America's Dark Side
by Chris Lehmann
[reposted from The Daily Beast]
It’s all too easy to think of the unmourned Bush era as an aberration—an unsteady compound of crisis, ideology, and ambition that produced a fearful consolidation of executive power, a shoddy set of rationales for foreign invasion, and a shameful descent, in the military-intelligence world, into what Vice President Dick Cheney called, with typically unseemly relish, “the dark side.”
But Mark Danner, a journalist and a professor at Bard College and the University of California at Berkeley, has been tracking the dark side of U.S. power for more than 25 years. Especially in the wake of the United States’ catastrophic invasion of Iraq, Danner’s work—which mainly appears in The New York Review of Books—has served as a key touchstone for readers keen on finding the kind of sharp, historically informed dissenting views on critical questions of war-making and statecraft that largely went missing from most mainstream press chronicles of the run-up, and immediate aftermath, of the Iraq mission. And in this sprawling anthology of his foreign reportage and policy-minded essays, Danner stresses that, for all the excesses of diplomacy as practiced in the Bush White House, they form the logical culmination of America’s restive career as the world’s pre-eminent post-Cold War superpower. True, he writes, George W. Bush blundered into the Iraq invasion with “a thoroughgoing incompetence that stands unmatched in U.S. history.” But the “de facto martial law imposed after the attacks of September 11” occupies a point along a continuum, he writes, in “a moral history of America as a world power over the last quarter-century.”
That history, as told across the 27 unflinching accounts collected in Stripping Bare the Body, doesn’t make for easy, or comforting, reading. The collection starts with Danner’s New Yorker dispatches from the horrific 1988 election massacres in Haiti, where the Tonton Macoutes—the infamous roving security mobs founded by former President François Duvalier—slaughtered civilians in polling places, and ensured that Haiti’s first open election would produce yet another brutal, undemocratic military government. Danner supplies many first-hand accounts of the carnage and its aftermath, but one of the most chilling scenes involves a gathering of U.S. diplomats in Port-au-Prince, ruefully presenting the standard, self-serving American portrait as put-upon caretaker of a poor, black island in its Cold War sphere of influence. “This country is like a very old patient in a hospital,” one of them prates, “and he’s on the machine, but even though the doctors see no sign of recovery, they don’t pull the plug.” When Danner polls the company on why the United States could not step up sanctions on the regime after initially withdrawing foreign aid from Haiti, they take up the same weary, overcivilized refrain: “There is no alternative.”
That dictum also serves as the de facto motto for Danner’s account of the U.S. role in the Balkan conflict of the 1990s. Beginning with James Baker, the secretary of state for George H.W. Bush, American policymakers greeted the specter of a European genocide with a posture of studied (yet glib) indifference. “We got no dog in this fight,” Baker dismissively announced in 1991, after a failed, harried effort to broker a provisional compromise among leaders in the former Yugoslavia—and sure enough, when reports began to surface of Serb-run concentration camps in Bosnia, and the coordinated campaign of ethnic-cleansing atrocities committed by Serbian troops, “the information...passed forward to Secretary of State James Baker and to senior officials at the Pentagon and the White House...met with silence,” Danner archly reports.
Stripping Bare the Body: Politics, Violence, War. By Mark Danner. 626 pages. Nation Books. $28.95. Bill Clinton seemed to signal a welcome shift in policy priorities when he announced as president-elect that “the legitimacy of ethnic cleansing cannot stand.” Yet as Danner’s accounts show in raw, shocking detail, that legitimacy not only stood, but was the de facto driver of U.S. policy until Serbian General Ratko Mladic’s bloodthirsty massacre in the U.N. “safe haven” of Srebrenica claimed more than 7,000 Muslim lives. For the victims of many similar Serb campaigns, the dilatory U.S. approach to the Balkans crisis was an especially bitter crash course in the uniquely callow approach to diplomacy favored by the leaders of post-Cold War America: “For Bill Clinton, as the Bosnians were slowly discovering, speaking out against inhumanity often seemed a means of standing up against it.”
Viewed against this broader backdrop, the country’s ADD-style post-9/11 incursion into Iraq—for all its surface resoluteness and score-settling brio—points up what, for close observers, should have been a familiar pattern of the post-Cold War American sense of mission: a fanciful attachment to the fiction of the United States as an unsullied actor on the global stage (hated “for our freedoms,” as George W. Bush memorably put it), and a no less stubborn resistance to reckoning with the true human and political costs of the nation’s moral vanity. “Not for the first time,” Danner wrote shortly after the Iraq invasion began to go sour, “the United States has shown itself to be a strange, hybrid creature, military giant and political dwarf.”
But unlike many other detractors of the dismal errand into Iraq, Danner leavens his acid judgments with firsthand reporting. He sympathetically records, for example, the efforts of a “brilliant and indefatigable” State diplomat, meeting with a wide battery of officials in the Sunni-dominated Anbar Province prior to the historic 2006 vote to ratify a constitution establishing an independent government in occupied Iraq. When the official confidently forecasts that, in spite of the announced Sunni boycott of the ballot, “people here—a great many people—are going to vote yes,” Danner marvels at the predictions, and considers it, potentially, “an invaluable bit of inside wisdom.” Nevertheless, he notes, the actual ballot yielded precious view few Anbar ballots—and even then, “in Anbar ninety-seven out of every one hundred Iraqis who voted had voted no.” Patiently setting out to explore how “with all his contacts and commitment, with all his energy and brilliance,” such a pivotal observer could “on the most basic and critical issue of politics on the ground” be “entirely, catastrophically wrong,” Danner opens out into a policy review of how the entire Iraq debacle was shaped by similar evidence-free assertions of officially sanctioned dogma. With far more sweeping and damning policy miscues in his sights—such as the WMD farce, or provisional government head L. Paul Bremer’s mystifying decision merely to disband the 300,000-member Iraqi army, thereby bequeathing a vast cohort of motivated, experienced recruits to the insurgency—Danner concludes that “the systematic failures in Iraq resulted in large part from an almost willful determination to cut off those in government who knew anything from those who made the decisions.”
Likewise, the far more calculated, culpable official silence that surrounds the torture of U.S. detainees in facilities such as Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and the CIA-administered “black sites” that housed subjects of extraordinary renditions is, Danner writes, “made not of facts but of the myths that replace them when facts remain secret: myths that are fueled by allusions to a dark world of secrets that cannot be revealed.” Such myths, he notes, render the historic conduct of torture by U.S. forces and intelligence officials—first reported in American newspapers in 2002—a “frozen scandal: revealed but unpunished, exposed but unexorcised.” Revisiting the gruesome accounts of detainee torture in the International Committee of the Red Cross report on black site interrogation, Danner zeroes in on the incalculable institutional as well as human costs of a torture-approving regime. Reminding readers that victims of black site abuse such as Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheik Muhammad “almost certainly have blood on their hands, a great deal of blood,” Danner moves on to the essential point: “The use of torture deprives the society whose laws have been so egregiously violated of the possibility of rendering justice...Torture in effect relinquishes that sacred right in exchange for speculative benefits whose value is, at the least, much disputed.”
Stripping Bare the Body isn’t a definitive account of the country’s lurch into the truly Orwellian world of routine state brutality—and the official secrecy, ignorance, and euphemism that must always function as its handmaiden. There is little discussion, for example, of the first Iraq war of 1991-92, and its crucial role in harnessing the electronic media to the prerogatives of state power—or of the genocide in Rwanda, which should have furnished all kinds of cautionary lessons for U.S. policymakers, but predictably enough, went unremarked as anything but a remote and ugly diversion for the world-bestriding policy elite. There is also, surprisingly, none of Danner’s own invaluable writing on the American press’ prostration as a de facto propaganda arm in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion. But there is ample material for a clear-eyed appraisal of the American republic’s decades-long slough into global despond, for readers with the stomach to countenance such a thing candidly. In a more just world, Stripping Bare the Body would occupy the center of global policy debate traditionally assigned for witless tracts by Tom Friedman or Madeleine Albright. But in a more just world, you also wouldn’t have to hunt down Mark Danner’s searching essays and riveting war dispatches in The New York Review of Books.
The opinions, views, thoughts, and ramblings of editors of PoliticalAffairs.net – and other stuff worth reading or viewing.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
OBAMA AND THE BANKS
Who Are You and What Have You Done With the Community Organizer We Elected President?
By Robert Scheer
[reposted from Truthdig.com]
What’s up with Barack Obama? The candidate for change once promised to take on the powerful banking interests but is now doing their bidding. Finally, a leading Democrat, in this case Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, has a good idea for monitoring the Wall Street fat cats who all but destroyed the American economy, and the Obama administration condemns it.
Dodd wants to take supervisory power from the Federal Reserve, which is controlled by the banks it pretends to monitor, and put it in the hands of a new independent agency. That makes sense given the Fed’s abject failure to properly monitor the financial sector over the past decade as that industry got drunk on greed. As Dodd’s spokeswoman Kirstin Brost put it: “The Federal Reserve flat out failed at supervising the largest, most complex firms.” But White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee frets that taking power from the Fed would cause financial industry “nervousness.” Isn’t that the whole point of government regulation—to make the bandits look over their shoulders before they launch their next destructive scam?
Not so in the view of Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin, who blithely insists that the Fed “is the best agency equipped for the task of supervising the largest, most complex firms,” despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary. There is some irony in the fact that the largest of those complex firms got to be “too big to fail” because of the radical deregulatory legislation that Wolin drafted during his previous incarnation as the Treasury Department’s general counsel in the Clinton administration. Wolin is now deputy to Timothy Geithner, who as head of the New York Fed in the five years preceding the banking meltdown looked the other way as the disaster began to unfold.
Why is Barack Obama allowing these retreads from the Clinton era who went on to great riches on Wall Street to set economic policy for his administration? The fatal hallmark of this president’s financial policy is that it is being designed by the very people whose previous legislative efforts created the mess that enriched them while impoverishing the nation, and they now want more of the same.
In the Clinton years, Wolin was general counsel to then-Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, the key architect of the radical deregulation that caused the recent banking collapse. Summers went off to work for hedge funds and banks that paid him $15 million in 2008 while he was advising Obama. Meanwhile, Wolin became general counsel for Hartford Insurance Corp., which had to be bailed out by the taxpayers because it took advantage of the radical deregulation that he helped write into law.
Wolin, Geithner and Summers were all protégés of Robert Rubin, who, as Clinton’s treasury secretary, was the grand author of the strategy of freeing Wall Street firms from their Depression-era constraints. It was Wolin who, at Rubin’s behest, became a key force in drafting the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which ended the barrier between investment and commercial banks and insurance companies, thus permitting the new financial behemoths to become too big to fail. Two stunning examples of such giants that had to be rescued with public funds are Citigroup bank, where Rubin went to “earn” $120 million after leaving the Clinton White House, and the Hartford Insurance Co., where Wolin landed after he left Treasury.
Both Citigroup and Hartford would not have gotten into trouble were it not for the enabling legislation that the three Clinton officials pushed through while they were in power. But even with that law, had Geithner been on the case protecting the public interest while head of the New York Fed, much of the damage could have been avoided.
Thanks to the legislation that Wolin helped write, the limits preventing mergers between insurance companies and banks imposed during Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency was reversed. Hartford got into banking, and as The Washington Times observed in a scathing editorial, “Hartford … rushed to buy regulated savings and loans just so they could call themselves banks and qualify for government TARP funds.” Wolin collected his millions while the taxpayers were obliged to cover Hartford’s losses.
It is depressing for a columnist who had great hopes for Obama to be forced by the facts to credit editors at the right-wing Washington Times for getting it right when they opined: “Revolving doors between industry and the administration and fat-cat political contributors getting bailed out at taxpayer expense sound like business as usual. This certainly isn’t change we can believe in.” Please, Mr. President, say it ain’t so.
By Robert Scheer
[reposted from Truthdig.com]
What’s up with Barack Obama? The candidate for change once promised to take on the powerful banking interests but is now doing their bidding. Finally, a leading Democrat, in this case Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, has a good idea for monitoring the Wall Street fat cats who all but destroyed the American economy, and the Obama administration condemns it.
Dodd wants to take supervisory power from the Federal Reserve, which is controlled by the banks it pretends to monitor, and put it in the hands of a new independent agency. That makes sense given the Fed’s abject failure to properly monitor the financial sector over the past decade as that industry got drunk on greed. As Dodd’s spokeswoman Kirstin Brost put it: “The Federal Reserve flat out failed at supervising the largest, most complex firms.” But White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee frets that taking power from the Fed would cause financial industry “nervousness.” Isn’t that the whole point of government regulation—to make the bandits look over their shoulders before they launch their next destructive scam?
Not so in the view of Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin, who blithely insists that the Fed “is the best agency equipped for the task of supervising the largest, most complex firms,” despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary. There is some irony in the fact that the largest of those complex firms got to be “too big to fail” because of the radical deregulatory legislation that Wolin drafted during his previous incarnation as the Treasury Department’s general counsel in the Clinton administration. Wolin is now deputy to Timothy Geithner, who as head of the New York Fed in the five years preceding the banking meltdown looked the other way as the disaster began to unfold.
Why is Barack Obama allowing these retreads from the Clinton era who went on to great riches on Wall Street to set economic policy for his administration? The fatal hallmark of this president’s financial policy is that it is being designed by the very people whose previous legislative efforts created the mess that enriched them while impoverishing the nation, and they now want more of the same.
In the Clinton years, Wolin was general counsel to then-Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, the key architect of the radical deregulation that caused the recent banking collapse. Summers went off to work for hedge funds and banks that paid him $15 million in 2008 while he was advising Obama. Meanwhile, Wolin became general counsel for Hartford Insurance Corp., which had to be bailed out by the taxpayers because it took advantage of the radical deregulation that he helped write into law.
Wolin, Geithner and Summers were all protégés of Robert Rubin, who, as Clinton’s treasury secretary, was the grand author of the strategy of freeing Wall Street firms from their Depression-era constraints. It was Wolin who, at Rubin’s behest, became a key force in drafting the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which ended the barrier between investment and commercial banks and insurance companies, thus permitting the new financial behemoths to become too big to fail. Two stunning examples of such giants that had to be rescued with public funds are Citigroup bank, where Rubin went to “earn” $120 million after leaving the Clinton White House, and the Hartford Insurance Co., where Wolin landed after he left Treasury.
Both Citigroup and Hartford would not have gotten into trouble were it not for the enabling legislation that the three Clinton officials pushed through while they were in power. But even with that law, had Geithner been on the case protecting the public interest while head of the New York Fed, much of the damage could have been avoided.
Thanks to the legislation that Wolin helped write, the limits preventing mergers between insurance companies and banks imposed during Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency was reversed. Hartford got into banking, and as The Washington Times observed in a scathing editorial, “Hartford … rushed to buy regulated savings and loans just so they could call themselves banks and qualify for government TARP funds.” Wolin collected his millions while the taxpayers were obliged to cover Hartford’s losses.
It is depressing for a columnist who had great hopes for Obama to be forced by the facts to credit editors at the right-wing Washington Times for getting it right when they opined: “Revolving doors between industry and the administration and fat-cat political contributors getting bailed out at taxpayer expense sound like business as usual. This certainly isn’t change we can believe in.” Please, Mr. President, say it ain’t so.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Film Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats
by Eric Green
Clooney Needed the Coens to Make "Goats" more Biting
This film is probably Clooney's sequel to his well done and fairly popular 1999 anti-Iraq War I, "Three Kings." That film was directed by David Russell. Grant Heslov directed "Goats."
Too bad that Russell wasn't asked again to direct this war truth/satire film on the Iraq War II. In fact, it is a shame that the Coen Brothers were brought in. There is an overwhelming amount of material in this film, a film that is laced with real life facts that are too crazy to comprehend.
In short, a Midwestern reporter from Ann Arbor, Michigan, Ewan McGregor leaves a failed marriage to join the army as a journalist to find his true calling. What he finds is the First Earth Battalion as created by the great actor, Jeff Bridges. Bridges is an over- the-top hippie with psychic powers that the U.S. army has enlisted to win the Iraqi war.
The book on which the film was based claimed that the key figures of this rather bizarre film are based on actual people. Given the world of Bush, Chaney and Rove nothing should surprise us.
Clooney is a disciple of Bridges. And, he enlists McGregor to conduct a major action.
Kevin Spacey is part of the action, but throws a monkey wrench into the everyday activities and goals of the Earth Battalion. He was poorly directed in the film.
The film's underlying antiwar premise is the use of contractors by the U.S. army and the goals of those contractors.
The disappointment of the film is that the direction that Russell gave in "Kings" was sorely missed in "Goats." And, the underlying humor with the seriousness of the purpose of the film is a Coen brother's specialty.
This was a missed opportunity, but given Clooney's popularity and the clear anti-war underlying theme of the film, the film ends up on the positive side.
It is an entertaining film and is worth seeing; it could have been so much better.
BRIGHT-SIDED: A book review
Bright-sided: How The Relentless Promotion Of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America by Barbara Ehrenreich
Reviewed by Tim Gebhart [reposted from Blogger News Network]
Two of Barbara Ehrenreich’s best-selling books are reality journalism, where she put herself in the situations she’s writing about. Thus, in 2001 she released Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, a first-hand account of trying to live on the wages of low-paying jobs, such as waitress, hotel maid and Wal-Mart associate. She followed that with Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream, in which she examined what it takes to find a white-collar job at a time of downsizing and layoffs.
With that background, you wonder if and how she is going to get inside the topic of her latest book, Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. Yet the first chapter is based on as much reality as anyone would want to face. It discusses, as she did in a 2001 article in Harper’s Magazine, her diagnosis of breast cancer and her introduction to a culture which views cheerfulness and positive thinking as almost mandatory. It is a sobering introduction to the subject not only for the reader, but for her. As she puts it, one of the things that accompanied her cancer “was a very personal, agonizing encounter with an ideological force in American culture that I had not been aware of before — one that encourages us to deny reality, submit cheerfully to misfortune, and blame only ourselves for our fate.”
While the role of positive thinking in American culture isn’t a reality journalism topic, Ehrenreich also writes of how she encountered it in the business world. Thus, the various job coaches and the like she encountered in Bait and Switch were an additional introduction into the pervasiveness of the subject in modern America. That she found it both in her personal and professional life helps form the approach of Bright-sided.
Ehrenreich examines the history of “the mass delusion that is positive thinking” in the United States in a variety of personal, cultural and economic settings. While positive thinking has some roots in the so-called Protestant ethic — hard work will be rewarded — she explores how it developed in the 19th and 20th centuries. Thus, the “New Thought movement” helped give rise to not only religious movements like Christian Science but curing ills like “neurasthenia,” a syndrome marked by fatigue, withdrawal and depression. By the 20th Century, many ideas sparked by the New Though movement found their way into such well-known works as Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People and Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking.
These concepts pervaded the country and Americans saw them as a way to success and happiness. Over the last 30 years or so, we’ve seen countless books and advisors urging positive thinking as a business motivator and self-help. Thus, we saw not only “positive psychology” and books like The Secret, but what came to be known as the “prosperity gospel,” in which our ability to prosper financially and emotionally hinges on our relationship with God. In fact, Ehrenreich notes, three of the four largest megachurches in the U.S. are based on the prosperity gospel.
Bright-sided is weaker in supporting its proposition that positive thinking has undermined America. The extensively footnoted and sourced book makes clear arguments that the real threat of positive thinking is that it tends to substitute illusion for reality. Perhaps her best example is the recent economic collapse. Brazenly optimistic “experts” were encouraging millions taught by business, church or otherwise of the need for positive thinking in an America in which former U.S. Treasure Secretary Robert Reich observed that “[o]ur willingness to go deep into debt and keep spending is intimately related to our optimism.”
Yet any such failing there, it is redeemed by Ehrenreich’s call for what she terms “post-positive thinking.” She urges that rather than focusing on positive thinking, which is inherently emotional, we must rely upon critical thinking. Seeing things “as they are,” she argues, is the only way to approach the real world — and both the danger and promise it offers.
Reviewed by Tim Gebhart [reposted from Blogger News Network]
Two of Barbara Ehrenreich’s best-selling books are reality journalism, where she put herself in the situations she’s writing about. Thus, in 2001 she released Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, a first-hand account of trying to live on the wages of low-paying jobs, such as waitress, hotel maid and Wal-Mart associate. She followed that with Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream, in which she examined what it takes to find a white-collar job at a time of downsizing and layoffs.
With that background, you wonder if and how she is going to get inside the topic of her latest book, Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. Yet the first chapter is based on as much reality as anyone would want to face. It discusses, as she did in a 2001 article in Harper’s Magazine, her diagnosis of breast cancer and her introduction to a culture which views cheerfulness and positive thinking as almost mandatory. It is a sobering introduction to the subject not only for the reader, but for her. As she puts it, one of the things that accompanied her cancer “was a very personal, agonizing encounter with an ideological force in American culture that I had not been aware of before — one that encourages us to deny reality, submit cheerfully to misfortune, and blame only ourselves for our fate.”
While the role of positive thinking in American culture isn’t a reality journalism topic, Ehrenreich also writes of how she encountered it in the business world. Thus, the various job coaches and the like she encountered in Bait and Switch were an additional introduction into the pervasiveness of the subject in modern America. That she found it both in her personal and professional life helps form the approach of Bright-sided.
Ehrenreich examines the history of “the mass delusion that is positive thinking” in the United States in a variety of personal, cultural and economic settings. While positive thinking has some roots in the so-called Protestant ethic — hard work will be rewarded — she explores how it developed in the 19th and 20th centuries. Thus, the “New Thought movement” helped give rise to not only religious movements like Christian Science but curing ills like “neurasthenia,” a syndrome marked by fatigue, withdrawal and depression. By the 20th Century, many ideas sparked by the New Though movement found their way into such well-known works as Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People and Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking.
These concepts pervaded the country and Americans saw them as a way to success and happiness. Over the last 30 years or so, we’ve seen countless books and advisors urging positive thinking as a business motivator and self-help. Thus, we saw not only “positive psychology” and books like The Secret, but what came to be known as the “prosperity gospel,” in which our ability to prosper financially and emotionally hinges on our relationship with God. In fact, Ehrenreich notes, three of the four largest megachurches in the U.S. are based on the prosperity gospel.
Bright-sided is weaker in supporting its proposition that positive thinking has undermined America. The extensively footnoted and sourced book makes clear arguments that the real threat of positive thinking is that it tends to substitute illusion for reality. Perhaps her best example is the recent economic collapse. Brazenly optimistic “experts” were encouraging millions taught by business, church or otherwise of the need for positive thinking in an America in which former U.S. Treasure Secretary Robert Reich observed that “[o]ur willingness to go deep into debt and keep spending is intimately related to our optimism.”
Yet any such failing there, it is redeemed by Ehrenreich’s call for what she terms “post-positive thinking.” She urges that rather than focusing on positive thinking, which is inherently emotional, we must rely upon critical thinking. Seeing things “as they are,” she argues, is the only way to approach the real world — and both the danger and promise it offers.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
MAKE OUR FOOD SAFE!
New Polls, Reports Highlight The Need To Update The US Food Safety System
ScienceDaily (Nov. 17, 2009) — The U. S. Senate currently has an historic opportunity to take a major step toward improving food safety for all Americans. That is why a coalition of public health professionals, consumer organizations and groups representing victims of foodborne illness is sending the message that it is time to "Make Our Food Safe."
Every year, millions of Americans are sickened from consuming contaminated food, hundreds of thousands are hospitalized and thousands die. Multiple outbreaks of foodborne illness over the last several years -- from spinach to peppers to peanut butter products -- have demonstrated that these outbreaks are not random, unpreventable occurrences, but are due to widespread problems with food safety oversight in the United States.
This summer the U.S. House of Representatives passed its version of a sweeping food safety bill, which includes increased inspections of domestic food facilities and greater oversight of imports. The Make Our Food Safe coalition believes the Senate can take a major step forward in protecting public health by passing legislation that gives the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) enhanced authority to oversee the safety of the nation's food supply by the end of this year.
New polls of voters in selected states -- Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Ohio -- show overwhelming support for measures that would give the FDA these new powers. The polls, which were conducted in October by a respected bipartisan team of pollsters at Hart Research (Democratic) and Public Opinion Strategies (Republican), were commissioned by coalition member the Pew Health Group.
"Families across America want the government to do more to ensure their loved ones do not get sick from the food they serve over the holidays," says Sandra Eskin, director of the food safety project for the Pew Health Group. "Congress should enact stronger food safety laws before the end of the year."
Foodborne illness can significantly impact the health of children. According to a new fact sheet released today by the Make Our Food Safe coalition, approximately half of the reported foodborne illnesses occur in children, with the majority of these cases occurring in those under 15 years of age. Data from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) for five major foodborne pathogens -- -Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, Campylobacter, Shigella, E. coli 0157:H7 -- clearly show the burden that children are carrying with regard to foodborne disease. The fact sheet also details the health risks associated with Toxoplasma gondii, a common parasite.
In addition, coalition member Center for Foodborne Illness Research & Prevention (CFI) is releasing a report that looks in detail at the long-term impacts of foodborne pathogens. CFI's report, The Long-Term Health Outcomes of Selected Foodborne Pathogens, provides expert descriptions about some of the serious long-term health outcomes ranging from hypertension and diabetes to kidney failure and mental retardation. The report also calls for a new approach to foodborne illness research and surveillance.
"Systematic follow-up of foodborne illness cases will greatly enhance our ability to attribute long-term health problems to acute foodborne illnesses," says Tanya Roberts, Ph.D., an author of the report. "Population-based studies, improved public health surveillance and increased data sharing will improve our knowledge about the sources, trends and health outcomes associated with foodborne disease. Taking this approach will require dedicated funding, but such an investment is necessary to prevent costly economic, health and personal losses."
"The polling and reports released today should show our lawmakers that they need to send food safety legislation to the president's desk as soon as possible," says Elizabeth Armstrong of Fishers, IN, whose young daughter Ashley became seriously ill in 2006 after eating contaminated spinach. "The new legislation may not help my family, but it could save lives and spare others from suffering what we have endured. I want the senators to think about that and heed the coalition's message: Make Our Food Safe for the Holidays!"
Poll results, fact sheets and further information is available at www.MakeOurFoodSafe.org.
ScienceDaily (Nov. 17, 2009) — The U. S. Senate currently has an historic opportunity to take a major step toward improving food safety for all Americans. That is why a coalition of public health professionals, consumer organizations and groups representing victims of foodborne illness is sending the message that it is time to "Make Our Food Safe."
Every year, millions of Americans are sickened from consuming contaminated food, hundreds of thousands are hospitalized and thousands die. Multiple outbreaks of foodborne illness over the last several years -- from spinach to peppers to peanut butter products -- have demonstrated that these outbreaks are not random, unpreventable occurrences, but are due to widespread problems with food safety oversight in the United States.
This summer the U.S. House of Representatives passed its version of a sweeping food safety bill, which includes increased inspections of domestic food facilities and greater oversight of imports. The Make Our Food Safe coalition believes the Senate can take a major step forward in protecting public health by passing legislation that gives the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) enhanced authority to oversee the safety of the nation's food supply by the end of this year.
New polls of voters in selected states -- Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Ohio -- show overwhelming support for measures that would give the FDA these new powers. The polls, which were conducted in October by a respected bipartisan team of pollsters at Hart Research (Democratic) and Public Opinion Strategies (Republican), were commissioned by coalition member the Pew Health Group.
"Families across America want the government to do more to ensure their loved ones do not get sick from the food they serve over the holidays," says Sandra Eskin, director of the food safety project for the Pew Health Group. "Congress should enact stronger food safety laws before the end of the year."
Foodborne illness can significantly impact the health of children. According to a new fact sheet released today by the Make Our Food Safe coalition, approximately half of the reported foodborne illnesses occur in children, with the majority of these cases occurring in those under 15 years of age. Data from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) for five major foodborne pathogens -- -Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, Campylobacter, Shigella, E. coli 0157:H7 -- clearly show the burden that children are carrying with regard to foodborne disease. The fact sheet also details the health risks associated with Toxoplasma gondii, a common parasite.
In addition, coalition member Center for Foodborne Illness Research & Prevention (CFI) is releasing a report that looks in detail at the long-term impacts of foodborne pathogens. CFI's report, The Long-Term Health Outcomes of Selected Foodborne Pathogens, provides expert descriptions about some of the serious long-term health outcomes ranging from hypertension and diabetes to kidney failure and mental retardation. The report also calls for a new approach to foodborne illness research and surveillance.
"Systematic follow-up of foodborne illness cases will greatly enhance our ability to attribute long-term health problems to acute foodborne illnesses," says Tanya Roberts, Ph.D., an author of the report. "Population-based studies, improved public health surveillance and increased data sharing will improve our knowledge about the sources, trends and health outcomes associated with foodborne disease. Taking this approach will require dedicated funding, but such an investment is necessary to prevent costly economic, health and personal losses."
"The polling and reports released today should show our lawmakers that they need to send food safety legislation to the president's desk as soon as possible," says Elizabeth Armstrong of Fishers, IN, whose young daughter Ashley became seriously ill in 2006 after eating contaminated spinach. "The new legislation may not help my family, but it could save lives and spare others from suffering what we have endured. I want the senators to think about that and heed the coalition's message: Make Our Food Safe for the Holidays!"
Poll results, fact sheets and further information is available at www.MakeOurFoodSafe.org.
Monday, November 16, 2009
What We Bury at Night: Book Review
Cry the beloved islands
Review by Peter Arkell
[A review of "What We Bury at Night" reposted from the blog "A World To Win".]
An energy crisis has plunged a remote group of islands in the Pacific ocean into darkness, as inhabitants reap the harsh legacy of exploitation by the United States. Soaring fuel prices forced Marshall Islands’ president, Litokwa Tomeing, to declare an emergency on July 3 because the national power utilities face an estimated $17.5m-$21m shortfall over the next 12 months, assuming present trends continue – almost 20% of the national budget.
It was in the Marshall Islands, of which Bikini Atoll is a part, that the US detonated 67 nuclear bombs between 1946 and 1958 including one named Castle Bravo, a huge hydrogen bomb. The combined radioactive energy yield of these bombs was roughly equivalent to 1.7 Hiroshima explosions every single day for those 12 years.
The 200 inhabitants of Bikini Island, forced to move to a nearby island before the tests, still cannot return. The top 16 inches of the soil were scraped off, creating a hazardous radioactive pile of a million cubic feet which cannot be disposed of, but the island remains contaminated and unsafe even today. Soon after the Bravo shot, many islanders became guinea pigs in a secret medical experiment called Project 4.1, set up by the US to study the effects of radiation on human beings.
With a legacy like this, it is perhaps surprising that anyone has survived in these islands at all, especially as the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defence Test Site is also located there and as the US army conducts an aggressive recruiting policy for the youth of the islands to fight the "War on Terror". Poverty and unemployment have taken hold as the old culture based on fishing and agriculture has given way to the world of the military, the corporates and the developers.
Julian Aguon, a law student, a writer and a campaigner for indigenous rights and self-determination, made an epic journey to research What we Bury at Night: Disposable Humanity, his third book. Travelling throughout Micronesia, from the Marshall Islands to Pohnpei, Chuuk, Palau, Saipan, and Guam, he discovered how islanders have survived since the US war machine arrived, and what they think about the loss of their culture and about the “starving of their imaginations”. His book takes the form of a commentary as the author journeys round the islands, interspersed with the stories and the opinions of the islanders themselves. They are full of indignation, distress and also regret that their leaders were sucked, even tricked, into various compacts and agreements with the US. In 1944, the US seized the islands from the Japanese, who had ruled under a League of Nations mandate. After the war, US tutelage continued, with the islands only achieving full independence in 1990.
Many babies are born with birth defects and sickness is everywhere throughout the islands near to where the bombs were dropped. One 61-year-old woman from Rongelap (one of the “hot” islands) says:
“We have received cancers, thyroids, leukaemia, jellyfish babies, all that stuff…. The US still denies their radioactive plans. There are women who still give birth to jellyfish babies now…according to the scientists the radioactive poisons are going to get worse…They have to give us something in return for our children. Not for us. It’s too late for me. They can use me. They can take me as I am. Take my body to use it anywhere, but not my children…. I need something for my children’s future health…”
And a 62-year-old man writes:
“Grape babies… they occur in like one in two million cases and we’ve had 20 of them in Likiep (one of the smaller islands). Some women have repeatedly given birth to these... So what do they do? They go bury them. In the middle of the night…. They don’t want the rest of the world to know. And now the Americans come and say: “If this was such a great problem, how come these people don’t talk about it”. Well it was US policy to keep this information down and anybody who spoke out was a communist…”.
Aguon denounces the US military in particular for the way their recruitment drives have divided the islanders and how these “volunteers” have been used in the “War on Terror”. Poverty and lack of opportunity in the new economy, as well as the break up of their traditional culture, has led the youth to sign up, get a training and earn some money. Many of them never return.
“While the world looks away, an entire region of the planet is facing down death. Mostly losing…. As the war without end rages on, as the death toll climbs and coffins carrying dead dreams come more than the rains, as all words of diplomacy are robbed of worth, as militarisation enters a new phase of mania, America’s greatest export – a culture of Nothing built on reckless individualism, consumerism and amnesia – is eating the folk of the world. Chewing us up and spitting us out, different. Hollowed.”
He says that the people of FSM (Federation of the states of Micronesia, which includes the archipelagos of the Marshalls, the Carolines and the Marianas, all in the western Pacific) are now “so economically dependent, so imprisoned by imports, so desperate that they cannot even imagine another arrangement. This is their cancer”.
The islanders are famed for their stories and their story-telling and this is evident in the book, as the islanders and Aguon himself speak of themselves, their lives, their dreams and regrets in an imaginative, defiant and almost poetic way.
One Marshallese elder:
"They’re putting people in hardship positions, denying them access to what they need to keep up their indigenous habits and traditions. People from Bikini now no longer know how to sail. . . They’re denying them the environment where their spirit can continue to live.”
A 56-year old woman:
“I am hopeful that we will wake up. That we will wake up and dream. We were entrusted with something and we’re not doing a good job and we need to wake up and say: what have I done with all the assets that were entrusted to me?.....They will bomb us. That’s a given. If they want to kill earth, they can do it. They have the capability. If nothing else, we should leave remnants of our existence, give enough clues for those to put the pieces back.”
Henry Kissinger famously expressed his opinion of Micronesia and its people in the 1970s. “There are only 90,000 people out there. Who gives a damn?”
But as Aguon says: “It's hard to smash ancient civilisations to make them fit into cans of Spam, Corned Beef and Western Economic Theories of Development”.
As the US government continues its military build-up in the area, especially in Guam, and as the real nature of the Micronesia-US relationship is exposed, so the defiance and the movement for true independence is bound to grow.
What we Bury at Night: Disposable Humanity by Julian Aguon. Blue Ocean Press, Tokyo (Blue Ocean Press is an imprint of the Aoishima Research Institute) Paperback £9
Review by Peter Arkell
[A review of "What We Bury at Night" reposted from the blog "A World To Win".]
An energy crisis has plunged a remote group of islands in the Pacific ocean into darkness, as inhabitants reap the harsh legacy of exploitation by the United States. Soaring fuel prices forced Marshall Islands’ president, Litokwa Tomeing, to declare an emergency on July 3 because the national power utilities face an estimated $17.5m-$21m shortfall over the next 12 months, assuming present trends continue – almost 20% of the national budget.
It was in the Marshall Islands, of which Bikini Atoll is a part, that the US detonated 67 nuclear bombs between 1946 and 1958 including one named Castle Bravo, a huge hydrogen bomb. The combined radioactive energy yield of these bombs was roughly equivalent to 1.7 Hiroshima explosions every single day for those 12 years.
The 200 inhabitants of Bikini Island, forced to move to a nearby island before the tests, still cannot return. The top 16 inches of the soil were scraped off, creating a hazardous radioactive pile of a million cubic feet which cannot be disposed of, but the island remains contaminated and unsafe even today. Soon after the Bravo shot, many islanders became guinea pigs in a secret medical experiment called Project 4.1, set up by the US to study the effects of radiation on human beings.
With a legacy like this, it is perhaps surprising that anyone has survived in these islands at all, especially as the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defence Test Site is also located there and as the US army conducts an aggressive recruiting policy for the youth of the islands to fight the "War on Terror". Poverty and unemployment have taken hold as the old culture based on fishing and agriculture has given way to the world of the military, the corporates and the developers.
Julian Aguon, a law student, a writer and a campaigner for indigenous rights and self-determination, made an epic journey to research What we Bury at Night: Disposable Humanity, his third book. Travelling throughout Micronesia, from the Marshall Islands to Pohnpei, Chuuk, Palau, Saipan, and Guam, he discovered how islanders have survived since the US war machine arrived, and what they think about the loss of their culture and about the “starving of their imaginations”. His book takes the form of a commentary as the author journeys round the islands, interspersed with the stories and the opinions of the islanders themselves. They are full of indignation, distress and also regret that their leaders were sucked, even tricked, into various compacts and agreements with the US. In 1944, the US seized the islands from the Japanese, who had ruled under a League of Nations mandate. After the war, US tutelage continued, with the islands only achieving full independence in 1990.
Many babies are born with birth defects and sickness is everywhere throughout the islands near to where the bombs were dropped. One 61-year-old woman from Rongelap (one of the “hot” islands) says:
“We have received cancers, thyroids, leukaemia, jellyfish babies, all that stuff…. The US still denies their radioactive plans. There are women who still give birth to jellyfish babies now…according to the scientists the radioactive poisons are going to get worse…They have to give us something in return for our children. Not for us. It’s too late for me. They can use me. They can take me as I am. Take my body to use it anywhere, but not my children…. I need something for my children’s future health…”
And a 62-year-old man writes:
“Grape babies… they occur in like one in two million cases and we’ve had 20 of them in Likiep (one of the smaller islands). Some women have repeatedly given birth to these... So what do they do? They go bury them. In the middle of the night…. They don’t want the rest of the world to know. And now the Americans come and say: “If this was such a great problem, how come these people don’t talk about it”. Well it was US policy to keep this information down and anybody who spoke out was a communist…”.
Aguon denounces the US military in particular for the way their recruitment drives have divided the islanders and how these “volunteers” have been used in the “War on Terror”. Poverty and lack of opportunity in the new economy, as well as the break up of their traditional culture, has led the youth to sign up, get a training and earn some money. Many of them never return.
“While the world looks away, an entire region of the planet is facing down death. Mostly losing…. As the war without end rages on, as the death toll climbs and coffins carrying dead dreams come more than the rains, as all words of diplomacy are robbed of worth, as militarisation enters a new phase of mania, America’s greatest export – a culture of Nothing built on reckless individualism, consumerism and amnesia – is eating the folk of the world. Chewing us up and spitting us out, different. Hollowed.”
He says that the people of FSM (Federation of the states of Micronesia, which includes the archipelagos of the Marshalls, the Carolines and the Marianas, all in the western Pacific) are now “so economically dependent, so imprisoned by imports, so desperate that they cannot even imagine another arrangement. This is their cancer”.
The islanders are famed for their stories and their story-telling and this is evident in the book, as the islanders and Aguon himself speak of themselves, their lives, their dreams and regrets in an imaginative, defiant and almost poetic way.
One Marshallese elder:
"They’re putting people in hardship positions, denying them access to what they need to keep up their indigenous habits and traditions. People from Bikini now no longer know how to sail. . . They’re denying them the environment where their spirit can continue to live.”
A 56-year old woman:
“I am hopeful that we will wake up. That we will wake up and dream. We were entrusted with something and we’re not doing a good job and we need to wake up and say: what have I done with all the assets that were entrusted to me?.....They will bomb us. That’s a given. If they want to kill earth, they can do it. They have the capability. If nothing else, we should leave remnants of our existence, give enough clues for those to put the pieces back.”
Henry Kissinger famously expressed his opinion of Micronesia and its people in the 1970s. “There are only 90,000 people out there. Who gives a damn?”
But as Aguon says: “It's hard to smash ancient civilisations to make them fit into cans of Spam, Corned Beef and Western Economic Theories of Development”.
As the US government continues its military build-up in the area, especially in Guam, and as the real nature of the Micronesia-US relationship is exposed, so the defiance and the movement for true independence is bound to grow.
What we Bury at Night: Disposable Humanity by Julian Aguon. Blue Ocean Press, Tokyo (Blue Ocean Press is an imprint of the Aoishima Research Institute) Paperback £9
92 things in one year
This si borrowed from the ProgressiveForObama group:
1.Ordered all federal agencies to undertake a study and make recommendations for ways to cut spending
2. Ordered a review of all federal operations to identify and cut wasteful spending and practices
3. Instituted enforcements for equal pay for women
4. Beginning the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq
5. Families of fallen soldiers have expenses covered to be on hand when the body arrives at Dover A.F.B.
6. Ended media blackout on war casualties; reporting full information
7. Ended media blackout on covering the return of fallen soldiers to Dover A.F.B.; the media is now permitted to do so pending adherence to respectful rules and approval of fallen soldier's family
8. The White House and federal government are respecting the Freedom of Information Act
9. Instructed all federal agencies to promote openness and transparency as much as possible
10. Limits on lobbyist's access to the White House
11. Limits on White House aides working for lobbyists after their tenure in the administration
12. Ended the previous stop-loss policy that kept soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan longer than their enlistment date
13. Phasing out the expensive F-22 war plane and other outdated weapons systems, which weren't even used or needed in Iraq/Afghanistan
14. Removed restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research
15. Federal support for stem-cell and new biomedical research
16. New federal funding for science and research labs
17. States are permitted to enact federal fuel efficiency standards above federal standards
18. Increased infrastructure spending (roads, bridges, power plants) after years of neglect
19. Funds for high-speed, broadband Internet access to K-12 schools
20. New funds for school construction
21. The prison at Guantanamo Bay is being phased out
22. US Auto industry rescue plan
23. Housing rescue plan
24. $789 billion economic stimulus plan
25. The public can meet with federal housing insurers to refinance (the new plan can be completed in one day) a mortgage if they are having trouble paying
26. US financial and banking rescue plan
27. The secret detention facilities in Eastern Europe and elsewhere are being closed
28. Ended the previous policy; the US now has a no torture policy and is in compliance with the Geneva Convention standards
29. Better body armor is now being provided to our troops
30.The missile defense program is being cut by $1.4 billion in 2010
31. Restarted the nuclear non-proliferation talks and building back up the nuclear inspection infrastructure/protocols
32. Re-engaged in the treaties/agreements to protect the Antarctic
33. Re-engaged in the agreements/talks on global warming and greenhouse gas emissions
34. Visited more countries and met with more world leaders than any president in his first six months in office
35. Successful release of US captain held by Somali pirates; authorized the SEALS to do their job
36. US Navy increasing patrols off Somali coast
37. Attractive tax write-offs for those who buy hybrid automobiles
38. Cash for clunkers program offers vouchers to trade in fuel inefficient, polluting old cars for new cars; stimulated auto sales
39. Announced plans to purchase fuel efficient American-made fleet for the federal government
40. Expanded the SCHIP program to cover health care for 4 million more children
41. Signed national service legislation; expanded national youth service program
42. Instituted a new policy on Cuba , allowing Cuban families to return home to visit loved ones
43. Ended the previous policy of not regulating and labeling carbon dioxide emissions
44. Expanding vaccination programs
45. Immediate and efficient response to the floods in North Dakota and other natural disasters
46. Closed offshore tax safe havens
47. Negotiated deal with Swiss banks to permit US government to gain access to records of tax evaders and criminals
48. Ended the previous policy of offering tax benefits to corporations who outsource American jobs; the new policy is to promote in-sourcing to bring jobs back
49. Ended the previous practice of protecting credit card companies; in place of it are new consumer protections from credit card industry's predatory practices
50. Energy producing plants must begin preparing to produce 15% of their energy from renewable sources
51. Lower drug costs for seniors
52. Ended the previous practice of forbidding Medicare from negotiating with drug manufacturers for cheaper drugs; the federal government is now realizing hundreds of millions in savings
53. Increasing pay and benefits for military personnel
54. Improved housing for military personnel
55. Initiating a new policy to promote federal hiring of military spouses
56. Improved conditions at Walter Reed Military Hospital and other military hospitals
57. Increasing student loans
58. Increasing opportunities in AmeriCorps program
59. Sent envoys to Middle East and other parts of the world that had been neglected for years; re-engaging in multilateral and bilateral talks and diplomacy
60. Established a new cyber security office
61. Beginning the process of reforming and restructuring the military 20 years after the Cold War to a more modern fighting force; this includes new procurement policies, increasing size of military, new technology and cyber units and operations, etc.
62. Ended previous policy of awarding no-bid defense contracts
63. Ordered a review of hurricane and natural disaster preparedness
64. Established a National Performance Officer charged with saving the federal government money and making federal operations more efficient
65. Students struggling to make college loan payments can have their loans refinanced
66. Improving benefits for veterans
67. Many more press conferences and town halls and much more media access than previous administration
68. Instituted a new focus on mortgage fraud
69. The FDA is now regulating tobacco
70. Ended previous policy of cutting the FDA and circumventing FDA rules
71. Ended previous practice of having White House aides rewrite scientific and environmental rules, regulations, and reports
72. Authorized discussions with North Korea and private mission by Pres. Bill Clinton to secure the release of two Americans held in prisons
73. Authorized discussions with Myanmar and mission by Sen. Jim Web to secure the release of an American held captive
74. Making more loans available to small businesses
75. Established independent commission to make recommendations on slowing the costs of Medicare
76. Appointment of first Latina to the Supreme Court (Justice Sonia Sotomayor)
77. Authorized construction/opening of additional health centers to care for veterans
78. Limited salaries of senior White House aides; cut to $100,000
79. Renewed loan guarantees for Israel
80. Changed the failing/status quo military command in Afghanistan
81. Deployed additional troops to Afghanistan
82. New Afghan War policy that limits aerial bombing and prioritizes aid, development of infrastructure, diplomacy, and good government practices by Afghans
83. Announced the long-term development of a national energy grid with renewable sources and cleaner, efficient energy production
84. Returned money authorized for refurbishment of White House offices and private living quarters
85. Paid for redecoration of White House living quarters out of his own pocket
86. Held first Seder in White House
87. Attempting to reform the nation's healthcare system which is the most expensive in the world yet leaves almost 50 million without health insurance and millions more under insured
88. Has put the ball in play for comprehensive immigration reform
89. Has announced his intention to push for energy reform
90. Has announced his intention to push for education reform
Oh, and he built a swing set for the girls outside the Oval Office!
Robert P. Watson, Ph.D.Coordinator of American Studies
Lynn University
Additions:
91. Signed the Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act.
92. Discovery and publicizing of Medicare fraud, making the public more aware of not turning a blind eye to such fraud.
1.Ordered all federal agencies to undertake a study and make recommendations for ways to cut spending
2. Ordered a review of all federal operations to identify and cut wasteful spending and practices
3. Instituted enforcements for equal pay for women
4. Beginning the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq
5. Families of fallen soldiers have expenses covered to be on hand when the body arrives at Dover A.F.B.
6. Ended media blackout on war casualties; reporting full information
7. Ended media blackout on covering the return of fallen soldiers to Dover A.F.B.; the media is now permitted to do so pending adherence to respectful rules and approval of fallen soldier's family
8. The White House and federal government are respecting the Freedom of Information Act
9. Instructed all federal agencies to promote openness and transparency as much as possible
10. Limits on lobbyist's access to the White House
11. Limits on White House aides working for lobbyists after their tenure in the administration
12. Ended the previous stop-loss policy that kept soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan longer than their enlistment date
13. Phasing out the expensive F-22 war plane and other outdated weapons systems, which weren't even used or needed in Iraq/Afghanistan
14. Removed restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research
15. Federal support for stem-cell and new biomedical research
16. New federal funding for science and research labs
17. States are permitted to enact federal fuel efficiency standards above federal standards
18. Increased infrastructure spending (roads, bridges, power plants) after years of neglect
19. Funds for high-speed, broadband Internet access to K-12 schools
20. New funds for school construction
21. The prison at Guantanamo Bay is being phased out
22. US Auto industry rescue plan
23. Housing rescue plan
24. $789 billion economic stimulus plan
25. The public can meet with federal housing insurers to refinance (the new plan can be completed in one day) a mortgage if they are having trouble paying
26. US financial and banking rescue plan
27. The secret detention facilities in Eastern Europe and elsewhere are being closed
28. Ended the previous policy; the US now has a no torture policy and is in compliance with the Geneva Convention standards
29. Better body armor is now being provided to our troops
30.The missile defense program is being cut by $1.4 billion in 2010
31. Restarted the nuclear non-proliferation talks and building back up the nuclear inspection infrastructure/protocols
32. Re-engaged in the treaties/agreements to protect the Antarctic
33. Re-engaged in the agreements/talks on global warming and greenhouse gas emissions
34. Visited more countries and met with more world leaders than any president in his first six months in office
35. Successful release of US captain held by Somali pirates; authorized the SEALS to do their job
36. US Navy increasing patrols off Somali coast
37. Attractive tax write-offs for those who buy hybrid automobiles
38. Cash for clunkers program offers vouchers to trade in fuel inefficient, polluting old cars for new cars; stimulated auto sales
39. Announced plans to purchase fuel efficient American-made fleet for the federal government
40. Expanded the SCHIP program to cover health care for 4 million more children
41. Signed national service legislation; expanded national youth service program
42. Instituted a new policy on Cuba , allowing Cuban families to return home to visit loved ones
43. Ended the previous policy of not regulating and labeling carbon dioxide emissions
44. Expanding vaccination programs
45. Immediate and efficient response to the floods in North Dakota and other natural disasters
46. Closed offshore tax safe havens
47. Negotiated deal with Swiss banks to permit US government to gain access to records of tax evaders and criminals
48. Ended the previous policy of offering tax benefits to corporations who outsource American jobs; the new policy is to promote in-sourcing to bring jobs back
49. Ended the previous practice of protecting credit card companies; in place of it are new consumer protections from credit card industry's predatory practices
50. Energy producing plants must begin preparing to produce 15% of their energy from renewable sources
51. Lower drug costs for seniors
52. Ended the previous practice of forbidding Medicare from negotiating with drug manufacturers for cheaper drugs; the federal government is now realizing hundreds of millions in savings
53. Increasing pay and benefits for military personnel
54. Improved housing for military personnel
55. Initiating a new policy to promote federal hiring of military spouses
56. Improved conditions at Walter Reed Military Hospital and other military hospitals
57. Increasing student loans
58. Increasing opportunities in AmeriCorps program
59. Sent envoys to Middle East and other parts of the world that had been neglected for years; re-engaging in multilateral and bilateral talks and diplomacy
60. Established a new cyber security office
61. Beginning the process of reforming and restructuring the military 20 years after the Cold War to a more modern fighting force; this includes new procurement policies, increasing size of military, new technology and cyber units and operations, etc.
62. Ended previous policy of awarding no-bid defense contracts
63. Ordered a review of hurricane and natural disaster preparedness
64. Established a National Performance Officer charged with saving the federal government money and making federal operations more efficient
65. Students struggling to make college loan payments can have their loans refinanced
66. Improving benefits for veterans
67. Many more press conferences and town halls and much more media access than previous administration
68. Instituted a new focus on mortgage fraud
69. The FDA is now regulating tobacco
70. Ended previous policy of cutting the FDA and circumventing FDA rules
71. Ended previous practice of having White House aides rewrite scientific and environmental rules, regulations, and reports
72. Authorized discussions with North Korea and private mission by Pres. Bill Clinton to secure the release of two Americans held in prisons
73. Authorized discussions with Myanmar and mission by Sen. Jim Web to secure the release of an American held captive
74. Making more loans available to small businesses
75. Established independent commission to make recommendations on slowing the costs of Medicare
76. Appointment of first Latina to the Supreme Court (Justice Sonia Sotomayor)
77. Authorized construction/opening of additional health centers to care for veterans
78. Limited salaries of senior White House aides; cut to $100,000
79. Renewed loan guarantees for Israel
80. Changed the failing/status quo military command in Afghanistan
81. Deployed additional troops to Afghanistan
82. New Afghan War policy that limits aerial bombing and prioritizes aid, development of infrastructure, diplomacy, and good government practices by Afghans
83. Announced the long-term development of a national energy grid with renewable sources and cleaner, efficient energy production
84. Returned money authorized for refurbishment of White House offices and private living quarters
85. Paid for redecoration of White House living quarters out of his own pocket
86. Held first Seder in White House
87. Attempting to reform the nation's healthcare system which is the most expensive in the world yet leaves almost 50 million without health insurance and millions more under insured
88. Has put the ball in play for comprehensive immigration reform
89. Has announced his intention to push for energy reform
90. Has announced his intention to push for education reform
Oh, and he built a swing set for the girls outside the Oval Office!
Robert P. Watson, Ph.D.Coordinator of American Studies
Lynn University
Additions:
91. Signed the Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act.
92. Discovery and publicizing of Medicare fraud, making the public more aware of not turning a blind eye to such fraud.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Science and Black Studies
Ethnic Pride May Boost African-American Teens' Mental Health
ScienceDaily (Nov. 15, 2009) — Most adolescents who belong to an ethnic minority group wrestle not only with their self-esteem (like most teens), but also with identity issues unique to their ethnic group, such as dealing with social stigma. A new study tells us that young people's ethnic pride may affect their mental health.
The study, carried out by researchers at Northwestern University, Loyola University Chicago, and Walden University, appears in the November/December 2009 issue of the journal Child Development.
The researchers studied more than 250 African American youths from urban, low-income families in an effort to assess the unique effects of racial identity and self esteem on mental health. They found that when young people's feelings of ethnic pride rose between 7th and 8th grades, their mental health also improved over that period, regardless of their self-esteem. Even for those with low self-esteem, the investigators found, a sense of pride in their ethnic group served as a buffer to some mental health problems. Racial identity was a stronger buffer against symptoms of depression for boys than for girls.
"These findings imply that ethnic pride is important to African American adolescents' mental health for other reasons than it simply makes them feel better about themselves as individuals," according to Jelani Mandara, associate professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University, who was the study's lead author. "The findings also imply that ethnic pride may be as important as self-esteem to the mental health of African American adolescents. Parents, schools, and therapists should expose young people to material and environments that help foster a sense of ethnic pride."
The study was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health.
ScienceDaily (Nov. 15, 2009) — Most adolescents who belong to an ethnic minority group wrestle not only with their self-esteem (like most teens), but also with identity issues unique to their ethnic group, such as dealing with social stigma. A new study tells us that young people's ethnic pride may affect their mental health.
The study, carried out by researchers at Northwestern University, Loyola University Chicago, and Walden University, appears in the November/December 2009 issue of the journal Child Development.
The researchers studied more than 250 African American youths from urban, low-income families in an effort to assess the unique effects of racial identity and self esteem on mental health. They found that when young people's feelings of ethnic pride rose between 7th and 8th grades, their mental health also improved over that period, regardless of their self-esteem. Even for those with low self-esteem, the investigators found, a sense of pride in their ethnic group served as a buffer to some mental health problems. Racial identity was a stronger buffer against symptoms of depression for boys than for girls.
"These findings imply that ethnic pride is important to African American adolescents' mental health for other reasons than it simply makes them feel better about themselves as individuals," according to Jelani Mandara, associate professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University, who was the study's lead author. "The findings also imply that ethnic pride may be as important as self-esteem to the mental health of African American adolescents. Parents, schools, and therapists should expose young people to material and environments that help foster a sense of ethnic pride."
The study was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Gimme some off-ramps and exit strategies please
Seeking Benchmarks and 'Off-ramps,' President Obama Sends Pentagon Officials Back to their Desks
Jake Tapper
ABC News Senior White House Correspondent
November 12, 2009
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/11/seeking-benchmarks-and-offramps-president-obama-sends-pentagon-officials-back-to-their-desks.html
The president sent war council officials back to their desks to answer specific questions to which he has yet to hear the answers, senior administration officials tell ABC News.
For Pentagon officials, one official said, that meant "not just how many young men and women they want to go into Afghanistan -- but when they can go home."
The president has not yet heard "sufficient explanation of how we get out of Afghanistan and not simply just be signing up for another eight years, the official said. He wants to know where the "off-ramps" are.
The president is well aware that there is no easy answer about the way forward in Afghanistan, an official said, but before making any decision he is pressing for all planners to set benchmarks of what can realistically be achieved by US troops, by US civilians, and by the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai -- and plans for what to do next if those benchmarks are met, or if they are not.
The commitment of US troops in Afghanistan is not open- ended, the president has emphasized, and everyone involve needs to know that.
The president's eighth war council meeting, held on Wednesday, will almost certainly not be the last one, officials said.
Officials are now working on answering questions he has about all four of the possible strategies being debated -- two from Gen. Stanley McChrystal and two other strategies.
Another senior administration official says the President was greatly impacted by two classified cables sent by the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Gen. Karl Eikenberry (Ret.), who expressed in urgent terms his concerns about sending any more US troops until Karzai can be viewed as a credible partner.
Said one official, "Karl has warned throughout this process about the limits of what we can expect out of the Karzai government," but these cables were significant.
The lack of faith the Obama administration has in Karzai's government's ability to clean up corruption and provide basic services for its people is a major source of concern for the president, officials said. Officials are working on a compact to lay out benchmarks for the Karzai government to meet in those areas, as well as in training Afghan police and Afghan army forces.
Eikenberry arguably "knows Afghanistan better than anyone else in the US government," a senior administration official said. "He's basically been there non-stop since 2003 in a range of capabilities, at a range of times, and in range of assignments," having served as United States Security Coordinator for Afghanistan, Chief of the Office of Military Cooperation-Afghanistan and Commander of the Combined Forces Command.
As leader of the civilian diplomatic corps as Ambassador, Eikenberry is "lead civilian Big Dog in
this fight," another official said. "The President really wants his unvarnished opinion."
The force structure in Afghanistan has already essentially been doubled since the president took
office, with 13,000 troops already in the pipeline and 21,000 troops added by the President in March. There is no talk of withdrawing these forces as of now, but the president does not want to add more to their number without clear benchmarks and a timeline -- he wants to know "not just how to get in there, but how to get out," an official said.
The recent advice of Gen. Colin Powell (Ret.) for the president to "take (his) time," was important, officials said, and squared with advice given by others who had made major military decisions to get it right, and not to get it done quickly.
Senior administration officials rejected accusations that this process was "dithering," as Vice President Cheney called it, or anything other than constructive. Military sources have said that regardless of the strategy the first new troops won't arrive in Afghanistan until January 2010, so more time for the president to make his decision will not necessarily impact that timeline.
One official argued that "this process makes the decision more informed. We will make a better decision because of this process."
The president is taking very seriously, an official said, the fact that he is the "sole person who can
order these young people into harm's way," in conjunction with the grave "situation in the world in the moment" regarding extremism.
Jake Tapper
ABC News Senior White House Correspondent
November 12, 2009
http://blogs.abcnews.com/
The president sent war council officials back to their desks to answer specific questions to which he has yet to hear the answers, senior administration officials tell ABC News.
For Pentagon officials, one official said, that meant "not just how many young men and women they want to go into Afghanistan -- but when they can go home."
The president has not yet heard "sufficient explanation of how we get out of Afghanistan and not simply just be signing up for another eight years, the official said. He wants to know where the "off-ramps" are.
The president is well aware that there is no easy answer about the way forward in Afghanistan, an official said, but before making any decision he is pressing for all planners to set benchmarks of what can realistically be achieved by US troops, by US civilians, and by the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai -- and plans for what to do next if those benchmarks are met, or if they are not.
The commitment of US troops in Afghanistan is not open- ended, the president has emphasized, and everyone involve needs to know that.
The president's eighth war council meeting, held on Wednesday, will almost certainly not be the last one, officials said.
Officials are now working on answering questions he has about all four of the possible strategies being debated -- two from Gen. Stanley McChrystal and two other strategies.
Another senior administration official says the President was greatly impacted by two classified cables sent by the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Gen. Karl Eikenberry (Ret.), who expressed in urgent terms his concerns about sending any more US troops until Karzai can be viewed as a credible partner.
Said one official, "Karl has warned throughout this process about the limits of what we can expect out of the Karzai government," but these cables were significant.
The lack of faith the Obama administration has in Karzai's government's ability to clean up corruption and provide basic services for its people is a major source of concern for the president, officials said. Officials are working on a compact to lay out benchmarks for the Karzai government to meet in those areas, as well as in training Afghan police and Afghan army forces.
Eikenberry arguably "knows Afghanistan better than anyone else in the US government," a senior administration official said. "He's basically been there non-stop since 2003 in a range of capabilities, at a range of times, and in range of assignments," having served as United States Security Coordinator for Afghanistan, Chief of the Office of Military Cooperation-Afghanistan and Commander of the Combined Forces Command.
As leader of the civilian diplomatic corps as Ambassador, Eikenberry is "lead civilian Big Dog in
this fight," another official said. "The President really wants his unvarnished opinion."
The force structure in Afghanistan has already essentially been doubled since the president took
office, with 13,000 troops already in the pipeline and 21,000 troops added by the President in March. There is no talk of withdrawing these forces as of now, but the president does not want to add more to their number without clear benchmarks and a timeline -- he wants to know "not just how to get in there, but how to get out," an official said.
The recent advice of Gen. Colin Powell (Ret.) for the president to "take (his) time," was important, officials said, and squared with advice given by others who had made major military decisions to get it right, and not to get it done quickly.
Senior administration officials rejected accusations that this process was "dithering," as Vice President Cheney called it, or anything other than constructive. Military sources have said that regardless of the strategy the first new troops won't arrive in Afghanistan until January 2010, so more time for the president to make his decision will not necessarily impact that timeline.
One official argued that "this process makes the decision more informed. We will make a better decision because of this process."
The president is taking very seriously, an official said, the fact that he is the "sole person who can
order these young people into harm's way," in conjunction with the grave "situation in the world in the moment" regarding extremism.
Island of Shame
Their Island, Our Shame
Indigenous Indian Ocean islanders were brutally displaced nearly 40 years ago to make way for a U.S. military base.
By EVE OTTENBERG [reposted from In These Times]
Louis Onesime sits in the house he shares with 26 family members in Port Louis, Mauritius, in January 2005. Onesime lived on Diego Garcia until the archipelago was purged of natives to build a military base.
Though small in number, the indigenous people of Diego Garcia and the Chagossian Islands in the Indian Ocean have endured a suffering both relentless and intense. In the early 1970s, they were brutally deracinated and dumped in Mauritius and Seychelles to make way for a U.S. military base.
Anthropologist David Vine reports in his new book, Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia (Princeton, May), the islanders had homes—idyllic though modest—employment, healthcare, a diet of fish, fresh fruits and vegetables, enviable longevity, traditions, the memories of their ancestors and a cultural life extending back over centuries in the Chagos archipelago. But through a number of legalistic and diplomatic deceits promulgated by the British and U.S. governments, the archipelago’s 2,000 islanders was expelled, carted away in overcrowded ships without food or sanitation.
The dispossessed Chagossians received minute compensation. They were never paid for their expropriated homes. They lost their vegetable gardens and were not permitted to bring pets or belongings into exile. (Indeed, they watched their dogs be gassed to death and incinerated before they were ejected from the islands.) They lost their jobs in the coconut industry. No occupations awaited them in Mauritius, and they were not trained for new employment.
The Chagossians were basically dumped in their new “homes.” Many lived on the streets, while others paid exorbitant prices for tin shacks in slums. Moneylenders and merchants victimized them, taking their miserable hovels as collateral for loans and purchases and later evicting them. They could not find jobs. As outsiders and people of African—, not the more-privileged Indian—descent, they faced discrimination. Alcohol, drugs and suicide took a toll. Diet deteriorated. They died young, and illnesses utterly new to them—malnutrition, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, tuberculosis—became rampant. Large numbers became clinically depressed. Many simply died of broken hearts. They were treated, Vine writes, like “rubbish people.”
This was no accidental side effect of the military’s base construction. The military explicitly banned employment of any indigenous people on its base, though it imported workers from elsewhere. And it forbade return visits by the locals, even to tend the graves of their ancestors. It wasn’t until March, 2006, that bad publicity and court cases forced British authorities to permit one visit. Prior to the expulsion, all official reports portrayed the inhabitants as transient laborers rather than a native population. This was done in order to deny their existence and their right to the land, and thus to avoid all political, legal and financial redress.
Though one cannot know the exact attitude of U.S. officials, David Vine aptly quotes Henry Kissinger on the removal of the residents of the Marshall Islands in 1969: “There are only 90,000 people out there. Who gives a damn?” With that attitude, there was no hope for the 2,000 Chagossians. Clearly no one in power thought anyone would care about their fate.
The Chagossians’ displacement is not unique in the history of U.S. military bases abroad. But, as Vine points out, the lies fabricated to conceal the secret agreement in the Chagos Archpelgago are particularly astonishing. Secretary of State Dean Rusk described the islands to President Lyndon Johnson as “virtually uninhabited.” And in June 1964, the Johnson Administration pressured the Washington Post not to run stories that might cause trouble. The Post stories that were published referred to the population as “largely transient laborers.”
Vine does an excellent job of documenting the machinations of military planners and politicians in the 1960s and 1970s, as they sought to evade unwelcome attention from the press, the United Nations or any court system. This was the end of decolonization, the era of imperial plunder and ethnic cleansing was supposedly over and nothing would have looked worse than what was actually happening.
Vine details at length how no other empire has had as many foreign bases—roughly 1,000—as the United States. A few African islanders were not about to thwart the largest military machine in history. So a cast of characters, including foreign policy official Paul Nitze, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, former White House and CIA official Robert Komer (infamous for running operation Phoenix in Vietnam) and Admiral Arleigh Burke concealed and misrepresented the removal of an inconvenient population. The stakes, as these pooh-bahs saw them, were quite high. Vine quotes military analyst John Pike telling him that the U.S. military’s goal is “to run the planet from Guam and Diego Garcia by 2015, even if the entire Eastern Hemisphere has drop-kicked us” from every other base.
“Although the British Government and its agents performed most of the physical work involved in displacing the Chagossians,” Vine writes, “the U.S. Government ordered, orchestrated and financed the expulsion.” But recently the Chagossians have challenged the destiny so carefully prepared for them, and they have won court cases. They hope they may yet receive compensation and the right to return to their archipelago. After all, if gleaming yachts are allowed to dock on these gorgeous islands, why shouldn’t the original inhabitants be welcome there as well?
Indigenous Indian Ocean islanders were brutally displaced nearly 40 years ago to make way for a U.S. military base.
By EVE OTTENBERG [reposted from In These Times]
Louis Onesime sits in the house he shares with 26 family members in Port Louis, Mauritius, in January 2005. Onesime lived on Diego Garcia until the archipelago was purged of natives to build a military base.
Though small in number, the indigenous people of Diego Garcia and the Chagossian Islands in the Indian Ocean have endured a suffering both relentless and intense. In the early 1970s, they were brutally deracinated and dumped in Mauritius and Seychelles to make way for a U.S. military base.
Anthropologist David Vine reports in his new book, Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia (Princeton, May), the islanders had homes—idyllic though modest—employment, healthcare, a diet of fish, fresh fruits and vegetables, enviable longevity, traditions, the memories of their ancestors and a cultural life extending back over centuries in the Chagos archipelago. But through a number of legalistic and diplomatic deceits promulgated by the British and U.S. governments, the archipelago’s 2,000 islanders was expelled, carted away in overcrowded ships without food or sanitation.
The dispossessed Chagossians received minute compensation. They were never paid for their expropriated homes. They lost their vegetable gardens and were not permitted to bring pets or belongings into exile. (Indeed, they watched their dogs be gassed to death and incinerated before they were ejected from the islands.) They lost their jobs in the coconut industry. No occupations awaited them in Mauritius, and they were not trained for new employment.
The Chagossians were basically dumped in their new “homes.” Many lived on the streets, while others paid exorbitant prices for tin shacks in slums. Moneylenders and merchants victimized them, taking their miserable hovels as collateral for loans and purchases and later evicting them. They could not find jobs. As outsiders and people of African—, not the more-privileged Indian—descent, they faced discrimination. Alcohol, drugs and suicide took a toll. Diet deteriorated. They died young, and illnesses utterly new to them—malnutrition, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, tuberculosis—became rampant. Large numbers became clinically depressed. Many simply died of broken hearts. They were treated, Vine writes, like “rubbish people.”
This was no accidental side effect of the military’s base construction. The military explicitly banned employment of any indigenous people on its base, though it imported workers from elsewhere. And it forbade return visits by the locals, even to tend the graves of their ancestors. It wasn’t until March, 2006, that bad publicity and court cases forced British authorities to permit one visit. Prior to the expulsion, all official reports portrayed the inhabitants as transient laborers rather than a native population. This was done in order to deny their existence and their right to the land, and thus to avoid all political, legal and financial redress.
Though one cannot know the exact attitude of U.S. officials, David Vine aptly quotes Henry Kissinger on the removal of the residents of the Marshall Islands in 1969: “There are only 90,000 people out there. Who gives a damn?” With that attitude, there was no hope for the 2,000 Chagossians. Clearly no one in power thought anyone would care about their fate.
The Chagossians’ displacement is not unique in the history of U.S. military bases abroad. But, as Vine points out, the lies fabricated to conceal the secret agreement in the Chagos Archpelgago are particularly astonishing. Secretary of State Dean Rusk described the islands to President Lyndon Johnson as “virtually uninhabited.” And in June 1964, the Johnson Administration pressured the Washington Post not to run stories that might cause trouble. The Post stories that were published referred to the population as “largely transient laborers.”
Vine does an excellent job of documenting the machinations of military planners and politicians in the 1960s and 1970s, as they sought to evade unwelcome attention from the press, the United Nations or any court system. This was the end of decolonization, the era of imperial plunder and ethnic cleansing was supposedly over and nothing would have looked worse than what was actually happening.
Vine details at length how no other empire has had as many foreign bases—roughly 1,000—as the United States. A few African islanders were not about to thwart the largest military machine in history. So a cast of characters, including foreign policy official Paul Nitze, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, former White House and CIA official Robert Komer (infamous for running operation Phoenix in Vietnam) and Admiral Arleigh Burke concealed and misrepresented the removal of an inconvenient population. The stakes, as these pooh-bahs saw them, were quite high. Vine quotes military analyst John Pike telling him that the U.S. military’s goal is “to run the planet from Guam and Diego Garcia by 2015, even if the entire Eastern Hemisphere has drop-kicked us” from every other base.
“Although the British Government and its agents performed most of the physical work involved in displacing the Chagossians,” Vine writes, “the U.S. Government ordered, orchestrated and financed the expulsion.” But recently the Chagossians have challenged the destiny so carefully prepared for them, and they have won court cases. They hope they may yet receive compensation and the right to return to their archipelago. After all, if gleaming yachts are allowed to dock on these gorgeous islands, why shouldn’t the original inhabitants be welcome there as well?
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