"Everybody believed it to be true at the time, until we actually got into Iraq and didn't find the stockpiles," Powell says.

The British reporter asks: "would you like to apologize for misleading the world?"

"I didn't mislead the world, Powell responds. "When you are presenting what you believe to be the fact."

Just weeks ago, President Bush spoke at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. Eyewitness News was there as he shored up support for the increasingly unpopular war. He also talked about a timetable for returning home.

President Bush's public approval ratings dropped significantly in 2005. That has been largely blamed on bad news from overseas. In recent weeks, those numbers have shown slight improvement.

Duckworth spent nearly 11 months during her rehabilitation at the Fisher House at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, one of 35 facilities started by the founders of the Intrepid Fund, Zachary and Elizabeth Fisher, to provide accommodations for family members of soldiers undergoing treatment. NEWSWEEK's Jessica Bennett spoke with Duckworth about the challenges and issues surrounding her return from service. Excerpts:

What kind of rehabilitation did you receive when you returned from Iraq?
I lived at Fisher House, at Walter Reed, from the end of February, 2005, until December. It was a huge difference in the quality of my life and the quality of my family’s life on so many levels. It does that for all of the soldiers. One of the benefits of having a Fisher House on the campus of any of the army medical centers is that they’re able to discharge you as an inpatient but you’re near enough that doctors feel okay about letting you go. It keeps you from having to stay in a hospital bed that whole time. If it wasn’t for Fisher House, I would have spent the last 13 months in a hospital bed and I would not have progressed as well as I did.

Do you agree with veterans groups who say that rehabilitation facilities like the Intrepid Center should be funded by the government, not through private donations?
I think the Iraq war has created a need for these centers that was not there before. Because of the nature of the combat injuries coming out of Iraq, wounded soldiers are needing long-term care of more than just a month or two. And there was nothing set up for them. We weren’t ready for it. But the army is a huge institution, and they have a yearly budget, and, I mean, there’s a whole process. They can’t react as quickly as something like the Intrepid Foundation. The Veterans Administration just can’t support all the veterans they need to now.

Because of lack of funding?
The VA’s budget is not a mandatory one, and I personally think it needs to be. The budget can be cut, which means that there are veterans who, after having served this country, have to go without some of the basic care they were promised they would get. … There are veterans from the first Gulf War that have to wait eight, nine months to get into the VA system. In the meantime, a lot of them go without health insurance. Those who afford it have it, but those who don’t just have to wait in line. That’s one of the reasons I want to get into Congress. I’m going to be a strong voice for veterans and veterans rights.

What brought about your political plans?
I’ve always been about public service, I testified before the Senate and House committees on VA affairs, and that got me thinking about that this is something I’d like to do to represent my peers, my family, my friends.

What were some of the biggest challenges for you in learning how to live without your legs?
It’s the very little things, just daily living. For me, it was changing my sheets on my bed. How do you do that if you have no legs? Having a safe environment to be able to practice those things and to get help if I needed to was a tremendous stepping-stone toward being able to live my life in the real world.

© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.

The Pentagon has spent more than $70.5 million on market research, national advertising, website development, and management of the Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies (JAMRS) database — a storehouse of questionable legality that includes the names and personal details of more than 30 million U.S. children and young people between the ages of 16 and 23.

The database is separate from information collected from schools that receive federal education money. The No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to report the names, addresses, and phone numbers of secondary school students to recruiters, but the law also specifies that parents or guardians may write a letter to the school asking that their children’s names not be released.

However, many parents have reported being surprised that their children are contacted anyway, according to a San Francisco-based coalition called Leave My Child Alone (LMCA).

“We hear from a lot of parents who have often felt quite isolated about it all and haven’t been aware that this is happening all over the country,” said the group’s spokeswoman, Felicity Crush.

Parents must contact the Pentagon directly to ask that their children’s information not be released to recruiters, but the data is not removed from the JAMRS database, according to Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

Instead, the information is moved to a suppression file, where it is continuously updated with new data from private and government sources and still made available to recruiters, Krenke said. It’s necessary to keep the information in the suppression file so the Pentagon can make sure it’s not being released, she said.

Krenke said the database is compiled using information from state motor vehicles departments, the Selective Service, and data-mining firms that collect and organize information from private companies. In addition to names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and phone numbers, the database may include cell phone numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point averages, ethnicity, and subjects of interest.

She said the Pentagon spends about $500,000 annually to purchase the data from private companies, and has paid more than $70 million since 2002 to Mullen Advertising — a Massachusetts firm whose clients include General Motors, Hooked on Phonics, XM Satellite Radio, and 3Com — to target recruiters’ messages toward teens and young adults.

The Boston Business Journal reported in October that the Pentagon had spent a total of $206 million on the JAMRS program to date, and could spend another $137 million over the next two years.

Invasion of privacy?

The JAMRS program “provides the services with contact information on millions of prospective recruits annually … Beyond list management services, DM outreach initiatives include targeted fulfillment pieces directed at influencers,” according to the program’s password-protected website.

In real terms, what that rhetoric looks like at the other end can stack up to harassment, said Crush. “Kids have been relentlessly harassed,” she said, “things like persistent phone calls — and you can’t remove your phone numbers from their list because it’s the government; people being called on numbers that have been listed as private, or for emergency only; kids under 17 called at home, night after night, and not being given a realistic picture about life in the military, particularly during a time of war.”

Her organization contends that the Pentagon’s conduct is illegal under the federal Privacy Act, which requires notification and public comment whenever new data is being compiled on individuals by any branch of government.

The Pentagon maintains it has provided that notice, posted in the Federal Register on May 23, but LMCA and other JAMRS critics point out that because new data is being collected daily, JAMRS is failing to fulfill the notification requirements of the Privacy Act.

Last fall, 100 privacy and civil rights groups sent a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld urging him to dismantle the database. “The Privacy Act requires that agencies publish in the federal register upon establishment or revision a notice of the existence and character of the system of records” 30 days before the publication of information, they noted. “The maintenance of a system of records without meeting the notice requirements is a criminal violation of the Privacy Act.”

But Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Project in New York, said protection offered by the Privacy Act — the 1974 statute aimed at reducing the government’s collection of personal data on U.S. citizens — might be overestimated. “The federal Privacy Act is to some extent an over-hyped statute,” said Steinhardt. “It is largely a statute that requires notice; it doesn’t give you any substantive rights.”

Questions from Congress

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-VT, said he had grave concerns about the legality of the database. “I think this is absolutely wrong,” he told the Vermont Guardian. “You have the law, and then you have an administration that says we don’t like the law so let’s find another way of doing it.”

“When my kids were in school I would have been really angry if this had happened,” said Leahy, whose youngest son enlisted in the Marines. “I would have been absolutely ripped if they would have gone into his high school or other records to contact him this way; I know nothing that allows it.”

“Data mining and proliferation of using databases are all concerns because it represents an administration that does not believe in checks and balances,” said Leahy. “Can you imagine our country if a Joseph McCarthy or J. Edgar Hoover has the electronic power these guys have today?”

Discomfort over the database extends to other members of Congress. Seven senators, including New York’s Hillary Rodham Clinton and Wisconsin’s Russ Feingold, both Democrats, sent a letter to Rumsfeld on June 24 asking him to “immediately cease creation of this database.”

“This personal information, which would be obtained from schools as well as from commercial data brokers, state drivers’ license records, and other sources, could then be used to formulate and execute a targeted ‘marketing’ campaign to identify and recruit individuals based on these personal factors,” they noted.

In his July 11 response, Undersecretary of Defense David Chu said the database was an important component in the nation’s volunteer military — one that enables the United States to avoid a draft.

“The department collects basic information on youth in response to a congressional mandate in 1982 that noted ‘it is essential that the Secretary of Defense obtain and compile directory information pertaining to students enrolled in secondary schools throughout the United States’ to support recruiting for the all-volunteer force and avoid conscription,” he wrote to the senators.

Chu said the central database was designed to save the Pentagon money. “In the past, the data were compiled by each of the services independently. In order to achieve significant cost savings, the data are now purchased by the department, housed centrally, and sent out to the services. The services use these data to provide information and marketing materials to potential recruits.”

Leahy scoffed at such reasoning. “This is coming from a Pentagon that tells us they don’t have money to pay for body armor for our troops over in Iraq,” he said.

Chu also said the Pentagon had no intention of using the information for purposes other than targeted recruitment.

But according to the privacy group, BeNow, the direct marketing company chosen by the Pentagon to compile the data, is owned by the credit reporting company Equifax and does not have a privacy policy, “nor has it troubled itself to enlist in a privacy seal program regarding the handling of information collected for this purpose.”

The Pentagon proposes a wide range of “blanket routine uses” that allow an agency to disclose personal information to others without the individual’s consent or knowledge, the groups wrote in their letter to Rumsfeld. “The list of 14 DOD ‘blanket routine uses’ include: disclosures to law-enforcement; state and local tax authorities; employment queries from other agencies; and disclosure of records to foreign authorities. Although individuals can opt out of recruitment solicitations, they cannot opt out of this enormous database.”

In a separate statement, the Electronic Privacy Information Center said both the Privacy Act and the DOD’s own internal regulations require the agency to collect information directly from citizens when possible.

“The main commercial vendors that sell students’ data, American Student List and Student Marketing Group, were both pursued recently by consumer protection authorities for setting up front groups that tricked students into revealing their personal information,” according to the center.

What to do

The Leave My Child Alone coalition is urging the Pentagon to add an 800 number and online opt-out links to its websites. The group concedes, however, that given reports of massive security breaches at data firms, the fact that the information remains on file “hardly grants parents peace of mind.”

One California lawmaker is sponsoring state legislation that would require high schools to include opt-out information on the emergency forms that parents must fill out annually for school records. In one California school district that implemented such a policy, the number of families choosing to opt out went from 16 percent to 63 percent, Crush said.

Meanwhile, asked what parents could do about the Pentagon database, the ACLU’s Steinhardt said, “This is as much a political issue as anything else; it’s an issue to be decided in the Congress. A state like Vermont could take it up. It’s a perfect issue for a town meeting … calling on your senators to pass some legislation.”

Information and action

Parents seeking to determine whether information about their children is contained in the JAMRS database system should address typewritten inquiries to:
The Department of Defense
c/o JAMRS, Direct Marketing Program Officer
Defense Human Resources Activity
4040 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 200
Arlington, VA 22203-1613
Requests should contain the child’s full name, date of birth, current address, and telephone number. Do not include a Social Security number.

To ask that your child’s name be added to the suppression files of the database, send a typewritten request to:
Joint Advertising and Marketing Research
& Studies Office (JAMRS)
Attention: Opt Out
4040 North Fairfax Drive, Ste. 200
Arlington, VA 22203-1613
Include the child’s full name, street address, date of birth, and telephone number. Do not include a Social Security number.

For more information: www.leavemychildalone.org, www.jamrs.org/.

Vermont Guardian staffer Shay Totten contributed to this report.

Certainly, capturing or killing the brains behind al Qaeda is an important goal. Unfortunately, in the U.S. method of warfare—which unduly emphasizes attrition, heavy firepower and sophisticated weaponry, even against guerrillas and terrorists—the technology of killing has outstripped the quality of human intelligence needed to hit the correct targets. The CIA’s unmanned Predator drone fired missiles that killed many Pakistani civilians, including women and children, but apparently not Zawahiri.

Making things even worse, the killing of women and children continues to spark public outrage all across Pakistan, leading to mass protests in all of Pakistan’s major cities and the trashing and burning of a U.S.-supported aid organization. Such public ire will make it even less likely that the United States will receive accurate future intelligence about where Zawahiri and his boss, Osama bin Laden, are hiding, even though the prices on their heads are substantial.

And to shore up the popularity of his war on terror at home, which has been dragged down by an incongruous, unnecessary, now unpopular war in Iraq, President Bush has combined these reckless military actions with cowboy rhetoric, which only further stoke the flames of anti-U.S. hatred among radical Islamists. Bringing back the “clash of civilizations” rhetoric used during the Cold War against the “godless Communists,” the administration is now implying that those with “too much god of an alien kind” are trying to build a worldwide empire that could again threaten the United States. The president has cast the war on Islamic terrorism as a contest between the men in white hats who advocate freedom and those with black headgear who want to create “a totalitarian Islamic empire reaching from Spain to Indonesia.”

Yet bringing back the caliphate—the political and spiritual leader of Sunni Islam who ruled a united Islamic world—is a long-term objective of even moderate Muslims. As a result, to the Muslim world, the president’s war on terror looks much like a war on Islam that threatens to make the clash of civilizations a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Yet even the unlikely uniting of the Islamic world would not necessarily create a severe threat to the United States. Arab countries, only a subset of the Islamic world, have not even been able to unite against Israel, their mortal enemy. It would be even harder for the more geographically and ethnically diverse global Islamic community to unite under one ruler. Even if the entire Sunni Islamic world coalesced rapidly into one empire, any threat to the United States—which would not be inevitable—would be tempered by the fact that many of the countries uniting are economic basket cases.

In addition to shoring up flagging public opinion at home, the president’s talk of an Islamic empire is designed to mask the real reasons that al Qaeda attacks the United States. The core of al Qaeda’s gripe with the United States is its military presence in the Persian Gulf to guard U.S. oil supplies and support for corrupt Gulf leaders who sell that oil. In a recent videotape, Zawahiri warned Americans: “…Your calamity will not end, unless you leave our lands and stop stealing our resources and stop supporting the bad rulers in our countries.”

But because the Gulf countries are heavily dependent on petroleum sales for their revenues (oil deals make up between 65 percent and 90 percent of their export income, depending upon the country), they have every incentive to sell oil to the world market, regardless of whether the U.S. stations military forces on their lands or props up their despotic rulers. In short, U.S. forces are not needed to defend Persian Gulf oil. Even if they were necessary, the job could be done with no permanent U.S. military presence on Muslim lands. In Gulf War I, Persian Gulf oil was successfully defended without a prior land presence in the Gulf. Land forces were brought in only when a threat arose. And since then, the threat to oil has decreased.

President Bush should ratchet down the war on terror to make it more effective. The United States should improve human intelligence and strike al Qaeda only when the information is bulletproof. More importantly, to reduce terrorists’ motive for attacking the United States in the first place, the administration should quietly withdraw the unneeded land forces from Persian Gulf countries and its support for their authoritarian, venal rulers.

Also on Tuesday, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters that the United States will continue its cooperation with Pakistan over an international anti-terrorism effort.

"We will continue to work with President Musharraf and the Pakistani government in fighting the global war on terror," McCormack said.

The U.S. spokesmen made the remarks after a fatal U.S. air strike at the Pakistani village of Damadola in the tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

It was reported that Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, was invited to a dinner given by the villagers to mark an Islamic holiday but did not show up and sent some aides instead.

At least four foreign terrorists were reportedly killed in the air attack, along with 18 local people.

This question is crucial because the American democracy was founded on the notion that the truth will out in the deliberations of a free people.

Fear is surely a factor, especially so since our country came under attack three years ago. When we’re afraid, we lose our tolerance for ambiguity. Black-and-white thinking is in: you’re either for us or against us. When in the grip of fear, we crave certainty, because uncertainty magnifies the feeling of vulnerability. So a leader who shows no doubt, who doesn’t even entertain second thoughts, is comforting for the fearful. The more afraid we are, the more we shift into a part of the brain where rational analysis does not govern.

It is when people do not think critically that they are most manipulable, and fear is but one force that’s eroded America’s capacity for critical thought. Over recent generations, the most mighty of our educational institutions –advertising—has systematically worked to teach us to mistake appealing image for the reality, the sizzle for the steak. Those taught to buy cigarettes to make themselves glamorous can be persuaded to buy incompetent leadership to make them safe.

Many Americans have more recently been still further trained away from habits of critical thinking by the powerful subculture of intellectually irresponsible right wing media. For more than a decade, “the Godzilla of talk radio” –Rush Limbaugh—has taken millions of Americans on a daily excursion that panders to their prejudices, never challenging them to reconsider their ideas, always encouraging them to blame all their problems on identifiable others.

The voice leading them on these excursions radiates the aura of certainty, despite the vast ignorance it covers over, and shows no scruples about distorting facts to reach a desired conclusion. These daily forrays into comforting falsehoods have forged in the minds of millions of Americans a path down which fine-sounding messages unmoored from reality could more readily travel.

But there are still older paths in the American psyche that have been available for adept political manipulators.

One of the most powerful ways of by-passing critical rationality in America has long been the posture of religious piety and moralism. That’s how the Music Man sells River City on a boy’s band. “These leaders must have integrity, they’re so religious,” I heard on my call-in radio show. People who have been betrayed by the false piety of the Jimmy Swaggarts and Jim Bakkers of the world will still assume that one who speaks often enough of his great faith can be trusted.

That’s the way that the wolf of unbridled self-aggrandisement hides behind the sheep’s clothing of false righteousness. (That’s how political leaders who are only serving their lust for power and their greed can get legitimacy and compliance.)

There is another venerable template in American political culture: the pattern of rhetoric by which governing elites inflame peripheral issues to distract their followers from seeing the truth of their exploitation.

In the South, race long served as the imflammatory distraction to enable the few to dominate the many. In our times, the pseudo-alliance to preserve white purity has been largely replaced by a pseudo-alliance to maintain moral purity. What’s not noticed is that while the leaders just keep these hot-button moral issues (like abortion and gay rights) festering, unresolved, they make sure that the agenda of the rich and powerful (the regressive tax cuts, the dismantling of environmental regulation, etc.) actually gets accomplished.

While the con itself is not new, the scope of today’s successful deception of the American people is unprecedented.

The powerful used to just take what they wanted by the sword. The rise of democracy required the powerful to trade in the sword for the con job: just manipulate the people into choosing against their own true interests. It is only when the people can see through the lies that they reclaim the power that is their birthright as citizens of this American democracy.

But names are not chosen at random and belong to the category of unconscious codes, as Lacanian psychoanalysts, so devout of the concealed meaning of language, have established. One of them, the French Aldo Naouri, tells in his book Mères et filles the case of a Parisian young man who ran out of the factory he was going to inherit slamming the door behind him, because he could not stand the way in which his father –an inveterate racist– treated the Maghrebian personnel. Later, the young man had a daughter, whose name, Houria, described perfectly the above mentioned breaking out with the past: Houria in Arabic means “independence.” Another amusing case was that of a woman who endured colds all her life. Incidentally she called her son Geffroy, who in French means phonetically “I’m cold.”

And now, once I have set the premises of my exposition I will centre on the name of a country that recently was the object of fierce debates in the cyber exchanges of a plurinacional forum of translation to which I belong. I am referring to The United States of America, alias America. Yes, the citizens of The United States call America their own country and, as a consequence, they call themselves “Americans”, despite the fact that America is a whole continent with more than thirty countries, big and small, that might claim the same right to this appellation. We are therefore facing a flagrant case of undue and unilateral appropriation of a common name, something that rhetorically speaking we might qualify as synecdoche or metonymy, that is, the transfer of meaning from a term that designates a whole to only one of its parts.

Conscious of such nonsense, an Argentinian called Emilio Stevanovich –the youngest interpreter in the history of the UN– coined during the cold war years the assignation “The United States of North America,” but it had little success, since it leads to a new equally illicit metonimia: that of calling its nationals “North Americans”. It suffices to have a glimpse of any atlas to see that in North America, besides The United States, also “exist” Canada and Mexico, likewise North Americans.

In one of Jean-Luc Godard’s last movies, Éloge de l’amour, which is a lucid and merciless exercise on memory, the film maker establishes clearly that The United States has stolen its name. In the scene that most impressed me we see a Hollywood lawyer presenting an old Jewish couple the contract to acquire the film rights of their vicissitudes during the Second World War French Resistance. He reads it in English and an interpreter translates for the family. At the point in which he says that the buyers are American, the couple’s granddaughter –an activist against liberal globalization– interrupts him: “What Americans?”

“From The United States,” answers the surprised attorney.

“But the Brazilian states are also The United States,” replies the young woman.

"Of the United States of the North,” continues the lawyer.

“The Mexicans are also in the North and they are The United States of Mexico. The problem is that you have neither name nor memory.”

A few scenes later, in an extraordinary counterpoint, we learn that the couple, whose original family name was Samuel, had a name indeed—Baillard—a name that they assumed during the war and continued to maintain because they did not want to forget it.

Of course, the users of the America metonymy do not even think about the disruption caused by their deceit, but in the boundaries of the empire many people have tried to remedy this semantic obstacle. The terms “Yankee” or “Gringo” could had served, but they are spoken contemptuously among us “others”, as is the malevolent “Usano” –which means “from the USA” in Spanish, but is dangerously close to “gusano” (worm)– suggested by the late Spanish journalist Julio Camba.

Finally, it appeared as the designation “estadounidense” (the Mexicans spell it “estadunidense” and the French have shyly begun to use étasunien), that seems to be more neutral, but the arrangement is far from being perfect, since the official name of the former New Spain (Mexico) is Estados Unidos Mexicanos and, at least theoretically, the grandsons of Cuauhtemoc are also full right “estadunidenses”.

The complications do not end here, because not only do the citizens of The United States lack a name –something in itself a serious problem–, but the binomial “United States” is not a name in strict sense either. In general, all countries have a clearly identifiable appellative –Australia, Gabon or Venezuela, for the sake of mentioning three at random– and nobody uses strange circumlocutions at the moment of naming them. In official documents one says “French Republic” or “Kingdom of Morocco” and there is no confusion between these legal appellations and their common assignations as France or Morocco. On the other hand, a name as absurd as The United States of America has needed the creation of abbreviations. In English it is USA. What about in Spanish? The discussion in the forum to which I was referring began when we tried to unify the Spanish spelling of the abbreviation in order to establish editing criteria of a newly created electronic magazine. Then we realized the confusion in which the question has gotten entangled, since among the Spanish newspapers El País recommends EE UU –two pair of separated letters and no periods–, El Mundo uses EEUU –one block and no periods–, ABC and La Vanguardia follow the academic EE.UU. –one block with two periods– and the Manuel Seco’s Dictionary of doubts and difficulties of the Spanish language writes EE. UU. –two pair of separated letters plus periods–, whereas the Manual of urgent Spanish by the EFE News Agency prefers EUA (Estados Unidos de America) and a rapid navigation through the Net allows us to see that, for instance, the Mexican newspaper La Reforma uses EU and the Chilean El Mercurio writes indistinctly either EEUU or EE.UU. To choose in such conditions is equivalent to a lottery.

A last possibility suggested very recently to me by a colleage would be to renounce any foreing translation of this country’s English abreviation and to refer to it by the name of its citizens, who would be “usamericanos”, that is, “Americans from the USA”. That would cut short once and for all both the original metonymy and the above mentioned discordances.

It is clear that at this point in history, and in view of the political planetary weight of The United States, we are facing an insoluble problem, useful for linguistic analysis but lacking a solution. But what so many discrepancies really suggest is the troubled relation of us peripheral to this nation that from the beginning of the 20th Century self-assumed the role of Universe’s gendarme.

Let’s return to Lacan, for whom nothing in words is due to chance: if it was true that we all are what either the surname or the first name that we carry dictates, some patronymics heavy loaded with sense would stamp a character to their carriers. For example, Fidel Castro has remained “faithful” (the word “fidel” means that in Spanish) to a few postulates that block to him the possibility of any deviation; his family name, from the Latin castrum (“camp”) the origin of the Castilian military term “castrense,” reminds me the school times when we used to translate long fragments of Julius Caesar’s The Gallic War. I suppose that by this time someone should have already indicated these details about the Cuban leader, which seem to me of crystalline evidence: I am sure that he was predestined to be an inflexible soldier and that his initial Law studies were only a fleeting detour.

Let’s see a second example, this one quite hilarious: Jacques Chirac, the current French President, installed a circuit of lavatories in the streets of Paris for relief of pedestrians when he was mayor. They were luxurious and one could access them in exchange for a few coins. Who knows that if, in spite of himself, he just accomplished unconsciously the destiny of his family name –at least many people understood it this way–, since in colloquial French both Chirac’s syllables complement eschatology (the verb chier means “to have a shit”) and economy (the verb raquer means “to pay”), in such a way that just a few days after the inaugurating of the lavatories the French people joyfully repeated a humorous slogan born in the street: Avec Chirac, tu chies et tu raques, that is to say, “with Chirac you have a shit and you pay.”

It is not so strange to find road engineers whose names are Bridge or with dermatologists called Skin and so on. All of them –always according to Lacan– chose a profession dictated by their family names. Likewise, the country America (that is, its political machinery, not its citizenry, despite the fact that contamination between both exists) includes in the DNA of its State chromosomes the essence of the predator it has been since in 1787; it initiated its journey pillaging a name which belonged to many and, later, imposed the mercantilist language of both its entertainment industry and its multinationals, either willingly or unwillingly.

Who could have said to John that his gospel’s god of fiction, that one whose metaphor was the Word, would come to life many centuries later, would adopt the name of the continent in which it is placed and, from the “oval” office of a white house –embryonic simile of the founding egg–, would create a new world order –thus imitating the first verse of Genesis: “In In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”– and would put it to its service through the control of both telecommunications and propaganda, that is to say, of words.

© Copyright 2005 by AxisofLogic.com
Translated into English by the author and revised by Nancy Almendros, both members of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity (transtlaxcala@yahoo.com). This translation is on Copyleft.

The season for the publication of the annual results for America's largest companies is upon us. This year, it was Alcoa that led the charge, announcing mixed results on January 9, weighed down by big increases in energy prices. Next, on January 12, it was Apple's turn to publish its results, less than two weeks after the end of the fiscal year. But, as usual, it is General Electric, one of the most emblematic Wall Street companies, which will demonstrate this season's strength, with the publication of its results planned for January 20 - and with earnings per share that should show an increase of at least 10 percent over last year.

Because most financial analysts have already done all their calculations, they don't expect any surprises during this period of earnings announcements. That is what is revealed by studies recently carried out by financial data group Thomson Financial. This group, like recent reports in the Financial Times, expects an average earnings increase of 13.4 percent per share for the fourth quarter among the companies that make up Standard & Poor's 500 Index.

If these figures are confirmed, and there is little reason for doubt, it would mean that the United States has just had ten quarters in a row during which the results per share of American companies have seen two figure increases. This may seem like a small point but, in fact, it's very important, because it demonstrates the dynamism of American capitalism and the good health of companies across the Atlantic. It should also be noted because this kind of longevity has been seen only twice before: in the 1970s and in the middle of the last decade.

All signs seem, furthermore, to indicate that this trend will continue. According to Thomson Financial's calculations, the earnings per share of American companies should climb another 12.6 percent during the first quarter of 2006, then 11.7 percent during the second quarter and nearly 15 percent during the third quarter. And there again, if nothing shakes this trend, American companies stand to show record growth. Never, since such statistics were first published 60 years ago, has there been such a long period during which the results per share have increased by two figures. There are five specific reasons for this phenomenon.

First, the overall good health of the American economy. Unlike Europe, the United States has fully benefited from record world growth that has appeared over the last two years with the emergence of the famous BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China). The gross domestic product increased 3.1 percent in 2003, 3.3 percent in 2004, undoubtedly 3.6 percent in 2005, and it should again increase by more than 3 percent this year. This dynamism, illustrated notably by a very strong tendency toward consumption, has been profitable for businesses. It has had even more impact since it followed two years of restructuring that followed the bursting of the Internet bubble.

The second reason is the fall of the dollar. For American companies, notably those that export the most or that are established overseas, this phenomenon has had a double impact. First, in improving the competitiveness of their products and thus increasing their sales on foreign markets. Second, in increasing the profits realized by European or Japanese subsidiaries before they are integrated into the consolidated accounts of the American companies.

The third reason has to do with the formidable increase in productivity of American companies. Since the beginning of this decade, there has been a huge leap in productivity on the other side of the Atlantic, in relation to a very long-term trend observed by most economists. These gains are greater than 4 percent per year. And their origin is the large investments in technology made during the Internet bubble. Everything is happening as if the "new economy" that was talked so much about six years ago at the height of the speculative wave, is manifesting itself now with this unstoppable increase in productivity and, as a result, by this record growth in companies' earnings.

Another purely American reason has to do with both the effects of outsourcing over the last five years by numerous large American companies and the salary moderation that resulted. Between 2001 and 2003, nearly three million jobs were eliminated in the United States. And even though, conversely, more than two million jobs were created over the last two years, the tensions over hourly wages only appeared recently, allowing companies to greatly increase their profitability during this period.

The last reason is linked to the increase in the redemption of shares. These transactions, which consist in repaying money to shareholders, do not increase a company's profitability. On the contrary, they allow a decrease in the number of shares in circulation and, as a result, an automatic increase in earnings per share.

In 2004, the S&P 500 companies have set aside the exceptional amount of $197 billion to these redemptions of shares. A record shattered last year because the main American groups set aside $315 billion to such operations. This phenomenon is not about to let up and it will continue to produce its effects in 2006, even if the economic situation slows down. All this contributes greatly to the optimism of financial analysts on Wall Street.

The attributes that allow the Internal Revenue Service to do its job - power and pervasiveness - are the same ones that create the potential for the mistreatment of taxpayers. To prevent abuse, the public must have a steady stream of facts and figures on how the agency collects taxes.

But as The Times's David Cay Johnston reported last week, after years of providing such data, the I.R.S. is now balking. A motion filed recently in federal court asserts that the agency is defying a longstanding court order requiring it to release audit statistics. The information in question shows how thoroughly the I.R.S. audits corporations and rich taxpayers compared with others, how much time it spends on audits, and how much additional tax is recommended. The figures are crucial in gauging the agency's fairness, efficiency and effectiveness.

The motion was filed by Prof. Susan Long, who teaches statistics at Syracuse University. In 1974, while writing her dissertation, Professor Long sued the I.R.S. for access to agency statistics. In 1976, she won an order entitling her to the audit data on an ongoing basis. Today, much of what the public knows about the I.R.S. is based on data she has gathered and, since 1992, posted online at trac.syr.edu.

In May 2004, the I.R.S. refused to release figures Professor Long had requested. The timing was curious. A month earlier, she had posted data showing sharply fewer corporate audits in 2003 and had critically contrasted the data with public comments in early 2004 by the I.R.S. commissioner, Mark Everson, about cracking down on corporate wrongdoing. The I.R.S. says the events aren't connected.

First, the agency told Professor Long that it was under no obligation to provide the data. Reminded of the court order, the I.R.S. now says that Professor Long's requests have become excessive and could inadvertently reveal the identities of taxpayers. Professor Long simply asks the court to enforce its order. She deserves to prevail again.

At long last in 2001 Pipes had in hand the neocons' coveted "war against militant Islam," although how that phrase characterizes the secular, anti-Osama Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein remains a mystery. Ominously, Pipes asked after 9/11 whether Americans were willing to sacrifice "liberties" as well as "lives." And, alas for him, no sooner was his beloved war on Iraq up and running than the resolve of Americans began to wither in the face of the death toll in Iraq and the threats of a police state in the U.S. That is enough to ruin the day of any self respecting neocon. But there is more.

Pipes enumerates a number of recent developments which have deepened his gloom and brightened our days. They are sufficiently numerous that Pipes feels the need to classify them. Here are a few.

"Domestically":

*.The USA Patriot Act is now stalled in the Senate although it originally passed by a 98-1 vote. (Russ Feingold to his everlasting credit provided the lonesome nay.)

*"The mainstream press does not take Islamist aspirations seriously and sees the war on terror basically as over, as shown by Maureen Dowd's comment in the New York Times that the Bush administration is trying 'to frighten people with talk of Al Qaeda's dream of a new Islamic caliphate.'"

*"A Florida jury somehow managed to overlook the massive evidence of Sami Al-Arian's leading role in Palestinian Islamic Jihad and acquitted him on this charge."

"Foreign policy":

*"Fixated on the goal of perfecting Iraq, where no major danger remains, the Bush administration seems to be allowing the Iranian regime to build nuclear weapons, stipulating only that the Russians carry out the uranium enrichment, an ineffectual safeguard.

*"Pursuing its democracy campaign to its logical conclusion," Pipes moans, " Washington is signaling a willingness to deal with Islamists in Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, and elsewhere, thereby bolstering radical Islam's power."

International setbacks for Pipes.

*"The July transport bombings in Britain seemingly highlighted the dangers of homegrown Islamism. Five months later, however, lessons learned from this atrocity have been nearly forgotten. For example, the Blair government appointed an Islamist banned from entering America, Tariq Ramadan, to a prestigious taskforce; and it abandoned efforts even temporarily to close down extremist mosques." (Here as elsewhere Pipes's anti-Islam bigotry comes through loud and clear.)

* "As Israel's population lurches leftward, led by a defeatist government ('We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies,' Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared.), it forgets the lessons of Oslo, appeases its enemies, and virtually invites more violence against itself."

For Pipes the occupation of Iraq and the occupation of the West Bank are both running out of steam, and in his eyes that is a tragedy. He is worried sick that peace may be breaking out all over. But even if we are far, far from that happy day, we can at least rejoice in one neocon's misery over that prospect and draw some hope from his gloom.

His move follows intense pressure from Republican party leaders who fear that the Jack Abramoff bribery case may cost them seats in mid-term elections this November.

Earlier this month, Tom Delay quit as majority leader in the House of Representives when one of his former aides was linked to the corruption charges against Mr Abramoff.

Mr Ney’s decision to go became all but inevitable after it emerged that he and a former chief of staff were caught up in the Justice Department’s investigation into Mr Abramoff’s attempts to bribe members of Congress, rob Indian tribal clients and evade taxation.

Mr Abramoff is said to have diverted lobbying fees to pay for a golf trip for Mr Ney in Scotland. Mr Ney’s position on the Administration Committeee was powerful because it allowed him to hand out favours or win personal allegiances by controlling the distribution of office equipment and access to congressional facilities.

But the committee also has jurisdiction over election fundraising and lobbying rules. These are the subject of post-Abramoff reform proposals being drawn up by Dennis Hastert, the House Speaker, who himself has had to repay $69,000 in campaign contributions received from the Republican lobbyist and his Indian tribal clients.

Mr Abramoff spent millions of dollars buying influence on Capitol Hill and even though around a third was spent on Democrats, it is the Republicans who have most to fear. They have controlled the House of Representatives for a decade and the loss of 15 seats in November would leave George Bush having to share power with the Democrats.

The scale of the corruption unearthed in the Abramoff investigation makes British political sleaze pale into insignificance. In one instance, it was reported that $1.38 million was put into the transportation Bill by Californian Republican Gary Miller to improve streets in front of a 70-acre development which he and his largest campaign contributors co-own.

Mr DeLay was the architect of the “K Street Project” in which lobbyists whose offices inhabit that Washington district were encouraged to employ Republicans for their mutual benefit. The frontrunners to replace him as House majority leader say they are in favour of tightening the rules.

But Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri, is reported to have flown on no fewer than 30 corporate jets provided for him by lobbyists and special interest groups in the past four years.

His chief rival, Ohio’s John Boehner, once distributed pay cheques from tobacco lobbyists on the floor of the House.

"Despite these tactics, Judge Alito remains on track to be confirmed as Justice Alito," Frist said in a statement . "A justice delayed will not be a justice denied."

Democrats suffered their first defection Tuesday when Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska announced he will vote to confirm Alito.

Nelson, a conservative Democrat seeking re-election this fall in a Republican state, said in a statement he will support Alito "because of his impeccable judicial credentials, the American Bar Association's strong recommendation and his pledge that he would not bring a political agenda to the court."

Democrats have delayed the nomination of Alito, now a judge on a federal appeals court, as long as possible, forcing the Senate Judiciary Committee to push back its vote on him until next week.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said last week at the conclusion of the committee's hearings on Alito's nomination that he wanted the panel to delay its recommendation to allow him to discuss the nomination with his fellow Democrats when the Senate reconvenes today.

One option still available to the Democrats is to filibuster Alito's nomination when it reaches the Senate floor. With Republicans commanding a 10-8 majority on the Judiciary Committee, Democrats lack the votes to kill the nomination when it comes up for a vote by the panel Jan. 24.

It appears, however, that none of the moderate Democrats who formed an alliance with Republicans last year to avoid a filibuster showdown over judicial nominations see any circumstances to justify endless debate to kill Alito's nomination.

The NSA, the nation's largest intelligence agency, last April confirmed plans to establish a campus on the Far West Side with an estimated 1,500 new employees.

It now appears the agency has expanded the scope of its operations, with plans to lease additional space.

The campus in San Antonio eventually could accommodate 5,200 employees, expanding from its current 2,200.

The NSA is one of the big projects San Antonio has landed recently along with Toyota's new pickup plant and Washington Mutual, said Mario Hernandez, president of the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation.

Because 60 percent of the NSA's workers have advanced degrees and the agency is the nation's largest employer of mathematicians, the project is one of the city's economic development gems.

With the NSA increasing its presence here, San Antonio's reputation in the security and intelligence area has generated even more interest among information technology companies looking to come to San Antonio, Hernandez said.

The city already has a strong intelligence community, with more than 60 computer security companies employing over 6,000 workers, he said. It is also home to the Air Intelligence Agency and Cryptologic Systems Group at Lackland AFB.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has leased an old Albertsons grocery store near Interstate 10 and Wurzbach for a Defense Department client that economic development leaders report is the NSA. The site will be used for training.

A construction company is working at the site. A Corps of Engineers spokeswoman said the building should be ready by fall for training classes.

The NSA is spending $100 million to improve the old Sony plant at West Military Drive and Loop 410, Hernandez said. Corporate Office Properties Trust bought the site last year and leased it to the Corps of Engineers. Construction work is under way, with four large work trailers on site and lots of laborers.

Ramiro Cavazos, the city's economic development director, said the NSA will be hiring or relocating up to 3,000 new employees on top of the ones it has here.

The NSA also is generating a lot of interest among contractors looking to supply goods or services.

"It's a quiet giant," Cavazos said.

One of the government's most secretive branches, the NSA performs foreign intelligence gathering, analysis and reporting missions supporting combat commanders and national decision makers in the U.S. and abroad. Its agents are known as the nation's code breakers and code makers.

The NSA will not confirm how many employees it is hiring or relocating to San Antonio, said Don Weber, an organization spokesman.

The NSA now has 2,200 Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force and civilian Defense Department employees here, he said. Renovations of the Sony site are under way, and the NSA expects to occupy it in 2008, Weber said.

Last year, the NSA began an aggressive national recruiting campaign, with the goal of hiring about 1,500 new employees a year through 2008, and a portion of those positions will be in San Antonio, Weber said. The NSA held a big job fair in San Antonio last year, and more than 5,000 people showed up.

It is too early to tell how many of those people landed a job with the NSA, because security clearance can take up to 18 months.

Employees at San Antonio's NSA site work on projects involving some of the nation's highest security threats.

As terrorism worries have increased in recent years, the NSA has been beefing up its staff aggressively. It is hiring linguists, mathematicians, computer scientists, analysts who focus on intercepting communications, and electrical and other types of engineers.

One reason the NSA chose to expand in San Antonio is because it already has a big presence here, economic development experts said.

It also likes to have access to reliable power and the latest fiber-optic technology. The nearby headquarters of the nation's largest telecommunications company, AT&T, makes San Antonio an attractive place for intelligence work.

The NSA also is looking to diversify its operations outside the Washington area. Today, only 7 percent of the NSA's staff is outside that area. By 2011, the agency wants that increased to 20 percent.

Most of NSA's operations are housed at its headquarters at Fort Meade, Md., about 10 miles from Washington.

Because the agency keeps a low profile, it's not certain how many people work at the NSA, but estimates range from 20,000 to 40,000.

"I've never run a plantation before. I'm not even sure of what kind of association she's trying to make," said the speaker, a Republican from Illinois. "If she's trying to be racist, I think that's unfortunate, but I'm not going to comment any further on that."

One of Clinton's Republican congressional colleagues from New York, Rep. Peter King, said the senator "should be ashamed."

"It's definitely using the race card. It definitely has racist connotations. She knows it," King said. "She knew the audience. She knew what she was trying to say, and it was wrong. And she should be ashamed."

However, the host of the event where Clinton made her remarks Monday, activist Al Sharpton, disagreed with the criticism.

"I absolutely defend her saying it because I said it through the '04 elections," he said.

Defenders of Clinton also have pointed out comments made in 1994 by former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich, shortly before Republicans won a majority in the House, in which he said Democrats "think it's their job to run the plantation" and that "it shocks them that I'm actually willing to lead the slave rebellion."

A spokesman for Clinton also defended the remarks, saying she was pointing out that the GOP House leadership has stifled substantive debate.

Unlike the Senate, where the rules allow the Democratic minority to extend debate and block legislation, House rules allow the GOP leadership to set limits on debate and dictate how legislation will be handled. In recent years, House Democrats have complained of Republicans running roughshod over them, although Democrats had the same power to control the agenda during the 40 years they held the House before GOP control.

In her speech Monday, Clinton, who has never served in the House, told the audience that "when you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about."

Clinton, whose husband, former President Bill Clinton, was the second president in history to be impeached, also offered harsh criticism of President Bush.

"I predict to you that this administration will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country," she said. Clinton also apologized to a group of Hurricane Katrina evacuees in the audience "on behalf of a government that left you behind."

Asked about her comments, White House spokesman Scott McClellan, said they were "out of bounds."

"Sounds like the political season may be starting early," he said.

Polls put Clinton at the front of the pack of potential 2008 Democratic presidential nominees. She is running for re-election this year in New York.

Inspired by a reader who sent a list of once American corporations who’s profits are no longer funneled to the hard-working American employee, I investigated the subject.

The clip that landed on my desk was from “America is Selling Out,” published in The American Conservative, December, 2005. As I digested, emotionally charged from the publication’s Web site at www.economyincrisis.org, I agreed with some of the information, discarded the sensational propaganda and extrapolated my take on the issues’ raw facts.

From what I’ve experienced and witnessed first-hand, I consider the current state of the American economy as a politically driven “the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer” economic model.

There are too many alarming signs in our country for the politicians to actually be blindly racing the mad horse into the flaming barn as it might appear. The social-economic gaps in our nation are at record heights. In recent years, there have been more billionaires than ever, more fresh college graduates filing bankruptcy than ever and increasing numbers of the middle class economically sinking.

Sadly, this is all by design, not some directionless fluke. Since the rich are richer than ever and the most profitable corporations are breaking records, the misled reports boast positive economic growth that are not a true reflection to what has happened to the nation’s work force as a result of active globalization.

The weight has gotten heavier for those who pull the load - the American population - because it’s the increased sweat that fuels the skyrocketing extravagance of the filthy elite few. This is the reversal point of the American Dream into the American Nightmare.

The current American economic model seems like a reversal of Robin Hood. The big and powerful are profiting and becoming even more powerful as the comfortable livings of the endangered middle class are reallocated for the increasingly exclusive and isolated pockets of wealth hoarders.

No one who is aware will deny that the corporations who apparently are running this country are outsourcing our jobs. The rationalization for the mass outsourcing is to provide American consumers with cheaper products. It almost makes sense that consumables should be cheaper since the displaced workers no longer have the higher-paying jobs to afford historically high-quality, American-made products.

The American Dream - the belief that through hard work, courage and determination one can achieve prosperity - has vanished in the atmosphere of this greed and power driven frenzy.

These days it’s looking more like the American Dream is being outsourced in exchange for the American Nightmare which the vast majority of the nation’s population is waking up to in this cheaper reality.

Ellen Robinson is a reporter for the Sidney Herald. She can be reached at 406-433-2403 | ellenr@sidneyherald.com

Make no bones about it—I am a bona fide dyed in the wool progressive. I make no apologies. I am proud to be a progressive. It was progressives, not the party of big business that gave us social security, Medicare and unemployment insurance. It was progressives who championed virtually every increase in the minimum wage. It is progressives who are fighting for a living wage law. We must allowing neo-conservatives to define who we are. Progressives know who we are and what we stand for. If we are not overtly proud of the contributions of progressives to society we are not worthy of the name.

What has the party of big business ever done for working class people? They are the party that brought us the eighty-four hour work week; the twelve hour work day, sweat shops and child labor. They are not only the party that opposed civil rights; they are the party of choice of white supremacists everywhere. They are the party of class privilege. Let us remember that they are the party that produced the likes of Strom Thurman, Jesse Helms and Tom Delay. They have a lot to answer for.

Do not assume that I am a Democrat because I am a progressive—I am not. The Democrats are no longer the party of progressives they used to be. Long ago they were the party that fought tooth and nail for social justice and for organized labor. They were the party that tried to curtail corporate power. Collectively, the democrats of today are no longer the party of progressives, save for some very notable exceptions that includes Cynthia McKinney. Once the norm, now progressives like Congress woman McKinney are an aberration—a radical departure from the norm.

Progressives must come to the realization that we cannot continue to play the game of politics by rules that were rendered obsolete. We must understand that the Democratic Party abandoned us nearly three decades ago. Yet they continue to expect our support simply because they are not Republicans. It is getting more difficult to tell them apart. To hate fomenting neocons, Bill Clinton was Satan incarnate—a flaming liberal with a forked tail and horns. Politically, however, Clinton bore a close resemblance to his tormentors. He was certainly not a progressive in any way, shape or form. Like his political counterparts, Clinton’s policies clearly favored the rich and powerful over working class people of ordinary means.

As painful as it is for some, we must realize that the Democratic Party, as a platform for progressive values, no longer exists. The Democratic Party has deliberately aligned itself with the same business interests as the Republicans. It has chosen to abandon its traditional role of advancing progressive values and representing working class people. Like its old adversary, the GOP, it too was lured to the money and it has also fallen under its corrosive spell. In the process it sold its traditional identity and abandoned its customary values. Yet progressives continue to express an alliance to the Democratic Party—a party that clearly does not share their values or advance its social agenda. How can this be beneficial?

In reality America no longer has two major political parties—the Democrats and the Republicans. Sometime ago these two parties merged into a single party that only represents the interests of wealth and power. I refer to them as Republicrats. They share common financiers and common handlers. Campaign financiers always hedge their bets by contributing to both parties. They contribute significantly more to the party in power. They have created a win-win situation for themselves. The Republicrats do not represent the interest of ninety percent of the American people. This party has two right wings, both of them conservative. The more leftist wing is quite conservative; the rightist wing is populated by conservative extremists. They are the wing that is now in power; and they are seeing how far to the right they can push the envelope.

The system creates the illusion of separation and choice; but there is little difference in the ideology of wealth and privilege, and there is no real choice to be made within such a system. The Republicrats have no incentive to reform a structure that generates considerable wealth for them and their corporate backers.

It does not behoove us to contribute any more of our time, treasure, or political capital to the Republicrats. Continuing to do so only delays the inevitable revolution that is our only salvation. They sold us out, so they no longer deserve our support.

American politics is so awash in corruption and corporate money that it has degenerated into a form of legalized bribery—a form of moral prostitution, if you will. It bears no substantial resemblance to the Democracy it purports to be. It is an imposter that is designed to deceive us. The idea of one person equals one vote—all votes being of equal value—is dead. Now it is money that buys access to power and determines outcomes.

By now it should be clear that there is no competitive opposition party to the Republicrats. The system virtually precludes the entrance of viable third party candidates. It is designed to maintain the status quo that bears no resemblance to a level playing field. Until we get the special interest money out of politics there is no reason to expect improvement. We will continue to play a game in which the outcome has been predetermined—a game that ordinary working class Americans can never win.

Money buys ready access to legislators. Money allows industry lobbyists to self regulate, to fleece the people and to plunder the earth with impunity. The more money one has, the greater their access to power. Those without money are denied admission and have no real representation. Over time the clout of the dollar supplanted the power of the vote, with the result that the vast majority of the people, ninety percent or more, have only token representation in government. The system has generated enormous wealth and power for those at the top of the economic ladder, while fleecing the rest of us. What incentive is there for them to change?

So where does this leave progressives? We have several avenues open to exploration. We can continue to give our support to the Democrats as we have always done. This can only assure that we will continue getting the same results we have been getting for thirty or more years. We must ask ourselves if this strategy has produced a satisfactory result. Have progressive values waxed or waned within the Democratic Party during that time? The answer should be obvious. Progressives have lost influence.

We can attempt to force the Democratic Party back toward its progressive roots by temporarily withdrawing our support from it. This strategy will either force the Democrats to the left, or leave them twisting in the wind. Perhaps a mass migration to non-traditional third parties like the Greens or the Labor Party would get the attention of the democratic leadership.

Lending our full support to one or more of these parties might breathe new life into them. But without a mass exodus from the party that has abandoned progressive values, none of these parties will ever be more than a protest vote with little impact upon the issues. One of the powerful attractions of these parties is that they do not rely upon corporate money. By lending them our ideas and our treasury could we make them competitive?

Progressives could register as Independents and run their own candidates under that umbrella. Ross Perot enjoyed considerable success as an Independent some years ago; but he was a wealthy man who could afford to finance a major campaign. Few of us have access to that kind of cash.

Another option is to build a new political party from the ground up. Some years ago West Virginia formed the Mountain Party and Maryland has recently created the Eagle Party. Both of these parties represent genuine grass roots efforts to bypass a political system that no longer represents ordinary citizens. This option may require the most time, a luxury we may not have. Only a mass exodus from the Democratic Party could significantly shorten that development. It is widely assumed that conservatives would not be interested in joining one of these parties. However, that might not necessarily be a safe assumption if enough of them realize, like us, that the system has betrayed them.

I proffer these thoughts in hope that they will engender genuine discussion about where progressives are and where we are going. Knowing this, we can begin thinking about how we are going to get there. One thing is for certain, however; we are not going to get where we need to be by running in place or by moving in the opposite direction. Let us jettison our obsolete ideas and move forward. Isn’t this the very definition of progress?

Charles Sullivan is a furniture maker, photographer and free lance writer living in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. He welcomes your comments at earthdog@highstream.net.

WASHINGTON - Summertown resident Don Nelson traveled from his home to Memphis, Tennessee today to “self report” to federal prison. Nelson was arrested on November 21, 2005 as part of a nonviolent demonstration calling for the closure of the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas, based at Fort Benning, Georgia. For peacefully walking onto the Fort Benning military reservation, Nelson, a first time offender, was sentenced to three months in federal prison. The group “crossed the line” to protest current concerns about the school’s role in training Latin American militaries today and a legacy of torture and human rights abuses committed by graduates of the school.

“I have no regrets about my decision to participate in civil disobedience,” Nelson said before reporting to the Federal Correctional Institute in Memphis. “I’m confident that we will close this infamous school.”

The School of the Americas, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (SOA/ WHINSEC), is a combat training facility for Latin American security personnel located at Fort Benning, Georgia. The school made headlines in 1996 when the Pentagon released training manuals used there that advocated torture, extortion and execution. Despite this shocking admission and hundreds of documented human rights abuses connected to soldiers trained at the school, no independent investigation into the training facility has ever taken place.

More than 19,000 people came together in November to call for the closure of the school and to protest the Bush Administration’s opposition to banning torture techniques. Protestors at the vigil called attention to pictures of abuse at the hands U.S. personnel and reports about secret CIA detention facilities as part of a broader legacy of US support for torture and human rights abuses. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, “disappeared”, massacred and forced into refuge by graduates of the SOA/ WHINSEC.

The annual Vigil to close the SOA/ WHINSEC has grown from a dozen people in November of 1990 to this year’s record numbers. Protests against the SOA/WHINSEC began 16 years ago, and since then 180 people have served prison sentences. Thirty-four individuals arrested with Nelson and also facing possible prison sentences are scheduled to begin trials on Monday, January 30.

In 2005 Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) introduced HR 1217, a bill to suspend operations at the SOA/ WHINSEC and to investigate the development and use of the “torture manuals.” The bill currently has 123 bipartisan co-sponsors, and a Congressional vote is expected as early as May of this year.

Despite his draconian sentence, Nelson remains optimistic. “I am more committed than ever to seeing the US government take a stand for human rights by closing the School of the Americas once and for all,” he stated yesterday.

After months of tough talk about beefing up border security to prevent terrorism, the secretaries acknowledged concerns from businesses, universities and the travel industry that post-9/11 security rules have driven away visitors.

Chertoff said post-9/11 biometric screening systems at land borders have helped nab 970 people with criminal or immigration violations and those systems are being improved to make sure terrorists don't get into the country. At the same time, the government is eager to keep "the welcome mat out for those who want to come from overseas."

He and Rice announced measures to make travel more efficient. They said the government will:

• Test digital videoconferencing to see whether foreigners applying for visas to come to the USA can be interviewed by videoconference rather than in person.

In Brazil, for example, there are only three U.S. consulates where people applying for visas can go to apply and be interviewed. That means people often have to drive hundreds of miles.

• Encourage foreigners to study in the USA by extending the length of visas. Students will be able to get visas 120 days, rather than 90, before school starts.

• Test a "model airport" program at Washington Dulles International and Houston's George Bush Intercontinental to create a more welcoming environment for foreign travelers. Rice said the airports will have videos to guide people through the entry process and "friendly greeters" to help them once they've been admitted.

• Develop inexpensive security cards for foreigners and U.S. citizens traveling across U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico and to the Caribbean and Bermuda.

Travel groups raised concerns last year when the Homeland Security and State departments said people would need passports instead of driver's licenses to cross the Canadian and Mexican borders. They complained that passports are too expensive and bulky.

Chertoff said the new cards will be "like the kind of driver's license or other simple card identification that almost all of us carry."

Roger Dow of the Travel Industry Association of America said the moves send "the proper signal to our friends around the world that we want them to come visit."