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Where's Osama? A report from Pakistan

“We would never let some hymn- reciting, illiterate religious bigots run the country,” declared Pakistan’s Interior Minister Moin Hyder in Karachi while speaking to a seminar, “Terrorism: A new challenge to the world of Islam.” The December 20 seminar was hosted by one of Pakistan’s leading newspaper organizations that also publishes The News.

“Taliban’s extremist viewpoint of Islam could not triumph and their narrow concept of Islam was both misguided and misguiding,” Hyder said. The seminar was well attended by Muslim scholars, academics, politician, ambassadors and dignitaries from around the world.

Atomic treason from the U.S. House

If terrorists turn a US nuclear plant into a radioactive holocaust, the House of Representatives wants you to pay for it. But the Senate can still say otherwise.

The House voted November 28 in virtual secret to shield new reactor builders from normal insurance liability, even if they lack safety domes to contain radioactive releases.

Only a handful of Representatives were present for the vote. Led by Texas Republican Joe Barton and Michigan Democrat John Dingell, HR 2983 sailed through under a “suspension of rules,” traditionally used for unanimous resolutions to rename government buildings, proclaim heroes and commemorate holidays. Facing a barrage of grassroots opposition, a very cynical nuke caucus used the loophole to avoid full debate and hide their votes on the free insurance ride for a new generation of reactors.

Barton received more than $131,590 in utility contributions leading up to the 2000 election. Dingell got $109,679. Dingell is also related by marriage to major partners in Detroit Edison, which built the Fermi nuclear plant at Monroe Michigan. Fermi Unit I, a breeder reactor, nearly exploded in 1966.

Green Party Begins Living Wage Ballot Initiative Campaign

At its January meeting, the Coordinating Committee of the Green Party of Ohio committed to working on a campaign to enact a Living Wage ordinance in the City of Columbus. A living wage ordinance would require employers who receive city funds to pay their employees more than minimum wage, a wage that would more accurately reflect living costs and generally be tied to a percentage of the poverty line for a family of four.

Members of The Green Party are alarmed by the growing economic inequality in our community and society. The minimum wage, currently $5.15/hour, has not been raised for over four years and falls far short of the $8.20/hour required to raise a family of four to the poverty line. A Living Wage ordinance makes an important statement about our values as a community and takes the first step towards employees being fairly compensated to meet their basic economic needs.

Marilyn Welker, a member of the Central Ohio Green Party Coordinating Committee, will act as a spokesperson for this effort. "The Living Wage campaign is an opportunity for citizens in Columbus to create a stronger

What the Press Hasn't Told You About the War

In America’s war on terrorism, the first U.S. casualty was the First Amendment. The military, the Bush administration and the media itself have squelched important information about the war in Afghanistan since it began on September 11.

Asked at a press conference whether he would lie to the media about the war, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeated this statement by Winston Churchill about misleading information disseminated before and during the D-Day invasion: “Sometimes the truth is so precious it must be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies.”
Unfortunately, Rumsfeld has been the major source of information about the war as reporters’ access to the battlefield has been extremely limited. “They plan to fight the war and then tell the press and the public how it turned out afterwards,” CNN correspondent Jamie McIntyre complained. Others wonder, though, if the American press would tell the full story of the war even if it were free to do so.

Missing Democracy: Bush, One Year Out

The following article appeared on the website: consortiumnews.com.

Major national news outlets have gone silent in the face of evidence that they published misleading stories about the Florida presidential recount. The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, the Washington Post and other leading news organizations relied on a dubious hypothesis to craft stories last month portraying George W. Bush as the recount winner, when the recount actually showed that Al Gore won if all legally cast votes were counted.

The news outlets assumed, incorrectly as it turned out, that so-called “overvotes,” which heavily favored Gore, would have been ignored if the Florida court-ordered recount had been allowed to proceed and that therefore Bush would have won even without the intervention of five conservative allies on the U.S. Supreme Court. “Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote,” the New York Times front-page headline read. “Florida Recounts Would Have Favored Bush,” declared the Washington Post.

Speak up on the Palestine/Israel conflict

News media editorials frequently call for an end to the violence in the Middle East and a return to the peace process by the Palestinians and Israelis. (The Palestinians call it the “piece” process—While the negotiators talk, the Israelis grab a piece of land here, a piece of land there, etc.)

I think it is time the third player in this violent conflict, the U.S. Government, started acting responsibly. And, I believe that is not going to happen until individual American taxpayers begin to periodically—once every three months—write or call their elected officials in Washington. Anything less is a passive endorsement of the status quo.

Following is my sample letter to the President, representative, and both senators:

Dear......

O.S.U. professor of military history delivers questionable commentary, and a highly racist remark

Difficult times demand clarity from those who have the ability to express opinions in the media. Often times, media will seek an “expert” or an “informed” opinion to add texture to a particular story of national importance. Not surprising in the least, the lead story in The Columbus Dispatch on Sunday October 14, 2001 was “Testing America’s Resolve.” Within the text, were quotes from professor of military history at The Ohio State University, Allan R. Millett. According to the professor, “The terrorists are ahead of us by 6,000 dead to begin with, and that adds up to a lot of angry Americans.”

Industrial Complex: Expanding into our communities

Roughly 30 years ago prison activists began to promote the concept of “alternatives to prisons.” The alternatives they had in mind were halfway houses, probation, and other less punitive forms of supervision and rehabilitation. “Punishment” was viewed as being detrimental to the concept of rehabilitation. “Treatment” was the new buzzword.

Halfway houses three decades ago were places to live until a parolee was able to find a job and save up enough money to rent an apartment. There were no programs and very few restrictions in halfway houses. Basically they were there to assist parolees until they were financially stable.

Small towns cash in on the Prison Industrial Complex

We are always telling people how the growing prison- industrial complex (PIC) is all about making money off of prisoners, but we need to understand precisely how this is being done so that we can explain it to the general public and show them how detrimental this is to our community.

Many rural towns have traditionally sought prisons as a source of jobs and local tax money. Another way small rural towns benefit from having prisons in their communities is through the U. S. Census report. Prisoners are counted into the census report and increase the population level, which is used to determine how much federal and state funding their town, and county receives. It doesn’t matter that none of the funding is used for the imprisoned population in their areas. It’s a staggering windfall for those small towns and counties that have one or more prisons. It brings millions of dollars into rural communities, and it robs larger urban areas of much needed funds.

Argentina cries out for justice

The current political-economic crisis in Argentina, at first glance, appears to be the resultant snafu of a corrupt government that is itself the legacy of an even more corrupt government which itself arose from the ashes of a military junta that was more preoccupied with killing off any perceived political enemies than in actually running a country. Upon closer inspection, however, the grave state of the Argentinean economy can be blamed almost entirely on self-serving, foreign meddling which, through the powerful vehicle of the International Monetary Fund, prevented Argentina’s leaders from enacting sound economic reforms that may have obviated the debt default, which is now unavoidable.

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