Evict Bush!

Saturday, November 30, 2002  

Worried about how the Patriot Act is being implemented? So is the ACLU. This article from Editor & Publisher outlines the ACLU's efforts to date in monitoring government activity through the FOIA.

EarthJustice reports on how the Bush administration's plans to gut the Clean Air Act are paying back their corporate donors.

Joe Conason writes about the voters' split between ideology and voting choices.

...Meanwhile, it seems odd that the voters who gave Bush a "mandate" don't endorse his program. They don't want drilling in Alaska, they don't much care for the giant tax cuts, they're concerned about the continuing degradation of the environment, and they aren't thrilled about privatizing Social Security. They're not particularly confident about his capabilities, yet his popularity remains comfortably over 60 percent. ...

Paul Krugman just keeps the goods coming. Today he writes about the growing lack of diversity in the news media, and the increased influence held by the media conglomerates. Also, elsewhere in the article, one of the few mentions that the FCC is looking into relaxing their ownership rules. In Media Res, in part:

...The political agenda of Fox News, to take the most important example, is hardly obscure. Roger Ailes, the network's chairman, has been advising the Bush administration. Fox's Brit Hume even claimed credit for the midterm election. "It was because of our coverage that it happened," he told Don Imus. "People watch us and take their electoral cues from us. No one should doubt the influence of Fox News in these matters." (This remark may have been tongue in cheek, but imagine the reaction if the Democrats had won and Dan Rather, even jokingly, had later claimed credit.) ...

Go to the Center for Digital Democracy to get informed about the FCC's policy examination, which could entirely remove the last restrictions on media ownership and behavior. You can use their citizen action links to sound off to the FCC, and/or send emails to your congressperson and both senators. Please, GO NOW!

Ron Reed asks whether or not the US can be trusted with WMDs? He covers the numerous instances in which the US has indiscriminately used WMDs against civilian populations. In closing:

...Without going so far as Alexander Cockburn, who believes that every country should have at least one nuclear device to discourage the depredations of the great powers, I would put forth the proposition that it is far less dangerous to contemplate WMDs in the possession of a brutal but rational dictator like Saddam Hussein, who at most harbors only regional ambitions and certainly knows the consequences were he ever to try to attack his neighbors with such weapons, than to allow their continued possession by a collection of hubristic psychopaths of overweening pride, a vastly inflated sense of self-importance, no experience with being on the receiving end of total war, and a vaulting and unlimited vision of refashioning the globe and modern history in their own image.

Guatemala's bloody past. Exhumations of mass graves, public inquiry commissions, and memorials for the disappeared mark the country's slow emergence from a long nightmare. The Comite Unidad Campesina of Guatemala offers this statement further explaining the political situation in the country, and gives a brief history.

Mark Crispin Miller talks about why Bush is anything but a moron, and why that should worry us. In part:

..."Bush is not an imbecile. He's not a puppet. I think that Bush is a sociopathic personality. I think he's incapable of empathy. He has an inordinate sense of his own entitlement, and he's a very skilled manipulator. And in all the snickering about his alleged idiocy, this is what a lot of people miss." ...

"He has no trouble speaking off the cuff when he's speaking punitively, when he's talking about violence, when he's talking about revenge. "When he struts and thumps his chest, his syntax and grammar are fine," Miller said. "It's only when he leaps into the wild blue yonder of compassion, or idealism, or altruism, that he makes these hilarious mistakes." ...

This, then, is why he's so closely watched by his handlers, Miller says — not because he'll say something stupid, but because he'll overindulge in the language of violence and punishment at which he excels.

"He's a very angry guy, a hostile guy. He's much like Nixon. So they're very, very careful to choreograph every move he makes. They don't want him anywhere near protestors, because he would lose his temper." ...

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” --- Teddy Roosevelt.

David Byron is duly thanked for the link.

The War on Terror

From the desk of Molly Ivins:

Osama bin Laden is back, and no one gives a damn? What is this??!! The White House spokesman announced, "This is about more than one man." The president now says it "really doesn't matter much" if bin Laden is dead or alive. This is the same president who promised to bring him back "dead or alive," isn't it?...

That hate-crazed religious fanatic, so intoxicated by his own mad rhetoric that he thinks he has a right to kill people, is a clear and present danger. His organization has been striking all over the world, even blowing up Aussies in paradisiacal Bali. But we're all supposed to focus on Saddam Hussein. ...

There is a batty degree of triumphalism loose in this country right now. We are brushing off world opinion as though it mattered not a whit what other people think of us. People say dismissively, "Oh, the French have always hated us." That is simply not true. Or, "The Italians are always demonstrating about something." Half a million of them?

The National Review even saw fit to run a piece by some juvenile jerk attacking Canadians as a bunch of whiny wimps. Great, just what we need -- let's see if we can possibly alienate the best neighbor any country ever had. ...

She's right, we've always hated the French more than they've ever hated us. But seriously, what is up with the impulse to dismiss the parties responsible for the most successful attacks of Americans on American soil? And what do we hope to accomplish by alienating our allies in the war on terror (which our traditional allies, and even some enemies, have all been very helpful with) by calling them names over a war in Iraq? Which is, if you will, kind of a side dish.

The CIA has a front page listed section of links regarding the terror threat. They don't have a set of pages chronicling their deep concern about Iraq. And these statements can be found in a discussion of the future shape of terrorism:

...At the same time, the trend away from state-supported political terrorism and toward more diverse, free-wheeling, transnational networks—enabled by information technology—will continue. Some of the states that actively sponsor terrorism or terrorist groups today may decrease or even cease their support by 2015 as a result of regime changes, rapprochement with neighbors, or the conclusion that terrorism has become counterproductive. But weak states also could drift toward cooperation with terrorists, creating de facto new state supporters. ...

Experts agree that the United States, with its decisive edge in both information and weapons technology, will remain the dominant military power during the next 15 years. ...This perception among present and potential adversaries will continue to generate the pursuit of asymmetric capabilities against US forces and interests abroad as well as the territory of the United States. US opponents—state and such nonstate actors as drug lords, terrorists, and foreign insurgents—will not want to engage the US military on its terms. They will choose instead political and military strategies designed to dissuade the United States from using force, or, if the United States does use force, to exhaust American will, circumvent or minimize US strengths, and exploit perceived US weaknesses. Asymmetric challenges can arise across the spectrum of conflict that will confront US forces in a theater of operations or on US soil. ...

I guess no one told them that our biggest threat is really Hussein's intense desire to engage the US military directly in battle. Oh, wait a minute...

Another Chomsky article on the forthcoming Iraqi war. In part:

...He [Saddam] is as evil as they come, ranking with Suharto and other monsters of the modern era. No one would want to be within his reach. But fortunately, his reach does not extend very far. ...

...The rational conclusion is that Saddam is probably less of a danger now than before 9-11, and far less of a threat than when he was enjoying substantial support from the US-UK (and many others). That raises a few questions. If Saddam is such a threat to the survival of civilization today that the global enforcer has to resort to war, why wasn't that true a year ago? And much more dramatically, in early 1990? ...

...Again, resort to large-scale violence has highly unpredictable consequences, as history reveals and common sense should tell us anyway. That's why sane people avoid it, in personal relations or international affairs, unless a very powerful argument is offered to overcome "the sickly inhibitions against the use of military force" (to borrow the phrase of Reaganite intellectual Norman Podhoretz, paraphrasing Goebbels). ...

If you have comments on this topic, please refrain from using graphically obscene or racist language. This would seem obvious, but apparently, it isn't.

Dubya's War on Women. By pulling out of several UN accords, Bush can reward his right-wing base with policies that he wouldn't be able to get away with at home. As usual the world's poorest people, including newborn children, will suffer for it.

The BBC today, as we continue to chronicle all hell breaking loose:

An Israeli owned hotel bombed in Kenya, as missiles were fired at a departing Israeli jet. Casualty numbers at the hotel are presently unknown, and the jet was fortunate to have been missed.

Israel's finances in trouble after two years of military engagement.

Australia, Canada, and the EU have temporarily closed their embassies in the Phillipines due to a 'credible and specific' terror threat.

Palestinians vow revenge for deaths in Jenin.

High mercury levels in certain types of fish linked to heart disease.

But, in more pleasant news, Turkey's new government plans sweeping constitutional reform to bring it in line with EU standards. And the state of Oman broadens voting rights.

MADRE posts a comprehensive set of Thanksgiving Day talking points that outline their opposition to a war in Iraq on both humanitarian and security grounds. I thought it was all worth reading.

Courtesy of Atrios, we find that reformed Leftist Christopher Hitchens hasn't forgotten all the years he spent hating Henry Kissinger. Which is good news for all of us who've been watching the administration get away with whatever it wants because our 'liberal' journalists have been spending more time beating up Democrats than telling us what our Republican administration is actually doing. In part:

...Moreover, on Sept. 10, 2001, a civil suit was filed in a Washington, D.C., federal court, charging Kissinger with murder. The suit, brought by the survivors of Gen. Rene Schneider of Chile, asserts that Kissinger gave the order for the elimination of this constitutional officer of a democratic country because he refused to endorse plans for a military coup. Every single document in the prosecution case is a U.S.-government declassified paper. And the target of this devastating lawsuit is being invited to review the shortcomings of the "intelligence community"? ...

Yet in the end, Hitchens just can't seem to admit that the Kissinger appointment is a defining element of our current policy, rather than a mild oversight on the part of otherwise completely principled individuals.

...There is a tendency, some of it paranoid and disreputable, for the citizens of other countries and cultures to regard President Bush's "war on terror" as opportunist and even as contrived. I myself don't take any stock in such propaganda. But can Congress and the media be expected to swallow the appointment of a proven coverup artist, a discredited historian, a busted liar, and a man who is wanted in many jurisdictions for the vilest of offenses? The shame of this, and the open contempt for the families of our victims, ought to be the cause of a storm of protest.

Yes, Chris, they probably will swallow it. And they will do it because after having sucked down everything else and gone begging for more, their hands are dirty too. Must team Bush reanimate the rotten corpse of J. Edgar Hoover and put him in charge of Homeland Security before these people get the point?

Mark Kleiman explains the problem with saying 'top 1%'. In part:

...According to a survey, 19% of the population thinks its income is in the top 1%. ...And another 20% expects to be. ...The group that will be getting 40% or more of the benefit if the Bush tax cuts become permanent should be described as "the $400,000-a-year crowd." ...

Verily, that would clear things right up.

From The Nation:

Microfinance and cooperation between Muslims and Dalits are starting to bridge the religious war in Gujarat. A small start, but a good one.

Wal-Mart values. The background on the gender discrimination suit being brought against the company, and a persuasive case for unionizing.

Naomi Klein reviews Ashwin Desai's take on globalization. The view from the very, very bottom of South African society.

Professor Jurgen Habermas sheds light on the German perspective of America's policies. I found it interesting that he considers Britain to be firmly in America's foreign policy camp, not because they aren't, but because it isn't exactly the usual portrayal of Britain in our media. While the recent change has been notable, Mr. Habermas' opinion appears to portray US & UK attitudes and motivations as a longtime lockstep.

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami gives a public speech calling for greater civil liberties. He's lately been going head to head with hardliners in the Council of Guardians, trying to secure the authorization of greater powers for the popularly elected parliament. His brother, and leader of the reformist party warns that the hardliners may be looking to declare a state of emergency in order to clamp down further on the reform movement.

Meanwhile, Hashem Aghajari whose recent death sentence for blasphemy sparked a wave of demonstrations, has been told that he must appeal his sentence or it won't be overturned. Mr. Aghajari has so far said that he will not appeal, calling on the judiciary to stand by their judgement if they think it's correct. The disabled veteran of the Iran-Iraq war spoke out questioning whether or not blindly following clerical rule was a good way to run a society, and has rightly become an instant hero to many of his fellow citizens.

And among Iran's women, they're claiming greater freedom from restrictive dress codes every day. While I've said before that what they wear isn't exactly the most important topic, it's another chink in the armor. The other, of course, being that they have more female college students than men. This isn't a society where severe gender repressive traditions were always the norm. It was previously a very modern, nominally islamic society with a small segment of devout Muslims. It always gives me heart to remember the footage I've seen, though, of Iranian women in full chador going water-skiing. That country will eventually be free, because its people refuse to think of themselves as slaves to anyone, even when they're forced to wear heavy black cloaks in the summer.

From the Paper of Record:

Paul Krugman discusses Bush's dirty air policies.

Also, Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan discusses allegations that one of his wife's donations was used to finance two 9-11 hijackers. He makes the additional point that the two individuals in question were wanted by the Saudi government, and that he and his wife would hardly have supported them knowingly. I made my opinions on the topic known here a couple days ago.

In the Guardian:

EU continues to quibble about Turkish admission. The following quote was both telling and amusing, but I have a feeling that the end of even such an extreme outcome would eventually prove to be better than anyone could have planned for. Even the admission of Turkey (whose government is asking to begin negotiating a date, knowing that it has a way to go in meeting some criteria) would be a major diplomatic coup, and an eventual boon to the region.

...Even on the French left - where the official position is that Turkey must be admitted - there are dissenting voices. Hubert Védrine, a former foreign minister, has said Turkey was not in Europe, "but in Asia Minor". If Europe does not draw the line, he suggested, "we will end up with a union of 40 countries, including Russia, the Ukraine, Turkey, the Balkan states and north Africa." ...

Fair Trade chocolate gets a new vendor.

US preparing to vaccinate up to 10 million emergency service personnel against smallpox.

MP George Galloway insists that Osama Bin Laden will be the biggest beneficiary of a war on Iraq.

AIDS pandemic threatens social collapse in the poorest countries. The pot for needed aid is about 7 billion short this year, which could probably more than be made up if we just held off invading a country which shall remain nameless for another year or two, so we could save millions from new infection and treat the sick.

Alas, A Blog, on male guilt... sorry, mens' rights, and why feminism benefits them as well. Also, a long post examining the statistical soundness of the CTS studies used to claim that men and women are equally abused by spouses. A tiny sample:

...Jack Stranton points out another important sampling bias: the CTS, as used in the original Straus/Gelles research and most of the research that follows it, excludes violence that occurs after a divorce or separation. However, such violence accounts for 76% of spousal assaults, and is overwhelmingly committed by men; excluding this violence disproportionately omits most spousal violence against women. ...

CTS studies leave thousands of abused women uncounted. According to a CTS study, a typical woman in a battered woman's shelter reports having been assaulted by a spouse 65 times in the year previous to admission. Straus and Gelles' national study found that there are about 80,000 women in the United States who are abused at that level. In contrast, data from battered women's shelters show that up to 490,000 women use shelters each year - and that figure doesn't even include thousands of severely battered women who don't make it to a shelter.. This huge discrepancy shows that instances of severe woman-battering, far from being fairly measured by the men's rights activists favorite studies, are in fact badly undercounted. ...

Many non-CTS studies have found, contrary to CTS results, that men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of domestic violence, while women are overwhelmingly the victims. Since most (but not all) of these studies are designed to measure criminal violence, Farrell dismisses them, saying men are socialized to "take it like a man" and not report their victimization. However, Russell Dobash pointed out "that women have their own reasons to be reticent, fearing both the loss of a jailed or alienated husband's economic support and his vengeance." Moreover, surveys of domestic violence victims in the US and Canada have found that men are more likely to call the police after being assaulted by their partner. So while it's true that both men and women have motivation not to report their abuse, it's just not true that men are actually less likely to report abuse than women.

Finally, studies using variants of the CTS have found some apparent contradictions. A CTS study of violence by stepparents (conducted by Gelles himself) found no difference in rates of stepparent and natural-parent violence - but as Jack Stanton points out, other studies, including homicide reports, show that "a stepparent is up to 100 times more likely to assault a small child than is a birth parent." Like the unaccounted-for abused women, this finding suggests that the CTS is deficient at measuring the most severe instances of family violence. ...

A long and thoughtful post, worth reading in its entirety. Scroll down the page, though, no permalinks to individual posts.

Bill Gates spent a yearly amount equal to a quarter of what all industrialized nations spend on health care in the developing world as of the year 2000. Nobody had better ever insult him in front of me again, and I forswear any former grudges of my own that come from having worked with Linux fans.

Flexing their free market credentials, the Bush team calls for an end to tariffs. All tariffs? All tariffs on manufactured goods.

Did that almost sneak by anyone else? The tariffs that most concern developing countries are those on agricultural products and commodities, though it would improve the outlook for the third world's textile production. Now watch how anyone who disputes this on those terms is going to get labeled as an anti-capitalist opposed to free trade. An end to all tariffs would require that western nations stop protecting their bloated agribusiness industries, and if that happened in our lifetimes, what a thing. Adam Smith himself would rise from the dead to toast the occasion.

The most likely fate of this proposal, though, is that our steel and auto manufacturers (among others) will kill the proposal behind the scenes and pin it on those 'Luddite' global justice people.

You're Being Robbed. The last word on labor reform.

...Before 1973, wages kept pace with productivity. Then they rose by less than half. Then by less than a third. Now, by even less than that. Like any lawyer before a jury, like the O.J. lawyers before the trial, we have to bring the public along, get them nodding, give them permission to ponder the question: "Yes, I see, this is how I'm being robbed... it's not really my taxes, is it?" ...

FCC Media Ownership Rules

Independent external hearings on FCC media cross-ownership rules may be held soon. The FCC is discussing whether to relax, or possibly eliminate, the ownership rules on how many media properties (newspaper, television, radio) may be owned by a single company in a given market.

This is a rather important issue impacting both the freedom of the press, and the variety of news sources available. The current public comment period ends in January. Speak up, courtesy of the Center for Digital Democracy. My comments as passed along to the FCC were as follows:

I'm increasingly dismayed by the 'echo chamber' effect, wherein I hear the same soundbites on every channel. Even now, a true diversity of opinion is difficult to find, and I find that the best news often comes from foreign sources.

Our 'journalists' seem to live in perpetual fear of offending certain groups, and suppress stories that are in the public interest to know. The information content of the news seems to go down all the time. Why should I need an internet connection in order to approach a state of informed consent?

And advertising interests also seem to drag down the quality and relevance of the viewpoints offered. Many stories are reported in the foreign or alternative press that are actively cut from the mainstream press specifically because they could affect advertising budgets. At least now, different outlets have different sets of advertisers to please.

I don't see how allowing fewer owners would improve this systemic rot. Further conglomeration would increase pressure to bow to one set of opinions (be it from advertisers, bosses, or senior colleagues), and reduce the chance that valuable information might accidentally make it through the gauntlet into the hands of the public.

The lack of detailed and informative political coverage during the midterm elections was just the most recent scandal. I've personally had it with 'infotainment', and strongly oppose any action which seems likely to generate more of it.

Saudi Cash Connection To 9-11 Hijackers?

Recently, there's been a lot of noise made over accusations that a Saudi Princess Haifa al-Faisal donated money to someone who used it to help two of the 9-11 hijackers. In the linked article, these points were of particular interest, emphasis ours:

Saudi adviser al-Jubeir said the princess sent monthly checks to a Saudi woman living in this country who sought help paying for medical treatment. It came out only now that the woman was Basnan's wife and that some of the money ended up with al-Bayoumi's family as well, he said. ...

Al-Jubeir said Saudis had bank officials in Washington, starting at 3 a.m. Saturday, begin going through the princess' electronic transactions, which include hundreds or thousands of payments to expatriate Saudi charities and citizens.

"That's when we discovered that some of the checks were endorsed to third parties," he said.

"To think that Princess Haifa, whose father was murdered by a terrorist in 1995, who's a mother, who's a grandmother, would write checks to people who give it to terrorists is crazy," he added. ...

This is also a good time for a second posting of an article detailing the organizational structure of Islamic networks. The religious-social organizations that characterize much of the Islamic community. They're like little mini-governments, and are indispensible for any kind of serious social standing in the region. Private individuals who happen to be well-off are expected to engage in similar activities, but may do so instead through informal networks of friends and relatives. The example given is that of a particular Shiite cleric.

...Ideally, the head of such a network derives his authority from his theological-juridical knowledge and status. Together with his family and a staff of often highly educated specialists, both male and female, he defines the financial and personnel policies, organizational structure and product palette of his "enterprise." These are primarily oriented toward the religious, economic, social and political needs of the clients who finance him and his network....

If, on a particularly busy day, you visit the Office for Social Services of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Fadlallah in Harat Hreik, ... you may find bundles of banknotes in diverse currencies and copies of receipts for donations from Germany, Brazil or the Congo ... brought in by Fadlallah's emissaries from their journeys to Shiite communities in Africa, Latin America, the USA and Europe. The Office for Social Services has been providing support to orphans and needy families in the form of food, financial aid and medicines since its founding in the early 1980s. By the early 1990s, more than 30,000 families were receiving financial support from it and better than 41,500 families were getting food rations. The charity also built its own medical care infrastructure....

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been using the issue to attack (depending on their personal inclinations) Bush, the CIA, the FBI, and of course, the Saudi royals themselves. Further complicating the issue is a trillion dollar lawsuit against several members of House Saud and certain banks on behalf of some 9-11 survivors.

Earlier tonight I watched a portion of Connie Chung's interview with Prince Turki al Faisal, and later Michael Isikoff. Prince Turki is Princess Haifa's brother, and Mr. Isikoff is the Newsweek reporter who broke the story. Mr. Isikoff considers the following circumstance to be highly suspicious:

...Now, they turn out to be not your run-of-the-mill Saudi students. Mr. Bayoumi, under his own account, just happened to run into the two hijackers, al-Midhar and al-Hazmi, right after they landed in LAX, straight from an al Qaeda terrorist summit in Kuala Lumpur in January 2000. By his account, he just happened to overhear them speaking Arabic at an L.A. restaurant and just happened to offer to take care of them and bring them to San Diego. He welcomes them in a welcoming party. He opens up a bank account for them. He arranges for an apartment right next door to his. And he fronts them two months rent for the first two months, $1,500. ...

And here I would like to come out and say that in this particular case, the whole thing sounds like pure hot air. I don't care if saying that would seemingly let Bush or any investigative agencies off the hook. I don't care if it makes McCain, Lieberman, and Biden sound like opportunistic windbags. So here goes: Not one of these actions by Princess Haifa or Mr. Bayoumi is at all unusual in their culture.

Had the princess written the two terrorists a personal check specifically paying for the costs of flight school training, well that would be something. But that isn't what happened. Instead, a woman who makes hundreds of thousands of donations to various charities and individuals gave a relatively small sum of money to someone who turned it over to a friend, which friend turned it over to some new immigrants.

For any of its flaws or failings, common middle eastern culture is founded on certain bedrock cultural principles. Among them, hospitality to strangers and the obligation of the wealthy to permanently involve themselves in large scale charity. Its been reported by numerous travelers to the area that the locals' willingness to take complete strangers into their homes and take care of them is nearly universal in areas which are not actually war-torn. The idea that it would be unusual for someone from this culture to help a fellow expatriate get on their feet is simply ridiculous. But not quite as silly as assuming that a good faith charitable contribution made to a third party was a direct endorsement of the use to which that money was eventually put by someone who was not the intended recipient.

Our cultural frame of reference for this incident is inadequate. We live in a society where it's becoming unusual to know your neighbors, much less invite them to your home. The privileged members of our society aren't faulted if their personal motto seems to be 'Greed is Good.' The old concept of noblesse oblige is practically dead, either as an external expectation, or an internally assumed duty. Americans simply have other social arrangements than they do.

I would urge our lawmakers, pundits, and various citizens looking for a good lynching out of all of this, not to blow the incident out of proportion. This is a great opportunity for us to demonstrate a mature understanding of another culture. Particularly one where its citizens might not understand how strange this may seem to us, or that we lack the context to evaluate it.

George Monbiot speaks about the pending court case against the British government's plans for Iraq. A very lucid exploration of the case against the 'war by any means' crowd. In part:

This is the factor which many of those liberals who support the invasion of Iraq have failed to grasp. If a war is to be accounted just, it must meet a number of conditions. Not only must it reduce the sum total of violence in the world, and improve the lives of the oppressed, but it must also be shown not to replace one form of oppression with another.

It is not difficult to conceive of a just war against Iraq. We know that it is governed by one of the world's most bestial regimes, and that the lives of its people would be immeasurably improved if that regime was replaced by a democratic government. If this was indeed the purpose of an attack, if less violent means of achieving the same result had been exhausted, if it was legal and if the attacker was a nation with no recent record of expansionism and foreign aggression, which had no special interest in Iraq's resources, and whose political class was not talking of creating a "new imperium", we should support it. But none of these conditions has been met.

Rittenhouse Review writes a piece about Alpha Girls, describing and defining the repetitive bullhorns that pass for influential pundits. I concur with Dwight Meredith of PLA that the piece should be read in its entirety, and that including an excerpt might tempt the reader to be satisfied with inadequate Cliff Notes.

The 'Justice' System In America:

Human Rights Watch studies racial disparity in sentencing. A black person, as the report shows, is 8.2 times more likely to be incarcerated than a white person nationwide. Some individual states have much higher rates of disparate incarceration than the average. But to put this in plainer terms: "There are 4,630 black men in prison nationwide per 100,000 black men in the population, whereas the rate for white men is 482."

As of 1999, well over half the prison population consisted of nonviolent offenders. A total of 1.1 million nonviolent offenders out of a prison population of 1.8 million. Our prison population has since passed the 2 million mark.

This 1998 report sponsored by Amnesty International chronicles widespread abuse throughout the US justice system and in prisons. And this sample activist letter by Human Rights Watch summarizes the sexual abuse commonly experienced by prisoners in the US.

A combination of mandatory minumum sentencing, conspiracy laws, and deal-making with snitches ensures that low-level drug offenders serve disproportionately longer sentences than high-level drug traffickers. Exactly the opposite result touted by the 'tough on crime' politicians who sold these policies to the public. In practical terms, the people at the top get low sentences because they can turn more people in, whereas the peripheral participants often have no information to offer that will save them from the maximum allowable penalties. And draconian asset forfeiture laws further encourage law enforcement to implicate as many people as possible.

This article examines the actual effects of drug prohibition on young people, the Drug War's ostensible beneficiaries. This fact sheet addresses the statistics on families directly affected by incarceration and trends among young people.

Meanwhile, private prisons have become big business. Which means of course, that they lobby for massive government payouts when business is scarce, along with the rest of their free-market brethren.

A summary page from the Drug War Facts website offers several sobering statistics. References are included on the DWF page. In part:

..."The United States has the highest prison population rate in the world, some 700 per 100,000 of the national population, followed by Russia (665), the Cayman Islands (600), Belarus (555), the US Virgin Islands (550), Kazakhstan (520), Turkmenistan (490), the Bahamas (480), Belize (460), and Bermuda (445). "However, almost two thirds of countries (63%) have rates of 150 per 100,000 or below. (The United Kingdom’s rate of 125 per 100,000 of the national population places it at about the mid-point in the World List. Among European Union countries its rate is the second highest, after Portugal’s 130.)" ...

The U.S. nonviolent prisoner population is larger than the combined populations of Wyoming and Alaska. ...

The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that in 1999, the nation spent $146,556,000,000 on the Federal, State and Local justice systems. In that year, the United States had 1,875,199 adult jail and prison inmates. ...

If one compares 1996 to 1984, the crime index is 13 points higher. This dramatic increase occurred during an era of mandatory minimum sentencing and "three strikes you're out."...

Every single one of these problems is worsened by a society that has become afraid to talk about any individual caught up in the justice system as a human being deserving of rights. The highly charged threat in our political dialogue of being called 'soft on crime' has silenced all but the most vocal lawmakers (never a trend-bucking bunch to begin with) on these increasing threats to our social and economic stability. Consider that the last decade's massive increases in the prison population have occurred during a time of economic prosperity and plummeting nationwide crime rates.

Through fear mongering and an unwillingness to publicly discuss facts, figures, and real costs, our justice system is becoming an abuse system. Whether by generating corruption, distrust of authority, or increasing racial disparity, our results have begun tilting to the opposite of our stated goals.

From the Christian Science Monitor:

More on the Republican anti-environmental onslaught. They point out in the article that it was voter dissatisfaction on this issue (bipartisan, even) that buried Gingrich's decidedly anti-Green 'Contract with America,' and that significant backlash could result from an all out attack on environmental protections.

China attempts to create a middle class, while hoping not to have to refer to them as a middle class.

A Minnesota dairy successfully experiments with cow powered electricity production. Perhaps an excellent alternative use for the 'lagoons' that perpetually menace rural America.

And check out this special Monitor report on charity in America. Includes a list of the 50 largest charities in America, and an article on charity watchdog groups that can tell you how your donations are being spent.

From the Voice of America:

A leftist former colonel has been elected in Ecuador's presidential contest. While he participated in a short-lived populist coup, and has agitated for the causes of the indian population, he recently traveled to the US to request foreign investment and a new IMF deal.

UN staff are disputing Israel's version of the shooting of a UN aid worker. Other staff members present said that there were no Palestinians inside the compound at the time, and that the IDF delayed ambulance assistance after the incident.

Turkey and Greece seem to be approaching a deal over Cyprus. Greece's support for future EU expansion, and Turkey's willingness to deal with the EU hang in the balance. Turkey's recently elected government, a moderate Islamist party, is eager to make a deal if it will seal a decision to set a date for their inclusion in the European Union.

Jerry Falwell thinks that global warming was invented to destroy America. He was brought onto a CNN yapfest as a 'balance' to the gentleman running the What Would Jesus Drive campaign. There are some possible explanations for his opinion, 1) he gets a real kick out of making people like me question the existence of god, 2) he's profiting in some obscure way from the sale of SUVs, or 3) he's certifiable. But he is not responsible for the media's presentation of a national bullhorn to a raving madman:

...Falwell's appearance on this segment illustrates a fundamental problem with shouting-head journalism. Cable news networks, adopting the bedrock principal of the adversarial judicial system, often act as if the best way to present information is to serve the viewer two opposing advocates battling it out. But in many instances, this ends up confusing rather than illuminating. Not every fact is debatable, not every opinion equal or worth equal time. What was the journalistic responsibility of Judy Woodruff, who moderated the Sider-Falwell exchange? Shouldn't she have informed the audience that there was absolutely no factual basis to what Falwell was saying? Is it her job to provide a platform to someone who can be proven to be a liar? And what is the price Falwell pays for bearing false witness? None. For Falwell, there's no payback for willful deception, just as there was none for spouting a hateful blame-America explanation (and justification) for the September 11 massacre. Prevarication will not lead to his removal from the great media Rolodex. ...

In the BBC today:

A very public wave of sexual violence has spurred debate over punishment for rapists in India.

Iraq protests to UN regarding technicalities in the recent resolution which they say could be used as automatic triggers for war.

The presidential elections in Ecuador get radical.

Over 200 dead in Nigeria following another day of violence over the Miss World pageant, which has been moved to London. Around 11,000 people have fled their homes.

The space shuttle Endeavor heads to the International Space Station to deliver a new crew and parts for construction.

In Iran, 15,000 militia members took to the streets as an answer to the popular protests that have wracked the country since the death sentence of a professor.

Mark Kleiman brings us Hu's on First. Heh.