RED EYE 2/15/12

U.S. helped rich to ruin Haiti

NYT, 1/9 — The slave revolution that ended with Haiti’s creation in 1804 led to what the sociologist Jean Casimir dubbed a “counter-plantation” system….— a kind of sustainable agriculture that involved planting a variety of crops close together….

This system of agricultural self-reliance provided a better quality of life than that of African descendants anywhere else in the Americas….

In the 20th century, however, this system came under increasing pressure. Outsiders, along with many in the Haitian elite, saw small farms as a barrier to [their profits]. When the United States occupied Haiti, from 1914 to 1934, it worked to centralize the economy….It pushed through a re-writing of the Haitian Constitution to allow foreigners to own land, which the country’s founders had banned for fear of re-enslavement, and worked to replace small farms with large plantations owned by foreign corporations. Many farmers saw their land expropriated.

…When the countryside erupted in a revolt against [U.S.] occupation and the use of forced labor to build roads, the United States created a newly centralized gendarmerie to suppress the insurrection. Violence and economic decline in the countryside forced many Haitians to flee…..The countryside has continued to experience environmental degradation as well as exodus….Haiti’s now chronic problems [include] malnutrition and food insecurity.

Hospitals crowded — by rich suites

NYT, 1/22 — Greenberg 14 South [is] the elite wing on the new penthouse floor of New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Hospital. Pampering and décor to rival a grand hotel…have long been the hallmark of such “amenities units,” often hidden behind closed doors at New York’s premier hospitals….part of an international competition for wealthy patients willing to pay extra….

“These kinds of patients, they’re paying cash — they’re the best kind of patient to have….”

The rise of medical tourism to glittering hospitals in places like Singapore and Thailand has turned coddling and elegance into marketing necessities, designers say.

….In space-starved New York, many regular hospital rooms are still double-occupancy, though singles are now the national standard….

Recall the tale of a family friend stuck for three days in the New York-Presbyterian emergency room for lack of a hospital bed last winter. At the time…the Saudi king had been….granted the whole 14th floor for his entourage.

Great work based on cooperation

NYT — To the Editor: Susan Cain (“The Rise of the New Groupthink,” Sunday Review, Jan. 15) writes that creative people are more likely to be introverts; that students learn better when alone; and that solitary computer programmers write better code. In each of these cases, research shows just the opposite. Decades of scientific research have revealed that great creativity is almost always based in collaboration, conversation and social networks — just the opposite of our mythical image of the isolated genius.

History says capitalism must go

GW, 12/30 — To the Editor: I really hope…that a “good capitalism” is the…way forward, but I fear that the lessons of history tend to a more catastrophic outcome….Capitalism has established itself as a system based on exploitation, competition, monopoly and wealth for a tiny elite.

Exploitation of labour — wealth from the slave trade — provided seed investment for manufacturing in both the UK and the US. Cheap labour from dispensable rural workers provided the unskilled proletariat of 19th century capitalism, until the emergence of trades unions and a very real fear of revolution brought some sharing of wealth….

Finally, competition between capitalist nations brought the horrific wars of the 20th century….

Capitalism succeeds not so much through innovation as by eliminating its competitors….The electorate…and government crumble before the might of capital. Our “competing” parties have become clones of each other [to] the point where governments used our money to pay the bills of bankers who had already gambled with our money and lost it.

….It is unsustainable to continue with such an economic system. If a “good capitalism” cannot be found, then perhaps we need to find another sustainable, equitable and democratic system.

Bigger lockout threat, fewer strikes

NYT, 1/23 — Lockouts were once so rare they were almost unheard of. Now, not only are employers increasingly on the offensive and trying to call the shots in bargaining, but they’re backing that up with action — in the form of lockouts.

The number of strikes has declined to just one-sixth the annual level of two decades ago….Workers worry that if they strike they will lose pay and might lose their jobs….

….At American Crystal Sugar, the nation’s largest sugar beet processor….after the 1,300 unionized workers — spread among five plants in North Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa — voted overwhelmingly to reject [employer] demands, the company locked them out and hired replacement workers [scabs]....

Racist NYPD film demonizes Muslims

NYT, 1/24 — Ominous music plays as images appear on the screen: Muslim terrorists shoot Christians in the head, car bombs explode, executed children lie covered by sheets and a doctored photograph shows an Islamic flag flying over the White House.

“This in the true agenda of much of the Islam in America,” a narrator intone. “A strategy to infiltrate and dominate America…This is the war you don’t know about.”

This is the feature-length film…shown to more than a thousand officers as part of training in the New York Police Department… the [NYPD] offers no apology for aggressively spying on Muslim groups and says it has ferreted out terror plots.

But members of the City Council, civil rights advocates and Muslim leaders say the department…has trampled on civil rights, blurred lines between foreign and domestic spying and sown fear among Muslims…The [NYPD] had no plans to correct any false impression the movie might have left behind.

“There no plan to contact officers who saw it…or to add other programming as a result.”

Media love ‘freedom’ — for bosses

GW, 12/30 — Freedom: who could object? Yet this word is now used to justify a thousand forms of exploitation. Throughout the ringhtwing press and blogosphere, among think tanks and governments, the word excuses every assault on the lives of the poor, every form of inequality and intrusion to which the 1% subject us….

In the name of freedom — freedom from regulation — the banks were permitted to wreck the economy. In the name of freedom, taxes for the super-rich are cut. In the name of freedom, companies lobby to drop the minimum wage and raise working hours. In the same cause…big business trashes the biosphere. This is the freedom of the powerful to exploit the weak, the rich to exploit the poor…

“If the liberty of myself or my class or nation depends on the misery of…other human beings, the system which promotes this is unjust ad immoral.”….

But rightwing libertarians do not recognize this conflict. They speak…as if the same freedom affects everybody in the same way. They assert their freedom to pollute, exploit, even…to kill, as if these were fundamental human rights.

Modern libertarianism is the disguise adopted by those who wish to exploit without restraint. It pretends that only the state intrudes on our liberties. It ignores the role of banks, corporations, and the rich…they have turned “freedom” into an instrument of oppression…

Occupy encourages these workers

NYT, 1/17 — They describe themselves as beaten up workhorses, these burly fellows with linebacker shoulders and bass-register voices.

Four [black] men sit in a union hall on a darkened stretch of Utica Avenue in Brooklyn, talking about life as cable installers for Cablevision and efforts to bring in a union, in this case the Communication Workers of America.

“It’s very hard to retire here. You get hurt, you can’t work as hard and you disappear…I’ve had shoulder surgery. You haul than ladder, climbing poles, crawling through basements, half an hour for lunch.”

He shrugs. “You start to take insane risks. That’s why I signed a union card.”… Last decade, the Communication Workers lost a similar battle with Cablevision, but this struggle has a different feel. In the Occupy age, thousands of houses sit in foreclosure in Brooklyn, and labour marches with kids through the streets. These workers sound disinclined to stand down….

Guantanamo-style abuse will go on

NYT, 1/17 — To the editor: “My Guantanamo Nightmare,” by Lakhdar Boumediene (Sunday Review, Jan. 8), is a chilling reminder that most terrorist suspects imprisoned at Guantanamo were released without ever being charged — but not before suffering the physical and emotional pain of abuse such as stress positions, sleep deprivation and the gnawing uncertainty of indefinite detention.

In our 20 years of examining torture victims, we have seen few as traumatized as the several Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and black site (secret prison) detainees whom we evaluated. They deserve an apology and our help.

Sadly, now that Obama has codified indefinite detention by signing the National Defense Authorization Act, there will be many more torture victims to come.

Women in revolt now sidelined

NYT, 1/10 — Egyptian soldiers had…stripped off her clothes, and watched as she was forcibly subjected to a “virginity test.”

….Ms. Ibrahim’s story in many ways illustrates the paradoxical position of women in the new Egypt. Emboldened by the revolution to claim a new voice in public life, many are finding that they are still dependent on the protection of men…back in the heady days of the revolution, they played an active role, side by side with men, to bring down a dictator.

“Changing the patriarchal culture is not so easy.”…Egyptian feminists said they were thrilled by the size of the march — but winced at its dependence on men.

“If you are calling for men to protect you…they define you and they stick to the traditional roles”…women have almost no leadership roles in the various activists groups that formed out of the original protests that ousted Mubarak…Statistics showing that a third of Egyptian households depend on female earners….

Jobs? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

NYT, 1/25 — ….In the past, workers with average skills, doing an average job, could earn an average lifestyle. But, today, average, is officially over. Being average just won’t earn you what it used to. It can’t when so many more employers have so much more access to so much more above cheap foreign labor, cheap robotics, cheap software…. “In the years ending in 2009….roughly one out of every three manufacturing jobs — about 6 million in total — disappeared.”

And you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

World opens to anti-greed struggle

NYT, 1/25 — ….Today, the gap between eh haves and the have-nots is no longer just a rallying cry to incite anticapitalist advocates. It has become a mainstream issue, debated openly in arenas where the primacy of laissez-faire capitalism used to be taken for granted and where talk of inequality used to be derided as class warfare.

In the united states, the issue surfaced when protesters proclaimed they were the “99 percent” of the population who were paying for the sins of the wealthy “1 percent,” taking their grievances directly to the epicentre of capitalism. The Occupy Wall Street protests, which began in New York, spread to other cities around the united stated and across the world.

In Spain, thousands of “indignados” converged on Madrid and other cities to vent their frustration… In the Arab world, a wave of unrest…began with a protest over a lack of economic opportunities in Tunisia….

Court: okay for biz to buy election

Otherwords.org — …Last year’s democracy-killing decision by the U.S. supreme court…decreed that…lifeless, soulless corporations are henceforth person with human political rights.

Moreover, said the five justices, these tongueless entities must be allowed to “speak” by dumping unlimited sums of their corporate cash into our election campaigns, thus giving them a far bigger voice than us real-life persons.

Egypt military likes being boss

NYT, 1/12 — CAIRO — Former president Jimmy Carter said Wednesday that after meeting with Egypt’s military rulers he doubted they would fully submit to the authority of the civilian democracy they had promised to install…Some privileges of the military would probably be protected.”

RED EYE 02/01/12

Unions follow bosses on pay-cuts

12/30, NYT -- Louisville, KY- Manufacturers are hiring again in America, softening a long slide in factory employment. But for a new generation of blue-collar workers, even those protected by unions, the price of employment is likely to be lower wages stretching to retirement.
The wages for the new hires,are $10 to $15 an hour less than the pay scale for hourly employees already on staff--with the additional concession that the newcomers will not catch up for the foreseeable future.
 The shrunken pay scale for newcomers--$12 to $19 an hour versus $21 to $32 an hour for longtime workers--threatens to undo the middle-class status of even the best paid blue-collar jobs still left in manufacturing. ‚Ķneither G.E.'s 2,000 hourly workers nor Ford's 2,900 have objected.
Quite the contrary, all argue that job creation must take precedence over holding the line on wages‚…"You must have a globally competitive wage to create jobs."


Good teacher a life-long benefit

1/6, NYT--After identifying excellent, average and poor teachers, the economists then set out to look at their students over the long term, analyzing information on earnings, college matriculation rates, the age they had children, and where they ended up living.
The results were striking. Looking only at test scores, previous studies had shown the effect of a good teacher mostly fades after three of four years. But the broader view showed that the students still benefit for years to come.
Students with top teachers are, more likely to enroll in college, and more…likely to earn more.

Poverty biggest drag on students

12/14, NYT--We desperately need a reminder of the relationship between economic advantage and student performance.
The correlation has been abundantly documented, notably by the famous Coleman Report in 1966. New research by Sean F. Reardon of Stanford University traces the achievement gap between children from high-and low-income families over the last 50 years and finds that it now far exceeds the gap between white and black students.
‚…more than 40 percent of the variation in average reading scores and 46 percent of the variation in average math across states is associated with variation in child poverty rates.
International research tells the same story.

Hiding poisonous laws from public

12/16, NYT--To The Editor: Speaker John A. Boehner, at the urging of lobbyists for chemical manufacturers, refiners, paper mills and other big polluters, put poison in the stockings of children across the country with a deadly provision buried in the tax relief bill.
This rider would eliminate controls on toxic pollution for some of the nation's most dangerous polluters, the industrial boilers and incinerators used to generate heat and power at major industrial facilities. It [is]…exposing communities to pollutants that cause birth defects, developmental damage and cancer.
What does this have to do with middle-class tax relief? Nothing.


No real effort vs. hospital errors

1/6, NYT--Washington--Hospital[s] recognize and report only one out of seven errors, accidents and other events that harm Medicare patients while they are hospitalized, federal investigators say in a new report.
The inspector general estimated that more than 130,000 Medicare beneficiaries experienced one or more adverse events in hospitals in a single month.
The inspector general found that "hospitals made few changes to policies or practices" after employees reported harm to patients. In many cases, hospital executives told federal investigators that the events did not reveal any "systemic quality problems."
Organizations that inspect and accredit hospitals generally "do not scrutinize" how hospitals keep track of medical errors and other adverse events, the study said.

France, UK, US sent killers to Haiti

1/1, NYT--In 1791, what today is Haiti became the scene of the largest slave revolt in history. Over the next 13 years, the rebels fought off three successive attempts to re-enslave them. The first was by local planters and French soldiers, aided by arms from the United States, whose president and secretary of state, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, were both slave owners horrified by the uprising. The second was by the British, eager for fertile sugar land and slaves to work it. And finally, Napoleon.
Ill-armed, barefoot and hungry, the rebels fought against huge odds:‚….Napolean sent the largest force that had ever set sail from France, losing more than 50,000 soldiers. The former slaves lost even more defeating these invasions.
By the time Haiti declared independence in 1804, many of its fields, towns and sugar mills were in ruins and its population shrunken by more than half. The Haitian Revolution, as it is known today, was a great inspiration to slaves still in bondage throughout the Americas, but it was devastating to the country itself.
France in 1825 insisted that Haiti pay compensation for the plantations taken from French owners. In case the Haitians did not agree, French warships lay offshore. The sum the French demanded was so big that a dozen years later, paying off this exorbitant ransom, and paying the interest on loans taken out for that purpose, was consuming 30 percent of Haiti's national budget. The ruinous cycle of debt continued into the next century.
Brute force still ruled in the next century, climaxing in the three-decade reign of the Duvaliers, father and son. Their militia, the dreaded Tontons Macoute, spread terror, murdering as many as 60,000 people.
Duvalier, no matter how brutal, could usually count on American support as long as he was vocally anti-Communist. Father and son understood this well and shrewdly used that knowledge to retain power, as did petty tyrants across Latin America, Africa and Asia.
["Haiti,The Aftershocks of History",by Laurent Dubois]‚….does feel chillingly up to date, however:its account of the United States Marine occupation of Haiti for some two decades starting in 1915. The occupation was accompanied by high-flown declarations of benevolence, but the real motive was to solidify American control of the economy and to replace a constitution that prevented foreigners from owning land.
United States troops burned entire villages accused of sheltering insurgents and ruthlessly executed captured rebels or--does this sound familiar?--men who might have been rebels; often there was no way to distinguish them from local farmers.

Money undercuts medical expertise

1/3, NYT--If you want to know what is wrong with American health care today, exhibit A might be the two new proton beam treatment facilities the Mayo Clinic has begun building, one in Minnesota, the other in Arizona, at a cost of more than $180 million dollars each. They are part of a medical arms race for proton beam machines, which could cost taxpayers billions of dollars for a treatment that, in many cases, appears to be no better than cheaper alternatives. So why is the venerable Mayo Clinic building two proton beam facilities? Because it's competing against Massachusetts General Hospital, M.D. Anderson in Texas, the University of Pennsylvania, Loma Linda in California--all of which have one. With ‚reimbursement so generous and patients and doctors eager for the latest technology, building new machines is,….profitable business for hospitals like Mayo.
But it is crazy medicine.


U.S., Israel already at war vs. Iran

NYT, 1/11 —— As arguments flare in Israel and the United States about a possible military strike to set back Iran's nuclear program, an accelerating covert campaign of assassinations, bombings, cyberattacks and defections appears intended to make that debate irrelevant…. The campaign, which experts believe carried out mainly by Israel, apparently claimed its latest victim on Wednesday when a bomb killed a 32-year-old nuclear scientist….
He was at least the fifth scientist with nuclear connections to be killed since 2007…Fereydoon Abbasi survived a 2010 attack and was put in charge of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization.
Iranian officials immediately blamed both Israel and the united States for the latest death, which came less than two months after a suspicious explosion at an iranian missile base that killed a top general and 16 other people…



Child-base cuts put jobs at risk

NYT, 12/14 —— With stats under pressure to cut their budgets and federal stimulus money gone, low-income working parents are facing a paradox. Just when they have to work longer hours to make ends meet, they are losing access to teething they need most to stay on the job: a government subsidy that helps pay for chid care….
"There's a long history of recognition that child care is essential to helping low-income women work."…. "That commitment is being eroded."…

Those who have the subsidy live in fear of losing it….A customer service workers for an electricity company in Pennsylvania, said she had to ask her new boyfriend and her 8-year-old son to watch her baby girl, who was at home screaming with a fever, because she has received too many warnings at work about taking time off to care for her.


Election: misleader vs. liar

NYT, 1/6 —— America's recovery from recession has been so slow that it mostly doesn't seem like a recovery at all, especially on the jobs front. So, in a better world, President Obama would face a challenger offering a serious critique of his job-creation policies, and proposing a serious alternative.
Instead, he'll almost surely face Mitt Romney….His claims about the Obama record border on dishonesty, ad his claims out his own record are well across that border….



Will home-carers really get a raise?

NYT —— The Obama administration proposed regulation on Thursday to give the nation's nearly two million home care workers minimum wage and overtime protections… The White House said 92 percent of these workers were women, nearly 30 percent were African-American and 12 percent [Latino]. Nearly 40 percent rely on public benefits like Medicaid and food stamps….many do not receive a time-and-a-half premium when they work more than 40 hours a week…..
Business groups criticized the proposed rules, which can still be modified after a 60-year public comment period. Industry officials said the proposals would push up costs [for] home care agencies….Nearly 90 percent of the nation's home care aides work for agencies…



Lobbyists protect poison-dumping

NYT, 12/15 —— The export of hazardous electronic wastes, including lead acid batteries to the developing world has irreparable public health effects in some of the most impoverished countries on earth.
DUmping-by-export of hazardous wastes is prohibited by an international treaty called the Basel Convention. Lead acids batteries and other used electronics are covered by this treaty.
While 175 countries have ratified that important treaty, three have not: Afghanistan, Haiti, and the United States.
Under the guise of promoting "free trade," lobbyists in Washington working for companies that claim to be "recyclers" but are primarily waste exporters have prevented the United STates from banning the export of hazardous wastes….



U.S. shuts eyes as innocents die

NYT, 1/4 —— ….Our view of [U.S.] wars has been blind to one specific aspect of destruction: the human toll of those who live in war zones.
We tune out the voices of the victims and belittle their complaints about the midnight raids, the house-to-house searches, the checkpoints, the drone attacks, the mobs that fall on weddings instead of Al Qaeda….
More than 10 years after the war in Afghanistan began, we have only the sketchiest notion of how many people have died as a consequence of the conflict. The United States office in Kabul assembles some figures from morgues and other sources, but they are incomplete. The same has even true for Iraq, although a number of independent effort sha een made thee to account for the dead.
but such numbers, which into the hundreds of thousands gain scant attention. [U.S.] political and military leaders, like the public, show little interest in non-[U.S.] casualties.
Denial, after all, is politically convenient. Failing to consider the mortality figures, the refugees, the impoverished, the demolished hospitals and clean water systems and schools is to deny, in effect, that he war ever happened…
Yet many of the captured Iraqis said they were defending their communities by resisting the occupying forces. Roughing up, detaining or killing suspecting enemy fighters —— as the coalition forces did in countless operations —- prompted some Iraqis to take up the gun, the I.E.D. and the suicide bomb. The more violence from the occupiers,the more ferocious their reaction….
In several opinion polls, Iraqis identified American forces as the primary cause of the violence besetting their country….In 2006, two separate household surveys, by the Iraqi Ministry of Health and by researchers from Johns Hopkins University, found between 400,000 and 650,000 "excess deaths" in Iraq as a result of the war. At the time, however, the commanding general in Iraq put the number at 50,000….If we do not demand a full accounting of the wages of war, future [repetitions] are all the more likely….


Low social spending = bad health

NYT, 12/9 —— It's common knowledge that the United States spends more than any other country on health care….We found that if you counted the combined investment in health care and social services, the United States no long spend the most money —— far from it….In a national survey…four out of five physicians agreed the unmet social needs led directly to worse health….Our current social programs are mostly opt-in, leaving holes for the undocumented, uneducated, and unemployed to slip through cracks and become acutely ill….The impact of sub-par social conditions on health has been well documented. Homelessness isn't typically thought of as a medical problem, but it often precludes good nutrition, personal hygiene and basic first aid, and it increases the risks of frostbite, leg ulcers, upper respiratory infections and trauma from muggings, beatings and rape…. The Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program tracked the medical expenses of 119 chronically homeless people for several years. In one five-year period, the group accounted for 18,834 emergency room visits estimated to cost $12.7 million…..


She says mouse-clicks fall short

NYT, 1/6 —— To the editor: I teach in a College. Over the last 10 years we have witnessed a dramatic increase in the use of technology among children and teenagers.
Despite the ready access to these informaiton-rich tools, our students come to college with weak attention skills and too often an active dislike of sustained readings. Their dislike of sustained reading. Their knowledge base is far less than that of their parents and older siblings who lacked the ready access to technology.
While the Web may provide information, it does not equip the student without the critical-thinking skills to discern the good from the bad or ridiculous….Students will succeed in college and in the world because they will know how to talk with one another, work through differences of opinion, have and use information productively, and solve problems critically and cooperatively.
none of this is achieved through mouse clicks….

RED EYE 01/18/12

No prez will stop U.S. imperialism

GW, 12/9 — To the editor:

Your...article on Honduras....is a timely reminder that presidents may come and go, but the malign influence of the state department and the CIA in Latin America goes on forever. What is happening in Honduras now recalls the support the US gave to rightwing death squads in El Salvador and in Guatemala in the latter half of the 20th century. Conservative estimates put the death toll in El Salvador at 70,000 people; the Guatemalan figure is sometimes put at 50,000....

American interference in Latin America has always had the aim of creating client regimes that would be supportive of US...commercial interests.... It is delusionary in the extreme to expect Barack Obama to buck this....

All U.S. soldiers soon home — NOT

NYT, 12/21 — Kabul, Afghanistan — The senior American commander in Afghanistan suggested...that American forces could remain in the country beyond 2014 despite President Obama’s pledge to withdraw them by then. The commander’s remarks ammounted to the most emphatic signal to date that the United States military intended to secure a presence here, possibly for years....

He said negotiations with the government of President Hamid Karzai on a strategic partnership agreement would ‘‘almost certainly’’ include a ‘‘discussion with Afghanistan of what a post-2014 Afghanistan will look like.’’

Vets: Back Home, but homeless

NYT, 12/19 — Veteran Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseld has vowed to eliminate homelessness among veterans by 2015. If he is going to reach that goal, the pace will have to pick up....

Veterans are about 50 percent more likely than the general population to fall into homelessness, according to the VA’s research....

 To improve health, make life liveable!

 To the editor:

 ....It is the circumstances in which people live and work that determine the health status of any population, in any nation....

 Health care, while crucial to individual survival, makes at best a modest contribution to population health.... Even a perfect American health care system (let alone what we have now) cannot by itself fix our abysmal maldistribution of health....My colleagues and I worked at the nation’s first community health center in the Mississippi Delta in the 1960s.... We repaired collapsing plantation shacks. We built sanitary privies....We organized cooperative farms.... [Such] interventions did far more to save lives, ease suffering and improve our target population’s health than any medical care did....

Cairo women jolt military rulers

NYT, 12/21 — CAIRO — Several thousand women demanding the end of military rule marched through downtown Cairo...in an extraordinary expression of anger over images of soldiers beating, stripping and kicking female demonstrators in Tahrid Square.

‘‘Drag me, strip me, my brother’s blood will cover me !’’ [many] chanted....

Historians called the event the biggest women’s demonstration in modern Egyptian history, the most significant since a 1919 march against British colonialism....It also added a new and unexpected wave of protestors opposing the ruling military council’s efforts to retain power and its tactics for suppressing public discontent.

U.S.-Israel axis moving to hit Iran

NYT, 12/8  — WASHINGTON — The stealth CIA drone that crashed deep inside Iranian territory last week was part of a stepped-up surveillance program that has frequently sent the United States’ most hard-to-detect drone into the country to map suspected nuclear sites....

The overflights...are part of an increasingly aggressive intelligence collection program aimed at Iran....The urgency of the effort has been underscored by a recent public debate in Israel about whether time is running out for a military strike to slow Iran’s progress toward a nuclear weapon.

A rich story about tax laws

Otherwords.org — Why should I pay no taxes while someone who gets up and goes to work every day does? The reason usually offered for taxing [‘‘paper’’] income at a lower rate than wages, salaries and small business income is that such preferential treatment encourages investment and job creation. And that may be true of entrepeneurs who start businesses....

But I don’t do...those things, and there are millions of rich people like me who don’t either. Like a lot of them, I inherited stock in big companies....I suport myself primarily by depositing dividend checks. Occasionally I sell some shares at a profit. And conservative tax reformers believe I should be rewarded for this great exertion by exempting me entirely from taxation.

Green loot, new tool of exploiters

 GW, 12/9 — The Peruvian Amazon is the new global centre of “carbon piracy”, as banks, conservationists and entrepreneurs rush to snap up the legal rights to trade carbon….A UN scheme called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (Redd) allows countries that can reduce emissions from deforestation to be paid for doing so…., potentially opening up a vast new global carbon market for forest-rich countries…Indigenous leaders say companies, NGOs and individuals are abusing illiterate communities….

…The rush in the Amazon has been like a “new fever”, comparable to earlier attempts by international companies to find oil…in the Amazon.

“NGOs, carbon consultants and investors are roaming the jungle in search of communities with carbon offsetting potential…This even involved an effort to convince communities to sign away their rights….

Others “involve long-term commercial contracts with communities whose terms are extremely favorable to external commercial interest sand NGOs”…..

“In the communities almost nobody knows what Redd is and…the NGOs and the companies will arrive in the communities to cheat and enslave us. Many communities do no know their right or the laws and are tricked. This is what happened with loggers,” one community leader said.

Islam getting fruits of Arab spring

GW, 12/9 — Among the potent symbols of the Arab spring is one that has been less photographed and remarked on,…the Muslim Brotherhood….

Welcome to the age of “political islam”, which may prove to be one of the most lasting legacies of the Arab spring. It is not only in Egypt that an unprecedented Islamist political movement is playing out…In Tunisia….Yemen and Libya, too, it seems likely that political Islam will define the shape of the new landscape….All of which, as journalist Issandr El Amrani, wrote in the wake of the election results in Egypt on his Arabist blog, “has profoundly depressed most educated, middle-class Egyptians who had hoped that the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak would be followed by a relatively liberal democracy that would be inclusive of moderate Islamists”.

U.S. dumps poison on workers in Mexico

NYT, 12/9 — The spent batteries [U.S.] turns in for recycling are increasingly being sent to Mexico, where their lead is often extracted by crude methods that are illegal in the United States, exposing plant workers and local residents to dangerous levels of toxic metal….U.S. environmental protection agency standards o lead pollution make domestic recycling more difficult and expensive, but do not prohibit companies from exporting the work and the danger to countries where standards are low….

Batteries are imported…to satisfy a growing demand for lead, once cheap and readily available but not in short global supply. Lead batteries are crucial to cell phone networks, solar power array and the exploding Chinese car market….About 20 millions such batteries will cross the border this year…and that does not take into account batteries smuggled in as mislabeled metal scrap.

Women’s work fuelled big profits

GW, 12/2 — The U.S. economy is now almost thrice as big as in the nearly 1970s — and yet the typical working man enjoys not a dime of this transformative growth….America’s rich…often triumphed by stealth: outsourcing labour, and with it responsibility for terms and conditions; capturing the committees that set bosses’ pay; and darting into every space vacated by the trade unions. The cumulative effects were breathtaking….The top 1% quadrupled their disposable income….Working wives and occasional targeted tax breaks combined to allow families to eke out…feminizing the workforce is a trick that can’t be pulled twice….

$500,000 will get a green card

NYT, 12/19 — Affluent foreigners are rushing to take advantage of a federal immigration program that offers them the chance to obtain a green card in return for investing in construction projects in the United States…Each…must invest at least $500,000 in a project….Critics of the program have described it as an improper use of the immigration system… — a cash-for-visas scheme.

Jobless, U.S. will get very angry

NYT, 11/28 — …The current jobless recovery, and the concurrent failure to create enough new jobs, is breeding a new and growing surplus pool. And some in this pool are in danger of becoming superfluous, likely to never to work again.

….What could be done to prevent such a future?....In the long run,…today’s polarized and increasingly corporate-run democracy will have to be turned into a truly representative one…A society that has permanently expelled a significant proportion of tits members fro the work force would soon deteriorate into an unbelievably angry country…

‘Justice’ is titled against immigrants

NYT, 12/19 — They are often poorly prepared or make incoherent arguments in court. Some fail to present key evidence or witnesses. Others simply don’t show up….Immigrants received “inadequate” legal assistance in 33 percent of the cases between mid-2010 and mid-2011…..

“They are easy prey for ambulance-chasing-style lawyers who do not adhere to the highest standards of responsibility,”….Many immigrants do not have representation at all. (Unlike in criminal courts, respondents in immigration courts are not entitled to court-appointed lawyers.)

RED EYE 01/04/12

Arabs Get Military Dictators Again

NYT,11/24 — No one expected the Arab revolts to be a simple march ahead, but rarely have things seemed so much in flux, with more potential for fragmentation, bloodshed and disarray. While many analysts describe the disturbances as an inevitable reckoning with the legacy of dictatorship, others worry the region may face years of unrest before systems emerge to replace the stagnant, American-backed order that held sway. …The forces of reaction—namely the military—seem more determined than ever to hold on.  In Egypt, “The ruling military council is corrupt and not that much different than Mubarak.” It has deployed the same tools of its predecessor, appealing to the old mantra of security and stability. “The word ‘stability’ is but a righteous word used for wrongful ends.”

 ‘Development’ Super-exploits Indigenous Tribes

GW, 12/2 — What should development mean for those who are mostly self-sufficient, raising their own food and building their dwellings where the water is still clean—like many of the world’s 150 million tribal people? In some of the world’s most “developed” countries (Australia, Canada, and US), development has turned most of the tribal survivors into dispossessed paupers. Take any measure of what development ought to mean: high income, longevity, employment , health; low rates of addiction, suicide, imprisonment and domestic violence, and you find that indigenous people in the US, Canada and Australia are by far the worst off on every count.

Colonialism set out to take away their self-sufficiency on their own territory, and lead them to glorious productivity, as menials, on someone else’s. There’s little point in calling for retroactive apologies for this, because it’s not confined to the past: most development schemes foisted on tribal peoples today go in exactly the same direction.

So what about modern education? In Australia, mixed race children were forced into distant boarding schools to “breed out” their “Aboriginalness” and turn them into an “underclass.” From frozen Siberia to sunlit Botswana, boarding schools remain the main plank in integrationist policies, which destroy more than educate. It’s no hidden conspiracy: it’s openly designed to be about turning people into workers, scornful of their own heritage.

As a Botswana Bushman told me: “First they make us destitute by taking away our land, our hunting and our way of life. Then they say we are nothing because we are destitute.”

Gov’t Layoffs Hurt Black Families

NYT, 12/5 — Buried in the November jobs report was some very bad news for those who work in the public sector. There were 20,000 government workers laid off last month, by far the largest drop for any sector of the economy, mostly from states, counties and cities.

That continues a troubling trend that’s been building for years, one that has had a particularly harsh effect on black workers. More than half a million government positions have been lost since the recession. Those layoffs mean a lower quality of life when there are fewer teachers, pothole repairers and nurses.

Millions of African-Americans — one in five who are employed — have entered the middle class through government employment. Now tens of thousands are leaving their jobs. The effect is severe, destabilizing black neighbourhoods and making it harder for young people to replicate their parents’ climb up the economic ladder.

Bosses Selling More, Hiring Less

NYT, 12/2 — More than two years after the recovery officially began, American employers have reinstated less than a quarter of the jobs lost during the downturn, according to Labor Department figures. Still, factory output grew last month. 

But the number of people applying for unemployment benefits is still too high to signal strong hiring. “Manufacturers are trying to meet demand without significantly increasing their work force.”

‘Sanctions’ vs. Iran Can Equal War

NYT, 12/6 — Iranian leaders are increasingly concerned that oil sales, Iran’s main source of income, are now at risk in ways that they were able to avoid in earlier rounds of Western sanctions. Those sanctions were imposed to press Iran, so far unsuccessfully, to halt its nuclear program.

“If you cut Iran out of the oil market, this is no longer economic pressure... At some point, sanctions become an act of war,” said Vali Nasr, a professor at Tufts University and an expert on Iranian affairs.

‘School choice’ hurts, worker says

NYT, 12/5 — If you want to see the direction that education reform is taking the country, pay a visit to my leafy, majority-black neighborhood in Washington. While we have lived in the same house since our 11-year-old son was born, he’s been assigned to three different elementary school as one after the other has been shuttered. Now it’s time for middle school, and there’s been no neighborhood option available.

Meanwhile, across Rock Creek Park in a wealthy, majority-white community, there is a sparkling new neighborhood middle school, with rugby, fencing, an international baccalaureate curriculum and all the other amenities that make people pay top dollar to live there.

Such inequities are the perverse result of a  “Reform” process intended to bring choice and accountability to the school system. Instead, it has destroyed community-based education for working-class families….Schools, depleted of resources, were shut down. Invariably, schools that served the poorest families got the ax — partly because those were the schools where students struggled the most, and partly because the parents of those student had the least power.

 

Open threat: Mid-East arms race

NYT, 12/7 — A Saudi prince, in a remark designed to send chills through the Obama administration and its allies, suggested that the kingdom might consider producing nuclear weapons if it found itself between atomic arsenals in Iran and Israel….The remark confirmed Western fears about the potential for an arms race in the Middle East.

Big biz loves U.S. split into states

NYT, 12/7 — As states have struggled to balance their budgets by cutting services, laying off workers and raising taxes, a study…suggests that many profitable Fortune 500 companies have not been paying much in state corporate income taxes…with some big firms paying none at all in recent years…

Many states…have granted their own tax breaks to try to…lure companies from other states.

Recession doesn’t halt global heat

NYT, 12/5 — Global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning jumped by the largest amount on record last year, upending the notion that the brief decline during the recession might persist through the recovery….Scientists…said the increase, a half-billion extra tons of carbon pumped into the air….solidified a trend of ever-rising emissions that…will make it difficult, if not impossible, to forestall severe climate change in coming decades.

….This country is the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, pumping 1.5 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere last year.

The United States were surpassed several years ago by China….Emissions per person, though, are still sharply higher in the wealthy countries….Urgent pleas that society find a way to limit emissions have met sharp political resistance in many countries, including the United States, because doing so would entail higher energy costs…

Massey mine killers get off light

NYT, 12/7 — In what officials say is the largest settlement ever in a government investigation of a mine disaster, Alpha Natural Resources agreed to pay $209 million…for the role of its subsidiary, Massey Energy, in a mine explosion last year that killed 29 men in West Virginia….

But for the families of the miners killed in the accident — the worst such disaster in 40 years – the settlement was justice denied. Many were hoping for criminal charges against the people who ran Massey, the company that, according to the federal government’s own review, knowingly put their relatives in harm’s way….

Under the federal mine act, safety violations, with the exception of falsifying records, are categorized as misdemeanors....

Proposed changes to the mine act did not make it out of the House at the end of the last session of Congress, because of…an intense lobbying effort by the coal industry.

Afghan told to marry her rapist

NYT, 12/2 — When the Afghan government announced Thursday that it would pardon a woman who had been imprisoned for adultery after she report that she had been raped, the decision seemed a clear victory for the many women here whose lives have been ground down by the Afghan justice system.

But…the announcement also made it clear that there was an exception that the woman, Gulnaz, would agree to marry the man who raped her….The solution holds grace risks for Gulnaz, who uses on name, since the could be so humiliated that he might kill his accuser, despite the risk of prosecution, or abuse her again.

The decision from the government…underscoring the unfinished business of advancing women’s right here, and raising questions of what will happen it eh future to other women like Gulnaz.

Indeed, what prompted the government to act at all was a grass-roots movement that began after Gulnaz was featured in a recent documentary film.

Mumia ends 30 years of death race

NYT 12/8 —Prosecutors in Philadelphia announced Wednesday that they had halted the state’s effort to execute Mumia Abu-Jamal the death row inmate convicted of killing a police officer 30 years ago, who subsequent legal case based o claims of innocence has received international attention.

During his long stay on death row, Mr. Abu-Jamal, 57, a former Black Panther and radio reporter, became a vocal and — to some — convincing advocate of his own “Free Mumia” movement. That cause became particularly prominent around college campuses, where students collected donations….

Christina Swarns, director of the criminal justice practice at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which is representing Mr. Abu-Jamal, said that she was “delighted” by the decision — and that the Free Mumia movement had some influence…

Mr. Abu-Jamal, who is black, was convicted of fatally shooting Officer Faulkner, who was white, on Dec. 9,1981, after the officer pulled over Mr. Abu-Jamal’s brother for driving the wrong way on a one-way street….Abu-Jamal had been shot in the chest by the officer.

Mr. Abu-Jamal has said that he was at the scene but that someone else — not identified — was the killer.

‘Occupy’ far better than Dems

NYT, 12/4 — ….Left-wing street theater has arguably eclipsed Tea Party activism as our politics’ defining form of protest.

Of these movement, Occcupy Wall Street earned by far the most attention….Occupy Wall Street…seemed to be doing what a decent left would exist to do: criticizing entrenched power, championing the  common good and speaking for the many rather than the few….Even if it has failed to embrace plausible solutions, OWS at least picked a deserving target — the “moral rupture” created Wall Street’s and Washington’s betrayal of the public trust.

Better a protest movement that casts itself (however quixotically) as the defender of “the 99 percent” than a protest movement that just represents Democratic interest groups…

Bosses selling more, hiring less

NYT, 12/2 — More than two years after the recovery officially began, American can employers have reinstated less than a quarter of the jobs lost during the downturn, according to Labor department figures…Factory output grew last month at the fastest rate since June….But the number of people applying for unemployment benefits is still too high to signal strong hiring… “Manufacturers are trying to meet demand without significantly increasing their work force.”…..

RED EYE 11/02/11

Lying system, exposed, is dying

NYT, 10/12 — ….Paul Gilding, the Australian environmentalist and author of the book “The Great Depression,” argues that [current] demonstrations are a sign that the current growth-obsessed capitalist system is reaching its financial and ecological limits. “I…see our system in the painful process of breaking down.”….

“What we now have — most extremely in the U.S. but pretty much everywhere — is the mother of all broken promises,”… “Yes, the rich are getting richer…But, meanwhile, the people are getting worse off — drowning in housing debt and /or tuition debt — many who worked hard are unemployed; many who studied hard are unable to get good work; the environment is getting more and more damaged and people are realizing their kids will be even worse off than they are. This particular round of protests may build or may not, but what will not go away is the broad coalition of those to whom the system lied and who have now woken up…It’s most people…who are feeling the results of a system that saw all the growth of the last three decades go to the top 1 percent.”

U.S. requires a big army

NYT, 10/11 — …The [U.S.] Army’s two top leaders argued Monday against shrinking their service too much, warning that the nation may have to rethink its defense strategy if the ground forces become too small....

General Odierno said similar arguments were made about the irrelevance of American ground forces before, and were disproved by the attacks of Sept. 11.

“We have to be ready for unknown contingencies”…as well as roles that we will play in strategies and other contingencies that we will be planning for.”

Oil profiteers fund Africa war

GW, 10/7 — Shell has fueled armed conflict in Nigeria by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to feuding militant groups….

The oil giant is implicated in a decade of human rights abuses in the Niger delta…. “Armed gangs waged pitched battles over access to oil money, which Shell distributed to whichever gang controlled access to its infrastructure.”

Millions saying voting won’t work

NYT, 9/28 — Hundreds of thousands of disillusioned [in] India cheer a rural activist on a hunger strike. Israel reels before the largest street demonstrations in its history. Enraged young people in Spain and Greece take over public squares across their countries.

Their complaints range from corruption to lack of affordable housing and joblessness, common grievances the world over. But from Central Asia to the heartland of Europe and now even to Wall Street, these protesters share something else: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over.

They are taking to the streets, in part, because they have little faith in the ballot box.

“Our parents are grateful because they’re voting...We’re the first generation to say that voting is worthless.” ….Only an assault on the system itself can bring about real change.

Political strike by Latino workers in Alabama 

NYT, 10/13 — At least a half-dozen poultry plants shut down or scaled back operations on Wednesday and many other businesses closed as [Latino workers] skipped work to protest the state’s tough immigration law….The law allows police officers to detain people indefinitely if they are suspected of being in the country illegally, and it requires schools to check the status of new students when they enroll.

NY school-support-workers fired

NYT, 10/8 — …672 lost their jobs on Friday in the largest single-agency layoff since Mayor Bloomberg took office in 2002….The city…could not find a way to spare the school aides, parent coordinators, family workers and others who work in support jobs at roughly 350 schools…. [A protest group declared] “The constant attack on our education system will continue to burden the most vulnerable population of this city — our children.”

‘Crisis centers’ lie to women

NYT, 10/6 — Defenders of “crisis pregnancy centers” are converging on Capitol Hill this week to lobby for increased support from the government, brandishing not picket signs, but babies.

The centers portray themselves as nonpartisan health counseling clinics, but in fact they oppose abortion, and sometimes even family planning, and push a political agenda on vulnerable women. A Congressional investigation in 2006 found that 87 percent of the centers surveyed provided false or misleading medical information. Nonetheless, the government has given these centers over $9.3 million in grants since 2007.

They insisted on calling my pregnancy my “baby” and my “child.” The intake questions included, “What is your relation to Jesus Christ?”

…I was cautioned that abortions caused breast cancer….that I would inevitably suffer from post-abortion stress syndrome….I found out that much of [this] was inaccurate. 

Rulers made CIA lie on Iraq war

NYT, 10/2 — ….Pillar, the author of two previous books, was an intelligence analyst for 28 years, mainly at the C.I.A….

The C.I.A. works for the president, Pillar notes, which means that politicization — direction, not always subtle, about what to look at and what to say about it — is a fact of life. But it was worst, in his experience, during the “anti-Soviet slant” of President Reagan, especially during his first term, under George W. Bush, when “thee politicization of intelligence tested new depths.” In then run-up to the Iraq war, he says such politicization was “blatant and extensive,” involving “misleading rhetorical artifice” and “duplicity” through “tenuous and unverified reports” from “unproven sources.” That the administration was determined to invade Iraq is now well established; W.M.D.’s were the excuse for war, not the reason. What Pillar adds to the story is clear confirmation that everyone in the C.I.A. understood this….

Rural lives need those post offices

NYT, 10/8 — …..In Neville, and in many towns around the country these days, homespun conversations over post office counters are often turning from the latest gossip to a worrisome, newly pressing issue: the United States Postal Service has warned 3,700 communities, many of them in rural areas, that it is considering shuttering their local offices over the next few months.

“I just wish that they would leave our post office alone,” Ms. Bowling said. “If I couldn’t come here to get my mail every morning, I’d feel a big part of me has died.”….

Many say their post offices — Neville’s was founded in 1816 — have served as the gathering spot and heart of the town for generations….

The Postal Service ran a deficit of nearly $10 billion in the fiscal year that just ended….Insisting that they desperately need to cut costs, postal officials have called for ending Saturday delivery, laying off 120,000 workers, and shutting rural post offices….

“Everything is going to be the Internet…Well, half the people in rural areas don’t have access to high-speed internet. We’re not the ones putting the post office out of business. Yet we’re becoming the victims.”

Easy gain for boss: fire unionist

Otherwords.org, 9/28 — Last month Target fired Tashawna Green — but not being bad at her job. They fired her, she says, for trying to make her job better. Green, a 21-year-old single mom, was the most public supporter for a campaign to unionize the workers at [the] store….The truth is that companies fire workers for union activity all the time, and they often get away with it.

Research from the Economic Policy Institute  (EPI) shows that more than a third of companies respond to union elections by firing union activists…Under the current law, companies dead-set on keeping out unions have a lot to gain by firing…Firing union supporters removes them from the workplace and sends a chilling message to their co-workers.

Since none of us is perfect, it can be hard to prove to the government that union activism was the reason someone was fired...The process can take years.

Computerized classes not delivering

NYT, 10/9 — ….The Web site of Carnegie Learning, a company started by scientists at Carnegie Mellon University that sells classroom software, trumpets this promise: “Revolutionary Math Curricula. Revolutionary Results.”

The pitch has sounded seductive to thousands of schools across the country for more than a decade. But a review by the United States Department of Education last year would suggest a much less alluring common: Undistinguished math curricula. Unproven results.

The federal review of Carnegie Learning’s flagship software, Cognitive Tutor, said the program had “no discernible effects” on the standardized test scores of high school students. A separate 2009 federal look at major software products for teaching algebra as well as elementary and middle school math and reading found that nine of them, including Cognitive tutor, “did not have statistically significant effects on test scores.”

….Many companies ignore well-regarded independent studies that test their products’ effectiveness…Some firms misrepresent research by cherry-picking results…

“The advertising from the companies is tremendous oversell compared to what they can actually demonstrate.”…