Friday, January 23, 2004
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
—The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr
The Democrats:
Firstly, we can’t let the ongoing campaign obscure the ISSUES and important DEVELOPMENTS that even in non-election years tend to get short shrift. So, though I lead with this, note the asterisked items, below.
Dean’s disappearing, aided by unflattering media portrayals. The Newsweek reporter (Eleanor Cliff) on NPR talked of Dean and “Judy Dean”, as she’s now called, as ‘decent people, but not up to presidential caliber.’ Huh? Compared to George and Laura? The negative press on Dean underscored the free ride that towel-snapper George has received.
In particular I thought that Dean was doing a predictable ‘firing-up” of his followers when he lost Iowa. Pundits deemed him “angry” or “insane”. Meanwhile Kerry appears well-established in New Hampshire, but is lacking organization in upcoming states. Edwards, who should win South Carolina, is the most effective, especially his presentation and his talk of “two Americas” however, unoriginal.
Do note this clever, model letter to the NY Times in Friday’s paper. Emulate!
To the Editor:
Although I have been a supporter of Howard Dean, I agreed with much of William Safire's Jan. 21 column, "Dean: Too Old to Cry."
There is, however, a disturbing double standard at work these days: political pundits freely pass judgment upon Democratic candidates while ignoring George W. Bush's unpresidential behavior, speech and intellect.
Pundits call John Kerry "aloof" and "patrician"; they describe Dr. Dean as both "chilly" and a "hothead."
To be fair, they should also observe that President Bush often wears a smirk, that he is chronically inarticulate (often to the point of incoherence), and that his geopolitical worldview is naïve and simplistic.
Yet even in letters to the editor, such observations do not see print. (Feel free to prove me wrong.)
CAROL V. HAMILTON
Pittsburgh, Jan. 21, 2004
Even if he fades out, Dean did fire up the other candidates, some of whom now mirror his ardor. Michael Moore, a Wesley Clark supporter, tries to cheer the Dean troops.
I can see, just from surfing the web, the debilitating affect the landslide loss in Iowa had on so many people who had placed so much hope in the man who created a grassroots revolution and was unrelenting in his attacks on Bush and on the war. If having the most volunteers, the most money (all small contributions from average citizens), and the boldest message can't win an election, say Dean's followers, then we might as well just give up.
As one who does not support Dean, I would like to say this to you: DON'T GIVE UP. You have done an incredible thing. You inspired an entire nation to stand up to George W. Bush. Your impact on this election will be felt for years to come. Every bit of energy you put into Dr. Dean's candidacy was -- and is -- worth it (http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php)
*Playing to Win: Can the Democrats (and us) compete?
The Bushies are liars who never apologize; knowing the stakes, they do anything to win. Their opposition too often protests, whines and accepts the conservative framing of issues. That must stop.
Rumors, scuttlebutt and evidence exists that makes clear that the Republicans are actively trying to sabotage/corrupt this election. In that spirit, note the following, posted on Danny Schechter’s site (www.mediachannel.org)
THE CHARGE: REPUBLICANS INFILTRATE IOWA CAUCUSES
From a Dean group. My friend Dawn in Iowa told me the same thing - that they were stunned by the number of Republicans changing their registration at the door. It appears that possibly only 55% of the Iowa caucus voters were Democrats trying to cast a legitimate vote. We can expect this cross-over voting in any caucus where it's allowed. My impression is that it's allowed in a great number of the states. So whoever chooses our Democratic nominee, it won't really be Democrats. We have the same thing here as I've discovered when calling Democrats on election day, only to have some of them nastily and gloatingly tell me they're Republicans and have already voted - for Bush. Margie.
Another voice:
GOP crossover 45% in Iowa caucus*
I don't watch TV. My friend Cathy in Kansas is a huge CSPAN fan and reported the following this morning (comments edited). She called CSPAN complaining about all the Iowa shenanigans.
DEMOCRATS FOR A NIGHT
I called into CSPAN this morning at 6:30 AM and told them my view of the Republicans and Independents who got to cross-over and cause that surge that pushed Kerry over the top. I also agreed with another caller who was Republican, who said the media was running Dean as a big top dog and then when he did not win the number one spot he crashed a lot harder. The other caller also said the media did negative reporting towards Dean. I said that the history of the Iowa caucuses only sent two on to the presidency. The Iowans that were calling into the program Susan hosted were reporting the huge number of new voters...cross-overs who were Democrats for the night. They said they had never seen so many like last night! They ran out of the sign-up sheets. The workers at the caucuses were having to turn them over and use both sides of the sign-up sheets and then started using plain paper to sign up new voters. Susan on CSPAN quoted 45% new voter registration. That is big. They picked Iowa's guy by crashing the caucuses and voting for Kerry and Edwards. This is why the media had to tear down Dean and fix the bad Zogby poll then pack the caucuses to give Kerry & Edwards the votes. Republicans again picking our candidate.
*And, the Boston Globe (Charlie Savage) front-paged this, yet there is no firestorm of protest. Again, the Republicans will go ‘all-out. It’s evidence of the systematic law-breaking and dirty tricks that we’ve suspected.
Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Committee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe.
From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.
The office of Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle has already launched an investigation into how excerpts from 15 Democratic memos showed up in the pages of the conservative-leaning newspapers and were posted to a website last November.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/01/22/infiltration_of_files_seen_as_extensive/
State of the Union: The speech struck out with thinking people; not sure how it played with the large percentage that swallows whole the Administration’s “sell.” Good fun, as usual from Mark Fiore’s animation, on the Address. www.villagevoice.com/issues/0403/fiore.php.
WMD and the "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities” reminds me of Velveeta, a “cheese-food product”.
*Noteworthy: Thursday’s NY Times front-paged the AP report of veteran CIA’ers who don’t trust the Justice investigation of the outing of Valerie Plame. This is highly unusual stuff. [The investigation is proceeding, apparently at the grand jury phase.]
Members of Congress and 10 ex-CIA officials are seeking a broader inquiry into the leak of an undercover officer's name, aiming to determine if U.S. national security was compromised and to discourage future leaks.
In addition, a leading Democratic critic of the Justice Department investigation into the matter says the Bush administration should release details of the probe to show the public whether officials are cooperating as President Bush promised.
``A prosecutor has the responsibility to assure public confidence in criminal investigations, especially those of such a serious nature,'' Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a letter Thursday to Deputy Attorney General James Comey.
Justice Department and FBI officials refused to comment on any aspect of the investigation, which began in September, other than to say it is continuing. Attorney General John Ashcroft has recused himself from the probe, which is led by Comey and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-CIA-Leak.html?pagewanted=print&position=
PBS’s Frontline further laid out the shameless distorting of wmd “evidence” prior to the war. A highlight was David Kay’s admitting that prior to the war the Administration’s evidence was limited to ‘grasping at straws.’ A war with thousands of deaths based on intelligence that was ‘grasping at straws’?
Obscene.
Iraq Media Coverage: One sided? Are newspapers one-sided in war coverage?
A report from Dan Wycliff of the Chicago Tribune
The fact is that the people demanding more "good news" from Iraq are themselves pursuing a political agenda and attempting to draft the news media into the effort. They want to shift the focus from safety and security in a still-unstable Iraq to sewers and streetlights. (Not unlike shifting the focus from non-existent weapons of mass destruction to "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities.")
The United States has 120,000-plus members of its armed forces in Iraq. They are being shot at, road-bombed, truck-bombed, mortared and otherwise attacked not because they're trying to build schools, generate electricity and fix sewer lines, but because they are American soldiers.
The Tribune--and most of the rest of the American news media, I suspect--continue to focus on safety and security issues because the lives and safety of our fellow citizens in uniform are most Americans' first concern. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0401220354jan22,1,1571626.column
Krugman: Democracy at Risk (Voting Machine stuff)
The disputed election of 2000 left a lasting scar on the nation's psyche. A recent Zogby poll found that even in red states, which voted for George W. Bush, 32 percent of the public believes that the election was stolen. In blue states, the fraction is 44 percent.
Now imagine this: in November the candidate trailing in the polls wins an upset victory — but all of the districts where he does much better than expected use touch-screen voting machines. Meanwhile, leaked internal e-mail from the companies that make these machines suggests widespread error, and possibly fraud. What would this do to the nation?
Unfortunately, this story is completely plausible. (In fact, you can tell a similar story about some of the results in the 2002 midterm elections, especially in Georgia.) Fortune magazine rightly declared paperless voting the worst technology of 2003, but it's not just a bad technology — it's a threat to the republic…
What about the expense? Let's put it this way: we're spending at least $150 billion to promote democracy in Iraq. That's about $1,500 for each vote cast in the 2000 election. How can we balk at spending a small fraction of that sum to secure the credibility of democracy at home? http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/23/opinion/23KRUG.html
Time –Out (not noteworthy): Attention all t.v. watchers of the 1950’s. Remember J. Fred Muggs? He was the chimp who worked with Dave Garroway when the Today show was new. Well, he’s alive and well. From the NY Observer (Joe Hagan)
"He has a little gray, mostly in his beard," said his owner and caretaker, Gerald Preis, 60, whom NYTV reached at his home in Citrus Park, Fla. "It’s like salt-and-pepper."
Mr. Muggs is now 52 years old, Mr. Preis explained, and lives in a 2,800-square-foot compound with his lifelong female companion, Phoebe B. Beebe, a 50-year-old chimp. The two lovebirds have their own swimming pool and a walk-in refrigerator.
On Feb. 2, 1953, the diaper-wearing Muggs, then 14 months old, began accompanying host Dave Garroway on the first incarnation of NBC’s Today Show—this was before Matt Lauer, mind you—and he did funny tricks like playing piano with Steve Allen, which pulled in big ratings. Legend has it that Muggs was such a huge boon to the show—Mr. Preis said that in 1979, Advertising Age reported that Muggs made $100 million for NBC during his career—that Mr. Garroway grew jealous and began spiking Muggs’ orange juice with Benzedrine to make him misbehave and deliver his human co-host back to center stage.
"He had to live with the issue that it took a quote-unquote monkey to save his show," said Mr. Preis. "And that bothered him very much throughout television history. And in a way, I don’t blame him, but Muggs was an animal that saved a TV show that is still in existence today. If it wasn’t for J. Fred Muggs, that show would not be on there."
As for those nasty, 50-year-old tabloid rumors that Muggs once bit Martha Raye: "That was bullshit—just plain bullshit," said Mr. Preis, who inherited the care of Muggs from his father, the late Bud Mennella, and Roy Waldron, who is now 80 and can no longer manage the old ape.
Meanwhile, CNBC is steering clear of the "Muggsy" moniker. And that’s good, because Mr. Preis said he had a copyright on the name and would enforce it.
"It’s a she, and they’re going to call her Ellie," said a CNBC spokeswoman. "Ellie is her name. She’s a very sweet monkey."
Whatever you do, Ellie: Don’t drink the orange juice!
http://www.nyobserver.com/pages/frontpage6.asp ,
-R
—The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr
The Democrats:
Firstly, we can’t let the ongoing campaign obscure the ISSUES and important DEVELOPMENTS that even in non-election years tend to get short shrift. So, though I lead with this, note the asterisked items, below.
Dean’s disappearing, aided by unflattering media portrayals. The Newsweek reporter (Eleanor Cliff) on NPR talked of Dean and “Judy Dean”, as she’s now called, as ‘decent people, but not up to presidential caliber.’ Huh? Compared to George and Laura? The negative press on Dean underscored the free ride that towel-snapper George has received.
In particular I thought that Dean was doing a predictable ‘firing-up” of his followers when he lost Iowa. Pundits deemed him “angry” or “insane”. Meanwhile Kerry appears well-established in New Hampshire, but is lacking organization in upcoming states. Edwards, who should win South Carolina, is the most effective, especially his presentation and his talk of “two Americas” however, unoriginal.
Do note this clever, model letter to the NY Times in Friday’s paper. Emulate!
To the Editor:
Although I have been a supporter of Howard Dean, I agreed with much of William Safire's Jan. 21 column, "Dean: Too Old to Cry."
There is, however, a disturbing double standard at work these days: political pundits freely pass judgment upon Democratic candidates while ignoring George W. Bush's unpresidential behavior, speech and intellect.
Pundits call John Kerry "aloof" and "patrician"; they describe Dr. Dean as both "chilly" and a "hothead."
To be fair, they should also observe that President Bush often wears a smirk, that he is chronically inarticulate (often to the point of incoherence), and that his geopolitical worldview is naïve and simplistic.
Yet even in letters to the editor, such observations do not see print. (Feel free to prove me wrong.)
CAROL V. HAMILTON
Pittsburgh, Jan. 21, 2004
Even if he fades out, Dean did fire up the other candidates, some of whom now mirror his ardor. Michael Moore, a Wesley Clark supporter, tries to cheer the Dean troops.
I can see, just from surfing the web, the debilitating affect the landslide loss in Iowa had on so many people who had placed so much hope in the man who created a grassroots revolution and was unrelenting in his attacks on Bush and on the war. If having the most volunteers, the most money (all small contributions from average citizens), and the boldest message can't win an election, say Dean's followers, then we might as well just give up.
As one who does not support Dean, I would like to say this to you: DON'T GIVE UP. You have done an incredible thing. You inspired an entire nation to stand up to George W. Bush. Your impact on this election will be felt for years to come. Every bit of energy you put into Dr. Dean's candidacy was -- and is -- worth it (http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php)
*Playing to Win: Can the Democrats (and us) compete?
The Bushies are liars who never apologize; knowing the stakes, they do anything to win. Their opposition too often protests, whines and accepts the conservative framing of issues. That must stop.
Rumors, scuttlebutt and evidence exists that makes clear that the Republicans are actively trying to sabotage/corrupt this election. In that spirit, note the following, posted on Danny Schechter’s site (www.mediachannel.org)
THE CHARGE: REPUBLICANS INFILTRATE IOWA CAUCUSES
From a Dean group. My friend Dawn in Iowa told me the same thing - that they were stunned by the number of Republicans changing their registration at the door. It appears that possibly only 55% of the Iowa caucus voters were Democrats trying to cast a legitimate vote. We can expect this cross-over voting in any caucus where it's allowed. My impression is that it's allowed in a great number of the states. So whoever chooses our Democratic nominee, it won't really be Democrats. We have the same thing here as I've discovered when calling Democrats on election day, only to have some of them nastily and gloatingly tell me they're Republicans and have already voted - for Bush. Margie.
Another voice:
GOP crossover 45% in Iowa caucus*
I don't watch TV. My friend Cathy in Kansas is a huge CSPAN fan and reported the following this morning (comments edited). She called CSPAN complaining about all the Iowa shenanigans.
DEMOCRATS FOR A NIGHT
I called into CSPAN this morning at 6:30 AM and told them my view of the Republicans and Independents who got to cross-over and cause that surge that pushed Kerry over the top. I also agreed with another caller who was Republican, who said the media was running Dean as a big top dog and then when he did not win the number one spot he crashed a lot harder. The other caller also said the media did negative reporting towards Dean. I said that the history of the Iowa caucuses only sent two on to the presidency. The Iowans that were calling into the program Susan hosted were reporting the huge number of new voters...cross-overs who were Democrats for the night. They said they had never seen so many like last night! They ran out of the sign-up sheets. The workers at the caucuses were having to turn them over and use both sides of the sign-up sheets and then started using plain paper to sign up new voters. Susan on CSPAN quoted 45% new voter registration. That is big. They picked Iowa's guy by crashing the caucuses and voting for Kerry and Edwards. This is why the media had to tear down Dean and fix the bad Zogby poll then pack the caucuses to give Kerry & Edwards the votes. Republicans again picking our candidate.
*And, the Boston Globe (Charlie Savage) front-paged this, yet there is no firestorm of protest. Again, the Republicans will go ‘all-out. It’s evidence of the systematic law-breaking and dirty tricks that we’ve suspected.
Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Committee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe.
From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.
The office of Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle has already launched an investigation into how excerpts from 15 Democratic memos showed up in the pages of the conservative-leaning newspapers and were posted to a website last November.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/01/22/infiltration_of_files_seen_as_extensive/
State of the Union: The speech struck out with thinking people; not sure how it played with the large percentage that swallows whole the Administration’s “sell.” Good fun, as usual from Mark Fiore’s animation, on the Address. www.villagevoice.com/issues/0403/fiore.php.
WMD and the "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities” reminds me of Velveeta, a “cheese-food product”.
*Noteworthy: Thursday’s NY Times front-paged the AP report of veteran CIA’ers who don’t trust the Justice investigation of the outing of Valerie Plame. This is highly unusual stuff. [The investigation is proceeding, apparently at the grand jury phase.]
Members of Congress and 10 ex-CIA officials are seeking a broader inquiry into the leak of an undercover officer's name, aiming to determine if U.S. national security was compromised and to discourage future leaks.
In addition, a leading Democratic critic of the Justice Department investigation into the matter says the Bush administration should release details of the probe to show the public whether officials are cooperating as President Bush promised.
``A prosecutor has the responsibility to assure public confidence in criminal investigations, especially those of such a serious nature,'' Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a letter Thursday to Deputy Attorney General James Comey.
Justice Department and FBI officials refused to comment on any aspect of the investigation, which began in September, other than to say it is continuing. Attorney General John Ashcroft has recused himself from the probe, which is led by Comey and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-CIA-Leak.html?pagewanted=print&position=
PBS’s Frontline further laid out the shameless distorting of wmd “evidence” prior to the war. A highlight was David Kay’s admitting that prior to the war the Administration’s evidence was limited to ‘grasping at straws.’ A war with thousands of deaths based on intelligence that was ‘grasping at straws’?
Obscene.
Iraq Media Coverage: One sided? Are newspapers one-sided in war coverage?
A report from Dan Wycliff of the Chicago Tribune
The fact is that the people demanding more "good news" from Iraq are themselves pursuing a political agenda and attempting to draft the news media into the effort. They want to shift the focus from safety and security in a still-unstable Iraq to sewers and streetlights. (Not unlike shifting the focus from non-existent weapons of mass destruction to "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities.")
The United States has 120,000-plus members of its armed forces in Iraq. They are being shot at, road-bombed, truck-bombed, mortared and otherwise attacked not because they're trying to build schools, generate electricity and fix sewer lines, but because they are American soldiers.
The Tribune--and most of the rest of the American news media, I suspect--continue to focus on safety and security issues because the lives and safety of our fellow citizens in uniform are most Americans' first concern. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0401220354jan22,1,1571626.column
Krugman: Democracy at Risk (Voting Machine stuff)
The disputed election of 2000 left a lasting scar on the nation's psyche. A recent Zogby poll found that even in red states, which voted for George W. Bush, 32 percent of the public believes that the election was stolen. In blue states, the fraction is 44 percent.
Now imagine this: in November the candidate trailing in the polls wins an upset victory — but all of the districts where he does much better than expected use touch-screen voting machines. Meanwhile, leaked internal e-mail from the companies that make these machines suggests widespread error, and possibly fraud. What would this do to the nation?
Unfortunately, this story is completely plausible. (In fact, you can tell a similar story about some of the results in the 2002 midterm elections, especially in Georgia.) Fortune magazine rightly declared paperless voting the worst technology of 2003, but it's not just a bad technology — it's a threat to the republic…
What about the expense? Let's put it this way: we're spending at least $150 billion to promote democracy in Iraq. That's about $1,500 for each vote cast in the 2000 election. How can we balk at spending a small fraction of that sum to secure the credibility of democracy at home? http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/23/opinion/23KRUG.html
Time –Out (not noteworthy): Attention all t.v. watchers of the 1950’s. Remember J. Fred Muggs? He was the chimp who worked with Dave Garroway when the Today show was new. Well, he’s alive and well. From the NY Observer (Joe Hagan)
"He has a little gray, mostly in his beard," said his owner and caretaker, Gerald Preis, 60, whom NYTV reached at his home in Citrus Park, Fla. "It’s like salt-and-pepper."
Mr. Muggs is now 52 years old, Mr. Preis explained, and lives in a 2,800-square-foot compound with his lifelong female companion, Phoebe B. Beebe, a 50-year-old chimp. The two lovebirds have their own swimming pool and a walk-in refrigerator.
On Feb. 2, 1953, the diaper-wearing Muggs, then 14 months old, began accompanying host Dave Garroway on the first incarnation of NBC’s Today Show—this was before Matt Lauer, mind you—and he did funny tricks like playing piano with Steve Allen, which pulled in big ratings. Legend has it that Muggs was such a huge boon to the show—Mr. Preis said that in 1979, Advertising Age reported that Muggs made $100 million for NBC during his career—that Mr. Garroway grew jealous and began spiking Muggs’ orange juice with Benzedrine to make him misbehave and deliver his human co-host back to center stage.
"He had to live with the issue that it took a quote-unquote monkey to save his show," said Mr. Preis. "And that bothered him very much throughout television history. And in a way, I don’t blame him, but Muggs was an animal that saved a TV show that is still in existence today. If it wasn’t for J. Fred Muggs, that show would not be on there."
As for those nasty, 50-year-old tabloid rumors that Muggs once bit Martha Raye: "That was bullshit—just plain bullshit," said Mr. Preis, who inherited the care of Muggs from his father, the late Bud Mennella, and Roy Waldron, who is now 80 and can no longer manage the old ape.
Meanwhile, CNBC is steering clear of the "Muggsy" moniker. And that’s good, because Mr. Preis said he had a copyright on the name and would enforce it.
"It’s a she, and they’re going to call her Ellie," said a CNBC spokeswoman. "Ellie is her name. She’s a very sweet monkey."
Whatever you do, Ellie: Don’t drink the orange juice!
http://www.nyobserver.com/pages/frontpage6.asp ,
-R
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
State of the Union:
The lead-up had Mara Liasson doing her usual selling for the Administration, referring to Bush’s “strong popularity” (vs declining poll numbers, down to his lowest point in his 3 years). The speech was thoroughly predictable, especially his leading off with the “War on Terror”, followed by “…tax relief you passed is working”; then, “going on” vs going back, turning back- “…we’ve not come all this way…only to falter and leave our work unfinished”. So, we should continue with him. After all, the environment isn’t totally destroyed, the deficit hasn’t yet reached 750 billion per, all taxes on income aren’t gone yet.
Favorite line: “[The] Kay Report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities...”
What’s Happening, Iraq:
We’re losing the political fight to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. His followers are staging demonstrations of up to 100,000, insisting on elections. It is unlikely he will turn back, now that he has mobilized “the street”. The Administration has had to crawl back to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for help in transferring power to an interim Iraqi government; Annan has leaned toward sending a UN mission, but the Administration’s desperate need to involve the UN may be, as Fareed Zakaria warned in her Washington Post article, “too little, too late.”
What does this man have that the United States doesn't?
Legitimacy. Sistani is regarded by Iraqi Shiites as the most learned cleric in the country. He is also seen as having been uncorrupted by Saddam Hussein's reign. "During the Iran-Iraq war, Sistani managed to demonstrate that he could be controlled neither by Saddam nor by his fellow ayatollahs in Iran, which has given him enormous credibility," says Yitzhak Nakash, the leading authority on Iraqi Shiites.
The United States fears that he will brand it as colonialist and the new transition government as a puppet regime. American officials know these few words could derail their plans. The occupation can survive an insurgency, but it cannot survive 10 countrywide protest marches with thousands chanting, "Colonialists go home!"
From the start, the Pentagon planners (or non-planners) believed the United States would have no legitimacy problems in Iraq. "We will be greeted as liberators," Vice President Cheney famously predicted. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30724-2004Jan20.html
Though Bush said in his speech that ‘we stand with the Iraqi people’, the crowds are chanting “yes to elections, no to occupation.”
The Shia, believed to number some 15 to 16 million out of a total Iraqi population of 25 million, fear the US and its local allies will seek to rob them of power by appointing members of a new assembly and government to which the US has pledged to hand over power on 1 July. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=482907
Who is Paul Bremer? Danny Schechter cites Tom Hayden’s report from the World Social Forum in Mumbai, India, which provides a profile.
Paul Bremer is understood not only as point man for the U.S. government, but as managing director of Kissinger & Associates, which represents a secret list of U.S. multinational corporations with long-term stakes in the region. Bremer already has imposed a maximum flat tax of only 15 percent on corporate profits, privatized hundreds of Iraqi businesses and natural resources, and carried free market fundamentalism so far that he faces legal challenges to the U.S. authority based on the traditional international rules governing occupations. In addition, a Bremer order dictates that all non-governmental organizations in the "new Iraq" must be registered and provide detailed membership lists to the American authorities in Baghdad." http://64.224.42.246/weblog/dannylog.cfm]
What is the World Social Forum? From the NY Times (Saritha Rai)
Anti-globalization protesters jostled with opponents of war, and those fighting India's caste system performed street plays alongside groups opposing religious and sex discrimination. At the six-day annual World Social Forum here in India's financial capital, hundreds of groups raised their voices in protest, if not always in unison.
The agenda of the gathering, held for the first time outside Brazil, appeared to have shifted from its central focus on trade and the inequities of global capitalism, splintering into a long list of regional causes.
"I came here and went `Huh?' " said Ellen Lenox, an English teacher from Brasília. "The focus has changed from unfair global trade and the monopoly of big business toward antiwar, antidiscrimination causes."
As in the last three years, this year's World Social Forum is timed to run concurrently with the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which is seen by critics and most of those in attendance here as a gathering of rich capitalists.
Amid the heat and dust of a vast derelict factory complex in suburban Goregaon usually reserved for home decor or auto expositions, thousands of people gathered from across India and abroad to make common cause, with the slogan "Another world is possible."
Members of the organizing committee in Bombay, also known as Mumbai, said about 80,000 people from more than 100 countries were taking part.
Prominent among the speakers in the first three days of the forum were José Bové, the French farmer who led the demolition of a half-built McDonald's outlet; the Iranian human rights activist and Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi; and the Indian novelist Arundhati Roy.
Coca-Cola and Pepsi were barred from the refreshment stands in favor of water and freshly squeezed sugar cane juice and lemonade. Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer were discarded in favor of Linux operating systems and Mozilla browsers.
Continuing with the theme of the previous three global gatherings, all held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, peace activists vehemently criticized President Bush's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But some new themes emerged.
Pratap Kumar complained that for Dalits, or untouchables, like him, who were on the lowest rung of India's caste system, diatribes against globalization ring hollow to people denied basic human rights.
"What does anti-liberalization mean when we don't have the basic freedom to drink water at the village well or send our children to the same school as those from the upper castes?" asked Mr. Kumar, from Vijayawada in the southeastern state of Andhra.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/20/international/asia/20FORU.html?pagewanted=print&position=http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/20/international/asia/20FORU.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Jobs
James K. Galbraith writes about the Administration’s “effort” re jobs: “Don't believe the Bush administration's hand-wringing over its pathetic record on employment. The president's backers want a stagnant job market -- it keeps the help from getting uppity.”
President Bush will use his State of the Union to claim that tax cuts have restored economic growth, and he may mention the stock market's rise last year. But the transcendent economic issue this election year isn't the growth rate. It isn't the stock market. It also isn't the budget deficit the tax cuts caused. And it isn't even the rate of unemployment. It's the number of people in this country who have decent work -- and the number who don't.
There are no new jobs. Total job growth in the Clinton years: 23 million. Total job losses so far in the Bush years: over 2 million. Total gains in the last six months, since the so-called recovery supposedly accelerated in the third quarter? Just 221,000. That's less than a single month's average under Clinton. And last month? One thousand new jobs. … (http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/01/19/no_jobs/print.html
Robert Reich on O’Neill and Bush.
Reich doesn’t hold back, bless him…
O'Neill is correct, America has lost many lives and paid a huge price to get rid of a terrible dictator who posed no direct danger to this nation. The world is better off without him, but at what price? We were directly and intentionally misled.
By coming forward, O'Neill shows once again that sometimes cabinet secretaries - especially former ones - have a higher patriotic duty to their country than blind allegiance to the president they serve
The central question his book raises isn't really the loyalty a cabinet officer owes a president. It's the loyalty a president and his inner circle owe to the country and to its democracy. If O'Neill is telling the truth - and we have no reason to doubt his veracity - there's serious doubt about the loyalty of this administration to America
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vprei163628454jan16,0,3580276.story
Tax The Rich! Another Governor tries to raise taxes on the Wealthy
I’ve cited my efforts working with Fairness in Taxes for Everyone (FITE) which focuses on the theft of the public’s riches by the “mega rich”. [See http://www.fairnessintaxes.org/pages/howthemegarich.html] Only a few states have thus far taken the politically risky, but desperately needed step of raising the taxes on those who previously have had a drastic lowering of their tax burden.
Now, Virginia’s Democratic Governor Mark Warner is attempting the step.
Since his election in 2001, Mr. Warner has cut a beleaguered figure in Richmond, struggling to close a $6 billion budget shortfall that drained money from nearly every state program and made ambitious programs all but unthinkable.
But he has taken the offensive this year, proposing an overhaul of the tax system that he says will cut taxes for 65 percent of Virginians while raising them for the rich, preserve the state's triple-A bond rating and close a projected $1.2 billion budget shortfall in the next two years.
His proposal comes at what seems an unpropitious time for raising taxes. Last fall, voters in Alabama overwhelmingly rejected a similar tax overhaul, while Californians overwhelmingly elected an anti-tax governor in October. In 2002, voters in Northern Virginia and in the Hampton Roads area rejected sales-tax increases intended to raise revenue for transportation projects.
He contends his plan makes the antiquated tax code fairer. It would cut taxes on food and eliminate them on cars and estates worth less than $10 million. The nearly flat income tax would rise for people earning more than $100,000 but fall for most others. He would increase the sales tax by a penny, to 5.5 cents, and raise cigarette taxes to 25 cents a pack, from 2.5 cents. He would close special deductions for the high-income elderly and certain corporations. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/20/national/20WARN.html
Health Care Trend: More Coverage = Less Coverage
So, the only way to spread health care is to lower the benefits provided. That’s American ingenuity. From the NY Times business pages (Milt Freudenheim)
With the number of uninsured Americans rising to new heights, some policy makers and influential health care experts are saying that the best way to give health coverage to more people is to give some people less.
Experiments in several states are establishing stripped-down packages of basic benefits intended to be affordable for employers and uninsured workers, including young, middle-class people who have dropped out of the health insurance pool. Some officials say that government health benefits could be extended to more people, too, if the benefit package were narrower. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/20/business/20care.html
Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill: Cabinet debates were exercises in "incestuous amplification."
From the Times (Edmund L. Andrews)
The comment is made in "The Price of Loyalty,'' a new book by Ron Suskind about Mr. O'Neill's tumultuous tenure before being fired in December 2002. Rather than encouraging policy debates, Mr. O'Neill contended that big decisions were made with almost no discussion and even less debate.
Mr. O'Neill has provoked a political firestorm with his contention that President Bush tilted toward war with Iraq almost as soon as he took office; the administration has vigorously denied that. But the former Treasury secretary described a similar pattern in Mr. Bush's push to cut taxes by at least $1.7 trillion over 10 years.
Mr. O'Neill was openly skeptical about the need for big tax cuts and expressed concern about frittering away what were then huge budget surpluses.
In hindsight, he may have been too sanguine about the economy's prospects in early 2001 and too dismissive of the value in cutting taxes as a way to soften the downturn. But Mr. O'Neill may also prove to have been prescient about other issues that are likely to have long-lasting significance. One was the idea of building "triggers'' into Mr. Bush's tax cuts, provisions that would prevent some of the cuts from becoming effective if budget surpluses evaporated. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/18/business/yourmoney/18view.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Reagan and ML King The NY Times Strikes Out
Check out this “whitewashing” of Reagan. Let’s recall that he chose to begin his campaign for president in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where 3 civil rights workers were murdered; that he supported tax-exempt status for the racist Bob Jones University, that he characterized the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as “humiliating to the South”, and he noted that “Jefferson Davis is a hero of mine.”
Whatever his failings, Ronald Reagan was not a political panderer; to critics and supporters alike, he was perceived as being rooted in his beliefs.
Something else was at work. And it goes to the heart of why the King holiday has evolved into a powerful and positive American symbol. Party affiliation and politics — and, surely, background and race — separated the president from Dr. King. "Finding material for the remarks was easy," says Peter Robinson, the White House speechwriter who drafted the speech that the president delivered when he signed the King holiday into law. "The dignity of the individual, the equality of all men before God, the promise that America could set an example for the world — I kept finding passage after passage in King's work that Reagan might almost have written himself."
Indeed, when one looks closely at each man's writings, it's clear that they shared an unswerving commitment to democracy, liberty and equality. Having spent years studying and archiving the former president's letters and speeches, I have concluded that he overcame his reservations about the King bill by tapping into his personal experiences — and coming away with an understanding of the ways in which racism and bigotry violate the basic American values he and Dr. King worked to make real.
In his private writings, Ronald Reagan has always maintained that his earliest encounters and views on race were shaped by his parents' quiet activism. Mr. Reagan has told the story of how, one bitterly cold night, his father slept in his car to protest a hotel's policy of not admitting Jews. The president's father also refused to allow his sons to see the movie "Birth of a Nation," on the ground that it glorified the Ku Klux Klan.
Mr. Reagan has said that his first personal experience with racism against blacks occurred while he was on the football team at Eureka College. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/19/opinion/19SKIN.html
-R
The lead-up had Mara Liasson doing her usual selling for the Administration, referring to Bush’s “strong popularity” (vs declining poll numbers, down to his lowest point in his 3 years). The speech was thoroughly predictable, especially his leading off with the “War on Terror”, followed by “…tax relief you passed is working”; then, “going on” vs going back, turning back- “…we’ve not come all this way…only to falter and leave our work unfinished”. So, we should continue with him. After all, the environment isn’t totally destroyed, the deficit hasn’t yet reached 750 billion per, all taxes on income aren’t gone yet.
Favorite line: “[The] Kay Report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities...”
What’s Happening, Iraq:
We’re losing the political fight to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. His followers are staging demonstrations of up to 100,000, insisting on elections. It is unlikely he will turn back, now that he has mobilized “the street”. The Administration has had to crawl back to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for help in transferring power to an interim Iraqi government; Annan has leaned toward sending a UN mission, but the Administration’s desperate need to involve the UN may be, as Fareed Zakaria warned in her Washington Post article, “too little, too late.”
What does this man have that the United States doesn't?
Legitimacy. Sistani is regarded by Iraqi Shiites as the most learned cleric in the country. He is also seen as having been uncorrupted by Saddam Hussein's reign. "During the Iran-Iraq war, Sistani managed to demonstrate that he could be controlled neither by Saddam nor by his fellow ayatollahs in Iran, which has given him enormous credibility," says Yitzhak Nakash, the leading authority on Iraqi Shiites.
The United States fears that he will brand it as colonialist and the new transition government as a puppet regime. American officials know these few words could derail their plans. The occupation can survive an insurgency, but it cannot survive 10 countrywide protest marches with thousands chanting, "Colonialists go home!"
From the start, the Pentagon planners (or non-planners) believed the United States would have no legitimacy problems in Iraq. "We will be greeted as liberators," Vice President Cheney famously predicted. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30724-2004Jan20.html
Though Bush said in his speech that ‘we stand with the Iraqi people’, the crowds are chanting “yes to elections, no to occupation.”
The Shia, believed to number some 15 to 16 million out of a total Iraqi population of 25 million, fear the US and its local allies will seek to rob them of power by appointing members of a new assembly and government to which the US has pledged to hand over power on 1 July. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=482907
Who is Paul Bremer? Danny Schechter cites Tom Hayden’s report from the World Social Forum in Mumbai, India, which provides a profile.
Paul Bremer is understood not only as point man for the U.S. government, but as managing director of Kissinger & Associates, which represents a secret list of U.S. multinational corporations with long-term stakes in the region. Bremer already has imposed a maximum flat tax of only 15 percent on corporate profits, privatized hundreds of Iraqi businesses and natural resources, and carried free market fundamentalism so far that he faces legal challenges to the U.S. authority based on the traditional international rules governing occupations. In addition, a Bremer order dictates that all non-governmental organizations in the "new Iraq" must be registered and provide detailed membership lists to the American authorities in Baghdad." http://64.224.42.246/weblog/dannylog.cfm]
What is the World Social Forum? From the NY Times (Saritha Rai)
Anti-globalization protesters jostled with opponents of war, and those fighting India's caste system performed street plays alongside groups opposing religious and sex discrimination. At the six-day annual World Social Forum here in India's financial capital, hundreds of groups raised their voices in protest, if not always in unison.
The agenda of the gathering, held for the first time outside Brazil, appeared to have shifted from its central focus on trade and the inequities of global capitalism, splintering into a long list of regional causes.
"I came here and went `Huh?' " said Ellen Lenox, an English teacher from Brasília. "The focus has changed from unfair global trade and the monopoly of big business toward antiwar, antidiscrimination causes."
As in the last three years, this year's World Social Forum is timed to run concurrently with the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which is seen by critics and most of those in attendance here as a gathering of rich capitalists.
Amid the heat and dust of a vast derelict factory complex in suburban Goregaon usually reserved for home decor or auto expositions, thousands of people gathered from across India and abroad to make common cause, with the slogan "Another world is possible."
Members of the organizing committee in Bombay, also known as Mumbai, said about 80,000 people from more than 100 countries were taking part.
Prominent among the speakers in the first three days of the forum were José Bové, the French farmer who led the demolition of a half-built McDonald's outlet; the Iranian human rights activist and Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi; and the Indian novelist Arundhati Roy.
Coca-Cola and Pepsi were barred from the refreshment stands in favor of water and freshly squeezed sugar cane juice and lemonade. Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer were discarded in favor of Linux operating systems and Mozilla browsers.
Continuing with the theme of the previous three global gatherings, all held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, peace activists vehemently criticized President Bush's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But some new themes emerged.
Pratap Kumar complained that for Dalits, or untouchables, like him, who were on the lowest rung of India's caste system, diatribes against globalization ring hollow to people denied basic human rights.
"What does anti-liberalization mean when we don't have the basic freedom to drink water at the village well or send our children to the same school as those from the upper castes?" asked Mr. Kumar, from Vijayawada in the southeastern state of Andhra.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/20/international/asia/20FORU.html?pagewanted=print&position=http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/20/international/asia/20FORU.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Jobs
James K. Galbraith writes about the Administration’s “effort” re jobs: “Don't believe the Bush administration's hand-wringing over its pathetic record on employment. The president's backers want a stagnant job market -- it keeps the help from getting uppity.”
President Bush will use his State of the Union to claim that tax cuts have restored economic growth, and he may mention the stock market's rise last year. But the transcendent economic issue this election year isn't the growth rate. It isn't the stock market. It also isn't the budget deficit the tax cuts caused. And it isn't even the rate of unemployment. It's the number of people in this country who have decent work -- and the number who don't.
There are no new jobs. Total job growth in the Clinton years: 23 million. Total job losses so far in the Bush years: over 2 million. Total gains in the last six months, since the so-called recovery supposedly accelerated in the third quarter? Just 221,000. That's less than a single month's average under Clinton. And last month? One thousand new jobs. … (http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/01/19/no_jobs/print.html
Robert Reich on O’Neill and Bush.
Reich doesn’t hold back, bless him…
O'Neill is correct, America has lost many lives and paid a huge price to get rid of a terrible dictator who posed no direct danger to this nation. The world is better off without him, but at what price? We were directly and intentionally misled.
By coming forward, O'Neill shows once again that sometimes cabinet secretaries - especially former ones - have a higher patriotic duty to their country than blind allegiance to the president they serve
The central question his book raises isn't really the loyalty a cabinet officer owes a president. It's the loyalty a president and his inner circle owe to the country and to its democracy. If O'Neill is telling the truth - and we have no reason to doubt his veracity - there's serious doubt about the loyalty of this administration to America
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vprei163628454jan16,0,3580276.story
Tax The Rich! Another Governor tries to raise taxes on the Wealthy
I’ve cited my efforts working with Fairness in Taxes for Everyone (FITE) which focuses on the theft of the public’s riches by the “mega rich”. [See http://www.fairnessintaxes.org/pages/howthemegarich.html] Only a few states have thus far taken the politically risky, but desperately needed step of raising the taxes on those who previously have had a drastic lowering of their tax burden.
Now, Virginia’s Democratic Governor Mark Warner is attempting the step.
Since his election in 2001, Mr. Warner has cut a beleaguered figure in Richmond, struggling to close a $6 billion budget shortfall that drained money from nearly every state program and made ambitious programs all but unthinkable.
But he has taken the offensive this year, proposing an overhaul of the tax system that he says will cut taxes for 65 percent of Virginians while raising them for the rich, preserve the state's triple-A bond rating and close a projected $1.2 billion budget shortfall in the next two years.
His proposal comes at what seems an unpropitious time for raising taxes. Last fall, voters in Alabama overwhelmingly rejected a similar tax overhaul, while Californians overwhelmingly elected an anti-tax governor in October. In 2002, voters in Northern Virginia and in the Hampton Roads area rejected sales-tax increases intended to raise revenue for transportation projects.
He contends his plan makes the antiquated tax code fairer. It would cut taxes on food and eliminate them on cars and estates worth less than $10 million. The nearly flat income tax would rise for people earning more than $100,000 but fall for most others. He would increase the sales tax by a penny, to 5.5 cents, and raise cigarette taxes to 25 cents a pack, from 2.5 cents. He would close special deductions for the high-income elderly and certain corporations. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/20/national/20WARN.html
Health Care Trend: More Coverage = Less Coverage
So, the only way to spread health care is to lower the benefits provided. That’s American ingenuity. From the NY Times business pages (Milt Freudenheim)
With the number of uninsured Americans rising to new heights, some policy makers and influential health care experts are saying that the best way to give health coverage to more people is to give some people less.
Experiments in several states are establishing stripped-down packages of basic benefits intended to be affordable for employers and uninsured workers, including young, middle-class people who have dropped out of the health insurance pool. Some officials say that government health benefits could be extended to more people, too, if the benefit package were narrower. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/20/business/20care.html
Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill: Cabinet debates were exercises in "incestuous amplification."
From the Times (Edmund L. Andrews)
The comment is made in "The Price of Loyalty,'' a new book by Ron Suskind about Mr. O'Neill's tumultuous tenure before being fired in December 2002. Rather than encouraging policy debates, Mr. O'Neill contended that big decisions were made with almost no discussion and even less debate.
Mr. O'Neill has provoked a political firestorm with his contention that President Bush tilted toward war with Iraq almost as soon as he took office; the administration has vigorously denied that. But the former Treasury secretary described a similar pattern in Mr. Bush's push to cut taxes by at least $1.7 trillion over 10 years.
Mr. O'Neill was openly skeptical about the need for big tax cuts and expressed concern about frittering away what were then huge budget surpluses.
In hindsight, he may have been too sanguine about the economy's prospects in early 2001 and too dismissive of the value in cutting taxes as a way to soften the downturn. But Mr. O'Neill may also prove to have been prescient about other issues that are likely to have long-lasting significance. One was the idea of building "triggers'' into Mr. Bush's tax cuts, provisions that would prevent some of the cuts from becoming effective if budget surpluses evaporated. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/18/business/yourmoney/18view.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Reagan and ML King The NY Times Strikes Out
Check out this “whitewashing” of Reagan. Let’s recall that he chose to begin his campaign for president in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where 3 civil rights workers were murdered; that he supported tax-exempt status for the racist Bob Jones University, that he characterized the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as “humiliating to the South”, and he noted that “Jefferson Davis is a hero of mine.”
Whatever his failings, Ronald Reagan was not a political panderer; to critics and supporters alike, he was perceived as being rooted in his beliefs.
Something else was at work. And it goes to the heart of why the King holiday has evolved into a powerful and positive American symbol. Party affiliation and politics — and, surely, background and race — separated the president from Dr. King. "Finding material for the remarks was easy," says Peter Robinson, the White House speechwriter who drafted the speech that the president delivered when he signed the King holiday into law. "The dignity of the individual, the equality of all men before God, the promise that America could set an example for the world — I kept finding passage after passage in King's work that Reagan might almost have written himself."
Indeed, when one looks closely at each man's writings, it's clear that they shared an unswerving commitment to democracy, liberty and equality. Having spent years studying and archiving the former president's letters and speeches, I have concluded that he overcame his reservations about the King bill by tapping into his personal experiences — and coming away with an understanding of the ways in which racism and bigotry violate the basic American values he and Dr. King worked to make real.
In his private writings, Ronald Reagan has always maintained that his earliest encounters and views on race were shaped by his parents' quiet activism. Mr. Reagan has told the story of how, one bitterly cold night, his father slept in his car to protest a hotel's policy of not admitting Jews. The president's father also refused to allow his sons to see the movie "Birth of a Nation," on the ground that it glorified the Ku Klux Klan.
Mr. Reagan has said that his first personal experience with racism against blacks occurred while he was on the football team at Eureka College. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/19/opinion/19SKIN.html
-R
Monday, January 19, 2004
U.S. School Segregation Now at '69 Level
The Harvard Civil Rights Project study tracks integration-segregation over time. The report noted that “Hispanics were less integrated than African Americans.” From the Washington Post (Michael Dobbs)
Half a century after the Supreme Court ordered the desegregation of American education, schools are almost as segregated as they were when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, according to a report released today by Harvard University researchers.
The study by the Harvard Civil Rights Project, shows that progress toward school desegregation peaked in the late 1980s as courts concluded that the goals of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education had largely been achieved. Over the past 15 years, the trend has been in the opposite direction, and most white students now have "little contact" with minority students in many areas of the country, according to the report.
"We are celebrating a victory over segregation at a time when schools across the nation are becoming increasingly segregated," noted the report, which was issued on the eve of the holiday celebrating King's birthday. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26073-2004Jan17.html
King’s Final Years: Usually Ignored
Fair.org (Jeff Cohen, Norman Solomon) addressed the “tv ritual” of celebrating King as “the slain civil rights leader.” Ignored are the broadening of his agenda, as he addressed basic economic/human rights and then, more explosively for the Elites, the War in Vietnam.
The remarkable thing about this annual review of King's life is that several years -- his last years -- are totally missing, as if flushed down a memory hole.
What TV viewers see is a closed loop of familiar file footage: King battling desegregation in Birmingham (1963); reciting his dream of racial harmony at the rally in Washington (1963); marching for voting rights in Selma, Alabama (1965); and finally, lying dead on the motel balcony in Memphis (1968).
An alert viewer might notice that the chronology jumps from 1965 to 1968. Yet King didn't take a sabbatical near the end. http://www.fair.org/media-beat/950104.html
What was he saying?
The new documentary Citizen King, is on PBS tonight and looks at those final years. At one point the program notes, "Somebody wrote a poem, which said now that he is safely dead, let us praise him," recalled the Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, one of the leaders who succeeded Dr. King as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. "For dead men make such convenient heroes. They cannot rise up to challenge the images we fashion for them. Besides, it is easier to build a monument than it is to build a movement." http://www.sunspot.net/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.page15jan15,0,5402867.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines
One highlight of that period was King’s Riverside Church Speech, delivered one year to the day before his assassination, April 4, 1967.
We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood-it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam is right: "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on."
We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.
Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world.
The full text at http://www.africanamericans.com/MLKjrBeyondVietnam.htm
What’s Happening, Iraq:
Tens of thousands demonstrating each day re elections.. Why won’t these people cooperate! Don’t they know we have plans for them? The chants: Colonialism is not liberty!" and "Yes, yes to Sistani, No, No to Appointment!" The demand is for free elections, not political appointments. A good capturing of it by Rory McCarthy of the Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1124188,00.html
More on this via WBUR’s Connection [Al-Sistani Ups the Ante
As talks for the timing of U.N.'s return to Iraq get underway, Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric calls for open elections, exacerbating tensions and causing some to warn of civil war. http://www.theconnection.org/ ]
WMD: Once again, a news item of “chemical shells found” has been quietly retracted. The Danish team that purported to find those mortar rounds withdrew the claim. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3407853.stm
Of course, this regular claim followed by quieter refutation is a contributing factor to Joe 6-Pack’s conclusion that we found wmd in Iraq.
Bombs: Ongoing. On the heels of claims of progress, fewer daily incidents, the NY Times front-paged re the growing sophistication of the bombings and then came yesterdays car bomb on the Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters in Baghdad and another that killed 3 American soldiers.
While the press has concentrated on the significance of passing the 500 mark for deaths, the thousands with severe injuries remains the relatively uncovered story.
Re-thinking Medicare Scenario
AARP has announced that it’s seeking changes in the new Medicare law to allow the government of negotiate lower drug prices for Medicare recipients.
The law explicitly prohibits the government from interfering in negotiations between manufacturers and the private entities that will provide subsidized drug benefits to the elderly. Republicans and some Democrats insisted on that ban as a way to avoid any hint of federal price controls. They are counting on the private plans to negotiate discounts.
AARP, which has more than 35 million members ages 50 and older, was instrumental in securing passage of the legislation, drafted mostly by Republicans. But Novelli said Friday the law did not go far enough.
He said Congress should authorize the secretary of Health and Human Services to "negotiate lower drug prices on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries in the event competitive purchasing doesn't work to lower prices."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/printedition/chi-0401180298jan18,1,2130469.story?coll=chi-printnews-hed
O’Neill: As his comments fade from the news, it’s fun to hold onto some tidbits that emerged, such as Bush’s rare questioning of what his handlers as they laid out the next round of tax cuts for the super rich-- "Haven't we already given money to rich people? Why are we going to do it again?"
Karl Rove quashed this with: "Stick to principle. Stick to principle." Dick Cheney added, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. We won the midterm elections, this is our due." [Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty]
Then, there’s Bush the impatient bore. The Washington Post (Mike Allen) captures his difficulty doing more than his usual D.C. regimen of minimalist public appearances, workout, early to bed.
Bush, who returned to the White House on Tuesday night, sounded tired and bored at the few public appearances during his 28-hour visit. His remarks had unusually long pauses. Cutaway television shots captured Bush glowering into space as other heads of state talked about "economic growth with equity to reduce poverty," "investing in people" and "democratic governance."
One of the million great things about being president is that you rarely have to listen to people who bore you. Dignitaries who introduce Bush are asked to limit their remarks to one minute. Bush praises those who are quicker, and his aides have been known to scold those who run over. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14701-2004Jan13.html
Bush Popularity (Quietly) Drops:
Well inside a front page story in Sunday’s NY Times as to Bush commanding strong support for the “war” on “terrorism” was the noting that his Saddam-capture bounce is gone, that he’s back down to 50% approval, tying his low for his 3 years. CBS.com trumpted this development:
After rising in public support following the capture of Saddam Hussein, the President gives his State of the Union message next week with a decidedly less positive audience. His approval rating of 50% matches his lowest approval ratings ever, and the largest number ever – 45% - disapprove. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/17/opinion/polls/main593849.shtml
-R
The Harvard Civil Rights Project study tracks integration-segregation over time. The report noted that “Hispanics were less integrated than African Americans.” From the Washington Post (Michael Dobbs)
Half a century after the Supreme Court ordered the desegregation of American education, schools are almost as segregated as they were when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, according to a report released today by Harvard University researchers.
The study by the Harvard Civil Rights Project, shows that progress toward school desegregation peaked in the late 1980s as courts concluded that the goals of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education had largely been achieved. Over the past 15 years, the trend has been in the opposite direction, and most white students now have "little contact" with minority students in many areas of the country, according to the report.
"We are celebrating a victory over segregation at a time when schools across the nation are becoming increasingly segregated," noted the report, which was issued on the eve of the holiday celebrating King's birthday. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26073-2004Jan17.html
King’s Final Years: Usually Ignored
Fair.org (Jeff Cohen, Norman Solomon) addressed the “tv ritual” of celebrating King as “the slain civil rights leader.” Ignored are the broadening of his agenda, as he addressed basic economic/human rights and then, more explosively for the Elites, the War in Vietnam.
The remarkable thing about this annual review of King's life is that several years -- his last years -- are totally missing, as if flushed down a memory hole.
What TV viewers see is a closed loop of familiar file footage: King battling desegregation in Birmingham (1963); reciting his dream of racial harmony at the rally in Washington (1963); marching for voting rights in Selma, Alabama (1965); and finally, lying dead on the motel balcony in Memphis (1968).
An alert viewer might notice that the chronology jumps from 1965 to 1968. Yet King didn't take a sabbatical near the end. http://www.fair.org/media-beat/950104.html
What was he saying?
The new documentary Citizen King, is on PBS tonight and looks at those final years. At one point the program notes, "Somebody wrote a poem, which said now that he is safely dead, let us praise him," recalled the Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, one of the leaders who succeeded Dr. King as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. "For dead men make such convenient heroes. They cannot rise up to challenge the images we fashion for them. Besides, it is easier to build a monument than it is to build a movement." http://www.sunspot.net/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.page15jan15,0,5402867.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines
One highlight of that period was King’s Riverside Church Speech, delivered one year to the day before his assassination, April 4, 1967.
We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood-it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam is right: "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on."
We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.
Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world.
The full text at http://www.africanamericans.com/MLKjrBeyondVietnam.htm
What’s Happening, Iraq:
Tens of thousands demonstrating each day re elections.. Why won’t these people cooperate! Don’t they know we have plans for them? The chants: Colonialism is not liberty!" and "Yes, yes to Sistani, No, No to Appointment!" The demand is for free elections, not political appointments. A good capturing of it by Rory McCarthy of the Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1124188,00.html
More on this via WBUR’s Connection [Al-Sistani Ups the Ante
As talks for the timing of U.N.'s return to Iraq get underway, Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric calls for open elections, exacerbating tensions and causing some to warn of civil war. http://www.theconnection.org/ ]
WMD: Once again, a news item of “chemical shells found” has been quietly retracted. The Danish team that purported to find those mortar rounds withdrew the claim. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3407853.stm
Of course, this regular claim followed by quieter refutation is a contributing factor to Joe 6-Pack’s conclusion that we found wmd in Iraq.
Bombs: Ongoing. On the heels of claims of progress, fewer daily incidents, the NY Times front-paged re the growing sophistication of the bombings and then came yesterdays car bomb on the Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters in Baghdad and another that killed 3 American soldiers.
While the press has concentrated on the significance of passing the 500 mark for deaths, the thousands with severe injuries remains the relatively uncovered story.
Re-thinking Medicare Scenario
AARP has announced that it’s seeking changes in the new Medicare law to allow the government of negotiate lower drug prices for Medicare recipients.
The law explicitly prohibits the government from interfering in negotiations between manufacturers and the private entities that will provide subsidized drug benefits to the elderly. Republicans and some Democrats insisted on that ban as a way to avoid any hint of federal price controls. They are counting on the private plans to negotiate discounts.
AARP, which has more than 35 million members ages 50 and older, was instrumental in securing passage of the legislation, drafted mostly by Republicans. But Novelli said Friday the law did not go far enough.
He said Congress should authorize the secretary of Health and Human Services to "negotiate lower drug prices on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries in the event competitive purchasing doesn't work to lower prices."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/printedition/chi-0401180298jan18,1,2130469.story?coll=chi-printnews-hed
O’Neill: As his comments fade from the news, it’s fun to hold onto some tidbits that emerged, such as Bush’s rare questioning of what his handlers as they laid out the next round of tax cuts for the super rich-- "Haven't we already given money to rich people? Why are we going to do it again?"
Karl Rove quashed this with: "Stick to principle. Stick to principle." Dick Cheney added, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. We won the midterm elections, this is our due." [Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty]
Then, there’s Bush the impatient bore. The Washington Post (Mike Allen) captures his difficulty doing more than his usual D.C. regimen of minimalist public appearances, workout, early to bed.
Bush, who returned to the White House on Tuesday night, sounded tired and bored at the few public appearances during his 28-hour visit. His remarks had unusually long pauses. Cutaway television shots captured Bush glowering into space as other heads of state talked about "economic growth with equity to reduce poverty," "investing in people" and "democratic governance."
One of the million great things about being president is that you rarely have to listen to people who bore you. Dignitaries who introduce Bush are asked to limit their remarks to one minute. Bush praises those who are quicker, and his aides have been known to scold those who run over. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14701-2004Jan13.html
Bush Popularity (Quietly) Drops:
Well inside a front page story in Sunday’s NY Times as to Bush commanding strong support for the “war” on “terrorism” was the noting that his Saddam-capture bounce is gone, that he’s back down to 50% approval, tying his low for his 3 years. CBS.com trumpted this development:
After rising in public support following the capture of Saddam Hussein, the President gives his State of the Union message next week with a decidedly less positive audience. His approval rating of 50% matches his lowest approval ratings ever, and the largest number ever – 45% - disapprove. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/17/opinion/polls/main593849.shtml
-R
