Lee Scott on his hands and knees
Posted by Jan Frel on February 26, 2006 at 6:24 PM.
"At the end of the day, this is not about me. It is not about Wal-Mart. And it is not about you. It is about all of us and what we can do to keep this country great." -- That's Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott capping off a pleading speech to the National Governors Association meeting. And what is that wakes the people of a great country in the morning? According to Scott, it's this: not having to worry about whether your employer might give you full health insurance. It won't.
It's bad enough that there's room in this world for a creature like Lee Scott to say that to himself in the mirror. In a utopian world, a responsible citizen would come up to him on the street if he went babbling on like that and say, "Look Lee, you can't go around bragging about how you deprive your workforce of millions decent healthcare coverage. It's indecent; it's quite vile of you, actually." But in our world, Lee gets an invitation to speak to the governors. And tell them that if they force him to pay out so his workers have decent coverage, they'll be winning "short-term political points, but they won't solve America's health care challenges."
In other words, the man told a bunch of career politicians they better not confuse the issue of whether Wal-Mart offers health care coverage to its workers with politics. Pretty audacious, don't you think? But then again, he was invited to speak.
In other news, there's another meth hysteria article out, this one talking about how everyone in Montana is buzzing about a new propaganda campaign, financed by a high-tech billionaire: "the advertisements have inspired poems and raps. High school groups have replayed them in place of morning announcements and devoted newspaper issues to them." I'll leave it to Gov. Brian Schweitzer to sell the tale of how methamphetamines are destroying his state: "It's destroying families; it's destroying our schools; it's destroying our budgets for corrections, social services, health care. We're losing a generation of productive people. My God, at the rate we're going, we're going to have more people in jail than out of jail in 20 years."
Here's a few thoughts -- why not decriminalize this meth stuff, and better yet, offer the same clean and neatly packaged pills that those guys in white coats offer to Missoula's upper and middle classes and have the state pay for it? Then we wouldn't have to wonder about "80 percent" of Montana's prison population. They'd be taking cleaner drugs, like everyone else. But if we dealt with "meth" in that fashion, we'd find ourselves in rougher territory, which is that we'd have to start talking about what life is like for the poor in Montana. Not Robert Redford's ranch, not some flyfishing paradise adventure, but being poor and bored in the rural state of Montana. Schweitzer's sold on the ads though. The meth is problem. And what we need are more billionaire-funded ad campaigns, not just in Montana, but perhaps the whole country. "This isn't just a few ads," he said. "If this thing works, it can be a template all over rural America."
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And finally, some good news…
Posted by Matthew Wheeland on February 24, 2006 at 4:21 PM.
Some of the lucky winners and their big-ass checks...
Working in a slaughterhouse has long been considered the most dangerous job in America. Eric Schlosser described it as such in Fast Food Nation. It's miserable, dangerous, low-paying work, and turnover through injury is incredibly high.
So it's all the more exciting that eight workings in a Nebraska ConAgra meatpacking plant won the largest lotto jackpot ever this week.
Say what you will about the regressive-tax nature of the lottery, of the people who can least afford it spending already scarce money every week on lotto tickets. But this is the way it should work.
After fleeing the war-torn Republic of Congo, Alain Maboussou found work at a Nebraska meatpacking plant. Now he plans to quit that job and return to school after winning part of a record $365 million Powerball jackpot.
The eight winners will each take home about $15.5 million after taxes, but as of Thursday, only three of the winners had quit their jobs. If I won that much money, or even a small fraction of that amount, I don't know if I'd quit my job at AlterNet (y'know, unless I could afford that private tropical island), but if I worked for ConAgra? No question at all…
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What's the opposite of "paranoia and isolationism"?
Posted by Joshua Holland on February 24, 2006 at 10:35 AM.
Turns out they're not "our" ports at all.
As I said on Wednesday, this Dubai ports deal isn't a security issue. It's about crony capitalism and the way our government does business (or, just as accurately, how our company does governance). More importantly, it points to how precariously our economy is balanced, gutted of manufacturing capacity and indebted up to its ears.
I don't know whether the contract in question was the best one out there. We know that there are connections between the Whitehouse and Dubai through the Carlyle Group and through two senior Whitehouse officials. And George's requisite embarrassing brother, Neil Bush -- you can't be President without one -- got funding from the same Dubai investors for one of his dubious schemes business endeavors.
We also know that former Senate Minority Leader Bob "I Fought in WW Two!" Dole has been leading the K Street lobbying effort on behalf of the Emirate. From CNN:
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
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Emergency contraception heads to the states
Posted by Deanna Zandt on February 24, 2006 at 8:36 AM.
With the FDA dragging its feet for almost five years on making emergency contraception available over the counter, many states are taking matters into their own hands -- for better or worse. The Baltimore Sun reports:
Under the proposed Maryland law, pharmacists who volunteer to receive special training may dispense the pills. The law does not require all pharmacists to furnish the pills, and the State Board of Pharmacy estimated 5 percent of Maryland's 5,331 licensed pharmacists would initially participate.
Legislation in other states would allow pharmacists to provide Plan B directly to women under an agreement with a doctor giving the pharmacist blanket permission to sell the drug or require emergency rooms to provide it to rape victims, said Elizabeth Nash, a public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion-rights group that is tracking the efforts.
On the other side of the debate are laws allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions based on their beliefs:
Abortion opponents are fighting the efforts of Plan B supporters by proposing measures in Illinois, Michigan and 13 other states that would permit pharmacists to refuse to fill a prescription because it violates their beliefs. Four states - Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi and South Dakota - already have such laws on the books.
The messed up thing here is that Plan B is tied to abortion. It's not an abortion pill, a la RU-486 -- it's a medication that prevents conception, just like the regular Pill, only in higher doses. For more insight on what fundamentalist pharmacists are thinking, check out this must-see interview on the Daily Show (click on "Pill of Rights"), with its frighteningly true quote: "The question remains, who will control a woman's body - the governor or her pharmacist?"
UPDATE: Center for Policy Alternatives policy director Bernie Horn writes in:
Just FYI, when you are talking about progressive legislation in the states, you may want to look at our website,
www.stateaction.org, as a resource. We’re the folks who coordinate a Progressive Agenda across the fifty states.
The legislators who push for "collaborative practice" in emergency contraception, as well as emergency contraception for sexual assault victims, are generally part of our State Action Network.
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Say it ain't so, Gary Busey
Posted by Evan Derkacz on February 24, 2006 at 7:13 AM.
Gary Busey as an organ-peddling Jew in a scene from Wolves.
Cross-posted in PEEK and The Mix.
We already lost Buddy Holly to tragedy, do we really need to lose Gary Busey?
As PEEK reported last week The Valley of the Wolves -- Iraq is the biggest, most anti-Americanest movie to hit Turkey since, well, ever (some even believe it's partly in response to Midnight Express...).
Jonathan Schwarz describes it thusly: "it portrays America in Iraq as monstrous, massacring civilians and removing prisoners' organs for patients in the U.S., Israel and England."
And it reserves a special place for Jews, according to the Forward: "perhaps the film's most evil villain is the American Jewish military doctor (played by Gary Busey), who extracts Iraqi prisoners' organs to sell to rich buyers in New York, London and Tel Aviv."
Despite having "sold more than 200,000 tickets and climb[ing] to fifth place in the German box office since it hit theaters here last week," a major German theater chain is pulling the film from its theaters. Jewish groups have made a number of statements over the past week urging them to do so.
Apart from questions over here about why the hell born-again Christian Gary Busey agreed to play the part of an evil organ-peddling Jew, issues of freedom of speech are once again (or still) being heatedly argued. According to the Forward "In order to ban the film, German law says that authorities would have to determine that it violates Criminal Code 130, which outlaws hate speech, or Code 131, calling against the 'exhibition or glorification of intensely violent acts.'"
But Michael Kohlstruck, doctor of political science at Berlin's Technical University, believes there's a better way to go: "It's not right for a liberal society to forbid these films. It's better to leave them open and to discuss them."
But you've got some special circumstances here. You've got a German culture with a middling history when it comes to Jews and a large Turkish immigrant population with its attendant tensions.
One Turkish writer commented: "I prefer a Turkish Michael Moore to a Turkish Rambo in Iraq." I think many agree, but the question is how to get there. Ban it, urge theaters to stop running it, create a commission to battle the propaganda...
A vigorous Gary Busey debate is taking place at the IMDB, with many asking why he would do such a thing. A number are calling out Hollywood and its amorality. Not this time folks. Busey's a born-again Christian from outside the Hollywood machine. So far outside, in fact, that he seldom gets work these days... which may be your reason why he's playing a vicious Jewish stereotype in a hate movie.
--> Sign up for Peek in your inbox... every morning! (Go here and check Peek box).
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Mirror, mirror on the wall
Posted by Jan Frel on February 23, 2006 at 5:20 PM.
You deserve this.
I went to a big book store the other day -- the kind that has rack after rack of magazines. I didn't do a hard count, but I eyeballed that there are roughly 250 out there that I find to be ghastly commercial enterprises, demeaning to millions -- magazines that would be best glossed and coated with a thick sheet of nuclear glass.
But there's one I have it out for in particular: The Robb Report. For the uninitiated, it's a magazine soaked in language of wealth worship, offering narratives for the rich to justify how they made their money, and above all, offers ideas on how to should spend all that money. Here's one article, "The Privileges Are Many, But Only For The Few" -- it's a promo for a new luxury housing development off the coast of Georgia:
"Located half way between Savannah and Sea Island, and accessible only by a one-lane bridge, is the last vestige of untouched southeastern coastline, the 4,000-acre jewel known as Hampton Island. A natural treasure of live oaks, wild palms and pine that will only offer 134 home sites and 300 memberships."
Good thing the developers got the last vestige. Here are some of the island's many amenities: "David Nowicki, who directs the Equestrian Center, focuses upon honoring the South's equestrian legacy which has thrived for hundreds of years. Among the center's offerings are a covered arena, a barn with board and care, and modern, fully equipped stables, courses for jumpers, bridle paths, as well as private and group riding lessons. Furthering the horse culture on the island, an old-fashioned surrey carriage and iron-wheeled hay wagon, act as Hampton Island Preserve's version of mass transit, pulled by two beautiful prize Percherons."
The Robb Report's masthead doesn't employ the typical editorial hierarchy -- they adopted the corporate model. So Brett Anderson, the guy who at most other magazines would have the title of deputy editor, is "Senior Vice President, Editorial." I have kept with me an essay Brett wrote in May of last year. Titled, "Sumptuous Sin," it's the summation of something so vile, so horrific, I just had to tear it out of the magazine and keep it in my files. Brett's problem is that it was more fun to be wealthy when there were social taboos and sumptuary laws. "Our present age, by contrast, offers few barriers of title or class to bar the individual from the object of desire, other than the cold currency required to purchase it. As a result, one feels that perhaps we may have forfeited some of the subtler joys to be gained from the gentle mutinies of luxury of which previous deliquent generations have partaken. .... [O]ne is left to wonder if the potential delight inherent in the vast wealth at modern society's disposal would not be so sweetened by the promise of a few sumptuary taboos to violate: a Lex Americana, at the very least, mandating a certain number of asses to be invited to a dinner party."
In my spare time, I've been working on a kind of language that would make people like Brett Anderson run as fast as they can from their editorial offices, make the people Brett is writing for flee from their lifestyles and money. Make them cry and feel worthless and panicked. Language that once a person like Brett encounters it, life is never the same. As you might have guessed, I don't quite have it yet. The Robb Report continues to churn out new issues. But I've made inroads...
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98 people dead in U.S. custody
Posted by Rachel Neumann on February 23, 2006 at 2:14 PM.
"Custody" must mean something different to U.S. law officials than it does to the American Heritage Dictionary, which says the word means "care and supervision."
A Human Rights First report found that roughly 100 people have died in U.S. custody since 2002. This number doesn't include accidents, external violence (such as bombs), or prisoner-on-prisoner violence. It does include the Iraqi guy who was forced by U.S. officers to jump off a bridge, the guy who was suffocated in a sleeping bag wrapped in an electrical wire and the guy who was stomped to death.
In only 12 of those cases has any punishment been handed out to the people responsible. The most severe punishment for torture? Five months in prison! And no one above the rank of major has been punished. Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer, the guy responsible for suffocating the man in the sleeping bag, wasn't even given a day of prison time, just a reprimand, a fine, and a 60-day restriction on his movement.The only possible rational conclusion is that the U.S. doesn't care much and doesn't care who knows it. This is a mistake, of course, not just morally and ethically, but also strategically. Between this and the Abu Ghraib photographs released last week; it would be the perfect time for the U.S. to at least make an effort at modelling responsibility and showing regret for these deaths.
Not a chance. Bryan Whitman, deputy Pentagon spokesman, described the report as “hogwash.” And Donald Rumsfeld just shrugged and said "Some 250 people have been punished in one way or another." Only if by punished you mean promoted.
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Tracing the port security debate...
Posted by Onnesha Roychoudhuri on February 23, 2006 at 1:38 PM.
The initial port security debacle has evolved into a hunt to find the heart of the issue. The $6.8 billion deal to give a Dubai-based company management of six American ports has elicited an outcry from across the political spectrum.
The initial response was a rare convergence: Democrats and Republicans were both vocal in their opposition of the deal. Hillary Clinton cited national security concerns as her motivation for trying to block the deal. Lindsey Graham said the same.
Thankfully, there were a few journalists out there that were willing to call a spade a spade. Josh Holland's piece yesterday pointed out that this "national security concern" was nothing but a pseudonym for xenophobia. Holland and David Sirota both point to the true issue of concern for Americans: the corporatization of our national security. Companies are fighting our wars, interrogating detainees in Abu Ghraib and other military bases, and managing our ports.
So, when hired guns shoot civilians in Iraq, and hired interrogators torture detainees at Abu Ghraib, and contracting companies steal money from the U.S. government, or are otherwise simply negligent in their duties -- whose authority are they subject to? From past episodes, we've learned that the worst punishment these companies and employees face is simply a cancellation of their contract or termination of their employment. The U.S. government, in the case of previous contracting fraud, has refused to get involved.
It's an issue of responsibility, and when only one of the six ports involved in the current Dubai deal has the necessary equipment to detect dangerous cargo content, it's only a matter of time before security is breached. Who is responsible then?
As the current head of the subsidiary running port operations, Michael Seymour, notes, it should be the federal government.
But members of the administration, so willing to break laws in the name of American security, find business to be an exception to the common "security trumps all" rule. Sirota points out in his recent blog post, "Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said about the UAE deal that 'We have to balance the paramount urgency of security against the fact that we still want to have a robust global trading system.'"
Which leads us to the multi-billion dollar question that is the root of the issue: Why is this administration, in a time of war, consistently putting our country's security and reputation second to business interests?
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Morrissey, the next terror threat?
Posted by Laura Barcella on February 23, 2006 at 12:01 PM.
"I wear black on the outside, cos black is how I feel on the inside."
Remember, back in your formative prepubescent years, when you used to eat, sleep, breathe, and dream those lyrics? When you'd scrawl them in black Sharpie on your Converse sneakers and geeky Jansport backpack? Remember when you bought, like, every Smiths record, cd, 7-inch, single, and bootleg you could possibly get your hands on -- because the notion of Morrissey having sung just one note of one measly song you never heard made you feel like less of a fan?
Oh, I remember it well. Morrissey's music (especially his early work with Johnny Marr in legendary Manchester band the Smiths) was my personal soundtrack to high school, college and, yes, beyond. But when I was younger (18-ish) and constantly concocting glamorous fantasies of the Future Me, Morrissey always seemed like the smartest, wittiest, most alienated and simultaneously most adored version of what I imagined myself becoming as a boring ol' Adult: a sly, shy but big-mouthed misanthropic vegan charmer with progressive personal politics. Oh, Moz -- the me I'd (one day) be! (But not in male form. Or with a British accent and pompadour. Or the dramatic flair for wearing flowers in back pockets. And unfortunately lacking the cute famous exes, like Michael Stipe.)
… I digress. Morrissey is aging (quite gracefully, I'll add), but his aformentioned politics are still going strong. Which might be why he, of all people, was recently investigated by the FBI.
Huh? Moz, interrogated? In both Britain and America? Yep. It's ridiculous, but given our current regime, it makes a sad sort of sense.
See, Moz has been a long-time critic of both president Bush (whom he's called a "terrorist") and the war on Iraq. He endorsed John Kerry before the '04 election, and urged people to follow his lead in bashing Bush: "With all my heart I urge people to vote against George Bush. Jon Stewart would be ideal, but John Kerry is the logical and sane move." And on his last record, in a song called "America is Not the World," he sang, "America your head's too big, because America, your belly's too big…/In America, the land of the free, they said…But where the president is never black, female or gay, until that day you've got nothing to say to me, to help me believe…"
Yeah. So apparently he got hauled in, questioned and taped by both FBI and British intelligence because of his lack of patriotism. Ugh. Via Contact Music, Morrissey explains:
"The FBI and the Special Branch have investigated me and I've been interviewed and taped and so forth. They were trying to determine if I was a threat to the government, and similarly in England. But it didn't take them very long to realise that I'm not…
"I don't belong to any political groups, I don't really say anything unless I'm asked directly and I don't even demonstrate in public. I always assume that so-called authoritarian figures just assume that pop/rock music is slightly insane and an untouchable platform for the working classes to stand up and say something noticeable.
"My view is that neither England or America are democratic societies. You can't really speak your mind and if you do you're investigated."
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