The New $145 billion Corporate Tax Breaks

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Monday October 11, 2004 · 10:08 AM PDT

2004/10/11 · 10:08

Pardon me if folks have already been discussing this, but I saw no mention of 'tax' in the first 50 diaries. This is news to me even though it is huge.

On Saturday, theledger.com noted that even though the Federal Debt equals $25,195 for every man, woman, and child, and the annual deficit is at a record breaking $375 billion, Congress was getting ready to give Corporations and Tobacco farmers $145 billion in tax cuts and buy-outs in the next 10 years.

Well, the bill has passed the Senate. I'm actually trying to tease apart what it means... Read More

Post This Flyer!! The REAL Flip Flops!

MediaRevolution

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Thursday September 09, 2004 · 3:30 PM PDT

2004/09/09 · 15:30

I just made this flyer and I'm going to post 100 of them here in Reno, Nevada as a last act before moving to Scotland. I would love it it you could print it out and put it up because I honestly think it's what we're missing!

DOWNLOAD HERE (243K Word Doc) Read More

Protest Congressional Censorship

MediaRevolution

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Wednesday July 21, 2004 · 1:05 PM PDT

2004/07/21 · 13:05

As you may or may not have heard, Florida Congresswoman Corrine Brown was shouted down, silenced, and censured last week. She was asking for UN monitors in the coming elections and she called the 2000 elections a "coup d'etat". Her comments were stricken from the Congressional Record and she wasn't allowed to speak for the remainder of the day.

I just submitted this letter to the editor to my local rag in Reno. Send it or one like it to your paper or to your congressperson.

CONT Read More

Alternative Iraq News Sources

MediaRevolution

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Wednesday May 12, 2004 · 4:24 PM PDT

2004/05/12 · 16:24

I am very impressed with The New Standard, which covers the war in Iraq; civil liberties and security; and US business and economy, "all presented from a people's perspective". Especially keen is the work of Dahr Jamail who has been Falluja giving news and photos the likes of which I haven't seen elsewhere.

Also check out http://electroniciraq.net/news/ which has, for example, a recent perspective from the Kurdish north.

MORE: Specific stories of interest below. Read More

Psychology of Torture: Abu Ghraib and the Stanford Prision Experiement

MediaRevolution

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Friday May 07, 2004 · 7:43 PM PDT

2004/05/07 · 19:43

I first learned about the Stanford Prison Experiment in Psychology 100 back in college, and it profoundly affected my understanding of human nature. In 1971, Stanford Professor Philip Zimbardo tested about 70 male college student volunteers and selected the 12 deemed to be most "normal, average and healthy". Randomly, six were assigned to be prisoners and six were assigned to be guards.

The guards subjected the prisoners to demeaning abuse, and the experiment had to be ended early.

This made me realize how easily some people can become sadistic given a starkly unequal power situation and a perception of impunity. It has made me attentive to the subject of abuse and rape in US prisons (often abetted by or even commited by guards). And it meant that the Abu Ghraib attrocities were no big surprise to me. Read More

Iraqi Human Rights Minister Resigns in Frustration

MediaRevolution

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Wednesday May 05, 2004 · 8:21 PM PDT

2004/05/05 · 20:21

This came out yesterday. [I looked back through ~150 diaries, apologies if this has been posted before.]

Abdul-Basat al-Turki, minister of human rights in the Iraqi government, told the Arab satellite-TV station Al Jazeera he had resigned "not only because I believe that the use of violence is a violation of human rights, but also because these methods in the prisons means that the violations are a common act."
Mr. al-Turki said he had complained in December about human rights violations by Americans to the top U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer. He did not say what had come of the complaints.

This isn't the only indication that these abuses were widespread... [MORE] Read More

Most Americans STILL believe Iraq had WMD...

MediaRevolution

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Wednesday April 21, 2004 · 4:02 PM PDT

2004/04/21 · 16:02

...and that Iraq supported al Qaeda.

This is exasperating.

From an April 8-15 poll:

-- A 51% to 38% majority continues to believe that "Iraq actually had weapons of mass destruction," virtually unchanged since February.
-- A 49% to 36% plurality of all adults continues to believe that "clear evidence that Iraq was supporting Al Qaeda has been found." These numbers have scarcely changed since June 2003.
-- While a 43% plurality believes that the "U.S. government deliberately exaggerated the reports of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to increase support for war," a 50% plurality (also virtually unchanged over the last eight months) continues to believe that the government "tried to present the information accurately."

MediaRevolution

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Tuesday April 20, 2004 · 6:25 PM PDT

2004/04/20 · 18:25

The Los Angeles Times has a story today about a division of American soldiers that recently saw its first combat action. Members of one division were interviewed afterwards--it's an informative portrayal of young soldiers and their thoughts.

The responses are different, and some soldiers weren't happy being there. But the words coming from nineteen year-old Reno boy are troubling to me. (I live in Reno.) Killing people was "fun", he said. His friend says, "I'm ready to go back out again. I want to blow up as many as I can." Read More

Why isn't Sept. 6 getting more play? When Hart again warned Condi...

MediaRevolution

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Thursday April 08, 2004 · 6:20 PM PDT

2004/04/08 · 18:20

Gary Hart warned Condi Rice on Sept. 6, 2001, about the threat of terrorism to the United States. He'd actually being saying a long time that "The terrorists are coming, the terrorists are coming." It is detailed in this Salon Interview.

Why isn't this getting more media play? Or dailyKos play? Searching "hart rice" on news.google.com shows that this is apparently not being mentioned by any of the major US papers. It is in a couple of smaller papers like the Minnesota Tribune. On dKos, the Salon story was mentioned in a couple of comments and a diary entry which garnered no comments.

If we're hoping the Aug 6 briefing takes off, wouldn't it be better if it were paired with Sept 6, too? Read More

Death By Medicine

MediaRevolution

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Wednesday March 31, 2004 · 3:16 AM PST

2004/03/31 · 03:16

Death by Medicine

Peer-reviewed research has shown that 100,000 Americans die each year from adverse prescription drug reactions. An equal amount die from medical errors. In the past three years, the number of Americans who died from these two causes outnumbers deaths from terrorism by about 200 to 1. Why aren't we concerned about this? Why is their no presidential commission interviewing people in congress about this?

This issue is compounded by the fact that more and more research is funded by industry these days and less is supported independent government funding. Industry funded research is much more likely to reach favorable conclusions about a particular drug than non-industry research. The FDA doesn't do it's own research, it depends upon other published work, so as the industry co-ops the scientific community, we're actually seeing drugs on the market that have been promoted instead of tested.

The link above is pro "natural" supplements, which I'm not. But this is an exhaustively researched document: check the citations.

Venezuela Analysis

MediaRevolution

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Wednesday March 03, 2004 · 12:51 AM PST

2004/03/03 · 00:51

I just feel compelled to show this picture of a massive pro-Chavez demonstration that happened in Caracas on Sunday. Wow.

Like the situation in Haiti, the Venezuelan mess is complex.

The sides are, however, bluntly discernable. Most people who talk about it are strongly partisan, speaking with almost cold-war rhetoric ("They're evil autocratic socialists!" or "They're evil corporate, capitalist imperialists!")

I side with the Chavez supporters, but not blindly or idealistically.

There was long a piece about Chavez in the Sept 10, 2001 New Yorker that showed him to be a complex and imperfect man who truly cared about the people. Like the rest of Latin America, wealth and property ownership is dramatically skewed; Chavez honestly works for the people and is probably one of the least corrupt statesmen in South America. His vision is greater than his reforms and he alienated the business community rather than trying to work with them.

The US media is clearly biased against him.... [MORE BELOW, lots of links!]
Read More

Why the WTO is bad; Deflating Economic Dogma

MediaRevolution

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Friday February 27, 2004 · 9:30 PM PST

2004/02/27 · 21:30

In this comment thread came the question "Why is the World Trade Organization such a bad thing?"

Although I don't know too much about the WTO, Paul Krugman says that it is not as evil as we all think, and I guess I would agree with him. It is more how it has been implemented than anything else, but I think I have to learn more about it.

Growing up, I never thought I'd be an activist, but my research into the structure and dynamics of the WTO and US trade policy convinced me to march in the streets in Seattle in 1999. So I feel compelled to answer this. What follows are a lot of thoughts and arguments that rarely make it into the discussion about so-called "free trade". It's a bit of a brain dump, but you might find it interesting. MORE BELOW... Read More

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