Why are legal immigrants marching alongside illegal immigrants?

Many of the people who are advocating cracking down on illegal immigrants believe there is a world of difference between legal and illegal immigrants. Legal immigrants are the opposite of illegals: legals are good and illegals are bad.

But if you listen to the people who have been marching for immigrant’s rights they don’t seem to see any difference at all. They see all immigrants, legal and illegal, as being under attack. Why are they ignoring the distinction between legal and illegal that others claim is so important?

If you listen to what the immigrant’s rights marchers are saying they are hearing a lot of talk against immigrants as a group. They are not hearing people making a distinction between legal and illegal. What they are hearing is people attacking immigrants -– attacking people speaking languages other than English, having different customs, celebrating different holidays, waving different flags and being foreign.

Which group’s perception is closer to the truth? Are the people who want to crack down on illegal immigrants mostly concerned with illegality as they claim or mostly against those who are foreign as the immigrants claim?

Bush Administration worried Guantanamo prisoners may be abused

According to the New York Times,
"A long-running effort by the Bush administration to send home many of the terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has been stymied in part because of concern among United States officials that the prisoners may not be treated humanely by their own governments, officials said." see the entire article

Did your irony meter just go off-scale? We need to keep the Guantánamo Bay detainees, who we have held without charges for over three years, imprisoned out of concern for their welfare. Does the Bush Administration have no shame? As Sen. Arlen Specter asked, "where is the outrage?"

"Where's the Outrage?" - GOP Sen. Specter

According to the Washington Post:
"New expressions of frustration over how little information the administration has shared about the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping on Americans flared yesterday in the Senate, one day after House Republicans barred amendments that would have expanded oversight of the controversial program.

"Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said yesterday that he will file an amendment to block the NSA program's funding -- but said he will not seek a vote on it at this time -- in hope of stirring greater debate on the warrantless surveillance, part of the agency's monitoring of alleged terrorists."

Read the entire article

American Job Slavery

A friend of my wife who lives here in Moline would love to change jobs but cannot because of the American system of private health insurance. She has on-going health problems that are covered by the health insurance plan of her employer but would be considered pre-existing conditions and would not be covered by any other health insurance plan she would join. So although she is not getting along with her new boss and has other job prospects she cannot pursue them. She cannot afford to pay for her on-going out-patient treatments out-of-pocket. She is stuck in her current job.
In countries with a single payer, national health insurance system like Canada, Britain, Germany and many other countries this is not a problem. The system covers all the citizens and changing jobs has no effect on coverage. These systems are also more cost-effective and efficient than the American system of health insurance since no resources are spent by the insurance company pursuing ways to avoid paying as is often done by American health insurance companies.
So who has more freedom, an American who cannot quit a job she does not like because of health insurance concerns or a Canadian who always has health insurance no matter what job decision she makes?

Cuba Has Better Medical Care Than the U.S.

An interesting article from the Huffington Post blog by Blake Fleetwood:

"Figures from the World Health Organization clearly show that The United States lags behind 36 other countries in overall health system performance ranging from infant mortality, to adult mortality, to life expectancy.

"20 countries in Europe and four countries in Asia have a better life expectancy than the U.S. If you are a male between the ages of 15 and 59, your chances of dying are higher in the U.S. (140 per thousand) than in Canada, 95, Costa Rica 127, Chile 134, and Cuba, 138.

"The U.S. Health system looks especially dysfunctional when you consider how much money we spend per capita on healthcare -- $6,000 plus per year, twice as much as any other country -- and how little we get for it."

Read the entire article

John Kerry is an anti-war activist again

On Saturday Senator John Kerry said,
"I have come here today to reaffirm that it was right to dissent in 1971 from a war that was wrong. And to affirm that it is both a right and an obligation for Americans today to disagree with a President who is wrong, a policy that is wrong, and a war in Iraq that weakens the nation."

"I believed then, just as I believe now, that the best way to support the troops is to oppose a course that squanders their lives, dishonors their sacrifice, and disserves our people and our principles. When brave patriots suffer and die on the altar of stubborn pride, because of the incompetence and self-deception of mere politicians, then the only patriotic choice is to reclaim the moral authority misused by those entrusted with high office."

read the entire speach

What the Generals are saying about Rumsfeld

When asked why he is being critized by military people Donald Rumsfeld talks about feathers he ruffled while instituting reforms.

"But," as Maureen Dowd said in this morning's New York Times(a subscription is required to view the article),
"the retired generals really want him to resign because he made gigantic, horrible, arrogant mistakes that will be taught in history classes forever."

Here is what Bernard Trainor, a retired Marine general had to say:
"He didn't worry about the culture in Iraq. He just wanted to show them the front end of an M-1 tank. He could have been in Antarctica fighting penguins. He didn't care, as long as he could send the message that you don't mess with Hopalong Cassidy. He wanted to do to Saddam in the Middle East what he did to Shinseki in the Pentagon, make him an example, say, 'I'm in charge, don't mess with me.' "

Should candidate forums be open to the public?

Should the elected Democratic precinct committeemen of the Illinois 17th Congressional District try to determine who the Democratic primary voters in their precinct would vote for to be the Democratic candidate for Congress given the choices now available by soliciting opinions and asking the primary voters in the precinct who they would vote for or should the precinct committeemen simply educate themselves and make the decision on behalf of their precinct? It would make no sense to ask the other primary voters who they favor unless all the voters have had a chance to meet and find out about all the candidates. Since Don Johnston has decided that only elected precinct committeemen, the candidates, people invited to speak on behalf of the candidates and reporters will be allowed to attend the candidate forums apparently he has decided that the precinct committeemen will be making the decision on behalf of their precincts.

My guess is that Don made that choice more as a mater of what is practical and possible rather than what would be best according to a theoretical ideal. How big a hall would have to be found for these forums if the public were invited? Could halls that size be found on such short notice? How much more would have to be paid for security and logistics if the public were invited? I can imagine that if I were in Don Johnston’s position I might have ended up making the same decision. What do you think?

Unusual Lamppost

Here is an unusual lamppost near my house in Moline. You cannot see it in the picture but besides holding a lamp it also serves as an address placard. Who can tell me what address is written on this dead tree?

Who gets to choose who replaces Lane Evans?

Don Johnston and John Gianulis seem to have different opinions about who will have votes in the selection of a Democratic candidate in the Illinois 17th Congressional District race to replace Lane Evans who decided not to run after the primary election was over. Don Johnston says that only precinct committemen who were elected in the primary have a vote. John Gianulis says that people he appoints as precinct committeemen in precincts in which no one was elected should also get to vote. It seems a rather lopsided argument to me. Don Johnston, along with Mary Boland, will set up and oversee the process and appears to me to have both the letter and the spirit of the law on his side. The law clearly intends that the persons who represent the Democrats of the precincts in the district vote on the nomination. How does someone who was selected by the county chairman just for the purpose of voting in this special election represent the precinct, especially if some of them won’t even live in the precinct?

So why is there so much arguing in the blogsphere about this when it seems so obvious?
The only reason I can think of is that some people are so used to the county chairman doing whatever he wants to with regards to selecting people to be the Democratic candidates that they think that that is the way it should always be.

If I were a Democratic precinct committeeman..

If I were a Democratic precinct committeeman in the Illinois 17th Congressional District I would not be asking potential candidates how much money they raised in their last race or whether they had the backing of party leaders in Springfield or Chicago. Those are things the county chairmen are impressed by when they make a selection. But the county chairman are not going to have any more say this time than any other precinct committeeman. If I were a committeeman I would go to the candidate forums being organized by Don Johnston, Mary Boland and John Gianulis looking for someone I could get excited about the way John Kennedy and Lane Evans excited me and the way Barak OBama excites me now. I would want to vote for someone who seemed to care about more than just raising money and getting elected.

The news media and Ray LaHood are trying to convince us that the national Republican Party is going to be pouring money into this race and bringing in party heavyweights to help Andrea Zinga. If I remember correctly early in the campaigns of 2000, 2002 and 2004 such things were said but it never happened. Perhaps it will happen this time now that it is an open seat. Whether it does or not the Democrats are not going to win by nominating someone who gives voters the impression that he/she will do or say anything to get elected.

In the 2004 presidential primary I voted for John Kerry not because I liked him best but because I thought he would have the best chance in the general election. I was wrong. If the precinct committeemen vote for a candidate that does not excite them but because someone in the newspaper or some party heavyweight tells them raising money is the most important thing they will be making the same mistake I made in 2004.

A lot of people offering advice about who should replace Evans

John Gianulis, chairman of the Rock Island County Democratic Party, has no more legal standing in the selection of the replacement Democratic candidate for the 17th District congressional race than any other precinct committeeman in the district, according to Don Johnston, the 17th District Democratic State Central Committeeman.

According to a story in today’s Quad City Times both John Gianulis and Don Johnston are organizing forums for the precinct committeemen to hear from and about potential candidates.

My advice to the precinct committeemen is that they need to be very skeptical of everything they hear and half of what they see. The world is full of trickery and there is a lot of misinformation posing as sage advice and the voice of experience being offered concerning who they should select. If you select someone you personally feel good about supporting rather than someone you are told is a stronger candidate then you are less likely to regret your decision later.

"You cannot call yourself Catholic if you are pro-choice"

I've been seeing letters to the editor lately concerning Democratic elected officials who vote pro-choice and are Catholic. These letters claim that these politicians should not be able to call themselves Catholic if they do not accept all the Church's teachings on all matters.

That reminds me of a story my father told me about his mother and their Polish-American neighbors when they lived in East Chicago, Indiana in the 1920s. My grandmother would hear the neighborhood women talking as they all hung up laundry in their backyards and was surprised to hear these devout Catholic women discussing using birth control. My grandmother, a Methodist minister's wife, was surprised and asked if their priest didn't tell them about Catholic teaching on family planning. The Polish-American women said, "Yes, but we don't listen to him about that."

These letter writers try to imply that it is only Democratic elected officials who are picking and choosing which Church teachings to follow, but that is obviously not true. The majority of American Catholics have been rejecting the Church's teachings on birth control for many generations, although only the elected officials among them are forced to take a public stand on the issue.

No more St. Patrick's Day?

Lou Dobbs of CNN had this to say last Monday about immigrants waving the flag of their country of origin:

"I don't think that we should have any flag flying in this country except the flag of the United States."

When it was pointed out to him that he could not condemn Mexican immigrants for waving the Mexican flag unless he also criticized Irish-Americans for waving the Irish flag on St. Patrick’s Day he said, "But let's be clear. I don't think there should be a St. Patrick's Day. I don't care who you are. I think we ought to be celebrating what is common about this country, what we enjoy as similarities as people."

Celebrating being American and all the things we have in common as Americans is a good thing and we do that a lot, especially on the Fourth of July. But why should that be the only kind of celebration allowed? Why can’t Irish-Americans celebrate being Irish on St. Patrick’s Day? Why can’t Mexican immigrants celebrate being Mexican on Cinco de Mayo and why can’t Polish-Americans celebrate Polaski Day?

A lot of Americans, apparently not including Lou Dobbs, enjoy the ethnic and cultural diversity that America enjoys as a result of being a nation of immigrants. Lou Dobbs seems to think our diversity is a weakness rather than a strength. No wonder he feels so threatened.

My wife just received a letter from Congressman Lane Evans in response to an email she sent him about the immigration issue. Picking out a few sentences from the letter, "The history of the United States is infused with the contributions of millions of immigrants. Far from being a detriment to our country, this blending of cultures has produced a mosaic of peoples that make America the strongest nation in the world."

Those are the kind of sentiments that make me want to wave an American flag.

There is some serious smoke being blown

There was a front page store in today's Moline Dispatch talking about how competitive and expense the 2006 race to represent the Illinois 17th Congressional District was going to be because there is no incumbent running. There was a prediction that it could be even more expensive than in 1998 when the Republicans last mounted a serious challenge for the seat. All I could think when I read it was "someone is blowing some serious smoke."

Take a look at the map of the 17th Congressional District. It was obviously drawn to include every urban Democratic precinct in north western and west central Illinois. This was done after 1998 to make it a safe Democratic district and the other districts, Dennis Hastert’s and Ray LaHood’s districts, safe Republican seats.

In 1998 national polls showed the voters tilting toward the Republicans. The national Republicans targeted races where they thought they had a chance to win a Democratic seat, including the 17th District in Illinois. Things are very different this year. In addition to the redrawn district the poll numbers are very different. This year the polls show the voters tilting toward the Democrats and everyone expects Democrats to pick up seats. No one expects any safe Democratic seats to be lost to the Republicans, except possibly some local experts blowing smoke.

So when someone is blowing smoke at you it is a good idea to figure out why. In the case of the newspaper story it probably was a case of a reporter and a political expert pretending they had a more interesting and exciting race to cover than they actually do.

But other smoke is going to be blown at the Democratic precinct committeemen of the 17th Congressional District over the next few weeks by people hoping to get a particular person selected as the Democratic nominee. Sometimes it will be obvious who is being promoted and sometimes not. Someone trying to get Mike Jacobs selected, for example, will emphasize how important it will be for the nominee to be someone who can raise a lot of money. Someone supporting Phil Hare will emphasize how important it is for the nominee to have the support of Evan’s campaign and office staff and Lane’s friends in Congress. Mark Schwiebert supporters will emphasize how important it is for the nominee to be a proven vote getter who is attractive to swing voters.

Be sure to note that for any of this smoke to work the smokee has to be convinced that the race will be very competitive. If the precinct committeemen know that anyone they select as the Democratic nominee is going to win in November then they can select whoever they personally like and ignore any talk about who would make the strongest candidate in November. Also note that the supporters of candidates not thought to be popular with the precinct committeemen will be the most vigorous smoke blowers. Some may even post hysterical comments in response to this blog entry.

Immigration Issue an opportunity for Democrats

According to Paul Krugman of the New York Times
“For now, at least, the immigration issue is mainly hurting the Republican Party, which is divided between those who want to expel immigrants and those who want to exploit them. The only thing the two factions seem to have in common is mean-spiritedness.”
Read the entire article (which requires a subscription) here.

This is an opportunity for the Democratic Party but there are dangers also. If Democrats can unite behind a policy which is seen as compassionate and caring to the Hispanic community but also protects low-skilled American citizens then Florida, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona could become blue states for a generation.

Paul Krugman cites studies which show that the influx of unskilled workers eager to work hard for low (by American standards) wages depress the earning of low skilled Americans. Democrats must resist the pressure from business interests to maintain the status quo and continue the influx of large numbers of unskilled workers.
On the other hand the proposals which call for the expulsion of illegal immigrants already here or that allow them to stay but with no path toward eventual citizenship are mean-spirited and are seen by the Hispanic community as racist.

If the Democrats can resist the pressures from the business interests and the xenophobes to which the Republicans have fallen victim and can unite behind an immigration policy which is seen as fair to all working men and women and supports the democratic idea of universal enfranchisement they could rebuild FDR’s coalition.

Precinct committeemen -- don’t give away your vote

According to the Dispatch it turns out that it is not the Democratic country chairmen from the 23 counties in the Illinois 17th Congressional District that will be voting on who will replace Lane Evans on the November ballot but the precinct committeemen from the 721 precincts that comprise the Congressional District. Don Johnston, Democratic state central committee chairman for the 17th Congressional District who will have to oversee the process, and John Gianulis, Rock Island County Democratic party chairman, were quoted as discussing the possibility of asking the precinct committeemen to give proxies to the county chairmen to vote on their behalf. I am sure that it would make Don Johnston’s job of organizing the vote much easier if he only had to deal with 23 voters rather than hundreds. But a nominee who is selected by the county chairmen is more likely to be perceived by the voters to have been the choice of unrepresentative party bosses in a process involving secret deals and promises than if the precinct committeemen had individual votes.

Precinct committeemen – do not give away your vote to your county chairman. Insist on making your own selection.

If you are not precinct committeemen and you did not see the name of a committeeperson on your primary ballot then your precinct does not have a committeeperson. In that case contact your county chairman and ask to be appointed as a precinct committeeman. Don’t let your county chairman say that no one in your precinct was interested in the job. That would give the county chairman free rein to appoint someone who did not live in the precinct to the position. Let's try to make the selection of our congressional candidate as representative as possible!

Situation in Iraq Worsens

US authorities in Iraq had been trying to pressure the government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, to crack down on Shiite militias who have been held responsible for a wave of kidnapping, torture and murder of Sunni Arabs. The United States ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad had been urging the Iraqi government to rid the Interior Ministry of militia influence and to be more politically accommodating to Sunni Arabs.

In the aftermath of the bombing of a major Shiite shrine last month, Shiite leaders began to lash out at the ambassador for his insistence on working with the Sunnis and defended their use of militias for self-defense.

After a joint American-Iraqi raid on a Shiite compound on Sunday killed at least 16 people the tensions escalated as Shiite leaders angrily denounced the raid and suspended negotiations over a new government. The governor of Baghdad announced a halt in cooperation with the American authorities, and Shiite militiamen brandished their weapons in the streets of eastern Baghdad and declared their readiness to retaliate against American troops.

According to the New York Times: "Some Shiite leaders warned that the raid had been widely interpreted among their constituents as a strong-arm tactic to cow them into making political concessions, including forcing the largest Shiite bloc to drop Mr. Jaafari as its nominee for prime minister in the new government."

"President Jalal Talabani said he would lead a joint Iraqi-American committee to investigate the Sunday evening raid, as American and Iraqi authorities continued to offer wildly conflicting accounts of it. Shiites said the victims were civilians gathered in a mosque, while the Americans said they were insurgents holed up in a guerrilla headquarters."

More

Republicans in Congress want a US withdrawal from Iraq to be well underway by the November elections. President Bush wants to be seen as a resolute warrior who would never willingly give up the fight. If the situation in Iraq continues to spiral out of control toward full scale civil war and the Shiites controlling the government refuse to continue working with the US this would allow Bush to be seen to be forced, against his wishes, to withdraw the US troops.

This would allow the Republicans to snatch a public relations victory from defeat by claiming they never willingly gave up the fight and continuing to portray the Democrats as weak on defense and soft on terrorism. If Democrats do not forcefully and continually remind voters that President Bush and the Republicans in Congress are responsible for the needless and pointless deaths of over 2000 American soldiers and uncounted thousands of Iraqis then I predict that the Republicans will manage to persuade the voters that the people who opposed our invasion were the ones responsible for our lack of success.

Would Jesus feed the hungry?

On ABC’s "thisweek with George Stephanopoulos" this morning Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo derided Hillary Clinton’s knowledge of the Bible and Christianity. George Stephanopoulos asked Tancredo's reaction to this quote from Hillary Clinton talking about the bill written by Tancredo and passed by the US House of Representatives: "It is certainly not in keeping with my understanding of the Scriptures because this bill would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself." Rep. Tancredo, laughing while he spoke said "It does not surprise me that Hillary Clinton not only knows absolutely nothing about the Bible, but she also knows nothing about the bill that I want to introduce or what the Senate is saying about this bill." It appears from this statement that Tom Tancredo does not believe that the Bible depicts Jesus feeding and healing social and legal outcasts.

The bill would make it a crime to knowingly offer aid or assistance to illegal immigrants. Many people in this country who clothe the naked, feed the hungry, house the homeless and care for the sick are concerned that this bill would make them criminals because they are often aware that people they are assisting are illegal immigrants.

Los Angeles Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony believing that if the bill becomes law it would make illegal many of the things priests, nuns and lay workers in his diocese do as part of their Christian duty, has said that if the bill becomes law he would instruct his people to deliberately disobey the law.

Rep. Tom Tancredo does not think that his bill would make a criminal out of Christ and he accuses Hillary Clinton of knowing nothing about the Bible when she says that it would. So who do you think knows less about the Bible, Tom Tancredo or Hillary Clinton?

IF BABOONS CAN WORK IT OUT…

I just attended the Charlie King and Rebel Voices (Susan Lewis and Janet Stecher) concert at the Unitarian Church in Davenport. It was a fund-raiser for the Worker House in Rock Island that provides hospitality for women and children who find themselves temporarily homeless.

One of the songs, "If Baboons Can Work It Out" really struck me. It was written by Charlie and has a message and a point of view we don't often hear. After getting home from the concert I looked up the words on Charlie's web site.

IF BABOONS CAN WORK IT OUT…
© 2004 Charlie King Pied Asp Music (BMI)

CHO: Are you ready for a better way to be?
There's an answer swinging in our family tree
Everybody lives more fully when there isn't any bully
If Baboons can work it out then so can we

Act one, a culinary bungle in the wilds of Kenya
A tourist camp there in the jungle serves a toxic menu
They throw their garbage in a heap, the Alpha Baboon males compete
The prize they win is poison meat, they die like Alpha men do (CHO)

Act two, the female ratio doubles in the ape assembly
Surviving males who want no trouble take their places humbly
Instead of dominance and subjection, mutual grooming! Group affection!
It's the natural selection for this Baboon family (CHO)

Act three, now twenty years have passed, they're still cooperating
New males arrive, they're learning fast: "No fighting, we're all dating!"
Stress is lower. Hearts are stronger. Loving more and living longer.
Hop in line and join the conga, time for celebrating

Now a human bully's harder to defeat
I mean, you can't just send the White House poison meat!
But you can vote, sign a petition, organize a coalition
Hey hey! Ho ho! We say Rumsfeld's got to go!

'Cuz everybody lives more fully when there isn't any bully
If Baboons can work it out then so can…
Bush and Cheney? What a quandary, better put your trust in Gandhi
If Baboons can work it out then so can…
Popeye's eating all that spinach, shoulda voted for Kucinich
If Baboons can work it out then so can…
Him & her and you & me, as smart as any chimpanzee
If Baboons can work it out then so can we.

"...how slowly the Mexicans assimilate, if at all"

The David Brooks column in today’s New York Times contains the following paragraph:

"In the field of immigration, Republican sentiment seems to be shifting away from the idea that the United States is a universal nation, where immigrants come from across the world to work, rise and join in the pursuit of happiness. Now Republican rhetoric emphasizes how alien immigrant culture is; how slowly the Mexicans assimilate, if at all; how much disorder and strain their presence creates."

Reading the entire article (which requires a subscription) makes it clear that these are not David Brooks’ views and he thinks it is a mistake for the Republican Party to be moving in this direction.

Locally when Mexican leaders raised the alarm that they were hearing similar sentiments about the undesirability of immigrants and Mexican immigrants in particular during the debate over the Triumph Food pork processing plant at least one blogger denied that such sentiments were being expressed. I hope no one now claims that David Brooks is slandering the Republican Party or that although people in other parts of the country may be saying such things the Quad Cities is an enlightened enclave free from such sentiment.

I hope that we can all agree that the idea that Mexicans are assimilating more slowly than previous waves of immigrants is an emotional reaction to large numbers of recent immigrants and not based on any objective reality. Third and fourth generation Mexican immigrant families are as completely American as anyone else. Our schools today are just as efficiently turning immigrant children into English speaking Americans as they ever did. Just like my great-grandparents who came to American from Schleswig-Holstein most immigrants who come to America as adults do not become fluent English speakers but those who come as small children and those who are born here learn English and prefer to speak it to everyone except their parents.

Racist statements ascribing negative traits to all people of a particular race or ethnicity are usually challenged and considered unacceptable by most Americans today. But there seems to be a blind spot about blanket negative statements about Mexican immigrants where the statements elicit no reaction and apparently are not even remembered.

If the Republican Party, as David Brooks fears, is going to be adopting an anti-immigrant posture this could be the chance for Democrats to win Florida and the Southwest if they can speak with unified voice about their support for all working people, including recent immigrants.

The votes have been counted and the results are in.

42% of the people voting in this blog’s mini poll said that President Bush is right and the troops should stay in Iraq until Bush says their job is done. We now know that Bush thinks that it will be some future president who will bring the troops home, so it seems unlikely that Bush will say that that the job in Iraq is done and the troops can come home any time within the next 3 years.

The results:
What would you be willing to do to get our troops home from Iraq?

I would be willing to take to the streets in non-violent protest: 33%
I would be willing to change my lifestyle by joining boycotts to
bring pressure on the ruling elite: 13%
I won't join a protest or boycott but I will write letters and emails: 8%
I agree with President Bush. Our troops need to stay there until
Bush says their job is done: 42%
I don't know: 4%

I have started a new poll. It has been suggested that a lot of people in this country still have very traditional beliefs concerning how they will be judged in the after-life and that the feelings of fear, insecurity and impending doom many Americans feel result from their knowledge that the self-centered, consumer-oriented life they are leading is not going to look very good to God at the Pearly Gates. So I am taking a poll. On what basis do you believe you will be judged.

If Mike Jacobs Wins

Illinois State Senator Mike Jacobs is running for the first time for the Democratic nomination in the Illinois 36th Senate District (he was never previously elected –- he was appointed to fill the vacancy when his father retired.) When telephone pollsters working for his campaign list reasons for voting against him they include the perception that since he was appointed he is beholden to party big-shots rather than to the voters.

If Mike is elected will that change? Would he then no longer be beholden to the party insiders and power brokers who originally appointed him? In spite of the fact that he has more than 100 times more money than his opponent and much greater name recognition it appears that it will be a close race. Likely Democratic primary voters are receiving phone calls from outside of the district telling them (incorrectly) that Mike Jacobs is the only pro-choice candidate in the race. If Mike wins it will be obvious to all that this assistance from Chicago and Springfield was probably responsible for the small margin of victory. Mike Jacobs would still be beholden to power brokers and party insiders rather than to the voters of the 36th Senate District.

Peace rally this afternoon in Davenport, IA

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind"
"Bush still lying/People still dying"
"Peace Now"
"Honor the dead/Demand the truth"

"Don't drink the (Fox News, New York Times, CNN, MSNBC) Kool-Aid"
Dorothy Monahan of Moline, although she finds walking somewhat difficult, still gets out and about.

Chris Dunn of Rock Island (not pictured) came with his guitar and sang to keep spirits up.

Among the passing motorist that expressed an opinion the vast majority appeared to support the sentiments expressed on our signs. This was in stark contrast to the rally I attended 3 years ago when war fever was at its peak.

Howard Dean was right

As pointed out by Donald Kaul in his column today, Howard Dean had this to say 3 years ago, just before the US invaded Iraq.

“I believe it is my patriotic duty to urge a different path to protecting America’s security: To focus on al Qaeda, which is an imminent threat, and to use our resources to improve and strengthen the security and safety of our home front and our people while working with the nations of the world to contain Saddam Hussein….
“Had I been a member of the Senate, I would have voted against the resolution that authorized the President to use unilateral force against Iraq….
“That the President was given open-ended authority to go to war in Iraq resulted from a failure of too many in my party in Washington who were worried about political positioning for the presidential election.
“The stakes are so high, this is not a time for holding back or sheepishly going along with the herd.”
“If we go to war, I certainly hope the Administration’s assumptions are realized, and the conflict is swift, successful and clean. I certainly hope our armed forced will be welcomed like heroes and liberators in the streets of Baghdad.
“It is possible, however, that events could go differently…
“Iraq is a divided country, with Sunni, Shia and Kurdish factions that share both bitter rivalries and access to large quantities of arms.
“Anti-American feeling will surely be inflamed among the misguided who choose to see an assault on Iraq as an attack on Islam, or as a means of controlling Iraqi oil.”

Although the above statements seem obvious now they were definitely not seen as such at the time and not many other Democratic elected officials agreed with them. Dennis Kucinich and Russ Feingold were just about the only exceptions. Hilary Clinton is touted by the news media as the leader for the 2008 presidential nomination, apparently because she, unlike Dean, Kucinich and Feingold, says things the media expects and is comfortable with.

It appears that a good way to see the truth and accurately predict the future is to espouse ideas being ridiculed or ignored by the news media.

The Last American Soldier to Die for a Mistake

Things are going very badly in Iraq. As Jeffrey Gettleman reported in the New York Times on Tuesday:
"In Sadr City, the Shiite section in Baghdad where the terrorist suspects were executed, government forces have vanished. The streets are ruled by aggressive teenagers with shiny soccer jerseys and machine guns.

"They set up roadblocks and poke their heads into cars and detain whomever they want. Mosques blare warnings on loudspeakers for American troops to stay out. Increasingly, the Americans have been doing just that."

President Bush continues to assert that our goal in Iraq is "victory." Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently told Tim Russert that things were going "very, very well" in Iraq.

I am old enough to remember how during the Vietnam War the generals kept claiming we were winning, almost up to the moment we left in defeat. For some reason the news media at the time did not try to determine who was the last American to be killed in Vietnam War. There was talk about not wanting to be "the last man to die for a mistake" but it was kept an abstract notion rather than being attached to a particular dead soldier. I guess that would have been too painful. How many more American soldiers are going to die between now and when we eventually pull out of Iraq? Whether or not he/she receives any publicity for the distinction there will be another last American to die for a mistake. Will it be someone from around here, perhaps someone you know?

There will be gatherings for peace around the country this weekend on the third anniversary of the start of the war. In the Quad-Cities it will be on Saturday from 2-4 pm in front of Boarders on 53rd street across from the cinemas. Those who come will at least be able to say they did something.

Insulting Canada

As reported by Media Matters
On November 30, as President Bush visited Canada to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter and CNN Crossfire co-host Tucker Carlson ridiculed the United States' northern neighbor. On FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes, Coulter said that Canadians "better hope the United States doesn't roll over one night and crush them. They are lucky we allow them to exist on the same continent." On CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports, Carlson stated: "Without the U.S., Canada is essentially Honduras, but colder and much less interesting"; he went on to say that instead of following politics, "the average Canadian is busy dogsledding." And on Crossfire, Carlson referred to the "limpid, flaccid nature of Canadian society."
Read the complete story.

What does it say about someone’s political philosophy, view of the world and maturity that they would say such things about inoffensive Canada? What kind of people approve and enjoy listening to such opinions?

British soldier in Iraq quits over illegal tactics by US troops

I was alerted to the story by my nephew in China, he is a University of Chicago student researching his PhD thesis in Bejing, and found it online in the Daily Times, a Pakistani newspaper:

"An elite British soldier revealed in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph that he quit the army after refusing to stay and fight in Iraq on moral grounds because of the “illegal” tactics used by US troops on the ground.
The 28-year-old Special Air Service (SAS) soldier, Ben Griffin, terminated his army career after just three months in Baghdad and was discharged last June. He is believed to be the first SAS soldier to refuse to go into combat and to quit the army on moral grounds.
“I saw a lot of things in Baghdad that were illegal or just wrong,” Griffin told the weekly newspaper..

Read the complete story here

Norman Mailer's Theory

I saw Norman Mailer on Book TV Saturday evening. He is now 83 years old and kept complaining that he could not hear the questions being put to him. But he had a theory about why America was behaving the way it was that I had not heard before and seems to explain more than the theories I had been entertaining.

Most Americans consider themselves to be Christian and a lot of what is happening in America is motivated by fear. Mailer’s theory is that the fear stems from the Christian belief in divine judgment. As everyone knows, when God judges a Christian he does not judge them by worldly standards. Unlike our fellow man, God is not be impressed by our beautiful house, car and clothes. Nor is he impressed by our career accomplishments or anything else that our society admires. God asks if we clothed the naked, tended the sick or gave money to the poor. And these things must have been done not in a way designed to gain our fellow man’s admiration and respect, but humbly and modestly.

But not many Americans today are seeking after humbleness or purposely avoiding the limelight. Instead they are ruthlessly trying to gain as much material advantage for themselves as possible. Being greedy and looking out for number one have become behaviors that are not only accepted as normal and natural but have been lauded as the essence of what makes America the greatest nation in the world.

I had pondered the curiosity of Americans considering themselves Christian while living lives that do not reflect Christian values but I had not connected it to the pervasive fear that underlies so much of what America is doing. There is a fear of terrorism that is totally out of proportion to the actual threat. This fear makes Americans willing to go to war, destroy the international reputation American had earned, create a debt that our children and grandchildren will struggle to repay, and surrender our freedoms to not have our phone calls listened to and our mail read by our own government.

Norman Mailer believes that the real cause of that fear is the Christian belief that we are subject to divine judgment. Although today’s American Christians have been persuaded to lead lives of selfish materialism they have not been convinced that the rules by which they will ultimately be judged have changed. The result is a sense of impending doom that leaves American Christians feeling insecure and threatened.

I don’t know if this theory is correct or not. If it is God’s judgment that we really fear of what use is our military, NSA or Department of Homeland Security? What do you think?

Immigration responsible for lower crime rate

In an opinion piece in today's New York Times a professor of sociology at Harvard, Robert J. Sampson, claims that increased immigration is a major factor in the decrease in the crime rate the US has experienced over the last 15 years.

"Consider what sociologists call the 'Latino paradox': Hispanic Americans do better on a range of various social indicators — including propensity to violence — than one would expect given their socioeconomic disadvantages. My colleagues and I have completed a study in which we examined violent acts by almost 3,000 males and females, ranging in age from 8 to 25, from 1995 to 2003. The study selected whites, blacks and Hispanics (primarily Mexican-Americans) from 180 Chicago neighborhoods ranging from highly segregated to very integrated. We also analyzed data from police records, the Census and a separate survey of more than 8,000 Chicago residents who were asked about the characteristics of their neighborhoods."

See the complete article at http://tinyurl.com/rudw2

My views on Personal Pac's actions

In the race for the Democratic nomination for the 36th District Illinois State Senate seat we have just found out that a pro-choice group based in Chicago, Personal Pac, were the ones who had been calling voters and telling them Mike Jacobs was the only pro-choice candidate in the race. Their justification for their actions was that they had sent surveys to both candidates, warning them that a failure to return the surveys would result in the candidate being assumed to be anti-choice. Mike Jacobs had returned the survey but the challenger, Paul Rumler, had not.

In comments posted in response to my last blog entry it was suggested that Personal Pac was not, as I had charged, placing a higher emphasis on their egos and doing favors for the powerful than the cause of choice but were in fact ferreting out secret anti-choicers. It was suggested that I might change my mind after considering their arguments.

I believe that the only justification for Personal Pac's actions would be if there was a history of politicians telling voters when asked that they were pro-choice but then later voting anti-choice. But I have never heard of such a thing. Politicians who end up voting against choice always wear their pro-life credentials on their sleeve. Their pro-life beliefs are religious badges of honor that they are eager to testify to whenever asked.

If Personal Pac were in fact searching for secret pro-lifers in the ranks of the Democratic candidates that would be misguided. They should spend their resources on combating the numerous and easy-to-find true enemies of choice. But I don't think they are on any such campaign. I think they are just, in good Michael Madigan tradition, doing favors for incumbents just because they are Democratic incumbents, without even considering the merits of the candidates, in order to maintain the precious Democratic majority.

We now know who was making those phone calls

According to the Inside Dope blog, a Chicago based pro-choice political action committee, Personal Pac, were the organization responsible for phoning voters in the 36th district and mis-representing candidate Paul Rumler's views. The Inside Dope also reports that Personal PAC reports in-kind donations amounting to $27,043.93 to Jacobs' campaign, money spent on a phone campaign telling residents that Jacobs was the only pro-choice candidate in the race. So this phone campaign was a service to the Jacobs campaign and was duly reported as such.

As the Inside Dope points out, we have to assume that Personal Pac made the decision to call voters in the 36th district independently of the Jacobs' campaign because if they did in coordination with it someone would be guilty of a crime. But it seems a strange way for Personal Pac to advance their pro-choice cause. Apparently they see doing favors for pro-choice incumbents as something that will benefit their cause in the long run.

Am I going to apologize for doubting Mike Jacobs' explanation of who made those phone calls. Yes. I apologize for not being cynical enough about Illinois politics to imagine a supposedly pro-choice organization behaving in such a way.

Who Do You Think Is Behind the Phone Calls?

A controversy has arisen in the race for the Democratic nomination for the Illinois State Senate seat currently held by Mike Jacobs. Jacobs' opponent, Paul Rumler charges that someone has been calling voters stating incorrectly that he is anti-choice.

That the phone calls were made is not in dispute. At least 3 people, including an editor for the Dispatch/Argus, have publicly stated that they received the calls. But what group is behind the calls? Whoever did it expended some time and money to do in a way that the caller id would be defeated. The Rumler campaign suspects that the Mike Jacobs campaign is behind the calls. Mike Jacobs has suggested that perhaps Paul Rumler neglected to return a survey from a pro-choice group and the group, jumping to the conclusion that he was anti-choice, started making the calls.

Which theory is more believable to you? If a pro-choice group did it why would they hide their identity? Do you think pro-choice groups are likely to behave in this secretive and under-handed way?

Perhaps it would have been better for Mike Jacobs to acknowledge that people who support him might have made the calls. It would have reflected better on the honesty and integrity of his campaign if he had disavowed such tactics and called on
his supporter to stop doing such things rather than blaming pro-choice groups.

The 14 Defining Characterists of Fascism

From the Jeff Rense Program Website:
Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed
to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

Senator Harkin calls for US withdrawal from Iraq

The Des Moines Register on Friday reported that Iowa Senator Harkin has called for the US to immediately begin withdrawing forces from Iraq.

Sen. Tom Harkin said in Iowa Friday that Iraq has deteriorated into "civil war," declaring it no longer manageable by U.S. forces.

Harkin's comments make the Iowa Democrat among the first members of Congress to declare publicly that Iraq had slipped into war between Muslim factions. They come as polls show President Bush's approval at managing the situation at an all-time low.

"I'm firmly convinced now, after all this time, that it really is a civil war," Harkin said.

The senator, an opponent of the war, said the only solution to the surge of sectarian violence is to begin withdrawing U.S. forces.

Forum on Impeaching George Bush

Liz Holtman, John Dean, Lewis Lapham, Michael Ratner and others discuss impeaching George Bush. Alert reader Margaret Thomas pointed me to the following blog entry by Bob Fertik:

"Harper's Magazine held a truly outstanding forum on impeaching George Bush. The panel could not have been more distinguished. It included former Rep. Liz Holtzman, who became famous through her diligent service on the House Judiciary Committee when it adopted Articles of Impeachment that forced Richard Nixon to resign; John Dean, Nixon's White House Counsel whose conscientious refusal to cover up Nixon's crimes played a crucial role in Nixon's downfall; Harper's editor Lewis Lapham, who has analyzed American politics with profound insight for decades; Michael Ratner, the passionate human rights lawyer from the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is leading the legal battles to stop Bush's torture."

Parties and Media far to the right of the public. Media refuses to report it.

In a recent interview Noam Chomsky, a professor at MIT and social critic, responded to the statement that the United States has moved to the political right:

"Though the press systematically refuses to report it, public opinion studies show ... that both political parties and the media are far to the right of the public on issue after issue.

"In February 2005 just after last year's budget came out the most prestigious institute that studies public opinion in the world, based in the University of Maryland, carried out a study of what people thought the budget ought to be. And it was very striking. It was the exact inverse of the budget. Where federal spending was going up, the public wanted to go down: military spending, supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan; where spending was going down, the public wanted to go up: social spending, health, education, veteran's benefits, renewable energy, support of the United Nations peacekeeping missions, on and on.

"The reason the results of this study is not better known is that it was not published in a single newspaper in the United States, at least a single newspaper that's accessed by the standard database.

"So it just isn't true, I mean there is case after case like this, it's just not true that the population has swung to the right. The government has, the parties have, the media have, the public hasn't."

Illinois Minutemen meeting in Rock Island

I attended the Illinois Minutemen meeting in Rock Island last evening and all I can say is that those people sure have a lot of irrational fears. They like to portray themselves as people who are taking action but they seemed more like frightened children to me.

They worry that Al Qaeda terrorists are coming into this country across a poorly defended Mexican border. All the Al Qaeda terrorists that have been discovered to have been in this country either crossed the Canadian border or flew into the country on commercial airliners with legal visas.

They worry that immigrants are not assimilating and becoming Americans. That one baffles me. All the immigrants I have ever met really want to become Americans. That is why they came.

They worry that immigration (legal and illegal) is being encouraged and promoted by political forces which will use the immigrant vote to take control of something. That’s a laugh to anyone who has tried to get Hispanics to register and vote. Of the ones that do register and vote about half vote Republican and half for the Democrats.

They worry that illegal immigrants have more rights and benefits than citizens. Loans available only to illegal immigrants at lower interest rates than those available to citizens were mentioned. My wife, who both professionally and as a volunteer tries to help connect poor people, many of who are recent immigrants, with available services, was shaking her head about that one. She wanted to ask the speaker what she was talking about just in case there were some benefits available for immigrants of which she was unaware but the speaker did not seem to be allowing questions from the audience and we could not stay to the end of the 3 hour meeting.

They worry that illegal immigration is undermining everything that our brave soldiers fought and died for. (At this point in her talk she should have had patriotic music in the background and a backdrop of marching soldiers carrying American flags, but it seemed to be a low budget affair and there were no multi-media special effects.) All I could say was "Huh?" Many of our soldiers, both past and present, are recent immigrants. Many enter the military before becoming citizens.

There are real problems caused by massive illegal immigration but these people seem to spend most of their time fretting about imaginary ones. Our immigration policy needs to change but to do it correctly we first must have a clear understanding of the problem. These people do not seem to me to be part of the solution.

Cardinal Anticipates Need to Defy the Law

Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the nation's largest, on Ash Wednesday told his parishioners that if a bill that would make it illegal to offer support to illegal immigrants becomes law he will instruct his priests — and faithful lay Catholics — to defy the law.

The bill, H.R. 4437, has passed the House and will be considered by the Senate this week. It would expand the definition of "alien smuggling" in a way that could include offering food in a soup kitchen or food pantry, driving a friend to the bus stop or caring for a neighbor’s baby.

Congress, apparently having despaired of solving the illegal immigration problem either at the border or through employer sanctions, is now considering criminalizing social service agencies and soup kitchens who help the needy without considering their legal status. Rather than holding hearings on the failures of the Immigration and Naturalization Service to control our borders or seeking greater penalties against companies who hire illegal immigrants Congress seems to think it can slow down the flow of illegal immigrants by making soup kitchens ask for Social Security numbers.

In response to this muddled thinking the Cardinal offered a clear statement of what a Christian’s duty is. "As his disciples, we are called to attend to the last, littlest, lowest and least in society and in the church," he said.

March 19 will be the 3rd Anniversary of the War in Iraq

Local peace groups have been holding weekly vigils in opposition to the war for the last 3 years. Joining with others around the world they are calling for a massive public turn-out for peace on the 3rd anniversary of the beginning of the War in Iraq. In the Quad Cities the gathering will be Saturday, March 18 in Davenport in front of Border's, across the street from the Showcase Cinemas 53, 4000 E 54d St. from 2:00 - 4:00 PM.

I remember attending a peace vigil about 3 years ago in downtown Davenport. The war had not yet started but it was clear that the Bush Administration was determined to invade and most of the public, including most of the Democrats in Congress, were swept up in the war fever. About 150 people showed up to stand in front of the Federal Building in a futile attempt to prevent the inevitable.

Three years later the public sentiment is very different. It is becoming clear even to die-hard Republicans that President Bush does not have security and protecting the public as his highest priority. The War in Iraq has not turned out the way the people who started it expected and it is increasingly obvious that it is decreasing our security rather than enhancing it. We now know that a majority of our troops in Iraq believe it would be best if the troops were brought home within a year and a full 25% think they should be brought home immediately.

It is not too late to take a public stand in opposition to this war. Support peace. Support our troops by bringing them home. Come join us in front of Border's.

The message I received informing me of the March 18 vigil ended with the following:

"We seek a world free of war and the threat of war
We seek a society with equity and justice for all
We seek a community where every person's potential may be fulfilled
We seek an earth restored..."

Have the media misled us about how our troops in Iraq feel about their mission?

How many media stories have you seen quoting a gung-ho American soldier in Iraq who believed that what he/she was doing was correct, necessary and working and expressing frustration that not everyone back home believed the same thing? Didn’t those stories always seem to suggest that almost all our soldiers in Iraq felt the same way? Have we been misled?

In a new Zogby International poll released yesterday (that I have not yet seen referred to in any of our local media) "an overwhelming majority of 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and nearly one in four say the troops should leave immediately, a new Le Moyne College/Zogby International survey shows.

"Surveys were conducted face-to-face using random sampling techniques. The margin of error for the survey, conducted Jan. 18 through Feb. 14, 2006, is +/- 3.3 percentage points."

Is this the new silent majority, the majority of troops in Iraq whose views are never presented in the media?

Is the US building permanent military bases in Iraq?

Even though 80% of the Iraqi people, who you would think would know what kind of bases the US is building in their country, tell pollsters that they believe the US wants to build permanent bases and remain in their country indefinitely the American media never use the words "permanent", "bases" and "Iraq" in the same paragraph except when they are quoting Administration denials that the US has any desire for a long-time military presence in Iraq.

During a visit with US troops in Fallujah on Christmas Day, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said "at the moment there are no plans for permanent bases" in Iraq. "It is a subject that has not even been discussed with the Iraqi government."

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmett, the Central Comand deputy commander for planning and strategy in Iraq said "We already have handed over significant chunks of territory to the Iraqis. Those are not simply plans to do so; they are being executed right now. It is not only our plan but our policy that we do not intend to have any permanent bases in Iraq."

Karen Hughes on The Charlie Rose Show:
CHARLIE ROSE: They think we are still there for the oil, or they think the United States want permanent bases. Does the United States want permanent bases in Iraq?
KAREN HUGHES: We want nothing more than to bring our men and women in uniform home. As soon as possible, but not before they finish the job.
CHARLIE ROSE: And do we not want to keep bases there?
KAREN HUGHES: No, we want to bring our people home as soon as possible.

If that were actually the case then you would think that any bases we created would either be very temporary, easily dismantled, or else the kind of installation that could be handed over to the Iraqis. But the US is spending billions to build very American, very permanent looking facilities.

Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post paid a visit to Balad Air Base, the largest American base in Iraq, 68 kilometers north of Baghdad:
The base is sizeable enough to have its own "neighborhoods", as well as a Subway, a Pizza Hut, a Popeye’s, a Starbucks, a 24-hour Burger King, two post exchanges where TVs, iPods and the like can be purchased, four mess halls, a hospital, a huge airstrip, 250 aircraft (helicopters and drones included) and a miniature golf course. Ricks reports that the 20,000 troops stationed at Balad live in "air-conditioned containers" that will in the future be wired "to bring the troops Internet, cable television and overseas telephone access."

Recently, Oliver Poole, a British reporter, visited another of the American "super-bases," the still-under-construction al-Asad Airbase ("Football and pizza point to US staying for the long haul.") He observes, of "the biggest Marine camp in western Anbar province," that "this stretch of desert increasingly resembles a slice of US suburbia." In addition to the requisite Subway and pizza outlets, there is a football field, a Hertz rent-a-car office, a swimming pool and a movie theater showing the latest flicks. Al-Asad is so large that it has two bus routes and red stop signs at all intersections.

There are at least 4 such "super-bases" being built in Iraq at the cost of billions of dollars.

As the midterm elections approach and the American public becomes increasingly nervous about Iraq you will see and hear politicians and television and newspaper pundits try to convince you that the US is starting to withdraw from Iraq and that the Iraqi chapter of our history is drawing to a close. I suggest that you not believe a word about any purported withdrawal and turning over to the Iraqi until you see pictures of the Pizza Huts and Burger Kings being converted into lamb kabob outlets and all those air-conditioned containers with the Internet hook-
ups being loaded onto ships.

Conservatives pretend that only Democrats oppose the President

As reported in the New York Times, from the very beginning the concern in Congress about the deal by Dubai Ports World to manage six American ports was bipartisan.

Representative Peter T. King of New York was in a room packed with reporters last week, complaining that the White House had jeopardized national security by contracting with an Arab-owned company to manage terminals in six American ports, when he felt his cellphone vibrate. It was Representative J. Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House.

Mr. King, like Mr. Hastert a Republican, finished talking and hurriedly returned the call, expecting the speaker, who has never broken with President Bush on a major issue, to chastise him. "And before I said anything," Mr. King recalled, "he said, 'You don't have to tell me what a bad deal it is: you and I are on the same page.' "

Then why are Fox News and conservative columnists describing the opposition as if it were from Democrats alone?

Charles Krauthammer writes:
The Democrats, in particular, are in full cry, gleeful to at last get to the right of George Bush on an issue of national security.
Gleeful, and shamelessly hypocritical.

Fox News' Carl Cameron reported that congressional Democrats are "hoping for an election-year chance to appear more hawkish than the president on national security," in "pushing legislation to block" a proposal to permit a company owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to manage port terminals in six major U.S. cities.

Carl Cameron then presented a video clip of Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) saying
"We will introduce next week in Congress -- Congress is out of session this week -- a resolution of disapproval." and then a video clip of another Democrat, leaving the viewer with the impression that the "we" in Rep. Harman's quotes referred to the Democrats.
But the quote was from a statement in which Harman promised to introduce legislation calling on the Bush administration to reconsider the ports takeover jointly with Republican Sen. Susan Collins (ME) and, in fact, the "we" in the Harman clip referred to Collins.

Media Matters reports
Despite ascribing political motives to Democrats who oppose the port deal, Cameron did not question the motives of Republicans who oppose the takeover or who are calling for hearings on the matter.

The Inside Dope blog has it right when he says of Fox News, Up is down, black is white. When Democrats oppose the President it is purely political posturing but the Republicans who take the same stand are expressing genuine concern.

The Dispatch reports on a tour of Triumph Foods plant

The Dispatch and QCOnline today are featuring stories about a tour Friday by 17 local elected officials to the Triumph Foods pork processing plant in St. Joseph, Mo. We are told that this plant is “nearly identical” to the one proposed to be built in rural East Moline. The newspaper story focuses primarily on how much of an odor is associated with the plant and selectively quotes participates of the tour commenting on how little they smelled. In her blog entry the reporter notes that she smelled even less on this tour than she had on her first tour when she smelled “faint whiffs of manure.” There were also comments on how clean and orderly tour participants found the inside of the plant. In the newspaper two pictures accompanied the story, both taken inside the plant and showing a few men who appeared to me to be supervisors. Although we are told that 1000 people are employed at the plant, judging from the descriptions and the pictures of this tour we might conclude that it is an automated plant and all 1000 are supervisors and inspectors wearing clean white lab coats, spending their time observing the orderly procession of hogs marching off to process themselves.

Nothing was said about the outside of the plant or its effect on the area in which it was built. Thom Hart was on the tour but there were no quotes from him about whether or not the plant had revitalized that part of St. Joseph, or about whether there was any new development spurred by the presence of the plant. This was surprising to me since Mr. Hart had been quoted a few weeks ago as saying that he expected the proposed East Moline plant to cause an upsurge of other development in that part of rural Rock Island County, similar to the development going on in the 53rd Street area of Davenport. I considered that the most amazing thing said by anyone involved in the debate about the plant. Why would anyone build a doctor’s office, movie theater or upscale restaurant next to a pork processing plant? Perhaps Mr. Hart will, at some point, add some follow up to his prediction, stating whether after what he saw in St. Joseph he still has those expectations.

There were a lot of things that participants of a tour like this must have seen and noticed that the reporter did not comment on – the area around the plant, the effect of the plant on its environment, the kind of people working in the plant and the kinds of things they were expected to do. One has to suppose that these things were not reported because the story was narrowly focused – perhaps on things that would advance the cause of getting the public to support the Triumph Foods development deal. If a lot of what tour participants saw was not reported because it would not be helpful to that cause what does that say about that cause?

Bush Administration hoist by its own petard

David Brooks in his column in today's New York Times seems to have discovered to his surprise that politicians will demagogue about national security and the public's fear of the foreign.
"This Dubai port deal has unleashed a kind of collective mania we haven't seen in decades. First seized by the radio hatemonger Michael Savage, it's been embraced by reactionaries of left and right, exploited by Empire State panderers, and enabled by a bipartisan horde of politicians who don't have the guts to stand in front of a xenophobic tsunami."
Mr. Brooks seems to have a blind spot about the Bush Administration. He seems completely oblivious that Bill Frist and Dennis Hastert are just continuing to do what the administration has done since 9/11 -- exploit public fears about national security and terrorism for their political advantage.
Since there are terrorists who want to do the US harm in both Britian and Dubai it probably does not make us any more or less safe to have a U.A.E. company running our ports instead of a British one. Stopping this port deal will probably not make us any safer. But, unlike invading Iraq, putting incompentent political hacks in charge of FEMA and many other things the Bush Administration has done since 9/11, it probably does not put us more at risk, either.

The only thing different about the xenophobic, unreasoning fear aroused by the port deal is that the Bush Administration is on the receiving end of its negative effects.

I wonder how if feels.

President threatens to cast his first veto

According to the New York Times President Bush, trying to put down a rapidly escalating rebellion among leaders of his own party, said Tuesday that he would veto any legislation blocking a deal for a state-owned company in Dubai to take over the management of port terminals in New York, Miami, Baltimore and other major American cities.
Mr. Bush issued the threat after the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, and the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, publicly criticized the deal and said a thorough review was necessary to ensure that terrorists could not exploit the arrangement to slip weapons into American ports. Mr. Bush suggested that the objections to the deal might be based on bias against a company from the Middle East, one he said was an ally in fighting terrorism.
Is the President suggesting that Bill Frist and Dennis Hastert are not really interested in fighting terrorism and protecting the public but instead are using the public's fears in order to side with certain big money business interest in opposition to the money men supported by the president? If so, doesn't that mean the president is doing the same thing? Our leaders would not do that to us, would they? They would not sell us and our security out to a bunch of middle-eastern businessmen, would they?

Removing historical information from public view

According to the New York Times In a seven-year-old secret program at the National Archives, intelligence agencies have been removing from public access thousands of historical documents that were available for years, including some already published by the State Department and others photocopied years ago by private historians.
How can it increase our security to remove from public view documents which had already been made public? The documents being reclassified secret are not street maps or blueprints that terrorists could use to plan an attack. They are just historical documents that are embarrassing to someone in power. Just who is being protected here?

Valid Concerns about the Triumph Foods Pork Processing Plant

In this morning’s Daily Dispatch is an opinion written by Moline Alderman Dick Potter who disagrees with the idea of giving incentives designed to lift the standard of living in impoverished areas to the proposed East Moline Triumph Foods pork processing plant which will only pay starting wages of $8.25 an hour. Even the average wage of $25,000 a year is still below the poverty line. Why should a project which will pay its workers poverty wages receive subsidies and special treatment? Let them pay all the taxes and fees that any other business would pay.

In this morning’s Quad City Times is a letter to the editor by Tim Murphy of the Quad-City Audubon Society who worries about the environmental impact of the proposed plant and suggests an independent, third-party evaluation of the impact of the plant before final approval is given to the project.

These are valid concerns about the proposed project which I share. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to have reservations about this plant. There is no need to demagogue about illegal immigration or the ethnicity of the people who will work there.

Navy Lawyer Argued President Was Breaking the Law

According to the New York Times one of the Pentagon's top civilian lawyers repeatedly challenged the Bush administration's policy on the coercive interrogation of terror suspects, arguing that such practices violated the law, verged on torture and could ultimately expose senior officials to prosecution, a newly disclosed document shows.

We now see that there were lawyers within the military and the administration who vigorously protested about the legality and wisdom of the "coercive interrogation" (read torture) of terror suspects. Just as George Bush and Dick Cheney cherry-picked intelligence to support the decisions they had already made we now see that they cherry-picked legal opinions among their own lawyers.

Stop the Hate Rally/Workshop

I have been asked to speak at the “Stop the Hate” rally/workshop Monday, Feb. 20, 2006 at the Moline Community Center, 1515 5th Ave, Moline at 4PM. The event is being organized by Quad City residents, most of whom are native born American citizens of Mexican descent. They are concerned that in the public discussion about the proposed Triumph Foods pork processing plant some people were saying they were opposed to the plant because Mexicans would be drawn to the area to work at the plant and this would have a negative effect on the community. The most troubling aspect about these comments was how little reaction there was to them.

Note that the arguments were not that illegal immigrants or lazy people looking for a handout or poor people who would tax our social services would be attracted by these jobs. Those things could not be claimed because that would obviously be untrue.

Illegal immigrants will not be attracted by these jobs because as a result of special INS attention to the meat packing industry it is more difficult for illegal immigrants to work in the pork, beef and poultry processing plants than in, say, restaurants and hotels. People looking for a handout will obviously not be attracted by these jobs. Only people expecting to work for a living and willing to work hard would come here to work in a meat packing plant. These jobs would pay better than many jobs in this area including jobs at Walmart, McDonalds and many other jobs in the retail and service industries and so the families of people working at this plant would be less likely than many of the working poor already in our community to need financial help.

It was implied that having more non-English speaking children enroll in our schools would put an extra burden on them. I have never heard any educators worry about this. Our schools have been teaching English to immigrant children for a very long time and they are very good at it. The schools would be much more threatened by decreasing enrollments than increasing ones.

It is no longer acceptable for people to claim, as was once done, that it would be bad for a community if more Irish, Jews, Italians or blacks came there to live. Why is it seemingly acceptable to say that about Mexicans?

Immigrants from Mexico are not here to transform the United States into Mexico. They came here to become Americans and despite what you sometimes hear, they are learning English and becoming assimilated as quickly as any previous generation of non-English speaking immigrants.

If you come to the rally as a result of reading this be sure to seek me out and let me know. It will good to meet someone that reads this blog.

The Chamber of Commerce and Eminent Domain

According to the Daily Dispatch “The Bettendorf Chamber of Commerce and DavenportOne are encouraging members to ask legislators to oppose any new restrictions on eminent domain because they believe it could hamper urban redevelopment.”

Eminent domain was created to allow the government to purchase private property to build roads or other public purposes even if the property owner does not want to sell. For most of its existence, up until 25 years ago or so, it was used for that purpose and there was little opposition to it.

During the last 25 years some local governments have started using their power of eminent domain not for building projects of their own but to help private development projects. They started seizing private property in order to hand it over to private developers, using the rationale that the new owners would pay more property taxes than the current owners which was in the public interest and therefore a "public use". People opposing this practice realized that new laws were needed a few months ago when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of this new use of eminent domain.
There is no reason why the local Chamber of Commerce or local businessmen would have to oppose new laws restricting the use of eminent domain to its original purpose. After all, they are property owners also. They could easily side with the rest of us against this practice of the “golden rule” – someone who has more gold can, with the help of local government, seize the property of someone with less influence. After all, not matter how big you are someone bigger can always come along.

By taking this position they are placing themselves in opposition to the ordinary citizens. They are making it clear that when it comes to us against them, they are them.

Investigators for U.N. Urge U.S. to Close Guantánamo

According to the New York Times Human rights investigators working for the United Nations called on the United States on Thursday to shut down the Guantánamo Bay camp and either try its detainees quickly or free them.
If we are so sure these are bad guys why don't we prove it to the world in a court of law? Holding them indefinitely without trial is something a Stalin or a Hitler would do. This is the United States of America -- land of brave and home of the free. Has fear of terrorism transformed us into our worst enemy?

I am against the pork processing plant and I am not a racist

I had not noticed that the discussion about the proposed Triumph Foods pork processing plant in East Moline had stirred up some racist, anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican sentiments but several Moline residents whose parents were born in Mexico have told me that they most certainly had. Although they had initially been as concerned as I was about a smelly plant, built in the flood-plain when they started hearing hateful rhetoric in opposition to the plant that became the deciding issue in their minds and they are now in favor of the plant being built.

If you are in opposition to the plant and are not a racist you probably do not want your reasons for opposing the plant to become irrelevant as the deciding issue becomes whether you are for or against Mexicans in the Quad Cities. If you speak against the plant be sure to emphasize that your reasons have nothing to do with the ethnicity or nationality of the people that might work there. Do not allow your desire for a winning political coalition make you complicit with racists and xenophobes.

Some of my friends are so concerned about the anti-immigration rhetoric they have been hearing they are organizing a "Stop the Hate" rally in Moline next Monday, Feb 20, 2006 at 4 pm at the Moline Community Center, 1515 5th Ave. More details to follow.

A Telephone Poll

I got a phone call about a week ago that asked if I had the time to participate in a poll about local politicians. I said “yes” and started answering questions. It quickly became apparent from the questions that the poll was by or for the campaign of State Senator Mike Jacobs. The most interesting part was when they read a few reasons for voting for Mike Jacobs and then a few reasons for voting against him and asking me to rate the persuasiveness of each. I did not write anything down so I am doing this from memory but the reasons for voting for Mike Jacobs had to do with him being instrumental in getting funding for the WIU campus in Moline, support for the Thomson Prison, his support for education and things like that. The reasons for voting against Mike Jacobs were him “speaking before thinking” when defending the riverboat gambling industry and him saying that union workers made too much money and since he was appointed rather than elected he was beholden to the party insiders rather than to the voters.

How would you rate the persuasiveness of the reasons for compared to the reasons against? On the reasons for it is not clear how much credit Senator Jacobs should be given. You just have to take his word for it that he was instrumental in getting the funding. There is no doubt about the reasons against voting for him. You know that he said those things. You know he was appointed and is beholden to those who did the appointing. No doubt about it.

I don’t want to make any predictions because it seems kind of risky to predict the defeat of an incumbent with the backing of party and a hundred fold advantage in money. But I keep thinking about those reasons for and against as defined by his own campaign. It was sort of like debating an empty chair and losing.

Thoughts Upon Returning to the Quad Cities

My wife and I just returned from a 4 day trip to Orlando, Florida paid for by my day job employer. In terms of surviving a Quad City winter I am not sure whether a break such as that is a help or a hindrance. My first thought when exiting the Moline terminal into 20 degrees (it had been about 60 degrees in Orlando when we left a few hours before) was “Why exactly did we come back?”

On the other hand it was a pleasure to walk through our airport which was so much less crowded than the Atlanta and Orlando airports and to drive on our much less congested roads. Our community has a lot of advantages in quality of life. I wonder why the East Moline and Moline city councils seem to think we are so desperately in need of development that they are willing to accept any offer which promises jobs no matter how ugly and smelly?

Extreme Weather Prediction

In a comment to a blog entry on the Inside Dope blog on New Years Day asking for predictions for 2006 I fearlessly predicted extreme weather in 2006. I predicted that many locations would record the hottest, coldest, wettest or driest years since records have been kept. New York City just recorded the largest snowfall since records have been kept and even though I did not specifically mention snowfall I am claiming victory for my prediction. Of course, if we lived in a sane society in which everyone admitted obvious facts staring them in the face my prediction would have been the equivalent of “I predict that the pope will be Catholic” and I would look pretty silly trying to do a victory lap. But large numbers of Americans are conservatives, most of whom claim with apparently straight faces not to see any evidence of global warming or any other weather trend at all.

Of course, this is a tragedy in the sense that our inability to take any collective action now means we and our children and their children are going to be paying a very high price in the future for our current inaction. But looking on the bright side, their myopia is a golden opportunity to win some bets for those of us able to see the world directly rather than filtered through an ideology. Every time you run into a global warming skeptic suggest a friendly wager. It will be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Naom Chomsky on the definition of terrorism

From Noam Chomsky's ZNet Blog

The US Code for defining an "act of terrorism" is an activity that -- (A) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life that is a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State; and (B) appears to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping.

Two points. First, I've been using this and other official US definitions since I began writing on the topic in the early 80s, immediately after the Reaganites declared their war on terror.

For two reasons: (1) they are reasonable and close to common usage, and (2) they are appropriate, because the government that offers these definitions cannot claim that it is exempt from their consequences. Second point is that later this definition has been withdrawn, presumably because it was recognized that an immediate consequence is that the US is a leading terrorist state. Though it is safe to rely on the intellectual class not to draw the conclusion, nevertheless there are always mavericks who tell irritating truths, and sometimes the usual techniques of lying, hysteria, tantrums, etc., do not suffice among the general public, even though they almost invariably do among the educated classes. For that reason, the standard view now is that defining "terrorism" is a profound problem, to be dealt with in international conferences, academic studies, etc. And it's true that it is a very hard problem to define "terrorism" so that it singles out what they do to us and our clients, but excludes what we and our clients do to them -- a problem so far not solved and very profound, no doubt...

Noam Chomsky

Interview with Richard Dawkins

Q: "Still, so many people resist believing in evolution. Where does the resistance come from?

Richard Dawkins: "It comes, I'm sorry to say, from religion. And from bad religion. You won't find any opposition to the idea of evolution among sophisticated, educated theologians. It comes from an exceedingly retarded, primitive version of religion, which unfortunately is at present undergoing an epidemic in the United States. Not in Europe, not in Britain, but in the United States."


See the complete interview here.