bloggerk

2008-03-04T16:08:00.000-08:00

to new beginnings

2005-09-07T18:02:00.000-07:00

As you can see, I really haven't followed through on the blogging. I'm gonna try again. But the focus will change to be more of the small post, diary approach to blogging instead of my grandiose plans of multi-page posts that are the equivalent of newspaper commentaries. But of course, I can't resist to comment on the politix, yo, so so you'll see plenty of that (if I actually stick to it this time.)

If you're a friend of mine, you can check out my commentary piece on the Big Muddy IMC about the Kodee Kennings site. I've spent chunks of the last week arguing on right wing blogs that the Kodee affair wasn't an "anti-war conspiracy." Sheesh. Anyone who knows anything about the DE and SIUC knows that the DE doesn't do anti-war conspiracies.

k

MAC the Knife

2005-05-04T13:59:00.000-07:00

All of the piece of the MAC's actions are coming together.

Piece One: The MAC goes back on years of "implied" promises to finish noise abatement out to the 60 DNL contour. This implied promise was a major part of the debate on MSP expansion versus the other alternatives. For an example of the way this was portrayed to regulators and the public, see the Final Record of Decision by the FAA for the construction of the new runways.
http://www.faa.gov/arp/app600/5054a/RODMSP.html#VIIC

"The MAC has an ongoing residential sound insulation program. Over $90 million has been committed to sound proof 4,200 homes. The FAA has awarded $35.6 million in grants during the course of this program to fund sound insulation measures related to the existing airport’s operations. The MAC intends to continue this effort in relation to the new runway. Additional mitigation is planned, as described in the noise mitigation plan, since the 2005 DNL 60-65 contour does not currently reach all of the properties projected to experience significant noise impacts. MAC further intends to expand this effort to the DNL 60 contour as long as it maintains a bond rating of at least an "A.""

Of course, the MAC now claims that it cannot afford to implement this commitment fully.This leads us to piece two:

The planned airport expansion is funded through the same source as noise mitigation. Therefore, to finance the Northwest preferred airport expansion, noise mitigation has to go.

First, the cost of the NWA preferred airport expansion is increasing and the MAC share is becoming increasingly front-loaded, from today's Star Tribune:

The revised plan envisions 12 new gates being built by June 2007. The original 15-year plan called for six new gates to be built within that same time period. . . [T]he revised cost estimate for the project goes from $862 million to $984 million.
The revisions also make the MAC's financial commitment much more front-loaded. Rather than $135 million in expenditures for the first phase, to be completed in June 2007, the new plan calls for spending $372 million in the same period."

The article continues, describing the funding sources for this ever growing project. Guess what, it's not coming from the primary beneficiary of the plan to kick all competing airlines over to the HHH terminal. It is coming from passenger facility charges (PFCs). Again, the Strib:

According to a MAC staff memo to the commissioners, passenger facility charges that are included in the cost of airline tickets will pay for more than half of Phase One, the bulk of which centers on improvements to the Humphrey facility. The new plan proposes using the fees -- $4.50 per ticket -- both to pay for ongoing projects and pay debt service on bonds that would be issued by the MAC. The MAC is not proposing to raise the fees, Hogan said. The fees would, however, have to be used for longer period of time to fund the expansion costs instead of being put to other uses. Northwest Airlines, which accounts for 80 percent of the passenger traffic at the airport, would pay little for the first phase, Hogan said, adding that he couldn't say for certain what the amount might be. Northwest isn't expected to be a significant direct financial contributor to the expansion as a whole, in large part because of its financial difficulties."

Perhaps you ask, what are the "other uses" to which the PFC could be put to? Gosh, what a surprise, it's noise mitigation!

1,161,478,610 dollars are projected to be collected through the imposition and collection of a $4.50 PFC until the year 2017.
(see "PFC Approved Locations, Collections, and Expiration Dates" a PDF file available at http://www.faa.gov/arp/financial/pfc/pfclist.cfm?ARPnav=pfc) This is a truly stunning number, and it is purty close to the revised figure on the 15 year cost for expansion. When you add in the costs of issuing bonds to finance the 962 million dollar expansion project, you are coming quite close to eating the whole enchilada of the 1.16 billion the PFC is anticipated to produce.

The purposes for which the PFC was authorized included both airport expansion and noise mitigation. To ensure that NWA's preferred option of HHH expansion and NW partner exclusivity the elimination or curtailment of the MAC's financial responsibility for mitigation was crucial. And you can now note how the 2020 vision plan and the curtailment of noise mitigation are inextricably tied.

So, we get NWA dictating the airport expansion that it prefers, by contravening the promises that got it the alternative it desired in 1998, and now we can see the direct financial result of that abrogation: the ability to capture the PFC revenue and divert it into fasttracking it's ghettoization plan for continued market dominance.

Cute.

A November 3rd Hangover Cure

2004-11-03T07:25:00.000-08:00

As I write this, at 9:30 AM CST, there has been no declaration of victory or defeat from either camp in the presidential election. But even though CNN won't call it, I will: Bush has been reelected President of the United States. With an 140,000 vote lead lead in Ohio and not nearly enough provisional ballots out there to reduce that lead, Ohio is once again a red state. Even if you believe Donna Shalala's statement that there are 250,000 provisional ballots, the facts are as follows. First, not all of the provisional ballots are from verifiably eligible voters, which means that they won't count. If you assume that 75% of these ballots are declared eligible, you are already under 190,000, and that is an extremely generous assumption. The idea that over 85% of these ballots are Kerry votes is also an unrealistically generous assumption. I think we will see a concession speech later today as the hard numbers from the Ohio Secretary of State's office on the number and nature of the provisional ballots are revealed.

But please, in your state of mourning the election results, do not become despondent. The reality is that things have changed very little, and will change very little from the situation of the last two years.

The Supreme Court will change, but not as much or as severely as many commentators have suggested.

First, look at who is likely to be replaced - there are several very conservative justices (led by Rehnquist) who are likely to be replaced, and frankly, it'll be hard to lean them further right.
Second, without a cloture vote enabling 60 votes in the Senate, the R's know that they cannot nominate folks that D's will filibuster into the ground. This means no Thomas or Scalia as Chief Justice, this means no Pickering types as associate justices.
Third, the nature of the Court prevents dramatic shifts in jurisprudence. Roe is good law now, and will not be overturned by a new Court, regardless of its makeup. Those kinds of seismic shifts are prevented by the doctrine of stare decisis - the precedent of Griswold v. Connecticut (right to privacy) will not be overturned. It will be narrowed (as it has for the last 30 years since Roe), but abortion will remain legal in this country basically forever, but with increasing restrictions.
Fourth, and this is really important, we are overreliant on the Court to designate our "rights." What the Court calls rights aren't really rights unless we have the means to enforce them in the face of a state with virtually limitless resources.

I like this Howard Zinn quote in terms of thinking about the Court's importance to our daily lives:

From: Howard Zinn, “The Supreme Court is Not Supreme” (1973). In Failure to Quit: Reflections of an Optimistic Historian.

“But we are looking in the wrong places to assess the liberties of American citizens. And this error leads us to a false notion of what to do to make ourselves more free.”
“Both the source and the solution of our civil liberties problems are in the situations of every day: where we live, where we work, where we go to school, where we spend most of our hours. Our actual freedom is determined not by the Constitution or the Court, but by the power the policeman has over us on the street or that of the local judge behind him; by the authority of our employers; by the power of teachers, principles, university presidents, and boards of trustees if we are students; by parents if we are children; by children if we are old; by the welfare bureaucracy if we are tenants; by the medical profession or hospital administration if we are physically or mentally ill.”
“Freedom and justice are local things, at hand, immediate. They are determined by power and money, whose authority over our daily lives is much less ambiguous than decisions of the Supreme Court. Whatever claim we Americans can make to liberty on the national level—by citing elections, court decisions, the Bill of Rights—on the local level we live at different times of the day in different feudal fiefdoms where our subordination is clear.”

The reality on the ground will be very similar for many people. I am not trying to belittle or minimize the very real impact that our national elected officials have on our lives. In fact I think the worst impact from this election will undoubtedly be from the 11 ballot initiatives regarding gay marriage that passed. Especially in Ohio, where the language is so overbroad that it bans domestic partner benefits for state employees and university employees, these initiatives will create real harm to a number of people. One of the sea changes that I have been slowly coming around on in my way of thinking about politics is that I am beginning to see electoral politics on the national level as a giant sinkhole for activism and change.

Imagine for a moment what could have been accomplished for South Dakota families if the thousands of volunteers and the millions of hours, and the upwards of 40 million dollars they poured into the state (over 70 dollars per voter) had been directed toward assisting poor families, or building roads, or fixing schools.

Imagine for a moment if the upwards of 500 million dollars spent nationwide on mindless advertisments was invested in education.

Imagine for a moment what all of the MoveON PAC and America Coming Together volunteers who flooded into Minneapolis could have accomplished in the three weeks they were there, had they directed their energy and talent into creating dialogue between neighbors, instead of directing that political energy into punchcards and bubblesheets and touchscreens.

Every four years, we continue to escalate this electoral potlatch, where we prove how democratic we supposedly are by burning ever increasing quantities of our scarce resources in an exercise primarily designed to divide spoils between competing interest groups. If we are lucky, our reward for participation will be some small scraps from the table, while the main courses are divided among those who already receive the lion's share of benefit from the governmental largesse. Like Malcolm X said (paraphrasing) : "I'm not going to sit at the table with an empty plate, and call myself a diner."

And the worst thing of all is that we take it all so very personally. It hurts to see our nation seemingly turn its back on the values we care about. It feels personally devastating to watch selfishness prevail, even when the alternative is only slightly less selfish. It's more than tough to keep your chin up in the face of a wind that seems to blow in our face, it's impossible. And when we spit, it slaps us right in the face.

Let me propose something here, that is a proposal that I have never really lived very well myself. I have been inculcated in the arts and sciences of a very impersonal and distant politics. I can research and write and argue, but find it difficult to reach out and work with people I do not know well.

I understand the nature of news, and I understand how it makes politics into a distant sport. I realized this last night as the news coverage rolled in; it was the equivalent of a sporting contest, a football game. After 9/11, I became a 24/7 news junkie, but then I resolved to take a break after three months of unemployment-aided free time led me to a gigantic news overdose. Join with me today in starting a new approach to politics that I hope can help us overcome our pain today:

1) Resolve to stop consuming the news. Make your commitment in any way you like; maybe you want to stop watching television news, maybe tv altogether. Designate one news outlet you will utilize and use only it (alternative media, perhaps). I recommend cold turkey media diets, since they will really emphasize to you how much media consumption can rule your life.

2) Start with your backyard and do something NOW. Take some concrete action, no matter how small, that acts on a political belief. If you want to help the environment, do little things to conserve energy, walk somewhere instead of driving, take the bus. I know these seem trivial, but the point is NOT to stop there, but to use these little steps to build toward something grander. In less than two weeks, I will go to a convention for my academic discipline - and let me just say that it has serious problems with how it is exclusive and class divisive. I will go to the conference with an agenda to raise consciousness of these issues in my backyard.

3) More than ever, we need to find our allies and join together to make these actions become real and expansive. We need to demonstrate our commitment in our workplaces to be welcoming to all people, regardless of race, class, gender, sexual orientation - all difference. As an educator, I recognize that rights are LOCAL things, like Zinn says. And I cannot provide health care to people, but I can do something incredibly important by continuing to make my classroom and my school a welcoming place.

Let's take it local, people. Let's do it now. Grief and anger are productive emotions if they inspire change - they are destructive if they lead to apathy and withdrawal. This may be just the nudge we need to start spreading real change in the circle of people that we know, and to be honest, that is the best potential for change that any of us have, regardless of who is in office.

k

And The Winner Is .....

2004-10-01T13:21:00.000-07:00

The temptation when analyzing presidential debates is to declare a winner. Preemptively, that is the job of spinmeisters for each campaign, but since I am an old debate coach, I can't help but do the same thing - analyze the debate to figure out who benefitted.

Before I start, I do want to note a couple of things:

First, the heads up battle between Kerry and Bush is fine, I guess, but the qualification requirements of the CPD debates (15% in the polls) creates a self-fulfilling prophesy, eliminating nearly any credible and qualified third party / independent candidate. The absence of Ralph Nader from this debate was glaring, and I think that Kerry suffered from it. That's right - I said that Kerry suffered from it. Nader's viewpoint on Iraq particularly would allow Kerry to hone his "middle position" on the war into something more recognizable as "middle ground," rather than a flip-flop or a waffle. I have often been critical of Kerry for his milquetoast stance on the Iraq war, but the criticism that he "shifts his position" is more spin than substance. Nader as a left counterbalance would have allowed Kerry to play for the swing vote more effectively, I think. Personally, I believe the Nader position is the most defensible (this is an illegal war, we need to set firm timetables for withdrawal, the UN needs to lead all of the peacekeeping operations and reconstruction) but that's another post.

Second, the "rules of engagement" agreed upon by the two campaigns impoverish the debate. I'm a big old fan of direct clash, and at times the parallel campaign stump speech aspect of the debate became extremely tired. I was very pleased that most of the media coverage refused to honor the rule about "no reaction shots." In person, reaction and nonverbal interaction between the candidates is unavoidable, and I don't see why the televised version ought to differ from that more than is inevitable given the constraints of the medium.

I want to divide my comments into "expectations," "style," and "substance."

One of the primary jobs of a campaign is to shape the expectations of the viewer in a way to make the performance of the candidate exceed the expectation. This was very true during the 2000 campaign. Gore was overwhelmingly tabbed as a clear favorite in the first debate, and when Bush held his own against Gore there, it turned his campaign around. It wasn't that he was brilliant, but he exceeded expectations.

This time around for W, the expectations were hardly so tilted in his favor (or is it against him? I don't know ...) The Bush camp fought hard to get the order of debates changed from the CPD's proposal so that foreign policy would be first. This is due to a couple of factors. First, Bush leads Kerry significantly on the War on Terror and National Security issues. The campaign clearly believes this is their strength, and it plays into their strongest rhetorical tropes ("these are hard decisions," "that's a pre-9/11 mentality," "the best defense is a good offense," "we must be resolute and strong," etc.) Second, the research bears out that first debates are the most important, since they shape the expectations for the remaining debates, and the media coverage of the first debate comes at a crucial time in the minds of undecided voters.

The problem with this line of reasoning has to do with the rising expectations conundrum I described above. Post-debate analysis of the Gore-Bush 2000 first debate focused nearly exclusively on how Bush "exceeded expectations" - in this case, I think the message is that Kerry clearly exceeded folks' expectations on a couple of fronts, many of which are stylistic.

Style is an interesting topic, since it has been conflated with substance in the mind of voters, especially on foreign policy issues. The knock on Kerry has been that he is a waffler, that he blows with the winds, etc. This is a _policy_ criticism; the Bush camp makes this argument by referencing several votes (the vote "for then against" the $87 billion supplemental for Iraq, the vote for the authorization of force and subsequent criticism, etc.). W has always made a case for his directness, forthrightness and decisiveness - which are really _stylistic_ points, not so much a defense of his policies.

Ironically, last night it was Kerry's style that I think ameliorated a lot of the "waffler" image that Bush has tried to pin on him. He kept his cool, demonstrated little to no waffling inside of the debate, leaving W to try to pin it on him with little to go on. I think that personality politics are particularly important when it comes to undecideds at this point in an election cycle, and Kerry definitely helped his cause by keeping cool, calm and collected throughout. Regardless of your political orientation, I think that it is hard to dispute that.

So here we have the ultimate irony: Kerry's style overwhelmed his policy choices. This is in opposite land of what we expect - that Bush's strength is more in his style as a decisive leader than in the decisions that he makes, and that Kerry might have better policies, but that he arrived at them circuitously and without conviction. This was not good news for the Bush spin team, and it was reflected in the "heart" bulletpoint that was universally stressed by Karen Hughes, Karl Rove (!), Marc Racicot, etc.

The reaction shots in this debate were really bad for Bush. While he has clearly worked hard at banishing "the smirk," he at several points looked clearly annoyed, impatient, and uncomfortable. Kerry's strategy of taking notes during the Bush responses worked well at keeping him from "pulling a Gore." If anyone was hurt by the reaction shots (that I am gld the networks showed) it was definitely Bush.

Lastly, I am curious about the eye contact choice made by Kerry to direct his answers to Jim Lehrer, rather than directly into the camera as Bush did. Kerry's final statement was delivered into the camera, so he clearly knew where it was, so why that choice? It makes me long for the days when Bill Clinton could look right into your soul through the camera (speaking as a public speaking instructor; it's definitely not a wish for the return of Bill Clinton, for whom I never voted.)

In terms of substance, this debate was largely substance-free, with a couple of notable exceptions.

First, Kerry blew several chances to differentiate his forward-looking policies re: Iraq from Bush. His "four point plan" is eerily reminiscent of the status quo, only he claims to be able to do it "better." I thought that Bush's choice to go for the "don't waver" line in response was a mistake. Why not hammer Kerry on the "your plan is my plan, and you stole it" line? I mean seriously, look at Kerry's four points - have a summit, get allies, train more Iraqis, etc. are exactly what the administration has been doing - the only real claim is that Kerry can do it better.

In regards to that, I also thought Kerry blew his best chance to explain why he could be better at getting allies to join in the face of Bush's repeated "how do you get allies to join the wrong war in the wrong place" response. The answer is patently obvious - "we screwed up, and now this mess threatens all of us. I wasn't responsible for making it, but I am responsible for cleaning it up, and it is all of interests to do so together." Kerry didn't really make a persuasive claim in this regard other than "I know these people."

I do think that Kerry did the best job to date at summarizing a facially consistent stance on the war in soundbite format, a summary that has been AWOL up til now. But in the end, that is only a defensive argument that at best helps to neutralize some of the damage done by the flipflopper argument, and does not establish or advance a clear agenda about where we go from here. Without that sort of clear agenda, the "don't change horses in midstream" argument gets a lot more traction in the mind of undecideds.

Lastly, I thought that Kerry blew a chance to embarrass Bush on the North Korea issue. While the average undecided is probably unaware of the intricacies of the negotiations regarding the enriched uranium issue, there were several points at which Kerry should have housed W. First, the insistence on multilateralism in the case of NK but unilateralism in Iraq should be the centerpiece. I mean, c'mon, Bush's defense of the 5 party talks revolves around "if we negotiate directly, that's what North Korea wants." In every other case, we've diminshed the role of multilateralism. What if Kerry said: "Are you really saying that we should let China negotiate FOR the U.S.?"

And for that matter, the other argument Bush made re: NK was that China would be offended if we started a direct dialogue with NK since they are currently participating in the 5 party talks. But that ignores that China has been practically BEGGING the US to do just that since the decision of NK to abrogate the Agreed Framework in 2002. That's not too complicated for folks to understand.

In the end, if I had to declare a winner, I'd probably go with Kerry. Even in a world where it is a dead heat, since the expectations for Bush were high (given his wire to wire domination of national security issues in polls), I think Kerry benefits. I think that Kerry's demeanor in the debates was more beneficial for him than any particular policy issue, though his relatively concise and clear statement about his stance on going to war in Iraq was also a strength. Bush did a decent job of staying on theme, and his "making tough decisions" bit is probably his strongest suit (as evidenced by the spinners attempts to bring that issue back to the fore repeatedly in the post-debate analysis).

But this is once again a lesson on "watch what you wish for, you might get it." Bush may have spent his ace in the hole topic on the first debate, with less rosy fields in domestic policy likely to follow in the subsequent tilts.

k

Every Constituency Doesn't Count

2004-09-24T06:49:00.000-07:00

Alas, we are heading full steam into the nadir (Nader?) of the presidential election season. I can't wait. For the next couple of months, I'll be concentrating this blog on the elections, and I'll be paying close attention to the presidential "debates" over the next few weeks, so make sure to stop back.

Today, I want to address a claim that I've seen made repeatedly the last two months:
"Because this election is so close, the candidates can't afford to ignore the needs of (insert groups of people here.)"
I kid you not, I have heard this claim made regarding: native americans, log cabin republicans, catholics, jews, evangelical christians, greens, environmentalists, small business owners, urban voters, rural voters, first-ring suburban voters, black voters, hispanic voters, yadda yadda yadda. Everyone is the most important group - the potential difference between victory or defeat come November 2. This of course means that no one group is the important group that will be the difference between a win and a loss in this election, and the campaign strategies of both campaigns demonstrate that quite well.

Honestly, I found the news story about the importance of the native american vote this November to be really sad, since the sincerity of the speaker who declared that "this time around, politicians can't afford to ignore the native vote" cannot be questioned. The problem is that the premise is so amazingly void - no presidential candidate in recent memory has been responsive to native american issues, and this will not change no matter how close the election. The image of Kerry and Bush criss-crossing the country, listening to and being attentive to the political issues that any of these groups care about is pretty silly. The reality is that both campaigns have conceptualized a stock character called "the swing voter" (TSV) as the key to winning this election. TSV does not exist, per se, but TSV has had an enormous impact on the political messages of both campaigns.

I find this interesting since during the primary season there was so much talk about how this election was all about mobilizing your base and turning out your strong supporters, since the country was so polarized. And there lost of evidence of that polarization, what with the new the Swift Boat ad that calls Kerry a traitor (no shit, it pretty much says it) and the polls that show a very small slice of the electorate as undecided for this point in the election season.

This emphasis on TSV is pernicious, not just because the mythical swing voter group doesn't really exist, but because it shapes campaign rhetoric into dangerous distortions. Consider one mythical TSV group - "NASCAR dads." Great - what a nice image of masculinity to base a campaign around, and what an effect! What issues do "NASCAR dads" care about? Apparently, it's kicking terrorist tail and cutting taxes (simultaneously, but that's another issue entirely).

Okay, so NASCAR dads aren't the greatest example, but here's my point: the mythical swing voter is always a projection of the "average" American as conceptualized by the folks who run campaigns (nearly always white, upper-class, highly educated folks) - a stereotype. Sure, this stereotype is buttressed by demographics, polls and data, but in the end the numbers always add up to the same equation:
- TSV is white. Everyone else is fighting to be the most important of the groups I talked about above.
- TSV is upper-middle class to middle-class. TSV despeartely wants to believe that their relatively privileged economic position is solely the result of dessert, that they "earned" what they have and that other folks who are less privileged are lazy, and want to steal the results of their hard work.
- TSV has health insurance. People without health insurance don't vote. TSV is concerned about increased out of pocket HMO costs.
- TSV is patriotic. TSV likes the military.TSV believe that American dominance of the world is good, the only question is how best to do it.
- TSV holds a grudge. TSV wants to like the candidate they vote for, not just agree with them. The candidates pasts matter more to TSV than TSV wants to admit.
- TSV is undoubtedly a Christian, but TSV isn't really always practicing actively. TSV likes to lie about how devout they are, and TSV likes to hear that candidates give lip service to their beliefs the same way that TSV does.
- TSV is worried about gas prices because they just got a new lease on an SUV that gets 14 mpg.
- TSV has kids. TSV thinks that couples without kids are selfish.
- TSV is definitely straight. TSV uses "gay" as a term of derogation toward things that they dislike. TSV thinks that gay folks are abnormal. The most tolerant version of TSV thinks that gay folks are tragic, but at least they aren't hurting anyone but themselves.
- TSV likes to shop. TSV thinks that s/he is winning when they find cheap goods - like it is some sort of contest.
- TSV owns a home, and TSV has cashed out equity from their home during the last two years.
- TSV watches lots of television. TSV has a TV in their bedroom. TSV's kids have TV's in their bedrooms.

I could go on, but why? Feel free to add to the list by making comments below.

Sure, I'm engaging in some rank stereotyping here, but that's kind of the point - campaigns conceptualize target voters as stereotypes, gather statistical information to support their stereotypes and then base their campaigns around these stock characters. Where does that leave the rest of us?

k

The Bizarro World of Gun Politics

2004-09-15T07:01:00.000-07:00

This week, we've been treated to another round of the topsy-turvy, upside-down world of gun politics as the ten-year assualt weapon ban expired. Better than any other recent event, the rancor on both sides surrounding this debate proves how "gun control" measure serve primarily as symbolic battles, yet have limited (but important) material results.

The argument against extending the assault weapons ban has several versions, but the most popular goes something like this: "The assault weapons ban was actually useless, since it only banned cosmetic features (like attached bayonets, etc.) while allowing the legal sale of basically identical firearms that don't look like assault weapons. So the outcry over the expiration of this ban is basically posturing by the anti-gun nuts that want to take away our individual rights guaranteed under the Second Amendment." I think that's a pretty fair description, but if you don't think so, let me know.

The problem with this argument should be patently obvious: if you're right, then why was it so essential to fight this ban in the first place? And it was fought intensely; when the NRA lost the legislative battle, they targeted a massive amount of resources to defeat several of the key proponents of the assault weapons ban. The lesson: cross the NRA and they will be present at your political funeral. But the opponents of the ban can't have it both ways - either the ban was unnecessary and ineffective or it was an infringement on your right to carry the weapon of your choice (more on that in a minute). Or is it that the Second Amendment guarantees you the right to attach bayonets to your gun? The actual lesson here is much more instructive about whose interests the NRA really represents.

The owners of gun shops and gun manufacturers are always the big winners when the NRA legislates. Anecdotally, gun shop owners in areas across the coutnry, including Minnesota, reported a surge of interest in purchasing assault-style weapons in anticipation of the expiration of the ban. And I don't make this argument because I believe that cosmetically modified assualt weapons will find their way into terrorist hands or flood the streets and be used to kill police officers - most if not nearly all of them will go to people who already own more than one gun, and are law abiding citizens, albeit with what I think is an unhealthy obsession with firepower. The reason I point this out is that every time a piece of gun legislation is proposed or fought over, it constitutes a massive amount of free advertising for the gun industry (manufacturing and retail), and it also instills gun consumers with the kind "cold, dead hands" determination that leads to more gun purchases by folks who are already gun owners.

In Minnesota, the passage of the "shall issue" handgun carry law led to a great deal of hyperbole on both sides of the issue in regards to the effects on public safety. Opponents of the law predicted a an oubreaks of Old West Style gunslinging on Minnesota streets and accidental shootings. With a couple of notable exceptions, those fears have proven to be largely unfounded. Proponents of the law argued that there would be a drop in crime as criminals were deterred from robbing and stealing for fear that they would meet the end of a .44 Magnum wielded by super-citizen-law-enforcers. The evidence for this claim is equally scanty, and belies the ridiculous claims made by the NRA and others about the use of guns to foil crime. If there were good anecdotes about the use of weapons to stop crimes, I'm pretty darn sure that you would hear about it. And we will probably never really know the answer to either of these statistical questions since the State will not gather information on either, and the studies on both sides of the issue are riddled with bad assumptions, horrific methodologies and just plain bad science.

But the one effect that the "shall issue" law did have was in raising public consciousness about the availability of weapons, permits and institutionalizing "safe spaces" for the carrying of guns. Media reports indicated that gun shop owners experienced a surge in sales after the passage of the shall issue law, mostly among folks who already owned a handgun, and now needed a smaller, lighter, "carrying around" handgun. Once again, the NRA succeeded in lining the pockets of gun manufacturers and retail outlets.

I could make some arguments about the availability of weapons, the accident rate, whether guns actually make you safer, etc. I believe that guns in general don't make you individually or us collectively any safer over the long run; but I also think that most of the rhetoric among those who want more gun control defeats itself by being overly alarmist, undercutting the better and more reasoned reasearch and reasons for rational gun control measures. Like many Americans, I am aware of guns, I have fired a gun, I have hunted, but I don't own or possess a gun. The NRA's opposition to waiting periods, more strict standards for licensing, gun registration, limitations on carry permits, etc. is equally incredible to my way of thinking, since we clearly recognize the interest of a society and government limiting the possession of deadly weapons because they endanger the public and the user (explosives, tanks, automatic weapons, etc.)

What the NRA has succeeded in doing is individualizing and personalizing the issue so that gun owners feel that gun control measures are an infringement on their right to purchase the weapon of their choice. The reality is probably closer to this: the NRA is more interesting in preserving the manufacturers and retailers unfettered and unhindered right to sell the weapons of their choice. Amidst all of the clutter this fact should remain clear - if you follow the money, the trail leads right to the manufacturers and retailers; the rest of the debate is just windowdressing.

Why does David Strom exist?

2004-09-13T11:20:00.000-07:00

Wow. I thought that the initial news story suggesting that the Minnesota Taxpayers League was passing around a petition to rename Floyd B. Olson Memorial Highway and tear down all of the monuments and statues in memory of Governor Olson was a joke. And it turned out that I was right.

As David Strom, fearless leader of the MTL, repeatedly pointed out in an appearance on Twin Cities Public Television's "Almanac" show, this was a "somewhat tongue in cheek proposal." And it is an illustrative one, since it points out the strategy that Strom favors in his quest to make Minnesota safe for the adherents of Ayn Rand.

This whole episode reminds me of the jerk who tells a sexist or racist joke and then acts shocked when you call him or her on it. "What, can't you take a joke?" Strom's strategy goes something like this:
* Make a ridiculously hyperbolic proposal.
* Wait for someone to make a ridiculously hyperbolic response. It doesn't matter who that person is, but if you're lucky, they'll be published in the Star Tribune so that you can kill two birds with one stone.
* Argue that this proves that "the left" is "unhinged."
* Argue that this proves that "the left" is "humorless."

So in this case:
* Argue for the abolition of any "state celebration" of Olson since he was a socialist, and socialists are bad. Reagan destroyed socialism, which is bad, so Reagan is good. (I'll tackle the "nuances" of this argument in a minute.)
* Wait for someone to make comparisons of your proposal to erase history you disagree with the impulse to erase history expressed by nasty mass murdering dictators like Hitler, Mussolini and Franco in some letters to the editor in a local paper.
* Declare that you are actually not Hitler. Declare that this proves that "the left" "hates Ronald Reagan." Equate the naming of a highway for the man who basically spearheaded the construction of the network of state highways with the naming of a local lake after a slaveholding jerk from the 1850's. Accuse "the left" of making false comparisons.

In the end, this is nothing more than attention seeking disruption. It's a strategy that parents are familiar with, and it's where the mantra "ignore them and they'll go away" came from.

But at the very least, I wish that SOMEONE would take him up on his strategy instead of beating around the proverbial bush. Even Hy Berman, who is about 60 times smarter than everyone else on that issue of "Almanac" was spinning his wheels as he advocated for some sort of world where no historical monument should ever be modified, giving grist to Strom's comparison of Olson with slaveholders like Calhoun and letting his tie this into the confederate flag controversy, which made me ill.

Strom's evidence for the fact that Olson was a socialist is a quote ("I do not mind being called red. I prefer it to the term yellow ...") and a repeated mantra - he was in favor of state ownership of industry. Well, let's check it out.

Yes, Olson supported state ownership of several industries, including utilities and mines. But Strom's ahistorical analysis fails to recognize that such proposals were made in the context of an absolutely COLLAPSED economy, with unemployment over 35% and in the depths of the great depression. Olson's proposals largely mirrored those of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was also branded a socialist. Well, guess what - the socialism of the time resulted in such horrible totalitarian innovations like agricultural cooperatives, a minimum wage, Social Security, the CCC and WPA projects that created the essential backbone of inffrastructure that largely fueled the 1950's economic boom, and rural electrification. All of that HORRIBLE socialism! Strom's conflation of Olson's "socialism" with Stalinesque Communism is just straight up dishonest. That's part of the reason why the Reagan highway bit is so odious, it attempts to smear valuable and essential regulation of industry (I'm sure that some of those Enron investors and employees would have appreciated a little government regulation of energy) by association with mass murdering dictators. You'll note that this smear by association is the same one that Strom thinks is uncredibly unfair when applied to his historical erasure project. And you should also see that it is these programs (regulation of industry, minimum wage, social safety net programs) that are the real targets.

This is also incredibly unoriginal. Nobody in the Minnesota media has pointed out the obvious, this is just localized plagiarism of the proposal to put Reagan on the dime. Same ideological axe to grind, different target, same strategy.

But the point is not to be "right" or even persuasive. The reason for Strom's existence, let alone the reason for the MTL's schoolyard taunting strategy is so that the ideological affinity organizations can play bad cop while the R leadership can play good cop, especially the heroic boy governor Timmy Pawlenty. It's a concerted strategy of racheting up the ideologically charged rhetoric from rightist mouthpieces like the Center for the American Experiment and the Minnesota Taxpayers League that lets the boy governor act like the "voice of reason" while covertly attempting to implement the wishes of those who fund them. It also allows R donors to funnel large sums to "nonpolitical" organizations to dominate media attention, while keeping their fingerprints clear of the dirty work that Strom and Cheri Pierson Yecke and others do.

Yecke's unwilling departure from the Department of Education should have led to her departure from the state. After all, she is a GOP carpetbagger, sent from Virginia to puch the Minnesota education system in a radically different direction, to localize the "accountability" standards of the No Child Left Behind farce. But what happened once the Senate gave Ms. Yecke the boot? She quickly found a home at the Center for the American Experiment, where she's probably better paid, and ultimately not subject to the democratic process that removed her. Now she can join the braying chorus of ideologues that do the dirty work of the R's while keeping them ostensibly clean.

This strategy is undeniably brilliant. It is also incredibly well funded, and way more sophisticated than anything the D's have come up with. Since the collapse of the Grunseth campaign, the main players who were humiliated in that episode have assembled a strategy that has turned Minnesota into a "battleground" state in fourteen short years. It's easy to make fun of David Strom, that little annoying, bearded toady, but that's exactly the point. He exists to make the more dangerous, cunning and mediagenic member of the Eagan cabal more reasonable and "gubernatorial" by comparison.

The next time the MTL unveil one of their stunts, do what my momma always told me: "Just ignore him, and he'll go away."

k

The Quicksilver Chronicles: Rosemount, Minnesota

2004-09-09T08:51:00.000-07:00

When I read the cursory description of the incident in the Star Tribune this Tuesday (9/7), I was fascinated and very concerned. According to the article, two teenage boys had "discovered" two one quart jars of mercury in an abandoned factory, and had spilled the substance in a playground near a mobile home subdivision in Rosemount, Minnesota. What must have seemed cool at the time ("it's like what Mario turns into in that video game!") has turned quickly into an absolute nightmare for a whole community. Media accounts of the events of Monday night have become more precise, painting a bizarre, macabre picture of dozens of children playing with and holding the mercury in their hands, pouring it into each other's hair, throwing it at each other, and the teens selling it to kids for 5 bucks a handful. In fact, the hazardous waste party was only interrupted after a parent who knew exactly what the silvery substance was and how dangerous it is found his kids holding handfuls of the stuff proudly - "look what we got!"

Now it is being called "the biggest mercury spill in the history of the state of Minnesota." At least 10 homes have been identified as requiring extensive decontamination. Folks in white moon suits are walking around the neighborhood with futuristic looking silver canisters, trying to capture the mercury (which does not lend itself to capture in its elemental, liquid form). Dozens of residents will be locked out of their homes for at least two weeks, while crews tear out all of the carpet and upholstery that has been contaminated and dispose of it as hazardous waste. Over 40 people needed to be decontaminated in a hastily constructed shower, and several have been decontaminated twice after a second round of testing indicated folks with still too high levels of mercury in their hair and blood. In all, this cleanup will run into the millions of dollars, probably - and there is no readily identifiable "responsible party" to bill, unless you count the fifteen and sixteen year olds that broke into a locked storage shed and pilfered the mercury. I doubt that they are able to foot the bill. Families who lose carpeting and furnishing had better hope there are no pollution exclusions in their renter's or homeowner's insurance policies, or they will be out the cost of replacing those items - the state Superfund will pay to dispose of their couch in a toxic waste dump, but won't buy them a new one.

Last night, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, the Rosemount Police, the City of Rosemount and other involved governmental agencies held a meeting to describe the extent of the contamination, the pace of the cleanup, and who will be held responsible for it all. According to television media reports, a great deal of anger was directed at the two teens who unleashed the mercury on the neighborhood. And it is that anger that I find interesting - since it helps me to conceptualize some thoughts I've had about environmental risk, how it is perceived, and how anger is channeled and felt by those impacted by environmental hazards.

Usually, the fear and anger felt by folks who live on polluted land or drink polluted water has no readily identifiable person to be the subject of that anger. Even when there is a responsible business or corporation, the anger you can feel toward an organization is qualitatively different than the anger you can express toward a person. Frequently, the agents of the EPA or state pollution agencies get to experience this phenomenon directly, as frustrated residents unleash their pent-up frustration in a satisfying explosion at the first face that they can identify as responsible for their travails. In this case, we have two teenagers, described by some of the neighborhood residents as "troublemakers" as the lightning rods for this rage. And they definitely deserve most of it: despite their likely ignorance of the danger of this substance, they recklessly broke into a secured shed and were the human agents that loosed this scourge on the people of Rosemount Woods mobile home park. They are in the process of learning a harsh lesson - the anger of people whose lives have been disrupted by exotic chemicals rarely subsides quickly. Regardless of what punishment the state dreams up for them (as juveniles, they are likely to receive nothing more than community service and probation for burglary), they may find the worst to come as they and their families are driven from the neighborhood they've poisoned.

But the flip side also fascinates me: what to make of the number of people that see this as an overreaction. Mercury is one of those unique substances that were ubiquitous (in thermometers, etc), but still extremely hazardous. While mercury thermometers are comparatively rare nowadays, there were a number of people that said stuff like "I used to play with it as a kid" implying it was no big deal. Unfortunately, there are far too many toxic chemicals that used to be commonplace that we now know more about, enough to be fearful of exposure that we once thought amusing. For an instructive example, consider that in the 1950's, radium lined water jugs were sold, along with radium suppositories!

Regardless of the resolution of this scare, there will be many more like it, as abandoned industrial sites across the country are left to deteriorate, or in this case, be redeveloped into snazzy new subdivisions. The irony of this case is that the mercury was lated to be disposed of properly and in accordance with the law in less than a week, and the factory site is slated for demolition in less than a month. The allure of the Brockway Glass Factory was strong, and it has left its mark on the surrounding community forever, in the memories of the residents who are going through this ordeal. But every town, every city has its own Brockway Glass Factory, and every community has the potential to experience worse than Rosemount. It's imperative that we work to identify these sites and clean them up before something like this happens again. And it's crucial that kids know about the danger that old factories pose. The "forbidden fruit" may still tempt, but parents ought to identify potential environmental hazards in their area and steer kids away if possible. One useful tool is the EPA's "Enviromapper" that lets you enter a zip code and see all of the hazardous waste permit holders in your area. (http://www.epa.gov/enviro/html/em/index.html)

k

Links for Additional Information

Chao Xiong. "Blame at Fore in Rosemount Mercury Episode." Star Tribune, 9/9/04. http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/4971607.html
Associated Press. "MN Mercury Contamination." Star Tribune, 9/9/04.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/468/4971599.html
Chao Xiong. "Kids Play Sets Off Rosemount Toxin Alert." Star Tribune, 9/8/04.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/4969415.html
Nancy Ngo. "Homes Still Off Limits." St. Paul Pioneer Press, 9/9/04.
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/9613452.htm
Laura Yuen. "Mercury Was Playground Toy." St. Paul Pioneer Press, 9/8/04
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/local/9604343.htm
City of Rosemount. "Cleanup Under Way in Mercury Incident." 9/9/04
http://rosemount.govoffice.com/index.asp?Type=B_PR&SEC={4BB85898-BCF6-4352-B968-F87D47D7C6D8}&DE={C1981808-9081-462F-8254-37B7F22284DA}
City of Rosemount. "Council Approves Downtown, Brockway Projects" 7/8/04
http://rosemount.govoffice.com/index.asp?Type=B_PR&SEC={4BB85898-BCF6-4352-B968-F87D47D7C6D8}&DE={237049B0-ADF6-4FC5-9CD8-44C88493D1A8}

Expanding the concept of "wilderness"

2004-09-03T06:46:00.000-07:00

Today marks the anniversary of one of the most successful pieces of environmental legislation in the US, the Wilderness Act. It's a great time to reflect on the progress we've made in protecting essential ecosystems and setting aside a legacy of untrammeled land for our children and grandchildren. But there is much work left to be done.

The idea of "wilderness" conjures up images of unspoiled tracts of old-growth forests, crystal clear streams, and land untouched by humans. But the reality is that very little such land exists today, even inside of the National Park and National Forest systems that protect most of the land designated as "wilderness." In fact, there is not a single square inch of land in the United States that remains "untouched' by the influence of humans, whether through logging or air pollution, we have left our indelible mark on every ecosystem on the planet, to some extent. If the goal of designating wilderness is to preserve that land which is left free from human influence, then we would never have had any land to so designate.

The greatest period of expansion of federal control over land that now comprises the backbone of our wilderness was acquired during the 1930's, as landowners across the US found themselves unable to even pay taxes on their farms in the depths of the great depression. As an example, consider the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois. Including over 25,000 acres of designated wilderness, much of that forest was acquired in terrible shape, as overextended farmers had created horrific erosion throughout the hillocks and hollers of the Illinois Ozarks. Many of the trails (unfortunately ill-maintained) the cut across the forest are old single rut wagon trail roads. In the Spring, you can discover old home sites by looking for the patches of daffodils, the descendants of the flowers planted by homesteaders to be cut and shipped to the Chicago flower and produce markets by train from little towns like Cobden or Makanda. By any definition, the wildernesses in the Shawnee National Forest are disturbed land, still noticeably so, despite nearly 80 years of respite. In many ways, the Shawnee represents the conundrum of land preservation east of the Mississippi - there was no land left free from human influence by the time we started thinking about the need to set aside land for the future.

Where I live now, the controversies surrounding the Wilderness Act still swirl. The crown jewel of the Midwest's wilderness (some would argue the nation's crown jewel) is the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. This area is now so popular with canoeists and campers that the permits that limit entry are quickly snatched up every Spring for the most popular entry points and weekends. In many ways, it is threatened by its very success - overcrowding is a big problem in the more traveled parts of the area, and the character of the wilderness is nearly lost in the bustle of humanity.

This is hardly the problem that longtime Northwoods residents had when the BWCAW was first designated. The "culture war" that erupted, most notably in the small town of Ely, still reverberates today. At the time, wilderness advocates were harassed and driven out of town, and burned in effigy as resident predicted the end of their community, and railed against the feds grabbing control from the community. Now, thirty years later, it's hard to make the same economic arguments, as Ely has benefited from a particular kind of tourism that has brought a modicum of growth to the town. Nonetheless, the residue of these battles remain, in the semi-annual battles over snowmobile access and motorized portages, and in the recent anti-Iraq war resolution first passed by the town council and then hastily overturned soon afterward. The divide between "new" and "old" Ely may have scabbed over, but it still has not healed.

The areas of the Superior National Forest that surround the BWCAW represent the next battle, as wilderness advocates press for designating additional national forest land surrounding the BWCAW as wilderness as well. While we are in the early stages of this next round, expect it to heat up as the old wounds are picked at. This time, all terrain or off road vehicles are complicating things as their users are pressing for increased access to the forest. Which logging roads will be opened to ATV use will be one of the most important sticking points, and in the first draft of the new SNF operating plan, ATV's would be allowed on all old logging trails (over 1200 miles), but would be prohibited from cross-country travel. Of course, given the paltry enforcement resources of the Forest Service, whatever rules are arrived at will largely be a paper tiger.

The stories of these Midwestern wildernesses are probably more instructive than the stories of our "glamour shot" wildernesses in the Rockies, Adirondacks and Alaska, since they represent the battles that result from attempts to balance preservation, restoration and multiple use management philosophy. They are also "flawed" wildernesses - nearly the entire area of the BWCAW was logged between 1890-1920, and the Shawnee was nearly completely homesteaded and farmed until the lean years of the 1930's. Using a strict definition of wilderness, would certainly disqualify them from consideration. And that would be the deathknell for wilderness in the US, especially in the Midwest.

For that matter, it would be an exercise in futility to believe that we can protect wilderness from all damage, as the raging debates over fire management strategies indicate. Do we extinguish fires because they destroy the forest, or do we recognize that fire is part of the natural cycle of maintaining healthy forests? And it's probably somewhere in between and beyond those perspectives, since we have undoubtedly influenced the availablility of fuel in forests through previous decades of fire suppression. And we also have to account for the increasing proximity of humans to these fires, which is probably an even stronger influence on the debate.

All of this should lead us to discard the romantic, but tragically flawed, notion of wilderness as land untouched by humanity. But that admission is not a license to bulldoze all of these lands because they are no longer pure; instead, it is a mandate to continue to designate land and let it stand as places where nature is given the maximum possible breathing space from human depredation. In so many ways, our "perfect wilderness" ideals are anachronistic, so much so that it erases the fact that humans lived and used these land for thousands of years prior to European settlement. We've got thirty years of this experiment under our belts, and it's only a beginning. If we want to preserve a future for our grandchildren that counterbalances the seemingly exponential expansion of development in America, it needs to start with a new commitment to designating lands as wilderness.

k

"I don't think we can win it"

2004-09-02T14:21:00.000-07:00

"I don't think we can win it."

The rhetorical firestorm that erupted in the wake of Dubya's candid pronouncement was fierce, and the Rove-led fire brigade sent to quell the flames went into hyperdrive just hours after this pronouncement. Just a day later, we had Dubya singing a different tune to the American Legion with "We will win." But let's just take a look at what the War on Terror (notice it's not terror_ism_ anymore - wonder which focus group led to that switch?) is, according to the pols who define it for the American people.

We can't win it, but we are winning it, and we must win it, since we can't lose it.

In other words, the WOT is a permanent war, cut from much the same mold as the Cold War. The only problem: in the absence of a defined state as enemy, we can never know that we have won, even if that were possible. As Dubya and his handlers retractions correctly noted, we will never sit down at a peace table to end this conflict. We may be closer to understanding the shadowy networks of Al-Queda, but we are very far from understanding those networks.

This permanent but "very different kind" of war is very handy, since you get to turn the public's perception of danger on and off to justify particular actions or reinforce your election campaign. The runup to the Iraq War demonstrates this perfectly well. Even if Iraq posed a threat to the US (which is, at the least, an arguable proposition), there was no imminence to the threat - no intelligence that there were new developments. In other words, if we take the 1998 rhetoric of the Congress and then President Billy as gospel truth, we persisted in a policy of no need to invade for 6+ years, including 8 months of Dubya pre - 9/11, and a year and a half post - 9/11 with no talk of the need to depose this despot NOW. Yet, recycled British intel and six year old graduate school essays became suddenly strong evidence of the need to get this guy before he handed over operational weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.

The color coding system proved to be TOO useful in this regard, as the Department of Homeland Security quickly realized how seriously Americans took increases in the threat level. The desire to act proved so strong that Tom Ridge was reduced to telling people to buy duct tape and plastic sheeting to protect their homes from chemical weapons, in a useless charade eerily reminscent of the Civil Defense drills I participated in as a child. No, crouching under your desk during a nuclear war will NOT make you safe, kids .... When I say it has proved too useful, what I mean is that these warnings quickly lost their efficacy as people became jaded by the seeming randomness of the changes.

All of the rhetoric at the RNC from fiscal conservatives justifying their support of the Dubya regime despite the incredible deficits being rung up seems to focus around a repeated mantra - "In case you haven't noticed, there's a war going on." When it comes to time to revisit the USA PATRIOT act (since one rational aspect of that collection of police powers is a sunset provision), the cry "but we're at war" will echo through the halls of Washington. War can justify almost anything - and we should expect that it will.

It's vitally important, regardless of your political stripes, to understand that a permanent state of war is the most likely way to destroy many of the things that we hold dear about America. War and preparation for it have justified torture, sponsoring despots who advance our short-term geopolitical agendas, destruction of the environment, massive fiscal irresponsibility, all things that we associate with the downfall of another once powerful ideological empire - the Soviet Union. I am not drawing a direct analogy here - but listen up for a minute as I explain.

Isn't it possible that this is the _plan_ of those who attacked the US on 9/11? I mean, we hear an awful lot about how bin Laden and Al-Queda are trying to get the US to cower, to retreat, etc. But it would take an awfully unobservant person, regardless of their ideology, to conclude that the result of the 9/11 attacks would be a fortress America, stripped of pride and swagger, crawling back to the shelter of North America with its tail between its legs. No serious observer of American politics could ever conclude that. You should call these folks evil, but I think we are seriously deluding ourselves if we believe that they are stupid.

In fact, lots of evidence points to the opposite - Al-Queda operatives were very busy in the months leading up to 9/11/01, especially on the financial front. Douglas Farah's reporting and book "Blood from Stones" documents how millions of dollars were converted into portable, untraceable diamonds in the last weeks before 9/11. This is surely not a coincidence, and tells a story of an Al-Queda fully aware that one of the first moves of the US would be to freeze bank accounts and attempt to choke off the money supply of the network.

For all the talk of "fighting the terrorists over there" whether in Iraq or elsewhere, we have to take the long view of winning, losing and fighting this war. Surely, given the tremendous technological, financial and numerical superiority of the US military, bin Laden et. al. didn't expect a quick win, or even a direct defeat. The tactics of the mujahadeen in Afghanistan (where bin Laden cut is teeth in making war on an occupying power, ironically financed and armed by the CIA) indicate that a much longer term strategy is at play here. Are we playing into their hands? Will our increasingly overstretched military survive in its current form? Will our new coalition of the willing prove as capable and durable as the old? (This is no small question, since the recent troop realignment proposed by Rumsfeld risks a permanent shift in our alliances). Will the American public have the stomach for prolonged tours of duty for their neighbors and a seemingly perpetual series of conflicts? These are the questions we have to ask as we evaluate and ruminate on the winnability of this war, and if we are indeed winning it, as Dubya would have us believe.

k

The Freedom of the Press to be a Conduit for Leaks

2004-08-25T14:40:00.000-07:00

There has been a great amount of boo-hooing from members of the press lately regarding subpoenas served to reporters in criminal cases. While I am usually on the side of the press against government regulation, I find many of their arguments hard to swallow.

The most recent case involves blowhard Robert Novak and the criminal investigation into the leak of the identity and occupation of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Can someone please explain to me how we can have five individuals subpoenaed in this case, none of whom is apparently Robert Novak? Newsweek editor Michael Cooper has currently been granted a stay as he appeals a federal court's order to divulge his sources in a story he wrote on the affair, but it appears that he, along with several other reporters in the last year, will feel the sting of a 500 dollar a day fine if he fails to pony up with the names of his "unnamed sources."

When the Plame investigation began, President Bush, in a rare moment of candor, declared that we "may never know" who leaked her name. But it certainly doesn't take a Justice department investigator to realize that the one person who could definitely tell you is, well, Robert Novak. The connecting of one dot to another leads to the obvious conclusion - dot one: revealing the name of an undercover CIA operative is illegal, dot two: Valerie Plame was such an operative, dot three: someone told Robert Novak about it, knowing that it would find its way into print, dot four: Robert Novak is facilitating a criminal enterprise. Don't believe for a nano-second that he is nothing more than a naif, a pawn in the game of someone in the administration. He most certainly knew that such an odd piece of information about such an obscure person who happened to be the wife of a man whom the administration wanted to discredit wasn't dropped into his lap accidentally. It would probably be more accurate to describe him as a co-conspirator, given his history and political leanings.

The other recent case that has been used as evidence of a growing threat to freedom of the press is the case of one-time uber-nuclear-spy now ruined Energy department patsy scapegoat Wen Ho Lee. At one time the airwaves were full of salacious details about his supposed dealings with China and now discredited accusations about his life as an agent trading in the most deadly of our national nuclear secrets. The only problem is that these accusations proved to be false, and of the 59 count indictment handed down, Dr. Lee eventually pled guilty to one charge unrelated to espionage. You might recall at the time that the security at Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories had been miserable, and the attention focused on Dr. Lee served as a convenient lightning rod that drew on classic yellow scare rhetoric to deflect legitimate inquiries into the sloppiness of securing American nuclear secrets. Well, it worked - at the expense of destroying a man's life and papering over the important discussion about security at Los Alamos. We've heard nothing since then on the subject - and that's just the way Washington likes it. This week, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson reiterated an order that five reporters who were the conduit for leaked classified information fingering Dr. Lee had to reveal their sources. Once again, the hyberbolic claims that this order and others like it would chill the freedom of the press began to reverberate through editorialspace.

In both of these cases, press advocates are dramatically overstating the case that they need to be able to protect their confidential sources from government prying. These leaks were intentional acts by the government to discredit a whistleblower (Plame) and to scapegoat an individual for institutional failings (Lee.) Allowing government insiders to selectively leak information to wage war on those people who question them and then invoking the first amendment to shield those insiders from investigations is a pretty nifty trick.

This means that those who are declaring these orders as dire threats to press freedom have misplaced their concerns. For example, Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, stated "All this has to do with secrecy. The government is trying to keep more and more secrets all the time, and journalists are working harder to uncover those secrets. Given the terrorism climate, all this has come to a head." What Ms. Dalgish does not see is that the press is being played - used as a lackey by politicians and bureaucrats who need a third party to do their hatchet job for them. This all under the cover of secrecy and backed by facially powerful First Amendment rhetoric and reporters willing to fall on their swords to protect the shadowy figures who are using them. In a way she has it exactly right - "all this has to do with secrecy."

k