MAY 31, 2005
ASKING FORGIVENESS FROM THE WAR DEAD
Memorial Day isn't about vacations or barbecues or having fun. It's about remembering all the sacrifices made by people in wars from the beginning of human history until now. In the barbarous history of the human race there have been too many wars, too many predators seeking to dominate other people. There, fortunately, have been people willing to stand up and fight back against oppression, even at the expense of their own lives.
The United States is the greatest experiment in democracy and freedom in the history of the human race. We've had our own oppressors and our own defenders of liberty. When our government sounds the call to arms to defend our highest ideals there should be no doubt that our government's intentions are honorable and truthful. We haven't gotten truth and honor from this administration. Iraq has been a bloody and murderous exercise in duplicity and greed. We have sacrificed people who were fighting for our highest ideals for a cause that is tainted in corruption. This is a very good editorial at www.startribune.com:
In exchange for our uniformed young people's willingness to offer the gift of their lives, civilian Americans owe them something important: It is our duty to ensure that they never are called to make that sacrifice unless it is truly necessary for the security of the country. In the case of Iraq, the American public has failed them; we did not prevent the Bush administration from spending their blood in an unnecessary war based on contrived concerns about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. President Bush and those around him lied, and the rest of us let them. Harsh? Yes. True? Also yes. Perhaps it happened because Americans, understandably, don't expect untruths from those in power. But that works better as an explanation than as an excuse.
SOUND OF SILENCE ON DARFUR
It reminds you of the old show Hogan's Heroes. The German, Sergeant Schultz, would loudly proclaim, "I know nothing! Nothing!" when confronted with something he didn't want to know about. It's that way with Sudan and the Bush administration and the American people. A genocide has been taking place there. Women are being systematically gang-raped People are starving and homeless. Our attention is diverted to the Runaway Bride and the Michael Jackson trial. This column by Nicholas Kristof is at www.nytimes.com:
Today marks Day 141 of Mr. Bush's silence on the genocide, for he hasn't let the word Darfur slip past his lips publicly since Jan. 10 (even that was a passing reference with no condemnation).
There are several points I could make to argue that it's in our own interest to help Darfur. Turmoil in Darfur is already destabilizing all of Sudan and neighboring Chad as well, both oil-exporting countries. And failed states nurture terrorists like Osama and diseases like polio, while exporting refugees and hijackers.
CANADIAN BANK HEAD WARNS ABOUT U.S. ECONOMY
David Dodge, a Bank of Canada governor, warns that the present system of the U.S. financing deficits with money from China is creating dangerous trade imbalances that threaten the world economy. The right-wing philosophy of tax cuts for the rich, huge deficits, monstrous military spending, and out-of-control trade deficits is putting our economy at risk. This story is at www.cbc.ca:
Bank of Canada governor David Dodge offered a bankerly rebuke to the United States on Monday for its borrow-and-spendthrift ways, which he suggested are a threat to world economic stability.
Less directly, he chided nations such as China for rigging their currencies to boost exports while building up larger and larger foreign-exchange reserves, creating a lopsided world in which Asian savings finance U.S. spending.
THE DANGERS OF DOMINIONISM
Dominionists don't believe in the Constitution. They believe the United States should be a theocracy under a rather strange interpretation of the Bible that harkens back to the brutalities of the Old Testament--things like stoning people to death for a variety of infractions, for instance. George W. Bush has not been shy about catering to the Dominionists. This article by Robert Weitzel is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Not since the days that I had my little fanny parked under a desk during one of Sister Gerard's duck-and-cover drills has there been so much talk of a "nuclear option." That was in the heat of the Cold War when Catholic school children were trained to accept martyrdom as an alternative to surrendering their faith to the Godless totalitarianism of Communism.
The collapse of Soviet-style Communism in 1991 ended all thought of martyrdom. Ironically, however, there is another "cold war" heating up in America. Radical fundamentalists who need a government and neoconservative politicians who need a religion are colluding to unleash a totalitarianism that is as "God-filled" as Communism is otherwise. This hybrid child of Osama bin Laden and Joseph Stalin is known as Dominionism.
Monday, May 30, 2005
MAY 30, 2005
IS BAGHDAD GOING TO GET THE FALLUJAH TREATMENT?
News is that 40,000 Iraqi and 10,000 U.S. troops are encircling Baghdad in an attempt to quell the insurgency that has grown exponentially in the past several months. As Paul Craig Roberts points out, the U.S. isn't willing to go house to house because of the horrific casualties that would result. So what alternatives do you have? We saw an example in Fallujah, which became a latter-day Guernica, when the U.S. leveled that city. Just as death and destruction grow exponentially, so does evil. This column by Paul Craig Roberts is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
US frustration with a few hundred insurgents in Fallujah resulted in the destruction of two-thirds of the former city of 300,000 and in the deaths of many civilians. Are we now going to witness Baghdad reduced to rubble?
Considering reports that 80% of Sunnis support the insurgency passively if not actively, it looks as if extermination of Sunnis will be required if the US is to achieve "victory" in Iraq.
If this Baghdad offensive is launched, it will result in an escalation of US war crimes and outrage against the US and the new Iraqi "government."
UNITED AIRLINES A CASE STUDY IN TREATMENT OF WORKERS
A federal bankruptcy judge recently made the unconscionable ruling that United Airlines could renege on its agreement to pay pensions to its workers. In Bushworld the rules aren't the rules; they're meant to be broken. You steal an election when you have less votes than the other guy. You disregard international treaties you don't like. You declare a doctrine of preemptive war in violation of international law. You ignore the Geneva conventions in your treatment of prisoners of war. You ignore U.S. laws prohibiting torture by using "extraordinary rendition" to send suspects to countries that do torture. You declare Social Security is in crisis so you have an excuse to privatize it. You say the filibuster rule that has worked for 200 years in the Senate is "unconstitutional" so you can pack the courts with right-wing fanatics. You say the constitutional rules for habeas corpus don't apply to terrorism suspects, and on and on. In this column William O'Rourke writes about the reality working people face with this administration. The column is at www.suntimes.com:
The public is catching on to the deal being doled out to workers generally. It isn't management but the workers at United who end up paying for all the tumult in the airline industry. It's not their fault that United overexpanded during the 1990s stock market bubble; not their fault that low-cost, bottom-feeder airlines can use the physical infrastructure created by the legacy airlines and pay none of the costs, but reap the benefits. It's not their fault that United didn't make a good bet on the oil futures market, like Southwest Airlines did. And United's workers weren't responsible for 9/11 and its effects on air travel.
Progressive economists have offered a number of solutions for the plight of legacy airlines like United. There could be a $1 or $2 surcharge on airline tickets to restore the underfunded pension plans. A tax solution, generated from the Abandoned Mine Land Fund, was reluctantly brokered in 1992 by Elizabeth Dole, when she was the first President Bush's secretary of labor, to help fund a mine workers retirees' health plan.
COMPANIES THAT PREY ON THE POOR
I remember an article Mother Jones magazine did a few years ago about industries that prosper as a result of poverty. Some of the most obvious examples are payday loan companies and pawn shops. Used clothing stores and the like can cater to people other than the poor. Credit card companies increasingly prey on the poor. A truly egregious example is Rent-A-Center, where you can "rent to own" merchandise. According to this article in Mother Jones, interest rates at Rent-A-Center can reach 400%. It's disgusting, but not really surprising, that a Republican Congressman wants to pass a bill giving companies like Rent-A-Center even more leeway in gouging the poor. This article by Anya Schiffrin is at www.motherjones.com:
The company, which owns the franchises Renters Choice, Remco, Get It Now, and ColorTyme, has been the target of several recent lawsuits accusing it of preying upon cash- and credit-strapped customers with sales practices that inflate and mask the true costs of their merchandise. An investigation by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs in 2001 found that local Rent-A-Centers’ “cash prices” were as much as 225 percent above normal retail and that some of their long-term rental charges were equivalent to a 392 percent annual interest rate. The Cherry Street Rent-A-Center on New York’s Lower East Side, located in the shadow of a vast housing project, sells a plastic toddler bed shaped like a race car for $870 under a 90-day payment plan, and nearly $1,740 under a monthly plan. An online search found a comparable bed and mattress for as little as $325. A used Whirlpool refrigerator goes for $660 on the spot or $1,319 over 66 weeks. Sears’ website advertises a brand-new one for $570.
IS BAGHDAD GOING TO GET THE FALLUJAH TREATMENT?
News is that 40,000 Iraqi and 10,000 U.S. troops are encircling Baghdad in an attempt to quell the insurgency that has grown exponentially in the past several months. As Paul Craig Roberts points out, the U.S. isn't willing to go house to house because of the horrific casualties that would result. So what alternatives do you have? We saw an example in Fallujah, which became a latter-day Guernica, when the U.S. leveled that city. Just as death and destruction grow exponentially, so does evil. This column by Paul Craig Roberts is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
US frustration with a few hundred insurgents in Fallujah resulted in the destruction of two-thirds of the former city of 300,000 and in the deaths of many civilians. Are we now going to witness Baghdad reduced to rubble?
Considering reports that 80% of Sunnis support the insurgency passively if not actively, it looks as if extermination of Sunnis will be required if the US is to achieve "victory" in Iraq.
If this Baghdad offensive is launched, it will result in an escalation of US war crimes and outrage against the US and the new Iraqi "government."
UNITED AIRLINES A CASE STUDY IN TREATMENT OF WORKERS
A federal bankruptcy judge recently made the unconscionable ruling that United Airlines could renege on its agreement to pay pensions to its workers. In Bushworld the rules aren't the rules; they're meant to be broken. You steal an election when you have less votes than the other guy. You disregard international treaties you don't like. You declare a doctrine of preemptive war in violation of international law. You ignore the Geneva conventions in your treatment of prisoners of war. You ignore U.S. laws prohibiting torture by using "extraordinary rendition" to send suspects to countries that do torture. You declare Social Security is in crisis so you have an excuse to privatize it. You say the filibuster rule that has worked for 200 years in the Senate is "unconstitutional" so you can pack the courts with right-wing fanatics. You say the constitutional rules for habeas corpus don't apply to terrorism suspects, and on and on. In this column William O'Rourke writes about the reality working people face with this administration. The column is at www.suntimes.com:
The public is catching on to the deal being doled out to workers generally. It isn't management but the workers at United who end up paying for all the tumult in the airline industry. It's not their fault that United overexpanded during the 1990s stock market bubble; not their fault that low-cost, bottom-feeder airlines can use the physical infrastructure created by the legacy airlines and pay none of the costs, but reap the benefits. It's not their fault that United didn't make a good bet on the oil futures market, like Southwest Airlines did. And United's workers weren't responsible for 9/11 and its effects on air travel.
Progressive economists have offered a number of solutions for the plight of legacy airlines like United. There could be a $1 or $2 surcharge on airline tickets to restore the underfunded pension plans. A tax solution, generated from the Abandoned Mine Land Fund, was reluctantly brokered in 1992 by Elizabeth Dole, when she was the first President Bush's secretary of labor, to help fund a mine workers retirees' health plan.
COMPANIES THAT PREY ON THE POOR
I remember an article Mother Jones magazine did a few years ago about industries that prosper as a result of poverty. Some of the most obvious examples are payday loan companies and pawn shops. Used clothing stores and the like can cater to people other than the poor. Credit card companies increasingly prey on the poor. A truly egregious example is Rent-A-Center, where you can "rent to own" merchandise. According to this article in Mother Jones, interest rates at Rent-A-Center can reach 400%. It's disgusting, but not really surprising, that a Republican Congressman wants to pass a bill giving companies like Rent-A-Center even more leeway in gouging the poor. This article by Anya Schiffrin is at www.motherjones.com:
The company, which owns the franchises Renters Choice, Remco, Get It Now, and ColorTyme, has been the target of several recent lawsuits accusing it of preying upon cash- and credit-strapped customers with sales practices that inflate and mask the true costs of their merchandise. An investigation by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs in 2001 found that local Rent-A-Centers’ “cash prices” were as much as 225 percent above normal retail and that some of their long-term rental charges were equivalent to a 392 percent annual interest rate. The Cherry Street Rent-A-Center on New York’s Lower East Side, located in the shadow of a vast housing project, sells a plastic toddler bed shaped like a race car for $870 under a 90-day payment plan, and nearly $1,740 under a monthly plan. An online search found a comparable bed and mattress for as little as $325. A used Whirlpool refrigerator goes for $660 on the spot or $1,319 over 66 weeks. Sears’ website advertises a brand-new one for $570.
Sunday, May 29, 2005
MAY 29, 2005
HANDWRITING ON THE WALL FOR USING OIL
Several years ago Alvin Toffler wrote a book called The Third Wave. Toffler said industrialization was the "third wave" in human history. That wave was fueled mostly by petroleum. Now we are going to have to kick the petroleum habit because the oil is running out. The next wave in human history is upon us. This article by Matt Crenson is at www.sfgate.com:
Could the petroleum joyride - cheap, abundant oil that has sent the global economy whizzing along with the pedal to the metal and the AC blasting for decades - be coming to an end? Some observers of the oil industry think so. They predict that this year, maybe next - almost certainly by the end of the decade - the world's oil production, having grown exuberantly for more than a century, will peak and begin to decline.
And then it really will be all downhill. The price of oil will increase drastically. Major oil-consuming countries will experience crippling inflation, unemployment and economic instability. Princeton University geologist Kenneth S. Deffeyes predicts "a permanent state of oil shortage."
BUSH HAS NO COHERENT STRATEGY IN IRAQ
It probably shouldn't come as a surprise, given the record of incompetence of the Bush administration, that there is no coherent strategy for dealing with Iraq. It seems we're just stuck there, pouring billions of dollars down a rathole, seeing our military picked off every day, and seeing a growing hatred of the United States. We should never have gone there in the first place, but in the time since the invasion an exit strategy should have been developed. This assessment comes from the U.S. Army War College. The article by Bryan Bender is at www.boston.com:
A newly published US Army War College assessment concludes that more than three years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration has failed to define the overall aim of the war on terrorism. The report also warns that the cost of not having a coherent strategy is quickly rising as the insurgency drags on in Iraq.
The analysis, by professor Stephen D. Biddle, a leading researcher at the Army War College, suggests that the United States has failed to apply the necessary resources to match its stated goal of spreading democracy across the Middle East. It says the Bush administration must quickly choose whether to devote more troops and money to the endeavor or else limit the military's objectives and pull back from the region.
''In the three years since 9/11, the administration has yet to arrive at a clear definition of the enemy or the aim in the war on terrorism," says the study, ''American Grand Strategy After 9/11: An Assessment."
BEING A REPUBLICAN IS ALL ABOUT ME
This tongue-in-cheek piece is all about the reasons to be a Republican. You know, you don't have to concern yourself with poverty, war, the environment, global warming, burgeoning deficits. You claim to believe in Jesus, but you're very selective about what you believe. You are all about the "march of freedom" in Iraq so long as you and your family and friends don't do the fighting and dying. This article by Jeff Gillenkirk is at www.sfgate.com:
As a Republican, I can now proudly -- indeed, defiantly -- pledge to never again vote for anyone who raises taxes for any reason. To hell with roads, bridges, schools, police and fire protection, Medicare, Social Security and regulation of the airwaves.
President Bush has promised to give me more tax cuts even though our federal government owes trillions of dollars to its creditors. But that's someone else's problem, not mine. Republicans are about the here and now, and I'm here now.
As a Republican, I can favor exploiting the environment for everything she's got. No need to worry about quaint notions like posterity and natural legacy. There are plenty of resources left for everyone, and if we don't use them, someone else will.
YEAH, THINGS ARE JUST GREAT IN AFGHANISTAN
Over three years after the 9/11 attack Osama bin Laden is still out there. When the United States attacked Afghanistan in 2001 it was supposedly to "smoke out" Osama and bring him and his merry band to justice. We know that Osama was near capture in the battle of Tora Bora, but U.S. incompetence allowed him to escape. The Taliban was ousted and a puppet president was installed in Kabul. But for all the talk of democracy in Afghanistan, what is really happening is a reversion to the tribal ways that have existed for centuries, including the production of opium poppies that can be turned into heroin. According to this article, 87% of the world's opium is produced in Afghanistan. This is another legacy of Bush's "war on terror." This article by Paul Watson is at www.latimes.com:
Three and a half years after the United States led an invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban regime, the United Nations and the U.S. government warn that the country is in danger of becoming a narco-state controlled by traffickers. The State Department recently called the Afghan drug trade "an enormous threat to world stability." The United Nations estimates that Afghanistan produces 87% of the world's opium.
For decades, poor farmers trying to make a living in Afghanistan's mountain valleys have harvested the opium poppies that feed the world's drug pipeline. Now the trade is booming, partly the result of the U.S. strategy for overthrowing the Taliban and stabilizing the country after two decades of war.
U.S. troops forged alliances with warlords, who provided ground forces in the battle against the Taliban. Some of those allies are suspected of being among Afghanistan's biggest drug traffickers, controlling networks that include producers, criminal gangs and even members of the counter-narcotics police force. They are willing to make deals with remnants of the Taliban if the price is right.
HANDWRITING ON THE WALL FOR USING OIL
Several years ago Alvin Toffler wrote a book called The Third Wave. Toffler said industrialization was the "third wave" in human history. That wave was fueled mostly by petroleum. Now we are going to have to kick the petroleum habit because the oil is running out. The next wave in human history is upon us. This article by Matt Crenson is at www.sfgate.com:
Could the petroleum joyride - cheap, abundant oil that has sent the global economy whizzing along with the pedal to the metal and the AC blasting for decades - be coming to an end? Some observers of the oil industry think so. They predict that this year, maybe next - almost certainly by the end of the decade - the world's oil production, having grown exuberantly for more than a century, will peak and begin to decline.
And then it really will be all downhill. The price of oil will increase drastically. Major oil-consuming countries will experience crippling inflation, unemployment and economic instability. Princeton University geologist Kenneth S. Deffeyes predicts "a permanent state of oil shortage."
BUSH HAS NO COHERENT STRATEGY IN IRAQ
It probably shouldn't come as a surprise, given the record of incompetence of the Bush administration, that there is no coherent strategy for dealing with Iraq. It seems we're just stuck there, pouring billions of dollars down a rathole, seeing our military picked off every day, and seeing a growing hatred of the United States. We should never have gone there in the first place, but in the time since the invasion an exit strategy should have been developed. This assessment comes from the U.S. Army War College. The article by Bryan Bender is at www.boston.com:
A newly published US Army War College assessment concludes that more than three years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration has failed to define the overall aim of the war on terrorism. The report also warns that the cost of not having a coherent strategy is quickly rising as the insurgency drags on in Iraq.
The analysis, by professor Stephen D. Biddle, a leading researcher at the Army War College, suggests that the United States has failed to apply the necessary resources to match its stated goal of spreading democracy across the Middle East. It says the Bush administration must quickly choose whether to devote more troops and money to the endeavor or else limit the military's objectives and pull back from the region.
''In the three years since 9/11, the administration has yet to arrive at a clear definition of the enemy or the aim in the war on terrorism," says the study, ''American Grand Strategy After 9/11: An Assessment."
BEING A REPUBLICAN IS ALL ABOUT ME
This tongue-in-cheek piece is all about the reasons to be a Republican. You know, you don't have to concern yourself with poverty, war, the environment, global warming, burgeoning deficits. You claim to believe in Jesus, but you're very selective about what you believe. You are all about the "march of freedom" in Iraq so long as you and your family and friends don't do the fighting and dying. This article by Jeff Gillenkirk is at www.sfgate.com:
As a Republican, I can now proudly -- indeed, defiantly -- pledge to never again vote for anyone who raises taxes for any reason. To hell with roads, bridges, schools, police and fire protection, Medicare, Social Security and regulation of the airwaves.
President Bush has promised to give me more tax cuts even though our federal government owes trillions of dollars to its creditors. But that's someone else's problem, not mine. Republicans are about the here and now, and I'm here now.
As a Republican, I can favor exploiting the environment for everything she's got. No need to worry about quaint notions like posterity and natural legacy. There are plenty of resources left for everyone, and if we don't use them, someone else will.
YEAH, THINGS ARE JUST GREAT IN AFGHANISTAN
Over three years after the 9/11 attack Osama bin Laden is still out there. When the United States attacked Afghanistan in 2001 it was supposedly to "smoke out" Osama and bring him and his merry band to justice. We know that Osama was near capture in the battle of Tora Bora, but U.S. incompetence allowed him to escape. The Taliban was ousted and a puppet president was installed in Kabul. But for all the talk of democracy in Afghanistan, what is really happening is a reversion to the tribal ways that have existed for centuries, including the production of opium poppies that can be turned into heroin. According to this article, 87% of the world's opium is produced in Afghanistan. This is another legacy of Bush's "war on terror." This article by Paul Watson is at www.latimes.com:
Three and a half years after the United States led an invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban regime, the United Nations and the U.S. government warn that the country is in danger of becoming a narco-state controlled by traffickers. The State Department recently called the Afghan drug trade "an enormous threat to world stability." The United Nations estimates that Afghanistan produces 87% of the world's opium.
For decades, poor farmers trying to make a living in Afghanistan's mountain valleys have harvested the opium poppies that feed the world's drug pipeline. Now the trade is booming, partly the result of the U.S. strategy for overthrowing the Taliban and stabilizing the country after two decades of war.
U.S. troops forged alliances with warlords, who provided ground forces in the battle against the Taliban. Some of those allies are suspected of being among Afghanistan's biggest drug traffickers, controlling networks that include producers, criminal gangs and even members of the counter-narcotics police force. They are willing to make deals with remnants of the Taliban if the price is right.
Saturday, May 28, 2005
MAY 28, 2005
MIXED BAG IN IMF REPORT
The International Monetary Fund has issued a report warning that George W. Bush's plans to privatize Social Security would significantly increase federal deficits over the coming decades. The IMF report suggests some basic things such as raising the retirement age and raising the cap on payroll taxes to deal with any shortfalls in the Social Security Trust fund. I'm not thrilled with the IMF suggestions to do away with interest deductions on home loans or a "consumption tax." Both of those hit middle class and poor people hard. This story is from the Associated Press:
The centerpiece of the Bush administration's Social Security overhaul - letting workers set up personal investment accounts - would ``pose fiscal challenges,'' International Monetary Fund staff say.
The assessment was contained in a broader examination of the United States' economic performance and policies. The 184-nation IMF regularly conducts such examinations with member countries.
Under President Bush's plan to revamp the Depression-era retirement program, workers would be allowed to divert a chunk of their payroll taxes into individual investment accounts in stocks and bonds.
THE GROPER'S POLITICAL CRONYISM
It has been common practice in movies recently to use what is called "product placement." It's where the signs or logos of major corporations get prominently incorporated into the movie. The character may drink a particular beverage, or a chase scene may show a backdrop of a big billboard. It's a subtle or not too subtle way to mix even more advertising into what we see and hear. Governor Groper has taken product placement to a whole new level by prominently featuring Pepsi and Arrowhead water in political commercials he's running in California. It's probably coincidental that the products featured in the Groper's ads are made by big political contributors. This story is at www.consumerwatchdog.org:
Governor Schwarzenegger should pull a political commercial off the air that promotes the junk food products of his campaign donors, consumer advocates said today. The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) called on Schwarzenegger to return the quarter-million dollars he received from companies featured in the ad, and for the corporations to pay the market value of the advertising to the state because it is improper for the governor to use public office to sell corporate products.
The TV ad, released in May, features Schwarzenegger talking to people in a lunchroom, and places Pepsi and Arrowhead Water in prominent spots next to the governor for 1/3 of the ad. Donors connected to Pepsi Co. and Arrowhead Water's parent company, Nestle, gave the governor a total of $279,800 in campaign contributions. Also recognizable on-screen are Ruffles, Sun Chips, Cheetos and a SoBe Beverage, all brands owned by Pepsi.
RIGHT WING OLIN FOUNDATION CLOSES DOWN
The power elite that funds the far right wing in this country has thrown out lots of bucks and lots of propaganda over several decades to achieve its objectives. These people don't like working people having much power, or environmentalists protecting the planet, or moves to create a peaceful world by slowing military spending, or advancing the rights of women, gays, and other minorities. We know about the despicable Richard Mellon Scaife, but another major player has been the John M. Olin Foundation. The good news is that Olin is closing down. The bad news is that it says the job "is done." We know that, of course, from the reactionary direction of the United States since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. I like to think of what the right wing has done as a Maginot Line. It might seem impenetrable, but it's very porous and not very effective in the long run. This story by Jason DeParle is at www.nytimes.com:
Part Medici, part venture capitalist, the John M. Olin Foundation has spent three decades financing the intellectual rise of the right and exciting the envy of the left. Now the foundation is closing its doors. In telling the organization to spend his money within a generation, John M. Olin, a Midwestern ammunition and chemical magnate, sought to maximize his fortune's influence and keep it from falling into hostile - that is, liberal - hands.
In the budget offices of the right, the loss of Olin, though long anticipated, is bringing a stab of anxiety, as total annual giving of up to $20 million disappears from think tanks, journals and academic aeries. Yet it is a measure of the foundation's success that the anxiety has not been greater. While a generation ago just three or four major foundations operated on the right, today's conservatism has no shortage of institutions, donors or brio.
MIXED BAG IN IMF REPORT
The International Monetary Fund has issued a report warning that George W. Bush's plans to privatize Social Security would significantly increase federal deficits over the coming decades. The IMF report suggests some basic things such as raising the retirement age and raising the cap on payroll taxes to deal with any shortfalls in the Social Security Trust fund. I'm not thrilled with the IMF suggestions to do away with interest deductions on home loans or a "consumption tax." Both of those hit middle class and poor people hard. This story is from the Associated Press:
The centerpiece of the Bush administration's Social Security overhaul - letting workers set up personal investment accounts - would ``pose fiscal challenges,'' International Monetary Fund staff say.
The assessment was contained in a broader examination of the United States' economic performance and policies. The 184-nation IMF regularly conducts such examinations with member countries.
Under President Bush's plan to revamp the Depression-era retirement program, workers would be allowed to divert a chunk of their payroll taxes into individual investment accounts in stocks and bonds.
THE GROPER'S POLITICAL CRONYISM
It has been common practice in movies recently to use what is called "product placement." It's where the signs or logos of major corporations get prominently incorporated into the movie. The character may drink a particular beverage, or a chase scene may show a backdrop of a big billboard. It's a subtle or not too subtle way to mix even more advertising into what we see and hear. Governor Groper has taken product placement to a whole new level by prominently featuring Pepsi and Arrowhead water in political commercials he's running in California. It's probably coincidental that the products featured in the Groper's ads are made by big political contributors. This story is at www.consumerwatchdog.org:
Governor Schwarzenegger should pull a political commercial off the air that promotes the junk food products of his campaign donors, consumer advocates said today. The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) called on Schwarzenegger to return the quarter-million dollars he received from companies featured in the ad, and for the corporations to pay the market value of the advertising to the state because it is improper for the governor to use public office to sell corporate products.
The TV ad, released in May, features Schwarzenegger talking to people in a lunchroom, and places Pepsi and Arrowhead Water in prominent spots next to the governor for 1/3 of the ad. Donors connected to Pepsi Co. and Arrowhead Water's parent company, Nestle, gave the governor a total of $279,800 in campaign contributions. Also recognizable on-screen are Ruffles, Sun Chips, Cheetos and a SoBe Beverage, all brands owned by Pepsi.
RIGHT WING OLIN FOUNDATION CLOSES DOWN
The power elite that funds the far right wing in this country has thrown out lots of bucks and lots of propaganda over several decades to achieve its objectives. These people don't like working people having much power, or environmentalists protecting the planet, or moves to create a peaceful world by slowing military spending, or advancing the rights of women, gays, and other minorities. We know about the despicable Richard Mellon Scaife, but another major player has been the John M. Olin Foundation. The good news is that Olin is closing down. The bad news is that it says the job "is done." We know that, of course, from the reactionary direction of the United States since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. I like to think of what the right wing has done as a Maginot Line. It might seem impenetrable, but it's very porous and not very effective in the long run. This story by Jason DeParle is at www.nytimes.com:
Part Medici, part venture capitalist, the John M. Olin Foundation has spent three decades financing the intellectual rise of the right and exciting the envy of the left. Now the foundation is closing its doors. In telling the organization to spend his money within a generation, John M. Olin, a Midwestern ammunition and chemical magnate, sought to maximize his fortune's influence and keep it from falling into hostile - that is, liberal - hands.
In the budget offices of the right, the loss of Olin, though long anticipated, is bringing a stab of anxiety, as total annual giving of up to $20 million disappears from think tanks, journals and academic aeries. Yet it is a measure of the foundation's success that the anxiety has not been greater. While a generation ago just three or four major foundations operated on the right, today's conservatism has no shortage of institutions, donors or brio.
Friday, May 27, 2005
MAY 27, 2005
BUSH IS SHAMELESS ON STEM CELL RESEARCH
It's an old joke that politicians kiss babies. George W. Bush went several steps further when he appeared with a group of babies to condemn stem cell research. It just amazes me every time this guy represents himself as caring about life when he is a mass killer. This editorial is at www.latimes.com:
Photographs in Wednesday's papers of President Bush with cuddly little babies, all of whom were produced from surplus fertilized eggs at fertility clinics, represent a White House attempt to deal with the biggest flaw in logic regarding its stem cell policy - and its moral weak point. This is the fact that fertility clinics routinely create many test-tube embryos for every human baby that is wanted or is produced.
Here is what happens to those embryos: Some are destroyed because a microscopic examination indicates that they are defective or abnormal. Some of the rest are implanted. But generally, there are some left over. These may be discarded, or frozen for future attempts, or frozen indefinitely; it's up to the customers.
HOUSING BUBBLE MAY BE ABOUT TO BURST
Greed is one of the seven deadly sins, but greed is the driving force in capitalism. There's always some scheme to get rich quick. Usually, such schemes end up in disaster. Remember the stock market crash of 1929, and the various crashes we've seen since then.
But people seem to have short memories. During the 1990's the stock market was booming again, and some people began to suggest we would never have another recession. They were wrong. In the past few years the housing market has been the new get rich quick scheme. People have refinanced homes at low interest rates and taken the money to splurge, while plunging deeper into debt. Now, if the housing market collapses, those people are going to be left holding the bag. Paul Krugman writes about it at www.nytimes.com:
The important point to remember is that the bursting of the stock market bubble hurt lots of people - not just those who bought stocks near their peak. By the summer of 2003, private-sector employment was three million below its 2001 peak. And the job losses would have been much worse if the stock bubble hadn't been quickly replaced with a housing bubble
So what happens if the housing bubble bursts? It will be the same thing all over again, unless the Fed can find something to take its place. And it's hard to imagine what that might be. After all, the Fed's ability to manage the economy mainly comes from its ability to create booms and busts in the housing market. If housing enters a post-bubble slump, what's left?
BUSH WAY OUT OF TOUCH
A new poll shows that the priorities of George W. Bush aren't the priorities of most Americans. But I don't believe they ever were. Bush and his cronies have always wanted to push a pro-corporatist agenda, big tax cuts for the rich, huge deficits, slashes in social spending, and a burgeoning military. They manage to throw out enough distractions so that people sometimes don't realize they're getting the shaft. But the reality now is so stark and so terrible people may be starting to pay attention This story is at www.cbsnews.com:
Four months into his second term, President Bush is increasingly viewed as being out of touch with the American people, according to a CBS News poll.
Six in ten Americans say the president does not share their priorities, while just 34 percent say he does – the lowest numbers for Mr. Bush since the eve of his first inauguration. If there's any solace for Mr. Bush, it's that even fewer people, just 20 percent, say Congress shares their priorities.
START OF A MESSY AFFAIR
When you're a child you get told a variety of fairy tales. You hear about Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny. Eventually, though, you learn those things are fables, and you look at the real world. That may be the way it is with the Bush rhetoric about his attack on Iraq. The veneer is melting away like winter snow, and the ugly reality is showing through with the news about the Downing Street Memo. This article by Ahmed Amr is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
This could be the start of a very messy affair. Rep. John Conyers and 87 other members of Congress are already demanding answers from the White House. If this story takes its natural course, we are about to discover that Bush not only lied about the WMDs, not only fixed intelligence but also misappropriated public funds to cover up his lie and pass it off as an 'intelligence failure'. In the process, revelations of great import are going to become part of the public record. Get ready for some startling headlines about the role of the mass media in both fixing intelligence and the subsequent cover-up. Prepare yourself for a long parade of complicit politicians from both major parties knee deep in the muck of bamboozling the American people. Bush's conspiracy was not the work of one man or one party or one paper. This was a family affair.
BUSH IS SHAMELESS ON STEM CELL RESEARCH
It's an old joke that politicians kiss babies. George W. Bush went several steps further when he appeared with a group of babies to condemn stem cell research. It just amazes me every time this guy represents himself as caring about life when he is a mass killer. This editorial is at www.latimes.com:
Photographs in Wednesday's papers of President Bush with cuddly little babies, all of whom were produced from surplus fertilized eggs at fertility clinics, represent a White House attempt to deal with the biggest flaw in logic regarding its stem cell policy - and its moral weak point. This is the fact that fertility clinics routinely create many test-tube embryos for every human baby that is wanted or is produced.
Here is what happens to those embryos: Some are destroyed because a microscopic examination indicates that they are defective or abnormal. Some of the rest are implanted. But generally, there are some left over. These may be discarded, or frozen for future attempts, or frozen indefinitely; it's up to the customers.
HOUSING BUBBLE MAY BE ABOUT TO BURST
Greed is one of the seven deadly sins, but greed is the driving force in capitalism. There's always some scheme to get rich quick. Usually, such schemes end up in disaster. Remember the stock market crash of 1929, and the various crashes we've seen since then.
But people seem to have short memories. During the 1990's the stock market was booming again, and some people began to suggest we would never have another recession. They were wrong. In the past few years the housing market has been the new get rich quick scheme. People have refinanced homes at low interest rates and taken the money to splurge, while plunging deeper into debt. Now, if the housing market collapses, those people are going to be left holding the bag. Paul Krugman writes about it at www.nytimes.com:
The important point to remember is that the bursting of the stock market bubble hurt lots of people - not just those who bought stocks near their peak. By the summer of 2003, private-sector employment was three million below its 2001 peak. And the job losses would have been much worse if the stock bubble hadn't been quickly replaced with a housing bubble
So what happens if the housing bubble bursts? It will be the same thing all over again, unless the Fed can find something to take its place. And it's hard to imagine what that might be. After all, the Fed's ability to manage the economy mainly comes from its ability to create booms and busts in the housing market. If housing enters a post-bubble slump, what's left?
BUSH WAY OUT OF TOUCH
A new poll shows that the priorities of George W. Bush aren't the priorities of most Americans. But I don't believe they ever were. Bush and his cronies have always wanted to push a pro-corporatist agenda, big tax cuts for the rich, huge deficits, slashes in social spending, and a burgeoning military. They manage to throw out enough distractions so that people sometimes don't realize they're getting the shaft. But the reality now is so stark and so terrible people may be starting to pay attention This story is at www.cbsnews.com:
Four months into his second term, President Bush is increasingly viewed as being out of touch with the American people, according to a CBS News poll.
Six in ten Americans say the president does not share their priorities, while just 34 percent say he does – the lowest numbers for Mr. Bush since the eve of his first inauguration. If there's any solace for Mr. Bush, it's that even fewer people, just 20 percent, say Congress shares their priorities.
START OF A MESSY AFFAIR
When you're a child you get told a variety of fairy tales. You hear about Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny. Eventually, though, you learn those things are fables, and you look at the real world. That may be the way it is with the Bush rhetoric about his attack on Iraq. The veneer is melting away like winter snow, and the ugly reality is showing through with the news about the Downing Street Memo. This article by Ahmed Amr is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
This could be the start of a very messy affair. Rep. John Conyers and 87 other members of Congress are already demanding answers from the White House. If this story takes its natural course, we are about to discover that Bush not only lied about the WMDs, not only fixed intelligence but also misappropriated public funds to cover up his lie and pass it off as an 'intelligence failure'. In the process, revelations of great import are going to become part of the public record. Get ready for some startling headlines about the role of the mass media in both fixing intelligence and the subsequent cover-up. Prepare yourself for a long parade of complicit politicians from both major parties knee deep in the muck of bamboozling the American people. Bush's conspiracy was not the work of one man or one party or one paper. This was a family affair.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
MAY 26, 2005
U.S. GOVERNMENT RESPONSIBLE FOR TORTURE
I recently sent an e-mail to my right-wing Congressman, Rubber Stamp George Radanovich, about U.S. relations with Uzbekistan, a place where protesters got shot down in the street, and where torture is routine, including boiling people alive. I've had no response from Rubber Stamp yet. It is part of the massive criminality of the Bush administration and the Republicans in power. While they talk about human rights and the sacredness of life, they consistently defile morality in the name of "fighting terror." Bob Herbert has a column at www.nytimes.com:
People have been murdered, tortured, rendered to foreign countries to be tortured at a distance, sexually violated, imprisoned without trial or in some cases simply made to "disappear" in an all-American version of a practice previously associated with brutal Latin American dictatorships. All of this has been done, of course, in the name of freedom.
BUSH ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS MAY FACE WAR CRIMES PROSECUTIONS
Amnesty International has come out with a strong condemnation of prisoner abuse at the U.S. facility at Guantanamo, Cuba. Amnesty says that top officials in the Bush administration may face international prosecution for crimes committed at Guantanamo. If we believe in the precedents set at the Nuremberg trials some 60 years ago, there is no question Bush administration officials should face prosecution. This article by John Riley is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Amnesty International Thursday called the U.S. military's anti-terror prison at Guantanamo Bay the "gulag of our times" and warned that American leaders may face international prosecution for mistreating prisoners.
"When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a license to others to commit abuse with impunity and audacity," said Amnesty Secretary General Irene Khan at a London news conference releasing the group's annual report on global human rights, a blistering, 308-page survey.
THE RIGHT WING SMOKE AND MIRRORS TECHNIQUES
There's an old saying about fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. Shame is increasingly on the American people who keep getting fooled by the hate-mongering and greedy right-wing. People hear "tax cut" and they react like Pavlov's dogs. They hear "gay marriage" and the id in their brains takes over, ruling out all reason. There are any number of other non-issue issues such as affirmative action, flag burning, or gun control guaranteed to bring out the lemmings to march over the cliff. This article by Joyce Marcel is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
We're living in a time of smoke and funhouse mirrors, of prestidigitation, of democracy as three-card monte. Watch the middle card, folks, keep your eyes glued to the middle card. And when they turn it over, it's never really the Queen, is it?
Keep your eye on the horrors of gay marriage and you don't see the billion-dollar no-bid contracts going to Halliburton. Be terribly afraid of nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and don't notice that the convicted con man who misled the war-hungry administration now controls all the oil in Iraq.
U.S. GOVERNMENT RESPONSIBLE FOR TORTURE
I recently sent an e-mail to my right-wing Congressman, Rubber Stamp George Radanovich, about U.S. relations with Uzbekistan, a place where protesters got shot down in the street, and where torture is routine, including boiling people alive. I've had no response from Rubber Stamp yet. It is part of the massive criminality of the Bush administration and the Republicans in power. While they talk about human rights and the sacredness of life, they consistently defile morality in the name of "fighting terror." Bob Herbert has a column at www.nytimes.com:
People have been murdered, tortured, rendered to foreign countries to be tortured at a distance, sexually violated, imprisoned without trial or in some cases simply made to "disappear" in an all-American version of a practice previously associated with brutal Latin American dictatorships. All of this has been done, of course, in the name of freedom.
BUSH ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS MAY FACE WAR CRIMES PROSECUTIONS
Amnesty International has come out with a strong condemnation of prisoner abuse at the U.S. facility at Guantanamo, Cuba. Amnesty says that top officials in the Bush administration may face international prosecution for crimes committed at Guantanamo. If we believe in the precedents set at the Nuremberg trials some 60 years ago, there is no question Bush administration officials should face prosecution. This article by John Riley is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Amnesty International Thursday called the U.S. military's anti-terror prison at Guantanamo Bay the "gulag of our times" and warned that American leaders may face international prosecution for mistreating prisoners.
"When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a license to others to commit abuse with impunity and audacity," said Amnesty Secretary General Irene Khan at a London news conference releasing the group's annual report on global human rights, a blistering, 308-page survey.
THE RIGHT WING SMOKE AND MIRRORS TECHNIQUES
There's an old saying about fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. Shame is increasingly on the American people who keep getting fooled by the hate-mongering and greedy right-wing. People hear "tax cut" and they react like Pavlov's dogs. They hear "gay marriage" and the id in their brains takes over, ruling out all reason. There are any number of other non-issue issues such as affirmative action, flag burning, or gun control guaranteed to bring out the lemmings to march over the cliff. This article by Joyce Marcel is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
We're living in a time of smoke and funhouse mirrors, of prestidigitation, of democracy as three-card monte. Watch the middle card, folks, keep your eyes glued to the middle card. And when they turn it over, it's never really the Queen, is it?
Keep your eye on the horrors of gay marriage and you don't see the billion-dollar no-bid contracts going to Halliburton. Be terribly afraid of nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and don't notice that the convicted con man who misled the war-hungry administration now controls all the oil in Iraq.
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
MAY 25, 2005
BUSH TRYING TO KILL AMTRAK
I get an occasional flyer about train tours. It's interesting that the latest brochure has an item about the Bush administration's plans to kill Amtrak. It's totally asinine to kill off rail travel, of course. We should moving toward more mass transit and getting away from the dependence on private automobiles. Norman Mineta, Bush's Transportation Secretary, claims that Amtrak has failed. This item is from a brochure published by Trains Unlimited Tours:
Just for the record Amtrak set an all time ridership record in 2004 of 25 million passengers. This is the best year yet for Amtrak and each year the ridership grows and yet Secretary Mineta makes these statements that: Amtrak has failed, it is dying, nobody rides the train, .. . etc., etc. It is quite clear that the Bush administration has no idea just how many people use and want to keep Amtrak going.
BUSH LOVES SELLING WEAPONS TO DICTATORS
When it comes to freedom and democracy George W. Bush is all talk and no action. The sheer hypocrisy is mind-boggling. A report from the Arms Trade Resource Center shows that the United States has been busily selling arms to some of the most repressive regimes in the world. This is all done in the name of counter-terrorism, but as this article points out, this policy is very likely to boomerang on the United States. This article by Abid Aslam is at www.commondreams.org:
The United States has ramped up arms sales to some of the world's most repressive and undemocratic regimes in a misguided attempt to bolster counter-terrorism efforts since the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. soil, says a new report from leading arms trade researchers.
The report, from the Arms Trade Resource Center at New York-based New School University's World Policy Institute, says increased weapons sales and grants have been used to reward countries that have either joined what the White House calls its ''war on terror'' or have backed the U.S. administration's military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The United States ranks top among the world's arms exporters and in developing countries, a majority of its arms are sold to regimes ''defined as undemocratic by our own State Department,'' says the study released Wednesday.
U.S. IN DANGER OF NUCLEAR PLANT DISASTER
We're looking at the nineteenth anniversary of the devastating nuclear accident at Chernobyl in the Ukraine. The effects of that disaster still linger. We came close to a major disaster here with the Three Mile Island incident. What could be more tempting to a terrorist than damaging a nuclear reactor? Even discounting terrorists, the plants themselves are old. There is also the danger of human error. Linda and Paul Gunter take a look in this article at www.commondreams.org:
In attempting to muscle its way into the climate change argument, with a barrage of misinformation and flawed statistics, the nuclear industry is conveniently ducking the very real horrors that would ensue if one of their reactors suffered an accident or attack resulting in a release to the environment of its radioactive contents. And the weight of scientific evidence suggests such an outcome is not only possible but also probable.
Since 9/11, the security landscape has changed forever. We know that an attack on a U.S. reactor was in the original al Qaida plans and likely will be again. The 103 operating U.S. reactors are all now reaching the end of their life spans, meaning they are more prone to technical problems that could lead to accident. And despite their geriatric status, older reactors are subject to fewer safety checks and are run hotter and longer, leading to cracking and embrittled parts vulnerable to failure.
SCIENCE TO DESTROY LIFE
Maybe he's just not smart enough to see the irony sometimes, but George W. Bush makes some statements that are just breathtakingly hypocritical. In his ring-kissing devotion to the religious right, Mr. Bush condemns stem cell research with the statement, "I made very clear to the Congress that the use of federal money, taxpayers' money, to promote science which destroys life in order to save life -- I'm against that." What, pray tell, would you call military research? We've learned in the past few days that the United States is moving aggressively to develop space weaponry. Theoretically, that weaponry would save the lives of the "good guys" and kill the bad guys. But it's using science to kill people just the same. Stem cell research, in contrast, doesn't destroy living, breathing human beings. It may save countless lives. This article by John M. Curtis is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Never before has a president allowed his religious views to so undermine scientific advancement. Pending legislation, sponsored in the House by Reps. Mike Castle, R-Del., and Diana DeGette, D-Colo., expands human embryonic stem- cell research beyond the severe restrictions Bush imposed four years ago, limiting research to 20 stem-cell lines.
Bush walks on thin ice trying to persuade members of Congress to join the anti-abortion Family Research Council in opposing embryonic stem-cell research. Such groups object to using donated egg cells for therapeutic cloning to grow stem cells. Bush chooses to ignore not only widespread public support for stem cells but also within Congress, allowing religious conservatives to call the shots.
.
BUSH TRYING TO KILL AMTRAK
I get an occasional flyer about train tours. It's interesting that the latest brochure has an item about the Bush administration's plans to kill Amtrak. It's totally asinine to kill off rail travel, of course. We should moving toward more mass transit and getting away from the dependence on private automobiles. Norman Mineta, Bush's Transportation Secretary, claims that Amtrak has failed. This item is from a brochure published by Trains Unlimited Tours:
Just for the record Amtrak set an all time ridership record in 2004 of 25 million passengers. This is the best year yet for Amtrak and each year the ridership grows and yet Secretary Mineta makes these statements that: Amtrak has failed, it is dying, nobody rides the train, .. . etc., etc. It is quite clear that the Bush administration has no idea just how many people use and want to keep Amtrak going.
BUSH LOVES SELLING WEAPONS TO DICTATORS
When it comes to freedom and democracy George W. Bush is all talk and no action. The sheer hypocrisy is mind-boggling. A report from the Arms Trade Resource Center shows that the United States has been busily selling arms to some of the most repressive regimes in the world. This is all done in the name of counter-terrorism, but as this article points out, this policy is very likely to boomerang on the United States. This article by Abid Aslam is at www.commondreams.org:
The United States has ramped up arms sales to some of the world's most repressive and undemocratic regimes in a misguided attempt to bolster counter-terrorism efforts since the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. soil, says a new report from leading arms trade researchers.
The report, from the Arms Trade Resource Center at New York-based New School University's World Policy Institute, says increased weapons sales and grants have been used to reward countries that have either joined what the White House calls its ''war on terror'' or have backed the U.S. administration's military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The United States ranks top among the world's arms exporters and in developing countries, a majority of its arms are sold to regimes ''defined as undemocratic by our own State Department,'' says the study released Wednesday.
U.S. IN DANGER OF NUCLEAR PLANT DISASTER
We're looking at the nineteenth anniversary of the devastating nuclear accident at Chernobyl in the Ukraine. The effects of that disaster still linger. We came close to a major disaster here with the Three Mile Island incident. What could be more tempting to a terrorist than damaging a nuclear reactor? Even discounting terrorists, the plants themselves are old. There is also the danger of human error. Linda and Paul Gunter take a look in this article at www.commondreams.org:
In attempting to muscle its way into the climate change argument, with a barrage of misinformation and flawed statistics, the nuclear industry is conveniently ducking the very real horrors that would ensue if one of their reactors suffered an accident or attack resulting in a release to the environment of its radioactive contents. And the weight of scientific evidence suggests such an outcome is not only possible but also probable.
Since 9/11, the security landscape has changed forever. We know that an attack on a U.S. reactor was in the original al Qaida plans and likely will be again. The 103 operating U.S. reactors are all now reaching the end of their life spans, meaning they are more prone to technical problems that could lead to accident. And despite their geriatric status, older reactors are subject to fewer safety checks and are run hotter and longer, leading to cracking and embrittled parts vulnerable to failure.
SCIENCE TO DESTROY LIFE
Maybe he's just not smart enough to see the irony sometimes, but George W. Bush makes some statements that are just breathtakingly hypocritical. In his ring-kissing devotion to the religious right, Mr. Bush condemns stem cell research with the statement, "I made very clear to the Congress that the use of federal money, taxpayers' money, to promote science which destroys life in order to save life -- I'm against that." What, pray tell, would you call military research? We've learned in the past few days that the United States is moving aggressively to develop space weaponry. Theoretically, that weaponry would save the lives of the "good guys" and kill the bad guys. But it's using science to kill people just the same. Stem cell research, in contrast, doesn't destroy living, breathing human beings. It may save countless lives. This article by John M. Curtis is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Never before has a president allowed his religious views to so undermine scientific advancement. Pending legislation, sponsored in the House by Reps. Mike Castle, R-Del., and Diana DeGette, D-Colo., expands human embryonic stem- cell research beyond the severe restrictions Bush imposed four years ago, limiting research to 20 stem-cell lines.
Bush walks on thin ice trying to persuade members of Congress to join the anti-abortion Family Research Council in opposing embryonic stem-cell research. Such groups object to using donated egg cells for therapeutic cloning to grow stem cells. Bush chooses to ignore not only widespread public support for stem cells but also within Congress, allowing religious conservatives to call the shots.
.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
MAY 24, 2005
FREEDOM NOT ON THE MARCH IN IRAQ
George W. Bush likes to use the cliche about "freedom being on the march" in Iraq and Afghanistan. Admittedly, his definition of "freedom" might be different from that used by you and me. But it's obvious that the situation is unstable and deteriorating. It may boil over into full fledged civil war. This article by Mohamad Bazzi is at www.commondreams.org:
The signs of sectarian warfare are everywhere in Iraq these days: clerics assassinated outside their mosques, dozens of execution victims turning up in ditches and car bombers inflicting heavy casualties on the country's Shia Muslim majority.
Nearly four months after Iraq's election, when millions of Iraqis defied insurgent threats by voting for a new parliament, sectarian violence now threatens to drag the country into civil war. Most victims so far have been Shias targeted by Sunni insurgents. But the recent discoveries throughout Iraq of more than 50 bodies - men from both sects, apparently abducted and executed - highlight a new problem: a wave of retaliatory killings between Sunnis and Shias.
IT'S A ONE WAY STREET FOR CREATIONISTS
I've been thinking of reading some history about the Crusades. It seems we're living in what you might call Crusades II with radical Christians, Jews, and Muslims all at each other's throats, all proclaiming they are doing the will of the true God. In the United States we see an assault by the minority in the Christian right to turn back the clock on issues like evolution and abortion. Some evolutionary scientists have suggested a compromise of sorts in dealing with the religious thugs. World-renowned writer Salman Rushie says compromise doesn't work in this article at www.thestar.com:
Evans' "Atheism Lite," which seeks to negotiate a truce between religious and irreligious world views, is easily demolished.
Such a truce would have a chance of working only if it were reciprocal - if the world's religions agreed to value the atheist position and to concede its ethical basis, if they respected the discoveries and achievements of modern science, even when these discoveries challenge religious sanctities, and if they agreed that art at its best reveals life's multiple meanings at least as clearly as so-called "revealed" texts.
No such reciprocal arrangement exists, however, nor is there the slightest chance that such an accommodation could ever be reached.
It is among the truths believed to be self-evident by the followers of all religions that godlessness is equivalent to amorality and that ethics requires the underpinning presence of some sort of ultimate arbiter, some sort of supernatural absolute, without which secularism, humanism, relativism, hedonism, liberalism and all manner of permissive improprieties will inevitably seduce the unbeliever down immoral ways.
CEO PAY IN STRATOSPHERE; WORKERS' WAGES DECLINING
Part of the mythology in the United States is that if you work hard and play by the rules you get rewarded for your efforts. The disparity between CEO pay and the pay of working people shows that it's a sucker's bet. CEO pay has been reaching incredible levels, while the wages and benefits of working people are getting slashed. How long are we supposed to tolerate this? This analysis is from the Center for Amrerican Progress at www.americanprogress.org:
The American dream is one of upward mobility. We believe that if you work hard and play by the rules, you should be able to provide for your family and ensure that your children have greater opportunity than you were afforded. But today, the dream of true upward mobility has been limited to a select class of corporate executives while the dreams of middle-class families have been deferred. Corporate CEOs have enjoyed record levels of compensation and corporations have seen record profits, as more and more middle-class Americans are experiencing stagnant wages and vanishing benefits. This expanding inequality is not the American dream.
THE NEW ERA OF SPACE WEAPONRY
The U.S. military war machine is moving into space. I mentioned a documentary a few days ago that was presented on Pacifica station KPFA. The documentary detailed various weapons system being developed by the United States to be used in space. This article gives some more details about lasers, "rods from God," and space-based bombers. Nothing is sacrosanct for the military hawks, not even the heavens. This article by Jack Kelly is at www.post-gazette.com:
In April, within 15 minutes of receiving a report that Saddam Hussein had entered a restaurant in Baghdad, a B-1B bomber dropped four 2,000-pound satellite-guided bombs on the place.
It now appears Saddam slipped out of the building by a secret exit. But if one space-based weapon now being researched had been orbiting above Iraq -- and had worked as envisioned -- Saddam almost certainly wouldn't have got away.
Colloquially called "Rods from God," this weapon would consist of orbiting platforms stocked with tungsten rods perhaps 20 feet long and one foot in diameter that could be satellite-guided to targets anywhere on Earth within minutes. Accurate within about 25 feet, they would strike at speeds upwards of 12,000 feet per second, enough to destroy even hardened bunkers several stories underground.
LIMBAUGH IS THE ULTIMATE SYCOPHANT
One of the funniest sketches I ever saw on Saturday Night Live was Dana Carvey doing an impersonation of Johnny Carson. Carvey was sitting at a replica of Johnny's Tonight Show desk and in the chair next to him was a tape recorder impersonating Ed McMahon. On the tape were all the sycophantic sayings we were used to hearing from McMahon. We could do much the same with blowhard Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh is nothing more than the mouthpiece for the power elite in this country. In the course of is career Limbaugh has done immense harm to political discourse and to democracy. In this article there is a discussion of how Limbaugh attacked Bill Moyers, a man with genuine integrity. But integrity is a concept foreign to Limbaugh. This article by John Nichols is at www.commondreams.org:
But this is not about Limbaugh. After all, it's not as if he speaks for himself. When the economic and political elites of the nation says "Jump!" Limbaugh response has always been an enthusiastic, "How high?" And never does he jump higher or quicker than when he is going for the throat of someone who has committed the sin of telling the American people that there is more to a broadcast than talking points and cheerleading for those who refuse to play fair. Of course, Limbaugh thought Moyers was nuts. Limbaugh has been bending the facts for so long that he, undoubtedly, believes that trying to get them straight is madness.
FREEDOM NOT ON THE MARCH IN IRAQ
George W. Bush likes to use the cliche about "freedom being on the march" in Iraq and Afghanistan. Admittedly, his definition of "freedom" might be different from that used by you and me. But it's obvious that the situation is unstable and deteriorating. It may boil over into full fledged civil war. This article by Mohamad Bazzi is at www.commondreams.org:
The signs of sectarian warfare are everywhere in Iraq these days: clerics assassinated outside their mosques, dozens of execution victims turning up in ditches and car bombers inflicting heavy casualties on the country's Shia Muslim majority.
Nearly four months after Iraq's election, when millions of Iraqis defied insurgent threats by voting for a new parliament, sectarian violence now threatens to drag the country into civil war. Most victims so far have been Shias targeted by Sunni insurgents. But the recent discoveries throughout Iraq of more than 50 bodies - men from both sects, apparently abducted and executed - highlight a new problem: a wave of retaliatory killings between Sunnis and Shias.
IT'S A ONE WAY STREET FOR CREATIONISTS
I've been thinking of reading some history about the Crusades. It seems we're living in what you might call Crusades II with radical Christians, Jews, and Muslims all at each other's throats, all proclaiming they are doing the will of the true God. In the United States we see an assault by the minority in the Christian right to turn back the clock on issues like evolution and abortion. Some evolutionary scientists have suggested a compromise of sorts in dealing with the religious thugs. World-renowned writer Salman Rushie says compromise doesn't work in this article at www.thestar.com:
Evans' "Atheism Lite," which seeks to negotiate a truce between religious and irreligious world views, is easily demolished.
Such a truce would have a chance of working only if it were reciprocal - if the world's religions agreed to value the atheist position and to concede its ethical basis, if they respected the discoveries and achievements of modern science, even when these discoveries challenge religious sanctities, and if they agreed that art at its best reveals life's multiple meanings at least as clearly as so-called "revealed" texts.
No such reciprocal arrangement exists, however, nor is there the slightest chance that such an accommodation could ever be reached.
It is among the truths believed to be self-evident by the followers of all religions that godlessness is equivalent to amorality and that ethics requires the underpinning presence of some sort of ultimate arbiter, some sort of supernatural absolute, without which secularism, humanism, relativism, hedonism, liberalism and all manner of permissive improprieties will inevitably seduce the unbeliever down immoral ways.
CEO PAY IN STRATOSPHERE; WORKERS' WAGES DECLINING
Part of the mythology in the United States is that if you work hard and play by the rules you get rewarded for your efforts. The disparity between CEO pay and the pay of working people shows that it's a sucker's bet. CEO pay has been reaching incredible levels, while the wages and benefits of working people are getting slashed. How long are we supposed to tolerate this? This analysis is from the Center for Amrerican Progress at www.americanprogress.org:
The American dream is one of upward mobility. We believe that if you work hard and play by the rules, you should be able to provide for your family and ensure that your children have greater opportunity than you were afforded. But today, the dream of true upward mobility has been limited to a select class of corporate executives while the dreams of middle-class families have been deferred. Corporate CEOs have enjoyed record levels of compensation and corporations have seen record profits, as more and more middle-class Americans are experiencing stagnant wages and vanishing benefits. This expanding inequality is not the American dream.
THE NEW ERA OF SPACE WEAPONRY
The U.S. military war machine is moving into space. I mentioned a documentary a few days ago that was presented on Pacifica station KPFA. The documentary detailed various weapons system being developed by the United States to be used in space. This article gives some more details about lasers, "rods from God," and space-based bombers. Nothing is sacrosanct for the military hawks, not even the heavens. This article by Jack Kelly is at www.post-gazette.com:
In April, within 15 minutes of receiving a report that Saddam Hussein had entered a restaurant in Baghdad, a B-1B bomber dropped four 2,000-pound satellite-guided bombs on the place.
It now appears Saddam slipped out of the building by a secret exit. But if one space-based weapon now being researched had been orbiting above Iraq -- and had worked as envisioned -- Saddam almost certainly wouldn't have got away.
Colloquially called "Rods from God," this weapon would consist of orbiting platforms stocked with tungsten rods perhaps 20 feet long and one foot in diameter that could be satellite-guided to targets anywhere on Earth within minutes. Accurate within about 25 feet, they would strike at speeds upwards of 12,000 feet per second, enough to destroy even hardened bunkers several stories underground.
LIMBAUGH IS THE ULTIMATE SYCOPHANT
One of the funniest sketches I ever saw on Saturday Night Live was Dana Carvey doing an impersonation of Johnny Carson. Carvey was sitting at a replica of Johnny's Tonight Show desk and in the chair next to him was a tape recorder impersonating Ed McMahon. On the tape were all the sycophantic sayings we were used to hearing from McMahon. We could do much the same with blowhard Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh is nothing more than the mouthpiece for the power elite in this country. In the course of is career Limbaugh has done immense harm to political discourse and to democracy. In this article there is a discussion of how Limbaugh attacked Bill Moyers, a man with genuine integrity. But integrity is a concept foreign to Limbaugh. This article by John Nichols is at www.commondreams.org:
But this is not about Limbaugh. After all, it's not as if he speaks for himself. When the economic and political elites of the nation says "Jump!" Limbaugh response has always been an enthusiastic, "How high?" And never does he jump higher or quicker than when he is going for the throat of someone who has committed the sin of telling the American people that there is more to a broadcast than talking points and cheerleading for those who refuse to play fair. Of course, Limbaugh thought Moyers was nuts. Limbaugh has been bending the facts for so long that he, undoubtedly, believes that trying to get them straight is madness.
Monday, May 23, 2005
MAY 23, 2005
BUSH IS STUCK IN ANOTHER CENTURY
As much as his imperialist policies have taken us back to an earlier and uglier time, George W. Bush's superstitions threaten the U.S. supremacy in science. Mr. Bush doesn't believe there is enough evidence for global warming, although the evidence is overwhelming. He doesn't believe in the fact of evolution. He is holding us back on stem cell research, which could lead to cures for various terrible diseases. This story by Michael Kinsley is at www.washingtonpost.com:
Imagine what it's like to open the newspaper (as I did Friday morning) and read that scientists in faraway South Korea have made a huge breakthrough toward curing a disease that is slowly wrecking your life. But closer to home, your own government is trying to prevent that cure.
Other nations are racing for the leadership role in stem cell research that the United States has abandoned. And individual states are defying the federal near-ban. So it seems unlikely that U.S. government policy will actually prevent a cure for Parkinson's and other diseases. And it's not too likely that a cure will come in time for most current sufferers in any event. But it might, it might. So if my government merely manages to slow the process down -- as it already has done for years -- that is disheartening.
SORRY, BUSH DID LIE ABOUT IRAQ
George W. Bush's defenders have slowly had to come around to the admission that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But they can't seem to admit that their boy lied about the reasons for attacking Iraq. It was a mistake, they say, just the consequences of bad intelligence. But the Downing Street Memo, which hasn't gotten its justified attention in the major media in this country, shows that Mr. Bush and his administration lied and deliberately took us to war in Iraq. Robert Parry has a column at www.consortiumnews.com:
This question of Bush’s honesty is newsworthy again because a leaked “secret” Downing Street memo asserts that by July 2002, Bush effectively had decided to go to war, which belies his repeated claim that he was still eagerly pursuing peace.
The memo, published by the London Sunday Times, recounts a meeting on July 23, 2002, between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top national security advisers. At the meeting, Richard Dearlove, chief of the British intelligence agency MI6, described his discussions about Iraq with National Security Council officials in Washington.
ANOTHER CRACKPOT LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Some of the right-wingers who send letters to the editor of The Fresno Bee astound me with their stupidity. We had an example today of a guy using Star Wars metaphors. According to this bright guy, Democrats are the "dark side of the Force." They've been obstructing George W. Bush, a.k.a. Luke Skywalker.
In reality, Democrats haven't been nearly obstructive enough. They've confirmed some truly vile people such as John Ashcroft, Condi Rice, Alberto Gonzales, Michael Chertoff, and John Negroponte. Some Democrats voted for the despicable bankruptcy bill that gave credit card companies everything they wanted. Some Democrats voted to repeal the estate tax. Democrats, for the most part, have been on board in supporting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, even with evidence the Bush administration has been responsible for torture and murder, there are no Articles of Impeachment being introduced.
BUSH CONNECTED TO THE HORROR IN DARFUR
Right-wingers were only too happy to criticize the Clinton administration for not doing enough to stop the genocide in Rwanda about ten years ago. But they're strangely silent about the genocide taking place in Sudan. If it's not bad enough that the Bush administration is connected to torture in places like Uzbekistan, a new report connects Bush and company to the government in Sudan. To add insult to injury, the Sudanese government had ties to Osama bin Laden. This story by Nat Hentoff is at www.villagevoice.com:
But now—thanks to a carefully documented report by Ken Silverstein in the April 29 Los Angeles Times, which has had far too little follow-up by the media—it is clear that the CIA, with the blessings of the Bush administration, is closely connected to the horrifying government of Lieutenant General Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, the head perpetrator of the ongoing genocide in Darfur: over 400,000 black Africans dead, with some 500 more dying every day, and more than two million, many in peril of starvation, turned into refugees as their homes and villages are destroyed.
The lead to the L.A. Times story by Ken Silverstein, datelined Khartoum: "The Bush administration has forged a close intelligence partnership with the Islamic regime that once welcomed Osama bin Laden. . . . The Sudanese government . . . has been providing access to terrorism suspects and sharing intelligence data with the United States."
BUSH IS STUCK IN ANOTHER CENTURY
As much as his imperialist policies have taken us back to an earlier and uglier time, George W. Bush's superstitions threaten the U.S. supremacy in science. Mr. Bush doesn't believe there is enough evidence for global warming, although the evidence is overwhelming. He doesn't believe in the fact of evolution. He is holding us back on stem cell research, which could lead to cures for various terrible diseases. This story by Michael Kinsley is at www.washingtonpost.com:
Imagine what it's like to open the newspaper (as I did Friday morning) and read that scientists in faraway South Korea have made a huge breakthrough toward curing a disease that is slowly wrecking your life. But closer to home, your own government is trying to prevent that cure.
Other nations are racing for the leadership role in stem cell research that the United States has abandoned. And individual states are defying the federal near-ban. So it seems unlikely that U.S. government policy will actually prevent a cure for Parkinson's and other diseases. And it's not too likely that a cure will come in time for most current sufferers in any event. But it might, it might. So if my government merely manages to slow the process down -- as it already has done for years -- that is disheartening.
SORRY, BUSH DID LIE ABOUT IRAQ
George W. Bush's defenders have slowly had to come around to the admission that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But they can't seem to admit that their boy lied about the reasons for attacking Iraq. It was a mistake, they say, just the consequences of bad intelligence. But the Downing Street Memo, which hasn't gotten its justified attention in the major media in this country, shows that Mr. Bush and his administration lied and deliberately took us to war in Iraq. Robert Parry has a column at www.consortiumnews.com:
This question of Bush’s honesty is newsworthy again because a leaked “secret” Downing Street memo asserts that by July 2002, Bush effectively had decided to go to war, which belies his repeated claim that he was still eagerly pursuing peace.
The memo, published by the London Sunday Times, recounts a meeting on July 23, 2002, between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top national security advisers. At the meeting, Richard Dearlove, chief of the British intelligence agency MI6, described his discussions about Iraq with National Security Council officials in Washington.
ANOTHER CRACKPOT LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Some of the right-wingers who send letters to the editor of The Fresno Bee astound me with their stupidity. We had an example today of a guy using Star Wars metaphors. According to this bright guy, Democrats are the "dark side of the Force." They've been obstructing George W. Bush, a.k.a. Luke Skywalker.
In reality, Democrats haven't been nearly obstructive enough. They've confirmed some truly vile people such as John Ashcroft, Condi Rice, Alberto Gonzales, Michael Chertoff, and John Negroponte. Some Democrats voted for the despicable bankruptcy bill that gave credit card companies everything they wanted. Some Democrats voted to repeal the estate tax. Democrats, for the most part, have been on board in supporting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, even with evidence the Bush administration has been responsible for torture and murder, there are no Articles of Impeachment being introduced.
BUSH CONNECTED TO THE HORROR IN DARFUR
Right-wingers were only too happy to criticize the Clinton administration for not doing enough to stop the genocide in Rwanda about ten years ago. But they're strangely silent about the genocide taking place in Sudan. If it's not bad enough that the Bush administration is connected to torture in places like Uzbekistan, a new report connects Bush and company to the government in Sudan. To add insult to injury, the Sudanese government had ties to Osama bin Laden. This story by Nat Hentoff is at www.villagevoice.com:
But now—thanks to a carefully documented report by Ken Silverstein in the April 29 Los Angeles Times, which has had far too little follow-up by the media—it is clear that the CIA, with the blessings of the Bush administration, is closely connected to the horrifying government of Lieutenant General Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, the head perpetrator of the ongoing genocide in Darfur: over 400,000 black Africans dead, with some 500 more dying every day, and more than two million, many in peril of starvation, turned into refugees as their homes and villages are destroyed.
The lead to the L.A. Times story by Ken Silverstein, datelined Khartoum: "The Bush administration has forged a close intelligence partnership with the Islamic regime that once welcomed Osama bin Laden. . . . The Sudanese government . . . has been providing access to terrorism suspects and sharing intelligence data with the United States."
Sunday, May 22, 2005
MAY 22, 2005
BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND HOMO EROTICISM
Republicans have used gay bashing to win elections, but isn't it interesting that so many homo-erotic stories and images keep emerging in this administration? We keep hearing about Republicans coming out of the closet. We heard about a nut named Neal Horsley, an anti-abortion activist, who admitted to having sex with mules. We learned that Jeff Gannon/Guckert was a "journalist" in the White House, and that Mr. Gannon ran a gay escort service. We saw the images from Abu Ghraib of naked prisoners piled in a pyramid. We saw George W. Bush kissing and holding hands with a Saudi prince. Now there are photos of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in his underwear. Lord knows what we'll see next.
BEATTY BLASTS THE GROPER
I'm really tired of Arnold the Groper playing our Governor. The Groper is just another right-wing Republican who wants to give big business everything it wants and to shaft all the working people in this state. He's out fund raising like crazy--something he criticized former Governor Gray Davis for doing. He's running phony political ads and representing himself as the "people's governor." A few elite people maybe. Warren Beatty expressed a lot of my thoughts in a speech he gave blasting Arnold. Notice the snide response from Arnold's spokesman, calling Beatty a "crackpot" and saying that Beatty couldn't give a speech in Orange County. This story by Carla Marinucci is at www.sfgate.com:
During his speech, Beatty lambasted the GOP governor for "bullying labor and the little guys'' such as California nurses and teachers while embracing "the reactionary right wing'' in pursuit of his agenda.
Beatty told 80 graduates, their families, and hundreds of others who gathered on the campus lawn to hear him, that while he "didn't want to'' run for governor, "I'd do a hell of a lot better job than he's done.''
MANY INSTANCES OF KORAN DISRESPECT
The Bush administration blamed a brief item in Newsweek magazine for riots that erupted across the Muslim world when the magazine reported that a Koran had been flushed down a toilet at the prison in Guantanamo, Cuba. The magazine buckled under administration pressure and retracted the story. But there have been many other reports of the Koran being disrespected by U.S. personnel, which indicates this may be part of a pattern. This story Richard A. Serrano and John Daniszewski is at www.commondreams.org:
The allegations, both at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, contain detailed descriptions of what Muslim prisoners said was mishandling of the Koran — sometimes in a deliberately provocative manner.
In one instance, an Iraqi detainee alleged that a soldier had a guard dog carry a copy of the Koran in its mouth. In another, guards at Guantanamo were said to have scrawled obscenities inside Korans.
MC DONALD'S APPROACH TO ATTRACTING KIDS
There are a few corporations that you can readily identify as being American. One of the most prominent is the chain of McDonald's restaurants and their golden arches. Founder Ray Kroc was determined from the very beginning to bring kids into his hamburger restaurants and used a variety of advertising strategies to lure in the kids. This article by Morgan Spurlock is at www.commondreams.org:
During the McMonth I endured for Super Size Me, in which I ate every meal at McDonald's, every day - taking up the option to have a Supersize portion whenever I was offered it - I couldn't get over how many kids there were in the restaurants almost any time that I walked in. Children with their parents. Gaggles of them stopping off for breakfast or for a pre-dinner snack in their cute little school uniforms. Kids in all the play areas. Kids as little as three and four having Happy Meal McBirthday parties. Or, in a McDonald's in Houston, at 9am, a mother with her two very overweight kids who, having just finished their fat-filled breakfasts, were now eating hot fudge sundaes
BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND HOMO EROTICISM
Republicans have used gay bashing to win elections, but isn't it interesting that so many homo-erotic stories and images keep emerging in this administration? We keep hearing about Republicans coming out of the closet. We heard about a nut named Neal Horsley, an anti-abortion activist, who admitted to having sex with mules. We learned that Jeff Gannon/Guckert was a "journalist" in the White House, and that Mr. Gannon ran a gay escort service. We saw the images from Abu Ghraib of naked prisoners piled in a pyramid. We saw George W. Bush kissing and holding hands with a Saudi prince. Now there are photos of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in his underwear. Lord knows what we'll see next.
BEATTY BLASTS THE GROPER
I'm really tired of Arnold the Groper playing our Governor. The Groper is just another right-wing Republican who wants to give big business everything it wants and to shaft all the working people in this state. He's out fund raising like crazy--something he criticized former Governor Gray Davis for doing. He's running phony political ads and representing himself as the "people's governor." A few elite people maybe. Warren Beatty expressed a lot of my thoughts in a speech he gave blasting Arnold. Notice the snide response from Arnold's spokesman, calling Beatty a "crackpot" and saying that Beatty couldn't give a speech in Orange County. This story by Carla Marinucci is at www.sfgate.com:
During his speech, Beatty lambasted the GOP governor for "bullying labor and the little guys'' such as California nurses and teachers while embracing "the reactionary right wing'' in pursuit of his agenda.
Beatty told 80 graduates, their families, and hundreds of others who gathered on the campus lawn to hear him, that while he "didn't want to'' run for governor, "I'd do a hell of a lot better job than he's done.''
MANY INSTANCES OF KORAN DISRESPECT
The Bush administration blamed a brief item in Newsweek magazine for riots that erupted across the Muslim world when the magazine reported that a Koran had been flushed down a toilet at the prison in Guantanamo, Cuba. The magazine buckled under administration pressure and retracted the story. But there have been many other reports of the Koran being disrespected by U.S. personnel, which indicates this may be part of a pattern. This story Richard A. Serrano and John Daniszewski is at www.commondreams.org:
The allegations, both at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, contain detailed descriptions of what Muslim prisoners said was mishandling of the Koran — sometimes in a deliberately provocative manner.
In one instance, an Iraqi detainee alleged that a soldier had a guard dog carry a copy of the Koran in its mouth. In another, guards at Guantanamo were said to have scrawled obscenities inside Korans.
MC DONALD'S APPROACH TO ATTRACTING KIDS
There are a few corporations that you can readily identify as being American. One of the most prominent is the chain of McDonald's restaurants and their golden arches. Founder Ray Kroc was determined from the very beginning to bring kids into his hamburger restaurants and used a variety of advertising strategies to lure in the kids. This article by Morgan Spurlock is at www.commondreams.org:
During the McMonth I endured for Super Size Me, in which I ate every meal at McDonald's, every day - taking up the option to have a Supersize portion whenever I was offered it - I couldn't get over how many kids there were in the restaurants almost any time that I walked in. Children with their parents. Gaggles of them stopping off for breakfast or for a pre-dinner snack in their cute little school uniforms. Kids in all the play areas. Kids as little as three and four having Happy Meal McBirthday parties. Or, in a McDonald's in Houston, at 9am, a mother with her two very overweight kids who, having just finished their fat-filled breakfasts, were now eating hot fudge sundaes
Saturday, May 21, 2005
MAY 21, 2005
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS: BUSH SHOULD BE IN THE DOCK
Paul Craig Roberts is a conservative columnist and like a true conservative, in the Barry Goldwater tradition, Mr. Roberts is outraged at the lies and deceptions of the Bush administration in starting a war against Iraq. George W. Bush has soaked us in innocent blood. Around 60 years ago we tried leading officials of Adolf Hitler's government for crimes against humanity. George W. Bush and the major members of his administration are just as guilty as those Nazi leaders were; the scale just isn't as large yet. This column is at www.chroniclesmagazine.org:
George W. Bush and his gang of neocon warmongers have destroyed America’s reputation. It is likely to stay destroyed, because at this point the only way to restore America’s reputation would be to impeach and convict President Bush for intentionally deceiving Congress and the American people in order to start a war of aggression against a country that posed no threat to the United States.
America can redeem itself only by holding Bush accountable.
AN INCREASINGLY ROTTEN DEAL FOR WORKERS
For working people in the United States it's like that old game of "Heads I win, tails you lose." Despite increased productivity, wages are not keeping pace with the cost of living. Higher energy and food prices, in particular, hit the poor and middle class. Policies of our government are largely responsible for the sliding standard of living, especially the move toward globalization. This article by Kirk Shinkle is at biz.yahoo.com:
U.S. wage growth isn't keeping up with rising prices for everything from gas to groceries to medical care. Strong productivity gains and an improving job market are not helping as they did in the past.
Adjusted for inflation, real weekly wages are down 0.3% vs. a year earlier. That's despite a slight monthly gain in April, Labor Department figures show.
ECONOMIC HIT MEN
In the computer age we've learned about destructive computer programs called "viruses" and "worms" that can weave themselves into your software, hijack information, destroy other information, and cause systems to crash. In a way that's the way economic hit men work. They use any number of methods to steal money and resources from countries. This article by Sean Gonsalves is at www.commondreams.org:
This week's phrase: ''Economic hit man'' or EHM. ''Economic hit men are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, USAID, and other 'aid' organizations into coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources.
''Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization. I should know; I was an EHM.''
That's how John Perkins begins his book ''Confessions of an Economic Hit Man'' (2004).
ANDREW GREELEY ON BUSH'S BIG LIE ABOUT YALTA
I think FDR may have been the greatest president in our history. I don't think he was perfect. He shouldn't have allowed Japanese-Americans to be herded off to detention camps. He should have been more aggressive in wiping out German concentration camps. But it's always easy to criticize in hindsight. Contrary to George W. Bush and the far right, however, FDR and Winston Churchill were not wrong in what they did at the Yalta conference. The far right has revised history to blame FDR and Churchill for the Soviet occupation of eastern Europe. Andrew Greeley has some good points in this column at www.suntimes.com:
Thus, Bush's "apology" was valid only if he believes that the United States should have driven the Red Army out of Germany (a geographically necessary first step) and then out of Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia (and Ukraine, for good measure). How many millions more would have died on both sides in this continuation of the war?
Why did no one ask President Bush if he would have gone to war with the Soviet Union in 1945? He could have used the Iraq excuse: to rid the world of a monstrous dictator. Like the Iraq conflict, such a war between the United States and Russia might have continued for a long time. Indeed, it might still be going on. Our cities would be in ruins. Most of us would be dead and many of us would never have been born.
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS: BUSH SHOULD BE IN THE DOCK
Paul Craig Roberts is a conservative columnist and like a true conservative, in the Barry Goldwater tradition, Mr. Roberts is outraged at the lies and deceptions of the Bush administration in starting a war against Iraq. George W. Bush has soaked us in innocent blood. Around 60 years ago we tried leading officials of Adolf Hitler's government for crimes against humanity. George W. Bush and the major members of his administration are just as guilty as those Nazi leaders were; the scale just isn't as large yet. This column is at www.chroniclesmagazine.org:
George W. Bush and his gang of neocon warmongers have destroyed America’s reputation. It is likely to stay destroyed, because at this point the only way to restore America’s reputation would be to impeach and convict President Bush for intentionally deceiving Congress and the American people in order to start a war of aggression against a country that posed no threat to the United States.
America can redeem itself only by holding Bush accountable.
AN INCREASINGLY ROTTEN DEAL FOR WORKERS
For working people in the United States it's like that old game of "Heads I win, tails you lose." Despite increased productivity, wages are not keeping pace with the cost of living. Higher energy and food prices, in particular, hit the poor and middle class. Policies of our government are largely responsible for the sliding standard of living, especially the move toward globalization. This article by Kirk Shinkle is at biz.yahoo.com:
U.S. wage growth isn't keeping up with rising prices for everything from gas to groceries to medical care. Strong productivity gains and an improving job market are not helping as they did in the past.
Adjusted for inflation, real weekly wages are down 0.3% vs. a year earlier. That's despite a slight monthly gain in April, Labor Department figures show.
ECONOMIC HIT MEN
In the computer age we've learned about destructive computer programs called "viruses" and "worms" that can weave themselves into your software, hijack information, destroy other information, and cause systems to crash. In a way that's the way economic hit men work. They use any number of methods to steal money and resources from countries. This article by Sean Gonsalves is at www.commondreams.org:
This week's phrase: ''Economic hit man'' or EHM. ''Economic hit men are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, USAID, and other 'aid' organizations into coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources.
''Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization. I should know; I was an EHM.''
That's how John Perkins begins his book ''Confessions of an Economic Hit Man'' (2004).
ANDREW GREELEY ON BUSH'S BIG LIE ABOUT YALTA
I think FDR may have been the greatest president in our history. I don't think he was perfect. He shouldn't have allowed Japanese-Americans to be herded off to detention camps. He should have been more aggressive in wiping out German concentration camps. But it's always easy to criticize in hindsight. Contrary to George W. Bush and the far right, however, FDR and Winston Churchill were not wrong in what they did at the Yalta conference. The far right has revised history to blame FDR and Churchill for the Soviet occupation of eastern Europe. Andrew Greeley has some good points in this column at www.suntimes.com:
Thus, Bush's "apology" was valid only if he believes that the United States should have driven the Red Army out of Germany (a geographically necessary first step) and then out of Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia (and Ukraine, for good measure). How many millions more would have died on both sides in this continuation of the war?
Why did no one ask President Bush if he would have gone to war with the Soviet Union in 1945? He could have used the Iraq excuse: to rid the world of a monstrous dictator. Like the Iraq conflict, such a war between the United States and Russia might have continued for a long time. Indeed, it might still be going on. Our cities would be in ruins. Most of us would be dead and many of us would never have been born.
Friday, May 20, 2005
MAY 20, 2005
CHINESE MONEY ENABLES U.S. DEFICITS
Economic discussions are enough to make your eyes glaze over. Maybe that's one reason so many people in this country don't pay attention to the monstrous deficits being run up by the Bush administration. One thing that greatly bothers me is how much foreign capital is being brought into this country and, in effect, used to keep the government afloat. Paul Krugman, who is an economist, explains how money from the Chinese is in effect being treated as loans, and the dangers to the U.S. economy when that money flow stops. The column is at www.nytimes.com:
Yet the U.S. has become dependent on this perverse behavior. Dollar purchases by China and other foreign governments have temporarily insulated the U.S. economy from the effects of huge budget deficits. This money flowing in from abroad has kept U.S. interest rates low despite the enormous government borrowing required to cover the budget deficit.
Low interest rates, in turn, have been crucial to America's housing boom. And soaring house prices don't just create construction jobs; they also support consumer spending because many homeowners have converted rising house values into cash by refinancing their mortgages.
ACCOUNTS OF TORTURE IN AFGHANISTAN
I keep wondering why accounts of the U.S. being involved in torture, or in allying with torture regimes such as Uzbekistan, doesn't outrage more Americans. On the one hand, people are horrified and angry about the terrorist attacks on 9/11. They're horrified and angry about the kidnappings and beheadings in Iraq. But when the U.S. is doing the torturing and killing no one seems to mind. Maybe the sheer depravity of it all just isn't sinking in. I cling to the hope we're better than this. This story by Tim Golden is at www.nytimes.com:
Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him.
The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.
BOB NOVAK SHOWS HIS IGNORANCE
Right-wing shill Bob Novak, the guy who outed CIA operative Valerie Plame, should be in jail. He definitely shouldn't be on television lying about the national debt. Novak had the gall, or the absolute stupidity, to claim the national debt is now the lowest percentage of Gross Domestic Product that the debt has ever been. Not true. The debt is like a runaway train and it's imperiling our economy. This item is from mediamatters.org:
In describing the mounting national debt as "a phony issue," CNN host and syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak stated that the debt "is smaller as a percentage of GDP [gross domestic product] than any of our other -- than it has ever been." In fact, the national debt as a percentage of GDP (Excel document) has grown every year since President George W. Bush has been in office. In 2004, the $7.4 trillion national debt constituted 62.9 percent of GDP; in 2001 when Bush took office, the debt was 57.3 percent of GDP. In 1981, it was 32.9 percent of GDP; in 1929, the earliest year for which the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis lists GDP figures, it was just 16.3 percent. The 2004 figure of 62.9 percent is close to double that of 1981 and nearly four times that of 1929.
CHINESE MONEY ENABLES U.S. DEFICITS
Economic discussions are enough to make your eyes glaze over. Maybe that's one reason so many people in this country don't pay attention to the monstrous deficits being run up by the Bush administration. One thing that greatly bothers me is how much foreign capital is being brought into this country and, in effect, used to keep the government afloat. Paul Krugman, who is an economist, explains how money from the Chinese is in effect being treated as loans, and the dangers to the U.S. economy when that money flow stops. The column is at www.nytimes.com:
Yet the U.S. has become dependent on this perverse behavior. Dollar purchases by China and other foreign governments have temporarily insulated the U.S. economy from the effects of huge budget deficits. This money flowing in from abroad has kept U.S. interest rates low despite the enormous government borrowing required to cover the budget deficit.
Low interest rates, in turn, have been crucial to America's housing boom. And soaring house prices don't just create construction jobs; they also support consumer spending because many homeowners have converted rising house values into cash by refinancing their mortgages.
ACCOUNTS OF TORTURE IN AFGHANISTAN
I keep wondering why accounts of the U.S. being involved in torture, or in allying with torture regimes such as Uzbekistan, doesn't outrage more Americans. On the one hand, people are horrified and angry about the terrorist attacks on 9/11. They're horrified and angry about the kidnappings and beheadings in Iraq. But when the U.S. is doing the torturing and killing no one seems to mind. Maybe the sheer depravity of it all just isn't sinking in. I cling to the hope we're better than this. This story by Tim Golden is at www.nytimes.com:
Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him.
The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.
BOB NOVAK SHOWS HIS IGNORANCE
Right-wing shill Bob Novak, the guy who outed CIA operative Valerie Plame, should be in jail. He definitely shouldn't be on television lying about the national debt. Novak had the gall, or the absolute stupidity, to claim the national debt is now the lowest percentage of Gross Domestic Product that the debt has ever been. Not true. The debt is like a runaway train and it's imperiling our economy. This item is from mediamatters.org:
In describing the mounting national debt as "a phony issue," CNN host and syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak stated that the debt "is smaller as a percentage of GDP [gross domestic product] than any of our other -- than it has ever been." In fact, the national debt as a percentage of GDP (Excel document) has grown every year since President George W. Bush has been in office. In 2004, the $7.4 trillion national debt constituted 62.9 percent of GDP; in 2001 when Bush took office, the debt was 57.3 percent of GDP. In 1981, it was 32.9 percent of GDP; in 1929, the earliest year for which the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis lists GDP figures, it was just 16.3 percent. The 2004 figure of 62.9 percent is close to double that of 1981 and nearly four times that of 1929.
Thursday, May 19, 2005
MAY 19, 2005
ANOTHER ATTACK ON CIVIL LIBERTIES
The daily headlines have all the ominous bad news: more death and destruction in Iraq, the attempts by Republicans to install a fascist government in the United States, high unemployment and a bleak jobs picture, and another attack on civil liberties. The FBI wants to get access to business records without a judge's approval. The judiciary is being perfectly shaped for fascism. On the one hand, you install reactionary judges who will rule against civil liberties, who will rule for big corporations, and generally rubber stamp whatever the government wants. Just to be safe, though, you bypass judges altogether in other instances, justifying it as fighting the "war on terror." This story by Eric Lichtblau is at www.nytimes.com:
The Bush administration and Senate Republican leaders are pushing a plan that would significantly expand the F.B.I.'s power to demand business records in terror investigations without obtaining approval from a judge, officials said on Wednesday.
The proposal, which is likely to be considered next week in a closed session of the Senate intelligence committee, would allow federal investigators to subpoena records from businesses and other institutions without a judge's sign-off if they declared that the material was needed as part of a foreign intelligence investigation.
MORE REASONS NOT TO FLY
I haven't flown for several years, both because I can't afford it and because I don't want the hassle of going through airport security. This report shows that's getting worse. The airport in Seattle, Washington, has been taking passenger fingerprints. So far it's only foreign travelers who have been required to give fingerprints, but you can see the proverbial handwriting on the wall. The fingerprint is compared to a photo in a database to ferret out those nasty terrorists, while destroying even more civil liberties. This story by Keith Eldridge is at www.komotv.com:
Right now it's only being used to check foreign citizens as they leave, but this system could easily be used to track U.S. citizens if congress approves.
But critics fear that smacks of Big Brother invading their privacy.
So far 25 million visitors have gone through the system at airports across the country and it has identified 590 criminals or immigration violators.
ELECTORATE UNHAPPY WITH BUSH AND CONGRESS
A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows vast dissatisfaction by the electorate of George W. Bush and Congress. Congress gets just a 33% approval rating, which is still higher than it deserves. The Congressman from my district, Rubber Stamp George Radanovich, consistently votes against the interest of his constituents to follow the Bush administration's big business agenda. It's a really a misnomer to call members of the House of Representatives "representatives" because they sure aren't representing most of us. This story by Mark Murray is at www.commondreams.org:
As the Senate marches closer toward a nuclear showdown over President Bush’s judicial nominees, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that the American public is dissatisfied — with Congress and its priorities, with Bush’s plan to overhaul Social Security and with the nation’s economy and general direction. Moreover, a majority believes that the Senate should make its own decision about the president’s judicial nominees, rather than just generally confirming them.
RIGHT-WING DESTRUCTION OF LANGUAGE
In Republican World black is white, red is blue, compassion is viciousness, and just wars are against countries that didn't attack you. We're seeing another variation of the Republican destruction of language in the "debate" over the filibuster in the Senate. Even though Republicans have obstructed progressive legislation and progressive judges for years by using the filibuster, now suddenly the filibuster is a really bad thing when it's used against Bush's judicial nominees. Right-wing nut Senator Rick Santorum even went so far as to compare Democrats to Adolf Hitler because Democrats want to preserve the filibuster. Senator Santorum should keep his mouth shut and read some history. This story by Jesse J. Holland is at www.sfgate.com:
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid accused President Bush Thursday of trying to "rewrite the Constitution and reinvent reality" in a drive to weaken Senate filibuster rules and install out-of-the-mainstream conservatives on the federal bench.
But the Senate's second-ranking Republican accused Democrats of "unprecedented obstruction" that prevented confirmation votes and upended more than two centuries of tradition.
ANOTHER ATTACK ON CIVIL LIBERTIES
The daily headlines have all the ominous bad news: more death and destruction in Iraq, the attempts by Republicans to install a fascist government in the United States, high unemployment and a bleak jobs picture, and another attack on civil liberties. The FBI wants to get access to business records without a judge's approval. The judiciary is being perfectly shaped for fascism. On the one hand, you install reactionary judges who will rule against civil liberties, who will rule for big corporations, and generally rubber stamp whatever the government wants. Just to be safe, though, you bypass judges altogether in other instances, justifying it as fighting the "war on terror." This story by Eric Lichtblau is at www.nytimes.com:
The Bush administration and Senate Republican leaders are pushing a plan that would significantly expand the F.B.I.'s power to demand business records in terror investigations without obtaining approval from a judge, officials said on Wednesday.
The proposal, which is likely to be considered next week in a closed session of the Senate intelligence committee, would allow federal investigators to subpoena records from businesses and other institutions without a judge's sign-off if they declared that the material was needed as part of a foreign intelligence investigation.
MORE REASONS NOT TO FLY
I haven't flown for several years, both because I can't afford it and because I don't want the hassle of going through airport security. This report shows that's getting worse. The airport in Seattle, Washington, has been taking passenger fingerprints. So far it's only foreign travelers who have been required to give fingerprints, but you can see the proverbial handwriting on the wall. The fingerprint is compared to a photo in a database to ferret out those nasty terrorists, while destroying even more civil liberties. This story by Keith Eldridge is at www.komotv.com:
Right now it's only being used to check foreign citizens as they leave, but this system could easily be used to track U.S. citizens if congress approves.
But critics fear that smacks of Big Brother invading their privacy.
So far 25 million visitors have gone through the system at airports across the country and it has identified 590 criminals or immigration violators.
ELECTORATE UNHAPPY WITH BUSH AND CONGRESS
A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows vast dissatisfaction by the electorate of George W. Bush and Congress. Congress gets just a 33% approval rating, which is still higher than it deserves. The Congressman from my district, Rubber Stamp George Radanovich, consistently votes against the interest of his constituents to follow the Bush administration's big business agenda. It's a really a misnomer to call members of the House of Representatives "representatives" because they sure aren't representing most of us. This story by Mark Murray is at www.commondreams.org:
As the Senate marches closer toward a nuclear showdown over President Bush’s judicial nominees, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that the American public is dissatisfied — with Congress and its priorities, with Bush’s plan to overhaul Social Security and with the nation’s economy and general direction. Moreover, a majority believes that the Senate should make its own decision about the president’s judicial nominees, rather than just generally confirming them.
RIGHT-WING DESTRUCTION OF LANGUAGE
In Republican World black is white, red is blue, compassion is viciousness, and just wars are against countries that didn't attack you. We're seeing another variation of the Republican destruction of language in the "debate" over the filibuster in the Senate. Even though Republicans have obstructed progressive legislation and progressive judges for years by using the filibuster, now suddenly the filibuster is a really bad thing when it's used against Bush's judicial nominees. Right-wing nut Senator Rick Santorum even went so far as to compare Democrats to Adolf Hitler because Democrats want to preserve the filibuster. Senator Santorum should keep his mouth shut and read some history. This story by Jesse J. Holland is at www.sfgate.com:
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid accused President Bush Thursday of trying to "rewrite the Constitution and reinvent reality" in a drive to weaken Senate filibuster rules and install out-of-the-mainstream conservatives on the federal bench.
But the Senate's second-ranking Republican accused Democrats of "unprecedented obstruction" that prevented confirmation votes and upended more than two centuries of tradition.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
MAY 18, 2005
REMEMBER HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI
We will soon observe the anniversaries of the atomic bombs being dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Sixty years ago the genie escaped, and the nuclear shadow has loomed over the human race ever since. We should have learned from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We should have learned from the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. We should have learned from those long bitter years of the Cold War. But the United States and other nations still bristle with nuclear weaponry. This op-ed piece is by Joseph Rotblat, who signed a manifesto calling for the end of nuclear weapons in 1955. Among the other signatories was Albert Einstein. This editorial is at www.nytimes.com:
Fifty years ago we wrote: "We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all parties?" That question is as relevant today as it was in 1955. So is the manifesto's admonition: "Remember your humanity, and forget the rest."
LITTLE SOCIAL MOBILITY IN THE U.S. WITH REPUBLICAN POLICIES
There's more than a touch of irony in the fact Republicans like to cite the Horatio Alger myth, whether they call it that or not. You know-- work hard, save your money, get a good education, and you make it in the U.S.A. That's increasingly false. If you're born poor, the odds are that you will stay poor. Republican policies have created a great divide between the very few who are wealthy, a shrinking middle class, and the poor. This story by Derrick Z. Jackson is at www.boston.com:
This completes a perfect storm over the last quarter century of corporate welfare for those with the most among us and vilification for those with the least. Americans have been seduced by simplistic notions of rugged individualism to vote more to punish people (welfare mothers, prison booms, and affirmative action in the 1990s, and gay marriage in 2004) than for programs and policies that might lead to healing the gaps (national healthcare and revamped public schools).
It is obvious that Americans believed that none of the inequalities long endured by the poor (because it's all their fault, right?) would seep into our lives. We were wrong. With suburban schools slashing their budgets, healthcare costs rising, retirement funds in doubt, and the next generation facing a drop in their life span from obesity and diabetes, the nation is sliding into a dangerous place.
U.S. IS MOVING TO MILITARIZE SPACE
In the 21st century we should be moving away from war. We should be heeding the admonition in the Biblical book of Isaiah to "beat our swords into plowshares." Instead, we find new and more efficient ways to kill lots of people. The Air Force is moving toward militarizing space under the guise of "protecting" us. There was a fascinating documentary being played today on Pacifica station KPFA about what the U.S. has in mind. It sounds almost like science fiction. They talk about "space command" and sending a shuttle into orbit that could drop down out of orbit to attack and then return to orbit. They talk about something called the "death star," a space-based laser system. There's a discussion of "rods from God," which are canisters of titanium and other materials that would be hurled from space and strike with the impact of a small nuclear bomb. What kind of monsters sit around and work on this stuff? This story by Tim Weiner is at www.commondreams.org:
The Air Force believes "we must establish and maintain space superiority," Gen. Lance Lord, who leads the Air Force Space Command, told Congress recently. "Simply put, it's the American way of fighting." Air Force doctrine defines space superiority as "freedom to attack as well as freedom from attack" in space.
The mission will require new weapons, new space satellites, new ways of doing battle and, by some estimates, hundreds of billions of dollars. It faces enormous technological obstacles. And many of the nation's allies object to the idea that space is an American frontier.
REMEMBER HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI
We will soon observe the anniversaries of the atomic bombs being dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Sixty years ago the genie escaped, and the nuclear shadow has loomed over the human race ever since. We should have learned from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We should have learned from the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. We should have learned from those long bitter years of the Cold War. But the United States and other nations still bristle with nuclear weaponry. This op-ed piece is by Joseph Rotblat, who signed a manifesto calling for the end of nuclear weapons in 1955. Among the other signatories was Albert Einstein. This editorial is at www.nytimes.com:
Fifty years ago we wrote: "We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all parties?" That question is as relevant today as it was in 1955. So is the manifesto's admonition: "Remember your humanity, and forget the rest."
LITTLE SOCIAL MOBILITY IN THE U.S. WITH REPUBLICAN POLICIES
There's more than a touch of irony in the fact Republicans like to cite the Horatio Alger myth, whether they call it that or not. You know-- work hard, save your money, get a good education, and you make it in the U.S.A. That's increasingly false. If you're born poor, the odds are that you will stay poor. Republican policies have created a great divide between the very few who are wealthy, a shrinking middle class, and the poor. This story by Derrick Z. Jackson is at www.boston.com:
This completes a perfect storm over the last quarter century of corporate welfare for those with the most among us and vilification for those with the least. Americans have been seduced by simplistic notions of rugged individualism to vote more to punish people (welfare mothers, prison booms, and affirmative action in the 1990s, and gay marriage in 2004) than for programs and policies that might lead to healing the gaps (national healthcare and revamped public schools).
It is obvious that Americans believed that none of the inequalities long endured by the poor (because it's all their fault, right?) would seep into our lives. We were wrong. With suburban schools slashing their budgets, healthcare costs rising, retirement funds in doubt, and the next generation facing a drop in their life span from obesity and diabetes, the nation is sliding into a dangerous place.
U.S. IS MOVING TO MILITARIZE SPACE
In the 21st century we should be moving away from war. We should be heeding the admonition in the Biblical book of Isaiah to "beat our swords into plowshares." Instead, we find new and more efficient ways to kill lots of people. The Air Force is moving toward militarizing space under the guise of "protecting" us. There was a fascinating documentary being played today on Pacifica station KPFA about what the U.S. has in mind. It sounds almost like science fiction. They talk about "space command" and sending a shuttle into orbit that could drop down out of orbit to attack and then return to orbit. They talk about something called the "death star," a space-based laser system. There's a discussion of "rods from God," which are canisters of titanium and other materials that would be hurled from space and strike with the impact of a small nuclear bomb. What kind of monsters sit around and work on this stuff? This story by Tim Weiner is at www.commondreams.org:
The Air Force believes "we must establish and maintain space superiority," Gen. Lance Lord, who leads the Air Force Space Command, told Congress recently. "Simply put, it's the American way of fighting." Air Force doctrine defines space superiority as "freedom to attack as well as freedom from attack" in space.
The mission will require new weapons, new space satellites, new ways of doing battle and, by some estimates, hundreds of billions of dollars. It faces enormous technological obstacles. And many of the nation's allies object to the idea that space is an American frontier.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
MAY 17, 2005
BUSH PLUMMETING IN THE POLLS
I take heart from Bush's plummeting poll numbers because it shows he has no "mandate" to do anything. I don't believe he ever did. But we can't get complacent because the poll numbers are down. Remember, this is the guy who lost the 2000 presidential election and still wound up in the White House. This gang despises democracy, so the fact most of us don't like the guy doesn't impress them unless there is some political clout behind it. We've got to be loud and put pressure on members of Congress to do our will, not the will of corporations, religious wackos, and all the rest of Bush's base. This story is at www.editorandpublisher.com:
It's not uncommon to hear or read pundits referring to President George W. Bush as a "popular" leader or even a "very popular" one. Even some of his critics in the press refer to him this way. Perhaps they need to check the latest polls.
President Bush's approval rating has plunged to the lowest level of any president since World War II at this point in his second term, the Gallup Organization reported today.
All other presidents who served a second term had approval ratings well above 50% in the March following their election, Gallup reported.
GALLOWAY BLASTS THE LYING REPUBLICANS
An anti-war Member of Parliament named George Galloway appeared before a Senate subcommittee to testify about claims he sold weapons to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. As is their wont, the Republicans were sliming Galloway without any evidence of wrongdoing on his part. He let them have it in a way I wish Democrats would let them have it. This story is at breakingnews.iol.ie:
He described the sub-committee’s claims as the “mother of all smokescreens” intended to divert attention from the “crimes” committed in the invasion of Iraq.
“Senator, in everything I said about Iraq I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 have paid with their lives, 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies,” he said.
BUSH'S DISTORTIONS ABOUT NEWSWEEK STORY
Newsweek magazine ran a story alleging that the Koran had been flushed down a toilet in the prison at Guantanamo, Cuba. The next thing you know there are riots in Afghanistan. The Bush administration was quick to claim the riots were the fault of Newsweek, and claimed the story about the Koran was false. The problem is that the Koran story is consistent with other accounts, and consistent with the harsh treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo. Remember the general who boasted that his god was bigger than the Muslim god? That's the Bush approach to diplomacy. Molly Ivins has some comments at www.commondreams.org:
Uh, people, I hate to tell you this, but the story about Americans abusing the Koran in order to enrage prisoners has been out there for quite some time. The first mention I found of it is March 17, 2004, when the Independent of London interviewed the first British citizen released from Guantanamo Bay. The prisoner said he had been physically beaten but did not consider that as bad as the psychological torture, which he described extensively. Jamal al-Harith, a computer programmer from Manchester, said 70 percent of the inmates had gone on a hunger strike after a guard kicked a copy of the Koran. The strike was ended by force-feeding.
Then came the report, widely covered in American media last December, by the International Red Cross concerning torture at Gitmo. I wrote at the time: "In the name of Jesus Christ Almighty, why are people representing our government, paid by us, writing filth on the Korans of helpless prisoners? Is this American? Is this Christian? What are our moral values? Where are the clergymen on this? Speak up, speak out."
BUSH IS MAKING THE WORLD HATE US
It isn't stories in Newsweek that give the United States a black eye. It isn't stories about the Koran being flushed down the toilet that have made the world hate us. It's the crass, arrogant, despicable Bush administration. The latest example is a snub from the first ever South American-Arab summit. The U.S. wasn't invited. This story by Edward M. Gomez is at www.sfgate.com:
"The symbolic message of the snub couldn't be huger," observed Larry Birns, head of the Council of Hemispheric Affairs, a nonpartisan Washington think tank specializing in Latin America. "[M]ind-boggling in its significance," as Birns put it, the big snub came at the Bush administration's expense. The offending event: the first-ever Summit of South American and Arab Countries, which brought together representatives from 34 countries in Latin America and the Arab world to discuss trade and foreign-policy issues, completely bypassing the United States.
BUSH PLUMMETING IN THE POLLS
I take heart from Bush's plummeting poll numbers because it shows he has no "mandate" to do anything. I don't believe he ever did. But we can't get complacent because the poll numbers are down. Remember, this is the guy who lost the 2000 presidential election and still wound up in the White House. This gang despises democracy, so the fact most of us don't like the guy doesn't impress them unless there is some political clout behind it. We've got to be loud and put pressure on members of Congress to do our will, not the will of corporations, religious wackos, and all the rest of Bush's base. This story is at www.editorandpublisher.com:
It's not uncommon to hear or read pundits referring to President George W. Bush as a "popular" leader or even a "very popular" one. Even some of his critics in the press refer to him this way. Perhaps they need to check the latest polls.
President Bush's approval rating has plunged to the lowest level of any president since World War II at this point in his second term, the Gallup Organization reported today.
All other presidents who served a second term had approval ratings well above 50% in the March following their election, Gallup reported.
GALLOWAY BLASTS THE LYING REPUBLICANS
An anti-war Member of Parliament named George Galloway appeared before a Senate subcommittee to testify about claims he sold weapons to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. As is their wont, the Republicans were sliming Galloway without any evidence of wrongdoing on his part. He let them have it in a way I wish Democrats would let them have it. This story is at breakingnews.iol.ie:
He described the sub-committee’s claims as the “mother of all smokescreens” intended to divert attention from the “crimes” committed in the invasion of Iraq.
“Senator, in everything I said about Iraq I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 have paid with their lives, 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies,” he said.
BUSH'S DISTORTIONS ABOUT NEWSWEEK STORY
Newsweek magazine ran a story alleging that the Koran had been flushed down a toilet in the prison at Guantanamo, Cuba. The next thing you know there are riots in Afghanistan. The Bush administration was quick to claim the riots were the fault of Newsweek, and claimed the story about the Koran was false. The problem is that the Koran story is consistent with other accounts, and consistent with the harsh treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo. Remember the general who boasted that his god was bigger than the Muslim god? That's the Bush approach to diplomacy. Molly Ivins has some comments at www.commondreams.org:
Uh, people, I hate to tell you this, but the story about Americans abusing the Koran in order to enrage prisoners has been out there for quite some time. The first mention I found of it is March 17, 2004, when the Independent of London interviewed the first British citizen released from Guantanamo Bay. The prisoner said he had been physically beaten but did not consider that as bad as the psychological torture, which he described extensively. Jamal al-Harith, a computer programmer from Manchester, said 70 percent of the inmates had gone on a hunger strike after a guard kicked a copy of the Koran. The strike was ended by force-feeding.
Then came the report, widely covered in American media last December, by the International Red Cross concerning torture at Gitmo. I wrote at the time: "In the name of Jesus Christ Almighty, why are people representing our government, paid by us, writing filth on the Korans of helpless prisoners? Is this American? Is this Christian? What are our moral values? Where are the clergymen on this? Speak up, speak out."
BUSH IS MAKING THE WORLD HATE US
It isn't stories in Newsweek that give the United States a black eye. It isn't stories about the Koran being flushed down the toilet that have made the world hate us. It's the crass, arrogant, despicable Bush administration. The latest example is a snub from the first ever South American-Arab summit. The U.S. wasn't invited. This story by Edward M. Gomez is at www.sfgate.com:
"The symbolic message of the snub couldn't be huger," observed Larry Birns, head of the Council of Hemispheric Affairs, a nonpartisan Washington think tank specializing in Latin America. "[M]ind-boggling in its significance," as Birns put it, the big snub came at the Bush administration's expense. The offending event: the first-ever Summit of South American and Arab Countries, which brought together representatives from 34 countries in Latin America and the Arab world to discuss trade and foreign-policy issues, completely bypassing the United States.
Monday, May 16, 2005
MAY 16, 2005
MORE EVIDENCE BUSH WANTS TO DESTROY SOCIAL SECURITY
One aspect of Social Security many people don't think about is the provision for Survivors Benefits. Survivors Benefits have kept widows and orphans afloat after their husbands/fathers/mothers died. My late cousin, who was also handicapped, wouldn't have had a chance for an independent and productive life without Social Security. Now we learn that George W. Bush's plan to "reform" Social Security will take away Survivors Benefits. This plan is rotten to its core, and should be summarily rejected. This article by the Democratic National Committee is linked at www.makethemaccountable.com:
A day after the chief White House economist admitted that the Bush plan to privatize Social Security would include cuts to survivor benefits, the Bush administration also acknowledged that it would not protect disability benefits despite earlier assurances that these earned benefits would remain untouched. This is the latest trial balloon in the Bush administration’s real plan to dismantle Social Security. The announcement may help explain why a new Harris poll found that only 36 percent of Americans think President Bush’s “comments on saving and strengthening Social Security are his real motives for changing the program, while 49% believe his real agenda is to dismantle it.” [Wall Street Journal, 5/13/05]
DISTURBING ASSAULT ON POSSE COMITATUS
The Posse Comitatus law was passed after northern troops were used to police the defeated Confederacy after the Civil War. The law is intended to prevent the use of the military in domestic police functions. Apparently, this is yet another law the federal government under George W. Bush finds inconvenient. This story from Mother Jones magazine shows that a new division of the national security apparatus called NORTHCOM has been set up to monitor and possibly militarily intervene in domestic matters. The article by Peter Byrne is at www.motherjones.com:
In 2002, the Defense Department updated its Unified Command Plan, which made the already blurry lines between civilian and military even less legible. Since then, all over America, law enforcement and intelligence agencies have been making information about the public available to a Pentagon power center most people have never heard about: U.S. Northern Command, or NORTHCOM, located at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. Hidden deep inside Cheyenne Mountain, more than 100 intelligence analysts sift through streams of data collected by federal agents and local law en- forcers-continually updating a virtual picture of what the command calls the North American "battlespace," which includes the United States, Canada, and Mexico, as well as 500 miles out to sea. If they find something amiss, they have resources to deploy in response that no law enforcement agency could dream of. They've got an army, a navy, an air force, the Marines, and the Coast Guard.
WHY DOES U.S. HAVE UZBEKISTAN AS ALLY?
There have been reports that terrorism suspects have been sent to Uzbekistan for "interrogation." It's well known that torture of the most brutal type takes place in Uzbekistan. For example, there have been reports of prisoners being boiled alive. George W. Bush made a big issue of Saddam Hussein's "rape rooms" and other human rights abuses, but Uzbekistan is on par with Hussein, if not worse. Yet, we count them as an ally. This story by Nick Paton Walsh and Paul Harris is at observer.guardian.co.uk:
Heated criticism was growing last night over 'double standards' by Washington over human rights, democracy and 'freedom' as fresh evidence emerged of just how brutally Uzbekistan, a US ally in the 'war on terror', put down Friday's unrest in the east of the country.
Outrage among human rights groups followed claims by the White House on Friday that appeared designed to justify the violence of the regime of President Islam Karimov, claiming - as Karimov has - that 'terrorist groups' may have been involved in the uprising.
Critics said the US was prepared to support pro-democracy unrest in some states, but condemn it in others where such policies were inconvenient.
IRAQ HAS BACKFIRED ON THE NEOCONS
We know the stated reasons for the war against Iraq were lies. But even when you examine the ulterior motives for attacking Iraq--proving American military might, securing oil, etc.--it's obvious now that the whole plan has backfired on the neocons who have created so much death and destruction. Now we're stuck in a war that appears to be without end, our military is stretched dangerously thin, and Iraq continues to be torn apart by violence. The violence is spreading to Afghanistan and even to Uzbekistan. Paul Krugman examines the Iraq mess in his column at www.nytimes.com:
In effect, America has been taken hostage. Nobody wants to take responsibility for the terrible scenes that will surely unfold if we leave (even though terrible scenes are unfolding while we're there). Nobody wants to tell the grieving parents of American soldiers that their children died in vain. And nobody wants to be accused, by an administration always ready to impugn other people's patriotism, of stabbing the troops in the back.
But the American military isn't just bogged down in Iraq; it's deteriorating under the strain. We may already be in real danger: what threats, exactly, can we make against the North Koreans? That John Bolton will yell at them? And every year that the war goes on, our military gets weaker.
MORE EVIDENCE BUSH WANTS TO DESTROY SOCIAL SECURITY
One aspect of Social Security many people don't think about is the provision for Survivors Benefits. Survivors Benefits have kept widows and orphans afloat after their husbands/fathers/mothers died. My late cousin, who was also handicapped, wouldn't have had a chance for an independent and productive life without Social Security. Now we learn that George W. Bush's plan to "reform" Social Security will take away Survivors Benefits. This plan is rotten to its core, and should be summarily rejected. This article by the Democratic National Committee is linked at www.makethemaccountable.com:
A day after the chief White House economist admitted that the Bush plan to privatize Social Security would include cuts to survivor benefits, the Bush administration also acknowledged that it would not protect disability benefits despite earlier assurances that these earned benefits would remain untouched. This is the latest trial balloon in the Bush administration’s real plan to dismantle Social Security. The announcement may help explain why a new Harris poll found that only 36 percent of Americans think President Bush’s “comments on saving and strengthening Social Security are his real motives for changing the program, while 49% believe his real agenda is to dismantle it.” [Wall Street Journal, 5/13/05]
DISTURBING ASSAULT ON POSSE COMITATUS
The Posse Comitatus law was passed after northern troops were used to police the defeated Confederacy after the Civil War. The law is intended to prevent the use of the military in domestic police functions. Apparently, this is yet another law the federal government under George W. Bush finds inconvenient. This story from Mother Jones magazine shows that a new division of the national security apparatus called NORTHCOM has been set up to monitor and possibly militarily intervene in domestic matters. The article by Peter Byrne is at www.motherjones.com:
In 2002, the Defense Department updated its Unified Command Plan, which made the already blurry lines between civilian and military even less legible. Since then, all over America, law enforcement and intelligence agencies have been making information about the public available to a Pentagon power center most people have never heard about: U.S. Northern Command, or NORTHCOM, located at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. Hidden deep inside Cheyenne Mountain, more than 100 intelligence analysts sift through streams of data collected by federal agents and local law en- forcers-continually updating a virtual picture of what the command calls the North American "battlespace," which includes the United States, Canada, and Mexico, as well as 500 miles out to sea. If they find something amiss, they have resources to deploy in response that no law enforcement agency could dream of. They've got an army, a navy, an air force, the Marines, and the Coast Guard.
WHY DOES U.S. HAVE UZBEKISTAN AS ALLY?
There have been reports that terrorism suspects have been sent to Uzbekistan for "interrogation." It's well known that torture of the most brutal type takes place in Uzbekistan. For example, there have been reports of prisoners being boiled alive. George W. Bush made a big issue of Saddam Hussein's "rape rooms" and other human rights abuses, but Uzbekistan is on par with Hussein, if not worse. Yet, we count them as an ally. This story by Nick Paton Walsh and Paul Harris is at observer.guardian.co.uk:
Heated criticism was growing last night over 'double standards' by Washington over human rights, democracy and 'freedom' as fresh evidence emerged of just how brutally Uzbekistan, a US ally in the 'war on terror', put down Friday's unrest in the east of the country.
Outrage among human rights groups followed claims by the White House on Friday that appeared designed to justify the violence of the regime of President Islam Karimov, claiming - as Karimov has - that 'terrorist groups' may have been involved in the uprising.
Critics said the US was prepared to support pro-democracy unrest in some states, but condemn it in others where such policies were inconvenient.
IRAQ HAS BACKFIRED ON THE NEOCONS
We know the stated reasons for the war against Iraq were lies. But even when you examine the ulterior motives for attacking Iraq--proving American military might, securing oil, etc.--it's obvious now that the whole plan has backfired on the neocons who have created so much death and destruction. Now we're stuck in a war that appears to be without end, our military is stretched dangerously thin, and Iraq continues to be torn apart by violence. The violence is spreading to Afghanistan and even to Uzbekistan. Paul Krugman examines the Iraq mess in his column at www.nytimes.com:
In effect, America has been taken hostage. Nobody wants to take responsibility for the terrible scenes that will surely unfold if we leave (even though terrible scenes are unfolding while we're there). Nobody wants to tell the grieving parents of American soldiers that their children died in vain. And nobody wants to be accused, by an administration always ready to impugn other people's patriotism, of stabbing the troops in the back.
But the American military isn't just bogged down in Iraq; it's deteriorating under the strain. We may already be in real danger: what threats, exactly, can we make against the North Koreans? That John Bolton will yell at them? And every year that the war goes on, our military gets weaker.
Sunday, May 15, 2005
MAY 15, 2005
LET'S EXPAND THE SAFETY NET
The most prosperous time in U.S. history was from the end of World War II to about 1972. During that time the reforms and safety nets of the FDR's New Deal were in place. Since then we've seen right-wingers constantly assault the safety nets or try make them atrophy. Take for example, the federal minimum wage, which has been kept below the rate of inflation. As countries in Europe have expanded their safety nets, their economies have flourished. We find ourselves with nagging high unemployment, stagnant wages, and more demands on our time just to keep up. This article is from www.businessweek.com:
A Sept. 2-5, 2004, survey by the Civil Society Institute, a Newton Centre (Mass.) nonprofit group, found 67% of Americans think it's a good idea to guarantee health care for all U.S. citizens, as Canada and Britain do, with just 27% dissenting. Support for a government-directed universal insurance system is strong, despite GOP warnings about socialized medicine. Similarly, a Feb. 3-5 Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 47% of respondents believe the government ought to guarantee a minimum standard of living for retirees, vs. 35% who felt that was an individual's responsibility.
DON'T DRINK THE WATER
You've heard the old warning "Don't drink the water" when you visit some foreign countries. If a Bush plan succeeds, people can say that about the United States. Unbelievably, the Bush administration wants to allow a practice called "blending," which allows partially treated sewage to be dumped into rivers and other waterways. Maybe this is a tactic to help sell bottled water. But it poses a significant health threat to all of us. This story is at www.bushgreenwatch.org:
A Bush Administration proposal to routinely allow partially
treated sewage into America's waterways could face a roadblock
in Congress next week, when the House of Representatives is
expected to vote next week on the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) budget. Included is the opportunity to support the
Save Our Water From Sewage Act.
The bipartisan amendment to stop increased sewage dumping would
block EPA from finalizing a proposal that allows an increase in
the use of "blending", a process where partially treated waste
is dumped into lakes, rivers and streams.
IRAQ NEVER HAD A CHANCE
There is compelling evidence that even if the 9/11 attack hadn't occurred, the Bush administration planned to attack Iraq. We know now from the Downing Street Memo that plans to attack Iraq were already being made by the U.S. and British governments, even while the Bush administration kept publicly proclaiming it was seeking a peaceful alternative. According to the memo, intelligence was being "shaped" to justify war. David Sirota documents other evidence that Bush wanted a war with Iraq within days of taking office. This article is at www.davidsirota.com:
According to CBS 60 Minutes, then-Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill admits that "From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go. He said that "going after Saddam was topic '10' days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11." [Source: CBS 60 Minutes, 1/11/04]
CBS REPORTS IRAQ WAR PLANS ACCELERATED IMMEDIATELY AFTER 9/11: According to CBS News, "barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq — even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks." [Source: CBS News, 9/4/02]
TOP AMBASSADOR SAYS BUSH-BLAIR DEAL WORKED OUT IMMEDIATELY AFTER 9/11: According to the UK Observer, British Ambassador to the U.S. Sir Christopher Meyer admitted that "President George Bush first asked Tony Blair to support the removal of Saddam Hussein from power at a private White House dinner nine days after the terror attacks of 11 September, 2001." [London Observer, 4/4/04]
WHO'S IN CHARGE?
A few days ago, you'll recall, a small Cessna aircraft strayed into forbidden Washington, D.C., airspace. The Capitol was evacuated, some prominent people in the White House were moved to secure bunkers, and George W. Bush was blissfully off on a bike ride, totally unaware of the panic sweeping through the halls of power. We were subsequently informed that Mr. Bush didn't even know of the events until about an hour after it was all over. It brings back memories of September 11, when Mr. Bush was sitting in an elementary school classroom in Florida while a second jet crashed into the World Trade Center. He sat there for eight or nine minutes, unresponsive to the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil in our history. If aliens were to land in Washington, D.C., and request, "Take me to your leader," would it be George W. Bush or someone else? Joe Scarborough, a conservative commentator, is even disturbed about the lack of involvement by Mr. Bush. This excerpt is from The Daily Kos at www.dailykos.com:
I don't get it. All of America is glued to their TV sets . . . you've got people rushing out of government buildings all across Washington, D.C., and you don't notify the president of the United States? For an hour? Until after it's all over? Because, what, you don't want to disturb his bike ride in Maryland? I'm sorry, I just don't get it. . . .
"After I watched '[Fahrenheit] 9/11,' one of the parts that made me the angriest was the part about 'My Pet Goat.' I thought it was a cheap shot. I said, seven, eight, nine minutes, big deal. But here you have an attack going on -- or something most Americans thought was an attack -- for 15, 20, 30 minutes and the president of the United States not notified. Why?"
LET'S EXPAND THE SAFETY NET
The most prosperous time in U.S. history was from the end of World War II to about 1972. During that time the reforms and safety nets of the FDR's New Deal were in place. Since then we've seen right-wingers constantly assault the safety nets or try make them atrophy. Take for example, the federal minimum wage, which has been kept below the rate of inflation. As countries in Europe have expanded their safety nets, their economies have flourished. We find ourselves with nagging high unemployment, stagnant wages, and more demands on our time just to keep up. This article is from www.businessweek.com:
A Sept. 2-5, 2004, survey by the Civil Society Institute, a Newton Centre (Mass.) nonprofit group, found 67% of Americans think it's a good idea to guarantee health care for all U.S. citizens, as Canada and Britain do, with just 27% dissenting. Support for a government-directed universal insurance system is strong, despite GOP warnings about socialized medicine. Similarly, a Feb. 3-5 Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 47% of respondents believe the government ought to guarantee a minimum standard of living for retirees, vs. 35% who felt that was an individual's responsibility.
DON'T DRINK THE WATER
You've heard the old warning "Don't drink the water" when you visit some foreign countries. If a Bush plan succeeds, people can say that about the United States. Unbelievably, the Bush administration wants to allow a practice called "blending," which allows partially treated sewage to be dumped into rivers and other waterways. Maybe this is a tactic to help sell bottled water. But it poses a significant health threat to all of us. This story is at www.bushgreenwatch.org:
A Bush Administration proposal to routinely allow partially
treated sewage into America's waterways could face a roadblock
in Congress next week, when the House of Representatives is
expected to vote next week on the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) budget. Included is the opportunity to support the
Save Our Water From Sewage Act.
The bipartisan amendment to stop increased sewage dumping would
block EPA from finalizing a proposal that allows an increase in
the use of "blending", a process where partially treated waste
is dumped into lakes, rivers and streams.
IRAQ NEVER HAD A CHANCE
There is compelling evidence that even if the 9/11 attack hadn't occurred, the Bush administration planned to attack Iraq. We know now from the Downing Street Memo that plans to attack Iraq were already being made by the U.S. and British governments, even while the Bush administration kept publicly proclaiming it was seeking a peaceful alternative. According to the memo, intelligence was being "shaped" to justify war. David Sirota documents other evidence that Bush wanted a war with Iraq within days of taking office. This article is at www.davidsirota.com:
According to CBS 60 Minutes, then-Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill admits that "From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go. He said that "going after Saddam was topic '10' days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11." [Source: CBS 60 Minutes, 1/11/04]
CBS REPORTS IRAQ WAR PLANS ACCELERATED IMMEDIATELY AFTER 9/11: According to CBS News, "barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq — even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks." [Source: CBS News, 9/4/02]
TOP AMBASSADOR SAYS BUSH-BLAIR DEAL WORKED OUT IMMEDIATELY AFTER 9/11: According to the UK Observer, British Ambassador to the U.S. Sir Christopher Meyer admitted that "President George Bush first asked Tony Blair to support the removal of Saddam Hussein from power at a private White House dinner nine days after the terror attacks of 11 September, 2001." [London Observer, 4/4/04]
WHO'S IN CHARGE?
A few days ago, you'll recall, a small Cessna aircraft strayed into forbidden Washington, D.C., airspace. The Capitol was evacuated, some prominent people in the White House were moved to secure bunkers, and George W. Bush was blissfully off on a bike ride, totally unaware of the panic sweeping through the halls of power. We were subsequently informed that Mr. Bush didn't even know of the events until about an hour after it was all over. It brings back memories of September 11, when Mr. Bush was sitting in an elementary school classroom in Florida while a second jet crashed into the World Trade Center. He sat there for eight or nine minutes, unresponsive to the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil in our history. If aliens were to land in Washington, D.C., and request, "Take me to your leader," would it be George W. Bush or someone else? Joe Scarborough, a conservative commentator, is even disturbed about the lack of involvement by Mr. Bush. This excerpt is from The Daily Kos at www.dailykos.com:
I don't get it. All of America is glued to their TV sets . . . you've got people rushing out of government buildings all across Washington, D.C., and you don't notify the president of the United States? For an hour? Until after it's all over? Because, what, you don't want to disturb his bike ride in Maryland? I'm sorry, I just don't get it. . . .
"After I watched '[Fahrenheit] 9/11,' one of the parts that made me the angriest was the part about 'My Pet Goat.' I thought it was a cheap shot. I said, seven, eight, nine minutes, big deal. But here you have an attack going on -- or something most Americans thought was an attack -- for 15, 20, 30 minutes and the president of the United States not notified. Why?"
Saturday, May 14, 2005
MAY 14, 2005
JOB CREATION MORE HYPE THAN REALITY
We get periodic reports in the mainstream media about the number of new jobs created and how "robust" the U.S. economy is. Don't believe the hype. The kind of jobs being created now are not the kind of jobs that can create and sustain a middle class. This article by Paul Craig Roberts is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Of the 274,000 April jobs, 256,000 were in the private or nongovernment sector, and 211,000 of these were in the service sector as follows: 58,000 in leisure and hospitality (primarily restaurants and bars), 47,000 in construction, 29,200 in wholesale and retail trade, 28,000 in health care and social assistance, 17,300 in administrative and support services (primarily temps), 11,700 in transportation and warehousing, 8,800 in real estate. A few scattered jobs in other service categories completes the picture.
A ROTTEN DEAL FOR WORKERS
In theory, when productivity increases wages should keep pace. But that hasn't happened in the U.S. economy in the past 30 years. American workers are possibly the most productive in the world, but wages have lagged far behind productivity. In the meantime, profits have surged. This article by Max B. Sawicky is at www.tompaine.com:
For the past 30 years productivity has grown well ahead of compensation. This is so for both average and median pay levels. Since 1973, productivity has grown by over 70 percent. Median and average pay have grown by, respectively, 13 and 38 percent. The gap between what could be paid and what is paid has gotten larger over this entire period. We are talking long-term trends here that do not depend on recent history or the current regime, so much as the chronic disadvantage workers have had vis-à-vis employers.
NEW VIOLENCE IN AFGHANISTAN
Wave after wave of new violence has been rocking Iraq, and now the violence is flaring anew in Afghanistan. People are protesting the desecration of the Koran at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo. According to reports, a copy of the Koran was flushed down a toilet. Our record in dealing with Muslims is appalling. We've invaded their countries, tortured their citizens, used depleted uranium that causes horrible birth defects, and now we're desecrating the book they consider sacred. How would the Christian right in this country react if someone flushed the Bible down the toilet? This story by N.C. Aizenman and Robin Wright is at www.washingtonpost.com:
Angry mobs ransacked government offices and relief agencies and clashed with police in several provinces Friday in a fourth day of growing anti-American demonstrations. The violence left at least eight people dead and raised the death toll since Wednesday to about 15, officials said.
The demonstrations represent the most widespread expression of anti-American sentiment since U.S.-led troops ousted the Islamic Taliban militia in late 2001. They have caused growing worry for the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai, who is due to visit Washington later this month.
JOB CREATION MORE HYPE THAN REALITY
We get periodic reports in the mainstream media about the number of new jobs created and how "robust" the U.S. economy is. Don't believe the hype. The kind of jobs being created now are not the kind of jobs that can create and sustain a middle class. This article by Paul Craig Roberts is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Of the 274,000 April jobs, 256,000 were in the private or nongovernment sector, and 211,000 of these were in the service sector as follows: 58,000 in leisure and hospitality (primarily restaurants and bars), 47,000 in construction, 29,200 in wholesale and retail trade, 28,000 in health care and social assistance, 17,300 in administrative and support services (primarily temps), 11,700 in transportation and warehousing, 8,800 in real estate. A few scattered jobs in other service categories completes the picture.
A ROTTEN DEAL FOR WORKERS
In theory, when productivity increases wages should keep pace. But that hasn't happened in the U.S. economy in the past 30 years. American workers are possibly the most productive in the world, but wages have lagged far behind productivity. In the meantime, profits have surged. This article by Max B. Sawicky is at www.tompaine.com:
For the past 30 years productivity has grown well ahead of compensation. This is so for both average and median pay levels. Since 1973, productivity has grown by over 70 percent. Median and average pay have grown by, respectively, 13 and 38 percent. The gap between what could be paid and what is paid has gotten larger over this entire period. We are talking long-term trends here that do not depend on recent history or the current regime, so much as the chronic disadvantage workers have had vis-à-vis employers.
NEW VIOLENCE IN AFGHANISTAN
Wave after wave of new violence has been rocking Iraq, and now the violence is flaring anew in Afghanistan. People are protesting the desecration of the Koran at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo. According to reports, a copy of the Koran was flushed down a toilet. Our record in dealing with Muslims is appalling. We've invaded their countries, tortured their citizens, used depleted uranium that causes horrible birth defects, and now we're desecrating the book they consider sacred. How would the Christian right in this country react if someone flushed the Bible down the toilet? This story by N.C. Aizenman and Robin Wright is at www.washingtonpost.com:
Angry mobs ransacked government offices and relief agencies and clashed with police in several provinces Friday in a fourth day of growing anti-American demonstrations. The violence left at least eight people dead and raised the death toll since Wednesday to about 15, officials said.
The demonstrations represent the most widespread expression of anti-American sentiment since U.S.-led troops ousted the Islamic Taliban militia in late 2001. They have caused growing worry for the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai, who is due to visit Washington later this month.
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