People Before Profit blog

Movie Review: The Simpsons Movie

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 03:19:00 +0000

7-30-07, 11:10 am

The Simpsons Movie Directed by David Silverman

To paraphrase the indefatigable Homer as he shouts at the audience of The Simpsons Movie, 'you're all fools if you've paid to watch what you can get for nothing on TV.'

Then, what would be expect from the guy who'd buy a pig in a poke and declare that he'd actually let the cat out of the bag? In short, fall for a scam and then claim to have known all about it all along.

That said, The Simpsons Movie isn't a counterfeit designed to con you of your hard-earned cash. It 's what it says on the tin, a feature film version of Matt Groening's much loved TV series.

It's brilliant, a barrel of belly laughs and designed to appeal to audience of all ages, not least those avaricious fans who have maintained it as the top US satire for 17 years.

Of course, it's not the same as it was. After 400 episodes, the production values are more professional. Still, without excessive CGI, its dysfunctional working class folk continue to transcend the generations.

Its secret is simple - witty scripts, inventive sight gags and the inclusion of many radical references to politics.

I know it remains the most shared experience in my household with my five-year-old grandson rushing up the stairs at 6 o'clock to shout: 'It's the Simpsons, grandad!'

He loves skateboarding Bart's escapades. But what he will think of him skating in the nude and revealing his penis? Well, he won't go on a moral majority rage.

His mother loved the independent spirit of saxophone-playing Lisa. Now inspired by the 'The Irritating Truth,' she's off on an environmental quest and falls in love with an Irish lad who, she insists, 'is not Bono.'

As for the long suffering Marge, she has to respond to a realisation that Homer has finally committed a cardinal sin, having initiated a love affair with a pig whose silo they decide to dump in the local lake.

It results in Springfield becoming a toxic dump and the only person to see the way out of the predicament is dummy-sucking Maggie.

However, it's Homer as the self-absorbed, doughnut-eating beer swiller who epitomises both the problem and the solution.

Having fouled up with his porker, he's forced to take responsibility for the toxic effects.

This is the family that Bush Snr declared anti-American. He much preferred The Waltons. But, naturally, his stupid son's handlers considered the Simpsons as vote winners.

Not that Dubya's featured in the film. The makers prefer to satirise Schwarzenegger as the dumbo president in the White House being manipulated by a creep as crooked as Cheney.

Offered the choice of options, he says. 'I vos elected to lead not read.'

Film buffs will recognise allusions to Dr Strangelove. Others will reference Bush's responses to September 11.

They are up to no good. But, as usual, it's the blundering Homer who initiates the disaster, because his insatiable desires create the problem that requires Springfield to be isolated under a huge glass dome.

It's impossible to escape until the Simpsons get on the case, with the disgraced Homer riding to the rescue aboard a Harley Davidson.

Most of the characters appear to get a mention, from barman Mo, Comic Book Guy, Rev Lovejoy, and Krusty the Clown to the born-again nice-guy Ned Flanders and the insufferable Tom Hanks.

Evil Mr Burns only appears marginally and still manages to deliver the film's most apposite irony as he watches the powers of the state attacking them all. 'So! For once, the rich white man is in control.'

Yes, they are bombing their own citizens like they do abroad. Anything to keep the populace unaware of the control being exercised by the military-industrial complex, including using nuclear bombs.

And all this courtesy of Rupert Murdoch. Who says that the US doesn't do irony? So long as the profits are rolling in, they will cash in. That's the crunch contradiction of capitalist culture.

From Morning Star

President Chavez Announces Construction of 15 New Hospitals in Venezuela

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 03:14:00 +0000

7-30-07, 11:02 am

Mérida, July 26, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com)— Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced the construction of 15 new hospitals across the country at an event in Caracas yesterday. The new hospitals, along with the remodeling of existing hospitals, make up the third and fourth phases of the Barrio Adentro (Inside the Barrio) health program. The Chavez government’s social programs, such as Barrio Adentro, have benefited nearly 50 percent of Venezuelan households according to a recent survey. Chavez announced the new hospitals yesterday at the inauguration of the remodeled and reequipped Pérez Carreño hospital in Caracas. The 15 new hospitals will be general care hospitals, but each will have a specialization, according to Chavez. The president gave as examples the hospital to be built in El Vigia, in the state of Merida, which will specialize in Gastroenterology, and the hospital in Guarenas, in the state of Miranda, which will specialize in cancer treatment. Hospitals will also be built in the states of Barinas, Apure, Anzoátegui, Cojedes, Aragua, Carabobo, Guarico, and Bolivar.

As a part of the Barrio Adentro health program, these new hospitals make up the fourth phase of the health program consisting of building specialized hospitals. The third phase, launched in 2006, is the upgrading and remodeling of existing hospitals such as the Pérez Carreño hospital that Chavez inaugurated yesterday. These hospitals receive improvements in their infrastructure as well as new medical equipment and facilities.

'We have seen equipment that did not exist in Venezuela before, now for the service of all Venezuelans,' said Chavez yesterday at the Pérez Carreño hospital. 'Some of them have been installed and operated for the first time. This, combined with high quality medical personnel, is the perfect combination of man and machine.'

The Pérez Carreño hospital was equipped with a new emergency room with capacity to treat 66 patients simultaneously, two operating rooms, and two recovery rooms, as well as a variety of state-of-the-art technology. Chavez commented that this model emergency room is 'number one, not only in Venezuela, but on this continent. It would be difficult to find an emergency service as good as this one.'

This is the beginning of the third phase of Barrio Adentro, according to Chavez, and he said he hopes to see 'all the hospitals in the country as good as [the] Pérez Carreño [hospital].'

According to Health Minister Jesus Mantilla, the Venezuelan government has approved a total of Bs. 1,355 billion (US$ 631 million) for the remodeling and upgrading of 62 public hospitals across the country. The minister said that more hospitals will be incorporated into the project as the program advances.

'All of the people need preventative, healing, quality care that is efficient and free,' said Chavez. 'This is a truly revolutionary concept.'

The social programs of the Chavez' government that include health, nutrition, and education programs have reached 47.7 percent of Venezuelan homes according to a recent survey by the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV). The study showed that 62.3 percent of low-income homes benefit from the programs, while only 22 percent of middle class homes have been reached. The study also showed that general well-being among the Venezuelan population had improved from 1997 to 2005. Inequality, however, had slightly increased from 2000 to 2005

Chavez assured yesterday that these results were evidence that Venezuela is 'winning the battle against capitalism.' He also cited results of a recent survey that showed he enjoys the support of 70 percent of the population.

'Imagine if we could increase the efficiency in the general management of the government,' said Chavez. 'If we could do a better follow up on things, if we were more efficient, our support would get as high as 90 percent.'

Chavez also cited results that show that 35 percent of Venezuelans say they prefer a socialist system, while 40 percent support a social democracy, and only 5 percent prefer a capitalist system.

But Chavez claimed that the survey was poorly designed since it asked the question as if socialism was different from democracy.

'The new socialism isn't the dictatorship of the proletariat,' he said. 'It's democracy.'

From

Torture Is Alive and Well in Oaxaca

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 03:05:00 +0000

7-30-07, 10:54 am

“They [the heavily armed Mexican federal police] began to hit us indiscriminately as they moved in. I was carrying my friend who’d fainted from the tear gas they shot at us. Seven police were hitting me with their billy clubs. They took my wallet and my cell phone, then threw me on top of a mountain of people. They took off everybody’s shoes and tied our hands behind our backs. For an hour and a half they spit on us, kicked us, tortured us, then they grabbed me and threw me in the back of a pickup. I was covered with blood. They questioned us, kicked us, jumped on us. We drove for two hours. I lost all feeling in my body. When they finally stopped they pulled me out of the pickup by my hair. ‘Drag yourselves like the dogs you are!’ they reviled us.”

The 19-year-old Oaxaca college student shuddered as he recounted the events of November 25, 2006 to the Rights Action emergency civil rights delegation in the city of Oaxaca. Along with nearly 150 others, including his mother, he was charged with sedition, instigating a mutiny, robbery and destruction of public property. The day after his apprehension he was helicoptered to a federal prison in Nayarit, hundreds of miles from Oaxaca. During the flight the federal police left a door of the helicopter open and threatened to throw the shackled prisoners out one by one. “Say your prayers!” the police joked. “You’ll never be heard from again!”

None of the nearly 150 persons arrested during that night of terror was questioned before their arrest nor was asked to show any form of identification. All of them were beaten before and during their apprehension, some so brutally they suffered broken ribs, arms and skulls. All were manacled, refused medical treatment and spirited out of Oaxaca despite the fact that no justification for their arrests existed. Many of the detainees had not even participated in the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO for its initials in Spanish) march that preceded the police attack. Those beaten, manacled and sent to prison included a 50-year-old illiterate woman who’d just gotten off work, a man walking towards a bus stop and a woman who’d been shopping near the Zocalo and in trying to escape the tear gas had broken the heel of one of her shoes and fallen.

The violent apprehensions did not begin or end with the November 25 assault. Supporters of current governor Ulisés Ruiz beat a retired professor to death when he participated in an attempt to block a roadway near Huautla to prevent Ruiz from making a campaign appearance in 2004. Authorities then jailed the retired professor’s closest friend on murder charges despite videos that identified the killers. When Oaxacan teachers declared a strike for higher wages and better school conditions and set up an encampment in the center of the city of Oaxaca last June, Ruiz dispatched state police to break up the protest. The teachers fought back and forced the police to retreat. Various non-aligned NGOs and indigena groups backed the teachers and formed APPO.

Ruiz’ government responded by subsidizing death squads that included former and current municipal and state police to attack and intimidate APPO members and human rights workers. To counter these nightly depredations APPO supporters barricaded streets throughout the city, making transit virtually impossible after dark. Nevertheless, snipers hiding in the Hospital Santa María shot and killed José Jiménez during an APPO-sponsored march in August. The husband of an activisit teacher, Jiménez had taken part in a number of anti-Ruiz protests. Despite the fact that hundreds saw Jiménez fall, and despite the fact that autopsies showed that he’d been hit by bullets of two different calibers fired from two different directions, Oaxaca’s attorney general announced that he’d died during a drunken fight which he’d instigated.

Two months later armed off-duty municipal police attacked an APPO barricade in Santa Lucía del Camino, a city of Oaxaca suburb, and shot and killed American photographer Brad Will. Despite the fact that reporters photographed Will’s killers as they were attacking and published them in both local and national newspapers, Oaxacan authorities released the assassins and announced that they were going to file murder charges against one of Will’s companions at the barricade.

That revelation so infuriated Oaxaca journalist Pedro Matias that he told the human rights delegation, “The department of justice changed the settings, changed the legal opinions, changed the investigations and after all that what’s going to happen here in Oaxaca is that it’s going to turn out that Brad Will killed himself. That’s the kind of justice we have here.”

For the past 80 years Oaxaca has been governed by a tight coterie belonging to Mexico’s dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI for its initials in Spanish). Though PRI lost the past two presidential elections the party nevertheless remains strong and controls the majority of governorships within the country. Both Ruiz and his predecessor, José Murat, have been under investigation for fraud and misappropriation of funds. During the November 25 federal police assault a building housing the financial records of Ruiz and Murat went up in flames and the records were destroyed. State officials accused APPO members of setting the fire by throwing Molotov cocktails into the building but a tour of the damage indicates that that would have been impossible. The fires were set from inside.

The arrests and detainment of APPO leaders, threats against human rights activisits and continuing disappearances of APPO supporters continue. In January over 100 heavily armed state police swept through an encampment of relatives of the political prisoners incarcerated at the Miahuatlán state prison. Without warrants and wielding billy clubs against everyone whose paths they crossed the police destroyed the encampment. They arrested nine persons, including several who’d driven away from the prison. One was a photojournalist with a valid press pass who reported: “They grabbed me, they hit me, they yanked me by the hair and threw me in the back of a pickup. They sprayed me with tear gas and held a knife to my back. They said they were going to rape me and throw me in the ocean. They said other police were raping my novia right then.”

The photojournalist, José de Jesús Villaseca, was released on bail but still has criminal charges pending against him. So do all of those imprisoned on November 25. State and federal police have jailed over 400 citizens, many on charges that the justice committee of the state legislature since has confirmed were fallacious. Death squadrons have assassinated at least 20 and an estimated 100 other Oaxacans have disappeared. The state has filed orders of apprehension for hundreds more, including human rights activists Yésica Sánchez of the Liga Mexicana de Derechos Humanos. Five of the political prisoners incarcerated in Miahuatlán signed accusations stating that Sánchez had urged them to take violent actions against the state. All five repudiated those assertions after they were released, saying they had been tortured into signing in order to gain their release from prison.

“The government has taken the position that no changes should be prompted by popular movements,” explains priest Juan Arias, the spokesman for the state’s Catholic presbytery. “and is criminalizing any attempts at change.”

According to Arias, the state’s propaganda station, Radio Ciudadana, (Citizens Radio), attacked priests for providing medical aid and sanctuary to APPO members. “They practically said we’re criminals for denouncing the violence and repression in Oaxaca,” he told a Rights Action emergency delegation in February.

Announcers for the same station urged Oaxaca residents to attack and burn the facilities belonging to the Services for an Alternative Education because members of that group were APPO supporters.

Although the federal police force is under the jurisdiction of Mexico’s president Felipe Calderón and Government Secretary Francisco Ramirez neither has made any effort to investigate the violent apprehension and torture of innocent civilians. Various officials from President Calderón’s Partido Acción Naciónal, including Senator Felipe Gonzalez, applauded the PFP actions, citing the need to show “a firm hand” against lawbreakers like the APPO protesters.

The federal government has admitted that Ruiz is a problem. But they view a popular uprising that could depose a governor a third of his way through his term as an even greater problem. The governors of at least half-a-dozen other states face opposition similar to what Ruiz had created for himself. Better that Oaxaca be subdued than a third of the nation combat citizen takeovers has become the government’s stance.

Despite Ruiz’ insistence that “everything is under control” and Oaxaca is a safe place for tourists to visit, teachers who supported the strike are yanked out of their classrooms, arrest warrants are filed against human rights activists and the squadrons of death roam the streets knowing they can stop, detain, torture and even kill anyone who disagrees with the status quo.

Oaxaca may be safe for tourists but not for Oaxacans. Especially not for those who protest. --Robert Joe Stout is a journalist by trade, and he freelances for a variety of magazines, including The Retired Officer Magazine, Notre Dame Magazine, Smoke and Army Magazine. He has published a novel, Miss Sally (Bobbs-Merrill) and has half-a-dozen poetry chapbooks to his credit. His non-fiction The Blood of the Serpent: Mexican Lives, a mosaic of Mexican faces, places and experiences, was issued in 2003 by Algora Press and Why Immigrants Come to America: Braceros, Indocumentados and the Migra is due out soon from Praeger.

Book Review: Fellow Travelers, a Novel

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 03:00:00 +0000

7-30-07, 11:14 am

Fellow Travelers, a Novel. By Thomas Mallon. New York, Pantheon Books, 2007.

As suggested by its title, Thomas Mallon's most recent political novel, Fellow Travelers, is a story about the McCarthy-era and the assault on political dissent that dominated it. But it is also about the intersection of right-wing witch hunts to expose and punish Communists and the right's obsession with sexuality and the search for gay and lesbian 'infiltrators' at the same time, also known as the 'lavender scare.'

The novel provocatively uses real historical figures such as paranoid anti-Communists such as Joseph McCarthy, Roy Cohn, David Schine, and numerous others along with fabricated characters to dramatize conflicts of forbidden desire, political machinations, patriotic loyalty, and global struggles between capitalism and communism. Mallon's great success is that he manages this hefty scenario with skill, producing a riveting tale of love, passion, and betrayal.

Rising State Department star, Hawkins Fuller, is handsome and confident. All the ladies love him. But he doesn't return the favor. He has a secret, which could cost him everything in Washington's paranoid world in 1953: he's gay. According to the government's internal security types not only are gay people morally deficient and a threat to our 'way of life,' but those in government positions pose a national security because if their secret is found out they could be blackmailed for classified material.

In this world, the solution is not to alter federal regulations, national laws and society's customs and habits to include and normalize gay and lesbian people, but to perpetuate homophobia by hunting them down and forcing them out of government service.

But Fuller fears little. A conservative white, upper crust Protestant, he is about as normal as it gets, other than his one small secret. Used to the privileges of his social position, he almost enjoys thumbing his nose at the system, fearing little retribution. Who'd think he of all people would be a 'cookie pusher.'

Into Fuller's world walks Tim Laughlin, a young Irish Catholic Senate legislative assistant, wracked by guilt about his desires. Fuller, ever on the prowl, picks up Tim and a passionate relationship follows. In fact, Tim refers to Fuller as 'Hawk' throughout. Constantly fearful of exposure, Tim also struggles to handle his feelings for the more experienced Fuller who dominates the relationship. Ironically, Tim is a staunch conservative who happens to agree with the social and religious proscriptions on homosexuality.

Intersecting this private world is the public story of the McCarthyist search to uncover Communists. Because Fuller is a State Department bureaucrat, he is less inclined to voicing partisan political positions. Tim, on the other hand, is a rabid anti-Communist and a supporter of McCarthy. Some in his family, though proud of Tim's fancy government job, are slightly disappointed that he doesn't work for McCarthy. Tim hates communists and believes they should be hunted down and punished. While he never comes to this same conclusion about gay people, his own self-loathing leads to life compacted by guilt, fear, and repressed ego subsumed under the dominate personalities around him.

Mallon uses the rumors that persisted about the McCarthy's bisexuality and his drunkenness as well as Roy Cohn's own sexual orientation to link the 'red scare' with the 'lavender scare.' But it isn't Mallon's intention to simply label McCarthy as a 'pervert' in order to undermine the credibility of his actions.

Mallon's great feat in this novel is not in portraying a single political viewpoint, but to expose and provoke thought on a host of social contradictions. While the US claimed to promote democracy against brutal and violent foreign regimes, it deployed fear and hysteria and punishment here to target its internal critics and marginalized populations. (Mallon even hints at international US exploits and racial oppression domestically though those issues comprise very little of the story.) At the same time, promoters of freedom helped to demonize a section of the population based on sexual orientation.

Cohn and McCarthy were among this growd. Roy Cohn would ultimately be diagnosed with AIDS in 1984 after a public life during which he attacked both communists and gays. Cohn, along with McCarthy, spearheaded a sort of movement of closeted hard right public figures who would denounce homosexuality and push antigay laws and beliefs while at the same time hiding their own gay or bisexual orientations. In the novel, it is the threat of publicizing evidence of McCarthy's sexual overtures to a teenage boy that ultimately bring him down.

On the whole, the book is engrossing but complex. It helps to be a fan of the intricacies of politics and somewhat knowledgeable about US history to keep pace with Mallon's tale. Some passages seem contrived in order to push the plot along, but such instances are few and far between.

In addition to Mallon's excellent writing and to the thought-provoking themes, one gets satisfaction knowing that a book like this will get under the skin of contemporary supporters of McCarthy like Ann Coulter. Anything that gets her into a tizzy is worth reading twice.

| | |

Cynthia McKinney Sues Atlanta Journal-Constitution for Libel

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 02:51:00 +0000

7-30-07, 10:39 am

(APN) ATLANTA – Former US Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) has sued the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper for libel, Atlanta Progressive News has learned.

The lawsuit was filed on July 26, 2007, in State Court of Fulton County, according to a copy of the court filing obtained by Atlanta Progressive News.

The lawsuit focuses on what McKinney argues to be false claims in a July 30, 2006, Editorial written by the AJC’s Editorial Page Editor, Cynthia Tucker. Tucker received a Pulitzer Prize for a series of columns that year including that one.

McKinney claims that she requested a correction from the AJC in a letter dated July 31, 2006, and that the AJC refused to do so in a response dated August 15, 2006.

Tucker’s column, 'Voters Can See Through McKinney,' focused on an incident several months earlier, where the Congresswoman had been stopped by Capitol Hill Police in Washington, DC.

While a news item in the AJC about the lawsuit yesterday mentions only one substantive claim relating to Tucker’s column, there are actually five 'false and defamatory statements' listed in the suit.

First, the suit says that Tucker wrote, 'She slugged him with her cell phone,' to describe McKinney’s response to the police officer that day. 'This false and libelous allegation is not supported by any witness or other evidence.'

According to a copy of Tucker’s column obtained by APN, Tucker wrote, 'When he stopped her, the officer said, she slugged him with her cellphone.' While the AJC attributes the claim to the officer–'the officer said'–by the time of the column’s publication, the Grand Jury had already failed to indict McKinney. Thus, it was selective of the AJC to only include the officer’s alleged remarks.

McKinney argues that Tucker tried to spin the event into a felony, based on the claim McKinney assaulted an officer with a weapon.

Second, Tucker wrote the officer had 'stopped her,' instead of 'admitting the officer used force against the Congresswoman.' While this would be libel by omission, this statement in juxtaposition to the first, completely alters the character of who used force in the incident.

However, the article only states the officer said he stopped her, but does not state whether force was used. The article does include McKinney’s claims that she was inappropriately touched.

Third, Tucker wrote that McKinney’s father, 'a spokesman for her campaign,' made what Tucker interpreted to be anti-Semitic statements. Indeed, Tucker wrote this. McKinney denies that her father was a spokesperson for her or the campaign.

Fourth, Tucker wrote, McKinney 'suggested President Bush had known in advance about the Sept. 11 attacks but did nothing to stop them so his friends could profit from the ensuing war.' Tucker did write this.

The audio recording and transcript of McKinney’s actual remarks on Bush and September 11, 2001, were presented in the movie, American Blackout, and the record shows that McKinney never said what Tucker claims she did, despite the insistence of the AJC and other media outlets.

Fifth, McKinney takes issue with a statement by Tucker that McKinney 'doesn’t have the power or prestige to pass a resolution in support of sweetened iced tea.' Tucker did write this, but of the five claims, this one appears to be more related to an opinion–perhaps unfounded--by Tucker, an Editorial writer, than a misstatement of fact.

The lawsuit also makes a shocking claim that someone from the AJC called in a bomb threat to McKinney’s District Office on June 12, 2006.

The filing includes affidavits signed by several office workers on July 06, 2006, who attest that an investigation by a Dekalb Police Officer Brannan into the bomb threats found that the call did indeed come from the AJC’s phone number.

Additionally, the lawsuit complains that the AJC published a deceptive news article on August 03, 2006, in the days before McKinney’s questioned election loss, which appears to report that McKinney’s father, Billy McKinney, had just been indicted.

That article was titled 'Gwinnett consultant indicted on election law charges,' and 'Associate to Bill McKinney also faces charges.' The article said, 'Political consultant Bill McKinney' was indicted. But, the person indicted was named William Dennis McKinney, a White political consultant in Gwinnett County, 'essential facts omitted from the Cox story.'

While it may have been technically true that 'Bill McKinney' was indicted–depending on whether William Dennis actually uses the nickname Bill–the impact was to confuse Atlanta readers. Even though the AJC has reported repeatedly on the McKinney family, it did not let readers know this particular Bill McKinney was not related to the Billy McKinney that the AJC often reports on.

'The allegations in the lawsuit are not just frivolous, they're preposterous. Libel suits aren't vehicles to rewrite history,' Peter Canfield, attorney for the AJC, said, according the newspaper’s own article about the suit.

From Atlanta Progressive News

--About the author: Matthew Cardinale is the News Editor of The Atlanta Progressive News and may be reached at

Natural Gas Cars

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 02:45:00 +0000

7-30-07, 10:34 am

EARTH TALK From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: I am considering buying Honda’s natural gas Civic. What exactly comes out of a natural gas vehicle’s tailpipe, and how harmful to the environment is natural gas extraction and refinement? Which is greener, a hybrid or natural gas car? -- Alex Neal, San Diego CA

Honda’s natural gas Civic GX, which debuted in 2006 in California but is now becoming available in other parts of the country, just may be the cleanest mainstream car on the road. At least the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) thinks so. The nonprofit group publishes an annual Green Book listing the greenest (and meanest) cars of the year, and put the Civic GX at the top of its 2007 environmentally friendly car list, edging out Toyota’s hybrid Prius.

Although neither car is a slouch when it comes to fuel economy and reduced emissions, the natural gas-fueled Civic scored slightly better than the Prius on both counts in ACEEE’s battery of tests. It also scored better in terms of the pollution generated in the manufacturing processes.

Natural gas is the cleanest burning of all fossil fuels. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the burning of natural gas emits 117,000 pounds per billion (ppb) BTUs of carbon dioxide as compared to gasoline’s 164,000. Its 92 ppb of nitrogen oxide emissions are considerably lower than gasoline’s 448, and its mere one ppb of sulfur dioxide emissions is dwarfed by gasoline’s 1,122. Natural gas also emits just seven ppb of particulates compared to 84 for gasoline, and it emits no mercury whatsoever against the trace amounts emitted by gasoline-burning engines. Natural gas combustion does generate slightly more carbon monoxide than gasoline, at 40 ppb versus 33, but the difference is negligible.

The big trade-off for Civic GX owners is the car’s limited 220-mile range between fuelings. The gasoline-powered Civic can go 350 miles on a tank; the Prius, even with just an 11-gallon tank, can go considerably further operating at as much as 55 miles per gallon in highway driving. While a few dozen natural gas refueling stations have popped up around the U.S., they are few and far between. For those who need to make longer trips but still value a greener ride, a hybrid may be the best bet, as it will produce only marginally worse emissions while taking advantage of the ubiquity of gas stations out on the road.

Those who already use natural gas for home heating can pay $5,000 for a car fueling system installed in their garage or driveway. While that cost may seem high, owners can save about $1 per gallon over gasoline and can also get a federal $1,000 tax rebate. (Also, like the Prius, the purchase of the Civic GX itself qualifies for a federal tax break of $2,000 as well as up to another $2,000 in state and local incentives where applicable.) Some Honda dealers lease home systems for between $34 and $79 monthly. Honda pegs the fuel cost at 3.75 cents/mile, compared to 8.8 cents/mile for the gasoline-powered Civic.

Regarding the extraction and distribution of natural gas, the fuel is often sourced along with or near oil reserves, and involves similarly invasive drilling methods. Accidents do happen from time to time and, though natural gas does not spill like oil and cause ground and sea-level ecosystem disturbances, it rises into the atmosphere where it contributes directly to global warming.

CONTACTS: Database for State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency, www.dsireusa.org; ACEEE’s Green Book, www.greenercars.com; Honda Civic GX, http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-gx.

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit it at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek/, or e-mail: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php.

Iraqi Civilians Routinely Terrorized in Midnight Searches

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 02:37:00 +0000

7-30-07, 10:26 am

If polls show Iraqis overwhelmingly want the U.S. out, it may be because the civilian population is being terrorized in their homes, subjected to dragnet arrests, wrongfully imprisoned, run down on the highways, shot at the checkpoints, and demeaned as 'hajis.'

That’s the distressing picture painted by 50 returned veterans who, speaking on the record to reporters Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian of The Nation magazine (July 30), describe an American army of occupation that is frustrated, fearful, confused, calloused, arrogant, and quick on the trigger.

Sgt. John Bruhns, 29, of Philadelphia, who served with the First Armored Division, and took part in raids of nearly 1,000 Iraqi homes in Baghdad, said his group of 10 would strike when the family was asleep, kick the door in, rush up the stairs, pull the man of the house out of bed in front of his wife, put him up against the wall, and then group the terrified family together. “Then you go into a room and you tear the room to shreds and you make sure there’s no weapons or anything that they can use to attack us,” Bruhns said.

Asked at gunpoint through an interpreter, “’Do you have any weapons or anti-American propaganda?’” the man “will normally say no, because that’s normally the truth. So what you’ll do is…if he has a couch, you’ll turn the couch upside down. You’ll go into the fridge, if he has a fridge, and you’ll throw everything on the floor, and you’ll take his drawers and you’ll dump them… You’ll open up his closet and you’ll throw all the clothes on the floor and basically leave the house looking like a hurricane just hit it…. And then you go right next door and you do the same thing in a hundred houses.”

Sgt. Justin Flatt, 33, of Denver, Colo., who served with the First Infantry Division, and raided “thousands” of homes in Tikrit, Samarra and Mosul, added, “We scared the living Jesus out of them every time we went through every house.” Since Iraqis were paid for “tips” about insurgents, they frequently gave false leads. Sgt. Larry Cannon, 27, of Salt Lake City, a Bradley gunner with the First Infantry Division, said he searched more than 100 homes and “found the raids fruitless and maddening,” according to the magazine. And Sgt. Timothy John Westphal, 31, of Denver, of the First Infantry Division, said of the thousand or so raids he conducted in Iraq he came into contact with only four “hard-core insurgents.”

Sgt. Jesus Bocanegra, 25, of Weslaco, Tex., who served with the Fourth Infantry Division, was among the GI’s who said physical abuse of Iraqis during the raids was common, and that soldiers kicked suspects in handcuffs. When they didn’t catch any insurgents, a soldier might say “’Oh, this is a guy planting a roadside bomb’---and you don’t even know if it’s him or not ---you just go in there and kick the shit out of him and take him…to jail,” Bocanegra said.

Military officials estimate more than 60,000 Iraqis have been arrested and detained since the U.S. invasion and veterans interviewed by The Nation said “the majority of detainees they encountered were either innocent or guilty of only minor infractions.” Bocanegra said at one point, if “they were wearing Arab clothing and military-style boots, they were considered enemy combatants and you would cuff ‘em and take ‘em in.”

Army Reserve Spc. Aidan Delgado, 25, of Sarasota, Fla., of the 320th Military Police Company, said, “I read these rap sheets on all the prisoners at Abu Ghraib and what they were there for. I look down this roster and see petty theft, public drunkenness, forged coalition documents.” Delgado, who later applied for, and got, conscientious objector status, added, “These aren’t terrorists. These aren’t our enemies. They’re just ordinary people, and we’re treating them harshly.”

Spc. Richard Murphy, 28, an Army Reservist from Pocono, Pa., who served with the 800th Military Police Brigade, was in charge of 310 prisoners at Abu Ghraib, concluded, “I knew that a large percentage of these prisoners were innocent…I get the sense that a lot of them were just getting rounded up in big groups.” As for due process for the inmates, Murphy said, “It was just a snail’s crawling process… The system wasn’t working.”

Among the most dangerous places for Iraqi civilians, are checkpoints set up by coalition forces. Sgt. Geoffrey Millard, 26, of Buffalo, N.Y., with the 42nd Infantry Division, said on one occasion an 18-year-old soldier atop an armored Humvee made a split-second decision that a speeding vehicle was driven by a suicide bomber. The soldier “presses the butterfly trigger and puts 200 rounds in less than a minute into this vehicle. It killed a mother, a father, and two kids,” a boy, aged four, and a girl of three. When briefed afterwards, Millard recalled, “this colonel turns around to this full division staff and says, ‘If these fucking hajis learned to drive, this shit wouldn’t happen.’”

Tragedies of this sort multiply as many checkpoints are temporary or poorly marked. At one checkpoint in Ramadi, an unarmed man who drove too close to a checkpoint was decapitated by .30-caliber machine gun fire in front of his small, terrified son. On another occasion, an elderly couple were killed at a checkpoint and left in their car for days. “Troops, fearing suicide bombs and rocket-propelled grenades, often fired on civilian cars” as unarmed Iraqis were mistaken for insurgents, The Nation article said. “These incidents were so common that the military could not investigate each one,” and many commanders “just stopped reporting shootings.”

Callousness toward civilians is particularly evident on the part of 20- and 30-truck-long supply convoys barreling down the highways and through densely populated areas at speeds reaching over 60 miles per hour, veterans told the magazine. “Governed by the rule that stagnation increases the likelihood of attack, convoys leapt meridians in traffic jams, ignored traffic signals, swerved without warning onto sidewalks, scattering pedestrians, and slammed into civilian vehicles, shoving them off the road. Iraqi civilians, including children, were frequently run over and killed. Veterans said they sometimes shot drivers of civilian cars that moved into convoy formations or attempted to pass convoys as a warning to other drivers to get out of the way,” reporters Hedges and Al-Arian wrote. Twenty-four of the 50 veterans interviewed said they had witnessed or heard stories from others in their units of unarmed civilians being shot or run over by the convoys.

Soldiers and marines on neighborhood patrols also used speed and aggressive firing to reduce the risk of being ambushed. Sgt. Patrick Campbell, 29, of Camarillo, Calif., who frequently took part in such patrols, said his unit fired often and without much warning on Iraqi civilians to ward off attacks. “Every time we got on the highway,” he said, “we were firing warning shots, causing accidents all the time.”

The magazine reported “The killing of unarmed Iraqis was so common many troops said it became an accepted part of the daily landscape.” Interviewees said the killings were justified by framing innocents as terrorists, “typically following incidents when American troops fired on crowds of unarmed Iraqis.”

“The troops would detain those who survived, accusing them of being insurgents, and plant AK-47s next to the bodies of those they had killed to make it seem as if the civilian dead were combatants,” the magazine reported. Specialist Joe Hatcher, 26, of San Diego, said handguns and shovels were placed next to the bodies to make it appear the noncombatant was digging a hole to plant an IED.

Iraqi physicians, working with epidemiologists at The Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, published a study last year in the British medical journal “The Lancet” estimating 601,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the March, 2003, invasion as a result of violence. The researchers found coalition forces were responsible, by a conservative estimate, of 31 percent of the deaths. An article published previously in The Nation reported 78,000 Iraqis were killed through June of last year by coalition air strikes.

The magazine said U.S. troops lacked the training to communicate with or even understand Iraqi civilians and few soldiers spoke or read Arabic. Specialist Josh Middleton, 23, of New York City, said, “a lot of guys really supported that whole concept that, you know, if they don’t speak English and they have darker skin, they’re not as human as us, so we can do what we want.” Iraqi culture, identity and customs, according to the veterans who served in Iraq, were ridiculed in racist terms, with troops deriding “haji food,” “haji music” and “haji homes.” Haji denotes someone who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca but is “now used by American troops in the same way ‘gook’ was used in Vietnam or ‘raghead’ in Afghanistan,” the magazine said. --Sherwood Ross is a Miami, Fla.-based writer who covers political and military topics. Reach him at

The Eagle Flies Over Africa

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 02:18:00 +0000

7-30-07, 10:07 am

Letter from America

In February 2007, George W. Bush announced the creation of a new unified combatant command for Africa. After several years of deliberation, the Pentagon finally agreed to create AFRICOM (African Command), which will relieve EUCOM (European Command) and CENTCOM (Central Command), which had previously shared responsibility for Africa. In July, Bush appointed General William 'Kip' Ward to run AFRICOM, which will be based in Germany until it finds an African home (Liberia, which was from 1976 to 1997 home to an Omega surveillance system, is openly lobbying to host AFRICOM). Sensitive to criticism that AFRICOM seeks to bring a military solution to African problems, the U. S. assistant secretary of defense for African Affairs, Theresa Whelan hastily said, 'Africa Command is not going to reflect a U. S. intent to engage kinetically in Africa. This is about prevention. This isn't about fighting wars.'

Navy Rear Admiral Robert Moeller, who led the Africa Command Implementation Planning Team, pointed out that 'the increasing importance of the continent to the U.S.,' particularly on strategic and economic grounds, makes this development necessary. The proximate issue used to push for AFRICOM is the ongoing crisis in Darfur, and the failure of the U.S. to act in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. And the less talked about issue is the importance of African resources for the U.S. economy and for multi-national corporations. Oil is, of course, a central character in this story.

Resource Wars

In September 2002, the New York Times ran an article with a telling headline, 'In Courting Africa, U.S. likes the Dowry: Oil.' The article quoted then Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, who said, 'Energy from Africa plays an increasingly important role in our energy security.' The following year, a senior Pentagon official told the Wall Street Journal, 'A key mission for U.S. forces [in Africa] would be to ensure that Nigeria's oil fields, which in the future could account for as much as 25 percent of all U.S. oil imports, are secure.' This figure comes from the National Intelligence Council's report of 2000 (when the U.S. imported 16% of its oil needs from sub-Saharan Africa). Since 9/11, the urgency of a stable source of oil has increased. Historian John Ghazvinian's new book Untapped: The Scramble for Africa's Oil points out that not only is African oil of high quality, but it bears other significant political advantages: most African countries are not OPEC members, their oil is not owned by powerful state oil companies and the oil is largely offshore, which means 'that even if a civil war or violent insurrection breaks out onshore (always a concern in Africa), the oil companies can continue to pump out oil with little likelihood of sabotage, banditry or nationalist fervor getting in the way.'

Eighty percent of new oil reserves discovered between 2001 and 2004 come from West Africa, where the U.S. currently gets only 12% of its total supply. West Africa is a crucial site for U.S. interests, so much so that the U. S. is willing to be openly hypocritical about its promotion of democracy and human rights when it comes to the region. In April 2006, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warmly welcomed her 'special friend,' Equatorial Guinea's man of all seasons and many decades, Teodoro Obiang. Her own department annually chastises Obiang's regime for corruption, human rights violations and electoral fraud. Despite being home to some of the poorest people in Africa, Equatorial Guinea is the third largest oil producer in the continent, whose oil, the U.S. government hopes will flow across the Atlantic to power the United States. The U.S. has been loath to put pressure on Nigeria for the very same reasons.

For decades, the oil regions in West Africa have been 'swamps of insurgency' (as the International Crisis Group put it in a 2006 report). Wars in the Niger Delta, for instance, claim lives and communities, as well as barrels of oil. Both the Nigerian and the U. S. governments are concerned about 'resource control,' and it has been the task of the Nigerian military to clamp down on dissent with force. Resource wars in the Congo (over diamonds and coltran) and in West Africa (over oil) have set the continent on fire. The U.S. has thus far engaged with these conflicts through Africa's national armies, who have increasingly become the praetorian guards of large corporations. None of this can be justified directly as a protection of the extraction of resources, so it has increasingly been couched in the language of the war on terrorism. The Pan-Sahel Initiative (created in 2002) draws U.S. Special Operations Forces to Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. In 2004, the U.S. extended this to the major oil producing countries of Algeria, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia and renamed it the Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Initiative. After 9/11, the U.S. moved a Special Operations Force into a former French Foreign Legion base, Camp Le Monier, in Djibouti. In July 2003, the U.S. earned the right to deploy P-3 Orion aerial surveillance aircraft in Tamanrasset, Algeria. Under the guise of the War on Terrorism, the U.S. government has moved forces into various parts of Africa, where they were able to train African armies and to intervene in the increasingly dangerous resource wars.

If the U. S. government is quieter in its approach, right-wing think tanks in the U. S. feel no such compunction. The Heritage Foundation has lobbied for the creation of AFRICOM for several years, and it is arguable that its work moved Donald Rumsfeld to consider an African Command. In a 2003 study entitled 'U. S. Military Assistance for Africa: A Better Solution,' the Heritage Foundation argued, 'Creating an African Command would go a long way toward turning the Bush Administration's well-aimed strategic priorities for Africa into a reality.' Rather than engage Africa diplomatically, it is better to be diplomatic through the barrel of a gun. 'America must not be afraid to employ its forces decisively when vital national interests are threatened.' Nevertheless, the U.S. will not need to always send its own soldiers. 'A sub-unified command for Africa would give the U.S. military an instrument with which to engage effectively in the continent and reduce the potential that America might have to intervene directly.' The AFRICOM would analyze intelligence, work 'closely with civil-military leaders' and coordinate training and conduct joint-exercises. In other words, the U.S. would make the friendly African military forces 'inter-operatable' not only with U.S. hardware but also with U.S. interests. When AFRICOM became reality Heritage's Brett Schaefer welcomed the 'long overdue' move.

China's Oil Road

At a May 2007 gathering of African leaders in Shanghai, the Chinese government promised $20 billion for the continent's development. Madagascar's President Marc Ravalomanana enthusiastically said, 'We in Africa must learn from your success.' In January 2007, the Chinese Foreign Ministry released a White Paper that pointed out that unlike U.S. and European investment, Chinese finance for Africa would be driven by a policy of equity and sustainable development. Technology transfer, the entry of African goods into the Chinese market without barrier, and the entry of Chinese finance for development projects are the main elements of the Chinese strategy (and are the main features of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and the Addis Ababa Action Plan of 2004-2006). With U.S. and European aid at a low point and with resistance from the U.S. and Europe to compromise on the debt burden of African states, the Chinese proposal has been welcomed in many parts of Africa. But in Washington, among the U.S. establishment's strategic planners (such as in the Heritage Foundation), China's entry into Africa has provoked concern. For people in Heritage and in the White House, AFRICOM is as much a response to China as it is to the increased anti-terrorist efforts in the continent.

China is not in Africa for altruistic reasons. A quarter of China's crude oil imports already come from Africa. African governments are well aware of the competition between the U.S. and China, and they have used that standoff to their partial advantage (when the U.S. would not act fast enough to get Nigeria's armed forces two hundred patrol boats and funds, the Nigerian government turned to China). A new Cold War over oil has begun in Africa, but the new players are the U.S. (as the face of the global oil corporations) and China. The U.S. government's response has not been to match the Chinese initiative dollar for dollar, partly because it cannot. Instead, the U.S. government has gone after China for its dealings with the government of Sudan. China promised to invest $10 billion in Sudan, and it currently purchases 70% of Sudanese oil (U.S. based oil firms cannot trade with Sudan as a result of an embargo, in force since 1997). The price for this oil is greater, however, than money. China blocked votes in the UN Security Council on the ongoing violence in Darfur, although global pressure has now forced Beijing to appoint a special envoy to Darfur and to put some modest pressure on Khartoum. The close relationship between the U.S. and the leaders of Equatorial Guinea or Nigeria is repellent, but it is not half as dubious as that between the Chinese and Sudanese governments. The U.S. government has, therefore, a potent weapon to wield against Beijing's claim to be in favor of African development.

Destination Darfur

Since 1984-85, the western Sudanese province of Darfur has been in a prolonged crisis. The drought of those years made it hard for pastoralists to find grazing ground for their camel herds. Battles over land went on for two decades before an embattled and split Islamist government in Khartoum armed the most impoverished of the tribes (who had begun to regain their self-respect through a virulently supremacist ideology promoted by a group called Tajamu al Arabi or the Arab Gathering). These tribes began an onslaught against their settled neighbors, with Khartoum's support. In a few years over a million people have been driven out of their homes to neighboring Chad (the UN estimates that 70,000 have been killed). These numbers, incidentally, are dwarfed by the death toll and the population displacement forced by the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The UN called the Sudan situation a 'crime against humanity,' while the U.S., uncharacteristically, labeled it genocide. For a time the African Union was able to stabilize the situation, although it did not succeed in crafting a political solution to the problem. The African Union, created in 1999, has neither the financial ability to pay its troops nor the logistical capacity to do its job. The European Union, who paid the troop salaries, began to withhold funds on grounds of accountability, and it gradually killed off the peacekeeping operations. Columbia University Professor Mahmood Mamdani (who is one of the world's leading experts on contemporary Africa) says of this, 'There is a concerted attempt being made to shift the political control of any intervention force inside Darfur from inside Africa to outside Africa.' In other words, the U.S. and Europe are eager to control the dynamic of what happens in Africa and not allow an indigenous, inter-state agency to gain either the experience this would provide or the respect it would gain if it succeeds. The African Union has been undermined so that only the U.S. can appear as the savior of the beleaguered people of Darfur, and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, it suits the U.S. that the campaigns to save the people of Darfur concentrate on the role of China and in what is often framed as an 'Arab' assault on 'Africans.' The Save Darfur Coalition in the U.S., for instance, has a report on the 'Deadly Partnership' between Sudan and China, but says nothing of the role of the U.S. in undermining the African Union's attempts. The Coalition is more sophisticated than to truck in the Arab-African stereotypes, but its members include groups that are less careful (the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America, for instance, is an organizational member; it has not yet tried to distance itself from its parent organization's role in the Gujarat pogroms). The Save Darfur Coalition, which is the largest U.S. umbrella organization, was formed in 2004 through the work of the U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Jewish World Service. People who have been motivated by the efforts of the group have become aware of what is happening in Darfur. This is a worthwhile goal, particularly if it is able to bring a ceasefire and an eventual peace settlement in Darfur. But, the movement seems to have no viable strategy to do this beyond putting pressure on China and pleading with the U.S. government to take 'tough' stands against Khartoum. The complexity on the ground is irrelevant.

The heads of the Save Darfur Coalition and the Genocide Intervention Network (set up by the Center for American Progress) are all liberal Democrats who played some kind of role in the Clinton administration. The Darfur campaign enables them to distance themselves from the excesses of the Bush regime and yet to preserve an essential element of the Clinton foreign policy arsenal, 'humanitarian intervention' (as in the Kosovo war of 1999). For that reason, these groups have begun to offer the slogan, 'Out of Iraq and Into Darfur.' At a forum I attended in New York City on July 15, a young woman asked why the U.S. couldn't use its superior firepower to defeat the Janjawiid in Sudan. At the same event, the documentary film The Devil Came on Horseback shows the former U.S. marine Brian Steidle photograph a band of Janjawiid leave a village and wish he could exchange his telephoto lens for a gun-scope to 'end it now.' Private mercenary armies such as the International Peace Operations Association and DynCorp clamor to cross the Chad border and conduct operations against the Janjawiid. The language of 'no-fly zones' and sanctions is not only in the air, but it is close to being a reality. The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof, on July 16, called for the creation of a U.S. run 'no-fly zone' over Darfur, which would be an entry point into the militarization of the response to what is, by the authority of the African Union and Human Rights Watch, a messy political situation (the rebel groups have split and are themselves attacking humanitarian workers). In May 2007, Bush unilaterally implemented tighter economic sanctions, and promised to move another UN Security Council resolution. That the first head of AFRICOM is the former commander of the battalion that led the way in Operation Restore Hope in Somalia in 1993 is an ominous sign. Would a cruise missile strike on Khartoum (a replay of 1998) and an invasion of Darfur create a solution to the current crisis, or would it only create an Iraq in Africa?

From Frontline, Chennai, India — print edition of July 28, 2007.

| | |

Edwards, Kucinich Stand Out on Climate Crisis

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 02:12:00 +0000

7-30-07, 10:00 am

John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich stood out among Democratic presidential candidates in a national MoveOn town hall on the climate crisis this month. The two clearly captured a public desire for a president who offers a clear and strong “blue/green” vision — forthright action to take on the global climate crisis and also protect and enhance workers’ livelihoods.

At 1,300 house parties across the country and via the web, July 7, more than 100,000 MoveOn members watched all eight Democratic candidates answer questions on how they would deal with the crisis of global warming. Afterward, the viewers voted for the candidate they thought had the best position. The organization said it was the largest MoveOn event since 2004.

Edwards linked solving the climate crisis to strengthening the U.S. economy “not just at the top” but “from the bottom up.” This was a response to a question from MoveOn member Gary Barker, a retired educator in Denver: “How do you envision making certain that every American has the opportunity to participate in the benefits of new energy and not just large corporate players?”

Edwards projected involving “small towns, communities, grassroots organizations” and creating “at least a million new green collar jobs … to replace the blue collar jobs that we’ve lost.”

“We can build wind turbine factories, for example, in places where trade has been devastating and jobs have been lost,” he said. “So the direct result will be, we will put people to work, who in fact have lost jobs as a result of manufacturing jobs and other jobs leaving the United States of America.”

Calling for major investment into “transitioning our automakers into building more innovating, more fuel-efficient vehicles,” Edwards emphasized, “And we want those vehicles to be built by union workers.”

Kucinich evoked the New Deal and the Kennedy administration in projecting a comprehensive federal Works Green Administration. “President Kennedy inspired a nation to organize so we could get to the moon,” Kucinich said. “I know the country is waiting for a great vision, and I’m ready to call that forth, and you’re a part of it.”

Among his initiatives, Kucinich said he would create a green building program to retrofit millions of existing homes with wind and solar technologies and insulate them to save energy, as well as to build new green housing. He also called for “incentivizing mass transit.”

He spoke of “organizing the entire county along this area of green philosophy.”

Edwards won 33 percent of the MoveOn votes cast, more than twice the votes for the next candidates. Kucinich came in second with 16 percent, followed closely by Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson. Interestingly, among those MoveOn members who attended house parties, Edwards and Richardson drew the most votes.

In a League of Conservation Voters chart, “Where the Candidates Currently Stand,” (www.heatison.org), Richardson’s positions on specific global warming policies are among the strongest. All the Democrats except Mike Gravel have come out for capping carbon emissions, raising vehicle fuel efficiency, requiring utilities to get a bigger percentage of electricity from renewable sources, and placing some restrictions on new coal plants. They differ on the numbers — the size of the limits they would impose on the country’s energy, auto and other industries, and when these limits would have to be achieved.

The Republican candidates distinguish themselves in the LCV chart by having “no articulated position” on any of these issues, or by opposing raising fuel efficiency requirements.

For some voters, the chart may offer an indication of how aggressively the candidates, if elected, would challenge big corporate polluters.

Following the climate town hall, MoveOn.org Political Action immediately began a national fund-raising campaign to pay for newspaper ads in Iowa and New Hampshire — two early primary states — featuring the three top-rated candidates, Edwards, Kucinich and Clinton, with the heading “Voted ‘most likely to succeed in solving the climate crisis.’”

From People's Weekly World. Reach the author at suewebb @pww.org.

Bush Fulfills His Grandfather's Dream

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 02:20:00 +0000

7-28-07, 10:09 am

It's remarkably common for a grandson to take up his grandfather's major project. This occurred to me when I read recently of Thor Heyerdahl's grandson taking up his mission to cross the Pacific on a raft. But what really struck me was the

BBC story

aired on July 23rd documenting President George W. Bush's grandfather's involvement in a 1933 plot to overthrow the U.S. government and install a fascist dictatorship. I knew the story, but had not considered the possibility that the grandson was trying to accomplish what his grandfather had failed to achieve.

Prescott Sheldon Bush (1895 to 1972) attended Yale University and joined the secret society known as Skull and Bones. Prescott is widely reported to have stolen the skull of Native American leader Geronimo. As far as I know, this has not actually been confirmed. In fact, Prescott seems to have had a habit of making things up. He sent letters home from World War I claiming he'd received medals for heroism. After the letters were printed in newspapers, he had to retract his claims.

If this does not yet sound like the life of a George W. Bush ancestor, try this on for size: Prescott Bush's early business efforts tended to fail. He married the daughter of a very rich man named George Herbert Walker (the guy with the compound at Kennebunkport, Maine, that now belongs to the Bush family, and the origin of Dubya's middle initial). Walker installed Prescott Bush as an executive in Thyssen and Flick. From then on, Prescott's business dealings went better, and he entered politics.

Now, the name Thyssen comes from a German named Fritz Thyssen, major financial backer of the rise of Adolph Hitler. Thyssen was referred to in the New York Herald-Tribune as 'Hitler's Angel.' During the 1930s and early 1940s, and even as late as 1951, Prescott Bush was involved in business dealings with Thyssen, and was inevitably aware of both Thyssen's political activities and the fact that the companies involved were financially benefiting the nation of Germany. In addition, the companies Prescott Bush profited from included one engaged in mining operations in Poland using slave labor from Auschwitz. Two former slave laborers have sued the U.S. government and the heirs of Prescott Bush for $40 billion.

Until the United States entered World War II it was legal for Americans to do business with Germany, but in late 1942 Prescott Bush's businesses interests were seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act. Among those businesses involved was the Hamburg America Lines, for which Prescott Bush served as a manager. A Congressional committee, in a report called the McCormack-Dickstein Report, found that Hamburg America Lines had offered free passage to Germany for journalists willing to write favorably about the Nazis, and had brought Nazi sympathizers to America. (Is this starting to remind anyone of our current president's relationship to the freedom of the press?)

The McCormack-Dickstein Committee was established to investigate a homegrown American fascist plot hatched in 1933. Here's how the BBC promoted its recent story:

'Document uncovers details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by right-wing American businessmen. The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression. Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.'

Actually, if you listen to the 30-minute BBC story, there is not one word of so much as speculation as to why this story is so little known. I think a clue to the answer can be found by looking into why this BBC report has not led to any U.S. media outlets picking up the story this week.

The BBC report provides a good account of the basic story. Some of the wealthiest men in America approached Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, beloved of many World War I veterans, many of them embittered by the government's treatment of them. Prescott Bush's group asked Butler to lead 500,000 veterans in a take-over of Washington and the White House. Butler refused and recounted the affair to the congressional committee. His account was corroborated in part by a number of witnesses, and the committee concluded that the plot was real. But the names of wealthy backers of the plot were blacked out in the committee's records, and nobody was prosecuted. According to the BBC, President Roosevelt cut a deal. He refrained from prosecuting some of the wealthiest men in America for treason. They agreed to end Wall Street's opposition to the New Deal.

Clearly the lack of accountability in Washington, D.C., did not begin with Nancy Pelosi taking Dubya's impeachment off the table, or with Congress' decision to avoid impeachment for President Ronald Reagan (a decision that arguably played a large role in installing Prescott Bush's son George H.W. Bush as president), or with the failure to investigate the apparent deal that George H.W. Bush and others made with Iran to not release American hostages until Reagan was made president, or with the failure to prosecute Richard Nixon after he resigned. Lack of accountability is a proud tradition in our nation's capital. Or maybe I should say our former nation's capital. I don't recognize the place anymore, and I credit that to George W. Bush's efforts to fulfill his grandfather's dream using far subtler and more effective means than a military coup.

Bush the grandson took office through a highly fraudulent election that he nonetheless lost. The Supreme Court blocked a recount of the vote and installed Dubya.

Prescott's grandson proceeded to weaken or eliminate most of the Bill of Rights in the name of protection from a dark foreign enemy. He even tossed out habeas corpus. The grandson of Prescott, that dreamer of the 1930s, established with very little resistance that the U.S. government can kidnap, detain indefinitely on no charge, torture, and murder. The United States under Prescott Bush's grandson adopted policies that heretofore had been considered only Nazi policies, most strikingly the willingness to openly plan and engage in aggressive wars on other nations.

At the same time, Dubya has accomplished a huge transfer of wealth within the United States from the rest of us to the extremely wealthy. He's also effected a major privatization of public operations, including the military. And he's kept tight control over the media.

Dubya has given himself the power to rewrite all laws with signing statements. He's established that intentionally misleading the Congress about the need for a war is not a crime that carries any penalty. He's given himself the right (just as Hitler did) to open anyone's mail. He's created illegal spying programs and then proposed to legalize them. Prescott would be so proud!

The current President Bush has accomplished much more smoothly than his grandfather could have imagined a feat that was one of the goals of Prescott's gang, namely the elimination of Congress.

From

Impeachment Redux: A Reply to a Cranky Critic

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 02:16:00 +0000

7-28-07, 10:04 am

In his response to a recent article I wrote calling on progressives to adopt different tactics with regard to the impeachment issue, David Walsh makes a number of shrill and dishonest points.

Walsh associates himself with a section of the far left that normally rejects dealing with electoral and congressional politics. And this is the point of his article. Walsh attacks Conyers and his supporters for not going forward with impeachment proceedings now. But then in the end reveals that he thinks the debate over and the struggle to impeach members of the Bush administration is irrelevant.

Indeed, the website for which Walsh writes typically adopts the view that elected officials like Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), a leading African American progressive, are no different than segregationists like Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-MS). They are all the same, and anyone who says different is trying to fool you.

Walsh describes Conyers as 'a longtime Democratic political operative with strong connections to the trade union bureaucracy,' which is bad and corrupt, and accuses him personally of corruption and leading a cabal of Black leaders in Detroit who 'exploit [that city's] social misery for their political advantage.' In an ugly twist, Walsh's views of Conyers are regularly spouted by Michigan Republicans.

These distorted and blatantly dishonest views of Conyers are not shared by the thousands of working-class people in his district who nearly unanimously return him to Congress every two years. They are not shared by the people who are relying on Conyers to help pass universal health care (and other important progressive reforms), or even by most of the people who have chosen what I consider to be the incorrect and divisive tactic of protesting him on the impeachment question.

Most of the impeachment-now movement has insisted on their respect for Conyers' both personally and politically and his commitment to peace, civil and workers' rights, universal health care, etc., a view Walsh rejects.

But Walsh isn't content with attacking Conyers. He chose to turn his caustic scribblings in my direction during which he delivers a series of half-truths and incoherent statements that presumably mean something to a different generation of leftists than mine.

I am a 'stalinist' – he repeats it several times to drive it home. Phrases like 'parliamentary cretinism' and 'populist demagogy' must mean something to somebody. Then he reveals what he's really after: 'American Stalinists are well-practiced in slander, after decades of using it against Trotskyists.' Ironically, this accusation is little more than a projection of the very rhetorical tactics he uses onto the people he sees as his enemies.

His underlying point is to attempt to revive debates between trotskyists and stalinists, which no longer make sense. Nor did they make much sense to most people, when they were relevant, outside a tiny circle of dogmatic adherents to particular sectarian views from generations past. Well, I don't want to live in the past. I don't want to have that debate any more. In my view, it is irrelevant and those who insist on obsessing over it can't show us a way forward.

Walsh incorrectly insists that the opinions I expressed in my article are those of the editorial board of Political Affairs and of our publisher, the Communist Party USA. He didn't take the time to note that readers can find dozens of articles on impeachment on Political Affairs' website, the vast majority of which disagree with my argument.

Though Political Affairs has a definite pro-peace, pro-working class, pro-democracy, pro-socialist editorial point of view, regular readers will find multiple perspectives for this on our website. The broad array of the voices that speak out against the ultra right and for social progress are welcome at Political Affairs.

In contrast, that Walsh's article (or any World Socialist Web Site article) fails to carry a link to the article he is criticizing is a gesture by the editors of the WSWS that implies that theirs is the only correct point of view and that readers need not look elsewhere. Indeed, WSWS editorials are the views of the party behind the website.

Because Walsh writes for the WSWS, he is used to writing for a publication controlled by a party with a narrow sectarian view. Presumably, Walsh believes that this must be so for other pro-socialist or Marxist or politically left sites. He seems to assume that Political Affairs would never publish something that doesn't adhere to its 'stalinist' views.

Well, he's wrong. He hasn't followed the most recent positions or ideas of the Communist Party about what it means to be a communist party or, in my opinion, its new openness in which ideas can be cultivated, debated, and developed. We think that social progress or change depends on the movement of millions of people from different sectors of society with different voices and focuses – not a single party, like WSWS's backer, bent on ideological purity over all else. And all of the social forces and groupings that have aligned themselves against Bush and the ultra right will be needed to push beyond reform to a fundamentally new society.

Presumably, Walsh is used to the opposite in the organizations he works in and thus erroneously assumes the same about the Communist Party USA.

Another example of Walsh's projection of his personal hang-ups is his flat-out wrong accusation that I 'callously' refer to Cindy Sheehan. I never referred to her, and I never even mentioned Cindy Sheehan's name – for good reason. If he was unclear on this, he should have contacted me in an effort to clear up the point before making his claim. He never did.

I respect the losses of and express solidarity with all the families from all the countries who are victims of Bush's wars and to the members of the military families, including Cindy Sheehan, who have lost loved-ones in this needless and illegal conflict.

But Walsh need not get on a high horse about callousness. According to the party that publishes his articles on WSWS, the deaths of the people who participated in the invasion and subsequent occupation, including Sheehan's son, or ultimately supported the new regime in Iraq are justifiable.

In the particular portion of the article in which I discuss personal agendas, which he mistakenly and dishonestly assumes refers to an individual, I intended an altogether different point that involves the intersection of our personal motives with the political realities in which we are forced to operate.

In politics or a political movement should we let passion and emotion rule our choice of tactics? I think it is a mistake to do so. I think appeals to morality and principles are important, but they do not always tell us the best course of action that will help us win a particular strategic aim. Only on rare occasions does moral outrage alone show the way forward.

Taking actions that rely solely on our subjective point of view can end in disaster. Talking with people who both share our views and disagree with us, constructive negotiation, and finding common ground on the best tactics to use in a situation is a better means of finding the best steps forward than relying on personal agendas or on narrow, sectarian interpretations of reality.

If ending the war is our strategic aim, will attempting what I think is a futile effort to impeach Bush help accomplish it? If so, will calling Conyers a traitor or betrayer move the impeachment issue forward? I think no on both counts.

Bringing this forward was my point, and I am happy to clarify that. So why did Walsh dishonestly insist on putting words in my mouth?

Even as I personally disagree with groups like and Code Pink and with individuals like Cindy Sheehan and others on their particular choice of tactics for moving the impeachment process forward, and question the viability of the impeachment movement at this particular moment, I do respect their involvement with and willingness to work within existing broad political realities.

This is more than what one can say about Walsh's point of view: everyone in Congress (and in and out of the entire political system who disagrees with the party behind the WSWS) is corrupt, the processes that are available to make change are corrupt, and efforts, other than socialist revolution led by a tiny sectarian vanguard spouting catch-phrases authored in the Soviet Union 80-plus years ago, presumably, are futile and even delusional.

[Note: By the time this was posted, Walsh failed to respond to my e-mail queries asking him for further comment.]

--Reach Joel Wendland at

The Intra-national Colonization of Patriotisms

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 02:05:00 +0000

7-28-07, 9:53 am

Once, in a high school class, we asked the teacher why she never talked about Juan Carlos Onetti. The answer was blunt: that gentleman had received everything from Uruguay (education, fame) and 'he had left' for Spain to speak ill of his own country. That is, an entire country was identified with a government and an ideology, excluding and demoralizing everything else.

Implicitly, it is assumed that there exists a unique – true, honorable – form for the nation and of being Uruguayan (Chinese, Argentine, North American, French). If one is against that particular idea of country, of fatherland (patria), then one is anti-patriotic, one is a traitor.

A fundamental requirement for the construction of a tradition is memory. But never all memory, because there is no tradition without forgetting. Forgetting – always more vast – is indispensable for the adequation of a determined memory to the present-day powers that need to legitimate themselves through a tradition. If we assume that national symbols and myths are not imposed by God, we are left with no other remedy than to suspect earthly powers. Which is to say, a tradition is not simple and innocent memory but convenient memory. The latter tends to be crystalized in symbols and sacred cows, and there is nothing less objective than symbols and cows.

In the Spain of Isabel and Fernando, exclusion was the basis for a previously non-existent fatherland. The Iberian peninsula was, at the time, the most culturally diverse corner of Europe and comprised of as many countries as the rest of Europe. Being Spanish became for many, after the Reconquest, an exercise in purification: one sole language, one sole religion, one sole race. Almost five hundred years later, Francisco Franco imposed the same idea of nation based at least on the first two categories of purity. Camilo José Cela recognized it thusly: 'Not one single Spaniard is free to see Jewish or Moorish blood run through his veins ' (A vueltas con España, 1973); like they say, 'nobody is perfect.' For centuries the intellectuals sought out, obsessively, the 'Spanish character,' as if the absence of a concrete character ran the risk of losing the country. Américo Castro in Los españoles…(1959) observed: 'one will not find anything similar to the Spanish fantasy of imagining Spaniards before they existed.' He then criticized the patriotic writings that praised what was Spanish about Luis Vives, who, even abroad 'never forgot Valencia': he could not forget Valencia because his family, of Jewish origin, had been persecuted and both his parents burned by the Inquisition. The celebrated priest Manuel García Morente believed that 'for the Spanish there is no difference, there is no duality between fatherland and religion' ( Idea de la hispanidad, 1947); 'there exists no dualism between Caesar and God.' 'Spain is made of Christian faith and Iberian blood.' 'In Spain, Catholic religion constitutes the purpose of a nationality…' The ultraconservative taste for essences led him to repeated tautologies of this kind: 'the patriotic duty' is to be 'faithful to the essence of the fatherland.' Another Spaniard, Julio Caro Baroja (El mito del carácter nacional, 1970), questioned these functional ideas of power: 'I consider that everything that speaks of 'national character' is a mystical activity.' 'National characters are meant to be established as collective and hereditary. Thus, at times, one recurs to expressions like 'bad Spaniard,' 'renegade son,' traitor to the 'legacy of the fathers' in order to attack an enemy.'

This strategy of forgetting and exclusion is universal. We Chileans, Argentines and Uruguayans constructed a tradition to the measure of our own euro-centric and not infrequently racist and genocidal prejudices. The authors of various ethnic cleansings (Roca, Rivera) are honored even today in the schools and in the names of streets and cities. Indigenous people were not only expoliated and exterminated; we also ended up whitewashing the memory of the indomitable savages. Another Spaniard, Américo Castro, reminds us: 'When the people are more believers than thinkers […] it becomes unpleasant to doubt.'

Thus, The fatherland is turned into an idea of nation that tends to exclude all other ideas of nation. For this reason it usually becomes a weapon of negative domination based on the positive sentiments of belonging and familiarity. In order to consolidate that arbitrariness of traditional power, other semantic instruments are made use of. Like honor, for example.

Honor is the symbolic tribute that a society imposes, by way of ideological and moral violence, on those individuals who must exercise physical violence in order to defend the sectarian interests of those others who will never risk their own life to do so. For this reason, a composite and contradictory ideolexicon like 'the honor of weapons' has survived for centuries. There exists no other way to predispose an individual to death for reasons he is in no position to understand or, if he understands them, he is in no position to accept them as his own reasons. If it is a matter of a soldier (the most common case) the salary will never be sufficient reason to die. It is necessary to cultivate a motivation beyond death. In the case of the religious martyr, this function is fulfilled by Paradise; in the case of a secular society that organizes an army through a secular State, there is no alternative but the retribution of an exemplary death: honor, fulfillment of one's duty, love of country, etc. All ideolexicons based on positive, unquestionable meanings.

One honors individuals (paradoxically anonymously) because one cannot honor the war that produces seas of nameless dead, nor can one honor the financial and political reasons, the sectarian interests in power. This is demonstrated when, each day that fallen soldiers are remembered, the motives that led the now heroes to die are never remembered. One abstracts and decontexualizes in order to consolidate the symbol and confer upon it an absolutely natural character. It may be that just wars exist (like an action of defense or of liberation), but even so it remains impossible to think that all wars are just or holy. Then, why is this perturbing element abstracted from the collective conscience? Any questioning is (must be) interpreted as an affront to the 'fallen heroes.' In this way, the benefit is quadruple: 1) society washes its sins and its bad conscience; 2) the victims of the absurd receive a moral gratification and meaning for their own disgrace; 3) any radical questioning of the sense of past wars is prevented; and 4) a loan is secured against stock for wars yet to come – for a few but in the name of all.

Translated by Bruce Campbell.

600 “Disappeared' by Bush Allies in Pakistan, Activists Say

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 02:00:00 +0000

7-28-07, 9:48 am

Pakistan’s security forces have “disappeared” about 600 individuals since 2002, acting since 9/11 and Guantanamo, as if “they have a free hand,” human rights activist lawyer Asma Jahangir says.

The disappeared are “usually picked up by plainclothesmen in four-wheel drives…(and) if the victims are ever seen again, they invariably say that they have been tortured with electric shocks, beaten, given injections, hung upside down by their ankles,” Jahangir said.

Jahangir is described as “a symbol of freedom and defiance, comparable to Aung San Suu Kyi, in Burma” by historian William Dalrymple, who interviewed her for the July 23 issue of The New Yorker magazine.

Jahangir said the military government of President Pervez Musharraf has “no direction, no plan, no schedule” and that, in terms of human rights, it is “worse than any civilian government we’ve ever had.”

“Musharraf is rapidly losing the minimum respect that gives you the moral authority to rule a country,” the activist lawyer said. “The sacking of the Chief Justice (Iftikhar Chaudhry March 9th)was the final straw. If we lose this one, it is all over for the rule of law in this country.”

Jahangir went on to say, “A return to democracy would certainly not be an instant miracle for this country. But it would be a start.” She added, “However flawed democracy here is, it is still the only answer. Once there is a proper political movement, the religious parties will become marginalized. I am not at all gloomy. These protests (against Musharraf) have been a wake-up call.”

“Musharraf’s government has a civilian face --- there are still elections and assemblies---and he has come to believe his own propaganda that he really is a democrat,” Jahangir continued.

Political scientist Ayesha Siddiqa told Dalrymple, “There is a breakdown of effective government. The political parties have all failed to create an environment where the poor can get what they need from the state. The laws are always twisted for the rich…So the poor have begun to look to alternatives for justice.”

In her recent book, “Military Inc.,” Siddiqa said the Pakistani military has business assets of more than $20 billion, with interests ranging from cement and dredging to the manufacturer of corn flakes and the baking of bread, controls a third of the nation’s heavy manufacturing and owns nearly 12 million acres of land.

Author Dalrymple writes, “A cosmopolitan middle class is prospering, yet for the great majority of poorer Pakistanis life remains intolerably hard and access to justice or education is a distant hope: just 1.8% of Pakistan’s GNP is spent on education. “ He continued:

“Instead of investing adequately in education, Musharraf’s government is spending money on a fleet of American F-16s for the Air Force. Health care and other social services for the poor have also been neglected, in contrast to the public services that benefit the wealthy, such as highways and airports--- many of which are world-class.”

Despite the multiple shortcomings of the Musharraf regime, some Pakistanis are asking whether toppling him might not make a bad situation worse. Jugnu Mohsin, publisher of the “Friday Times,” who asked, “Is Asma naïve? It is true that the lawyers’ movement, if it destroys Musharraf, could create more problems than it solves. The fall of Musharraf could well lead to the rise of a violent political Islam.”

However, Mohsin added many thought Gandhi and Martin Luther King were naïve “but it was they, not the realists, who succeeded in changing the course of history.” What Mohsin means is changing the course of history for the better. By its emphasis on strengthening Pakistan militarily, the Bush administration, though its defense contractors, is siphoning off funds that could be spent ameliorating the lot of Pakistani’s poor, The New Yorker article suggests. This may serve only to increase public disaffection with Musharraf’s rule and hasten the downfall of the ally President Bush seeks to perpetuate in power, an ally who shares his belief in military force and who has no scruples when it comes to torture.

--Sherwood Ross is a Miami, Fla.-based writer who covers military and political topics. Reach him at

Of Marx, Christ, and the Persecution of Radicals: How Will Humanity Survive the Capitalist Threat?

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 01:54:00 +0000

7-28-07, 9:43 am

A few days ago, one of my closest friends hit me with a heavily loaded question.

'Are you a Communist?' she queried.

To which I replied: I do not belong nor militate in any formal communist party in the U.S. Nor do I belong to any other political entity or party. Furthermore, I do not subscribe to a specific doctrine, ideology, or dogma. My allegiance is to my core principles and values, which are premised on honesty, justice, humanity, responsibility, critical thinking, open-mindedness, egalitarianism, compassion, a belief in a Higher Power of my understanding, and many of the teachings of Christ.

My personal beliefs aside, communism is an incredibly loaded word. Our infinitely mendacious educational, social, and media infrastructures begin inculcating reflexive rejection of 'all things communist or socialist' into US Americans from the moment they draw their initial breath.

Why is the establishment so desperate to vaccinate us against the 'disease' of communism?

Because at its hopelessly rotten core, capitalism, which is manifested most strongly in the United States, is about exploitation, hyper-competitiveness, 'rugged individualism', survival of the fittest, concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, profits above all, property over people, greed, and selfishness. Perhaps worst of all, this pyramid scheme masquerading as a 'moral' economic system inevitably leads to wars fueled by its insatiable demands for new markets, more resources, and cheaper labor. Why else would 350 million out of 6.5 billion people spend a trillion dollars a year on a military that has the capacity to destroy our planet thousands of times over, dwarfs the combined firepower of the rest of the world, and plagues over 130 countries with its 'benign' occupations? We in the United States maintain a carefully crafted façade as the 'benevolent champions of democracy', but will quickly install ruthless tyrants and commit mass murder (euphemistically labeling our victims as 'collateral damage') if sovereign nations dare to resist our economic rape and plunder.

And for those who have swallowed the specious argument that 'true capitalism' doesn't exist, you're dreaming. Pinch yourself hard enough and you may awaken before it is too late. Capitalism is a cancer upon the sentient beings of the Earth and we are suffering through its advanced stages. Finance capital reigns supreme, massive oligopolies abound, wealth is increasingly accumulating in the hands of the few, imperial wars to expand markets and attain resources are increasing in frequency, and the insatiable greed driving this appalling perversion is raping and destroying the Earth.

Some opine that if we could just dismantle the 'socialist' aspects of our socioeconomic system in the United States, restoring an unbridled free market, the world would be a much better place. Certainly our cynical plutocracy would welcome such a transition. However, it is hard to envision too many working people truly welcoming a return to ten year olds working twelve hour days, company towns, death and dismemberment on the job with no recourse against employers maintaining perilous work environments, miserly wages that would make today's working poor look relatively affluent, blatantly monopolistic business practices, and wanton disregard for the environment.

History has clearly demonstrated that 'free markets' are 'free passes' for acquisitive sociopaths who thrive on bullying and exploiting a large percentage of the Earth's sentient beings. And despite the ridiculously few and relatively minor restraints that social unrest has forced the opulent class to implement in the US, adept players in the deadly game of capitalism have refused to surrender their 'inalienable right' to fuck the rest of the human race in their relentless charge to attain the power and wealth they so desperately crave to distract them from the existential agony of their spiritual emptiness.

[Note: If you don't find a historical perspective convincing enough, consider the deadly machinations of the 'free market' in China as it hurtles headlong into the very bowels of capitalist Hell:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/26/madeinchina.overview/index.html]

Karl Marx predicted the inevitable implosion of capitalism and theorized that a much more humane, egalitarian, and democratic system would rise in its place. It is little wonder that the bourgeoisie in the United States have striven so tenaciously to inculcate the unwashed masses to despise, fear, and ridicule socialism, communism, and nearly all aspects of Marxist thought. Sound bites, emotionally evocative images, ahistorical presentations, fear mongering, jingoism, advertising, and numerous temptations of instant gratification comprise a vast array of highly refined and insidious propaganda that perpetually hammers our minds to create a potent and effective false consciousness, and an irrational fear of anything but capitalism.

Socialism and communism, the political manifestations of Marxist ideas, have been grossly distorted within the framework of this false consciousness. While it is true that the implementations of Marx's philosophies have yielded mixed results (many of those outcomes are primarily due to the unwavering hostility of the older, well established capitalist powers in the second half of the 20th century, led of course by the U.S.), the chasm between reality and the mind fuck we have received since birth is wide enough to engulf Donald Trump's ego, or most of it anyway. For evidence, one need look no further than our Cold War nemesis.

Consider the pernicious myth that the United States 'defeated' fascism in Europe in WWII. This lie persists despite the fact that a number of our very own uber-Capitalists did business with the Nazi regime until the 1942 Trading with the Enemy Act finally forbade it. Ironically, Prescott Bush, GW's grandfather, was amongst those profiting from Hitler's rise to power. Further, our ruling elite refused to intervene on behalf of a democratically elected government in Spain against Franco, who ultimately rose to power as a fascist dictator. Perhaps most importantly, the US lost about 500,000 people (almost all of whom were military personnel) in 'defeating' Germany. Russia, one of history's most heavily vilified 'communist' nations, sacrificed 20 million people to ensure Hitler's defeat. Had it not been for those evil 'communists', we might be speaking German right now.

Shortages of consumer goods is another 'communist failure' apologists for capitalism love to trot out as 'proof' that their beloved license to plunder and conquer is inherently superior to a more just economic system. Yet time and again they suppress the real reasons these shortages occurred. Recognizing the existential threat that Marxist ideals posed to their Anglo, imperial, and patriarchal plutocracy, the United States ruling class and its allies circled the wagons and imposed crippling economic sanctions on nations attempting to implement communism ( i.e. Russia and Cuba).

Domestically, communists and socialists endured harassment, financial ruin, and prison. Witness the Palmer Raids and the witch hunts of the McCarthy era. Thank God our opulent overlords nipped potential revolutionary action in the bud. It is a tremendous relief that such a small number of 'richly deserving' individuals acted to ensure the perpetuation of their virtual monopoly on the wealth of our nation, particularly in light of the existence of over a million homeless US Americans. Heartwarming indeed.

Yet our intrepid profit-seekers weren't content to stop there. Realizing that the Soviet Union had an economy that was roughly 1/8th the size of the United States and was still largely agrarian all the way up to the Russian Revolution, they decided to initiate a ruinous military escalation that eventually culminated in the criminal nuclear arms race. Enabling obscene profits for the military industrial complex (by way of raping the US American taxpayer) and smothering communism in its infancy, the vampiric bourgeoisie ensured the perpetuation of its abominable existence. Meanwhile, the Ruskies faced the staggering tasks of industrializing a technologically backward nation, rebuilding their devastated infrastructure, and meeting consumer demands. So of course they didn't have a McDonalds on each corner or a new car dealer within a three mile radius of every home. They were too busy bringing their economy into the 20th Century, recovering from Hitler's invasion, and matching the US warhead for warhead.

Now, do I think that any manifestation of a communist government to date is a utopia? No. I see their flaws. But remember, those who have tried to implement socialism or communism have faced a formidable adversary in the form of the rotten bastards who comprise both our 'elected' and our de facto governments. Crushing those who dare to attempt alternatives to the sacred cow of capitalism and trumpeting our 'monopoly' on virtue, we US Americans would benefit tremendously from some serious soul-searching about our participation in a morally bankrupt mode of being. What spiritual growth or substance could possibly flourish in a system premised on greed, selfishness, and self-absorption?

Are we, the beneficiaries of a relative degree of physical security and comfort (in exchange for our complicity in crony capitalism, Neoliberal exploitation, and imperial invasions), truly superior to the communists and socialists we have been taught to fear and revile? How many invasions have Fidel or Chavez EVER launched?

We the People are mere pawns of our multimillionaires in Congress, the 10% who own 90% of our nation's wealth, massive corporations, and a group which includes in its ranks both GW and other abject criminals like Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Abrams, Negroponte, and many others who have acted with impunity dating back to the Nixon era. There is a revolving door between our government (including both 'elected' and appointed officials) and major corporations. Cheney and Halliburton represent exhibit A. Lobbyists and special interest groups pull our legislators' strings and, in some instances, even write our laws, as was the case in the behind-closed-doors deal that Cheney cooked for the energy corporations. And look at our most likely Democratic Presidential nominee to be, Hillary Clinton, whose conservatism is one of the best kept secrets inside the Beltway. As a First Lady, she ostensibly fought aggressively for universal health care. She has now sold us out by accepting nearly a million dollars from the health care industry. Corruption, duplicity, mendacity, and egregious criminal conduct are not the exception. They are the rule in our vaunted capitalist system.

Our domestic politics, guided and determined by the demands of our predatory socioeconomic structure, are not alone in reeking of the fetid stench of profound moral decay. Consider our malevolent foreign policy, including myriad CIA covert operations, economic extortion, and outright imperial slaughter frequently employed to crush efforts by sovereign nations to defy the capitalist paradigm and implement socialism. For convincing evidence that we are NOT wearing white hats and making the world safe for democracy, do a little research on Chile and Salvador Allende, Cuba and Castro, Iran and Mossadeq, Franco and Spain, Ho Chi Minh and Vietnam (we 'only' killed 3 million people there), Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.

Here is a good starting point (the entire website is excellent, but the page linked below gives a condensed version of parts of our history the plutocracy doesn't want the masses to know– the mainstream media and textbook writers have done a masterful job of shielding us from the truths displayed on this site):

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

While it wasn't his intention at the time, David Starr Jordan (from Imperial Democracy, 1899, pp. 50-51 –cited in Monthly Review, September 2006, p. 53.) penned an apt characterization of the despicable foreign policy of the American Empire:

'First you push into territories where you have no business to be, and where you had promised not to go; secondly, your intrusion provokes resentment and, in these wild countries, resentment means resistance; thirdly, you instantly cry out that the people are rebellious and that their act is rebellion (this in spite of your own assurance that you have no intention of setting up a permanent sovereignty over them); fourthly, you send a force to stamp out the rebellion; and fifthly, having spread bloodshed, confusion and anarchy, you declare, with hands uplifted to the heavens, that moral reasons force you to stay, for if you were to leave, this territory would be left in a condition which no civilized power could contemplate with equanimity or with composure. These are the five stages in the Forward Rake's progress.'

Having analyzed our vile and reprehensible economic paradigm from many angles, I find it virtually impossible to believe that a critical thinking, decent human being could support our institutionalized rapacity, at least not once they pierced the simulacrum so fastidiously maintained by the corporate media.

Fortunately, challenging life experiences spurred me to undertake a spiritual and intellectual journey that enabled me to break free of the prison of false consciousness. While I tend to look at the world through a very eclectic lens, I derive most of my principles, beliefs, and sociopolitical views from Marxism, the Friends of Bill W, Christ's teachings, and Buddha.

Together with many dedicated and exceptional human beings, I am waging an intellectual/political struggle for social justice, a reasonable degree of peace in the world, a significant reduction in exploitation, a more equitable distribution of resources, an end to the rising epidemic of unnecessary suffering, the formation of a social structure based on our interdependence with nature and each other, the obliteration of the moronic, sociopathic American myth that individuality and personal rights supersede the well-being of the collective, true justice for criminals and their victims, the evisceration of corporate power, awakening people from their trance of self-absorption and apathy, and an end to the hedonistic narcissism manifested in obscene levels of consumerism. A number of factors indicate that we are in a pre-revolutionary stage in the United States. Premature revolutionary activity at this point would be suicidal folly, but meanwhile, we have plenty of opportunity to implement radical solutions at the personal level and to employ political education to win hearts and minds.

If you still tremble at the notion of 'Godless communists, socialists or Marxists,' remember that though I am not a Christian, I am deeply spiritual and derive tremendous inspiration from Christ and members of the Liberation Theology Movement. Marxist thought is not antithetical to spirituality, morality, or Christianity. In fact, I examined its synthesis with these elements in some detail when I wrote 'Jesus Wouldn't Bomb Anyone: Why are we waging war on the poor and oppressed?' at:

http://freepress.org/departments/display/9/2007/2526

No, I'm not the 'communist bogeyman' that Ronald Reagan (who was a far better actor in the White House than he was in Hollywood) warned you about. How could I be? Communists, socialists, and Marxists are only potentially threatening to those amongst us who will waste eternity desperately attempting to squeeze camels through the eyes of needles.

Forget worrying about the 'communist threat.' We need to turn the moneyed establishment's idiocy on its head and focus our energies on answering a question that affects the 90% of us who aren't obscenely affluent:

How will humanity survive the capitalist threat?

--Jason Miller is a wage slave of the American Empire who has freed himself intellectually and spiritually. He is Cyrano's Journal Online's associate editor (http://www.bestcyrano.org/) and publishes Thomas Paine's Corner within Cyrano's at http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/. You can reach him at

Ethiopia: Government denies looming humanitarian crisis in Somali region

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 01:49:00 +0000

7-28-07, 9:37 am

NAIROBI, 26 July 2007 (IRIN) - The Ethiopian government has denied blocking aid and trade to parts of its southeastern Somali region but analysts and aid agencies say humanitarian access is limited and rising prices of food are evidence of security-related restrictions.

'It is a lie. It is far from the truth. There is no humanitarian operation we have banned. We are not closing any route of humanitarian operation; however, we closed the illegal trade routes crossing the border,' Jama Ahmed Jama, vice-president of the Somali regional state, told IRIN.

Since May, analysts and media reports say the government has stepped up security operations to combat the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), including tightening controls on the flow of goods and people within the region, with neighbouring Somalia and with the rest of Ethiopia.

The Ogaden area is in the southern part of the Somali region. Ethiopian security forces have been accused of a range of serious human rights abuses in the operation. Peter Takirambudde, Africa director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), is quoted in a 4 July report saying: 'Ethiopian troops are destroying villages and property, confiscating livestock and forcing civilians to relocate. Whatever the military strategy behind them, these abuses violate the laws of war.'

The alleged relocation of civilians, said a regional analyst speaking to IRIN from the UK, was part of a 'classic counter-insurgency' campaign to deny rebels access to support from the civilian population. HRW said: 'The attacks on villages and the economic blockade may be part of a strategy to force thousands of people from rural areas to larger towns and deny the ONLF a support base.'

Media access has also been restricted, with New York Times journalists reporting in the region detained and questioned for five days in May.

Warnings of ‘crisis’

The combination of restrictions on trade and movement, the high risk of flooding between July and September reported by the National Meteorological Agency and the progression of the dry season, means there is a high risk that the food security situation could deteriorate into a severe humanitarian crisis in the second half of 2007, according to a statement issued by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Five zones in the Somali region - Fik, Degehabur, Warder, Korahe and Gode (in the Ogaden ) - are under 'military operation', according to UN reports. Restrictions on food aid to those zones were lifted in principle on 21 July, according to an announcement by the regional state authorities, said OCHA, but not yet realised.

Food aid is being distributed to three of the region’s nine zones.

Emergency food aid allocations are based on estimates of 530,000 people in need across the Somali region. Food and other humanitarian needs are being reassessed by aid agencies and the government in a joint process following the Gu season rains.

Only a few humanitarian agencies are active in the Ogaden region. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was given seven days’ notice to leave the area this week, and issued a statement on 26 July 'deploring' the decision and underlining all parties’ 'obligation to comply with international humanitarian law, in particular with that law’s prohibition of attacks against people not or no longer taking direct part in hostilities and the right guaranteed by that law to civilians to receive the humanitarian assistance essential to their survival'.

The Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS Net) said in a 19 July report that markets had been affected since mid-June, with food prices doubling in Warder and Korahe from May to June. As an example, 50kg of rice had risen to 500 Ethiopian birr (US$55) in June from 220 birr ($24) in May.

The region, which has faced conflict, drought and floods over recent years, is poor and vulnerable: 'Even small shocks can quickly result in extreme food insecurity,' said FEWS Net. The largely pastoralist region depends on livestock for barter and trade. 'At the same time, because the normal market for livestock in these areas is outside the areas where movement is restricted, herders are unable to access the markets and sell their livestock,' reported FEWS Net.

Rebel allegations

The ONLF accused the government of using food as a weapon.

ONLF spokesman Abdirahman Mahdi told IRIN on 24 July there was a total blockade of the region by the Ethiopian government. 'Nothing is entering the region whether it is commercial or aid. The situation is most desperate in Warder, Korahey, Dagahabur, Fik, Dhuxun and Gode.'

He alleged the Ethiopian military was taking or destroying what little food stocks the people had. 'Villages and nomadic homes have been torched by the Ethiopian forces. They want to starve the people into submission. Food donated by western taxpayers is being used as weapon of war by the Ethiopian regime.'

He called on the international community, particularly the UN, 'to act now to avert a catastrophe or they will be complicit in the crimes being committed by the Ethiopian government in the Ogaden'.

Vice-president Jama, however, denied there was any food crisis in the region. 'The food aid is currently in distribution. We do not have any report on hand that showed any type of food crisis in the region.

'We are trying to alleviate our people from poverty not push them into suffering,' he added.

From IRIN News

US Rep Hinchey, Others Offer Bush Censure Bills

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 02:42:00 +0000

7-27-07, 10:30 am

(APN) ATLANTA – Two Democratic lawmakers will introduce censure resolutions next week concerning President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and other Bush Administration officials over the US Invasion of Iraq and other abuses of executive power, Atlanta Progressive News has learned.

US Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) announced he will introduce two censure resolutions in the US House, which will serve as companions to two censure resolutions which US Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) announced he will introduce in the Senate.

'The American people have reached a breaking point with this administration and they are demanding that Congress step up and hold the president, vice president, and others in the executive branch responsible for their actions,' Hinchey said in a press release obtained by APN.

'While President Bush and Vice President Cheney continue to operate as if they are leaders of a monarchy, Congress should censure them and make it clear to this and future generations that their actions are entirely unacceptable,' he added.

Hinchey and Feingold’s resolutions will be the most comprehensive censure bills this year.

However, a couple weeks ago, US Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) introduced a censure resolution focusing more on Bush’s pardon of Scooter Libby. Mr. Libby misled a US Attorney regarding the Administration’s leaking to the media the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame. Wexler’s resolution also cited Bush’s manipulation of US intelligence regarding Iraq.

Wexler’s resolution, H Res 530, currently has 21 total cosponsors. They are US Reps. Baldwin (D-WI), Blumenauer (D-OR), Brady (D-PA), Capuano (D-MA), Clay (D-MO), Clyburn (D-SC), Cohen (D-TN), DeFazio (D-OR), Farr (D-CA), Filner (D-CA), Hall (D-NY), Hooley (D-OR), Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Maloney (D-NY), Michaud (D-ME), Schakowsky (D-IL), Welch (D-VT), Wexler (D-FL), Woolsey (D-CA), Wu (D-OR), and Wynn (D-MD).

Also, Feingold had previously introduced a censure resolution, S. Res 398 in the US Senate during the last Congressional Session, but chose not to reintroduce this resolution at the beginning of this Session, despite its gaining 3 additional cosponsors, US Sens. Boxer (D-CA), Harkin (D-IA), and Kerry (D-MA). Hearings were held on this bill in the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee in March of 2006.

Hinchey and Feingold’s first censure bill this Session focuses on President Bush and Vice President Cheney’s role in deceiving Congress and the public over the need for the US to invade Iraq, as well as the mismanagement of the occupation.

The resolution will cite false statements made to the public about Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction and misleading statements about the connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

In addition, the first censure will condemn Bush and Cheney for failing to plan adequately for civil strife that was bound to occur after the invasion and for stretching the US military too thin.

'I thank Congressman Hinchey for his willingness to stand up to this administration for its misleading statements leading up to and during our military involvement in Iraq, as well as its attack on the rule of law,' Feingold said in a separate press release obtained by APN.

“Congress needs to formally condemn the president and members of the administration for misconduct before and during the Iraq war, and for undermining the rule of law at home,” he added.

Hinchey and Feingold’s second censure piece will focus on, among other things, the illegal NSA warrantless wiretapping surveillance program; extreme policies on torture and the disregard for the Geneva Conventions; the firing of US Attorneys and the failure to submit to congressional oversight on the issue; and the abuse of power through presidential signing statements.

'If Congress does not act to formally admonish this White House then the future of our democracy will be placed on a slippery slope in which other presidents may point to the actions of this administration as justification for further abuses of the Constitution,' Hinchey said.

'Censure is not a cure for the devastating toll this administration’s actions have taken on this country,' Feingold said.

'But when future generations look back at the terrible misconduct of this administration, they need to see that a co-equal branch of government stood up and held to account those who violated the principles on which this nation was founded,' he added.

Hinchey and Feingold are continuing to work on the language of their resolutions in order to attract the broadest support among their colleagues and are soliciting input from their constituents and the American people at large.

'At my town hall meetings, online, and everywhere I go, I hear the American people demanding the president and his administration be held accountable for their misconduct, both with regard to the disastrous war in Iraq and their flagrant abuse of the rule of law,' Feingold said.

'Censure is a relatively modest response, but one that puts Congress on record condemning their actions, both for the American people today and for future generations,' he added.

A less modest response than censure, of course, is impeachment. No Member of Congress–other than former US Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) last Session–has introduced legislation regarding the impeachment of Bush. McKinney’s bill had no cosponsors.

US Rep. Conyers (D-MI) had a bill last Session, H Res 635, which would have created a Select Committee to investigate grounds of possibly impeaching Bush. It had 39 total cosponsors but was not reintroduced this Session.

US Rep. Kucinich (D-OH) has a current bill, H Res 333, which is Articles of Impeachment of Vice President Cheney. That bill currently has 15 total cosponsors, including US Reps. Kucinich (D-OH), Robert Brady (D-PA), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), William Lacy Clay (D-MO), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Sam Farr (D-CA), Bob Filner (D-CA), Hank Johnson (D-GA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Jim McDermott (D-WA), James Moran (D-VA), Janice Schakowsky (D-IL), Maxine Waters (D-CA), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), and Albert Wynn (D-MD), so far.

Several Members of Congress have supported Conyers’s bill to investigate Bush, Kucinich’s bill to impeach Cheney, and Wexler’s bill to censure Bush.

Others including US Rep. Welch had constituents plead with them to support impeachment, but he seems to have chosen a less threatening approach.

Still others such as US Reps. Baldwin and Wu supported Conyers’s bill last Session and Wexler’s bill this Session, but have not supported Kucinich’s impeachment bill. Censure may be a less controversial option for them as well.

From Atlanta Progressive News

--About the author: Jonathan Springston is a Senior Staff Writer for The Atlanta Progressive News and may be reached at jonathan@atlantaprogressivenews.com. This article contains additional reporting by Matthew Cardinale, News Editor, The Atlanta Progressive News.

Two Island Tales, The Use and Abuse of Power

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 02:38:00 +0000

7-27-07, 10:26 am

The idyllic lives of two island based populations were inexorably changed and came close to annihilation just to accommodate U.S. supposed protection of democracy. Both Bikini Atoll in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean's Diego Garcia island were populated by thriving, self sufficient, fishing based population until coming under the radar screen of British and U.S. hegemonic interests. The disregard and callus indifference towards the effected populations show the true nature of U.S. 'values.'

Both Bikini and Diego Garcia resurfaced as issues earlier this year when survivors of the hydrogen bomb tests in the Pacific and Chagos islanders (Diego Garcia) won court cases recognizing the injustices forced upon them by the U.S. in the case of Bikinians and by the British in the case of the Chagos islanders. The Bikinians were awarded $1 billion in damages for the impact and effect of U.S. nuclear and hydrogen tests. They will likely never see a cent of it as the bank reserve designated for awarding payment is said to have no funds to accommodate the ruling. The obvious irony here is that the funding to continue the Iraq war is seemingly boundless and unending but to rectify an earlier injustice is economically unfeasible. From 1946 through 1958 the U.S. had carried out 23 atomic and hydrogen bomb tests with the 1954 Bravo test the most significant one. The Bikinians were first moved to Rongeric, where they nearly starved to death, then they were shipped to Kwajalein and finally to tiny Kili where now their population is more then fifteen times bigger than the original 167 that were forcibly removed in 1946. The health effect of being down wind and contamination of the food supply of the resettled Bikini Islanders continue to be a factor in the health and food supply of Pacific islands of the Marshall Island Region.

The Chagos islanders won a hollow victory that they would be allowed to return to their islands, with the exception of Diego Garcia, the largest and main island in the archipelago, and the primary home of the exiled islanders. The U.S. which has a naval and air base on the island remains unwilling to give back the stolen island. In the case of Diego Garcia, Britain and the U.S. both were culprits in the theft of the island. While the U.S. media has, for the most part, not covered the issue of Diego Garcia two journalists have made a point of keeping it alive as an issue. Both William Blum and John Pilger have kept the story and issue alive over the years. Diego Garcia is an example of an ongoing injustice with elements of imperialism, racism and ongoing abuse of power in the name of 'democracy.' Blum in his recent book 'Rogue State' described what happened in the Chagos Islands, 'A few thousand inhabitants of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean were summarily uprooted by Great Britain and shipped against their will to Mauritius and the Seychelles, each more than a thousand miles away. No one helped them resettle or paid for the homes they lost. They simply were forced to become squatters in foreign lands. The reason for this was to make room for a U.S. military base on the biggest of the Chagos Islands, Diego Garcis.' John Piler's new book 'Freedom Nest Time' goes in to more details of what happened with the Chagos Islands and Diego Garcia with updated details.

In both cases the apparent writing of wrongs were deceptive. In the case of the Bikinian legal victory of $1 billion the funds, according to the U.S., no longer exists to pay them despite the current ruling, how convenient. In the case of Diego Garcia the main goal in the native pursuit of justice, the Island of Diego Garcia itself, remains off limits to its rightful owners, the Chagossian people. The U.S. continues to scoff at the legal and moral basis for justice, for simply doing the right things.

Immigration Compromise Too Little Too Late

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 02:32:00 +0000

7-27-07, 10:21 am

Gates Should Be Opened To All Who Wish To Come

The immigration issue will net the GOP little, remember that the compromise that was recently shot down in the Senate had both bi-partisan support and opposition, a fact that best illustrates how little U.S. policymakers understood the issues over which they squabbled so tenaciously. Many arguments have been made against illegal immigration to this country, especially by the more conservative anti-immigration activists and Hill lawmakers.

Instead of taking a moral and logical stand in support of America’s rich heritage of immigration, even some of the more “liberal” politicians have practically ceded the issue to their ideological foes and are being led in circles around watered-down guest worker programs and other tepid substitutes to a full-throated immigration strategy which this nation patently requires and which is inherently humane. It is hard to blame humble citizens however, given the massive amount of misinformation and heavy duty propaganda being thrown against the most controversial aspects of immigration. In the absence of a level-headed coverage of the issue, many Americans have fallen back upon crude nativism to guide their understanding of immigration; a dangerous pattern of simplification that politicians help to fuel with paranoid soundbytes reminiscent of the worst sci-fi films such as “no amnesty for criminals!,” and an “alien invasion is occurring around you.”

What then is the truth about the immigration invasion? No matter what scare tactics have been employed to caricature the debate up to now, regulated immigration is good for the United States. Open door immigration - the legalization of any and all immigrants who wish to come to the country, (which is what I am advocating), is a policy that has become so far removed from the recent political trends as to appear at first glance to be impossible to attain or unwise to seek. Yet open unrestricted immigration was the U.S. law of the land from its founding up until 1924, and is the only policy that is both ethically acceptable and which is financially beneficial to the United States. Yet the demonization of immigrants has sharpened as the debate has heated up, fueled not only by illegal immigrants but by legal ones as well.

Five Myths about Immigration:

Though it might seem that the ethical dimensions behind maintaining our American heritage as a melting pot would be self-evident and therefore given priority, there are an unfortunate number of straw-man arguments that deserve to be properly burned down. The following are the five most prominent anti-immigrant bromides and a refutation of each of them.

“Immigrants take jobs from American workers!”

This is perhaps the most commonly cited rationale for anti-immigrant sentiment which was cynically mobilized by the foes of open immigration. The oversimplified logic behind this claim asserts that an unrestricted ingress of any alien wanting to come here would dangerously increase competition for jobs as well as cause grave social unrest. This presumption is predicated on the assumption that not only is competition bad for an economy, but that an influx of immigrants would take jobs away without providing any new employment opportunities. In reality, jobs are not sacred or reserved for anyone in particular. In a capitalist society, one which conservatives claim to uphold, free competition is the lifeblood of economic prosperity. The irony of supposedly “protecting” American jobs by denying free competition is that it inevitably encourages U.S. corporations to move the jobs out of the country in a process of outsourcing. If a nation is to remain competitive, it has to be based on a meritocracy – how well a worker can work at a job, and not on naked xenophobia.

The main problem over job “loss” to illegal immigrants is not due so much to their being immigrants, as much as their illegal status. Fearful of being deported, and usually in a desperate daily search for a job, illegal immigrants are not protected by minimum wage laws and thus become attractive targets for employers looking to cut costs by paying inhumane salaries. If the illegal immigrants were legalized, and not in constant fear of deportation, they would be able to join labor unions, make investments, participate in civic society and work in relative security - just like other Americans. If all immigrants were legalized, the threat of losing one’s job to an immigrant who would work for next to nothing, would be nullified by the intrinsic protections they have as citizens, such as banning sub-minimum wage salaries, and eliminating any incentive employers might have to favor immigrants.

Moreover, an influx of legalized immigrants into the American economy will likely create as many new jobs for legal employees, as would be occupied by the new immigrants. Consider the beneficial results of a large pool of legal and naturalized immigrants: suddenly there will be millions of new Americans who will be buying food, consumer goods, furniture, housing, insurance, cars, electronics and appliances, not to mention creating a new generation of jobs in the service sector. Immigrants will need to be employed, but at the same time their mere presence will lead to the creation of still additional jobs.

Anti-immigrant militants who claim they want to “protect” American jobs from foreigners rarely take the above factors into consideration, and often propose the most radical “solutions” to the supposed problems that await being cured. For example, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher of California claimed in one of his speeches, “Why don’t we use our brains and use those people who are available to the United States, for example, the millions of young men, who are prisoners throughout our country, can pick the fruit and vegetables. I say, let the prisoners pick the fruits, let’s not bid down the wages of the American worker with the guest worker program.” Forgetting entirely that the supposed point of his rabid anti-immigrant stance was to protect American workers, Rohrabacher’s proposal in fact had nothing to do with protecting workers from having their jobs stolen, but instead sought to deny immigrants from working at unoccupied jobs by turning American prisoners into slaves! Hostile lawmakers like Rohrabacher don’t seem to understand what they are fighting for, because it certainly isn’t the public weal of American workers. If anything, they would be supporting a counter-intuitive nativist policy of “protecting” unoccupied jobs from foreigners simply because they are foreign, and would rather see those fruits and vegetables rot than let an immigrant do a job no native or naturalized American was inclined to do.

“Immigrants depress our wages and are bad for the American Worker!”

This argument is usually used in tandem with the fear that immigrants will steal Americans’ jobs. Much as is the case with claims of job theft, the problem is not that illegal immigrants are immigrants, but that they are illegal. Wages are depressed by illegal immigration because in most instances such refugees are not protected by labor laws or minimum wage regulations. If the immigrants were legalized and future immigrants registered with an open door immigration mechanism, then they would be protected by the law, and would no longer be a threat to prevailing wages by working for less than minimum pay. What is truly a burden on American workers today is the current status quo: the maintenance of a de facto underclass of illegal immigrants who are unable to join labor unions or seek other protections under the law for fear of being outed.

Keeping the immigrants in constant fear and denying them the protections other workers automatically get is not only keeping the illegals more vulnerable, but is also threatening American workers whose labor protections make them less desirable to unscrupulous employers. The legalization of all immigrants would kill two birds with one stone, protecting both current American workers from the unbeatable competition from illegal immigrants and the immigrants from being manipulated and exploited by employers.

“But they are criminals! How can you grant them amnesty?”

“Illegal immigrants” are considered criminals because U.S. nativists and Washington policymakers have intentionally criminalized them in order to degrade their status and justify that an entire swath of the population is being stripped of protections and a political voice. As evidenced by past injustices perpetuated by skewed legal systems, one cannot be a true criminal in the context of unethical laws. If a slave escaped from the anti-bellum south he/she was legally a criminal, but that was just because of the racist laws that had been set up to maintain the slave-owner’s hegemony. The solution then, as now, is not to assault the immigrants as criminals, but to amend our laws to decriminalize those who are unjustly lumped with real wrongdoers.

Immigration Restrictions of Recent Ancestry

It is important to remember that up until the 20th century the U.S. had benefited from its near open-door immigration policy which, like democracy, was supported by most Americans even as Europe and much of the rest of the world remained under the thumb of entrenched authoritarian monarchies and oligarchs. As the U.S. grew wealthy with the fruits of its swelling population’s labor, the now substantially-better-off population had less incentive to favor populist and humanitarian causes as they began to climb out of poverty and as they forget about their own impoverished immigrant backgrounds. In 1921 Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act, which was reinforced by the Immigration Act of 1924, limiting immigration to the U.S. from any country to two percent of the existing nationality/ethnic group in the country at the time. This legislation was specifically targeted to racially select Western European immigrants - namely Northern European Protestants- over migrants from less favored parts of the world, as well as favoring Protestant immigrants over Catholics, Jews and other unwanted religious denominations. This bigoted legislation led to many tragedies, most famously the banning of hundreds of thousands of European Jews leading up to and during the 1930’s and 1940’s from immigrating to the U.S., leading to their inevitable destruction in the Holocaust.

Though the earlier legislation was overturned in 1965 with the Hart-Cellar Act, the nativist prejudice enforced for four decades by the 1924 Immigration Act extracted an intellectual toll on our long-standing self conception of the United States as a beacon of liberty. After the tragedy of 9/11, anti-immigrant fervor again surged and has lead to irrational and jingoistic patriotism. Though after 9/11, more than half of Americans surveyed felt that tighter immigration controls would be very effective at enhancing U.S. security; logic seems to have been lost in translation. How else can one explain what causes a populace attacked by an almost purely Saudi Arabian extremist movement that had been in the pay of the Reagan administration, and hailing from a nation that has been one of the White House’s key allies, to decide that the Mexican-American border urgently requires better enforcement?

The notion that America should only allow a small number of immigrants to enter the country, and should use the admissions process to socially engineer American society, is a purely 20th century invention and flies in the face of past precedent. Amnesty for any and all “illegal” immigrants in this country is long overdue, and should be predicated merely upon their being registered as citizens or permanent residents like any legal immigrant would be, and have no felonious record. The real wrongdoers are not immigrants, but the local politicians and nativists who have betrayed our nation’s long heritage of being a haven for the hardworking, desperate masses.

“Immigrants will corrupt our culture or fail to assimilate.”

The irrational xenophobia gripping American politics has led many to fear for their culture and lifestyle in the face of an immigrant “invasion.” For some, America has reached its cultural limit, and any additional contribution of divergent mores– especially if its practices and customs are at odds with the prevailing Anglo-Teutonic value system – will somehow damage the existing cultural milieu. The reality is that American culture and society has historically only been enriched by immigrants. Abandoning the melting pot doctrine out of fear of diversity is inherently opposed to the founding concept of the United States, as a free nation where no specific ideology or culture is supposed to dominate. An American can walk the streets of almost any U.S. city and have Chinese, Italian, Thai, French, Mexican, Malaysian or any other ethnic food. American staples, like hot dogs and hamburgers are of German origin, while Apple pie had been a prized dessert throughout Europe long before the Americans made it a national icon. Our transcontinental railroads were largely built by immigrants, and even our U.S. dollar was modeled on the Mexican Peso. The civil and human rights protected by the U.S. Constitution and bill of rights were formulated by French and English enlightenment philosophers long before they ended up on the agenda of the Founding Fathers. The very land the U.S. now occupies was acquired, by means of a self-declared right of conquest, from the continent’s Native Americans, while California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and Oklahoma were snapped up in an act of sheer imperialism, from Mexico in the Mexican-American War.

The reality is that the multi-cultural heritage of the United States is irreversible and in fact a boon to each generation of its citizens, who enjoy the benefits of the world’s plethora of cultures in many arenas. Any attempt by a section of society to claim cultural hegemony and status as the “true” American culture is simply engaging in an attempt to consolidate power unjustly, or oppress those who are different from themselves, something that has no place in a free country, nor traditionally has been given much of an audience.

“There isn’t enough room in America and immigrants are a negative pressure on our environment”

This argument, while less commonly cited than the others, has more substantive weight in intellectual circles and among environmentalists who would normally be more responsive to a humanitarian case made by refugees clamoring to enter this country. Though it is true that overpopulation is a real problem in the modern world, immigration, both legal and illegal, has little to do with it. Overpopulation in the United States is caused mostly by this country’s own population, which grew from 76 million in 1900 to 300 million in 2000, with at no point more than 16 percent of its population being foreign born. Even with this large internal growth, there is still far more room in the United States for prospective immigrants than many other potential receiving countries. For an environmentalist concerned with the effects of overcrowding, it would be vastly preferable that an immigrant come to the United States over nations like India - whose population density is 10 times that of the U.S. - or Brazil, where crowded and impoverished citizens have resorted to harvesting swaths of the country’s rainforest in order to clear more room for farming.

Environmental concerns are global: what happens in one part of the world will rapidly affect the global environment. As ecological health is a zero-sum situation, denying immigrants access to our country to help reduce local environmental strain will only cause environmental disaster in countries with less stringent green regulations. Ironically, the greater the share of the world’s population that resides in the U.S., the more control the authorities will have over their ecological footprint and the better their ability to enforce pro-environmental laws. If U.S. citizens try to harvest rainforests or damage other valuable natural resources, it is within this country’s legal jurisdiction to stop them, whereas what occurs in third world nations experiencing crushing poverty is far from Washington’s control.

The Real War on Terror

If most Americans took the time to look at the realities behind contemporary trends affecting immigration movement and the boon that such population swells have had on American society, then there wouldn’t even be a debate, and the “issue” of immigration would disappear entirely. Unfortunately, most Americans have long been intentionally misled by fear-mongering politicians who will use nativist, isolationist, and to a large extent, racist arguments to attract undeserved votes and as a base to achieve personal power. The bigoted isolationism to which many Americans subscribe is usually out of a concern for their own self interest, fear for their jobs, their communities, and their first world comforts, as well as the simple fear of the unknown. Many citizens of the most powerful nation in the world live in constant fear which is exploited and fed by politicians, while corporations want all the illegal immigrants that they can get, because low wages and marginal life styles are good for business.

The above arguments attempt to derail some of the fears that drive many Americans to act against their own best interests, albeit unknowingly. By denying mass immigration into the wealthiest country in the world, the U.S. has essentially created a reverse Berlin Wall. If the U.S. creates an artificially high density of labor in other countries by denying access to our shores (and the labor protections that U.S. citizenship entails), we will contribute to a situation of guaranteed poverty where local workers will be desperate enough to work for less than subsistence wages. With the rise of globalization and the spread of multi-national corporations, the impulsive sealing of national borders is being turned to in order to help secure a nation’s livelihood, despite the fact that it will only hinder the working populace on both sides of the border. National economic strength greatly depends upon the international economic wellbeing and a free migration of labor that allows for the diffusion of both poverty and prosperity on a global scale, facilitating a blending of regional living conditions, no matter how scary the concept sounds.

The real war on terror needs to start at home, and shouldn’t just be aimed at catching terrorists. U.S. citizens must break free from the fear and terror that has been used to shackle and manipulate them and realize that any resort to nativism is not only ethically wrong, but is against their self interest. Fear not the immigrant whose life and priorities are much the same as your own. The only thing we have to fear is being used to achieve the ends of the political-industrial complex, which has no qualms with exploiting the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, and who will gladly sow misinformation and prejudice when it suits their needs.

From Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Iraq: Women’s rights activists increasingly targeted by militants

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 02:28:00 +0000

7-27-07, 10:17 am

BAGHDAD, 24 July 2007 (IRIN) - Haifaa Nour, 33-year-old president of the Women’s Freedom Organisation (WFO), one of the few women’s rights organisations in Iraq, said the threatening letters she had recently been receiving would not deter her from her job, even if it cost her her life. However, she acknowledged that for a woman activist the risks of doing humanitarian work were increasing daily.

“After the US-led invasion in 2003, women’s rights were well recognised… but unfortunately in the past two years our situation has deteriorated and the targeting of activists and women aid workers has increased, forcing dozens to give up their jobs,” Haifaa said.

“I know my life is under threat and I might be killed at any time especially for refusing to wear a veil or other traditional clothes, but if I do so, I will just be abetting the extremists,” she said.

Nour, who was recently made WFO president after the previous president, Senar Muhammad, was killed by religious zealots on 17 May, said the WFO’s effectiveness was being restricted by the day.

“Our organisation is being targeted, and our employees are scared to leave their homes after threatening notes left on doors,” Haifaa said. “My husband was killed a year ago when I started working as an activist. Since then I have got more strength to fight for my rights and those of millions of women in Iraq.”

The WFO president, who is also a member of the Iraqi National League for Women’s Rights, said discrimination against women and the targeting of them were the main problems facing organisations affiliated to the league.

“The threats are clear. [The insurgents are saying:] `Women should stop fighting for their rights, and should only look after their children and husbands.’ We are also held responsible by the extremists for the spread of ‘incorrect behaviour’ by women in Iraqi society,” she said.

''After the US-led invasion in 2003, women’s rights were well recognised… but unfortunately in the past two years our situation has deteriorated and the targeting of activists and women aid workers has increased, forcing dozens to give up their jobs.''

Lack of support from government

Women’s rights organisations said they were being poorly assisted by the government.

“Our situation is critical,” said Mayada who showed threatening letters she had received in the past five months. “We asked the government to take more interest and raise the issue in parliament, but the government has the same old answer - that the violence is general and not just about women.”

The Ministry of Women's Affairs said it was looking into the targeting of female activists and aid workers in Iraq, and agreed the problem was getting worse.

Female aid workers

Local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are obliged to keep female employees inside their offices to prevent them from being targeted.

“We didn’t have a choice after so many reprisals against our organisation and our women volunteers,” said Fatah Ahmed, spokesperson for the Iraqi Aid Association (IAA). “They were being targeted and we had to keep them inside our offices to save their lives.”

“Psychologically speaking, it is important to have women work alongside us in providing aid, but because of the violence this has not been possible,” he added.

Dozens of women aid workers have been kidnapped since 2003 and a number gave up their jobs after they were released.

From IRIN News

Activists Use Hearing on Medical-Caused Bankruptcy to Push for National Health Care

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 02:18:00 +0000

7-27-07, 10:07 am

WASHINGTON -- Health care activists, including one woman whose family went broke due to high medical bills, used a congressional hearing on medical bill-caused bankruptcy to push for government-run national health care.

While the activists and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) lobbied for his universal government-run health care bill (HR 676), by saying it would prevent future bankruptcies, Republicans disputed his claim. Their witness--a law professor from the conservative George Mason University in Virginia--denied there was a bankruptcy problem at all.

The July 17 hearing was for a Judiciary subcommittee to gather data about causes of bankruptcy, a subject the committee deals with, and particularly how many bankruptcies are caused by huge medical bills. Conyers chairs the full Judiciary Committee.

More than 1 million people must declare bankruptcy every year. Data at the session said high medical bills account in part--but not wholly--for 46 percent of the cases.

But witnesses made clear that medical bankruptcy was, as one said, “only the tip of the iceberg” of the high medical bills and soaring costs that hurt workers and families, most of whom struggle to pay the bills--while being denied insurance payments even if they’re covered--without declaring bankruptcy.

Many families, witnesses added, are just one bad illness away from going broke.

The results can be catastrophic. “The National Institutes of Medicine tell us that at least 18,000 adults die each year because they cannot access health insurance. And yet we take that statistic as commonplace,” said Harvard Medical School Professor David Himmelstein, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program.

A more common scenario was sketched out by Aurora, Colo., resident Donna Smith, who briefly appeared in Michael Moore’s latest film, Sicko, about the U.S. health care system. Her congressman, Rep. Thomas Tancredo (R), is running for the GOP presidential nomination and gave the family no help, Smith said.

Smith’s husband, who is slim, was nonetheless diagnosed with coronary artery disease and also an hereditary separate arterial ailment. The coronary ailments required multiple surgeries since 1990, including one due to medical error.

Smith worked to support both of them, and the couple struggled to pay medical bills and premiums, until she was diagnosed with uterine cancer. She later developed back problems from having to return to work early and undertake heavy lifting, against doctors’ orders, after her cancer treatment ended.

Meanwhile, even though they ran through their savings and sold their house, the bills kept piling up and medical creditors started garnishing her paychecks, Smith testified.

“Bankruptcy was the only way to stop the garnishment,” but it didn’t stop the bills. “We put food and household items on credit, borrowed against older cars, ordered needed goods through high-priced mail order firms…and all those debts had to be included. No one was spared.

“Our problems with extreme medical costs and the resulting bankruptcy hurt a wide variety of businesses and individuals. We’re collateral damage of the national health care crisis, I guess,” Smith told lawmakers.

Conyers said the testimony by Smith and the other witnesses--the Republican excepted--showed even more that the nation needs government-run universal health insurance. That would cut costs, including eliminating insurers’ huge profits and overhead, plus insurers’ denial of care, by eliminating the insurance companies and their role. It would also eliminate the high bills that forced Smith into bankruptcy.

“It’s particularly difficult to separate the health care crisis from medical bankruptcy,” the veteran Democrat from Detroit explained. “They’re tied together.

“You are in a system,” Conyers told witnesses, “of structural violence, where the statistics are so bad that the outcome will be bad, too. You’re trapped in a system of bad statistics on health care, longevity, death rates and birth rates--and all come in on you. Medical bankruptcy is one of the consequences of health care in America.”

Conyers said the medical system “is set up” to “tear up families and create stress and suffering” both for those it forces into bankruptcy and for families who struggle to pay their bills. But he also said the nation is taking a second look at government-run universal health care--which would eliminate medical bankruptcies--as private companies drop or cut health care coverage.

Alluding to the auto industry’s financial troubles, which have endangered workers’ pay and retirees’ health care, Conyers added: “Michigan people used to tell me that ‘Oh, HR 676 is fine, but I’m with the UAW and Ford, so I’m covered.’ They’re not telling me that any more.”

From International Labor Communications and Press Associates Inc.