Turkey-US-Iraq
July 6, 2003, 1:25AM U.S. forces detain Turkish special forces in northern Iraq Associated Press ISTANBUL, Turkey -- The United States seized 11 Turkish special forces in a raid in northern Iraq, but released several Saturday after vigorous protests from the NATO ally. The detentions threatened to further strain tense ties between the two nations. U.S. officials remained silent over why they were seized in the Friday night raid. A Turkish newspaper said the detentions aimed to foil a Turkish plot to kill a senior official in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Lt. Cmdr. Nicholas Balice, spokesman at the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., said: We are certainly aware of the incident, and at the moment we're investigating it. Turkish government officials said about 100 American troops raided a Turkish special forces office in the town of Sulaymaniyah, detained 11 soldiers, and took them to Kirkuk. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul in a phone call that 24 detainees, including the Turkish soldiers, were taken to Baghdad, the Anatolia news agency reported. Powell said some had been released but did not say how many. Aside from the Turkish soldiers, U.S. troops also detained security guards and staff working at the office, reports said. U.S. diplomat Robert Deutsch said in Istanbul that Turkish and U.S. officials were working for the soldiers' release, Anatolia reported. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan demanded all be let go immediately. Some of them are still in their hands, Erdogan said in a visit to the northern Turkish city of Samsun. This is an ugly incident. It should not have happened, Erdogan said earlier. For an allied country to behave in such a way toward its ally cannot be explained. Anatolia said Gul relayed to Powell that the issue could harm relations. Turkey was already trying to repair relations with the United States, at a low since the Turkish parliament's refusal in March to allow U.S. troops to use the country as a staging ground to invade Iraq. The detentions also reflected the friction between the allies over northern Iraq. U.S. forces have been working closely with Kurds in the area, while Turkey -- facing a longtime separatist movement among its own Kurds -- greatly fears an increase in Kurdish influence in Iraq. Turkey's Hurriyet newspaper said the detentions followed reports that Turks were planning to kill a senior Iraqi official in Kirkuk. The city recently elected a Kurdish lawyer, Abdulrahman Mustafa, as its mayor. The city is divided between Arabs, Kurds, ethnic Turks and Christians and has been the scene of ethnic tensions. After the arrests, Turkey closed its border gate with Iraq at Habur, officials at the border said. The Habur crossing is used to ship U.N. aid as well as gas and other supplies to U.S. troops in northern Iraq. After the closure, trucks lined up for six miles at the border. Private NTV television said Turkey's powerful military was discussing other measures to take if the soldiers were not released -- including closing Turkish airspace to U.S. military flights, stopping the use of the southern Incirlik air base and sending more troops into northern Iraq. Turkey has long maintained a military presence in parts of northern Iraq in a campaign to suppress Turkish Kurd rebels operating in the region. At the onset of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Turkey threatened to send in troops, fearing Iraqi Kurds would establish an independent state in northern Iraq, which could encourage Turkish Kurd separatists. Kurdish rebels fought a 15-year war against Turkish troops for autonomy in Turkey's southeast, which has killed some 37,000 people. It was the second time that U.S. forces detained Turkish soldiers in northern Iraq. In April, the U.S. Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade caught a dozen Turkish soldiers, dressed in civilian clothes and trailing an aid convoy.
retiring in the USA
washingtonpost.com Mismatches That Could Be Sending Your Benefits Into Limbo By Rita Zeidner Sunday, July 6, 2003; Page B02 What's in a name? Plenty, if it prevents you from collecting your hard-earned retirement benefits. Yet that is precisely the fate that awaits millions of unwitting workers whose names and Social Security numbers don't match the ones on the government's ledgers. And a series of recent policy initiatives all but guarantee that most will never find out that their wage records have gaps. Until they try to collect, that is. Here's the truly maddening part, though: The Social Security Administration (SSA) has remedies on hand to fix this bookkeeping nightmare. Intrigued? You should be: Your own earnings could be among the nearly $50 billion in wages that SSA couldn't link last year to people listed in its database. And officials don't seem eager to catch and correct the discrepancies. How can a respected government agency keep such seemingly sloppy accounts? Picture a bank where deposits are placed in envelopes identified by each customer's full name and a nine-digit number. In SSA's case, these deposits aren't cash, but credits for time worked toward retirement and disability benefits. They are reflected in withholdings on W-2 forms and other earnings statements filed by employers. Transpose a numeral, misspell a name or, as many newly-married women do, take a new surname and poof! Suddenly, there's no longer an envelope with identical identifiers. Without knowing whether it's the name or the number in error, there's no way to credit either. It can take nearly two years for SSA to tag a mismatch and notify employers. By then, many workers may have moved on. Meanwhile, their Social Security withholdings accumulate in a vast, unclaimed holding pen known as the Earnings Suspense File. And there they languish indefinitely -- unless you catch the error by scrutinizing that tally of future benefits the agency mails each year to workers 25 or older. Even then, the mismatch may cost you countless hours trying to reconstruct old wage records or rooting around in the closet for the marriage license. With the number of mystery workers and the sums involved, SSA makes Enron look like a small business. Astonishingly, the nation's largest benefits administrator has, over the past 65 years, been unable to match up $374 billion in wages with the workers who earned them. And that's according to its own auditors. Officials estimate that last year alone, some 10 million workers earned wages for which they won't get Social Security credit. That's almost 7 percent of the civilian labor force. It's impossible to calculate exactly how much these wage gaps will cost the workers in lost retirement benefits, but these mismatches provide the government with a sort of unexpected bonus: millions of dollars a year in payroll taxes that it can use to make Social Security payments to current retirees. At least SSA is an equal-opportunity blender. Brides who fail to notify the agency of their new married names become frequent suspense-file constituents. (It's not enough to tell your employer, gals -- make sure you notify SSA.) So do divorcées, students who use nicknames, and foreign-born citizens with hard-to-spell names, as mine would be had Ellis Island authorities not lopped seven letters off the end of my dad's name when he came to this country in 1926. Mingling with those shortchanged souls, of course, are illegal immigrants. Of some 50,000 people caught using false documents to work in this country between October 1996 and May 1998, one-third had relied on fraudulent Social Security numbers to land their job, the General Accounting Office reported last year. Some SSA officials believe that illegal workers account for half the annual increase in the suspense file, since three industries that rely heavily on immigrant labor -- agriculture, services and restaurants -- contribute about 47 percent of the wage reports in it. Individuals aren't the only ones losing out. The system's sieve also undercuts a host of law-enforcement efforts, from homeland security to child support. Would-be terrorists couldn't ask for better cover than to acquire a false Social Security number and burrow into the workplace -- a specter that the SSA's own inspector general, James Huse, raised at a House appropriations subcommittee earlier this year. Noting the recent bust of a ring that had helped more than 150 people, most from the Middle East, obtain illicit Social Security cards, Huse warned: Given the heightened threat of terrorism today, failure to protect the [system's] integrity can have enormous consequences for our nation and its citizens. That holds especially true for its youngest citizens. The most important tool for locating deadbeat parents is the new hire report that employers must file with state child-support agencies after a worker signs on. These reports, which include name and Social Security number, help
Adolfo Olaechea extradited to Peru
From Chris Burford I first picked this announcement from Louis Godena up today from marxism-international e-mail list but I see Louis Proyect has already, quite rightly, posted it on Marxmail. Adolfo Olaechea has been a significant figure in the development of marxism-space and its relevance in the imperialist world. Each person who has been involved in an overlapping number of lists will remember this from their own experience. I do not claim to be objective. But Adolfo Olaechea participated vigorously in the later 90's a very high volume list called marxism unmoderated hosted by the Spoons collective. He championed the cause of the Peruvian Communist Party (PCP) associated with Sendero Luminoso, Shining Path, and denounced liberal criticisms of what he defended as its revolutionary Peoples War. He also robustly criticised Trotskyists, and of course was criticised in turn, in a way that would not be tolerated on PEN-L. At one stage a flame war between self-declared champions of the PCP in London and New York broke out which appeared to be potentially much more than this, with accusations and real possibilities of people being agents provocateurs deliberately or objectively. Although I always thought that marxism-unmoderated was more viable than many did, the bulk of the volume went to a new list marxism-international, moderated by 4 people. Around the same time as the moderation subsequently passed to Louis Godena and Adolfo Olaechea many people left the list. My impression was that the bulk were inherited by Doug Henwood's LBO-talk and Louis Proyect's Marxmail, but there were other moderated lists, a number of which were hosted out of Utah. Marxism-international contracted to several posts per month. I was a number of subscribers who did not challenge the new moderator policy, although it is not close to my more liberal views, as I wanted to continue to subscribe to and receive information on Peru and similar perspectives. While marxism-international declined in volume (as some lists do anyway) Adolfo Olaechea and others set up an organisation with a wider radical democratic global perspective, called Justice International of which he is the general secretary. Much of this preamble, might be disputed at least in its emphasis but I think we need to set a context. Although I have had my ownbruising encounters with Adolfo Olaechea, as many have, I suggest this development is much more than a story of one man being vicitimised. Indeed the readiness of Adolfo Olaechea to go directly to Peru, to my mind suggests that in the spirit that Lenin urged, he is fully intending to defend himself vigorously in court, and very probably has anticipated this possibility for some time. I am not sure how broad a campaign could be built around this. My experience was one of solidarity with the ANC which involved working with churches, and liberals. Certainly it might include compromises with organisations like Amnesty International, of which Adolfo Olaechea has been very critical in the past. However as far as he is concerned as an individual, if anyone can do a Georgi Dimitrov at the Reichstag Trial, and put his accusers in the dock, it is Adolfo Olaechea. His scorn is withering. His political perspective cannot easily be dismissed in the context of Peru, if not the wider world. What adds to the potential significance is the whole theme of how Empire is imposing its own model of global justice, Guantanamo Bay style, or Pinochet house arrest style. The Peruvian Government has just decided to renew its call of last year to Japan, to extradite Alberto Fujimori for crimes against humanity during his ten year presidency. It is likely that Japan will continue to refuse on the grounds that Fujimori has dual nationality, because of his Japanese parents. http://dev.amatechtel.com/news/wed/cg/Qperu-japan-fujimori.RIgT_DuR.asp Meanwhile Adolfo Olaechea has accepted the challenge of his extradition. While there is perhaps still scope for people's war in some countries, I think this development is part of the trend on a world scale to try to impose allegedly new standards of legal accountability, but in an entirely imperialist environment. The struggle of democratic forces to resist this trend is potentially extremely important. I will post separately an article Adolfo OIaechea submitted to marxism-international last month on the situation in Peru in which he points out how techniques now used in Guantanamo bay were used against the PCP. Louis Godena may be setting up another e-mail list for this new development and asks people in the USA to contact him directly, (see below for email and phone numbers). Meanwhile marxism-international is likely to be an obvious outlet for posting all updates:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Other URL's which will either be too liberal or too sectarian for some or all people, which I checked today for information on Peru, include http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/04/fujimori040703.htm Human
Patriotic rituals
NY Times, July 6, 2003 FRANK RICH Had Enough of the Flag Yet? THE week before Independence Day, the Dixie Chicks played the Washington MCI Center, a mere dozen blocks or so from the White House. Well, what do you know, Washington, D.C., said the singer Natalie Maines, prompting a standing ovation from the crowd. If I'm not mistaken, the president of the United States lives here. Then, as The Washington Post reported, the cheers grew even louder. As we conclude this Fourth of July weekend, let us not forget the happy denouement to the saga of Ms. Maines, whose crime against America was to tell a London audience in March that she was ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas. What followed were boycotts, death threats and a ritualistic network TV flogging in which, as Jim Lewis put it in Slate, Diane Sawyer demanded that the Chicks affirm their patriotism and their support for the troops in the tradition of a Stalinist show trial. No matter. The Dixie Chicks have been able to exercise free speech happily all the way to the bank. They've posed nude for the cover of Entertainment Weekly with Saddam's Angels emblazoned on their flesh. Their album Home rebounded from its brief dip, returning to No. 1 on the country chart for weeks. Their tour has sold out from its first stop, that left-wing stronghold Greenville, S.C. The Dixie Chicks may be bigger than ever. From national infamy to renewed superstardom in a matter of weeks: that's the kind of story that restores your faith in an America where everything is possible. And most Americans, the Dixie Chicks no doubt included, not only have that faith in their country but love it as well. Yet you'd never know it from the more embittered cultural battles that have raged since 9/11. Read `Treason' this Fourth of July, and let the fireworks begin commands the full-page ad hawking the latest book by Ann Coulter. In it the author claims that every liberal in the country or at least every liberal Democrat hates America and is guilty of her titular crime, which, last time I looked, is punishable by death. (The Dixie Chicks escaped her noose by turning traitor only after her book went to press.) According to her book jacket bio, Ms. Coulter's expertise in delivering such sweeping condemnations derives from having been named one of the top 100 public intellectuals by federal judge Richard Posner in 2001. What she doesn't add and this is typical of her own intellectual methodology in Treason is that the list was compiled not on the basis of smarts but on the number of times names turned up in the media during the Clinton-hating heyday of 1995 to 2000. Mr. Posner's book was titled Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline (my italics), and by its ranking system, Ms. Coulter turns out to be far less of an intellectual than such conspicuous traitors as Sidney Blumenthal, Susan Sontag and Gore Vidal. At least she doesn't slap the flag on the front of her book to wrap herself in it. (She chose instead an idealized photo of something she loves more than Old Glory: herself.) The same cannot be said of Dick Morris and Sean Hannity, who use the Stars and Stripes as a merchandising tool for their own self-aggrandizingly patriotic screeds cashing in on their TV celebrity. In this, they follow the lead of their employer, the Fox News Channel, which, like its less successful cable rivals, has exploited the flag as a logo to sell itself as more patriotic than thou. Such flag-waving for personal and corporate profit has gotten so out of hand that last month, when the House of Representatives passed a constitutional amendment banning flag desecration for the umpteenth time, I for once found myself rooting for the Senate to follow suit. It would be fun to watch TV executives hauled on to Court TV. If NBC's post-9/11 decision to slap the flag on screen in the shape of its trademarked peacock wasn't flag desecration, what is? As patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, so the coercive patriotism of this historical moment is the last refuge of cynics. In The Story of American Freedom, the historian Eric Foner observes that a similar phenomenon occurred a little over a century ago, uncoincidentally enough, in tandem with America's triumphant entry onto the world stage as an imperial power during the Spanish-American War. It was in the 1890's that rituals like the Pledge of Allegiance and the practice of standing for the playing of `The Star-Spangled Banner' came into existence, as well as Flag Day. Our leaders were then professing to spread democracy to Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines with the same blithe self-assurance that our current leaders promise to bring the American way to Iraq and its neighbors. The rituals we get to accompany our 21st-century imperial interlude include fights over the Pledge of Allegiance and a costumed president's re-enactment of Hollywood's Top Gun. Most bizarre
Key figure speaks out on Niger-Uranium lies
NY Times, July 6, 2003 OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR What I Didn't Find in Africa By JOSEPH C. WILSON 4th WASHINGTON Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq? Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. For 23 years, from 1976 to 1998, I was a career foreign service officer and ambassador. In 1990, as chargé d'affaires in Baghdad, I was the last American diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein. (I was also a forceful advocate for his removal from Kuwait.) After Iraq, I was President George H. W. Bush's ambassador to Gabon and São Tomé and Príncipe; under President Bill Clinton, I helped direct Africa policy for the National Security Council. It was my experience in Africa that led me to play a small role in the effort to verify information about Africa's suspected link to Iraq's nonconventional weapons programs. Those news stories about that unnamed former envoy who went to Niger? That's me. full: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/06WILS.html Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Fighting dirty
NY Times Magazine, July 6, 2003 Temperament Wars By JAMES TRAUB (clip) There are Democrats who would like the party to get down off its moral pedestal and start fighting dirty, or at least dirtier. The journalist Eric Alterman, author of ''What Liberal Media?'' has complained that liberals need their own Fox News, their own talk radio -- their own unleashed attack dogs. Put Michael Moore behind a desk, and watch the right-wingers squeal. The problem is that many Democrats would squirm as well. It is just a fact that the Republicans are now the party of passionate convictions, while the Democrats are the party of grave reservations. The Democrats are essentially devoted to tempering the harm caused by the Bush administration, which is not much of an agenda at all, though it certainly makes a virtue of moderation. Ruthlessness is just not in the party's DNA. It's an odd reversal, if you think about it. The Republicans used to be the party of the First Methodist Church, and the Democrats of the great unwashed. Now the Republicans are the hellions, and the Democrats are the ones you want to bring home to mother. The G.O.P. is making such inroads among younger voters for the same reason that Fox News is making inroads among younger viewers. We live in a culture that values brazen certainty and loud conviction, no matter how wrongheaded. Pity the Democrats, stuck with the wrong set of virtues. full: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/magazine/06WWLN.html Leon Trotsky, Whither France: The potential forces of the revolution exceed by far the forces of Fascism and in general of the whole united reaction. Sceptics who think that all is lost must be pitilessly driven out of the workers' ranks. From the depths of the masses come vibrant echoes to every bold word, every truly revolutionary slogan. The masses want the struggle. It is not the spirit of combination among parliamentarians and journalists, but the legitimate and creative hatred of the oppressed for the oppressors which is today the single most progressive factor in history. It is necessary to turn to the masses, toward their deepest layers. It is necessary to appeal to their passions and to their reason. It is necessary to reject the false prudence which is a synonym for cowardice and which, at great historical turning points, amounts to treason. The united front must take for its motto the formula of Danton: De l'audace, toujours de l'audace, et encore de l'audace. To understand the situation fully and to draw from it all the practical conclusions, boldly and without fear and to the end, is to assure the victory of socialism. full: http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1936/witherfrance/index.htm Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: WB-corruption
In Johannesburg, we drink water tainted by WB-supported corruption, which included a false promise to fund the investigation and prosecution into Lesotho Highlands Water Project dam-related bribery. A couple of years ago, the Bank even gave a green light to more work by Acres Int'l and Lahmeyer -- two big construction companies since convicted of bribery -- and at least ten others (including the biggie, ABB) are up for prosecution in coming weeks and months. So instead of debarring, the Bank actively sabotaged the attempts to stop the bribery on Africa's largest single project. You can imagine how incredibly difficult it will be when the WB is faced with pressure to debar ABB, it's largest contractor. This is yet another reason for us all to support this excellent campaign: http://www.worldbankbboycott.org If any of you have money in your academic pension fund routed through TIAA-CREF, you'll be happy to know that last week, they officially rid themselves of the last WB bonds on their books. If that is your money they were investing in the Bank, you can proudly say that you no longer profit from global apartheid via the World Bank. Does anybody know if the WB publishes the blacklisted corporations? The list is only ...nearly 100 companies and individuals .. Pathetically short list, but I'd like to see it. Gene Coyle Eubulides wrote: World Bank Focused on Fighting Corruption Graft and Bribery, Once Tolerated, Punished by Blacklisting
more wto/fsc fallout
WTO Ruling on U.S. Tax Break Ignites Lobbying Battle Issue Divides Domestic Firms, Multinationals By Juliet Eilperin Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, July 6, 2003; Page A07 The need to rewrite tax laws for U.S. exporters has spawned a massive lobbying and legislative battle in Congress, with legislators and coalitions competing on how to promote exports without violating international statutes. Lawmakers from both parties are scrambling to accommodate a World Trade Organization ruling on May 7 that said a longstanding $5 billion annual tax break for American exporters constitutes an unfair subsidy. Unless Congress acts quickly, the European Union threatens to slap the United States with a $4 billion annual penalty for the tax benefit, which is known as the foreign sales corporation provision or the extraterritorial income exclusion. U.S. corporations that manufacture products domestically and sell them overseas receive a federal tax benefit intended to promote exports and jobs. This has drawn complaints from companies that both build and sell their products abroad and domestically. They say they struggle to compete in overseas markets where many firms are subsidized by their home countries. With the WTO declaring the tax benefit illegal, Congress is divided on how to promote American firms and exports. A bill by Ways and Means Committee members Philip M. Crane (R-Ill.) and Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) would take the current $5 billion tax benefit and use it to subsidize domestic manufacturers, whether they export or not. But the committee chairman, Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), wants to simplify and expand tax breaks for U.S. companies operating overseas, saying it is in the nation's interest to make American-based multinational companies more competitive. Unlike most fights in the House, this one does not split along party lines. U.S.-based exporters are lining up behind the Crane-Rangel bill. Firms with major operations abroad are siding with Thomas. The Crane-Rangel bill would take the $5 billion in yearly tax benefits and apply it to reduce the corporate tax rate -- from 35 percent to 31.5 percent -- on domestic manufacturing. Thomas's plan, to be introduced later this month, would create multiple tax breaks for firms with divisions abroad. The lobbying has intensified on all sides. Major domestic producers -- such as the Boeing Co., Microsoft Corp., Caterpillar Inc. and Motorola Inc. -- say they will have to slash jobs if they are not compensated for losing the annual subsidy. But firms with large overseas subsidiaries -- Texas Instruments Inc., ExxonMobil Corp. and Ford Motor Co., among others -- favor an international tax overhaul along the lines Thomas is suggesting. Each of these companies alone represents a serious lobbying force. Boeing spent $4.6 million on lobbying last year, according to federal disclosure records, while Ford spent $2.8 million. Both sides of the debate have created coalitions to help their cause, signing on lobbyists such as former Joint Committee on Taxation chief of staff Kenneth J. Kies and the Alexander Strategy Group, which has ties to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.). The group backing Thomas's bill paid Kies's firm nearly $600,000 last year, according to federal records. Domestic exporters are reminding lawmakers that they provide much-needed jobs in a sluggish economy. These companies have released a PriceWaterhouseCoopers study detailing how many jobs are at risk in every congressional district if the tax benefit disappears. These estimates have made House members -- even those close to Thomas -- nervous. Rep. Jennifer Dunn (R-Wash.), whose district includes thousands of Boeing and Microsoft employees, said taking the current tax break away without compensating its beneficiaries could have devastating consequences. It's in effect raising taxes on two major companies in the Pacific Northwest, she said. That's difficult for me. Rep. Nancy L. Johnson (R-Conn.) is in a similar position. A major employer in her district, United Technologies Corp., is pushing for the Crane-Rangel bill. Johnson said the company has been in constant contact for months with her office. She said she has yet to decide which plan to support. This is going to be a long road, Johnson said. We need to both meet Europe's objections and assure we will have a strong manufacturing base in the future. Thomas also faces the challenge of satisfying House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), whose home state includes many of the companies opposing his bill. Hastert spokesman John Feehery said the speaker was working with Thomas on the matter, but he indicated the speaker prefers the Crane-Rangel approach for now. He wants to make sure jobs don't leave the United States, Feehery said. Hoping to win wavering lawmakers, Thomas has embarked on an elaborate horse trading effort. In exchange for their support, the chairman has promised to include a series of parochial tax breaks directed
Fwd: [MARXISM-INTERNATIONAL] The current situation on Peru - Article by A. Olaechea
Time has moved on in Peru and so has Adolfo Olaechea's analysis. First a covering note by Louis Godena Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 21:09:36 -0400 Sender: Marxism International [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Louis R Godena [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [MARXISM-INTERNATIONAL] The current situation on Peru - Article by A. Olaechea From: Adolfo Olaechea [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 6:31 PM Subject: The current situation on Peru - Article by A. Olaechea JUSTICE INTERNATIONAL Below we publish an article by the General Secretary of Justice International regarding the extremely complicated and dangerous situation Peru is facing today. The international press is keeping mum on this regard and whatever they say, does not explain the facts in any shape or form. The truth is that the current Toledo regime has tried this week to suppress the people's movement for social and political justice by introducing a state of emergency, in the time honoured manner of Fujimori and Pinochet. However, the current pro-imperialist regime in Peru has proven unable to make its own dictatorial measures stick. Instead of cowering in panic, the Peruvian people have defied the state of emergency demanding the sacking of those responsible for this anti-union and anti-democratic measure, as well as a solution to their pressing problems of their hunger and misery in the midst of the orgy of high living and gargantuan salaries Toledo and his top bureacrats are indulging in and paying to themselves alone. While a country has been placed in state of emergency and that state of emergency has proven unenforceable, such an unprecedented development, with all its implications, is evidently not news nor merits the barest analysis by the learned columnists that the international press pays to supposedly keep the western public informed of what is going on in countries such as Peru, how their tax payers money is used to support untenable situations which innevitably degenerate sooner or later into terrorism, civil war, etc. It is with the purpose of keeping the world informed of the very significant developments taking place in countries such as Peru and Nepal, that actually represent today a different trend than the bankrupt policies of suppression and pre-emptive confrontation advocated by the Bush administration and its lap dogs eveywhere, that Justice International makes this article by our General Secretary available both in English and in Spanish through the means of our own distribution list. Justice International Secretariat London TOLEDO'S PERU IN THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA: TO RELY ON THE BAYONETS OR ON THE PEOPLE by A. Olaechea Napoleon is credited with saying that everything may be done with bayonets, except sit on them. The French emperor may teach this verity to the would be Inca emperor of Peru - a.k.a. Alejandro Toledo, the current President. Toledo makes much of his native origins and impoverished Andean peasant background and loves being called 'Pachacutec' after the greatest of the ancient Inca rulers. When he became President after the provisional government that followed the overthrow of the bizarre and amazingly corrupt Fujimori dictatorship, the international community showered him with movingly sentimental best wishes. His new regime was billed as a model of democratic transformation, not only for the region, but for the entire third world. Now, in the face of an unprecedented deluge of long suppressed union and popular demands and with millions of striking workers and farmers paralysing the country and occupying the roads, Toledo has started to emulate Fujimori by clearing the streets with tanks and soldiery. His response to a country demanding that he delivers on his manifold electoral promises has been to place the country under a 30 day state of emergency and to declare the strikes illegal. The Peruvian press has reacted to his move with astonishment and despair: Toledo sets the country ablaze is the headline in La Razon. In a piece entitled Wretched Government it accuses Toledo of bringing the country to its knees, risking the return of military rule and claims that the decomposition of the present government is creating the disastrous situation the country finds itself in today. According to La Republica, Toledo has done little to change the extreme inequalities bequeathed by his predecessor with the poor getting poorer, while many big enterprises cheat their way to higher profits. This sense of social injustice is what fuels popular unrest. Between 1992 and 2000, both the US and the EU governments aided and abetted the murderous regime of Alberto Fujimori and even today, after he fled the country in shame, the Japanese are still protecting this former dictator who stands accused of wholesale crimes against humanity. The international community supported Fujimori because the country was about to fall into the hands of the Maoists of the Shining Path who were branded as bloody
Re: Fighting dirty
NY Times Magazine, July 6, 2003 Temperament Wars By JAMES TRAUB [snip] It's an odd reversal, if you think about it. The Republicans used to be the party of the First Methodist Church, and the Democrats of the great unwashed. Now the Republicans are the hellions, and the Democrats are the ones you want to bring home to mother. = washingtonpost.com Democrats Discovering Campaign Law's Cost Saturday, June 28, 2003; Page A05 The evidence is growing that Democrats shot themselves in the foot by forcing passage of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law restricting what had been unlimited soft money donations to political parties. A report released yesterday by the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group, found that, contrary to common perceptions, Republicans have a big advantage over Democrats in donations from small donors, while Democrats are king among only the biggest. The study, analyzing donations during the 2002 campaign cycle, found that those little guys giving less than $200 to federal candidates, parties or leadership political action committees contributed 64 percent of their money to Republicans. By contrast, those fat cats giving $1 million or more contributed a lopsided 92 percent to Democrats. The only group favoring Democrats, in fact, were contributors giving more than $100,000. The findings illustrate the Republicans' strong advantage over Democrats in the current system, the center concluded. That's for sure. With the McCain-Feingold law capping total contributions at $95,000 per person, the Democrats are plain out of luck. The analysis also found an extension of the gender gap into political contributions. Women who listed an employer or income-generating profession gave 61 percent of their political money to Democrats, while women who declared themselves homemakers or named an occupation that doesn't produce income gave 55 percent of their political contributions to Republicans. Overall, women gave 53 percent of donations to Democrats, and men gave 54 percent to Republicans. One wild card: Because women gave 26 percent of hard money -- the contributions made directly to candidates that had always been regulated -- but only 15 percent of the now-restricted soft money, wealthy couples may partly offset the new soft money restrictions by having women increase their hard-money contributions. Less surprising was the finding that 94 percent of congressional candidates who outspent their opponents won their races. The study also found that only one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans gave $1,000 or more. Total spending in the 2002 cycle by candidates, parties and interest groups was $2.2 billion, down from the $2.9 billion spent in 2000 but significantly more than the $1.7 billion spent in the 1998 midterm election. Courting the Latino Vote Wonder why so many Democratic presidential candidates are heading to Phoenix this weekend? It might have something to do with Hispanic Tuesday. That's what Adam J. Segal, director of the Hispanic Voter Project at Johns Hopkins University, dubbed Feb. 3, 2004 -- the day primaries are held in two heavily Latino states, New Mexico and Arizona. Democrats, eager to court that crucial constituency, are hoping to get an early start by speaking to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference this weekend in Phoenix. Among those visiting or teleconferencing with NALEO are Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), John F. Kerry (Mass.), John Edwards (N.C.) and Bob Graham (Fla.), as well as Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.), Howard Dean and Al Sharpton. New Mexico's Gov. Bill Richardson, a Hispanic who has been discussed as a possible candidate for national office, will moderate a forum today. A study released by Segal's outfit yesterday explains the Democratic candidates' interest in this weekend's dog-and-pony show. Hispanics account for 42.1 percent of the population in New Mexico and 25.3 percent of the population in Arizona. Segal argues that Hispanics, who have passed African Americans to become the nation's largest minority, will influence Democratic presidential politics earlier than ever before, and at a higher rate than ever before.
Re: secret history of the magna carta Michael Perelman
Thank M, for a good reading tip. As i read the very interesting piece from Linebaugh however, I found a sort of yearning for a past utopia. His critique of Robertson he cites early on, discredits Robertson - apparently upon the lack of evidence that King John was literate. [Since when did stop the ruling class puts its imprint on anything?] Since I am not an expert on middle age law, I found myself retreating to my usual Guide to English History as a first resort: the much under-known largely ignored Peoples History of England, by A.L.Morton; First 1938 most recently 1974 Lawrence Wishart. I still think that sometimes less is more. Not that the thrust of Linebuagh's article extolling the Commons and the commoner should be forgot. This was also the message of others in the past such as JL Barbara Hammond amongst many others. We will not even discuss Marx's excoriation of those like the Duchess of Argylle. Anyway, that old hack Stalinist -pickaxe wielding nutcase Morton has this to say - I think is more historically relevant in the big picture: In the last resort the barons retained the right of rebellion. This was always a desperate expedient, and in England, where the power of the Crown was greatest and that of the barons least, it was almost hopeless. Even the strongest combination of barons had failed to defeat the Crown when, as in 1095 and in 1106, it had the support of other classes and sections of the population. John, ablest and most unscrupulous of the Angevin kings, did make the attempt to pass beyond the powers which the Crown could claim without a violation of the feudal contract. He levied excessive fines and aids in ways and on occasions not authorised by custom; he confiscated the estates of his vassals without a judgement in court; he arbitrarily called up cases from the baronial courts to his own royal courts. In' short, he showed no respect for law or custom. His administrative machinery directly threatened baronial rights, and indeed the rights of all free men, of all, that is, who were concerned with keeping in effective working order the feudal state, one of whose main objects, it must never be forgotten, was to keep in their place the mass of serfs and cottagers. Nor were his innovations confined to the barons. The Church was similarly treated, and the towns, which during the two previous generations had been growing increasingly con-scious of their corporate rights, were made to pay all kinds of new taxes and dues. Ile result was the complete isolation of the Crown from those sections that had previously been its strongest supporters. John was peculiarly unfortunate in that his attack on the Church was made when it was at one of its periods of exceptional strength under a superb political tactician, Pope Innocent III. Even so, it is possible that he might have been success-ful but for the failure of his foreign policy. A dispute over the succession with his nephew Arthur led him into a long war with France. One by one he lost the provinces his father had held, including the dukedom of Normandy. The loss of Normandy meant for many of the English barons the loss of huge ancestral estates. In their eyes John had failed in his first duty, that of guarding the fiefs of his vassals. At the same time the loss of their foreign possessions made them more anxious to preserve those still held in England. At this moment, having lost the support of the barons, John became involved in a direct dispute with Innocent III over the filling of the vacant Archbishopric of Canter-bury. Ignoring the King's nominee, and contrary to the well-established custom, Innocent consecrated Stephen Langton, and to enforce the appointment placed England under an interdict. He followed this by declaring John excommunicated and deposed, and persuaded the kings of France and Scotland to make war on him. John organ-ised a counter alliance which included Flanders and the Emperor. His forces were crushed at the Battle of Bou-vines in 1214 and the English barons refused to fight. Even a last minute submission to Innocent failed to win back the support of the Church in England, and Langton con-tinued to act as the brain of the baronial revolt. John stood alone. It was not even possible for him to call out the fyrd, which in the past had been the trump card of the Crown in its struggles with the nobility. This fact in itself indicates that the movement against John was to some extent of a popular character. Unwillingly be submitted, and at Runnymede on June 15th, 1215, he accepted the programme of demands embodied by the barons in Magna Carta. Magna Carta has been rightly regarded as a turning point in English history, but almost always for wrong reasons. It was not a 'constitutional' document. It did not embody the principle of no taxation without representa-tion. It did not guarantee parliamentary government, since Parliament did not then exist. It did not establish the right to trial by jury, since, in fact, the
Liberian events to 1990
http://www.allianceML.com/CommunistLeague/LIBERIAissue1990.html Given the nature of current events in Liberia, I felt this above was still of use. Penned by the deceased W.B.Bland of Communist League (UK). Alliance is up-dating said piece. Hari
Bushwacker Hears God's Voice
i've seen public opinion data indicating that about 40 million u.s. people share apocalyptic views of some evangelicals - including current prez - that 'we' are heading into last days of final battle between good and evil, is 85% of country's population (i realize i'm not considering age and cognition here), aware that bushwacker holds such views, if so, are vast majority ok with this guy believing such things, do most americans claim to hear god's voice as this guy does... michael hoover God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them. George W. Bush, according to Mahmoud Abbas, during a meeting between the two, as reported by Arnon Regular in an article at: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=310788contrassID=2subContrassID=1sbSubContrassID=0listSrc=Y
