///Taking the Illusions Out of History-I would like to be able to love my country and justice///

Tuesday, December 23, 2003

003 -- The Year We Almost Lost Honest News
A Look Back and Ahead at the Year in Media

By Danny Schechter, News Dissector
MediaChannel.org

NEW YORK, Dec 23, 2003 -- Congress declared the year 2003 the year of the blues. My own MediaChannel blog deems it a year in which we almost lost honest news. As the networks work up their greatest hits packages, those highly edited collages of the highs and the lows of another year gone by, perhaps its time to look at the forces that shaped our media and put it at risk.

The third year of this new millennium was overshadowed by the war on Iraq, the news story that most networks devoted their airtime and money to cover. Looking back, we see a period in which the voices of fear and alarm dominated the broadcast spectrum as oft-repeated warnings of the dangers of weapons of mass destruction popped up with as much regularity as Viagra ads.

With embedded journalists in the "theater" and retired generals in the studios, with Pentagon public affairs officers on the phone and White House perception managers pumping out the "message of the day," this was the most sanitized and media-controlled war we have ever seen. Jingoism fused with journalism and news biz and show biz morphed into what TIME magazine called "militainment."

The war you saw depended on where you lived. If you lived in Europe, there was some semblance of balance. If you were in the Middle East, the focus was on the casualties. If you lived in the land they call "one nation under television," the USA, it was boys with toys as unlimited time was devoted to weapons systems and coverage that looked and felt like the NFL goes to war.

What was new was the emergence of Arab satellite stations like Al Jazeera and Al Arabia -- not just as a transmission belt for Osama bin Laden videos, but with gutsy in-your-face reporting that some in the Arab world compared in style to Fox News, even though those two channels are worlds apart in distance and ideology.

"The Fox Effect" in America pushed much of the coverage to the right, with CNN dethroned as the King of Cable News.

MSNBC 'ethnically cleansed' the liberals like Peter Arnett and Phil Donahue while hiring a slew of right-wing shouters. It was the year of Bill O'Reilly's bullying on Fox, even though payback came when O'Reilly was taken down a peg or two by comedian Al Franken, who called him a liar, was sued, and came back with a best-selling book that outsold O'Reilly's nearly two to one.

What went unnoted was the strange synchronicity of media moguls lobbying the government for deregulation and the right to become bigger at the very time when a government watchdog was needed most. Critics suggested this led to a conflict of interest with the media demanding that rules be waved while the administration pushed the media for more 'good news' on the war. Was there a quid pro quo, a deal to advance media concentration in exchange for network flag waving? It certainly felt that way.

2003 was the year that big media sought to get bigger. NBC bought Universal. Murdoch sucked up DirecTV. But there was a backlash when nearly three million Americans wrote letters to the FCC and their congresspeople protesting a bigger-media-is-better-media philosophy. Everything was in flux. Time Warner backed away from its alliance with AOL while members of the Disney board revolted against their well-paid uber-mouse Michael Eisner.

It was the year of media scandals. Jayson Blair was outed as a dishonest journalist while his newspaper, the mighty New York Times, imploded with editors being axed and arrogance in the newsroom challenged. In England, board members of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp revolted against his decision to hire his son, while publisher Conrad Black was forced to step aside when his scandalous self-serving financial dealings came to light.

Media battles were fought around the world -- in China for Internet freedom; in Zimbabwe for press freedom; in Russia, against growing government control. While in Britain, the BBC wrestled the Blair government to resist new pressures to constrain its reporting. A record 83 media workers lost their lives around the world for doing their jobs. In America, a patriotic correctness characterized coverage, and the Patriot Act and similar laws made it harder to access government information.

At the same time, independent and alternative journalism thrived. The radio show Democracy Now was heard on more stations that ever. Indy TV channels like Freespeech.org and World Link TV built larger viewer bases. Websites like MediaChannel, TomPaine.com, Mother Jones Online and Alternet saw spikes in traffic and the blog was everywhere.

The Online News Journal noted: "2003 offered up much more than just an unhealthy fascination with blogs. We also obsessed over the proliferation of people with camera phones breaking spot news stories; the rise of Google and Google News; the soap opera at (AOL) Time Warner; the continued inroads of paid content; RSS feeds, viruses, worms and spam overwhelming newsrooms; the struggle for independent news in Zimbabwe, China, Iran and Iraq; and political rhetoric and election coverage."

For us, the key change was this: Media went from being a casual complaint to becoming a serious issue around which people began mobilizing. Coverage was debated endlessly and a new media reform movement was born.

This focus is likely to continue in 2004, the year America decides on its next president. Pressing the press to be more accountable and responsible covering elections is now on the agenda.

Its time to ring out the old -- and bring in the new.

-- News Dissector Danny Schechter is the executive editor of MediaChannel.org, and is the author of "Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception." (Prometheus)


accesswater2030@yahoo.com 8:34 PM

December 19, 2003
Technical Knockout
Fox News Screws a War Opponent
by Anthony Gancarski

On the cold, blustery weekend after Thanksgiving 2003, north Florida AM radio firebrand and political activist Andy "Down to Business" Johnson made a rare appearance on the cable news circuit. The venue was Fox News' "From the Heartland", hosted by former Congressman John Kasich [R-OH]. Kasich brought together outspoken Iraqi war opponent Johnson and syndicated conservative radio wunderkind Ben Ferguson to discuss the merits of President George W. Bush's morale-boosting trip to Iraq earlier in the week.

Those familiar with Fox News and its "fair and balanced" style of debate won't be surprised to hear that Johnson found himself at the mercy of many disparate elements [technical problems exclusive to Johnson's mike, for example]. At this point, only a fool would expect anything better from Rupert Murdoch's Aussie-owned mouthpiece for American neoconservatism. But Johnson claims the experience was slanted even beyond reasonable expectation.

Regarding the modulation of his volume throughout the segment, Johnson said the following. "I truly do not know whether the volume was merely a matter of stupidity and incompetence or whether it is part of the general plan to terrorize the folks who disagree with the host [or] anyone who is not in agreement with the Fox position. I think I was cut off once due to technical problems and 2 or 3 [other] times because they did not want to hear what I had to say."

Microphone problems, like plane crashes and celebrity show trials, are a centerpiece of both Fox News and the stateside political culture it nurtures. Yet Johnson claims that Fox stooped far lower than mere techie trickery in its efforts to engender cognitive dissonance on his end.

"I never got a clear indication from Fox on what would be the topic of discussion. As late as one hour before the show, the folks in D.C. told me it would probably be about Medicare." Johnson, a veteran media hand and former member of the Florida legislature, knew better than to believe that.

"About ten minutes before my segment, they took me in to do make-up and to [sit] in front of a camera. At no point was I able to see or hear a monitor. During the last ten minutes they turned on my headset for a moment to let me hear a little of the Michael Jackson stuff, making me think I was probably about to be asked about Michael Jackson, causing me to waste the last few minutes mulling over what might there be useful or constructive or worthwhile or timely for anyone to say about Jackson, devoting none of that time to mulling over the Bush trip to Iraq," Johnson added.

But Michael Jackson was the least of Johnson's problems. It was as if the talk jock had been hit by a smooth criminal. There were teasers for his spot interlaced throughout earlier segments of "From the Heartland" that Johnson fairly describes as "brutal". Johnson's headset, worn so that he could hear the debate in which he was engaged, cut in and out as if shorted. But apparently feeling that the deck wasn't stacked quite enough, Fox had a few more trick plays to call.

"I was absolutely astonished to find out that Fox, apparently, does not normally let people with opposing views have access to a monitor prior to or during these segments. But it appears that folks with views which are Fox views do get access to monitors before and during these segments. They own the network. They have the legal right to be as unfair as they choose. But it is amazing that they go on and on about "fair and balanced," and yet, even thirty seconds out, chose not to tell me what would be the topic."

Fair, balanced, and unafraid, goes the slogan. In defense of Fox, Johnson cites the "Heartland" booking agent claiming days before the taping that "you never know" what the topic will be. And if nothing else, Johnson made a worthwhile enemy for his troubles.

Towards the end of the show, Kasich and Geraldo Rivera [host of the show just after "Heartland"] saw fit to discuss the erstwhile Congressman's guest. "There was some additional exchange between the host and Geraldo where the two of them made some comments about how they just could not believe the [audacity of what I'd said]. I do very much consider it a mark of distinction, something for which I can be proud, if, in fact, Geraldo saw fit to ridicule me on national TV." The mark of a resilient man: someone who can find a silver lining in a psy-op.

~ Anthony Gancarski



accesswater2030@yahoo.com 8:30 PM

What a Tangled Web the Neocons Weave
by Jim Lobe
December 23, 2003

While most of the world is still trying to come to terms with the neo-imperial ambitions of the post-Sept. 11 Bush administration, U.S. political analysts, particularly those on the libertarian right and the left, have been trying to map out the various forces behind the administration's hawks in order to better understand and counteract them.

Most analysts have identified three main components to the coalition behind Bush's aggressive foreign policy: right-wing militarists, of whom Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is the exemplar; neo-conservatives, led by former Defense Policy Board (DPB) chairman Richard Perle, whose worldview is similar to that of Israel's Likud Party; and Christian Right forces whose leaders are influential with Bush's political guru, Karl Rove.

While these forces are often depicted in the abstract, they constitute a network of flesh-and-blood people who have worked together closely and openly – both in and out of government – for more than 30 years in some cases.

Over that period, they built up what analyst Tom Barry of the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) has called an "infrastructure of the (right-wing) counter-establishment," of key individuals, institutions, think tanks and publications that has emerged as the dominant power in the Republican Party – and not only with respect to foreign policy.

Two of the structure's most remarkable characteristics are how few people it includes and how adept they have been in creating new institutions and front groups that act as a vast echo chamber for each other and for the media, particularly in media-obsessed Washington.

In this, the neo-conservatives, who lack any grassroots constituency, have been especially effective.

In fact, the network consists of a very small elite, much smaller for example than the post-World War II internationalist "establishment" that includes such institutions as the Council on Foreign Relations, the foreign service and the Wall Street lawyers, financiers and business executives who have long dominated US foreign policy.

To understand its dimensions and the way it works, Barry and the IRC (for which this author has written articles for compensation) compare it to a spider's web – hence the name of their latest Internet website, Right Web, probably the most comprehensive and integrated effort yet to link the various connections and relationships that have given the ”Right” its power and influence.

The site, which is still being developed, covers some 175 individuals and dozens of organizations that have constituted the network over the past quarter century. Even a brief meander through the site demonstrates both just how small and incestuous this network has been and how ambitious are its goals, both in foreign and domestic policy.

Chances are, for example, that you have never heard of the Foundation for Community, Faith-Centered Enterprise, an innocent-sounding initiative that suggests church-based community organizing or perhaps a philanthropic group that awards grants to church-related business initiatives.

In fact, the foundation and its sister group, Americans for Community and Faith-Centered Enterprise, were founded in mid-2001 by Michael Joyce, a right-wing king pin who helped turn the Bradley Foundation into the rainmaker of an ever-growing network of institutes, publications and think tanks.

Joyce told the Washington Post in June 2001 that he launched the two groups at the behest of Rove, who was looking for ways to bolster public support for Bush's efforts to fund religious organizations that provide social services.

If you look more closely at the group's profile on the website, you'll get a better idea of how this two-year-old organization fits into the larger network of the US right.

Its associates include William Kristol, the editor of Rupert Murdoch's Weekly Standard and chairman of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and another neo-conservative, former education secretary William Bennett, for whom Kristol once worked.

Midge Decter, another prominent neo-conservative who co-headed (with Rumsfeld) the Committee for the Free World during the Reagan administration, currently serves on the foundation's board of visitors, while Jeffrey Bell, former president of another neo-conservative think tank, the Manhattan Institute, serves as the group's Washington lobbyist.

You will find further that all of these individuals have supported the work of PNAC, which played a key role in pushing Bush to war in Iraq, and whose founding statement in 1997 was signed by Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and more than half a dozen other top Bush foreign-policy figures, all identified as key hawks.

If you click on a different group, say Americans for Victory Over Terrorism (AVOT), you might expect to find a different cast of characters. But this group is headed by Bennett, and among its associates and advisers are L. Paul Bremer, currently the chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq; Center for Security Policy (CSP) Director Frank Gaffney; real estate baron Lawrence Kadish; and former CIA director James Woolsey.

If you click on each of these names, you will find that they all have supported PNAC, and when you read Gaffney's profile you will see that he, like Perle, once worked for Washington State Senator Henry Jackson and, indeed, for Perle himself, when the "Dark Prince" toiled at the Pentagon under Reagan.

If you then click on CSP's name, you will soon discover that it is one of the country's most hard-line foreign-policy groups, and has consistently opposed arms control treaties; favored the retention and expansion of Washington's nuclear arsenal; warned of a Chinese takeover of the Panama Canal; and served as a major backer of Likud's policies in the Middle East.

You will also find an astonishing overlap between its board of advisers, PNAC associates and top Bush national-security officials – and that it is funded heavily by big defense contractors.

If, on the other hand, you opt for Woolsey, a frequent guest on Murdoch-owned Fox News, you will find that the former CIA chief is currently a member with Perle of the DPB, works for defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, has supported PNAC, acts as CSP's honorary co-chair and served on the Rumsfeld Commission on the ballistic-missile threat.

Woolsey also worked with the National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP), whose bland name disguises a band of nuclear-weapons zealots that has long advocated developing new nukes, smaller nukes, bunker-busting nukes and Star Wars.

As depicted by the site, Woolsey also served on the Advisory Board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a group set up 13 months ago in much the same way that Americans for Community, Faith-Centered Enterprise was – to support Bush's drive to war.

Besides Woolsey, other directors included several other DPB members, including Perle, Eliot Cohen, General Wayne Downing and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, as well as Kristol and about a dozen people also associated with PNAC.

If you click on Perle, whose principal perch is the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), along with Gingrich and former United Nations Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, you are likely to find yourself occupied for some time. Ditto for Kristol, whose offices are located just five floors below AEI, close to 17th and L Streets in Washington.

Despite the centrality of both Perle and Kristol, however, the genius of the right's network, as noted by Barry, is its improvisational "architecture."

"Rather than operating from a single blueprint, they constantly renovate and commission additions in the form of new institutes, front groups, media outlets and political projects," he says. "It's a postmodern structure with no central office or main lobby, no fixed foundation, no elevator that takes you to different levels."

Compared to its vitality and breadth, according to Barry, its ideological foes on the left, or even in the middle, "resemble aging cobwebs."

(Inter Press Service)

com



accesswater2030@yahoo.com 8:19 PM

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times,="Times," serif="serif" size="6">If You Can't Beat 'Em, Hire 'Em: Rumsfeld and the Assassins
by Christopher Deliso
December 23, 2003

There's a new policy livening things up over at the Pentagon. Israeli-trained US Special Forces are planning to set up a "hit squad" of former Baathist Iraqi intelligence officers, men who could get the dirt on resistance leaders and ideally, kill them. That such a remarkable plan is even being considered indicates the desperation gripping the Bush Administration, as Iraq's deadly resistance campaign continues.

The controversial policy of targeted assassinations has been carried out clumsily and over large areas (Afghanistan) as well as efficiently (the missile attack that took out a suspected al Qaeda leader in Yemen last November). However, questions of efficacy aside, there is also the issue of ethical actions, especially when a morally self-righteous blusterer like America is performing them. Charges veteran journalist and former military man Charley Reese:

"…the idea is to hire some of the worst of the worst – members of Saddam's old secret police – to infiltrate the resistance and finger key players for the American murder squads. Thus, we climb in bed with the very people our boy president likes to moralize about – those dreaded evildoers. Only now they will be evildoers on our payroll instead of Saddam's. Only now, instead of bringing democratic values to Iraq, we will show the Iraqis we are just as good at murder as Saddam."

Rumsfeld's 'Manhunt': Gladly Seeking Out Monsters

Not just antiwar critics are concerned about Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's enthusiastic backing for this "Manhunt" policy, one that by virtue of its method is being relegated to the shadows. Even Establishment opponents fear that Rumsfeld's increasing use of the secrecy-bound Special Forces will allow the Pentagon to remain largely unaccountable before Congress and the public. Coming from Rumsfeld, this is hardly a surprise; the tactic was used with his "Office of Special Plans," a pseudo-intelligence lie factory set up to tell the Secretary what he wanted to hear about Iraq and its potential threat to the United States in the run-up to the war.

Now, however, the executor of that operation – Undersecretary for Defense Doug Feith – is being pushed aside, according to another comprehensive exposé from the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh. Yet this neocon's apparent fall from favor should not be taken to mean that Rumsfeld has tired of the movement – much to the contrary, the transition from Special Plans to Special Forces indicates that Rumsfeld is championing not just neoconservatism, but neoconservatism on steroids. Hersh provides more details about the new policy:

"…they (the Americans) plan to assemble teams drawn from the upper ranks of the old Iraqi intelligence services and train them to penetrate the insurgency. The idea is for the infiltrators to provide information about individual insurgents for the Americans to act on. A former C.I.A. station chief described the strategy in simple terms: 'U.S. shooters and Iraqi intelligence.' He added, 'There are Iraqis in the intelligence business who have a better idea, and we're tapping into them. We have to resuscitate Iraqi intelligence, holding our nose, and have Delta and agency shooters break down doors and take them' – the insurgents – 'out.'"

Rumsfeld's New Yes-Men

According to Hersh, the men who now have Rumsfeld's ear are Under-Secretary for Intelligence Stephen Cambone and his assistant, Lieutenant General William Boykin. The former's neoconservative logic harmonizes with the Rumsfeldian one that led to the Office of Special Plans. Cambone argues that "…intelligence agencies should be willing to go beyond the data at hand in their analyses." Indeed, he does seem to fit the bill:

"'…Rumsfeld's been looking for somebody to have all the answers, and Steve is the guy,' a former high-level Pentagon official told me. 'He has more direct access to Rummy than anyone else.'"

As for Lieutenant General Boykin, his faith-based intelligence is far more literal. A fundamentalist Christian, he has gotten into trouble for claiming that God ordains and protects America's wars against the Islamic "Satan," and that all manner of phenomena – such as a smudged picture evidently indicating the maleficent presence of demons – can be interpreted in this context.

Despite these rather unorthodox views, Boykin has achieved great popularity in Washington for his martial zeal and can-do attitude. Most importantly, Boykin also has experience with the kind of targeted assassination program Rumsfeld and Cambone are pushing. In 1993, Boykin was in charge of a Delta Force mission to hunt down Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, and a little later commanded the infamous Mogadishu raid, meant to capture a Somali warlord, which instead ended in death, ignominy, and a box-office hit.

Rambo Reasoning

Hersh records other backers of the plan who express even burlier bravado:

"…a former intelligence official said that getting inside the Baathist leadership could be compared to 'fighting your way into a coconut – you bang away and bang away until you find a soft spot, and then you can clean it out.' An American who has advised the civilian authority in Baghdad said, 'The only way we can win is to go unconventional. We're going to have to play their game. Guerrilla versus guerrilla. Terrorism versus terrorism. We've got to scare the Iraqis into submission.'"

Despite this gung-ho fervor, one suspects that the project might not be as easy as it seems. ABC News recently interviewed unnamed "Pentagon officials" regarding the appearance of resistance spies within the newly-established Iraqi police force. The dismaying response from the Pentagon officials – who have consistently gone out of their way to say that Iraq will not be another Vietnam – was that they "…were not surprised about the infiltration. It is a common tactic that certainly happened in Vietnam, they said."

According to the report, the main reason that the US ended up hiring Iraqis with malevolent intentions was "hastiness" in the vetting process. Still, considering the pressure being put on President Bush to both lower the American death toll and speed up the transition to an Iraqi-run government, time is not a luxury now available to the US. Besides, even if there were time to properly "vet" the recruits, who could possibly separate the "good" guys from the bad? Has America penetrated Iraqi society so well that its soldiers can tell the difference? Or should they just rely on the input of well-meaning "allies," like Ahmad Chalabi?

The answer to these questions is, of course, no. And the Pentagon seems to have accepted this. As the desire to win hearts and minds continues to wane, war planners have changed tack entirely. For rather than recruit Iraqis who might be good, they're going to hire the ones they know to be the worst. It's one way of being sure, alright.

Will It Be Another Vietnam? Do They Even Care?

This is essentially what the zealots quoted above are alluding to when they speak of "holding our noses" while working with the Iraqis, of somehow "going unconventional." Yet is this operating procedure really so unusual for the Americans? Some have argued that the plan has a lot in common with the Phoenix Program, a disastrous campaign aimed at eliminating Vietcong sympathizers. From 1968-72, somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 people were killed – many of them innocent civilians. Then there were the personal grudge killings set up by South Vietnamese "allies." Reminiscing on that war which allegedly bears no resemblance to today's, Charley Reese recounts:

"…another friend of mine, on loan to the CIA from the Green Berets, paid Nung mercenaries $5 for each Vietnamese head they brought in. They brought them in by the croaker sack full, but of course a severed head can't tell you if the person who used to wear it was a Viet Cong or just a poor farmer the Nungs happened upon. After all, they hated all the Vietnamese without regard for ideology.

"The same thing will happen in Iraq. Our paid evildoers will finger people they have a personal grudge against or, if they are smart, innocent Iraqis actually on our side. That way our death squads will endear us to the Iraqi people just as the Israeli death squads have endeared them to the Palestinians."

A similar opinion was expressed by a Pentagon advisor and expert on unconventional warfare interviewed by Seymour Hersh:

"'…there are people saying all sorts of wild things about Manhunts,' he said. 'But they aren't at the policy level. It's not a no-holds policy, and it shouldn't be. I'm as tough as anybody, but we're also a democratic society, and we don't fight terror with terror. There will be a lot of close controls – do's and don'ts and rules of engagement.' The adviser added, 'the problem is that we've not penetrated the bad guys. The Baath Party is run like a cell system. It's like penetrating the Vietcong – we never could do it.'"

And, speaking of the Iraqis, a critical former Special Forces officer added:

"'…these guys have their own agenda. Will we be doing hits (based) on grudges? When you set up host-nation elements' – units composed of Iraqis, rather than Americans – 'it's hard not to have them going off to do what they want to do. You have to keep them on a short leash.'"

Is the Program Already in Place?

However, the targeted assassination policy has many more enthusiastic backers, and especially after the capture of Saddam, it should be an easy sell. In the Pentagon today, the sentiment seems to be that since the US has suffered enough, the answer is not to pack up and go home – but simply to step up the brutality. As one former CIA official and supporter bloviated, "…we did the American things – and we've been the nice guy. Now we're going to be the bad guy, and being the bad guy works."

Whether or not this is true, Rumsfeld and Cambone are certainly going to give it their all, and this will mean increased usage of "off the books" units – for example, the ultra-secret Task Force 121, created in November to hunt down Saddam. Buoyed by his successful capture, the "Manhunt" amen corner is bound to get louder in the days and weeks ahead.

Yet what if the policy gets "out of control," as Seymour Hersh stated about the Vietnam-era Phoenix Program? There are two likely problem areas here: one, the clandestine cooperation with Israel; and two, the Pentagon's zeal for "cross-border raids." A recent report from the Guardian described the Israeli training program – and its potential fallout:

"'…this is basically an assassination programme. That is what is being conceptualised here. This is a hunter-killer team,' said a former senior US intelligence official, who added that he feared the new tactics and enhanced cooperation with Israel would only inflame a volatile situation in the Middle East.

"'It is bonkers, insane. Here we are – we're already being compared to Sharon in the Arab world, and we've just confirmed it by bringing in the Israelis and setting up assassination teams.'"

The same source alleged that US Special Forces are also operating in Syria, "attempting to kill foreign jihadists before they cross the border." It is this logic of deterrence more than anything that may invite serious problems for America and the whole Middle East region.

According to Hersh, there is currently a "debate" raging within the Bush Administration about whether the same type of "cross-border raids" should be conducted against Iran. Suspecting that Tehran may be behind the Iraq insurgency, the War Party has come up with the brilliant idea of unleashing the "worst of the worst" from Saddam's former loyalists on Iranian government troops. Now that would be a great idea.

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accesswater2030@yahoo.com 8:17 PM

ZNet | Race

Content of Whose Character:
Race, College Admissions and the Fallacy of Merit
by Tim Wise; December 23, 2003

[This is a footnoted version of a ZNet Commentary for Dec. 22, 2003]



One thing can be said for conservatives: they are nothing if not unoriginal.



This truism was driven home yet again recently when I found myself in a debate over affirmative action with such a person, who insisted that folks like me, by virtue of our support for the concept, had abandoned the vision of Martin Luther King Jr.



King, I was assured for the 2,345th time would have opposed affirmative action what my friend called racial preferencesbecause he believed that people should be judged on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.



Faced with yet another person claiming to be the ideological soul mate of a man they likely despised when he was alive, I decided to gloss over the fact that King had endorsed the concept of affirmative action as early as 1961, and again in 1963, 1965 and 1967. (1)



I also chose not to belabor the point that affirmative action doesnt actually judge anyone on the basis of skin color, but simply seeks to ensure that persons of color who otherwise might be overlooked for educational and job opportunities get a chance to prove themselves.



Instead, I decided to address the issue on the grounds favored by the right, which so seems to covet the content of their characterline. So I asked my friend plainly: What do the meritstandards he endorses, and which people like him would prefer to see in place of so-called racial preferences such as standardized test scores for college admissions have to do with character?



Since racial score gaps on these tests are taken as proof that blacks and Latinos are less qualified than whites to attend selective colleges, and since critics of affirmative action insist we should return to meritadmissions based largely on these tests, was he honestly suggesting that SATs, ACTs, LSATs and MCATs say something about a persons character or lack thereof?



More to the point, was he of the opinion that whites, by virtue of our higher average scores, are of superior character to black and Latino students?



It quickly became apparent that no one had ever asked him that question before; that no one had ever forced him to explain what correlation, if any, existed between his two vaunted principles: academic merit, as evidenced by SAT scores, and character. He had simply been allowed to assume such a correlation, absent even a scintilla of evidence.



I suggested to him that even claiming standardized tests to be good predictors of academic ability was questionable enough; but to think there was a correlation between test scores and character seemed absurd on the face of it. He scrambled for a reply, ultimately arguing that high test scores were indicative of superior intelligence and that intelligence represents an element of ones character.



Well, according to Websters Dictionary, the relevant definition of character is, moral strength, self-discipline, fortitude.



That says nothing about academic performance, or intelligence however defined. Indeed, how could it? The Nazis were led by men who probably would have scored highly on the SAT; so too those who designed Napalm, or sanctioned the slaughter of Americas indigenous populations. So too Ted Bundy, or the young white man with the 1350 on his SAT and a slot in the freshman class at Berkeley, who murdered a young black girl in the bathroom of a Nevada casino a few years ago.



So which is it? Should we judge people on the basis of character, or rather on the basis of previous academic achievementno minor question, since the two have no necessary correlation to one another?



I vote for character, but I doubt those who have misappropriated the concept from King would like where the notion leads. Because when it comes to which students have exhibited the most fortitude, one of the key elements of character, defined as the strength to bear misfortune and pain patiently and calmly,there can be little doubt that students of color and poor folks of all colors (who tend to do worse on the merit indicia favored by the right) would come out on top.



Which students, after all, have had to persevere against the odds more often: rich kids who attended the best schools and whose parents could afford tutors, test prep classes and other enrichment materials? Or poor and working class kids whose schools had substandard resources, less experienced teachers, and whose parents struggled to make ends meet?



Which have had to bear the most pain? Whites whose membership in the racial majority allows us to go through life fairly oblivious to our own race and the role it plays in our everyday experience? Or students of color, whose minority status often reminds them that they are seen by many as outsiders, and who know of the negative stereotypes held about their group by the general public, usually by the time they are eight or nine years of age?



To ask the questions is to answer them.



For students who have faced obstacles of race and class to even partially overcome those obstacles and score a 1000 (out of 1600) on their SAT says something rather amazing about their character. Despite having the odds stacked against them they refused to give up, they strove for excellence, and though they finished the K-12 race still behind their more privileged competition, they closed the gap nonetheless.



For many, a score of 1000, 1050 or 1100 is far more impressive than a 1350 or 1400, when the latter was attained by someone who had all the breaks and opportunities going his or her way. This is especially true when one considers that black students who apply to elite schools come from families that, on average, have half the income of their white counterparts and are far more likely to have attended resource-poor schools. (2)



If one starts a race three laps behind and finishes only two laps behind, is it not obvious that such a runner is objectively better than the one who hit the tape ahead of them? Didnt they run faster, harder, with more determination? Didnt they demonstrate character?



Or do we simply reward the one who finished ahead, even though their ability to do so was largely the result of a pre-existing advantage, and would have obtained even in the absence of character altogether?



And what of self-discipline, that other aspect of character to which Websters refers? Could it be that blacks would here too bump whites from slots in elite colleges, if indeed the criteria for acceptance were the content of ones character?



Quite possibly: after all, blacks show far more restraint and self-control than their white peers when it comes to things like drug and alcohol abuse: the latter of which is a serious problem on American college campuses.



Although black youth and young adults are more likely than whites to have been approached by a drug dealer in the past month, they are less likely than whites to have used drugs in the past thirty days. (3) According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Centers for Disease Control, white high school students have higher rates of drug use for all drug categories than blacks, while blacks have the lowest rates. (4)



In fact, black students from the poorest neighborhoods, in schools where most students live in public housing, use drugs at a lower rate than whites of the same age and grade. (5)



Additionally, whites 12-17 are nearly twice as likely as blacks that age to drink alcohol, 2.5 times more likely to have engaged in binge drinking (defined as having five or more drinks at one time) and six times more likely to binge drink regularly. (6) Among young adults 18-25, whites are nearly 80 percent more likely to binge drink than blacks and more than three times as likely to do so on a regular basis. (7)



Since drinking under 21 is illegal, and since one might consider law-breaking indicative of ones character, it is also worth noting that whites are 70 percent more likely than blacks to drink underage, more than twice as likely to binge drink underage, and four times as likely to binge drink regularly, according to federal data (8)



In fact, while 23 percent of whites between the ages of 12-20 occasionally binge drink, only 19 percent of blacks that age ever consume alcohol, let alone five or more drinks at once. (9) In other words, whites are more likely to binge drink underage than blacks are to drink underage at all.



Whereas 1 in 12 whites between 12 and 20 years of age is a heavy drinker who consumes five or more drinks at a time at least five times per month, only one in 50 black youth fit this description. (10) Among college students, whites are 2.3 times more likely than blacks to binge drink and four times more likely to do so regularly. (11)



Perhaps this is why a recent study from Harvard found that schools with higher percentages of students of color tend to have less binge drinking, and those that are overwhelmingly white tend to have the most serious problems with alcohol abuse. (12) Apparently, despite higher test scores and so-called merit,whites on these campuses lack that self-discipline so central to the definition of character.



One more reason to support affirmative action then: not only can it promote greater levels of racial equity, but now it appears as though diversity enhancement might also boost the net sum of character on a campus as well.



Such a conclusion is made all the more reasonable when one considers the dozens of riots on college campuses in the past decade: almost completely white events, and over such earth-shattering matters as crackdowns on underage drinking or the outcome of a football game.



So by all means, lets encourage schools to judge students on the content of their character. Doing so would be a great way to promote diversity and racial equity at the same time, along with cutting down on substance abuse and mass violence related to that abuse.



Perhaps over time, whites would even learn to assimilate to the black norm of hard work and sobriety, and begin to act black,which certainly couldnt hurt their academic careers or our nation. After all, we would all reap the benefits of character-based standards, and an end to the damage done by smart but pathological members of the dominant majority.



Tim Wise is an anti-racist essayist, activist and father. timjwise@msn.com



Notes:



(1) King spoke often of "compensatory" programs for those oppressed by racism, including efforts that would now be called affirmative action--a term which did not yet exist when he began addressing the concept. For example, in 1961, King returned from India with praise for that nation's "reservation" system, which provides job and educational preferences for Dalits ("untouchables") and other lower-caste Indians, oppressed for generations under the nation's caste system. King specifically rejected the idea that the system amounted to reverse discrimination (see, Washington, James Melvin, ed., 1986. A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. HarperCollins: 158).



Then, in 1963, in his book Why We Can't Wait, King explained on page 134 of the original: "Whenever this issue of compensatory or preferential treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree, but he should ask for nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic. For it is obvious that if a man enters the starting line of a race three hundred years after another man, the first would have to perform some incredible feat in order to catch up."



On page 90 of the same book, he noted: "A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for him in order to equip him to compete on a just and equal basis."



Also, in January 1965, in Playboy Magazine, King further advocated what amounted to a reparations program for blacks, despite the fact that some called it "preferential treatment," and would repeat his support for these kinds of efforts in his 1967 book Where do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?



(2) Massey, Douglass S., Camille Z. Charles, Garvey F. Lundy and Mary J. Fischer, 2003. The Source of the River: The Social Origins of Freshmen at America's Selective Colleges and Universities. Princeton University Press.



(3) Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) 2000. 1999 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, Office of Applied Studies, Department of Health and Human Services, Rockville, MD.



(4) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2002. Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS), Unintentional Injuries/Violence 2001, United States, Youth 2001 Online, http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dash/yrbs/2001/youth01online.htm; Johnston, Lloyd, Patrick M. O'Malley and Jerald Bachman, 2000. Monitoring the Future: National Survey Results on Drug Use: 1975-1999. Volume I: Secondary School Students. University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, National Institute on Drug Abuse, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health: 76, 101-102.



(5) From a study of the Parents Resource Institute for Drug Education (PRIDE), 1989, referenced in Lipsitz, George. 1998. The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics. Temple University: 10.



(6) SAMHSA (see note 3), 2003. Results from the 2002 National Household Survey on Drug Use and Health. OAS/DHHS, Rockville, MD: Table H.18.



(7) Ibid. Table H.19



(8) Ibid. Table H.21.



(9) Ibid.



(10) Ibid and additional calculation by the author.



(11) Wechsler, Henry, et.al., 2002. "Trends in College Binge Drinking During a Period of Increased Prevention Efforts," Journal of American College Health. 50: March: 207, Table 2, and page 208.; Wechsler, Henry, 2000. "College Binge Drinking in the 1990s: A Continuing Problem," Journal of American College Health. 48: 203-204.



(12) Fears, Darryl. 2003. "Less Diversity, More Booze?" Washington Post. October 31: A2.




accesswater2030@yahoo.com 8:14 PM

Message to Republican College Kids: Vote for Bush and You'll Get the Draft!

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

According to a poll released this fall by Harvard's Kennedy School, 61 percent of college students -- about 10 percent more than the general public -- approve of President Bush's job performance. [Harvard.edu] The percentage hadn't budged since April, 2003, when a similar poll was conducted.

These numbers show that despite stereotypes of young, liberal Democrats running college campuses, most college students are, in fact, the president's staunchest supporters.

But that support is likely to drop faster than a "smart" bomb if Bush brings back the draft -- and bring back the draft he will.

Of course, he will lie and deny it through the 2004 campaign. But lying is what he does best.

The president's youngest fans aren't old enough to remember the draft boards of the 1960s and 1970s that sized up thousands upon thousands of anxious young men, many of whom were sent to battle and never heard from again. Lives literally hinged on a deferment and later a lottery number. Some of the lucky ones -- the well-connected or well-funded -- avoided service in Vietnam, as Bush did, by signing up for the National Guard. [Slate.com] And, of course, Cheney and Ashcroft found ways to get out of serving completely, letting other young men die in their place.

So don't think that these guys are going to have any compunction about drafting college students as cannon fodder.

Talk to a young person about draft boards today (the draft ended in 1973) and they're likely to think of them as ancient as bell bottoms and less capable of making a comeback.

Yet that's exactly what seems to be in the works.

As several columnists and reporters like Dave Lindorff of Salon [Salon.com] have noted -- and BuzzFlash first posted -- over the past six weeks, Bush is trying to fill vacant draft board seats.

The Department of Defense's Defend America website put out a call for draft board volunteers in October, but pulled the campaign off the site the following month without comment. The announcement, which ran under the heading "Serve Your Community and the Nation," had read: "The Selective Service System wants to hear from men and women in the community who might be willing to serve as members of a local draft board. [...] If a military draft becomes necessary, approximately 2,000 Local and Appeals Boards throughout America would decide which young men, who submit a claim, receive deferments, postponements or exemptions from military service, based on Federal guidelines."

But the appeal for draft board members returned shortly thereafter, with some politically correct fine tuning to help Bush through the 2004 election -- and not scare away the middle class and affluent 18, 19-year-old and 20-something voters: "Selective Service continues to invite interested citizens to volunteer for service on its local boards that would decide claims from men if a draft were reestablished. This invitation for board members has been ongoing over the past 23 years, although there has not been a military draft in over 30 years. There is NO connection between this ongoing, routine public outreach to compensate for natural board attrition and current international events. Both the President and the Secretary of Defense have stated on several occasions that a draft is not needed for the war on terrorism, including Iraq."

What exactly did Rumsfeld say about the draft? In March 2002, this question was posted on the homepage of Defend America: "Dear Mr. Rumsfeld: Will the United States reinstate the Selective Service Draft, and if so, when?"

And this was his response: "We have no plans or needs for a draft. Our volunteers have done an extraordinary job. They are the most powerful and respected military force in history. They ousted the Taliban regime and freed the Afghan people from tyranny." [DefendAmerica.mil]

Not to be picky, but in case Rumsfeld has been too busy to notice lately, things in Afghanistan aren't going so well: Only a trickle of the cash promised for rebuilding efforts has arrived, girls are being warned not to attend schools, the opium trade is once again flourishing and -- surprise, surprise -- the Taliban is making a comeback.

Always the dissembler, in January of 2003, Rumsfeld again asserted there was no need for a draft, despite ongoing criticism that he had sent too few forces to Iraq.

"We have people serving today -- God bless 'em -- because they volunteered," Rumsfeld said. "They want to be doing what it is they're doing. And we're just lucky as a country that there are so many wonderfully talented young men and young women who each year step up and say, 'I'm ready; let me do that.'"[DefenseLink.mil]

Well, by this point many of them may instead say, "I've had it; don't think I'm doing that again." Stars & Stripes recently asked its readers how they're morale is holding up -- 49 percent of respondents said they won't re-enlist.

Sure enough, the U.S. Army Reserve failed to meet its reenlistment goals [Boston Globe] this fiscal year, and it's looking like the National Guard won't have much to boast about, either.

Currently, there are about 140,000 troops in Iraq -- about 60,000 of them come from the National Guard or reserves. The Army has already implemented "stop loss" procedures to keep ready-to-retire soldiers around and has extended tours of duty beyond the scheduled terms. But this may not be enough. Our current forces in combat are having their combat duties extended or forced to return for another tour of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The director of the Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, told the House Armed Services Committee in November that "the active Army would be unable to sustain an occupation force of the present size beyond March 2004 if it chose not to keep individual units deployed to Iraq for longer than one year without relief." [CBO.gov]

The Army, he said, could not "simultaneously maintain the occupation at its current size, limit deployments to one year, and sustain all of its other commitments."

With little relief seen in the Iraq insurgency -- and the climbing American death toll, despite Saddam's "capture," the need for a large long-term U.S. troop presence there will remain, as far as the Bush Administration is concerned. And let's not forget that this war on terrorism may not end with Iraq: Syria and Iran in 2005, perhaps?

In the most recent issue of Time, even Rumsfeld [Time] now concedes that the military forces may need to grow substantially. So it's clear that the current force level is insufficient, but no one in the Bush administration is going to go public in a big way until after the 2004 election.

How convenient that the No Child Left Behind Act makes high school students' contact information available to Pentagon recruiters unless their parents specifically request that it not be disclosed. [CommonDreams.org] And recently, there have been reports of highly aggressive military recruiting among high school students, including intrusive phone calls at home, even after parents have requested that the calls be stopped.

If Bush is elected, you will hear the "D" word resurrected with a vengeance.
The Iraq stage of Bush's permanent war on terrorism has resulted in the deaths of more than 450 U.S. soldiers, while thousands more have been injured or evacuated due to illness. Republican college students won't be spared being among their growing numbers when the 2005 Bush draft arrives.

The Bush Administration denies interest in a draft. But with an increasing number of men and women not re-enlisting in the army and not joining the reserves, where do you think that the new soldiers for Bush's endless war will come from? They are going to run out of foreigners who are joining the army and dying in order to get posthumous citizenship.

So, before the complacent young Republican college kids vote for Bush in November, they should think twice about this reality: Bush's February, 2005, surprise will be the reinstitution of the draft.

At that time, Bush will claim it's necessary because of the increased threats of terrorism and terrorist states. He will say that he wasn't going back on his word, but that circumstances have changed -- and that the draft is now necessary to protect America from the evil scourge of terrorism and heightened threats of attack.

Only a fool in college would believe that a Bush election in 2004 won't be followed by a draft in 2005.

Maybe we have a lot of foolish Republican kids in college.

They'll wise up when they face bullets, car bombs, and rocket-propelled grenades -- and when they find themselves trading in their "Beamers" for tanks with inadequate armor.

But by then, it will be too late for them. It may be the last time they have a chance to vote.

Because the dead can't cast a ballot.
accesswater2030@yahoo.com 7:29 PM