woman/65882/

KBR Truck Ambush Video

Only a few elderly women slaughtered in Iraq today.

Not-So-Horrible Thing Happens In Iraq

BAGHDAD—According to the Pentagon, the fact that only a few of the casualties were elderly women is a testament to the success of the latest troop surge.

The Iran hawks

Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton think a tough line on Tehran will sell politically. They could be right, but there are a few things the candidates apparently don't know about Iran

By Juan Cole

10/17/07 "Salon" -- -- Future historians may conclude that the key issue in the 2008 presidential campaign was not Iraq, but whether the United States should go to war with Iran. Sparring over Iran dominated the Republican debate in Dearborn, Mich., last week, while a Senate resolution condemning Iran's Revolutionary Guards as terrorists divided the Democrats, some of whom (including Sen. Barack Obama and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi) feared that it might give Bush a pretext to launch another war. Unexpectedly, Tehran has emerged as a preoccupation of candidates -- as a litmus test for attitudes toward war and domestic security.

The Republicans are competing to see who can wax most bellicose. The two candidates with the greatest need to compensate for their socially liberally pasts, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, have been extra warlike. Giuliani in particular seems to be running for velociraptor-in-chief.

In an ABC interview on Sunday, Giuliani made fun of Romney for saying during the Dearborn debate that he would seek the advice of counsel before launching a war on Iran. Moderator Chris Matthews had asked, "If you were president of the United States, would you need to go to Congress to get authorization to take military action against Iran's nuclear facilities?" Romney had replied that the president "has to do what's in the best interest" of the country "to protect us against a potential threat." He said nothing about needing a congressional declaration of war; indeed, he was clearly suggesting that for him to strike Iran it would suffice to get a legal opinion that such an act did not require a formal declaration of war.

During his Sunday interview, Giuliani attempted to portray Romney's brazen end run around the Constitution as evidence of wimpiness. "That's one of those moments in a debate," he told ABC News, "where you say something and you go like this [wiping his mouth with the back of his hand] ... wish I can get that one back.

"Basically, right out of the box," Giuliani continued, "first thing, you're faced with imminent attack on the United States, I don't think you call in the lawyers first. I think maybe the generals, the ones you call in first, they're the ones you want to talk to."

But Matthews, of course, had not asked Romney what he would do were the U.S. attacked. His question concerned a sudden U.S. strike on Iran's nuclear energy facilities, and whether the president should seek congressional authorization for such an act of war.

During the debate itself, Romney also took heat for not mentioning the need for congressional authorization, although the rebuke came from a lonely voice out of the GOP's isolationist past. "You're not allowed to go to war without a declaration of war," said Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas. Paul declared flatly that the Constitution was clear and that Romney's talk about consulting attorneys was "baffling." He also maintained that "the thought that the Iranians could pose an imminent attack on the United States is preposterous." When Giuliani shot back that Sept. 11 had been such an attack, Paul interrupted him. "That was no country," snapped Paul. "That was 19 thugs. It has nothing to do with a country."

Sen. John McCain tried to present himself as the voice of reason in the debate, saying, "Of course you want to go to Congress; of course you want to get approval." Last spring, however, when badgered by a belligerent audience member at a South Carolina campaign event about how long the U.S. should tolerate Iran's alleged bad behavior, McCain had been caught on camera singing "Bomb, bomb, bomb/ Bomb, bomb Iran" to the tune of the old Beach Boys hit "Barbara Ann." If any major Iranian political figure had made a similar jest about striking the U.S., it would not have been quickly forgotten in Washington. McCain's ditty, and the relative lack of controversy about it, speak volumes about the aggressive mood in the U.S.

Among the Republican front-runners, debate about Iran occurs in a dark, upside-down fantasy land, where a weak third-world regime with no air force to speak of plots a military strike on the planet's sole superpower. The third-world regime is led by a genocidal commander-in-chief who serves a global conspiracy; to stop him, the president of the superpower might be compelled, after a quick chat with a lawyer and a few bars of a golden oldie, to launch an aggressive war. (And even the part about a conversation with an attorney is seen by some of the candidates as an abdication of manhood.)

Perhaps because of his chest-thumping contest with Giuliani, Romney especially has shown a talent of late for putting the ignorant in fear-mongering. During the Dearborn debate, Romney alleged that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had "spoken about genocide," and said it was important not to "allow that individual to have the control of launching a nuclear weapon." In an ad released after the debate, in a clear attempt to out-Giuliani Giuliani, Romney declaimed, "It's this century's nightmare, jihadism -- violent, radical Islamic fundamentalism." He told the cameras that the fundamentalists' goal is to establish a "caliphate," and wanted to "collapse" countries such as the United States as part of that goal. "We can and will stop Iran," he added, "from acquiring nuclear weapons."

President Ahmadinejad, whose job is more or less ceremonial, is not the commander-in-chief of the Iranian armed forces. He has never advocated "genocide," and his expressed wish that the "occupation regime over Jerusalem" (i.e., the Israeli government) eventually vanish has been mistranslated.

As for the rest, the candidates simply assume that Iran has a nuclear weapons research program, which has not been proven. It certainly does not have a nuclear weapon at present, and the National Intelligence Estimate indicates that if it were trying to get one, it would take until at least 2016 -- and then only if the international environment were conducive to the needed high-tech imports. (Ahmadinejad, by the way, will not be in power in 2016.) Also, someone really needs to let the Republicans know that Iran is Shiite, meaning it abhors Sunni fundamentalists and rejects the caliphate.

Iran has also become an obsession on the Democratic side of the aisle, albeit absent the rampant machismo. In fact, while many of their colleagues in Congress continue to second Republican saber-rattling, most of the Democrats who are running for president seem notably wary of rushing into war with Iran.

Of the four senators among the Democratic candidates, only Hillary Clinton voted for the non-binding Kyl-Lieberman resolution on Sept. 26. The Kyl-Lieberman resolution, which passed 76-to-22, with 29 Democrats voting in favor, says, "the United States should designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization ... and place the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists." Jim Lobe, among the best journalists covering neoconservatism in Washington, wrote that unnamed "Capitol Hill sources" told him that the resolution was crafted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker, interviewed on "Democracy Now," concurred that the amendment was pushed by the Israel lobby.

It would be unprecedented to declare a military force of a state to be a "terrorist" organization, and illogical, since the formal definition of terrorism is that it is committed by non-state actors. It would also endanger U.S. troops, who might well be designated terrorists by some foreign governments. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that she would not allow a similar resolution to be brought up for a vote in the House of Representatives, telling ABC's "This Week," "This has never happened before, that a Congress should determine one piece of someone's military is [a threat]."

Sen. Chris Dodd voted against the resolution on the grounds that it would green-light a Bush administration attack on Iran. Sen. Joe Biden also opposed it, though he argued that it was just a resolution and could not authorize a war. Sen. Barack Obama missed the vote because it was abruptly rescheduled after he had already left on a campaign swing, but when he learned of the rescheduling he issued a statement against the resolution. Obama blasted Clinton's vote for the resolution as a repeat of the mistake she made when she voted in 2002 to authorize the Iraq war. (Clinton muddied the waters somewhat by backing a resolution by Virginia Sen. Jim Webb requiring that Bush seek Congressional authorization before attacking Iran.) Some analysts suggested that Clinton is already thinking past the primaries. They believe she is making her decisions on the assumption that she will face a Republican hawk in the presidential contest of 2008, and therefore has to guard against charges that she is weak on national security. According to this analysis, the other Democratic candidates, trailing her, are still playing to the party faithful, who are to the left of the general public.

In short, Clinton's staffers must have read the Opinion Dynamics poll for Fox Cable News, which shows that 80 percent of the U.S. public believe that Iran's nuclear program is for weapons purposes, and 50 percent believe that the U.S. should take a tougher line with Iran (as against 31 percent who do not). About 29 percent of the sample want Bush to go ahead and attack Iran before leaving office, while a bare majority thought he should leave the problem to the next president. Some 54 percent of respondents believed that if Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been allowed to visit the site of the Sept. 11 attacks, he would have been intent on honoring the hijackers.

Since the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been carrying out regular inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities, still cannot find good evidence for a weapons program, the overwhelming consensus to this effect in the U.S. is evidence of successful propaganda by the Bush administration and its enablers in the media. That Ahmadinejad, an Iranian Shiite who has repeatedly denounced Sunni fundamentalism and its terrorist activities, should be viewed as an al-Qaida sympathizer by the American public is a testament to how effectively he has been demonized.

Iran has not launched an aggressive war against a neighbor since 1785 and does not have a history of military expansionism. Its population is a third that of the United States and its military is small and weak. Aside from the Republican Party's long history of fear-mongering as a way to get power, throw public money to their corporate clients, and scare Americans into giving up their civil liberties, what is driving this obsession with Tehran?

Candidates may be talking about Iran as an indirect and politically safer way of speaking to voters' anxieties about Iraq. As an issue in itself, Iraq contains many pitfalls. It is a quagmire about which a former commanding general in that country, Rick Sanchez, said last Friday, "There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end."

The Iraq problem is so intractable that bringing it up with voters is dangerous, since they will then ask about policy prescriptions, and most experts agree that the U.S. has no good options. Iran, in contrast, looms as a vague sort of threat on the horizon and politicians can therefore pull out of their tool kits their favorite instrument -- speaking hypothetically without committing to a particular course of action. The problem, as Chris Dodd and Barack Obama saw so clearly, is that in attempting to change the conversation to Iran, American politicians and their morbidly aggressive constituents may be vastly widening the quagmire, playing Katrina to the Middle East's New Orleans.

-- By Juan Cole

Copyright ©2007 Salon Media Group, Inc.

FCC Ready To Greatly Increase Monopolization Of The Media

STEPHEN LABATON, NY TIMES - The head of the Federal Communications Commission has circulated an ambitious plan to relax the decades-old media ownership rules, including repealing a rule that forbids a company to own both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city. Kevin J. Martin, chairman of the commission, wants to repeal the rule in the next two months - a plan that, if successful, would be a big victory for some executives of media conglomerates. . . Currently, a company can own two television stations in the larger markets only if at least one is not among the four largest stations and if there are at least eight local stations. The rules also limit the number of radio stations that a company can own to no more than eight in each of the largest markets.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/business/media/18broadcast.html?hp

Take Action!

http://action.freepress.net/campaign/fcc_oversight

Social Security Scaremongering

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3200

Action Alert

ABC, Washington Post push well-worn 'crisis' myths

10/19/07

When the first baby boomer filed for Social Security, ABC News and the Washington Post's Dana Milbank led the pack in media scaremongering--pushing the widely disputed myth of a pending crisis while dismissing the less alarmist views espoused by many economists.

At the top of ABC's October 15 World News with Charles Gibson, the anchor declared this a "day of reckoning," later calling it "one of this country's greatest challenges." Correspondent David Wright called the first baby boomer filing for benefits "the raindrop that's about to become a tsunami," and warned that "paying for the baby boom's retirement may leave the next generation high and dry." The Post's Milbank (10/16/07) went further, claiming that baby boomers "will begin to bankrupt the nation."

The crisis claims in each report were more or less the same. According to ABC's Wright, "In 10 years time, Social Security will be paying out more in benefits than it takes in in taxes. And about the time the last of the baby boomers retires, the system will go bankrupt." As Milbank put it, "As the boomers retire, Social Security will go into the red in 2017 and become insolvent 24 years later, according to the system's trustees."

This rhetoric is profoundly misleading. Social Security has built up a massive surplus in order to pay for the long-anticipated retirement of the baby boomers. As FAIR reported in 2005 (Extra!, 1-2/05):

The Social Security Administration predicts the program will be able to fully pay all promised benefits through 2042, when most baby boomers will be dead--even using pessimistic assumptions about future economic growth. Annual productivity growth is forecast by SSA at only 1.6 percent through 2078; in the years 1913-1990 (including the Great Depression), it grew by about 2.3 percent, a rate that would more than wipe out any future shortfall (2004 Social Security Trustees' Report; The World Economy, OECD, 2001).


But for most of the media, no such context is allowed. The sole economic expert who appeared on ABC was David John of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, who likened the situation to a "horror movie." Milbank chided a Social Security commissioner for "whistling past the graveyard of entitlement insolvency" because he had the temerity to say, "There's no reason to have any immediate panic." Milbank even suggested that young people are "more likely to believe in UFOs than in receiving their Social Security checks"--a claim based on a misleading poll (Extra!, 3-4/97). Milbank offered the usual prescription--namely, "painful changes everybody knows will be needed."

But "everybody" does not agree with this assessment.

A few weeks ago, former Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan--whose word the media usually takes as a kind of gospel--told Tim Russert on Meet the Press (9/23/07) that there was no urgent Social Security crisis at all. "Social Security is not a big crisis," Greenspan explained. "We're approximately 2 percentage points of payroll short over the very long run. It's a significant closing of the gap, but it's doable, and doable in any number of ways."

Renowned Princeton economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (New York Times, 12/7/04) has similarly debunked the notion that Social Security is heading into a crisis. The long-term financing of Social Security is "a problem of modest size....It's not at all hard to come up with fiscal packages that would secure the retirement program, with no major changes, for generations to come."

Dean Baker of the Center for Economic & Policy Research has written frequently about the overhyping of the system's long-term financial shortfall. (See Baker's co-authored book with Mark Weisbrot, Social Security: The Phony Crisis, 1998, and Baker's blog Beat the Press.)

ABC's Wright segued neatly from misleading about the problem to distorting the solution: "Of course, it's perfectly obvious how to fix it, either raise taxes or cut benefits. The politicians have been unwilling to do either." What is "perfectly obvious" is that in 1983, the Social Security Commission chaired by Alan Greenspan did raise taxes and cut benefits to create the surplus that now exists to pay for the retirement costs of baby boomers (American Prospect, 1/14/05).

With Americans' hard-earned Social Security money on the line, there is an urgent need for journalists to provide the public with accurate information, based on solid economic analysis. Yet instead of taking cues from economists, the media have decided to base their coverage on hyperbole from right-wing think tanks.

ACTION:

Encourage ABC and the Washington Post to stop inaccurate fear-mongering about Social Security, and expand their coverage to include experts who argue against the claims of an imminent Social Security "crisis."

CONTACT:

ABC News:

Email: abcnews.storyideas@gmail.com

Host of ABC World News with Charles Gibson
Email: charles.gibson@abc.com

Executive Director of News Programming Andrew Kalb
Email: Andrew.l.kalb@abc.com

Director of News Coverage Peter Salinger
Email: Peter.salinger@abc.com

Washington Post:

Columnist Dana Milbank
Email: milbankd@washpost.com

Ombudsperson Deborah Howell
Email: ombudsman@washpost.com

Rep. Stark's remark sets off GOP furor

Ever notice that when a congressman/woman appears to wake up and start telling it like it so obviously is, someone will call him and what he/she's saying "outrageous and delusional"? What's great about this is the media attention didn't cause an apology, but a continuation of stated reality.--Pete

Washington Post

The debate in Congress about children's health insurance was surprisingly bloodless, with only an occasional charge of "socialized medicine" from Republicans or "heartlessness" from Democrats.

Then Rep. Pete Stark, D-Fremont, grumbled at Republicans: "You don't have money to fund the war or children. But you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president's amusement."

Clips instantly hit YouTube, and GOP reaction was furious. The National Republican Congressional Committee called it "an outrageous and delusional tantrum."

Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, declared that Stark "dishonors not only the commander in chief, but the thousands of courageous men and women of America's armed forces." He called on Stark to apologize.

The 18-term congressman, however, responded only by calling those who voted to deny children health care "chicken hawks."

Thanks For The Memories

Quotes from the heyday of CREEM magazine (when I learn who said what, I'll post that, too!):

"CREEM Magazine was the only game in town. Lester (Bangs) was king....Ben was great too."

"When we found out that we were going to appear in CREEM we knew we had arrived."

"It was a pretty witty read. It was pretty funny that magazine."

"It's about time you realized that people actually BELIEVE what they read in that rock ' n' roll rag of yours!"

"I was named Punk Of The Year in the very first CREEM readers poll. I would never assume to threaten the true king of the punks..."

"CREEM Magazine wasn't just a monthly zine to some of us - it was a Pop Culture religion!" (to me as well--Pete)

In Iran, Putin Warns Against Military Action

By NAZILA FATHI and C. J. CHIVERS
NYT Article Here

TEHRAN, Oct. 16 — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said at a summit meeting of five Caspian Sea nations in Iran on Tuesday that any use of military force in the region was unacceptable. In a declaration, the countries agreed that none would allow their territories to be used as a base for military strikes against any of the others.

“We should not even think of making use of force in this region,” Mr. Putin said.

Mr. Putin’s comments and the declaration come at a time when the United States has refused to rule out military action to halt Iran’s nuclear energy program, which it believes masks a desire to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says its program, including the enrichment of uranium, is solely for peaceful purposes.

Asked this morning about Mr. Putin’s remarks, Tony Fratto, the deputy White House press secretary, played them down, saying simply, “That sounds like a good policy.”

And later, Tom Casey, the deputy State Department spokesman, said, “I think the president’s made clear, and U.S. policy’s been consistent, that we’re pursuing a diplomatic path with respect to Iran.” He noted that Russia had joined in several unanimous votes at the United Nations Security Council demanding that Tehran end any uranium-enriching activities.

Mr. Putin arrived in Tehran on Tuesday for meetings with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and leaders from three other Caspian Sea nations that have rich oil and gas resources, promising to use diplomacy to try to resolve the international debate over Iran’s nuclear program.

Later he had a meeting with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in which he said he had expressed a desire for “deeper” relations between the countries, Reuters reported.

Mr. Putin was the first Kremlin leader to travel to Iran since 1943, when Stalin attended a wartime summit meeting with Churchill and Roosevelt. His statements, which were consistent with his past positions cautioning against military action against Iran, were nonetheless stark in their setting and firmly emphasized his differences with the United States over the extent of Iran’s threat and the means to counter it.

“Not only should we reject the use of force, but also the mention of force as a possibility,” Mr. Putin said.

Russia has blocked a third set of sanctions against Iran at the United Nations that were intended to persuade Tehran to stop enrichment activities, which Western nations fear could lead to the development of nuclear weapons. Mr. Putin has emphasized the need for further dialogue and working through the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure that Iran’s nuclear programs were for peaceful purposes.

He has further called into question the concerns of the United States, France and other European countries about Iran, saying that while he sought transparency in its nuclear program he had not seen clear evidence of any Iranian intention to make nuclear weapons.

In spite of Mr. Putin’s strong statements and the evident show of solidarity among the five countries bordering the Caspian Sea — Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, as well as Russia and Iran — significant regional tensions remain, particularly about the division of the sea’s main resource, oil.

Iran and the Soviet Union once had agreements for sharing its resources, including a water boundary. Before 1991, each country took 50 percent of the oil and gas from the sea.

But since the Soviet Union collapsed, the successor governments in the newly independent Caspian nations have quarreled over where their sea borders should be drawn.

Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have expressed interest in building pipelines under the sea, which would allow Central Asian governments to bypass Russian pipelines as they ship their resources to the West. Russia opposes the idea, which would break its monopoly, citing environmental concerns.

In the absence of a multilateral agreement and mutually accepted borders, the Caspian nations are developing the oil resources as they see fit, although analysts have said that the absence of clear borders has limited the sector’s development.

“The division of the sea is not less important than the nuclear program,” said Ahmad Nateq Nouri, a former speaker of the Iranian Parliament, in a report carried by the Fars news agency.

But the issue of Iran’s nuclear program overshadowed the others. Mr. Putin’s remarks also underscored a longstanding unease in the Kremlin with what it has regarded as a creeping American military presence in Central Asia, a region once solely under Moscow’s control.

Since the terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001, the Pentagon has built a military base in Kyrgyzstan to support operations in Afghanistan, and has expanded its collaboration with Azerbaijan, including underwriting improvements to a former Soviet airfield there. It also has an agreement allowing military transport planes en route to Afghanistan to refuel in Turkmenistan, a country that has made neutrality a cornerstone of its foreign policy.

The American presence and collaboration in the region have alarmed Moscow, while Washington’s potential access to improved airfields in two countries bordering Iran — Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan — has fueled speculation that the airfields could support actions against Tehran.

Mr. Ahmadinejad intimated as much in his statements on Tuesday. “On many issues we have reached final agreement, but we also need collective cooperation,” he said. “The goal is to keep the sea clear of military competitions and keep foreigners out of the region.”

Although Mr. Putin and Mr. Ahmadinejad were resolute, their statements appeared to have more political than military significance, and were not a departure from the status quo. The United States does not have existing agreements with any Caspian nation to launch attacks on another. Rather, the Pentagon has negotiated limited bilateral agreements in the region that allow for flights to Afghanistan through local airspace, refueling, emergency landings and the like.

Moreover, with American military assets assembled in Iraq and other Persian Gulf nations, and aircraft carriers and submarines in the region as well, it was not clear that any of the Caspian countries would be essential for a raid on Iran.

The Caspian meeting also concluded without a clear agreement on territorial demarcation. The leaders said in the declaration that the sea would be used for peaceful purposes and its issues would be resolved by the coastal nations.

Mr. Putin and Mr. Ahmadinejad discussed the completion of a nuclear power plant that Russia has been building in the southern Iranian city of Bushehr. Russia has given various reasons for delays in completing the plant and delivering fuel for the start-up. Brushing that aside, Mr. Ahmadinejad told Mr. Putin that Iran was willing to have Moscow build two more plants in Bushehr, the ISNA news agency reported.

Mr. Putin was received by the Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, at the Tehran airport, according to state-run television. Mr. Putin, who had flown from Germany, where he met Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday, went ahead with the trip despite a report of a possible assassination plot against him in Iran.

Iran is counting on Russia and China, which have important trade ties with Iran, to use their veto power to oppose another round of sanctions in the Security Council. Russia has voted for two sets of sanctions, but has said that it will not support a third set without convincing evidence that Iran had a program to build nuclear weapons.

In addition to the nuclear power plants and business ties, Moscow has a long record of military collaboration with Iran, which relies on Soviet-era and Russian weapons and supplies for its armed forces. The Russian president’s visit appeared to underscore the many levels of bilateral ties.

Mr. Putin said the two countries planned to cooperate on space, aviation and energy issues, and suggested that the tensions with the West over Iran’s nuclear program had provided Russia a unique role. “Russia is the only country that is helping Iran to realize its nuclear program in a peaceful way,” he said.

Nazila Fathi reported from Tehran, and C. J. Chivers from Moscow. Brian Knowlton contributed reporting from Washington.

Reflections by Cuban President Fidel Castro on Che Guevara

Published Oct 14, 2007

Reprinted from the Oct. 8th front page of Granma.

I make a halt in my daily struggle to bow my head in respect and gratitude to the exceptional combatant who fell in combat on Oct. 8th, forty years ago; for the example he passed on to us as leader of his Rebel Army Column, crossing the swampy grounds of the former provinces of Oriente and Camagüey, while being chased by enemy troops.

He was the liberator of the city of Santa Clara and the mastermind of voluntary work; he accomplished honorable political missions abroad and served as messenger of militant internationalism in East Congo and Bolivia. He built a new awareness in our America and the world.

I thank him for what he tried and failed to do in his home country, because he was like a flower prematurely severed from its stem.

He left to us his unmistakable literary style. He was elegant, swift and true to every detail of whatever happened to cross his mind. He was a predestinate, but he didn’t know it. He still fights with us and for us.

Yesterday, we commemorated the 31st anniversary of the killing of all passengers and the crew of a Cubana airliner blown up in mid-air, and we are on the threshold of the tenth anniversary of the cruel and unjust imprisonment of the five Cuban anti-terrorist heroes.

We likewise bow our heads in respect to them all.

It was with great emotion that I watched and heard the commemoration ceremony on TV.

Fidel Castro Ruz
Oct. 7, 2007
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From Sam Smith, American Hero

We have, of course, been trained to think of our own leaders as normal, sane people. That these destroyers of land, lives and the ecological balance of the earth are wise and honorable men and women engaged in noble and difficult tasks...

But ask yourself this:

Is it normal to kill millions of innocent people in the name of a freedom they will never live to know?

Is it normal to let the young and the ill suffer so you can support a military budget so huge that $30 billion a year simply can't be accounted for?

Is it normal to lock up nearly two million citizens -- the most of any country ever -- many of them for simply preferring marijuana over such legal drugs as vodka and cigarettes?

Is it normal, because of one's draconian penal system, to remove the franchise from one out of every seven black men?

Is it normal to damage the health of a planet for better 4th quarter profits?

Consider that the use of nuclear weapons as well as other forms of mass destruction presently depends upon the will of a brutal egomaniac in Belgrade, a terminal dipsomaniac in Moscow, and a felonious serial sociopath in Washington. This, my friends, is not normal.

Re: Gore's Nobel "Peace" Prize

Remember, campers, Kissinger has one, too.

It obviously has nothing to do with peace.

Bush Joins Ahmadinejad In Denying A Holocaust: Should Armenia Bomb Key U.S. Sites?

By BRENDAN COONEY

http://www.counterpunch.org/cooney10122007.html

In light of President Bush's opposition to a resolution that would acknowledge the Armenian genocide, the question must be considered as to whether he is a madman who cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons.

Should Armenian allies adopt a preemptive approach and bomb strategic North American sites?

U.S. press reports of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denying the Nazi genocide have been a flashpoint of the popular perception here that he is either insane or a beast. In either case, he is someone who must be attacked before he can obtain nuclear weapons.

When Ahmadinejad is asked these days whether the Nazi holocaust occurred, he says historians need to conduct more research. It is an answer that bears an uncanny resemblance to that of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when asked about the Armenian holocaust.

In this clip, when Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) asks Rice if there is any doubt in her mind that the murder of 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923 constitutes a genocide, she says, "I think that the historical circumstances require a very detailed and sober look from historians, and what we've encouraged the Turks and the Armenians to do is to have joint historical commissions that can look at this, to have efforts to examine their past, and in examining their past to get over their past."

This is akin to saying the Jews and Germans should get together and study this question of atrocities, and then for them both to get over it. "Lots of people are coming to terms with their history," Rice adds.

She goes on to say that she doesn't think the United States weighing in would help the process of reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia. Well, there's an answer Ahmadinejad might wish to consider next time a goofy "60 Minutes" guy asks him for his Holocaust position: "I don't think me giving an answer would help the Jewish healing process."

Why is there such a runaway-mad perception in the United States that Ahmadinejad is a runaway madman? It's because Vice President Dick Cheney and others in the Administration want to attack Iran, and they are flailing around for a casus belli.

The propaganda campaign against Ahmadinejad is working on two layers, like the trompe l'oeil of an improbable masterpiece. In the background we see hues of a kook with violent intent. Logic fades as we're beguiled by the colors; we forget that there are probably plenty of leaders around the world whose views would affront us, and that we normally don't bomb for beliefs. In the foreground are strokes outlining purported actions. These are things he hasn't just thought but done, such as the supplying of weapons that are killing our boys and girls in uniform. There's blood on his hands! We're already at war with him! The painting becomes vivid, and all sense is lost, as are recollections of the original crime of invading and occupying a sovereign nation.

In simple terms, the propaganda war seeks to prove two things: This is a bad person, and this is a person who has done bad things. One attacks a mode of thought, the other a mode of action. On the mode-of-thought level, Ahmadinejad is portrayed as guilty of two things: he wants to wipe Israel off the map, and he denies that the Holocaust occurred. Ahmadinejad's defenders dispute both, and they point to issues of context and translation. On the mode-of-action level, he is charged with supporting "terrorism" in Iraq with money and weapons.

It is hard to watch all the documentaries showing how we were duped five years ago and think that it could ever happen again, let alone so soon afterward. The pretext for invading Iraq was seen as a flimsy lie by nearly everyone in the world except the ideologically tiny island of people living in the United States. The propaganda washed like a tsunami over the minds of everyone on that island. And don't blame the hoi polloi. Journalists and "intellectuals" were the first to be swept away.

Now the Administration is seeking to disprove that infamous Texas slogan: "You can fool me, but you can't get fooled again."

Already the "intellectuals" have been suckered. Columbia University President Lee Bollinger called Ahmadinejad a "petty and cruel dictator" to his face and suggested he was "astonishingly ignorant." This from a man astonishingly ignorant of the fact that Iran's unelected commander-in-chief, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, holds more power than its elected president, Ahmadinejad.

In Iraq, it was the supposed existence of weapons that might or might not be used against the United States that caused our leaders and citizens to support an invasion. A mighty thin veil for naked aggression. Now we're sifting through Ahmadinejad's speeches for attitudes that might predispose him to act in a certain way if he obtains weapons in a few years and is re-elected in 2009 though he's not even the commander-in-chief? How thin can the veil get?

What about Turkey's denial of the Armenian holocaust? Do we even know who the leader of Turkey is, let alone if his eyes are too close together? No, no. We need Turkey right now to keep our occupation well-fed, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates reminded us yesterday. We can talk history another day.

But just like the Jews protesting Ahmadinejad's speech at Columbia University last month, the Armenians see the relevance of discussing history now. And if Bush and his crew continue to deny their genocide, they could take a page from Cheney's playbook and say that here is a lunatic country that must be stopped. It is a holocaust-denying nation that is considerably further along in its development of nuclear weapons than even Iran and more than anyone else has demonstrated a willingness to use them.

Could the friends of Armenia paint this into a picture that makes bombing the United States seem like the only sane solution? Nah, the only ones who would buy a painting like that are living all alone on a little island.

Brendan Cooney is an anthropologist living in New York City. He can be reached at: itmighthavehappened@yahoo.com

The Real Gore...

...not the corporate media re-construction.

William Blum: The Anti-Empire Report

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2007-10/11blum.cfm

ZNet Commentary
The Anti-Empire Report, October 13, 2007
By Bill Blum

If not now, when? If not here, where? If not you, who? I used to give thought to what historical time and place I would like to have lived in. Europe in the 1930s was usually my first choice. As the war clouds darkened, I'd be surrounded by intrigue, spies omnipresent, matters of life and death pressing down, the opportunity to be courageous and principled. I pictured myself helping desperate people escape to America. It was real Hollywood stuff; think "Casablanca". And when the Spanish Republic fell to Franco and his fascist forces, aided by the German and Italian fascists (while the United States and Britain stood aside, when not actually aiding the fascists), everything in my imaginary scenario would have heightened -- the fate of Europe hung in the balance. Then the Nazis marched into Austria, then Czechoslovakia, then Poland ... one could have devoted one's life to working against all this, trying to hold back the fascist tide; what could be more thrilling, more noble?

Miracle of miracles, miracle of time machines, I'm actually living in this imagined period, watching as the Bush fascists march into Afghanistan, bombing it into a "failed state"; then Iraq: death, destruction, and utterly ruined lives for 24 million human beings; threatening more of the same endless night of hell for the people of Iran; overthrowing Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti; bombing helpless refugees in Somalia; relentless attempts to destabilize and punish Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Gaza, and other non-believers in the empire's god-given mission. Sadly, my most common reaction to this real-life scenario, daily in fact, is less heroic and more feeling scared or depressed; not for myself personally but for our one and only world. The news every day, which I consume in large portions, slashes away at my joie de vivre; it's not just the horror stories of American military power run amok abroad and the injustices of the ever-expanding police state at home, but all the lies and stupidity which drive me up the wall. I'm constantly changing stations, turning the TV or radio off, turning the newspaper page, to escape the words of the King of Lies and the King of Stupidity -- those two twisted creatures who happen to occupy the same humanoid body -- and a hundred minions.

Nonetheless, I must tell you, comrades, that at the same time, our contemporary period also brings out in me a measure of what I imagined for my 1930s life. Our present world is in just as great peril, even more so when one considers the impending environmental catastrophe (which the King of Capitalism refuses to confront lest it harm the profits of those who lavish him with royal bribes). The Bush fascist tide must be stopped.

Usually when I'm asked "But what can we do?", my reply is something along the lines of: Inasmuch as I can not see violent revolution succeeding in the United States (something deep inside tells me that we couldn't quite match the government's firepower, not to mention their viciousness), I can offer no solution to stopping the imperial beast other than: Educate yourself and as many others as you can, increasing the number of those in the opposition until it reaches a critical mass, at which point ... I can't predict the form the explosion will take.

I'm afraid that this advice, whatever historical correctness it may embody, is not terribly inspiring. However, I've assembled four wise men to add their thoughts, hopefully raising the inspiration level. Let's call them the "patron saints of lost causes".

I.F. Stone: "The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing -- for the sheer fun and joy of it -- to go right ahead and fight, knowing you're going to lose. You mustn't feel like a martyr. You've got to enjoy it."

Howard Zinn: "People think there must be some magical tactic, beyond the traditional ones -- protests, demonstrations, vigils, civil disobedience -- but there is no magical panacea, only persistence."

Noam Chomsky: "There are no magic answers, no miraculous methods to overcome the problems we face, just the familiar ones: honest search for understanding, education, organization, action that raises the cost of state violence for its perpetrators or that lays the basis for institutional change -- and the kind of commitment that will persist despite the temptations of disillusionment, despite many failures and only limited successes, inspired by the hope of a brighter future."

Sam Smith: "Those who think history has left us helpless should recall the abolitionist of 1830, the feminist of 1870, the labor organizer of 1890, and the gay or lesbian writer of 1910. They, like us, did not get to choose their time in history but they, like us, did get to choose what they did with it. Knowing what we know now about how these things turned out, but also knowing how long it took, would we have been abolitionists in 1830, or feminists in 1870, and so on?"

Anti-Semitism. Don't settle for imitations. "The cleanliness of this people, moral and otherwise, I must say, is a point in itself. By their very exterior you could tell that these were no lovers of water, and, to your distress, you often knew it with your eyes closed. ... Added to this, there was their unclean dress and their generally unheroic appearance. ... Was there any form of filth or profligacy, particularly in cultural life, without at least one Jew involved in it? ... nine tenths of all literary filth, artistic trash, and theatrical idiocy can be set to the account of a people ... a people under whose parasitism the whole of honest humanity is suffering, today more than ever: the Jews."

Now who can be the author of such abominable anti-semitism? a)Hasan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon; b)John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy"; c)Osama bin Laden; d)Jimmy Carter; e)Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran; f)Norman Finkelstein, author of "The Holocaust Industry".

Each one has been condemned as anti-Semitic. Are you having a problem deciding? Oh, excuse me, I forgot one -- g)Adolf Hitler.[1] Does that make it easier? I'll bet some of you were thinking it must have been Ahmadinejad.

The Webster's Dictionary defines "anti-Semite" as "One who discriminates against or is hostile to or prejudiced against Jews." Notice that the state of Israel is not mentioned.

The next time a critic of Israeli policies is labeled "anti-semitic" think of this definition, think of Adolf's charming way of putting it, then closely examine what the accused has actually said or written.

It may, however, be past the time for such a rational, intellectual pursuit; ultra-heated polarization reigns supreme with anything concerning the Middle East, particularly Israel.

In March, at a conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington, one of the speakers, an American "Christian Zionist", asserted: "It is 1938, Iran is Germany and Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler." The audience responded with a standing ovation, one of seven for his talk.[2]

Then, in May, former Israeli Prime-Minister and current Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu declared that "It's 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs. ... [While Ahmadinejad] denies the Holocaust he is preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state."[3]

Not to be outdone in semi-hysterical propaganda, Israel's president, Shimon Peres, has compared an Iranian nuclear bomb to a "flying concentration camp".[4]

So why hasn't Iran at least started its holocaust by killing or throwing into concentration camps its own Jews, an estimated 30,000 in number? These are Iranian Jews who have representation in Parliament and who have been free for many years to emigrate to Israel but have chosen not to do so.

For your further apocalyptic enjoyment here are a couple more of Zionism's finest envoys speaking about Iran. Former Speaker of the House in the US Congress, Newt Gingrich: "Three nuclear weapons is a second Holocaust. We have enemies who are quite explicit in their desire to destroy us. They say it publicly, on television, on Web sites. [They are] fully as determined as Nazi Germany, more determined than the Soviet Union, and these enemies will kill us the first chance they get."[5]

And Norman Podhoretz, leading neo-conservative editor of Commentary magazine, in an article entitled "The Case for Bombing Iran": "Like Hitler, [Ahmadinejad] is a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism. ... The plain and brutal truth is that if Iran is to be prevented from developing a nuclear arsenal, there is no alternative to the actual use of military force -- any more than there was an alternative to force if Hitler was to be stopped in 1938."[6]

Though so often condemned, Hitler actually arrived at a number of very perceptive insights into how the world worked. One of them was this: "The great masses of the people in the very bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously and purposely evil ... therefore, in view of the primitive simplicity of their minds, they more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big."[7]

Ahmadinejad arrived in New York September 24 to address the United Nations. At Columbia University he was introduced by the school's president as a man who appeared to lack "intellectual courage", had a "fanatical mindset", and may be "astonishingly undereducated".[8] How many people in the audience, I wonder, looked around to see where George W. was sitting.

"If I were the president of a university, I would not have invited him. He's a holocaust denier," said Hillary Clinton, once again fearlessly challenging the Bush administration's propaganda.[9]

The above is but a small sample of the hatred, anger, and stupidity spewed forth against Ahmadinejad for several years now. A number of people on the American left, who should know better, have joined this chorus. I therefore would like to repeat, and update, part of something I wrote in this report last December, which was entitled "Designer Monsters".

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a man seemingly custom-made for the White House in its endless quest for enemies with whom to scare Congress, the American people, and the world, in order to justify the unseemly behavior of the empire. The Iranian president, we are told, has declared that he wants to "wipe Israel off the map". He has said that "the Holocaust is a myth". He held a conference in Iran for "Holocaust deniers". And his government passed a new law requiring Jews to wear a yellow insignia, à la the Nazis. On top of all that, he's aiming to build nuclear bombs, one of which would surely be aimed at Israel. What right-thinking person would not be scared by such a man?

However, like with all such designer monsters made bigger than life during the Cold War and since by Washington, the truth about Ahmadinejad is a bit more complicated. According to people who know Farsi, the Iranian leader has never said anything about "wiping Israel off the map". In his October 29, 2005 speech, when he reportedly first made the remark, the word "map" does not even appear. According to the translation of Juan Cole, American professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History, Ahmadinejad said that "the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." His remark, said Cole, "does not imply military action or killing anyone at all"[10], which of course is what would make the remark sound threatening.

At the December 2006 conference in Teheran ("Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision"), the Iranian president said: "The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon, the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom."[11] Obviously, the man is not calling for any kind of violent attack upon Israel, for the dissolution of the Soviet Union took place peacefully.

Moreover, in June 2006, subsequent to Ahmadinejad's controversial speech, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated: "We have no problem with the world. We are not a threat whatsoever to the world, and the world knows it. We will never start a war. We have no intention of going to war with any state."[12]

As for the Holocaust myth, I have yet to read or hear words from Ahmadinejad saying simply, clearly, unambiguously, and unequivocally that he thinks that what we know as the Holocaust never happened. He has instead commented about the peculiarity and injustice of a Holocaust which took place in Europe resulting in a state for the Jews in the Middle East instead of in Europe. Why are the Palestinians paying a price for a German crime? he asks. He argues that Israel and the United States have exploited the memory of the Holocaust for their own purposes. And he wonders about the accuracy of the number of Jews -- six million -- allegedly killed in the Holocaust, as have many other people of all political stripes, including Holocaust survivors like Italian author Primo Levi. (The much publicized World War One atrocities which turned out to be false made the public very skeptical of the Holocaust claims for a long time after World War Two.) Ahmadinejad further asks why European researchers have been imprisoned for questioning certain details about the Holocaust. Which of this deserves to be labeled "Holocaust denial"?

The conference gave a platform to various points of view, including six members of Jews United Against Zionism, at least two of whom were rabbis. One was Ahron Cohen, from London, who declared: "There is no doubt whatsoever, that during World War 2 there developed a terrible and catastrophic policy and action of genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany against the Jewish People." He also said that "the Zionists make a great issue of the Holocaust in order to further their illegitimate philosophy and aims," indicating as well that the figure of six million Jewish victims is debatable. The other rabbi was Moshe David Weiss, who told the delegates: "We don't want to deny the killing of Jews in World War II, but Zionists have given much higher figures for how many people were killed. They have used the Holocaust as a device to justify their oppression." His group rejects the creation of Israel on the grounds that it violates Jewish religious law in that a Jewish state can't exist until the return of the Messiah .[13]

Another speaker was Shiraz Dossa, professor of political science at St. Francis Xavier University in Canada. In an interview after the conference, he described himself as an anti-imperialist and an admirer of Noam Chomsky, and said that he "was invited because of my expertise as a scholar in the German-Jewish area, as well as my studies in the Holocaust. ... I have nothing to do with Holocaust denial, not at all." His talk, he said, was "about the war on terrorism, and how the Holocaust plays into it. ... There was no pressure at all to say anything, and people there had different views."[14]

Clearly, the conference -- which the White House called "an affront to the entire civilized world"[15] -- was not set up to be a forum for people to deny that the Holocaust literally never took place at all.

As to the yellow star story of May 2006 -- that was a complete fabrication by a prominent Iranian-American neo-conservative author, Amir Taheri.

Ahmadinejad, however, is partly to blame for his predicament. When asked directly about the Holocaust and other controversial matters he usually declines to give explicit answers of "yes" or "no". I interpret this as his prideful refusal to accede to the wishes of what he regards as a hostile Western interviewer asking hostile questions. The Iranian president is also in the habit of prefacing certain remarks with "Even if the Holocaust happened ... ", a rhetorical device we all use in argument and discussion, but one which can not help but reinforce the doubts people have about his views. However, when Ahmadinejad himself asks, as he often has, "Why should the Palestinians have to pay for something that happened in Europe?" he does not get a clear answer.

In any event, in the question and answer session following his talk at Columbia, the Iranian president said: "I'm not saying that it [the Holocaust] didn't happen at all. This is not the judgment that I'm passing here."

That should put the matter to rest. But of course it won't. Two days later, September 26, a bill (H. R. 3675) was introduced in Congress "To prohibit Federal grants to or contracts with Columbia University", to punish the school for inviting Ahmadinejad to speak. The bill's first "finding" states that "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for the destruction of the State of Israel, a critical ally of the United States."

That same day, comedian Jay Leno had great fun ridiculing Ahmadinejad for denying that the Holocaust ever happened "despite all the eye-witness accounts".

How long before the first linking of Iran with 9-11? Or has that already happened? How long before democracy and freedom bombs begin to fall upon the heads of the Iranian people? All the charges of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, along with other disinformation, are of course designed to culminate in this new crime against humanity.

I wonder, in discussing these matters, if I'm running the risk of once again being called "anti-Semitic" by some Internet readers. No one is safe from such charges these days. It should be noted that Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, was accused last year of anti-semitic behavior by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency of New York and the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, important members of the Israel lobby. The accusation was based on a highly egregious out-of-context reading of some remarks by Chavez.[16] One doesn't have to be particularly conspiracy minded to think that this was done in collusion with Bush administration officials. As the Reagan administration in 1983 flung charges of anti-Semitism against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, led by Daniel Ortega, who heads it again today.[17] Stay tuned. Daniel, watch out.

One final thought. On the Democratic Party's failure to stand up to the Bush fascist tide. Here, from the first-person account of a German living under Hitler in the 1930s, his observation about the leading German political party, the Social Democrats, the Democratic Party of its time: The Social Democrats, he wrote, "had fought the election campaign of 1933 in a dreadfully humiliating way, chasing after the Nazi slogans and emphasizing that they were 'also nationalist'. ... In May, a month before they were finally dissolved, the Social Democratic faction in the Reichstag had unanimously expressed their confidence in Hitler and joined in the singing of the 'Horst Wessel Song,' the Nazi anthem. (The official parliamentary report noted: 'Unending applause and cheers, in the house and the galleries. The Reichschancellor [Hitler] turns to the Social Democratic faction and applauds.')"[18]

Burma It's not that I can't give United States foreign policy any credit when credit is due (please send me examples of the good deeds I've overlooked), but the raison d'être of this report is to try to help readers understand how US foreign policy works, waking people up and making them smell the garbage. American officials are now saying all the right things in support of the protesting Burmese monks. They condemn the Burmese leaders. They have announced new sanctions against the military regime and have called upon the Security Council to consider further steps. "Americans are outraged by the situation," said Bush at the UN last week. But we must remember that all this costs the United States nothing. There's no oil involved. Israel has not yet accused the monks of anti-semitism. There's no issue of terrorism involved, though the government has tried to raise the issue of "terrorism" to win Washington's support. The monks have not made any socialist or anti-imperialist demands. There are no American bases whose removal they've called for. No Burmese troops have been helping the US in Iraq or Afghanistan. Neither Halliburton nor Blackwater has a presence in Burma. In short, nothing that would oblige Washington to compromise, once again, on its alleged principles.

NOTES [1] Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1971, original version 1925), Vol. 1, chapter 2, pp 57-8; chapter 4, p.150

[2] The Forward (Jewish newspaper in New York), March 16, 2007 http://www.forward.com/articles/pastor-hailed-bibi-dissed-pollard-rejected-whil/

[3] Haaretz.com (Israeli newspaper), http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/787766.html

[4] Ibid.

[5] The Jerusalem Post, January 23, 2007

[6] Commentary Magazine (New York), June 2007

[7] "Mein Kampf", op. cit., Vol. 1, chapter 10, p.231

[8] Washington Post, September 25, 2007, p.1

[9] Washington Post, September 25, 2007, p.6

[10] Informed Comment, Cole's blog, May 3, 2006 www.juancole.com/2006/05/hitchens-hacker-and-hitchens.html For a word-by-word breakdown of Ahmadinejad's remark, in Farsi and English, see: Global Research, January 20, 2007, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=NOR20070120&articleId=4527

[11] Associated Press, December 12, 2006

[12] Letter to Washington Post from M.A. Mohammadi, Press Officer, Iranian Mission to the United Nations, June 12, 2006

[13] nkusa.org/activities/Speeches/2006Iran-ACohen.cfm; Telegraph.co.uk, article by Alex Spillius, December 13, 2006; Associated Press, December 12, 2006

[14] Globe and Mail (Toronto), December 13, 2006

[15] Associated Press, December 12, 2006

[16] Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, www.fair.org/index.php?page=2805

[17] Holly Sklar, "Washington's War On Nicaragua" (1988), p.243

[18] Sebastian Haffner, "Defying Hitler" (English edition, New York, 2000), pp.130-1

William Blum is the author of: Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2 Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire. Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at

Thoughts of Rudy Giuliani

"Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."
--Rudy Giuliani

Lewis Black weighs in on non-issues

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Marion Jones demonized by big business sports

Finally a column that says what I want to say about the scapegoating of Marion Jones. Why I didn't just say it myself, I don't know. --Pete

By Kathy Durkin

Published Oct 13, 2007

Marion Jones was the first woman to ever win five Olympic medals. In stellar performances, Jones, one of the best track-and-field athletes in the world, won these prizes at the Sydney summer games in 2000.

But no matter how high she rose and how much she accomplished, Jones was not immune from the racism faced by athletes who are from oppressed communities. Having been singled out by the federal government in an investigation into BALCO, a company that made or supplied performance-enhancing drugs to athletes, she became the first athlete to be convicted in this case.

On Oct. 5, after being constantly hounded, harassed and intimidated for years, Jones pleaded guilty to perjury to federal agents about use of performance-enhancing substances. She faces imprisonment. On Oct. 8, Jones turned in her hard-earned medals to Olympics officials.

The media have relentlessly pursued and vilified Jones in the most callous way, whipping up racism and sexism in the process.

Worn down by the unrelenting pressure, Jones tearfully announced that she was retiring from track and field, which she loves.

But there is much more to her situation than the official story.

The Olympics, although touted as a fair-playing field where the best world athletes show their skills and compete, is big business. Billions of dollars are at stake. Corporations invest millions to reap billions. The 11 top sponsors of the Sydney Olympics, which included McDonald’s, Nike and Coca-Cola, paid a total of $605 million.

From 2002 to 2006, the International Olympics Committee took in nearly $4 billion, much of it from corporate sponsors. Other funds come from broadcasting rights and licensing fees.

Networks pay millions of dollars for exclusive broadcasting rights; NBC alone is expected to pay $894 million to show the 2008 games in Beijing.

But the athletes are paid nothing. They are regarded as workers, as a means to make mega-profits for the International Olympics Committee and its corporate backers. The IOC, a reactionary body that has profited from the athletes’ labor, seeks to maintain absolute control over all of the world games’ participants. It has no sympathy for the athletes. At any moment, the IOC can quickly turn against them.

Yet every athlete trains for years for these games. Athletes are pressured to push themselves to their maximum endurance, to compete at the most intense level, and to do anything to get an edge over their competitors—at all costs, even endangering their own health, all in order to bring home Olympic gold.

It is widely known that the use of performance-enhancing drugs, including steroids, is rampant throughout the sports world at every level, especially at the top. This phenomenon is worldwide. The Olympic Games are no exception. These drugs which bring in massive profits for the big pharmaceutical companies are readily available, even through the internet.

This is what sports competitions under capitalism look like.

Misplacing blame

It is the athletes from oppressed communities who face the most scrutiny, no matter how talented, wealthy, or adored by their fans. They are in the greatest danger of government prosecution and ostracism by the sports industry for any alleged infraction.

Olympic medalists Ben Johnson and Justin Gatlin are among other Black athletes who have been penalized for allegedly using performance enhancers.

Baseball great and home-run leader Barry Bonds has also been targeted in the BALCO scandal, and may very well be indicted in the near future. He has already been tried and convicted in the media.

The corporate media play a major role in perpetrating the denigration of players of all sports. Instead of looking at the intense pressures athletes are constantly under, news agencies, reporters and sports columnists go on the offensive and try to break them down. They especially malign players from the oppressed communities, whether they’re participating in baseball, football, basketball or the Olympics.

It is an outrage that Marion Jones has been vilified by the media.

Where is the justice here? One of the greatest women athletes of all time has been forced into retirement. Her spirit has been broken. She is financially ruined. And she faces prison.

There should be sympathy, solidarity and respect shown for her.

Those who make enormous profits from the Olympics and all sports, those who pressure young athletes to win at all costs, those who use and then discard and denigrate them—this is who should take the blame for a situation they created.

What’s really needed is for the profit motive to be taken out of sports, including these world games, and for the athletes to be treated with high regard.

---

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