Once again, my bother-in-law, Makie Offutt, the US Presidential award winning high school AP Chem teacher, singer, song-writer, troubador, poet, Praise Band Leader, story-teller, science exhibitor, and all round loving husband, father, son-law, son, brother, bother-in-law, congregant ... oh, did I mention, I really admire the guy! Has done me the great honor of putting up at you tube another of my CD recordings:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNvF4A_TRUE
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Hmm, let me try something better on that YouTube video
http://youtu.be/UYlo70FGxPg
Freedom Song - Mark Ganzer
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Interpretation of the song "Freedom" sung and played by Mark Ganzer.
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Freedom Song - Mark Ganzer
ganzermark 1 video Subscribe
4 views Like Add to Share
Uploaded by ganzermark on Oct 5, 2011
Interpretation of the song "Freedom" sung and played by Mark Ganzer.
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MY FIRST YOUTUBE VIDEO / RECORDING HAS BEEN PUBLISHERD - HERE's the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYlo70FGxPg
www.youtube.com
www.youtube.com
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Extort the Troops! 4 Oct. 2011 by Jeff Huber
I've seen these ads and am disgusted. The only way to actually suport the troops is to do everything in our power to bring them back home. NO, we do not need them to stop "the terrorists;" "The terrorists" will stop attacking us when we withdraw from the middle East, when we stop supporting the ethnography of the illegitimate land-grabbing state of Israel with our money and weapons, and when we stop buying their facial recognition software.
I was plenty riled when Walgreens tried to shame me into doing my patriotic duty by contributing a dollar to send a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup to one of our troops overseas. “Don’t you want to support the troops?” the McJobette at the cash register asked me.
I’d been waiting in line for several minutes to pay for two dollars and something worth of something or other because all of the people in front me who didn’t believe in the 21st Century who had taken the time to write checks for a few dollars worth of something else, so I was maybe more annoyed than I might otherwise have been. Whatever the case, I decided to use the time I would have taken to write a check for two dollars if I wrote checks and something to give Ms. McJob and the people in line behind me an impromptu lecture on wartime economics.
Praise the Lord and pass the chocolate.
Since 9/11, I explained, every American who wasn’t either too poor or too rich to pay taxes had “supported” the troops to the tune of well over $5 trillion, and the actual figure was probably closer to $10 trillion. If $5 or $10 trillion wasn’t enough to buy the troops all the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Mars Bars and Gummy Bears and Jujubes they could possibly hold then me kicking in an extra couple of bucks at Walgreens wasn’t going to help to keep their candy cache combat capable.
The McJobstress gave me a baleful look and said, “So you don’t want to support the troops?” Some guy in line behind me wearing a biker T-shirt and a ponytail muttered “f*****g liberal” as he reached for his checkbook.
This war's for you.
Cashing in on our War on Evil is hardly a new thing. I was sitting in a local tap-and-trough the first time I saw the Anheuser Bush “Coming Home” commercial, the one where troops returning from the war walk through an airport terminal to a standing ovation from the civilians who are waiting around to board for their delayed flights. I shook my head and asked the bartender to replace my Budweiser with a Coors. She asked why, and I said that if the Budweiser people wanted to use the war to sell beer they’d have to sell it to somebody besides me.
That’s when Virginia Beach legend “Drunk Dave” pried his nose from the bar and said, “Aw, man, they’re not trying to sell beer, they’re just trying to show their patriotic spirit.” This is the same Drunk Dave who once claimed that he got a balanced view on politics because he listened to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.
To gain even further perspective on the events of the day, Drunk Dave often tunes in to G. Gordon Liddy’s program. Dave is especially fond of the G. Man’s bumper music, most often war tinged, patriotic, twangy jingles by the likes of the abominable Toby Keith about how it’s the American way to put a boot in everybody’s bottom and sell a lot of records about it.
One of the reasons, perhaps the main reason, that the anti-war movement has less traction than a curling stone is that it’s not only the defense industry parasites who are knocking down big war bucks. It’s everybody. One can’t pass a single merchandising venue in my area without bumping against some sort of trooper-dooper sales gimmick. Granted, I live in an area (Hampton Roads) that contains the densest military population in the country, but given the advertising I see on what little television I watch it appears that Madison Avenue has cast its “support the troops” net from coast to coast.
It’s the American way, I suppose, to use whatever’s available to gull one’s fellow citizens into buying fecal matter they probably don’t need, and why should war be any different from, say, body odor or erectile dysfunction? After all, exploiting human misery and suffering has always been a core tenet of capitalism, hasn’t it? (Especially when the political right gets its way and eliminates all government regulation, eh?)
One might even be willing to grant that making money on war is downright virtuous, up to a point. Unfortunately, the hideous truth at the core of “support the troops” commercialism is that it supports the neocons' Orwellian doctrine of “Long War” (aka “Persistent Conflict”). Had irony not gone the way of truth, justice and honor during young Mr. Bush’s administration, it would delight at Persistent Conflict’s key internal contradiction: in order to keep the Long War going as long as possible, it must be fought in such a manner as to generate an infinite supply of enemies. Thus does the Long War doctrine defeat any rational claims that they contribute to our national security, yet national security is the fallback rationale for persisting in the Long War.
And Irony would turn positively giddy over the sign that as of this weekend hangs behind the cash register of my corner 7-Eleven:
U.S. Armed Forces
We Don’t Start Wars
We Finish Them
Support the Troops
Jesus on a jet ski, there’s not trace of truth in that entire slog of slogans.
We do start wars. We supposedly invaded Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 attacks even though none of its masterminds or hijackers were actually from Afghanistan. We kicked the closest thing Afghanistan has ever known to a legitimate government out of power and replaced it with a gang of hoodlums and drug dealers who now constitute the second most corrupt government on the face of the earth.
We supposedly invaded Iraq because of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and his role in 9/11 via his ties to al Qaeda. None of these justifications turned out to be true. We replaced Hussein with a gang of hoodlums who now constitute the fourth most corrupt government on the face of the earth.
We instigated the bombing of Libya to remove a head of state who we legitimized by recognizing his government and replace him with a gang of hoodlums who promise to surpass Somalia as the country with the most corrupt government on the face of the earth.
Billions of American tax dollars financed the efforts of U.S. “non-profit” groups that fomented the Arab Spring movement that has set the Middle East afire, a circumstance that will abet the Long War policy goal of creating an inexhaustible supply of maniacs fighting among themselves to become even worse tyrants than the ones they deposed.
We’re presently mired in 120 wars throughout the globe, all of which we started or are involved in by our own choosing. And we’ll never "finish" any of them because their very nature inhibits them from ever ending. The only way we'll ever walk away from them is to just get up and walk away.
Can we blame the “U.S. Armed Forces” for having started these unending wars? You bet your bippy, we can. Oh, the “troops” aren’t to blame. It was the Pentagon brass who helped Dirty Dick Cheney and Dandy Don Rumsfeld cook the intelligence and manufacture the propaganda that got us stuck by the zipper in Iraq. And the felonious four-stars—David Petraeus, Richard Myers, Pete Pace, George Casey, Mike Mullen and Ray Odierno, just to name the top row on the wall of the pogues’ gallery—have been as thick with the military-industrial warmongery as ticks on a wild dog when it comes to peddling pro-war propaganda designed to obliterate withdrawal timelines.
These Colors Can't Think
The troops, for the most part a captive audience of Armed Forces media and their true-believing superiors, have been brainwashed even worse than the rest of the nation. A 2006 Zogby poll showed that almost 90 percent of American troops serving in Iraq thought the war there was retaliation for Saddam Hussein’s role in 9/11.
Lying to the troops, and exhorting them to finish wars that cannot be won, and exploiting them for the benefit war profiteers cannot in any way be defined as “supporting” them.
But try telling that to the likes of Lady McJob or Drunk Dave or the yahooligan who posted the Bush Coming Home commercial on YouTube and called it “Probably the best commercial ever made.”
Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes at Pen and Sword. Jeff's novel Bathtub Admirals (Kunati Books), a lampoon on America's rise to global dominance, is on sale now.
Texas Man Freed After Serving Nearly 25 Years for Murdering His Wife That New DNA Evidence Shows He Didn't Commit Prosecution Withheld Critical Evide
Alana Salzberg
The Innocence Project
40 Worth St. Suite 701
New York, NY 10013
212.364.5983
asalzberg@innocenceproject.org
Contact: Paul Cates, 212/364-5346, pcates@innocenceproject.org
(Austin, TX – October 4, 2011) Michael Morton walked out of a Williamson County courtroom today after his 1987 murder conviction was overturned because of new DNA evidence pointing to another man. Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley joined with the Innocence Project in seeking Morton’s release after it was discovered that the DNA of an unnamed male linked to the Morton crime through a bandana that also contained the blood of the victim was also found at the scene of a later murder in Travis County. The unnamed male is now under investigation for both crimes. Morton served nearly 25 years in prison before being released.
“Mr. Morton was the victim of serious prosecutorial misconduct that caused him to lose 25 years of his life and completely ripped apart his family. Perhaps even more tragically, we now know that another murder might have been prevented if law enforcement had continued its investigation rather than building a false case against Mr. Morton,” said Barry Scheck, Co-Director of the Innocence Project, which is affiliated with Cardozo School of Law. “This tragic miscarriage of justice must be fully investigated and steps must be taken to hold police and prosecutors accountable.”
In August, the Innocence Project announced that DNA testing on a bandana found near the Morton’s home where the murder occurred contained the blood of the victim, Christine Morton, and a male other than Morton. According to the papers filed by the Innocence Project yesterday, new DNA testing has connected the male DNA on the bandana to a hair that was found at the crime scene of a Travis County murder that was conducted with a similar modus operandi after Morton was incarcerated. Morton always maintained that the murder was committed by a third-party intruder.
In the filing, the Innocence Project charges that Morton would never have been convicted of the crime if the prosecution had turned over as required evidence pointing to his innocence. Newly discovered evidence that was uncovered through a Public Records Act request that was not given to the defense includes:
• A transcript of a taped interview by the chief investigator, Sgt. Don Wood, with the victim’s mother where the mother says that the couple’s three-year-old child witnessed the murder and provided a chilling account of watching a man who was not his father beat Christine to death.
• A handwritten telephone message to Williamson County Sherriff’s Office (WCSO) Sgt. Wood dated two days after the murder reporting that what appeared to be Christine Morton’s missing Visa card was recovered at the Jewel Box store in San Antonio, with a note indicating that a police officer in San Antonio would be able to identify the woman who attempted to use the card.
• A report by WCSO officer Traylor that a neighbor had “on several occasions observed a male park a green van on the street behind [the Morton’s] address, then the subject would get out and walk into the wooded area off the road.”
• An internal, typewritten WCSO message to Sgt. Wood and follow up correspondence reporting that a check made out to Christine Morton by a man named John B. Cross was cashed with Christine’s forged signature nine days after her murder.
"The prosecution’s complete disregard for the truth in this case is stunning," said Nina Morrison, a Senior Staff Attorney with the Innocence Project. "Rather than try to get to the bottom of what really happened, the prosecution went to great lengths to keep evidence pointing to Mr. Morton’s innocence from his lawyers, blatantly ignoring direct orders from the judge who conducted a review of the evidence. This case and the other tragic murder that might have been prevented if the leads had been investigated will hopefully spur the Legislature to enact legislation requiring open file discovery in every case."
All of the newly discovered evidence supports Morton’s insistence that the crime was committed by a third-party intruder who committed the murder for money. Had these leads been investigated, the police may have been able to capture the real perpetrator who it appears went on to commit at least one similar murder in Travis County. During the trial, defense attorneys suspected something was amiss when they learned that prosecutors did not intend to call Sgt. Wood to testify and specifically raised with the court the possibility that information about Morton’s innocence may not have been turned over. The court ordered a review of all the police reports prepared by Sgt. Wood, and the prosecutor made assurances to the court that he would confer with Sgt. Wood to make sure that all documents were turned over for review. On August 26, 2011, the sealed file containing the documents that were given to the trial judge was opened and reviewed by the present court and parties. The exculpatory documents that the Innocence Project received through the Open Records Act were not included in the file reviewed by the trial judge.
Morton has always maintained his innocence of the murder of his wife, Christine, who was found dead in their home by a neighbor the morning of August 13, 1986. At trial, the prosecution argued that Morton beat his wife to death after she refused to have sex with him upon returning from his 32nd birthday celebration at a restaurant. There were no witnesses or physical evidence linking Morton to the crime. The prosecution relied largely on the fact that Morton left a note to Christine on the bathroom vanity expressing his disappointment with the fact that she fell asleep on him. (The note closed with the words “I love you.”) Morton’s co-workers testified that he arrived at work at about 6 a.m. that morning and didn’t notice anything unusual about his behavior.
Download documents from the case:
The writ of habeas corpus cover form filed by the Innocence Project.
The memorandum in support of the writ.
A copy of the agreed findings of facts.
Morton is represented by Scheck and Morrison at the Innocence Project, John Raley with Raley & Bowick in Houston, TX, and Gerry Goldstein and Cynthia Orr with Goldstein, Goldstein & Hilley in San Antonio, TX.
The Innocence Project
40 Worth St. Suite 701
New York, NY 10013
212.364.5983
asalzberg@innocenceproject.org
Contact: Paul Cates, 212/364-5346, pcates@innocenceproject.org
(Austin, TX – October 4, 2011) Michael Morton walked out of a Williamson County courtroom today after his 1987 murder conviction was overturned because of new DNA evidence pointing to another man. Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley joined with the Innocence Project in seeking Morton’s release after it was discovered that the DNA of an unnamed male linked to the Morton crime through a bandana that also contained the blood of the victim was also found at the scene of a later murder in Travis County. The unnamed male is now under investigation for both crimes. Morton served nearly 25 years in prison before being released.
“Mr. Morton was the victim of serious prosecutorial misconduct that caused him to lose 25 years of his life and completely ripped apart his family. Perhaps even more tragically, we now know that another murder might have been prevented if law enforcement had continued its investigation rather than building a false case against Mr. Morton,” said Barry Scheck, Co-Director of the Innocence Project, which is affiliated with Cardozo School of Law. “This tragic miscarriage of justice must be fully investigated and steps must be taken to hold police and prosecutors accountable.”
In August, the Innocence Project announced that DNA testing on a bandana found near the Morton’s home where the murder occurred contained the blood of the victim, Christine Morton, and a male other than Morton. According to the papers filed by the Innocence Project yesterday, new DNA testing has connected the male DNA on the bandana to a hair that was found at the crime scene of a Travis County murder that was conducted with a similar modus operandi after Morton was incarcerated. Morton always maintained that the murder was committed by a third-party intruder.
In the filing, the Innocence Project charges that Morton would never have been convicted of the crime if the prosecution had turned over as required evidence pointing to his innocence. Newly discovered evidence that was uncovered through a Public Records Act request that was not given to the defense includes:
• A transcript of a taped interview by the chief investigator, Sgt. Don Wood, with the victim’s mother where the mother says that the couple’s three-year-old child witnessed the murder and provided a chilling account of watching a man who was not his father beat Christine to death.
• A handwritten telephone message to Williamson County Sherriff’s Office (WCSO) Sgt. Wood dated two days after the murder reporting that what appeared to be Christine Morton’s missing Visa card was recovered at the Jewel Box store in San Antonio, with a note indicating that a police officer in San Antonio would be able to identify the woman who attempted to use the card.
• A report by WCSO officer Traylor that a neighbor had “on several occasions observed a male park a green van on the street behind [the Morton’s] address, then the subject would get out and walk into the wooded area off the road.”
• An internal, typewritten WCSO message to Sgt. Wood and follow up correspondence reporting that a check made out to Christine Morton by a man named John B. Cross was cashed with Christine’s forged signature nine days after her murder.
"The prosecution’s complete disregard for the truth in this case is stunning," said Nina Morrison, a Senior Staff Attorney with the Innocence Project. "Rather than try to get to the bottom of what really happened, the prosecution went to great lengths to keep evidence pointing to Mr. Morton’s innocence from his lawyers, blatantly ignoring direct orders from the judge who conducted a review of the evidence. This case and the other tragic murder that might have been prevented if the leads had been investigated will hopefully spur the Legislature to enact legislation requiring open file discovery in every case."
All of the newly discovered evidence supports Morton’s insistence that the crime was committed by a third-party intruder who committed the murder for money. Had these leads been investigated, the police may have been able to capture the real perpetrator who it appears went on to commit at least one similar murder in Travis County. During the trial, defense attorneys suspected something was amiss when they learned that prosecutors did not intend to call Sgt. Wood to testify and specifically raised with the court the possibility that information about Morton’s innocence may not have been turned over. The court ordered a review of all the police reports prepared by Sgt. Wood, and the prosecutor made assurances to the court that he would confer with Sgt. Wood to make sure that all documents were turned over for review. On August 26, 2011, the sealed file containing the documents that were given to the trial judge was opened and reviewed by the present court and parties. The exculpatory documents that the Innocence Project received through the Open Records Act were not included in the file reviewed by the trial judge.
Morton has always maintained his innocence of the murder of his wife, Christine, who was found dead in their home by a neighbor the morning of August 13, 1986. At trial, the prosecution argued that Morton beat his wife to death after she refused to have sex with him upon returning from his 32nd birthday celebration at a restaurant. There were no witnesses or physical evidence linking Morton to the crime. The prosecution relied largely on the fact that Morton left a note to Christine on the bathroom vanity expressing his disappointment with the fact that she fell asleep on him. (The note closed with the words “I love you.”) Morton’s co-workers testified that he arrived at work at about 6 a.m. that morning and didn’t notice anything unusual about his behavior.
Download documents from the case:
The writ of habeas corpus cover form filed by the Innocence Project.
The memorandum in support of the writ.
A copy of the agreed findings of facts.
Morton is represented by Scheck and Morrison at the Innocence Project, John Raley with Raley & Bowick in Houston, TX, and Gerry Goldstein and Cynthia Orr with Goldstein, Goldstein & Hilley in San Antonio, TX.
The War on Regulations Masters of the Big Lie by RALPH NADER
OCTOBER 04, 2011
Masters of the repeated lying sound byte, the craven Congressional Republicans are feasting on the health and safety of the American people with gleeful greed while making the corporate and trade association media swoon. “Job-killing regulations,” exudes daily from the mouths of Speak John Boehner, his Wall Street-licking side-kick Eric Candor and Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell.
Then all the way down the line, the Republicans are on cue bellowing “job-killing regulations” must be revoked or stopped aborning over at OSHA (protecting workers), EPA (protecting clean air and water), FDA (safer drugs and food), and NHTSA (making your vehicle safer). Imagine how much more civil servants could do to accomplish the statutory missions of their respective agencies if they could get the Republicans and their corporate pay masters off their backs.
These same Republicans get in their cars with their children and put on their seat belts. Out of sight are the air bags ready to deprive them of their freedom to go through the windshield in a crash. Who makes those seat belts and air bags? Workers in the USA.
The jobs these regulations may be “killing” are those that would have swelled the funeral industry, or some jobs in the healthcare and disability-care industry. On the other hand, by not being injured, workers stay on the job and do not drain the workers’ compensation funds or hamper the operations of their employer.
About twenty years ago, Professor Nicholas Ashford of MIT came to Washington and testified before Congress in great detail about how and where safety regulations create jobs and make the economy more efficient in avoiding the costs of preventable injuries and disease. He received a respectful hearing from members of the Committee. It is doubtful whether Messers Boehner, Cantor, McConnell and Dr. Coburn (Senator from Oklahoma) are reading Professor Ashford these days, who just co-authored a book with Ralph P. Hall called Technology, Globalization, and Sustainable Development.
The corporatist Republicans’ minds are made up; don’t bother them with the facts. But we must keep trying to dissolve the Big Lie.
In 2009 Professor David Hemenway published a stirring book titled While We Were Sleeping: Success Stories in Injury and Violence Prevention which in clear language described the success stories of people, often with the support of a past, more enlightened Congress, made lives safer and healthier in the U.S. Yes, life-saving, injury-preventing, disease-stopping regulations resulting in life-sustaining technology produced by American industry and workers.
Wake up Democrats. Learn the political art of truthful repetition to counter the cruelest Republicans who ever crawled up Capitol Hill. You’ve got massive, documented materials to put the Lie to the Republicans.
President Obama should set an example. For instance, on September 2, 2011 President Obama fell for the regulation costs jobs lie. He said: “[I] have continued to underscore the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover.”
Pete Altman, from the Natural Resources Defense Council wrote:
“In reversing his Administration’s previously strong support for ozone regulations to protect the health of American children, President Obama (in the words of one observer): ’drank the conservative Kool-Aid’, and agreed that tightening ozone emission rules would have cost billions and hurt the economy. But clean air is very popular politically, and the EPA’s own studies show that a tighter standard could have created $17 billion in economic benefits.”
Earlier this month, Public Citizen issued a report about five regulations that spurred innovation and a higher quality of economic growth. As one of the authors Negah Mouzoon wrote, when federal agencies implement rules for efficiency, worker safety, or public health and welfare, companies need to reformulate their products and services to comply. And so begins good ol’ American competition. To comply with federal standards, companies need to invest in research and development, which often yields to new products and systems that both solve public policy problems and, often, boost business. The result? A brighter idea emerges.
It is important to note that such regulations give companies lengthy lead times to comply and, under the daily sandpapering of corporate lobbyists, regulations issued lose much of their early industry-controlling reach.
Here are the report’s five innovation-spurring products or processes that at their outset encountered significant industry resistance and inflated estimates of complying with the regulations. Before that is, the companies came to their senses, responded and found that such changes were not just good for the people but for their own bottom line.
1. Protect energy-efficient light bulbs.
2. Reducing sulfur dioxide emissions.
3. Preventing ozone-layer-destroying CFC emissions from aerosols.
4. Improving the energy efficiency of home appliances.
5. Utilizing energy-efficient light bulbs.
For the full report go to http://www.citizen.org/regulation-innovation.
Maybe some “kids”—between the ages of 10 and 12 – having learned from their parents the importance of telling the truth, can start a Kiddy Corps for a Truthful Congress drawn from the Internet-savvy children all over the U.S. What a wonderful expression of grassroots truth-telling directed toward the Great Prevaricators on Capitol Hill. Yes –job-producing, life-saving, economy-stimulating, innovation-producing regulations for a more secure future for our children.
Interested parents may contact us at info@csrl.org.
Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer and author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!
Masters of the repeated lying sound byte, the craven Congressional Republicans are feasting on the health and safety of the American people with gleeful greed while making the corporate and trade association media swoon. “Job-killing regulations,” exudes daily from the mouths of Speak John Boehner, his Wall Street-licking side-kick Eric Candor and Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell.
Then all the way down the line, the Republicans are on cue bellowing “job-killing regulations” must be revoked or stopped aborning over at OSHA (protecting workers), EPA (protecting clean air and water), FDA (safer drugs and food), and NHTSA (making your vehicle safer). Imagine how much more civil servants could do to accomplish the statutory missions of their respective agencies if they could get the Republicans and their corporate pay masters off their backs.
These same Republicans get in their cars with their children and put on their seat belts. Out of sight are the air bags ready to deprive them of their freedom to go through the windshield in a crash. Who makes those seat belts and air bags? Workers in the USA.
The jobs these regulations may be “killing” are those that would have swelled the funeral industry, or some jobs in the healthcare and disability-care industry. On the other hand, by not being injured, workers stay on the job and do not drain the workers’ compensation funds or hamper the operations of their employer.
About twenty years ago, Professor Nicholas Ashford of MIT came to Washington and testified before Congress in great detail about how and where safety regulations create jobs and make the economy more efficient in avoiding the costs of preventable injuries and disease. He received a respectful hearing from members of the Committee. It is doubtful whether Messers Boehner, Cantor, McConnell and Dr. Coburn (Senator from Oklahoma) are reading Professor Ashford these days, who just co-authored a book with Ralph P. Hall called Technology, Globalization, and Sustainable Development.
The corporatist Republicans’ minds are made up; don’t bother them with the facts. But we must keep trying to dissolve the Big Lie.
In 2009 Professor David Hemenway published a stirring book titled While We Were Sleeping: Success Stories in Injury and Violence Prevention which in clear language described the success stories of people, often with the support of a past, more enlightened Congress, made lives safer and healthier in the U.S. Yes, life-saving, injury-preventing, disease-stopping regulations resulting in life-sustaining technology produced by American industry and workers.
Wake up Democrats. Learn the political art of truthful repetition to counter the cruelest Republicans who ever crawled up Capitol Hill. You’ve got massive, documented materials to put the Lie to the Republicans.
President Obama should set an example. For instance, on September 2, 2011 President Obama fell for the regulation costs jobs lie. He said: “[I] have continued to underscore the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover.”
Pete Altman, from the Natural Resources Defense Council wrote:
“In reversing his Administration’s previously strong support for ozone regulations to protect the health of American children, President Obama (in the words of one observer): ’drank the conservative Kool-Aid’, and agreed that tightening ozone emission rules would have cost billions and hurt the economy. But clean air is very popular politically, and the EPA’s own studies show that a tighter standard could have created $17 billion in economic benefits.”
Earlier this month, Public Citizen issued a report about five regulations that spurred innovation and a higher quality of economic growth. As one of the authors Negah Mouzoon wrote, when federal agencies implement rules for efficiency, worker safety, or public health and welfare, companies need to reformulate their products and services to comply. And so begins good ol’ American competition. To comply with federal standards, companies need to invest in research and development, which often yields to new products and systems that both solve public policy problems and, often, boost business. The result? A brighter idea emerges.
It is important to note that such regulations give companies lengthy lead times to comply and, under the daily sandpapering of corporate lobbyists, regulations issued lose much of their early industry-controlling reach.
Here are the report’s five innovation-spurring products or processes that at their outset encountered significant industry resistance and inflated estimates of complying with the regulations. Before that is, the companies came to their senses, responded and found that such changes were not just good for the people but for their own bottom line.
1. Protect energy-efficient light bulbs.
2. Reducing sulfur dioxide emissions.
3. Preventing ozone-layer-destroying CFC emissions from aerosols.
4. Improving the energy efficiency of home appliances.
5. Utilizing energy-efficient light bulbs.
For the full report go to http://www.citizen.org/regulation-innovation.
Maybe some “kids”—between the ages of 10 and 12 – having learned from their parents the importance of telling the truth, can start a Kiddy Corps for a Truthful Congress drawn from the Internet-savvy children all over the U.S. What a wonderful expression of grassroots truth-telling directed toward the Great Prevaricators on Capitol Hill. Yes –job-producing, life-saving, economy-stimulating, innovation-producing regulations for a more secure future for our children.
Interested parents may contact us at info@csrl.org.
Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer and author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!
Assassinating Awlaki The Day America Died by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
OCTOBER 04, 2011
September 30, 2011 was the day America was assassinated.
Some of us have watched this day approach and have warned of its coming, only to be greeted with boos and hisses from “patriots” who have come to regard the US Constitution as a device that coddles criminals and terrorists and gets in the way of the President who needs to act to keep us safe.
In our book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, Lawrence Stratton and I showed that long before 9/11 US law had ceased to be a shield of the people and had been turned into a weapon in the hands of the government. The event known as 9/11 was used to raise the executive branch above the law. As long as the President sanctions an illegal act, executive branch employees are no longer accountable to the law that prohibits the illegal act. On the president’s authority, the executive branch can violate US laws against spying on Americans without warrants, indefinite detention, and torture and suffer no consequences.
Many expected President Obama to re-establish the accountability of government to law. Instead, he went further than Bush/Cheney and asserted the unconstitutional power not only to hold American citizens indefinitely in prison without bringing charges, but also to take their lives without convicting them in a court of law. Obama asserts that the US Constitution notwithstanding, he has the authority to assassinate US citizens, who he deems to be a “threat,” without due process of law.
In other words, any American citizen who is moved into the threat category has no rights and can be executed without trial or evidence.
On September 30 Obama used this asserted new power of the president and had two American citizens, Anwar Awlaki and Samir Khan murdered. Khan was a wacky character associated with Inspire Magazine and does not readily come to mind as a serious threat.
Awlaki was a moderate American Muslim cleric who served as an advisor to the US government after 9/11 on ways to counter Muslim extremism. Awlaki was gradually radicalized by Washington’s use of lies to justify military attacks on Muslim countries. He became a critic of the US government and told Muslims that they did not have to passively accept American aggression and had the right to resist and to fight back. As a result Awlaki was demonized and became a threat.
All we know that Awlaki did was to give sermons critical of Washington’s indiscriminate assaults on Muslim peoples. Washington’s argument is that his sermons might have had an influence on some who are accused of attempting terrorist acts, thus making Awlaki responsible for the attempts.
Obama’s assertion that Awlaki was some kind of high-level Al Qaeda operative is merely an assertion. Jason Ditz on antiwar.com concluded that the reason Awlaki was murdered rather than brought to trial is that the US government had no real evidence that Awlaki was an Al Qaeda operative.
Having murdered its critic, the Obama Regime is working hard to posthumously promote Awlaki to a leadership position in Al Qaeda. The presstitutes and the worshippers of America’s First Black President have fallen in line and regurgitated the assertions that Awlaki was a high-level dangerous Al Qaeda terrorist. If Al Qaeda sees value in Awlaki as a martyr, the organization will give credence to these claims. However, so far no one has provided any evidence. Keep in mind that all we know about Awlaki is what Washington claims and that the US has been at war for a decade based on false claims.
But what Awlaki did or might have done is beside the point. The US Constitution requires that even the worst murderer cannot be punished until he is convicted in a court of law. When the American Civil Liberties Union challenged in federal court Obama’s assertion that he had the power to order assassinations of American citizens, the Obama Justice (sic) Department argued that Obama’s decision to have Americans murdered was an executive power beyond the reach of the judiciary.
In a decision that sealed America’s fate, federal district court judge John Bates ignored the Constitution’s requirement that no person shall be deprived of life without due process of law and dismissed the case, saying that it was up to Congress to decide. Obama acted before an appeal could be heard, thus using Judge Bates’ acquiescence to establish the power and advance the transformation of the president into a Caesar that began under George W. Bush.
Attorneys Glenn Greenwald and Jonathan Turley point out that Awlaki’s assassination terminated the Constitution’s restraint on the power of government. Now the US government not only can seize a US citizen and confine him in prison for the rest of his life without ever presenting evidence and obtaining a conviction, but also can have him shot down in the street or blown up by a drone.
Before some readers write to declare that Awlaki’s murder is no big deal because the US government has always had people murdered, keep in mind that CIA assassinations were of foreign opponents and were not publicly proclaimed events, much less a claim by the president to be above the law. Indeed, such assassinations were denied, not claimed as legitimate actions of the President of the United States.
The Ohio National Guardsmen who shot Kent State students as they protested the US invasion of Cambodia in 1970 made no claim to be carrying out an executive branch decision. Eight of the guardsmen were indicted by a grand jury. The guardsmen entered a self-defense plea. Most Americans were angry at war protestors and blamed the students. The judiciary got the message, and the criminal case was eventually dismissed. The civil case (wrongful death and injury) was settled for $675,000 and a statement of regret by the defendants.
The point isn’t that the government killed people. The point is that never prior to President Obama has a President asserted the power to murder citizens.
Over the last 20 years, the United States has had its own Mein Kampf transformation. Terry Eastland’s book, Energy in the Executive: The Case for the Strong Presidency, presented ideas associated with the Federalist Society, an organization of Republican lawyers that works to reduce legislative and judicial restraints on executive power. Under the cover of wartime emergencies (the war on terror), the Bush/Cheney regime employed these arguments to free the president from accountability to law and to liberate Americans from their civil liberties. War and national security provided the opening for the asserted new powers, and a mixture of fear and desire for revenge for 9/11 led Congress, the judiciary, and the people to go along with the dangerous precedents.
As civilian and military leaders have been telling us for years, the war on terror is a 30-year project. After such time has passed, the presidency will have completed its transformation into Caesarism, and there will be no going back.
Indeed, as the neoconservative “Project For A New American Century” makes clear, the war on terror is only an opening for the neoconservative imperial ambition to establish US hegemony over the world.
As wars of aggression or imperial ambition are war crimes under international law, such wars require doctrines that elevate the leader above the law and the Geneva Conventions, as Bush was elevated by his Justice (sic) Department with minimal judicial and legislative interference.
Illegal and unconstitutional actions also require a silencing of critics and punishment of those who reveal government crimes. Thus Bradley Manning has been held for a year, mainly in solitary confinement under abusive conditions, without any charges being presented against him. A federal grand jury is at work concocting spy charges against Wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange. Another federal grand jury is at work concocting terrorists charges against antiwar activists.
“Terrorist” and “giving aid to terrorists” are increasingly elastic concepts. Homeland Security has declared that the vast federal police bureaucracy has shifted its focus from terrorists to “domestic extremists.”
It is possible that Awlaki was assassinated because he was an effective critic of the US government. Police states do not originate fully fledged. Initially, they justify their illegal acts by demonizing their targets and in this way create the precedents for unaccountable power. Once the government equates critics with giving “aid and comfort” to terrorists, as they are doing with antiwar activists and Assange, or with terrorism itself, as Obama did with Awlaki, it will only be a short step to bringing accusations against Glenn Greenwald and the ACLU.
The Obama Regime, like the Bush/Cheney Regime, is a regime that does not want to be constrained by law. And neither will its successor. Those fighting to uphold the rule of law, humanity’s greatest achievement, will find themselves lumped together with the regime’s opponents and be treated as such.
This great danger that hovers over America is unrecognized by the majority of the people. When Obama announced before a military gathering his success in assassinating an American citizen, cheers erupted. The Obama regime and the media played the event as a repeat of the (claimed) killing of Osama bin Laden. Two “enemies of the people” have been triumphantly dispatched. That the President of the United States was proudly proclaiming to a cheering audience sworn to defend the Constitution that he was a murderer and that he had also assassinated the US Constitution is extraordinary evidence that Americans are incapable of recognizing the threat to their liberty.
Emotionally, the people have accepted the new powers of the president. If the president can have American citizens assassinated, there is no big deal about torturing them. Amnesty International has sent out an alert that the US Senate is poised to pass legislation that would keep Guantanamo Prison open indefinitely and that Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) might introduce a provision that would legalize “enhanced interrogation techniques,” an euphemism for torture.
Instead of seeing the danger, most Americans will merely conclude that the government is getting tough on terrorists, and it will meet with their approval. Smiling with satisfaction over the demise of their enemies, Americans are being led down the garden path to rule by government unrestrained by law and armed with the weapons of the medieval dungeon.
Americans have overwhelming evidence from news reports and YouTube videos of US police brutally abusing women, children, and the elderly, of brutal treatment and murder of prisoners not only in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and secret CIA prisons abroad, but also in state and federal prisons in the US. Power over the defenseless attracts people of a brutal and evil disposition.
A brutal disposition now infects the US military. The leaked video of US soldiers delighting, as their words and actions reveal, in their murder from the air of civilians and news service camera men walking innocently along a city street shows soldiers and officers devoid of humanity and military discipline. Excited by the thrill of murder, our troops repeated their crime when a father with two small children stopped to give aid to the wounded and were machine-gunned.
So many instances: the rape of a young girl and murder of her entire family; innocent civilians murdered and AK-47s placed by their side as “evidence” of insurgency; the enjoyment experienced not only by high school dropouts from torturing they-knew-not- who in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, but also by educated CIA operatives and Ph.D. psychologists. And no one held accountable for these crimes except two lowly soldiers prominently featured in some of the torture photographs.
What do Americans think will be their fate now that the “war on terror” has destroyed the protection once afforded them by the US Constitution? If Awlaki really needed to be assassinated, why did not President Obama protect American citizens from the precedent that their deaths can be ordered without due process of law by first stripping Awlaki of his US citizenship? If the government can strip Awlaki of his life, it certainly can strip him of citizenship. The implication is hard to avoid that the executive branch desires the power to terminate citizens without due process of law.
Governments escape the accountability of law in stages. Washington understands that its justifications for its wars are contrived and indefensible. President Obama even went so far as to declare that the military assault that he authorized on Libya without consulting Congress was not a war, and, therefore, he could ignore the War Powers Resolution of 1973, a federal law intended to check the power of the President to commit the US to an armed conflict without the consent of Congress.
Americans are beginning to unwrap themselves from the flag. Some are beginning to grasp that initially they were led into Afghanistan for revenge for 9/11. From there they were led into Iraq for reasons that turned out to be false. They see more and more US military interventions: Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and now calls for invasion of Pakistan and continued saber rattling for attacks on Syria, Lebanon, and Iran. The financial cost of a decade of the “war against terror” is starting to come home. Exploding annual federal budget deficits and national debt threaten Medicare and Social Security. Debt ceiling limits threaten government shut-downs.
War critics are beginning to have an audience. The government cannot begin its silencing of critics by bringing charges against US Representatives Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich. It begins with antiwar protestors, who are elevated into “antiwar activists,” perhaps a step below “domestic extremists.” Washington begins with citizens who are demonized Muslim clerics radicalized by Washington’s wars on Muslims. In this way, Washington establishes the precedent that war protestors give encouragement and, thus, aid, to terrorists. It establishes the precedent that those Americans deemed a threat are not protected by law. This is the slippery slope on which we now find ourselves.
Last year the Obama Regime tested the prospects of its strategy when Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence, announced that the government had a list of American citizens that it was going to assassinate abroad. This announcement, had it been made in earlier times by, for example, Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan, would have produced a national uproar and calls for impeachment. However, Blair’s announcement caused hardly a ripple. All that remained for the regime to do was to establish the policy by exercising it.
Readers ask me what they can do. Americans not only feel powerless, they are powerless. They cannot do anything. The highly concentrated, corporate-owned, government-subservient print and TV media are useless and no longer capable of performing the historic role of protecting our rights and holding government accountable. Even many antiwar Internet sites shield the government from 9/11 skepticism, and most defend the government’s “righteous intent” in its war on terror. Acceptable criticism has to be couched in words such as “it doesn’t serve our interests.”
Voting has no effect. President “Change” is worse than Bush/Cheney. As Jonathan Turley suggests, Obama is “the most disastrous president in our history.” Ron Paul is the only presidential candidate who stands up for the Constitution, but the majority of Americans are too unconcerned with the Constitution to appreciate him.
To expect salvation from an election is delusional. All you can do, if you are young enough, is to leave the country. The only future for Americans is a nightmare.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury, Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal, and professor of economics in six universities. His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, was published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
THE WAY OUT OF THE GLOBAL RECESSION
How to end the global recession: more public spending and financial reform.
By Joseph E. Stiglitz | Posted Monday, Oct. 3, 2011, at 5:52 PM ET
| Posted Monday, Oct. 3, 2011, at 5:52 PM ET
There is only one way out of the global recession, and government must lead the way.
As the economic slump that began in 2007 continues, the question persists: Why? Unless we have a better understanding of the causes of the crisis, we can’t implement an effective recovery strategy. So far, we have neither.
We were told that this was a financial crisis, so governments on both sides of the Atlantic focused on the banks. Stimulus programs were sold as being a temporary palliative, needed to bridge the gap until the financial sector recovered and private lending resumed. But, while bank profitability and bonuses have returned, lending has not recovered, despite record-low long- and short-term interest rates.
The banks claim that lending remains constrained by a shortage of creditworthy borrowers. And key data indicate that they are at least partly right. After all, large enterprises are sitting on a few trillion dollars in cash, so money is not what is holding them back from investing and hiring. Some (perhaps many) small businesses are, however, in a very different position: Strapped for funds, they can’t grow, and many are being forced to contract.
Still, overall, business investment—excluding construction—has returned to 10 percent of GDP (from 10.6 percent before the crisis). With so much excess capacity in real estate, confidence will not recover to its pre-crisis levels anytime soon, regardless of what is done to the banking sector. The financial sector’s inexcusable recklessness, given free rein by mindless deregulation, was the obvious precipitating factor of the crisis. The legacy of excess real-estate capacity and over-leveraged households makes recovery all the more difficult.
But the economy was very sick before the crisis; the housing bubble merely papered over its weaknesses. Without bubble-supported consumption, there would have been a massive shortfall in aggregate demand. Instead, the personal savings rate plunged to 1 percent, and the bottom 80 percent of Americans were spending, every year, roughly 110 percent of their income. Even if the financial sector were fully repaired, and even if these profligate Americans hadn’t learned a lesson about the importance of saving, their consumption would be limited to 100 percent of their income. So anyone who talks about the consumer “coming back”—even after deleveraging—is living in a fantasy world.
Fixing the financial sector was necessary, but far from sufficient, for economic recovery. To understand what needs to be done, we have to understand the economy’s problems before the crisis hit.
First, America and the world were victims of their own success. Rapid productivity increases in manufacturing had outpaced growth in demand, which meant that manufacturing employment decreased. Labor had to shift to services. The problems are not dissimilar to those of the early 20 century, when rapid productivity growth in agriculture forced labor to move from rural areas to urban manufacturing centers. With a decline in farm income in excess of 50 percent from 1929 to 1932, one might have anticipated massive migration. But workers were “trapped” in the rural sector: They didn’t have the resources to move, and their declining incomes so weakened aggregate demand that urban/manufacturing unemployment soared.
For America and Europe, the need for labor to move out of manufacturing is compounded by shifting comparative advantage: Not only is the total number of manufacturing jobs limited globally, but a smaller share of those jobs will be local.
Globalization has been one, but only one, of the factors contributing to the second key problem: growing inequality. Shifting income from those who would spend it to those who won’t lowers aggregate demand. By the same token, soaring energy prices shifted purchasing power from the United States and Europe to oil exporters, who, recognizing the volatility of energy prices, rightly saved much of this income.
The final problem contributing to weakness in global aggregate demand was emerging markets’ massive buildup of foreign-exchange reserves—partly motivated by the mismanagement of the 1997-98 East Asia crisis by the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Treasury. Countries recognized that without reserves, they risked losing their economic sovereignty. Many said, “Never again.” But, while the buildup of reserves—currently around $7.6 trillion in emerging and developing economies—protected them, money going into reserves was money not spent.
Where are we today in addressing these underlying problems? To take the last one first, those countries that built up large reserves were able to weather the economic crisis better, so the incentive to accumulate reserves is even stronger.
Similarly, while bankers have regained their bonuses, workers are seeing their wages eroded and their hours diminished, further widening the income gap. Moreover, the United States has not shaken off its dependence on oil. With oil prices back above $100 a barrel this summer (and still high), money is once again being transferred to the oil-exporting countries. And the structural transformation of the advanced economies, implied by the need to move labor out of traditional manufacturing branches, is occurring very slowly.
Government plays a central role in financing the services that people want, such as education and health care. And government-financed education and training, in particular, will be critical in restoring competitiveness in Europe and the United States. But both have chosen fiscal austerity, all but ensuring that their economies’ transitions will be slow.
The prescription for what ails the global economy follows directly from the diagnosis: strong government expenditures, aimed at facilitating restructuring, promoting energy conservation, and reducing inequality, and a reform of the global financial system that creates an alternative to the buildup of reserves. Eventually, the world’s leaders, and the voters who elect them, will come to recognize this. As growth prospects continue to weaken, they will have no choice. But how much pain will we have to bear in the meantime?
By Joseph E. Stiglitz | Posted Monday, Oct. 3, 2011, at 5:52 PM ET
| Posted Monday, Oct. 3, 2011, at 5:52 PM ET
There is only one way out of the global recession, and government must lead the way.
As the economic slump that began in 2007 continues, the question persists: Why? Unless we have a better understanding of the causes of the crisis, we can’t implement an effective recovery strategy. So far, we have neither.
We were told that this was a financial crisis, so governments on both sides of the Atlantic focused on the banks. Stimulus programs were sold as being a temporary palliative, needed to bridge the gap until the financial sector recovered and private lending resumed. But, while bank profitability and bonuses have returned, lending has not recovered, despite record-low long- and short-term interest rates.
The banks claim that lending remains constrained by a shortage of creditworthy borrowers. And key data indicate that they are at least partly right. After all, large enterprises are sitting on a few trillion dollars in cash, so money is not what is holding them back from investing and hiring. Some (perhaps many) small businesses are, however, in a very different position: Strapped for funds, they can’t grow, and many are being forced to contract.
Still, overall, business investment—excluding construction—has returned to 10 percent of GDP (from 10.6 percent before the crisis). With so much excess capacity in real estate, confidence will not recover to its pre-crisis levels anytime soon, regardless of what is done to the banking sector. The financial sector’s inexcusable recklessness, given free rein by mindless deregulation, was the obvious precipitating factor of the crisis. The legacy of excess real-estate capacity and over-leveraged households makes recovery all the more difficult.
But the economy was very sick before the crisis; the housing bubble merely papered over its weaknesses. Without bubble-supported consumption, there would have been a massive shortfall in aggregate demand. Instead, the personal savings rate plunged to 1 percent, and the bottom 80 percent of Americans were spending, every year, roughly 110 percent of their income. Even if the financial sector were fully repaired, and even if these profligate Americans hadn’t learned a lesson about the importance of saving, their consumption would be limited to 100 percent of their income. So anyone who talks about the consumer “coming back”—even after deleveraging—is living in a fantasy world.
Fixing the financial sector was necessary, but far from sufficient, for economic recovery. To understand what needs to be done, we have to understand the economy’s problems before the crisis hit.
First, America and the world were victims of their own success. Rapid productivity increases in manufacturing had outpaced growth in demand, which meant that manufacturing employment decreased. Labor had to shift to services. The problems are not dissimilar to those of the early 20 century, when rapid productivity growth in agriculture forced labor to move from rural areas to urban manufacturing centers. With a decline in farm income in excess of 50 percent from 1929 to 1932, one might have anticipated massive migration. But workers were “trapped” in the rural sector: They didn’t have the resources to move, and their declining incomes so weakened aggregate demand that urban/manufacturing unemployment soared.
For America and Europe, the need for labor to move out of manufacturing is compounded by shifting comparative advantage: Not only is the total number of manufacturing jobs limited globally, but a smaller share of those jobs will be local.
Globalization has been one, but only one, of the factors contributing to the second key problem: growing inequality. Shifting income from those who would spend it to those who won’t lowers aggregate demand. By the same token, soaring energy prices shifted purchasing power from the United States and Europe to oil exporters, who, recognizing the volatility of energy prices, rightly saved much of this income.
The final problem contributing to weakness in global aggregate demand was emerging markets’ massive buildup of foreign-exchange reserves—partly motivated by the mismanagement of the 1997-98 East Asia crisis by the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Treasury. Countries recognized that without reserves, they risked losing their economic sovereignty. Many said, “Never again.” But, while the buildup of reserves—currently around $7.6 trillion in emerging and developing economies—protected them, money going into reserves was money not spent.
Where are we today in addressing these underlying problems? To take the last one first, those countries that built up large reserves were able to weather the economic crisis better, so the incentive to accumulate reserves is even stronger.
Similarly, while bankers have regained their bonuses, workers are seeing their wages eroded and their hours diminished, further widening the income gap. Moreover, the United States has not shaken off its dependence on oil. With oil prices back above $100 a barrel this summer (and still high), money is once again being transferred to the oil-exporting countries. And the structural transformation of the advanced economies, implied by the need to move labor out of traditional manufacturing branches, is occurring very slowly.
Government plays a central role in financing the services that people want, such as education and health care. And government-financed education and training, in particular, will be critical in restoring competitiveness in Europe and the United States. But both have chosen fiscal austerity, all but ensuring that their economies’ transitions will be slow.
The prescription for what ails the global economy follows directly from the diagnosis: strong government expenditures, aimed at facilitating restructuring, promoting energy conservation, and reducing inequality, and a reform of the global financial system that creates an alternative to the buildup of reserves. Eventually, the world’s leaders, and the voters who elect them, will come to recognize this. As growth prospects continue to weaken, they will have no choice. But how much pain will we have to bear in the meantime?
Via SLATE: Gringo Gulch, Dago Spring, and Polack Swamp How many racist place names are there in the United States?
By Brian Palmer|Posted Monday, Oct. 3, 2011, at 6:04 PM ET
Texas Gov. Rick Perry
Photo by Michael Nagle/Getty Images.
The family of GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry owns a hunting camp in Texas known to many locals as “Niggerhead,” a name that appears on a large rock on the property. Perry claims his father painted over the name as soon as he bought the land, although some in the area dispute the governor’s timeline. Niggerhead was a fairly common place name in the 19th century. How many racially offensive place names are still around?
Hundreds, at least. It’s impossible to say precisely how many offensively named towns and geographic features remain within the nation's borders. State lawmakers don't always agree with the federal government on geographical labels, and people have varying levels of sensitivity. (Is Florida’s Jew Point offensive, for example? What about Indiana’s Redskin Brook?) Government mapmakers have also been working for decades to clean up our toponyms. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names, a branch of the Interior Department, issued two blanket rules decades ago to erase racial slurs from federal maps. In 1962, they replaced “Nigger” with “Negro” in the names of at least 174 places. You can still find such locales as Free Negro Point in Louisiana and Little Negro Creek. (Negro wasn’t widely considered pejorative at the time.) Then they replaced dozens of occurrences of the word “Jap” with “Japanese” in 1974. A handful of state legislatures have also banished select racial slurs from their maps. Still, there are plenty of clearly epithetic names on the books. Consider, for example, Arizona’s Dago Spring and Gringo Gulch, New York’s Polack Swamp, and Chinaman Bayou in Louisiana, to name just a few.
Most offensively named places are in remote areas, like Rick Perry’s hunting camp. (New Mexico’s Kraut Canyon, for example, is in a county with fewer than 10 people per square mile.) If there's one in your area, think of it as an opportunity: State boards of geographic names typically welcome petitions to change controversial map labels, as long as you can suggest a suitable alternative. If you have, say, a relative with a strong connection to the area who has been dead for more than five years, you might get the naming rights.
As Mark Monmonier, a professor of geography at Syracuse University, explains in his book From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow: How Maps Name, Claim, and Inflame, it’s not always obvious whether a name is offensive, because many racial slurs have alternate meanings. A place like Coon Hollow, Colo., could be either an offensive reference to black people or a nod to a furry rodent. It’s also not known what motivated the people who named Wop Draw Valley in Wyoming.
The most controversial issue in geographic names right now is the word squaw. To many, it’s a pejorative reference to Native-American women with sexual undertones. (South Dakota’s Squaw Humper Dam, Squaw Humper Table, and Little Squaw-Humper Creek clearly employ this usage.) In 2003, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano strong-armed her state board of geographic names to change Squaw Peak near Phoenix to Piestewa Peak, after a Hopi tribe member who died in the Iraq war. Since the switch required the board to waive the five-year waiting period to honor a deceased person with a place name, one board member resigned, one skipped the vote, and another voted no. While Piestewa Peak is now federally recognized, the U.S. government still lists more than 800 places with “squaw” in their names.
Few people shed tears when the federal government eliminated the n-word from our maps, but those names can be linked to an interesting history. The Lake Ontario peninsula once called Niggerhead Point was so named because it was a stop on the Underground Railroad. The state changed the name to Negrohead Point in the 1950s, and then to Graves Point in the 1970s. The federal government, however, continues to refer to it as Negrohead Point.
The places named in this article are shown on the map below. There are hundreds of others not shown.
Got a question about today’s news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks Mark Monmonier of Syracuse University, author of From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow: How Maps Name, Claim, and Inflame.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry
Photo by Michael Nagle/Getty Images.
The family of GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry owns a hunting camp in Texas known to many locals as “Niggerhead,” a name that appears on a large rock on the property. Perry claims his father painted over the name as soon as he bought the land, although some in the area dispute the governor’s timeline. Niggerhead was a fairly common place name in the 19th century. How many racially offensive place names are still around?
Hundreds, at least. It’s impossible to say precisely how many offensively named towns and geographic features remain within the nation's borders. State lawmakers don't always agree with the federal government on geographical labels, and people have varying levels of sensitivity. (Is Florida’s Jew Point offensive, for example? What about Indiana’s Redskin Brook?) Government mapmakers have also been working for decades to clean up our toponyms. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names, a branch of the Interior Department, issued two blanket rules decades ago to erase racial slurs from federal maps. In 1962, they replaced “Nigger” with “Negro” in the names of at least 174 places. You can still find such locales as Free Negro Point in Louisiana and Little Negro Creek. (Negro wasn’t widely considered pejorative at the time.) Then they replaced dozens of occurrences of the word “Jap” with “Japanese” in 1974. A handful of state legislatures have also banished select racial slurs from their maps. Still, there are plenty of clearly epithetic names on the books. Consider, for example, Arizona’s Dago Spring and Gringo Gulch, New York’s Polack Swamp, and Chinaman Bayou in Louisiana, to name just a few.
Most offensively named places are in remote areas, like Rick Perry’s hunting camp. (New Mexico’s Kraut Canyon, for example, is in a county with fewer than 10 people per square mile.) If there's one in your area, think of it as an opportunity: State boards of geographic names typically welcome petitions to change controversial map labels, as long as you can suggest a suitable alternative. If you have, say, a relative with a strong connection to the area who has been dead for more than five years, you might get the naming rights.
As Mark Monmonier, a professor of geography at Syracuse University, explains in his book From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow: How Maps Name, Claim, and Inflame, it’s not always obvious whether a name is offensive, because many racial slurs have alternate meanings. A place like Coon Hollow, Colo., could be either an offensive reference to black people or a nod to a furry rodent. It’s also not known what motivated the people who named Wop Draw Valley in Wyoming.
The most controversial issue in geographic names right now is the word squaw. To many, it’s a pejorative reference to Native-American women with sexual undertones. (South Dakota’s Squaw Humper Dam, Squaw Humper Table, and Little Squaw-Humper Creek clearly employ this usage.) In 2003, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano strong-armed her state board of geographic names to change Squaw Peak near Phoenix to Piestewa Peak, after a Hopi tribe member who died in the Iraq war. Since the switch required the board to waive the five-year waiting period to honor a deceased person with a place name, one board member resigned, one skipped the vote, and another voted no. While Piestewa Peak is now federally recognized, the U.S. government still lists more than 800 places with “squaw” in their names.
Few people shed tears when the federal government eliminated the n-word from our maps, but those names can be linked to an interesting history. The Lake Ontario peninsula once called Niggerhead Point was so named because it was a stop on the Underground Railroad. The state changed the name to Negrohead Point in the 1950s, and then to Graves Point in the 1970s. The federal government, however, continues to refer to it as Negrohead Point.
The places named in this article are shown on the map below. There are hundreds of others not shown.
Got a question about today’s news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks Mark Monmonier of Syracuse University, author of From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow: How Maps Name, Claim, and Inflame.
BARELY MAKING SENSE OF ANY OF IT – based on an idea suggested by Chase Pomerich A MEDITATION RECALING THE STORY OF JOB INTERWOVEN WITH THE BEATITUDES
Some people go through life, cursed, as children, from birth,
With loving, supportive financially comfortable families,
Safe secure households, neighborhoods, and communities,
Wonderful and like-minded family friends who
watch out for these cursed children
And know what limits have been set on them
And promptly act when those boundaries are crossed,
Whether or not crossed intentionally or
crossed accidentally,
And furthermore, they will report these
trespasses to the judge, jury, and executioner
(In most families, these responsibilities are
delegated to and hats worn by mother).
Why cursed at first? Because ultimately, LIFE intervenes,
Circumstances are turned topsy-turvy, and
What was once comfortable and familiar, is ripped away,
As if torn from bone like flesh being devoured
by jackals, hyenas, and zombies.
And, for all appearances, lost and gone forever,
Despite the honorable, dedicated intentions of
father, mother, aunts, uncles,
grand parents, cherished friends, fellow congregants,
business associates, etc, etc, etc.
Loss of employment
the loss of a job – even the loss of a career
(The computer revolution has obsoleted entire industries,
(and those employed therein; These jobs are not returning, ever;
(One must learn to reinvent one's self, perhaps
(Many times, and perhaps at ever shorter intervals of times in between).
Loss of loved ones
Death (suicide being the most brutal form
(to those accursed and left living thereof,
(Something, sadly, was wrong all the long
(We just never saw it coming, until the beloved one is
(Now too far and too long gone to be healed, much less revived.
(Suicide is the second leading cause of death
(of our accursed children, aged 15-24).
(Could it be that being born into what for all appearances
(is a very healthy and Nurturing environment,
(could it be the accursed children are not subsequently prepared to
(Cope with these simple truths: That much of life is about loss –
(That much of life is about failure, and that our bond
(to all of humanity, now, and in All times and at all places
(is that the singular commonality of our experiences is
(Woven together with our losses, and bundled up
(with our failures, and neither loss nor
(Failure is worth the taking of one's own life. We stumble, we fall,
(All of us stumble and fall – We are expected, compelled to,
(and demanded by the Universe to ARISE and CRAWL
(so that we might once again WALK and then RUN;
(So that ultimately we might once again FLY,
(sailing among the heavens, angel-like grace.)
Loss of good health
(Disease knows no socio-economic barriers
(as the revelers in Edgar All Poe's The Mask of Red Death
(would discover: No racial divides, no gender Differentiations.
(The cursed children of doctors too, and maybe even especially,
(Fall victim to the willful, wanton, in plain sight
(secret poisoning of our mother earth
(And their own childrens' weakened immunological systems.
(Cancer the indiscriminate killer; the ultimate
(Eegalitarian Strike Force of Death.
(The addicts' poisons of choice – alcohol, heroin,
coke or a myriad of others, alone, but mostly in combination,
(especially with alcohol, the great mixer.
(Accidents too, frequently random,
(SOMETIMES (and tragically, utterly Foreseeable,
(but – too late. The AIDS virus took so many unaware,
(back in the day when THE VIRUS was but a rumor printed
(about and hinted at solely in the underground gay undergroun press.
(Who could have foreseen that an infected blood transfusion
(Administered to save a life Would ultimately take that life,
(Especially when the potential devastation of the disease
(was assuredly NOT a secret And such consequences
(utterly predictable to the health care communities
(That administered their healing efforts to gay men
(and to intravenous drug users;
(“What? Ask Prez Reagan to worry about those
(damn junkie homos? Fat chance.”)
Loss of innocence
About one of every six women in America has been
the victim of a rape of attempted rape.
Loss of faith in flag and country:
In WWII – troops with head or spinal injuries usually
died on the battlefield.
In Veit Nam – they usually died by the time
they could be flown to Germany.
In Iraq (and Afghanistan, and the other Bannanastans,
most of the brain and spinal injured
can be flown to Germany for medical treatment
and these lives are saved.
BUT, those troops who suffer from such combat injuries,
the parapeliegacs, quadrapeliegacs, and brain-damaged,
the lives of these troops will never be the same.
Their physical lives have been saved, but they now
must make major adjustments
to have anything resembling a “normal” life.
Once upon a time, loved ones prayed that their soldier
might return alive;
Now they pray that their beloved soldier returns alive,
and not have been afflicted by brain or spinal injuries.
They pray too that their beloved soldier will not
become headline news for her torturing of prisoners,
children, women too, That their soldier will not feel
compelled out of a sense of hatred of “the other”
To rape the 14-year old daughter of an Iraqi family,
and then murder hef and heretofore Family,
and then burn their home down in order to
avoid detection, and punishment.
The LOSS OF the sacred, secure, SAFE HOME – father's castle -
the loss of community standing,
The total loss of self-esteem.
The outright theft of assets by trusted financial advisers,
The sudden and (apparently) inexplicable madness
that descends and lingers.
Alzheimer's and dementia too, such are these,
as if the fates had patiently waited,
all the while targeting these cursed children.
At least SOME of these tragic events will ultimately befall
each and everyone of us, And so, cursed are they as children
who are doomed to live for years Understanding only at
the level of intellect, LOSS as grave,
LOSS as tragic, LOSS as unbearable,
as these heretofore already mentioned –
(having mentioned only a few, the numbers are legion) -
Noting only the absence of the presence
of former peers, beloved friends,
who, because of circumstances
Beyond their control, are forced to disperse,
Forced to seek out the poorer quarters
where the ragged people go
And look for the places only the ragged people know.
And yet, Devyn, through all these losses
which you have endured
You remained faithful to the one to whom
you made your wedding vows to love, honor, cherish and obey
TILL DEATH YOU DO PART.
For twenty-five years, foregoing your own blossoming career,
BECAUSE You believed in him (far more than he in himself)
to be able to support your family
` All the while so dimly and vaguely aware
that he had begun the soul-stealing
Dance with Thantos before you ever knew him;
that depression and alcoholism
Cast lots for his soul, always ending in no decision,
because who can answer that question:
“Which came first, the addiction or the depression?”
And Thantos spun him every more rapidly, until the room rolled
And he had lost all control, and his soul was up for grabs
(But even in this, he was still a beloved child or God, AND
(You all the long saw all the good in him; all the potential).
And you never cursed your God, nor the fates, nor asked, even,
The most likely question of all: “Why me, Lord?”
THAT, was never about you. That lost cause
had been writ in stone LONG before
the two of you ever knew, that perhaps,
from your union, great things would come
(As indeed, great things have come –
withness Chase; withness Reed; witness you).
And while some would develop, as a means of self defense,
A steel-hard shell around their heart,
a cast iron cage around their soul,
a minefield around their mind,
You only look at people, and see the good in them.
You could have but did not become hard-shelled,
and been forgiven for it, BUT:
You are soft-shelled
You are open-shelled
And because of all this, I give you this gift.
That you might always remember what
I most admire about you
With love to you and ALL YOU LOVE:
A Survivor's Guide to Life – du moi à toi
BLESSED ARE THEY WHO SUFFER YOUNG,
EARLY, AND OFTEN, FOR IN THEIR
YEARS OF ABJECT MISERY,
THEY SHALL KNOW THE JOY OF COMFORTING
THOSE MUCH LESS FORTUNATE THAN THEMSELVES
WHOSE NUMBERS ARE LEGION.
THUS, IN SLUMBER, WE CAN DREAM
OF JOYOUS, CAREFREE, HAPPY DAYS,
OF A KINDLER GENTLER, MORE CHIRST-LIKE EVOLVEMENT
OF HUMANOIDS INTO HUMAN KIND
WE REST AUSSED KNOWING
IN OUR HEARTS, IN OUR GUTS,
THAT ONE DAY THE CHILDREN
OF IRELAND'S PROTESTANTS
AND THE CHILDREN
OF IRELAND'S CATHOLICS WILL
SING, DANCE, LAUGH AND PLAY
WITH ONE ANOTHER,
AS ARE BEGINNING TO SO DO
THE GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT
GRANDCHILDREN OF AMERICAN
SLAVE OWNERS AND
THE GREAT-GREAT GRANDCHILDREN
OF AMERICAN SLAVES,
AS WILL THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS
OF THE PALESTINIANS, TOO,
SING, DANCE, LAUGH AND PLAY WITH
THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THE ISRAELI JEWS.
IN SHA' AHLLA
With loving, supportive financially comfortable families,
Safe secure households, neighborhoods, and communities,
Wonderful and like-minded family friends who
watch out for these cursed children
And know what limits have been set on them
And promptly act when those boundaries are crossed,
Whether or not crossed intentionally or
crossed accidentally,
And furthermore, they will report these
trespasses to the judge, jury, and executioner
(In most families, these responsibilities are
delegated to and hats worn by mother).
Why cursed at first? Because ultimately, LIFE intervenes,
Circumstances are turned topsy-turvy, and
What was once comfortable and familiar, is ripped away,
As if torn from bone like flesh being devoured
by jackals, hyenas, and zombies.
And, for all appearances, lost and gone forever,
Despite the honorable, dedicated intentions of
father, mother, aunts, uncles,
grand parents, cherished friends, fellow congregants,
business associates, etc, etc, etc.
Loss of employment
the loss of a job – even the loss of a career
(The computer revolution has obsoleted entire industries,
(and those employed therein; These jobs are not returning, ever;
(One must learn to reinvent one's self, perhaps
(Many times, and perhaps at ever shorter intervals of times in between).
Loss of loved ones
Death (suicide being the most brutal form
(to those accursed and left living thereof,
(Something, sadly, was wrong all the long
(We just never saw it coming, until the beloved one is
(Now too far and too long gone to be healed, much less revived.
(Suicide is the second leading cause of death
(of our accursed children, aged 15-24).
(Could it be that being born into what for all appearances
(is a very healthy and Nurturing environment,
(could it be the accursed children are not subsequently prepared to
(Cope with these simple truths: That much of life is about loss –
(That much of life is about failure, and that our bond
(to all of humanity, now, and in All times and at all places
(is that the singular commonality of our experiences is
(Woven together with our losses, and bundled up
(with our failures, and neither loss nor
(Failure is worth the taking of one's own life. We stumble, we fall,
(All of us stumble and fall – We are expected, compelled to,
(and demanded by the Universe to ARISE and CRAWL
(so that we might once again WALK and then RUN;
(So that ultimately we might once again FLY,
(sailing among the heavens, angel-like grace.)
Loss of good health
(Disease knows no socio-economic barriers
(as the revelers in Edgar All Poe's The Mask of Red Death
(would discover: No racial divides, no gender Differentiations.
(The cursed children of doctors too, and maybe even especially,
(Fall victim to the willful, wanton, in plain sight
(secret poisoning of our mother earth
(And their own childrens' weakened immunological systems.
(Cancer the indiscriminate killer; the ultimate
(Eegalitarian Strike Force of Death.
(The addicts' poisons of choice – alcohol, heroin,
coke or a myriad of others, alone, but mostly in combination,
(especially with alcohol, the great mixer.
(Accidents too, frequently random,
(SOMETIMES (and tragically, utterly Foreseeable,
(but – too late. The AIDS virus took so many unaware,
(back in the day when THE VIRUS was but a rumor printed
(about and hinted at solely in the underground gay undergroun press.
(Who could have foreseen that an infected blood transfusion
(Administered to save a life Would ultimately take that life,
(Especially when the potential devastation of the disease
(was assuredly NOT a secret And such consequences
(utterly predictable to the health care communities
(That administered their healing efforts to gay men
(and to intravenous drug users;
(“What? Ask Prez Reagan to worry about those
(damn junkie homos? Fat chance.”)
Loss of innocence
About one of every six women in America has been
the victim of a rape of attempted rape.
Loss of faith in flag and country:
In WWII – troops with head or spinal injuries usually
died on the battlefield.
In Veit Nam – they usually died by the time
they could be flown to Germany.
In Iraq (and Afghanistan, and the other Bannanastans,
most of the brain and spinal injured
can be flown to Germany for medical treatment
and these lives are saved.
BUT, those troops who suffer from such combat injuries,
the parapeliegacs, quadrapeliegacs, and brain-damaged,
the lives of these troops will never be the same.
Their physical lives have been saved, but they now
must make major adjustments
to have anything resembling a “normal” life.
Once upon a time, loved ones prayed that their soldier
might return alive;
Now they pray that their beloved soldier returns alive,
and not have been afflicted by brain or spinal injuries.
They pray too that their beloved soldier will not
become headline news for her torturing of prisoners,
children, women too, That their soldier will not feel
compelled out of a sense of hatred of “the other”
To rape the 14-year old daughter of an Iraqi family,
and then murder hef and heretofore Family,
and then burn their home down in order to
avoid detection, and punishment.
The LOSS OF the sacred, secure, SAFE HOME – father's castle -
the loss of community standing,
The total loss of self-esteem.
The outright theft of assets by trusted financial advisers,
The sudden and (apparently) inexplicable madness
that descends and lingers.
Alzheimer's and dementia too, such are these,
as if the fates had patiently waited,
all the while targeting these cursed children.
At least SOME of these tragic events will ultimately befall
each and everyone of us, And so, cursed are they as children
who are doomed to live for years Understanding only at
the level of intellect, LOSS as grave,
LOSS as tragic, LOSS as unbearable,
as these heretofore already mentioned –
(having mentioned only a few, the numbers are legion) -
Noting only the absence of the presence
of former peers, beloved friends,
who, because of circumstances
Beyond their control, are forced to disperse,
Forced to seek out the poorer quarters
where the ragged people go
And look for the places only the ragged people know.
And yet, Devyn, through all these losses
which you have endured
You remained faithful to the one to whom
you made your wedding vows to love, honor, cherish and obey
TILL DEATH YOU DO PART.
For twenty-five years, foregoing your own blossoming career,
BECAUSE You believed in him (far more than he in himself)
to be able to support your family
` All the while so dimly and vaguely aware
that he had begun the soul-stealing
Dance with Thantos before you ever knew him;
that depression and alcoholism
Cast lots for his soul, always ending in no decision,
because who can answer that question:
“Which came first, the addiction or the depression?”
And Thantos spun him every more rapidly, until the room rolled
And he had lost all control, and his soul was up for grabs
(But even in this, he was still a beloved child or God, AND
(You all the long saw all the good in him; all the potential).
And you never cursed your God, nor the fates, nor asked, even,
The most likely question of all: “Why me, Lord?”
THAT, was never about you. That lost cause
had been writ in stone LONG before
the two of you ever knew, that perhaps,
from your union, great things would come
(As indeed, great things have come –
withness Chase; withness Reed; witness you).
And while some would develop, as a means of self defense,
A steel-hard shell around their heart,
a cast iron cage around their soul,
a minefield around their mind,
You only look at people, and see the good in them.
You could have but did not become hard-shelled,
and been forgiven for it, BUT:
You are soft-shelled
You are open-shelled
And because of all this, I give you this gift.
That you might always remember what
I most admire about you
With love to you and ALL YOU LOVE:
A Survivor's Guide to Life – du moi à toi
BLESSED ARE THEY WHO SUFFER YOUNG,
EARLY, AND OFTEN, FOR IN THEIR
YEARS OF ABJECT MISERY,
THEY SHALL KNOW THE JOY OF COMFORTING
THOSE MUCH LESS FORTUNATE THAN THEMSELVES
WHOSE NUMBERS ARE LEGION.
THUS, IN SLUMBER, WE CAN DREAM
OF JOYOUS, CAREFREE, HAPPY DAYS,
OF A KINDLER GENTLER, MORE CHIRST-LIKE EVOLVEMENT
OF HUMANOIDS INTO HUMAN KIND
WE REST AUSSED KNOWING
IN OUR HEARTS, IN OUR GUTS,
THAT ONE DAY THE CHILDREN
OF IRELAND'S PROTESTANTS
AND THE CHILDREN
OF IRELAND'S CATHOLICS WILL
SING, DANCE, LAUGH AND PLAY
WITH ONE ANOTHER,
AS ARE BEGINNING TO SO DO
THE GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT
GRANDCHILDREN OF AMERICAN
SLAVE OWNERS AND
THE GREAT-GREAT GRANDCHILDREN
OF AMERICAN SLAVES,
AS WILL THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS
OF THE PALESTINIANS, TOO,
SING, DANCE, LAUGH AND PLAY WITH
THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THE ISRAELI JEWS.
IN SHA' AHLLA
Monday, October 3, 2011
From his Pen and Sword web site, USN (ret) commander Jeff Huber Write of WORLD WIDE WAR BUCKS - (many thanks Jeff - for your persistence in bringing these ideas up and putting them here where we the less informed may share in your knowledge
Monday, October 03, 2011
Preview: World Wide War Bucks
I was revolted enough when Walgreens tried to shame me into doing my patriotic duty by contributing a dollar to send a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup to one of our troops overseas. “Don’t you want to support the troops?” the McJobette at the cash register asked me.
I’d been waiting in line for several minutes to pay for two dollars and something worth of something or other because all of the people in front me who didn’t believe in the 21st Century had taken the time to write checks for a few dollars worth of something else, so I was maybe more annoyed than I might otherwise have been. Whatever the case, I decided to use the time I would otherwise have taken to write a check for two dollars and something to give Ms. McJob—and the people in line behind me who were waiting until they had their totals to pull their checkbooks out of their purses or pockets—an impromptu lecture on wartime economics.
Praise the Lord and pass the chocolate.
Since 9/11, I explained, every American who wasn’t either too poor or too rich to pay taxes had “supported” the troops to the tune of well over $5 trillion, and the actual figure was probably closer to $10 trillion. If $5 or $10 trillion wasn’t enough to buy the troops all the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Mars Bars and Gummy Bears and Jujubes they could possibly hold then me kicking in an extra couple of bucks at Walgreens wasn’t going to help to keep their candy cache in a combat ready condition.
The McJobstress gave me a baleful look and said, “So you don’t want to support the troops?” Some guy in line behind me wearing a biker T-shirt and a ponytail muttered “f*****g liberal.”
This war's for you.
War on Ism commercialism is hardly a new thing. I was sitting in a local tap-and-trough the first time I saw the Anheuser Bush “Coming Home” commercial, the one where troops returning from the war walk through an airport terminal to a standing ovation from the civilians who are waiting around for their delayed flights to board. I shook my head and asked the bartender to replace my Budweiser with a Coors. She asked why, and I said something about refusing to support a company that uses the war to sell beer.
That’s when Virginia Beach legend Drunk Dave lifted his nose from the bar and said, “Aw, no, man, Budweiser is just trying to show their patriotic spirit.” This is the same Drunk Dave who once claimed that he got a balanced view on politics because he listened to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.
To gain even further perspective on the events of the day, Drunk Dave often tunes in to G. Gordon Liddy’s program. Dave is especially fond of the G. Man’s bumper music, most often war tinged, patriotic, twangy jingles by the likes of the abominable Toby Keith and about how it’s the American way to put a boot in everybody’s bottom and sell a lot of records about it.
One of the reasons, perhaps the main reason, that the anti-war movement has less traction than a curling stone is that it’s not only the defense industry parasites who are knocking down big war bucks. It’s everybody. One can’t pass a single merchandising venue in my area without bumping against some sort of trooper-dooper sales gimmick. Granted, I live in an area (Hampton Roads) that contains the densest military population in the country, but given the advertising I see on what little television I watch it appears that Madison Avenue has cast its “support the troops” net from coast to coast.
It’s the American way, I suppose, to use whatever’s available to gull one’s fellow citizens into buying crap they probably don’t need, and why should war be any different from, say, body odor or yellow teeth? After all, exploiting human misery and suffering has always been a core tenet of capitalism, hasn’t it? (Especially when the political right gets its way and eliminates all government regulation, eh?)
One might even be willing to grant that using the war to make money is downright virtuous, up to a point. Unfortunately, the hideous truth at the core of “support the troops” commercialism is that it supports the New American Centurions’ agenda of sustaining an Orwellian doctrine of “Long War” and “Persistent Conflict.” Had irony not gone the way of truth, justice and honor during young Mr. Bush’s administration, it would delight at Persistent Conflict’s key internal contradiction: in order to keep the Long War as long as possible, it must be fought in such a manner as to generate an infinite supply of enemies. Thus does the Long War slash Persistent Conflict doctrine defeat any rational claims that they contribute to our national security, yet national security is the fallback rationale for persisting in the Long War.
And Irony would turn positively giddy over the sign that as of this weekend hangs behind the cash register of my corner 7-Eleven:
U.S. Armed Forces
We Don’t Start Wars
We Finish Them
Support the Troops
Hey, Abbot.
We do start wars. We supposedly invaded Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 attacks even though none of its masterminds or hijackers were actually from Afghanistan. We kicked the closest thing Afghanistan has known to a legitimate government out of power and replaced it with a gang of hoodlums and drug dealers who now constitute the second most corrupt government on the face of the earth.
We supposedly invaded Iraq because of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and his role in 9/11 via his ties to al Qaeda. None of these justifications turned out to be true. We replaced Hussein with what is now the fourth most corrupt government on the face of the earth...
Catch the rest on Tuesday.
Jeff
Preview: World Wide War Bucks
I was revolted enough when Walgreens tried to shame me into doing my patriotic duty by contributing a dollar to send a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup to one of our troops overseas. “Don’t you want to support the troops?” the McJobette at the cash register asked me.
I’d been waiting in line for several minutes to pay for two dollars and something worth of something or other because all of the people in front me who didn’t believe in the 21st Century had taken the time to write checks for a few dollars worth of something else, so I was maybe more annoyed than I might otherwise have been. Whatever the case, I decided to use the time I would otherwise have taken to write a check for two dollars and something to give Ms. McJob—and the people in line behind me who were waiting until they had their totals to pull their checkbooks out of their purses or pockets—an impromptu lecture on wartime economics.
Praise the Lord and pass the chocolate.
Since 9/11, I explained, every American who wasn’t either too poor or too rich to pay taxes had “supported” the troops to the tune of well over $5 trillion, and the actual figure was probably closer to $10 trillion. If $5 or $10 trillion wasn’t enough to buy the troops all the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Mars Bars and Gummy Bears and Jujubes they could possibly hold then me kicking in an extra couple of bucks at Walgreens wasn’t going to help to keep their candy cache in a combat ready condition.
The McJobstress gave me a baleful look and said, “So you don’t want to support the troops?” Some guy in line behind me wearing a biker T-shirt and a ponytail muttered “f*****g liberal.”
This war's for you.
War on Ism commercialism is hardly a new thing. I was sitting in a local tap-and-trough the first time I saw the Anheuser Bush “Coming Home” commercial, the one where troops returning from the war walk through an airport terminal to a standing ovation from the civilians who are waiting around for their delayed flights to board. I shook my head and asked the bartender to replace my Budweiser with a Coors. She asked why, and I said something about refusing to support a company that uses the war to sell beer.
That’s when Virginia Beach legend Drunk Dave lifted his nose from the bar and said, “Aw, no, man, Budweiser is just trying to show their patriotic spirit.” This is the same Drunk Dave who once claimed that he got a balanced view on politics because he listened to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.
To gain even further perspective on the events of the day, Drunk Dave often tunes in to G. Gordon Liddy’s program. Dave is especially fond of the G. Man’s bumper music, most often war tinged, patriotic, twangy jingles by the likes of the abominable Toby Keith and about how it’s the American way to put a boot in everybody’s bottom and sell a lot of records about it.
One of the reasons, perhaps the main reason, that the anti-war movement has less traction than a curling stone is that it’s not only the defense industry parasites who are knocking down big war bucks. It’s everybody. One can’t pass a single merchandising venue in my area without bumping against some sort of trooper-dooper sales gimmick. Granted, I live in an area (Hampton Roads) that contains the densest military population in the country, but given the advertising I see on what little television I watch it appears that Madison Avenue has cast its “support the troops” net from coast to coast.
It’s the American way, I suppose, to use whatever’s available to gull one’s fellow citizens into buying crap they probably don’t need, and why should war be any different from, say, body odor or yellow teeth? After all, exploiting human misery and suffering has always been a core tenet of capitalism, hasn’t it? (Especially when the political right gets its way and eliminates all government regulation, eh?)
One might even be willing to grant that using the war to make money is downright virtuous, up to a point. Unfortunately, the hideous truth at the core of “support the troops” commercialism is that it supports the New American Centurions’ agenda of sustaining an Orwellian doctrine of “Long War” and “Persistent Conflict.” Had irony not gone the way of truth, justice and honor during young Mr. Bush’s administration, it would delight at Persistent Conflict’s key internal contradiction: in order to keep the Long War as long as possible, it must be fought in such a manner as to generate an infinite supply of enemies. Thus does the Long War slash Persistent Conflict doctrine defeat any rational claims that they contribute to our national security, yet national security is the fallback rationale for persisting in the Long War.
And Irony would turn positively giddy over the sign that as of this weekend hangs behind the cash register of my corner 7-Eleven:
U.S. Armed Forces
We Don’t Start Wars
We Finish Them
Support the Troops
Hey, Abbot.
We do start wars. We supposedly invaded Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 attacks even though none of its masterminds or hijackers were actually from Afghanistan. We kicked the closest thing Afghanistan has known to a legitimate government out of power and replaced it with a gang of hoodlums and drug dealers who now constitute the second most corrupt government on the face of the earth.
We supposedly invaded Iraq because of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and his role in 9/11 via his ties to al Qaeda. None of these justifications turned out to be true. We replaced Hussein with what is now the fourth most corrupt government on the face of the earth...
Catch the rest on Tuesday.
Jeff
Sexual Assault Statistics (Houston, We Have a Problem)
exual Violence is primarily a crime of power and control. It can impact all people, regardless of
age, ethnicity, race or economic status. Although younger women represent the majority of
victims, not all young women are at equal risk for sexual violence. Additional, there are other
populations with high rates of sexual victimization such as Native Americans, immigrants and the
elderly that are often voiceless in society and marginalized from medical, legal and social services.
In 8 out of 10 rape cases, the victim new the perpetrator.1
Nearly 1 in 4 women may experience sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime.2
The cost of rape and sexual assault, excluding child sexual assault, per criminal victimization is
$87,000 per year. For the victim, the average rape or attempted rape costs $5,100 in tangible, out-ofpocket
expenses.3
One in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually assaulted by the age of 18.4
Many long-lasting physical symptoms and illness have been associated with sexual victimization
including chronic pelvic pain; premenstrual syndrome; gastrointestinal disorders; and a variety of
chronic pain disorders including headache, back pain, and facial pain.5
Rape victims are more likely than non-victims to smoke cigarettes, overeat, drink alcohol, and are not
likely to use seat belts.6
In a study of elder female sexual abuse victims, 81 percent of the abuse was perpetrated by the victim’s
primary caregiver, and 78 percent by family members of which 39 percent were sons.7
Of adult American women who are raped, 31.5 percent are physically injured, but only 35.6^ of those
who are injured received medical care.8
Each year, it is estimated 25,000 American women will become pregnant following an act of sexual
violence. As many as 22,000 of those pregnancies could be prevented through the prompt use of
emergency contraception.9
1 Tjaden, P, Thoennes N. Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women:
Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, Washington (DC): National Institute of Justice; 2000. Report
NCJ 183781.
2 The World Health Report Fact Sheet on Sexual Violence, 2002.
3 Milled, Ted, et al. Victims Costs and Consequences: A New Look, National Institute of Justice Report, US Department of
Justice, 1996.
4 Finkelhor, David, et al. “Sexual Abuse in a National Survey of Adult Men and Women: Prevalence, Characteristics and
Risk Factors,” Child Abuse and Neglect, 1990.
5 Koss, MP, Heslet L. “Somatic Consequences of Violence Against Women.” Archives of Family Medicine, 1992.
6 Koss, MP, Koss, PG, Woodruff, W. “Deleterious Effects of Criminal Victimization on Women’s Health and Medical
Utilization.” Archives of Internal Medicine, 1991.
7 Ramsey-Klawsnik, Holly. “Elder Sexual Abuse: Preliminary Findings.” Journal of Elder Abuse & Neglect, 1991.
8 Tjaden, P, Thoennes N. Ibid. 2000.
S
Page 2 of 3
There is at least a 50 percent likelihood that a woman will develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD) after being raped. Sexual assault is also closely associated with depression and anxiety
disorders.10
According to a study conducted by the National Victim Center, 1.3 women (age 18 and over) in the
United States are forcibly raped each minute. That translates to 78 an hour, 1,871 per day, or 683,000
per year.11
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, nearly 6 out of 10 rape/sexual assault incidents are
reported by victims to have occurred in their own home or a the home of a friend, relative, or
neighbor.12
51% of the sexual assault cases studied in the Women’s Safety Project survey were committed against
young women between 16 and 21 years old.13
In 29% of rapes, the offender used a weapon.14
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, an estimated 91% of the victims of rape and sexual
assault are female and 9% are male. Nearly 99% of the offenders they described in single-victim
incidents are male.15
Rape or sexual assault was the violent crime least often reported to law enforcement (28%).16
Only 16% of rapes are ever reported to the police. In a survey of victims who do not report rape or
attempted rape to the police, the following was found as to why no report was made: 43% thought
nothing could be done, 27% felt it was a private matter, 12% were afraid of police response, and 12%
felt it was not important enough.17
13.3% of college women indicated that they had been forced to have sex in a dating situation.18
9 Stewart, Felicia and Trussel, James. “Prevention of Pregnancy Resulting from Rape.” American Journal of Preventive
Medicine, 2000.
10 “Populations Reports: Ending Violence Against Women” Populations Information Program, Center for Communication
Programs. The Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, December 1999.
11 Kilpatrick, DJ, Edmunds, CN and Seymour, A. 1992. Rape in America: A Report to the Nation, Arlington, VA: National
Victim Center.
12 Greenfield, Lawrence A. 1997. Sex Offenses and Offenders: An Analysis of Data on Rape and Sexual Assault,
Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice.
13 Randall, Melanie and Haskell, Lori. 1995. “Sexual Violence in Women’s Safety Project, A Community-Based Survey,”
Violence Against Women 1 (1): 6-31.
14 Violence Against Women, Bureau of Justice Statistics, US Department of Justice, 1994.
15 Ibid.
16 Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2000. Criminal Victimization 1999: Changes 1998-1999 with Trends 1993-99. National
Crime Victimization Survey. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, US Department of Justice.
17 Kirkpatrick, et al., 1992.
18 Johnson, I, Sigler R, 2000. “Forced Sexual Intercourse Among Intimates,” Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 15(1).
Page 3 of 3
In a national survey, 27.7% of college women reported a sexual experience since the age of fourteen
that met the legal definition of rape or attempted rape, and 7.7% of college men reported perpetrating
aggressive behavior which met the legal definition of rape.19
Among developmentally disabled adults, as many as 83% of the females and 32% of the males are the
victims of sexual assault.20
The National Violence Against Women Survey found that rape is a crime committed primarily against
youth. Of the women who reported being raped sometime in their lives, 21.6% were younger than age
12, 32.4% were ages 12 to 17, 29% were ages 18 to 24, and 16.6% were over 25 years old. Thus, 54%
of women victims were under age 18 at the time of the first rape and 83% were under the age of 25.21
Between 1/3 and 2/3 of known sexual assault victims are age 15 or younger.22
The rate of rapes and sexual assaults against lesbian and gays rose 13% nationally in 1995-1996,
approximately twice the 6% rate for all violent crimes.23
16% of male students surveyed by the Ms. Foundation who had committed rape, and 10% of those
who attempted a rape, took part in episodes involving multiple perpetrators.24
Women with disabilities are raped and abused at a rate at least twice that of the general population of
women.25
An estimated 92,700 men are forcibly raped each year in the United States.26
77% of completed rapes are committed by someone who is known to the victim.27
– National Sexual Violence Resource Center
19 Koss, MP, Gidyez, KA, and Wisniewski, N. “The Scope of Rape: Incidence and Prevalence of Sexual Aggression and
Victimization in a National Sample of Higher Education Students,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1987:
55 (2) 162-170.
20 Stimson, L and Best MC. “Courage Above All,” Sexual Assault Against Women with Disabilities. Toronto Disabled
Women’s Network, Canada, 1991.
21 Tjaden, Patricia and Thoennes, Nancy. November 1998. Prevalence, Incidence and Consequences of Violence Against
Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice,
Office of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice.
22 Population Information Program. Population Reports: Ending Violence Against Women, 2000. Population Information
Program, Center for Communications Programs. Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and Center for Healthcare Gender
Equity.
23 Anti Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Violence Report, New York City Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project,
1996.
24 Warshaw, Robin. 1994. “I Never Called it Rape,” The Ms. Report on Recognizing, Fighting and Surviving Date &
Acquaintance Rape, New York: Harper Perennial.
25 Sobsey. D, 1994. “Violence and Abuse in the Lives of People with Disabilities,” The End of Silent Acceptance,
Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brooks Publishing Co, Inc.
26 Tjaden and Thoennes, November 1998.
27 Greenfield, Lawrence A. 1997. Sex Offenses and Offenders: An Analysis of Data on Rape and Sexual Assault,
Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice.
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