a librarian

I want to go to there

2010-08-24T10:48:00.002-04:00

Arnold Arboretum
"Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts is one of the oldest, largest, and most famous arboretum in the United States. It was established in 1872 on 107 ha (264 acres) of land in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston and was guided for many years by Charles Sprague Sargent who was appointed the Arboretum's first director in 1873 and spent the following 54 years shaping the policies. By an arrangement with the city of Boston, the Arnold Arboretum became part of the famous "Emerald Necklace", the 10 km (7 mile) long network of parks and parkways that Frederick Law Olmsted laid out for the Boston Parks Department between 1878 and 1892."

Holden Arboretum
"The Holden Arboretum, in Kirtland, Ohio, USA, is one of the largest arboretums and botanical gardens in the United States, with over 3,400 acres (1,376 ha), 600 acres (243 ha) of which are devoted to collections and gardens. The Arboretum is named for Albert Fairchild Holden, a mining engineer and executive, who had considered making Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum his beneficiary. However, his sister, Roberta Holden Bole, convinced him that Cleveland deserved its own arboretum. Thus Mr. Holden established an arboretum in memory of his deceased daughter, Elizabeth Davis."

United States National Arboretum
"In 1927 the United States National Arboretum was established in Washington, D.C. on 180 ha (444 acres) of land; currently it receives over half a million annual visitors. Single-genus groupings include apples, azaleas, boxwoods, dogwoods, hollies, magnolias and maples. Other major garden features include collections of herbaceous and aquatic plants, the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum, the Asian Collections, the Conifer Collections, native plant collections, the National Herb Garden and the National Grove of State Trees. A unique feature of the U.S. National Arboretum is the National Capitol Columns, 23 Corinthian columns that were used in the United States Capitol from 1828 until 1958."

Source: Arboretum. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved August 19, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arboretum

Clementine to Winston:

2010-08-24T10:46:00.001-04:00

"“My darling,” she wrote, shortly after the “finest hour” speech was delivered, “I hope you will forgive me if I tell you something I feel you ought to know. One of the men in your entourage, a devoted friend, has been to me and told me that there is a danger of your being generally disliked by your colleagues and subordinates because of your rough, sarcastic and overbearing manner.” She added, “You will not get the best results by irascibility and rudeness, they will breed either a dislike or a slave mentality.” "

Source: Burns, J. F. (2010, June 17). Seventy years later, Churchill's 'finest hour' yields insights. The New York Times. Retrieved August 19, 2010, from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/world/europe/18churchhill.html

Eat up

2010-08-24T10:43:00.002-04:00

"More than 80 percent of the corn, soybean and cotton grown in the United States is genetically engineered."

Source: Pollack, A. (2010, April 13). Study says overuse threatens gains from modified crops. The New York Times. Retrieved August 19, 2010, from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/business/energy-environment/14crop.html

The new president, so much better than the last president

2010-08-23T10:02:00.002-04:00

"In 17 months in office, President Obama has already outdone every previous president in pursuing leak prosecutions."

Source: Shane, S. (2010, June 11). Obama takes a hard line against leaks to press. The New York Times. Retrieved August 20, 2010, from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/us/politics/12leak.html?pagewanted=all

Here's How We Could Finally Get Revenge on Some Politicians

2010-07-27T14:57:00.003-04:00

"McCain officials said their volunteers had made more phone calls to voters than in 2004 and, as in that election, they relied on sophisticated computerized lists that singled out voters by their shopping habits and the books they read."

Source: Powell, M., & Rohter, L. (2008, November 4). Across Ohio, tough battle is fought by campaign volunteers for both parties. The New York Times. Retrieved July 15, 2010, from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/us/politics/05ground.html

We Should All Be Travelling By Canal

2010-07-23T13:21:00.001-04:00

"The canal still remains the most fuel-efficient way to ship goods between the East Coast and the upper Midwest. One gallon of diesel pulls one ton of cargo 59 miles by truck, 202 miles by train and 514 miles by canal barge, Ms. Mantello said. A single barge can carry 3,000 tons, enough to replace 100 trucks."

Source: Maag, C. (2008, November 2). Hints of comeback for nation’s first superhighway. The New York Times. Retrieved July 15, 2010, from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/nyregion/03erie.html

"I'm evolving I'm evolving"

2010-07-19T09:01:00.002-04:00

On the Creation Museum, that opened in 2007:

"The museum’s target group is the 45 percent of Americans who, for 25 years, have consistently agreed with the statement in a Gallup poll that 'God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.' "

Source: Rosin, H. (2007, November 25). Rock of ages, ages of rock. The New York Times. Retrieved July 15, 2010, from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/magazine/25wwln-geologists-t.html?pagewanted=print

Two Examples of Socialism No One's Complaining About

2010-07-16T11:54:00.002-04:00

"Icann has had oversight over domain names under a series of loose agreements with the U.S. government, which financed much of the Internet’s development."

Source: The Associated Press. (2009, September 30). U.S. moves to lessen its oversight of Internet. The New York Times. Retrieved September 30, 2009, from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/technology/internet/01icann.html

"The Essential Air Service program was created in 1978, when the airline industry was deregulated, to ensure that communities in rural and remote areas would be linked to the nation’s air system.

Under the program, the government provides subsidies of about $100 million a year to the airlines, resulting in service to 102 communities."

Source: Maynard, M. (2008, May 21). Airlines’ cuts making cities no-fly zones. The New York Times. Retrieved July 15, 2010, from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/business/21air.html?scp=1&sq=airlines%20cuts%20making%20cities%20no-fly%20zones&st=cse

A Bright New Tomorrow

2010-07-14T14:16:00.002-04:00

Here are a few items of bright economic news, courtesy of that horrible rag, The New York Times:

"Over the last 30 years, the trend has been to pare back income tax rates on the rich, federally and in the state. Since the mid-1970s, the state has cut its top tax rate from 15.375 percent to 6.85 percent. The top income tax rate in New Jersey is 8.97 percent, and in Connecticut it is 5 percent, according to data from the Fiscal Policy Institute, a liberal research group.

That said, the richest 1 percent of New Yorkers paid more than 40 percent of the income tax in 2007, up from about 30 percent in 1996, according to state data, though that figure is declining as the financial crisis makes the rich less so."

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"For the first time since the Depression, the American economy has added virtually no jobs in the private sector over a 10-year period. The total number of jobs has grown a bit, but that is only because of government hiring."

"After the recession ends, job growth is likely to resume." [The article's thesis is that there hasn't been any job growth, so I don’t know what they’re trying to say here.]

"But few expect that manufacturing will reverse its long decline as a major employer in the United States."

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"Over the last decade the financial sector was the fastest-growing part of the economy, with two-thirds of growth in gross domestic product attributable to incomes of workers in finance."

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"Indeed, the increasingly anemic job market follows six years of economic expansion that delivered robust corporate profits but scant job growth. The last recession, in 2001, was followed by a so-called jobless recovery. As the economy resumed growing, payrolls continued to shrink."

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"Forty-four percent of employees live paycheck to paycheck, according to a survey conducted by MetLife in late 2007, and 48 percent of American households have less than $5,000 in liquid assets according to Edward Wolff, an economist specializing in the study of poverty and income distribution at New York University."

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Sources:
Hakim, D. (2009, January 20). In Albany, higher taxes for the rich expected. The New York Times. Retrieved July 10, 2010, from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/nyregion/21millionaire.html

Norris, F. (2009, August 7). Job growth lacking in the private sector. The New York Times. Retrieved August 8, 2009, from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/08/business/economy/08charts.html

Bowley, G. (2009, October 16). Bailout helps fuel a new era of Wall Street wealth. The New York Times. Retrieved July 10, 2010, from
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/business/economy/17wall.html

Goodman, P. (2008, March 2). As U.S. jobs get harder to find, upward mobility falters. The New York Times. Retrieved July 10, 2010, from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/business/worldbusiness/02iht-jobs.4.10620835.html

Scelfo, J. (2008, October 22). After the house is gone. The New York Times. Retrieved July 10, 2010, from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/garden/23foreclosure.html

Health Care Figures No One is Talking About

2009-07-23T09:19:00.002-04:00

I recently read Peter Singer's essay about health care. As the corporate media machine steamrolls over the truth in their drive to kill universal health insurance, here are a few figures from his article I am not hearing elsewhere:

Health-insurance premiums have more than doubled in a decade, rising four times faster than wages.
Health care now absorbs about one dollar in every six the nation spends, a figure that far exceeds the share spent by any other nation.
Estimates of the number of U.S. deaths caused annually by the absence of universal health insurance go as high as 20,000.
In one study, 43 percent of Americans with insurance reported that cost was a problem that had limited the treatment they received.
More than 60 percent of all U.S. bankruptcies are related to illness, with many of these specifically caused by medical bills, even among those who have health insurance.
In 2008, according to a Gallup survey, 73 percent of Canadians and 73 percent of Britons said they had confidence in their countries’ health care systems. In the United States, the figure was 56 percent.

Source: Singer, P. (2009, July 15). Why we must ration health care. The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved July 20, 2009, from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/magazine/19healthcare-t.html?ref=magazine

Two More Examples Supporting Chomsky's Propaganda Model

2009-07-21T14:49:00.002-04:00

Here are two more examples of journalists discussing our "free" press:

"In 1960, during the Wisconsin primary, Mr. Cronkite asked Kennedy, then a senator, about his Roman Catholic religion. As Mr. Cronkite recalled in his memoir, Kennedy called Frank Stanton, CBS’s president, to complain that questions about the subject had earlier been ruled out of bounds. He then reminded Mr. Stanton that if he were elected he would be appointing members of the Federal Communications Commission. Mr. Stanton “courageously stood up to the threat,” Mr. Cronkite wrote. "
Martin, D. (2009, July 18). Walter Cronkite, 92, dies; Trusted voice of TV news. The New York Times. Retrieved July 17, 2009, from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/us/18cronkite.html?ref=obituaries&pagewanted=print

“I just don’t go out to industry events, in part because it puts my sources in an awkward situation,” she said, adding that “the other thing about going out with these people is that when it comes time to cover something involving them, they say, ‘But, Nikki, we’re friends.’ I don’t want those kind of friends.” "
Carr, D. (2009, July 17). A Hollywood blogger feared by executives. The New York Times. Retrieved July 17, 2009 from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/business/media/17blog.html?sq=finke&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=print

NYT Still Getting the Story Wrong

2008-05-29T12:14:00.003-04:00

A May 26, 2008 article about media coverage of the Iraq war had this to say:

" 'Ironically, the success of the surge and a reduction in violence has led to a reduction in coverage,' said Mark Jurkowitz of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. 'There is evidence that people have made up their minds about this war, and other stories — like the economy and the election — have come along and sucked up all the oxygen.'

But the tactical success of the surge should not be misconstrued as making Iraq a safer place for American soldiers. Last year was the bloodiest in the five-year history of the conflict, with more than 900 dead, and last month, 52 perished, making it the bloodiest month of the year so far. So far in May, 18 have died."

So, paragraph 5 says the reduction in violence led to a reduction in coverage. Paragraph 6 says there's been no reduction in violence.

I guess this logical fallacy is called denial of the antecendent:
P -> Q
~P
Therefore, ~Q

Source: Carr, D. (2008, May 26). The wars we choose to ignore. The New York Times. Retrieved May 26, 2008, from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/business/media/26carr.html?scp=1&sq=wars+we+chose+to+ignore&st=nyt

Civilisation

2008-02-01T11:13:00.000-05:00

I'm watching the 1969 BBC series Civilisation: A Personal View by Kenneth Clark.

On Diderot and the Encyclopédie, Clark says: "And in the Encyclopédie he wrote articles on everything from Aristotle to artifical flowers. The aims of the Encyclopédie seem harmless enough to us but, you know, authoritarian governments don't like dictionaries. They live by lies and by bamboozling abstractions; they can't afford to have words accurately defined."

This observation seems completely true to me. I think about Orwell and the language of 1984 and Animal Farm; I remember all the times Chomsky has talked about defining the word 'terrorism.'

Clark also says: "The remoteness of Versailles had this good result: that Parisian society was free from the stultifying rituals of court procedure and the trivial day-to-day preoccupations of politics. The other thing that made Eighteenth Century salons a source of enlightment was that the French upper classes were not destructively rich. They lost most of their money in a financial crash brought about by a Scottish wizard named David Law. As I've said several times, a margin of wealth is helpful to civilisation, but, for some mysterious reason, great wealth is destructive."

I don't know enough about this topic to comment, but I was struck by the recent trend, well documented, of the wealthy becoming simply grotesquely rich and how the whole country has seemed to go down the crapper in the same time frame, i.e., the last thirty years.

I Guess He Needed the Advance

2007-11-03T14:13:00.000-04:00

John Bolton was recently interviewed in The New York Times. Here's one question:

Question: A lot of Americans would say that if we haven’t done it in Iraq we can’t try regime change in another nation.

Answer: I think it’s almost beyond dispute that we were right to overthrow Saddam and the threat his regime posed.

Beyond dispute?? Threat?? If he isn't even going to acknowledge reality there's no sense commenting on this gibberish.

Source: Solomon, D. (2007, November 4). Questions for John Bolton: The diplomat. Retrieved November 3, 2007 from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazine/04wwln-Q4-t.html?ref=magazine

Proof of Propaganda

2007-09-03T11:22:00.000-04:00

As a firm believer in Herman & Chomsky's "Propaganda Model," I'm always looking for the offhand, validating comment. (Chomsky's Web site has an article synopsizing this model.)

In that horrible rag, The New York Times, this weekend, they had two paragraphs that relate:

"Rick Wilson, a Republican consultant based in Florida who has worked for Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, and Katherine Harris, the former Florida congresswoman, among others, said that most states have their own expressions for the circumstances under which open secrets stay secret. In Florida, he said, it’s the 'Three County Rule' — no girlfriends within three counties of your home district. In New York, it’s the 'Bear Mountain Compact' — nobody talks about what politicians do with their free time once they’ve crossed the Bear Mountain Bridge en route to Albany from points south.

'There’s a similar phrase in every state I’ve worked in,' Mr. Wilson said. 'In a lot of cases it’s because the principals involved are powerful, and a lot of the people who know are aides or staff or lobbyists or even reporters who rely on these people for access. So you end up with this feeling of, ‘It’s just business, it’s not affecting their work.’ Once it starts affecting their work, then the rules change.'"

Source: Goodnough, A. (2007, September 2). Oh, everyone knows that (except you). The New York Times. Retrieved September 3, 2007, from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/weekinreview/02goodnough.html?pagewanted=1

The Times Continues its Fine Reporting

2007-08-27T08:54:00.000-04:00

of some alternate universe.

This weekend, David Brook's reviewed the book The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation. His review ends with the line "The best way to win votes — and this will be a shocker — is to offer people an accurate view of the world and a set of policies that seem likely to produce good results. This is how you make voters happy."

I sure hope Mr. Brooks isn't advising any presidential candidates because he is dangerously out of touch with reality. (Or he's in third grade.) Politics has nothing to do with offering people an accurate view of the world. Politics has nothing to do with offering people a set of policies. Politics has to do with manipulating people's emotions and reducing your argument down to the simplest visual image possible repeated ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

Paris Hilton spends more time in Jail than Scooter Libby

2007-07-02T21:16:00.001-04:00

I saw someone post that observation somewhere.

1. Obviously, the administration is full of hypocrites. Let's not pretend we discovered this fact today.

2. I wonder how FBI agents feel tonight? Libby's commutation is probably a great morale booster. Way to go, Mr. President! First destroy the effectiveness of our military forces, next destroy law enforcement and intelligence. Are we sure Bush isn't an al Qaeda operative?

Pope Forgives Mass Murderer?

2007-06-10T11:10:00.000-04:00

L'Osservatore Romano via Associated Press

From the New York Times: Pope Benedict XVI met with President George Bush this week. Smiles all around for a man who is responsible for the deaths of hundred of thousands of people. These deaths are officially -- note: officially -- not counted, by policy of the Department of Defense. The United States -- the most moral nation on Earth; God's chosen country; leader of the free world -- kills people and officially refuses to count the number of victims.

Why is Liberty so Popular?

2007-05-07T14:23:00.000-04:00

A group of criminals -- that is, people who broke the law -- in colonial American were called the 'Sons of Liberty.' One slogan of the French Revolution was 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!' Today, I drove passed Liberty Avenue in Whitesboro. President Bush makes constant reference to Liberty's twin: Freedom.

Why are Liberty and Freedom so popular while Equality and Fraternity are either ignored or scorned as Socialism, Communism, unAmerican, etc.?

Here's what I think: Liberty is personal. It relates to "you." Equality and Fraternity are social; these concepts involve "other" people. Liberty represents selfishness, so it is widely popular. Equality and Fraternity represent sacrifice, so it's better to ignore them.

Targeting Children?

2007-04-08T11:36:00.000-04:00

Here's a photo from The New York Times' Web site. The caption says, "FEELING SAFER? American strategy in Baghdad emphasizes making contact with Iraqis to help them feel secure. An American on patrol is watched by three Iraqis."

What the caption doesn't say is why this soldier is pointing an automatic weapon at two children.

Rush & Dick's Hollywood Adventure

2007-04-06T12:06:00.000-04:00

Here's a picture from Rush Limbaugh's site. I guess it's a promotion for a remake of the 90's comedy Dumb and Dumber; this time it'll be called 'Evil & Eviler.'

Official U.S. Policy in the Middle East

2007-01-19T09:51:00.000-05:00

According to his recent testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Lt. General William E. Odom, (Ret.) [Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute and Former Director of the National Security Agency], says promoting democracy was never U.S. policy in the Middle East. He says we were interested only in balance.

I'll inform America's schoolchildren of our honorable international intentions. Also, his remarks mirror previous statements by Secretary Rice.

"Since the 1950s, the US aim in this region has been “regional stability” above all others. The strategy for achieving this aim of every administration until the present one has been maintaining a regional balance of power among three regional forces – Arabs, Israelis, and Iranians. The Arab-Persian conflict is older than the Arab-Israeli conflict. The United States kept a diplomatic foothold in all three camps until the fall of the shah’s regime in Iran. Losing its footing in Tehran, it began under President Carter’s leadership to compensate by building what he called the Persian Gulf Security Framework. The US Central Command with enhanced military power was born as one of the main means for this purpose, but the long-term goal was a rapprochement. Until that time, the military costs for maintaining the regional power balance would be much higher.

The Reagan administration, although it condemned Carter’s Persian Gulf Security Framework, the so-called “Carter Doctrine,” continued Carter’s policies, even to the point of supporting Iraq when Iran was close to overrunning it. Some of its efforts to improve relations with Iran were feckless and counterproductive, but it maintained the proper strategic aim – regional stability.

The Bush administration has broken with this strategy by invading Iraq and also by threatening the existence of the regime in Iran. It presumed that establishing a liberal democracy in Iraq would lead to regional stability. In fact, the policy of spreading democracy by forces of arms has become the main source of regional instability. [Emphasis in original.]"

Source: Odom, W. E. (2007, January 18). Testimony for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Retrieved January 18, 2007, from http://foreign.senate.gov/testimony/2007/OdomTestimony070118.pdf

Legacy of Reagan, Bush and Clinton

2007-01-10T10:22:00.000-05:00

Here's a quote from a recent article, citation below:

"The U.S. government first began giving military aid to Turkey in 1946 to counter Soviet influence in the Middle East during the post-WWII era. But substantial support really began after a military coup in 1980 (an article in the Economist at the time said the armed forces “acted as they had to”) when the U.S. signed a military agreement with Turkey. The U.S. agreed to help modernize Turkish armed forces in exchange for the use of Turkey’s military bases, which bordered Iran and the USSR. After the coup, the situation of the Kurds worsened, as the military gained greater influence and a civil state of emergency was declared in the Southeast in 1987. The civil war between the Turkish armed forces and the PKK that began in 1984 and ended in 1999, left about 37,000 dead, 3,000 Kurdish villages destroyed, and possibly 2 million Kurds displaced. The United States funded 80 percent of Turkey’s arms during these years."

Source: Kuras, E. (2007, January). Kurds in Turkey: Still fighting for freedom. Z Magazine, 20(1). Retrieved January 10, 2007, from http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Jan2007/kuras0107.html

Jeane Kirkpatrick

2006-12-13T09:53:00.000-05:00

Here are a couple things.

First, here is the White House statement on the death of Jeane Kirkpatrick:
"Laura and I are deeply saddened by the death of Jeane Kirkpatrick. As a professor, author, ambassador, and adviser to Presidents, she influenced the thinking of generations of Americans on the importance of American leadership in advancing the cause of freedom and democracy around the globe. She defended the cause of freedom at a pivotal time in world history, and her courageous service as our United Nations Ambassador inspired her fellow Americans and lovers of liberty around the world. Jeane's powerful intellect helped America win the Cold War. Her insights and teachings will continue to illuminate the path ahead for the United States in the world. We send our condolences to Jeane's family and friends and, on behalf of all Americans, we give thanks for her extraordinary life."

Source: President and Mrs. Bush saddened by death of Jeane Kirkpatrick. (2006, December 8). Retrieved December 13, 2006, from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/12/20061208-2.html

Second, here are two paragraphs from Jeane Kirkpatrick's famous essay Dictatorships and Double Standards:
"Although most governments in the world are, as they always have been, autocracies of one kind or another, no idea holds greater sway in the mind of educated Americans than the belief that it is possible to democratize governments, anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances. This notion is belied by an enormous body of evidence based on the experience of dozens of countries which have attempted with more or less (usually less) success to move from autocratic to democratic government. Many of the wisest political scientists of this and previous centuries agree that democratic institutions are especially difficult to establish and maintain--because they make heavy demands on all portions of a population and because they depend on complex social, cultural, and economic conditions."

"Vietnam presumably taught us that the United States could not serve as the world's policeman; it should also have taught us the dangers of trying to be the world's midwife to democracy when birth is scheduled to take place under conditions of guerrilla war."

Source: Kirkpatrick, J. (1979, November). Dictatorships and double standards. Commentary, 68, 34-45.

Finally, here's me:
Her comments have an obvious implication for our success in Iraq. I guess people don't mention them for fear of offending Bush.

Second, her essay is odious. It's about how we shouldn't support Soviet-backed popular uprisings against dictators who kill their own people; those are the dictators we should support in order to protect 'vital American interests,' which she never defines but which probably stands for the unmentionable translation: the needs of the rich and of mega-corporations. Like the people in Utica have an interest in 200,000 Guatemalans being murdered by their government.

Third, hopefully, she's in Hell. At least she'll get to see Reagan again.

Shades of Reagan, shades of Nixon?

2006-11-01T09:50:00.000-05:00

In this 1992 review of Theodore Draper's book A Very Thin Line: The Iran-Contra Affairs, the reviewer says,

"Draper thinks there is much to learn from the Iran-Contra affairs. Above all, despite the reforms of the seventies, few formal restraints exist to halt another Oliver North from running covert foreign policy from the NSC. The Reagan White House had contempt for Congress and suspected the loyalties of the bureaucrats of State, Defense, and the CIA -- shades of the Nixon White House. Reagan and Vice President George Bush knew about the general outlines of North's activities in Iran and Central America and approved of them. They did not find it difficult to convince themselves that they were acting legally and properly.

And North and his cronies almost got away with it. Suppose they had been cleverer and more professional, or Hasenfus had not been shot down, or all of the hostages had been freed? Draper suggests improvements in Congress's oversight functions as one possible future fail safe. But he worries that an authoritarian president willing to wield arbitrary power would still be able to foil legaslative and judicial attempts to restore the constitutional balance. Whatever reforms result from the Iran-Contra affairs, Draper has performed a most valuable service indeed working his way through mountains of documents to make sense of this astoundingly complicated scandal."

Is this what's coming? As I was reading this all I could think about was the secrecy and self-righteousness of the Bush Administration. If they've done it once -- and many of the top people in this current Administration were in the Reagan Administration -- then they'll do it again. All that will change will be the details; the theme will stay the same.

If one or both houses of Congress go Democrat, will the Administration be forced into doing even more things covertly? Will Congress ever provide ANY oversight of this Administration?

Source: Small, M. (1992, June). The new adventures of Larry, Moe, and Curly: Oliver North's private enterprise. Reviews in American History, 20, 270-275. Retrieved November 1, 2006, from JSTOR database.

State of Denial

2006-10-13T06:38:00.000-04:00

I'm now reading Bob Woodward's new book, State of Denial. I like it: it is easier to read that some others of his books, which I don't think he actually wrote. The narrative of this book flows better; you can tell he's a journalist. Here are two excerpts:

1. "Later I asked Rumsfeld about Clark. 'Terrific guy,' he said. But the question of Clark becoming chairman was apparently a touchy subject, because when I said that I understood General Shelton had recommended Clark, Rumsfeld said, 'I don't know that.'

We then got into a verbal wrestling match.

'You don't believe he made that --' I began.

'I didn't say I believed it or didn't believe it,' Rumsfeld said. 'I said I don't know that. I'm very precise. If you say something that I don't remember, I'm not going to say it's wrong and I'm not going to say it's right. I'm going to say I don't know that.'

'Okay.'

'And I don't,' he said.

'You don't recall, so you --'

'I don't recall it,' he finally said, answering the question. Of Clark he said, 'He didn't seem to want it. He was very engaged in the Navy, doing a terrific job, and I didn't have the feeling that he was leaning forward, anxious to do that.' Clark was high on his list and the president knew that, he said, 'but I kind of like someone who wants to do something, because these are tough jobs and you take a lot of stuff. And it strikes me that someone needs to be leaning forward and wants to do it. And I had the sense that maybe Vern didn't' " (Woodward, 2006, p. 68).

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2. "Myers got along with Rumsfeld, but they had several heated exchanges. He believed that Rumsfeld overstated to make his points" (p. 71).

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Me again: okay, how does someone who describes himself as 'very precise' not know the real definition of "anxious"? And who describes himself as "very" precise? Isn't it good enough just to be "precise"?

Rumsfeld is an arrogant, incompetent prick who thought he knew better than our professional military leaders who actually have experience. The one good thing I can say is that at least he served in the military, unlike most of the cowards in the current administration.

Donald Rumsfeld

2006-09-02T18:09:00.000-04:00

Address at the 88th Annual American Legion National Convention

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Salt Lake City, Utah, Tuesday, August 29, 2006

"We are fortunate to have a leader of resolve at a time of war. Through all the challenges, he remains the same man who stood atop the rubble of lower Manhattan, with a bullhorn, vowing to fight back [1]; the leader who told a grieving nation that we will never forget what was lost; and the determined President who works every day [2] to fulfill his vow to protect the American people and bring the enemy to justice or to bring justice to the enemy."

1. Secretary Rumsfeld's remarks were about the necessity of keeping American troops in Iraq and about the need to combat -- rather than appease -- terrorism. Iraq did not attack us on September 11, 2001. We were attacked by al Qaeda, a terrorist organization headed by Osama bin Laden and based in another country, Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden has been alive 5 years too long.

2. Press Conference by the President, March 13, 2002
President Bush: “Terror is bigger than one person. And he's just -- he's a person who's now been marginalized. His network, his host government has been destroyed. He's the ultimate parasite who found weakness, exploited it, and met his match. He is -- as I mentioned in my speech, I do mention the fact that this is a fellow who is willing to commit youngsters to their death and he, himself, tries to hide -- if, in fact, he's hiding at all.

“So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you. I'm more worried about making sure that our soldiers are well-supplied; that the strategy is clear; that the coalition is strong; that when we find enemy bunched up like we did in Shahikot Mountains, that the military has all the support it needs to go in and do the job, which they did.”

Conservatives Without Conscience

2006-08-21T17:24:00.000-04:00

I am reading John Dean's new book, Conservatives Without Conscience. I like it. His premise is that today's most well-known and outspoken conservatives are really authoritarians. I bought it because I heard his interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! The title is based on a previous book by his mentor, Barry Goldwater, called The Conscience of a Conservative.

Here are three quotes from the book:

"Contemporary conservatives have become extremely contentious, confrontational, and aggressive in nearly every area of politics and governing. Today they have a tough guy (and, in a few instances, a tough gal) attitude, an arrogant and antagonistic style, along with a narrow outlook intolerant of those who challenge their extreme thinking. Incivility is now their norm. "During the Father Bush period, there was a presumption of civility," Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute observes, "but we lost it under Clinton," when conservatives relentlessly attacked his presidency, and "then the present President Bush deliberately chose a strategy of being a divider, rather than a uniter" (page xi).

"Conservatism is not inherently moralistic, negative, arrogant, condescending, and self-righteous. Nor is it authoritarian. Yet all of these are adjectives that best describe the political outlook of contemporary conservatism. I make these observations not as an outsider, but as a conservative who is deeply troubled by what has become of a treasured philosophy. Conservatism has been co-opted by authoritarians, a most dangerous type of political animal" (page xxxvii).

"The conservatism of Burnham and of an entire generation of conservative intellectuals has virtually disappeared as a functional political force, because it proved unable to stand up to the waves of demagogues, bigots, fanatics, malcontents, and assorted populists who have claimed the label for their own extremist aims. Leaders such as George Wallace, Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, and Pat Robertson--along with many more pedestrian politicians, political operatives, and social activists in pursuit of whatever narrow agendas--have easily overwhelmed and pushed aside the principles of conservative's founders. Had conservatism been entrenched enough to prevent expediency from overtaking critical thinking, it might not have been so easily uprooted. But conservatism was built on an unstable ground, and was not sufficiently fortified to weather such political storms" (page 10).

Paul Wolfowitz / Cassandra

2006-07-19T10:09:00.000-04:00

The movie "Why We Fight" mentions the March 8, 1992 New York Times article "U.S. Strategy Plan Calls for Insuring No Rivals Develop: A One-Superpower World."

The article reports on "the Defense Planning Guidance, an internal Administration policy statement that is distributed to the military leaders and civilian Defense Department heads to instruct them on how to prepare their forces, budgets and strategy for the remainder of the decade" and notes that the document says "both Cuba and North Korea seem to be entering periods of intense crisis -- primarily economic, but also political -- which may lead the governments involved to take actions that would otherwise seem irrational." Also: "the same potential exists for China." The Times says the drafting of the document was overseen by Paul Wolfowitz, now President of the World Bank.

1.) Great hyperbole (but more likely poor editing): "intense crisis." Whew, I thought it would be just a mild crisis.
2.) Nice hedging: "seems to be," "which may," and "the same potential." The case for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was never sold using language like this.
3.) Totally wrong analysis. As far as I know, Cuba, North Korea and China haven't undergone any revolutions in the last 14 years. Certainly, trade with China has increased, but that isn't what the document is talking about.
4.) The Peter Principle: from Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs to Ambassador to Indonesia to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy to Deputy Secretary of Defense to President of the World Bank Group. Woody Allen says most of life is just showing up, and Paul Wolfowitz proves it.
5.) Please consider reading my post on U.S. "defense" spending to see how many trillions -- yes, trillions -- we've wasted on such incorrect analysis over the years. And still we go on without health insurance for 46 million Americans, on poor roads and aged rail lines, and not enough money for education.

Israeli Bulldozers

2006-07-08T14:23:00.000-04:00

Below is a photograph from CNN's Web site today. The story was called "Palestinian PM pleads for Gaza calm." I have heard about the Israel Defense Forces using armored bulldozers but have not seen many pictures of them. This is very strange.

CNN's caption said "An Israeli army bulldozer razes Palestinian greenhouses Thursday as part of the military operation in northern Gaza."

I am utterly baffled why the search for a kidnapped soldier necessitates the destruction of a greenhouse. Sometimes I feel like I'm from another planet, and I just can't understand why people do things like this.

Torture

2006-06-21T09:04:00.000-04:00

Here are some excerpts of a report by Physicians for Human Rights. Their original report is free online and has many references and footnotes. For reading ease, internal citations have been omitted.

"The use of psychological torture followed directly from decisions by the civilian leadership as well as high ranking military officers, including those in the Executive branch, and their support of decisions to 'take the gloves off' in interrogations and 'break' prisoners by employing techniques of psychological torture including sensory deprivation, isolation, sleep deprivation, forced nudity, the use of military working dogs to instill fear, cultural and sexual humiliation, mock executions, and the threat of violence or death toward detainees or their loved ones."

...

"The use of the psychologically abusive interrogation methods is immoral and is illegal under the Geneva Conventions and other sources of international law to which the United States is a party, civil domestic law and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. US courts, international treaty bodies, UN special rapporteurs on torture, and the US State Department have all identified these techniques as a form of torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment."

...

"Combination of Techniques
The evidence points to a widespread and systematic application of these techniques, often in combination. According to the Fay report, a Criminal Investigation Command investigation found that, 'from December 2002, interrogators in Afghanistan were removing clothing, isolating people for long periods of time, using stress positions, exploiting fear of dogs and implementing sleep and light deprivation.' Detainees reported that at Guantánamo in late 2002, they observed techniques such as as short-shackling, loud music playing in interrogation, forced shaving of beards and hair, putting people in cells naked, taking away people’s comfort items, sleep deprivation, and the use of cold air. Other detainees report being subjected to a range of psychologically abusive interrogation techniques at various locations in Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004. In Iraq in 2003, the ICRC found numerous forms of illtreatment, including threats, insults, verbal abuse, hooding, sleep deprivation, forced nudity, and sexual humiliation, being used at various detention facilities. Other reports detail a similar combination of techniques used on detainees in Iraq in 2004.

A source familiar with conditions at Guantánamo in 2004 told PHR that US personnel there had devised a system to break people through a combination of humiliating acts, solitary confinement, temperature extremes, and use of forced positions. This was confirmed by an internal FBI e-mail that documented an incident observed by an agent at Guantánamo during February 2004. The agent observed a detainee who was short shackled, in a room with the temperature significantly lowered, and subjected to strobe lights and possibly loud music. The detainee was left in this condition for 12 hours, during which time he was not allowed to eat, pray or use the bathroom."

...

"The Executive Branch must end and prohibit the use of psychological torture, withdraw legal opinions that permit psychological torture and replace them with an interpretation faithful to the federal criminal anti-torture statute, publicly disclose interrogation rules, hold perpetrators accountable, rehabilitate and compensate victims of torture, permit ongoing monitoring, and promote ethical practice by military medical personnel. The US Congress must establish an independent commission to investigate, carry out its oversight responsibilities, and enact appropriate legislation. Given the Administration’s refusal to abide by law, its continued resistance to disclosure of its activities or its rules, a truly independent investigation and means of accountability is required."

Source: Borchelt, G. (2005). Break them down: Systematic use of psychological torture by US forces. Cambridge: Physicians for Human Rights.

The New York Times

2006-06-20T15:52:00.000-04:00

On March 17, 2006, The New York Times published an article called "Democracy Push by Bush Attracts Doubters in Party." Here are its first two sentences:

"Even as it presents an updated national security strategy, the Bush administration is facing fresh doubts from some Republicans who say its emphasis on promoting democracy around the world has come at the expense of protecting other American interests.

The second thoughts signify a striking change in mood over one of President Bush's cherished tenets, pitting Republicans who call themselves realists against the neoconservatives who saw the invasion of Iraq as a catalyst for change and who remain the most vigorous advocates of a muscular American campaign to foster democratic movements."

PROBLEM: If you're going to use a term like "other American interests" you should define it. Otherwise, cynical people might think you're really talking about the economic interests of gigantic multi-national corporations, rather than the interests of ordinary citizens in, say, Ohio. The Paper of Record shouldn't wink.

PROBLEM: "[P]romoting democracy around the world" is "one of President Bush's cherished tenets." There is no evidence for this statement. This statement is propaganda and, in the truest sense, has no meaning and conveys no information.

PROBLEM: By "muscular American campaign," do you mean the use of force and military power? If so, then just call it that and stop lying. Killing civilians never becomes moral based on how you frame the issue.

PROBLEM: "But critics worry that antidemocratic extremists will prevail wherever tradition and existing civil institutions are too weak to protect the rights of minorities or to nurture moderates." In other words, if we don't like the people who win the election then something must be wrong with their democratic process. It couldn't possibly be that the process accurately reflects what the people in that country actually think. Welcome to some planet other than Earth.

PROBLEM: "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is traveling this week in South America, Asia and Australia in part to promote democracy, acknowledges the growing dissent but says the administration will stick to its goals.

'There is a debate, and I think it's a debate that's healthy,' she said [Rhetoric that has no meaning]. 'This is obviously a really big change in American foreign policy, to put the promotion of democracy at the center of it [Then what did we support before we supported democracy? You mean American presidents officially supported something besides democracy?]. And people take very seriously what this president is doing and intends to do.' [No, they don't. People realize he is a joke who can barely speak when his words aren't prepared for him in advance. As a best case scenario, people realize he is a puppet being manipulated by evil people. You're one of them.]

PROBLEM: "It names as strongholds of tyranny North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Belarus, Myanmar and Zimbabwe -- [but excludes Saudi Arabia?]." The idea that Cuba is a tyranny -- and the best paper in the world reports this with no context or analysis -- is idiotic and laughable or sad. This statement, right there, is proof that The New York Times is GARBAGE. If the newspaper were sold blank it would be of more use as an information source: you could use it as a diary, a canvas, or to make a grocery list.

Chief of Staff Andy Card

2006-03-13T18:05:00.000-05:00

I try to avoid mentioning incidental events of the day. They are too transitiory. I hate those blogs that parse people's utterances and focus on individual word choice. Those things are all meaningless. However, I did find this funny and maybe a little telling.

In an article in the Washington Post about how tired the folks in the Bush administration are and how that's leading to mistakes, the reporter writes:

"Card retains enormous respect inside and outside the White House, but some Republicans whisper about his judgment in the ill-fated selection of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court and the handling of Hurricane Katrina, to name two examples. Card declined to be interviewed, but has publicly dismissed concerns that his schedule has sapped his energy.

'All my life I have worked kind of this schedule,' he told C-SPAN last fall. 'When I was in college, I delivered newspapers early in the morning and worked at McDonald's late at night. So even when I was in high school, I would get up in the morning and get the newspapers ready for the paper boys early in the morning. So I've had this kind of lifestyle of early-to-bed and early-to-rise -- and so far seem to be doing pretty well.'

I guess what he really meant was 'late-to-bed,' since that's the whole point of him having that late night McDonald's job. Maybe he was too tired to know what he was saying.

Source: Baker, P. (2006, March 13). Senior White House staff may be wearing down. Washington Post. Retrieved March 13, 2006, from http://www.washingtonpost.com

Ted Koppel

2006-03-01T11:24:00.000-05:00

Ted Koppel recently had a column in the New York Times. Here are three quotes from it:

"Their [television journalists] daily preoccupation with the trivial and the banal has accumulated large audiences, which, in turn, has encouraged a descent into the search for items of even greater banality."

"The goal for the traditional broadcast networks now is to identify those segments of the audience considered most desirable by the advertising community and then cater to them."

"It is not partisanship but profitability that shapes what you see."

Mr. Koppel worked at ABC News for 42 years.

Harold Pinter

2005-12-20T08:07:00.000-05:00

In his recent Nobel Lecture, Harold Pinter said:

"The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven.

Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn't know it.

It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis."

For some reason, Pinter leaves out Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, South Africa and Columbia.

...

He also said:

"I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.

If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us – the dignity of man."

...

I wonder if any response can be drafted that doesn't use the words "Anti-American," "liberal," "left-wing," "terrorism," "terrorists," "protect Americans," or "protect America."

That restriction would seem to rule out the president since those phrases compose his entire vocabulary.

War Without End: Part 3: The Cost

2005-12-14T11:56:00.000-05:00

These two graphs represent how much we spend on the military each year. This first graph represents how much is spent using dollars that are not equal, for example, the buying power of one dollar in 1960 is not equal to the buying power of one dollar in 1990: you could buy a lot more with one dollar in 1960 than you could in 1990.

The graph below presents the same information but uses dollars that are equal, that is, amounts for each year have been adjusted to reflect the greater buying power of dollars from the past. This adjustment was made using the Consumer Price Index (http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl). It is important to note that the graphs have the same year scale on the x-axis but that the dollar scale on the y-axis is different for each graph, that is, even though the graphs are the same physical size, the second graph represents about twice as much money.

Military spending across time has been pretty constant, even though this period includes the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the dissolution of the USSR, and our current war on terror.

War Without End: Part 2: The Warning

2005-10-11T08:57:00.000-04:00

In his Farewell Address on January 17, 1961, President Eisenhower said,

"Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

...

"The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded."

...

"To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing inspiration:
We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love."
(http://www.eisenhower.utexas.edu/farewell.htm)

In his famous "Chance for Peace" speech, Eisenhower famously said:

"What can the world, or any nation in it, hope for if no turning is found on this dread road?

The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated.

The worst is atomic war.

The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.

We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

These plain and cruel truths define the peril and point the hope that come with this spring of 1953."
(http://www.eisenhower.utexas.edu/chance.htm)

And finally, in a President's Press Conference on April 30, 1953, President Eisenhower said:
"Security based upon heavy armaments is a way of life that has been forced upon us and on our allies. We don't like it; in fact, we hate it. But so long as such an unmistakable, self-confirmed threat to our freedom exists, we will carry these burdens with dedication and determination" (p. 94).
(http://www.eisenhower.utexas.edu/avwebsite/PDF/53text.pdf)

War Without End: Part 1: The Vision

2005-10-10T13:11:00.000-04:00

"The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labor power without producing anything that can be consumed" (Orwell, 1949, p. 157).

"But it was also clear that an all-around increase in wealth threatened the destruction--indeed, in some sense was the destruction--of a hierarchical society. In a world in which everyone worked short hours, had enough to eat, lived in a house with a bathroom and a refrigerator, and possessed a motorcar or even an airplane, the most obvious and perhaps the most important form of inequality would already have disappeared. ... For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away" (p. 156).

"The social atmosphere is that of a besieged city, where the possession of a lump of horseflesh makes the difference between wealth and poverty. And at the same time the consequences of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival" (p. 158).

"The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. ... But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. ... The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact" (p. 164).

Source: Orwell, G. (1949). 1984. New York: Harcourt, Brace.

Eisenhower

2005-10-07T08:48:00.000-04:00

Next week, I'll write about our unending war / the permanent war / war without end. (I don't know what to call it yet.) Meanwhile, here are some remarks made by Eisenhower while president. I think they are interesting in light of some of his actions, namely his support for coups in Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954.

[Supposedly the 1953 coup was organized by a CIA agent in Iran, Kermit Roosevelt, and involved concern over the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry. Roosevelt described his activities in his book Countercoup: The struggle for the control of Iran (McGraw-Hill, 1979). As a result of the coup, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi ("The Shah") returned to power and ruled for about twenty-five years, until the situation deteriorated and he fled the country. About ten months later, the Iranians seized and held hostage around 50 Americans. (Rarely is any connection between the coup and the hostage 'crisis' discussed.)

United States' support for the coup in Guatemala is documented, for example, in Killing hope: U.S. military and CIA interventions since World War II (William Blum, Common Courage Press, 2004) and online. The coup supposedly benefited U.S. businesses, including the United Fruit Company, whose name was later changed to Chiquita.]

As I say, here are the quotes:
"Third: Any nation's right to form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable.
Fourth: Any nation's attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.
And fifth: Any nation's hope of lasting peace cannot be firmly based upon any race in armaments but rather upon just relations and honest understanding with all other nations."

"We care nothing for mere rhetoric.
We are only for sincerity of peaceful purpose attested by deeds."

"It is a moment that calls upon the governments of the world to speak their intentions with simplicity and with honesty.
It calls upon them to answer the questions [sic] that stirs the hearts of all sane men: is there no other way the world may live?"

"The details of such disarmament programs are manifestly critical and complex. Neither the United States nor any other nation can properly claim to possess a perfect, immutable formula. But the formula matters less than the faith--the good faith without which no formula can work justly and effectively.
The fruit of success in all these tasks would present the world with the greatest task, and the greatest opportunity, of all. It is this: the dedication of the energies, the resources, and the imaginations of all peaceful nations to a new kind of war. This would be a declared total war, not upon any human enemy but upon the brute forces of poverty and need." [President Johnson would declare his domestic War on Poverty 11 years later: "This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America," January 8, 1964.]

"The test of truth is simple. There can be no persuasion but by deeds."

All quotes are from the "Chance for Peace Speech," 1953; all emphases are in the original.

Modern History in 65 Words

2005-10-06T08:34:00.000-04:00

This brief paragraph by Noam Chomsky perfectly synopsizes the reality that traps us all. My only addition would be mention of the government's master: big business.

"The government does not really hope to convince anyone by its arguments and claims, but only to sow confusion, relying on the natural tendency to trust authority and to avoid complicated and disturbing issues. How can we be sure of the truth? The confused citizen turns to other pursuits, and gradually, as government lies are reiterated day after day, year after year, falsehood becomes truth" (Chomsky, 1973, p. xxv).

Source: Chomsky, N. (1973). For reasons of state. New York: New Press.

David Cay Johnston

2005-10-05T08:24:00.000-04:00

David Cay Johnston is a reporter for The New York Times. He writes on tax issues and recently wrote a book, Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else.

Highlights from three articles he has written this year:
"The total income of Americans in 2003, adjusted for inflation, was 4 percent smaller than in 1999, new tax return data showed yesterday. While the number of taxpayers grew by 5.6 million individuals and couples, average income fell even more - by 6.5 percent - while the average wage slipped slightly, with the average job paying $5 a week less."
[Johnston, D. C. (2005, September 28). Income down from 1999, tax data show. New York Times. Retrieved October 1, 2005, from http://www.nytimes.com]

On a Congressional Budget Office report titled Effects of the Federal Estate Tax on Farms and Small Businesses:
"The number of farms on which estate tax is owed when the owners die has fallen by 82 percent since 2000, to just 300 farms, as Congress has more than doubled the threshold at which the tax applies, the Congressional Budget Office said in a report released last week.

"The estate tax raised an estimated $23.4 billion last year. Repeal would shift part of the burden of taxes off the fortunes left by the richest 1 percent of Americans, some of whose fortunes were never taxed, onto the general population. The lost revenue could be made up in three ways: through higher income taxes; reduced government services; or more borrowing, which would pass the burden of current government spending to future generations.

"Next year, when the threshold rises to $2 million per person, just 123 farms will be subject to the estate tax, the study found. And in 2009, when it rises to $3.5 million, only 65 of the nation's 2.2 million farms will be affected, the study said.

"Michael J. Graetz, a professor at Yale Law School who was a tax policy official in the administration of President George Bush, said repeal was primarily a benefit to people with large estates held in stocks and other securities, not to farmers."
[Johnston, D. C. (2005, July 10). Few wealthy farmers owe estate taxes, report says. New York Times, p. A21. Retrieved October 1, 2005, from ProQuest database.]

On the article Inflated Tax Basis and the Quarter-Trillion-Dollar Revenue Question by Joseph M. Dodge and Jay A. Soled in Tax Notes:
"Since 1997, Congress has given the I.R.S. additional funds to audit the working poor even as it has cut money for other audits. As a result, according to I.R.S. data, the working poor are about eight times more likely to be audited than investment partnerships."
[Johnston, D. C. (2005, January 24). Overstating of assets is seen to cost U.S. billions in taxes. New York Times, p. C2. Retrieved October 1, 2005, from ProQuest database.]

Dodge & Soled's article begins:
"An unpublicized problem of crisis proportions is plaguing the administration of the Internal Revenue Code, and it is costing the nation billions of dollars annually. The problem is neither hypertechnical nor hard to discern: On the sale of investments, taxpayers inflate their tax basis and do so with impunity, which results in the underreporting of gains and the overstatement of losses. How is that possible? This article seeks to answer that question, quantify the associated revenue loss, and suggest practical reforms."

Noam Chomsky

2005-10-04T09:52:00.000-04:00

How come people who denigrate Noam Chomsky never quote him saying:

"So, in the United States, for example, which is one of the most free and democratic societies there is, by now about three-quarters of the population regard presidential elections as basically a farce-just some game played by rich contributors and the public relations industry, which crafts candidates to say things that they don't mean and don't understand."
(Language, Politics, and Propaganda: Noam Chomsky interviewed by David Jay Brown)

Or this:

Bill Bennett: "Go through the Chomsky work, line by line, argument by argument, and you will see this is a man who has made a career out of hating America and out of trashing the record of this country. Of course, there is a mixed record in this country, why do you choose to live in this terrorist nation, Mr. Chomsky?"

Chomsky: "I don't. I choose to live in what I think is the greatest country in the world, which is committing horrendous terrorist acts and should stop."
(On 9-11: Noam Chomsky debates with Bill Bennett)

Or this:

"People like us are so privileged by comparison with most of the world that to talk about anything that happens to us is almost obscene. There are problems, but nothing like what's faced in most of the world, and in this country, over a long period, many rights have been won - not granted, won. Even some of the things that are best established here like freedom of speech - and in that respect, the United States is maybe the best place in the world."
(On the Repression of Democratic Movements, US Elections, and Future Prospects: Noam Chomsky interviewed by Nancy Nangeroni & Gordene O. MacKenzie)

Hmmm...
I wonder if Noam Chomsky is just very smart and doesn't see the need to state the obvious every five minutes.

Tobacco

2005-10-03T13:39:00.000-04:00

Three thousand people died on September 11th. We've spent billions of dollars addressing the problem, and our media and culture are fixated on war and terrorism.

Meanwhile, 400,000 Americans die annually from smoking. Worldwide, smoking kills almost 5 million people a year (that's 14,000 people every day). The World Health Organization says the death toll will jump to 10 million people a year by 2030. That casualty rate is roughly equivalent to the Holocaust happening every year. Smoking is a serious issue that deserves proportional attention and a proportional response.

Source: Schroeder, S. A. (2004, January 15). Tobacco control in the wake of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement. New England Journal of Medicine, 350(3), 293-301.