Undernews For March 16, 2009

THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
611 Pennsylvania Ave SE #381
Washington DC 20003
202-423-7884
Editor: Sam Smith

16 March 2009
WORD

A fertilizer bomb that kills hundreds in Oklahoma. Fuel-laden civil jets that kill 4000 in New York. A sanctions policy that kills one and a half million in Iraq. A trade policy that immiserates continents. You can make a bomb out of anything. The ones on paper hurt the most. - Raj Patel

FLOTSAM & JETSAM

ABORTION & RECIPROCAL LIBERTY
Sam Smith

An interesting and troubling debate lurks just behind the headlines as the possibility increases that the Freedom of Choice act, which legislates what the Supreme Court established as a right, will becomes law.

The problem is that the act would probably require hospitals that receive federal funds to perform abortions, including Catholic ones. If that happens, Catholic bishops are already talking about closing down the faith's 624 hospitals, 13% of the nation's total. These hospitals employ over 600,000 people and provide services to one out of every six hospitalized Americans.

Reported the St. Louis Post Dispatch, "Bishop Thomas Paprocki, a Chicago auxiliary bishop, took up the issue of what to do with Catholic hospitals if FOCA became law. 'It would not be sufficient to withdraw our sponsorship or to sell them to someone who would perform abortions," he said. "That would be a morally unacceptable cooperation in evil.'" Other bishops, such as Robert Lynch in Florida would have the hospitals stay open but engage in civil disobedience: "We will not comply, but we will not close."

In any case, it could easily become an extremely heated issue, largely because so many Americans have come to think that what they believe to be right should be required of all their fellow citizens. They want, in effect, to define everyone else's freedom. The abortion issue is a classic example.

There is, however, an alternative to such rigidity in our politics and the abortion issue also offers an opportunity to use it.

Although the right to an abortion is frequently compared to the civil rights of minorities, there is an important difference. One can not practice discrimination against blacks, latinos or gays without actually causing harm to other Americans. On the other hand, one can oppose or have an abortion without doing harm to others, even if some activists have made it seem otherwise or have actually done harm to those who disagreed with them. In other words, as abortion supporters say, it is a matter of choice.

Admittedly, there is the fetus as human argument, but this again differs from the civil rights example as all sides of the latter now accept the premise that the minority in question is human. Most Americans don't accept this premise in the case of a fetus and not even anti-abortionists logically follow their faith to the point of publicly arguing that a pregnant woman should be allowed to drive down a HOV-2 lane.

Leaving aside the question of why anyone would go to a Catholic hospital for an abortion in the first place, if we are to have a free and decent country we have to pay a lot more attention to respecting the views of those with whom we strongly disagree. Catholicism is the most popular religion in the United States - one out of five Americans consider themselves Catholics - and there are four times as many Catholics as there are Baptists, who seem to have at least four times as much luck getting their way in our political system.

But if abortion should be a woman's choice, why should Catholic hospitals be exempt from granting that choice? Because you don't have a right to impose your personal choice on others.

Does this mean that Catholic hospitals can also refuse to serve or hire gays? No, because in this case the choice directly restricts another person's choice.

It is true that in towns with only one hospital, and that one run by the Catholics, a similar argument could be made and, in fact, the law might have to reflect that. A compromise might be to have a secular abortion clinic next to the hospital entitled to use its other facilities.

Similarly, the funding question is one that needs to be examined and debated. My inclination would be to cut funding by a certain portion to cover the costs of providing abortions elsewhere. The beauty of this is that both sides retain their honor and nobody is hurt.

But the point is that these are the sort of issues that should be discussed - not as polar positions but in a common search as two cultures seek a satisfactory compromise.

This is what diversity is really about. It is not about forcing your values on someone else. It is about sharing space with those of different values in a way that no one is hurt.

This is not a new concept in American life, although it seems to have faded from view. Absent these days, for example, is the concept of reciprocal liberty. As Thomas Paine said, "Where the rights of men are equal, every man must finally see the necessity of protecting the rights of others as the most effectual security for his own."

Describing David Hackett Fischer's discussion in 'Albion's Seed' of the difference in the view of freedom within the American colonies, Leonard J. Wilson writes, "Their contrasting concepts of liberty are among the most visible today. The Puritan concept of liberty, 'ordered liberty' in Fischer's terminology, focused on the 'freedom' to conform to the policies of the Puritan Church and local government. The Virginia concept of liberty, 'hegemonic liberty', was hierarchical in nature, ranging from the great freedom of those in positions of power and wealth down to the total lack of freedom accorded to slaves. The Quaker concept of liberty, 'reciprocal liberty', focused on the aspects of freedom that were held equally by all people as opposed to the unequal and asymmetric freedoms of the Puritans and Virginians. Finally, the Scotch-Irish concept of liberty, 'natural liberty', focused on the natural rights of the individual and his freedom from government coercion."

The good thing about the Quaker notion of reciprocal liberty is that you don't have to approve of the other person's behavior to accept his or her right to engage in it.

America, at its best, knows that you don't have to like someone or their beliefs to extend to them the same freedom to be right or wrong. As Walter Kelly said, we have to defend the basic American right of everyone to make damn fools of themselves.

For diversity to work, no one gets to approve its membership. It exists because that's the way the world is.

The distinction is whether diversity is merely different or if it hurts someone. If it hurts someone - as with ethnic discrimination or the physical mistreatment of women - then society rightfully gets to call a halt to it.

But an abortion is not a public or social act. It is a personal matter chosen for personal reasons. So is opposition to abortion. A decent America would neither prevent abortions nor punish those in medicine who decline to provide them.

And if we understood and practiced such a principle of reciprocal liberty we might feel much better about our land and about each other.

PAGE ONE MUST

STUDY: CALIFORNIA NEEDS TO TAKE RADICAL COASTAL ACTION NOW

ENN - California's inter-agency Climate Action Team issued the first of 40 reports on impacts and adaptation, outlining what the state's residents must do to deal with the floods, erosion and other effects expected from rising sea levels. Hundreds of thousands of people and billions of dollars of Golden State infrastructure and property would be at risk if ocean levels rose 55 inches by the end of the century, as computer models suggest, according to the report.

The group floated several radical proposals: limit coastal development in areas at risk from sea rise; consider phased abandonment of certain areas; halt federally subsidized insurance for property likely to be inundated; and require coastal structures to be built to adapt to climate change. "Immediate action is needed," said Linda Adams, secretary for environmental protection. "It will cost significantly less to combat climate change than it will to maintain a business-as-usual approach." Few topics are likely to be more contentious than coastal development. But along the state's 2,000-mile shoreline the effects would be acute, particularly in San Mateo and Orange counties, where more than 100,000 people would be affected, according to the 99-page state-commissioned report by the Oakland-based Pacific Institute.

Detailed maps of the coastline, published on the institute's website, show that residential neighborhoods in Venice and Marina del Rey could find themselves in a flood zone. Water could cover airports in San Francisco and Oakland, parts of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and large swaths of Huntington Beach and Newport Beach.

MAP OF DANGER TO CALIFORNIA

ALMOST HALF THE WORLD FACES WATER SHORTAGE BY 2030

Globe & Mail, Canada - The world faces a bleak future over its dwindling water supplies, with pollution, climate change and rapidly growing populations raising the possibility of widespread shortages, a new report compiled by 24 agencies of the United Nations says.

The warning from the UN is based on one of the most comprehensive assessments the global body has undertaken on the state of the world's fresh water . . .

"Today, water management crises are developing in most of the world," the report says, citing a single week in November of 2006 when there were local news reports of shortages in 14 countries, including parts of Canada, the United States and Australia. water map Enlarge Image Internet Links

The assessment, called World Water Development Report, says that while water supplies are under threat, the demand for water is increasing rapidly because of industrialization, rising living standards and changing diets that include more foods, such as meat, that require larger amounts of water to produce.

"The result is a continuously increasing demand for finite water resources for which there are no substitutes," it says, predicting that by 2030, nearly half of the world's population will be living in areas of high water stress. . .

Population and urban growth are among the reasons the UN agencies worry about water shortages. Every year, the world's population grows by another 80 million, with most of the growth occurring in urban areas. The report says this means the world will have "substantially more people" living in urban and coastal areas vulnerable to scare water resources.

Another concern is the huge demand agriculture places on water resources. Already, about 70 per cent of the fresh water used by people is for growing crops and raising livestock. The report expresses concern that as more people in emerging economies gain middle-class lifestyles, they will consume more milk, eggs, chicken and beef, "which is much more water-intensive than the simpler diets they are replacing."

MEGHAN MCCAIN SETS SEAN HANNITY STRAIGHT

Sean Hannity: Do you disagree with your dad at all about enhanced interrogations?. . . Because my attitude is that if we capture an enemy combatant in the battlefield -- or we can use Osama bin Laden -- who may have information about a pending attack. You know what, I don't have any problem taking his head sticking it underwater and scaring the living daylights out of him and making him think we're drowning him. . . and I'm a Christian.

Meghan McCain: "I think it's what separates us from the terrorists . My father could never lift me up as a child because he can't move his arm. He can't ride a bike because he can't bend his knee because he was tortured. I think he knows better," she said.

MORE EVIDENCE THAT BRITAIN RIGGED IRAQ REPORTS

Nigel Morris, Independent, UK - Secret Whitehall emails released provide damning new evidence that the notorious dossier making the case for invading Iraq was "sexed up". They disclose that the intelligence services were skeptical over the "iffy drafting" of government claims that Saddam Hussein could mount a missile strike on his neighbors within 45 minutes of ordering an attack.

Officials privately mocked assertions that the Iraqi president was covertly trying to develop a nuclear capability and wisecracked that perhaps he had recruited "Dr Frankenstein" to his supposed crack team of nuclear scientists.

The release of a series of confidential memos and emails, following a protracted Freedom of Information battle, reignited the controversy over accusations that Tony Blair's government "spun" Britain into war. . .

Another memo, dated 16 September 2002, from an unnamed official, also suggests exaggerated claims were being included in the about-to-be-published report. It said: "I note that the paper suggests that Saddam's biotech efforts have gone much further than we ever feared. . . Dr Frankenstein I presume? Sorry. It's getting late."

A further email, arguing for amendments to the report, says: "We have suggested moderating the same language in much the same way on drafts from the dim and distant past without success. Feel free to try again!". . .

Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said: "This confirms the widely-held suspicions that leading officials and political advisers close to Tony Blair were deliberately tweaking the presentation of the intelligence to bolster the case for war on Iraq. The jigsaw of how the public and some MPs were duped nears completion with this crucial revelation, and further strengthens the case for a full public inquiry."

SCIENTIST: HALF THE WORLD COULD BECOME TOO HOT FOR HUMANS

Guardian, UK - Severe global warming could make half the world's inhabited areas literally too hot to live in, a US scientist warned. Parts of China, India and the eastern US could all become too warm in summer for people to lose heat by sweating - rendering such areas effectively uninhabitable.

Steven Sherwood, a climate expert at Yale University, told a global warming conference in Copenhagen that people will not be able to adapt to a much warmer climate as well as previously thought. . .

The 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that average temperatures could rise by 6C this century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at current rates. Scientists at the Copenhagen Climate Congress this week said the IPCC may have underestimated the scale of the problem, and that emissions since 2000 have risen much faster than expected.

Sherwood told the conference: "Seven degrees would begin to create zones of uninhabitability due to unsurvivable peak heat stresses and 10C would expand such zones far enough to encompass a majority of today's population."

He said air temperature measurements were a poor guide to the true impact of global warming on people. A better assessment is "wet bulb" temperature, which combines temperature and humidity. "A warming of only a few degrees will cause large parts of the globe to experience peak wetbulb temperatures that never occur today."

CRASH TALK

Progressive Review - Obama is planning to spend $10-20 billion to help small business. This is a step forward but still represents less than 5% of his previous bailout bill despite the fact that small business is the major job creator in the country. . . The amount is barely more than that being budgeted for high speed rail which will serve business class, not coach class passengers.

Wall Street Journal - Premier Wen Jiabao voiced confidence in China's economy, saying his government's finances give it room to spend even more to support growth if needed, but expressed concern about the outlook for the U.S. and the safety of its Treasury bonds. . .

The public airing of his concerns reflect how the relationship between China and the U.S. has been evolving under the pressure of the financial crisis. For years the U.S. has pressed China to change the way it runs its economy, such as by opening up its financial system. But in the last year China's government has been increasingly vocal about what it sees as U.S. economic mismanagement. And as the U.S. government's largest creditor, it has become more assertive in trying to ensure its interests receive a hearing.

"We have lent a huge amount of money to the U.S., so of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. Frankly speaking, I do have some worries," Mr. Wen said in response to a question. He did not offer specific suggestions on economic policy to the U.S. government, but called on it to "maintain its credibility, honor its commitments and guarantee the security of Chinese assets."

Mr. Wen did indicate that China would not be rash in making changes to its $1.946 trillion stockpile of foreign reserves, much of which is in U.S. dollars. While China is naturally looking out for its own interests, it will "at the same time also take international financial stability into consideration, because the two are inter-related," he said.

Dean Baker, Prospect - The value of the dollar plunged by almost 50 percent against the euro in the years from 2002 to 2008 (it has since recovered part of these losses). China eagerly bought up U.S. government bonds during this period, even though it was consistently losing money on its investment.

This history makes its sudden expression of concern about losing money on its dollar holdings so peculiar. This public expression of concern presumably has a political motive rather than reflecting the actual views of Chinese leader, which would more typically be expressed privately to their counterparts in the United States.

The media should have pointed this history out to readers and noted how extraordinary it is that such a statement would be made in public. The public nature of the statement is the real news, not the supposed "worry" about the future value of their investments.

Channel 4, DC - Hundreds of people waited in line for the chance of grabbing a subsidized apartment in northwest Washington. Dozens of people began waiting Wednesday night and slept in lawn chairs on the sidewalk to ensure their spot on the waiting list. The Columbia Heights Village Apartments have several two-bedroom units opening up . . . The first 300 people in line will be put on a waiting list and go through a screening process. Applicants must meet maximum income requirements to qualify for an apartment.

Guardian, UK - Gordon Brown hailed the beginning of the end for tax havens, as Switzerland opened up its legendary system of bank secrecy and agreed to hand over information on wealthy clients suspected of tax evasion.

The move, described as historic by anti-poverty campaigners, came as international pressure, including action from Brown and Barack Obama, forced the world's tax havens to hand over previously undisclosed data on account holders.

In a remarkable week, Europe's secrecy jurisdictions – Liechtenstein, Andorra, Austria, Luxembourg, Jersey and ¬Switzerland – all entered into international information sharing agreements. Swiss ministers said the government caved in after learning the country was going to be included this month on a blacklist of uncooperative tax havens drawn up by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Having agreed to sign up to the OECD protocol on tax, Switzerland will hand over information on account holders suspected of tax evasion by another country. Until now tax evasion was not illegal in Switzerland and secrecy has been the bedrock of its economy.

Financial Times - The recession has spread from Wall Street to Sesame Street. The home of Elmo and Oscar the Grouch announced on Wednesday that it would eliminate a fifth of its 355-strong workforce as market turmoil ate into its income and assets. . . A spokeswoman did not elaborate on the reasons for the move, but the workshop has relied heavily on donations from Wall Street firms, large corporations and private foundations, all of which have been cutting back on philanthropic activities.

Gordon Brown hailed the beginning of the end for tax havens, as Switzerland opened up its legendary system of bank secrecy and agreed to hand over information on wealthy clients suspected of tax evasion.

The move, described as historic by anti-poverty campaigners, came as international pressure, including action from Brown and Barack Obama, forced the world's tax havens to hand over previously undisclosed data on account holders.

In a remarkable week, Europe's secrecy jurisdictions – Liechtenstein, Andorra, Austria, Luxembourg, Jersey and ¬Switzerland – all entered into international information sharing agreements. Swiss ministers said the government caved in after learning the country was going to be included this month on a blacklist of uncooperative tax havens drawn up by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Having agreed to sign up to the OECD protocol on tax, Switzerland will hand over information on account holders suspected of tax evasion by another country. Until now tax evasion was not illegal in Switzerland and secrecy has been the bedrock of its economy.

Independent, UK - Much of the new money the Bank of England has "printed" to stimulate the UK economy is ending up abroad where it will be of no benefit to UK households and businesses, according to an analysis of the Bank's "quantitative easing" program. . . City experts analyzing the scheme for The Independent say large quantities of money will simply end up abroad because so many of the gilts are held by foreign investors. They fear that they will hoard the cash, which will be of no benefit to the British economy, or dump it in favor of safer currencies, which could cause a run on sterling. More than a third of gilts are owned by foreign entities, official statistics reveal, and there are doubts about how effective the policy will be if that sort of proportion of the new money is diverted abroad.
SCIENTIST: GLOBAL WARMING COULD SLASH WORLD'S POPULATION
NY Times - Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said that if the buildup of greenhouse gases and its consequences pushed global temperatures 9 degrees Fahrenheit higher than today - well below the upper temperature range that scientists project could occur from global warming - Earth's population would be devastated. .

Dr. Schellnhuber, citing his own research, said that at certain "tipping points," higher temperatures could cause areas of the ocean to become deoxygenated, resulting in what he calls "oxygen holes" between 600 and 2,400 feet deep. These are areas so depleted of the gas that they would badly disrupt the food chain.

Unabated warming would also lead to "disruption of the monsoon, collapse of the Amazon rain forest and the Greenland ice sheet will meltdown," he said.
SY HERSH CITES BUSH ERA 'EXECUTIVE ASSASSINATION RING'
Raw Story -Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh dropped a bombshell on when he told an audience at the University of Minnesota that the military was running an "executive assassination ring" throughout the Bush years which reported directly to former Vice President Dick Cheney.

The remark came out seemingly inadvertently when Hersh was asked by the moderator of a public discussion of "America's Constitutional Crisis" whether abuses of executive power, like those which occurred under Richard Nixon, continue to this day.

Hersh replied, "After 9/11, I haven't written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven't been called on it yet."

Hersh then went on to describe a second area of extra-legal operations: the Joint Special Operations Command. "It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently," he explained. "They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. . . Congress has no oversight of it."

"It's an executive assassination ring essentially, and it's been going on and on and on," Hersh stated. "Under President Bush's authority, they've been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That's been going on, in the name of all of us."

Hersh told Minn Post blogger Eric Black in an email exchange after the event that the subject was "not something I wanted to dwell about in public." He is looking into it for a book, but he believes it may be a year or two before he has enough evidence "for even the most skeptical."
SECRET RED CROSS REPORT OUTLINES CIA TORTURE
Washington Post - The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report that the Bush administration's treatment of al-Qaeda captives "constituted torture," a finding that strongly implied that CIA interrogation methods violated international law, according to newly published excerpts from the long-concealed 2007 document.

The report, an account alleging physical and psychological brutality inside CIA "black site" prisons, also states that some U.S. practices amounted to "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." Such maltreatment of detainees is expressly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.

The findings were based on an investigation by ICRC officials, who were granted exclusive access to the CIA's "high-value" detainees after they were transferred in 2006 to the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The 14 detainees, who had been kept in isolation in CIA prisons overseas, gave remarkably uniform accounts of abuse that included beatings, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and, in some cases, waterboarding, or simulating drowning.

At least five copies of the report were shared with the CIA and top White House officials in 2007 but barred from public release by ICRC guidelines intended to preserve the humanitarian group's strict policy of neutrality in conflicts. A copy of the report was obtained by Mark Danner, a journalism professor and author who published extensive excerpts in the April 9 edition of the New York Review of Books, released yesterday. He did not say how he obtained the report.

"The ill-treatment to which they were subjected while held in the CIA program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture," Danner quoted the report as saying.

Many of the details of alleged mistreatment at CIA prisons had been reported previously, but the ICRC report is the most authoritative account and the first to use the word "torture" in a legal context.
CONFERENCE ON WOMEN'S ROLE IN PEACEMAKING
Women's E-News - For three days and nights 28-year-old Comfort Wilson rode in the back of a pickup truck from her rural village in Liberia to the capital, Monrovia. She came with 30 women from her village sleeping in the truck bed, eating food they prepared at home.

They came, along with women from Mozambique, Guatemala, Kosovo and 25 other countries, as a global show of support for the idea that more women must be involved in building and maintaining peace.. . .

The women attended the International Colloquium for Women's Empowerment, Leadership Development, International Peace and Security hosted March 7-10 by Finnish President Tarja Halonen and Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa's first elected female president.

Nearly a thousand women and many U.N. and government officials, including the presidents of Senegal and Rwanda, the prime minister of Mozambique and the vice presidents of Spain and the Gambia, gathered in a stadium outside Monrovia that at one point was used to shelter families from the war. They were there to discuss methods for women's inclusion in peacemaking. . .

The plan called for the bolstering of local women's peace groups, establishing a certificate program for gender-sensitive conflict resolution training and for an early warning training for women to detect outbreaks of violence, and the creation of a national roster of competent female peace negotiators. . .

As disproportionate victims of fighting, with little to no stake in political concessions or appointments, some participants said women bring a relatively objective yet passionate voice for peace to the negotiating table. . .

OBAMA POLLS NOT AS GOOD AS MEDIA CLAIMS

Douglas E. Schoen and Scott Rasmussen, Wall Street Journal - It is simply wrong for commentators to continue to focus on President Barack Obama's high levels of popularity, and to conclude that these are indicative of high levels of public confidence in the work of his administration. Indeed, a detailed look at recent survey data shows that the opposite is most likely true.

The American people are coming to express increasingly significant doubts about his initiatives, and most likely support a different agenda and different policies from those that the Obama administration has advanced. Polling data show that Mr. Obama's approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001. Rasmussen Reports data shows that Mr. Obama's net presidential approval rating -- which is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve -- is just six, his lowest rating to date.

Overall, Rasmussen Reports shows a 56%-43% approval, with a third strongly disapproving of the president's performance. This is a substantial degree of polarization so early in the administration. Mr. Obama has lost virtually all of his Republican support and a good part of his Independent support, and the trend is decidedly negative.

A detailed examination of presidential popularity after 50 days on the job similarly demonstrates a substantial drop in presidential approval relative to other elected presidents in the 20th and 21st centuries. The reason for this decline most likely has to do with doubts about the administration's policies and their impact on peoples' lives.
ISRAEL GIVES JEWS A BAD NAME
Saul Landau, Information Clearinghouse -Most Jews I know get little pleasure from the existence of Israel; just the opposite. They feel disgusted by the behavior of their tribal kin toward Palestinians. This antipathy doesn't concern Israel's right to exist, a phony argument still maintained by hard line Zionists. Israel exists, period. Most of the world recognizes that. Anyone wanting to eliminate it belongs in the loony bin or prison.

Israelis have just elected a right wing majority. The number three vote-getting party, Yisrael Beytenu led by Avigdor Lieberman, will occupy a strong place in the new government. Lieberman will become a Minister in the Netanyahu Cabinet. Last year, Lieberman rammed through Israel's Central Election Committee a ban on Arab political parties. The Israeli Supreme Court ruled the ban unconstitutional before the recent election. Lieberman also demanded the Knesset expel Arab Members. He went further. If Arab citizens of Israel don't sign oaths of loyalty to Israel, they should have their citizenship revoked. Disloyalty for Arabs included students wearing kefiyahs to school; Muslim Israelis collecting medicine and aid for Gaza relief also falls into the non-trustworthy category. .

My grandfather taught me, growing up during the Holocaust, that Jewish tradition teaches each person to strive to become a pillar of ethics, learn the law and behave so as to answer to God for transgressions – not to rulers of a so-called Jewish state. . .

One fifth of Israel's population is non-Jewish. I don't belong to that state and despise its policies of constant war and occupation.

Count Israel's wars: 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, plus civil wars against two Intifadas in the 1980s and 2000, and finally the invasions of Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in late 2008, the latter leaving in its wake 1,300 plus dead Palestinians, most of them civilians and less than 20 Israelis, some from "friendly fire."

Condemned by the Red Cross, Amnesty International and a host of organizations for violating human rights of Gaza's people, Israel's new government will almost certainly continue or even harden the policies. They don't care what others say. . .

When less powerful Jewish American scholars write books or give lectures attacking Israeli policy, they get fired or their tenure withheld. Norman Finkelstein (son of Holocaust survivors) was denied tenure in 2007 by the President of DePaul University, despite favorable recommendations by faculty and students. In 2000, he published The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering. The President of Bard College recently dismissed Joel Kovel, another internationally applauded scholar. Kovel's 2007 book, Overcoming Zionism, triggered the action. . .

"Long Live Israel," scream the US fans. "Anyone who doesn't like our team is an anti-Semite."

I want to shout: "Go Back to Israel where you didn't come from."

Saul Landau is an IPS Fellow, author of A Bush And Botox World and director of forty films, available on dvd from roundworldproductions.com
BRITISH MUSICIANS SAY DON'T PUNISH FANS FOR DOWNLOADING
Independent, UK - Musicians including Robbie Williams, Annie Lennox, Billy Bragg, Blur's David Rowntree and Radiohead's Ed O'Brien said last night that the public should not be prosecuted for downloading illegal music from the internet. The Featured Artists Coalition, which consists of 140 of Britain's biggest rock and pop stars, said at its inaugural meeting that companies such as My Space and You Tube should be required to remunerate the artists when they use their music for advertising.

Bragg told The Independent that most of the artists had voted against supporting any move towards criminally prosecuting ordinary members of the public for illegally downloaded music. The musicians will express their views to Lord Carter, who suggested that individuals downloading music illegally should be brought to justice.
While Lennox was not able to attend the meeting, she sent a message of support, as did Peter Gabriel, while David Gray, Fran Healy from Travis, Pink Floyd's Nick Mason and Mick Jones from The Clash turned up in support.

Bragg was speaking as a key member of the coalition, which was set up to give a collective voice to artists who want to fight for their rights in the digital world. It is pushing for a fairer deal for musicians at a time when they can use the internet to forge direct links with their fans. "What I said at the meeting was that the record industry in Britain is still going down the road of criminalizing our audience for downloading illegal MP3s," he said.

"If we follow the music industry down that road, we will be doing nothing more than being part of a protectionist effort. It's like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube.
GALLERY

DETROIT'S DECLINE
OBAMA'S GUN PLANS SPUR RUSH FOR WEAPONS AND AMMO
Telegraph, UK - Manufacturers are struggling to keep up with demand, and many gun shops running low on stock as the US public buys weapons in anticipation of tighter controls. On the campaign trail last year Mr Obama proposed restoring a Clinton-era ban on several types of military-style semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity magazines, as well as background checks for buyers at gun shows, and other "common-sense measures".

His pledge has proved a potent catalyst, with manufacturers recording soaring profits since his election. "Since November, sales of firearms - in particular handguns and semi-automatic hunting and target rifles - are fast outpacing inventory," said Steve Sanetti, president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the US firearms and ammunition industry. "Americans are clearly concerned about their ability to be able to purchase these products in an uncertain future," he added.

Smith and Wesson last week posted third-quarter profits of $2.4 million, reversing a loss of $1.8 million over the same period the previous year, as its pistol sales leapt 46 per cent and tactical rifle sales more than tripled. Another manufacturer, Sturm Ruger & Co. reported an 81 per cent increase in takings. Demand for certain ammunition is also outstripping supply as enthusiasts build up stockpiles ahead of threatened tax increases on bullets.
BREVITAS
JUSTICE & FREEDOM

Slashdot - The National Security Archive has awarded its 2009 Rosemary Award to the FBI for worst freedom of information performance. Previous winners have been the CIA and the Treasury. The NSA notes that 'the FBI's reports to Congress show that the bureau is unable to find any records in response to two-thirds of its incoming FOIA requests on average over the past four years, when the other major government agencies averaged only a 13% "no records" response to public requests.' The FBI's explanation, according to the NSA, is that 'files are indexed only by reference terms that have to be manually applied by individual agents,' and even then, 'agents don't always index all relevant terms.' Furthermore, 'unless a requester specifically asks for a broader search, the FBI will only look in a central database of electronic file names at FBI headquarters in Washington.' Any search will therefore 'miss any internal or cross-references to people who are not the subject of an investigation, any records stored at other FBI offices around the country, and any records created before 1970."

Cook County, IL is now requiring homeowners to provide a thumb print before their house is sold

MEDIA

Politico - The Washington Post has plans to fold its daily business section into the A section, according to sources at the paper. . From Monday through Saturday, business coverage will now run in an expanded A section that includes National and International News, Economic & Business section, a Washington Business page, the Fed page, and Editorial and Op-Ed pages. In addition, the Post will cease running full stock listings on Tuesday through Saturday, with comprehensive listings on the website. . . "In Style, we are shifting some comics online, where readership of such features already is high. One of our two crossword puzzles will end because the syndicate that provides it three days a week has decided to discontinue it, along with the weekly chess and poker columns. In addition, we are adjusting the television listings we offer to reflect prime-time programming."

ECO CLIPS

ABC News - At least nine car companies worldwide say that by 2013 they will offer plug-in vehicles that use electric motors as their primary means of propulsion, according to Plug-in America, an activist group. Some will be all-electric drive vehicles. Most will be plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that use small gasoline engines as a backup. GM and Chrysler both say they will sell a plug-in car in 2010. Ford will sell a battery-powered commercial van next year, a small battery-powered EV car the year after, and a PHEV competitor to GM's Volt by 2012.

HEALTH & SCIENCE

The reported 3% HIV/AIDS rate in the nation's capital is not only close to San Francisco's 4% at the height of its epidemic in 1992 but, says a local health official, "Our rates are higher than West Africa. They're on par with Uganda and some parts of Kenya."

FIELD NOTES

Can My Boss Do That? is a website with lots of information on workers' rights under various conditions such as firings, layoffs, and safety.
FROM OUR READERS
ABORTION & RECIPROCAL LIBERTY

You framed the disagreement as acceptance or rejection of "the premise that the [fetus] is human", in order to compare the issue to the obviously-human status of minority groups. But human in this case just reinforces an ambiguity. What you mean is "fully actual human being." A human toenail or eyelash is also human, that is, it is not canine, bovine, etc. But a fetus is something more: it is a potential human being. It is to an actual person as an acorn is to an oak tree. It would be misguided to consider oaks and acorns as being the same in the eyes of the law; and I agree with those who think it misguided to consider fetuses as having the rights of persons. But a fetus is not like a toenail, as can easily be seen from the value that it has (in most cases) to its mother (and others) -- a value that can be recognized in law, as when the punishment for a criminal assault resulting in miscarriage is greater than that for simple assault. If we granted to anti-abortionists the proposition that the fetus is (potentially) human, and thus does have a special value, it might become easier for us to grant them the reciprocal rights that you so wisely advocate. - Gabe Eisenstein

OBAMA & EDUCATION

Another example of the bureaucratic mentality occurred in the USSR under Gorbachev. Some industrial branch ministry requested funding in the five-year plan to build another factory. Gorbachev asked, why can't you run two or three shifts at the existing factory. The industrial bureaucrats said, "But we don't have enough workers to run another shift!" Gorbachev's response: "Who's going to staff the new factory, the Holy Spirit?"

They wanted to build the factory because they'd have something shiny and new that increased their prestige--pure and simple. And the public school bureaucrats are exactly the same way.

A useful thought experiment: try to figure the cost for twenty or thirty parents to start a cooperative school with their own money, renting a cheap building for classroom space and hiring enough tutors for a total of 35 hours teaching time. Even with modest spending on electives and extra-curriculars, it's hard to come up with more than a couple thousand dollars per pupil, compared to the public schools' spending of 7k or more. The reason is multiple layers of administrative overhead, and the belief that nothing short of custom-designed monumental architecture on the most expensive real estate in town befits the awesome majesty of the "public." We live in an age of cost-plus markup and mandated minimum overhead, buying stuff from public and corporate bureaucracies for several times what they would cost to produce in the informal and household economy. - Kevin Carson

Public education has a lot of problems that need to be dealt with. It claims that the only issue is money, but it consumes money at a horrendous rate. Much of the increases being soaked into administration. Some states like Florida are so top heavy in administration that more than 50% of the school funds go to administration rather than teaching, physical school plant or student services.

In my own school district there was a recent attempt to build a brand new high school at an enormous cost. There were no claims that the current high school was inadequate in function. Or that the building was falling apart. That there would be more students than the building could reasonably accommodate. That maintenance costs justified a new building. No, none of these. The argument was that the students would feel better about themselves in a newer building. That a new school had been erected in a large town in the next county, and that we had to keep up, or our students would feel "less than." The bond issue for the new school was voted down, and the school administrators voiced prophecies of doom for the entire student population.

Its been 45 years since I was a student in a public school, but there were a lot of bad teachers then who shouldn't have been teaching. From the current group that I run into now and then, there are too many that are clearly not fit to teach. Bad teachers should go. They ruin students. They take the average inquisitive five year old who loves to learn new things, and turn them into sullen dullards of no value to themselves or society. - M

I used to be an education reporter and did a fair amount of reporting in New York City. Principals there spend a great deal of time trying to get rid of their bad teachers. I spent a day with one once and she was wheeling and dealing like an NBA general manager trying to move her bad teachers someplace else. (This was in Harlem; the stakes were pretty high.)

There are a lot of valid questions about assessment and the like. But bottom line, our kids shouldn't have to pay the price for teachers who can't teach, or are bored, or who no longer care if they ever did.

They do exist. It is not a right wing fantasy. The failure to acknowledge that is what gives fuel to right wing wet dreams such as vouchers. Those of us who think public institutions can work have got to be willing to do what it takes to fix them when they don't. - JR

REVIEW MAIN PAGE
FREE EMAIL UPDATES
SEND US A DONATION
ABOUT THE REVIEW
NEW ARTICLES
READERS' PICKS
ALSO OF INTEREST
POCKET PARADIGMS
ESSAY ARCHIVES
SAM SMITH'S BIO
SAM SMITH'S BOOKS
SAM SMITH'S MUSIC

ENDS

© Scoop Media