January 13, 2005
METRO BRIEFING
NEW YORK
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/13/nyregion/13mbrf.html
(For more information about the case go to: www.lynnestewart.org
Or call: 212-625-9696)
2) NEXT BAUAW MEETING:
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 11:00 a.m.
CENTRO DEL PUEBLO
474 VALENCIA STREET
(NEAR 16TH ST. IN S.F.)
HELP GET THE MILITARY OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS!
KILLING AND BEING KILLED
IS NOT A CAREER CHOICE!
BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
MARCH AND RALLY JANUARY 20, 5 P.M.
CIVIC CENTER, SAN FRANCISCO
3) [Alerts] Fw: Antiwar bleachers at 4th &
Pennsylvania Ave. (north side) for
Jan. 20 CounterInaugural alerts at
lists.iww.org alerts at lists.iww.org
Wed Jan 12 16:54:34 PST 2005
-----Forwarded Message-----
From: "VoteNoWar.org" < Action at VoteNoWar.org >
Sent: Jan 12, 2005 4:45 PM
WE HAVE WON THE RIGHT
TO SET UP ANTIWAR BLEACHERS
AND HOLD A RALLY ON THE NORTH SIDE OF
4TH ST. & PENNSYLVANIA AVE. NW!
http://lists.iww.org/pipermail/alerts/2005-January/001354.html
4) Let's Hit the Streets
On the 32nd Anniversary of Roe v. Wade
To Defend Abortion Rights!
Saturday, January 22
* 10 am - Rally at Powell and Market Streets, San Francisco
(Powell Street BART)
* 11 am - March up Market Street, along the Embarcadero
to Aquatic Park
www.indybay.org/womyn
Driving? Need a ride? Visit
http://drivingvotes.org/rides/sfprochoice.php
ALSO: Join the Women‚s Rights Contingent in the
San Francisco Counter-Inaugural Protest on January 20th.
Meet at 5 pm at the corner of Grove and Polk in
Civic Center Plaza.
5) PICTURES OF WAR
6) You are invited To Celebrate and claim victory on
James Yee's case and his Honorable Discharge from
the U.S. Army
Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday
JOIN THOUSANDS in the Freedom March
When: Monday, January 17, 2005
11:30 A.M. TO 12:30 p.m.
Where:J4NA members will meet at
3rd & Mission at 11:30 a.m and join the parade.
The big march will start at the San Francisco
Caltrain Station
(4th St. and Townsend St.,) proceeding to Mission Street @
Third Street, continuing to the Bill Graham
Civic Auditorium
7) ITALIAN.QUEER.DANGEROUS
a one-man show featuring Tommi Avicolli Mecca
directed by Francesca Prada, Jan. 14-19, 8:00pm,
JON SIMS CENTER
1519 Mission, Between Van Ness and 11th Sts., SF
[Come to the special antiwar presentation of
ITALIAN.QUEER.DANGEROUS this Friday evening,
Jan. 21, 8:00 p.m.]
8) Rising Violence and Fear Drive Iraq Campaigners Underground
By DEXTER FILKINS
January 16, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/international/middleeast/
16election.html?hp&ex=1105938000&en=e20aa7a7ce5fec23&ei=5094&partner=ho
mepage
9) Report: U.S. Conducting Secret Missions Inside Iran
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
Sun Jan 16, 2005 12:33 PM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7337636
10) LETTER TO PRESIDENT BUSH FROM
16 MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
January 12, 2005
The Honorable George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
"We write to urge you to take immediate steps to begin the
withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq."
11) Iraq War May Incite Terror, CIA Study Says
Think tank sees a breeding ground for militants.
It says the risk of a germ attack is rising.
By Bob Drogin
Times Staff Writer
THE WORLD
WASHINGTON
January 14, 2005
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0114-01.htm
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-
intel14jan14,1,6383855,print.story?coll=la-news-a_section
12) US 'should not rule out torture'
The outgoing head of the US Department of Homeland
Security has said torture may be used in certain cases
in order to prevent a major loss of life.
Story from BBC NEWS:
Published: 2005/01/15 00:47:27 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4175713.stm
13) Aimée Smith Found Not-Guilty in False Arrest By MIT Police
AIMEE SMITH DEFENSE COMMITTEE
Press Release
For immediate release: Friday, January 14, 2005
Contact: Richard Hugus (508) 540-6034
14) How Red Tape and Poverty Prevented Warnings Going Out
to Battered Shores
A system existed to alert the Indian Ocean countries to
the deadliest tsunami in history, but scientists were
unable to use it. Geoffrey Lean reports from Mauritius
on what is being done to prevent a repeat
16 January 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=601355
15) Join us for a counter-vigil for Global Justice
in response to the racist rhetoric of the
"Rally Against Global Terrorism"
On Monday, January 17th please join the Justice in
Palestine Coalition for a silent counter-vigil from
11:30-3p.m. on the southeast corner of Grove and
Larkin at the Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco.
There will be signs at the counter-vigil with images of
Palestinian children who have been killed.
16) HANDS OFF SOCIAL SECURITY!
March and demonstrate against attacks on Social Security!
Tuesday, Jan. 18, 11:30 a.m.
Pacific Stock Exchange
115 Sansome Street (between Bush and Pine) and march to
the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce office and then to
the office of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstien
17) You're Invited?
By: Joan Lowy
WASHINGTON
Scripps Howard
These are two of the various types of inaugural tickets
to be distributed starting Monday at the Capitol in Washington.
Associated Press photos
Be ready for metal detectors, personal body searches and
the highest security in inauguration history
01/11/2005
http://www.news-herald.com/site/
printerFriendly.cfm?brd=1698&dept_id=21849&newsid=13721845
18) White House Exploring 'Rapture' Contingency Plans
The White House is reportedly exploring contingency
plans in the event that President Bush and other prominent
Christians are 'raptured.' But succession plans are
complicated by Vice President Dick Cheney's poor health
and the fact that Representative Tom DeLay, like President
Bush, will be summoned to heaven along with millions of other
Christians.
Party leaders address presidential succession, security
needs in event that President Bush, other believers are
summoned to heaven.
By Deanna Swift
WASHINGTON, DC
December 28, 2004
http://swiftreport.blogs.com/news/2004/12/white_house_exp.html
19) Mangroves Can Act as Shield Against Tsunami
By G. Venkataramani
CHENNAI, Dec. 27
Date:28/12/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/12/28/stories/
2004122805191300.htm
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2004/12/28/stories/2004122805191300.htm
20) Social Security Agency Is Enlisted to Push Its Own Revision
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON
January 16, 2005
http://nytimes.com/2005/01/16/politics/
16benefit.html?ei=5094&en=8adcb7ce5d74cac7&hp=&ex=1105851600&partner=ho
mepage&pagewanted=print&position=
21) Bush to Return to 'Ownership Society' Theme in
Push for Social Security Changes
"The intent is to change Americans' relationship with
the government to allow (or, critics say, to force) people
to look less to Washington and to take more responsibility
for their finances and their retirement. "
By DAVID E. ROSENBAUM
WASHINGTON
January 16, 2005
THE ADDRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/politics/16own.html
22) For Inauguration in Wartime,
a Lingering Question of Tone
By JOHN TIERNEY
WASHINGTON
January 16, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/politics/16tone-
top.html?hp&ex=1105938000&en=100fcdafbc85fd33&ei=5094&partner=homepage
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) MANHATTAN: JURY DELIBERATES IN TERROR TRIAL(Lynne Stewart)
January 13, 2005
METRO BRIEFING
NEW YORK
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/13/nyregion/13mbrf.html
(For more information about the case go to: www.lynnestewart.org
Or call: 212-625-9696)
MANHATTAN: JURY DELIBERATES IN TERROR TRIAL
The jurors in the trial of Lynne F. Stewart, a lawyer accused of aiding
terrorism, began to deliberate yesterday [Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2005],
after the judge cautioned that they could not convict on the basis of
her political views. The decisions must be unanimous on 16 questions
concerning Ms. Stewart and two co-defendants, Ahmed Abdel Sattar
and Mohamed Yousry, who are charged with conspiring to lie to the
government and to help terrorists in Egypt. Judge John G. Koeltl, who
read 139 pages of instructions, told them that "expression of opinion
alone, even an opinion advocating violence, is not a crime in this
country." Julia Preston (NYT)
Compiled by Anthony Ramirez
Copyright 2005 The New York Times
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
2) NEXT BAUAW MEETING:
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 11:00 a.m.
CENTRO DEL PUEBLO
474 VALENCIA STREET
(NEAR 16TH ST. IN S.F.)
HELP GET THE MILITARY OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS!
KILLING AND BEING KILLED
IS NOT A CAREER CHOICE!
BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
MARCH AND RALLY JANUARY 20, 5 P.M.
CIVIC CENTER, SAN FRANCISCO
Help work on a campaign to get the military off our school
campuses. The recent passing of Proposition N, to Bring our
troops home now, by a 63% majority of San Francisco voters,
mandates that the military should keep their hands off our
kids. Killing and being killed is not the career choice we
want for our kids or anyone's kids. We want them to have an
education so that they can make things better, not training
in the art of killing. We want our tax dollars to go for
schools, housing, healthcare and good jobs instead of war.
Don't forget to protest on Jan. 20th. If you can take a day
off, join Not In Our Name's outreach campaign. We want to
hold banners near freeway on/off ramps, and in other public
locations to encourage everyone to protest in some way that
day-even if you can only wear a button on your job or honk
your horn in solidarity. For more information go to:
http://www.notinourname.net/~bayarea/
Jan. 20th is not a happy day for us. It's a day of protest!
Don't forget to show up at 5 p.m., Jan. 20, at the
Civic Center for a March and rally.
Bay Area United Against War
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
3) [Alerts] Fw: Antiwar bleachers at 4th & Pennsylvania Ave.
(north side) for Jan. 20 CounterInaugural
alerts at lists.iww.org alerts at lists.iww.org
Wed Jan 12 16:54:34 PST 2005
-----Forwarded Message-----
From: "VoteNoWar.org" < Action at VoteNoWar.org >
Sent: Jan 12, 2005 4:45 PM
WE HAVE WON THE RIGHT
TO SET UP ANTIWAR BLEACHERS
AND HOLD A RALLY ON THE NORTH SIDE OF
4TH ST. & PENNSYLVANIA AVE. NW!
http://lists.iww.org/pipermail/alerts/2005-January/001354.html
*Updated Jan. 20 CounterInaugural
logistics, bus transportation and more*
Dear VoteNoWar member,
VoteNoWar members will be able to join together at antiwar
bleachers and a rally at 4th St. and Pennsylvania Ave. NW (north side)
on January 20. This is the first time in history that people have won
the right to establish antiwar bleachers along the presidential
inaugural parade route.
The National Park Service has acknowledged the right of the
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition to set up antiwar bleachers at 4th St. and
Pennsylvania Avenue NW (north side). Our movement has obtained a
permit to hold this large convergence along the Inaugural route.
George Bush - as he rides in the inaugural motorcade - will be forced
to pass a large bleacher set up filled with signs demanding "U.S. Out
of Iraq Now, End the Occupation - Bring the Troops Home Now," "End
Colonial Domination from Palestine to Haiti, and Everywhere," "Health
Care, Education, Housing, and a Job at a Living Wage Must be a Right!"
and more.
You can bring your own signs or pick up signs, banners and other
materials at this location. Any sign that is made of cardboard,
posterboard or cloth and that is no larger than 3 feet by 20 feet and
1/4 inch in thickness can be brought to the parade route.
To cover the cost of the bleachers, the sound system, stage,
transportation, printing placards and other materials, we will need to
raise $30,000 in the next few days. We can't do it without your help.
Please make a generous donation. You can make a contribution through a
secure server, where you can also find information on how to
contribute by check, by clicking here:
http://www.pephost.org/site/R?i=7R-E-j-EqAi72suC2Mm5YQ..
We want to make it clear to everyone that while we have obtained
permitted space at 4th St. and Pennsylvania Ave. (north side), we are
continuing to fight the government's attempts to prohibit the general
public from gaining access to all the areas along the parade route
while reserving those areas for the exclusive use of Bush
supporters and donors. Pennsylvania Avenue is not the private
property of Corporate America and the ultra-right.
The only way to maintain our right to demonstrate along the route of
the inaugural parade is to come to Pennsylvania Avenue in large
numbers as close to 9 am - 10 am as possible on January 20.
Those organizing bus transportation, vans, car caravans, or planning
individual transportation should do everything in their power to be at
4th St. and Pennsylvania Avenue, and along the Pennsylvania Avenue
parade route, as close to 9 am - 10 am as possible.
Click below for UPDATED DOWNLOADABLE MAPS
of the site of the antiwar bleachers and mass rally
Color PDF http://www.pephost.org/site/R?i=MUzn9TOqkEC72suC2Mm5YQ.. Black &
White PDF http://www.pephost.org/site/R?i=3nyMcihbq-G72suC2Mm5YQ.. * *
FUNDS ARE URGENTLY NEEDED
Funds are urgently needed for the January 20th mobilization. If you
cannot personally attend but would like to help cover the costs of
transportation, printing banners, signs and literature you can make a
contribution through a secure server, where you can also find
information on how to contribute by check, by clicking here:
http://www.pephost.org/site/R?i=RWuhIllZbmC72suC2Mm5YQ..
Click the link below to change your email preferences:
http://www.pephost.org/site/R?i=51Db-MEKhTi72suC2Mm5YQ..
If the method for unsubscribing, above, do not work for you,
then write us at IWantOff at VoteNoWar.org and we'll remove
you manually.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
4) Let's Hit the Streets
On the 32nd Anniversary of Roe v. Wade
To Defend Abortion Rights!
Saturday, January 22
* 10 am - Rally at Powell & Market Streets, San Francisco
(Powell Street BART)
* 11 am - March up Market Street, along the Embarcadero
to Aquatic Park
Jan. 22 is the 32nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court
decision that established the constitutional right to reproductive freedom.
On the same day, anti-choice extremists plan to march in San Francisco
against women‚s health and rights. The anti-choice minority might be
emboldened by the climate in Washington, DC but they are not
welcome here!
Join the San Francisco Area Pro-Choice Coalition to Stand Up for
Reproductive Freedom and Demonstrate that San Francisco is PRO-CHOICE!
Sponsored by the San Francisco Area Pro-Choice Coalition. For more
information or to get involved, visit www.indybay.org/womyn
Driving? Need a ride? Visit http://drivingvotes.org/rides/sfprochoice.php
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
5) PICTURES OF WAR
PLEASE ACCESS:
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
I have obtained the originals of the photos I recently
posted which were taken from inside Fallujah.
These are of much higher quality.
Some of the comments have been updated, and there are
some additional pictures added which I did not have before.
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/
view_album.php?set_albumName=album28&page=1
More writing, photos and commentary at http://dahrjamailiraq.com
You can visit http://dahrjamailiraq.com/email_list/ to subscribe or
unsubscribe to the email list.
(c)2004 Dahr Jamail.
All images and text are protected by United States and
international copyright law. If you would like to reprint Dahr's
Dispatches on the web, you need to include this copyright notice
and a prominent link to the DahrJamailIraq.com website. Any
other use of images and text including, but not limited to,
reproduction, use on another website, copying and printing
requires the permission of Dahr Jamail. Of course, feel free
to forward Dahr's dispatches via email.
Iraq_Dispatches mailing list
http://lists.dahrjamailiraq.com/mailman/listinfo/iraq_dispatches
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/
view_album.php?set_albumName=album28&page=1
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coalitionforfreethoughtinmedia/message/26138
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coalitionforfreethoughtinmedia/message/26138
Virginion Pilot via AP - Photos - click here
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=79598&ran=187050
TSUNAMI PHOTOS:
A Community Labor News E-Zine
http://homepage.mac.com/demark/tsunami/2.html
This one has a BUNCH of different sources. I liked the
CTV site and the maps on the Washington Post site.
ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/asl/guides/indian-ocean-disaster.html
Readers may email your article submissions
or your comments to ListAdmin@CLNews.org
http://www.clnews.org/MailList/subscribtion.htm
"Freedom is always and exclusively
freedom for the one who thinks differently"
--Rosa Luxemburg
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
6) You are invited To Celebrate and claim victory on
James Yee's case and his Honorable Discharge from
the U.S. Army
Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday
JOIN THOUSANDS in the Freedom March
When: Monday, January 17, 2005
11:30 A.M. TO 12:30 p.m.
Where:J4NA members will meet at
3rd & Mission at 11:30 a.m and join the parade.
The big march will start at the San Francisco
Caltrain Station
(4th St. and Townsend St.,) proceeding to Mission Street @
Third Street, continuing to the Bill Graham
Civic Auditorium
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
7) ITALIAN.QUEER.DANGEROUS
a one-man show featuring Tommi Avicolli Mecca
directed by Francesca Prada, Jan. 14-19, 8:00pm,
JON SIMS CENTER
1519 Mission, Between Van Ness and 11th Sts., SF
JANUARY 14-29 (Friday and Saturday nights
only: 14, 15; 21, 22; 28, 29)
[Come to the special antiwar presentation of
ITALIAN.QUEER.DANGEROUS this coming Friday evening,
Jan. 21, 8:00 p.m.]
JON SIMS CENTER, 1519 Mission/between Van Ness and 11th
8pm, $5-10 sliding scale (no one turned away)
Seating is limited, for reservations: 415-554-0402
To volunteer to help with the show, call 415-552-6031
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
8) Rising Violence and Fear Drive Iraq Campaigners Underground
By DEXTER FILKINS
January 16, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/international/middleeast/
16election.html?hp&ex=1105938000&en=e20aa7a7ce5fec23&ei=5094&partner=ho
mepage
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 15 - The threat of death hung so heavily over
the election rally, held this week on the fifth floor of the General
Factory for Vegetable Oil, that the speakers refused to say whether
they were candidates at all.
"Too dangerous," said Hussein Ali, who solicited votes for the
United Iraqi Alliance, a party fielding dozens of candidates for
the elections here. "It's a secret."
And then Mr. Ali and his colleagues left, escorted by men with
guns.
So goes the election campaign unfolding across Iraq, a country
simultaneously set to embark on an American-backed political
experiment while writhing under a guerrilla insurgency dead set
on disrupting the experiment.
With only two weeks to go to before the vote, scheduled for Jan. 30,
guerrillas have stepped up their attacks and driven most candidates
deep indoors, and on Saturday, the authorities said they would
restrict traffic and set up cordons around polling places on election
day.
A result, in large swaths of the country, is a campaign in the
shadows, where candidates are often too terrified to say their
names. Instead of holding rallies, they meet voters in secret, if they
meet them at all. Instead of canvassing for votes, they fend off
death threats.
Public campaigning is still possible in much of southern Iraq and
in the Kurdish areas to the far northeast, where the threat of
violence does not loom so large.
But in much of the center and the northwest, including two of the
country's three largest cities, Baghdad and Mosul, candidates
reveal themselves only at great personal risk.
Of the 7,471 people who have filed to run, only a handful
outside the relatively safe Kurdish areas have publicly identified
themselves. The locations for the 5,776 polling places have
not been announced, lest they become targets for attacks.
The predicament for candidates was spelled out on a flier
passed around town by the United Iraqi Alliance. The flier
listed the names of 37 candidates for the national assembly.
The 188 others, the flier said, could not be published.
"Our apologies for not mentioning the names of all the
candidates," the flier said. "But the security situation is bad,
and we have to keep them alive."
Some political leaders here say they are not much bothered
by the candidates' lack of visibility; they point out that Iraqis
will be voting for political parties, not individual candidates.
Each party has a list of candidates and will be given seats in
proportion to the number of votes it receives. At this
rudimentary stage of democracy, some say, it is remarkable
enough that the Iraqis are voting at all.
"This will be an election of constituencies, not of programs
like you have in America," said Adil Abdul Mahdi, the finance
minister and a candidate in the United Iraqi Alliance. "The
Iraqis know their people. They know who they are voting for."
But the larger issue, for many political leaders, is that the
guerrilla assault to scuttle the elections has truncated political
discourse and, as a result, the heart of the elections itself.
If candidates can't campaign, they can't debate, and if they
can't debate, voters will hardly be in a position to chart their
country's destiny.
"An election is not just putting a piece of a paper in a box; it's
a whole process," said Nasir Chaderji, chairman of the National
Democratic Party, with 48 candidates. "We don't have that
here. Candidates can't campaign because of the security
situation.
"I call it the secret election."
Raja al-Khuzai, a candidate for the assembly who has joined
a slate headed by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, spends nearly
all of her time inside Dr. Allawi's heavily fortified compound,
surrounded by armed guards. Instead of campaigning, she
sends volunteers into the streets to talk to voters on her behalf.
"They come back and tell me the vision of the people,"
Dr. Khuzai said.
Dr. Khuzai knows well the dangers facing Iraqis trying to build
a new democratic order; two of her colleagues on the Iraqi
Governing Council, which has since been disbanded, were
killed. On Dec. 24, American soldiers found the broken and
bullet-riddled body of a relative, Wijdan al-Khuzai, also
a candidate.
Rawaf Abdul Razak, a candidate for the National Democratic
Party, awoke one morning to find a slip of paper tucked into
the front gate of his Baghdad home.
"The game is over," the handwritten note said. "If you do not
go back to your God honestly and stop being a traitor to your
country, then we will send you to hell."
Mr. Razak is still a candidate, but he does not campaign in
public anymore.
The violence makes for an election campaign that seems
curiously removed from the country where it is taking place
- and sometimes literally removed. The wealthier candidates,
like Dr. Allawi, broadcast television advertisements trumpeting
their candidacies. Others hold news conferences inside
compounds fortified by sandbags and blast walls.
Dr. Khuzai recently went door to door looking for supporters
in an Iraqi neighborhood in Amman, Jordan. "I can't do that
in Iraq," she said.
As a result, the most ubiquitous form of political communication
is the campaign poster; there are thousands. In the capital,
they compete for space on nearly every wall.
"The Right Choice for a Bright Future," reads one poster for
the United Iraqi Alliance.
"Islam Is Our Culture, Modernity Is Our Way, Renewal Is Our
Goal," reads one for the Islamic Democratic Party.
Ordinary campaign events here are so rare, and new, Iraqis
often do not know how to react when they see one. When
workers for the Iraqi Communist Party drove a caravan with
loudspeakers into Shoula, a neighborhood in northern
Baghdad, on Friday, many of the residents looked on
dumbfounded, with their mouths agape.
"We will lift up the poor!" the young Communist shouted
into the bullhorn.
Yet when the caravan stopped and the volunteers began
passing out leaflets, a throng of Iraqis crowded around.
They did not exhibit much knowledge of individual
candidates or the parties' platforms, but they well
understood that an election was only two weeks away.
"Of course we know what democracy is," said Nadi
Kareem, a 60-year-old shopkeeper, who had grasped
one of the Communist brochures. "We've been waiting
35 years for it."
The candidates themselves, even the ones too afraid to
go out, sense the stakes as well. The Communists, for
instance, now espousing free elections and religious
tolerance, are among the few Iraqi parties that send
candidates into the streets. Two of its members have
been gunned down in the past month.
"No one is going to hand you democracy on a silver
platter; you have to fight for it," said Jasim al-Helfi,
a Communist candidate for the assembly. "In a democracy,
the candidates have to go into the streets and meet
the people."
The insurgency has not stopped campaigning everywhere.
In much of southern Iraq, where the Shiites dominate and
the insurgency has ebbed, candidates can meet voters
face-to-face, though most do so only with armed guards
at their side.
Earlier this week, a group of five assembly candidates led
by Ahmad Chalabi drove from Baghdad to Mushkhab,
about 100 miles to the south, to meet the leaders of
a local tribe. To get there, Mr. Chalabi and his entourage
traveled with 50 armed guards, who stopped traffic on
highways when it got in the way and even commandeered
a gas station at gunpoint when their vehicles ran low on fuel.
Mr. Chalabi, who is a candidate for the United Iraqi Alliance,
arrived to a warm welcome. He met with the tribal leaders
inside a mudhif, a traditional meeting hall made of dried
reeds plucked from the Euphrates River. He sat cross-legged
with the tribal chiefs, dined on a lunch of lamb and rice, then
rose to give a speech.
"The Americans came and pushed Saddam out, but they did
not liberate the country," Mr. Chalabi said. "The Iraqi people
will liberate the country; they will build the country."
The tribal leaders, in turn, promised their support, as well as
the support of everyone in their tribe, the Fatla. "Our people
will vote the way we tell them to vote," said Imad Faroun,
a Fatla tribal leader.
Many Iraqi Shiites say they will vote for the United Iraqi
Alliance, the coalition of Shiite parties brought together
by the religious leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. With
Ayatollah Sistani's tacit endorsement - his gaunt, severe
visage adorns the alliance's placards - many Shiites say
they feel a religious obligation to vote for the Shiite alliance.
"If this party has been approved by Sistani, then I will
support it," said Adnan Khazel, a 23-year-old worker
at the vegetable oil factory.
The other emotion that accompanies many of the campaign
events here, along with the fear of violence, is the memory
of hard times, not just of Mr. Hussein, but also of the
uncertainty since the American invasion and the
intensifying guerrilla war.
The rallies in Mushkhab and at the factory in Baghdad were
both accompanied by poetry readings, mournful verse about
travails past.
"Iraq, my soul, my wounds are still not healed," the reader
told his fellow countrymen at the oil factory. "What a pity
that in this land where we were masters, we have now
become the slaves."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
9) Report: U.S. Conducting Secret Missions Inside Iran
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
Sun Jan 16, 2005 12:33 PM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7337636
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has been
conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran to help
identify potential nuclear, chemical and missile targets, The
New Yorker magazine reported Sunday.
The article, by award-winning reporter Seymour Hersh, said
the secret missions have been going on at least since last
summer with the goal of identifying target information for
three dozen or more suspected sites.
Hersh quotes one government consultant with close ties to
the Pentagon as saying, "The civilians in the Pentagon want to
go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure
as possible."
One former high-level intelligence official told The New
Yorker, "This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one
campaign. The Bush administration is looking at this as a huge
war zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign."
The White House said Iran is a concern and a threat that
needs to be taken seriously. But it disputed the report by
Hersh, who last year exposed the extent of prisoner abuse at
the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
"We obviously have a concern about Iran. The whole world
has a concern about Iran," Dan Bartlett, a top aide to
President Bush, told CNN's "Late Edition."
Of The New Yorker report, he said: "I think it's riddled
with inaccuracies, and I don't believe that some of the
conclusions he's drawing are based on fact."
Bartlett said the administration "will continue to work
through the diplomatic initiatives" to convince Iran -- which
Bush once called part of an "axis of evil" -- not to pursue
nuclear weapons.
"No president, at any juncture in history, has ever taken
military options off the table," Bartlett added. "But what
President Bush has shown is that he believes we can emphasize
the diplomatic initiatives that are underway right now."
COMMANDO TASK FORCE
Bush has warned Iran in recent weeks against meddling in
Iraqi elections.
The former intelligence official told Hersh that an
American commando task force in South Asia is working closely
with a group of Pakistani scientists who had dealt with their
Iranian counterparts.
The New Yorker reports that this task force, aided by
information from Pakistan, has been penetrating into eastern
Iran in a hunt for underground nuclear-weapons installations.
In exchange for this cooperation, the official told Hersh,
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has received assurances
that his government will not have to turn over Abdul Qadeer
Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, to face questioning
about his role in selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and
North Korea.
Hersh reported that Bush has already "signed a series of
top-secret findings and executive orders authorizing secret
commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct
covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as
many as 10 nations in the Middle East and South Asia."
Defining these as military rather than intelligence
operations, Hersh reported, will enable the Bush administration
to evade legal restrictions imposed on the CIA's covert
activities overseas.
(c) Reuters 2005
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
10) LETTER TO PRESIDENT BUSH FROM 16 MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
January 12, 2005
The Honorable George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
"We write to urge you to take immediate steps to begin the
withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq."
Dear Mr. President,
We write to urge you to take immediate steps to begin the
withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.
Although the initial invasion of Iraq may have occurred with
minimal troop deaths, the subsequent occupation of the
country has been anything but successful. Already more than
1,300 American troops have lost their lives since the war began
on March 19, 2003. At least 10,000 American troops have been
injured as well, and it is impossible to know exactly how many
thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed. Despite
the enormity of the war's casualties, the Iraqi insurgency
continues to grow stronger with every passing day.
Iraq is no closer to becoming a stable democracy today than
it was two years ago, as evidenced in recent weeks by the daily
torrent of insurgent attacks on American forces and Iraqi
civilian leaders. On January 4th, insurgents assassinated
Ali Haidari, the governor of the Iraqi province that includes
Baghdad. Just as devastating to the prospect of democracy,
on December 30th, al-Jazeera satellite channel reported that
all 700 electoral workers in Mosul quit their posts out of fear
of being killed. Two weeks later, on January 10th, the entire
13-member electoral commission in the Anbar province, just
west of Baghdad, resigned after being threatened by insurgents.
If even Iraqi election officials fear for their lives, how can we
possibly expect Iraqi citizens to feel safe going to the polls?
How can we continue to put our own troops in harm's way,
the continued targets for Iraq's thousands of malcontent
insurgents?
It has become clear that the existence of more than 130,000
American troops stationed on Iraqi soil is infuriating to the
Iraqi people - especially because Saddam Hussein did not
possess weapons of mass destruction and did not have
a connection to the tragic events of September 11th, 2001
or to the al Qaeda terrorist organization. Indeed, the very
presence of Americans in Iraq is a rallying point for dissatisfied
people in the Arab world. The events of the last two years
have not only intensified the rage of the extremist Muslim
terrorists, they have also ignited civil hostilities in Iraq that
have made Americans and Iraqis substantially less safe.
Therefore, by removing our troops from the country, we
will remove the main focus of the insurgents’ rage.
Again, while it may be logistically difficult to immediately
remove every American soldier, we urge you to take
immediate action to begin the withdrawal of U.S. forces
from Iraq. This is the only way to truly support our troops.
Thank you for your consideration of this request.
Sincerely,
Representaives
Lynn Woolsey (CA-06) 202-225-5161
Danny Davis (IL-07) 202-225-5006
Lane Evans (IL-17) 202-225-5905
Sam Farr (CA-17) 202-225-2861
Raul Grijalva (AZ-07) 202-225-2435
Alcee Hastings (FL-23) 202-225-1313
Maurice Hinchey (NY-22) 202-225-6335
Jesse Jackson, Jr. (IL-02) 202-225-0773
Dennis Kucinich (OH-10) 202-225-5871
Barbara Lee (CA-09) 202-225-2661
John Lewis (GA-05) 202-225-3801
Jim McDermott (WA-07) 202-225-3106
Grace Napolitano (CA-38) 202-225-5256
Major Owens (NY-11) 202-225-6231
Jose Serrano (NY-16) 202-225-4361
Pete Stark (CA-13) 202-225-5065
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
11) Iraq War May Incite Terror, CIA Study Says
Think tank sees a breeding ground for militants.
It says the risk of a germ attack is rising.
By Bob Drogin
Times Staff Writer
THE WORLD
WASHINGTON
January 14, 2005
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0114-01.htm
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-
intel14jan14,1,6383855,print.story?coll=la-news-a_section
WASHINGTON - The war in Iraq is creating a training and
recruitment ground for a new generation of "professionalized"
Islamic terrorists, and the risk of a terrorist attack involving a
germ weapon is steadily growing, an in-house CIA think tank
said in a report released Thursday.
The "dispersion of the experienced survivors of the conflict in
Iraq" to other countries will create a new threat in the coming
15 years, especially as the Al Qaeda network mutates into a
volatile brew of independent extremist groups, cells and
individuals, according to the report by the National Intelligence
Council.
David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational
threats, said those who survived the Iraq war would pose
a threat when they went home, "even under the best of scenarios."
But broader trends are likely to overshadow terrorism on the
world stage.
Most important, India and China increasingly will flex powerful
political and economic muscles as major new global players
by 2020, said the council, which likened the rise of the two
countries to the emergence of the United States as a world
power a century ago.
The two nuclear-armed Asian giants - one a vibrant
democracy, the other a one-party state - will "transform
the geopolitical landscape" because of their robust economic
growth, expanding military capabilities and large populations,
the council predicted.
"The rise of these new powers is a virtual certainty," the
council said in the report, titled "Mapping the Global Future."
Partly as a result, the council expects the world economy
to be about 80% larger than in 2000, and per capita income
50% higher.
The bad news: The United States "will see its relative power
position eroded" and the world will face a "more pervasive
sense of insecurity" from terrorism, the spread of
unconventional weapons and political upheaval that could
reverse recent democratic gains in parts of Central and
Southeast Asia.
"Weak governments, lagging economies, religious extremism
and youth bulges will align to create a perfect storm for internal
conflict in some areas," the authors warned. "Our greatest
concern is that terrorists might acquire biological agents,
or less likely, a nuclear device, either of which could cause
mass casualties."
The 119-page report is intended to help the White House
and other policymakers prepare for probable challenges by
tracing how key trends may develop and influence world
events over the next 15 years.
"It's designed to stimulate thought," Robert L. Hutchings,
chairman of the council, said at a news briefing at CIA
headquarters.
Although few of the forecasts come as surprises, Hutchings
said the authors sought to challenge conventional thinking.
"Linear analysis will get you a much-changed caterpillar," he
said, "but it won't get you a butterfly. For that you need a leap
of imagination. We hope this ... will help us make that leap."
The report, the third in a project launched in the mid-1990s,
is based on the thinking and comments of more than 1,000 U.S.
and foreign experts who participated in more than 30 conferences
and workshops over the last year. The text and a computer
simulation of possible scenarios are available online at
http://www.cia.gov/nic .
The United States will retain enormous advantages and will
continue to play a pivotal role in economic, political and
military affairs, the report concludes. But Washington "may
be increasingly confronted" with managing fast-shifting
international relations and alignments.
Washington probably will face "dramatically altered alliances
and relations with Europe and Asia," for example, with the
European Union increasingly supplanting NATO on the
world stage.
The United Nations and international financial institutions
"risk sliding into obsolescence unless they adjust" to the
changes in the global system, the authors wrote.
"While no single power looks within striking distance of
rivaling U.S. military power by 2020, more countries will be
in a position to make the United States pay a heavy price for
any military action they oppose," they said.
Suspected possession of unconventional weapons by Iran,
North Korea and perhaps others will "also increase the
potential cost of any military action" by U.S. forces.
But the likelihood that a local conflict could escalate into
a total war or nuclear exchange is "lower than at any time
in the past century."
Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
12) US 'should not rule out torture'
The outgoing head of the US Department of Homeland
Security has said torture may be used in certain cases
in order to prevent a major loss of life.
Story from BBC NEWS:
Published: 2005/01/15 00:47:27 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4175713.stm
Speaking to the BBC, Tom Ridge said the US did not condone the
use of torture to extract information from terrorists.
But he said that under an "extreme set" of hypothetical
circumstances, such as a nuclear threat, "it could happen".
A spokesman for Mr Ridge said his comments were taken out
of context and did not amount to approval of torture.`
Mr Ridge's remarks come a day after the US was accused of
eroding human rights by campaigners.
Prisoners shackled
A report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticized the US over
the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in Iraq and the treatment
of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Shocking pictures last year alerted the world to abuses at
Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, and there have been numerous
allegations of abuse and torture by former Guantanamo
Bay inmates.
You would try to exhaust every means you could to extract
the information to save hundreds and thousands of
people ...Tom Ridge
One FBI agent described in a memo seeing prisoners at
Guantanamo shackled, hand and foot, in a fetal position for
up to 24 hours at a time, and left to defecate on themselves.
The US defense department has announced a new investigation
into the allegations.
It has condemned the abuses in Iraq and says it is prosecuting
those responsible.
Mr. Ridge told BBC News 24's HARDtalk: "By and large, as a matter
of policy we need to state over and over again: we do not condone
the use of torture to extract information from terrorists."
But he said it was "human nature" that torture might be employed
in certain exceptional cases when time was very limited.
In the event of something like a nuclear bomb threat "you would
try to exhaust every means you could to extract the information
to save hundreds and thousands of people", he said.
'When not if'
But he admitted there was "a real question" whether using torture
on terrorists would actually gain the information required "given
the nature of the enemy".
He said the US did not have the luxury of knowing where and when
a terrorist attack might happen.
"I don't think it is 'if'. I think it's a matter of 'when'. We operate
that way," he said.
"On a day-to-day basis, not just the United States but many allies
around the world, do whatever we can to share information about
terrorists, share information about the kind of attacks."
Thursday's HRW report called for the Bush administration to set
up a fully independent commission to investigate allegations of
torture during interrogations at Abu Ghraib.
It said abuses committed by the US had significantly weakened
the world's ability to protect human rights because it had
undermined international laws.
Mr Ridge argued the HRW report reflected a "foreign perception"
that the US was using different methods to those employed
before the 11 September 2001 attacks.
Tom Ridge was speaking on BBC News 24's HARDtalk, broadcast
on Friday, 14 January at 1930 GMT on BBC World and
2330 GMT on BBC News 24.
(c) BBC MMV
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
13) Aimée Smith Found Not-Guilty in False Arrest By MIT Police
AIMEE SMITH DEFENSE COMMITTEE
Press Release
For immediate release: Friday, January 14, 2005
Contact: Richard Hugus (508) 540-6034
Cambridge, Massachusetts-On Thursday, January 13 a judge at the
Middlesex County Courthouse found Dr. Aimée Smith "not guilty" of
charges by MIT police of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. The
arrest stemmed from an incident on August 25, 2004 in which MIT
police officer Joseph D'Amelio arrested Dr. Smith for questioning him
about his arresting her in June for passing out leaflets on a public
sidewalk on Memorial Drive. Charges for the earlier arrest were
dropped by MIT. Charges for the second arrest were not dropped,
leaving MIT the embarrassment of backing up an officer who thought
he was within his rights to arrest, handcuff, and take someone to jail
simply because he didn't like what that person was saying. Ironically,
in their second meeting, Dr. Smith was questioning Officer D"Amelio
about whether he understood the 1st Amendment to the Constitution.
Officer D'Amelio was backed in court up by two other MIT police, who
agreed on a fabrication that Dr. Smith was "shouting and screaming"
and "flailing her arms" outside the MIT Student Center last August.
The specific charge of disorderly conduct, which MIT police claimed
was a "safety" issue, was not proven, leaving moot the charge of
resisting arrest. Dr. Smith's attorney, Mr. Daniel Beck, called it "a
dream case for a defense attorney" because no evidence was actually
presented to back up the charges. Attorney Beck did little more
during the trial than make brief responses to the prosecutor's
spinning of an empty case, and then ask for it to be thrown out.
To the apparent confusion of the MIT police, the judge did just this.
Nearly thirty supporters from the MIT academic community and
activists and friends from the Boston area filled the courtroom.
According to Noah Cohen, who works with Dr. Smith in the New
England Committee to Defend Palestine, "winning this case means
that MIT has failed in this attempt to silence dissent on campus."
Other supporters of Dr. Smith were in agreement that she was
targeted by MIT police because she is well known on campus
as an outspoken activist for social justice.
###
Read the Defense Committee's earlier announcement of this
trial at: http://lists.topica.com/lists/act-ma@igc.topica.com/read/
message.html?mid=810458992&sort=d&start=7109
See The Bridge, a Cambridge newspaper, for an article on the
background of this case at: http://www.bridgenews.org/index.html
Announce mailing list
Announce@onepalestine.org
http://mail.onepalestine.org/mailman/listinfo/announce_onepalestine.org
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
14) How Red Tape and Poverty Prevented Warnings Going Out
to Battered Shores
A system existed to alert the Indian Ocean countries to
the deadliest tsunami in history, but scientists were
unable to use it. Geoffrey Lean reports from Mauritius
on what is being done to prevent a repeat
16 January 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=601355
Red tape stopped scientists from alerting countries around the
Indian Ocean to the devastating Boxing Day tsunami racing towards
their shores, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.
Scientists at the Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii - who have
complained about being unable to find telephone numbers to
alert the countries in peril - did not use an existing rapid
telecommunications system set up to get warnings around
the world almost instantly because the bureaucratic
arrangements were not in place.
Senior UN officials attending a conference here of small island
countries - some of them badly hit by the tsunami, now
recognised to have been the deadliest in history - revealed
that the scientists did not use the World Meteorological
Organisation's (WMO) Global Telecommunication System
to contact Indian Ocean countries because the "protocols
were not in place".
The system, which links all the world's national meteorological
services, is designed to get warnings from anywhere in the
world to all other nations within 30 minutes.
It was used to alert Pacific countries to the tsunami, even
though it affected hardly any of them, and could have been
used in the Indian Ocean if the threat had been from a typhoon,
officials said, but it could not be used to warn about a tsunami.
Dr Laura Kong, the director of the International Tsunami
Information Centre which monitors the warning system in
Hawaii, told the IoS: "The WMO's system has been set up but
the protocols are not available for tsunami warnings except
in the Pacific. So it was used on 26 December but only in the
Pacific."
A senior official at Unesco, which runs the information centre
and the warning system, explained that this meant that "we
do not have an agreement for passing the information on"
for tsunamis in the Indian Ocean.
She added that they had got "approved communication
channels" for giving out warnings about tropical cyclones
in the area but that "these would necessarily be different
in the case of a tsunami" and were not available.
Michel Jarraud, secretary general of the WMO, said that the
system had "proved to be highly effective for providing timely
early warnings for a variety of weather, climate and water-related
hazards in many countries". He said it had proved particularly
valuable during last year's hurricanes in the Caribbean and
Pacific, and added: "The system provides tremendous potential
for timely and reliable exchange of tsunami warning messages
and related information."
But the governments around the Indian Ocean rejected
repeated pressure from Unesco and other UN bodies for
a tsunami early-warning system in their area because it
was expensive, they had many calls on their resources and
there had been no tsunamis in the ocean for more than
100 years.
The UN now says that the Boxing Day tsunami was the
deadliest ever. The only one that even begins to rival it
smashed through the Mediterranean around 1400BC after
the destruction of the island of Santorini. On that occasion
100,000 people are estimated to have died.
Tomorrow a flurry of international UN meetings begins in
order to establish tsunami warning systems both in the Indian
Ocean and worldwide over the next two and a half years. They
start with a long-planned UN conference on disasters in Kobe,
Japan. Further meetings are scheduled in India, China and
Thailand during the rest of the month, followed by a major
conference in Bangkok in March.
Unesco wants to have an Indian Ocean warning system up
and running by June 2006 and a global one covering all the
world's oceans a year later. It points out that the Mediterranean,
Atlantic and Caribbean are all vulnerable, as well as the Pacific.
Considerable amounts of money for the Indian Ocean system
- expected to cost $30m (£16m) - have been pledged by Japan,
the US, Australia and other countries. Deep-sea sensors - at
$250,000 each - would be scattered all over the Indian Ocean.
But Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, who was also attending
the conference on Small Island Developing States here, wants
to extend the global system to cover all types of natural disaster.
Salvano Briceno, director of the UN's International Strategy for
Disaster Reduction, said this would also cover earthquakes,
landslides, floods, droughts and hurricanes. But experts
stressed that putting up a technical warning system does
not in itself solve the problem because the messages have to
reach the people living on - or the tourists visiting - the shores,
and evacuations have to be arranged.
This is a hugely demanding task. In the Pacific it works relatively
well as the shores are not generally heavily populated. But the
Indian Ocean has some of the world's most heavily populated
shores and some of its poorest countries. Besides, the deep-
ocean sensors are prone to giving off false alarms and experts
warn that just one of these could damage tourist industries
and destroy public confidence.
"This is a political as well as a scientific issue," said a senior
Unesco official. "There are very high stakes involved: tourism
is very important to some of these countries. Imagine the
effect if a warning went out, the shores were evacuated,
and then nothing happened."
(c) 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
15) Join us for a counter-vigil for Global Justice
in response to the racist rhetoric of the
"Rally Against Global Terrorism"
On Monday, January 17th please join the Justice in
Palestine Coalition for a silent counter-vigil from
11:30-3p.m. on the southeast corner of Grove and
Larkin at the Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco.
There will be signs at the counter-vigil with images of
Palestinian children who have been killed.
Background
On January 16th, 2005 the Israel Action Committee of the East Bay and
Christians for Israel are bringing a bus, bombed last January, from
Jerusalem to Berkeley's Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park. The
following day on January 17th, 2005 San Francisco Voice for Israel will be
displaying the bombed bus in San Francisco's Civic Center. Certainly this
bus that was attacked in Jerusalem, carrying civilians, is a powerful and
tragic reminder of the violence that engulfs the region. Eleven people died
in that bombing and this should be remembered and mourned. However, what is
the underlying political agenda? "Christians for Israel" states "We want to
help Americans visualize the terror that Israelis face on a daily basis and
to heighten the public conscience in regards to terror. We hope it brings a
refreshed understanding of the evil that the Jewish people and Israel face."
The mere use of the word "evil" presents a negative image of Palestinians
and Arabs while exonerating Israel from its construction of the apartheid
wall, settlements on Palestinian land, bulldozing of Palestinian homes, and
the killing of innocent Palestinians.
We mourn the loss of all lives in this conflict, especially innocent
civilians. And at this event we intend to put a face on the unseen
Palestinian victims of the Israeli occupation and to support justice, rather
than occupation and war, as a way to lasting peace. In response to
the "Rally Against Global Terrorism", we are encouraging all those who
believe in upholding justice, human rights, and global peace to attend the
counter-vigil for Global Justice.
For detailed analysis of the counter-vigil please visit:
http://tomjoad.org/jan16vigil.htm
For more information on the counter-vigil, please contact:
info@justiceinpalestine.net
* To visit your group on the web, go to:
* http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bayareapalestine/
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
16) HANDS OFF SOCIAL SECURITY!
March and demonstrate against attacks on Social Security!
Tuesday, Jan. 18, 11:30 a.m.
Pacific Stock Exchange
115 Sansome Street (between Bush and Pine) and march to
the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce office and then to
the office of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstien
Dear Health Care Activist,
We encourage you to attend a march opposing the proposed attacks
on Social Security.
The central demand of the demonstration is
HANDS OFF SOCIAL SECURITY.
It is on Tuesday, Jan 18, in
San Francisco starting at 11:30am. It begins
at the Pacific Stock Exchange at
115 Sansome St (between Bush and Pine)
and then proceeds the SF Chamber of
Commerce office and then to the office
of US Senator Dianne Feinstein.
The proposed changes by Bush on
Social Security are a direct attack on
the health and welfare of all Americans.
Everyone needs a guaranteed income
when they retire or are disabled.
We do not need a few coins to
gamble with on Wall St.
The Bush attacks come in the
context of a bigger attack on
everyone?s right to work as a
community to solve some of
our most pressing problems.
Unions are under attack, which
would leave working people alone
facing the organized force of corporate lawyers.
Pensioners are under attack leaving
them at the mercy of Wall St.
Our ability to organize for a health
care system is under attack as Bush
works to have us face the organized
insurance and drug industries as lone individuals.
Again we encourage you to show your
support social solutions to social problems
by joining us on Tuesday Jan 18 in San Francisco
We will be having a table at all the locations.
Please let us know if you can help.
We thank the Gray Panthers for calling this
demonstration. To contact the Gray Panthers,
please call 415-215-7575.
___ I plan on coming to the march
___ I can carry a sign
___ I can help at the Health Care for All table
___ I have forwarded this email
Thank you
Don Bechler
Chair
Health Care for All ? San Francisco Chapter
Chair
California Universal Health Care Organizing Project
415-695-7891
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
17) You're Invited?
By: Joan Lowy
WASHINGTON
Scripps Howard
These are two of the various types of inaugural tickets
to be distributed starting Monday at the Capitol in Washington.
Associated Press photos
Be ready for metal detectors, personal body searches and
the highest security in inauguration history
01/11/2005
http://www.news-herald.com/site/
printerFriendly.cfm?brd=1698&dept_id=21849&newsid=13721845
WASHINGTON - The nation's 55th presidential inauguration, the
first to be held since 9/11, will take place this month under perhaps
the heaviest security of any in U.S. history.
Dozens of federal and local law enforcement agencies and military
commands are planning what they describe as the heaviest possible
security. Virtually everyone who gets within eyesight of the president
either during the Jan. 20 inauguration ceremony at the U.S. Capitol
or the inaugural parade down Pennsylvania Avenue later in the day
will first go through a metal detector or receive a body pat-down.
Thousands of police officers and military personnel are being
brought to Washington from around the country for the four-day
event. Sharpshooters will be deployed on roofs, while bomb-sniffing
dogs will work the streets. Electronic sensors will be used to detect
chemical or biological weapons.
Anti-abortion protesters have been warned to leave their crosses at
home. Parade performers will have security escorts to the bathroom,
and they've been ordered not to look directly at President Bush or
make any sudden movements while passing the reviewing stand.
"It's going to be very different from past inaugurals," said Contricia
Sellers-Ford, spokeswoman for the U.S. Capitol Police, which is
responsible for the Capitol and grounds. "A lot of the security
differences will not be detected by the public - there will be a lot
of behind the scenes implementation - but the public will definitely
see more of a police presence."
The Department of Homeland Security has designated the inaugural
a National Special Security Event under a protocol introduced by
President Bill Clinton that calls for especially heavy security during
events of national significance at which large numbers of
government officials and dignitaries are present.
There have been 20 previously designated special security events,
including Bush's first inaugural, last year's Democratic and
Republican conventions, former President Ronald Reagan's
funeral and the 2002 Super Bowl.
Under the protocol, the Secret Service takes the lead in drawing
up the security plan, while the FBI gathers intelligence and the
Federal Emergency Management Agency oversees response
scenarios to possible terror attacks.
The Secret Service also works closely with the Defense Department,
the National Park Service, and local police agencies, especially the
Washington police department and the Capitol police.
About 40 agencies are involved.
The Joint Force Headquarters National Capital Region, which was
created two years ago to bring coordination to the many disparate
military units in the Washington area, will provide more than
4,000 troops to help.
Washington, D.C., police chief Charles Ramsey has sent invitations
to police departments across the country inviting them to send
squads of officers to help with inauguration security. The federal
government is paying for officers' hotels, meals and air travel.
Several thousand officers are expected, Ramsey said. That includes
squads from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Seattle,
Minneapolis, Chicago, Bradenton, Fla., Charlotte and Greensboro,
N.C., the North Carolina state highway patrol, several law
enforcement agencies in Texas and other parts of the country.
"This is the first post 9/11 (inauguration) so obviously there are
some more security concerns this time than in past years,"
Ramsey said.
The extra officers from around the country will free up Washington
police officers so that they can form "mobile platoon civil
disturbance units" to prevent protest demonstrations from
getting out of hand, Ramsey said.
Groups planning demonstrations during the inauguration
festivities are already smarting from security restrictions.
Anti-war protesters with the A.N.S.W.E.R Coalition have
complained that large sections of the parade route have been
set aside for Bush's political contributors and supporters and
will be closed to the general public.
The anti-abortion Christian Defense Coalition, which is also
planning a demonstration, has threatened to sue the
government because the Secret Service recently added
crosses to its list of objects that are banned from the
parade route.
"I think it's censorship no matter how you look at it," said
the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the defense coalition.
Besides weapons, other items on the banned list include
coolers, folding chairs, bicycles, pets, papier-mache objects,
displays such as puppets, mock coffins, props and "any
items determined to be a potential safety hazard."
Parade performers said they also have been warned to
expect unprecedented security.
"They've told us right out that it's going to be very, very
tight," said Peter LaFlamme, executive director of the
Spartans Drum and Bugle Corps in Nashua, N.H. LaFlamme
said he has been receiving almost daily phone calls from
inaugural organizers to apprise him of new security procedures.
Thousands of performers - marching bands, color guards,
pompon dancers, hand bell-ringers, drill teams on horseback
and Civil War re-enactors - will be bused early in the morning
to the Pentagon parking lot across the Potomac in Virginia.
While performers disembark and go through metal detectors,
bomb-sniffing dogs will search the buses.
Then everybody will get back on the buses for a trip to the
National Mall, where they will spend most of the day in heavily
guarded warming tents. Participants have been warned that
they will not be allowed to leave the tents except to go to
portable toilets accompanied by a security escort.
Other instructions given performers include a warning not
to look directly at Bush while passing the presidential
reviewing stand, not to look to either side and not to
make any sudden movements.
"They want you to just look straight ahead," said Danielle
Adam, co-director of the Mid American Pompon All Star
Team from Michigan, which also performed in the 2001
inaugural parade.
"Last time we went security was really tight," Adam said.
"This time we got almost like a book of things we needed
to fill out beforehand."
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
18) White House Exploring 'Rapture' Contingency Plans
The White House is reportedly exploring contingency
plans in the event that President Bush and other prominent
Christians are 'raptured.' But succession plans are
complicated by Vice President Dick Cheney's poor health
and the fact that Representative Tom DeLay, like President
Bush, will be summoned to heaven along with millions of other
Christians.
Party leaders address presidential succession, security
needs in event that President Bush, other believers are
summoned to heaven.
By Deanna Swift
WASHINGTON, DC
December 28, 2004
http://swiftreport.blogs.com/news/2004/12/white_house_exp.html
WASHINGTON, DC-What if the rapture, the much-anticipated event
in which God summons his faithful followers out of this world,
happened on George W. Bush's watch? Until recently this seemingly
far-fetched question was the stuff of Christian message boards .
But with the White House well known for putting faith front and
center, officials are reportedly at work on a contingency plan
spelling out how to run the country in the event that President
Bush and other top-ranking Christians are 'raptured.'
White House officials are said to be concerned by a recent up-tick
in the Rapture Ready Index , a self-proclaimed prophetic
speedometer of end-time activity that monitors such seemingly
disparate factors as the crime rate, unemployment, wild weather
and the "mark of the Beast," evidence of activity related to the
antichrist. The Rapture Ready Index recently reached 157, a high
for 2004, pushed upwards by a new CUNY study showing that the
number of Pagans in the US has skyrocketed of late. The "mark
of the Beast" category was also upgraded as a result of a nation-
wide push to replace bar codes product labels with radio tags.
Who will rule?
For the White House, the possibility that the dramatic events
described in Thessalonians 4:13-18, in which "the dead in Christ
will rise, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up
together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord," presents an
obvious dilemma: if President Bush is summoned to meet his
maker, who among the "left behind" can govern the country?
According to the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, if the
president is incapacitated, dies, resigns, is for any reason
unable to hold his office, or is removed from office, he is to
be succeeded by his vice president, in this case Dick Cheney.
But top White House officials have expressed concern that
Cheney's health may make such a transition impossible,
especially after the shock of witnessing his boss disappear
through the ceiling of the Oval Office.
Next in the succession chain would be Speaker of the House
Tom DeLay. But the Texas firebrand known as "the Hammer"
is, like President Bush, a born-again Christian, meaning that
he too is likely to be raptured. With DeLay unable to serve,
the honor moves to the president pro tempore of the senate:
81 year-old Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, who, at 36 years
and counting, is that august body's longest-serving senator.
Security vs. tribulation
But Republican Party officials are already expressing concern
that Stevens may not be up to the task of seeing the US
through the turbulent years of Tribulation, a seven-year
long period in which the antichrist takes advantage of the
Christians' absence, and makes a treaty with the Jews,
enabling them to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and to
reestablish their ancient liturgical system of animal-sacrifices.
"We're preparing for tough times ahead," said an administration
official. "We don't know what's going to happen or what to
expect." He notes that the White House is being helped in its
efforts to plan for the post-rapture period by Professor Lee
Clarke , a Rutgers University sociologist and the author of
Mission Improbable: Using Fantasy Documents to Tame Disaster .
A number of senators have also expressed misgivings over the
possibility that Senator Stevens may use the confusion of the
Tribulation period to divert excessive discretionary spending,
known as pork, to his home state of Alaska. Since Stevens
became chairman of the Appropriations Committee in 1997,
per capita federal spending in Alaska grew by more than 50
percent, to nearly $12,000 last year, by far the highest in the
country and almost double the national average. "We're talking
about a guy who is basically the King of Pork," said one senator.
"Is this really who you want running the country during a period
of floods, plagues and unprecedented violence? The people of
Alaska may survive the seven years, but what about the rest of us?"
Ready or not, here he comes
Of course there is always the possibility that the rapture won't
happen during President Bush's term, if at all. But millions of
Christians, including many of those who recently voted to give
the president a second term, are convinced that the rapture isn't
just coming, but coming soon.
In a recent poll of Christians conducted on leftbehind.com, the
online counterpart to the popular Left Behind series by Reverend
Tim LeHaye, more than 50 percent of respondents said that they
expected the rapture to happen any day. Nearly 3 in 10 either
had unfinished business or didn't want to end their earthly good
times just yet. Many Republicans are probably feeling the same
way these days.
Deanna Swift can be reached at deannaswift1@yahoo.com
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
19) Mangroves Can Act as Shield Against Tsunami
By G. Venkataramani
CHENNAI, Dec. 27
Date:28/12/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/12/28/stories/
2004122805191300.htm
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2004/12/28/stories/2004122805191300.htm
"Tsunami is a rare phenomenon. Though we cannot prevent the
occurrence of such natural calamities, we should certainly prepare
ourselves to mitigate the impact of the natural fury on the
population inhabiting the coastal ecosystems. Our anticipatory
research work to preserve mangrove ecosystems as the first line
of defense against devastating tidal waves on the eastern
coastline has proved very relevant today.
The dense mangrove forests stood like a wall to save coastal
communities living behind them," said M.S. Swaminathan,
Chairman, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF),
Chennai.
The mangroves in Pitchavaram and Muthupet region acted like
a shield and bore the brunt of the tsunami.
The impact was mitigated and lives and property of the
communities inhabiting the region were saved.
"When we started the foundation 14 years ago, we initiated
the anticipatory research program - a two-pronged strategy -
to meet the eventualities of sea level rise due to global warming.
One is to conserve and regenerate coastal mangroves along the
eastern coast of the country, and the second is transfer of salt-
tolerant genes from the mangroves to selected crops grown in
the coastal regions.
It is now found that wherever the mangroves have been regenerated,
especially in the Orissa coast, the damage due to tsunami is
minimal," he said.
Livelihood options
The MSSRF will soon be publishing a scientific document `Tsunami
and mangroves' highlighting the need to conserve and rehabilitate
mangroves as the frontline defense against tidal forces.
The foundation will also prescribe multiple and multi-level
livelihood options for the communities inhabiting the
mangrove ecosystem.
Alternative cropping patterns to provide household economic
and nutrition security for the rural poor will also be developed,
according to Prof. Swaminathan.
The foundation will also press into service public address
systems and communication network with village knowledge
centers to forewarn the coastal population.
All efforts will be made to further strengthen the knowledge
centers and information dissemination strategies.
A core group of experts has been set up to prepare concrete
action plans and coordinate the short-term and long-term
relief measures for the affected communities in the coastal
belts.
A voluntary relief fund is created, and it will be used to meet
the immediate needs of the affected communities, according
to Prof. Swaminathan.
The foundation held a condolence meeting for those who lost
their lives due to the tsunami and resolved to help mitigate
the sufferings.
(c) Copyright 2000 - 2005 The Hindu
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
20) Social Security Agency Is Enlisted to Push Its Own Revision
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON
January 16, 2005
http://nytimes.com/2005/01/16/politics/
16benefit.html?ei=5094&en=8adcb7ce5d74cac7&hp=&ex=1105851600&partner=ho
mepage&pagewanted=print&position=
WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 - Over the objections of many of its
own employees, the Social Security Administration is gearing
up for a major effort to publicize the financial problems of
Social Security and to convince the public that private accounts
are needed as part of any solution.
The agency's plans are set forth in internal documents, including
a "tactical plan" for communications and marketing of the idea
that Social Security faces dire financial problems requiring
immediate action.
Social Security officials say the agency is carrying out its
mission to educate the public, including more than 47 million
beneficiaries, and to support President Bush's agenda.
"The system is broken, and promises are being made that Social
Security cannot keep," Mr. Bush said in his Saturday radio
address. He is expected to address the issue in his Inaugural
Address.
But agency employees have complained to Social Security
officials that they are being conscripted into a political battle
over the future of the program. They question the accuracy
of recent statements by the agency, and they say that money
from the Social Security trust fund should not be used for
such advocacy.
"Trust fund dollars should not be used to promote a political
agenda," said Dana C. Duggins, a vice president of the Social
Security Council of the American Federation of Government
Employees, which represents more than 50,000 of the agency's
64,000 workers and has opposed private accounts.
Deborah C. Fredericksen of Minneapolis, who has worked for
the Social Security Administration for 31 years, said, "Many
employees believe that the president and this agency are
using scare tactics to promote private accounts."
Social Security trustees say the program's financial problems
will grow as baby boomers retire. The program will pay out
more in benefits than it collects in revenue in 2018, they say.
By 2042, they say, the trust fund will be exhausted, and tax
income will be sufficient to pay only 73 percent of scheduled
benefits.
In campaign-style speeches, Mr. Bush and other officials have
said that Social Security is headed for bankruptcy, and that
workers should be allowed to divert some of their payroll
taxes into private accounts, as a way to build wealth for
themselves and their heirs.
Such comments have prompted inquiries from the public
to Social Security offices. Agency managers said they expected
a torrent of calls after Mr. Bush's Inaugural Address on
Thursday and his State of the Union speech two weeks later.
Mark R. Lassiter, a spokesman for the Social Security
Administration, said he could not discuss the agency's
communications plans because they were "internal
documents." The agency, he said, has a duty "to educate
the public about the financial challenges facing Social Security,"
but has not prepared a script for employees to use in
answering questions from the public.
The Bush administration ran afoul of a ban on "covert
propaganda" when it used tax money to promote the
new Medicare drug benefit and to publicize the dangers
of drug abuse by young people. The administration
acknowledged paying a conservative commentator,
Armstrong Williams, to promote its No Child Left Behind
education policy. But on Social Security, unlike those
issues, the government has not concealed its role.
The agency's strategic communications plan says the
following message is to be disseminated to "all audiences"
through speeches, seminars, public events, radio, television
and newspapers: "Social Security's long-term financing
problems are serious and need to be addressed soon," or
else the program may not "be there for future generations."
The plan says that Social Security managers should "discuss
solvency issues at staff meetings," "insert solvency messages
in all Social Security publications" and spread the word at
nontraditional sites like farmers' markets and "big box
retail stores."
Also, the document says, agency managers should observe
and measure how much their employees know about the
solvency of the program.
Mr. Bush has created a sense of urgency by declaring
that "the crisis is now."
A slide show, presented to various audiences by James B.
Lockhart III, deputy commissioner of Social Security, says
that "benefit cuts would be drastic" after 2042 if the Social
Security law and payroll tax rates continue unchanged.
A policy brief prepared by the agency says those benefit cuts
"would double the poverty rate of Social Security beneficiaries
aged 64 to 78," increasing the number of indigent people in
that age bracket to 1.8 million, from 875,000.
Witold R. Skwierczynski, president of the Social Security Council
of the federation of government employees, said: "Some of the
information being imparted by agency officials is not factual,
not accurate. There is no immediate crisis."
In interviews, other Social Security employees expressed similar
views. But council members were more willing to allow use of
their names because a federal law generally protects them
against "penalty or reprisal" when they speak publicly or
testify before Congress.
Social Security employees denied that their concerns were
motivated by a bureaucratic mentality, a fear of change or
a desire to protect their jobs.
"There's a lot more to it than that," said Colleen M. Kelley,
president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which
represents lawyers and paralegals at the Social Security
Administration. "There's a genuine concern about how
people will live when they retire, a real fear that Social
Security benefits could be eroded by private accounts."
The official policy brief, analyzing the consequences of
inaction, was written by Andrew G. Biggs, the associate
commissioner of Social Security for retirement policy.
Mr. Biggs, 37, joined President Bush in making the case
for private accounts at a White House forum this week.
When he was an analyst at the Cato Institute, Mr. Biggs
championed private accounts, saying they "would pay
substantially higher retirement benefits than the current
Social Security program" because some payroll taxes could
be invested in stocks and corporate bonds rather than in
government securities.
In 2003, just before he became associate commissioner,
Mr. Biggs said that AARP, the lobby for older Americans,
was "spreading disinformation" about the risks of private
accounts. Mr. Biggs, who has a doctorate from the London
School of Economics, said critics were wrong to suggest
that personal accounts meant large cuts in benefits. In
fact, he said, Social Security cannot pay the benefits it
has promised.
The combination of benefits from traditional Social Security
and a private account would substantially exceed what the
current program can actually pay, Mr. Biggs said.
Other analysts, including the Congressional Budget Office,
have reached a different conclusion. They say the
combination of benefits from the trust fund and individual
accounts is likely to be less than actual benefits under the
current system.
In a document sent each year to millions of workers, the
government emphasizes the looming financial problems.
The document shows a worker's earnings history and
estimated future benefits. But it says the scheduled benefits
could be cut because "without changes, by 2042 the Social
Security trust fund will be exhausted."
Agency employees raised their concerns with Reginald F.
Wells, a deputy commissioner of Social Security, and two
associate commissioners, David L. Feder and Roger McDonnell.
Mr. McDonnell confirmed that employee representatives had
shared their concerns with him, but he declined to say how
he replied.
Robert M. Ball, who worked at the Social Security Administration
for three decades and was commissioner under Democratic and
Republican presidents from 1962 to 1973, said: "It's fine for the
agency to answer factual questions, but it's unusual to use the
Civil Service organization to push a political agenda, especially
because what they're saying is not true. The program is not
going bankrupt."
When asked about the outlook for Social Security, several agency
officials pointed to a White House "fact sheet" that says, "By 2042,
when workers in their mid-20's begin to retire, the system will
be bankrupt - unless we act now to save it."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
21) Bush to Return to 'Ownership Society' Theme in
Push for Social Security Changes
"The intent is to change Americans' relationship with
the government to allow (or, critics say, to force) people
to look less to Washington and to take more responsibility
for their finances and their retirement. "
By DAVID E. ROSENBAUM
WASHINGTON
January 16, 2005
THE ADDRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/politics/16own.html
WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 - The unifying theme on domestic policy in
President Bush's Inaugural Address on Thursday will be the
president's vision of an "ownership society" as he tries to
galvanize support for fundamental changes he wants in Social
Security, tax policy and other areas, administration officials say.
"When people have a stake in something," Treasury Secretary
John W. Snow said in an interview on Friday, explaining the
president's rationale, "it makes the whole social system work
better."
"The president," Mr. Snow added, "wants to pursue policies
that encourage ownership."
The boldest example of this approach is the intensifying
campaign by the Bush administration to radically alter
Social Security, the most popular and expensive government
program ever, so that workers can put a portion of their
payroll taxes into their own investment accounts.
But the ownership society encompasses other initiatives
as well, including those that make temporary tax cuts
permanent, minimize taxes on income from investments,
revamp workers' health insurance and encourage low-
income people to own their homes.
The intent is to change Americans' relationship with the
government to allow (or, critics say, to force) people to
look less to Washington and to take more responsibility for
their finances and their retirement.
Politicians and economists disagree on whether Mr. Bush's
proposals would actually accomplish this.
In a speech on Thursday at Catholic University here, Vice
President Dick Cheney offered what may turn out to be
a preview of this portion of the president's Inaugural
Address. He said: "One of the great goals of our administration
is to help more Americans find the opportunity to own a home,
a small business, a health care plan or a retirement plan. In all
of these areas, ownership is a path to greater opportunity,
more freedom and more control over your own life, and this
is a goal worthy of a great nation. Everyone deserves a chance
to live the American dream, to build up savings and wealth and
to have a nest egg for retirement that no one can ever take away."
Grover Norquist, an influential conservative tactician, said the
ownership society could solidify the Republican Party just as
Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson's
Great Society were the foundation of a Democratic Party
majority for generations.
"If this is successful, this will define the Bush administration
for the next 100 years," Mr. Norquist said. "People who are
more independent and don't feel dependent on the government
are more likely to be available to the Republican Party."
Mr. Bush's political opponents say the ownership society is
simply one more effort by the president to take government
benefits away from the needy and put more money in the
pockets of the well-to-do.
"It's an appealing label," said Robert D. Reischauer, an
economist who directed the Congressional Budget Office
when Democrats controlled Congress and is now president
of the Urban Institute, a research center. "But with ownership
comes responsibility and risk, and that's the down side. We buy
insurance and collectivize pension benefits and health care to
reduce the risk."
Robert B. Reich, who was secretary of labor in the Clinton
administration, said he worried that "people will, through
bad luck or poor decision-making, find themselves in dire
straits."
"The whole purpose of social insurance," he continued, "is
so you won't find yourself in old age without any assets or find
yourself poor and sick and without access to health care."
Others question whether most Americans have the ability or
the inclination to make complicated financial decisions involving
their retirement and their health care.
In their book "Coming Up Short," Alicia H. Munnell and Annika
Sundén, economists at Boston College, examined the record of
401(k) plans, the retirement accounts in which workers control
their investments and employers often contribute money.
Only 25 percent of eligible workers participate in the plans,
they found, and 9 of 10 invest less than the maximum, even
when that means they are forgoing contributions from their
employers. About 60 percent have dangerously undiversified
portfolios, and most cash out their accumulations when they
change jobs, rather than saving the money for retirement.
"With 401(k)'s, we've had an experiment in handing over to
families the responsibility of saving and planning for retirement,
and what we have found is that they make mistakes at each step
along the way," Ms. Munnell, an economic policy official in the
Clinton administration, said in an interview.
"It's not because they're stupid," she added. "It's because people
live very busy, very complicated lives. They're working. They're
getting their kids educated. They really do not have time to
become financial experts."
Mr. Snow said he thought such views were unnecessarily
paternalistic. "I think choice is a good thing," he said.
In a speech this month to the American Economic Association,
Martin Feldstein, a Harvard economics professor and Bush
supporter, made the economic argument for reducing the
influence of the government in people's lives.
"Existing programs," he said, "have substantial undesirable
effects on incentives and therefore on economic performance.
Unemployment insurance programs raise unemployment.
Retirement pensions induce earlier retirement and depress
saving. And health insurance programs increase medical costs."
This underscores a fundamental difference between the
Republican and Democratic philosophies.
Republicans mostly believe that the role of government is
to foster greater individual economic achievement, even if
it leads to more economic inequality. The Democratic
philosophy is that the government should provide a safety
net, even if it leads to economic inefficiency.
In the case of Social Security, Mr. Snow suggested that it
would be weeks, if not months, before the details of the
proposal were revealed. First, he said, the administration
was concentrating on persuading Americans that basic
changes were needed in the program.
But when those details are known, experts on Social
Security say, they may not include as much private
ownership as officials have suggested when they are
advocating the principles.
If workers are allowed to invest $1,000 a year in the private
accounts, the most allowed under many plans, the accounts
would accumulate only about $140,000 after a 44-year
working life, a nice sum, perhaps, but hardly a fortune.
The types of investments permitted are sure to be strictly
limited. Workers will probably not be able to withdraw the
money before retirement, even if they are having financial
difficulties. And when they retire, they will almost certainly
be required to buy a financial instrument called an annuity,
which will pay them a few hundred dollars a month for the
rest of their lives but which they cannot leave to their heirs.
On taxes, Mr. Bush is likely in his speech on Thursday to call
for making the tax code fairer and simpler and for making
permanent the tax cuts enacted in his first term, which will
expire before the end of the decade. Those measures, which
the administration says would contribute to ownership by
giving the government less of people's money, are not
expected to be acted on this year.
For this year, the president is pressing for two tax-protected
savings accounts. One, meant to generate retirement savings,
would allow individuals to contribute $7,500 a year and withdraw
the money tax-free after they turn 58. The other would also allow
a $7,500 annual contribution and would permit the money to
be withdrawn tax-free for any purpose at any time.
Since few people are able to invest more than $15,000 a year,
these accounts would mean that for most, investment income
would go completely untaxed.
In the case of health insurance, the administration is promoting
an arrangement called health savings accounts that were
authorized by the 2003 Medicare law. Under the arrangement,
employers buy health insurance for their workers with a high
deductible. Sometimes workers have to pay as much as $5,000
a year for medical care before the insurance kicks in. But
theoretically some of the money the employer had been paying
for more expensive health insurance with lower deductibles is
placed into the workers' health savings account, and it
accumulates tax-free if it is not withdrawn.
The notion is that these plans will lower health costs because
workers will assume the responsibility of shopping for alternative
or less expensive treatment. Critics say it would lead sick people
to forgo needed treatment.
So far, neither employers nor workers have been enthusiastic
about participating in the program, and only a few are doing
so. It has been impossible to prove whether these accounts
lower costs and whether the workers are satisfied with their
ownership.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
22) For Inauguration in Wartime,
a Lingering Question of Tone
By JOHN TIERNEY
WASHINGTON
January 16, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/politics/16tone-
top.html?hp&ex=1105938000&en=100fcdafbc85fd33&ei=5094&partner=homepage
WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 - Inaugurations are always balancing
acts: part coronation, part celebration of democracy, part
touchdown dance in the end zone. But they become even
trickier during times of war, particularly when television
images of dancers in black tie can be instantly juxtaposed
with soldiers in body armor.
President Bush, like most of his wartime predecessors, is not
halting the inaugural partying, but this year's planners are
striving for a solemn mood. The inaugural events, with the
theme of "Celebrating Freedom and Honoring Service," will
begin Tuesday with a tribute to the military. After Mr. Bush
takes the oath on Thursday, there will be a "Commander-in-
Chief Ball" that evening for 2,000 troops who have either
served in Iraq or Afghanistan or are headed there. Separate
gestures are being made by corporate sponsors like Amgen,
a biotechnology firm, which is assigning all its inaugural tickets
to employees serving in the National Guard.
"Our tone throughout the inaugural events will show gratitude
toward those who protect the ideals that make our nation so
great," said Jeanne L. Phillips, the chairwoman of the inaugural
committee, which seeks to raise $30 million to $40 million
through ticket sales and private donations to pay for the events.
The organizers expect 55,000 people at the nine inaugural
balls on Thursday evening and 500,000 spectators at the
parade that afternoon from the Capitol to the White House.
There will also be a rock concert on Tuesday, candlelit dinners
on Wednesday and a concluding prayer service on Friday morning.
Some critics say spending so much on these parties seems
ill-timed both because of the Iraq war and the tsunami
catastrophe in Asia. Anthony D. Weiner, a Democratic
congressman preparing to run for mayor of New York, sent
President Bush a letter on Tuesday suggesting that the millions
in inaugural funds be sent to the troops in Iraq.
"Precedent suggests that inaugural festivities should be muted
- if not canceled - in wartime," Mr. Weiner wrote, noting that
in 1945 Franklin D. Roosevelt limited the celebration to a cold
luncheon at the White House.
But that subdued inauguration was partly due to Roosevelt's
failing health and was not the norm during other wars, said
Paul F. Boller Jr., a historian at Texas Christian University and
the author of "Presidential Inaugurations." From the War of
1812 through Vietnam, presidents have generally let the
parties go on while also acknowledging the soldiers' hardships.
James Madison, who held the first inaugural ball in 1809,
held another during the War of 1812 after giving an angry
Inaugural Address denouncing the British. In 1865, after Lincoln
gave his famous address promising to bind the nation's wounds
and care for Civil War soldiers' orphans and widows, he shook
hands with 6,000 people at a White House reception that turned
so rowdy the police were summoned to stop people from
carrying off silverware, china and pieces of the curtains.
Dwight D. Eisenhower originally requested a simple inaugural
in 1953, during the Korean War, but it turned into "the biggest,
flashiest, most expensive and impressive Inauguration party
of them all," according to a description in The New York Times.
The parade featured an Alaskan dog team, three elephants and
a float depicting Mr. Eisenhower playing golf. The new president
smiled in the reviewing stand when he was lassoed by a California
cowboy, but was later said to be irritated.
In 1969, when Richard M. Nixon was inaugurated during the
Vietnam War, there were six inaugural balls along with what
The Times called the tightest security in history and the first
large protest ever held at an inauguration. Mr. Nixon impressed
many Democrats with his conciliatory speech promising
bipartisanship at home and peace abroad, but during the
parade some protesters chanted pro-Vietcong slogans and
hurled rocks and beer cans at Mr. Nixon's limousine.
In retrospect, the "hundreds of long-haired young people"
protesting the Nixon inauguration sound like a small,
disorganized force compared with the antiwar groups
expected for the "counterinauguration" events this week.
These groups are organizing rallies, marches, a "die-in"
and boycotts of workplaces and stores on Thursday to
protest the Iraq war and the cost of the inauguration.
Michael K. Deaver, an aide to Ronald Reagan who was
chairman of the 1985 inauguration, said the complaints
about this year's extravaganza sounded familiar.
"You're always criticized for spending money, because
every inaugural is more expensive than the last one,"
Mr. Deaver said. "There are a lot of people who worked
hard on the campaign and want to celebrate, and they
should be allowed to. At the same time, tone is very
important - the tone of what's going on in the world,
what sacrifices Americans are making. I would hope the
president's message is going to reflect the mood of the
country."
If past speeches are any guide, Mr. Bush can be expected
to give a somber speech that will praise America and ask
for God's help while offering few if any specific policies
and absolutely no jokes. Professor Boller, who has forced
himself to read every inaugural speech ("I deserve a medal,"
he said), cannot point to a single instance of humor, or at
least not intentional humor.
"Martin Van Buren got a big laugh inadvertently," Professor
Boller said, alluding to an awkward sentence in his 1837
address. After noting that "the Revolution that gave us
existence as one people was achieved at the period of
my birth," Van Buren said that he contemplated with
"grateful reverence that memorable event," meaning
the Revolution but sounding to the crowd as if he
revered his own birth.
David Frum, a speechwriter for Mr. Bush during his first
term, said that he expected Thursday's speech to be
simpler than the one four years ago. "Second inaugurals
tend to be shorter and more businesslike: here's what
we've done, here's where we are, here's what remains to
be done," Mr. Frum said. "The country wants some
indication of how much sacrifice in international affairs
he's going to be asking. Does the war continue? Does
he broaden it or find a way to wind it down?"
Mr. Frum said that the war and the tsunami catastrophe
were not reasons to scale back the inaugural, and noted
that Bill Clinton's inaugurals were held while conflict was
raging in Bosnia and hundreds of thousands of Rwandan
refugees were suffering. One of Mr. Clinton's former aides,
Paul Begala, also defended next week's festivities.
"Eight weeks ago, I participated in an enormous celebration
of the Clinton presidency," Mr. Begala said, referring to the
opening of the Clinton library in Arkansas. "There were
30,000 people, rock stars, movie stars. Nobody said it was
unseemly to do that during wartime. Why? Because people
understood that we weren't just celebrating one man's
presidency. We were celebrating the American presidency,
and it's the same thing with the inauguration."
To some extent, the criticism of inaugural extravagance
reflects the longstanding concern about turning the president
into royalty. Complaints that George Washington had
"monarchical" pretensions prompted him to consider
beginning his second term of office with a private
swearing-in ceremony at home. He ultimately took the oath
in the Senate chamber, but limited his second inaugural
address to four sentences.
Some of his successors also tried scaling back the ceremonies.
There were no inaugural balls for Woodrow Wilson in 1913
and 1917, and none for succeeding presidents until 1933,
when one was held at the depths of the Depression for
Roosevelt. But there were no balls to start his later terms,
and in 1945 he dispensed with the swearing-in ceremony
at the Capitol as well as the parade.
"Roosevelt was the only one who ever took the oath at the
White House," Professor Boller said. "His health had something
to do with it, but so did his concern that you shouldn't be
having gaiety in Washington when there was wartime austerity
in the rest of the country."
Roosevelt proposed a buffet luncheon with chicken à la king,
and then the White House's famously frugal housekeeper,
Henrietta Nesbitt, decided even that was too lavish. She served
cold chicken salad, rolls without butter, poundcake and coffee.
Roosevelt, who was not feeling well, got through the occasion
by sending his son James to his room to smuggle him a tumbler
of bourbon.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times
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