The Daily Grasshopper

It's been a while since we had the "Predictable Headline of the Day," so I wanted to share one with you. This comes from Tuesday's New York Times, which had a front page story in its "Business Day" section with this headline about the government's settlement with the big investment banks:

"In Wall Street Hierarchy, Short Shrift To Little Guy"

The Times business reporter, Gretchen Morgenson, seemed somewhat astonished by the rapacity of some of the Wall St. greedheads, as if she thought common decency were a universally-occurring phenomenon among human beings.

"What jumps off the page in these documents is the Wall Street firms' disregard for the individual investor in pursuit of personal benefit." (NYT, 4/29/03, p. C1).

Memo to Morgenson (and anyone out there who finds the facts of the case surprising): in today's hyper-competitive, bottom line-fixated capitalist culture, the Wall Street swindles that brought the settlement about were not only acceptable behavior, they were expected behavior. The Wall Street Journal, which is regularly more honest about these sorts of things (if much more forgiving), had a more jaded reaction:

"Certainly the politics trumps the substance in the much hyped settlement. While intensely irritating to the investment banking community, [New York Attorney General Eliot] Spitzer's campaign against Wall Street adds up to snatching some cash and a few eye-popping headlines from structural conflicts of interest that have existed for decades and were well reported in this newspaper. Those conflicts were also well known to regulators, who didn't become shocked and appalled until stock prices fell." (WSJ editorial, "Wall Street's Chaperone," 4/29/03, p. A16).

While I've been tracking this and other developments (e.g., the suspicions deaths of more than a dozen newly-liberated Iraqis during anti-American demonstrations, the "road map" to peace in the Middle East, etc.), I've also been busy with some of my own affairs. A local state senator is trying to stifle dissent in Massachusetts by filing legislation that make protesters pay the costs associated with the policing of their civil disobedience actions. We went out to Senator Brian Lees' (R-East Longmeadow) office in Springfield over the weekend and picketed, carrying a framed copy of the First Amendment and Henry David Thoreau's essay "Civil Disobedience." We were the lead story on the nightly news, I'm told.

What really made it worthwhile, though, was when a middle-aged African-American woman showed up to the demonstration. I asked her how she had heard about it, and she told me someone brought it up at a meeting of her local gardening club. Then she said, "I had to come down here, because I'm originally from Alabama, and I remember marching with my parents for civil rights." She understood very well that, in some instances, you have break the law in order to raise awareness about greater injustices. This reasoning seemed lost on the local reporter (who was also African-American), as well as several of the people who drove by and gave us the finger for demonstrating in support of free assembly. To those of you out there who do not regularly exercise your constitutionally-guaranteed rights, let me say that America is becoming an increasingly frightening place. At least if you don't think the proper kinds of thoughts. Just one example: we had the Boston Marathon here a week and a half ago. At the finish line, as captured in a photo on the front page of the Boston Globe last Tuesday, the official marathon banner had the flags of the U.S. Army, the U.S. Marine Corps, and the POW-MIAs draped over it. And in Newton, just before "Heartbreak Hill," my friends were approached by a group of police and told that their banner saying "Peace for the Human Race" could not be displayed. Is it fascism yet?

Speaking of the police, I was in court on Monday for the disposition of my trespassing case. Longtime readers know that I was arrested in U.S. Senator John Kerry's office on February 3rd of this year, where I and some friends were protesting his support for Bush's invasion of Iraq (http://www.netway.com/~pkeaney/020503arrest.html). On Monday, we settled with the D.A. for a much more lenient sentence than had originally been proposed. I'm guessing that Kerry's status as frontrunner for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination had something to do with the D.A.'s decision to dramatically reduce the punishment instead of going to trial (I got off with three months probation). I will confess to some disappointment that the Senator's office didn't pursue the matter, as we would have tried to subpoena Kerry at his next big fundraiser. Our lawyer got a call from the U.S. Senate counsel last Wednesday while we were at his office, and said that when he next heard from the D.A.'s office, there was a much more conciliatory tone to the discussion. Funny how that works.

But enough about me. There's been some news in the past few days. Incredibly (or not, I guess), our old friend Niall Ferguson showed up in the Times AGAIN yesterday. This time, he figured prominently in a column written by Maureen Dowd. You can read the whole thing here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/30/opinion/30DOWD.html

Dowd basically turned the second half of her column over to Ferguson, featuring excerpts from a speech he recently made in New York (guess where?). Even those who disagree with him have to admire the guy's ruthless candor and unapologetic desire to coax the U.S. into becoming a more aggressive empire than it has been heretofore:

"'America is the empire that dare not speak its name,' Niall Ferguson, the Oxford professor who wrote 'Empire,' told a crowd at the Council on Foreign Relations here on Monday. He believes that America is so invested in its 'creation myth,' breaking away from a wicked empire, that Americans will always be self-deceiving - and even self-defeating - imperialists.

'The great thing about the American empire is that so many Americans disbelieve in its existence," he said. 'Ever since the annexation of Texas and invasion of the Philippines, the U.S. has systematically pursued an imperial policy.

'It's simply a suspension of disbelief by Americans. They think they're so different that when they have bases in foreign territories, it's not an empire. When they invade sovereign territory, it's not an empire.'

Asked in an interview about Viceroy Jay Garner's promise that U.S. military overlords would 'leave fairly rapidly,' Mr. Ferguson replied: 'I'm hoping he's lying. Successful empires must be based on hypocrisy. The Americans can say they're doing things in the name of freedom, liberty and apple pie. But they must build a civil society and revive the economy before they have elections.

'From 1882 until 1922, the British promised the international community 66 times that they would leave Egypt, but they never did. If they leave Iraq to its own devices, the whole thing will blow up.'"

While it's refreshing to hear people break with tradition and acknowledge that the U.S. has "invaded sovereign territories" like the Philippines (not to mention Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Panama, Grenada, Iraq, etc., etc.), the thing I liked best about Ferguson's speech to the CFR was his insistence on embracing our "hypocrisy" if America hopes to succeed in the empire game. As I've been saying for quite some time now, America's foreign and economic policies are full of hypocrisies, whether it's the difference between our response to violations of U.N. Security Council Resolutions (invasion for Iraq and billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars for Israel) or our insistence on harsh "free trade" restrictions for poor countries while we massively subsidize our own industries. It's nice to hear Ferguson echo some of the claims I've been making. Of course, his suggestion that this is a desirable state of affairs is sheer insanity, but he's got the premise right.

The site of the speech is critical. Those longtime readers will recall my shredding of Max Boot's argument that the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with oil (http://www.netway.com/~pkeaney/021303boot.html). As I wrote in that essay, the CFR is a training ground for the elites in this country, where they are groomed and taught to form all the proper kinds of opinions. The CFR has provided almost all the "leaders" of the Democrat and Republican parties for the past 50 years. Ferguson, and his fellow apologists for U.S. global dominance, are literally "Selling Empire," as the Boston Sunday Globe headline put it last weekend.

Of course, Ferguson's pitch is facilitated by the hypocrisy of the media in this country, including "liberal" media outlets like the Globe and the Times. A perfect example appeared in yesterday's papers. Both papers (owned by the same corporation, incidentally), ran stories about a hearing of the UN Economic and Social Council yesterday, during which the U.S. ambassador left to protest the seating of Cuba on the Human Rights Commission. In fact, it was the lead story in the Globe's "The World" section yesterday, complete with a photo of Sichan Siv leaving the hearing.

Here's part of the story, which was reported by the Associated Press:

"The United States walked out of a United Nations meeting yesterday to protest Cuba's election to the UN Human Rights Commission for another three-year term.

'It was an outrage for us because we view Cuba as the worst violator of human rights in this hemisphere,' said Sichan Siv, the US ambassador to the UN Economic and Social Council, which elected 24 new members to the top UN human rights watchdog.

The election occurred four days after the 53-member Human Rights Commission ended its annual six-week session in Geneva. Critics said that meeting was dominated by political horsetrading and did little for the victims of human rights abuses."

You can read the whole thing here:

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/120/nation/Cuba_reelected_to_UN_rights_panel+.shtml

Actually, Mr. Siv, the "worst violator of human rights in this hemisphere" is probably Colombia, which also happens to be receiving more U.S. military aid than any other country in this hemisphere. Maybe he didn't read last month's State Department report. Of course, as I wrote at the time, not many people did.

And while I'll agree with Human Rights Watch's UN Representative Joanna Weschler that Cuba and Russia have "very serious human rights problems," the very same can be said many of our top clients - Israel, Egypt, Colombia, among others. Why is the U.S. in any position to criticize another state's human rights record? Our own shoddy record on human rights is compounded by the blatant disregard we've shown to the rule of international law in the past few months. I'm surprised every last U.N. delegate didn't walk out of the room when Siv entered.

If you're interested in learning more about what "critics" said (beyond the superficial AP report that the "meeting was dominated by political horsetrading and did little for the victims of human rights abuses"), there are places to find this information. If the Globe or the Times were interested in learning about the criticisms, instead of just focusing on the drama of the U.S. delegate's hypocritical exit, they could easily do so.

Here's Amnesty International's statement:
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGIOR410142003?open&of=ENG-393

Here's an interesting excerpt for Mr. Siv to ponder when he's out in the hall waiting to make his next dramatic re-entrance:

"The Chairperson statements on Colombia and Timor-Leste are particularly disappointing. The statement on Colombia fails to express concern at Decree 128 (of January 2003) which authorizes the Minister of the Interior to give amnesties to members of illegal armed groups who have not previously been formally investigated or convicted. This represents a serious risk of impunity for grave human rights violations, crimes against humanity and war crimes."

The "illegal armed groups" referred to are the right-wing paramilitary death squads. Our clients, for all intents and purposes, according to our very own State Department's report.

Here's the one from Human Rights Watch:
http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/04/unchr042503.htm

Here's an excerpt:

"Human Rights Watch criticized the United States, which rejoined the commission this year, for playing a destructive role on many issues. The European Union also failed to take firm and principled stand on many important votes, Human Rights Watch said. In a sudden about-face, the United States for the first time refrained from cosponsoring a resolution condemning Russia's abuses in Chechnya (the resolution was defeated by 21 votes against, to 15 votes in favor, with 17 abstentions). The United States also abandoned its traditional practice of sponsoring a resolution critical of China, citing leadership changes and unspecified human rights improvements.

The United States blocked any focused debate on the situation in Iraq and resisted human rights monitoring of Iraq's transition. It strongly opposed any call for accountability for past human rights abuses in Afghanistan, and criticism of continuing human rights problems in that country. The United States also fought unsuccessfully to prevent the commission from calling on governments to ratify the statute for the International Criminal Court.

Despite the overwhelming international consensus against the execution of juvenile offenders, the United States insisted that this principle be dropped from a resolution on children's rights. In 2002, the world's only known executions of juvenile offenders were carried out by the U.S. state of Texas, and the United States is the only country worldwide that continues to execute people who were under eighteen at the time of the offense."

Americans who like to think of their country as a defender of freedom, democracy, and human rights around the world are given little reason to fret when they read stories like the AP article on the UN session that the Globe and Times ran yesterday. Weschler's strong (and proper) condemnation of Russia and Cuba are prominently featured in the report. The U.S. refusal to condemn Russia and China, for strategic and economic reasons, as well as our government's support of much worse human rights offenders, are written out of the story entirely. And then, boys and girls, it's ready to appear right at the very top of "The World" section on page A8 of the Boston Globe, Wednesday, April 30, 2003.

Today is May 1. Around the world, people are celebrating May Day, or International Workers Day. Though the event is inspired in part by events that took place in Chicago in early May of 1886, few Americans are aware of the significance of May Day. For a short background piece, visit this site:

http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/mayday.html

August Spies, one of the men who was executed after the Haymarket incident, where workers had gathered to demand an eight-hour workday, offered these final words: "The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today." That day hasn't arrived, in part because of the success of the media in throttling the voices of Spies fellow dissidents in the mainstream press. As the author of the above article notes:

"It is not surprising that the state, business leaders, mainstream union officials, and the media would want to hide the true history of May Day, portraying it as a holiday celebrated only in Moscow's Red Square. In its attempt to erase the history and significance of May Day, the United States government declared May 1st to be 'Law Day,' and gave us instead Labor Day - a holiday devoid of any historical significance other than its importance as a day to swill beer and sit in traffic jams."

Given the hostility of this country to the memory of the events that inspired May Day, I was not at all surprised to see a full-page ad in the front section of yesterday's Globe. The ad, if you missed it, shows an artist's rendition of George Washington kneeling in prayer juxtaposed with a photo of a U.S. soldier in desert camouflage in the same pose. Behind them is an American flag. Here's the ad text:

"On Thursday, May 1, in communities across America, millions will unite on their knees at noon for the National Day of Prayer, to pray for our troops, our leaders and our nation. Join us."

I'll be doing some investigating into the groups who paid for these ads, because if they ran one in the Globe (full page ads are around $25K), you can bet they ran them all over the place. And that ain't cheap. Now who would want to claim May Day as "National Day of Prayer," anyhow? Is it fascism yet?

PK
http://www.dailygrasshopper.com