04-22-06,8:36am
On Political Rights and Freedom (excerpt from 'Full text of Human Rights Record of the US in 2005', part 3 of 7 parts)
The United States has always boasted itself as the 'model of democracy' and hawked its mode of democracy to the rest of the world. In fact, American 'democracy' is always one for the wealthy and a 'game for the rich.'
The democratic elections in the United States, to a great extent, are driven by money. During the mayoral election of New York City in November 2005, billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent 77.89 million U.S. dollars of his fortune for re-election. That came to more than 100 U.S. dollars per vote. The election was termed by the Associated Press as the most expensive mayoral re-election in history. In the race for governor of New Jersey, the dueling multimillionaires spent 75 million U.S. dollars combined, with 40 million dollars by Jon S. Corzine, who won the election. Taking into account the 60 million U.S. dollars he spent on a Senate seat in 2000, Corzine had spent 100 million U.S. dollars in five years for elections. According to a survey, in Washington D.C. a U.S. senator needs about 20 million U.S. dollars to keep the seat in the Senate. The Washington Post criticized the U.S. political system in an editorial: 'But a political system that turns elective office into a bauble for purchase is not a healthy one.'
Decisions of the U.S. Congress and the Administration are deeply influenced by money. It is known to all that in the United States, various firms and interest groups hire public relations and consulting companies to lobby the Congress and the Administration, spending money to influence their decisions and win government contracts. On Jan. 4, 2006, mainstream U.S. media carried reports on super lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleading guilty to three felony charges including a conspiracy involving corruption of public officials and agreeing to cooperate with U.S. prosecutors in investigating members of Congress and aides suspected of corruption. The case is the largest power-for-money scandal in American politics for several decades. It was reported that 20 members of Congress and their aides have been involved in this unusual large-scale scandal. But the Abramoff case is just a tip of an iceberg. According to the Washington Post and the British Observer, lobbying has become a great growth industry with huge profits in Washington. Currently, the number of registered lobbyists has reached 34,750, that comes 60 to 1 compared with the total number of the U.S. federal officials elected. Meanwhile, the lobbyists handle more than two billion U.S. dollars of funds a year. Washington downtown's K Street with many lobbying firms is called 'the road to riches' and 'the fourth largest power' next to the President, the Congress and the Court. From 1998 to 2004, lobbyists spent 13 billion U.S. dollars to promote realization of their clients' wishes. In 2004, 2.1 billion U.S. dollars was spent on lobbying the federal government and the Congress, and 3 billion U.S. dollars for elections of the President and members of Congress in the United States. The USA Today revealed that since 2000, 5,410 trips of Congress members were financed by undisclosed sources and Congress members have taken 16 million U.S. dollars in privately financed trips. It's a 'revolving door' for lobbyists to turn into politicians and retired politicians from government service to engage in influence peddling in the private sector. It was reported that since 1998 more than 2,200 former U.S. government employees have become lobbyists; among them are 273 former White House staff members and 250 former Congress members and department heads from the Executive branch.
On Oct. 24, 2005, a national public opinion survey released by the U.S. News and World Report revealed that 73 percent Americans believe their leaders are out of touch with the average person; 64 percent of Americans feel that their leaders are corrupted by power; 62 percent think that leaders seek for increase in personal wealth. A joint Gallup Poll by the USA Today and CNN found job approval for Congress, which has a Republican majority, has fallen to 29 percent, the lowest level since 1994; 49 percent American adults say they believe 'most members of Congress are corrupt.' Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark said it is an offense to democracy to describe the United States as a democracy.
The United States flaunts its press freedom but scandals about the U.S. government blocking and manipulating information came out continually. The New York Times reported on March 13, 2005 that the United States is in 'a new age of prepackaged TV news.' The federal government has aggressively distributed prepackaged news reports to TV stations. At least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years.
The U.S. military pays Iraqi newspapers and journalists for the so-called information operations campaign. The Los Angeles Times reported on Nov. 30, 2005 that the U.S. military troops have been writing articles burnishing the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq, sending them to a Washington-based firm, which translates them into Arabic and places them in Baghdad newspapers. It said the military also has purchased an Iraqi newspaper and taken control of a radio station 'to channel pro-American messages to the Iraqi public.' Other reports said that U.S. army officers created an outfit called the Baghdad Press Club that pays members as much as 200 U.S. dollars a month to churn out positive pieces about American military operations. The Washington Post in an editorial called these activities against freedom of the press as 'planted propaganda.'
The U.S. government's ban on different voices through various means has been condemned by the international community. On Nov. 22, 2005, British newspaper the Daily Mirror, citing a 'top secret' memo on April 16, 2004 from Downing Street, said the U.S. government wished to bomb the headquarters of Arabic TV station Al-Jazeera in Doha, Qatar, during the Iraqi War to block information about the real situation of the war and remove its negative influence on the U.S. side; the revelation resulted in protests by all the Al-Jazeera staff in more than 30 countries and criticism from the International Federation of Journalists. On Nov. 27, British Observer said Al-Jazeera offices in Baghdad and Kabul had all been bombed by the U.S. military and its journalists detained, threatened, abused and harassed by the U.S. military during the Iraqi war. In fact, U.S. crude intrusion into press freedom happened repeatedly. On April 8, 2003, cameraman Jose Couso of the Spanish Telecino television station was shot dead by U.S. soldiers. After Couso's death, the Spanish court issued warrants for the Spanish police and International Criminal Police Organization to arrest and extradite three suspected U.S. soldiers immediately. On Aug. 28, 2005, U.S. forces opened fire at a team of Reuters reporters; one Reuters soundman was shot several times in the face and chest, and he was killed on the spot. Two Iraqi reporters who rushed to the spot were also arrested and forced to exposure to the scorching sun. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the United States is holding four Iraqi journalists in detention centers in Iraq and one journalist of Al-Jazeera, at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo bay, Cuba. None of the five have been charged with a specific crime. In July 2005, the New York Times reporter Judith Miller was sentenced to jail for refusing to disclose her source. Covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a photographer for Canadian Toronto Star daily was hurled to the ground by New Orleans police. The police grabbed his two cameras and removed memory cards. When he asked for his pictures back, the police insulted him and threatened to hit him. A reporter for a local newspaper of New Orleans was also attacked while covering a shoot-out between police and local residents. The police detained him and smashed all of his equipment on the ground.
