26 January 2006 -- Back in 2002, with the country still reeling
from the 9/11 attacks, the AWOL Bush administration unveiled a new
intelligence program that granted traditional law enforcement
agencies as well as the FBI and the CIA the authority to conduct
what was then called "suspicionless surveillance" of American
citizens.
This "suspicionless surveillance" program was developed by the
Pentagon's controversial Total Information Awareness department, led
by Admiral John Poindexter
Republican and Democratic lawmakers concerned about domestic spying,
led Congress to shut down the surveillance program in 2003. Several
current and former NSA officials said, that shortly after this shut
down, AWOL Bush signed an executive order authorizing the National
Security Agency to secretly eavesdrop on American citizens' email
and international phone calls, thereby continuing, in effect, a
domestic spying program that Congress had objected to.
Back in the summer of 2002, a public outcry over the revelation that
JetBlue Airways turned over the names and addresses of 1.5 million
passengers to the Pentagon so the agency could create a database
about Americans' travel patterns, and allowed intelligence officials
to monitor credit card transactions, forced Congress to withhold
tens of millions of dollars in funding for the project.
Despite assurances that the federal government would not misuse the
program, the JetBlue revelation proved that the administration was
willing to sacrifice individual privacy rights in the name of
national security. JetBlue officials said the airline was pressured
by the Pentagon to hand over its private customer data to a Pentagon
contractor named Torch Concepts. The contractor then bought
demographic information on nearly half of the passengers from
Acxicom, a marketing company. Torch then put together a study and
posted it on the Internet.
Poindexter's plan, which barely got off the ground before Congress
stepped in and dismantled the project, proposed to use state-of-the-
art computer systems at the Army's Intelligence and Security
Command, headquartered at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, to secretly
monitor emails, credit-card transactions, phone records and bank
statements of hundreds of thousands of American citizens WITHOUT
PROBABLE CAUSE.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012606I.shtml
Comment:
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads as follows:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,
shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon
probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly
describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be
seized."
The police have probable cause to believe they can find evidence
that you committed a crime, and a judge issues a search warrant, or
the particular circumstances justify the search without a warrant
first being issued.
http://www.nolo.com/article.cfm/catId/3900BEB2-2599-4E9F-
B5F09F0DF3E33C7B/objectId/DED24689-ADA8-4785-
887A0B4A19A694DE/104/143/ART/
Background:
The Wackenhut Corporation maintained and updated its files even
after the McCarthyite hysteria had ebbed, adding the names of
antiwar protesters and civil-rights demonstrators to its list
of "derogatory types." By 1965, Wackenhut was boasting to potential
investors that the company maintained files on 2.5 million suspected
dissidents-one in 46 American adults then living. in 1966, after
acquiring the private files of Karl Barslaag; a former staff member
of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Wackenhut could
confidently maintain that with more than 4 million names, it had the
largest privately held file on suspected dissidents in America. In
1975, after Congress investigated companies that had private files,
Wackenhut gave its files to the now-defunct Anti-Communist Church
League of America of Wheaton, Illinois. That organization had worked
closely with the red squads of big-city police departments,
particularly in New York and L.A., spying on suspected sympathizers;
George Wackenhut was personal friends with the League's leaders, and
was a major contributor to the group.
(Source: Age of Surveillance by Frank Donner and Inside the
Shadow CIA by John Connolly, SPY Magazine - Sept 1992 - Volume 6)
The FBI Library Awareness Program was a program that ran for about
25 years, in which FBI agents tried to enlist the assistance of
librarians in monitoring the reading habits of "suspicious"
individuals. FBI agents clandestinely visited libraries to track the
reading habits of people from communist countries, people with
foreign-sounding names, and people with foreign accents.
As part of its Library Awareness Program, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation conducted numerous counterintelligence activities in
libraries, including requesting confidential information on library
users based solely on their nationality.
The Cold War–era counterintelligence program arose out of
suspicions that Soviet agents were searching the stacks for valuable
technical data, and targeted scientific and technical libraries,
including some public and university libraries. As part of the
program, agents asked library staff members to report the use of
unclassified scientific reading materials by people from "hostile
foreign nations." Often, FBI agents who didn't have subpoenas or
search warrants approached lower-level workers for information,
which they used intimidation tactics to obtain. One FBI document
reveals an extended investigation of librarians who criticized this
Bureau's program. National Commission on Libraries and Information
Science (NCLIS) became heavily politicized and acquiesced to the
spying.
(Source: Herbert N. Foerstel, Surveillance in the Stacks: The FBI's
Library Awareness Program, (Greenwood Press 1991)
Comment: Private security personnel currently outnumber police
officers in the United States by three to one. At the present time,
the Fourth Amendment does not apply to searches carried out by non-
governmental employees like private security guards.
For example, assume that a shopping mall security guard acting on a
pure hunch searches a teenager's backpack. Inside the backpack the
guard finds a baggie containing an illegal drug. The guard can
detain the teenager, call the police, and turn the drug over to a
police officer. The drug is admissible in evidence, because the
search was conducted by a private security guard. As private
security guards increasingly exercise traditional police functions,
courts may one day apply Fourth Amendment guidelines to their
conduct.
http://www.nolo.com/article.cfm/catId/3900BEB2-2599-4E9F-
B5F09F0DF3E33C7B/objectId/DED24689-ADA8-4785-
887A0B4A19A694DE/104/143/ART/
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit for research and educational purposes. MY
NEWSLETTER has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this
article nor is MY NEWSLETTER endorsed or sponsored by the
originator.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewsViewsnoloseor the best of N&V at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newsviewsnolose2
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RunningOnEmptyDemocratCaucusWA/
and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RunningOnEmptyCaucusDemocratsUSA
Monday, January 30, 2006
Redemption and Weirdness on the Farm
| The new documentary 'The Real Dirt on Farmer John' offers a wonderfully eccentric look at the past and future of the family farm. |
John Peterson is going through a miniature existential crisis. "Do you think I'm a farmer if I'm not farming?" he asked during a recent interview. "Is 'documentary film subject' a career?"
Put in perspective, Peterson's question makes a lot of sense. A farmer his entire life, the 55-year-old from Illinois has spent the better part of a year, and as much of the foreseeable future as he cares to think about, on the road promoting "The Real Dirt on Farmer John," a film about his life.
The constant touring is paying off at long last, and critics and audiences alike are singing its praises. According to director Taggart Siegel, "The Real Dirt" has won 18 film festival awards to date -- among them, grand jury prizes at the Newport Film Festival and the San Francisco International Film Festival and audience awards at Slamdance and the Chicago International Documentary Film Festival.
Among its many fans are Nina Utne, Roger Ebert and Al Gore, who gave a special introduction to the film at last year's Green Screen Film Festival in San Francisco.
Given all this acclaim, it's not surprising that the film is moving toward a wider theatrical release. Earlier this month, "The Real Dirt" opened in Chicago, and it opens today in San Francisco and Berkeley. Over the next few months, it will spread to Minneapolis, Portland, New York City, Los Angeles and beyond.
It's all very exciting, of course -- but as the tours and promotion continue, Peterson's return to his farm drifts off over the horizon. "I'll be there for two hours in probably the next four months," he said. "From 11:00 until 1:00 on the 20th of this month. Isn't that wild?"
What is the real dirt?
This extended touring is a bittersweet experience for Peterson. Clearly, the fact that he's still on the road after a year of steady travel is a sign of success -- an indicator of how passionately audiences respond to his story. But for a man with such deep connections to the land, leaving his Caledonia, Ill., home for so long can be an arduous and uprooting experience.
As Peterson says in the film, "The farm has [gotten] in the way of every romance I've ever had. It's like the farm's my wife. Of course, some of my girlfriends have been very jealous of the farm, because whatever the farm has wanted, I pretty much have been willing to give to it. But I managed to get a date in now and then."
Fortunately for us, Peterson's girlfriends, family and friends -- including director Taggart Siegel -- have documented his life on the farm, leaving behind reels of home movies and professional films. Siegel explained, "It's really amazing that we have all this footage. And it's amazing we had that footage in the 50s, when Mom shot all the home movies. She was like a documentary filmmaker. So we had all that, the 50s and the 60s, and John shot the hippie period [on the farm] in the 70s, and then I came on board and for the last 25 years. I've basically been filming on and off."
The decades of documentary filmmaking that have occurred on the farm grant viewers a glimpse of every stage of Peterson's growth, on the farm and off. His childhood, surrounded by family and friends, is a snapshot of an archetypal rural life that is slowly dying away. But when John signs up at nearby Beloit College and takes over the farm after his father's death from diabetes, his life changes almost immediately. He falls in love with the artists and free-thinkers on campus, thrives on their curiosity and spirit, and his farm gradually becomes a sort of working farm-slash-artist's colony, which they christen "The Midwest Coast."
But even as the creative life thrives on Peterson's farm, his neighbors get suspicious, angry and eventually violent -- a classic and unfortunate example of small-town conservatism giving way to fear and hatred. During the film, we see examples of the late-night drive-bys, rumor-mongering and, eventually, the arson that ruins Peterson's life in Caledonia.
Heaping misery upon misery, Peterson's mistreatment at the hands of his neighbors coincides with the calamitous farm crises of the 1980s. Three decades after being urged to "get big or get out," farms that sunk borrowed fortunes in heavy equipment found crop prices dropping and no way to stay afloat. Peterson's farm was one of many casualties of this collapse. Shunned by his community and driven from the land, Peterson is forced to reexamine his life's purpose.
Redemption from the roots up
At its heart, "The Real Dirt on Farmer John" is a story of redemption. Its power derives not from its focus on farming, but its message of the importance of change: failing in order to later succeed, and learning to embrace and benefit from disastrous changes.
"I think this film is about so much more than farming," Siegel said. "I think it crosses political lines, so we can get people that would normally not see this kind of film to see it, because it's not political. It's more about what sustains us all."
The film truly isn't political, but it touches on many enormous political issues, from the economic-political issues of farming, development and the importance of rural communities as well as the social-political issues about diversity, acceptance and resisting fear and hatred of all things different.
Part of its impact, Peterson believes, stems from the long, slow shift Americans have made in the past century from a predominantly rural country where even Congress organized its schedule around farm season, to an urban and suburban country grown miserably detached from its food supply.
"I think people in these really concentrated urban lives, at some point they are gonna need to have a conscious relationship to land, and the source of food," Peterson continued. "People need to feel like they have a relationship to that aspect of life."
"The Real Dirt on Farmer John" is screening in select cities around the country. To find a screening near you, visit TheRealDirt.net.
Matthew Wheeland is AlterNet's managing editor.
Bursting Hollywood's 'Bubble'
| Steven Soderbergh's new flick just might be the end of the megaplex. |
Q: A movie you want to see is releasing today in simultaneous formats. Would you rather:1. See it in your living room, where it will air on pay-per-view cable TV at 9 p.m. and 11 p.m.?
2. Go to a theater and see it on a big screen?
3. Wait four days, when it comes out on DVD, and buy and see it then?
Today, the movie industry will have America's answer to this question.
It's the first time a high-profile director will be releasing his film in theaters, on DVD and on cable television simultaneously. And it might mean big changes in the way Hollywood does business over the next decade -- much the way downloaded music has changed the way the music industry operates.
The groundbreaking film in question is called "Bubble," and the director is Steven Soderbergh, who helmed such greats as "sex, lies and videotape," "Traffic," "Erin Brockovich" and "Che." Critics have called the movie "too indie" and "the weirdest goddamn movie ever released by a major American filmmaker," but the plotline seems fairly standard: A love triangle develops between workers at a doll factory in a small Midwestern town. A murder occurs. Mayhem ensues. Soderbergh used mostly nonprofessional actors from the West Virginia and Ohio locales where he shot the film and spent a mere $1.7 million making it. He had no script, instead teaching the actors to improvise scenes based on a screenwriter's outline, and the movie is a mere 73 minutes long.
Nothing too out of the ordinary so far. But it's the marketing strategy that has given the movie enormous buzz. It will be shown in theaters across the country and aired on HDNET movies on Friday at 9:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. EST. The following Tuesday, Magnolia Home Entertainment will release the DVD for sale. Typically, movies have a few months' lag time between theatrical and DVD release. After the theater, studios will release them on pay per view, then DVD, then cable networks, and eventually on broadcast TV, to capitalize on the profits of each phase's sales. Typically, a movie makes about 50 percent of its revenue on home video, and about 25 percent from theaters. The rest comes from selling its TV and other rights.
But Soderbergh and his backers, internet billionaires Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban, say this new simultaneous release strategy, dubbed the "day-and-date model," is a way to get the upper hand on a trend that's already begun.
"Name any big-title movie that's come out in the last four years," Soderbergh said in a recent interview. "It has been available in all formats on the day of release. It's called piracy. Simultaneous release is already here. We're just trying to gain control over it."
It's well-known that theaters have been hit hard by the recent slump in box office sales. Ticket sales in 2005 continued their four-year downward spiral, going down 7 percent from 2004, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations. A number of factors have been cited: online piracy, counterfeit DVD sales, thanks to DVD-burning technology, increased theater ticket prices and pre-movie ads, and the plethora of big-screen TVs and home entertainment systems. People aren't as willing to shell out $20 for a ticket and concessions unless the movie is a big-screen blockbuster like "King Kong."
Soderbergh says the independent film industry has been hit particularly hard by this trend. Fewer theaters will show indie films, which typically draw smaller crowds. Through simultaneous release, he says he's allowing his audience to choose for itself how it wants to see the movie. The new strategy would also let studios leverage the millions of dollars they spend marketing new movies. To compensate for lost ticket sales, the initial DVD sale price of "Bubble" will include a $10 premium, and 1 percent of sales will be given to theaters that show the movie.
But theater owners aren't fans of the simultaneous-release strategy. They worry that if adopted more widely, it could bankrupt cinema chains, regardless of the premium. So far, the only chain that's signed on is Cuban's Landmark Theaters, which will show the film in about 20 of its theaters. The film will additionally be shown in about 15 art house theaters nationwide
"It's the biggest threat to the viability of the cinema industry today," John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, said in a recent interview about the release strategy.
The problem of creative distribution is one that every segment of the entertainment industry is currently grappling with. Take music: CD sales took a huge hit in the wake of illegal online music downloads, and music companies eventually responded with their own legal pay-per-song online stores. Still, it's too easy to download music for free and the industry is still suffering, and critics say it's because execs didn't deal with the problem until it was too late. Television studios are trying to be more proactive, providing popular TV shows for download as they air, for a fee.
Whether "Bubble" will pave the way for major studios to release films in competing formats at once is questionable. In early January, News Corp. CEO Peter Chernin said his company planned to release their films via cable, satellite or DVD 60 days after the theatrical release. Disney's CFO also said the company was not averse to experimenting with different release models. Indie companies such as IFC have already taken the bait: IFC just announced it will release 24 of its films in theaters and on cable simultaneously this year.
But studios and big names in Hollywood have come out against the strategy. M. Night Shyamalan, of "The Sixth Sense" and "Signs" fame, told a crowd at a theater convention that it was "the worst idea I've ever heard."
"If you tell audiences there's no difference between a theatrical experience and a DVD, then that's it, game's over, and that whole art form is going to go away slowly," he told "The Hollywood Reporter" in October. "I'm going to stop making movies if they end the cinema experience."
But the studios need to address the effect of technology on their industry, pronto. At least Soderbergh's film provides an opportunity to get in front of an inescapable trend, as opposed to weakly reacting to it at a later date. Consumers are more emboldened now than ever, because they have the ability to get products sooner, legally or not, and thus to reshape industries.
"Bubble" is only the first of six films to be produced under the new partnership between Soderbergh and 2929 Entertainment, founded by Wagner and Cuban, which also own Magnolia Pictures, the movie's distributor. All six films will have a similar release strategy. Soderbergh and company see "Bubble" not as a solution, but as the first step in an experiment in giving consumers what they want while trying to maintain profits.
In the short run, the day-to-date model might be more viable for the independent film industry because its lower budgets and profits make for lower risks. But the box office slump and the talk around "Bubble" have opened up Hollywood's eyes to the fact that it needs to get serious about creating new distribution models. In the long run, that could mean more power in the hands of consumers to support the artists they love. And that's a good thing.
Monica Mehta is a writer based in San Francisco and a former AlterNet associate editor.
Firesign update: Peter Bergman in LA Feb. 6
Peter Bergman will be taping a demo of his new speech,
"The Nervous Optimist's Guide To The Future" on Monday,
February 6th from 2 PM to 4 PM at The Groundlings Theater,
7307 Melrose Los Angeles 90046 just west of La Brea at
Poinsettia. Their telephone number is: 323-934-4747.
This is a CLOSED TAPING not open to the general public,
but if any Firesign fans would like to attend, email
firesign@firesigntheatre.com and we'll see if we can
get you on the admission list.
I'm gonna cut the soles off my shoes,
sit in a tree, and learn to play the flute.
-- Firesign Theatre
Filibuster Alito
By John Kerry
DailyKos
Do I support a filibuster? The answer is yes.
Yesterday Senator Kennedy and I spoke with our colleagues about it. I don't have a shred of doubt in my opposition to Sam Alto's nomination. I know Senator Kennedy does not either. He has truly been a great leader in the effort to oppose Judge Alito.
I spent a lot of time over the last years thinking about the Supreme Court and who
I voted against Justice Roberts, I feel even more strongly about Judge Alito. Why? Rather than live up to the promise of "equal justice under the law," he's consistently made it harder for the most disadvantaged Americans to have their day in court. He routinely defers to excessive government power regardless of how extreme or egregious the government's actions are. And, to this date, his only statement on record regarding a woman's right to privacy is that she doesn't have one.
I said yesterday that President Bush had the opportunity to nominate someone who would unite the country in a time of extreme division. He chose not to do this, and that is his right. But we have every right, in fact, we have a responsibility, to fight against a radical ideological shift on the Supreme Court. Just think about how this nomination came to be. Under fire from his conservative base for nominating Harriet Miers-a woman whose judicial philosophy they mercilessly attacked-President Bush broke to extreme right-wing demands.
This was a coup.
Miers was removed and Alito was installed to replace the swing vote on the Court. The President gave no thought to what the American people really wanted - or needed. So it's up to us to think about what
Here's the bottom line though and I'll just be blunt and direct about it. It takes more than one or two people to filibuster. It's not "Mr. Smith Goes to
Media Symposium Will Bring Together Native andNon-Native Leaders
| The Friends Committee on National Legislation is a coordinator of the first ever national media symposium for Native and non-Native leaders, “Hear OUR Story: Communications and Contemporary Native Americans.” March 2-3, 2006 For just $50 you can attend and participate in the symposium that will feature over two dozen nationally acclaimed Native political, intellectual, and media leaders. Here’s what you get: THURSDAY MARCH 2nd MORNING SESSIONS: AFTERNOON SESSIONS: FRIDAY MARCH 3rd MORNING SESSIONS: Sign up today by selecting “online” or “print-out” registration at http://www.fcnl.org/nativeam/media_symp.htm Feel free to contact our office with any questions or concerns. Email us or call toll free 1-800-630-1330 x2512 ****NEED LODGING? Stay at the same hotel that will house the event for a special reduced rate of $185 per night (same price for a single or a double). To access this bloc of rooms you must make your own reservation and tell the hotel you wish to reserve a room within the bloc set aside for the Friends Committee on National Legislation’s “in-house reservations.” The Wyndham Washington’s phone number is 202-429-1700 and they can also be found on-line at http://www.wyndham.com/hotels/DCAHT/main.wnt The closest metro stop to the hotel is McPherson Square (3 blocks away) on the Orange and Blue Line. BACKGROUND: The absence of Indian voices in the mainstream media and popular culture affects public perceptions which in turn affect public policies. Participants in the Native American media symposium, “Hear Our Story” will discuss ways to improve coverage and address misinformation in the media. Religious groups and non-profit associations will figure out practical mechanisms to support indigenous people through their publications. Strategies will be worked out to assure that representative, accurate, and timely stories will be included in the broader media. To request more information please go to http://www.fcnl.org/nativeam/symposium.php _______________________________________ Honor the Promises to Native Americans: http://www.fcnl.org/nativeam/ Contact Congress and the Administration: http://capwiz.com/fconl/dbq/officials/ Order FCNL publications and "War is Not the Answer" campaign bumper stickers and yard signs: http://www.fcnl.org/pubs/ http://www.fcnl.org/forms/forms.php?type=bump Contribute to FCNL: Subscribe or update your information to this list: http://capwiz.com/fconl/mlm/. To unsubscribe from this list, please see the end of this message. Subscribe to other FCNL legislative, policy, and action alert lists: http://www.fcnl.org/forms/forms.php?type=ls. ________________________________________ Friends Committee on National Legislation We seek a world free of war and the threat of war |
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STATE OF THE UNION
National Security
Today's report is the last in our four-part series examining the state of our nation. In advance of President Bush's State of the Union address next Tuesday, the Progress Report has already reviewed the state of our nation's economy, health care, and energy/environment.
Last week, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove -- still under investigation for leaking classified national security information -- said that President Bush and his allies in Congress "understand the nature of the threat and the gravity of this moment." The facts suggest otherwise. More than four years after 9/11, Osama Bin Laden is still on the loose, al Qaeda is expanding globally, nuclear materials remain unsecured, violence rages in Iraq, and the America military is stretched to the breaking point. The former members of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission recently released a report card that faulted both Congress and the President for failing to implement the reforms necessary to prevent and prepare for a future terrorist attack. The results were dismal: five F's, 12 D's, nine C's, and only one A-minus. The Progress Report puts itself squarely in Karl Rove's cross-hairs with this candid look at the State of National Security:THE THIN GREEN LINE: Despite President Bush's promises to "support our military and give them the tools for victory," his policies have stretched our all-volunteer ground forces. Repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan have made the Army a "'thin green line' that could snap unless relief comes soon," according to a recent Pentagon report. This year marked the first time since 1999 that the Army missed its recruiting goal, and it is the third year the Army National Guard has fallen short. The Bush administration has further strained the troops by not providing enough equipment and protection. A "secret Pentagon study has found that as many as 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if they had had extra body armor," and the Marine Corps's inspector general found that Marines in Iraq "don't have enough weapons, communications gear, or properly outfitted vehicles." American Progress has a progressive Quadrennial Defense Review, a strategy to provide the military with the proper resources it needs to both address traditional threats and to combat the asymmetric threats of the 21st century.
INCREASED GLOBAL TERRORIST THREAT: More than four years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden is still alive, al Qaeda has spawned new terrorist networks, and global terrorism is on the rise. According to the Bush administration's own statistics, the problem of international terrorism is worse now than it was in 2001. The sum of global terrorist attacks in 2005 was 3991, up 51% from the previous year's figure of 2639. According to State Department data, the number of international terrorist attacks tripled to 650 in 2004. In May 2004, the London-based Institute for Strategic Studies reported that "al-Qaeda's recruitment and fundraising efforts had been given a major boost by the U.S. invasion of Iraq," and the Afghan Defense Minister recently claimed that al Qaeda had "increased its activities in Afghanistan."
FLUNKING OUT ON HOMELAND SECURITY: The 9/11 Public Discourse Project (formerly the 9/11 Commission) has given the administration failing grades on its efforts to improve homeland security. Thomas H. Kean, former chair of the 9/11 Commission, said that homeland security is "not a priority for the government right now. You don't see the Congress or the president talking about the public safety as number one, as we think it should be, and a lot of the things we need to do really to prevent another 9/11 just simply aren't being done by the president or by the Congress." Just 6 percent of national security spending is devoted to homeland security and the administration still has "no system in place that allows emergency personnel to communicate reliably and effectively in a crisis." The government has also cut funding for state and local law enforcement and first responders by more than $2 billion from FY 2005 to FY 2006. "While the terrorists have been learning and adapting, we have been moving at a bureaucratic crawl," said James Thompson of the 9/11 Project.
NUKES ON THE LOOSE: Bush promised to make keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists a top priority, and the 9/11 Project's December 2005 report said there is "simply no higher priority on the national security agenda." But so far, the threat has actually grown worse. A Harvard University study found that on average, the Bush administration "has requested less money to control nuclear materials and technology than was sought in the final Clinton administration budget, adjusted for inflation" and has secured less fissile material in the two years after 9/11 than in the two years before.
A FAILED STRATEGY IN IRAQ: In Iraq, the administration's strategy is failing on all three tracks: security, economic, and political. Since the March 2003 invasion, 2,239 U.S. troops have died and 16,420 have been injured. On the security front, more than 500 Iraqis have died since the December 15 elections. While the administration claims that Iraqi security forces are "increasingly competent and in the lead," more than 130,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq. (Question: If the Iraqi security forces are so competent why can't any U.S. troops go home?) On the economic front, a new study shows that one-fifth of the Iraqi population lives in poverty, up since the 2003 invasion. Reconstruction efforts are floundering. According to a new report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, "American-financed reconstruction programs in Iraq will not complete scores of projects that were promised to help rebuild the country." Despite recent elections, the political situation is highly unstable. Shiites are threatening to unite with Kurds and exclude Sunnis from political power. The New York Times reports "[a]nything short of a unity government, Iraqi and American officials here say, would be tantamount to disaster, with the Sunnis the most likely losers. Leaving them out of the government could very well prompt them to turn away from democratic politics again, and give the insurgency a fresh shot of energy."
Crashing Davos
| Jeff Faux, the founder and former president of the Economic Policy Institute, is the author of the new book The Global Class War, a study of the impact of globalization abroad and on U.S. living standards and politics. He is a contributing editor to The American Prospect, and a member of the editorial board of Dissent. His articles and commentary have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The American Prospect, Foreign Affairs en Español, The Nation, The Columbia Journalism Review, and many other popular and professional publications. The world’s rich and powerful are heading this week to their annual meeting in the plush mountain resort of Davos, Switzerland. Hosted by the great global corporations (Citigroup, Siemans, Microsoft, Nestlé, etc.), some 2000 CEOs, prominent politicians, pundits and international bureaucrats will network over great food, fine wine, good skiing and cozy evenings by the fire contemplating the world’s future. This is not a secret cabal; journalists will issue daily reports to the rest of us on the wit and informal charm of our financial betters. Rather, it is like the political convention of those who manage the global economy. Call it the Party of Davos. All markets are systems of rules that determine what sort of people are winners and what sort are losers. Politics is largely conflict among the different sorts—or classes—over who gets what. In stable societies, a social contract provides for enough wealth to trickle down to keep the lower orders from rebelling. Thus, in the 1950s, when Dwight Eisenhower’s secretary of defense said that what was good for General Motors was good for America, most Americans—including the United Auto Workers—agreed. Within the boundaries of the U.S. economy, capital and labor needed each other. But as corporations went global, the mutual dependence weakened. And in the absence of global democracy, their owners and top managers seized the opportunity to set the new rules without social constraints. The first head of the World Trade Organization called these new rules a “constitution for the global economy.” It’s a constitution that protects just one world citizen—the corporate investor. It prohibits effective protections for the workers, consumers and the environment. In America, as in most places, the party of Davos is bipartisan. It includes Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney, Robert Rubin and Don Rumsfeld, Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice. (George Bush is also a member, but he doesn’t like to travel). John Kerry is quoted as having called himself a “Davos” man. Indeed, without reference to economic class, it is impossible to explain why Democratic elites championed NAFTA, the WTO and the other instruments of corporate protectionism, which traded away the interests of its blue-collar industrial base in favor of the GOP constituencies in Wall Street and red-state agribusiness. Nor is it possible to explain why Washington is indifferent to a relentlessly rising trade deficit, and the resulting foreign debt that has put the country’s future in the hands of the central bank of China, while the Pentagon simulates war games with China as the enemy. The media language we use to talk to each other about globalization hides its class structure. The press consistently talks about national “interest” without defining who exactly is getting what. Thus, American workers are told that the “Chinese” are taking their jobs. But the China threat is, in fact, another global business partnership—this one between commissars who supply the cheap labor and the United States and other foreign capitalists who supply the technology and two-thirds of the capital used to finance China’s exports. The rest of the world calls this “neoliberalism,” a term unknown among America’s media “internationalists.” The politics of the global marketplace are a one-party system. The opposition to Davos is unorganized globally. What might be called the Party of Porto Alegre—the NGOs who meet at the same time in Brazil—is politically marginal. The trade union movement’s effort to organize the workers of the world is at best at a very early stage. Still, there may be some bad new ahead for Davos. After a quarter of a century, the world is beginning to resist policies that have shifted wealth and power away from people who work for a living to those who invest. Scarcely a day goes by without a major riot somewhere in China, Indonesia and elsewhere in Asia. In South America, anti-neoliberal parties have come to power in Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela and Argentina—and already have slowed down the effort to extend NAFTA to the rest of the hemisphere. Very close to home, a leftist candidate is leading in the campaign for Mexico’s next president. But perhaps more important, Davos’ chief champion—the U.S. governing class—is in trouble. The opposition to the war in Iraq has demonstrated the limits of America’s willingness to send its children to die in order to force the world’s cultures into one vast shopping mall. And the looming crisis of America’s foreign debt will cramp the ability of our elites to use the countries’ economic power to support their global corporate backers. The erosion of the American social contract—already being reflected in stagnant wages, financial insecurity and collapsing health care system—could soon force the governing class to pay more attention to Bloomington, Ill., than to Baghdad, Iraq. Globalization will not go away. Improvements in communication and transportation will continue to make the world smaller for as far into the future as we can see. Nor will economic classes soon disappear. The question is, as always, who sets the rules and in whose interests? So although the parties at Davos may not be over, the rest of the world seems less willing to pay for them. |
Study Says 80% of New Orleans Blacks May Not Return
By James Dao
The New York Times
Combining data from the 2000 census with federal damage assessment maps, the study provides a new level of specificity about Hurricane Katrina's effect on the city's worst-flooded areas, which were heavily populated by low-income black people.
Of the 354,000 people who lived in
The report's author, John R. Logan, concluded that as much as 80 percent of the city's black population might not return for several reasons: their neighborhoods would not be rebuilt, they would be unable to afford the relocation costs, or they would put down roots in other cities.
For similar reasons, as much as half of the city's white population might not return, Dr. Logan concluded.
"The continuing question about the hurricane is this: Whose city will be rebuilt?" Dr. Logan, a professor of sociology, writes in the report.
If the projections are realized, the New Orleans population will shrink to about 140,000 from its prehurricane level of 484,000, and the city, nearly 70 percent black before the storm, will become majority white.
The study, financed by a grant from the National Science Foundation, was released Thursday, 10 days after the mayor of New Orleans, C. Ray Nagin, who is black, told an audience that "this city will be a majority African-American city; it's the way God wants it to be."
Mr. Nagin's remark was widely viewed as an effort to address criticism of a proposal by his own rebuilding panel, the Bring New Orleans Back Commission, that calls for a four-month building moratorium in heavily damaged areas. He said later that he had not meant to suggest that white people would not be encouraged to return.
"Certainly Mayor Nagin's comments reflected a concern on the ground about the future of the city," Dr. Logan said. "My report shows that there is a basis for that concern."
The study coincides with growing uncertainty about what government assistance will be available for property owners and renters.
Those officials have urged Congress to enact legislation proposed by Representative Richard H. Baker, Republican of Louisiana, creating a corporation that would use bond proceeds to reimburse property owners for part of their mortgages, then redevelop the property. But the Bush administration has said it opposes the bill, out of concerns that it would be too expensive and would create a new government bureaucracy.
Asked Thursday about his opposition to the measure, President Bush told reporters that the $85 billion already allocated for
But Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of
"Administration officials do not understand the suffering of the people of
Demographers are divided over the likelihood of a drastic shift in
But Dr. Frey also said low-income evacuees might indeed begin to put down roots in cities like Houston or Dallas if they did not see movement toward reconstruction in the next six months.
Elliott B. Stonecipher, a political consultant and demographer from
"If they didn't have enough resources to get out before the storm," Mr. Stonecipher said, "how can we expect them to have the wherewithal to return?"
How Do You Like Your Democracy Now, Mr. Bush?
By Juan Cole
Salon.com
Hamas's stunning victory underlines the contradictions and hypocrisies in Bush's
The stunning victory of the militant Muslim fundamentalist Hamas Party in the Palestinian elections underlines the central contradictions in the Bush administration's policies toward the
Democracy depends not just on elections but on a rule of law, on stable institutions, on basic economic security for the population, and on checks and balances that forestall a tyranny of the majority. Elections in the absence of this key societal context can produce authoritarian regimes and abuses as easily as they can produce genuine people power. Bush is on the whole unwilling to invest sufficiently in these key institutions and practices abroad. And by either creating or failing to deal with hated foreign occupations, he has sown the seeds for militant Islamist movements that gain popularity because of their nationalist credentials.
In
Now Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement, a branch of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, has come to power in
But the president's attempt to dismiss the old ruling Fatah Party as corrupt and inefficient, however true, is also a way of taking the spotlight off his own responsibility for the stagnation in
Frustrated, the Palestinian public predictably swung to the far right. Their embrace of Hamas does not indicate that most Palestinians are dedicated to destroying Israel; polls show that most support a two-state solution and are weary of the endless violence. Rather, they are sick of the Palestinian Authority and believe that Hamas will be more effective negotiating partners with the Israelis. As a Saudi political talk show host told the Associated Press, "They [Hamas] will be the Arab Sharon. They will be tough, but only a tough group can snatch concessions from Israel."
In a mystifying self-contradiction, Bush trumpeted that "the Palestinians had an election yesterday, the results of which remind me about the power of democracy." If elections were really the same as democracy, and if Bush was so happy about the process, then we might expect him to pledge to work with the results, which by his lights would be intrinsically good. But then he suddenly swerved away from this line of thought, reverting to boilerplate and saying, "On the other hand, I don't see how you can be a partner in peace if you advocate the destruction of a country as part of your platform. And I know you can't be a partner in peace if you have a - if your party has got an armed wing."
So Bush is saying that even though elections are democracy and democracy is good and powerful, it has produced unacceptable results in this case, and so the resulting Hamas government will lack the legitimacy necessary to allow the United States to deal with it or go forward in any peace process. Bush's double standard is clear in his diction, since he was perfectly happy to deal with Israel's Likud Party, which is dedicated to the destruction of the budding Palestinian state, and which used the Israeli military and security services for its party platform in destroying the infrastructure of the Palestinian Authority throughout the early years of this century. As Orwell reminded us in "Animal Farm," some are more equal than others.
President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah had earlier been elected in a separate process and could continue in office if he chooses to work with a Hamas-dominated cabinet. He had earlier hinted that he would resign if his party lost. Asked about a possible resignation, Bush said in his typically tongue-tied way, "We'd like him to stay in power. I mean, we'd like to stay in office. He is in power; we'd like him to stay in office." Khaled Mashaal, the Hamas leader who is in exile in Syria, said that his party would be willing to work with Abbas as president, according to a party spokesman.
But then when Bush was asked if the United States would end aid to the Palestinian Authority if a Hamas government was formed, he implied that it would, unless Hamas changed its platform, which opposes the existence of the state of Israel on the grounds that the territory belongs to the Palestinians. He said, "Well, I made it very clear that the United States does not support political parties that want to destroy our ally Israel, and that people must renounce that part of their platform."
Bush implied that Hamas is dedicated to unremitting violence against Israel. And since 1994 its military wing has launched many suicide attacks against Israelis, killing hundreds of people, most of them civilians. But in fact it has observed a more or less effective truce for about a year - indeed, as an important study carried out by the respected International Crisis Group pointed out, it has observed the truce far more reliably than Fatah. And Hamas' leaders have affirmed that they are willing to continue the truce if Israel refrains from aggressive violence toward them.
Despite Hamas' founding position that the Israeli state is illegitimate, violence is not foreordained. A Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar, told the Associated Press that his party would continue what he called its year-old "truce" if Israel did the same. "If not," he added, "then I think we will have no option but to protect our people and our land." More fundamentally, even Hamas' charter could change. As the ICG points out, Hamas "has accepted the principle that there is no religious prohibition against negotiating or co-existing with Israel and that the provisions in its charter providing for Israel's destruction are not indelible." Even President Bush, in his measured response to the elections, seemed to hold out hope that Hamas would adopt a more pragmatic stance.
To be sure, many Israelis believe that Hamas is only using the truce to rearm, that it will never change its opposition to the very existence of Israel, and that any negotiations with the Islamist group will only weaken the Jewish state. And Hamas' failure to speak clearly about its intentions does nothing to allay such fears.
But no one has ever put Hamas to the test. Neither Bush nor
There is no evidence that either party will do so. Bush announced early in his administration his unwillingness to do anything that would challenge
Bush has boxed himself into an impossible situation. He promoted elections that have produced results opposite of the ones he wanted. For all his constant rhetoric about his determination to hunt down and kill terrorists, in Palestine he has in effect helped install into power a group he calls "terrorists." His confusion over whether this is democracy, which should be legitimate, or is an unacceptable outcome - and his unwillingness to address the underlying issues behind the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - suggest that a fatal paralysis will continue to afflict the region.
Bush Reasserts Presidential Prerogatives
By Jim VandeHei
The
Eavesdropping, Katrina probe cited as concerns.
President Bush set limits yesterday on White House cooperation in three political disputes, saying he is determined to assert presidential prerogatives on such matters as domestic eavesdropping and congressional inquiries into Hurricane Katrina.
In a mid-morning news conference, Bush told reporters he is skeptical of a proposed law imposing new oversights on his use of the National Security Agency to listen in on electronic communications. He also said that he will block White House aides from testifying about the slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina, and that he will not release official White House photos of himself with former Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Facing repeated questions, Bush distanced himself from Abramoff, who is at the center of the biggest political corruption and bribery scandal in a generation. Bush said he does not recall having his picture taken with Abramoff or ever meeting him. Abramoff was a member of the exclusive club of Bush's $100,000 fundraisers known as Pioneers.
"Having my picture taken with someone doesn't mean that I'm a friend with him or know him very well," Bush told reporters.
According to three people who reviewed half a dozen photos of the men, Bush is pictured at official gatherings and fundraisers with Abramoff and his children. He also attended a White House meeting with some of Abramoff's clients, including tribal leaders and the then-speaker of the House for the
If prosecutors "believe something was done inappropriately in the White House, they'll come and look and they're welcome to do so," Bush said. The White House has also refused to detail meetings between Abramoff and top White House aides.
The president was similarly adamant about not allowing top aides to testify about Hurricane Katrina. Bush, who has moved on several fronts over the past five years to strengthen the power of the presidency, said it would be damaging to him and future presidents if aides feared providing candid advice.
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), a staunch supporter of Bush on foreign policy, has accused the White House of undermining the probe by refusing to detail the role of White House officials. "If people give me advice and they're forced to disclose that advice, it means the next time an issue comes up I might not be able to get unvarnished advice from my advisers," Bush said. "And that's just the way it works."
On the issue of NSA eavesdropping on overseas communications to or from
"There's no doubt in my mind it is legal," Bush said. Democrats have accused Bush of breaking the law by authorizing the spying program without approval from Congress or the courts. The debate is expected to dominate hearings, scheduled to begin Feb. 6, on the highly classified NSA program.
"But it's important for people to understand that this program is so sensitive and so important that if information gets out to how we run it or how we operate it, it'll help the enemy," he said. "Why tell the enemy what we're doing?"
In his 10th news conference since winning reelection, Bush talked at length about presidential power but also previewed next week's State of the Union speech and weighed in on several foreign policy issues, including the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections.
The performance was quintessential Bush: He joked and sparred with reporters, and betrayed no sense of second-guessing his decisions. When pressed about the election victory of Hamas, which the
Bush was often blunt, at one point taking a reporter's challenge to declare with "
Bush endorsed a plan to allow
Although he has not vetoed a spending bill since taking office, Bush warned he is "fully prepared to use the veto" if lawmakers overspend. The government is more than 25 percent larger today in total spending than it was the day Bush took office, and conservatives are calling on the president and Congress to reduce the size of the federal budget.
Bush is expected to talk about new spending restraint during his State of the Union address Tuesday night. The speech will be the official start of a legislative year that will be confined by high budget deficits and a tight legislative schedule. As Bush was speaking, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the 2006 deficit at $337 billion, up from 2005.
Bush will forgo expensive new programs in his speech, aides said, though he will call for new tax breaks to mitigate the cost of health insurance, which has skyrocketed in recent years. With the House and Senate up for grabs in November, politics, not policy, will likely drive much of the congressional agenda.
Bush said he is excited to be campaigning for GOP candidates in the midterm elections, which he predicted will be about "peace and prosperity."
At hearings on the NSA spying, Democrats plan to press administration officials to explain why Bush did not consult Congress more broadly about the program, why he does not believe Congress should write a new law governing eavesdropping programs such as the NSA operation, and why he believes the super-secret Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act courts should not be consulted before eavesdropping on communications to and from the United States. In his news conference, Bush emphasized that FISA was enacted in 1978 - "a different world," he said.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said Bush's explanation that the Constitution and the war resolution passed after the
Eliminating Government Accountability -- SB 6215
|
| Dear T. Scott, SB 6215 is an attack on the rights of the people of Washington state.
Under SB 6215, the state of Washington and any local government or public entity or contractor or agent of any public entity would not be responsible for any harm that it causes any person, no matter how outrageous the act, or how egregious the harm or injury caused.
Last fall, as chair of the No on I-330 campaign, I helped defeat an initiative that would have weakened our civil justice system and worsened the quality of health care in our state. The voters said overwhelmingly that patient rights must be protected in both our civil justice and health care systems.
At the time, I found it hard to conceive of a more extreme attack on citizen rights. Unfortunately, SB 6215 is at the top of the list.
SB 6215 would apply to every public entity statewide: cities, counties, PUDs, local transit districts, school districts, port districts, public hospital districts, water districts, etc. What this means is that no matter how terrible the injury, no matter how negligent the provider or institution, SB 6215 would make them immune from action.
In Washington state, we have a strong value system around government accountability and protecting the rights of our citizens. I urge you to uphold these values and oppose SB 6215.
Sincerely, Barbara Flye |
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