Independent Periodic News and Analysis
Number 316, December 30, 2005
On the Web at http://www.nygaardnotes.org/
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This Week: The Nygaard Notes The Year in Review
1. “Quote” of the Week
2. The Year’s Top (Non) Stories
3. Nygaard Notes Year in Review, 2005 Version
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Greetings,
The last issue of the year, in Nygaardnotesland, is reserved for the annual “Year in Review,” a look back at the preceding twelve months of the Notes. As I always point out, there are several reasons to do this review.
First of all, I always worry that new readers might think that the first two or three issues of the Notes is “what it is.” For instance, the new readers who have come on board in the past three or four weeks might think that Nygaard Notes is “about” propaganda. Readers who came on board last January might have thought that the Notes is “about” morality politics. So, a review that runs through the variety of things that have been in the Notes over the course of a year might remind people that Nygaard Notes is characterized by nothing if not variety!
Secondly, it is good for yours truly to see what I’ve been up to all year. This year, for instance, was the year I went away from a weekly format to a periodic format. So, instead of the traditional 44-48 issues, I only sent out 34 issues this year. Some people have told me that this is a good thing, as the weekly issue was “too much” for them. I, myself, was a little frustrated at how many things I did not get around to discussing this year. But, when I actually looked at what was in the Notes this year, the scope and depth of what I ran was greater than I had been thinking it was. A reality check!
Finally—shocking though it may be!—it has come to my attention that some subscribers do not read each and every issue of the Notes! For those people, a little summary of what they may have missed can’t be a bad thing. (By the way: There is no tax advantage to doing so, but the end of the year is a great time to make a pledge of support to Nygaard Notes! $5.00, $50.00, $500.00. What a great idea!)
So, there you go: The Year in Review is good for new readers, good for Nygaard, and good for long-time readers. Everyone is happy!
I hope you are happy as we let go of the year 2005 and careen into the year 2006. There’ll be lots to talk about, as always. I can hardly wait, and I’m excited to have you all along for the ride!
Nygaard
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1.
“Quote” of the Week
Doug Thompson, publisher of Capitol Hill Blue, a political newsletter out of Washington (http://www.capitolhillblue.com/) writes in the December 9th edition about a November meeting between Republican Congressional leaders and “President” George W. Bush in which they talked “about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.” (For a brief overview of what this law is about, check out this brief report from the Congressional Research Service: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RS22348.pdf)
According to Thompson, some of the Republican lawmakers warned Mr. Bush that he risked alienating some conservatives if he pushed too hard on some of “the more onerous provisions of the act.” At one point, an aide in the meeting is reported to have said: “Mr. President, there is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”
Thompson says that “three people present for the meeting that day...all confirm” that the “President” replied to that comment as follows:
“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face. It's just a goddamned piece of paper!”
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2.
The Year’s Top (Non) Stories
The nation’s major news service, the Associated Press (AP) just came out with their list of the “Top News Stories” of 2005, as they do every year. There are things to be learned—or at least things to ponder—when looking at this list, or any of the various such lists that come out around the end of each year.
It’s not surprising to see that Hurricane Katrina was considered the top story overall. It is surprising—at least to me—that the U.S. occupation of Iraq ranked only third on the list, after the papal transition from John Paul to Benedict. The remaining eight stories on the AP’s list were the Supreme Court vacancies, high oil prices, the London bombings, the massive earthquake in Pakistan, the Terri Schiavo end-of-life drama, the leak of the identity of secret CIA agent Valerie Plame by someone in the Bush administration, and the falling approval ratings of the “President” himself.
Part of what is interesting to me about all these lists of “Top Stories” is the tremendously important things that do NOT make any of the major lists. This year, as always, there were several major, major stories that were not on the AP’s list, nor on any of the other lists that I’ve seen so far.
Perhaps the biggest story not on the list is the ongoing collapse of the U.S. health-care system. It’s an “old” story, but opinion polls consistently show it to be among the top concerns of respondents. There are several “Top Stories” here, actually, ranging from the increase in the number of uninsured to 46 million in 2005 (with another 16 million “underinsured”) to the fact that our country has the highest health-care costs in the world, yet ranks near the bottom in overall health indicators among wealthy countries. Isn’t this a “Top Story?” I don’t see it on the AP’s list.
One major story that was barely reported, let alone put on any “Top Stories” lists, was the President’s defeat on Social Security reform. This fantastic failure made no “Top Stories” lists, and when it was reported in the nation’s press, the approach of USA Today was typical. Their October 10th headline on the subject said, “Bush’s Plan Dies Quietly,” but the complete failure of President Bush’s “top domestic policy priority” is only quiet if the media decides it is, of course. No “Top Stories” list for this top story.
One Top Story that is almost guaranteed to never make any lists of “Top Stories” is the decline in the quality of the media itself. 2005 was filled with stories about the budget cuts and other cost-cutting measures that are being implemented across the board in U.S. news organizations, and the accompanying degeneration in news reporting. This “Top Story” has to do with the changing nature of the nation’s “Top Stories.” Who is going to report these? Not the Associated Press, most likely. Probably Nygaard Notes.
So, as we approach the end of the year, and you begin to see and hear reports of “the Top News Stories of 2005,” ask yourself what is really meant by “top” news stories. Is it the stories that were most important in helping our democracy to flourish? Or is it the stories that got the highest TV ratings? Think about that, then make your own list of the “Top Stories” of the year. I’ll bet it will look a little different.
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3.
Nygaard Notes Year in Review, 2005 Version
We started off the year of 2005 with the “Fantasy Versus Reality” series, which took a look at the phenomenon known as “morality politics” as it plays out in the realm of teen sex, teen drugs, and teens in “boot camp”-style “correctional” facilities. That series ran in JANUARY and FEBRUARY.
A revised version of this series ran later in the year as a feature article in Z Magazine, with the title “Sex, Drugs, and Teens: Fantasy Versus Reality in Morality Politics.”
(Some people didn’t like the series. In response to the first installment about sex, which I subtitled “The Absolutists Versus the Rest of Us”, one angry reader wrote to tell me that “you’re a rather foul kind of absolutist yourself,” and added suspiciously that “I'm not quite sure what your agenda really is...” So, in issue #288 I wrote “Individual Versus Social: About My Agenda.” No sense keeping these things a secret.)
Immediately following that, in FEBRUARY, I ran a piece called “Social Security: The Fundamental Issue.” In the Nygaard Notes typical “plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face” style, I explained the difference between a program of SOCIAL INSURANCE—which is what Social Security is, and was intended to be—and a program of INDIVIDUAL INVESTMENT—which is what Mr. Bush and his allies would LIKE it to be. And I did it all in 1,200 words!
Also in FEBRUARY, I ran the piece called “Reversing Our Thinking – Learning Empathy,” in which I said that empathy “is the ability—and willingness—to put oneself in another’s place and ACTIVELY imagine what a situation must be like for that other person. The better you are at empathy, the more compassionate and loving you can be.” Then I explained a little bit about how to develop this ability.
In the month of MARCH I talked about the plans of the“President” for the elimination or severe reductions to 154 federal programs, plans that went largely unreported in the nation’s press. I also talked, in MARCH, about Haiti, giving a little background on the current outrageous state of affairs in that country, and the outrageous reporting about it in the U.S. press.
Later in the month of MARCH I did a pair of pieces called “Reporting Lies I” and “Reporting Lies II,” both of which were about the responsibility of the media when newsmakers say things that are (shall we say?) less than factual. Here are my two favorite comments (I’m quoting myself!?) from the pieces. I just have to quote my favorite line from these pieces: “When a public figure utters an amazing falsehood to a reporter from a major newspaper, it’s not the reporter’s job to read his mind, or to make up excuses for him. It’s the reporter’s job to report what people say and how it fits with the facts. Journalism, after all, is journalism, and public relations is supposed to be something else entirely.”
When APRIL rolled around, I reported on the release of what has been called “the biggest review of the planet's life support systems ever,” the Millennium Ecosystems Assessment. This report, put out by the United Nations Environmental Programme, warned of a looming collapse of the global environment over the next 50 years, the averting of which will require “radical changes in the way nature is treated at every level of decision-making.” I pointed out how this genuine crisis went almost unremarked in the U.S., while a false and manufactured “crisis” in Social Security dominated the media.
In the month of MAY I returned to the subject of Social Security, running no fewer than FIVE separate articles on the “crisis” supposedly facing the program. I debunked some of the hysterical myths that have been hyped (unsuccessfully, we now know) by the “President” and other foes of the program. The retirement of the baby boomers, the unfunded liabilities, bankruptcy, the trust fund—I talked about all of those things in MAY, then I took a break to talk about...
Venezuela. And Colombia. I talked about U.S. efforts to subvert democracy in Venezuela, and the phony “war on drugs” in Colombia. I expect I’ll have a lot more to say about both of these countries in 2006. Bolivia, too.
In JUNE I returned again to Social Security, giving some facts about the alleged “successes” of individualized Social Security programs in Chile, England, and Galveston, Texas, all of which are supposed to be “models” for the U.S. The facts say otherwise, and it’s all there in Issue #298.
Late JUNE brought the Nygaard Notes Pledge Drive of 2005, which included a piece on “The Role of the Public Intellectual.” I also talked about the “Damsel in Distress” syndrome that we read about in our daily papers. I mentioned Tamika Huston of Spartanburg, S.C. Never heard of her? That’s the point!
In JULY I wrote about a “lunge for the jugular vein of the welfare state” that has been quietly going forward at the highest levels. That lunge is the effort to do away with the income tax. (The “jugular vein” metaphor was not mine, by the way; I was quoting the Wall Street Journal.) I had thought this was going to be the first of many articles about the income tax, since the right-wing plan for years has been to go after the income tax after their first two priorities were gotten rid of, those being “welfare” and Social Security. Well, welfare has been decimated, but Bush’s attack on Social Security has failed. So I don’t think Part Three of the attack on the “welfare state” is going to go too far. (I could be wrong. We’ll see what the “President” says next month in his State of the Union address. If the income tax is emphasized, I’ll tell you more about it. Deal?)
The first thing I did in AUGUST was to spell out the ominous Return of The Nukes that was hidden in plain sight in the federal Energy Bill that the “President” signed early that month. I also gave some resources for action on energy and the racism that goes with our current energy policy environment.
Later in AUGUST I talked about the so-called “settlements” that Israel continues to construct in the Occupied Territories, and how rare it is for U.S. media reports to mention that they are illegal under international law. Speaking of the law, I also talked about how the Italian courts were thinking about ordering the arrest of some CIA agents for kidnaping a man in Italy. I thought it should have been shocking that the U.S. government has no intention of abiding by the law in this case, but nobody seemed too shocked. (Arrest warrants were, in fact, issued for 22 CIA agents, just last week, an important story barely reported in this country.)
I followed that issue with a special anti-war issue, offering resources and information on various anti-war and anti-recruitment efforts, and some practical “Tips for Staying Informed” on what is happening in Iraq. Also in August, I touched on MN senator Norm Coleman’s “crusade” against the U.N., the oil companies’ ten-year fraud perpetrated against “high octane” fuel buyers, and I explained why so-called “free trade” is not “free.”
SEPTEMBER saw me writing, like everyone else, about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Specifically, I explained “Operation Offset,” which is the horrendous “conservative response” to Katrina. Lots of details; read it and weep. (Then DO something!) I also reported on the theft of $1 billion from the Iraq Defense Ministry (out of a total budget of $1.3 billion). Remarkable. Almost unnoticed in the U.S.
In OCTOBER there was LOTS more about Katrina. And more unreported news, specifically: some surprising facts from the 2006 “World Development Report” from the World Bank; a major report on the costs of the Iraq occupation; and a report showing that the number of genocides and violent conflicts, worldwide, has dropped rapidly in the wake of the Cold War.
NOVEMBER and DECEMBER have been consumed by this big series on Propaganda, which is still in progress, but from which we are taking a break to do this Year in Review.
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Jeff Nygaard
National Writers Union
Twin Cities Local #13 UAW
Nygaard Notes
http://www.nygaardnotes.org
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