Superannuated Pedagogue

some very fine art

2007-04-12T10:42:00.000-04:00

hosted my frighteningly talented wife's art opening last night at Cafe Eclectic in Montclair -- one of my favorite places in the world, owned by the generous self-described boy scout Julio. They opened 10 years ago, the same year we moved out to Montclair. And I gave them their router for the free wi-fi (when Julio was thinking of going with one of those paysites).

pix are up all month. go see 'em. or go to her flickr site. and buy one now, before they go out of your price range -- most are 3 figure $....

Muslim and Christian Co-Existence

2007-03-30T14:03:00.000-04:00

The WPUNJ Philosophy Club and the Muslim Student Association

~PRESENT~

Muslim and Christian

Co-Existence

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

7-10 PM

Library Auditorium

Moderator and Organizer: Adam Cannon (WPUNJ student)

Participants:

Joe Devore (historian) Former WPUNJ student

Muhammad el-Filali (historian) Islamic Center of Passiac County

David Greco (theologian) Christian speaker

Tamara Issak (practitioner), WPUNJ Student and MSA leader

Husnain Rajabali (theologian) teacher at the Imam Ali Center

Danny Papa (practitioner) WPUNJ student

This event is made possible by funding from the WPUNJ Alumni Association

Questions? Barbara Andrew – Department of Philosophy

Atrium 275 andrewb@wpunj.edu 973 720 3723

Links for a talk on "Blogs as information gatekeepers"

2007-03-08T10:25:00.000-05:00

CTE & LLST Forum announcement: Critically Evaluating Information on the Web

Dewar MacLeod homepage

W. Caleb McDaniel, Blogging in the Early Republic

Stephen Downes, Principles for Evaluating Websites

Glenn Greenwald on blogs as community of researchers

Rick Perlstein, Bloggers upstage the mainstream press yet again

Peter Daou, The Triangle: The Limits of Blog Power

WaPo article: Teens Can Multitask, But What Are Costs?

A link sent by a student: Global Warming happens every 1500 years

I am not sure about this metaphor

2007-03-02T13:29:00.000-05:00

but might be worth discussing:

“History is like herpes”, a professor once told me. “It just keeps coming back, reminding us of the initial contact and infuriating us every time it does. But son-of-a-bitch, it’s real. And if you don’t take care of it, and deal with it…well, you know the rest.”

from lowermanhattanite guestposting at the News Blog.

Freeway Blogger

2007-02-25T15:48:00.000-05:00

Things are heating up...

2007-02-25T15:10:00.000-05:00

U.S. developing contingency plan to bomb Iran: report

Sun Feb 25, 2007 9:42AM EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Despite the Bush administration's insistence it has no plans to go to war with Iran, a Pentagon panel has been created to plan a bombing attack that could be implemented within 24 hours of getting the go-ahead from President George W. Bush, The New Yorker magazine reported in its latest issue.

The special planning group was established within the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in recent months, according to an unidentified former U.S. intelligence official cited in the article by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in the March 4 issue.

Hersh on CNN here.

And:

From The Sunday Times
February 25, 2007
US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack

Michael Smith and Sarah Baxter, Washington

SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.
Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.

“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”

Oh, and this:
US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran

By William Lowther in Washington DC and Colin Freeman, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:30am GMT 25/02/2007

America is secretly funding militant ethnic separatist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear programme.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime is accused of repressing minority rights and culture
In a move that reflects Washington's growing concern with the failure of diplomatic initiatives, CIA officials are understood to be helping opposition militias among the numerous ethnic minority groups clustered in Iran's border regions.

This I like

2007-02-25T14:21:00.000-05:00

Virginia Apologizes for Role in Slavery

By LARRY O'DELL, Associated Press Writer
3:38 AM PST, February 25, 2007

RICHMOND, Va. -- Meeting on the grounds of the former Confederate Capitol, the Virginia General Assembly voted unanimously Saturday to express "profound regret" for the state's role in slavery.

Sponsors of the resolution say they know of no other state that has apologized for slavery, although Missouri lawmakers are considering such a measure. The resolution does not carry the weight of law but sends an important symbolic message, supporters said.

"This session will be remembered for a lot of things, but 20 years hence I suspect one of those things will be the fact that we came together and passed this resolution," said Delegate A. Donald McEachin, a Democrat who sponsored it in the House of Delegates.

The resolution passed the House 96-0 and cleared the 40-member Senate on a unanimous voice vote. It does not require Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's approval.

The measure also expressed regret for "the exploitation of Native Americans."

The resolution was introduced as Virginia begins its celebration of the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, where the first Africans arrived in 1619. Richmond, home to a popular boulevard lined with statues of Confederate heroes, later became another point of arrival for Africans and a slave-trade hub.

The resolution says government-sanctioned slavery "ranks as the most horrendous of all depredations of human rights and violations of our founding ideals in our nation's history, and the abolition of slavery was followed by systematic discrimination, enforced segregation, and other insidious institutions and practices toward Americans of African descent that were rooted in racism, racial bias, and racial misunderstanding."

In Virginia, black voter turnout was suppressed with a poll tax and literacy tests before those practices were struck down by federal courts, and state leaders responded to federally ordered school desegregation with a "Massive Resistance" movement in the 1950s and early '60s. Some communities created exclusive whites-only schools.

The apology is the latest in a series of strides Virginia has made in overcoming its segregationist past. Virginia was the first state to elect a black governor -- L. Douglas Wilder in 1989 -- and the Legislature took a step toward atoning for Massive Resistance in 2004 by creating a scholarship fund for blacks whose schools were shut down between 1954 and 1964.

Among those voting for the measure was Delegate Frank D. Hargrove, an 80-year-old Republican who infuriated black leaders last month by saying "black citizens should get over" slavery.

After enduring a barrage of criticism, Hargrove successfully co-sponsored a resolution calling on Virginia to celebrate "Juneteenth," a holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.

W.W.G.W.B.D.?

2007-02-22T21:07:00.000-05:00

The Coming War with Iran

2007-02-21T09:02:00.000-05:00

From the Project for Defense Alternatives, a great site with links to tons of articles on every aspect of the Iran situation: Confronting Iran: Critical perspectives on the current crisis, its origins, and implications

a commenter!

2007-02-21T08:19:00.000-05:00

I am sort of ambivalent about this blog these days -- still not sure what to do with it -- so I am not really trying to get readers. But yesterday I had at least one, and this person left a comment! Since that is such a rare treat, I have decided to promote it to a post, with my reply to follow:

Anonymous said...
The wealthy or the monied class will always favor whoever has their best interests at heart. This can be said today, or 100 years ago or 100 years before that. The roaring 20's or the gay 90's weren't wonderful times for all, but mostly for the wealthiest 1% of the population, people like Rockefeller and Carnegie concerned with making money and their own level of comfort; they cared little for their employees.

The same could be true today, most employees do not have the same level of comfort they had even a few years ago. Recently the news, mentioned that life is wonderful if you are the wealthiest 1% of the population.

Certainly our politians today favor big business, workers rights have taken a few steps backwards. We need to think carefully about the coming elections and hope we can find another Adams or a Teddy Roosevelt, someone who isn't afraid to do the unpopular and take a stand against big business. As was true before the Revolution it is once again the "body of the people" who politicians should be listening to.

I take issue only with the word "always" in comment.

The remarkable thing about the revolution was that -- even if the wealthy were took longer than Samuel Adams to embrace the revolutionary cause -- many of the patriots were among the wealthiest of the colonists. There were few wealthier than Washington and Hancock but they both supported the revolution. Hard to believe, but in this instance they were truly motivated by ideals -- not the pursuit of wealth.

Now, maybe they were particularly exceptional individuals, these So-Called Founding Fathers (SCFF), but they also created and inhabited an environment where ideas and ideals mattered. I think that is what we need right now -- more than a TR or Samuel Adams to save us. We all -- "the body of the people" as the commenter says -- need to work on creating a political and cultural environment where serious discussion of issues is encouraged and demanded even.

With that in mind I link here to the latest from Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi, a sharp-eyed and ruthless critic. He sometimes goes for the easy Menckenesque barb rather than deep analysis, but there are few sharper pens out there these days. A taste:

If the Estate Tax were to be repealed completely, the estimated savings to just one family -- the Walton family, the heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune -- would be about $32.7 billion dollars over the next ten years.
The proposed reductions to Medicaid over the same time frame? $28 billion. Or how about this: If the Estate Tax goes, the heirs to the Mars candy corporation -- some of the world's evilest scumbags, incidentally, routinely ripped by human rights organizations for trafficking in child labor to work cocoa farms in places like Cote D'Ivoire -- will receive about $11.7 billion in tax breaks. That's more than three times the amount Bush wants to cut from the VA budget ($3.4 billion) over the same time period.

This leads me to link to an old post of a brilliant speech by Al Gore on the state of our democracy and public discourse. It begins:

I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse. I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America's fabled "marketplace of ideas" now functions.

[...]

In fact there was a time when America's public discourse was consistently much more vivid, focused and clear. Our Founders, probably the most literate generation in all of history, used words with astonishing precision and believed in the Rule of Reason.

Their faith in the viability of Representative Democracy rested on their trust in the wisdom of a well-informed citizenry. But they placed particular emphasis on insuring that the public could be well-informed. And they took great care to protect the openness of the marketplace of ideas in order to ensure the free-flow of knowledge.

The values that Americans had brought from Europe to the New World had grown out of the sudden explosion of literacy and knowledge after Gutenberg's disruptive invention broke up the stagnant medieval information monopoly and triggered the Reformation, Humanism, and the Enlightenment and enshrined a new sovereign: the "Rule of Reason."

Indeed, the self-governing republic they had the audacity to establish was later named by the historian Henry Steele Commager as "the Empire of Reason."

Finally, there has been a debate about liberals should approach religion in the current political environment. As usual, Digby seems to present the clearest case:

I have no problem with politicians using religious rhetoric to inform voters of their own personal views, but when appeals to positive virtues become exclusively associated with religious values we end up aiding and abetting a whole host of conservative appeals to authority in the process. We must value reason itself, and employ it liberally and respectfully or we are going to find that the epistemic relativism that the right's been so successful with in recent years will have some very unpleasant consequences.

This nation is not going to be prosperous and successful in the future if we fail to properly emphasize the idea that reason is intrinsic to democracy. And we certainly are not going to be able to deal with the complicated challenges we face, like the rise of militant fundamentalism, nuclear proliferation or global warming unless we agree that people who do not subscribe to religion can be trustworthy and that science, analysis and knowledge form as much of a legitimate basis for human progress as religion. The right demagogues these things for the express purpose of advancing their authoritarian agenda and I don't think it's wise for Democrats to allow a new class of "religious strategists" to further empower them in some ill-conceived crusade to gain votes from the least likely people in the nation to vote for them.

If the Democratic party doesn't stand for freedom and equality and the basic rational premise of the constitution then nobody does. The Republicans sold that out when they made their bed with Jerry Falwell, even though they pretended for years that they were the keepers of the flame. I'd hate to see the Democrats capitulate to the same socially regressive forces and empower the opposition in the process.

The religious and secular left have the chance together to make both reasoned and moral arguments for social justice, civil liberties and civil rights based upon our shared liberal values. Our rational and idealistic worldviews are not in tension. There is no purpose to all this pandering to the right except perhap to give a few new strategists an opportunity create a divide where none exists so they might exploit their positions as professional mediators.

Beware the insider religio-political industrial complex. It dishonestly foments this fight with bogus statistics and bad advice. Democrats are making a big mistake if they listen to them. Their political ambition is tragically weakening the one thing that keeps the nation together and keeps the right from hurtling completely out of control --- the US Constitution and a respect for the clear-eyed reason that inspired it. Democracy is not faith based and religion isn't democratic. People need to be reminded of the difference not encouraged to see them as the same thing.

Troop morale

2007-02-21T07:58:00.000-05:00

I have never understood how words spoken here in the USA could have an effect on "troop morale" in the greatest military in the history of the universe (just as I cannot understand how these same words can "embolden the enemy" as if the people attacking American forces in Iraq sit around worrying and feeling bad until someone in the US says something critical of Bush, at which point they jump up and plant an IED or shoot down a helicopter).

This comes from "a troop":

Pundits and politicians seem both greatly concerned and badly informed about troop morale. As a troop myself, I thought I'd start a dialogue of the 10 best and 10 worst things for my morale. I hope others will chime in with their nominations.
Ten worst:

1. Getting blown up
2. Buddies getting blown up
3. Re-securing a town we secured year before last
4. 'Taps'
5. The 'catch and release' detainee program
6. Colostomy bags
7. Civilian young men who won't look me in the eye when I'm in uniform
8. Any scene from any shopping mall anywhere in America
9. Editorials pointing out that casualties are 'light by historical standards'
10. Lies

Ten best:

1. Iraqis willing to fight for their country
2. Good sergeants
3. Clean, dry socks and t-shirts
4. Cigarettes and Chi without body armor
5. The USO at the DFW airport
6. Meeting an Iraqi leader from my last tour who's still alive
7. "Nothing significant to report"
8. Sleep & KBR macadamia nut cookies (tie)
9. Dead generals (this one is hypothetical, at least for the last six years, but Ridgeway said "it's good for the troops' morale to see a dead general every once in a while.")
10. Truth

Conspicuous by its absence is any speech by any politician, except those that fall in category 10. Hope this helps.

Focus the Nation -- on Global Warming -- Feb 26th

2007-02-19T10:26:00.000-05:00

GLOBAL WARMING SOLUTIONS: NEW JERSEY FOCUS THE NATION SUMMIT- VIDEOCONFERENCE: DR. EBAN GOODSTEIN, Monday, February 26, 2007, 4:30-8:30 PM ET

NJHEPS, New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability and FOCUS THE NATION have announced an interactive, videoconference on “GLOBAL WARMING SOLUTIONS FOR AMERICA: NEW JERSEY FOCUS THE NATION with Dr. Eban Goodstein” linking faculty, students and community people to nine N.J. host college campuses on Monday, 26 February 2007 from 4:30 to 8:30 PM ET.

WHO: You are invited to participate in NEW JERSEY FOCUS THE NATION SUMMIT, a live videoconference sponsored by NJHEPS - New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability - and FOCUS THE NATION and produced by NJEDge, New Jersey Higher Education Network.

See Live video from campus and community interactive webcasting from Fairleigh Dickinson University, Kean University (coordinating site), NJIT, Princeton University, Ramapo College, Raritan Valley Community College, Rowan University, Rutgers-Busch Campus, Piscataway, Seton Hall University and William Paterson University.

WHAT: The New Jersey kickoff for FOCUS THE NATION is a national global warming educational, nonpartisan, action-oriented discussion on climate stabilization. Join with teams of faculty, students and community people at over a thousand colleges and universities and high schools in the United States. A catalyzing event designed to turn the national conversation about global warming from fatalism to constructive engagement with the challenge of our generation.

*SPEAKER: Dr. Eban Goodstein, is Professor of Economics at Lewis and Clark College and Director of FOCUS THE NATION

*WORLD CAFÉ Dynamic dialogue in the World Café to decide Action-Plans -- and food!

*STUDENT LEADERS FROM CLIMATE CHALLENGE representing the student clean energy movement

WHEN: MONDAY, 26 FEBRUARY 2007, 4:30-8:30 PM ET

WHY: The goal is to get climate solutions on the agenda of all the presidential candidates, legislators, mayors and political parties before the next election through citizen action.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE -- Two Choices:

OPTION 1) CREATE A LIVE - FOCUS THE NATION - EVENT ON YOUR CAMPUS OR COMMUNITY. Invite faculty, students and community people and stream the videoconference live into a meeting room via computer on a large screen and join the meeting via video. Do the World Café—we will supply instructions. Instant Message questions and comments to the videoconference and get live replies. Send us the results by email. Your group will not be “live” on the screen, but you will see everything and be able to respond. For information, call Dr. Donald Wheeler, Senior Advisor, NJHEPS, DrDWheeler@optonline.net

OPTION 2) INVITATION TO THE CAMPUS: You are invited to any one of the NINE CAMPUS VIDEOCONFERENCING SITES. Bring a group of colleagues, students and friends. TO REGISTER and for information, please email one of those listed below:

1. FAIRLEIGH DICKINSON UNIVERSITY – Florham Park, Dr. Joel Harmon, Coordinator. To register, contact Christine Farias CFarais@fdu.edu Location: Dreyfus Auditorium. Parking behind Dreyfus or in Student/Visitor Parking Directions: Campus map:

2. KEAN UNIVERSITY, Dr. Donald Wheeler, drdwheeler@optonline.net (for registration) Kean Hall 127, Parking anywhere on campus between white lines, arrive on time or early to avoid rush for 5:00 classes. Directions: Campus Map

3. PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, Dr. Shana Weber To register contact Mary Banfield Banfield@princeton.edu Videoconference Location: Robertson Hall 016, Directions: Robertson Hall is part of the Woodrow Wilson School on the campus of Princeton University, Princeton , NJ. Driving directions: Parking: Visitors should part in Lot 21 (SE corner of campus) for this event and take the free campus shuttle ( BLUE ROUTE). Shuttles arrive every 10 minutes. The shuttle has a stop at the Woodrow Wilson School on the corner of Prospect and Washington Road. Make sure to check with the driver to let them know your destination. Campus map link: Campus shuttle link:

4. RAMAPO COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY, Dr. Michael Edelstein, To register contact Donald Wheeler drdwheeler@optonline.net Location: Student Center, Room 137. Directions & campus map:

5. RARITAN VALLEY COMMUNITY COLLEGE, Dr. Daniel Aronson, DAronson@raritanval.edu Conference Center, ATTC 101. Directions & campus map

6. ROWAN UNIVERSITY, Mr. John Imperatore, Rowan Hall Auditorium. To Register: Imperatore@rowan.edu Directions & campus map

7. RUTGERS UNIVERSITY - Busch Campus, Piscataway, Priscilla Hayes, Esq., Hayes@aesop.rutgers.edu Location: Room 120 ABC, Busch Campus Center Directions & campus map:

8. SETON HALL UNIVERSITY, Dr. Marian Glenn, glennmar@shu.edu Location: Walsh Library Beck Rooms (ground floor directly in front of the entrance). Exit the Deck and cross the street. Walsh Library is to the right. Parking: Stop for a guest pass at the Security Booth, and park in the deck. Directions & campus map:

9. WILLIAM PATERSON UNIVERSITY, Dr. Richard Pardi, pardir@wpunj.edu Videoconference Location: Hobart Hall room 132A Directions: Click on University Map, see Entry 2 for visitor parking. Hobart Hall is building #3 over the foot bridge.

Samuel Adams and the radicalism of the American Revolution

2007-02-16T15:34:00.000-05:00

I like it when historians make connections between the past and events of today -- creating a usable past. It is not easy business, but when it works the juxtapositions can illuminate both past and present. Poputonian does that today in discussing the class basis of the American Revolution -- e.g. Samuel Adams was far ahead of the John Hancock and the international merchant and monied class in calling for revolution:

We The People - Part Two

The Money Divide

by poputonian

Several posts ago someone pointed out that the corporate media fell on the other side of the money divide, and thus could not be relied on to advocate the People's cause. Samuel Adams, the man who almost single handedly triggered the American revolution with the Committees of Correspondence, faced a similar issue back in the early 1770s. John Galvin, in his superb book Three Men of Boston, detailed how Adams was losing his way with the monied interests, and thus shifted his focus away from Boston merchants, the most prominent being John Hancock, and toward the Boston mechanics and rural farmers.
When the Boston merchants hired Otis to represent them in 1761, they were aggressive in their desire to fight the imposition of new rules on trade. The decade that followed, however, brought many bitter lessons. Nonimportation, which at first seemed a good answer that would bring quick results, had stifled all trade. Many of the best businessmen were bankrupted by the stagnation of trade in 1765, caused by the tightening customs stranglehold on the port of Boston. The merchants showed their dissatisfaction in a steadfast avoidance of any further affiliation with the radicals of the town: no more nonimportation, they said, no more support for Boston violence, no more attacks in the provincial administration. Hancock, who had inherited the leadership of the Boston merchants, led the way. He broke off his close friendship with Samuel Adams and made his peace with Hutchinson.

As long as Otis had been the dominant figure in Boston opposition o contemporary Parliamentary policy, the merchants were willing to commit themselves to his leadership. He was a radical, yes, but a constructive politician, in background and in philosophy a fellow merchant who might edge near the brink of defiance but whose uppermost concern was the betterment of the empire and consequently Massachusetts. He was, for the merchants, a force for good -- meaning a mutually profitable relationship with the mother country under a very liberal trade policy with increasing power for American colonies without repudiation of the old institutions. Aberration in his thinking were forgiven him and charged to the pressures of the time. (Otis himself had recognized this toleration and used it to extricate himself when trapped by his own inconsistencies.)

Adams had no such inconsistencies, nor did he possess any constructive view of the British empire as the potential salvation of mankind. He did not seek stability above all -- in fact, he was willing to sacrifice a prosperous American trade, at least temporarily, in order to gain other ends. In the eyes of the merchants, Adams was much less predictable than Otis; they saw that the end at which he aimed was increasing independence -- and perhaps even total independence -- of Great Britain. What this would mean now one knew. Additionally, Adams' obstructionism in the House, forcing adherence to the refusal to do business until the governor move the General Court back to Boston, was beginning to cost too much. Without taxes and legislation, the province could not function, and without good government, commerce suffered. Continued exasperation of the Crown was certain to bring added punishment to Boston. Even more liberal businessmen began to hope fervently for a return of a healthy Otis to the scene.

Recognizing the reluctance of the merchants to cast their lot with him, Adams had already begun to transfer the basis of political power of the Boston radicals away from the merchants and toward the people. The merchants, he said, had been too long the "unconcerned spectators" on the political scene, who could be depended on only when their close interests were seen by them to be threatened. It was "the body of the people" who must decide the acceptance or rejection of Parliamentary decisions. He would base the fight on them..

Adams thus lost the support of the powerful and influential Merchant's Society, a fact discernible in his poor showings in the elections of 1772.
...
His refusal to compromise, however, did not cost him his influence over the Sons of Liberty. He had seen to it that the small group, the Loyal Nine of 1766, was expanded into the Sons of Liberty (with 355 members) by 1769. These were the mechanics and small tradesmen of Boston, who now began to dominate the town meeting while the merchants grew ever more fearful of them.
Samuel Adams would eventually flood the small rural Massachusetts towns with letters, successfully drawing them into the revolutionary movement. In a similar way, the impeachment movement today isn't coming from the business class, the major media, or from New York, Chicago, LA, or Dallas. It's coming from the states, and towns such as Brattleboro, VT, Boca Raton, FL, Portland, ME, Hanover, NH, Iowa City, IA, Minneapolis, MN, San Diego, CA, Parma, OH, Santa Fe, NM, Nashua, NH, St. Cloud, MN, Newark, NJ, Dunellen, NJ, Oakland, CA, Albany, OR, Lompoc, CA, Winchester, MA, Bowling Green, OH, and Galveston, TX. Perhaps this is a case of don't follow the money.
(Subscription link to The Remedy, an impeachment newsletter, is at the bottom of the afterdowningstreet link above.)

Interestingly, the very act of blogging is itself an updating of the Committees of Correspondence.

Propaganda watch

2007-02-10T18:39:00.000-05:00

Glenn Greenwald dissects today's NY Times stenography of the Bush administration on Iran.

Or maybe it is a tape recorder. Shorter Michael Gordon:

U.S. Says...United States intelligence asserts...reflects broad agreement among American intelligence agencies...civilian and military officials from a broad range of government agencies provided...military officials say...The officials said...The assessment was described in interviews over the past several weeks with American officials...Administration officials said...according to the intelligence...According to American intelligence...Some American intelligence experts believe...they assert...notes a still-classified American intelligence report...a senior administration official said...according to Western officials...Officials said...An American intelligence assessment described to The New York Times said...Other officials believe...American military officers say...American officials say...According to American intelligence agencies...Assessments by American intelligence agencies say...Marine officials say...American intelligence agencies are concerned...Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week.

This war will... vs. No it won't

2007-02-10T11:40:00.000-05:00

Go read this one, then check out the date, then check out the source...

This war will... vs. No it won't

... Crying is optional...

"An Iraq Interrogator's Nightmare"

2007-02-09T12:38:00.000-05:00

from today's WaPo:

An Iraq Interrogator's Nightmare
By Eric Fair
Friday, February 9, 2007; A19
Aman with no face stares at me from the corner of a room. He pleads for help, but I'm afraid to move. He begins to cry. It is a pitiful sound, and it sickens me. He screams, but as I awaken, I realize the screams are mine.
That dream, along with a host of other nightmares, has plagued me since my return from Iraq in the summer of 2004. Though the man in this particular nightmare has no face, I know who he is. I assisted in his interrogation at a detention facility in Fallujah. I was one of two civilian interrogators assigned to the division interrogation facility (DIF) of the 82nd Airborne Division. The man, whose name I've long since forgotten, was a suspected associate of Khamis Sirhan al-Muhammad, the Baath Party leader in Anbar province who had been captured two months earlier.
The lead interrogator at the DIF had given me specific instructions: I was to deprive the detainee of sleep during my 12-hour shift by opening his cell every hour, forcing him to stand in a corner and stripping him of his clothes. Three years later the tables have turned. It is rare that I sleep through the night without a visit from this man. His memory harasses me as I once harassed him.
Despite my best efforts, I cannot ignore the mistakes I made at the interrogation facility in Fallujah. I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values. I will never forgive myself.
American authorities continue to insist that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib was an isolated incident in an otherwise well-run detention system. That insistence, however, stands in sharp contrast to my own experiences as an interrogator in Iraq. I watched as detainees were forced to stand naked all night, shivering in their cold cells and pleading with their captors for help. Others were subjected to long periods of isolation in pitch-black rooms. Food and sleep deprivation were common, along with a variety of physical abuse, including punching and kicking. Aggressive, and in many ways abusive, techniques were used daily in Iraq, all in the name of acquiring the intelligence necessary to bring an end to the insurgency. The violence raging there today is evidence that those tactics never worked. My memories are evidence that those tactics were terribly wrong.
While I was appalled by the conduct of my friends and colleagues, I lacked the courage to challenge the status quo. That was a failure of character and in many ways made me complicit in what went on. I'm ashamed of that failure, but as time passes, and as the memories of what I saw in Iraq continue to infect my every thought, I'm becoming more ashamed of my silence.
Some may suggest there is no reason to revive the story of abuse in Iraq. Rehashing such mistakes will only harm our country, they will say. But history suggests we should examine such missteps carefully. Oppressive prison environments have created some of the most determined opponents. The British learned that lesson from Napoleon, the French from Ho Chi Minh, Europe from Hitler. The world is learning that lesson again from Ayman al-Zawahiri. What will be the legacy of abusive prisons in Iraq?
We have failed to properly address the abuse of Iraqi detainees. Men like me have refused to tell our stories, and our leaders have refused to own up to the myriad mistakes that have been made. But if we fail to address this problem, there can be no hope of success in Iraq. Regardless of how many young Americans we send to war, or how many militia members we kill, or how many Iraqis we train, or how much money we spend on reconstruction, we will not escape the damage we have done to the people of Iraq in our prisons.
I am desperate to get on with my life and erase my memories of my experiences in Iraq. But those memories and experiences do not belong to me. They belong to history. If we're doomed to repeat the history we forget, what will be the consequences of the history we never knew? The citizens and the leadership of this country have an obligation to revisit what took place in the interrogation booths of Iraq, unpleasant as it may be. The story of Abu Ghraib isn't over. In many ways, we have yet to open the book.
The writer served in the Army from 1995 to 2000 as an Arabic linguist and worked in Iraq as a contract interrogator in early 2004. His e-mail address iserictfair@comcast.net.

Tom Tomorrow -- The Right Wing Noise Machine

2007-02-09T11:21:00.000-05:00

With Trembling Fingers

2007-02-03T15:22:00.000-05:00

Periodically, I go back and read this article from early 2004.

American denazification

2007-02-03T15:08:00.000-05:00

I have always found the Right's obsession with George Soros to be funny because I rarely ever hear about him. I know who he is and all that, but he is not someone who seems to cut a large public figure on the left.

But then I read these words: "America needs to follow the policies it has introduced in Germany," Soros said. "We have to go through a certain de-Nazification process."

Wow. You do not hear words like that often enough in public life today. Steve Clemons writes one of his best posts ever supporting Soros against the attacking pundits. I would add that I believe the American people as a whole -- not just the leadership class -- has to go through the process.

The Bill Buckner of political commentary

2007-02-02T20:32:00.000-05:00

or is it Scott Norwood?

Greg Sargeant nails Tom Friedman.

Tom Friedman is among the most important interpreters of the Middle East for American audiences. They rely on him to explain and exercise sound judgment on a fraught and confusing part of the world whose affairs have more of an impact on us right now than any other region. That is a position of immense consequence. And the decision to back the invasion of Iraq was -- and will be -- the single most important decision of his career. He blew it, and right now he should feel like Bill Buckner felt after he let the ground ball dribble between his legs -- only infinitely worse, because by dint of his role as one of America's principle interpreters of the Middle East, he helped create a catastrophe that has destroyed thousands of families and will have untold consequences for many decades.

Yet has anyone seen a single sign anywhere that Friedman has ever suffered a moment's anguish or even self-doubt about this catastrophic failing? I haven't. If you've seen any, please send along. Look, there are no easy answers to the question of how -- or whether -- pundits like Friedman should be held accountable for getting it wrong, however disastrously. But how about a little self-imposed accountability? What about a hint of remorse? Friedman's email makes you wonder whether to him all this is anything more than a big fat joke. Who cares if I was wrong about the most important foreign policy decision this country's made in decades? Just get my assets right, please.

I agree that one of the worst things about all the violence unleashed on the world by the Bush Administration is the lack of any sense of remorse or even empathy on the part of the pro-war pundits like Friedman and Zakaria. They just blithely move on. I don't expect it from Bush or someone like David Brooks, but for some reason this lack of understanding of the reality of the impact of war on peoples lives is maybe more unseemly from those who now pretend to oppose Bush.

"What Digby Says"

2007-02-02T19:55:00.000-05:00

a snippet:

I think they are foolishly counting on Bush not following through which is a shameful miscalculation if not political malpractice --- you simply have to assume after observing him all these years that he will. He and Cheney are desperately unpopular and they have come to believe that their legacy will be redeemed by history, so parochial concerns about popular support or public will in their own time are irrelevant. Indeed, I think they probably believe they have to do this in order that history will clearly see how they bucked the tide of popular opinion and expert advice to remake the middle east. It's all they have.

Democrats cannot abet this, not even rhetorically, to satisfy a powerful lobbying group that may be as mad as the neocons and the Bush administration. This time, they will not be let off the hook. Bush is out in two years and if any of them are on record talking trash about Iran at this delicate moment, they will be held accountable for what follows.

Scott Ritter says it here:
While President Bush, a Republican, remains Commander in Chief, a Democrat-controlled Congress shares responsibility on war and peace from this point on. The conflict in Iraq, although ongoing, is a product of the Republican-controlled past. The looming conflict with Iran, however, will be assessed as a product of a Democrat-controlled present and future. If Iraq destroyed the Republican Party, Iran will destroy the Democrats.
We'll be lucky if it only destroys the Democratic party. The stakes are actually much higher for all of us than that.

Read the rest here.

Propaganda, Fascism and the coming war with Iran

2007-02-02T18:57:00.000-05:00

I claim no great prescience or brilliance. I was just paying attention, reading and searching for information, using a little historical knowledge and reasoning ability. Stephen Hadley continues to say that the term "civil war" does not apply; of course not: the word is clusterfuck -- unexpurgated. And those of us who were paying attention predicted this.

Now the long-planned hit on Iran is coming. Maybe I will be wrong. There is always a possibility of the Democrats or military leaders stopping the Bush administration. There is even the possibility that they have not been planning on attacking Iran next all along.

The coming months will also put a couple of terms to the test -- for me. I tend to try to avoid using the words propaganda and fascism because I think people have trouble taking them seriously. But the value of words is when they describe reality. So, leaving aside the question of whether it has already been proven that Fox News, for example, is a propaganda outfit and the Bush administration is moving toward (or has embraced) fascism -- using the rigorous definitions of the terms -- I would like to watch (at a distance) the performance of Fox News and the Bush Administration to see how they conform to predictions arising from the strict social scientific and political definitions of propaganda and fascism.

One of the things about history is that we historians don't deal with the future. Unlike true social scientists, our models cannot be tested for their predictive value -- except retroactively, which has its value but .... But we can use analytical terms that have arisen to describe social and historical reality and note tendencies, deriving "lessons learned." That it why I find it useful to compare the Iraq situation to past experiences. The trick is figuring out which stories give us lessons and why. You gotta be flexible, not doctrinaire.

I am not actually trying to do that here; I am not trying to ascertain, for example, whether we are "repeating" the experience of Germany in the 1930s. I am simply laying out my prediction that we will see a textbook propaganda campaign -- but not necessarily one that has made it into the textbooks; expect something different than the run-up to the Iraq War; there will be no presentation to the UN, no attempt to get them to sign on, no attempt really to persuade the American public; an event will transpire that will provide the pretext for action and the President will present it to us as a fait accompli. "We have always been at war with Iran." Of course, this has already begun, and it is not only Fox and their accomplices. As Bob Somerby, Media Matters, Greg Sargeant (google 'em; I'm too lazy to link) and others demonstrate daily, they have plenty of help from the rest of the press playing their roles perfectly.

Similarly, with "creeping fascism." I have a great deal of hope that the Democrats will fight the worst of it. But clearly the party has not caught up to the rest of the American people. I am kinda with Steve Gilliard, who predicts a sudden and early departure for both Bush and Cheney. I would not lay money on it, but I do think something will come out in the trials and investigations that will very quickly tip the scales; Cheney will go, replaced by (no prediction); Bush not long after when the next revelation reveals itself.

This makes the need for more war soon all the more urgent for Bush and Cheney.

Global Warming is a Hoax!

2007-02-02T09:52:00.000-05:00

now where is my $10,000.

Interview with Tyler Drumheller

2007-02-02T09:06:00.000-05:00

I can't say he tells us anything that hasn't been out there already, but the former CIA station chief in Europe confirms the Downing Street minutes, in strikingly similar language:

SPIEGEL: So the White House just ignored the fact that the whole story might have been untrue?
Drumheller: The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy. Right before the war, I said to a very senior CIA officer: "You guys must have something else," because you always think it's the CIA. "There is some secret thing I don`t know." He said: "No. But when we get to Baghdad, we are going to find warehouses full of stuff. Nobody is going to remember all of this."

Read the whole thing here.

"In the past, even presidents were not above the law."

2007-01-31T17:29:00.000-05:00

the quaint, good ole days...

January 31, 2007

Op-Ed Contributor

Bush Is Not Above the Law

By JAMES BAMFORD

Washington

LAST August, a federal judge found that the president of the United States broke the law, committed a serious felony and violated the Constitution. Had the president been an ordinary citizen — someone charged with bank robbery or income tax evasion — the wheels of justice would have immediately begun to turn. The F.B.I. would have conducted an investigation, a United States attorney’s office would have impaneled a grand jury and charges would have been brought.

But under the Bush Justice Department, no F.B.I. agents were ever dispatched to padlock White House files or knock on doors and no federal prosecutors ever opened a case.
[...]

George Washington and the Middle East

2007-01-30T21:01:00.000-05:00

from Glenn Greenwald:

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

George Washington and the Middle East
George Washington's 1796 Farewell Address is an amazingly prescient warning to the U.S. to avoid certain dangers with regard to foreign policy. As we become more and more entangled in the intricacies not only of regional politics in the Middle East, but also in the domestic political conflicts of virtually every significant Middle East country, it almost seems as though we have purposely set out to violate every principle of foreign affairs which Washington articulated:

[...]

The Moustache of Understanding strikes again

2007-01-30T12:01:00.000-05:00

I find Tom Friedman to be among the most pernicious and odious of the basking sycophants in our nation's press corps. He has been wrong about everything (e.g. the world is not flat, no matter what the taxi drivers of Bangalore tell you) and has aided the Bush administration in perpetrating their crimes against humanity by layering a liberal gloss on the efforts to kill brown people. At least people like Bill Kristol admit they want to kill more brown people (well, not they, themselves, actually -- they want our hired guns to do so).

Friedman's latest effort is a call for a Muslim Martin Luther King, Jr.

Now, MLK. Jr. is one of those names we invoke when we want to feel good about ourselves. In death and mythology we all love MLK, Jr. I wish they would make a MLK, Jr. teddy bear that would intone his dulcet cadences soothingly as we drift off to sleep.

But if you have ever read him -- or even anything in depth about him -- you will know that he was a brave and fierce warrior for the cause of justice. He put himself on the line time after time, and ultimately gave his life for the cause. King pissed people off, and not just white supremacist extremists. Read his Letter from a Birmingham Jail for a taste of his uncompromising spirit.

Even better, read his speech from April 4, 1967 at the Riverside Church, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence where King finally, belatedly comes out against the Vietnam War.

I tried to read through for easily digestible excerpts to post here, but I really cannot do that in fairness to the speech or to the reader.

As I read my rage, my sadness, and my hopefulness rise and fall with the waves of his words. At the end I am left with one conclusion:

What this country needs right now is an American Martin Luther King, Jr.

Not my Commander in Chief

2007-01-27T09:31:00.000-05:00

Garry Wills addresses a pet-peeve of mine in today's NY Times:

January 27, 2007

Op-Ed Contributor

At Ease, Mr. President

By GARRY WILLS

Evanston, Ill.

WE hear constantly now about “our commander in chief.” The word has become a synonym for “president.” It is said that we “elect a commander in chief.” It is asked whether this or that candidate is “worthy to be our commander in chief.”

But the president is not our commander in chief. He certainly is not mine. I am not in the Army.
[...]
[...] The president is not the commander in chief of civilians. He is not even commander in chief of National Guard troops unless and until they are federalized. The Constitution is clear on this: “The president shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States.”
When Abraham Lincoln took actions based on military considerations, he gave himself the proper title, “commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” That title is rarely — more like never — heard today. It is just “commander in chief,” or even “commander in chief of the United States.” This reflects the increasing militarization of our politics. The citizenry at large is now thought of as under military discipline. In wartime, it is true, people submit to the national leadership more than in peacetime. The executive branch takes actions in secret, unaccountable to the electorate, to hide its moves from the enemy and protect national secrets. Constitutional shortcuts are taken “for the duration.” But those impositions are removed when normal life returns.

But we have not seen normal life in 66 years. The wartime discipline imposed in 1941 has never been lifted, and “the duration” has become the norm. World War II melded into the cold war, with greater secrecy than ever — more classified information, tougher security clearances. And now the cold war has modulated into the war on terrorism.
[...]

Columbus, American Identity, and Iraq

2007-01-26T22:54:00.000-05:00

some thoughts I posted on my us history survey blackboard:

One way that I make a connection between Columbus and who we are today involves the ideological process at work that allowed the Europeans to feel superior and thus engage in brutal behavior.

I see a great deal of dehumanization of Iraqis in our public discourse. While some of it is straight out racism, there are other ways that we make the victims of our occupation less than human, or at least not worth our concern.

How can we justify invading a country that posed no threat to us, was successfully contained, a country whose skies were already patrolled by US planes over 2/3 of the land – in violation of the principles of international law? How can we justify the bombing from the air we continue to do into residential neighborhoods? The estimated 650,000 dead?

How can we justify firing missiles into Somalia to strike terrorists (and then hit the wrong people)? How can we justify or accept people being kidnapped, tortured and killed all over the world – paid for by our taxpayer dollars? How can we justify a concentration camp where people who are known to be innocent, and who have no legal recourse, have been held for five years? How can we justify kidnapping a Canadian citizen and sending him to Syria – a country supposedly so evil that we cannot even deign to negotiate with them – to be held in a boxlike cell and tortured? How can we justify holding a brown-skinned man with a Spanish sounding name in solitary confinement -- without any human contact – in a secret brig in South Carolina for two years – long enough to drive him out of his mind?

Well, I think the first way we justify and accept all this – to ourselves – is to ignore it all, at least in the details.

But an essential element in our rationalization is the thought or feeling that the people who are dying do not count for much. We may not see them as less-than-human, like Spanish explorers and priests often did, and this attitude may not be “racist,” but there is a similar psychological process going on within individuals and as a society.

We are able to accept the mythology of Columbus – or minimize the significance of his actions (“he was just a man of his time”) – and maybe that is okay. But when our national identity begins with him, that mythology provides the basis for action.

I guess the simple way to explain this is to say that it is no coincidence that thousands of people have to die while we spread freedom.

I am not even arguing the merits of the Bush policies – I am not getting into whether these things really need to be done in the name of “national security” -- I am simply saying that this dehumanization and violence have evolved in tandem with ideas of freedom and American mythologies.

girl in water

2007-01-26T20:17:00.000-05:00

My wife is a writer who is currently finishing a book. So naturally she is doing a lot of something else. Since it is too cold for gardening, she is left with cleaning and, now, drawing -- which reminds me that Leonard Lopate had a segment about procrastination today which I hope to listen to some day.

Turns out she is extremely good at it. Or so I think.

You can see more here.

“Because I told them it had to."

2007-01-26T09:45:00.000-05:00

From Think Progress:

“He’s tried this two times — it’s failed twice,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) says of President Bush’s escalation plan.

“I asked him at the White House, ‘Mr. President, why do you think this time it’s going to work?’

And he said, ‘Because I told them it had to.‘”

Pelosi reportedly then asked, “Why didn’t you tell them that the other two times?“

End of Vietnam War

2007-01-25T21:23:00.000-05:00

I was talking today in class about the end of the Vietnam war, the lessons learned (or not), and the mythologies that permeate our popular memory of the war (e.g. we lost because of the media, the liberals, the congress, -- we didn't have the "stomach" to fight, as Cheney says now.

Digby, who I think is the smartest analyst of the impact of what we think of when we think of "the sixties," has a great post today commenting on two Rick Perlstein articles:

Can We Win this Time?

What TR said

2007-01-25T10:09:00.000-05:00

Glenn Greenwald has a great discussion of the authoritarian Bush cultists and the Federalist Papers that deal with Congress and the military.

He also highlights this quote that Teddy Roosevelt wrote in an editorial for the "Kansas City Star" during World War I.

The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole.
Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.
To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.

"Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star", 149
May 7, 1918

maybe starting up again

2007-01-23T18:39:00.000-05:00

am toying with starting this thing up again. playing with the design.

here is something worth looking at:

Israelis, America and Iran

It sounds like the stuff that conspiracy theories are made of. In a coastal resort near Tel Aviv, senior Israeli politicians and generals confer with top officials and politicians from Washington to discuss the threat of a nuclear Iran. In any good conspiracy theory, however, these talks would be going on in secret – preferably in an underground bunker. In fact the Herzliya conference on “Israel’s national security” is taking place perfectly openly in a smart hotel. And I am in the audience.

more here...

reading list

2005-11-15T10:42:00.000-05:00

reposting (with some additions) what I read regularly:

New York Times -- the immortal Krugman is part of their TimesSelect; don't pay, go use lexis-nexis (through Cheng library homepage) instead.

Washington Post -- especially Dan Froomkin's essential White House Briefing published daily in the early afternoon

Atrios/Eschaton -- good site for frequently update links to liberal takes on the issues

DailyKos -- similar to Atrios

Digby @ Hullabaloo -- THE best commentator out there

Billmon @ Whiskey Bar -- almost as good as Digby

TomDispatch -- great essays by Tom Englehardt and friends

Wolcott -- snarky and dazzling with the prose

Juan Cole -- great on Iraq and Middle East in general

arthur silber at once upon a time is extremely thoughtful, eloquent and intelligent.

Salon -- firewall -- ya gotta watch a commercial -- but some good stuff including the daily War Room and the Daou Report blog round-up

The Progress Report -- a daily email from the Center for American Progress that is meticulously researched

There are plenty more, but that's a start

oh, and I shouldn't leave off the mags I read:

New Yorker -- usually pretty weak webpage but some of the best reporting

The Atlantic -- good webpage

Harpers -- weak webpage, great mag

New York Review of Books -- webpage has about half the articles

Tonight on PBS at 9pm

2005-10-18T13:00:00.000-04:00

The Frontline press release:

FRONTLINE Presents
THE TORTURE QUESTION
Tuesday, October 18, 2005, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS

http://www.pbs.org/frontline/torture/

In mid-August, a FRONTLINE documentary crew made the perilous journey to the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Entering the 280-acre compound in the middle of the night, escorted by helicopters and a convoy of armed Humvees, the crew was following 50 detainees fresh from the battlefield. As they were ordered to kneel in formation on the concrete floor, one detainee nervously asked the FRONTLINE cameraman, "Is this Abu Ghraib?" The answer brought a shudder.

Abu Ghraib has always been a terrifying place to Iraqis -- Saddam Hussein used it as his primary torture chamber -- but in 2004, when graphic photographs of American soldiers abusing prisoners surfaced, Abu Ghraib took on deeper meaning.

"The details of what happened in those cellblocks between the American soldiers and Iraqi detainees are well known," says producer/director Michael Kirk, "but how and why it happened is what took us into the heart of Abu Ghraib that night."

In The Torture Question, airing Tuesday, October 18, 2005, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings), FRONTLINE traces the history of how decisions made in Washington in the immediate aftermath of September 11 led to a robust interrogation policy that laid the groundwork for prisoner abuse in Afghanistan; Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; and Iraq.

The FRONTLINE producers interviewed more than 30 direct participants in the story, pored over thousands of pages of documents, examined hundreds of pictures and videotapes, and traveled to the American prisons at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

The political firestorm ignited by the Abu Ghraib photos and the shocking revelations that followed resulted in 12 Department of Defense investigations. One of them, a commission of ex-defense secretaries, found that there were lapses in oversight in the Pentagon, but that the practices had not been condoned. So far there have been arrests and convictions of some low-level soldiers and reprimands for the colonel in charge of Abu Ghraib, Thomas Pappas, as well as for Army Reserve Gen. Janis Karpinski.

"They can do whatever they want; they could make it appear any way they want -- I will not be silenced," Karpinski tells FRONTLINE. "I will continue to ask how they can continue to blame seven rogue soldiers on the nightshift when there is a preponderance of information right now, hard information from a variety of sources, that says otherwise."

The Torture Question traces the aggressive development of the administration's interrogation policy in the aftermath of 9/11, where the push for "actionable intelligence" led to authorization for interrogators to strip detainees, degrade prisoners with sexual humiliation techniques and use dogs for intimidation.

Former White House legal advisers and the Department of Justice -- author of many of the administration's boldest proposals -- agreed to talk to FRONTLINE. "There was a powerful set of shared assumptions we had in the wake of 9/11, and one of the most powerful was the assumption that we would never be forgiven if we failed to do something that was within the power of our government lawfully to protect the public from a further attack," says Associate White House Counsel Bradford Berenson.

The legal framework developed by administration lawyers like Berenson, Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo provided the impetus for unprecedented rules for interrogating detainees, rules authorized by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld -- rules officials insist never condoned torture.

FRONTLINE follows the implementation of the Rumsfeld rules from the battlefields of Afghanistan to the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, where eventually the FBI began to document a trail of abuses by interrogators.

In one e-mail, an agent reports on conditions in an interrogation room: "[T]he A/C had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room probably well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night."

The Torture Question follows the migration of such practices to the horrific scene photographed at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in the fall of 2003. "Guantanamo Bay people were implanted in the prison around October, and they showed up and changed everything," a person with intimate knowledge of the events at Abu Ghraib tells FRONTLINE. "Things got more harsh."

The Torture Question is a FRONTLINE co-production with the Kirk Documentary Group. The producer, writer, and director for FRONTLINE is Michael Kirk. The co-producer is Jim Gilmore.
FRONTLINE is produced by WGBH Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS.
Funding for FRONTLINE is provided by the Park Foundation and through the support of PBS viewers.
FRONTLINE is closed-captioned for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers.
FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation.
The executive producer for FRONTLINE is David Fanning.

Conference at WPU on October 17th

2005-10-07T14:53:00.000-04:00

My students get extra credit for attending:

THE NICHOLAS MARTINI CONFERENCE ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT

At a Crossroads: Urban and Suburban Identities in New Jersey Politics and Culture
Monday, October 17, 2005
8:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. • 1600 Valley Road Auditorium
FREE FOR STUDENTS

THEME
In New Jersey, perhaps more than anywhere else, politics have been shaped by the overlapping of urban, suburban, and rural ideals and constituencies. Over the course of its history, the state has built up an incredible number of municipalities —566 at last count—and a dizzying array of political and administrative structures for allocating assets, resources, and responsibilities. In the conference’s morning session, historians will discuss New Jersey’s unique situation, focusing on the complex political interactions of urban and suburban communities. The key role of former Mayor Nicholas Martini of Passaic will be highlighted. The afternoon panel of elected public officials will discuss the pragmatic realities and challenges of growth and sustainability faced by twenty-first century Garden State residents.

SPEAKERS

Lizabeth Cohen, “The Heartland of the Consumers’ Republic: New Jersey’s Landscape of Mass Consumption”

Professor Cohen is the Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies in the History Department of Harvard University. Her recent works include A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America, in which New Jersey figures prominently.

Michael H. Ebner, “Becoming Nicholas Martini in Twentieth Century America: A Passaic Story”.

Professor Ebner is the A.B. Dick Professor of History at Lake Forest College where he has received several awards for excellence in teaching. He was born in Paterson and raised in Clifton and Passaic. His doctoral dissertation focused on the urbanization of Passaic.

William J. Martini (Commentator), Judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. Prior to his appointment as judge of the United States District Court, Martini held elected offices in Clifton and Passaic County. From 1995-97, he was a representative from New Jersey’s Eighth Congressional District in the 104th United States Congress. He is the nephew of former Passaic Mayor Nicholas Martini.

PANELISTS

Michael Aron (Moderator), Senior Political Correspondent, New Jersey Public Television & Radio (New Jersey Network). Aron cohosts and produces Reporters Roundtable with Michael Aron and frequently hosts On the Record, NJN’s weekly public affairs program.

Nia H. Gill, New Jersey State Senator. Prior to her election to the New Jersey State Senate, Gill served as a member of the New Jersey General Assembly from 1993 to 2001.

Scott Rumana, Mayor of Wayne. Rumana is an attorney completing his first term as mayor of Wayne. Prior to his election, he was a Passaic County freeholder and held various township offices.

Jose Torres, Mayor of Paterson. A former businessman and official in the Paterson Housing Authority and City Council, Torres became the first Latino elected mayor of Paterson in 2002.

Al Gore on democracy and the public sphere

2005-10-07T09:32:00.000-04:00

It's long, but you gotta read the whole thing:

Our Democracy Has Been Hollowed Out
Al Gore, Jr.
October 06, 2005

Al Gore was vice president of the United States. The following is the prepared text of the speech he delivered to the The Media Center's We Media conference on October 5, 2005 in New York City.

I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse. I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America's fabled "marketplace of ideas" now functions.

How many of you, I wonder, have heard a friend or a family member in the last few years remark that it's almost as if America has entered "an alternate universe"?

I thought maybe it was an aberration when three-quarters of Americans said they believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us on September 11, 2001. But more than four years later, between a third and a half still believe Saddam was personally responsible for planning and supporting the attack.

At first I thought the exhaustive, non-stop coverage of the O.J. trial was just an unfortunate excess that marked an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. But now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time.

Are we still routinely torturing helpless prisoners, and if so, does it feel right that we as American citizens are not outraged by the practice? And does it feel right to have no ongoing discussion of whether or not this abhorrent, medieval behavior is being carried out in the name of the American people? If the gap between rich and poor is widening steadily and economic stress is mounting for low-income families, why do we seem increasingly apathetic and lethargic in our role as citizens?

On the eve of the nation's decision to invade Iraq, our longest serving senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor asked: "Why is this chamber empty? Why are these halls silent?"

The decision that was then being considered by the Senate with virtually no meaningful debate turned out to be a fateful one. A few days ago, the former head of the National Security Agency, Retired Lt. General William Odom, said, "The invasion of Iraq, I believe, will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history."

But whether you agree with his assessment or not, Senator Byrd's question is like the others that I have just posed here: he was saying, in effect, this is strange, isn't it? Aren't we supposed to have full and vigorous debates about questions as important as the choice between war and peace?

Those of us who have served in the Senate and watched it change over time, could volunteer an answer to Senator Byrd's two questions: the Senate was silent on the eve of war because Senators don't feel that what they say on the floor of the Senate really matters that much any more. And the chamber was empty because the Senators were somewhere else: they were in fundraisers collecting money from special interests in order to buy 30-second TV commercials for their next re-election campaign.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there was - at least for a short time - a quality of vividness and clarity of focus in our public discourse that reminded some Americans - including some journalists - that vividness and clarity used to be more common in the way we talk with one another about the problems and choices that we face. But then, like a passing summer storm, the moment faded.

In fact there was a time when America's public discourse was consistently much more vivid, focused and clear. Our Founders, probably the most literate generation in all of history, used words with astonishing precision and believed in the Rule of Reason.

Their faith in the viability of Representative Democracy rested on their trust in the wisdom of a well-informed citizenry. But they placed particular emphasis on insuring that the public could be well-informed. And they took great care to protect the openness of the marketplace of ideas in order to ensure the free-flow of knowledge.

The values that Americans had brought from Europe to the New World had grown out of the sudden explosion of literacy and knowledge after Gutenberg's disruptive invention broke up the stagnant medieval information monopoly and triggered the Reformation, Humanism, and the Enlightenment and enshrined a new sovereign: the "Rule of Reason."

Indeed, the self-governing republic they had the audacity to establish was later named by the historian Henry Steele Commager as "the Empire of Reason."

Our founders knew all about the Roman Forum and the Agora in ancient Athens. They also understood quite well that in America, our public forum would be an ongoing conversation about democracy in which individual citizens would participate not only by speaking directly in the presence of others -- but more commonly by communicating with their fellow citizens over great distances by means of the printed word. Thus they not only protected Freedom of Assembly as a basic right, they made a special point - in the First Amendment - of protecting the freedom of the printing press.

Their world was dominated by the printed word. Just as the proverbial fish doesn't know it lives in water, the United States in its first half century knew nothing but the world of print: the Bible, Thomas Paine's fiery call to revolution, the Declaration of Independence, our Constitution , our laws, the Congressional Record, newspapers and books.

Though they feared that a government might try to censor the printing press - as King George had done - they could not imagine that America's public discourse would ever consist mainly of something other than words in print.

And yet, as we meet here this morning, more than 40 years have passed since the majority of Americans received their news and information from the printed word. Newspapers are hemorrhaging readers and, for the most part, resisting the temptation to inflate their circulation numbers. Reading itself is in sharp decline, not only in our country but in most of the world. The Republic of Letters has been invaded and occupied by television.

Radio, the internet, movies, telephones, and other media all now vie for our attention - but it is television that still completely dominates the flow of information in modern America. In fact, according to an authoritative global study, Americans now watch television an average of four hours and 28 minutes every day -- 90 minutes more than the world average.

When you assume eight hours of work a day, six to eight hours of sleep and a couple of hours to bathe, dress, eat and commute, that is almost three-quarters of all the discretionary time that the average American has. And for younger Americans, the average is even higher.

The internet is a formidable new medium of communication, but it is important to note that it still doesn't hold a candle to television. Indeed, studies show that the majority of Internet users are actually simultaneously watching television while they are online. There is an important reason why television maintains such a hold on its viewers in a way that the internet does not, but I'll get to that in a few minutes.

Television first overtook newsprint to become the dominant source of information in America in 1963. But for the next two decades, the television networks mimicked the nation's leading newspapers by faithfully following the standards of the journalism profession. Indeed, men like Edward R. Murrow led the profession in raising the bar.

But all the while, television's share of the total audience for news and information continued to grow -- and its lead over newsprint continued to expand. And then one day, a smart young political consultant turned to an older elected official and succinctly described a new reality in America's public discourse: "If it's not on television, it doesn't exist."

But some extremely important elements of American Democracy have been pushed to the sidelines . And the most prominent casualty has been the "marketplace of ideas" that was so beloved and so carefully protected by our Founders. It effectively no longer exists.

It is not that we no longer share ideas with one another about public matters; of course we do. But the "Public Forum" in which our Founders searched for general agreement and applied the Rule of Reason has been grossly distorted and "restructured" beyond all recognition.

And here is my point: it is the destruction of that marketplace of ideas that accounts for the "strangeness" that now continually haunts our efforts to reason together about the choices we must make as a nation.

Whether it is called a Public Forum, or a "Public Sphere" , or a marketplace of ideas, the reality of open and free public discussion and debate was considered central to the operation of our democracy in America's earliest decades.

In fact, our first self-expression as a nation - "We the People" - made it clear where the ultimate source of authority lay. It was universally understood that the ultimate check and balance for American government was its accountability to the people. And the public forum was the place where the people held the government accountable. That is why it was so important that the marketplace of ideas operated independent from and beyond the authority of government.

The three most important characteristics of this marketplace of ideas were:

1.
It was open to every individual, with no barriers to entry, save the necessity of literacy. This access, it is crucial to add, applied not only to the receipt of information but also to the ability to contribute information directly into the flow of ideas that was available to all;
2.
The fate of ideas contributed by individuals depended, for the most part, on an emergent Meritocracy of Ideas. Those judged by the market to be good rose to the top, regardless of the wealth or class of the individual responsible for them;
3.
The accepted rules of discourse presumed that the participants were all governed by an unspoken duty to search for general agreement. That is what a "Conversation of Democracy" is all about.

What resulted from this shared democratic enterprise was a startling new development in human history: for the first time, knowledge regularly mediated between wealth and power.

The liberating force of this new American reality was thrilling to all humankind. Thomas Jefferson declared, "I have sworn upon the alter of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

It ennobled the individual and unleashed the creativity of the human spirit. It inspired people everywhere to dream of what they could yet become. And it emboldened Americans to bravely explore the farther frontiers of freedom - for African Americans, for women, and eventually, we still dream, for all.

And just as knowledge now mediated between wealth and power, self-government was understood to be the instrument with which the people embodied their reasoned judgments into law. The Rule of Reason under-girded and strengthened the rule of law.

But to an extent seldom appreciated, all of this - including especially the ability of the American people to exercise the reasoned collective judgments presumed in our Founders' design -- depended on the particular characteristics of the marketplace of ideas as it operated during the Age of Print.

Consider the rules by which our present "public forum" now operates, and how different they are from the forum our Founders knew. Instead of the easy and free access individuals had to participate in the national conversation by means of the printed word, the world of television makes it virtually impossible for individuals to take part in what passes for a national conversation today.

Inexpensive metal printing presses were almost everywhere in America. They were easily accessible and operated by printers eager to typeset essays, pamphlets, books or flyers.

Television stations and networks, by contrast, are almost completely inaccessible to individual citizens and almost always uninterested in ideas contributed by individual citizens.

Ironically, television programming is actually more accessible to more people than any source of information has ever been in all of history. But here is the crucial distinction: it is accessible in only one direction; there is no true interactivity, and certainly no conversation.

The number of cables connecting to homes is limited in each community and usually forms a natural monopoly. The broadcast and satellite spectrum is likewise a scarce and limited resource controlled by a few. The production of programming has been centralized and has usually required a massive capital investment. So for these and other reasons, an ever-smaller number of large corporations control virtually all of the television programming in America.

Soon after television established its dominance over print, young people who realized they were being shut out of the dialogue of democracy came up with a new form of expression in an effort to join the national conversation: the "demonstration." This new form of expression, which began in the 1960s, was essentially a poor quality theatrical production designed to capture the attention of the television cameras long enough to hold up a sign with a few printed words to convey, however plaintively, a message to the American people. Even this outlet is now rarely an avenue for expression on national television.

So, unlike the marketplace of ideas that emerged in the wake of the printing press, there is virtually no exchange of ideas at all in television's domain. My partner Joel Hyatt and I are trying to change that - at least where Current TV is concerned. Perhaps not coincidentally, we are the only independently owned news and information network in all of American television.

It is important to note that the absence of a two-way conversation in American television also means that there is no "meritocracy of ideas" on television. To the extent that there is a "marketplace" of any kind for ideas on television, it is a rigged market, an oligopoly, with imposing barriers to entry that exclude the average citizen.

The German philosopher, Jurgen Habermas, describes what has happened as "the refeudalization of the public sphere." That may sound like gobbledygook, but it's a phrase that packs a lot of meaning. The feudal system which thrived before the printing press democratized knowledge and made the idea of America thinkable, was a system in which wealth and power were intimately intertwined, and where knowledge played no mediating role whatsoever. The great mass of the people were ignorant. And their powerlessness was born of their ignorance.

It did not come as a surprise that the concentration of control over this powerful one-way medium carries with it the potential for damaging the operations of our democracy. As early as the 1920s, when the predecessor of television, radio, first debuted in the United States, there was immediate apprehension about its potential impact on democracy. One early American student of the medium wrote that if control of radio were concentrated in the hands of a few, "no nation can be free."

As a result of these fears, safeguards were enacted in the U.S. -- including the Public Interest Standard, the Equal Time Provision, and the Fairness Doctrine - though a half century later, in 1987, they were effectively repealed. And then immediately afterwards, Rush Limbaugh and other hate-mongers began to fill the airwaves.

And radio is not the only place where big changes have taken place. Television news has undergone a series of dramatic changes. The movie "Network," which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1976, was presented as a farce but was actually a prophecy. The journalism profession morphed into the news business, which became the media industry and is now completely owned by conglomerates.

The news divisions - which used to be seen as serving a public interest and were subsidized by the rest of the network - are now seen as profit centers designed to generate revenue and, more importantly, to advance the larger agenda of the corporation of which they are a small part. They have fewer reporters, fewer stories, smaller budgets, less travel, fewer bureaus, less independent judgment, more vulnerability to influence by management, and more dependence on government sources and canned public relations hand-outs. This tragedy is compounded by the ironic fact that this generation of journalists is the best trained and most highly skilled in the history of their profession. But they are usually not allowed to do the job they have been trained to do.

The present executive branch has made it a practice to try and control and intimidate news organizations: from PBS to CBS to Newsweek. They placed a former male escort in the White House press pool to pose as a reporter - and then called upon him to give the president a hand at crucial moments. They paid actors to make phony video press releases and paid cash to some reporters who were willing to take it in return for positive stories. And every day they unleash squadrons of digital brownshirts to harass and hector any journalist who is critical of the President.

For these and other reasons, The US Press was recently found in a comprehensive international study to be only the 27th freest press in the world. And that too seems strange to me.

Among the other factors damaging our public discourse in the media, the imposition by management of entertainment values on the journalism profession has resulted in scandals, fabricated sources, fictional events and the tabloidization of mainstream news. As recently stated by Dan Rather - who was, of course, forced out of his anchor job after angering the White House - television news has been "dumbed down and tarted up."

The coverage of political campaigns focuses on the "horse race" and little else. And the well-known axiom that guides most local television news is "if it bleeds, it leads." (To which some disheartened journalists add, "If it thinks, it stinks.")

In fact, one of the few things that Red state and Blue state America agree on is that they don't trust the news media anymore.

Clearly, the purpose of television news is no longer to inform the American people or serve the public interest. It is to "glue eyeballs to the screen" in order to build ratings and sell advertising. If you have any doubt, just look at what's on: The Robert Blake trial. The Laci Peterson tragedy. The Michael Jackson trial. The Runaway Bride. The search in Aruba. The latest twist in various celebrity couplings, and on and on and on.

And more importantly, notice what is not on: the global climate crisis, the nation's fiscal catastrophe, the hollowing out of America's industrial base, and a long list of other serious public questions that need to be addressed by the American people.

One morning not long ago, I flipped on one of the news programs in hopes of seeing information about an important world event that had happened earlier that day. But the lead story was about a young man who had been hiccupping for three years. And I must say, it was interesting; he had trouble getting dates. But what I didn't see was news.

This was the point made by Jon Stewart, the brilliant host of "The Daily Show," when he visited CNN's "Crossfire": there should be a distinction between news and entertainment.

And it really matters because the subjugation of news by entertainment seriously harms our democracy: it leads to dysfunctional journalism that fails to inform the people. And when the people are not informed, they cannot hold government accountable when it is incompetent, corrupt, or both.

One of the only avenues left for the expression of public or political ideas on television is through the purchase of advertising, usually in 30-second chunks. These short commercials are now the principal form of communication between candidates and voters. As a result, our elected officials now spend all of their time raising money to purchase these ads.

That is why the House and Senate campaign committees now search for candidates who are multi-millionaires and can buy the ads with their own personal resources. As one consequence, the halls of Congress are now filling up with the wealthy.

Campaign finance reform, however well it is drafted, often misses the main point: so long as the only means of engaging in political dialogue is through purchasing expensive television advertising, money will continue by one means or another to dominate American politic s. And ideas will no longer mediate between wealth and power.

And what if an individual citizen, or a group of citizens wants to enter the public debate by expressing their views on television? Since they cannot simply join the conversation, some of them have resorted to raising money in order to buy 30 seconds in which to express their opinion. But they are not even allowed to do that.

Moveon.org tried to buy ads last year to express opposition to Bush's Medicare proposal which was then being debated by Congress. They were told "issue advocacy" was not permissible. Then, one of the networks that had refused the Moveon ad began running advertisements by the White House in favor of the President's Medicare proposal. So Moveon complained and the White House ad was temporarily removed. By temporary, I mean it was removed until the White House complained and the network immediately put the ad back on, yet still refused to present the Moveon ad.

The advertising of products, of course, is the real purpose of television. And it is difficult to overstate the extent to which modern pervasive electronic advertising has reshaped our society. In the 1950s, John Kenneth Galbraith first described the way in which advertising has altered the classical relationship by which supply and demand are balanced over time by the invisible hand of the marketplace. According to Galbraith, modern advertising campaigns were beginning to create high levels of demand for products that consumers never knew they wanted, much less needed.

The same phenomenon Galbraith noticed in the commercial marketplace is now the dominant fact of life in what used to be America's marketplace for ideas. The inherent value or validity of political propositions put forward by candidates for office is now largely irrelevant compared to the advertising campaigns that shape the perceptions of voters.

Our democracy has been hollowed out. The opinions of the voters are, in effect, purchased, just as demand for new products is artificially created. Decades ago Walter Lippman wrote, "the manufacture of consent...was supposed to have died out with the appearance of democracy...but it has not died out. It has, in fact, improved enormously in technique...under the impact of propaganda, it is no longer plausible to believe in the original dogma of democracy."

Like you, I recoil at Lippman's cynical dismissal of America's gift to human history. But in order to reclaim our birthright, we Americans must resolve to repair the systemic decay of the public forum and create new ways to engage in a genuine and not manipulative conversation about our future. Americans in both parties should insist on the re-establishment of respect for the Rule of Reason. We must, for example, stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo studies known to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth.

I don't know all the answers, but along with my partner, Joel Hyatt, I am trying to work within the medium of television to recreate a multi-way conversation that includes individuals and operates according to a meritocracy of ideas. If you would like to know more, we are having a press conference on Friday morning at the Regency Hotel.

We are learning some fascinating lessons about the way decisions are made in the television industry, and it may well be that the public would be well served by some changes in law and policy to stimulate more diversity of viewpoints and a higher regard for the public interest. But we are succeeding within the marketplace by reaching out to individuals and asking them to co-create our network.

The greatest source of hope for reestablishing a vigorous and accessible marketplace for ideas is the Internet. Indeed, Current TV relies on video streaming over the Internet as the means by which individuals send us what we call viewer-created content or VC squared. We also rely on the Internet for the two-way conversation that we have every day with our viewers enabling them to participate in the decisions on programming our network.

I know that many of you attending this conference are also working on creative ways to use the Internet as a means for bringing more voices into America's ongoing conversation. I salute you as kindred spirits and wish you every success.

I want to close with the two things I've learned about the Internet that are most directly relevant to the conference that you are having here today.

First, as exciting as the Internet is, it still lacks the single most powerful characteristic of the television medium; because of its packet-switching architecture, and its continued reliance on a wide variety of bandwidth connections (including the so-called "last mile" to the home), it does not support the real-time mass distribution of full-motion video.

Make no mistake, full-motion video is what makes television such a powerful medium. Our brains - like the brains of all vertebrates - are hard-wired to immediately notice sudden movement in our field of vision. We not only notice, we are compelled to look. When our evolutionary predecessors gathered on the African savanna a million years ago and the leaves next to them moved, the ones who didn't look are not our ancestors. The ones who did look passed on to us the genetic trait that neuroscientists call "the establishing reflex." And that is the brain syndrome activated by television continuously - sometimes as frequently as once per second. That is the reason why the industry phrase, "glue eyeballs to the screen," is actually more than a glib and idle boast. It is also a major part of the reason why Americans watch the TV screen an average of four and a half hours a day.

It is true that video streaming is becoming more common over the Internet, and true as well that cheap storage of streamed video is making it possible for many young television viewers to engage in what the industry calls "time shifting" and personalize their television watching habits. Moreover, as higher bandwidth connections continue to replace smaller information pipelines, the Internet's capacity for carrying television will continue to dramatically improve. But in spite of these developments, it is television delivered over cable and satellite that will continue for the remainder of this decade and probably the next to be the dominant medium of communication in America's democracy. And so long as that is the case, I truly believe that America's democracy is at grave risk.

The final point I want to make is this: We must ensure that the Internet remains open and accessible to all citizens without any limitation on the ability of individuals to choose the content they wish regardless of the Internet service provider they use to connect to the Worldwide Web. We cannot take this future for granted. We must be prepared to fight for it because some of the same forces of corporate consolidation and control that have distorted the television marketplace have an interest in controlling the Internet marketplace as well. Far too much is at stake to ever allow that to happen.

We must ensure by all means possible that this medium of democracy's future develops in the mold of the open and free marketplace of ideas that our Founders knew was essential to the health and survival of freedom.

(emphases added)

And you wonder why I am so ...(fill in the blank)

2005-10-06T22:47:00.000-04:00

Another must-read from Tomdispatch:

Tomgram: Mike Davis, Has the Age of Chaos Begun?

Discussions of "tipping points" have, in recent times, largely been relegated to the war in Iraq where such moments, regularly predicted by the Bush administration, never arrive. In the meantime, an actual tipping point may have been creeping up on us on another front entirely, one that is anathema to this administration -- that of climate change.

The latest news from scientists laboring in cold climes has been startling. The expanse of Arctic sea ice has been shrinking in the summer since the late 1970s, though usually rebounding to near normal levels in the winter. Until recently. For the last few years, winter ice cover has been shrinking as well. This will be the fourth consecutive year of record, or near record, shrinkage of September sea ice in the Arctic. Scientists speculate that a threshold has been crossed.

"Experts at the U.S. National Snow and Data Center in Colorado," writes David Adam, environmental correspondent for the British Guardian, "fear the [Arctic] region is locked into a destructive cycle with warmer air melting more ice, which in turn warms the air further. Satellite pictures show that the extent of Arctic sea ice this month dipped some 20% below the long term average for September -- melting an extra 500,000 square miles, or an area twice the size of Texas. If current trends continue, the summertime Arctic Ocean will be completely ice-free well before the end of this century."

There's lots more.

Wouldya Believe?

2005-09-27T10:36:00.000-04:00

I am in mourning today, as the star of my favorite teevee show of all time has died:

Don Adams, Television's Maxwell Smart, Dies at 82
By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Don Adams, who played Maxwell Smart in the 1960's sitcom "Get Smart," combining clipped, decisive diction with appalling, hilarious ineptitude, died on Sunday at a Los Angeles hospital. He was 82.

Killer Dolphins on the Loose

2005-09-27T10:31:00.000-04:00

Chris sends along this important notice, originally published in the (British) Observer:

Armed and dangerous - Flipper the firing dolphin let loose by Katrina

by Mark Townsend Houston
Sunday September 25, 2005
The Observer

It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.
Experts who have studied the US navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet's smartest. The US navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing.

Dolphins have been trained in attack-and-kill missions since the Cold War. The US Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have apparently been taught to shoot terrorists attacking military vessels. Their coastal compound was breached during the storm, sweeping them out to sea. But those who have studied the controversial use of dolphins in the US defence programme claim it is vital they are caught quickly.

Leo Sheridan, 72, a respected accident investigator who has worked for government and industry, said he had received intelligence from sources close to the US government's marine fisheries service confirming dolphins had escaped.

'My concern is that they have learnt to shoot at divers in wetsuits who have simulated terrorists in exercises. If divers or windsurfers are mistaken for a spy or suicide bomber and if equipped with special harnesses carrying toxic darts, they could fire,' he said. 'The darts are designed to put the target to sleep so they can be interrogated later, but what happens if the victim is not found for hours?'

Usually dolphins were controlled via signals transmitted through a neck harness. 'The question is, were these dolphins made secure before Katrina struck?' said Sheridan.

The mystery surfaced when a separate group of dolphins was washed from a commercial oceanarium on the Mississippi coast during Katrina. Eight were found with the navy's help, but the dolphins were not returned until US navy scientists had examined them.

Sheridan is convinced the scientists were keen to ensure the dolphins were not the navy's, understood to be kept in training ponds in a sound in Louisiana, close to Lake Pontchartrain, whose waters devastated New Orleans.

The navy launched the classified Cetacean Intelligence Mission in San Diego in 1989, where dolphins, fitted with harnesses and small electrodes planted under their skin, were taught to patrol and protect Trident submarines in harbour and stationary warships at sea.

Criticism from animal rights groups ensured the use of dolphins became more secretive. But the project gained impetus after the Yemen terror attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Dolphins have also been used to detect mines near an Iraqi port.

Stay on the lookout!

Many Contracts for Storm Work Raise Questions

2005-09-27T09:37:00.000-04:00

Adam sends along this article from the NYT:

September 26, 2005
Many Contracts for Storm Work Raise Questions
By ERIC LIPTON and RON NIXON
WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 - Topping the federal government's list of costs related to Hurricane Katrina is the $568 million in contracts for debris removal landed by a Florida company with ties to Mississippi's Republican governor. Near the bottom is an $89.95 bill for a pair of brown steel-toe shoes bought by an Environmental Protection Agency worker in Baton Rouge, La.

The first detailed tally of commitments from federal agencies since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast four weeks ago shows that more than 15 contracts exceed $100 million, including 5 of $500 million or more. Most of those were for clearing away the trees, homes and cars strewn across the region; purchasing trailers and mobile homes; or providing trucks, ships, buses and planes.

More than 80 percent of the $1.5 billion in contracts signed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency alone were awarded without bidding or with limited competition, government records show, provoking concerns among auditors and government officials about the potential for favoritism or abuse.

Already, questions have been raised about the political connections of two major contractors - the Shaw Group and Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton - that have been represented by the lobbyist Joe M. Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former leader of FEMA. [...]

An argument for immediate withdrawal from Iraq

2005-09-23T09:29:00.000-04:00

The always stellar Tomdispatch comes up with another excellent essay Why Immediate Withdrawal Makes Sense by Michael Schwartz -- the first piece that I have seen successfully making the case.

Juan Cole gives his response.

from an impeccable source

2005-09-21T19:23:00.000-04:00

BUSH'S BOOZE CRISIS

By JENNIFER LUCE and DON GENTILE

Faced with the biggest crisis of his political life, President Bush has hit the bottle again, The National Enquirer can reveal.

Bush, who said he quit drinking the morning after his 40th birthday, has started boozing amid the Katrina catastrophe.

Family sources have told how the 59-year-old president was caught by First Lady Laura downing a shot of booze at their family ranch in Crawford, Texas, when he learned of the hurricane disaster.

His worried wife yelled at him: "Stop, George."

Following the shocking incident, disclosed here for the first time, Laura privately warned her husband against "falling off the wagon" and vowed to travel with him more often so that she can keep an eye on Dubya, the sources add.

"When the levees broke in New Orleans, it apparently made him reach for a shot," said one insider. "He poured himself a Texas-sized shot of straight whiskey and tossed it back. The First Lady was shocked and shouted: "Stop George!"

"Laura gave him an ultimatum before, 'It's Jim Beam or me.' She doesn't want to replay that nightmare — especially now when it's such tough going for her husband."

Bush is under the worst pressure of his two terms in office and his popularity is near an all-time low. The handling of the Katrina crisis and troop losses in Iraq have fueled public discontent and pushed Bush back to drink.

A Washington source said: "The sad fact is that he has been sneaking drinks for weeks now. Laura may have only just caught him — but the word is his drinking has been going on for a while in the capital. He's been in a pressure cooker for months.

"The war in Iraq, the loss of American lives, has deeply affected him. He takes every soldier's life personally. It has left him emotionally drained.

The result is he's taking drinks here and there, likely in private, to cope. "And now with the worst domestic crisis in his administration over Katrina, you pray his drinking doesn't go out of control."

Another source said: "I'm only surprised to hear that he hadn't taken a shot sooner. Before Katrina, he was at his wit's end. I've known him for years. He's been a good ol' Texas boy forever. George had a drinking problem for years that most professionals would say needed therapy. He doesn't believe in it [therapy], he never got it. He drank his way through his youth, through college and well into his thirties. Everyone's drinking around him."

Another source said: "A family member told me they fear George is 'falling apart.' The First Lady has been assigned the job of gatekeeper." Bush's history of drinking dates back to his youth. Speaking of his time as a young man in the National Guard, he has said: "One thing I remember, and I'm most proud of, is my drinking and partying. Those were the days my friends. Those were the good old days!"

Age 26 in 1972, he reportedly rounded off a night's boozing with his 16-year-old brother Marvin by challenging his father to a fight.

On November 1, 2000, on the eve of his first presidential election, Bush acknowledged that in 1976 he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol near his parents' home in Maine. Age 30 at the time, Bush pleaded guilty and paid a $150 fine. His driving privileges were temporarily suspended in Maine.

"I'm not proud of that," he said. "I made some mistakes. I occasionally drank too much, and I did that night. I learned my lesson." In another interview around that time, he said: "Well, I don't think I had an addiction. You know it's hard for me to say. I've had friends who were, you know, very addicted... and they required hitting bottom (to start) going to AA. I don't think that was my case."

During his 2000 presidential campaign, there were also persistent questions about past cocaine use. Eventually Bush denied using cocaine after 1992, then quickly extended the cocaine-free period back to 1974, when he was 28.

Dr. Justin Frank, a Washington D.C. psychiatrist and author of Bush On The Couch: Inside The Mind Of The President, told The National Enquirer: "I do think that Bush is drinking again. Alcoholics who are not in any program, like the President, have a hard time when stress gets to be great.

"I think it's a concern that Bush disappears during times of stress. He spends so much time on his ranch. It's very frightening."

Published on: 09/21/2005

repubs and the press

2005-09-21T17:24:00.000-04:00

just one example of how it works:

Another Win for 'Friends & Allies'
When John G. Roberts is approved as chief justice of the United States, as expected, he can thank President Bush 's "Friends & Allies" program, which went to work on him immediately after he was nominated. The project, started by the Republican National Committee in the 2004 re-election campaign, is simple and effective: Give opinion makers, media friends, and even cocktail party hosts insider info on the topic of the day. How? Through E-mailed talking points, called D.C. Talkers, and conference calls. For Roberts, it worked this way: A daily conference call to about 80 pundits, GOP-leaning radio and TV hosts, and newsmakers was made around 9 a.m. On the other end were the main Roberts gunslingers like Steve Schmidt at the White House and Ken Mehlman and Brian Jones at the RNC. D.C. Talkers would then be distributed to an even larger list filled with positive info about Roberts and lines of attack on his critics. "The idea," said one of those involved, "is to feed them information and have them invested in us." It has even created addicts, he added. "Now they come to us before going on TV."

the latest from Michelle Chen

2005-09-18T18:44:00.000-04:00

Says Michelle:

To wrap up our eventful summer, here is more news on just how screwed we are as a nation. Enjoy the fall!

Go see her latest work on Katrina, Housing, and Fuel Standards:

Michelle Chen

Michelle Chen is a Core Contributor to The NewStandard. She writes, works and plays in New York City. Involved with independent media for the past nine years, she has written for the South China Morning Post, Clamor, INTHEFRAY.COM and her own zine, cain.

Matt Damon had Bush pegged back in 1997

2005-09-18T18:33:00.000-04:00

click on title

preemptive use of nukes

2005-09-14T21:19:00.000-04:00

good roundup:

World > Terrorism & Security
posted September 14, 2005 at 11:00 p.m.

Pentagon draft plan calls for preemptive use of nukes
Critics say plan is designed for possible attack against Iran.
By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

Potty Break

2005-09-14T20:53:00.000-04:00

from Reuters:

Steve Soto has a photo essay

Tomdispatch on Oraq

2005-09-14T20:40:00.000-04:00

TomDispatch has been better than ever lately -- especially this brilliant piece, Tom Englehardt and Nick Turse's finest work:

Tomgram: The Reconstruction of New Oraq

Corporations of the Whirlwind
The Reconstruction of New Oraq

Teaching 9/11

2005-09-14T20:25:00.000-04:00

Interesting article by Jon Weiner Teaching 9/11 on how textbooks teach and the inevitable ensuing controversy.

He refers to an interesting Eric Foner piece on thinking about American History after 9/11. We are reading this article in my Historical Methods class this week. The assignment:

Sept 13 – Why Bother? …
Read Peter N. Stearns, “Why Study History?”

Read David Oshinsky, “Humpty Dumpty of Scholarship: History Has Broken Into Pieces”

Read Gerald W. Schlabach, “A Sense of History: Some Components”

Read Eric Foner, “Rethinking American History in a Post-9/11 World”

Paper due (3 pages): After reading the four articles above, write an essay addressing the question, What is the most compelling reason to study history? Be sure to engage with some of the points made in the articles.

oh I love this one...

2005-09-13T21:14:00.000-04:00

End of the Bush Era

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005; A27

The Bush Era is over. The sooner politicians in both parties realize that, the better for them -- and the country.

Recent months, and especially the past two weeks, have brought home to a steadily growing majority of Americans the truth that President Bush's government doesn't work. His policies are failing, his approach to leadership is detached and self-indulgent, his way of politics has produced a divided, angry and dysfunctional public square. We dare not go on like this. [...]

if you are thinking of going into politics...

2005-09-13T15:57:00.000-04:00

... then I don't recommend this article from Rolling Stone:

Four Amendments & a Funeral
A month inside the house of horrors that is Congress
By MATT TAIBBI

Saturday event at New Jersey Historical Society

2005-09-13T14:05:00.000-04:00

Immigration and The American Dream Post 9/11
Saturday, September 17 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm
The New Jersey Historical Society

What laws protect immigrants' rights to attain the American Dream?

How can we support the tradition of immigration that formed America?

Do laws intended to prevent terror attacks violate our civil liberties?

Join us on Citizenship Day, an official holiday since 1952, designated to discuss, honor and celebrate the privileges and responsibilities of U.S. citizenship.

Our distinguished guest panel of civil rights advocates, community leaders and immigration policy professionals will examine U.S. immigration issues post 9/11, and take your questions in this open forum.

Partha Banerjee, PhD., Executive Director, New Jersey Immigration Policy Network

Jesse Taylor, Immigrant Rights Advocate with Project Hospitality

Mary Kay Jou, Training Director, International Institute of New Jersey

Ana Archila, Executive Director, Latin American Integration Center

FREE!

Refreshments will be served.

Please call 973-596-8500 ext. 234 to save your space.
The New Jersey Historical Society
52 Park Place, Newark, NJ 07102
www.jerseyhistory.org

my reading

2005-09-13T11:38:00.000-04:00

Since I have removed the links from the page temporarily (until I get around to figuring out why they were messing with my page), I thought I would tell my readers what my (almost daily) reading list consists of:

New York Times -- though next week the opinion page goes behind a firewall and you must pay for the immortal Krugman

Washington Post -- especially Dan Froomkin's essential White House Briefing published daily in the early afternoon

Atrios/Eschaton -- good site for frequently update links to liberal takes on the issues

DailyKos -- similar to Atrios

Digby @ Hullabaloo -- THE best commentator out there

Billmon @ Whiskey Bar -- almost as good as Digby

TomDispatch -- great essays by Tom Englehardt and friends

Wolcott -- snarky and dazzling with the prose

Juan Cole -- great on Iraq and Middle East in general

Salon -- firewall -- ya gotta watch a commercial -- but some good stuff including the daily War Room and the Daou Report blog round-up

The Progress Report -- a daily email from the Center for American Progress that is meticulously researched

There are plenty more, but that's a start

oh, and I shouldn't leave off the mags I read:

New Yorker -- usually pretty weak webpage but some of the best reporting

The Atlantic -- good webpage

Harpers -- weak webpage, great mag

New York Review of Books -- webpage has about half the articles

race, poverty & politics

2005-09-13T11:28:00.000-04:00

Digby has some brilliant insights in these postings:

Dusting Off The Manual

and American Welfare

Bush and Katrina

2005-09-12T09:26:00.000-04:00

I guess I shouldn't be surprised -- but I continue to be -- at the staggering incompetence and carelessness (to say the least) of the Bush Administration. This report from Newsweek is just one that lays it out. Note that Bush didn't really understand until THURSDAY and note that all of his aides were too afraid to tell him how bad things were:

How Bush Blew It

This is not a partisan bashing of Bush, but a fairly straightforward reporting. If you want the partisan precis, check out Americablog.

NYT Magazine on War on Terror & Bin Laden

2005-09-12T09:19:00.000-04:00

A couple of excellent article in the NYTimes Magazine: the first is a very powerful and concise overview on four years of the "war on terror":

Taking Stock of the Forever War
By MARK DANNER
Published: September 11, 2005

The other is a chilling account of the failure to capture Bin Laden:

Lost at Tora Bora
By MARY ANNE WEAVER
Published: September 11, 2005

Money quote:

It was only on the third day of the battle that the three dozen Special Forces troops arrived. But their mission was strictly limited to assisting and advising and calling in air strikes, according to the orders of Gen. Tommy Franks, the head of U.S. Central Command, who was running the war from his headquarters in Tampa, Fla.

Three dozen!!! I guess the armed forces were already gearing up for Iraq.

Iran Anyone?

2005-09-11T10:59:00.000-04:00

From today's WaPo:

Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan
Strategy Includes Preemptive Use Against Banned Weapons

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 11, 2005; Page A01

The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

Save CBGB

2005-09-08T18:15:00.000-04:00

Sign the petition at SaveCBGB

blog maintenance

2005-09-08T15:51:00.000-04:00

something wrong with the blog layout, so I have temporarily removed all links and archives. I hope to fix it soon.

John Kerry @ WPU this Saturday

2005-09-08T15:45:00.000-04:00

The Department of Political Science would like to invite you to come out and hear John Kerry speak on issues of importance to New Jersey voters.

Saturday, September 10, 2005

11:00 a.m.

Shea Auditorium Steps

"Fear, Freedom, and the U.S. Constitution"

2005-09-08T15:41:00.000-04:00

Lecture next week at WPU:

Constitution Day
A Public Lecture by
Corey Robin (City University of New York),
Award-winning author of Fear: the History of a Political Idea

"Fear, Freedom, and the U.S. Constitution"

The lecture will be followed by a moderated Town Hall Debate in which all are invited to participate.

Refreshments will be served.

This program is free and open to the public, and faculty are strongly encouraged to bring their classes.

Sponsored by the American Democracy Project of William Paterson University, the Office of the Provost, the Office of Student Development, the David and Larraine Cheng Library, and the Department of Political Science.

Sept. 15th, 2005 from 3:30pm-4:45pm in the Shea Auditorium

Contact adp@wpunj.edu for more information

"What didn't go right?"

2005-09-08T10:04:00.000-04:00

This article brings together pretty much everything I have been noticing about the govt's lack of response to Katrina. Go to the original article to click on the links.

"What didn't go right?"
President Bush's absurd question underscores the arrogance of an administration whose "limited government" agenda is responsible for the disastrous federal response to Katrina.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Sidney Blumenthal

Sept. 8, 2005 | The Bush administration's mishandling of Hurricane Katrina stands as the pluperfect case study of the Republican Party's theory and practice of government. For decades conservatives have funded think tanks, filled libraries and conducted political campaigns to promote the idea of limited government. Now, in New Orleans, the theory has been tested. The floodwaters have rolled over the rhetoric.

Under Bush, government has been "limited" only in certain weak spots, like levees, while in other spots it has vastly expanded into a behemoth subsisting on the greatest deficit spending in our history. State and local governments have not been empowered, but rendered impotent, in the face of circumstances beyond their means in which they have desperately requested federal intervention. Experienced professionals in government have been forced out, tried-and-true policies discarded, expert research ignored, and cronies elevated to senior management.

Before Katrina, the Republican theory received its most apposite formulation by a prominent lobbyist and close advisor to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist, who said about government that he wanted to "drown it in the bathtub." In relation to the waters that surround it, New Orleans has been described as a bathtub, and it has served as the bathtub for Norquist's wish.

Only two people in the light of recent events have had the daring to articulate a defense of the Republican idea of government. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, asked about rebuilding New Orleans, volunteered: "It doesn't make sense to me." He elaborated: "I think federal insurance and everything that goes along with it ... we ought to take a second look at that." Thus Hastert upheld rugged individualism over a modern federal union. Just a month earlier, as it happened, Hastert had put out a press release crowing about his ability to win federal disaster relief for drought-stricken farmers in his Illinois district. While he was too preoccupied attending a campaign fundraiser for a Republican colleague to travel to Washington to vote for the $10.5 billion emergency appropriation to deal with Katrina's aftereffects, he did finally return to the capital to push for even more drought aid from the Department of Agriculture. Hastert's philosophy is not undermined by his stupendous hypocrisy, for hypocrisy is at the center of the Republican idea. Hastert simply has the shamelessness of his convictions.

The second defender was Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for which he was qualified by a résumé that includes being fired from his previous job as commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association and, more important, having been the college roommate of Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's 2000 campaign manager and Brown's predecessor at FEMA. On Sept. 1, Brown stated: "Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well." Brown was unintentionally Swiftian in his savage irony. The next day, President Bush patted him on the back: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." Brown exemplifies the Bush approach to government, a blend of cynicism, cronyism, and incompetence presented with faux innocence as well-meaning service and utter surprise at things going wrong.

Even as the floodwaters poured into New Orleans, unimpeded by any federal effort to stanch the flow, the White House mustered a tightly coordinated rapid response of political damage control. Karl Rove assumed emergency management powers. The strategy was to dampen any criticism of the president, rally the Republican base, and cast blame on the mayor of New Orleans and governor of Louisiana, both Democrats. It was a classic Bush ploy against the backdrop of crisis. The object was to polarize the nation along partisan lines as swiftly as possible. While policy collapsed, politics reigned. Once again, Bush the divider, not the uniter, emerged.

The White House released a waterfall of themes. No matter how contradictory, administration officials maintained message discipline. The first imperative was to disclaim and deflect responsibility. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan admonished the press corps, "This is not a time to get into any finger-pointing or politics or anything of that nature." The president down to the lowliest talk show hosts echoed the line that criticism during the crisis and reporting its causes were unseemly and vaguely unpatriotic.

After establishing that line, the White House laid out other messages to avoiding responsibility. Bush declared, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." From his bully pulpit he intended to drown out the reports trickling into print media that he had cut the funding for rebuilding the levees and for flood control. Then Bush assumed the pose of the president above the fray, sadly calling the response "unacceptable." Meanwhile, he praised "Brownie."

After Sept. 11, there was an external enemy, "evildoers" against whom to summon fear and fervor. Now, instead, the flood has brought to the surface the deepest national questions of race, class and inequality. On Aug. 30, the day after the hurricane hit, the Census Bureau released figures showing that the poor had increased by 1.1 million since 2003, to 12.7 percent of the population, the fourth annual increase, with blacks and Hispanics the poorest, and the South remaining the poorest region. Since Bush has been in office, poverty has grown by almost 9 percent. (Under President Clinton, poverty fell by 25 percent.) As these issues began to receive serious attention for the first time in years, Bush reiterated that it was inappropriate to "play the blame game."

Meanwhile, his aides sought to blame New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco. On Sept. 3, the Washington Post, citing an anonymous "senior administration official," reported that Blanco "still had not declared a state of emergency." Newsweek published a similar report. Within hours, however, the Post published a correction; the report was false. In fact, Blanco had declared an emergency on Aug. 26 and sent President Bush a letter on Aug. 27 requesting that the federal government declare an emergency and provide aid; and, in fact, Bush did make such a declaration, thereby accepting responsibility. Nonetheless, these facts have not stymied White House aides from their drumbeat that state and local officials -- but curiously, not the Republican governors of Mississippi and Alabama -- are ultimately to blame.

Yet others operated off-message, casting aspersions on the hurricane's victims. The president's mother, Barbara Bush, interviewed on American Public Media's "Marketplace" program," said of the displaced from Louisiana who are temporarily housed in Houston's Astrodome, "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this -- this is working very well for them."

And Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., suggested that the residents of New Orleans who failed to escape the flood should be punished. "I mean, you have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and understand that there are consequences to not leaving."

The White House sought to turn back the rising tide of anger among blacks by deputizing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. During the early days of the hurricane and flood, she had been vacationing in New York, taking in Monty Python's "Spamalot" and spending thousands on shoes at Ferragamo on Fifth Avenue. In the store, a fellow shopper reportedly confronted her, saying, "How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!" -- prompting security men to bodily remove the woman. A week after the hurricane, Rice mounted the pulpit at a black church in Whistler, Ala. "The Lord Jesus Christ is going to come on time," she preached, "if we just wait." One hundred and 10 years after Booker T. Washington counseled patience and acceptance to the race in his famous "Atlanta Compromise" speech in the aftermath of Reconstruction's betrayal, the highest African-American official in the land updated his advice of forbearance.

After a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Bush warned against the "blame game" as he pointed his finger: "Bureaucracy is not going to stand in the way of getting the job done for the people." His aides briefed reporters on background that "bureaucracy" of course referred to state and local officials. That night, at the White House, Bush met with congressional leaders of both parties, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi urged Bush to fire Brown. "Why would I do that?" the president replied. "Because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right last week," she explained. To which he answered, "What didn't go right?"

Bush's denigration of "bureaucracy" raises the question of the principals responsible in his own bureaucracy. Within hours of the president's statement, the Associated Press reported that FEMA director Michael Brown had waited five hours after the hurricane struck to request 1,000 workers from Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff. Part of their mission, he wrote, would be to "convey a positive image" of the administration's response.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune disclosed that Max Mayfield, head of the National Hurricane Center, briefed Brown and Chertoff before the hurricane made landfall of its potential disastrous consequences. "We were briefing them way before landfall," Mayfield said. "It's not like this was a surprise. We had in the advisories that the levee could be topped." The day after Bush's Cabinet room attack on bureaucracy, the St. Petersburg Times revealed that Mayfield had also briefed President Bush in a video conference call. "I just wanted to be able to go to sleep that night knowing that I did all I could do," Mayfield said.

After its creation in 1979, FEMA became "a political dumping ground," according to a former FEMA advisory board member. Its ineffective performance after Hurricane Hugo hit South Carolina in 1989 and Hurricane Andrew struck Florida in 1992 exposed the agency's shortcomings. Then Sen. Fritz Hollings of South Carolina called it "the sorriest bunch of bureaucratic jackasses." President Clinton appointed James Lee Witt as the new director, the first one ever to have had experience in the field. Witt reinvented the agency, setting high professional standards and efficiently dealing with disasters.

FEMA's success as a showcase federal agency made it an inviting target for the incoming Bush team. Allbaugh, Bush's former campaign manager, became the new director, and he immediately began to dismantle the professional staff, privatize many functions and degrade its operations. In his testimony before the Senate, Allbaugh attacked the agency he headed as an example of unresponsive bureaucracy: "Many are concerned that Federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program and a disincentive to effective State and local risk management. Expectations of when the Federal Government should be involved and the degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level. We must restore the predominant role of State and local response to most disasters."

After Sept. 11, 2001, FEMA was subsumed into the new Department of Homeland Security and lost its Cabinet rank. The staff was cut by more than 10 percent, and the budget has been cut every year since and most of its disaster relief efforts disbanded. "Three out of every four dollars the agency provides in local preparedness and first-responder grants go to terrorism-related activities, even though a recent Government Accountability Office report quotes local officials as saying what they really need is money to prepare for natural disasters and accidents," the Los Angeles Times reported.

After Allbaugh retired from FEMA in 2003, handing over the agency to his deputy and college roommate, Brown, he set up a lucrative lobbying firm, the Allbaugh Co., which mounts "legislative and regulatory campaigns" for its corporate clients, according its Web site. After the Iraq war, Allbaugh established New Bridge Strategies to facilitate business for contractors there. He also created Diligence, a firm to provide security to private companies operating in Iraq. Haley Barbour, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and now governor of Mississippi, helped Allbaugh start all his ventures through his lobbying and law firm, Barbour Griffith and Rogers. Indeed, the entire Allbaugh complex is housed at Barbour Griffith and Rogers. Ed Rogers, Barbour's partner, has become a vice president of Diligence. Diane Allbaugh, Allbaugh's wife, went to work at Barbour Griffith and Rogers. And Neil Bush, the president's brother, received $60,000 as a consultant to New Bridge Strategies.

On Sept. 1, the Pentagon announced the award of a major contract for repair of damaged naval facilities on the Gulf Coast to Halliburton, the firm whose former CEO is Vice President Dick Cheney and whose chief lobbyist is Joe Allbaugh.

Hurricane Katrina is the anti-9/11 in its divisive political effect, its unearthing of underlying domestic problems, and its disorienting impact on the president and his administration. Yet, in other ways, the failure of government before the hurricane struck is reminiscent of the failures leading into 9/11. The demotion of FEMA resembles the demotion of counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke. In both cases, the administration ignored clear warnings.

In a conversation with a former diplomat with decades of experience, I raised these parallels. But the Bush administration response evoked something else for him. "It reminds me of Africa," he said. "Governments that prey on their people."

- - - - - - - - - - - -

About the writer
Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior advisor to President Clinton and the author of "The Clinton Wars," is writing a column for Salon and the Guardian of London.

Katrina

2005-09-06T22:16:00.000-04:00

So much to say about Hurricane Katrina -- too much, really, for me to handle right now. But I did want to point to a couple of standout articles, both published by the always extraordinary Tomdispatch. See:

Tomgram: Bill McKibben on Planet New Orleans

and

Tomgram: Iraq in America

At the Front of Nowhere at All
The Perfect Storm and the Feral City
By Tom Engelhardt

Meeshell sends her love

2005-06-25T11:24:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I spent about two hours composing a blog posting only to have it disappear down the rathole.... Grrr.......

Meanwhile, you could do worse than peruse the latest bangup reporting from the inimitable Michelle Chen:

Hey everyone. It's been a busy past couple of weeks. Here's some news on house, home and health ... and felon disenfranchisement.

The poor foot the bill for medical care:
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1895

The feds chase the ambulance chasers:
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1896

The White House cut down on "wasteful" emergency aid:
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1911

Minimum wage is still not enough:
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1928

Radioactive resurrection:
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1943

Home unimprovement:
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1948

Nasty neighbors:
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1965

Convict voters:
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1978

Downing Street memos

2005-06-23T22:10:00.000-04:00

So many things going on, and I just don't have the time to pull it all together. So you will just have to rely on the many other great sources out there. But this one, from the L.A. Times, by the reporter who broke the Downing Street minutes story, I couldn't pass up:

COMMENTARY
The Real News in the Downing Street Memos
By Michael Smith
Michael Smith writes on defense issues for the Sunday Times of London.

June 23, 2005

It is now nine months since I obtained the first of the "Downing Street memos," thrust into my hand by someone who asked me to meet him in a quiet watering hole in London for what I imagined would just be a friendly drink.

At the time, I was defense correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph, and a staunch supporter of the decision to oust Saddam Hussein. The source was a friend. He'd given me a few stories before but nothing nearly as interesting as this.

The six leaked documents I took away with me that night were to change completely my opinion of the decision to go to war and the honesty of Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush.

They focused on the period leading up to the Crawford, Texas, summit between Blair and Bush in early April 2002, and were most striking for the way in which British officials warned the prime minister, with remarkable prescience, what a mess post-war Iraq would become. Even by the cynical standards of realpolitik, the decision to overrule this expert advice seemed to be criminal.

The second batch of leaks arrived in the middle of this year's British general election, by which time I was writing for a different newspaper, the Sunday Times. These documents, which came from a different source, related to a crucial meeting of Blair's war Cabinet on July 23, 2002. The timing of the leak was significant, with Blair clearly in electoral difficulties because of an unpopular war.

I did not then regard the now-infamous memo — the one that includes the minutes of the July 23 meeting — as the most important. My main article focused on the separate briefing paper for those taking part, prepared beforehand by Cabinet Office experts.

It said that Blair agreed at Crawford that "the UK would support military action to bring about regime change." Because this was illegal, the officials noted, it was "necessary to create the conditions in which we could legally support military action."

But Downing Street had a "clever" plan that it hoped would trap Hussein into giving the allies the excuse they needed to go to war. It would persuade the U.N. Security Council to give the Iraqi leader an ultimatum to let in the weapons inspectors.

Although Blair and Bush still insist the decision to go to the U.N. was about averting war, one memo states that it was, in fact, about "wrong-footing" Hussein into giving them a legal justification for war.

British officials hoped the ultimatum could be framed in words that would be so unacceptable to Hussein that he would reject it outright. But they were far from certain this would work, so there was also a Plan B.

American media coverage of the Downing Street memo has largely focused on the assertion by Sir Richard Dearlove, head of British foreign intelligence, that war was seen as inevitable in Washington, where "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

But another part of the memo is arguably more important. It quotes British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon as saying that "the U.S. had already begun 'spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime." This we now realize was Plan B.

Put simply, U.S. aircraft patrolling the southern no-fly zone were dropping a lot more bombs in the hope of provoking a reaction that would give the allies an excuse to carry out a full-scale bombing campaign, an air war, the first stage of the conflict.

British government figures for the number of bombs dropped on southern Iraq in 2002 show that although virtually none were used in March and April, an average of 10 tons a month were dropped between May and August.

But these initial "spikes of activity" didn't have the desired effect. The Iraqis didn't retaliate. They didn't provide the excuse Bush and Blair needed. So at the end of August, the allies dramatically intensified the bombing into what was effectively the initial air war.

The number of bombs dropped on southern Iraq by allied aircraft shot up to 54.6 tons in September alone, with the increased rates continuing into 2003.

In other words, Bush and Blair began their war not in March 2003, as everyone believed, but at the end of August 2002, six weeks before Congress approved military action against Iraq.

The way in which the intelligence was "fixed" to justify war is old news.

The real news is the shady April 2002 deal to go to war, the cynical use of the U.N. to provide an excuse, and the secret, illegal air war without the backing of Congress.

You might also be interested in this transcript of an online chat Smith did with the WaPo's readers.

war, good god, yeah...

2005-06-13T15:02:00.000-04:00

I trust my faithful few readers know all about the Downing Street minutes and the all the other evidence coming out about the lies that led to war. So I won't link to all the great articles I have been reading about that. And if you follow the usual sources, you can get a good picture of the mess that keeps getting messier.

But this is a must, must, must read:

War: Realities and Myths
by Chris Hedges

upcoming event

2005-06-11T10:26:00.000-04:00

This looks interesting. I am going to try to attend:

NJ Peace Action News
Iraqi National Labor Leaders Tour - NJ Date Confirmed
June 2005
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Greetings!

Dear Friends,

I just received confirmation that AAUP is hosting the USLAW Iraqi Labor Leaders at Rutgers next Thursday , June 16 at noon at the Busch campus Dining Hall. RSVP to AAUP. Details can be found below. I hope that you will be able to attend.

Carol Gay, NJ Labor Against the War

The Rutgers AAUP is proud to host the New Jersey stop of US Labor Against the War's US Tour of Iraqi National Labor Leaders. Six Iraqi trade unionists are touring the US to speak with the labor movement to both educate US trade unionists about the conditions faced by Iraqi workers and to build direct worker-to-worker, union-to-union solidarity.

Come support Iraqi trade unionists in their effort to build a progressive secular Iraq.

Thursday June 16, 2005

12 noon - 2 pm with Lunch

Busch Dining Hall - Rooms A/B Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ

RSVP to aaup@rutgersaaup.com or 732-445-2278

(Map with directions: http://maps.rutgers.edu/building.aspx?id=46)

Contact Information
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
email: director@njpeaceaction.org
phone: 973-744-3263
web: http://www.njpeaceaction.org
~~

Sometimes it's hard to be a Mets fan

2005-05-25T11:24:00.000-04:00

From yesterday's NYT:

Mike Piazza, who was not in the starting lineup, spent his free time getting a baseball autographed by the radio commentator Rush Limbaugh. "It was like meeting George Washington," Piazza said.

WPU to Host Conference on Terrorism

2005-04-12T13:42:00.000-04:00

From the WPU Press Office:

William Paterson University to Host Conference on Terrorism

A two-day international conference designed to open a discussion about the global effects of terrorism on democracy will be held on April 13 and 14 at William Paterson University on the campus in Wayne.
“Terrorism and Democracy,” begins with a keynote address by Ambassador Javier Ruperez, executive director of the United Nations Counterterrorism Committee, on Wednesday, April 13 at 7 p.m. in the Cheng Library Auditorium.

The conference continues on Thursday, April 14 with four panel discussions to be held in the Martini Teleconference Center. The morning’s events begin with a panel from 9:30 to 11 a.m. focusing on “Mapping Contemporary Terrorism: The Global Contours Post 9/11/01.” Panelists are Andrea Bertoli, senior research scholar and director, Center for International Conflict Resolution, Columbia University; Pascal Boniface, director of the Institute for International and Strategic Relations, and professor of international relations, Institute for European Studies, University of Paris; and Ambassador Augustine P. Mahiga, permanent representative of the United Republic of Tanzania to the United Nations.

“Contemporary Terrorist Movements: Latin America, the European Union, Russia and the Caucuses” will be held from 11:15 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. Panelists are Stephan Duso-Baudin, associate professor, St. Cyr Military Academy, Maitre de Conferences L’Institut des Sciences Politiques de Paris, and senior researcher at the French Army’s Centre de Doctrin d’Emploi des Forces, Ecole Militaire, Paris, France; Nina Krusheva, professor, Graduate Program in International Affairs, New School University and senior editor, Project Syndicate Association of Newspapers Around the World; and Martin Weinstein, professor of political science, William Paterson University.

The topic of the first afternoon panel, which will be held from 1:45 to 3:15 p.m., is “Contemporary Terrorist Movements: Israel, Lebanon and Palestine, Indonesia, South Asia, Africa.” Panelists are John Gersham, senior analyst, Interhemispheric Resource Center, Asia/Pacific editor, Foreign Policy in Focus; David Makovsky, senior fellow and director of the Project on the Middle East Peace Process, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and adjunct lecturer in Middle Eastern politics, Johns Hopkins University; and Aaron Tesfaye, assistant professor, political science, at William Paterson University. Bertoli, Boniface and Makovsky will join Maya Chadda, professor of political science at William Paterson University, for the final panel, to be held from 3:15 to 5:15 p.m. They will discuss “Political Repercussions of the ‘Wars on Terror:’ The Domestic Impacts on Democracy, Human Rights and Peace.”

The program is sponsored by William Paterson University’s Department of Political Science, the Master’s Program in Public Policy and International Affairs, the Center for International Studies, and the Department of African, African American and Caribbean Studies. For additional information, please call John Mason, professor, political science department, at 973.720.3421.

Jane Fonda

2005-04-04T17:47:00.000-04:00

Liz caught this article about Jane Fonda:

Fonda Says Vietnamese Visit Was a Betrayal
Thursday, March 31, 2005
(03-31) 10:27 PST NEW YORK, (AP) --

Jane Fonda says her 1972 visit to a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun site, an incident that brought her the nickname "Hanoi Jane," was a "betrayal" of American forces and of the "country that gave me privilege."

"The image of Jane Fonda, `Barbarella,' Henry Fonda's daughter ... sitting on an enemy aircraft gun was a betrayal ... the largest lapse of judgment that I can even imagine," Fonda told Leslie Stahl in a "60 Minutes" interview that will air Sunday night.

Fonda, whose memoir "Jane Fonda: My Life So Far" comes out next week, said she did not regret meeting with American POWs in North Vietnam or making broadcasts on Radio Hanoi. "Our government was lying to us and men were dying because of it, and I felt I had to do anything that I could to expose the lies and help end the war," she said.

Also on "60 Minutes," Fonda acknowledged that she had participated in sexual threesomes, at the encouragement of her first husband, French film director Roger Vadim. She said she consented because, "I felt that if I said no, that he would leave me and I couldn't imagine myself without him."

"Muslim Woman's Courage Sets Example"

2005-04-04T17:44:00.000-04:00

Mirdita sends this to us:

I am doing research for one of my classes and came upon this article. After reading the article, I became totally outraged I knew that rape occurred in Middle Eastern/Asian countries but I thought it was done by the Taliban or extremists and not authorized by the government. Since March is Women's Month, I would like you to post this article on the superannuated blog. I think this article will spark some responses. Let me know what you think. Maybe you have heard of such savagery.

Mirdita

Muslim Woman's Courage Sets Example
March 16, 2005
by Wendy McElroy, wendy@ifeminists.net

Last week, Pakistan's Federal Shariat Court—the nation's highest Islamic court—vacated an appeals court decision that had outraged the world.

In essence, the appeals court had acquitted five of the six men convicted in the 2002 "honor rape" of Mukhtar Mai. Her ongoing story may well foreshadow the future of Muslim women who suffer under tribal law and other oppressive traditions. Hers is a savage tale of brutalization and courage, with confusing twists and a resolution that is uncertain. But it is a story of hope, which provides reason for optimism.

In it, the West provides an invaluable voice of conscience and compassion. But the story's ultimate message may be that Muslim women must stand up for themselves and say 'no.'

In the summer of 2002, a panchayat court (or village council) sentenced Mukhtar to be gang-raped by four men. The sentence was not to punish Mukhtar for wrongdoing. Rather, her 14-year-old brother was accused of associating in public with a girl from a rival and more powerful tribe; her rape was meant to punish the family for his transgression.

Gang-raped, beaten, and thrown naked into the street, Mukhtar was forced to walk home through her village. The public nature of the punishment ensured she was an outcast and unmarriageable. Mukhtar was expected to kill herself, but a suicide attempt failed. Her family revived her, and the support of her loved ones deterred her from making future attempts.

Her story grabbed the media's attention. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times visited her home and observed, "a girl in the next village was gang-raped a week after Ms. Mukhtaran, and she took the traditional route: she swallowed a bottle of pesticide and dropped dead."

By contrast, Kristof wrote, Mukhtar survived and propounded "the shocking idea that the shame lies in raping, rather than in being raped."

In rural Pakistan, as in many remote Muslim areas, tribal courts often take precedence over the law of the land on matters of family and "honor." Indeed, when human rights organizations express outrage over ritualized violence against women in Islamic cultures, it is often the panchayat tribal courts toward which they point an accusing finger.

For example, Pakistan is notorious for "honor killings." This is the practice by which women are murdered, usually by male relatives, for sexual 'improprieties' such as having sex outside of marriage. Mukhtar's story is an international indictment of that system.

However, in recent years—largely due to its alliance with and dependency upon the United States—Pakistan's national government has been trying to reform how women are treated in their country. President Musharraf has declared an agenda of "enlightened moderation" that sets his more Western version of society at odds with tribal traditions.

In Mai's case, the first "official" encouragement came from a local imam (an Islamic cleric) who called for her attackers to be brought before a civil court. (The importance of calls of reform and rebellion originating from within the society itself cannot be overstated.)

Soon, international opinion took up the cry and Pakistan's authorities reacted quickly. A special anti-terrorism court sentenced the four accused rapists as well as two members of the panchayat court to death. Musharraf presented Mukhtar with approximately $8,300 in compensation and ordered the police to protect her.

Mukhtar used the money to open schools for children in her village.

Sarwar Bari of Pattan—a non-governmental organization that supports Mukhtar—states, "A lot of people would have taken the money and run away, tried to forget, but Mukhtaran has not only stayed but has launched a visible challenge to the feudal landlords to change the status quo."

And, then, a slow and boring appeals process ensued. And, then, world attention shifted focus.

Some of that shift was the natural consequence of a fast-moving world. Some was encouraged by Pakistan's government to mute global criticism. Clearly, the Pakistani government was not pleased with reporters like Kristof.

Last September, Kristof reported, "relatives of the rapists are waiting for the police to leave and then will put Ms. Mukhtaran in her place...I walked to the area where the high-status tribesmen live. They denied planning to kill Ms. Mukhtaran, but were unapologetic about her rape."

And while the world shifted focus, the appeals court set her rapists free.

Early this month, Kristof published an op-ed in the N.Y. Times entitled, "When Rapists Walk Free." There, Kristof commented, "I had planned to be in Pakistan this week to write a follow-up column about Mukhtaran. But after a month's wait, the Pakistani government has refused to give me a visa..."

But now that the higher court has overturned those acquittals, global attention is again on Mukhtar.

On a website about her ordeal, Mukhtar, a small, soft-spoken women in her 30s, says of the attention: "My legal name is Mukhtaran Bibi, though I have become known in recent years as Mukhtar Mai. The local media here in Pakistan gave me that name, meaning 'respected big sister,' after my story first became national news."

But what the world sees upon refocusing on Mukhtar is a woman who has stood strong for two years and become a lightning rod around which other women gather to march and protest.

One official reaction: a contempt plea has been filed against 14 people, including Mukhtar, for making statements critical of the court to the press. Liberalizing the treatment of women and moving too openly against tribal courts obviously places Musharraf in an uncomfortable position.

Yet change is coming. Mukhtaran has said. "It's more than I would have thought possible two years ago."

Imagine what might be accomplished if the world pays attention for the next two years.

Copyright © 2005 Wendy McElroy.

Matthew K. on the Patriot Act

2005-03-28T11:16:00.000-05:00

Matthew K. sends in these comments on the The Patriot Act:

A continuation from Thursday’s class, in both the Daily Record and also in the NJ Herald there was an article dealing with an individual who was charged with blinding pilots while trying to land at Teterboro airport. The man faces 20 years in prison based on the Patriot Act charges. The man states that he was star gazing when his laser beam accidentally hit the planes. The charge against the man is for and I quote from the article “non-purposeful conduct”. The other article states that is was a reckless act, which endangered the safety of others.

For everyone to know big brother is always looking over your shoulders. Our personal freedoms have been limited further with the introduction of the Patriot Act. I fully understand that the intention was to keep my family safe from those wishing to do harm, but it would be nice if we had the ability to stop these people from entering our country. This may be too much for our politicians to handle and therefore will have to do this baby steps.

New Jersey Herald
Thursday March 24 2005
Laser Indictment Filed

Daily Record
Thursday March 24 2005
Laser-pointing Suspect Indicted

Liz writes in

2005-03-24T12:32:00.000-05:00

from Liz:

The Terry Schiavo situation has been much on my mind and our discussion
in class yesterday has prompted me to submit this to your blog.

Often, when discussing this case, words like ‘killing’ ‘starving her to
death’ and ‘convenience’ are used. Some factions have advanced the
position that it has become inconvenient for Mrs. Schiavo’s husband to
care for her. They cite his relationship with another woman and his two
children with her as proof of their assertion. Others call this a right
to life case, stressing the ‘inalienable right to life…’ mentioned in
our Declaration of Independence. People argue about if Mrs. Schiavo is
‘really there’. Does she really smile in reaction to other people? Does
she follow with her eyes? Does she try to respond? Or are these all the
most basic involuntary reactions, completely unrelated to human thought
and cognizance?

The only thing I can say about the Schiavo case is this:

I don’t know.

What I do know is based on personal experience. I have been in the
unfortunate position of having to make a decision similar to
Mr.Schiavo’s two times: once for my father who'd been comatose for more
than a month after a work related head injury, once for my chronically
ill mother who suffered brain damage as a result of lack of oxygen. Her
body was so wracked and distorted with arthritis that when she needed to
be intubated by emts, they were unable to figure out how to do it.

My brother died at home, brain cancer at 29, assisted by hospice. Once
we knew that cancer treatments had failed, no 'life-saving' measures
were used. My brother in law died in the hospital, AIDS at 43. Again,
once it was clear that medicine was ineffective, no 'life-saving'
measures were employed.

My 'list' is much longer than this, as many of yours must be. These are
just the four most relevant to the discussion.

When my parents became incapacitated, – ten years apart and without
living wills - we as a family made the hard decisions together, in
consultation with the medical professionals and clergy we trusted. The
inevitable disagreements over which course to take, which ‘plugs to pull
when’ meant we waited a little longer to make our decision. One of us,
however - me - was given extra responsibility and my view was given
extra weight because of my position in the family and because the rest
of them trusted and loved me.

I can understand Mrs. Schiavo’s family's desperate hope because I lived
it. Every eye blink, every twitch – maybe that meant my parents or
brothers were ‘coming back’. We lived in hope, but had to be realistic.
I would have expected that somewhere along the line during these 15
years, that compassionate, experienced people would offer wiser counsel
to the Schiavo family than they've apparently been given. It seems that
counseling for THEM is in order.

Accepting the death of a loved one isn't easy, especially when they
appear to be 'awake'. And especially when you are, in effect,
facilitating their passing.

The question of 'is Terry alive?' is one that can only be answered by
the doctors and the family – and one it appears will soon be moot.

My own feeling is that...I don't know. I've been told that hearing is
the last sense to leave a dying person. Does Terri 'hear'? I don't know.
Is she sentient? I don't know. But it’s none of my damn business.

What I do know is that the decisions I made for my family members were
among the most difficult of my life. They were made with love, with
knowledge of the people I was speaking for, with occasional doubt, with
consultation with my brothers and sister, after talking with doctors,
with much thought and prayer and anguish and ultimately, with
responsible love. Woe betide the politician or ANYone who would have
tried to enter such a deeply familial time.

I'm sad that the toll of the last fifteen years has divided Mrs.
Schiavo’s family so deeply and that this painful situation is even worse
because of how they have conducted themselves. I wish there was an easy
answer. I know there is none. I know that any answer is individual in
nature.

But it is the rhetoric mongers on both sides of the issue who make me
ill: people who talk about 'starving the woman to death' when they have
no idea what they're talking about; people attempting to advance an
agenda using this poor family’s pain. Casually tossing around phrases
like ‘playing God’ and ‘murder’ and ‘starvation’ and ‘right to death’
with no thought to who is reading or hearing them, with no thought to
the pain they cause, with no compassion or empathy or kindness - and
frankly, with no business spouting off that faux Christianity when they
are not showing Christian love for all involved.

What I say to them is this:

Pray for Terri and the family if that's the thing you do.

Otherwise, butt the heck out.

American Democracy Project Events on Campus

2005-03-22T09:55:00.000-05:00

American Democracy Project Events on Campus this week:

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY PROJECT AT WILLIAM PATERSON UNIVERSITY TO CELEBRATE PUBLIC EDUCATION WITH SERIES OF EVENTS MARCH 22 TO 30
—Performances and lectures to focus on role of public education in a democracy

A series of events designed to celebrate and highlight the important role of public education in a democratic society will be held at William Paterson University in Wayne from March 22 to 30. The events, part of the University’s year-long celebration of its 150th anniversary in 2005, are sponsored by the American Democracy Project of William Paterson University, part of a nationwide initiative by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) that seeks to increase civic engagement levels of U.S. students attending public colleges and universities in the 21st century. All events are open to the public.

“This series places a spotlight on public education—K-12 and beyond—based on the belief that education is the foundation of a healthy democracy,” says Christine Kelly, assistant professor of political science and director of the American Democracy Project on campus. “It is particularly appropriate, as the University celebrates its 150th anniversary as a public institution of higher education, to emphasize the important roles such institutions play in preparing active citizens.”

The events begin on Tuesday, March 22, with “Honoring Commitment: Performance, Poetry, Politics,” to be held from 6 to 8 p.m. in the University’s Power Arts Building at 25 Power Avenue, off Hamburg Turnpike, between Valley and Ratzer Roads in Wayne. The evening will feature a performance by the Northstar Navigators, a children’s Latin and African drumming troupe from the Montclair Academy of Dance directed by Reggie Workman, the renowned jazz bassist and composer, and Maya Milenovic, a choreographer and director of the Academy. Sonia Sanchez, the award-winning poet, will present a reading from her works. Also on the program will be David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center, the non-profit advocacy center that initiated the ground-breaking Abbott vs. Burke lawsuit seeking equal funding for poor and urban school districts in New Jersey. The evening will conclude with the presentation of civic engagement awards to educators and students from the University and the local community who are making a difference; honorees will be selected by the American Democracy Project committee.

On Thursday, March 24, the series continues with “The Public Education Roots of William Paterson University: The Mission Continues,” to be held from 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. in the Martini Teleconference Center in Hobart Hall on campus. The program will feature lectures by Christine Kelly, assistant professor of political science and director of the American Democracy Project, who will discuss the politics of public education, and Djanna Hill, assistant professor of secondary and middle school education, who will examine the history of teacher education at William Paterson. The event will conclude with presentations by students from the University’s Paterson Teachers for Tomorrow project, who will offer portions of oral histories they have gathered from retired Paterson teachers.

The series concludes on Wednesday, March 30 with a lecture at 7 p.m. in the Cheng Library Auditorium by Adolph Reed Jr., a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Class Notes: Posing as Politics and Other Thoughts on the American Scene. Reed’s topic will be “Access, Higher Education and Democracy: Why Not Free Public Higher Education?”

For additional information, contact the American Democracy Project at William Paterson University at 973-720-3921.

The Iraq War -- 2 years in

2005-03-19T09:44:00.000-05:00

Today, the anniversary of the commencement of military actions against Iraq, is a good day to take stock of where we stand.

The Times has a relatively upbeat report, Insurgency Is Fading Fast, Top Marine in Iraq Says.

The WaPo counters with a front page story, Two Years Later, Iraq War Drains Military: Heavy Demands Offset Combat Experience

Another excellent Tomgram Dilip Hiro on Playing the Democracy Card surveys the situation, reminding us of U.S. historical interests in the Middle East.

Juan Cole continues the discussion about the spread of democracy in The Democracy Lie at TomPaine.com

Andrew Bacevich in the WaPo offers an assessment of why the war has gone so badly, Nothing 'New' in This War. This quote is especially eye-popping: "George Armstrong Custer knew more about the warriors he faced in 1876 than U.S. commanders today know about their adversaries."

The issue of our military strength should concern us, especially right now with the saber-rattling in Asia:

Taiwan Leader Criticizes China

And,

Homeland Insecurity
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: March 17, 2005

And,

Russian Denies War Games With China Are a Signal to Taiwan

Check out Tomgram: Chalmers Johnson, Coming to Terms with China for a long, detailed appraisal of the situation there.

Meanwhile, over in Afghanistan, democracy is marching slowly, Rice Calls Afghans Inspiring, but Election Is Delayed Again

Finally, and I hope you are still with me readers, as I have saved the worst for last, there comes this extraordinary report from BBC Newsnight & Harpers Magazine by Greg Palast, who more than any other single reporter dug up the truth about the 2000 presidential election. So far as I can tell the story has not been picked up by the mainstream media in this country. Read the article and watch the story at BBC Newsnight, Secret US plans for Iraq's oil:

The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks, sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed.

Two years ago today - when President George Bush announced US, British and Allied forces would begin to bomb Baghdad - protesters claimed the US had a secret plan for Iraq's oil once Saddam had been conquered.

In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting off a hidden policy war between neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, on one side, versus a combination of "Big Oil" executives and US State Department "pragmatists".

"Big Oil" appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained by Newsnight from the US State Department was, we learned, drafted with the help of American oil industry consultants.

Insiders told Newsnight that planning began "within weeks" of Bush's first taking office in 2001, long before the September 11th attack on the US.

Read the whole tangled tale, if your heart can take it.

George F. Kennan Dies at 101; Leading Strategist of Cold War

2005-03-19T09:35:00.000-05:00

Excerpts from the NY Times obit:

George F. Kennan, the American diplomat who did more than any other envoy of his generation to shape United States policy during the cold war, died on Thursday night in Princeton, N.J. He was 101.

Mr. Kennan was the man to whom the White House and the Pentagon turned when they sought to understand the Soviet Union after World War II. He conceived the cold-war policy of containment, the idea that the United States should stop the global spread of Communism by diplomacy, politics, and covert action - by any means short of war.

As the State Department's first policy planning chief in the late 1940's, serving Secretary of State George C. Marshall, Mr. Kennan was an intellectual architect of the Marshall Plan, which sent billions of dollars of American aid to nations devastated by World War II. At the same time, he conceived a secret "political warfare" unit that aimed to roll back Communism, not merely contain it. His brainchild became the covert-operations directorate of the Central Intelligence Agency.

[...]

The force of Mr. Kennan's ideas brought him to power in Washington in the brief months after World War II ended and before the cold war began. In February 1946, as the second-ranking diplomat in the American Embassy in Moscow, he dispatched his famous "Long Telegram" to Washington, perhaps the best-known cable in American diplomatic history. It explained to policy makers baffled by Stalin that while Soviet power was "impervious to the logic of reason," it was "highly sensitive to the logic of force."

Widely circulated in Washington, the Long Telegram made Mr. Kennan famous. It evolved into an even better-known work, "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," which Mr. Kennan published under the anonymous byline "X" in the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations. "Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the Western world is something that can be contained by the adroit and vigorous application of counterforce," he wrote. That force, Kennan believed, should take the form of diplomacy and covert action, not war.

Mr. Kennan's best-known legacy was this postwar policy of containment, "a strategy that held up awfully well," said Mr. Gaddis.

But Mr. Kennan was deeply dismayed when the policy was associated with the immense build-up in conventional arms and nuclear weapons that characterized the cold war from the 1950's onward. His views were always more complex than the interpretation others gave them, as he argued repeatedly in his writings. He came to deplore the growing belligerence toward Moscow that gripped Washington by the early 1950's, setting the stage for anti-Communist witch hunts that severely dented the American foreign service.

[...]

Mr. Kennan had argued for "the inauguration of political warfare" against the Soviet Union in a May 1948 memorandum that was classified top secret for almost 50 years. "The time is now fully ripe for the creation of a covert political warfare operations directorate within the government," he wrote. This seed quickly grew into the covert arm of the Central Intelligence Agency. It began as the Office of Policy Coordination, planning and conducting the agency's biggest and most ambitious schemes, and within four years grew into the agency's operations directorate, with thousands of clandestine officers overseas.

A generation later, testifying before a 1975 Senate select committee, he called the political-warfare initiative "the greatest mistake I ever made."

[...]

Mr. Kennan, convinced that it would be folly to hope for extensive Soviet cooperation in the postwar world, was frustrated by the development in Washington of what he saw as an increasingly naïve policy based on notions of Soviet friendship. He wrote analytical essays, but these won little or no attention in the State Department.

It was not until the United States Treasury, stung by Moscow's unwillingness to support the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, asked the State Department for an explanation of its behavior that Mr. Kennan was able to make his points in the "Long Telegram," which arrived in Washington on Feb. 22, 1946. It was so well-received that "my official loneliness came to an end," he wrote later. "My reputation was made. My voice now carried."

Regrettably, in Mr. Kennan's view, the warnings that had fallen on deaf ears for so long found receptive ones partly for the wrong reasons, and he felt that the idea of a Soviet danger became as exaggerated as the belief in Soviet friendship had been.

He held that the Soviet Union should be challenged only when it encroached on certain areas of specific American interest, but he did not accept the view that this could be accomplished only by military alliances or by turning Europe into an armed camp. He felt that Communism needed to be confronted politically when it appeared outside the Soviet sphere.

Publicly, he was sharply critical of émigré propaganda calling for the overthrow of the Soviet system, believing that there was no guarantee that anything more democratic would replace it. In the 1960's and 70's, he concluded that the growing diversity in the Communist world was one of the most significant political developments of the century. But "he missed the ideological appeal of democratic culture in the rest of the world," Mr. Gaddis said, as the slow rot of Soviet Communism undermined the cold war's architectures.

The 'X' Article on Containment

Mr. Kennan had returned to Washington in 1946 as the first deputy for foreign affairs at the new National War College, where he prepared a paper on the nature of Soviet power for James V. Forrestal, then secretary of the Navy. In July 1947, that paper, drawn largely from his Moscow essays, became the "X" article. The article, advocating the containment of Soviet power, was not signed because Mr. Kennan had accepted a new State Department assignment. But the author's identity soon became known.

Mr. Kennan was attacked by the influential columnist Walter Lippmann, who interpreted containment - as did many others - in a military sense.

In his memoirs, Mr. Kennan said that some of the language he had used in advocating a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies "was at best ambiguous and lent itself to misinterpretation." He had failed to make it clear, he said, that what he was talking about was not the containment by military means or military threat, but the political containment of a political threat.

As chairman of the planning staff at a time when planning still played a large role in policy-making, Mr. Kennan helped shift the United States to political and diplomatic containment.

He contributed an overall rationale to a series of actions like Greek-Turkish aid, under what became known as the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan and the creation of the Western military alliance.

[...]

In 1966 Mr. Kennan, who had returned to Princeton in 1963, was called to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Vietnam War, an American involvement he felt should not have been begun and should not be prolonged. In 1967 he took part in a Senate review of American foreign policy.

For Mr. Kennan the Vietnam years were what he later characterized as instructive. His views on what he saw as almost entirely negative Congressional interference in foreign affairs altered as Congress moved to curtail the American role in Southeast Asia, an area where he believed the American interest was not at stake. In an interview at the time of his 72nd birthday, he said that he had been "instructed" by Vietnam, and that he now agreed that Congress should help in determining foreign policy. He added that given that reality, the United States would have to reduce its scope and limit its methods because Congressional control of foreign affairs deprives the Government of day-to-day direction of events "and means that as a nation we will have to pull back a bit - not become isolationist, but just rule out fancy diplomacy."

[...]

Looting of Iraqi weapons

2005-03-16T22:33:00.001-05:00

One of the interesting things about the current media environment is how people can correct and comment on the news as it develops. A couple of days ago the Times posted a depressing account:

March 13, 2005
Looting at Weapons Plants Was Systematic, Iraqi Says
By JAMES GLANZ and WILLIAM J. BROAD

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 12 - In the weeks after Baghdad fell in April 2003, looters systematically dismantled and removed tons of machinery from Saddam Hussein's most important weapons installations, including some with high-precision equipment capable of making parts for nuclear arms, a senior Iraqi official said this week in the government's first extensive comments on the looting.

The Iraqi official, Sami al-Araji, the deputy minister of industry, said it appeared that a highly organized operation had pinpointed specific plants in search of valuable equipment, some of which could be used for both military and civilian applications, and carted the machinery away.

The report goes on to detail how the looting occured. Then, Christopher Hitchens, in Slate, responded:

This Was Not Looting
How did Saddam's best weapons plants get plundered?
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Tuesday, March 15, 2005, at 5:29 AM PT

Once again, a major story gets top billing in a mainstream paper—and is printed upside down.

Hitchens doesn't challenge any of the facts in the Times investigative report; he merely tries to dismiss the whole thing, invoking Moveon.org (though they had nothing to do with the story) to ridicule anyone who might think there was a problem here.

Thankfully, the Poorman exists to provide Easy Answers to the Stupidest Question(s) I’ve Ever Heard, eviscerating Hitchens's nonsensical commentary thoroughly.

More on origins of rights

2005-03-15T20:44:00.000-05:00

Finally, some discussion has picked up on danny's question below -- A Question for Readers on Rights. Click on the link and join the discussion.

The question is interesting nowadays because it relates to some degree to the quesion of sovereignty -- that is, from where does government derive? The theory of natural rights allowed people to argue for, as Lincoln famously put it, "government of the people, by the people, for the people."

Wherever people believed these rights derived FROM, they agreed that these rights made the people sovereign. As the first paragraph of the Constitution states,

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

It is my belief that these rights are under serious attack because Americans, in general, do not take the rights and responsibilities of self-government seriously. We love to brag about how we are the greatest country on earth (I wouldn't know, I have only been to a handful or so of them), but we willingly yield our power to liars, thieves, zealots and incompetents.

Brad Delong discusses the chilling perspective of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, namely, as Scalia recently said (twice!) "government comes — derives its authority from God." Delong writes:

Nino Scalia's views on this are profoundly--there is no other word for it--UnAmerican. Here in the United States, we are all children of Thomas Jefferson. God does not give us rulers. Instead, God gives us rights: to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We then institute governments to secure these rights, and they derive their just powers from our consent, not from God's decree. Moreover, it is not the YHWH of Revealed Religion but instead "Nature's God" and Nature itself that are the source of these rights.

I recommend you read his whole posting for his fuller exegesis of Scalia's truly frightening perspective. Frightening, that is, considering this is a man whose job it is to uphold and interpret our Constitution.

Delong concludes nicely:

Now this is a free country. And Nino Scalia is allowed to break with those like Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln who think that legitimate power ascends from the consent of the people. It's a free country. He can take his stand with those like James I Stuart, Innocent III, and Khomeini who think that legitimate power descends from God.

But does such a guy have any business being a Justice of the Supreme Court of a free country? No.

publisher looking for college student writers

2005-03-15T13:18:00.001-05:00

This came to me via email, looks legit and worthy even:

My name is Seth Spores; I am one of the three editors and co-founders of College Tree Publishing. We contacted hundreds of university and college conservative and liberal groups, political science departments, and university news papers and requested essay submissions from people in the 17 to 25 year old age group on political and social issues. The end result was What We Think: Young Voters Speak Out, which was put out nationally in late October. The book was meant to be a running forum for political expression of America's youngest voting demographic, and in that regard has been a success. Since the book was published in October, the book has already received national press on CNN, MSNBC, an hour long special on CSPAN-Book TV and has been nominated for the Franklin Award.

We are a non-partisan company possessing a Republican, Democrat and Libertarian leaning editor, trying to give fair and equal voice to all ideologies present among college age youth. We are currently accepting submissions for our next two books, What We Think 2 and What We Think About God and looking to increase the number of well written pieces. Our goal is to receive 10,000 submissions from now through summer, and to publish the top 200 to 300 in late third quarter.

I am contacting many blogs and other forms of media not necessarily connected to Universities, in hopes of reaching a wider base of essayists. We would like to know if you would run a short story on your blog, stating that we are requesting submissions for national publication. All authors are given full credit for their work, a short bio is dedicated to them in the back of the books, and we've been arranging book signings and talks across the country for authors in our current edition so these young authors get the credit and visibility they deserve. Let me stress finally that individuals submitting need not be in college to qualify for publication.

Please feel free to contact us with questions or requests for more information,
Seth Charles Guy Spores
Editor and Co-Founder of College Tree Publishing
seth@collegetreepublishing.com
www.collegetreepublishing.com
509-483-4079 (Office)

[update: check the comments on this post before submitting anything]

evolution

2005-03-15T12:48:00.000-05:00

There was an interesting article in the Washington Post yesterday about the battle over teaching evolution in public schools.

Battle on Teaching Evolution Sharpens
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 14, 2005; Page A01

WICHITA – Propelled by a polished strategy crafted by activists on America's political right, a battle is intensifying across the nation over how students are taught about the origins of life. Policymakers in 19 states are weighing proposals that question the science of evolution.

The proposals typically stop short of overturning evolution or introducing biblical accounts. Instead, they are calculated pleas to teach what advocates consider gaps in long-accepted Darwinian theory, with many relying on the idea of intelligent design, which posits the central role of a creator.

Amazingly -- to me -- 80 years after the Scopes Trial, nearly 150 years after Darwin's Origin of Species, religious reactionaries are fighting the teaching of one of the fundamental insights of the modern world. One pastor quoted in the article tells explicitly what is at stake:

To fundamentalist Christians, Fox said, the fight to teach God's role in creation is becoming the essential front in America's culture war. The issue is on the agenda at every meeting of pastors he attends. If evolution's boosters can be forced to back down, he said, the Christian right's agenda will advance.

"If you believe God created that baby, it makes it a whole lot harder to get rid of that baby," Fox said. "If you can cause enough doubt on evolution, liberalism will die."

The Panda's Thumb is a great blog chronicling evolution and politics.

Leninism, Stalinism, Fascism? You decide...

2005-03-15T11:40:00.000-05:00

If you didn't get a chance to read the full NYTimes story on the Bush Administration's fullscale propaganda efforts, Digby has the salient excerpts.

Now That's Big Government!

2005-03-15T11:34:00.000-05:00

"Iraq needed fuel. Halliburton Co. was ordered to get it there — quick. So the Houston-based contractor charged the Pentagon $27.5 million to ship $82,100 worth of cooking and heating fuel." More here.

recent reading

2005-03-15T11:07:00.000-05:00

A good update (with lotsa links) on the path of democracy in the Middle East:

Will 'Arab spring' lead to 'summer of liberty'?
Some experts worry US 'triumphalism' masks more complicated issues in push towards Arab democracy.
By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

I just discovered The Carpetbagger Report blog which has a couple of thought-provoking entries about "Americans' increasing inability to grasp a moral argument":

Killing kids: It's just plain wrong

And:

'Yes, yes! Elvis and I assassinated JFK! Now will you please remove the electrodes from my scrotum?'

Which begins:

We should not even be having this debate. Terrorists blow children to bits and torture people, not great world powers that are supposedly guided by a commitment to human rights, decency and the rule of law.

Would the pro-torture right-wingers please read a book? It's one of the oldest stories in the world: While fighting the horrible thing you fear the most, you become that thing yourself. It's downright archetypal – and it's happening to us. Roll over George Orwell.

Dig up the Feb. 14 issue of The New Yorker and read Jane Mayer's piece, "Outsourcing Torture." Then weep for your country because you won't recognize it any longer.

Over at TomDispatch there is an update on the legalities involved in the GWOT: Tomgram: Greenberg on the Legal War on Terror at Home

questions for readers of this blog

2005-03-13T11:44:00.000-05:00

Folks: you may have noticed a marked decrease in postings on this blog over the past couple of months. There are several reasons for this -- currently I am trying to read those big, heavy things called books and so am reading online less; and I am trying to write one of those big, heavy things as well. But I am also somewhat at a loss as how best to serve all two and a half of you readers out there.

What do you want from this blog? What do you like or dislike? How can I make it better?

If I read something good, but don't have a lot of time to discuss it, would you like me to post the link anyway? This is something I have been doing more of lately. Here is an example: I finally caught up with my TomDispatch reading -- go read the last several postings there. Too much insight for me to summarize right now.

Do you prefer only my wisdom and erudition, or do you use this site as a portal into other readings?

How about my links along the side? Are they useful? Should I do a better job organizing them?

And comments: do you have any suggestions as to how to generate more interactivity on this site? I have assigned my U.S. as World Power students to post or comment three times during the semester, but to not much avail -- HINT, HINT. Maybe I should threaten to fail them and their progeny for generations to come?

Topics: what are you interested in reading about? I think I have run out of steam a bit with my Bush Administration bashing -- there's just too much, frinstance, from today alone:

Looting at Iraqi Weapons Plants Was Systematic, Official Says
By JAMES GLANZ and WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: March 13, 2005

And,

Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged Television News
By DAVID BARSTOW and ROBIN STEIN
Published: March 13, 2005

Ugh. And that is just from the front page of today's Times.

Should I give you a daily torture update? That would keep me plenty busy.

Or should I just drink the koolaid and join the other side. Turning the corner! Freedom's on the March! Cut and paste RNC press releases?

Please, please, please, as the Godfather of Soul begs, let me know your thoughts, anonymously or otherwise... and you will have my gratitude.

Ink-Stained Wretch

2005-03-13T10:31:00.000-05:00

If you just gotta get a tattoo -- or you're in the mood for some lithesome prose -- make your way to this from today's Times:

March 13, 2005
NEW JERSEY
Body Art or Tattoo, It Still Hurts
By DEIRDRE DAY-MacLEOD

Michelle checks in

2005-03-09T15:03:00.000-05:00

No, she hasn't been sleeping all day and dancing all night. Michelle has been working, godammit. So get your reading caps on:

Hello again everyone. Here's the latest batch of reporting from yours truly. This month's theme is The Man, and why He sucks. But I guess that's every month's theme.

More wheezing at Ground Zero

Policing the police in cities across the country

Why your Internet connection is probably too slow to read this if you're in Illinois

Tax-time deception that preys on the poor

That's all for now. Keep it real.

MC

Truthout

2005-03-09T14:18:00.000-05:00

I don't get over to Truthout.org much. But it is a good source and William Pitt sometimes writes powerful posts.

Here is one that talks about the lives of returning soldiers and also collects a long list of the lies that led us to war: This is war, and old soldiers don't fade away

Here is A History of the Bush Administration in One Sentence

blogs and media

2005-03-09T14:14:00.000-05:00

a couple of interesting recent articles. The first is an excellent, fact-filled account of the rise of blogs and the difference between liberal and conservative blogs and media groups:

Blogged Down
Pseudo-journalistic Web sites are another way conservatives get around “the filter” of mainstream media. It’s a new medium, but, for the Republican Party, it’s an old story.

By Garance Franke-Ruta
Web Exclusive: 03.04.05
American Prospect

WaPo op-ed from over the weekend:

Life in the Spin Cycle

By Michael Kinsley
Sunday, March 6, 2005; Page B07

Lebanon and Freedom on the March

2005-03-09T13:50:00.000-05:00

Reader Noel writes to ask if I am going to weigh in on the situation in Lebanon.

And Liz sends her regards: "this article may provide counterpoint to your anti-bush postings. :)"

What have the Americans ever done for us? Liberated 50 million people...

I have been waiting to comment for two reasons: I am not all that conversant with the story there, and I think one needs to wait and see before crowing about "freedom on the march." This headline, which just jumped to the front of the NYTimes.com front page, should give one pause: Lebanon Set to Return Pro-Syria Government After Protest. One thing I have learned living in the USA is that unfortunately you sometimes have to share democracy with people who are out and out wrong -- especially those religious fanatics. Makes for tricky business, not always solved by bombs and threats.

Fareed Zakaria weighs in:

What Bush Got Right
Freedom's march: The president has been right on some big questions. Now, if he can get the little stuff right, he'll change the world

There's that "if" word. Like Tom Friedman thinks the Bush Administration would be fantastic IF they would all just listen to Fareed and Tom. Well, I think the Bush administration would be just great if they would listen to ME. From their jail cells.

Juan Cole disagrees with Zakaria.

And, anyway, I have been confused about Syria. I thought they were our friends. Y'know, the kinda place where we can send someone we have kidnapped to be tortured for a year-and-a-half.

Not like Canada, whose former foreign minister recently wrote to Our Ms. Rice:

Dear Condi, I'm glad you've decided to get over your fit of pique and venture north to visit your closest neighbour. It's a chance to learn a thing or two. Maybe more.

I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with participating in a missile-defence system that has failed in its last three tests, even though the tests themselves were carefully rigged to show results.

But, gosh, we folks above the 49th parallel are somewhat cautious types who can't quite see laying down billions of dollars in a three-dud poker game.

As our erstwhile Prairie-born and bred (and therefore prudent) finance minister pointed out in presenting his recent budget, we've had eight years of balanced or surplus financial accounts. If we're going to spend money, Mr. Goodale added, it will be on day-care and health programs, and even on more foreign aid and improved defence.

Sure, that doesn't match the gargantuan, multi-billion-dollar deficits that your government blithely runs up fighting a "liberation war" in Iraq, laying out more than half of all weapons expenditures in the world, and giving massive tax breaks to the top one per cent of your population while cutting food programs for poor children.

Just chalk that up to a different sense of priorities about what a national government's role should be when there isn't a prevailing mood of manifest destiny.

Coming to Ottawa might also expose you to a parliamentary system that has a thing called question period every day, where those in the executive are held accountable by an opposition for their actions, and where demands for public debate on important topics such a missile defence can be made openly.

You might also notice that it's a system in which the governing party's caucus members are not afraid to tell their leader that their constituents don't want to follow the ideological, perhaps teleological, fantasies of Canada's continental co-inhabitant. And that this leader actually listens to such representations.

Your boss did not avail himself of a similar opportunity to visit our House of Commons during his visit, fearing, it seems, that there might be some signs of dissent. He preferred to issue his diktat on missile defence in front of a highly controlled, pre-selected audience.

Such control-freak antics may work in the virtual one-party state that now prevails in Washington. But in Canada we have a residual belief that politicians should be subject to a few checks and balances, an idea that your country once espoused before the days of empire.

If you want to have us consider your proposals and positions, present them in a proper way, through serious discussion across the table in our cabinet room, as your previous president did when he visited Ottawa. And don't embarrass our prime minister by lobbing a verbal missile at him while he sits on a public stage, with no chance to respond.

Now, I understand that there may have been some miscalculations in Washington based on faulty advice from your resident governor of the "northern territories," Ambassador Cellucci. But you should know by now that he hasn't really won the hearts and minds of most Canadians through his attempts to browbeat and command our allegiance to U.S. policies.

Sadly, Mr. Cellucci has been far too closeted with exclusive groups of 'experts' from Calgary think-tanks and neo-con lobbyists at cross-border conferences to remotely grasp a cross-section of Canadian attitudes (nor American ones, for that matter).

I invite you to expand the narrow perspective that seems to inform your opinions of Canada by ranging far wider in your reach of contacts and discussions. You would find that what is rising in Canada is not so much anti-Americanism, as claimed by your and our right-wing commentators, but fundamental disagreements with certain policies of your government. You would see that rather than just reacting to events by drawing on old conventional wisdoms, many Canadians are trying to think our way through to some ideas that can be helpful in building a more secure world.

These Canadians believe that security can be achieved through well-modulated efforts to protect the rights of people, not just nation-states.

To encourage and advance international co-operation on managing the risk of climate change, they believe that we need agreements like Kyoto.

To protect people against international crimes like genocide and ethnic cleansing, they support new institutions like the International Criminal Court -- which, by the way, you might strongly consider using to hold accountable those committing atrocities today in Darfur, Sudan.

And these Canadians believe that the United Nations should indeed be reformed -- beginning with an agreement to get rid of the veto held by the major powers over humanitarian interventions to stop violence and predatory practices.

On this score, you might want to explore the concept of the 'Responsibility to Protect' while you're in Ottawa. It's a Canadian idea born out of the recent experience of Kosovo and informed by the many horrific examples of inhumanity over the last half-century. Many Canadians feel it has a lot more relevance to providing real human security in the world than missile defence ever will.

This is not just some quirky notion concocted in our long winter nights, by the way. It seems to have appeal for many in your own country, if not the editorialists at the Wall Street Journal or Rush Limbaugh. As I discovered recently while giving a series of lectures in southern California, there is keen interest in how the U.S. can offer real leadership in managing global challenges of disease, natural calamities and conflict, other than by military means.

There is also a very strong awareness on both sides of the border of how vital Canada is to the U.S. as a partner in North America. We supply copious amounts of oil and natural gas to your country, our respective trade is the world's largest in volume, and we are increasingly bound together by common concerns over depletion of resources, especially very scarce fresh water.

Why not discuss these issues with Canadians who understand them, and seek out ways to better cooperate in areas where we agree -- and agree to respect each other's views when we disagree.

Above all, ignore the Cassandras who deride the state of our relations because of one missile-defence decision. Accept that, as a friend on your border, we will offer a different, independent point of view. And that there are times when truth must speak to power.

In friendship, Lloyd Axworthy

(Lloyd Axworthy is president of the University of Winnipeg and a former Canadian foreign minister)

Event on Campus March 10th

2005-03-08T12:19:00.000-05:00

A Fellowship with the Brutes: Tracing Our Ape Ancestry

Thursday, March 10, 2005

4:00 – 5:00 PM, Library, Paterson Room

Presenter: Professor Thomas Gundling, Department of Anthropology

This presentation examines the discovery of a “bipedal ape” stage of human evolution. Find out how the accumulation of a more substantial human fossil record and a more objective view of the evolutionary process dovetailed to provide a modern understanding of our deep past.

Light refreshments will be served.

NJ education

2005-03-08T12:16:00.000-05:00

The Provost sent this last week from the Record; worth reading if you are going into teaching:

N.J. pledges to upgrade high school education

Monday, February 28, 2005

By BEN FELLER
ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON - A coalition of 13 states - including New Jersey - confirmed plans Sunday to require tougher high school courses and diploma requirements, changes that could affect about one in three students nationwide.

The announcement is the most tangible sign that the nation's governors, gathered in the capital for a summit on improving high schools, want to see that progress quickly.

The participating states have committed to making their core high school classes and tests more rigorous, and to match their graduation standards with the expectations of employers and colleges. They also pledged to hold colleges more accountable for ensuring that students graduate.

Such changes would require time and significant legislative and political work, as teachers unions, school boards, legislatures and parents would be affected. Governors, state school chiefs and business executives will lead the efforts in each state.

"This is the biggest step states can take to restore the value of the high school diploma," said Republican Gov. Bob Taft of Ohio, who is co-chairman of Achieve, which is coordinating the effort.

Along with New Jersey, participating states are Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Texas.

Their network will aim to enforce the American Diploma Project, an effort launched last year to prepare every high school student for college-level work.

It calls for big changes - requiring every student to take rigorous math and English regardless of career plans, and tying college admissions to high school exit exams, as examples.

States will maintain the option to adopt what they want, but they have agreed to broad points, such as requiring students to take a test of their readiness for college or work.

The participating states serve an estimated 5 million high school students, or roughly 35 percent of the public high school population in the United States, Achieve spokesmen said.

Achieve president Michael Cohen, an education adviser to former President Bill Clinton, said the group recruited states that seemed most serious about higher standards and seemed poised to act. Other states are expected to join the effort soon.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings went before the governors to tout President Bush's budget proposal and commend the states for making high school achievement a priority.

"Getting every child to graduate high school with a meaningful diploma in their hands is one of the biggest challenges our country faces," Spellings said Sunday. "It's never been done."

Bush, seeking to expand the No Child Left Behind law he championed, wants Congress to require two years of additional state testing in high schools. The governors are expected to approve a policy that does not endorse or oppose Bush's idea but spells out their conditions: input on the plan, flexibility on how it works, and federal money for any costs.

* * *
Class acts

New Jersey and 12 other states have signed on to support the American Diploma Project, which aims to get all students ready for college or work. Specifically, the states committed to:

ŸAlign their high school standards and tests with the skills required in college and the workplace. Colleges and universities would have to clearly define the skills required for their credit-bearing courses, and states would be expected to adjust their English and math standards.

ŸRequire all students to take a test of their readiness for college or work so that children can get help where needed while still in high school.

ŸRequire all students to take a core curriculum that prepares them for college or work. States would have to ensure that rigorous-sounding courses have the content to match.

ŸHold high schools and colleges more accountable for graduating their students. States would have to improve data collection to track individual students through all grades and college.

HNN articles

2005-03-08T11:57:00.000-05:00

A few of other interesting articles from the History News Network:

Two of the Famous Stories About Woodrow Wilson -- And They're Not True
By Thomas Fleming

Why Conservatives Are So Upset with Thomas Woods's Politically Incorrect History Book
By Ronald Radosh

And related to Woods's book, see the excellent article: What You Should Know About the Author of the NYT Bestseller, Politically Incorrect Guide to American History
By Eric Muller

No interest in Nixon?

2005-03-08T11:48:00.000-05:00

Ted Cook sends along this notice: The Nixon Library Cancels Vietnam War Conference citing "no public interest."

Good articles at History News Network:

Nixon Library Cancels Vietnam Conference
By Rick Shenkman

About the Nixon Library's Promise to Turn Over a New Leaf
By Stanley I. Kutler

Even Richard Nixon Would Have Been Embarrassed
By Melvin Small

Dear John Taylor: A Letter to the Executive Director of the Nixon Library
By Thomas S. Blanton

Moral of the story? Don't believe the lack of hype...

Social Studies Praxis Exam Workshop

2005-03-08T11:39:00.000-05:00

All History students either pursuing Teaching Certification in Social
Studies or thinking of it:

A Social Studies Praxis Workshop will be held on Thursday, March 31, from 12:30-1:30 in Raubinger 210, led by Profs. Burt Weltman (Ed Dept) & Susan Bowles (History). You are invited to attend.

Majors take note: the History Department is now >requiring< you to attend at least one of these sessions if you plan on pursuing Social Studies certification. Attendance will be taken!

We wish to emphasize that this is not a pointless bureaucratic obstacle being put in your way. The Department is trying to assist you in every way possible to pass the state-mandated Praxis Exam, the first time you take it.

Questions should be directed either to Burt Weltman or to Sue Bowles.

A Question for Readers on Rights

2005-03-08T10:27:00.000-05:00

Danny sends in this excellent question:

this subject came up in my politics class the other day and i was not satisfied with the answer given, so i thought i would ask you(or anyone else) to weigh in on this. With much time and thought, I have come to truly believe the words of Thomas Jefferson as he writes,"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." The class discussion was about "Our Rights" I believe our rights as humans come from our Creator. My question however is, the person that does not believe their rights come from the Creator, where do they come from then? I'm asking this question, because i really want to understand the perspective of another viewpoint.

I will withhold my response until we hear from some others. Folks?

Torture, Unlimited.

2005-03-03T21:54:00.000-05:00

Two important updates/additions to the story:

From Bagram to Abu Ghraib

For nearly three years, U.S. military authorities have been investigating evidence of torture at American prisons in Afghanistan. But instead of disciplining those involved, the Pentagon sent them to Iraq.

By Emily Bazelon
Mother Jones
March/April 2005 Issue

And:

CIA Avoids Scrutiny of Detainee Treatment
Afghan's Death Took Two Years to Come to Light; Agency Says Abuse Claims Are Probed Fully

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 3, 2005; Page A01

Digby on Goldwater, liberalism and the mid-century "consensus"

2005-03-03T21:50:00.000-05:00

I urge you to read Digby's historical analysis Finding the Consensus

Stuff worth reading

2005-03-03T21:27:00.000-05:00

John Nichols, The Anti-Imperialist GW -- compares Dubya with the father of our country.

Tom Watson's great review of American Idiot

Everything in TomDispatch, especially Potemkin World… or the President in the Zone

The New Colossus: The New Politics of Capital
by William Greider

Fantastic, informative article: Inside the Committee that Runs the World
By David J. Rothkopf
Foreign Policy, March/April 2005


	President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime is accused of repressing minority rights and culture