July 30, 2001 9:05 p.m. -- Coca-Cola's
current advertising slogan is "Life Tastes Good." That's
apparently not the case for workers -- and especially union leaders -- at
Coke bottlers in Colombia.
The United Steelworkers union
and the International Labor Rights Fund have filed suit against Coca-Cola
alleging that the company and some of its bottlers utilize right-wing
paramilitary groups to intimidate and assassinate labor organizers. [story
from The New York Times]
Coca-Cola of course denies
the charges. While I have no first-hand knowledge that the charges are
true, it is undisputed that scores of union leaders in Colombia have been
killed this year. And the number of union workers at Coke plants in
Colombia has dropped from 1,300 to 450 in the last seven years.
U.S. companies have a long
history in Central America of utilizing illegal and often violent means to
stifle unions and keep wages low. These allegations would certainly
fit that pattern.
The excuse used before was
that the efforts were really aimed at fighting Communism. However
ludicrous that claim used to be, it can't be used now at all, given the
demise of the Soviet Union.
So again, as before, the real
cause is pure greed -- the desire to squeeze every drop of profit out of
these impoverished workers.
Have these companies no
shame?
July 29,
2001 9:45 p.m. -- Every time I turn on CNN today and see
that their top story is still wildfires in Wyoming, I ask myself, "Is
this the most important event occurring in the United States, let alone the
world?"
Why would I want to know
anything about this at all?
What possible journalistic
criteria -- other than impressive visuals of the flames -- would lead to its
selection as the top story?
Even when I was a kid, before
I had any political consciousness, I remember watching similar stories, and
wondering of what concern they were to me.
This bizarre story selection
happens all the time. Why would I want to know that a tornado
"ripped through" a town in the Midwest? Or that there was a
multi-car accident in some distant state? Of course I feel sorry for the
people in these unfortunate circumstances, but when I turn on the news and
want to find out what's going on in the world, such stories are not what I
have in mind.
For local stations in each
area, of course, many of these stories are completely legit. Not for a
national news broadcast.
It's also true that if
there's a really major disaster and relief aid is needed, such stories can
usefully whip up a public clamor for help to be sent, but in so many of
these stories that's not really applicable.
So here's a proposal: set up
a separate cable channel for the reporting of such events.
Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, sinkholes and tornadoes... to shark
attacks, building collapses and vehicular mayhem. 24/7. It could be
called TNDN, the Tragedies and Natural Disasters Network.
[Attn: Rupert Murdoch
If you use this idea, I want a commission.]
July 28,
2001 9:50 p.m. -- Even after several weeks, every time I
read this little story I start to cry:
My
sister-in-law...teaches physically and mentally handicapped children at
a private school in Brooklyn. She recently attended a Special
Olympics and went to the starting line of the 100-yard dash with 6 eager
contestants. As the starting whistle sounded, a boy tripped, fell and began
to cry. All
the other runners stopped, turned and went back to help. Then they
all held hands and went on to the finish line together. Needless to say,
everyone in the stands cheered.
[from the June 11, 2001 New York Times Metropolitan
Diary section]
Why am I so moved?
There are tears of joy mixed
with tears of sadness.
Tears of joy, for the pure
camaraderie, selflessness and love embodied by these children.
Tears of sadness, for how far
from such behavior we adults have wandered.
Wouldn't it be nice if, at
least once in a while, we could pause in our race for money and power; turn
around to see the suffering of those we have left behind; go back and help
these less able ones to their feet; and then walk forward together with
them, arm in arm.
And on a grander scale, how
sweet the thought of entire nations acting similarly toward those countries
which have tripped on the path to prosperity and well-being.
Of course, on the individual
as well as on the international level, a more accurate analogy would have
those left behind having been deliberately tripped by those winning the
race, but never mind that now. Just the thought of such a change in
the ways of the world is oh! so nice.
July 27,
2001 10:50 p.m. -- I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.
Here is a heading from the
newsstand version of the obituary
of recently deceased, prominent circus animal trainer Gunther
Gebel-Williams:
A claw-scarred
face, missing teeth and
an unconditional love for big cats.
Let's see now, he loved these
animals unconditionally, but they don't seem to have felt quite the same way
about him.
His original
teeth and their replacements were knocked out more than once. His face
had been scratched so much by the claws of huge cats that his lips were
covered with lumpy scars that in cold weather sometimes made it nearly
impossible for him to speak.
Could it have anything to do
with the fact that he "taught"
lions to ride
on the backs of skittish horses, leopards to jump through flaming hoops
held by the gleaming teeth of tigers, and elephants to take calm,
leisurely walks through roaring traffic in the nation's busiest
cities...
Could it have anything to do
with the fact that despite his reputation as a trainer who didn't use force
(and who knows if that is even true), he somehow forced these animals into
acting in ways diametrically opposed to their most basic instincts?
He loved these animals so
much, but he was comfortable with the fact that in the 23+ hours a day they
were not performing, the animals were kept in tiny cages, or chained to the
ground. They were denied the ability to perform virtually any of the
activities that millions of years of evolution had hard-wired into these
animals, including their needs to exercise, roam, forage, play, socialize
and mate. [more info]
But he "loved"
these animals -- "unconditionally" yet -- according to the
newspaper.
I don't know whether to laugh
or to cry.
July 26,
2001 10:25 p.m. -- Anyone old enough to remember -- or savvy
enough to have learned about -- the fierce battles over U.S. aid to the
Contras will have to feel a queasy sense of déjà vu: the diplomatic
personnel are being assembled, and the funds allocated, for new U.S.
intervention in Nicaragua.
Personnel:
--Former Assistant
Secretary of State for Western Hemispheric Affairs, Elliott Abrams, has
been appointed to the staff of the National Security Council, a position
for which he does not need Senate confirmation. Abrams has the blood of more innocent children,
women, and men on his hands than any Balkan war criminal. He has also
grown rich in Central American business schemes since his departure from
government.
--Otto Reich, who Bush is
planning to nominate for Abrams' old job, was in charge of psychological
operations under Reagan and Bush, a position from which he spread
disinformation to the press...
--John Negroponte, who as
Ambassador to Honduras during the 80's helped run the contra war and
covered up Honduran army atrocities, is Bush's shameful choice for
Ambassador to the UN.... In 1988, after Nicaragua was devastated by
Hurricane Joan, Negroponte was overheard to say, "We need to treat
this as if it were a successful contra attack." This is a chillingly
evil man.
[Excerpts from a letter (full text here) sent out by the Nicaragua Network, a
long-established advocacy group opposing U.S. intervention in Nicaragua
and elsewhere in Central America.]
Funds:
Greg Thome, Desk Officer for
Nicaragua at the U.S. State Department, told me today that $5.6 million has
been allocated for U.S. "monitoring" and other "help" in
the upcoming Nicaraguan presidential elections. (There are likely similar
allocations in other U.S. government departments and agencies about which
we're still unaware. And of course, as we know from experience,
whatever amount of money they admit to is always multiplied several times
over in covert funding.)
Even that $5.6 million is
huge. Nicaragua has a population of 4.4 million, the U.S. about 280
million. So the $5.6 million is the equivalent of a foreign country
spending over $356 million to "assist" in a U.S. presidential
election. I somehow think the powers that be in this country might
object to that. [When I pointed how to Desk Officer Thome how
relatively massive this amount of money was for a country of Nicaragua's
population, he said "You're right. Fair enough."]
From the same letter as
above:
All of this makes me so
angry that it is difficult to even find the words to express my outrage.
For more than a century, my country has killed Nicaragua's children,
destroyed its economy, wiped out every social advance of the Sandinista
Revolution, and raped the environment.
My sentiments exactly.
My blood literally boils over.
[see August 2 update and especially the August 29 update]
July 25,
2001 8:50 p.m. -- Conservative pundits often make assertions
at odds with undisputed facts, hoping they won't get caught. If
someone calls them on it, then these blabmeisters will blurt out the most
ridiculous things to try to wiggle out of the situation.
Take for example Susan
Carpenter McMillan, "president" of some entity called the
"Women's Coalition," who made an absolute fool of herself the
other day on Hannity & Colmes.
McMillan was claiming that it
was only Democrats who had affairs and took advantage of interns.
Apparently the names Bob Packwood, Henry Hyde, Bob Livingston and Newt
Gingrich eluded her.
Here's the essence of the
exchange between McMillan and host Alan Colmes:
MCMILLAN: No. 1,
Democrats have given interns and internship a bad name.
COLMES: Oh, stop politicizing it. You ought to be ashamed of yourself
politicizing this.
MCMILLAN: I'm not
ashamed of myself. I'm not ashamed of myself at...
COLMES: We have a missing woman, Susie, and you want to make a political
football out of this. That's -- shame on you.
A bit later, Colmes went on:
COLMES: There are
Republicans who are scoundrels, who are cheaters, who are adulterers, who
are not nice to their wives and families, and who lie and cheat.
It is not a matter of party affiliation, and how dare you try to make that
the issue here.
After a commercial break,
McMillan gave her reply:
MCMILLAN: ...You
said how dare I -- how dare I politicize it. You opened your show by
saying real men don't cheat on their wives.
You tell me the last Republican who was fooling around with not one, not
two, not three, [but] 15, 20, whatever, interns...
So according to this
apparent revision of the Republican dogma, affairs with a few interns are
OK, just don't get into the double figures! LOL.
July 24, 2001
10:00 p.m. -- "$800
billion here, and $800 billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about
real money."
-- the late Senator Everett Dirksen, as modified for the
topic at hand.
The New York Times
recently reported
from various sources that:
Tax evasion by Americans using offshore accounts
is rising and will increase.
[F]ewer than 6,000 of more than 1.1 million
offshore accounts and businesses were properly disclosed and therefore
legal.
[M]ore than $800 billion of American money is on
deposit in just one tax haven, the Cayman Islands.
That sum, equal to one-fifth of all the bank
deposits in the United States, is so large that it cannot be solely, or
even primarily, the fruits of criminal activity like drug dealing.
Rather... these funds must be the product of huge and growing tax evasion
by wealthy Americans who have little, if any, fear of prosecution.
[T]he United States loses $70 billion in taxes
annually from such evasion.
Here's the kicker:
[E]fforts to pursue tax cheats [have] often been
stymied not just by foreign governments, but by the federal government,
especially the Justice and State Departments and the intelligence
agencies. (emphasis added)
I've been waiting for the
likes of Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and other
self-appointed defenders of the average American to SCREAM about this
scandal and demand government action to collect from the wealthy these
scores of billions of dollars of uncollected taxes. Not a word have I
heard. Not surprising at all.
July 23, 2001 10:00 p.m. -- I
vehemently disagree with Gary Condit's politics, and in the Chandra Levy
situation he has acted like a sleazebag. He well deserves much of the
criticism he is receiving. Yet as a matter of intellectual curiosity,
I can't help but wonder:
Much of the criticism of
Condit relates to his not admitting to the police at their first two
meetings that he was having a sexual relationship with Chandra Levy.
Had he admitted this right away, the pundits repeat ad nauseam, it
would have given the police a better shot at finding her alive.
How?
Only if Condit or an
accomplice had kidnapped Levy and she was being held alive somewhere, might
such information about his sexual relationship with Levy have been relevant,
in that it would have given the police more reason to suspect his
involvement.
But didn't the police already
know about the affair, from Levy's family? One assumes the police
would have been investigating whether Condit was behind the disappearance
anyway. Indeed, Condit's lie certainly made the police more suspicious
of him, not less.
On the other hand, assume
Condit was not behind Levy's disappearance, and that a third party unrelated
to Condit had abducted her. How would the knowledge that Condit had a
sexual relationship with Levy have helped the police in tracking her down in
that third party's custody?
None of this excuses Condit's
lying, or absolves him if he has withheld any other pertinent information
from the police.
But it annoys me when
conclusions are asserted that make no sense.
I am certainly willing to be
corrected on this, so please tell me how I'm wrong!
July 23, 2001 9:15 p.m. -- "Meet the new boss/Same as the old
boss" This line from that kick-ass Who song "Won't Get
Fooled Again" just keeps playing in my mind as I watch coverage of the
G8 summit. I also can't get out of my head the definition of
colonialism we all learned in grade school: "A system designed to
extract wealth from the colony and transfer it to the mother country."
Three bottom line questions:
1. Aren't the major G8 powers
essentially the same countries which ran the world during the period of 19th
and 20th century colonialism?
2. Can we assume that there
has been no major evolution in human ethics since then which would now
inhibit the economically powerful from exploiting the weak?
3. Hasn't the income and
wealth inequality between the Western powers and the former colonies been
steadily increasing since the end of the formal colonial era?
I believe the answer to all
three questions is yes.
Despite all the talk at Genoa
about free trade and helping the poor, it is the extraction and transfer of
wealth which remains as both goal and result. Meet the new boss, same
as the old boss indeed.
