by Justin Felux zmag.org
In a move that didn’t surprise many, John Kerry selected Senator John Edwards to be his running mate. Kerry announced his choice after returning from a bus tour of the Midwest which he labeled the “Spirit of America” tour. And just what kind of people embody the “Spirit of America,” according to Kerry? Well, white people, of course! The photos of the trip indicate as much. Analysts are predicting the addition of Edwards will increase the ticket’s appeal to rural, middle class, Midwestern, and Southern voters (white voters, in other words). The recruitment of Edwards is simply the next major step in the Democratic Party’s epic struggle for the hearts and minds of white America.

At first, Kerry seemed to be interested in the plight of African Americans. He even said he wanted to be America’s second “black President.” A former (black) Clinton official responded by saying, “That ain’t gonna happen. He’s not going to out-Clinton Clinton, and if he tried, he would look phony.” Kerry seems to agree, and has all but abandoned his black constituency. In a speech to the National Conference of Black Mayors in April, Kerry spent his time talking about how to secure U.S. chemical plants rather than the concerns of the audience. He has virtually excluded black people from prominent positions in his campaign, angering many black activists.

This isn’t the first time Kerry has had trouble with black folks. His Senate campaign in 1996 raised similar doubts about his appeal. According to a Boston Globe story from that year, “Black voters, a traditional bastion of support for Democratic candidates, appear to be keeping their options open in the race between Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry and Republican Gov. William F. Weld. In sharp contrast to the fervent loyalty Sen. Edward M. Kennedy inspires in the black community, interviews with black leaders and analysts revealed a decided coolness toward Kerry’s candidacy.” The reasons will be obvious in a moment, but for now let’s examine how the Kerry/Edwards campaign will reach out to white America.

One of the most touted themes that John Edwards brings to the ticket is the theme of bridging the gap between the “two Americas”–one for the rich and one for the poor. Edwards played on this theme of class divisions many times during the primaries. However, the concept of there being “two Americas” originally referred to America’s racial divide. The 1968 Kerner Report famously stated, “our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white–separate and unequal.” The Kerner Commission prepared the report in response to a series of ghetto uprisings (“riots”) that spread throughout the country during the 1960s. It laid the blame for the violence squarely on white racism. “White racism is essentially responsible for the explosive mixture which has been accumulating in our cities since the end of World War II,” it said.

It will probably be a cold day in hell before John Edwards speaks about America’s racial divide in such candid terms. Instead, he opts for the class-based and more white-friendly “two Americas.” Kerry has hummed a similar tune over the years. In 2000 he signed a manifesto saying we should “shift the emphasis of affirmative action strategies from group preferences to economic empowerment of all disadvantaged citizens.” Such an approach ignores the uniquely disadvantaged position of people of color in America, who face obstacles over and above ordinary class exclusion. For example, whites with only $13,000 in annual income are still more likely to own their own home than blacks with income of $48,000. White males with a high school diploma are as likely to have a job and earn as much as black males with college degrees. Black unemployment is consistently twice as high as white unemployment. These are divides that Kerry and Edwards don’t seem as willing to address.full article

myway.com

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – Contrary to U.S. government claims, the insurgency in Iraq is led by well-armed Sunnis angry about losing power, not foreign fighters, and is far larger than previously thought, American military officials say.

The officials told The Associated Press the guerrillas can call on loyalists to boost their forces to as high as 20,000 and have enough popular support among nationalist Iraqis angered by the presence of U.S. troops that they cannot be militarily defeated.

That number is far larger than the 5,000 guerrillas previously thought to be at the insurgency’s core. And some insurgents are highly specialized – one Baghdad cell, for instance, has two leaders, one assassin, and two groups of bomb-makers.

Although U.S. military analysts disagree over the exact size, the insurgency is believed to include dozens of regional cells, often led by tribal sheiks and inspired by Sunni Muslim imams.

The developing intelligence picture of the insurgency contrasts with the commonly stated view in the Bush administration that the fighting is fueled by foreign warriors intent on creating an Islamic state.

“We’re not at the forefront of a jihadist war here,” said a U.S. military official in Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity.full article

commondreams.org
Riordan Calls Kid a ‘Stupid, Dirty Girl’ at Book Event
by Margaret Talev

No one ever accused Richard Riordan of being a prisoner to political correctness, but the feisty former mayor of Los Angeles and now the state’s education secretary may have outdone himself last week when he called a youngster at a book event a “stupid, dirty girl.”

California Education Secretary Richard Riordan and his wife, Nancy, arrive for a dinner at the Allen & Co.’s annual media conference Wednesday, July 7, 2004, in Sun Valley, Idaho. (AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac)

The incident took place Thursday at the Santa Barbara Central Library, where Riordan stopped in to promote a summer reading program. After reading a picture book to preschoolers and young elementary school pupils, he chatted with some of them.

One girl asked whether he was aware that her name was that of an Egyptian goddess.

While her full name was not released, event participants said her first name is Isis, the archetypal Egyptian goddess who represents everything from motherhood to magic to the dead and is considered by some historians to have influenced Christian interpretation of the Virgin Mary.

Riordan apparently thought the girl was asking whether he knew what her name meant and, with a camera rolling from a local news station, made an inexplicable quip he would immediately regret.

“It means stupid, dirty girl,” he said.

Chicago Sun Times version

Why is the race of this child not mentioned?
(more…)

AFP
Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail warned Washington not to spark an Iraq-style crisis over the civil war in Darfur, insisting that US sanctions threats only aggravated the situation.

Ismail warned “those voices which have drawn the world to the Iraq war not to take it to a new war which it will be difficult to disengage from.”

In the interview with the independent Al-Rai Al-Aam daily, the minister said US calls for the UN Security Council to consider sanctions only weakened his government’s efforts to resolve the crisis and complicated its relationship with the world body.

They also risked “weakening the credibility of agreements recently concluded with the UN Secretary General (Kofi Annan) and US Secretary of State (Colin Powell)” in which Khartoum undertook to disarm the state-sponsored Arab militias held responsible for much of the suffering in Darfur.

“There is a conspiracy targeting the Sudan, its identity and structure and we have to be cautious and ready for every possibility,” said Ismail, adding that Khartoum opposed the imposition of sanctions against any Sudanese.

Washington has already drawn up a draft Security Council resolution that would impose sanctions against named militia leaders and has threatened to widen the scope of the text to cover government officials if Khartoum does not move quickly to rein in abuses.

“We need immediate improvement in the situation, and if we don’t see that, then the United States and the international community will have to consider further measures,” Powell warned Thursday.

The Sudanese foreign minister was speaking on his return from an African Union summit in Addis Ababa, at which the regional body approved the deployment of 300 armed troops in Darfur by the end of the month to protect its observers and civilians in the region.full article

As one set of thugs to another, the US and Sudan understand each other very well.

The New Republic

PAKISTAN FOR BUSH.
July Surprise?
by John B. Judis, Spencer Ackerman & Massoud Ansari

Post date: 07.07.04
Issue date: 07.19.04
ate last month, President Bush lost his greatest advantage in his bid for reelection. A poll conducted by ABC News and The Washington Post discovered that challenger John Kerry was running even with the president on the critical question of whom voters trust to handle the war on terrorism. Largely as a result of the deteriorating occupation of Iraq, Bush lost what was, in April, a seemingly prohibitive 21-point advantage on his signature issue. But, even as the president’s poll numbers were sliding, his administration was implementing a plan to insure the public’s confidence in his hunt for Al Qaeda.

This spring, the administration significantly increased its pressure on Pakistan to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman Al Zawahiri, or the Taliban’s Mullah Mohammed Omar, all of whom are believed to be hiding in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. A succession of high-level American officials–from outgoing CIA Director George Tenet to Secretary of State Colin Powell to Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca to State Department counterterrorism chief Cofer Black to a top CIA South Asia official–have visited Pakistan in recent months to urge General Pervez Musharraf’s government to do more in the war on terrorism. In April, Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Afghanistan, publicly chided the Pakistanis for providing a “sanctuary” for Al Qaeda and Taliban forces crossing the Afghan border. “The problem has not been solved and needs to be solved, the sooner the better,” he said.

This public pressure would be appropriate, even laudable, had it not been accompanied by an unseemly private insistence that the Pakistanis deliver these high-value targets (HVTs) before Americans go to the polls in November. full article

The situation in this country is so far afield that you can have a right wing magazine calmly describing cynical at best treasonous at worst activities by the government, and nobody will bat an eyelash.

Star/Telegram

The New York Times
HOUSTON – Military records that could help establish President Bush’s whereabouts during his disputed service in the Texas Air National Guard more than 30 years ago have been inadvertently destroyed, according to the Pentagon.

It said the payroll records of “numerous service members,” including former 1st Lt. Bush, had been ruined in 1996 and 1997 by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service during a project to salvage deteriorating microfilm.

No backup paper copies could be found, it added in notices dated June 25.

The destroyed records cover three months of a period in 1972 and 1973 when Bush’s claims of service in Alabama are in question.

The loss was announced by the Defense Department’s Office of Freedom of Information and Security Review in letters to The New York Times and other news organizations that for nearly six months have sought Bush’s complete service file under the open records law.

Bryan Hubbard, a spokesman for the defense finance agency in Denver, said the destruction occurred as the office was trying to unspool 2,000-foot rolls of fragile microfilm. He said he did not know how many records were lost or why no announcement had been made

by Pascal FletcherReuters

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) – Venezuela will restore friendly ties with its main oil client, the United States, and scale back relations with Cuba if opponents of President Hugo Chavez win a referendum on his rule and elections, an opposition leader said on Thursday.

Alejandro Armas said the opposition, if elected to govern following a defeat for left-winger Chavez in the Aug. 15 recall vote, would reshape his foreign policy, which has distanced Venezuela from the United States.

“Our political relations with the United States cannot be at odds with our economic relations,” Armas told Reuters.

The opposition’s blueprint for a post-Chavez government will be formally presented on Friday. It calls for a foreign policy that “helps to restore confidence in Venezuela as a democratic nation and as a political and commercial partner.”

Most opinion polls had shown Chavez losing the referendum, but some recent surveys say he is gaining ground.

Chavez, a populist first elected in 1998, portrays himself as an ideological foe of what he calls the “imperialist” U.S. government. He has snubbed Washington by forging alliances with anti-U.S. states, especially communist Cuba, and has called President Bush “a jerk.”

Armas said Venezuela’s cooperation with Cuban President Fidel Castro would be scaled back to dismantle what he said was “a kind of sinister alliance.”

Despite Chavez’s almost daily verbal attacks on Bush, Venezuela remains one of the top suppliers of oil to the U.S. market, shipping about 14 percent of its needs.

Armas said the contradiction between Chavez’s “absurd confrontation” with Washington and Venezuela’s role as a strategic U.S. energy supplier should be resolved.

He also called for improved relations with Andean neighbor Colombia, Venezuela’s second-biggest trade partner.

Under Chavez, ties have been strained by accusations from Bogota that he sympathizes with, and even supports, Colombian Marxist guerrillas viewed as “terrorists” by Washington. Chavez denies the allegations.

COOLER CUBA TIES

The opposition plan foresees “clear and active opposition against terrorism, drug-smuggling, guerrillas, arms-trafficking and transnational organized crime.”

Armas said the Cuban presence in the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter “went far beyond what is reasonable and acceptable in diplomacy” and would have to be corrected.

In a relationship criticized by Washington, Chavez has turned his country into Cuba’s most important ally and trade partner, shipping cheap oil to Havana and bringing more than 10,000 Cuban doctors, teachers and other advisers to work in Venezuela.

Critics of Chavez have accused him of “giving away” Venezuelan oil to Cuba and trying to install a replica of the island’s communist system. Chavez says he is not a communist and hails the relationship with Cuba as a model of cooperation.

The opposition plan for government will also recommend a greater opening of Venezuela’s economy to foreign investment, especially in the strategic oil sector.

A way we know the situation is out of control:that when the Venezuelan opposition speaks of being a US ally, it is the same as admitting that they are corrupt, co-opted, compromised, and corporate

Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) – The World Court will rule on Friday that Israel’s West Bank barrier contravenes international law and must be dismantled, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported.

The paper, quoting documents it had obtained, said the barrier infringed Palestinian rights.

“The construction of such a wall accordingly constitutes breaches by Israel of its various obligations under the applicable international humanitarian law and human rights instruments,” Haaretz quoted the documents as saying.

The paper said on its Web site that 14 out of the 15 judges voted in favor of the ruling, with only American Thomas Buerghenthal dissenting.

Shi Jiuyong of China, the court’s head judge, will start reading the ruling at 9 a.m. EDT.

Israel has said it will not accept what is expected to be among the most watched rulings in the 58 years of the World Court, based in The Hague.

The Jewish state says the network of fences, ditches and walls has already improved security, but Palestinians call it a land grab.

Haaretz exclusive

by Alan Fram myway.com
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Republican-led House bowed to a White House veto threat Thursday and stood by the USA Patriot Act, defeating an effort to block the part of the anti-terrorism law that helps the government investigate people’s reading habits.

The effort to defy Bush and bridle the law’s powers lost by 210-210, with a majority needed to prevail. The amendment appeared on its way to victory as the roll call’s normal 15-minute time limit expired, but GOP leaders kept the vote open for 23 more minutes as they persuaded about 10 Republicans who initially supported the provision to change their votes.

“Shame, shame, shame,” Democrats chanted as the minutes passed and votes were switched. The tactic was reminiscent of last year’s House passage of the Medicare overhaul measure, when GOP leaders held the vote open for an extra three hours until they got the votes they needed.

“You win some, and some get stolen,” Rep. C.L. Butch Otter, R-Idaho, a sponsor of the defeated provision and one of Congress’ more conservative members, told a reporter.by Alan Fram full article

The Guardian UK
Emergency laws are no strangers in the Middle East. They have been in place in Syria and Egypt for decades, and go a long way to explain the suppression of human rights for which the Arab world is so often criticised. Judges are handpicked to secure convictions before special courts and the definition of what constitutes a national emergency can be conveniently elastic. Saad Eddin Ibrahim a leading Egyptian human rights activist was jailed for seven years for violating a military decree banning individuals from receiving foreign funding without government approval. When 23 homosexuals were convicted for “debauchery, contempt of religion and falsely interpreting the Koran,” after a raid on a boat moored on the bank of the Nile, the case was treated as a matter of national security for which there was no right of appeal. Iraq is supposed to be different. We are so often told that its occupation and the restoration of sovereignty has a higher moral purpose: that of democratising the Middle East and spreading liberal western values, including respect for the rule of law. So it is surely right that the National Safety Law unveiled in Baghdad yesterday should be scrutinised as a legal as well as a security measure.full article