-Caveat Lector- Nancy Snow's Propaganda, Inc. (new edition)
http://www.snowmachine.com/foreword.html http://www.snowmachine.com/intro.html Introduction Michael Parenti For generations, a fundamental function of U.S. foreign policy has been to make certain that the natural resources, markets, labor, and capital of other nations were accessible to U.S. corporate investors on the most favorable terms possible. In 1907, Woodrow Wilson offered this candid observation: "Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed against him must be battered down. Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process." In his 1953 State of the Union Address President Eisenhower observed, "A serious and explicit purpose of our foreign policy [is] the encouragement of a hospitable climate for investment in foreign nations." What no U.S. president has ever explained is: What gives the United States the right to dictate the destinies of other nations, mold their development, and intervene forcibly against them when they dare to mark an independent course? With unfailing consistency, U.S. intervention has been on the side of the rich and powerful of various nations at the expense of the poor and needy. Rather than strengthening democracies, U.S. leaders have overthrown numerous democratically elected governments or other populist regimes in dozens of countries-from Chile to Guatemala to Indonesia to Mozambique-whenever these nations give evidence of putting the interests of their people ahead of the interests of multinational corporate investors. While claiming that such interventions are needed to safeguard democracy in the world, U.S. leaders have given aid and comfort to dozens of tyrannical regimes, ones that have overthrown reformist democratic governments (as in Chile and Guatemala, for instance) and shown themselves to be faithful acolytes of the transnational corporate investors. In 1993, before the United Nations, President Bill Clinton proclaimed, "Our overriding purpose is to expand and strengthen the world's community of market-based democracies." In truth, as Nancy Snow shows in this cogent and revealing book, the emphasis has been more on the "market-based" and less on the "democracy." To the American public and to the world, however, as Snow notes, U.S. policy has been represented in the most glowing-and most deceptive-terms. Peace, prosperity, and democracy have become coded propaganda terms. "Peace" means U.S. global military domination, a kind of Pax Americana. "Prosperity" means subsidizing the expansion of U.S. corporate interests abroad, at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer and the millions of people in other nations who might be better served by local and independent development. And "democracy," Nancy Snow notes, means a system in which political decisions are made by the transnational and publicly unaccountable corporate interests and their government allies, "not based on a populist or participatory ideal of politics but one in which the public's role is minimized." Global capitalist hegemony is attained by two means. First, there is the global military apparatus. The U.S. defense budget is at least five times larger than any other country's defense expenditures. U.S. naval, air, and ground forces maintain a police presence around the globe, using hundreds of military bases throughout various regions. U.S. advisors train, equip, and finance military and paramilitary forces in countries on every continent. All this to make the world safe for the transnationals. The other instrument of U.S. intervention might be called "cultural imperialism," the systematic penetration and dominance of other nations' communication and informational systems, educational institutions, arts, religious organizations, labor unions, elections, consumer habits, and lifestyles. Drawing upon both her personal experience and her scholarly investigation, Nancy Snow offers us a critical picture of one of the key instruments of cultural imperialism, the United States Information Agency (USIA). A benign-sounding unit of government supposedly dedicated to informational and cultural goals, USIA is actually in the business of waging disinformation wars on behalf of the Fortune 500. Operating as a propaganda unit of a corporate-dominated U.S. foreign policy, USIA ran interference for NAFTA, in Snow's words, doing "nothing to advance the more noble goals of mutual understanding and education," while leaving a trail of broken promises about jobs and prosperity. USIA's efforts on behalf of NAFTA and other such undertakings have brought fantastic jumps in profits for big business, at great cost to the environment, democratic sovereignty, and worker and consumer well-being. Nancy Snow also deals with the larger issues that go beyond USIA, especially the way the U.S. political system is dominated and distorted by moneyed interests, transforming democracy into plutocracy, and making a more democratic U.S. foreign policy improbable. Still, as Snow reminds us, victories can be won when broad-based democratic forces unite and fight back vigorously. A recent example would be the defeat of fast-track legislation in Congress in 1997 in the face of a massive blitz launched by powerful business associations, the White House, and the major media. Snow concludes with a useful and instructive seven-point agenda for a citizen-based diplomacy, pointing out how readers can and should get involved. In the pages ahead, Nancy Snow shows herself to be a discerning, fair-minded investigator, a skilled writer and researcher, and a socially conscious citizen. No wonder she found herself unable to function within the U.S. propaganda machine. She's too good for corporate America. Michael Parenti is the author of Against Empire; Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism; and the recently published America Besieged. Selling America's Culture to the World Nancy Snow The USIA's future strategy emphasizes public-private partnership and reinventing itself through "collecting, evaluating and using performance data to improve our program results." Once again, public-private partnership is government doublespeak for private domination and public acquiescence in budget-cutting times. Under this context foreign trade and economic policy are fully partnered with U.S. cultural and information policy. As pressure increases for the USIA to measure its performance, a "good" USIA program is one led by bottom line corporate considerations: Does it expand American markets? Does it promote American competitiveness? Does it link American business to overseas counterparts? Mutual understanding becomes a straw man concept by which the U.S. government, coached by business, informs and influences while other countries listen and understand. Current public diplomacy and foreign policy making reduces the role of American citizens to mere spectators. USIA's model of democracy and the free market is promoted as the superpower version of economic globalization, packaged and ready for shipping to clients throughout the world. In this version, foreign capital flows freely while the movement of people, particularly the world's poor, is strictly monitored and controlled. Such a commercial package speaks first and foremost for government "partners," the Fortune 500 corporations, which are the primary beneficiaries as well as the bankrollers of the American political process. This is a packaged story of America that is incomplete and undemocratic. Where do workers and communities fit into the story? How do private citizens play a part in building dialogue across cultures? There is strong evidence that the USIA is an ineffective, obsolete agency that should be dismantled. The USIA has no legitimate post-cold war function and primarily serves the interests of U.S. trade and economic sectors by touting to foreign elite audiences the superiority of U.S. commercial values and the soundness of U.S. economic policies. Likewise, by overplaying foreign economic concerns, USIA neglects its second mandate, citing Smith-Mundt restraints that prohibit the American public from having access to USIA materials. USIA's operation, like a mini-Commerce Department, makes for duplication of government services in a post-big-government era of downsizing and budget cuts. Finally, private hucksterism for U.S. business interests under the rhetoric of "public" diplomacy makes a mockery of agency mandates for mutual understanding between the people of the U.S. and the people of other countries. Progressive arguments in favor of abolishing USIA include some unusual company. The Cato Institute, a conservative think tank, supports the elimination of USIA but for other reasons: "Since the end of the cold war, there is less and less appropriate government action to take. The United States no longer needs to combat communism by, for example, supporting trade unionism, cranking out propaganda, or giving out scholarships to foreign students. In contrast, as a growing number of economies open up to trade and investment, there is more and more commercial and financial (i.e. nongovernmental) action to take. Given the enormous impact of Hollywood, Motown, Levi's, hundreds of thousands of travelers, and the news media, it is hard to believe that U.S. government information and cultural programs could make anything but the most marginal impressions on the minds of foreigners. Moreover, it makes little sense to send American culture abroad for free when foreign populations are clearly willing to pay for it. There is no longer a need to `win their hearts and minds.'" I favor a political democracy and foreign policy driven by informed citizen activists. USIA's function, like the mini-Commerce Department it has become, is to sell one version of America, essentially corporate, to the influential dominant markets of the world. But America's legacy has never been and will never be just for the selling. Countless American citizens, working with their counterparts abroad, are using their united vision to promote a global civic society which promotes a one-world community -- not a one-world market -- where diverse cultures can work together in efforts to combat poverty, oppression, pollution, and collective violence. In contrast to USIA's boardroom-style globalization model, many of these citizen activists favor more freedom of movement for people and greater regulation of capital. A classical economic philosophy and its almost messianic devotion to unlimited growth do not drive this global grassroots system. Instead, it takes into account people's values, their cultural and natural environments, and local economies where traditional nonmarket values like reciprocity, mutual aid, and self-reliance build community bonds. Roadblocks on the Path to a New Foreign Policy One of the major roadblocks on the path to citizen-based diplomacy is that big business and big money rule the American system of democracy. We don't need an independent counsel or special prosecutor to point this out to us. Instead of one-person, one-vote, we have a system of one-dollar, one-vote. The two dominant parties, Republican and Democrat, are what Ralph Nader likes to call a "duopoly." This two-party monopoly is represented by the same large corporations that form business coalitions like USA*NAFTA, USA*ENGAGE, or ALOT. Neither party has the moral courage to take on the private system of financing our politics because each is beholden to corporate money and special interests in a never-ending cycle of cash and influence. Many myths perpetuate that confuse the American people about who is really running campaigns. During the 1996 campaign, conservatives charged that the Clinton Administration was controlled by organized labor, failing to mention that the lion's share of money for both Republicans and Democrats is business. A November 1997 report by the Center for Responsive Politics indicated that in 1996 "business outspent labor by a factor of 11 to one and ideological groups by 19 to one," and "nearly two-thirds of the business money went to Republicans," which has fed a growing dependence among Democrats on organized labor. Despite the dominance of business interests in campaign finance, another pro-business coalition, run out of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, is gearing up for the 1998 elections to fight the AFL-CIO. Calling itself, "The Coalition: Americans Working for Real Change," it raised $5 million in the 1996 election to combat organized labor's advertising campaign. Now the Coalition wants to permanently fight any attempts to establish a labor-oriented Congress. Congress remains "pro-business but by the narrowest of margins ... A handful of new anti-business members or weaknesses among pro-business members could stop progress toward a smaller federal government, lower and simpler taxes, tort reform, free trade, and workplace regulatory reform dead in its tracks." The Coalition's client list includes the National Restaurant Association, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the National Federation of Independent Businesses, many of whose individual members give generous soft money contributions to mostly the Republican party and who actively oppose any attempts to pass campaign finance reform legislation which would limit their access to government. Another problem is that the people, traditionally represented by their government, find themselves facing a new power -- global corporations -- which hold no allegiance to any one individual, community, or place. A revealing study by the Institute for Policy Studies, using World Bank and UN data from 1995, indicated that 51 of the 100 largest economies in the world were corporations. Only 49 were countries. They included Mitsubishi (22nd), General Motors (26), Ford Motor (31), Exxon (39), Wal-Mart (42) and AT&T (48). These top 200 corporations' combined sales surpassed the combined economies of 182 countries. Wal-Mart alone had sales in 1995 that were greater than the GNP of 161 countries. In 1997, Wal-Mart even overtook General Motors as the largest corporate employer in the United States with 675,000 employees worldwide. As USA Today reported, "Unseating GM reflects broad U.S. employment trends. Those include the rise of the service industry, the decline of manufacturing, the erosion of unionized workers, the rise of temporary workers and increased worldwide competition that hits manufacturers harder than retailers." What this means is that we are growing up in a society today where big government is being downsized while the power of global corporations is concentrating and coalescing across national boundaries (thus their name "transnational corporations" or TNCs). Despite this trend, our media (particularly conservative talk radio) continue to emphasize stories that point to the U.S. government as the most dominant and controlling institution in society. Even President Clinton acknowledged in his 1996 State of the Union address to great bipartisan applause that "the era of big government is over." But these same media, our top elected official, and our two dominant political parties rarely criticize the growing power of large corporations because they are bankrolled by them. Democracies thrive only when power is deconcentrated from the hands of a few to many. Thomas Jefferson warned that "banking institutions and moneyed incorporations" if given free reign to dominate the people could destroy democracy. The 20th-century social philosopher John Dewey could have been talking about the late 20th century when he said: "Power today resides in control of the means of production, exchange, publicity, transportation and communication. Whoever owns them rules the life of a country." Politics becomes then "the shadow cast on society by big business," so long as the country is ruled by "business for private profit through private control of banking, land, industry, reinforced by command of the press, press agents, and other means of publicity and propaganda." Against a backdrop of growing corporate power it is understandable that many Americans feel powerless to change political institutions. They see their own government merging the public with the private sector in service of the private sector's interests. We grow up corporate-minded, leading the sponsored life, but are ignorant about many of our civic rights. One of these central rights Americans have is to be informed and engaged by our media. It is well known and readily understood that our major broadcast media are advertising-supported and profit-driven. What is little known and less understood is that the American people own the airwaves. Since 1934 our federal government has freely given radio and television broadcasters the right to use the public airwaves for private gain as long as they promote the public's interest. And what is the public interest? Broadly defined, that media inform and engage the public in order to increase citizen participation in the democratic process. An uninformed citizenry cannot make sound decisions about power relations and resource allocation, which are so central to political decision-making. It is then critically important that our major media inform the citizenry and promote political participation in the democratic process. The problem lies with ownership and concentration. In 1983, when Ben Bagdikian first published The Media Monopoly, his now classic critique of the America media environment, he reported that 50 corporations controlled most of the American media in newspapers, television and radio, book publishing and movie studios. His criticism of the harmful effects of corporate-owned and advertising-driven news earned him a reputation as an "alarmist." His 1992 edition reported that 50 had shrunk to 20. Bagdikian's 5th edition was published on April 1, 1997, but there's no April Fools joke here: What were 50 corporations fourteen years ago is down to 10 media conglomerates that dominate the U.S. system. What Bagdikian calls a "horror" is almost unconscionable to anyone concerned with the democratic process. A 1997 Common Cause study, "Channeling Influence: The Broadcast Lobby and the $70-billion Free Ride," provides a picture of the power these major media wield in the halls of Congress. Each programmer now holds a license to use a portion of the public airwaves to broadcast radio and television. Emerging digital technology will increase the economic value of that spectrum system and allow broadcasters access to multi-use programming. Traditional television sets will be replaced with digital "genies" which offer a higher quality picture and sound along with computer data, paging and cellular service. Broadcasters have lobbied hard to use the new digital spectrum for free. The Federal Communications Commission, the U.S. government arm which oversees the broadcast industry, estimates that the new digital TV licenses if auctioned off to broadcasters would generate at least $70 billion for the federal treasury. Unfortunately the FCC is the FAA of telecommunications policy and is not likely to put undue pressure on broadcasters to pay. FCC officials tend to be industry supporters instead of public defenders of the airwaves. On January 8, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson gave his Fourteen Points Speech for world peace which outlined "a general association of nations," the precursor to the United Nations. In this age of globalization of finance capital, the acquiescence of governments to corporate power and control, and the continued domination of transnational structures like the IMF, World Bank, GATT, and NAFTA, it is time, some 80 years later, to form a united, autonomous association of citizen movements which can resist the marketization of human lives and their environment. The following, my more modest 7-Point Plan for a citizen-based diplomacy, is influenced by the efforts of citizen groups working with progressive politicians to launch a "Fairness Agenda for America" in response to the corporate-defined Republican "Contract with America." 7-Point Plan for a Citizen-Based Diplomacy 1. Restore the Body Politic. A citizen-based diplomacy places civic-mindedness and civic activism at the center of our body politic by emphasizing the role and function of grassroots democratic activists who work for human rights, human security, and environmental and cultural preservation. The current body politic emphasizes economic theories, glorifies the free market, and reduces the role of citizens to occasional endorsers of winner-take-all options. A new body politic takes into account the interests and concerns of citizens affected by global policymaking. Public opinion polls consistently show support for demilitarization and a shift in foreign policy from arms sales and exports to economic and social justice. A new body politic demands that its government resist efforts by military contractors and lobbyists to look for new markets for their wares, and pressures government to convert a military-dependent economy that benefits a few large conglomerates to a self-sustaining energy-efficient economy that benefits all. 2. Fight "Trade über Alles" Foreign Policy. Foreign policy is no longer the exclusive domain of economic and military elites. Just ask Jody Williams, U.S. coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a coalition of over 1,000 organizations in 60 countries which worked with receptive governments to redefine international norm and international law. Williams attributes the campaign's success to working outside the bounds of major institutions like the United Nations where the anti-land-mine campaign had stalled, and building networks with citizen groups and smaller pro-ban countries. The Nobel Committee readily admitted that its decision to award the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize to Jody Williams and the ICBL was designed to pressure superpowers like the United States, Russia, and China to sign an international treaty banning the use of anti-personnel land mines. That plan seemed to partially work. President Boris Yeltsin immediately announced that Russia would become a signatory to the international treaty. When President Clinton did not call to congratulate the American Nobel laureate, Williams understood why: "The message we've been sending this administration for the past few years is that they are on the wrong side of humanity. He knows what our message is. I would say the same thing to him on the telephone as I've said to him on TV." Jody Williams never got a call from President Clinton, but the parents of septuplets in Iowa did. Mass-based local movements, citizen deliberation and debate put pressure on government and corporate elites to open the political process. That pressure can reshape foreign policy to cut current cold-war levels of military spending, convert military research and development initiatives to domestic social needs, stop arms-bazaar NATO expansion, shift from a unilateral military presence abroad to a multilateral response, and place human rights instead of expanding markets at the forefront of foreign policy. 3. Redefine Foreign Assistance. Despite the end of the cold war, foreign assistance continues to mean assisting countries in death and destruction in the form of weapons and ammunition. The United States is the world's remaining superpower, not only in economic and military strength, but also in arms trafficking. As long as foreign assistance remains defined by arms transfers, less developed countries that are in transition to democracy will remain vulnerable to military forces working with repressive governments that systematically violate human rights. Real foreign assistance would provide technology and resources to help grassroots organizations document human rights abuses on video and the Internet, report abuses in a timely fashion to news services, facilitate internal and international communication, and link their efforts to worldwide social movements. 4. Emphasize People and Progress, not Markets and Growth. A citizen-based diplomacy challenges the secular economic god, "growth," its outmoded measure, GNP, and the myth of "free trade," which continue to dominate global economic policy despite irrefutable evidence that global human activity is destroying natural resources and creating inequalities both here and abroad. Redefining progress from growth to quality of life reveals that two-thirds of the world's people are still marginalized in the new global economy and the gap is widening between rich and poor in developed and less developed countries. Citizens must hold governments and corporations accountable for the inequities of the marketplace instead of hearing only of its virtues. 5. Redignify Work and Labor. Economic globalization tends to define work and labor in employer terms: "flexible labor markets" where workers accept unconscionably low wages and dismal working conditions, or how work affects only the bottom line. A citizen-based diplomacy places work and labor at the center of the global economy debate, addresses economic anxiety in families and the workplace, and puts pressure on governments and their corporate patrons to promote an adequate living wage, safe working conditions, and a progressive tax structure based on individual or institutional ability to pay. Take the example of the global citizen campaign against the Nike corporation. This highly profitable multinational corporation literally "walked out" on the American shoe industry. Nike does not have a single shoe factory within the United States, abandoning higher-wage American workers and their families for low-wage undemocratic countries like China, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Despite its feel-good "Just Do It" corporate motto and well-publicized support for women in sports, Nike exploits women and children in labor camp conditions where pregnant women are routinely fired and women lose fingers in rushed assembly lines. So far Nike has been able to protect its good corporate citizen image through spending over $978 million in worldwide advertising in 1996 and flaunting its multimillion-dollar advertising contracts with popular sports figures like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. But efforts by progressive members of Congress to engage Nike CEO Phil Knight in improving his labor practices overseas and expanding his manufacturing to U.S. communities may apply some extra public pressure for Nike and like-minded corporate citizens to "just do the right thing." 6. Broaden Definition of Democracy Through "Clean" Elections A civic-based democracy supports reform movements to reduce the amount of private money in politics in the short-term and public financing of elections in the long-term to eliminate the need for elected "public servants" to be professional fund-raisers. Citizens are concerned that candidates spend most of their time chasing after big money and that well-qualified but under-funded candidates don't have a real chance of being elected. A clean money campaign reform approach is the most sweeping option available for citizens to reclaim their democracy from the reigns of private industry. It would, among other things, provide voluntary public financing for qualified candidates, ban the use of soft money (unregulated large money donations), provide free and discounted TV time for candidates who agree to spending limits (even President Clinton called for that in his 1998 State of the Union address), shorten the campaign season, and require full electronic disclosure. Such a system has already passed by ballot initiative in Maine and in the Vermont state legislature and similar measures are underway in dozens of U.S. states. The public financing option places citizens at the center of democratic debate and would likely lead to real democracy measures like civilian monitoring of military and intelligence budgets, an independent judiciary, and broader avenues for citizen redress and involvement in political and economic decision making process. 7. Support Media Reform. The national commercial television networks have been, to put it mildly, less than vigilant in exposing how corporate money is corrupting American politics. The print media have done a better job in tracking fat cat contributions to both dominant parties, but the "Big Five" broadcasters (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and CNN) have not been beating their drums in support of campaign finance reform. Why? Because they have a direct conflict of interest in the story. The national networks profit handsomely from the corrupt political process that drives campaigns. Most of the big money given to candidates running for national office ends up being spent on television ads and media consultants. In the 1996 elections, the top 75 media markets collected $400 million dollars to run political ads. It would be against these media moguls' interests to support reforming a system that affects their bottom line. The corporate owners of the Big Five (Disney, Westinghouse, GE, Murdoch's News Corporation, Inc., and Time-Warner) are themselves major campaign contributors to the current political system, funneling millions into the soft money accounts of the Republican and Democratic parties. The returns on their investment are millions in tax breaks, direct subsidies, and other governmental "thank yous." My home state of New Hampshire, which hosts the first-in-the-nation presidential primary, celebrates a retail approach to politics where candidates win support at family dinners and coffee klatches. But even homespun New Hampshire is not immune to the broadcast gag rule on campaign finance reform. When magazine magnate Steve Forbes ran for president in 1996, he made a formidable showing in New Hampshire. Forbes' top sales agent was the only network affiliate in the state, ABC's WMUR-9 in Manchester, New Hampshire, which received over $600,000 from Forbes in the months prior to the February primary and reported Forbes' comings and goings like personal infomercials. Altogether the presidential candidates purchased $2.2 million in political advertising for one broadcast station that controls the New Hampshire market, an amount which exposes the myth surrounding the intimacy of the New Hampshire primary. Television is the main messenger of politics these days and it's not telling the whole story. A civilian-based diplomacy supports noncommercial, nonprofit, and publicly subsidized media to counteract the corporate-controlled, for-profit, private media that dominate political discourse. It works to place media control, ownership, and lobbying at the center of public policy debate. Democracy cannot function or survive without a sufficient medium by which citizens remain informed and engaged in public policy debates. Your Turn: Getting Involved Citizens living in a democracy traditionally have relied on their government for social change programs and social safety net protections against the inherent inequities of the market economy. This is no longer the case. In the United States both the Democratic and Republican parties have become sycophants to their wealthy corporate patrons, equally supportive of repressive solutions to social ills, and increasingly unresponsive to the economic needs of the working and middle class American. An illustration of this is the windfall of profit that came out of the 1997 budget and tax deal. The Common Cause report, "Return on Investment," details the hidden story behind the celebrated budget and tax deal of 1997: corporate welfare-style giveaways, tax breaks and subsidies doled out to the special interests and insider lobbyists that have contributed millions of dollars to the Democrat and Republican parties. The public's role is little more than bystander as it watches its government respond to big money and spiral out of democratic reach. This makes the public particularly susceptible to antigovernment propaganda on the right and no seemingly credible alternative from the left but fears of more big government programs. What all of us have witnessed over the last two decades is a growing concentration of power and wealth in fewer hands. Non-commercialized space for public gathering is shrinking, while public participation in politics is being handed over to private wealth. This private wealth is in turn dominating our public welfare, our public lands, our public airwaves, our pension trusts, all of which are legally owned by the people, but not controlled by them. This is not democracy. This is a plutocracy, where debate is defined by narrow margins that leave certain longheld assumptions about foreign policy and democracy unchallenged. If we the people remain spectators or a "bewildered herd" we can expect a continuation of corporate-state collusion. A third way is to struggle for economic and social justice in citizen initiatives. It is my hope that progressive organizations will move beyond single-issue priorities, turf wars, or internal struggles to build one strong and united progressive movement that casts a wide social safety net to stop our political and economic decline and realize a global civic society that values genuine democracy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Nancy Snow is Assistant Professor of Political Science at New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire. She is Executive Director of Common Cause in New Hampshire and serves on the Board of Directors of the Cultural Environment Movement (CEM). She thanks Herbert I. Schiller, Michael Parenti, Robert Klose, and Nancy Harvey for their comments on earlier drafts. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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