Show notes from Episode #42 (including stuff I didn't get to on the air).

Locked Up and Left Behind: Hurricane Irene and the Prisoners on New York’s Rikers Island
by Jean Casella and James Ridgeway. solitarywatch.com

Bloomberg annouced a host  of extreme measures being taken by New York City in preparation for the arrival of Hurricane Irene, including a shutdown of the public transit system and the unprecedented mandatory evacuation of some 250,000 people from low-lying areas. But in response to a reporter’s question, the mayor stated in no uncertain terms (and with more than a hint of annoyance) that one group of New Yorkers on vulnerable ground will be staying put.

New York City is surrounded by small islands and barrier beaches, and a glance at the city’s evacuation map reveals all of them to be in Zone A (already under a mandatory evacuation order) or Zone B–all, that is, save one. Rikers Island, which lies in the waters between Queens and the Bronx, is not highlighted at all, meaning it is not to be evacuated under any circumstances.

According to the New York City Department of Corrections’ own website, more than three-quarters of Rikers Island’s 400 acres are built on landfill–which is generally thought to be more vulnerable to natural disasters. Its ten jails have a capacity of close to 17,000 inmates, and normally house at least 12,000, including juveniles and large numbers of prisoners with mental illness–not to mention pre-trial detainees who have yet to be convicted of any crime. There are also hundreds of corrections officers at work on the island.

We were not able to reach anyone at the NYC DOC for comment–but the New York Times‘s City Room blog reported: “According to the city’s Department of Correction, no hypothetical evacuation plan for the roughly 12,000 inmates that the facility may house on a given day even exists. Contingencies do exist for smaller-scale relocations from one facility to another.”

For a warning of what can happen to prisoners in a hurricane we need only look back at Katrina, and the horrific conditions endured by inmates at Orleans Parish Prison in New Orleans. According to a report produced by the ACLU:

    [A] culture of neglect was evident in the days before Katrina, when the sheriff declared that the prisoners would remain “where they belong,” despite the mayor’s decision to declare the city’s first-ever mandatory evacuation. OPP even accepted prisoners, including juveniles as young as 10, from other facilities to ride out the storm.

    As floodwaters rose in the OPP buildings, power was lost, and entire buildings were plunged into darkness. Deputies left their posts wholesale, leaving behind prisoners in locked cells, some standing in sewage-tainted water up to their chests …

Prisoners went days without food, water and ventilation, and deputies admit that they received no emergency training and were entirely unaware of any evacuation plan. Even some prison guards were left locked in at their posts to fend for themselves, unable to provide assistance to prisoners in need.

UPDATE (Saturday midnight): In his final news conference of the day, Mayor Bloomberg defended his decision not to evacuate Rikers Island, stating: “It is higher than the Zone A areas and it’s perfectly safe.” Representatives of the mayor have made further statements to New York Magazine (see update at end) and the Wall Street Journal, also specifying that no part of Rikers Island is in Zone A. Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson went on Twitter to say the same thing. To our knowledge, the mayor’s office still has not clarified what zone, if any, Rikers Island is in, and has not responded to questions regarding the lack of any evacuation plan for the jail.

LIBYA - Resistance to US/NATO Conquest Continues. International Action Center. iacenter.org

Under the most incredibly difficult conditions – including NATO bombing, mercenary landings, Special Forces operations and the destruction of civilian infrastructure – the heroic resistance to imperialist conquest in Libya has continued.

All the corporate media lies claiming mass surrender, the fleeing of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, the arrest of his sons and more have turned out to be nothing but lies and psychological warfare. After 159
days of bombing, incredibly, the residence continues.

The continued resistance also exposes the lie of the so-called democratic “rebel” forces – forces that have been set up by Britain, France and the U.S. to facilitate the imperialist invasion of the oil-rich country. Meanwhile, arms have been distributed by the Libyan government to the whole population – something a hated dictator would never do.

As in Iraq and Afghanistan, an arrogant declaration of U.S. victory and “mission accomplished” does not mean an end to local people's resistance, which takes many forms. The Libyan people have heroically
withstood not only half a year of bombing, but also a hail of racist corporate media propaganda seeking to portray the U.S.-NATO military machine, both preposterously and once again, as great white liberators.

While resistance continues in Libya, we in the center of U.S. imperialism must continue our resistance to the criminal war there –even as the prolonged economic war against poor and oppressed people
continues within the U.S.

An IAC-organized truth tour featuring former Congressperson Cynthia McKinney – who traveled to Libya to be an eyewitness to the U.S.-NATO attack – has built major opposition meetings in 21 cities
across the country. At each meeting, which was undertaken by a local coalition of forces, hundreds of anti-war and anti-imperialist and community activists attended.

These meetings against U.S. war in Libya have been the largest series of anti-war meetings held in years. At the same time, the IAC has been in the streets, organizing protests across the country.

The U.S. war in Libya is a first aggressive step in the expansion of wars of colonial conquest in Africa. It means new U.S. threats against Sudan and Somalia. It means more belligerent targeting of other
countries in Middle East, especially Syria and Iran.

Seattle's Low Income Housing Institute Poisons then Steals from the Homeless. seasol.net

On Monday, August 29th at 12 noon, Seattle Solidarity Network, seasol.net,  will be picketing the Low Income Housing Institute.

George B had been living for months in a building owned and managed by the Low Income Housing Institute.  When a new neighbor started cooking crack in the unit next door, the smells came in through the
ventilation severely affected his health.  For months George felt dizzy, nauseous, light-headed and sick while living in his own home.

George's repeated requests to the building manager for assistance fell on deaf ears.  He eventually tried calling the police.  After months of no help from building managment or the police, George decided he
would have a better living situation at a local senior men's shelter; where he has been staying since.

As requested, George sent in a written statement with his intention to move out a month in advance.  As requested, he cleaned his unit and took his belongings with him.  He was ready to move on with his life
and continue taking computer networking classes at Seattle Central. Weeks later he was surprised to receive a bill from the non-profit stating that he owed them money. They also wrote that they were more
than ready to take balance of $40.50 to a collection agency. 

George feels this bogus cleaning fee is in revenge for him bringing police attention to the building.  He is worried how this will effect his credit while looking for new housing.

George tried to do things by the book but he is now ready to fight back with SeaSol. They will, once again, be picketing outside of the LIHI offices in order to pressure them to pay back George's deposit, advanced rent, and drop the ridiculous cleaning fees and warning possible renters and the public of LIHI's abusive management practices

High Levels of Radiation Detected in Northwest Rainwater. King5.com

A Seattle nuclear watchdog group is accusing the federal government of failing to keep the public informed of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

In the days following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the U.S. began monitoring radiation from Japan's leaking nuclear power plants.Most of the public attention went to the air monitoring which showed little or no radiation coming our way. But things were different on the rain water side.

"The level that was detected on March 24 was 41 times the drinking water standard," said Gerry Pollet from Heart of America Northwest. He reviewed Iodine 131 numbers released by the Environmental Protection Agency last spring. "Our government said no health levels, no health levels were exceeded.When in fact the rain water in the Northwest is reaching levels 130 times the drinking water standards," said Pollet.

Elevated rain water samples were collected in Portland, Olympia and Boise, which had the highest.But EPA officials say the data was there for anyone to read on their website. A spokesman sent this statement, in part:

"Since Iodine 131 has a very short half-life of approximately eight days, the levels seen in rainwater were expected to be relatively short in duration."

State health agencies added that they constantly monitored public drinking water sources and never found levels even approaching the unhealthy range.

Even the watchdog group admits, watering plants with water exposed only briefly to those levels is unlikely to cause health problems.

But they say it's information the public deserves to know about.

The EPA points out this was a brief period of elevated radiation in rainwater, and says safe drinking water standards are based on chronic exposure to radiation over a lifetime.

US buys most expensive drones ever. globalresearch.ca

With $14 trillion in the hole and a slew of wars seemingly no one wants America to be in, what better way for the United States to spend their money by putting $23 billion into spy planes?

The US will drop billions on defense spending with the purchasing of 55 Global Hawk drone planes over the next few years. Each of the four dozen-plus spy crafts comes at a price tag of $218 million apiece — ten times the price of the largest armed attack drone.

Global Hawk drones are capable of flying twice as high as commercial aircraft and can spot insurgents up to 100 miles away. Once identified, the robotic crafts that are controlled from 24-hour command stations can then send images to intelligence centers or directly to troops.

The Global Hawk drones will replace the U-2 spy planes that the States currently deploys, which the US has relied on since the dawn of the Cold War. Sending unmanned aircrafts into warzones, while grossly expensive, comes as an attempt to limit fatalities by avoiding putting extra troops into danger. Though relying on on-board navigation, those U-2 flyers have proved effective over the last half-century, recently assisting in operations in Afghanistan

A team of 50 engineers will slave over the construction of the Global Hawk drones in a Palmdale, California warehouse.

The US Air Force will invest $12 billion towards the initiative, with the Navy offering almost as much to have their own versions of the Global Hawks.

And, in case you didn’t hear, lawmakers just spent months trying to figure out how to keep the country from defaulting. The town of Central Falls, Rhode Island (the entire town) is currently in bankruptcy court, and the most populous county in Alabama is expected to join them in the coming weeks.

New legislation in the US threatens to conflate campus criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.
Sami Kishawi.The Electronic Intifada. electronicintifada.net

A number of new initiatives to curtail freedom of speech by conflating opposition to Israeli crimes with anti-Semitism are underway in the United States and Canada.

The Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism (CPCCA) issued a report in early July recommending the adoption of strict new standards defining anti-Semitism and the types of speech and campus activities that would violate them.

Its report urged the Canadian government to adopt the European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia’s definition of anti-Semitism (“Report on the Inquiry Panel,” 7 July 2011 [PDF]).



That definition suggests that any questioning of whether Israel has the right to exist as a state that privileges Jews over people of other religions or ethnic backgrounds amounts to anti-Semitism.

Though the Canadian group is not linked to the Ottawa government, it has 22 parliamentarians as members. Activities it deems as anti-Semitic and, therefore, calls to be banned, include events such as the Israeli Apartheid Week that was founded in Toronto and now takes place on college campuses internationally every March.

The Canadian report is just the latest attempt at stifling public discourse about Israel. Free speech and the unimpeded exchange of ideas are also under attack on America’s college campuses. Pro-Israel supporters have targeted federal funding for academic institutions, including support for research and academic conferences, under the pretext that criticism of Israel is “hate speech.”

Federal authorities from the Office of Civil Rights with the US Department of Education are investigating charges of anti-Semitism against the University of California Santa Cruz, as well as at other institutions within the California university system, according to published reports. These are the first investigations taking place since Title VI of the Civil Rights Act was re-interpreted in October 2010, allowing Jewish students, as members of a religious group, to claim discrimination under a provision that previously applied only to racial and ethnic bigotry.

A “dear colleague” letter issued by the Office of Civil Rights in October 2010 said that discrimination against a student who is a member of a religious group violates Title VI when the discrimination is based on the group’s “actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics … or when it is based upon the student’s actual or perceived citizenship or residency in a country whose residents share a dominant religion or a distinct religious identity,” David Thomas, a US Department of Education spokesman, explained by email.

Major pro-Israel organizations such as the Zionist Organization of America and the Anti-Defamation League have lobbied for this re-interpretation for years. Title VI now can be applied to Jewish students who claim universities create hostile campus environments if they allow pro-Palestinian events or even class lectures critical of Israeli policies.

In other words, since Israel bills itself as a Jewish state, of which all Jews everywhere are automatic citizens, Jewish students can file complaints of anti-Semitism and discrimination based upon their perceived ethnicity and citizenship or residency in a country that has a “dominant religion.”

Dr. Hatem Bazian, a Palestinian-American professor of Near Eastern and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, who co-founded the Students for Justice in Palestine there in 1993, takes issue with the amended understanding of Title VI. While he agrees that Jewish students, as well as Muslim students, should be protected from discrimination based on their religious identity under Title VI, he believes the reinterpretation is actually being used to silence debate about Israel.

“Attempts to silence opposition to the illegal Israeli occupation and policies is un-American and amounts to political and academic censorship,” Bazian said via email. (Bazian is also the chairman of American Muslims for Palestine, the organization with which this writer is employed).

The Title VI reinterpretation and the subsequent case against Santa Cruz is part of a growing trend of stifling of protected political speech on college campuses. Several lecturers and professors have been censured and even denied tenure because they openly criticized Israeli policies or advocated for Palestinian rights.

Perhaps the most widely publicized cases are those of former DePaul University professor Norman Finkelstein and North Carolina State University professor Terri Ginsberg, both of whom were not given tenure because of their open criticism of Israeli policies in 2007 and 2008, respectively. Ginsberg initiated legal action against North Carolina State and her case is currently on appeal.

The new interpretation has rejuvenated a 29-page complaint brought against the University of California Santa Cruz in June 2009 by lecturer Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, the contents of which have been kept secret by the Department of Education and university officials.

On 13 April, American Muslims for Palestine filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the complaint with the San Francisco Office of Civil Rights. Federal authorities declined the request on 22 April, saying that supplying the complaint would “constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” and that it could “reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings,” both of which are listed as exemptions under the federal FOIA statute.

What is so troubling in the University of California Santa Cruz investigation is that the amended interpretation is being applied retroactively to Rossman-Benjamin’s complaint, which she filed more than one year before the October 2010 “dear colleague” letter. No one contacted from the university or the Department of Education would discuss how an institution can be held liable for something that was not considered to be a violation at the time it occurred.

“[The Office of Civil Rights] received the UC-Santa Cruz complaint … on 25 June 2009,” Thomas wrote in an email to American Muslims for Palestine. “On 7 March 2011, OCR formally notified the university and the complainant that OCR was opening for investigation the allegations that a hostile environment existed for Jewish students at the university in 2009 in violation of Title VI and that the university had notice of the hostile environment but did not have a process to adequately respond to hostile environment complaints.”

Thomas failed to respond to American Muslims for Palestine’s direct question about how the new interpretation could be applied retroactively, though it was posed three times in three separate emails on 13 and 15 April.

Jim Burns, a University of California Santa Cruz spokesman, also would not address that issue and instead referred it back to the Department of Education’s civil rights office. He did tell American Muslims for Palestine in an email, however, that the Office of Civil Rights is reviewing a complaint that “speech on campus that is critical of Israel creates a hostile environment for Jewish students.”

“We believe that [the Office of Civil Rights’] investigation will ultimately conclude that [the University of California Santa Cruz] diligently enforces laws, policies and practices that protect our students’ civil rights. But we also believe that our review of the matter with OCR will provide us with an opportunity to examine our relevant policies and practices to ensure that is the case,” he added.

If federal investigators find a university to be in violation of Title VI and the institution does not remedy the situation satisfactorily it could lose federal funding. This is a worst-case scenario to be sure, but it is one that seemingly threatens the open exchange of ideas on college campuses.

“While some of the recent allegations … might well raise a claim under Title VI, many others simply seek to silence anti-Israel discourse and speakers. This approach is not only unwarranted under Title VI, it is dangerous,” Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Presidents (AAUP), and Kenneth Stern of the American Jewish Committee, wrote recently in an open letter on AAUP’s website.

“The purpose of a university is to have students wrestle with ideas with which they may disagree, or even better, may make them uncomfortable. To censor ideas is to diminish education, and to treat students as fragile recipients of ‘knowledge,’ rather than young critical thinkers,” they added.

American Muslims for Palestine’s Hatem Bazian said the implications of the re-interpretation go far beyond free speech in the classroom and at extra-curricular events. Funding for scholarly research and academic conferences that bring up “legitimate criticism of Israel” may be at stake, he said.

“The new interpretation will directly, first and foremost, impact those who administer Title VI funding, and they for sure will be more hesitant and will engage in self-censorship in funding research or activities that are critical of Israel,” Bazian said.

Indeed, the Anti-Defamation League was one of 12 national organizations that urged the Department of Education to amend its Title VI interpretation. It may have just been a co-signer in that battle but the ADL has taken the lead in many high-profile cases to stifle free speech and public debate in its hundred-year history.

In March, the ADL, along with the American Jewish Committee and the Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council, protested an academic conference at the UC Hastings College of the Law in March entitled “Litigating Palestine: Can Courts Secure Palestinian Rights?” Their protest was so effective the university board voted to remove its name and endorsement for the event and it prevented university Chancellor Frank Wu from making opening remarks.

Writing about the incident in the San Francisco Chronicle, Cecilie Surasky, deputy director of Jewish Voice for Peace, stated that “Perhaps for the first time in US history, there is an aggressive challenge to a one-sided narrative that covers up or justifies ongoing Israeli repression of Palestinians” (“Pressure on law conference threatens free speech,” 21 April 2011).

Surasky added, “The center of that challenge is on campuses, which is why those who have traditionally adopted knee-jerk defenses of Israeli policies are attempting to stigmatize or shut down alternative viewpoints.”

The same threats of losing federal funding because of an “anti-Semitic and hostile environment” are being leveled at Rutgers University in New Jersey, thanks in large part to a 15-page letter written to the university by Zionist Organization of America President Morton Klein, and copied to the state’s governor, its US senators and representatives and other officials.

These recent moves, according to Surasky, “suggest that legitimate criticism of Israeli policy is being conflated with anti-Semitism. If this is allowed to happen, then serious debate on Israel’s illegal actions in the Palestinian territories will be shut down.”

Rossman-Benjamin’s complaint against University of California Santa Cruz could very well be a test case under the new interpretation of Title VI. The reinterpretation, when viewed against the backdrop of professors being censured or denied tenure because of their political views, could have an adverse affect on the free exchange of ideas on college campuses at a time when debate and concrete examinations of US foreign policy in the Middle East is needed more than ever.

Editor’s note: this article originally stated that Dr. Hatem Bazian founded the Students for Justice in Palestine at University of California, Berkeley in 2001. It has been corrected to reflect that he co-founded the SJP in 1993.

U.$./NATO Begin The Recolonization of Africa.

Refuting Juan Cole: The Myth of Libyan Liberation. by Conn Hallnan. 
CounterPunch.org

In his essay, “Top Ten Myths about the Libyan War,” Juan Cole argues that U.S. interests in the conflict consisted of stopping “massacres of people,” a “lawful world order,” “the NATO alliance,” and oddly, “the fate of Egypt.” It is worth taking a moment to look at each of these arguments, as well as his dismissal of the idea that the U.S./NATO intervention had anything to do with oil as “daft.”

Massacres are bad things, but the U.S. has never demonstrated a concern for them unless its interests were at stake. It made up the “massacre” of Kosovo Albanians in order to launch the Yugoslav War, and ended up acquiring one of the largest U.S. bases in the world, Camp Bond Steel. It has resolutely ignored the massacre of Palestinians and Shiites in Bahrain because it is not in Washington’s interests to concern itself with those things. Israel is an ally, and Bahrain hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet. Cole accepts the fact that Qaddafi would have “massacred” his people, but his evidence for that is thin, and he chooses to completely ignore the deaths and casualties resulting from the NATO bombing.

The U.S. is interested in a “lawful world order.” That would certainly come as a surprise to the Palestinians, the Shiites in the Gulf, and peasants in Colombia who suffer the deprivations of death squads aided by the U.S.  (see the Washington Post story of 8/20/11) etc. The U.S, supports international law when it is in its interests to do so, undermines it when it is not, and ignores it when it is inconvenient. I wish Cole were correct but he is not. The record speaks for itself.

Okay, spot on for the NATO alliance, which is exactly the problem.  Africa has increasingly become a chess piece in a global competition for resources and cheap labor. It is no accident that the U.S. recently formed an African Command (Africom)—the Libyan War was the organization’s coming out party—and is training troops in countries that border the Sahara. It is already intervening in Somalia, and a recent story in the New York Times about an “al-Qaeda threat” in Northern Nigeria should send a collective chill down all our spines. NATO has already “war gamed” the possibility of intervention in the Gulf of Guinea to insure oil supplies in the advent of “civil disturbances” that might affect the flow of energy resources.

NATO represents western economic and political interests, which rarely coincide with the interests of either the alliance’s own people, or those of the countries it occupies. The Libyan intervention sets a very dangerous precedent for the entire continent, which is why the African Union opposed it. Who will be next?

Ummm, Egypt? Certainly the U.S. has “a deep interest in the fate of Egypt,” which ought to scare hell out of the Egyptians. But overthrowing Qaddafi was important because he had “high Egyptian officials on his payroll”? Is Cole seriously suggesting that Libya’s 6.4 million people have anything to do with determining the fate of 83 million Egyptians?

Opposition to the Libyan War is not based on supporting Qaddafi, although Cole’s portrait of the man is one-sided. For instance, Libya played an important role in financing the African Bank, thus allowing African nations to avoid the tender mercies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Libya also financed a continent-wide telecommunications system that saved African countries hundreds of millions of dollars by allowing them to bypass western-controlled networks.  He also raised living standards. This does not make him a good guy, but it does say that Libya’s role in Africa cannot be reduced to simply “sinister.”

Lastly, the charge that this was about Libya’s oil is “daft”? Libya is the largest producer of oil in Africa, and the 12^th largest in the world. Its resources are very important for NATO’s European allies, and over the past several years there has been competition over these supplies.

The Chinese have made major investments. During the war China, Russia, and Brazil supported the African Union’s call for a ceasefire and talks, and pointed out that UN Resolution 1973 did not call for regime change. One of the first statements out of the Transitional National Council following Qaddafi’s collapse was that China, Russia and Brazil were going to be sidelined in favor of French, Spanish, and Italian companies. Quid pro quo?

The war was not just over oil, but how can anyone dismiss the importance of energy supplies at a time of worldwide competition over their control?  The U.S. is currently fighting several wars in a region that contains more than 65 percent of the world’s oil supplies. Does he think this is a coincidence? 

Sure, the companies that invested in Libya will take some initial losses, but does Cole think those Libyans beholden to NATO for their new positions will drive a hard bargain with the likes of Total SA and Repso when it comes to making deals? If I were those companies I would see the war as a very lucrative investment in futures. In any case, when the U.S., China, and Russia are locked in a bitter worldwide battle over energy resources, to dismiss the role of oil in the Libyan War is, well, daft.

Special Forces are taking over the U.S. military. Africom is increasingly active on the continent. NATO has just finished its first intervention in Africa. With Qaddafi gone, every country that borders the Mediterranean is now associated with NATO, essentially turning this sea into an alliance lake. This is not a good thing.

The Libyan Soldier: The True Heroes of NATO’s War. A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

The story is not over – not by a long shot – but the saga of the Libyan resistance to the superpower might of the United States and its degenerate European neocolonial allies will surely occupy a very special place in history. For five months, beginning March 19, the armed forces of a small country of six million people dared to defy the most advanced weapons systems on the planet, on terrain with virtually no cover, against an enemy capable of killing whatever could be seen from the sky or electronically sensed. 

Night and day, the eyes of the Euro-American war machine looked down from space on the Libyan soldiers’ positions, with the aim of incinerating them. And yet, the Libyan armed forces maintained their unit integrity and personal honor, with a heroism reminiscent of the loyalist soldiers of the Spanish Republic under siege by German, Italian and homegrown fascists, in the late 1930s.

The Germans and Italians and Generalissimo Franco won that war, just as the Americans, British, French and Italians may ultimately overcome the Libyan army. But they cannot convey honor or national legitimacy to their flunkies from Benghazi, who have won nothing but a badge of servitude to foreign overseers. 

The so-called rebels won not a single battle, except as walk-ons to a Euro-American military production. They are little more than extras for imperial theater, a mob that traveled to battle under the protective umbrella of American full spectrum dominance of the air. They advanced along roads already littered with the charcoal-blackened bodies of far better men, who died challenging Empire.

One thing is sure: the Americans and Europeans have never respected their servants. The so-called rebels of Libya will be no different. Washington, Paris and London know perfectly well that is was their 18,000 aircraft sorties, their cruise missiles, their attack helicopters, their surveillance satellites and drones, their command and control systems, their weapons, and their money, that managed to kill or wound possibly half the Libyan army. Not the rabble from Benghazi. 

The rebels should not take too seriously being fawned over by the ridiculous hordes of corporate media tourists that have come to Tripoli to record the five-month war's finale. They are highly paid cheerleaders. And, although it may appear that they are cheering for the rebels, don't be fooled – at the end of the day, the western corporate media only cheer for their own kind. They are celebrating what they believe is a victory over the Libyan demon they have helped to construct in their countrymen's minds. Next year, rebel, that demon might be you.

Or next year, it might be many Libyans, including those who were no friends of Col. Moammar Gaddafi. The Americans treat their native minions like children in need of supervision – and there is a certain logic to this, since whoever would entrust his nation's sovereignty and resources to the Americans is, surely, either exceedingly stupid, or hopelessly corrupt. But Libya's honor and her place in history has already been secured by a small African army that held out nearly half a year against the NATO barbarians. For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.

 The Truth About the Situation in Libya: Cutting through the government propaganda and media lies.

By Brian Becker, National Coordinator, ANSWER Coalition

Libya is a small country of just over 6 million people but it possesses the largest oil reserves in all of Africa. The oil produced there is especially coveted because of its particularly high quality. 

The Air Force of the United States along with Britain and France has carried out 7,459 bombing attacks since March 19. Britain, France and the United States sent special operation ground forces and commando units to direct the military operations of the so-called rebel fighters – it is a NATO- led army in the field. 

The troops may be disaffected Libyans but the operation is under the control and direction of NATO commanders and western commando units who serve as “advisors.” Their new weapons and billions in funds come from the U.S. and other NATO powers that froze and seized Libya’s assets in Western banks. Their only military successes outside of Benghazi, in the far east of the country, have been exclusively based on the coordinated air and ground operations of the imperialist NATO military forces.

In military terms, Libya’s resistance to NATO is of David and Goliath proportions. U.S. military spending alone is more than ten times greater than Libya’s entire annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which was $74.2 billion in 2010, according to the CIA’s World Fact Book.

In recent weeks, the NATO military operations used surveillance-collecting drones, satellites, mounting aerial attacks and covert commando units to decapitate Libya’s military and political leadership and its command and control capabilities. Global economic sanctions meant that the country was suddenly deprived of income and secure access to goods and services needed to sustain a civilian economy over a long period.

“The cumulative effect [of NATO’s coordinated air and ground operation] not only destroyed Libya’s military infrastructure but also greatly diminished Colonel Gaddafi’s commanders to control forces, leaving even committed fighting units unable to move, resupply or coordinate operations,“ reports the New York Times in a celebratory article on August 22.

A False Pretext

The United States, United Kingdom, France, and Italy targeted the Libyan government for overthrow or “regime change” not because these governments were worried about protecting civilians or to bring about a more democratic form of governance in Libya.

If that were the real motivation of the NATO powers, they could start the bombing of Saudi Arabia right away. There are no elections in Saudi Arabia. The monarchy does not even allow women to drive cars. By law, women must be fully covered in public or they will go to prison. Protests are rare in Saudi Arabia because any dissent is met with imprisonment, torture and execution.

The Saudi monarchy is protected by U.S. imperialism because it is part of an undeclared but real U.S. sphere of influence and it is the largest producer of oil in the world. 

The U.S. attitude toward the Saudi monarchy was put succinctly by Ronald Reagan in 1981, when he said that the U.S. government “will not permit” revolution in Saudi Arabia such as the 1979 Iranian revolution that removed the U.S. client regime of the Shah. Reagan’s message was clear: the Pentagon and CIA’s military forces would be used decisively to destroy any democratic movement against the rule of the Saudi royal family. Reagan’s explicit statement in 1981 has in fact been the policy of every successive U.S. administration, including the current one.

Libya and Imperialism

Libya, unlike Saudi Arabia, did have a revolution against its monarchy. As a result of the 1969 revolution led by Muammar Gaddafi, Libya was no longer in the sphere of influence of any imperialist country.

Libya had once been an impoverished colony of Italy living under the boot heel of the fascist Mussolini. After the Allied victory in World War II, control of the country was formally transferred to the United Nations and Libya became independent in 1951 with authority vested in the monarch King Idris.

But in actuality, Libya was controlled by the United States and Britain until the 1969 revolution.

One of the first acts of the 1969 revolution was to eliminate the vestiges of colonialism and foreign control. Not only were oil fields nationalized but Gaddafi eliminated foreign military bases inside the country.

In March of 1970, the Gaddafi government shut down two important British military bases in Tobruk and El Adem. He then became the Pentagon’s enemy when he evicted the U.S. Wheelus Air Force Base near Tripoli that had been operated by the United States since 1945. Before the British military took control in 1943, the facility was a base operated by the Italians under Mussolini. Wheelus had been an important Strategic Air Command (SAC) base during the Cold War, housing B-52 bombers and other front-line Pentagon aircrafts that targeted the Soviet Union.

Once under Libyan control, the Gaddafi government allowed Soviet military planes to access the airfield. In 1986, the Pentagon heavily bombed the base at the same time it bombed downtown Tripoli in an effort to assassinate Gaddafi. That effort failed but his 2-year-old daughter died along with scores of other civilians.

The Character of the Gaddafi Regime

The political, social and class orientation of the Libyan regime has gone through several stages in the last four decades. The government and ruling establishment reflected contradictory class, social, religious and regional antagonisms. The fact that the leadership of the NATO-led National Transition Council is comprised of top officials of the Gaddafi government, who broke with the regime and allied themselves with NATO, is emblematic of the decades-long instability within the Libyan establishment.

These inherent contradictions were exacerbated by pressures applied to Libya from the outside. The U.S. imposed far-reaching economic sanctions on Libya in the 1980s. The largest western corporations were barred from doing business with Libya and the country was denied access to credit from western banks. In its foreign policy, Libya gave significant financial and military support to national liberation struggles, including in Palestine, Southern Africa, Ireland and elsewhere.

Because of Libya's economic policies, living standards for the population had jumped dramatically after 1969. Having a small population and substantial income from its oil production, augmented with the Gaddafi regime’s far-reaching policy of social benefits, created a huge advance in the social and economic status for the population. Libya was still a class society with rich and poor, and gaps between urban and rural living standards, but illiteracy was basically wiped out, while education and health care were free and extensively accessible. By 2010, the per capita income in Libya was near the highest in Africa at $14,000 and life expectancy rose to over 77 years, according to the CIA’s World Fact Book.

Gaddafi’s political orientation explicitly rejected communism and capitalism. He created an ideology called the “Third International Theory,” which was an eclectic mix of Islamic, Arab nationalist and socialist ideas and programs. In 1977, Libya was renamed the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. A great deal of industry, including oil, was nationalized and the government provided an expansive social insurance program or what is called a welfare state policy akin to some features prevalent in the Soviet Union and some West European capitalist countries.

But Libya was not a workers’ state or a “socialist government” to use the popular if not scientific use of the term “socialist.” The revolution was not a workers and peasant rebellion against the capitalist class per se. Libya remained a class society although class differentiation may have been somewhat obscured beneath the existence of revolutionary committees and the radical, populist rhetoric that emanated from the regime. 

As in many developing, formerly colonized countries, state ownership of property was not “socialist” but rather a necessary fortification of an under-developed capitalist class. State property in Iraq, Libya and other such post-colonial regimes was designed to facilitate the social and economic growth of a new capitalist ruling class that was initially too weak, too deprived of capital and too cut off from international credit to compete on its own terms with the dominant sectors of world monopoly capitalism. The nascent capitalist classes in such developing economies promoted state-owned property, under their control, in order to intersect with Western banks and transnational corporations and create more favorable terms for global trade and investment.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the “socialist bloc” governments of central and Eastern Europe in 1989-91 deprived Libya of an economic and military counter-weight to the United States, and the Libyan government’s domestic economic and foreign policy shifted towards accommodation with the West. In the 1990s some sectors of the Libyan economic establishment and the Gaddafi-led government favored privatization, cutting back on social programs and subsidies and integration into western European markets.

The earlier populism of the regime incrementally gave way to the adoption of neo-liberal policies. This was, however, a long process. In 2004, the George W. Bush administration ended sanctions on Libya. Western oil companies and banks and other corporations initiated huge direct investments in Libya and trade with Libyan enterprises. There was also a growth of unemployment in Libya and in cutbacks in social spending, leading to further inequality between rich and poor and class polarization.

But Gaddafi himself was still considered a thorn in the side of the imperialist powers. They want absolute puppets, not simply partners, in their plans for exploitation. The Wikileaks release of State Department cables between 2007 and 2010 show that the United states and western oil companies were condemning Gaddafi for what they called “resource nationalism.” Gaddafi even threatened to re-nationalize western oil companies’ property unless Libya was granted a larger share of the revenue for their projects.

As an article in today’s New York Times Business section said honestly: “"Colonel Qaddafi proved to be a problematic partner for the international oil companies, frequently raising fees and taxes and making other demands. A new government with close ties to NATO may be an easier partner for Western nations to deal with."

Even the most recent CIA Fact Book publication on Libya, written before the armed revolt championed by NATO, complained of the measured tempo of pro-market reforms in Libya: “Libya faces a long road ahead in liberalizing the socialist-oriented economy, but initial steps— including applying for WTO membership, reducing some subsidies, and announcing plans for privatization—are laying the groundwork for a transition to a more market-based economy.” (CIA World Fact Book)

The beginning of the armed revolt on February 23 by disaffected members of the Libyan military and political establishment provided the opportunity for the U.S. imperialists, in league with their French and British counterparts, to militarily overthrow the Libyan government and replace it with a client or stooge regime.

Of course, in the revolt were workers and young people who had many legitimate grievances against the Libyan government. But what is critical in an armed struggle for state power is not the composition of the rank-and-file soldiers, but the class character and political orientation of the leadership.

Character of the National Transition Council

The National Transitional Council (NTC) constituted itself as the leadership of the uprising in Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city. The central leader is Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, who was Libya’s Minister of Justice until his defection at the start of the uprising. He was one of a significant number of Western-oriented and neoliberal officials from Libya’s government, diplomatic corps and military ranks who joined the opposition in the days immediately after the start of the revolt. 

As soon as it was established, the NTC began issuing calls for imperialist intervention. These appeals became increasing panicky as it became clear that, contrary to early predictions that the Gaddafi-led government would collapse in a matter of days, it was the “rebels” who faced imminent defeat in the civil war. In fact, it was only due to the U.S./NATO bombing campaign, initiated with great hurry on March 19 that the rebellion did not collapse. 

The last five months of war have erased any doubt about the pro-imperialist character of the NTC. One striking episode took place on April 22, when Senator John McCain made a “surprise” trip to Benghazi. A huge banner was unveiled to greet him with an American flag printed on it and the words: “United States of America – You have a new ally in North Africa.” 

Similar to the military relationship between the NATO and Libyan “rebel” armed forces, the NTC is entirely dependent on and subordinated to the U.S., French, British and Italian imperialist governments.

If the Pentagon, CIA, and Wall Street succeed in installing a client regime in Tripoli it will accelerate and embolden the imperialist threats and intervention against other independent governments such as Syria and Venezuela. In each case we will see a similar process unfold, including the demonization of the leadership of the targeted countries so as to silence or mute a militant anti-war response to the aggression of the war-makers.

Show Notes for Episode #40

Coming soon to Zulu Radio: yours truly, as one of 5 rotating djs, spinning hip-hop, r&b, and funk. Listen every Saturday 10pm to midnight on KBCS 91.3 fm Bellevue/Seattle or online at KBCS.fm
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Did you know that Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10% of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society.  Zeitgeist Colorado. C-O [dot] zeitgeistmovement [dot] com

The scientists, who are members of the Social Cognitive Networks Academic Research Center (SCNARC) at Rensselaer, used computational and analytical methods to discover the tipping point where a minority belief becomes the majority opinion.

The finding has implications for the study and influence of societal interactions ranging from the spread of innovations to the movement of political ideals. "When the number of committed opinion holders is below 10 percent, there is no visible progress in the spread of ideas. It would literally take the amount of time comparable to the age of the universe for this size group to reach the majority," said SCNARC Director Boleslaw Szymanski, the Claire and Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor at Rensselaer.

"Once that number grows above 10 percent, the idea spreads like flame."

Once the social networks were built, the scientists then "sprinkled" in some true believers throughout each of the networks. These people were completely set in their views and unflappable in modifying those beliefs. As those true believers began to converse with those who held the traditional belief system, the tides gradually and then very abruptly began to shift.

"In general, people do not like to have an unpopular opinion and are always seeking to try locally to come to consensus. We set up this dynamic in each of our models," said SCNARC Research Associate and corresponding paper author Sameet Sreenivasan. To accomplish this, each of the individuals in the models "talked" to each other about their opinion. If the listener held the same opinions as the speaker, it reinforced the listener's belief. If the opinion was different, the listener considered it and moved on to talk to another person. If that person also held this new belief, the listener then adopted that belief.

"As agents of change start to convince more and more people, the situation begins to change," Sreenivasan said. "People begin to question their own views at first and then completely adopt the new view to spread it even further. If the true believers just influenced their neighbors, that wouldn't change anything within the larger system, as we saw with percentages less than 10."

The research has broad implications for understanding how opinion spreads. "There are clearly situations in which it helps to know how to efficiently spread some opinion or how to suppress a developing opinion," said Associate Professor of Physics and co-author of the paper Gyorgy Korniss. "Some examples might be the need to quickly convince a town to move before a hurricane or spread new information on the prevention of disease in a rural village."

The researchers are now looking for partners within the social sciences and other fields to compare their computational models to historical examples. They are also looking to study how the percentage might change when input into a model where the society is polarized. Instead of simply holding one traditional view, the society would instead hold two opposing viewpoints. An example of this polarization would be Democrat versus Republican.
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Listener Rebecca C emailed this to us:

"The real deficit lies in the lack of integrity and intelligence in our public officials, and in the ignorant, apathetic public who has allowed this to go on for at least the past half century; this includes financial professionals who, like lawyers, have refused to lift a finger to get at the real root of the problems we are facing.  John  and I did go thru the WA State Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR).  while trying to stop the backdoor forced vaccinations bill in the WA state legislature this February; we found that the state not only had a major conflict of interest, with well over a half billion dollars of our money invested in vaccine manufacturers, but also had major investments in the WA State-based transnational/national corporations; whom they refuse to tax in order to maximize their profits thru those of these untaxed corporations.

These corporate taxes, if paid, would erase the current alleged state budget deficit five time over! Furthermore, our governor and state legislature in their great wisdom have, for the second year in a row of this contrived global economic depression, put the public state bank that could have helped solve the alleged state budget deficit in short order on ice.  This was to allow possibly the most corrupt bank in the US, the Bank of America, to continue stealing our money while committing economic genocide on the most vulnerable among us by deliberately cutting public services".

My research:
The budget only covers a small portion of the State's financial condition. There are a group of funds not part of the budget process. The complete list of funds and budgetary requirements are found in the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR).  This report depicts the complete financial status of the State. The budget only covers a portion of the financial resources of the government. The CAFR usually has four categories: Governmental Funds, Proprietary Funds,  Fiduciary Funds, and Component Units.

The State of Washington at the State-level has approximately $20.28 billion of the taxpayer's money it is not using, i. e. surpluses equal to $3,326 for every man, woman and child in Washington or $13,304 for a family of 4. This does not include all the additional surpluses that exist in the school districts, cities, or counties in Washington. What are these surpluses we refer to?

Government surpluses, as used in this report, are funds that are not required or needed for the operation of all government operations, funds, accounts, agencies, etc., directly or indirectly, for the year(s) covered by the budget which is usually one year. Theoretically, at the end of every fiscal year, governments should have little or no cash/investments on hand. But what we have found is that most governments have huge amounts of cash and investments on hand at the end of the fiscal year. And somehow these cash and investments are not being recycled back through the budget process the next year, but are being held year-after-year.

A Government Can Have a Budget Deficits/Shortfalls and Financial Surpluses At The Same Time: This is the most deceiving topic that governments, politicians, and the news media have conveyed to the public about governmental financial matters. In realty, a government can simultaneously have a budget shortfall and a financial surplus of the taxpayers' money.

The budget only covers a small portion of the State's financial condition. There are a group of funds not part of the budget process. The complete list of funds and budgetary requirements are found in the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR). This report depicts the complete financial status of the State. The budget only covers a portion of the financial resources of the government. The CAFR usually has four categories: Governmental Funds, Proprietary Funds, Fiduciary Funds, and Component Units. 

Governmental Funds involve activities of the government including most basic services such as environmental resources, general government, transportation, education, health and human services, and protection of persons and property. Most of the cost of these activities are financed by taxes, fees , and federal grants.

Proprietary Funds are used when a government charges customers for the services it provides, whether to outside customers or to other agencies with the state. For example, Enterprise Funds, a component of proprietary funds, are for activities that provide goods and services to outside (non-government) customers, which includes the general public. Fees, charges for services or goods, assessments, fines, licenses, etc. are the major revenue sources.  

Fiduciary Funds are activities in which the state acts as a trustee or fiduciary to hold resources for the benefit of others. These funds are pension trust funds, investment trusts, and agency funds (which are for assets held for distribution by the government as an agent for other governmental units, other organizations, or individuals).

Component Units reportedly are legally separated organizations for which the government is financially accountable. Usually fees, charges for services or goods, assessments, fines, penalties, licenses, etc. are the major revenue source.  The budget, as commonly known to the public, only involves the Governmental Funds and may not even include all of the governmental-type funds.

The remainder of the Funds shown above are not part of the budget and are commonly called "off-budget" items. Normally, next year's budget consists only of next year's estimated revenues and next year's estimated expenditures. Previous years' revenues not used (spent) are normally not considered in the next year's budget.

Show Notes from Episode #38: Live Broadcast #2.

Debt Ceiling. Answer.org

This deal is no “compromise.” It is a bipartisan attack launched by the White House and its allies in Congress on behalf of the banks and corporations against the living standards of workers: $917 billion in spending cuts, with no tax increases on the wealthy. The immediate targets will be education, housing, health care, transportation, environmental protection, and an assortment of social programs and services that are already stretched thin.

In November, a bipartisan commission will be tasked with coming up with $1.5 trillion more in “deficit reduction.” While technically this could include tax increases on the rich and closing their tax loopholes, the corporate media is already referring to such tax changes as doubtful. The “deficit reduction” will come in the form of more cuts.

And if they can't agree on what to cut, then that too will trigger automatic cuts!
Medicare and Social Security will be spared in the short-term, but the last few weeks of ruling-class debate has shown these are hardly “untouchable” programs. The Democrats were willing to put them on the table this time, and with enough pressure from Wall Street, they will do so again. They will be “negotiable” as soon as November.

Of course, the whole Social Security system could be put on sound economic footing with a few rudimentary tax measures. Right now, employees pay 4.2 percent of their wages into Social Security. But this is capped at $106,800 in wages, so someone who makes $10 million contributes the same amount as someone who makes $106,800. Workers pay 4.2 percent, whereas such millionaires do not even pay 1 percent.
Cuts in defense spending?

The Democrats will advertise that the new bill cuts defense spending by $350 billion, and could cut it by an additional $500 billion if the Republicans don't play nice in the next round of negotiations. The White House calls this “shared sacrifice.”

But hold on. Cutting $350 billion over 10 years from the Department of Defense would only be a 5 percent cut. The Defense department budget is nearly four times the size of the Health, Education and Housing budgets combined. Unlike Defense, such departments will be devastated. The possible defense spending cut would have no impact on the endless wars and criminal occupations, which have cost so much in financial terms and human lives.

In fact, the bill speaks not of cutting “defense spending” but “security spending,” which includes the Department of Veterans Affairs. Instead of scaling back the forces of war, repression and domestic surveillance, these “security” cuts may easily be aimed at veterans' health care and retirement benefits.
One example of this ‘security spending’: from, freedetainees.org: The White House unveiled its strategy to counter radicalization on 8/4/11, ending months of speculation about how President Obama intends to tackle the problem of violent extremism in this country.

The eight-page unclassified paper, titled Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States, has been more than a year in the making and marks the first time the U.S. has laid out a comprehensive strategy to counter violent extremism. Officials say it is a three-pronged approach that includes community engagement, better training, and counternarratives that make a case for why violent extremism is a dead end.

“This strategy is not so much about how we’re changing than having us lay down what we’ve been doing on a key issue,” said National Security Council Chief of Staff Denis McDonough in a briefing to a handful of reporters Wednesday morning.
The strategy acknowledges just how much the threat against the U.S. has changed since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. When al-Qaida was sending operatives into the U.S., it made sense to rely on federal agencies to catch them at the border or arrest them as plots were discovered. But as terrorists groups have turned to American operatives who are already here, it makes sense to take the fight to the grass-roots level.

Truancy, for example, is a common indicator of kids getting mixed up with gangs. As it turns out, it is also a common indicator of kids who are falling prey to violent extremist rhetoric. The federal government can’t track missed school days very efficiently. A local high school clearly can. That’s why local communities are at the heart of the plan.

The White House envisions bringing together a roster of agencies and departments — from the Department of Education to the Labor Department and Energy Department — to provide local officials the tools they need to counter radicalization.
Traditionally, the Department of Justice or the FBI has taken the lead on outreach, and officials say they will continue to be involved. What has changed is the emphasis. Local agencies that have day-to-day interaction with at-risk communities are perfectly positioned: By addressing individual problems within the community they not only help residents, they also whittle down the list of grievances that might eventually lead to violent extremism.

The report focuses on three existing models: gangs, law enforcement trust initiatives, and safe-school programs. The comprehensive gang model is basically a community-led response to gangs by providing educational and vocational training and a focus on intervening before kids get mixed up with the wrong people. The law enforcement trust initiatives will hold round tables that allow community leaders to help cops distinguish, for example, between an innocent cultural behavior and possible criminal activity. Safe-school programs have worked to decrease violence in the schools.

Just mentioning violent extremism tends to raise hackles. Muslim groups have grumbled that they have had to bear a disproportionate amount of the blame for extremist violence when there are other violent groups — from neo-Nazis to anti-government extremists like the shooter in Oslo — who could also present a threat.

The White House strategy goes to great pains to not single out Muslims. “This strategy prioritizes al-Qaida and affiliates, but we’ve also applied this toward all kinds of violent extremism,” McDonough said.

Officials tell NPR they are hoping to skirt the problem of scapegoating or Islamophobia with what they call a “more holistic approach.” The problem of a local Muslim schoolgirl being hassled for wearing a headscarf, or hijab, for example, could be easily addressed through the Department of Education’s anti-bullying initiatives. “There is no need to classify that as a Muslim problem; it is a schoolyard problem,” said one administration official.

Increasingly, studies of extremist groups show that it doesn’t matter whether someone is an al-Qaida sympathizer, white supremacist, or violent anti-government activist; all tend to go through a similar process. It turns out that ideology may not necessarily be the driving factor that takes young people and turns them into violent Islamists or neo-Nazis or gangbangers. Just as important are community and identity.

As a result, the thinking is that same strategies that might apply to a young man toying with becoming a neo-Nazi would also apply to just about anyone wooed by violent extremist rhetoric. “Violent extremist groups are fundamentally sowing division,” said the NSC’s Quintan Wiktorowicz. “We will push back against the full scope of different violent ideologies with an inclusive, positive narrative.”
A conference sponsored by Google in Dublin at the end of July brought a number of former violent extremists — neo-Nazis, Islamists, skinheads — together on one stage to talk about their experiences. What was striking was that they shared a similar story whether they were from a well-to-do suburb in Wisconsin or a small village in Nigeria: They were restless youths who lacked an identity growing up and found an identity within their respective extremist groups. The new White House strategy aims to make sure these young people feel they have an identity and a place in society instead.

The White House initiative, in a way, builds off and learns from a British program that came before it. Known as PREVENT, it was supposed to blunt radicalization in Britain.

The program has had many detractors. Part of the problem, among others, was that the initiative was basically led by law enforcement. The same constables and investigators who were gathering intelligence on burgeoning terrorism cases, or were arresting people, were wading into Muslim communities in the U.K. with large grants saying, “Trust us, we’re just here to run your after-school programs or your soup kitchens. We aren’t here to gather intelligence or follow up leads.” But the communities didn’t believe them.

By putting community leaders on the front line of this new initiative, the thinking is that the U.S. will avoid that problem.

Both Republicans and Democrats have falsely claimed that they have an electoral mandate to cut public spending. They have used all of their collective political will to make this cutback program a reality. In fact, if this were a real democracy, the government would have gone after the Wall Street thieves and parasites who everyone knows plunged the country into crisis. Instead, they were bailed out to the tune of several trillion dollars.

Of the criticisms one can make of the media's coverage of this discussion--and there are plenty--here are five areas where media mangled the debt discussion.

--Why Is the Debt Ceiling Being Raised?

While some coverage correctly pointed out that raising the debt ceiling has always been a routine political maneuver, Republican rhetoric and right-wing commentary portrayed the current round as a consequence of Barack Obama's "big government" spending philosophy.

What was rarely explained is the fact that raising the debt ceiling is a consequence of previous budget decisions made by Congress (New York Times, 7/28/11)--like a massive tax cut tilted towards the wealthy, two major wars and, most of all, the effects of a major recession.

As economist Dean Baker (Al Jazeera English, 7/27/11) pointed out, the debt "crisis" has very little to do with out-of-control spending:
At the beginning of 2008 the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the country's most respected official forecasting agency, projected that the budget deficit in 2009 would be just 1.4 percent of GDP. The reason that the deficit exploded from 1.4 percent of GDP to 10.0 percent had nothing to do with wild new spending programs or excessive tax cuts. This enormous increase in the size of the deficit was entirely the result of the fallout from the housing bubble.

Many writers have noted the partisan negotiations were presented through a distorted "both sides must compromise" lens. As economist Paul Krugman wrote (New York Times blog, 6/26/11):

So what do most news reports say? They portray it as a situation in which both sides are equally partisan, equally intransigent--because news reports always do that.

The failure to secure a deal was thus a failure of both sides to work together. In a subsequent column (7/29/11), Krugman pointed to an Associated Press headline (7/12/11): "Obama, Republicans Trapped by Inflexible Rhetoric.”

Time magazine (7/14/11; FAIR Blog, 7/15/11) responded to the breakdown in talks between Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner with a pox-on-both-houses attack on each party's failure to compromise:
The Republican refusal to consider any new revenues, including making easy fixes to the tax code to close loopholes for businesses and other groups that don't need public subsidies, is as recklessly absolutist as Democrats' insistence that bloated entitlement programs are untouchable.

On NBC Nightly News (7/19/11; FAIR Blog, 7/21/11), Chuck Todd declared that "any sort of deal is putting pressure on the bases of both parties." His evidence? A new poll that found support for raising taxes--anathema to Republicans--while a majority opposed cuts to Social Security and Medicare. The findings were inexplicably summarized by Todd as "a mixed political bag for both parties."

The media's aversion to pointing out when one side is more prone to obstruction or exaggeration than the other makes it difficult for voters to understand what is happening--and does little to dissuade lawmakers from engaging in similar behavior in the future.

Often lost amidst all the talk about rancor and compromise is the fact that the entire debate between party leaders and the White House has shifted well to the right. As Jamelle Bouie summed it up at the American Prospect's blog (Tapped, 7/27/11): Back in May, House Speaker John Boehner went before the Economic Club of New York to offer the GOP’s opening bid on debt-ceiling negotiations. His demands were straightforward: Republicans would only support raising the debt limit if it came with cuts that would exceed the increase in borrowing power. In his own words: “Cuts should be greater than the accompanying increase in debt authority the president is given. We should be talking about cuts of trillions, not just billions. They should be actual cuts and program reforms, not broad deficit or debt targets that punt the tough questions to the future.”

I wrote at the time that this was an “extraordinarily radical” proposal that would cost thousands of jobs and deprive millions of needed benefits while preserving huge tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Now, after nearly three months of Republican intransigence, that radical proposal is the template for the Democratic offer on the debt limit.Given this obvious fact, media chatter about "compromise" seems downright absurd (Political Animal, 8/1/11).

The New York Times July 31 headline "In Debt Limit Showdown, Obama Edges to the Right" accurately captured this political dynamic, which had been on display for weeks. The article nonetheless asserted that Mr. Obama, seeking to appeal to the broad swath of independent voters, has adopted the Republicans’ language and in some cases their policies, while signaling a willingness to break with liberals on some issues.The assumption, then, is that "independents" really just want Republican budget ideas. There is no evidence that this is the case.


There is a long-established pattern of corporate media advising Democrats to move to the "middle," which in practice means shifting to the right. This has been a constant presence throughout this debate. With a very Republican-friendly solution perhaps at hand, some accounts are portraying this as a deft move to the middle by Obama. The fact that liberals are opposed to Obama's proposals only serves to demonstrate that he is on the right track. The Washington Post reported (8/1/11):
Liberals were furious as the terms of the agreement came into focus Sunday, and yet another capitulation by Obama on economic policy threatened to further dampen enthusiasm among the core Democratic voters he will need to win reelection next year.

But for a White House eager to improve its standing with centrist independents who have been fleeing Obama, even a losing deal can be a winning strategy.

The Post's Chris Cilizza (8/1/11) declared Obama a "winner" based on the same logic: The president needed a deal of some sort to prove that he was capable of making the government work--even if it took until the 11th (and a half) hour to strike the compromise. Liberals are likely to be deeply unhappy about the nature of the deal, which includes no increases in taxes or revenue. But remember that Obama’s target constituency in 2012 is not his base but rather independent and moderate voters. And those fence-sitters love compromise in almost any form.

Coming soon to a city near you. Wake Up, God Dammit!

Earlier Obama offers that sought cuts in Medicare and Social Security were portrayed similarly. A July 25 Washington Post story "Obama 'Big Deal' on Debt a Gamble to Win the Center" (FAIR Blog, 7/25/11) discussed the White House offer of "trillions of dollars in cuts, including to Medicare and Social Security" in exchange for small tax increases.

Most polling on budget options shows little enthusiasm for cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and more support for an approach that includes tax increases and other options for increasing revenue (FAIR Blog, 1/21/11). And polls also show more concern over jobs than deficit reduction (FAIR Blog, 9/17/10).
The White House and Democratic leaders are cheered for abandoning those goals, while the press explains that this is what "centrists" and "independents" really want.

If this debate was really about dealing with the nation's long-term debt/deficit issues, then the press would seriously examine a range of ideas for addressing these problems. But the most serious progressive alternative, the People's Budget, was never given significant attention in the corporate media--in contrast to Republican Rep. Paul Ryan's budget plan, which, contrary to the rhetoric, failed to meaningfully reduce the deficit at all (Extra!, 6/11).


Study: Healthy eating is privilege of the rich. By Donna Gordon Blankinship, Associated Press
SEATTLE — A healthy diet is expensive and could make it difficult for Americans to meet new U.S. nutritional guidelines, according to a study published Thursday that says the government should do more to help consumers eat healthier.
Inexpensive ways to add these nutrients to a person's diet include potatoes and beans for potassium and dietary fiber. But the study found introducing more potassium in a diet is likely to add $380 per year to the average consumer's food costs, said lead researcher Pablo Monsivais, an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and the School of Public Health at the University of Washington.

"We know more than ever about the science of nutrition, and yet we have not yet been able to move the needle on healthful eating," he said. The government should provide help for meeting the nutritional guidelines in an affordable way.
He criticized some of the marketing for a healthy diet — for example, the image of a plate of salmon, leafy greens and maybe some rice pilaf — and said a meal like that is not affordable for many Americans.

Food-assistance programs are helping people make healthier choices by providing coupons to buy fruits and vegetables, Monsivais said, but some also put stumbling blocks in front of the poor.

He mentioned, as an example, a Washington state policy making it difficult to buy potatoes with food assistance coupons for women with children, even though potatoes are one of the least expensive ways to add potassium to a diet.

The study was based on a random telephone survey of about 2,000 adults in King County, Wash., followed by a printed questionnaire that was returned by about 1,300 people. They note what food they ate, which was analyzed for nutrient content and estimated cost.

People who spend the most on food tend to get the closest to meeting the federal guidelines for potassium, dietary fiber, vitamin D and calcium, the study found. Those who spend the least have the lowest intakes of the four recommended nutrients and the highest consumption of saturated fat and added sugar.

Hilary Seligman, assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said Monsivais' research is an interesting addition to the debate about healthy eating and food insecurity, her area of expertise.
A lot of people assume the poor eat cheap food because it tastes good, but they would make better choices if they could afford to, said Seligman, who was not involved in the Health Affairs study.

"Almost 15% of households in America say they don't have enough money to eat the way they want to eat," Seligman said. Recent estimates show 49 million Americans make food decisions based on cost, she added.

"Right now, a huge chunk of America just isn't able to adhere to these guidelines," she said.

But Monsivais may have oversimplified the problem, according to another professor who does research in this area. Parke Wilde, associated professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, said it's not expensive to get all the nutrients a body needs to meet the federal guidelines.
What is expensive, in Wilde's opinion, are the choices Americans make while getting those nutrients.

He said diets get more and more expensive depending on how many rules a person applies to himself, such as eating organic or seeking local sources for food or eating vegetables out of season."The longer your list gets, the more expensive your list will be," he said.

Seligman said her list can get longer than Wilde's, but not everything is a choice. Adding to the cost of buying healthful food could be how far away from home a person needs to travel to get to a grocery store that sells a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables.

The government also affects food prices through the subsidies offered to farmers growing certain crops, she added.

Struggling Urban League turns again to James Kelly.

James Kelly, the longtime chief of the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, walked away from his high-profile post seven months ago, saying he had to take care of himself after a stroke and divorce. Kelly said Friday his health is much better, as the league announced he is coming back. Seattle Times.

James Kelly, the longtime chief of the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, walked away from his high-profile post seven months ago and all but disappeared from public life, saying he had to take care of himself after a stroke and divorce.

Twenty-five pounds lighter, Kelly, 56, said Friday his health is much better, as the league announced he is coming back to temporarily guide the civil-rights group. The health of the league is another matter, as it has been deeply wounded by fallout from the Seattle Public Schools scandal and a drop in government funding.
The league has laid off employees, cut programs and put its three-story headquarters up for sale, asking $3.6 million for the office building at East Yesler Way and 14th Avenue.


Kelly's exit came about a month before the eruption of the school-district scandal, which centered on waste and possible fraud in the school district's small-business program.

A state audit of the Seattle schools earlier this year found the district may have wasted $1.8 million trying to help minority-owned firms get school-construction work. The single biggest questionable expense, the audit concluded, was nearly $600,000 paid to the Urban League over four years for minority-business outreach and training.

State auditors reported the Urban League's invoices were vague, and some district employees told investigators the spending did not benefit the school district. Auditors also criticized the league's 15 percent charge for administration and overhead in its school contracts.

Shortly after the audit, the league's board closed its Contractor Development and Competitiveness Center (CDCC).

It also laid off employees, including Kelly's successor, acting director Tony Benjamin, who had managed the contractor center. Porter said the league's staff had dropped from almost 40 employees last year to fewer than 10 now.
Benjamin blamed "negative publicity" from the schools scandal for damaging the league's reputation and its ability to renew some contracts.

Kelly said he will meet with State Auditor Brian Sonntag next week to try to clarify some things. He said he was not contacted by state auditors during their investigation.

The league met the requirements of its contracts, Kelly maintained, and provided additional documentation to support its work when school officials requested it.
Kelly said he wants to ask Sonntag if "his staff reviewed the additional documents, so we can set the record straight." He said the documents would show "we basically honored the contract."

He defended the administration and overhead charges, saying they are common in federal grants and that the percentage was well within guidelines established by groups such as the United Way.

"Anywhere between 15 and 18 percent is appropriate," Kelly said.
Sonntag said Friday he was looking forward to meeting with Kelly. The state auditor called him "a good guy" who could probably provide stability and a "steady hand" to the league.

Sonntag emphasized that his office audited only the school district, not the Urban League and other vendors. The audit focused on whether the schools could demonstrate they had received value for their money. Justifying payment for vague invoices and overhead is the schools' responsibility, Sonntag said, not the vendors'.

Even before the audit's release, the Urban League had struggled with a decline in government funding, its main source of income.The city spent nearly $4 million on the contractor center between 2002 and 2011, to assist women- and minority-owned firms to compete for city work.The Urban League got a separate, $500,000-a-year contract from the city to combat youth violence, starting in 2009, after a rash of fatal shootings in Southeast Seattle.

In the past year, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn sought competitive bids for the contracts. The Urban League lost its youth-violence contract to other nonprofits this year.

The Contractor Development and Competitiveness Center contract was cut by more than three-quarters, down to a maximum $100,000. The city had paid only $19,000 of that when the CDCC shut down last month.

Kelly said the league lost the youth-violence contract because it had narrowed its focus when it rebid for the contract, opting to work only on street outreach and not on coordinating community networks to quell violence. The league's work to reduce youth violence was successful, Kelly said, because gang-related shootings sharply declined after the city started its violence-prevention programs.

He also noted the league's budget grew more than fourfold during his tenure; the league also helped lead a $22 million fundraising campaign that converted the former Colman School, closed since 1985, into the Northwest African American Museum, with 36 apartments for moderate-income families on its top two floors. The museum and housing opened in 2008, after Seattle Police evicted the original grassroots black community members of the board at gun point in the summer of 1999; at the request of key members of the Seattle African-American leadership community, including King County Councilmember Larry Gossett, a former Urban League board member.

Gossett said Kelly succeeded despite significant challenges facing the project. "To use a baseball term, James would be an excellent call-up to help get the team back together ... ," Gossett said. "He had respect from a lot of important stakeholders, like the business community, some key elected officials, and other key members of the African-American leadership community."

Kelly has been an influential figure in local politics and business. He has been critical of Seattle police and also tried to play peacemaker between police and the African-American community.

He's been an advocate for a new Seattle streetcar system — which Kelly jokingly called the "love train" — and a pro-jobs leader of a group advocating a waterfront tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

Locally and nationally, Porter emphasized, nonprofits have seen a steep drop in funding from private and public sources due to the economic downturn. Porter said the league will focus only on its education and housing programs in the near future. "We will focus on a re-branding effort, establishing trust and hiring a CEO to take us to the mountaintop."