Scot Woods: Politics

Candor in retirement

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 16:52:42 GMT

The AP reported yesterday that six former EPA chiefs -- that's five Republicans and one Democrat -- are accusing the Bush Administration of neglecting global warming. Here's a money quote from Christine Whitman, former N.J. governor and the first EPA chief under Dubya:

"You'd need to be in a hole somewhere to think that the amount of change that we have imposed on land, and the way we've handled deforestation, farming practices, development, and what we're putting into the air, isn't exacerbating what is probably a natural trend," she said. "But this is worse, and it's getting worse."

A funny thing happens when you've essentially decided to retire, and your future income and employment hinge on having some credibility: You can be frank. While Whitman was suckling on the Bush Administration nipple, she had to drink their milk, too, so such candor was off-limits.

Another interesting tidbit from the article: The current EPA chief agreed that global warming was a real problem, and that humans bear significant blame. Of course he also says the Bush Administration is doing plenty about the problem, so you can see the limits of one's honesty while still in the employ of corporate masters.

Flippant

Wed, 21 Dec 2005 20:43:25 GMT

I guess he thinks he's #1.

You say you want a revolution...

Wed, 21 Dec 2005 20:32:56 GMT

A while back, Jason W. asked me if I had become addicted to Google Earth. I admitted I hadn't -- so far, I have escaped that particular addiction. But he showed me some of its features and I'm pretty fascinated by it. I feel dumb now for not grasping some of the implications of the technology sooner.

The New York Times has a great article out on why Google is making governments around the world nervous, and it's easy to see why. If little old ladies in Pasadena, or grade-school kids in Ann Arbor can take a peek into Guantanamo Bay, then there might be a security problem for old Uncle Sam, not to mention powers like India or tinpot dictators in Haiti.

So who wins when it's Google vs. India? Easy: Google. How would it be in Google's interest to leave a big black blob where India should be? And how is India's national defense a concern for the Google board of directors?

Nationalism, meet capitalism.

Military leaders in the article are concerned, of course, that "terrorists" or potential military enemies will learn about their defenses via Google. But the other side of the coin is that academics and the general public may learn something, too. Reporters will find innovative ways to use it as a freedom-of-information tool, and to pry open new truths. (That is, if the huge conglomerates who run so much of the media allow it. For example, GE, which owns NBC news, is a huge defense contractor. We may be talking about independent reporters here -- long live the Blogosphere!).

This is how technology is going to remake the world -- there will be a dozen issues like this one which force us to re-evaluate our relationships to government structures and our societal organization. Yes, it's that scale of a change. Not just Google Earth, of course, but other pressures like nanotechnology, the coming of Peak Oil, and the existing power of the U.S. government to monitor every phone call, fax, and Web connection in the world with its super-powerful information technology. (remember "Total Information Awareness?" I believe it's here, only it has a different name). They can find out in an instant what you've been talking about, and you'll never know.

It does all tie together... There's a moment coming down the pike -- and I think it's coming sooner rather than later -- when our society will realize that we've arrived at this new world we've been heading for. Orwellian nightmares are entirely possible right now, today. The only thing that can prevent this sort of power is if all of us, as citizens, grow up quick and learn to incorporate this new reality into our thinking.

It'll be good and bad, but it will be wrenching, and we'll be left with a world that looks and feels a lot different.

Disclaimer: By the way, if you steal this idea to write your doctoral thesis, that's cool. Just quote me somewhere in the paper, and send me a copy. I just don't feel up to writing one myself today.

A letter to my Congressman

Mon, 19 Dec 2005 18:02:56 GMT

I sent this letter to my Congressman today:

----------------------------------------

Congressman Bob Schwarz, R-MI 7th District

December 19, 2005

Dear Congressman Schwarz,

I want to thank your staff and yourself for taking the time to read my letter. While I understand that it's difficult for a Congressman to write a personal reply, I do hope this note finds its way from your staff to your eyes, and that you have a moment to read and consider it.

I think you are an honorable Representative for our district, and while I do not agree with all of your political positions or beliefs, I respect your integrity and effort. I know that, as a Republican, you must feel a certain loyalty to President Bush, and I understand that.

It must be very difficult for you to consider, then, that the President's critics may be right when they accuse him of abusing his power and using fear to try to enact his favored policies. But recent events -- including the very fact that Congress had to compel him to renounce torture (at least in name) and including recent revelations that the Department of Defense has been spying on American citizens within America -- must lead you to the same conclusion.

I appreciate the difficulty of your position. But you must act first as an American and a Congressman, and give regard to your party only as a third consideration. Though the President may share your party, I hope you are as deeply concerned with his autocratic actions as I am, and are prepared to act.

Congress must investigate the Attorney General and his support for the methods of torture. Congress MUST determine if any American citizen has been subjected to torture by this Administration. If so, the Administration would become a criminal enterprise.

Congress must investigate the CIA's secret use of allied soil for the extraordinary rendition of prisoners. This is a national-security issue, and it clearly puts the United States in a position where its may be violating its treaty obligations. Congress has an obligation to pursue this issue and do so with openness and candor.

I respect the beliefs that the Republican Party is based on, but it disheartens me to see a Republican Congress allow a President such sweeping powers by its inaction -- there is nothing Conservative in that. Now, Congress finds itself in the position of having to check those powers before the President decides he has the authority to spy on them.

Because of abuses like those I've discussed, people are losing faith in this government, Mr. Schwarz. We need to know the truth, even if it is painful to us as a country; even if it is painful to your political party.

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.

Please act.

Respectfully,
Scot Woods

Why I'm not for Hillary

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 16:32:18 GMT

This isn't apropos of anything, except that my dad sent me a rather silly picture of Hillary Clinton today as a contrast to the Bushfinger II picture below.

Let me state now that, if she enters, and if she wins the Democratic primary, I'll be happy to vote for her rather than any candidate the Republican Party will put forward. That said, I hope she doesn't run, and if she runs, I hope she doesn't win the nomination.

The reason is simple: I'm against aristocracies. If she should be elected president, over the course of 24 years, all of our Presidents would hail from just 2 families. And whether the connections are father/son or husbund/wife, I'm not comfortable with that degree of elitism in our government. And you just know that down in FLA, Jeb wants to be Bush III. THAT would have me scared, because from what I can tell, Jeb's the smart-ish one in the litter.

Bushfinger II

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 06:21:34 GMT

Because we're overdue for another candid look at our Resident.

"Vice President of Torture"

Tue, 01 Nov 2005 16:10:46 GMT

So says the Washington Post. Agreed.

Juan Cole calls for Cheney's resignation. Agreed.

Time to amend the Constitution

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 16:47:18 GMT

Our Constitution was created in such a way that, from time to time, as circumstances change, the document which governs our nation can also change. It is important that the law of the land always continue to respect the consent of the governed.

Much has changed in the past two generations. One of the more profound changes has been a deep shift in our regard for the bounty of nature and the fragility of our planet. We have (some of us) a much better appreciation for the ways man has changed and continues to change this planet in every respect, from the makeup of the air to the purity of the water. Man is capable of changing the ocean levels, extinguishing species, and ultimately, of making this planet uninhabitable for himself.

Now, with John Roberts sitting as Chief Justice and another Republican nominee presumably on the way (be it that hack Miers or someone else), the court will inevitably begin re-hearing cases about federal environmental legislation. To date, the Court has upheld the right of the federal government to regulate environmental issues, even when it applies, for example, to "hapless toads" who do not cross state lines. But environmental legislation has been justified on somewhat tortured definitions of "interstate commerce," and the party currently in power is not friendly to the existing interpretation.

It is time to amend the Constitution to clearly and unambiguously enshrine citizens' right to clean air and water, and to give the federal government the authority to enact environmental legislation. We need to begin this process now. The end result should be a much stronger national commitment to the environment than we had five years ago, when the Republican cancer began to metastasize in earnest.

Judith Miller

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 20:42:04 GMT

If you've been following the Judith Miller story, you'll know why I've settled on this new nickname for her: "Flame-thrower."

China heads to space

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 18:42:54 GMT

Two Chinese astronauts have returned to Earth after spending 5 days in orbit. I watched a CNN report this afternoon on the mission, which showed spotless Chinese astronauts emerging from an airplane. It showed neat rows of terminals in their spotless mission control. There was a big "family photo" of their space program on the spotless tarmac of some giant base. It showed the grandiose launch of an enormous rocket reminiscent of America's giants of a generation ago. All of it, really, was reminiscent of America's heyday. But of course, the Chinese deny that they're trying to compete with us, emphasizing that their goals are all peaceful. (The Pentagon doesn't buy it.) But even if the goals are non-military, however, it's still obviously the way to show you've arrived, as these Chinese press reports collected by the BBC show.

It's impressive. China has clearly eclipsed most of the world's nations, and is ready to take its place among the truly great powers of the world. I've read reports about the growth of China's mega-cities, and the picture is of shiny, modern metropolises exploding out from the city cores, sweeping across the shanty towns and suburbs. China's infrastructure is newer than ours, designed for modern technologies, and well-maintained. It's a nation that thinks long-term. They don't intend to allow the sort of decay that has eaten away at America's infrastructure over the past 30 years like a cancer.

I think there will be a convergence. I'm worried about the anti-democratic, pro-capitalist trends in the U.S. And even as it is heartening to see private enterprise flourish in the formerly communist nation of China, it's clear that somehow, they've managed to contain the democratic impulses which normally attend that transformation. China and America are growing more alike each day. They have taken the American lesson of technology and corporate capitalism seriously, and intend to do us one better. In China, wealth is being centralized into the hands of the powerful, who have turned their backs on the peasants and poor who thrust the Communist Party to power. But I fear that the power in this country is increasingly being centralized into the hands of the wealthy, who are in turn profiting greatly from their surrogates' hold on government. The Bush Administration attempts to stifle dissent, and truly democratic ideals are shunned by both parties, as they rake in campaign contributions. A convergence of systems.

America currently retains its unmatched international power. But so many of us see the writing on the wall. My generation doesn't expect to live like our parents did. We expect to have to work longer, with less security in old age. We don't expect top-notch health care to be as easily attained as it once was. We don't expect long-term job security.

Our cities decay. Have you ever ridden the Amtrak through Chicago? It breaks your heart. Unlike the expressways, with their landscaped shoulders, lines of trees, and concrete barriers, the railways give you a second-story view into the backyards and living rooms of the homes you pass. And the poverty hits you. If you've seen "The Motorcycle Diaries," it's something like that, except that you can't stop the train to talk to these people. You just leave a little of your heart with Chicago's south-side poor and the once-grand homes that they inhabit.

But oil company profits are stratispheric, and most of Corporate America is reporting gangbuster profits. But that's mostly from cost-cutting -- moving or outsourcing operations to China and India, and using that threat to pressure remaining American employees to accept cuts -- not from huge productivity gains or new technology. Americans' wages arent' keeping up with the cost of living, which means you're not living as well as you used to. Chinese laborers, on the other hand, have millions of opportunities as American companies rush to expand there. Those (American) companies are tilting world power East as they help grow China's economy.

Hey, corporations have to act in their own self-interest, not the public interest. It's the law. The interests of these international companies are increasingly in conflict with the national interests of the nations they call home. American media companies have agreed to abide by Chinese standards of press freedom, and Chinese authorities have essentially banned bad news from the media. Can news from CNN or Reuters be trusted if they willingly agree to restrict their coverage because it's in the best interests of their shareholders to do business in China? Can our principles of press freedom or our expectation of truth hope to hold up when they stand in the way of access to China's 1 billion viewers?

The dangers to American freedom in the Chinese future are profound. What hope do America's citizens have of real freedom when the world's largest corporations realize that access to the Chinese market is more important than quaint American values or freedom and equality?

Al Gore Speaks Truth

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 18:45:01 GMT

He was the greatest president we never had... I do hope I get to vote for him in '08.

He says more smart things in one speech than George Bush has said in nearly 5 years as President.

Read his speech from earlier this week here.

The danger of pooling capital

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 16:37:04 GMT

A snippet from a very good essay on liberalism follows... I hope you follow this link and read the whole thing.

--------------------------------------------------

The Heartbeat of America
By Stirling Newberry

(M)any fiscal conservatives now are decrying George W. Bush and his fiscal priorities as "liberal." George Bush isn't a fiscal liberal, he's a fiscal libertine, and there is a wide difference...

... Many people are trying to draw lessons from the Katrina disaster. There are many, but one of them is that the reactionary economy is yesterday's economy. Liberalism was not spending run riot, because other than World War II and Johnson's attempt at "Guns and Butter," the liberal government largely did not "spend" money, it circulated it, looking for a more optimal balance of the economy. Bush spends money, or more accurately, he squanders it, because it does not produce the ends he wants. Despite having nearly total control of the government and having controlled Congress for over a decade, the reactionary vision of the economy and the society have largely not come to pass. While the religious right has been visible and active, the fact remains that they are losing. Equal marriage is now legal in more states under George Walker Bush than it was under William Jefferson Clinton.

Venezuela, Roberson, Rumsfeld, and the red herring

Mon, 29 Aug 2005 18:40:15 GMT

Well, things are going to get interesting for tele-swindler Pat Roberson, but they're really getting interesting in the "New American colonialism" department. While the Pentagon works out its machinations in Latin America, the formerly "Rev." Robertson is at least going to incur some legal bills for his remarks about assassinating a democratically-elected foreign head of state. President Chavez of Venezuela says his country will seek extradition for the aging gold and diamond magnate who poses as a religious figure on the "700 Club". Good for them.

Now, here's what's really interesting to me... In the decade between our Iraqi expeditions, a number of conservative war hawks routinely called for a "regime change" in Iraq, and some of those calls included the proposition that we simply assassinate Saddam Hussein. Generally, such comments were regarded as legitimate foreign policy discussion. At least, nobody ever raised the possibility that such talk was criminal, as far as I can recall.

Granted that Saddam was an evil dictator, whereas Chavez is merely a democratically elected quasi-socialist who has proven vexing to Corporate America's current administration in Washington, is there really a big difference? If the President and others agree that Robertson's comments were really out of line, weren't similar comments by their own people (once upon a time) about Saddam also be beyond the pale?

To be honest, I don't know that Robertson's comments consist of an actual threat. He doesn't have any actual control over America's special forces or foreign policy (though he does have a great deal of more vague political influence), and his comments seemed to be advocating government, rather than private, action. So, even after watching the video of that hypocrite rail on about Chavez, I never got the impression he was issuing a credible threat against the man. It sounded to me a lot more like a rhetorical attempt to "drive up the negatives" in the (very real) public-relations campaign conservatives are waging against Chavez. So I'm tempted to think of Robertsons' comments as those of a loose cannon in an otherwise well-orchestrated right-wing effort to undermine Chavez. As I've said before, the primary effect of Robertson's "crazy like a fox" comments has been to focus more negative attention on Chavez.

Robertson's comments were interestingly timed to coincide with Rumsfeld's visit to South America, where he was leaning on U.S.-friendly (meaning pro-big business) governments like Paraguay, and according to some reports, trying to finagle a military base in that land-locked nation. You see, the defense department has been quietly meddling down there for the past few years, and has kept an uneasy eye on the independent-minded Chavez and non-capitalists in Bolivia. There was, for example, the odd allegations about Al Qaeda operatives possibly operating in the Amazon (talk about being out of their element), which sounds strangely like a politically-expedient cover story for a beefed-up U.S. miliatry presence in the region.

I certainly don't know what-all is going on in South America, but I do know the Robertson flap is a distraction from the real story, whatever it is. Like the trailer to a David Mamet movie, all we're seeing are glimpses of the larger, far more complicated plot.

I don't claim that Chavez is a hero, only that he's clearly the democratically-elected president in a country where the natural wealth has not been shared at all equitably. And Robertson isn't the only conservative in America who has been trying to shake his tree. So, at a time when Rumsfeld clearly has some important fish to fry in the Middle East and the Korean peninsula, at a time when the U.S. is making huge decisions about base closings, I find it odd that he (rather than, say, Condi Rice) found time to take an extended swing through South America. Diplomacy is certainly not in Rumsfeld's portfolio. Overthrowing governments, however... now that's a different story.

Pesky laws

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 19:36:58 GMT

Juan Cole points out that Iraq's government is egregiously violating its own Interim Constitution, and that the rule of law has already gone out the window in the alleged new democracy there.

Well, they learned from the best.

More from Abu Ghraib

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 18:07:23 GMT

There are more photos and videos on the way from the U.S. Gulag at Abu Ghraib, and they're much, much worse than the mere fear and humiliation captured in the previously-released batch. These photos were shown last year to members of Congress, but have been withheld from public view by a Pentagon which, understandably, feels like they might help recruitment of enemy forces. The images are being pried out of the Pentagon's hands by a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The story's here.

The "Rev." Pat Robertson, the sanctimonious hypocrite who charades as a Christian minister to an unfortunate flock on "The 700 Club", is back in the news, as well. Yes, the same Pat Robertson who ran for President as a Republican; who is the president and sole director of Cayman-chartered "Freedom Gold, Inc."; who lobbied to end U.S. sanctions against the vile dictator Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire (now Congo); who called upon viewers to pray for the deaths and/or incapacitation of the non-right-wingers on the Supreme Court; and who also had a close, personal friendship with Liberian warlord Charles Taylor. He's calling on the U.S. government to assassinate Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Incidentally, Robertson calls Chavez a "strong-arm dictator." Here's the actual quote:

"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop." (Emphasis mine -SW)

If God is an entity at all resembling the being Pat describes, he is in for a rough ride in his post-mortal-coil phase of existance. For instance, Pat tells his flock: "The thing you don't realize is that sin is sin. It is probably no worse to kill somebody than it is to slander him or her. If you slander their reputation, you are killing them." Also there's this uplifiting comment: "We are sinners, and the wages of sin is death -- period. Dante had various levels of hell in his writings, The Divine Comedy. I just don't believe in that. I don't believe it is biblical." So, is calling or praying for someone's death not a sin? I must have missed that week of Sunday school. (More on Darth Pat here and here.)

In another recent story, Nebraskan GOP Senator Chuck Hagel, who just happened to be chairman of an electronic voting-machine company, has begun criticizing the obviously failing campaign in Iraq as he angles for the White House. In the 1996, as you may or may not know, Hagel defeated a popular former Democratic governor for a seat in the U.S. Senate. 85% of all votes in the race were cast on machines built by Hagel's company, AIS. (More info on that here.)

So my question for the day is this: Is it not patently obvious that the right wing of the Republican party is dominated by evil people? I don't mean by that people I merely disagree with. I mean people who use genuine, good, conservative-thinking Americans as pawns in order to accumulate power, wealth and prestiege. I'm talking about people who will do anything to remain in power, even if it means replacing our regular Democracy with a kabuki voting show, or cynically pretending to oppose now-unpopular wars that they thought up themselves.

The alarm clocks are going off, America. It's time to wake up and take your country back from the swine. It's not like these people are really that adept at hiding their real identities. They're just counting on you to forget.

Rove the Rube?

Mon, 18 Jul 2005 17:25:00 GMT

The defense of Karl Rove seems to center on the idea that the deputy White House chief of staff was a bumbling amateur, an innocent naif, and didn't really understand what he was talking about. He only leaked classified material, so the defense goes, to courageously correct an allegation that nobody ever made: The Dick Cheney sent Joseph Wilson to Africa.

He didn't know, we're asked to believe, that "Wilson's wife" was a covert CIA agent (though, if she were working overtly, the Mighty Pen points out, her position at the CIA wouldn't need to be leaked). He knew only vaguely, we're asked to believe, that she was involved in "WMD".

How was he supposed to know, the Rove defense goes, that by leaking her identity he would destroy the cover of Brewster, Jennings & Associates, a CIA front company? He feels terrible about that - really. It's not like he actually KNEW anything. He just sorta heard things, which he thought a few reporters might like to know, and fer god's sake, he had no idea -- no idea! -- that the identity of the CIA's WMD agents might be classified! Perish the thought!

According to Rove's defenders, the courageous Mr. Rove, the acknowledged political genius who propelled George W. Bush from well-deserved obscurity to an unelected presidency, never entertained a thought -- not for one instant -- that what he was saying might harm the family of one of the Administration's most nettlesome critics. Farthest thing from his mind. Good lord -- Karl Rove doesn't play hardball, ladies and gentlemen; He's a big fuzzball. Ruining her cover was completely unintentional, and he's really, really sorry. In fact, sources inside the White House indicate that Rove has been sending flowers to Valerie Plame on a weekly basis, so chagrined is he about the whole situation.

He was just trying to help Matt Cooper keep his facts straight -- really!

What about Judith Miller and Robert Novak, you ask? Apparently, it just so happens that they also needed to be straightened out on the whole story. Yeah, that's the ticket. Rove is like Washington's fact-checker-in-chief! Yeah! Super double secret Republican sources revealed to The Mighty Pen that those reporters also had erroneous ideas about who sent Joe Wilson -- Judith Miller thought maybe the Daughters of the American Revolution were behind the whole thing, while Bob Novak was sure Wilson had been commissioned by MadTV. Rove was just setting them straight, too.

Or something to that effect. Cut through the spin, and you learn that, yes, it turns out that Dick Cheney's office did ask the CIA to check out the Niger uranium report -- just as Joseph Wilson reported in his op/ed. And, as it turned out, managers at the CIA trying to answer they query from the VP's office approved Wilson's trip. But it is true that Wilson's wife recommended his trip, which is kinda sorta what Rove told the reporters. Why didn't Wilson mention that inconvenient little fact in his column, eh? Oh that's right -- it was classified.

Rove keeps forgetting that.

Is this what happened?

Wed, 13 Jul 2005 17:43:07 GMT

You have to read this comment about Iraq, Afghanistan and 9/11 by "The Oklahoma Hippie" over at the Talking Points Memo Cafe.

I suspect that historians will eventually establish that something generally along these lines is what happened.

A letter to Salon

Wed, 13 Jul 2005 17:15:39 GMT

Here is my reply to Imperfect Martyr, Andrew O'Hehir's defense of Judith Miller, the NYTimes reporter currently jailed for refusing to answer the summons of a federal court:

-----------------------

Salon editors:

Andrew O'Hehir may have strong opinions, but his legal reasoning needs some work.

The point obscured by O'Hehir, and most other pundits who have rallied to Judith Miller's defense, is that this reporter is not being persecuted or prosecuted for exercising her First Amendment rights. She is in jail neither for her writing or reporting -- in short, this is not about her. She is not accused of committing any crime other than simple contempt of court. She is a citizen and witness who certainly has knowledge that will be helpful in resolving a probable federal crime. Having exhausted her legal defenses, she has chosen -- and we must emphasize the element of choice here -- a course of civil disobedience. Specifically, Miller is being jailed for choosing to ignore a federal summons to appear and testify before a U.S. Grand Jury. It may be a principled, courageous choice, but as Susan McDougal and others can tell you, such a choice carries a price.

As a society which respects the First Amendment as well as the Fifth, which ensures due process, it is important that we not elevate respect for the First Amendment to a religious belief, and in so doing adopt a blindness to the other concerns of civil society which are at play here. It is fundamental to the interests of justice that citizens be compelled to respect the summons of a federal court. Without this power, there is no legal system -- it is a core principle. No loophole exists in law exempting people who feel they are acting as journalists (whether that be Judith Miller, Matthew Cooper or Jim Guckert/Jeff Gannon). This respect for the authority of a federal court is clearly at play in the public's lack of empathy for Judith Miller; it's clear that the pro-Miller punditry has virtually ignored this concern in its industry-wide bias for the hegemony of the First Amendment. That oversight is especially dismaying since, in the parallel case of Matthew Cooper and TIME Magazine, the magazine emphasized the rule of law in explaining its decision to cooperate.

In general, the arguments of O'Hehir and other journalists are opinions based on keenly felt principles. Such arguments are well-suited to legislative debate, where the structures of law can be hashed out, and the interests of various parties can be balanced. They are poorly suited to a legal debate, where the brass tacks are questions such as, "What is the law?" and "Was the law violated?" In other words, O'Hehir and company need to understand the distinction between arguments over whether the law -should- provide the press immunity from subpoena, and whether the law -does- provide such an immunity.

While I'm open-minded on the question of whether the press should have such an exemption, I have little doubt that as it stands now, no such exemption exists. Perhaps Miller's experience will lead to a productive debate and eventual legislation on the issue of press privilege -- an exceedingly thorny question in an age when anyone can set up a blog and begin reporting. In the meantime, we need to remember that our First Amendment rights are but one Constitutional issue at play here.

Scot Woods
Grass Lake, MI

Mercury: Why so many kids have trouble at school

Fri, 17 Jun 2005 17:02:43 GMT

Anybody who knows anybody involved in education is anecdotally aware of the shocking number of children our teachers are encountering who have learning and emotional disabilities. And epidemiologists are certainly away of a huge cohort of children diagnosed with autism in our elementary schools. My fiancee Teresa teaches fourth and fifth graders in an Ann Arbor-area school, and more than half of her class qualifies for some sort of special education benefit.

It's heartbreaking to see, and it's left me with a lot of questions. What's going on? I don't remember so many problems during my years in school. I know that's highly subjective, but the contrast seems so severe that something just feels wrong about this. Is there something "in the water"? Are parents and psycologists going haywire, trying to blame some medical condition for good, old-fashioned misbehavior? Were we ignoring this problem for generations? Or do we simply have better language to describe these symptoms?

It's emerging that, in a frighteningly literal sense, there probably HAS been something in the water... and in the vaccines we've been administering to children since the late 80s. It's mercury, often in the form of thimerosal, which some drug companies have used as a preservative in vaccines -- despite pretty overwhelming evidence that it's basically brain poison. (Thimerosal contains the neurotoxin ethylmercury.) Eli Lilly's own data on the toxicity of thimerosal, incidentally, goes back to the 1930s, yet they apparently used it in vaccines until very, very recently.

Anyhow, it seems the CDC and other health organizations have been aware of the problem, but have seemingly conspired to bury the evidence, in order to protect the pharmacology giants who pull the strings.

Take a deep breath and read the following article by RFK, Jr. It's originally from Salon.com, but you can read it for free here at Truthout.org.

Then send the link to any teachers or medical professionals you know. Spread the news.

Why it's about the oil

Tue, 17 May 2005 17:48:36 GMT

Apologies for the time away. We do what we can... On to business...

If you don't subscribe to Truthout, you're missing a great daily digest of important news stories from around the world. To say it has a liberal slant is putting it mildly, but the aggregate moving picture composed by these thousands of words over time is very, very compelling.

An article in Truthout today -- "Oil Nationalism" -- from a French publication cuts to the chase. If you can get around the odd phrasings in this English translation from Le Devoir (which can only be imparted by a translation from French), you have a very succinct primer on the two great issues leveraging international power games today: Oil and nuclear weapons. These are the key objects of desire in the Great Game being played by the world's great and emerging powers.

Oil is often called the "lifeblood of the economy," and for good reason. And nuclear weapons are the price of admission to the club of major powers in this world, as the North Koreans know all too well. As Serge Truffaut explains it, when countries like China, India and Russia started divvying up the world's hydrocarbons, American authorities could see only one solution. Can you guess what that was?

Bush in 30 Years winner

Mon, 09 May 2005 19:12:47 GMT

"If it ain't broke... don't privatize it!" is the winner of MoveOn PAC's flash-animation contest called "Bush in 30 years".

It does a real nice job summing up the whole issue.

Check it out, pass it on.

Where is the music?

Thu, 17 Mar 2005 19:49:11 GMT

Today, William Rivers Pitt of "Truthout" battles with a moment of despair looking back at yesterday's awful anti-democratic day and says, "The Darkness drops again...

So...to recap:

Neocon warlord Paul Wolfowitz will head the World Bank;

The White House illegally puts out fake news reports, and the Justice Department does nothing;

Another $81 billion of your money and mine is to be poured onto the Iraqi sand;

The GOP majority in Congress is preparing to trash 200 years of Senate tradition in order to post a number of certifiably insane people to the bench;

Kevin Martin, a conservative Christian activist for the GOP, will now chair the FCC;

The Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve, one of the most ecologically pristine areas remaining to us, will be paved and drilled for its tiny amount of petroleum.

And that was just yesterday.

And no doubt, we are living in a period of radical change. A change to our norms of liberty; a change from being a grown-up, expansive democracy into an infantile imperial power; the end of the age of oil. We have entered an age when regular people routinely sell out their own interests for the benefit of billionaires. There are millions of Americans in anguish over these changes, and people literally see the society that raised them crumbling all around them. This is not mere conservatism, not the Reagan Era -- it's far more sweeping a change than that. We are watching the fruiting of a decades-long right-wing effort to recast this society into an individualistic, fear-laden, anti-civic corporate state.

So -- and maybe this sounds trivial -- but where is the art? Where are the songs and the artwork which portray this immense change. Where is the creative documentation of this period of foment? I just don't see it. And while I certainly don't expect to hear it on the radio, I haven't seen any evidence on the Web or elsewhere that there's a counter-revolution among progressive artists. Most everything I'm seeing is deeply apolitical. Is there nothing approximating the social relevance of Bob Dylan or Ansel Adams out there right now. If there is -- and I'm sure there HAS to be -- I'm not seeing it.

Oh sure, they donate money to important causes, and occasionally a star offers up a welterweight contrary opinon about an important social issue. But the voices of real dissent are simply not being heard. The most creative among us are whistling through the graveyard of the Bush Misadministration.

I'd really be interested to hear your comments on this. What am I missing? Do you agree that we're not hearing the dissent? Why is art & entertainment now so apolitical?

It didn't have to be this way

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 17:04:51 GMT

Juan Cole wrote Wednesday about the awful track record of Paul Wolfowitz on Iraq. He uses Wolfowitz' own words (wherein Paul dismissed the need for large numbers of post-invasion troops in Iraq) most effectively against him. Here is Cole's concluding paragraph:

I was with General Anthony Zinni at the Camden Conference a couple of weeks ago, and someone asked him if there would ever have been a relatively successful guerrilla war if his plan, of putting several hundred thousand troops in the field for the war and its aftermath, had been followed. He replied, "Of course not." Now that is someone who knows something serious about military affairs.

My Hometown Dems!

Tue, 08 Mar 2005 17:58:25 GMT

I see that the Saginaw County (Mich.) Democrats now have their own blog. As a native son, I still have a soft spot for the area, although it has made so many bad choices for so long. One of the problems is that so many of the area's "Democrats" are simply refurbished Republicans who realized that they couldn't get elected with an (R) after their name. The term, I think, is DINO -- "Democrats In Name Only."

Incidentally, the "blog" is really nothing more than a newsletter (Sorry boys, I can't make it to the spaghetti dinner). And though there are one or two hints of the party's position on Social Security, you won't catch THESE Democrats getting pinned down talking about silly LOCAL issues.

Curiously, the "Candidate Development" page is -- ahem -- utterly blank.

Paging Dr. Dean....

My letter to Salon.com

Tue, 08 Mar 2005 17:39:38 GMT

3/8/2005

Dear Salon editors:

We're all a little gassed after the electoral marathon which was the American presidential election (can't we cut these things in half?). In reading Salon's coverage, I hate to say it, but that fatigue shows. I detect a rising tide of distractedness and irrelevance lately in the topics chosen and the material presented.

I think the publication needs to take a hard look at the meta-trends it thinks are going on and dedicate its reporting resources there. You've sort of been all over the board; let's get back to telling a story.

Let me humbly suggest that Salon has taken its finger off the pulse of "what's happening here." America is undergoing profound change, and we need to discuss this in frank terms. I believe America needs to choose between a future dedicated to liberty and openness, or a future course where it is bent on wealth, power and secrecy. To paraphrase Josh Marshall's recent comment, the boat's leaving the dock and America has to choose one option or the other.

Salon has rightly maintained a focus on Iraq/military issues over the duration of the Bush Misadministration, but is there a narrative thread binding together this coverage? As Salon is not a wire service or a major newspaper, it can't cover everything; I think it would help greatly if the editors start focusing the publication's news/political coverage around a central question.

Here's the question I want Salon to try to answer: "What is the real agenda driving our government's current leadership?"

The answer, to be blunt, is perpetual American global hegemony. This has been a key concern of every Administration for the better part of a century, of course, but the neocons have taken this to an extreme. They now see access to oil as the central strategic interest of this country.

Look, Republican administrations have fought two wars in the Middle East in 15 years to secure our access to oil. They have fought against any real policy changes which would rein in our economy's reliance on overseas oil, or even curtail its growth. This has been accompanied by a radical shift of risk and debt to working-class Americans (the bankruptcy bill, social security privatization, federalization of class-actions, ending the estate tax, ending taxes on stock dividends, etc.) To cover their tracks, the Bush guard are trying to pack the federal bench, eviscerate the checks and balances within federal agencies, and they are supressing the science which would reveal the dangers of their policies.

You've given us much of this story in separate installments; it's time to focus on the connections and implications.

Ask, "What kind of society shall we have?" "What underpins our economy?", "Why are they less concerned with our 'enemies' (Iran, N. Korea, Syria) than our 'rivals' (Europe, China)?".

Please, get us back to the big picture.

A reader,

Scot Woods
Grass Lake, MI