[pjnews] ush's Press Conference: Little News, One Big Problem
Info about subscribing or unsubscribing from this list is at the bottom of this message. http://snipurl.com/eknq Bush's Press Conference: Little News, One Big Problem by David Corn The Nation 04/28/2005 There was not much news in George W. Bush's fourth primetime press conference. He acknowledged he could do nothing much about the high price of gas except to plead with the Saudis and other oil producers to boost production. He predictably called on Congress to pass an energy bill that would lead to more drilling and an expansion of nuclear power. While paying lip service to conservation, he only referred to developing technology that would save energy; he did not mention changing consumption patterns. On Social Security, Bush stuck with privatized accounts, but he also advocated--in the only substantial news of the evening--means-testing cost of living adjustments for Social Security benefits, raising the prospect of real cuts for a majority of future beneficiaries. He tried to sugarcoat this hard-to-swallow news two way. First, he vowed that future recipients will receive benefits equal or greater to those being handed out today. But that was spin, for this carefully constructed explanation ignored the need to boost benefits to keep pace with inflation. Equal benefits would mean reduced benefits in real terms. Second, he suggested those who opt for a private account would end up making enough to compensate for the cuts, but polls show that a majority of Americans do not buy this argument. It may make policy sense--though not political sense--to turn Social Security into an outright welfare program: benefits for those who need them, less or none for the well-off. But Bush's vague proposal won't sell on Capital Hill or beyond. How many Republicans are eager to snatch benefits from middle- or high-income Americans? Minutes after Bush finished, Senator Sam Brownback, a conservative Republican from Kansas, was asked whether he would support a sliding scale for cost of living increases in Social Security benefits, and he said, I don't think that's the route we ought to be going. So with the two free throws Bush had before the questioning began, he failed to score. And during the course of the hour-long press conference, he misled the public on several key facts. In discussing Social Security, Bush once more said that come 2041 the program will be bankrupt. That makes it sound as if there will be no money available for retirees. At that point in time--or, according to estimates produced by the Congressional Budget Office, in 2051--the program will be able to give retirees 70 percent of the scheduled benefits. That's a problem, but it's not bankruptcy. Bush also repeated another false factoid about Social Security, claiming that every year we wait to reform Social Security it costs an additional $600 billion. As the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and others--including the American Academy of Actuaries-- have pointed out, this is a phony number. The actuaries noted that when members of the public hear such a figure they are likely to be misled into believing that the program's financial situation is deteriorating and the cost of restoring actuarial balance is increasing, even if this is not the case. * Don't forget about DAVID CORN's BLOG at www.davidcorn.com. Read recent postings on the ammo the Democrats should fire at Bolton, DeLay's recent troubles, Seymour Hersh's claim there is no hope for Iraq, the lame questions newspaper editors tossed at Bush, and the latest on the banned-in Arkansas controversy. *** Talking about energy, Bush pushed for drilling in the Alaska wilderness, and he used an untrue argument that proponents of drilling have been tossing around for years. He said that the wilderness area encompasses 19 million acres, yet the drilling would only affect 2000 acres. Sounds like a drop in the bucket. But this 2000-acre figure was discredited long ago, for it only covers the area on which equipment touches the ground. It does not include, for example, all the land that would be used for pipelines and roads. By this method of measurement, a car takes up only several square inches of space--the area where the rubber hits the road. Overall, the the press conference was not a grand performance--for either Bush or the reporters. The questions were not that sharp. And Bush was usually able to pull the rip cord for his same-old rhetoric. Asked about the controversial practice of renditions--under which terrorist suspects are sent by the CIA to other countries where torture may be conducted--he said, We operate under the law, and he asserted, We're going to do everything we can to protect us. One reporter simply wondered what Bush's view of the economy is at the moment. In response, Bush discussed the hardship imposed on small business by high gas prices. What about the National Education Association's lawsuit against the No Child Left Behind Act. The
[pjnews] The numbers crunch Bush into a failure
Info about subscribing or unsubscribing from this list is at the bottom of this message. http://snipurl.com/ekns The numbers crunch Bush into a failure By Jay Bookman The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 04/28/05 History may record that the Bush presidency, and the Republican revolution that he hoped to lead, reached its high water mark on March 21, 2005, the day that President Bush signed a bill authorizing federal court intervention in the Terri Schiavo tragedy. By overreaching so badly in that case, Republicans gave many Americans a fresh appreciation of the dangers of unchecked government arrogance, not to mention a renewed respect for the checks and balances needed to restrain that arrogance. And for Republicans, that realization came at the worst conceivable time. Once that insight had taken hold, voters could see that same kind of arrogance at work in the GOP's move to protect House Majority Leader Tom DeLay by rewriting House ethics rules. And when Republican leaders began to attack federal judges as part of their holy crusade against the only government branch beyond their control, what had been a vague and growing unease began to coalesce into a deep distrust. In fact, according to pollsters, Americans have come to reject both the premise and the tactics of the GOP's crusade. In a new Washington Post/ABC News poll, just 26 percent said federal judges are too liberal; 18 percent said they're too conservative; and 52 percent think they're about right. In that poll, an astounding 66 percent opposed the Republican effort to make it easier to ram even the most extreme judges through the Senate confirmation process. Like the change of ethics rules in the House, that proposed change is seen as an effort to remove all impediments to raw power. That sea change in public perception has coincided with another dangerous trend for Republicans. On critical issues from Iraq to energy to the economy and Social Security, enough time has now passed to see the results of Bush's ideology-driven policies, and it isn't pretty. The Dow Jones industrial average has fallen almost 800 points from its high in early March, and respected figures such as Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and his predecessor, Paul Volcker, are warning about dire consequences if the federal deficit is not addressed in a serious manner. Bush, however, has made it clear that he has no intention of changing course. As a result, a Gallup poll last week found that only 31 percent of Americans rated the economy as good or excellent; 68 percent called it fair or poor. Back in early March, 50 percent of Americans told Gallup they believed the economy was getting worse; by last week, it had jumped to 61 percent. Reality is rearing its ugly head in Iraq as well. More than three months after elections that were supposed to transform the country, Iraqis may only now be overcoming the ethnic feuding that has frustrated formation of a new government. U.S. military recruiting is falling, soldiers die, and this week, the CIA officially abandoned its search for weapons of mass destruction. More telling still, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was asked in a press briefing Wednesday whether we were winning or losing in Iraq. It's a straightforward question, but Rumsfeld responded by saying that winning or losing is not the issue for 'we,' in my view, in the traditional, conventional context of using the word 'winning' and 'losing' in a war. In the ABC-Washington Post poll, 56 percent of Americans said they disapprove of Bush's policy in Iraq, and 54 percent said the war is not worthwhile. According to a Gallup poll earlier this month, 50 percent of Americans recognized that the Bush administration deliberately deceived them into war, up from 31 percent less than two years ago. That number will grow. Pick your area, and the results are the same. Failed policy, and poll numbers that reflect it. Energy? Only 31 percent in a recent Associated Press poll said Bush was handling our energy problems effectively. Social Security? Bush has traveled the country trying to unite Americans on Social Security, and polls indicate that he's succeeding, if not quite in the way he had in mind. Opposition to Bush's handling of Social Security jumped from 56 percent to 64 percent between March and April. In a CBS poll earlier this month, only 25 percent said they were confident in his handling of Social Security. Those poll results can't be explained by Democratic attacks or a liberal media. It's just the cold, hard recognition of failure setting in. Jay Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor. His column appears Thursdays and Mondays. _ Note: This message comes from the peace-justice-news e-mail mailing list of articles and commentaries about peace and social justice issues, activism, etc. If you do not regularly receive mailings from this list or have received this message as a forward from someone else and
[pjnews] The New Pope and Journalisms Crisis of Faith
Info about subscribing or unsubscribing from this list is at the bottom of this message. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2497 The New Pope and Journalisms Crisis of Faith Media Beat (4/21/05) By Norman Solomon The papacy of Benedict XVI confronts journalists with a key question: How much critical scrutiny is appropriate when a religious leader gains enormous power? So far, most American media outlets seem to be walking on eggshells to avoid tough coverage of the new pope. Caution is in the air, and some of it is valid. Anti-Catholic bigotry has a long and ugly history in the United States. News organizations should stay away from disparaging the Catholic faith, which certainly deserves as much respect as any other religion. At the same time, the Vatican is a massive global power. Though it has no army, it is more powerful than many governments. And in the present day, the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church is the capital of political reaction garbed in religiosity. Many dividing lines between theology and ideology have virtually disappeared. After more than two decades as a Vatican power broker, Joseph Ratzinger is now in charge as Pope Benedict XVI. He is extremely well-positioned to push a longstanding agenda that includes hostility toward AIDS prevention measures, womens rights, gay rights and movements for social justice. No one in the hierarchy was more committed to stances like vehement opposition to condoms while millions of people contracted cases of AIDS that could have been prevented. And he has been the commander of the Vaticans war on liberation theology. During the 1980s, it was Ratzinger who led the charge from Rome against the wondrous spirit and vibrant activism that galvanized Catholics and others across Latin America. While many priests, nuns and laity bravely joined together to challenge U.S.-backed regimes inflicting economic exploitation, intimidation, torture and murder with impunity, Ratzinger used the Vaticans authority to undermine such community-based resistance. He silenced outspoken Church officials and installed orthodox clergy who would go along with the deadly status quo. Hours after the smoke cleared over the Vatican and the world learned the name of the new pope, Mary Jo McConahay -- an insightful journalist who has long covered Latin America -- wrote for Pacific News Service about a question blowing in the wind. What would have happened, Guatemalans and El Salvadorans ask to this day, if Ratzinger and Pope John Paul II had regarded the Latin American call for liberation from autocratic rulers with the same force with which the European churchmen supported the Polish Solidarity revolution? For right-wing religious activists, Ratzinger has been a Godsend. And now that hes running a church with 1.l billion members, the odds are excellent that he will proceed to gladden the hearts of misogynists, homophobes, and anti-left crusaders around the world. Contrary to the predictable media spin since Tuesday about the uncertainty of his papal course (reminiscent of the claims in early 2001 that George W. Bush might turn out to be some kind of moderate president), everything we know about Ratzingers extensive record during the last quarter-century tells us that he is a reactionary zealot who is determined to shove much of the worlds history of progressive social change into reverse. He is a true believer whose ideological theology accepts scant diversity and no dissent. The new papacy is a huge gift to the minority of conservatives in the United States who are trying to impose their version of morality on the country and the world. Soon after the 2000 election, an astute analyst of far-right religious movements, Frederick Clarkson, wrote that both the evangelical and Catholic Right are developing and promoting a long-term, fundamental approach to the practice of faith that links political involvement with faith itself. In this case, the Catholic Church is building on its own history and also benefiting from the Christian Right's recent efforts to create wider space for public expressions of religiosity in civil discourse. Clarkson added that a shift in the political culture suggests that personal and unedited expressions of religious belief for political purposes are no longer considered unseemly. Indeed, the suggestion is that they are beyond reproach. And thats much of the problem. When a highly debatable position is beyond reproach -- when religiosity provides cover for all manner of manipulations and repression -- its easier for demagogic power-mongers to get away with murder. Journalists should not let any pious proclamations intimidate them. When the policies of a president or prime minister result in suppression of human rights or fuel public-health disasters, the news media should not hesitate to expose the consequences. And the policies of a pope should be no less scrutinized. _
[pjnews] Pentagon Releases Images of Military Casualties
Info about subscribing or unsubscribing from this list is at the bottom of this message. RETURN OF THE FALLEN: Pentagon Releases Hundreds More War Casualty Homecoming Images National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 152, April 28, 2005 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB152/index.htm Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005 - In response to Freedom of Information Act requests and a lawsuit, the Pentagon this week released hundreds of previously secret images of casualties returning to honor guard ceremonies from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and other conflicts, confirming that images of their flag-draped coffins are rightfully part of the public record, despite its earlier insistence that such images should be kept secret. One year after the start of a series of Freedom of Information Act requests filed by University of Delaware Professor Ralph Begleiter with the assistance of the National Security Archive, and six months after a lawsuit charging the Pentagon with failing to comply with the Act, the Pentagon made public more than 700 images of the return of American casualties to Dover Air Force Base and other U.S. military facilities, where the fallen troops received honor guard ceremonies. The Pentagon officially refers to the photos as images of the memorial and arrival ceremonies for deceased military personnel arriving from overseas. Many of the images show evidence of censorship, which the Pentagon says is intended to conceal identifiable personal information of military personnel involved in the homecoming ceremonies. Begleiter's lawsuit is supported by the National Security Archive and the Washington, D.C. office of the law firm Jenner Block. This is an important victory for the American people, for the families of troops killed in the line of duty during wartime, and for the honor of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country, said Begleiter, a former CNN Washington correspondent who teaches journalism and political science at the University of Delaware. This significant decision by the Pentagon should make it difficult, if not impossible, for any U.S. government in the future to hide the human cost of war from the American people. The Pentagon's decision preempted a court ruling in the lawsuit by U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. We are gratified that these important public records were released without the need for further court action, said Daniel Mach of Jenner Block. The Pentagon ban on media coverage of returning war casualties was initiated in January 1991 by then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney during the administration of President George H. W. Bush, just weeks before the start of the Gulf War against Iraq. I have never considered the release of images as a political issue, said Begleiter, noting that both Republican and Democratic administrations imposed the image ban. But, seeing the cost of war, like any highly-charged political issue, can have strong political consequences. Begleiter's Freedom of Information Act requests, and the lawsuit, asked for release of both still and video images. The Pentagon's final response in the case includes no video images of the honor ceremonies for returning war casualties. I'm surprised at this, said Begleiter, because the U.S. military uses video and film technology extensively in its public relations efforts. Thomas Blanton, Director of the National Security Archive, which actively uses the Freedom of Information Act to force release of government documents, said, The government now admits it was wrong to keep these images secret. Hiding the cost of war doesn't make that cost any less. Banning the photos keeps flag-draped coffins off the evening news, but it fundamentally disrespects those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. Blanton and Begleiter noted one major negative consequence of the dispute over the images: the Pentagon appears to have stopped creating the photos in the first place. All the released images containing date information appear to have been taken prior to June 2004. Military officials told Begleiter and the news media that such photos were no longer being taken since his first Freedom of Information Act request was filed in April 2004. Begleiter said, Hiding these images from the public - or, worse, failing even to record these respectful moments - deprives all Americans of the opportunity to recognize their contribution to our democracy, and hinders policymakers and historians in the future from making informed judgments about public opinion and war. He called on the Pentagon to resume fully documenting the return of American casualties. Although some of the newly released images include dates, locations and other information, the Pentagon censored that information from most of the released images. Some of the censorship, or, as the Pentagon prefers to call it, redaction, blacks out faces, identifying features on equipment, and uniform styles. In one
