| Number 164 | July 12, 2002 |
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This Week:
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Greetings, Reader Mark, in a recent E-mail, related the story of a co-worker asking him "which country he fears the most." Thinking, no doubt, of the actions of our federal government that are the subject of this week's Notes, Mark foolishly (or not), replied. "My own!" Five other co-workers, upon hearing such heresy, "jumped right down my throat," reports Mark, in a story I have heard—with variations—on several occasions in recent months. This week's Notes features a sampling of reports from recent newspapers that give a small hint of the effect on our domestic political culture that is being wrought by the War Against Terrorism (the WAT?!). When seen one-by-one, with a few paragraphs here, or a headline there, it is possible to miss the overall pattern and logic to the trend. Rest assured, however, that there is a logic, and I will attempt to give a sense of the "big picture" in next week's Notes. I hope that, by being possessed of some facts. AND a theoretical framework in which to place them, readers may be better to defend themselves in their workplaces and communities from attacks like Mark and many others are experiencing. Don't give up! Sometimes I say things in the pages of the Notes that some readers find a little hard to believe. I typically have a large number of sources for every piece I write, but I don't bother to burden you by listing all of them. However, if you would like to know where I come up with some of this stuff, I'd be happy to tell you. Just ask—you know where to reach me. See you next week, Nygaard |
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This week "President" Bush was forced to defend his serving on the board of directors of Harken Energy Corporation, yet another corporation that cooked its books in order to hide "huge losses" from the public. Asked if he approved of the illegal transaction at the time, "Bush shrugged," according to the New York Times. The local paper reported that Bush "appeared irritated by the questioning" from reporters, and his answer to one of the questions was, "All I can tell you is that in the corporate world, sometimes things aren't exactly black and white when it comes to accounting procedures," the Conniver-in-Chief stated. That didn't go over too well, and (here's the "Quote" of the Week):
FINALLY we get a report that the press corps is laughing at the President! |
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As a preface to this week's collection of news reports on the domestic face of the War Against Terrorism (the WAT?!), I think it is useful to consider the words of Bob Herbert, one of the most "liberal" of the editorialists at the New York Times ("All the News That's Fit to Print"). In an opinion piece in that august publication's June 13th edition, entitled "A Closer Look," Mr. Herbert issued a fairly reasonable call for the convening of a "distinguished bipartisan commission...to examine the conditions that led to the catastrophe of Sept. 11." Mr. Herbert pointed to what he called "government-induced anxiety," stemming from the seemingly endless announcements by federal officials of "imminent" or "inevitable" or "almost certain" terrorist attacks, possibly including WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction")! Mr. Herbert appeared baffled by such announcements, and stated that "It's a peculiar leadership strategy that depends for its success on routinely scaring the heck out of the population." I doubt that Mr. Herbert was born yesterday, and if he wasn't, he should know that it's not peculiar at all. Political scientists have often noted that the population will almost invariably "rally around the President" when they perceive that the nation is under threat—that is, when they are scared to death. What politician doesn't want the voters to rally around him? I'll have much more to say on this next week, when I talk about the Bush Doctrine. For now, I suggest you bear in mind the usefulness of instilling fear (Dare I say "terror?") in the population as a way to silence criticism of some pretty extreme measures that, in less fearful times, might arouse some serious and audible objections among the "Silent Majority." What follows are some tidbits of mainstream media reporting on some of these extreme measures. Try not to be afraid as you read them—I don't want to be accused of employing any "peculiar leadership strategies," after all. |
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Here's an example of a law that was passed during the original McCarthy period that is now being used to justify policies proposed for what we might call the "New McCarthyism." The headline in the June 5th issue of the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) said, "Justice Department Proposes Registering More Foreigners." According to the article, the U.S. Justice Department announced on June 4th that it would like to require "tens of thousands of Muslim and Middle Eastern visa holders to register with the government and be fingerprinted." The proposal is designed for "individuals from countries who pose the highest risk to our security," including visa holders from most "Muslim" nations. Despite "outrage" on the part of "some civil liberties and Arab-American groups," who argue that the proposal is "a blatant example of racial and ethnic profiling," there is a "long-dormant" law on the books, dating from 1952, that grants the government authority to require such registration. Or so unnamed "administration officials" reportedly said. Who knows if there really is such a law, or if it really grants anything of the sort? The reporter didn't bother to find anyone to comment on this "long-dormant" law. |
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Back on March 21 the Star Trib reported that Attorney General John Ashcroft was planning to pursue "voluntary" interviews with 3,000 foreign nationals in this country. This follows the government's attempt to interview about 5,000 "young men with whom it wanted to speak" back in November. The criteria for placing "young men" on this list would be laughable if it were not for the seriousness of the civil rights violations. According to the report in the Star Trib, the list was made up of "visitors who, like the hijackers, were 18 to 33 years old, entered the United States after January 2000 on non-immigrant visas, and held passports or had once lived in countries where al-Qaida had a presence." (Of course, al-Qaida has obviously had a presence in the United States, but never mind that...) Now, just in case it is not apparent why these criteria are laughable, imagine that similar interviews had been proposed after the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Interviews would logically have been sought with all males who, "like the bomber," were aged 18 to 33, were of European heritage, and had been born in the United States. Not only would such a proposal have prompted outrage from all "respectable" quarters in the political establishment, it is telling to note that such a proposal was never, to the best of anyone's knowledge, even considered by the federal government. Or, at least, they didn't dare to publicize it if it was considered. More than one-half of the "young men" sought back in November still remain un-located and un-interviewed, and the Justice Department has admitted that the interviews it has conducted have "elicited few clues about the [Sept. 11] attacks." The response to this dramatic failure is...to do some more interviews. As for the "voluntary" nature of these interviews, imagine being a foreign-born Muslim (those readers of the Notes who are foreign-born Muslims are exempt from this exercise) and having federal agents come to your door and ask you to "answer a few questions" about terrorism. Next, imagine saying "No" to the agents. I suppose it is possible that this would be the end of it, as Attorney General John Ashcroft implied when he said that "those sought for questioning are not suspected of crimes." But, really. Switch places, now, and imagine you were the federal agent who knocked on the door of the "young man" living at 123 Apple Pie Lane who "fits the profile" and refused to talk to authorities. Do you think that would be the end of it? |
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As bad as they are, federal "interviews" are not the worst of it for immigrants in the U.S. since September 11th. Despite the American Civil Liberties Union pointing out in a recent report that "an individual's citizenship status reveals essentially nothing about his (sic) likely involvement in terrorism," some unknown number of immigrants—"most were men of Arab or South Asian origin"—have been detained by the U.S. government on unknown charges, presumably something to do with terrorism. At one time it was announced that there were as many as 1,147 detainees, but there has been no public accounting since November 5 of the total number detained, so nobody knows how many there are now. However many there are, their treatment is "simply unacceptable," according to William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA. The brief story in the March 15th Star Trib reported, accurately, that the AI release charged violations of international law by the U.S. government. The actual report points out that the treatment of these prisoners violates not only international law, but U.S. law as well. This matter is deserving of more than the 5 paragraphs allotted to it by the local newspaper. Among the numerous troubling aspects of these detentions is the fact that many of the detainees were being held without being told the nature of the charges against them, making it obviously impossible for them to challenge their detention. Of the charges that were known at last accounting, "none" of them "showed any direct links with September attacks." These are the sorts of things that our government typically points to when illustrating what is wrong with the political systems of other countries, yet the evidence is that it is now standard procedure here in the "home of the free." Yet this seems to excite little ongoing coverage in our media. For those who would like to read the entire Amnesty report, the title is "Amnesty International's Concerns Regarding Post September 11 Detentions in the USA," and it can be found on the AI website at http://www.amnestyusa.org/usacrisis/. |
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In an article in the Business section of the Star Trib of June 22, entitled "Workers Say Background Checks Go Too Far," we find the case of Donald Ade, a sheet metal worker who was fired from his job because he had purchased a small amount of marijuana 9 years ago (resulting in six hours in jail and a fine, promptly paid). It seems that pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co. began doing criminal background checks this year of those with access to its facilities, and found the minor offense on Ade's record. It then barred Ade (and 194 other workers) from its property. The employers of these workers, apparently not wanting to employ people who could not set foot on the job site, then fired Ade and who-knows-how-many others. According to the Associated Press, Eli Lilly "notes that any decision to fire workers was made by their own employers, and was not imposed by Lilly." The article did not indicate whether the multinational intended this as a joke; presumably they did not. "Complaints like Ade's are becoming more common" since September 11th, the article says, adding that "Screening of job applicants and current workers is not new for many employers. But the scope and stringency of that scrutiny has multiplied considerably since September." The article concluded with a comment from Dan Yager, general counsel for the Labor Policy Association, a group representing corporate personnel executives (Is there any subset of corporate executives that is NOT represented by a national group?). Mr. Yager pointed out that "Employers are not a bunch of peeping Toms." |
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