29.4.07
27.4.07
As I Grow Old
April 23, 2007 ·
I believe in learning about growing old by meeting people who are already old.
Thirty years ago, visiting my grandmother, I met a man named Herb Feitler. He and I spent the better part of a day together, going to flea markets and into the desert communities around Palm Springs. I was in my early 20s, and driving around with this 80-year-old guy at the wheel of his enormous Oldsmobile seemed to me like the height of exotica. Later I realized what made the experience so novel: He was the first old person I'd spent time with who wasn't in my family.
In the late 1970s I worked at a small nursing home. Most of the residents were at least three times my age. Now, nearly 30 years later, I never encounter anyone even twice my age. But I continue to meet and befriend elderly people.
It's a mistake to think that old people have special secrets to impart or pearls of wisdom to hand out. Pearls are a rare commodity and you have to work to find them. The most valuable thing for me has been getting to know my elderly friends in the moment — wherever the conversations may lead — rather than through often-told stories from their past. Tales of events before my birth won't necessarily help me know someone better.
That's part of the wonder of relationships: Anything that happened before we knew each other is slightly mysterious. It's only the present we can know. And a conversation in the present is given shape by the lifetime of events and ideas that preceded it. There's no need to go fishing for the past; it will make itself known.
When he was in his 60s, after my father suffered a stroke, he started going to an adult day center. Instead of being around people who viewed what had befallen him as tragic, he met a new group of people who didn't know him before. They understood that the way he was now — needing assistance when he walked, speaking softly — was not the way he had always been. But they simply accepted him as he was. This was liberating for him. Even though his range of movement was smaller and his voice far quieter than it had been, his health was bolstered by these new relationships.
As I grow old, I know issues that were once of great concern to me won't seem important anymore. I believe that having something new happen, no matter how small, is what makes for a healthy day, no matter how many days may be left.
by David Greenberger
Independently produced for Morning Edition by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with Viki Merrick.
I believe in learning about growing old by meeting people who are already old.
Thirty years ago, visiting my grandmother, I met a man named Herb Feitler. He and I spent the better part of a day together, going to flea markets and into the desert communities around Palm Springs. I was in my early 20s, and driving around with this 80-year-old guy at the wheel of his enormous Oldsmobile seemed to me like the height of exotica. Later I realized what made the experience so novel: He was the first old person I'd spent time with who wasn't in my family.
In the late 1970s I worked at a small nursing home. Most of the residents were at least three times my age. Now, nearly 30 years later, I never encounter anyone even twice my age. But I continue to meet and befriend elderly people.
It's a mistake to think that old people have special secrets to impart or pearls of wisdom to hand out. Pearls are a rare commodity and you have to work to find them. The most valuable thing for me has been getting to know my elderly friends in the moment — wherever the conversations may lead — rather than through often-told stories from their past. Tales of events before my birth won't necessarily help me know someone better.
That's part of the wonder of relationships: Anything that happened before we knew each other is slightly mysterious. It's only the present we can know. And a conversation in the present is given shape by the lifetime of events and ideas that preceded it. There's no need to go fishing for the past; it will make itself known.
When he was in his 60s, after my father suffered a stroke, he started going to an adult day center. Instead of being around people who viewed what had befallen him as tragic, he met a new group of people who didn't know him before. They understood that the way he was now — needing assistance when he walked, speaking softly — was not the way he had always been. But they simply accepted him as he was. This was liberating for him. Even though his range of movement was smaller and his voice far quieter than it had been, his health was bolstered by these new relationships.
As I grow old, I know issues that were once of great concern to me won't seem important anymore. I believe that having something new happen, no matter how small, is what makes for a healthy day, no matter how many days may be left.
by David Greenberger
Independently produced for Morning Edition by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with Viki Merrick.
She is definately MY daughter!
This was Adeline's response when she heard an announcer on ESPN pick Mizzou to win the Big 12 North this year in football. While i can't say that i disagree i did have to have a serious discussion with her about how a lady is expected to conduct herself.
26.4.07
20.4.07
Is Imus the Product of a Ghetto Mindset?
What Don Imus said was wrong—but all too familiar, in a culture influenced far too heavily by the bad behaviors of the street. So says the author of “GhettoNation,” a provocative new book.
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Julie Scelfo
Newsweek
Updated: 6:44 p.m. CT April 10, 2007
April 10, 2007 - Cora Daniels has problems with the cultural legacy of the hood. In her new book, "GhettoNation: A Journey Into The Land of Bling and The Home of The Shameless," the journalist and writer examines how the hip-hop lifestyle and behaviors attributed to inner-city neighborhoods—celebrating gangsters and violence, revering fancy cars and bling, flaunting women's bodies—has permeated American culture and created a widespread “ghetto” mentality. From soda-filled baby bottles to black men calling each other the “n” word to MTV’s “Pimp My Ride,” Daniels chronicles the pervasiveness of “ghetto” thinking and shows how people from all walks of life engage in and celebrate ideas, language and behavior they should find repulsive. In a cable-news climate dominated by fallout from Don Imus’s comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team, NEWSWEEK’s Julie Scelfo spoke with Daniels about why she thinks it’s wrong to celebrate the bad behavior of the underclass. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: What do you think of Don Imus’s calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy headed hos”?
Cora Daniels: Of course Imus’s comments are outrageous. But it’s also an illustration of the “ghetto” mindset that it was so easy for Imus to say that. That’s an indication of how deep [the ghetto mindset] is in all of our thinking. “Ho,” unfortunately, has become synonymous with black women and it slips into conversation. I wasn’t surprised—it’s the language we hear on corners every day. It doesn’t make it any better, but I wasn’t surprised.
Last week Newt Gingrich was under fire for equating bilinguilism with “the language of the ghetto.”
Yes, that just shows his insensitivity and lack of understanding about poor people and the real problems that they face.
Your book contains many examples of how “ghetto” culture permeates the mainstream—from music, to language, to jewelry, to infant “pimp and ho” Halloween costumes sold online. Was it hard to find examples?
No, these things are everywhere. Ghetto culture is so mainstream, we sort of gloss over these things, we don’t see them any more. On her show, Martha Stewart once said she can “get ghetto when she needs to.” I think it’s easier for folks to see these behaviors in certain communities rather than recognize it’s all over.
Wait, are you equating Martha Stewart talking smack with the behaviors you chronicle on the street corners of your Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, neighborhood?
Ghetto has become chic. “Ghetto” is no longer where you live. It’s how you live. It’s a mindset that embraces and celebrates the worst—not only what we listen to and what we watch but what we accept in our relationships and how we’re raising our children, or not raising our children. In San Diego recently, a group of middle-class white boys were caught pimping out their 12-year-old classmates—with their agreement—and using the money to buy ipods and clothes. [When this kind of thing happens in affluent white suburbs] it’s an illustration that our expectations have gotten so low. Behavior that shouldn’t be acceptable has become acceptable and gone mainstream.
You sound an awful lot like Bill Cosby when he made his controversial statements in 2004 about blacks not “holding up their end of the deal.” Do you agree with Mr. Cosby?
Bill Cosby saw this as a class thing. He attributed the worst behavior to poor black folks. I think we’re all a part of this. Basically every one of us can be ghetto. This is not a race thing or a class thing.
People from all walks of life can certainly dress and talk “ghetto.” But Martha Stewart still goes home to a fancy house in an upscale neighborhood. Performing ghetto and actually being ghetto are two different things, aren’t they?
Yes. The difference is [Martha Stewart] is not going to feel the repercussions. But my neighbors in Brooklyn are going to be hurt by this behavior, whereas celebrities are using it and co-opting it to become bigger names. Bill Cosby pointed his finger at others and didn’t accept his own part in what was going on. What I’m arguing is this is a larger societal issue at this point and that everyone is responsible for allowing it to happen. I think Imus’s comments hurt all black women, but there were a dozen or so young college women who didn’t even get to defend themselves [in real time].
In the book you reveal your own struggle with being ghetto versus wanting not to be. Where does that come from?
I grew up in a neighborhood with the ghetto mentality. I’m part of the hip-hop generation, I’m 35, and there’s a general attractiveness to being ghetto that can be hard to resist. But at the same time I see how damaging it is. And as a black woman, I think it’s destroying our community.
What are your hopes for this book?
My hope is that we won’t be numb any more. That we will recognize what is going on in all our backyards: women are being demeaned, the worst stereotypes of African-Americans are being touted and embraced, and commitment is treated like garbage while instant [sexual] gratification is glorified. I want us to raise our expectations and expect more of ourselves and each other. I think it’s time we put our foot down, and [the Imus controversy] is the perfect example of behavior that is not acceptable becoming acceptable. Imus should be fired. There are no excuses.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18045635/site/newsweek/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© 2007 MSNBC.com
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Julie Scelfo
Newsweek
Updated: 6:44 p.m. CT April 10, 2007
April 10, 2007 - Cora Daniels has problems with the cultural legacy of the hood. In her new book, "GhettoNation: A Journey Into The Land of Bling and The Home of The Shameless," the journalist and writer examines how the hip-hop lifestyle and behaviors attributed to inner-city neighborhoods—celebrating gangsters and violence, revering fancy cars and bling, flaunting women's bodies—has permeated American culture and created a widespread “ghetto” mentality. From soda-filled baby bottles to black men calling each other the “n” word to MTV’s “Pimp My Ride,” Daniels chronicles the pervasiveness of “ghetto” thinking and shows how people from all walks of life engage in and celebrate ideas, language and behavior they should find repulsive. In a cable-news climate dominated by fallout from Don Imus’s comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team, NEWSWEEK’s Julie Scelfo spoke with Daniels about why she thinks it’s wrong to celebrate the bad behavior of the underclass. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: What do you think of Don Imus’s calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy headed hos”?
Cora Daniels: Of course Imus’s comments are outrageous. But it’s also an illustration of the “ghetto” mindset that it was so easy for Imus to say that. That’s an indication of how deep [the ghetto mindset] is in all of our thinking. “Ho,” unfortunately, has become synonymous with black women and it slips into conversation. I wasn’t surprised—it’s the language we hear on corners every day. It doesn’t make it any better, but I wasn’t surprised.
Last week Newt Gingrich was under fire for equating bilinguilism with “the language of the ghetto.”
Yes, that just shows his insensitivity and lack of understanding about poor people and the real problems that they face.
Your book contains many examples of how “ghetto” culture permeates the mainstream—from music, to language, to jewelry, to infant “pimp and ho” Halloween costumes sold online. Was it hard to find examples?
No, these things are everywhere. Ghetto culture is so mainstream, we sort of gloss over these things, we don’t see them any more. On her show, Martha Stewart once said she can “get ghetto when she needs to.” I think it’s easier for folks to see these behaviors in certain communities rather than recognize it’s all over.
Wait, are you equating Martha Stewart talking smack with the behaviors you chronicle on the street corners of your Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, neighborhood?
Ghetto has become chic. “Ghetto” is no longer where you live. It’s how you live. It’s a mindset that embraces and celebrates the worst—not only what we listen to and what we watch but what we accept in our relationships and how we’re raising our children, or not raising our children. In San Diego recently, a group of middle-class white boys were caught pimping out their 12-year-old classmates—with their agreement—and using the money to buy ipods and clothes. [When this kind of thing happens in affluent white suburbs] it’s an illustration that our expectations have gotten so low. Behavior that shouldn’t be acceptable has become acceptable and gone mainstream.
You sound an awful lot like Bill Cosby when he made his controversial statements in 2004 about blacks not “holding up their end of the deal.” Do you agree with Mr. Cosby?
Bill Cosby saw this as a class thing. He attributed the worst behavior to poor black folks. I think we’re all a part of this. Basically every one of us can be ghetto. This is not a race thing or a class thing.
People from all walks of life can certainly dress and talk “ghetto.” But Martha Stewart still goes home to a fancy house in an upscale neighborhood. Performing ghetto and actually being ghetto are two different things, aren’t they?
Yes. The difference is [Martha Stewart] is not going to feel the repercussions. But my neighbors in Brooklyn are going to be hurt by this behavior, whereas celebrities are using it and co-opting it to become bigger names. Bill Cosby pointed his finger at others and didn’t accept his own part in what was going on. What I’m arguing is this is a larger societal issue at this point and that everyone is responsible for allowing it to happen. I think Imus’s comments hurt all black women, but there were a dozen or so young college women who didn’t even get to defend themselves [in real time].
In the book you reveal your own struggle with being ghetto versus wanting not to be. Where does that come from?
I grew up in a neighborhood with the ghetto mentality. I’m part of the hip-hop generation, I’m 35, and there’s a general attractiveness to being ghetto that can be hard to resist. But at the same time I see how damaging it is. And as a black woman, I think it’s destroying our community.
What are your hopes for this book?
My hope is that we won’t be numb any more. That we will recognize what is going on in all our backyards: women are being demeaned, the worst stereotypes of African-Americans are being touted and embraced, and commitment is treated like garbage while instant [sexual] gratification is glorified. I want us to raise our expectations and expect more of ourselves and each other. I think it’s time we put our foot down, and [the Imus controversy] is the perfect example of behavior that is not acceptable becoming acceptable. Imus should be fired. There are no excuses.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18045635/site/newsweek/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© 2007 MSNBC.com
The Games Boys Play
Looking back on the games that my brother and i played as children i found this article especially interesting...
-todd
Why we shouldn't demonize our swashbuckling sons and their pretend weapons in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy.
WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Peg Tyre
Newsweek
Updated: 6:02 p.m. CT April 19, 2007
Like everyone else, I'm scrutinizing the media coverage of the tragedy at Virginia Tech, trying to figure out just what in Cho Seung-Hui's short, sad life led him to Monday's monstrous rampage. From the videotapes and letters he sent to NBC, it's clear that he was a young man caught in the jaws of mental illness. But as I study news reports from around the country, I sense a gathering storm: editorials are saying we need to keep a closer eye on kids in order to weed out those who may have a propensity for violence. We need to be wary of children who seem a little "off," they warn. Are we about to have another zero-tolerance-for-violence moment in our country? Perhaps. But before we get too far down that road, I want to wave a small yellow flag of caution.
We've been here before. It was in April 1999, shortly after Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot and killed 12 classmates and a teacher, wounded 24 others and then killed themselves at Columbine High School in Colorado. It was another unthinkable tragedy—most of the victims and the two shooters were under 18. It sent waves of horror through our nation, and teachers and parents responded by clamping down on the behavior of kids in a way that may not have been healthy after all.
Preschool teachers tell me that post-Columbine, imaginative play began to get monitored. Kids began to be actively discouraged from playing games like cops and robbers. Shooting guns should never be considered fun, the teachers reasoned. Besides, they worried, the children might not know pretend violence from real violence.
In elementary schools, talking and writing about violence or making pictures with violent themes became cause for alarm. Unfortunately, that hypervigilance hasn't let up much since. Recently, as part of the research for the book I'm writing on boys and school, I was speaking to a parent of a third-grader who attends public school in an affluent section of Southern California. If this boy isn't talking about Star Wars and light sabers, then he's swashbuckling through his living room Johnny Depp-style. Not long ago, the school called the parents in for an emergency teacher conference. The child's offense: he had written and energetically illustrated a story. So far, so good. His topic? A George Lucas-style duel between good and evil, complete with arrows and a decapitation. Now he was in trouble at school. "She wanted my son to express himself in writing, so he did," the father shrugged. "The teacher just didn't seem to understand that this is what some boys' fantasy lives are like."
Post-Columbine, pushing and shoving in class became much more serious offenses because pushing and shoving could lead to violence. Reasonable enough. In some places, though, aggressive play during recess got outlawed, too. Contact sports like soccer and touch football were forbidden at an elementary school in Cheyenne, Wyo. In Florida’s Broward County schools, running on the playground was banned. In elementary schools like Beaverton, Ore., and downtown Los Angeles, tag became a no-no. The reason: "It brings out the aggression in kids," the L.A. district superintendent told a reporter. There's no exception made for public playgrounds, either. About two years ago, I watched my husband get hit with an imaginary bullet from my son's imaginary gun on a hill near the swings. I looked on happily as they both fell down laughing. But one of the mothers I was with was not amused. "We don't do guns," she told me. Just the other day, I read a news account of an 8-year-old schoolboy from Arkansas who was punished for pointing a cooked chicken finger at another student and saying, "Pow. Pow."
Some experts say when we push that kind of zero tolerance for violence on children we are getting it exactly wrong. Children, and particularly boys, are acutely sensitive to the violence around them. They play out violent themes to help relieve themselves of the natural fear and confusion they feel. Jane Katch, a longtime kindergarten teacher and author of "Under Dead Men's Skin: Discovering the Meaning of Children's Violent Play" (Beacon Press), says these outlets are vital. "Thinking about violence and playing about violence is not the same thing as being violent. When we tell them not to pretend to shoot things, we don't teach them not to do it, we teach them to lie." Fed up, one teacher recently told me that she'd develop her own, post-post- Columbine code: as long as everyone is laughing, then pretend shooting is OK.
I wonder if she's already had to change her tune.
I'd like to propose some alternatives. Instead of clamping down on the fantasy life of kids, let's do something that will really help prevent future Cho Seung-Huis. Let's beef up the mental-health services in our communities so truly troubled children and adolescents can get the help they need. Let's launch a public-service campaign to remove the stigma around getting help. Let's review our gun laws, too. And let's not demonize little boys with their forefingers and thumbs outstretched. That is play. Not just harmless but necessary. What happened on the Virginia Tech campus was all too deadly and all too real.
Peg Tyre is a senior writer at NEWSWEEK. Her book, "The Trouble With Boys," will be published by Crown in September 2008.
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
-todd
Why we shouldn't demonize our swashbuckling sons and their pretend weapons in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy.
WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Peg Tyre
Newsweek
Updated: 6:02 p.m. CT April 19, 2007
Like everyone else, I'm scrutinizing the media coverage of the tragedy at Virginia Tech, trying to figure out just what in Cho Seung-Hui's short, sad life led him to Monday's monstrous rampage. From the videotapes and letters he sent to NBC, it's clear that he was a young man caught in the jaws of mental illness. But as I study news reports from around the country, I sense a gathering storm: editorials are saying we need to keep a closer eye on kids in order to weed out those who may have a propensity for violence. We need to be wary of children who seem a little "off," they warn. Are we about to have another zero-tolerance-for-violence moment in our country? Perhaps. But before we get too far down that road, I want to wave a small yellow flag of caution.
We've been here before. It was in April 1999, shortly after Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot and killed 12 classmates and a teacher, wounded 24 others and then killed themselves at Columbine High School in Colorado. It was another unthinkable tragedy—most of the victims and the two shooters were under 18. It sent waves of horror through our nation, and teachers and parents responded by clamping down on the behavior of kids in a way that may not have been healthy after all.
Preschool teachers tell me that post-Columbine, imaginative play began to get monitored. Kids began to be actively discouraged from playing games like cops and robbers. Shooting guns should never be considered fun, the teachers reasoned. Besides, they worried, the children might not know pretend violence from real violence.
In elementary schools, talking and writing about violence or making pictures with violent themes became cause for alarm. Unfortunately, that hypervigilance hasn't let up much since. Recently, as part of the research for the book I'm writing on boys and school, I was speaking to a parent of a third-grader who attends public school in an affluent section of Southern California. If this boy isn't talking about Star Wars and light sabers, then he's swashbuckling through his living room Johnny Depp-style. Not long ago, the school called the parents in for an emergency teacher conference. The child's offense: he had written and energetically illustrated a story. So far, so good. His topic? A George Lucas-style duel between good and evil, complete with arrows and a decapitation. Now he was in trouble at school. "She wanted my son to express himself in writing, so he did," the father shrugged. "The teacher just didn't seem to understand that this is what some boys' fantasy lives are like."
Post-Columbine, pushing and shoving in class became much more serious offenses because pushing and shoving could lead to violence. Reasonable enough. In some places, though, aggressive play during recess got outlawed, too. Contact sports like soccer and touch football were forbidden at an elementary school in Cheyenne, Wyo. In Florida’s Broward County schools, running on the playground was banned. In elementary schools like Beaverton, Ore., and downtown Los Angeles, tag became a no-no. The reason: "It brings out the aggression in kids," the L.A. district superintendent told a reporter. There's no exception made for public playgrounds, either. About two years ago, I watched my husband get hit with an imaginary bullet from my son's imaginary gun on a hill near the swings. I looked on happily as they both fell down laughing. But one of the mothers I was with was not amused. "We don't do guns," she told me. Just the other day, I read a news account of an 8-year-old schoolboy from Arkansas who was punished for pointing a cooked chicken finger at another student and saying, "Pow. Pow."
Some experts say when we push that kind of zero tolerance for violence on children we are getting it exactly wrong. Children, and particularly boys, are acutely sensitive to the violence around them. They play out violent themes to help relieve themselves of the natural fear and confusion they feel. Jane Katch, a longtime kindergarten teacher and author of "Under Dead Men's Skin: Discovering the Meaning of Children's Violent Play" (Beacon Press), says these outlets are vital. "Thinking about violence and playing about violence is not the same thing as being violent. When we tell them not to pretend to shoot things, we don't teach them not to do it, we teach them to lie." Fed up, one teacher recently told me that she'd develop her own, post-post- Columbine code: as long as everyone is laughing, then pretend shooting is OK.
I wonder if she's already had to change her tune.
I'd like to propose some alternatives. Instead of clamping down on the fantasy life of kids, let's do something that will really help prevent future Cho Seung-Huis. Let's beef up the mental-health services in our communities so truly troubled children and adolescents can get the help they need. Let's launch a public-service campaign to remove the stigma around getting help. Let's review our gun laws, too. And let's not demonize little boys with their forefingers and thumbs outstretched. That is play. Not just harmless but necessary. What happened on the Virginia Tech campus was all too deadly and all too real.
Peg Tyre is a senior writer at NEWSWEEK. Her book, "The Trouble With Boys," will be published by Crown in September 2008.
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
16.4.07
Ireland smoke ban cleans pub air
Ireland smoke ban cleans pub air: "
The smoking ban in Ireland has cut air pollution in pubs and improved bar-workers' health, a study has found."
Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury: "
"We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?""
Evil Empire
America’s military imperialism may shake domestic democracy to its foundations
Words By Chalmers Johnson
Given the perspective of history, it is clear that there is no less stable political configuration than the one we have in the United States today—a domestic democracy and a foreign empire. A nation can be a democracy or it can be an empire, but it cannot for long be both. It will either succumb to the temptation to keep its empire and thereby lose its democracy or else try to remain a democracy by getting rid of its empire.
The primary example of the first is the Roman Republic, the source of many of America’s constitutional protections against dictatorship and tyranny. Institutions such as federalism; the balance of powers among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government; fixed terms in office and fixed dates for elections; the veto; and many other things were borrowed from Rome. But after the assassination of Julius Cæsar in 44 B.C., the Roman Republic decided to keep its empire and, as a result, declined into a military dictatorship.
The best example of an empire deciding to retain its democracy is the British Empire after World War II. The English people recognized that keeping their “jewel in the crown”—India—could only be achieved through administrative massacres against the Indian people, a tactic the British had often used in the past. But to do so again, after the war against Nazism, would have turned Britain into a domestic tyranny. It chose to abandon its empire and remain a democracy (while, of course, letting the United States step into its old imperial shoes).
Some people question whether what we do abroad as a nation can be called imperialism. The British ruled India, much of Africa, and large swaths of the Middle East through their colonies. They did not dominate these places through consent but through direct military force. Similarly, the Dutch dominated Indonesia, the French Indochina and Algeria, and the Japanese Korea and Taiwan. These, too, we recognize as empires. But what the Russians had in Eastern Europe—a system of satellites from Bulgaria to East Germany, ruled through the Soviet Red Army—was also a form of empire. Moscow dominated these countries through huge military forces stationed on their borders or based in their territories, local pro-Soviet puppets, and economic integration into the Soviet-bloc system.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Imperialism is invariably accompanied by militarism. ”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the sort of empire the U.S. has created and is now trying to maintain—by way of its military forces and overseas bases, and threats such as those it issues daily against Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, the Palestinians, and other regimes. We maintain some 737 U.S. military bases around the world. We station more than half a million troops, spies, contractors, and others on military bases located in more than 130 countries, many of which have dictatorial regimes that gave their citizens no voice in the decision to let us in.
These bases do not contribute to the defense of the United States. To the contrary, they are one of the major causes of the rest of the world’s hatred for us. More troubling to our own form of government is that foreign imperialism is invariably accompanied by militarism. Huge and expensive standing armies are required to protect, expand, and police our empire. On February 5, 2007, the Bush administration submitted to Congress a $481.4 billion defense-appropriation budget for fiscal 2008, plus a request for an additional $245 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Add the billions spent on nuclear weapons; military aid to our satellites; veterans’ benefits, including care of the wounded; homeland security; the upkeep of our bases; and interest payments on debts incurred in past wars: it comes to an annual figure of around a trillion dollars, larger than all other defense budgets on earth combined.
Most seriously, militarism breaks down our system of checks and balances in favor of an imperial presidency. As our first president, George Washington, warned in his farewell address of 1796, “Overgrown military establishments ... under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty.” In 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower issued his own warning against the “military-industrial complex,” the huge, secret, and often corrupt arms industry that squanders billions on inappropriate weapons. Over time, militarism imbues the executive branch with dictatorial powers, and the main bulwark against tyranny crumbles. That is what is at risk in the United States today.
Taken fromGood Magazine
Words By Chalmers Johnson
Given the perspective of history, it is clear that there is no less stable political configuration than the one we have in the United States today—a domestic democracy and a foreign empire. A nation can be a democracy or it can be an empire, but it cannot for long be both. It will either succumb to the temptation to keep its empire and thereby lose its democracy or else try to remain a democracy by getting rid of its empire.
The primary example of the first is the Roman Republic, the source of many of America’s constitutional protections against dictatorship and tyranny. Institutions such as federalism; the balance of powers among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government; fixed terms in office and fixed dates for elections; the veto; and many other things were borrowed from Rome. But after the assassination of Julius Cæsar in 44 B.C., the Roman Republic decided to keep its empire and, as a result, declined into a military dictatorship.
The best example of an empire deciding to retain its democracy is the British Empire after World War II. The English people recognized that keeping their “jewel in the crown”—India—could only be achieved through administrative massacres against the Indian people, a tactic the British had often used in the past. But to do so again, after the war against Nazism, would have turned Britain into a domestic tyranny. It chose to abandon its empire and remain a democracy (while, of course, letting the United States step into its old imperial shoes).
Some people question whether what we do abroad as a nation can be called imperialism. The British ruled India, much of Africa, and large swaths of the Middle East through their colonies. They did not dominate these places through consent but through direct military force. Similarly, the Dutch dominated Indonesia, the French Indochina and Algeria, and the Japanese Korea and Taiwan. These, too, we recognize as empires. But what the Russians had in Eastern Europe—a system of satellites from Bulgaria to East Germany, ruled through the Soviet Red Army—was also a form of empire. Moscow dominated these countries through huge military forces stationed on their borders or based in their territories, local pro-Soviet puppets, and economic integration into the Soviet-bloc system.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Imperialism is invariably accompanied by militarism. ”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the sort of empire the U.S. has created and is now trying to maintain—by way of its military forces and overseas bases, and threats such as those it issues daily against Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, the Palestinians, and other regimes. We maintain some 737 U.S. military bases around the world. We station more than half a million troops, spies, contractors, and others on military bases located in more than 130 countries, many of which have dictatorial regimes that gave their citizens no voice in the decision to let us in.
These bases do not contribute to the defense of the United States. To the contrary, they are one of the major causes of the rest of the world’s hatred for us. More troubling to our own form of government is that foreign imperialism is invariably accompanied by militarism. Huge and expensive standing armies are required to protect, expand, and police our empire. On February 5, 2007, the Bush administration submitted to Congress a $481.4 billion defense-appropriation budget for fiscal 2008, plus a request for an additional $245 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Add the billions spent on nuclear weapons; military aid to our satellites; veterans’ benefits, including care of the wounded; homeland security; the upkeep of our bases; and interest payments on debts incurred in past wars: it comes to an annual figure of around a trillion dollars, larger than all other defense budgets on earth combined.
Most seriously, militarism breaks down our system of checks and balances in favor of an imperial presidency. As our first president, George Washington, warned in his farewell address of 1796, “Overgrown military establishments ... under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty.” In 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower issued his own warning against the “military-industrial complex,” the huge, secret, and often corrupt arms industry that squanders billions on inappropriate weapons. Over time, militarism imbues the executive branch with dictatorial powers, and the main bulwark against tyranny crumbles. That is what is at risk in the United States today.
Taken fromGood Magazine
26.2.07
15.2.07
Get Serious Rick Perry!
Texas orders STD vaccine for all girls
Decision comes after maker of cervical cancer shot doubled lobbying efforts
The Associated Press
AUSTIN, Texas - Bypassing the Legislature altogether, Republican Gov. Rick Perry issued an order Friday making Texas the first state to require that schoolgirls get vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer.
By employing an executive order, Perry sidestepped opposition in the Legislature from conservatives and parents’ rights groups who fear such a requirement would condone premarital sex and interfere with the way Texans raise their children.
Beginning in September 2008, girls entering the sixth grade — meaning, generally, girls ages 11 and 12 — will have to receive Gardasil, Merck & Co.’s new vaccine against strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV.
Perry also directed state health authorities to make the vaccine available free to girls 9 to 18 who are uninsured or whose insurance does not cover vaccines. In addition, he ordered that Medicaid offer Gardasil to women ages 19 to 21.
Perry, a conservative Christian who opposes abortion and stem-cell research using embryonic cells, counts on the religious right for his political base. But he has said the cervical cancer vaccine is no different from the one that protects children against polio.
“The HPV vaccine provides us with an incredible opportunity to effectively target and prevent cervical cancer,” Perry said.
Merck is bankrolling efforts to pass state laws across the country mandating Gardasil for girls as young as 11 or 12. It doubled its lobbying budget in Texas and has funneled money through Women in Government, an advocacy group made up of female state legislators around the country.
Perry tied to MerckPerry has ties to Merck and Women in Government. One of the drug company’s three lobbyists in Texas is Mike Toomey, Perry’s former chief of staff. His current chief of staff’s mother-in-law, Texas Republican state Rep. Dianne White Delisi, is a state director for Women in Government.
The governor also received $6,000 from Merck’s political action committee during his re-election campaign.
The order is effective until Perry or a successor changes it, and the Legislature has no authority to repeal it, said Perry spokeswoman Krista Moody. Moody said the Texas Constitution permits the governor, as head of the executive branch, to order other members of the executive branch to adopt rules like this one.
Legislative aides said they are looking for ways around the order for parents who oppose it.
“He’s circumventing the will of the people,” said Dawn Richardson, president of Parents Requesting Open Vaccine Education, a citizens group that fought for the right to opt out of other vaccine requirements. “There are bills filed. There’s no emergency except in the boardrooms of Merck, where this is failing to gain the support that they had expected.”
Opt-out option for parents
Texas allows parents to opt out of inoculations by filing an affidavit objecting to the vaccine on religious or philosophical reasons. Even with such provisions, however, conservative groups say such requirements interfere with parents’ rights to make medical decisions for their children.
The federal government approved Gardasil in June, and a government advisory panel has recommended that all girls get the shots at 11 and 12, before they are likely to be sexually active.
The New Jersey-based drug company could generate billions in sales if Gardasil — at $360 for the three-shot regimen — were made mandatory across the country. Most insurance companies now cover the vaccine, which has been shown to have no serious side effects.
Merck spokeswoman Janet Skidmore would not say how much the company is spending on lobbyists or how much it has donated to Women in Government. Susan Crosby, the group’s president, also declined to specify how much the drug company gave.
A top official from Merck’s vaccine division sits on Women in Government’s business council, and many of the bills around the country have been introduced by members of Women in Government.
© 2007 The Associated Press.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16948093/
Decision comes after maker of cervical cancer shot doubled lobbying efforts
The Associated Press
AUSTIN, Texas - Bypassing the Legislature altogether, Republican Gov. Rick Perry issued an order Friday making Texas the first state to require that schoolgirls get vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer.
By employing an executive order, Perry sidestepped opposition in the Legislature from conservatives and parents’ rights groups who fear such a requirement would condone premarital sex and interfere with the way Texans raise their children.
Beginning in September 2008, girls entering the sixth grade — meaning, generally, girls ages 11 and 12 — will have to receive Gardasil, Merck & Co.’s new vaccine against strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV.
Perry also directed state health authorities to make the vaccine available free to girls 9 to 18 who are uninsured or whose insurance does not cover vaccines. In addition, he ordered that Medicaid offer Gardasil to women ages 19 to 21.
Perry, a conservative Christian who opposes abortion and stem-cell research using embryonic cells, counts on the religious right for his political base. But he has said the cervical cancer vaccine is no different from the one that protects children against polio.
“The HPV vaccine provides us with an incredible opportunity to effectively target and prevent cervical cancer,” Perry said.
Merck is bankrolling efforts to pass state laws across the country mandating Gardasil for girls as young as 11 or 12. It doubled its lobbying budget in Texas and has funneled money through Women in Government, an advocacy group made up of female state legislators around the country.
Perry tied to MerckPerry has ties to Merck and Women in Government. One of the drug company’s three lobbyists in Texas is Mike Toomey, Perry’s former chief of staff. His current chief of staff’s mother-in-law, Texas Republican state Rep. Dianne White Delisi, is a state director for Women in Government.
The governor also received $6,000 from Merck’s political action committee during his re-election campaign.
The order is effective until Perry or a successor changes it, and the Legislature has no authority to repeal it, said Perry spokeswoman Krista Moody. Moody said the Texas Constitution permits the governor, as head of the executive branch, to order other members of the executive branch to adopt rules like this one.
Legislative aides said they are looking for ways around the order for parents who oppose it.
“He’s circumventing the will of the people,” said Dawn Richardson, president of Parents Requesting Open Vaccine Education, a citizens group that fought for the right to opt out of other vaccine requirements. “There are bills filed. There’s no emergency except in the boardrooms of Merck, where this is failing to gain the support that they had expected.”
Opt-out option for parents
Texas allows parents to opt out of inoculations by filing an affidavit objecting to the vaccine on religious or philosophical reasons. Even with such provisions, however, conservative groups say such requirements interfere with parents’ rights to make medical decisions for their children.
The federal government approved Gardasil in June, and a government advisory panel has recommended that all girls get the shots at 11 and 12, before they are likely to be sexually active.
The New Jersey-based drug company could generate billions in sales if Gardasil — at $360 for the three-shot regimen — were made mandatory across the country. Most insurance companies now cover the vaccine, which has been shown to have no serious side effects.
Merck spokeswoman Janet Skidmore would not say how much the company is spending on lobbyists or how much it has donated to Women in Government. Susan Crosby, the group’s president, also declined to specify how much the drug company gave.
A top official from Merck’s vaccine division sits on Women in Government’s business council, and many of the bills around the country have been introduced by members of Women in Government.
© 2007 The Associated Press.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16948093/
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