New documents show officials prepared for Bush approval before Griffin took job
Dan Eggen, Amy Goldstein, Washington Post
Friday, March 23, 2007
(03-23) 04:00 PDT Washington -- Two months before Bud Cummins was fired as U.S. attorney in Little Rock, a protege of presidential adviser Karl Rove was maneuvering with the Justice Department to take his place.
Last April, Tim Griffin, a Rove aide and longtime GOP operative, sent the attorney general's chief of staff a flattering letter about himself written by Cummins, the prosecutor he was trying to replace, internal e-mails released this week show. Rove and Harriet Miers, then the White House counsel, were keenly interested in putting him in the position, the e-mails reveal.
New documents also show that Justice and White House officials were preparing for President Bush's approval of the appointment as early as last summer, five months before Griffin took the job.
The unusual appointment of Griffin, now serving as the interim U.S. attorney in Little Rock, has been one of the central issues in the Justice Department's firing of eight U.S. attorneys, which led to this week's constitutional showdown between Congress and the White House. The Senate Judiciary Committee's decision Thursday to approve subpoenas to force Rove, Miers and deputy White House Counsel William Kelley to testify about the firings follows similar action by a House panel. The committees' chairmen, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., so far appear in no rush to issue the subpoenas, and private negotiations with the White House continue.
Some of the thousands of pages of e-mails released this week underscore the extraordinary planning and effort, at the highest levels of the Justice Department and White House, to secure Griffin a job running one of the smaller U.S. attorney's offices in the country.
The e-mails show how Kyle Sampson, then the attorney general's chief of staff, and other Justice officials prepared to use a change in federal law to bypass input from Arkansas' two Democratic senators, who had expressed doubts about placing a former Republican National Committee operative in charge of a U.S. attorney's office. The evidence runs contrary to assurances from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that no such move had been planned.
"This was a very loyal soldier to the Republicans and the Bush administration, and they wanted to reward him," said Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark. "They had every right to do this, but it's the way they handled it, and the way they tried to cover their tracks and mislead Congress, that has turned this into a fiasco for them."
Griffin declined to comment Thursday but said in a previous interview that he was being unfairly maligned by Democrats. He has announced that he will not seek Senate confirmation to become Little Rock's chief federal prosecutor but will remain until a replacement is found.
In political circles, Griffin is widely considered an aggressive and accomplished Republican political operative. He was research director at the Republican National Committee during Bush's 2004 campaign, and he went to work for Rove at the White House in 2005.
Administration officials and many Republicans say that regardless of politics, Griffin has the credentials to be U.S. attorney.
"He's more qualified to hold that position than most of the people who came to that job in the first term," said Mark Corallo, who worked as the Justice Department's communication director when John Ashcroft was attorney general. Cummins' dismissal differs from the firings of the seven other ousted federal prosecutors in several respects. Cummins was told he was being removed last June, and the rest were told on Dec. 7. Justice Department officials also have not publicly said Cummins' departure was related to his performance in office, as they have with the others. They acknowledged last month that he was fired simply to make room for Griffin.
But documents show that Cummins was clearly a target of Sampson's two-year effort to fire a group of U.S. attorneys who did not qualify as what he called "loyal Bushies." He was recommended for removal as early as March 2005.
Cummins said he had no idea of those plans until he was notified of his firing last June. Sometime in the next couple of months, he said, it became clear that Griffin was going to get the job, and Cummins stepped aside in December.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/23/MNGE3OQI1N1.DTL
Friday, March 23, 2007
Thursday, March 22, 2007
DEMS stand ground on sacked prosecutors
Nothing, Nothing, Nothing is what the American public will get if G.W. Bush's proposal is accepted.
Political
US Democrats throw down gauntlet over sacked prosecutors
Source: Agence France Presse 03/22/2007
WASHINGTON, March 22, 2007 (AFP) -
Pressure mounted on US President George W. Bush Thursday as for the second time in two days US lawmakers authorized subpoenas of White House aides in a controversy over purged prosecutors.
The Senate Judiciary Affairs Committee allowed its chairman, Patrick Leahy, to issue the subpoenas in its probe into whether the eight attorneys were dismissed for political reasons late last year.
The vote came after a House of Representatives panel on Wednesday agreed that five senior administration officials including President George W. Bush's top political advisor, Karl Rove, should be summoned for questioning.
Bush, whose ties with the Democratic-controlled Congress have been strained over the war in Iraq, has vowed to fight any subpoenas, accusing the Democrats of a "partisan fishing expedition."
He did agree on Tuesday that White House officials could be interviewed privately by legislators, but not under oath, and without written transcripts.
But Democratic lawmakers say that is not enough, and the issue may now have to go before the Supreme Court if the White House refuses to bend.
"We have the right of inquiry and this is a very important inquiry. I think there could be much more to it than meets the eye right now and we need to persevere," Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein told Fow News.
Leahy agreed, saying: "After a while, you begin to wonder, do we have an independent judicial system, do we have an independent prosecutorial system?
"And a lot of Republicans and Democrats have questioned what's going on. And I think we ought to -- all I want to do is know what the truth is."
The White House however has accused the Democrats of wanting to turn the investigation into a primetime spectacle.
"What he (Leahy) is talking about is a show trial. That's not designed to get at the truth, it's designed to sort of scold White House officials," said White House spokesman Tony Snow early Thursday.
The White House has already released some 3,000 pages of documents concerning the December sackings, which it says show there was no wrong-doing.
And it has stood by the country's top legal officer, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, facing a clamor of calls for his resignation.
The dispute began when some of the fired attorneys told Congress they were sacked because they resisted pressure from Republican lawmakers over sensitive cases.
While the White House and Justice Department have the right to appoint and remove all 93 US attorneys -- who investigate and prosecute court cases for the government -- replacements are usually only carried out at the beginning of a president's administration.
The issue has managed to divert the focus away from the Democrats' faltering attempts to agree a common congressional stand on the Iraq war and push a timetable to bring the troops home.
And is also providing succor for hardline Republicans, as Bush's ratings plummet to their lowest ever in the opinion polls.
"Why not go to war with Congress?" asked the rightwing New York Post on Thursday.
"Sure, Bush's approval rating is just 35 percent in the latest Gallup poll. But Congress' rating is even worse - 28 percent. Why shouldn't Bush move to take advantage of that?
"Apart from the survival of his own administration, Bush has a duty to fight to preserve the prerogatives of the executive as an institution for future presidents - Republican or Democrat."
Democrats reject Bush's plea
Political
Dems reject Bush's plea for patience on Iraq plan
Source: Orlando Sentinel 03/20/2007
WASHINGTON -- On the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war, President Bush and Congress' Democratic leaders clashed over whether lawmakers should move to bring U.S. troops home -- and whether they can.
With the House set to vote this week on a war-spending bill that would effectively withdraw U.S. combat troops by fall 2008, Bush made clear that he doesn't think it is lawmakers' place to challenge his battle plan.
"They have a responsibility to ensure that this bill provides the funds and the flexibility that our troops need to accomplish their mission," Bush said in remarks televised from the White House. "They have a responsibility to pass a clean bill that does not use funding for our troops as leverage to get special-interest spending for their districts. And they have a responsibility to get this bill to my desk without strings and without delay."
Democrats countered that voters had put them in control of Congress to challenge Bush.
"The American people have lost confidence in President Bush's plan for a war without end in Iraq," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "That failed approach has been rejected by the voters in our nation, and it will be rejected by the Congress."
With the war lumbering into its fifth year, it has claimed the lives of more than 3,200 members of the U.S. military. Predictions about the cost and length of the war have been far surpassed. The public overwhelmingly opposes the war, and Bush's approval rating stands near his all-time low. Trying to halt spiraling sectarian bloodshed, Bush has ordered nearly 30,000 additional combat and support troops to Iraq, mostly to stabilize Baghdad.
The president pleaded for patience to give his strategy more time to work.
"The new strategy will need more time to take effect," he said. "Until Baghdad's citizens feel secure in their own homes and neighborhoods, it will be difficult for Iraqis to make further progress toward political reconciliation or economic rebuilding, steps necessary for Iraq to build a democratic society."
From Capitol Hill, Democrats said patience has run out.
House Majority Whip James Clyburn said Democrats were intent on "ending the blank check for the president's war and setting a timeline for the phased redeployment of our U.S. military."
Added Clyburn, D-S.C., "By August 2008 at the latest, U.S. combat troops will be redeployed from Iraq."
Poll of Iraqis
A new poll reflected the stress and hopelessness that are the result of the unrelenting violence and uncertain political situation. The poll, by ABC News, USA Today, the British Broadcasting Corp. and ARD German TV, found only 18 percent of Iraqis have confidence in U.S. and coalition troops; 86 percent are concerned that someone in their household will be a victim of violence; and 51 percent say violence against American forces is acceptable.
The joint security crackdown by an influx of U.S. and Iraqi forces to Baghdad and the troubled Al Anbar province began Feb. 14.
"Success will take months, not days or weeks" -- in part because less than half of the U.S. troop reinforcements have yet arrived in the capital, Bush said.
"There will be good days, and there will be bad days ahead as the security plan unfolds," he said.
Some positive signs
Still, he reported positive news, some that had been delivered during a briefing on the war with his National Security Council and a later videoconference call with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki from Baghdad.
Bush credited Iraqis with deploying 10 army brigades and nine national-police brigades to the capital, and al-Maliki's Shiite-led government for allowing U.S. troops to go after Shiite militias as well as Sunni insurgents. He said the security push has already uncovered large caches of weapons and destroyed two major car-bomb factories on the outskirts of Baghdad.
He also praised al-Maliki's government for making progress on a law establishing how oil revenue would be shared among the Iraqi people and on a promise of $10 billion in Iraqi money spent on reconstruction.
What he didn't mention was that Iraq missed the Dec. 31 target dates to enact the oil law, as well as laws establishing provincial elections and reversing measures that have excluded many Sunnis from jobs and government positions because they belonged to Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. The U.S. is also pushing for constitutional amendments to remove articles that the Sunnis think discriminate in favor of the Shiites and Kurds.
Democrats challenged Bush's strategy.
"By diverting attention from al-Qaeda and stretching our troops to the breaking point, the Iraq war has made America less safe, not more," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said. "The war can only be won politically and by forcing Iraq's political factions to resolve their differences."
To this end, Democrats are pushing a war-spending bill that includes a troop-withdrawal deadline of Sept. 1, 2008. That timeline would speed up if Bush cannot certify that the Iraqi government is meeting its own benchmarks for providing security, allocating the oil revenues and making the constitutional amendments.
The House spending bill has little chance of getting to Bush's desk, where he has promised a veto, because Democrats have a much slimmer majority in the Senate. But the White House has worked aggressively anyway against the House bill, fearing it could create momentum in the Senate and send an unwanted message globally.
Africa: Racism and American Foreign Policy
Political
Race, Racism, and American Foreign Policy toward Africa
Source: All Africa 03/21/2007
Mar 21, 2007 (H-Net/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) --
"Of the many manifestations of racism in the United States, one that is particularly insidious, because it is difficult to identify as such, is the idea that Whiteness signifies normality and that non-Whites are a deviation from the norm. If in given situations and accounts of events the racial backgrounds of the persons concerned are not stated, they are to be presumed White. According to the theory of Whiteness underlying such an assumption, all manifestations of "American-ness," unless they are given a specific ethnic/racial designation, partake of that one unstated designation. The same assumption regarding Whiteness is also applied to "European-ness," particularly in regard to the peoples and civilizations of western and northern Europe. With this conception of Whiteness in mind, George W. White, a Harvard Law School graduate turned historian, has undertaken an analysis of Eisenhower-era (1953-1961) American foreign policy towards the emerging states of Black Africa. The backdrop for this analysis is, on one hand, the exigencies of American leadership of the West in the Cold War, and on the other, the growing struggle at home for African American integration and civil rights.
Professor White begins his study by laying out a typology of presumed racism towards Blacks at all levels of the Eisenhower administration. He gives this typology historical roots by evoking the painful history of American relations with Haiti. He then links it to the domestic situation of the United States through an analysis of the reaction of the Eisenhower administration to the Brown decision of May 1954. Moving on, the author offers four African case studies to illustrate the workings of his Whiteness typology. These focus on U.S. relations with Ethiopia during the Eisenhower administration; Ghana, as it emerged from British rule in 1957; South Africa, particularly after the March 1960 Sharpeville Massacre led to a tightening of apartheid; and Congo-Kinshasa, as it went into crisis following its independence from Belgium at the end of June 1960. It seems that in each situation American policymakers, swayed by questions of race, made wrong decisions.
Altogether, Professor White's verdict is harsh. Because "White [American] elites could not imagine a world in which Blacks competently governed their own affairs" (p. 136), the United States pursed policies intended to encourage and enable the former colonial powers to retain some control over their former colonies so as to guarantee, on one hand, their continued allegiance to the so-called Free World, and on the other hand, continued access to the natural resources of the new nations. Therefore, American policy "undermined the economic viability of African nations" and "was consistently antidemocratic" (p. 135) in that it sought out potential anticommunist strongmen to rule these nations and, in general, manipulated "Cold War Decolonization" such that the "Free World [might] ... continue to demand non-White obedience to a world order primarily dictated by race" (p. 145).
Central to Professor White's thesis is the idea of the transformation of Whiteness from a paradigm of open oppression of non-Whites to a more seemingly benign (but just as harmful) form of hidden control. This transformation, according to him, has occurred and manifests itself in five ways: as "White innocence" reflected in contemporary commitments voiced by the White establishment in favor of democracy, civil rights for all, and claimed generosity that is expected to cancel out the very long history of White-imposed racial oppression; "White entitlement," meaning that because of the self-proclaimed good qualities of White people they are entitled to a "disproportionate share of power, resources, and esteem"; "Black erasure," which refers to the unwillingness of Whites to recognize the accomplishments of Black people and the legitimacy of their aspirations; "Black self-abnegation," meaning that Blacks must willingly agree with White assumptions of Black erasure; and "Black insatiability," referring to the belief that Black expectations are unreasonable even when they are the quintessence of reasonableness.
Bearing in mind these five manifestations of Whiteness and the aggression against Black people that they imply, Professor White offers the reader, as a trial run, two analyses of how they have operated in the United States and abroad. The first of these refers to the generally troubled American relationship with Haiti going back to the late eighteenth-century slave rebellion that brought that nation into existence. In particular, Professor White stresses the transformation of Haiti into an informal American protectorate following its occupation in 1915 by units of the United States Marine Corps. The second example refers to the go-slow responses of the Eisenhower administration to the condemnation of public school segregation resulting from the May 1954 outcome of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case. Regarding school desegregation, the fact that the plaintiffs in the five cases that led to the Brown decision received support early on through a favorable amicus brief prepared by the Truman Justice Department could be construed as illustrating the first manifestation of Whiteness, White innocence. Whereas the fact that the Eisenhower Justice Department called for a gradualist approach to the application of the May 1954 decision illustrates support for White entitlement in that the demands for redress of the plaintiffs and the potential inconvenience to the defendants are treated as moral equivalents. The fact that the Court made no mention of the violently racist origins of segregation in the United States, that it did not demand immediate compliance with its May 1954 decision, and that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) legal team headed by Thurgood Marshall ultimately accepted the idea of gradualism, illustrate the operation of Black erasure and Black self-abnegation. And that many Black leaders had hoped for and wished to press on for the immediate desegregation of schools following May 1954 appears as an example of Black insatiability.
The application of these manifestations of Whiteness by the Eisenhower administration to the international arena of the mid- to late 1950s enabled the United States government to posit the Cold War "as the international racial sanctuary," with "global Communism as an evil force bent on enslaving the world," and the United States and the colonial powers "as the font of liberty, opportunity, and individual freedom," a "discourse [that] erased the history and legacy of Europe as the scourge of the globe" (p. 22).
The approach embodied in this book and the method of analysis are very clever if not ingenious and do seem to yield novel conclusions as to the racist nature of White American attitudes towards Black Africans. However, some important caveats loom. To begin with, Professor White's view of Whiteness should more correctly be labeled WASP-ness, for the attitudes and behaviors underlying his perceptions of Whiteness particularly reflect the White, Protestant upper middle-class attitudes of the American leadership of the 1950s. Also, how can one be certain that what appear to be American doubts as to the political orientation and competence of African leaders, like Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba, or an unwillingness to provide state-of-the-art armaments to the Ethiopian army, or to invest as heavily in the Volta River Project in Ghana as the respective governments wished is a manifestation of Black insatiability (and racism) as the author charges? Might not the less than enthusiastic responses of the Eisenhower administration to such African wishes be the mundane reflection of how best to prioritize American global commitments given the reality (even then) of limited resources and the fact that Africa was peripheral to the main concerns of American foreign policy? And one must certainly not forget the extreme anticommunism of the American people and leadership during a period when the most serious threat to American security was perceived as the Soviet Union, the only other thermonuclear power. Yet the roots of this anticommunism were long, going back to the Palmer Raids of 1919. While one can legitimately argue that the United States did support the marginalization of Nkrumah and the elimination of Lumumba because, as Black African leaders, they were too independent-minded, not to mention leftist (by American standards), American opposition to these leaders hinged more on the fear that they were pro-communist than on the fact of their Blackness. One should note that the Eisenhower administration went to some pains to discredit or destroy non-Black leaders perceived as leftist in other parts of the world: Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and Jacobo Arbenz Guzman in Guatemala, for instance. Of course, these leaders were not White in the WASP sense (and clearly Professor White's conception of Whiteness is in fact WASP-ness), but they were not Black Africans either. By chance, the Eisenhower administration was confronted with massive decolonization in Africa. But in a sense, this decolonization was a continuation, on another continent, of the decolonization in Asia that the Truman administration had faced. Here too the American government, while sympathetic to the idea of decolonization, worried that the independence movements might be captured by communists. We note, for instance, that the American government only fully committed itself to Indonesian independence after Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta appeared to be repudiating their communist links. At that point, just as would be the case with the Eisenhower administration and certain colonies in Africa, the Truman administration attempted, in the guise of peacemaking, to push Indonesia into retaining close links with its former metropole, the Netherlands. In the case of Indochina, where, it is true, the United States had less local influence than in Indonesia, Ho Chi Minh refused to repudiate his communist ties, thus stimulating the American authorities to encourage the French to destroy him and his communist movement and eventually to open a second path to independence. In both cases, American policy attempted to promote close relations between the former colonies and the former metropoles. Was the Eisenhower approach to decolonization in Africa really much different from the Truman approach to decolonization in Asia?
Professor White's analysis comes closest to hitting the mark in the case of South Africa. His analogies stand up because both countries were founded by European settlers who imposed themselves on conquered native peoples and eventually formed independent governments. Although Whites in South Africa, unlike in the United States, were a minority, the political class in South Africa during the Eisenhower era was totally White and mostly Protestant. Both societies went through a period of legalized enslavement of non-Whites. Legal segregation followed, and apartheid became an extreme form of Jim Crow. In short, the White elites of both countries could identify with each other. Very importantly, however, "South Africa became the United States' fourth-largest foreign market" (p. 95), a fact which suggests that money linked to anticommunism, rather than race per se, pushed American policymakers into muting their critique of apartheid. Nevertheless, members of the Eisenhower administration, like Julius Holmes, were indeed critical of apartheid (White innocence) while calling for its gradual elimination in ways that would protect the interests of the White South African population (White entitlement) as well as American (White) access to South African resources, while suspecting the African National Congress (ANC) of communist leanings (Black erasure) (p. 98). One notices, however, that as the communist threat receded and the Cold War wound down, successive American administrations took increasingly hard lines towards the apartheid regime, suggesting that the real American fear all along had been communism. For American policymakers, communism was worse than apartheid, but once the communist threat began to dissipate, the American government was willing to tackle apartheid. What is disappointing about this book is that the author has based so much on so few case studies (Ethiopia, Ghana, South Africa, and Congo-Kinshasa). Conspicuously absent is any analysis of Eisenhower administration reactions to French decolonization. If the Eisenhower era policymakers were concerned about Nkrumah's apparent Pan Africanism and allegedly socialist tendencies, how must they have reacted to the emergence of the labor union leader, Sekou Toure of Guinea, on the African and international scene after his party, the Parti Democratique de la Guinee (PDG), had obtained a "non" vote in de Gaulle's referendum at the end of September 1958? Professor White makes no mention of the matter. Nobody in the Eisenhower administration had anticipated the sudden independence of Guinea; indeed, the administration was slow to extend diplomatic recognition to the new state for fear of offending the French. Nevertheless, John H. Morrow, an African American academic with Republican Party links was sent to Conakry as U.S. Ambassador, and before long, the Eisenhower administration began making efforts to woo Sekou Toure away from his Marxist-"CGTiste" political and intellectual roots, an effort aided by the fortuitous ineptitude of Soviet policymakers and diplomats in their dealings with Guinea.
Although silent with regard to American relations with Guinea and other Francophone African states, Professor White does mention Cameroon but from a negative perspective, referring to the American preference for Ahmadou Adhidjo, the president of the country at independence, and American support for the French design to end the UN Trusteeship of Cameroon and cede independence without a final UN-supervised general election (pp. 35-36). Professor White seems to assume that Felix Moumie, leader of the Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC), that had been engaged in a guerilla insurgency against the French authorities and Cameroonian moderates since 1956, might have won such an election. Like so many American liberal academics, White is critical of Ahidjo and American (as well as French) support for him, never mind the fact that once the UPC insurrection (that only affected a small part of the country but caused more fatalities than the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya) had been suppressed, within five years of Cameroonian accession to independence, the country, for the next fifteen years at least, became an island of peace surrounded by degrees of turbulence in every country bordering it.
Likewise, Professor White says nothing about how the Eisenhower administration reacted to the ongoing Algerian War of Independence, the most important liberation struggle occurring in Africa during the period concerned--particularly after 1956 when Algeria became an oil-producer. (Of course, Algeria is not a Black African country even though Algerians, under colonial rule, had to contend with as much racisme, if not more, than Africans in other parts of the French Empire.) Certainly the Eisenhower administration worried about the alleged communist and Nasserist leanings of the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) and, in the case of Algeria too, attempted to encourage a rapprochement between Algerian nationalists and the French government so as to keep the oil and gas resources of Algeria out of communist hands.
Altogether, what can one say about this book? Certainly Professor White's elaboration of the five manifestations of Whiteness and their use as analytical tools is intriguing, but this typology does not always hit home. It gives its best results when used to explain the domestic racial situation in the United States as efforts to desegregate and to achieve Black civil rights took off. It is less effective when applied to African situations where other issues, that he de-emphasizes or overlooks, come into play. He underestimates the irrational and blinding force of American anticommunism during the Eisenhower era. Yet he suggests as much by mentioning that President Eisenhower, who really did have pronounced racist tendencies, nevertheless had fond memories of Sylvanus Olympio, the first President of independent Togo (p. 20), probably because of this leader's expressed anticommunism. Professor White is also forced to admit, in regard to the racial attitudes of the White male leadership whose members surrounded President Eisenhower, that "[w]ith regard to people of African descent in the United States, there were few direct statements or observations" (p. 18), but he would like the reader to assume that whatever remarks were made were probably negative and racist.
Professor White considers that today the United States "faces its greatest international security threats from people responding to the collapse, or corruption of sovereign authority" (p. 146). He blames this situation of failed states, particularly in Africa, on the American privileging of Whiteness as described in this book. It is an interesting theory but one that should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt. "
Race, Racism, and American Foreign Policy toward Africa
Source: All Africa 03/21/2007
Mar 21, 2007 (H-Net/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) --
"Of the many manifestations of racism in the United States, one that is particularly insidious, because it is difficult to identify as such, is the idea that Whiteness signifies normality and that non-Whites are a deviation from the norm. If in given situations and accounts of events the racial backgrounds of the persons concerned are not stated, they are to be presumed White. According to the theory of Whiteness underlying such an assumption, all manifestations of "American-ness," unless they are given a specific ethnic/racial designation, partake of that one unstated designation. The same assumption regarding Whiteness is also applied to "European-ness," particularly in regard to the peoples and civilizations of western and northern Europe. With this conception of Whiteness in mind, George W. White, a Harvard Law School graduate turned historian, has undertaken an analysis of Eisenhower-era (1953-1961) American foreign policy towards the emerging states of Black Africa. The backdrop for this analysis is, on one hand, the exigencies of American leadership of the West in the Cold War, and on the other, the growing struggle at home for African American integration and civil rights.
Professor White begins his study by laying out a typology of presumed racism towards Blacks at all levels of the Eisenhower administration. He gives this typology historical roots by evoking the painful history of American relations with Haiti. He then links it to the domestic situation of the United States through an analysis of the reaction of the Eisenhower administration to the Brown decision of May 1954. Moving on, the author offers four African case studies to illustrate the workings of his Whiteness typology. These focus on U.S. relations with Ethiopia during the Eisenhower administration; Ghana, as it emerged from British rule in 1957; South Africa, particularly after the March 1960 Sharpeville Massacre led to a tightening of apartheid; and Congo-Kinshasa, as it went into crisis following its independence from Belgium at the end of June 1960. It seems that in each situation American policymakers, swayed by questions of race, made wrong decisions.
Altogether, Professor White's verdict is harsh. Because "White [American] elites could not imagine a world in which Blacks competently governed their own affairs" (p. 136), the United States pursed policies intended to encourage and enable the former colonial powers to retain some control over their former colonies so as to guarantee, on one hand, their continued allegiance to the so-called Free World, and on the other hand, continued access to the natural resources of the new nations. Therefore, American policy "undermined the economic viability of African nations" and "was consistently antidemocratic" (p. 135) in that it sought out potential anticommunist strongmen to rule these nations and, in general, manipulated "Cold War Decolonization" such that the "Free World [might] ... continue to demand non-White obedience to a world order primarily dictated by race" (p. 145).
Central to Professor White's thesis is the idea of the transformation of Whiteness from a paradigm of open oppression of non-Whites to a more seemingly benign (but just as harmful) form of hidden control. This transformation, according to him, has occurred and manifests itself in five ways: as "White innocence" reflected in contemporary commitments voiced by the White establishment in favor of democracy, civil rights for all, and claimed generosity that is expected to cancel out the very long history of White-imposed racial oppression; "White entitlement," meaning that because of the self-proclaimed good qualities of White people they are entitled to a "disproportionate share of power, resources, and esteem"; "Black erasure," which refers to the unwillingness of Whites to recognize the accomplishments of Black people and the legitimacy of their aspirations; "Black self-abnegation," meaning that Blacks must willingly agree with White assumptions of Black erasure; and "Black insatiability," referring to the belief that Black expectations are unreasonable even when they are the quintessence of reasonableness.
Bearing in mind these five manifestations of Whiteness and the aggression against Black people that they imply, Professor White offers the reader, as a trial run, two analyses of how they have operated in the United States and abroad. The first of these refers to the generally troubled American relationship with Haiti going back to the late eighteenth-century slave rebellion that brought that nation into existence. In particular, Professor White stresses the transformation of Haiti into an informal American protectorate following its occupation in 1915 by units of the United States Marine Corps. The second example refers to the go-slow responses of the Eisenhower administration to the condemnation of public school segregation resulting from the May 1954 outcome of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case. Regarding school desegregation, the fact that the plaintiffs in the five cases that led to the Brown decision received support early on through a favorable amicus brief prepared by the Truman Justice Department could be construed as illustrating the first manifestation of Whiteness, White innocence. Whereas the fact that the Eisenhower Justice Department called for a gradualist approach to the application of the May 1954 decision illustrates support for White entitlement in that the demands for redress of the plaintiffs and the potential inconvenience to the defendants are treated as moral equivalents. The fact that the Court made no mention of the violently racist origins of segregation in the United States, that it did not demand immediate compliance with its May 1954 decision, and that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) legal team headed by Thurgood Marshall ultimately accepted the idea of gradualism, illustrate the operation of Black erasure and Black self-abnegation. And that many Black leaders had hoped for and wished to press on for the immediate desegregation of schools following May 1954 appears as an example of Black insatiability.
The application of these manifestations of Whiteness by the Eisenhower administration to the international arena of the mid- to late 1950s enabled the United States government to posit the Cold War "as the international racial sanctuary," with "global Communism as an evil force bent on enslaving the world," and the United States and the colonial powers "as the font of liberty, opportunity, and individual freedom," a "discourse [that] erased the history and legacy of Europe as the scourge of the globe" (p. 22).
The approach embodied in this book and the method of analysis are very clever if not ingenious and do seem to yield novel conclusions as to the racist nature of White American attitudes towards Black Africans. However, some important caveats loom. To begin with, Professor White's view of Whiteness should more correctly be labeled WASP-ness, for the attitudes and behaviors underlying his perceptions of Whiteness particularly reflect the White, Protestant upper middle-class attitudes of the American leadership of the 1950s. Also, how can one be certain that what appear to be American doubts as to the political orientation and competence of African leaders, like Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba, or an unwillingness to provide state-of-the-art armaments to the Ethiopian army, or to invest as heavily in the Volta River Project in Ghana as the respective governments wished is a manifestation of Black insatiability (and racism) as the author charges? Might not the less than enthusiastic responses of the Eisenhower administration to such African wishes be the mundane reflection of how best to prioritize American global commitments given the reality (even then) of limited resources and the fact that Africa was peripheral to the main concerns of American foreign policy? And one must certainly not forget the extreme anticommunism of the American people and leadership during a period when the most serious threat to American security was perceived as the Soviet Union, the only other thermonuclear power. Yet the roots of this anticommunism were long, going back to the Palmer Raids of 1919. While one can legitimately argue that the United States did support the marginalization of Nkrumah and the elimination of Lumumba because, as Black African leaders, they were too independent-minded, not to mention leftist (by American standards), American opposition to these leaders hinged more on the fear that they were pro-communist than on the fact of their Blackness. One should note that the Eisenhower administration went to some pains to discredit or destroy non-Black leaders perceived as leftist in other parts of the world: Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and Jacobo Arbenz Guzman in Guatemala, for instance. Of course, these leaders were not White in the WASP sense (and clearly Professor White's conception of Whiteness is in fact WASP-ness), but they were not Black Africans either. By chance, the Eisenhower administration was confronted with massive decolonization in Africa. But in a sense, this decolonization was a continuation, on another continent, of the decolonization in Asia that the Truman administration had faced. Here too the American government, while sympathetic to the idea of decolonization, worried that the independence movements might be captured by communists. We note, for instance, that the American government only fully committed itself to Indonesian independence after Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta appeared to be repudiating their communist links. At that point, just as would be the case with the Eisenhower administration and certain colonies in Africa, the Truman administration attempted, in the guise of peacemaking, to push Indonesia into retaining close links with its former metropole, the Netherlands. In the case of Indochina, where, it is true, the United States had less local influence than in Indonesia, Ho Chi Minh refused to repudiate his communist ties, thus stimulating the American authorities to encourage the French to destroy him and his communist movement and eventually to open a second path to independence. In both cases, American policy attempted to promote close relations between the former colonies and the former metropoles. Was the Eisenhower approach to decolonization in Africa really much different from the Truman approach to decolonization in Asia?
Professor White's analysis comes closest to hitting the mark in the case of South Africa. His analogies stand up because both countries were founded by European settlers who imposed themselves on conquered native peoples and eventually formed independent governments. Although Whites in South Africa, unlike in the United States, were a minority, the political class in South Africa during the Eisenhower era was totally White and mostly Protestant. Both societies went through a period of legalized enslavement of non-Whites. Legal segregation followed, and apartheid became an extreme form of Jim Crow. In short, the White elites of both countries could identify with each other. Very importantly, however, "South Africa became the United States' fourth-largest foreign market" (p. 95), a fact which suggests that money linked to anticommunism, rather than race per se, pushed American policymakers into muting their critique of apartheid. Nevertheless, members of the Eisenhower administration, like Julius Holmes, were indeed critical of apartheid (White innocence) while calling for its gradual elimination in ways that would protect the interests of the White South African population (White entitlement) as well as American (White) access to South African resources, while suspecting the African National Congress (ANC) of communist leanings (Black erasure) (p. 98). One notices, however, that as the communist threat receded and the Cold War wound down, successive American administrations took increasingly hard lines towards the apartheid regime, suggesting that the real American fear all along had been communism. For American policymakers, communism was worse than apartheid, but once the communist threat began to dissipate, the American government was willing to tackle apartheid. What is disappointing about this book is that the author has based so much on so few case studies (Ethiopia, Ghana, South Africa, and Congo-Kinshasa). Conspicuously absent is any analysis of Eisenhower administration reactions to French decolonization. If the Eisenhower era policymakers were concerned about Nkrumah's apparent Pan Africanism and allegedly socialist tendencies, how must they have reacted to the emergence of the labor union leader, Sekou Toure of Guinea, on the African and international scene after his party, the Parti Democratique de la Guinee (PDG), had obtained a "non" vote in de Gaulle's referendum at the end of September 1958? Professor White makes no mention of the matter. Nobody in the Eisenhower administration had anticipated the sudden independence of Guinea; indeed, the administration was slow to extend diplomatic recognition to the new state for fear of offending the French. Nevertheless, John H. Morrow, an African American academic with Republican Party links was sent to Conakry as U.S. Ambassador, and before long, the Eisenhower administration began making efforts to woo Sekou Toure away from his Marxist-"CGTiste" political and intellectual roots, an effort aided by the fortuitous ineptitude of Soviet policymakers and diplomats in their dealings with Guinea.
Although silent with regard to American relations with Guinea and other Francophone African states, Professor White does mention Cameroon but from a negative perspective, referring to the American preference for Ahmadou Adhidjo, the president of the country at independence, and American support for the French design to end the UN Trusteeship of Cameroon and cede independence without a final UN-supervised general election (pp. 35-36). Professor White seems to assume that Felix Moumie, leader of the Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC), that had been engaged in a guerilla insurgency against the French authorities and Cameroonian moderates since 1956, might have won such an election. Like so many American liberal academics, White is critical of Ahidjo and American (as well as French) support for him, never mind the fact that once the UPC insurrection (that only affected a small part of the country but caused more fatalities than the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya) had been suppressed, within five years of Cameroonian accession to independence, the country, for the next fifteen years at least, became an island of peace surrounded by degrees of turbulence in every country bordering it.
Likewise, Professor White says nothing about how the Eisenhower administration reacted to the ongoing Algerian War of Independence, the most important liberation struggle occurring in Africa during the period concerned--particularly after 1956 when Algeria became an oil-producer. (Of course, Algeria is not a Black African country even though Algerians, under colonial rule, had to contend with as much racisme, if not more, than Africans in other parts of the French Empire.) Certainly the Eisenhower administration worried about the alleged communist and Nasserist leanings of the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) and, in the case of Algeria too, attempted to encourage a rapprochement between Algerian nationalists and the French government so as to keep the oil and gas resources of Algeria out of communist hands.
Altogether, what can one say about this book? Certainly Professor White's elaboration of the five manifestations of Whiteness and their use as analytical tools is intriguing, but this typology does not always hit home. It gives its best results when used to explain the domestic racial situation in the United States as efforts to desegregate and to achieve Black civil rights took off. It is less effective when applied to African situations where other issues, that he de-emphasizes or overlooks, come into play. He underestimates the irrational and blinding force of American anticommunism during the Eisenhower era. Yet he suggests as much by mentioning that President Eisenhower, who really did have pronounced racist tendencies, nevertheless had fond memories of Sylvanus Olympio, the first President of independent Togo (p. 20), probably because of this leader's expressed anticommunism. Professor White is also forced to admit, in regard to the racial attitudes of the White male leadership whose members surrounded President Eisenhower, that "[w]ith regard to people of African descent in the United States, there were few direct statements or observations" (p. 18), but he would like the reader to assume that whatever remarks were made were probably negative and racist.
Professor White considers that today the United States "faces its greatest international security threats from people responding to the collapse, or corruption of sovereign authority" (p. 146). He blames this situation of failed states, particularly in Africa, on the American privileging of Whiteness as described in this book. It is an interesting theory but one that should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt. "
Australia: Opposition Wants Iraq Pull Out
Political
Staged pullout from Iraq a priority - Rudd
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald 03/20/2007
THE NATION
KEVIN RUDD has nominated the withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq as a priority should Labor win this year's election.
"My first responsibility will be to then speak with the President of the United States and to speak with the Government of Iraq," the Opposition Leader said yesterday, the fourth anniversary of the US-led invasion.
"I would then commence a process of negotiations with the end point of a staged, negotiated withdrawal of that combat force."
The Prime Minister, John Howard, who will today make a speech arguing the need to stay in Iraq to give the violence-ravaged nation a chance of success, berated Mr Rudd in Parliament yesterday.
Mr Howard said it was inconsistent for Labor to support the war in Afghanistan but oppose the Iraqi war.
"While it's good to defeat terrorists in Afghanistan, it's not good to defeat terrorists in Iraq," Mr Howard goaded. "I find that a puzzling disconnect."
Mr Howard visited Iraq and Afghanistan last week.
With the Iraq war now in its fifth year, Mr Rudd listed statistics showing the secular and terrorist violence and civilian deaths had escalated dramatically over the past 12 months.
Mr Rudd challenged Mr Howard to admit the original strategy had "demonstrably failed".
At one stage, Mr Howard appeared to mishear a question from Labor's foreign affairs spokesman, Robert McClelland.
Mr McClelland asked if Mr Howard was aware of the US plan to withdraw should its current strategy of a surge in troops fail. He further asked whether Australia had a similar contingency plan.
Mr Howard replied: "Yes, it is normal for the contingency to be made."
Labor then asked Mr Howard to outline the strategy but he claimed to have been misrepresented, saying he was aware only of the US plan.
"Perhaps the Prime Minister has accidentally revealed that the Government's contingency plans for a withdrawal of our combat troops in Iraq is whatever the Bush Administration tells them," Mr McClelland said later.
"But such an important national security task should never be delegated to the administration of another country, however friendly."
Mr Howard agreed with Mr Rudd that overall violence in Iraq had worsened over the past 12 months. But he said he had left Iraq last week in a more optimistic frame of mind than when he arrived.
As well as visiting Australian troops, Mr Howard met the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, and the new commander of US forces in the country, General David Petraeus.
Mr Howard said he was impressed by both men, especially Mr Maliki and his commitment to govern for all Iraqis and not just the Shiites.
He said the new surge strategy must be given a chance to work.
"I don't want to read too much into just a few weeks - and what I'm about to say is tinged with the utmost caution - but the early indications are promising," he said.
"There has been some decline in sectarian violence."
Staged pullout from Iraq a priority - Rudd
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald 03/20/2007
THE NATION
KEVIN RUDD has nominated the withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq as a priority should Labor win this year's election.
"My first responsibility will be to then speak with the President of the United States and to speak with the Government of Iraq," the Opposition Leader said yesterday, the fourth anniversary of the US-led invasion.
"I would then commence a process of negotiations with the end point of a staged, negotiated withdrawal of that combat force."
The Prime Minister, John Howard, who will today make a speech arguing the need to stay in Iraq to give the violence-ravaged nation a chance of success, berated Mr Rudd in Parliament yesterday.
Mr Howard said it was inconsistent for Labor to support the war in Afghanistan but oppose the Iraqi war.
"While it's good to defeat terrorists in Afghanistan, it's not good to defeat terrorists in Iraq," Mr Howard goaded. "I find that a puzzling disconnect."
Mr Howard visited Iraq and Afghanistan last week.
With the Iraq war now in its fifth year, Mr Rudd listed statistics showing the secular and terrorist violence and civilian deaths had escalated dramatically over the past 12 months.
Mr Rudd challenged Mr Howard to admit the original strategy had "demonstrably failed".
At one stage, Mr Howard appeared to mishear a question from Labor's foreign affairs spokesman, Robert McClelland.
Mr McClelland asked if Mr Howard was aware of the US plan to withdraw should its current strategy of a surge in troops fail. He further asked whether Australia had a similar contingency plan.
Mr Howard replied: "Yes, it is normal for the contingency to be made."
Labor then asked Mr Howard to outline the strategy but he claimed to have been misrepresented, saying he was aware only of the US plan.
"Perhaps the Prime Minister has accidentally revealed that the Government's contingency plans for a withdrawal of our combat troops in Iraq is whatever the Bush Administration tells them," Mr McClelland said later.
"But such an important national security task should never be delegated to the administration of another country, however friendly."
Mr Howard agreed with Mr Rudd that overall violence in Iraq had worsened over the past 12 months. But he said he had left Iraq last week in a more optimistic frame of mind than when he arrived.
As well as visiting Australian troops, Mr Howard met the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, and the new commander of US forces in the country, General David Petraeus.
Mr Howard said he was impressed by both men, especially Mr Maliki and his commitment to govern for all Iraqis and not just the Shiites.
He said the new surge strategy must be given a chance to work.
"I don't want to read too much into just a few weeks - and what I'm about to say is tinged with the utmost caution - but the early indications are promising," he said.
"There has been some decline in sectarian violence."
Great Britain Leads in Saving the Earth
Political
battle for the planet Voters be warned: Britain is going to save the Earth Locked in a struggle for control of the environmental agenda, Britain's political leaders have committed the nation, and its taxpayers, to stringent new carbon-cutting policies. But, reveals Richard Gray, they are facing tough questions over how much gain there will be for the pain
Source: The Daily Telegraph 03/19/2007
As David Cameron planted a tree in north London last weekend, it was his funky trainers as much as his handy spadework that caught the attention of onlookers.
Cameron was officially marking the Conservative Party's "Green Action Day'', but there was also a message in his green-laced, camouflage-soled footwear. Central Office was happy to let it be known that they were, in fact, recycled from old firemen's trousers and car seats, part of a limited edition of 400 pairs produced to mark last year's 15th anniversary of The Big Issue.
As a symbol, it was true to form from a politician who, since taking over his party's leadership, has rarely missed an opportunity to advertise his green credentials, whether by cycling to work or putting a windmill on his house.
Cameron's intention has been to rebrand the Tories as a party in tune with the concerns of the modern-day voter. And, as the polls show, it has been working. But last week, the gameplan went awry. The Tory leader unveiled concrete proposals to tackle climate change, harsh new taxes on air travel, including a strict personal flight "allowance'' which would penalise anyone who took more than one flight a year. He drew stinging criticism from the aviation industry, tourist groups and business leaders.
Gordon Brown and his supporters were cock-a-hoop. A day later, as the Government unveiled its own climate-change action plan, the Chancellor lost no time in declaring himself on the side of "incentives'', rather than "penalties'', to encourage voters to behave in an environmentally friendly fashion.
The Government's proposals locked five-year targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions into legislation, legally binding future governments to cut carbon emissions by 60 per cent before 2050. Mr Brown opted for a light touch on details, urging, for example, people to change the type of lightbulb they use.
As one ally said: "Cameron got it wrong. He misread the public mood and made big mistakes in the presentation of his proposals. Gordon was more in tune with what people want - practical proposals and incentives not penalties.''
Whoever are the short-term winners and losers at Westminster, it is clear that an environmental "arms race'' has begun. For the foreseeable future, our politics will no longer be simply blue, red and yellow, but made up of different shades of green. Voters be warned: Britain is going to save the planet.
It is, to put it mildly, an ambitious goal. And this weekend, a number of searching questions are being asked. For example, can a country that contributes just 2 per cent of the world's carbon emissions really make much of a difference to the planet? And, if not, are politicians justified in asking the voters to dramatically change their lifestyles and, inevitably, pay more tax?
Similarly prohibitive measures are not being undertaken by China, India and America, the world's largest polluters. In fact, with the science around global warming still evolving, some ask whether now is the right time to fix on specific policy commitments at all.
And then there is the basic question: has it been definitively proved that human behaviour is causing the planet to warm? Even scientists who believe this to be the case have begun to warn of the dangers of "eco-hype'' - of exaggerating the nature and speed of climate change.
It is now generally agreed in the scientific community that the Earth is getting hotter, with environmentalists insisting the temperature rise is due to carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by human activities. Over the past 50 years, global temperatures have risen by about half a degree, which they link to a rise in carbon dioxide levels of 25 per cent since the industrial revolution. The prediction is that global temperatures are likely to rise by between 1.8C to 4C over the next 100 years.
Such rises would send British summer temperatures soaring, making it normal to experience the kind of weather seen during the 2003 heatwave, when temperatures climbed to 37C. More than 2,000 people died as a result.
The predictions for the effects elsewhere in the world are more catastrophic: widespread extinctions, swathes of farmland turned to desert and entire swathes of coastland drowning under rising seas.
The sceptics accept that the earth is heating up. But they think the warming is due to its natural cycles, and so doubt that humans are the cause. Therefore there is little humans can do to stop it.
Prof Bob Carter, a marine geophysicist at James Cook University, in Queensland, Australia, argues: "Public utterances by prominent persons are marked by an ignorance of the important facts and uncertainties of climate science.
"The evidence for dangerous human-caused global-warming forced by human carbon-dioxide emissions is extremely weak. That the satellite temperature record shows no substantial warming since 1978, and that even the ground-based thermometer statistic records no warming since 1998, indicates that a key line of circumstantial evidence for human-caused change ... is now negated.''
The debate is far from over. The arguments of doubters suffered a significant blow when Channel 4's recent high-profile programme, The Great Climate Change Swindle, which presented the sceptical view, was accused of inaccuracy. One contributor claims he was misled over the programme's content.
But there is also flak heading the way of Al Gore, the former US vice-president, who won an Academy Award for his film on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth. At the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, Prof Don Easterbrook, a geologist from Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts of his concerns at "inaccuracies'' in Mr Gore's arguments: "The real danger of the IPCC report and Al Gore's film is they suggest that, by diminishing carbon dioxide levels, it will solve the global-warming problem and we won't have to worry about the catastrophe they are predicting.''
For the public, the science of global warming remains baffling. Advocates on both sides of the argument can produce reams of statistics to support their opposing views. A poll by ICM, published yesterday in the Guardian, revealed that voters are less engaged with green issues, and more doubtful of the ability of politicians to tackle climate change, than either Gordon Brown or David Cameron might have thought. More than a third said they did not believe MPs could tackle climate change at all. Between them, the Tories and Labour attracted only 30 per cent support for their green strategies.
This growing public disaffection may be behind a sudden move by some prominent climate-change scientists to warn against sensationalist predictions on the part of the environmental lobby.
"It is dangerous for politicians to say the science of climate change is now complete,'' said Dr Piers Forster, an earth and environment researcher at the University of Leeds and a lead author on the UN's influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Dr Forster believes human activities are without doubt causing the climate to warm, but insists that it is impossible to make clear policy decisions at local or even on continental-wide levels at this stage.
"We really don't know how it is going to effect our day-to-day lives over the next 100 years,'' he states. "People are making decisions about exactly what to do without making sure they are based on the best scientific evidence we have.''
Fears about this "eco-hype'' were echoed yesterday by two senior members of the Royal Meteorological Society at a conference in Oxford. Profs Paul Hardaker and Chris Collier hit out at researchers who, they say, are "overplaying'' the global warming message. Some of their peers, they warn, are making claims about future impacts that cannot be justified by the science. Regardless of the ongoing debate, Britain's political parties have chosen to fight among themselves for the privilege of saving the planet. Last week, it was the Government's draft Climate Change Bill that won most praise - although it also attracted criticism. It aims to use the law to bind future governments to cutting carbon emmissions by 60 per cent.
Environmental groups claimed this did not go far enough towards addressing the problem. The latest report from the IPCC, published in January, said that an 80 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions was needed to prevent concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere from rising further.
Under the draft Bill, businesses could see "caps'' being placed on the amount of carbon dioxide they are allowed to emit. Those wishing to use more energy would be forced to buy low-carbon technology or purchase carbon credits.
Julian Morris, the executive director of the think tank International Policy Network (IPN), believes this could harm Britain by making it more expensive for companies to operate here. "Companies that are able to will simply move their production to countries where they don't have such penalties. While we will see greenhouse gas emissions going down locally, we may end up shifting those emissions elsewhere.''
The Government estimates that meeting the 60 per cent reduction target will cost about one per cent of the country's gross domestic product. But experts fear that Britain is still ill-equipped to switch to a low-carbon lifestyle.
"It is not obvious we have all the infrastructure and institutional tools in place to do this properly just yet,'' warned Dr Dave Frame, of Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute. "The clean technology needed to reduce emissions is not in place.''
Unlike the Tories, the Government excluded the aviation and shipping industries from its Bill. As well as calling for new taxes on air travel, Mr Cameron's consultation paper included levying VAT or fuel duty on domestic flights for the first time.
While there were a few noises of approval from environmental groups, the policy was branded a "tax on fun'' by the travel industry and consumer groups. Business leaders warned that it would harm the economy by stifling commercial travel. Critics point out that aviation accounts for just 10 per cent of the carbon emissions from transportation and about 2 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions. And, despite concern about the rapid growth of the aviation industry, less than half of the UK's population flies each year.
"There is little point in Britain going heavily after the aviation industry, unless it is part of a wider approach internationally to cut carbon emissions,'' said Mr Frame. "Trying to lead behaviour change through taxation works only if people have something to change to. At this stage, we run the risk of green taxes becoming a way of raising revenue rather than changing behaviour.''
Despite their embrace of radical environmental policies, neither party has a convincing answer as to why Britain should take the global lead on climate change, other than as a "moral obligation''.
In worldwide terms, Britain contributes just a fraction of total carbon emissions - about 544 million tons. By comparison, America pumps out more than 5,844 million tons. China and India, two of the fastest-growing economies, emit 3,263 million tons and 1,220 million tons respectively. China alone has more than 2,000 coal-fired power stations in operation and a new one opens every four days. If the UK stopped all of its emissions today, China would have replaced the lot within a year.
In such developing countries, climate-change issues receive little attention. What concerns the people and politicians is how to drag themselves out of poverty. Almost 300 million Indians still live on less than 50p a day: convincing them that development must be balanced with care for the environment is not easy, even though they are most at risk from climate change.
"The climate debate has been captured by people who have at heart an interest in exerting control over people's lives rather than letting them live better lives,'' said Julian Morris, from IPN. "It is extremely sad to see Britain's political parties trying to capitalise on this.''
battle for the planet Voters be warned: Britain is going to save the Earth Locked in a struggle for control of the environmental agenda, Britain's political leaders have committed the nation, and its taxpayers, to stringent new carbon-cutting policies. But, reveals Richard Gray, they are facing tough questions over how much gain there will be for the pain
Source: The Daily Telegraph 03/19/2007
As David Cameron planted a tree in north London last weekend, it was his funky trainers as much as his handy spadework that caught the attention of onlookers.
Cameron was officially marking the Conservative Party's "Green Action Day'', but there was also a message in his green-laced, camouflage-soled footwear. Central Office was happy to let it be known that they were, in fact, recycled from old firemen's trousers and car seats, part of a limited edition of 400 pairs produced to mark last year's 15th anniversary of The Big Issue.
As a symbol, it was true to form from a politician who, since taking over his party's leadership, has rarely missed an opportunity to advertise his green credentials, whether by cycling to work or putting a windmill on his house.
Cameron's intention has been to rebrand the Tories as a party in tune with the concerns of the modern-day voter. And, as the polls show, it has been working. But last week, the gameplan went awry. The Tory leader unveiled concrete proposals to tackle climate change, harsh new taxes on air travel, including a strict personal flight "allowance'' which would penalise anyone who took more than one flight a year. He drew stinging criticism from the aviation industry, tourist groups and business leaders.
Gordon Brown and his supporters were cock-a-hoop. A day later, as the Government unveiled its own climate-change action plan, the Chancellor lost no time in declaring himself on the side of "incentives'', rather than "penalties'', to encourage voters to behave in an environmentally friendly fashion.
The Government's proposals locked five-year targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions into legislation, legally binding future governments to cut carbon emissions by 60 per cent before 2050. Mr Brown opted for a light touch on details, urging, for example, people to change the type of lightbulb they use.
As one ally said: "Cameron got it wrong. He misread the public mood and made big mistakes in the presentation of his proposals. Gordon was more in tune with what people want - practical proposals and incentives not penalties.''
Whoever are the short-term winners and losers at Westminster, it is clear that an environmental "arms race'' has begun. For the foreseeable future, our politics will no longer be simply blue, red and yellow, but made up of different shades of green. Voters be warned: Britain is going to save the planet.
It is, to put it mildly, an ambitious goal. And this weekend, a number of searching questions are being asked. For example, can a country that contributes just 2 per cent of the world's carbon emissions really make much of a difference to the planet? And, if not, are politicians justified in asking the voters to dramatically change their lifestyles and, inevitably, pay more tax?
Similarly prohibitive measures are not being undertaken by China, India and America, the world's largest polluters. In fact, with the science around global warming still evolving, some ask whether now is the right time to fix on specific policy commitments at all.
And then there is the basic question: has it been definitively proved that human behaviour is causing the planet to warm? Even scientists who believe this to be the case have begun to warn of the dangers of "eco-hype'' - of exaggerating the nature and speed of climate change.
It is now generally agreed in the scientific community that the Earth is getting hotter, with environmentalists insisting the temperature rise is due to carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by human activities. Over the past 50 years, global temperatures have risen by about half a degree, which they link to a rise in carbon dioxide levels of 25 per cent since the industrial revolution. The prediction is that global temperatures are likely to rise by between 1.8C to 4C over the next 100 years.
Such rises would send British summer temperatures soaring, making it normal to experience the kind of weather seen during the 2003 heatwave, when temperatures climbed to 37C. More than 2,000 people died as a result.
The predictions for the effects elsewhere in the world are more catastrophic: widespread extinctions, swathes of farmland turned to desert and entire swathes of coastland drowning under rising seas.
The sceptics accept that the earth is heating up. But they think the warming is due to its natural cycles, and so doubt that humans are the cause. Therefore there is little humans can do to stop it.
Prof Bob Carter, a marine geophysicist at James Cook University, in Queensland, Australia, argues: "Public utterances by prominent persons are marked by an ignorance of the important facts and uncertainties of climate science.
"The evidence for dangerous human-caused global-warming forced by human carbon-dioxide emissions is extremely weak. That the satellite temperature record shows no substantial warming since 1978, and that even the ground-based thermometer statistic records no warming since 1998, indicates that a key line of circumstantial evidence for human-caused change ... is now negated.''
The debate is far from over. The arguments of doubters suffered a significant blow when Channel 4's recent high-profile programme, The Great Climate Change Swindle, which presented the sceptical view, was accused of inaccuracy. One contributor claims he was misled over the programme's content.
But there is also flak heading the way of Al Gore, the former US vice-president, who won an Academy Award for his film on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth. At the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, Prof Don Easterbrook, a geologist from Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts of his concerns at "inaccuracies'' in Mr Gore's arguments: "The real danger of the IPCC report and Al Gore's film is they suggest that, by diminishing carbon dioxide levels, it will solve the global-warming problem and we won't have to worry about the catastrophe they are predicting.''
For the public, the science of global warming remains baffling. Advocates on both sides of the argument can produce reams of statistics to support their opposing views. A poll by ICM, published yesterday in the Guardian, revealed that voters are less engaged with green issues, and more doubtful of the ability of politicians to tackle climate change, than either Gordon Brown or David Cameron might have thought. More than a third said they did not believe MPs could tackle climate change at all. Between them, the Tories and Labour attracted only 30 per cent support for their green strategies.
This growing public disaffection may be behind a sudden move by some prominent climate-change scientists to warn against sensationalist predictions on the part of the environmental lobby.
"It is dangerous for politicians to say the science of climate change is now complete,'' said Dr Piers Forster, an earth and environment researcher at the University of Leeds and a lead author on the UN's influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Dr Forster believes human activities are without doubt causing the climate to warm, but insists that it is impossible to make clear policy decisions at local or even on continental-wide levels at this stage.
"We really don't know how it is going to effect our day-to-day lives over the next 100 years,'' he states. "People are making decisions about exactly what to do without making sure they are based on the best scientific evidence we have.''
Fears about this "eco-hype'' were echoed yesterday by two senior members of the Royal Meteorological Society at a conference in Oxford. Profs Paul Hardaker and Chris Collier hit out at researchers who, they say, are "overplaying'' the global warming message. Some of their peers, they warn, are making claims about future impacts that cannot be justified by the science. Regardless of the ongoing debate, Britain's political parties have chosen to fight among themselves for the privilege of saving the planet. Last week, it was the Government's draft Climate Change Bill that won most praise - although it also attracted criticism. It aims to use the law to bind future governments to cutting carbon emmissions by 60 per cent.
Environmental groups claimed this did not go far enough towards addressing the problem. The latest report from the IPCC, published in January, said that an 80 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions was needed to prevent concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere from rising further.
Under the draft Bill, businesses could see "caps'' being placed on the amount of carbon dioxide they are allowed to emit. Those wishing to use more energy would be forced to buy low-carbon technology or purchase carbon credits.
Julian Morris, the executive director of the think tank International Policy Network (IPN), believes this could harm Britain by making it more expensive for companies to operate here. "Companies that are able to will simply move their production to countries where they don't have such penalties. While we will see greenhouse gas emissions going down locally, we may end up shifting those emissions elsewhere.''
The Government estimates that meeting the 60 per cent reduction target will cost about one per cent of the country's gross domestic product. But experts fear that Britain is still ill-equipped to switch to a low-carbon lifestyle.
"It is not obvious we have all the infrastructure and institutional tools in place to do this properly just yet,'' warned Dr Dave Frame, of Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute. "The clean technology needed to reduce emissions is not in place.''
Unlike the Tories, the Government excluded the aviation and shipping industries from its Bill. As well as calling for new taxes on air travel, Mr Cameron's consultation paper included levying VAT or fuel duty on domestic flights for the first time.
While there were a few noises of approval from environmental groups, the policy was branded a "tax on fun'' by the travel industry and consumer groups. Business leaders warned that it would harm the economy by stifling commercial travel. Critics point out that aviation accounts for just 10 per cent of the carbon emissions from transportation and about 2 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions. And, despite concern about the rapid growth of the aviation industry, less than half of the UK's population flies each year.
"There is little point in Britain going heavily after the aviation industry, unless it is part of a wider approach internationally to cut carbon emissions,'' said Mr Frame. "Trying to lead behaviour change through taxation works only if people have something to change to. At this stage, we run the risk of green taxes becoming a way of raising revenue rather than changing behaviour.''
Despite their embrace of radical environmental policies, neither party has a convincing answer as to why Britain should take the global lead on climate change, other than as a "moral obligation''.
In worldwide terms, Britain contributes just a fraction of total carbon emissions - about 544 million tons. By comparison, America pumps out more than 5,844 million tons. China and India, two of the fastest-growing economies, emit 3,263 million tons and 1,220 million tons respectively. China alone has more than 2,000 coal-fired power stations in operation and a new one opens every four days. If the UK stopped all of its emissions today, China would have replaced the lot within a year.
In such developing countries, climate-change issues receive little attention. What concerns the people and politicians is how to drag themselves out of poverty. Almost 300 million Indians still live on less than 50p a day: convincing them that development must be balanced with care for the environment is not easy, even though they are most at risk from climate change.
"The climate debate has been captured by people who have at heart an interest in exerting control over people's lives rather than letting them live better lives,'' said Julian Morris, from IPN. "It is extremely sad to see Britain's political parties trying to capitalise on this.''
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
President Bush Must Fire Gonzalez
If the Justice Department cannot maintain the highest standards of ethics in addition to engaging in a mission of cutting off partisanship before it enters the work of the department, then may God help the United States of America.
The President’s refusal to allow his staff to testify under subpoena has exacerbated this issue. There is that nothing that should be occurring in the White House that should not be public knowledge with the exception of matters of national security, intelligence or that violates individual rights to privacy. White House staffers are not obliged to tell the truth if they are not under oath. The public has the right to know the truth of this matter, which I question if it is constitutionally protected under executive privileged. This Administration is coming to a point where the President will be forced to pardon himself.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Featured News!!!: Halliburton Moves Abroad
Commentary: How can we as American citizens tolerate this private company, Halliburton, that besides the military has received the largest bulk of taxpayer dollars in this War on Terror to move its corporate head quarters and its jobs to the Middle East? I do not support such a move and encourage Congress to draft legislation restricting this move and all future companies whom are the recipients of millions of American dollars from setting up shop outside the United States. My analysis is that Halliburton is moving in order to avoid investigation of its billing, cost, fees, salaries and accounting practices here in the U.S.
By SONYA CRAWFORD
March 11, 2007 — The much-maligned defense contractor Halliburton is moving its corporate headquarters from Houston to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
"The Eastern hemisphere is a market that is more heavily weighted toward oil exploration and production opportunities," said CEO Dave Lesar at an energy conference in nearby Bahrain. "And growing our business here will bring more balance to Halliburton's overall portfolio."
The draw is obvious. Dubai's friendly tax laws will add to Halliburton's bottom line. Last year, it earned $2.3 billion in profits.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-N.H., called the company's move "corporate greed at its worst." He added, "This is an insult to the U.S. soldiers and taxpayers who paid the tab for their no-bid contracts and endured their overcharges for all these years. At the same time they'll be avoiding U.S. taxes, I'm sure they won't stop insisting on taking their profits in cold hard U.S. cash."
Fellow Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has investigated contractor fraud, is planning to hold a hearing.
"This is a surprising development," he said. "I want to understand the ramifications for U.S. taxpayers and national security."
Waxman's committee estimates that Halliburton, once headed by Vice President Cheney, has received contracts valued at an estimated $25.7 billion for its work in Iraq.
Among the company's low points are said to be serving troops spoiled food, exposing troops to contaminated water from the Euphrates River and failing to adequately protect its contractors.
Last month, the government's special inspector general for Iraq found Halliburton overcharged the U.S. government $2.7 billion, a finding the company is still contesting.
Last month, the government's special inspector general for Iraq found Halliburton overcharged the U.S. government $2.7 billion, a finding the company is still contesting.
"This is part and parcel of the way they do business," said Robert Greenwald, the man behind the film, "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers," which documented Halliburton's excesses. "I hope it increases the number of investigations and subpoenas that they will be subjected to."
Halliburton will maintain a corporate office in Houston.Among the company's low points are said to be serving troops spoiled food, exposing troops to contaminated water from the Euphrates River and failing to adequately protect its contractors.
Last month, the government's special inspector general for Iraq found Halliburton overcharged the U.S. government $2.7 billion, a finding the company is still contesting.
"This is part and parcel of the way they do business," said Robert Greenwald, the man behind the film, "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers," which documented Halliburton's excesses. "I hope it increases the number of investigations and subpoenas that they will be subjected to."
Halliburton will maintain a corporate office in Houston.
Halliburton will maintain a corporate office in Houston.
Comments welcome
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Senate debates withdrawing US troops
Political
Senate debates withdrawing US troops from Iraq within one year
Source: Agence France Presse 03/14/2007
WASHINGTON, March 14, 2007 (AFP) -
Congress on Wednesday began its latest showdown over Iraq, this time over setting a deadline of a little more than a year for full withdrawal of US troops from the war-ravaged country.
Republicans and Democrats in the US Senate found themselves on opposite sides of a heated debate over whether or not to set the date of March 31, 2008 for the complete withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq.
Under the legislation drafted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, US troop redeployments would have to commence within 120 days of the bill's passage.
Reid said Wednesday that after nearly five years of failed Bush policies in Iraq, the time had come for a new direction.
"This war has taken a tremendous toll on our country, our troops, and their families, and our standing in the world," he said on the Senate floor.
Another top Democrat, US Senator Ted Kennedy, called the Iraq debate -- which has consumed many hours of floor time in the weeks since Democrats took control of Congress last January -- "the overarching issue of our time."
"This is a defining moment. The American people are watching. The world is watching," Kennedy said.
"The issue is clear: Will we stand with our soldiers by changing their mission and beginning to bring them home? Or will we stand with the President and keep our soldiers in Iraq's civil war?"
Kennedy continued: "History will judge us. We can either continue down the President's perilous path, or embrace a new direction."
Democrats believe they have a mandate from US voters to begin a US troop withdrawal, after winning big in November elections and a stream of opinion polls showing strong public support for leaving Iraq.
But Republicans are zealous in their defense of keeping US troops in Iraq, and even adding thousands more as part of the "surge" strategy put in place by US President George W. Bush.
US Senator John McCain -- a US presidential contender and perhaps the most outspoken advocate in the Senate for keeping US troops in Iraq -- said repercussions of withdrawing US troops would make the debacle of Vietnam seem minor by comparison.
"If we walk away from Iraq now, we risk a failed state in the heart of the Middle East, a haven for international terrorists, an invitation to regional war in this economically vital area, and a humanitarian disaster that could involve millions of people," said McCain.
"If we walk away from Iraq, we will be back -- possibly in the context of a wider war in the world's most volatile region."
His words reprised an argument made earlier in the week by US Vice President Dick Cheney, in a speech to the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobby group.
"A sudden withdrawal of our coalition would dissipate much of the effort that's gone into fighting the global war on terror and result in chaos and mounting danger," the US vice president said.
"For the sake of our own security, we will not stand by and let it happen."
But Reid insisted Wednesday that America simply could no longer sustain the high price of its military mission there, noting: "3,200 American soldiers, sailors and marines have been killed in Iraq."
"We've seen tens of thousands wounded men and women who have come home to a health care system unprepared and ill-equipped to care for them, our army has been stretched dangerously thin, and our Treasury has been spending week after bloody week two billion dollars each week.
He stressed that he believed US military operations in Iraq have faltered because of lack of leadership by the commander-in-chief.
"President Bush didn't have a plan to win the peace, much less the war," said Reid.
Congress, the Constitution and War Powers
I try to refrain from using such strong words on my blog but I must coin a phrase for the purpose of accurately describing discussions by politicians that Congress does not possess the authority to end the War in Iraq.
The President yes has veto power but G.W. Bush is not a king in addition the President is not granted the final word in regards to War according to the Constitution, Congress can overturn such a veto. The Law clearly gives Congress power in that Congress shall declare war, Congress shall control the purse and Congress shall make law.
These rich big wigs dressed as representatives on Capital Hill all need to resign allowing regular folk to take their seats.
A vote by Congress even under threat of veto would be a grand political statement that the President must then respond too. A member of Congress should never allow for the shadow of a presidential veto to sway their solemn duty to represent their constituents.
Such an assertion that Congress lacks the authority to end this War in Iraq, and I say this with all reasonable respect, is out right bull shit.
Comments Welcome.
Tell your Rep what you think about Iraq:
Tell your Senator what you think about Iraq:
Clinton: Vast right wing conspiracy is real
Political
"Clinton: Vast right wing conspiracy is real
Source: Associated Press Newswires 03/13/2007
WASHINGTON (AP) - The "vast, right-wing conspiracy" is back, presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is warning, using a phrase she once coined to describe partisan plotting.
Once derided for her use of the phrase, Clinton is now trying to turn the imagery to her advantage.
Speaking Tuesday to Democratic municipal officials, the New York senator used the term to hammer Republicans on election irregularities.
She also used the phrase similarly during a campaign appearance over the weekend in New Hampshire.
Clinton was first lady when she famously charged allegations of an affair between her then-president husband Bill Clinton and White House intern Monica Lewinsky were the result of a conservative conspiracy.
As evidence of the affair eventually came to light, the comment was ridiculed.But many Democrats have since insisted that Clinton was correct, pointing to the well-documented efforts by conservative financier Richard Mellon Scaife to fund a network of anti-Clinton investigations.
On Tuesday, she asserted the conspiracy is alive and well, and cited as proof the Election Day 2002 case of phone jamming in New Hampshire, a case in which two Republican operatives pleaded guilty to criminal charges, and a third was convicted.
"To the New Hampshire Democratic party's credit, they sued and the trail led all the way to the Republican National Committee," Clinton said.
"So if anybody tells you there is no vast right-wing conspiracy, tell them that New Hampshire has proven it in court," she said.
Former RNC operative James Tobin was convicted of telephone harassment and appealed his conviction. The investigation arose after Democratic organizers' phones were overwhelmed by annoying hang-up calls hindering their get-out-the-vote efforts.
Clinton accused the GOP of a number of other anti-voter actions, including intimidating phone calls during the contentious 2006 congressional elections.
New Hampshire Democratic Party chairwoman Kathy Sullivan said she absolutely agreed with the senator's description of the case.
"People think we're paranoid when we talk about the vast right-wing conspiracy, but there is a real connection of these groups -- the same names keep popping up," said Sullivan. "They are the most disgusting group of political thugs that I have ever seen."
RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt responded that Democrats "might be disappointed to learn that almost a decade later, the senator's playbook consists of little more than a resurrection of Clinton-era talking points."
Clinton made her charge of conspiracy in response to a question about her proposed bill that would make Election Day a federal holiday, and make it a crime to send misleading or fraudulent information to voters.
She also said the government should do more to end unusually long lines at certain polling places.
"It just so happens that many of those places where people are waiting for hours are places where people of color are voting or young people are voting. That is un-American, and we're going to end it," Clinton said. "
"Clinton: Vast right wing conspiracy is real
Source: Associated Press Newswires 03/13/2007
WASHINGTON (AP) - The "vast, right-wing conspiracy" is back, presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is warning, using a phrase she once coined to describe partisan plotting.
Once derided for her use of the phrase, Clinton is now trying to turn the imagery to her advantage.
Speaking Tuesday to Democratic municipal officials, the New York senator used the term to hammer Republicans on election irregularities.
She also used the phrase similarly during a campaign appearance over the weekend in New Hampshire.
Clinton was first lady when she famously charged allegations of an affair between her then-president husband Bill Clinton and White House intern Monica Lewinsky were the result of a conservative conspiracy.
As evidence of the affair eventually came to light, the comment was ridiculed.But many Democrats have since insisted that Clinton was correct, pointing to the well-documented efforts by conservative financier Richard Mellon Scaife to fund a network of anti-Clinton investigations.
On Tuesday, she asserted the conspiracy is alive and well, and cited as proof the Election Day 2002 case of phone jamming in New Hampshire, a case in which two Republican operatives pleaded guilty to criminal charges, and a third was convicted.
"To the New Hampshire Democratic party's credit, they sued and the trail led all the way to the Republican National Committee," Clinton said.
"So if anybody tells you there is no vast right-wing conspiracy, tell them that New Hampshire has proven it in court," she said.
Former RNC operative James Tobin was convicted of telephone harassment and appealed his conviction. The investigation arose after Democratic organizers' phones were overwhelmed by annoying hang-up calls hindering their get-out-the-vote efforts.
Clinton accused the GOP of a number of other anti-voter actions, including intimidating phone calls during the contentious 2006 congressional elections.
New Hampshire Democratic Party chairwoman Kathy Sullivan said she absolutely agreed with the senator's description of the case.
"People think we're paranoid when we talk about the vast right-wing conspiracy, but there is a real connection of these groups -- the same names keep popping up," said Sullivan. "They are the most disgusting group of political thugs that I have ever seen."
RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt responded that Democrats "might be disappointed to learn that almost a decade later, the senator's playbook consists of little more than a resurrection of Clinton-era talking points."
Clinton made her charge of conspiracy in response to a question about her proposed bill that would make Election Day a federal holiday, and make it a crime to send misleading or fraudulent information to voters.
She also said the government should do more to end unusually long lines at certain polling places.
"It just so happens that many of those places where people are waiting for hours are places where people of color are voting or young people are voting. That is un-American, and we're going to end it," Clinton said. "
Monday, March 12, 2007
300: Prepare for Glory
Checks & Balances Movie Rating: C+
Yahoo Users: B+
AOL Movies: 4 Stars
This movie was good but much more could have been done to make it a great movie. Basically its a bunch of fighting and legs being chopped off. If a little more time would have been devoted to the Queen and her political adventures while her husband was away defending Sparta the movie would have had more substance. The ending also seemed to be rushed. You'll have to watch the movie to see for yourself. C+ from C&B.
Best role goes to the Queen (Lena Headey)
Should Attorney General Gonzales Resign?
Political
"THE NATION; Gonzales urged to quit `for the nation'; The No. 3 Democrat in the Senate says the attorney general has politicized the Justice Department.
Source: Los Angeles Times 03/12/2007
WASHINGTON
U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales has so politicized the Justice Department that he should step down for the sake of the nation, the Senate's third-ranking Democrat said Sunday.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York -- citing recent disclosures about the FBI's improper use of administrative subpoenas to obtain private records and the controversy over the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys in December -- told CBS' "Face the Nation" that Gonzales, who previously served as White House counsel, was "no longer just the president's lawyer, but has a higher obligation to the rule of law and the Constitution."
Schumer, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, charged that under Gonzales the Justice Department had become even more politicized than it was under President Bush's first attorney general, John Ashcroft.
"And so," Schumer said, "I think for the sake of the nation, Atty. Gen. Gonzales should step down."
Appearing on the same program, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, did not go so far as to suggest that Gonzales step down.
Appearing on the same program, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, did not go so far as to suggest that Gonzales step down.
But he said that a report released Friday by the Justice Department's inspector general raised questions about the investigatory powers given to federal agents under the Patriot Act, which Congress reauthorized last year.
Resignation, Specter said, is "a question for the president and the attorney general, but I do think there have been a lot of problems. Before we come to conclusions, I think we need to know more facts."
Specter said the inspector general's report showed widespread violations of Patriot Act requirements designed to protect privacy rights of U.S. citizens.
Stating that the act has been "very badly abused," Specter said Judiciary Committee hearings planned for this month -- including one with FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III -- not only should look at the failures but should include "very active consideration about withdrawing some of those powers."
As for the alleged firing of U.S. attorneys for political reasons, Specter said he was concerned about the removal of the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, David C. Iglesias, who has said he received calls last year from two GOP members of Congress from New Mexico, Sen. Pete V. Domenici and Rep.
Heather A. Wilson. The legislators, he told Congress last week, were asking about the progress of a corruption investigation against Democrats in the state, and he said he interpreted the calls as pressure to bring indictments before the 2006 midterm elections.
Specter said he was less concerned whether politics had been involved in the removal in 2005 of a U.S. attorney in Maryland, Thomas DiBiagio. Specter said DiBiagio had claimed similar political pressure from legislators but had failed to immediately report any calls he had received. There were "really good reasons" for DiBiagio's dismissal, Specter added.
Though Justice Department officials say that the U.S. attorneys ousted in December were removed for performance-related reasons, critics have charged that the dismissals were politically motivated and, in some cases, followed complaints that the prosecutors had failed to aggressively investigate Democrats.
Appearing on CNN's "Late Edition," Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), another Judiciary Committee member, said that "Gonzales has lost the confidence of the vast majority of Americans."
Responding to the senators' comments, a Justice Department spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse, said in a written statement that Gonzales had demonstrated "decisive leadership by demanding a new level of accountability."
Responding to the senators' comments, a Justice Department spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse, said in a written statement that Gonzales had demonstrated "decisive leadership by demanding a new level of accountability."
On Saturday, during a question-and-answer session with reporters in Montevideo, Uruguay, Bush expressed continued confidence in both Gonzales and Mueller. "
6 months left in Iraq
Republican leaders are claiming that liberals do not support the troops. It seems that Democratic leaders are afraid of taking a clear stance on the Iraq War, so let me entertain you with what I believe.
The work of U.S. troops in Iraq in done. It is time to bring all American troops back home.
The House is discussing legislation to task the Bush Administration with providing results in Iraq by July 2007. My opinion is based on what I have heard military generals and a former soldier say; that American troops could be withdrawn from Iraq in 6 months.
I urge and propose for the United States House and the Senate to vote to end the Iraq War and begin bringing our soldiers home starting September 2007. To make this date LAW for the final End of War against Iraq.
No matter what any corrupted political pundit will tell you, it was in fact the War in Iraq that gave the Democrats control of Congress. It is their mandate to end this debacle. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid must lead the nation in this transition and allow for the House Bills on Iraq to be voting on. The message sent by the American people is not a desire for more of the same or even tolerance for a change in strategy. The American people spoke; WE want an end to this war.
The work of U.S. troops in Iraq in done. It is time to bring all American troops back home.
The House is discussing legislation to task the Bush Administration with providing results in Iraq by July 2007. My opinion is based on what I have heard military generals and a former soldier say; that American troops could be withdrawn from Iraq in 6 months.
I urge and propose for the United States House and the Senate to vote to end the Iraq War and begin bringing our soldiers home starting September 2007. To make this date LAW for the final End of War against Iraq.
No matter what any corrupted political pundit will tell you, it was in fact the War in Iraq that gave the Democrats control of Congress. It is their mandate to end this debacle. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid must lead the nation in this transition and allow for the House Bills on Iraq to be voting on. The message sent by the American people is not a desire for more of the same or even tolerance for a change in strategy. The American people spoke; WE want an end to this war.
All Africa: Education
This African country is bickering over something as pettie as how its teachers wear thier hair while these countries are dead last in eduation. The problem is obviously not teh teachers but the adminitratiors whom allowed for standards to be loosened at all.
Political
"6 Teachers, Headmaster in Dispute Over Dreadlocks
Source: All Africa 03/12/2007
Harare, Mar 12, 2007 (The Herald/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) --
SIX teachers at Glen View High 1 School who wear dreadlocks are embroiled in a dispute with the head of the school over their locks.
The headmaster said teachers were role models who must be exemplary to pupils.
However, Rastafarianism has been recognised in Zimbabwean courts as a religion that has developed over the years to a dominant political ideology deeply rooted in Pan-Africanism and the class struggle.
In its modern form, it embraces the notion of "self-dignity and self-respect of the black majority" following years of slavery. It stresses the equality of all races.
But Glen View High 1 headmaster Mr Alois Maronga said wearing locks was "dirty" and had no place in Zimbabwean culture.
Mr Maronga last week told the teachers that if they failed to comply with his instruction they risked being sacked.
He made the remarks after the Public Service Commission had noted deterioration in standards of dress by civil servants and came up with a list of acceptable dressing.
The PSC issued a circular to all heads of ministries and departments, including headmasters, on the new standard of dress required.
In an interview, the teachers, who d
eclined to be named, said Mr Maronga convened a meeting after the PSC issued a circular on the new dress standards for civil servants.
The circular did not mention anything on hairstyles but the teachers said Mr Maronga and his deputy Mrs Chenai Magadzire insisted that the six teachers at the school shave off their dreadlocks.
Five of the teachers are women while and they wear the dreadlocks for different reasons.
Some believe in Rastafarianism while for others it is just a mere expression of fashion and style.
"They said we should shave the dreadlocks but we know that it was not part of the circular and we challenged them to show us where it was stated that dreadlocks were no longer allowed," one of the teachers said.
The teachers said Mr Maronga summoned them to his office one by one and threatened to charge each of them with misconduct if they failed to comply.
"He (Mr Maronga) told us that the Secretary of Education, Sport and Culture, Dr Steven Mahere, did not want dreadlocks and we should remove them without fail or would be charged with misconduct," another teacher said.
The teachers said they were making consultations and would challenge the move if the school head continued to pester them.
"This is a clear violation of our rights and we know of cases that have already set a precedent, so we will not be afraid of intimidation.
"But we honestly believe that wearing dreadlocks does not mean that you are a thug or a notorious character as most people would want to believe," another furious teacher said.
The teachers also said they had questioned Mr Maronga why he was being harsh against them when even some Members of Parliament wear dreadlocks.
In 2005 former MDC legislator for Highfield Mr Munyaradzi Gwisai was banned to practice as a lawyer for wearing dreadlocks.
He challenged the ban at the Supreme Court, saying that his constitutional rights of freedom of conscience and expression were being infringed and won the case.
The teachers also said the issue had created an unpleasant working environment for them as they were being viewed as outcasts at the school although wearing locks was a symbolic expression inspired by Rastafarianism and fashion.
Mr Maronga, however, said he had only conveyed a message from his principal, the PSC, which banned teachers from wearing revealing clothes and jeans and had only proffered advice to the teachers on their hairstyles.
"We only gave them advice to shave as Rastafarianism is not part of our culture. So it is now up to them to follow or not," Mr Maronga said.
He also dismissed allegations that he had ordered them to cut off their dreadlocks.
Mr Maronga said he had advised the teachers in line with the PSC staff development programme, whose aim is to restore a befitting image in public institutions following the deterioration of standards of dress.
The commission had noted with concern the deterioration and has directed that certain standards of dress be maintained by members during the course of their duties in order to uphold the dignity and formality expected of them.
In the case of women, the PSC banned the wearing of sleeveless tops, sleeveless dresses, strapped dresses or blouses, tops that have low necklines, jeans, see-through garments and mini-skirts.
Men must wear shirts with collar and tie and there is no objection to wearing of tailored safari suits with alternative dress being suits or sports jackets or blazers.
On formal occasions to which members are invited as representatives of their ministries, suits with collar and tie will be worn.
According to the PSC, exceptions are only at the discretion of heads of ministries or departments and normal dress can only be departed from when public servants are working in rural areas or when the duties require different considerations.
The PSC also advised men to always keep formal jackets in their offices in case they are called to meetings and other formal occasions unexpectedly.
Uniformed civil servants such as soldiers and police are also required to be in the fully prescribed uniforms.
A mixture of uniform and non-uniform items is unacceptable.
Both men and women are not expected to turn up for work wearing tennis shoes or tackies.
In the case of men, open sandals should only be worn for medical reasons and it is necessary for the respective heads of departments to request for medical certificates of affected members. "
Political
"6 Teachers, Headmaster in Dispute Over Dreadlocks
Source: All Africa 03/12/2007
Harare, Mar 12, 2007 (The Herald/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) --
SIX teachers at Glen View High 1 School who wear dreadlocks are embroiled in a dispute with the head of the school over their locks.
The headmaster said teachers were role models who must be exemplary to pupils.
However, Rastafarianism has been recognised in Zimbabwean courts as a religion that has developed over the years to a dominant political ideology deeply rooted in Pan-Africanism and the class struggle.
In its modern form, it embraces the notion of "self-dignity and self-respect of the black majority" following years of slavery. It stresses the equality of all races.
But Glen View High 1 headmaster Mr Alois Maronga said wearing locks was "dirty" and had no place in Zimbabwean culture.
Mr Maronga last week told the teachers that if they failed to comply with his instruction they risked being sacked.
He made the remarks after the Public Service Commission had noted deterioration in standards of dress by civil servants and came up with a list of acceptable dressing.
The PSC issued a circular to all heads of ministries and departments, including headmasters, on the new standard of dress required.
In an interview, the teachers, who d
eclined to be named, said Mr Maronga convened a meeting after the PSC issued a circular on the new dress standards for civil servants.
The circular did not mention anything on hairstyles but the teachers said Mr Maronga and his deputy Mrs Chenai Magadzire insisted that the six teachers at the school shave off their dreadlocks.
Five of the teachers are women while and they wear the dreadlocks for different reasons.
Some believe in Rastafarianism while for others it is just a mere expression of fashion and style.
"They said we should shave the dreadlocks but we know that it was not part of the circular and we challenged them to show us where it was stated that dreadlocks were no longer allowed," one of the teachers said.
The teachers said Mr Maronga summoned them to his office one by one and threatened to charge each of them with misconduct if they failed to comply.
"He (Mr Maronga) told us that the Secretary of Education, Sport and Culture, Dr Steven Mahere, did not want dreadlocks and we should remove them without fail or would be charged with misconduct," another teacher said.
The teachers said they were making consultations and would challenge the move if the school head continued to pester them.
"This is a clear violation of our rights and we know of cases that have already set a precedent, so we will not be afraid of intimidation.
"But we honestly believe that wearing dreadlocks does not mean that you are a thug or a notorious character as most people would want to believe," another furious teacher said.
The teachers also said they had questioned Mr Maronga why he was being harsh against them when even some Members of Parliament wear dreadlocks.
In 2005 former MDC legislator for Highfield Mr Munyaradzi Gwisai was banned to practice as a lawyer for wearing dreadlocks.
He challenged the ban at the Supreme Court, saying that his constitutional rights of freedom of conscience and expression were being infringed and won the case.
The teachers also said the issue had created an unpleasant working environment for them as they were being viewed as outcasts at the school although wearing locks was a symbolic expression inspired by Rastafarianism and fashion.
Mr Maronga, however, said he had only conveyed a message from his principal, the PSC, which banned teachers from wearing revealing clothes and jeans and had only proffered advice to the teachers on their hairstyles.
"We only gave them advice to shave as Rastafarianism is not part of our culture. So it is now up to them to follow or not," Mr Maronga said.
He also dismissed allegations that he had ordered them to cut off their dreadlocks.
Mr Maronga said he had advised the teachers in line with the PSC staff development programme, whose aim is to restore a befitting image in public institutions following the deterioration of standards of dress.
The commission had noted with concern the deterioration and has directed that certain standards of dress be maintained by members during the course of their duties in order to uphold the dignity and formality expected of them.
In the case of women, the PSC banned the wearing of sleeveless tops, sleeveless dresses, strapped dresses or blouses, tops that have low necklines, jeans, see-through garments and mini-skirts.
Men must wear shirts with collar and tie and there is no objection to wearing of tailored safari suits with alternative dress being suits or sports jackets or blazers.
On formal occasions to which members are invited as representatives of their ministries, suits with collar and tie will be worn.
According to the PSC, exceptions are only at the discretion of heads of ministries or departments and normal dress can only be departed from when public servants are working in rural areas or when the duties require different considerations.
The PSC also advised men to always keep formal jackets in their offices in case they are called to meetings and other formal occasions unexpectedly.
Uniformed civil servants such as soldiers and police are also required to be in the fully prescribed uniforms.
A mixture of uniform and non-uniform items is unacceptable.
Both men and women are not expected to turn up for work wearing tennis shoes or tackies.
In the case of men, open sandals should only be worn for medical reasons and it is necessary for the respective heads of departments to request for medical certificates of affected members. "
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Teen Agers: Relationship with your Parents
A word of advice for the teen agers, follow the direction of Bible in your relationship with your parents including the decisions you make “honor your father and mother”. However difficult it may seem it’s always the right way. This holds true for even those of us that have better sense and education than the parents God blessed us with. Heed my advice and I promise you that God has a blessing with your name on it.
Here are some scripture you can check out:
“Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Exodus 20:12
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honor thy father and mother: which is the first commandment with promise: that it may be well with thee and thou mayest live long on the Earth.” Ephesians 6: 1-3
"You drink, I'll sniff" Love those kids.
Here are some scripture you can check out:
“Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Exodus 20:12
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honor thy father and mother: which is the first commandment with promise: that it may be well with thee and thou mayest live long on the Earth.” Ephesians 6: 1-3
"You drink, I'll sniff" Love those kids.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
BUSH, GORE AND KATRINA
The legacy of George W. Bush shall be Iraq and Katrina.
Vice President Al Gore would be well positioned to captilize on what happened in New Orleans, tie it with global warming, embrace the black community and take his rightful place as the President of the United States of America. Lets not forget, Gore is from the south and he is a Christian.
Political
Bush works to assure Katrina victims they aren't forgotten
Source: Agence France Presse 03/01/2007
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, March 1, 2007 (AFP) -
US President George W. Bush, under fire for slow reconstruction efforts in areas wrecked by Hurricane Katrina, visited the Gulf of Mexico Thursday telling victims he had not forgotten about them.
"I committed to the people of this part of the world and the Gulf Coast that the federal government would fund recovery and stay committed to the recovery," Bush said before a lunch with Louisiana officials in New Orleans.
"I fully understand that there are frustrations and I want to know the frustrations. And to the extent we can help, we'll help," he said.
Bush also made his 14th trip to the region since the 2005 hurricane, visiting Mississippi and New Orleans, to press local authorities to speed up the use of federal funds.
"Part of the reason I've come down is to tell the people here in the Gulf coast that we still think about them in Washington and that we listen to the governor when he speaks," Bush said at his first stop in the Mississippi coast city of Long Beach.
"The other reason I've come down is, I want the taxpayers of the United States to see first hand what their money has done to help revitalize a series of communities that were literally wiped out because of a major storm," he said in his first visit to the region in six months.
"This is a hopeful day," he said, adding "there's obviously a lot more work to be done."
"But times are changing for the better, and peoples' lives are improving and there is hope," he said in a region of stark contrast between renewed communities and those still struggling to recover.
The Bush administration had already been heavily criticized for its slow response to Katrina after it hit the Gulf of Mexico coast on August 29, 2005, flooding most of New Orleans and leaving about 1,500 people dead.
Bush's popularity started to decline in the wake of the government's dismal reaction to the disaster, in addition to the growing unpopularity of the Iraq war. His job approval rating has hovered around 30 percent, recently hitting new lows.
He came under fire anew over Katrina when he did not mention the disaster-wrecked region during his annual State of the Union speech to Congress in January.
Discontent is particularly sharp in New Orleans, where neighborhoods are still devastated, many schools remain closed and crime remains a problem.
Mayor Ray Nagin has said he would press Bush to speed up federal aid when the two meet later Thursday.
"We all have a sense of urgency about the recovery," said Don Powell, Bush's coordinator of Gulf coast reconstruction.
"But I think it's important to look and put it in perspective about the size of the storm and how overwhelming this storm was," he said, noting that only 53 billion of 110 billion in government aid has been spent locally.
Bush said: "The federal government's role has been to write checks."
"The governor's role and the mayor's role is help to expedite the federal money to the local folks," he said.
Vice President Al Gore would be well positioned to captilize on what happened in New Orleans, tie it with global warming, embrace the black community and take his rightful place as the President of the United States of America. Lets not forget, Gore is from the south and he is a Christian.
Political
Bush works to assure Katrina victims they aren't forgotten
Source: Agence France Presse 03/01/2007
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, March 1, 2007 (AFP) -
US President George W. Bush, under fire for slow reconstruction efforts in areas wrecked by Hurricane Katrina, visited the Gulf of Mexico Thursday telling victims he had not forgotten about them.
"I committed to the people of this part of the world and the Gulf Coast that the federal government would fund recovery and stay committed to the recovery," Bush said before a lunch with Louisiana officials in New Orleans.
"I fully understand that there are frustrations and I want to know the frustrations. And to the extent we can help, we'll help," he said.
Bush also made his 14th trip to the region since the 2005 hurricane, visiting Mississippi and New Orleans, to press local authorities to speed up the use of federal funds.
"Part of the reason I've come down is to tell the people here in the Gulf coast that we still think about them in Washington and that we listen to the governor when he speaks," Bush said at his first stop in the Mississippi coast city of Long Beach.
"The other reason I've come down is, I want the taxpayers of the United States to see first hand what their money has done to help revitalize a series of communities that were literally wiped out because of a major storm," he said in his first visit to the region in six months.
"This is a hopeful day," he said, adding "there's obviously a lot more work to be done."
"But times are changing for the better, and peoples' lives are improving and there is hope," he said in a region of stark contrast between renewed communities and those still struggling to recover.
The Bush administration had already been heavily criticized for its slow response to Katrina after it hit the Gulf of Mexico coast on August 29, 2005, flooding most of New Orleans and leaving about 1,500 people dead.
Bush's popularity started to decline in the wake of the government's dismal reaction to the disaster, in addition to the growing unpopularity of the Iraq war. His job approval rating has hovered around 30 percent, recently hitting new lows.
He came under fire anew over Katrina when he did not mention the disaster-wrecked region during his annual State of the Union speech to Congress in January.
Discontent is particularly sharp in New Orleans, where neighborhoods are still devastated, many schools remain closed and crime remains a problem.
Mayor Ray Nagin has said he would press Bush to speed up federal aid when the two meet later Thursday.
"We all have a sense of urgency about the recovery," said Don Powell, Bush's coordinator of Gulf coast reconstruction.
"But I think it's important to look and put it in perspective about the size of the storm and how overwhelming this storm was," he said, noting that only 53 billion of 110 billion in government aid has been spent locally.
Bush said: "The federal government's role has been to write checks."
"The governor's role and the mayor's role is help to expedite the federal money to the local folks," he said.
Great Britain: Families take stage in politics
I have an interest in Great Britain and will post more articles about our sister country.
At last, the family takes centre stage in politics
Source: The Business 03/01/2007
THE politics of the family are on the cusp of changing for good in Britain, in one of the most fundamental intellectual shifts since the rise of new Labour in the mid-1990s. The leaders of both parties now speak out unashamedly in support of two-parent families and even marriage as the best parental arrangement; to argue that, in an ideal world, children would be best brought up by two parents, rather than one, no longer marks a politician out as a mean-spirited, bigoted reactionary. The statistical evidence is at last spreading its light among politicians.
A sign of this welcome shift is that the support for marriage expressed by David Cameron, the Conservative leader, is seen as being integral – rather than somehow in opposition – to his modern image.
There is, of course, resistance to this new consensus, especially by some politicians who try to pervert the debate by claiming that to support the two-parent family is synonymous with attacking single mothers, even though it is nothing of the sort. These include Harriet Harman, a candidate for Labour’s deputy leadership, who has espoused much of the social policy that has done much to undermine the family and who glibly dismisses Cameron’s family policies as “back to basics with an open-necked shirt”; and the Education Secretary, Alan Johnson, another contender, who should know better because of his working class roots. This should have given him an understanding of how the collapse of two-parent families has turned a section of the working class into an underclass. However, he delivered an absurd speech on Tuesday billed as a push-back against the pro-marriage tide.
John Major’s botched Back to Basics campaign in the mid-1990s foolishly suggested that if you were pro-marriage, you had to be anti-single mothers. The sight of the most powerful men in the country railing against some of the most vulnerable women in
society turned stomachs (especially since their own private lives were hardly an example); it also set the debate back a dozen years.
It is time for politicians of all parties to review the evidence dispassionately. Sensible social policy should try to bolster marriage and help keep families together, inspired by America’s successful welfare reforms.
The extent of the retrograde revolution in British family life is rarely understood. In the past quarter of a century, the number of children being brought up by a lone parent has more than doubled to 3.2m. In 1972, 92% of children were being brought up by a couple; by spring 2005, that number had dropped
to 76%.
As recently as 1980, only 12% of all British births were outside of wedlock – although up from 8% in 1970. By 2004 that figure had spiked to 42%. Remarkably, no fewer than 15% of all children are now born and brought up without their father being present; the figure is far higher among the poor.
We now live in a society where lone-parent families are becoming the norm. According to the Office for National Statistics’ 2006 Social Trends survey, 64% of non-African, non-Caribbean black families with dependent children are single-parent families. Among blacks of Caribbean descent the figure is 57% and among those of African descent 47%. In 2001, in nine London boroughs 40% or more families were lone parent families, with the percentages rising to 48% in Lambeth, 47% in Islington and 46% in Southwark, three of the poorest boroughs.
In 2004, 149,300 children experienced the divorce of their parents – a fifth were under five and almost two-thirds under 10. Around 45% of British marriages end in divorce.
The malign consequences of this social revolution are being passed down through the generations. Great Britain has, by a 19% margin, the highest rate of teenage births in the European Union, at 26 live births per 1,000 females aged 15 to 19. This is despite 46% of British pregnancies to under-18s ending in an abortion. In Sweden, Denmark, Slovenia and Cyprus there are only about six births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19.
While some single parents cope admirably (and some two-parent families do not), for most the
odds against success are stacked too high against them and their children. There is evidence to show that hundreds of thousands of children are suffering from the collapse of the traditional family and that poorer children in single-parent families tend to get hurt more than wealthier ones.
Kids growing up in lone-parent families in Britain are twice as liable to suffer from a mental disorder compared with those living with married parents: a fifth of boys living with a single parent who is divorced, separated or widowed are afflicted with a mental disorder; by comparison, the number among those living with married parents is only 8%. Children raised in reconstituted families have a 14% rate of mental disorders, compared to a 9% rate for those in a household with no stepchildren.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children reports that children raised in either lone-parent families or broken homes are three to six times more likely to have been abused; no wonder a quarter of children in stepfamilies run away from home before they reach 16. Regardless of other factors, 17-year-olds not living with two-parent families are one and a half times more likely to do drugs. Just as depressingly, 70% of young offenders are from lone-parent families.
Children growing up without two parents are also losing out materially. While the overall percentage of households living in over-crowded accommodation has dropped from 7% in 1971 to 3% in 2005, 8% of lone parent households are in such accommodation. These children are also at far greater risk of living in a low-income family.
For all Chancellor Gordon Brown’s boasts, around 41% of lone-parent households with dependent children are workless, compared with just 5% of working-age couple households with children. Approximately three-quarters of children in workless households are living in homes with less than 60% of median income once housing costs have been deducted.
The costs to the public purse of family breakdown are considerable. In 2003-2004, 56% of lone parents with dependent children were on income-related benefits, compared with just 10% of couples. While 81% of “coupled parents” were employed, only 54% of lone parents were. Only about a quarter of 16 to 24-year-old lone mothers are in work and only 46% of those aged 25 to 34 with dependent children are. Iain Duncan Smith’s Social Justice Policy Group report estimates that family breakdown costs the state £20bn ($39.2bn, e29.7bn) to £24bn, close to the £32bn spent on defence in 2006-2007, and equivalent to £620 to £820 per taxpayer.
Many people, especially in politics and the broadcast media, even those who accept that two-parent households are on average better for children than one-parent homes, still feel queasy about the state actively encouraging marriage, feeling that this would somehow be illiberal. But the statistics show that children born to married, as opposed to cohabiting couples, are far more likely to grow up in a stable environment.
Almost half of cohabiting couples break up before their child turns five; only one in 12 married parents have split up by the same point. Holding all other socio-economic and demographic factors constant, cohabitees with young children are more than twice as prone to relationship failure as married couples. A recent study of 15,000 women who became mothers in the millenium found that unmarried parents account for almost three-quarters of all family breakdowns; it is hard enough getting and staying married; the omens for those who choose to cohabit are truly grim.
So those who wish for a tax and benefit system that is “bias-free” should think again. If nothing else, they ignore how the current system discriminates heavily against couples staying together. Jill Kirby, the Centre for Policy Studies scholar, calculates that if a family breaks down or a child is born to a single mother the cost to the state is £4,000 to £12,000 a year in additional benefits and reduced tax revenue. A couple with one working parent on £24,000 a year with a mortgage and two kids pay £5,000 more in tax than they receive in benefits per year. However, if they were to break up their two households could make £7,000 more from benefits than they contribute in tax.
Anyone who doubts that changing the tax and benefits system can tackle family breakdown should look across the Atlantic. While it is well known that the Clinton-Gingrich welfare reforms of 1996 ended the automatic entitlement to benefits and slashed welfare rolls from 12.2m to 4.5m, few in Britain realise that it was also designed to strengthen the family and deter teenage pregnancies.
By the end of the Clinton administration child poverty was at its lowest level since 1979 and the poverty rate for children of single mothers its lowest in US history. This was thanks to the incomes of poor mother-led households increasing by more than a quarter. The employment rates of even the least-qualified single mothers rose by 40%, while teenage pregnancies are down by 30%. The growth in out-of-wedlock births has also slowed radically, confirming that changing economic incentives can have an important effect on family structures.
Johnson argued on Tuesday that the “debate is about ensuring politicians don’t go back to moralising about the nature of the relationship and concentrate on helping the child.” We have no desire to moralise but politicians should be practical – and all the evidence shows that if we are to concentrate on helping the child the state should encourage marriage. This does not mean, though, that society should stop offering its love and support to single parents, many of whom achieve heroic successes with their children despite all the obstacles.
But the simple truth, buttressed by dozens of studies and oodles of hard data, is that in the majority of cases, marriage works better than any other child-raising system – and the poorer you are, the truer that is. Britain urgently needs a US-style welfare revolution, which puts at its heart the restoration of the traditional family and which ends the current system’s undermining of marriage.
The shift in the British debate is a positive first step; now our political elite needs to follow words with deeds and move to reverse the catastrophe that is Britain’s family policy.
At last, the family takes centre stage in politics
Source: The Business 03/01/2007
THE politics of the family are on the cusp of changing for good in Britain, in one of the most fundamental intellectual shifts since the rise of new Labour in the mid-1990s. The leaders of both parties now speak out unashamedly in support of two-parent families and even marriage as the best parental arrangement; to argue that, in an ideal world, children would be best brought up by two parents, rather than one, no longer marks a politician out as a mean-spirited, bigoted reactionary. The statistical evidence is at last spreading its light among politicians.
A sign of this welcome shift is that the support for marriage expressed by David Cameron, the Conservative leader, is seen as being integral – rather than somehow in opposition – to his modern image.
There is, of course, resistance to this new consensus, especially by some politicians who try to pervert the debate by claiming that to support the two-parent family is synonymous with attacking single mothers, even though it is nothing of the sort. These include Harriet Harman, a candidate for Labour’s deputy leadership, who has espoused much of the social policy that has done much to undermine the family and who glibly dismisses Cameron’s family policies as “back to basics with an open-necked shirt”; and the Education Secretary, Alan Johnson, another contender, who should know better because of his working class roots. This should have given him an understanding of how the collapse of two-parent families has turned a section of the working class into an underclass. However, he delivered an absurd speech on Tuesday billed as a push-back against the pro-marriage tide.
John Major’s botched Back to Basics campaign in the mid-1990s foolishly suggested that if you were pro-marriage, you had to be anti-single mothers. The sight of the most powerful men in the country railing against some of the most vulnerable women in
society turned stomachs (especially since their own private lives were hardly an example); it also set the debate back a dozen years.
It is time for politicians of all parties to review the evidence dispassionately. Sensible social policy should try to bolster marriage and help keep families together, inspired by America’s successful welfare reforms.
The extent of the retrograde revolution in British family life is rarely understood. In the past quarter of a century, the number of children being brought up by a lone parent has more than doubled to 3.2m. In 1972, 92% of children were being brought up by a couple; by spring 2005, that number had dropped
to 76%.
As recently as 1980, only 12% of all British births were outside of wedlock – although up from 8% in 1970. By 2004 that figure had spiked to 42%. Remarkably, no fewer than 15% of all children are now born and brought up without their father being present; the figure is far higher among the poor.
We now live in a society where lone-parent families are becoming the norm. According to the Office for National Statistics’ 2006 Social Trends survey, 64% of non-African, non-Caribbean black families with dependent children are single-parent families. Among blacks of Caribbean descent the figure is 57% and among those of African descent 47%. In 2001, in nine London boroughs 40% or more families were lone parent families, with the percentages rising to 48% in Lambeth, 47% in Islington and 46% in Southwark, three of the poorest boroughs.
In 2004, 149,300 children experienced the divorce of their parents – a fifth were under five and almost two-thirds under 10. Around 45% of British marriages end in divorce.
The malign consequences of this social revolution are being passed down through the generations. Great Britain has, by a 19% margin, the highest rate of teenage births in the European Union, at 26 live births per 1,000 females aged 15 to 19. This is despite 46% of British pregnancies to under-18s ending in an abortion. In Sweden, Denmark, Slovenia and Cyprus there are only about six births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19.
While some single parents cope admirably (and some two-parent families do not), for most the
odds against success are stacked too high against them and their children. There is evidence to show that hundreds of thousands of children are suffering from the collapse of the traditional family and that poorer children in single-parent families tend to get hurt more than wealthier ones.
Kids growing up in lone-parent families in Britain are twice as liable to suffer from a mental disorder compared with those living with married parents: a fifth of boys living with a single parent who is divorced, separated or widowed are afflicted with a mental disorder; by comparison, the number among those living with married parents is only 8%. Children raised in reconstituted families have a 14% rate of mental disorders, compared to a 9% rate for those in a household with no stepchildren.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children reports that children raised in either lone-parent families or broken homes are three to six times more likely to have been abused; no wonder a quarter of children in stepfamilies run away from home before they reach 16. Regardless of other factors, 17-year-olds not living with two-parent families are one and a half times more likely to do drugs. Just as depressingly, 70% of young offenders are from lone-parent families.
Children growing up without two parents are also losing out materially. While the overall percentage of households living in over-crowded accommodation has dropped from 7% in 1971 to 3% in 2005, 8% of lone parent households are in such accommodation. These children are also at far greater risk of living in a low-income family.
For all Chancellor Gordon Brown’s boasts, around 41% of lone-parent households with dependent children are workless, compared with just 5% of working-age couple households with children. Approximately three-quarters of children in workless households are living in homes with less than 60% of median income once housing costs have been deducted.
The costs to the public purse of family breakdown are considerable. In 2003-2004, 56% of lone parents with dependent children were on income-related benefits, compared with just 10% of couples. While 81% of “coupled parents” were employed, only 54% of lone parents were. Only about a quarter of 16 to 24-year-old lone mothers are in work and only 46% of those aged 25 to 34 with dependent children are. Iain Duncan Smith’s Social Justice Policy Group report estimates that family breakdown costs the state £20bn ($39.2bn, e29.7bn) to £24bn, close to the £32bn spent on defence in 2006-2007, and equivalent to £620 to £820 per taxpayer.
Many people, especially in politics and the broadcast media, even those who accept that two-parent households are on average better for children than one-parent homes, still feel queasy about the state actively encouraging marriage, feeling that this would somehow be illiberal. But the statistics show that children born to married, as opposed to cohabiting couples, are far more likely to grow up in a stable environment.
Almost half of cohabiting couples break up before their child turns five; only one in 12 married parents have split up by the same point. Holding all other socio-economic and demographic factors constant, cohabitees with young children are more than twice as prone to relationship failure as married couples. A recent study of 15,000 women who became mothers in the millenium found that unmarried parents account for almost three-quarters of all family breakdowns; it is hard enough getting and staying married; the omens for those who choose to cohabit are truly grim.
So those who wish for a tax and benefit system that is “bias-free” should think again. If nothing else, they ignore how the current system discriminates heavily against couples staying together. Jill Kirby, the Centre for Policy Studies scholar, calculates that if a family breaks down or a child is born to a single mother the cost to the state is £4,000 to £12,000 a year in additional benefits and reduced tax revenue. A couple with one working parent on £24,000 a year with a mortgage and two kids pay £5,000 more in tax than they receive in benefits per year. However, if they were to break up their two households could make £7,000 more from benefits than they contribute in tax.
Anyone who doubts that changing the tax and benefits system can tackle family breakdown should look across the Atlantic. While it is well known that the Clinton-Gingrich welfare reforms of 1996 ended the automatic entitlement to benefits and slashed welfare rolls from 12.2m to 4.5m, few in Britain realise that it was also designed to strengthen the family and deter teenage pregnancies.
By the end of the Clinton administration child poverty was at its lowest level since 1979 and the poverty rate for children of single mothers its lowest in US history. This was thanks to the incomes of poor mother-led households increasing by more than a quarter. The employment rates of even the least-qualified single mothers rose by 40%, while teenage pregnancies are down by 30%. The growth in out-of-wedlock births has also slowed radically, confirming that changing economic incentives can have an important effect on family structures.
Johnson argued on Tuesday that the “debate is about ensuring politicians don’t go back to moralising about the nature of the relationship and concentrate on helping the child.” We have no desire to moralise but politicians should be practical – and all the evidence shows that if we are to concentrate on helping the child the state should encourage marriage. This does not mean, though, that society should stop offering its love and support to single parents, many of whom achieve heroic successes with their children despite all the obstacles.
But the simple truth, buttressed by dozens of studies and oodles of hard data, is that in the majority of cases, marriage works better than any other child-raising system – and the poorer you are, the truer that is. Britain urgently needs a US-style welfare revolution, which puts at its heart the restoration of the traditional family and which ends the current system’s undermining of marriage.
The shift in the British debate is a positive first step; now our political elite needs to follow words with deeds and move to reverse the catastrophe that is Britain’s family policy.
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