Red Cross scare tactics

via Boing Boing




What do we have to do, huh? Bomb the Ferry
Building? Create an earthquake?

"[Stumbling] Home for Purim"

Oh, SF Gate DIP and its fakakta captions:

Ultra-orthodox Jewish men stagger down a Mea Shearim neighborhood street after ultra-heavy partying in Jerusalem. One of the precepts of the Purim holiday -- which commemorates the rescue of Jews from genocide in ancient Persia -- is excessive alcohol consumption.

Our "wasted treasure"

McCain "stumbles out of the gate," perhaps unintentionally delivering one of the most candid and meaningful comments to come out of the "Straight Talk Express."

"Americans are very frustrated, and they have every right to be," McCain said. "We've wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives."

Obama, as a Democrat, was raked over the coals for a similar remark:

“[The Iraq war] should have never been authorized, and should have never been waged, and on which we've now spent $400 billion, and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted.''

If McCain were a principled candidate (and he's not), and truly disapproved of Bush's handling of the war (he voted for it, before he...didn't show up to vote against it), he should have stuck by the remark. That goes for Obama, too--especially running on an ostensibly antiwar platform (minus his suggestion to increase defense spending post-withdrawal).

One simply cannot simultaneously advocate withdrawal on the grounds that the invasion was illegal, the "mission" ill-defined, and the occupation a bloody disaster and still defend the notion that such a debacle somehow warranted the loss of thousands of lives. If you believe the war is unjustified, a cause not worthy of death, then the sacrifices made in prolonging it are also tragically unjust.

Those demanding apologies from Obama and McCain lambast their remarks as callous and unsympathetic of the grieving families and friends of soldiers killed. But it's Gold Star family members, in the tradition of Cindy Sheehan, that make the most compelling arguments for calling it like it is--no matter how heart-renching that realization may be--if it will prevent the senseless loss of one more life :

Two painful questions remain for all of us. Are the lives of Americans being killed in Iraq wasted? Are they dying in vain? President Bush says those who criticize staying the course are not honoring the dead. That is twisted logic: honor the fallen by killing another 2,000 troops in a broken policy?

I choose to honor our fallen hero by remembering who he was in life, not how he died. A picture of a smiling Augie in Iraq, sunglasses turned upside down, shows his essence -- a joyous kid who could use any prop to make others feel the same way.

Though it hurts, I believe that his death -- and that of the other Americans who have died in Iraq -- was a waste. They were wasted in a belief that democracy would grow simply by removing a dictator -- a careless misunderstanding of what democracy requires. They were wasted by not sending enough troops to do the job needed in the resulting occupation -- a careless disregard for professional military counsel.

But their deaths will not be in vain if Americans stop hiding behind flag-draped hero masks and stop whispering their opposition to this war. Until then, the lives of other sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers and mothers may be wasted as well.

This is very painful to acknowledge, and I have to live with it. So does President Bush.

And so do we. It ends once America owns up to it.

Be cool, stay in school--Army of One.

The Ad Council has teamed up with the United Negro College Fund, United Way, Adopt Us Kids, and the U.S. Army. One of these things is not like the others.

Boostup.org is the offspring of an Ad Council/Army partnership to develop "a public service advertising campaign to motivate kids and demonstrate the importance of staying in school and obtaining a high school diploma."

You're saying the Army suddenly has humanitarian goals? It wants teens to graduate and not enlist? And they have no ulterior motive behind donating 100,000 branded tissue packets to at risk teens in 50 NYC high schools?

Seems suspicious, to say the least, given active recruitment on campuses across the country and the Pentagon's database on potential recruits ages 16-18.

This is totally unrelated, I'm sure:
Army tops recruit goal by lowering standards -
Lower test scores allowed, but high school diploma still required

Also, found this in the Ad Council's "About" section, under U.S. Army:

Today, more than 270,000 soldiers stand guard in defense of freedom in over 120 countries.

This is nothing new or shocking, but for some reason seeing U.S. military presence represented numerically this way--120/193 countries in the world--evokes the vast reach of empire decried by Chalmers Johnson. The Army advertises to sustain that presence (See "Why We Fight").

Side note--don't forget the folks at the Ad Council brought you this gem--

Message--if you smoke marijuana, your girlfriend will leave you for an alien.

As Cooper pointed out--the person that made this HAD to be high. Just like you'd have to be totally out of touch with reality to believe that the U.S. Army would be so altruistic as to spend money on a campaign to ensure teens have options after high school beyond joining their ranks.

Friedman at his finest

O.K., boys, party’s over: we’re leaving by Dec. 1. From now on, everyone pays retail for their politics. We will no longer play host to a war where we’re everyone’s protector and target. If you Sunnis want to go on resisting, we’ll leave you to the tender mercies of the Shiites, who vastly outnumber you. You Shiites, if you want to run Iraq without compromising with Sunnis, fine, but you’ll have to fight them alone and then risk having to live under the thumb of Iran.

You Saudis and other Arabs, if you don’t use your influence to delegitimize Sunni suicide bombers and press Iraq’s Sunnis to cut a deal, we won’t protect you from the consequences. And Iran, you win — yes, if we leave, you win the right to try to manage Iraq’s Shiites. Have a nice day.

Mature foreign policy strategy--play vindictive martyr, blame the victim, collectively address all Arabs as children. He's right about a timetable and withdrawl--as a means for diplomatically leveraging support from regional powers. Unilateralism failed. By no means should withdrawal be used as a punitive measure against an already broken country.

What clash?

A global majority rebuffs Samuel P. Huntington's theory of an inevitable "clash of civilizations" along religious and cultural fault lines.

A poll of 28,000 people in 27 countries has found most believe political and economic interests - not religious and cultural diversity - are the underlying cause of violent conflict in the world today.

The Harvard academic's thesis struck a chord with Westerners looking for an easy explanation of global violence in the 21st century. The appeal of Huntington's dubious clash lies in its invocation of history, how it adds apparent depth to lazy pundritry analysis, and how it maps easily into simplistic, essentialist notions of the unfamiliar "other."

Economist Amartya Sen countered the civilizational approach, arguing that Huntington incorrectly assumes that people only identify with one civilizational system, that civilizations are monolithic, based mostly on religion, and that they will always clash. His theory rejects diversity, and is grossly confrontational. Edward Said called it "the clash of ignorance."

Akbar S. Ahmed, former High Commissioner of Pakistan to Great Britain, critiqued Huntington in the Spring 2003 issue of The Hedgehog Review:

Islam was singled out as a potential enemy civilization in an argument that was as deterministic as it was simplistic. Huntington's thesis dervied from established Orientalist thinking: "We are facing a mood and a movement far transcending the level of issues and policies and the governments that pursue them. This is no less than a clash of cilizations," wrote Beranard Lewis in 1990. "Islam has bloody borders," concluded Huntington.

Bernard Lewis, Huntington's predecessor, originally coined the term. During a career spanning many decades of U.S. foreign policy blunders in the Middle East, Lewis fed (and, with a recent inflammatory WSJ editorial on Iran, continues to feed) the neoconservative movement a wealth of revisionist history that conveniently rationalizes their expansionist endeavors. Cheney commended Lewis as a scholar--"...in this new century, his wisdom is sought daily by policymakers, diplomats, fellow academics, and the news media." His aggressive ideology for governing the Islamic world is enshrined by the "Lewis Doctrine," which consists of "a Westernized polity, reconstituted and imposed from above...that is to become a bulwark of security for America and a model for the region." "Freedom" from without acts as a thin veil for securing strategic interests.

In a White House lunch honoring the historian, Cheney beamed,

Bernard Lewis knows the greatness of Islamic civilization -- its tradition of learning and its towering cultural achievements. He refuses to condescend to the people that produced those achievements, and who have lately suffered such great torment at the hands of dictators.

But Lewis' selective reading of history betrays his Orientalist ideological prejudice:

Lewis' presentation of his narrative of Middle Eastern decline without any context is a ploy. His objective is to whittle down world history, to reduce it to a primordial contest between two historical adversaries, the West and Islam. This is historiography in the crusading mode, one that purports to resume the Crusades-interrupted in the thirteenth century-and carry them to their unfinished conclusion, the triumph of the West or, conversely, the humiliation and defeat of Middle Eastern Islam. Once this framework has been established, with its exclusive focus on a failing Islamic civilization, it is quite easy to cast the narrative of this decay as a uniquely Islamic phenomenon, which must then be explained in terms of specifically Islamic failures.

The conflict is not evidence of cultural superiority, the result of a fundamental clash of identity or ingrained values, but a byproduct of Western expansion and the quest for resources and capital:

Once Western Europe began to make the transition from a feudal-agrarian to a capitalist-industrial society, starting in the sixteenth century, the millennial balance of power among the world's major civilizations shifted inexorably in favor of Western Europe. A society that was shifting to a capitalist-industrial base, capable of cumulative growth, commanded greater social power than slow-growing societies still operating on feudal-agrarian foundations. Under the circumstances, it was unlikely that non-Western societies could simultaneously alter the foundations of their societies while also fending off attacks from Western states whose social power was expanding at an ever-increasing rate. Even as these feudal-agrarian societies sought to reorganize their economies and institutions, Western onslaughts against them deepened, and this made their reorganization increasingly difficult. It is scarcely surprising that the growing asymmetry between the two sides eventually led to the eclipse, decline, or subjugation of nearly all non-Western societies.

It's a relief to see that most of the world can see global conflict within the proper historical and political context, refusing to fall for reckless explanations that inflame polarizing tensions.

No business as usual.

On the anniversary of the largest anti-war protest in history, UC Santa Barbara joined thousands of students across the country in striking against the war in Iraq.

by frozenquack

From Democracy Now!

College and high school students across the nation walked out class Thursday in a national student strike against the Iraq war. In California, an estimated 1,000 students at UC-Santa Barbara blocked traffic on a freeway. Up to 3,000 students turned out for an anti-war rally at UC - Berkeley. And at least four hundred rallied at Columbia University here in New York. More than a dozen other schools took part around the country.

by Matt Simpson

KSBY Channel 6 News reported on it, with KEYT, and KTVU has video.

Jake definitely had the best, most impassioned reporting on the demonstration--his diary was recommended on DKos yesterday, assuring half a million viewers that the student anti-war movement is alive and kicking.

One very legit complaint many of the SB Antiwar organizers have is how some media coverage of the protest has given far too much weight to the Revolutionary Communist Party affiliate World Can't Wait for organizing what was in reality an entirely student initiated demonstration. Papers blindly followed a misleading WCW press release that claimed credit for being "instrumental" in spreading UCSB's message and "putting out a call for national action." The Chronicle reported (almost verbatim) that "The rallies were in a response to a call by the protest group World Can't Wait to Drive Out the Bush Regime for a national student strike Feb. 15." Organizer (and friend) Darwin BondGraham called them out for trying to appropriate the protests--

You all were very helpful in making yesterday bigger than it would have been and I have to thank you for your brilliant energy, but the RCP seems intent on claiming this student led movement as their own. You people are great organizers, but I don't want the RCP taking credit for my political actions. And I definitely don't want RCP
trying to speak for me. I am not a communist and I have zero interest in Bob Avakian's political program. I am a student, a feminist, an antiracist and a little d democrat, and when I organize an action I want to speak about it and I want to represent it.

It wouldn't be the first time WCW has pulled that move. RCP and WCW are very effective at turn-out, but their ideology leaves them and the folks whose protests they try to horn in on open to marginalization.

The difficult part will always be creating that initial spark--convincing people to participate, explaining why the strike is an effective means of protest (if last May 1st wasn't proof enough). Darwin responded to skeptics:

Ask yourself this; if the entire nation went on strike tomorrow – didn’t go to work or school and didn’t buy anything – how much longer do you think Bush’s war could last? I’d give it 24 hours or less. Striking alone here at UCSB might not mean much, but the world is watching. News of our strike is spreading across other campuses and cities. We will not be acting alone on the 15th. And if the 15th is empowering, perhaps there can be a real movement beyond this, a shift toward a larger national peace movement that joins us in withdrawing consent and shaking the foundations of power. The more of us that act together, the more hope there is that we can end the war.

It began with a handful of people. Then a university. Then 5. Then 27. But before there's that kind of momentum, it's challenging to rise above the apathy and convince cynics and natural allies that it's worth their time. But once it starts snowballing, there's no stopping it. If people felt empowered by yesterday's action (and even the most seasoned activists I've talked to felt it was a truly remarkable day), then maybe they'll be motivated to stay involved.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean,
and each day
you mean one more.

by Tanya

Like Johnson & Nixon, Bush could still be constrained

Congress has historically been loath to cut funding for a war waged by the executive for fear of being blamed for its failure. The Vietnam funding cutoff passed only after peace accords were signed and troops withdrawn. But despite timid non-binding resolutions against escalation from Congress, Bush could finally be feeling the heat. His own party is beginning to hold his feet to the fire in a way Dems couldn't. Republicans are beginning to think they'll be more likely to lose a re-election bid for clinging to Bush's sinking ship than for supporting a watered down resolution against that failed policy and running the risk of appearing decisive.

Bush has two years left in office and enormous -- though not unlimited -- power to continue the war. He does not face re-election. Republicans in Congress do, however, and could brake Bush if they abandon him in large numbers.

And away they go--11 Republican House members speak against Bush troop boost.

"Obviously the president still has a lot of muscle and is still doing what he wants, but the evidence is that this administration is starting to feel a bit checked," said Julian Zelizer, a Boston University historian who outlines congressional resistance during the Vietnam War in the March issue of the American Prospect.

An effective system of checks and balances. Go figure.

Of course Congress would not be taking action were it not for grassroots actions like today's student initiated strike at universities across the country working to build a movement capable of generating the political will to challenge Bush's war. Go UCSB!! Wish I could be there.

Scientist at UC managed Los Alamos speaks out against new nukes

Joseph Martz, leader of a team designing a new generation of warheads at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, said in a series of interviews last week that he is troubled by how the debate on nuclear weapons policy in Washington is focused narrowly on the number of weapons needed for the future, and how they would be built, rather than on how to eradicate them entirely.

***

Two widely-read opinion pieces published in the Wall Street Journal last month argued for total disarmament.

The essays -- the first by former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Defense Secretary William Perry, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia, and the second by the former Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev -- urged aggressive steps toward this long ignored goal.

"Reassertion of the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and practical measures toward achieving that goal would be, and would be perceived as, a bold initiative consistent with America's moral heritage," the former U.S. officials wrote in their essay.

Some of the most effective champions for disarmament are the scientists themselves.

In 1944, Einstein wrote to physicist Niels Bohr:

“When the war is over, then there will be in all countries a pursuit of secret war preparations with technological means which will lead inevitably to preventative wars and to destruction even more terrible than the present destruction of life.”

One man's terrorist...

This administration, like many before it, has manipulated all-encompassing and ill-defined buzz words for use as propaganda to forward a militant agenda. Critics have exhausted the subject (See/hear "War Made Easy" by Norman Solomon), though still not to the point where the American public immediately recognizes the spin. The drum-beating against Iran must not be another case in point.

I won't belabor the point or make any Orwell references. But I just find it an interesting anecdote that even Thesaurus.com can demonstrate the dangerous ambiguity of the word "terrorist."

Main Entry: anarchist
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: insurgent
Synonyms: agitator, insurgent, insurrectionist, malcontent, mutineer, nihilist, rebel, revolter, revolutionary, terrorist
Antonyms: loyalist

Demonized and misunderstood (Chomsky identifies as an anarchist). Also interesting that "revolutionary" is a synonym. The Founders would be terrorists by this definition.

Main Entry: dictator
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: ruler
Synonyms: absolutist, adviser, autocrat, baron, boss, caesar, caliph, chief, commander, czar, despot, disciplinarian, duce, emir, fascist, kaiser, lama, leader, lord, magnate, martinet, master, mogul, oligarch, oppressor, overlord, rajah, ringleader, sachem, shah, sheik, slave driver, strongman, sultan, taskmaster, terrorist, tycoon, tyrant, usurper

Suprisingly suggests the suppressed notion of state directed terrorism.

Main Entry: enemy
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: foe
Synonyms: adversary, agent, antagonist, archenemy, asperser, assailant, assassin, attacker, backbiter, bad guy, bandit, betrayer, calumniator, competitor, contender, criminal, crip, defamer, defiler, detractor, disputant, emulator, falsifier, fifth column*, foe, guerrilla, informer, inquisitor, invader, meat, murderer, opponent, opposition, other side*, prosecutor, rebel, revolutionary, rival, saboteur, seditionist, slanderer, spy, terrorist, traducer, traitor, vilifier, villain
Antonyms: ally, benefactor, friend, supporter

The broadest possible definition, and the one we know all too well--you're with us, or you're against us.

Bill Moyers eloquently expressed indignation over this language appropriation:

Day after day, the egalitarian creed of our Declaration of Independence is trampled underfoot by hired experts and sloganeers, who speak of the "death tax," "the ownership society," "the culture of life," "the liberal assault on God and family," "compassionate conservatism," "weak on terrorism," "the end of history," "the clash of civilizations," "no child left behind." They have even managed to turn the escalation of a failed war into a "surge," as if it were a current of electricity through a wire, instead of blood spurting from the ruptured vein of a soldier.

Soj's DKos diary takes us through a 200 year history of "terrorism."

My point here is obviously that at one time or another all of these things occurred and were (or still are) supported by people using the rhetoric that anyone who opposes it is aiding the enemy or being unpatriotic.

I used the word "terrorist" because that's the current name for the "bad guys". At various other times in history the "bad guys" were known as "Communists", "Socialists", "labor agitators", "Japanese Americans", "German Americans", "British", "Indians", "traitors" and a variety of other terms.

Cingular--formerly AT&T, now the new AT&T

I've been doing research on 18 telecom carriers for a consumer privacy report card, and I thought AT&T's purchase of Bell South and its rebranding of Cingular would consolidate a few of the policies I'm evaluating and simplify my job. But I'm finding that explaining the convoluted history of mergers and acquisitions predating this latest chapter in the annals of media ownership concentration is making the task much more complex. The story is so absurd that (not surprisingly) parodies manage to present a more accurate representation of the monopolistic history than any official press release explanation. Here's Colbert's take:



Engadget tried to make sense of it all in 2005, before AT&T's purchase was approved and the Cingular shenanigans:

1984 - For years there was one phone company: AT&T. Then in 1984 the Justice Department forces AT&T to split up into a bunch of different companies. Seven of those become the regional Baby Bells (the regional Bell operating companies, or RBOCs), while what was left of AT&T handles long-distance.

The late 1990s - One of those regional local phone companies, Texas-based Southwestern Bell Corp, spends the late Nineties scooping up its fellow local phone companies, buying Pacific Telesis Group (PacBell) in 1997, Southern New England Telecommunications in 1998, and Ameritech in 1999. In 2002, SBC Communications, as it is now known, decides to ditch all the regional brand names and call the entire company simply "SBC" in order to "unify its image." SBC combines their cellphone operation with that of BellSouth in a joint venture known as Cingular Wireless. SBC owns 60% of Cingular. BellSouth owns the other 40%.

2001 - As part of a restructuring plan, AT&T decides to spin off their wireless division, known as AT&T Wireless, as a separate company.
at&T wireless logo

2004 - Cingular decides to acquire AT&T Wireless. Cost: $41 billion. AT&T, AT&T Wireless's former parent, retains rights to the AT&T Wireless brand name as part of 2001's spin-off agreement. They announce plans to launch a new wireless service under the AT&T Wireless brand name after Cingular completes its acquisition.

2005 - SBC, which you'll recall is an amalgam of regional Baby Bells spun off from AT&T, reaches an agreement to buy its former parent for $16 billion, $25 billion less than Cingular pays for AT&T Wireless. So SBC owns 60% of Cingular, which bought AT&T Wireless; assuming the Feds okay the deal, SBC will eventually own AT&T, too. Make sense?

Update: merger is approved in November, and SBC once again rebrands to AT&T. AT&T, which still has the rights to the AT&T Wireless name will begin using it in select markets, perhaps as a Cingular-based MVNO.

2006 - AT&T (formerly SBC) announces purchase of BellSouth for 67 billion dollars. Probably just to annoy us. We'll have to wait and see if the SEC approves.

"Her next bold move"

A CampusProgress tribute to Ani, celebrating the birth of her daughter on January 20th.

Eroding localism in Half Moon Bay

Battle brewing (lame pun intended--lifted from the HMBReview) over plans to replace a thriving coastside chai institution with a Peet's Coffee shop; story hits Chronicle pages.

This fight, like many of its kind being waged in towns across the country, is fundamentally about preserving localism rather than allowing corporate sprawl to stamp out economically immeasurable goods (like community and quality) in the name of higher profit margins.

Raman made projections back in 2005:

"[Chai] will hit the roof," Bechar predicts. "The manufactured kind will continue to grow because Starbucks has already set the standard. But I don't think the homemade kind will grow as fast. We don't have the patience."

-vs-

"My understanding is that Bechar has an old business model he likes to run, and we need to make upgrades,'' landlord Maher Shami said.

Janfreya Didur, who works at kindred coffee shop MCoffee (my high school afternoon hang-out), says it best--

"I don't consider it progress to have more chains come in here - and Raman makes the best chai - the truth is in the taste."

Shami underhandedly gave his application to bring in Peet's to the city council before talking to his leaser. Raman only found out when the mayor asked if he'd decided to close.

The shopping center where Raman's is located is quieter than it's been, after Albertson's closed months ago to make way for Santa Cruz based New Leaf Community Market--definitely an upgrade, from the locally-owned standpoint. Peet's, on the other hand, would be betraying its founding Berkeleyan principles if it crushes a shop with such history and a loyal local following. I suppose a chain is a chain, and they'd be positioning themselves to compete with the Starbucks across Highway 1, which rumor has it boasts the highest per capita income of any Starbucks in the state. Yes, another chain is just what the town needs.

SF Sketchfest '07

So I'm becoming somewhat of a stand-up junkie.

The SF Sketchfest line-up last Monday at Cobb's was David Cross, Maria Bamford, Paul F. Tompkins, Doug Benson, Todd Glass, Hard ‘n Phirm & Jimmy Pardo of UCB Theater's Comedy Death Ray.

Hard 'n Phirm


Too bad this version left out the part about "mezoheroic petrol s'mores." But who knew the former host of "Singled Out" had such talent? So like MTV to stifle all signs of originality.

Some classic David Cross--this is probably my favorite bit of his. Again, on false patriotism:



He spent most of his routine at Cobb's talking about Mitt Romney, the lone Mormon presidential candidate, and why it's so absurd that polls show the American people are more opposed to him for accepting gay marriage (in the past)--AKA promoting equality--than for his religious ideology. It sounded a lot like the "All About Mormons" epidsode of South Park. I prefer David's earlier stuff. He gave insightful commentary on the frighteningly complicit state of the union post 9/11 before it became popular.

Todd Glass was out of control. Here's a sample--not his funniest stuff (thanks, cable TV).



Upcoming show in March--Stephen Lynch.

Grist snowed by Gov's executive order on carbon emissions

Flexing His OPECs
Schwarzenegger, E.U. unveil new carbon-cutting schemes

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) may be hobbled by a broken leg, but his mind is still strong. (File that under Sentences We Never Thought We'd Write.) In his State of the State address last week, the green-leaning Governator announced a plan to cut carbon in transportation fuel 10 percent by 2020. "Our cars have been running on dirty fuel too long. Our country has been dependent on foreign oil for too long. I ask you to set in motion the means to free ourselves from oil and from OPEC," he said. " California has the muscle to bring about such change. I say use it." The effort, hailed as an "innovative and exciting" world first, will likely mean ramping up ethanol and other renewables, and could cause a transitional increase in gasoline prices. Across the pond, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso unveiled a plan that would require member states to cut greenhouse-gas emissions 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. Oh, E.U., that is so 2006. Arnie's been there, capped that.

Funny, Schwarzenegger's campaigns have been dependent on dirty oil money too long as well. With a history of industry appointments, vetoes of environmental bills, and let's not forget the Hummers (put your money where your mouth is, gov), the Sierra Club has called his record a "shade of green"--not true blue.

The man's remade himself more than Madonna--a bodybuilder, an actor, a politician, a centrist, an environmentalist--none of which he can honestly identify as now. This executive order doesn't erase his record and grant him green cred. Same goes for AB 32--Schwarzenegger had little choice in an election year but to jump on the bandwagon with the democrats in the state legislature. They're the ones who deserve recognition for consistent work on greening California.

UPDATE: TIME falls into the same trap, piling on undue praise for Bush's rhetorical green shift.

Walking in Memphis

foto by Tizzie P

I spent last weekend at the National Conference on Media Reform in Tennessee. My friend Tanya and I submerged ourselves in media culture, ate pork for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and we even experienced some honest southern hospitality (unlike the disingenous debutante kind I'd recalled) from Alcenia's on Main. Having not set foot in the south for years, everything felt as it had, like it'd been in stasis--complete with top 40 radio hits circa 1998. Natalie Imbruglia can’t still be getting royalties for that gem (though yea, I’ll admit, my middle school self couldn’t get enough). Homogeneity, pop music be thy name. Perfect case in point for why media consolidation is such a threat to freedom of expression.

The most memorable part of the conference for me wasn't so much the panel discussions themselves. I was familiar with much of what was said, as a media junkie and having been fortunate enough to see Bill Moyers, Bob McChesney, Helen Thomas, and Amy Goodman in the past. I took it as a good sign of streamlined messaging. But what I took away from Memphis had to do more with the more practical application of the strategies for dealing with issues the panels addressed. I'll remember us engaging a perfect stranger about how progressives fare in Texas, asking the Holiday Inn operator who listened to Christian radio on why she didn't trust the media, and debating with other activists on the most effective means of forwarding the goals of the media and democracy movement--especially after realizing how absurd it was to be locked in an academic echo chamber that would do nothing to help us talk to the table next to us. I'll also think of the Sunday headline in the local paper--"With surge, Memphis families feel helpless--though proud, patriotic." That qualification-- that obedient flag-waving expression of steely resolve, lest anyone doubt their stripes--was the perfect example of the fear that's paralyzed the media, proof of why they are such an important check on power. That anecdotal evidence of the urgent need for media reform manifested at the local level-- that's what will stick with me.

That being said, I did want to note a few observations I made on the conference itself, for what they're worth.

With the recent FCC ruling on AT&T's purchase of BellSouth still in headlines, net neutrality was a major focus throughout the conference, touted at times in a fairly self-congratulatory tone. With so few big victories in the fight against media consolidation, it's understandable that activists would want to take this opportunity to pat ourselves on the back. But some have cautioned against declaring this a win for media reform. Dan Gillmore of the Center for Citizen Media called the ruling into question, one of the only speakers I saw to point out that even though they vowed not to obstruct equal access to the internet, AT&T pulled a fast one on us, consolidating their ownership power and agreeing to abide by a provision they would've been forced to adhere to anyway.

Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, predicted that attendees would come away from the conference "feeling that fighting for [net neutrality] should be the progressive media movement's top priority." Chester thinks otherwise:

Our most urgent task is to proactively intervene to shape -- on behalf of progressive values -- the emerging commercial digital communications system. This will require a strategic intervention to create sustainable "new media" services that help harness the power of digital media to better promote social justice. Our digital media system will have the capability to help "define" political and social "reality" for the majority of Americans. Unless progressives can seriously "program" the new media -- in every community and across the nation -- we will face even greater obstacles promoting our agendas.

Don Hazen, executive editor of AlterNet, concurs with Chester and Gillmore:

It is becoming increasingly clear that we need to focus more attention on the content and tools of the powerful new interactive digital landscape…and less attention on the delivery pipes. Here, huge media companies like Yahoo and Google are fighting that battle with us.

While net neutrality has an important goal of trying to protect us from future damage, it lacks the capability of fixing the myriad problems that already exist. And the company buyout that was approved in partial trade for net neutrality is an abomination, allowing AT&T, one of only three remaining regional phone companies from the original break up of AT&T back in 1984, to dominate 22 states, 67.5 million phone lines, 11.5 million broadband users.

I was happy to hear Bill Moyers reference this fact in his plenary address.

***

A number of presenters challenged the notion of objectivity as an incontrovertible journalistic standard. Columnist Laura Washington of the Chicago Sun-Time and In These Times declared there's "no such thing" as objectivity in reporting while speaking on the panel "Inside Corporate Media: Can It Tell the Truth?" with Jeff Cohen, founder of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, TV host Phil Donahue, and Flavia Colgan of MSNBC. During the "Quality Journalists=Quality Journalism" discussion, a panelist described so-called objective journalism as the type of he-said/she-said reporting in which "both guys spin their lies, and no one can call them on it." She declared that balance does not equal truth. Tanya was reminded of a quote—“objectivity turns journalists into stenographers.” Demanding this warped version of objectivity silences critical voices, and has a chilling effect on dissenting opinions, allowing establishment points of view to get the last word.

***

Media critics span the political spectrum, though as Eric Boehlert from Media Matters for America pointed out, the nature of the critique differs depending on whether it's coming from the left or right. He argued that liberals believe it's important not to slander the press, but instead to create a factual, responsible critique of media misrepresentations and underreported stories. Conservatives, on the other hand, criticize press because their goal is to dismantle it,
Boehlert says. He quoted former Wall Street Journal columnist Ron Suskind—

"For them, essentially the way to handle the press is the same as how to handle the federal government; you starve the beast. When it's in a weakened and undernourished condition, then you're able to effect a variety of subtle partisan and political attacks."

***

Tanya had her reporter hat on for the conference, and recorded an interview McJoan from DailyKos. Her excellent summary of how the conference addressed issues surrounding citizen journalism, media access, and net neutrality is posted here on New Assignment. I submitted my observations as well, but since they dealt more with media reform as a progressive political priority, they weren't posted for the most part. I found it a little ironic that a site promoting citizen journalism--one that is testing grounds for an open source project--would wield such editorial privilege, though I understand it's a work in progress, and have respect for the editor--a friend of a friend. I do feel that divorcing the conference from the political discussion surrounding it robs it of much of its significance. But I suppose there are those sites that are just not the place for advocacy journalism. If the situation were any different--say a mainstream outlet--the rejection of progressive commentary would've done more to demonstrate the fear reporters have of the liberal label than anything the observations themselves could’ve said.

***

I want to wrap up with the poem by Marge Piercy that Bill Moyers read at the end of his address. When he spoke at UCSB a few years ago, he read another.

What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can t walk, can’t remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can’t blame them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.

But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.

Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fundraising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.

"Iran nuke work seems slow, puzzling West"

Iran's uranium enrichment program appears stalled despite tough talk from the Tehran leadership, leaving intelligence services guessing about why it has not made good on plans to press ahead with activities that the West fears could be used to make nuclear arms, diplomats said Thursday.

Of course there's tough talk--Bush's speech last night deliberately excluded diplomatic language, likely provoking Iran to go on the offensive, rather than seek deterence as defense against preemptive strikes from Isreal and the U.S. I'm always reminded of the catch-22 posed by the original premise for invading Iraq--if WMD had really existed in the first place, a U.S. attack would have never happened, for fear of nuclear retaliation.

Fmr. weapons inspector Scott Ritter describes how Israeli leadership have ignored the facts and jumped to conclusions just as the Bush White House did in 2003:

All of this intelligence that’s being done has uncovered a nuclear enrichment program, not a nuclear weapons program. But the Israelis have already concluded, thanks to Amos Gilad and his konseptsia, that a nuclear weapons program exists. Therefore, if you’re not finding evidence of it, it means you’re not looking in the right places. So then you begin to speculate. How many people here remember underground facilities in Iraq, Saddam’s tunnels, everything buried? Well, there weren’t, were there?

More from the AP article:

IAEA inspectors arrived at Natanz on Wednesday for a routine round of monitoring. But one of the diplomats said they were unlikely to find anything but the status quo — two small pilot plants assembled in 164-centrifuge "cascades" but working only sporadically to produce small quantities of non-weapons grade enriched uranium and other individual centrifuges undergoing mechanical testing. That has essentially been the situation at Natanz since late November, he said.

Add that to a 2005 U.S. intelligence report that put Iran 10 years away from the bomb, and the manufactured hype becomes more obvious.

Howard Zinn described how far off Iran is from fully enriched uranium:

The International Atomic Energy group of the UN flatly contradicts a congressional report which talks about the danger of Iran’s nuclear weapons, and the international group, which has conducted many, many inspections in Iran, says, well, you know, you need to -- and they give the American people a kind of half-education. That is, they say, they use the phrase, “They’re enriching uranium.” Well, that scares me. You know, they’re enriching uranium. I don’t really know what it means, you see, but it’s scary. And then you read the report of the International Atomic Energy group, and you see, well, yes, they are. They’ve enriched uranium to the point of 3.5%. In order to have one nuclear weapon, they have to enrich it to 90%. They’re very, very far from even developing one nuclear weapon, but the phrase “enriched uranium” is repeated again and again.

If everyone were aware of how hollow the threat of Iran's uranium enrichment is, there'd be no basis for Bush's increasingly aggressive rhetoric justifying escalation already in motion.

What post-partisanship?

In spite of all the press fanfare last week over Schwarzenegger's proposal to insure all children in CA, I was skeptical that it signalled a move towards real healthcare reform, or that it could possibly be anything more than a political gesture. After all--

"It's the low-hanging fruit of the health-care reform debate," said Dr. Bob Ross, president of the California Endowment, a private foundation in Los Angeles that was created to push for expanded access to health care.

Now on the day before his address to the state, Schwarzenegger reveals his true colors:

Gov. to seek cuts in aid to families on welfare

"It's ironic that the governor is proposing healthcare for poor kids while taking away their breakfasts," state Senate leader Don Perata (D-Oakland) said of the cuts, which would affect more than 40,000 families. "Even Republican Gov. [Pete] Wilson, at the time he negotiated welfare reform, agreed that children should not suffer for the behavior of their parents."

Calitics highlights this absurd contradiction:

So they can go to the doctor for a check-up, but they can't eat and they can't have a roof over their heads? I really don't get this. If this is "post-partisan cooperation", then I'm not particularly impressed.

Schwarzenegger's alienating people across the spectrum. Even though his welfare proposal proves his policies remain decidedly right-leaning, we're told the governor's loudest critics are Republican hardliners who feel betrayed by the governor's centrist self-styling. Their protest would seem to enable the governor to swing right and appease his base the moment they accuse him of "surrender" or "weakness" for supposed compromise. Meanwhile, the media pay far less attention to critics of the governor's disingenuous calls for cooperation on the left.

Centrism is worthless when the balance is tipped so radically in one direction.

UPDATE: CNA critiques the gov's overall healthcare plan. Here's the bottom line--

A market-based system always puts increased revenues and profits over the health and well-being of those patients it is supposed to serve. As was the clear intent of a number of the free-market architects of the plan, it reinforces and expands the role of the market in health care, the very source of the present crisis. If the governor's goal is truly universal health coverage, improved quality and effective cost controls, the state should embark on the same tried-and-true course taken by every other industrialized nation, either a national health system, or a single-payer approach as embodied in the single-payer bill, SB840 authored by state Sen. Sheila Kuehl. Kuehl's bill was vetoed by the governor last year. It will be reintroduced this year.

Mercatus coast to coast

Speaker Nunez' office cordially invites you to the Hotel Del Coronado for a weekend of wining, dining, and deregulation:

The program, “Capital Campus California,” is sponsored by George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. (The Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy as named as a co-sponsor, but the program isn’t mentioned on the UC website). Mercatus, which runs similar anti-regulatory sessions for Washington DC chiefs of staff, promises the weekend will provide “an academic perspective on today's pressing policy issues.”

Oil and gas giant Koch Industries gave Mercatus approximately $7 million between 1998 and 2004, according to the Wall Street Journal. ExxonMobil is also a Mercatus donor ($80,000 in 2003 and 2004), and other corporations with an interest in limiting regulatory protections, including General Motors, Pfizer, and even Enron, pre-collapse, are reported supporters.

I got a taste of Mercatus through The Capital Semester Program--they've hired at least 4 Mercatus scholars over the years to inculcate students with their own radical corporatist ideologies. I never did figure out how the Fund was able to convince Georgetown to give university credit for their courses. Perhaps their money had something to do with it.

Media take notice of opposition to CPUC Commissioner Chong

Not that it will make much difference in whether she's confirmed, but it's encouraging to see challenges to anti-regulatory ideology gaining traction in the political discourse.

Battle Brewing Over PUC Nominee

Groups urge nominee defeat
By STEVE LAWRENCE
Associated Press

SACRAMENTO - Consumer groups urged a Senate committee Wednesday to reject Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's appointment of a former telecommunications industry attorney to the California Public Utilities Commission.

The Consumer Federation of California, The Utility Reform Network and other groups said Commissioner Rachelle Chong's views were too close to those of the companies she is supposed to regulate.

''Her track record in the past year shows she will not be with consumers,'' Ignacio Hernandez, legislative director for the Consumer Federation of California, told the Senate Rules Committee. ''She's for free markets, less regulation, less consumer protection.''

***

Chong said she cares ''very much for consumers, particularly ones that are the most helpless.'' But she added that she has philosophical differences with consumer groups about how to deal with competitive markets.

She said her approach was ''trust, but verify. You hope that the market works, but if it doesn't, the PUC steps in.''

vs.

"We have decided to not take a more regulatory approach that was better suited to monopoly days and instead to trust the carriers to do the right thing given the market will demand it." --Chong, 3/30/06

"I believe that decision makers everywhere should step back from old style 'command and control' regulation and instead think 'regulatory light' where markets are competitive." --Chong, 10/26/06

''If the marketplace was practicing as you're arguing (it is), there would not be a need for a... bill of rights,'' Senator Alex Padilla (D-Los Angeles) said. ''These problems would not be happening. The fact is, they are.''

CFC on KPFA