In a conversation this afternoon, my therapist remarked that the price of corn is going up because we are not producing enough to use as fuel and food. I couldn't believe it. Coincidentally, this evening I read the speech below on truthout.com. Get this: we're subsidizing the exportation of corn to Mexico, killing their farms and raising domestic prices at the same time!
Unauthorized Immigration By Doris "Granny D" Haddock t r u t h o u t Remarks
Wednesday 13 June 2007
Remarks in New Hampshire over the weekend at the "Democracy Fest," sponsored by Democracy for America.
Thank you.
It is normally expected that, when given an opportunity to speak, I will talk about campaign finance reform and, more specifically, about how the public financing of campaigns can cut the threads of the big-money puppet show.
But today I would like to talk about unauthorized immigration, which has nothing to do with the big-money corruption of our political system, except for everything.
Unauthorized immigration seems to be a big issue right now with our Republican candidates, as they are well-known to be the "law and order party." That, after all, is why they are insisting that Scooter Libby pay the full price for his perjuries and obstructions of justice. They are for law and order, with the normal exceptions of the Geneva Conventions and the US Constitution, especially its Bill of Rights. But we know what they mean: When they say they are for law and order, they are talking mostly about keeping down the uppity poor folk. They are certainly not talking about the big corporations, hotel companies, agribusiness giants and retailers who employ millions of unauthorized immigrants but who make up for that sin many times over with their large campaign donations.
But I do not come here to talk about corrupting campaign donations and the need for public campaign financing. I come to talk of unauthorized immigration and a little about corn and something about tortillas. I call it unauthorized immigration, not illegal, because I don't want to use words that confuse my Republican friends.
By the way, in saying that Republicans are very interested in the immigration issue, I do not mean to imply that it is less important for any of us.
If you will look around the grocery store check-out lines and notice the widening measurements of our fellow citizens, we can certainly see for ourselves the problem of having too much cheap labor around to do all our yardwork and housework for us. By my calculations, the roughly three billion pounds of extra weight now being carried on the hips of working-age American citizens is roughly equivalent to the combined weight of the unauthorized immigrants now in our communities. The math is clear and persuasive. Cheap labor is bad for everybody.
But why are so many people risking their lives to come into our country now? When did this big rush begin?
It began when Mr. Clinton approved NAFTA - the North American Free Trade Agreement - and when he militarized our southern border at the same time. Prior to these combined actions, families crossed the border very commonly and casually, especially during harvest seasons. After harvest, they would go home to Mexico or Central America because that's where they lived with their families in quite happy communities.
When the border was militarized, it became too risky to go back and forth. So they stayed.
Why did Mr. Clinton militarize the border? He did so because NAFTA was about to pull the rug out from under Mexico's small family farms. We flooded Mexico with cheap corn - exports that we now subsidize to the tune of some $25 billion a year. Congress gives that money of ours to a handful of agribusiness giants. Of course, I am not here to tell you why Congress does that, and what might be done to stop it, such as with the public financing of campaigns. But they do it, and Mexican family farmers cannot compete.
In the years since NAFTA was signed, half of Mexico's small farms have failed. The only kind of farming that can now compete in Mexico is big agribusiness, which does not employ as many people. Tortillas in Mexico now contain two-thirds imported corn, and they are three times as expensive at retail level than before NAFTA. The people have less money, and the cost of food is rising. We have done that. Our precious senators and congressmen and their corporate cronies have enforced that raw and cruel exploitation in our names.
The result of undermining Mexican farms, as Clinton expected, was a rising flood of poor people moving from rural areas into Mexico's big cities, which have become so poor and overcrowded that all one can do is dream of going north across the border.
Now, if any Democratic candidates for president would like to show a little courage and intelligence, let them address the real cause of our flood of unauthorized immigrants. Will Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama or Mr. Edwards or any of the other candidates face down the agri-gangsters who are behind this problem? Probably they will not, so long as Iowa has a major primary.
Let me say that I am not ranting and raving in the least about these new Americans. When Mexico owned Texas and everything west of Texas, and when Mexico cut off migration across its borders into Texas, our people kept coming anyway - crossing illegally in search of opportunities for their families. When Mexico got upset by this, we trumped up false reasons for a war, and we illegally took those lands. If that wasn't enough law and order for you, we also conducted unfettered genocide against the region's native people. So let's not stand on any moral high ground regarding that southern border.
The people coming across the border today, with the usual exceptions, are family people with an incredible work ethic. Personally, I welcome them. I congratulate them for their courage and their dedication to their families. I want them to stay and become citizens, or, if some prefer, to return to their homeland at a time when there is international justice and a decent chance for prosperity at home.
I regret what the political corruption of our system has done to their farms and their communities back home. It is not the people's fault - it is the fault of corrupt leaders of both parties and both nations. We must speak this truth to these powerful people, even to those presidential candidates whom we otherwise admire.
So, candidates Clinton, Edwards, Obama and the rest: Do you understand the reasons why immigration numbers are growing? Are you smart enough to understand the situation? Are you brave enough to do something - to even say something - about it? Or is the truth too big for you?
All of us in this room have a duty to be good citizens and good Democrats. And that means we must ask the toughest questions, so that the interests of the people - the people of our nation and of the world - will be served. Isn't that what we're here for?
And do you see why I do not need to harp on campaign finance reform, to cut the puppet strings that allow these cruelties to continue? I didn't have to say a word about that, because you understand it. You understand what must be done in regard to the public financing of federal and state campaigns. And that only begins the reforms we require in this challenging new age.
Thank you.
-------
20 June, 2007
18 June, 2007
Of large, gruff men with big frames and bad habits
I don't remember a time in my life when I was not in love with some very large man. Somehow, no matter where I was, I found him. When I was about five, it was Jack Klugman on THE ODD COUPLE. When I was seven, Klugman was rivaled by Dave Madden as Reuben Kincaid on THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY. When I was 11, it was the baritone Sherrill Milnes. Although I caught him at the end of his career, there was still enough color and sensitivity in his voice mixed with the football player's frame to get my undivided attention.
The objects of my affection weren't always far away. I'll spare those close to me who have been subject to my affection the embarassment of being named, but they are well aware of who they are.
It's an odd love. At once, I want to be the large man and to be all over him. People have seen me mimic all kinds of tics -- Sherrill Milnes has a lot of them. The romantic poses, the effusive face and that insuperable chest that comes in the room minutes before he does. He also still has a flat Midwestern "A" and he's been married several times. Sometimes I feign the accent.
I grew up without a father, so the obvious rationale for why this happened to me was "looking-for-daddy-itis." Plus, my mother was eternally looking for a stand-in for the man who was supposed to tell her how wonderful she looked and to hold the doors for her. So, there I was, the kid who wanted to be and be taken by Sherrill Milnes escorting the woman who wanted to be every character played by Gwen Verdon. We were a funny pair, especially because I am, to this day, nearly a half foot shorter than she is, and a good foot wider both because of weight and a relatively large frame.
What I wanted, and still want, was much more than a father. I wanted the security that these men had in their largeness. I wanted the big hands, the shoulders -- the wide face.
And I have no idea what I would do without these shadows to follow, to this day.
The objects of my affection weren't always far away. I'll spare those close to me who have been subject to my affection the embarassment of being named, but they are well aware of who they are.
It's an odd love. At once, I want to be the large man and to be all over him. People have seen me mimic all kinds of tics -- Sherrill Milnes has a lot of them. The romantic poses, the effusive face and that insuperable chest that comes in the room minutes before he does. He also still has a flat Midwestern "A" and he's been married several times. Sometimes I feign the accent.
I grew up without a father, so the obvious rationale for why this happened to me was "looking-for-daddy-itis." Plus, my mother was eternally looking for a stand-in for the man who was supposed to tell her how wonderful she looked and to hold the doors for her. So, there I was, the kid who wanted to be and be taken by Sherrill Milnes escorting the woman who wanted to be every character played by Gwen Verdon. We were a funny pair, especially because I am, to this day, nearly a half foot shorter than she is, and a good foot wider both because of weight and a relatively large frame.
What I wanted, and still want, was much more than a father. I wanted the security that these men had in their largeness. I wanted the big hands, the shoulders -- the wide face.
And I have no idea what I would do without these shadows to follow, to this day.
16 June, 2007
Shameful mix of politics and sports
Politics and sports are always blended, but it's shameful, to me anyway, when promos go to the wrong people.
Apparently, Rudy Giuliani and George Steinbrenner, owner of the Yankees are good friends. And apparently, either to be jocular, or to seem straight, on 3/20/2007 Suzyn Waldman offered Giuliani an open opportunity to get on mic on Yankees broadcasts whenever he is on the campaign trail in a city in which the team is visiting. You can read about this on http://www.cantstopthebleeding.com/?p=9539
In the reign of foolishness of Mike Bloomberg, even I sometimes hark back to the days of Giuliani, who was not as effective at destroying the schools -- though he started the ball rolling. But, Giuliani was a tyrant, nonetheless, who did nothing to make this city a better place. It may not seem that way from a closet in Westchester where some anonymous person/partner can watch one's dogs, but for those of us not hiding in a forest, the devastation is immediately palpable. And how dare anyone basically give a national microphone to a presidential candidate so easily -- she not only virtually endorsed Giuliani, but she gave him a free platform on which to campaign!
I am still grateful for the precision of the descriptions of the game that Waldman and her radio partner Sterling usually provide. I will hope that Giuliani doesn't take Waldman up on her offer. I've sent the broadcasters an email, for whatever that's worth. For now, I'll be listening to the opposing team's radio teams -- until there is an explanation or an apology. No one should just gladhand Yankee air time to a presidential candidate.
I'm disappointed. As you know from my previous posts, I found the the radio broadcasts on WCBS fun.
Apparently, Rudy Giuliani and George Steinbrenner, owner of the Yankees are good friends. And apparently, either to be jocular, or to seem straight, on 3/20/2007 Suzyn Waldman offered Giuliani an open opportunity to get on mic on Yankees broadcasts whenever he is on the campaign trail in a city in which the team is visiting. You can read about this on http://www.cantstopthebleeding.com/?p=9539
In the reign of foolishness of Mike Bloomberg, even I sometimes hark back to the days of Giuliani, who was not as effective at destroying the schools -- though he started the ball rolling. But, Giuliani was a tyrant, nonetheless, who did nothing to make this city a better place. It may not seem that way from a closet in Westchester where some anonymous person/partner can watch one's dogs, but for those of us not hiding in a forest, the devastation is immediately palpable. And how dare anyone basically give a national microphone to a presidential candidate so easily -- she not only virtually endorsed Giuliani, but she gave him a free platform on which to campaign!
I am still grateful for the precision of the descriptions of the game that Waldman and her radio partner Sterling usually provide. I will hope that Giuliani doesn't take Waldman up on her offer. I've sent the broadcasters an email, for whatever that's worth. For now, I'll be listening to the opposing team's radio teams -- until there is an explanation or an apology. No one should just gladhand Yankee air time to a presidential candidate.
I'm disappointed. As you know from my previous posts, I found the the radio broadcasts on WCBS fun.
15 June, 2007
In Case of Emergency, DON'T BREAK THE JAR...
Now, thanks to NSPD 51, in case of an emergency which can be any incident the president deems one, "The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government".
Oh yeah. And I'd leave Cookie Monster in charge of the Cookie Jar.
If you don't know about NSPD 51, go here to read it and you MUST read it
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070509-12.html
Oh yeah. And I'd leave Cookie Monster in charge of the Cookie Jar.
If you don't know about NSPD 51, go here to read it and you MUST read it
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070509-12.html
14 June, 2007
Don't bomb Iran
A four thousand five hundred pound bunker buster would lead the attack on Iran, according to Randi Rhodes' show of June 12 -- she has all the documentation to back the information on her website.
I don't think half the people in this country know what Iran looks like, and that the same amount of people would know what that initial bomb would look like. In other words, about as many people as think through the phrase "Rockets Red Glare" when singing the Star Spangled Banner. Or as many people who think through the logic of still calling Roger Clemens "The Rocket" when he hasn't been a fastball pitcher for nearly a decade.
Roger Clemens is still a great pitcher, but he does so by "hitting spots" -- placing the ball in key locations that are hard to hit. In other words, he knows precisely what he is doing with the ball.
As a citizen, I would like as precise knowledge of what, why and how we risk anyone's life before we do so. But, I am well aware that more people are worried about the Yankees future than are necessarily aware of or immediately concerned about the state of our country.
I don't think people are stupid. I think people are paralyzed by a loss of connection between their actions and their respective results. We vote, we get a different president than the one for whom we voted, not because few of us chose him, but because the Supreme Court said that our choice wasn't important enough to discern. We go to vote, and someone asks us to prove our identity in ways that no one asks us to when we use our credit cards. Even those who got who they voted for did so, probably, expecting honest information and actions.
None of us got that.
I don't think half the people in this country know what Iran looks like, and that the same amount of people would know what that initial bomb would look like. In other words, about as many people as think through the phrase "Rockets Red Glare" when singing the Star Spangled Banner. Or as many people who think through the logic of still calling Roger Clemens "The Rocket" when he hasn't been a fastball pitcher for nearly a decade.
Roger Clemens is still a great pitcher, but he does so by "hitting spots" -- placing the ball in key locations that are hard to hit. In other words, he knows precisely what he is doing with the ball.
As a citizen, I would like as precise knowledge of what, why and how we risk anyone's life before we do so. But, I am well aware that more people are worried about the Yankees future than are necessarily aware of or immediately concerned about the state of our country.
I don't think people are stupid. I think people are paralyzed by a loss of connection between their actions and their respective results. We vote, we get a different president than the one for whom we voted, not because few of us chose him, but because the Supreme Court said that our choice wasn't important enough to discern. We go to vote, and someone asks us to prove our identity in ways that no one asks us to when we use our credit cards. Even those who got who they voted for did so, probably, expecting honest information and actions.
None of us got that.
11 June, 2007
Lost Art
Sunday, I was listening to a podcast of Treehugger radio (you can find them on itunes) and they mentioned the Burning Man Festival which is the biggest arts festival in the US. It's held in the Nevada desert and you can drive or fly there. People do art all day, there are no vendors and the goal is to explore and share art. Karen would've loved it. And of course, I didn't find it when she was alive. You sleep under the stars in the desert. Anyway, let's just call it lost art...
www.burningman.com Check it out....
www.burningman.com Check it out....
09 June, 2007
Watching with my ears
Over the past two years, I've developed the peculiar habit of watching baseball games with my ears. No, I don't go to the ballpark with some sort of strange contraption on my head. When I go to the park, I use my eyes. When I am not at the park, however, I use my ears. I listen to the games on the radio, even on those rare occasions when the games are not on cable television. (I don't have cable.)
For a Yankees fan, that means listening to the games on WCBS-AM through the voices of John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman. If you've never heard them, then I should tell you that they sound, basically, like what your grandparents might sound like if they were both avid baseball fans. They finish each others' sentences, repeat rules about baseball as if they were rules to live by and switch from extreme disappointment to praise like...grandparents working with their grandchild on developing good manners. And underneath their overall affection for each other, there is an undercurrent of competition for who knows best. What this does for me is give me a feeling of intimate knowledge of the particular games because I am hearing them told to me like very exciting stories. Plus, that need to one-up each other means he and she repeat themselves a lot so that, if nothing else, he or she can add his or her own twist on the story which, of course, makes it entirely different to them, and just a little more scary or funny than the first time I heard it. Finally, they describe every move on the field in almost minute detail, like a Grimm's fairy tale and they add emotional responses to underscore each one.
Some rules to live by that they say, at least ten times in every four hour broadcast:
"Tssk. Those lead off walks will come back to bite you."
"You can throw as fast as you want, but if the ball is straight and flat, it's going to be hit."
"I don't understand why __________ doesn't come in and challenge the hitter. You have to throw strikes. You can't keep walking people."
"If you miss opportunities to score, you only have yourselves to blame."
"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it. I can't believe ____________ struck out so many times tonight. He has to do better than that if we are going to win ballgames."
"_________ contributes in many ways. His defense is terrific and he'll get his hits, too."
"___________ is as good as anyone in his position." (This one, my friend Sharon Pearce at www.outofthebullpen.mlblogs.com says is not really a complement because its not really saying he's better and it's not clear how good everyone else is in that position. Kind of like when you're grandparents say, "That's very nice.")
Things they repeat:
Suzyn Waldman tells us how fast the pitchers we are seeing throw, and Sterling repeats this about every hour when he is talking about the pitchers.
Waldman tells us what kind of balls the pitchers throw -- fastballs, curveballs, etc. and Sterling repeats it, as if she never said it and it's news about once an inning.
Things they try to one-up each other on:
What he or she thought of an umpire's call
Predictions for what the managers will do next
Gossip. Yesterday, after asking a reporter who was their guest on the broadcast what he thought of why Jason Giambi had come to watch the game in the clubhouse even though he is injured, Sterling revealed that HE had talked to Giambi separately and HE knew something we didn't that HE would tell us later.
Information on new players. Invariably, Waldman finds out info from coaches and scouts on new players which Sterling then claims he has heard, too.
They don't argue. They just disagree and get silent about it, under the guise of "agreeing to disagree" when it sounds like "and no dessert for you tonight." Then, Sterling changes the subject.
Things they describe in great detail
How the pitcher moves
How the batter moves
Where the players are in the field at almost every moment
How far a ball was hit
How close a foul ball was to being in-play
How each pitch, especially the ones that were hit, moved. This is especially grand because it is so precise. Typically, Waldman will say something like, "that ball broke, but it broke chest-high right over the plate" or "that sinker fell just before it hit the plate so that when ___ swung it was already too low for him to hit." Or, "Oh god, that was a mistake. He threw that ball up and it stayed up and didn't break like he was hoping it would so ________ just pulled back on his heels and wacked it." Sterling will usually concur like he thought that too, of course.
All of this is why I have listen to games. I guess, I feel like I'll have something to tell my grand-cats (the closest thing I'll come to grandchildren) about.
For a Yankees fan, that means listening to the games on WCBS-AM through the voices of John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman. If you've never heard them, then I should tell you that they sound, basically, like what your grandparents might sound like if they were both avid baseball fans. They finish each others' sentences, repeat rules about baseball as if they were rules to live by and switch from extreme disappointment to praise like...grandparents working with their grandchild on developing good manners. And underneath their overall affection for each other, there is an undercurrent of competition for who knows best. What this does for me is give me a feeling of intimate knowledge of the particular games because I am hearing them told to me like very exciting stories. Plus, that need to one-up each other means he and she repeat themselves a lot so that, if nothing else, he or she can add his or her own twist on the story which, of course, makes it entirely different to them, and just a little more scary or funny than the first time I heard it. Finally, they describe every move on the field in almost minute detail, like a Grimm's fairy tale and they add emotional responses to underscore each one.
Some rules to live by that they say, at least ten times in every four hour broadcast:
"Tssk. Those lead off walks will come back to bite you."
"You can throw as fast as you want, but if the ball is straight and flat, it's going to be hit."
"I don't understand why __________ doesn't come in and challenge the hitter. You have to throw strikes. You can't keep walking people."
"If you miss opportunities to score, you only have yourselves to blame."
"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it. I can't believe ____________ struck out so many times tonight. He has to do better than that if we are going to win ballgames."
"_________ contributes in many ways. His defense is terrific and he'll get his hits, too."
"___________ is as good as anyone in his position." (This one, my friend Sharon Pearce at www.outofthebullpen.mlblogs.com says is not really a complement because its not really saying he's better and it's not clear how good everyone else is in that position. Kind of like when you're grandparents say, "That's very nice.")
Things they repeat:
Suzyn Waldman tells us how fast the pitchers we are seeing throw, and Sterling repeats this about every hour when he is talking about the pitchers.
Waldman tells us what kind of balls the pitchers throw -- fastballs, curveballs, etc. and Sterling repeats it, as if she never said it and it's news about once an inning.
Things they try to one-up each other on:
What he or she thought of an umpire's call
Predictions for what the managers will do next
Gossip. Yesterday, after asking a reporter who was their guest on the broadcast what he thought of why Jason Giambi had come to watch the game in the clubhouse even though he is injured, Sterling revealed that HE had talked to Giambi separately and HE knew something we didn't that HE would tell us later.
Information on new players. Invariably, Waldman finds out info from coaches and scouts on new players which Sterling then claims he has heard, too.
They don't argue. They just disagree and get silent about it, under the guise of "agreeing to disagree" when it sounds like "and no dessert for you tonight." Then, Sterling changes the subject.
Things they describe in great detail
How the pitcher moves
How the batter moves
Where the players are in the field at almost every moment
How far a ball was hit
How close a foul ball was to being in-play
How each pitch, especially the ones that were hit, moved. This is especially grand because it is so precise. Typically, Waldman will say something like, "that ball broke, but it broke chest-high right over the plate" or "that sinker fell just before it hit the plate so that when ___ swung it was already too low for him to hit." Or, "Oh god, that was a mistake. He threw that ball up and it stayed up and didn't break like he was hoping it would so ________ just pulled back on his heels and wacked it." Sterling will usually concur like he thought that too, of course.
All of this is why I have listen to games. I guess, I feel like I'll have something to tell my grand-cats (the closest thing I'll come to grandchildren) about.
06 June, 2007
Some Nice News
from Poynteronline
By Al Tompkins (more by author)
Many times in my years as a street reporter, I saw firefighters rescue pets. If you have spent any time on the street, I am sure you have seen firefighters hold oxygen masks up to cats or dogs or birds that have inhaled a lot of smoke. Human masks don't fit very well, but until recently, that was all emergency workers had.
But now, the Bangor (Maine) Daily News reports, there are special pet masks available that firefighters are packing on their firetrucks. Firefighter Web sites include conversations about these life-saving contraptions. Charitable groups raised money to get these masks into every firehouse in the state of Delaware.
The story included this passage:
"It's an oxygen mask just like the ones used on a person, but they're differently shaped," [Brewer fire Capt. Gary] Parent said. "They're longer and have a rubber membrane" to hold them in place.
Brewer [Maine] Fire Department purchased the pet oxygen mask kit about a month ago for $75.
By Al Tompkins (more by author)
Many times in my years as a street reporter, I saw firefighters rescue pets. If you have spent any time on the street, I am sure you have seen firefighters hold oxygen masks up to cats or dogs or birds that have inhaled a lot of smoke. Human masks don't fit very well, but until recently, that was all emergency workers had.
But now, the Bangor (Maine) Daily News reports, there are special pet masks available that firefighters are packing on their firetrucks. Firefighter Web sites include conversations about these life-saving contraptions. Charitable groups raised money to get these masks into every firehouse in the state of Delaware.
The story included this passage:
"It's an oxygen mask just like the ones used on a person, but they're differently shaped," [Brewer fire Capt. Gary] Parent said. "They're longer and have a rubber membrane" to hold them in place.
Brewer [Maine] Fire Department purchased the pet oxygen mask kit about a month ago for $75.
04 June, 2007
The Endless Six Day War
The original linkhttp://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/03/1630/
Published on Sunday, June 3, 2007 by The Cleveland Plain Dealer
Israel Won A Victory Studded With Thorns
by Elizabeth Sullivan
The survival of their nation was on the line as Israeli war jets took off to bomb Egypt’s air force on the ground.
The pre-emptive strikes worked.
Arab states — Egypt, Syria, Jordan — were threatening a war of annihilation 40 years ago this week.
What they got instead was a war of humiliation.
The lightning-fast Six Day War, fought from June 5 to June 10 in 1967, proved both Israel’s military pre-eminence and its durability as a nation. Arab dreams of being able to lead displaced Palestinians back to homes lost during the 1948 Israeli war of independence were at an end.
Israel was able for the first time to consider its longer-term future — with immense swaths of seized land in the Sinai, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip that it could trade for peace.
In America, the spectacle of a plucky underdog cornering Soviet- armed adversaries stirred popular admiration, leading to an enduring U.S.-Israeli strategic partnership and the beginning of U.S. engagement in the search for a Middle East peace.
“As evidence of the continuing progress is the fact that I, as a [former] American official, can say Palestine’ almost without wincing,” says retired U.S. Ambassador Charlie Dunbar, referring to the name of a future Palestinian state. In a diplomatic career spanning four decades, Dunbar was one of the State Department’s most accomplished Arabic speakers.
Yet neither Israel nor the Arab states quite got what they expected from the Six Day War.
And its legacies — in occupied land, assertive Palestinian national ism and the expanded use of asymmetric terrorist warfare — remain with us today.
“Rarely in modern times has so short and localized a conflict had such prolonged, global consequences,” writes historian Michael Oren in the 2002 introduction to “Six Days of War,” his book on the conflict.
Israel quelled doubts about its ability to survive and it reunited Jerusalem, an important goal. But it couldn’t control the war’s aftermath, when instead of suing for peace, Arab states redoubled preparations for war.
As a young U.S. diplomat in Saudi Arabia, Wat Cluverius watched Saudis try to mend their bruised sense of honor by pretending it was U.S. military jets that had bombed the Arabs into submission.
“They fooled themselves as much as anybody else,” says Cluverius, immediate past president and ambassador-in-residence for the Cleveland Council on World Affairs.
Photographs of Israeli women sol diers guarding captured Egyptian soldiers encapsulated the humiliation for many Arabs.
Israel’s legendary defense minister, Ezer Weisman, architect of the pre-emptive air strikes that won the war, was even prompted to ask, “What were you people thinking?” says outgoing law Professor Amos Guiora of Case Western Reserve University.
Guiora, who studied the war as an Israeli army officer in the 1980s and early 1990s, now has a 19-year-old daughter in the Israeli military. He leaves Case at month’s end to take a teaching position at the University of Utah.
“The Arabs were so ashamed by their defeat at the hands of this little state that was supposed to be inferior to the forces of Allah” that they decided they couldn’t negotiate until their honor was restored, says Mitchell Bard, author of the forthcoming “Will Israel Survive?” and director of the online Jewish Virtual Library.
Yet the war also “laid the predicate for a diplomatic process,” says Aaron David Miller, formerly of Cleveland, who advised six secretaries of state on Arab- Israeli negotiations. In 1973, the Yom Kippur War gave Arab nations what they considered a victory, so they did begin to sit down to talk about peace, says Miller, now a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
The Six Day War also created a new predicate for hostilities.
“Palestinians became heroes,” says Miller, “. . . and emerged as bona fide sources of hope for hundreds of millions of humiliated Arabs.”
The result has transformed the threat into a conflict between Israel and radical Islam, “and that’s very different, and very difficult to fight, because you can’t fight with conventional armies,” says Bard.
And today, what with Iranian nuclear ambitions, a destabilized Lebanon and an Iraq tipping into civil war, the Middle East has become vastly more complicated and resistant to easy solutions, the experts agree.
Yet the key in the door remains the Palestinians’ plight and what Israel proposes to do about occupied lands that no longer reside in a peace bank, but instead have become part of its political and strategic landscape.
“That is the key to unlocking doors on these other fronts” — Iraq and Lebanon — says retired diplomat Henry Precht, who served on the State Department’s Iran desk during the Iranian revolution.
Re-engaging evenhandedly in an Israeli-Palestinian peace process “empowers our friends, helps us to marginalize our enemies and more importantly, takes away an issue that is used to stir up tremendous anger at the United States,” says Miller.
“In my view, it is very irresponsible for anyone who pretends to be a steward of American security not to do everything they can in managing it.”
“Never before has the security of the continental United States been more vulnerable to what happens in the Arab or Muslim East,” Miller adds. “Anybody who argues the contrary does not understand the generational character of the threat we face.”
Sullivan is The Plain Dealer’s foreign-affairs columnist and an associate editor of the editorial pages.
Published on Sunday, June 3, 2007 by The Cleveland Plain Dealer
Israel Won A Victory Studded With Thorns
by Elizabeth Sullivan
The survival of their nation was on the line as Israeli war jets took off to bomb Egypt’s air force on the ground.
The pre-emptive strikes worked.
Arab states — Egypt, Syria, Jordan — were threatening a war of annihilation 40 years ago this week.
What they got instead was a war of humiliation.
The lightning-fast Six Day War, fought from June 5 to June 10 in 1967, proved both Israel’s military pre-eminence and its durability as a nation. Arab dreams of being able to lead displaced Palestinians back to homes lost during the 1948 Israeli war of independence were at an end.
Israel was able for the first time to consider its longer-term future — with immense swaths of seized land in the Sinai, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip that it could trade for peace.
In America, the spectacle of a plucky underdog cornering Soviet- armed adversaries stirred popular admiration, leading to an enduring U.S.-Israeli strategic partnership and the beginning of U.S. engagement in the search for a Middle East peace.
“As evidence of the continuing progress is the fact that I, as a [former] American official, can say Palestine’ almost without wincing,” says retired U.S. Ambassador Charlie Dunbar, referring to the name of a future Palestinian state. In a diplomatic career spanning four decades, Dunbar was one of the State Department’s most accomplished Arabic speakers.
Yet neither Israel nor the Arab states quite got what they expected from the Six Day War.
And its legacies — in occupied land, assertive Palestinian national ism and the expanded use of asymmetric terrorist warfare — remain with us today.
“Rarely in modern times has so short and localized a conflict had such prolonged, global consequences,” writes historian Michael Oren in the 2002 introduction to “Six Days of War,” his book on the conflict.
Israel quelled doubts about its ability to survive and it reunited Jerusalem, an important goal. But it couldn’t control the war’s aftermath, when instead of suing for peace, Arab states redoubled preparations for war.
As a young U.S. diplomat in Saudi Arabia, Wat Cluverius watched Saudis try to mend their bruised sense of honor by pretending it was U.S. military jets that had bombed the Arabs into submission.
“They fooled themselves as much as anybody else,” says Cluverius, immediate past president and ambassador-in-residence for the Cleveland Council on World Affairs.
Photographs of Israeli women sol diers guarding captured Egyptian soldiers encapsulated the humiliation for many Arabs.
Israel’s legendary defense minister, Ezer Weisman, architect of the pre-emptive air strikes that won the war, was even prompted to ask, “What were you people thinking?” says outgoing law Professor Amos Guiora of Case Western Reserve University.
Guiora, who studied the war as an Israeli army officer in the 1980s and early 1990s, now has a 19-year-old daughter in the Israeli military. He leaves Case at month’s end to take a teaching position at the University of Utah.
“The Arabs were so ashamed by their defeat at the hands of this little state that was supposed to be inferior to the forces of Allah” that they decided they couldn’t negotiate until their honor was restored, says Mitchell Bard, author of the forthcoming “Will Israel Survive?” and director of the online Jewish Virtual Library.
Yet the war also “laid the predicate for a diplomatic process,” says Aaron David Miller, formerly of Cleveland, who advised six secretaries of state on Arab- Israeli negotiations. In 1973, the Yom Kippur War gave Arab nations what they considered a victory, so they did begin to sit down to talk about peace, says Miller, now a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
The Six Day War also created a new predicate for hostilities.
“Palestinians became heroes,” says Miller, “. . . and emerged as bona fide sources of hope for hundreds of millions of humiliated Arabs.”
The result has transformed the threat into a conflict between Israel and radical Islam, “and that’s very different, and very difficult to fight, because you can’t fight with conventional armies,” says Bard.
And today, what with Iranian nuclear ambitions, a destabilized Lebanon and an Iraq tipping into civil war, the Middle East has become vastly more complicated and resistant to easy solutions, the experts agree.
Yet the key in the door remains the Palestinians’ plight and what Israel proposes to do about occupied lands that no longer reside in a peace bank, but instead have become part of its political and strategic landscape.
“That is the key to unlocking doors on these other fronts” — Iraq and Lebanon — says retired diplomat Henry Precht, who served on the State Department’s Iran desk during the Iranian revolution.
Re-engaging evenhandedly in an Israeli-Palestinian peace process “empowers our friends, helps us to marginalize our enemies and more importantly, takes away an issue that is used to stir up tremendous anger at the United States,” says Miller.
“In my view, it is very irresponsible for anyone who pretends to be a steward of American security not to do everything they can in managing it.”
“Never before has the security of the continental United States been more vulnerable to what happens in the Arab or Muslim East,” Miller adds. “Anybody who argues the contrary does not understand the generational character of the threat we face.”
Sullivan is The Plain Dealer’s foreign-affairs columnist and an associate editor of the editorial pages.
03 June, 2007
We're doing...not great at all
This was originally posted on nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com
Diane Ravitch: ELA scores no cause for celebration
The recent release of English Language Arts scores for grades 3-8 by the New York State Education Department was treated as a cause for celebration by the New York City Department of Education. Chancellor Joel Klein said that the scores showed that "the system is clearly moving forward."
Actually, the news was not all that positive. None of it was terrible, but the scores were mainly flat or declining. Overall, in grades 3-8, 50.8% met the state standards. This represented an increase of one-tenth of 1% over the scores in 2006, when 50.7% met the standards.
*In grade 3, the scores dropped by 5 points, from 61.5% in 2006 to 56.4% in 2007.
*In grade 4, they dropped nearly 3 points, from 58.9% in 2006 to 56.0% in 2007.
*In grade 5, they dropped by .6, about half a point, from 56.7% in 2006 to 56.1% in 2007.
*In grade 6, they increased by 1 point, from 48.6% in 2006 to 49.7% in 2007.
*In grade 7, they increased by a tad more than a point, from 44.2% in 2006 to 45.5%.
*In grade 8, they increased by 5.2 points, from 36.6% in 2006 to 41.8% in 2007.
The big news, according to the Department of Education spinmeisters, was not that scores in grades 3-7 were either declining or flat, but that scores in eighth grade were up significantly. They downplayed the curious fact that eighth grade scores were up across the state by 7.7 points, from 49.3% to 57%.Nassau County eighth grade scores jumped from 69.8% to 77.4%, nearly eight points. Suffolk County saw a gain in this grade of 9.3 points, from 61.1% to 70.4%. In the troubled Roosevelt, Long Island, district, under state control for the past five years, eighth grade scores leapt by an astonishing 22 points.
Gains of this consistency in district after district suggest to testing experts that the test for the eighth grade was decidedly easier than in years past.
The grade that is most interesting to contemplate in the latest test results is fourth grade, because the state has reported fourth grade scores continuously since 1999. (In grades other than four and eight, scores are available only for 2006 and 2007.) Furthermore, these are children who started school under the current regime of mayoral control.This is the grade that is the true testing ground of mayoral control. Recall that the Children First agenda was first implemented in the schools in September 2003. When Children First began, 52.5% of the fourth graders met state standards. As of the lateset ELA scores, 56% met state standards.
Thus, after four years of Children First, reading scores in the fourth grade are up by a total of 3.5 points. In the five years before the initiation of the Bloomberg-Klein regime, reading scores in fourth grade increased from 32.7% to 52.5%, an increase of 19.8 points.
This may explain why the Chancellor and Mayor have reorganized the schools yet again, why they are continually in search of new assessment tools, and why they are planning to offer cash and pizzas for higher test scores. In four years under their control, the schools have not shown dramatic achievement. In fact, their record does not match what was accomplished in the previous four years under Chancellor Rudy Crew and Chancellor Harold O. Levy.Unfortunately, achievement has actually stalled under the current regime.Diane Ravitch
For more on the ELA results, see this NY Sun oped by Fred Smith. He points out that while Tweed is attributing the relatively flat results to greater numbers of ELL students included this year, in 2005 they glossed over the fact that a large part of that year's gains were due to fewer ELL students being tested, as well as large numbers of low-scoring Hispanic and black 3rd graders who had been held back.(Also see the SED website for the recent test results, as well as this pdf file from DOE, including some extremely confusing charts.)
Diane Ravitch: ELA scores no cause for celebration
The recent release of English Language Arts scores for grades 3-8 by the New York State Education Department was treated as a cause for celebration by the New York City Department of Education. Chancellor Joel Klein said that the scores showed that "the system is clearly moving forward."
Actually, the news was not all that positive. None of it was terrible, but the scores were mainly flat or declining. Overall, in grades 3-8, 50.8% met the state standards. This represented an increase of one-tenth of 1% over the scores in 2006, when 50.7% met the standards.
*In grade 3, the scores dropped by 5 points, from 61.5% in 2006 to 56.4% in 2007.
*In grade 4, they dropped nearly 3 points, from 58.9% in 2006 to 56.0% in 2007.
*In grade 5, they dropped by .6, about half a point, from 56.7% in 2006 to 56.1% in 2007.
*In grade 6, they increased by 1 point, from 48.6% in 2006 to 49.7% in 2007.
*In grade 7, they increased by a tad more than a point, from 44.2% in 2006 to 45.5%.
*In grade 8, they increased by 5.2 points, from 36.6% in 2006 to 41.8% in 2007.
The big news, according to the Department of Education spinmeisters, was not that scores in grades 3-7 were either declining or flat, but that scores in eighth grade were up significantly. They downplayed the curious fact that eighth grade scores were up across the state by 7.7 points, from 49.3% to 57%.Nassau County eighth grade scores jumped from 69.8% to 77.4%, nearly eight points. Suffolk County saw a gain in this grade of 9.3 points, from 61.1% to 70.4%. In the troubled Roosevelt, Long Island, district, under state control for the past five years, eighth grade scores leapt by an astonishing 22 points.
Gains of this consistency in district after district suggest to testing experts that the test for the eighth grade was decidedly easier than in years past.
The grade that is most interesting to contemplate in the latest test results is fourth grade, because the state has reported fourth grade scores continuously since 1999. (In grades other than four and eight, scores are available only for 2006 and 2007.) Furthermore, these are children who started school under the current regime of mayoral control.This is the grade that is the true testing ground of mayoral control. Recall that the Children First agenda was first implemented in the schools in September 2003. When Children First began, 52.5% of the fourth graders met state standards. As of the lateset ELA scores, 56% met state standards.
Thus, after four years of Children First, reading scores in the fourth grade are up by a total of 3.5 points. In the five years before the initiation of the Bloomberg-Klein regime, reading scores in fourth grade increased from 32.7% to 52.5%, an increase of 19.8 points.
This may explain why the Chancellor and Mayor have reorganized the schools yet again, why they are continually in search of new assessment tools, and why they are planning to offer cash and pizzas for higher test scores. In four years under their control, the schools have not shown dramatic achievement. In fact, their record does not match what was accomplished in the previous four years under Chancellor Rudy Crew and Chancellor Harold O. Levy.Unfortunately, achievement has actually stalled under the current regime.Diane Ravitch
For more on the ELA results, see this NY Sun oped by Fred Smith. He points out that while Tweed is attributing the relatively flat results to greater numbers of ELL students included this year, in 2005 they glossed over the fact that a large part of that year's gains were due to fewer ELL students being tested, as well as large numbers of low-scoring Hispanic and black 3rd graders who had been held back.(Also see the SED website for the recent test results, as well as this pdf file from DOE, including some extremely confusing charts.)
02 June, 2007
Anyone who votes for McCain after the film below
is kidding himself/herself and endangering the country
01 June, 2007
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