Month: March 2003

To On the Fly:

I agree 100% with Ms. Hall’s recent online article on protecting free speech; we need more of it, not less. Ms. Hall is also 100% correct when she states, “Though some surely feel that to protest the war is the most unpatriotic thing in the world, I do feel it’s important– that the right to disagree is essential to any well-functioning democracy.” Protesting the war through free speech is not unpatriotic. There are a lot of people who are not ‘liberals’, ‘leftists’ or anti-American who are totally against the war; just take a look at the positions of the free market Cato institute (cato.org), the Libertarian Party or Pat Buchanan.

Is protesting democratic? yes, if you protest with free speech such as at Overton Park. Aside from the fact that some pretty unsavory groups (essentially front groups for the anti-democracy Workers World Party) are organizing many of todays anti-war rallies, the problem with the recent protests (such as those in San Francisco) is that they are moving above and beyond ‘free speech’ and into the realm of domestic terrorism (this DOES NOT apply to the rally in Overton Park, which was peaceful and respectful of the rights of others). Specifically, anti-war activists who are

resorting to shutting down sections of the city (San Francisco and, today, New York) because they ‘feel’ that the government hasn’t listened to their pleas for peace are showing their contempt for representative democracy, and their fellow citizens. They are taking away the rights of other citizens to use the streets

in their own communities; they want to dictate through mob action what others will or will not be allowed to do.

Such tactics also turn off a lot of people who would otherwise perhaps be sympathetic to their anti-war message. Does anyone think that abortion clinic bombers help win votes for pro-life positions?

Per the San Francisco Chronicle (see http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi file=/chronicle/archive/2003/03/23/MN22135.DTL), “The protesters are acting like sore losers,” said Aitan Melamud, a retired urologist, as he watched a protest outside Bechtel Corp. headquarters Friday morning. “Like if they can’t have their way, then we can’t go on with our lives.”

“The threat to “shut this country down” is a terrorist threat that shows a loss of faith in the processes of democracy. . . In October, after days of debate, the Senate voted 77-23 and the house 296-133 to authorize President Bush to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein refused to give up weapons of mass destruction. Clearly the antiwar position was listened to, and 146 representatives voted against the measure, but, in keeping with the rules of our democracy, the measure was adopted.” Victor Eremita

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030326/ap_wo_en_ge/na_gen_us fifth_avenue_protest_3

I hope people continue to march for what they believe in but I hope they do so with respect to the rights of others, and I also hope that they care enough to be informed on the issues they are protesting for and about the organizations they are protesting with. I don’t think that’s too much to expect from people engaged in protests to ‘inform’ and express an opinion meant to change the hearts and minds of others.

I do disagree with Ms. Hall when she states, “See, the thing is– I often vacillate mentally as I try to understand whatever a given point of social contention is, and it doesn’t make me a good candidate for the manning of a megaphone”; that intellectual honesty alone gives her more credibility than most. It’s to her credit that, as a journalist she’s acknowledging that issues are complicated, and that there’s more than one side to any given story.

On an interesting note, Ms. Hall states, “If there were ever easy solutions to things such as a war, then of course there would be no need for protest. “. One could change one word, and come up with “If there were ever easy solutions to things such as a war, then of course there would be no need for war.” I point this out because on the web site for the Mid South Peace and Justice Center lists ‘disarmament’ as one of its field of studies. I wonder how they would accomplish this when confronted with a totalitarian dictatorship that doesn’t want to disarm…use harsh language? In their mission statement they state that the Center “engages issues of peace and nonviolence, human rights and social justice.” I don’t know the answer to the following question, but I am curious: did they ever once organize a protest against the\ horrendous human rights abuses of Saddam Hussein?

Anyway, it was a good article on the recent peaceful anti-war protest in Memphis.

Sincerely,

Chris Leek

FROM

Beyond the funhouse walls

Geov Parrish – workingforchange.com

03.26.03 – One of the most frequent requests or questions I receive is for suggestions as to where to go to get better or a broader spectrum of information than what America’s mainstream networks and big dailies specialize in.

As most readers of this site have already likely concluded, especially during time of war, what we get from our entertainment-driven media isn’t usually the whole story. In the past few weeks and especially since the invasion of Iraq began last week, even that characterization would be a kindness. American network TV’s emetic fare doesn’t just resemble government propaganda; it is propaganda, taking current events and burying them under a fact-free blizzard of emotionalism, jingoism, and generous use of the first person plural (“Which sites did we bomb today, General?”). Repeated in endless variations, the cumulative effect, and the intent, is to rally the home front. Predictably, it’s working — more effectively than anything on Iraqi state radio ever could, because even beyond the whiz-bang technology and psychographic refinement of the American networks, Iraqi audiences are under no illusions about the biases of their government-run media.

However, technology doesn’t just help the Pentagon build bigger bombs and enable TV “news” programs to glorify the notion of pain-free, cost-free, rationale-free military invasions. It also enables more inquisitive folks to escape the funhouse. Via the Internet, Americans (and anyone else) can sample media coverage virtually anywhere of fast moving events — from Iraqi deserts to the streets and conference rooms of the world’s capitals — in a

way never before possible during wartime.

As with last year’s Israeli Easter offensive and 2001’s Afghan invasion and 9/11, the news that audiences in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America get — both of the invasion of Iraq itself and of global reaction to it — is very different than what we’re seeing here. The gulf, both in public perceptions and in the resulting policy decisions, seems to be widening; about that, more tomorrow.

In the meantime, here’s a short and necessarily incomplete list of sources I’ve found helpful for coverage of this invasion.

(eds. note: At publication time, not all links in this list were

operational. All URLs are believed to be correct.)

(listed in alphabetical order)

FROM THE ISLAMIC WORLD:

English language versions of Islamic newspapers:

www.ahram.org.eg/weekly : Al-Ahram, Cairo,

state-owned;

www.dailystar.com.lb : Daily Star, Lebanon;

www.gulf-times.com : Gulf Times, Qatar;

www.jang.com.pk/thenews : Daily Jang,

Pakistan, excellent reporting on Afghan war.

Other sources for regional news:

www.al-jazeera.net : Al-Jazeera, the now-notorious Pan-Islamic Qatar TV station; in Arabic, but until the U.S. bombs all of their reporters and facilities, the pictures alone can tell lots that we don’t otherwise see or hear about both the news stories and Islamic news priorities. As for critics that claim Al-Jazeera’s coverage is propagandistic because it favors one side’s view: they should look in the mirror. Al-Jazeera has shown Americans in a humane light far more often than American TV has shown — well, any Iraqis at all, actually;

www.allafrica.com : AllAfrica Global Media, good

news coverage of Islamic Africa;

www.haaretzdaily.com : Ha’Aretz, left-leaning daily Israeli newspaper, good for domestic Israeli news and a spectrum of opinion on the occupation of Palestine and other Middle Eastern matters far broader, actually, than what passes for debate on Israel/Palestine in mainstream U.S. media;

www.irna.com : The Islamic Republic News Association, based in Teheran, tends to be a fundamentalist viewpoint;

www.islamonline.net/english :

IslamOnline.net, an impressive pan-Islamic site (Arabic & English) of news,

opinion, and culture;

www.memri.org : Middle East Media & Research Institute, translates articles from Farsi and Arabic media.

EUROPEAN SOURCES:

Daily newspapers & TV:

www.bbc.co.uk : BBC;

www.dailytelegraph.co.uk : Daily Telegraph;

www.guardian.co.uk : The Guardian (until a few

years ago, the Manchester Guardian), Britain’s leading left-leaning daily,

also publishes London Observer on Sundays;

www.independent.co.uk : The Independent, home of the immortal Robert Fisk, the single best English-language Middle East reporter in the world;

www.dailymirror.co.uk : The Daily Mirror, home of John Pilger, who gives Fisk a solid run on both experience and on eloquent opposition to America’s neo-colonialism;

www.ireland.com : Irish Times;

www.MondeDiplo.com : Le Monde Diplomatique, a

separate online magazine published by Le Monde, the prestigious Paris daily. It’s not the daily (that’s only available in French), but still a good source for European perspectives on international issues.

Other Western voices:

www.debka.com : DebkaFile, an excellent Website devoted to Middle East intelligence run by a former Economist foreign

affairs writer);

www.eurasianews.com scores of links to sites on Afghanistan, Iraq, and other Eureasian counties;

www.iwpr.net : Institute for War and Peace Reporting, a British outfit that ranges from the Balkans throughout Asia, but especially valuable for the former Soviet republics;

www.mwaw.org : Media Workers Against War, originally

formed after 9/11 by disgruntled BBC and Guardian employees scrutinizing British media coverage of the Afghan invasion, has since morphed into

becoming, as well, a British anti-war.com, with news on much of the global anti-war movement;

www.estriples.com : European (as opposed to Pacific) edition of Stars and Stripes, the daily newspaper of the U.S. Armed

Forces. Not just the military “line” — the Pentagon figured out ages ago that providing an honest reflection of what men (and now women) in uniform care about is in the long run far more useful than printing a house organ that refuses to acknowledge reality. This is war news stripped of the jingoism and feel-good fluff, and from military contractor scandals to battlefield (and, probably, occupation) difficulties, you’re far more likely to read about it here than stateside. Oh, and if you want to support the troops, you can find out what they actually care most about — like getting some toilet paper into Kuwait…

www.wombatnews.com : Wombat International News, A Japanese site with a stunning number of links to news coverage around the world, including heavy coverage of U.S. adventurism.

Wire Services: Try accessing wire service articles, such as Reuters or Associated Press, before they’ve been edited by their local or national newspaper editors. They’re posted on AOL, Yahoo, MSN, and a host of other commercial internet service providers. Because they’re originally written for a wide variety of media outlets (with the same article often running

internationally), the original wire service articles have been miles above

the versions eventually printed in the NY Times, Wash. Post, and other major

daily newspapers: they’re timely, they contain body counts, and they contain

“unofficial” quotes from US military men on the front lines that often

contradict the glowing quotes from Pentagon spokesmen.

ALTERNATIVE U.S. MEDIA:

www.alternet.org : AlterNet: syndicates articles to

newspapers, magazines, and web sites around the country, but also carries a

lot of great original content;

www.anti-war.com : Libertarian-oriented, utterly

priceless source of news and opinion on militarism and the resistance to it;

www.commondreams.com : Common Dreams;

www.fair.org : Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, an

invaluable media watchdog group;

www.indymedia.org : Independent Media Center,

activism-oriented, with links to over 90 local indymedia sites around the

world, including Israel & Palestine (a site which is very good). Can be

stunning in its on the spot coverage of protest, but the open publishing

policies of many of its affiliates can mean its quality varies wildly in

reliability;

www.inthesetimes.com : In These Times magazine,

updated more frequently than the print publication;

www.motherjones.com : Mother Jones’ magazine;

their daily site tends to be harder-edged and not as focused on long

investigative pieces as the monthly print version;

www.thenation.com : The Nation magazine, also with

many features that don’t make it to print;

www.theonion.com : The Onion, an often brilliant

satirical newspaper that’s more painfully truthful than the garbage in your

local chain-owned daily;

www.theprogressive.com : The Progressive

magazine;

www.tompaine.com : Tom Paine;

www.utne.com : Utne Magazine’s site is updated daily

with little of the new agey lifestyle material the print monthly uses to

spice newsstand sales; www.workingforchange.com

: the political site of Working Assets —

you found it!;

www.yellowtimes.org : Yellow Times, like Utne is

essentially a very good clipping service;

www.zmag.org : Z Magazine and ZNet, also with a widely

read European edition. Chomsky’s a close buddy, and ZNet tends to be more

focused on activism and radical alternatives than most of the above outlets.

As mentioned, this is necessarily incomplete, with no slight intended for a number of fine sites not listed here. I’ve run such lists in the past, I’m always looking for more suggestions — and the web generates good new ones far faster than any one person can keep track. Send ’em along and I’ll run a follow-up list as the opportunity allows.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner in Iraq. Yes, I know

we’re still fighting. But that’s just a formality. The war has

already been won. The conquering heroes are not generals in

fatigues but CEOs in suits, and the shock troops are not an

advance guard of commandos but legions of lobbyists.

The Bush administration is currently in the process of doling

out more than $1.5 billion in government contracts to American

companies lining up to cash in on the rebuilding of postwar Iraq.

So, bombs away! The more destruction the better at least for the

lucky few in the rebuilding business.

The United Nations has traditionally overseen the

reconstruction of war zones like Afghanistan or Kosovo. But in

keeping with its unilateral, the-world-is-our-sandbox approach to

this invasion, the White House has decided to nail a “Made in the

USA” sign on this Iraqi fixer-upper. Postwar Iraq will be rebuilt

using red, white, and blueprints.

Talk about advance planning: Even as the people of Iraq gird

themselves for the thousands of bombs raining down on them, the

administration is already picking and choosing who will be given

the lucrative job of cleaning up the rubble. Postwar rebuilding

is a solitary bright spot in our own carpet-bombed economy.

To further expedite matters, the war-powers-that-be invoked

“urgent circumstances” clauses that allowed them to subvert the

requisite competitive bidding process the free market be damned

and invited a select group of companies to bid on the rebuilding

projects. No British companies were included, which has left many

of them seething and meeting with government officials in London

to find out where they stand.

So just which companies were given first crack at the

post-Saddam spoils?

Well, given Team Bush’s track record, it will probably not

fill you with “shock and awe” to learn that the common

denominator among the chosen few is a proven willingness to make

large campaign donations to the Grand Old Party. Between them,

the bidders a quartet of well-connected corporate consortiums

that includes the Bechtel Group, Fluor Corp., and, of course,

Vice President Cheney’s old cronies at Halliburton have donated a

combined $2.8 million over the past two election cycles, 68

percent of which went to Republicans.

The insider track given these fat-cat donors proves afresh

that splurging on a politician is one of the soundest and safest

investments you can make. Where else will a $2.8 million ante

offer you a one-in-four shot at raking in a $1.5 billion

payoff?

And that $1.5 billion is just for starters. The president is

planning to give post-Saddam Iraq an extreme makeover a

wide-ranging overhaul that will include the transformation of the

country’s educational, health-care, and banking systems all

funded by taxpayer dollars and administered by private U.S.

contractors. Think of it as a Marshall Plan for profit.

“The administration’s goal,” reads one of the reconstruction

contracts that are up for bids, “is to provide tangible evidence

to the people of Iraq that the U.S. will support efforts to bring

the country to political security and economic prosperity.”

As a first step toward Iraqi prosperity, the president’s

ambitious postwar plan earmarks $100 million to ensure that

Iraq’s 25,000 schools have all the supplies and support necessary

to “function at a standard level of quality” including books and

supplies for 4.1 million Iraqi schoolchildren.

I’m sure those schools in Oregon that are being forced to shut

down a month early due to inadequate funding or the low-income

students in California who are suing the state in a desperate

effort to obtain adequate textbooks and qualified teachers of

their own would love to see the same kind of “tangible evidence”

of President Bush’s support.

The same goes for our flat-lining public health-care system.

While more than a million poor Americans are about to lose their

access to publicly funded medical care, the president is in the

market for a corporate contractor to oversee a $100 million

upgrade of Iraq’s hospitals and clinics.

And the White House has announced its intention to redesign

Iraq’s financial rules and banking system after it bombs the

country halfway to oblivion. Too bad the administration keeps

watering down reforms for the banking system here at home.

That’s another way corporate America is profiting from the

war. With all eyes on Iraq, few are paying attention to how

little is being done to reform and redesign our own financial

rules.

The new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission,

for instance, is getting away with an enforcement regime every

bit as limp as that of his predecessor, the supremely spineless

Harvey Pitt.

Last week, in his first congressional testimony since assuming

control of the watchdog agency, William Donaldson made it clear

that, despite a massive increase in the SEC’s budget, we

shouldn’t expect too much in the way of fundamental reform

stressing that one of his top priorities would be boosting the

morale of the agency.

I don’t know about you, but I would feel a whole lot better if

he’d made boosting the morale of a badly burned public “Job No.

1.” Tossing a slew of corporate crooks in the slammer would be a

good start.

Maybe America’s beleaguered investors should band together

with this country’s “left behind” schoolchildren and start

stockpiling a couple of plywood drones with overly long

wingspans, some high-strength aluminum tubes, and a few discarded

canisters of chemical gas.

Apparently, that’s the only way to get this administration’s

attention.

Arianna Huffington is the author of Pigs at the Trough:

How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining

America.

HEAVY LIFTERS

Property-tax payers, brace yourself. Your share of the tax load is increasing, and it will get heavier if present trends continue and some new proposed tax-break policies are put in place to fight the war on blight downtown and the war on empty space in eastern Shelby County.

There are 280,756 residential parcels in Shelby County (and 25,925 commercial and industrial parcels). Their owners pay a combined city and county property tax rate that ranges from $3.79 in Lakeland, which has no city property tax, to $7.02 in Memphis, which has the biggest in the state. The rate in Nashville, for comparison, is $4.58.

In 1996, Shelby County got 50 percent of its revenue from the property tax. Now, the property-tax share is 62 percent. There is no reason to think that number won’t keep climbing when the city of Memphis and Shelby County adopt their budgets later this year. As Flyer political columnist Jackson Baker reported last week, Governor Phil Bredesen is dead serious about cutting state revenues to counties. Shelby County currently gets 12 percent of its revenue from the state. The federal government’s share, also likely to decrease due to the war in Iraq and the cost of fighting terrorism, is only 3 percent.

Meanwhile, two expanded tax-incentive programs are in the works or have been approved within the past year.

One, via the Memphis and Shelby County Idustrial Development Board (IDB), gives tax freezes to existing unoccupied offices and warehouses. Under the old rules, tax credits could only be given to companies that occupied new buildings. But speculation and overbuilding by developers in the 1990s created a surplus of empty space in so-called second-generation buildings.

The other, via the Center City Commission, would create a “tax-increment financing” district, or TIF, in much of downtown and part of Midtown. The theory of a TIF is that public investment sparks growth in the area that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. The additional tax revenue that comes from the growth is dedicated to pay for the public improvements specifically within the TIF instead of mixing with general public funds.

So far, so good. But the history of tax incentives in Memphis and Shelby County for the last 20 years or so has shown that incentives tend to become entitlements. In other words, they are taken for granted and handed out generously to the deserving and not-so-deserving as Applicant A scrambles to keep up with Applicant B and so on.

If the second-generation principle catches fire in the suburbs, there could be a parade of lawyers and developers seeking tax breaks from the Industrial Development Board to level the playing field with competitors. The board, it should be noted, has recently shown signs of toughening its standards to punish or deny companies that promise more jobs and benefits than they deliver. But it’s too early to say whether or not the liberalized second generation incentives will work the way they’re supposed to.

The Center City Commission, on the other hand, can more accurately forecast the success of the proposed TIF district. The future “growth” in tax revenue is already in the cards. It comes in the form of expiring tax freezes that were granted 15-25 years ago. When the Rivermark, for example, starts paying property taxes, it’s not exactly new growth. The building, once a Holiday Inn, is nearly 40 years old. The owner’s tax freeze has simply run its course.

Incentives have their limits. The Sterick Building and other abandoned, once prominent office buildings and much of the Main Street Mall have defied 25 years of downtown revival. And, with the exception of AutoZone, subsidies have not lured a single large corporate employer to downtown.

Instead, the result has been a mixed bag of prizes, ugly ducklings, and oddities in the Center City Commission’s real estate inventory. Also, the “center city” boundaries extend farther than you might think. Properties getting tax breaks in the name of downtown redevelopment include Malco’s Studio on the Square in Overton Square, the Applebee’s restaurant at 2114 Union Avenue, a Church’s Fried Chicken at 925 Poplar, and a cluster of 20 apartment buildings in the 2200 block of South Parkway East.

In all, according to Chandler Reports, there are 254 properties to which the Memphis Center City Revenue Finance Corporation holds title. They include The Peabody and Marriott hotels, several apartments on Mud Island, the Morgan Keegan and AutoZone office buildings, various restaurants, and some eyesores. Their total appraised value, according to the Shelby County Assessor’s Office, is $538 million. The property taxes on that would be $15 million a year if they were on the tax rolls.

Two big-ticket downtown public projects the FedExForum and the expansion of the convention center are not being paid for with property taxes. Their financing comes from several sources, including tax surcharges on hotel rooms, rental cars, event sales, downtown entertainment, and state government. With those sources tapped out, the property tax is left to pay for everyday public expenses such as police protection and schools.

Few people would trade the downtown of 20 years ago for the downtown of today, just as no one would deny the explosion of growth and wealth in eastern Shelby County. The question for policymakers is whether the same thing can be said of other parts of the city and county that don’t directly benefit from incentives. And when is enough enough?