Cell phone companies require us to guess how many minutes we'll use during a long period of time, and risk getting charged fines for going over. What if this structure spreads to other businesses?
Friday, June 20, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
THIS WEEK'S SYNDICATED COLUMN: OOPS NATION
The System Works? Not Really
Tens of thousands of innocent detainees have passed through Guantánamo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib, Diego Garcia and other U.S. torture facilities. Thousands remain "disappeared," possibly murdered. Some may be on one of the Navy vessels recently revealed to have been repurposed as prison ships. Dozens have been beaten to death or killed by willful medical neglect.
For seven years, the Bush Administration, the Democratic Congress and its media allies have denied "unlawful enemy combatants" (or, as Dick Cheney called them, "the worst of the worst" terrorists) the right to habeas corpus, the centuries-old right of persons arrested by the police to face their accusers and the evidence
against them in a court of law.
Thanks to a 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court, America's latest flirtation with fascism is coming to an end. Parts of the infamous Military Commissions Act of 2006 that eliminated habeas corpus have been declared unconstitutional. Prisoners at Guantánamo and possibly other American gulags, will now be allowed to demand their day in court. Since the government doesn't have evidence against them, legal experts say, most if not all of "the worst of the worst" will ultimately walk free. "Liberty and security can be reconciled," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.
In short: Oops.
"America is back," Barack Obama has said he will tell the world if he becomes president. Even if McCain wins, Guantánamo will probably be closed. Torture will be re-illegalized. Which is really, really great. But there's a problem. How do we give back the four years we stole from Murat Kurnaz?
In December 2001, Kurnaz was a 19-year-old German Muslim studying in Pakistan. He was pulled off a bus by Pakistani security services, who delivered him to the CIA for a $3,000 bounty. He was flown to Guantánamo concentration camp, where he received what The Village Voice's Nat Hentoff calls "the standard treatment: beatings, sleep deprivation, and special month-long spells of solitary confinement in a sealed cell without ventilation."
He went on hunger strike, and Kurnaz's tormentors apparently worried he might starve to death. After 20 days "they gagged me and shoved a tube up my nose, stopping several times because the tube filled with blood," Kurnaz remembers.
What did this "worst of the worst" do to deserve such treatment? Nothing. But don't take my word for it. Six months into his ordeal, the U.S. military determined, there was "no definite link or evidence of detainee having an association with Al Qaeda or making any specific threat toward the U.S."
The U.S. government knew Kurnaz was innocent. Yet they held on to him another three and a half years.
Oops.
It would be comforting if the torture of innocent men sold by self-interested bounty hunters were an aberration. It wasn't. A McClatchy Newspapers analysis confirms the horrifying results of a Seton Hall University study. "Only eight percent of Guantánamo detainees were captured by U.S. forces," reports McClatchy. "86 percent were turned over to the U.S. by Pakistan or by the Northern Alliance," a coalition of Afghan warlords. "The bounty hunters were often the source of allegations."
Right-wingers say security matters can only be entrusted to the military. "The courts," writes Richard Samp of the pro-government Washington Legal Foundation in USA Today, "simply lack the expertise and resources to justify second-guessing military experts on such issues." Maybe. But the military is run by liars.
"The McClatchy investigation found that top Bush Administration officials knew within months of opening the Guantánamo detention center that many prisoners weren't 'the worst of the worst.' From the moment that Guantánamo opened in early 2002, former Secretary of the Army Thomas White said, it was obvious that at least one-third of the population didn't belong there."
At least six died at Gitmo. (The Pentagon characterized a spate of suicides as clever acts of "asymmetrical warfare.")
Oops.
Deranged leaders who carry out horrific acts of mass murder and oppression with the consent of the people are hardly new to American history, reminds Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the United States. "Begin with the Salem witchcraft trials of the 1690s," he told a commencement ceremony at Southern Methodist University. "Move forward to the Alien and Sedition Acts of the early Republic, and from there to the suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War. Turn then to the arbitrary political arrests of the First and Second World Wars, the many abuses of the Cold War McCarthy era, and from there the civil liberties climate in our time."
So many oopsies! But those are temporary excesses, Weinstein reassures. "Self-corrective forces at work in American society"--lefties, liberals, a single swing vote on the U.S. Supreme Court--always pull us back before we careen off the brink. Disaster is avoided.
Which would be fine if it weren't for the problem that: (1) one of these days, Justice Kennedy won't be around to restore the rule of law. The other problem being (2): a lot of "witches" get drowned during our periodic episodes of madness.
No one was ever held accountable for blacklisting actors or massacring Native Americans. Such tacit endorsement of villainy sets the stage for the next outrage committed during a future "temporary madness" driven by national security worries. Apologies are rare. Penance is scarce and stingy. The government stole the homes and businesses of Japanese-Americans and shipped them to concentration camps during World War II; decades passed before Congress cut them checks for a measly $10,000.
We think we Americans are good people who do bad things when we're not on top of our game. "Self-corrective forces," we pat ourselves on our collective backsides, always kick in before we go too far.
But that's not really how it is.
Some Americans are good. Other Americans are bad. And the good ones are often lazy, willing to let the bad ones get their way.
COPYRIGHT 2008 TED RALL
The System Works? Not Really
Tens of thousands of innocent detainees have passed through Guantánamo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib, Diego Garcia and other U.S. torture facilities. Thousands remain "disappeared," possibly murdered. Some may be on one of the Navy vessels recently revealed to have been repurposed as prison ships. Dozens have been beaten to death or killed by willful medical neglect.
For seven years, the Bush Administration, the Democratic Congress and its media allies have denied "unlawful enemy combatants" (or, as Dick Cheney called them, "the worst of the worst" terrorists) the right to habeas corpus, the centuries-old right of persons arrested by the police to face their accusers and the evidence
against them in a court of law.
Thanks to a 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court, America's latest flirtation with fascism is coming to an end. Parts of the infamous Military Commissions Act of 2006 that eliminated habeas corpus have been declared unconstitutional. Prisoners at Guantánamo and possibly other American gulags, will now be allowed to demand their day in court. Since the government doesn't have evidence against them, legal experts say, most if not all of "the worst of the worst" will ultimately walk free. "Liberty and security can be reconciled," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.
In short: Oops.
"America is back," Barack Obama has said he will tell the world if he becomes president. Even if McCain wins, Guantánamo will probably be closed. Torture will be re-illegalized. Which is really, really great. But there's a problem. How do we give back the four years we stole from Murat Kurnaz?
In December 2001, Kurnaz was a 19-year-old German Muslim studying in Pakistan. He was pulled off a bus by Pakistani security services, who delivered him to the CIA for a $3,000 bounty. He was flown to Guantánamo concentration camp, where he received what The Village Voice's Nat Hentoff calls "the standard treatment: beatings, sleep deprivation, and special month-long spells of solitary confinement in a sealed cell without ventilation."
He went on hunger strike, and Kurnaz's tormentors apparently worried he might starve to death. After 20 days "they gagged me and shoved a tube up my nose, stopping several times because the tube filled with blood," Kurnaz remembers.
What did this "worst of the worst" do to deserve such treatment? Nothing. But don't take my word for it. Six months into his ordeal, the U.S. military determined, there was "no definite link or evidence of detainee having an association with Al Qaeda or making any specific threat toward the U.S."
The U.S. government knew Kurnaz was innocent. Yet they held on to him another three and a half years.
Oops.
It would be comforting if the torture of innocent men sold by self-interested bounty hunters were an aberration. It wasn't. A McClatchy Newspapers analysis confirms the horrifying results of a Seton Hall University study. "Only eight percent of Guantánamo detainees were captured by U.S. forces," reports McClatchy. "86 percent were turned over to the U.S. by Pakistan or by the Northern Alliance," a coalition of Afghan warlords. "The bounty hunters were often the source of allegations."
Right-wingers say security matters can only be entrusted to the military. "The courts," writes Richard Samp of the pro-government Washington Legal Foundation in USA Today, "simply lack the expertise and resources to justify second-guessing military experts on such issues." Maybe. But the military is run by liars.
"The McClatchy investigation found that top Bush Administration officials knew within months of opening the Guantánamo detention center that many prisoners weren't 'the worst of the worst.' From the moment that Guantánamo opened in early 2002, former Secretary of the Army Thomas White said, it was obvious that at least one-third of the population didn't belong there."
At least six died at Gitmo. (The Pentagon characterized a spate of suicides as clever acts of "asymmetrical warfare.")
Oops.
Deranged leaders who carry out horrific acts of mass murder and oppression with the consent of the people are hardly new to American history, reminds Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the United States. "Begin with the Salem witchcraft trials of the 1690s," he told a commencement ceremony at Southern Methodist University. "Move forward to the Alien and Sedition Acts of the early Republic, and from there to the suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War. Turn then to the arbitrary political arrests of the First and Second World Wars, the many abuses of the Cold War McCarthy era, and from there the civil liberties climate in our time."
So many oopsies! But those are temporary excesses, Weinstein reassures. "Self-corrective forces at work in American society"--lefties, liberals, a single swing vote on the U.S. Supreme Court--always pull us back before we careen off the brink. Disaster is avoided.
Which would be fine if it weren't for the problem that: (1) one of these days, Justice Kennedy won't be around to restore the rule of law. The other problem being (2): a lot of "witches" get drowned during our periodic episodes of madness.
No one was ever held accountable for blacklisting actors or massacring Native Americans. Such tacit endorsement of villainy sets the stage for the next outrage committed during a future "temporary madness" driven by national security worries. Apologies are rare. Penance is scarce and stingy. The government stole the homes and businesses of Japanese-Americans and shipped them to concentration camps during World War II; decades passed before Congress cut them checks for a measly $10,000.
We think we Americans are good people who do bad things when we're not on top of our game. "Self-corrective forces," we pat ourselves on our collective backsides, always kick in before we go too far.
But that's not really how it is.
Some Americans are good. Other Americans are bad. And the good ones are often lazy, willing to let the bad ones get their way.
COPYRIGHT 2008 TED RALL
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Friday, June 13, 2008
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Cartoon for June 12
The U.S., a.k.a. "Oops!" nation, does it again: After years of madness and torture and violating habeas corpus, the U.S. Supreme Court begins to restore the rule of law by invalidating parts of the Military Commissions Act. But what about those for whom the Court ruled too late?
Oops!
The U.S., a.k.a. "Oops!" nation, does it again: After years of madness and torture and violating habeas corpus, the U.S. Supreme Court begins to restore the rule of law by invalidating parts of the Military Commissions Act. But what about those for whom the Court ruled too late?
Oops!
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
THIS WEEK'S SYNDICATED COLUMN: It Takes a Symbol to Hold Back a Nation of Millions
The Empty Politics of Singularity
As an African-American, Ward Connerly uses his skin color to draw attention to his otherwise unremarkable politics: he's a right-wing Republican who hates affirmative action. Now this ideological freak is using Barack Obama's racial heritage (half of it, anyway) to argue that racism is all in the past.
"The entire argument for race preferences is that society is institutionally racist and institutionally sexist, and you need affirmative action to level the playing field," Connerly told The New York Times after Obama claimed the Democratic nomination. "The historic success of Senator Obama, as well as Senator Clinton, dismantles that argument."
Connerly said he "choked up" at the sight of Obama's victory. "He did it by his own achievement. Nobody gave it to him." Well, sure. Except for a little help from Chicago's Daley political machine (a.k.a. white guys). Obama may also have benefited from a race-based preference when his application arrived at Columbia College. (Shout-out to my former colleagues at Columbia's office of admissions and financial aid: free beers for a week for an hour in the archives.)
Behold the politics of singularity. If one (half-)black guy can make it, anyone can. Those who fail have no one to blame but their own lazy, excuse-making selves.
Seven years ago, conservatives like Connerly were pointing to George W. Bush's cabinet appointments, 50 percent of which went to women or people of color, as proof that minorities no longer had anything to complain about. "If you look at my administration, it's diverse, and I'm proud of that," Bush said of Colin Powell and Condi Rice, charter members of African-Americans Against Blacks. Minorities may well have followed the right's edict to quit whining and start working. But the rise of Alberto Gonzales to attorney general, for example, only helped one Latino: himself.
Even within the White House, tokenism has limits. "The Bush Administration," found a Newsday study of 2,800 political appointees, "is not nearly as diverse as it appears…Blacks held 7 percent of administration jobs under Bush, less than half of the 16 percent they held under Clinton…Women won 36 percent of Bush's appointments, noticeably fewer than the 44 percent of Clinton's."
Reflexive churlishness aside, after watching my fellow citizens passively accept torture, concentration camps, domestic surveillance, government kidnappings, two useless wars and two stolen elections, Obamamania is fun. It's refreshing to be proud of my fellow Americans. Those who vote in Democratic primaries, anyway.
So the Democratic Party isn't racist. What remains to be seen is whether America is. Will general election voters support a thoughtful, vigorous and handsome African-American running against a rigid, aging militarist pushing the policies of the most unpopular president in history?
To prevail in November, Obama must win the votes of millions of whites who supported George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. Though not necessarily racist themselves, these swing voters were certainly willing to tolerate Bush's racism. Bush famously beat McCain in the 2000 Republican primaries by waging a whispering campaign about McCain's "black" daughter by a prostitute (actually, she was born in Bangladesh and was adopted). He also spoke at Bob Jones University. "Bob Jones University is opposed to intermarriage of the races because it breaks down the barriers God has established," BJU administrators wrote to students in 1998--a ban that remained in force when Bush went there.
McCain is the lamest GOP candidate since Bob Dole, running in the least propitious year for Republicans since 1974. If a black guy can win, this is the year.
To be sure, an Obama victory couldn't have happened in 1964, when I was one year old, or even 1980, when I was 17. (Reagan won that year by winking at the KKK and decrying black "welfare queens.") Obama's inauguration would mark America's long, but undeniable progress since LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act. A biracial president with a Muslim parent would broadcast to the world that America's post-9/11 madness is finally winding down. But it would hardly mean that minorities, or women for that matter, had achieved equality.
Disparities in healthcare highlight some of the many inequities in an American economy suffering from staggering disparity of wealth.
Just last week a Dartmouth study showed that African-Americans with diabetes are five times more likely than whites to lose a limb to amputation. Blue Cross and Blue Shield released another survey the same day, this one showing that even African-American women who have medical insurance stand less of a chance of surviving breast cancer than whites. "The death rate for black women from breast cancer was the same up through 1981," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society and a professor at Emory University. "Every year, the death rate has gotten more divergent. The difference for black women and white women in 2005 was greater than it was in 1995, and it is greater in '95 than it was in 1985."
Everywhere you look, it sucks to be black in America. Swimming classes cost money. African-Americans don't make as much money as whites. So they don't sign up their kids at the same rate as whites. It might not sound like a big deal--until you learn that, according to the Centers for Disease Control, black children between the ages of five and 14 drown at two and half times the rate of white kids.
Good for Barack Obama. But our national obsession with the triumph of the individual (while ignoring disasters suffered by millions) reminds me of the old joke about the man in the car driving past a hitchhiker at 60 mph. Their average speed is 30. But they're each enjoying a different experience.
COPYRIGHT 2008 TED RALL
The Empty Politics of Singularity
As an African-American, Ward Connerly uses his skin color to draw attention to his otherwise unremarkable politics: he's a right-wing Republican who hates affirmative action. Now this ideological freak is using Barack Obama's racial heritage (half of it, anyway) to argue that racism is all in the past.
"The entire argument for race preferences is that society is institutionally racist and institutionally sexist, and you need affirmative action to level the playing field," Connerly told The New York Times after Obama claimed the Democratic nomination. "The historic success of Senator Obama, as well as Senator Clinton, dismantles that argument."
Connerly said he "choked up" at the sight of Obama's victory. "He did it by his own achievement. Nobody gave it to him." Well, sure. Except for a little help from Chicago's Daley political machine (a.k.a. white guys). Obama may also have benefited from a race-based preference when his application arrived at Columbia College. (Shout-out to my former colleagues at Columbia's office of admissions and financial aid: free beers for a week for an hour in the archives.)
Behold the politics of singularity. If one (half-)black guy can make it, anyone can. Those who fail have no one to blame but their own lazy, excuse-making selves.
Seven years ago, conservatives like Connerly were pointing to George W. Bush's cabinet appointments, 50 percent of which went to women or people of color, as proof that minorities no longer had anything to complain about. "If you look at my administration, it's diverse, and I'm proud of that," Bush said of Colin Powell and Condi Rice, charter members of African-Americans Against Blacks. Minorities may well have followed the right's edict to quit whining and start working. But the rise of Alberto Gonzales to attorney general, for example, only helped one Latino: himself.
Even within the White House, tokenism has limits. "The Bush Administration," found a Newsday study of 2,800 political appointees, "is not nearly as diverse as it appears…Blacks held 7 percent of administration jobs under Bush, less than half of the 16 percent they held under Clinton…Women won 36 percent of Bush's appointments, noticeably fewer than the 44 percent of Clinton's."
Reflexive churlishness aside, after watching my fellow citizens passively accept torture, concentration camps, domestic surveillance, government kidnappings, two useless wars and two stolen elections, Obamamania is fun. It's refreshing to be proud of my fellow Americans. Those who vote in Democratic primaries, anyway.
So the Democratic Party isn't racist. What remains to be seen is whether America is. Will general election voters support a thoughtful, vigorous and handsome African-American running against a rigid, aging militarist pushing the policies of the most unpopular president in history?
To prevail in November, Obama must win the votes of millions of whites who supported George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. Though not necessarily racist themselves, these swing voters were certainly willing to tolerate Bush's racism. Bush famously beat McCain in the 2000 Republican primaries by waging a whispering campaign about McCain's "black" daughter by a prostitute (actually, she was born in Bangladesh and was adopted). He also spoke at Bob Jones University. "Bob Jones University is opposed to intermarriage of the races because it breaks down the barriers God has established," BJU administrators wrote to students in 1998--a ban that remained in force when Bush went there.
McCain is the lamest GOP candidate since Bob Dole, running in the least propitious year for Republicans since 1974. If a black guy can win, this is the year.
To be sure, an Obama victory couldn't have happened in 1964, when I was one year old, or even 1980, when I was 17. (Reagan won that year by winking at the KKK and decrying black "welfare queens.") Obama's inauguration would mark America's long, but undeniable progress since LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act. A biracial president with a Muslim parent would broadcast to the world that America's post-9/11 madness is finally winding down. But it would hardly mean that minorities, or women for that matter, had achieved equality.
Disparities in healthcare highlight some of the many inequities in an American economy suffering from staggering disparity of wealth.
Just last week a Dartmouth study showed that African-Americans with diabetes are five times more likely than whites to lose a limb to amputation. Blue Cross and Blue Shield released another survey the same day, this one showing that even African-American women who have medical insurance stand less of a chance of surviving breast cancer than whites. "The death rate for black women from breast cancer was the same up through 1981," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society and a professor at Emory University. "Every year, the death rate has gotten more divergent. The difference for black women and white women in 2005 was greater than it was in 1995, and it is greater in '95 than it was in 1985."
Everywhere you look, it sucks to be black in America. Swimming classes cost money. African-Americans don't make as much money as whites. So they don't sign up their kids at the same rate as whites. It might not sound like a big deal--until you learn that, according to the Centers for Disease Control, black children between the ages of five and 14 drown at two and half times the rate of white kids.
Good for Barack Obama. But our national obsession with the triumph of the individual (while ignoring disasters suffered by millions) reminds me of the old joke about the man in the car driving past a hitchhiker at 60 mph. Their average speed is 30. But they're each enjoying a different experience.
COPYRIGHT 2008 TED RALL
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