Hannah's Blog

Iraqi Dispatch--also for the record

Democracy in Iraq

/Operation Iraqi Freedom Revisited/

When President George Bush announced ten days ago that “the survival of
liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in
other lands,” he drew upon a notion with deeper roots in the history of
political thought than perhaps he was aware. This notion, the neo-roman
theory of freedom, states that individual liberty is constrained not
merely by force or the threat of it, but by “a condition of
dependence”—which “is in itself a source and form of constraint.”^1 That
is to say that “it is the mere /possibility/ of your being subjected
with impunity to arbitrary coercion, not the /fact/ of your being
coerced, that takes away your liberty and reduces you to the condition
of a slave.”^2 It is accordingly only possible for an individual to be
truly free in a free state. President Bush, by making “liberty in our
land” dependent on “liberty in other lands,” internationalized this
notion as he invoked it. The move was programmatic and prescriptive, but
equally self-satisfied and retrospective—referring undoubtedly to the
War on Terrorism and, specifically, the liberation of Iraq, which comes
into being today with the first national elections in fifty years. Here
we undertake only to examine the terms of this liberation in the
language supplied by our president and our media.

*An indelible moment*

“An Indelible Moment,” is one among several hundred articles that have
littered our collective imagination during the past weeks. Printed
yesterday as expatriate ballots were cast, it is the Washington Post’s
attempt to consummate the marriage of Iraqi-democracy.

There was much to reconcile, many mixed emotions. This moment had
been purchased with a lot of blood. But even in the fog of war and
the sadness of exile and the blindness of faith there are truths
that cannot be denied, that everyone can agree upon. Hayder
Alhamdani selected one of these simple, resonant truths for this
moment.

“This,” he said quietly, “is the first time in my life.” He let go
of his ballot. He cast his ballot.

All day yesterday, voters held up their purple fingers in triumph.
It was a new victory sign, maybe someday a peace sign, they hoped.
It befitted the low-tech, hands-on feel of this election—democracy
at its most basic and emotionally powerful. Democracy had marked
them, touched them physically, and they hoped it would last forever.^3

In today’s Los Angeles Times, this story took the form of an Iraqi
expatriate family’s interstate “drive for democracy,” while in the
Boston Globe it is a “historic event.”^4 The Baltimore Sun even exhorts
Iraqis that “the moment has come to exercise your political freedom for
the first time.”^5

But the occasion is not only one of joy. Dahr Jamail reported to Amy
Goodman and Juan Gonzales only hours prior to the indelible moment that
things in Baghdad was “a city under siege.”^6

Well, there have been ongoing attacks on polling stations, just in
the last 24 hours in Iraq. There’s been at least 15 people killed in
attacks on polling stations as they’re being set up for Sunday's
polling process. It's been very, very bloody here. Every day at
least 15 Iraqis a day have been killed in the last, at least, four
or five days at the minimum.

The official response has been the elimination of all non-official cell
and satellite phone services, the banning of all civilian use of cars.
Thus Dahr Jamail and Brian Dominick document the unease that surrounds
the event.

“We are not against elections,” said Saif, an 18-year-old Shiite
biology student at Baghdad University, “but we are against the
timing of them. Look at the security,” he exclaimed...“I will not
vote, nor will anyone I know.”^7

Such views, incidentally, altogether contradict the principle championed
by all US commercial news outlets that determine enthusiasm for the
elections along unmistakable religious lines. The New York Times
characteristically led the charge: “Every single Shiite interviewed for
this article said he or she planned to vote...all the Sunnis
interviewed, except one, said they were going to boycott.”^8 Such
assessments ignore the irony that this glorious, historic transition to
democracy occurs under the conditions of martial law. Exercising
political freedom is perhaps not as easy as it seems.

But what about the specifics of this exercise in political freedom? Dahr
writes that “more than 7,000 candidates on the electoral lists have
opted to remain anonymous prior to polling day.”

Even determining how many lists of candidates will actually appear
on the January 30 ballot is an elusive task, with the Independent
Commission originally reporting 83, the UN claiming 256 during a
ceremonial ordering of the ballot on December 20, and the Iraqi
Independent Commission spokesperson putting the number at 111 during
the recent IRIN interview.^9

Unsurprisingly, then, Abu Sabah, a grocery stall owner near the Karrada
district of Baghdad, asks

Who says we should have elections for people we don't even know
during occupation, martial law and in a war zone? And why vote when
we're expected to vote for an entire list of candidates when we only
know, if we're lucky, one or two of their names?^9

He is not alone.

“I have seen the lists, and I don't know any of them,” said Mustafa,
a 20-year-old physics student at Baghdad University. “I don't know
if I'll vote yet because we don't know any of these people. I can't
vote for someone I don't know.” ^10

Prof. Shawket Daoud, a computer science specialist who now works for
the government, said uncertainty over polling booths and the fear of
violence was not the only problem. ”Why vote when we don't even know
who is running yet?” ^11

Nonetheless, the Washington Post tells us, “Democracy had marked them,
touched them physically, and they hoped it would last forever.”

*This is what democracy feels like*

This is not to imply that news coverage of the elections has been devoid
of its adversarial trademark. In the New York Times, scrutiny is
directed at the notion that Iraqis are ready for democracy.

But questions over the election go far beyond the American
stewardship, to issues that touch on whether it was ever wise or
realistic to think that Jeffersonian-style democracy, with its
elaborate checks on power and guarantees for minority rights, could
be implanted, at least so rapidly, in a country and a region that
has little experience with anything but winner-take-all politics.^12

Our media elsewhere provided much to substantiate this, as the reporting
of an American election worker shows.

There were a lot of misconceptions. I explained, for instance, that
the majority rules, but minorities are protected. This is new to
Iraqis. People who have been spoon-fed everything for many years
have trouble knowing what freedom involves. ^13

Indeed, many Iraqis seem to have some trouble knowing what freedom involves.

“The elections cannot be legitimate because we are under occupation,
so I will not be voting, nor will any of my friends,” said Layla
Hamad, a Shiite shop owner.

“It's not a matter of elections, because those in power will stay in
power,” commented Suhaid, a 23-year old Shiite who is an unemployed
computer science engineer. “This is a big lie and the elections are
illegitimate.”

Asked if he expected to vote, Saif promptly responded: “Even though
the elections will happen, they will not be legitimate, and they
will be a disaster. Anybody elected will be a puppet of Bush.”^14

To understand “what freedom involves” let us first understand what it
does not involve. The vote today is not a vote on how to manage and
distribute the country’s vast resources, on how to go about bringing the
occupying power to justice for unremitting war crimes, or even on
whether to continue to host an army that continues to rape its lands and
murder its citizens. “Democracy at its most basic and emotionally
powerful,” as the Washington Post called it, instead means choosing from
a list of unknown names. Following a narrated account that one is hard
put to call anything other than pornographic, the Washington Post
announces that “this is what democracy feels like.” Unfortunately, “what
democracy feels like” to Iraqis during the rest of the day and night is
the collective punishment essential to any occupation: curfews, other
restrictions or bans on public gatherings, road blocks
,
razed agriculture
,
home demolitions
,
mass detentions.^15

But these are all justifiably small considerations beside the emergence
of democracy and its initiation of the constitutional processes. The New
York Times is nonetheless quite right to write somewhat dubiously of
implanted Jeffersonian checks on power in Iraq. For in 1984 it was also
given assurances by the then US ambassador to Honduras that that country
was “committed to the constitutional process.” In recent years, however,
much has been said the informal subversion of constitutional process by
state subsidized torturer and death squads. Formal, too, were
subversions of constitutional process. When Juan Almendares was
reelected as President of the University of Honduras, for instance, his
victory was challenged in court. He wrote in recent years that Justice
José Benjamin Cisne Reyes of the Honduran Supreme Court confessed that
the US ambassador “pressured us to annul your recent reelection as
rector, giving the reason that you endanger the security of the state.”
Mr. Reyes confessed that he and all of the other Supreme Court Justices
had committed “this dishonest act” out of fear for his life and for the
life of the Mr. Almendares.^16 Mr. Almendares’ reelection was annulled
and a critic of US policy was thereby removed from public life. The
digression here is I think only apparent, for the US ambassador to
Honduras then is today the US ambassador to Iraq. The Baltimore Sun and
the New York Times are therefore quite justified in suggesting that
Iraqis may not quite yet have the capacity to enact a “separation of
powers, the rule of law and an independent judiciary, concepts that have
been alien, or at least malleable, under the rulers Iraqis have known
for centuries.”^17

*Before the law*

On the same thread, let us turn from the possible subversions of the
constitutional process (however probable) to the constitutional process
itself, as embodied in the letter of the law. Surely this process, whose
results will endure the subversions of the coming months and years, is
worth their price; temporary coercions are a small cost to pay for
freedom. The freedom to be delivered by the constitutional process is
outlined by the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL). The initial step
towards freedom will come in the form of the Iraqi Transitional
Government (ITG) will be composed of a independent judiciary, the
National Assembly (to be elected today), which will elect a three-person
Presidency Council, which in turn appoints a Prime Minister and Council
of Ministers. On behalf of The Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, the senior intelligence analyst for Iraq at U.S. Central Command
writes,

The ITG’s most important task in governance will be its efforts to
restore security and stability in Iraq. As time goes on, the
challenges involved in thwarting the insurgency will only increase.
The struggle to establish competent Iraqi security forces will
continue to be a critical task for the government.^18

How diligently the ITG will execute the bidding of Washington is uncertain.

Within the ITG, the potential use of these forces could become
controversial. Considering its dispersal of power and its checks and
balances between various branches, the ITG will likely not be as
decisive as the IIG has been. The role of Coalition forces in
fighting the insurgency will be another key component of ITG debate.
Many in Iraq’s political elite are probably uncomfortable with the
Coalition’s strength and pervasive presence, despite the central
role that Coalition forces play in maintaining security. Some of
Iraq’s emerging political class may be vocal in advocating limits on
Coalition activity or continued deployments inside Iraq—either as a
matter of policy or as populist political theater.^19

Iraqis, through the ITG, would seem to be given by the constitutional
process the legal mandate to challenge the policies of its occupiers.
However, “In the ITG, the judiciary will emerge as a prominent player in
national politics.”

As the interpreter of the TAL, the judiciary occupies a potentially
powerful position to intervene in the transition process. The
supreme court, in particular, has the power to challenge virtually
any decision that it believes to contravene the TAL. In deciding
what legal questions it will examine, the court largely formulates
its own rules. Rather than wait for formal legal complaints to wind
their way through a hierarchical court system, the supreme court
theoretically has broad authority to identify and act upon issues it
deems relevant to the interpretation of the TAL. This sort of
independence, and the ability to block legislative and executive
actions, represents a new and unusual feature of Iraqi politics in
general, and specifically for judges.^20

The “ability to block legislative and executive actions,” it should go
without saying, is legal answer to anything the National Assembly or its
elected representatives might have to say about the war being waged by
US army on the people of Iraq or anything else. Who are the members of
the judiciary? Article 43(b) of the Transitional Administrative Law
provides the answer.

All judges sitting in their respective courts as of 1 July 2004 will
continue in office thereafter, unless removed from office pursuant
to this Law.

The branch of government, then, that “independent voice” that “largely
formulates its own rules” having unlimited “ability to block legislative
and executive actions” is the same arm of justice that was installed by
and administered the occupation by a foreign power. Among such
“legislative and executive actions” are those that will have lasting
effects.

An example of a potentially significant intervention is the court’s
authority to “force” forward a failing constitutional drafting or
ratification process. Such an independent authority did not exist
during the negotiation and signing of the TAL, which was delayed for
several days past its deadline when last-minute objections were
raised and debated. The informality of the 15 November Agreement
established no authorities and named no penalties for this delay.
Under the TAL, however, supreme court judges faced with similar
delays in drafting the permanent constitution would be duty-bound to
trigger the painful provisions of dissolving the government and
starting again.^21

The effect should be clear: all legislation, including the constitution
of the Iraqi state itself will be those acceptable to the occupying
power. As President Bush indicated when he said that the fate of our
freedom is contingent upon freedom abroad (implying that the mere
possibility of unfreedom anywhere threatens freedom everywhere), the
issue here is not decisive action on the part of the judiciary, but the
/possibility/ of such action. In other words, it may well come to be
that in the next months and years, the judiciary will not exercise the
extent of the power allotted to it. But the mere possibility of the
exercise of such power, in the law, will provide a (US imposed)
corrective effect upon the actions of the Iraqi Transitional Government,
and all Iraqi governments thereafter. Arbitrary coercions thereby do not
merely subvert the law; they are written into the law. One can only
conclude that “the rule of law and an independent judiciary,” will in
Iraq continue to be “concepts that have been alien”—which is to say
imposed from the outside, by the representatives of the United States of
America.

*Postscript: on criminal justice in Iraq at the present time*

The fact remains that what has been said up to this point of the
Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) and the judicial provisions that
it extends are removed from current, everyday realities in Iraq.
Nonetheless, the indefinite extension of these provisions gives every
indication that /what is/ will be /what remains/. Whatever we can
determine of criminal justice in Iraq up to the present time tells us,
then, what is likely to remain. We begin with Dahr Jamail’s interview of
Lilu Hammed late last May.

Sitting alone on the hard packed dirt in his white dishdasha, his
head scarf languidly flapping in the dry, hot wind, Lilu Hammed
stared unwaveringly at the high walls of the nearby prison as if he
were attempting to see his 32 year-old son Abbas through the
concrete walls. When my interpreter Abu Talat asked if he would
speak with us, several seconds passed before Lilu slowly turned his
head and said simply, “I am sitting here on the ground waiting for
God's help.” His son, never charged with an offense, had by then
been in Abu Ghraib for 6 months following a raid on his home which
produced no weapons. Lilu held a crumpled visitation permission slip
that he had just obtained, promising a reunion with his son…three
months away, on the 18th of August. Along with every other person I
interviewed there, Lilu had found consolation neither in the recent
court martial, nor in the release of a few hundred prisoners. “This
court-martial is nonsense. They said that Iraqis could come to the
trial, but they could not. It was a false trial.”^22

An ACLU press release this past Monday indicates that any torture that
Lilu Hammed’s son may have encountered—let alone the detention which
made him vulnerable to torture—has been systematically abandoned and
uninvestigated by US army authorities. ^23 Torture in the report is
characterized “as acceptable practice” if not “standard operating
procedure.” A ninety-four page Human Rights Watch Report published the
next day investigated the functioning of Iraqi institutions of criminal
justice. It found

The systematic use of arbitrary arrest, prolonged pre-trial
detention without judicial review, torture and ill-treatment of
detainees, denial of access by families and lawyers to detainees,
improper treatment of detained children, and abysmal conditions in
pre-trial detention facilities. ^24

The report found that the prolonged detention of Lilu Hammed’s son is
not the exception the Iraqi Code of Criminal Procedure (CCP), which
requires a defendant to be brought before an investigating judge within
twenty-four hours of his or her arrest; rather, such prolonged
detentions constitute “the vast majority” of cases. This is in
contradiction to the TAL, which stipulates that all Iraqi citizens are
equal before the law, and that their rights to freedom from arbitrary
arrest, unlawful detention, unfair trials, and torture are protected by
law. Human Rights Watch adds that “there are a number of protections in
the CCP that, if implemented, would contribute to the better protection
of persons deprived of their liberty.” The failure to implement such
laws—again, the rule rather than the exception—tells something of the
judicial institutions charged with this task. According to Human Rights
Watch, this rule of lawlessness has been used to target local
journalists and members of rival political parties. The following
testimony, taken from Ali, a 29 year-old suspected dissident, typifies
that which comprises the report.

When we entered the headquarters, the [Iraqi] officer told us to
kneel before him. We were hit on the back of our necks with a rifle
butt. Then they took us upstairs to the first floor and told us to
face the wall and began beating us severely. The Americans were
there, standing some five or six meters away. They just stood and
watched. I was beaten with a wooden stick on my forehead, and all of
us were beaten over the body with cables and hosepipes. That
happened even before the interrogation had begun.

Then they put us in a cell measuring three by four meters.
Altogether we were sixty-three in that room, all crammed together.
Some of the others in the cell had also been tortured. One of them,
a farmer from al-Najaf called Khalid, had had his fingernails
extracted and on of his arms broken. Most were adults but there were
also several children, between fifteen and seventeen [years old]. We
were given no food for the first day and a half. The guards told us
if we wanted to eat we would have to buy our own food.

When a formal complaint was recently lodged in response to one such
interrogation, Chief Investigative Judge Zuhair al-Maliki issued a
series of summons requiring several officials to appear in court to
answer questions relating to the arrests.

The Ministry of Interior’s legal spokesperson, the Minister of
Interior Falah al-Naqib, and the Iraqi National Intelligence Service
director, Major General Muhammad Abdullah al-Shahwani, did not
answer summons issued to them. On October 18, 2004, Judge Zuhair
al-Maliki was removed from his post as the Central Criminal Court’s
chief investigative judge and transferred to another post.

Such is the political process out of which today, quietly, democracy was
born in Iraq.

(1) Liberty before Liberalism, Quentin Skinner, p. 84.

(2) Ibid.p. 72, emphasis mine.

(3) “An Indelible Moment,” Washington Post, David Montgomery, January
29, 2005.

(4) “For many expatriates, casting ballots brings jubilation,
expectations,” Boston Globe, Suleiman al-Khalidi, January 29, 2005.

(5) “First Steps Toward Democracy,” Baltimore Sun, Jonathan Pitts,
January 29, 2005.

(6) “Heavy Bloodshed in Iraq Only Expected to Worsen on Election Day,”
Democracy Now! Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzales, and Dahr Jamail, January
28th, 2005.

(7) “Iraqis Discuss Voting, Or Not, in Elections Held Amidst Chaos,” The
NewsStandard, Dahr Jamail and Brian Dominick, January 18, 2005

(8) “As Election Nears, Iraqis Remain Sharply Divided on Its Value,” New
York Times, Jeffrey Gettleman, January 23. Jassim, a grocery store owner
in the district of Khadimiya, responds that “it is only the political
parties that are using this talk. And it seems as though there are those
who would like to cause a divide. But it will never happen, because we
have never had this divide,” in “What Iraqis Think of the Elections,”
Islam Online, Dahr Jamail, January 25, 2005.

(9) “Iraqis Discuss Voting, Or Not, in Elections Held Amidst Chaos,”
Jamail and Dominick.

(10) Ibid.

(11) “Vote Where, How, and for Whom?” Inter Press Service, Dahr Jamail,
January 26, 2005.

(12) “The Vote, and Democracy Itself, Leave Anxious Iraqis Divided,” New
York Times, John Burns, January 30, 2005.

(13) “First Steps Toward Democracy,” Baltimore Sun, Jonathan Pitts,
January 29, 2005.

(14) “Iraqis Discuss Voting, Or Not, in Elections Held Amidst Chaos,”
Jamail and Dominick.

(15) “I don’t know why I was arrested,” explained Ahmed, a 38 year-old
farmer, who discussed his journey through the military detention system
for 10 months that began during a home raid on August 13th, 2003, and
which found him experiencing treatment like having mock executions,
being bound and having his head covered for days on end, and being held
at a camp near Basra in the scorching summer temperatures. “At that camp
they hung a sign where we stated that said, The Zoo,” he explained. He
claims that his home and fields were searched and no weapons were found.
During his detention he witnessed the sexual humiliation of fellow
prisoners and regular beatings, “Collective Punishment,” Dahr Jamail,
January 14, 2005.

(16) El Tiempo, July 31, 2001.

(17) “The Vote, and Democracy Itself, Leave Anxious Iraqis Divided,” New
York Times, John Burns, January 30, 2005

(18) “Iraq: Outlook for National Elections and Governance
,” The
Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Gregory Hooker, January 2005,
p. 27.

(19) Ibid., p. 27.

(20) Ibid., p. 28-9.

(21) Ibid., p. 29.

(22) “Iraq: The Devastation
,” TomDispatch, Dahr
Jamail, January 7, 2005.

(23) “Newly Released Investigative Files Provide Further Evidence
Soldiers Not Held Accountable for Abuse,” American Civil Liberties
Union, January 24, 2005

(24) “Iraq: Torture Continues at the Hands of New Government,” Human
Rights Watch, January 25, 2005.

Posted by Omar_Khan at January 30, 2005 09:33 PM

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CBO--2002, for the record

In September of 2002, the Congressional Budget Office delivered an assessment of the cost of a new war in Iraq.
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=3822&sequence=0

Honorable Pete V. Domenici
Ranking Member

Honorable Jim Nussle
Chairman


Honorable Carl Levin
Chairman
Committee on Armed Services

Honorable Bob Stump
Chairman
Committee on Armed Services


Honorable John W. Warner
Ranking Member

Honorable Ike Skelton
Ranking Member


Honorable Robert C. Byrd
Chairman
Committee on Appropriations

Honorable C.W. Bill Young
Chairman
Committee on Appropriations


Honorable Ted Stevens
Ranking Member

Honorable David R. Obey
Ranking Member
******************************************************************
The Heavy Ground Option. In estimating costs for this option, CBO assumed the use of five Army divisions, but limited tactical air forces to half of those planned for an MTW, or about five wings, on the assumption that the bases available to U.S. and allied air forces might be limited or that extensive use of precision munitions might make the use of a smaller number of aircraft feasible. CBO also assumed that this force would include one MEF. In total, CBO estimates, the U.S. force would include about 370,000 military personnel deploying to the Persian Gulf region (270,000 active-duty service members and 100,000 reserves). About another 70,000 reserves would be required to fill stateside and other positions left vacant by deploying active-duty troops. The U.S. force would also comprise up to 1,500 aircraft, 800 attack and transport helicopters, 800 tanks, and 60 battle force ships.

Which allied forces might participate in a conflict with Iraq is uncertain; only the British have thus far indicated their intention to contribute troops. Thus, CBO assumed that two-thirds of a British heavy armored division and two-thirds of a British air wing would be part of the Heavy Ground force, as well as a British naval contingent of 21 ships, as in Desert Storm. CBO's estimates of the costs incorporate the assumption that the United States will provide limited logistical support to those forces similar to the support it provided during Desert Storm.

The Heavy Air Option. In its estimates of an option emphasizing air forces, CBO limited U.S. Army forces to two and one-third divisions and increased the number of tactical air wings to 10. That force structure assumes an increased reliance on air power to compensate for the smaller ground force. For this option, CBO assumed the use of about one-third of a MEF. In total, CBO estimates, the U.S. force would include about 250,000 military personnel deploying to the Persian Gulf region (200,000 active-duty service members and 50,000 reserves). Another 55,000 reserves would be required to fill stateside and other positions left vacant by deploying active-duty troops. The Heavy Air force would also comprise up to 2,500 aircraft, 500 attack and transport helicopters, 300 tanks, and 60 battle force ships.

The Midnight Disease

"The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain"

by

Alice W. Flaherty

The neurologist Oiver Sacks tells of a ward of aphasic patients listening to President Reagan give a speech on television. Although unable to fully understand his words, the patients compensated by being particularly sensitive to his tone and inflections, which they found farcical. A patient with a right hemisphere lesion who could not judge tone was also present. She concentrated on Reagan's exact words--which she too found ridiculous. Sacks concluded from this that it takes a fully working brain to be deluded by politicians. Nancy Etkoff and her colleagues confirmed Sacks's anecdote experimentally by showing that in a controlled setting aphasics had better lie-detection ability than undergraduates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lest anyone object that MIT students do not count as completely normal controls, she also had a smaller group of more typical control subjects.

The Midnight Disease, p. 161

Iraqi Dispatch

   January 30, 2005

     Hollow Election Held on Bloody Day

*Inter Press Service*
Dahr Jamail

An overnight rocket attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad that killed
two Americans and injured four others set the tone for the election Sunday.

*BAGHDAD, Jan 30 (IPS) - An overnight rocket attack on the U.S. embassy
in Baghdad that killed two Americans and injured four others set the
tone for the election Sunday.*

By the end of the day at least 29 people had been killed in attacks on
polling stations and voters.

An hour after polling stations opened at 7am, mortar blasts began
echoing across the capital city, at almost an attack a minute at times.

Most Iraqis stayed home after resistance fighters threatened to ?wash
the streets with blood.?

A suicide bomber at a security checkpoint in Monsour district of western
Baghdad killed a policeman and wounded two others. A man wearing a belt
of explosives detonated himself at a voters queue in Sadr City in
Baghdad, killing himself and at least four others.

Many Iraqis who had intended to vote stayed indoors as gunfire echoed
around the downtown area of Baghdad. Mortar attacks on polling stations
continued through the day.

?Yesterday a bicycle bomb killed someone near my house,? said
32-year-old Ahmed Mohammed. ?I never intended to vote in this
illegitimate election anyway, but if I had wanted to I would never go
out in these conditions.?

With draconian security measures in place, even some ambulances rushing
to victims of bomb attacks were turned back at security checkpoints.

?Baghdad looks like it's having a war, not elections,? said Layla Abdul
Rahman, a high school English teacher. ?Our streets are filled with
tanks and soldiers and our bridges are closed. All we are hearing is
bombings all around us, and for the last two nights there have been many
clashes that last a long time. We shouldn't have had elections now
because it's just not practical with this horrible security.?

The threats by the resistance fighters followed by a string of attacks
across Baghdad clearly reduced voter turnout.

?How can we call this democracy when I am too afraid to leave my home,?
said Baghdad resident Abdulla Hamid. ?Of course there will be low
turnout here with all these bombings.?

A series of bombings have been reported also in Hilla, Mosul, Kirkuk,
Basra and Baquba. In Samarra where a roadside bomb struck a U.S. patrol,
there was no sign either of voters or of the police on the streets,
according to reports from there.

?Nobody will vote in Samarra because of the security situation,? Taha
Husain, head of Samarra's local governing council told reporters.

Interim U.S.. appointed prime minister Ayad Allawi announced Saturday
that martial law will now be extended for another month. The hope of
many Iraqis that the elections will bring security and stability
continue to fade.

Voter turnout in the Kurdish controlled north of Iraq and the Shia
dominated southern region has been heavy, but most polling stations in
the capital city and central Iraq remained relatively empty.

Aside from security reasons, many Iraqis chose not to vote because they
question the legitimacy of these elections.

?They are wrong on principle, the High Commission for Elections was
appointed by Bremer (former U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer), so how
can we have a legitimate election under these circumstances,? said Sabah
Rahwani in the Karrada district of Baghdad. ?This election only serves
the interest of the occupier, not Iraqis. This is only propaganda for Bush.?

U.S. President George W. Bush announced in his weekly radio address
Saturday that ?as democracy takes hold in Iraq, America's mission there
will continue.? His administration has also recently announced that U.S.
troops will remain in Iraq at least until 2006.

The parliament elected by the Sunday election will draft a new
constitution for the country. A referendum on that is scheduled for Oct.
15, followed by another election Dec. 15.

****************************************************************

(c)2004, 2005 Dahr Jamail.
All images and text are protected by United States and international copyright law. If you would like to reprint Dahr's Dispatches on the web, you need to include this copyright notice and a prominent link to the DahrJamailIraq.com website. Any other use of images and text including, but not limited to, reproduction, use on another website, copying and printing requires the permission of Dahr Jamail. Of course, feel free to forward Dahr's dispatches via email.

KIDS

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Racism on High

Social Security Debate: Bush's Oldies

George Bush's push to end Social Security has let him kick off his second term with many of the tactics he became famous for during the first: making false claims, manipulating and fabricating numbers, ginning up a non-existent crisis to pursue the goals of a fringe ideology. Now add another Bush classic to the mix: pitting races of people against one another.

Paul Krugman explains the race flank of Bush's strategy to dismantle Social Security:

This week, in a closed meeting with African-Americans, Mr. Bush asserted that Social Security was a bad deal for their race, repeating his earlier claim that "African-American males die sooner than other males do, which means the system is inherently unfair to a certain group of people." In other words, blacks don't live long enough to collect their fair share of benefits.

This isn't a new argument; privatizers have been making it for years. But the claim that blacks get a bad deal from Social Security is false. And Mr. Bush's use of that false argument is doubly shameful, because he's exploiting the tragedy of high black mortality for political gain instead of treating it as a problem we should solve.

Let's start with the facts. Mr. Bush's argument goes back at least seven years, to a report issued by the Heritage Foundation - a report so badly misleading that the deputy chief actuary (now the chief actuary) of the Social Security Administration wrote a memo pointing out "major errors in the methodology." That's actuary-speak for "damned lies."

In fact, the actuary said, "careful research reflecting actual work histories for workers by race indicate that the nonwhite population actually enjoys the same or better expected rates of return from Social Security" as whites.

Here's why. First, Mr. Bush's remarks on African-Americans perpetuate a crude misunderstanding about what life expectancy means. It's true that the current life expectancy for black males at birth is only 68.8 years - but that doesn't mean that a black man who has worked all his life can expect to die after collecting only a few years' worth of Social Security benefits. Blacks' low life expectancy is largely due to high death rates in childhood and young adulthood. African-American men who make it to age 65 can expect to live, and collect benefits, for an additional 14.6 years - not that far short of the 16. 6-year figure for white men.

Second, the formula determining Social Security benefits is progressive: it provides more benefits, as a percentage of earnings, to low-income workers than to high-income workers. Since African-Americans are paid much less, on average, than whites, this works to their advantage.

Finally, Social Security isn't just a retirement program; it's also a disability insurance program. And blacks are much more likely than whites to receive disability benefits.

Put it all together, and the deal African-Americans get from Social Security turns out, according to various calculations, to be either about the same as that for whites or somewhat better. Hispanics, by the way, clearly do better than either.

So the claim that Social Security is unfair to blacks is just false. And the fact that privatizers keep making that claim, after their calculations have repeatedly been shown to be wrong, is yet another indicator of the fundamental dishonesty of their sales pitch.

What's really shameful about Mr. Bush's exploitation of the black death rate, however, is what it takes for granted.

The persistent gap in life expectancy between African-Americans and whites is one measure of the deep inequalities that remain in our society - including highly unequal access to good-quality health care. We ought to be trying to diminish that gap, especially given the fact that black infants are two and half times as likely as white babies to die in their first year.

Now nobody can expect instant progress in reducing health inequalities. But the benefits of Social Security privatization, if any, won't materialize for many decades. By using blacks' low life expectancy as an argument for privatization, Mr. Bush is in effect taking it as a given that 40 or 50 years from now, large numbers of African-Americans will still be dying before their time.

Is this an example of what Mr. Bush famously called "the soft bigotry of low expectations?" Maybe not: it isn't particularly soft to treat premature black deaths not as a tragedy we must end but as just another way to push your ideological agenda. But bigotry - yes, that sounds like the right word.

Given this administration's history on race (remember when Mr. Bush the uniter stirred up racism by using the word quota several times on national television in his attempt to undermine equal opportunities for minorities?), you'd expect that the race card would be played to appeal to whites. But it seems that the pursuit of ideology-driven policy is colorblind -- pitting any race against any other will do as long as it gets the job done.
Posted by Joe Rospars at 08:36 PM on Blog for America

Tsunami Aftermath

Tsunami Aftermath: Images of Tragedy... and Hope

Tim Connolly, from Madison, Wisconsin served as Howard Dean's Iowa State Field Director. He is currently in Indonesia as a civil-military advisor to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). He writes to us from Meulaboh, a town along the western border of the Aceh Province.

The techies from a French non-governmental organization (NGO) called "Telecoms Sans Frontieres" (Telecommunications Without Borders, or TSF) are providing the Internet connectivity for the humanitarian responders. Data is moved via a very slow satellite connection, and they have set up a wireless "hot spot" so that organizations can sit here?usually on a random bag of rice?and connect. These folks do great work, and all the organizations do a really good job of coordinating their access, so that no one ends up hogging the limited bandwidth.

In the spirit of that arrangement, I will forgo the usual travelogue approach and give you instead some quick observations I have made over the almost two weeks I have been on the ground here. Once more robust communications are in place?and assuming there is interest?I would be glad to give you a more complete picture, or to answer any questions folks might have:

?Medan airport, waiting for a flight to Banda Aceh. Indonesian television is running a video montage of footage from across the country, over the song "Dust in the Wind," by the 1970's rock group Kansas: thundering waves of black water, carrying houses, cars, people in the debris?small child crying, while looking down at the body of what I suspect was her mother?construction backhoes lifting mounds of what at first glance appear to be plastic bags of trash, but are in fact the remains of the dead?humanitarian workers handing out bags of food off the back of a truck.

?Driving from the airport in Banda Aceh to the WFP food warehouse, and having to divert to a side street because of a mass grave site, at which truck after truck pulls up, dumps its cargo into the huge hole in the ground and pulls away, while bulldozers stand ready to cover each load with a fresh layer of dirt.

?Medan airport again, a young boy of 8 or 9, sitting on his father's lap with his mother beside them. Japanese media take his picture and interview the father. When the flight is ready to board, the father ?looking both proud and sad at the same time?gently picks up his son and carries him to the flight. A few short weeks ago, the boy would have run out on the tarmac himself. But this night, his father must carry him since he no longer has any legs below the knee. He is on his way to Japan for medical treatment (hence the Japanese press).

?Flying "Susi Air" to Meulaboh. Susi and her husband Henry started a cargo charter service that ships seafood from remote fishing villages to the larger cities, thereby opening those markets to the fishermen who might otherwise have nowhere to sell their fish. After the tsunami, they donated their aircraft to the relief effort. The pilot of the single engine Cessna I flew in was known only as "Mike." Mike is a 747 pilot for Continental Airlines, based in Newark. After hearing about the need for pilots here, he took vacation, arrived at Susi's doorstep and offered to fly. Before each flight, he buys copies of the local newspapers to give to soldiers who work at the airfield in Meulaboh and a box of donuts for his passengers.

?Picking up my backpack and heading for Mike's plane and only then realizing that the "crates" I and my fellow passengers had been sitting on for the last three hours were, in fact, hastily-built coffins.

?Driving down the main road in Banda Aceh and watching life go on, in spite of the devastation that surrounds it. Children playing in the streets, vegetable markets opening one after another, folks sitting in makeshaft "cafes," drinking tea.

?Hearing descriptions of how the sea suddenly "disappeared", exposing hundreds of meters of beach. Since most people living along the coast make their livelihood through fishing, the sight of thousands of fish flapping around on the newly exposed beach was too tempting. Untold numbers grabbed their fishing nets and ran down there, hoping to capture the fish before the sea returned to "normal." It never did. Instead, a wall of water?described by eyewitnesses as being "as high as the tallest palm tree"?rushed in from the sea and swept homes, cars and people inland.

On one of my few opportunities to connect, I read that the Dean community has already managed to crash one humanitarian organization's server in its efforts to make an online contribution. As one who sees the results of those efforts, I just want to tell you that you are making a difference, in ways large and small.

Take care, and may you always go forth and do good.

?Tim Connolly
World Food Programme
Meulaboh, Indonesia

Iraqi Dispatch

    High Anxiety

Link to web log, followed by full entry:

http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000188.php#more

Despite a continuing increase in the already draconian security measures
imposed across Iraq, the bombs keep coming.

Today in the al-Dora district of Baghdad a primary school which had been
a designated polling station was struck by a car bomb. Four Iraqi Police
(IP) were killed.

A GMC packed with explosives rammed a checkpoint at the al-Dora power
plant, killing several people, and as far south as Basra a policeman
died when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb.

With Baquba experiencing its daily car bombing, at least 18 Iraqis have
been killed in attacks on polling stations in the last 24 hours alone.

While IP?s have been given pay raises for this weekend, they remain
extremely tense and edgy, and not without due cause.

We are driving around Baghdad today attempting to take photos and
conduct interviews, and the streets are nearly completely empty
.

An oddity in Baghdad, where traffic jams often find people waiting for
hours in places to creep their way through clogged streets. Over 90
streets in the capital city are barricaded
,
further increasing the horrendous congestion on ?normal? days.

I take a photo as we drive past an IP praying behind a barricade

which blocks an empty street. Almost immediately afterwards we hear
yelling and I look back to see an IP aim his Kalshinkov over our car and
hear the pop as he squeezes off a shot.

?They weren?t even guarding anything. What was that all about,? I ask
Abu Talat who takes us down some side roads in case they decided to
follow us.

?They are in terror of what is to come,? replies Abu Talat, ?So many of
us are afraid of what is to come now.?

We drive past the recently bombed SCIRI headquarters

across the street from Baghdad University, then our circuitous route
takes us past an area where men are lining the streets handing out
bundles of posters and other election propaganda for the Royal
Constitution Party, in hopes of luring some votes.

I?m on a mission to photograph the barricades that are springing up
across the capital city, and one of Abu Talat?s sons, Ahmed, is along
with us doing some filming as well. Just after filming more of the
abundance of concrete blocks and razor wire we are pulled over by an
unmarked car of three IP?s.

They take Abu Talat and Ahmed?s ID?s, the registration papers for the
car and tell us to follow them.

I?d been detained by mujahideen in Fallujah last May while conducting
interviews inside the city, and Abu Talat and I were piled into a GMC
with armed Iraqi National Guard (in Fallujah they were all muj), and
taken in for questioning.

So this didn?t feel like a kidnapping, since we had our car sans
personal armed escorts. Nevertheless, it?s safe to say I was a bit
concerned.

?Should I escape? I could try to get a taxi,? I say to Abu Talat. ?No.
We?re fine. They will just verify we are press. Besides, you are
American. You are the only thing keeping them from throwing me in jail.?

From the back seat Ahmed says, ?Me too!?

They pull over at a marked police vehicle and everything is sorted out.
?I apologize, we just have to make sure you are press,? says one of the
policemen.

Before leaving them Abu Talat felt like having some fun and asked the
policeman, ?Why didn?t you take the American?s papers??

?The Americans will fuck my mother if I do,? he replied. They both burst
into laughter.

Later in another area of the city we are on a sidewalk and see a large
ca

Fallujah is Fine

Just a small part of Dahr Jamail's Iraqi Dispatch

http://dahrjamailiraq.com

A contact of mine just returned from spending a week in Fallujah. We
shared some of the food brought from my friend in Baquba.

?I?d been in Fallujah for a week and all I?d seen was tough military
tactics,? he tells me, ?They are arresting people and putting them in
these trucks, blindfolded and tied up. Everywhere I looked all I saw was
utter devastation.?

He spoke with many families who told him one horror story after another,
death after death after death.

?Then today, the military brings in a dozen Humvees and ground troops to
basically seal off a small area near a market,? he continues, ?In the
middle of them is a CNN camera crew filming troops throwing candy to
kids and these guys in orange vests start cleaning the streets around them.?

He laughs while holding up his arms and says, ?I?d never seen those guys
anywhere in the city before. I don?t know where they came from.?

After a pause to take a drink of soda he adds, ?I?d never seen any boots
on the ground at all, and all of the sudden there are all these marines
standing around like everything was ok. It was the first time I?d seen
any soldier not in a Humvee or a Bradley. I was really surprised.?

?All of it was 100% staged. Good PR before the election,? he says. Then
in a reference to mainstream America he adds, ?Fallujah is fine, now go
back to sleep.?

The End and the Beginning

The End and the Beginning
by Wislawa Szymborska

After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won't
straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble
to the side of the road,
so the corpse-filled wagons
can pass.

Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag in a girder
to prop up a wall,
Someone has to glaze a window,
rehang a door.

Photogenic it's not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.

We'll need the bridges back,
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand,
still recalls the way it was.
Someone else listens
and nods with unsevered head.
But already there are those nearby
starting to mill about
who will find it dull.

From out of the bushes
sometimes someone still unearths
rusted-out arguments
and carries them to the garbage pile.

Those who knew
what was going on here
must make way for
those who know little.
And less than little.
And finally as little as nothing.

In the grass that has overgrown
causes and effects,
someone must be stretched out
blade of grass in his mouth
gazing at the clouds.

from Miracle Fair: Selected Poems of Wislawa Szymborska, 2001

The people who refer to themselves as neo-cons are committed to the principle of"creative destruction" which assumes that simply destroying the old will cause new things to be created spontaneously. At the same time, they are directed by the belief that individual success is achieved when all competitors are vanquished. That is, success is the result of a destructive process.

In my experience, the concept of "creative destruction" was first introduced into what became the urban renewal movement and, as we know now, effectively destroyed our cities, if not permanently, for a good long time.

Somehow these people seem ignorant of the fact that civilized behavior has its base in the cities men build up. Or maybe they are just basically anti-social and that explains why the cities of mesopotamia are being leveled.

The urban renewal here at home, contrary to what people were led to expect, never was intended to build anything. Rather, the dollars allocated by the federal government was for the "taking" or acquisition of targeted properties (cheaply), the relocation of the population, the demolition of the structures and infra-structure, and the preparation of redevelopment plans, based on market analyses by a bunch of theoretical urban planners and economists (consultants), which the private sector was supposed to follow to build something new.

Of course, once the communities caught on that they had to insist that the displaced populations would have to be served by the reconstruction, the interest of the private sector evaporated. Which is why our inner cities abound in vacant lots and some paved parking which nobody has any particular use for. The only enterprises that sprang up "spontaneously" were used car lots, catering to the displaced populations whose traditional reliance on public transit systems could not be honored, when the densities of their communities were decreased, making public transit no longer cost-effective.

I don't know why I assumed the creative destructionists had disappeared. Maybe because what they proposed had proved to be so wrong. But, now that I've remembered and I know where they are at, I know what to do about them. Having met them before, I know they can be defeated.

I expect that the impetus for their theory lies in the experience of Germany and Japan which, having been destroyed in World War II, seem to have arisen from the ashes better than they were before. But, what they overlooked was that the populations of those countries were not destroyed, though many individuals were, and the skills base was not dispersed, though some individuals were.

It's actually the dispersal and relocation of the community whose structures are destroyed that's so devastating to civilization.

Which is why we need to get out of Iraq as soon as possible and let them rebuild it on their own. Pay them reparations for the wanton destruction and then go away.
It strikes me as a bit peculiar that in an age of instant communication and increasingly rapid transportation, the United States is looking to set up military bases overseas. This whole base-closure business state-side has been dubious. While some of the abandoned real estate has been put to commercial use, what I suspect is that a significant part of the motivation was based on the recognition that they had created an environmental mess and found it desirable to go somewhere else instead of cleaning it up.

What's happening in Iraq is not accidental. Urban renewal, which we are now seeing on a grand scale in Iraq, was always a subsidy program for real estate speculators and developers. The World Trade Center was perhaps the biggest boondoggel. Who knows how many residents and established businesses were displaced so the land could be acquired cheaply? Even the traffic patterns in that part of the city had to be changed. And for what? For the construction of millions of feet of office and commercial space that wasn't needed when it was built and wasn't needed when the towers fell down. And, no matter how much free publicity these structures got by being featured in almost every movie and TV show shot in the city, they never were profitable either. In fact, the whole project was nearly bankrupt when the towers were levelled. Not to mention that there's now a question whether, like so many other projects that actually got off the ground, the specs for these buildings weren't actually followed, leaving them vulnerable to collapse.

As a former resident of the Bronx, I will freely admit that I have always resented the resources wasted on those buildings while so many neighborhoods around the city, but particularly in the Bronx were slowly and methodically destroyed. When the destruction was finally complete and it looked just like Germany at the end of the war, I could only say that it would have been kinder to just bomb the place to smitherenes and let the residents rebuild it.

But, there never was any intent to renew the city for the indigenous residents who had migrated in and replaced the European immigrants who originally built it. No, the idea all along was to get them out, to prepare the ground for whatever new would sprout. Just as now, the idea is to provide an "opportunity" for the construction and energy industries to make a killing in Iraq and, not coincidentally, get rid of the "radical" Islamists who might just get it into their heads to take revenge for the destruction of their country.

It's an old pattern. It may make a few people rich. But, in the long run, America will be poorer for this project of the new American century, just as our cities are poorer for the destruction of their centers.

Repost

For the record, The washington Times published the following letter I sent them back in May, 2004. Subsequent to that, Senator Kerry did announce his intention to bring the troops out of Iraq in a matter of months. That this proposal was not acceptable to the neo-cons goes without saying. But it may well be the basis for Bush's assertion that the issue of America staying in Iraq was "mentioned" during the campaign and that his "election" settled the question. Now it seems that the Washington Times has an interest in seeing some strong opposition to the administration. Rev. Moon cannot be enthusiastic about a permanent U.S. military presence in the Indian Ocean region.

N.B. http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20050123-100614-1880r.htm

January 29, 2005

In the Washington Times, May 2004

Moving America's armies
While Sen. John Kerry's call for a U.N. and NATO presence in Iraq may appear reasonable to some ("Kerry wants NATO role in Iraq as a 'last chance to get it right,' " Page 1, May 1), it continues to ignore the elephant in the room, which is the long-term strategy of repositioning American military assets that are no longer welcome in Saudi Arabia or needed in Western Europe to establish a broader Middle East presence.
It would seem that the thinking behind Mr. Kerry's proposal is that if the Americans aren't welcome in their own name, perhaps they'll be accepted under the aegis of NATO or the United Nations. But that ignores the fact that the American people haven't decided that they want their military assets distributed around the globe, that they want bases closed at home so they can be reconstructed in Iraq.
I know I don't. If American principles and business practices are not welcome in their own right, I don't want them supported by our military might.
Given the gravity of this situation, it almost seems that the issues of universal medical care, education and support for our elderly population are, like religion, homophobia and the war on terror, merely distractions from what ought to be front and center in the campaign for the presidential election.
Mr. Kerry needs to be asked: "What are your plans for the long-term positioning of our military assets? Will we bring them home or keep them dispersed around the globe to generate antagonism and resentment?"

MONICA SMITH
Durham, N.H.

Posted by Hannah at May 9, 2004 05:41 AM

Questions of Authority

Questions of Authority
by mataliandy

Sat Jan 22nd, 2005 at 20:14:00 PST

Each day, a shimmering lure is dangled before us, enticing and dangerous. It usually comes cloaked in a special code word, like "reform," and promises great rewards. But there's always a catch. We are asked for a favor in return.

On Social Security, we are asked to walk away from a guaranteed retirement system that grants independence to our parents. We are asked to cast future generations adrift, leaving them to the cold mercies of heartless market tides.

On education, we are asked to look the other way as our schools fade from bright communities of learning and creativity into bland and dreary testing factories, designed to make themselves look good at the expense of our children.

On poverty, we are asked to ignore the exodus of jobs, as if every last penny of corporate profit is more important than food in a child's stomach. We are asked to cast aside those who have fallen on hard times, as if lending a hand to a neighbor contaminates us both.

On health care, we are asked to desert the sick, as if they are unworthy of wellness. We are asked to cover our ears, shutting out the stories of loss and pain and grief, as if sharing the burden would diminish us.

On freedom, we are asked to toss aside the lessons of history and carve up the bill of rights, leaving nothing more than a flimsy lacework of meaningless words. We are asked to trade the Founding Fathers' enduring legacy for a mirage that could be mistaken for safety.

On justice, we are asked to abandon our friends, our family and our neighbors to the cold accounting of corporate lawyers, as they seek to profit from products they know are dangerous ... or deadly. In torture chambers and newly-constructed gulags, we are asked to forsake the innocent, sacrificing them on the alter of security, as if the shedding of their blood could magically vanquish the guilty.

On war, we are asked to close our eyes to destruction and lies. We are asked to cower in the face of evil, like frightened children at the hand of a tyrant. We are asked to step aside and be silent as the juggernaut of death unleashes its unholy terror on countless helpless innocents.

We are each asked to stand alone, to withdraw our personal strings from the fabric of the Great Society and prepare the loom for the Raw Deal.

In all these ways, we are asked to walk out on our commitment to each other, so that those who need the least can gain the most.

But That is not Who We Are

We are the citizens of the United States of America.

We know better than to look away.

We have the strength to challenge those who would ask us to sacrifice our principles for personal gain.

We have the power to defy those who would ask us to give up our freedom, those who would ask us to smother our bravery beneath the dark shadows of fear.

We know right from wrong, and more importantly, we know how to stand up for what's right. The time has come to stand together, arm in arm, and fight for what we believe.

Bottles and Cans

We need a national deposit law

January 23, 2005

REGARDING THE Jan. 17 editorial "10 Cents' Worth":

Sixty years ago, when I walked to grade school along a well-traveled highway, I picked up discarded beer and softdrink bottles and turned them in for the two-cent deposit. In those days when a Hershey bar or a Coke cost a nickle, stooping down for just five bottles would pay for a double treat.

The other day, walking along the scenic road on which I live, I found a smashed jar and the spray of its contents along the frozen roadside slush: about $10 in small change. Because it was bitterly cold, I picked up only the bigger pieces of glass and all of the nickles, dimes, and quarters I could find. The next warm day, I'll stoop down for the rest.

The Globe's Jan. 17 editorial calling for a nickle increase in the Massachusetts deposit on bottles and cans strikes me as unrealistic in a time when litterbugs are literally throwing money away, and when many Bay Staters buy their beverages in my state, which does not have a deposit law.

We need a national deposit law on all beverage containers, and the deposit should be at least two bits -- enough to pay for the "stoop" labor of poor kids and thrifty senior citizens.

JULIAN SMITH
Durham, N.H.

Self-restraint

Though it is very likely that a lot of people are suffering from depression, I actually feel good. Because I know what I/we have to do.

It isn't going to be enough to get rid or isolate the boy king at the top of the heap. We are going to have to address the reality that we are a spoiled brat nation and it's going to take a lot of work to turn it around.

Even the destructive behavior of our business leaders, which is the causing the anger in the rest of the world, is just a symptom of our inability to control ourselves and our impulses.

Jimmy Carter identified a national malaise (meaning "ill at ease") in the country almost a quarter century ago and the country got rid of him because it didn't want to face that he was right. And it certainly didn't want to be led by a man who "lusted in (his) heart" and didn't do anything about it. It didn't want to be led by a man who practiced self-restraint and expected his country to do so as well.

What America preferred then and what it got was a bunch of leaders who smiled and said, if you want to be a bully, go ahead and, by the way, we'll even show the way. And as a result we've had a quarter century during which the country has gotten ever more self-indulgent and ever more fearful that at some point in time the rest of the world is going to say "enough is enough."

Well, if we are going to avoid that eventuality, then we are going to have to say it ourselves. Enough is enough. Now it's time to grow up, do away with the toys of childhood and practice some self-restraint.

And the first place we can do that is by restraining the impulses of the boy king. I have felt for a long time that it was wrong to heed the injunction that international relations ought not to be discussed in public, especially not in the venues of a campaign for president. It was wrong. Because that's the one area where the executive has almost unfettered power and, besides, the results of this forbearancehave been disasterous, ever since the world's bully became too strong for other nations to challenge. Moreover, in a shrinking world, our relations with the rest of the globe are more important than anything else.

The other thing that I've thought was wrong was this notion that the executive is entitled to choose his henchmen with narry an objection. That might we appropriate if the people who are willing to serve the public and support our Constitution are beyond reproach and their behavior makes them entirely trustworthy. That isn't the case now and hasn't been for some time. We have seen too many examples of people who do not tell the truth being put into positions of power. No more should that go unchecked.

In the case of Rice and Gonzales there's no question that they are unfit. Those who dissemble and promote torture are not morally fit to assume any office outlined in our Constitution.

So, that's a start.

"OI"s

What do we call people who consider other's distress an opportunity for success?

Other organisms, abounding in nature, we refer to as "OI"s when they attack us.

WHAT ARE OPPORTUNISTIC INFECTIONS?
In our bodies, we carry many germs - bacteria, protozoa, fungi, and viruses. When our immune system is working, it controls these germs. But when the immune system is weakened by HIV disease or by some medications, these germs can get out of control and cause health problems.

Infections that take advantage of weakness in the immune defenses are called "opportunistic". The phrase "opportunistic infection" is often shortened to "OI"

* * * *

The most common OIs are listed here, along with the disease they usually cause, and the T-cell count when the disease becomes active:
Candidiasis (Thrush) is a fungal infection of the mouth, throat, or vagina. T-cell range: can occur even with fairly high T-cells.
Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a viral infection that causes eye disease that can lead to blindness.T-cell range: under 50.
Herpes simplex viruses can cause oral herpes (cold sores) or genital herpes. These are fairly common infections, but if you have HIV, the outbreaks can be much more frequent and more severe. They can occur at any T-cell count.
Malaria is common in the developing world. It is more common and more severe in people with HIV infection.
Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC or MAI) is a bacterial infection that can cause recurring fevers, general sick feelings, problems with digestion, and serious weight loss. T-cell range: under 75.
Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) is a fungal infection that can cause a fatal pneumonia. T-cell range: under 200.
Toxoplasmosis (Toxo) is a protozoal infection of the brain. T-cell range: under 100.
Tuberculosis (TB) is a bacterial infection that attacks the lungs, and can cause meningitis. T-cell range: Everyone with HIV who tests positive for exposure to TB should be treated.

Cold Effects

It was very cold here this morning. So cold that even just a few minutes out to walk the dog resulted in a sever shrinkage of a necessary appendage which even fifteen minutes later hadn't expanded enough to enable the proper direction of its flow. I think the offending number was -19 degrees.
One wonders how the Arctic natives manage at such temperatures.

Destroy to Win

When we refer to the right wing, we assume that we are discussing people who want to make a profit and who prefer to do it in a traditional monopolistic way.
That's not what we are confronting now. If what's guiding business now has any tradition, it only goes back a couple of decades to the "discovery" of "creative destruction," an economic theory that looks at the world, sees that there is a certain amount of destruction involved in the process of creation and concludes that creation can be maximized by helping destruction along.
In other words, these people think that failure is a good thing and, if it doesn't happen on its own, the best thing is to promote it. Businesses are meant to fail so that others, like vultures, can benefit from the destruction the predators have wrought.
This attraction to failure is what puts them on a collision course with government, which is specifically designed not to fail. In other words, government functions need to be privatized so they can be made to fail and the vultures (speculators in the market) can pick up the pieces cheap. Every failure is an opportunity for someone else. Just like the tsunami in the Indian Ocean was an opportunity for the United States military and the hurricanes in South Florida were an opportunity for the construction and insurance industries and the increasing rate of cancer is an opportunity for the medical services industry.
If you look at it from this point of view, it's apparent that the destruction of Iraq's infrastructure was part of the plan--a planned opportunity for the corporations that specialize in rebuilding things. Indeed, the whole enterprise is not very different from the process we knew in the seventies and eighties as urban renewal. Then too, large segments of the inner cities were destroyed on the promise that they would be rebuilt better than new. That the communities destroyed in the process would never come back was not even considered. Except after the fact; when their desertion of an untenable situation was blamed for the failure of the urban centers to rise from the ashes like a phoenix. Indeed, the promise that democracy would flower in Iraq just as soon as Saddam's infrastructure was destroyed seems an exact replica of the process, were it not for the use of tanks and gunships and tons of munitions.

Conyers Gets It

Election 2004

Open Letter to Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro from Representative John Conyers, Jr.
by Representative John Conyers, Jr.
January 20, 2005

January 20, 2005

The Hon. Jim Petro
Attorney General
State of Ohio
State Office Tower
30 E. Broad St, 17th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215

Dear Attorney General Petro:

I write to express my concern regarding your recent request to sanction those attorneys who brought a legal challenge to last year's presidential election in Ohio. In particular, I am concerned that by seeking official censure and fines, you are engaged in a selective and partisan misuse of your legal authority. As eager as many disgruntled voters are to have a court of law finally assess the merits of the challenge actions, I have serious doubts about the validity of the sanctions case your office is pursuing.

As an initial matter, one would be hard pressed to see how the legal challenges brought under the Ohio election challenge statute were "frivolous." First off, it is widely known that the Ohio presidential election was literally riddled with irregularities and improprieties, many of which are set forth in the 102 page report issued by the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff. http://www.house.gov As a matter of fact, the problems were so great that Congress was forced to debate the first challenge to an entire state's slate of electors since the federal Electoral Count law was enacted in 1877. In short, there is more than an abundant record raising serious, substantive questions about the Ohio presidential election.

It is also noteworthy that the Ohio Secretary of State intentionally delayed certifying the vote, thereby insuring that the recount could not be completed by the date the electoral college met on December 13. The Ohio Secretary State also refused to respond to numerous questions regarding the irregularities submitted to him by several members of the House Judiciary Committee, has refused to respond to a single concern set forth in the Judiciary Report, and also sought a protective order to avoid any discovery related to the legal challenges. In short, Ohio election officials have compounded public doubt concerning the election by refusing to provide any sort of accountability and acting in almost every respect as if they have "something to hide."

Given this context, and to help assure the public that you are not selectively pursuing sanctions in these cases for partisan reasons, I would respectfully request that you provide the House Judiciary Committee and the public with an itemization of all sanctions cases brought and considered by your office since January, 2003. In addition, I would ask that you provide to us and make public an itemization of cases you have considered and pursued under Ohio's campaign and election laws since January 2003. Finally, I would like to receive a an estimate of the costs you would expect to expend of Ohio taxpayer funds to pursue the sanction case you are seeking against Mr. Fitrakis, Susan Truitt, Cliff Arnebeck, and Peter Peckowsky.

If you believe the election challenge case should not have been brought, I would suggest the more appropriate course of actions may be revisiting the law with the Ohio legislature, rather than pursuing far-fetched sanction cases which on their face would appear to be overtly partisan in nature.

I would appreciate it if you would respond to me though my Judiciary Committee staff, Perry Apelbaum and Ted Kalo, 2142 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20515 (tel. 202-225-6504, fax 202-225-4423) by no later than January 27. Thank you.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr.
Ranking Member
House Judiciary Committee

cc: Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr.
Chairman, House Committee on the Judiciary

Supreme Court, State of Ohio

Ohio Bar Association

Freedom and Opportunity

Come into my web

Said the spider

Your loss of freedom

Is my opportunity to eat

Freedom and opportunity. The next time you hear those words out of the mouths of our "leaders" try to remember what they actually mean. The freedom that's being promised, to Americans and Iraqis, is not the freedom to speak, to live or even to come and go as they please. No, what is being promoted is the freedom to fail. One man's failure, you see, is another's opportunity to succeed.

There was some consternation when the nominee for Secretary of State described the tsunami wave in the Indian Ocean as an "opportunity" for the United States. But, for once, she was actually speaking the truth. Senator Biden said, as he prepared to vote for her promotion, that he hoped she's not a neo-con. She's not. At least not, in the sense that most of us seem to assume that today's neo-cons are merely new conservatives, younger and more hip than the old conservatives like Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.

In fact, neo-cons aren't into conservation, tradition or any of the values Americans of an earlier generation hold dear. The designation, which the adherents quite gladly apply to themselves, is more like that "clear skies" initiative, intended to obscure their actual intent. Because, just as the "clear skies" legislation proposes to release more polutants into the air, the neo-conservatives are actually out to destroy, rather than preserve, whatever area of the globe comes into their perview.

The notion that people are bent on destruction may seem far-fetched, but it's actually been around for decades as the principle of "creative destruction," whose major premise is that, since destruction is the antecedent to most creation, an intentional act of destruction is bound to hasten the arrival of a new and better reality almost automatically.

Which explains, for example, the destructive incursion into Iraq and the promise, not yet realized, that a new order, euphemistically referred to as democracy (because that's a word Americans like to hear), would rise from the ashes almost over-night. Since that hasn't happened, it seems logical to conclude that not enough of the Middle East has yet been destroyed. So, an incursion into Iran is planned.

Of course, if the plan and rationale were laid out so bluntly, nobody would buy into it. The proponents of creative destruction learned to mask their agenda in more appropriate language during their first large scale efforts to remake the world in their own image, more popularly known as the urban renewal programs of the late 70's and early 80's. But that's about the only thing they learned from the destruction of the inner cities from which many parts of our own country are still reeling. Regardless of the evidence, the ideology persists, perhaps because it is so firmly anchored in the "scientific" method advanced by economists.

Indeed, "creative destruction" is an economic theory. It arises out of the perception of a natural process of decay and renewal, as I pointed out above, and follows the tried and true practice of this particular science that, if the results don't fit the predictive models the practitioners have developed, reality has to be tweaked via legislation and other (financial and political) manipulations.

That there are some major disconnects between economic theory and the reality it purports to describe and that these disconnects very likely account for the inability to come forward with valid predictions tends not to be addressed. To cite just one example, consider the rather well-known cost/benefit analysis which is supposed to aid in making good business decisions. On it's face, it makes sense. Where it goes wrong in practice is that, more often than not, the costs are borne by one entity, while the benefits acrue to someone else, making the analysis essentially worthless and resulting in enterprise that is almost certain to fail.

But, of course, that's what creative destruction calls for. Failure is good in the sense that, whether it's a factory or a family farm or even a whole country, it's breakup is an opportunity for someone else to pick up the pieces on the cheap. In nature, the creatures who swoop in after the predators have had their fill are called vultures. Homo sapiens who specialize in such behavior are called speculators and entrepreneurs. Thus the language of economics pretties up some really ugly behaviors.

That they are actually sanctioned by our legal system is a shame. But, even more important is the likelihood that this commitment to failure will actually result in the collapse of our nation from instabilities we have created ourselves.

Nanny-at-State

View image

Hearing the esteemed Senators, steeped in foreign relations expertise, gently advise the nominee for the position of Secretary of State, makes it pretty clear they intend to provide our nanny-in-chief with a nanny at state and rely, with fingers crossed, on the 'special relationship" they enjoy to change the disasterous direction into which the nation has been heading.

However, Rice's hecktoring responses to their courteous admonitions were no more reassuring than her rejection of Senator Boxer's pointed questions as "impugning her integrity." It was a response one might expect from an oriental geisha, not a councilor to the head of a modern state. And one is left wondering how long that phrase was practiced, since it was about as appropriately timed as the now infamous Clarence Thomas reference to a symbolic lynching.

If the world was listening, the message that the leaders of France and Germany and Egypt, for example, have all been invited to do their part in helping to bring recalcitrant states to heel, but have proved unwilling to follow U.S. directions, no matter how hard the president tries, merely demonstrates that he has been reduced to waving a very small stick--a stick, however, that has the potential of connecting with the nuclear button.

If the world is worried about anything, it's that nuclear option. Which no doubt accounts for the reluctance to move more aggressively to secure and reduce their own weapons stores. Since our real intent in this area can no longer be trusted, the argument that other nations should give up their nuclear weapons or weapons-grade uranium, while the U.S. is actively developing a new generation of atomic weapons to destroy whatever future enemies or allies might want to hide underground, is bound to worry even those countries that have no weapons to hide or to defend themselves against such an assault. Never mind that the bombing of Iraq has demonstrated for all to see that our much vaunted "precision targeting" is an ellusive goal, not unlike Saddam's cache of deadly weapons. Disarmament is not likely to be a particularly attractive notion at the moment.

But, perhaps the most revealing statement to come out of the hearing was the characerization of the tsunami in Southeast Asia as an "opportunity" for the United States. That this characterization was left hanging in the air, without any effort to retract it, brings a whole new meaning to what this regime considers to be opportune.
After all, opportunity is the driving force in the domestic agenda, as well.

So, what does it mean? What do the tsunami, the bombardment of Iraq, the hurricanes in Florida, even the destruction of the towers in New York and the west wing of the Pentagon have in common? Natural or man-made, disaster and destruction are an opportunity. Regardless of how many people suffer and die in the process, destruction is good because it represents an opportunity to build something new.

While this perception is not suprising to anyone who's observed the developmental process in young children, the notion that the most weaponized nation on earth is being directed by people who have yet to pass out of the destructive stage is, to say the least. frightening. One can only hope that wiser, more experienced leaders will attend to their responsibilities with greater vigor and pray they can hold the destruction to a minimum. The nanny-at-state is going to need a lot of help.

Washing away the evidence?

This picture was taken by Chris Hondros. Copies of the 24 images in the sequence can be purchased here:
http://editorial.gettyimages.com/source/search/FrameSet.aspx?s=EventImagesSearchState|1|0|15|0|0|1|0|0|0|52007332|0|0|0|0|0||0|0|0|0&p=1

 January 18, 2005

Odd Happenings in Fallujah

"The soldiers are doing strange things in Fallujah," said one of my
contacts in Fallujah who just returned. He was in his city checking on
his home and just returned to Baghdad this evening.

Speaking on condition of anonymity he continued, ?In the center of the
Julan Quarter they are removing entire homes which have been bombed,
meanwhile most of the homes that were bombed are left as they were. Why
are they doing this??

According to him, this was also done in the Nazal, Mualmeen, Jubail and
Shuhada'a districts, and the military began to do this after Eid, which
was after November 20th.

He told me he has watched the military use bulldozers to push the soil
into piles and load it onto trucks to carry away. This was done in the
Julan and Jimouriya quarters of the city, which is of course where the
heaviest fighting occurred during the siege, as this was where
resistance was the fiercest.

"At least two kilometers of soil were removed," he explained, "Exactly
as they did at Baghdad Airport after the heavy battles there during the
invasion and the Americans used their special weapons."

He explained that in certain areas where the military used 'special
munitions' 200 square meters of soil was being removed from each blast site.

In addition, many of his friends have told him that the military brought
in water tanker trucks to power blast the streets, although he hadn't
seen this himself.

"They went around to every house and have shot the water tanks," he
continued, "As if they are trying to hide the evidence of chemical
weapons in the water, but they only did this in some areas, such as
Julan and in the souk (market) there as well."

He first saw this having been done after December 20th.

Again, this is reflective of stories I've been told by several refugees
from Fallujah.

Just last December, a 35 year-old merchant from Fallujah, Abu Hammad,
told me what he'd experienced when he was still in the city during the
siege.

"The American warplanes came continuously through the night and bombed
everywhere in Fallujah! It did not stop even for a moment! If the
American forces did not find a target to bomb, they used sound bombs
just to terrorize the people and children. The city stayed in fear; I
cannot give a picture of how panicked everyone was."

"In the mornings I found Fallujah empty, as if nobody lives in it," he'd
said, "Even poisonous gases have been used in Fallujah-they used
everything-tanks, artillery, infantry, poison gas. Fallujah has been
bombed to the ground. Nothing is left."

In Amiriyat al-Fallujah, a small city just outside Fallujah where many
doctors from Fallujah have been practicing since they were unable to do
so at Fallujah General Hospital, similar stories are being told.

Last month one refugee who had just arrived at the hospital in the small
city explained that he'd watched the military bring in water tanker
trucks to power blast some of the streets in Fallujah.

"Why are they doing this," explained Ahmed (name changed for his
protection), "To beautify Fallujah? No! They are covering their tracks
from the horrible weapons they used in my city."

Also last November, another Fallujah refugee from the Julan area, Abu
Sabah told me, "They (US military) used these weird bombs that put up
smoke like a mushroom cloud. Then small pieces feel from the air with
long tails of smoke behind them."

He explained that pieces of these bombs exploded into large fires that
burnt peoples skin even when water was dumped on their bodies, which is
the effect of phosphorous weapons, as well as napalm. "People suffered
so much from these, both civilians and fighters alike," he said.

My friend Suthir (name changed to protect identity) was a member of one
of the Iraqi Red Crescent relief convoys that was allowed into Fallujah
at the end of November.

"I'm sure the Americans committed bad things there, but who can discover
and say this," she said when speaking of what she saw of the devastated
city, "They didn't allow us to go to the Julan area or any of the others
where there was heavy fighting, and I'm sure that is where the horrible
things took place."

"The Americans didn't let us in the places where everyone said there was
napalm used," she added, "Julan and those places where the heaviest
fighting was, nobody is allowed to go there."

On 30 November the US military prevented an aid convoy from reaching
Fallujah. This aid convoy was sent by the Iraqi Ministry of Health, but
was told by soldiers at a checkpoint to return in "8 or 9 days,"
reported AP.

Dr. Ibrahim al-Kubaisi who was with the relief team told reporters at
that time, "There is a terrible crime going in Fallujah and they do not
want anybody to know."

With the military maintaining strict control over who enters Fallujah,
the truth of what weapons were used remains difficult to find.

Meanwhile, people who lived in different districts of Fallujah continue
to tell the same stories.

(c)2004 Dahr Jamail.
All images and text are protected by United States and international copyright law. If you would like to reprint Dahr's Dispatches on the web, you need to include this copyright notice and a prominent link to the DahrJamailIraq.com website. Any other use of images and text including, but not limited to, reproduction, use on another website, copying and printing requires the permission of Dahr Jamail. Of course, feel free to forward Dahr's dispatches via email.

Bush's Little Stick

George W. Bush carries a little stick. He uses it to poke and prod, like a chimp trying to see which termite mound or hornets' nest he can stir up next. When he raises an alarm and makes the population swarm, that's how he likes it.

Whether it's old folk or homosexuals, their agitation makes them an easy target-- to be picked off for his dilection and the satisfaction of his minions.

The Iraqi people obviously know the score. If they're going to be consumed, they're going to inflict a little damage and take some of the invaders with them.

Which raises the question of how much longer Americans are going to put up with being threatened. Isn't it past time for a stinging response to the man with a big swagger and a little stick?

Or are we going to wait until the stick connects with the nuclear button?

The Bush administration is sending death squads into Iraq and special forces into Iran to "prepare the battlefield." Why are they so brazen, stirring up conflicts without reason? Because the same people got away with the same behavior twenty years and more ago. The failure to dismiss them then is what emboldens them.

Whether the neo cons are the heirs of the proponents of "creative destruction," I don't know. Certainly their behavior indicates that they consider destruction to be a good thing--an opportunity to pick up the pieces cheap.

The proponents of this strategy aren't fighting evil, as they claim. They are willing to destroy something good in order to get something better, for themselves--the ability to rule the world.

When George the First proposed the "New World Order," I naively thought he meant that from now on the things people wanted would be bought, instead of stolen. I was wrong. What he meant was that the New World, not old Europe, would order the rest of the world around.

What hubris, to think that five billion people would allow themselves to be bullied by a handful of neo cons. Now that Americans have been fooled twice, how are we going to respond?

Predators Everywhere

Predatory Pricing. Predatory Lending. Predators in the board rooms of America. What are we to make of that?

First, let's consider what a predator is. In the natural world there are basically four strategies by which organisms sustain themselves. Perhaps the most primitive are those that survive by consuming and processing raw chemicals. What we call iron bacteria, as well as those that produce sulphur, along with the lichen that thrive on rock and the constituents of the air, are good examples of organisms that bridge the gap between animate and inanimate existence.

Another category of organisms depends on other living things for their support, but neither changes nor harms them in any way. Nor is their behavior reciprocal. That is, what we call the host is neither better nor worse off as a result. Spanish moss is a good example. It perches on the branches of trees and bushes to get full exposure to sunlight and air, but takes no sustenance from them.

Parasites, on the other hand, typically cause severe injury, if not death, and, though not always, a prolonged period of suffering. The suffering isn't intended; it's just a natural consequence of the reality that the parasite's own survival would be threatened if the victim died too soon. This is not, however, a problem for those organisms that have evolved to exploit the next level of complexity on the scale of resource acquisition--predation.

The predator, being mobile and able to move around on its own, can afford to destroy its victim on the spot, consume as much as it requires, and then move on to another venue, leaving the remains for other organisms to scavenge. Which, in the grand scheme of things, makes the predator a useful addition to the repertoir of how organisms sustain themselves.

Predation is destructive and the life of the predator tends to be brutish and short. Which is why, even when they are not hunted by humans, the numbers of the largest predatory species are comparatively small. Much of the energy a predator spends in the pursuit of its prey is actually wasted. Because only a small portion is usually able to be consumed at one sitting, even when she's sharing with her young.

Indeed, the survival of large predators depends on their ability to share, to engage in reciprocal behavior, at least with the members of the biologically related group. And, while such sharing behavior, an elaboration of symbiotic relationships, also occurs in such diverse organisms as bees and bats, it seems to have reached its ultimate expression in the exchange and trade of goods and services by homo sapiens.

As the human brain has evolved to acquire the mental ability to recollect and anticipate behavior, the exchange of goods and services as a voluntary transaction has become a conscious act. In other words, the market in which these voluntary transactions for mutual benefit occur can be said to be the consequence of the evolutionary increase in the capacity of the human brain and the elaboration of its faculties. Trade and exchange have replaced the predatory instinct.

So why are we still beset by human predators? Why, more specifically, is predatory behavior increasing among supposedly educated and fully socialized individuals? Since it's quite common for stressed populations to revert to more primitive strategies, a sort of catch-as-catch-can existence to sustain themselves is to be expected from individuals whose mental capacities may have been reduced because of poor nutrition, environmental toxins or even parasitic infestation. Lacking the mental capacity to anticipate their needs and share in the allocation of the resources they require to survive, such deprived populations have no alternative but to resort to the predatory mode.

That's obviously not what's driving predatory pricing strategies, predatory lending and the predatory acquisitions, consolidations and dismemberment that's become characteristic of corporate board rooms. Indeed, destruction not survival is the issue and, unlike the predatory model we observe in other species, homo sapiens almost uniquely preys on his own kind. It's almost as if, having become conscious of the forces that destroy, some humans feel compelled to destroy each other. For no other reason than that they can.

Perhaps it's nothing more than the serial killer syndrome amplified by the access to like-minded individuals whose accumulation of wealth makes it possible to orchestrate destruction on a grand scale. Are we to conclude that the epitomy of human evolution is the elaboration of predation into the art of destruction--i.e. what we commonly refer to as murder when it's perpetrated by lesser mortals who don't have access to the assets of the corporate world.

Meant to Fail

We have been told for several decades, and we have believed, that the purpose of consolidating industrial enterprise, both vertically and horizontally, was to generate better value and greater efficiency. Also, this process was to be a vehicle for injecting new capital into the most promising enterprise; again, to improve it.

The conclusion I am now reaching is that these representations were part of a giant charade. That the actual purpose of all of these acquisitions, consolidations, break-ups and eventual bankruptcies was simply to destroy the old and make it possible for someone to acquire the detritus cheaply, usually with other people's money.

The goal was not success; it was the widespread failure of our industrial sector, as a result of which a few players would reap the profit. And that goal has been achieved in spades. There is no evidence of an improved air transportation system. There is no evidence of an improved steel industry. There is no evidence of an improved medical services industry. There is not even any evidence of improved telephone service, an improved electronic entertainment sector, and no improvement in education either.

Some minor services are temporarily cheaper, but they are not better.

So, why should we not conclude that it was all a giant hoax? A hoax that has been perpetrated on the American people for the last thirty years.
You know, first they came for the industrial cities. Then they came for the newly industrialized south. And now they are coming for the agricultural mid-West. And people are still being told that "if you give us just a bit more money, your pensions this time, not your municipal revenues or your county health care facilities as before," we'll make you better off. Your old age will be secure and the lives of your children will be improved.

What evidence is there that they should be believed? It's still the same people telling the same lies.

Privatization is anti-social

Privatization is anti-social. While this may seem like a statement of the obvious, what it actually means in practice doesn't seem to have been much discussed.

We actually have a long history of privatization to judge its benefits, or decide if there are any. In just the last thirty years or so we've seen the privatization of the medical services industry, the air transport industry, public energy and water utilities and now we're supposed to embrace the privatization of the national pension system.

How have the other privatizations worked for us? Before you object that medical services were never social to begin with; that doctors were traditionally in private practice, let me make a couple of obervations. Many doctors, it's true had their own offices and some even had small clinics where they did x-rays and performed tests in a simple lab. But, much primary care was actually delivered by municipal, county and state health departments (immunizing all school children, for example) and most hospitals were run on a not-for-profit basis by political entities, such as counties, or a variety of religious institutions and charities. The acquisition of these facilities by the private sector was orchestrated during the late seventies and early eighties, usually through the mechanism of restricting public subsidies and the requisite tax revenues, so the operations appeared to be unsupportable by the tax base.

While the air transport industry was slightly different in that airlines owned their planes and relied on government for the assignment of routes and landing rights to guarantee sufficient revenue--sufficient to insure that they were able to comply with service and safety upgrades as required--privatization was accomplished by abolishing those service criteria and relying on the market to determine what level of service is most efficient and profitable.

The rationale for relying on the market to make these determinations was primarily related to the perception that government involvement is wasteful because governmental behavior is directed by one over-riding principle--avoiding failure. In other words, there was a belief, one that is widely shared and fundamental to an understanding of modern economics, that enterprise must confront the possibility of failure to force it to achieve excellence. Being able to avoid failure, it is argued, results in mediocre performance.

Now, that may well be true in theory, if the market were simply a mechanism for trading and exchanging goods and services most efficiently. But that's not what the market has become. What we have now is a market system in which the actors are actually predatory players whose interest lies in business failure. That's right, the function of the market is not to reward success. Rather, it's to artificially inflate business assets (by promoting consolidation, for example) in order to orchestrate a crash and enable the waiting scavangers to snap up the resulting pieces cheaply.

There's actually a philosophic basis for this behavior. In the late seventies and early eighties it was called "creative destruction." Probably as a result of the accurate observation that creation involves the destruction or transformation of one thing into something else (as water loses its fluidity, mobility and other characteristics when it is transformed into a solid block of ice), the proponents of creative destruction determined that destruction is a necessary prelude or component of creation. And that destruction is good.

Where they went wrong I think, as was evidenced by the process of urban renewal most starkly, was in concluding from their observations that all that was necessary to initiate creation was to destroy something, usually whatever didn't seem to have much value in somebody's else's eyes. For some people, probably well intentioned, the proof lay in the experience in Western Europe which was rebuilt from the ashes of World War II, renewed and much better than before. That the destruction of Europe was not perpetrated in the interest of creating a good, but simply to get rid of an evil, somehow didn't register. As a result, when many of the old industrial cities were gradually destroyed by systematically withdrawing municipal services, routine maintenance and other social supports, the creative destructionists kept expecting that like the phoenix, they too would rise from the ashes left behind by arsonists.
It took a long time for people to recognize that the creative idea has to come first.

In any event, a lot of people were hurt in the interim. And, while the cities on the coasts are gradually coming alive, the same mistaken assumptions seem to be destroying the middle of the country, the heartland, where agricultural consolidation into companies that rely on the international markets for their success, are falling into the grasp of the same predatory forces that have worked to destroy the garment industry, the steel industry, the medical services industry and the energy production industries, and are now anticipating the next crash, so they can pick up the pieces cheap.

If we don't recognize the pattern in the heartland, it's probably because the population is more dispersed and being thinned out as we speak. But the symptoms are the same as the industrial cities suffered, if we just take the time to recognize them. Most of the statistics relating to the health of a society are moving in the wrong direction in the heartland. Divorce, suicide, drug use (legal and illegal), elective terminations of pregnancy, incest and child abuse are all increasing and higher than they used to be.
People may still be living longer, especially if we take vehicle-related deaths and suicide out of the mix, but that they are not living better is beyond dispute. Even the high-tech health-care system is not up to providing a good life, though it may stay the early demise that decades of ingesting agricultural and industrial toxins tends to result in.

I am not suggesting that corporate agriculture is to blame. Rather the fault lies with our acceptance of the notion that business failure is not just inevitable, but desirable.
There's a new book coming out about Disney which demonstrates rather starkly a whole range of behaviors (not least of which is the hiring of competitors for outrageous sums to keep them from succeeding in their own enterprise) which aim to define success in terms of the last left standing by destroying the competition. The increasing rate of bankruptcy is not accidental. Businesses are intended to fail.

However, that public policy additionally rewards this behavior by relieving a failing enterprise of its social obligations--i.e paying taxes--is an unintended consequence, promoted by the mistaken belief that failure is an undesired and/or unfortunate condition. That businesses are intended to fail; that that's the mechanism by which they are brought to account, is rather startling. But, there it is.

Now, the question is: If private enterprise is destined to fail why would we want to entrust our health and the welfare of our elders to it? Doesn't it make sense to entrust these crucial functions to a system that is failure proof? Failure proof because we as a society determine that we just won't let it happen.

DC Report--January 6, 2005

Report on Washington DC, January 6, 2005

Friends,
This is the news report you did NOT see last night on CNN, FOX, NBC, CBS, or hear on NPR or read in the NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Columbus Dispatch, The Raleigh News and Observer or the Asheville Citizen-Times.

On Wednesday, January 5th I made a last minute decision to ride with three friends, Michael, Patty, and Sonnie, from the Asheville NC area to Washington DC to participate in a protest march the following day at the Capitol to coincide with the certification of the Electoral College vote by a joint session of Congress. I can't logically explain what compelled me in this direction except that there is a powerful inner force, similar in nature, I'm sure, to what made thousands drive to Devils Tower, Wyoming in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." I had to go.

We drove all night and arrived at Alexandria Virginia at about 7:30 in the morning where we parked Michael's truck, checked our backpacks into a motel room and had just enough time to eat a quick breakfast, create a few hand-held signs from poster board and permanent markers, then catch the metro into downtown for the first leg of protest at the FBI building. There was no sleep involved.

On the train people looked curiously at the signs we were carrying. Most were apparently unaware that history was being made on this day and appeared puzzled, perhaps annoyed, not that they were necessarily opposed to what we were doing, but that their perception of reality was being tweaked a little bit. Wasn't the election over? What's this about? The American public is clueless.

We entered the city from the Metro onto Pennsylvania Avenue where the grandstands had already been placed along the street for the anticipated inauguration on January 20. This struck me as rather presumptuous, given the fact that the Electoral College vote had not been certified yet, like building the gallows before the jury comes back with the verdict. At about 9 AM there was just a handful of people in front of the FBI building holding a large banner that read "FBI: INVESTIGATE THE ELECTION". This group mainly consisted of people from the New York City area. We joined them with our orange signs reading, "RECOUNT, RE-VOTE or REVOLT", "REJECT THE ELECTION FRAUD" and such. More people began to arrive. Morning traffic was light on Pennsylvania Avenue. There was some curiousity, but not much reaction. We were not discouraged. Toward 10 AM we began to migrate as a group of about 25-30 people toward Lafayette Park next to the White House, where a rally had been scheduled by the Greens, Libertarians and Progressive Democrats.

There we found about five hundred people of a most diversified nature milling around, setting up a speakers platform, handing out literature, preparing for events to follow. Police stood around the periphery of the park, unthreateningly, but there presence was noticeable. There were people from all over the country who travelled all night to be there (as if to Devil's Tower), people of color, well, we were all people of color. The crowd grew steadily as the migration continued from all directions. Speakers began to speak...inspiringly. Green Party candidate David Cobb, US Representative Maxine Waters, Hip-Hop poets-amazingly eloquent, coherent in-sync lyrics that captured the moment with uncanny accuracy and set the tone and rythm of the event, the profound series of events that were to take place in the next few hours. Then Jesse Jackson was introduced and spoke. It was Selma Alabama again. It was the march on Washington. The spirits of Goodman, Schwerner and Cheney, Medgar Evans, Martin Luther King were invoked and became part of us. And then Jackson announced that he had some very good news. Senator Barbara Boxer of California informed him that she as well as five other senators would stand with the members of the House in objecting to certification of the Ohio slate of Electors forcing the joint session of Congress to Constitutionally disband, for only the second time since 1867, to separately debate the legitamacy of a state's election process. The shameful and painful scene, in 2000, of Black Caucus members pleading for help from at least one senator to force debate over voter disenfranchisement would not be repeated. A huge cheer, a cry of joy reverberated through the streets of the nation's Capitol. Undoubtedly the occupants of the White House had to perk up their ears at that moment and wonder what was going on outside.

The spell had been broken. Bush would not ascend to his second term in office without at least some measure of irregularity questioning the legitimacy of the process. The emporer's new clothes would receive some public exposure, if only for a brief moment. But, that moment may become a reference point in history that will mark the beginning of the second American Revolution.

As Jesse Jackson ended his time at the podium, the crowd, now exceeding a thousand people, began to form into a moving mass of humanity as the march toward the capitol materialized. Led by Jackson, followed by a huge, fifteen-foot cardboard puppet hoisted into the air, accompanied by a corps of drummers and then the masses, we proceeded down Pennsylvania Avenue, without a permit. Police informed us that we had to remain on the sidewalk and not block traffic. But, the crowd could not be contained on the sidewalk and spilled out, blocking one lane of traffic entirely. The police seemed respectful and did not interfere as the steady, dramatic drumbeat became accompanied by the repetitive chant, "COUNT-ALL-THE VOTES, COUNT-ALL-THE VOTES, COUNT-ALL-THE VOTES, COUNT-ALL-THE VOTES, oh yes sir, COUNT-ALL-THE VOTES, I hear you, COUNT-ALL-THE VOTES, for the children, COUNT-ALL-THE VOTES, what's that now?, COUNT-ALL-THE VOTES," rocking the streets, reverberating through the city, a thousand voices and loud, perfect drums beats in perfect unison. Office building windows became lined with people looking to see what was happening down there on the street. Crowds began to accumulate on the street on the periphery of the march. Cars honked their horns in solidarity with the signs, banners, chanting and drumbeat. The chant changed to, "THIS-IS-WHAT DEMOCRACY-LOOKS LIKE", "THIS-IS-WHAT-DEMOCRACY-LOOKS LIKE", "THIS-IS-WHAT-DEMOCRACY-LOOKS LIKE". We were a thousand Hip-Hop artists marching. We were King and Goodman, Shwerner and Cheney and Medgar Evers in Hip-Hop, dancing and marching. Solemn yet joyous. Profound beyond the description of words. The sight and sounds brought enlightened smiles to the faces of those who witnessed it from their buildings and on the sidewalks, as if the welcome realization had reached them, "Ah, there still is hope. Democracy does still resides in the streets of America, after all. I had thought it had died." The march was a half-hour of perfect synchronicity. With each step of progress toward the Capitol Building it seemed as if we were turning the grey, lonely cityscape back into a place where the full spectrum of light and color once more resides. The thousands who witnessed the event understood, now, for the first time, that this election was being challenged. It was not business as usual. There is an organized effort to resist the illegal takeover of our government. It is growing.

As the march progressed and came to within a block of the Capitol building, we were met by mounted police who herded us around to the park on the northeast corner. We would remain there all day in a rally that lasted until about 5 PM. Here there were more speakers and some musical artists who performed. Also we were regularly informed of news reported from the proceedings in Congress. When it was reported that Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio officially submitted her written objection to the certification of the Ohio electors and was joined by Senator Boxer forcing a halt to the proceedings of the Joint Congressional session, a huge, amplified cheer arose. The Republican leadership was furious. Their perfect day of triumph had been spoiled by the "sore losers", as if the Presidential election were a college competition that requires good sportmanship once the victor manages to win by whatever means. World shaping issues are rendered irrelevant and subserviant to the etiquette of knowing how to lose when out-maneuvered. Not defeated in a fair election, but out-maneuvered. Thousands dead in Iraq, trillions of dollars of debt, "Clear Skies", "Healthy Forests", torture in prisons, flagrant continual violations of the Geneva Convention protocols, drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, reporters arrested for not revealing news sources, regressive tax reform. Sore losers. "Get over it," we are chastised by the self-righteous hoodlums in power. What is not realized is that the mainstream news media blackout of the election challenge movement is a double-edged sword. If they had been able to witness the spirit, depth and commitment of today's march and rally on the evening news, the Republican leadership would have known that we will never "get over it." But, we will overcome it, overwhelm it and take back our country through demonstration, marching, investigating, exposing, indicting, convicting, forcing resignation, and impeaching.

"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised...The Revolution Will Be Live", Gil Scott-Heron

By blacking out and over-controlling their own news media, the Republican leadership has cut itself off from the reality of what is happening out on the streets more than it has stemmed the growth of the election challenge movement. This movement has developed alternative means of communicating and organizing vast networks for spreading the word quickly and efficiently without the help of the mainstream media. These information networks are going to do nothing but grow and get better, rapidly. If your only source of information was the evening news and the morning newspaper, you wouldn't even have known that there was an historic protest march and rally in Washington on Thursday, January 6, 2005. But, you do know. The Second American Revolution may not be televised, but that will not prevent it from happening. Here are some pictures of Thursday's events. http://www.canarycoalition.org/050106.htm
Avram Friedman
avram@canarycoalition.org

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Miss Maura's Brief

by Kimmy

A few days ago a woman from Democracy for Virginia, (an amazing woman & DFA friend, I might add!) got wind of a bill and decided to take action, using information & the internet as her tools. Okay, her wit & intellect served her pretty well too. I know you're thinking this doesn't sound very exciting and you're questioning reading any further...but really, friends... , must I remind you? Patience is a virtue!

Now, Miss Maura didn't run across some run-of-the-mill gov't. bill - or some front page partisan hype that makes you seriously consider livin' the ol' "ignorance is bliss" lifestyle. No, Miss Maura of VA discovered a sneaky little bill and it is the mother load. One of most preposterous (& downright frightening!) bills I've ever heard of, that's for sure. What is it? It's called "HB1677, Report of Fetal Death by mother, penalty", and it's being introduced by John A. Cosgrove (R) of Chesapeake, VA.

Did I mention this one of the most offensive, invasive, full-fledged attacks on women that I have ever seen?

Once you read Maura's report (read it all,!) you'll understand that no added dramatics are needed - your panties WILL be in a wad. When you learn that any woman in VA that suffers a miscarriage can, under this bill, go to jail if she doesn't report it- my friends, you too might need some assistance with that chip on your shoulder you're going to have. You'll certainly understand why Miss Maura decided to take action and spread the word. She knew this bill had to be stopped in it's woman-bashing tracks!! Her first mission: get this information out there quick- report it!

Maura's write-up on the bill, "Legislative Sentry: HB1677 - Have Miscarriage, Go to Jail?" popped up Jan. 6th on a website you should be familiar with, Democracy for Virginia. Drowning in a sea of my own action, I saved her article to my desktop for nighttime reading. Way, way after the kids hit the sheets (& a few calming drinks) I sat down and started reading her article.

I've been knee-deep in massive amounts of research and information on a subject very close to home digging through must-read information. There may not be enough time in my life to share all that I've come across. Anyway, the point is that my passion for anything right now is pretty much reduced to a a dull "wow, trip out". Yes folks, I'm "All cried out", lost the "wind in my sails".... or so I thought. After reading Maura's article... I gotta tell you, I was blown away. "Have Miscarriage, go to jail?" ignited passion and there's a few reasons why. First, this bill itself blows your mind and once you read about it, your fury won't be easily extinguished. More on that later. Maura set me ablaze with her writing style and sheer determination. She tells a great story, she's well-spoken and man-oh-man is this report informative! Maura explains Cosgrove's woman-bashing bill in detail, leaving even the most clueless individual totally informed... and frankly... pissed off.

4 days later (or is it 5?!) I've learned that Maura's article, within 12 hours, landed on hundreds of blog and boards, was picked up by MichaelMoore.com and even got mentioned on Air America Radio! 70,000 hits to DFV and 24 hrs. later, the author of the legislation (Cosgrove) contacted Maura to let her know he was re-wording the bill. All I could think when I read this update from a friend was "Proof!! Proof!! Even more proof to show naysayers!!" Well okay, a "gawd ,she rules" came out too, but whateva...

Kickass democracy-in-action aside, the bill still exists and there's more to be done, so be sure to check out her updates, here. Everyone needs to help squash this ideology, pronto.

Back to Maura's kickass D-I-Y action.

I don't want to sound too preachy because that's not my intention. Actually, I'm trying to live up to a title BFA blogger's gave me long ago: "Minister of Stating the Obvious Things Everyone else Glosses over". If you have a complaint, send it their way (careful now!) and just allow me to say:

This is a perfect example of how one person can get the ball rolling. At times, many of us (myself included) get angry or shocked by political issues but we only rant & rave for a while (wishing we were closer, so we could punch this creep!) and perhaps mail the bill off to a friend or two. We might even tell our whole personal e-mail list about the bill and *swear* that we will look into it more later, after a host of other things on our plate, and we end up dropping the ball. Maura, however, gave it the ol' "college try" making it a priority and she's caused quite a stir around the 'net. She put her passion to work and the result, so far, is nothing short of incredible.

Maura's ongoing saga serves as a "how-to-get-things-done" reminder, too. She let her rage stew, stepped back and informed herself on the entire issue, then she put her best thought forward and brought it to attention, seeking opinion. After the article was in perfect shape and she was confident, she blasted it out into cyber-space (and perhaps face-to-face encounters). Thousands now know about this bill, the author is thinkin' twice and a community of women has come together because of her action. It even brought up a few personal issues that I've let slide, reminding me to take-care of more than just my websites.

Those that don't know her might be thinking that Maura's probably some super-experienced activist or pro-fem lobbyist or something. You might be thinking that she has some kind of advantage that you don't, which made it easy for her get this started and of course, makes it painless for you to reject taking any action... for now . You may not be thinking that but on the off-chance you were? You're wrong. Maura became a great organizer but her life is no picnic. She's just as busy, if not more, than the rest of us and she doesn't work for some organization or D.C. lobby group. There isn't anyone behind the scenes here.. Maura is just like us but there is one thing that makes her different--she didn't give up or become indifferent. After these last 2 years of political action and major letdowns, alot of us are still sitting still. Envoking her passion she made this bill a priority and on her own, took action to protect women.

I guarantee you there are a thousand social or political issues that will affect you this way, too. Sooner or later you'll find out about them and hopefully... hopefully, you'll care too. You too can participate in democracy and with the internet on your side? psssshhhhh! What are you waiting for??

Get crackin'.

Thanks for looking out for all of us, Maura.

Stop by Maura's place & get her latest update on this monster from hell bill, posted today!

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