Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 10.12.05

[David Shove (shove001]

            P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R     10.12.05

1. Roseville candidates  10.12 7pm
2. AI StPaul             10.12 7:30pm

3. Eagan peace vigil     10.13 4:30pm
4. Small is beautiful    10.13 5pm
5. Park board forum      10.13 6:30pm
6. Traffic management    10.13 6:30pm
7. DU bombs              10.13 7pm
8. What is MnSOAWatch?   10.13 7pm Northfield MN
9. Katrina teach-in      10.13 7pm
10. Super vision/theatre 10.13 8pm
11. Cuban five/CTV       10.13 8:30pm

12. John M Kelley   - The death of the middle class
13. Manuel Garca Jr - Industrialized greed produces pandemics
14. Bill Willers    - The rightwing road to America's privatized future
15. Mike Whitney    - Bunker days with Reichsfuhrer George
16. Mark Weisbrot   - Good news at last! The IMF has lost its influence
17. Mike Whitney    - George Bush and the Four Horsemen
18. Gary S Corseri  - Whose freedom do we mean? (poem)

--------1 of 18--------

From: Amy Ihlan <amy [at] amyihlan.org>
Subject: Roseville candidates 10.12 7pm

The League of Women Voters will havea Roseville City Council Candidate
Forum at 7pm this Wednesday, October 12, at the Roseville City Hall
Council Chambers.  Members of the audience will be able to submit
questions for the candidates.  Please come!  It should be an interesting
event.

[Three candidates - Ihlan, Kough, and Anderson - are opposed to the insane
$80 million plus Twin Lakes corporate welfare big box misdevelopment. All
the others support this travesty. The battle lines are drawn. The city
council has 5 members, elected on a staggered basis. The two holdovers are
for misdevelopment. So it will take election of all THREE to stop this
money grab. I live in Roseville and have watched this utterly undemocratic
procedure-flouting coup; the suits do their little soft-shoe dance, and
the majority of the council watches them like deer hypnotized by
headlights. Corporate corruption of the community is alive and well in
Roseville. -ed]


--------2 of 18--------

From: Gabe Ormsby <gabeo [at] bitstream.net>
Subject: AI StPaul 10.12 7:30pm

There are several local Amnesty International groups in the Twin
Cities area. All of them are welcoming and would love to see
interested people get involved -- find the one that best fits your
schedule or location:

AIUSA Group 640 (Saint Paul) meets Wednesday, October 12th, at 7:30 p.m.
Mad Hatter Teahouse, 943 West 7th Street, Saint Paul.
http://www.aistpaul.org


--------3 of 18--------

From: Greg and Sue Skog <skograce [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Eagan peace vigil 10.13 4:30pm

CANDLELIGHT PEACE VIGIL EVERY THURSDAY from 4:30-5:30pm on the Northwest
corner of Pilot Knob Road and Yankee Doodle Road in Eagan. We have signs
and candles. Say "NO to war!" The weekly vigil is sponsored by: Friends
south of the river speaking out against war.


--------4 of 18--------

From: Jesse Mortenson <jmortenson [at] Macalester.edu>
Subject: Small is beautiful 10.13 5pm

10.13 5pm
Cahoots coffeehouse
Selby 1/2 block east of Snelling in StPaul

Limit bigboxes, chain stores, TIF, corporate welfare, billboards; promote
small business and co-ops, local production & self-sufficiency.


--------5 of 18--------

From: Dorie Rae Gallagher <hoboanne [at] velotel.com>
Subject: Park board forum 10.13 6:30pm

There will be a PARK BOARD Forum/Debate October 13 6:30pm at the Minnehaha
United Methodist Church. 3701 East 50th Street Minneapolis


--------6 of 18--------

From: Anne Carroll <carrfran [at] qwest.net>
Subject: Traffic management 10.13 6:30pm

Please pass this message far & wide - and please attend!  A group of orgs
and individuals is working hard to make this visit successful - and for it
to have long-term impact on street reclaiming and pedestrian safety.
Both sessions should be invigorating, and give individuals a way to impact
their environment, rather than expecting others (such as city engineers)
to solve everything.  The Saturday session will lead to, amongst other
things, the formation of working groups.

Jun-Li Wang Community Organizer / Community Leadership Coordinator Hamline
Midway Coalition 1564 Lafond Avenue St. Paul, MN 55104 Phone: 651-646-1986
Fax: 651-641-6123 www.hamlinemidwaycoalition.org

Tired of dodging traffic?  On major roads?  On your very own block?

Find out how to make streets better for you and your family. Free workshop
with David Engwicht, an expert on creating friendly streets and the author
of "Mental speed bumps: the smarter way to tame traffic."

Part one: Thursday, October 13, 6:30-8:30pm on how every person can change
a street. Part two: Saturday, October 15, 8:30am-12:30pm for a hands-on
session to create safe streets, using Snelling Avenue as a model. Both
events at Hamline University, Law Grad Conference Center, St. Paul.

For information: Contact the Midway TMO: 651-644-5108;
rstark [at] universityunited.com or www.universityunited.com/midwaytmo

For more on David Engwicht: see: www.mentalspeedbumps.com/ David
Engwicht.turns conventional thinking upside down and maps out a creative
and highly effective plan to create people-friendly streets. He advocates
giving streets back to people, moving away from the top-down,
engineering-led world, and exploiting the power of the mind and the
imagination to redefine what streets should be used for. This is powerful
stuff and it works.  Professor John Whitelegg, Professor of Sustainable
Development, University of York, UK.


--------7 of 18--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: DU bombs 10.13 7pm

Thur Oct 13: U.S. Uranium WMDs @ May Day Books

Called "bunker busters", the U.S. has dropped hundreds of tons of these
delpleted uranium (DU) weapons during the two wars in Iraq. At least,
50,000 American veterans from the 1991 Gulf War have since died of "Gulf
War Syndrome" (aka: cancer) and the leukemia rate in Iraq is 12 times
higher than it was before DU bombing. Iraq's air, water and soil are
contaminated by radiation, with both U.S. soldiers' and Iraquis' children
experiencing escalated birth defects. The VA refuses to test returning
veterans for radiation poisoning. Hear John LaForge of Nukewatch reveal
what the Pentagon continues to deny about these American WMDs.

FREE. Thur Oct 13, 7pm, May Day Books, 301 Cedar Ave.S. (basement Hub
Bicicycle,door frwy side of bldg), West Bank, Minneapolis For info call
Veterans for Peace (612)821-9141 (Lydia Howell)


--------8 of 18--------

From: mnsoaw [at] circlevision.org
Subject: What is MnSOAWatch? 10.13 7pm Northfield MN

MnSOAWatch - get the word out
Thursday October 13 at 7pm
Cannon Valley Friends Meeting
333 1/2 Division St (above Jenkins Jewelers)
Northfield, MN

Our GET THE WORD OUT multi-media presentation is geared to those who are
new to this issue. The program includes images, portions of a video, real
prisoners of conscience, witnesses from delegations to Central and South
American countries and legislative efforts. We hope to educate about what
the SOA/WHINSEC is and encourage people to participate in the campaign to
get it closed. Let your friends know who are curious and would like to
learn more,

We have two more dates pending- we will email the times as they become
solidified.

Seats are still available on the Veterans for Peace, Chapter 27 bus for
the SOAW vigil in Georgia. Leaving the Twin Cities Friday morning
November 18 and then leaving Columbus on Sunday evening. Call Jim at
612.722.1112 to reserve your spot.


--------9 of 18--------

From: Amy Porter <port0135 [at] umn.edu>
Subject: Katrina teach-in 10.13 7pm

The Institute for Advanced Study and the Interdisciplinary Center for the
Study of Global Change present:

Teach In:  Reflections on Hurricane Katrina

"Report on Local Organizations and Katrina Relief Efforts"
Donna Bauer, President, Minnesota Voluntary Organizations Active in
Disaster Relief

"Implementing Katrina Response in Louisiana and International Comparisons"
Huy Pham, Director of International Operations, American Refugee Committee

"Lessons of Katrina: A Personal and Political Perspective"
Professor August Nimtz, Department of Political Science, University of
Minnesota

7pm on Thursday, October 13
120 Nolte Center for Continuing Education
University of Minnesota, East Bank Campus
315 Pillsbury Drive SE, Minneapolis

Light refreshments will be served.

Donna Bauer is the current President of MNVOAD (Voluntary Organizations
Active in Disaster).  Member of MNVOAD for 4 years and Secretary for one
year, representative of Catholic Charities to MNVOAD.  Employed at
Catholic Charities in the Housing and Emergency Services Divisions,
providing a multitude of services including: health and safety training
and coordination of safety policies and programs. American Red Cross
trainer and authorized provider. CERT member with the City of Minneapolis
and City of New Brighton.  Ms. Bauer will discuss various areas of MNVOAD
organization operations:  Camp Ripley, Twin Cities, Southern Deployments
and Long Term Recovery.  She will consider how state and federal responses
might have differed from the past and implications for
government/voluntary agency response in the future.

August Nimtz, Jr., is Professor of Political Science at the University of
Minnesota. His research Interests include African politics, urban
politics, social movements, political development and Marxism. His
Publications include Marx and Engels - Their Contribution to the
Democratic Breakthrough, Islam and Politics in East Africa, and essays on
Marxism, and the politics of socialist transformation in the Caribbean and
South Africa.  Professor Nimtz' remarks will discuss why, while Katrina
was a natural phenomenon, the disaster that unfolded in its aftermath is a
social phenonemon that was not inevitable but a reflection of the
political/economic arrangements of a society.  He will draw comparisons
with the Cuban record in dealing with hurricanes.

Huy Pham is the Director of International Operations at American Refugee
Committee.  Pham, who has worked on public health and social development
issues since 1986, also served as the Africa regional manager for ARC
programs in Liberia, Guinea, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and South Sudan.  Pham
was the director of the Children's Rights Program at Minnesota Advocates
for Human Rights, co-edited the report, Global Child Survival:  A Human
Rights Priority (MAHR, 1998), and worked in Viet Nam with The Save the
Children Fund/UK as a technical consultant for the Fund's HIV/AIDS
Management and Prevention Programme.


--------10 of 18--------

From: The Walker Art Center <mailing.list [at] walkerart.org>
Subject: Super vision/theatre 10.13 8pm

The world premiere of SUPER VISION, the multi-media collaboration between
Obie Award-winning The Builders Association and digital design studio dbox

October 13-15 8pm, October 16 7pm
William and Nadine McGuire Theater
Opening night is half-price for members! Thursday $25 ($13 Walker
members); Friday-Sunday $25 ($20 Walker members)

"The Builders Association is itself an innovator in multimedia theatre,
using video, animation, sampled sounds and god-knows-what sorts of
computerized gizmos to produce gorgeous illusions." -The Village Voice

The Obie Award-winning performance company The Builders Association
(Alladeen) and digital design studio dbox reveal a society in which
"dataveillance" goes beyond anything Orwell ever imagined. Dive into this
fresh, funny, and often disturbing combination of cutting-edge
computer-generated animation, new video techniques, electronic music, and
live performance. SUPER VISION probes three absorbing, intertwining, and
all too-close-to-home stories drawn from the datasphere that explore the
dangerous minefield of lives reduced to data.

Due to increased activity in our neighborhood in September and October,
we encourage you to use the City of Minneapolis parking garage at the
Walker, accessible from Vineland Place and Bryant Avenue. Metro Transit
bus lines 4, 6, 12, and 25 stop at the Walker, and bike racks are located
at both entrances.


--------11 of 18--------

From: Joan Malerich <justnad [at] comcast.net>
Subject: Cuban five/CTV 10.13 8:30pm

Cuban Five and Posada Cases on Cable TV, AlteraVista

Thursday, October 13  on SPNN (St. Paul) Channel 15, 8:30 PM

Prof. Peter Erlinder wrote a Brief Amicus Curiae of the National Lawyers
Guild.  Though many briefs were submitted, Dr. Erlinder's brief was most
directly related to the venue decision of the 11th Circuit Court of
Appeals that reversed the trial decision against the Cuban Five.

During their trial, the Cuban Five asked many times for a change of venue
(location) from Miami, home of the Cuban-American Exile terrorists.
Thought it was obvious Miami was the one place that the chance for a fair
trial was zero, they were not granted the change of venue.  The Appellate
Court determined the Five should have a new trial in a different venue.
This is the first time in US legal history that a Federal Appellate Court
has reversed a trial court on the issue of venue.

The Cuban Five are Cuban heroes who are political prisoners in the U.S.
Their crime was trying nonviolently to stop terrorism against the Cuban
people.  They are NOT "spies," as they did not seek or get any information
affecting the national security of the U.S. nor of the U.S. military.
They were arrested September of 1998, held for 33 months without bail and
held in isolation for 17 months.  Three (Gerardo, Ramon, Antonio) were
given life sentences, the other two (Rene and Fernando) 15 and 19 years.
Two have not been allowed to see their wives for over five years, due to
the US refusing them visas.  Rene's seven year-old daughter has not seen
her father for five years.

Prof. Gary Prevost has taught Latin American studies for 30 years and is
an expert on Cuban history and Cuban-United States political relations.
Prevost explains the case of Cuba exile terrorist Luis Posada Carriles,
who, among other terrorist acts, conspired in the planting of a bomb on a
Cuban Airliner in 1976 that killed 73 innocent people.  After escaping
from a Venezuelan prison, Posada worked with Ollie North in the
Iran-Contra Affair, planned the 1997 bombings of tourist sites in Havana,
attempted to assassinate Fidel Castro in 2000.  His life is one of
terrorism.  Last spring, Posada slipped into the US and asked for asylum.
Venezuela legally requested extradition of Posada.  Last week, the El Paso
judge ruled against the extradition to Venezuela.  This is just one more
Cuban exile terrorist that the U.S. is harboring.


--------12 of 18--------

Down the Rabbit Hole of Supply Side Economics:
The Death of the Virtual Economy and the Middle Class
by John M. Kelley
www.dissidentvoice.org
October 11, 2005

While politicians on both sides of the aisle refuse to talk about the war
on the working class by the Bush administration, the increasing cliff edge
disparity of wealth distribution in America is creeping precariously
closer for the middle class. The grinding suffocation of poverty, always
clear to the people on the bottom of our economy, is coming into view for
a lot of folks who never suspected it would happen to them. Long sold a
bill of goods that the poor were victims of their own bad judgment, middle
class whites displaced by economic policies will soon be acutely aware of
the personal impact of economic policy. Changes in several measurements
reveal what many poor people have known for a long time: that there are
severe class divides with high fences in between.

Rapper Kanye West was wrong when he said this President doesn't care about
black people. Bush doesn't care about the poor or middle class of any
color. This is not a matter of being overlooked; it is a purposeful
policy. The administration's policy in dealing with Hurricane Katrina is a
perfect example. First Bush puts incompetent contributor cronies in charge
of a vital government agency, robs its budget to expand its police state
controls and then fails miserably at execution of its mission. After the
disaster, he blames others, exploits the tragedy by giving no-bid, high
profit handouts to campaign contributors, erasing regulations, cutting
requirements to pay the prevailing wage and allowing contractors a free
hand to hire illegal aliens. To pay for what has become the Katrina
Campaign Payback Machine, he sends the bill to poor people by proposing
cutting food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, higher education and teacher
preparation.

But one thing the President does like is welfare. The oil companies, awash
in profits, just received $14 billion in new tax breaks and he has just
promised more along with loosened regulations to build more refineries.
But that is just the beginning. There is the $125 billion that is being
given in corporate tax abatements, price supports, tax shelters and
subsidies, $44 billion to the space industry for a repeat trip to the
moon, $8 billion for the unnecessary and unworkable Star Wars program.
Bush's sympathy is virtually boundless for the military industrial complex
and he threatens to veto the imperial war budget of $480 billion dollars
(more then the next 38 countries combined) because he says it isn't
enough.  Killing people is a much higher priority than saving them.

Even more unbelievable, he still wants to move ahead with more tax cuts
for the rich who are hardly carrying a crushing tax burden. Tax revenue
from corporations fell 16% between 1995-2003 to only 7.4% of the total
federal income. While corporate tax rates are theoretically 35%, the
General Accounting Office reports that 45% of corporations worth more then
$250 million paid no taxes from 1995-2003. The ten companies with the
highest profits paid an average rate of 8.9%. Not satisfied with this, the
Bush administration has proposed that $350 billion of profits hidden
offshore be allowed back into the country at a special tax rate of 5.25%.

Wealthy individuals are also doing well under the Bush tax cut scheme.
While the bottom 20% of taxpayers (under $13,478/year) will save an annual
average of $23 and the median taxpayer saves about $800 dollars a year,
those with an annual income of $1 million save $32,000; the top .1 of one
percent $195,762; and the top 400 taxpayers $8.3 million dollars every
year.

After they accumulate that money, Bush wants to make sure they keep it for
generations by getting rid of the estate tax. That creates financial
dynasties, so people like him will never have to compete with working
people to retain their position in life. If that wasn't bad enough federal
funds to state and local government that help community infrastructure
have been cut causing an increased burden in fees, property, sales and
other taxes that fall disproportionately on the middle class and poor,
usually more then wiping out any income tax reduction.

The chasm between rich and poor is widening by the day. Real income for
working families declined 4.8% ($2576) while it increased 1.7% (that's of
a much bigger income) for the wealthy since 2000. Asset ownership is very
revealing, with the top 5% owning 60% of all assets in the country while
the bottom 40% shares 1%. The ratio of CEO to worker pay has increased
from 301-1 to 431-1 since 1990. While 77% of the poorest performing
wealthy kids go to college, only 78% of the highest performing poor kids
go.

Drowning in debt, 5.4 million working class families fell below the
poverty level of $19,000 for a family of four in the last four years. That
standard hasn't been adjusted in so long that it is estimated to be only
half of what is needed to meet basic needs. That would mean that one-third
of the children in the country are being raised in homes where their
parents can't provide adequate tools to succeed in life. One good
indicator of the truth of this argument is that 45.8 million people don't
have insurance in addition to the 13.3 million children and elderly that
is covered by Medicaid and Medicare.

When it comes to tax policy for the poor, it's a different story. The much
heralded child tax credit is only collected by a quarter of the poor; the
other three-quarters don't make enough to even get that. Then there are
those living off the gravy train of welfare, which averages $193 dollars
per family per month in Texas, Bush's role model for the country. The
number of poor has been growing every year since Bush took office. We now
have almost twice as many people living below the poverty line then the
total population of Australia.

There are tax subsidies for the middle class but they too benefit
corporations as much as taxpayers. The $140 billion in healthcare tax
subsidies give a tax write off to employers; $70-80 billion in pension
plan tax subsidies boost financial institution revenues; $61 in mortgage
interest deductions support banks and mortgage houses. As the current
recession deepens and more people fall from the middle class, they will
lose the ability to pay to take advantage of these tax breaks.

In the past, bankruptcy (mostly attributable to loss of spouse, job or
serious health problem) has been able to save middle class economic
casualties from permanent banishment. Not any more. In addition to higher
filing costs, there will be higher attorneys fees, "education" fees and
stiffer documentation requirements. Many won't even have the money to
file, and many of those who do will find themselves bound in a state of
perpetual bondage for many years. Small businesses are specifically bound
by these rules as well, while large corporations will operate pretty much
as in the past.

After middle class citizens fall from grace they will discover the feeling
a lot of poor people already have: the boot on the neck that keeps you
down. It costs a lot of money to be poor. Paying to get your check cashed
or your bills paid, buying in small quantities at higher prices, living in
drafty houses, having a beater car if you have one at all, getting stopped
and fined by the cops more often, having to rent to own at 450% interest,
being forced to take out a payday loan at 750% interest, not being able to
afford a dentist or doctor and missing more work, if you can find a job,
because of it.  The poor pay more for just about everything.

Once down most people stay there. The American myth of lifting one's own
bootstraps is a lie.  The poor are disproportionately being killed in our
war of global adventurism. Here at home poor people go to jail more often,
suffer more health problems and die sooner. Class mobility is another
myth. During the go-go years of 1988-98, when poverty decreased every
year, only 2.5% from the bottom fifth made it to the middle fifth of the
income range. Now that is getting worse every year.

The promise of Jude Wanniski's supply side economics is producing the
destruction of the middle class and the grinding down of the poor in
America. The theory is that if you cut taxes and give more money to the
rich they will invest it creating more jobs. The problem is that is
exactly what they are doing, but the jobs are in Honduras, Bangladesh,
China and India where that capital will produce a bigger profit margin by
exploiting even poorer people.

The extraction of capital from the country by the Bush administration on
behalf of their corporate contributors reveals the chop shop mentality of
a hostile takeover. George Bush, Dick Cheney and Alan Greenspan have
stolen the car (remember the election), disassembled it and are selling
off the parts.

Since 9/11 the only thing that has kept the virtual economy of America
alive is massive tax cuts, robbery of the public treasury surpluses and
leaving IOUs, low interest rates enticing the middle class to mortgage
their assets to maintain their lifestyle, and a trade deficit that French
author Emmanuel Todd calls a form of foreign tribute. Now with
skyrocketing energy costs and a popping housing bubble, an economic plunge
and massive class displacement is about to occur.

Poor people have known for a long time what Supply Side Economics means.
Now a whole lot of middle-class people are about to find out as well. When
they do they might have some serious rethinking to do about class.

Let the revolution begin.

John M. Kelley is a teacher, philosopher, writer, artist, political
activist, singer of ballads, rebellious Irishman and agent for change who
worries daily about the world he is leaving for his grandchildren.  His
blog is at: www.mytown.ca/johnkelley.


--------13 of 18--------

Industrialized Greed Produces Pandemics
by Manuel Garca, Jr.
www.dissidentvoice.org
October 11, 2005

I have a sideline answering questions about radioactivity. Recently, a
friend asked: does prolonged exposure to radioactive weapon residue (like
depleted uranium dust) lead to outbreaks of mutated strains of viruses,
such as Avian Flu?

This leads to the further question of why pandemics, like the killer 1918
"Spanish Flu" - which originated in the United States - arise in the
first place.

Avian Flu occurs naturally as several families of viruses in birds, who
often do not get sick but merely host the disease, like Typhoid Mary. It
is noted that certain of the Avian Flu virus types are evolving -
adapting - rapidly. One of these strains, H5N1, was able to make a jump
to humans and overpower the human immune system. This was the outbreak of
1997.

While the 1997 outbreak killed millions of birds and scores of people,
this particular strain of the virus had not acquired the genes necessary
to make it similar to the usual human flu viruses, and so it was not
easily transmitted from person to person. If - or when - an Avian Flu
viral strain does combine with a typical human flu virus, gaining the
genes needed to make it easily infectious by breath: sneezes, coughs and
exhalations, then we might see a pandemic. Since the Avian flu that has
infected people since 1997 is quite lethal (up to 50% mortality) as
compared to the mild forms of human flu we are accustomed to, an easily
transmitted form could produce another great killing like that of
1918-1919. Such a bird-carried, human-infecting disease would have a vast
incubator in the many industrial concentrations of domestic fowl
maintained for human consumption.

I've not seen any credible connection between radioactivity and Avian Flu.

In these last few days it has been announced that researchers have been
able to replicate the 1918 flu virus, H1N1. It is kept under tight
security in government laboratories. The raw material for the replication
was viral RNA extracted from lung tissue of 1918 flu victims; some of this
from preserved specimens, and some from cadavers buried in Alaskan
permafrost (and none too soon, as it's starting to melt up there).

The 1918 influenza virus is one million times more virulent than the usual
human flu viruses of today. Fortunately, people today will have some
immunity to the H1N1 family of viruses (how much?). H1N1 is an Avian Flu,
which appears to have made a direct jump from birds to humans in 1918 and
then raced through humanity without first acquiring some genes from human
flu viruses. This is a surprising short-cut. Usually, flu viruses which
jump species then mutate slightly by acquiring some genes of viruses
already in the new host so they can operate - reproduce and avoid the
immune system - in their new organism.

The 1918 pandemic seems to have started in Haskell County, Kansas in
January 1918, becoming a serious Army manpower issue at Fort Riley, Kansas
in March 1918, and spreading throughout Army camps in the U.S. during
March and April, and along the routes of military transport within the
U.S. and Europe; recall World War One was in its fourth year. In late
August and early September it broke out in Boston, Brest (France) and
Freetown (Sierra Leone).

H1N1 killed up to one third of those stricken, October 1918 being the
deadliest month of the worldwide outbreak and of US history, during which
195,000 Americans alone died of influenza. Wikipedia notes that, "Global
mortality rate from the influenza was estimated at 2.5%.5% of the
population, with some 20% of the world population suffering from the
disease to some extent. The disease spread across the world killing
twenty-five million in the course of six months; some estimates put the
total of those killed worldwide at over twice that number, possibly as
high as 100 million."

The entire H1N1 outbreak was over within 18 months.

What are the prospects for a similar outbreak today? Mike Davis has a
recent book on today's Avian Flu, describing the potential for a pandemic.

Though no life-scientist, I note and find it interesting that a number of
fatal respiratory infection viral diseases are carried by wildlife that
permeate the human environment, specifically birds, deer mice, pigeons and
bats: Avian Flu (wild fowl and chicken coops), Hanta Virus (desiccated
mice droppings, pulverized and airborne), Legionnaires' Disease, (pigeon
droppings in ventilator ducts), SARS (horseshoe bats - a species native
of Southeast Asia - as the initial carrier, then also civet cats who may
prey on bats; the bats and civets finding their way into exotic cuisine,
while bat droppings may be used as fertilizer and in medicinal or other
concoctions).

The Ebola Virus, again a family of a particular type, is suspected of
jumping species from monkeys to humans in Africa. Transmission between
humans is by contact (say with infected blood), and transmission by
respiration is unknown with the possible exception of one case. Some
suspect that humans were first infected by slaughtering and consuming
"bushmeat." The same can be said for AIDS, probably of simian origin.

All of these diseases and epidemics seem to spring from the friction of
human poverty grinding into the natural world. An unsanitary push against
Nature by crowded poverty in search of food causes disease to invade
humanity.

Can it be that overcrowding and poverty are much more potent as causes of
disease than radioactivity or even chemical pollution? The need for food
by the masses in Southeast Asia fuels the operation of crowded and dirty
poultry operations. Having smelled some US fowl and poultry operations
from the roadside, and been to small farms, I have trouble believing there
are completely sanitary industrial concentrations of birds anywhere.
Researchers often use chicken eggs to grow experimental cultures (and
vaccines) in, so I suppose Nature can use the whole chicken coop world to
grow viruses designed for wide transmission, as well.

These diseases may be less those of "the poor and backward," because
poverty and backwardness are ancient yet the diseases are new, and more
accurately recognized as the diseases of those left behind by the
acceleration of industrialized greed, which we chose to call
"globalization" to spare the feelings of those who enjoy the benefits of
the system they manage, which is "capitalism."

The natural thrust of capitalism is to push into the natural world with
haste, so as to win in the race to exploit; and the natural product of
capitalism is a wealthy elite and a mass of poverty. Disease springs out
of the struggles of poverty. The profit motive obstructs any downward
transfer of wealth in the form of subsidies for better living conditions
and for the free worldwide use of medical and pharmaceutical advances.
Expending the elite's wealth to subsidize disease prevention and treatment
generally is anti-capitalism, by ideological definition it is communism.
Under capitalism the existence of disease is perfectly acceptable if it is
a source of profit for some, as only winners matter.

The existence of these new diseases is a reverberation from the natural
world of the human obsession with capitalism; a sickness of the individual
and collective mind is reflected by Nature as disease, a consequence of
our actions in conducting human affairs on this planet. Global Warming is
another such reverberation. The kernel of disease is the idea that our
greed and our bigotry can be practiced in isolation, and that this
justification sanctifies the practice. Behold the genius of the
marketplace.

Manuel Garca, Jr. can be reached at mango [at] idiom.com.


--------14 of 18--------

Breaking the Bank: The Rightwing Road to America's Privatized Future
by Bill Willers
Published on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

In September, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, in a comment
perhaps not intended for publication, told Thierry Breton, French Finance
Minister, that the US budget is out of control with the country being
plunged ever more deeply into debt. The Economist reported Breton's
disappointment "... that the management of debt is not a political
priority today."

Breton was wrong. Accumulation of massive debt is the number one priority
of the Bush Administration - a deliberate, managed move toward its goal of
an "ownership society" in which all aspects are privatized.

Since the introduction of the massive Republican tax cuts, many observers
understood immediately that they were to plunge government into debt,
thereby undercutting its ability to fund social programs such as Medicare
and Social Security, and to administer public domain that has long
belonged to all citizens in common.

In May of 2003, Princeton economist Paul Krugman wrote that "gimmicks used
to make an $800-billion-plus tax cut carry a price tag of only $320
billion are a joke ... The people now running America aren't
conservatives: they're radicals who want to do away with the social and
economic system we have, and the fiscal crisis they are concocting may
give them the excuse they need."

Krugman had plenty of company. Peronet Dispeignes reported in the
Financial Times of London that the Bush Administration had shelved a
report commissioned by the Treasury that showed the US facing a future of
chronic federal budget deficits totaling at least $44.2 trillion in
current US dollars, and that closing the gap would require the equivalent
of an immediate and permanent 66% across-the-board tax increase. Bill
Moyers, on his PBS show NOW, said "We are watching the country's future
slip deeper and deeper into a black hole of red ink."

The corporate sphere has spent countless millions lobbying for
deregulation of its activities, for maintaining specific legislators in
office, and for the privatization of everything from health care to
education to Social Security to federal lands, including national parks.
The goal is ownership and control of every corner of society by a "private
sector" primarily in the form of corporations. Over more than a century of
legal maneuvering, corporations have been able to create for themselves
the status of "persons" in US law, so that the fortunes they lavish have,
absurdly, become "free speech". They have also acquired ownership of
mainstream media and so have been able to obscure the significance and
gravity of the situation while simultaneously perpetuating another widely
believed absurdity, that of "the liberal media".

A key mechanism for privatization is "outsourcing" to the private sector
jobs that have historically been governmental. National parks, it seems,
have been a trial area for this. Plans for the privatization of parks have
lain obscurely on the rightwing to-do list for more than 20 years, and now
the Bush Administration is allowing them to move ahead quickly. Terry
Anderson, lead architect of a strategy to transfer America's public lands
into private ownership over a forty-year span, advises President Bush on
public lands matters.

Early in 2003, Interior Secretary Gale Norton announced her intention to
outsource as many as 11,000 (72%) positions in the US Park Service.
Shortly thereafter, President Bush declared that as many as 850,000
federal positions could become privatized. This is an attack on public
ownership and of federal programs supportive of the poorer and middle
classes that together constitute the bulk of society. While framed as an
argument for fiscal efficiency, it is a recipe for a two-tiered society of
a super rich minority atop a vast underclass of workers.

The Bush Administration's assault on government, under the banner of
"cutting federal spending", is the cause of a FEMA underfunded into
relative impotence and for inadequate levees in New Orleans. But even as
we are learning that the cost of reconstructing the Gulf Coast will be
(yet another) $200 billion, and that no-bid contracts (yet again) are
being handed to Halliburton, news comes that to pay for it all will
require "further cuts in federal spending". And things just don't add up.

Well, perhaps they do. Maybe they make even more obvious the Republican
game plan to plunge government so deeply into debt that it can no longer
offer support to the larger citizenry, and that this can only result in
the corporate sector winning by default and becoming, in principle, like
so many mediaeval landowners. Looking ahead, one sees the main controlling
element of society not a government of, by and for the people but a
corporate sector that controls life's essentials and charges as much as
the market will bear. "Nothing personal; just business".

Rightwing strategist Grover Norquist's stated goal of shrinking government
so that it can be, as he put it, "drowned in a bathtub", is now being
fast-tracking at a rate that must surprise even him.

Bill Willers is an Emeritus Professor of Biology, University of Wisconsin
at Oshkosh.


--------15 of 18--------

Bunker Days with Reichsfuhrer George
by Mike Whitney
www.dissidentvoice.org
October 10, 2005

Bush's speech to the National Endowment for Democracy was a long and
tedious journey through the shadowy world of terrorism. It was loaded with
the same wearisome phantoms and dreary evildoers that have appeared in
every Bush speech since September 2001. Bush is beginning to sound like
the three-wheeled ox-cart trundling down the road emitting the same shrill
screech with every rotation. The man needs some new material.

His dismal performance last Thursday further demonstrated his inability to
grasp reality or to deal with the mess he's created. He dredged up the
lackluster imagery of 9-11 to cobble together a 40-minute monologue that
excluded every topic of national interest except terrorism. Even his
audience, which was chock full of flag-waving jingoes and
"democracy-spreading" zealots, appeared dumbstruck.

"Recently our country observed the fourth anniversary of a great evil, and
looked back on a great turning point in our history," Bush said. "We will
confront this mortal danger to all humanity. We will not tire, or rest,
until the war on terror is won."

9-11, 9-11, 9-11, ad infinitum.

Bush's penchant for repetition would leave Joseph Goebbels wincing. It's
simply impossible to reiterate the same mantra for four years without
producing a jaw-dropping silence among one's audience. That's especially
true given the latest polls that show that only 7% of Americans think that
terrorism is the most important topic on the national docket. For Bush,
however, terrorism is the last flimsy bit of straw that holds his
presidency together.

"Our nation stood guard on tense borders; we spoke for the rights of
dissidents and the hopes of exile; we aided the rise of new democracies on
the ruins of tyranny," Bush boomed. "In this new century, freedom is once
again assaulted by enemies determined to roll back generations of
democratic progress."

Bush's delusional ravings are increasingly reminiscent of his German
forebears in the waning "bunker days" of the Reich.

Is there someone in the crowd who hasn't heard of Bush's threat to veto a
Defense Dept spending bill to preserve his inalienable right to torture
prisoners? And yet, even while the bombs are falling on far off Tal Afar,
or thousands of America's poor and huddled masses have been shunted off
to relocation centers, or hundreds of skeletal prisoners in Guantanamo
waste away under Bush's approving glare, the imposter-in-chief still
rattles on about "freedom and democracy."

It's extraordinary.

Bush's soliloquy contained all the shrill invective and empty-headed
rhetoric we've heard a thousand times before; the same bedraggled
metaphors the same fusty platitudes, the same scripted delivery.

"While the killers choose their victims indiscriminately, their attacks
serve a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs and goals that are
evil, but not insane. Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others,
militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism.... This form of
radicalism exploits Islam to serve a violent, political vision: the
establishment, by terrorism and subversion and insurgency, of a
totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom."

Bush has joined fellow travelers Hitchens, Friedman, and Blair in pushing
the errant theory that terrorism arises from an "evil ideology." The
assumption has been discredited by experts like Robert Pape, who have
proved beyond a doubt that more than 90% of all terrorist attacks are a
response to occupation not ideology. They hate our soldiers garrisoned in
their countries not "our freedoms".

"Figures show that Al Qaida today is less a product of Islamic
fundamentalism than of a simple strategic goal: to compel the US and
Western allies to withdraw combat forces from the Arabian Peninsula and
other Muslim counties." (Robert Pape, NY Times, July 9, 2005)

Still, we can't expect Bush or his dissembling cadres to abandon their
last frail shred of legitimacy.

No way.

If Bush was serious about "evil ideologies" he'd direct his attention to
the neocon dogma that has already killed and maimed hundreds of thousands
of innocent civilians, with millions more entering the imperial crosshairs
every day.

Who are the real terrorists?

"We know the vision of the radicals because they've openly stated it,"
Bush averred. "The militant network wants to use the vacuum created by an
American retreat to gain control of a country.... The terrorists regard
Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. And we must
recognize Iraq as the central front in our war on terror."

Blah, blah, blah. There's nothing here but pure, unalloyed fear mongering;
five years of blather neatly wrapped in one fatuous paragraph.

What a pathetic creature Bush is; a tattered coat-on-a-stick waving his
finger in the air in false bravado with head bobbing like it's on a
spring. What a poseur, a flimsy, cardboard cut out of a man, slapped on a
TV screen in a blue suit, or with sleeves rolled up for a Crawford
photo-op.  If you could get close enough you could pass your hand through
this pasty-gray hologram; this vacuous political light show that appears
like an apparition and then vanishes into thin air; its 100% fakery from
stem to stern.

How apropos that Bush would proffer his terror fantasies to the NED, that
amalgam of global warriors who are under contract to spread the neoliberal
message to the four corners of the earth; the modern-day Trostkyites who
siphon money from the public till to topple regimes and bring in the
corporate parasites from Halliburton, Bechtel and Blackwater. How
convenient to have the forces of empire assembled under one bloodstained
banner to reaffirm their lifelong commitment to pilfering the world's oil
and grinding the great mass of humanity into endless, crushing poverty.

Bush's terror-speech will do nothing to boost his popularity. The latest
polls all show Bush and Co headed for the bottom of the political fish
tank. Don't expect a change in tactics though, Bush will ride bin Laden's
coattails to the bitter end. Terrorism is the grand deception; the "Big
Lie" that animates the war machine and breathes life into the crusade of
wanton destruction.

"The murderous ideology of the Islamic radicals is the great challenge of
our new century." It's like the ideology of communism - and explains their
cold-blooded contempt for human life.

"Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy is dismissive of free
peoples, claiming that men and women who live in liberty are weak and
decadent.... Those who despise freedom and progress have condemned
themselves to isolation, decline, and collapse. Because free peoples
believe in the future, free peoples will own the future.".

Yup. Four years later and they still "hate our freedoms". They're not
seeking relief from the American soldier who has a boot on their neck, or
who shoots them at check-points, or who humiliates them in their own home
in front of their children, or who tortures them in Saddam's prisons, or
who bombs their wedding parties, or who poisons their land, or who steals
their resources, or who savagely kills over 100,000 of their brothers and
sisters.

Nope, it's "our freedoms" they hate.

The people who tuned in to Bush"s speech thinking they'd hear something
different, some willingness to change direction and put the ship of state
aright, must have been sorely disappointed. The Bush loyalists are
radicals to the core, unable to accept responsibility for their actions
and incapable of reason. The speech was the culmination of five years of
unrelenting deception and demagoguery. Nothing has changed. It's futile to
hope that fanaticism can be tempered or mitigated. It's either rooted out
or it spreads.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state, and can be reached at:
fergiewhitney [at] msn.com.


--------16 of 18--------

Good News at Last!
The IMF Has Lost Its Influence
By MARK WEISBROT
CounterPunch
October 12, 2005

Sometimes historic changes take place quietly, while no one is looking.
Great institutions lose power with a whimper rather than a bang. Such is
the case of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which will hold its
annual fall meetings with the World Bank next week in Washington D.C.

Just a few years ago, the IMF was the most powerful financial institution
in the world. When financial and economic crises swept across East Asia in
1997, it was the IMF that laid down the painful conditions that
governments had to meet in order to access more than $120 billion in
foreign funds. When the financial contagion spread to Russia and Brazil,
the IMF followed, brokering the multi-billion dollar loans that - however
unsuccessfully - were intended to prop up overvalued currencies on the
brink of collapse.

Those days are over. The Asian countries began, after their nightmarish
experience with the Fund in 1997-1998, to pile up huge international
foreign exchange reserves - partly so they would never have to go begging
to the IMF again. But the final blow to the Fund came from the country
that IMF First Deputy Managing Director Anne Krueger reportedly calls "the
A-word": Argentina.

Argentina suffered through a terrible four-year depression, beginning in
1998. A country that had recently ranked among the highest for living
standards in Latin America soon had the majority of the country falling
below the poverty line. Many Argentines blamed the IMF, which had played a
major role in designing the policies that led to the collapse, and seemed
to prescribe just the wrong medicine during the crisis: high interest
rates, budget tightening, and maintaining the Argentine peso's
unsustainable link to the U.S. dollar.

In December of 2001 the government defaulted on $100 billion of debt, the
largest sovereign debt default in history. The currency and the banking
system collapsed, and the country sank further into depression. But only
for about three more months. Then, to most people's surprise, the economy
began to recover.

The recovery began and continued without any help from the IMF. On the
contrary: in 2002, the Fund and other official creditors (including the
World Bank), actually took a net $4.1 billion - more than 4 percent of
GDP - out of Argentina. But the government was able to chart more of its
own economic course, rejecting IMF demands for higher interest rates,
increased budget austerity, and utility price increases. Argentina also
took a hard line with foreign creditors holding defaulted debt, despite
repeated threats from the Fund. When push came to shove in September 2003,
Argentina did the unthinkable: a temporary default to the IMF itself,
until the Fund backed down.

The result: a rapid and robust economic recovery, with a remarkable 8.8
percent growth in GDP for 2003 and 9 percent for 2004. With a projected
7.3 percent GDP gain for 2005, Argentina is still the fastest growing
economy in Latin America.

Prior to Argentina's 2003 showdown with the Fund, only failed or "pariah"
states with nothing left to lose - e.g. Congo, Iraq - had defaulted to
the IMF. That's because of the IMF's power to cut off not only its own
credit but also most loans from the larger World Bank, other multilateral
lenders, the rich country governments, and even much of the private
sector. This has been the source of the IMF's enormous influence over
economic policy in developing countries: in effect, a creditors' cartel
led by the Fund, which is answerable primarily to the U.S. Treasury
Department.

But Argentina showed that a country that was flat on its back could stand
up to the IMF, and not only live to tell about it, but even launch a solid
economic recovery. This changed the world. Although the IMF still carries
a lot of weight in poorer countries (for example, in Sub-Saharan Africa),
its influence in the middle-income countries has plummeted. The Fund is
now a shadow of its former self.

Reformers over the last 15 years debated whether change would come about
through the IMF altering its policies, or through the Fund losing
influence. That debate has now been settled by history. The IMF has not
been reformed, but its power to shape economic policy in developing
countries has been enormously reduced.

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy
Research, in Washington, D.C. He is the author, with Dean Baker, of Social
Security: the Phony Crisis. He can be reached at: weisbrot [at] cepr.net

[Way to go, Argentina! Since we in America are unable to get the
national government or the national parties to defend us, and since we
watch in well-trained helplessness, we have to depend entirely on
foreign countries able to wiggle out from under the American thumb.
Argentina is one. Iraqi resistence is another. Years ago, Vietnam
resistence was another. Far better that we defend ourselves, but we
seem to be too glazed over in the eyes to force change. Just when we
might get up and do something, we take a Hillary pill.2008, and go back to
sleep. -ed]


--------17 of 18--------

George Bush and the Four Horsemen
by Mike Whitney
www.dissidentvoice.org
October 11, 2005

It's becoming apparent to even the most avid Bush loyalist that the
current charlatan-in-chief has been the greatest catastrophe in the
nation's 200-year history. Regrettably, there are strong indications that
the Crawford albatross is planning to pull us further downward towards the
ocean floor.

At present, the republic is buckling beneath the weight of deception,
violence and incompetence. In Iraq, the plan to chop up the country into
three smaller parts is moving ahead despite the intensity of the
resistance or the objections of the Sunni minority. Bush has assumed the
mantle of an Iraqi Jefferson Davis championing the merits of reformation
and regional autonomy. The new constitution provides only the thinnest
cover for a neocon master plan that destroys what little is left of Iraqi
society while legitimizing a permanent American occupation. Al Jaafari,
Talibani, Chalabi and the long list of rogues and collaborators have made
their Faustian bargain with their US overlords and put their country on a
course that will result in decades of hardship and slaughter.

All for what?

A mottled earthen hut in the world's most perilous gated community - the
green zone?

At home the effects of Bush's rule have been equally harsh. The anarchic
Bush has rummaged through the Bill of Rights like a draught horse in a
steeple case. No statute, law or amendment has escaped his withering
attention. One by one, he's savaged the constitutional protections that
once shielded the citizen from the long arm of the state. He's cut through
800 years of English and American jurisprudence like the Grim Reaper on
saint's day, leaving nothing behind but the gulags that house his victims.

In the next six months the country will face its greatest challenge since
the Civil War. The confluence of potential threats is unprecedented.
Experts are predicting that oil supplies will not meet demand in the first
quarter of 2006. This is bound to cause skyrocketing prices, long lines at
gas stations, a downward trend in the economy, and a declining dollar. The
American economic landscape, already full of potholes, is heading for an
even bumpier road ahead. The soaring deficits, the jobless recovery, the
humongous housing bubble, and a personal savings rate lower than any time
since the Great Depression, all foreshadow an end to the giddy Clinton-era
prosperity. Meanwhile, the Bush troupe is on a spending bacchanal that's
put the country on the fast track to ruin. Bush is like the girl who
couldn't say no, shoveling out the bucket loads of cash to every
mega-corporation that lines up at the White House lawn with a begging bowl
in hand. A quick review of Iraq (where the $18 billion in reconstruction
money vanished into the flannel pockets of Bush constituents) or New
Orleans (the next destination for the ravenous corporate parasites) shows
that the well-oiled system of cronyism is in full meltdown mode. There's
simply not enough payola to fill the coffers of every crook in the Bush
phone directory.

The market is getting increasingly anxious with the drunken spending
frenzy and needs only the slightest shove to put it into a nosedive. As
Allan Greenspan admitted, the spending is "out of control," and yet the
stealing continues unabated. No Fed chieftain or money managing magician
is strong enough to rescue the drowning economy from its doldrums. The
rock hard foundation of fiscal solvency has been utterly abandoned.

America's energy future is looking even more tenuous than the economy. Oil
supplies are stretched to the limit and available resources are reaching
the point of diminishing returns. The double whammy of Katrina and Rita
has put the entire Gulf region on life-support making our dependence on
foreign oil greater than ever.

It's no wonder the Bush administration chose Iraq as the second domino in
its global crusade.  The oil business is built on projections and we can
be reasonably certain that they saw that the wiggle room was disappearing
from the market. The collection of corporate kingpins in the
administration is not persuaded by sentimentality; they don't trudge off
to war for freedom or democracy, but cold, hard cash. The chance to
control the last of the world's oil proved irresistibly seductive,
especially since it was the only way to perpetuate the caste system that
has dominated the planet since the eighteenth century. It's impossible to
imagine that Bush or his fellows would abdicate what they believe is their
birthright: the continuation of elite white male rule into perpetuity.

But now, of course, they've hit a glitch. Iraq has changed from cakewalk
to quagmire in a matter of months and the entire project is going
sideways. The combination of poor planning, insufficient numbers of troops
and the most inept civilian leadership in Pentagon history has torpedoed
the Bush strategy to extend the realm and secure vital oil supplies. In
other words, we're up the creek.

Bad luck follows Bush like a shadow. Another three years and the frogs and
locusts will be collecting at the borders ready to pick the last flaccid
strands of flesh off the American dream. Even barring another onslaught of
biblical type hurricanes, the steady militarization, the flat-lining
economy, and the bird flu will certainly finish us off. The first major
wrinkles in the oil supply are expected sometime in January. We can assume
the credit weary, overextended American public will be gasping for air
shortly thereafter.

It was a great run while it lasted. We reached Olympus long enough to
unfurl the banner before tumbling back down to terra firma. What more can
we expect?  Maybe we should just quietly take our seats on the USS
Hindenburg and let our madcap captain point us towards the blackest
thundercloud on the horizon.

We're doomed anyway.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state, and can be reached at:
fergiewhitney [at] msn.com.


--------18 of 18--------

Whose Freedom Do We Mean?
by Gary Steven Corseri
www.dissidentvoice.org
October 11, 2005

 Whose Freedom Do We Mean?

 "One man's freedom to swing his arms
 ends where another man's nose begins."


 Unless, of course, the alleged proboscis
 is sniffing where it don't belong -
 in our business - which is sacrosanct.
 Such sniffing would be wrong!

 I need not remind you, jury members,
 you serve by the sufferance of the State.
 We have delegated certain powers;
 we expect you to accommodate.

 Those freedoms defined by our Constitution
 Come not within your purview.
 Just watch the judge and you'll catch on -
 What's fitting in this venue.

 When you pledge allegiance to our flag,
 when you swear upon the Bible,
 you let us know you like our show.
 Don't make us sue for libel!

 You're free, of course, to forswear your oath,
 to renege, renounce, appeal.
 (If the FBI gives you the eye,
 you get one free call from jail.)

 Freedom is a slippery slope,
 watered with patriots' blood.
 In their name, we strive to keep it pure,
 and nip dissent in the bud.

 Inquire not too deeply.
 (Politics is a maze.)
 Hold hard to right, make the good fight.
 A good soldier obeys.

 Capitalism built this country;
 Its truth we'll never lose.
 You're free, of course, to disagree.
 We're free to kill you when we choose.


Gary Steven Corseri's dramas have been published, and broadcast over
PBS-Atlanta; his prose and poems have appeared at DissidentVoice, The New
York Times, CounterPunch, CommonDreams, Village Voice, Redbook, etc.  He
has published two novels, two poetry collections, taught in universities
and prisons, and edited the Manifestations anthology.  He can be contacted
at corseri [at] verizon.net.


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