In These Times

Muqtada, the Future of Iraq

Robert S. Eshelman — 2008-07-18T11:00:00-06:00

"Firebrand." It was the ubiquitous moniker used to describe Iraq's fiercely anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr when, in March 2004, his leering portrait became commonplace among American media reports of Iraq. American Viceroy L. Paul Bremer III had just shut down al-Sadr's Baghdad newspaper, al-Hawza, and hinted at arresting him, ushering in the first of several confrontations with al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army. More recently, this label has given way to that of "Iranian-backed" -- conjuring comparisons to Lebanon's Hezbollah and Palestine's besieged Hamas party. In both cases, these depictions serve to portray al-Sadr as an irrational, extremist proxy, who, to a great degree, has contributed to Iraq's instability and continues to be a major obstacle to peace in Iraq, if not across the Middle East. But as Patrick Cockburn, the Iraq correspondent for The Independent of London, argues convincingly in Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival and the Struggle for Iraq (Scribner, May 2008), such representations overlook the causes of al-Sadr's rise to political prominence. More importantly, they grossly misrepresent his unique blend of Shiite religious doctrine and Iraqi nationalism, as well as overlook the fact that he leads the only truly mass political movement in Iraq. "Part of…

‘Centrists’ Running the Asylum

David Sirota — 2008-07-18T11:00:00-06:00

In the asylum that is American politics, beware a candidate like Barack Obama when he is lauded for moving to "the center" -- because usually that means he is drifting away from it. Over the last month, the Democratic presidential nominee has backed a measure to permit warrantless wiretapping and protect telecom companies when they violate customers' privacy; sent conflicting signals about whether he will reform the NAFTA trade model; and threatened to revise his timetable for ending the war in Iraq. Universally, reporters have billed this dance as a move to the middle. As the Associated Press claimed in a typical description, Obama's shifts are designed "to appeal to the center of the electorate." However, empirical data proves "the center of the electorate" is exactly the opposite: -- Polls by Quinnipiac University and the Mellman Group found majorities support warrant requirements for wiretaps and oppose immunity for companies that released private consumer information without such warrants. -- Surveys by Fortune magazine, CNN and the Wall Street Journal report that most Americans oppose NAFTA-style trade policies. -- For years, major polls have consistently shown Americans want a firm timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. As just one of many examples, five…

McCain’s Aches and Pains

Terry J. Allen — 2008-07-17T11:00:00-06:00

Like jokes about President Bush being stupid, cheap shots at Sen. John McCain's age are largely unfunny. More importantly, they deflect crucial concerns about the men. Bush's alleged stupidity camouflaged his administration's brilliance in implementing radical economic, ideological, legal and social policies that advanced its agenda. Ridicule of McCain's age (along with paeans to his war record) distracts from hard critiques of his record and policies. McCain's age is irrelevant unless it affects his ability to function in a world that has radically changed since his formative years. McCain's computer illiteracy, for example, is not the result of advanced years. Rather it suggests someone who is coddled, out-of-touch and loath to learn new things. Nor is McCain's history of cancer tied to age. But some things are, such as the less-publicized array of his potentially compromising conditions, ailments and medications. Everyone knows about the cancer. In the last 15 years, McCain has had "every kind of skin cancer you can get, basal cell cancer, squamous cell cancer and, of course, malignant melanoma ...[and] quite a few precancerous lesions," said Dr. Nancy Snyderman, who reviewed McCain's medical records. "He's going to get another skin cancer," the NBC News chief medical editor…

The Dark Side of the Toyota Prius

Paul Abowd — 2008-07-16T11:00:00-06:00

The National Labor Committee (NLC), a New York-based human rights group, has been investigating working conditions at Toyota Motor Corp., and the labor used to produce its best-selling Prius hybrid cars. In its 65-page report released in June, NLC includes first-hand testimony of factory conditions in "Toyota City," outside of Nagoya, Japan -- less than 200 miles southwest of Tokyo -- where the largest auto company in the world employs some 70,000 people. The report alleges that Toyota exploits guest workers, mostly shipped in from China and Vietnam. According to the NLC, these workers are "stripped of their passports and often forced to work -- including at subcontract plants supplying Toyota -- 16 hours a day, seven days a week, while being paid less than half the legal minimum wage." Workers are forced to live in company dormitories and deported for complaining about poor treatment, the report finds. Low-wage temporary workers make up one-third of Toyota's Prius assembly-line workers, mostly in the auto-parts supply chain. They are signed to contracts for periods as short as four months, and are paid only 60 percent of a full-time employee's wage. Parts plants run by subcontractors advertise standard, nine-hour, five-day-a-week jobs. But according…

Chicago’s Olympic Dreams Undeserved

Salim Muwakkil — 2008-07-15T11:00:00-06:00

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley has set his sights on winning the gold for his city. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) recently chose the Windy City as one of four international finalists in the race to host the coveted 2016 summer games. But a group of local activists argues that a history of racist police torture has made Chicago inappropriate as an Olympic site and is mobilizing to convince the IOC to reject the city's bid. "How can a city that has been condemned by the United Nations for allowing its police to engage in systematic torture of black men be worthy of hosting the Olympic games?" asks Patricia Hill, a primary organizer of Black People Against Police Torture, the group at the forefront of opposition to the Chicago Olympics. Hill, who is also executive director of the city's African American Police League, says that several allied groups have joined in opposition to Chicago's Olympic bid -- including the local chapter of Amnesty International USA. For nearly 20 years, a former Chicago police commander named Jon Burge and detectives under his command routinely tortured more than 100 black males, claiming they were criminal suspects. Several independent investigations and court decisions…

EPA on Trial

Joel Bleifuss — 2008-07-14T11:00:00-06:00

For more than six years, Hugh Kaufman has been battling the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), his employer for 37 years, with a whistleblower lawsuit. He has been aided by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a D.C.-based group that represents workers who expose corruption in agencies that oversee environmental quality and public health. "We get people calling us all the time, but in this administration, more than ever," says Paula Dinerstein, PEER senior counsel. In June, Kaufman made his case before a Department of Labor administrative law judge, testifying that former EPA head Christine Todd Whitman closed down the agency's National Ombudsman Office in an effort to stop investigations that Kaufman was conducting. As the chief investigator for the agency's National Ombudsman Office -- which investigated public complaints about the EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response -- Kaufman had a bird's eye view of how the public health and safety were routinely subordinated to corporate interests. "The Reagan, Bush I and Clinton EPAs, were all pretty much the same," he says. "The Bush administration took a bad EPA and made it worse." In February 2001, Kaufman alerted the Denver Post to the fact that Whitman had not recused…

The American Left: Dogmatic rhetoric is self-defeating

Ken Brociner — 2008-07-13T11:00:00-06:00

Martha Biondi and James Thindwa's viewpoint, "Earth to Ken Brociner," does start out with a clever title – that much I'll grant them. Unfortunately, they seem to have misunderstood the points I raised in my last column, "What Progressives Can Learn from Obama." Part of Barack Obama's appeal to Americans of all backgrounds stems from the way he conducts himself in the heat of political combat. Obama rarely, if ever, casts aspersions on his opponents' ultimate intentions. He eschews the use of incendiary or insulting rhetoric. And he totally avoids the use of dogma in his writing, in debates, and in his speeches. Of course, Obama is not the ideal candidate from a progressive or leftwing perspective. Before his most recent embrace of the political center, it was plain that Obama had never been more than a center-left candidate to begin with. Nonetheless, progressives can learn a lot by examining Obama's style of politics. Yet in their article, Martha Biondi and James Thindwa illustrate the kind of political style that Obama has warned us against -- one that has long proven to be counterproductive to the prospects of the American left. For example, Biondi and Thindwa accuse me of having…

Is the Fourth Estate a Fifth Column?

Bill Moyers — 2008-07-11T11:00:00-06:00

I heard this story a long time ago, growing up in Choctaw County in Oklahoma before my family moved to Texas. A tribal elder was telling his grandson about the battle the old man was waging within himself. He said, "It is between two wolves, my son. One is an evil wolf: anger, envy, sorrow, greed, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other is the good wolf: joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith." The boy took this in for a few minutes and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf won?" The old Cherokee replied simply, "The one I feed." Democracy is that way. The wolf that wins is the one we feed. And in our society, media provides the fodder. Our media institutions, deeply embedded in the power structures of society, are not providing the information that we need to make our democracy work. To put it another way, corporate media consolidation is a corrosive social force. It robs people of their voice in public affairs and pollutes the political culture. And it turns the debates about profound issues into a shouting match of polarized views promulgated by partisan apologists…

Anywhere Becomes Everywhere

David Sirota — 2008-07-11T11:00:00-06:00

I spent the July 4th weekend in my own Americana cliche: I relaxed in the humid heartland, drank one too many alcoholic beverages (screwdrivers), ate at a chain restaurant (Noodles & Company), played with my dog (a golden retriever mix), and attended Hollywood's latest paean to mediocrity (Will Smith's Hancock). I was in the bucolic suburbs of Lafayette, Ind., but really, I could have been anywhere or everywhere in America -- which is both satisfying and troubling. In the lead up to my Independence Day respite, I have been through the montage of diners, rental car counters and air mattresses commonly known as a book tour. The nationwide journey has been a blur -- and not because I've been under-rested and overcaffeinated, but because America's newly homogenized culture has made everything seem the same. As I discovered, the contemporary road trip tells the tale of hegemony better than even shared holiday experiences. Turn on your car radio and your listening experience is standardized. No matter where you are, you find yourself unable to find much other than either Rush Limbaugh rants or Bad Company songs on a dial now owned by a tiny group of conglomerates. The offramp pit stop…

Gun-toters in La-La Land

Laura S. Washington — 2008-07-10T11:00:00-06:00

The conservative answer to America's crime plague is to put more guns on the streets. If that's not counterintuitive, I don't know what is. The U.S. Supreme Court's June 26 rejection of Washington, D.C.'s gun ban is an antediluvian retreat into la-la land. Its decision to strike down the 32-year-old law has put America's cities in jeopardy, and that should be anathema to progressives everywhere. Still, the Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), is playing a telling game of hot potato. The court rejected D.C.'s strict gun law by a 5-4 vote. In the majority opinion, Justice Antonin (Big Tony) Scalia wrote that the U.S. Second Amendment does not permit "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home." In other words, to keep America safe, we have to extend the right to bear arms from the military to pops having a beer on the couch in the living room. Gun advocates are gleeful at the prospect of putting us in the crosshairs. The gun lovers want a firearm under every bed, in every drawer, in every holster in the nation. "This is a very frightening decision for America," Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley said…

Poison Pill Slipped Into Indian Health Bill

Michelle Chen — 2008-07-09T11:00:00-06:00

When it comes to their health, American Indian women face extraordinary barriers -- from high disease risks to increased incidents of sexual violence. They now face another obstacle, rooted in the political battleground of abortion. The Senate's recent passage of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act was a breakthrough for advocacy groups that have long pushed for the bill's provisions -- new programs, improved facilities and funding for the Indian Health Services (IHS) system, which serves about 1.9 million people nationwide. But the victory is dampened by a poison pill provision slipped in by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) that explicitly restricts abortions under IHS programs. The amendment was approved along with the bill in February. As In These Times went to press, it was unclear whether the House would vote on companion legislation carrying a similar amendment. Speaking at a Right to Life rally in January, Vitter boasted that his amendment put "clear, strong, pro-life language in that Indian healthcare bill." In fact, the amendment mostly replicates an older, more general ban on abortion funding under federal health programs, known as the Hyde Amendment. IHS is already subject to those restrictions, which allow federal financing for abortion only in cases…

Food Fights

Jeremy Gantz — 2008-07-08T11:00:00-06:00

Globally, 1 billion overweight people coexist with 800 million starving people. That's one of many perverse facts in Stuffed & Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System (Melville House, April 2008, U.S. release), author Raj Patel's searing indictment of the forces that shape what and how we eat. Patel is an ideal candidate to explain this tragic paradox: He has worked for the World Bank, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the United Nations. But as the book's back cover notes, he's also been "tear-gassed on four continents protesting them." Patel writes that he is appalled by global food inequality, but he tempers his anger with the informed and sharp analysis of a policy-wonk (he's now a visiting scholar at the University of California-Berkeley). Patel is more precocious tour guide than dispassionate academic. He details the causes of agricultural crises around the world, from the suicides of indebted Indian farmers to the tens of thousands of slaves supporting Brazil's rapidly growing soy industry. And that is Stuffed & Starved's chief strength and weakness: Throughout 300-plus pages, Patel's wide-angle lens and agile intellect chronicle so many people, on so many continents, that the book ultimately is more a lucid…

Holding Barack Accountable

James Thindwa — 2008-07-08T11:00:00-06:00

In recent weeks, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has treated his supporters to a series of unsettling revelations about his views. Obama now supports extending the death penalty to a new category of crimes; he sided with a decision striking down Washington, D.C.'s 32-year ban on handguns; he plans to vote for a bill that sanctions domestic spying; he gave a hawkish speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and promised the audience an "undivided Jerusalem." Obama recently hired neoliberal economist Jason Furman, a champion of trade deals like NAFTA that put corporate interests over workers rights -- even though Obama had, until now, opposed NAFTA. Further, Obama has embraced the mantra of personal responsibility. On Father's Day, he excoriated absentee dads for failing to "realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child -- it's the courage to raise one." He has announced his desire to continue Bush's faith-based initiative program and, in a strange position for a liberal Democrat, says he supports posting the Ten Commandments in public areas "in some cases." Though many Democratic voters have made peace with their candidate's re-positioning -- reflecting their desire to turn the page from…

Five Years on the Hotel Picket Line

Brian Cook — 2008-07-07T11:00:00-06:00

Directly west of Chicago's iconic Buckingham Fountain sits the Congress Hotel. Itself an icon during its heyday of the early 20th century, the Congress is now a shabbier shade of its former self. But on June 12, the city's left-labor bloc livened the place up by appearing, at first blush, to throw a raucous block party outside its doors. But it wasn't a celebration. Instead, the hundreds of union workers, college students and members of religious and community groups were marking the fifth anniversary of the strike against the Congress, making it the longest active strike in the United States. The strike's roots go back to the mid-'90s, when the Congress' ownership group pulled out of a multi-employer association that bargained for the majority of Chicago hotels. As a result, it wasn't part of the landmark September 2002 deal between UNITE HERE! and nearly all of the city's downtown hotels, that increased benefits and dramatically raised wages. (A 2006 agreement raised them again to $13.90 an hour, 57 percent more than the 2002 wage of $8.83 an hour that Congress pays today.) Instead, the Congress waited to begin negotiations until days before its contract expired in January 2003. Those negotiations…

The Free Trade Heretic

David Sirota — 2008-07-04T11:00:00-06:00

Ha-Joon Chang is an award-winning Cambridge economist whose new book, Bad Samaritans, explodes what its subtitle calls "the myth of free trade." At a time when Democrats are bashing NAFTA and Republicans are championing a NAFTA-style free trade deal with Colombia, Chang shows how the entire debate over trade has divorced itself from history and economic reality. Phrases like "free trade," in fact, are misnomers unto themselves, leading the world into a globalization debate whose basic premises are inaccurate. But that's not all that is inaccurate. Chang says that while the media and political elite lead us to believe industrialized countries achieved their wealth by eliminating tariffs, history suggests it's exactly the opposite: The strategic use of tariffs is precisely what built the industrialized world into an economic powerhouse. Bad Samaritans shows that wealthy countries' demands on poor countries to reduce tariffs is a way to keep the developing world in a subservient role -- or a means to "kick away the ladder," as he puts it. But the brilliance of Bad Samaritans doesn't derive solely from its forceful arguments or irrefutable history, but also from its conversational style -- a rare quality in the esoteric world of economics. Not…