Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 02.20.06

[David Shove (shove001]

            P R O G R E S S I V E    C A L E N D A R    02.20.06

1. NWA strike rally  2.20 12noon
2. 9-11 exposed/film 2.20 6:30pm
3. End/journalism?   2.20 7pm
4. Climate crisis    2.20 7:30pm

5. Health policy     2.21 10am
6. Wi-fi testimony   2.21 1:45pm
7. Salon/Pentel/GP   2.21 6:30pm
8. Human rights/film 2.21 6:30pm
9. Prog book club    2.21 7pm Bemidji MN
10. Greens talk/sing 2.21 8pm

11. Brian Murphy   - Churches vs Iraq War
12. Guardian       - UN calls for Guantánamo Bay to close
13. PC Roberts     - BushCo: leader uber alles brownshirtism
14. George Monbiot - Property paranoia
15. William Blum   - How I spent my 15 minutes of fame
16. ed             - dick cheney (health warning poems)

--------1 of 16--------

From: Solidarity Committee <nwasolidaritymsp [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: NWA strike rally 2.20 12noon

Rally at the State Capitol on Monday, February 20 at noon. We will be
marking the sixth month anniversary of the AMFA strike against Northwest
Airlines. Initial plans include many speakers and a further call for help
from the Legislature for Minnesota's replaced technicians and their
families. We are inviting strikers and their supporters including
families.

The NWA Solidarity Committee met on Saturday, February 4. Solidarity workers
have been meeting this past week to get a bill drafted regarding jobless
benefits and retraining money to bring forward when the Legislature begins
their session March 1, 2006.

If you haven't already seen the sample letter to send to your legislators on
the AMFA website or the Solidarity website, we ask that you check it out and
send it on to your State Representative and Senator. You may also want to
invite them to the rally or set up an appointment to visit with them before
or after the rally. Even if you have already contacted them, a follow-up
phone call or an e-mail asking for their support at the rally would help.
More details about the rally will follow within the week. We hope to have a
flyer available by week's end.
Thanks for your support!


--------2 of 16--------

From: wamm <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: 9-11 exposed/film 2.20 6:30pm

Monday, February 20, 6:30pm. St. Joan of Arc Church, Hospitality Hall,
4537 Third Avenue South, Minneapolis. Parking is close, free and easy.

This is the ground-breaking talk, filmed in the Bay area in which David
Ray Griffin, theologian, researcher, and author of "The New Pearl Harbor,"
outlines glaring fictions and omissions in the 9/11 Commission Report. If
you question "the official story," don't miss this important film. FFI:
Call WAMM at 612-827-5364.


--------3 of 16--------

From: John Mannillo <john [at] mannillowomack.com>
Subject: End/journalism? 2.20 7pm

Mark your calendars for evening of Feb. 20.

That's the date for a forum, sponsored by SPJ's Minnesota Pro Chapter, to
air many of the most pivotal issues facing journalism today.

The chapter, working with the Minnesota Journalism Center, has brought
together some of the profession's leading thinkers and practitioners for
this event, titled "The End of Journalism? Why News Still Matters."

The forum will run from 7pm until 9 at the Coffman Memorial Union Theater,
300 Washington Ave. SE, on the U's East Bank campus.

SPJ and the center have shaped this program not just for journalists,
academics and students in the field, but also for the broader public
affairs community.

Bill Kovach, chair of the Washington, D.C.-based Committee of Concerned
Journalists, will lay the framework for a panel discussion. Then Kovach
and the panelists will respond to questions from the audience.

The panelists are Ted Canova, former news director for Fox-9/UPN 29 in the
Twin Cities;  Dave Kansas, editor of the Money Section of the Wall Street
Journal; and Nora Paul, director of the Institute for New Media Studies at
the University of Minnesota.

The Honorable Paul Anderson, a Minnesota Supreme Court justice and a
former chair of the Minnesota News Council, will deliver opening remarks.

Jane Kirtley, Silha professor of media ethics and law at the U, will serve
as moderator.

The Northwest Broadcast News Association is a co-sponsor. Also
co-sponsoring are the Associated Press, the Minnesota News Council, the
Minnesota Newspaper Foundation, the Upper Midwest Chapter of the National
Television Academy and the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and
Law.

This event comes at a time of great change in journalism. Kovach argues
that one of the most fundamental issues confronting journalists is whether
they can find a way to offer something of value to mass audiences "that
now have unimagined and unlimited information available, most of it free."

Technological, economic and demographic changes are disrupting the
traditional business models that have financed print and broadcast news
staffs strong enough to report and uncover relevant information, put it
into context and provide checks and balances on established institutions.

Kovach says the character and quality of democracy itself depends on an
informed public armed with timely quality information. Thus, in his view,
the question of whether these roles can survive under evolving or new
business models "is at least as important to the general public as it is
to journalists."


--------4 of 16--------

From: Stephen Eisenmenger <Stephen [at] MNGreens.org>
Subject: Climate crisis 2.20 7:30pm

The next meeting of the Climate Crisis Coalition of the Twin Cities will
be held at 7:30pm, Monday February 20 at the Loring Park Dunn Brothers,
329 W 15 St Minneapolis.  It is near the #4, 6, 12, 17 & 18 bus lines.

Christine Frank, 3CTC 612-879-8937


--------5 of 16--------

From: John Schwarz <john [at] unitedhealthsystem.org>
Subject: Health policy 2.21 10am

Becky Lourey is set to unveil her health policy platform on Tuesday at the
State Capitol. The campaign asked me to forward the announcement and
extend her invitation to attend the press conference and release to the
public of the platform. Spread the word about the event to anyone/everyone
or any/every group. See details below. Thanks, John Schwarz.

Lourey to Announce Business-oriented Universal Health Care Plan New, lower
cost options for businesses, universal coverage by 2010

Candidate for Governor Becky Lourey will release next week her plan for a
competition-oriented, business-friendly transformation of the health care
system that moves Minnesota to universal health care coverage by 2010. The
detailed Lourey plan will give Minnesota businesses viable new options to
lower their health care premiums and includes other cost-containment
strategies.

The Lourey plan to transform health care will be unveiled Tuesday, Feb. 21
at 10am in State Capitol Room 125.

Senator Becky Lourey, a nationally recognized health care public policy
expert, resides in Kerrick in east-central Minnesota.  She has 15 years of
legislative experience and currently serves as chair of the Minnesota
Senate Health and Family Security Committee.

For further information, please contact Lourey for Governor press
secretary Jim Robins at 612.597.0214 <http://612.597.0214> (cell) or
651.917.8400 <http://651.917.8400> or email James [at] beckylourey.org.


--------6 of 16--------

From: Cam Gordon <CamGordon333 [at] msn.com>
Subject: Wi-fi testimony 2.21 1:45pm

Here is some background information from the committee agenda -

Ways & Means Committee, Tuesday, February 21
Business Information Services (BIS)
Public Testimony - Time Certain: 1:45 p.m.

26. Minneapolis Wireless Broadband Initiative:

 a) Approve Business Case to pursue a private-public partnership to
procure Broadband Data Access Services to support the City's internal data
communications requirements and provide affordable broadband internet
services to City residents and businesses;
 b) Authorize proper City officers to implement the pilot phase of the
Broadband IP Data Access Services program with the two RFP finalists,
Earthlink and U.S. Internet; and
 c) Authorize proper City officers to negotiate a contract for Broadband
IP Data Access Services with one or both of the RFP finalists and to
return to Council for final approval.

There are a substantial number of staff reports at
http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/council/2006-meetings/20060224/
WMagenda20060221.asp


--------7 of 16---------

From: Patty Guerrero <pattypax [at] earthlink.net>
Subject: Salon/Pentel/GP 2.21 6:30pm

This Tuesday, February 21, our guest will be Ken Pentel of the Green
Party.  He will discuss with us what the Greens believe, how they are
different than the 2 major parties, and what we can expect in the coming
elections.

Pax Salons ( http://justcomm.org/pax-salon ) are held (unless otherwise
noted in advance): Tuesdays, 6:30 to 8:30 pm. Mad Hatter's Tea House, 943
W 7th, St Paul, MN

Salons are free but donations encouraged for program and treats.
Call 651-227-3228 or 651-227-2511 for information.


--------8 of 16--------

From: humanrts [at] umn.edu
Subject: Human rights/film 6:30pm

February 21 - Human Rights Center Film Series: Anonymously Yours.
6:30-9pm.  Cost: Free and Open to the Public.

Through screenings and panel discussions, the Human Rights Center brings
experts and community members together to raise awareness, promote
discussion, and take action on issues affecting the human rights community
in Minnesota, the U.S., and the world.

Film Description from Aerial Productions (www.aerial-productions.com):
"Anonymously Yours" is the outcome of a daring filmmaking operation on
sex-trafficking in a military state where nothing is as it seems.  Four
Burmese women s strikingly different life experiences come together to
reveal an institution that enslaves them and as many as forty million
women worldwide in the fastest growing industry on earth: human sales.
Clandestinely shot deep in the uncharted world of Southeast Asian sex
trafficking, the film chronicles the merchandising of women commonplace in
a land afflicted with staggering poverty and widespread corruption.

Schedule of Events
6:30-6:40 pm:  Introduction to Event
6:40-8:10 pm:  Film Screening: Anonymously Yours
8:10-9:00 pm:  Panel Discussion

Panelists
Tung Duc Truong
 Humphrey Fellow and National Project Coordinator for the Vietnamese
component of the International Labor Organization Mekong Sub-Regional
Project to Combat Trafficking in Women and Children

Chittaphone Santavasy
 Humphrey Fellow and Project Manager for the Lao component of Save the
Children UK Cross-Border Community-Based Initiatives Against Trafficking
in Children in the Mekong Sub-Region.

Lauren Gilchrist
 Outreach Coordinator, University of Minnesota Debra E. Powell Center for
Women s Health

Jonna Cohen
 Student at University of Minnesota and Representative of the Campus
Coalition Against Trafficking

Babina Tuladhar
 Student at St. Catherine s University and Lecture Coordinator for St.Kate
s Activities Team

Location: Room 40, Mondale Hall, University of Minnesota Law School, 229
19th Ave South, Minneapolis, MN 55455


--------9 of 16--------

From: Harvey & Frannie Tjader <tjader [at] paulbunyan.net>
Subject: Prog book club 2.21 7pm Bemidji MN

Progressive book club meets in Bemidji.
The *February 21st *meeting will be at 7pm at the United Methodist
Church meeting room. (9th st. and Beltrami ave.)

Discussion:  "What's the Matter With Kansas" by Thomas Frank and
"Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins.

The *March 21st *meeting will be at 7:00pm at the Bemidji Public Library.


--------10 of 16--------

From: Eric Gilbertson <aleric [at] tcq.net>
Subject: Greens talk/sing 2.21 8pm

Come crash Grumpy's Bar (Downtown location 1111 Washington) with the 5th
District Greens, Tuesday February 21st, at 8pm. Discuss current events in
a relaxed atmosphere for two hours... then comes Staraoke.  Discover who
can sing, and who is in danger of violating their Green principles by
committing a public act of violence upon a poor defenceless song.


--------11 of 16--------

US Church Alliance: Washington is 'Raining Down Terror' with Iraq War,
Other Policies
by Brian Murphy
Published on Sunday, February 19, 2006 by the Associated Press

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil - A coalition of American churches sharply denounced
the U.S.-led war in Iraq on Saturday, accusing Washington of "raining down
terror" and apologizing to other countries for "the violence, degradation
and poverty our nation has sown."

The statement, issued at the largest gathering of Christian churches in
nearly a decade, also warned the United States was pushing the world
toward environmental catastrophe with a "culture of consumption" and its
refusal to back international accords seeking to battle global warming.

"We lament with special anguish the war in Iraq, launched in deception and
violating global norms of justice and human rights," said the statement
from representatives of the 34 U.S. members of World Council of Churches.
"We mourn all who have died or been injured in this war. We acknowledge
with shame abuses carried out in our name."

The World Council of Churches includes more than 350 mainstream
Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox churches; the Roman Catholic Church is
not a member. The U.S. groups in the WCC include the Episcopal Church, the
Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Methodist Church, several Orthodox
churches and Baptist denominations, among others.

The statement is part of widening religious pressure on the Bush
administration, which still counts on the support of evangelical churches
and other conservative denominations but is widely unpopular with
liberal-minded Protestant congregations.

Rev. Leonid Kishkovsky, the moderator for the U.S. group of WCC members,
said the letter was backed by the leaders of the churches but was not
cleared by lower-level bodies. He predicted friction within congregations
about the tone of the message.

"There is much internal anguish and there is division," said Kishkovsky,
ecumenical officer of the Orthodox Church of America. "I believe church
leaders and communities are wrestling with the moral questions that this
letter is addressing."

On Friday, the U.S. National Council of Churches - which includes many WCC
members - released a letter appealing to Washington to close the
Guantanamo Bay detention facility and saying reports of alleged torture
violated "the fundamental Christian belief in the dignity of the human
person."

The two-page statement from the WCC group came at the midpoint of a 10-day
meeting of more than 4,000 religious leaders, scholars and activists
discussing trends and goals for major Christian denominations for the
coming decades. The WCC's last global assembly was in 1998 in Zimbabwe -
just four months after al-Qaida staged twin bombings at U.S. embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania.

"Our country responded (to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks) by seeking to
reclaim a privileged and secure place in the world, raining down terror on
the truly vulnerable among our global neighbours . . . entering into
imperial projects that seek to dominate and control for the sake of
national interests," said the statement. "Nations have been demonized and
God has been enlisted in national agendas that are nothing short of
idolatrous."

Rev. Sharon Watkins, president of the Christian Church (Disciples of
Christ), worried that some may interpret the statement as undermining U.S.
troops in Iraq.

"We honor their courage and sense of duty, but . . . we, as people of
faith, have to say to our brothers and sisters, 'We are so profoundly
sorry,"' Watkins said.

The message also accused U.S. officials of ignoring warnings about climate
change and treating the world's "finite resources as if they are private
possessions." It went on to criticize U.S. domestic policies for refusing
to confront racism and poverty.

"Hurricane Katrina revealed to the world those left behind in our own
nation by the rupture of our social contract," said the statement.

The churches said they had "grown heavy with guilt" for not doing enough
to speak out against the Iraq war and other issues. The statement asked
forgiveness for a world that's "grown weary from the violence, degradation
and poverty our nation has sown."

© Copyright 2006 Associated Press


--------12 of 16--------

UN Calls for Guantánamo Bay to Close
  · Try detainees or release them, says report
  · Prisoners' treatment 'amounts to torture'
  · Bush [mis]government dismisses report
Published on Thursday, February 16, 2006 by the Guardian

The United States should close down its detention camp in Guantánamo Bay
and give its detainees an independent trial or release them, a United
Nations report released today suggests.

The 54-page report called on Washington "to close down the Guantánamo Bay
detention centre and to refrain from any practice amounting to torture or
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment".

The UN commission on human rights report was based on interviews with
former detainees, public documents, media reports, lawyers and a
questionnaire filled out by the US government.

The five envoys from the commission said photo evidence alone -
corroborated by testimony of former prisoners - had shown detainees were
shackled, chained, hooded and forced to wear headphones and goggles.

"Such treatment amounts to torture, as it inflicts severe pain or
suffering on the victims for the purpose of intimidation and/or
punishment," the report said.

Some of the interrogation techniques used at the detention facility itself
- particularly the use of dogs, exposure to extreme temperatures, sleep
deprivation for several consecutive days and prolonged isolation - caused
extreme suffering.

The simultaneous use of such methods was "even more likely to amount to
torture," it said.

This afternoon, the Bush administration rejected the recommendation to
shut the prison.

"These are dangerous terrorists that we're talking about that are there,"
said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

He dismissed the report as "a rehash" of allegations that have been made
previously by lawyers for some Guantánamo detainees, saying the military
treats all detainees humanely.

"We know that al-Qaida terrorists are trained in trying to disseminate
false allegations," Mr McClellan said.

The US ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Kevin Moley, said the investigation
had taken little account of evidence provided by the US.

He also said the five envoys on whose investigations the report was based
on had rejected an invitation to visit the detention centre in the US's
Cuban enclave. The envoys said they had turned it down because the US
would not permit them to interview detainees.

Only the International Committee of the Red Cross has been allowed to
speak to detainees, but the organization keeps its findings confidential,
reporting them solely to the detaining power. Some reports have been
leaked by what the organization calls "third parties".

Clive Stafford-Smith, the legal director of Reprieve and who represents 40
detainees, welcomed the report.

"This is another authoritative body speaking and it's absolutely right,
they should shut the place down. The question now is whether the Bush
administration are going to listen or do what we have always seen and
bluster against the UN."

Mr Stafford-Smith said he had witnessed the force-feeding highlighted in
the report when he went to see a client.

"He had a tube up his nose which he pulled out in an excruciating way. He
told me they had beat him up to force-feed him."

Stephen Bowen, Amnesty International UK's campaigns director, said
Guantánamo was "unreformable".

"After four years Guantánamo has become a byword for abuse and an
indictment of the US government's failure to uphold human rights in the
'war on terror'. The US authorities should immediately close down the camp
and either release prisoners or bring them before proper courts on the US
mainland.

Manfred Nowak, who co-wrote today's report, said the US must now accept
that international human rights law was applicable to Guantánamo Bay.

"Those persons are arbitrarily detained and therefore have to be released
or brought to an independent court for being charged and convicted," he
said, adding that combined interrogation techniques, explicitly authorized
by the US defence secretary, amounted to degrading or inhuman treatment.
He said in some cases it amounted to torture.

He told BBC Radio 4's the World at One he had "a lot of objective
evidence" to back up his claims and said if the US had nothing to hide it
should allow his colleagues full access to the camp.

The report also disputes the Bush administration's legal arguments for the
prison, sited at a navy base in Cuba with the purpose of remaining outside
the jurisdiction of US courts.

During an 18-month investigation, the envoys interviewed freed prisoners,
lawyers and doctors to collect information on the detainees, who have been
held for the last four years without access to US judicial oversight.

The report lists techniques in use at Guantánamo that are banned under the
UN's convention against torture, including prolonged periods of isolation,
exposure to extremes of heat and cold, and humiliation, including forced
shaving.

It also focuses on a relatively new area of concern - the resort to
violent force-feeding to end a hunger strike by inmates. Guards began
force-feeding protesters last August, strapping them on stretchers and
inserting large tubes into their nasal passages, according to a lawyer for
Kuwaiti detainees who has had contact with the UN envoys.

The report adds to a body of evidence about mistreatment. The report by
the International Committee of the Red Cross last year said interrogation
techniques there were "tantamount to torture".

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006


--------13 of 16--------

'Our leader über alles: Conservatives endorse the Fuhrer Principle'
*Posted on Friday, February 17 @ 10:25:12 EST
Paul Craig Roberts, CounterPunch
<http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=8558>

PC Roberts - NeoCons: leader uber alles brownshirtism

Last week's annual Conservative Political Action Conference signaled the
transformation of American conservatism into brownshirtism. A former
Justice Department official named Viet Dinh got a standing ovation when he
told the CPAC audience that the rule of law mustn't get in the way of
President Bush protecting Americans from Osama bin Laden.

Former Republican congressman Bob Barr, who led the House impeachment of
President Bill Clinton, reminded the CPAC audience that our first loyalty
is to the U.S. Constitution, not to a leader. The question, Barr said, is
not one of disloyalty to Bush, but whether America "will remain a nation
subject to, and governed by, the rule of law or the whim of men."

The CPAC audience answered that they preferred to be governed by Bush.
According to Dana Milbank, a member of the CPAC audience named Richard
Sorcinelli loudly booed Barr, declaring: "I can't believe I'm in a
conservative hall listening to him say Bush is off course trying to defend
the United States." A woman in the audience told Barr that the
Constitution placed Bush above the law and above non-elected federal
judges.

These statements gallop beyond the merely partisan. They express the
sentiments of brownshirtism. Our leader über alles.

Only a few years ago this same group saw Barr as a conservative hero for
obtaining Clinton's impeachment in the House. Obviously, CPAC's praise for
Barr did not derive from Barr's stand on conservative principle that a
president must be held accountable if he violates the law. In Clinton's
case, Barr's principles did not conflict with the blind emotions of the
politically partisan conservatives demanding Clinton's impeachment.

In opposing Bush's illegal behavior, Barr is simply being consistent. But
this time, Barr's principles are at odds with the emotions of the
politically partisan CPAC audience. Rushing to the defense of Bush, the
CPAC audience endorsed Viet Dinh's Fuhrer Principle over the rule of law.

Why do the media and the public allow partisan political hacks, like Viet
Dinh, to define Bush's illegal actions as a national security issue? The
purpose of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is to protect
national security. FISA creates a secret court to which the president can
apply for a warrant even after he has initiated spying. Complying with the
law in no way handicaps spying for national security purposes. The only
spying handicapped by the warrant requirement is spying for illegitimate
purposes, such as spying on political opponents.

There are only two reasons for Bush to refuse to obey the law. One is that
he is guilty of illegitimate spying for which no warrant would be issued
by the FISA court. The other is that he is using "national security" to
create unconstitutional powers for the executive.

Civil libertarian Harvey Silverglate writing in the Boston Phoenix says
that Bush's grab for "sweeping, unchecked power in direct violation of a
statute would open a Pandora's box of imperial possibilities." In short,
it makes the president a dictator.

For years, the Republican Federalist Society has been agitating for
concentrating more power in the executive. The members will say that they
do not favor a dictator, just a check on the "imperial Congress" and
"imperial judiciary." But they have not spelled out how the president can
be higher than law and still be accountable, or, if he is only to be
higher than some laws, but not other laws, and only in some circumstances,
but not all circumstances, who draws the line through the law and defines
the circumstances.

On Feb. 13, the American Bar Association passed a resolution belatedly
asking President Bush to stop violating the law. "We cannot allow the U.S.
Constitution and our rights to become a victim of terrorism," said bar
association president Michael Grecco.

The siren call of "national security" is all the cover Bush needs to have
the FISA law repealed, thus legally gaining the power to spy however he
chooses, the protection of political opponents be damned. However, Bush
and his Federalist Society Justice Department are not interested in having
the law repealed. Their purpose has nothing to do with national security.
The point on which the regime is insisting is that there are circumstances
(undefined) in which the president does not have to obey laws. What those
circumstances and laws are is for the regime to decide.

The Bush regime is asserting the Fuhrer Principle, and Americans are
buying it, even as Bush declares that America is at war in order to bring
democracy to the Middle East.

Dr. Roberts is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy
and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is a former associate
editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the
U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

Copyright 2006 Antiwar.com


--------14 of 16--------

Property Paranoia
By George Monbiot
ZNet Commentary
February 20, 2006

A few days ago, after a furious argument, I was thrown out of a wood where
I have walked for over 20 years. I must admit that I did not behave very
well. As I walked away I did something I haven't done for a long time: I
gave the gamekeeper a one-fingered salute. In my defence I would plead
that I was overcome with unhappiness and anger.

The time I have spent in that wood must amount to months. Every autumn I
would spend days there, watching the turning colours or grubbing for
mushrooms and beechmast and knapped flints. In the summer I would look for
warblers and redstarts. I saw a nightjar there once. It was one of the few
peaceful and beautiful places in my part of the world that's within a
couple of miles of a station: I could escape from the traffic without the
help of a car. Part of me, I feel, belongs there. Or it did.

It is not that I wasn't trespassing before. Nor has the status of the land
changed: it is still owned, as far as I know, by the same private estate.
No one tried to stop me in those 20-odd years because no one was there.
But now there is a blue plastic barrel every 50 yards, and the surrounding
fields are planted with millet and maize. The wood has been turned into a
pheasant run. Having scarcely figured in the landowner's books, it must
now be making him a fortune. And I am perceived as a threat.

The words that rang in my ears as I stomped away were these. "You've got
your bloody right to roam now - why do you need to come here?" It struck
me that this could be a perverse outcome of the legislation for which I
spent years campaigning: that the right to walk in certain places is seen
by landowners as consolidating their relations with the public. All that
is not permitted will become forbidden.

But this, I expect, is a secondary problem. The more important one is
surely the surge of money foaming through the south-east of England. A
thousand woods can be filled with pheasants and still there are not enough
to serve the people who have the money required - the many hundreds of
pounds a day - to shoot them. We were told that the rising tide would lift
all boats. But I feel I am drowning in it.

Two weeks ago, writing in the Financial Times, the economist Andrew Oswald
observed that "the hippies, the Greens, the road protesters, the
downshifters, the slow-food movement - all are having their quiet revenge.
Routinely derided, the ideas of these down-to-earth philosophers are being
confirmed by new statistical work by psychologists and economists."(1) As
I qualify on most counts, I will regard this as a vindication.

Oswald's point is that the industrialised countries have not become
happier as they've become richer. Rates of depression and stress have
risen, and people report no greater degree of satisfaction with their
lives than their poorer ancestors did. In the United States, the sense of
well-being has actually declined. One of the problems is that "humans are
creatures of comparison ... it is relative income that matters: when
everyone in a society gets wealthier, average well-being stays the
same."(2)

The same point has been made recently by the New Economics
Foundation(3)and by Professor Richard Layard, in his book Happiness(4).
New developments in both psychological testing and neurobiology allow
happiness to be measured with greater confidence than before. Layard cites
research which suggests that it peaked in the United Kingdom in 1975.
Beyond a certain degree of wealth - an average GDP of around $20,000 per
head - "additional income is not associated with extra happiness". Once a
society's basic needs and comforts have been met, there is no point in
becoming richer.

I am astonished by the astonishment with which their findings have been
received. Compare, for example, these two statements:

"So one secret of happiness is to ignore comparisons with people who are
more successful than you are: always compare downwards, not upwards."
Richard Layard, 2005(5).

"It put me to reflecting, how little repining there would be among
mankind, at any condition of life, if people would rather compare their
condition with those that are worse, in order to be thankful, than be
always comparing them with those which are better, to assist their
murmurings and complainings." Daniel Defoe, 1719(6).

We have been led, by the thinking of people like the psychologist John B.
Watson and the economist Lionel Robbins, to forget what everyone once
knew: that wealth and happiness are not the same thing.

Comparison is not the only reason the professors of happiness cite for our
failure to feel better as we become richer. They point to the fact that we
become habituated to wealth: Layard calls this "the hedonic treadmill".
They blame the longer hours we work and our deteriorating relationships.
But there is something I think they have missed: that wealth itself can
become a source of deprivation.

Having money enhances your freedom. You can travel further and you can do
more when you get there. But other people's money restricts your freedom.
Where you once felt free, now you find fences. In fact, you MUST travel
further to find somewhere in which you can be free.

As people become richer, and as they can extract more wealth from their
property, other people become more threatening to them. We know that the
fear of crime is a cause of unhappiness, but so is the sense of being seen
as a potential criminal. The spikes and lights and cameras proclaim that
society is not to be trusted, that we live in a world of Hobbesian
relations. The story they tell becomes true, as property paranoia makes us
hate each other. The harmless wanderer in the woods becomes a mortal
enemy.

It is hard to see how that plague of pheasants could be deemed to have
caused a net increase in happiness. A group of very wealthy people, who
already have an endless choice of activities, have one more wood in which
to shoot. The rest of us have one less wood in which to walk. The
landowners tell us that by putting down birds they have an incentive to
preserve the woods - this was one of the arguments the gamekeeper used as
he was throwing me off. But what good does that do us if we are not
allowed to walk there?

The Countryside and Rights of Way Act of 2000, which granted us the right
to roam on mountains, moors, heath, downland and commons, has surely
increased the sum of human happiness. But in those parts of the country
which retain very little habitat of that kind (because it has been
destroyed or enclosed by the landowners), the gains we made then might
already have been cancelled out by the losses, as the landlords' new
opportunities for making money reduce our opportunities for leaving money
behind.

We need the full set of rights we were once promised, and which, in
Scotland, have already been granted: access to the woods, the rivers and
the coast as well as the open country. But as these places are turned into
money-making monocultures, the question changes. Will we still want to
visit them?

www.monbiot.com

References:
1. Andrew Oswald, 19th January 2006. The hippies were right all along
about happiness. The Financial Times.
2. ibid.
3. New Economics Foundation, 2004. The power and potential of well-being
indicators. NEF and Nottingham City Council.
4. Richard Layard, 2005. Happiness: lessons from a new science. Allen
Lane, London.
5. ibid.
6. Daniel Defoe, 1719, Robinson Crusoe.


--------15 of 16--------

How I spent my 15 minutes of fame
by William Blum
Some things you need to know before the world ends
The Anti-Empire Report - Feb 14, 2006

In case you don't know, on January 19 the latest audiotape from Osama bin
Laden was released and in it he declared: "If you [Americans] are sincere
in your desire for peace and security, we have answered you. And if Bush
decides to carry on with his lies and oppression, then it would be useful
for you to read the book 'Rogue State', which states in its introduction
... "  He then goes on to quote the opening of a paragraph I wrote (which
appears actually in the Foreword of the British edition only, that was
later translated to Arabic), which in full reads:

"If I were the president, I could stop terrorist attacks against the
United States in a few days.  Permanently.  I would first apologize - very
publicly and very sincerely - to all the widows and the orphans, the
impoverished and the tortured, and all the many millions of other victims
of American imperialism.  I would then announce that America's global
interventions - including the awful bombings - have come to an end.  And I
would inform Israel that it is no longer the 51st state of the union but -
oddly enough - a foreign country.  I would then reduce the military budget
by at least 90% and use the savings to pay reparations to the victims and
repair the damage from the many American bombings and invasions.  There
would be more than enough money.  Do you know what one year of the US
military budget is equal to?  One year. It's equal to more than $20,000
per hour for every hour since Jesus Christ was born.

"That's what I'd do on my first three days in the White House.  On the
fourth day, I'd be assassinated."

Within hours I was swamped by the media and soon appeared on many of the
leading TV shows, dozens of radio programs, with long profiles in the
Washington Post, Salon.com and elsewhere.  In the previous ten years the
Post had declined to print a single one of my letters, most of which had
pointed out errors in their foreign news coverage.  Now my photo was on
page one.

Much of the media wanted me to say that I was repulsed by bin Laden's
"endorsement".  I did not say I was repulsed because I was not.  After a
couple of days of interviews I got my reply together and it usually went
something like this:

"There are two elements involved here: On the one hand, I totally despise
any kind of religious fundamentalism and the societies spawned by such,
like the Taliban in Afghanistan.  On the other hand, I'm a member of a
movement which has the very ambitious goal of slowing down, if not
stopping, the American Empire, to keep it from continuing to go round the
world doing things like bombings, invasions, overthrowing governments, and
torture.  To have any success, we need to reach the American people with
our message.  And to reach the American people we need to have access to
the mass media.  What has just happened has given me the opportunity to
reach millions of people I would otherwise never reach.  Why should I not
be glad about that?  How could I let such an opportunity go to waste?"

Celebrity - modern civilization's highest cultural achievement - is a
peculiar phenomenon.  It really isn't worth anything unless you do
something with it.

The callers into the programs I was on, and sometimes the host, in
addition to numerous emails, repeated two main arguments against me. (1)
Where else but in the United States could I have the freedom to say what I
was saying on national media?

Besides their profound ignorance in not knowing of scores of countries
with at least equal freedom of speech (particularly since September 11),
what they are saying in effect is that I should be so grateful for my
freedom of speech that I should show my gratitude by not exercising that
freedom.  If they're not saying that, they're not saying anything.

(2) America has always done marvelous things for the world, from the
Marshall Plan and defeating communism and the Taliban to rebuilding
destroyed countries and freeing Iraq.

I have dealt with these myths and misconceptions previously; like
sub-atomic particles, they behave differently when observed.  For example,
in last month's report I pointed out in detail that "destroyed countries"
were usually destroyed by American bombs; and America did not rebuild
them.  As to the Taliban, the United States overthrew a secular,
women's-rights government in Afghanistan, which led to the Taliban coming
to power; so the US can hardly be honored for ousting the Taliban a decade
later, replacing it with an American occupation, an American puppet
president, assorted warlords, and women chained.

But try to explain all these fine points in the minute or so one has on
radio or TV.  However, I think I somehow managed to squeeze in a lot of
information and thoughts new to the American psyche.

Some hosts and many callers were clearly pained to hear me say that
anti-American terrorists are retaliating against the harm done to their
countries by US foreign policy, and are not just evil, mindless, madmen
from another planet.[1] Many of them assumed, with lots of certainty and
no good reason at all, that I was a supporter of the Democratic Party and
they proceeded to attack Bill Clinton.  When I pointed out that I was no
fan at all of the Democrats or Clinton, they were usually confused into
silence for a few moments before seamlessly jumping to some other piece of
nonsense.  They do not know that an entire alternative world exists above
and beyond the Republicans and Democrats.

Just recently we have been hearing and reading comments in the American
media about how hopelessly backward and violent were those Muslims
protesting the Danish cartoons, carrying signs calling for the beheading
of those that insult Islam.  But a caller to a radio program I was on said
I "should be taken care of", and one of the hundreds of nasty emails I
received began: "Death to you and your family."

One of my personal favorite moments: On an AM radio program in
Pennsylvania, discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: The host (with
anguish in her voice): "What has Israel ever done to the Palestinians?"

Me: "Have you been in a coma the past 20 years?"

This is a question I could ask many of those who interrogated me the past
few weeks.  Actually, 60 years would be more appropriate.

               Elections my teacher never told me about

Americans are all taught from childhood on of the significance and
sanctity of free elections: You can't have the thing called "democracy"
without the thing called "free elections".  And when you have the thing
called free elections it's virtually synonymous with having the thing
called democracy.  And who were we taught was the greatest champion of
free elections anywhere in the world?  Why, our very same teacher, God's
country, the good ol' US of A.

But what was God's country actually doing all those years we were
absorbing and swearing by this message?  God's country was actually
interfering in free elections in every corner of the known world;
seriously so.

The latest example is the recent elections in Palestine, where the US
Agency for International Development (AID) poured in some two million
dollars (a huge amount in that impoverished area) to try to tilt the
election to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its political wing, Fatah,
and prevent the radical Islamic group Hamas from taking power. The money
was spent on various social programs and events to increase the popularity
of the PA; the projects bore no evidence of US involvement and did not
fall within the definitions of traditional development work.  In addition,
the United States funded many newspaper advertisements publicizing these
projects in the name of the PA, with no mention of AID.

"Public outreach is integrated into the design of each project to
highlight the role of the P.A. in meeting citizens needs," said a progress
report on the projects.  "The plan is to have events running every day of
the coming week, beginning 13 January, such that there is a constant
stream of announcements and public outreach about positive happenings all
over Palestinian areas in the critical week before the elections."

Under the rules of the Palestinian election system, campaigns and
candidates were prohibited from accepting money from foreign sources.[2]
American law explicitly forbids the same in US elections.

Since Hamas won the election, the United States has made it clear that it
does not recognize the election as any kind of victory for democracy and
that it has no intention of having normal diplomatic relations with the
Hamas government.  (Israel has adopted a similar attitude, but it should
not be forgotten that Israel funded and supported the emergence of Hamas
in Gaza during its early days, hoping that it would challenge the
Palestine Liberation Organization as well as Palestinian leftist
elements.)

By my count, there have been more than 30 instances of gross Washington
interference in foreign elections since the end of World War II - from
Italy in 1948 and the Philippines and Lebanon in the 1950s, to Nicaragua,
Bolivia and Slovakia in the 2000s - most of them carried out in an even
more flagrant manner than the Palestinian example.[3] Some of the
techniques employed have been used in the United States itself as our
electoral system, once the object of much national and international
pride, has slid inexorably from "one person, one vote", to "one dollar,
one vote".

             Coming soon to a country (or city) near you

On January 13 the United States of America, in its shocking and awesome
wisdom, saw fit to fly an unmanned Predator aircraft over a remote village
in the sovereign nation of Pakistan and fire a Hellfire missile into a
residential compound in an attempt to kill some "bad guys". Several houses
were incinerated, 18 people were killed, including an unknown number of
"bad guys"; reports since then give every indication that the unknown
number is as low as zero, al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri,
the principal target, not being amongst them. Outrage is still being
expressed in Pakistan.  In the United States the reaction in the Senate
typified the American outrage:

"We apologize, but I can't tell you that we wouldn't do the same thing
again" said Sen. John McCain of Arizona

"It's a regrettable situation, but what else are we supposed to do?" said
Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana.

"My information is that this strike was clearly justified by the
intelligence," said Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi.[4]

Similar US attacks using such drones and missiles have angered citizens
and political leaders in Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen.  In has not been
uncommon for the destruction to be so complete that it is impossible to
establish who was killed, or even how many people. Amnesty International
has lodged complaints with the Busheviks following each suspected Predator
strike.  A UN report in the wake of the 2002 strike in Yemen called it "an
alarming precedent [and] a clear case of extrajudicial killing" in
violation of international laws and treaties.[5]

Can it be imagined that American officials would fire a missile into a
house in Paris or London or Ottawa because they suspected that
high-ranking al Qaeda members were present there?  Even if the US knew of
their presence for an absolute fact, and not just speculation as in the
Predator cases mentioned above?  Well, most likely not, but can we put
anything past Swaggering-Superarrogant-Superpower-Cowboys-on-steroids?
After all, they've already done it to their own, in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.  On May 13, 1985, a bomb dropped by a police helicopter
burned down an entire block, some 60 homes destroyed, 11 dead, including
several small children.  The police, the mayor's office, and the FBI were
all involved in this effort to evict an organization called MOVE from the
house they lived in.

The victims were all black of course.  So let's rephrase the question.
Can it be imagined that American officials would fire a missile into a
residential area of Beverly Hills or the upper east side of Manhattan?
Stay tuned.

"The struggle of man against tyranny is the struggle of memory against
forgetting."  Milan Kundera

I'm occasionally taken to task for being so negative about the United
States role in the world.  Why do you keep looking for all the negative
stuff and tear down the positive? I'm asked.

Well, it's a nasty job, but someone has to do it.  Besides, for each
negative piece I'm paid $500 by al Qaeda.  And the publicity given to my
books by Osama ... priceless.

The new documentary film by Eugene Jarecki, "Why We Fight", which won the
Sundance Festival's Grand Jury prize, relates how the pursuit of profit by
arms merchants and other US corporations has fueled America's post-World
War II wars a lot more than any love of freedom and democracy.  The
unlikely hero of the film is Dwight Eisenhower, whose famous warning about
the dangers of the "military-industrial complex" is the film's principal
motif.

Here is Jarecki being interviewed by the Washington Post:

Post: Why did you make "Why We Fight?"

Jarecki: The simple answer: Eisenhower.  He caught me off-guard.  He
seemed to have so much to say about our contemporary society and our
general tilt towards militarism. ... The voices in Washington and the
media have become so shrill. ... It seemed important to bring a little
gray hair into the mix.

Post: How would you classify your politics?  You've been accused of being
a lefty.

Jarecki: I'm a radical centrist. ... If Dwight Eisenhower is a lefty, I am
too.  Then I'll walk with Ike.[6] [ellipses in original]

Isn't it nice that a film portraying the seamier side of the
military-industrial complex is receiving such popular attention?  And that
we are able to look fondly upon an American president?  How long has that
been?  Well, here I go again.

Eisenhower, regardless of what he said as he was leaving the presidency,
was hardly an obstacle to American militarism or corporate imperialism.
During his eight years in office, the United States intervened in every
corner of the world, overthrowing the governments of Iran, Guatemala,
Laos, the Congo, and British Guiana, and attempting to do the same in
Costa Rica, Syria, Egypt, and Indonesia, as well as laying the military
and political groundwork for the coming Indochinese holocaust.

Eisenhower's moralistically overbearing Secretary of State, John Foster
Dulles, summed up the administration's world outlook thusly: "For us there
are two sorts of people in the world: there are those who are Christians
and support free enterprise and there are the others."[7]

NOTES

[1] See my essay on this subject at: http://members.aol.com/essays6/myth.htm
[2] Washington Post, January 22 and 24, 2006
[3] Rogue State, chapter 18, includes the text of the US law prohibiting
    foreign contributions to US elections.
[4] Associated Press, January 15, 2006
[5] Los Angeles Times, January 29, 2006
[6] Washington Post, February 12, 2006, p.N3
[7] Roger Morgan, "The United States and West Germany, 1945-1973"
    (1974), p.54

[William Blum is the author of:
* Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
* Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
* West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
* Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire
See: http://www.killinghope.org
Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.]


--------16 of 16--------

 Unprotected sex
 gave President Bush a bad
 case of dick cheney.

 He'd always heard you
 get dick cheney from toilet
 seats - boy was he wrong.

 Hands off if you get
 dick cheney bad - the more you
 scratch, the more you itch.

 Cure it quick! Cheney spreads
 in hours; six short days and you're
 a hopeless dickhead.

 Cheney makes the brain
 drain. Your thoughts dribble out like
 snot in a windstorm.


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