James
van Luik
Publisher & Editor & Compiler
Index 2 Signature:
http://www.geocities.com/channujames/index2.htm
[By clicking on this signature one has access
to all articles of the JvL Bi-Weekly.]
[Also, I can be most easily reached through
the following email address:
Please forward the Bi-Weekly to any who might
be interested
Tuesday, March 15th, 2005
Volume 4, No. 5
8 Articles, 1 Poem, 12 Pages
(Editor's
note: How much will you lose under Bush Privatization of
Social Security?
Click
on: http://www.michaelmoore.com
then
click on: 'Links'
Under
'Check Out These Links': Click on 'Social Security Calculator'
This
will enable you to determine how much you will lose under Bush
Privatization of Social Security.)
(Editor's
second note: Since the members of this administration have
lied about everything of importance -- domestic and foreign
programs and policy -- why would one believe anything they say
about Social Security?)
(Editor's
third note: From a friend: "If I genuinely believed that
radical Islam was the way forward for humanity, I would not
hesitate to say so in public, whatever the consequences. I know
that many love chanting the name 'Osama' and I know that they
cheered on 11 September 2001. They were not alone. It happened
all over the world, but had nothing to do with religion. I know
of Argentinian students who walked out when a teacher criticized
Osama. I know a Russian teenager who emailed a one word message
– 'congratulations' – to his Russian friends whose
parents had settled outside New York and they replied: 'Thanks.
It was great.' We talked, I remember, of the Greek crowds at
football matches who refused to mourn for the two minutes the
government had imposed and instead broke the silence with
anti-American chants.
But
none of this justifies what took place. What lies behind the
vicarious pleasure is not a feeling of strength, but a terrible
weakness. The people of Indo-China suffered more than any Muslim
country at the hands of the American government. They were bombed
for fifteen whole years and lost millions of their people. Did
they even think of bombing America? Nor did the Cubans or the
Chileans or the Brazilians. The last two fought against the
US-imposed military regimes at home and finally triumphed. Today,
people feel powerless. And so when America is hit they celebrate.
They don't ask what such an act will achieve, what its
consequences will be and who will benefit. Their response, like
the event itself, is purely symbolic.
I
think that Osama and his group have reached a political dead-end.
It was a grand spectacle, but nothing more. The US, in responding
with a war, has enhanced the importance of the action, but I
doubt if even that will rescue it from obscurity in the future.
It will be a footnote in the history of this century. Nothing
more. In political, economic or military terms it was barely a
pinprick.
What
do the Islamists offer? A route to a past which, mercifully for
the people of the seventh century, never existed. If the 'Emirate
of Afghanistan' is the model for what they want to impose on the
world then the bulk of Muslims would rise up in arms against
them. Don't imagine that either Osama or Mullah Omar represent
the future of Islam. It would be a major disaster for that
culture if that turned out to be the case.
Would
you want to live under those conditions? Would you tolerate your
sister, your mother or the woman you love being hidden from
public view and only allowed out shrouded like a corpse? I want
to be honest with you. I opposed this latest Afghan war. I do not
accept the right of big powers to change governments as and when
it affects their interests. But I did not shed any tears for the
Taliban as they shaved their beards and ran back home. This does
not mean that those who have been captured should be tortured or
denied their elementary rights according to the Geneva
Convention, but as I've argued elsewhere, the fundamentalism of
the American Empire has no equal today. They can disregard all
conventions and laws at will.")
1. Is This Your Ownership Society?
4. Creationists Still Fighting Evolution
5. What A Rich Nation Should Really be Doing About
Social Security
6. Selective Service Ready to Bring Back Draft
9. Killer Wind Came to Jakarta
1. IS THIS YOUR OWNERSHIP SOCIETY?
BY
HOLLY
SKLAR
Would you invest in a company that cut your wages, laid off your cousin, polluted your neighborhood, cut your health insurance and raided your retirement fund? If so, you'll love President Bush's "ownership society."
At a time of rising support
for socially responsible business, Bush's ownership society
offers less social responsibility, less opportunity and
accelerating disinvestments in the future.
Extensive studies demonstrate
the economic benefits of corporate social and environmental
responsibility, including improved financial performance,
productivity, quality, innovation and reduced operating costs.
"For example," says Business for Social Responsibility,
"many initiatives aimed at improving environmental
performance – such as reducing emissions of gases that
contribute to global climate change…also lower costs."
The ownership society backed
by Bush's fiscal year 2006 budget is the worst of all worlds:
fiscally, socially and environmentally irresponsible, morally
bankrupt, and toxic to democracy.
Lincoln fought for
"government of the people, by the people, for the
people." Bush stands for government of the owners, by the
owners, for the owners.
The richest 1 percent of
households already owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent
combined. Take–home pay as a share of the economy is at the
lowest level since 1929.
Bush is reshaping the tax and
budget system so workers pay a greater share of the costs and
owners pay less. As wealth is increasingly sheltered from taxes,
inequality will become more entrenched and hereditary in Bush's
ownership society.
While Bush runs up the
national debt to reckless levels, risking economic crisis, to
give more tax breaks to millionaires, his budget cuts education,
a pillar of individual and national progress, on the pretense of
fiscal responsibility.
The unemployment rate is 30
percent higher than it was in 2000. About one out of six
Americans has no health insurance, and half of all bankruptcies
are illness-related. One out of eight Americans lives below the
meager official poverty line – and many more can't make ends
meet above it.
Yet, Bush's budget slashes
already inadequate small business assistance, workforce
development, community economic development, public health and
safety, Medicaid, housing assistance, public transit, food
stamps, childcare and much more.
Bush is building a bridge to
the 20th century – the pre-New Deal 20th
century. Givebacks to wealthy corporations and people have
already given us mid-20th century revenues for 21st
century challenges.
Total federal tax revenues,
says the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "are a
smaller share of the economy than in any year since 1959, a time
when Medicare, Medicaid, most federal aid to education, most
child care and environmental programs, and anti-poverty programs
such as food stamps did not exist."
With time running out to turn
back the global tsunami of global warming, Bush keeps energy
policy hostage to the oil and gas lobby. His budget slashes
natural resources and environmental programs 23 percent by fiscal
year 2010.
Tax cuts for the richest 1
percent will cost more than $120 billion in 2006, Citizens for
Tax Justice projects. That about matches Bush's total 2006
budgets for the Environmental Protection Agency, Education,
Housing and Urban Development, and Veterans Affairs combined.
Instead of making
irresponsible budget cuts, we should be repealing irresponsible
tax cuts.
Wealthy Americans have reaped
the lion's share of economic growth. Without fair and adequate
taxes, we cannot rebuild the public infrastructure inherited from
past generations. We cannot invest in the research and education
vital for our future.
We will not prosper in the
global economy relying increasingly on low wages and outsourcing
in place of innovation and opportunity.
Bush is undoing the New Deal
and later advances that made the American Dream real for millions
of people – and made the nation we own together a better
one.
Bush wants us to unlearn the
lessons of the Great Depression and more recently burst stock
bubble. He wants to transform Social Security's retirement
insurance, with guaranteed lifetime benefits, into a more costly,
risky, privatized investment gamble.
Bush's ownership society
would replace the American Dream with the American Gamble, rigged
for the wealthy and well connected.
For the Gamble Generation,
insecurity would be the norm and opportunity increasingly the
birthright of wealth, not democracy.
BY
RALPH NADER
George
W. Bush often says that the safety of all Americans is his
highest priority. He doesn't mean advancing vigorously the
implementation of laws he has sworn to enforce against
occupational disease and trauma, traffic injuries, air pollution,
medical malpractice and other unsafe conditions that are taking
the lives of many tens of thousands of Americans annually. What
he mean is commanding the "war on terrorism."
So
let's evaluate him at his narrowest definition of safety. First,
it is clear that the budget of the Department of Homeland
Security – a huge amalgam of government agencies proud to
defend their turf even after their consolidation – is out of
control.
There
are no cost-benefit criteria in operation about how to spend the
burgeoning monies Congress and Bush are throwing at this
Department. One of its arms is the Transportation Security
Agency. You know, the agency that makes you take your shoes off
or pats you down at airports. Its money is flying around as well.
Back
in 2002, the Office of Management and Budget's chief, Mitch
Daniels, told us that his office essentially has no control over
the ways Homeland Security spends its budget. He agreed, in a
series of meetings with me and our economist, James Love, to file
a notice in the Federal Register inviting public comments about
the best ways to place the Department under a cost-benefit
regime.
The
comments were duly received and analyzed by OMB staff and the
General Services Administration. But in June 2003, Mr. Daniels
resigned his post to run for the governorship of Indiana. He won.
His successor, Josh Bolten, a White house political appointee,
has shown no interest, thus far, in continuing his predecessor's
mission.
Just
calling any expenditure "homeland security" defers most
members of Congress from exercising any real oversight. So
dollars are easy to waste because the symbol is nearly
untouchable. But Mr. Bolten, who does not return our calls or
respond to letters requesting a meeting, is the man who is
supposed to be in charge of a tough OMB seeking prudent uses of
the tax dollars (with the help of several little-noticed
Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports).
On
January 20th, the New York Times published a
masterful editorial titled "Our Unnecessary
Insecurity." It pointed out "troubling vulnerabilities
that have yet to be seriously addressed by Bush and his
Department of Homeland Security. Among these risks are chemical
plants, nuclear materials, nuclear power plants, port security,
hazardous waste transport and bioterrorism (e.g. Anthrax).
While
the Times properly acknowledges that a complex industrial
society can never be super safe, especially given suicidal
attacks, it does take to task the chemical industry whose
lobbyists continue to block reasonable safety rules proposed by
the Department and EPA.
In
fact, many industries have opposed such regulations in their
backyards, and where they accede, they demand government
subsidies even for normal security precautions, as for guarding
nuclear power plants.
It
gets worse. Every day, toxic chemicals and lethal wastes are
transported by rail and truck through many populated areas.
Within a few block of the Congress, abut 8500 rail cars pass
every year, loaded with chlorine, sulfuric acid, hydrochloric
acid and other toxic vapors that could destroy the lives of tens
of thousands of people in an hour.
The
District of Columbia recently adopted a temporary ban on such
shipments, but the railroad company CSX objected. Resolution of
this conflict is still pending.
Now
either Bush is severely negligent, while using the "war on
terrorism" to help him get reelected, or he knows that he
and his cabinet members are exaggerating the terrorist threat
here. For if, as Bush often says, there are Al-Qaeda cells in
this country that are suicidal, funded, hate this country and
know they are being hunted, why have they not struck back at any
one of a million targets since 9/11? One answer could be that
they are simply not here. Out of 5,000 arrests by Attorney
General John Ashcroft of suspected big terrorists, he has
convicted two, and these convictions were overturned by a court
in Michigan. He is zero for 5,000, according to Professor David
Cole of Georgetown University, author of Enemy Aliens.
What
does Bush think about these issues and questions? He is almost
never asked by the press, when they can reach him, which is
not often. Besides, Bush is too busy being the conqueror of Iraq
with a worsening war-occupation that his own CIA Director Porter
Goss described, at a Senate hearing, as providing the occasion
for the recruitment and training of many new terrorists.
Fighting
stateless terrorism in ways that create more terrorists is what
is keeping many an active and retired military, diplomatic and
intelligence person awake at night. But not George Bush, who
assures us that he loses no sleep over his decisions or their
consequences.
See
www.democracyrising.us for more information.
BY
NOAM CHOMSKY
If
you can imagine some rational observers from Mars looking at this
curious species down here, I don't think they'd put very high
odds on survival—another generation or two. In fact, it's
kind of miraculous that we've come along this far.
The
world has come extremely close to total destruction just in
recent years from nuclear war. New Mexico plays an important role
in this. There's case after case where a nuclear war was
prevented almost by a miracle. And the threat is increasing as a
consequence of policies that the administration is very
consciously pursuing.
US
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld understands perfectly well that
these policies are increasing the threat of destruction. As you
know, it's not a high probability event, but if a low probability
even keeps happening over and over, there's a high probability
that sooner or later it will take place.
If you want to rank issues in terms of significance, there are some issues that are literally issues of survival of the species, and they're imminent. Nuclear war is an issue of species survival, and the threats have been severe for a long time.
It's
come to the point where you can read in the most sober
respectable journals warnings by the leading strategic analysts
that the current American posture—transformation of the
military—is raising the prospect of what they call
"ultimate doom" and not very far away. That's because
it leads to an action-reaction cycle in which others respond.
That leads us to be closer and more reliant on hair-trigger
mechanisms, which are massively destructive.
Militarization
of space could very well doom the species. It's being pushed very
hard. That's one issue that really requires major work and that's
a huge one in New Mexico. New Mexico is one of the centers where
this potential destruction of the species is taking place.
There's
a document called The Essentials of Post Cold War Deterrence
that was released during the Clinton years by the Strategic
Command, which is in charge of nuclear weapons. It's one of the
most horrifying documents I've ever read. People haven't paid
attention to it.
The
Strategic Command report asks how we should reconstruct our
nuclear and other forces for the post-Cold War period. And the
conclusions are that we have to rely primarily on nuclear weapons
because unlike other weapons of mass destruction such as chemical
and biological, the effects of nuclear weapons are immediate,
devastating, overwhelming—not only destructive but
terrifying. So they have to be the core of what's called
deterrence.
Everything
means the opposite of what it says. Deterrence means our
offensive stance should primarily be based on nuclear weapons
because they're so destructive and terrifying. And furthermore
just the possession of massive nuclear forces casts a shadow over
any international conflict, like people are frightened of us
because we have this overwhelming force.
We
have to have a national persona of irrationality with forces out
of control, so we really terrify everybody, and then we can get
what we want. And furthermore they're right to be terrified
because we're going to have these nuclear weapons right in front
of us, which will blow them all up—in fact, blow us all up
if they get out of control.
If
you read the vision for 2020 published by the Space
Administration, it talks about how the new frontier is space—and
that we have to take control of space for military purposes and
make sure that we have no competitors. That means the space-based
instruments of sudden mass destruction.
There
was an outer space treaty in1967, which doesn't have any teeth in
it but it does call for preserving space for peaceful purposes.
And there have been efforts at the UN General Assembly
Disarmament Committee to strengthen it. But they've been blocked
unilaterally by the US. The US alone refuses to vote for the
General Assembly resolution, and it's been tied up since the year
2000. The Chinese are the ones who are pushing to expand it.
That's not reported in the US. In the year 2000 it was only
reported in one newspaper, a small newspaper in Utah.
The
whole world is supposed to be covered with—probably is—sophisticated
surveillance devices and the whole range of complex, lethal,
destructive weaponry designed to be able to attack anything from
space. This means nuclear weapons in space—nuclear energy
sources in space—which can get out of control and blow up
and who knows what will happen?
When
the Bush administration took over they just made it more extreme.
They moved form the Clinton doctrine of control of space to what
they call ownership of space, meaning—their words—"instant
engagement anywhere" or unannounced destruction of any place
on earth.
4.
CREATIONISTS STILL FIGHTING EVOLUTION
BY
ANDREW GREELEY
Slightly
more than half of the American people reject evolution. During
the last decade, the General Social Survey conducted by Nation
Opinion Research Center (and directed by my colleague Dr. Tom M.
Smith) has asked whether a respondent thinks that humans are
descended from animals. Fifty-two percent said that either this
was definitely not true or probably not true.
Ever
since they won the battle but lost the war in the Scopes trial of
1925, conservative Christians have waged an intensive war against
evolution. Despite repeated court decisions insisting that
evolution must be taught in high school classes, the conservative
Christians have managed to keep one form or another of
"creationism" alive and well as an alternative in the
minds of many Americans – including 62 percent of
African-American Christians, 52 percent of mainline Protestants,
42 percent of Catholics and 26 percent of Jews. (78 percent of
Conservative Christians reject evolution.)
Evolution
they insist, is only a theory and one that has a lot of holes in
it. Moreover, it is godless, indeed it is part of an assault by a
liberal elite on the beliefs of a god-fearing people. Their
assaults are especially effective in smaller towns and rural
areas where teachers and school administrators are subject to
strong pressure from these God-fearing people. For their own
protection, many teachers, according to a recent article in the New
York Times, skip over the chapters on evolution in the
biology textbook. In Cobb County Georgia, they forced the schools
to put a sticker on the cover of a textbook asserting that
"intelligent design" was an equally valid theory.
"Theory"
is not a good word because it implies doubt. The Copernican
theory about the motion of planets around the sun and the Big
Bang theory of the origin of the universe are models which in
their broad outline are simply true. However much remains to be
explained within the model, they fit the known data so well that
they are not in danger of rejection – especially when there
is no alternative theory that even begins to fits the data. So
too is evolution a model that fits the data, even if there is
still much exploration to be done within the model. It does not
follow that there is any other model available that fits the
data.
"Intelligent
design" as an alternative to evolution implies that if one
believes in God, the evolutionary "theory" is
unacceptable no matter how powerful its explanatory power. In
fact, belief in "Intelligent design" is completely
compatible with scientific acceptance of evolution. The design is
inside the model, not something intruded from the outside. It is
not up to science to validate such design. It merely reports what
it sees and leaves to the religion and the religious believer to
judge whether it was a wise God who launched the process, just as
He/She launched the "Big Bang" with the polymers and
parameters for human life on this planet built-in. Science can't
say whether God did that or not – and moreover shouldn’t.
Bible Christians cannot accept such a perspective, because they must necessarily believe the Book of Genesis, word for word inspired by God, is an accurate and literal book of science. It is clear to the rest of us that Genesis teaches that God created and established order in the cosmos, religious truths indeed that go beyond the realm of science but not against it.
The
evangelicals are entitled to their beliefs, but they have no
right to try to impose their view on the rest of us and to
deprive other people's children of an accurate picture of how
science models the emergence and development of life – or an
alternative view of the literary nature of the books of Genesis.
One
can understand their effort to fight scientific modernism. If
literal interpretation of Genesis is taken away from them, then
their entire religious edifice is shaken to its foundations.
However, when in their battle against modernism they deprive
other children of a proper education they violate our freedom of
religion.
5. WHAT A RICH
NATION SHOULD REALLY BE DOING ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY
BY
GAR ALPEROVITZ
Listening
to the debate between the Administration and even its most
adventurous critics one would imagine that only an extremely
limited range of Social Security options are even conceivable.
One would also imagine that we live in an extremely poor society
which is ultimately going to have to find ways to squeeze its
seniors financially or somehow we will all perish. The truth is
radically different.
This
is the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. A serious
progressive strategy should go far beyond the current debate by
building upon this self-evident fact. It should affirm the goal
of a truly bountiful-rather than penny-pinching-future for its
citizens when they retire. Here is the ball to keep your eye on:
If
the US does merely as well in the 21st Century as it
did during the difficult depression and war-dominated 20th Century,
we Americans will be producing the equivalent of approximately $1
million a year for every four people by century's end-and the top
1% of the households will be making an estimated $9-10 million.
Clearly, if we so choose, we can afford a very, very generous
plan.
Oddly
so far just about the only people who seem to recognize the
obvious reality that a rich nation will be able to afford more
rather than less as technological progress continues are a couple
of maverick (but very high placed!) conservatives. Thus:
The
Nobel prize-winning conservative economist Robert Fogel has
offered a comprehensive life-time savings and investment plan
which would start retirement at age 55. Unlike proposals by both
liberals and other conservatives which would delay retirement and
make people work longer in order to save money for the Social
Security system, a major goal is to allow people to retire at a
younger and younger age as the nation's wealth increases over the
century. A tax of 2 or 3 percent "applied progressively to
the top half of the income distribution would aide those with low
incomes.
Another
leading conservative maverick, former Bush Treasury Secretary
Paul O'Neil has put forward a savings and investment plan which
would produce the equivalent of a million dollar annuity for
every American enough to easily guarantee $50,000 or more a year.
It would begin with those currently in the 18-35 age bracket and
would be supplemented by federal contributions for low income
people. Like Fogel, O'Neil argues: "Those of us who are more
fortunate can help those who are not."
Several
progressives have suggested equity-increasing approaches which
might usefully be combined with the basic Fogel and O'Neil
concept. Hofstra University School of Law professor Leon
Friedman, for instance, has proposed an annual one percent
"net worth tax" on the top 1% of households in order to
provide full Social Security financing, and to also help reduce
the national debt. Such "wealth taxes" are common in
virtually every other advanced industrial and post-industrial
society.
A
comprehensive plan by Colgate University economist Thomas Michi
would ultimately establish a fully funded investment based system
(as opposed to the current "pay-as-you-go" Social
Security design). This would include a broad range of stocks and
bonds and would be financed by progressive income taxes and also
be a new wealth tax.
A
plan by New School University sociologist Robin Blackburn would
(1) expand Social Security; (2) pool private pension plans in
order to reduce risk; and (3) institute a "share
levy"-- an implicit wealth-like tax which would require
firms to issue and set-aside stock equivalent to 10-20% of
profits each year in order to increase pension fund capital.
A
very general proposal to invest Social Security reserves which
builds on current state pension fund precedents, and the Canadian
national system, has been offered by Boston College management
Professor Alice H. Munnell and Brookings fellow R. Kent Weaver.
Importantly, as they observe, public management of such plans is
hardly "financial rocket science…"
It's
worth recalling, too, that the Roosevelt Administration's Social
Security program was originally based on a cautious investment
approach, later abandoned because Keynesian economists worried it
was draining purchasing power from the 1930's economy. The
Clinton Administration also proposed a modestly progressive
investment strategy of up to 14.6% of the Social Security Trust
Fund.
What
is striking is that such precedents and the bolder proposals on
both right and left all agree, first, that a rich country can
afford more rather than less for its seniors as time goes on:
second, that taxing those at the very top for this purpose is
obvious and appropriate; and third that one or another form of
investing makes sense financially if done under public authority.
Even
the most adventurous Democrats are currently mainly huddled in a
defensive posture as they try to resist the onslaught of the Bush
challenge. Yes, a defense against the Bush strategy is necessary.
But No, it is not enough: what the right realized years ago is
that the way forward is to begin laying bold proposals on the
table. The question is how long it will take before progressive
politicians start doing the same.
6. SELECTIVE
SERVICE READY TO BRING BACK DRAFT
BY
A REPORT BY MEMBERS OF THE
ACTION CENTER
On
March 31st, the Selective Service System will report
to President Bush that it is ready to implement a draft within 75
days. We have to organize now to stop the draft before it starts.
Despite
what politicians say, there is a high probability that the Bush
Administration will attempt to reinstate the draft.
The
US military is in a quagmire in Iraq, facing a national popular
uprising against the occupation. Soldiers are dying every day. A
report issued in January 2004 by Jeffrey Record, a visiting
professor at the Air War College, said the Army is "near the
breaking point." The Pentagon has been forced to issue
repeated "stop loss" orders and recall soldiers who had
retired or otherwise returned to civilian life.
Out
of 10 Army Divisions, part or all of 9 of them are either
deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Twenty-one out of 33 regular
combat brigades are on active duty in Iraq, Afghanistan, South
Korea, or the Balkans. That's 63% of the Army's combat strength.
This means the Army is extremely overextended. The Bush
Administration has been trying to fill the gap with Reserve and
National Guard troops, but this is a temporary fix at best. The
head of the Army Reserves has recently written a memo saying that
the readiness of his forces has been drastically reduced through
over-deployment and is "degenerating into a broken
force."
Meanwhile,
official US foreign policy is now the doctrine of
"pre-emptive war" and "regime change"
wherever a leader runs afoul of US corporate interests. An
invasion of Iran, Syria, Korea, or Cuba – all of whom are on
Washington and Wall Street's list of targets – would require
tens of or hundreds of thousands of new soldiers.
Enlistment
rates are not even able to maintain current force levels, much
less provide troops for new invasions and occupations. All four
services missed their enlistment quotas last year, and
enlistments in the Reserves, National Guard, and regular military
are at a 30-year low. Many current members of the armed forces
plan to get out as soon as their current enlistment ends.
According to a poll conducted by the military newspaper Starts
& Stripes, 49% of soldiers stationed in Iraq do not plan
to re-enlist.
The
President has given the Selective Service System a set of
readiness goals to be implemented by March 31st, 2005.
As part of these performance goals, the System must be ready to
be fully operational within 75 days. This means we can look for
the draft to be in operation as early as June 15th,2005.
March
19th is the second anniversary of the war. On the
weekend of March 19-20, activists all over the globe will take to
the streets to demand an end to the war and occupation. No Draft
No Way will be mobilizing to take part in these demonstrations,
which will take place just a few days before the Selective
Service System reports to President Bush that it is ready to go.
BY
Y WALIDAH IMARISHA
Since
Sept. 11th corporate media have regurgitated the
government's mindless pro-war propaganda. It's not just CNN and
NBC, though: big money rappers have fallen in line to rally
'round the flag, from Mystikal to R. Kelly to Wu-Tang Clan to MC
Hammer.
"Whether
you have Dan Rather or Wyclef or Ja Rule wrapped up in red, white
and blue, it's the same, because then they become the Dan Rather
of the hip hop community," says Mario Africa of the Central
Committee for Conscientious Objectors, publisher of AWOL, a
political hip hop magazine.
Rapper
Canibus' song "Draft Me" is just part of a media blitz
feeding the racist attacks that have claimed dozens of Middle
Eastern/Arab/South and Central Asia people since Sept. 11:
"Lurkin', to leave y'all with bloody red turbans/Screamin
'Jihad!' while y'all pray to a false god/We ready for all out
war, it's time to settle the score." The songs ends with a
clip of George W. Bush.
But
luckily, underground hip hop is speaking out against the
"war on terrorism," operating, as Africa says, as town
criers. "It's these cats who are selling their CDs out of
their backpacks and the trunk of their cars who come with the
analysis, because they can say this is what it means to me,
because we live under the gun."
Folks
have organized shows, like the May 12 LA Not in Our Name show,
which drew over 1,200 people. Africa and AWOL Magazine are now
planning a Sept. 11 spoken word show in Berkeley, California to
address both political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal's case and
post-911 America.
And
hip hop artists/organizers are still doing what they know best:
creating art. Seattle hip hoppers put out "911amerika"
earlier this year. (See www.nwexplosion.com). Gabriel Teodros, one of
the organizers, says "I was disturbed that for the first
time in my life people of color were waving US flags and
screaming retaliation… The CD just felt like the best thing
we could do to help combat the self-destruction."
Erik
Wissa works with the Boston American Friends Service Committee's
hip hop program Critical Breakdown. He says hip hop, as the voice
of young people today, is a vital tool for the progressive
movement. "A lot of organizations don't see the power in
music, but cultural workers have always been at the forefront of
every movement."
Critical
Breakdown is working with South Africa-based Bush Radio, Big
Noise Films and AWOL to put out a CD titled "Infinite
War." (See http://awol.objector.org). It would be a global
voice against the war on terrorism.
Many
groups have joined forces, realizing that making a dent in the
pro-war propaganda machine is going to take a concerted effort.
"There's so much division in hip hop already: east coast,
west coast, underground, mainstream," says Kevin Ramirez of
3rdworldwide and AWOL. "It's really time we start working
together, linking up now, before we're either all drafted or
bombed."
BY
RALPH NADER
Having
moved along the path of destroying the freedoms and rights
hitherto accorded wrongfully injured or defrauded Americans to
have their full day in court via state class actions, George W.
Bush is now pushing the Congress to make it even more difficult
to sue for injuries and fatalities coming from medical negligence
or incompetence.
Again
and again, George W. Bush demands pain and suffering caps on
court awards for the most serious of human injuries and other
restrictions on these defenseless patients. He complains publicly
about "skyrocketing" costs of "junk lawsuits"
against doctors and hospitals. When people ask him to document
these wild assertions with data and quantitative evidence, he
totally ignores their inquires. For good reason: he doesn't have
the facts. He is trading in unilateral propaganda of the most
reckless kind.
Call
it Presidential malpractice, propelled by the Karl Rove-led
grudge against trial lawyers supporting Democrats. His specious
stance also reaps tens of millions of grateful campaign dollars
form practitioners and executives and political action committees
associated with insurance companies, hospital chains and medical
societies (the latter declining to police its own ranks of bad
doctors).
The
opposition to Mr. Bush's cruel and false positions is almost
entirely defensive. Groups like Public Citizen (citizen.org) and
the Center for Justice and Democracy (centerjd.org) have produced
mountains of factual rebuttals and brought forth the
heart-wrenching victims of bad physician or hospital practices to
speak for the freedom to hold their harmdoers accountable and
deter future incompetence and recklessness in open courts of law.
It
is long overdue to go on the offensive against George W. bush,
whose forked tongue on more than one occasion has said that
"the safety of all Americans is my top priority." Why
isn't he lifting a finger on probably the leading cause of
preventable violence going on in the US today – deaths and
injuries and sickness from the misworkings of the
medical-hospital economy?
Although
other official estimates are higher, the major report by the
Harvard School of Public Health physicians estimated 80,000
deaths per year (over 1500 a week) due to medical negligence.
Similarly caused serous injuries run into the hundreds of
thousands yearly. According to the authoritative Worst Pills Best
Pills book (2005 edition by Dr. Sidney Wolfe; available at www.worstpills.org), misprescribed or
overprescribed medicines are responsible for at least 100,000
deaths each year.
The
Bush Administration is perfectly callous toward this daily
mayhem. Bush proposed nothing to Congress about this epidemic of
preventable death, injury and disease. His government does
nothing with existing authority and leverage that could lift up
standards and practices; this would also strengthen the presently
weak doctor discipline. His Department of Health and Human
Services runs the National Practitioners Data Base which collects
information on physician malpractice. This is a start for
some so-called "compassionate conservatism." But Bush
could care less.
Mr.
Bush is obsessed with going after the defenders of these
unfortunate innocent patients, only a small percentage of whom
collect any dollar awards for wrong diagnoses leading to
injurious procedures or negligently performed operations and
treatments. A surgical removal of the wrong breast or foot or
kidney receives some headlines. The vast majority of harmed
patients die or suffer out of sight of cheap politicians,
arrogant practitioners and corporations.
The
millions of Americans who have been mistreated, their caring
family members, competent physicians and nurses and consumer
organizations must put the spotlight and heat on the White House
and its dissembling President, before he destroys more of the
people's freedom to fight back and defend themselves.
As
Business Week magazine has editorialized, the medical
malpractice crisis is medical malpractice.
9. KILLER WIND
CAME TO JAKARTA
BY
PETER DALE SCOTT
But none of us experienced
That pervasive smell of
death
Those impassable rivers
Clogged with corpses
Robert Lowell is that why
Even you a pacifist
Had so little to say about
it?
Or you gentle reader
Let us examine carefully
The good reasons
You and I
don't enjoy reading this
Like the time
In the steep Engadine
We saw the silent avalanche
Fall away from the mountain
Hair and eyebrows
The first to feel
The murmurations
Of the spreading
Killer wind