The
JvL Bi-Weekly
James
van Luik
Publisher,
Editor & Compiler
Sunday,
February 29th, 2004
Volume
3, No. 4
5.
Articles
3.
"Don't Run, Don't Run, Don't Run, Don't Run…"
5.
Brazil's New Deal Foreign Policy
THE OTHER INTELLIGENCE FAILURE
BY
William
A. Cook
("Man
is the only animal that has the true religion—several of them.")
Mark Twain
As
even the conservative talk show hosts scramble to unravel truth from fiction
emanating from the White House, another intelligence
failure goes unmentioned and uninvestigated. Which of the monotheistic faiths
has the ear of God? Who among the various exponents of truth—ministers,
rabbis, or mullahs—gather the "real" intelligence from the
purported "sacred" texts that provide Gods directions to His
creatures? Who bears responsibility for this "Intelligence"
community as it makes its case for eternal war? Should the President create
yet another selective investigating committee, composed of trusted friends of
truth like Henry Kissinger, Tom Delay, Richard Perle, or Trent Lott (there are
no "Muslims" resident in this administration), to search out fact
from fiction in the "other" rationale that brought America to invade
Iraq, God's directive that guides America to bring His gift of freedom to the
Iraqi people while insuring that Israel regains its right to the covenant land
given by G-d to them in perpetuity?
As
we watch Pat Robertson's version of the news on the 700 Club, and listen to
him "forgive" George his sins of omission in telling the American
people that he was manufacturing the truth about Iraq's WMDs and connections
to Osama, and hear him extol God's purpose in placing George in the
President's throne at this moment in time the better to ensure that God's
prophecies be fulfilled, we have an unsettling realization that this man, and
others of like cloth—Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, Benny Hinn, Hal
Lindsey, Pastor Hagee—influence thousands upon thousands who wallow in their
righteousness and leave the Cornerstone Church secure in belief that God
speaks to these men just as He talks to Pat assuring him that George will be
reelected by a huge majority.
Must
these men bear no responsibility for the meaningless deaths of more than 535
American soldiers, the pain and suffering of thousands mutilated in missile
and bomb attacks, the continuing agony of those sick until death with DU
poisoning, not to mention the wanton destruction of innocent Iraqi civilians,
estimated now in excess of 10,000? What intelligence did they omit when they
exhorted their followers to rush to war against the infidels? What
fabrications of truth did they extract from their Bibles, assuring the
faithful that they had "received" the word of God in dreams, that He
called upon them to fulfill His prophecies as recorded in the Book of
Revelation, that He cursed the Islamic faith and charged that it be wiped from
the face of the earth? What resident inmates of our nation's mental hospitals
also hear God speaking to them but have neither the gift-of-gab nor the wealth
to air their views before the world?
What
understanding of the Creator do we receive from these self-proclaimed
"Ministers of the one true God"? Let's listen to Osama bin Laden,
the alleged "mastermind" of the chaos inflicted on America and the
roaming "evildoer" who haunts the underworld caverns of the mid-east
eluding our Texan cowboy who vows to bring him in "dead or alive."
"We will impose our religion on America. God wills it," he
proclaimed in his "Letter to America," November 24th,
2002. And in the fullness of his vehemence he yells, "Do you fear them?
Allah has more right that you should fear Him if you are believers. Fight
against them so that Allah will punish them by your hands and disgrace them
and give you victory over them and heal the breasts of believing people."
But that is not all; "It is He Who has sent His Messenger with guidance
and the religion of truth (Islam), to make it victorious over all other
religions even though the Polytheists hate it." (Quran 61:9). And
finally, this last bit of chutzpah, "The Islamic Nation wishes to remove
your evils, and is prepared to fight you. You are well aware that the Islamic
Nation, from the very core of its soul, despises your haughtiness and
arrogance."
As
an ardent student of Sayyid Qutb, one of the founders of militant Islam, Osama
understands that "Islam and the West are incompatible, two camps between
which coexistence (was) is impossible. There could only be a struggle between
believers and non-believers, between secularism and capitalism and Islam and
the West with its emphasis on science and technology obliterate(s) the
validity of religion." Thus we find others of similar mind to Osama, the
Muslim Brotherhood, for example, that calls for armed confrontation with
Israel (Gregorian, Islam: a Mosaic Not a Monolith) of Ayatollah
Khomeini who called for a holy war against the "Great Satan," the
United States. One turns with some degree of relief from these fanatical
fulminations to the expected peace of the other two monotheistic faiths only
to find that they too have entered the lists with lances at the ready, swords
at their sides, and hate in their eyes.
Consider
Sharon's dependence on the National Religious Party headed by Effi Eitan, a
self-proclaimed rabid Zionist who brazenly and shamelessly shouts that
Palestinians are not ordinary people, but "uncircumcised,"
"little people," and "evil." The Jews, on the other hand
are "blessed." And they (the Jews) will come with "vengeance
against (their) terrible evil" and "make a reckoning with
them." (L.A. Times). But Effi is not the worst. Gush Emunim rabbis
teach that "Jews who kill Arabs should be free from all punishment. Arabs
living in Palestine are thieves because the land was Jewish and belong to
them" (Prof. Israel Shehak). Add to thee zealots those who design their
own versions of the Talmud citations and preach to their followers hate,
vengeance, and annihilation. Their hubris defies understanding:
"Whosoever disobeys the rabbis deserve
death and will be punished by being boiled in hot excrement in hell" (Erubin
21b), and "All gentile children are animals" (Yebamoth 98a), and
"According to the Talmud, Jesus was executed by a proper rabbinical court
for idolatry, inciting other Jews to idolatry, and contempt of rabbinical
authority" (Hoffman and Critchley), and "Those who read the New
Testament will have no portion in the world to come" (Sanhedrin 90a), and
"Jews must destroy the books of the Christians" (Shabbath 116a).
These and more, more venomous than those cited, fill the various commentaries
that constitute the on-going words of the living Talmud.
It
would appear that Osama finds a sick solace in his God that will bring havoc
to unbelievers and victory to Islam while the Zionist right-wing Jewish cohort
divide G-d's creation into the blessed and the animals who, as unbelievers,
will suffer a steaming and malodorous sauna in the hereafter. How does one
describe these gods. Having created humans with the capacity to reason and
choose, Allah damns all who disbelieve the militant mullahs while the G-d of
the Jews destroys all who disbelieve the right-wing Zionists; if each can be
believed, all would be destroyed and none would ascend to heaven! Indeed, the
Gods they worship are brutish, sadistic, and perverse! But lest we think that
the Christian right exhorts its worshipers to "turn the other cheek and
"do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and "love
thy neighbor as thyself," think again.
For
a paltry $25.00, you can purchase three audiotapes from Pastor John Hagee of
the Cornerstone church in San Antonio, Texas, tapes of sermons that focus on
"Allah and America." Add another $20.00 and you can get the video
version that permits you to witness the paunchy pastor lift the Quran high
above his head as he cites chapter and verse in an ever more excited crescendo
condemning the words of Allah as interpreted by Pastor Hagee.
It's
a marvelous scene; a few thousand of his 17,000 congregation sitting in rapt
attention in this hotel-like conference center church, absorbing the truths of
the one true God as conveyed by this minister of war who sees the anti-Christ
rising against God's chosen in the final battle prophesied in the Book of
Revelation. What is the purpose of this exhortation? Is it to bring this
congregation to peace and reconciliation with their wayward brothers and
sisters? God forbid, "No!" This 21st Century Prophet
rises on his tiered altar steps (he is the altar!) demanding that his
parishioners recognize the grave threat they face as he extracts passages from
the Quran that give credibility to his twisted interpretation of Mohammad's
visions. What does he see? His evangelical Christian Zionist church is engaged
in a spiritual war for survival; that the demonic driven mullahs of the
Islamic faith are waging everlasting war against freedom of religion, against
freedom of speech, against the western world! ""We are not a sister
faith!" he cries over and over again as his congregants lift their arms
and eyes to the chandeliers that bathe the hall in celestial light. What must
they do to these demented hordes that "want to kill as many Americans as
possible," that are developing "long range missiles," that have
"suit case atomic bombs"? The must fight; "Victory must be our
only objective!"
"No
relationship of any kind exists or can exist between Islam and
Christianity," he shouts in stunned and somber tones as he levels his
final accusations on this faith of more than a billion people around the
world. This false religion serves as Satan's means to present "a false
path to Paradise" when Jesus Himself is the "only way to
heaven"; He alone is the one true God; "Christ is the only savior on
the planet!" Thus does he echo Osama and Eitam in the absoluteness, no,
the infallibility of his belief. "Islam," he cries, "says
Christ did not die on the cross and he is not divine." But, strangely
enough, he does not condemn the Jewish faith for similar beliefs. He can't.
His need to convince his faithful that Revelation demands the existence of the
Israeli state if the rapture is to ensue requires that he support the Israeli
state as God's means of fulfilling His prophecy. Ironically, Hagee does not
make public especially to the Jewish community, that the consequences
resulting from the fulfillment of Revelation's prophecies would save only
144,000 Jews leaving the remaining millions to eternal perdition. With friends
like Hagee, who needs enemies!
Monotheism
breeds men who wish to bed with God, to bathe themselves in His glory the
better to reveal to all how blessed they are in the eyes of the Almighty.
Since God communicates with humans only through a chosen few—Moses, Matthew,
Mark, Luke, John, and Mohammad—and, conveniently, only in abstruse words and
images, these men become the conduits of His meaning. They, like the CIA, must
intercept and interpret God's meaning. They, like the CIA, can surreptitiously
maneuver political forces to do their will by guaranteeing thousands of votes,
thousands of dollars and allegiance to policies that support their agenda.
They, like the CIA, can effect regime change and control governments; witness
Sharon's coalition, the Iranian Islamic state, and the Bush regime's
dependence on the Christian right-wing Zionists. And they, like the CIA, must
be investigated!
The
havoc currently wrenching the United States, Israel, and Iraq arises as much
from faith based fanatics in all three religions as it does from political
drives motivated by acquisition of natural resources and dominance of
geographical areas to insure ultimate power. These fanatics resort to
documents 1300 to 2500 years old, documents relevant to their time, and use
them to manufacture relevance in the 21st century. The metaphorical
narratives of these ancient documents, designed originally to represent the
interaction of tribes with the
forces of nature, how to live in a community with respect to social, economic,
and political realities, and how to understand the energies that conflict
within our beings, become, in the rantings of these madmen, reality today
despite the intrusion of science, reason, technological advances, and hundreds
of years of political change. In the process, they must negate the simple yet
elegant teachings of those faiths that give promise to the potential of human
harmony. Here, in the words of Theodore Parker (in 1841), as he dismantled
organized religion that "fetters a man" in favor of the spirit that
Christ taught, a spirit equally at home in the Jewish tradition and the
Islamic, reside the permanent truths that express the fullness of the human
spirit:
"(That
spirit) is absolute, pure morality; absolute pure religion, - the love of man;
the love of God acting without let or hindrance. The only creed it lays down
is the great truth which springs up spontaneous in the holy heart, "
there is a God. Its watchword is, Be perfect as your Father in heaven. The
only form it demands is a divine life, - doing the best thing in the best way,
from the highest motives; perfect obedience to the great law of God. Its
sanction is the voice of God in your heart; the perpetual presence of him who
made us Examine the particular duties it enjoins, - humility, reverence,
sobriety, gentleness, charity, forgiveness, fortitude, resignation, faith and
active love summed up in the command, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind; thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself' The end seems to be to make all men one with God It
allows perfect freedom. It does not demand all men to think alike, but to
think uprightly not all men to live alike, but to live holy".
Faith
based fanatics offer no humility only arrogance, no reverence only hypocrisy,
no gentleness only castigation, no charity only self-indulgence, no
forgiveness only condemnation, no faith only fear, and no love only hate. They
represent a small minority of the believers who find refuge in these faiths.
Of the adult population in the US and Canada, 75% are Christians and of that
number only 35% born again and of that number even a smaller percent are
Evangelical Christian Zionists of the Robertson/Pastor Hagee stripe that
exhort our nation to take up arms against the infidels. Each of these
fanatical groups demands exclusivity for their membership, an exclusivity that
turns plowshares into swords. By contrast, those who heed the spirit of faith
understand in the words of the Psalmist, "Publish His glory among all
nations. His marvelous works among all peoples"(96:3). Mohammad preached
a message that was intensely
democratic. He was insistent that in the sight of the Lord all peoples were
equal." (Houston Smith, Islam). A Creator does not destroy His
creation without destroying Himself. No minister, rabbi, or mullah should
preach destruction; it is anathema to the purpose of religion.
Hearken
to the words of Yonathan Shapira, an Israeli pilot who refuses to fly. He
bases his refusal on two of the basic values of the Israeli Defense Forces,
only one of which I will cite here: "Human Dignity: The IDF and its
soldiers are obliged to honor human dignity. Each human being should be
respected, regardless of his race, creed, nationality, gender, status or his
social role." Nothing taught by Gush Emunim appears in this statement;
yet it is Effi Eitam and his like that control Sharon's coalition. Where is
the investigation that will expose this reality? The vast majority of Jews
hear Yonathan's plea, but it is Sharon's savagery that speaks in their name.
"Islam's religious revivalists often express alienation and anger about
the 'ravages' of secularism, perceived amorality, and the loss of 'traditional
values' in the modern world." (Gregorian). Osama and his ilk carry out
that anger demanding of their followers an uncompromising adherence to a
rigid, literal interpretation of the Quran forgetting that there are a
multitude of interpretations with that of the Sunnies dependent on reason not
unquestioned faith. And they represent the majority of Muslims. No unified
religions exist; there are 19 major religions in the world with more than 270
large religious groups including 34,000 separate Christian groups. Such
diversity requires separation of church and state. And that is why Jefferson
found organized religion a threat to democracy; religion is not by nature
tolerant especially when more than one claims they have access to the one true
God.
Now
if these men have incited their congregations to overlook the deception of the
Bush administration as it brought America to an unjust war, if they insert
their warmongering view in pulpit, TV programs, and politics, have they no
responsibility for the consequences of their acts? If they cannot demonstrate
the source of their interpretations that served as a base for their
allegations demanding Bush and America complete God's prophecy, should they
not be brought before the courts for inciting mayhem and levied appropriate
damages to pay for the havoc they generated? And should not Bush have to
explain his support for Sharon and his coalitions since his brutality against
the Palestinians is considered a major example of terrorism in the world, and
America a target of that hatred? Perhaps a little intelligence on this matter
would bring to light how an administration can be coerced into a foreign
policy built on superstition and fear.
BY
HOWARD
ZINN
George
Bush was eager to send young men
and women half a world away into the heart of another nation. And even though
they had fearsome weapons, they were still vulnerable to guerrilla attacks
that have left so many of them blinded and crippled,
and dead. Is this not the ultimate betrayal of our young by our
government?
Their
families very often understand this before their sons and daughters do, and
remonstrate with them before they go off. Ruth Aitken did so with her son, an
Army captain, telling him it was a war for oil, while he insisted he was
protecting the country form terrorists. He was killed on April 4th,
2003, in a battle around Baghdad airport. "He was doing his job, "
his mother said. "But it makes me mad that this whole war was sold to the
American public and to the soldiers as
something it wasn't."
One
father, in Escondido, California, Fernando Suarez del Solar, told reporters
that his son, a lance corporal in the Marines, had died for "Bush's
oil." Another father in Baltimore, whose son, Kendall Waters-Bey, a staff
sergeant in the Marine Corps, was killed, held up a photo of his son for news
cameras, and said: "President Bush, you took my only son away from
me."
Of
course, they and their families are not the only ones betrayed. The Iraqi
people, promised freedom from tyranny, saw their country, already devastated
by two wars and twelve years of sanctions, were attacked by the most powerful
military machine in history. The Pentagon proudly announced a campaign of
"shock and awe," which left 10,000 or more Iraqi men, women, and
children, dead, and many more thousands more maimed.
The
list of betrayals is long. This government has betrayed the hopes of the world
for peace. After fifty million died in the Second World War, the United
Nations was set up, as its charter promised, "to save succeeding
generations from the scourge of war."
The
people of the Untied States have been betrayed, because with the Cold War over
and "the threat of communism" no longer able to justify the stealing
of trillions of the public's tax dollars for the military budget, that theft
of the national wealth continues. It continues at the expense of the sick, the
children, the elderly , the homeless, the unemployed, wiping out the
expectations of the fall of the Soviet Union that there would be a "peace
dividend" to bring prosperity to all.
And
yes, we come back to the ultimate betrayal, the betrayal of the young, sent to
war with grandiose promises and lying words about freedom and democracy, about
duty and patriotism. We are not historically literate enough to remember that
these promises, those lies, started far back in the country's past.
Young
men—boys, in fact (for the armies of the world, including ours, have always
been made up of boys)—were enticed into the Revolutionary Army of the
Founding Fathers by the grand words of the Declaration of Independence. But
they found themselves mistreated, in rags and without boots, while their
officers lived in luxury and merchants were making war profits. Thousands
mutinied, and some were executed by order of General Washington. When, after
the war, farmers in Western Massachusetts, many of them veterans, rebelled
against the foreclosures of their farms, they were put down by armed force.
It
is a long story, the betrayal of the very ones sent to kill and die in wars.
When soldiers realize this, they rebel. Thousands deserted in the Mexican war,
and in the Civil War there was deep resentment that the rich could buy their
way out of service, and that financiers like J.P. Morgan were profiting as the
bodies piled up on the battlefields. The black soldiers who joined the Union
Army and were decisive in the victory came home to poverty and racism.
The
returning soldiers of World War I, many of them crippled and shell-shocked,
were hit hard, barely a dozen years after the end of the war, by the
Depression. Unemployed, their families hungry, they descended on Washington,
20,000 of them from every part of the country, set up tents across the Potomac
from the capital, and demanded that Congress pay the bonus it had promised.
Instead, the army was called out, and they were fired on, tear-gassed,
dispersed.
Perhaps
it was to wipe out that ugly memory, or perhaps it was the glow accompanying
the great victory over fascism, but the veterans of World War II received a GI
Bill of Rights—free college education, low interest home mortgages, life
insurance.
The
Vietnam War veterans, on the other hand, came home to find that the same
government that had sent them into an immoral and fruitless war, leaving so
many of them wounded in body and mind, now wanted to forget about them. The
United States had sprayed huge parts of Vietnam with the chemical defoliant
Agent Orange, resulting for the Vietnamese in hundreds of thousands of deaths,
lingering cancers, birth defects. American GIs were also exposed in great
numbers, and tens of thousands, pointing to sickness, to birth defects in
their children, asked the Veterans Administration for help. But the government
denied responsibility. However, a suit against Dow Chemical, which made the
defoliant, was settled out of court for $180 million, with each family
receiving $1000, which suggest that more than 100,000 families claimed
injuries from the spraying.
As
the government pours hundreds of billions into war, it has no money to take
care of the Vietnam veterans who are homeless, who linger in VA hospitals, who
suffer form mental disorders, and who commit suicide in shocking numbers. It
is a bitter legacy.
The
United States government was proud that, although perhaps 100,000 Iraqis had
died in the Gulf War of 1991, there were only 148 American battle casualties.
What it has concealed from the public is that 206,000 veterans of that war
filed claims with the Veterans Administration for injuries and illnesses. In
the dozen or so years since that war, 8,300 veterans have died, and 160,000
claims for disability have been recognized by the VA.
The
betrayal of GIs and veterans continues in the so-called war on terrorism. The
promises that the US military would be greeted with flowers as liberators have
disintegrated as soldiers die every day in deadly guerrilla warfare that tells
the GIs they are not wanted in Iraq. An article last July in the Christian
Science Monitor quotes an officer in the 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq as
saying: "Make no mistake, the level of morale for most soldiers that I've
seen has hit rock bottom."
And
those who come back alive, but blind or without arms or legs, find that the
Bush Administration is cutting funds for veterans. Bush's State of the Union
address, while going through the usual motions of thanking those serving in
Iraq, continued his policy of ignoring the fact that thousands have come back
wounded, in a war that is becoming increasingly unpopular.
The
quick Thanksgiving visit of Bush to Iraq, much ballyhooed in the press, was
seen differently by an army nurse in Landstuhl, Germany, where causalities
from the war are treated. She sent out an email: "My 'Bush Thanksgiving'
was a little different. I spent it at the hospital taking care of a young West
Point lieutenant wounded in Iraq…. When he pressed his fists into his eyes
and rocked his head back and forth he looked like a little boy. They all do,
all nineteen on the ward that day, some missing limbs, eyes, or worse….It's
too bad Bush didn't add us to his holiday agenda. The men said the same, but
you'll never read that in the paper."
As
for Jeremy Feldbusch, blinded in the war, his hometown of Blairsville, an old
coal mining town of 3,600, held a parade for him, and the mayor honored him. I
thought of the blinded, armless, legless soldier in Dalton Trumbo's novel Johnny
Got His Gun, who, lying on his hospital cot, unable to speak or hear,
remembers when his hometown gave him a send-off, with speeches about fighting
for liberty and democracy. He finally learns how to communicate, by taping
Morse Code letters with his head, and asks the authorities to take him to
schoolrooms everywhere, to show the children what war is like. But they do not
respond. "In one terrible moment he saw the whole thing," Trumbo
writes. "They wanted only to forget him."
In
a sense, the novel was asking, and now the returned veterans are asking, that
we don't forget.
3. "DON'T RUN, DON'T RUN, DON'T RUN, DON'T RUN…"
WHITHER THE NATION?
BY
RALPH
NADER
(Editor's
note: The following letter is a response to "An Open Letter to Ralph
Nader," which appeared in the February 16th issue of The
Nation.)
As
I reread slowly your open letter, which kindly started and closed with your
demand "Don't run" memories of past Nation magazine writing, going
back to the days of Carey McWilliams and earlier, came to mind. I share them
with you. Long ago The Nation stood steadfastly for more voices and choices
inside the electoral arenas which today are more dominated than ever by the
two-party duopoly trending toward one-party districts:
"Don't
Run."
The
Nation's pages embrace large areas of agreement with the undersigned on policy
matters and political reforms, especially the abusive power of Big Business
over elections, the government and the economy:
"Don't
Run."
The
Nation has been sharply critical of the Democratic Party's stagnation, the
corporatist Democratic Leadership Council and its domination by Big Money.
This is the same Party that has just ganged up on its insurgents and
reasserted its established forces:
"Don't
Run."
The
Nation has urgently reported on a tawdry electoral system-ridden with fraud
and manipulation-that discourages earnest
people from running clean campaigns about authentic necessities of the
American people and the rest of the world:
"Don't
Run."
The
Nation first informed me as a young man about the deliberate
barriers--statutory, monetary, media and others--to third parties and
independent candidates for a chance to compete, bring out more votes and
generate more civic and political energies. This led me to write my first
article on these exclusions against smaller candidacies in the late 1950s:
"Don't
run."
The
Nation has often encouraged the longer run effect of small candidacies (civil
rights, economic populism, women's suffrage, labor and farmer parties), which
have pushed the agendas of the major parties and sown the seeds for future
adoption:
"Don't
Run."
The
Nation has dutifully recorded the hapless state of the Democratic Party, which
for the past ten years has registered more and more losses at the federal,
state and local levels. The Party even managed to "lose" the
presidency in 2000, which it actually won, even with all other "what
ifs" considered, both before (Katherine Harris' voter purge), during (the
deceptive ballots) and afterward (recount blunders by the Party):
"Don't
Run."
The
Nation has editorialized about the spineless Democrats who could have stopped
the two giant tax cuts for the wealthy, the unconstitutional war resolution,
the Patriot(less) Act and John Ashcroft's nomination (to mention a few
surrenders). Yet you have not pointed any external ways to stiffen the resolve
or jolt the passivity of Jefferson's party, which lately has become very good
at electing very bad Republicans all by itself:
"Don't
Run."
The
Nation believes this cycle is different and that the Democrats have aroused
themselves. This view is not the reality we experience regularly in
Washington. Witness the latest collapse of the party's opposition to the
subsidy-ridden wrongheaded energy and Medicare drug-benefit legislation—two
core party issues:
"Don't
Run."
The
Nation's venerable reputation has been anything but conceding the practical
politics of servility which brings us worse servility and weaker democracy
every four years:
"Don't
Run."
The
Nation has intensely disliked being held hostage to antiquated electoral
rules, from the Electoral College to the winner-take-all system that discounts
tens of millions of votes. Such a stand would seem to call for candidates on
the inside to highlight and help build the public constituency for change over
time:
"Don't
Run."
It
doesn't seem that The Nation would disagree with the conclusions of George
Scialabba, who wrote last year in the Boston Review, "Two-party dominance
allows disproportionate influence to swing votes, single-issue constituencies,
and campaign contributors; it promotes negative, content less campaigns; it
rewards grossly inequitable redistricting schemes, and it penalizes those who
disagree with both parties but fear to 'waste' their votes (which is why Nader
probably lost many more votes to Gore than Gore lost to Nader)":
"Don't
Run."
The
Nation's open letter does not go far enough in predicting where my votes would
come from, beyond correctly inferring that there would be few liberal
Democratic supporters. The out-of-power party always returns to the fold,
while the in-power party sees its edges looking for alternatives. Much more
than New Hampshire in 2000 where I received more Republican than Democratic
votes, any candidacy would be directed toward Independents, Greens,
third-party supporters, true progressives and conservative and liberal
Republicans, who are becoming furious with George W. Bush's policies, such as
massive deficits, publicized corporate crimes, subsidies and pornography,
civil liberties encroachments, sovereignty-suppressing trade agreements and
outsourcing. And, of course, any candidacy would seek to do what we all must
strive for-getting out more nonvoters who are now almost the majority of
eligible voters:
"Don't
Run."
The
Nation wants badly to defeat the selected President Bush but thinks there is
only one pathway to doing so. This approach excludes a second front of voters
against the regime, which could raise fresh subjects, motivating language and
the vulnerabilities of corporate scandals and blocked reforms that the
Democrats are too cautious, too indentured to their paymasters to launch-but
are free to adopt if they see these succeed:
"Don't
Run."
The
Nation has rarely been a hostage to prevailing dogma and electoral
straitjackets. Its pages have articulated many "minorities of one"
over its wondrous tenure and has watched many of its viewpoints today become
the commonplace of tomorrow.
I
have not known The Nation to so walk away from those engaging in a difficult
struggle it champions on the merits, in a climate of conventional
groupthink-much less with a precipitous prognosis of a distant outcome
governed by a multitude of variables. Discussions and critiques from a
distance, after all, are a dime a dozen in an election year. O apotheosis for
the exercise of dissent inside and outside the electoral commons since 1865:
"Don't
walk."
(Editor's
note: Ralph Nader can be reached through www.naderexplore04.org
Also,
I would like to recommend "Witness to a Century" by George Seldes
published in 1988. George Seldes who died in New Hampshire, about five years
ago, at the age of 104 was a very well known journalist. He was also brother
to Gilbert Seldes the writer, and uncle to Timothy Seldes well known still as
a literary representative. I recommend specially chapter 62 titled: Citizen
Nader.)
BY
ROB
EDWARDS
An
expert report warning that the long-term health of Iraq's civilian population
would be endangered by British and US depleted uranium (DU) weapons has been
kept secret.
The
study by three leading radiation scientists cautioned that children and adults
could contract cancer after breathing in dust containing DU, which is
radioactive and chemically toxic. But it was blocked form publication by the
World Health Organization (WHO), which employed the main author, Dr. Keith
Baverstock, as a senior radiation advisor. He alleges that it was deliberately
suppressed, though this is denied by WHO.
Baverstock
also believes that if the study had been published when it was completed in
2001, there would have been more pressure on the US and UK to limit their use
of DU weapons in last year's war, and to clean up afterwards.
Hundreds
of thousands of DU shells were fired by coalition tanks and planes during the
conflict, and there has been no comprehensive decontamination. Experts from
the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) have so far not been allowed into Iraq to
assess the pollution.
"Our
study suggests that the widespread use of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq
could pose a unique health hazard to the civilian population," Baverstock
told the Sunday Herald.
"There
is increasing scientific evidence the radioactivity and the chemical toxicity
of DU could cause more damage to human cells than is assumed."
Baverstock
was the WHO's top expert on radiation and health for 11
years until he retired in May last year. He now works with the
Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Kuopio in Finland,
and was recently appointed to the UK government's newly formed Committee on
Radioactive Waste Management.
While
he was a member of staff, WHO refused to give him permission to publish the
study, which was co-authored by Professor Carmel Mothersill from McMaster
University in Canada and Dr. Mike Thorne, a radiation consultant. Baverstock
suspects that WHO was leaned on by a more powerful pro-nuclear UN body, the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"I
believe our study was censored and suppressed by the WHO because they didn't
like its conclusions. Previous experience suggest that WHO officials were
bowing to pressure from the IAEA whose remit is to promote nuclear
power," he said. "That is more than unfortunate, as publishing the
study would have helped forewarn the authorities of the risks of using DU
weapons in Iraq."
These
allegations, however, are dismissed as "totally unfounded" by WHO.
"The IAEA role was very minor," said Dr. Mike Repacholi, the WHO
coordinator of radiation and environmental health in Geneva. "The article
was not approved for publication because parts of it did not reflect
accurately what a WHO-convened group of international experts considered the
best science in the area of depleted uranium," he added.
Baverstock's
study, which has now been passed to the Sunday Herald, pointed out that Iraq's
arid climate meant that tiny particles of DU were likely to be blown around
and inhaled by civilians for years to come. It warned that, when inside the
body, their radiation and toxicity could trigger the growth of malignant
tumours.
The
study suggested that the low-level radiation from DU could harm cells adjacent
to those that are directly irradiated, a phenomenon known as "the
bystander effect". This undermines the stability of the body's genetic
system, and is thought by many scientists to be linked to cancers and possibly
other illnesses.
In
addition, the DU in Iraq, like that used in the Balkan conflict, could turn
out to be contaminated with plutonium and other radioactive waste. That would
make it more radioactive and hence more dangerous, Baverstock argued.
"The
radiation and the chemical toxicity of DU could also act together to create a
'cocktail effect' that further increases the risk of cancer. These are all
worrying possibilities that urgently require more investigation," he
said.
Baverstock's
anxiety about the health effects of DU in Iraq is shared by Pekka Haavisto,
the chairman of the UN Environment Programme's Post-Conflict Assessment Unit
in Geneva. "It is certainly a concern in Iraq, there is no doubt about
that," he said.
UNEP,
which surveyed DU contamination in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2002, is keen to
get into Iraq to monitor the situation as soon as possible. It has been told
by the British government that about 1.9 tonnes of DU was fired from tanks
around Basra, but has no information from US forces, which are bound to have
used a lot more.
Haavisto's
greatest worry is when buildings hit by DU shells have been repaired and
reoccupied without having been properly cleaned up. Photographic evidence
suggest that this is exactly what has happened to the ministry of planning
building in Baghdad.
He
also highlighted evidence that DU from weapons had been collected and recycled
as scrap in Iraq. "It could end up in a fork or a knife," he warned.
"It
is ridiculous to leave the material lying around and not to clear it up where
adults are working and children are playing. If DU is not taken care of,
instead of decreasing the risk you are increasing it. It is absolutely
wrong."
(Editor's
Note: Much detailed DU information can be found at the following web site
http://www.traprockpeace.org/index.html).
5.
BRAZIL'S NEW DEAL FOREIGN POICY: CHALLENGING THE GLOBAL SYSTEM
BY
ANDREAS
HERNANDEZ
Since
the inauguration in January of 2003 of Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da
Silva (popularly known as Lula), Brazil has engaged as a catalyst for
countries seeking to transform the weapons of neoliberalism into tools of
social change.
Around
70% of Brazilians live in poverty, with 40% living on less than a dollar a
day, even thought Brazil is the 11th wealthiest country on the
planet. Much of the wealth is concentrated in a few hands or leaves the
country through multinational corporations. The new Brazilian government, led
by the Worker's Part (PT), has vowed to tackle these problems directly.
Well-known for its innovative policies for increasing citizen participation, a
broad PT-led coalition won a landslide victory in federal elections.
The
PT was formed roughly thirty years ago, towards the end of Brazil's military
dictatorship, as a new type of leftist party, uniting unions, social
movements, and intellectuals. The PT has been a central force in bringing
global civil society groups together in recent years through the World Social
Forums, sponsored by the PT state government in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
Their
election campaign was supported by an amazing coalition, from the Landless
Movement to national industrialists, who support a new Social Pact –
sometimes described as a Brazilian New Deal. Even the International Monetary
Fund has held the new Brazilian approach up as a model for the developing
world, one that combines fiscal responsibility with strong social programs.
In
early June of 2003, Lula da Silva and the new President of Argentina, Nestor
Kirchner, announced their shared goal of establishing a common parliament and
shared currency for the Mercosur regional integration bloc (Brazil, Argentina,
Uruguay, Paraguay, and Associate Members Chile and Ecuador). Brazil is
projecting Mercosur as the principal medium for promoting sustainable
development in the region and fortifying the presence of South America on the
world scene. Peru has since become a member of Mercosur, and other nations of
the Andean pact (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela) are considering
joining as well. In September of 2003 Lula da Silva formally backed Peruvian
President Alejandro Toledo's rejuvenation of Jose Marti's idea of forming a
"South American Nation," building on the momentum of the merger
talks between the Mercosur and the Andean Pact countries. These nations share
the view that they need a community of South American countries to counter the
economic power of the US.
In
May 2003, Brazil, India, and South Africa announced the creation of the Group
of Three (G3) dedicated to gaining a permanent seat on the United Nations
Security Council for one of its members. The Secretary General of the UN, Kofi
Annan, has supported Brazil's accession and British Prime Minister Tony Blair
has formally announced his backing for Brazil to gain a seat. Lula delivered
the opening speech for this year's UN session. The creators of the G3 also
hope the alliance will increase ties between Mercosur and the Southern Africa
Customs Union (South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland, Namibia and Lesotho),
particularly in WTO negotiations.
China and Russia, who themselves had recently formed an alliance with the
specific aim of countering US power, have indicted support for the aims of the
G3.
At
the Cancun World Trade Organization (WTO) talks, Brazil's leadership motivated
many other countries to resist the US and EU corporate globalization agenda,
becoming the G22. The G22, in coalition with an African bloc, refuses to move
forward on negotiations important to wealthy countries until the question of
agricultural subsidies and protections of wealthy countries are brought to the
table in a substantial manner.
Approximately seventy other developing nations in addition to the G22 refused
to sign the final US and EU-written "accord" in Cancun. The ongoing
round of WTO negotiations has come to a halt, and the G22 has made it clear
that it will postpone the scheduled date of January 2005 for the end of this
WTO negotiation round if the needs of developing countries do not enter the
negotiations.
This
global coalition-building is using the neoliberal "Free Trade"
slogan as a weapon against the system of neoliberalism itself. By negotiating
as blocks, Brazilian-led coalitions and their expanding alliances are
attempting to turn Free Trade into Fair Trade by demanding standards for
workers and an end to the protectionism practiced by wealthy countries. Before
the Brazilian elections, Mr. Zoellick, the US Trade Representative, said that
Brazil could go trade with Antarctica if they did not like the US terms for
"Free Trade." It may yet be the US government that is left in the
cold.
Brazil's
far-reaching foreign policy initiatives may be some of the first visible signs
of the possibility of a social democratic turn in the global system. The
danger remains that instead of fundamentally challenging the corporate world
system, these efforts will instead only create additional openings for a few
members of the financial elite from the Global South. Yet, a more democratic
global architecture could brake corporate power and provide openings for
left-of-center parties around the world to build a more just planet.
Are
these signs of a fundamental challenge to 500 years of exploitation of the
global south – first through colonization and then through neoliberalism?
Brazil's new government came to power only through intense struggle,
especially by those who have been the most exploited. Creating a global
architecture of social solidarity will only become possible to the extent that
we mobilize on all levels, democratizing the institutions which structure our
lives.