INSIDE: THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF THE CIA G HE’S NO MARTIN LUTHER KING G A FREE PRESS OR MINISTRY OF TRUTH ? G DROWNING IN A TIDE OF ECO-JUNK

Cold Type

The REGADG ER WRITING WORTH READING ISSUE 17 AUGUST 2007 RISE OF THE DOMES DAVE ZIRIN ON THE SCANDAL OF SPORTS STADIUM FUNDING ThCold e Type READER ISSUE 17 | AUGUST 2007

3. A FREE PRESS OR MINISTRY 37. JOHN PERKINS: JERK, OF TRUTH? CONMAN, SHILL By Paul Craig Roberts By Greg Palast

6. TRUTH SLIPS DOWN 40. A LESSON FOR THOSE UPPITY GIRLS THE MEMORY HOLE By Linda McQuaig By John Pilger 42. THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF THE CIA 10. COVER STORY – RISE OF THE DOMES By Chalmers Johnson By Dave Zirin 52. WHEN WILL YOU TEACH 13. THE MIDDLE EAST: A TRAP FOR FOOLS THIS LAD ENGLISH? By Uri Avnery By Hussein al-Alak 17. PALESTINE AT THE CROSSROADS 54. HE’S NO MARTIN LUTHER KING By Ronnie Kasrils By Ray McGovern 20. DROWNING IN A TIDE OF ECO-JUNK 58. NO WONDER THE BLOGGERS By George Monbiot ARE WINNING By Robert Fisk 23. WHY THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE IS SO SCARY 61. WE’RE LEAVING IRAQ (SORT OF) By Jean Pfaelzer By Norman Solomon 26. OPERATING ON MICHAEL MOORE 64. RECRUITING TRENCH LIBERALS By James Clay Fuller AND LEFT-NECKS By Joe Bageant 30. NEOCONS, DEMOCONS, THEOCONS, EXCONS & FUTURE CONS 66. SLOW MARCH TO A POLICE STATE By William Blum The Big Picture

Editor: Tony Sutton ([email protected])

For a free subscription to The ColdType Reader, email Jools Sutton at [email protected] (type SUBSCRIBE in the subject line)

2 The READER | August 2007 PROPAGANDA & WAR 1 A FREE PRESS OR MINISTRY OF TRUTH? BY PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

n his novel 1984, George Orwell When the roundups, trials, and exe - Americans were portrayed a future time in which cutions failed to fix the problem, the assured that the explanations of recent events “die-hard” explanation disappeared. A once Saddam and earlier history are continually new explanation, with no continuity to Hussein and his Ichanged to meet Big Brother’s latest the old, took its place. relatives and purpose. Previous explanations disap - The new explanation was that Syria henchmen were pear down “the memory hole.” was allowing foreigners to cross its bor - rounded up, our Sound familiar? Any American who der into Iraq to commit jihad against troops would be pays attention can observe the identical the American troops. This explanation pelted with the phenomenon occurring in the US today. lasted until it became all too clear, de - promised Think about the Bush Regime’s spite the propaganda, that the “foreign flowers instead changing explanations for the failed US fighters” were remarkably well ac - of roadside occupation of Iraq. Shortly after Bush’s cepted by, and concealed within, the bombs May 2003 announcement of “mission Iraqi communities that were suffering accomplished,” the mission revealed it - all the collateral damage of the conflict. self to be very much unaccomplished. When it came time for the US to cre - Americans were told that the cause of ate an Iraqi government, it was evident the snafu was a small Sunni insurgency that it would be one dominated by of two or three thousand at the most Shi’ites. Then, for a limited time, it was inspired by “die-hard Baath party rem - permissible to recognize that the insur - nants.” Remember the propagandistic gency was popularly based in the Sun - deck of cards identifying the most nis. wanted down to the less wanted? As the insurgency evolved into what Americans were assured that once Sad - the Iraq Study Group described as a dam Hussein and his relatives and Sunni-Shi’ite civil war with US troops henchmen were rounded up, our troops unclear on which side they stood, the would be pelted with the promised Bush Regime and the captive media be - flowers instead of roadside bombs. gan blaming Al Qaeda for the escalat -

August 2007 | The READER 3 PROPAGANDA & WAR 1

Cheney, Israel, ing violence. Americans were assured sources that Iran is arming both Iraqi and the neocons, by the Ministry of Truth that there was - insurgents and the Taliban in the rulers of n’t a civil war, just outsiders stirring up Afghanistan. the new conflict. This enabled Big Brother to Experts, both within the government Oceania, plan deny that there was a civil war and to and without, who have been made to attack Iran, revive fear of terrorist attacks in the US more attentive by the Bush Regime’s and so the and UK, the new Oceania. false charges of Iraqi weapons of mass insurgency The Al Qaeda explanation was soon destruction, have disputed the news re - in Iraq is now discarded into the memory hole. The ports. being blamed explanation implied that Oceania’s in - But the reports keep on coming. As I on Iran vasion of Iraq had greatly expanded write, the latest story is that the US the ranks and strength of Al Qaeda, military “discovered a field of rocket thus contradicting big Brother’s claim launchers near a US army base south of that his war in Iraq was making Ocea - Baghdad armed with 34 Iranian-made nians safe by stamping out terrorism. missiles.” Can you imagine? The insur - The Al Qaeda explanation had to de - gents went to the trouble of lugging part for another reason as well. Cheney, powerful missiles within striking dis - Israel, and the neocons, the rulers of tance of a US base and just left them the new Oceania, plan to attack Iran, there unfired to be discovered by the and so the insurgency in Iraq is now be - Americans. ing blamed on Iran. To further serve Cheney’s plan to at - tack Iran, the media report states: “Ear - Down the memory hole lier this month, US commanders The Ministry of Truth has accommo - stepped up the charges [against Iran], dated the latest explanation, just as it claiming that senior leaders of Iran’s spe - did all others before, without remarking cial forces and of the Lebanese Shiite on the funeral of the previous explana - Hezbollah militia have trained Iraqi tion. All of a sudden, a new explanation fighters and provided other support.” appears and is repeated until it, too, [US finds Iranian rockets aimed at Iraq goes down the memory hole. base, Agence France Presse, July 14,2007] The American and British media Notice that none of the explanations work the same way as the Ministry of fed to Americans over the years have Truth in Oceania. A day arrives when ever mentioned, even as a faint possibil - the “truth” no longer serves the em - ity, that the US invasion and occupation pire or hegemonic power or center of of Iraq might be the cause of the vio - moral purpose in the world, or for lence in Iraq. short, the regime. When that day ar - Allegedly, the US is a free and open rives, a new explanation appears and is country with a free press and a govern - repeated until it, too, is discarded down ment accountable to the people. Yet, the memory hole. the information fed to the American In recent weeks Americans have people is as thoroughly false as that fed been fed a series of reports from official to the citizens of Oceania by Big

4 The READER | August 2007 PROPAGANDA & WAR 1

Brother through the Ministry of Truth Weekly Standard, Fox “News,” and The entire in Orwell’s famous novel. Wall Street Journal editorial page. The corporate media In Orwell’s novel, despite the totali - entire corporate media is behaving as a is behaving as a tarian power of the government, noth - Ministry of Truth. CT Ministry of Truth ing happens to people as long as they accept the government’s intrusive mon - Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secre - itoring of their lives and do not become tary of the Treasury in the Reagan Ad - interested in truth or facts. In such a ministration. He is the author of Sup - world, truth and individuality pass out ply-Side Revolution: An Insider’s of human consciousness and become Account of Policymaking in Washing - unimportant. Citizens survive by ac - ton ; Alienation and the Soviet Econ - cepting Big Brother’s ever-changing re - omy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet ality. Economy ; and is the co-author with This is what the mainstream media Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny in the US and UK are enabling the new of Good Intentions: How Prosecutors Oceania to accomplish. It is pointless to and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the complain about a few Judith Millers Constitution in the Name of Justice . here and there at the New York Times, He may be contacted at or the obvious warmongers at the paulcraigroberts@ yahoo.com

If you enjoy The ColdType Reader subscribe to future issues – it’s free! E-mail: [email protected]

August 2007 | The READER 5 PROPAGANDA & WAR 2 TRUTH SLIPS DOWN THE MEMORY HOLE BY JOHN PILGER

While Alan ne of the leaders of demon - with 11 Palestinian civilians killed by Johnston was strations in Gaza calling for the Israelis on the same day, Alan John - being held, the release of the BBC re - ston’s now legless champion slipped I was asked by porter Alan Johnston was a into what George Orwell in Nineteen the BBC World POalestinian news cameraman, Imad Eighty-Four called the memory hole. Service if Ghanem. On 5 July, he was shot by Is - (It was Winston Smith’s job at the Min - I would say raeli soldiers as he filmed them invad - istry of Truth to make disappear all a few words of ing Gaza. A Reuters video shows bullets facts embarrassing to Big Brother.) support for him. hitting his body as he lay on the While Alan Johnston was being held, I readily agreed, ground. An ambulance trying to reach I was asked by the BBC World Service and suggested him was also attacked. The Israelis de - if I would say a few words of support I also mention scribed him as a “legitimate target”. for him. I readily agreed, and suggested the thousands The International Federation of Jour - I also mention the thousands of Pales - of Palestinians nalists called the shooting “a vicious tinians abducted and held hostage. The abducted and and brutal example of deliberate target - answer was a polite no; and all the held hostage. ing of a journalist”. At the age of 21, he other hostages remained in the mem - The answer has had both legs amputated. ory hole. Or, as Harold Pinter wrote of was a polite no Dr David Halpin, a British trauma such unmentionables: “It never hap - surgeon who works with Palestinian pened. Nothing ever happened... It did - children, emailed the BBC’s Middle East n’t matter. It was of no interest.” editor, Jeremy Bowen. “The BBC should The media wailing over the BBC’s report the alleged details about the royal photo-shoot fiasco and assorted shooting,” he wrote. “It should honour misdemeanours provide the perfect Alan [Johnston] as a journalist by re - straw man. They complement a self- porting the facts, uncomfortable as they serving BBC internal inquiry into news might be to Israel.” bias, which dutifully supplied the right- He received no reply. wing Daily Mail with hoary grist that The atrocity was reported in two the corporation is a left-wing plot. Such sentences on the BBC online. Along shenanigans would be funny were it

6 The READER | August 2007 PROPAGANDA & WAR 2

not for the true story behind the fa - tural critic James Petras, “are justified BBC television cade of elite propaganda that presents by a corrosive debasement of language describes humanity as useful or expendable, wor - and thought... [that] have fabricated a Israel as having thy or unworthy, and the Middle East as linguistic world of terror, of demons and “two hostile the Anglo-American crime that never saviours, of axes of good and evil, of Palestinian happened, didn’t matter, was of no in - euphemisms” designed to disguise a entities on its terest. state terror that is “a gross perversion” borders”, The other day, I turned on the BBC’s of democracy, liberation, reform, justice. neatly inverting Radio 4 and heard a cut-glass voice an - In his reinauguration speech, George the truth nounce a programme about Iraqi inter - Bush mentioned all these words, whose that Israel is preters working for “the British coali - meaning, for him, is the dictionary op - actually inside tion forces” and warning that “listeners posite. Palestinian might find certain descriptions of vio - It is 80 years since Edward Bernays, borders lence disturbing”. Not a word referred the father of public relations, predicted to those of “us” directly and ultimately a pervasive “invisible government” of responsible for the violence. The pro - corporate spin, suppression and silence gramme was called Face the Facts. Is as the true ruling power in the United satire that dead? Not yet. The Mur - States. That is true today on both sides doch columnist David Aaronovitch, a of the Atlantic. How else could America warmonger, is to interview Blair in the and Britain go on such a spree of death BBC’s “major retrospective” of the so - and mayhem on the basis of stupen - ciopath’s rule. dous lies about non-existent weapons of mass destruction, even a “mushroom Orwell’s lexicon of opposites cloud over New York”? When the BBC Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four lexicon radio reporter Andrew Gilligan re - of opposites pervades almost every - ported the truth, he was pilloried and thing we see, hear and read now. The sacked along with the BBC’s director invaders and destroyers are “the British general, while Blair, the proven liar, was coalition forces”, surely as benign as protected by the liberal wing of the me - that British institution, St John Ambu - dia and given a standing ovation in par - lance, who are “bringing democracy“ liament. to Iraq. BBC television describes Israel The same is happening again over as having “two hostile Palestinian enti - Iran, distracted, it is hoped, by spin that ties on its borders”, neatly inverting the the new Foreign Secretary David truth that Israel is actually inside Pales - Miliband is a “sceptic” about the crime tinian borders. A study by Glasgow in Iraq when, in fact, he has been an ac - University says that young British view - complice, and by unctuous Kennedy- ers of TV news believe Israelis illegally quoting Foreign Office propaganda colonising Palestinian land are Pales - about Miliband’s “new world order”. tinians: the victims are the invaders. “What do you think of Iran’s com - “The great crimes against most of plicity in attacks on British soldiers in humanity”, wrote the American cul - Basra?” Miliband was asked by the Fi -

August 2007 | The READER 7 PROPAGANDA & WAR 2

The bloodbath nancial Times. Official disinformation now is often of the First Miliband: “Well, I think that any ev - aimed at a critical public intelligence, a World War and idence of Iranian engagement there is to growing awareness in spite of the me - the Cold War be deplored. I think that we need re - dia. This “threat” from a public often might never gional players to be supporting stability, held in contempt has been met by the have happened not fomenting discord, never mind insidious transfer of much of journalism without death...” to public relations. their unpaid FT: “Just to be clear, there is evi - Some years ago, PR Week estimated (and paid) dence?” that the amount of “PR-generated ma - propagandists. Miliband: “Well no, I chose my words terial” in the media is “50 per cent in a Today’s invisible carefully...” broadsheet newspaper in every section government The coming war on Iran, including apart from sport. In the local press and is no less served, the possibility of a nuclear attack, has the mid-market and tabloid nationals, especially already begun as a war by journalism. the figure would undoubtedly be by those Count the number of times “nuclear higher. Music and fashion journalists who censor weapons programme” and “nuclear and PRs work hand in hand in the ed - by omission threat” are spoken and written, yet nei - itorial process... PRs provide fodder, but ther exists, says the International the clever high-powered ones do a lot Atomic Energy Agency. On 21 June, the of the journalists’ thinking for them.” New York Times went further and ad - This is known today as “perception vertised an “urgent” poll, headed: management”. The most powerful are “Should we bomb Iran?” The questions not the Max Cliffords but huge corpo - beneath referred to Iran being “a rations such as Hill & Knowlton, which greater threat than Saddam Hussein” “sold” the slaughter known as the first and asked: “Who should undertake Gulf war, and the Sawyer Miller Group, military action against Iran first... ?” which sold hated, pro-Washington The choice was “US. Israel. Neither regimes in Colombia and Bolivia and country”. whose operatives included Mark Mal - So tick your favourite bombers. loch Brown, the new Foreign Office The last British war to be fought minister, currently being spun as anti- without censorship and “embedded” Washington. journalists was the Crimea a century and a half ago. The bloodbath of the Hiding the truth First World War and the Cold War Hundreds of millions of dollars go to might never have happened without corporations spinning the carnage in their unpaid (and paid) propagandists. Iraq as a sectarian war and covering up Today’s invisible government is no less the truth: that an atrocious invasion is served, especially by those who censor pinned down by a successful resistance by omission. The craven liberal cam - while the oil is looted. paign against the first real hope for the The other major difference today is poor of Venezuela is a striking example. the abdication of cultural forces that However, there are major differences. once provided dissent outside journal -

8 The READER | August 2007 PROPAGANDA & WAR 2

ism. Their silence has been devastat - tially class war, the long war of the rich “For almost ing. “For almost the first time in two against the poor. That they play their the first time in centuries,” wrote the literary and cul - part in a broadcasting studio or in the two centuries, tural critic Terry Eagleton, “there is no clubbable pages of the review sections there is no eminent British poet, playwright or and that they think of themselves as eminent British novelist prepared to question the foun - liberals or conservatives is neither here poet, playwright dations of the western way of life.” The nor there. They belong to the same cru - or novelist lone, honourable exception is Harold sade, waging the same battle for their prepared to Pinter. Eagleton listed writers and play - enduring privilege. question the wrights who once promised dissent and In The Serpent, Marc Karlin’s dream - foundations satire and instead became rich celebri - like film about Rupert Murdoch, the of the western ties, ending the legacy of Shelley and narrator describes how easily Mur - way of life” Blake, Carlyle and Ruskin, Morris and dochism came to dominate the media Wilde, Wells and Shaw. and coerce the industry’s liberal elite. He singled out Martin Amis, a writer There are clips from a keynote address given tombstones of column inches in that Murdoch gave at the Edinburgh which to air his pretensions, along with Television Festival. The camera pans his attacks on Muslims. The following is across the audience of TV executives, from a recent article by Amis: who listen in respectful silence as Mur - Tony strolled over [to me] and doch flagellates them for suppressing said, “What have you been up to the true voice of the people. They then today?” “I’ve been feeling protec - applaud him. “This is the silence of the tive of my prime minister, since democrats,” says the voice-over, “and you ask.” For some reason our the Dark Prince could bath in their acquaintanceship, at least on my silence.” CT part, is becoming mildly but de - plorably flirtatious. John Pilger’s latest book, Freedom Next Time , has just been published in What these elite, embedded voices paperback.This article was first share is their participation in an essen - published in the New Statesman

Read these excerpts from Jon Ronson’s best-selling books THEM: Adventures With Extremists and The Men Who Stare at Goats Download your FREE copies at http://www.coldtype.net/archives.html

August 2007 | The READER 9 COVER STORY RISE OF THE DOMES BY DAVE ZIRIN

Reports from “You can’t throw money stadium construction and upkeep from both the at the problem.” coast to coast. Though some cities are right-wing beginning to resist paying the full tab, Cato Institute s a former public school tea- any kind of subsidy is a fool’s invest - and the more cher in Washington, I heard ment, ending up being little more than centrist that cliche from countless bu - monuments to corporate greed: $500 Brookings reaucrats. It was code for million welfare hotels for America’s bil - Institution “AStop whining about ancient textbooks lionaires built with funds that could dismiss stadium and prehistoric classroom materials, be - have been spent more wisely on just funding cause there is no money.” about anything else. as an utter Imagine my shock when the city an - The era of big government may be financial flop, nounced it would be spending more over, but it has been replaced by the yet the domes than $500 million on a new baseball Rise of the Domes. Reports from both keep coming stadium. Clearly when it comes to the the right-wing Cato Institute and the needs of billionaire sports owners, there more centrist Brookings Institution dis - always seems to be money available to miss stadium funding as an utter finan - be thrown. cial flop, yet the domes keep coming. This is hardly a D.C. story. The build - Our stadiums, funded on our dime, ing of sports stadiums has become the become the political province of those substitute for anything resembling an owners who paid nary a penny for the urban policy in this country. The stadi - privilege. In many stadiums, they have ums are presented as a microwave-in - started “faith days at the park” where stant solution to the problems of crum - evangelical Christian organizations set bling schools, urban decay and up booths and Christian rock gets suburban flight. blared over the loudspeakers. No sepa - Stadiums are sporting shrines to the ration of church and state, even when dogma of trickle-down economics. In the state is footing the bill. the past 10 years, more than $16 billion Then there is the force-feeding of po - of the public’s money has been spent for litical dogma. No freedom from that,

10 The READER | August 2007 COVER STORY

either. On the orders of George Stein - season seats went for $1,300, and luxury “On the orders brenner, the New York Yankees now boxes for eight home games ran more of George string up chains along the seats to keep than $100,000 a year. But the Katrina Steinbrenner, people standing and secured – and not refugees’ tickets were courtesy of the the New York going to the concessions or bathroom – federal and local government’s malig - Yankees now for the seventh-inning singing of “God nant neglect. string up chains Bless America.” It was only fitting, because these along the seats As Neil DeMause, co-author of the 30,000 people helped pay for the sta - to keep people book Field of Schemes said to me, “The dium in the first place. The Superdome standing and history of the stadium game is the story was built entirely on the public dime in secured – of how, by slowly refining their black - 1975, as a part of efforts to create a and not going to mail skills, sports owners learned how “New New Orleans” business district. the concessions to turn their industry from one based City officials decided that building the or bathroom – on selling tickets to one based on ex - largest domed stadium on the planet for the seventh- tracting public subsidies. It’s been a bit was in everyone’s best interest. Instead, inning singing like watching a four-year-old learn how it set off a 30-year path toward destruc - of “God Bless to manipulate his parents into buying tion for the Big Easy: a path that has America” him the new toy that he saw on TV; the seen money for the stadium but not for question now is how long it takes our levees; money for the stadium but not elected officials to learn to say ‘no.’ ‘’ for shelter; money for the stadium but not for an all-too-predictable disaster. Stadiums first, people last The tragedy of Katrina then became But our elected officials have been more farce when the Superdome’s inhabi - like the children, as sports owners tou - tants were finally moved: not to govern - sle their hair and set the budget agen - ment housing, public shelters or even das for municipalities around the coun - another location in the area, but to the try with a simple credo: stadiums first Houston Astrodome. Ladies and gen - and people last. tlemen, we had the March of Domes. In August 2005, we saw the extreme I spoke to former Major League results of these kinds of priorities. After Baseball All-Star and Ball Four author Hurricane Katrina flattened the Gulf Jim Bouton about the publicly financed Coast, the Louisiana Superdome, the “doming of America,” and this is what largest domed structure in the Western he said: “It’s such a misapplication of Hemisphere, morphed into a homeless the public’s money. ... You’ve got towns shelter from hell, inhabited yet unin - turning out streetlights, they’re closing habitable for an estimated 30,000 of firehouses, they’re cutting back on New Orleans’ poorest residents. school supplies, they’re having class - It took Hurricane Katrina for them to rooms in stairwells, and we’ve got a na - actually see the inside of the Super - tion full of kids who don’t have any dome, a stadium whose ticket prices health insurance. I mean, it’s disgrace - make entry restrictive. At the time of ful. The limited things that our govern - the hurricane, game tickets cost $90, ment does for the people with the peo -

August 2007 | The READER 11 COVER STORY

The question ple’s money, to spend even a dime or a comes to fleecing our cities, some of the is whether penny of it on ballparks is just a crime. richest people in this country have we are going “It’s going to be seen historically as shown a complete absence of shame. finally to stand an awful folly, and it’s starting to be The question is whether we are going up and impose seen that way now, but historically that finally to stand up and impose our pri - our priorities will go down as one of the real crimes of orities onto them, instead of continually onto them, American government, national and lo - taking it on the chin. instead of cal, to allow the funneling of people’s Polls show consistent majorities continually money directly into the pockets of a don’t want public funds spent on stadi - taking it handful of very wealthy individuals ums. That means the silent majority of on the chin who could build these stadiums on sports fans oppose the stadium glut as their own if it made financial sense. If well. they don’t make financial sense, then We sports fans need to make our - they shouldn’t be building them.” selves heard. We may love baseball. We Bouton went on to say, may love football. We may bleed our “If I was a team owner today, asking team’s colors on game day. But that for public money, I’d be ashamed of doesn’t mean we should have to pay a myself. Ashamed of myself. But we’ve billionaire millions of dollars for the gone beyond shame. There’s no such privilege to watch. CT thing as shame anymore. People aren’t embarrassed to take – to do these aw - Dave Zirin is the author of the new book ful things.” Welcome to the Terrordome: The Bouton is absolutely correct. When it Pain, Politics and Promise of Sports

READ EXCERPTS FROM WILLIAM BLUM’S BEST-SELLING BOOK ‘KILLING HOPE’ AT COLDTYPE.NET Download ‘Desert Holocaust’ and ‘A Hammer and Sickle Stamped on Your Child’s Forehead’ – in pdf format, FREE , at http://www.coldtype.net/blum.htm l

12 The READER | August 2007 GOOD GUYS? THE MIDDLE EAST: A TRAP FOR FOOLS BY URI AVNERY

n a classical American western, the supported, the bad guys have to bite The classical difference is as glaring as the mid - the dust. At the end, the hero – George western, of day sun in Colorado: there are himself – will ride off into the sunset on course, does not Good Guys and Bad Guys. The his noble steed, while the music reaches show us the Igood ones are the settlers, who are a crescendo. heroic pioneers making the prairie bloom. The bad ones The classical western, of course, does stealing the land are the Indians, who are blood-thirsty not show us the heroic pioneers steal - from the Indians savages. The ultimate hero is the cow - ing the land from the Indians. Or the boy, tough, humane, with a big revolver United States Cavalry attacking the or two, ready to defend himself at all camps of the Indians, burning down times. the tents and killing their inhabitants, George Bush, who grew up on this men, women and children. How the US myth, sticks to it even now, when he is government, after signing formal trea- the leader of the world’s only super - ties with the Indian nations, breaks power. Recently he presented the world them one after another. And how it with an up-to-date western. drives the remnants into desolate re - In this western – or, rather, middle gions, long before the term “ethnic eastern – there are also Good Guys and cleansing” was first used. Bad Guys. The good ones are the Denial runs through the classical “moderates”, who are the allies of the western like a purple thread, as it does US in the Middle East – Israel, Mah - through this speech of Bush’s. This finds moud Abbas and the pro-American its main expression in a simple fact: the Arab regimes. The bad ones are Hamas, occupation is hardly mentioned at all. Hizbullah, Iran, Syria and al-Qaeda. In the Palestinian community, for ex - It is a simple script. So simple, in - ample, there is a struggle between the deed, that an 8-year-old can under - “moderates” and the “extremists”. The stand it. The conclusions are also sim - extremists are killers. Why are they ple: the good guys have to be killers? There is no why. They are killers

August 2007 | The READER 13 GOOD GUYS?

In many because they are killers. It’s in their na - of State under Bush the father, imposed classical ture. They were just born that way. The financial sanctions upon Israel. Bush westerns there moderates are moderates because they the son at first demanded that all settle - appears a crook are moderates. Some people are just ments established after January 2001 selling a patent born good. should be dismantled. Later he with - medicine to heal So the whole problem is a Palestin - drew all opposition to the settlement all ills: ian problem. They must decide. They blocs (“centers of population”). In the headaches and must choose between moderates and “Road Map” he decreed that Israel hemorrhoids, extremists. If they choose the moder - must immediately freeze the enlarge - tuberculosis and ates, they will get everything they can ment of the settlements. Now he is sat - syphilis. George imagine: colorful glass beads and gal - isfied with a sanctimonious request to Bush has his lons of whisky. If they choose the ex - “remove unauthorized outposts” (with own patent tremists, their end will be bitter. no article) – that’s to say, some of those medicine, which The Jewish Israelis do not have to put up without the official authoriza - appears in the choose between good and bad. Why? tion of the Israeli government itself. All speech again Simply because there are no Bad Guys this without “or else” or any mention of and again among them. They are just good. They sanctions. must help the good Palestinians. “Re - In the last few years, only one such lease” the Palestinian tax moneys and outpost, Amona, has been dismantled, give them to “Prime Minister (Salem) and this week Ehud Olmert decided to Fayad”. Not to the Palestinian govern - pardon all the fanatics accused of at - ment, but to one specific named person, tacking the police during that event. the darling of Bush. The Israeli government knows that What else is required from the Is - Bush is only paying lip service, and does raelis? They must understand that their not take him seriously. “future lies in developing areas like the In many classical westerns there ap - Negev and Galilee – not in continuing pears a crook selling a patent medicine occupation of the West Bank”. (That’s to heal all ills: headaches and hemor - the only time the occupation is men - rhoids, tuberculosis and syphilis. tioned at all.) They should remove George Bush has his own patent med - unauthorized outposts and end settle - icine, which appears in the speech again ment expansion. Also, they may “find and again. It will heal all diseases and other practical ways to reduce their ensure the final victory of the Sons of footprint (in the West Bank) without Light over the Sons of Darkness. reducing their security”. Meaning: the The label on the bottle says “Build - occupation can continue, but it would ing Palestinian Institutions”. be nice if we take some steps to make it How come we didn’t think of this less visible. until now? Why did we go chasing off A long time ago, the United States after all kinds of solutions, and did not viewed all settlements as illegal. When find this one, so simple, lying in front of the Israeli government continued to ex - us for all to see? pand them, James Baker, the Secretary It is an egg of Columbus, with a whiff

14 The READER | August 2007 GOOD GUYS?

of Alexander the Great’s sword cutting bas was elected president, practically According to the Gordian knot. The Palestinians without opposition. Everything else has Bush, the sole have no institutions. The two good peo - been wiped off the slate. task of Tony ple, “President Abbas and Prime Min - So this is the up-to-date vision: “de - Blair is indeed ister Fayad…are striving to build the mocratic Palestinian institutions” will this: “to institutions of a modern democracy.” be in place, free of corruption (as in the coordinate This means: “security services…min - US and Israel), and “capable security international istries that deliver services without cor - forces” will be functioning, and Hamas efforts to help ruption…steps that unleash the natu - will be eliminated, and the armed fac - the Palestinians ral enterprise of the Palestinian tions will be dismantled, and all attacks establish the people…the rule of law…” on Israel will be stopped, and the secu - institutions All this under occupation, behind rity of Israel ensured, and the incite - of a strong roadblocks, walls and fences, while the ment against Israel ended, and every - and lasting main roads are barred to Palestinians, body will recognize Israel’s right to exist free society” while the West Bank is chopped into as “a Jewish state and a homeland for pieces and cut off from the rest of the the Jewish people”, and all the agree - world. By the way, in this matter Bush ments that were signed in the past will has another patent medicine: all Pales - be accepted – then “we can soon begin tinian exports will in future go through serious negotiations towards the cre - Jordan and Egypt, not Israel. ation of a Palestinian state.” Wow! What a wonderful sentence! “Soon” Sent his poodle – without a timetable. “Serious negoti - In order to realize the vision of “bui- ations” – without fixing a date for their lding Palestinian institutions”, Bush is conclusion. “A Palestinian state” (again, sending along his poodle. According to without the definite article, which Bush Bush, the sole task of Tony Blair is in - seems to detest) – without specific bor - deed this: “to coordinate international ders. But a hint is given: “mutually efforts to help the Palestinians establish agreed borders reflecting previous lines the institutions of a strong and lasting and current realities, and mutually free society.” (Like which example? agreed adjustments.” Meaning: the set - Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Jordan? Pakistan? tlement blocs and much else will be an - Morocco? Or perhaps even Iraq? nexed by Israel. Let’s hope no one is rude enough to It seems as if the speech writers, af - mention the fact that the Palestinians ter finishing the product, noticed that it held democratic elections for their Par - was pitifully devoid of content. Nothing liament, not so long ago, under the new, nothing that could cause a self-re - strict supervision of ex-President Jimmy specting newspaper to give it a head - Carter. As far as Bush is concerned, that line. just did not happen, since the majority I imagine the media advisor saying: of the people voted for Hamas. There - “Mister President, we must add some - fore, Bush mentions only the elections thing that will look new.” Thus the “in - held before that, when Mahmoud Ab - ternational meeting” was born.

August 2007 | The READER 15 GOOD GUYS?

We, the small “So I will call together an interna - tious. They do not want to quarrel with group of Israelis tional meeting this fall of representa - any party in the Region – not with Syria who raised the tives from nations that support a two- (which will not be invited, though it is banner of the state solution, reject violence, recognize a “neighbor” of the Israelis and the “two-state Israel’s right to exist, and commit to all Palestinians) and not with Hamas. Un - solution” more previous agreements between the par - like Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian than fifty years ties. The key participants in this meet - Authority, Saudi Arabia cannot be ago, now have ing will be the Israelis, the Palestinians, bribed with money. It has enough of its to endure and their neighbors in the region. Sec - own. George Bush retary Rice will chair the meeting.” The final objective is a “Palestinian turning it into Wonderful. A meeting which has no state”, the “two-state solution”. That is a rag to cover date yet, but has a season of the year. a far-far-off aim. Not for nothing is it his nakedness And for which no location has yet been called a “political horizon”, since a hori - fixed. And no list of participants. And zon, as is well-known, recedes in the no planned conclusions, except the gen - distance as one tries to approach it. eral statement: “She (Condoleezza) and In his poem “If”, Rudyard Kipling her counterparts will review the describes all the tests an Englishman progress that has been made towards has to endure in order to be consid - building Palestinian institutions. They ered a “man”. One of them is: “If you will look for innovative and effective can bear to hear the truth you’ve spo - ways to support further reform. And ken / Twisted by knaves to make a trap they will provide diplomatic support for fools…” for the parties in their bilateral discus - We, the small group of Israelis who sions and negotiations, so that we can raised the banner of the “two-state so - move forward on a successful path to a lution” more than fifty years ago, now Palestinian state.” The meeting will not have to endure George Bush turning it review the progress made towards the into a rag to cover his nakedness. In his removal of the outposts, for example. mouth, it is an empty, deceitful and It is not by accident that Bush omit - mendacious slogan. Only a fool will fall ted to identify the governments he in - into this trap. tends to invite. Clearly, he will try to ful - As Chaim Weizmann, the prominent fill one of the most cherished dreams of Zionist leader and first president of Is - Olmert: to meet publicly with a top rael, once said: “No state is given to a representative of Saudi Arabia. For people on a silver platter.” The Pales - Olmert this would be an immense tinians, too, will not get their state achievement: an official meeting with without struggle, not as baksheesh the most important Arab country from Bush nor as a ‘“gesture” from which has no peace agreement with Is - Olmert. Nations achieve their freedom Uri Avnery is an rael. A meeting for which he will not by political or military struggle. Every Irgun veteran have to pay any price. A free lunch. struggle, violent or non-violent, is a turned Israeli It is dubious whether this wish will matter of power. And power means first peace activist be fulfilled. The Saudis are very cau - of all: Unity. CT

16 The READER | August 2007 APARTHEID STATES PALESTINE AT THE CROSSROADS BY RONNIE KASRILS

he outbreak of fratricidal vio - while the EU and USA implemented The Palestinian lence between armed factions punitive financial and economic meas - people, suffering of Hamas and Fatah in the ures. Israel continued military incur - under 40 years Gaza Strip in June, 2007, which sions into the Gaza and West Bank of Israeli military Thas spelt the end of the short-lived killing civilians, demolishing homes, ar - occupation and Government of National Unity, was not resting activists and 43 Hamas mem - deteriorating unexpected. The rivalry between these bers of the legislative council, including humanitarian factions degenerated into spasmodic ten ministers, the deputy prime minis - conditions were clashes following the victory of Hamas ter and parliamentary speaker. collectively in the Legislative Elections of January The Palestinian people, suffering un - punished for 2006. Hamas won 74 seats and Fatah 45 der 40 years of Israeli military occupa - exercising their seats in the Palestinian Legslative tion and deteriorating humanitarian democratic vote Council. This effectively created two ri - conditions were collectively punished val centres of power with Fatah’s candi - for exercising their democratic vote. date, Mahmoud Abbas, having been It has been widely reported that the elected President of the Palestine Au - USA, Israel and Egypt have supplied thority in 2005. factions of Fatah with arms and money Many believed the election defeat in in order to topple Hamas. The results 2006 was a vote against the perceived are now clear for everyone to see. This corruption of Fatah leaders and offi - constitutes a most serious setback cials. Many Palestinians, however, when unity of all patriotic forces is so voted for Hamas because of its greater indispensable. Palestine’s destiny is at militancy in refusing to bow to Israeli the cross-roads. coercion. The main responsibility for this dis - USA and Israeli reaction following aster lies with the USA, EU and obvi - these results, aimed to isolate the ously Israel. Instead of fostering division Hamas-led Government, and create and disunity they should have been fol - conditions for failure. Palestinian cus - lowing President Mbeki’s advice of ‘end - toms revenue was withheld by Israel ing all measures intended to isolate the

August 2007 | The READER 17 APARTHEID STATES

It sounds Palestine Authority,’ release funds, re - Far from being a land without peo - all too familiar duce misery, and ‘create a climate con - ple, as Zionist propaganda falsely pro - as a vision ducive to peaceful resolution of the Is - claimed, to attract and justify colonial the colonisers raeli-Palestinian conflict.’ settlement, the fact was that an indige - had in South He likened the factional violence to nous people lived there, developed agri - Africa and South Africa’s ‘black on black’ violence culture and towns since the Canaanite elsewhere; well known pre-1994, and linked to old Kingdom 5,500 years ago as illustrated giving rise order apartheid security elements. This in the Biblical narrative, archeological to racism, brings to mind that awful aim of Is - findings and scientific research. They apartheid rael’s General Eytan and his ‘drugged mixed, intermarried, many converted and a total cockroaches in a corked bottle’ phrase - to Christianity and subsequently to Is - onslaught ology which spelt out Israel’s war of at - lam with the arrival of Arabs in the 7th on those who trition – the objective of which has Century. Most Jews had been expelled stand in been to pit Palestinian inmate against by the Romans but looked to the way, inmate in sealed Bantustan-style pris - Jerusalem, as did the other faith groups, whether blacks ons. as a spiritual but not a geographic or Arabs home. or American Unerstanding the cause At the time of the 1947 UN Partition red Indians To understand these developments we Plan, designed without consulting the need to consider the root cause of the Palestinians, the Zionists initially ac - Israeli-Palestinian conflict. cepted the 56% of Mandate Palestine on This stems from the aims of the offer. From such a springboard they Zionist project from its founding in 1897 launched a vicious campaign of mas - – its belief in a perpetual anti-Semi - sacres, terror and ethnic cleansing in tism that requires that Jewish people which 750,000 of 1,250.000 Palestinians around the world (a faith group) should in 1948 were summarily dispossessed have an exclusive ethnic national home of their land and expelled. By 1949, Is - of their own. They evoked the biblical rael had expanded its land grab to 78% narrative to proclaim Palestine as the of historic Palestine. promised land reserved exclusively for This made way for the establishment God’s ‘chosen people’ and their civiliz - of an exclusivist Jewish frontier state – ing mission. It sounds all too familiar as indeed a racist supremacist state. Dur - a vision the colonisers had in South ing the 1967 War, Israel finally gained Africa and elsewhere; giving rise to control though military occupation of racism, apartheid and a total onslaught the remaining 22% of what was historic on those who stand in the way, Palestine and seized the Golan Heights whether blacks or Arabs or American from Syria. The Sinai Peninsula was red Indians. Many Jews do not agree also occupied but returned to Egypt with this Zionist world view, and de - following the 1973 October war. clare that being anti-Zionism and crit - Those Palestinians who managed to ical of Israel does not equate with anti- remain within Israel’s 1948 borders live semitism. as discriminated citizens in a virtual

18 The READER | August 2007 APARTHEID STATES

apartheid-type existence. So impressed ing. The world must unite against all re - The world was Dr. Verwoerd, that he stated admir - maining forms of occupation, colonial - must unite ingly in 1961: ‘The Jews took Israel from ism and apartheid. against all the Arabs after the Arabs had lived We must continuously encourage the remaining there for a thousand years. Israel like Palestinians to unite in order to obtain forms of South Africa is an apartheid state.’ an independent and sovereign state free occupation, Israel succeeds in ignoring various of the clutches and influence of others. colonialism United Nations resolutions such as The strategy of divide-and-rule must and apartheid withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders, be defeated. It is worth while to be re - Right of Return of the refugees, and minded of the emphasis another people cessation of its illegal settlement project placed on unity in these words of Ho because it functions under the umbrella Chi Minh: ‘Victory comes from the of American protection and acts as its unity of the people; the greater the imperialist base in the oil-rich Middle unity the greater the victory.’ We South East. It has gained added impetus in its Africans concur. CT aggression (eg. last year’s Lebanon inva - sion ), for its role in the ‘frontline of the Ronnie Kasrils is South Africa’s Minister Global War on Terror’. The USA contin - of Intelligence. Hee is the author of ues to provide billions of dollars in eco - Armed and dabgerous, the story of the nomic and military aid. clandestine cloak-and-dagger side of the It is imperative that all progressive South African liberation struggle. This forces need to deepen their solidarity essay was published in Umsebenzi, the with the Palestinians in their hour of magazine of the South African Commu - need and particularly in this fortieth nist party. (A longer version was pub - year of Israeli occupation and almost lished in the ANC's theoretical journal sixtieth year of the 1948 ethnic cleans - Umrabulo – at http://www.anc.org.za )

SUBSCRIBE TO COLDTYPE AND GET A FREE E-BOOK BY DANNY SCHECHTER Every subscriber to ColdType gets a free copy of Danny Schechter’s book, “Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception” Get your copy by e-mailing [email protected] Type “SUBSCRIBE” in the subject line

August 2007 | The READER 19 ETHICAL SHOPPING DROWNING IN A TIDE OF ECO-JUNK BY GEORGE MONBIOT

Our primary t wasn’t meant to happen like this. climate change is how. political struggle The climate scientists told us that Dozens of new books appear to pro - must be to our winters would become wetter vide an answer: we can save the world prevent the and our summers drier. So I can’t by embracing “better, greener life- break-up of the cIlaim that recent flooding in England styles”. For example, the Guardian Greenland and were caused by climate change, or are published an extract of the new book West Antarctic even consistent with the models. But, by Sheherazade Goldsmith, who is ice sheets. like the ghost of Christmas yet to come, married to the very rich environmental - The only they offer us a glimpse of the possible ist Zac, in which she teaches us “to live question now winter world we’ll inhabit if we don’t within nature’s limits” (2) . It’s easy: just worth asking sort ourselves out. make your own bread, butter, cheese, about climate With rising sea levels and more win - jam, chutneys and pickles, keep a milk - change is how ter rain (and remember that when the ing cow, a few pigs, goats, geese, ducks, trees are dormant and the soils satu - chickens, beehives, gardens and or - rated there are fewer places for the rain chards. Well, what are you waiting for? to go) all it will take is a freshwater Her book also contains plenty of use - flood to coincide with a high spring tide ful advice, and she comes across as and we have a formula for full-blown modest, sincere and well-informed. But disaster. We have now seen how lo - of lobbying for political change, there is calised floods can wipe out essential not a word: you can save the planet in services and overwhelm emergency your own kitchen – if you have endless workers. But July’s events don’t even time and plenty of land. When I was register beside some of the predictions reading it on the train, another passen - now circulating in learned journals (1 ). ger asked me if he could take a look. He Our primary political struggle must be flicked through it for a moment then to prevent the break-up of the Green - summed up the problem in seven land and West Antarctic ice sheets. The words. “This is for people who don’t only question now worth asking about work.”

20 The READER | August 2007 ETHICAL SHOPPING

None of this would matter, if the tea and jojoba oil bath salts – are now I have met Guardian hadn’t put her photo on the the obligatory gift at every environmen - people who masthead last week, with the promise tal event. I have several lifetimes’ supply have bought that she could teach us to go green. of ballpoint pens made with recycled solar panels The media’s obsession with beauty, paper and about half a dozen miniature and mini-wind wealth and fame blights every issue it solar chargers for gadgets I don’t pos - turbines before touches, but none more so than green sess. they have politics. There is an inherent conflict Last week the Telegraph told its insulated their between the aspirational lifestyle jour - readers not to abandon the fight to save lofts: partly nalism which makes readers feel better the planet. “There is still hope, and the because they about themselves and sells country middle classes, with their composters love gadgets, kitchens and the central demand of en - and eco-gadgets, will be leading the but partly, vironmentalism: that we should con - way.” (3) It made some helpful sugges - I suspect, sume less. “None of these changes rep - tions, such as a “hydrogen-powered because resents a sacrifice”, Sheherazade tells model racing car”, which, for £74.99, everyone can us. “Being more conscientious isn’t comes with a solar panel, an electrol - then see how about giving up things.” But it is: if, like yser and a fuel cell (4) . God knows what conscientious her, you own more than one home rare metals and energy-intensive pro- (and how rich) when others have none. cesses were used to manufacture it. In they are Uncomfortable as this is for both the the name of environmental conscious - media and its advertisers, giving things ness, we have simply created new op - up is an essential component of going portunities for surplus capital. green. A section on ethical shopping in Ethical shopping is in danger of be - Goldsmith’s book advises us to buy or - coming another signifier of social status. ganic, buy seasonal, buy local, buy sus - I have met people who have bought tainable, buy recycled. But it says noth - solar panels and mini-wind turbines ing about buying less. before they have insulated their lofts: partly because they love gadgets, but Parallel markets partly, I suspect, because everyone can Green consumerism is becoming a pox then see how conscientious (and how on the planet. If it merely swapped the rich) they are. We are often told that damaging goods we buy for less dam - buying such products encourages us to aging ones, I would champion it. But think more widely about environmen - two parallel markets are developing: tal challenges, but it is just as likely to one for unethical products and one for be depoliticising. Green consumerism ethical products, and the expansion of is another form of atomisation – a sub - the second does little to hinder the stitute for collective action. No political growth of the first. I am now drowning challenge can be met by shopping. in a tide of ecojunk. Over the past six The middle classes rebrand their months, our coatpegs have become lives, congratulate themselves on going clogged with organic cotton bags, green, and carry on buying and flying as which – filled with packets of ginseng much as ever before. It is easy to picture

August 2007 | The READER 21 ETHICAL SHOPPING

Against the a situation in which the whole world predict, rather than merely to play at shiny new world religiously buys green products, and its being green. Only when they have been of organic carbon emissions continue to soar. applied does green consumerism be - aspirations It is true, as the green consumerists come a substitute for current spending you are forced argue, that most people find aspira - rather than a supplement to it. They are to raise drab tional green living more attractive than harder to sell, not least because they and boringly dour puritanism. But it can also be cannot be bought from mail order cat - equitable alienating. I have met plenty of farm alogues. restraints: labourers and tenants who are desper - Hard political choices will have to be carbon ate to start a small farm of their own, made, and the economic elite and its rationing, but have been excluded by what they spending habits must be challenged, contraction and call “horsiculture”: small parcels of agri - rather than groomed and flattered. The convergence, cultural land being bought up for pony multi-millionaires who have embraced tougher building paddocks and hobby farms. In places the green agenda might suddenly dis - regulations, like Surrey and the New Forest, farm - cover another urgent cause. CT coach lanes land is now fetching up to £30,000 an on motorways acre as city bonuses are used to buy or - George Monbiot has been awarded an ganic lifestyles (5) . When the new owners honorary doctorate by the University of dress up as milkmaids then tell the ex - Essex and an honorary fellowship by cluded how to make butter, they run Cardiff University.The paperback the risk of turning environmentalism edition of his latest book, Hea t, into the whim of the elite. has recently been published.

Party pooper NOTES: Challenge the new green consumerism 1. Eg James Hansen et al, 2007. Cli - and you become a prig and a party mate Change and Trace Gases. Philio - pooper, the spectre at the feast, the sophical Transactions of the Royal So - ghost of Christmas yet to come. Against ciety – A. Vol 365, pp 1925-1954. doi: the shiny new world of organic aspira - 10.1098/rsta.2007.2052. tions you are forced to raise drab and http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2007/20 boringly equitable restraints: carbon ra - 07_Hansen_etal_2.pdf tioning, contraction and convergence, 2. Sheherazade Goldsmith (Editor in tougher building regulations, coach chief), 2007. A Slice of Organic Life. Dor - lanes on motorways. No colour sup - ling Kindersley, London. plement will carry an article about that. 3. Sarah Lonsdale, 19th July 2007. No rock star could live comfortably Take the online test to find out your within his carbon ration. footprint. Daily Telegraph. But such measures, and the long 4. See http://shop.tangogroup.net/ hard political battle required to bring PDF/H-Racer%20002.pdf them about, are, unfortunately, required 5. See http://www.lawsonfairbank. to prevent the catastrophe these floods co. uk/pony-paddocks.asp

22 The READER | August 2007 ETHNIC CLEANSING WHY THE ANTI-IMMIGRATION DEBATE IS SCARY BY JEAN PFAELZER

hen we think of ethnic In Eureka, California, the rout of 1885 When most of cleansing, we think Dar - took less than a night, as the Chinese the Chinese had fur, Somalia, Rwanda, packed whatever belongings they left, the “anti- Bosnia. Maybe it’s time could .The Chinese, many of whom had Coolie” League wWe started thinking Fortuna, Califor - lived in Eureka for 20 years, were held and the vigilante nia; Hazleton, Pennsylvania; Cherokee, under gunpoint at a warehouse on the committees Georgia; and Whitewater, Wisconsin. docks, loaded onto two steam ships (like the “601” Once, 1.5 million Native American and sent to San Francisco. – six feet under, Indians lived here; by 1900 250,000 had In the mountain town of Truckee, it zero trial, survived the roundups, slaughter, and took ten weeks to starve out the Chi - one bullet) wars of extermination. nese, when the editor of the local news - circled the Between the Gold Rush and the turn paper shamed merchants, timber bar- white part of of the 20th century, in town after town, ons, and women who ran boar- town with fire Chinese miners and merchants, lum - ding-houses, ordering the town to nei - wagons, invited berjacks and field workers, prostitutes ther buy from, rent to, hire, or honor the ladies and merchants’ wives, were gathered wood cutting contracts with early Chi - to watch, up at gunpoint in more than 200 towns. nese Americans. When most of the Chi - and burned The first Chinese Americans were nese had left, the “anti-Coolie” League Chinatown forced onto steam ships, marched out and the vigilante committees (like the to the ground of town, or driven out, sometimes along “601” – six feet under, zero trial, one bul - the railroad tracks they had built. let) circled the white part of town with In Tacoma, Washington, at 9am on fire wagons, invited the ladies to watch, November 3, 1885, the mayor ordered all and burned Chinatown to the ground. the steam whistles at the foundries to Two Chinese men died, refusing to leave blow, to notify vigilantes to begin the their homes. rout of the town’s Chinatowns. By mid During the Great Depression, two afternoon Tacoma’s Chinese were for- million Mexicans and Mexican Ameri - ced from town on a nine mile trek in the cans were deported under Herbert mud and rain, never to return. Hoover’s Mexican Reparation cam -

August 2007 | The READER 23 ETHNIC CLEANSING

Evicted from paign. Sixty percent of the deportees where 140 Latinos once lived in a little their housing, were children, born in America. The town of 2,300 people. Then it jumps American rest were mostly US citizens who had westward to Escondido, California. citizens, legal lived on this land for generations. As civil rights groups try to enjoin the immigrants, codes, others spring up. Only the fed - and illegal A new purge eral government can deport people, but immigrants Now, from Fortuna, California, to Tren - small towns can drive them out of are in flight ton, New Jersey, immigration officials town. from frightened are sweeping through towns without In July, as soft wild dogwoods bloo- landlords who warrants, seizing Latinos from homes med along the East Coast, I read a have become and factories, leaving children aban - Christmas story, a tale of Christmas just the storm police doned at schools and day care centers. past. It was called the Ordinance 2006- And now, too, a simple housing code, 18. traveling the Internet, is purging thou - ‘Twas the week before Christmas sands of Latinos, suddenly homeless 2006 when Hazleton banned Santa and on the run. More than 80 towns Claus. Santa was about to climb down have enacted the canned language of the chimney without a green card. Al - “The Illegal Immigration Relief Act” and though his biology has always been a banned any landlord from renting to bit unclear, Santa was an “alien” of the an undocumented worker. illegal sort who employed thousands Evicted from their housing, American of alien elves – “unfair foreign compe - citizens, legal immigrants, and illegal tition” to American toymakers. immigrants are in flight from frightened Making a list and checking it twice? landlords who have become the storm For the feds: “identity data provided police. by the property owner.” Data provided In Hazelton, PA, landlords face arrest by a landlord? Based on what kind of or fines of $250 per day. In Riverside, NJ, verification? the fines grow to $1,000 per day. In And why? Cherokee, GA, even after an eviction, Hazleton’s mayor told Sixty Minutes landlords must prove that their former about a 70% rise in violent crime since tenants have left the county before they Latinos came to town in 2001 (the cor - can again collect rents. rect number is 20 of 8,500 crimes). In just one year this housing code Farmers Branch, Texas, said the code has spread from historic Sandwich on would prevent terrorist attacks by purg - Cape Cod, (whose web site invites you ing its Latinos. One third of towns that to “experience life the way it used to passed the code are in unemployed ar - be”), south to Riverside, NJ, Landis, NC, eas of Pennsylvania – railroad towns and Beaufort, SC, to Avon Park, FL, that once sold anthracite coal, steel Cherokee, GA, and Valley Park, MO. tubes, and carpets. Now they export The code travels to Farmer’s Branch, Latinos. Texas, up through Carpentersville, IL, These gentlemen prefer blondes. The Bloomington, MN, and Arcadia WI, mayor wants Hazleton to remain 94.7%

24 The READER | August 2007 ETHNIC CLEANSING

white. Last month, in front of a burning struggling town faces $2 million in fines In Altoona, cross, the Ku Klux Klan and the Amer - and legal costs which is 99.9 % ican Nazi Party, recently defunct, an - Yet across small town America, land - white, a city nounced to ABC Evening News that lords face empty apartments and va - councilman since they began assaulting, torching, cant trailer parks. Businesses are shut - declared and “bleaching” Latinos, membership ting down. One-third of Riverside’s “We just want has risen 40%. immigrant population has moved away. to stay ahead “Pack your bags…It’s over, go Twenty-five percent of undocumented of the curve” home,” shouted local Minutemen after population has children who are US Escondido’s city council voted 3-2 for citizens, but unable to fend for them - the Hazleton code. With nearly half the selves, these kids are losing their consti - town born outside the US, anyone who tutional right to live here. This code, looked or sounded “foreign” stood to be perhaps deliberately, violates what chil - evicted. In Altoona, which is 99.9 % dren promise: permanence, stability, white, a city councilman declared “We and future generations. just want to stay ahead of the curve.” Latinos often say, “mi casa es su The local U.S. Attorneys (those that casa.” By contrast, this code says still have their jobs), the Department of “leave.” CT Homeland Security, and Attorney Gen - eral Gonzales are not stopping the un - Ms. Pfaelzer is professor of English and constitutional enforcement of this un - American Studies at the University of constitutional code. Delaware, and director of the University But immigrant rights groups are try - Honors Writing Fellowship Program. ing to stop the spread of this internet Her new book is , Driven Out: The virus. They took Hazelton to federal Forgotten War Against Chinese court, arguing that the code violates Americans . immigrants’ rights to due process, fair housing codes and legal leases. The This article originally appeared on the judge temporarily stopped the town website of George Mason University’s which awaits a final ruling. Sixty eight History News Network – http://HNN.us percent of the voters in Farmer’s Branch voted to support its code in May, but in Update : The Hazleton law was struck June the Mexican American Legal De - down by US District Judge James fense fun managed to get that vote Munley, on July 26. “Federal law overturned. Another break may be pro - prohibits Hazleton from enforcing any tections in the Hate Crimes Bill, passed of the provisions of its ordinances,” by the House, moving through the Sen - said the judge in his 206-page opinion. ate but facing a presidential veto. In response, Hazleton Mayor Lou Still, as Hazelton’s mayor bragged, Barletta said the city would likely the code endures, even though his appeal the decision.

August 2007 | The READER 25 HEALTH CARE OPERATING ON MICHAEL MOORE BY JAMES CLAY FULLER

Perhaps they he reviews of Michael Moore’s Of course, I haven’t read the com - think he should movie “Sicko” have been fasci - ments in the insurance and pharma - have nating, the editorial and op-ed ceutical industries publications, though paraphrased commentaries on the film even if I run across one I might. The level of their idiocies Tmore so. unintentional humor should be high. to make them Apparently there is a rule in corpo - Speaking of humor: “Sicko” is full of look less foolish, rate journalism that every mention of laughs. They’re mostly the kind that rather than Moore and his films, or Moore without burst from you when confronted by a letting them his films, must contain at least two lie so outrageous and obvious that the speak for snide observations about his biases, his absurdity is overwhelming, but they’re themselves ever so naughty attacks on rich and real laughs. They get little or no men - powerful but somehow – in the eyes of tion in most of the reviews and op-ed the corporate journalists – defenseless pieces I’ve seen. people such as the chairman of General Moore knew we’d laugh at the obvi - Motors, and, if you can slide it in, ous self-serving absurdities of the super Moore’s physical appearance. rich guys, and I guess that’s one of the Four snide comments, two or three ways his biases show in the eyes of the misrepresentations and an outright lie corporate press commentators. Perhaps or two about Moore or the films is bet - they think he should have paraphrased ter, I gather. their idiocies to make them look less The “Sicko” reviews and commen - foolish, rather than letting them speak tary are running pretty much true to for themselves. form, but, interestingly enough, after A July 5 op-ed piece in the New York all the snideness is done, every writer Times by Philip M. Boffey is quite rep - I’ve come across has had to admit that resentative of the 10 or 12 I’ve read. He it is a good film, and that, sonofagun, calls the new film “unashamedly one- the United States health care “system” sided, superficial, overstated and occa - truly is a bloody awful mess, pretty sionally suspect in its details,” before much as Moore says. admitting, in the same sentence, that on

26 The READER | August 2007 HEALTH CARE

the “big picture” of the failure of our when there are, as he says, countless This moment, health care system “Mr. Moore is right.” such stories. When he put out a request I am deeply Boffey, who writes editorials on on his web site for personal stories of concerned health care for the Times, does not elu - being screwed by health insurers, about a friend cidate on his claims that the case Moore Moore was inundated. Within days, he who is in builds against our health care had more than 20,000 such stories. despair “providers” is overstated or “suspect in Second, I can recount four or five because of the its details.” such tales from the years I was the pri - years-long I’ll give him this, however. “Sicko” is mary caregiver for my aged mother, and battle he has one sided. Moore doesn’t spend any another dozen from among my ac - had to wage time defending our broken down health quaintances. This moment, I am deeply with his health care system, which leaves 45 million concerned about a friend who is in de - insurer in order Americans without health insurance, spair because of the years-long battle he to get the care which is ranked is ranked 37th among has had to wage with his health in - he must have nations in quality of care and which surer in order to get care he must have to live, and overcharges us – often to the point of to live, and the debt that has piled up as the debt that bankruptcy – and makes deliberate de - a result. has piled up cisions to deny health care to individu - Anyone who hasn’t experienced such as a result als; and, as Moore clearly demonstrates, a situation, or doesn’t at least know allows people to die needlessly for the someone who has had to fight for his or sake of protecting overblown profits. her life in such a way, must live in an - Oops. Was that one-sided, too? other country. As someone who spent about 45 years in newsrooms, I very strongly sus - Both sides of the story? pect Boffey is somebody who is too My favorite criticism of Moore, how - close to some of his sources. But again ever, is one employed by at least half I digress. the commentaries I’ve read: That the He says it is “hard to know how director didn’t give the insurance and true” are the stories Moore puts on film pharmaceutical industries time in his – stories such as that of a young film to tell their side of the story. woman who was retroactively denied That, folks, is grandly absurd. health care insurance because of a mi - Moore is laying out facts. The indus - nor yeast infection that was cured years tries that profit so hugely from our ill - before she applied for and got the insur - nesses spend hundreds of millions of ance that was taken away when she dollars on advertising, public relations needed it. and lobbying to “tell their side of the Well, I’ll tell him. There is not the story.” One month’s expenditure by the slightest reason to doubt any of the in - insurance industry for those activities dividual stories Moore has used in the substantially exceeds the cost of mak - film. ing “Sicko.” And Moore doesn’t own a First, the director is too smart to use single member of Congress; they’ve a phony story, and risk getting caught, bought dozens. (The insurance indus -

August 2007 | The READER 27 HEALTH CARE

Benn notes, try’s almost $400,000 in contributions to network in order to maximize its non - as other good Hillary Clinton’s campaign purse alone profits. (Some specialties, such as cardi - people often do, would have covered a substantial por - ology are big revenue producers and so that “if we have tion of the cost of making the film.) not tightly limited.) When I’ve com - the money to kill Let them tell their lies on their own plained about long waits to see a spe - (in war), we’ve dime. cialist, several people within the organ - got the money Boffey, like almost all of the others ization, including four doctors, have to help people” whose “Sicko” commentaries I’ve read, confirmed my suspicion on that issue. also complains that Moore is to unfail - Because of a couple of chronic condi - ingly kind to the health care systems of tions – not life threatening, at least for other countries. (The film has episodes now, though they have that potential – shot in England, Canada, France, Italy I must occasionally see specialists in and Cuba.) three different areas of medicine. The last two times I had such a need, it took Months’-long waits three to four months from the time I What makes Boffey and one or two of placed the first call seeking an appoint - the others most annoyed is that Moore ment until I actually got into the doc’s doesn’t mention “the months-long offices. In another case, it was almost waits to see specialists in Canada and five months. Britain...” I am not alone in that, despite all Well, actually, it does come up in the the phony denials the HMOs and clin - Canadian interviews, and the Canadi - ics might produce. Give me 24 hours ans snort in disbelief when the claim is and I assure you I can provide the made, though they admit that there names of at least 20 others who have sometimes is a wait of a few weeks to had the same experience. (And it could see a specialist for an elective or en - be 100 others or more if I put the word tirely non-threatening treatment or out on the ‘net.) condition. All of the pieces I’ve read about And the critics fail to note that under “Sicko,” have what I find to be a glaring our system of money-vacuuming omission. Not one mentions the com - HMOs and profit-building insurance ments by Tony Benn, a former member companies, the waits to see specialists of Britain’s Parliament. Yet Benn’s state - in this country often are every bit as ments probably are the most profound long, and longer, than those the de - element of the film. fenders of our system claim are the rule He notes, as other good people often in other countries. do, that “if we have the money to kill (in The very large network of clinics war), we’ve got the money to help peo - through which I get my health care and ple.” which has close ties to the HMO that But, more importantly, Benn tells provides my health coverage, has made Moore, that all of Europe and many a deliberate decision to limit the num - other places have good health care sys - ber of specialists of several types in its tems while the United States lacks such

28 The READER | August 2007 HEALTH CARE

a basic service because in Europe and true even assuming the inevitable all- If someone elsewhere, “the politicians are afraid of out ad and PR campaign by the insur - conducted the people” when the people get angry ance and pharmaceutical industries to a poll today, and demand some action. In the United protect their enormous profits. asking a section States, he observes, “the people are (Does it occur to anyone that the of Americans afraid of those in power” because they profits they suck from our system, while if they want fear losing their jobs, fear being cut off we struggle for and often are refused “socialized from health care or other services if decent health care, are truly enormous medicine,” they speak up and make demands. if the industries are willing and able to the results “How do you control people?” Benn spend hundreds of millions of dollars a might seem asks, and he answers: “Through fear year to protect those profits?) to support the and debt.” Every American I know is fed up claim of Boffey His point is that in the United States with our present health care mess, and and others we have a great overabundance of both. more and more are deeply angry. Having ignored Benn’s succinct anal- Go see “Sicko.” It’s a marvelous film, ysis, some of the writers, and especially it’s full of laughs and, yes, it will give an Boffey, state as fact that Americans edge to your anger. Then do something would reject out of hand any attempt to useful with that anger. Members of create a government-run universal Congress and state legislatures are just health care system. a phone call, a letter or an email away. They produce no facts to support And don’t be conned by the less- the claim, so apparently they just than-half measures proposed by the “know” it. present gaggle of corporation-serving If someone conducted a poll today, presidential candidates. CT asking a section of Americans if they want “socialized medicine,” the results James Clay Fuller, is a sort-of retired might seem to support the claim of Bof - journalist who has worked in fey and others. newspapers and magazines for more But if the gutless Democrats went than 45 years. His day job for 30 years out and explained, clearly and often, was at the Minneapolis StarTribune, how a government-run single payer where he was a business and economics system actually works, and what it re - reporter, features writer, and sometime ally costs, and what the people of music critic. He was nominated for Canada, France, Britain, Germany and Pulitzer Prizes in 1977 and 1992, and other countries really think of their was the instigator and senior editor on a health care systems, the ignorance- project that was nominated for a rooted suspicion could be reversed in a Pultizer in 1997. His web site is matter of months. And I believe that is jamesclayfuller.com

August 2007 | The READER 29 ANTI-EMPIRE REPORT NECONS, DEMCONS, THEOCONS, EXCONS AND FUTURE CONS BY WILLIAM BLUM

Think of why ho do you think said this nice, even great, to be president. And you are opposed on June 20? a) Rudy Giu- keep the American Empire in business, to the war. liani; b) Hillary Clinton; its routine generating of horror and Is it not largely c) Mitt Romney; or d) misery being no problem; she wouldn’t because of all WBarack Obama? want to be known as the president that the unspeakable “The American military has done hastened the decline of the empire. suffering its job. Look what they accomplished. And she spoke the above words at brought down They got rid of Saddam Hussein. They the “Take Back America” conference; upon the heads gave the Iraqis a chance for free and fair she was speaking to liberals, committed and souls of elections. They gave the Iraqi govern - liberal Democrats. the poor people ment the chance to begin to demon - She didn’t have to cater to them with of Iraq by the strate that it understood its responsibil - any flag-waving pro-war rhetoric; they American ities to make the hard political decisions wanted to hear anti-war rhetoric (and military? necessary to give the people of Iraq a she of course gave them a bit of that as Hillary Clinton better future. well out of the other side of her mouth), couldn’t care “So the American military has suc - so we can assume that this is how she less about that, ceeded. It is the Iraqi government really feels, if indeed the woman feels literally which has failed to make the tough de - anything. cisions which are important for their Think of why you are opposed to own people.” [1] the war. Is it not largely because of all Right, it was the woman who wants the unspeakable suffering brought to be president because ... because she down upon the heads and souls of the wants to be president ... because she poor people of Iraq by the American thinks it would be nice to be president military? Hillary Clinton couldn’t care ... no other reason, no burning cause, no less about that, literally. She thinks the heartfelt desire for basic change in American military has “succeeded”. American society or to make a better Has she ever unequivocally labeled the world ... she just thinks it would be war “illegal” or “immoral”? I used to

30 The READER | August 2007 ANTI-EMPIRE REPORT

think that Tony Blair was a member of things? Have they never heard of Mar - US/NATO the right wing or conservative wing of garet Thatcher, who tried her best to spokespersons the British Labour Party. I finally real - cripple the UK’s marvelous National tell us that these ized one day that that was an incorrect Health Service, amongst a hundred unfortunate description of his ideology. Blair is a other reactionary policies? accidents conservative, a bloody Tory. How he Most of Clinton’s supporters would happen because wound up in the Labour Party is a mat - love to see the end of the Iraqi daily the enemy is ter I haven’t studied. horror and so they presumably will also deliberately Hillary Clinton, however, I’ve long ignore Ted Koppel, the newsman of im - putting civilians known is a conservative; going back to peccable establishment credentials, in harm’s way at least the 1980s, when, while the wife who reported recently that he was told to provoke a of the Arkansas governor, she strongly by someone who had held a senior po - backlash supported the death squad torturers sition at the Pentagon and occasion - against the known as the Contras, who were the ally briefs Hillary Clinton on Gulf area foreign forces empire’s proxy army in Nicaragua. [2] matters, that she expects US troops to Now we hear from America’s vener - still be in Iraq at the end of her first able conservative magazine, William term and even at the end of her second Buckley’s “National Review”, an edito - term. [5] rial by Bruce Bartlett, policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan; treasury offi - The eternal struggle between cial under President George H.W. Bush; the good guys and the bad guys a fellow at two of the leading conserva - The United States and its wholly tive think-tanks, the Heritage Founda - owned subsidiary, NATO, regularly drop tion and the Cato Institute; you get the bombs on Afghanistan which kill vary - picture. ing amounts of terrorists (or “terror - Bartlett tells his readers that it’s al - ists”, also known as civilians, also most certain that the Democrats will known as women and children). They win the White House in 2008. So what do this rather often, against people ut - to do? Support the most conservative terly defenseless against aerial attack. In Democrat. He writes: “To right-wingers the first half of this year, US/NATO willing to look beneath what probably forces killed more people than the Tal - sounds to them like the same identical iban and others opposed to the West - views of the Democratic candidates, it ern occupation did. [6] This was immedi - is pretty clear that Hillary Clinton is ately followed by a reported 133 the most conservative.” [3] additional bombing victims in the first We also hear from America’s premier week of July. [7] magazine for the corporate wealthy, US/NATO spokespersons tell us that “Fortune”, whose recent cover features these unfortunate accidents happen be - a picture of Clinton and the headline: cause the enemy is deliberately putting “Business Loves Hillary”. [4] civilians in harm’s way to provoke a Do those in love with the idea of a backlash against the foreign forces. We woman president care about such are told at times that the enemy had lo -

August 2007 | The READER 31 ANTI-EMPIRE REPORT

Why are the cated themselves in the same building up in the morning with the intention of Western forces as the victims, using them as “human harming any Afghan citizen,” said Maj. building shields”. [8] Therefore, it would seem, the John Thomas, a spokesman for the installations enemy somehow knows in advance NATO-led International Security Assis - and/or that a particular building is about to be tance Force. “If that does inadvertently concentrating bombed and they rush a bunch of civil - happen, it is deeply, deeply regretted.” [10] troops near ians to the spot before the bombs begin Is that not comforting language? Can civilian areas, to fall. Or it’s a place where civilians any right-thinking, sensitive person fail deliberately normally live and, finding out that the to see who the good guys are? putting civilians building is about to be bombed, the en - During its many bombings from in harm’s way? emy rushes a group of their own people Vietnam to Iraq, Washington has re - to the place so they can die with the peatedly told the world that the result - civilians. Or, what appears to be much ing civilian deaths were accidental and more likely, the enemy doesn’t know of very much “regretted”. the bombing in advance, but then the But if you go out and drop powerful civilians would have to always be there; bombs over a populated area, and then i.e., they live there; they may even be learn that there have been a number of the wives and children of the enemy. Is “unintended” casualties, and then the there no limit to the evil cleverness and next day drop more bombs and learn the clever evilness of this foe? again that there were “unintended” ca - Western officials also tell us that the sualties, and then the next day you enemy deliberately attacks from civilian bomb again ... at what point do you areas, even hoping to draw fire to drive lose the right to say that the deaths a wedge between average Afghans and were “unintended”? international troops. [9] During the US/NATO 78-day bomb - Presumably the insurgents are at - ing of Serbia in 1999, which killed many tacking nearby Western military instal - civilians, a Belgrade office building – lations or troop concentrations. This which housed political parties, TV and raises the question: Why are the West - radio stations, 100 private companies, ern forces building installations and/or and more – was bombed. But before concentrating troops near civilian ar - the missiles were fired into this build - eas, deliberately putting civilians in ing, NATO planners spelled out the harm’s way? risks: “Casualty Estimate 50-100 Gov - US/NATO military leaders argue ernment/Party employees. Unintended that any comparison of casualties Civ Casualty Est: 250 – Apts in expected caused by Western forces and by the blast radius.” [11] Taliban is fundamentally unfair because The planners were saying that about there is a clear moral distinction to be 250 civilians living in nearby apartment made between accidental deaths re - buildings might be killed in the bomb - sulting from combat operations and de - ing, in addition to 50 to 100 government liberate killings of innocents by mili - and political party employees, likewise tants. “No [Western] soldier ever wakes innocent of any crime calling for execu -

32 The READER | August 2007 ANTI-EMPIRE REPORT

tion. So what do we have here? We Don’t believe anything until it’s been When The Black have grown men telling each other: officially denied. Book of The We’ll do A, and we think that B may Those of you who’ve been reading my American Empire well be the result. But even if B does in musings over the years know that the is written fact result, we’re saying beforehand – as bombing of PanAm flight 103 in Decem - someday there we’ll insist afterward – that it was un - ber 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland, should be intended. which took the lives of 270 people, has a mention of It was actually worse than this. As been a major interest of mine. When Abdelbaset Ali I’ve detailed elsewhere, the main pur - The Black Book of The American Em - Mohmed pose of the Serbian bombings – admit - pire is written someday there should be al-Megrahi, ted to by NATO officials – was to make a mention of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed a Libyan who life so difficult for the public that sup - al-Megrahi, a Libyan who has spent the has spent the port of the government of Slobodan last six years in prison convicted of the last six years Milosevic would be undermined. [12] Lockerbie bombing. I and many others, in prison This, in fact, is the classic definition of including a number in establishment charged with “terrorism”, as used by the FBI and the legal positions, have been arguing for the Lockerbie United Nations: The use or threat of vi - years that the evidence against Megrahi bombing olence against a civilian population to is very thin and unpersuasive. Now a induce the government to change cer - court in Scotland has agreed and has tain policies. ordered a new appeal for Megrahi. I Another example of how “the en - and other so-called “conspiracy theo - emy” can’t be trusted to act as nice as rists” have been vindicated, although god-fearing regular Americans ... “De - Megrahi is not yet free. fense officials said they believe at least Briefly, the key international political 22 – and possibly as many as 50 – for - facts are these: For well over a year af - mer Guantánamo detainees have re - ter the bombing, the US and the UK in - turned to the battlefield to fight against sisted that Iran, Syria, and a Palestinian the United States and its allies.” [13] The group had been behind the bombing, Defense Department has at times used which was widely regarded as an act of the possibility of this happening as an revenge for the US shooting down an argument against releasing detainees Iranian passenger plane over the Per - or closing Guantánamo. sian Gulf in July 1988, killing 290 people. But is it imaginable, not to mention (An act the US calls an accident, but likely, that after three, four or five years which came about because of deliberate in the hell on earth known as Guantá - American intrusion into the Iran-Iraq namo, even detainees not disposed to war on the side of Iraq.) terrorist violence – and many of them Then the buildup to the US invasion were picked up for reasons having of Iraq came along in 1990 (how quickly nothing to do with terrorist violence – do nations change from allies to ene - left with a deep-seated hatred of their mies on the empire’s chessboard) and jailors and a desire for revenge? the support of Iran and Syria was de - sired for the operation. Suddenly, in Oc -

August 2007 | The READER 33 ANTI-EMPIRE REPORT

When it comes tober 1990, the US declared that it was Miers once called George W. Bush the to anything Libya – the Arab state least supportive most brilliant man she has ever associated of the US build-up to the Gulf War and known. [15] She’s now no longer alone in with the War the sanctions imposed against Iraq – her bizarre little padded cell. On June on Terrorism, that was behind the bombing after all. 10, during the president’s visit to Alba - the UK and the Megrahi and another Libyan were fin - nia – arguably the most backward US are not gered. [14] country in all of Europe, today as well particularly The Scottish Court’s recent ruling, as as when it was a Soviet satellite – the noted for logic logical and justified as it is, is still a joyous townspeople of Fushe Kruje or justice. great surprise. When it comes to any - yelled “Bushie! Bushie!” and Albania’s So what might thing associated with the War on Ter - prime minister gushed over the “great - be the reason rorism, the UK and the US are not par - est and most distinguished guest we they’re doing, ticularly noted for logic or justice. So have ever had in all times.” or allowing, what might be the reason they’re doing, This was reported by Washington “the right thing” or allowing, “the right thing” for a Post columnist Eugene Robinson, and for a change? change? Could it be that Iran will now prompted a letter from a reader, which be charged with being the instigator said in part: “Regarding Eugene Robin - and paymaster for the crime and that son’s June 12 op-ed ... It was inevitable this will be used to hammer them into that somebody would sneer at the Al - submission concerning nuclear power banian reception of President Bush ... and weapons? Or justify an American [Robinson] patronizingly writing of ‘a attack? wonderful reverse-Borat moment’. ... But then of course the United States U.S. support for Albania following the would have to explain why it falsely collapse of communism explains Alban - accused Libya and allowed, and pushed ian gratitude to the United States.” [16] for, an innocent man to be sent to Ah yes, the wonderful collapse of prison for life. A very interesting communism and the even more won - dilemma. It would be great entertain - derful birth of democracy, freedom, cap - ment to hear George W. Bush trying to italism, and widespread poverty and explain that one. (Cheney would just deprivation in the former Soviet do - refuse to discuss the matter, saying it’s minion. “classified”. Or tell the questioner to go ‘What actually happened is that the fuck himself.) The dilemma is further first election in “Free Albania”, in March heightened by the fact that it was the 1991, resulted in an overwhelming en - administration of George Bush Senior dorsement of the Communists. And which made the accusation against what did the United States then do? Of Libya. His secretary of defense at the course, it proceeded to undertake a time was a gentleman named Richard campaign to overthrow this very same B. Cheney. elected government. The previous year in neighboring Bulgaria, another for - A marriage made in heaven mer Soviet satellite, the communists Former White House counsel Harriet also won the election. And the United

34 The READER | August 2007 ANTI-EMPIRE REPORT

States overthrew them as well. [17] ance to American imperialistic ambi - Kyuma’s remark These were the first of the non-vio - tions, this was a sample of what they offended lent overthrows of governments of the could expect. survivors former Soviet Union and its satellites Kyuma could just as correctly have of the bombings directed and financed by the United said: “I understand that if the United in Japan who States. [18] States had accepted Japan’s peace over - believe the tures the war could have ended with - use of atomic “The one duty we owe to history is to out the use of the atomic bomb.” As op - weapons was rewrite it.” Oscar Wilde posed to the American nationalists’ excessive, Some international stories never come version of history, this version is well and he soon to an end, relegated to the history documented and established. [20] had to resign books and stamped finis. They keep popping up in the news of the day, each Correction time igniting controversy and confu - The first item of the last edition of this sion anew. The dropping of atomic report included a couple of examples of bombs on Japan in World War 2 is a stereotypical cold war anti-communist prime example. thinking. I did not realize it at the time On June 30, the Japanese Defense but the examples are derived in large Minister, Fumio Kyuma, declared in a part from an excellent book by Michael speech: “I understand that the bombing Parenti, “The Anti-Communist Im - ended the war, and I think that it could - pulse”, published in 1969, which should n’t be helped.” [19] have been credited. CT Kyuma’s remark offended survivors of the bombings in Japan who believe NOTES the use of atomic weapons was exces - [1] Speaking at the “Take Back America” sive, and he soon had to resign. At the conference, organized by the Campaign same time, it has undoubtedly pleased for America’s Future, June 20, 2007, Wash - many American nationalists who insist ington, DC; this excerpt can be heard at that the United States had no choice democracynow.org – June 21. but to use the bomb, and who resent [2] Roger Morris, former member of the the stigma the world has long attached National Security Council, “Partners in to the US for being the first to employ Power” (1996), p.415 such a dreadful weapon of mass de - [3] National Review Online, May 1, 2007 struction. [4] Fortune magazine, July 9, 2007 Kyuma was correct about one thing. [5] National Public Radio, “All Things The bombings did end the war. But Considered”, June 11, 2007 that’s only because the United States [6] Los Angeles Times, July 6, 2007 wanted the war to end that way, partly [7] Washington Post, July 8, 2007, p.16 so they could see how well the bomb [8] Los Angeles Times, July 6, 2007 worked, but principally to put the So - [9] Chicago Tribune, July 8, 2007, article by viet Union on notice that after the war, Kim Barker if the Russkis put up too much resist - [10] Los Angeles Times, July 6, 2007

August 2007 | The READER 35 ANTI-EMPIRE REPORT

[11] Washington Post, April 22, 1999, p.18 [18] For further discussion of this, see [12] William Blum, Rogue State, p.103-4 Freeing the World to Death, p.166-71 [13] Washington Post, June 22, 2007, p.3 [19] Associated Press, July 2, 2007 [14] For an account of the case written in [20] http://members.aol.com/essays6/ 2001, see: abomb.htm http://members.aol.com/bblum6/panam. htm. For a slightly updated account writ - William Blum is the author of ten in 2004, see: William Blum, Freeing Killing Hope: US Military and CIA the World to Death, chapter 10 Interventions Since World War 2; [15] Copley News Service, October 10, 2005 Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s [16] Washington Post, June 16, 2007, letter Only Superpower; West-Bloc from Andrew Apostolou Dissident: A Cold War Memoir; [17] http://members.aol.com/bblum6/bul - and Freeing the World to Death: garia.htm Essays on the American Empire GREAT WRITERS. GREAT READING.

New postings each month at http://www.coldtype.net

36 The READER | August 2007 CHANGING SIDES JOHN PERKINS: JERK, CONMAN, SHILL BY GREG PALAST

remember John Perkins. He was a the beast could add a surcharge to elec - That the beast real jerk. A gold-plated, super-slick tric bills equal to home mortgages was could add lying little butthole shill for corpo - simply smiled over by Perkins and his a surcharge rate gangsters; a snake-oil salesman team of economic con artists. to electric bills Iwith a movie-star grin, shiny loafers, a To steal millions, you need a top equal to home crooked calculator and a tooled leather team of armed robbers. But to steal bil - mortgages briefcase full of high-blown bullshit. lions, you need PhD’s with color charts was simply This was two decades ago. The early and economic projections made of fairy smiled over 1980s. I wore sandals, uncombed hair dust and eye of newt. Perkins had it all by Perkins and down to my cheap collar and carried a – including a magical thing called a his team of busted ring-binder filled with honest computer-generated spreadsheet (this economic calculations and sincere analysis. It was was well before Excel). con artists Economic Hit Man Perkins vs. Eco - I was an expert witness for some nomic Long-Hair Palast. I didn’t stand consumer groups, trying to explain to a chance. The EHM was about to put a state officials that Perkins’ numbers political bullet hole through me wider were bogus as a bubble-gum bagel and than a silver dollar. his financial projections were from Hit Men have “clients.” Perkins’ was some New Hampshire on another a giant power company, Public Service planet. of New Hampshire. PSNH was trying But this was the key point: Perkins to sell New England lobstermen and slept in a suite at the Omni. I had truck- potato farmers on the idea that they rumble insomnia at the motel off exit desperately needed a multi-billion dol - 68. He glared and grinned and glad- lar nuclear plant. The fact that this handed. I tried to keep my eyes open. bloated atomic water kettle, called Here’s how it ended. The local Joes “Seabrook,” would produce enough jumped head-first into the Perkins fan - electricity for everyone in the Granite tasy and bought his client’s power plant State to smelt iron didn’t matter. That boondoggle. Within a couple years, the

August 2007 | The READER 37 CHANGING SIDES

In New England, local electric companies had all gone the front door opposite the driver. the pain bankrupt, the state treasury was Leather Jacket and I climbed in. He imposed by the drained, electric bills went from lowest spoke into a walkie talkie. Tinted win - clients of the to highest in the nation causing facto - dows made it impossible to see inside.” economic hit ries to close and dump, I figure, about In lines heavy with Hemingway, men were 11,000 jobs. Perkins takes us to Indonesia, Bolivia, financial; but, Perkins’ clients walked away with even tiny Diego Garcia and other vic - as Perkins barrelfuls of billions. tim-states where doctorate-armed wants us never And Dr. Perkins pocketed plenty for “consultants” put an academic gloss on to forget, his mortal soul. militarized plunder. in much of the But, as in every moral tale, Perkins, In the story of the guys with the planet, the slick the modern Dr. Faust, found redemp - AKs, Perkins is on assignment in sales pitch of tion in confession. Guatemala for an outfit called SWEC, a the economic And we’re lucky he did. Because, in Bechtel twin trying to foist another mad hit man is Perkins’, “Confessions of an Economic power plant horror show on the na - enforced by Hit Man,” and his latest, the just-re - tives of Guatemala. (About the same squads of hit leased “Secret History of the American time, I convinced the state of New York men with less Empire,” we find out what makes these to bring racketeering charges against subtle weaponry guys tick. By “these guys” I mean the SWEC and its partners in a massive vultures who suck up development power plant building fraud. SWEC and aide, the sharks who use the World co-defendants settled the civil charges Bank as their enforcers, the corporate for a payment of nearly half a billion marauders, power pirates and hedge dollars.) fund hogs with their snouts in the eco - Unlike the yokels of New Hampshire nomic trough. who fell for the smooth Perkins line, In “Secret History,” Perkins, from the the Guatemalans were no pushovers. inside, gives the details of the weird Skeptical locals, suspicious indigenous moral emptiness and pitilessness of shamans and a couple of improbably men who waylay the riches of the courageous politicians simply wouldn’t planet from the people to whom it roll over to the corporate conquista - rightly belongs. dores. In New England, the pain imposed The resisters, we are led to presume, by the clients of the economic hit men will be dealt with accordingly. As were financial; but, as Perkins wants us Perkins explains it, if his pie-charts never to forget, in much of the planet, don’t make the sale, the little men in his the slick sales pitch of the economic hit darkened car know a little explosive man is enforced by squads of hit men wired to an ignition could be persua - with less subtle weaponry. Perkins sive. writes: However, by time he got to Central “Three men toting AK-47s stood at America on the corporate assignment, attention outside. They saluted as we Perkins was already ill at heart with drove past. One of the three opened the SWECs of this world. Ultimately,

38 The READER | August 2007 CHANGING SIDES

he refused to back their destructive gets of this new empire ruled by shock Today, Perkins scheme. troops and spread sheets. His empathy is my confrere Perkins had switched sides – and, in extends to those in the occupied terri - and colleague. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man tory known as the USA. Because, says He wears his gets his soul back from Satan only a lit - Perkins, when the wretchedly ripped- hair longish and tle soiled. In Secret History, the per - off of the Earth rise in rebellion, the I wear mine . . . sonal confession turns into an illumi - lash of the backlash is felt by the chil - well, I’ve nating, world-spanning jeremiad. From dren of the lobstermen of New Hamp - stopped wearing Latin America to Africa to the Middle shire, shivering under Humvees in hair altogether East, Perkins leaps from his own story Falluja, and never the EHM’s clients’ to the widespread caused by the greed fortunate sons, frolicking in their Fer - armies sent marching from the board - raris. CT rooms of New York and London. Today, Perkins is my confrere and Greg Palast is the author of Armed colleague. He wears his hair longish and Madhouse: From Baghdad to New I wear mine . . . well, I’ve stopped wear - Orleans – Sordid Secrets and Strange ing hair altogether. Tales of a White House Gone Wild . And in his writings today, Perkins’ Visit his website heart goes out to the Third World tar - http://www.gregpalast.com THE BEST OF JOHN PILGER

3OTH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL PAYING e p y T d # l o

the C THE FALL OF PRICE

SAIGON e p y T e d p l y o T C

d AN EXCERPT FROM l o C TELL ME NO LIES 1975 INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM & ITS TRIUMPHS AN EYE-WITNESS REPORT JOHN PILGER AN EXCERPT FROM HIS BOOK JOHN PILGER JOHN PILGER THE NEW RULERS OF THE WORLD { An excerpt from his book HEROES } Download these excerpts from some of John Pilger’s best books. All in pdf format, all FREE, at http://www.coldtype.net/pilgerbooks.html

August 2007 | The READER 39 CONRAD BLACK A LESSON FOR THOSE UPPITY GIRLS BY LINDA M cQUAIG

Black also once istening to Conrad Black being swats from Canada’s most flagrant and described me interviewed by Peter Gzowski widely-detested business tycoon. in an article on the radio a number of years But if Conrad Black has been good as a “not very ago, I was surprised to hear for my career, his impact elsewhere has bright, leftist BLlack suggest that I be “horsewhipped.” been less benign. He used his ample re - reporter” I knew he was angry about two sources to create the National Post, a – for which a lengthy articles I’d written about some newspaper that helped him push the number of of his business dealings, and I wouldn’t mainstream debate in Canada consid - people urged have been surprised to hear him attack erably to the right. me to sue him me, even urge that I be fired. But horse - Black relentlessly used the Post as a for libel whipped? platform for himself and a host of like- Of course, it was all part of Black’s minded commentators to ridicule the larger-than-life persona that included a Canadian taste for equality and strong high sense of self-drama that was al - public programs, to denigrate what ways colourful in its excessiveness. amounted to the Canadian way of do - Black also once described me in an ing things. article as a “not very bright, leftist re - Black liked to present the Post as an porter” – for which a number of people irreverent, scrappy upstart of a newspa - urged me to sue him for libel. This was per that shook up the staid Canadian an intriguing idea, especially given media scene and challenged the estab - Black’s own penchant for slapping in - lishment with its “take-no-prisoners” timidating lawsuits on journalists who approach. The only problem with that took an interest in investigating some of image was that, far from challenging his questionable business practices. the establishment, the Post was – and But there was the problem of prov - is – the establishment. ing his attack had damaged me. In It may well have been a scrappy up - truth, it’s hard to imagine where my start, but from the beginning it was an career as an anti-establishment author attack-dog fighting on behalf of Can- would be today without such colourful ada’s financial elite – who have never

40 The READER | August 2007 CONRAD BLACK

been shy about defending their own in - It’s perhaps relevant to mention here I recall how terests. Could anyone seriously argue that the articles I wrote (along with fel - the Post, under that, before the Post came along, we low journalist Ian Austen) that so an - Black, came out had heard insufficiently from business gered Black were about attempts by guns blazing on the subject of the need for tax cuts, one of his companies, Norcen Energy, to against a court free trade or deficit reduction? take over Cleveland-based Hanna Min - decision Of course, before Black started the ing in 1982, and about the failure of favouring Post, the message of the financial elite Canadian authorities to prosecute a group of had been championed relentlessly for Black over the case. secretaries, decades by the Globe and Mail. What Hanna had fought back against file clerks and the Post added was a sassy new look to Black’s takeover bid, and won a U.S. librarians the staid corporate message. It offered court injunction and a tough court rul - who had waged the same old thunderous voice of Big ing that Norcen had violated U.S. secu - a lengthy Business, but now cranked up to deaf - rities laws by failing to disclose its battle against ening levels, with even less attempt at takeover intention. the federal “balance,” and with considerably more In Canada, Black got a much softer government zing, including shots of celebrities in ride at the hands of authorities. for failing to low-cut dresses. Its pages sparkled with Black was investigated here in con - follow its own a new brand of ultra-right journalism: nection with the same takeover bid for pay equity laws neoconservatism with cleavage. possible violations of our securities laws. Two staff investigators of the On - Targeting the powerless tario Securities Commission recom - If the Post had a target, it was never the mended the commission lay a total of establishment, but rather the power - 26 securities charges against Black, less. I recall how the Post, under Black, Norcen and president Edward Battle. came out guns blazing against a court But the decision whether to lay the decision favouring a group of secre - charges was in the hands of the com - taries, file clerks and librarians who had mission’s eight-member board, who waged a lengthy battle against the fed - were all well-connected members of the eral government for failing to follow its Canadian financial elite. In the end, own pay equity laws. The Post fear - they decided not to prosecute one of lessly called for a total repeal of pay their own. Having been cleared by the equity laws, to prevent this sort of fair - establishment, Black went on bankroll ness from ever intruding into the Cana - a newspaper that loudly trumpeted the dian workplace again. That’ll show rights of the affluent, while posing as a those uppity girls. scrappy upstart taking on the estab - So much was Black part of the Cana - lishment. CT dian establishment that he managed to escape legal problems here for years, Linda McQuaig’s new book is Holding and would have likely escaped them The Bully’s Coat: Canada and the US entirely, had the U.S. authorities not Empir e. A shorter version of this essay eventually caught up with him. was published in the Toronto Star.

August 2007 | The READER 41 LAWLESS AGENCY THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF THE CIA BY CHALMERS JOHNSON

This essay is a he American people may not form of due process of law. review of Legacy know it but they have some se - The possibility that CIA funds are of Ashes: The vere problems with one of their simply being ripped off by insiders is History of the official governmental entities, also acute. The CIA's former number CIA by Tim tThe Central Intelligence Agency. Because three official, its executive director and Weiner of the almost total secrecy surrounding chief procurement officer, Kyle “Dusty” (Doubleday, its activities and the lack of cost ac - Foggo, is now under federal indictment 702 pp., $27.95) counting on how it spends the money in San Diego for corruptly funneling covertly appropriated for it within the contracts for water, air services, and ar - defense budget, it is impossible for cit - mored vehicles to a lifelong friend and izens to know what the CIA's approxi - defense contractor, Brent Wilkes, who mately 17,000 employees do with, or was unqualified to perform the serv - for, their share of the yearly $44 billion- ices being sought. In return, Wilkes $48 billion or more spent on “intelli - treated Foggo to thousands of dollars' gence.” This inability to account for worth of vacation trips and dinners, anything at the CIA is, however, only and promised him a top job at his com - one problem with the Agency and pany when he retired from the CIA. hardly the most serious one either. Thirty years ago, in a futile attempt here are currently at least two crim - to provide some check on endemic mis - inal trials underway in Italy and Ger - behavior by the CIA, the administration many against several dozen CIA offi - of Gerald Ford created the President's cials for felonies committed in those Intelligence Oversight Board. It was to countries, including kidnapping people be a civilian watchdog over the Agency. with a legal right to be in Germany and A 1981 executive order by President Italy, illegally transporting them to Ronald Reagan made the board per - countries such as Egypt and Jordan for manent and gave it the mission of iden - torture, and causing them to “disap - tifying CIA violations of the law (while pear” into secret foreign or CIA-run keeping them secret in order not to en - prisons outside the U.S. without any danger national security). Through five

42 The READER | August 2007 LAWLESS AGENCY

previous administrations, members of ementary information about Iraq be - Corrupt and the board – all civilians not employed fore the 2003 invasion of that country. undemocratic by the government – actively reported practices by on and investigated some of the CIA's Declassified CIA records the CIA have most secret operations that seemed to Tim Weiner's book, Legacy of Ashes, is prevailed since breach legal limits. important for many reasons, but cer - it was created However, on July 15, 2007, John tainly one is that it brings back from the in 1947 Solomon of the Washington Post re - dead the possibility that journalism can ported that, for the first five-and-a-half actually help citizens perform elemen - years of the Bush administration, the tary oversight on our government. Un - Intelligence Oversight Board did noth - til Weiner's magnificent effort, I would ing – no investigations, no reports, no have agreed with Seymour Hersh that, questioning of CIA officials. It evidently in the current crisis of American gover - found no reason to inquire into the in - nance and foreign policy, the failure of terrogation methods Agency operatives the press has been almost complete. employed at secret prisons or the trans - Our journalists have generally not even fer of captives to countries that use tor - tried to penetrate the layers of secrecy ture, or domestic wiretapping not war - that the executive branch throws up to ranted by a federal court. ward off scrutiny of its often illegal and Who were the members of this non- incompetent activities. This is the first oversight board of see-no-evil, hear-no- book I've read in a long time that doc - evil, speak-no-evil monkeys? The board uments its very important assertions in now in place is led by former Bush eco - a way that goes well beyond asking nomic adviser Stephen Friedman. It in - readers merely to trust the reporter. cludes Don Evans, a former commerce Weiner, a New York Times corre - secretary and friend of the President, spondent, has been working on Legacy former Admiral David Jeremiah, and of Ashes for 20 years. He has read over lawyer Arthur B. Culvahouse. The only 50,000 government documents, mostly thing they accomplished was to express from the CIA, the White House, and the their contempt for a legal order by a State Department. He was instrumen - president of the United States. tal in causing the CIA Records Search Corrupt and undemocratic practices Technology (CREST) program of the by the CIA have prevailed since it was National Archives to declassify many of created in 1947. However, as citizens we them, particularly in 2005 and 2006. He have now, for the first time, been given has read more than 2,000 oral histories a striking range of critical information of American intelligence officers, sol - necessary to understand how this situ - diers, and diplomats and has himself ation came about and why it has been conducted more than 300 on-the- so impossible to remedy. We have a record interviews with current and past long, richly documented history of the CIA officers, including ten former di - CIA from its post-World War II origins rectors of central intelligence. Truly ex - to its failure to supply even the most el - ceptional among authors of books on

August 2007 | The READER 43 LAWLESS AGENCY

As an idea, the CIA, he makes the following claim: and his resulting book are monuments if not an actual “This book is on the record – no anony - to serious historical research in our al - entity, the mous sources, no blind quotations, no legedly “open society.” Still, he warns, Central hearsay.” “While I was gathering and obtain - Intelligence Weiner's history contains 154 pages of ing declassification authorization for Agency came end-notes keyed to comments in the some of the CIA records used in this into being text. (Numbered notes and standard book at the National Archives, the as a result of scholarly citations would have been agency [the CIA] was engaged in a se - December 7, preferable, as well as an annotated bib - cret effort to reclassify many of those 1941, when the liography providing information on same records, dating back to the 1940s, Japanese where documents could be found; but flouting the law and breaking its word. attacked the what he has done is still light-years Nevertheless, the work of historians, U.S. naval base ahead of competing works.) These archivists, and journalists has created a at Pearl Harbor notes contain extensive verbatim quota - foundation of documents on which a tions from documents, interviews, and book can be built.” oral histories. Weiner also observes: “The CIA has reneged on pledges made Surprise attacks by three consecutive directors of central As an idea, if not an actual entity, the intelligence – [Robert] Gates, [James] Central Intelligence Agency came into Woolsey, and [John] Deutch – to de - being as a result of December 7, 1941, classify records on nine major covert ac - when the Japanese attacked the U.S. tions: France and Italy in the 1940s and naval base at Pearl Harbor. It function - 1950s; North Korea in the 1950s; Iran in ally came to an end, as Weiner makes 1953; Indonesia in 1958; Tibet in the 1950s clear, on September 11, 2001, when oper - and 1960s; and the Congo, the Domini - atives of al-Qaeda flew hijacked airlin - can Republic, and Laos in the 1960s.” ers into the World Trade towers in He is nonetheless able to supply key Manhattan and the Pentagon in Wash - details on each of these operations from ington, DC. Both assaults were success - unofficial, but fully identified, sources. ful surprise attacks. In May 2003, after a lengthy delay, The Central Intelligence Agency itself the government finally released the was created during the Truman admin - documents on President Dwight D. istration in order to prevent future sur - Eisenhower's engineered regime change prise attacks like Pearl Harbor by un - in Guatemala in 1954; most of the covering planning for them and so records from the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco forewarning against them. On Septem - in which a CIA-created exile army of ber 11th, 2001, the CIA was revealed to Cubans went to their deaths or to be a failure precisely because it had prison in a hapless invasion of that is - been unable to discover the al-Qaeda land have been released; and the re - plot and sound the alarm against a sur - ports on the CIA's 1953 overthrow of prise attack that would prove almost as Iranian prime minister Mohammad devastating as Pearl Harbor. After 9/11, Mossadeq were leaked. Weiner's efforts the Agency, having largely discredited

44 The READER | August 2007 LAWLESS AGENCY

itself, went into a steep decline and fin - study that documented the coordina - From the very ished the job. Weiner concludes: “Un - tion and communications failings lead - beginning, der [CIA Director George Tenet's] lead - ing up to Pearl Harbor. (Entitled Pearl the Agency ership, the agency produced the worst Harbor: Warning and Decision, it was failed to do body of work in its long history: a spe - declassified and published by Stanford what President cial national intelligence estimate titled University Press in 1962.) Truman ‘Iraq's Continuing Programs for expected Weapons of Mass Destruction.'” It is The legacy of the OSS of it, turning at axiomatic that, as political leaders lose The National Security Act of 1947 cre - once to “cloak- faith in an intelligence agency and quit ated the CIA with emphasis on the and-dagger” listening to it, its functional life is over, word “central” in its title. The Agency projects that even if the people working there con - was supposed to become the unifying were clearly tinue to report to their offices. organization that would distill and write beyond its In December 1941, there was suffi - up all available intelligence, and offer it mandate and cient intelligence on Japanese activities to political leaders in a manageable only imperfectly for the U.S. to have been much better form. The Act gave the CIA five func - integrated into prepared for a surprise attack. Naval tions, four of them dealing with the col - any grand Intelligence had cracked Japanese lection, coordination, and dissemina - strategy of the diplomatic and military codes; radar tion of intelligence from open sources as U.S. government stations and patrol flights had been au - well as espionage. It was the fifth func - thorized (but not fully deployed); and tion – lodged in a vaguely worded pas - strategic knowledge of Japanese past sage that allowed the CIA to “perform behaviors and capabilities (if not of in - such other functions and duties related tentions) was adequate. The FBI had to intelligence affecting the national se - even observed the Japanese consul-gen - curity as the National Security Council eral in Honolulu burning records in his may from time to time direct” – that backyard but reported this information turned the CIA into the personal, secret, only to Director J. Edgar Hoover, who unaccountable army of the president. did not pass it on. From the very beginning, the Agency Lacking was a central office to col - failed to do what President Truman ex - late, analyze, and put in suitable form pected of it, turning at once to “cloak- for presentation to the president all U.S. and-dagger” projects that were clearly government information on an impor - beyond its mandate and only imper - tant issue. In 1941, there were plenty of fectly integrated into any grand strategy signals about what was coming, but the of the U.S. government. Weiner stresses U.S. government lacked the organiza - that the true author of the CIA's clan - tion and expertise to distinguish true destine functions was George Kennan, signals from the background “noise” of the senior State Department authority day-to-day communications. In the on the Soviet Union and creator of the 1950s, Roberta Wohlstetter, a strategist idea of “containing” the spread of com - for the Air Force's think tank, the munism rather than going to war with RAND Corporation, wrote a secret (“rolling back”) the USSR.

August 2007 | The READER 45 LAWLESS AGENCY

They also Kennan had been alarmed by the central intelligence (DCI) from 1966 to passionately ease with which the Soviets were set - 1973 (who died in 2002). The great pro - believed that ting up satellites in Eastern Europe and tagonist of cloak-and-dagger work was they were he wanted to “fight fire with fire.” Oth - Frank Wisner, the CIA's director of op - people with a ers joined with him to promote this erations from 1948 until the late 1950s self-appointed agenda, above all the veterans of the when he went insane and, in 1965, com - mission of Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a unit mitted suicide. Wisner never had any world-shaking that, under General William J. “Wild patience for espionage. importance and Bill” Donovan during World War II, had Weiner quotes William Colby, a fu - that, as a result, sent saboteurs behind enemy lines, dis - ture DCI (1973-1976), on this subject. they were seminated disinformation and propa - The separation of the scholars of the re - beyond the ganda to mislead Axis forces, and tried search and analysis division from the normal legal to recruit resistance fighters in occu - spies of the clandestine service created restraints placed pied countries. two cultures within the intelligence on government On September 20, 1945, Truman had profession, he said, “separate, unequal, officials abolished the OSS – a bureaucratic vic - and contemptuous of each other.” That tory for the Pentagon, the State De - critique remained true throughout the partment, and the FBI, all of which con - CIA's first 60 years. sidered the OSS an upstart orga- By 1964, the CIA's clandestine service nization that impinged on their respec - was consuming close to two-thirds of tive jurisdictions. Many of the early its budget and 90% of the director's leaders of the CIA were OSS veterans time. The Agency gathered under one and devoted themselves to consolidat - roof Wall Street brokers, Ivy League ing and entrenching their new vehicle professors, soldiers of fortune, ad men, for influence in Washington. They also newsmen, stunt men, second-story passionately believed that they were men, and con men. They never learned people with a self-appointed mission to work together – the ultimate result of world-shaking importance and that, being a series of failures in both intelli - as a result, they were beyond the nor - gence and covert operations. In January mal legal restraints placed on govern - 1961, on leaving office after two terms, ment officials. President Eisenhower had already From its inception the CIA has la - grasped the situation fully. “Nothing bored under two contradictory concep - has changed since Pearl Harbor,” he tions of what it was supposed to be told his director of central intelligence, doing, and no president ever succeeded Allen Dulles. “I leave a legacy of ashes in correcting or resolving this situation. to my successor.” Weiner, of course, Espionage and intelligence analysis seek draws his title from Eisenhower's to know the world as it is; covert action metaphor. It would only get worse in seeks to change the world, whether it the years to come. understands it or not. The best CIA ex - The historical record is unequivocal. emplar of the intelligence-collecting The United States is ham-handed and function was Richard Helms, director of brutal in conceiving and executing clan -

46 The READER | August 2007 LAWLESS AGENCY

destine operations, and it is simply no for these serious inadequacies, the CIA Typically, in the good at espionage; its operatives never turned increasingly to signals intelli - early 1950s, have enough linguistic and cultural gence and other technological means the Agency knowledge of target countries to recruit of spying like U-2 reconnaissance air - dropped millions spies effectively. The CIA also appears craft and satellites. In 1952, the top lead - of dollars worth to be one of the most easily penetrated ers of the CIA created the National Se - of gold bars, espionage organizations on the planet. curity Agency – an eavesdropping and arms, two-way From the beginning, it repeatedly lost cryptological unit – to overcome the radios, and its assets to double agents. Agency's abject failure to place any agents into Typically, in the early 1950s, the spies in North Korea during the Ko - Poland to Agency dropped millions of dollars rean War. The Agency debacle at the support what worth of gold bars, arms, two-way ra - Bay of Pigs in Cuba led a frustrated its top officials dios, and agents into Poland to support Pentagon to create its own Defense In - believed was what its top officials believed was a telligence Agency as a check on the mil - a powerful powerful Polish underground move - itary amateurism of the CIA's clandes - Polish ment against the Soviets. In fact, Soviet tine service officers. underground agents had wiped out the movement Still, technological means, whether movement years before, turned key people in it satellite spying or electronic eavesdrop - against into double agents, and played the CIA ping, will seldom reveal intentions – the Soviets for suckers. As Weiner comments, not and that is the raison d'être of intelli - only had five years of planning, various gence estimates. As Haviland Smith, agents, and millions of dollars “gone who ran operations against the USSR in down the drain,” but the “unkindest the 1960s and 1970s, lamented, “The only cut might have been [the Agency's] dis - thing missing is – we don't have any - covery that the Poles had sent a chunk thing on Soviet intentions. And I don't of the CIA's money to the Communist know how you get that. And that's the Party of Italy.” [pp. 67-68] charter of the clandestine service [em - The story would prove unending. On phasis in original, pp. 360-61]).” February 21, 1994, the Agency finally The actual intelligence collected was discovered and arrested Aldrich Ames, just as problematic. On the most impor - the CIA's chief of counterintelligence tant annual intelligence estimate for the Soviet Union and Eastern Eu - throughout the Cold War – that of the rope, who had been spying for the Soviet order of battle – the CIA invari - USSR for seven years and had sent in - ably overstated its size and menace. numerable U.S. agents before KGB fir - Then, to add insult to injury, under ing squads. Weiner comments, “The George H. W. Bush's tenure as DCI Ames case revealed an institutional (1976-77), the agency tore itself apart carelessness that bordered on criminal over ill-informed right-wing claims that negligence.” [p. 451] it was actually underestimating Soviet military forces. The result was the ap - The search for technological means pointment of “Team B” during the Ford Over the years, in order to compensate presidency, led by Polish exiles and neo -

August 2007 | The READER 47 LAWLESS AGENCY

The CIA's conservative fanatics. It was tasked to we've made over the years. Relatively incessant, “correct” the work of the Office of Na - none. . . . Ideally, what had been sup - almost always tional Estimates. posed was that . . . serious intelligence misguided, “After the Cold War was over,” writes analysis could.... assist the policy side to attempts to Weiner, “the agency put Team B's find - reexamine premises, render policymak - determine how ings to the test. Every one of them was ing more sophisticated, closer to the re - other people wrong.” [p. 352] But the problem was ality of the world. Those were the large should govern not simply one of the CIA succumbing ambitions which I think were never re - themselves . . . to political pressure. It was also struc - alized.” [p. 353] combined to tural: “[F]or thirteen years, from On the clandestine side, the human pepper the Nixon's era to the dying days of the costs were much higher. The CIA's in - world with Cold War, every estimate of Soviet cessant, almost always misguided, at - blowback strategic nuclear forces overstated [em - tempts to determine how other people movements phasis in original] the rate at which should govern themselves; its secret against the Moscow was modernizing its weap- support for fascists (e.g., Greece under United States onry.” [p. 297] George Papadopoulos), militarists (e.g., From 1967 to 1973, I served as an out - Chile under Gen. Augusto Pinochet), side consultant to the Office of National and murderers (e.g., the Congo under Estimates, one of about a dozen special - Joseph Mobutu); its uncritical support ists brought in to try to overcome the of death squads (El Salvador) and reli - myopia and bureaucratism involved in gious fanatics (Muslim fundamentalists the writing of these national intelligence in Afghanistan) – all these and more ac - estimates. I recall agonized debates over tivities combined to pepper the world how the mechanical highlighting of with blowback movements against the worst-case analyses of Soviet weapons United States. was helping to promote the arms race. Nothing has done more to undercut Some senior intelligence analysts tried the reputation of the United States to resist the pressures of the Air Force than the CIA's “clandestine” (only in and the military-industrial complex. terms of the American people) murders Nonetheless, the late John Huizenga, of the presidents of South Vietnam and an erudite intelligence analyst who the Congo, its ravishing of the govern - headed the Office of National Estimates ments of Iran, Indonesia (three times), from 1971 until the wholesale purge of South Korea (twice), all of the Indochi - the Agency by DCI James Schlesinger in nese states, virtually every government 1973, bluntly said to the CIA's historians: in Latin America, and Lebanon, “In retrospect.... I really do not be - Afghanistan, and Iraq. The deaths from lieve that an intelligence organization in these armed assaults run into the mil - this government is able to deliver an lions. After 9/11, President Bush asked honest analytical product without fac - “Why do they hate us?” From Iran ing the risk of political contention. . . . I (1953) to Iraq (2003), the better question think that intelligence has had rela - would be, “Who does not?” tively little impact on the policies that

48 The READER | August 2007 LAWLESS AGENCY

The Cash Nexus to power as Japan's prime minister (in The CIA There is a major exception to this por - office 1957-1960), the country's World ultimately spent trait of long-term Agency incompe - War II minister of munitions. It ulti - at least $65 tence. “One weapon the CIA used with mately used its financial muscle to en - million on Italy's surpassing skill,” Weiner writes, “was trench the (conservative) Liberal Dem - politicians – cold cash. The agency excelled at buy - ocratic Party in power and to turn including ing the services of foreign politicians.” Japan into a single-party state, which it “every Christian [p. 116] It started with the Italian elec - remains to this day. The cynicism with Democrat tions of April 1948. The CIA did not yet which the CIA continued to subsidize who ever won have a secure source of clandestine “democratic” elections in Western Eu - a national money and had to raise it secretly from rope, Latin America, and East Asia, election in Italy” Wall Street operators, rich Italian- starting in the late 1950s, led to disillu - Americans, and others. sionment with the United States and a “The millions were delivered to Ital - distinct blunting of the idealism with ian politicians and the priests of which it had waged the early Cold War. Catholic Action, a political arm of the Another major use for its money was Vatican. Suitcases filed with cash a campaign to bankroll alternatives in changed hands in the four-star Hassler Western Europe to Soviet-influenced Hotel. . . . Italy's Christian Democrats newspapers and books. Attempting to won by a comfortable margin and influence the attitudes of students and formed a government that excluded intellectuals, the CIA sponsored literary communists. A long romance between magazines in Germany (Der Monat) the [Christian Democratic] party and and Britain (Encounter), promoted ab - the agency began. The CIA's practice of stract expressionism in art as a radical purchasing elections and politicians alternative to the Soviet Union's social - with bags of cash was repeated in Italy ist realism, and secretly funded the pub - – and in many other countries – for the lication and distribution of over two next twenty-five years.” [p. 27] and a half million books and periodi - The CIA ultimately spent at least $65 cals. Weiner treats these activities million on Italy's politicians – including rather cursorily. He should have con - “every Christian Democrat who ever sulted Frances Stonor Saunders' indis - won a national election in Italy.” [p. 298] pensable The Cultural Cold War: The As the Marshall Plan to reconstruct Eu - CIA and the World of Arts and Letters. rope got up to speed in the late 1940s, the CIA secretly skimmed the money it Hiding incompetence needed from Marshall Plan accounts. Despite all this, the CIA was protected After the Plan ended, secret funds from criticism by its impenetrable se - buried in the annual Defense appropri - crecy and by the tireless propaganda ation bill continued to finance the CIA's efforts of such leaders as Allen W. operations. Dulles, director of the Agency under After Italy, the CIA moved on to President Eisenhower, and Richard Bis - Japan, paying to bring Nobusuke Kishi sell, chief of the clandestine service after

August 2007 | The READER 49 LAWLESS AGENCY

Perhaps the Wisner. Even when the CIA seemed to after 2003, one of the constant laments most comical fail at everything it undertook, writes was that the CIA did not have access to of all CIA Weiner, “The ability to represent failure a single agent inside Saddam Hussein's clandestine as success was becoming a CIA tradi - inner circle. That was not true. Ironi - activities tion.” [p. 58] cally, the intelligence service of France – – unfortunately After the Chinese intervention in the a country U.S. politicians publicly lam - all too typical Korean War, the CIA dropped 212 for - basted for its failure to support us – of its covert eign agents into Manchuria. Within a had cultivated Naji Sabri, Iraq's foreign operations over matter of days, 101 had been killed and minister. Sabri told the French agency, the last 60 years the other 111 captured – but this infor - and through it the American govern - – was the spying mation was effectively suppressed. The ment, that Saddam Hussein did not it did in 1994 CIA's station chief in Seoul, Albert R. have an active nuclear or biological on the newly Haney, an incompetent army colonel weapons program, but the CIA ignored appointed and intelligence fabricator, never sus - him. Weiner comments ruefully, “The American pected that the hundreds of agents he CIA had almost no ability to analyze ambassador claimed to have working for him all re - accurately what little intelligence it to Guatemala, ported to North Korean control officers. had.” [pp. 666-67, n. 487] Marilyn McAfee Haney survived his incredible per - Perhaps the most comical of all CIA formance in the Korean War because, at clandestine activities – unfortunately the end of his tour in November 1952, he all too typical of its covert operations helped to arrange for the transportation over the last 60 years – was the spying of a grievously wounded Marine lieu - it did in 1994 on the newly appointed tenant back to the United States. That American ambassador to Guatemala, Marine turned out to be the son of Marilyn McAfee, who sought to pro - Allen Dulles, who repaid his debt of mote policies of human rights and jus - gratitude by putting Haney in charge of tice in that country. Loyal to the mur - the covert operation that – despite a derous Guatemalan intelligence service, largely bungled, badly directed secret the CIA had bugged her bedroom and campaign – did succeed in overthrow - picked up sounds that led their agents ing the Guatemalan government of to conclude that the ambassador was President Jacobo Arbenz in 1954. The having a lesbian love affair with her CIA's handiwork in Guatemala ulti - secretary, Carol Murphy. The CIA sta - mately led to the deaths of 200,000 tion chief “recorded her cooing endear - civilians during the 40 years of blood - ments to Murphy.” The agency spread shed and civil war that followed the the word in Washington that the liberal sabotage of an elected government for ambassador was a lesbian without re - the sake of the United Fruit Company. alizing that “Murphy” was also the Weiner has made innumerable con - name of her two-year-old black stan - tributions to many hidden issues of dard poodle. The bug in her bedroom postwar foreign policy, some of them had recorded her petting her dog. She still on-going. For example, during the was actually a married woman from a debate over America's invasion of Iraq conservative family. [p. 459]

50 The READER | August 2007 LAWLESS AGENCY

Back in August 1945, General William Guard, Marine Corps, Navy, and the The CIA has Donovan, the head of the OSS, said to Defense Intelligence Agency – and re - failed badly, President Truman, “Prior to the present flect inter-service rivalries more than and it would war, the United States had no foreign national needs or interests; the depart - be an important intelligence service. It never has had and ments of Energy, Homeland Security, step toward does not now have a coordinated intel - State, Treasury, and Drug Enforcement a restoration ligence system.” Weiner adds, “Trag- Administration, as well as the FBI and of the checks ically, it still does not have one.” I agree the National Security Agency; and the and balances with his assessment, but based on his units devoted to satellites and recon - within our truly analysis of the Central Intelligence naissance (National Geospatial Intelli - political system Agency in Legacy of Ashes, I do nott gence Agency, National Reconnaissance simply to think that this is a tragedy. Given his ev - Office). The only one of these units that abolish it idence, it is hard to believe that the could conceivably compete with the United States would not have been bet - CIA is the one that I recommend to re - ter off if it had left intelligence collection place it – namely, the State Depart - and analysis to the State Department ment's Bureau of Intelligence and Re - and had assigned infrequent covert ac - search (INR). Interestingly enough, it tions to the Pentagon. had by far the best record of any U.S. I believe that this is where we stand intelligence entity in analyzing Iraq un - today: The CIA has failed badly, and it der Saddam Hussein and estimating would be an important step toward a what was likely to happen if we pur - restoration of the checks and balances sued the Bush administration's miscon - within our political system simply to ceived scheme of invading his country. abolish it. Some observers argue that Its work was, of course, largely ignored this would be an inadequate remedy by the Bush-Cheney White House. because what the government now os - Weiner does not cover every single tentatiously calls the “intelligence com - aspect of the record of the CIA, but his munity” – complete with its own web - book is one of the best possible places site – is composed of 16 discrete and for a serious citizen to begin to under - competitive intelligence organizations stand the depths to which our govern - ready to step into the CIA's shoes. This, ment has sunk. It also brings home the however, is a misunderstanding. Most lesson that an incompetent or un - of the members of the so-called intelli - scrupulous intelligence agency can be as gence community are bureaucratic ap - great a threat to national security as pendages of well-established depart - not having one at all. CT ments or belong to extremely technical units whose functions have nothing at Chalmers Johnson's latest book is Nem- all to do with either espionage or cloak- esis: The Last Days of the American and-dagger adventures. Republic (Metropolitan Books, 2007). It The sixteen entities include the intel - is the third volume of his Blowback ligence organizations of each military Trilogy, which includes Blowback and service – the Air Force, Army, Coast The Sorrows of Empire.

August 2007 | The READER 51 WHERE’S HOME? WHEN WILL YOU TEACH THIS LAD ENGLISH? BY HUSSEIN AL-ALAK

Some historians he recent terror attacks on England, where certain areas are be - have also London and Glasgow, by an al - lieved to have once been called “Ara - claimed that leged Al-Qaida-linked group of bia”. Eastern troops medical workers, has led many The BBC reported in June that dur - for the Roman tTo question the causes behind the at - ing the first world war, “In 1916 the Mil - Empire, also tack but has also raised questions in itary Cross was awarded to a captain in lived and settled relation to the issues of migrant integra - the Royal Welch Fusiliers for “conspic - around the tion within the United Kingdom. uous gallantry during a raid on the en - North East of The attack has been condemned but emy’s trenches”. The citation noted that England, where the question that has been missed by he had braved “rifle and bomb fire” and certain areas many, is in relation to the historical ori - that “owing to his courage and deter - are believed to gins, which many Arab “subjects” actu - mination, all the killed and wounded have once been ally come from. were brought in”. called “Arabia” Charlotte Higgins, the arts corre - The “captain” and “hero” in question spondent for London’s Guardian news - was the celebrated poet and author paper reported last year that a Roman Siegfried Sassoon, whose words are document dated from around AD400 central to English literature and whose and called the Notitia Dignitatum, de - real life experience, within the trenches scribed how a unit of Iraqis (from an - of France, was immortalised in the “fac - cient Mesopotamia) were said to have tional” novel “The Regeneration Tril - patrolled the English northern area of ogy” by author Pat Barker. what is now called South Shields. It is often forgotten that Siegfried Higgins explained that “While Sassoon’s family were Sephardic Jews, British soldiers battle it out in Iraq, who had flourished originally within spare a thought for this: troops from Iraq and his grandfather was the first of Iraq once occupied Britain.” Some his - his family to have arrived in England in torians have also claimed that Eastern 1858 and had come to the country as a troops for the Roman Empire, also lived result of the cotton trade. and settled around the North East of In his 2004 paper “The Arab Popula -

52 The READER | August 2007 WHERE’S HOME?

tion in the UK,” Dr Ismail al-Jalili ex - the family based around the Ashington In the early plained that about 500,000 Arabs are Colliery, which was opened in 1867 and 1900’s, my own now resident in the UK and that “In the closed in 1986. relatives lived 19th century, Yemeni seamen called Las - According to the Durham Mining and worked cars sailed with British ships and many Museum, the Ashington Colliery em - around coal stayed to work in the docks and re - ployed an estimated 2343 “under mining in the lated industries, or the burgeoning rail ground” workers in 1902, with the num - North East network. ber rising to 3997 in 1914. The number of England, “London’s East End, Tyneside, Liver - then rose again in 1921 to 4076. one part of pool and Cardiff became centres of Like many other trades, the mines the family small Arab communities. By 1948 there were a central feature to many commu - based around were nearly a thousand Arabs in Tyne - nities across the northern parts of the Ashington side, some marrying local women, thus United Kingdom, where entire genera - Colliery, which giving birth to the “British-Arab” iden - tions of men would virtually be born was opened in tity that many native-born British- and raised within a mining community 1867 and closed Arabs, especially those of mixed ances - and would later follow their fathers, in 1986 try, are now establishing.” uncles, brothers etc back down into the The paper also explained “the tradi - pits. My great-grandfather died of tional trading skills of Syrians and pneumoconiosis in the 1920’s, when my Lebanese brought them to ‘Cottonopo - grandmother was still a child, which lis’ – Manchester.” was caused by the inhalation of coal Albert Hourani, the Arab historian dust as a result of being down the and author of “A History of the Arab mines. Peoples,” was born in Manchester in I remember in the early 1990’s at my 1915. His book, published in 1991, has grandmother’s funeral in Manchester, been described by Harvard University her elderly brother and my great uncle, Press as being “the definitive story of who later died in the year 2000, patting Arab civilization,” which became upon me on the head and asking my mother publication “an instant classic.” “when will you teach this lad English?” It has been said on the online ency - Protesting that I already speak Eng - lopedia “Wikipedia” that “Hourani lish, my relatives from the North East of trained more academic historians of the England began to laugh as my mother modern Middle East than any other explained, that according to my uncle, university historian of his generation. who was born and bred in Newcastle, Today his students can be found on the “you will only be Englishman when you faculties of Oxford, Cambridge, Har - speak like a Geordie”. CT vard, Yale, Columbia, MIT, Hebrew University and the University of Haifa, Hussein Al-alak is a British born Iraqi among others.” writer whose articles have been pub - In the early 1900’s, my own relatives lished by The Morning Star, Palestine lived and worked around coal mining in Chronicle, The UN Observer and the the North East of England, one part of Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq.

August 2007 | The READER 53 MEETING CONYERS HE’S NO MARTIN LUTHER KING BY RAY M cGOVERN

As we began hat do Rep. John Conyers As we began our discussion with our discussion (D, Michigan), chair of Conyers, it was as though he thought with Conyers, the House Committee on we were “born yesterday,” as Harry it was as the Judiciary, and Presi - Truman would put it. With feigned en - though he dWent George W. Bush have in common? thusiasm he began, Let’s hold a Town thought we They both think they can dis Cindy Hall meeting in Detroit so we can talk were “born Sheehan and count on gossip colum - about impeachment. Get out my sche- yesterday,” as nists like the Washington Post’s Dana dule; let’s see, we need to hear from Harry Truman Milbank to trivialize an historic mo - everyone about this. would put it ment. Been there, done that, I reminded I’ll give this to President Bush. He the congressman. On May 29, 2007 Col. makes no pretence when he disses. He Ann Wright and I were among those would not meet with Sheehan to define who flew to Detroit for a highly adver - for her the “noble cause” for which her tised Town Hall meeting on impeach - son Casey died or tell her why he had ment, because we were assured that said it was “worth it.” John Conyers would be there. Conyers, on the other hand, was That Town Hall/panel discussion dripping with pretence as he met with was arranged by the Michigan chapter Sheehan, Rev. Lennox Yearwood, and of the National Lawyers Guild less than me in July in his office in the Rayburn two weeks after the Detroit City Coun - building. I have seldom been so disap - cil passed a resolution, cosponsored by pointed with someone I had previously Conyers’ wife Monica Conyerscalling held in high esteem. And before leaving, for the impeachment of Bush and Vice I told him so. Throwing salt in our President Dick Cheney. We had hoped wounds, he had us, and some fifty oth - that Monica’s clear vision and courage ers in his anteroom arrested and taken might be contagious. out of action as the Capitol Police I had to remind the congressman “processed” us for the next six hours. that he did not show up for the Town

54 The READER | August 2007 MEETING CONYERS

Hall, preferring to put in a cameo ap - need 218 votes in the House and com - I mentioned my pearance and quickly leave a half-hour plained that the votes are not there. career as a CIA before it began. His priorities showed through in his analyst, said Apparently, that incident was of such loud lament that if he fell short of the there is little consequence to the congressman 218 votes, the Republicans and FOX abundant proof, that he had completely forgotten about News would have a field day. much of it it and was about to try to resort to the documentary, same subterfuge. And that was less Frightened by FOX that Bush and than two months ago. Small wonder, There was no getting through to Cony - Cheney had then, that he has apparently forgotten ers, who seemed astonished at the di - deliberately the oath he took, much longer ago, to rect questions we were posing. While deceived protect and defend the Constitution of reflecting on this later, a dictum of my Congress into the United States from all enemies, for - father, also a prominent lawyer began approving a war eign and domestic. to ring in my ears; to wit: “When you of aggression, Selective Alzheimer’s? I don’t know. reach the age of ‘statutory senility,’ you and asked what What was clear was that he had forgot - do everyone a favor if you retire.” He could be more ten a whole lot. I pointed to James followed his own advice when he re - subversive of the Madison’s role in crafting a Constitution tired as Chancellor of the Board of Re - Constitution that mentions impeachment no fewer gents of the University of the State of than six times. (And for those, like John New York, long before senility – statu - Conyers, who may have forgotten, tory, or otherwise – set in for him. Madison had this to say at the consti - Septuagenarian Conyers and, for tutional convention, “A President is im - that matter, 80 year-old Senator John peachable if he attempts to subvert the Warner (R-Virginia) who also seems to Constitution.) I mentioned my career as have forgotten his sworn duty to up - a CIA analyst, said there is abundant hold the Constitution would do well to proof, much of it documentary, that ponder my father’s dictum. (As for the Bush and Cheney had deliberately de - “distinguished” senior senator from ceived Congress into approving a war of Commonwealth of Virginia, you may aggression, and asked what could be recall that, as head of the Senate Armed more subversive of the Constitution. Services Committee, he caved in to The congressman’s reply: Madison White House pressure to let the Penta - did not say Conyers has to impeach gon investigate itself regarding the every one. Why, if I had to impeach abuses at Abu Graib and elsewhere – everyone for high crimes and misde - letting lower ranking soldiers take the meanors, that’s all my committee hit for doing what then-defense secre - would have time to do. I remember tary Donald Rumsfeld had made clear from Rhetoric 101 the name of that de - he wanted done. At that low point, vice: reductio ad absurdum. surely groaning could be heard from How about just Bush and Cheney? James Madison’s resting place in Mont - we suggested. pelier at the disdain in which successor Conyers protested that he would Virginians – however “distinguished”

August 2007 | The READER 55 MEETING CONYERS

You’re no – hold his beloved Constitution. Sorry, have several. Martin Luther but I am a Virginian. And I feel this But the real challenge is to look King, I found keenly. O Tempora, O Mores! ) AHEAD. What are Bush/Cheney likely to myself wanting do in the coming months if the impeach - to say. Instead, Attempted trading on King ment process does NOT begin? I quoted a Toward the end of our meeting with One often hears, Oh, they will do what portion of Conyers, he showed uncommon chutz - they want anyway, impeachment process Dr. King’s pah in referring to Dr. Martin Luther or not. Not true. If we the people and our famous address King, Jr. That was too much for me. representatives in Congress choose the at Riverside You’re no Martin Luther King, I found course given us by our Founders and im - Church almost myself wanting to say. Instead, I quoted peachment proceedings begin, important 40 years ago a portion of Dr. King’s famous address swaths of our body politic AND military at Riverside Church almost 40 years will be less likely to follow illegal orders ago: from the White House. These important “We must speak with all the hu - constituencies will become sensitized to mility that is appropriate to our the peril into which this administration limited vision, but we must has brought us and to the extra-constitu - speak.... there is such a thing as be - tional orders they may be asked to carry ing too late.... Life often leaves us out. standing bare, naked, and dejected NEW ELEMENT: Even the Scaif- with lost opportunity.... Over the owned newspapers have begun to ques - bleached bones of numerous civi - tion Bush’s MENTAL STABILITY. lizations are written the pathetic What could be more important at this words: ‘Too late.’” juncture? We Veteran Intelligence Professionals I used that quote in a letter I left for Sanity (VIPS) have been applying all with Conyers’ aides, in which I tried to of our analytical techniques to assess the express why my colleagues in Veteran Bush/Cheney administration. We have Intelligence Professionals for Sanity feel helped to establish the long record of it is URGENT to find some way to ap - abuses and usurpations of the past. What ply the Constitution to restrain a run- about the future? away Executive. Iraq is going to hell in a hand basket. A Here is the text of that letter: Tet-type incident becomes more and more likely. The Green Zone is being hit by July 23, 2007 mortar fire more frequently than before. It A Note to Congressman John Conyers: may be just a matter of time before the On Impeachment and the Edmund Resistance gets lucky and lobs a shell onto Pettus Bridge our spanking new $600-million embassy, Dear John, killing a bunch of Americans in the We each have our favored crime for process. which President Bush and Vice President What then? Will Cheney tell the pres - Cheney should be impeached. Many of us ident the US military has found Iranian

56 The READER | August 2007 MEETING CONYERS

markings on the shell fragments and we that Dr. Frank is drafting for issuance un - Dr. Frank noted need to retaliate...and, actually, while der VIPS auspices: we are “dealing we’re at it, let’s implement Plan A and hit George W. Bush is without con - with a all Iranian nuclear-related facilities. With science...and destructive, willfully so. He potentially Congress voting resolution after resolu - has always liked to break things...most cornered man tion against Iran, how would the presi - shocking is the way he is breaking our [who] could dent react to such a suggestion from Ch - armed forces. lash out, and it eney? He doesn’t care about others, is indif - is possible that Many of us intelligence analysts have ferent to their suffering...He is almost con - the best way found utility in relying, in part, on short stitutionally missing the ability to sympa - would be to studies applying psychoanalysis to develop thize or empathize...More indifferent to bomb Iran . . . profiles of foreign leaders. (This marriage reality than out of touch with it, he makes Whatever the of psychoanalysis and intelligence work up whatever story he wants. root causes of actually goes back to the early 1940s, when Ultimately, he is psychologically unsta - Bush’s the OSS commissioned such studies on ble...His goal is to destroy things [and he pathology, Hitler.) We called them “at-a-distance can do that] without experiencing anxiety we have a personality assessments.” or a sense of responsibility. An equally dangerous man Three years ago Justin Frank, M.D., a important goal is to protect himself from running things psychiatrist here in Washington, wrote a shame, from being wrong, from being . . . grandiose book “Bush on the Couch” in which he found small and weak. and unchecked” provided keen insights into the president’s So what do we do? mode of thinking – or not thinking. At a similarly critical juncture, Dr. King Eager to use every tool at our disposal, was typically direct: “We must speak with VIPS recently asked Dr. Frank to update all the humility that is appropriate to our his observations, with a view to forecast - limited vision, but we must speak.... there ing, to the extent possible, how Bush is is such a thing as being too late.... Life of - likely to react to the building pressures of ten leaves us standing bare, naked, and the coming weeks and months. We will is - dejected with lost opportunity.... Over the sue, perhaps as early as this week, Dr. bleached bones of numerous civilizations Frank’s latest analysis, fortified by our are written the pathetic words: ‘Too late.’” own input. But we already have his pre - There is today another Edmund Pettus liminary analysis; there is no other word Bridge to cross, John. And it has fallen to for it: Scary. you to lead us across. In a quick note to us this morning [July With respect, 23], Dr. Frank noted we are “dealing with Ray McGovern CT a potentially cornered man [who] could lash out, and it is possible that the best Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst from way would be to bomb Iran.... Whatever the administration of John F. Kennedy the root causes of Bush’s pathology, we to that of George H. E. Bush. have a dangerous man running things...grandiose and unchecked.” An earlier version of this article Some snippets from the Memorandum appeared on Consortiumnews.com

August 2007 | The READER 57 GUTLESS MEDIA NO WONDER THE BLOGGERS ARE WINNING BY ROBERT FISK

Arax’s genocide despise the internet. It’s irresponsi - the very precursor to the later Nazi report was ble and, often, a net of hate. And I Holocaust of six million Jews. killed on the don’t have time for Blogopops. But But Arax’s genocide report was killed orders of here’s a tale of two gutless newspa - on the orders of managing editor Dou - managing editor pIers which explains why more and glas Frantz because the reporter had a Douglas Frantz more people are Googling rather than “position on the issue” and “a conflict because the turning pages. of interest”. reporter had First the Los Angeles Times. Last Readers will already have guessed a “position year, reporter Mark Arax was assigned that Arax is an Armenian-American. on the issue” a routine story on the 1915 genocide of His sin, it seems, was that way back in and “a conflict one and a half million Armenians by 2005, he and five other writers wrote a of interest” the Ottoman Turkish authorities. Arax’s formal memo to LA Times editors re - report focused on divisions within the minding them that the paper’s style local Jewish community over whether rules meant that the Armenian geno - to call the genocide a genocide. cide was to be called just that – not “al - It’s an old argument. The Turks insist leged genocide”. Frantz, however, de - – against all the facts and documents scribed the old memo as a “petition” and eyewitness accounts, and against and apparently accused Arax of landing history – that the Armenians were vic - the assignment by dealing with a tims of a civil war. The Israeli govern - Washington editor who was also an Ar - ment and its new, Nobel prize-winning menian. president, Shimon Peres – anxious to The story was reassigned to Wash - keep cosy relations with modern Turkey ington reporter Rich Simon, who con - – have preferred to adopt Istanbul’s centrated on Turkey’s attempt to block mendacious version of events. How - Congress from recognising the Armen - ever, many Jews, both inside and out - ian slaughter – and whose story ran side Israel, have bravely insisted that under the headline “Genocide Resolu - they do constitute a genocide, indeed tion Still Far From Certain”.

58 The READER | August 2007 GUTLESS MEDIA

LA Times executives then went all that’s when their guard is down,” she She compared coy, declining interviews, although told a college newspaper. “It’s a trick, the killer to a Frantz admitted in a blog (of course) but it’s legit.” Yuk! half-Algerian that he had “put a hold” on Arax’s story Wong’s take on the Montreal Daw - Muslim who because of concerns that the reporter son College shooting, however, was murdered “had expressed personal views about more serious. She compared the killer 14 women the topic in a public (sic) manner...”. to a half-Algerian Muslim who mur - in another Ho ho. dered 14 women in another Montreal Montreal college Truth can be dangerous for the LA college shooting in 1989 and to a Russ - shooting in 1989 Times. Even more so, it seems, when ian immigrant who killed four univer - and to a Russian the managing editor himself – Frantz, sity colleagues in Montreal in 1992. “In immigrant no less – once worked for The New all three cases,” she wrote, “the perpe - who killed four York Times, where he referred to the trator was not ‘pure laine’, the argot for university Armenian massacres as, yes, an “al - a ‘pure’ francophone. Elsewhere, to talk colleagues in leged” genocide. Frantz, it turns out, of racial purity is repugnant. Not in Montreal in 1992 joined the LA Times as its Istanbul cor - Quebec.” respondent. Painfully true, I’m afraid. Parisians, Well, Arax has since left the LA who speak real French, would never Times after a settlement which fore - use such an expression – pure laine stalled a lawsuit against the paper for translates literally as “pure wool” but defamation and discrimination. His em - means “authentic” – but some Mon - ployers heaped praise upon his work trealers do. Wong, however, had while Frantz has just left the paper to touched a red hot electric wire in “mul - become Middle East correspondent of ticultural” Canada. Prime Minister the Wall Street Journal based in – of Stephen Harper complained. “Grossly course, you guessed it – Istanbul. irresponsible,” said the man who en - thusiastically continued the policy of “Snitched on class enemies” sending Canadian troops on their suici - But now let’s go north of the border, to dal mission to Afghanistan. the Toronto Globe and Mail, which as - The French-Canadian newspaper Le signed columnist Jan Wong to investi - Devoir – can you imagine a British pa - gate a college murder in Montreal last per selling a single copy if it called itself September. Wong is not a greatly loved “Duty”? – published a cartoon of Wong reporter. A third-generation Canadian, with exaggerated Chinese slanted eyes. she moved to China during Mao’s “cul - Definitely not pure laine for Le Devoir. tural revolution” and, in her own The hate mail was even more to the words, “snitched on class enemies and point. Some contained excrement. did my best to be a good little Maoist.” But then the Globe and Mail ran for She later wrote a “Lunch With” se - cover. Its editor-in-chief, Edward ries for the Globe in which she acted all Greenspon, wrote a cowardly column sympathetic to interviewee guests to in which he claimed that the offending catch them out. “When they relax, paragraphs “should have been re -

August 2007 | The READER 59 GUTLESS MEDIA

Some time ago, moved” from her story. “We regret that that the Canadian paper had simply I discovered we allowed these words to get into a re - stolen the article. They were made to that the paper ported (sic) article,” he sniffled. There pay a penalty fee. But as for the censor - had reprinted had been a breakdown in what he hi - ship of the word “genocide”, a female an article of lariously called “the editorial quality executive explained to The Independ - mine from The control process”. ent that nothing could be done because Independent Now I happen to know a bit about the editor responsible had “since left about the the Globe’s “quality control process”. the Globe and Mail”. Armenian Some time ago, I discovered that the It’s the same old story, isn’t it? Cen - genocide. paper had reprinted an article of mine sor then whinge, then cut and run. No But they had from The Independent about the Ar - wonder the bloggers are winning. CT tampered with menian genocide. But they had tam - it, altering pered with it, altering my word “geno - Robert Fisk’s latest book is The Great my word cide” to read “tragedy”. War for Civilsation: The Conquest of “genocide” to The Independent’s subscribers pro- the Middle East. read “tragedy” mise to make no changes to our re - ports. But when our syndication folk This article was originally published in contacted the Globe, they discovered London’s Independent newspaper

FREE FROM COLDTYPE.NET ROBERT FISK RETURN TO KANDAHAR To mark the anniversary of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and US-led ‘war on terror,’ Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent of London’s Independent returned to Afghanistan where he wrote scathing essays on a bombing offensive to rid the country of its Taliban rulers and Bin Laden’s al-Qa’ida leaders. Download your FREE copy at http://www.coldtype.net/archives.html

60 The READER | August 2007 NO WAY HOME WE’RE LEAVING IRAQ (SORT OF) BY NORMAN SOLOMON

n mid-July, a media advisory from are up for grabs. But there’s not a single It’s a good bet “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” “major” candidate for president willing that American announced a new series of inter - to call for withdrawal of all U.S. forces media and views on the PBS show that will – not just “combat” troops – from Iraq, political Iaddress “what Iraq might look like or willing to call for a complete halt to powerhouses when the U.S. military leaves.” U.S. bombing of that country. would fix the A few days later, Time magazine Those candidates know that pow - wagon of any published a cover story titled “Iraq: erful elites in this country just don’t presidential What will happen when we leave.” want to give up the leverage of an on - campaign that But it turns out, what will happen going U.S. military presence in Iraq, truly advocated when we leave is that we won’t leave. with its enormous reserves of oil and an end to the Urging a course of action that’s now geopolitical value. It’s a good bet that U.S. war in supported by “the best strategic minds American media and political power - – and on – Iraq in both parties,” the Time story calls for houses would fix the wagon of any “an orderly withdrawal of about half presidential campaign that truly advo - the 160,000 troops currently in Iraq by cated an end to the U.S. war in – and the middle of 2008.” And: “A force of on – Iraq. 50,000 to 100,000 troops would dig in The disconnect between public opin - for a longer stay to protect America’s ion and elite opinion has led to reverse most vital interests...” perceptions of a crisis of democracy. As On Iraq policy, in Washington, the war continues, some are appalled at differences between Republicans and the absence of democracy while others Democrats – and between the media’s are frightened by the potential of it. war boosters and opponents – are often From the grassroots, the scarcity of significant. Yet they’re apt to mask the democracy is transparent and outra - emergence of a general formula that geous. For elites, unleashed democracy could gain wide support from the polit - could jeopardize the priorities of the ical and media establishment. military-industrial-media complex. The formula’s details and timelines Converging powerful forces in Wash -

August 2007 | The READER 61 NO WAY HOME

Squadrons of ington – eager to at least superficially scenarios for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. attack planes bridge the gap between grassroots and The game involves dangling illusionary have been added elite priorities – are likely to come up references to “withdrawal” in front of to the in-country with a game plan for withdrawing from the public. fleet. The air Iraq without withdrawing from Iraq. But realities on the ground – and in reconnaissance Scratch the surface of current media the air – are quite different. A recent arm has almost scenarios for a U.S. pullout from Iraq, news dispatch from an air base in Iraq, doubled since and you’re left with little more than by Charles J. Hanley of the Associated last year. speculation – fueled by giant dollops of Press, provided a rare look at the high- The powerful political manipulation. In fact, strategic tech escalation underway. “Away from B1-B bomber leaks and un-attributed claims about the headlines and debate over the has been U.S. plans for withdrawal have emerged ‘surge’ in U.S. ground troops,” AP re - recalled periodically to release some steam from ported on July 14, “the Air Force has to action domestic antiwar pressures. quietly built up its hardware inside Iraq, over Iraq” Nearly three years ago – with dis - sharply stepped up bombing and laid a content over the war threatening to un - foundation for a sustained air campaign dermine President Bush’s prospects for in support of American and Iraqi a second term – the White House ally forces.” Robert Novak floated a rosy scenario in In contrast to the spun speculation his nationally syndicated column that so popular with U.S. media outlets like appeared on Sept. 20, 2004. “Inside the Time and the PBS “NewsHour,” the AP Bush administration policy-making ap - article cited key information: “Squad- paratus, there is strong feeling that U.S. rons of attack planes have been added troops must leave Iraq next year,” he to the in-country fleet. The air recon - wrote. “This determination is not pred - naissance arm has almost doubled since icated on success in implanting Iraqi last year. The powerful B1-B bomber democracy and internal stability. has been recalled to action over Iraq.” Rather, the officials are saying: Ready or This kind of development fits a his - not, here we go.” toric pattern – one that had horrific Novak’s column went on to tell read - consequences during the war in Viet - ers: “Well-placed sources in the admin - nam and, unless stopped, will persist for istration are confident Bush's decision many years to come in Iraq. will be to get out.” Those well-placed Assessing the distant mirror of the sources were, of course, unnamed. And Vietnam War, the narration of the new for good measure, Novak followed up a documentary “War Made Easy” (based month before the November 2004 elec - on my book of the same name) spells tion with a piece that recycled the gist out a classic White House maneuver: of his Sept. 20 column and chortled: “Even when calls for withdrawal have “Nobody from the administration has eventually become too loud to ignore, officially rejected my column.” officials have put forward strategies for This is all relevant history today as ending war that have had the effect of news media are spinning out umpteen prolonging it – in some cases, as with

62 The READER | August 2007 NO WAY HOME

the Nixon administration’s strategy of for the purpose of permanently station - Media outlets Vietnamization, actually escalating war ing U.S. troops in Iraq; therefore any will keep telling in the name of ending it.” base constructed for temporarily sta - us that the U.S. Between mid-1969 and mid-1972, tioning troops, or rotating troops, or government American troop levels dropped sharply anything less than an officially perma - is developing in Vietnam – while the deadly ferocity nent deployment, would still be ac - serious plans of American bombing spiked upward. cepted. Further, the bill says nothing to “leave” Iraq. The presence of large numbers of about the need to decommission the But we would U.S. troops in Iraq during the next years existing U.S. bases already built in Iraq; be foolish to is a likelihood fogged up by fanciful me - it only prohibits ‘establishing’ military believe those dia stories asserting – without tangible installations, implying only new ones tall tales evidence – that American troops will would be prohibited.” “pull out” and the U.S. military will Despite all the talk about how mem - “leave” Iraq. The spin routinely glides bers of Congress have been turning past such matters as the hugely milita - against the war, few are clearly advocat - rized U.S. embassy in Baghdad, the nu - ing a genuine end to U.S. military inter - merous permanent-mode U.S. bases in vention in Iraq. Media outlets will keep Iraq, and the vast array of private-and- telling us that the U.S. government is often-paramilitary contractors at work developing serious plans to “leave” Iraq. there courtesy of U.S. taxpayers. And But we would be foolish to believe there’s the rarely mentioned prize of those tall tales. The antiwar movement massive oil reserves that top officials in has an enormous amount of grassroots Washington keep their eyes on. work to do – changing the political ter - The matter of U.S. bases in Iraq is a rain of the United States from the bot - prime example of how events on Capi - tom up – before the calculus of political tol Hill have scant effects on war ma - opportunism in Washington deter - chinery in the context of out-of-con - mines that it would be more expedient trol presidential power. “The House to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq than voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to keep it going under one guise or an - to bar permanent United States mili - other. CT tary bases in Iraq,” the New York Times reported on July 26. But the war makers The new documentary film War Made in the nation’s capital still hold the whip Easy: How Presidents and Pundits that keeps lashing the dogs of war. Keep Spinning Us to Death is based on As the insightful analyst Phyllis Ben - Norman Solomon’s book of the same ti - nis points out: “The bill states an im - tle. Grassroots activists have begun to portant principle opposing the ‘estab - use the DVD as an antiwar organizing lishment’ of new bases in Iraq and ‘not tool. For information about the to exercise United States control of the full-length movie, narrated by Sean oil resources of Iraq.’ But it is limited in Penn and produced by the Media Edu - several ways. It prohibits only those cation Foundation, go to: bases which are acknowledged to be www.WarMadeEasyTheMovie.org

August 2007 | The READER 63 HUNTING VOTERS RECRUTING TRENCH LIBERALS AND LEFT-NECKS BY JOE BAGEANT

When the espite what Internet liberals well meaning but totally out of touch “Unfair Practices may think, most real working Democrats, who’ve never lived on $8.50 in Credit Cards class Americans, and I mean an hour. The paternalistic attempt of Act” passes the the people who tune up your the bill’s sponsors surely would protect Senate he will DPrius or press your dry cleaning, haven’t future credit card racket victims. not know that given a flying fuck about the Iraq war But Buddy and millions like him will the raising of for the last couple of years now. Not un - be screwed the day it goes into effect by his minimum til recently, when it became pretty clear the new higher minimum payments, payment had we are losing it – losing being the worst and he starts getting calls from people nothing to do possible thing in a society force fed on with an Indian accent regarding all with some well sports and the winner-loser mentality three of his plastic cards. Sometimes meaning but which created the uniquely American Democrats can be as thankful as any totally out of contemptuous epithet, “a loser.” Republican that most working folks touch But now as my friend Buddy, who at don’t examine politics too closely. Democrats, middle age has been reduced to bagging Meanwhile the Republicans, like the who’ve never groceries and “shagging carts” in the Biblical King Balthazar and his court lived on $8.50 parking lot at one of the local Food magicians, are watching in terror the an hour Lion supermarkets says, “If we ain’t los - writing on the wall by the mystic hand: ing, we seem to been over there en - “You’re finished guys. Too many Hal - tirely too long to be winnin’. That’s for liburton and Diebold concubines hath shore.” drank from the golden cup.” Thus the Buddy the bagboy hasn’t the slight - Democratic Party leadership headquar - est notion of how national politics in tered at the Westchester Country Club any way affects his life. And so when will claim credit for many victories in the “Unfair Practices in Credit Cards the next elections, most of which will be Act” passes the Senate he will not handed them by the blowback of the know that the raising of his minimum worst presidency in history. payment had nothing to do with some But that still leaves a lot of pissed off

64 The READER | August 2007 HUNTING VOTERS

ordinary and uninformed Americans to percentage point or two from guys like It is not a case placate on the wreckage of our domes - him, we cannot be beaten, assuming an of working folks tic front. So the party of Roosevelt be - honest election. But first we must care like Buddy gins to dimly understand that now is about the guy with the plumber’s butt crippling the opportunity to re-associate itself rotating our tires and the single mom America, but with populism. The problem is that driving the forklift on the night shift at the American Democratic Party “leadership” has no the big box store warehouse. Once we system crippling notion of what populism means. First do that, we will understand that most working people they ignored real working class people, red state voters are not our adversaries, through neglect then they forgot they existed. but merely among millions of Ameri - But being Democrats, they do un - cans coarsened over the last couple of derstand poverty. And so they offer us generations by toil, ignorance and debt the poorest of the real White House and misled by the worst elements in contenders, the second generation Har - American politics. vard law graduate Barack Obama, who The time is waaaaay overdue to cre - survived on a meager $950,000.00 in ate a force of “trench liberals,” or in the reported income last year. Or John Ed - case of my own people, “leftnecks” – wards, who charges $55,000 to give a gun owning progressives who change speech on poverty. Not that either of their motor own oil – persuasive pop - them couldn’t do a better job than Pres - ulist grassroots organizers. It’ll be hard ident Sparky by simply sitting on their and they won’t be pretty people. Real asses a couple of terms and not making trench liberals and leftnecks must come matters any worse. from the working neighborhoods and be folks who already know the people Neglectied working people they attempt to persuade – they are Buddy voted twice for a president who the most apt to be populists. Such peo - has perhaps crippled America perma - ple do exist; I’ve got hundreds of their nently. Yet it is not a case of working emails to prove it. Meanwhile for liber - folks like Buddy crippling America, but alism, political ignorance, like virgin soil, the American system crippling work - may be the best ground to till. I made a ing people through neglect. The work - special trip to the Food Lion today to ing class of so-called Heartland Amer - get a few more opinions from Buddy to ica gets a very poor education. They close this story (good old elliptical story operate with a sixth grade grasp of his - shape, right?) Sure enough, there he tory and politics and zero understand - was shagging carts. After a couple of ing of the economy. They have been minutes of small talk, I edged over to told all their lives that America is ab - the topic of where to start fixing Amer - solutely the only free and prosperous ica’s broken political system. place to live and that it is the product of “Well,” Buddy answers, “First we’ve divine providence. . got to do something about that Rosie Like it or not, the Democratic Party O’Donnell.” needs Buddy. Standing together, with a Sigh ... It’s gonna be a long haul. CT

August 2007 | The READER 65 THE BIG PICTURE

SLOW MARCH TO A POLICE STATE?: A poster outside a London subway station informs travellers that Big Brother is their new best friend. Britain has more CCTV cameras spying on/looking after (delete whichever you feel least comfortable with) its people than any other country in the world.

66 The READER | August 2007 cold type

WRITING WORTH READING FROM AROUND THE WORLD

http://www.coldtype.net