Big Oil Led the Fight Against the Stimulus Plan

Posted on February 16, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

North Carolina millionaire businessman and former state legislator Art Pope is a director of Americans for Prosperity.

Why would an organization funded by oil and gas interests be hostile to the economic stimulus plan? Could it be the $50 billion the bill offers for more sustainable energy alternatives?

By Sue Sturgis / February 16, 2009

The compromise version of the $787 billion economic stimulus plan passed the House and Senate Friday and is expected to be signed by President Obama tomorrow in Denver. Despite Democratic leaders’ efforts to reach out for Republican support by dropping various controversial provisions and beefing up tax cuts, the measure passed with no Republican votes in the House and only three Republican votes in the Senate.

Public opposition to the plan was led by a group called Americans for Prosperity, which delivered 400,000 signatures on a petition to the Senate opposing the measure. As the group says in a statement at its nostimulus.com/:

We lost. But we put up a heckuva fight!

We turned what was supposed to sail through with 80 votes and no controversy into a bloody knock-down, drag-out fight.

We showed that Americans won’t passively sit by while our future is plundered. Just the fact that the bill shrank in conference committee — they almost always grow — showed that we had an impact.

Who is Americans for Prosperity? According to SourceWatch.org, the group was founded in 2003 with money from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, which is run by the billionaires behind Kansas-based Koch Industries — the national’s largest privately held oil and gas company. Media Transparency reports that the group gets substantial financial support from the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, another one of the Koch family foundations.

Why would an organization funded by oil and gas interests be hostile to the economic stimulus plan?

Could it be the $50 billion the bill offers for more sustainable energy alternatives?

Among other things, the stimulus bill allocates $5 billion to weatherize more than a million modest-income homes and another $6.3 billion to install energy-saving insulation, windows and furnaces in federally funded housing projects, USA Today reports. It also offers a tax credit of up to $7,500 for families that buy plug-in hybrid cars, and includes $500 million for green jobs training.

Americans for Prosperity has long worked against any government efforts to tackle climate disruption by promoting more sustainable energy. Last year Facing South reported on the group’s “Hot Air Tour,” which featured a hot-air balloon that traveled around the country with a message challenging what AFP dismisses as “global warming alarmism.”

The organization is currently running TV ads in Virginia criticizing state efforts to address climate change. Last week, Gov. Tim Kaine signed a pact with the U.K., agreeing to work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, research renewable energy and raise public awareness about climate change. Kaine has also championed legislation creating renewable energy tax credits and promoting the use of alternative fuels.

Here’s the text for one of the Virginia ads titled “Tell Congress Not to Waste Our Money,” which makes clear Americans for Prosperity’s hostility to government support for more sustainable forms of energy:

MAN: OK, we’re in a recession.

Times are tough and jobs are scarce.

Congress talks about economic recovery, but what are they doing?

Spending billions of taxpayer dollars in the name of global warming and green energy.

Who is going to bail us out and pay our bills? Instead, they will:

… Make energy more expensive

… cost us more to heat our homes

… and regulate our local businesses and our jobs out of existence

No thanks. Congress should stop wasting their time and focus on real problems.

ANNOUNCER (VO): Isn’t it time Congress listened to the rest of us and got its science and priorities straight.

Paid for by Americans for Prosperity

One of the directors of Americans for Prosperity is North Carolina millionaire businessman and former state legislator Art Pope. He funds a network of pro-business think tanks that was behind an effort to scuttle efforts to address global warming in North Carolina, as was reported in a 2007 Facing South investigation titled “Hostile Climate.”

Americans for Prosperity has also been active on labor issues in North Carolina, where it’s fighting the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers unionize. Today the N.C. NAACP is holding a press conference to highlight the fact that the group is a front for big business.

Interestingly, Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the president chose Colorado as the place to sign the stimulus legislation into law “to highlight some of the investments to put people back to work — particularly clean-energy jobs.”

Source / Facing South / The Institute for Southern Studies

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‘America’s Toughest Sheriff’ : Arizona’s Joe Arpaio Finally Called to Account

Posted on February 16, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Maricopa County Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio: such a lovely fellow. Dennis Gilman /Adolfo Maldonado / Phoenix New Times.

‘It is high time that somebody on the national scene notice, and the Federal government take action on, the egregious and violative conduct of [Arizona Sheriff] Joe Arpaio.’

By Emptywheel / February 14, 2009.

The House Judiciary Committee made a critical and public step to rein in a terrible Arizona “lawman.”

You have probably heard of the shamelessly self professed “Toughest Sheriff in America”, Maricopa County Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio. For years he has been making a PR spectacle of himself, all the while running an unconstitutionally deplorable jail system, letting inmates die under tortuous conditions, and violating the civil rights and liberties of everybody in sight, especially minorities. Last week, the House Judiciary Committee made public a critical and public step to rein in the Most Abusive Sheriff In America.

From the HJC statement:

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), and Immigration Subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Constitution Subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), and Crime Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Scott (D-Va.) called on Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to investigate allegations of misconduct by Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Sheriff Arpaio has repeatedly demonstrated disregard for the rights of Hispanics in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Under the guise of immigration enforcement, his staff has conducted raids in residential neighborhoods in a manner condemned by the community as racial profiling. On February 4, 2009, Arpaio invited the media to view the transfer of immigrant detainees to a segregated area of his “tent city” jail, subjecting the detainees to public display and “ritual humiliation.” Persistent actions such as these have resulted in numerous lawsuits; while Arpaio spends time and energy on publicity and his reality television show, “Smile… You’re Under Arrest!”, Maricopa County has paid millions of dollars in settlements involving dead or injured inmates.
[…]
It is time for the federal government to step in and uphold the rule of law in this country, even in Maricopa County.”

“Law enforcement is not a game or a reality show, it is a public trust,” said Scott. “There is no excuse for callous indifference to the rights of the residents of Arizona, whether in their neighborhoods or as pretrial detainees.”

The full official text of the letter to Napolitano and Holder is here.

It is high time that somebody on the national scene notice, and the Federal government take action on, the egregious and violative conduct of Joe Arpaio.

Joe Arpaio is a two bit carnival barker and huckster, not a dedicated law enforcement official. The opportunistic man came into office running against a fellow Republican and incumbent Maricopa County Sheriff, Tom Agnos, by bad mouthing Agnos and arguing that the entire Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department needed to be cleaned up. In fact, Arpaio’s winning campaign was predicated upon his willingness to mock the very department he was running to lead and promise to expose the dirty laundry of Agnos and the Sheriff’s Department for its involvement in the infamous Buddhist Temple Murder case (link is a fascinating three part story), a seminal case in textbooks on coerced confessions (from the fact that four separate coerced false confessions were obtained to a single crime). Arpaio promised to restore honor to the department, and also swore he would serve only one term in office. Five terms and seventeen years later, Arpaio has failed miserably on both promises.

The upshot of the House Judiciary Committee’s missive to Attorney General Holder and DHS Secretary Napolitano is that Arpaio’s:

…repeated course of conduct, which values publicity opportunities over the civil rights of residents of Arizona, is too disturbing to leave enforcement of the civil rights laws to private litigants. There are several tools at the federal government’s disposal to address these allegations, and we urge their prompt consideration and application.

In short, the HJC is demanding that a full panoply of federal civil and criminal laws and remedies be brought to bear by the arms of federal law enforcement. One of the grounds for the HJC demand is Arpaio’s acts earlier this month, described in the letter as follows:

Most recently, on February 4, after making sure to alert the media, Arpaio reportedly paraded approximately 200 suspected illegal immigrants in shackles to a segregated area of his “tent city” county facility, where they will supposedly remain until they are adjudicated and have served any sentences they face for local violations. The New York Times described this conduct as “ritual humiliation.” The men who Arpaio is displaying like trophies are reportedly in pretrial detention, not having been convicted of any crime.

If you want to understand the true extent of Sheriff Joe’s war on brown people, the Phoenix New Times’ expose “Guadalupe Made It Clear That Joe Arpaio’s Attacking Anyone With Brown Skin” is an absolute must read. Seriously, it is a long piece, but to call it chilling and important would be an understatement, and it is superb start to finish. Here is a taste:

With spirited protesters and helmeted deputies on horseback, the night of April 3 in Guadalupe was like some historical reenactment, albeit in miniature, of a late-’60s anti-war melee. You know, the kind chronicled by Norman Mailer in one of his seminal “non-fiction novels” of the era, such as Miami and the Siege of Chicago or The Armies of the Night.
[…]
Following up on his criticism of Arpaio during a César Chávez luncheon in March, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon addressed a letter to the U.S. Justice Department asking for an investigation of the sheriff. The letter was dated April 4, the second day of the MCSO’s Guadalupe sweep, and the MCSO’s actions in Guadalupe figured prominently in the missive.

Egregious to be sure, but hardly the only such acts by Arpaio, and certainly not the worst. Let’s go through some of the others alluded to in the letter, although not described in detail.

Arpaio was little more than halfway through his first term in office when his policies and jail conditions first came under investigation for abuse by the US Department of Justice. Shortly after that, and still during his first term in office, young Scott Norberg died in Arpaio’s jail as a result of said policies:

[Norberg] was in Arpaio’s jail just 15 hours before he was handcuffed by guards, kicked, stomped on, and then strapped into a restraint chair. There, guards held a towel over his head, literally suffocating him. Medical records later revealed that he had been shot with a stun gun at least 14 times and beaten so badly that his larynx cracked.

That one cost the taxpayers of Maricopa County $8.25 million, but did not deter the Most Abusive Sheriff in America; instead, he seemed to get off on the notoriety. There were more unnatural deaths in Arpaio’s jails, from a variety of causes, after Norberg. The belligerent Arpaio finally stopped the deplorable use of the restraint chair in 2006 after fighting demands by citizens and federal overseers on the issue for nearly a decade.

What caused Arpaio to finally give up his demonic obsession with the restraint chair that killed Scott Norberg? Ah, glad you asked:

On March 29, 2006, a $9 million court judgment was leveled against Arpaio and the county in the beating and restraint-chair death of inmate Charles Agster III.

Agster, 33 and mentally retarded, was arrested for trespassing on August 6, 2001. Detention officers at the Madison Street Jail pulled a hood over his head and slammed him into a medieval-looking restraint chair. The hood around Agster’s throat smothered him to the point that he became brain dead. He was pronounced legally dead three days later on August 9, 2001.

Agster’s death should have been prevented. Two years before he was killed, the county had paid $8.25 million to settle the Norberg suffocation suit.

There was at least one more death at the restraints of Arpaio’s cherished chair, Clint Yarborough in 2005. It should be noted that neither Norberg, Agster, nor Yarbrough were ever tried or convicted for the charges they were arrested on; none of them lived to see their first court date and died innocent men under the law. Those are just the deaths associated with the medieval restraint chair, there have been numerous deaths from improper or complete lack of medical care, neglect and other perils.

One of the other examples of the decrepit conditions Arpaio presided over is that of Kathleen Carey:

Like most attorneys, Kathleen Carey leads a busy life. So she didn’t take much time to examine what looked like a pimple on her arm. Twelve days later, Carey’s arm had ballooned to nearly twice its normal size, and pus was oozing from a boil where the zit had been.

After $180,000 in medical bills, four doctors, and two hospitals, Carey learned that the supposed pimple was actually the flesh-eating “superbug” bacteria commonly known as MRSA staph infection. You may recognize MRSA from recent news reports, following a study concluding that more Americans die each year from antibiotic-resistant MRSA infections than from HIV/AIDS.

MRSA commonly spreads through hospitals, but Carey hadn’t been to a hospital or doctor for months before her infection. So where did she get the potentially fatal infection?

Carey says she knows exactly where she got it — the Maricopa County Jail. She wasn’t there as an inmate, but as an attorney visiting her client.
[…]
Carey is one of many Maricopa County residents who’ve never been booked into Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s jails but who are paying dearly for conditions inside his lockups.

Vermin, filth, medical care suggestive of POW camps, chronic mismanagement, the wanton destruction of records, and a steady parade of corpses in Maricopa County jails have cost taxpayers an astonishing — and until now, undisclosed — 41.4 million dollars.

Don’t know if you caught that or not, but that is nearly $42 million dollars (and that was as of over a year ago, the figure is now higher) that Maricopa County has paid out due to the Most Abusive Sheriff in America’s detention policies and procedures. Want to know how that compares to other big municipalities? Get a load of this:

There simply isn’t another jail system in America with this history of taxpayer-financed litigation.

New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston, for example, collectively housed more than 61,000 inmates per day last year. From 2004 through November of this year, these same county jails had a combined 43 prison-conditions lawsuits filed against them in federal courts.

In the very same three-year time frame, despite housing a mere 9,200 prisoners per day, Sheriff Arpaio was the target of a staggering 2,150 lawsuits in U.S. District Court and hundreds more in Maricopa County courts.

With a fraction of the inmate population, Arpaio has had 50 times as many lawsuits as the New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston jail systems combined.

But Sheriff Joe’s reign of terror does not end with the immigrant bashing and inhuman detention policies and facilities. When the Most Abusive Sheriff in America disagrees with colleagues, even fellow police officers, he attacks them with not only rhetoric, but the heavy dark hand of his department:

The sheriff raided municipal buildings in Mesa in what appeared to be nothing more than a blatant political maneuver against Arpaio’s perceived enemy, Mesa Police Chief George Gascón.

As a public safety effort, the pre-dawn October 16 incursion into Mesa City Hall and its library was laughable — it netted just three undocumented workers. A couple of former county Superior Court judges criticized Arpaio’s action in the East Valley Tribune, with former chief judge of the court Colin Campbell calling the raid “bizarre” and “extraordinary.”

Last, but far from least, Sheriff Joe has waged a jihad against the local investigative weekly newspaper in Phoenix/Maricopa County, the Phoenix New Times. Arpaio long felt the New Times coverage of him was too strident; not content to address his concerns in the media and public sphere, Arpaio arrested the publishers, Michael Lacey and James Larkin, on trumped up asinine charges (that were almost immediately dismissed without ever seeing the light of a courtroom). However, if you cherish the First Amendment and the freedom of the press, Larkin and Lacey’s arrests by Arpaio were not even the worst part.

In a breathtaking abuse of the United States Constitution, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, and their increasingly unhinged cat’s paw, special prosecutor Dennis Wilenchik, used the grand jury to subpoena “all documents related to articles and other content published by Phoenix New Times newspaper in print and on the Phoenix New Times website, regarding Sheriff Joe Arpaio from January 1, 2004 to the present.”

Every note, tape, and record from every story written about Sheriff Arpaio by every reporter over a period of years.

In addition to the omnibus subpoena, which referred to our writer Stephen Lemons directly, reporters John Dougherty and Paul Rubin were targeted with individual subpoenas.

More alarming still, Arpaio, Thomas, and Wilenchik subpoenaed detailed information on anyone who has looked at the New Times Web site since 2004.

Every individual who looked at any story, review, listing, classified, or retail ad over a period of years.

The article the passage immediately above was quoted from, “Breathtaking Abuse of the Constitution”, was written personally by the two publishers, Mike Lacey and Jim Larkin, and is as chilling as was Arpaio’s attempt to silence them. Again, it is a feature length article, but a serious must read.

This post could easily be three or four times the already tedious length and still not have room to touch on the bill of craven particulars against the Most Abusive Sheriff in America, Joe Arpaio. But it is a start, and renders an idea as to why Chairman Conyers, Representative Nadler and the others on the House Judiciary Committee have requested the civil and criminal powers of the United States Government be brought to bear on Joe Arpaio. He isn’t the toughest, he’s the most abusive. It is imperative that Attorney General Holder and DHS Secretary Napolitano heed the call and address the long overdue matter. Secretary Napolitano, of all people, ought to understand the menace to society as a whole, and the citizenry of Maricopa County in particular, that Arpaio poses. It is time for it to be stopped.

Source / Firedoglake / AlterNet

Thanks to cloudy / The Rag Blog

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American Crimes Against Humanity Slowly See the Light of Day

Posted on February 15, 2009 by RagBlog

Former Guantánamo prison guard Brandon Neely has come forward to air his feelings of guilt about how he and some soldiers treated the prisoners shortly after 9/11.
Photo: Pat Sullivan/AP.

Ex-Gitmo guard describes abuse
By Mike Melia / February 15, 2009

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Army Pvt. Brandon Neely was scared when he took the first shackled detainees off a bus at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Told to expect vicious terrorists, he grabbed a trembling, elderly detainee and ground his face into the cement, the first of a range of humiliations he said he participated in and witnessed as the prison was opening for business.

Neely has come forward in this final year of the detention center’s existence, saying he wants to air his feelings of guilt and shame about how some soldiers behaved as the military scrambled to handle the first suspected al-Qaida and Taliban members arriving at the U.S. Navy base.

Basic comforts denied

His account, one of the first by a former guard describing abuses at Guantánamo, describes a chaotic time that soldiers lacked clear rules for dealing with detainees who were denied many basic comforts. He said the circumstances changed quickly once monitors from the International Committee of the Red Cross arrived.

The military said it has gone to great lengths in the seven years since then to ensure the prisoners’ safe treatment. “Our policy is to treat detainees humanely,” said Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman.

After the Sept. 11 attacks and the swift U.S. military response in Afghanistan, the Bush administration had little time to prepare for the hundreds of prisoners being swept up on the battlefield.

The U.S. Southern Command was given only a few weeks’ notice before detainees began arriving at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, a locale thought to be beyond the reach of U.S. and Cuban law. The first arrivals were housed in cages.

President Obama is committed to closing the prison and finding new ways of handling the remaining 245 detainees and any future terrorism suspects. Human-rights group officials said his pledge to adhere to long established laws and treaties governing prisoner treatment is essential if the United States hopes to prevent abuses in the future.

“If Guantánamo has taught us anything, it’s the importance of abiding by the rule of law,” said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel for Human Rights Watch.

Or as Neely put it in an interview last week, “The stuff I did and the stuff I saw was just wrong.”

Honorably discharged

Neely, who served for a year in Iraq after his six months at Guantánamo, received an honorable discharge last year, with the rank of specialist, and works as a law-enforcement officer in the Houston area. He is also president of the local chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Neely, 28, described a litany of cruel treatment by his fellow soldiers, including beatings and humiliations he said were intended only to deliver physical or psychological pain.

A spokeswoman for the detention center, Navy Cmdr. Pauline Storum, said she could not comment on “what one individual may recall” from seven years ago. “Thousands of service members have honorably carried out their duties here in what is an arduous and scrutinized environment,” she said.

Neely’s account sheds new light on the early days of Guantánamo, where guards were hastily deployed in January 2002 and were soon confronted by men stumbling out of planes, shackled and wearing blackout goggles. They were held in chain-link cages and moved to more permanent structures three months later.

The soldiers, many still in their teens, had no detailed standard operating procedures and were taught hardly anything about the Geneva Conventions, which provide guidelines for humane treatment of prisoners of war, Neely said, though some learned about them on their own initiative.

“Most of us who had everyday contact with the detainees were really young.”

Army Col. Bill Costello acknowledged that Guantánamo-specific procedures developed over time, but insisted that the guards had strict direction from the start.

“This was a professional guard force,” said Costello, who served as a Guantánamo spokesman during its first months and now speaks for the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, which oversees the base.

Seeking revenge

Only months had passed since the Sept. 11 attacks, and Neely said many of the guards wanted revenge. Especially before the first Red Cross visit, he said guards were seizing on any apparent infractions to “get some” by hurting the detainees.

The soldiers’ behavior seemed justified at the time, he said, because they were told “these are the worst terrorists in the world.”

He said one medic punched a handcuffed prisoner in the face for refusing to swallow a liquid nutritional supplement, and another bragged about cruelly stretching a prisoner’s torn muscles during what were supposed to be physical-therapy treatments.

He said detainees were forced to submit to take showers and defecate into buckets in full view of female soldiers, against Islamic customs. When a detainee yelled an expletive at a female guard, he said a crew of soldiers beat the man up and held him down so the woman could repeatedly strike him in the face.

Neely said he is ashamed for how he treated that elderly detainee the first day. As he recalled it, the man made a movement to resist on his way to his cage, and Neely responded by shoving the shackled man headfirst to the ground, bruising and scraping his face. Other soldiers hog-tied him and left him in the sun for hours.

Only later did Neely learn — from another detainee — that the man had jerked away thinking he was about to be executed.

“I just felt horrible,” Neely recalled.

Neely grew up in a military family in Huntsville, Texas, and said he initially saw the Army as a career. He said his experiences led him to see the treatment of detainees and the Iraq invasion as “morally wrong.”

He refused to return to active duty when called up from the Inactive Ready Reserves in 2007 and ignored letters threatening penalties.

Interviews with former guards are rare. The military allows journalists visiting Guantánamo to interview active-duty guards at the base, but they are hand-picked by the military and speak in the presence of public-affairs officers.

Copyright © 2009 The Seattle Times Company

Source / Seattle Times

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Student Protests in Solidarity with Palestine Cross the Atlantic

Posted on February 15, 2009 by RagBlog


At a Campus Sit-In Against Israeli Occupation: An Interview with Three Participants
By Ron Jacobs / February 13, 2009

On Friday, February 6, the University of Rochester-SDS (UR-SDS) organized an occupation of Goergen Hall at the University of Rochester for peace and solidarity with the Palestinians. The action was partially inspired by the wave of occupations across the UK in support of Palestine the past few weeks. UR-SDS made a list of demands of the administration (including divestment from weapons manufacturers, educational and humanitarian aid to Gaza, and scholarships for Palestinian students). In a related event, on Thursday, February 12, 2008 Hampshire College of Amherst, MA. became the first US school to divest from corporations profiting from the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Back at the University of Rochester representatives of the occupying students and the university administration signed a Joint Statement of Understanding.

The approximate wording of the statement is:

1. University of Rochester will commit to provide any surplus goods or supplies that could assist the devastated University of Gaza.

2. University of Rochester will commit resources and information to assist fundraising for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

3. University of Rochester will commit to reach out to Palestinian students in order to provide them scholarships to the University of Rochester

4. University of Rochester will commit to organize open forum to discuss why the University invests in weapons manufactures and discuss the process of the University moving toward a more socially responsible, transparent, and democratically controlled investment policy.

* * * * *

I got in touch with three of the organizers/participants via email and recorded the following online exchange.

Ron: Please introduce yourself? Are you a student? Do you have a major?

Adriano: My name is Adriano Contreras. I’m a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), where I study both Sociology and Video Production.

Kyle: My name’s Kyle Brown. I graduated in 2004 with a BA in Sociology. For the past four years I’ve been working as a residential mental health and drug addiction counselor.

Ryan:My name is Ryan Acuff, a member of University of Rochester Students for a Democratic Society (UR-SDS). I’m a graduate student in psychology and a part-time instructor at the university.

Can you tell us what happened at UR on February 6th?

Adriano: Well, Students for a Democratic Society at UR (SDS-UR) handed their administration four demands the day before they planned to occupy the Goergen Building. The sit-in, inspired by 20 other universities in the UK, took a stand against the Israeli siege on Gaza. SDS invited other activists groups, community members and allies to participate in the sit-in.

I don’t think anyone would have thought that 9 hours later everything would be over. There was a whole schedule planned for the first evening of the occupation. There was a discussion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, SDS’s demands, and we were to have guest speakers. The administration however, realized the seriousness of the occupiers and sent the Dean of Student Affairs to be their negotiator multiple times that day.

Ryan and Kyle can better explain more of what happened that day, I spent most of that time blogging from inside the occupation.

Ryan: On February 6th, we took direct action for peace and in solidarity with the Palestinians by peacefully occupying a building at the University of Rochester. Beginning at 3:00pm, UR-SDS claimed and occupied the adjacent atrium and auditorium of Goergen Hall (the Biomedical Engineering Building) and declared them a liberated community space—an autonomous zone democratically run by the occupiers until our demands were met. The action was organized by University Rochester Students for a Democratic Society (UR-SDS) but U of R post-docs, faculty members, and staff also occupied along with numerous community members. We came to raise awareness about the dire situation in Palestine and the United States role in the conflict. In addition, we were there to occupy this space until our demands of the administration for divestment, humanitarian aid, educational aid, and scholarships for Palestinian students were met. Also, (let me clarify) despite what the administration said, we did not “reserve” the auditorium and the online calendar still says that it remains unreserved at that time.

Kyle: (LIke Ryan and Adriano said) SDS at UR organized an occupation of Goergen Atrium and Auditorium on campus in solidarity with Gaza. Beforehand, they had presented the administration with an official letter demanding that UR divest from corporations that profit from Israel’s occupation of Palestine, and to provide direct aid to the people of Gaza. This wasn’t an occupation like the illegal sit-down strikes of 1930’s because the campus administration allowed SDS to reserve the building in the interest of “peaceful dialogue”. They also provided the Dean of Student Affairs for negotiation of the demands.

As the day went on, the Dean informed the organizers that UR students would be punished if not out of the building by midnight. So we decided to call for as many campus and community members to mobilize around that time as possible to put as much pressure on the Dean as possible to deliver on our demands.

The Dean agreed to negotiate at 10pm and we had maybe 75 people in the building for support. Through the negotiations, the Dean agreed to the following plan of action: that the administration organize a public forum with UR investors, SDS and the community on the university’s investment policy and its investment in Israel; that UR commit resources and provide any needed information for a campus-wide fund drive for Palestine; that UR work to assess needs in Gaza and donate surplus supplies to universities, such as computers and books; and that UR commit to reaching out to Palestinians with international student scholarships.

Feb 6th was a day of education, debate and mobilization. It was a concrete show of solidarity with the people of Gaza and protest against Israel’s occupation. It was a concrete demonstration of real democratic decision-making and flexibility.

What particular event spurred you to get personally involved in this issue and the occupation?

Ryan: (For me) the unspeakable events of the recent US-Israeli war on Gaza were very difficult for me witness. Especially knowing how complicit the United States was in the massacres. On January 23rd a message about a series of student occupations of English universities in solidarity with Palestine was floated on the northeast SDS listerv. On Saturday January 24th UR-SDS called an emergency meeting to discuss bringing the occupation movement across the Atlantic. Our discussions bore out a resolve to do the same in the United States.

Kyle: After September 11th, I was already organizing against the US invasion of Afghanistan and Israel began using Bush’s “war on terror” rhetoric to extend its occupation of Palestine. I became dedicated to ending the occupation of Palestine when I attended a national demonstration in DC in solidarity with the Al Aqsa Intifada. It was amazing to be marching in the streets with Arabs and Muslims chanting “Free Free Palestine!” Through and after that demonstration, I started exploring US funding for Israel and came to the understanding that Israel plays a crucial role as watch dog in the Middle East for US imperialism. I’ve been an anti-imperialist ever since, so when I heard that UR was organizing an occupation on campus I dove into organizing head first.

Adriano: I’ve been involved with the Campus Antiwar Network, a national democratic student anti-war organization, for over 2 years now. When I began my activism it was really all about figuring out the political reasons for why being in Iraq and Afghanistan was wrong, aside from the moral gut feelings I had. The answers I found were imperialism, geopolitics, and profit. With that understanding I became firmly anti-war.

The chapter of CAN at my school had done an educational meeting around the issue of Palestine a week or so prior to Israel’s assault. While home in New York City, I participated in two demonstrations that were overwhelmingly Arab. Unlike anti-war demonstrations which have remained largely free of an Arab presence, the demonstrations around Gaza filled the streets with people whom after 9/11 feared to speak out against the wave of anti-Arab sentiment.

When we returned from Christmas break the political landscape of the anti-war movement had begun to shift. Israel’s true colors were shown clearly to the entire world. Despite its claims to the right of self-defense, the slaughter of over 1300 Palestinians was unjustifiable and people took notice. I took part in the national demonstration on January 10 and it was an amazing experience. CAN and the Muslim Students Association marched together for the first time ever. The people most directly affected by the so-called “War on Terror” were out in big numbers.

Organizing at school had taken on a different character. People wanted to talk and organize around Palestine, even though we had things organized already around the occupation of Afghanistan. When I spoke with Ryan Acuff about SDS’s plans at UR, he mentioned the sit-in. The CAN chapter at RIT got on board with it.

Is this part of a larger movement? Would you call it a coordinated movement or spontaneous?

Ryan: Our occupation is part of the larger occupation that began on January 13th in London when students from the School of Oriental and Asians Studies occupied a building on campus. This exploded into an occupation movement that has swept over 20 schools in England and Scotland and has now begun in the United States. Oh yeah, and all the occupations have been spontaneous in that each one ha has inspired the others, but none coordinated by a higher body.

Adriano:What is happening in the UK is spreading like wildfire. There have been 23 university occupations so far and some of them are still occupied. Certain demands have been won and its really a testament to the power of organized struggle and protest. The UR occupation was inspired by the UK. Globally, I think it’s something that’ll catch on. Like I said, the world has now seen Israel’s true colors. The siege, the blockade, and the history of oppression have exposed the ideology of the Israeli state.

In the United States, we’re going to begin to see more occupations of this nature. We’ll see similar campaigns to the ones that ended South African apartheid. Presently, South African dockworkers are refusing to import Israeli goods. Already a national call has been put out by the Campus Antiwar Network to figure out and propose a plan of action that includes the help of SDS UR members and students from the UK.

Kyle: There are a number of events that set the stage for the UR action. First, the election of Obama has given ordinary people across the country hope that things can change after eight long years living under the Bush regime. The urgency for change has never been felt more strongly as we are spiraling into the worst recession/depression since the 1930’s. After Obama was elected, the Republic Windows and Doors workers in Chicago won severance pay and health insurance owed to them by occupying their factory when their bosses announced the plant was closing. Not too long after, students at the New School of Social Research in NYC occupied a building to prevent it from closing and directly noted inspiration from the Republic workers. Israel invaded Gaza over the holiday and sparked a series of campus occupations in Britain. The demands of the UR students almost exactly mirror the demands of the Britain students. So I think there is a real context to what we did. I see the UR action as the next stage in the anti-war movement–a new movement of occupations in this country and internationally.

I think this also needs to be viewed in the context of the broader antiwar movement. This has the potential to breath new life into the antiwar movement and set the stage for the national antiwar demonstration called in DC for March 21st which is the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

What is the intention of the movement?

Kyle: Simply put, we want justice for the people of Palestine. The US funds Israel’s occupation of Palestine with billions of dollars in addition to direct military aid. This means that the US government is directly responsible for bombs dropped on schools, bulldozers razing communities, and F16s terrorizing Gaza. It’s amazing to learn that so many institutions of higher learning–both UR and RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) invest and research for corporations that directly profit from the occupation of Palestine. Our intention is to end the occupation of Palestine by standing in solidarity with the people of Gaza and building a movement capable of forcing the US government from divesting from Israel.

Ryan: Although many of the schools have slightly different demands, the movement seeks to take direct action to express our solidarity with the people of Gaza, highlight our countries’ and universities’ complicity in the atrocities in the Gaza strip, and make our universities’ relationship to Gaza one of supporting people and peace, not war. Members of UR-SDS also hope our action will help inspire other occupations or sit-ins in the United States, given that our culpability as Americans is dramatically larger than even the British in blocking peace and supporting oppression of the Palestinians.

Adriano: The movement has taken on boycott, divestment, and sanctions. The demands of the UK and UR occupations represent that. The effectiveness however of the movement will largely depend on how well coordinated it is on a national level. Locally we can act, make demands, and win but if we remain isolated it’ll be harder for these actions to catch on. The movement needs to be a player on the national scene in order to tackle organizations like AIPAC but also get to the root of the problem, which is United State tax dollars invested in imperialism in the Middle East. The movement has to bring to light the fact that Israel is the US’s proxy in that region. Why else would it have the second largest fleet of F16s, the highest amount of our foreign aid, and nuclear weaponry?

What has been the response of other members of the campus community? What about alumni?

Kyle: Adriano and Ryan are on the campuses (I’ll take the next question though!)

Adriano: At RIT, we’ve had a significantly larger attendance at our meetings around Palestine. It hasn’t completely translated into activism, but people are searching for answers and perspectives from the Palestinian side. So there is a potential to mobilize people around this.

Ryan: The response from other members of the campus community has been mostly positive. People seem excited to have these kinds of actions at the University of Rochester. Although the U of R has a history of activism its been a few years since students have taken direct action for a cause. Given that we have a large Jewish population on campus, there are some members of the community that see any support of the Palestinians or condemnation of Israeli state policy as a direct threat to their identity as a Jew. The best we can do in these cases is continue the dialogue to clear up misunderstandings. All alumni I’ve communicated with have been extremely excited about our actions. We’ve even had graduates from 1970s send us e-mails of support.

In the broader sense, what kind of impact do you see (or hope to see) the movement against the Israeli occupation of the Territories on university and college campuses having on the US and British public?

Ryan: We hope these actions on college campuses help open the discussions on the US-Palestinian-Israeli conflict and help the voices of the Palestinians be heard. One of the only ways the horrific polices of the U.S. in Israel-Palestine can continue is if people don’t know the extent the U.S. suppressing peace and democracy. We hope if the student create enough of stir, then we can create a climate where Obama will have to fulfill his promises of change and actually bring an expedient end to the occupation and facilitate peace and justice in Palestine.

Kyle: Consciousness is shifting around the question of Palestine. I was amazed to learn that over 40% of people in the US were against Israel’s latest attack on Gaza. This is amazing given how pro-Israel the US mainstream media has been. There is never a voice for Palestinians. The only question US reporters would ask Palestinians during Israel’s latest invasion was, “Do you blame Hamas for this?”

That being said, it seems like people are aching to take up this issue but up until this point have been under-confident that anything can be done. The amazing thing about our action is that we won in just 9 hours an agreement for a plan of action from the Dean that provides concrete organizing for the movement in weeks ahead. This is giving confidence to community members and fellow activists across the country that we can fight and win.

I think people are also nervous about being labeled an anti-Semite when organizing and taking a stand against Zionism. We have to education people on the difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. It is helpful just to point out that there are anti-Zionist Jews organizing in Israel today. We can and should fight against racism, anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism all at the same time.

Adriano:If the movement grows, if it is coordinated, we could expose university investments and fight for socially responsible endowments. The struggle to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine could potentially expose the “war on terror” on a big scale. The possibilities are numerous especially in this period of economic crises and endless war. On the flip-side Obama has brought hope to many and promises of change. If we educate ourselves, take action, and push Obama for more than what he’s promised than we can expect some serious victories.

Similar actions at campuses around other issues like sweatshops have received a certain amount of positive press when they were undertaken, only to have the administration and trustees negate the agreements that were made. How does a group prevent this, while simultaneously keeping interest in the issue alive on campus and in the surrounding community?

Adriano: This was brought up during the occupation by some people and the answer was unanimous… we’d occupy again. For UR, the biggest employer in Rochester, NY, it’s crucial for them to maintain a favorable reputation. They won’t completely brush off our demands because they know what we’re willing to do now to have our voices heard. During the occupation there was a huge effort made to contact local press and media outlets.

Maintaining interest in the issue has much to do with winning something along the way. The victory at UR was just a first step to get the administration to comply with our demands. If people invest time and energy into organizing and never win anything it becomes demoralizing. If we win, people build confidence and it give activism a whole new meaning.

Kyle: We won the agreement/plan of action through mobilization of students and community members. The agreement was signed in person and in front of all the participants of the occupation because we demanded that the negotiations happen in the auditorium in front of everyone. The agreement should continue to be publicized as far and wide as possible, not only on UR campus but throughout the community and onto every campus across the country. This will play a key role in holding the administration accountable.

We need to continue galvanizing new students and community members with educational panel discussions and teach-ins where we can learn the history of Zionism, the history of Israel’s occupation of Palestine, campus complicity, the politics of the Palestinian resistance and the role of US imperialism in it all. And we need groups like SDS, CAN, and all activists organizing to hold the Dean accountable to what he agreed but also to push it further. If the administration negates the agreement in anyway, we occupy with more numbers and we stay until they meet our demands.

Ryan: We hope these actions on college campuses help open the discussions on the US-Palestinian-Israeli conflict and help the voices of the Palestinians be heard. One of the only ways the horrific polices of the U.S. in Israel-Palestine can continue is if people don’t know the extend the U.S. suppressing peace and democracy. (Specifically) our big follow up event we have planned is an open forum on the universities investment policies and a discussion of the process of moving towards more socially responsible, transparent, and Democratic investment policy. The more people we can bring into the process the more authoritarian institutions will begin to break down. The more we work to empower and inform people on these issues and the more they will start demanding more power and reform of the institution. We are also planning an editorial in investment for the next issue of the Campus Times along with an open forum to discuss the US-Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In addition, if the university breaks the agreements or simply refuses to move forward we are prepared to take direct action again, this time will more people and in a more dramatic fashion. Justice will be served.

Since it appears that one of the goals of these actions is to make connections between college investments and the occupation of Palestine (and to make people consider their own complicity, let’s take that a step further: do you think people make the connection between US tax dollars and Israel’s occupation?

Adriano: Right now especially, people are making these connections! Bailout for the banks, none for the working class. $3 billion per year for Israel and no money for universal healthcare coverage. Unemployment is rising and wages have less buying power. If people haven’t made the connection between tax dollars and Israel, they will. It is only a matter of time before people realize the hypocrisy of the system. However not everyone will come to these conclusions alone. We need to be there alongside those people to get them organized to fight back and win the divestment campaigns and reforms we need.

Kyle: I don’t think people make the connection yet. This is a connection the movement will have to make clear. Over three billion dollars in government money goes to fund Israel every year. What could $3 billion a year do for the 47 million people without health insurance in this country? What could $3 billion a year do for our schools that are crumbling under the weight of budget deficits from state to state across this country? What about the workers at Kodak that have lost their jobs as Kodak has laid off more than 50% of their Rochester workforce in the past 30 years (UR has now become the largest employer in Rochester)? It should be our job to make the connections and reach beyond our campuses to win solidarity in the community and labor movement.

Ryan: I think people are beginning to see this connection. UR-SDS pointed this out in our editorial in the campus paper last week. The more people can see we individually our complicit in these atrocities, the more willing people are going to be to take action.

I know there is a national conference going on around this issue. What do you see as the goals of that conference?

Ryan: Currently there is national conference call organized by the Campus Anti-war Network planned for next Monday to discuss spreading the occupation movement across the U.S. I believe the goals are for other schools to learn about our actions and possibly enact something similar at their school. People are feeling that the time has come to escalate our actions.

Kyle: (Like Ryan said) There is a national conference call this Monday. We will be giving a report on the UR action. Also, someone will be giving a report from the New School occupation. Hopefully, we can get someone on from the occupations in Britain. We want students to organize on every campus across the US. But there must also be coordination between these campuses because it’s going to take a coordinated, democratic, nationwide movement to win divestment from Israel. Hopefully the call will inspire students. Students should “think big” and organize to win concrete gains. (If you are talking about another conference, let me know! I should be there!) (I was referring to the conference call-Ron)

Anything else?

Adriano: I run a website called The Sitch. It’s a site for activist news, political commentary and analysis. On there you’ll find coverage of the UR occupation, as it happened, including videos and images.
Visit: www.thesitch.com/occupation

Kyle: Yes. The immigrant rights movement in 2006 took up the slogan “Yes we can!”. Obama adopted this for his presidential campaign in 2008. Coming out of the UR action, I was thinking to myself “Yes we did”. It feels great to finally win something. I want people across the country to feel the same way so we can raise our hopes even higher and fight for more!

Ryan: Thanks for your interest in our action. We hope to spread the word far and wide to help inspire similar actions for peace and Palestine and fight oppression in all forms.

[Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs’ essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch’s collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. His first novel, Short Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press. He can be reached at: rjacobs3625@charter.net.]

Source / CounterPunch

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US Policy in Afghanistan: Destined for Failure?

Posted on February 15, 2009 by RagBlog

An Afghan boy walks by a destroyed Soviet made helicopter in Kabul in this picture taken February 5, 2009. February 15th marks 20 years since the last Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan. Moscow’s forces pulled out of the country in 1989 after a decade of war in which thousands of Soviet soldiers and many more Afghans died.
Photo: REUTERS/Ahmad Masood.

West risks repeating Soviet mistakes in Afghanistan
By Abdul Saboor / February 15, 2009

ALI MARDAN, Afghanistan — The foreign warplanes swooped in just as the Afghan village of Ali Mardan was celebrating a wedding.

Bombs slammed into the crowded village square, killing 30 men, women and children. After the smoke cleared and the dead were buried, all the able-bodied men left alive took up arms against the invaders.

That was 1982 and the warplanes belonged to the Soviet Union, but 20 years after the last Soviet soldier left Afghanistan on Sunday, U.S. and NATO troops are all too often making the same mistakes and could run the same risk of being driven out.

A string of bungled U.S. and NATO air strikes killed 455 Afghan civilians last year, according to the United Nations. Wedding parties seem to be particularly at risk, perhaps due to the crowds of people, some of them firing weapons in the air.

U.S. planes bombed two Afghan weddings last year alone.

Memories are long in Afghanistan and revenge is a duty.

In the mud-brick homes of Ali Mardan, close to the Afghan capital Kabul, villagers still visit the graves of those killed in the Soviet bombardment and keep photographs of the dead to remind the living of the cruelty of war.

“I was nine years-old. It was early in the morning during my sister’s wedding when the jets bombed us,” said Abdul Bashir.

“You can see I lost one of my eyes, and my teeth. My brother was wounded. My sister, father and my aunt were martyred,” he said. “I can never forget.”

QUAGMIRE

Soviet leaders were at first reluctant to respond to repeated requests from Kabul’s Marxist government to send troops to help quash resistance from rural Islamic fighters, fearing getting bogged down in Afghanistan, just as the British had in the 19th Century.

But on December 25, 1979, hundreds of Soviet tanks rumbled across the border into northern Afghanistan and large numbers of airborne troops landed at Kabul airport.

Despite deploying up to 120,000 soldiers, supported by 300,000 Afghan government forces, the Soviets failed to crush the insurgency by Afghan mujahideen fighters who were backed by U.S. guns and money and had bases inside neighboring Pakistan.

Some 15,000 Soviet troops were killed before Moscow decided the war could not be won and pulled out its forces in 1989. By that time, 1 million Afghans had lost their lives and another 5 million become refugees in neighboring Pakistan and Iran.

The tables are now turned and the United States is considering whether to send another 25,000 troops to add to the nearly 70,000 Western forces locked in a bitter stalemate with Taliban-led insurgents in south and eastern Afghanistan.

“I tell you this for sure, that if NATO and America put all their attention on fighting, and invest only in the military, they will not win,” former mujahideen leader and ex-President Burhanuddin Rabbani told Reuters.

PEACE THOUGH PROGRESS?

President Barack Obama’s new administration is also planning a large increase in spending on development assistance to Afghanistan, more than seven years after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of one of the poorest countries in the world.

But the Soviets also tried to bring progress to deeply conservative and traditional Afghanistan and in many ways their record was more impressive than that of the West so far.

Most of Afghanistan’s roads, ministries, major schools and hospitals were Soviet-built. Even now, many of the upper echelons of the civil service, army and police are Soviet trained.

The rows of apartment blocks around Kabul were all built by the Soviets. Though many are now shabby and pock-marked with bullet holes from the civil war, they are still highly prized as no public housing has been built since.

“These residential buildings are the achievement of the Russians,” said Abdul Ghani Rahpore, who lives in one of the blocks. “Now there are 40 countries stationed in this country but they haven’t made any achievements that benefit the people.”

But any gains the Soviets made through development and building the Afghan government’s capacity were scuppered by the resentment and anger their devastating bombing raids caused.

That is a lesson U.S. and NATO forces should learn from the experience of their former Cold War adversary.

“I don’t think NATO has fully understood just how serious this issue is,” said a Kabul-based Western analyst. “They certainly have done what they can to try to avoid civilian casualties from air strikes, but I just don’t think they have grasped how central it is to informing the views of the nation.”

Added Rabbani: “There have already been some mistakes during military operations and the mistakes are continually being repeated. This is the same mistake the Soviets made.”

[Writing by Jon Hemming; editing by Dean Yates.]

Source / Reuters

And there’s this, quite similar analysis:

Lieutenant General Boris Gromov, with his son, Maxin, leaves Afghanistan over the Amy Darya River at Termez, Uzbekistan on Feb. 15, 1989. Photo: AP.

Is the U.S. repeating Soviet mistakes in Afghanistan?
By Jonathan S. Landay / February 14, 2009

KABUL, Afghanistan — Twenty years to the day after the last Soviet soldier left Afghanistan, Dastagir Arizad ticked off grievances against President Hamid Karzai and the United States that are disturbingly reminiscent of Moscow’s humiliating defeat.

“Day by day, we see the Karzai government failing. The Americans are also failing,” said Arizad, 40, as he huddled against the cold in the stall where he sells ropes and plastic hoses. “People are not feeling safe. Their lives are not secure. Their daughters are not safe. Their land is not secure. The Karzai government is corrupt.”

“The problems we are having are made by the Americans. The Americans should review their policies,” he said Saturday. “They should not support the people who are in power.”

As Arizad spoke, Pres. Barack Obama’s special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, was holding his first talks with Karzai in the presidential palace nearby amid mounting U.S.-Afghan tensions fueled by mutual recriminations over the growing Taliban insurgency.

Some Afghan experts are worried that the United States and its NATO allies are making some of the same mistakes that helped the Taliban’s forerunners defeat the Soviet Union after a decade-long occupation that bled the Kremlin treasury, demoralized Moscow’s military and contributed to the Soviet Union’s collapse.

Among the mistakes, these experts said, are relying too heavily on military force, inflicting too many civilian casualties, concentrating too much power in Kabul and tolerating pervasive government corruption.

Violence and ethnic tensions will worsen, they warned, absent a rapid correction in U.S.-led strategy that improves coordination between military operations and stepped up reconstruction, job-training and local good governance programs.

“We have not justified democracy. We have not justified human rights. We have not justified liberalism,” said Azziz Royesh, a political activist, educator and former anti- Soviet guerrilla. “Afghans don’t like the Taliban. But we haven’t shown them a better option.”

“I see a time when again there could be thousands of unorganized insurgencies around the country,” he cautioned. “The foreigners are the ones who will be targeted. If we don’t bring change here, these kinds of incidents will add to the Taliban insurgency.”

A public opinion survey released earlier this month underscored the concerns.

The poll, commissioned by ABC News and the BBC, found that while 90 percent of Afghans oppose the Taliban, less than half view the U.S. favorably, down from 67 percent last year. Twenty-five percent also said they believed that attacks on foreign troops can be justified, up from 17 percent in 2007.

Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, conceded in a Washington Post opinion article Saturday that the U.S., which is planning to almost double the 32,000-strong U.S. force in Afghanistan over the next 18 months, will lose the war if it can’t win Afghans’ trust.

“We can send more troops. We can kill or capture all the Taliban and al Qaida leaders we can find — and we should. We can clear out havens and shut down the narcotics trade. But until we prove capable, with the help of our allies and Afghan partners, of safeguarding the population, we will never know a peaceful, prosperous Afghanistan,” Mullen wrote. “Lose the people’s trust, and we lose the war.”

A senior official of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, who requested anonymity in order to speak more candidly, said that many allied governments would find it harder to keep troops in Afghanistan “if we don’t see some sort of rise in (Afghans’) perception of how things are going . . . within the next 12 months.”

Some Western officials and many Afghans appear to be hoping that Obama, who last week criticized Karzai for being “very detached,” will abandon the Bush administration’s unqualified support for the Afghan leader in hopes that he won’t run for re-election or is defeated in an Aug. 20 vote.

Soviet leaders, however, believed in 1986 that a change in Afghan leadership would stem that decade’s Islamist insurgency. They were wrong.

Of course, there are major differences between the brutal 10-year Soviet occupation that ended on Feb. 14, 1989 — the date it’s marked on the Afghan calendar — and the U.S.-led effort to prevent Afghanistan from reverting to a Taliban-ruled sanctuary for al Qaida.

Moscow invaded to save a dictatorial regime that ignited a rebellion when it tried to force communism on a tribal society that remains rooted in conservative Islam and centuries-old tribal law. Some 1 million Afghans died and more than 5 million fled the country as Soviet and Afghan troops fought U.S.-backed guerrillas based in Pakistan.

The 2001 U.S.-led intervention came after the former Taliban regime refused to surrender Osama bin Laden following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. More than 40 nations have deployed a total of 70,000 troops and are spending billions on schools, clinics and roads, while the United Nations is helping to prepare for Afghanistan’s second-ever presidential election.

The effort, however, faces grave uncertainties because the Bush administration, fixated on Iraq, never committed enough troops or developed a comprehensive counter-insurgency strategy for Afghanistan.

Previously secret Soviet documents made public in English for the first time on Saturday reveal that Obama is facing some of the same problems that compelled former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to order a withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The documents, posted on the George Washington University’s National Security Archive Web site, show that Gorbachev decided in 1985 to end the Soviet occupation after realizing that Moscow couldn’t win a military victory, a point that Obama and senior U.S. commanders repeatedly stress.

Soviet leaders also saw that Afghanistan’s ruling communists had failed to earn legitimacy, become self-reliant or improve most Afghans’ lives, problems that also afflict Karzai’s U.S.-backed government.

“After seven years in Afghanistan, there is not one square kilometer left untouched by a boot of a Soviet soldier. But as soon as they leave a place, the enemy returns and restores it all back the way it used to be,” the late Soviet Army chief Sergei Akhromeyev is quoted as saying in notes from a Nov. 13, 1986, Politburo meeting.

Moreover, the documents indicate, Soviet troops were unable to stop U.S.-backed guerrillas infiltrating from sanctuaries in Pakistan, and they fueled support for the insurgents by killing civilians, factors that are aiding the Taliban today.

“Very little is left of the friendly feelings toward the Soviet people, which existed for decades. Very many people have died, and not all of them were bandits (guerrillas). Not a single problem was solved in favor of the peasants,” then-Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze reported to the Politburo on Jan. 21, 1987, according to minutes of the meeting. “In essence, (we) waged war against the peasants.”

Source / McClatchy

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Lincoln: ‘If Slavery Is Not Wrong, Nothing Is Wrong’

Posted on February 14, 2009 by RagBlog


RIGHTS: Human Slavery Thriving in the Shadows
By Mirela Xanthaki / February 13, 2009

“Dora”, a young Mexican woman, was helped by another Mexican woman to cross the U.S. border in the promise of a good job there. She ended up in Texas, working in a sweatshop and not allowed to go out or even take a shower.

“Sandra” was sold as a child for 400 dollars to a pedophile, who repeatedly raped her for four years.

Both were victims of a global trafficking network that has ensnared an estimated 10 million people, although hard data about the underworld of human slavery remains elusive – partly because of the reluctance of some countries to cooperate with investigations.

“We have a big picture, but it is impressionistic and lacks depth,” admitted Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which just released its annual Global Report on Trafficking in Persons on Thursday.

“Although we can talk with specific numbers about drug trafficking, for example, we do not have an estimate for this area of crime [human trafficking],” Costa said.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates 2 million as the yearly net addition to the total number of slaves worldwide. Subtracting the number of people rescued or who die annually, the total number is thought to be over 10 million.

However, the actual number of known trafficking victims is only 22,500.

“We are not able to segment today’s slave markets into their components. We must – but cannot – catalogue different types of slavery. Exploitation through child-begging in Europe is different from what goes on in a brothel, or in a street corner in Australia,” Costa noted.

“Preventive measures must also be adapted to take into account that an Asian father sells his underage daughter under circumstances different than what pushes an illegal immigrant at a sweatshop in the Americas,” he explained. “If we do not overcome this knowledge crisis, we will be fighting the problem blindfolded.”

The report is based on data gathered from 155 countries. Of these, 125 have signed the U.N. Protocol against Trafficking in Persons. However, not all of those who ratified it are enforcing the provisions of the treaty – 40 percent of the countries in the sample did not convict anyone for trafficking in the past year.

Overall, the number of convictions for human trafficking is growing, says the report, notably in a handful of countries, but it is still much lower than the estimated number of victims.

Many large countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Iran remain uncooperative and provided no data.

The most common form of human trafficking is sexual exploitation (79 percent) followed by forced labour (18 percent). Forced labour is detected and reported less because it is frequently goes unnoticed, especially in big cities.

Nearly four in five victims are women and girls. Including boys, 20 percent of all trafficking victims in the world are children, but in some parts of Africa and Asia’s Mekong region, children are the majority.

The report also reveals that intra-regional and domestic trafficking are the major forms of trafficking in persons. “Criminals prey on their own kin, something even animals don’t do,” Costa said.

The report shatters some illusions about victims and victimisers. Although generally speaking, most crimes are committed by young men, when it comes to trafficking, women perpetrators play an important role. In 30 percent of the countries that provided evidence on the gender of traffickers, women make up the largest proportion.

In regions like Eastern Europe and Central Asia, women trafficking women is the norm, according to Costa. Psychological, financial and coercive reasons often induce former victims to become traffickers.

Mira Sorvino, an actress and UNODC Goodwill Ambassador, shared stories of trafficking victims that she had met.

Dora’s trafficker threatened that if she ran away, her family would be killed. “Here in Texas you are lower than a dog,” she would tell Dora. “People here actually care if a dog is abused. No one cares about you.”

Dora managed to escape, but even years later, she is plagued by nightmares and afraid for herself and her family. The woman who enslaved her was punished with one year of house arrest.

Sandra, sold as a child, was forced to sleep on a black magic “altar” that her “owner” had in his house. He claimed to be a sorcerer and would tell her that he could read all her thoughts. Eventually, he decided to exploit her economically as well, sending her to work at a factory and keeping her earnings.

Sorvino described Sandra today as “a burned out soul”. “So much suffering in a person could only be encountered maybe in a Holocaust survivor,” she said.

The report was unable to confirm that the number of victims is rising. However, based on intuition and experience, Costa said that the global economic crisis is likely affecting demand and supply, and making a greater number of people more vulnerable to predators.

Kevin Bales, president of the abolitionist group Free the Slaves, struck a more optimistic note. “Slavery as an institution is pushed to the end of its extinction,” he said.

Never before has slavery represented such a small fraction of the global economy, he said. Bales believes that with sufficient commitment and resources, slavery is a phenomenon that can be eradicated.

To liberate and rehabilitate a slave in a poor country, the cost is around 400 to 600 dollars. Multiplied by the estimated number of slaves, the total needed would amount to 10.5 billion dollars.

“That is small change compared to the money spent on the bank bailout,” he said.

Sorvino added that the term “trafficking” is really a euphemism. “It still should be called slavery so that people can’t tune out the suffering that goes along with it,” she said.

Two hundred years ago, a group of abolitionists in Britain sat down together and took action to end slavery. Twenty years later, slavery was abolished in Britain, he said.

“If 12 people can take it on and beat something perfectly legal at the time, are we so timid that we can’t put an end to this crime?” Bales asked.

Commemorating the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, the U.S. president who outlawed slavery in that country, a quote from him was echoed at the U.N. conference: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”

Source / IPS News

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Off and Running : Recovery Bill Big on Transit, Green Energy, Science

Posted on February 14, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Obama Recovery program provides $8 billion for high-speed rail. Pictured is a high speed rail project that Californians voted for in 2008.

Progressives, Obama keep promise to jumpstart clean energy, economy.

By Joseph Romm / February 14, 2009

Years from now, long after the economy has recovered, this moment may well be remembered as the time that progressives, led by Obama, began the transition to a sustainable economy built around green jobs. If, on the other hand, we don’t stop catastrophic warming, that will almost certainly be because the conservative movement threw their entire weight behind humanity’s self-destruction (see “Anti-science conservatives must be stopped“) — and the lopsided vote on the stimulus bill will be the first time in the Obama adminstration that conservatives in both chambers signaled their willingness to sacrifice the future for their ideology.

This post detailing the green elements of the stimulus bill, including an excel spreadsheet, by the Center for American Progress’s Daniel J. Weiss and Alexandra Kougentakis, was first published here.

The House-Senate conference recovery bill supplies $8.4 billion for transit projects, and an additional $8 billion for high-speed rail. These would put Americans back to work to the tune of nearly 20,000 jobs for every $1 billion invested in mass transit.

More than a year after the recession began and after 3.6 million Americans lost their jobs, Congress has passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, H.R. 1. The act will inject $789 billion into new programs and tax incentives to stimulate the economy.

Unprecedented investments in clean energy are a central element of the recovery plan. The bill includes $71 billion for clean energy programs–more than three times the current spending for these same programs (download the breakdown here (.xls)). H.R. 1 also adds $20 billion in clean energy tax incentives. The bill would “spark the creation of a clean-energy economy” that President Barack Obama promised during his inaugural address.

The Recovery Act intends to quickly put Americans to work undertaking the essential task of reducing our use of energy and oil, which would strengthen our economy and security. It would also boost investments in clean renewable energy generation from the wind, sun, and other clean sources. The World Resources Institute determined that there is a significant job creation differential between traditional infrastructure investments and those focusing on clean energy initiatives. Every investment of $1 billion in clean energy programs creates nearly 5,000 more jobs than traditional infrastructure spending. These are some of the most important initiatives in the recovery package.

Under the recovery plan, the Weatherization Assistance Program would receive an additional $5 billion to install efficiency measures in low-income households. This amount could weatherize 1 million homes, and, directly and indirectly, create 375,000 jobs. Low-income families will save an average of $350 annually in reduced energy costs. .

Another clean energy program, the federal green buildings program, would receive $4.5 billion in funding from the plan. Modernization and energy efficiency upgrades of federal buildings would put people to work and save taxpayers millions of dollars a year in federal energy bills. President Obama recently noted that efficiency for federal buildings could save taxpayers “$2 billion,” asking, “Why wouldn’t we want to make that kind of investment?”

Energy efficiency and conservation grants for energy efficiency in residential and commercial buildings would gain $6.3 billion. This is in addition to a new program with the Department of Housing and Urban Development for energy efficiency retrofits of low-income housing that would receive $250 million. This funding would directly and indirectly generate over 1 million jobs, and many would be construction jobs–a sector hard hit by the recession.

The bill supplies $8.4 billion for transit projects, and an additional $8 billion for high-speed rail. There are an estimated 787 ready-to-go transit projects eligible for funds from the programs to purchase buses and equipment needed to increase public transportation and improve intermodal and transit facilities. These would also put Americans back to work to the tune of nearly 20,000 jobs for every $1 billion invested in mass transit.

There is also $20 billion in clean energy tax incentives, including a three-year extension of the Production Tax Credit for wind and other renewable energy projects. Due to the credit crunch and recession, many wind projects have had difficulty attracting investors. To address this problem, the bill “provides grants of up to 30 percent of the cost of building a new renewable energy facility to address current renewable energy credit market concerns.”

In 2008, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and the University of Nevada Las Vegas hosted a National Clean Energy Summit. The many energy experts at the summit agreed that lack of efficient, reliable transmission capacity was a major barrier to a vast expansion of renewable electricity generation. The recovery package tackles this problem with its $17 billion in spending and loan guarantees for “smart grid” technology and 3,000 miles of new transmission lines.

Thankfully, the final bill excludes the Senate’s $500 million allocation that would have provided up to $50 billion in loan guarantees for “low emission” electricity, predominately aimed at nuclear power. With a 50-percent default rate, these nuclear loans could have made taxpayers responsible for at least $25 billion in risky loans. This program would have created very few jobs because it takes a long time to finance and build a nuclear power plant.

The Congressional Budget Office forecasts that without a strong recovery package, real gross domestic product would shrink by 2.2 percent in 2009. In contrast, implementation of the plan would yield as many as 3.6 million new jobs from all spending in less than two years. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act includes energy investments that would set the foundation for an economy that uses efficient, low-carbon energy sources and highly efficient advanced technology. It is 21st-century energy policy that follows eight years of inertia and reaction, and it is a remarkable achievement for an administration that isn’t yet a month old.

For a complete breakdown of the House, Senate, continuing resolution, and conference recovery bill clean energy provisions, download this table (.xls).

Source / Climate Progress

Unprecedented investments in clean energy are a central element of the recovery plan.

What’s Green About the New Stimulus Deal?
By Joseph Romm / February 13, 2009.

There’s lots of good news — from a tax credit for renewables to the $50 billion nuclear industry giveaway being axed. Here’s the highlights.

A final deal was reached on a $789 billion stimulus plan (see NYT a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/us/politics/12stimulus.html?_r=2&hp” target=”_blank”>here). One of the best pieces of news is that the $50 billion in fraudulent budget gimmickry on behalf of the nuclear industry was axed, as I posted last night.

There’s also a 3-year extension of the production tax credit for wind and other renewables, which will be crucial to Obama meeting his goal to “double the production of alternative energy in the next three years.” And there’s an expanded tax credit for plug in hybrids, which will be critical for Obama to meet his goal of one million plug-ins by 2015.

The conferees did put back $400 million for DOE’s ARPA-E program, which in normal circumstances would be mostly duplicative of existing DOE R&D programs (see here “Note to media on ARPA-E”). But it is new money, and will give Stephen Chu something to chew on quickly.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has distributed a fact sheet on the conference report on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Here are the details on what’s green in ARRA (and I’ll also post the science and tech stuff):

Clean, Efficient, American Energy: To put people back to work today and reduce our dependence on foreign oil tomorrow, we will increase renewable energy production and renovate public buildings to make them more energy efficient.

Smart Grid/Advanced Battery Technology/Energy Efficiency

  • Provides a total of $30 billion for such initiatives as a new, smart power grid, advanced battery technology, and energy efficiency measures, which will create nearly 500,000 jobs.
  • Transforms the nation’s electricity systems through the Smart Grid Investment Program to modernize the electricity grid to make it more efficient and reliable.
  • Supports U.S. development of advanced vehicle batteries and battery systems through loans and grants so that America can lead the world in transforming the way automobiles are powered.
  • Helps state and local governments make investments in innovative best practices to achieve greater energy efficiency and reduce energy usage.
  • Spurs energy efficiency and renewable energy R&D.

Tax Incentives to Spur Energy Savings and Green Jobs

  • Provides $20 billion in tax incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency over the next 10 years.
  • Includes a three-year extension of the production tax credit (PTC) for electricity derived from wind (through 2012) and for electricity derived from biomass, geothermal, hydropower, landfill gas, waste-to-energy, and marine facilities (through 2013).
  • Provides grants of up to 30 percent of the cost of building a new renewable energy facility to address current renewable energy credit market concerns.
  • Promotes energy-efficient investments in homes by extending and expanding tax credits through 2010 for purchases such as new furnaces, energy-efficient windows and doors, or insulation.
  • Provides a tax credit for families that purchase plug-in hybrid vehicles of up to $7,500 to spur the next generation of American cars.
  • Includes clean renewable energy bonds for State and local governments.
  • Establishes a new manufacturing investment tax credit for investment in advanced energy facilities, such as facilities that manufacture components for the production of renewable energy, advanced battery technology, and other innovative next-generation green technologies.

Landmark Energy Savings at Home

  • Provides $5 billion for landmark provisions to improve the energy efficiency of more than 1 million modest-income homes through weatherization.
  • This will save modest-income families on average $350 per year on their heating and air conditioning bills.

Repairing Public Housing and Making Key Energy Efficiency Retrofits to HUD-Assisted Housing

  • Provides a total of $6.3 billion for increasing energy efficiency in federally-supported housing programs.
  • Specifically, establishes a new program to upgrade HUD-sponsored low-income housing (elderly, disabled, and Section to increase energy efficiency, including new insulation, windows, and frames.
  • Also invests in energy efficiency upgrades in public housing, including new windows, furnaces, and insulation to improve living conditions for residents and lower the cost of operating these facilities.

All in all, an impressive down payment on the transition to a clean energy economy.
Here’s the science and tech stuff (which includes ARPA-E):

Transform our Economy with Science and Technology: To secure America’s role as a world leader in a competitive global economy, we are renewing America’s investments in basic research and development, in training students for an innovation economy, and in deploying new technologies into the marketplace. This will help businesses in every community succeed in a global economy.

Investing in Scientific Research (More than $15 Billion

  • Provides $3 billion for the National Science Foundation, for basic research in fundamental science and engineering — which spurs discovery and innovation.
  • Provides $1.6 billion for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which funds research in such areas as climate science, biofuels, high-energy physics, nuclear physics and fusion energy sciences — areas crucial to our energy future.
  • Provides $400 million for the Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to support high-risk, high-payoff research into energy sources and energy efficiency in collaboration with industry.
  • Provides $580 million for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, including the Technology Innovation Program and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership.
  • Provides $8.5 billion for NIH, including expanding good jobs in biomedical research to study diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer, and heart disease.
  • Provides $1 billion for NASA, including $400 million to put more scientists to work doing climate change research.
  • Provides $1.5 billion for NIH to renovate university research facilities and help them compete for biomedical research grants.

Source / Climate Progress / AlterNet

Thanks to Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog

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The Stimulus Fix and the Global Ponzi Scheme

Posted on February 14, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

In terms of our current economic condition, we resemble a junkie going through withdrawal; “jonesing,” desperate for a money fix. Stimulus packages are thus globally popular to alleviate the symptoms of our addiction to easy money resulting from the recent unregulated issuing of debt.

By Roger Baker / The Rag Blog / February 14, 2009

See ‘IMF Says Advanced Economies Already in Depression‘ by Angus Whitley and Shamim Adam, Below.

What would a financial collapse look like?

For one, there would be a downward spiral of job losses feeding on other job losses.

For another thing, the banks would stop lending.

And for another thing, the IMF might start saying we’re in a world depression, and saying we have to restructure the broken world banking system to get out of the fix we’re in. Just like they are saying now, (see bottom of this post).

[The banking sector is the sector of society that risks or invests a society’s wealth in market goods, infrastructure or production, with the aim of protecting or expanding it. Even under socialism there needs to be some kind of a state bureaucracy to do the same things. Historically, you didn’t used to have to have banks at all because you had priests and potentates with kingly powers. In common doing what they thought was necessary to run the money affairs of the kingdom in such a way as to make it prosper over the lifetime of a king and his agents. A kingly system by its nature tends to encourage a fairly
long-range management perspective.]

Now we have a different perspective rooted in our political system and in the international needs of finance capital. Capital has assumed and demanded a system that assumes stable growth forever. This set the stage for a permanent bubble economy in which the US government has turned into a sort of publicly supported incubator to guarantee the success of deregulated banking and investment interests. Now globally expanding on the same bad habits that led to the great depression.

In effect the managers of US capitalism have forced the government to guarantee the unregulated issuing of bad paper like credit default swaps, based on infinite growth. To back up this bad paper, the future earnings of US taxpayers have been pledged as collateral for bank bailout debt. But about the only way for the taxpayers and economy to thrive is for the US to become competitive in world trade by producing goods that make sense when restructuring toward an energy limited economy.

We have investment banks trying to influence politics and reduce regulation alongside Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Washington is swarming with special interest lobbyists aiming to restrict, and sweeten for themselves, the political outcomes. On the whole, this is a system acting to impede reform and change.

The Federal Reserve, the ones who try to regulate our economy by setting the prime interest rate, are really a private outfit sponsored by the largest dozen or so banks. Alongside that kind of political clout, the US Treasury Dept., that prints up our money and sells US bonds, usually goes along with the Fed.

The chances for turning around what looks like a world depression seems to boil down to whether the current dysfunctional system, now hobbled by entrenched special interests, can actually be reformed and restructured into a sound global banking system. One that will take up the slack and stand on its own after the immediate effect of the stimulus funds wear off.

In terms of our current economic condition, we resemble a junkie going through withdrawal; “jonesing,” desperate for a money fix. Stimulus packages are thus globally popular to alleviate the symptoms of our addiction to easy money resulting from the recent unregulated issuing of debt. A fix of stimulus cash can help over the short run to get us back into a functioning state, but its not going to help very much and for very long — unless we deal with the underlying problem, which is the unregulated, dysfunctional banking system in search of rational managemnt on a global scale.

An unregulated global banking system really amounts to a giant global Ponzi scheme, one that bets on the infinite growth of future global market demand, even for discretionary spending on status items. The more risk, the higher the interest rates tend to be, and the more profitable for those involved in setting up and insuring the deals.

Obviously, the USA would have to be a key player in reforming the global banking system, but also China, Britain, Japan, Germany, etc. If one regional banking system looks sounder than the the others, the money will head there.

The odds for international cooperation are not so good for a global banking system used to calling the shots.

A new system with a matching political regulation system is needed to set up wise banking and investment rules, rules based on cooperation and long term thinking. A new regulated global system is needed, one that potential investors have confidence will really offer hope for long range growth and stability of their invested wealth.

It is a tall order given our current situation, but that is what the IMF seems to be saying we need as a basis to keep the banking problems from getting worse, and to serve as a necessary basis to turn around a world depression.

IMF Says Advanced Economies Already in Depression

By Angus Whitley and Shamim Adam / February 7, 2009

Advanced economies are already in a “depression” and the financial crisis may deepen unless the banking system is fixed, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said.

“The worst cannot be ruled out,” Strauss-Kahn said in Kuala Lumpur, where he was attending a gathering of central bankers from Southeast Asia. “There’s a lot of downside risk.”

Ten days ago, the IMF cut its world-growth estimate for this year to 0.5 percent, the weakest pace since World War II. Stimulus packages alone won’t succeed in dragging the global economy out of recession unless confidence is restored in the banking system, Strauss-Kahn said today.

“All this will work if, and only if, the different countries are likely to do what they have to do in terms of restructuring the banking sector,” he said. “And today it’s not done.”

The U.S. economy has lost 3.57 million jobs since a recession started in December 2007, its biggest employment slump of any economic contraction in the postwar period as companies from Macy’s Inc. to Caterpillar Inc. cut costs. The U.K. economy will shrink this year by the most since 1946, the IMF forecasts.

“There is hope that the fiscal and monetary stimulus measures being implemented around the world can help turn things around,” said David Cohen, Singapore-based director of Asian economic forecasting at Action Economics. “But there is still the risk it can be short-circuited by further financial turmoil.”

$780 Billion Package

The U.S. Senate is due to vote early next week on an economic stimulus package totaling at least $780 billion that President Barack Obama said is needed to prevent the economy from sinking into a deeper recession. Asian nations from China to Singapore and India have pledged more than $685 billion on their own spending programs.

The Obama administration is considering subjecting banks to a new test to determine whether they require fresh capital injections as part of a rescue plan to be unveiled by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner next week, people familiar with the matter said.

Governments should be ready for “full-fledged” intervention, acting quickly to sell or wind-up insolvent lenders, Strauss-Kahn said. While the European Central Bank, which left interest rates unchanged this week, may have more room to cut borrowing costs, such a policy may not be as important as restructuring the region’s banks, he said.

Borrowing Costs

“We’re probably not very far from the point where the question of interest rates is not the most important question,” Strauss-Kahn said. “Providing direct liquidity to the market, restructuring the banking sector, may have more influence on demand than interest rates.”

In Asia, “there’s still room for bigger stimulus packages,” the IMF official said. Malaysia, for example, may introduce a second stimulus package larger than November’s 7 billion-ringgit ($1.9 billion) plan, he said.

Developing Asia will probably expand 5.5 percent this year, the slowest pace since 1998, the IMF said in last month’s update of its World Economic Outlook report. The region may expand 6.9 percent next year, the fund forecasts.

Asian nations will need a recovery in the global economy before the region can exit a slowdown, the IMF said this month. Strauss-Kahn said today the fund’s forecast for a recovery to start in 2010 is “very uncertain.”

Demand for Loans

Demand for IMF loans is rising in nations suffering from weaker export sales, banking industry turmoil and deteriorating investor confidence. The organization has so far agreed to lend $47.9 billion to countries affected by the crisis, including Belarus, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Pakistan, Ukraine and Serbia.

Strauss-Kahn said he agreed with Poland that the eastern European nation isn’t in need of assistance from the fund now, but may require financial aid in the future.

The fund may collaborate with some countries to restore confidence, without necessarily providing immediate loans, the official said.

“Some need for precautionary arrangements may appear,” he said, without naming specific countries.

Critics of the fund say it’s failed to keep up with the pace of change as the worldwide recession deepens.

The IMF and similar institutions are “incapable” of coping with the global financial crisis, because their resources can’t keep up with demand, former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz said on Feb. 4.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has criticized the World Bank, IMF and World Trade Organization as anachronistic organizations that give no voice to emerging economies.

The IMF and the World Bank were set up at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference. The IMF was designed to prevent crises in the international monetary system and to provide financing to distressed countries.

Source / Bloomberg

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Lest We Forget the Beauty of the Actions We Take

Posted on February 14, 2009 by RagBlog

Embedded video from CNN Video
Sarah Palin Raises Over $1 Million for Planned Parenthood
By David Knowles / February 13, 2009

Via today’s Miami Herald comes a story that might be filed under “the law of unintended political consequences.” Way back in September, when Sarah Palin was campaigning alongside John McCain a curious anonymous e-mail started making the rounds. It urged women to donate to Planned Parenthood in Palin’s name. Here’s some video of Palin answering a reporter’s question yesterday on the windfall of donations she has unwittingly helped bring to Planned Parenthood.

And here’s the full text of the original e-mail:

Dear Friends:

We may have thought we wanted a woman on a national political ticket, but the joke has really been on us, hasn’t it? Are you as sick in your stomach as I am at the thought of Sarah Palin as Vice President of the United States?

Since Palin gave her speech accepting the Republican nomination for the Vice Presidency, Barack Obama’s campaign has raised over $10 million dollars. Some of you may already be supporting the Obama campaign financially; others of you may still be a little honked off over the primaries.

None of you, however, can be happy with Palin’s selection, especially on her positions on women’s issues. So, if you feel you can’t support the Obama campaign financially, may I suggest the following fiendishly brilliant alternative?

Make a donation to Planned Parenthood. In Sarah Palin’s name. And here’s the good part: when you make a donation to PP in her name, they’ll send her a card telling her that the donation has been made in her honor. Here’s the link to the Planned Parenthood website:

www.plannedparenthood.org

You’ll need to fill in the address to let PP know where to send the “in Sarah Palin’s honor” card. I suggest you use the address for the McCain campaign headquarters, which is:

McCain for President
1235 S. Clark Street
1st Floor
Arlington, VA. 22202

Feel free to send this along to all of your women friends and urge them to do the same.

Planned Parenthood has now raised over $1 million on a campaign they had no part in orchestrating. A true fund-raising windfall, I doubt the organization is complaining much about all those thank you cards it has had to send out to the Alaska Governor.

Source / America On Line

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Universal Health Care : Fighting Off the Republicans and the Ghost of Milton Friedman

Posted on February 14, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

The Republics show an almost religious devotion to the doctrine of economist Milton Friedman.

The fight for universal single-payer health care: where we stand

Obviously the Republican ideologues in the Senate are going to be an ongoing problem. Sen. Mitch McConnell gives off an aura of Tomas de Torquemada with a near religious dedication to the doctrine of Milton Friedman.

By Dr. Stephen R. Keister / The Rag Blog / February 13, 2009

For those readers who question from whence I come; I am an 87 year old retired physician who for the past 18 years, since my retirement, has been working for single payer/universal health care. My previous articles on this subject appear in earlier issues of The RagBlog. In view of recent circumstances I may be assuming the roll of a Cassandria; however, so be it.

Much of the attention regarding single payer/universal health care in recent months, by numerous dedicated organizations, has been focused on the House of Representatives and the recently reintroduced HR 676. I would urge all those dedicated to this important cause to contact your representative; however, before calling, writing or e-mailing, check opensecrets.org and ascertain the amount he/she has taken from the insurance, pharmaceutical, and related industries and make your Representative aware that these facts are known to you.

As I see the situation developing, the United States Senate is becoming the outstanding obstacle to achieving any single payer/universal health care legislation should it ever pass the House. Sen.Max Baucus (D) is the point man for any “health care” legislation in the Senate and he has made it abundantly clear that universal/single payer is not on the table. In reviewing Sen. Baucus’ contributors 2003-2008, he has received $591,235 from the insurance industry, $516,813 from the pharmaceutical industry, and $535,891 from “health professionals.” And this is just the beginning!

Obviously the Republican ideologues in the Senate are going to be an ongoing problem. Sen. Mitch McConnell gives off an aura of Tomas de Torquemada with a near religious dedication to the doctrine of Milton Friedman. To better understand this, let me review Friedman’s teachings in brief, with thanks to Naomi Klein in the “Shock Doctrine.”

“Friedman had plenty of specifics. Taxes. when they exist, should be low, and rich and poor should pay the same flat rate. Corporations should be free to sell their products anywhere in the world, and governments should make no effort to protect local industries or local ownership. All prices, including the price of labor, should be determined by the market. There should be no minimum wage. For privatization Friedman offered up health care, the post-office, retirement pensions, even national parks. In short, and quite unabashedly, he was calling for the breaking of the New Deal–that uneasy truce between the state, corporations, and labor that had prevented popular revolt after the Great Depression. What ever protections workers had managed to win, what ever services the state now provided to soften the edges of the market {Social Security and Medicare}, the Friedmanites counterrevolution wanted them back.

And it wanted more than that — it wanted to expropriate what workers and governments had built during those decades of public works. All this shared wealth should be transferred to private hands, on principle.”

Ronald Reagan subscribed totally to the Friedman doctrine; hence, the beginning of the slide into the Great Depression of 2008. One can understand then why, with “negotiations” in the Senate regarding The Stimulus Bill that many items were stripped away, or greatly diminished ,from the House Bill, i.e. health care aid, Medicaid for the
unemployed, aid to elderly or disabled or elderly programs, funding for The National Institutes of Health, funding for Centers For Disease Control, as well as University Research Facilities, and Water Resources.

Have no doubts about it, the well disciplined, jackbooted Republicans of the Senate are going to stand firm in support of the Teachings of Milton Friedman! They will oppose government sponsored health care without any reservations. The fact that the United States ranks #26 in health care worldwide will not shake their resolve.

What can we who want single payer universal health care, as a human right, do about it:

  • 1) We can get to work with our Senators asking for a change in the filibuster rule. THIS MAY BE CHANGED BY A SIMPLE MAJORITY VOTE, according to The Nation Magazine. There seems to be apprehension among the Democratic leadership to do so. This is a timid bunch and will require intense citizen pressure to make such a move.

  • 2) Perhaps we should look at the French model, as of several weeks ago, when over one million French Citizens took to the streets, throughout the cities of France, in PEACEFUL marches against the government inequities. This brought together unions, professionals, clerks, academics and students and, without violenc, got the president’s attention.

  • 3) WE must push both the House and Senate to do away with “Medicare Advantage Plans” and the absurd Medicare Prescription drug plans which the Bush administration put in place to reward the insurance industries and Pharma, and which are subtly depleting the Medicare Fund. Congress Must redo these laws.

  • 4) One should check the report of The Institute for America’s Future on Feb. 12, 2009, and become familiar with the current efforts of The Peterson Foundation to undermine the retirement and health security of millions of Americans. (The cover story in the current Nation Magazine alludes to this.)

  • 5) Contribute to Physicians For A National Health Program, California Nurses, or Public Citizen. I ask a lot in view of depleted IRAs or 401Ks!

  • 6) Beware of politicians who say “I support universal health care” or “health care for all.” This is code language for “I will back insurance company health care.” The correct answer is “I support single payer/universal health care” or I support HR 676. Do not feel sad about Sen. Daschle’s departure—he had close ties to the health insurance industry. And remember that Families USA, AARP, and the AMA are opposed to single payer care. The poorly written Massachusetts health care program is already beginning to demonstrate its inherent problems in using private insurance for a government program.

  • 7) Visit the website of Physicians For A national Health Program and inform your friends and family about this site.

Finally, those of you who live in Pennsylvania should contact your local legislator and urge support for House Bill HB 1660 and Senate Bill 300, and with public pressure the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania may be the first state to provide universal/single payer health care for all. The act is entitled The Family and Business Healthcare Security Act and Governor Rendell repeatedly said he will sign. According to a Quinnipac survey on May 1, 2008, 68% of Pennsylvanians support the movement.

I have perhaps a silly concern, but in view of the powerful financial interests behind the Friedman Doctrine and all it represents, when I hear President Obama speaking up for care for the poor, adequate health care, public works, the right to unionize, the name of Salvador Allende comes to mind. We already hear the right wing media calling him a “socialist” or, even worse, “a communist.” We must keep our reason and not be led astray by false prophets or fear mongers. Fascism, where it has developed, has always come in the guise of preventing socialism.

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Larry Ray : Rebublican Obstructionists Still Don’t Get It

Posted on February 13, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Graphic by Larry Ray / The Rag Blog.

Instead of thinking about America first and a looming, worsening recession, these Righteous Right-wingers are thinking mostly of themselves and their political futures.

By Larry Ray / The Rag Blog / February 12, 2009

On November 4th, 2008 Americans overwhelmingly said ENOUGH! Voters said they had had enough of penny-pinching, closed-minded conservatives trashing our economy and our worldwide reputation. Yet those very conservative paragons of parsimony still haven’t gotten the message: “No one wants to hear from you any more.”

The Republicans have been working overtime telling GOP Grim Fairy Tales about “their plan” to fix America’s problems. Problems their leadership actually caused. The “liberal media” they have loudly denounced for decades has opened the airwaves to feature the worst and loudest of the nay-saying tale tellers, day after day. Boehner’s braying, Vitter’s vitriol, Hutchinson’s hollering, Ensign’s exaggerations, and McCain’s moaning has created a dismal daily din.

The three Republican Senators who did vote to approve a desperately needed stimulus bill have been hailed as heroes for joining the Democrats and low-life kamikaze rejects by their GOP chamber-mates.

Instead of thinking about America first and a looming, worsening recession, these Righteous Right-wingers are thinking mostly of themselves and their political futures. They know that their “base” back home, as ultraconservative and ultra-narrow as they are, will not hesitate to poison the next primary when they come up for reelection. The rabid folks back home will pick a new, even more strident wing-nut candidate to run against them if they don’t toe the line and oppose anything that doesn’t start with the words tax-cut, tax-credit or tax-rebate.

“The House Republican Economic Recovery Plan,” posted on the web by the GOP, lists five steps they claim will actually move us up out of their mess without spending any money at all. It seems clear why serious recovery plan economic experts didn’t show any interest in hearing all this again:

  • “Immediate Tax Relief for Working Families.” “House Republicans propose reducing the lowest individual tax rates from 15% to 10% and from 10% to 5%.” No stimulus here. No plan for badly needed infusion of cash money. Instead a promised annual benefit of $500 in tax relief on the low end all the way to an astounding $1,200 under the 10% bracket. Non-working families are not mentioned. Maybe they will get a coupon for some boot-straps by which to pull themselves up.

  • “No Tax Increases to Pay For Spending.” “House Republicans believe that any stimulus spending should be paid for by reducing other government spending, not raising taxes.” The trillion dollar tooth fairy will visit America’s pillows, perhaps?

  • “Assistance for the Unemployed.” Here, they make a little bit sound like a lot, proposing “to make unemployment benefits tax free so that those individuals between jobs can focus on providing for their families.” And they will allow that largess for nine whole months, March to December 2009! What the hell else would we be focusing on while unemployed? Imagine the joy a year from now at tax time when you are still jobless but don’t have to pay taxes on jobless benefits for nine months of last year!

  • “Stabilizing Home Values.” “House Republicans propose a home-buyers credit of $7,500 for those buyers who can make a minimum down-payment of 5%.” That breathtaking plan would only be for “responsible buyers,” by the way. They say nothing about “responsible lenders.” Nothing about buying up all their buddies’ toxic sub-prime mortgages. That would involve spending taxpayer moolah.

  • “Help for America’s Small Businesses.” “House Republicans propose to allow small business to take a tax deduction equal to 20% of their income.” You bet . . . 20% of no income will yank shuttered small businesses right up out of this mess.

Nobel laureates, respected economists and lions of the financial world have characterized the present economic crisis as potentially as bad as the crash of 1929. All are clear that only massive quick infusions of cash from the U.S. Government can initiate a turn-around in the dangerous cycle of joblessness, tight credit, business failures and increasing human suffering across America. The private sector alone cannot pull it off without help, and repeating past mistakes like those made in Japan in the 1990’s clearly will not work either.

Republicans will continue shouting loudly that the experts are wrong, and that repeating Bush’s failed triple try at tax cuts will still, somehow, do the trick. They have to keep up the noise for the base back home. Pitifully, the rest of the Americans outside their home districts are of little concern to them because they will not be voting in their forthcoming primaries. And these bozos wear American flag pins in their lapels.

[Retired journalist Larry Ray is a Texas native and former Austin television news anchor. He also posts at The iHandbill.]

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Redeveloping the Brackenridge Tract in Austin: Maybe Not Such a Good Idea

Posted on February 13, 2009 by RagBlog

Austin Lion’s Municipal Golf Course on the Brackenridge Tract. Photos: Jana Birchum.

Hey, University of Texas Regents! You pinheads are making us mad!
By Mariann G. Wizard / The Rag Blog / February 12, 2009

Austin American-Statesman Outdoor columnist Mike Leggett writes about big mouth bass and white tail deer much of the time; about introducing youngsters to hunting and fishing; and sometimes just about the Texas outdoors in all its glory. I read his week-end column, and often clip it for my brother and nephew, avid fishermen who live near Lake Belton. A few months ago, Leggett was instrumental in exposing a $100,000 pseudo-scientific “study”, funded by the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife, on whether steel shot kills doves as well as lead shot; carried out by the novel method of having a big old no-limit dove hunt for TDPW employees the day before the season opened for regular folks.

Last Sunday, Leggett took on an even bigger foe, and an even bigger potential boondoggle: the University of Texas Board of Regent’s move to “redevelop” the Brackenridge Tract, 500 acres donated to UT in 1910 by Colonel George W. Brackenridge, a 25-year-plus Regent and philanthropist who, among other things, also donated the land for San Antonio’s enormous Brackenridge Park, all for “purposes of education and research”. Through the years, UT has established graduate student housing on the Tract and leased parts of it, while parts have become de facto City-owned public streets, a low water bridge, public boat dock, and so forth. Spring-fed Deep Eddy pool is part of the Tract.

Total acreage of the Tract has thus been reduced to 345 acres. At its heart lies the 88 acre Brackenridge Field Lab (BFL), on what is now prime West Austin riverfront (see map). BFL, established in 1962 at the request of UT’s Botany and Biology departments, is one of the few field research facilities in the nation located in an urban area but within easy reach of a university campus. Its important ongoing projects include fire ant research and the University’s vast entomology (bug) collection. It would not be feasible to relocate the wildlife and plant species living within its borders, and its destruction would be a senseless set-back to basic research in botany and biology.

Frank C. Erwin, Jr., arguably the most ambitious and far-seeing of modern Regents, emphasized Col. Brackenridge’s bottom line in a history of the Tract he presented to the Board in 1973. The Colonel’s bequest had been made “with the request only on [Brackenridge’s] part that [the land] never be disposed of but held permanently for… educational purpose.” In 1921, after Brackenridge’s pipedream of eventually moving UT’s main campus to the Tract was effectively squashed by the Legislature, the Texas Attorney General warned that Regents “should not sell nor attempt to sell any part of the Tract without seeking his prior opinion”. Shortly afterwards, part of the property was leased to the Austin Lions Club for creation of a golf course, a popular use for which it is still employed, although under City of Austin auspices, and the issue lay more-or-less fallow for 40 years — until Erwin’s day.


Repeatedly during the mid-1960s, Regents sought to get more out of the Tract, either in terms of student housing or in terms of income, and in 1967 the Texas Legislature obliged their good friend, Regents Chairman Erwin, by passing Senate Bill 211, authorizing the lease or sale of any portion of the Tract, apparently for any use whatsoever, with funds from such sale (or lease) to go towards land acquisition for expansion of the main “40 acres” campus.

But this didn’t prove immediately necessary, “thanks to the invaluable assistance of President Lyndon B. Johnson”. The University’s “involvement” in the University East and Brackenridge Urban Development Programs, more commonly known as “urban removal”, gutted several lovely, student-affordable, family-friendly, integrated and/or primarily minority neighborhoods east of UT from Speedway to IH 35 and beyond, and south between 21st and 15th Streets (towards Brackenridge Hospital, also donated by the Col.) to make room for Erwin & Co’s megalomaniacal vision of accommodating, on one giga-campus, every high school graduate who could pay the rising tuition costs. Veteran Rag aficionados will recall that Erwin personally led bulldozers to destroy the lovely old oaks along Waller Creek in 1969, in pursuit of his expansionist agenda, calling students who climbed the trees to try to save them “a bunch of dirty nothin’s”. His was not the voice of reason that kept students from being bulldozed, along with the ancient trees, that sad day. Now, where public schools, parks, and neat frame houses with pretty yards once thrived, an endless expanse of University athletic “facilities” and parking lots blends seamlessly with the soulless Capitol-state office complex and still nibbles away at beleaguered East Austin.

In December, 2007, UT Regents approved a motion to retain a master planner to conceptualize redevelopment plans for the west Austin Brackenridge Tract. Their decision has generated considerable heat from various interest groups and constituencies, and even a public hearing or two hosted by impotent City officials, but nothing, so far, that seems likely to slow the development train, unless it might be general economic ruin.

Among all of the many already-valuable, well-utilized, highly-prized resources that have grown up within and around Col. Brackenridge’s gift, Mike Leggett is particularly steamed about the potential loss of BFL, calling it, in language infrequently seen in Austin’s daily paper, “unbridled pinheadism”. In response to an encouraging e-mail from Your Humble Correspondent, he said he’s had a lot of positive responses to the article, and that “we’ll see” if it has any effect.

If the long-lost trees of Waller Creek are any indication, those who value BFL need to speak up now, speak up loud, speak up not just to say “Right on!” to Mike but “Stop the plunder!” to UT’s rulers — and maybe shine up their tree-climbin’ spikes. Otherwise, West Austinites will soon get a taste of the “gentrification” that has already blighted everything within reach of UT’s high-rollers — and everyone in town, including future generations of UT and other students, will be the poorer for it.

(By the way, Leggett’s story mentions that friends have told him he’s been “writing angry” lately, and he’s trying to tone it down. Au contraire, brother, keep it coming!)

The Rag Blog

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