John Brown, author of the article below, is a former US Foreign Service Officer who resigned his post at the State Department to protest the invasion of Iraq. He is now a research associate at the Georgetown University Center for Public Diplomacy.
By John Brown
Alhurra, the U.S. government-funded satellite television facility that airs its product to the Middle East, hasn't caught on. Kicked off with much fanfare on Valentine's Day, 2004, the $100-million-plus station (the name of which means "The Free One" in Arabic) has been met with more disdain than acceptance in the Arab world. But abandoning it altogether is not an option at this point. What is urgent is determining how to fix it.
In theory, there is hope for Alhurra. Formally "independent" as part of the Middle East Television Network, Inc., a non-profit corporation that receives U.S. government dollars, it can provide an objective window on America -- and its foreign policy -- not to be found in biased, anti-American local media. (There are over 100 TV stations in the Middle East). The station can provide a nuanced expression of the interest Americans have toward Arab lands in an effort to establish a dialogue. It could also stimulate audiences to find out more about the United States in all its complexity.
Alhurra's strategy, however, does not jibe with these objectives. Its focus has been to win audience share in perceived Middle East "media wars" by aiming for slick commercial television -- by trying, if you will, to out-Al-Jazzera Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite broadcaster that is by far the most popular in the area and the one that has been compared to Fox News.
Privately, Alhurra staff boasts about the attractiveness of its female news presenters as one of its strong points. This attempt at public relations slickness, after more than a year, hasn't worked, this despite the fact that the Broadcasting Board of Governors (http://www.bbg.gov/), the independent U.S. agency that oversees the station, has used scientific audience surveys to demonstrate its putative impact.
Judging from the Arab and other media, Alhurra is in fact widely considered dull U.S. propaganda, unsubtle American imperialism in electronic form, which does little to stir audience interest in the United States. Indeed, it causes the opposite reaction, with viewers complaining about the pro-American tilt and cultural insensitivity -- all of which can muddy the reputation of the United States even more than Al-Jazeera.
Fixing Alhurra is a huge undertaking. Its purpose needs complete rethinking, including consideration of the extent to which the U.S. government should be involved in television broadcasting in the first place. The value of "winning" audience share -- rather than informing opinion makers -- should be reexamined. How "local" as contrasted with "regional" Alhurra programs should be also needs to be debated. And the question arises: Shouldn't scarce resources go to supporting local independent media (through, for example, grants and training programs), rather than for expensive broadcasting facilities based in the United States?
These questions may have no conclusive answers. Nonetheless, at this stage in Alhurra's evolution certain matters appear obvious. Given the limited nature of its funding ($100 million is really not that great a sum in international broadcasting), and its links with the U.S. government (despite a BBG "firewall" protecting its independence), there are a few things Alhurra should not attempt. This is so because it can never do them professionally -- unless its budget is greatly increased and its connections with the U.S. government are totally broken. These unrealistic programs that should not be undertaken are:
Providing up-to-the-minute local news at the scene of events, which Alhurra's dedicated but overstretched field staff simply cannot do because of financial and other restraints;
Airing expensive "entertainment" shows; and
Being on the air twenty-four hours a day.
Abandoning Alhurra altogether at this stage, it must be noted at this point, is not a viable short-term option. Shutting it down would be interpreted by the Arab world as an admission that the United States is unable to communicate. Further, millions thus far have been invested in the station.
With the fact that it cannot or should not be shut down, here are some thoughts on how to fix Alhurra, how it could better inform the Arab world in a way suited to America's interests:
Focus on C-Span-type programming relevant to Middle East audiences. To be sure, such "unexciting" programming would not be as audience-grabbing as, for example, the scandal-mongering local show aired on Iraq's U.S.-funded al-Iraqiya channel, "Terrorists in the Hands of Justice." (This program is criticized for violating the Geneva Conventions). With more low-key, unfiltered information programs, however, Alhurra would be seen as a reliable and objective outlet -- especially in times of crisis -- about what the U.S. government really thinks and does. Alhurra's live continuous coverage of the Congressional Hearings regarding the Abu Ghraib photos is a fine example of this.
Air in-depth documentaries on serious, relevant issues produced by local filmmakers. A priority theme should be the historical links between the United States and Arab countries. Such documentaries are all too few; funds should be made available to produce them.
Create an effective website. Alhurra's current site at http://www.Alhurra.com/ consists of only one page, an almost offensively simple listing of its programs in English and Arabic. Given the increased importance of the Internet in the Middle East, especially among young people, the site should be far more detailed and user-friendly, providing up-to-the-minute news and links. It should be interactive, with streaming video and audio. It should contain an archive, always a valuable resource for scholars and researchers.
Establish a legal mechanism that would allow Alhurra to be seen more widely in the United States, making it possible for interested laypersons and specialists to view its programs easily and thus be better able to critique it constructively. The spirit of the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 that prohibits, with certain exceptions, the dissemination in the United States of U.S. Government-provided information intended for overseas audiences must be preserved. Nonetheless, there should be a better way to inform Americans -- including Arab-Americans, who could provide valuable feedback on Alhurra's programs -- about what their government is doing in the field of information in the Middle East.
These small steps, while not a magic bullet for Alhurra's problems, would earn it greater respect among the increasingly important educated "chattering class" in the Middle East, importantly including younger people interested in policy and ideas.
Monday, June 06, 2005
GULAG, SHMOOLAG
By William Fisher
When Amnesty International described U.S. anti-terrorist prisons as “the Gulag of our time”, it gave the Bush Administration the ideal gift for the politician who has nothing: An opportunity to change the subject.
Its over-the-top and historically dubious language allowed the president, the vice-president, the secretary of defense and many other Bushies to get everyone focused on syntax and away from the prisoner abuse issue.
This is the second goodie the administration has received of late. A couple of weeks ago, the unwitting donor was Newsweek, which had to retract its story about Koran desecration about to turn up in a government report. Press secretary Scott McClellan and others pounced on poor old Newsweek and inferred that their reporting caused riots in the Middle East and cost lives.
But that didn’t last nearly long enough. Last week – surprise, surprise – Newsweek was vindicated by, yes, a government report confirming that there were indeed Koran abuses at Guantanamo Bay.
Not that there was a single fact in the Amnesty report that was new. The same shameful abuses of detainees have been documented and denounced ad nauseam by human rights groups for the past several years. This vast left-wing conspiracy included the International Committee of the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, the American Civil Liberties Union, and many others.
The Pentagon has carried out investigation after investigation, and most of them grudgingly acknowledged that abuses there indeed had been, including deaths in detention and ‘rendition’ of prisoners to countries that would torture them.
But this, the Administration has steadfastly maintained, was the work of ‘a few bad apples’ – low level GIs. No wonder the White House is so paranoid about Senator Joe Biden’s legislation to create an independent 9/11-type commission to investigate prisoner mistreatment. It would climb to wherever in the chain of command the facts took it.
Perish the thought! The very idea that there might just be some tenuous connection between how we treat prisoners and the memos of Judge Bybee and Attorney General Gonzales, and the president’s denial of Geneva Convention protections to the ‘enemy combatants’ at Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram, to say nothing of the ‘disappeared’ ghost prisoners the CIA has yet to account for, is to think the unthinkable!
Even the Supreme Court – those ‘activist judges’ again – is disregarded. It’s been a long while now since the nine wise men and women ruled that detainees were entitled to fair trials. In response, the Pentagon designed a Byzantine process virtually guaranteed to see that no one gets a fair trial.
I know that because the JAG officers assigned to defend the detainees are suing the President, charging that the rules imposed for military commissions would deny these prisoners even the most fundamental due process.
By the way, when the history of this sorry episode is written, those JAG folks are likely to emerge as arguably the only real heroes in this grisly dance of death. Their necks are literally on the chopping block.
But not to worry. We won’t have to talk about any of this neocon theater for a while. A spirited debate about syntax is what we all need, and it has a lot more legs than the Newsweek gaff.
Merry Christmas, Mr. President.
When Amnesty International described U.S. anti-terrorist prisons as “the Gulag of our time”, it gave the Bush Administration the ideal gift for the politician who has nothing: An opportunity to change the subject.
Its over-the-top and historically dubious language allowed the president, the vice-president, the secretary of defense and many other Bushies to get everyone focused on syntax and away from the prisoner abuse issue.
This is the second goodie the administration has received of late. A couple of weeks ago, the unwitting donor was Newsweek, which had to retract its story about Koran desecration about to turn up in a government report. Press secretary Scott McClellan and others pounced on poor old Newsweek and inferred that their reporting caused riots in the Middle East and cost lives.
But that didn’t last nearly long enough. Last week – surprise, surprise – Newsweek was vindicated by, yes, a government report confirming that there were indeed Koran abuses at Guantanamo Bay.
Not that there was a single fact in the Amnesty report that was new. The same shameful abuses of detainees have been documented and denounced ad nauseam by human rights groups for the past several years. This vast left-wing conspiracy included the International Committee of the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, the American Civil Liberties Union, and many others.
The Pentagon has carried out investigation after investigation, and most of them grudgingly acknowledged that abuses there indeed had been, including deaths in detention and ‘rendition’ of prisoners to countries that would torture them.
But this, the Administration has steadfastly maintained, was the work of ‘a few bad apples’ – low level GIs. No wonder the White House is so paranoid about Senator Joe Biden’s legislation to create an independent 9/11-type commission to investigate prisoner mistreatment. It would climb to wherever in the chain of command the facts took it.
Perish the thought! The very idea that there might just be some tenuous connection between how we treat prisoners and the memos of Judge Bybee and Attorney General Gonzales, and the president’s denial of Geneva Convention protections to the ‘enemy combatants’ at Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram, to say nothing of the ‘disappeared’ ghost prisoners the CIA has yet to account for, is to think the unthinkable!
Even the Supreme Court – those ‘activist judges’ again – is disregarded. It’s been a long while now since the nine wise men and women ruled that detainees were entitled to fair trials. In response, the Pentagon designed a Byzantine process virtually guaranteed to see that no one gets a fair trial.
I know that because the JAG officers assigned to defend the detainees are suing the President, charging that the rules imposed for military commissions would deny these prisoners even the most fundamental due process.
By the way, when the history of this sorry episode is written, those JAG folks are likely to emerge as arguably the only real heroes in this grisly dance of death. Their necks are literally on the chopping block.
But not to worry. We won’t have to talk about any of this neocon theater for a while. A spirited debate about syntax is what we all need, and it has a lot more legs than the Newsweek gaff.
Merry Christmas, Mr. President.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
A 9/11 Commission for Prisoner Abuse?
By William Fisher
On the heels of the dustup over the nomination of John Bolton to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, President Bush’s next congressional tsunami may well be a provision tucked away in a proposed anti-terrorist bill. That legislation would establish an independent 9/11-type commission to investigate U.S. abuse of prisoners throughout the world.
The legislation, introduced by Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, the ranking member of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, last January, attracted virtually no media attention. But Biden – often rumored to be a candidate for the presidency in 2008 -- said on a television program last Sunday, “This Week with George Stephanopoulos”, that he expects the bill to come before the committee in the next couple of weeks.
Not surprisingly, the legislation – titled “The Targeting Terrorists More Effectively Act of 2005” -- has wide support from Democrats. But some congressional sources indicate it may also find favor among a number of moderate Republican committee members.
In introducing the legislation, Biden appeared to go out of his way to downplay the commission proposal, instead emphasizing other anti-terrorist provisions.
But it is the empanelling of an independent commission – long resisted by President Bush – that is most likely to trigger fireworks on Capital Hill and at the Pentagon, the CIA and the White House.
Unlike prisoner abuse investigations carried out by the Pentagon, it would specifically investigate whether individuals may have played a policy-making role in setting conditions for detainees, and examine frequently-reported differences of opinion between the Pentagon’s civilian leadership and senior members of the armed forces.
The Biden legislation would establish a national commission to examine the role of policymakers in the development of intelligence related to the treatment of individuals detained during Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom, and the impact of the abuse of prisoners by the U.S. personnel on the security of the armed forces.
Its structure and mandate would be virtually identical to that of the 9/11 Commission.
The proposed bi-partisan 15-member body would consist of prominent U.S. citizens, with national recognition and significant depth of experience in intelligence, law enforcement, or foreign affairs, or experience serving the government, including service in the armed forces.
Three commission members each would appointed by the majority leader of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the minority leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Judge Advocates General of the Army, Navy, and Air Force would appoint one member each.
Armed with subpoena power and its own staff, it would investigate the development of policy relating to individuals detained during Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom, whether U.S. policy related to the treatment of detained individuals adversely affected the security of the members of the armed forces, whether incidences of abuse of detained individuals have affected the standing of the U.S. in the world, the extent to which leaders of the U.S. armed forces were given the opportunity to comment on and influence policy relating to treatment of detained individuals; and the extent to which policy relating to the treatment of individuals detained during Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom differed from the policies and practices regarding detainees established by the armed forces prior to such operations.
The commission’s report would be submitted to the President and Congress within nine months.
The legislation also attempts to clarify U.S. policy regarding prisoner treatment.
“It is the policy of the United States to treat all foreign persons captured, detained, interned, or otherwise held in the custody of the U.S. humanely and in accordance with the legal obligations under United States law and international law, including the obligations in the Convention Against Torture and in the minimum standards set forth in the Geneva Conventions,” the bill says.
It calls on the U.S.“to provide individualized hearings for all detainees for the purpose of expeditiously holding detainees accountable for violations of the law of war, to expeditiously conduct intelligence debriefings of such detainees, and to avoid the indefinite detention of any individual”.
Other provisions of the bill aim deal with the threat of terrorism on several
fronts -- military, intelligence, diplomatic and homeland security, and has an accountability measure to ensure that the broad range of anti-terrorism efforts are effective.
One provision would replenish the National Security Education Program to help address shortfall of trained foreign language experts in the U.S. government.
Others call for:
Expanding funding for basic education and democracy promotion overseas;
Establishing a “Middle East Foundation” located in the region for research and scholarship of democracy, civil society and rule of law;
Bolstering border and port security by adding 1,200 Immigration and Customs agents over a five year period;
Adding $3 billion over four years to ensure that maritime security standards are met and increases funds available for port security grants.
Creating a new, $5 billion Homeland Security grant program to which cities and counties across the U.S. can apply to directly for first responders, including equipment and training.
Restoring the funding for local law enforcement agencies that was dramatically cut by the Bush Administration; and
Reestablishing the Nuclear Cities Initiative in Russia, assisting the Russian government in its efforts to close down or downsize several of its nuclear weapons facilities. Also expands funding to accelerate non-proliferation programs throughout the former Soviet Union.
“We have to be smart when we it comes protecting our nation from terrorist attacks,” said Senator Biden. “We have to do all we can to drain the swamp and ensure that terrorism no longer has a breeding ground. It will take more than American military might. It will take a comprehensive national and international effort at every level; and it will take the collective strength of a nation united in its resolve to succeed.”
On the heels of the dustup over the nomination of John Bolton to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, President Bush’s next congressional tsunami may well be a provision tucked away in a proposed anti-terrorist bill. That legislation would establish an independent 9/11-type commission to investigate U.S. abuse of prisoners throughout the world.
The legislation, introduced by Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, the ranking member of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, last January, attracted virtually no media attention. But Biden – often rumored to be a candidate for the presidency in 2008 -- said on a television program last Sunday, “This Week with George Stephanopoulos”, that he expects the bill to come before the committee in the next couple of weeks.
Not surprisingly, the legislation – titled “The Targeting Terrorists More Effectively Act of 2005” -- has wide support from Democrats. But some congressional sources indicate it may also find favor among a number of moderate Republican committee members.
In introducing the legislation, Biden appeared to go out of his way to downplay the commission proposal, instead emphasizing other anti-terrorist provisions.
But it is the empanelling of an independent commission – long resisted by President Bush – that is most likely to trigger fireworks on Capital Hill and at the Pentagon, the CIA and the White House.
Unlike prisoner abuse investigations carried out by the Pentagon, it would specifically investigate whether individuals may have played a policy-making role in setting conditions for detainees, and examine frequently-reported differences of opinion between the Pentagon’s civilian leadership and senior members of the armed forces.
The Biden legislation would establish a national commission to examine the role of policymakers in the development of intelligence related to the treatment of individuals detained during Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom, and the impact of the abuse of prisoners by the U.S. personnel on the security of the armed forces.
Its structure and mandate would be virtually identical to that of the 9/11 Commission.
The proposed bi-partisan 15-member body would consist of prominent U.S. citizens, with national recognition and significant depth of experience in intelligence, law enforcement, or foreign affairs, or experience serving the government, including service in the armed forces.
Three commission members each would appointed by the majority leader of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the minority leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Judge Advocates General of the Army, Navy, and Air Force would appoint one member each.
Armed with subpoena power and its own staff, it would investigate the development of policy relating to individuals detained during Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom, whether U.S. policy related to the treatment of detained individuals adversely affected the security of the members of the armed forces, whether incidences of abuse of detained individuals have affected the standing of the U.S. in the world, the extent to which leaders of the U.S. armed forces were given the opportunity to comment on and influence policy relating to treatment of detained individuals; and the extent to which policy relating to the treatment of individuals detained during Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom differed from the policies and practices regarding detainees established by the armed forces prior to such operations.
The commission’s report would be submitted to the President and Congress within nine months.
The legislation also attempts to clarify U.S. policy regarding prisoner treatment.
“It is the policy of the United States to treat all foreign persons captured, detained, interned, or otherwise held in the custody of the U.S. humanely and in accordance with the legal obligations under United States law and international law, including the obligations in the Convention Against Torture and in the minimum standards set forth in the Geneva Conventions,” the bill says.
It calls on the U.S.“to provide individualized hearings for all detainees for the purpose of expeditiously holding detainees accountable for violations of the law of war, to expeditiously conduct intelligence debriefings of such detainees, and to avoid the indefinite detention of any individual”.
Other provisions of the bill aim deal with the threat of terrorism on several
fronts -- military, intelligence, diplomatic and homeland security, and has an accountability measure to ensure that the broad range of anti-terrorism efforts are effective.
One provision would replenish the National Security Education Program to help address shortfall of trained foreign language experts in the U.S. government.
Others call for:
Expanding funding for basic education and democracy promotion overseas;
Establishing a “Middle East Foundation” located in the region for research and scholarship of democracy, civil society and rule of law;
Bolstering border and port security by adding 1,200 Immigration and Customs agents over a five year period;
Adding $3 billion over four years to ensure that maritime security standards are met and increases funds available for port security grants.
Creating a new, $5 billion Homeland Security grant program to which cities and counties across the U.S. can apply to directly for first responders, including equipment and training.
Restoring the funding for local law enforcement agencies that was dramatically cut by the Bush Administration; and
Reestablishing the Nuclear Cities Initiative in Russia, assisting the Russian government in its efforts to close down or downsize several of its nuclear weapons facilities. Also expands funding to accelerate non-proliferation programs throughout the former Soviet Union.
“We have to be smart when we it comes protecting our nation from terrorist attacks,” said Senator Biden. “We have to do all we can to drain the swamp and ensure that terrorism no longer has a breeding ground. It will take more than American military might. It will take a comprehensive national and international effort at every level; and it will take the collective strength of a nation united in its resolve to succeed.”
Saturday, June 04, 2005
HEROINE FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY?
By William Fisher
If enthusiastic White House and Congressional support could solve America’s public diplomacy problems, Dina Habib Powell would be well on her way to becoming a national heroine.
The Egypt-born Ms. Powell, currently the top personnel official at the White House, is about to be confirmed as President Bush’s choice to be Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA). She will supervise all international student and other cultural exchange programs and serve as senior deputy to Karen Hughes, the long-time Bush confidante who has been nominated to direct all U.S. public diplomacy efforts.
Powell, whose parents emigrated from Egypt when she was a child, speaks fluent Arabic. She has risen quickly through Republican Party ranks, serving in the personnel office of the Bush-Cheney transition team and as Director of Congressional Affairs for the Republican National Committee.
At her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (May 26), New Hampshire Republican Senator John Sununu, himself an Arab-American, observed, “Ms. Powell was born in the Middle East but raised in the United States. Who better to understand many of the challenges that lie before us, particularly in engaging with the Muslim world?”
And Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin – a consistent critic of the Bush Administration and the only senator to vote against the USA Patriot Act --applauded Powell’s dedication to dialogue and assured her, “you will have strong allies on both sides of the aisle.”
Addressing the committee, Ms. Powell acknowledged the challenges facing American public diplomacy efforts. She said, “Our nation must engage with the rest of the world. But to be successful, we must listen. Our interaction with the world must be a conversation, not a monologue.”
She said she is committed to widening the “two-way highway of people-to-people exchange,” adding that she would work to “ensure international students know they are welcome at U.S. colleges, encourage more women and girls to participate in exchange programs, and enlist the private sector more fully in our public diplomacy efforts.”
ECA-sponsored exchange programs have served more than 800,000 people from 185 countries, including more than 200 former or current heads of state and 1,500 cabinet ministers.
However, post-9/11, the difficulties of obtaining student visas and Muslim fear of ‘Islamophobia’ in the U.S. have caused a precipitous decline in foreign enrollments in American colleges.
Powell has also expressed her views on public diplomacy during trips abroad. In Egypt, she addressed the perception that the U.S. is attempting to impose its ideas of democracy on others. She said, “We do not wish to impose reform. It is not our place. We want to listen to the voices of the region and where it is appropriate, lend a helping hand.”
She said that the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 triggered a “psyche change for the American people”. Despite that, she added, one day later, “the president visited a mosque, took off his shoes and paid his respects, and said 'this should not [make people] even begin to think about discrimination against people of Arab descent’. Shortly thereafter, racial profiling was made a federal crime.”
However, human rights organizations charge that racial profiling and harassment of Muslim- and Arab-Americans are still being practiced by government agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA), the body within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responsible for screening airline passengers and maintaining Federal ‘no-fly’ lists.
Despite the high profile nominations of Karen Hughes and Dina Powell, America’s public diplomacy efforts remain problematic, particularly in the Middle East. Opinions of the U.S. remain at an historic low. And the country’s expensive broadcasting operations, including the Arabic-language satellite TV channel, Al Hurra, have to date failed to attract significant audiences.
Commenting on Powell’s nomination, Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland, said, “People are not going to legitimize the policy because someone is speaking Arabic to them.”
Criticisms of America’s current public diplomacy efforts have come both from home and abroad.
A number of U.S. and overseas commissions and think-tank reports have faulted the Bush Administration for not fully explaining U.S. policies and practices, including the invasion of Iraq, the Arab-Israeli dispute, rendition of detainees to countries where they would likely face torture, and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
Typical was a report issued late last year by a bipartisan commission appointed by President Bush. It concluded that the American campaign to communicate its ideas and ideals, particularly to Muslim audiences, was “uncoordinated and underfunded, and risks sending contradictory messages about U.S. intentions.”
The United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy said that one of the few successful initiatives -- exchange programs between US and foreign students -- has been burdened by ''redundant" security measures and ''excessive" visa fees.
Another report, by the Middle East Institute in Washington and the Al Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, that said, Americans “have to learn that ignoring the feeling of peoples in the Arab world and their desire for justice and dignity can only lead to expanding the pool of terrorists, rather than drying it up.”
The Brookings Institution, a highly respected Washington-based think-tank, also found U.S. communications efforts “not only under-resourced, but also lacking an effective strategic direction, particularly towards the Islamic world.”
And Dr. John Brown, who resigned from the State Department in opposition to the invasion of Iraq and who is now a research associate at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., told IPS, “The objective of public diplomacy should be to win long-term friends for the U.S. One way to do that is to respect others, which the administration seems incapable of. The Bush White House doesn't really believe in diplomacy -- if it did, would it select John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the UN -- so how can it possibly believe in public diplomacy"?
If enthusiastic White House and Congressional support could solve America’s public diplomacy problems, Dina Habib Powell would be well on her way to becoming a national heroine.
The Egypt-born Ms. Powell, currently the top personnel official at the White House, is about to be confirmed as President Bush’s choice to be Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA). She will supervise all international student and other cultural exchange programs and serve as senior deputy to Karen Hughes, the long-time Bush confidante who has been nominated to direct all U.S. public diplomacy efforts.
Powell, whose parents emigrated from Egypt when she was a child, speaks fluent Arabic. She has risen quickly through Republican Party ranks, serving in the personnel office of the Bush-Cheney transition team and as Director of Congressional Affairs for the Republican National Committee.
At her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (May 26), New Hampshire Republican Senator John Sununu, himself an Arab-American, observed, “Ms. Powell was born in the Middle East but raised in the United States. Who better to understand many of the challenges that lie before us, particularly in engaging with the Muslim world?”
And Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin – a consistent critic of the Bush Administration and the only senator to vote against the USA Patriot Act --applauded Powell’s dedication to dialogue and assured her, “you will have strong allies on both sides of the aisle.”
Addressing the committee, Ms. Powell acknowledged the challenges facing American public diplomacy efforts. She said, “Our nation must engage with the rest of the world. But to be successful, we must listen. Our interaction with the world must be a conversation, not a monologue.”
She said she is committed to widening the “two-way highway of people-to-people exchange,” adding that she would work to “ensure international students know they are welcome at U.S. colleges, encourage more women and girls to participate in exchange programs, and enlist the private sector more fully in our public diplomacy efforts.”
ECA-sponsored exchange programs have served more than 800,000 people from 185 countries, including more than 200 former or current heads of state and 1,500 cabinet ministers.
However, post-9/11, the difficulties of obtaining student visas and Muslim fear of ‘Islamophobia’ in the U.S. have caused a precipitous decline in foreign enrollments in American colleges.
Powell has also expressed her views on public diplomacy during trips abroad. In Egypt, she addressed the perception that the U.S. is attempting to impose its ideas of democracy on others. She said, “We do not wish to impose reform. It is not our place. We want to listen to the voices of the region and where it is appropriate, lend a helping hand.”
She said that the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 triggered a “psyche change for the American people”. Despite that, she added, one day later, “the president visited a mosque, took off his shoes and paid his respects, and said 'this should not [make people] even begin to think about discrimination against people of Arab descent’. Shortly thereafter, racial profiling was made a federal crime.”
However, human rights organizations charge that racial profiling and harassment of Muslim- and Arab-Americans are still being practiced by government agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA), the body within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responsible for screening airline passengers and maintaining Federal ‘no-fly’ lists.
Despite the high profile nominations of Karen Hughes and Dina Powell, America’s public diplomacy efforts remain problematic, particularly in the Middle East. Opinions of the U.S. remain at an historic low. And the country’s expensive broadcasting operations, including the Arabic-language satellite TV channel, Al Hurra, have to date failed to attract significant audiences.
Commenting on Powell’s nomination, Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland, said, “People are not going to legitimize the policy because someone is speaking Arabic to them.”
Criticisms of America’s current public diplomacy efforts have come both from home and abroad.
A number of U.S. and overseas commissions and think-tank reports have faulted the Bush Administration for not fully explaining U.S. policies and practices, including the invasion of Iraq, the Arab-Israeli dispute, rendition of detainees to countries where they would likely face torture, and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
Typical was a report issued late last year by a bipartisan commission appointed by President Bush. It concluded that the American campaign to communicate its ideas and ideals, particularly to Muslim audiences, was “uncoordinated and underfunded, and risks sending contradictory messages about U.S. intentions.”
The United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy said that one of the few successful initiatives -- exchange programs between US and foreign students -- has been burdened by ''redundant" security measures and ''excessive" visa fees.
Another report, by the Middle East Institute in Washington and the Al Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, that said, Americans “have to learn that ignoring the feeling of peoples in the Arab world and their desire for justice and dignity can only lead to expanding the pool of terrorists, rather than drying it up.”
The Brookings Institution, a highly respected Washington-based think-tank, also found U.S. communications efforts “not only under-resourced, but also lacking an effective strategic direction, particularly towards the Islamic world.”
And Dr. John Brown, who resigned from the State Department in opposition to the invasion of Iraq and who is now a research associate at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., told IPS, “The objective of public diplomacy should be to win long-term friends for the U.S. One way to do that is to respect others, which the administration seems incapable of. The Bush White House doesn't really believe in diplomacy -- if it did, would it select John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the UN -- so how can it possibly believe in public diplomacy"?
EMMETT TILL AND OTHERS
By William Fisher
Fifty-five years ago this summer, two white men abducted, tortured and killed a 14-year-old black youth, Emmett Till, allegedly for whistling at a white store clerk while on a visit to Mississippi.
An all-white jury acquitted the clerk’s husband and half-brother in a state court trial most regard as a farce.
Till's murder proved to be one of the catalyzing events of the civil rights movement. Black leaders, religious and labor organizations and numerous public officials called on the Justice Department (DOJ) to act. But Federal authorities claimed, erroneously, that only state officials could prosecute racially motivated crimes.
Rosa Parks – often hailed as “the mother of the civil rights movement” -- has said that it was the Till murder that motivated her to refuse to move to the back of an Alabama bus from the ‘white’ seating section in 1955. Her action would lead, almost a decade later, to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ending racial segregation in public accommodations and services in the U.S.
Last year, after relentless pressure from civil rights, labor and religious leaders, the FBI finally reopened its investigation into Till's murder, and two weeks ago exhumed his body to perform DNA and other analyses to determine that the body is indeed that of Emmett Till. After identity has been determined, investigators will seek clues about how Till died. No autopsy was ever performed on the young body found in a river wrapped in barbed wire.
It was similar evidence that led to the 1994 conviction white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith in the 1963 shooting death of civil rights activist Medgar Evers, whose body was exhumed in 1991.
And since 1989, federal authorities have re-examined 22 deaths from the civil rights era and made 25 arrests, leading to 16 convictions, two acquittals and one mistrial.
Perhaps the most famous of these trials was for the murder of civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, Mickey Schwerner and James Chaney, who were targeted for their Freedom Summer work challenging segregation. The trio was intercepted by three carloads of Ku Klux Klansmen near Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 1964. They were shot, and their bodies buried beneath a 15-foot earthen dam. Federal officials conducted a massive hunt for the three, but it was ultimately a Klan informant who led them to the bodies.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said more than 20 men took part in the killing plot by the Klan, and 18 were indicted and tried. The jury convicted seven defendants. Eight others were acquitted. The jury was unable to reach a verdict in three other cases.
The judge in the case, an ardent segregationist, sentenced two of the men to ten years, two others to six years, and the other three to four years. The judge said of his sentences, "They killed one nigger, one Jew, and a white man -- I gave them all what I thought they deserved."
The convictions in the case represented the first ever in Mississippi for the killing of a civil rights worker. The investigation and trial later became the basis for the film “Mississippi Burning”.
But more than a dozen Mississippi civil-rights-era murder cases remain
un-reopened and un-investigated. These include:
Rev. George Lee, a minister who preached about voting rights in black Baptist churches more than a decade before the height of the civil rights movement, was driving home in 1955 when he was hit with gunfire from a passing car. The County sheriff quickly claimed his death was a traffic accident. Asked about the lead pellets taken from Lee's face and head, the sheriff replied they were probably dental fillings. The coroner ruled the death resulted from "unknown causes."
Lamar Smith, a World War II veteran, organized voter registration drives. In 1955, he and some white men got into an argument. A number of witnesses saw one of the white men pull out a pistol and shoot Smith at close range. Three men were arrested but went free when none of the witnesses would testify to what they had seen. Those three men have since died.
Four years later, Mack Charles Parker was accused of raping a white woman. When he was arrested, a Mississippi state trooper offered the woman's husband a pistol to shoot Parker. Three days before Parker was to stand trial, he was dragged from his jail cell, beaten and shot. His body was found in a river 10 days later. The FBI investigated and obtained confessions from some of the eight white suspects. However, the county prosecutor refused to present evidence to a state grand jury and a federal grand jury refused to indict.
When civil rights activist Bob Moses arrived in 1961 in Mississippi, Herbert Lee served as one of his guides. Lee drove Moses around in the black community to talk about voting rights. Lee was killed by a then-state legislator after an argument. He told authorities he shot Lee in self-defense, and a black witness testified to a coroner's jury that Lee was armed and arguing. No charges were filed. The witness later recanted his story, only to be killed himself.
Louis Allen was a witness to the killing of Herbert Lee. He initially testified to a coroner's jury that Lee was armed with a tire iron and killed in an argument, but later told civil rights workers he had been ordered to lie by a white man and followed the instructions to protect his family. He kept silent for more than two years. He was about to move away from Mississippi when he was found dead in his driveway, riddled with buckshot.
Fifty-five years on, Mississippians say the mentality of the 1950s and 60s has disappeared – indeed, African-Americans have been elected to the state legislature and to many mayoral offices. But the many unsolved murders ensure that the civil rights movement will continue to cast a long shadow. Each passing year sees the deaths of prospective suspects and victims, making the work of investigators extremely difficult, and sometimes impossible.
Fifty-five years ago this summer, two white men abducted, tortured and killed a 14-year-old black youth, Emmett Till, allegedly for whistling at a white store clerk while on a visit to Mississippi.
An all-white jury acquitted the clerk’s husband and half-brother in a state court trial most regard as a farce.
Till's murder proved to be one of the catalyzing events of the civil rights movement. Black leaders, religious and labor organizations and numerous public officials called on the Justice Department (DOJ) to act. But Federal authorities claimed, erroneously, that only state officials could prosecute racially motivated crimes.
Rosa Parks – often hailed as “the mother of the civil rights movement” -- has said that it was the Till murder that motivated her to refuse to move to the back of an Alabama bus from the ‘white’ seating section in 1955. Her action would lead, almost a decade later, to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ending racial segregation in public accommodations and services in the U.S.
Last year, after relentless pressure from civil rights, labor and religious leaders, the FBI finally reopened its investigation into Till's murder, and two weeks ago exhumed his body to perform DNA and other analyses to determine that the body is indeed that of Emmett Till. After identity has been determined, investigators will seek clues about how Till died. No autopsy was ever performed on the young body found in a river wrapped in barbed wire.
It was similar evidence that led to the 1994 conviction white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith in the 1963 shooting death of civil rights activist Medgar Evers, whose body was exhumed in 1991.
And since 1989, federal authorities have re-examined 22 deaths from the civil rights era and made 25 arrests, leading to 16 convictions, two acquittals and one mistrial.
Perhaps the most famous of these trials was for the murder of civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, Mickey Schwerner and James Chaney, who were targeted for their Freedom Summer work challenging segregation. The trio was intercepted by three carloads of Ku Klux Klansmen near Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 1964. They were shot, and their bodies buried beneath a 15-foot earthen dam. Federal officials conducted a massive hunt for the three, but it was ultimately a Klan informant who led them to the bodies.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said more than 20 men took part in the killing plot by the Klan, and 18 were indicted and tried. The jury convicted seven defendants. Eight others were acquitted. The jury was unable to reach a verdict in three other cases.
The judge in the case, an ardent segregationist, sentenced two of the men to ten years, two others to six years, and the other three to four years. The judge said of his sentences, "They killed one nigger, one Jew, and a white man -- I gave them all what I thought they deserved."
The convictions in the case represented the first ever in Mississippi for the killing of a civil rights worker. The investigation and trial later became the basis for the film “Mississippi Burning”.
But more than a dozen Mississippi civil-rights-era murder cases remain
un-reopened and un-investigated. These include:
Rev. George Lee, a minister who preached about voting rights in black Baptist churches more than a decade before the height of the civil rights movement, was driving home in 1955 when he was hit with gunfire from a passing car. The County sheriff quickly claimed his death was a traffic accident. Asked about the lead pellets taken from Lee's face and head, the sheriff replied they were probably dental fillings. The coroner ruled the death resulted from "unknown causes."
Lamar Smith, a World War II veteran, organized voter registration drives. In 1955, he and some white men got into an argument. A number of witnesses saw one of the white men pull out a pistol and shoot Smith at close range. Three men were arrested but went free when none of the witnesses would testify to what they had seen. Those three men have since died.
Four years later, Mack Charles Parker was accused of raping a white woman. When he was arrested, a Mississippi state trooper offered the woman's husband a pistol to shoot Parker. Three days before Parker was to stand trial, he was dragged from his jail cell, beaten and shot. His body was found in a river 10 days later. The FBI investigated and obtained confessions from some of the eight white suspects. However, the county prosecutor refused to present evidence to a state grand jury and a federal grand jury refused to indict.
When civil rights activist Bob Moses arrived in 1961 in Mississippi, Herbert Lee served as one of his guides. Lee drove Moses around in the black community to talk about voting rights. Lee was killed by a then-state legislator after an argument. He told authorities he shot Lee in self-defense, and a black witness testified to a coroner's jury that Lee was armed and arguing. No charges were filed. The witness later recanted his story, only to be killed himself.
Louis Allen was a witness to the killing of Herbert Lee. He initially testified to a coroner's jury that Lee was armed with a tire iron and killed in an argument, but later told civil rights workers he had been ordered to lie by a white man and followed the instructions to protect his family. He kept silent for more than two years. He was about to move away from Mississippi when he was found dead in his driveway, riddled with buckshot.
Fifty-five years on, Mississippians say the mentality of the 1950s and 60s has disappeared – indeed, African-Americans have been elected to the state legislature and to many mayoral offices. But the many unsolved murders ensure that the civil rights movement will continue to cast a long shadow. Each passing year sees the deaths of prospective suspects and victims, making the work of investigators extremely difficult, and sometimes impossible.
Be Mournful, America
The article below is by Gerald S. Rellick, Ph.D., who worked in the defense sector of the aerospace industry for 22 years, and now teaches in the California Community College system.
By Gerald S. Rellick
Be mournful, America. We have lost yet another courageous, noble countryman to a senseless, corrupt cause. John McCain eulogized Pat Tillman at his funeral, but now that the world knows the Army lied about the details of Tillman’s death, he remains silent. Where is our Vietnam War hero when we need a champion to challenge the venality and deceit of the Bush administration?
In the summer of 2002, I wrote a long letter to John McCain, a politician and leader that I admired and respected. I asked him to seriously consider opposing George Bush for the Republican presidential nomination. I felt that McCain was the best chance to put an end to what was clearly developing into the worst presidency in American history. I stressed to him that if Bush was allowed to continue for four more years, it would not only devastate the country, but also ravage the Republican Party for many years to come. Only John McCain had the stature to challenge an incumbent—either as a Republican, or as independent, like McCain’s hero, Teddy Roosevelt. I cited a passage to him from an essay by Alan Wolfe from the July 8, 2002, issue of The New Republic. Eight months before the invasion of Iraq and long before Bush’s lies had become common in the American media. Wolfe’s words were prescient:
“As Lord Bryce noted in 1888, the American way of choosing presidents rarely produces politicians of quality. Subsequent events vindicated his point: in the half-century since his book appeared, Americans elected…as mediocre a political leadership as we have had in our history…Will [the Bush] administration take its place among the worst presidencies of modern times? [I believe] George W. Bush will be lucky if his presidency ever rises to the level of Taft’s or Harding’s.
“During the 2000 election, Bush’s advisers discovered something that no one before had ever quite known: there are simply no limits to how much you can lie in American politics and get away with it. And it is the transposition of that approach to politics into policy that constitutes the disgrace of the Bush method.
“[This situation]…opens the political territory for a challenge from a Roosevelt-style Republican such as John McCain…There is every reason to believe that there exists a hunger for leadership in America.”
Hunger for real leadership, indeed! Then came the summer of 2004 and rumors of a possible Kerry-McCain ticket. Polls showed the public loved the idea—two real men versus two weenies: Batman and Robin against Barney Fife and the Penguin. It was a winner -- a movie ending with America saved from the brink of disaster.
But it was not to be. For reasons known only to McCain, he made the decision to support George Bush for reelection. Admittedly, he wasn’t the most enthusiastic campaigner, but he made enough appearances that it probably made a difference in what turned out to be an extremely close election. And now the country is stuck—stuck for four more years of what is now most certainly the worst presidency in American history.
So John McCain joins Colin Powell in the ranks of those Americans who served their country bravely and honorably, in Vietnam and elsewhere. Despite their valor on the battlefield, these Americans have failed the test of moral courage in the political arena. McCain is another fallen hero, having traded his integrity for political gain.
These festering sores were exacerbated for me recently when I read of the circumstances surrounding the tragic death a year ago of Pat Tillman in Afghanistan. Tillman, as we all know, was the star NFL player who, after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, turned down a $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals in order to be an Army Ranger. The Army initially reported that Tillman died in a heroic defense of his position. They awarded him the Silver Star for bravery posthumously. However, we have since learned that Tillman was accidentally killed by his own troops. Moreover, it is now evident that the Army hid the truth from the public, and even from Tillman’s family.
As the Washington Post reported, "A new Army report on the death shows that top Army officials, including the theater commander, Gen. John P. Abizaid, were told that Tillman's death was fratricide days before the [funeral] service." But it wasn’t until weeks later that Tillman’s family was informed. “And even then,” writes Robert Scheer in the Los Angeles Times, “They provided no details and answered no questions, saying only that friendly fire ‘probably’ killed Tillman.”
Continuing a consistent practice in the Bush administration, the Army lied about Tillman’s death to prevent the loss of their “patriotic poster boy”. How would potential recruits react if they discovered that a true American hero had died at the hands of his own men? The Neo-cons needed a steady supply of soldiers to carry out their imperialistic wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Tillman, they had a propagandist’s dream. They were not about to let a nagging detail like truth destroy their false image of Tillman dying a hero’s death.
Tillman’s father, Patrick, had this to say:
"After it happened, all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script this…They purposely interfered with the investigation …. I think they thought they could control it, and they realized that their recruiting efforts were going to go to hell in a hand basket if the truth about his death got out."
Tillman's mother, Mary, told the Post, "The fact that he was the ultimate team player and he watched his own men kill him is absolutely heartbreaking and tragic. The fact that they lied about it afterward is disgusting."
So where does John McCain fit into this? McCain was clearly moved by Pat Tillman’s patriotism, self-sacrifice and courage—as we all were. McCain delivered a eulogy at Tillman’s funeral and spoke publicly about his admiration for this fine young man. The newly revealed circumstances of Tillman’s death don’t change any of that. However as one who spoke so eloquently of Tillman and his sacrifice, as one of the most prominent members of the Senate, and as a man who was going to “talk tough” to Don Rumsfeld after the election, why is John McCain now silent? Why isn’t he asking for accountability in this matter? Patrick Tillman may have answered this question when he said, "Maybe lying's not a big deal anymore."
Make no mistake, John McCain wants to be president – and he wants it badly. But for those of us who would have supported him enthusiastically in 2004, it’s too late. Ironically, George Bush has paved the way for him by demonstrating that honor and integrity are worth nothing in the Republican Party of today.
I would suggest that there was a time not long ago that the Army would have lived up to a higher standard and told the truth about Pat Tillman. But as Norman Mailer remarked in a recent essay, “The motives that lead to a nation's major historical acts can probably rise no higher than the spiritual understanding of its leadership.”
Or put another way, sewage flows down hill.
By Gerald S. Rellick
Be mournful, America. We have lost yet another courageous, noble countryman to a senseless, corrupt cause. John McCain eulogized Pat Tillman at his funeral, but now that the world knows the Army lied about the details of Tillman’s death, he remains silent. Where is our Vietnam War hero when we need a champion to challenge the venality and deceit of the Bush administration?
In the summer of 2002, I wrote a long letter to John McCain, a politician and leader that I admired and respected. I asked him to seriously consider opposing George Bush for the Republican presidential nomination. I felt that McCain was the best chance to put an end to what was clearly developing into the worst presidency in American history. I stressed to him that if Bush was allowed to continue for four more years, it would not only devastate the country, but also ravage the Republican Party for many years to come. Only John McCain had the stature to challenge an incumbent—either as a Republican, or as independent, like McCain’s hero, Teddy Roosevelt. I cited a passage to him from an essay by Alan Wolfe from the July 8, 2002, issue of The New Republic. Eight months before the invasion of Iraq and long before Bush’s lies had become common in the American media. Wolfe’s words were prescient:
“As Lord Bryce noted in 1888, the American way of choosing presidents rarely produces politicians of quality. Subsequent events vindicated his point: in the half-century since his book appeared, Americans elected…as mediocre a political leadership as we have had in our history…Will [the Bush] administration take its place among the worst presidencies of modern times? [I believe] George W. Bush will be lucky if his presidency ever rises to the level of Taft’s or Harding’s.
“During the 2000 election, Bush’s advisers discovered something that no one before had ever quite known: there are simply no limits to how much you can lie in American politics and get away with it. And it is the transposition of that approach to politics into policy that constitutes the disgrace of the Bush method.
“[This situation]…opens the political territory for a challenge from a Roosevelt-style Republican such as John McCain…There is every reason to believe that there exists a hunger for leadership in America.”
Hunger for real leadership, indeed! Then came the summer of 2004 and rumors of a possible Kerry-McCain ticket. Polls showed the public loved the idea—two real men versus two weenies: Batman and Robin against Barney Fife and the Penguin. It was a winner -- a movie ending with America saved from the brink of disaster.
But it was not to be. For reasons known only to McCain, he made the decision to support George Bush for reelection. Admittedly, he wasn’t the most enthusiastic campaigner, but he made enough appearances that it probably made a difference in what turned out to be an extremely close election. And now the country is stuck—stuck for four more years of what is now most certainly the worst presidency in American history.
So John McCain joins Colin Powell in the ranks of those Americans who served their country bravely and honorably, in Vietnam and elsewhere. Despite their valor on the battlefield, these Americans have failed the test of moral courage in the political arena. McCain is another fallen hero, having traded his integrity for political gain.
These festering sores were exacerbated for me recently when I read of the circumstances surrounding the tragic death a year ago of Pat Tillman in Afghanistan. Tillman, as we all know, was the star NFL player who, after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, turned down a $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals in order to be an Army Ranger. The Army initially reported that Tillman died in a heroic defense of his position. They awarded him the Silver Star for bravery posthumously. However, we have since learned that Tillman was accidentally killed by his own troops. Moreover, it is now evident that the Army hid the truth from the public, and even from Tillman’s family.
As the Washington Post reported, "A new Army report on the death shows that top Army officials, including the theater commander, Gen. John P. Abizaid, were told that Tillman's death was fratricide days before the [funeral] service." But it wasn’t until weeks later that Tillman’s family was informed. “And even then,” writes Robert Scheer in the Los Angeles Times, “They provided no details and answered no questions, saying only that friendly fire ‘probably’ killed Tillman.”
Continuing a consistent practice in the Bush administration, the Army lied about Tillman’s death to prevent the loss of their “patriotic poster boy”. How would potential recruits react if they discovered that a true American hero had died at the hands of his own men? The Neo-cons needed a steady supply of soldiers to carry out their imperialistic wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Tillman, they had a propagandist’s dream. They were not about to let a nagging detail like truth destroy their false image of Tillman dying a hero’s death.
Tillman’s father, Patrick, had this to say:
"After it happened, all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script this…They purposely interfered with the investigation …. I think they thought they could control it, and they realized that their recruiting efforts were going to go to hell in a hand basket if the truth about his death got out."
Tillman's mother, Mary, told the Post, "The fact that he was the ultimate team player and he watched his own men kill him is absolutely heartbreaking and tragic. The fact that they lied about it afterward is disgusting."
So where does John McCain fit into this? McCain was clearly moved by Pat Tillman’s patriotism, self-sacrifice and courage—as we all were. McCain delivered a eulogy at Tillman’s funeral and spoke publicly about his admiration for this fine young man. The newly revealed circumstances of Tillman’s death don’t change any of that. However as one who spoke so eloquently of Tillman and his sacrifice, as one of the most prominent members of the Senate, and as a man who was going to “talk tough” to Don Rumsfeld after the election, why is John McCain now silent? Why isn’t he asking for accountability in this matter? Patrick Tillman may have answered this question when he said, "Maybe lying's not a big deal anymore."
Make no mistake, John McCain wants to be president – and he wants it badly. But for those of us who would have supported him enthusiastically in 2004, it’s too late. Ironically, George Bush has paved the way for him by demonstrating that honor and integrity are worth nothing in the Republican Party of today.
I would suggest that there was a time not long ago that the Army would have lived up to a higher standard and told the truth about Pat Tillman. But as Norman Mailer remarked in a recent essay, “The motives that lead to a nation's major historical acts can probably rise no higher than the spiritual understanding of its leadership.”
Or put another way, sewage flows down hill.
Sunday, May 29, 2005
We Don't Need no Stinkin' Compassion
By Jason Miller
Why did I open that box?
Oh to be blissfully unaware! Alas, in my studies for my activist writing and advocating for social justice, I have opened Pandora’s Box. In some ways I wish I could have closed it before frightening truths permeated my mind, but it is too late. As I delve more deeply into the sea of knowledge about current events, history, ideology, and politics, I am experiencing seriously altered perceptions, thoughts and feelings with respect to many facets of the world. Having passed the point of “know return”, I remain in America in a physical sense, but in an intellectual sense, “I am not in Kansas anymore!” My faith in America and our government has been severely shaken. While disturbing, my awakening has been quite liberating. In some ways I miss the warm fuzzy feelings that came with belief in the pleasant fiction of the America that our leaders portray. However, in spite of the discomfort, I relish the freedom of seeing my world with clarity. In an ongoing effort, I will strive to seek the information necessary to continue piercing the veil of propaganda disseminated by our leaders.
With eyes wide open , I yearn to share the truth with others. An editor once complained that many of my pieces were "litanies of the wrongs" in America. I write my litanies precisely because there are many "wrongs", and the mainstream media is not going to expose them. My goals are to present information that the mainstream media omits, and to persuade readers to act for social change. I often harp on the "wrongs in America" so that readers will want to take non-violent action to make them "rights". As my writing has evolved, I have also incorporated solutions to the problems on which I harp, and have been doing my part to carry out the solutions which I offer.
Tristful day for justice
Priscilla Owens is now a federal judge, setting her up for an eventual nomination to the US Supreme Court. I shake my head in disgust that such a person has reached a position of power in the federal judiciary. Disgust and repulsion fill me as I ponder this turn of events.
From a 5/25 NY Times article:
"She represents a part of the Texas culture that is basically a frontier mentality," said Linda S. Eads, a law professor at Southern Methodist University and a former deputy attorney general of Texas who supports Ms. Owen's nomination.
"You don't cry about your hardships, you just keep moving forward," Professor Eads said. "In some ways, it's a very empowering philosophy, and in some ways it can be seen as cold. I guess it depends on which side of the outcome you are."
During the Senate nomination process, Owens enumerated her "most significant opinions" from her days on the Supreme Court in Texas. Her choices belie her harsh, severe nature, and are a harbinger of bleak prospects for the victimized, poor, or disenfranchised who will seek justice in her court.
From the NY Times again:
“"she chose opinions overturning rulings in favor of a child born with birth defects, a worker injured on an oil rig, a nurse fired for blowing the whistle on a drug-dealing co-worker, a family with an interest in an oil field that had been drained by a nearby company, asbestos and breast-implant plaintiffs and a student whose school made him cut his hair."
Owens simply mirrors the Oligarchy which rules our nation. Her pride in opinions that favored corporations and victimized those who were truly deserving of justice reflects her cold, callous, and hypocritical nature. The Oligarchs’ newly anointed arbiter of justice will implement their inhumane, fascist agenda with zeal and joy.
Oligarchy in America? Can it be true?
Monolithic corporations like Wal-Mart, obscenely wealthy clans with names like Bush, DuPont, and Kennedy, leaders of the Religious Right like James Dobson, powerful religious organizations like Opus Dei, and the intricate web of entities comprising our military industrial complex have psychologically and economically enslaved the American people. We have relinquished our power to this collection of avaricious demagogues which I call the Oligarchy. Sadly, many Americans are unaware that they are unwitting servants of an imperialistic machine built to establish world domination (http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm). Many of the "elected representatives" in our government are naturally part of the Oligarchy by virtue of their wealth. With powerful lobbying groups, the Oligarchs are able to use pressure or bribes to ensnare many of the true representatives of the people who sneak into our government. If Mr. Smith went to Washington today, the Oligarchs would make him one of their own very quickly.
George Bush, the figurehead of the Oligarchy, projects a reassuring image of a "strong and resolute" leader with the Texas machismo to make brash (yet incalculably obtuse) statements to the terrorists. Remember, "Bring it on"? When the Oligarchs either allowed 9/11 to happen, or actually caused it to happen (http://www.newtopiamagazine.net/articles/47), they had the psychological lever they needed to essentially crush the remnants of America's republic. Fear drove the American people to surrender many of their freedoms to a tyranny. Bush's tough talk, declaration of a “war on terror”, rush to war with a "terrorist" nation, close alignment with the Religious Right, and his alleged adherence to "absolute, family values" in a world of uncertainty, provided an illusory shelter from the storm. Already psychologically shackled by years of mind-numbing propaganda, many Americans surrendered themselves to the powerful embrace of Big Brother. If they could only see his true face, they would recoil and run away in horror.
Mirror, mirror on the wall....who is the ugliest soul of all?
Greed, hubris, narcissism, bigotry, hatred, intolerance, and deceit are but a few of the "attributes" which many of the Oligarchs possess. These qualities are necessary ingredients to achieve the success defined and portrayed by the Oligarch-sponsored media machine. Thinness, self-reliance, strength, financial prosperity, influence, youth, and beauty are essential to being a successful American. Getting ahead and feeling good about oneself, regardless of the cost to others, lie at the black heart of the American dream. The quintessential American strives to meet these goals with abandon and disregard for the impact on others, and generally receives the welcoming embrace of the Oligarchs when they do reach these hallowed objectives. Narcissism be thy name.
Tyranny wears many masks
Our land has been beset by a twisted version of Christianity that spreads itself like a virus through the use of psychological terrorism. Various groups and sects comprise the Religious Right and the Dominionists, the carriers of this contagion. While the individual groups and leaders vary to some extent in beliefs and tactics, their goals are closely aligned. These modern day crusaders have relentlessly pursued the persecution of gays, and hence provided the Oligarchs with the scapegoat that a tyranny needs in order to thrive. Fortified by the hubristic belief that theirs is the one true religion, and that Jesus guarantees them a place in heaven, members of the Religious Right feel confident that they possess the "manifest destiny" to impose their agenda on the rest of America. They have grossly abused their tax exempt status with their forays into the political arena. The Religious Right is also threatening to corrupt our secular public institutions with their "truth", which they derive from selective interpretation of the Bible. Someone needs to remind them that truth is not easily plumbed from a book which the Church revised many times throughout history for the purpose of manipulating the masses.
Spiritually deficient
Priscilla Owens and her fellow Oligarchs lack compassion, a crucial spiritual value. Were one to confront them, they would probably claim they were "compassionate conservatives", or they might downplay the value of compassion. Compassion was the hallmark virtue of Christ. Jesus was the one of the most empathic and liberal activist in history, and were he alive today, Bush and his ilk would be leading the march to Golgotha. Jesus was mostly about compassion, the virtual antithesis of the core motivations of the Oligarchs.
Matthew 9:35: "Jesus was going about all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the reign of God and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Seeing the crowds, Jesus felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd."
As Carolyn Baker pointed out in a series of articles in Dissident Voice about the Religious Right (http://www.dissidentvoice.org/May05/Baker0517.htm), their claim to be a “pro-life” is little more than Orwellian Newspeak. The fact is that they are actually "pro-birth" and are hostile to women's rights. Striving to advance their patriarchal agenda, they relentlessly push to deny a woman's right to reproductive choice, even going so far as to enlist pharmacists to deny birth control, and in extreme cases, killing abortion doctors. Recently, Tom Delay has even made veiled threats against members of the judiciary who dare to rule in ways inconsistent with the goals of the Religious Right.
Denying the reality that many teen or unwanted pregnancies often result in horrendous lives for the resulting children, the Religious Right continues to press for the reversal of Roe vs. Wade. Were that to happen, their efforts to “save the unborn” would actually result in more death and suffering as women continued to seek abortions. It is a foregone conclusion that the unborn would continue to die in similar numbers, while many women seeking illegal abortions from back-alley butchers would be maimed or killed. Like the Pharisees, the Religious Right and the scoundrels at the helm of our nation are far more concerned with their artificial, abstract "family values" than they are with the welfare of real human beings. Their strident objection to abortion ultimately boils down to a psychological power-play of men over women. What does the Bible say about the equality of women?
"There does not exist among you Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. All are one in Christ Jesus."(Gal. 3:28)
Need evidence that the Oligarchs and their Religious Right brethren are also "pro-death"?. Look to the war in Iraq. Over 1600 Americans have died, thousands more have been injured, and countless Iraqis have been killed or injured in this imperialistic foray into the Middle East. With strong support from the leadership of the Religious Right, Bush and his fellow Oligarchs gleefully launched "Shock and Awe" on Iraq, after lying to the American people to legitimize the invasion. Offering a textbook example of psychological projection, in 2/02 Pat Robertson characterized Islam as a religion that wants to "dominate and then, if need be, destroy." Portraying this crusade as a struggle of "good versus evil" enables the Oligarchs to lend moral justification to plundering the US treasury and channeling the money to their mega-corporations, like Haliburton. Characterizing Islam as our enemy enables them to use the Middle East as their springboard for the world domination they so desperately crave. What might Jesus have said to Bush as he prepared to invade Iraq?
"Do not resist one who is evil. but if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other."
As they continue to pillage our treasury and further bankrupt America, the Oligarchs are now on a relentless campaign to slither their way into Social Security to plunder its revenues. Bush touts privatization as a means to strengthen our "ownership society". The reality is that the Americans who would benefit most from privatization would be the current "owners", the wealthiest 1% of Americans, who have more capital than the combined wealth of 90% of the rest of the population. Average Americans would be playing the lottery with their Social Security money while wealthy investment bankers would fatten their already burgeoning wallets with the astronomical up tick in transaction fee money. Under the Oligarchs, the wealth gap continues to widen, the middle class is rapidly shrinking, and the rich continue to increase their holdings through enormous tax cuts. Where might Jesus say to the 1% who is vying to add to their wealth?
After the young man left, Jesus talked to his disciples about how hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. "It is easier", he said, "for a camel to go through the eye of a needle."
While the Oligarchs continue to prosper with increased corporate welfare, decreased taxes, and increased funding for the military industrial complex, the less fortunate suffer the budget cuts which are badly needed to keep the $7.5 trillion dollar debt from spinning further out of control. The elderly, the disabled, the poor, single mothers, and family farmers tighten their belts for the "good of their country" while the elite let theirs out a few notches. Why are we giving the biggest tax cuts to those who already possess great wealth? Why are we cutting taxes at all? Thanks to the unrestrained spending and tax cuts of the Oligarchs, our legacy to our children is a $7.5 trillion debt that continues to mount. What did Jesus say about paying taxes?
Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?" "Caesar's," they replied. Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."
It has become personal
I grew up under the reign of a tyrannical father who, despite his denial, shares many of the Oligarchs' values. Having prospered financially, he met one of the most important goals of success in the perverse system of "American" values. However, the tab was three heart attacks and the loss of his family. My mother divorced him and got remarried. My brother has disappeared somewhere in Alaska. I elected to walk away from him. Had I licked his boots long enough, I probably would have inherited a small fortune. However, I would not abide his tyranny, and I will not abide the tyranny of the ruling elite in America today.
Both my wife and I suffered deep emotional wounds inflicted by Christian churches which embodied the values of the Religious Right. She and I have both forged our own personal spiritualities. Neither of us has chosen to reconcile the Christian religion into our spiritual beliefs after the damage that the churches rendered upon us. My wife and I are both people of honesty and integrity. We respect the rights and dignity of others, and embrace many of the teachings of Christ. However, neither of us calls ourselves Christian.
I went through extremely difficult times in the past. During those times, I utilized several components of the social welfare system to get myself back on my feet. Had those life-lines not been there, I would not be where I am today. I now have a college degree and earn a middle class wage as an account representative at a finance company. My wife and I are raising our son, and I have joint legal custody of two boys from a previous marriage. I am an active parent in their live, and pay my child support to their mother. I am also a successful activist writer in a climate where dissident voices are all too scarce of a commodity.
Should I stay or should I go?
I choose to stay in America so that I can make a positive difference. Like Judge Owens, I am exceedingly persistent and tenacious, and I have empowered myself by overcoming significant adversities. However, unlike Owens and the rest of Bush's Neocon subordinates, I do not see the "frontier mentality" as a virtue. My wife and children have taught me not to expect others to be as tenacious as I am in facing challenges. People need compassion, and some need more help than others. As much willpower as I have, I needed serious help during my trials, and still need help and support. I have reconciled my strengths and limitations, and feel more connected with others because of my limitations. Compassion and mercy are values that I embrace, in spite of my strength.
I have chosen to align myself with the disenfranchised of society and to pursue social and economic equality. My friends are mostly women, minorities, gays, intellectuals, or people who are economically disadvantaged. I have chosen to advocate for social justice, civil liberties, and intellectual freedom through my activist writing and through my ACLU affiliation. I am teaching my children to think critically to free their minds and to seek social justice. I dissent against the Oligarchs through my writing. I have chosen to learn Spanish as a second language so that I can communicate with my numerous Hispanic immigrant customers rather than demeaning them by forcing them to speak a language that they have not had time to learn. My wife and I work hard to live within our means. Unlike our government, we are virtually debt-free because of our thrift. We boycott multinational corporations like Wal-Mart and spend our money at small, local vendors when possible. My wife and I both strive enthusiastically to be part of the solution in a nation beset with problems..
My one regret in staying in America is that I pay taxes to the federal government. However, despite the fattening of the Oligarchs and the furthering of the imperialistic agenda, I feel gratified knowing that some of my tax money goes to social welfare, educational, and other programs to benefit humanity. Since I am not prepared to stop paying taxes and engage in a futile battle with the IRS, I live with this ambivalence.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be (Voltaire)
As the tyranny grows more overt, and the light of democracy grows dimmer, the Oligarchs grow bolder in implementing their foreign and domestic policy agendas. With rising frequency, their policies clash significantly with the welfare of the poor and working class. Still, I believe that once enough of the uneducated and undecided American people awaken and become motivated to act, the Oligarchs will be forced to render a measure of social and economic justice. Studying the Populists, the Wobblies, the New Dealers, and the Civil Rights protestors, I see how they forced significant social change in favor of the people. I rest my faith and hope on their successes. I am prepared to go a step beyond what I am doing now and engage in civil disobedience when it becomes necessary, and will encourage others to do the same.
I envision a grassroots movement rising to power over the next few years. It has already started gathering momentum through the subversion of the mainstream media via the Internet. Non-profit news sites, blogs, email, and over 2 billion websites give people an unprecedented means to communicate and exchange information. The human spirit thirsts for freedom, and when enough people begin to realize that they have been enslaved, the dissidence and non-violent revolution will become so powerful that the Oligarchs will capitulate and yield a share of the wealth and power back to the people. We of the poor, working and middle class have the advantage in numbers, and in the fact that tyrants are destined to fail because of the intolerance of the human spirit for enslavement. The Oligarchs need us to buy their products and do their dirty work, and people will not wear the yoke of oppression indefinitely. Despite their possession of most of the wealth, the true economic power lies in our hands. It is only a matter of time before increased awareness and activist efforts shift the balance of power, but more people need to wish to be free, and take the steps necessary to attain freedom. Remember, you have more power than you think, and compassion is an empowering virtue!
Why did I open that box?
Oh to be blissfully unaware! Alas, in my studies for my activist writing and advocating for social justice, I have opened Pandora’s Box. In some ways I wish I could have closed it before frightening truths permeated my mind, but it is too late. As I delve more deeply into the sea of knowledge about current events, history, ideology, and politics, I am experiencing seriously altered perceptions, thoughts and feelings with respect to many facets of the world. Having passed the point of “know return”, I remain in America in a physical sense, but in an intellectual sense, “I am not in Kansas anymore!” My faith in America and our government has been severely shaken. While disturbing, my awakening has been quite liberating. In some ways I miss the warm fuzzy feelings that came with belief in the pleasant fiction of the America that our leaders portray. However, in spite of the discomfort, I relish the freedom of seeing my world with clarity. In an ongoing effort, I will strive to seek the information necessary to continue piercing the veil of propaganda disseminated by our leaders.
With eyes wide open , I yearn to share the truth with others. An editor once complained that many of my pieces were "litanies of the wrongs" in America. I write my litanies precisely because there are many "wrongs", and the mainstream media is not going to expose them. My goals are to present information that the mainstream media omits, and to persuade readers to act for social change. I often harp on the "wrongs in America" so that readers will want to take non-violent action to make them "rights". As my writing has evolved, I have also incorporated solutions to the problems on which I harp, and have been doing my part to carry out the solutions which I offer.
Tristful day for justice
Priscilla Owens is now a federal judge, setting her up for an eventual nomination to the US Supreme Court. I shake my head in disgust that such a person has reached a position of power in the federal judiciary. Disgust and repulsion fill me as I ponder this turn of events.
From a 5/25 NY Times article:
"She represents a part of the Texas culture that is basically a frontier mentality," said Linda S. Eads, a law professor at Southern Methodist University and a former deputy attorney general of Texas who supports Ms. Owen's nomination.
"You don't cry about your hardships, you just keep moving forward," Professor Eads said. "In some ways, it's a very empowering philosophy, and in some ways it can be seen as cold. I guess it depends on which side of the outcome you are."
During the Senate nomination process, Owens enumerated her "most significant opinions" from her days on the Supreme Court in Texas. Her choices belie her harsh, severe nature, and are a harbinger of bleak prospects for the victimized, poor, or disenfranchised who will seek justice in her court.
From the NY Times again:
“"she chose opinions overturning rulings in favor of a child born with birth defects, a worker injured on an oil rig, a nurse fired for blowing the whistle on a drug-dealing co-worker, a family with an interest in an oil field that had been drained by a nearby company, asbestos and breast-implant plaintiffs and a student whose school made him cut his hair."
Owens simply mirrors the Oligarchy which rules our nation. Her pride in opinions that favored corporations and victimized those who were truly deserving of justice reflects her cold, callous, and hypocritical nature. The Oligarchs’ newly anointed arbiter of justice will implement their inhumane, fascist agenda with zeal and joy.
Oligarchy in America? Can it be true?
Monolithic corporations like Wal-Mart, obscenely wealthy clans with names like Bush, DuPont, and Kennedy, leaders of the Religious Right like James Dobson, powerful religious organizations like Opus Dei, and the intricate web of entities comprising our military industrial complex have psychologically and economically enslaved the American people. We have relinquished our power to this collection of avaricious demagogues which I call the Oligarchy. Sadly, many Americans are unaware that they are unwitting servants of an imperialistic machine built to establish world domination (http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm). Many of the "elected representatives" in our government are naturally part of the Oligarchy by virtue of their wealth. With powerful lobbying groups, the Oligarchs are able to use pressure or bribes to ensnare many of the true representatives of the people who sneak into our government. If Mr. Smith went to Washington today, the Oligarchs would make him one of their own very quickly.
George Bush, the figurehead of the Oligarchy, projects a reassuring image of a "strong and resolute" leader with the Texas machismo to make brash (yet incalculably obtuse) statements to the terrorists. Remember, "Bring it on"? When the Oligarchs either allowed 9/11 to happen, or actually caused it to happen (http://www.newtopiamagazine.net/articles/47), they had the psychological lever they needed to essentially crush the remnants of America's republic. Fear drove the American people to surrender many of their freedoms to a tyranny. Bush's tough talk, declaration of a “war on terror”, rush to war with a "terrorist" nation, close alignment with the Religious Right, and his alleged adherence to "absolute, family values" in a world of uncertainty, provided an illusory shelter from the storm. Already psychologically shackled by years of mind-numbing propaganda, many Americans surrendered themselves to the powerful embrace of Big Brother. If they could only see his true face, they would recoil and run away in horror.
Mirror, mirror on the wall....who is the ugliest soul of all?
Greed, hubris, narcissism, bigotry, hatred, intolerance, and deceit are but a few of the "attributes" which many of the Oligarchs possess. These qualities are necessary ingredients to achieve the success defined and portrayed by the Oligarch-sponsored media machine. Thinness, self-reliance, strength, financial prosperity, influence, youth, and beauty are essential to being a successful American. Getting ahead and feeling good about oneself, regardless of the cost to others, lie at the black heart of the American dream. The quintessential American strives to meet these goals with abandon and disregard for the impact on others, and generally receives the welcoming embrace of the Oligarchs when they do reach these hallowed objectives. Narcissism be thy name.
Tyranny wears many masks
Our land has been beset by a twisted version of Christianity that spreads itself like a virus through the use of psychological terrorism. Various groups and sects comprise the Religious Right and the Dominionists, the carriers of this contagion. While the individual groups and leaders vary to some extent in beliefs and tactics, their goals are closely aligned. These modern day crusaders have relentlessly pursued the persecution of gays, and hence provided the Oligarchs with the scapegoat that a tyranny needs in order to thrive. Fortified by the hubristic belief that theirs is the one true religion, and that Jesus guarantees them a place in heaven, members of the Religious Right feel confident that they possess the "manifest destiny" to impose their agenda on the rest of America. They have grossly abused their tax exempt status with their forays into the political arena. The Religious Right is also threatening to corrupt our secular public institutions with their "truth", which they derive from selective interpretation of the Bible. Someone needs to remind them that truth is not easily plumbed from a book which the Church revised many times throughout history for the purpose of manipulating the masses.
Spiritually deficient
Priscilla Owens and her fellow Oligarchs lack compassion, a crucial spiritual value. Were one to confront them, they would probably claim they were "compassionate conservatives", or they might downplay the value of compassion. Compassion was the hallmark virtue of Christ. Jesus was the one of the most empathic and liberal activist in history, and were he alive today, Bush and his ilk would be leading the march to Golgotha. Jesus was mostly about compassion, the virtual antithesis of the core motivations of the Oligarchs.
Matthew 9:35: "Jesus was going about all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the reign of God and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Seeing the crowds, Jesus felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd."
As Carolyn Baker pointed out in a series of articles in Dissident Voice about the Religious Right (http://www.dissidentvoice.org/May05/Baker0517.htm), their claim to be a “pro-life” is little more than Orwellian Newspeak. The fact is that they are actually "pro-birth" and are hostile to women's rights. Striving to advance their patriarchal agenda, they relentlessly push to deny a woman's right to reproductive choice, even going so far as to enlist pharmacists to deny birth control, and in extreme cases, killing abortion doctors. Recently, Tom Delay has even made veiled threats against members of the judiciary who dare to rule in ways inconsistent with the goals of the Religious Right.
Denying the reality that many teen or unwanted pregnancies often result in horrendous lives for the resulting children, the Religious Right continues to press for the reversal of Roe vs. Wade. Were that to happen, their efforts to “save the unborn” would actually result in more death and suffering as women continued to seek abortions. It is a foregone conclusion that the unborn would continue to die in similar numbers, while many women seeking illegal abortions from back-alley butchers would be maimed or killed. Like the Pharisees, the Religious Right and the scoundrels at the helm of our nation are far more concerned with their artificial, abstract "family values" than they are with the welfare of real human beings. Their strident objection to abortion ultimately boils down to a psychological power-play of men over women. What does the Bible say about the equality of women?
"There does not exist among you Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. All are one in Christ Jesus."(Gal. 3:28)
Need evidence that the Oligarchs and their Religious Right brethren are also "pro-death"?. Look to the war in Iraq. Over 1600 Americans have died, thousands more have been injured, and countless Iraqis have been killed or injured in this imperialistic foray into the Middle East. With strong support from the leadership of the Religious Right, Bush and his fellow Oligarchs gleefully launched "Shock and Awe" on Iraq, after lying to the American people to legitimize the invasion. Offering a textbook example of psychological projection, in 2/02 Pat Robertson characterized Islam as a religion that wants to "dominate and then, if need be, destroy." Portraying this crusade as a struggle of "good versus evil" enables the Oligarchs to lend moral justification to plundering the US treasury and channeling the money to their mega-corporations, like Haliburton. Characterizing Islam as our enemy enables them to use the Middle East as their springboard for the world domination they so desperately crave. What might Jesus have said to Bush as he prepared to invade Iraq?
"Do not resist one who is evil. but if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other."
As they continue to pillage our treasury and further bankrupt America, the Oligarchs are now on a relentless campaign to slither their way into Social Security to plunder its revenues. Bush touts privatization as a means to strengthen our "ownership society". The reality is that the Americans who would benefit most from privatization would be the current "owners", the wealthiest 1% of Americans, who have more capital than the combined wealth of 90% of the rest of the population. Average Americans would be playing the lottery with their Social Security money while wealthy investment bankers would fatten their already burgeoning wallets with the astronomical up tick in transaction fee money. Under the Oligarchs, the wealth gap continues to widen, the middle class is rapidly shrinking, and the rich continue to increase their holdings through enormous tax cuts. Where might Jesus say to the 1% who is vying to add to their wealth?
After the young man left, Jesus talked to his disciples about how hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. "It is easier", he said, "for a camel to go through the eye of a needle."
While the Oligarchs continue to prosper with increased corporate welfare, decreased taxes, and increased funding for the military industrial complex, the less fortunate suffer the budget cuts which are badly needed to keep the $7.5 trillion dollar debt from spinning further out of control. The elderly, the disabled, the poor, single mothers, and family farmers tighten their belts for the "good of their country" while the elite let theirs out a few notches. Why are we giving the biggest tax cuts to those who already possess great wealth? Why are we cutting taxes at all? Thanks to the unrestrained spending and tax cuts of the Oligarchs, our legacy to our children is a $7.5 trillion debt that continues to mount. What did Jesus say about paying taxes?
Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?" "Caesar's," they replied. Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."
It has become personal
I grew up under the reign of a tyrannical father who, despite his denial, shares many of the Oligarchs' values. Having prospered financially, he met one of the most important goals of success in the perverse system of "American" values. However, the tab was three heart attacks and the loss of his family. My mother divorced him and got remarried. My brother has disappeared somewhere in Alaska. I elected to walk away from him. Had I licked his boots long enough, I probably would have inherited a small fortune. However, I would not abide his tyranny, and I will not abide the tyranny of the ruling elite in America today.
Both my wife and I suffered deep emotional wounds inflicted by Christian churches which embodied the values of the Religious Right. She and I have both forged our own personal spiritualities. Neither of us has chosen to reconcile the Christian religion into our spiritual beliefs after the damage that the churches rendered upon us. My wife and I are both people of honesty and integrity. We respect the rights and dignity of others, and embrace many of the teachings of Christ. However, neither of us calls ourselves Christian.
I went through extremely difficult times in the past. During those times, I utilized several components of the social welfare system to get myself back on my feet. Had those life-lines not been there, I would not be where I am today. I now have a college degree and earn a middle class wage as an account representative at a finance company. My wife and I are raising our son, and I have joint legal custody of two boys from a previous marriage. I am an active parent in their live, and pay my child support to their mother. I am also a successful activist writer in a climate where dissident voices are all too scarce of a commodity.
Should I stay or should I go?
I choose to stay in America so that I can make a positive difference. Like Judge Owens, I am exceedingly persistent and tenacious, and I have empowered myself by overcoming significant adversities. However, unlike Owens and the rest of Bush's Neocon subordinates, I do not see the "frontier mentality" as a virtue. My wife and children have taught me not to expect others to be as tenacious as I am in facing challenges. People need compassion, and some need more help than others. As much willpower as I have, I needed serious help during my trials, and still need help and support. I have reconciled my strengths and limitations, and feel more connected with others because of my limitations. Compassion and mercy are values that I embrace, in spite of my strength.
I have chosen to align myself with the disenfranchised of society and to pursue social and economic equality. My friends are mostly women, minorities, gays, intellectuals, or people who are economically disadvantaged. I have chosen to advocate for social justice, civil liberties, and intellectual freedom through my activist writing and through my ACLU affiliation. I am teaching my children to think critically to free their minds and to seek social justice. I dissent against the Oligarchs through my writing. I have chosen to learn Spanish as a second language so that I can communicate with my numerous Hispanic immigrant customers rather than demeaning them by forcing them to speak a language that they have not had time to learn. My wife and I work hard to live within our means. Unlike our government, we are virtually debt-free because of our thrift. We boycott multinational corporations like Wal-Mart and spend our money at small, local vendors when possible. My wife and I both strive enthusiastically to be part of the solution in a nation beset with problems..
My one regret in staying in America is that I pay taxes to the federal government. However, despite the fattening of the Oligarchs and the furthering of the imperialistic agenda, I feel gratified knowing that some of my tax money goes to social welfare, educational, and other programs to benefit humanity. Since I am not prepared to stop paying taxes and engage in a futile battle with the IRS, I live with this ambivalence.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be (Voltaire)
As the tyranny grows more overt, and the light of democracy grows dimmer, the Oligarchs grow bolder in implementing their foreign and domestic policy agendas. With rising frequency, their policies clash significantly with the welfare of the poor and working class. Still, I believe that once enough of the uneducated and undecided American people awaken and become motivated to act, the Oligarchs will be forced to render a measure of social and economic justice. Studying the Populists, the Wobblies, the New Dealers, and the Civil Rights protestors, I see how they forced significant social change in favor of the people. I rest my faith and hope on their successes. I am prepared to go a step beyond what I am doing now and engage in civil disobedience when it becomes necessary, and will encourage others to do the same.
I envision a grassroots movement rising to power over the next few years. It has already started gathering momentum through the subversion of the mainstream media via the Internet. Non-profit news sites, blogs, email, and over 2 billion websites give people an unprecedented means to communicate and exchange information. The human spirit thirsts for freedom, and when enough people begin to realize that they have been enslaved, the dissidence and non-violent revolution will become so powerful that the Oligarchs will capitulate and yield a share of the wealth and power back to the people. We of the poor, working and middle class have the advantage in numbers, and in the fact that tyrants are destined to fail because of the intolerance of the human spirit for enslavement. The Oligarchs need us to buy their products and do their dirty work, and people will not wear the yoke of oppression indefinitely. Despite their possession of most of the wealth, the true economic power lies in our hands. It is only a matter of time before increased awareness and activist efforts shift the balance of power, but more people need to wish to be free, and take the steps necessary to attain freedom. Remember, you have more power than you think, and compassion is an empowering virtue!
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