Blogjam

Sorry--I couldn't get Blogger to work today until just now. I'll try to remember some of the stuff I wanted to link to:

• Riverbend's report on the Shiite fundamentalist crackdown on World Cup fever in Iraq.
• The WSWS report on the corporate takeover and police-state tactics at the World Cup in Germany.
• The WaPo reports that mining the Canadian oil sands is causing an "unexpectedly high environmental toll." Unexpected only if you never had a clue as to how they are processed. In a sane world, the precious fresh water and virgin forest being destroyed would be valued WAY above the sludgy muck necessary to keep from having to negotiate the American way of life. Did you know that the US imports more oil from Canada than from any other country?
• Speaking of negotiating, Condiliar offers to talk to the Iranians, on the condition that they concede every point before the talks start.

Shiloh Nouvel Jolie Pitt

I try to stay out of the celebrity gossip, but I left a comment on WIIIAI's blog about Bradgelina's baby girl. I suggested that Shiloh was an appropriate name, since "Antietam" is a boy's name. Then it occurred to me that the other name for the Battle of Shiloh, fought near the Tennessee-Mississippi border in April 1862, was "Pittsburg Landing."

Googling the news, I found only two articles which mentioned this, neither of which suggested that this may have affected the choice of the name. In fact, the Telegraph (UK) suggests that the parents are pretty ignorant:

The couple may not be aware that Shiloh was also the name of a major battle in the American Civil War.

The Battle of Shiloh, also known as the Battle of Pittsburg Landing, was fought on April 6 and 7, 1862, in Tennessee. Nearly 24,000 died.

Personally, I prefer to think of Brad and Angelina as being clever and somewhat insensitive to their child's feelings, rather than ignorant.

And, for the record, I think "Suri" is a pretty name.

Milosebush

Robert Parry points out that, in addition to the obvious war crime of aggressive war, aWol's lies and propaganda have contributed to the atmosphere that makes atrocities like Haditha possible--a crime for which others have been tried:

Milosevic's violent rhetoric and deceptive propaganda were two factors cited in his indictment. One count alleged that the fiery Serb leader "controlled, manipulated or otherwise utilized Serbian state-run media to spread exaggerated and false messages of ethnically based attacks by Bosnian Muslims and Croats against Serb people intended to create an atmosphere of fear and hatred among Serbs."

In Bush's Iraq case, his legal responsibility is parallel though the facts are far from identical.
...
As a result of Bush’s incessant propaganda, a poll of 944 U.S. military personnel in Iraq--taken in January and February 2006--found that 85 percent believed the U.S. mission in Iraq was mainly "to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9/11 attacks." Seventy-seven percent said a chief war goal was "to stop Saddam from protecting al-Qaeda in Iraq."
...
Bush's rhetorical excesses, though primarily designed to build and maintain a political consensus behind the war at home, had the predictable effect of turning loose a thoroughly propagandized and heavily armed U.S. military force on the Iraqi population.

Pumped-up by Bush's false claims linking Iraq to 9/11 and his later warnings about al-Qaeda's scheme for a global terrorist empire, U.S. soldiers have charged into Iraqi towns and cities with revenge on their minds.

Of course, massacres and other atrocities ALWAYS happen in wars, which is one of many reasons why wars shouldn't be started. Those who willingly start wars are the worst criminals on earth, guilty of thousands of counts of murder, assault and battery, treason, theft, perjury, wanton destruction of property, and pretty much every other crime on the books.

Killing civilians as policy

From the Independent:

More than half a century after hostilities ended in Korea, a document from the war's chaotic early days has come to light - a letter from the US ambassador to Seoul, informing the State Department that American soldiers would shoot refugees approaching their lines.

The letter, dated the day of the army's mass killing of South Korean refugees at No Gun Ri in 1950, is the strongest indication yet that such a policy existed for all US forces in Korea, and the first evidence that that policy was known to upper ranks of the US government.

"If refugees do appear from north of US lines they will receive warning shots, and if they then persist in advancing they will be shot," wrote the ambassador, John J Muccio, in his message to the Assistant Secretary of State, Dean Rusk.
...
Estimates vary on the number of dead at No Gun Ri. American soldiers' estimates ranged from under 100 to "hundreds" dead; Korean survivors say about 400, mostly women and children, were killed at the village 100 miles (160km) south-east of Seoul, the South Korean capital. Hundreds more refugees were killed in later, similar episodes, survivors say.
...
The Pentagon concluded that the No Gun Ri shootings, which lasted three days, were "an unfortunate tragedy", not a deliberate killing. It suggested that panicky soldiers, acting without orders, opened fire because they feared that an approaching line of families, baggage and farm animals was concealing enemy troops.
...
"With this additional piece of evidence, the Pentagon report's interpretation [of No Gun Ri] becomes difficult to sustain," Mr Conway-Lanz argues in his book, Collateral Damage, published by Routledge.

That was one way to save those 400 Koreans from "godless communism," I guess.

From Emad Hajjaj (Jordan).

From David Horsey.

Dark thoughts for a warm weekend

Paul Craig Roberts is clearly pissed off:

Where does the danger to the world reside? In Iran, a small religious country where the family is intact and the government is constrained by religious authority and ancient traditions, or in the US where propaganda rules and the powerful executive branch has removed itself from accountability by breaking the constitutional restraints on its power?

Why is the US superpower orchestrating fear of puny Iran?

The US government has spent the past half century interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, overthrowing or assassinating their chosen leaders and imposing its puppets on foreign peoples. To what country has Iran done this, or Iraq, or North Korea?
...
The former terrible tyrant ruler of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, is on trial for killing 150 people. The US government murdered 500,000 Iraqi children prior to Bush's invasion. When the US government murders people, whether Serbs, Branch Davidians at Waco, or Iraqi women and children, it is "collateral damage." But we put Saddam Hussein on trial for putting down rebellions.

Gentle reader, do you believe that the Bush Regime will not shoot you down in the streets if you have a rebellion?

BTW, the killing in Dujail, scene of the crime in Saddam's trial, hasn't ended. From Patrick Cockburn:

Dujail, 40 miles north of Baghdad, is the Shia village where Saddam Hussein [carried] out a judicial massacre, killing 148 people after an attempt to assassinate him in 1982. He is on trial for the killings. The villagers are now paying a terrible price for giving evidence at his trial.

In the past few months Sunni insurgents have been stopping them at an improvised checkpoint on the road to Baghdad. Masked gunmen glance at their identity cards and if under place of birth is written "Dujail" they kill them. So far 20 villagers have been murdered and 20 have disappeared.

Smaller is better

Over 60 years ago, an anthropologist working for the US Department of Agriculture did a study comparing two farming communities: One surrounded by small, independently-owned farms, the other surrounded by large, corporate-owned farms. His conclusion?

The study showed unequivocally that the town surrounded by the small farms was far superior by every measure that I could devise.

How so?

Large scale farm operations was immediately seen to take an important part in the creation of the conditions found in Arvin. Its direct causative effect is to create a community made up of a few persons of high economic position, and a mass of individuals whose economic status and whose security and stability are low, and who are economically dependent directly on the few. In the framework of American culture, more particularly that of industrialized farming, this creates immediately a situation where community participation and leadership, economic well-being, and business activities are relatively impoverished.

The small-farm community of Dinuba was supporting 62 separate businesses with a volume of trade of $4.3 million, while the large-farm community of Arvin had 35 established business establishments; expenditures for household supplies and building equipment were over three times greater in the small-farm community; Dinuba had a larger dollar-volume of agricultural production; over one-half of the breadwinners in the small-farm community were independently employed, while in the large-farm community less than one-fifth were so employed: public services in the small-farm community were far better; the small farm community had two newspapers while the large-farm community had one, and the small-farm community had twice the number of organizations for civic improvement and recreation.

Of course, the big agribusiness firms and their hired Congresscritters deep-sixed the report and ignored its recommendations. The well-being of most Americans was not their concern, and never has been.

Heather Gray, writing about this on Counterpunch, notes that this accumulation of agricultural power into the hands of a tiny number of huge corporations has gone international:

What we have witnessed in the past century, of course, is the Walmartization of the American economy and it is being applied to American foreign policy as well as through trade initiatives and the likes of the World Trade Organization. Under the NAFTA agreement, for example, the U.S. forced Mexico to change its land tenure laws allowing for foreigners to purchase land for the first time and to open up more intensive dumping of industrially produced cheap corn and other products on the Mexican markets. As we expected, the trade policies, resulted in the undercutting of prices and destabilization of small farmers. This has had a devastating impact on Mexico's excellent small farming communities and likely one of the reasons we are seeing larger numbers of Mexican economic refugees attempting to come across the U.S. borders. The "poor" immigrants are unfairly blamed for disruption when the finger needs to be pointed at corporate America and the U.S. trade policies.

Concentrated wealth is not healthy for any community--rural or urban--and is counter-productive to quality of life and democratic principles. The current U.S. paradigm of support for excessive wealth and trickle down economics doesn't work, is not good for anyone. A new paradigm of common wealth and resource distribution is necessary to let human genius have an opportunity to flourish and be sustainable. Americans need to pay attention to this and stop bowing to greed.

Memorial Day

On this day, let us remember the many thousands of Americans who died protecting our freedoms--and the many thousands more who died for lies or oil or empire.

We should also remember the millions who have died worldwide in wars of which Americans know little and seemingly care less. The deadliest current war isn't Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Darfur, or even the so-called "war on terror." As Time reports, some four million people have died in the bloody Congo conflict since 1998. And do you know what the bloodiest war of the 19th Century was? The U.S. Civil War? One of the Napoleonic wars, or even all of them put together? the U.S. wars against Mexico or Spain? The Franco-Prussian War? How about none of the above. The bloodiest conflict in the world in the 19th Century, by far, was the Taiping Rebellion in China from 1851 to 1864. Estimates of the death toll range from 20 million to 50 million--challenging the totals of World War II for the title of worst war ever. And I never heard of it until it was mentioned in passing in a book about the California gold rush.

So let's not spend too much time remembering, when there are so many things we still don't know!

"Were we kicked out because of the apple?" "No--because we're undocumented."
From Ares (Mexico).

From David Horsey.

From Stephane Peray (Thailand).

So quit already

Torture Gonzales and other "Justice" Department crooks apparently "threatened" to resign if aWol made them give back the documents they stole from Congressman William Jefferson.

So give 'em back! Given the recent occupants of the office, we'd all be a lot better off without any attorney general at all.

Chances are

Floyd Rudmin, a Norwegian professor, calculates the odds of effectively finding terrorists using the NSA's big-net approach as being practically nil. Making the mesh fine enough to catch any reasonable percentage of the tiny number of terrorists who might actually be in this country, by including enough suspicious words or contacts, will catch such a huge number of non-terrorists that they'll still be searching for needles in haystacks. And tens of thousands of us will be the haystacks, hauled off in the middle of the night to be interrogated and held indefinitely (Halliburton has been given a contract to build new detention centers here in the US).

Rudmin explains the probabilities in some detail. As a simple example, suppose the NSA used the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City as their model for terrorists. The bombers bought fertilizers, went to hardware stores, and rented trucks. So did thousands of other people. The 9/11 hijackers, if you buy the official story, flew on planes, stayed in motels, and frequented strip clubs. They were hardly alone in any of that.

And can you imagine the NSA trying to make a list of words to identify terrorists? Bomb, Osama, kill... Who knows? How many non-terrorists use those words at least occasionally? Just about all of them, I'd guess.

Anyway, the point is that the big-net approach is useless--for catching terrorists. However, as a means of repression, and for quickly targeting political opponents, it's got a lot going for it.

From Mike Thompson.

The genius of Donald Rumsfeld

From CNN:

Rumsfeld said that "history will decide" if the United States went into Iraq with the right troop level. But he defended the number of troops used, saying all the generals in the chain of command -- save one, then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki -- agreed with it.

"If you have too many troops, you run two risks," he said. "You're too heavy-footed, you're too intrusive, you feed the insurgency because you look like an occupying force. The second risk is you create a dependency -- you do all the work for the Iraqis instead of pushing them and having them do all the work.

"If you have too few, then the environment is such that the political process or the economy can't go forward."

Somehow, by his own reasoning, it would seem that Rummy managed to have both too few and too many troops in Iraq at the same time.

Of course, anyone with a lick of sense or any respect for international law knows that the proper number of US troops in Iraq should have been, and should be, zero. And there's one too few defense secretaries on trial for war crimes and treason right now.

Bolivarian University of Venezuela

The Washington Post has an article about the higher end of Hugo Chavez's education plans in Venezuela: The Bolivarian University of Venezuela, free and open to all. The goal is to eventually have one million students enrolled at various campuses around the nation, and to develop local leaders in government, business, health care, and more.

The Post focuses, perhaps appropriately, on the leftist bent of the University and how its courses tend to fit right in with Chavez's plans for the country. Besides stating the basic facts, however, they don't pay any attention to the idea that Venezuela is the one place in the world where $70 a barrel oil is actually improving life for the majority of the population.

Jonathan at A Tiny Revolution notes the serious incongruity in these two sentences from the article:

Most of the buildings, including those on the main Caracas campus, once served as headquarters for the state petroleum company, an institution purged of many anti-Chavez employees after a crippling strike against the government in 2002. Offices once reserved for executives who favored free-market economics are now decorated with posters of the socialist icon Che Guevara.

Jonathan's point is that there is nothing "free-market" about a "state petroleum company." This highlights the main point of Dean Baker's little book "The Conservative Nanny State" (available for free download here): Right-wingers don't believe in keeping the government out of controlling markets--they just want the government to control markets for their benefit.

From Lloyd Dangle.

Sting operation

From Jerry Holbert.

From Mr. Fish.

From Walt Handelsman.

From Clay Bennett.

Quotes du jour

I am very concerned about the necessity of a Saturday night raid on Congressman Jefferson’s Capitol Hill Office in pursuit of information that was already under subpoena and at a time when those subpoenas are still pending and all the documents that have been subpoenaed were being preserved.

The Founding Fathers were very careful to establish in the Constitution a Separation of Powers to protect Americans against the tyranny of any one branch of government. They were particularly concerned about limiting the power of the Executive Branch.

Insofar as I am aware, since the founding of our Republic 219 years ago, the Justice Department has never found it necessary to do what it did Saturday night, crossing this Separation of Powers line, in order to successfully prosecute corruption by Members of Congress... Nothing I have learned in the last 48 hours leads me to believe there was any necessity to change the precedent established over those 219 years.

-- Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL)

What happened Saturday night... is the most blatant violation of the Constitutional Separation of Powers in my lifetime... I am shaken by this abuse of power.

-- Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA)

I think this is really outrageous.

-- Rep. David Dreier (R-CA)

The WSWS investigates the raid of Congressman William Jefferson's (D-LA) office by the FBI Saturday night. My question is--now that these Repugs have noticed the unconstitutional behavior of the administration, this "high crime," in other words, are they ready to take the only reasonable action that could stop it: impeachment?

Meanwhile, Torture Gonzales continues to do the seemingly impossible--make us miss John Ashcroft:

Defending the raid in response to the outcry from members of the Senate and House, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Monday would only say, "I admit that these were unusual steps that were taken in response to an unusual set of circumstances." On Tuesday he claimed that his office had decided the search of Jefferson's office was "absolutely essential to move forward with that investigation."

From Mike Thompson.

Quotes du jour

"Hey, we've gone through more hardships than the Jews and Charlie Brown put together." -- Homer Simpson

"It's going, going, and, like America's credibility on the world stage, that ball is gone!" -- Baseball announcer on the Simpsons

Car sharing in Ann Arbor

From the Ann Arbor News:

The University of Michigan wants to bring car sharing to campus in time for next fall, hoping to sign a deal with a national company like Zipcar, Inc.

Details are still up in the air, but the idea is to make car sharing, a trend on some campuses and major cities, another transportation option for professors, staff and students 21 and older.

Companies like Zipcar rent cars by the hour to members, who make arrangements over the Internet and use a credit card-like key to pick up the car from a designated parking lot. Gas is covered by the company and drivers don't need their own basic insurance. When they're done, they leave the car in the same spot they found it.

The founder of Zipcar, Robin Chase, was in town last week to give a talk about Zipcar and related ideas. Apparently she was here for another reason as well! The Ann Arbor Community Car Coop has been running a small car-sharing operation for a year or two, but the resources of the University and Zipcar could make it take off.

From Clay Bennett.

From Henry Payne.

From Jen Sorensen.

Bush Quagmire One continues

The airstrikes brought the death toll of militants, Afghan forces, coalition soldiers and civilians to as many as 285 since Wednesday, according to coalition and Afghan figures. The storm of violence that erupted last week in the south was among the deadliest combat in Afghanistan since the ouster of the Taliban regime in 2001.

-- NY Times. The military, of course, claims that most of the people they killed were "Taliban."

Torture Gonzales versus the Constitution

From AP:

But he added that the First Amendment right of a free press should not be absolute when it comes to national security. If the government's probe into the NSA leak turns up criminal activity, prosecutors have an "obligation to enforce the law."

"It can't be the case that that right trumps over the right that Americans would like to see, the ability of the federal government to go after criminal activity," Gonzales told ABC's "This Week."

The "criminal activity" he refers to is reporters reporting on the criminal activity of the government, in this case the NSA wiretaps.

Obviously it can't be done until this bunch of affirmative-action crooks (there seems to be one neofascist from every ethnic group in this administration) is out, but we need to seriously redefine what gets classified, and who classifies it. The fact that the cops are on their way to a particular location to arrest someone would seem to be legitimately classified information--a cop or reporter who calls the suspect to allow him to escape may be guilty of a crime. But informing the public that crimes have been committed and that the police are looking for the criminals can and should happen, as should the details of the arrest after it is completed. And informing a suspect that his phone has been tapped, legally and in accord with the Constitution, could be a crime. But informing the public that phones are tapped, and especially letting them know that phones are being tapped illegally, isn't a crime--it's a patriotic act. And practically speaking, making this knowledge public doesn't help the "terrorists;" it only helps those within the government doing the tapping.

After lying to us for over five years, the chutzpah displayed by the Bushies, still insisting that we just trust them, is amazing.

If there's a more despicable human being than Bush or Cheney, it's Condi

Condiliar did the talk shows yesterday (WIIIAI has more):

MR. RUSSERT: But Madam Secretary, you know the numbers as well as I do: 2,448 dead Americans, 18,088 wounded or injured. [Ed: I'll bet she didn't know the numbers that well.] And look at these numbers in terms of support for the war, the president’s handling of Iraq. When the war began in March of ‘03, it was 70 percent approval. It’s now down to 32. Less than one in three Americans support the president’s handling of the war in Iraq. What happened?

DR. RICE: I understand that Americans see on their screens violence. They continue to see Americans killed, and we mourn every death. These are very hard things to do. But I would ask that people remember why we are there. We are there because we are trying to—having overthrown a brutal dictator who was a destabilizing force in the Middle East, we’re trying to help the Iraqis create a stable foundation for democracy and a stable foundation for peace.

Actually, Dr. Rice is desparately hoping that Americans have completely forgotten why we are there--three lies. From aWol's letter to the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate, March 18, 2003:

I determine that:

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither (A) adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Iraq had no WMD's, so (1-A) it was not a threat, and (1-B) it was not violating UN resolutions (at least with regard to WMD's). Iraq also was (2) not involved in 9/11.

What Condiliar is asking, really, is that Americans remember only the latest lie.

And Condi is just totally befuddled as to why the Iranians might ask that we not attack them:

It, it’s certainly strange to talk about security guarantees in that circumstance. And I would say one other thing. I’ve never quite understood it. If this is a civil nuclear program, and supposed to give energy, what’s, what is with security guarantees? I thought this was supposed to be a civil nuclear program.

MR. RUSSERT: But in, in reality if you’re asking someone to stop developing a nuclear bomb, and they in turn say—through other diplomats at the U.N.—guarantee you will not topple their government if they do that, you won’t do that?

DR. RICE: I thought the Iranian position was that they weren’t developing a nuclear bomb? I thought the Iranian position was that they wanted civil nuclear power? So, so...

MR. RUSSERT: Well, you say they are.

DR. RICE: So, well, let’s, let’s pursue the question of do they want civil nuclear power? But Tim, the United States is not, first, being asked about security guarantees, and secondly it makes no sense in a context in which Iran is a central banker of terrorism and a force for instability in a region of, of great interest to us.

Dumbest "smart" woman ever. Geez, why would a country want guarantees that we not attack them, just because we've attacked two of its neighbors on bogus excuses in the past five years? There's some seriously screwed-up wiring in that PhD head of hers.

The president's number one priority is to protect the Constitution

If you liked my rant yesterday about Sen. Roberts' "You have no civil liberties if you are dead" quote, or even if you didn't, you might like Robert Parry's column on the exact same subject, written the day before mine. Parry points out:

As a trade-off for accepting Bush's unlimited powers, the American people have gotten assurances that Bush will make protecting them his top priority. Yet, the presidential oath says nothing about shielding the public from danger; rather it's a vow to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Preserve, protect and defend: Not destroy, shred and ignore.

End the "war on terror"

As a followup to yesterday's post about how the "war on terror" was just what the terrorists ordered, Chris Floyd explains in detail what I've been suggesting for years--the only way to "win" a "war on terror" is to stop fighting it. Excerpt:

Both sides need the other in this insane global conflict--but ironically, only one side can actually stop the "war." Only the United States can cease to respond with massive military force all over the world to provocations from criminals on the fringe. Only the United States can say, "We are not fighting a war; we are dealing with criminal actions as they arise--while working feverishly on the diplomatic, social, political, cultural and economic fronts to address the conditions in which the particular set of crimes known as 'terrorism' are apt to arise. It is a complicated business, to be sure: hard work, often unrewarding, full of pitfalls and reverses--but we are wise enough and strong enough as a nation to see it through."

But this course--the only sensible, and only genuinely effective response to criminal actions of extremist groups--will never be undertaken by the Bush Faction, no matter who heads it. Nor by anyone else, of whatever political stripe, who buys into the militarist philosophy of an American dominance imposed on the world by force (either directly or through the more subtly implied but ever-present threat of force favored by "liberal" advocates of "soft power").

As long as the Bush Regime--or some other permutation of "Bushism"--is in power, the "war on terror" will never end. It will go on spawning new wars, real wars, like the horror in Iraq, the continuing conflict in Afghanistan, and the proxy war now raging in Somalia--where Bush-backed warlords (the old downers of Black Hawks; yes, we've changed sides, again) are pitched against Islamic militias. This blood-dimmed tide will keep rising: thousands, perhaps millions (if the hard-Right's dream of nuking Iran comes true) will be struck down by death and grief, and we will all keep falling deeper into the pit of a lamed and brutal life.

From John Deering.

Let's replace the Senate with the New School graduating class

Grads booed Sen. John McCain (R-Phony) when he spoke, against their wishes, at their graduation. One of the students made some caustic remarks about Senator Warmonger, but Jonathan Schwartz has the questions she should have asked.

From Gary Markstein.

From Jim Day.

From David Horsey.

From Michael Ramirez.

Ramirez is a disgusting right-wing cartoonist, and there can be no doubt that this cartoon is intended to mock those of us who prefer Patrick Henry ("Give me liberty or give me death!") to Senator Patrick Roberts ("You have no civil liberties if you are dead.") But Ramirez has made a point here that I'm sure he didn't intend: The government was already illegally spying on us before 9/11, while ignoring numerous warnings obtained legally. I read a quote last week, I think from some disgruntled ex-CIA guy, saying that when you're looking for a needle, the last thing you want to do is make the haystack larger. Wiretapping didn't stop 9/11.

And as the right wing is always so fond of reminding us, lots of people died to give us what freedoms we have to day--going back to England, through the Revolution, and in the Civil War. Heck, they'll even pretend that the American soldiers dying in the latest Iraq fiasco are somehow protecting our freedom. But now the wingnuts are willing to let the sacrifices of those two million or so Americans who died in those wars, and the millions more who fought and didn't die, all be for nought because 3000 Americans died on 9/11. "Freedom isn't free," their bumper stickers say. So why are they in such a hurry to give it away?

From Patrick Chappette.

From Mark Cohen.

Kung Flu Chicken

Actually, CNN-Money's headline is better than mine: Why the chicken crossed the ocean--twice. The USDA has approved the import of canned chicken from China--provided the chicken being canned is American!

In other words, American chicken will travel across the ocean once and return cooked and canned--to be sent on its way to a supermarket shelf near you.

The U.S. is the world's largest poultry producer. Almost all of the chicken consumed by Americans last year, valued at $50 billion, was produced domestically at about 30,000 chicken farms across the country. Total chicken production in 2005 totaled about 35 billion pounds.

If the U.S. is already self-sufficient in meeting its own chicken demand, what's the economic rational behind this China deal?

The article quotes a couple of experts who don't really have an answer to that question; the only thing they can come up with was that it was something the Chinese wanted as part of a trade deal. I've got a few possible explanations:

• The government believes that the trade deficit just isn't big enough, so we've got to start importing our own stuff.
• Oil is still way too cheap for anyone to think of using it wisely.
• Bird flu just isn't spreading fast enough, and Chinese birds haven't had much opportunity to contract American diseases.
• Some Americans are still employed, and a few even get benefits. Something must be done!

The last one is probably closest to the truth. Paul Craig Roberts and others frequently write about how almost all new jobs in this country are ones that can't be outsourced: cleaning, mowing, flipping. I think our cheap-labor conservatives see this as a challenge. Expect in the future to see proposals for modular motel rooms which can be shipped to China for cleaning, modular lawns that can be sent to El Salvador for mowing, and burgers that can be sent to Bangladesh for flipping. (This chicken deal isn't a lot different from that.) W's "guest workers" will man the forklifts and drive the trucks to get everything to and from the docks.

The article doesn't say how the chicken is sent to China. I would guess that the birds are sent live, which would make the ships one of the worst PETA nightmares imaginable (not to mention how wonderful it must be to work on one of those ships). Otherwise, I guess they would be shipped frozen, meaning that a substantial amount of processing has already occurred, and huge amounts of energy are being wasted in keeping the meat frozen.

In any case, this seems to be about as clear an example as you can get that globalization has little to do with efficiency and everything to do with exploiting cheap labor.

Take away our leader, please!

President Bush seconds before being beamed up into a spaceship for a reverse lobotomy. We'll know in a few days if it did any good.

Quote du Jour

President Bush called for the National Guard to patrol the US/Mexican border. The guards will track down and find illegals. That's not their job. They're trained to defend our country--not track down and find people. Let's be honest, the Guard couldn't even track down and find President Bush when he was in the National Guard.

-- Jay Leno, via Past Peak

In a similar vein, WIIIAI suggests that we're using unmanned aerial drones on the border because pilotin' is work Americans just won't do.

The terrorists have won

Both of them: Bin Laden and Bush. Jonathan Schwartz notes that based on information in the official 9/11 report, Osama had hoped that the attack on the USS Cole in October 2000 would provoke a violent response, but decided to pursue something larger when it didn't:

According to the report, after the Cole attack,

...Bin Ladin anticipated U.S. military retaliation. He ordered the evacuation of the al Qaeda's Kandahar airport compound and fled...

There was no American strike. In February 2001, a source reported that an individual whom he identified as the big instructor (probably a reference to bin Ladin) complained frequently that the United States had not yet attacked. According to the source, Bin Ladin wanted the United States to attack, and if it did not he would launch something bigger.

That's on page 191. It sources this claim to "Intelligence report, Terrorism Activities, Oct. 1, 2001" (Chapter 6, footnote 126).

Bin Laden wanted a war; Bush wanted to start one (well, more than one, actually). I guess 9/11 was win-win for these guys, if not for the 3000 killed that day and the hundreds of thousands who have died since then in the so-called "war on terror."

Jonathan points out that the enemies that Bush and bin Laden are really trying to defeat aren't each other. For bin Laden, it's other Islamic jihadist movements; for Bush it's the Democrats and anyone in this country who might want to stop his imperialist agenda (two quite separate groups).

Headline News

Two headlines from the WaPo:

• CIA Nominee Has Ability To Deliver Bad News. Good thing--he'll need it.
• Iran's Dubious 'Oil Weapon'. For weeks now, Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons have been treated as a serious threat by the WaPo, but their very real oil card--not just their own oil but their ability to shut down the Persian Gulf--is now called "dubious."

W's immigration "plan:" More $ to the military-industrial complex

From Chris Floyd:

The NYT reports that Bush is limbering up the federal checkbook to funnel even more millions to masters of war like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, still feasting sumptuously off the bloated corpse of conquered Iraq. These fine purveyors of contemporary "defense" (who says irony is dead?) will soon string the border with all manner of hugely expensive high-tech gizmonics designed to keep the hemisphere's most desperate and vulnerable people from crossing over to take the slave-wage, no-benefit, no-protection jobs offered to them by, well, Bush's cronies and benefactors in big business and among the wealthy elite (whom he has recently larded with more tax-cut largess). It's a neat scam, really, a win-win situation: your corporate cronies get even more loot from the public treasury – and they still get the cheap Latino labor that keeps them in clover.
...
No matter what happens – if the border explodes in violent conflict and repression, if American politics is even further degraded and coarsened by hate and fearmongering – or if things just muddle along more or less as they are, with the occasional PR stunt to gull the rubes or stoke the base – the Bush Faction's cronies and ruling class comrades will contine to make out like bandits. It's precisely the same situation, the same scam, now operating in Iraq: hundreds of billions of public dollars are being transferred into the private coffers of the Bush Faction and its allies, a gargantuan windfall that will give them the money and power to dominate American society and politics for generations to come.

Four more Americans die in Bush Quagmire II

BAGHDAD, MAY 18-Four American soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter died today when when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle northwest of the capital, the U.S. military command announced. The names of the dead were not released.

The explosion was one of three deadly attacks launched around the country as Prime Minister-designate Nouri al-Maliki was preparing to unveil his new Cabinet.

The Conservative Nanny State

Economist Dean Baker has written a little book intended to debunk the myth that conservatives oppose government intervention in markets. He points out, rather conclusively I'd say, that for conservatives the whole point of government is to intervene in markets in such a way as to redirect money towards the wealthy (i.e., themselves). From the blurb for the book:

In his new book, economist Dean Baker debunks the myth that conservatives favor the market over government intervention. In fact, conservatives rely on a range of "nanny state" policies that ensure the rich get richer while leaving most Americans worse off. It's time for the rules to change. Sound economic policy should harness the market in ways that produce desirable social outcomes--decent wages, good jobs and affordable health care.

The book is available as a free PDF download! A short, easy, infuriating read, and definitely worth sharing.

From Nick Anderson.

From Bruce Plante.

More likely, to keep liberal ones away...

From R.J. Matson.

From Tom Toles.

The Mexican War

I recently finished reading the book So Far from God: The U.S. War With Mexico, 1846-1848, written by historian John S. D. Eisenhower, son of the former President. As the immigration debate has heated up, many lefties have pointed out that the US stole most of what is now the American southwest--Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, California--from Mexico. I read the book in an attempt to learn just how true that was.

My basic conclusion--adding those states, or taking them from Mexico, was not a huge crime. The way it was done, however, was. Here are the details, as I understand it:

Mexico did not become independent from Spain until 1821. The war for independence had lasted eleven years, and was at least as much Mexicans fighting Mexicans as it was Mexicans fighting Spaniards. The people living in Mexico at the time were in four major ethic groups: 1) Spanish, born in Spain; 2) Creoles, of pure Spanish blood but born in Mexico; 3)Mestizos, of mixed Spanish and indigenous ("Indian") blood; and 4) the indigenous population. The main push for independence came from the Creoles fighting the Spanish. Both sides attempted to co-opt or simply use the other classes to achieve their ends. Independence was finally gained more because Spain faced other distractions elsewhere than because they were defeated by Mexican revolutionaries.

The end result was a huge, sparsely-populated nation with nasty ethnic divisions. The Catholic Church and various regional warlords generally had as much real power as the government in Mexico City (which changed constantly). Communication (which in the first half of the 19th century was pretty much synonymous with transportation) with the distant parts of the country was practically non-existent. Furthermore, the areas which eventually became parts of the US were sparsely populated, and few of the people living there had any political or emotional attachment to the new nation of Mexico. Soon, settlers from the growing giant to the northeast, the US, started moving into these territories, and there was little that Mexico could do to stop them.

The first area heavily settled was Texas. By the 1830's the American settlers far outnumbered both the indigenous and Mexican populations there. These Texans fought a nasty little war with Mexico, and proclaimed their independence in 1836. As more Americans moved in and fortified Texas, the chance of Mexico ever winning it back grew more remote. While this must have rankled some of the leaders in Mexico City, it became much worse when the Americans in Texas applied to Washington to become a state. Having a rebellious province was one thing; losing a huge chunk of territory to a neighboring country was another. Nevertheless, there was little Mexico could do about it except send some troops up to the border.

And this was a problem, since the border wasn't really well defined. Mexico considered the Nueces River, which runs through Corpus Christi, to be the southern border of Texas, but the Texans and Americans claimed the border was the Rio Grande, some 130 miles farther south. As soon as Texas was admitted to the Union, President Polk sent American troops down to Corpus Christi. Shortly thereafter, they crossed the Nueces and marched on down to the Rio Grande. Eventually the Mexicans killed some of them, and Polk had his causus belli. (Which was basically that Mexicans had killed Americans on "American" soil, that being disputed land which may or may not have been part of a territory very recently admitted to the Union.)

So far, so bad. Admitting Texas was a provocation, to be sure, but it certainly recognized facts on the ground. It probably would have eventually become accepted fact without any war if Polk hadn't sent the troops in. But the US wasn't satisfied with just Texas, or even Texas extended to the Rio Grande. Many in the government believed that it was the "manifest destiny" of the US to extend from sea to shining sea, and they wanted California and everything in between. While this annexation probably could have been accomplished eventually in the same manner as it was with Texas--with American settlers becoming "facts on the ground"--Polk and his Democratic supporters didn't want to wait. They wanted to beat Mexico up in a war and force them to cede the territories. So that's what they did. General Zachary Taylor marched his troops on the Monterrey, and General Winfield Scott landed troops at Veracruz. They besieged Veracruz, pounding it for days with heavy artillery until it surrendered. The troops then marched on towards Mexico City, leaving death and destruction in their wake. Eventually they forced the Mexican government, such as it was, to the negotiating table, and got them to "sell" half of their territory to the US for $15 million, giving the land grab a thin veneer of legitimacy.

My conclusion, based on reading this one book, is that adding the western states wasn't that much of a crime--chances are they would have become part of the US anyway. But the march from the Nueces to the Rio Grande was an unnecessary and illegal provocation, while the marches to Monterrey and from Veracruz to Mexico City were completely criminal and without any legitimate cause.

It is interesting that the "facts on the ground" argument is now reversing--in most of the states which were added, white Americans are now in the minority. The "facts on the ground" argument may soon argue for these states being rejoined to Mexico.

A couple of other interesting notes. Opponents of the war, including Abraham Lincoln, were accused of aiding the enemy and being traitors. Also, members of the Whig party, who was at first mostly opposed to the war, generally voted for funding it, out of fear that voting against "supporting the troops" would hurt their chances politically. The Whigs basically ceased to exist eight years after the war ended. A lesson for our Democrats, perhaps?

My favorite Reaganite calls Bush a traitor

Paul Craig Roberts, that is:

Are Americans guilty of treason when they turn their backs on the Constitution? Treason is betrayal of country. And what defines country? In the United States the Constitution defines country. The Bush regime's assault on the Constitution is an assault on America. Moreover, it is a far more dangerous and deadly assault than a terrorist assault on buildings.

As a reminder, here's Roberts' brief bio from Counterpunch:

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

Sustainable Mobility

Robin Chase, founder of Zipcar, is coming to speak in Ann Arbor on Thursday. From the announcement:

Robin is...founder and former Chairman and CEO of Zipcar, a company whose use of the Internet and wireless technology enables rental cars to emulate personal cars. Zipcar's disruptive technology gives its members on-demand access to cars by-the-hour, revolutionizing people's relationship to their cars. Each Zipcar satisfies the car needs of 30-40 people and replaces 10-20 personal cars. Today, with more than 45,000 members and over 1000 cars, Zipcar has taken 10,000 to 20,000 cars off the streets of Boston, New York, Washington, and San Francisco. Robin is known for the evangelical virtual community she created among the members.

SUSTAINABLE MOBILITY AND THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION

Thursday May 18, 4:00 – 5:30 pm in the Wolverine Room,
Michigan Union -- 530 South State Street, Ann Arbor
Free and open to the public

What part of "lockbox" don't you understand?

President Gore addresses the nation.

Chavez: "The threat of an alternative way"

John Pilger writes about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, "the most popular head of state in the western hemisphere, probably in the world." Rather than follow the Texas/Persian Gulf model of using oil wealth to build huge palaces and buy billions of dollars worth of weapons to protect them, he has been spending the money on health care, education and food for the millions of poor in Venezuela. Illiteracy has been practically eliminated.

You will read bad things about Chavez in Bush house organs like the Washington Post and Miami Herald; obviously he's not perfect, and he has used his power at times to increase his power. And, poor observer that I may be, I will vouch for much of what Pilger says based on my ten days in Venezuela two years ago. From what I saw, Chavez is enormously popular--and most of the 70-80% of the population that supports him does so fervently. In the streets of Caracas, people would grab my shoulder and recite the achievements to me: the constitution, the clinics, the schools, the participatory democracy. The clinics and schools and libraries are real; I saw them in action in Caracas and elsewhere. Political freedom exists in a big way--the opposition-controlled media attacks the government with a fervor we can only dream about here, and both Chavistas and their opponents regularly take to the streets in huge rallies. (You can read my report on my Venezuela trip here.) And the rise in oil prices over the past two years has enabled Chavez to turn many of the dreams into reality.

Pilger concludes:

Chavez is, of course, a threat, especially to the United States. Like the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, who based their revolution on the English co-operative moment, and the moderate Allende in Chile, he offers the threat of an alternative way of developing a decent society: in other words, the threat of a good example in a continent where the majority of humanity has long suffered a Washington-designed peonage. In the US media in the 1980s, the "threat" of tiny Nicaragua was seriously debated until it was crushed. Venezuela is clearly being "softened up" for something similar. A US army publication, Doctrine for Asymmetric War against Venezuela, describes Chavez and the Bolivarian revolution as the "largest threat since the Soviet Union and Communism". When I said to Chavez that the US historically had had its way in Latin America, he replied: "Yes, and my assassination would come as no surprise. But the empire is in trouble, and the people of Venezuela will resist an attack. We ask only for the support of all true democrats."

And on a practical level, whether Chavez is a true champion of the poor or a proto-dictator, he has already served the working poor in the United States well. Not only has he provided low-cost heating oil and gasoline to impoverished areas here--he has effectively blocked the "Free Trade Area of the Americas" (FTAA), NAFTA on steroids, which would have resulted in millions of additional people trying to come to the US because their ability to survive at home would be destroyed. The neo-liberal agenda desperately needs to be opposed, and Chavez is doing it more effectively than anyone in the world (and certainly in the US).

(Technical note: Chavez's name has an accent on the a: "OOgo CHA-vez." But when I put the accented "a" in my text, it looks like a square in IE and a question mark in a diamond in Firefox. Like this: á. So I'm just going to leave the accent out.)

Something for every corporation

The reality is that there are many people on the other side of our border who will do anything to come to America to work and build a better life. They walk across miles of desert in the summer heat, or hide in the back of 18-wheelers to reach our country. This creates enormous pressure on our border that walls and patrols alone will not stop. To secure the border effectively, we must reduce the numbers of people trying to sneak across.

-- W, last night

I don't see "securing the border" as all that important, and what he says here kind of contradicts a few paragraphs earlier about giving the Border Patrol the people and technology to secure the border. But in general I agree with the four sentences above. Immigrants face dire, even life-threatening, economic difficulties, and are willing to risk their lives to get crappy jobs to ensure the survival of their families. Implied, although not exactly said, is that it is absurd to treat people without any real choice as criminals. So far, so good.

But, of course, this is aWol--four sentences is pretty much the maximum amount of sense he is capable of delivering. Rather than question the economic situation that makes it impossible for the immigrants to make a living (AH-AH---NAFTA!!!!), Bush only uses the tragedy of the situation as an excuse to do what he wants to do anyway: a temporary worker program. Because the tragedy of people willing to risk their lives to get crappy jobs because their home economy has been sold out pales in comparison, in W's tiny mind, to the potential tragedy of American corporations having to pay their workers a decent wage.

From Matt Bors.

From Richard Crowson.

From Nick Anderson.

From Drew Sheneman.

From Scott Stantis.

From Tom Toles.

Quote du jour

Billmon questions whether Friday's WaPo poll showing 63% of Americans supporting the NSA spying on us is accurate. More importantly, he points out that it CAN'T matter in a supposedly free society:

I get a little crazy in the head when I hear people (usually on the authoritarian right) citing the latest poll numbers as a political justification for their own position.

The whole point of having civil liberties is that they are not supposed to be subject to a majority veto. Hobbes may not have believed in natural rights, but our founders did. And their opponents, the anti-Federalists, were even more zealous about restraining the powers of the federal superstate, which is why they forced the Federalists to write the Bill of Rights directly into the Constitution.

It defeats the purpose of having a 4th Amendment if its validiity is entirely dependent on breaking 50% in the latest poll.

The WSWS explains some of the dangers in this program, for those 63% who apparently have never heard of "1984" or "The Gulag