Undernews For March 31, 2009

THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
611 Pennsylvania Ave SE #381
Washington DC 20003
202-423-7884
Editor: Sam Smith

31 March 2009

WORD

The mosquito knows full well, small as he is
he's a beast of prey.
But after all
he only takes his bellyful,
he doesn't put my blood in the bank.

-D.H. Lawrence

The English speaking world may be divided into (1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know, but care very much; (3) those who know & condemn; (4) those who know & approve; and (5) those who know & distinguish. Those who neither know nor care are the vast majority, & are a happy folk, to be envied by most of the minority classes - Francis George Fowler

FLOTSAM & JETSAM

CAN WE BAIL OUT OF NARCISSISM?

Sam Smith

The problems we face and the problems we face getting out of the problems we face have more than a little to do with the culture of narcissism that has enveloped our politics, corporate life and entertainment over the past three decades.

We have been taught to regard personal success as more significant than cooperation, community, joint achievement, common advancement, or shared values and systems (such as democracy and fairly regulated commercialism). Better, in short, than qualities that benefit large numbers of citizens rather than just a few. Having accepted the very values that helped push us over the edge, we are now in a poor position to recover from the mess they have created. Add to that all the isolating factors in our society from television to population growth to Ipods, and it makes finding a common way back to social, political and economic sanity extraordinarily difficult.

We are, in short, a culture that cultivates, teaches, celebrates narcissism and its results. And this may prove to be one of the hardest obstacles in our recovery from our recent past.

PASSINGS: LARRY GLICK

Sam Smith, Progressive Review - Larry Glick, who passed recently, was the antithesis of what alk radio has become. Instead of confrontational, he was engaging. Instead of absorbed in politics, he ignored it. Instead of seeking out the important he reveled in talking with the ordinary. The result was good enough that he had late night fans, including this one, listening to the 50,000 watt station WBZ, in parts of America far removed from his Boston.

Once approached about doing a talk show by a local public radio station in Washington, I suggested something along the lines of Larry Glick's show, in order to provide some relief from the local obsession with great public affairs. The program director reacted as though I had thrown up and I never heard from him again.

But Glick was extremely popular by providing listeners with a connection to the world in which they actually lived.

Wikipedia - Larry Glick (1922-2009) was a Boston radio talk show host, whose long-running show on WBZ and later WHDH became a New England institution in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. . .

WBZ Radio was a powerful 50,000-watt station that blanketed the six New England states and reached well beyond, from the Maritime provinces of Canada down through the Carolinas in the South and as far west as the Rockies. Third-shift workers and insomniacs throughout much of the eastern seaboard and Midwest took comfort when Larry's unique brand of talk radio came on at midnight. For six hours, Larry's affable and charismatic voice enfolded a mix of lighthearted chat, sassy sound effects, obscure and funny musical numbers, and lots of generally wacky calls from listeners.

A typical show might feature a sometimes serious guest, an exchange of repartee with his hapless (and usually less witty) engineer at the station, and free-ranging free associations on current events and life. Some callers became institutions like Larry: Arnold Tarbox, the dry and droll Maine fisherman; Charlie DiGiovanni, a wisecracking Boston cabdriver; the Champagne Lady; Boston newspaper legend, Kenny "The Night" Mayer; and a number of others. A call from some of these regulars could seem like a visit from an old friend. . .

Those who've never heard Larry will have difficulty understanding his magic, since his bighearted, zany persona does not translate into print. But those who've heard Click and Clack on Car Talk would readily recognize the amiable, boisterous and somewhat anarchic style he pioneered.

Likewise, anyone would understand the appeal of a talk-show host who loved all his listeners. Larry gave everyone a shot (sometimes several), and did his best to draw out even the most plodding callers. Every one of them was given a chance to shine and to make a contribution to the "family".

LARRY GLICK CLIPS

NICK AND HIS RELATIVES

THE ORANGUTAN

THE CHAMPAGNE LADY

MAN SHOOTS VENDING MACHINE

U.S. & RUSSIAN FIGHTING OVER TOILETS AND EXERCISE BIKES IN SPACE

BBC - The International Space Station, once a place where astronauts would share food and facilities, is said to be embroiled in a Cold War-like stand-off.

A Russian cosmonaut has complained he is no longer allowed to use a US toilet as well as a US exercise bike.

Gennady Padalka, 50, told Russia's Novaya Gazeta newspaper the lack of sharing was lowering the crew's morale.

The veteran cosmonaut said the problem was due to the ISS becoming a more commercial operation.

For several years after his first space mission in 1998, Mr Padalka and his American colleagues worked in total harmony, he told the newspaper.

But space missions became more commercial in 2003 and Moscow started billing Washington for sending its astronauts into space, he said. Other nations responded in kind, he added. . .

Before he lifted off to join the ISS crew on Thursday, Mr Padalka had asked whether he could use a US gym to stay fit. "They told me: 'Yes, you can.' Then they said no," Novaya Gazeta quoted him as saying.

"Then they hold consultations and they approve it again. And now, right before the flight, it turns out again that the answer is negative."

Worse still, the regulations now required US and Russian cosmonauts to eat their own rations, he added.

"They also recommend us to only use national toilets," the newspaper quoted him as saying.

EUROPEAN UNION PLANNING TO SPY ON ALL CARS

Guardian, UK - The government is backing a project to install a "communication box" in new cars to track the whereabouts of drivers anywhere in Europe, the Guardian can reveal.

Under the proposals, vehicles will emit a constant "heartbeat" revealing their location, speed and direction of travel. The EU officials behind the plan believe it will significantly reduce road accidents, congestion and carbon emissions. A consortium of manufacturers has indicated that the router device could be installed in all new cars as early as 2013. . .

CRASH TALK

Guardian, UK - Tent cities reminiscent of the "Hoovervilles" of the Great Depression have been springing up in cities across the United States - from Reno in Nevada to Tampa in Florida - as foreclosures and redundancies force middle-class families from their homes. . .

In both the number and types of inhabitants, the new tent cities do not equate to the homelessness of the 1930s. But the symbolism is powerful, and may have significant political consequences. It was not all that far from Sacramento, or from Fresno - home to another Californian tent city - that the celebrated Depression-era photographer Dorothea Lange took her haunting photos of families living in makeshift camps, forced west by the collapsed economy and the Dust Bowl further east.

CRASH TALK

Phil Mattera, Dirt Diggers' Digest - In recent days it has seemed as if two men with the same name are serving as Secretary of the Treasury. On the one hand, we have the wimpy Tim Geithner, who let AIG get away with its bonus outrage and who has come up with a new scheme to get rid of toxic assets of banks that is a massive giveaway to hedge funds. On the other hand, this week has seen the lionhearted Tim Geithner, who is proposing what appears to be an audacious expansion of federal regulation of financial markets.

The wimpy version has been around for quite a while, characterizing the Geithner who headed the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for five years before he was chosen for Treasury. A look through the online archive of the New York Fed turns up the texts of numerous speeches in which Geithner acted as a cheerleader for the forms of financial "innovation" that paved the way to the current calamity of the world economy. Geithner was not oblivious to the escalation of risk that derivatives and the like were creating, but he expressed confidence that the system could accommodate it. At most, some tinkering with the regulatory structure might be necessary. . .

If there were a truly intrepid Geithner, he would be talking about regulations that put an end to the most speculative financial transactions, rebuild a wall between commercial banking and investment banking, and dismantle huge financial institutions such as Citigroup. That Geithner has yet to appear on the scene.

NY Times - Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said that he was widening his investigation of the American International Group to examine whether its trading counterparties improperly received billions of dollars in government money from the troubled insurer.

Those counterparties include Goldman Sachs, which received $12.9 billion, as well as Societe Generale of France and Deutsche Bank of Germany, which each received nearly $12 billion.

"Our investigation into corporate bonuses has led us to an investigation of the credit default swap contracts at A.I.G.," Mr. Cuomo said in a statement. "CDS contracts were at the heart of A.I.G.'s meltdown. The question is whether the contracts are being wound down properly and efficiently or whether they have become a vehicle for funneling billions in taxpayers dollars to capitalize banks all over the world."

LIES ABOUT TEACHER UNIONS

David Macaray, Counterpunch - On Friday, March 13, comedian and uber-liberal Bill Maher . . . railed against the "powerful" California teachers' union, accusing it of contributing to the crisis in public education by not allowing the school district to remove incompetent teachers.

Maher came armed with statistics. He noted with dismay that the U.S. ranked 35th in the world in math, 29th in science, and that barely 50% of California's public school pupils manage to graduate from high school. He blamed the teachers for this.

Although every teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District has a college degree and a teaching credential and managed to survive the scrutiny of a lengthy probationary period, Maher piously maintained that these teachers were unqualified to run a classroom. . .

Maher made a huge deal of the fact that, because of the union's protective shield, less than 1% of California's tenured/post-probationary teachers get fired. Although this ratio clearly outraged him (he appeared visibly upset by it), had he taken five minutes to research the subject, he'd have realized that this figure represents the national average-with or without unions.

In Georgia, where 92.5% of the teachers are non-union, only 0.5% of tenured/post-probationary teachers get fired. In South Carolina, where 100% of the teachers are non-union, it's 0.32%. And in North Carolina, where 97.7% are non-union, a miniscule .03% of tenured/post-probationary teachers get fired-the exact same percentage as California.

An even more startling comparison: In California, with its "powerful" teachers' union, school administrators fire, on average, 6.91% of its probationary teachers. In non-union North Carolina, that figure is only 1.38%. California is actually tougher on prospective candidates. . .

During the 1950s and 1960s, California's public school system was routinely ranked among the nation's finest. . . More significantly, the teachers in those classrooms were union members. . .

Oregon has a good public school system. So do South Dakota, Vermont, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Maine and Washington, among others. Is that because the folks living in these states are exceptionally bright? Is it because their teachers are extraordinarily talented? Or is it because these school districts are stable, relatively homogeneous, and don't face a fraction of the challenges facing California?

For the record, the teachers in these aforementioned good schools are overwhelmingly unionized. Oregon and Washington teachers are 100% unionized; Wisconsin is 98%; Connecticut is 98%; etc. . .

THE NEW DEAL WORKED; THE GOP'S DISMANTLING OF IT IS WHAT GOT US INTO THIS TROUBLE

Steven Conn, History News Network - We usually associate the New Deal with the programs it created to put people to work, such as the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps. Republicans hated these programs. They denounced the WPA as "We Putter Around." The new Republican National Committee chairman, Michael Steele, recently parroted this accusation when he tried to explain that the government never creates jobs, just work.

But the New Deal did provide jobs to hundreds of thousand of unemployed Americans, and while they "puttered" those workers managed to build tens of thousands of bridges, paved countless miles of roads, and planted 3 billion trees.

It's certainly true that those programs by themselves did not end the Great Depression, though they did ease the crisis for the families who gained an income because of the New Deal. So while these short-term programs operated, the New Deal created a set of long-term structural changes to the economy whose impact lasted well beyond the Great Depression.

A few examples: Our bank deposits are protected by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the integrity of stock market transactions is guaranteed, or is supposed to be, by the Securities and Exchange Commission, both created as part of the New Deal. Most important, with the passage of Social Security in 1935 future generations of American workers could look forward to a more secure old age. . .

Finally, the New Deal altered the relationship between government and the economy. After World War II, Republicans and Democrats agreed that the government should take a more active role in regulating the economy, that it should use economic policy to promote the greatest good for the greatest number, and that it was obligated to provide a social safety net. They might quibble over the details, but there was a broad consensus around these points.

The result of that consensus was the greatest expansion of the middle class the country has ever experienced. The growth of the economy from the 1940s through the 1960s was widely shared. Conversely, when the economy did go into recession during those decades, the supporting frameworks set up by the New Deal helped keep those downturns relatively short.

In the early 1980s, under the leadership of Ronald Reagan, conservative Republicans set about dismantling this system. Regulations were gutted or not enforced, the social safety net was largely unraveled, and government tax policy shifted money from the middle class to the wealthiest. Since 1980 the result has been a nasty recession in the early 1990s, caused by the failure to regulate the savings and loan industry, and two devastating downturns, one in the early 1980s and the one we're in right now.

More than that, during the 30 years in which we've moved away from the New Deal, the middle class has stagnated. As wealth and assets have shifted to the top 10 percent, the middle class has survived largely on credit cards and home equity loans. Now millions have no way to pay that piper.

The system the New Deal initiated kept us from experiencing a second Great Depression for nearly half a century. We are in our current mess in large measure because we dismantled that system. Republicans would have us be afraid of a new New Deal. But based on the track record of the original, a new New Deal is just what we need.

OBAMA BACKS SCHOOL DISCRIMINATION

Sam Smith, Progressive Review - At his recent town meeting, Obama had this to say about charter schools:

"The definition of charter schools is pretty straightforward. And that is that in most states you now have a mechanism where you set up a public school -- so this is not private schools, these are public schools receiving public dollars -- but they have a charter that allows them to experiment and try new things. And typically, they're partnering up with some sort of non-for-profit institution.

"So, in Chicago, you've got charter schools that are affiliated with a museum, or they're affiliated with an arts program, and they may have a particular focus. It may be a science charter school, or it may be a language academy. They are still going to have to meet all the various requirements of a state-mandated curriculum; they're still subject to the same rules and regulations and accountability. But they've got some flexibility in terms of how they design it. Oftentimes they are getting parents to participate in new ways in the school. So they become laboratories of new and creative learning.

"Now, there are some charter schools that are doing a great job, and you are seeing huge increases in student performance. And by the way -- one last point I want to make about these charters -- they're non-selective, so it's not a situation where they're just cherry-picking the kids who are already getting the highest grades; they've got to admit anybody. And typically there are long waiting lines, so they use some sort of lottery to admit them."

Obama's statement is false on several scores:

- The schools are definitely selective. They may not discriminate because of ethnicity or class, but they definitely admit only children's whose parents have enough initiative, knowledge and willpower to go through the application process. Children with apathetic, ignorant or drug addicted parents don't get to apply. This is heavily discriminatory, turning the public system into what used to be known in Washington DC as 'pauper schools.'

- The charter schools are not public. To test this out, just try to change the way or more of them are run. The only thing really public about them is the funds they receive.

- If flexibility and autonomy are valuable, then they should be just as valuable to public schools, but public schools are denied these qualities. As Jennifer Parker has put it: "Every school needs to be flexible and innovative. It's damaging to create two systems: the chartered schools that can be innovative and the others that are restricted by bureaucratic constraints. If the charter concept is so great, why don't we just get rid of the restrictions for all public schools?"

- Charter schools can play budget games not available to public schools. For example, in DC there is evidence that charter schools are admitting students, getting their pro rate budget allowance, and then later keeping this money despite the students dropping or being kicked out.

Clay Burell at Education Change notes a number of other factors:

Charter schools don't have to keep anybody. "They can expel students who don't excel or cause problems. And they can also say no when their enrollment caps are met. Public schools can't.

- Traditional public schools also have far more special needs and non-native English language learners than charters.

- Public schools also can't set parental involvement conditions.

- Public schools don't get the supplemental funds from the billionaires, so they spend less per student than charters.

HOW THE GEITHNER TOXIC ASSET SCHEME IS ANOTHER BANK SCAM

Michael Hudson, Counterpunch - Newspaper reports seem surprised at how high banks are bidding for the junk mortgages that Treasury Secretary Geithner is now bidding for, having mobilized the FDIC and Fed to transfer yet more public funds to the banks. Bank stocks are soaring - thereby bidding up the Dow Jones Industrial Average, as if the - financial industry - really were part of the industrial economy.

Why are the very worst offenders - Bank of America . . . and Citibank the largest buyers? As the worst abusers and packagers of CDOs, shouldn’t they be in the best position to see how worthless their junk mortgages are?

That turns out to be the key. Obviously, the government has failed to protect itself - deliberately, intentionally failed to do so - in order to let the banks pull off the following scam.

Suppose a bank is sitting on a $10 million package of collateralized debt obligations (that was put together by, say, Countrywide out of junk mortgages. Given the high proportion of fraud (and a recent Fitch study found that every package it examined was rife with financial fraud), this package may be worth at most only $2 million as defaults loom on Alt-A - liars' loan mortgages and subprime mortgages where the mortgage brokers also have lied in filling out the forms for hapless borrowers or witting operators taking out mortgages at far more than properties were worth and pocketing the excess.

The bank now offers $3 million to buy back this mortgage. What the hell, the more they bid, the more they get from the government. So why not bid $5 million. (In practice, friendly banks may bid for each other's junk CDOs.) The government - that is, the hapless FDIC - puts up 85 per cent of $5 million to buy this - namely, $4,250,000. The bank only needs to put up 15 per cent - namely, $750,000.

Here's the rip-off as I see it. For an outlay of $750,000, the bank rids its books of a mortgage worth $2 million, for which it receives $4,250,000. It gets twice as much as the junk is worth.

The more the banks holding junk mortgages pay for this toxic waste, the more the government will pay as part of its 85 per cent. So the strategy is to overpay, overpay, and overpay. Paying 15 per cent is a small price to pay for getting the government to put in 85 per cent to take the most toxic waste off your books.

RECOVERED HISTORY: THREE MILE ISLAND

Christian Parenti, Nation - It was thirty years ago this week that the Unit 2 reactor of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant began a partial meltdown. . . One reason more radiation was not released was because "paranoid" anti-nuke activists worried that the plant, built directly in the flight path of the Harrisburg airport, could be hit by a jet. They demanded a very strong containment shell be built over the reactor. As a result, TMI had one of the strongest such protective seals in the country. Had the meltdown not been caught when it was and had there not been a containment shell, the whole Northeast could have become a fallout zone for 10,000 years thereafter. It would have been like those Chernobyl fallout zones: a radioactive wilderness; a national sacrifice zone; devastation akin to Sherman's March, except permanent. America would have been reduced to a rump version of itself. . .

During the 2008 presidential campaign, John McCain called for forty-five new nuke plants to be built. Barack Obama, while less specific, also pledged federal subsidies to help build atomic power plants.

This second wave of state-of-the-art atomic power plant construction is pure fantasy. No one wants to invest in nukes, despite government guarantees to cover 80 percent of the costs if the projects default. No one will insure them. They will not be built. However, underneath this nuclear renaissance discourse lurks the real danger: while we debate the fantasy qualities of a new fleet of plants that will never be built, a handful of companies that own the existing fleet of decrepit old zombie plants are quietly pushing these reactors to the very edge of their capacity and beyond.

There are 103 reactors in sixty-four locations across the United States. None of these reactors were designed to last more than forty years. We are reaching that deadline. . .

SPANISH COURT STARTS CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION INTO BUSH CAPOS

ABC News - In what may turn out to be a landmark case, a Spanish court has started a criminal investigation into allegations that six former officials in the Bush administration violated international law by creating the legal justification for torture in Guantanamo Bay.

The officials named in the 98-page complaint include former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who once famously described the Geneva Conventions as "quaint" and "obsolete."

Others include John Yoo, a former Justice Department lawyer who wrote the so-called "torture memo" that justified waterboarding and other extreme interrogation methods for terror suspects.

Also named are: former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith; former General Counsel for the Department of Defense William Haynes II; Jay S. Bybee, formerly of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel; and David S. Addington, former chief of staff and legal advisor to former Vice President Dick Cheney. . .

THE VICIOUS MYTH EVEN ACADEMICS, THE MEDIA & LIBERALS ACCEPT

This is something you were unlikely to have read about in the media at the time the statement was issued. A search of major media found almost no mention. The same is true today: the myth of race as a biological entity is right up there with creationism as a scientific myth, the main difference being is that even many liberals believe the race myth.

American Anthropological Association Statement on "Race" (May 17, 1998)

The following statement was adopted by the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association, acting on a draft prepared by a committee of representative American anthropologists. It does not reflect a consensus of all members of the AAA, as individuals vary in their approaches to the study of "race." We believe that it represents generally the contemporary thinking and scholarly positions of a majority of anthropologists.

In the United States both scholars and the general public have been conditioned to viewing human races as natural and separate divisions within the human species based on visible physical differences. With the vast expansion of scientific knowledge in this century, however, it has become clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups. Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic "racial" groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within "racial" groups than between them. In neighboring populations there is much overlapping of genes and their phenotypic (physical) expressions. Throughout history whenever different groups have come into contact, they have interbred. The continued sharing of genetic materials has maintained all of humankind as a single species.

Physical variations in any given trait tend to occur gradually rather than abruptly over geographic areas. And because physical traits are inherited independently of one another, knowing the range of one trait does not predict the presence of others. . .

From its inception, this modern concept of "race" was modeled after an ancient theorem of the Great Chain of Being, which posited natural categories on a hierarchy established by God or nature. Thus "race" was a mode of classification linked specifically to peoples in the colonial situation. It subsumed a growing ideology of inequality devised to rationalize European attitudes and treatment of the conquered and enslaved peoples. Proponents of slavery in particular during the 19th century used "race" to justify the retention of slavery. The ideology magnified the differences among Europeans, Africans, and Indians, established a rigid hierarchy of socially exclusive categories underscored and bolstered unequal rank and status differences, and provided the rationalization that the inequality was natural or God-given. The different physical traits of African-Americans and Indians became markers or symbols of their status differences.

As they were constructing US society, leaders among European-Americans fabricated the cultural/behavioral characteristics associated with each "race," linking superior traits with Europeans and negative and inferior ones to blacks and Indians. Numerous arbitrary and fictitious beliefs about the different peoples were institutionalized and deeply embedded in American thought.

Early in the 19th century the growing fields of science began to reflect the public consciousness about human differences. Differences among the "racial" categories were projected to their greatest extreme when the argument was posed that Africans, Indians, and Europeans were separate species, with Africans the least human and closer taxonomically to apes.

Ultimately "race" as an ideology about human differences was subsequently spread to other areas of the world. It became a strategy for dividing, ranking, and controlling colonized people used by colonial powers everywhere. But it was not limited to the colonial situation. In the latter part of the 19th century it was employed by Europeans to rank one another and to justify social, economic, and political inequalities among their peoples. During World War II, the Nazis under Adolf Hitler enjoined the expanded ideology of "race" and "racial" differences and took them to a logical end: the extermination of 11 million people of "inferior races" (e.g., Jews, Gypsies, Africans, homosexuals, and so forth) and other unspeakable brutalities of the Holocaust.

"Race" thus evolved as a worldview, a body of prejudgments that distorts our ideas about human differences and group behavior. Racial beliefs constitute myths about the diversity in the human species and about the abilities and behavior of people homogenized into "racial" categories. The myths fused behavior and physical features together in the public mind, impeding our comprehension of both biological variations and cultural behavior, implying that both are genetically determined. Racial myths bear no relationship to the reality of human capabilities or behavior. Scientists today find that reliance on such folk beliefs about human differences in research has led to countless errors.

At the end of the 20th century, we now understand that human cultural behavior is learned, conditioned into infants beginning at birth, and always subject to modification. No human is born with a built-in culture or language. Our temperaments, dispositions, and personalities, regardless of genetic propensities, are developed within sets of meanings and values that we call "culture." Studies of infant and early childhood learning and behavior attest to the reality of our cultures in forming who we are.

It is a basic tenet of anthropological knowledge that all normal human beings have the capacity to learn any cultural behavior. The American experience with immigrants from hundreds of different language and cultural backgrounds who have acquired some version of American culture traits and behavior is the clearest evidence of this fact. Moreover, people of all physical variations have learned different cultural behaviors and continue to do so as modern transportation moves millions of immigrants around the world.

How people have been accepted and treated within the context of a given society or culture has a direct impact on how they perform in that society. The "racial" worldview was invented to assign some groups to perpetual low status, while others were permitted access to privilege, power, and wealth. The tragedy in the United States has been that the policies and practices stemming from this worldview succeeded all too well in constructing unequal populations among Europeans, Native Americans, and peoples of African descent. Given what we know about the capacity of normal humans to achieve and function within any culture, we conclude that present-day inequalities between so-called "racial" groups are not consequences of their biological inheritance but products of historical and contemporary social, economic, educational, and political circumstances.

GALLERY

THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW A BIKE COULD CARRY

7 MINUTE MOVIE OF BARACELONA IN 1908
SHOT FROM THE FRONT OF A STREETCAR

AMERICANS DIVIDED ON AFGHAN WAR; DEMOCRATS OPPOSE IT

CNN - The American public has been wary about the war in Afghanistan, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll conducted in February.

Last month, Americans were almost evenly divided between those who support the war and those who oppose it, the poll showed, with 47 percent in favor and 51 percent opposed.

Opposition to the war in Afghanistan is more muted than opposition to the war in Iraq, but it's not so muted among Democrats. Two-thirds of Americans overall oppose the war in Iraq, but 64 percent of Democrats oppose the war in Afghanistan. . .

Only 31 percent of Americans believe the United States is winning the war in Afghanistan. Fifty percent believe the United States is winning in Iraq -- the highest number in at least five years. But Americans still want to get out of Iraq.

Progressive Review - The Obama administration's planned U.S. troop commitment in Afghanistan - not counting mercenaries - is roughly where the U.S. was in Vietnam in the early summer of 1965.

In May 1965, a Gallup poll found that 48% of Americans approved of the government's handling of the conflict, almost the same as approve our war in Afghanistan. But the opposition to the Afghan conflict is twice as strong: 51% opposed in constrat with only 28% opposed to the war in Vietnam at that early stage.

Yet despite the much stronger opposition to the Afghan war, the Vietnam opposition was dramatically more apparent. Wikipedia reports:

- March 24, the anti-war Students for a Democratic Society attended the first teach-in, organized by some teachers, against the war at the University of Michigan, attended by 2,500 participants. This was to be repeated at 35 campuses across the country.

- April 17, the SDS and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a civil rights activist group, led the first of several anti-war marches in Washington DC, with about 25,000 protesters.

- The first draft card burnings took place at University of California, Berkeley at student demonstrations in May organized by a new anti-war group, the Vietnam Day Committee, where a coffin was marched to the local Draft board office, a teach-in was attended by 30,000, and president Lyndon Johnson was burned in effigy.

First anti Vietnam war demonstration in London outside the U.S. embassy. May 1965.

- Protests were held in June on the steps of the Pentagon, and in August, attempts were made by activists at Berkeley to stop trains carrying troops from moving.

While the draft was clearly a big factor in the stronger protests, it is also true that Americans have generally become more passive in the face of wrongful government actions.

OBAMA PLANS SURGE IN MERCENARIES FOR AFGHANISTAN

Jim Hightower, Creators Syndicate - As Obama begins winding down the war in Iraq, he is building up his own war farther east. Like Bush, he will depend on private military contractors. We're told that it will be a new, expanded, extra-special American adventure in Afghanistan, involving a vigorous surge strategy to "stabilize" this perpetually unstable land. . .

The extra-special part of this effort is to come from a simultaneous "civilian surge" of hundreds of U.S. economic development experts. . . What Obama has not mentioned is that, in addition to soldiers and civilians, there is a third surge in his plan: private military contractors. . .

Already, there are 71,000 private contractors operating in Afghanistan, and many more are preparing to deploy as Pentagon spending ramps up for Obama's war. The military is now offering new contracts to security firms to provide armed employees (aka, mercenaries) to guard U.S. bases and convoys. . .

Meanwhile, here's an interesting twist to Obama's contractor surge: the for-hire guards protecting our bases and convoys will not likely be Americans. The Associated Press has reported that of the 3,847 security contractors in Afghanistan, only nine are U.S. firms.

OBAMA'S KNOW NOTHING POLITICS: THE MEDIA IS THE MASSAGE

Sam Smith

The word frequently heard in Washington for which there is the greatest gap between verbal use and actual practice is "transparency." Sadly, Barack Obama is widening the void.

This was apparent during the campaign if one simply looked a bit below the rhetorical massage. I found nearly three dozens things Obama had done or said that should have raised eyebrows in liberal circles, but at a time when melanin reigned supreme, to even mention such matters was viewed as disloyal.

Now we are paying the price as Obama's agenda remains in the shadows even as pieces of it fall silently into place - often without the media noticing and as the president continues to treat reality as though it were just one more campaign issue to spin.

If there was one safety valve during the past eight years it was that the Bush regime was not embarrassed in the slightest by the evil they did and so we didn't have to look too long under too many benches to find illegal wiretaps or discover water boarding. Their perverted pride served as a strange form of transparency.

Now it's different. Important policy is being hidden away in stimulus packages; the soporific semiotics flow like one of those bedside sound machines; and the media and liberal think tanks are almost belligerently indifferent to what is going on.

Several of them - including Move On, a group that would support self immolation if the right Democrat asked them to - are even out with ads promoting support for the president's budget. Not the country's budget, not - as the Constitution would have it - Congress' budget, but Obama's. In fact, any budget is a huge conglomeration of the good and the bad and there is no way one can make a rational decision based on 30 seconds of propaganda.

One of the first indications of the administration hiding behind the curtains was Obama's medical records bill, buried amongst the massive stimuli of the recent weeks. Whatever one thinks about having the federal government decide how medical records are kept and what is in them, an even greater concern is the enormous threat to patient privacy.

Yet this measure flew through Congress like a resolution honoring some buddy of a long time representative, with no one asking what would happen if an alcoholic, drug addict, a HIV positive citizen or a mentally troubled patient had their records passed on electronically to someone pretending to be a doctor on their case, but actually with the FBI, an insurance company or their employer. At the very least there should have been hearings, coverage and debate in the media and enough time to discover what was really going on. Yet one gets the sense that Obama and the Democrats didn't want this.

There is the much larger issue of who the bank bailout beneficiaries really are and where the money is really going. And the stunning lack of debate over a growing major war in Afghanistan. By the time we were this far into Vietnam, it was already a substantial controversy. On a smaller scale, shouldn't a democracy discuss the matter before giving four times as much to improve rail service for first class passengers as it does for ordinary riders?

All this has involved the exact opposite of transparency, led by a president who seems to prefer spending his days finding new communications systems over which to spread his platitudes.

One case that particularly struck home because of its dangerous invisibility was the attempt to include a formal study of a national draft into a measure increasing funding for the Peace Corps and Americorps. At the last moment - perhaps because some conservative groups had noticed and complained - the provision was dropped from the bill but remains alive in new legislation pending in the House.

This is not a minor matter. It is huge. The reinstitution of mandatory national service could tear this country apart just like the last draft did. And while this may explain the sneaky approach Obama and the Democrats have taken, it certainly doesn't justify it. And why, as the great issue of the 1960s rears its head again, are the liberals so quiet?

The history of this is instructive. In 2006, Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, wrote a book called "The Plan: Big Ideas for America" It that called for three months of compulsory civil service for all young Americans. In it he said:

"It's time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us. We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, All Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service. . .

"Here's how it would work. Young people will know that between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service. They'll be asked to report for three months of basic civil defense training in their state or community, where they will learn what to do in the event of biochemical, nuclear or conventional attack; how to assist others in an evacuation; how to respond when a levee breaks or we're hit by a natural disaster. These young people will be available to address their communities' most pressing needs."

During the last campaign we noted that Obama "favors a national service plan that appears to be in sync with one being promoted by a new coalition that would make national service mandatory by 2020, and with a bill for such mandatory national service introduced by Rep. Charles Rangel.

"We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded," Barack Obama said last July 2 in Colorado Springs, CO."

On another occasion Obama spoke of the need for "universal voluntary public service," although Michael Kinsley noted that service can be either universal or voluntary but not both.

At one point the Obama/Biden campaign website announced that Obama and Biden will expand Americorps and the Peace Corps with "a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year. . . " When questions began to be raised, the words disappeared from the site.

The recent House bill, now approved by the Senate, contained up to the last minute of a provision for a commission that would consider "a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people" and a possible requirement for "all individuals in the United States" to perform such service.

As the DC Examiner notes, "The section could be restored during the Senate-House conference committee meeting. A new, separate bill containing that language has since been introduced in the House."

The Examiner also argued:

"Lurking behind the feel-good rhetoric spouted by the measure's advocates is a bill that on closer inspection reveals multiple provisions that together create a strong odor of creepy authoritarianism. The House passed the measure overwhelmingly, while only 14 senators had the sense and courage to vote against it on a key procedural motion. Every legislator who either voted for this bill or didn't vote at all has some serious explaining to do. . .

"The bill . . . summons up unsettling memories of World War II-era paramilitary groups by saying the new program should "combine the best practices of civilian service with the best aspects of military service," while establishing 'campuses' that serve as 'operational headquarters,' complete with 'superintendents and 'uniforms' for all participants. It allows for the elimination of all age restrictions in order to involve Americans at all stages of life. And it calls for creation of 'a permanent cadre' in a 'National Community Civilian Corps.'"

"But that's not all. The bill also calls for 'youth engagement zones' in which 'service learning' is 'a mandatory part of the curriculum in all of the secondary schools served by the local educational agency.' This updated form of voluntary community service is also to be 'integrated into the science, technology, engineering and mathematics curricula' at all levels of schooling. Sounds like a government curriculum for government approved 'service learning,' which is nothing less than indoctrination."

The bill also changes the name of the existing Civilian Community Corps to "National Civilian Community Corps." Why the pointed addition of the word "national?"

We don't have to debate what sort of service corps we need to agree that there should be an open discussion about the issue and that the White House and Congress shouldn't be deliberately concealing what they are trying to achieve. This is a malicious deception of the public.

Democracy only works with open debate and open agendas. Letting media manipulators and lawyers cleverly conceal one's purpose - whether on television or in legislation - as a deep affront to this country.

ONE REASON THE ARCHAIC MEDIA MAY BE IN TROUBLE

Today's Washington Post - which is losing tons of money - featured on its editorial page columns by three member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a private club for those who are turned on by empire fetishes. Another column was by David Broder, who wrote in 2003: "I like Karl Rove. In the days when he was operating from Austin, we had many long and rewarding conversations. I have eaten quail at his table and admired the splendid Hill Country landscape from the porch of the historic cabin Karl and his wife Darby found miles away and had carted to its present site on their land."

WELCOME TO OBAMA'S WAR

Jeff Stein, CQ - I had to laugh when I heard our next ambassador to Afghanistan say, "every poll will show that 90 percent of the people firmly reject the Taliban." . . .

As Jere Van Dyke, a reporter who's spent enough time on the ground in Afghanistan -- including as a hostage -- to qualify as an expert, said in a radio interview the other day, the average villager can't tell the difference between NATO troops and the Russians, the last guys who tried to quell the jihadis. "We're in a very dangerous situation now," he said on all-news KCBS.

"They're not against the U.S., they're not against NATO, but if you go out into the villages, what they will tell you is that they really don't know the difference, in their minds, between the Soviets and the West -- they're infidels, they're invaders.'

We've already killed more civilians than the Taliban has, Van Dyke noted. Their 20,000 fighters have fought 50,000 air-supported NATO troops to a draw.

That's some hearts-and-minds program. . .

[Rufus] Phillips was a CIA man who spent more time in South Vietnam than Ho Chi Minh. Not draining cocktails in Saigon with well-pressed colonels, either -- in the villages.

Phillips ran something called the Hamlet Evaluation Survey, which crunched all sorts of numbers about how the war was going. . .

In 1963 he had the guts to tell the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, that his generals in Vietnam were cooking the books. The fancy stats showing the villagers on our side, served up by the Saigon command, were inflated -- made up, he told Kennedy.

Younger Army officers who told the truth were having their careers ruined. U.S. military advisors who complained about corrupt South Vietnamese officers were being sent home.

It was "a remarkable moment in the American bureaucracy, a moment of intellectual honesty," the late, great David Halberstam wrote in "The Best and the Brightest," his monumental account of White House advisors who turned a low level counterinsurgency into a big-unit war with almost 600,000 troops, only to see victory slip away.

Does the number sound familiar?

It's the figure Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa., who holds the Pentagon's purse strings, picked for winning in Afghanistan.

"That's what I estimate it would take in a country that size to get it under control," Murtha said just a few weeks ago in an interview with the Associated Press.

Yet on Thursday, he sounded just as certain that President Obama's plan for just 4,000 more troops - police advisors -- was just fine. That would bring the U.S. expedition to about 60,000 - not counting the kids joy-sticking Predators over Afghanistan from a trailer outside Las Vegas.

"They got realistic goals, I think," Murtha said, according to Bloomberg News. "Train the Afghans and then get the hell out of there. I couldn't have written it any better myself.". . .

When the end came in Saigon, two million soldiers, sailors and marines had served in Southeast Asia.

The parallels with Vietnam are really eerie: corrupt leader, untrustworthy police and army, provincial officials shipping heroin, villagers with their fingers to the wind, enemy forces striking from across the border. . .

The roof started to cave in Saigon, when Kennedy had only 16,000 advisors in-country.

USA Today - The Obama administration is planning billions in new assistance to Pakistan, yet the record of previous U.S. military and development aid to the strife-torn Muslim country has been marred by a lack of accountability and transparency, according to government reports. . Karin von Hippel, a Pakistan expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the U.S. must ponder, "How do we make sure that that money gets spent properly and doesn't get stolen?"

The only two audits of U.S. development aid to Pakistan in recent years, by the U.S. Agency for International Development's inspector general, found significant problems. Record-keeping in an $83 million education reform program was so inadequate that auditors could not say whether any good was achieved. An effort to rebuild schools and health clinics in an area devastated by a 2005 earthquake was found to be years behind schedule.

A Congressional Research Service report published in November questioned whether the U.S. could effectively deliver aid in the border areas. "Corruption is endemic in the tribal region, and security circumstances are so poor that Western non-governmental contractors find it extremely difficult to operate there," the report said.

Obama said he will propose increasing the budgets for inspector generals in the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development to ferret out "unaccountable spending, no-bid contracts and wasteful reconstruction.". . .

The U.S. suspended aid to Pakistan in 1993 over its nuclear weapons program, then resumed aid upon winning a pledge of cooperation after the 9/11 attacks. Since 2002, the United States has provided Pakistan with approximately $12.3 billion, $8.6 billion of it military, according to the Government Accountability Office.

In June, the GAO reported that $5.6 billion of that money was intended for counterterrorism, but poor oversight meant the Pentagon could not determine whether it was properly spent.

NY Times - After agreeing to bury their differences and unite forces, Taliban leaders based in Pakistan have closed ranks with their Afghan comrades to ready a new offensive in Afghanistan as the United States prepares to send 17,000 more troops there this year.

In interviews, several Taliban fighters based in the border region said preparations for the anticipated influx of American troops were already being made. A number of new, younger commanders have been preparing to step up a campaign of roadside bombings and suicide attacks to greet the Americans, the fighters said.

The refortified alliance was forged after the reclusive Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, sent emissaries to persuade Pakistani Taliban leaders to join forces and turn their attention to Afghanistan, Pakistani officials and Taliban members said.

The overture by Mullah Omar is an indication that with the prospect of an American buildup, the Taliban feel the need to strengthen their own forces in Afghanistan and to redirect their Pakistani allies toward blunting the new American push. . .

The new Taliban alliance has raised concern in Afghanistan, where NATO generals warn that the conflict will worsen this year. It has also generated anxiety in Pakistan, where officials fear that a united Taliban will be more dangerous, even if focused on Afghanistan, and draw more attacks inside Pakistan from United States drone aircraft.

Bill Gertz, Washington Times - According to two U.S. government sources close to the issue, senior policymakers were divided over how comprehensive to make the strategy, involving an initial boost of 17,000 U.S. troops. On the one side were Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Deputy Secretary of State James B. Steinberg, who argued in closed-door meetings for a minimal strategy of stabilizing Afghanistan that one source described as a "lowest common denominator" approach.

The goal of these advocates was to limit civilian and other nonmilitary efforts in Afghanistan and focus on a main military objective of denying safe haven to the Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists.

The other side of the debate was led by Richard C. Holbrooke, the special envoy for the region, who along with U.S. Central Command leader Gen. David H. Petraeus and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton fought for a major nation-building effort.

The Holbrooke-Petraeus-Clinton faction, according to the sources, prevailed. . . .

RECOVERED HISTORY: EUGENE MCCARTHY'S SECRET MEETING WITH CHE GUEVARA

Al Eisele, The Hill - In an intriguing and little-known episode worthy of a Cold War spy novel, [Eugene McCarthy] held a secret meeting with Cuban revolutionary leader Che Guevara in New York in 1964, which could have paved the way for repairing the half century-old rupture of U.S.-Cuban relations that continues to this day.

Not even McCarthy's Senate colleagues or even most of his aides knew of his clandestine meeting with Guevara, then the Cuban Minister of Industry and Fidel Castro's closest confidant. The meeting took place on Dec. 16, 1964, in the Park Avenue apartment of Lisa Howard, a TV journalist with close ties to the Cuban dictator.

The only account of the meeting, which set off alarm bells in the White House, is contained in a secret memorandum in the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, which was uncovered by Peter Kornbluh, director of the Cuba Documentation Project at the National Security Archives, a Washington-based public policy research center. .

Kennedy was reportedly moving towards a rapproachment with Cuba at the time of his assassination, and Howard continued her efforts in the Johnson administration, but got nowhere because President Johnson feared it would damage his election prospects in 1964. But after Johnson won a landslide victory over Barry Goldwater, his aides resumed efforts to explore closer Cuban ties.

MORE

LIST: Bookseller Magazine's Awards for Strange Titles

First Place: The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais, by Philip M. Parker

Second Place: Baboon Metaphysics, by Dorothy L. Cheney and Robert M. Seyfarth.

Finalists: Curbside Consultation of the Colon. . . Strip and Knit With Style. . . Techniques for Corrosion Monitoring.

BERNIE SANDERS INTRODUCES SINGLE PAYER BILL

Physicians for a National Health Policy - Vermont’s Sen. Bernie Sanders has introduced a single-payer health reform bill. The single-payer approach in Sanders’ new bill is in sharp contrast to models being offered by the White House and by key lawmakers like Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). Their plans would preserve a central role for the private insurance industry, sacrificing both universal coverage and cost containment.

In contrast, Sanders’ new legislation would cover all of the 46 million Americans who currently lack coverage and improve benefits for all Americans by eliminating co-pays and deductibles and restoring free choice of physician. The most fiscally conservative option for reform, single payer slashes private insurance overhead and bureaucracy in medical settings, saving over $400 billion annually that can be redirected into clinical care.

Highlights of the bill:
Patients go to any doctor or hospital of their choice.

The program is paid for by combining current sources of government health spending into a single fund with modest new taxes amounting to less than what people now pay for insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses.

Comprehensive benefits, including coverage for dental, mental health, and prescription drugs.

While federally funded, the program is to be administered by the states.

By eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private, investor-owned insurance industry, along with the burdensome paperwork imposed on physicians, hospitals and other providers, the plan saves at least $400 billion annually - enough money to provide comprehensive, quality care to all.

Community health centers are fully funded, giving the 60 million Americans now living in rural and underserved areas access to care.

Resources for the National Health Service Corps to train an additional 24,000 health professionals.

THE ARNE DUNCAN LEGACY CONT'D

More news from the former school system of Obama's Secretary of Education

Substance News,IL - The fight to stop Mayor Richard Daley's radical privatization plan to close as many public schools as possible and replace them with 100 "new schools" (most of them charter schools) received a boost in the African American community when Rainbow PUSH joined the fight.

"It's a dangerous plan," the Reverend Jesse Jackson told Substance after an Operation PUSH meeting. "It's excluding kids from the neighborhood with no measurable effects in achievement. I agree that there should be a moratorium to stop this."

Last year 25 schools were closed. This year 16 were either closed, phased out, consolidated or labeled "turnaround." Six schools were taken off what opponents of Renaissance 2010 call the "Hit List" due to the massive organizing efforts of CORE, a powerful grassroots caucus in the Chicago Teacher's Union that worked with community groups, students and parents to protest the closings. . .

[Operation PUSH'S] Jonathan Jackson noted that Chicago is now the most dangerous city in the nation, and that the school closings have helped to further increase violence in the city. After Calumet, Austin and Englewood high schools were closed between 2004 and 2008 (forcing their students to go to other public high schools, after in many cases having to travel great distances) under the Renaissance 2010 plan, the schools that received the overflow of new students saw violence skyrocket in their schools. . .

Many say the focus should be on repealing the Amendatory Act, which in 1995 handed Mayor Daley almost total control of the Chicago public schools, and end the Renaissance Plan. Since that time, Chicago has been the national leader in privatizing public education. Now the rest of the country is watching closely. President Barrack Obama, who supports charter schools, named former Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan his Education Secretary.

BREVITAS

HEALTH & SCIENCE

The House version of single payer health legislation has been endorsed by the US Conference of Mayors, and 40 city and state bodies including Baltimore, Indianapolis, Austin, Wilmington, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Seattle and San Francisco. It also has the support of 500 union organizations in 49 states. The one place it is not on the table, however, is at the White House.

ECO CLIPS

Metaefficient - In Napa Valley, the newly opened Bardessono Inn and Spa is perhaps the greenest luxury hotel in the country. . . Perhaps most impressive is the fact that 93 percent of the Bardessono's construction waste was recycled - an unusually high amount. Materials like wood, steel and paper which would normally be trashed were reused in the construction of the Inn. . . In separating all the refuse and taking the time to work with recyclers, it caused everyone to keep a cleaner job site. Not only does that lead to fewer injuries, but it fosters a level of attention that becomes an ethic on the property. The Bardessono also features computer-controlled external shades on the windows. These shades open and close automatically to regulate temperature in the rooms. . . . In addition, the Bardessono has no less than 82 geothermal wells, and there are 900 photovoltaic solar panels on the roof.

Philadelphia's new budget includes money for solar powered trash compacting cans that can hold five times as much trash as conventional containers. NYC, Boston and Chicago are already using the new cans.

FREEDOM & JUSTICE

Rachel - Two towns in New Hampshire passed local laws recognizing the rights of nature and specifically restricting the rights of corporations. Nottingham, N.H. passed The Nottingham Water Rights and Local Self - Government Ordinance at a town meeting March 15th. The ordinance establishes strict liability for culpable corporations and government entities that permit and facilitate the privatization and corporatization of water within the town. The ordinance also strips corporations of constitutional protections within the town. . . At Town Meeting on the same day in Barnstead, voters amended their Water Rights Ordinance; which was passed almost unanimously at their Town Meeting two years ago; to include the rights of nature. Barnstead, NH , became the 12th municipality in the nation to recognize the rights of nature. . . . The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (of Chamberburg, Pennsylvania has been spearheading efforts by local communities to assert control over corporations.

McClatchy - The Missouri Highway Patrol retracted a controversial report on militia activity and will change how such reports are reviewed before being distributed to law enforcement agencies. The Highway Patrol also will open an investigation into the origin of the report, which linked conservative groups with domestic terrorism and named former presidential candidates Ron Paul, Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin.

MEDIA

Real Clear Politics - In a 2,000-word letter to Washington Post Co.'s shareholders, company chairman Don Graham disclosed that the news division - dominated by flagship Washington Post - lost nearly $25 million in 2008 and is expected to lose "substantially more" in 2009. Responding to the gloomy outlook, the Post announced that it will be offering voluntary buyouts - its fourth since 2003 and the first since May 2008, when more than 100 staffers took the buyouts. Graham conceded that beyond the immediate losses, he is still grasping for solutions to turn around a business that's seemingly on its deathbed.
posted by TPR | 2:54 PM | 0 Comments

DRUG BUSTS

Jeremy D Mayer, Politico - As polling expert Nate Silver recently pointed out, only 10% supported legalization in 1969, while at least 40% do so today. The younger you are, the more likely you are to have tried marijuana, and to support its legalization. NORML doesn't have to persuade anyone to win; if they just wait for the anti-pot geezers to die, most Americans will favor legalization within a decade. Or, they could wait for Obama to go back to the position he had when he was an obscure Illinois state legislator, just four years ago.

MONEY & WORK

DO'S & DON'TS FOR RESUMES

OBAMA JUNGEN

EMANUEL DESCRIBES THE NATIONAL DRAFT HE'S SEEKING IN 2006 AUDIO INTERVIEW

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