Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 04.07.06

[David Shove (shove001]

            P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R    04.07.06

1. Art/immigrant    4.08 7:30am
2. Art/MayDay       4.08 9am
3. Know your rights 4.08 10am
4. CAMS v recruit   4.08 10:30am
5. Tricomo/peace    4.08 1pm
6. Iran next?       4.08 1pm
7. Cuba conference  4.08 5pm
8. Poetry/Brichbark 4.08 7pm
9. Dakota/concert   4.08 7pm
10. Genderblur      4.08 8pm

11. Tim Montague    - Environmental injustice and precaution
12. Chomsky/Goodman - Failed states: abuse of power, assault on democracy

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From: Brian Payne <brianpayneyvp [at] gmail.com>
Subject: Art/immigrant 4.09 7:30am

Brian Payne 612-859-5750, brianpayneyvp [at] gmail.com

OUR STRUGGLE, OUR MESSAGE, OUR ART
Two days of community art-making for the MN March for Immigration with
Dignity (April 9th, 2:30pm, starting at the St. Paul Cathedral, 239 Selby
Ave):

Holy Trinity Church (2730 East 31st St., Minneapolis), Room 214
Saturday, April 8, 7:30am-6:00pm


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From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Art/MayDay 4.08 9am

4/8 to 5/4, workshops in preparation for 32nd annual May Day Parade and
Festival on May 7.  Workshops are Saturdays 9 to 11 am and 1 to 3 pm, as
well as Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7 to 9 pm.  Free, 1500 E Lake St, Mpls.
www.hobt.org


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From: wamm <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Know your rights 4.08 10am

Discussion: "Do You Know Your Rights When Dealing with Law Enforcement?"
Saturday, April 8, 10am-12noon. Van Cleve Community Center, 901 15th
Avenue Southeast, Minneapolis.

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), Minnesota
Metro Branch, announces the next program in its "Coffee With" series.

"Do You Know Your Rights When Dealing with Law Enforcement?" Discussion
leader: Michelle Gross, Communities United Against Police Brutality. The
Patriot Act and Homeland Security laws mean anyone can have a
confrontation with police or other law enforcement officials. Attend this
community training session to learn how to respond. A lawyer familiar with
community issues and the law will accompany Michelle. Everyone welcome,
free, refreshments will be served. FFI:  651-458-7090 or 651-633-4410.


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From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: CAMS v recruit 4.08 10:30am

Saturday, 4/8 (and 2nd Saturday of each month), 10:30am, Coalition for
Alternatives to Military Service (or CAMS, a counter-recruitment group)
meets at Twin Cities Friends Meeting, 1725 Grand, St. Paul.  Contact Mary
at wamm [at] mtn.org


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From: PRO826 [at] aol.com
Subject: Tricomo/peace 4.08 1pm

Ray Tricomo, founder of Kalpulli Turtle Island Multiversity
(www.kalpulli.net) will be teaching a class titled:  "The Great Law of
Peace:  Past Present and Future", a story of the oldest democracy and the
first United Nations on this planet formed in 1142 AD consisting of the
indigenous people's six nations.

Held at Macalester College, Rm 215 of campus center from 1-3 pm on April
8th.


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From: wamm <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Iran next? 4.08 1pm

Public forum to look at U.S. - Iran crisis

Women Against Military madness will sponsor a public forum to hear a
discussion on the growing crisis between the U.S. and Iran over claims
that Iran is attempting to build nuclear weapons.

The program information details are:

Next Target: IRAN?
Public forum and panel discussion:
Saturday, April 8, 1pm
St. Joan of Arc Church
4537 THIRD AVENUE SOUTH, MINNEAPOLIS

Speaker:
M. Jay Shahidi
Founder and current president of the Iranian American Society of
Minnesota. Professional economist and long time social justice and
environmental advocate

Other speakers: Iranian-American speakers TBA

Among the questions that will be discussed:
Is the U.S. government preparing for an attack on Iran?
Is Iran attempting to build nuclear weapons?

The April 8 program will be an opportunity to hear the latest news on the
developing crisis between the U.S. and Iran and to hear the background to
the situation.

The event is free and open to the public.
The program is sponsored by Women Against Military Madness
For information 612-827-5364 or www.worldwidewamm.org


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From: August H Nimtz Jr <animtz [at] tc.umn.edu>
From: Minnesota Cuba Committee <mncuba [at] usfamily.net>
Subject: Cuba conference 4.08 5pm

"Our History Is Still Being Written" April 8th Cuba conference

A PRACTICAL LESSON FOR THE WORKING CLASS ON HOW TO FIGHT AND WIN
Our History is Still Being Written
The Story of three Chinese-Cuban Generals in the Cuban Revolution

"Why is this book important outside Cuba and in the US above all?  The
simplest answer is the most accurate.  Because it is needed by those on
the front lines of the class struggle, wherever they may be."

Mary-Alice Waters, Editor of Our History is Still Being Written

SPEAKERS: Mary-Alice Waters, Socialist Workers Party National Committee
                     Jacob Perasso, Young Socialists

SATURDAY, APRIL 8
Reception 5pm * Program 5:30pm  *  Dinner After
MARTIN LUTHER KING CENTER
271 Mackubin St, St Paul
(take Dale St exit south of Interstate 94 several blocks to Marshall Ave, go
east 1 block to Kent St, King Center on the left)


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From: Jennifer <jennifer_nemo [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Poetry/Brichbark 4.08 7pm

7pm. The first ever Poetry Salon at BirchBark Books will feature a
plethora of Minnesota writers reading the best of their newest poems.
Readers will include Richard Broderick, Cullen Bailey Burns, Sharon
Chmielarz, Kirsten Dierkin, Heidi Farrah, George Farrah, Ray Gonzales,
Kate Green, Kathleen Heideman, Kate Lynn Hibbard, Barbara Jones, Nicole
Lynskey, John Minczeski, Jude Nutter, Carrie Pomeroy, Lynette
Reini-Grandell, Joyce Sutphen, Thom Tammaro, Connie Wanek, Cary Waterman,
Kathleen Weihe and Bryan Thao Worra. Hosted by Kathryn Kysar.

BirchBark Books, 2115 W. 21st St., Mpls; 612-374-4023.


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From: Susu Jeffrey <susujeffrey [at] msn.com>
Subject: Dakota/concert 4.08 7pm

Benefit Concert for the Mendota Dakota Community Center
Mitch Walking Elk & Red Pony
present a Benefit Concert
for the Mendota Dakota Community Center

Saturday, April 8, 2006 at 7PM
at the Mendota Mdewakanton Community Center
1351 Sibley Memorial Hwy (on State Route 13 off Hwy 55)
in Mendota

Door Prizes-Raffle-Food
suggested minimum donation $15 (but no one will be turned away)
FFI: 651-452-4141


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From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Genderblur 4.08 8pm

The *GroundUP Collective *www.groundupmpls.com
<http://www.groundupmpls.com> and *genderBLUR* www.genderBLUR.org
<http://www.genderblur.org/> present two nights of eclectic exploration
of identity and relationship featuring music, theater, visual art, drag,
spoken word, performance art and more.

8pm - midnight
genderBLUR at Patrick's Cabaret
3010 Minnehaha Avenue South
ALL AGES
$0-10 *(no one turned away due to lack of funds)

Featuring a very special performance by the *Tranny Roadshow*,
www.trannyroadshow.org <http://www.trannyroadshow.org>, a traveling
variety show comprised of trans-identified artists from across the country.

Also appearances by *Miss Brass Rail* *'05-06* Jamie Monroe; queer
folk/pop/punkster *Coleman Lindberg *www.colemanlindberg.com
<http://www.colemanlindberg.com/> *;* indie queercore band *Running On
Empty;* and a slew of visual artists, drag kings, fashion designers and
more.

Saturday's performance is followed by a dance party with DJ Dizzletron.

Please note genderBLUR is an alcohol-free, smoke-free, and scent-free
event. So that everyone can be comfortable, please refrain from wearing
perfume or other scented products. (For details:
http://genderblur.org/about_no_scent.html )  Patrick's Cabaret is
wheelchair accessible.


NIGHT 2*
Sunday, April 9th
7-11pm
A GroundUP RoundUP at the Acadia Café
1931 Nicollet Avenue South
*ALL AGES
$4 @ the door

*Get to know some of the local artists from Night 1 (plus some special
guests) at the intimate Acadia Café Theater.

Featuring full sets by *COLEMAN LINDBERG* www.colemanlindberg.com
<http://www.colemanlindberg.com/> and *OMAUR (of Omaur Bliss)
*www.myspace.com/omaurbliss
<http://www.myspace.com/omaurbliss>with
*River Gordon* (of Running On Empty),
*Jack Matheson*,
*Gaea*,
*Tori Fixx*,  www.myspace.com/torifixx <http://www.myspace.com/torifixx>
a performance art piece presented by *BGDuality*,
and an interactive art installation.

These evenings are intended to foster dialogue about identity, and
specifically gender identity, as well as promote transgender inclusion
within the GLBT community and the art world at large.  By bringing
together artists from diverse genres and backgrounds we hope to break down
barriers, educate and above all, entertain!


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From: Rachel's Democracy & Health News #849, Apr. 6, 2006
ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE AND PRECAUTION
By Tim Montague

We know from the growing body of literature on the social determinants of
health that our health depends on many factors beyond diet and exercise,
including income and social status, social support networks, education and
literacy, employment/working conditions, social environment, physical
environment and others. The World Health Organization gives this example,
"If you catch the metro train in downtown Washington, D.C., to suburbs in
Maryland, life expectancy is 57 years at beginning of the journey. At the
end of the journey, it is 77 years. This means that there is 20-year life
expectancy [gap] in the nation's capitol, between the poor and
predominantly African American people who live downtown, and the richer
and predominantly non-African American people who live in the suburbs.[2]

Last week in Rachel's News #848 I reviewed the brutal state of affairs in
Massachusetts where the poor and communities of color (towns with more
than 15% nonwhite residents) are exposed to much higher levels of
industrial pollution. In their detailed study of how hazardous waste,
landfills and industrial pollution are disproportionately heaped on the
working poor and communities of color in Massachusetts, Daniel R. Faber
and Eric J. Krieg concluded that it's four times as dangerous to be poor
and twenty times as dangerous to live in a community of color. They said,
"...if you live in a community of color, you are thirty- nine times more
likely to live in one of the most environmentally hazardous communities in
Massachusetts."[1, pg. 10] Taken together with the other social
determinants of health that predispose these populations to illness we can
see that the cumulative impacts are profound.

Traditional NIMBY (not in my back yard) tactics will help individual
neighborhoods and towns for a period of time. But what really needs to
happen, say Faber and Krieg, is nothing short of "a more holistic strategy
for achieving social and environmental justice; one that involves moving
from locally reactive actions to more regionally proactive approaches to
community planning and economic development. To do so requires crossing
profound racial and ethnic boundaries, and bridging the divide between the
white middle-class of suburbia and poorer people of color and working
class whites in the inner cities.[1, pg. 59]

Discrimination of all kinds -- but mostly racism and classism -- empowers
corporations and the government regulatory agencies (the dominant culture)
to dump on the less powerful (working poor and communities of color). But
even if we correct this wrong, and distribute our pollution equally across
race and class, we still have a huge problem. In Massachusetts, from
1990-2002, industry "...released over 204.3 million pounds of chemical
waste directly into the environment... an amount equivalent to over 2,550
tractor-trailer trucks each loaded with 80,000 pounds of toxic waste."[2,
pg. 5] No matter how equitably we distribute our pollution, vast numbers
of children are going to suffer from cancer, birth-defects, low birth-
weight, developmental disabilities, immune disorders and a variety of
other harms. [See Rachel's News #829 -- "Why We Can't Prevent Cancer"]

To tackle environmental discrimination, Faber and Krieg suggest policy
solutions such as, "An Act to Promote Environmental Justice in the
Commonwealth," a proposed law that is under review in Massachusetts. It
"...includes measures for enhancing the education, notification, and
participation of community residents in state-based environmental- problem
solving.[1, pg. 54] They outline some priorities of this legislation,
including:

(1) increasing public participation and outreach through EJ (environmental
justice) training programs (including greater language accessibility);

(2) reducing risks by targeting compliance, enforcement and technical
assistance to EJ populations;

(3) streamline brownfield redevelopment projects with priority given to EJ
sensitive projects; and

(4) promote cleaner development by encouraging economic development
projects that incorporate state-of-the-art pollution control technology,
and alternatives to hazardous chemicals.[1, pg. 55]

Growing the state's sensitivity and priority for EJ communities is good
and necessary. But it's not going to solve the pollution problem so Faber
and Krieg go on to identify "...a more 'productive' EJ politics with an
orientation toward the prevention of environmental risks from being
produced in the first place. A movement for environmental justice is of
limited efficacy if the end result is to have all residents poisoned to
the same perilous degree, regardless of race, color, or class.[1, pg. 55,
emphasis added.]

And: "The transition to clean production and utilization of the
precautionary principle are key components of a more 'productive' EJ
politics. The precautionary principle posits that if there is a strong
possibility of harm (instead of scientifically proven certainty of harm)
to human health or the environment from a substance or activity,
precautionary measures should be taken. [1, pg. 56, emphasis added.]

PRECAUTION VS. RISK ASSESSMENT

Faber and Krieg call on the Precautionary Principle to prevent these gross
environmental injustices in the first place. Where there is reasonable
suspicion of harm, and scientific uncertainty about cause and effect, then
we have a duty to act to prevent harm. The Precautionary Principle
suggests five actions:

1) Set goals;

2) Examine all reasonable ways of achieving the goal, intending to choose
the least-harmful way;

3) Heed early warnings and make mid-course corrections;

4) Shift the burden of proof; and

5) Throughout the decision-making process, honor the knowledge of those
who will be affected by the decisions, and give them a real "say" in the
outcome.

These goals are also compatible with our basic human rights as outlined by
the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and
codified in the Massachusetts Constitution: "...the public has the right
to clean air and water. When any citizen is unwillingly harmed by exposure
to industrial toxic pollutants found in the environment, an injustice is
being perpetrated."[1, pg. 58]

Faber and Krieg point out that: "Standard environmental policy approaches
in Massachusetts utilize risk assessments to determine 'acceptable' levels
of public exposure to industrial pollutants, which are then applied as a
general standard on industry." This 'dilution is the solution," assumes
that dispersion of environmental pollution leads to 'safe levels' of
public exposure. But that's exactly how we created a Massachusetts that is
today heaping up to ten times the amount of pollution on the poor and
people of color. "Furthermore, the scientific standards of proof for
demonstrating the vast array of potential health impacts of a chemical are
very difficult to demonstrate conclusively. Over 70 percent of the 3,000
high production volume (HPV) chemicals produced by industry (HPV chemicals
are produced in quantities of one million pounds or more annually) have
not undergone even the simplest health and safety testing."[1, pg. 56; and
see "Getting Beyond Risk Assessment," in Rachel's News #846]

This is why the one chemical at a time approach just doesn't work. We have
to consider classes of chemicals like POPs (persistent organic
pollutants). And we have to put the burden of proof on industry -- so that
they have some incentive to find safe alternatives. Massachusetts is
taking some steps with a proposed law -- similar to the Louisville Charter
-- "Safer Alternatives to Toxic Chemicals". Faber and Krieg explain, "This
bill aims to create a model for the gradual replacement of toxic chemicals
with safer alternatives. It initially targets ten substances that are
currently replaceable with feasible safer alternatives. It accomplishes
this goal by laying out a careful process to examine all available
evidence to identify safer alternatives and manufacturing processes that
will benefit the health of workers, customers, children, the environment,
and the economy. The proposed program would stimulate research and
development on new technologies and solutions when a safer alternative is
not currently feasible. It would also create programs to assist workers
and businesses in the transition to the safest available alternatives,
with funding provided through a fee on toxic chemicals."[1, pp. 56-57]

The questions then becomes, do we have the political will to take back our
democracy from those who would make it so small they can drown it in a
bathtub, as Grover Norquist would have it. In recent years in
Massachusetts, Faber and Krieg say, "...the Department of Environmental
Protection and Executive Office Environmental Affairs has suffered
devastating budget cuts and staff reductions. The capacity of the DEP and
EOEA to successfully address issues of environmental injustice will
require "...funding, staff, and other resources to adequate levels."[1,
pg. 59]

Precautionary principle policies are clearly the way forward. Europe is
doing it with REACH which could save billions by providing environmental
and health benefits. California has adopted integrated pest management in
schools in Los Angeles and Emeryville, zero waste in Oakland and
alternative purchasing agreements San Francisco and Berkeley. The texts of
many of these new laws are available here and here. We can look forward to
much lively discussion and debate about current and future precautionary
action at the upcoming The First National Conference on Precaution June
9-11 2006 in Baltimore, Maryland -- and we hope to see you there.

[1] Daniel Faber and Eric Krieg, Unequal Exposure to Ecological Hazards
2005: Environmental Injustices in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Northeastern University, October 2005. Available here.

[2] Michael Marmot, "What are the social determinants of health?," U.N.
Commission on Social Determinants of Health. February 19, 2006. Available
here. See also "Health and Environmental Health: Expanding the Movement"
in Rachel's News #843 for a discussion of the social determinants of
health.


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From: Democracy Now, Mar. 31, 2006

NOAM CHOMSKY ON FAILED STATES: THE ABUSE OF POWER...
...and the Assault on Democracy
By Amy Goodman

The New York Times calls him "arguably the most important intellectual
alive." The Boston Globe calls him "America's most useful citizen"

He was recently voted the world's number one intellectual in a poll by
Prospect and Foreign Policy magazines.

We're talking about Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the foremost critics of
U.S. foreign policy. Professor Chomsky has just released a new book titled
"Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy."

It examines how the United States is beginning to resemble a failed state
that cannot protect its citizens from violence and has a government that
regards itself as beyond the reach of domestic or international law.

In the book, Professor Noam Chomsky presents a series of solutions to help
rescue the nation from turning into a failed state.

They include: Accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court
and the World Court; Sign the Kyoto protocols on global warming; Let the
United Nations take the lead in international crises; Rely on diplomatic
and economic measures rather than military ones in confronting terror; and
Sharply reduce military spending and sharply increase social spending

In his first broadcast interview upon the publication of his book,
Professor Noam Chomsky joins us today from Boston for the hour.

AMY GOODMAN: In this first broadcast interview upon publication of his
book, Professor Noam Chomsky joins us today from Boston for the hour. We
welcome you to Democracy Now!, Noam.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Glad to be with you again.

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. Failed States, what do you
mean?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, over the years there have been a series of concepts
developed to justify the use of force in international affairs for a long
period. It was possible to justify it on the pretext, which usually turned
out to have very little substance, that the U.S. was defending itself
against the communist menace. By the 1980s, that was wearing pretty thin.
The Reagan administration concocted a new category: terrorist states. They
declared a war on terror as soon as they entered office in the early
1980s, 1981. 'We have to defend ourselves from the plague of the modern
age, return to barbarism, the evil scourge of terrorism," and so on, and
particularly state-directed international terrorism.

A few years later -- this is Clinton -- Clinton devised the concept of
rogue states. 'It's 1994, we have to defend ourselves from rogue states."
Then, later on came the failed states, which either threaten our security,
like Iraq, or require our intervention in order to save them, like Haiti,
often devastating them in the process. In each case, the terms have been
pretty hard to sustain, because it's been difficult to overlook the fact
that under any, even the most conservative characterization of these
notions -- let's say U.S. law -- the United States fits fairly well into
the category, as has often been recognized. By now, for example, the
category -- even in the Clinton years, leading scholars, Samuel Huntington
and others, observed that -- in the major journals, Foreign Affairs --
that in most of the world, much of the world, the United States is
regarded as the leading rogue state and the greatest threat to their
existence.

By now, a couple of years later, Bush years, same journals' leading
specialists don't even report international opinion. They just describe it
as a fact that the United States has become a leading rogue state. Surely,
it's a terrorist state under its own definition of international
terrorism, not only carrying out violent terrorist acts and supporting
them, but even radically violating the so-called "Bush Doctrine," that a
state that harbors terrorists is a terrorist state. Undoubtedly, the U.S.
harbors leading international terrorists, people described by the F.B.I.
and the Justice Department as leading terrorists, like Orlando Bosch, now
Posada Carriles, not to speak of those who actually implement state
terrorism.

And I think the same is true of the category "failed states." The U.S.
increasingly has taken on the characteristics of what we describe as
failed states. In the respects that one mentioned, and also, another
critical respect, namely the -- what is sometimes called a democratic
deficit, that is, a substantial gap between public policy and public
opinion. So those suggestions that you just read off, Amy, those are
actually not mine. Those are pretty conservative suggestions. They are the
opinion of the majority of the American population, in fact, an
overwhelming majority. And to propose those suggestions is to simply take
democracy seriously. It's interesting that on these examples that you've
read and many others, there is an enormous gap between public policy and
public opinion. The proposals, the general attitudes of the public, which
are pretty well studied, are -- both political parties are, on most of
these issues, well to the right of the population.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Professor Chomsky, in the early parts of the book,
especially on the issue of the one characteristic of a failed state, which
is its increasing failure to protect its own citizens, you lay out a
pretty comprehensive look at what the, especially in the Bush years, the
war on terrorism has meant in terms of protecting the American people. And
you lay out clearly, especially since the war, the invasion of Iraq, that
terrorist, major terrorist action and activity around the world has
increased substantially. And also, you talk about the dangers of a
possible nuclear -- nuclear weapons being used against the United States.
Could you expand on that a little bit?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, there has been a very serious threat of nuclear war.
It's not -- unfortunately, it's not much discussed among the public. But
if you look at the literature of strategic analysts and so on, they're
extremely concerned. And they describe particularly the Bush
administration aggressive militarism as carrying an "appreciable risk of
ultimate doom," to quote one, "apocalypse soon," to quote Robert McNamara
and many others. And there's good reasons for it, I mean, which could
explain, and they explain. That's been expanded by the Bush administration
consciously, not because they want nuclear war, but it's just not a high
priority. So the rapid expansion of offensive U.S. military capacity,
including the militarization of space, which is the U.S.'s pursuit alone.
The world has been trying very hard to block it. 95% of the expenditures
now are from the U.S., and they're expanding.

All of these measures bring about a completely predictable reaction on the
part of the likely targets. They don't say, you know, 'Thank you. Here are
our throats. Please cut them." They react in the ways that they can. For
some, it will mean responding with the threat or maybe use of terror. For
others, more powerful ones, it's going to mean sharply increasing their
own offensive military capacity. So Russian military expenditures have
sharply increased in response to Bush programs. Chinese expansion of
offensive military capacity is also beginning to increase for the same
reasons. All of that threatens -- raises the already severe threat of even
-- of just accidental nuclear war. These systems are on
computer-controlled alert. And we know that our own systems have many
errors, which are stopped by human intervention. Their systems are far
less secure; the Russian case, deteriorated. These moves all sharply
enhance the threat of nuclear war. That's serious nuclear war that I'm
talking about.

There's also the threat of dirty bombs, small nuclear explosions. Small
means not so small, but in comparison with a major attack, which would
pretty much exterminate civilized life. The U.S. intelligence community
regards the threat of a dirty bomb, say in New York, in the next decade as
being probably greater than 50%. And those threats increase as the threat
of terror increases.

And Bush administration policies have, again, consciously been carried out
in a way, which they know is likely to increase the threat of terror. The
most obvious example is the Iraq invasion. That was undertaken with the
anticipation that it would be very likely to increase the threat of terror
and also nuclear proliferation. And, in fact, that's exactly what
happened, according to the judgment of the C.I.A., National Intelligence
Council, foreign intelligence agencies, independent specialists. They all
point out that, yes, as anticipated, it increased the threat of terror. In
fact, it did so in ways well beyond what was anticipated.

To mention just one, we commonly read that there were no weapons of mass
destruction found in Iraq. Well, it's not totally accurate. There were
means to develop weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and known to be in
Iraq. They were under guard by U.N. inspectors, who were dismantling them.
When Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the rest sent in their troops, they neglected
to instruct them to guard these sites. The U.N. inspectors were expelled,
the sites were left unguarded. The inspectors continued their work by
satellite and reported that over a hundred sites had been looted, in fact,
systematically looted, not just somebody walking in, but careful looting.
That included dangerous biotoxins, means to hide precision equipment to be
used to develop nuclear weapons and missiles, means to develop chemical
weapons and so on. All of this has disappeared. One hates to imagine where
it's disappeared to, but it could end up in New York.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Noam Chomsky, and we're going to come back
with him. His new book, just published, is called Failed States: The Abuse
of Power and the Assault on Democracy. We'll be back with Professor
Chomsky in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Professor Noam Chomsky, upon the release of
his new book, Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on
Democracy. Noam Chomsky, a professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. I'm Amy Goodman, here with Juan Gonzalez. Juan?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Professor Chomsky, in your book you also talk about how
Iraq has become almost an incubator or a university now for advanced
training for terrorists, who then are leaving the country there and going
around the world, very much as what happened in the 1980s in Afghanistan.
Could you talk about that somewhat?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Actually, that's -- actually, these are just quotes from the
C.I.A. and other U.S. intelligence agencies and analysts. Yes, they
describe Iraq now as a training ground for highly professionalized
terrorists skilled in urban contact. They do compare it to Afghanistan,
but say that it's much more serious, because of the high level of training
and skill. These are almost entirely Iraqis. There's a small number of
foreign fighters drawn to Iraq. Estimates are maybe 5% to 10%. And they
are, as in the case of Afghanistan, are expected to spread into throughout
many parts of the world and to carry out the kinds of terrorism that
they're trained in, as a reaction to -- clearly reaction to the invasion.
Iraq was, whatever you thought about it, was free from connections to
terror prior to the invasion. It's now a major terror center.

It's not as President Bush says, that terrorists are being concentrated in
Iraq so that we can kill them. These are terrorists who had no previous
record of involvement in terrorism. The foreign fighters who have come in,
mostly from Saudi Arabia, have been investigated extensively by Saudi and
Israeli and U.S. intelligence, and what they conclude is that they were
mobilized by the Iraq war, no involvement in terrorist actions in the
past. And undoubtedly, just as expected, the Iraq war has raised an
enormous hostility throughout much of the world, and particularly the
Muslim world.

It was the most -- probably the most unpopular war in history, and even
before it was fought. Virtually no support for it anywhere, except the
U.S. and Britain and a couple of other places. And since the war itself
was perhaps one of the most incredible military catastrophes in history,
has caused utter disaster in Iraq and has -- and all of that has since
simply intensified the strong opposition to the war of the kind that you
heard from that Indonesian student of a few moments ago. But that's why it
spread, and that's a -- it increases the reservoir of potential support
for the terrorists, who regard themselves as a vanguard, attempting to
elicit support from others, bring others to join with them. And the Bush
administration is their leading ally in this. Again, not my words, the
words of the leading U.S. specialists on terror, Michael Scheuer in this
case. And definitely, that's happened.

And it's not the only case. I mean, in case after case, the Bush
administration has simply downgraded the threat of terror. One example is
the report of the 9/11 Commission. Here in the United States, the Bush
administration didn't want the commission to be formed, tried to block it,
but it was finally formed. Bipartisan commission, gave many
recommendations. The recommendations, to a large extent, were not carried
out. The commission members, including the chair, were appalled by this,
set up their own private commission after their own tenure was completed,
and continued to report that the measures are simply not being carried
out.

There are many other examples. One of the most striking is the Treasury
Department has a branch, the Office of Financial Assets Control, which is
supposed to monitor suspicious funding transfers around the world. Well,
that's a core element of the so-called war on terror. They've given
reports to Congress. It turns out that they have a few officials devoted
to al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, but about -- I think it was -- six times
that many devoted to whether there are any evasions of the totally illegal
U.S. embargo against Cuba.

There was an instance of that just a few months ago, when the U.S.
infuriated even energy corporations by ordering a Sheraton Hotel in Mexico
City to cancel a meeting between Cuban oil specialists and U.S. oil
companies, including some big ones, seeking to explore the development of
offshore Cuban oil resources. The government ordered -- this OFAC ordered
the hotel, the U.S. hotel, to expel the Cubans and terminate the meeting.
Mexico wasn't terribly happy about this. It's a extraordinary arrogance.
But it also reveals the hysterical fanaticism of the goal of strangling
Cuba.

And we know why. It's a free country. We have records going from way back,
and a rich source of them go back to the Kennedy-Johnson administrations.
They had to carry out a terrorist war against Cuba, as they did, and try
to strangle Cuba economically, because of Cuba's -- what they called
Cuba's successful defiance of U.S. policies, going back to the Monroe
Doctrine. No Russians, but the Monroe Doctrine, 150 years back at that
time. And the goal was, as was put very plainly by the Eisenhower and
Kennedy administrations, to make the people of Cuba suffer. They are
responsible for the fact that the government is in place. We therefore
have to make them suffer and starve, so that they'll throw out the
government. It's a policy, which is pretty consistent. It's being applied
right now in Palestine. It was applied under the Iraqi sanctions, plot in
Chile, and so on. It's savage.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Noam Chomsky, his new book, after he wrote
Hegemony or Survival, one of scores of books, if not a hundred books that
Professor Chomsky has written, his new one is called Failed States: The
Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy.

You mention Israel, Palestine, and I wanted to ask you about this new
study that's come out. A dean at Harvard University and a professor at the
University of Chicago are coming under intense criticism for publishing an
academic critique of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington. The paper charges
that the United States has willingly set aside its own security and that
of many of its allies, in order to advance the interests of Israel. In
addition, the study accuses the pro-Israel lobby, particularly AIPAC, the
America Israel Public Affairs Committee, of manipulating the U.S. media,
policing academia and silencing critics of Israel by labeling them as
anti-Semitic. The study also examines the role played by the pro-Israel
neoconservatives in the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The authors are the Stephen Walt, a dean at Harvard's Kennedy School of
Government, and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago. They,
themselves, are now being accused of anti-Semitism. In Washington, a
Democratic congressman, Eliot Engle of New York, described the professors
as dishonest so-called intellectuals and anti-Semites. The Harvard
professor, Ruth Wisse, called for the paper to be withdrawn. Harvard Law
School professor, Alan Dershowitz, described the study as trash that could
have been written by neo-Nazi David Duke. The New York Sun reported
Harvard has received several calls from pro-Israel donors, expressing
concern about the paper, and Harvard has already taken steps to distance
itself from the report. Last week, it removed the logo of the Kennedy
School of Government from the paper and added a new disclaimer to the
study. The report is 81 pages. It was originally published on Harvard's
website and an edited version appeared in the London Review of Books.

The controversy comes less than a year after Harvard law professor Alan
Dershowitz attempted to block the publication of Norman Finkelstein's book
Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History.
Now, this goes into a lot of issues: the content of the study, what you
think of it, the response to it and also the whole critique. In this
country, what happens to those who criticize the policies of the state of
Israel? Noam Chomsky.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, the answer to your last question is well described in
Norman Finkelstein's quite outstanding book and also in the record of
Dershowitz's attempts to prevent its publication. Some of the documents
were just published in the Journal of Palestine Studies. Finkelstein's
book gives an extensive detailed account, the best one we have, of a
frightening record of Israeli crimes and abuses, where he relies on the
most respectable sources, the major human rights organizations, Israeli
human rights organizations and others, and demonstrates, just
conclusively, that Alan Dershowitz's defense of these atrocities, based on
no evidence at all, is outrageous and grotesque.

Nevertheless, Finkelstein comes under tremendous attack for being
anti-Semitic, and so on. Now that's pretty normal. It goes back, I
suppose, to the distinguished diplomat, Abba Eban -- it must be thirty
years ago -- wrote in an American Jewish journal that "the task of
Zionists," he said, "is to show that all political anti-Zionism" - that
means criticism of the policies of the state of Israel -- "is either
anti-Semitism or Jewish self-hatred." Well, okay, that excludes all
possible criticism, by definition. As examples of neurotic Jewish
self-hatred, I should declare an interest. He mentioned two people. I was
one; the other was Izzy Stone.

Once you release the torrent of abuse, you don't need arguments and
evidence, you can just scream. And Professors Walt and Mearsheimer deserve
credit for publishing a study, which they knew was going to elicit the
usual streams of abuse and hysteria from supporters of Israeli crimes and
violence. However, we should recognize that this is pretty uniform. Try to
say a sane and uncontroversial word about any other issue dear to the
hearts of the intellectual elite that they've turned into holy writ, you
get the same reaction. So -- and there's no lobby, which does raise one of
a few minor points that raises questions about the validity of the
critique.

It's a serious, careful piece of work. It deserves to be read. They
deserve credit for writing it. But it still it leaves open the question of
how valid the analysis is, and I notice that there's a pretty subtle
question involved. Everyone agrees, on all sides, that there are a number
of factors that enter into determining U.S. foreign policy. One is
strategic and economic interests of the major power centers within the
United States. In the case of the Middle East, that means the energy
corporations, arms producers, high-tech industry, financial institutions
and others. Now, these are not marginal institutions, particularly in the
Bush administration. So one question is to what extent does policy reflect
their interests. Another question is to what extent is it influenced by
domestic lobbies. And there are other factors. But just these two alone,
yes, they are -- you find them in most cases, and to try to sort out their
influence is not so simple. In particular, it's not simple when their
interests tend to coincide, and by and large, there's a high degree of
conformity. If you look over the record, what's called the national
interest, meaning the special interests of those with -- in whose hands
power is concentrated, the national interest, in that sense, tends to
conform to the interests of the lobbies. So in those cases, it's pretty
hard to disentangle them.

If the thesis of the book -- the thesis of the book is that the lobbies
have overwhelming influence, and the so-called "national interest" is
harmed by what they do. If that were the case, it would be, I would think,
a very hopeful conclusion. It would mean that U.S. policy could easily be
reversed. It would simply be necessary to explain to the major centers of
power, like the energy corporations, high-tech industry and arms producers
and so on, just explain to them that they've -- that their interests are
being harmed by this small lobby that screams anti-Semitism and funds
congressmen, and so on. Surely those institutions can utterly overwhelm
the lobby in political influence, in finance, and so on, so that ought to
reverse the policy.

Well, it doesn't happen, and there are a number of reasons for it. For one
thing, there's an underlying assumption that the so-called national
interest has been harmed by these policies. Well, you know, you really
have to demonstrate that. So who's been harmed? Have the energy
corporations been harmed by U.S. policy in the Middle East over the last
60 years? I mean, they're making profits beyond the dream of avarice, as
the main government investigation of them reported. Even more today --
that was a couple years ago. Has the U.S. -- the main concern of the U.S.
has been to control what the State Department 60 years ago called "a
stupendous source of strategic power," Middle East oil. Yeah, they've
controlled it. There have been -- in fact, the invasion of Iraq was an
attempt to intensify that control. It may not do it. It may have the
opposite effect, but that's a separate question. It was the intent,
clearly.

There have been plenty of barriers. The major barrier is the one that is
the usual one throughout the world: independent nationalism. It's called
"radical nationalism," which was serious. It was symbolized by Nasser, but
also Kassem in Iraq, and others. Well, the U.S. did succeed in overcoming
that barrier. How? Israel destroyed Nasser. That was a tremendous service
to the United States, to U.S. power, that is, to the energy corporations,
to Saudi Arabia, to the main centers of power here, and in fact, it's in
-- that was 1967, and it was after that victory that the U.S.-Israeli
relations really solidified, became what's called a "strategic asset."

It's also then that the lobby gained its force. It's also then,
incidentally, that the educated classes, the intellectual political class
entered into an astonishing love affair with Israel, after its
demonstration of tremendous power against a third-world enemy, and in
fact, that's a very critical component of what's called the lobby. Walt
and Mearsheimer mention it, but I think it should be emphasized. And they
are very influential. They determine, certainly influence, the shaping of
news and information in journals, media, scholarship, and so on. My own
feeling is they're probably the most influential part of the lobby. Now,
we sort of have to ask, what's the difference between the lobby and the
power centers of the country?

But the barriers were overcome. Israel has performed many other services
to the United States. You can run through the record. It's also performed
secondary services. So in the 1980s, particularly, Congress was imposing
barriers to the Reagan administration's support for and carrying out major
terrorist atrocities in Central America. Israel helped evade congressional
restrictions by carrying out training, and so on, itself. The Congress
blocked U.S. trade with South Africa. Israel helped evade the embargo to
all the -- both the racist regimes of Southern Africa, and there have been
many other cases. By now, Israel is virtually an offshore U.S. military
base and high-tech center in the Middle East.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, we have to break for stations to identify
themselves, but we'll come back. Professor Noam Chomsky is our guest for
the hour. His latest book has just been published, and it's called Failed
States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest today is Professor Noam Chomsky. His new book is
Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy. Noam
Chomsky, longtime professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
world-renowned linguist and political analyst. I'm Amy Goodman, here with
Juan Gonzalez. Juan?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Professor Chomsky, in your book you have a fascinating
section, where you talk about the historical basis of the Bush doctrine of
preemptive war, and also its relationship to empire or to the building of
a U.S. empire. And you go back, you mention a historian, John Lewis
Gaddis, who the Bush administration loves, because he's actually tried to
find the historical rationalization for this use, going back to John
Quincy Adams and as Secretary of State in the invasion by General Andrew
Jackson of Florida in the Seminole Wars, and how this actually is a record
of the use of this idea to continue the expansionist aims of the United
States around the world.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah, that's a very interesting case, actually. John Lewis
Gaddis is not only the favorite historian of the Reagan administration,
but he's regarded as the dean of Cold War scholarship, the leading figure
in the American Cold War scholarship, a professor at Yale. And he wrote
the one, so far, book-length investigation into the roots of the Bush
Doctrine, which he generally approves, the usual qualifications about
style and so on. He traces it is back, as you say, to his hero, the great
grand strategist, John Quincy Adams, who wrote a series of famous state
papers back in 1818, in which he gave post facto justification to Andrew
Jackson's invasion of Florida. And it's rather interesting.

Gaddis is a good historian. He knows the sources, cites all the right
sources. But he doesn't tell you what they say. So what I did in the book
is just add what they say, what he omitted. Well, what they describe is a
shocking record of atrocities and crimes carried out against what were
called runaways Negros and lawless Indians, devastated the Seminoles.
There was another major Seminole war later, either exterminated them or
drove them into the marshes, completely unprovoked. There were fabricated
pretexts. Gaddis talks about the threat of England. There was no threat
from England. England didn't do a thing. In fact, even Adams didn't claim
that. But it was what Gaddis calls an -- it established what Gaddis calls
the thesis that expansion is the best guarantee of security. So you want
to be secure, just expand, conquer more. Then you'll be secure.

And he says, yes, that goes right through all American administrations --
he's correct about that -- and is the centerpiece of the Bush Doctrine. So
he says the Bush Doctrine isn't all that new. Expansion is the key to
security. So we just expand and expand, and then we become more secure.
Well, you know, he doesn't mention the obvious precedents that come to
mind, so I'll leave them out, but you can think of them. And there's some
truth to that, except for what he ignores and, in fact, denies, namely the
huge atrocities that are recorded in the various sources, scholarly
sources that he cites, which also point out that Adams, by giving this
justification for Jackson's war -- he was alone in the administration to
do it, but he managed to convince the President -- he established the
doctrine of executive wars without congressional authorization, in
violation of the Constitution. Adams later recognized that and was sorry
for it, and very sorry, but that established it and, yes, that's been
consistent ever since then: executive wars without congressional
authorization. We know of case after case. It doesn't seem to bother the
so-called originalists who talk about original intent.

But that aside, he also -- the scholarship that Gaddis cites but doesn't
quote also points out that Adams established other principles that are
consistent from then until now, namely massive lying to the public,
distortion, evoking hysterical fears, all kinds of deceitful efforts to
mobilize the population in support of atrocities. And yes, that continues
right up to the present, as well. So there's very interesting historical
record. What it shows is almost the opposite of what Gaddis claims and
what the Reagan -- the Bush administration -- I think I said Reagan -- the
Bush administration likes. And it's right out of the very sources that he
refers to, the right sources, the right scholarship. He simply ignores
them. But, yes, the record is interesting.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, I wanted to ask you a question. As many people
know, you're perhaps one of the most cited sources or analysis in the
world. And I thought this was an interesting reference to these citations.
This was earlier this month, program, Tim Russert, Meet the Press,
questioning the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace.

TIM RUSSERT: Mr. Jaafari said that one of his favorite American writers is
Professor Noam Chomsky, someone who has written very, very strongly
against the Iraq war and against most of the Bush administration foreign
policy. Does that concern you?

GEN. PETER PACE: I hope he has more than one book on his nightstand.

TIM RUSSERT: So it troubles you?

GEN. PETER PACE: I would be concerned if the only access to foreign ideas
that the Prime Minister had was that one author. If, in fact, that's one
of many, and he's digesting many different opinions, that's probably
healthy.

AMY GOODMAN: That's General Peter Pace, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
being questioned by Tim Russert, talking about Jaafari, who at this very
moment is struggling to be -- again, to hold on to his position as prime
minister of Iraq. Your response, Noam Chomsky?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, I, frankly, rather doubt that General Pace recognized
my name or knew what he was referring to, but maybe he did. The quote from
Tim Russert, if I recall, was that this was a book that was highly
critical of the Iraq war. Well, that shouldn't surprise a prime minister
of Iraq. After all, according to U.S. polls, the latest ones I've seen
reported, Brookings Institution, 87%, 87% of Iraqis want a timetable for
withdrawal. That's an astonishing figure. If it really is all Iraqis, as
was asserted. That means virtually everyone in Arab Iraq, the areas where
the troops are deployed. I, frankly, doubt that you could have found
figures like that in Vichy, France, or, you know, Poland under -- when it
was a Russian satellite.

What it means essentially is that virtually everyone wants a timetable for
withdrawal. So, would it be surprising that a prime minister would read a
book that's critical of the war and says the same thing? It's interesting
that Bush and Blair, who are constantly preaching about their love of
democracy, announce, declare that there will be no timetable for
withdrawal. Well, that part probably reflects the contempt for democracy
that both of them have continually demonstrated, them and their
colleagues, virtually without exception.

But there are deeper reasons, and we ought to think about them. If we're
talking about exit strategies from Iraq, we should bear in mind that for
the U.S. to leave Iraq without establishing a subordinate client state
would be a nightmare for Washington. All you have to do is think of the
policies that an independent Iraq would be likely to pursue, if it was
mildly democratic. It would almost surely strengthen its already developed
relations with Shiite Iran right next door. Any degree of Iraqi autonomy
stimulates autonomy pressures across the border in Saudi Arabia, where
there's a substantial Shiite population, who have been bitterly repressed
by the U.S.-backed tyranny but is now calling for more autonomy. That
happens to be where most of Saudi oil is. So, what you can imagine -- I'm
sure Washington planners are having nightmares about this -- is a
potential -- pardon?

JUAN GONZALEZ: I would like to ask you, in terms of this whole issue of
democracy, in your book you talk about the democracy deficit. Obviously,
the Bush administration is having all kinds of problems with their -- even
their model of democracy around the world, given the election results in
the Palestinian territories, the situation now in Iraq, where the
President is trying to force out the Prime Minister of the winning
coalition there, in Venezuela, even in Iran. Your concept of the democracy
deficit, and why this administration is able to hold on in the United
States itself?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, there are two aspects of that. One is, the democracy
deficit internal to the United States, that is, the enormous and growing
gap between public opinion and public policy. Second is their so-called
democracy-promotion mission elsewhere in the world. The latter is just
pure fraud. The only evidence that they're interested in promoting
democracy is that they say so. The evidence against it is just
overwhelming, including the cases you mentioned and many others. I mean,
the very fact that people are even willing to talk about this shows that
we're kind of insisting on being North Koreans: if the Dear Leader has
spoken, that establishes the truth; it doesn't matter what the facts are.
I go into that in some detail in the book.

The democracy deficit at home is another matter. How have -- I mean, they
have an extremely narrow hold on political power. Their policies are
strongly opposed by most of the population. How do they carry this off?
Well, that's been through an intriguing mixture of deceit, lying,
fabrication, public relations. There's actually a pretty good study of it
by two good political scientists, Hacker and Pearson, who just run through
the tactics and how it works. And they have barely managed to hold on to
political power and are attempting to use it to dismantle the
institutional structure that has been built up over many years with
enormous popular support -- the limited benefits system; they're trying to
dismantle Social Security and are actually making progress on that; to the
tax cuts, overwhelmingly for the rich, are creating -- are purposely
creating a future situation, first of all, a kind of fiscal train wreck in
the future, but also a situation in which it will be virtually impossible
to carry out the kinds of social policies that the public overwhelmingly
supports.

And to manage to carry this off has been an impressive feat of
manipulation, deceit, lying, and so on. No time to talk about it here, but
actually my book gives a pretty good account. I do discuss it in the book.
That's a democratic deficit at home and an extremely serious one. The
problems of nuclear war, environmental disaster, those are issues of
survival, the top issues and the highest priority for anyone sensible.
Third issue is that the U.S. government is enhancing those threats. And a
fourth issue is that the U.S. population is opposed, but is excluded from
the political system. That's a democratic deficit. It's one we can deal
with, too.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, we're going to have to leave it there for now.
But part two of our interview will air next week. Professor Noam Chomsky's
new book, just published, is called Failed States: The Abuse of Power and
the Assault on Democracy.

To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here for
our new online ordering or call 1 (888) 999-3877.

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