by Bruce Dixon; The Black Commentator; July 06, 2005, Via Znet
"Democracy... does not come from the government, from on high, it comes from people getting together and struggling for justice."
- Howard Zinn, Spelman College commencement address, Atlanta, 2005.
Politicians are elected and selected, but mass movements transform societies. Judges uphold, strike down, or invent brand new law, but mass movements drag the courts, laws and officeholders all in their wake. Progressive and even partially successful mass movements can alter the political calculus for decades to come, thus improving the lives of millions. Social Security, the New Deal, and employer-provided medical care didn't come from the pen of FDR. The end of "separate but equal" didn't come from the lips of any judge, and voting rights were not simply granted by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. All these were hard-won outcomes of protracted struggle by progressive mass movements, every one of which operated outside the law and none of which looked to elected officials or the corporate media of those days for blessings or legitimacy. It's time to re-learn those lessons and build a new progressive mass movement in the United States.
Mass movements are against the law
Mass movements exist outside electoral politics, and outside the law, or they don't exist at all. Mass movements are never respecters of law and order. How can they be? A mass movement is an assertion of popular leadership by the people themselves. A mass movement aims to persuade courts, politicians and other actors to tail behind it, not the other way around. Mass movements accomplish this through appeals to shared sets of deep and widely held convictions among the people they aim to mobilize, along with acts or credible threats of sustained and popular civil disobedience.
Not all mass movements are progressive. The legal strategy of "massive resistance" to desegregation on the part of southern whites, in which local governments across the south threw up thickets of lawsuits, evasions and new statutes, closing whole school systems in some areas rather than integrate, was implemented in response to and backed up by the historically credible and ever-present threat of armed, lawless white mobs long accustomed to dishing out violence to their black neighbors and any white allies with impunity. They operated in a context of popular belief in white superiority and black inferiority that was widespread among whites of that region and time. Undeniable proof of the existence of a violent, white supremacist mass movement was broadcast around the world when thousands of local white citizens showed up to trade blows, insults, and gunfire with federal marshals in places like Little Rock, Arkansas in '57 and Oxford, Mississippi in '62.
Likewise, courts and public officials who enforced desegregation orders were under relentless pressure from a civilly disobedient mass movement for equality and justice. 89 leaders of the 1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott could not have been surprised when they earned conspiracy indictments for their trouble. Tens of thousands of mostly southern, mostly black citizens defied unjust laws and were jailed in the waves of mostly illegal sit-ins, marches, freedom rides and other mostly illegal actions that swept the South for more than a decade. This movement in turn relied on the deep convictions of all African Americans and growing numbers of whites that segregation and white supremacy were evils that had to be fought, regardless of personal costs. For many, those costs were very high. Some are still paying.
Mass movements are politically aggressive
Mass movements are kindled into existence by unique combinations of outraged public opinion in the movement's core constituency, political opportunity, and aggressive leadership. The absence of any of these can prevent a mass movement from materializing. In a January 20, 2005 BC article occasioned by the death of visionary James Foreman, one of the masterminds of the mid-century movement for civil and human rights, which contains many useful insights on the characteristics of mass movements, David Swanson recalled a recent lost opportunity in the wake of the 2000 presidential election: "Various small groups did act, and Rev. Jesse Jackson became a leading spokesman for those objecting to a stolen election. The coalition cobbled together was surprisingly successful in moving Congress Members and Senators to at least give lip service to the matter. The seeds of something may have been sown. But a mass movement was not organized. Civil disobedience was not used."
Read On...
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Scalia Grandstands On The High Bench
Via The Light Of Reason
I may have more to say about the Supreme Court’s religious display cases at a later date although, at a first glance, the decisions announced today don’t appear to break any new ground. In general, the Court’s religion decisions tend to be even more opaque, inconsistent and mind-numbingly tortuous than its decisions with regard to other subjects. Or, as Souter wrote, they are “fact-intensive” cases —which is a polite way of saying that the Court declines to identify any clearcut principles which it will deign to explain to the rest of us, and upon which we can rely in the future. In one important sense, every case is “fact-intensive,” and there is no case so simple that a lawyer or judge cannot make it appear to be “fact-intensive” to a degree which makes it defy all attempts at basic comprehension, if he or she wishes to do so. Moreover, the Court’s religion decisions often convey the impression that no graspable principles can possibly be discerned from the Constitution in any manner at all. That is a position I strongly disagree with, but that is a complicated subject for another time.
In that very limited sense—and although I come to a conclusion which is the direct opposite of his—Scalia is correct to note the mishmash the Court has made of its jurisprudence in this area in his dissent in the McCreary case.
At the moment, I want only to note one enormously regrettable aspect of Scalia’s opinion—a tactic which is the equivalent of a very low blow delivered in the guise of judicial argument. Here is the opening of Scalia’s dissent:
I would uphold McCreary County and Pulaski County, Kentucky’s (hereinafter Counties) displays of the Ten Commandments. I shall discuss first, why the Court’s oft repeated assertion that the government cannot favor religious practice is false; second, why today’s opinion extends the scope of that falsehood even beyond prior cases; and third, why even on the basis of the Court’s false assumptions the judgment here is wrong.
On September 11, 2001 I was attending in Rome, Italy an international conference of judges and lawyers, principally from Europe and the United States. That night and the next morning virtually all of the participants watched, in their hotel rooms, the address to the Nation by the President of the United States concerning the murderous attacks upon the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, in which thousands of Americans had been killed. The address ended, as Presidential addresses often do, with the prayer “God bless America.” The next afternoon I was approached by one of the judges from a European country, who, after extending his profound condolences for my country’s loss, sadly observed “How I wish that the Head of State of my country, at a similar time of national tragedy and distress, could conclude his address ‘God bless______.’ It is of course absolutely forbidden.”
That is one model of the relationship between church and state—a model spread across Europe by the armies of Napoleon, and reflected in the Constitution of France, which begins “France is [a] . . . secular . . . Republic.” France Const., Art. 1, in 7 Constitutions of the Countries of the World, p. 1 (G. Flanz ed. 2000). Religion is to be strictly excluded from the public forum. This is not, and never was, the model adopted by America. George Washington added to the form of Presidential oath prescribed by Art. II, §1, cl. 8, of the Constitution, the concluding words “so help me God.” See Blomquist, The Presidential Oath, the American National Interest and a Call for Presiprudence, 73 UMKC L. Rev. 1, 34 (2004). The Supreme Court under John Marshall opened its sessions with the prayer, “God save the United States and this Honorable Court.” 1 C. Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History 469 (rev. ed. 1926). The First Congress instituted the practice of beginning its legislative sessions with a prayer. Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U. S. 783, 787 (1983). The same week that Congress submitted the Establishment Clause as part of the Bill of Rights for ratification by the States, it enacted legislation providing for paid chaplains in the House and Senate. Id., at 788.
And with that, Scalia is off and running. On that last specific point—that the first Congress “enacted legislation providing for paid chaplains in the House and Senate”—Scalia does not think it worthy of mention that at least one of the Founders thought that such legislation unquestionably violated the new Constitution, as he wrote some years later.
In one of his most famous Detached Memoranda, James Madison wrote on the great dangers of state-sanctioned religion to the new republic at considerable length (from 1817):
...
Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom?
In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve the principle of a national establishment, applicable to a provision for a religious worship for the Constituent as well as of the representative Body, approved by the majority, and conducted by Ministers of religion paid by the entire nation.
Whatever one’s view of Scalia’s jurisprudence, he is unquestionably a brilliant man. Surely he is familiar with Madison’s writing on this question. Yet somehow these views of Madison’s are omitted from Scalia’s historical recitation (unless I missed the reference in my first overview, which I strongly doubt).
But leave that aside for now. Return to Scalia’s invocation of 9/11—in the opening of an opinion which he knows was eagerly awaited and will be reviewed by many with great care and attention. We have all witnessed many opportunistic and nakedly political purposes for which the profound tragedy of 9/11 has been appropriated. But I consider this to be by far the worst.
Even though its performance in recent years could legitimately have led many observers to expect no more at this point, to soil decisions which are supposed to represent the most deliberate, careful, respectful, intellectually serious and—dare one say it—judicious thought at the very apex of the United States’ system of justice with this kind of cheap grandstanding is beneath contempt. Whatever Bush or anyone else said in the wake of events on that terrible day, such remarks are of no legal consequence whatsoever, and they are utterly irrelevant—which renders Scalia’s mention of Bush’s comments gratuitous in the extreme.
You may have thought that individuals wearing black robes did not deliver low blows and were incapable of cheap shots, at least in their published opinions. Scalia proved you terribly wrong today.
What a disgrace.
I may have more to say about the Supreme Court’s religious display cases at a later date although, at a first glance, the decisions announced today don’t appear to break any new ground. In general, the Court’s religion decisions tend to be even more opaque, inconsistent and mind-numbingly tortuous than its decisions with regard to other subjects. Or, as Souter wrote, they are “fact-intensive” cases —which is a polite way of saying that the Court declines to identify any clearcut principles which it will deign to explain to the rest of us, and upon which we can rely in the future. In one important sense, every case is “fact-intensive,” and there is no case so simple that a lawyer or judge cannot make it appear to be “fact-intensive” to a degree which makes it defy all attempts at basic comprehension, if he or she wishes to do so. Moreover, the Court’s religion decisions often convey the impression that no graspable principles can possibly be discerned from the Constitution in any manner at all. That is a position I strongly disagree with, but that is a complicated subject for another time.
In that very limited sense—and although I come to a conclusion which is the direct opposite of his—Scalia is correct to note the mishmash the Court has made of its jurisprudence in this area in his dissent in the McCreary case.
At the moment, I want only to note one enormously regrettable aspect of Scalia’s opinion—a tactic which is the equivalent of a very low blow delivered in the guise of judicial argument. Here is the opening of Scalia’s dissent:
I would uphold McCreary County and Pulaski County, Kentucky’s (hereinafter Counties) displays of the Ten Commandments. I shall discuss first, why the Court’s oft repeated assertion that the government cannot favor religious practice is false; second, why today’s opinion extends the scope of that falsehood even beyond prior cases; and third, why even on the basis of the Court’s false assumptions the judgment here is wrong.
On September 11, 2001 I was attending in Rome, Italy an international conference of judges and lawyers, principally from Europe and the United States. That night and the next morning virtually all of the participants watched, in their hotel rooms, the address to the Nation by the President of the United States concerning the murderous attacks upon the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, in which thousands of Americans had been killed. The address ended, as Presidential addresses often do, with the prayer “God bless America.” The next afternoon I was approached by one of the judges from a European country, who, after extending his profound condolences for my country’s loss, sadly observed “How I wish that the Head of State of my country, at a similar time of national tragedy and distress, could conclude his address ‘God bless______.’ It is of course absolutely forbidden.”
That is one model of the relationship between church and state—a model spread across Europe by the armies of Napoleon, and reflected in the Constitution of France, which begins “France is [a] . . . secular . . . Republic.” France Const., Art. 1, in 7 Constitutions of the Countries of the World, p. 1 (G. Flanz ed. 2000). Religion is to be strictly excluded from the public forum. This is not, and never was, the model adopted by America. George Washington added to the form of Presidential oath prescribed by Art. II, §1, cl. 8, of the Constitution, the concluding words “so help me God.” See Blomquist, The Presidential Oath, the American National Interest and a Call for Presiprudence, 73 UMKC L. Rev. 1, 34 (2004). The Supreme Court under John Marshall opened its sessions with the prayer, “God save the United States and this Honorable Court.” 1 C. Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History 469 (rev. ed. 1926). The First Congress instituted the practice of beginning its legislative sessions with a prayer. Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U. S. 783, 787 (1983). The same week that Congress submitted the Establishment Clause as part of the Bill of Rights for ratification by the States, it enacted legislation providing for paid chaplains in the House and Senate. Id., at 788.
And with that, Scalia is off and running. On that last specific point—that the first Congress “enacted legislation providing for paid chaplains in the House and Senate”—Scalia does not think it worthy of mention that at least one of the Founders thought that such legislation unquestionably violated the new Constitution, as he wrote some years later.
In one of his most famous Detached Memoranda, James Madison wrote on the great dangers of state-sanctioned religion to the new republic at considerable length (from 1817):
The danger of silent accumulations & encroachments by Ecclesiastical Bodies have not sufficiently engaged attention in the U. S. They have the noble merit of first unshackling the conscience from persecuting laws, and of establishing among religious Sects a legal equality. If some of the States have not embraced this just and this truly Xn principle in its proper latitude, all of them present examples by which the most enlightened States of the old world may be instructed; and there is one State at least, Virginia, where religious liberty is placed on its true foundation and is defined in its full latitude. The general principle is contained in her declaration of rights, prefixed to her Constitution: but it is unfolded and defined, in its precise extent, in the act of the Legislature, usually named the Religious Bill, which passed into a law in the year 1786. Here the separation between the authority of human laws, and the natural rights of Man excepted from the grant on which all political authority is founded, is traced as distinctly as words can admit, and the limits to this authority established with as much solemnity as the forms of legislation can express. The law has the further advantage of having been the result of a formal appeal to the sense of the Community and a deliberate sanction of a vast majority, comprizing every sect of Christians in the State. This act is a true standard of Religious liberty: its principle the great barrier agst usurpations on the rights of conscience. As long as it is respected & no longer, these will be safe. Every provision for them short of this principle, will be found to leave crevices at least thro’ which bigotry may introduce persecution; a monster, that feeding & thriving on its own venom, gradually swells to a size and strength overwhelming all laws divine & human.
...
Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom?
In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve the principle of a national establishment, applicable to a provision for a religious worship for the Constituent as well as of the representative Body, approved by the majority, and conducted by Ministers of religion paid by the entire nation.
The establishment of the chaplainship to Congs is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles: The tenets of the chaplains elected [by the majority] shut the door of worship agst the members whose creeds & consciences forbid a participation in that of the majority. To say nothing of other sects, this is the case with that of Roman Catholics & Quakers who have always had members in one or both of the Legislative branches. Could a Catholic clergyman ever hope to be appointed a Chaplain? To say that his religious principles are obnoxious or that his sect is small, is to lift the evil at once and exhibit in its naked deformity the doctrine that religious truth is to be tested by numbers. or that the major sects have a right to govern the minor.
If Religion consist in voluntary acts of individuals, singly, or voluntarily associated, and it be proper that public functionaries, as well as their Constituents shd discharge their religious duties, let them like their Constituents, do so at their own expence. How small a contribution from each member of Congs wd suffice for the purpose? How just wd it be in its principle? How noble in its exemplary sacrifice to the genius of the Constitution; and the divine right of conscience? Why should the expence of a religious worship be allowed for the Legislature, be paid by the public, more than that for the Ex. or Judiciary branch of the Govt.
Whatever one’s view of Scalia’s jurisprudence, he is unquestionably a brilliant man. Surely he is familiar with Madison’s writing on this question. Yet somehow these views of Madison’s are omitted from Scalia’s historical recitation (unless I missed the reference in my first overview, which I strongly doubt).
But leave that aside for now. Return to Scalia’s invocation of 9/11—in the opening of an opinion which he knows was eagerly awaited and will be reviewed by many with great care and attention. We have all witnessed many opportunistic and nakedly political purposes for which the profound tragedy of 9/11 has been appropriated. But I consider this to be by far the worst.
Even though its performance in recent years could legitimately have led many observers to expect no more at this point, to soil decisions which are supposed to represent the most deliberate, careful, respectful, intellectually serious and—dare one say it—judicious thought at the very apex of the United States’ system of justice with this kind of cheap grandstanding is beneath contempt. Whatever Bush or anyone else said in the wake of events on that terrible day, such remarks are of no legal consequence whatsoever, and they are utterly irrelevant—which renders Scalia’s mention of Bush’s comments gratuitous in the extreme.
You may have thought that individuals wearing black robes did not deliver low blows and were incapable of cheap shots, at least in their published opinions. Scalia proved you terribly wrong today.
What a disgrace.
Rove Outed As Traitor!
Via The Huffington Post
Down here in Texas, many of us have almost given up on obscure concepts like justice and the ephemeral notion of karma. Since the late 1970s, we have watched Karl Rove push so hard on ethical boundaries that he has turned lying into a conventional political tactic. Instead of being prosecuted or humiliated, he has risen in the Republican Party. And there are already signs he is a few steps ahead of the federal investigators trying to resolve the mysteries of the Valerie Plame affair.
He always starts his evasions by parsing language and law. Rove's attorney has quickly conceded that his client spoke to Matt Cooper of Time, and other reporters. This is the presidential advisor sending forth his minions to frame the ensuing discussion.
"Of course, I talked to the reporters," the reasoning goes, "I've got the same First Amendment rights in the White House as every other citizen."
Positioning is Rove's favorite political sport and that's the purpose of this admission. It's a metaphorical "so what" shrug of the shoulders. But the sub text of Rove's words shows another strategy. The presidential advisor undoubtedly knows he is guilty of a federal crime but, for obvious political reasons, he needs it to be something less than treason. Perjury will be his default position. The political harm to be done to his president and his party for a conviction of treason is incalcuable.
And the federal investigators appear to be making a case for perjury. The American Prospect has already reported that, in his 2003 appearances before the federal grand jury, Rove said he had not spoken to reporters about Valerie Plame's identity until after her name was published in Robert Novak's column. Unfortunately for Rove, early reports indicate that the e-mails being turned over to the federal prosecutor by Time magazine apparently show Rove was in communication with reporter Matt Cooper well in advance of Novak's piece. Sending such e-mails directly from his West Wing computer is not the kind of mistake Rove can be expected to make but Cooper's identification of his source through Time communications ought to facilitate a simple case of perjury against Rove, particularly if Judith Miller of the New York Times can be compelled to stop protecting a source who appears to have betrayed the entire country.
If, in fact, Karl Rove did testify before a federal grand jury it is possibly an indication he was not originally a target of the investigation; or that he had bad legal advice. If investigators notified him that he was a target, he ought not to have appeared to answer their questions. His counsel should have told him to stay away and let them make their case on whatever evidence they might gather. Rove, though, ever the practitioner of a dark craft, knows that his appearance would eventually leak out and that reporters would analyze its meaning.
The legal points of the case against Rove and the other White House Plame leakers almost seem irrelevant. Justice is a kind of bonus if it ever comes to this case. There has never been any real denial by the Bush administration that people working closely with the president made a concerted effort to contact reporters and promote the idea of writing stories about an undercover CIA agent. And yet nobody on the right seems to have any outrage. The confessed unethical behavior, regardless of whether it is legally treason or not, ought to be enough to prompt the "accountability" president to send Rove and his consorts home.
The simple, unavoidable truth is that Karl Rove orchestrated the leak of Valerie Plame's identity. No one who knows this man and has watched him work has any doubt that Rove came up with the idea of the leak and then set the plan in motion. Having watched him as he leaked, lied, obfuscated, and denied for political goals over the past 25 years, my own conviction of Rove's involvement is unwavering. He has a history of seeking revenge and the Texas landscape is cluttered with political cadavers he left behind before departing for the big show. In every campaign Rove has managed, there have been questionable tactics and unethical attacks. None of them has happened by accident because nothing that happens in Rove's world is accidental. And neither was the eposure of Ms. Plame. It was no more spontaneous, independent, or random than the campaign run by the Swift Boat Veterans.
In Texas, progressives are hoping Rove's trail of tears has led him to his own inevitable sadness. And there is the slight chance that the awful weight of all of his wrongs has finally begun to crush Karl Rove. There is a moment of hubris in most great achievements. But I am skeptical that this is Karl's moment. His justice may be long overdue. Unfortunately, however, in Rove's case, the law has been about as reliable as karma.
Down here in Texas, many of us have almost given up on obscure concepts like justice and the ephemeral notion of karma. Since the late 1970s, we have watched Karl Rove push so hard on ethical boundaries that he has turned lying into a conventional political tactic. Instead of being prosecuted or humiliated, he has risen in the Republican Party. And there are already signs he is a few steps ahead of the federal investigators trying to resolve the mysteries of the Valerie Plame affair.
He always starts his evasions by parsing language and law. Rove's attorney has quickly conceded that his client spoke to Matt Cooper of Time, and other reporters. This is the presidential advisor sending forth his minions to frame the ensuing discussion.
"Of course, I talked to the reporters," the reasoning goes, "I've got the same First Amendment rights in the White House as every other citizen."
Positioning is Rove's favorite political sport and that's the purpose of this admission. It's a metaphorical "so what" shrug of the shoulders. But the sub text of Rove's words shows another strategy. The presidential advisor undoubtedly knows he is guilty of a federal crime but, for obvious political reasons, he needs it to be something less than treason. Perjury will be his default position. The political harm to be done to his president and his party for a conviction of treason is incalcuable.
And the federal investigators appear to be making a case for perjury. The American Prospect has already reported that, in his 2003 appearances before the federal grand jury, Rove said he had not spoken to reporters about Valerie Plame's identity until after her name was published in Robert Novak's column. Unfortunately for Rove, early reports indicate that the e-mails being turned over to the federal prosecutor by Time magazine apparently show Rove was in communication with reporter Matt Cooper well in advance of Novak's piece. Sending such e-mails directly from his West Wing computer is not the kind of mistake Rove can be expected to make but Cooper's identification of his source through Time communications ought to facilitate a simple case of perjury against Rove, particularly if Judith Miller of the New York Times can be compelled to stop protecting a source who appears to have betrayed the entire country.
If, in fact, Karl Rove did testify before a federal grand jury it is possibly an indication he was not originally a target of the investigation; or that he had bad legal advice. If investigators notified him that he was a target, he ought not to have appeared to answer their questions. His counsel should have told him to stay away and let them make their case on whatever evidence they might gather. Rove, though, ever the practitioner of a dark craft, knows that his appearance would eventually leak out and that reporters would analyze its meaning.
The legal points of the case against Rove and the other White House Plame leakers almost seem irrelevant. Justice is a kind of bonus if it ever comes to this case. There has never been any real denial by the Bush administration that people working closely with the president made a concerted effort to contact reporters and promote the idea of writing stories about an undercover CIA agent. And yet nobody on the right seems to have any outrage. The confessed unethical behavior, regardless of whether it is legally treason or not, ought to be enough to prompt the "accountability" president to send Rove and his consorts home.
The simple, unavoidable truth is that Karl Rove orchestrated the leak of Valerie Plame's identity. No one who knows this man and has watched him work has any doubt that Rove came up with the idea of the leak and then set the plan in motion. Having watched him as he leaked, lied, obfuscated, and denied for political goals over the past 25 years, my own conviction of Rove's involvement is unwavering. He has a history of seeking revenge and the Texas landscape is cluttered with political cadavers he left behind before departing for the big show. In every campaign Rove has managed, there have been questionable tactics and unethical attacks. None of them has happened by accident because nothing that happens in Rove's world is accidental. And neither was the eposure of Ms. Plame. It was no more spontaneous, independent, or random than the campaign run by the Swift Boat Veterans.
In Texas, progressives are hoping Rove's trail of tears has led him to his own inevitable sadness. And there is the slight chance that the awful weight of all of his wrongs has finally begun to crush Karl Rove. There is a moment of hubris in most great achievements. But I am skeptical that this is Karl's moment. His justice may be long overdue. Unfortunately, however, in Rove's case, the law has been about as reliable as karma.
Friday, June 24, 2005
A Quick Review of the Durbin Flap...
Just so we're clear:
Torture as official policy: A source of national pride; no apology necessary.
Condemning torture: A "heinous slander" against America; you must apologize or resign.
The apologists for torture need never apologize. But those who reject it -- reject it on the basis that it is fundamentally un-American -- are condemned.
Torture as official policy: A source of national pride; no apology necessary.
Condemning torture: A "heinous slander" against America; you must apologize or resign.
The apologists for torture need never apologize. But those who reject it -- reject it on the basis that it is fundamentally un-American -- are condemned.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
"Nuff Said..."
"Cuz if we in Congress see a hole, we fill it with a problem, then fix it with an amendment. It's just what we do.
WHAT ABE FOXMAN DOESN'T SAY ABOUT FASCISM
[From a piece that ran during the last Giuliani mayoral campaign]
SAM SMITH - Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League has accused artist Hans Haacke of "trivializing the Holocaust" by creating analogies between Mayor Giuliani and Adolph Hitler. Said Foxman, the work "denigrates the memory of six million Jews and others who were killed by the Nazis."
Foxman's contribution to the Giuliani campaign illustrates the growing confusion over the nature of fascism, spurred in no small part by a form of historical revisionism that essentially reduces the Second World War to a matter of anti-Semitism. In some ways this revisionism is more dangerous than the claim that the Holocaust never happened, since the denials are safely on the fringe while the myth that fascism is
inexorably linked to anti-Semitism is widely held.
One of the reasons we have such difficulty perceiving our current conditions is our aversion to this single word: fascism. While there is no hesitation by politicians to draw parallels with the Holocaust to justify whatever foreign adventure appeals to them, or for the media to make similar analogies at the drop of swastika on a wall, we seem only able to understand -- or even mention -- the climax of fascism rather
than its genesis. Why this reluctance? Perhaps it is because we are much closer to the latter than to the former.
In any case, it is one of the most dangerous forms of political myopia in which to indulge. Italians, who invented the term fascism, also called it the estato corporativo: the corporatist state. Orwell rightly described fascism as being an extension of capitalism. It is an economy in which the government serves the interests of oligopolies, a state in which large corporations have the powers that in a democracy devolve to the citizen. Today, it is no exaggeration to call our economy
corporatist, which has been described by British academics R.E. Pahl and J. T. Winkler as a system in which the government guides privately owned businesses towards order, unity, nationalism and success."
"Let us not mince words, they said. "Corporatism is fascism with a human face." The Nazis had their own word for it: wehrwirtschaft, semantically linking wehr (for defense, bulwark, weapon) with wirtshaft (for housekeeping, domestic economy, husbandry) to describe an economy based on the assumption of warfare. The concept was not new, however. William Shirer points out in The Rise and the Fall of the Third Reich that 18th and 19th century Prussia devoted 70% of its revenue to the army and
"that nation's whole economy was always regarded as primarily an instrument not of the people's welfare but of military policy." In Hitler's Germany even the pogroms were part of national economic planning, seizing Jewish shops and companies and replacing Jewish workers with the Ayrian unemployed.
Hitler argued that "private enterprise cannot be maintained in a democracy," and denounced "the freedom to starve," in a country which had known as many as six million without jobs. Wrote William Shirer, "In taking away that last freedom, Hitler assured himself of the support of the working class."
The link between business and fascism was clear to German corporatists. Auschwitz was not just a way to get rid of Jews, it was also a major source of cheap labor. As Richard Rubenstein points out in The Cunning of History, "I.G. Farben's decision to locate at Auschwitz was based upon the very same criteria by which contemporary multinational corporations relocate their plants in utter indifference to the social
consequences of such moves." I.G. Farben invested over a billion dollars in today's money at Auschwitz and, thanks to the endless supply of labor, adopted a policy of deliberately working the Jewish slaves to death. In such ways do economics and freedom become intertwined.
Those who think it can't happen here should consider that four days before Mussolini became premier, he met with a group of industrialists and assured them that his aim "was to reestablish discipline within the factories and that no outlandish experiments .... would be carried out." In Friendly Fascism, Bertram Gross notes that Mussolini also won "the friendship, support or qualified approval" of the American ambassador, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Thomas Lamont, many newspapers and magazine
publishers, the majority of business journals, and quite a sprinkling of liberals, including some associated with both the Nation and The New Republic. "
Orwell understood fascism. One of the characteristics of his inner party, the ten percent who controlled the rest, was that there was no sexual or racial discrimination. He understood that ethnic eradication, while characteristic of Nazism, was not required for fascism. Even earlier, Aldous Huxley set up a similar non-discriminatory dystopia in Brave New World.
In fact, one of the characteristics of the modern propaganda state is the use of ethnic and sexual iconography to cover its tracks. Thus Richard Nixon was slurring Jews in Oval Office conversations even as he set a new record in their high-level appointments. And W.J. Clinton was called our first black president by Toni Morrison even as the government was sending young black males to prison in unprecedented numbers.
There is something else about fascism that we miss: it requires a modern, technocratic society. John Ralston Saul has written:
Marshall Rosenberg, who teaches non-violent communication, says that in reading psychological interviews with Nazi war criminals what struck him was not their abnormality, but that they used a language that denied choice: "should," "one must," "have to." For example, Adolph Eichmann was asked, "Was it difficult for you to send these tens of thousands of people their death?" Eichmann replied, "To tell you the truth, it was easy. Our language made it easy."
Asked to explain, Eichmann said, "My fellow officers and I coined our own name for our language. We called it amtssprache -- 'office talk.'" In office talk "you deny responsibility for your actions. So if anybody says, 'Why did you do it?' you say, 'I had to.' 'Why did you have to?' 'Superiors' orders. Company policy. It's the law.'"
Yet for all the words we have devoted to the Holocaust, go into almost any bookstore and you'll find far more works on how to manage, manipulate and control others - and how to use "office talk" -- than you will on how to practice the skills of a free citizen.
The most important lessons of the Holocaust are simply missed. Among these, as Richard Rubenstein has pointed out, is that it could only have been carried out by "an advanced political community with a highly trained, tightly disciplined police and civil service bureaucracy." In The Cunning of History, Rubenstein also finds uncomfortable parallels between the Nazis and their opponents, of which we are being now reminded with recent questions about the role of the Vatican and the Swiss during WWII. For example, a Hungarian Jewish emissary meets with Lord Moyne, the British High Commissioner in Egypt in 1944 and suggests that the Nazis might be willing to save one million Hungarian Jews in return for military supplies. Lord Moyne's reply: "What shall I do with those million Jews? Where shall I put them?"
Writes Rubenstein: "The British government was by no means adverse to the 'final solution' as long as the Germans did most of the work." For both countries, it had become a bureaucratic problem, one that Rubenstein suggests we understand "as the expression of some of the most profound tendencies of Western civilization in the 20th century."How many school children are taught that, worldwide, wars in the past
century killed somewhere between 100 and 150 million people? In World War I alone the death toll was around ten million. All this, including the Holocaust, was driven by a culture of modernity that so changed the power of institutions over the individual that the latter would become what Erich Fromm called homo mechanicus, "attracted to all that is mechanical and inclined against all that is alive." Becoming, in fact, a
part of the machinery -- willing to kill or to die just to keep it running.
Thus, with Auschwitz-like efficiency, over 6,000 people perished every day during World War I for 1,500 days. Rubenstein recounts that on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the British lost 60,000 men and half of the officers assigned to them. But the bureaucratic internal logic of the war did not falter at all; over the next six months, more than a million British, French and German soldiers would lose their
lives. The total British advance: six miles. No one in that war was a person anymore.
Milton Mayer, a Jewish journalist, who wrote a book about ordinary
Nazis, They Thought They Were Free, concluded:
SAM SMITH - Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League has accused artist Hans Haacke of "trivializing the Holocaust" by creating analogies between Mayor Giuliani and Adolph Hitler. Said Foxman, the work "denigrates the memory of six million Jews and others who were killed by the Nazis."
Foxman's contribution to the Giuliani campaign illustrates the growing confusion over the nature of fascism, spurred in no small part by a form of historical revisionism that essentially reduces the Second World War to a matter of anti-Semitism. In some ways this revisionism is more dangerous than the claim that the Holocaust never happened, since the denials are safely on the fringe while the myth that fascism is
inexorably linked to anti-Semitism is widely held.
One of the reasons we have such difficulty perceiving our current conditions is our aversion to this single word: fascism. While there is no hesitation by politicians to draw parallels with the Holocaust to justify whatever foreign adventure appeals to them, or for the media to make similar analogies at the drop of swastika on a wall, we seem only able to understand -- or even mention -- the climax of fascism rather
than its genesis. Why this reluctance? Perhaps it is because we are much closer to the latter than to the former.
In any case, it is one of the most dangerous forms of political myopia in which to indulge. Italians, who invented the term fascism, also called it the estato corporativo: the corporatist state. Orwell rightly described fascism as being an extension of capitalism. It is an economy in which the government serves the interests of oligopolies, a state in which large corporations have the powers that in a democracy devolve to the citizen. Today, it is no exaggeration to call our economy
corporatist, which has been described by British academics R.E. Pahl and J. T. Winkler as a system in which the government guides privately owned businesses towards order, unity, nationalism and success."
"Let us not mince words, they said. "Corporatism is fascism with a human face." The Nazis had their own word for it: wehrwirtschaft, semantically linking wehr (for defense, bulwark, weapon) with wirtshaft (for housekeeping, domestic economy, husbandry) to describe an economy based on the assumption of warfare. The concept was not new, however. William Shirer points out in The Rise and the Fall of the Third Reich that 18th and 19th century Prussia devoted 70% of its revenue to the army and
"that nation's whole economy was always regarded as primarily an instrument not of the people's welfare but of military policy." In Hitler's Germany even the pogroms were part of national economic planning, seizing Jewish shops and companies and replacing Jewish workers with the Ayrian unemployed.
Hitler argued that "private enterprise cannot be maintained in a democracy," and denounced "the freedom to starve," in a country which had known as many as six million without jobs. Wrote William Shirer, "In taking away that last freedom, Hitler assured himself of the support of the working class."
The link between business and fascism was clear to German corporatists. Auschwitz was not just a way to get rid of Jews, it was also a major source of cheap labor. As Richard Rubenstein points out in The Cunning of History, "I.G. Farben's decision to locate at Auschwitz was based upon the very same criteria by which contemporary multinational corporations relocate their plants in utter indifference to the social
consequences of such moves." I.G. Farben invested over a billion dollars in today's money at Auschwitz and, thanks to the endless supply of labor, adopted a policy of deliberately working the Jewish slaves to death. In such ways do economics and freedom become intertwined.
Those who think it can't happen here should consider that four days before Mussolini became premier, he met with a group of industrialists and assured them that his aim "was to reestablish discipline within the factories and that no outlandish experiments .... would be carried out." In Friendly Fascism, Bertram Gross notes that Mussolini also won "the friendship, support or qualified approval" of the American ambassador, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Thomas Lamont, many newspapers and magazine
publishers, the majority of business journals, and quite a sprinkling of liberals, including some associated with both the Nation and The New Republic. "
Orwell understood fascism. One of the characteristics of his inner party, the ten percent who controlled the rest, was that there was no sexual or racial discrimination. He understood that ethnic eradication, while characteristic of Nazism, was not required for fascism. Even earlier, Aldous Huxley set up a similar non-discriminatory dystopia in Brave New World.
In fact, one of the characteristics of the modern propaganda state is the use of ethnic and sexual iconography to cover its tracks. Thus Richard Nixon was slurring Jews in Oval Office conversations even as he set a new record in their high-level appointments. And W.J. Clinton was called our first black president by Toni Morrison even as the government was sending young black males to prison in unprecedented numbers.
There is something else about fascism that we miss: it requires a modern, technocratic society. John Ralston Saul has written:
::: The Holocaust was the result of a perfectly rational argument -- given what reason had become -- that was self-justifying and hermetically sealed. There is, therefore, nothing surprising about the fact that the meeting called to decide on "the final solution" was a gathering mainly of senior ministerial representatives. Technocrats. Nor is it surprising that [the] Wansee Conference lasted only an hour -- one meeting among many for those present -- and turned entirely on the modalities for administering the solutions .... The massacre was indeed 'managed,' even 'well managed.' It had the clean efficiency of a Harvard case study :::
Marshall Rosenberg, who teaches non-violent communication, says that in reading psychological interviews with Nazi war criminals what struck him was not their abnormality, but that they used a language that denied choice: "should," "one must," "have to." For example, Adolph Eichmann was asked, "Was it difficult for you to send these tens of thousands of people their death?" Eichmann replied, "To tell you the truth, it was easy. Our language made it easy."
Asked to explain, Eichmann said, "My fellow officers and I coined our own name for our language. We called it amtssprache -- 'office talk.'" In office talk "you deny responsibility for your actions. So if anybody says, 'Why did you do it?' you say, 'I had to.' 'Why did you have to?' 'Superiors' orders. Company policy. It's the law.'"
Yet for all the words we have devoted to the Holocaust, go into almost any bookstore and you'll find far more works on how to manage, manipulate and control others - and how to use "office talk" -- than you will on how to practice the skills of a free citizen.
The most important lessons of the Holocaust are simply missed. Among these, as Richard Rubenstein has pointed out, is that it could only have been carried out by "an advanced political community with a highly trained, tightly disciplined police and civil service bureaucracy." In The Cunning of History, Rubenstein also finds uncomfortable parallels between the Nazis and their opponents, of which we are being now reminded with recent questions about the role of the Vatican and the Swiss during WWII. For example, a Hungarian Jewish emissary meets with Lord Moyne, the British High Commissioner in Egypt in 1944 and suggests that the Nazis might be willing to save one million Hungarian Jews in return for military supplies. Lord Moyne's reply: "What shall I do with those million Jews? Where shall I put them?"
Writes Rubenstein: "The British government was by no means adverse to the 'final solution' as long as the Germans did most of the work." For both countries, it had become a bureaucratic problem, one that Rubenstein suggests we understand "as the expression of some of the most profound tendencies of Western civilization in the 20th century."How many school children are taught that, worldwide, wars in the past
century killed somewhere between 100 and 150 million people? In World War I alone the death toll was around ten million. All this, including the Holocaust, was driven by a culture of modernity that so changed the power of institutions over the individual that the latter would become what Erich Fromm called homo mechanicus, "attracted to all that is mechanical and inclined against all that is alive." Becoming, in fact, a
part of the machinery -- willing to kill or to die just to keep it running.
Thus, with Auschwitz-like efficiency, over 6,000 people perished every day during World War I for 1,500 days. Rubenstein recounts that on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the British lost 60,000 men and half of the officers assigned to them. But the bureaucratic internal logic of the war did not falter at all; over the next six months, more than a million British, French and German soldiers would lose their
lives. The total British advance: six miles. No one in that war was a person anymore.
Milton Mayer, a Jewish journalist, who wrote a book about ordinary
Nazis, They Thought They Were Free, concluded:
::: Now I see a little better how Nazism overcame Germany ~ It was what most Germans wanted -- or, under pressure of combined reality and illusion, came to want. They wanted it; they got it; and they liked it. I came back home a little afraid for my country, afraid of what it might want, and get, and like, under pressure of combined reality and illusions. I felt -- and feel -- that it was not German Man that I had
met, but Man. He happened to be in Germany under certain conditions. He might be here, under certain conditions. He might, under certain conditions, be I. :::
OPEN LETTER TO KANSAS SCHOOL BOARD
I am writing you with much concern after I read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design to be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design..
Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.
It is for this reason that I'm writing you today, to formally request that this alternative theory be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories. In fact, I will go so far as to say, if you do not agree to do this, we will be forced to proceed with legal action. I'm sure you see where we are coming from. If the Intelligent Design theory is not based on faith, but instead another scientific theory, as is claimed, then you must also allow our theory to be taught, as it is also based on science, not on faith.
Some find that hard to believe, so it may be helpful to tell you a little more about our beliefs. We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power. Also, you may be surprised to hear that there are over 10 million of us, and growing. We tend to be very secretive, as many people claim our beliefs are not substantiated by observable evidence. What these people don't understand is that He built the world to make us think the earth is older than it really is. For example, a scientist may perform a carbon-dating process on an artifact. He finds that approximately 75% of the Carbon-14 has decayed by electron emission to Nitrogen-14, and infers that this artifact is approximately 10,000 years old, as the half-life of Carbon-14 appears to be 5,730 years. But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. We have numerous texts that describe in detail how this can be possible and the reasons why He does this. He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease. . .
We will of course be able to train the teachers in this alternate theory. I am eagerly awaiting your response, and hope dearly that no legal action will need to be taken. I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence.
Sincerely Yours,
Bobby Henderson, concerned citizen.
http://www.venganza.org/
Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.
It is for this reason that I'm writing you today, to formally request that this alternative theory be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories. In fact, I will go so far as to say, if you do not agree to do this, we will be forced to proceed with legal action. I'm sure you see where we are coming from. If the Intelligent Design theory is not based on faith, but instead another scientific theory, as is claimed, then you must also allow our theory to be taught, as it is also based on science, not on faith.
Some find that hard to believe, so it may be helpful to tell you a little more about our beliefs. We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power. Also, you may be surprised to hear that there are over 10 million of us, and growing. We tend to be very secretive, as many people claim our beliefs are not substantiated by observable evidence. What these people don't understand is that He built the world to make us think the earth is older than it really is. For example, a scientist may perform a carbon-dating process on an artifact. He finds that approximately 75% of the Carbon-14 has decayed by electron emission to Nitrogen-14, and infers that this artifact is approximately 10,000 years old, as the half-life of Carbon-14 appears to be 5,730 years. But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. We have numerous texts that describe in detail how this can be possible and the reasons why He does this. He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease. . .
We will of course be able to train the teachers in this alternate theory. I am eagerly awaiting your response, and hope dearly that no legal action will need to be taken. I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence.
Sincerely Yours,
Bobby Henderson, concerned citizen.
http://www.venganza.org/
Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer
Cities may bulldoze people's homes to make way for shopping malls or other private development, a divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday, giving local governments broad power to seize private property to generate tax revenue.
In a scathing dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said the decision bowed to the rich and powerful at the expense of middle-class Americans.
The 5-4 decision means that homeowners will have more limited rights. Still, legal experts said they didn't expect a rush to claim homes.
"The message of the case to cities is yes, you can use eminent domain, but you better be careful and conduct hearings," said Thomas Merrill, a Columbia law professor specializing in property rights.
The closely watched case involving New London, Conn., homeowners was one of six decisions issued Thursday as the court neared the end of its term. The justices are scheduled to release their final six rulings, including one on the constitutionality of Ten Commandments displays on public property, on Monday.
Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, said New London could pursue private development under the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property if the land is for public use, since the project the city has in mind promises to bring more jobs and revenue.
"Promoting economic development is a traditional and long accepted function of government," Stevens wrote, adding that local officials are better positioned than federal judges to decide what's best for a community.
He was joined in his opinion by other members of the court's liberal wing — David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, as well as Reagan appointee Justice Anthony Kennedy, in noting that states are free to pass additional protections if they see fit.
The four-member liberal bloc typically has favored greater deference to cities, which historically have used the takings power for urban renewal projects.
At least eight states — Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, South Carolina and Washington — forbid the use of eminent domain for economic development unless it is to eliminate blight. Other states either expressly allow a taking for private economic purposes or have not spoken clearly to the question.
In dissent, O'Connor criticized the majority for abandoning the conservative principle of individual property rights and handing "disproportionate influence and power" to the well-heeled.
"The specter of condemnation hangs over all property," O'Connor wrote. "Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory."
Connecticut resident Susette Kelo and others in the lawsuit pledged to continue their fight. Nationwide, more than 10,000 properties were threatened or condemned in recent years, according to the Institute for Justice, a Washington public interest law firm representing the New London homeowners.
"It's a little shocking to believe you can lose your home in this country," said resident Bill Von Winkle, who said he would keep fighting the bulldozers in his working-class neighborhood. "I won't be going anywhere. Not my house. This is definitely not the last word."
But Connecticut state Rep. Ernest Hewett, who as a city council member approved the development, said, "I am charged with doing what's best for the 26,000 people that live in New London. That to me was enacting the eminent domain process designed to revitalize a city ... with nowhere to go."
New London once was a center for the whaling industry and later became a manufacturing hub. More recently the city has suffered the kind of economic woes afflicting urban areas across the country, with losses of residents and jobs.
City officials envision a commercial development including a riverfront hotel, health club and offices that would attract tourists to the Thames riverfront, complementing an adjoining Pfizer Corp. research center and a proposed Coast Guard museum.
New London was backed in its appeal by the National League of Cities, which argued that a city's eminent domain power was critical to spurring urban renewal with development projects such Baltimore's Inner Harbor and Kansas City's Kansas Speedway.
Under the ruling, residents still will be entitled to "just compensation" for their homes as provided under the Fifth Amendment. However, Kelo and the other homeowners had refused to move at any price, calling it an unjustified taking of their property.
The case is Kelo et al v. City of New London, 04-108.
___
Associated Press writers Matt Apuzzo in New London, Conn. and Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn. contributed to this report.
___
On the Net:
The ruling in Kelo v. New London is available at:
http://wid.ap.org/documents/scotus/050623kelo.pdf
Cities may bulldoze people's homes to make way for shopping malls or other private development, a divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday, giving local governments broad power to seize private property to generate tax revenue.
In a scathing dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said the decision bowed to the rich and powerful at the expense of middle-class Americans.
The 5-4 decision means that homeowners will have more limited rights. Still, legal experts said they didn't expect a rush to claim homes.
"The message of the case to cities is yes, you can use eminent domain, but you better be careful and conduct hearings," said Thomas Merrill, a Columbia law professor specializing in property rights.
The closely watched case involving New London, Conn., homeowners was one of six decisions issued Thursday as the court neared the end of its term. The justices are scheduled to release their final six rulings, including one on the constitutionality of Ten Commandments displays on public property, on Monday.
Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, said New London could pursue private development under the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property if the land is for public use, since the project the city has in mind promises to bring more jobs and revenue.
"Promoting economic development is a traditional and long accepted function of government," Stevens wrote, adding that local officials are better positioned than federal judges to decide what's best for a community.
He was joined in his opinion by other members of the court's liberal wing — David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, as well as Reagan appointee Justice Anthony Kennedy, in noting that states are free to pass additional protections if they see fit.
The four-member liberal bloc typically has favored greater deference to cities, which historically have used the takings power for urban renewal projects.
At least eight states — Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, South Carolina and Washington — forbid the use of eminent domain for economic development unless it is to eliminate blight. Other states either expressly allow a taking for private economic purposes or have not spoken clearly to the question.
In dissent, O'Connor criticized the majority for abandoning the conservative principle of individual property rights and handing "disproportionate influence and power" to the well-heeled.
"The specter of condemnation hangs over all property," O'Connor wrote. "Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory."
Connecticut resident Susette Kelo and others in the lawsuit pledged to continue their fight. Nationwide, more than 10,000 properties were threatened or condemned in recent years, according to the Institute for Justice, a Washington public interest law firm representing the New London homeowners.
"It's a little shocking to believe you can lose your home in this country," said resident Bill Von Winkle, who said he would keep fighting the bulldozers in his working-class neighborhood. "I won't be going anywhere. Not my house. This is definitely not the last word."
But Connecticut state Rep. Ernest Hewett, who as a city council member approved the development, said, "I am charged with doing what's best for the 26,000 people that live in New London. That to me was enacting the eminent domain process designed to revitalize a city ... with nowhere to go."
New London once was a center for the whaling industry and later became a manufacturing hub. More recently the city has suffered the kind of economic woes afflicting urban areas across the country, with losses of residents and jobs.
City officials envision a commercial development including a riverfront hotel, health club and offices that would attract tourists to the Thames riverfront, complementing an adjoining Pfizer Corp. research center and a proposed Coast Guard museum.
New London was backed in its appeal by the National League of Cities, which argued that a city's eminent domain power was critical to spurring urban renewal with development projects such Baltimore's Inner Harbor and Kansas City's Kansas Speedway.
Under the ruling, residents still will be entitled to "just compensation" for their homes as provided under the Fifth Amendment. However, Kelo and the other homeowners had refused to move at any price, calling it an unjustified taking of their property.
The case is Kelo et al v. City of New London, 04-108.
___
Associated Press writers Matt Apuzzo in New London, Conn. and Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn. contributed to this report.
___
On the Net:
The ruling in Kelo v. New London is available at:
http://wid.ap.org/documents/scotus/050623kelo.pdf
The World Can't Wait
Thoughts on Driving Out the Bush Regime
by Sunsara Taylor
Revolution #007, June 26, 2005, posted at revcom.us
Every day I think of Dilawar. I picture his 22-year-old body chained to the ceiling of a U.S. military prison in Bagram, Afghanistan as the seconds stretched on into days until finally he couldn't wait any longer. Neither can we.
As men are blindfolded and dragged from their homes in Iraq, as Arabs and Muslims are rounded up and detained in the U.S. without charges, and as youth from South Central to the South Bronx are imprisoned in record numbers, brutalized by police, and targetted for correction by Laura Bush: the world can't wait.
As villages are emptied of people by AIDS in Africa and China, as families in the ghettos and farmlands of the U.S. lose children in a war based on lies, and as immigrants are hunted by racist vigilantes on the Mexican border: the world can't wait.
As religious fundamentalism threatens to enslave women, treating them like incubators and denying them the right to make the most intimate and profound decisions about whether or not to have a child, as gay couples are denied marriage and their children are harassed, as the rule of law is replaced by religious dogma and the rule of the Bush regime, and as science itself is suppressed at great risk to the planet: the world can't wait.
The world can't wait. The people need to drive out the Bush Regime
Now I know a lot of readers are thinking 'if only we could.' and I can just see some people shaking their heads and saying 'that communist girl has really gone over the edge this time.' But being a reality-based girl— who is coming from a scientific place in terms of how we are going to emancipate all of humanity—I have some reality-based ideas on how this could be possible.
And one of the most important things people need to do in order to even imagine the possibility of accomplishing such a monumental task is to break out of the confines of the political-process-as-usual.
Everyone who does not want to live in the "world according to Bush" needs to break out of the dynamic where the terms and the issues and the leaders are defined and limited by various representatives and defenders of this bloodsucking system. And progressive people and oppressed people really need to break out of the confines of the institutions, organizations, and political thinking dominated by the Democratic
Party.
Frankly, too many people are suffering from the disease of looking-for-leadership-in-all-the-wrong-places. And as a result, too many people who want to change the world remain locked in a dynamic that stifles their ability to really see a whole different world, squanders their energies, and channels imagination into dead-end paths of conciliation with intolerable injustices.
(Article here...)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This article is posted in English and Spanish on
Revolution Online
http://revcom.us
Write: Box 3486, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 60654
Phone: 773-227-4066 Fax: 773-227-4497
by Sunsara Taylor
Revolution #007, June 26, 2005, posted at revcom.us
Every day I think of Dilawar. I picture his 22-year-old body chained to the ceiling of a U.S. military prison in Bagram, Afghanistan as the seconds stretched on into days until finally he couldn't wait any longer. Neither can we.
As men are blindfolded and dragged from their homes in Iraq, as Arabs and Muslims are rounded up and detained in the U.S. without charges, and as youth from South Central to the South Bronx are imprisoned in record numbers, brutalized by police, and targetted for correction by Laura Bush: the world can't wait.
As villages are emptied of people by AIDS in Africa and China, as families in the ghettos and farmlands of the U.S. lose children in a war based on lies, and as immigrants are hunted by racist vigilantes on the Mexican border: the world can't wait.
As religious fundamentalism threatens to enslave women, treating them like incubators and denying them the right to make the most intimate and profound decisions about whether or not to have a child, as gay couples are denied marriage and their children are harassed, as the rule of law is replaced by religious dogma and the rule of the Bush regime, and as science itself is suppressed at great risk to the planet: the world can't wait.
The world can't wait. The people need to drive out the Bush Regime
Now I know a lot of readers are thinking 'if only we could.' and I can just see some people shaking their heads and saying 'that communist girl has really gone over the edge this time.' But being a reality-based girl— who is coming from a scientific place in terms of how we are going to emancipate all of humanity—I have some reality-based ideas on how this could be possible.
And one of the most important things people need to do in order to even imagine the possibility of accomplishing such a monumental task is to break out of the confines of the political-process-as-usual.
Everyone who does not want to live in the "world according to Bush" needs to break out of the dynamic where the terms and the issues and the leaders are defined and limited by various representatives and defenders of this bloodsucking system. And progressive people and oppressed people really need to break out of the confines of the institutions, organizations, and political thinking dominated by the Democratic
Party.
Frankly, too many people are suffering from the disease of looking-for-leadership-in-all-the-wrong-places. And as a result, too many people who want to change the world remain locked in a dynamic that stifles their ability to really see a whole different world, squanders their energies, and channels imagination into dead-end paths of conciliation with intolerable injustices.
(Article here...)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This article is posted in English and Spanish on
Revolution Online
http://revcom.us
Write: Box 3486, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 60654
Phone: 773-227-4066 Fax: 773-227-4497
Final Session of the WTI
The Istanbul session of the WTI will summarize and present further
testimony on the illegality and criminal violations in the U.S. pretexts
for and conduct of this war.
Expert opinion, witness testimony, video and image evidence will address:
- The torture of prisoners
- The unlawful imprisonment of Iraqi civilians without charges or
legal defense;
- The use and health risks of depleted uranium weapons;
- The effects of the war on Iraq's infrastructure, including U.S.
mandated privatization and sale of Iraq's industries.
- The destruction of Iraqi cultural institutions and the liability of
the invaders in international law for failing to protect these
treasures of humanity.
Historical Broadcasts
----------------------
Four hour-long programs from the final WTI session will broadcast on Free Speech TV via a satellite uplink provided by longtime partner Deep Dish TV. Don't miss this unique programming.
Program One:
Friday June 24, 8 PM - 9 PM (ET)
Saturday June 25, Midnight - 1 AM (ET)
Program Two:
Saturday June 25, 8 PM - 9 PM (ET)
Sunday June 26, Midnight - 1 AM (ET)
Program Three:
Sunday June 26, 10 PM - 11 PM (ET)
Monday June 27, Midnight - 1 AM (ET)
Program Four:
Monday June 27, 8 PM - 9 PM (ET)
Tuesday June 28, 2 AM - 3 AM (ET)
** Programs will also stream on the Internet @
http://www.worldtribunal.org and http://www.deepdishtv.org
testimony on the illegality and criminal violations in the U.S. pretexts
for and conduct of this war.
"The World Tribunal on Iraq is collecting a definitive body of evidence on the illegality of the invasion and occupation that will be indispensable to the global anti-war movement, to conscientious objectors, and to students of history for years to come. Americans who oppose the war have a duty to support and participate in this crucial international effort to stand up to U.S. government lawlessness and impunity."
-- Naomi Klein
Expert opinion, witness testimony, video and image evidence will address:
- The torture of prisoners
- The unlawful imprisonment of Iraqi civilians without charges or
legal defense;
- The use and health risks of depleted uranium weapons;
- The effects of the war on Iraq's infrastructure, including U.S.
mandated privatization and sale of Iraq's industries.
- The destruction of Iraqi cultural institutions and the liability of
the invaders in international law for failing to protect these
treasures of humanity.
Historical Broadcasts
----------------------
Four hour-long programs from the final WTI session will broadcast on Free Speech TV via a satellite uplink provided by longtime partner Deep Dish TV. Don't miss this unique programming.
Program One:
Friday June 24, 8 PM - 9 PM (ET)
Saturday June 25, Midnight - 1 AM (ET)
Program Two:
Saturday June 25, 8 PM - 9 PM (ET)
Sunday June 26, Midnight - 1 AM (ET)
Program Three:
Sunday June 26, 10 PM - 11 PM (ET)
Monday June 27, Midnight - 1 AM (ET)
Program Four:
Monday June 27, 8 PM - 9 PM (ET)
Tuesday June 28, 2 AM - 3 AM (ET)
** Programs will also stream on the Internet @
http://www.worldtribunal.org and http://www.deepdishtv.org
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Deoxy Is Back!
Dmitri has finally gotten the Deoxy.org servers back up and running! Link at the right.
Monday, June 20, 2005
Mark Danner on Smoking Signposts to Nowhere
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=3602
Imagine that the Pentagon Papers or the Watergate scandal had broken out all over the press -- no, not in the New York Times or the Washington Post, but in newspapers in Australia or Canada. And that, facing their own terrible record of reportage, of years of being cowed by the Nixon administration, major American papers had decided that this was not a story worthy of being covered. Imagine that, initially, they dismissed the revelatory documents and information that came out of the heart of administration policy-making; then almost willfully misread them, insisting that evidence of Pentagon planning for escalation in Vietnam or of Nixon administration planning to destroy its opponents was at best ambiguous or even nonexistent; finally, when they found that the documents wouldn't go away, they acknowledged them more formally with a tired ho-hum, a knowing nod on editorial pages or in news stories. Actually, they claimed, these documents didn't add up to much because they had run stories just like this back then themselves. Yawn.
This is, of course, something like the crude pattern that coverage in the American press has followed on the Downing Street memo, then memos. As of late last week, four of our five major papers (the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and USA Today) hadn't even commented on them in their editorial pages. In my hometown paper, the New York Times, complete lack of interest was followed last Monday by a page 11 David Sanger piece (Prewar British Memo Says War Decision Wasn't Made) that focused on the second of the Downing Street memos, a briefing paper for Tony Blair's "inner circle," and began: "A memorandum written by Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet office in late July 2002 explicitly states that the Bush administration had made ‘no political decisions' to invade Iraq, but that American military planning for the possibility was advanced."
Compare that to the front-page lead written a day earlier by Michael Smith of the British Sunday Times, who revealed the existence of the document and has been the Woodstein of England on this issue (Ministers were told of need for Gulf war ‘excuse'):
"Ministers were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal. The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier."
The headlines the two papers chose more or less tell it all. It's hard to believe that they are even reporting on the same document. Sanger was obviously capable of reading Smith's piece and yet his report makes no mention of the April meeting of the two leaders in Crawford explicitly noted in the memo and offers a completely tendentious reading of those supposedly unmade "political decisions." Read the document yourself. It's clear, when the Brits write, for instance, "[L]ittle thought has been given [in Washington] to creating the political conditions for military action," that they are talking about tactics, about how to move the rest of the world toward an already agreed-upon war. After all, though it's seldom commented on, this document was entitled, "Cabinet Office paper: Conditions for military action," and along with the previously released memo was essentially a war-planning document. Both, for instance, discuss the American need for British bases in Cyprus and on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. It was, as well, focused on the creation of "an information campaign" and suggested that "[t]ime will be required to prepare public opinion in the UK that it is necessary to take military action against Saddam Hussein."
We are talking here about creating the right political preconditions for moving populations toward a war, quite a different matter from not having decided on the war. To write as if this piece reflected a situation in which no "political decisions" had been made (taking that phrase out of all context), without even a single caveat, a single mention of any alternative possible explanation, was bizarre, to say the least.
Article...
Imagine that the Pentagon Papers or the Watergate scandal had broken out all over the press -- no, not in the New York Times or the Washington Post, but in newspapers in Australia or Canada. And that, facing their own terrible record of reportage, of years of being cowed by the Nixon administration, major American papers had decided that this was not a story worthy of being covered. Imagine that, initially, they dismissed the revelatory documents and information that came out of the heart of administration policy-making; then almost willfully misread them, insisting that evidence of Pentagon planning for escalation in Vietnam or of Nixon administration planning to destroy its opponents was at best ambiguous or even nonexistent; finally, when they found that the documents wouldn't go away, they acknowledged them more formally with a tired ho-hum, a knowing nod on editorial pages or in news stories. Actually, they claimed, these documents didn't add up to much because they had run stories just like this back then themselves. Yawn.
This is, of course, something like the crude pattern that coverage in the American press has followed on the Downing Street memo, then memos. As of late last week, four of our five major papers (the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and USA Today) hadn't even commented on them in their editorial pages. In my hometown paper, the New York Times, complete lack of interest was followed last Monday by a page 11 David Sanger piece (Prewar British Memo Says War Decision Wasn't Made) that focused on the second of the Downing Street memos, a briefing paper for Tony Blair's "inner circle," and began: "A memorandum written by Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet office in late July 2002 explicitly states that the Bush administration had made ‘no political decisions' to invade Iraq, but that American military planning for the possibility was advanced."
Compare that to the front-page lead written a day earlier by Michael Smith of the British Sunday Times, who revealed the existence of the document and has been the Woodstein of England on this issue (Ministers were told of need for Gulf war ‘excuse'):
"Ministers were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal. The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier."
The headlines the two papers chose more or less tell it all. It's hard to believe that they are even reporting on the same document. Sanger was obviously capable of reading Smith's piece and yet his report makes no mention of the April meeting of the two leaders in Crawford explicitly noted in the memo and offers a completely tendentious reading of those supposedly unmade "political decisions." Read the document yourself. It's clear, when the Brits write, for instance, "[L]ittle thought has been given [in Washington] to creating the political conditions for military action," that they are talking about tactics, about how to move the rest of the world toward an already agreed-upon war. After all, though it's seldom commented on, this document was entitled, "Cabinet Office paper: Conditions for military action," and along with the previously released memo was essentially a war-planning document. Both, for instance, discuss the American need for British bases in Cyprus and on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. It was, as well, focused on the creation of "an information campaign" and suggested that "[t]ime will be required to prepare public opinion in the UK that it is necessary to take military action against Saddam Hussein."
We are talking here about creating the right political preconditions for moving populations toward a war, quite a different matter from not having decided on the war. To write as if this piece reflected a situation in which no "political decisions" had been made (taking that phrase out of all context), without even a single caveat, a single mention of any alternative possible explanation, was bizarre, to say the least.
Article...
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Drug Hypocrisy Revealed
AN EX POLICE CHIEF SPEAKS OUT AGAINST THE WAR ON DRUGS
NORM STAMPER, FORMER CHIEF OF POLICE, SEATTLE, WA - Historically, the criminalization of drugs was a revenue-producing public policy. It was, 'If we're going to make money off these drugs, we've got to regulate them.' It began as taxation, and then we started moralizing the behavior -- attaching moral judgments to the use of drugs, and demonizing the drug users. If we were an honest nation, consistent and with any integrity, we would do the same thing with caffeine, nicotine and alcohol, but we don't.
While there are restrictions, certainly, on the use of nicotine and alcohol, both of those substances and the behaviors around them are perfectly legal for adults, yet we know that cigarette addiction is the most egregious form of addiction.
But we're fundamentally dishonest, and in demonizing illicit drug users, we deny medical attention for those who choose to get off drugs. We under-invest in smart education and prevention programs; we deny IV drug users clean syringes in many, many cities. We deny them methadone when it has been clearly established that that's a healthier alternative to heroin.
You have to start with the premise that if tobacco and alcohol, with all of their harms and enormous social and financial costs, are lawful substances, then how can we, in good conscience, deny somebody the right to smoke a joint -- or to snort coke or shoot heroin? I don't do those things, but I believe I ought to have a right to do those things.
>From very early on, we teach children that the people who use drugs are monsters and fiends. Well, excuse me, but they're not. Some of them manage to handle it successfully, and many do not. Many abuse the drugs and wind up very ill psychologically, physiologically, mentally, emotionally. But rather than demonizing them, we ought to be reaching out to help them. If we spent far less money on the supply side of the supply/demand equation, we'd be able to spend much more money on prevention, education, medication and rehabilitation and the like. . .
I was really impressed, during my days as Seattle's police chief, with a visit to representatives of The Hague. These are judges, prosecutors and high-ranking police officers -- about a dozen of them. We started talking about drug enforcement. They made clear that they continue to go after organized-crime drug dealers, which is terrific and I would never advocate stopping.
But they recognized that drug use is a social problem, and if adults take drugs and behave responsibly under their influence -- i.e., don't drive, don't batter, don't furnish the kids -- they'll leave them alone. If they've got a problem of abuse -- which is fundamentally a medical problem -- then they get help, and the cops are on board with that. That's also true in Canada, where the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police advocated decriminalization of marijuana.
All of this has to do with the obscene level of profit associated with illicit drug dealing. The reason illicit drugs cost so much money is because they are illicit. If government would enter the regulation picture as it has with tobacco and alcohol, it could easily transform a pretty miserable picture into a better one. It will never be rosy, but it can be a much healthier and more sensible picture.
http://www.alternet.org/story/22196/
NORM STAMPER, FORMER CHIEF OF POLICE, SEATTLE, WA - Historically, the criminalization of drugs was a revenue-producing public policy. It was, 'If we're going to make money off these drugs, we've got to regulate them.' It began as taxation, and then we started moralizing the behavior -- attaching moral judgments to the use of drugs, and demonizing the drug users. If we were an honest nation, consistent and with any integrity, we would do the same thing with caffeine, nicotine and alcohol, but we don't.
While there are restrictions, certainly, on the use of nicotine and alcohol, both of those substances and the behaviors around them are perfectly legal for adults, yet we know that cigarette addiction is the most egregious form of addiction.
But we're fundamentally dishonest, and in demonizing illicit drug users, we deny medical attention for those who choose to get off drugs. We under-invest in smart education and prevention programs; we deny IV drug users clean syringes in many, many cities. We deny them methadone when it has been clearly established that that's a healthier alternative to heroin.
You have to start with the premise that if tobacco and alcohol, with all of their harms and enormous social and financial costs, are lawful substances, then how can we, in good conscience, deny somebody the right to smoke a joint -- or to snort coke or shoot heroin? I don't do those things, but I believe I ought to have a right to do those things.
>From very early on, we teach children that the people who use drugs are monsters and fiends. Well, excuse me, but they're not. Some of them manage to handle it successfully, and many do not. Many abuse the drugs and wind up very ill psychologically, physiologically, mentally, emotionally. But rather than demonizing them, we ought to be reaching out to help them. If we spent far less money on the supply side of the supply/demand equation, we'd be able to spend much more money on prevention, education, medication and rehabilitation and the like. . .
I was really impressed, during my days as Seattle's police chief, with a visit to representatives of The Hague. These are judges, prosecutors and high-ranking police officers -- about a dozen of them. We started talking about drug enforcement. They made clear that they continue to go after organized-crime drug dealers, which is terrific and I would never advocate stopping.
But they recognized that drug use is a social problem, and if adults take drugs and behave responsibly under their influence -- i.e., don't drive, don't batter, don't furnish the kids -- they'll leave them alone. If they've got a problem of abuse -- which is fundamentally a medical problem -- then they get help, and the cops are on board with that. That's also true in Canada, where the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police advocated decriminalization of marijuana.
All of this has to do with the obscene level of profit associated with illicit drug dealing. The reason illicit drugs cost so much money is because they are illicit. If government would enter the regulation picture as it has with tobacco and alcohol, it could easily transform a pretty miserable picture into a better one. It will never be rosy, but it can be a much healthier and more sensible picture.
http://www.alternet.org/story/22196/
Torture, American Style!
Dick Durbin Tells It Like It Is
SENATOR DICK DURBIN, CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here [at Guantanamo Bay]--I almost hesitate to put them in the [Congressional] Record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:
"On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . .
On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor."
If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.(italics mine--Pete)
SENATOR DICK DURBIN, CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here [at Guantanamo Bay]--I almost hesitate to put them in the [Congressional] Record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:
"On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . .
On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor."
If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.(italics mine--Pete)
CORPORADOS WORRIED OVER LEFT'S ADVANCES IN EUROPE
[This article appeared under the headline: "A Specter Is Haunting Europe: The Left"
BUSINESS WEEK - Anti-capitalist, anti-globalization activists played a key role in defeating referendums on the European Union constitution in France on May 29 and the Netherlands on June 1. Relentless sniping from left-wingers in Germany's Social Democratic Party helped drive Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to call for elections this fall, a year ahead of time. The left wing of Schroeder's party has sabotaged his reforms, contributing to defeats in regional elections that all but eliminated his support base.
So can Europe's long-splintered traditional left come back as a real political movement? . . . While few observers believe traditional leftists can win power outright, a loose coalition of left-wing Greens, militant unionists, and old-school socialists is preparing to play the spoiler as European leaders try to salvage the constitution and revive the economy. Already, leftist groups in France, Germany, and the Netherlands are informally coordinating with each other.
These new old leftists could have a polarizing effect on voters and complicate efforts by mainstream leaders to get the continent back on track. Leftists may also win seats in national parliaments, becoming power brokers should the major parties lack a majority
(Article here...)
BUSINESS WEEK - Anti-capitalist, anti-globalization activists played a key role in defeating referendums on the European Union constitution in France on May 29 and the Netherlands on June 1. Relentless sniping from left-wingers in Germany's Social Democratic Party helped drive Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to call for elections this fall, a year ahead of time. The left wing of Schroeder's party has sabotaged his reforms, contributing to defeats in regional elections that all but eliminated his support base.
So can Europe's long-splintered traditional left come back as a real political movement? . . . While few observers believe traditional leftists can win power outright, a loose coalition of left-wing Greens, militant unionists, and old-school socialists is preparing to play the spoiler as European leaders try to salvage the constitution and revive the economy. Already, leftist groups in France, Germany, and the Netherlands are informally coordinating with each other.
These new old leftists could have a polarizing effect on voters and complicate efforts by mainstream leaders to get the continent back on track. Leftists may also win seats in national parliaments, becoming power brokers should the major parties lack a majority
(Article here...)
Friday, June 17, 2005
The Meaningless Apology on Lynching
By Glen Ford and Peter Gamble, The Black Commentator
Posted on June 17, 2005, Printed on June 17, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/22248/
Why are some black folks so happy to hear an apology from people who don't mean it?
There are nearly a million African-Americans in prison - one out of eight inmates on the planet - a gulag of monstrous proportions, clearly designed to perpetuate the social relations that began with slavery. We demand an end to those relations, not an insincere, risk-free "apology" that sets not one prisoner free.
It is appropriate that the great anti-lynching leader, Ida B. Wells (1862-1931), who documented the murder of nearly 5,000 blacks at the hands of white mobs in the terror-filled years that followed the death of Reconstruction, be verbally honored by Louisiana Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu and Virginia Republican Senator George Allen. Yet both senators supported laws that will impose draconian equivalents of post-Civil War "black codes" on inner city youth, who will now be designated as criminal conspirators if they congregate in groups of three or more.
No thank you, Senators Landrieu and Allen - the crime you committed against us in May vastly outweighs your weak apology in June. You have guaranteed that hundreds of thousands more young black people will be interned in your gulag - a crime against humanity. And both of you are determined to commit more crimes. Should we ask for an apology in advance?
There can be no absolution for those who continue to profit from past crimes, and plot new ones. Lynch law was the effective law of the South - and, truth be told, the rest of the United States - and the "lawful" authorities sanctioned it by refusing to pass 200 anti-lynching bills. The terror of lynching created the social relationships that resulted in white households accumulating ten to twenty times as much wealth as black households - our collective national inheritance. An apology will not do.
Posted on June 17, 2005, Printed on June 17, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/22248/
Why are some black folks so happy to hear an apology from people who don't mean it?
There are nearly a million African-Americans in prison - one out of eight inmates on the planet - a gulag of monstrous proportions, clearly designed to perpetuate the social relations that began with slavery. We demand an end to those relations, not an insincere, risk-free "apology" that sets not one prisoner free.
It is appropriate that the great anti-lynching leader, Ida B. Wells (1862-1931), who documented the murder of nearly 5,000 blacks at the hands of white mobs in the terror-filled years that followed the death of Reconstruction, be verbally honored by Louisiana Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu and Virginia Republican Senator George Allen. Yet both senators supported laws that will impose draconian equivalents of post-Civil War "black codes" on inner city youth, who will now be designated as criminal conspirators if they congregate in groups of three or more.
No thank you, Senators Landrieu and Allen - the crime you committed against us in May vastly outweighs your weak apology in June. You have guaranteed that hundreds of thousands more young black people will be interned in your gulag - a crime against humanity. And both of you are determined to commit more crimes. Should we ask for an apology in advance?
There can be no absolution for those who continue to profit from past crimes, and plot new ones. Lynch law was the effective law of the South - and, truth be told, the rest of the United States - and the "lawful" authorities sanctioned it by refusing to pass 200 anti-lynching bills. The terror of lynching created the social relationships that resulted in white households accumulating ten to twenty times as much wealth as black households - our collective national inheritance. An apology will not do.
If China (or aliens) had invaded the US, would you join the invader's army?
By Jay Bookman
Republished from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you want to understand why it’s so difficult to build a new Iraqi army that is willing to fight and die for a new Iraq, a little imagination is a very helpful thing.
More specifically, it helps if you can imagine what is unimaginable. Imagine that some foreign power – say, China – has invaded and occupied the United States, imposed a form of government similar to that of China and is now recruiting Americans to serve in a new American army, to be trained by and to fight alongside the Chinese military that is now occupying our country.
That, in a rough sense, is what we’re trying to accomplish in Iraq.
Given that situation, what sort of Americans do you think would volunteer to serve in this Chinese-sponsored army? Hardly the cream of the crop.
And would those volunteers have the respect and support of their fellow Americans? No. They would probably have to hide their faces from the rest of us when they went on patrol alongside Chinese troops in American neighborhoods, just as Iraqi troops do now.
Furthermore, would such men take pride in their service, or would it be a source of inner shame? Would such troops be willing to fight and die for each other, and for their Chinese sponsors, or would they melt away when things got hard?
Who would fight harder under those circumstances – those drawn to serve in this new army by the promise of a paycheck, or those Americans who were fighting to drive the Chinese invaders out of our country?
The analogy is far from perfect, of course. Whatever the motivation for our invasion of Iraq, it did have the beneficial effect of removing Saddam Hussein from power, and that still counts for something among many Iraqis.
Furthermore, the new Iraqi government, however ineffective it might be, was at least elected by the Iraqi people. And many of the insurgents have targeted innocent Iraqi civilians in a horrifically brutal terrorist campaign, making it much easier to argue that a new Iraqi army is protecting Iraqis rather than aiding in the American occupation.
All of those are mitigating factors. But there’s still something deep in the gut of any human being – something that crosses all cultural lines – that resents the occupation of one’s country by foreigners. That sentiment is as certain as sunrise, and it is unforgivable that American officials did not account for it in claiming that our troops would be greeted by Iraqis with flowers and candy.
Today, we can preach to the Iraqis all we want about individual rights and the rule of law and democratic self-government. We can tell them that they now have sovereignty, that we’re remaining in Iraq just to help them.
But all that fine talk goes for naught when uniformed Americans stop and search Iraqis at gunpoint, humiliating them before their wives and daughters. The relationship then is not about equality, it’s about power: We have it, they don’t, not even in their own country, not even in their own homes.
In the immediate wake of our invasion, experts talked of having a window of opportunity, a brief period of time in which U.S. officials had to get control of the security situation, surrender day-to-day control of Iraq and withdraw the bulk of our troops. If we stayed beyond that window, they warned, Iraqi resentment would grow so great that our presence would become more of an obstacle than a benefit.
Most such estimates put that window at roughly three months. When those initial three months passed and it became clear that withdrawal was not yet an option, a team of five experts assembled by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld traveled to Iraq to assess the situation.
While the panel reported “rising anti-Americanism in parts of the country,” it also held out hope that the window might be held open slightly longer. To do so, however, “the entire effort [must] be immediately turbo-charged.”
“The next three months are crucial to turning around the security situation, which is volatile in key parts of the country,” the panel reported to Rumsfeld.
That was almost two years ago.
Jay Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor. His column appears Mondays and Thursdays.
Republished from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you want to understand why it’s so difficult to build a new Iraqi army that is willing to fight and die for a new Iraq, a little imagination is a very helpful thing.
More specifically, it helps if you can imagine what is unimaginable. Imagine that some foreign power – say, China – has invaded and occupied the United States, imposed a form of government similar to that of China and is now recruiting Americans to serve in a new American army, to be trained by and to fight alongside the Chinese military that is now occupying our country.
That, in a rough sense, is what we’re trying to accomplish in Iraq.
Given that situation, what sort of Americans do you think would volunteer to serve in this Chinese-sponsored army? Hardly the cream of the crop.
And would those volunteers have the respect and support of their fellow Americans? No. They would probably have to hide their faces from the rest of us when they went on patrol alongside Chinese troops in American neighborhoods, just as Iraqi troops do now.
Furthermore, would such men take pride in their service, or would it be a source of inner shame? Would such troops be willing to fight and die for each other, and for their Chinese sponsors, or would they melt away when things got hard?
Who would fight harder under those circumstances – those drawn to serve in this new army by the promise of a paycheck, or those Americans who were fighting to drive the Chinese invaders out of our country?
The analogy is far from perfect, of course. Whatever the motivation for our invasion of Iraq, it did have the beneficial effect of removing Saddam Hussein from power, and that still counts for something among many Iraqis.
Furthermore, the new Iraqi government, however ineffective it might be, was at least elected by the Iraqi people. And many of the insurgents have targeted innocent Iraqi civilians in a horrifically brutal terrorist campaign, making it much easier to argue that a new Iraqi army is protecting Iraqis rather than aiding in the American occupation.
All of those are mitigating factors. But there’s still something deep in the gut of any human being – something that crosses all cultural lines – that resents the occupation of one’s country by foreigners. That sentiment is as certain as sunrise, and it is unforgivable that American officials did not account for it in claiming that our troops would be greeted by Iraqis with flowers and candy.
Today, we can preach to the Iraqis all we want about individual rights and the rule of law and democratic self-government. We can tell them that they now have sovereignty, that we’re remaining in Iraq just to help them.
But all that fine talk goes for naught when uniformed Americans stop and search Iraqis at gunpoint, humiliating them before their wives and daughters. The relationship then is not about equality, it’s about power: We have it, they don’t, not even in their own country, not even in their own homes.
In the immediate wake of our invasion, experts talked of having a window of opportunity, a brief period of time in which U.S. officials had to get control of the security situation, surrender day-to-day control of Iraq and withdraw the bulk of our troops. If we stayed beyond that window, they warned, Iraqi resentment would grow so great that our presence would become more of an obstacle than a benefit.
Most such estimates put that window at roughly three months. When those initial three months passed and it became clear that withdrawal was not yet an option, a team of five experts assembled by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld traveled to Iraq to assess the situation.
While the panel reported “rising anti-Americanism in parts of the country,” it also held out hope that the window might be held open slightly longer. To do so, however, “the entire effort [must] be immediately turbo-charged.”
“The next three months are crucial to turning around the security situation, which is volatile in key parts of the country,” the panel reported to Rumsfeld.
That was almost two years ago.
Jay Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor. His column appears Mondays and Thursdays.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Debating Downing Street
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
Posted on June 15, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/22235/
Tomorrow (today as you read this) in Washington, Congressmember John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, will convene a public hearing on the so-called Downing Street Memo and other newly released documents that Conyers says show the administration's "efforts to cook the books on pre-war intelligence."
Conyers also says that he plans to raise new documents that back up the accuracy of the Downing Street memo, which is actually the classified minutes of a July 2002 meeting of Tony Blair and his senior advisers.
The minutes, which were published May 1 by the Sunday Times of London, paint a picture of an administration that had already committed to attacking Iraq, was manipulating intelligence and had already begun intense bombing of Iraq to prepare for the ground invasion. This was almost a year before the actual invasion officially began.
The minutes are from a July 23, 2002 briefing of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top national security advisers by British intelligence chief Richard Dearlove. The minutes contain an account of Dearlove's report that President George W. Bush had decided to bring about "regime change" in Iraq by military action; that the attack would be "justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD" (weapons of mass destruction); and that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
Meanwhile, this past weekend, the Sunday Times of London had another expose, showing that British cabinet members were warned that the UK was committed to taking part in a US-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal. The memo was written in advance of the Downing Street meeting that produced the Downing Street Minutes.
Despite the explosive information in these documents, they have received very little attention in the corporate media in this country and Bush administration officials have only been asked about it a handful of times.
On June 7, after more than a month of media silence, a reporter for the Reuters news agency finally questioned President Bush and Tony Blair on the Downing Street Memo.
The Conyers hearing is scheduled for tomorrow on Capitol Hill, but only today did Conyers announce that they would be inside of the Capitol. Until this morning, they were scheduled to take place at the Democratic National Committee because the Republicans controlling the House Judiciary Committee refused to permit the ranking Democratic Member, John Conyers, to hold official hearings. Conyers now says he has managed to get an official room.
Among those scheduled to testify tomorrow are former US ambassador to Iraq, Joe Wilson, attorney John Bonifaz and parents of soldiers killed in Iraq. The hearings will be followed by a rally outside the White House tomorrow evening and a petition with some half a million signatures will be delivered to the White House, calling on Bush to answer questions on the memo.
Well, that settles that, eh?--Pete
Read on...
Posted on June 15, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/22235/
Tomorrow (today as you read this) in Washington, Congressmember John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, will convene a public hearing on the so-called Downing Street Memo and other newly released documents that Conyers says show the administration's "efforts to cook the books on pre-war intelligence."
Conyers also says that he plans to raise new documents that back up the accuracy of the Downing Street memo, which is actually the classified minutes of a July 2002 meeting of Tony Blair and his senior advisers.
The minutes, which were published May 1 by the Sunday Times of London, paint a picture of an administration that had already committed to attacking Iraq, was manipulating intelligence and had already begun intense bombing of Iraq to prepare for the ground invasion. This was almost a year before the actual invasion officially began.
The minutes are from a July 23, 2002 briefing of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top national security advisers by British intelligence chief Richard Dearlove. The minutes contain an account of Dearlove's report that President George W. Bush had decided to bring about "regime change" in Iraq by military action; that the attack would be "justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD" (weapons of mass destruction); and that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
Meanwhile, this past weekend, the Sunday Times of London had another expose, showing that British cabinet members were warned that the UK was committed to taking part in a US-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal. The memo was written in advance of the Downing Street meeting that produced the Downing Street Minutes.
Despite the explosive information in these documents, they have received very little attention in the corporate media in this country and Bush administration officials have only been asked about it a handful of times.
On June 7, after more than a month of media silence, a reporter for the Reuters news agency finally questioned President Bush and Tony Blair on the Downing Street Memo.
The Conyers hearing is scheduled for tomorrow on Capitol Hill, but only today did Conyers announce that they would be inside of the Capitol. Until this morning, they were scheduled to take place at the Democratic National Committee because the Republicans controlling the House Judiciary Committee refused to permit the ranking Democratic Member, John Conyers, to hold official hearings. Conyers now says he has managed to get an official room.
Among those scheduled to testify tomorrow are former US ambassador to Iraq, Joe Wilson, attorney John Bonifaz and parents of soldiers killed in Iraq. The hearings will be followed by a rally outside the White House tomorrow evening and a petition with some half a million signatures will be delivered to the White House, calling on Bush to answer questions on the memo.
REPORTER: On Iraq, the so-called Downing Street Memo from July 2002 says, "Intelligence and facts remain fixed around the policy of removing Saddam through military action." Is this an accurate reflection of what happened? Could both of you respond?
TONY BLAIR: Well, I can respond to that very easily. No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all. And let me remind you that that memorandum was written before we then went to the United Nations. Now, no one knows more intimately the discussions that we were conducting as two countries at the time than me.
And the fact is, we decided to go to the United Nations and went through that process, which resulted in the November 2002 United Nations resolution to give a final chance to Saddam Hussein to comply with international law. He didn't do so. And that was the reason why we had to take military action. But, you know, all the way through that period of time, we were trying to look for a way of managing to resolve this without conflict.
As it happened, we weren't able to do that because, as I think was very clear, there was no way that Saddam Hussein was ever going to change the way that he worked or the way that he acted.
GEORGE W. BUSH: Well, I, you know, I read kind of the characterizations of the memo, particularly when they dropped it out in the middle of his race. I'm not sure who they dropped it out is, but I'm not suggesting you all dropped it out there. And somebody said, well, you know, we had made up our mind to go to use military force to deal with Saddam. There is nothing farther from the truth. My conversations with the Prime Minister was how can we do this peacefully, what could we do, and this meeting, you know, evidently that took place in London happened before we even went to the United Nations or I went to the United Nations, and so it's - look, both of us didn't want to use our military. Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option.
Well, that settles that, eh?--Pete
Read on...
When Is an Election Not an Election?
Iranian farce.
http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200506160752.asp
This is an interesting article from The National Review's Michael Ledeen, for reasons that he most surely didn't intend. Mr. Ledeen is discussing the upcoming elections in Iran and condemning them as staged before the fact. While that may be so, some of the terminology he uses can be applied to recent (and past) U.S. presidential elections.
I have always maintained, since becoming politically aware in my teens, that it seems that our "choice" of candidates is dictated by the cultural elite, culled from the herd for us by interested parties and presented as the most worthy of the lot, and therefore the only ones deserving of our attention. While we may have the much-vaunted one man/woman, one vote system (which also has come into serious question of late), those votes go to the pre-selected candidates. Our democracy is only polyarchal at best.
In his NRO piece, Michael Ledeen asks:
These are questions that I've asked for decades, albeit about the U.S. system. While many may roll their eyes and suspect that I've gone off the deep end, the results of the election investigation in Ohio so far, while suppressed by the corporate media, has indicated that all is not as it seems here in River City, campers.
Mr. Ledeen goes on to say:
One of my favorite George Orwell quotations reads, "The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them". The above quote from the NRO article indicates that peculiar sort of blindness, especially when there is (or very well should be!) remaining questions over the legitimacy of the 2000 and 2004 elections, the former plainly decided by a majority decision of the Supreme Court.
In any case, go ahead and read the piece. It is always best to be aware of the mindset of the ruling class and its dissemination through its public relations/ consensus-manufacturing instruments, such as The National Review, FoxNews, etc. Forewarned is forearmed.--Pete
http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200506160752.asp
http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200506160752.asp
This is an interesting article from The National Review's Michael Ledeen, for reasons that he most surely didn't intend. Mr. Ledeen is discussing the upcoming elections in Iran and condemning them as staged before the fact. While that may be so, some of the terminology he uses can be applied to recent (and past) U.S. presidential elections.
I have always maintained, since becoming politically aware in my teens, that it seems that our "choice" of candidates is dictated by the cultural elite, culled from the herd for us by interested parties and presented as the most worthy of the lot, and therefore the only ones deserving of our attention. While we may have the much-vaunted one man/woman, one vote system (which also has come into serious question of late), those votes go to the pre-selected candidates. Our democracy is only polyarchal at best.
In his NRO piece, Michael Ledeen asks:
Does the president of Iran hold any real power? Has any "candidate" (of which there are eight) been chosen by anyone other than the supreme leader and his cronies?
These are questions that I've asked for decades, albeit about the U.S. system. While many may roll their eyes and suspect that I've gone off the deep end, the results of the election investigation in Ohio so far, while suppressed by the corporate media, has indicated that all is not as it seems here in River City, campers.
Mr. Ledeen goes on to say:
No, and no. Whoever is "elected" (and you can be sure that the outcome is already known, millions of "officially cast" ballots having been manufactured weeks ago, to ensure the right guy wins and that enough votes will have been cast) will be an instrument of the mullahcracy.
One of my favorite George Orwell quotations reads, "The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them". The above quote from the NRO article indicates that peculiar sort of blindness, especially when there is (or very well should be!) remaining questions over the legitimacy of the 2000 and 2004 elections, the former plainly decided by a majority decision of the Supreme Court.
In any case, go ahead and read the piece. It is always best to be aware of the mindset of the ruling class and its dissemination through its public relations/ consensus-manufacturing instruments, such as The National Review, FoxNews, etc. Forewarned is forearmed.--Pete
http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200506160752.asp
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
U.S. Blocks Independent Inquiry into Uzbek Massacre
I told y'all things were gonna get empirical up in this bitch!--Pete
By Matthew Clark, Christian Science Monitor
Posted on June 15, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/22226/
A report that U.S. defense officials helped block a NATO demand for an international probe into last month's killing of protesters in Uzbekistan is proving an air base there to be one of the more diplomatically costly "lilly pads" in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's new lean, mean restructuring of the U.S. global military presence.
Located in southeastern Uzbekistan near the border with Afghanistan, the Khanabad base is seen as key to the U.S. war on terror, as a Q&A on the website of the Council of Foriegn Relations, a prominent Washington-based think-tank, explains.
Officially, the role of the troops in Uzbekistan is limited to humanitarian relief and search-and-rescue missions inside Afghanistan, but a joint U.S. Special Forces command center at Khanabad reportedly played a key role in directing the activities of US Special Forces personnel during the early phase of the fall 2001 U.S. attacks on the Taliban [in Afghanistan]. Information about current day-to-day activities of U.S. forces remains shrouded in secrecy.
But continued access to the base means the U.S. must tread carefully in its criticism of Uzbekistan's leader Islam Karimov, who has routinely been accused of brutally stifling dissent, including allegedly covering up the government's shooting of hundreds of protesters last month.
The Uzbek government has admitted that 173 people were killed on May 13 in Andijan but independent witnesses and human rights organizations put the number of victims at between 500 and 1,000. Human Rights Watch, for instance, has called the incident a "massacre." Karimov has portrayed the killings as a necessary response to a revolt by Islamic extremists.
Many countries and organizations, including the U.S., have called for an independent investigation. But The Washington Post reports that US defense officials – together with their Russian counterparts – "helped block a new demand for an international probe" last week. British and other European officials had pushed to include language calling for an independent investigation in a communique issued by defense ministers of NATO countries and Russia after a daylong meeting in Brussels on Thursday. But the joint communique merely stated that "issues of security and stability in Central Asia, including Uzbekistan," had been discussed.
By Matthew Clark, Christian Science Monitor
Posted on June 15, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/22226/
A report that U.S. defense officials helped block a NATO demand for an international probe into last month's killing of protesters in Uzbekistan is proving an air base there to be one of the more diplomatically costly "lilly pads" in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's new lean, mean restructuring of the U.S. global military presence.
Located in southeastern Uzbekistan near the border with Afghanistan, the Khanabad base is seen as key to the U.S. war on terror, as a Q&A on the website of the Council of Foriegn Relations, a prominent Washington-based think-tank, explains.
Officially, the role of the troops in Uzbekistan is limited to humanitarian relief and search-and-rescue missions inside Afghanistan, but a joint U.S. Special Forces command center at Khanabad reportedly played a key role in directing the activities of US Special Forces personnel during the early phase of the fall 2001 U.S. attacks on the Taliban [in Afghanistan]. Information about current day-to-day activities of U.S. forces remains shrouded in secrecy.
But continued access to the base means the U.S. must tread carefully in its criticism of Uzbekistan's leader Islam Karimov, who has routinely been accused of brutally stifling dissent, including allegedly covering up the government's shooting of hundreds of protesters last month.
The Uzbek government has admitted that 173 people were killed on May 13 in Andijan but independent witnesses and human rights organizations put the number of victims at between 500 and 1,000. Human Rights Watch, for instance, has called the incident a "massacre." Karimov has portrayed the killings as a necessary response to a revolt by Islamic extremists.
Many countries and organizations, including the U.S., have called for an independent investigation. But The Washington Post reports that US defense officials – together with their Russian counterparts – "helped block a new demand for an international probe" last week. British and other European officials had pushed to include language calling for an independent investigation in a communique issued by defense ministers of NATO countries and Russia after a daylong meeting in Brussels on Thursday. But the joint communique merely stated that "issues of security and stability in Central Asia, including Uzbekistan," had been discussed.
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