Wondering thoughts causing wondrous woes, making one wonder.
Labels: Al Gore, Constitutional Crisis, Corporate Profits, Democracy, Economy, Education, Elections, enviroment, Family Values, humanities Politics, Peace, Politics, President Obama, Sean Parker
They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned... . They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane... . They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.
As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts.
The indigenous platform calls for recognition of Indigenous Peoples right to self-determination, the repeal of the papal bull Inter Caetera (1493), and the repeal of the Columbus Day holiday among other items.
Labels: 13, Church and State, Education, Family Values, freedom of religion, Howard Zinn, humanities, man, media, Politics, Racism, Rants, reconsider Columbus Day, The Great White Way, wondering not lost
Labels: 13, Bee, Bees, cancer, Corporate Profits, Education, enviroment, free speech, Global Warming, humanities, media, Mr President, Peace, Politics, Science, The Great White Way, wondering not lost
Labels: 13, Corporate Profits, Economy, humanities, humanities Politics, media, Politics, unholy war, Union Made, War
a scheme by Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) to “set up a business of teacher death speculation.”Wonder
Labels: freedom of religion, Politics
Tennessee stands out for having the card with the most "junk fees," the study says. Tennessee's card, provided by JPMorgan Chase, charges $1 for initial ATM withdrawals, 40 cents for balance inquiries, and 25 cents whenever someone swipes the card at checkout. It's one of just four states that doesn't provide even one free ATM withdrawal per deposit.
Tennessee doesn't think its card's fees are junk.
"I’m not sure calling them 'junk fees' is a fair statement," said Jeff Hentschell, a spokesman for the Tennessee Department of Workforce Development, which distributes Tennessee Automated Payment cards for jobless benefits. "When you look at the context of where we were and where we are today, the fees are actually minimal compared to where people were going to cash paper checks before."
Indeed: The NCLC study itself points out that for people without bank accounts, "getting cash from a UC prepaid card will usually be cheaper than paying a check casher to cash a paper check."
Rep. Phil Roe is selling snake oil by comparing vouchers to his benefits since most seniors don’t have his retirement income. Congress members, who are mostly wealthy, can draw full pension at age 62 after just five years of service, at age 50 with 20 years service, as compared to the average senior whose retirement consists mostly of Social Security. Under the GOP plan, seniors would have high premiums, high deductibles, no guarantee of coverage, and no guarantee of a Social Security check, since this plan also begins the privatization of Social Security. They’re guaranteed the possibility of running out of voucher money before the year is up, with the result of no health care at all. They also say those of us over 55 shouldn’t be concerned since it won’t affect us, assuming this will pacify seniors. They would be wrong.
No one should be thrown to the wolves so for-profit insurance companies can make millions off senior citizens, whether it’s now or 50 years from now. This profit motive is the real reason behind this roadmap. Their claim of saving Medicare is belied by the $4 trillion in tax cuts they want to give millionaires and corporations.
Here’s a simple plan to reduce the deficit, though reducing debt is certainly a new concern to GOP members, who took a balanced budget and ran up trillions on the credit card. Roll back the Bush millionaire tax cuts, end subsidies for record-profit oil companies, raise the income cap on SS payments, allow anyone that wants to sign on the option of buying into Medicare (Medicare currently consists only of old and sick people, guaranteeing financial problems) and end the wars. Also, let’s cut back on congressional pensions and medical plans. Give them a taste of their own snake oil.
Mary Acito
Kingsport
Wonder; I second that, Give them a taste of their own snake oil. I've also wondered why John A Boehner seemed to use his emotions as a political tool, he is sincerely crying for himself I believe is his emotional crisis.
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: May 11, 2011
[snip-it]More than 75 professors at Catholic University and other prominent Catholic colleges have written a pointed letter to Mr. Boehner saying that the Republican-supported budget he shepherded through the House will hurt the poor, the elderly and the vulnerable, and that he therefore has failed to uphold basic Catholic moral teachings.
“Mr. Speaker, your voting record is at variance from one of the church’s most ancient moral teachings,” the letter says. “From the apostles to the present, the magisterium of the church has insisted that those in power are morally obliged to preference the needs of the poor. Your record in support of legislation to address the desperate needs of the poor is among the worst in Congress. This fundamental concern should have great urgency for Catholic policy makers. Yet, even now, you work in opposition to it.”
The letter writers criticize Mr. Boehner’s support for a budget that cut financing for Medicare, Medicaid and the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program, while granting tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations. They call such policies “anti-life,” a particularly biting reference because the phrase is usually applied to politicians and others who support the right to abortion.
Michael Steel, a spokesman for Mr. Boehner, responded by e-mail: “The speaker will be delivering a personal, nonpolitical message at the Catholic University of America that he hopes will speak to all members of the graduating class, regardless of their backgrounds or affiliations. He is deeply honored to have been invited by C.U.A. to address the school’s graduating class, and is looking forward to receiving an honorary degree from the only Catholic college in our country that is chartered by Catholic bishops.”
Wonder
Labels: 13, Church and State, Corporate Profits, Family Values, freedom of religion, humanities, John A. Boehner, Mary Acito, Politics, Rants, Reason, religious right, The Great White Way
The Real Housewives of Wall Street
Why is the Federal Reserve forking over $220 million in bailout money to the wives of two Morgan Stanley bigwigs?
America has two national budgets, one official, one unofficial. The official budget is public record and hotly debated: Money comes in as taxes and goes out as jet fighters, DEA agents, wheat subsidies and Medicare, plus pensions and bennies for that great untamed socialist menace called a unionized public-sector workforce that Republicans are always complaining about. According to popular legend, we're broke and in so much debt that 40 years from now our granddaughters will still be hooking on weekends to pay the medical bills of this year's retirees from the IRS, the SEC and the Department of Energy.
Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?
Most Americans know about that budget. What they don't know is that there is another budget of roughly equal heft, traditionally maintained in complete secrecy. After the financial crash of 2008, it grew to monstrous dimensions, as the government attempted to unfreeze the credit markets by handing out trillions to banks and hedge funds. And thanks to a whole galaxy of obscure, acronym-laden bailout programs, it eventually rivaled the "official" budget in size — a huge roaring river of cash flowing out of the Federal Reserve to destinations neither chosen by the president nor reviewed by Congress, but instead handed out by fiat by unelected Fed officials using a seemingly nonsensical and apparently unknowable methodology.
This article appears in the April 28, 2011 issue of Rolling Stone. The issue will be available on newsstands and in the online archive April 15.
Now, following an act of Congress that has forced the Fed to open its books from the bailout era, this unofficial budget is for the first time becoming at least partially a matter of public record. Staffers in the Senate and the House, whose queries about Fed spending have been rebuffed for nearly a century, are now poring over 21,000 transactions and discovering a host of outrages and lunacies in the "other" budget. It is as though someone sat down and made a list of every individual on earth who actually did not need emergency financial assistance from the United States government, and then handed them the keys to the public treasure. The Fed sent billions in bailout aid to banks in places like Mexico, Bahrain and Bavaria, billions more to a spate of Japanese car companies, more than $2 trillion in loans each to Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, and billions more to a string of lesser millionaires and billionaires with Cayman Islands addresses. "Our jaws are literally dropping as we're reading this," says Warren Gunnels, an aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. "Every one of these transactions is outrageous."
Wall Street's Big Win
But if you want to get a true sense of what the "shadow budget" is all about, all you have to do is look closely at the taxpayer money handed over to a single company that goes by a seemingly innocuous name: Waterfall TALF Opportunity. At first glance, Waterfall's haul doesn't seem all that huge — just nine loans totaling some $220 million, made through a Fed bailout program. That doesn't seem like a whole lot, considering that Goldman Sachs alone received roughly $800 billion in loans from the Fed. But upon closer inspection, Waterfall TALF Opportunity boasts a couple of interesting names among its chief investors: Christy Mack and Susan Karches.
Christy is the wife of John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley. Susan is the widow of Peter Karches, a close friend of the Macks who served as president of Morgan Stanley's investment-banking division. Neither woman appears to have any serious history in business, apart from a few philanthropic experiences. Yet the Federal Reserve handed them both low-interest loans of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars through a complicated bailout program that virtually guaranteed them millions in risk-free income.
RS Politics Daily: Political news and commentary from Rolling Stone writers and editors
The technical name of the program that Mack and Karches took advantage of is TALF, short for Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility. But the federal aid they received actually falls under a broader category of bailout initiatives, designed and perfected by Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, called "giving already stinking rich people gobs of money for no fucking reason at all." If you want to learn how the shadow budget works, follow along. This is what welfare for the rich looks like.
Labels: Economy, humanities, Politics, State of the Union, War, wondering not lost
Our Environment is assaulted ... while we claim dominion over the earth from Colorado SpringsPublished on Tuesday, April 5, 2011 by The Washington Post
Cutting Medicaid Means Cutting Care for the Poor, Sick and Elderly
by Ezra KleinThe part of Paul Ryan’s budget that’s going to get the most attention is his proposal to privatize and voucherize Medicare. But the part that worries me the most is his effort to slash Medicaid, with no real theory as to how to make up the cuts.
Ryan’s op-ed introducing his budget lists Medicaid under “welfare reform,” reflecting the widespread belief that Medicaid is a program for the poor. That belief is wrong, or at least incomplete. A full two-thirds of Medicaid’s spending goes to seniors and people with disabilities — even though seniors and the disabled are only a quarter of Medicaid’s members. Sharply cutting Medicaid means sharply cutting their benefits, as that’s where the bulk of Medicaid’s money goes. This is not just about the free health care given to some hypothetical class of undeserving and unemployed Medicaid queens.
But perhaps cutting it wouldn’t be so bad if there were a lot of waste in Medicaid. But there isn’t. Medicaid is cheap. Arguably too cheap. Its reimbursements are so low many doctors won’t accept Medicaid patients. Its costs grew less quickly than those of private insurance over the past decade, and at this point, a Medicaid plan is about 20 percent cheaper than an equivalent private-insurance plan. As it happens, I don’t think Medicaid is a great program, and I’d be perfectly happy to see it moved onto the exchanges once health-care reform is up and running. But the reason that’s unlikely to happen isn’t ideology. It’s money. Giving Medicaid members private insurance would cost many billions of dollars.That’s why it’s well understood that converting Medicaid into block grants means cutting people off from using it, or limiting what they can use it for. You can see CBO director Doug Elmendorf say exactly the same thing here. There’s just not another way to cut costs in the program. You can, of course, work to cut costs outside of the program, either by helping people avoid becoming disabled or making it cheaper to treat patients once they become disabled or sick, but those sorts of health-system reforms are beyond the ambitions of Ryan’s budget.
To get around some of this, Ryan’s op-ed talks about state flexibility, with the implication being that states have some secret Medicaid policies they’ve been dying to try but that the federal government simply hasn’t let them attempt. But the truth is there’s been a tremendous amount of experimentation in Medicaid over recent decades. Indiana converted its Medicaid program into health savings accounts. Tennessee based its program around managed care. Massachusetts folded its Medicaid money into Mitt Romney’s health-care reforms. Oregon tried to rank treatments by value. Some of these reforms have worked well and some haven’t worked at all, but none have solved the basic problem that covering the sick and disabled costs money, and you can’t get around that by trying to redesign their insurance packages. For that reason, block-granting Medicaid ultimately means cutting health-care coverage to the poor, the elderly and the disabled, even as it doesn’t actually address the factors driving costs throughout the health-care system.
© 2011 The Washington Post
Politicizing contradictions to common knowledge, men who claim to be of truth, here is their truthTEPCO Implementing Massive Discharge of Nuclear Waste into Open Ocean
Friends of the Earth calls on U.S. government to intervene
WASHINGTON - April 4 - Friends of the Earth warned today that plans by the Japanese utility TEPCO to dump some 11,500 tons of radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean pose substantial threats to people and the environment.
Given U.S. government involvement in efforts to control the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Friends of the Earth called on the Obama administration to intervene to stop this dumping of nuclear waste.
“Dumping this nuclear waste directly into the Pacific is dangerous and unacceptable,” said Damon Moglen, Director of the Climate and Energy Project at Friends of the Earth. “It’s incredible that while an international treaty forbids the dumping of even a barrel of this nuclear waste from a ship, Japan intends to send thousands of tons of that waste into the ocean. This dumping poses a direct threat to humans and the environment, and fisheries and industries depending on a clean Pacific could be devastated.”
Killing the Mentally IllWonderThe Religious Right's Anti-Union Crusade
| Mon Apr. 4, 2011 3:17 AM PDT
Wisconsin's ongoing labor battle has officially become a holy war. The Family Research Council, the evangelical advocacy organization founded by James Dobson, has been dipping into its war chest to defend Republican Governor Scott Walker's efforts to curtail collective bargaining for public-sector unions. FRC president Tony Perkins interviewed backers of Walker's anti-union bill on his weekly radio program and has tweeted his support for the bill, directly linking social conservatism with an anti-union, pro-business agenda: "Pro-family voters should celebrate WI victory b/c public & private sector union bosses have marched lock-step w/liberal social agenda."
The FRC's new political action committee, the Faith, Family, Freedom Fund, is airing ads on 34 Wisconsin radio stations in an effort to influence the April 5 judicial election that could ultimately decide the fate of the law. The ads target Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg, who's running against a conservative incumbent, David Prosser, for a seat on the state Supreme Court. If elected, Kloppenburg would alter the balance on the court in favor of Democrats, giving them the ability to invalidate the recently enacted ban on public-employee collective bargaining. "Liberals see her as their best hope to advance their political agenda and strike down laws passed by a legislature and governor elected by the people," say the ads. "A vote for Prosser is a vote to keep politics out of the Supreme Court."
The FRC's anti-labor campaign in Wisconsin is part of its larger agenda to meld fiscal conservatism with its family-values message. Its recent priorities have included fighting health care reform, new taxes on the wealthy, and President Obama's budget proposals. In recent weeks, Perkins has used his radio show to hash through small-government talking points with House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Tea Party caucus head Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who told him, "The bigger government gets, the smaller God gets." After exploring the value of union busting with Republican state Representative Robin Vos of Wisconsin last month, Perkins expressed "our thanks to you, as conservatives across the country."
Perkins typically doesn't discuss the Biblical justifications for his ideas. (FRC did not return calls from Mother Jones.) However, some of the speakers at the "FRC University" online lecture series provide a clearer idea of the Biblical justifications for opposing limits on corporations and the wealthy. One recent speaker was Jay Richards, who edits a magazine published by the American Enterprise Institute, the conservative think tank that the FRC describes as its "sister organization." His book, Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism is the Solution and Not the Problem, is a free-market treatise aimed at the faithful. In his talk he maintains that the sanctity of private property is the preeminent Christian value: "You might call it an idea being made in the image of God."
"You get these funny quotes about people saying, well, 'Jesus was the first socialist,'" Richards explained. "If you read the Bible, this idea of private property is everywhere presupposed. There is not a 'Thou shalt believe in private property' sort of verse anywhere, but it's so fundamental that it's presupposed in two of the Ten Commandments. 'Thou shalt not steal' assumes that people have property that is legitimate and that should not be taken."
Another recent FRC lecturer offered a related interpretation of the Bible's calls for social justice. "Christ does not necessarily condemn the rich per se," said Mark Caleb Smith, the director of the Center for Political Studies at Cedarville University. But, he added, the good book does at times condemn the poor: "The Old Testament, especially in the Book of Proverbs, ascribes poverty to oppression, but also to other things like laziness, the love of sleep, the love of pleasure, the love of food, the love of wine. And so even Proverbs says, you know, sometimes you may be poor because of your behavior."
"Government-imposed social justice is unjust," Smith concluded, adding that Christians who support that notion are heretical and un-American. "For the Christian left, America is part of the problem. The American system of capitalism is part of the problem. They seek a fundamental reconstruction."
This strain of private-property-centric Christianity has deep roots within America's fundamentalist movement. For an excellent rundown of that history, check out Peter Montgomery's recent article in Religion Dispatches, "Jesus Hates Taxes." Among other things, Montgomery highlights an early Christian Coalition manual that interprets a New Testament passage in support of slavery to conclude that "Christians have a responsibility to submit to the authority of their employers, since they are designated as part of God's plan for the exercise of authority on the earth by man."
Of course, exegetical disputes with liberal Christians aren't the only reasons why FRC opposes labor unions. Not only do unions' economic principles put them at odds with evangelicals, so do their social values. A recent press release from Dobson's Focus On The Family, which was once conjoined with the FRC, complains that most political donations from labor unions go to Democrats and liberal social causes. "Over the past several election cycles, unions and their members contributed millions to fight against core American values—especially on issues of life, religious freedom and marriage." Still, explains a spokeswoman, "There are many good, hard-working Americans who are union members, but they would do well to consider whether union support of same-sex marriage and the taxpayer funding of abortion in government health care represents their interests."
Labels: Constitutional Crisis, Corporate Profits, freedom of religion, Politics, Religion, religious right, wondering not lost
Read more: Kevin Drum on how screwing unions screws the middle class [1], and 11 charts that explain everything that's wrong with America [2].
From a chair on the porch of her home in a hollow deep in the Appalachians, Lora can see the top of Montcoal Mountain being blasted off. The explosions a mile and a half away ruffle her curtains, rattle family photos in her living room, and may be why her walls are laced with cracks. A fine gray dust settles on the steps as fast as she can sweep it off. The noise and "fly rock" raining down have forced her daughter and dozens of neighbors to sell their houses and move away. Lora worries she'll be next. "I wouldn't be satisfied with another place," she says, sitting and chain-smoking Pall Malls. "I raised my kids here. Where would a person go?"
But fighting isn't an option for Lora, who asked me not to use her real name for fear of repercussions: The mining operations that are destroying the land also employ her son and son-in-law—good jobs, the only real ones around. "It's the way of life here; there's nothing else," says the 54-year-old grandmother. Like many West Virginia coal towns [3] that have shifted from underground mining to far more destructive mountaintop-removal mining [4], this hamlet, known as Twilight [5], is now in the business of burying itself alive.
Many blame Twilight's slow demise on Massey Energy [6], the state's second largest coal producer [7] (PDF)—and its most controversial [8]. Massey, which merged with Alpha Natural Resources [9] earlier this year, has racked [10] up more health and safety violations in the past decade than any coal outfit in America. In 1997, it opened a surface strip mine near Twilight that now produces 5 million tons of coal annually, all of it dug up and hauled off by about 350 non-union workers (PDF [11]). Many families that weren't lucky enough to land jobs on the strip have left. The area's population has fallen from more than 500 in 1990 to less than 250 today. "With mountaintop removal, they can get the coal easier and quicker with less people," Frankie Mooney [12], a retired third-generation miner, told me. "People can say what they want to, but there's no security in coal mining no more."
Small-scale mining began in central Appalachia in the early 1800s, and by the end of the century, coal had become a major industry. The Twilight area's first coal mine opened in the 1940s. For a while, money from the mines seemed to coat the town as easily as the black dust that blew off the coal trains. Due in part to the efforts of the fiery turn-of-the-century labor organizer Mary Harris "Mother" Jones [13], the roughly 1,000 union workers who toiled underground during the height of the mining boom of the late '70s enjoyed some of the best benefits in the country. At one time, the Twilight area boasted two grocery stores, a company store called the Robin Hood, a movie theater, and a mine-sponsored softball league.
Labels: Corporate Profits, Economy, humanities, man, media, Politics, Union Made
Labels: free speech, media, Politics, The Great White Way, War
John H Coatsworth, dean of Columbia university's school of international and public affairs (Sipa), today sent a note to students affirming that freedom of information and expression was at the core of the school's beliefs.
The school's office had sent out a warning from a state department official that their future job prospects could be jeopardised if they look at the leaked cables, which remain officially classified.
Coatsworth said: "Sipa's position is that students have a right to discuss and debate any information in the public arena that they deem relevant to their studies or to their roles as global citizens, and to do so without fear of adverse consequences. The WikiLeaks documents are accessible to Sipa students (and everyone else) from a wide variety of respected sources, as are multiple means of discussion and debate both in and outside of the classroom."
In a Time magazine poll, Assange is the leading contender to be named Person of the Year.
Labels: Chris Hedges, Church and State, Faith, humanities, humanities Politics, Mr President, Politics, President Obama, Reason, religious right, The Great White Way
Labels: Bees, enviroment, Global Warming, humanities, Politics, President Obama, Science, The Great White Way
Labels: Corporate Profits, free speech, Hate Crimes, humanities, media, Politics, Rants
Broadcast television channels will soon vacate these airwaves when they go digital by 2009. If used right, these public airways will revolutionize the ways we connect to laptops, cell phones, PDAs, music players and other mobile Internet devices. They can deliver an open Internet into your house without the need for a telephone wire or cable modem.
Phone and cable lobbyists are pressuring the FCC to sell companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast our airwaves so they can horde spectrum and stifle competitive and cheaper alternatives to their established networks.
This would be a disaster. After years of phone and cable company control over Internet access, the United States has fallen to 16th in the world in high-speed Internet rankings, with few choices and some of the highest prices for the slowest speeds in the world. We will continue this decline as long as we let AT&T, Verizon and Comcast dictate the terms of Internet access for the majority of Americans.
These phone and cable giants refuse to open their networks to competitive applications and services. They lobby Washington to stifle new innovations like Internet phone service and to destroy Net Neutrality, the one principle that protects equal opportunity and free choice on the Web.
We need to end their stranglehold and demand a better Internet for everyone:
With open networks, the rest of the world has rapidly adopted high-speed, Internet platforms for education, economic innovation, creativity and civic participation. Countries like South Korea, Japan, France and Canada have leapfrogged the United States and now offer faster Internet connections at far lower prices.
It's time we caught up.
Act now and help clear the path for a technology that will deliver faster, more open and affordable Internet for everyone.
Timothy Karr
Campaign Director
Free Press
www.freepress.net
1. Most people haven't heard about this issue yet. It's really important that we spread the word and get people involved. After you send your comment to the FCC, tell at least five friends to take action.
2. For more information about what's at stake with our public airwaves, read these recent articles in Wired Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Forbes Magazine and MyDD.
3. To learn more about the public interest and the public airwaves, visit the "Save Our Spectrum" site, www.freepress.net/spectrum/
Earlier, speaking of Free Press, Venezuela news for the week ending on Friday, May 25th, 2007
RCTV APPROACHES NON-RENEWAL, AMID CONTROVERSY
The Venezuelan Supreme Court ruled last Friday to uphold a decision made by the National Telecommunications Commission not to renew the broadcasting license of opposition-affiliated channel RCTV. Supreme Court President Luisa Estella Morales ruled that licensing issues are strictly the jurisdiction of the telecommunications commission (Contael), the institutional body overseeing the use of national media as a public good in accordance with guidelines set out in the 1999 constitution. The Director of Venezuelan National Radio, Helena Salcedo, similarly defended the decision in a letter to the editor of the Washington Post on Monday, saying "The expiration of RCTV's license will not affect the Venezuelan government's commitment to freedom of expression and information. Freedom of expression is alive and well in Venezuela, and the overwhelming majority of the media remain in private hands."
Friday's decision came despite the protests of RCTV owner and media mogul Marcel Granier, who along with allies in the political opposition, have staged several large public protest in defense of the station. The Agence France Press reported Tuesday that three RCTV supporters were arrested in possession of three submachine guns, a handgun and shotguns during protests last Thursday. The men were detained on charges of conspiracy. Also in attendance was Manuel Rosales, the opposition presidential candidate defeated by President Chavez last December. Marches criticizing the non-renewal of RCTV -- known for its hit soap operas and active involvement in the 2002 attempted coup against Chavez -- have persisted alongside those that celebrate the end of the station's tenure, the Inter Press Service reported Monday.
An article in Counterpunch yesterday examined the RCTV issue and related accusations regarding censorship, finding that "the warnings of a move from democracy to dictatorship in Venezuela have been loud but lacking in evidence." However, this has been a key strategy of RCTV's owner Marcel Granier, who succeeded in making his channel a point of political debate abroad. Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., writes in an op-ed today in the Miami Herald that countries should join together in rejecting the non-renewal of RCTV. On the other hand, British Member of Parliament Colin Burgon takes a different viewpoint in the Guardian, encouraging the EU government to align with President Chavez and against neoconservative forces that have used the RCTV issue as part of a campaign against his administration. Burgon states: "the broadcaster failed to meet basic public-interest standards. The criterion for this assessment is similar to that used by the US Federal Communications Commission. RCTV will be free to broadcast via cable and satellite, which are available across the country."
U.S. Senators Richard Lugar and Christopher Dodd drafted a resolution rejecting the non-renewal. El Universal reports that the resolution would encourage the OAS to oppose the non-renewal. In response, Bernardo Álvarez, Venezuelan Ambassador to the White House, told lawmakers here that the Venezuelan government's refusal to renew RCTV's broadcasting license "was not based on the media's editorial stance," but rather, was an "independent decision" that the government's telecommunications commission is legally allowed to make as part of its duty to regulate the national airwaves, just as the FCC does in the U.S. Álvarez called the resolution submitted by Lugar and Dodd part of "a campaign of misinformation RCTV has been deploying."
RCTV's signal will expire at midnight this Sunday. It's share of the open-access airwaves will be allotted to the public broadcaster Televisora Venezolana Social (Teves). The board of the new channel was sworn in early this week, and according to the Inter-Press Service, is headed by the well-known journalist Lili Rodriguez. Questions about the level and quality of entertainment found on Teves are being debated by the public, and the Guardian reported today that some lament the loss of RCTV's famed soap operas.
WORKERS TO RECIEVE BACK PAY
Workers in Venezuela will be reimbursed in the amount of $652 million for discrepancies in pension payments dating back to the 1970s. According to a statement made by President Chavez Thursday, plans are also in the works for education: university workers will see a pay raise of up to 34% by the end of this year and student admissions exams will be reconsidered. Bloomberg reports: "Chavez, who is seeking to implement a socialist model in Venezuela different from Cuba's or China's, [announced that] education under the so-called ''Third Motor'' of his Bolivarian revolution should be carried out beyond classrooms, in factories, workshops, offices and fields."
MEASURES TAKEN TO ENSURE FOOD SUPPLY
Food shortages were the subject of a Wall Street Journal article Monday, which begins with a quote praising the free-market principle of allowing consumer prices to be determined by global supply and demand. A controlled exchange rate of 2,150 Bolivars to the US dollar is cited as the main source of the shortages in question. However, all governments make strategic decisions about whether to over- or under-value their currency to produce particular economic effects -- for example, making imports cheaper. While accusing Chavez for rejecting international markets, the piece also finds fault with the fact that the government is "shopping abroad with dollar reserves" to stock affordable foodstuffs at supermarkets.
Bloomberg reported today that new government legislation in Venezuela requires agricultural producers to address domestic demand before exporting foodstuffs. The measure is meant to address past food shortages. The Miami Herald reports on the ways in which business owners in Venezuela are reacting to the "threat" of greater government involvement in industry: "Some businessmen keep going and take advantage of the bonanza the country is going through and the credits offered by the government. Others stay in the country but do not invest in their companies' growth because they don't believe in the future. Others fold for fear of being punished if they don't comply with government demands on prices, taxes and production. Yet others keep their stores open but invest their profits abroad." A deep political divide may have polarized society, but despite alleged "threats" to business, elites still appear to have options.
PHONE COMPANY NATIONALIZED, PRICES LOWERED
The Venzuelan government completed its purchase of a controlling stake in telecommunications company CANTV in Caracas, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. A new board of directors for the company was appointed, and will be headed by Socorro Hernandez, whose background is in the oil industry. The Venezuelan government paid $1.3 billion to take control of 86.2% of shares of CANTV earlier this month. Once under new direction, CANTV quickly announced a decision to cut cellular phone service rates by 20%. In addition to lowering costs to mobile customers -- a reported 6.7 people nationwide -- CANTV will also install 1.2 million fixed telephone lines in impoverished areas by the end of the year. Bloomberg reported that low-income customers of CANTV will enjoy a 10% reduction in the cost of local calls and 15% reduction for long-distance calls. The 11% value-added tax on phone calls made by low-income users will be eliminated in July.
RACIAL ISSUES MAKE AN HISTORIC RETURN
Early this week, President Chavez has asked Pope Benedict XVI to apologize for suggesting that Native American Indians in Brazil were "purified" by Roman Catholic missionaries during colonization, comments which angered Indigenous leaders there and abroad. Reuters reported Monday that Chavez "accused the Pontiff on Friday of ignoring the "holocaust" that followed Christopher Columbus's 1492 landing in the Americas." By Wednesday, Pope Benedict XVI had issued a partial correction of the statements. Reuters reports that Benedict recognize religious colonization entailed "injustices and sufferings," but maintained that indigenous groups were "silently longing" for Christianity.
Many news sources reported this week that the U.S. actor Danny Glover has received financing from the Venezuelan government to produce a film about Toussaint L'Ouverture, an Haitian man who led his country out of slavery to become the world's first free Black republic around the turn of the 19th Century. Glover has in the past appeared on President Chavez's weekly televised address, and the two share an interest in anti-racist efforts. Bringing L'Ouverture's story to the big screen may revive interest in an important leader in the history of the Americas.
POSADA CARRILES STILL WANTED FOR TERRORISM
Venezuela and Cuba continue to protest the release of Cuban-born terrorist Luis Posada Carriles by a U.S. court. The issue is now before the United Nations Security Council, and Venezuela's envoy to that body has accused Washington of "protection of a terrorist" and violating a 1922 extradition treaty signed by the two countries. Venezuela first requested the extradition of Posada in 2005, but this and subsequent petitions have been ignored, Reuters reported Wednesday. Venezuela has also asked the Organization of American States to condemn the U.S.'s release of Posada. Though Posada's bombings and other crimes have affected the citizens many countries in the Americas, a U.S. envoy to the OAS argued that "this is a bilateral issue between two OAS member states, not a multilateral issue.'' More than two weeks after charges against Posada were dropped by a Texas judge and the criminal allowed to go free in the U.S., the position of the OAS on the matter is still to be determined.
GLOBALIZATION BRINGS CHALLENGES
Finally, an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday finds that globalization holds few benefits for the poor. A correlation between globalization and inequality is cited, and the suggestion is made that the sense of alienation caused by globalization leads to social tensions and support for political leaders critical of unchecked market capitalism. Countries mentioned as examples are Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua. With globalization, the increased movement of goods is often accompanied by human movement: the Miami Herald reports on Latin America's internal immigration problem, noting that the route from Colombia across the eastern border of that country into Venezuela sees the region's largest flow of migrants. As with immigration to the U.S., labor is the issue: new arrivals from other countries seek access to Venezuela's stronger job market. The Herald points out that President Chavez granted Venezuelan citizenship to about 500,000 undocumented migrants in 2004.
What RCTV did simply can't be justified under any stretch of journalisticprinciples?. When a television channel simply fails to report, simply goes off the air during a period of national crisis, notbecause they're forced to, but simply because they don't agree with what's happening, you've lost your ability to defend what you do on journalistic principles.
The RCTV case is not about censorship of political opinion. It is about the government, through a flawed process, declining to renew a broadcast license to a company that would not get a license in other democracies, including the United States. In fact, it is frankly amazing that this company has been allowed to broadcast for 5 years after the coup, and that the Chávez government waited until its license expired to end its use of the public airwaves.
Feel free to respond to FAIR ( fair@fair.org ). We can't reply to everything, but we will look at each message. We especially appreciate documented examples of media bias or censorship. And please send copies of your correspondence with media outlets, including any responses, to fair@fair.org.
Labels: Chávez, CIA, Corporate Profits, free speech, Haliban, Hugo Chavez, Politics, Venezuela
Greg Palast | The Goods on Goodling and the Keys to the Kingdom Greg Palast writes: "In her opening testimony yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee, Monica Goodling, the blonde-ling underling to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Department of Justice liaison to the White House, dropped The Big One.... And the committee members didn't even know it."
Palast Exclusive: The Goods on Goodling and the Keys to the Kingdom. . . .There's no pride in this. Our BBC team broke the story at the top of the nightly news everywhere on the planet --- except the USA --- only because America's news networks simply refused to cover this evidence of the electoral coup d'etat that chose our President in 2004.
And now, not bothering to understand the astonishing revelation in Goodling's confessional, they are missing the real story behind the firing of the US attorneys. It's not about removing prosecutors disloyal to Bush, it's about replacing those who refused to aid the theft of the vote in 2004 with those prepared to burgle it again in 2008.
Now that they have the keys, let's see if they can put them in the right door. The clock is ticking ladies and gents...
(Ed Note: You can easily contact your Congress Members to call and/or email them this information by clicking here. Let them know they need to take action. Now. And feel free to point them towards this article, URL: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4594)
. . . .
more at The BRAD BLOG
Free the Press!
Labels: Alberto Gonzales, Bush, Constitutional Crisis, Elections, Greg Palast, Politics
WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 22) - Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) gave the following speech on the floor of the House of Representatives today:
"The Associated Press reports that the latest Iraq Supplemental funding plan, incredibly, will tie an increase in the minimum wage to funding the war through October.
"If this is true, and I hope it is not, it tells American workers that the only way they will get an increase in wages is to continue to support funding the war which is taking the lives of their sons and daughters.
"First blood for oil. Now a minimum wage for maximum blood. Aren't the American people giving enough blood for this war without having to give more to have a wage increase?
"What's happened to our country? We are losing our moral compass. We're losing our sense of justice. We're losing touch with the difference between right and wrong.
"We do not have to fund this war. We must leave Iraq now. Support our troops and bring them home. HR 1234 is a plan to end the war and stabilize Iraq and give Iraqis control of their oil.
"We must take a new path. We must take a path of truth and justice."
For Immediate Release:
Contact: Natalie Laber (202) 225-5871 (o); (202) 365-1040 (c)
Labels: Anti-war, Constitutional Crisis, Corporate Profits, Economy, Family Values, Iraq, Peace, Politics, War
Smithsonian Toned Down Exhibit on Arctic
By Brett Zongker
The Associated PressMonday 21 May 2007
The Smithsonian Institution toned down an exhibit on climate change in the Arctic for fear of angering Congress and the Bush administration, says a former administrator at the museum.
Among other things, the script, or official text, of last year's exhibit was rewritten to minimize and inject more uncertainty into the relationship between global warming and humans, said Robert Sullivan, who was associate director in charge of exhibitions at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.
Also, officials omitted scientists' interpretation of some research and let visitors draw their own conclusions from the data, he said. In addition, graphs were altered "to show that global warming could go either way," Sullivan said.
"It just became tooth-pulling to get solid science out without toning it down," said Sullivan, who resigned last fall after 16 years at the museum. He said he left after higher-ups tried to reassign him.
Smithsonian officials denied that political concerns influenced the exhibit, saying the changes were made for reasons of objectivity. And some scientists who consulted on the project said nothing major was omitted.
Sullivan said that to his knowledge, no one in the Bush administration pressured the Smithsonian, whose $1.1 billion budget is mostly taxpayer-funded.
Rather, he said, Smithsonian leaders acted on their own. "The obsession with getting the next allocation and appropriation was so intense that anything that might upset the Congress or the White House was being looked at very carefully," he said.
White House spokeswoman Kristen Hellmer said Monday: "The White House had no role in this exhibit."
In recent months, the White House has been accused of trying to muzzle scientists researching global warming at NASA and other agencies.
The exhibit, "Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely," based partly on a report by federal scientists, opened in April 2006 - six months late, because of the Smithsonian's review - and closed in November, but its content remains available online. Among other things, it highlighted the Arctic's shrinking ice and snow and concerns about the effect on people and wildlife.
This is not the first time the Smithsonian has been accused of taking politics into consideration.
The congressionally chartered institution scaled down a 1995 exhibit of the restored Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, after veterans complained it focused too much on the damage and deaths. Amid the oil-drilling debate in 2003, a photo exhibit of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was moved to a less prominent space.
Sullivan said the changes in the climate-change exhibit were requested by executives who included then-museum Director Cristian Samper and his boss, former Undersecretary for Science David Evans. He said several scientists whose work was used in the exhibit objected to the changes.
Samper, now acting Smithsonian secretary, said he was not aware of scientists' objections, and he emphasized there was no political pressure to change the script. "Our role as a museum is to present the facts but not advocate a particular point of view," Samper said in an e-mail.
Evans refused to comment.
Randall Kremer, a spokesman for the natural history museum, said atmospheric science was outside the Smithsonian's expertise, so the museum avoided the issue of what is causing the Arctic changes.
Many leading scientists have come to believe that human activity is contributing to warming of the planet.
"I see it in some ways as similar to the sort-of debate that has taken place with regard to the science of evolution," said Professor Michael Mann, director of Pennsylvania State University's Earth System Science Center. "Just as I would hope that the Smithsonian would stand firmly behind the science of evolution, it would also be my hope that they would stand firmly behind the science that supports influence on climate. Politically, they may be controversial, but scientifically they are not."
Some curators and scientists involved in the project said they believed nothing important was omitted. But they also said it was apparent that science was not the only concern.
"I remember them telling me there was an attempt to make sure there was nothing in there that would be upsetting to any politicians," said John Calder, a lead climate scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who consulted on the project. "They're not stupid. They don't want to upset the people who pay them."
One consultant, University of Maryland scientist Louis Codispoti, said he would have been less cautious. "I've been going to the Arctic since 1963, and I find some of the changes alarming," he said.
Maine Campaign to Impeach Bush Presses Case
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/21/1350/
Another reason Why to Impeach Bush:
Bush Anoints Himself as Ensurer of Constitutional Government in Emergency
With scarcely a mention in the mainstream media, President Bush has ordered up a plan for responding to a catastrophic attack. Under that plan, he entrusts himself with leading the entire federal government, not just the executive branch.
Labels: Bees, enviroment, Global Warming, Politics, Science
Inequality Links
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"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular."~Edward R. Murrow
The present Constitution of the State of Tennessee declares that "all men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their conscience; that no man can of right be compelled to attend, erect or support any place of worship or support any minister against his consent; that no human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience; and that no preference shall be given by law to any religious establishment; that no political or religious test, other than an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and of this state, shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust in this state."
