Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Back for a little blogging and then off again...

Hi, I'm back to a computer for a while before I leave again. I was checking out one of my usual favorite reads, davidsirota.com, and noticed the just how pertinent his comments were. He was talking about shareholder activism and unions. He quotes a shareholder vote to limit CEO severance pay at Coke and then goes on to say:

This is a big win - and highlights the power of shareholder activism in helping to put a leash on out of control corporate power. Shareholders are, after all, the owners of the company. But don't think for a second greedy corporate executives aren't going to fight back against their companies' owners - as I noted a few weeks ago, executives are actually using company money to begin surveillance operations against shareholders they think might cause them trouble. Stay tuned - the battle between shareholders and executivs is quietly getting underway. (davidsirota.com)
. What's ironic is that the Google ads at the top of the page were simultaneously advertising union busting. This would be hilarious if it were not so tragic.

Here's the screenshot:




Actually, it is pretty funny. The link advertises "Union-Free Consultant 99% Win Rate; Stop Union Organizing NLRB..." Wow. It just goes to show how very important it is to fight for workers' rights, higher-minimum wages and for shareholder rights to block egregious management practices such as exorbitant severance packages.

Monday, December 19, 2005

Ministry and Mammon

[O]ur look into the Robertson empire, including interviews with his former and current business associates, reveals a history of mixing God, gain and Republican campaign...The combination of ministry and Mammon has provided Robertson with a net worth estimated at between $200m and $1 billion. (Greg Palast)
Link
I just woke up today thinking about how Operation Blessing used donations to fly Pat Robertson's mining equipment from Rwanda. Go read Palast's work on this, it's a nice reminder of who our fearless leader associates with.

http://www.jda.go.jp/jasdf/gallery/c130/c130_3a.jpg
A C-130.

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Neil Bush, cont.


Big thanks to Moonboots over at dailykos for the tips about Neil and the Moonies. Here are a couple of choice quotes from his post:

Moon outspent Scaife moving our nation right and theocratic. He and his operatives make it clear his job as "messiah" is to raise up the Christian "right" and bring them into control of our nation. Christianity had to be revived so they will accept him and his "work."

Let me tell you something, Moon has more to do with our nations current political climate than anyone. Anyone. Yet again, thanks to an ineffective media, our nation is unaware of his efforts.

Two things remain at the top of my wonderlist. One is why, given the historical fact that Moon easily outspent Scaife propping up hard right politics in the USA with BILLIONS of dollars over the last 30 years, given that Moon provided front groups and guidance to the new right, and has funded the "religious" right and literally played a huge role in creating, molding, designing the new conservative movement we see around us today - given all that, why, when blowhard uniformed hypocrites like Oreily squawk about UNITED STATES CITIZEN Soros donating to a liberal causes, why don't liberals stuff Moon down their throats? O'Reily, Coulter, Rush, Hannity, Savage, Hume, all of them should go on FOX and bow to Moon, he brought them to power. No Moon No one like Bush is president, that is for sure.

Biblical sized blindness in its depth and scope.

I couldn't agree more. I suppose one of the reasons we never hear about is that so many of the wingers work at or find their way into the pages of publications like the Washington Times. What interest do they have in showing who and what pays their rent? Their only interest is self-interest, of course. Moonboots also hits the nail on the head here:

Next time someone posts about Soros and his drop in the bucket money compared to Moon's spent on the right, please post this chart.
So, what does the Washington Times have on it's frontpage today, the Sunday where an entire nation is outraged by George Bush's illegal wiretapping? Well, look at the screen shot.

Interesting, huh? Not a word about the wiretaps. That, in fact, says a lot.

For more, check out Gorenfeld at http://www.iapprovethismessiah.com/
and Moonboots at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/12/2/224046/295

Thanks a lot for the tips, Moonboots.



Saturday, December 17, 2005

Listen in on this

This is all unimportant, but my PR person and blog board of directors have all been arrested. This includes my ombudsman, Gary Coleman (no not the one on TV, but his Asian twin brother).

To make a long story short, discontent was brewing on the business side of the blog when my ratings went down causing the investors to actually read my blog. When they realized that I had participated in unholy and subversive activities such as supporting "Buy Nothing Day," Cindy Sheehan, and renting a foreign movie, they got worried. Then they started monitoring my actions on the web and saw that I was reading Digby, Fafblog, Susie Madrak, The Left Coaster, Billmon, Atrios, Common Dreams, Alternet, Mother Jones, The Nation, Harper's, Americablog, David Sirota, Lac-du-chien-enflamme (sorry, no accent), Buzzflash and googling Brittney Spears. If only I had stuck to the WaPo and NYT. Please, I promise not to publish anything that you, my editors, might get in trouble with, especially if it is the truth.

And now it turns out that the McCain Anti-Torture bill does not prevent torture. Now I have to worry about that too. When will it end? I hope you're ok.

Not written under coercion...Sincerely...

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

New Orleans to France: Buy Us

This was in the Times-Picayune and is reposted here. It speaks for itself.


Dear France, please buy us!

Joan Fox of New Orleans writes:

Dear France,

Greetings from Louisiana! We are shopping for new owners, and we immediately thought of you! Our present rulers haven't been taking very good care of us and we are looking for a better deal. They are spending all our money in a place called Iraq (somewhere in the Middle East). We thought that perhaps you might want to revisit an old land deal you made long ago.
If you've been reading the papers lately, you may have noticed that we have had a few problems with "water". No, we're not offering you a deal on a damaged water park. (Althouugh that's what it looks like from the air) Seriously, we need help, and fast.

Some things you might like here:

1. We named the state after your King Louis
2. We named the city after your city, Orleans
3. We have lots of French names on the streets
4. We still have Napoleonic law (maybe you can explain it to us!)
5. A lot of our citizens speak French (the accent will grow on you)
6. We like French food and wine
What we can offer you:
1. a toehold (rather wet!) on the continent
2. an incredible port
3. Lots of oil and gas
4. Lots of restaurants
5. Jazz
6. Mardi Gras (you won't believe what we do with this!)
7. Some of the most beautifu houses in the world (very, very wet)

What we need from you is simple:

1. Wetland redevelopment
2. New levees
3. Lots of new houses (but we want them to look old like the ones we lost)
4. We need schools and hospitals rebuilt
5. If you insist, we wouldn't mind some more outdoor cafes like you folks are famous for.

Please think this over carefully. Our current owners are so busy in other countries, they might not even notice if you come down here and take a look around. We'll put you up in grand style in a place we call "The French Quarter" (yeah, really!) and you can have lunch at a place we built for your very own Napoleon, which we call (you guessed it!)Napoleons". You'll be right at home.
Oh, just remember, we would like the levees and the wetlands taken care of ASAP, sometime just after lunch if not sooner.

Yours sincerely,
A homeowner in New Olreans
Joan Fox

Monday, December 12, 2005

Death

Tookie Williams will die shortly after midnight tonight. I don't know whether he committed the crime or not, and actually its not important to me. In fact, I think it is a very bad idea to be making a big deal about him or any other individual facing the death penalty except for those who are too mentally incapable of doing so (the handicapped, the very young, etc.). Focusing on Tookie demands knowledge of the case and perhaps it is now impossible to know the truth about the murders he is accused of commiting.

What is not impossible to know or understand, however, is that statistically speaking the death penalty does nothing to deter crime of any sort, and it is much more expensive than having life in prison. Moreover, killing is wrong, and the State should not do it or condone it implicity by execution.

Focusing on Tookie allows the pro-death penalty people to bring personality and fear-mongering back to the table as they exploit the very real racism that lies just beneath the surface of American life. Moving our focus to the larger questions allows a saner debate, one that we can win.

I am dismayed that anyone at all will die tonight at 12:01 am, but let us remember all of those ineloquent and poor people who don't gain the Left's attention. It is the whole group of death row inmates that we should be fighting for, as the death penalty is a waste, and it is wrong.

Saturday, December 10, 2005

Neil Bush

I remember back when Billy Carter and "Billy Beer" were a national scandal. I remember when the press couldn't get enough of Roger Clinton. Oh how they love to embarrass us Southern folk for our family ties. (I presume that they believe we're all inbred, racist and stupid.)

No doubt, Bob Somerby is right, the MSM is a bunch priviledged whiners protecting themselves.

Anyway, I just can't figure why they don't catch on to good ol' Niel. I mean, a BILLION dollar bank scandal in the 80s, frequent sex with strangers, lobbying for the Church of Scientology, and traveling with Moon.

Now I know you're intrigued about the Scientology bit, so here it is, from the UPI:

We can't sit still for this -- The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, chaired by Indiana Republican Dan Burton, is taking a look at Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder. Neil Bush, the president's brother, will join three people associated with the Church of Scientology's Citizens Commission on Human Rights when they testify before the committee later this week. ADHD is recognized as a medical disorder by the nation's leading medical authorities, including the American Medical Association, American Association of Pediatrics, American Psychiatric Association and the Surgeon General and affects up to 7 percent of school aged children. The condition is so prolific that last month the Center for Disease Control set up a national clearing house of information that will be funded by a $750,000 federal grant.

So why would the Church of Scientology take such a strong stand to say that ADHD is a myth and go so far as to testify before Congress on the matter? Because Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard said so, that's why -- at least according to one source who follows the issue. Mental health professionals have long been critical of the so-called self-help techniques practiced by Scientologists, who have responded by undermining psychiatry at every turn. While it is unclear why Neil Bush would align himself with the Church of Scientology, it is very clear that their agenda has little to do with helping millions who experience an ongoing illness get the help they need.

Unclear why Bush would align himself with Scientology? Does the phrase "follow the money" mean anything to anyone? Of course, my above source, UPI, is owned by Moon, so I suppose the attack on Bush is implicit rather than explicit. Anyway, it hasn't stopped the Moon empire from hiring him...

Though seemingly at odds with his affiliation with the Church of Scientology, Neil is spending a lot of time with the Reverend Moon these days.

Moon's lobbying campaign is "ambitious and diffuse," as the D.C. newspaper The Hill reported last year, and the sheer range of guests revealed just how many Pacific Rim political leaders the Times owner has won over, including Filipino and Taiwanese politicians. And the head of the Arizona GOP attended a recent stop in San Francisco. But perhaps the most surprising VIP to tag along is Neil Bush, George H.W. Bush's youngest and most wayward son, who made both the Philippines and Taiwan legs of the journey, according to reports in newspapers from those countries and statements from Moon's Family Federation.

While Neil Bush and Moon's church couldn't be reached for comment on the tunnel or his speaking fees, a brochure from Moon's Family Federation underscores that the project is "God's fervent desire," dwarfing such past wonders as the Chunnel and heralding a "new era of automobile travel."

Does it have to seem like a conspiracy to say the facism is on the march? Moon is one of the most reactionary figures of our times and his efforts to create the "ideal" family are more than scary. He would like to be a dictator. In lieu of that, he is using his vast fortune to peddle influence all over the globe, and in America he has found many like-minded people, notably the Bush family.



Friday, December 09, 2005

Haiti Update

Narco News has an interesting article up which reveals some interesting details about the Canadian role in Haiti. Not surprisingly, those involved in Aristide's overthrow, have been rewarded:

With little fanfare only three days before the minority Liberal government of Paul Martin fell by way of a non-confidence vote in Ottawa's House of Commons (on November 28th), beleaguered Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew appointed Christian Lapointe as Canada's next Ambassador to Ecuador. Lapointe has been serving as Director of the Caribbean and Central America and Andean Region Division within the Department of Foreign Affairs. This move could spell trouble for Ecuador as Canada is in the midst of profound changes in foreign policy that find new support for destabilization under the cover of support for "democracy promotion."
That certain elements of the Canadian government are in lockstep with their American counterparts in the Bush administration and the IRI, USAID, World Bank, etc., is not in the least bit surprising. Their political moves are working, albeit more slowly than planned, and a post in Ecuador will be a good position to continue having influence in. Timing here says a lot: they wanted to get this person in at the last minute. I'm always interested in this sort of thing since it often means their position is "soft," that is, wouldn't have happened as easily under normal circumstances. In this case, he seems to be going in the back door while a lot of other things are going on. I could be very wrong on that, but, just some--perhaps silly--speculation.

I'm in the process of making a names list and putting their actions together for the Haiti coup so I can get a better picture myself of who all the actors are. I'll share that will one and all as I progress.

Go read the whole article for some interesting tidbits on the Canadian scheming.




Friday, December 02, 2005

Who is (paying for) suing Aristide?

Congressperson Maxine Waters asks an interesting question: who paying for the lawsuit against Aristide?

Good question.

Before going on, here is the press release [highlights mine]:

Washington, D.C. - Today, Rep. Maxine Waters (CA-35) sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, asking her to explain how the interim government of Haiti is financing the civil lawsuit it filed in a U.S. District Court against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and several co-defendants for allegedly stealing money from the Haitian treasury.

"I want to know how the interim government of Haiti is financing this lawsuit," said the Congresswoman, "and I want to know whether the interim government's allegations against President Aristide have been investigated sufficiently by the U.S. Government to justify the expenditures for this lawsuit."

President Aristide, the democratically-elected president of Haiti, was forced to leave Haiti in a coup d'etat on February 29, 2004. The interim government of Haiti is in the process of organizing elections, but these elections have been postponed several times. The elections are currently scheduled for January and February of 2006.

"The interim government of Haiti has promised to hold elections," said Congresswoman Waters. "Why can't these allegations be investigated by a government that has been freely elected by the people of Haiti?"

Congresswoman Waters' letter specifically asked Secretary of State Rice whether any U.S. government funds, such as grants from the Department of State, the Department of Justice, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), or the National Endowment for Democracy, are being used to finance the lawsuit against President Aristide.

"Foreign aid is in demand for programs ranging from reconstruction in Afghanistan to AIDS in Africa," said the Congresswoman. "Meanwhile, the United States is facing record deficits, and Congress is considering major budget cuts in both domestic and international programs. We should not allow an un-elected government to use our foreign aid to pursue legal challenges to the elected government it replaced."

Well, I'm sure the folks over at the NED and IRI would just love to answer those questions. It is indeed puzzling to the wool being pulled over everyone's eyes again and again. Clearly, if people knew that the U.S. intentionally aided in the undermining of a democratically elected president (and probably kidnapped him), that we were installing dictators and thugs, and that our tax dollars were funding the whole thing, well, then, people would get angry. But, as usual, the press presents the situation as "confusing," "violent," "dangerous." They never mention that we funded the thugs that created the violence before Aristide's removal and that we are upholding a police state that, without popular support, leads to rebellion and violence as well.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

USAID

I have long believed that USAID is too often used as a a mere propaganda and manipulation tool. Like the World Bank now run by Wolfowitz and which, by the way, became the home for Robert McNamara after Vietnam, USAID seems one of the holding tanks for influential policy-types who don't do so well when it comes to implementing their policy. Or, perhaps it is simply that reality usually trumps thier theories.

Anyway, it looks like USAID will remain just as partisan, only less professional. William Fisher over at Tom Dispatch puts it this way:

Washington is a town where the best and the brightest usually coexist with well-connected political hacks. However, the Bush administration has taken promotion of the latter to embarrassing extremes, selecting unqualified people for posts because of their political loyalty and ideological persuasion. The most recent example of this was the appointment of Paul Bonicelli to be deputy director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which is in charge of all programs to promote democracy and good governance overseas.
Bonicelli is known for saying, and I'm paraphrasing, that "all non-Christians will burn in hell." It's a sensitive message, no doubt, that will bring even more stunning successes to Bush's already formidable accomplishments in world leadership.

Just kidding.

Really, what are they thinking?

OF course, all of this raises some serious questions about Haiti (not to mention Iraq). Upcoming elections are one of USAID's biggest babies, and things aren't going so well already. USAID needs a true leader, not a hack.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Jack in The Box


Sexist advertising is nothing new to Jack, whom I find (increasingly) creepy. I got this today and thought I'd share it with you. Why give a "Jack Ca$h" card? Well, among the more enlightened reasons are "Because he let you hold the remote" and "Last year you gave her a bowling ball with your name on it." I suppose the more selfish a man is, the more he is lovable and deserving of a gift. Unbelievable.

Monday, November 28, 2005

Haiti Elections Postponed...

I hate to say I told you so but I sort of told you so. Previous Department of State Musings were indeed too optimistic. The AP reports today that:

Port-au-Prince -- Haiti's electoral board yesterday again postponed the country's first elections since president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in a rebellion almost two years ago.

The nine-member Provisional Electoral Council set a new date of Jan. 8 for presidential and legislative elections, followed by a Feb. 15 runoff, said Rosemond Pradel, the council's secretary-general.

This is the fourth date Haitian authorities have set for the elections, which were first scheduled for Nov. 13 to replace the interim government installed after Mr. Aristide's ouster in early 2004.
Things are still grim, but this chaos is some evidence that things are not going as planned--and, as you know, I think that U.S. "planning"--more aptly put as "plotting"--was treacherous and bad.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Go Amy

Amy Goodman asks the simple question: Why didn't the U.S. send in troops before to support Aristide, rather than telling him to leave. Why not protect a democratically elected leader? Lawrence Wilkerson is revealed as an apologist for the ouster. No big secret is revealed here. Just the usual: "You have to understand Haiti...blah, blah, blah."

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Canada in Haiti

I haven't read this yet, but it's on order. I came across it today on Black Commentator and thought it was worth a mention.

A new book, Canada In Haiti: Waging War On The Poor Majority by Yves Engler and Anthony Fenton opposes Prime Minister Martin on the question of Haiti. Fenton is a Vancouver-based independent investigative journalist, radio correspondent, and activist, who traveled to Haiti one month after the coup that removed former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power. Montreal-based Engler, who is also author of Playing Left-Wing - From Rat to Student Radical, is an activist who traveled to Haiti in December 2004. Canada, France and the United States are all in bed in Haiti.

Engler and Fenton spoke at a public forum and book launch at Osie and discussed the growing support in Canada for the people of Haiti against the Canadian, U.S., French, and Brazilian occupation. The meeting was packed. Canada In Haiti exposes Canadian government and business responsibility for anti-Aristide coup against democracy. The chapter "Responsibility to Protect or A Made in Ottawa Coup?" points out the coup against Aristide was actually planned on Canadian soil.

You can see some of my links below for more information.

This land is my land, this land is...

For sale! The LA Times is reporting that a certain little provision has "slipped" into a Senate bill.

Slipped into a massive budget-cutting bill late last month by the House Resources Committee, headed by Rep. Richard W. Pombo (R-Tracy), the provision has been eclipsed by higher-profile battles over two other controversial plans that would expand oil drilling offshore and allow it in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Those proposals have been dropped for now, but the land-sale provision remains.

The bill would lift an 11-year-old moratorium on the patenting — or sale — of federal lands to mining companies for a fraction of their mineral worth. While the patent fees would rise from $2.50 or $5 an acre to $1,000, the price would continue to exclude the mineral worth, which can amount to billions of dollars
I am for wise-use policies of public lands, and sometimes selling them is the right thing to do. However, this is clearly a gift to the mining industry, which might make huge profits while paying a pittance for the rights. Mineral rights are the epitome of the public/private debate. Given that, once extracted, Americans may never see these minerals again as they dissapear into value-added products, industrial processes, shouldn't we be charging more for their use? Shouldn't the extractors pay for what is a one-time shot at their use? Shouldn't we demand that extractors be more like caretakers than exploiters? Apparently not.

Since some 60% of large corporations pay no income tax, I'm just wondering where along the line they are supposed to contribute to our society. Really, such land giveaways are poised to become the worst examples of corporate welfare, the kind which has no long-term benefit for Americans but instead huge risks: depletion of resources, pollution from strip mining, and lack of corporate responsibility.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

The Politics of Food (not what you think)

The politics of food are taking an interesting twist. A man was arrested by the FB I for burning some SUVs. One suspect, who was mistakingly arrested was eventually released. It turns out the the basis for the arrest, as Newsweek is reporting, seems quite dubious:

In their wrongful-arrest lawsuit, Connole's lawyers demanded to know why the FBI looked at Connole in the first place. Court documents show agents were initially tipped off by a neighbor to "suspicious" activity at the commune the night of the attacks. (In fact, says Connole, members were simply helping one of the residents move out.) Agents placed the commune under surveillance and developed a political profile of the residents, discovering the owner of the house and his father "have posted statements on websites opposing the use of fossil fuels," one doc reads. Another says the owner had ties to a local chapter of Food Not Bombs, an "anarcho-vegan food distribution group." Among activities flagged in bureau docs: the father of the owner had conducted a "one man' daily protest" outside a Toyota office, was interviewed for an article called "Dude, Where's my Electric Car!?" and posted info on a Web site announcing "Stop Norway Whaling!" Critics say such info has been increasingly collected by agents since the then Attorney General John Ashcroft relaxed FBI guidelines in 2002. "How does advocacy of electric cars become the basis for suspicion?" asks Bill Paparian, Connole's lawyer. Bureau officials say they collect such info only when there might be ties to violence or terrorism. A spokesman declined to comment on Connole's case, saying that because no settlement has been entered into the court record, it remains "a pending legal matter."
Opposing fossil fuels, being a member of a co-op (a "anarcho-vegan food distribution group"), and advocating electric vehicles is becoming a dangerous business! Very strange.

Haiti news

Recent Haiti news on the ground has been much the same as I've reported before. However, out of the Washington establishment comes some interesting twists.

First of all, the USINFO Washington file reports that "prospects for holding safe and fair elections in Haiti later in 2005 have improved as all key political parties in the Caribbean nation have submitted their candidates to the country's electoral council, reports the International Monetary Fund (IMF)."

Given that several election officials pulled outjust two or three weeks ago, this pronouncement seems rather odd. It would seem more likely that there has been a clear stabilization not of Haiti, but of the people who speak for it: Department of State, USAID, Canada and Europe, the IMF, and business interests. What do I mean by this? 1) The International Monetary Fund of course works hand in hand with the U.S. Government, and I suspect that here the some of main contacts are through USAID which has been funding activity in the Haitian police; 2) This announcement comes shortly after appointing a new ambassador; 3) several companies have just announced business plans in Haiti. All of the above is related to the IMF/US D. of State donor conference held in October, where final economic and political planning were done for Haiti and where the interested parties came to their final agreements.

The press release seems thus to indicate some stabilization on the diplomatic plane while, on the ground, things are as bad as they always were.

Given the importance of the situation and the flurry of recent activity, it's worthwhile paying attention to the press release in more detail.

The IMF and Department of State note improvements in stability, "safety" and "transparency," all of which set the stage for the elections. Given that only a few hundred polling sites are going to be open (compared to nearly ten thousand for the last elections), it is hard to believe that true democratic progress has been made. In spite of this obvious fact, government officials seem determined to say that everything is fine. To that effect, the press release seems to obfuscate the true conditions by waiving statistics:

Patrick Duddy, the U.S. State Department's deputy assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs, said at an October 20-21 international donors' conference for Haiti that the more than 3 million Haitians who have registered to vote will set the stage for broad participation in the elections.
Just because 3 million are registered to vote does not mean they they have access to polling places. As I said earlier, we know there are not enough polling places. Furthermore, increased spending on weapons and policing, could mean intimidation during the elections, so this is truly a misleading quote.

The press release concludes:

Duddy said that international donors and Haiti's interim government are "strongly committed" to ensuring the Haitian elections take place within the country's "constitutional timetable," and that the elections are peaceful, open, inclusive and fair. Haiti's government, he added, "must take all necessary steps to implement a work plan that results in the inauguration" of a new Haitian president on February 7, 2006
The U.S. and Europe, along with the IMF, have clearly set stringent timelines, but this seems mostly to avoid embarassment since, while the U.S. could have easily restored Aristide--universally recognized as a democratically and fairly elected president--to power, it chose to support an interim regime, citing Aristide's "corruption" as an excuse. (Amy Goodman over at Democracy Now! has reported on the likely involvement of the U.S. in Aristide's ouster.) New elections will thus legitimize current U.S. policy, so the quicker the better. Indeed, the stern language coming out of U.S. diplomatic circles underlines American concerns with having legitimacy in the wake of our substantial manipulations at the time of Aristide's ouster.

But there is more at stake than legitimacy. The donor's conferences have had a focus on privitization of Haitian companies and resources. For example, last week, Digicel Jamaica/Eriksson announced plans to work in Haiti.

Canada, Europe, and especially the U.S. want privitization, but they feel it could be in jeopardy. They are concerned about the effects of Bush's foreign policy in the Carribbean. Again, getting the diplomatic voices to speak in unison about Haiti can be seen as a response to these concerns.

The flurry of activity is not only on the the U.S. side, however. U.S. policy is creating a global backlash with vocal opponents. Of these voices, Hugo Chavez is one of the loudest and his plans to sell oil without (American) middlemen is audacious:

Haiti could be the latest Caribbean country to join the government’s PetroCaribe initiative. State-owned PetrĂłleos de Vene-zuela (PDVSA) sent a delegation to Haiti early this month to evaluate the possibility of incorporating the impoverished country into the Caracas-led accord, which offers oil to Caribbean countries on preferential terms.
Such plans add coals to the fire already under the U.S.' diplomatic feet. Hence Washington's response is direct and, again, stern:

Washington has a different opinion. U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fisk has called PetroCaribe the result of Cuba and Venezuela’s “failed statist ideologies” and has said it “undermines the position of private sector companies in the region.”
Clearly, Venezuela would/could create enormous pressures to counter the privatization forces since energy ranks very high in Haiti's needs. The "threat" of such an oil market clearly run counter to Washington's goals, hence the stern word's from Duddy and Fisk.

So I guess it's just another week of the same: no democracy for Haiti as the West intervenes.

[Note: I came back and edited this a little for clarity's sake, though it still is not as clear as I would like!]

Monday, November 14, 2005

N(ice) P(olite) R(epublicans)

It's been a while since I've written about NPR. I guess this is because I don't listen to them anymore. I just finished a comment over at Digby's so I thought I would reproduce it here:

I started by saying:

The fundamental fallacy is this: Nowhere in evolution does it state that God does not exist. ID'ers are makeing a political argument, not a theological one. This is a battle between competing discourses, not competing ideas, since ID has very few of the latter.
I was rightly critiqued by NonyNony who pointed out that Evolution challenges the Bible, even if it does not refute God.

Then I responded:

I wanted to add some finesse to my earlier point that

"The fundamental fallacy is this: Nowhere in evolution does it state that God does not exist. ID'ers are makeing a political argument, not a theological one."

While I maintain that God's existence is not invalidated by Evolution, it is true, as NonyNOny points out, that Evolution challenges the Bible's account of creation.

If I were to rewrite this, I would underline that Evolution challenges certain readings of the Bible, and that it does so overtly. What I think is most important here is not Evolution vs. Religion, but the competing discourses between religious sects.

Jerry Falwell no more wants a modern interpretation of the Bible than the Taliban wants of the Coran. By constantly framing the argument as Evolution vs. Religion, they keep the true debate about biblical interpretation out of public discourse.

I haven't read "Don't think of an Elephant" for a while, but my main point is about framing discourse. By pointing out that Evolution does not challenge the existence of God, it allows one to argue within a religious framework and point out that one can support Evolution and Religion.

I for one have no religious beleifs, but many people I know do, so what is important for me is to bring the discourse into a different field of reference so that it can be discussed differently. The problem, of course, is that NPR time and time again does this sort of thing and lets the debate fall back to the ultra-right-wing framework.

I've stopped listening to NPR in the last year or two and I've done several posts agaist them. I'm not sure whether they are worse than before or whether I've just gotten older and can see through what they say. Who knows? All I can say is that I'm really tired of their schtick.

My point here is that NPR is really sucking and is doing the public a real disservice. I also wrote to Day to Day back in May. I actually got on the air. Here's what I wrote:

Dear Day to Day: I have no problem that Jonathan Last did not like Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith. In fact, I agree. The wooden acting, the hackneyed dialogue and the silly plot are, at best, irritating. However, his review made me, well, uncomfortable. I understand that Mr. Last found the transformation of Darth Vader more interesting than the a light-saber-weilding-pseudo-philosophizing Yoda. However, we should separate falling in love with the character from falling in love with what that character means. Mr. Last's review, which lauds the Empire's order, strength and ability to effectively suppress those that disagree with it is, quite simply, praise for fascism and despotism--yes, the same fascism and despostism that can be associated with Hitler and Mussolini. While I hesitiate to convict by association, Mr. Last's employment at the Weekly Standard only reinforces the idea that his review of Star Wars III was a thinly-veiled piece of propaganda that could have emerged from his magazine. Take for example "The Case for American Empire" in which the Weekly Standard's Max Boot argues that "The most realistic response to terrorism is for America to embrace its imperial role" (10/15/2001, Volume 007, Issue 05). Mr. Last's review was not about the politics in George Lucas' movie, but rather those of today and his own vision of political utopia--one where "messy" civil liberties are less important than order, one where the inherent disorder of any democratic republic (read filibuster) make it somehow less desirable than goose-stepping our way to a well-organized, smoothly operating and, ultimately, despotic empire.

Friday, November 11, 2005

On Board the Haiti-U.S. Express

A little more than a month ago Americans and, for once, the American media issued cries of despair about the plight of New Orleans, a city under attack from nature as well as an irresponsible government. “It looks like Haiti!” pundits exclaimed, aghast at the horrible spectacle.

Little did they know how right they were.

For many who live in poverty in the U.S., and for those citizens who do not close their eyes to it, it is well known that the similarities between our countries run deep. U.S. policy has continuously shaped Haiti’s economic and political existence, to the extent that Haiti is like America—the worst of it. Likewise, the worst of America is a lot like Haiti.

During Katrina, television commentators were drawing conclusions based on color. A more appropriate and disturbing conclusion is that parallel economic and political strategies—paired with a deliberate lack of strategies—continue to determine the fate of many in Haiti and the U.S. (Unfortunately for Louisiana, Republican measures such as suspending the Davis-Bacon Act seem likely to maintain this trajectory.)

A short list of Haiti's current woes is also a dim reflection of us:

• A Texas corporation owner, originally from Haiti, is running for president of that country and, though his candidacy has been deemed illegal, he seems poised to do better than many others. Why let an illegal election stop you?
• Elections are being delayed until February. Only a few hundred polling places are currently planned; compare this to over 10,000 in the previous elections. The inability of the current U.S.-approved puppet government—following the ouster/kidnapping of Aristide—to organize a credible but corrupt election has been much criticized. But the U.S. continues its support...
• A donor’s conference took place this week for Haiti under the auspices of the State Department. In other words, as for Iraq and Louisiana, it’s pay-to-play in the current Haitian economy run by American, European and Canadian-approved politicians.
• As the American Enterprise and Cato Institutes did for the Bush administration in the aftermath of Katrina, policy in Haiti is being dictated by far right-wing organizations such as the International Republican Institute via the National Endowment for Democracy. (Supposedly “dedicated to advancing democracy worldwide,” the IRI pushes for semi- or even non-democratic privatization measures.)

A look at the results of a donor conference that took place this week for Haiti reveals an oppressive triangulation of Western governments, the International Monetary Fund and the few but powerful Haitians that are profiting from this mess. Quoting an IMF statement, an October 21st release from the State Department says that in 2005-2006 Haiti has a strategy that "adequately maintains the focus on preserving macroeconomic stability, enhancing governance and transparency, and increasing spending on infrastructure and social services."

Condoleeza Rice probably used such language in the talking points of her “surprise” visit to Haiti at the end of last September.

Of course, the language of the IMF, of the Department of State, of USAID and many others is duplicitous. It behooves us translate "macroeconomic stability" with toeing a multinational corporate philosophy on privatizing Haiti's infrastructure. The true meaning of the conference is thus evident. Moreoever, the strategy is not Haiti's, but that of the current U.S. administration, one particularly apt at imposing onerous economic regimes abroad and at home.

The unjust imprisonments of Father Jean-Juste and former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, who both have popular support from the Lavalas party that elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide with a huge majority, reflect odious, criminal judicial practices. Such practices are gaining legal traction here in the U.S., as anyone familiar with the Patriot Act and similar legislation knows.

The purpose here is not to trivialize matters. Haiti’s woes are countless, deeper and more widespread than those of the U.S. They affect the staggering majority of Haiti, the poorest country in the hemisphere, and one of the poorest on the planet.

But Americans should not be fooled either. This week's State Department "donor conference" for Haiti was a meeting to bring business and corrupt politicians into line while pushing for "elections" to add a superficial air of legitimacy to Washington's (Canada's, France's) economic regime. All of this is the standard modus operandi that was seen in the wake of Katrina as politicians handed out contract after contract to "friendly" (read: "contributor") corporations.

So let us take a moment to remember that we are Haiti, and Haiti is us. We are more than alike, we are intertwined. So far only the Congressional Black Caucus has any sort of stable position on this situation in Washington, and even they are not as unified as on other positions. As "elections" approach in Haiti, we should write our representatives to bring this situation further into the open because, in too many ways, the situation is simply our own.

Bill O'Reilly

This is very funny. According to Media Matters, Bill O'Reilly said:

O'REILLY: Yeah, they love me. [Laughing] I'm real big over in France. You know, it's amazing, we're on in France but on the satellite, so we're not, you know -- masses of people don't speak English in France. One of the few countries in Europe that really doesn't speak English on a large level is France, because they don't like us. They don't like the British. So they look down upon our language and our culture --

HILL: But they like their own culture and they try to preserve it.

O'REILLY: And there's nothing wrong with that. Sure, you want to have a croissant, knock yourself out. You like the little escargot; hey, I'm down with that. But when, you know, you don't take a shower for 18 days, you know --

HILL: Stop it.

O'REILLY: I'm sorry. Come on, you know what I'm talking about. Some things they can copy from us. But anyway, so France isn't a country that speaks English, you know, on a wide level like Scandinavia or Holland or even Italy now. You're getting a lot of English speakers. Germany, it's half and half. Up north they speak English, but in the southern part, the more conservative part, they don't.


A part from being ridiculous, racist and quite typical of O'Reilly's and a lot of people's understanding of France, this is also hilarious. I will now resort to Bill's sort of humour--What would Bill do if his young femail colleagues only took showers every 18 days? I mean, his loofah's would last for years that way. I now understand Bill's English-Only position: English for the whole world! Good boy, Bill. Good fascist lackey.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Paris

Juan Cole has put an interesting, balanced and on-the-dot commentary up on his site. It is simply the best one I have read. It takes France to task for the racism embedded in its policies, even the "liberal" ones, which were only marginally decent in the first place. France has a problem. Though there are many middle-class HLM, there are also many that have become ghettos because of a failure of the social system, and it is this system that needs color-blind reform.

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I find racism in U.S. policy as well, but the U.S. is mostly across the board class-based in its discrimination, which also tends to trap Latinos, Blacks, Native Americans and other groups, including huge numbers of Whites. In fact, just like Sarkozy and VIllepin in France are doing now, politicians in the U.S.--especially those on the right--are more than happy with the situation since it allows them to divide the voting public and therefore conquer. Given that, I simply abhor the coverage France gets in the U.S.. It is biased, horrible stuff, and this is primarily because America cannot look itself in the mirror.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Paris is not Burning--I repeat

Here's an interesting conversation on "Source Code," a Boston-Based radio program. It includes JerĂ´me Ă  Paris (Of dailykos.com) and Jeremy Rifkin.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Revue de presse / Haiti

Today, Bush, brings in a member of the State Department's Foreign Service is to be nominated by President Bush to be the US ambassador to Haiti, as see in Bush taps ex-Tucsonan for Haiti envoy. This person will no doubt be a proud member of the "let's keep crushing Haiti into the ground" team of France, Canada, the IMF and the IRI--all led by the U.S.

Meanwhile, Haiti election supervisors 'quit' according to the BBC. Hmm. Maybe these elections will happen after all once there are no decent supervisors left.

Finally, in Haiti, the UN keeps playing hitman for the US: As Guerillas Strike and UN Troops Kill Again:Election ...,, as seen in Political Affairs Magazine. But, no worries, South Korea will be sending its troops: UN Asks South Korea to Dispatch Troops to Haiti. What a surprise. I'm sure South Korea will bring it's long history of democracy (not!) to Haiti.

France is burning / France is rising up

A lot of people are asking me what I think. I tend to give them a convoluted answer to the many problems in France. What is essential to understand is that France has exactly the same problems as the rest of the West, it is simply becoming "symptomatic," while we remain "asymptomatic," at least in the mainstream consciousness. (If we all understood that men in Harlem and Bangladesh have the same life expectancy, would we still be so convinced of our difference from France, Spain, England, Bolivia, Argentina and, of course, Bangladesh?).

Sterling Newberry has a great piece I completely agree with. I will cite in entirely here:

Mon Nov 7th, 2005 at 10:20:25 AM EDT :: Healthcare

The European political class is in crisis, filled with non-solutions, and unable to lead or persuade its own public, and hoping that another round of neo-liberalization will do what 25 years of it have not done - they now face an open revolt. One which is spreading. 10 officers were shot in last night's riots in France. This rioting is not going to move the core of French public opinion, but will instead harden the battle lines. This bodes ill for the right in France, which has governed because the center-right coalition was far more unified than the center-left coalition.

::

The reality of economics in Europe and the United States is that both places have the same problem, and they are dealing with it by making different choices on how to spread the pain.

The United States, with both more energy and more land, has taken the mode of generating sprawl to generate employment, and selling the US to other nations one barrel of oil at a time, hoping that the rate that the US can generate paper wealth will outpace the rate at which we import energy. This bet is failing, and is, in fact, falling further and further behind. In essence, the US is borrowing to generate employment.

The European core nations have selected an austerity route - higher unemployment, higher social safety net, lower accumulation of foreign debt, and therefore more local control.

However, both roads have been about managing depletion of extraction, most notably oil, and they interlock with the decision of extraction countries to do so as well. While there have been swings in the relative economic power of the different blocs, the road leads in the same direction.

It is dangerous to read too much into these riots, other than the reality that Europe's circulatory system is ebbing, they are having to cut at the margins of their social safety net, and they are under pressure to close the borders. But prosperity will be equalized, whether slowly or quickly, and the attempts to slow down that equalization by protectionism are only worthwhile if they are buying time for preparation. The difference between temporizing and procrastinating is what you buy with the time.

Right now there is little in the way of clear thinking about what to do in the coming post-extraction world, or even a realization that the post-extraction world is coming and it will be beneficial. Right now we are sketching the edges of that world, while people are trying to bring outmoded rental paradigms to bear.

These rental paradigms largely stem from arrangements made almost a century ago as our current economy was emerging in outline.

That economy was based on two important technological ideas - mechanization and broadcast. Our current economic struggles are largely a struggle over keeping the rent flowing on these two - now quite old - innovations in society. It is foolish to blame the French system for a global phenomenon of the playing out of an old economic order. Unrest is rising, because the increase in productivity that it provides is now much smaller than the number of people who want to be part of it. It is exploding in China as inflation is crushing those not attached to the export economy, and the government makes moves to keep wages down by swamping the cities with country dwellers. This is "the city problem," and it is a very poor idea to encourage it.

The unrest is in South America, in Iraq, and in a host of other nations. The amount of global growth available is shrinking, and most of it is consumed by the US, China's export economy, and the resource extraction sectors of a few other nations. The rest of the world is close to what would be
defined as a global recession.


Of course, there is a lot more to this than mentioned here. There are indeed some deep-seated cultural issues, but these are the issues that allow the Center-Right and Right-Wing government to exclude these areas from the current economic plan. The revolt is about exclusion, exclusion, and more exclusion. The Right in particular is interested in allowing these things to continue, just as Bush is interested in keeping America at war. Fortunately, the Left, and perhaps the Center-Left are begining to react, and, because the press in France is slightly more rational, these people actually have a voice and the public generally agrees with them--at least in the sense that they see Villepin, Sarkozy and Barloo manoeuvering to exploit this situation.


Update: Earlier I referred to this situation as Symptomatic. Well, I just read this piece on Tom Paine by Rami Khouri. He states an obvious truth:

Burning cars in Paris and interrupted terror bombings in Sydney may achieve that which a generation of indigenous, patient scholarship, analysis and activism in the Middle East and North Africa have not elicited: serious political and economic reforms that assert the basic rights of Arab citizens to live in societies defined by decency and equality, and the indelible humanity of Arab youth who have been deformed beyond recognition by the inequities of their own tortured political cultures.


Genetically Modified Cropshttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif


From Common Dreams:
WASHINGTON - November 7 - The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has decided to expand a controversial give-away in which local farmers grow genetically modified soybeans and corn on Delaware’s at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) today released a letter protesting the move as wreaking ecological havoc and violating the Service’s own policies.
People who follow this know what is happening here. The acreage is relatively minute, but the symbolism is huge. This is a signal to the corporate purveyors of genetically modified organisms saying "we support you." There is absolutely no need for this ecologically or scientifically speaking. It's only use is to push the conservative agenda a little further and keep the government moving on its slippery slope. Public land should not be for private use without just compensation, and here the trespassing is even more dastardly because the likes of Monsanto and ADM are using farmers to further their corporate agenda.

Monday, November 07, 2005

Sunday, November 06, 2005

Disney



Well, Disney certainly was a magic place yesterday. We went there with students studying gender, race, and class. As usual, there's nothing like going into the beast. It was fun riding the rides, and also the critiques.

The commercialization is absolutely astounding. To the left is a "Kodak picture Spot" near Thunder Mountain (I think that's the ride, you know, the hommage to mineral extraction).

Once you start paying attention to it, it can drive you a little crazy. There's the Brawny-sponsored horse show, home to the "happiest horses on earth." There's the Minute-made-sponsored café. The list is long. I suppose that's why the trash cans have the very ambiguous phrase "waste please" on them. What the hell?

Saturday, November 05, 2005

Friday, July 01, 2005

She's gone, I'm back

Well, Sandra of the Supreme Court has just resigned. First of all, we should all know that the Bush administration has been planning for this since before 2000. This is their dream. While abortion rights will be the media battle most Americans see, this is only half the story.

1. Republicans do not want to really repeal Roe vs. Wade. This is an election issue that has served them all too well. What they want is a fight, then lose it and blame it on "crazy liberals." This "loss" will provide fodder for years to come and motivate anti-abortion activists for years to come while...

2. In through the backdoor comes a well-heeled corporatist who will defend at all costs corporations against the rights of consumers. This is the true story.

The right will present a right-wing, anti-abortion nut, lose, then get a seemingly moderate person on abortion through who is actually a radical corporation-rights person.

Friday, May 27, 2005

Out of town..

I'm outta here. Graduation is over and now I'm off to see friends and family. I'm taking a little work with me, for sure, and hopefully I'll blog a little too.

See you June 21.

Thursday, May 26, 2005

This is the best link of the day...

How to lose your country in 7 easy steps: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7954027/#050526

Corporations and War and Profits

Halliburton is under investigation in at least 12 different areas according to Corpwatch:

  • The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating allegations by an Army official claiming that the Army Corp of Engineers illegally excluded Halliburton’s competitors from bidding on Iraq contracts.Bunnatine Greenhouse, an Army whistleblower, says the line between government officials and Halliburton had become so blurred that a conflict of interest exists.The conduct appears to have violated specific federal contract-related regulations and calls into question the independence of the contracting process.
  • The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is conducting a criminal investigation into Halliburton’s admission that it “may have paid” $180 million in bribes to officials in the Nigerian government to win a multibillion dollar construction con-tract. Some of the bribes were paid during Dick Cheney’s tenure as chief executive officer. Halliburton terminated its relationship with former KBR chief Albert Jack Stanley after discovering that $5 million of the bribe money was allegedly deposited into his Swiss bank account.
  •  The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investi-gating a second bribery case involving Nigeria. Halliburton admitted that its employees paid a $2.4 million bribe to a Nigerian government official for the pur-pose of receiving favorable tax treat-ment. As the Houston Chronicle points out, “left unanswered is how a ‘low-level employee’ could channel that much money from the company to the pockets of a corrupt official.”
  • The DOJ has opened a criminal investigating of Halliburton’s business dealings in Iran.The company sells goods and services to Iran through a Cayman Islands sub-sidiary. The sales appear to have violated the U.S. trade embargo against Iran.
  • The criminal division of the DOJ has issued a subpoena to a former employee of KBR to determine whether the company criminally over-charged for fuels imported into Iraq.Meanwhile Pentagon auditors investigating the same matter found that KBR and its Kuwaiti subcontractor, Altanmia Commercial Marketing Company, had overcharged the military by $174 million for importing fuel into Iraq under the Restore Iraqi Oil (RIO) infrastructure contract. Other alleged over-charges under the same contract (not fuel imports) add up to another $38 million, bringing the total overcharges to at least $212 million. The Kuwaiti government, which has also been investigating the fuel overcharging, recently com-plained about the “lack of cooperation” by KBR and the U.S. military.
  • The DOJ indicted Jeff Alex Mazon, a former KBR manager, and a Kuwaiti businessman on charges of defrauding the U.S. government of $3.5 million over a fuel supply con-tract. The two men are charged with rigging bids to favor KBR subcontractor LaNouvelle over other subcontractors and then with overcharging the U.S. military for fuel trans-port services at a Kuwait airport. The alleged fraud cost the U.S. military $5.5 million for services KBR initially estimated would cost only $685,000.
  • The Pentagon’s Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) has issued several audit reports related to task orders under KBR’s RIO contract that reported $212 million in questioned and unsupported costs. The Pentagon fired Halliburton from its gasoline importation con-tract and assigned it to an office within the Pentagon known as the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC). The result was a 50 percent reduction in gasoline prices charged to U.S. taxpayers.
  • The DOJ is investigating possible over-billing for government service work done in the Balkans between 1996 and 2000. The charges stem from a General Accounting Office (GAO) report that found Halliburton billed the Army for questionable expenses for work in the Balkans, including charges of $85.98 per sheet of plywood that cost them $14.06. A follow-up report by the GAO in 2000 also found inflated costs, including charges for clean-ing some offices up to four times a day.
  • The International Advisory and Monitoring Board (IAMB), a watchdog established by the United Nations, is investigating the management of Iraqi finances by the now-disbanded U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). The Bush administration refused numerous IAMB requests for U.S. government audits about the payment of approximately $1.66 billion in Iraqi funds to Halliburton, which is the single largest private recipient of Iraqi oil proceeds. In October 2004, after failing to cooperate for months, the Pentagon finally sent the IAMB six of its audits. It was later found that portions of the audit were withheld from the IAMB to conceal damning evidence about KBR, including $212 million in overcharges and “unreasonable costs” associated with importing fuel into Iraq. The evidence was concealed from the public at KBR’s request.
  • In March 2005, the DOJ opened a criminal inquiry into possible bid-rigging on foreign contracts by Halliburton. The company admitted it “may have” criminally rigged contract bids and said “information has been uncovered” that former employees of KBR “may have engaged in coordinated bidding with one or more competitors on certain foreign construction projects and that such coordination possibly began as early as the mid-1980s....”
  • “Coordinating” with competitors to secure contracts with foreign governments is anticompetitive and a violation of U.S. antitrust law. The practice, known as “bid rigging,” is punishable by criminal fines and denial of future contracts with the U.S. government.
The EPA is investigating complaints by Wes Wilson, one of its senior engineers, who said the agency distorts sci-ence in order to shield Halliburton from pollution laws. The engineer said the Bush administration purposely tam-pered with environmental science in order to shield a lucrative drilling technique, known as hydraulic fractur-ing, from all regulations. He believes the technique, pioneered by Halliburton, is harmful to drinking water sup-plies. Halliburton has spent years trying to get the federal government to exempt the technique from environmental regulations

Freedom, Fries, and Lies

French Fries Protester Regrets War Jibe


by Jamie Wilson in Washington




It was a culinary rebuke that echoed around the world, heightening the sense of tension between Washington and Paris in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. But now the US politician who led the campaign to change the name of french fries to "freedom fries" has turned against the war.

Walter Jones, the Republican congressman for North Carolina who was also the brains behind french toast becoming freedom toast in Capitol Hill restaurants, told a local newspaper the US went to war "with no justification".

Mr Jones, who in March 2003 circulated a letter demanding that the three cafeterias in the House of Representatives' office buildings ban the word french from menus, said it was meant as a "light-hearted gesture".

But the name change, still in force, made headlines around the world, both for what it said about US-French relations and its pettiness.

Now Mr Jones appears to agree. Asked by a reporter for the North Carolina News and Observer about the name-change campaign - an idea Mr Jones said at the time came to him by a combination of God's hand and a constituent's request - he replied: "I wish it had never happened."

Although he voted for the war, he has since become one of its most vociferous opponents on Capitol Hill, where the hallway outside his office is lined with photographs of the "faces of the fallen".

"If we were given misinformation intentionally by people in this administration, to commit the authority to send boys, and in some instances girls, to go into Iraq, that is wrong," he told the newspaper. "Congress must be told the truth."



Wednesday, May 25, 2005

We must burn them

The stem cells. We must burn them. They must not be used. Burn! Burn! Burn! Too dangerous! Too usefule to the people! Burn! Burn! Burn! Bad idea! Dangerous! Burn!

Monday, May 23, 2005

It's what's for dinner!!!!!

What is for dinner? Not the truth, anyway. Read this latest in corporate-owned government:

May 23, 2005 Beef Makers Can Be Forced to Pay for Ads By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 6:07 p.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government can make cattle ranchers pay for ads proclaiming ''Beef: It's what's for dinner,'' the Supreme Court ruled Monday. Some ranchers object to paying for the ad campaigns because they don't like the generic message that all beef -- American or foreign -- is good. But the court ruled in a 6-3 decision that the beef program amounts to government speech that is shielded from First Amendment challenge. The government is allowed to promote its own message and compel producers to pay fees, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote. ''The message of the promotional campaigns is effectively controlled by the Federal Government itself,'' Scalia wrote in an opinion joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Clarence Thomas and Stephen G. Breyer. The agriculture secretary, a public official, controls the program, appoints and dismisses key personnel and has ''absolute veto power'' over the ads, even when it comes to their wording, Scalia wrote. At issue is a program passed by Congress in 1985 requiring cattle producers to pay $1 for every head of cattle sold in the United States for industry advertising and research. The Agriculture Department collects the ''checkoff'' fees, which total more than $80 million annually, and distributes the money to an industry group appointed by the department to run the program. The program is intended to boost demand for beef and boost profits for producers, said Monte Reese, chief operating officer of the Cattlemen's Beef Board, the group that runs the program. ''We have seen a 25 percent increase in our demand in just the last few years,'' Reese said Monday. ''We're enjoying record high prices. We've been able to make strides in beef safety. '' Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns called the ruling ''a win for the many producers who recognize the power of pooled resources.'' Similar programs run by federal and state authorities promote pork, milk, eggs, soybeans and cotton. Lower courts have struck down the ''Got Milk?'' dairy promotion and pork ads promoting ''the other white meat.'' An appeal of the pork decision is pending now before the Supreme Court. ''We'll be extremely surprised and disappointed if the judgment is not applied to the pork case as well as the beef case,'' said Dave Culbertson, president of the National Pork Board. Opponents of the fees argued the program is not government-run. The government speech defense is ''news to me,'' said Mabel Dobbs, an Idaho rancher and member of the Montana-based Western Organization of Resource Councils. ''We've long been told that the beef checkoff is producer-run, producer-driven and producer-funded,'' Dobbs said. In a dissenting opinion, Justice David H. Souter argued that the beef campaigns are not government speech. If the government wants to use targeted taxes to fund speech, it must be accountable for indicating the speech is a government message, he wrote. ''No one hearing a commercial for Pepsi or Levi's thinks Uncle Sam is the man talking behind the curtain. Why would a person reading a beef ad think Uncle Sam was trying to make him eat more steak?'' Souter wrote in a dissent joined by Justices John Paul Stevens and Anthony Kennedy. The government was sued by ranchers in South Dakota and Montana, and an appeals court ruled that the program violated the First Amendment. The government and Nebraska cattlemen appealed to the high court. The court has gone both ways in earlier cases, upholding advertising programs for California fruit in 1997 and striking down a campaign for the mushroom industry in 2001. But the court had never ruled on whether those programs were government speech. The cases are Johanns v. Livestock Marketing Association, 03-1164, and Nebraska Cattlemen v. Livestock Marketing Association, 03-1165.
While I cannot argue one way or the other as to the constitutionality of the decision, what I can say is what this means: large agribusiness firms (the "industry group" referred to in the article) will continue to make huge profits (look at the sidebar for campain contributions...), we will continue to have little testing compared to Europe for Mad Cow (BSE), the American consumer will not see any serious accross-the-board labeling campaign for organic or grass-fed beef, and the government will continue to promote (free speech?) a generic beef PRODUCT with dubious environmental and health consequences.

Now, before anybody hate-mails me, I eat beef. I love steak. I just think that a local rancher who raises high-quality beef should be able to identify his product and get promotion for it that distinguishes it from the sickly hormone infested meat we otherwise relish. But, you see, our government acquisitions this 1$ per head and gives it right back to an industry group controlled by the largest and most powerful ranchers and meatpackers.
Some places are getting smart (and making schools better):

Connecticut Nears Strict School Junk Food Ban
by Noreen Gillepsie

Lawmakers want to make sure Connecticut students aren't part of the Pepsi Generation. Connecticut is on the verge of adopting the most far-reaching ban in the country on soda and junk food in public schools, in an effort to curb rising rates of childhood obesity.

Similar but weaker proposals have been introduced in at least 17 states this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Policies are on the books in a few states, such as Arkansas and California.

Advocates say Connecticut's ban would be the strongest because it is so broad, applying to all grades and all school sites where food is sold.

"Connecticut would be the first state to apply those standards to high schools," said Margo Wootan, director of nutritional policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "Most of the recently passed policies are limited in that they only apply to elementary and middle schools."

Genetically Modified Food = Bad.

Monsanto cries foul but...

Rats fed on a diet rich in genetically modified corn developed abnormalities to internal organs and changes to their blood, raising fears that human health could be affected by eating GM food.

The Independent on Sunday can today reveal details of secret research carried out by Monsanto, the GM food giant, which shows that rats fed the modified corn had smaller kidneys and variations in the composition of their blood.

According to the confidential 1,139-page report, these health problems were absent from another batch of rodents fed non-GM food as part of the research project.

Worker Victory

I heard about this a while ago, but it's worth mention because victory is so rare--and so sweet:

This from Common Dreams quoting the AP:

IMMOKALEE, Fla. - Tejano music bounced off the one-story buildings of this farming town and the smell of tamales filled the air as scores of revelers danced into the night outside the headquarters of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

The celebration marked a hard-fought, unlikely victory by the workers, a coalition of mostly Guatemalan and Mexican tomato pickers, over one of the nation's fast-food giants, Taco Bell.

They led a four-year boycott against the chain until it agreed in March to pay a penny more per pound for Florida tomatoes and to adopt a code of conduct that would allow Taco Bell to sever ties to suppliers who commit abuses against farmworkers.

With that triumph, the farmworkers group is turning to a larger target: the rest of the fast-food industry. The coalition has sent letters to executives at McDonald's, Subway and Burger King asking them to follow Taco Bell's lead.

Saturday, May 21, 2005

End of Suburbia...

As a follow to my last post on the various links between economy, religion and space--particularly suburban space--I thought I just might bring you a picture from my neighborhood.




Yes, there are a couple of oil wells down the street from me and, yes, Virginia, they blow up. So, according to the Whittier Daily News, "One of the workers, a 49-year- old man, suffered second- and third-degree burns over 70 percent of his body. He was taken to a local hospital and later transferred to a burn center in Sherman Oaks."

I guess that's another argument for driving your car on vegetable oil, huh?

To get back to the larger point, the fire I saw bellowing from the well the other day reminded me of the real economy of the suburban "dream," which is built on fire and oil. Usually we are able to hide it, usually we ignore its costs (wars, pollution, etc.). What are those costs? As I was driving in to work, I saw yet again one of those magnetic ribbon car stickers with the American Flag on it and the words "The Price of Freedom." Well, if people really knew what the "price of freedom" was, they would understand that the real price of that oil burning in their--my!!!--backyard.

So, I decided to do a little calculation, just for fun. (Don't laugh, I'm not an economist or a mathematician).

According to Nationmaster we use 19.7 million barrels of crude per day in the United States. That comes out to 7.19 billion barrels per year. According to the Energy Department, "One barrel (42 gallons) of crude oil , when refined, produces approximately 19.9 gallons of finished motor gasoline." That means about 47% of a barrel of oil is use for gasoline. That means we burn about 3.3 billion "barrels" of gas, or 138.6 billion gallons.

So, now let's trot on over to Cost of War.

So far we have spent at least 171 billion dollars on the war, and that's not counting our annual defense bugdet.

So, let's just calculate this over a two year period (171/2) to make things simple (March 2003-March 2005).

138.6 billion gallons of gas per year / 85.5 billion dollars per year in Iraq= .61 cents per gallon surcharge per year.


So, we should add at least 61 cents per gallon to our gas to pay just for this war. This is just a rough calculation, of course, and I'm not counting increased disability payments, family services, manpower lost in many communities, harm to families, on-going mental health issues....

And, yet, the economic-religious-political triumvirate of the Right marches on, self-reinforcing, self-centered, hell-bent on securing power at home and abroad--no matter how disengenuous their leaders are, now matter how many fabrications proffer to the media.

And now a link to: End of Suburbia

Friday, May 20, 2005

Fast Food Nation--THE MOVIE

Hmmm... I wonder what this will be like?

This from the CBC:

LOS ANGELES - Director Richard Linklater, the filmmaker behind Dazed and Confused, is set to make a big-screen version of the book Fast Food Nation.


http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2005/05/20/Arts/ffnation050520.html

How Chain Restaurants Win the War

The connection between space and psyche are well-known, but little are they employed (by the mainstream media) to help us understand the predicament of America. This month's Harper's deserves widespread dissemination. Its portrait of the modern-day conservative movement and religion is insightful and scary without casting its characters as moronic. What they are, and this is what is scary, is different. Their otherness comes through and every page. What becomes apparent is that this difference is played out over and over again, not only in their beliefs, but in their economic choices. The authors could not have captured the strange marriage of religiosity, economy, politics and human feeling that feeds the Religious Right any more accurately. Take the following passage:

...[Linda] opened her eyes and explained the process she had undergone to reach her refined state. She called it "spiritual restoration." Anyone can do it, she promised, "even a gay activist." Linda had seen with her own eyes the sex demons that make homosexuals rebel against God, and she said they are gruesome; but she did not name them, for she would not "give demons glory." They are all the same, she said. "It's radicalism."

She reached across the table and touched my hand. "I have to tell you, the spiritual battle is very real." We are surrounded by demons, she explained, reciting lessons she had learned in her small-group studies at New Life. The demons are cold, they need bodies, the long to come inside. People let them in in two different ways. One is to be sinned against. "Molested," suggested. The other is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You could walk by sin--a murder, a homosexual act--and a demon will leap onto your bones. Cities, therefore, are especially dangerous.

It is not so much the large populations, with their uneasy mix of sinner and saved, that make Christian conservatives leery of urban areas. Even downtown Colorado Springs, presumably as godly as any big town in America, struck the New Lifers as unclean. Whenever I asked where to eat, they would warn me away from downtowns neat little grid of cafés and ethnic joints. Stick to Academy, they'd tell me, referring to the vein of superstores and prepackaged eateries--P.F. Chang's, California Pizza Kitchen, et al.--that bypasses the city. Downtown, they said, is "confusing."

What is fascinating and brilliant about Jeff Sharlett's "Soldiers of Christ" (Harper's May 2005) is that he brings out the elisions of belief and action at the most automatic of levels. It is not the "mission" and the overt behaviors that is most revealing of the right-wing religious movement, it's the nearly invisible shift in behavior that define them. The fear of a demon entering one's body renders downtowns "dangerous" while consuming processed food from a corporate entity is considered "normal," "safe," "good." The economic spaces of division are the echoes of a hyper-fundamentalist religion. The the need to eat is coupled with, on one hand, the desire to remain "pure" and, on the other, the fear of the other's race, gender or sexuality.

While one might argue that religion and food have often looked to each other for definition--strict Kosher practices, for example--what is most interesting and historically contradictory about the Religious Right's iteration of this practice is that the content and preparation of food remain unimportant. What is important is where one eats and with whom, and the food itself is neither pure nor impure, save drugs or alcohol. Fundamentalist Christian food practice is not about the body or the incorporation of belief systems in food (the substance), but, rather, it focuses on an implicit "corporate cleansing" of food. (This is radical. If one looks at Jewish Kosher practices, Sharia or Transubstantiation--the Catholic practice of Communion--ingesting or refusing specific foods is tightly wound with absorbing something more than the food itself, such as the body of Christ.) Fundamentalist Christians must embrace the chain restaurant not only as a "neutral" food substance, but as a spatial embodiment of its racism. Moreover, "Corporate Cleansing" (processing) of food is an extension of power, of dominion; it is a reminder that humans, master of plants and beasts, retain control and have no moral obligation to think about sustainability, the environment, or other terms that would imply humans' less-than-central role on the planet.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

Dear Day to Day

Here's what I sent to NPR this morning.


Dear Day to Day: I have no problem that Jonathan Last did not like Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith. In fact, I agree. The wooden acting, the hackneyed dialogue and the silly plot are, at best, irritating. However, his review made me, well, uncomfortable. I understand that Mr. Last found the transformation of Darth Vader more interesting than the a light-saber-weilding-pseudo-philosophizing Yoda. However, we should separate falling in love with the character from falling in love with what that character means. Mr. Last's review, which lauds the Empire's order, strength and ability to effectively suppress those that disagree with it is, quite simply, praise for fascism and despotism--yes, the same fascism and despostism that can be associated with Hitler and Mussolini. While I hesitiate to convict by association, Mr. Last's employment at the Weekly Standard only reinforces the idea that his review of Star Wars III was a thinly-veiled piece of propaganda that could have emerged from his magazine. Take for example "The Case for American Empire" in which the Weekly Standard's Max Boot argues that "The most realistic response to terrorism is for America to embrace its imperial role" (10/15/2001, Volume 007, Issue 05). Mr. Last's review was not about the politics in George Lucas' movie, but rather those of today and his own vision of political utopia--one where "messy" civil liberties are less important than order, one where the inherent disorder of any democratic republic (read filibuster) make it somehow less desirable than goose-stepping our way to a well-organized, smoothly operating and, ultimately, despotic empire.

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Fertilizer

The London Observer, November 18, 1822:
It is estimated that more than a million bushels of human and inhuman bones were imported last year from the continent of Euope into the port of Hull. The neighborhood of Leipzig, Austerlitz, Waterloo, and all of the places where, during the late bloody war, the principle battles were fought, have been swept alike of the bones of the hero and the horse on which he rode. Thus collected from every quarter, they have been shipped to the port of Hull and thence forwarded to the Yorkshire bone grinders who have erected steam-engines and powerful machinery for the purpose of reducing them to a granularly state. In this condition they are sold to the farmers to manure their lands. (War is a force that gives us meaning 31)
I'm now wondering about Rwanda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Iraq, Guatemala... Wars

Gingerbread Hearts anyone? (Don't get it? Read Hedges' book.)

I am sure, in America, we are consuming more mint tea, more couscous, more hummus than ever before. Is the fruit of trade, of open-mindedness, goodwill? No, it is the ancient way of the cannibals, their desire to incorporate the other and the other's power into one's own body in order to grow stronger.

Chris Hedges

I'm just reading Chris Hedges' book, War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, and just wanted to post some quotes:

War is a crusade. President George W. Bush is not shy about warning other nations that they stand with the United States in the war on terrorismor will be counted with those that defy us. This too is jihad. Yet we Americans find ourselves in the dangerous position of going to war not against a state but against a phantom. The jihad we have embarked upon is targeting an elusive and protean enemy. (4)

I don't know why I'm quoting that. It's so well-known, so repeated, almost cliché, but, still, it is so true and so important. He goes on to tell of war's narcotic effects, its thrills, its sense of purpose--the very one it conveys to societies--like ours--that fall under its spell. "Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose" (2).

I am often amazed, as I drive down the street, as I purchase food, gas, clothes and other things we call necessities, at how the spell of war and of capital flowing through me and endowing me with something I don't intrinsically have. War is the ultimate form of branding: live or die, win or lose, right or wrong. Our brutish, wanna-be dictator that we call The President is sucessfully branding himself and pulling all into his manichean system in which our daily actions allow us to portray ourselves as patriotic ("Let's buy a car!" "Support our troops!") because of what we say, wear or worship. But, don't worry. We still have our imagination, right?

"It’s a strange thing when a letter from the school principal arrives on lime green and aqua stationery. Stranger still when the postmark is Burbank, California, and the return address reads “Imagineer That!” But it was real. The communique trumpeted “Disney Channel is coming to our school to help spark our creativity”—in a pre-packaged 90-minute assembly.

“Imagineer That! The Creativity Adventure” is designed to “help empower students to unleash their creative powers.” It folds “an imagination skills building workshop” and a sighting of Disney Channel star Ricky Ullman into the middle-school day, and follows up with a celebratory evening “wrap party.” Full participation is guaranteed by a chance to win a family vacation to (where else?) Walt Disney World. The principal described this hoopla as “a fantastic opportunity.”

(From In These Times)