From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes:
Reports of a re-birth in Haitian agriculture are premature, but the midwives are ready. Turns out, the United States “has opened several training centers that aim to instruct hundreds of farmers in rudimentary practices often taken for granted in other countries” and a couple of U.S. churches have built an “experimental farm” and transplanted urban Haitians to the countryside to learn self-sufficiency. They hope to build 4 more, each housing ten families.
These notes, published in the New York Times on Christmas day, are hopeful beginnings for the nation that 25 years ago took care of itself using farming techniques remembered from Africa. Still, there are significant problems to address, like where their water will come from and how the new, urban-born farmers will adapt to rural life.
If the problems sound familiar, it’s because they’re pretty much like the challenges to agriculture here at home. NYT quotes a transplanted Port-au-Prince grocer who lost his store in the earthquake. He “complains of the backbreaking work and misses the energy of the city, the parties, the friends.” “City dwellers have to believe that it is worth the effort to move their families to spend hours in the hot sun, hoeing and planting.”
One thing that’s different, though, is the fact that the Haitian government recognizes the danger of reliance on imported foods. They estimate that 52% of Haiti’s food comes from abroad, compared to 20% a few decades ago. Here in the U.S., it’s impossible to get real numbers on the amount of imported food we’re consuming. U.S.D.A. keeps track of agricultural products, like raw meats, fruits and vegetables, but doesn’t keep track of processed foods—canned meats, fruits and vegetables. Those are supposed to be tracked by F.D.A. but estimates vary widely. Is it 20%, as FDA graphs claim? Or is it 50%, as the right-wing Judicial Watch asserted using “information-sharing and collaboration among governments, the private sector and academia.”
U.S. agriculture has had a huge impact on Haiti. We sold them only about 7,000 metric tons of rice in 1985. Then came the first “free trade” agreement, under Ronald Reagan, requiring Haiti to lower trade restrictions and accept more US rice. In 1986, US imports rose to 24,683 tons and in 1987, to 100,177 tons. 1986 ended with the expulsion of “Baby Doc” Duvalier, and the Haitian government sought loans from the International Monetary Fund.
Their food supply now thoroughly dependent on “Miami rice,” Haitians booted out the president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991. He was gone for three years. Then, Aristide returned to power with the help of 20,000 US Army troops. Immediately after, Haiti became part of a new agreement with the IMF. Haiti’s tariffs were lowered on rice imports from 35% to 3%. In contrast, most Caribbean countries had a tariff of 25%. Haiti’s new tariff made it the Caribbean’s least trade-restrictive country.
Thus the game is played, but farmers are not the only gamesmen. There is a world of knowledge to lose—grain is handled by cleaners, millers, warehousers, transporters and processors. In Haiti, these jobs were handled in a traditional manner remembered from Africa. The system included hard work, yes, but also included tricks to make the work interesting. Traditions, stories, festivals, special foods, fun, invention, music. Losing the knowledge, along with the farmers, means the loss of the entire culture that made life rich.
For American farmers, the impact of Haiti’s rural renaissance could be significant. Reviving their sugar mills, for example, could impact the U.S. corn growers’ ethanol market because sugar yields more energy than corn. Reviving their rice culture could impact U.S. rice growers accustomed to exporting with nearly no tariff.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Monday, December 26, 2011
Old Xmas movie shows which ideological imperatives have changed and which remain the same
By Marc Jampole
Last night I flipped on Turner Classic Movies for a half hour after returning from participating in a revered Christmas Eve and Christmas tradition among American Jews—having Chinese food with family and friends. I caught the last 20 minutes of the original (and thankfully uncolorized) 1947 version of Miracle on 34th Street, in which a trial is held to determine whether a Macy’s Santa Claus is the real thing.
A lot happens in the last 20 minutes of the movie: the case is heard; the judge declares that the jolly and benevolent old man is the real Santa Claus; Santa’s lawyer, played by the forgettable John Payne, gets together with his love interest, the unforgettable Maureen O’Hara; and Maureen’s daughter, played by a 9-year-old Natalie Wood, gets her Christmas wish.
In those 20 minutes the writer and director made a number of decisions on details to move the plot along that also subtly advocate three of the most important ideological principles of the time. What’s so striking is that one of these principles has in subsequent years been turned on its ear, while the other two persist and have become even more central to mass entertainment and the mainstream news media.
Let’s start with the big ideological reversal which resides in the reason that the judge declares the old man to be the real Santa Claus. It’s because the U.S. Post Office decides to send to him all the mail it has been holding for Santa Claus. The lead-up to this denouement consists of a five-minute interchange between Payne, the prosecutor and the judge in which they attempt to top each other in praising the post office—it’s efficient, accurate and virtuous, just like the rest of the government.
It was 1947, and the United States had just won a war and was in an era in which government was expanding its influence in the economy and guiding a redistribution of wealth that led to the golden age of 1950-1980 in which we became a nation of primarily middle class and well-to-do households. People liked government and mass entertainment wanted us to like government. I imagine that if Miracle on 34th Street were remade today, the post office might still perform its role in moving the plot along, but it wouldn’t be praised to the skies. It’s also likely that the producer would put the name of the delivery service up for bid resulting in a private company like Fed Ex delivering the Santa letters in the remake; or that they might come as emails that Google sent along.
Like many holiday-themed movies and books, Miracle on 34th Street has several plot lines that twist together. One of the twists is typically the Christmas gift wish of a child. It’s a bee-bee gun in A Christmas Story. It’s a train set in the film-by-numbers A Holiday Affair star-studded with Robert Mitchum, Janet Leigh and Wendell Corey (as another lawyer). The boy in Glenn Beck’s children’s book product titled A Christmas Sweater wants a bike. The plot device of focusing on a gift that is a selfish present for a child turns the spirit of Christmas into non-spiritual consumerism. For these children, the holiday reduces to getting, and getting means buying, which the movie families typically are too poor to do.
The miracle at the end (or occasionally in the middle) of the movie always involves the child getting the material possession, which means someone bought something. Christmas was the first holiday to become a commemoration of shopping and consumerism. In 1947 in Miracle on 34th Street, we see consumerism as the ideological imperative behind Christmas, and we certainly see it today. Nothing has changed.
The third ideological imperative I identified in the last part of the movies comes inside the gift that the girl wants. It’s not a bike, bee-bee gun or train set. It’s a house in the suburbs where a car is a necessity.
A house…in the suburbs…where a car is a necessity.
It’s the big American dream after World War II, subsidized by the government, recommended by the news media of the time and furnished by the real estate, car, retail and appliance manufacturing companies that dominated ad spending. Flee the diverse city for the safe and homogenized suburbs in which all social interaction revolved around cars and malls filled with national chain stores and restaurants. 1947 was near the beginning of the post-war American dream that has turned into a nightmare, especially for the environment and those dependent on dwindling natural resources, which means all of us.
Yet preferring the suburbs to cities remains one of the most important ideological tenets imbuing today’s more ubiquitous mass media, as I have discussed on numerous occasions in OpEdge.
Love or hate of government may be a matter of political fashion, but central to both the American post-War and 21st century ideologies is consumerism. That the preferred place to live, the suburbs, features consuming as its biggest virtue makes perfect sense. And it certainly makes sense that this ideology will manifest itself in the details of holiday entertainments. The Christmas entertainments more spiritual in nature, like It Happened on Fifth Avenue— also released in 1947and a delightful variation on My Man Godfrey—tend to be less popular and less replayed on television.
By: REGINA ZILBERMINTS
Published: December 26, 2011
During a kick-off press conference, at once a kick-off for a week of protests and an introduction to the local movement for national media, five Occupy Des Moines members spoke about why they are participating and for many, why they are willing to be arrested in front of a campaign headquarters this week.
What has Obama done well?
on Blog Talk Radio
Join Vicki with Jim Cullen, editor, of the Progress Populist to review the year of Obama and what he has done right.The airwaves and print media are so full of demonizing Obama let us give the President a little Christmas cheer and list the good things he has been able to accomplish. Hasn't been easy to accomplish anything with the uber-rich backing the Repubs and some of the Dems in Congress to stop any progress being made.
If you celebrate Christmas - have a Merry one! Same with Hanukkah - spin that dreidel!
And for everyone have a good two weeks winding up the end of year.
If you are thinking about voting against the Democratic candidate as a protest
or not voting at all. . . answer me this -
When did those actions help you get what you wanted?
;-) Vicki
Eating local--Haiti and Missouri
From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes:
Finally. Some good news from Haiti. There’s an effort to re-build their local food system, to move people out of the cities and into the countryside. Maybe we can learn from them and re-build our own.
One of the joys of being a locavore is the fun of shopping for food. Your list has, say, a dozen items on it. And, at each stop, the visit is a little reunion with people you care about. I’m always excited to see my farmers, grocers and bakers, and at Christmas it’s twice as fun.
So, on Christmas Eve, I stopped at Clover’s Natural Foods to pick up a few things. They let me peek at the space where they’re expanding into the old liquor store next door. Wow! I had no idea there was so much room in that old liquor store—enough so that Clover’s can host demonstrations or maybe a little deli. Chair massages, oh yeah! The possibilities are endless, so they’ll be deciding and probably changing things for a long time.
Then I went to Uprise Bakery for bread. Sam gave me a report on two hens that I dropped off a couple of weeks ago. We have so many predators at our place, and her hen house is pretty well protected; fearing for their lives, I donated the hens to her. They are moulting now, but the days will get longer very quickly and the hens will come out of it. One year, at my house, we ran out of eggs at Thanksgiving and didn’t have any until February. Ever since then, I’ve given myself permission to buy eggs and now we have a few neighbors raising them. So I stock up before the days get short.
Then I stopped at The Root Cellar for pies. Jen baked them using my freshly milled flour and since I’m completely an idiot when it comes to making pie crust it was a big help. Maybe I should say it was essential. Hannah was working, so I got to catch up with her also. I borrowed her ballpoint pen to check off things on my list—only two items left, and both from the farm store—a new bit for the donkey and long underwear for the farmer. For some reason, that list made Hannah laugh.
After the farm store, I stopped at the grain elevator just to visit. Joel had added a bit of décor to the lawn. Five little deer with white lights, you know the kind, and Joel had arranged them so it looked like they were drinking out of the old toilet he plants with flowers in the summer. Those guys have way too much fun at that place.
Amazing but true: Due to the mild weather, neighbors still have lettuce, although we don’t, and we still have tomatoes ripening in the shed. So it’s an easy trade. Most of the root crops—potatoes, turnips, sweet potatoes—are still available, and so are the chard and kale, not to mention the onions and garlic. And, of course, we have every kind of meat available. So, see, it’s not hard to eat local in mid-Missouri at Christmas.
I wish the same success for Haiti as they move forward.
And that's my blog from the heart for today.
Finally. Some good news from Haiti. There’s an effort to re-build their local food system, to move people out of the cities and into the countryside. Maybe we can learn from them and re-build our own.
One of the joys of being a locavore is the fun of shopping for food. Your list has, say, a dozen items on it. And, at each stop, the visit is a little reunion with people you care about. I’m always excited to see my farmers, grocers and bakers, and at Christmas it’s twice as fun.
So, on Christmas Eve, I stopped at Clover’s Natural Foods to pick up a few things. They let me peek at the space where they’re expanding into the old liquor store next door. Wow! I had no idea there was so much room in that old liquor store—enough so that Clover’s can host demonstrations or maybe a little deli. Chair massages, oh yeah! The possibilities are endless, so they’ll be deciding and probably changing things for a long time.
Then I went to Uprise Bakery for bread. Sam gave me a report on two hens that I dropped off a couple of weeks ago. We have so many predators at our place, and her hen house is pretty well protected; fearing for their lives, I donated the hens to her. They are moulting now, but the days will get longer very quickly and the hens will come out of it. One year, at my house, we ran out of eggs at Thanksgiving and didn’t have any until February. Ever since then, I’ve given myself permission to buy eggs and now we have a few neighbors raising them. So I stock up before the days get short.
Then I stopped at The Root Cellar for pies. Jen baked them using my freshly milled flour and since I’m completely an idiot when it comes to making pie crust it was a big help. Maybe I should say it was essential. Hannah was working, so I got to catch up with her also. I borrowed her ballpoint pen to check off things on my list—only two items left, and both from the farm store—a new bit for the donkey and long underwear for the farmer. For some reason, that list made Hannah laugh.
After the farm store, I stopped at the grain elevator just to visit. Joel had added a bit of décor to the lawn. Five little deer with white lights, you know the kind, and Joel had arranged them so it looked like they were drinking out of the old toilet he plants with flowers in the summer. Those guys have way too much fun at that place.
Amazing but true: Due to the mild weather, neighbors still have lettuce, although we don’t, and we still have tomatoes ripening in the shed. So it’s an easy trade. Most of the root crops—potatoes, turnips, sweet potatoes—are still available, and so are the chard and kale, not to mention the onions and garlic. And, of course, we have every kind of meat available. So, see, it’s not hard to eat local in mid-Missouri at Christmas.
I wish the same success for Haiti as they move forward.
And that's my blog from the heart for today.
Have you seen the letter to investigate Clarence Thomas?
You can join in the demand at People for the American Way.
A group of 20 House Democrats led by Rep. Louise Slaughter are now pushing for a Justice Department investigation into various possible ethics infractions by Justice Thomas.
September 29, 2011 James C. Duff Secretary to the Judicial Conference of the United States Administrative Office of the United States Courts, Suite 2-301 One Columbus Circle, N.E. Washington, DC 20544 Dear Mr. Duff: Widespread reporting, including a recent report in The New York Times titled “Friendship of Justice and Magnate Puts Focus on Ethics,” raise grave concerns about the failure of Justice Clarence Thomas to meet various disclosure requirements under the Ethics in Government Act of 1978. Based upon the multiple public reports, Justice Thomas’s actions may constitute a willful failure to disclose, which would warrant a referral by the Judicial Conference to the Department of Justice, so that appropriate civil or criminal actions can be taken. Due to the simplicity of the disclosure requirements, along with Justice Thomas’s high level of legal training and experience, it is reasonable to infer that his failure to disclose his wife’s income for two decades was willful, and the Judicial Conference has a non-discretionary duty to refer this case to the Department of Justice. Throughout his entire tenure on the Supreme Court, Justice Thomas checked a box titled "none” on his annual financial disclosure forms, indicating that his wife had received no income, despite the fact that his wife had in fact earned nearly $700,000 from the Heritage Foundation from 2003-2007 alone. Furthermore, an investigation conducted by The New York Times has revealed that Justice Thomas may have, on several occasions, benefited from use of a private yacht and airplane owned by Harlan Crowe, and again failed to disclose this travel as a gift or travel reimbursement on his federal disclosure forms as required by the Ethics in Government Act of 1978. Justice Thomas's failure to disclose his wife's income for his entire tenure on the federal bench and indications that he may have failed to file additional disclosure regarding his travels require the Judicial Conference to refer this matter to the Department of Justice. Section 104(b) of the Ethics Act requires the Judicial Conference to refer to the Attorney General of the United States any judge who the Conference "has reasonable cause to believe has willfully failed to file a report or has willfully falsified or willfully failed to file information required to be reported." If the Judicial Conference finds reasonable cause to believe that Justice Thomas has "willfully falsified or willfully failed to file information to be reported," it must, pursuant to §104, refer the case to the Attorney General for further determination of possible criminal or civil legal sanctions. Particularly as questions surrounding the integrity and fairness of the Supreme Court continue to grow, it is vital that the Judicial Conference actively pursue any suspicious actions by Supreme Court Justices. While we continue to advocate for the creation of binding ethical standards for the Supreme Court, it is important the Judicial Conference exercise its current powers to ensure that Supreme Court Justices are held accountable to the current law. As a result, we respectfully request that the Judicial Conference follow the law and refer the matter of Justice Thomas's non-compliance with the Ethics in Government Act to the Department of Justice. We eagerly await your reply. Sincerely, Rep. Louise Slaughter Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. Rep. Gwen Moore Rep. Mike Honda Rep. Earl Blumenauer Rep. Christopher Murphy Rep. John Garamendi Rep. Pete Stark Rep. Raul Grijalva Rep. John Olver Rep. Jan Schakowsky Rep. Donna Edwards Rep. Jackie Speier Rep. Paul Tonko Rep. Bob Filner Rep. Peter Welch Rep. John Conyers Rep. Keith Ellison Rep. Anna Eshoo Rep. Ed Perlmutter |
The Nation's Honor Roll recognizes courageous progressives for the year 2011.
John Nichols, The Nation
John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Beat since 1999. "What a difference a year makes! Last year The Nation’s Honor Roll recognized courageous, if often lonely, battlers against an austerity agenda, an ascendant Tea Party and a Republican electoral wave that had put Democrats, working folks and the unions that represent them on the defensive nationwide. This year we celebrate the remarkable movements that have arisen not just to stem the conservative tide but to build a new vision of progressivism for the twenty-first century. How much has changed? As 2011 finished, even Barack Obama was sounding populist themes. And progressives were organizing, fighting and winning critical battles on the streets, in the polling places and in the media. The events of 2011 did not transform America. But they did confirm that millions of Americans are ready to fight for the 99 percent."
MOST VALUABLE SENATOR: Sherrod Brown
MOST VALUABLE REPRESENTATIVE: Raúl Grijalva
MOST VALUABLE STATE SENATOR: Nina Turner
MOST VALUABLE STATE REPRESENTATIVE: Diane Russell
MOST VALUABLE LOCAL OFFICIAL: Sheriff Dave Mahoney
MOST VALUABLE STATE COALITION: Mississippians for Healthy Families
MOST VALUABLE NATIONAL COALITION: The New Bottom Line
MOST VALUABLE AGENDA: The National Nurses’ “Main Street Contract”
MOST VALUABLE CONFRONTATION: Iowa CCI
MOST VALUABLE RAPID RESPONSE: Iraq Veterans Against the War
MOST VALUABLE MUSICIAN: Tom Morello
MOST VALUABLE ECONOMIC NEWS SOURCE: Beat the Press
MOST VALUABLE WEBSITE: Save the Post Office savethepostoffice
.com
MOST VALUABLE JURIST: District Judge Jed Rakoff
MOST VALUABLE BOOK: Who’s Afraid of Frances Fox Piven?
MOST VALUABLE UNION: International Association of Fire Fighters
MOST VALUABLE CAMPAIGN: Draft Elizabeth Warren
MOST VALUABLE IDEA: Occupy Together
. . . continue reading at The Nation.
President Obama Speaks on the Importance of Extending the Payroll Tax Cut | The White House
President Obama Speaks on the Importance of Extending the Payroll Tax Cut | The White House:
Remarks by the President on the Payroll Tax Cut
South Court Auditorium
1:00 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, everybody. (Applause.) Please have a seat. Good afternoon to all of you. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays.
We've been doing everything we can over the last few weeks to make sure that 160 million working Americans aren’t hit with a holiday tax increase on January 1st. We’ve also been doing everything we can to make sure that millions of people who are out there looking for work in a very tough environment don’t start losing their unemployment insurance on January 1st.
Now, on Saturday, we reached a bipartisan compromise that would do just that -- make sure that people aren’t seeing a tax cut the first of the year; make sure that they still have unemployment insurance the first of the year. Nearly every Democrat in the Senate voted for that compromise. Nearly every Republican in the Senate voted for that compromise. Democrats and even some Republicans in the House voted for that compromise. I am ready to sign that compromise into law the second it lands on my desk.
So far, the only reason it hasn’t landed on my desk -- the only reason -- is because a faction of House Republicans have refused to support this compromise.
Now, if you’re a family making about $50,000 a year, this is a tax cut that amounts to about $1,000 a year. That’s about 40 bucks out of every paycheck. It may be that there's some folks in the House who refuse to vote for this compromise because they don’t think that 40 bucks is a lot of money. But anyone who knows what it’s like to stretch a budget knows that at the end of the week, or the end of the month, $40 can make all the difference in the world.
And that’s why we thought we’d bring your voices into this debate. So many of these debates in Washington end up being portrayed as which party is winning, which party is losing. But what we have to remind ourselves of is this is about people. This is about the American people and whether they win. It's not about a contest between politicians.
So on Tuesday, we asked folks to tell us what would it be like to lose $40 out of your paycheck every week. And I have to tell you that the response has been overwhelming. We haven't seen anything like this before. Over 30,000 people have written in so far -- as many as 2,000 every hour. We’re still hearing from folks -- and I want to encourage everybody who's been paying attention to this to keep sending your stories to WhiteHouse.gov and share them on Twitter and share them on Facebook.
The responses we’ve gotten so far have come from Americans of all ages and Americans of all backgrounds, from every corner of the country. Some of the folks who responded are on stage with me here today, and they should remind every single member of Congress what’s at stake in this debate. Let me just give you a few samples.
Joseph from New Jersey talked about how he would have to sacrifice the occasional pizza night with his daughters. He said -- and I'm quoting -- “My 16-year-old twins will be out of the house soon. I'll miss this.”
Richard from Rhode Island wrote to tell us that having an extra $40 in his check buys enough heating oil to keep his family warm for three nights. In his words -- I'm quoting -- “If someone doesn't think that 12 gallons of heating oil is important, I invite them to spend three nights in an unheated home. Or you can believe me when I say that it makes a difference.”
Pete from Wisconsin told us about driving more than 200 miles each week to keep his father-in-law company in a nursing home -- $40 out of his paycheck would mean he'd only be able to make three trips instead of four.
We heard from a teacher named Claire from here in D.C. who goes to the thrift store every week and uses her own money to buy pencils and books for her fourth grade class. Once in a while she splurges on science or art supplies. Losing $40, she says, would mean she couldn’t do that anymore.
For others, $40 means dinner out with a child who's home for Christmas, a new pair of shoes, a tank of gas, a charitable donation. These are the things at stake for millions of Americans. They matter to people. A lot.
And keep in mind that those are just the individual stories. That doesn’t account for the overall impact that a failure to extend the payroll tax cut and a failure to extend unemployment insurance would have on the economy as a whole. We've seen the economy do better over the last couple of months, but there's still a lot of sources of uncertainty out there -- what's going on in Europe, what's going on around the world. And so this is insurance to make sure that our recovery continues.
So it's time for the House to listen to the voices who are up here, the voices all across the country, and reconsider. What’s happening right now is exactly why people just get so frustrated with Washington. This is it; this is exactly why people get so frustrated with Washington. This isn’t a typical Democratic-versus-Republican issue. This is an issue where an overwhelming number of people in both parties agree. How can we not get that done? I mean, has this place become so dysfunctional that even when people agree to things we can't do it? (Applause.) It doesn’t make any sense.
So, enough is enough. The people standing with me today can’t afford any more games. They can’t afford to lose $1,000 because of some ridiculous Washington standoff. The House needs to pass a short-term version of this compromise, and then we should negotiate an agreement as quickly as possible to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance for the rest of 2012. It's the right thing to do for the economy, and it's, most importantly, the right thing to do for American families all across the country.
This is not just my view. Just a few hours ago, this is exactly what the Republican Leader of the Senate said we should do. Democrats agree with the Republican Leader of the Senate. We should go ahead and get this done. This should not be hard. We all agree it should happen. I believe it's going to happen sooner or later. Why not make it sooner, rather than later? Let’s give the American people -- the people who sent us here -- the kind of leadership they deserve.
Thank you, everybody. (Applause.)
END
1:08 P.M. EST
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Drones could patrol in U.S., FAA says
- Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES -- Drone aircraft, best known for their role in hunting and destroying terrorist hide-outs in Afghanistan, may soon be coming to the skies near you.
Police agencies want drones for air support to spot runaway criminals. Utility companies believe they can help monitor oil, gas and water pipelines. Farmers think drones could aid in spraying their crops with pesticides.
"It's going to happen," said Dan Elwell, vice president of civil aviation at the Aerospace Industries Association. "Now it's about figuring out how to safely assimilate the technology into national airspace."
"It's going to happen," said Dan Elwell, vice president of civil aviation at the Aerospace Industries Association. "Now it's about figuring out how to safely assimilate the technology into national airspace."
That's the job of the Federal Aviation Administration, which plans to propose new rules for the use of small drones in January, a first step toward integrating robotic aircraft into the nation's skyways.
Police departments in Texas, Florida and Minnesota have expressed interest in the technology's potential to spot runaway criminals on rooftops or to track them at night by using the robotic aircraft's heat-seeking cameras.
"Most Americans still see drone aircraft in the realm of science fiction," said Peter W. Singer, author of "Wired for War," a book about robotic warfare. "But the technology is here. And it isn't going away. It will increasingly play a role in our lives. The real question is: How do we deal with it?"
"This is a tool that many law enforcement agencies never imagined they could have," said Steven Gitlin, a company executive.
Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/11/29/1677472/drones-could-patrol-in-us-faa.html#ixzz1gWqKwUOL
Police departments in Texas, Florida and Minnesota have expressed interest in the technology's potential to spot runaway criminals on rooftops or to track them at night by using the robotic aircraft's heat-seeking cameras.
"Most Americans still see drone aircraft in the realm of science fiction," said Peter W. Singer, author of "Wired for War," a book about robotic warfare. "But the technology is here. And it isn't going away. It will increasingly play a role in our lives. The real question is: How do we deal with it?"
"This is a tool that many law enforcement agencies never imagined they could have," said Steven Gitlin, a company executive.
US: End CIA Drone Attacks | Human Rights Watch
US: End CIA Drone Attacks | Human Rights Watch:
Members of the Abida tribe point to a drone aircraft flying over Wadi Abida,
Yemen on October 13, 2010. © 2010 Reuters
Demonstrate ‘Targeted Killings’ Adhere to International Law
(Washington, DC) – The US government should transfer Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) command of aerial drone strikes to the armed forces and clarify its legal rationale for targeted killings, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to President Barack Obama and in a questions and answers document. A dramatic increase in the use of CIA drone strikes underscores the need for the US to demonstrate that the CIA adheres to international legal requirements for accountability, Human Rights Watch said.
“CIA drone strikes have become an almost daily occurrence around the world, but little is known about who is killed and under what circumstances,” said James Ross, legal and policy director at Human Rights Watch. “So long as the US resists public accountability for CIA drone strikes, the agency should not be conducting targeted killings.”
In the decade since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Bush and Obama administrations have engaged in a campaign of “targeted killings” – deliberate, lethal attacks aimed at specific individuals under the color of law. Estimates of the number of deaths of alleged al Qaeda members, other armed group members, and civilians from US targeted killings range from several hundred to more than two thousand. Most of these attacks are believed to have occurred in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen using unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, armed with missiles and laser-guided bombs.
The lawfulness of a targeted killing hinges in part on the applicable international law, which is determined by the context in which the attack takes place, Human Rights Watch said. The laws of war permit attacks during situations of armed conflict only against valid military targets. Attacks causing disproportionate loss of civilian life or property are prohibited. During law enforcement situations, international human rights law permits the use of lethal force only when absolutely necessary to save human life. Individuals cannot be targeted with lethal force merely because of past unlawful behavior, but only for imminent or other grave threats to life when arrest is not reasonably possible.
The CIA’s increasing role in targeted killings using drones in Pakistan and other countries with no transparency or demonstrated accountability raises grave concerns about the lawfulness of the attacks, Human Rights Watch said. While the laws of war do not prohibit intelligence agencies from participating in combat operations, states are obligated to investigate credible allegations of war crimes and provide redress for victims of unlawful attacks. The US government’s refusal to acknowledge the CIA’s role in targeted killings or to provide information on strikes where there have been credible allegations of laws-of-war violations leaves little basis for determining whether the US is meeting its international legal obligations.
“Unsupported claims by administration officials that all US agencies involved in targeted killings are complying with international law are wholly inadequate,” Ross said. “By failing to adopt policies and practices that demonstrate compliance with international law, the US raises doubts among its allies about the lawfulness of its actions and creates a dangerous model for abusive governments.”
Since the US has not demonstrated a readiness to hold the CIA to international legal requirements, the use of drones for attacks should be exclusively within the command responsibility of the US armed forces, Human Rights Watch said. The military has more transparent procedures for investigating possible wrongdoing, although it too needs to make clear that it is conducting attacks in accordance with international legal requirements.
Ending the CIA’s command of targeted killing operations would be consistent with the recommendations of the independent 9/11 Commission, which in 2004 specifically urged that “[l]ead responsibility for directing and executing paramilitary operations, whether clandestine or covert, should shift to the Defense Department.” In November, former director of national intelligence Dennis Blair called for military control over the armed drone program, noting that the armed forces have an open set of procedures, while CIA operations require secrecy, which is not sustainable over the long term: “If something has been going for a long period of time, somebody else ought to do it, not intelligence agencies."
Human Rights Watch also called upon the US government to clarify fully and publicly its legal rationale for conducting targeted killings and the legal limits on such strikes. The US should explain why it believes that specific attacks are in conformity with international law and make information public, including video footage, on how particular attacks comply with those standards. To ensure compliance with international law, the United States should conduct investigations of all targeted killings where there is credible evidence of wrongdoing, provide compensation to all victims of unlawful strikes, and discipline or prosecute as appropriate those responsible for conducting or ordering illegal attacks.
The Obama administration, through public statements by senior officials, has provided an outline of its legal justification for using force against al Qaeda and associated organizations. However, the administration has yet to clearly explain where it draws the line between lawful and unlawful targeted killings, Human Rights Watch said.
In asserting that targeted attacks on alleged anti-US militants anywhere in the world are lawful, the US undermines the international rules it helped craft over the past half-century. This sets a dangerous precedent for abusive regimes around the globe to conduct drone attacks or other strikes against anyone labeled a terrorist or militant, and undercuts the ability of the US to criticize such attacks.
About 40 other countries currently possess basic drone technology, and the number is expected to expand significantly in coming years. These drones are primarily used for surveillance. China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Russia, Turkey, and the United Kingdom either have or are currently seeking drones with attack capability.
CIA drone strikes have become an almost daily occurrence around the world, but little is known about who is killed and under what circumstances. So long as the US resists public accountability for CIA drone strikes, the agency should not be conducting targeted killings.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
FCC plan to ease media ownership rules will further limit type of news and opinions that Americans get
By Marc Jampole
Obama’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants to overturn its longstanding rule that limits companies from owning both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same local market.
This rule will surely lead to greater concentration of media outlets in the hands of fewer companies. The same thing happened after the Telecommunications Act of 1996 enabled companies to own more stations. Larger companies bought smaller ones and suddenly instead of hundreds of owners of TV and radio stations across the country, there were only dozens. We saw the impact on radio as Clear Channel and other companies owned by rightwingers gained control of the editorial policies of more and more stations. Pretty soon the range of opinion on radio narrowed and moved extremely right. While Rush Limbaugh began making a name for himself before 1996, it was the consolidation of media ownership that led to the domination of talk radio by Rush and his clones—Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Michael Medved, ad nauseum.
The FCC is arguing that it’s absurd not to let companies own both broadcast and print properties in one market since every TV and radio station is printing on the Internet and most newspapers run video on their websites. That argument doesn’t answer the objections to consolidation because the issue is not the distribution of news, but the sourcing of it. With fewer collective owners, there are fewer opinions and fewer definitions of what is newsworthy. With consolidation, the owners will tend to resemble each other even more than they do now, so that the articles and opinions will come to be similar across the various media.
Freedom of speech is useless unless there is a pulpit for every opinion. Each owner represents one possible pulpit for a variety of notions regarding our economy, political system, distribution of wealth, cultural ideas and belief systems, but each pulpit will be available to only one of each type—one set of views on the economy and politics, one idea about wealth distribution, one set of social priorities. We need many owners to ensure that we have many pulpits for every facet of economic, political and social interaction. Right now, a handful of companies already control most of the TV and radio stations, newspapers, movie studios and publishing houses in the country and around the world. The Internet does offer free access to the marketplace of ideas, but successful websites that are not affiliated with big companies draw in the hundreds of thousands, a drop in the bucket. The pulpit is there, but the tent is small compared to The Wall Street Journal or ABC-TV news.
The long suffering newspaper, as a recent Pew study showed, is the whole game, since newspapers originate 50% of all news, and a much higher percentage if we discount celebrity and local crime news and focus on political, economic, social trend and breaking news. As newspapers decline, they are covering less news and presenting fewer opinions, so less news and fewer opinions are getting out to people.
It may be that the FCC is thinking that revenues from TV will enable companies to keep the newspaper viable, something that seems less and less possible under current operating assumptions. But isn’t it just as likely that television advertising and programming departments could begin to dictate the terms of coverage in newspapers, leading to a rapid debasement of content.
If the Obama Administration and the FCC really want to help newspapers survive, a better approach might be to put a limit on the number of media properties one company can own. Make the large media conglomerates divest for the good of the country, like federal law and regulation once made oil conglomerates divest for the good of the country. The more companies there are controlling the media, the freer we will be as a people and as a society, and the less possible it will be for one group to steer the country in the wrong direction by controlling the news and opinion. Each of these smaller media companies after divestiture might be more fragile, but the industry itself would be stronger and more diverse.
Greater government support for the news operations of local public broadcasting stations would also help to create a freer marketplace of ideas.
Finally, government could subsidize newspapers that report original news and are making the transition to the Internet model, perhaps with a tax on Internet news aggregators such as Yahoo! and Google News that make so many stories of local and national newspapers available to the public free of charge.
I urge all readers to go to the FCC website and make a comment. Tell the Obama Administration that you do not want it to concentrate media ownership further. Instead, ask the Obama Administration to develop new laws and regulations that will break up the big media companies and diversify ownership.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
In class war, House Republicans must think they’re the 300 Spartans dying politically so wealth inequality can survive
By Marc Jampole
House Republicans persist in stonewalling an agreement to extend and expand the temporary cut in Social Security and Medicare taxes (AKA payroll taxes). After holding the U.S. economy hostage time and again to maintain temporary tax cuts for the wealthy and paying for them by gutting programs for everyone else, the Republicans are now opposing a little more help for the other 99%.
This move should convince any doubters that there is a class war going on in the United States, and it’s being waged by the wealthy against the middle class and poor. The foot soldiers are conservative pundits and politicians, primarily Republicans. The House Republicans, led by the nose by its Tea Party wing, remind me of the small Greek army led by Spartans that held the Persian Army at the ancient Battle of Thermopylae, recently fictionalized as the movie 300.
The analogy to the Spartans, who sacrificed their lives for the greater cause (Sparta was a proto-fascist state), fits like a glove: The Republicans are taking heat for stonewalling the continuation of this tax cut. Virtually all reputable economists agree that consumers have spent almost all of the extra money in their pockets from the payroll tax cut. This temporary tax cut has thus served as a boost to the struggling economy. Take that boost away, and we will slip back into recession and the Republicans will be blamed. The House Republicans know that they’re putting their jobs and political lives on the line, but I imagine they are “just following orders:” like good soldiers always do.
The reluctance of Republicans in general to extend this tax cut unless we pay for it with cuts in benefits to other poor or middle class people demonstrates clearly that class war is the appropriate term to describe not only the current Republican agenda, but the agenda of conservatives for the past 30 years.
One of the most powerful tools of warfare has always been to cut off the enemy’s supply lines. Information and facts are perhaps the most vital supplies in this violent class war (unless you consider it nonviolent to cause deaths from inadequate medical care or children going to bed hungry). Speaker of the House John Boehner tried to cut that valuable resource the other day when he had someone from his office order C-SPAN to stop videotaping the live battle on the House Floor after he and other Republicans walked out of the chamber. At the time, Maryland Democratic Representative Stenny Hoyer was lambasting the House Republicans for walking away from their responsibility to the unemployed, the middle class, the poor and those on Medicare.
This obnoxious censorship demonstrates that the Republicans are willing to do anything to preserve and exacerbate the current inequality of wealth in this country.
The war analogy illuminates many conservative actions over the past three decades, and especially since the ascendancy of Bush II:
- Pulling C-SPAN’s plug was a minor skirmish, but Republicans have been trying to reduce supplies of another precious resource—votes—for the past few years by proposing bills in virtually all states to make it harder both to register to vote and to vote.
- Warfare often shows a complete disregard for innocent bystanders, and who can be more innocent than the millions of children who have seen funds cut for public schools, early childhood education and children’s healthcare?
- Victors in war claim booty, and the booty in the case of the 30-year war against the middle class and poor is increased corporate profits from gutted regulations and government contracts that privatize traditional government services such as data processing, schools, prisons and military support services, replacing good-paying-rich government jobs with low-paying private sector jobs.
- What else is the constant denigration of unions and unionized public workers than guerilla warfare? Taking pot shots at unions, impeding their ability to organize and feeding the public a steady stream of anti-union cant can all be compared to the attack-and-run strategies of guerilla warfare. And just as Viet Cong guerilla war divided the U.S. ruling elite and just as American guerilla war divided British ruling elite, so the right wing has managed to divide the middle class against itself with its constant sniping at unions.
We can only hope that the House Republican’s reenactment of the Battle of Thermopylae has the same effect that the original battle did: Although the Greek army held off the Persians for a few days, the Persians overran much of Greece and captured Athens, that ancient democracy for rich white men. Let’s hope the Republicans lose both the battle and the war, although I wouldn’t compare America’s other 99% to the Persians. No, after 30 years of unmitigated class warfare, we’re more like shell-shocked victims of massive bombing.
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