I’m pissed. It happens — I keep a cool head most of the time, but things like leaving animals behind in flood waters or shooting birds with clipped wings or blowing up frogs gets me a bit wild-eyed. And that’s just the critters — show me a baby and see what happens.
The new Federal guidelines for infants of illegals has me in a fury — what the Holy Hell is the matter with this country? Two million dollars an HOUR is flying out of the treasury to support an illegal, immoral war that nobody but a handful of psychotics still wants … and now we have declared war on the newborn.
This is so criminal, so shocking that I’m almost … but not quite … speechless. Nobody cares because the babies are brown, huh? Like nobody cared if the babies were black in New Orleans? I remember!
The first two articles address that topic — the next two are about the judiciary, with the Supreme’s about to hear an abortion case as Roberts and Alito stand firmly in defense of the ProLife sensibilities — Dubby is sure that’s in the constitution [the new one he's writing.] And it’s a particularly emotional case, as well. Timing’s perfect, huh? We’re already one giant raw nerve in this nation.
ProLife is a misnomer, I might add — if you look at how much Life, not to mention Liberty, these people deny on all levels, the repression and misery they propose and the havoc they’re creating in defense of sperm and ova you don’t have to wonder why they can’t turn the lights on in their own bedrooms. They’re the Missionary Position Party — well, except for the Gaydeer Games their patriarchs play — leaving their women to pursue important things like … Mary Kay and Virgin Pinning Parties. [OK -- that was probably mean. I don't care. When people like Pastor Ted's wife tell us that she's going to honor her vows and we should all "watch her faith at work" ... she's left rational thought so far behind that schlepping cosmetics door to door seems her next best option; somebody is going to have to generate income as Ted frequents the gay bars all night, as he has in the past ... ummm ... saving souls.]
Me? I’m ProBorn. I want to take care of the ones that are already here. And not once … if … they get their paperwork filled out — NOW! This misbegotten party holding the strings of hypocritical power can kiss my liberal American behind if they want to deny medical care to Life hours old, or make decisions for me about my own body — I remember the coathanger years. I REMEMBER!
Control games of the [im]moral kind, all of one cloth. Below, War On Babies … AND the judiciary [Sandra Day O'Connor speaks up, last] … from the Compassionate Conservatives that have given us so much gentleness and joy these last five years.
GRRRRRRRRRR!
Jude
Medicaid Wants Citizenship Proof for Infant Care
Robert Pear, NYT
November 3, 2006
WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 — Under a new federal policy, children born in the United States to illegal immigrants with low incomes will no longer be automatically entitled to health insurance through Medicaid, Bush administration officials said Thursday.
Doctors and hospitals said the policy change would make it more difficult for such infants, who are United States citizens, to obtain health care needed in the first year of life.
Illegal immigrants are generally barred from Medicaid but can get coverage for treatment of emergency medical conditions, including labor and delivery.
In the past, once a woman received emergency care under Medicaid for the birth of a baby, the child was deemed eligible for coverage as well, and states had to cover the children for one year from the date of birth.
Under the new policy, an application must be filed for the child, and the parents must provide documents to prove the child’s citizenship.
The documentation requirements took effect in July, but some states have been slow to enforce them, and many doctors are only now becoming aware of the effects on newborns.
Obtaining a birth certificate can take weeks in some states, doctors said. Moreover, they said, illegal immigrant parents may be reluctant to go to a state welfare office to file applications because they fear contact with government agencies that could report their presence to immigration authorities.
Administration officials said the change was necessary under their reading of a new law, the Deficit Reduction Act, signed by President Bush in February. The law did not mention newborns, but generally tightened documentation requirements because some lawmakers were concerned that immigrants were fraudulently claiming United States citizenship to get Medicaid.
Marilyn E. Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Medicaid program, said: “The federal government told us we have no latitude. All states must change their policies and practices. We will not be able to cover any services for the newborn until a Medicaid application is filed. That could be days, weeks or months after the child is born.”
About four million babies are born in the United States each year, and Medicaid pays for more than one-third of all births. The number involving illegal immigrant parents is unknown but is likely to be in the tens of thousands, health experts said.
Doctors and hospitals denounced the policy change and denied that it was required by the new law. Dr. Jay E. Berkelhamer, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the policy “punishes babies who, according to the Constitution, are citizens because they were born here.”
Dr. Martin C. Michaels, a pediatrician in Dalton, Ga., said that continuous coverage in the first year of life was important because “newborns need care right from the start.”
“Some Americans may want to grant amnesty to undocumented immigrants, and others may want to send them home,” Dr. Michaels said. “But the children who are born here had no say in that debate.”
Under a 1984 law, infants born to pregnant women on Medicaid are in most cases deemed eligible for Medicaid for one year.
In an interview on Thursday, Leslie V. Norwalk, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the new policy “reflects what the new law says in terms of eligibility.”
“When emergency Medicaid pays for a birth,” Ms. Norwalk said, “the child is not automatically deemed eligible. But the child could apply and could qualify for Medicaid because of the family’s poverty status. If anyone knows about a child being denied care, we want to know about it. Please step up and tell us.”
Under federal law, hospitals generally have to examine and treat patients who need emergency care, regardless of their ability to pay. So the new policy is most likely to affect access to other types of care, including preventive services and treatment for infections and chronic conditions, doctors said.
Representative Charlie Norwood, Republican of Georgia, was a principal architect of the new law.
“Charlie’s intent was that every person receiving Medicaid needs to provide documentation,” said John E. Stone, a spokesman for Mr. Norwood, who is a dentist and has been active on health care issues. “With newborns, there should be no problem. All you have to do is provide a birth certificate or hospital records verifying birth.”
But Dr. Berkelhamer disagreed. Even when the children are eligible for Medicaid, he said, illegal immigrants may be afraid to apply because of “the threat of deportation.”
The new policy “will cost the health care system more in the long run,” Dr. Berkelhamer added, because children of illegal immigrants may go without immunizations, preventive care and treatments needed in the first year of life.
Doctors, children’s hospitals and advocacy groups have been urging states to preserve the old policy on Medicaid eligibility for children born to illegal immigrants.
Sara Rosenbaum, a professor of health law at George Washington University, said: “The new policy reflects a tortured reading of the new law and is contrary to the language of the 1984 statute, which Congress did not change. The whole purpose of the earlier law, passed with bipartisan support, was to make sure that a baby would not have a single day’s break in coverage from the date of birth through the first year of life.”
California has objected to the new policy. S. Kimberly Belshé, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, said: “By virtue of being born in the United States, a child is a U.S. citizen. What more proof does the federal government need?”
So What If You’re Born In The U.S.A.?
Alexandra Walker, TomPaine
Friday, November 3, 2006
You don’t have to be a doctor to know that the first year of a baby’s life, indeed the first weeks, are critical for its healthy development. That’s why the government has historically taken on the responsibility of subsidizing health care for infants of low-income mothers, regardless of citizenship status. Not anymore. Today’s newspapers report that babies are the newest pawn in the right-wing’s campaign to punish undocumented immigrants. As a result of a new policy pushed by two pro-life Republicans, babies born born to undocumented immigrants will be denied health care.
Reps. Charlie Norwood and Nathan Deal, both considered staunch “pro-lifers”, pushed through a bill now taking effect that requires anyone who uses Medicaid to show proof of citizenship. This applies to mothers of newborns, who must now apply for Medicaid on behalf of their babies. This, despite the fact that, according to the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, any person born on U.S. soil is automatically granted citizenship.
The result is that babies won’t get the care that is so important in the early weeks of infancy.
How can lawmakers who earn high marks from anti-abortion groups reconcile this heartless policy with their alleged concern for “life”? As has been the case with such issues as mercury poisoning of pregnant mothers and funding for programs that prevent infant mortality, conservative Republicans often vigorously oppose policies shown to promote healthy babies when there are political points to be scored with the GOP base. If you’re a fetus, they compete with each other to show their concern for your health, but watch out: once you’re out of the womb, your life and welfare don’t have the same political currency. Especially when matched against illegal immigration.
Because of the new policy, newborn infants, some of whom require immediate post-delivery care for illnesses detected directly after birth, will be denied simply because they are born to an undocumented immigrant. The Bush administration and Norwood duplicitously claim that babies can still get care under this policy. Norwood’s spokesman told The New York Times that “with newborns, there should be no problem. All you have to do is provide a birth certificate or hospital records verifying birth.”
No, Charlie, It’s quite a problem.
Out of fears they’ll be deported—not irrational given the fiercely anti-”illegal” rhetoric dominating this year’s immigration debate—mothers who are undocumented may forego applying for Medicaid. Even if they do apply for Medicaid, there’s a good chance the baby will suffer from a significant gap in treatment because the application process takes so long—”weeks or months” according to a Tennessee Medicaid administrator interviewed by the Times .
Doctors’ groups are up in arms about the new policy. American Academy of Pediatrics President Jay Berkelhamer told the Times the new policy “punishes babies” and “will cost the health care system more in the long run” because the children could go without immunizations, preventive care and other treatments that are necessary in the first year of life.
These risks and long-term costs matter little compared to the alleged drain on the Medicaid system that lawmakers like Norwood and Deal claim undocumented immigrants create due to their “fraudulent benefits claims.” Yet, a 2005 article countered the argument that undocumented immigrants strain public services because they don’t pay taxes. To the contrary, the article explained how undocumented immigrants contribute billions annually through payroll taxes.
But Norwood is known for dreaming up laws that respond to nonexistent problems. After all, he’s the same guy who introduced the bill responding to the fictitious problem of voter fraud : the Voter ID law.
Top court to hear major abortion test cases
James Vicini, Reuters
Nov 4
WASHINGTON - The first nationwide ban on a specific abortion procedure faces U.S. Supreme Court scrutiny next week in cases testing whether President George W. Bush’s two new conservative appointees will restrict abortion rights.
Returning to one of the nation’s most divisive, emotional and politically charged issues, the high court considers the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act the Republican-led U.S. Congress approved and Bush signed into law in 2003.
The arguments on Wednesday in two cases widely viewed as the most important of the court’s 2006-07 term occur the day after voters go to the polls nationwide to decide whether Republicans keep control of Congress. South Dakota voters will cast ballots to decide whether a law banning almost all abortions should be repealed.
The Supreme Court will not be revisiting its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973 that women have a basic constitutional right to abortion, but will be reviewing whether a particular surgical abortion method can be outlawed.
The law makes it a crime for a doctor to perform an abortion during which a part of the fetus, either the “entire fetal head” or “any part of the fetal trunk past the navel,” is outside the woman’s uterus.
The law’s supporters say the procedure, known by doctors as intact dilation and extraction, is mainly used for late-term abortions, but opponents say it bans some abortions in the second trimester of pregnancy.
At issue is whether the law is unconstitutional because it fails to provide an exception for abortions to protect the health of a pregnant woman, whether it imposes an undue burden on a woman’s right to seek an abortion and whether it is too vague.
Adopted by Congress after nine years of hearings and debate, the law has never been enforced because of court challenges. The six lower federal courts that reviewed the law all declared it unconstitutional.
The cases represent the first significant test of whether abortion rights will be restricted because of the retirement of moderate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who provided the decisive vote on the divided court for such rights.
Bush replaced her with the more conservative Justice Samuel Alito. He also appointed another conservative, Chief Justice John Roberts. Roberts and Alito as U.S. Justice Department lawyers in the 1980s and early 1990s opposed the 1973 abortion ruling.
WOMEN’S HEALTH
The challenge to the law will be argued by Priscilla Smith of the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights and by Eve Gartner of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
“This case is about whether the Roberts court will follow settled law and protect women’s health from harmful restrictions. If they don’t, women’s health is at risk,” Smith said.
“The government is arguing that politicians, not doctors and their patients, should have the final say in private medical decisions,” Gartner said. “Lawmakers should stop playing politics with women’s health and lives.”
Solicitor General Paul Clement of the Justice Department, the Bush administration’s top courtroom lawyer, will defend the law.
The act “advances vital state interests in protecting human life and preventing a rarely used and gruesome late-term abortion procedure that resembles infanticide,” he said in written arguments to the court.
The key vote in the case could belong to Justice Anthony Kennedy. The Supreme Court in 2000 struck down a similar Nebraska law by a 5-4 vote, with Kennedy dissenting.
A big question during the arguments will be whether the moderate conservative Kennedy, who has replaced O’Connor as the key swing vote on the nine-member court, changes his mind in considering the federal law.
The Threat to Judicial Independence
SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR, Wall Street Journal
September 27, 2006
In November, South Dakotans will vote on a state constitutional amendment being advocated by a national group called “JAIL 4 Judges.” If the amendment passes, it would eliminate judicial immunity, and enable a special grand jury to censure judges for their official legal determinations. Although the amendment’s supporters claim they seek a “judicial accountability initiative law” (JAIL), they aspire to something far more sinister — judicial intimidation. Indeed, the national Web site of JAIL 4 Judges boasts with striking candor that the organization “has that intimidation factor flowing through the judicial system.”
It is tempting to dismiss this proposed amendment as merely an isolated bout of anti-judge angst. But while the JAIL 4 Judges initiative is unusually venomous, it is far from alone in expressing skepticism of the judiciary. In addition to South Dakota, this election cycle has witnessed efforts in at least three other states that are designed to rein in judges who have supposedly “run amok.”
Not to be completely outdone, Congress also has engaged in recent efforts to police the judiciary. Seeking to constrain the legal sources that are available to judges, some members of Congress have advocated measures that would forbid judges from citing foreign law when they are interpreting the Constitution. In addition, bills have been introduced in both houses of Congress supporting the creation of an inspector general to investigate and monitor the federal bench. Finally, the House of Representatives passed legislation over the summer that would prohibit the Supreme Court from considering whether the Pledge of Allegiance’s inclusion of the words “under God” violates the First Amendment.
* * *
Directing anger toward judges enjoys a long — if not exactly venerable — tradition in our nation. President Thomas Jefferson, for instance, was a particularly spirited antagonist of judges appointed by the Federalists. Moreover, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to increase the number of Supreme Court justices because the court invalidated several pieces of New Deal legislation. And I can distinctly remember seeing lawns and highways across the country that featured signs demanding the impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren.
But while scorn for certain judges is not an altogether new phenomenon, the breadth and intensity of rage currently being leveled at the judiciary may be unmatched in American history. The ubiquitous “activist judges” who “legislate from the bench” have become central villains on today’s domestic political landscape. Elected officials routinely score cheap points by railing against the “elitist judges,” who are purported to be of touch with ordinary citizens and their values. Several jeremiads are published every year warning of the dangers of judicial supremacy and judicial tyranny. Though these attacks generally emit more heat than light, using judges as punching bags presents a grave threat to the independent judiciary.
Troublingly, attacks on the judiciary are now being launched by judges themselves. Earlier this year, Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker excoriated his colleagues for faithfully applying the Supreme Court’s precedent in Roper v. Simmons, which prohibited imposition of the death penalty for crimes committed by minors. Offering a bold reinterpretation of the Constitution’s supremacy clause, Justice Parker advised state judges to avoid following Supreme Court opinions “simply because they are ‘precedents.’” Justice Parker supported his criticism of “activist federal judges” by asserting that “the liberals on the U.S. Supreme Court … look down on the pro-family policies, Southern heritage, evangelical Christianity, and other blessings of our great state.”
It should come as no surprise that the increased scapegoating of the judiciary has coincided with an increase in anger directed toward individual judges. In the last decade, threats and inappropriate communications directed toward the federal bench have more than quadrupled. According to the U.S. Marshals Service, complaints about such behavior were being logged at a record-setting pace this year. And while it is encouraging that Congress recently set aside funds for federal judges to have home security systems installed, it is deeply dispiriting that the demand for the systems among the judges was so high. Judge David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit was quite right when he observed, “Judges must be free to make judicial decisions without the fear of physical harm to themselves or to members of their families.”
Given the escalating criticism that is leveled at judges, it seems appropriate to bear in mind the reasons that the Framers initially established an independent judicial branch. In Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton explained why, in our constitutional system, “the complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential.” Hamilton contended that the judiciary needed to be distinct from the legislative and executive branches because that was the best way to guarantee “a steady, upright, and impartial administration of the laws.” Hamilton also believed that judicial independence was necessary in order to safeguard against “injury of the private rights of particular classes of citizens, by unjust and partial laws.” It is well worth remembering that, far more often than not in modern times, the judiciary has admirably performed these two vital tasks: checking the other two branches and protecting minority rights.
An independent judiciary does not mean, of course, that it is somehow improper to criticize judicial decisions. To the contrary, it is a healthy sign for democracy that the public is engaged with the workings of the judicial system. Judges can — and do — sometimes render erroneous decisions, but that is why appeals are allowed to higher courts. Moreover, judges can be — and are — subjected to discipline for legitimate reasons. Members of the judiciary cannot sincerely believe that they should be regarded as above the very laws that they are charged with interpreting. Ours is, after all, a nation of laws, not men — or even women.
Nonetheless, we must be more vigilant in making sure that criticism does not cross over into intimidation. Judges and lawyers certainly play essential roles in opposing attacks on the judiciary. Indeed, later this week, I — along with Justice Stephen Breyer — am co-chairing a conference on judicial independence at Georgetown University Law Center. But the legal community needs help from other sectors of society to ensure that the current mood of cynicism does not end up compromising the rule of law. This includes members of the business community. Adam Smith, writing in “The Wealth of Nations,” well understood the importance of an independent judiciary: “[U]pon the impartial administration of justice depends the liberty of every individual, the sense which he has of his own security.” Without judicial independence, Smith warned, “it is scarce[ly] possible that justice should not frequently be sacrificed to what is vulgarly called politics.”
More broadly, of course, all of society has a keen interest in countering threats to judicial independence. Judges who are afraid — whether they fear for their jobs or fear for their lives — cannot adequately fulfill the considerable responsibilities that the position demands. In these challenging and difficult times, we must recommit ourselves to maintaining the independent judiciary that the Framers sought to establish.
Justice O’Connor is a retired associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
What’s right and good doesn’t come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it - as if the cause depends on you, because it does. Allow yourself that conceit - to believe that the flame of Democracy will never go out as long as there’s one candle in your hand.
~ Bill Moyers
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
ringtones 6035ringtone 7520ringtones 8390farrington 52ringtone family mp3 adamsringtones pc from adding adownload nokia ringtone 228524 ctu mp3 ringtone Map
November 6th, 2006
Serious subject, serious patriots — Al Gore, Amy Goodman, and last, Gore Vidal [with Do-Not-Miss commentary to stream.]
Jude
‘We are facing a massive assault on our liberties’
Since losing to George Bush in 2000, Al Gore, the former Vice-President, has reinvented himself as America’s voice of reasoned opposition, particularly on global warming, the subject of his internationally acclaimed film An Inconvenient Truth. In this interview, he tells Henry Porter of a crisis of democracy in America.
The Observer
Sunday November 5, 2006
HP: I wonder if you feel that a constitution like the American one makes people more aware of their rights.
AG: I think it does. Those who wrote the constitution were very steeped in the culture of the printed word and the essays that were written to define the theory of representative democracy.
The debates and the Constitutional Convention were all re-capitulated in elaborate written accounts. The debates over each precise word actually did focus public attention then, and continue to influence public attention now, to individual rights.
HP: Is a constitution a way of putting certain rights beyond the reach of ambitious men?
AG: If I felt that was the principal effect of having a written constitution, I would say yes. If I were a citizen in your country, I would be in favour of it. But being a citizen of the US and seeing the shocking ease with which these principles have been violated in the US, I’m worried that the causes of this invasion of rights may be deeper.
HP: The public here and in America have been prepared to put these rights on hold to a degree.
AG: Well, they have, but [in America] these rights have been weakened since the Bush-Cheney administration chose to use the war against terror as a basis for both political argument in a partisan context and for an assault on the individual rights, including the right to be free of government eavesdropping. The conversation of democracy has been degraded, emotions and appeals to fear have been given a priority over reasoned debate.
HP: Has there been a pumping up of this climate of fear?
AG: Yes, sure.
HP: What was the purpose? To extend executive powers or to get people to back the war in Iraq?
AG: A combination of motives. The Bush-Cheney administration was declining in popularity rapidly prior to the 9/11 attacks. In the initial aftermath, Bush responded quite well in rallying public opinion and going after the perpetrators. But then, for whatever reason, he began to make a lot of mistakes in my view; by not pursuing Osama bin Laden until he was captured; by invading a country that hadn’t attacked us; by launching this assault on the protections written into the constitution against invasions of liberties. They conflated the threat from al-Qaeda and the purported threat from Saddam which, of course, didn’t exist.
HP: In the days after 9/11, did you imagine that we would see this kind of attack on civil liberties?
AG: No, and it should be seen as shocking, in America at least, that so many individual rights have been lost so quickly. I believe that there has been a diminishing of the role played by reasoned debate. And when logic and reason are withdrawn from the public sphere, it creates a vacuum into which ideology and religious extremism rush in.
HP: In the Middle East, America and Britain are trying to persuade countries to become more democratic, yet in our own societies rights are being reduced and power centralised. How does that play in the Middle East?
AG: America’s power in the world has always been based primarily on moral authority, and if we undermine our moral authority then any exercise of raw military power produces its own resistance. We’re seeing that in Iraq.
HP: Do you think things can be restored? Say you become President, could this happen?
AG: Well, first of all I’m not planning to be a candidate, but a new President committed to restoring these rights could do so. The greater vulnerability we have now involves a rather radical change. Democracy is ultimately a conversation. If people are routinely excluded from that conversation or absent of their own choice, then it will be dominated by those who are primarily interested in political and economic power. Individual rights will be honoured and protected when individuals are full and vigorous participants in the public conversation. ++
· This is an extract from a televised interview with Al Gore for the More4 channel. The full interview will be run on Suspect Nation on 20 November at 9pm.
Amy Goodman Calls Out Government Liars and Media Cheerleaders
BuzzFlash Interview by Mark Karlin
Mon, 10/23/2006
We called our book Static based on the idea that … we’re still getting ever more static from the corporate media veil of distortion, lies, omissions, half truths. We need a media that creates static of another kind — what the dictionary defines as criticism, opposition, unwanted interference. We need a media that doesn’t cover for power, but covers power. We are the fourth estate. We’re not supposed to be for the state.
~ Amy Goodman
On a day after the media willingly let a pre-staged, election influencing event — the Saddam verdict — drown out other news coverage, nothing could me more pertinent than in interview with Amy Goodman. She and her brother, David, co-authored “Static,” which once again explores the sins of the Bush Administration and its enabler, the mainstream media. The Republican Party has become one big public relations machine for the media.
What’s odd is that the mainstream media claims to have contempt for PR. It claims to ferret out the “facts” on its own. But with the GOP and the Busheviks, the mainstream media pretty much lets the Rovian PR machine tell them what the news is.
No one knows this better or does a more valiant, tenacious job of offering an alternative new media than the host and spirit of “Democracy Now,” Amy Goodman.
* * *
BuzzFlash: The new book you wrote with your brother, Mother Jones reporter David Goodman, is called Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders and the People Who Fight Back. Let’s start by talking about those people who fight back. A vote in Congress last month confirmed torture as an official policy of the United States. It absolves Bush and his administration of war crimes and suspends habeas corpus. A lot of people today are so discouraged that they’ve given up fighting. What would you say to people to urge them to continue to fight?
Amy Goodman: It is absolutely critical — the only line of defense is people responding. What is the alternative?
We begin our book with a chapter called “Outlaw Nation.” We Americans pride ourselves on being a model around the world, but what is it that we are modeling right now? We have this extraordinary term, “extraordinary rendition.” Thousands of people have been rounded up since 9/11 without charge. We don’t know their names. They don’t know the evidence against them. Many of them have been deported. We know there are cases of torture from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo, to prisons all over the world. It’s very frightening because, in fact, it’s endangering our national security.
If we model this behavior around the world, what happens to Americans who go abroad? What happens to U.S. officials or even soldiers if they’re captured? Will they be tortured? Would they be held in a site where we don’t know where they are, and their captors would say, we’re doing it the American way?
BuzzFlash: Static also deals with the “media cheerleaders.” Could you analyze the media cheerleaders’ response to the recently enacted Military Commissions Act of 2006, which the mainstream media calls a success by the Bush administration? They tally it as though it were a sporting game. The Administration won the right to have the President of the United States decide who will be tortured. Yet other news at the same time included revelations that Bush’s war in Iraq is increasing the terrorist threat to the United States. There is a published leak in the Washington Post that six out of ten Iraqis support attacks on American soldiers, which, according to this bill, would make them aiders and abettors of terrorism. We also have a National Intelligence Estimate which is supported by a UN finding that said the Iraq war has resulted in a cause celebre for terrorists. We seem to have an enormous gap between what the mainstream media conveys as reality, and the facts on the ground, to the point that the President of the United States can get away with saying the finding of his own top sixteen intelligence agencies is naïve. What is happening? Isn’t it sort of a fantasyland of the mainstream media versus reality, and the fantasyland reflects the White House spin?
Amy Goodman: Absolutely. Just take as one example The New York Times reporting on this dramatic bill that allows for certain kinds of torture, and that does strip habeas corpus. In the entire front page of the article, there is really no serious criticism of the bill. It is simply an article about the way the political games work. It’s about the Democrats and the Republicans, and how they’re positioning themselves.
You know, people are good media consumers. They make decisions based on the information that they are given. In the lead-up to the Iraq war, the corporate media was all about the alleged weapons of mass destruction. In the same way, they’re now diminishing the seriousness of this bill. We’re seeing the same thing.
In the lead-up to the Iraq invasion, FAIR did a study of the four major nightly newscasts on NBC, ABC, CBS and PBS. Of the 393 interviews done around the war, only three were with anti-war leaders. That’s three of almost four hundred. Yet half the population was opposed to war then. That is no longer a “mainstream” media. It is an extreme media that beats the drums for war. And that has to be changed. The media are the most powerful institutions on earth — more powerful than any bomb. The Pentagon’s deployed the beast, and we have to take it back.
BuzzFlash: You discuss torture in your first chapter. Why is torture so important to the Bush Administration?
Amy Goodman: I think it’s desperation. Look at the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was transiting through Kennedy Airport, coming home from a vacation with his family. He is held for several weeks and then sent off to Syria. Yes, he was born there, but he left there with his parents when he was seventeen. If he was a danger in this country and the U.S. wanted him deported, why not deport him home to Canada, where he had worked for decades? But they deported him to Syria. He begged them not to. He cried in the torture flight over, on the Gulfstream jet that takes these victims of rendition. He he ends up in a grave-like cell, held for almost a year. He is tortured. He is brutalized. He is interrogated. And then, as inexplicably as he was taken, he’s released. He is sent home, a broken man, to Canada.
A Canadian judicial commission has issued a scathing report on what happened to him. They criticized the Canadian government, and they slammed the U.S. government, even saying in this report that they told the U.S . that they didn’t have direct evidence that he was linked to Al Qaeda. Why would the Bush Administration send him to Syria? Isn’t Syria an enemy of the United States? Just recently, at the U.N. General Assembly, President Bush referred to Syria as the crossroads for terrorism. They walk hand in hand with Syria in torturing people?
BuzzFlash: The answer is obviously yes. But the question is why.
Amy Goodman: I think it’s an act of desperation. As you point out, the Bush Administration was forced to react to a document, giving the conclusions of sixteen spy agencies in the U.S. government, that President Bush’s war on terror is actually increasing the threat of terror in the world. So how can you respond? By fear-mongering, by trying to distract, and by continuing down this path to confirm that you are right. The way they see it, anything else is just weakness.
BuzzFlash: On “Democracy Now!” and BuzzFlash, and even occasionally in the Washington Post, there have been interviews or articles about the many dissenters who have left the Administration. Generals have denounced Donald Rumsfeld and members of the intelligence community have said that the Bush Administration is putting us in peril in terms of national security. Why are those stories ending up just on ” Democracy Now!” and BuzzFlash? The White House spin is what prevails on the front page. Why are these people who have the direct experience in intellegence and at war being ignored by the mainstream media?
Amy Goodman: They are carrying water for the Administration, unfortunately. But it’s not only the Bush Administration, it’s the political elite in Washington. Let’s be clear here. This stripping of habeas corpus is the loss of a Constitutional right. A dozen Democrats joined with the Republicans in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq. You had Kerry and Edwards voting to authorize the invasion, as well. Only now have they said that they were wrong. Hillary Rodham Clinton, leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 — has never said that she was wrong on that vote.
You have the coming together of Democrats and Republicans, and when that distinction doesn’t exist, the media walks in lock-step. And, really, the majority of Americans are outside of that spectrum. The majority of Americans are not a fringe minority or a silent majority. They’re the silenced majority, silenced by the corporate media. We saw the same thing with the lead-up to the invasion as we are seeing today.
You have Jack Murtha, the conservative Congressman from Pennsylvania, basically voicing what the generals are saying privately. And it’s not only the higher-ups. Thousands of people in the military, by the Pentagon’s own estimate, are saying no to this war and are resisting deployment. We have interviewed numerous of these resisters on “Democracy Now!”
Right now, we’re doing an eighty-city tour to honor the tenth anniversary of “Democracy Now!” We’re honoring independent media by holding fundraisers for stations around the country, and we’re promoting Static. When we were at a Town Hall in Seattle, more than a thousand people packed in. One of those who spoke was Ehren Watada, the first lieutenant who said no to deployment. When he stood up, the applause was thunderous — almost frightening — the standing ovation, the response to him. He had just been hit the day before with a fourth charge of conduct unbecoming an officer. Now if we lived in a just society, who would be charged with conduct unbecoming?
In Chicago, we spoke at Northwestern University, and Tony Lagouranis was in the audience. Tony was an Army interrogator. He served in Iraq, and then he spoke out on “Democracy Now!” The hour with him was chilling as he talked about what happened. He served as an interrogator starting in 2004, first at Abu Ghraib and then as part of a mobile interrogation team. When he was first coming on the show, he asked if it was live, and I said no. Just before the break, he said, “I don’t think I can do this.” But he did. He talked about the violation of the Geneva Conventions. He talked about when the Navy Seals would interrogate people, they were using ice water to lower the body temperature of the person, and they would take a rectal temperature in order to make sure he didn’t die.
Military interrogators discovered that using dogs was particularly effectively in terrifying prisoners. Tony Lagouranis also said that at the detention facility in Mosul Airport, we would put the person in a shipping container and keep him up all night with music and strobe lights, in stress positions. Then we will bring in dogs. The dog will be barking and jumping on the person, and the person wouldn’t really understand what was going on. And Lagouranis said, “I knew we were really walking the line. I was going through the interrogation rules of engagement that were given to me by the unit that we were working with up there, trying to figure out what was legal and what wasn’t legal.” When I asked him about what he would say to people right now, he said, “I’d like to apologize to Iraq, honestly, because I think we’ve done so many things wrong over there.” He says, “To the military guys in Iraq, I would say follow your conscience, and don’t do what everybody else is doing just because it seems like that’s the right thing to do. It’s not.”
These are very brave people. The latest person we interviewed was a man named Agustin Aguayo, an Army medic. It came out in his basic training that he realized he couldn’t kill anyone, and he applied for conscientious objector status. I saw the investigative officer’s report, and he recommended that Agustin be given field status. He was sent to Iraq as these considerations were going on. He refused to load his gun for a year, no matter how serious the situation, no matter how dangerous. He said no. He eventually left and went to Germany. And then they called him back for redeployment. They denied his C.O. status.When the military brought him to his home to get his things to return to Iraq, he was trying to do the right thing. But he said he knew he could not kill someone. So he climbed out his bathroom window. The officers came to his home and one of his eleven-year-old twin girls ran outside. She was scared. She said the military chased her down the street. His wife raced down the street, to find their daughter behind a bush, crying. And they were asking, “Where is your father?” He went AWOL, and he just turned himself in a few weeks ago at Fort Irwin in California. He held a news conference and said he doesn’t care what happens to him. He just knows he can’t go to Iraq. He cannot kill someone. He’s willing to serve time in jail.
These are incredibly brave people who are very isolated. But thousands of people are saying no. Some have gone to Canada. Suzanne Swift, the young woman who says that she was harassed in the Army, has just been charged with going AWOL. After she went AWOL, she was brought back to Fort Lewis in handcuffs and put under the custody of one of the officers that she said had abused her.
These are young people who are trying quietly, and now publicly, to say no to what’s going on. There is a level of resistance inside the military, as well as outside, that the media have not begun to cover.
BuzzFlash: The last time we interviewed you, you talked about your experience in East Timor many years ago. You believe in the power of social justice and the power within individuals to change the fate of our nation. As horrible as things are, you aren’t yet discouraged — you still trust that individuals do have within them the ability to change the destructive course that we’re on currently.
Amy Goodman: I absolutely believe that. We were just in Sarasota, Florida at New College. The place was just packed, and some people couldn’t get in. There was a fifteen-year-old boy in a military uniform, and I asked why he had come. He said, “To hear the talk. I try not to miss ‘Democracy Now!’” I asked him if they’re having debates about Iraq at the military academy where he’s a student. He said, “Yes.” I asked him what the officers were saying. He said a lot of them — I think he said most of them — are very concerned about what’s going on.
When I was in Seattle, I talked to an ROTC recruiter who came to the talk. He said, “You know what? We’re watching. We’re sinking. I’m trying to figure the thing out.” I think people are coming to the wrong conclusions about people’s views across the political spectrum. I was just in Santa Barbara where at the pier, they’ve set up twenty-seven hundred crosses for the US service men and women who have died in Iraq.
It is truly frightening what’s happening, and people are coming to understand this in all sorts of ways. I do think that President Bush not finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq exposed more than the Bush Administration. It exposed the press corps. After all, if Bush only had a megaphone on the steps of the White House, he might have convinced some people. But he had something more powerful, and that was the U.S. media. Over and over again, it was asserted that there were weapons of mass destruction. People came to believe it.
Now they’re questioning. How is it that the media, the top stories on the network newscasts, the front pages of the leading papers of record, got it so wrong? Now people are looking other places. I think the growth of “Democracy Now!” demonstrates that. This program that began ten years ago on a couple of dozen community radio stations, on Pacifica stations and other affiliates, now is broadcasting on 500 stations, on Pacifica and NPR stations, and low-power FM, college and community radio stations, and public access TV stations, and on some PBS stations. We’re on those TV satellite networks, on Free Speech TV, which is Dish Network Channel 9415, on Link TV 9410, and on Direct TV Channel 375 link. Millions of people are accessing our website. Two to three new stations a week are picking us up in some of the most conservative areas in the country. And Time Magazine just said that Tim Russert’s “Meet the Press” and “Democracy Now!” are the pick of the podcasts — the most popular podcasts in the country.
I think that shows the hunger for an independent voice, not that small circle of pundits who know so little about so much, and who got it so wrong. At the grassroots level — people experiencing the effects of foreign policy and how it affects us here at home — those are the voices that need to be heard. Those are the voices that have been iced out of the corporate media.
BuzzFlash: It had been documented that torture has led to death at Abu Ghraib and other locations. Yet that never comes up.The assumption in the mainstream media is that, although there is torture, they pull back before anyone dies. But that’s not true. People died in Abu Ghraib. In essence, we have just authorized the President of the United States to commit murder.
Amy Goodman: I don’t think he’s been authorized to, but I think that he is allowing this to happen, and there has not been an outcry around that. That’s why the Democrats are conflicted in this. You cannot just say it’s the Bush Administration.
The Administration is desperate right now, and they’re trying to crack down on the press. The press should never cave. It is really the last line of defense in a democratic society. Thomas Jefferson said if he had a choice of government or a free press, he’d choose the latter.
In a section of our book called “Deception and Death,” we look at the Bay of Pigs invasion. It was a disaster for the Kennedy Administration. In early ‘61, The New Republic and The New York Times both suppressed their reports. The New Republic story is killed completely when Arthur Schlesinger, an assistant to President Kennedy, tells them that they want the story killed at the President’s request. The New York Times takes out the part of their story about the invasion, strips it down, and pushes it down to a smaller, below-the-fold placement, despite a managing editor protesting. Then this rag-tag group of fifteen hundred Cuban exiles attacked Cuba. It was a disaster — 114 of the invaders dying. Nearly twelve hundred were taken prisoner. Interestingly, ten days later, JFK met with the Times’ managing editor, Turner Catledge, and said, “If you printed more about the operation, you would have saved us from a colossal mistake.”
Now that is absolutely critical. The President said, if the press had done its job, and not caved to the government’s pressure, they would have avoided the catastrophic mistake. Yet you have today The New York Times publishing a very important expose — in December of 2005 — the expose around illegal wiretapping and the spying on American citizens. But if you read down into that article, you see that The New York Times admits it held back the story. The Times said they held onto it for more than a year. If you do the math and go back in time, they had the story on the eve of the 2004 presidential election. Why did they hold it? At the request of the people who were running for re-election. It is unforgivable.
BuzzFlash: To this day, they won’t admit or explain it. But let’s go back to this issue of 60% of Iraqis who, according to a poll published in the Washington Post, support attacks on American troops. According to the bill that was just passed, they would be considered people who aid or provide material support to terrorists. Theoretically, 60% of the Iraqi population could be tortured by Bush because they support attacks on American troops. Yet Americans don’t seem to understand this. They are the subject of a campaign of demagoguery which preys on fears and emotions which the Bush Administration is orchestrating.
Suppose you’re talking to someone out in Omaha who says, I can trust President Bush because he is going to stand against the terrorists. The person in Omaha feels this, one, because the information they’re getting in the mainstream media is only partial. Also, they’re getting the drill down to their emotional fear that is the purpose of the Bush campaign in terms of the “war on terrorism.” How do you convince that person in Omaha that they have more to be afraid of in terms of their own government than they do right now in terms of an imminent terrorist attack on Omaha?
Amy Goodman: I don’t necessary think it would take much convincing. Actually, I was in Omaha recently, and I remember getting out of the plane and meeting a soldier coming home. His whole family was there to greet him. At some point in their festivities at the airport, as they were snapping the photographs and they were holding signs welcoming their loved one home, I asked him, “What was it like?” As he left, and he had this look in his eyes that it’s not good. I really think that the corporate media is missing the story of the level of resistance. It’s not a matter of convincing people.
In what is considered the reddest state in the country, Utah, I just interviewed Sergeant Marshall Thompson. He just came home from a year in Iraq. He talked to thousands of soldiers, and I asked him, what is the feeling? He said, “Overwhelmingly opposed to what’s going on in the field, and the troops should come home.” And he is the son of the former mayor of Logan, Utah. He is doing a march across Utah, the reddest state in the country, to express his opposition to what is happening right now. The feeling of that military journalist, the sergeant, is everywhere in the country. I think it’s just not being captured.
It really does matter, by the way, what the media does. As Noam Chomsky says, it “manufactures consent.” We called our book Static based on the idea that, in this high-tech digital age, with high-definition television and digital radio, we’re still getting ever more static from the corporate media veil of distortion, lies, omissions, half truths. We need a media that creates static of another kind — what the dictionary defines as criticism, opposition, unwanted interference. We need a media that doesn’t cover for power, but covers power. We are the fourth estate. We’re not supposed to be for the state.
Most importantly, we need a media that covers the movement that creates static and makes history. There is so much happening. As we crisscross the country going to dozens of cities, the response is incredible. People are deeply concerned about what’s happening in Iraq. People are deeply concerned about issues of privacy. People are concerned about spying, about the lying, and the dying.
BuzzFlash: Amy Goodman, we thank you and your brother for this informative book. Thank you for inspiring people not to give up in these very dark times, and to continue fighting for the Constitution and social justice.
Amy Goodman: Thank you. ++
Gore Vidal: ‘The Most Important Election in My Lifetime’
Youtube Video
What’s right and good doesn’t come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it - as if the cause depends on you, because it does. Allow yourself that conceit - to believe that the flame of Democracy will never go out as long as there’s one candle in your hand.
~ Bill Moyers
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
November 6th, 2006