Prometheus 6   

Mugabe seals fate of free press

Andrew Meldrum in Pretoria
Sunday September 21, 2003
The Observer

Zimbabwe's largest daily newspaper was closed down yesterday when President Robert Mugabe's government refused to issue the licence needed to publish. By shutting down the country's only privately owned daily publication, the Mugabe regime has struck a blow at the country's struggling free press, which is left with just a couple of independent weekly papers.

The Daily News has been shut for the past week and police seized the paper's computers and other equipment in defiance of a high court order that the paper should be allowed to publish.

News editors and reporters had been trying desperately to print a paper by alternative means, but by denying the paper a licence the Government yesterday finally and firmly closed every door. Under Zimbabwe's severe press restrictions it would be illegal for any business to give assistance to an unregistered paper.

The whole issue of "identity politics" (and no, I don't believe it's a pejorative) seems to be like the whole issue of "union politics" or some other large scale "special interest" politics. In a perfect, politically color blind world, the idea of "identity politics" would still exist and still be a meaningful term. People have distinct racial identities which give them a unique perspective on the world that I certainly don't share - at a basic level. And that perspective colors everything they care about, everything they do. Because humans are all 99.9% identical genetically, the variation provided by this racial viewpoint is necessarily small. The viewpoint colored by "identity" (which I assume to be race here) is not going to be all that different from the rest of the viewpoints of everyone claiming the Human Genome as their genetic heritage1. "Cultural identity politics" would perhaps be a better term. Maybe "Social Identity Politics".

Having said that....

From my point of view, the question "what does it mean to be white?" really needs to be seen in its proper context. What makes the "white" experience statistically different from other ethnic experiences in the US is that our racial group pretty much dominates our country. Politically and economically. Oh, and our country pretty much dominates the planet.

But that aside, as bad as the US is about so many other things, our economy has an amazing amount of economic mobility. There just isn't another country like ours on the planet where people can - potentially - move so freely between economic classes. Well, as long as you're white, that is.

And that's a pretty unique perspective on this earth. When I was working as a student assistant in college, I remember talking with the Chinese scientists who worked in the center where I slaved for them writing analysis programs. They came to the United States because in their culture - i.e. China - it is (their words, not mine) very hard to change economic and social classes. So what they did was come over here to the US, make a name for themselves, and then go back to China.

And because I'm white, I get to potentially participate in this kind of upward social mobility. That makes my whole experience very White.

I'm somewhat perplexed, though sympathetic, with the way bloggers tend to want to hide their political affiliations. The vast majority, though they can be roughly divided along the political spectrum, seem to want to be thought of as "independent." Certainly, none of us wants to be pigeon-holed and would prefer to think of themselves as free thinking individuals who approach each issue rationally. Fine.

But our system of democracy depends upon partisanship and defining the boundaries of left and right. To an extent, the same can be said about race. (And here, I'm straying into an area where I don't have a lot of depth.) Certainly, we are each defined by our racial (and ethnic, religious, etc.) backgrounds, though the effects are differing and complex. Colorblindness, like the presumption of innocence, is a useful legal fiction and a laudable ideal, but it's not really a way of life.

I believe that recognizing distinctions, both political and racial, ought to be a constructive part of political and social dialogue. Instead "race" and "partisanship" are often presented as derogatory concepts that ought to be shunned. And I think that's a shame.

I thought about it overnight, along with thoughts about racism and stuff like that, and decided that for me, it means very little. As I said before, my ethnicity has very little to do with my identity as a whole. I don't wake up in the morning and think "hmm, I think I'll act black today," although that's not what this is about. I suspect I came to this conclusion after being really tired of being talked down to, being asked for the "black" perspective, wondering if that rude lady at the mall was a bigot, wondering if that frat that slighted me was doing so based on skin color, people wondering if I'm in the remedial program for low-income students (aside about that, it's for low-income first gen. college students that IS disporportionally minority, but conservatives on this campus continually scream about affirmative action when the program is NOT an affirmative action program) and so on and so on. I just want to be considered and seen as a normal, All-American boy! Is that so wrong to ask for?

After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, --a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

Black Bloggers...

This subject has been a big thing lately. Frankly, I'm inclined to stay out of it. I have enough issues with myself as a person and I ain't tryinna drag other folks into my thought processes, so there will be no linkage here. That might be irresponsible in that I'm not providing any context for these thoughts, but oh well.

The gist of the black blogger thread seems to be that some black bloggers think the other black bloggers of the world are not representing. I don't like the idea that black people are pondering if the blogosphere "needs" a voice/portal of the black variety. If you want to do it, do it. Do it because you're interested and because you have something to offer, not because people "need" to hear what you have to say.

Why do black bloggers feel a need to amass a critical number of fellow black bloggers and say things like "we've arrived"? Everything I've read about black blogging echoes my experience living in a pretty cosmopolitan but pretty white city. There's a black culture that I don't really feel like I'm a part of, but they feel a need to bond strongly with their own and make their presence known and that amplifies the blackness vibe I get from them, which in turn makes me even more uncomfortable. I guess that makes me a northern racist (more on this in a sec). And amongst all this is where Dean called me "vaguely conservative" (the horror!).

The distinction between "black bloggers" and "bloggers who are black" has emerged. I suppose I fall into the latter category, and it flows nicely with my "I'm not political" stance. It's not something I think about.

In conclusion...

This is not intended to sound all Angry And Black or Angry And Gay. Because I'm really not. It's just fascinating to see people get all worked up and I think perhaps the energy is misdirected. But, as I've said many times, I'm no activist, I'm not so much political, and all this makes my brain hurt.

Cheney's conflict with the truth

By Derrick Z. Jackson, 9/19/2003

ON "MEET THE PRESS" last Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney said, "Since I left Halliburton to become George Bush's vice president, I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interests. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had now, for over three years."

That is the latest White House lie.

Within 48 hours, Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey pointed reporters toward Cheney's public financial disclosure sheets filed with the US Office of Government Ethics. The sheets show that in 2002, Cheney received $162,392 in deferred salary from Halliburton, the oil and military contracting company he ran before running for vice president. In 2001, Cheney received $205,298 in deferred salary from Halliburton.

The 2001 salary was more than Cheney's vice presidential salary of $198,600. Cheney also is still holding 433,333 stock options.

Flushed into the open, Cheney spokeswoman Catherine Martin said the vice president will continue to receive about $150,000 a year from Halliburton in 2003, 2004, and 2005. If President bush wins a second term, that means Cheney will make at least $800,000 from the company while sitting in office.

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Colorblind Racism

By Sally Lehrman, AlterNet

September 18, 2003

Editors Note: This is the first in a short series of articles by Sally Lehrman, a veteran journalist and Expert Fellow of USC Annenberg's Institute for Justice and Journalism, which are being published by AlterNet in an effort to provide context about issues related to racial and ethnic identity. The Institute for Justice and Journalism was created at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication with Ford Foundation funding to strengthen news coverage and public understanding of justice and civil rights issues.

Young Black Males May Be Misdiagnosed

Each year, eight million American children, or about 10 percent of the school-age population, are prescribed drugs, such as Ritalin, for learning and attention difficulties. Children of color, especially African American boys, are much more likely to have these behavior- and mind-altering drugs prescribed for them.

In fact, a recent study in the state of New York showed that "minority boys" are 11 times more likely to be on mind-altering medications than the general student body.

…In fact, many behavior problems displayed in children labeled with "learning disabilities" are also the same types of behavior problems caused by a poor diet, high mercury and lead levels, exposure to pesticides and other toxins and iron deficiency.

Labeling a child with these "disorders" has led to cases in which school personnel have coerced parents into accepting psychiatric diagnoses for their child's behavior or learning problems and insisting that parents place their child on psychiatric drugs.

It seems to me that the problem only gets worse for those black voices that happen to deviate from the standard left-wing party line - the "liberals" see them as dupes at best and uncle toms at worst, while the "conservatives" tend to regard them as aberrations to be ignored, if they fail to aver that everything black is always bad, and that black people are always entirely to blame for any of the ails that befall them.

The end result of this discomfiture on the left as well as the right is that such voices tend to fall between two stools, so to speak. People want voices they can use as propaganda for their own ideological stances, and recognition of complexities gets in the way of such utility. To be a black liberal is easy, and to be a black conservative in the Shelby Steele mold is easier still: what is difficult is maintaining that, yes, racism does indeed still exist, that it does need fighting, that it is indeed responsible for many of the problems blacks face today, but that not everything can or should be laid at the white man's door - that just messes up the script for everyone looking for a nice little token.

As for the realities of "race" vs. "culture" - I'll freely acknowledge that there's no simple identification between the two; to draw on my own personal circumstances, I probably know more about European art and classical music than most white people I'll ever encounter. Nevertheless, this does not mean that I can agree with the notion that "culture" is all - how can it possibly be, as long as one has to deal with others whose attitudes to one will be based on one's perceived racial background?

Let me clarify what I'm getting at by putting this in another context; if in 1935 the Germans said you were a Jew, then for all practical purposes, you WERE one, regardless of what your background was or how you felt about the matter. So it is with being "black" today. As long as there are women who clutch their purses and cross the street, in broad daylight, even though you are dressed in a suit and on your way to work at an investment bank, then there are going to be things you can bring to a discussion that no white person can, however familiar or unfamiliar with "black" culture that person may be.

cobb states in "The Mystery of the Black Blogger" that if you can't write a 1000 word essay on the topic of whiteness, the subject of race-consciousness is out of your reach. and because i believe him, i ask all of you to do a little writing.

the suggested questions are aimed specifically at whitefolks, but please feel free to expound on the subject if you are of another race or ethnicity.

1. what does it mean to be white? what does it mean to be White?
2. how has whiteness affected your worldview?
3. how has whiteness affected your educational experience?
4. how has whiteness affected your experience with authority?
5. how has whiteness affected your experiences with people of other races and ethnicities?

please feel free to post your responses on your own blog. the more people we can add to this discussion, the better.

Seeing race bias, judge tosses evidence
(By Bill Dedman, Globe Correspondent)

A Latino man caught with 2 pounds of cocaine in the trunk of his car may go free today, after a judge found that the State Police troopers who arrested him had routinely searched more cars driven by minority motorists than whites.

Genetic Basis to Fairness, Study Hints
By NICHOLAS WADE

It's not fair!" is a common call from the playground and, in subtler form, from more adult assemblies. It now seems that monkeys, too, have a sense of fairness, a conclusion suggesting that this feeling may be part of the genetically programmed social glue that holds primate societies together, monkeys as well as humans.

The thesis make one sensible point. If the poor really knew what government cost them, they would have much less of it. The problem is folks like Kevin, who believe that taxes can be shifted to the rich wage earners, and that as a plain lie causing poverty and misery to the poor who believe him.

and

There is a level of progressive taxation that is fair, but its nothing like what Kevin foists on unsuspecting poor people.

This is a fact of life, as much as nuts like Kevin and you would like to play the redistribution game, it is always the middle and lower class that suffers from your collective ignorance about simple economics.

and

But I will tell you and Kevin this. One thing the right and left have in common is a incessant desire to take money from the poor and middle class and give it to government.

and

Kevin is one of the worse enemeies of the poor, filling them with vitriol about class conciousness and false hopes of a government bailout. He is as bad if not worse than that nutcase that runs the Free Republic, Jim Robinson.

and

Kevin has spent 40 years in driving up taxes in California and shifting the wealth of modest middle class Californians out of the state. Then he, along with his right wing compatriot, Jim Robinson bemoan and complain about increasing poverty in the state.

What does it mean for me to be a black blogger? The same thing is means for me to be a black woman. It's a part of my identity, practically one word because they are so intertwined. Does it necessarily mean that I have to go screaming from the hills that I'm black or preface everything with "in my young black female opinion?" No because it's obvious. It's not something I'm hiding really. The cyberspace conversation is a one that takes place in real life too. What does it mean to be black? Does it involve an intellectual frame or behaviors or shared history or is it social conditioning? Do you have an obligation to "be" a certain thing and discuss certain approved topics? I am what I am. My blog, writings and life are unique in some ways. Not necessarily in others. In words I can say I am a black feminist progressive urban educated young sexual neurotic yearning cynical woman, but that doesn't even sum up the half of it. But, I think that my little corner of cyber space is important even if it's not necessarily on the radar of those who envision themselves the authority. And that's pretty much it.

Does race portray itself online? Do racialized communities form without the presence of skin color? It seems that the answer is yes. What does that mean? That we don't leave our race when we leave our body? I won't try to say that our "mind" is racialized (because I'm against mind-body dialectics), though some would. But it certainly suggests a deeper or completely new ontology (a systematic account of existence) whether specifically to internet life or as a basis for criticisms for old ones - see authors like Hountondji, Fanon, bell hooks, or Alice Walker for great insites into racial ontologies.

P6 called me out on not being black.

Not that I was trying to confuse anyone. I was actually surprised at myself that I had never referred to my own race (I even looked back through the archives to see.) I think it reveals another role that race places on the internet. White people (in general) don't claim their race (maybe we assume everyone knows) while black people often (though not always) do. Perhaps there is some deeply ingrained racism in that? I'll have to consider that for a while before I have a solid answer.

Lawmaker Wants 'French' Back in Fries
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 8:20 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- With America needing all the help it can get in Iraq, it's time to swallow our pride and give the French back their fries, a House lawmaker said in a letter to her colleagues.

House Republican leaders last March, angered by French opposition to U.S. plans to take military action against Iraq, ordered that all restaurants in the House replace the french fries on their menus with ``freedom fries.'' But now, said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, we need to bring the French back to the table.

``President Bush is now urging that all parties put aside 'past bickering.' Delays in rebuilding international good will are costing Americans lives in Iraq, and billions of dollars to the American taxpayers,'' Lee wrote last week in a letter first reported by the congressional newspaper Roll Call. ``A symbolic start to that effort would be reinstating foods in the House cafeterias and dining halls and their traditional 'American' names -- french toast and french fries.''

What Does it Mean to Be a part of the Black Blogging Community?

It means feeling safe to say what you want to say. It means being challenged in ways you didn't expect. It means comfort. It means having an expectation of similar cultural and historical currency. It's the silent nod that lets you know that in a sea of supposed "color blindness" and "anonymity" somebody out there knows what the fuck you're talking about and why you're talking about it.

Cheney's misspeaking streak

By Derrick Z. Jackson, 9/17/2003

DICK CHENEY has lived off his press clippings far too long. In 2000, Cheney was the stealth vice presidential candidate whose image obliterated his radical associations with the far right and oil. Next to presidential candidate George W. Bush, who had little foreign experience. Cheney, a former defense secretary, White House chief of staff, and congressman, was described by both Republicans and Democrats as adding "gravitas," "weight," "heft," and "integrity" to the ticket.

His balding dome, round body, and soft voice led many to describe him as "grandfatherly." He was described by political analysts and journalists as a safe and even boring addition to the ticket who would "do no harm" to Bush's bid for the White House.

Three years later, the stealth grandfather is the hired gun. His harm to America's integrity is now incalculable.

Editorial: Truth / Too little of it on Iraq Published 09/17/2003

Dick Cheney is not a public relations man for the Bush administration, not a spinmeister nor a political operative. He's the vice president of the United States, and when he speaks in public, which he rarely does, he owes the American public the truth.

In his appearance on "Meet the Press" Sunday, Cheney fell woefully short of truth. On the subject of Iraq, the same can be said for President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz. But Cheney is the latest example of administration mendacity, and therefore a good place to start in holding the administration accountable. The list:

To explore every phony statement in the vice president's "Meet the Press" interview would take far more space than is available. This merely points out some of the most egregious examples. Opponents of the war are fond of saying that "Bush lied and our soldiers died." In fact, they'd have reason to assert that "Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz lied and our soldiers died." It's past time the principals behind this mismanaged war were called to account for their deliberate misstatements.

For information supporting the points made in this editorial, go to http://www.startribune.com/opinion [p6:registration required at this point] and click on the 2cents logo in the third column. The top item on 2cents provides all the links.

Boxing George Bush Into a Corner in 2004
Come Out Fighting
by Rick Perlstein
September 17 - 23, 2003

It is an unlovely fact, but a fact nonetheless. The surest way to win a presidential election is to successfully scare the bejesus out of the voters about what will happen if the opponent becomes, or remains, president of the United States. Not a pleasant thing for Democrats, who like to be nice, to have to ponder. Fortunately for the squeamish, they will simply be telling the truth. George W. Bush is scary. Going negative against him, early, even right out of the box, might be not just a winning strategy. It will also be the patriotic thing to do. Just ask Rand Beers.

I fantasize about the Democratic nominee kicking off his campaign with a TV spot like this:

Picture a man standing in an office, handsome, serious. It is Rand Beers, a former top Bush administration counterterrorism expert, looking into the camera and telling America the exact same words he told The Washington Post this past June when he resigned from his job with the National Security Council and joined the John Kerry presidential campaign: "The administration wasn't matching its deeds to its words in the war on terrorism. They're making us less secure, not more secure." (The words appear along the bottom of the screen, for emphasis: They're making us less secure, not more secure.)

Perhaps at this point a shot might home in on a document—the oath of office he keeps framed upon his wall. Then he might say something like: I served under presidents Ronald Reagan, Clinton, and George H.W. Bush. But what I saw under this president made me do something I never thought I would do: quit the government service.

Cue close-up: steely eyes.

Stirring music.

I decided this past June that the best way to keep my pledge to help secure my nation was to work full-time for the defeat of this president.

Is that too wordy? I don't know. I've never written a television commercial before. I suspect that this one might work, though, even if General Wesley Clark isn't the Democratic nominee.

Frankly...there is a perfect candidate out there. He's got a ton of experience. He's a veteran. He's got all the right ideas, and positions on the issues. And he would fire up the political base like no one else. Oh yeah...and he's already proven he can get more people to vote for him that for George W. Bush.

His name is Al Gore.

Sadly...he decided to sit this one out.

Of course, he could not answer the question everybody wanted to know the answer to: when over the past six million years did our ancestors change from being African plains ape--a smarter plains-dwelling version of chimpanzee--into people?

The second was a speculation that perhaps the key moment came 1.8 million years ago accompanied by a short description of a dig in ex-Soviet Georgia: a carnivore cave filled with bones in which some of the bones have been marked by proto-human stone tools, and in which there are lots of small palm-sized basalt rocks that are not from the neighborhood. The belief is that the proto-humans threw the rocks to drive the carnivores from their lair, and then took and scavenged their kills. That's pretty gutsy. And once we had made the transition to this kind of pack super-hyena--an animal that can take and guard whatever carcasses it wants--we were on the way.

Well, one reason is that Californians pay about $255 billion in total taxes to the federal government but receive back only $195 billion in services. That's a difference of $60 billion.

In other words, California subsidizes other states to the tune of $60 billion a year. If even half that money were used here instead — for California roads, California schools, and California cops — we could have wiped out our deficit and lowered taxes at the same time.

So who's getting all our dough? Why, all those hard working, salt of the earth, traditionally valued red states, that's who. The same ones who tell us they represent "real" America and complain endlessly about our elitist values, our anti-business attitudes, and our socialistic tax system. In fact, it turns out that with only 12 exceptions the net contributors to the federal budget are blue states and the net sucker-uppers are red states.

Senate Approves Measure to Undo FCC Rules
By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 16, 2003; 12:25 PM

The Senate voted 55 to 40 today to wipe out all of the Federal Communication Commission's controversial new media rules, employing a little used legislative tool for overturning agency regulations.

The resolution of disapproval, sponsored by Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), is now put on the House calendar, where a tougher vote is expected. Even if passed by the House, the White House has promised a veto.

Dorgan's resolution is the most sweeping of several challenges to the FCC's rules, which make it easier for media corporations to buy more newspapers and television stations but tighten radio ownership rules.

On June 2, the FCC passed new rules that allow a newspaper to buy a television station in the same city or vice versa, combinations known as "cross-ownership." Also, the new rules let a broadcast network, such as ABC and Fox, own a group of stations that reach up to 45 percent of the national audience, up from 35 percent, the current "national cap." They allow one media company to own more than one station in many cities. Finally, the new rules tighten radio ownership rules, essentially capping national radio consolidation. This rule would be overturned by Dorgan's resolution as well, allowing radio conglomerates to grow bigger.

"To get a small tightening for radio you have to pay for that with [a 45 percent cap] and cross-ownership; it's too high of a price," Dorgan said yesterday. "We're telling the FCC to do it over and do it right. Reverting back to June 2 is not catastrophic as far as I'm concerned."

National origins can be interesting to the extent that they cause people to have quite different points of view, which is why Kim du Toit is fun to read. He is a genuine "African American", in that he's a white immigrant from South Africa who is now a naturalized citizen. (If he ain't an African-American, who is?)

One of the reasons why a lot of bloggers "pass" is because they want to be seen as themselves, not as what they look like. (In fact, there are some bloggers out there whose gender I'm not even sure of.) Does the value of someone's words change because of the color of their skin? Or whether they're old or young? or based on their sex? Not for me.

What I believe P6 may be trying to do (not speaking to P6 I have no way of knowing his true motives) is to open up a broader discussion on how Blacks fit into the blog community and the potential of blogs to foster strong online communities of educated black folks. I make the specific reference to EDUCATED black folks because if you�ve ever looked at the numbers not many of our ghetto cousins are signing on.

Personally I believe that blogs and the Internet in general MAY have the potential to foster strong online communities for blacks, but why hasn�t it happened already?

So if P6 really does want to open a discussion on blogs and how they may fit into the Black online presence I have one question. Who will be the person that strikes the match that lights the fire?

The alternative is to create a joint authored portal like Volokh or Crooked Timber or OxBlog. I have Vision Circle and there is the ever excellent Negrophile. For the moment I'm not complaining. I do think, however there is a significant question on whether the blogosphere needs a joint blog of color.

The Welfare Merry-Go-Round: Part 2 The states prepare for Bush's new welfare push By MATTHEW COOPER Given the other issues at hand, you might not think welfare reform would be a hot one for President Bush. But he has long wanted to toughen the 1996 law that led to a dramatic reduction in welfare rolls and imposed work requirements on many recipients ? and he is now a step closer. Voting along party lines, the Senate Finance Committee approved a bill last week that would replace the expired 1996 law with a stricter set of rules. The measure would raise the number of hours that welfare recipients must work or be enrolled in training or course work. It would gradually require that 70% of recipients be working or preparing to work, up from 50% today. And it would provide up to $1.5 billion for activities that promote marriage, such as couples counseling.

Though toughening the law has bipartisan support in Washington, cash-strapped states are less sanguine. The Senate committee's bill includes about $1 billion to help struggling states pay for child care, but that could be as much as $500 million short of what they need, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Twenty-three states have backlogs of parents who qualify for child-care funds but can't get them, according to a General Accounting Office report.

Their argument is that religious speech in general, not just Christianity, has been banished from state institutions and that this perverts the founders intention which was that America should be a country of religious pluralism not secularism.

…The next time a Judge Roy Moore wants to install the Ten Commandments in his courtroom or some high school senior wants to lead the school in a prayer I would encourage several people of different faiths to demand that their religion be treated no differently and observed in exactly the same manner. I think it might be especially helpful if Muslims, Buddhists, Rastafarians and Scientologists waged this fight since they represent a variety of ways in which American politics? new public embrace of religion might be tested.

…let?s put the establishment clause to the test. If Judge Roy Moore would not object to having a statue of Heile Selassie next to his monument or a bunch of Hare Krishna?s selling books in the lobby of the courthouse, then I suppose I couldn?t really argue with his sincerity in making the claim that he?s not trying to unconstitutionally establish Christianity as the state religion.

If he does object then I think we?ll know that his agenda is really to establish his religion as the legitimate religious voice associated with the state. And, that is exactly what the establishment clause was designed to prevent.

Baghdad's Packed Morgue Marks a City's Descent Into Lawlessness By Jeffrey Fleishman Times Staff Writer

8:31 PM PDT, September 15, 2003

BAGHDAD ? A sourness stings the morning air as men with wooden coffins tied on taxis come to collect the murdered: a boy shot in the face during a carjacking, a ruffian stabbed in a neighborhood fight, a sheik ambushed by his rivals, a son with a bullet through the heart.

U.S.-led coalition forces insist that stability is returning to Iraq. The ledger in the Baghdad morgue tells a different tale.

The number of reported gun-related killings in Baghdad has increased 25-fold since President Bush declared an end to major combat May 1. Before the war began, the morgue investigated an average of 20 deaths a month caused by firearms. In June, that number rose to 389 and in August it reached 518. Moreover, the overall number of suspicious deaths jumped from about 250 a month last year to 872 in August.

The Baghdad morgue is beyond full. Refrigeration boxes that usually hold six bodies are crammed with 18. An unidentified corpse is dragged across the floor beneath the blue glow of an insect-repelling light. Five others ? two pocked with gunshot wounds ? lie on steel tables. With quiet determination, pathologists lift their scalpels, chart their findings and fill the waiting coffins.

Most of the dead here are not casualties of military actions or terrorist attacks, such as last month's bombing of the United Nations headquarters, which killed at least 20 people. Nor are they American soldiers.

Instead, they are everyday civilians, victims of the violence that has become a fact of life in a city that wakes and sleeps to the cadence of gunfire and unrelenting crime. The coalition forces and the new Iraqi police have been unable to stop the torrent of mayhem springing from robberies, carjackings and just plain anger.

Veiled and Worried in Baghdad By LAUREN SANDLER

BAGHDAD, Iraq

A single word is on the tight, pencil-lined lips of women here. You'll hear it spoken over lunch at a women's leadership conference in a restaurant off busy Al Nidal Street, in a shade-darkened beauty shop in upscale Mansour, in the ramshackle ghettos of Sadr City. The word is "himaya," or security. With an intensity reminiscent of how they feared Saddam Hussein, women now fear the abduction, rape and murder that have become rampant here since his regime fell. Life for Iraqi women has been reduced to one need that must be met before anything else can happen.

"Under Saddam we could drive, we could walk down the street until two in the morning," a young designer told me as she bounced her 4-year-old daughter on her lap. "Who would have thought the Americans could have made it worse for women? This is liberation?"

In their palace surrounded by armed soldiers, officials from the occupying forces talk about democracy. But in the same cool marble rooms, when one mentions the fears of the majority of Iraq's population, one can hear a representative of the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the police, say, "We don't do women." What they don't seem to realize is that you can't do democracy if you don't do women.

NOW's Woman Problem

The National Organization for Women has chosen a peculiar way to enhance the clout of women in politics. The group has joined another feminist outpost, the National Women's Political Caucus, in endorsing Carol Moseley Braun, the former senator from Illinois and ambassador to New Zealand, for president of the United States.

No question Ms. Braun has a strong record on women's rights issues that are a priority for NOW, like pay equity and reproductive choice. As the first black woman ever to be elected to the Senate, she has already secured a place in history.

But those pluses notwithstanding, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Ms. Braun's presidential bid is a vanity affair. Her scarcely funded campaign seems less a serious bid for the White House than a personal quest to return to the limelight and redeem a reputation clouded ? unfairly, according to Ms. Braun ? by questions about her ethics and judgment that contributed to her 1998 defeat for a second Senate term.

There is a place in the American political system for symbolic candidacies that advance important principles. But it is hard to see a principle that distinguishes Ms. Braun's candidacy, other than perhaps the right of a tarnished former official to seek the nation's highest office.

By racing to assist Ms. Braun's candidacy, the leaders of NOW showed loyalty to someone with a long relationship with the organization, going back to the unsuccessful struggle to enact the Equal Rights Amendment. But they also trivialized the important role women will play in the coming election, and made themselves look silly to boot.

NOW's Endorsement

To the Editor:

Re "NOW's Woman Problem" (editorial, Sept. 14):

One of the reasons women had to struggle so long to win the vote ? and why we continue to fight for full equality ? is the trivializing of women and our concerns.

It smacks of sexism when the endorsement of two major women's organizations is demeaned as "silly." And it smacks of more than that when a qualified African-American woman who is running for president is disparaged not for her experience or platform but for her presumed "vanity."

NOW has more than 500,000 contributing members, and our goal is to take action to advance women's equality. Carol Moseley Braun, a forceful ally with a strong record, is getting women's issues onto the table and into the political debate, and she deserves our support.

We've never made endorsements to impress the media or the pundits, and we're not going to start now. That would be silly.
KIM GANDY
President
National Organization for Women
Washington, Sept. 14, 2003

Michael Jordan couldn�t stop it from happening to his father, James, and former LAPD Chief Bernard Parks couldn�t stop it from happening to his granddaughter, Lori Gonzalez. (That the latter�s grandfather was the chief of police in LA at the time of her murder is one of the cruelest, sickest jokes of all.)

Now professional tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams get the same horrifying lesson in the murder of their older sister, Yetunde Price.

Fame and fortune could not assist these well-known black American citizens in protecting their families from the reaper that plagues the communities of the average black American: We are being murdered, mostly by those who claim to be our brothers.

Energy's Pals in High Places

September 15, 2003

The energy industry's multibillion-dollar wish list survives intact in the national energy act being hashed out in a congressional conference committee. The legislation remains the product of closed-door meetings two years ago between energy industry executives and Vice President Dick Cheney, a former oilman. Though the Senate in July managed to pass a slightly more moderate bill that Democrats had backed, bipartisan activity ended the moment Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) and Rep. W.J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-La.) loaded their House-Senate conference committee with friends of the energy industry.

Domenici and Tauzin shamelessly link oil drilling in the Alaskan wilderness to such things as keeping the lights on in New York, even though the blackout was a result of a neglected transmission system, not lack of power. They and their allies continue to push for subsidies to oil states, coal states and farm states that grow corn used to produce the gasoline additive ethanol. Conspicuously absent is any mention of tougher automobile fuel efficiency standards that would dramatically reduce energy consumption. Domenici also would give utilities loan guarantees to help them build nuclear plants, even though the industry hasn't figured out how to dispose of aging, outdated power reactors and their radioactive waste.

World trade negotiations break down
Poor nations claim a victory over the West

By Niko Price, Associated Press, 9/15/2003

CANCUN, Mexico -- Talks designed to change the face of trade around the world collapsed yesterday amid differences between rich and poor nations, the second failure for the World Trade Organization in four years.

Delegates from many poor countries celebrated what they called a victory against the West, and an increasingly powerful alliance of poor but populous farming nations said they had found a new voice to rival the developed world.

"The developing countries have come into their own," said Malaysia's minister for international trade and investment, Rafidah Aziz. "This has made it clear that developing countries cannot be dictated to by anybody."

Hours later, the meeting's chairman, Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez of Mexico, declared the meeting over, saying, "Unfortunately, we didn't achieve the advances we had proposed to achieve." He pledged to work toward completing negotiations in the future.

In the end, it was the diverging agendas of 146 member countries that split delegates beyond the point of repair.

Poor nations, many of which had banded together to play a key role in the negotiations, wanted to end the rich countries' agricultural subsidies.

European nations and Japan were intent on pushing four new issues that many poor countries saw as a complicated and costly distraction.

Many poor countries accused the United States and Europe of trying to bully poor nations into accepting trade rules they did not want.

"Trade ministers have been pressured, blackmailed," said Irene Ovonji Odida, a delegate from Uganda.

The United States said some countries were more interested in flowery speeches than negotiations, but didn't identify them.

"Some countries will now need to decide whether they want to make a point or whether they want to make progress," said the US trade representative, Robert Zoellick.

His comments appeared directed at a group of mostly poor nations -- often known as the Group of 20-plus -- that emerged as the major opposition to the US and European positions. The group represents most of the world's population and includes China, India, Indonesia, and Brazil.

Buying a High-Priced Upgrade on the Political Back-Scratching Circuit
By ADAM COHEN

The letter from the Republican Party to Bristol-Myers Squibb is as subtle as a sledgehammer. The Republicans expect a $250,000 contribution. The payoff? Jim Nicholson, then the Republican National Committee chairman, encloses the Republican health care package and asks for suggested changes. "We must keep the lines of communications open," he tells the drug giant ominously, "if we want to continue passing legislation that will benefit your industry."

The Bristol-Myers shakedown is part of the record in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, the challenge to the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law now before the Supreme Court. It is one of a stack of documents detailing just how corporate executives and billionaires convert six-figure contributions into meetings with members of Congress, and a role in writing legislation. It is, by now, no great surprise that this goes on. But these documents still shock, by how blatant the deals are, and how willing the participants are to write it all down.

…According to a new study published by AT&T Labs, the prime source of unauthorized copies of new movies on file-sharing networks appears to be movie industry insiders, not consumers. The study is "the first publicly available assessment of the source of leaks of popular movies," according to its authors.

Nearly 80 percent of some 300 copies of popular movies found by the researchers on online file sharing networks "appeared to have been leaked by industry insiders," and nearly all showed up online before their official consumer DVD release date, suggesting that consumer DVD copying represents a relatively minor factor compared with insider leaks.

"Our conclusion is that the distributors really need to take a hard look at their own internal processes and look at how they can stop the insider leaks of their movies" before taking measures that might hamstring consumers' technologies and rights, said Lorrie Cranor, a researcher at AT&T Labs and lead author of the study.

On this blog, I do not claim to speak for all black bloggers, as blacks in the blogosphere are as unique and diverse as any other blogger -- in many ways, and on many topics. Though I am proud to be black (and I always will be), I am even more proud to be a self-thinking individual.

On this blog, I speak for me, myself, and I. No one else. You'll get my perspective on news items in my backyard and abroad, politics, education, liberty, economics, race, culture, religion, and whole lot of other stuff as it stimulates my brain. Your mileage may vary.

And that's all I have to say about that...

Robinson, I think, is suggesting that race is not a category imposed by western society, but rather a category extended from the group which it is claiming, in an attempt to shield it from the oppression of its western determinants. Robinson later talks about how there was a slave tradition that if you don't eat the salts from the new world, you are not tied to it and, when you die, you can fly back to Africa. In a sense, this refers to the slaves power to create an identity without succumbing to the imposition of the white world; as that identity is maintained, it will bring them back to Africa.

In this case, we're talking about color blindness. And for some reason mainstream western (ie, white) culture got it into their heads that they created race, so they can choose to be color blind. According to Robinson, this is far from the case. White culture cannot be colorblind because it is race that is being imposed on them as a response to their oppressive glance upon the individuals-as-categorized-as-community.

(Pardon my existentialism.)

But my point is that it is part of the oppression of the white mainstream to first, to pretend to racialize others, and second, to pretend to be able to halt the racialism. This is the exact oppression that racialism is attempting to confront. The Black, or laden, or even Female (thought gender will take a many unique twists) communities are creating their "Africa" in their rejection of white embodiment (Pardon my phenomena.) In other words, it is in the racialism that they are responding to their own situation, not the situation as forced on them by the oppressors.

Did I make this clear enough? Am I just blowing in the wind? I have no idea. But it builds, I think, towards a system that I would definitely like to take further. In the end, I would like to move along similar lines and find a unity in the forms of oppression, though very distinct, between Race, Class, Gender, and Sexual Orientation.

Driven Back to a Place We Would Rather Not Be
By Muhanned Tull
Sunday, September 14, 2003; Page B01

ARRAM, West Bank

The news started trickling in to my office within minutes last Tuesday. There had been a suicide bombing at a bus stop east of Tel Aviv. I could immediately feel the anxiety start to build all around me. We Palestinians have been down the same road many times, and we know what to expect. At some point -- we could not know precisely when, but we knew it would happen -- the Israeli army tanks would come roaring down the streets of our cities, wreaking havoc all around.

Colleagues came to ask me for permission to leave early, wanting to get home and make preparations. I listened to them wondering whether they had enough milk for their children, enough food, enough fuel; worrying about getting their sick family members to the hospital, about making contingency plans in case their apartments got hit or demolished. Everyone was expecting the usual siege -- the Israelis sweeping in and imposing an extended curfew, imprisoning us in our homes and firing freely at those who dared or had to move.

But as I listened, what struck me most was the mechanical nature of the reaction I was witnessing -- and feeling myself. There was little emotion in the air. There was no effort to analyze what had happened, or why. People were simply discussing logistics as though they were preparing for a snowstorm. We're so used to it, I thought to myself. The situation is mad, but we've adapted to it. A few hours later, I heard about a second bombing at a coffee shop in Jerusalem. Now we were really in for it. And yet the thought filled me not with fear or rage or despair, but simply with hopelessness.

Hopelessness is a Palestinian's daily companion now. A year, two years ago, I was angry; then the anger became frustration. But now I feel nothing. It's as though I have a broken heart. Like most, if not all, of my countrymen, I see no end to the cycle of violence, to this Israeli-Palestinian war -- and make no mistake, it is a war.

We Palestinians feel as though we will just keep watching the same movie over and over again. An Israeli "targeted assassination" of a Hamas, Islamic Jihad or Fatah leader, followed by retaliation from our side in the form of a suicide bombing, followed by the Israeli crackdown on the entire Palestinian population, followed by a targeted assassination. . . . Blood in the streets, endlessly. We're just going to keep killing each other unto eternity. And I feel many Israelis are just as puzzled over how to get out of this mess as we are.

New Terror Laws Used Vs. Common Criminals
Police Use New Anti-Terror Laws to Capture Common Criminals Like Drug Dealers, Money Smugglers

The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA Sept. 14 —
In the two years since law enforcement agencies gained fresh powers to help them track down and punish terrorists, police and prosecutors have increasingly turned the force of the new laws not on al-Qaida cells but on people charged with common crimes.

The Justice Department said it has used authority given to it by the USA Patriot Act to crack down on currency smugglers and seize money hidden overseas by alleged bookies, con artists and drug dealers.

Federal prosecutors used the act in June to file a charge of "terrorism using a weapon of mass destruction" against a California man after a pipe bomb exploded in his lap, wounding him as he sat in his car.

A North Carolina county prosecutor charged a man accused of running a methamphetamine lab with breaking a new state law barring the manufacture of chemical weapons. If convicted, Martin Dwayne Miller could get 12 years to life in prison for a crime that usually brings about six months.

Prosecutor Jerry Wilson says he isn't abusing the law, which defines chemical weapons of mass destruction as "any substance that is designed or has the capability to cause death or serious injury" and contains toxic chemicals.

Civil liberties and legal defense groups are bothered by the string of cases, and say the government soon will be routinely using harsh anti-terrorism laws against run-of-the-mill lawbreakers.

"Within six months of passing the Patriot Act, the Justice Department was conducting seminars on how to stretch the new wiretapping provisions to extend them beyond terror cases," said Dan Dodson, a spokesman for the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys. "They say they want the Patriot Act to fight terrorism, then, within six months, they are teaching their people how to use it on ordinary citizens."

Prosecutors aren't apologizing.

Good Economy. Bad Job Market. Huh? By LOUIS UCHITELLE

IT was like waiting for Godot. We waited for years for productivity to accelerate, and now, unlike Godot, who never showed up, that day has finally arrived. Productivity is soaring, holding out the promise of rising prosperity. Unfortunately, now we're waiting for the prosperity to kick in. A second term for President Bush could ride on whether it does, and how soon.

The United States economy has not experienced anything like this since World War II. Normally, a spike in productivity is accompanied by an even greater spike in demand. Simply put, productivity rises when workers produce more and sell more each year, and do so without putting in extra hours. The production part is working just fine. The demand, however, is lacking.

That, in turn, is having nasty repercussions for jobs and incomes. The increase in productivity has allowed many employers to cut payrolls or workers' hours. Why pay six people to assemble 90 toaster ovens an hour when only four workers are needed to assemble the 60 ovens that can be sold? Better yet, why not speed up the line and cut the four workers to three, each one forced to work faster? But that leaves three workers unemployed, without income and unlikely to buy toaster ovens — or much else — until they get work again. Gradually, the demand for toaster ovens falls to 50, then 40, and another worker is laid off, or everyone's hours and pay are cut. And demand falls even more, producing its own negative dynamic.

If, instead of saying;

improvements in productivity means less workers are required to produce the same output

we said

improvements in productivity mean workers produce the required value with less effort

what would the impact on employment policy be?

Top Gun vs. Total Recall
FRANK RICH

Only in America could a guy who struts in an action-hero's Hollywood costume and barks macho lines from a script pass for a plausible political leader. But if George W. Bush can get away with it, why should Arnold Schwarzenegger be pilloried for the same antics?

At least Mr. Schwarzenegger is a show-biz pro. He never would have signed on for a remake of "Top Gun" without first ensuring that it would have the same happy ending as the original. He never would have allowed himself to look as scared as the abandoned kid in "Home Alone" while begging the nation for cash and patience last Sunday night. He would have dismissed B-movie dialogue like "dead or alive" and "bring 'em on" with a curt "hasta la vista, baby!"

And while both men have signed on to the same Hollywood fantasy for fixing an economy spiraling into billions of dollars of debt — cut taxes, spend more — the foreign-born Mr. Schwarzenegger comes by his fiscal pipe dreams the old-fashioned American way. He earned his multi-millions himself rather than through sweetheart deals available exclusively to the well-pedigreed.

This is why the hypocrisy attending the Arnold phenomenon from all sides — Republicans, Democrats, the media — is an entertainment in itself. Decades after John Kennedy embraced the Rat Pack and Ronald Reagan conflated the heroism of World War II movies with his actual (noncombat, stateside) war experience, voters are inured to the reality that show-business tricks are in the arsenal of every would-be national politician. Only Washington remains shocked, shocked that there could be a "circus" in which our political culture becomes indistinguishable from "Extra" (on which Rob Lowe came out for Arnold).

One Wall, One Man, One Vote
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

QALQILYA, West Bank

If there is one iron law that has shaped the history of Arab-Israeli relations, it's the law of unintended consequences. For instance, Israel is still wrestling with all the unintended consequences of its victory in 1967. Today, Israel is building a fence and walls around the West Bank to deter suicide bombers. But, having looked at this wall extensively from both sides, I am ready to make a prediction: It will be the mother of all unintended consequences.

Rather than create the outlines of a two-state solution, this wall will kill that idea for Palestinians, and drive them, over time, to demand instead a one-state solution — where they and the Jews would have equal rights in one state. And since by 2010 there will be more Palestinian Arabs than Jews living in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza combined, this transformation of the Palestinian cause will be very problematic for Israel. If American Jews think it's hard to defend Israel today on college campuses, imagine what it will be like when their kids have to argue against the principle of one man, one vote.

Gunsmoke and Mirrors
By MAUREEN DOWD

…We are learning once more, as we did on 9/11, that all the fantastic technology in the world will not save us. The undigitalized human will is able to frustrate our most elaborate schemes and lofty policies.

What unleashed Shock and Awe and the most extravagant display of American military prowess ever was a bunch of theologically deranged Arabs with box cutters.

The Bush administration thought it could use scientific superiority to impose its will on alien tribal cultures. But we're spending hundreds of billions subduing two backward countries without subduing them.

After the president celebrated victory in our high-tech war in Iraq, our enemies came back to rattle us with a diabolically ingenious low-tech war, a homemade bomb in a truck obliterating the U.N. offices, and improvised explosive devices hidden in soda cans, plastic bags and dead animals blowing up our soldiers. Afghanistan has mirror chaos, with reconstruction sabotaged by Taliban assaults on American forces, the Afghan police and aid workers.

The Pentagon blithely says that we have 56,000 Iraqi police and security officers and that we will soon have more. But it may be hard to keep and recruit Iraqi cops; the job pays O.K. but it might end very suddenly, given the rate at which Americans and guerrillas are mowing them down.

…Secretary Pangloss at Defense and Wolfie the Naif are terminally enchanted by their own descriptions of the world. They know how to use their minds, but it's not clear they know how to use their eyes.

"They are like people in Plato's cave," observed one military analyst. "They've been staring at the shadows on the wall for so long, they think they're forms."

Our high-tech impotence is making our low-tech colony sullen.

…Senator McCain says that "the bad guys" are reminding Iraqis that America "propped up Saddam Hussein in the 80's, sided with Iraq in the Iraq-Iran war, told the people in Basra in '91 we'd help them get rid of Saddam and didn't, and put economic sanctions on them in the 90's."

He says we have to woo them, even though we are pouring $87 billion — double the amount designated for homeland security — into the Iraqi infrastructure when our own electrical grid, and port and airport security, need upgrading.

…Mocking all our high-priced, know-nothing intelligence, Osama is back in the studio making his rock videos.

…We haven't forgotten all Mr. Bush's bullhorn, dead-or-alive pledges.

But he's like a kid singing with fingers in his ears, avoiding mentioning Saddam or bin Laden, or pressing the Pakistanis who must be protecting Osama up in no man's land and letting the Taliban reconstitute (even though we bribed Pakistan with a billion in aid). He doesn't dwell on nailing Saddam either.

His gunsmoke has gone up in smoke.