Zach e-mailed me to note that I'd forgotten to post Tom Hayden's open letter to Howard Dean. (Thanks for the reminder Zach, I did forget.) Friday, we noted Katrina vanden Heuvel's Editor's Cut and how she quoted the letter in full.

You can find it (and vanden Heuvel's introduction) at Sacramento Democracy and the letter itself at ZNet:

Dear Chairman Dean,
Thank you kindly for your call and your expressed willingness to discuss the Democratic Party's position on the Iraq War. There is growing frustration at the grass roots towards the party leadership's silent collaboration with the Bush Administration's policies. Personally, I cannot remember a time in thirty years when I have been more despairing over the party's moral default. Let me take this opportunity to explain.
The party's alliance with the progressive left, so carefully repaired after the catastrophic split of 2000, is again beginning to unravel over Iraq. Thousands of anti-war activists and millions of antiwar voters gave their time, their loyalty and their dollars to the 2004 presidential campaign despite profound misgivings about our candidate's position on the Iraq War. Of the millions spent by "527" committees on voter awareness, none was spent on criticizing the Bush policies in Iraq.
The Democratic candidate, and other party leaders, even endorsed the US invasion of Falluja, giving President Bush a green-light to destroy that city with immunity from domestic criticism. As a result, a majority of Falluja's residents were displaced violently, guaranteeing a Sunni abstention from the subsequent Iraqi elections.
Then in January, a brave minority of Democrats, led by Senator Ted Kennedy and Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, advocated a timetable for withdrawal. Their concerns were quickly deflated by the party leadership.
Next came the Iraqi elections, in which a majority of Iraqis supported a platform calling for a timetable for US withdrawal. ("US Intelligence Says Iraqis Will Press for Withdrawal." New York Times, Jan. 18, 2005) AJanuary 2005 poll showed that 82 percent of Sunnis and 69 percent of Shiites favored a "near-term US withdrawal" (New York Times, Feb. 21, 2005. The Democrats failed to capitalize on this peace sentiment, as if it were a threat rather than an opportunity.
Three weeks ago, tens of thousands of Shiites demonstrated in Baghdad calling again for US withdrawal, chanting "No America, No Saddam." (New York Times, April 10, 2005) The Democrats ignored this massive nonviolent protest.
There is evidence that the Bush Administration, along with its clients in Baghdad, is ignoring or suppressing forces within the Iraqi coalition calling for peace talks with the resistance. The Democrats are silent towards this meddling.
On April 12, Donald Rumsfeld declared "we don't really have an exit strategy. We have a victory strategy." (New York Times, April 13, 2005). There was no Democratic response.
The new Iraqi regime, lacking any inclusion of Sunnis or critics of our occupation, is being pressured to invite the US troops to stay. The new government has been floundering for three months, hopelessly unable to provide security or services to the Iraqi people. Its security forces are under constant siege by the resistance. The Democrats do nothing.
A unanimous Senate, including all Democrats, supports another $80-plus billion for this interminable conflict. This is a retreat even from the 2004 presidential campaign when candidate John Kerry at least voted against the supplemental funding to attract Democratic voters.
The Democratic Party's present collaboration with the Bush Iraq policies is not only immoral but threatens to tear apart the alliance built with antiwar Democrats, Greens, and independents in 2004. The vast majority of these voters returned to the Democratic Party after their disastrous decision to vote for Ralph Nader four years before. But the Democrats' pro-war policies threaten to deeply splinter the party once again.
We all supported and celebrated your election as Party chairman, hoping that winds of change would blow away what former president Bill Clinton once called "brain-dead thinking."
But it seems to me that your recent comments about Iraq require further reflection and reconsideration if we are to keep the loyalty of progressives and promote a meaningful alternative that resonates with mainstream American voters.
Let me tell you where I stand personally. I do not believe the Iraq War is worth another drop of blood, another dollar of taxpayer subsidy, another stain on our honor. Our occupation is the chief cause of the nationalist resistance in that country. We should end the war and foreign economic occupation. Period.
To those Democrats in search of a muscular, manly foreign policy, let me say that real men (and real patriots) do not sacrifice young lives for their own mistakes, throw good money after bad, or protect the political reputations of high officials at the expense of their nation's moral reputation.
At the same time, I understand that there are limitations on what a divided political party can propose, and that there are internal pressures from hawkish Democratic interest groups. I am not suggesting that the Democratic Party has to support language favoring "out now" or "isolation." What I am arguing is that the Democratic Party must end its silent consent to the Bush Administration's Iraq War policies and stand for a negotiated end to the occupation and our military presence. The Party should seize on Secretary Rumsfeld's recent comments to argue that the Republicans have never had an "exit strategy" because they have always wanted a permanent military outpost in the Middle East, whatever the cost.
The Bush Administration deliberately conceals the numbers of American dead in the Iraq War. Rather than the 1,500 publicly acknowledged, the real number is closer to 2,000 when private contractors are counted.
The Iraq War costs one billion dollars in taxpayer funds every week. In "red" states like Missouri, the taxpayer subsidy for the Iraq War could support nearly 200,000 four-year university scholarships.
Military morale is declining swiftly. Prevented by antiwar opinion from re-instituting the military draft, the Bush Administration is forced to intensify the pressures on our existing forces. Already forty percent of those troops are drawn from the National Guard or reservists. Recruitment has fallen below its quotas, and 37 military recruiters are among the 6,000 soldiers who are AWOL.
President Bush's "coalition of the willing" is steadily weakening, down from 34 countries to approximately twenty. Our international reputation has become that of a torturer, a bully.
The anti-war movement must lead and hopefully, the Democratic Party will follow. But there is much the Democratic Party can do:
First, stop marginalizing those Democrats who are calling for immediate withdrawal or a one-year timetable. Encourage pubic hearings in Congressional districts on the ongoing costs of war and occupation, with comparisons to alternative spending priorities for the one billion dollars per week.
Second, call for peace talks between Iraqi political parties and the Iraqi resistance. Hold hearings demand to know why the Bush Administration is trying to squash any such Iraqi peace initiatives. (Bush Administration officials are hoping the new Iraqi government will "settle for a schedule based on the military situation, not the calendar." New York Times, Jan. 19, 2005).
Third, as an incentive to those Iraqi peace initiatives, the US needs to offer to end the occupation and withdraw our troops by a near-term date. The Bush policy, supported by the Democrats, is to train and arm Iraqis to fight Iraqis--a civil war with fewer American casualties.
Fourth, to further promote peace initiatives, the US needs to specify that a multi-billion dollar peace dividend will be earmarked for Iraqi-led reconstruction, not for the Halliburtons and Bechtels, without discrimination as to Iraqi political allegiances.
Fifth, Democrats could unite behind Senator Rockefellers's persistent calls for public hearings on responsibility for the torture scandals. If Republicans refuse to permit such hearings, Democrats should hold them independently. "No taxes for torture" is a demand most Democrats should be able to support. The Democratic Senate unity against the Bolton appointment is a bright but isolated example of how public hearings can keep media and public attention focused on the fabricated reasons for going to war.
Instead of such initiatives, the national Democratic Party is either committed to the Iraq War, or to avoiding blame for losing the Iraq War, at the expense of the social programs for which it historically stands. The Democrats' stance on the war cannot be separated from the Democrats' stance on health care, social security, inner city investment, and education, all programs gradually being defunded by a war which costs $100 billion yearly, billed to future generations.
This is a familiar pattern for those of us who suffered through the Vietnam War. Today it is conventional wisdom among Washington insiders, including even the liberal media, that the Democratic Party must distance itself from its antiwar past, and must embrace a position of military toughness.
The truth is quite the opposite. What the Democratic Party should distance itself from is its immoral and self-destructive pro-war positions in the 1960s which led to unprecedented polarization, the collapse of funds for the War on Poverty, a schism in the presidential primaries, and the destruction of the Lyndon Johnson presidency. Thirty years after our forced withdrawal from Vietnam, the US government has stable diplomatic and commercial relations with its former Communist enemy. The same future is possible in Iraq.
I appeal to you, Mr. Chairman, not to take the anti-war majority of this Party for granted. May I suggest that you initiate a serious reappraisal of how the Democratic Party has become trapped in the illusions which you yourself questioned so cogently when you ran for president. I believe that an immediate commencement of dialogue is necessary to fix the credibility gap in the Party's position on the Iraq War. Surely if the war was a mistake based on a fabrication, there is a better approach than simply becoming accessories to the perpetrators of the deceit. And surely there is a greater role for Party leadership than permanently squandering the immense good will, grass roots funding, and new volunteer energy that was generated by your visionary campaign.
TOM HAYDEN

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]
 

Those who signed up at Iraq Dispatches for e-mail updates should have already seen this but for any who didn't (and for those who haven't signed up):

** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches ****
http://dahrjamailiraq.com
***Dahr Jamail's Lectures - February 27, 2005 - New College, San Francisco
*Dahr's talk at New College was days after his recent return from Iraq and was the beginning of a lecture tour throughout the United States.
Ifyou did not have a chance to see one of Dahr's dozens of US lectures, here is one lecture - in its entirety - produced by the students of NewCollege.
See Dahr's Presentation Now! - Streaming Real Media
http://www.archive.org/stream/Dahr_Jamail_New_College_2_27_2005/Dahr_Jamail_New_College_2_27_05.rm
*Dahr Jamail Interviews Mark Manning -
*3/5/2005 Dahr Jamail and Mark Manning were the only two American unembedded
journalist inside Fallujah during the two sieges of April and November2004.
Mark Manning spent one week inside Fallujah with a video camera interviewing survivors of the November siege.
Hours of video tape documenting the atrocities that occured in Fallujah were stolen the day
Mark returned to the US in a well-timed double break-in that was followed by weeks of intimidation and threats.
In this rare interview, Dahr talks with Mark about Fallujah and recounts the circumstances that journalists face today when reporting on events the US government does not want its citizens to know about.
Listen to Interview (Streaming M3U)
http://www.archive.org/download/Dahr_Jamail_Mark_Manning_3_5_2005/Dahr_Jamail_Mark_Manning_3_5_2005_64kb.m3u

*David Solnit Interviews Dahr Jamail
* - 3/5/2005 Anti war activist David Solnit presents the three pillars that support the Iraq war: Recruitment of more troops, contractors and fighters, the corporations profiting from the war, and the prevalent media disinformation in the US corporate mainstream news. Dahr and David use the pillars to discuss what Dahr has witnessed in Iraq and what we can do in the United States to stop the US war and occupation in Iraq.
Listen to Interview (streaming M3U)http://www.archive.org/download/Dahr_Jamail_David_Solnit_3_5_2005/Dahr_Jamail_David_Solnit_3_5_2005_64kb.m3u

Having difficulty downloading the streaming video and audio because of busy servers?
Download the entire files from the new Dahr Jamail Iraq Bit Torrent page
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/torrents

- where the busier it gets, the faster the downloads!

Also, as we've noted before:

Heads up to a DVD:
New Video Tells Dahr's Story Testimonies From Falluja
http://images.indymedia.org/imc/seattle/media/2005/04/245474.mov
*Eyewitness in Iraq: Dahr Jamail, an Unembedded Report
*A Pepperspray Production, 28 minutes Dahr Jamail recognized that Americans were being misled about the US occupation of Iraq, so he went to Iraq to find the truth.
After being*un*embedded in Iraq totaling over 8 months, he returned to the States to tell what he discovered.
In this video Dahr Jamail speaks of the horrors of occupation, the use of illegal weapons by American forces, the rip-off of American taxpayers by Bechtel and other US corporations, the shabby and biased media coverage of the situation by US media, and of the resilient determination of the Iraqi people to be free from foreign occupation.
A portion of the price of this video goes to support Dahr in his ongoing efforts.
See the preview!
http://images.indymedia.org/imc/seattle/media/2005/04/245474.mov
Buy the video from the Pepper Spray Productions website
http://peppersp.server312.com/videos.htm
More writing, photos and commentary at http://dahrjamailiraq.com
So check out the video and if you're interested and able to afford to purchase the video, consider doing that.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Democracy Now! (Marcia: "always worth watching"):

Headlines for May 2, 2005
- 120 Die in Wave of Attacks in Iraq
- Two Years Ago: Bush Declares "Major Combat Operations" Over
- Military Denies Objector Status to Sgt. Kevin Benderman
- Report: CPB Chair Exerts Pressure on PBS, Alleging Bias
- Sudanese Gov't Confirms Ties W/ CIA
- Ex-Haitian PM Yvon Neptune Forced Into Exile
- Tension Escalates Over AFL-CIO's Future
- Millions Mark International Workers Day
- Pioneering Psychologist Kenneth Clark, 90, Dies

Hiroshima Mayor Calls on All Countries "Including U.S." to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
A large anti-nuclear rally in New York calls for global nuclear disarmament ahead of a United Nations meeting to review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. We speak with the mayor of Hiroshima - where 60 years ago the U.S. dropped one of two atomic bombs.

Hundreds of HIV+ Foster Children in NYC Subjected to Experimental Drug Trials
New York City's child welfare department opens an investigation into whether they forced HIV positive children in foster care to submit to experimental AIDS drug trials. We speak with the commissioner for New York's Administration for Children's Services, New York City councilman Bill Perkins and Vera Sharav of the Alliance for Human Research Protection.

In today's Daily Howler, Bob Somerby is (as always) dealing with a number of issues.
First, we've got an overview of how the Democrats conducted themselves on the Sunday Chat & Chews. There's also the issue of Bully Boy's public lies re: Social Security and the reluctance on the part of the press to do anything more than merely repeat Bully Boy's claim.
Somerby's also beginning a topic that will continue tomorrow on Michael Kinsley.

Regarding the Chat & Chews, we'll note this because Somerby points out the importance of semantics on this issue:

According to Wallace, everyone's benefits "continue to grow" under Bush's proposal. But uh-oh! According to Russert, everyone "would have their benefits cut!" But Wallace and Russert are using the same set of facts, which makes this a classic semantic dispute. And this is a semantic dispute which actually makes a major difference. This conflict will make a major difference in how this debate will turn out.

And we'll note this because members will enjoy it:

Of course, wherever George Bush is being humanized, Elisabeth Bumiller is there. Today's Times presents a large spread (with large smiley photo) about Mrs. Bush's winning performance. Our analysts emitted low, mordant chuckles when they reached Bumiller's nugget:
BUMILLER (5/2/05): Whether her cheeky one-liners will shore up her husband as he struggles with Social Security, gas prices and combative Democrats is another question entirely. But her zingers showed how much the White House relies on her to soften her husband's rough edges at critical moments, much as she did with her extensive travels and fund-raising in the 2004 campaign.
Of course, the White House relies on someone else to soften Bush's rough edges, too. The White House relies on Elisabeth Bumiller, every single Monday. And the scribe has kept it up for years in her fatuous "White House Letter," even during Campaign 2004. FAQ: Who provided the corresponding "Campaign Letter" which softened the edges of Candidate Kerry? Answer: No one did! The Times kept publishing Bumiller's sponge-baths, and offered no corresponding treatment of Kerry. A second-grader would have seen the problem. But did we mention that this is the Times?
Yes, Laura Bush was superb this weekend--simply, flat-out excellent. Unfortunately, Mrs. Bush's dissembling husband has been doing less well in his serious duties. We discussed his most recent blatant lying in a special Saturday post. We continue from there in a special report: “Defining Dishonesty Down.”

[Note: There's much more in today's Daily Howler but Somerby's covering a variety of topics and I don't want to pull the finest observations -- often the funniest -- from each entry and spoil it for people who make a point to visit the site.]

Martha e-mails to note Danny Schechter's "The Unreported Vietnam-Iraq Parallel." Here's the opening of that article:

There is a word missing in most of the coverage of Iraq. It's a ghost-laden word that conjures up distressing memories that Washington and most of our media prefer to keep in that proverbial "lock box," hidden away in dusty archives and footage libraries.
The word is Vietnam.
Its absence was never more noticeable than in the coverage this past weekend of the 30th anniversary of the Vietnam War, marked in Vietnam with celebrations, but largely ignored in America where CNN led with the story of a bride who went missing when she had second thoughts.
Is this denial or is it deliberate? Just this past month, the national Smithsonian Museum of American History installed a new patriotically correct permanent war-positive exhibition, "The Price of Freedom: Americans at War."
If you want to know about the pain of the war official America wants you to forget, you have to head a few blocks south on the mall in Washington to the Vietnam Memorial with its nearly 60,000 names engraved in black marble. That's where you will see the tears of visitors every day and their lingering memories three decades later.

Remember, Danny Schechter's blog News Dissector.

Rachel passed on this from Jude of Iddbybud:

We must continue to appeal to our political leaders for fairness and we must begin to speak to our religious leaders on a political level. We did not ask for this struggle and dilemma, but when our religious leaders decide to divide the body of Christ (which is the church and its members) by politics, we must reconsider the words of Father Philip Berrigan in 1969. Two hundred years from Adam Smith, it's clear that the market has unleashed an uncontrollable force. It is not a Holy force by any means. There is an unrestrained "self-interest" of individuals and of organized special-interest groups. In an economic-Darwinian style, the weak are punished while the strong are rewarded. If we are to believe that the current consensus of the American majority is that it is morally acceptable for them to socially exclude those who are unable to meet the demands of the market, then we might assume we are living in a soulless society. I, for one, refuse to believe that Americans truly feel that it is morally, politically, or legally acceptable to have such an unjust distribution of wealth, work, and income which GOP policies have brought about (with the help of a concentrated group of special interests who call themselves "Christian" and prove themselves to be anything BUT).

It's from a lengthy essay, that Jude's done a wonderful job writing and organizing, entitled "To All Americans - Heal Our Land!"

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

In this morning's New York Times, Stephen Labaton, Lorne Manly and Elisabeth Jensen have a lengthy article entitled "Republican Chairman Exerts Pressure on PBS, Alleging Biases." Read it. See if it doesn't enrage you the way it has me. (The topic, not the writing.) From the article:

The Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is aggressively pressing public television to correct what he and other conservatives consider liberal bias, prompting some public broadcasting leaders - including the chief executive of PBS - to object that his actions pose a threat to editorial independence.
Without the knowledge of his board, the chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, contracted last year with an outside consultant to keep track of the guests' political leanings on one program, "Now With Bill Moyers."
In late March, on the recommendation of administration officials, Mr. Tomlinson hired the director of the White House Office of Global Communications as a senior staff member, corporation officials said. While she was still on the White House staff, she helped draft guidelines governing the work of two ombudsmen whom the corporation recently appointed to review the content of public radio and television broadcasts.
Mr. Tomlinson also encouraged corporation and public broadcasting officials to broadcast "The Journal Editorial Report," whose host, Paul Gigot, is editor of the conservative editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. And while a search firm has been retained to find a successor for Kathleen A. Cox, the corporation's president and chief executive, whose contract was not renewed last month, Mr. Tomlinson has made clear to the board that his choice is Patricia Harrison, a former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee who is now an assistant secretary of state.

Is there a point to PBS? Seriously. Instead of challenging Mr. Tomlinson, we get two people familiar with PBS (one currently there, one who's recently left -- no we won't name the chickens) and they refuse to fight. They refuse to defend PBS. They offer lame things like "well maybe there's a point" and other nonsense.

They caved and caved for so many years and watered down the programming repeatedly that at this point, I'm not sure they have the right to depend on viewers in this battle. They don't appear to appreciate the viewers.

PBS's programming today is largely crap like Antique Roadshows. Or "music" specials that appear to be shot as one concert and then packaged into many specials. You watch and you think, "Wasn't Judy Collins wearing that outfit when she sang on two songs on that other special?"

Frontline has gone far from the brave journalism program that once utilized Jessica Savitch as a host. That's not to say that there aren't a few episodes each year to get excited about. But it's supposed to be a hard hitting series each episode. When they initially used Savitch as the host, there was huge internal criticism that she'd make the show appear to "soft." These days Savitch would come off not only as a seasoned pro (were she alive) but a flaming radical.

As PBS has buckled under each attack, they've encouraged further attacks. They've taken the public attitude of "We'll try not to be so lefty, we'll make changes!" And they've moved away from strong journalism with each attack. They've encouraged each attack by playing appeasement.

Viewers have defended PBS when PBS wouldn't defend itself.

Idiiot Tomlinson is worried about viewer numbers and yet, that's really not something that PBS was created for. Easy to forget in this age of "PBS Stores" and other nonsense.

It was created with a set of core principles. Tomlinson doesn't appear to know what those are.

As anyone who knows the history of PBS is aware, today's problems could have been prevented from the onset. There were suggestions to create the funding for PBS in a way that would allow it to not ever worry about bowing to political pressure. (Similar to the way the BBC didn't have to worry too much over the years -- until Tony Blair decided to retool "New" Labour and buddy up to Murdoch.)

When Jane Alexander practiced appeasement as she headed the NEA, she enraged people who should have been on her side (and destroyed her own reputation in the process). PBS has reacted similarly over the years. In the process, it has become less and less about what it was created to be.

I'm sure as people read this and news drift out, various calls will be made about how we've got to save PBS from yet another attack (this is one of the most public in a long line of attacks). I'm sure I'll get many calls and e-mails myself today.

But when does PBS save itself? When do members of the CPB board either fight back publicly or resign in disgust to make a statement?

This is digusting. And I'm sure I'll end up signing on to some "Save PBS!" action in some way, but it's really past time that PBS fight back. Where is Jim Lehren defending the right of PBS to do journalism? A charge is made and, yet again, no one wants to stand up. While it's not surprising that Lehren once again refuses to weigh in, there's something really sick about a man who's made a career at PBS refusing to defend it.

Christy Carpenter (who left the board in 2002) and Bill Moyers are in the article defending PBS.
That's it. Others take the attitude of, "Well we need to examine every charge, no matter how baseless, and work towards appeasement."

Which no doubt means more money for Billy Bennett's half-baked cartoon doodles and more conservatives (like Tucker Carlson) hired because Daddy serves on the CPB.

I don't know what the answer is and I don't pretend to know. Again, whatever action is decided upon, I'll probably end up signing up in some way. But it's really past time that PBS started engaging in its own defense and stopped waiting for someone else to save it. My opinion.

E-mail yours to common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]
 

Three quick items. Later today (about nine hours from now, but check my math always) on The Laura Flanders Show (7pm to 10pm is the eastern time zone):

Sunday 7pm-10pm
Iraq didn't have W.M.D., but the U.S. continues to and this Monday, world leaders, and citizens from around the world will converge on the United Nations to decide the fate of the endangered Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Some politicians are standing up: we'll talk to British Member of Parliament BRIAN SEDGEMORE, who left the Labour Party just days before a general election to protest Tony Blair's lies on Iraq. Then JACKIE CABASSO, Executive Director of the Western States Legal Foundation and United for Peace and Justice will tell us what anti-war activists can do to on the anniversary of the Vietnam War's end. And hear from THOMAS H COREY, President of Vietnam Veterans of America and we'll get the whole perspective. Finally, in studio for the full hour: MEDEA BENJAMIN, co-founder of CodePink and co-editor of "Stop The Next War Now: Effective responses to Violence and Terrorism".
And Don't miss Laura's latest appearances and book tour:
Tour 2005 Bushwomen: How They got Their Man in the White House
BOULDER, COLORADOMonday 5/2, 4 pm Lecture at University of Colorado, Old Main Building, followed by reception with the Womens Studies Department at Womens Studies Cottage.
7 pm Word is Out Womens Bookstore.
DENVER, COLORADO Tuesday 5/3, 12-1 Denver University Gender & Womens Studies Department.
5:30-7:00 The Denver Womans Press Club. 30 minute talk with reception.

7:30 The Mercury Cafe.
BOULDER, COLORADO Thursday 5/5, Aft Commencement Keynote at CU Womens Studies Graduation ceremony.
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Thursday 5/12, 7 pm, Left Bank Books.

Medea Benjamin, among others, on The Laura Flanders Show later today, that is your heads up.

Powell's Books has an interview with Jim Wallis (of Sojourners and author of God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It). From the interview:

Farley: If you don't mind shifting back a little bit, you referred to the coarsening of the culture. In the book you went so far as to say that the culture is broken. You hear all the time from the Right that the cause of this coarsening is "liberalism," which I think is just more self-serving scapegoating. But, I'm curious if you have any insights where this coarsening is coming from? What is the real cause?
Wallis: Well, that is exactly the right question. And I would like to get a number of religious leaders together from across the political spectrum who would agree that the coarsening of the culture is a problem and say here's the common project. Let's agree on the things that are most offensive in the culture — the gratuitous sexuality, the hedonism, the greed, the banality... all these things — and trace them back. What are there points of origin? I believe their points of origin, by and large, are the corporate culture.
Farley: What do you mean by that?
Wallis: I mean, these problems are mostly tied to an economic motivation. It's the Fox network. Fox is the favorite network of the conservatives. But how do the conservatives just give a pass to Fox? Some of the worst shows have been Fox. The other networks, too, but Fox has been praised by conservatives, Murdock runs it, so why not better programming?

Lastly (but not leastly) our friend Luke of wotisitgood4 e-mails to highlight something.

And you're asking where is it? We're getting to it. But this keeps running together in the posting stage so I'm hoping that providing this non-link paragraph will act as a barrier.

Here's what Luke wrote in to advise us about:

i see that you pointed to the Sibel Edmonds case the other day - here is another piece - http://tomflocco.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=109
[. . .] she made this statement [. . .]: " I'm telling you that not a single newspaper covered what happened to me on Thursday when I went into court,"

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]
 

Let's get the bad out of the way first. Reporting on the shooting of the car carrying Giuliana Sgrena, the Times still won't tell the readers that Sgrena says the car was shot from behind.
Considering that the military report the Times announces depends on the car being shot as it "approached," this is rather sad. Whether the Times believes Sgrena or not, this is a part of the story Italians have heard. The rest of the world. Democracy Now! viewers (listeners, readers).
So why the Times has such a problem with a simple sentence stating that "Sgrena disputes that the car was shot from in front."

Evidence, such as it is, does make one wonder why the driver in the front seat wasn't shot but Sgrena and Nicola Calipari sitting in the back seat were shot. The Times notes recommendations the report makes about checkpoints. Recommendations that anyone following the checkpoint situation for the last two years already knew.

Whether the paper believes Sgrena or not, for Americans to understand why Italy isn't buying this story, the paper needs to inform the readers of Sgrena's claims.

As with the 60 Minutes II report, there's selective editing here that goes far beyond pruning.

Dominick and Eli both e-mail in regarding Lizette Alvarez's "Chased by the Past, Sinn Fein's Leader Looks Ahead." Both note that Alvarez's article appears even-handed but wonder why the paper wants to take a softer tone (because Gerry Adams and his party appear to be sitting pretty) and act as though allegations were made elsewhere. (Dominick clipped the Times editorial and intends to hold on to it.) They agree that Alvarez was right to mention the tentative nature of the peace, but wonder why it never occurred to the editorial board that seemed intent on inflaming the public. (It didn't take.)

Kara e-mails to note that Scott Shane's grabbed the mop but decided to mop up after John Bolton in "a fluff piece that would do Elisabeth Bumiller proud." Kara also notes, "If Bolton's being Bork-ed, as the right wing claims, he's Bork-ing himself. He looks ridiculous with that mustache and someone should have asked him to shave it off some time ago."

The Nepal article we noted yesterday (because it was available online yesterday morning) appears in today's paper, for anyone wondering.

Liang found Bernard Weinraub's article on "30 Years Later, Cake and Credit Cards in Saigon" to be "insulting in it's lack of basic awareness."

And as though they wanted to prove me right about their concern for social justice, the Times front pages a story (Katie Hafner's "First Come Cellphone Towers, Then the Babel") about the ugly eyesores that are causing blight to Mendham Township, New Jeresey which, as the paper quickly notes, has citizens who are "among the wealthiest in the nation." Where there is money to throw around, the Times is there! Not quite the Red Cross motto but then I doubt the Red Cross would employ the likes of Judith Miller. (I could be wrong.)

Keep front paging those "hard-htting issues!" Town & Country shouldn't be the only ones addressing them!

Moving on (I hope everyone got that the paragraph above was intended to be humorous), we'll note two should-be-front page stories. We'll start with Don Van Natta Jr.'s "U.S. Recruits a Rough Ally To Be Jailer" which actually did make the front page.

Here's the opening:

Seven months before Sept. 11, 2001, the State Department issued a human rights report on Uzbekistan. It was a litany of horrors.
The police repeatedly tortured prisoners, State Department officials wrote, noting that the most common techniques were "beating, often with blunt weapons, and asphyxiation with a gas mask." Separately, international human rights groups had reported that torture in Uzbek jails included boiling of body parts, using electroshock on genitals and plucking off fingernails and toenails with pliers. Two prisoners were boiled to death, the groups reported. The February 2001 State Department report stated bluntly, "Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights."
Immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, however, the Bush administration turned to Uzbekistan as a partner in fighting global terrorism. The nation, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia, granted the United States the use of a military base for fighting the Taliban across the border in Afghanistan. President Bush welcomed President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan to the White House, and the United States has given Uzbekistan more than $500 million for border control and other security measures.
Now there is growing evidence that the United States has sent terror suspects to Uzbekistan for detention and interrogation, even as Uzbekistan's treatment of its own prisoners continues to earn it admonishments from around the world, including from the State Department.

On page A23, you'll find another story, one that's also front page news, but the Times needs to inform us the blight of cell phone towers on rich communities instead, Neil A. Lewis and Eric Schmitt's "Inquiry Finds Abuses at Guantanamo Bay:"


A high-level military investigation into accusations of detainee abuse at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has concluded that several prisoners were mistreated or humiliated, perhaps illegally, as a result of efforts to devise innovative methods to gain information, senior military and Pentagon officials say.
The report on the investigation, which is still a few weeks from being completed and released, will deal with accounts by agents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation who complained after witnessing detainees subjected to several forms of harsh treatment.

For anyone who hasn't heard, 60 Minutes has a report that's supposed to be worth viewing tonight. No, not the Goldie Hawn story! (Although I'm sure that will be nice. And Hawn has a book due out.) (Or did, last I heard.) "'Sex-Up' Tactics at Gitmo" is the report I'm referring to:

A former Guantanamo Bay translator says prisoner interrogations were staged to give visiting congressmen, senators and generals the impression that valuable intelligence information was being gleaned from cooperative detainees on a regular basis. He also says detainees were treated in sadistic ways, including being taunted sexually. Former Army Sgt. Erik Saar talks to Correspondent Scott Pelley in his first interview, to be broadcast on 60 Minutes, Sunday, May 1, at 7 p.m. ET/PT. Saar spent six months at Guantanamo and believes "only a few dozen" of the 600 detainees at the base were real terrorists, and that little information was obtained from them. Visiting authorities were led to believe otherwise, says Saar.

(Note, the online summary of Goldie Hawn doesn't mention it, but she does have a book and it's due out Tuesday. The title is A Lotus Grows in the Mud.) (And yes, I too can already hear the pithy review from Janet Maslin, or what passes for "pith" from Maslin.)

So I grab the Book Review to see if they have a slam, er review -- they're always fair, right -- on Hawn's book (advance copies were made available to some outlets, guess not the Times, hard to be a player in Hollywood for the paper still?) and find instead a wet kiss (to steal from Harry Reid) from Fareed Zakaria to Thomas L. Friedman (the neos live to stick together!) The Times run this today. Read this sentence and ask yourself how they can ever again accuse anyone of being "a soap opera queen" or whatever Maslin accused Fonda's writing of:

And while this book is not as powerful as Friedman's earlier ones . .. its fundamental insight is true and deeply important.

"True and deeply important?" Zakaria's reviewing a book here or inscribing a yearbook?

"True and deeply important." Sing it and it's practically a Savage Garden song!

Ay-yi-yi.

In other book news, since I opened the section, Jane Fonda's My Life So Far remains at the number one spot, for the second week in a row, on the nonfiction best sellers (hardcover). Thomas Friedman has slipped to number two. (More wet kisses, Zakaria, pronto!) If you haven't picked up My Life So Far, it's a strong story well told. (Scanners like Maslin miss that. Folding Star, who's an actual reader, loved it.)

Juan had a comment on the two book reviews of My Life So Far that the Times has run (Maslin first, then Maureen Dowd last Sunday).

Juan: As you noted in your review of Maslin, she avoided mentioning the fact that the Times trumpeted Jane Fonda's arrest on drug charges but buried the later news that they were just vitamins. Dowd managed to miss that too. Which is strange since one of the photos the paper chose to illustrate Dowd's review was a mug shot of Fonda.

Yes, that was strange. Especially since they ran a mug shot.

But ours is not to reason why, ours is but to . . . wait and wait and see if the paper ever arrives. (I promise Dallas, I haven't forgotten about the entry I need to write.)

Usually we do our Sunday evening thing about what's being reported in the rest of the world.
I would like to do that tonight and hope to. However, Rebecca's going to talk me through some software that she's used which I really need to learn if I'm going to be able to share a contribution from one of our community members. Watching America is a site we link to on the left, always on the left, so feel free to check that (and other sites) out. If you have suggestions for stories from around the world, please e-mail them in and I'll make every effort to share them. But Rebecca's going to be teaching me the software during The Laura Flanders Show and that's usually when I hunt down things to share.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

Coming up on The Laura Flanders Show:

Saturday, April 30
There were more rips in society’s safety net this week, courtesy of King George and Congress. Meanwhile wartime profiteers, big oil and big medicine are raking in profits. Is the struggle of retirees at General Motors to keep their benefits a sign of what’s to come for US workers? And speaking of health care, what’s really happening to the people delivering most of it - America’s nurses? SUZANNE GORDON, author of “Nursing Against the Odds,” and DEBRA BURGER, president of the California Nurses Association, talk about life where the buck stops.Then Nigerian music legend KING SUNNY ADE, on two decades of touring in America, why his music is loved by so many people across the world and the real meaning of Juju music!

The Laura Flanders Show airs on Air America. It begins in a little over five hours from when I'm typing this (I'm not in the mood to do time zones, my apologies). For more information, click the link. And if Air America doesn't air in your listening area, remember that you can listen online.

Don't forget that Marty's So What Else Is News starts an hour earlier than usual beginning today. Or that Ring of Fire is now two hours. The Kyle Jason Show follows The Laura Flanders Show:

Tonight on The Kyle Jason Show, Kyle speaks to Nassau County Legislature Dave Mejias, about his upcoming marathon and race for re-election. Later in the show, multi-award winning actor and director, Rome Neal and famed Composer Bill Lee stop by to chat with Kyle abou the their most recent production titled, "Monk", a play about the life and times on Thelonious Monk. Don't miss this exclusive interview with two of the greatest artisitic performers and creators of our time.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]
 

Programming notes from Air America.


Politically Direct Airs Sunday
Politically Direct, Air America's latest progressive news and interview show, launches this Sunday, May 1 from 2:00-3:00pm EST directly from Washington, DC. Veteran activist David Bender hosts. Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Robert Byrd join him to discuss the "nuclear option."

In October, David Bender co-hosted the Sunday program Campaign Countdown with Rachel Maddow. (Link takes you to to the Air America Place archives for that show.)


Ring of Fire Expands to Two Hours with Callers
The new two-hour, call-in Ring of Fire debuts this Saturday from 5:00-7:00pm, with hosts Bobby Kennedy and Mike Papantonio. The Pap Attack returns as a featured segment.

The Pap Attack? Popular segment Papantonio did on Unfiltered. Kent Jones does "Kent Jones Now" on The Rachel Maddow Show these days which is also a revival of a popular segment that
appeared on what show? Oh, yeah, Unfiltered. Rachel Maddow co-hosted what show? Unfiltered. That's not a slam at Papantonio, Jones or Maddow. It is noting that a network that was more than happy to pull the plug on Unfiltered continues to pick the bones of that program.
Chuck D and Lizz Winstead (co-hosts of Unfiltered)? I don't know. I hear Montel Williams and Sally Jesse may be interested in radio programs. (That's sarcasm.) No word yet on whether Rikki Lake will be replacing Randi Rhodes.

Let's jump over to Lizz Winstead's site to get her take on the Bully Boy's press conference since we won't get her voice from Air America these days:

Social Obscurity
Thank God the OC was preempted for that! Now I finally understand the Bush Strategy on Social Security.
I just needed to hear his overall plan for the future before I could comprehend it and because I am pretty sure I was blacklisted from his LieLapalooza Tour, I had to wait for last nights Network Television debut to see the show.
So let me lay out the four major points of his plan and then explain how he is gonna achieve it.
In a nutshell: Create a world where the life expectancy rate is oh, say, 12. That way you can eventually do away with Social Security altogether. This is why he never talks about solvency. We dont neeeed solvency. Now you can shut up about it!
Combine that with the Rapture and youve got yourself a plan everybody can get behind and not be left behind.

Winstead goes over the points so click on the link.

Last programming note:

So What Else is News? Changes Hours
Marty Kaplan delivers his usual "un-spinning" of the days news, just an hour earlier. Tune in from 3:00pm-5:00pm this Saturday.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

Molly e-mails to note Douglas Jehl's "Bolton's Nomination Is Questioned by Another Powell Aide:"


A fourth senior member of Colin L. Powell's team at the State Department expressed strong reservations on Friday about the nomination of John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations.
The official, A. Elizabeth Jones, is a veteran diplomat who stepped down in February as assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia. Among those who have now voiced public concerns about Mr. Bolton, Ms. Jones joins Lawrence Wilkerson, Mr. Powell's chief of staff; Carl W. Ford, Jr., who headed the department's intelligence bureau; and John R. Wolf, who was assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation. Associates of Mr. Powell have said he has expressed concerns of his own in private conversations with at least two Republican senators.
"I don't know if he's incapable of negotiation, but he's unwilling," Ms. Jones said in an interview. She said she believed that "the fundamental problem," if Mr. Bolton were to become United Nations ambassador, would be a reluctance on his part to make the kinds of minor, symbolic concessions necessary to build consensus among other governments and maintain the American position.

Regarding Eduardo Porter's "A Democrat on Bush's Social Security Team," Billy e-mails in wondering how a Democrat can be in bed with Bush? I'll avoid the easy laughs and once again note that there's not a huge gulf between neoliberals and neocons. One bullies at gun point, the other through economic blackmail. Either way a country's right to self-determination and self-rule goes out the window when the "neos" come along. As for Bush's embrace of "Democrat" Robert C. Pozen, the Republicans love Zell Miller too. Maybe Pozen, Miller and Joe Lieberman can big-tent their way into another party?

Paul, Joan, Keesha, Zach, Elaine, Carl and Beth all e-mailed regarding "National Briefing." For members not familiar with the section, this is a series of paragraphs on various states. In November and December, we often utilized this section because it was where the rare Ohio story appeared (or at least ones not mocking). Two items are standing out to members this morning.

The first item is:

WEST CALIFORNIA: SPRAYED PROTESTERS WIN SUIT A federal jury in San Francisco sided with eight logging opponents who said law enforcement officials used excessive force when they swabbed pepper spray on the eyes of protesters to break up demonstrations in 1997. The eight jurors awarded $1 to each plaintiff against Humboldt County sheriff's deputies and Eureka police officers. Carolyn Marshall (NYT)


To anyone new to the above story, it has been covered by Democracy Now! many times. For
a longer story that will provide background, I'd suggest the September 8, 2004 story entitled
"Trial Set to Begin Over Use of Pepper Spray-Soaked Cotton Swabs on Non-Violent Protesters in 1997."

Here is in the introduction to that report:

On three separate occasions in a three-week span in the fall of 1997, Humboldt County police officers arrived at peaceful sit-in protests calling for the protection of Headwaters Forest in northern California.
On all three occasions, the activists - who ranged in age from 16 to 40 years-old - locked their arms in metal pipes to participate in a non-violent protest of logging practices. And on all three occasions, the police responded using a method that Amnesty International would later deem "tantamount to torture."
One by one, police officers forcibly seized the heads of each demonstrator and inserted cotton swabs saturated with the chemical agent pepper spray into their eyes. In two of the cases, officers also sprayed the substance directly into their eyes at close range.
The eight activists filed a civil rights lawsuit against Humboldt County later that month. In connection with the suit, police video-tapes of the pepper spraying were released to the public. When excerpts of the tapes aired on network television news, the graphic images drew international outrage and condemnation.
The case went to court in 1998, but the trial ended in a hung jury. Over the following years, challenges were made at the state, appeals court and US Supreme Court levels. Today the civil rights case of the "Pepper Spray Eight" returns to trial in San Francisco.
To talk about this case, we are joined on the phone from San Francisco by the lead counsel in the lawsuit, Dennis Cunningham and one of the plaintiffs in the case, Spring Lundberg. Before we speak to them, we go back seven years to the morning of September 25, 1997 where Spring and other activists were engaging in a sit-in protest at Pacific Lumber's offices, in Scotia, California. The police arrived on the scene. This is what happened.

The report is listen, watch or read. You'll see footage of the forced swabbing. It's a powerful report.

As for the monetary involvement, it was a symbolic victory. The San Franciso Chronicle has a report on this entitled "Logging protesters win pepper spray case Jury awards $1 each after third trial over Humboldt incident." From the article by Stacy Finz:

This time, Attorney Dennis Cunningham asked the jurors to award Spring Lundberg, who was 17 at the time of the protests, and the other seven plaintiffs in the case between $10,000 and $100,000 for pain and suffering. Despite the jury's paltry award, he said his clients feel vindicated.
"It was never about the money," Cunningham said. "It was always about the principle."
He said that the jurors, who appeared to be emotionally drained after the two-week trial, didn't say much about how they came to their decision. He said he could only surmise that the eight-person panel compromised.
"They probably felt that the cops had to do something," said Cunningham, adding that although the protesters did not suffer long-term injuries from the pepper spray, it was a "profound experience that will stay with them for the rest of their lives."
Police and deputies put pepper spray directly into the eyes of the protesters, who had chained themselves together, in hopes that the burning would force them to unlock their shackles.

Why doesn't the Times play it up as an full blown article and not just a brief? Well, hey, I'd be the last to knock the Times' committment to social justice on environmental matters in their own area. I mean, they're always front paging pressing issues effecting wealthy and powerful friends who are concerned that their doorman might not be able to hear the call of a bird or some other pressing need. (Yes, that was sarcasm.) The Times appears to prefer their environmental activism take place around a table at Elaine's. (That sarcasm is aimed at the reporting in the main section. The science section does do actual environmental reporting. Editorials frequently speak out on pressing environmental issues. But as many have noted, to make the front page, you need to occupy one of a certain set of addresses.)

The second item from "National Briefing" that members are e-mailing about is this:

OREGON: CITY QUITS TERRORISM FORCE Portland became the first city to pull out of an F.B.I.-led Joint Terrorism Task Force after the City Council voted for the action on Thursday. The departure stems from an impasse between the bureau and Mayor Tom Potter over his request for top-secret clearance. Mr. Potter said he needed the clearance to supervise two police officers on the force, both with top-secret clearances. The bureau denied the request. Eli Sanders (NYT)

This is a follow up to a story (we noted it earlier) and it was big news to members then. Now it's a paragraph, an aside, but please note, we get another full story on the Michael Jackson case.
No doubt, the Times will be so proud of their coverage of the Jackson case that they'll compile it into one volume and issue it as a book. Kind of like those People Profiles paperbacks that People was so fond in 1999. (They may still be fond of them, I don't believe I've seen any since Julia Roberts or Meg Ryan graced the cover.)

Might I suggest a title for that volume? Perhaps "The New York Times Goes Wacko for Jacko?"

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]