Sphincter of Light© Contest!

We all know that Thomas Kinkade is the Painter of Light©, and before I go on, you need to know that I judge an artist by his works, not where he pisses, whom he gropes, or whether "God is his agent." In fact, if he urinated on a Walt Disney icon, well, that actually makes me kind of happy, since I've always seen Disney as an exploiter hidden under the guise of innocence.

Anyway, Painter of Light© is such a great phrase (why didn't Manet think if that?), it got me to thinking. We already have Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light©, what we need is the "Sphincter of Light©"

The question is: Who?

Now some of you are thinking Rover. Others are thinking King George, or maybe Cheney, or Mehlman, or Gonzales... The list could get very, very long, so, readers, you see the challenge. Who deserves this winning phrase? Who, in the world of Republican skulduggery, can equal Thomas Kinkade's feats of the brush? Who stands above the rest of the pack, not as the Artist of Evil©, Prevaricator Without Peer© or just a plain arsehole, who, who is the Sphincter of Light©?

Remember, we are branding someone, giving that person a title that s/he can use an market himself/herself with for the rest of his or her life. Like Kinkade, they can make millions, even thought they may have to serve some jail time first. So think, be original, and, as always, vote with your heart and forget about Diebold.

P.S. I've left off George Bush. It's just too easy. Also the list of possibilities is so long that it may not include someone you feel should be the S

Voting is on over at Dailykos. I'll post results later.


Update: And the Winner is...

Bill O'Reilly

Congratulations! Out of the Thousand Sphincters of Light© that comprise the Republican leadership and its cronies, you are the winner. [Yes, the results actually placed McCain at the top, but polling was not scientific because, I liste McCain under "John (I'll stab you in the back) McCain," while other Sphincter's of light© just had the names. Conclusion, push-polling works, but it's not solid scientific method, and around here, only the most solid of methods are allowed. We do science! Science, Man, science!]

NPR airs Voice of America: Spreading Propaganda. Think Nice Polite Republicans

I have a soft spot for the idea of public programming, for the idea of NPR, but the reality of their programming, and their worn-out on-air personality are making them increasingly irrelevant, and, as far as the news programming is concerned, well, as the saying goes, "you reap what you sow," and currently they are sowing a lot of half-truths and BS.

The latest edition of this downward spiral can be seen in the recent reporting on Haiti, which I overheard. Now, Haiti Action Alerts, via Pacifica Radio, brings some substance to my suspicions:

In another dramatic infiltration of the mainstream press, Flashpoints has learned that Amelia Shaw, National Public Radio's current correspondent from Haiti, is also a reporter with the US government propaganda organization, Voice of America (VOA). By law, VOA is not allowed to broadcast on US frequencies. Shaw's reports have appeared both on Voice of America and National Public Radio in the same 48 hour period. Her reports - very much in line with the US State Department - have tried to suggest that René Preval is a troublemaker, a spoil-sport who was trying to undermine the mostly free and fair electoral process in Haiti. [Source]

Of course, it is illegal for VOA to report in the U.S.. And for NPR, it is disengenuous--if not biased and devious--to bring a VOA reporter's work to a U.S. audience. While Amelia Shaw may have two jobs, her voice and her message are one and the same: not reportage, but propaganda. The same applies to the AP, where a "freelancer for the Associated Press, who is also a stringer for the New York Times in Haiti, is moonlighting as a consultant for the US Government funded National Endowment for Democracy, according to an official at the NED, and several of the agency's grantees." (Important side note: The NED was probably highly involved in the coup against Hugo Chavez. The NED is of the same ilk as the International Republican Institute and other right-wing organizations that supposedly promote democracy but actually promote corporatocracy and militarism. These groups have influence in State and and USAID...)

Anyone who follows NPR closely has probably remarked that they frequently have guests from the Cato Institute, the American Enterprie Institute and other similar groups, and that these groups outnumber "center" and "center-left" thinkers, not to mention actual old-style left wing spokespeople. Numerous studies have proved this statistically (see FAIR and Media Matters).

All this reminds of an episode not so far, far away. In fact it was last summer and I was listening to Day to Day. I had to write them a letter:

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 [this was when all the discussion about how impolite it would be for Dems to filibuster]) make it somehow less desirable than goose-stepping our way to a well-organized, smoothly operating and, ultimately, despotic empire.

Well, I was lucky and they called me up and I read this on the air. But not everyone will be as lucky. So, are we going to let NPR lead us, with its melifluous yet boring propaganda, towards a post-democratic America? This brings me to my next point. Since we all know that NPR is actually an acronym for Nice Polite Republicans, what do we do? Well, I've pretty much quite listening to them and I've quit giving them money. Perhaps you should too. However, this will lead to a further abasement of NPR by the Right. They will seize on this weakness to make NPR even more of a voice for this administration and for right-wing thinktanks.

Perhaps the better course of action is to write NPR news more often. They do read what you write. More importantly, when you call in to give your yearly contribution, call in during Car Talk or one of your other programs and explain that you want to support the station but NOT the national news division. If this happens in large numbers, the Nice Polite Republicans will notice, for they do care about money.

There are tons of examples like the ones for Haiti, I chose Haiti because it is a blatant example of propagandizing and the U.S. is consitently bashing Haiti for a situation that the U.S. is actually creating by undermining legitimate authorities. You can also look to M. Liasson or Juan Williams for blatant examples of right-wingers posing as centrists.

Anyway, my thoughts du jour.

What's the difference between...

Communism and Capitalism? Less than most people think.

Sure, North Korea is by anybody's economic and civil definition a complete and total failure. Starvation, quasi-slave labor, totalitarianism, repression... The picture is ugly. However, they are obviously catching on. The "management" elite of North Korea are beginning to understand that they can have their cake and eat it too--i.e., they can still be a managing elite and unfairly exploit labor under capitalism too!!! (How exciting for them!):

If the leaders of the two Koreas have their way, Hwang's factory, with its 326 North Korean workers and seven South Korean managers, will represent the economic future of the peninsula.

"Kaesong Industrial Park [in North Korea], a place where the South's capital and technology and the North's land and labor are being combined to a make a new prosperity," an American-accented voice announced on a peppy information video shown to the first group of foreign reporters to tour the site, only several hundred meters north of the demilitarized zone.

Almost four years after the initial agreement for the park, the legal and infrastructure building blocks finally seem to be in place for explosive growth. Over the next year, the number of South Korean factories and North Korean workers is to nearly quadruple, to 39 factories and 15,000 employees.

By 2012, the industrial park is to spread over 67 square kilometers, or 26 square miles, and to employ 730,000 North Koreans, almost 8 percent of the work force in this impoverished nation, which has a total population of 23 million." [Source: IHT, "For Managers, a Korean Paradise"]

Some people will praise this as an ouverture to the global economy. To me it signals yet another fall towards the bottom. We have heard for decades how bad it is for North Korea to exploit its workers under Communism, yet, when financiers for Seoul fund the factories, the "maquiladoras," the exploitation, we have no issues whatsoever.

Tell me, what is the difference between these two photos? (The first is from the IHT article on Korea, the second one I took in Mexico)
courtesy AP Photos

Now here's mine:
Photos by me.

So now South Korea wants to create its own maquiladoras and the usual caveats appear:

In the United States, American labor and human rights activists may object to employment conditions here.

At Kaesong, the minimum wage for the 48-hour week is $57.50. But $7.50 is deducted for "social charges" paid to the North Korean government. The remaining $50 is paid to a North Korean government labor broker. None of the South Korean factory managers interviewed would guess how much of the $50 salary ends up in the pockets of workers.

"The exact amount is determined by North Korean authorities," said Kim Dong Keun, a South Korean who chairs the Kaesong Industrial District Management Committee.

Under labor contracting arrangements in Russia and Eastern Europe, North Korea's government often withholds half of their workers' salaries.

Attempts to interview seamstresses at the Shinwon, factory elicited evasive responses and intervention by South Korean guides.

Yes, human rights organizations should be very concerned. Fortunately, the article normalizes the situation and says, essentially, "hey--don't worry, it's all going to be ok": "In our view, the agreement applies to goods produced only in South Korea and the United States," an U.S. Embassy official in Seoul told reporters. "We hope that the Kaesong issue won't be a major hurdle in reaching the comprehensive goal of signing the free-trade agreement."

Exploitation is great!!! Let's get started.

So tell me again what's the difference between Communism and Capitalism. For me the answer is that Communists haven't realized that they can continue to exploit populations under the "freer" system of Capitalism. And if you think that the U.S. economy is getting better, well, you must be very, very rich already and not reading this. Go read this over at the Left Coaster, and you'll see what I mean.

Marc Cooper: "Dead in Their Tracks"

LA Weekly's Marc Cooper has a riveting story on the increasing death toll on the border, including a portrait of Samaritans who bring ill and dying Border-Crossers food and water...

With ever more Border Patrol agents and high-tech surveillance fortifying the international divide, Mexican migrants are walking longer and more perilous routes to get into the United States. Last year, a record 473 of them died trying to cross — more than half here in Arizona. The year before marked the previous record. And 2006 threatens to set yet another record.

This is why almost every weekend of the year, and every day during the triple-digit heat of the Sonoran Desert summer, Johnston and 50 or so others who are part of the humanitarian groups No More Deaths and Samaritan Patrol (also called Samaritans) comb the cactus and mesquite of southern Arizona looking for migrants in distress. They offer water, snacks and — if necessary — evacuation for those with medical emergencies. Last year, among the 3,500 migrants the Samaritans encountered, they took 68 of them to a doctor, or back to their base at Tucson’s Southside Presbyterian Church, where they were treated by medical volunteers.

Go read the rest.

Labor Camps and Halliburton in a post-democratic U.S.

This is follow up to yesterday's post on a recent government contract awarded to Halliburton to build containment centers/camps/prisons expressly for 1) an influx of immigrants, 2) a national disaster, or, as the contract ominously states, "new programs":

A curious development in January when the Army Corps of Engineers awarded Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root a $385 million contract to construct detention centers somewhere in the United States, to deal with "an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs," KBR said.

According to Alternet.org, the contract funding and language referred to a program that allows civilian labor:

There also was another little-noticed item posted at the U.S. Army website, about the Pentagon's Civilian Inmate Labor Program. This program "provides Army policy and guidance for establishing civilian inmate labor programs and civilian prison camps on Army installations." The Army document, first drafted in 1997, underwent a "rapid action revision" on Jan. 14, 2005. The revision provides a "template for developing agreements" between the Army and corrections facilities for the use of civilian inmate labor on Army installations. On its face, the Army's labor program refers to inmates housed in federal, state and local jails. The Army also cites various federal laws that govern the use of civilian labor and provide for the establishment of prison camps in the United States, including a federal statute that authorizes the attorney general to "establish, equip, and maintain camps upon sites selected by him" and "make available … the services of United States prisoners" to various government departments, including the Department of Defense. [Source: http://www.alternet.org/story/32647 ]

Of course, the U.S. has more people in prison than any industrialized nation, and these imprisonment rates reveal deeply embedded racism and the travails of poverty: "At yearend 2004 there were 3,218 black male sentenced prison inmates per 100,000 black males in the United States, compared to 1,220 Hispanic male inmates per 100,000 Hispanic males and 463 white male inmates per 100,000 white males" (DOJ statistics). (There is an important discussion to be had here about the accumulation of risk factors that come along with poverty, but it is off topic, so I'll save it for later.)

More to the topic is the idea of repression today's related story at tompaine.com:

In these times of the Patriot Act and domestic surveillance, we might justifiably be concerned that our society is becoming post-democratic. So, while the government charging a citizen with the good, old-fashioned crime of sedition might not exactly be commonplace, it is in keeping with recent trends. In September, Laura Berg, a Veteran’s Administration nurse in Albuquerque wrote to a local paper, The Alibi, expressing outrage at the administration’s incompetent and inhumane handling of Katrina and Iraq. “Is this America the beautiful?” she asked. Evidently so, given that Berg’s letter prompted the VA to investigate her for sedition, a charge that would have sounded significantly less anachronistic back when “America the Beautiful” was written in 1893. Peter Simonson, Executive Director of the ACLU in New Mexico, was stunned: “Sedition? That’s like something out of the history books.” While there does still exist a federal law governing sedition, which can carry up to a $250,000 fine and a 20-year sentence, it refers exclusively to intentionally instigating violent revolt against the government. To read Berg’s call to “act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit” as a direct appeal for insurrection is certainly a colorful interpretation. Nonetheless, Berg’s work computer was seized within days of her letter’s publication. It took the VA's chief of human resources, Mel R. Hooker, almost two months to admit that no evidence of the letter having been written on the VA’s computer could be found. Rather than apologize, Hooker went on to reiterate the possibility that the letter constituted sedition. Moreover, according to Berg’s American Federation of Government Employees Union representative, the VA has turned the offending letter over to the FBI.

Anyone who thinks this (or anything ) is beyond the pale, even for this administration should reconsider. Forget what you've been taught in school and look at what is actually happening. We are prosecuting people for sedition now--and for anyone who has forgotten history, the Alien and Sedition Acts were some of the very first tools of the Federalists who did not take kindly to criticism in newspapers and pro-Jeffersonian meetings and clubs. The Alien and Sedition Acts worked directly against free speech and, in particular, against the Federalists political opponenents. Is it any surprise that Scalia, Alito, Ashcroft (and for all I know, Gonz
alez) are members? Just as in 1798 we find supporters of an imperial presidency that should not be questioned and that gathers its support from the upper classes, whose agenda it supports.

Several more prosecutions come to mind. Take for example the DOJ's rabid pursuit of "Eco-terrorists." An Oregon man was sentenced to 20 years for torching SUVs (no human was harmed). That is more than many murderers get, and is certainly way more than anyone at Enron will serve. And here is an excerpt from testimony by James Jarboe, Domestic Terrorism Section Chief, Counterterrorism Division, FBI, Before the House Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Forests

Domestic terrorism is the unlawful use, or threatened use, of violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States (or its territories) without foreign direction, committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. During the past decade we have witnessed dramatic changes in the nature of the terrorist threat. In the 1990s, right-wing extremism overtook left-wing terrorism as the most dangerous domestic terrorist threat to the country. During the past several years, special interest extremism, as characterized by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), has emerged as a serious terrorist threat. Generally, extremist groups engage in much activity that is protected by constitutional guarantees of free speech and assembly. Law enforcement becomes involved when the volatile talk of these groups transgresses into unlawful action. The FBI estimates that the ALF/ELF have committed more than 600 criminal acts in the United States since 1996, resulting in damages in excess of 43 million dollars.

While I DO NOT support these groups, it is a farce to think they are as dangerous as the Right Wing extremists in this country who have a proven track record of blowing up buildings, killing people and openly preaching hatred. It is disturbing that our government is focusing on tree huggers rather than on violent, racist terrorists à la McVeigh.

I leave it there for today, but go read David Dneiwert on "Rush, Facism and Newspeak" and on Bush, the Nazis and America.

Dneiwert is scholarly and brilliant. You will learn a lot. He also has much information on the Minutemen Project. (Hey, you can go read some of my posts on border issues too if you want. It is a project I'm just beginning, but, hey, it has pictures.)

So, connect the dots. KBR, FBI, Bush, Fascims, Internment Camps.... That's my post du jour. Gotta run.

Work Makes You Free

Alternet.org has a wonderful piece of investigative reporting out today on new detention centers under construction by Halliburton. One of the most disturbing lines is that they are for "new programs":

there was that curious development in January when the Army Corps of Engineers awarded Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root a $385 million contract to construct detention centers somewhere in the United States, to deal with "an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs," KBR said.

Is this for "radical" Muslims? Radical Lefties? People withe the wrong "attitude"? Really, this is amazing. My brain has a hard time believing that the U.S. would arrest and intern large numbers of U.S. citizens because of political views. Well sort of. I guess nothing can surprise me anymore.

Obviously our detention rate climbs every year in this counrty and because of its unfair prejudices, it targets the poor and those with colored skin. Why not then target me or you. I mean, why not? Law and "freedom" do not seem to bind this administration, while Gonzalez, the appointed defender of our laws, is allowed to prevaricate in front of the nation, called to ask only by a handful of voices in congress.

Read the whole report and look at the plans for labor camps too. Yes, labor camps:

The Army document, first drafted in 1997, underwent a "rapid action revision" on Jan. 14, 2005. The revision provides a "template for developing agreements" between the Army and corrections facilities for the use of civilian inmate labor on Army installations.

On its face, the Army's labor program refers to inmates housed in federal, state and local jails. The Army also cites various federal laws that govern the use of civilian labor and provide for the establishment of prison camps in the United States, including a federal statute that authorizes the attorney general to "establish, equip, and maintain camps upon sites selected by him" and "make available ... the services of United States prisoners" to various government departments, including the Department of Defense.

Arbeit macht... I do not want to say it, because it would belittle the Holocaust. However, the idea of forced labor would fit right in for this punishment society...

There are just so many problems with this idea of forced labor. Even prisoners should be paid a fair wage, otherwise it easily becomes slave-like labor. Also, one of the most hideous things our founding citizens fought against were galleys and debtors' prisons. America has to wake up. [I just re-edited these last two paragraphs for clarity.]

More info [update]

A little bit of research yielded this rather prescient article by a Dr. Niman. He states:

State and local governments nationwide are finding out that even with cuts to other programs, they cannot afford the costly price tags associated with their new jails. To meet these costs, states are turning to prison labor. American prison administrators are now "leasing" prison labor to private corporations in a system reminiscent of their Nazi predecessors, who "leased" concentration camp labor to corporations such as Ford and BASF. The difference is that while the Third Reich prisoners were virtual slaves, the current American prisoners are paid. Their wages, however, are often less than state minimum wages, and the prison systems take about 80% of that wage for "room and board."

The prisoners who stuff junk mail into envelopes for the likes of Bank of America, Chevron and Macy’s, take telephone reservations for hotels and airlines such as Eastern, pack golf balls for Spaulding, repair circuit boards supplied to Dell, Texas Instruments and IBM, etc. often earn about $1 an hour. During the 1990s creative managers leased prison labor for a variety of tasks ranging from the nocturnal restocking of shelves at Toys R Us to raising hogs and manufacturing Honda parts and El Salvadoran license plates.

Not surprsingly, some of this information is not easy to find on government servers. I didn't find it easily at the Census Bureau. The DOJ does however have some stats:

Summary findings

On December 31, 2004 --

-- 2,135,901 prisoners were held in Federal or State prisons or in local jails -- an increase of 2.6% from yearend 2003, less than the average annual growth of 3.4% since yearend 1995.

-- there were an estimated 486 prison inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents -- up from 411 at yearend 1995.

-- the number of women under the jurisdiction of State or Federal prison authorities increased 4.0% from yearend 2003, reaching 104,848 and the number of men rose 1.8%, totaling 1,391,781.

At yearend 2004 there were 3,218 black male sentenced prison inmates per 100,000 black males in the United States, compared to 1,220 Hispanic male inmates per 100,000 Hispanic males and 463 white male inmates per 100,000 white males.

I repeat: Scary.

I hear that Eric Schlosser is writing a book on this. I hope he has as much success as with Fast Food Nation.

Tijuana cont.

As promised, I'm still working on my Tijuana section. I've been entering data into Wayfaring, which is a really interesting website.

My earlier post and narrative is here:

“One can argue that crossing the border is illegal for some, but one cannot say that it is immoral.” When my colleague spoke those words, I felt some of my vague thoughts take a concrete form. I had been in Tijuana for three straight days and two nights, and my perspective on the trip was blurred by emotion, fatigue, and the energy that comes from observing inhumanity and obscene wealth when they back up against each other the way they do in Tijuana.

Loan Sharks

I'd heard about the obscene practices of check cashing operations. Now, thanks to a piece of paper I found behind our garage in the alley (where trash is collected), I've seen evidence of it firsthand. I've blurred out all personal information, but you can still get some of the important details. This person cashed a check for 300 dollars, paid a 45 dollar finance charge and received 255.00 dollars in return. S/he has two weeks about, then the agency cashes the check for 300 dollars. If it bounces, the person will be liable for interest at an annual rate of... well just look at the picture and see for yourself.



460%--Wow. Now we know how Advance America follows it's own advice:

Respect Your Customers
Treat them with dignity and courtesy at all times.
Respect Your Associates
Treat them as you would like to be treated.
Respect Yourself
Work hard and use good, ethical judgment in everything you do.
Respect the Law
It is there to protect us and our Customers.

Of course, I'm being sarcastic. Advance America obviously exploits hardworking people to the extent the law allows, and, unfortunately, the law allows too much. You can see who Advance America contributes to in my "home states" Georgia and California here
and here
.

If you click on the California section of follow the money, you'll note that Advance ("Fleece") America gives at least as much if not more to Dems as to Republicans. Those who say Sacramento is flawed are entirely correct. The unfortunate thing is that most of the voices we hear saying that are looking (à la Schwarzenneger) to exploit public sentiment about this in order to make the capital even more corrupt than it already is. This is why we need better candidates, progressive ones. MyDD and Plan get it right.

There was Rimbaud and Verlaine, now there's me.

Dick Cheney's .28 Gauge Swan (Quail) Song

'Neath the brambles and the waning Texas sun
Lies a corporate lawyer whose blood does run
Red state of affairs, beer, affairs of the heart,
Caged coveys of Truth sing Bunker Boy's depart.

Moral Crossings

[This is part one of a series of posts on Tijuana. I hope to finish it up in a week or so.]

“One can argue that crossing the border is illegal for some, but one cannot say that it is immoral.” When my colleague spoke those words, I felt some of my vague thoughts take a concrete form. I had been in Tijuana for three straight days and two nights, and my perspective on the trip was blurred by emotion, fatigue, and the energy that comes from observing inhumanity and obscene wealth when they back up against each other the way they do in Tijuana.

What else could he say, what could anyone say who had been there? The poverty is as crushing and unavoidable as the flow of people through the city. One young woman we met was waiting to cross the border. It wasn’t her first attempt. The first time she was traveling north from Honduras. She tried to jump a train but no one would help her, she fumbled and fell by the moving train, hurting her leg badly. Some people threw her into the bushes and left her to bleed and die. Luck was on her side, though. Someone came along and found her, after she had crawled some distance. Meanwhile, she had applied a tourniquet to her broken and bleeding leg. Though that didn’t save it and it was amputated at about six inches above her knee in a Mexican hospital, the Mexican health system did pay the bill without much complaint. Now she has a second-rate prosthesis that she hopes will carry her across the border and to her friend in Boston. She is fiesty, determined and even a bit delusional about her chances. I wish her luck and don’t count her out; she has already made it back to Tijuana from Honduras.

It doesn’t surpise me that this crippled woman (who could no longer get a job in her home country because she was “fucked up”) seems delusional. It takes a lot of hope to think you’re going to make it in a place where no one wants you except for a few members of the National Restaurant Association and a handful of meat-packing corporations--and they will only want you for a while. It strikes me, though, that this delusional hope beyond hope that life must somehow be better on the other side is eerily similar to our own delusional myths about our country. You know the ones: that the West was built by tough cowboys and entrepreneurs, even though it mostly flourished from government subsidies (think Hoover Dam) and government-subsidized industry (think aerospace); that our country has good intentions for all its citizens and the world (think about how congress uses unnecessary war to gut healthcare and education in the U.S.); that with hard work everyone should succeed. It strikes me that many poor immigrants thought the same thing before they got here, and they still do, even though they are fifth-generation, hard-working miners whose safety and economic livelihoods are increasingly threatened by U.S. corporations and their government cronies. I mean no disrespect, but that is delusional.

The border would be a funny thing if were not for all the harm it engenders.

The border with the U.S. is a rather selective strainer. Housemaids and some day-workers, as well as middle and upper-middle class Mexicans working in the U.S. pass through with little friction. U.S. citizens, The Rich and their money, and of course goods find no hindrances. Unskilled labor, however, stares at the wall, with anger and envy, and also with some disdain for it, for it is a symbol of the U.S. and its cruel and, yes, ignorant policies. How is it that money and goods move back and forth without impediment while they cannot? Do things have more of a right than people? Those questions were on my mind, and no doubt on other’s as well.
A maquiladora is a factory. The concept is simple: bring unfinished goods from the U.S., finish their production in Mexico at the going rate (about 1.80 an hour average including taxes, social security, etc.), and ship those goods back to the U.S. for sale. The concept of a maquiladora, as two members of the Tijuana Economic Development Council (TEDC) pointed out, is for U.S. companies to save money on labor. (I will also assume, since these men were wearing suits and working out of an office in the Tijuana City Hall, though not technically government officials, that certain Mexicans make a good deal more than the laborers through this arrangement. More on this later.)

The TEDC noted that there were some 180 thousand workers employed in maquiladoras. Many of them, they said, were not actually from Tijuana, but people moving from the poorest regions of Mexico and Central America. They mostly live in, well, “unconventional housing.” These are the hillsides where shantytowns overflow with squatters. Though some in the U.S. wouldn’t believe it (since Tijuana for them only contains the Great Unwashed), there are some other hills, covered in mansions that cost millions. Tijuana is a mine for those that can extract its riches.

The human ore of Tijuana has increased in market value as its human value has declined. I’m not speaking here of workers who lose limbs because safety equipment is removed from machines in order to increase the pace of production; nor am I speaking of workers sickened from toxic fumes in the workplace. I am referring only to the value of the worker as a production unit. As Tito, a sociologist pointed out, Tijuana’s growth is inversely related to growth elsewhere in Mexico. In other words, as other regions of Mexico get poorer, Tijuana grows, making a few rich, bringing a few others to the middle class, and spawning the giant population of displaced workers earning, if they are lucky, the minimum wage. But all this is threatened by China. “China is of great concern,” said one member of the TEDC.

Indeed, labor is much cheaper in China and (fear of) this country is on the lips of the Businesspeople and the pro-business Academics that have codified Tijuana’s status as a legal production site. The race to the lowest wage and therefore most exploitative working conditions is a never-ending one. The question is thus: how will Tijuana continue to benefit from a World economy in which all foreign countries are allowed “maquiladora” status? Why send work to Tijuana, Guadelajara or the Marianas (a U.S. territory) if labor can be had so much more cheaply in China?


A textile maquiladora I visited was suffering precisely from the problem of U.S.-China trade.. The owner, a friendly middle-aged woman with a stopwatch hanging from her neck, said that in just the last year, her workers have gone from producing high-end garments to sewing cheap nurse’s uniforms. When I asked her how her workers could be competitive and make more money, she said: “Sew faster.” At this point I remind myself that she is part of a system.

Luckily for these workers, Tijuana has one things going for it: proximity. It is cheaper to ship a flat screen TV from Tijuana to the U.S. than from China.

End of part I.
Andy W.

Cat Blogging...

Ok. I never cat blog. We have four cats and it would take a full-time business to post the pictures of them doing interesting things. But, it's Friday and I'm just sitting around waiting for another Bush scandal and, well, I feel like cat blogging. So here goes: this is a picture of Mara*** (*** to protect the innocent) taken early one morning. Mara*** spends a lot of time on the roof.

Orange County Fires

I took these photos of the fires as I was flying back to L.A. Though the OC is a Republican stronghold, I feel terrible they have to deal with these fires. Besides, there are a lot good Liberals down there too.

Finally Back

Well, I'm back from several trips, including an amazing visit to Tijuana. The only thing I can say is that NAFTA, the WTO and the Mexican-U.S. elite are without souls. We visited several slums, but also met with labor leaders, as well as the U.S.-Friendly Tijuana Economic Development Council (not sure if that's the exact title. That last meeting was incredible. They were giving us a lecture on how great the average salary of 15 dollars per day was for mexican workers and U.S. industrialists looking for cheap labor. When confronted with the question of abuse in the factories (Maquiladoras), the business group (independent but housed in the city hall) stated: "Unfortunately, Mexican workers have too many rights." It got pretty tense after that.

Anyway, posted above is a picture of two girls living in squatter community on a dump. I'll write more about this later, but the amazing thing here is that, though the living conditions are litterally deadly (toxic smoke from underground fires, risk of electrocution from rigged electrical hookups, etc.), there is a real sense of safety and freedom because there is community. People know each other. Anyway, I'll blog more on this later now that I'm back. Here are a few more pictures.

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.

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)

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.


A C-130.

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.

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...

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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 Petróleos 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!]

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.