The Rag Blog

When Will Spitzer Finally Pull Out?
by Ward Harkavy / Village Voice / March 10, 2008

Will Eliot Spitzer resign in time for this evening’s network newscasts? I wouldn’t if I were him. I’d wait until right afterwards, so that my smiling face wouldn’t appear simultaneously on every TV set in the Western world.

This is not New York provincialism. Spitzer is practically the most prominent and powerful Democrat in a huge state — Hillary Clinton’s state, Wall Street’s state, the state of millions of Democrats.

Spitzer’s boner really sticks out, even in this day and age. He didn’t just get some on the side. He violated the law, if the federal complaint and published reports are true.

Yes, it will be more important to the country when Citigroup finally collapses. That will be a real disaster.

Still, there’s some meat to this Spitzer thing. In any case, the way it went down was a case of exquisite timing, coming on the heels of last night’s final episode of HBO’s The Wire.

My buddy and former colleague Adamma Ince just texted me:

Looks like Lester got Spitzer on the wire too.

She’s referring to Lester Freamon, the ace detective on that ace investigative entertainment series about political corruption. Lester, adept at tapping and taping politicians, lawyers, and drug dealers, was the shining cop of all “murder police” on that instantly legendary series.

Judging from the complaint that apparently involves Spitzer, there was some pretty good bugging going on against him too.

Lost in the babble over the Spitzer story are the dubious prostitution laws. Why exactly is prostitution criminalized? However, it is, and Spitzer just got finished with a long stint as attorney general, where he hounded others for breaking laws. And now he’s governor.

Is he just another Democrat who can’t keep his dick in his pants? Well, this situation is a lot worse than any sexual escapade of Bill Clinton’s. Spitzer hooked up with a hooker operation, if the federal complaint against him is accurate. And so he violated the Mann Act and other laws. How stupid is that?

Clinton, on the other hand, violated little more than Monica Lewinsky — and she would have paid him to have sex with her.

At least New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey had an excuse for playing around: He was a closeted gay. Yes, he did give his boyfriend a government job, but at least he didn’t break any federal laws, at least that we know of.

McGreevey finally came out and said, “I’m a gay American.”

Spitzer can only say, “I’m a laid American.”

Big deal. But why in the world would Spitzer use an escort service? They all keep records, and there’s plenty of free stuff out there for pols. JFK didn’t write a check to Marilyn Monroe, did he?

Spitzer must have really needed a pro to get his kink on — not that there’s anything wrong with that.

And if the federal complaint is true.

In the end, Spitzer appears to be — based on what we know now, which could change any second — not only stupid but also hypocritical.

All over New York, sad-sack whores and chickenheads are being busted, and he doesn’t give a damn what happens to them. Not content with our state’s offerings, the governor of New York goes to D.C. to feast on some high-priced spread. At least that’s what the federal complaint says, if Spitzer is indeed who the feds are calling “Client-9.”

Spitzer’s resignation won’t erase that blow to our tourism industry.

Let’s hope the next governor doesn’t go out of state to get his ashes hauled. If you can’t keep it in your pants, at least keep it in New York.

Spitzer Said to Leave Deposits with Hookers

New York City is ablaze right now in the wake of Governor Eliot Spitzer’s self-confessed link to prostitutes.

Details are numerous, but at the same time they’re hazy. The New York Times broke the story today, but the brothel operation Spitzer allegedly was hooked up was the Emperors’ Club, apparently in D.C., and it was the target of a federal complaint filed last week in New York’s Southern District.

Spitzer apologized mostly to himself in a hasty, brief press conference this afternoon. The 47-page criminal complaint is much juicier, if press reports are to be believed that Spitzer is who the complaint calls “Client-9.”

Hell, Spitzer even set up a tryst just before Valentine’s Day, if the complaint is to be believed.

Also from the complaint: “Client-9” left generous deposits with the hooker operation — no, not that kind, but the ones that ensure that you will leave that kind at some subsequent point.The governor is even quoted, again if you believe that he was indeed Client-9. From the complaint:
Lewis [one of the defendants, Temeka Rachelle Lewis, a k a “Rachelle] asked Client-9 what time he was expecting to have the appointment. Client-9 told Lewis maybe 10 p.m. or so, and asked who it was. Lewis said it was “Kristen,” and Client-9 said, “Great, OK, wonderful.”

It was at that point, the complaint says, that Client-9 haggled over how big a deposit to leave so that he could continue to make regular deposits.

Spitzer’s confessional confab with reporters wasn’t much. But this governor who has railed against moral turpitude will no doubt have to answer many more questions.

To which you can only say: T.S., Eliot.

— Ward Harkavy

Source.

And all the skinny on The Emperor’s Club at The Smoking Gun.

From Jim Baldauf / The Rag Blog

Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan

Winter Soldier Hearings
By Aaron Glantz

10/03/08 “ICH” — – Get ready for the horrible, honest reality of the American occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan like you haven’t heard it before. For four days, from March 13 through March 16, hundreds of U.S. veterans of the two wars will descend on Washington and testify in the “Winter Soldier” hearings about what they really did while they were serving their country in Iraq. And their experiences aren’t pretty.

The event is inspired by the Winter Solider tribunal held in 1971 by Vietnam War vets, including John Kerry. The name comes from a quote from Thomas Paine, the revolutionary who rallied George Washington’s troops at Valley Forge, saying: “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

Paine was trying to keep Washington’s army from deserting in the face of a bitter winter and mounting defeats at the hands of the British. Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War say the same type of courage is needed to confront the evils unleashed by the U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lawless Atmosphere

“The problem that we face in Iraq is that policymakers in leadership have set a precedent of lawlessness where we don’t abide by the rule of law, we don’t respect international treaties, argued former U.S. Army Sergeant Logan Laituri, who served a tour in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 before being discharged as a conscientious objector. “So when that atmosphere exists it lends itself to criminal activity.”

Laituri explained that precedent of lawlessness makes itself felt in the rules of engagement handed down by commanders to soldiers on the front lines. When he was stationed in Samarra, for example, he said one of his fellow soldiers shot an unarmed man while he walked down the street.

“The problem is that that soldier was not committing a crime as you might call it because the rules of engagement were very clear that no one was supposed to be walking down the street,” Laituri said. “But I have a problem with that. You can’t tell a family to leave everything they know so you can bomb the shit out of their house or their city. So while he definitely has protection under the law, I don’t think that legitimates that type of violence.”

Not Just Numbers

Aaron Hughes, a former member of the Illinois National Guard who spent a year running convoys in Iraq, is getting involved too. “We’re trying to create a space for veterans to speak out and change the rhetoric around the war,” he said. “There are human beings on both sides. There are not just numbers. That’s what missing in our culture.”

Hughes grew up in a basement apartment in Chicago and joined the National Guard when he saw how successfully it provided relief during heavy flooding on the Mississippi River.

But after being sent to Iraq, he came to see the military in a different way. An art student at the University of Illinois at the time he was called up, Hughes went back over the photos he took while deployed in Iraq and altered them in an “attempt to interpret the posture assumed as a soldier/tourist in the surreal space of Iraq.” Hughes’ work was been shown at the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum in Chicago.

“I think it’s wrong, looking back at it,” he said. “How can you not perceive it as a step away from your humanity? They automatically start isolating you. They tell you your girlfriend or your husband is not going to be there. They tell you not to trust anyone but the military and they really start fostering that as your sole relationship in life.”

Equally Criminal Wars

The veterans also want to stress the similarities between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The exact same units that are getting the exact same training and the exact same orders are getting sent to both Iraq and Afghanistan,” explained Perry O’Brien, a former U.S. Army Medic who became a conscientious objector after his tour in Afghanistan. “What we’re seeing is a lot of similarities between practices in both countries and both are equally criminal.”

O’Brien even witnessed the abuse of dead bodies during his tour. “When a patient would die, we would hear over the PA system an announcement through the clinic saying ‘Who wants to learn how to do a chest tube?’ or ‘Who wants to know what a human heart looks like?,’” he said. “Rather than giving the proper treatment of the dead, the body would become a cadaver for medical practice with no consent from the victim.”

Read all of it here.

Non-negotiable positions are an excuse to not negotiate at all. The Israelis are the beneficiaries of the status quo as they steadily entrench their hold on prime areas of the West Bank. And it is the Israelis and their American enablers who have been the principal obstructionists to negotiations that might lead to a fair resolution.

The expansion of the Israeli settlement at this moment, regardless of its location, is a political move intended to undermine the negotiations now in progress. So was the “targeted liquidation” of five senior Hamas militants inside the Gaza Strip on March 1st that started the latest round of violence.

David Hamilton / The Rag Blog

The Five-Day War in Gaza
By Uri Avnery / CounterPunch / March 10, 2008

I was reminded this week of the old tale about a Jewish mother taking leave of her son, who has been called up to serve in the Czar’s army against the Turks.

“Don’t exert yourself too much,” she admonishes him, “Kill a Turk and rest. Kill another Turk and rest again…”

“But mother,” he exclaims, “What if the Turk kills me?”

“Kill you?” she cries out, “Why? What have you done to him?”

This is not a joke (and this is not a week for jokes). It is a lesson in psychology. I was reminded of it when I read Ehud Olmert’s statement that more than anything else he was furious about the outburst of joy in Gaza after the attack in Jerusalem, in which eight yeshiva students were killed.

Before that, last weekend, the Israeli army killed 120 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, half of them civilians, among them dozens of children. That was not “kill a Turk and rest”. That was “kill a hundred Turks and rest”. But Olmert does not understand.

The Five-Day war in Gaza (as a Hamas leader called it) was but another short chapter in the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. This bloody monster is never satisfied; its appetite just grows with the eating.

This chapter started with the “targeted liquidation” of five senior militants inside the Gaza Strip. The “response” was a salvo of rockets, and this time not only on Sderot, but also on Ashkelon and Netivot. The “response” to the “response” was the army’s incursion and the wholesale killing.

The stated aim was, as always, to stop the launching of the rockets. The means: killing a maximum of Palestinians, in order to teach them a lesson. The decision was based on the traditional Israeli concept: hit the civilian population again and again, until it overthrows its leaders. This has been tried hundreds of times and has failed hundreds of times.

As if an example for the folly of the propagators of this concept had been lacking, it was provided on TV by ex-general Matan Vilnai, when he said that the Palestinians are “bringing a Shoah on themselves”. The Hebrew word Shoah is known all over the world, where it has one clear meaning: the Holocaust carried out by the Nazis against the Jews. Vilnai’s utterance spread like a bushfire throughout the Arab world and set off a shock wave. I, too, received dozens of phone calls and e-mail messages from all over the world. How to convince people that in day-to-day Hebrew usage, Shoah means “only” a great disaster, and that General Vilnai, a former candidate for Chief of Staff, is not the most intelligent of people?

Some years ago, President Bush called for a “Crusade” against terrorism. He had no idea that for hundreds of millions of Arabs, the word “Crusade” brings to mind one of the biggest crimes in human history, the appalling massacre committed by the original crusaders against the Muslims (and Jews) in the alleys of Jerusalem. In an intelligence contest between Bush and Vilnai, the outcome, if any, would be in doubt.

Vilnai does not understand what the word “Shoah” means to others, and Olmert does not understand why there is rejoicing in Gaza after the attack on the yeshiva in Jerusalem. Wise men like these direct the state, the government and the army. Wise men like these control public opinion through the media. What is common to all of them: blunted sensibilities to the feelings of anybody who is not Jewish/Israeli. From this springs their inability to understand the psychology of the other side, and hence the consequences of their own words and actions.

This is also expressed in the inability to understand why the Hamas people claimed victory in the Five-Day War. What victory? After all, only two Israeli soldiers and one Israeli civilian were killed, as against 120 Palestinian dead, both fighters and civilians.

But this battle was fought between one of the strongest armies in the world, equipped with the most modern arms on earth, and a few thousand irregulars with primitive arms. If the battle ended in a draw – and such a battle always ends in a draw – this is a great victory for the weak side. In Lebanon War II and in the Gaza war.

(Binyamin Netanyahu made one of the most stupid statements this week, when he demanded that “the Israeli army must move from attrition to decision”. In a struggle like this, there never is a decision.)

The real effect of such an operation is not expressed in material and quantitative facts: so-and-so many dead, so-and-so many injured, so-and-so much destroyed. It is expressed in psychological results that cannot be measured, and therefore are inaccessible to the minds of generals: how much hatred has been added to the seething pool, how many new potential suicide bombers were produced, how many people vowed revenge and became ticking bombs – like the Jerusalem youngster, who woke up one bright morning this week, got himself a weapon, went to the Mercaz Harav yeshiva, the mother of all settlements, and killed as many as he could.

Now the political and military leadership of Israel sits down to discuss what to do, how to “respond”. No new idea has come up or will come up, because not one of these politicians and generals is able to bring up a new idea. They can only go back to the hundred things they have already done, and that have failed a hundred times.

The first step on the way out of this madness is the readiness to question all our concepts and methods of the last 60 years and start thinking again, right from the beginning.

That is always hard. That is even harder for us, because our leadership has no freedom of thought – its thinking is very closely tied to the thinking of the American leadership.

This week, a shocking document was published: David Rose’s article in Vanity Fair. It describes how US officials have in recent years dictated every single step of the Palestinian leadership, down to the most minute detail. Though the article does not touch the Israeli-American relationship (in itself a surprising omission) it goes without saying that the American course, including the smallest items, is coordinated with the Israeli government.

Why shocking? These things were already known, in general terms. In this respect, that article held no surprises: (a) The Americans ordered Mahmoud Abbas to hold parliamentary elections, in order to present Bush as bringing democracy to the Middle East. (b) Hamas won a surprise victory. (c) The Americans imposed a boycott on the Palestinians, in order to nullify the election results. (d) Abbas diverted for a moment from the policy dictated to him and, under Saudi auspices (and pressure), made an agreement with Hamas, (e) The Americans put an end to this and compelled Abbas to turn over all security services to Muhammad Dahlan, whom they had chosen for the role of strongman in Palestine, (f) The Americans provided plenty of money and arms to Dahlan, trained his men and ordered him to carry out a military coup against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, (g) The elected Hamas government forestalled the move and itself carried out an armed counter-coup.

All this was known before. What is new is that the mixture of news, rumors and intelligent guesses has now condensed into an authoritative, well substantiated report, based on official US documents. It testifies to the abysmal American ignorance, which trumps even Israeli ignorance, of the internal Palestinian processes.

George Bush, Condoleezza Rice, the Zionist neocon Elliott Abrams and the assortment of American generals innocent of any knowledge are competing with Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni, Ehud Barak and our own assorted generals, whose understanding reaches as far as the end of the gun barrels of their tanks.

The Americans have in the meantime destroyed Dahlan by exposing him publicly as their agent, on the lines of “he’s a son-of-a-bitch, but he is our son-of-a-bitch”. This week Condoleezza dealt a mortal blow to Abbas, too. He had announced in the morning that he was suspending the (meaningless) peace negotiations with Israel, the very minimum he could do in response to the Gaza atrocities. Rice, who received the news while she was having breakfast in the exciting company of Livni, immediately called Abbas and ordered him to cancel his announcement. Abbas gave in, thus exposing himself to his people in all his nakedness.

Logic was not given to the People of Israel on Mount Sinai, but handed down from Mount Olympus to the ancient Greeks. In spite of this drawback, let us try to apply it.

What is our government trying to achieve in Gaza? It wants to topple Hamas rule (and incidentally also put an end to the launching of rockets against Israel).

It tried to achieve this by imposing a total blockade on the population, hoping that they would rise up and overthrow Hamas. This failed. The alternative course is to re-occupy the entire Strip. That would carry a high price in lives of soldiers, perhaps more than the Israeli public is ready to pay. Also, it will not help, because Hamas will return the moment the Israeli troops withdraw. (In accordance with Mao Zedong’s first rule for guerrillas: “When the enemy advances, withdraw. When the enemy withdraws, advance.”)

The only result of the Five-Day War is the strengthening of Hamas and the rallying of the Palestinian people behind it – not just in the Gaza Strip, but in the West Bank and Jerusalem, too. Their victory celebration was justified. The launching of rockets did not stop. The range of the rockets is increasing.

But let us assume that this policy had succeeded and that Hamas had been broken. What then? Abbas and Dahlan could return only on top of Israeli tanks, as subcontractors of the occupation. No insurance company would cover their lives. And if they did not come back, there would be chaos, out of which extreme forces would emerge the like of which we cannot even imagine.

Conclusion: Hamas is there. It cannot be ignored. We have to reach a cease-fire with it. Not a sham offer of “if they stop shooting first, then we will stop shooting”. A cease-fire, like a tango, needs two participants. It must come out of a detailed agreement that will include the cessation of all hostilities, armed and otherwise, in all the territories.

The cease-fire will not hold if it is not accompanied by speeded-up negotiations for a long-term armistice (hudna) and peace. Such negotiations cannot be held with Fatah and not Hamas, nor with Hamas and not Fatah. Therefore, what is needed is a Palestinian government that includes both movements. It must bring in personalities who enjoy the confidence of the entire Palestinian people, such as Marwan Barghouti.

That is the very opposite of the present Israeli-American policy, which forbids Abbas even to talk with Hamas. In all the Israeli leadership, as in all the American leadership, there is no one who dares to spell this out openly. Therefore, what has been is what will be.

We will kill a hundred Turks and rest. And from time to time, a Turk will come and kill some of us.

Why, for God’s sake? What have we done to them?

Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to The Politics of Anti-Semitism.

Source.

The gentleman pictured above has taken offense to characterization of Hillary as a monster.

Source.

Germany, The Re-engineered Ally: Readiness For Endless War
By Axel Brot

Part 1

08/08/07 “Asia Times” — – Not so many years ago, many hoped Europe might step up as a counterweight to US imperial policies. Such hopes were focused in particular on Germany – not only as the leading European power, but as a known moderating, non-military force in international politics.

US vituperation of the reputed European preference for diplomacy and peaceful conflict resolution as well as official Britain, in the person of Richard Cooper, former prime minister Tony Blair’s international-relations guru, deemed it necessary to lecture “post-industrial Europe” about the need for “double standards” and colonial ruthlessness to beat down benighted non-Westerners, seemed to give substance to these hopes.

Well, Germany and the European Union did step up – but rather differently than expected. And it was no electoral twitch that set the stage for “better be wrong with the United States than being right against it”. Since Angela Merkel’s visit to Washington (as the conservative opposition leader) on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq, to denounce then-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s decision to oppose the war, the return to US good graces was not only the main conservative foreign-policy project; it turned rapidly into the supreme project of the German political class – including the Social Democrats.

Merkel became the chancellor-to-go-to, the most trusted European interlocutor for the US political class to work jointly and determinedly to harden US global hegemony against the consequences of America’s Iraq-inflicted weakness – this not only in the wider Middle East but also, and especially, with regard to Russia and China, the Bush administration’s original enemy of choice before the “birth pangs of a new Middle East” consumed so much of its political capital.

Overcoming the domestic constraints on its ability to use the German army more extensively for “humanitarian interventions”, for the defense of “Western civilization” against Islamist terrorism, is an important, though not the most important, part of the Merkel government’s “the West united behind the US” policy. Notwithstanding the absence of public debate on its strategic implications – eg, of the US (and Israeli) doctrine of preventive war, the abolition of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s geographical restrictions, the mission of “securing access to raw materials” – the rejection on general principles of a more activist military role by a majority of Germans has not (yet) been overcome.

This has far-reaching consequences: it has, in a significant way, rebooted German elite attitudes and expectations toward the EU, and toward Germany’s relationship with France. The public discourse about foreign policy as well as the underlying elite mindset is changing – from “responsibly conservative” to the channeling of the demons Hannah Arendt dealt with in her search for the origins of 20th-century disorder: (British) imperialism, Western militarism and racism. And since the majority of Germans is (again) far behind the curve of elite opinion, the efforts of “re-educating” them (as Der Spiegel recently demanded again) are as consistently strident as they are mythologizing.

But there are also quite a number of senior officials and politicians, still serving or retired, who are looking with dismay or worry at the evolution of German policies in response to the crisis of US-German relations. Their publicly voiced concerns are focused on the expansion of German military commitments – of the easy to get into, but next to impossible to get out of sort – and the rapid deterioration of relations with Russia.

In addition, among the small number of senior experts on international economics, a majority are looking with deep foreboding at the mounting instabilities of the international financial system. They see them driven by the huge trade imbalances of the US and the growing threat to leverage them against the creditor nations – in particular against China, Russia, and the members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries that are running large surpluses.

The US congressionally mandated financial sanctions against such countries as Iran, Syria, Cuba and North Korea are taken, moreover, as indicators that the United States is about to destroy the trust the international financial system is based upon. The consequences of its eventual – sooner rather than later – meltdown will be dramatic and uncontrollable.

These warning voices are, though, in the wings of the German debate. The stage is held by the narrative of the terrorist menace. But there are very few serious experts who sincerely believe that Islamist terrorism is motivated by their hate for “Western freedoms and values”. Hate and the desire for revenge are certainly crucial elements; but this has not much to do with Western culture or with the alleged humiliating realization of Muslim inferiority.

If one should be looking for causes, the decades of violence the West visited upon these countries, either directly or through its dependent regimes, is a necessary part of the explanation. The other part, of course, would have to face the fact that it was the West that transformed weak and isolated fundamentalist cells into its terrorist Golem. It nurtured, trained, financed, organized and used it for decades in terror campaigns against secular nationalist and socialist regimes and movements until those were defeated or isolated, leaving their compromised remnants to do the Western bidding.

Though Germany was not in the forefront of Middle East meddling, it was fully engaged in creating and empowering a Wahhabi-Salafist coalition to fight the Soviets and the communist regime in Afghanistan – the central front in the global anti-communist offensive that appeared to have turned terrorism on three continents into the Western weapon of choice.

And for the Middle East this still seems to be the case. It is seen in the Western use of Sunni terror groups (and the anti-Iranian-government Mujahadeen-e-Khalq, as well as the Iranian sister organization of the Kurdistan Workers Party) against Iran, and against the ascendent Shi’ites in Lebanon.

But the mythologization of al-Qaeda and the “clash (in German, war) of civilizations” serves to legitimize the readiness for endless war. In the words of a retired German official: “We have been walking the world over the cliff, and are falling into a sea of blood.”

All of this does not only involve ideological re-rigging. In the US wake, Germany is running up the pennant of permanent war. The following should serve to provide a view into some of its particulars.

Read all of it, with a link to Part 2, here.

Iraqis Protest in Basra Over Security
By BUSHRA JUHI

BAGHDAD (AP) — Thousands of people took to the streets Saturday in Basra, protesting deteriorating security in the southern city where Iraqi forces assumed responsibility for safety last December.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military said that Iraqi security forces had discovered a mass grave in Diyala province containing perhaps 100 bodies. Also Saturday, two separate bombings in the province northeast of Baghdad left six people dead.

In Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city and the urban center of an oil-rich region, Shiite groups have been wrestling for control.

Residents are becoming increasingly alarmed, saying that killings, kidnappings and other crimes have increased significantly since British forces turned over responsibility for Basra at the end of last year.

In February, two journalists working for CBS were kidnapped in the city. One was released but the other, a Briton, is still being held.

As many as 5,000 people demonstrated near the Basra police command headquarters Saturday, demanding that the police chief, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Jalil Khalaf, and the commander of joint military-police operation, Lt. Gen. Mohan al-Fireji, resign.

Many carried banners, decrying the killing of women, workers, academics and scientists. Dozens of women were slain in Basra by religious extremists last year because of how they dressed, their mutilated bodies found with notes warning against “violating Islamic teachings.”

Saturday’s protesters, overwhelmingly men, came from several Shiite political movements, including the biggest Shiite party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and its militia wing, known as the Badr Brigade.

Khalaf said at a news conference later that “today’s demonstration was a natural right of the citizens and the political parties to express their opinions.”

He defended the performance of the police, saying they had freed 10 people who were kidnapped in the past 10 days and “detained 64 people accused of carrying out sabotage and terrorist operations all over Basra.”

Read it here.

Pharmaceuticals Found in Drinking Water
AP, Posted: 2008-03-09 15:40:51

A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.

But the presence of so many prescription drugs — and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen — in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health.

In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas — from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky.

Water providers rarely disclose results of pharmaceutical screenings, unless pressed, the AP found. For example, the head of a group representing major California suppliers said the public “doesn’t know how to interpret the information” and might be unduly alarmed.

How do the drugs get into the water?

People take pills. Their bodies absorb some of the medication, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet. The wastewater is treated before it is discharged into reservoirs, rivers or lakes. Then, some of the water is cleansed again at drinking water treatment plants and piped to consumers. But most treatments do not remove all drug residue.

And while researchers do not yet understand the exact risks from decades of persistent exposure to random combinations of low levels of pharmaceuticals, recent studies — which have gone virtually unnoticed by the general public — have found alarming effects on human cells and wildlife.

“We recognize it is a growing concern and we’re taking it very seriously,” said Benjamin H. Grumbles, assistant administrator for water at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Members of the AP National Investigative Team reviewed hundreds of scientific reports, analyzed federal drinking water databases, visited environmental study sites and treatment plants and interviewed more than 230 officials, academics and scientists. They also surveyed the nation’s 50 largest cities and a dozen other major water providers, as well as smaller community water providers in all 50 states.

Here are some of the key test results obtained by the AP:

–Officials in Philadelphia said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems. Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city’s watersheds.

–Anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications were detected in a portion of the treated drinking water for 18.5 million people in Southern California.

–Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed a Passaic Valley Water Commission drinking water treatment plant, which serves 850,000 people in Northern New Jersey, and found a metabolized angina medicine and the mood-stabilizing carbamazepine in drinking water.

–A sex hormone was detected in San Francisco’s drinking water.

–The drinking water for Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas tested positive for six pharmaceuticals.

–Three medications, including an antibiotic, were found in drinking water supplied to Tucson, Ariz.

The situation is undoubtedly worse than suggested by the positive test results in the major population centers documented by the AP.

The federal government doesn’t require any testing and hasn’t set safety limits for drugs in water. Of the 62 major water providers contacted, the drinking water for only 28 was tested. Among the 34 that haven’t: Houston, Chicago, Miami, Baltimore, Phoenix, Boston and New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection, which delivers water to 9 million people.

Some providers screen only for one or two pharmaceuticals, leaving open the possibility that others are present.

Read all of it here.

sharon roos with basquiat graffiti / Stephanie Chernikowski / The Rag Blog

Sissy Farenthold, image from Texas Legacy Project.

Houston’s Farenthold wins ACLU honor
By MELISSA LUDWIG / San Antonio Express News / March 8, 2006

Trailblazers and hell raisers.

That may be the best way to describe Molly Ivins and Frances “Sissy” Farenthold, two women honored Saturday night at a gala toasting the 70th anniversary of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas in downtown San Antonio.

Farenthold, 81, received the first Molly Ivins Lifetime Achievement Award, created to honor the spitfire Texas columnist who died last year.

“I am humbled because I know there are so many people who are worthy of it, and especially because it is in memory of Molly. To be associated, even in that way, is very moving to me,” Farenthold said.

Farenthold was the first woman to be a serious nominee for vice president at the 1972 Democratic National Convention. Before that, she served with Barbara Jordan as one of two women in the Texas legislature, and was part of the so-called “Dirty 30,” a group of lawmakers who rebelled against corruption in the speaker’s office. She went on to serve as president of Wells College in Aurora, New York and as a human rights observer in Central America.

Farenthold lives in Houston, where she has chaired the board of the Rothko Chapel and lobbies for civil rights and other causes.

“She really is a historic figure, not just for the women’s movement and for ACLU causes,” said Barbara Ann Radnofsky, who presented the award. Radnofsky is the first woman to have won the Democratic nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas in 2006, though she ultimately lost the race.

Farenthold too lost her 1972 bid for vice president, but the fact that she was even nominated will put her in the history books, Radnofsky said.

“It was one of the times where everybody looked around and said, ‘This is huge barrier that has been broken,'” Radnofsky said.

The anniversary gala landed on International Women’s Day, which the ACLU staff considered a happy coincidence.

Earlier on Saturday, about 500 people, mostly women and children, gathered downtown and marched from Travis Park to Milam Park to mark the event. Many carried signs speaking out on issues of the day, including immigration, domestic violence, nuclear power, war and education.

Both the march and the gala paid tribute to Emma Tenayuca, who in 1938 rallied thousands of pecan shellers in San Antonio to protest a wage cut, a movement that led to the founding of the Texas Civil Liberties Union.

Maria Berriozabal, a former San Antonio city councilwoman who is part of the San Antonio Free Speech Coalition, said it was a triumph the march even took place.

Two weeks ago, Berriozabal’s coalition won a court injunction against the city, which wanted to charge organizers for traffic control and cleanup costs. The coalition argued that the steep fees were an impediment to free speech rights. A trial is scheduled for October.

“The city acted wrongly in asking people to pay to demonstrate as we are today, so that’s one great victory we’re celebrating,” Berriozabal said. “Another one is simply women throughout the ages, courageous women who each in their own time who have stood up for themselves, for their families and for their communities especially Emma Tenayuca.”

Terri Burke, director of ACLU of Texas, said San Antonio was the perfect setting for the gala.

Source.

International Working Women’s Day

Another year! The condition of women has not advanced, but the illusionist want women to see it that way. Specifically in the field of politics. A woman running for president, and not just any woman but a bourgeois woman. Women must stay true to their class, class background, and to maintain their class stand. Don’t be fooled. Here in Colombia there was a massive demo in Bogota against “the war” – women made up the largest part of the 200,000. I watched from my hotel room 29 stories up. In every war women bear most of the suffering, losing their children, the greatest of tragedies Keep in mind the sisters and mothers of Iraq, and Afghanistan, who feel the daily sting of the imperialist boot heel. Choose your rock today and bide your time, the time is near when you will find your chance to deploy it in the name of all the sisters of our class.

And yes, one more for me. 68 in a row.

Make this a happy day, a day of communion with and among the sisters of the world.

Richard Lee from Colombia / for The Rag Blog

The Cindy Sheehan Doctrine
by Cindy Sheehan / March 6th, 2008

One early morning, exactly five weeks after Casey was killed, I was awakened by a disturbing dream. Casey’s father, Patrick and I had traveled to Santa Barbara for Mother’s Day that year to visit the Arlington West exhibit sponsored by the Santa Barbara chapter of Veteran’s for Peace. This was when we still believed that that our marriage was not going to be a casualty of the illegal and immoral travesty of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

After the initial shock of having a cherished part of me violently torn away, the story that the Army told us about Casey’s death did not ring true. When a former-Lieutenant of Casey’s called a few days after his death to express his condolences, Patrick asked him the question that had been on all of our minds: “Casey was a mechanic, what was he doing in combat?” The Lt. replied: “Didn’t you know, Casey volunteered.” That story about Casey “volunteering” never sat right with me. It did not resonate with Casey’s Chaplain heart, his reluctance to go to Iraq in the first place, and his vow before he left that he would not “kill anyone” because he could not. Then to put the icing on the cake baked with lies, when the Lt. and one of Casey’s Sergeants came to his funeral, they told us what a great mechanic Casey was.

This lie was the one that I found so hard to swallow. Casey joined the Army to be a Chaplain’s Assistant and when he reported to boot camp in September of 2000, he was told that specialty was “full” and he would have to be a “cook or a humvee mechanic.” Casey picked the specialty that was the least abhorrent to him, but he didn’t like it. When the Lt. and Sgt. told me that he was a “great mechanic,” I said: “Really, he didn’t even know how to change his own oil.” This was just a small matter, but if the two soldiers would lie about a simple thing like Casey’s job to try and do damage control, then they would lie about how he died, too.

Like I said, Casey had been dead for exactly five weeks on that early Mother’s Day morning in 2004, and I hadn’t dreamed about him yet. In the first dream, I was at an outdoor amphitheater looking at the stage and I heard a booming voice over the loudspeakers say: “Specialist Casey Sheehan.” I looked up, surprised and overjoyed that he was alive. Casey walked out on stage with a can of Diet 7-up in one hand and an M-16 in the other. He was wearing briefs and nothing else. He nonchalantly put his rifle in his mouth and pulled the trigger. I collapsed on the ground screaming: “The Army made Casey kill himself.” I awakened from the dream and instantly there was an earthquake in Santa Barbara that shook our hotel room.

Of course, the dream fueled my suspicions that the story the Army told us was not true. Since Casey’s death, we have heard so many stories.

About six months after Casey died, one of his “buddies” came to visit. He said that Casey volunteered for the mission, and he said: “Sheehan you don’t have to go.” Casey said: “Where my Sgt. goes, I go.” Then this Sgt. claimed that Casey died in his arms. A year later, the medic who held Casey’s brains in his head said he was alive when he got to the medic station; the doctor who tried to keep him alive confirmed that story independently from the medic.

I spoke to two un-embedded journalists who told me that Casey’s unit, the First Cavalry, was on a “search and destroy” mission and after Casey was killed in the ambush, they went driving through Sadr City slaughtering anything that moved and strafing apartment buildings in the Shi’a slum that was built for three million people but contained ten million. Martha Raddatz, ABC correspondent, wrote a book that repeated the blatant US military lie that the Mahdi Army was using women and children as “human shields” forcing the US to kill civilians. First of all, “human shields” are not a very good barrier (unless the First Cav was using sling shots and pebbles). Second, insurgencies need popular support and do not benefit from killing innocent civilians, and third, the Iraqi people love their women and children as much as we do.

The “Casey volunteered” story was repeated in Martha Raddatz’s book and she got the info from the soldiers that were in the unarmed and open truck bed that Casey was in when he was killed — regurgitating the official US military lies. Recently this email was sent to my campaign office from a soldier who was near Casey when this event occurred:

I’m very sorry what happened to casey. I knew him I was in his unit and lived across the hall. There has been something I have been wanting to get off my chest though. Why am I hearing he volunteered for the mission. He was a humvee mechanic and he honestly sucked at it. He was a great guy but a horrible mechanic. The truth is that when the 1st sgt who was scared to go out himself asked for volunteers all the nco’s literally ran to the potapottys. Sheehans chief told sheehan to get on the lmtv. Sheehan said ” no, I’m a mechanic” well I remember watching ssg (XXXX) say” get your motherfucken ass on the god damn truck” and he literrally grabbed casey by his collar and dragged him onto the lmtv. Don’t believe me you better ask somebody. That’s also what I told Martha Raddatz but I guess for some reason she didn’t think she should write it that way. Well I’m sorry but if you were told different it was a lie. This is the truth I swear on my son. God Bless and good luck, [NOTE: This email has not been altered by me: CS].

Martha Raddatz confirmed that she was told this, but did not follow up because this soldier was “not on Casey’s truck.” This account of Casey’s last minutes of life upsets me so much, but this account makes more sense to me then the other accounts. The Army had him for almost four years, but I had him for 24 years.

Iraq Vets Against the War is holding a “Winter Soldier” event soon, and they will recount stories of how they participated in war crimes or witnessed war crimes, which is not in dispute because the entire invasion and occupation is a war crime. These young people came home alive and many of them will have to deal with their demons forever as my Vietnam veteran friends still do, but we families of soldiers who were killed will also be haunted by things we know and things we will never know or never know for sure. The stories of military neglect, abuse (sexual, physical, mental, emotional) or lies are almost as many as there are troops: living or dead.

Casey joined the US Army to be a Chaplain’s Assistant, was made a mechanic, then died five days after deployment as a very reluctant infantry soldier who had never been trained in urban guerrilla warfare. Do I want to sue someone for the wrongful death of my son caused by the criminal behavior of his Commander in Chief and for the cowardice and blood-lust exhibited by Casey’s superiors in the First Cavalry? Of course I do, not to bring Casey back (obviously) but to prevent future heartache and frustration. We families cannot sue because of the “Ferris Doctrine” which prohibits soldiers or family members from suing the government if a soldier is harmed or killed while in service… even for “gross negligence.”

If we cannot sue the military or government, I want to propose a “Casey Sheehan Doctrine” that will read something like this:

Whereas, citizens of the United States have basic and profound legal rights protected by this country’s Constitution, irrespective of enacted laws or executive orders, past, present, and future, that violate, weaken, or render nil the very core of those rights, and

Whereas, US citizens serving in the US military, and by virtue of military unilateral enlistment contracts, are by default denied these basic legal rights afforded others of the citizenry, and

Whereas, wars of aggression, imperialist in nature, unprovoked in substance, and profitable by design have been deemed illegal globally, and immoral universally; and that the purveyors of such atrocious events are to be held in contempt of humanity for their crimes of war, and

Whereas, the only justifiable use of force is for protective purposes, for life, liberty, and property, the last of which may be construed to mean one’s country in a broader sense, and

Whereas, any member of the US military has the legal and moral responsibility to refuse any order that is illegal or immoral in nature, especially one that may constitute a crime against humanity, and

Whereas, the US invasion/occupation of the country of Iraq, known as the Iraq War, soon into its sixth year of prosecution, has been shown to have been caused directly on the basis of lies, deceit, manipulation and duplicity on the part of the Executive branch of the government of the United States, and the acquiescence of the US Congress, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED, that all members of the US military war machine–soldiers, marines, airmen and women, and sailors–and those adjunct to them, are called upon to follow their conscience in all matters relating to their military service; and such persons should refuse any orders that might contradict matters of conscience, morality, or law, and further

BE IT RESOLVED, that those in uniform, and families, friends, advocates, and others, of those who serve their country will seek redress for any wrongdoing, abuse, mistreatment, injury, or death upon their person; and this justice should be pursued by any means available, legal and otherwise, up to and including acts of civil disobedience.

Resolved this day of March 5, 2008

Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Sheehan who was killed in Bush’s war of terror on 04/04/04. Sheehan is a congressional candidate running against Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco. You can visit her campaign website at CindyforCongress.org.

Source

Black Prison Gulag and the Police State
by Glen Ford / March 6th, 2008

The United States has passed an historic and symbolic watershed in its unrelenting, two generations-long quest to incarcerate as many Blacks as humanly possible. As of January 1, more than one of every 100 adults is behind bars, about half of them Black. That’s not counting Afro-Latinos and other Hispanics. The U.S. is the unchallenged leader in mass incarceration, with the largest Gulag on the planet, based on raw numbers of inmates – 2,319,258 in federal and state prisons and local jails – and per capita incarceration: 750 inmates for every 100,000 people. Russia, which led the world back in Soviet times, is number two, with 628 inmates per 100,000. The Black and brown U.S. prisoner population, alone, roughly equals that of China’s – a nation with four times the population of the U.S.

Russia’s imprisonment practices grew out of the Tsarist Siberian and later, Stalinist model. America’s model is directly derived from slavery – the virtual imprisonment of an entire people. From the post-Emancipation “Black Codes” through the 1960s, Blacks have always been locked up in vastly disproportionate numbers. Still, white inmates were in the majority until at least 1964. Then, beginning in the early 70s, the prison population exploded, multiplying seven times. By 1996, African Americans comprised 53 percent of all persons admitted to state and federal prisons. One out of nine Black males between the ages of 20 and 34 now resides behind bars, compared to just one of every 30 whites.

The debate over U.S. prison growth and wildly disparate Black incarceration – to the extent there is a debate – usually centers on draconian and racially-engineered drug sentences. That’s descriptive of one modality of prison growth, addressing the “how” of the problem, but doesn’t address the “why” of it, the political intentions of massive imprisonment of African Americans.

Countless studies have shown beyond statistical doubt that the U.S. “justice” system is stacked against African Americans at every stage of the process: hyper-surveillance of Black neighborhoods, leading to disproportionate arrests, a nationwide pattern of prosecutorial fervor to charge Blacks with more serious crimes than white defendants, harsher sentences once convicted, and far fewer opportunities for Blacks to avoid hard time through “diversion” programs that are skewed to allowing far more whites to escape long term stints in prison. Once again, these factors explain how Blacks have become majorities in prison, even in states and localities with relatively small Black populations, but do not address why Black mass incarceration began to accelerate at breakneck speed in the early 70s, and continues no matter whether crime is up or down.

“Mass Black incarceration,” I wrote in February, 2007,” is America’s answer to the Black Freedom Movement of the Sixties and early Seventies.” Just as the “Black Codes” were the white South’s response to Emancipation, and as massive incarceration of Black “loiterers” to prison plantations and chain gangs followed the crushing of Reconstruction, whites got revenge against the Black Freedom Movement of the Sixties by throwing as many as possible African Americans in prison. This “nigger-caging” response was near-uniform across the country – North, South, East and West. It is the Mother of All White Backlashes – no, the Grandmother, showing no signs of diminishing in racist fury after more than 30 years.

“Reform” measures are surely needed, such as elimination of mandatory sentencing, broader application of prison “diversion” programs, abolition of racist crack cocaine super-sentences, a requirement that “racial impact” studies be instituted at all prisons and jails, repeal of state laws depriving convicted felons of the right to vote, and many other proposals. However, if mass Black incarceration, the “engine” of prison growth, is not understood as an ongoing, institutionalized crime whose purpose is wholly racial, the discussion will be limited to reformers who attempt to tinker around the edges of the historical catastrophe and Black clergy who think they can preach successive Black generations out of going to prison.

Read all of it here.