This Week:

Quote of the Week

Not In The News: Poor Kids

See, This Is What We’re Talking About...

The Unintentional Story
“No New Taxes” Consequence, Example 3,284 (or so)...
“We Are Happy Campers Here”
“Website of the Week: Venezuelanalysis”

Greetings,

Last week the Notes was a double issue on a single theme. This week it’s a single issue on a million themes. And that’s the way Nygaard Notes works. Neither you nor I ever know what is coming up next. I like it that way. I hope you do, too.

Nygaard Notes is going to take a week or two off. Part of the reason is that I need to catch up on some things (including a possible upgrading of my computer system, which make me quite nervous!). The other part of the reason is that I am appearing in a play here in the Twin Cities, and it opens next week. Although I have a small part, it still seems to be taking a lot of time. So, depending on how the technical issues go, and how the play goes, the next issue will come out on June 11 or the 18th. Most likely the 11th.

Readers may want to come and see the play – called “With Love From Ramallah" – and not because I’m in it. It’s a world premiere, written by two local women, and I think it’s an important play, one worth seeing. It’s one of a very few plays that speak of the Arab immigrant experience from a Palestinian point of view, and that does so utilizing an (almost) all-Arab cast. It’s a particularly important play to put on at this historical moment, when so many United Statesians have come to associate Arab people with nothing but bombs and terror. This play, at its heart, is a love story, and you don’t have to be “into” Middle East politics to get a lot out of that.

The play opens June 3. For ticket information, call and leave a message at the Mixed Blood Theatre box office at 612-338-6131. They’ll get back to you after the holiday.

OK, that sounded a little bit like a commercial, didn’t it? Let’s get on with a look at some things that have been – and some things that have NOT been – in the news lately.

See you in a couple of weeks,

Nygaard

"Quote" of the Week: Here’s what “President” Bush said on May 6 about the torture of Iraqis by U.S. troops, according to a front-page article in the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!):

“It's a stain on our country's honor and our country's reputation. I fully understand that. And that's why it's important that justice be done.”

Hello? Morality? Human rights? International law? Can anyone think of any other reasons why “justice” might be “important?” Someone help the President, please...

Not In The News: Poor Kids

Most of this issue of Nygaard Notes is a series of comments on items in the media, but here is a tidbit of important news that I am including because it was not in the media at all. As far as my database search can tell, a major report last month from the National Center for Children in Poverty, called “Low-Income Children in the United States,” was never mentioned in the Mainstream Corporate For-Profit Agenda-Setting Bound Media. I just have to include a few facts here.

* More than one-third (37 percent; more than 26 million) of children in the United States live in low-income families, meaning their parents earn up to double what is considered poverty in this country. The federal poverty level for a family of four in 2004 is $18,850.

* After a decade of decline, the rate of children living in low-income families is rising again, a trend that began in 2000.

* While the largest group of children in low-income families is white, black and Latino children are significantly more likely to live in families with low incomes, and they account for the increase in low-income children. 58 percent of black children—5.8 million—lived in low-income families in 2002 (up 4 per cent from 2001). It was 62 percent for Latino children—7.8 million (up 1 percent from 2001). And it was 25 percent for white children—10.9 million (down 2 percent from 2001).

* Younger children are more likely to live in low-income families. 42 percent of infants/toddlers live in low-income families.

* Most children in low-income families have parents who are employed full-time and year-round. 84 percent of children who live in low-income families have at least one parent who works.

* Approximately 5 million people—roughly half of them children—are removed from poverty annually as a result of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit. It is estimated that an additional 1.1 million children could be lifted out of poverty if such credits were adopted by all states.

You—and any reporter from your town’s news media—can read the entire report, and a lot of other excellent reports and facts, at the website of the National Center for Children in Poverty at http://www.nccp.org.

See, This Is What We’re Talking About...

The Washington Post—and only the Washington Post, according to my database search of national newspapers—ran the following surreal headline on April 29th: “Patriot Act Suppresses News Of Challenge to Patriot Act.” Here’s the lead paragraph:

“The American Civil Liberties Union disclosed yesterday that it filed a lawsuit three weeks ago challenging the FBI's methods of obtaining many business records, but the group was barred from revealing even the existence of the case until now. The lawsuit was filed April 6 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, but the case was kept under seal to avoid violating secrecy rules contained in the USA Patriot Act, the ACLU said. The group was allowed to release a redacted [edited] version of the lawsuit after weeks of negotiations with the government.”

Why would the government want this to be kept secret? Perhaps the answer lies in the final paragraph (which was edited out of the version that was reprinted in the local paper): “The lawsuit names as defendants Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and FBI Senior Counsel Marion E. ‘Spike’ Bowman. A second plaintiff has joined the ACLU in filing the lawsuit, but that plaintiff's identity has been redacted from [edited out of, that is] the public copy of the complaint.”

Let’s give the last word on this to Ann Beeson, the ACLU's associate legal director, who said in a statement, “It is remarkable that a gag provision in the Patriot Act kept the public in the dark about the mere fact that a constitutional challenge had been filed in court. President Bush can talk about extending the life of the Patriot Act, but the ACLU is still gagged from discussing details of our challenge to it.”

The Unintentional Story

Here are two seemingly-unrelated comments that, together, tell a small story. I found both of them on the front page of the Star Tribune of March 29th, but they came from two different stories on opposite sides of the page. The lead paragraph of the first one—a reprint from the NY Times—said, “The White House acknowledged Sunday that on the day after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President Bush asked his top counterterrorism adviser, Richard A. Clarke, to find out whether Iraq was involved.”The fourth paragraph said, “The conversation -- which the White House suggested last week had never taken place -- centers on perhaps the most volatile charge Mr. Clarke has made public in recent days: that the Bush White House became fixated on Iraq and Saddam Hussein at the expense of focusing on Al Qaeda.”

So, one week the White House “suggests” a conversation never happened, then the next week admits it did.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the same front page, the Star Trib ran an article written by a Star Trib reporter telling how Minnesota Republican Senator Norm Coleman “has been busy working the phones on the president's behalf for the past month.” Mostly what Mr. Coleman has been doing, apparently, is attacking John Kerry. At least, that’s the impression left by the headline: “Coleman Takes on Kerry-Jabbing Role.”

Anyhow, the article reports that Mr. Coleman “has been telling reporters around the nation that Sen. John Kerry...is a flip-flopper.” When considering whether someone should be President, Coleman said, “People are looking for consistency...”

“No New Taxes” Consequence, Example 3,284 (or so)...

You probably missed this story, since it ran almost nowhere except on the bottom of page 16 of the April 23rd New York Times. Headline: “Science Group Says U.S. Budget Plan Would Harm Research.” Lead paragraph: “The nation's largest general science group said Thursday that the Bush administration's proposed budget for the next five years could cut research financing at 21 of the 24 federal agencies that engage in it.”

“Among fields that would most likely be hurt, the organization said, are physics, medicine, oceanography, astronomy, geology, chemistry, psychology, biology, climatology, anthropology, ecology, mathematics, archaeology, meteorology, sociology and energy research.”

The American Association for the Advancement of Science says that “Mr. Bush's pledge to halve the nation's budget deficit in the next five years, from its estimated level of $521 billion this year, would require ‘dramatic’ cuts in various research budgets. The only research categories likely to escape the cuts, [AAAS budget director Ken Koizumi] said, are the military, domestic security and space exploration.”

“We Are Happy Campers Here”

On March 18, just before the one-year anniversary of the start of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, George W. Bush visited Fort Campbell, Kentucky, home of the Army's 101st Airborne division, for a photo opportunity. The Washington Post, in reporting on the visit, said, “The president spoke of a ‘solemn commitment’ as he addressed thousands of troops here, many of the 20,000 who returned last month from duty in Iraq. ‘The 101st Airborne has known greater losses than any other division-sized unit,’ he said. ‘Each of these Americans brought pride to our country. We pray for their families. We will honor their names forever.’

Et cetera.

Anyhow, what was interesting about the article in the March 19 Post was the 10th paragraph (of the 12-paragraph article), which read as follows:

“Bush, wearing a green Army jacket, received an enthusiastic welcome from the troops, who stood on the post's muddy parade grounds under bright sunshine and chanted ‘U.S.A.!’ Before Bush appeared, small U.S. flags were handed out, and an officer gave instructions to the troops on how to receive the commander in chief. ‘We're going to show him a lot of love by waving flags,’ the officer said. Telling the troops not to salute, he added: ‘You're going to wave and clap and make a lot of noise. . . . You must smile. We are happy campers here.’”

So here we have the Post reporting – in one paragraph! – that the Commander-in-Chief “received an enthusiastic welcome,” and that the audience of troops under his charge were acting under orders to make it look that way! As the “President” goes around the country and poses at innumerable carefully-choreographed public appearances over the next few months, it might be good to keep this little paragraph in mind.

“Website of the Week: Venezuelanalysis”

With so much attention focused on Iraq and Afghanistan, people may forget that the original U.S. “sphere of influence” was the Western Hemisphere. I spoke last week of a small part of the history of U.S. subversion of democracy in Latin America, but the nations most at risk for U.S. intervention these days are not Brazil, Chile, or Uruguay (although Brazil is treading on thin ice in some ways). We have just recently seen the ouster of the democratically-elected president of Haiti, and the end of that story has not yet been told. I gave some websites for good information on that crisis in Nygaard Notes #244 (“Haiti: Don’t Believe Your TV”)

Two other countries on this side of the globe to keep in mind as the U.S. searches for other places to test the practicality of the belligerent Bush Doctrine are Venezuela and Colombia. This week I’d like to tell you about a good source of news about Venezuela.

Readers may recall that the democratically-elected president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, was overthrown on April 11, 2002, only to be returned to office two days later. Despite the turning back of that coup d’etat (which was supported by the United States government), the crisis in that country is far from over. In terms of appearing as a target in the sights of U.S. military/intelligence planners, Venezuela has 2 major strikes against it: 1. It has a president who doesn’t see his job as being primarily to serve the interests of the United States, and 2) It has a lot of oil. That’s a bad combination, as the example of Iraq should show quite clearly.

The fact that Chavez seems to be more interested in serving the interests of the poor majority of Venezuelans than in serving the interests of the elites in that country also endangers him, as those elites will be more than happy to destabilize the country with the help of the U.S. They are doing so even as I write these words, you can be sure.

For those who wish to learn more about that country, I recommend the website of Venezuelanalysis.com: Venezuelan News, Views, and Analysis.” There you’ll find original articles, reprints from other news sources, background and context, and transcripts of important speeches. Especially if we see news of another coup in Venezuela, or perhaps news of U.S. troops going in to “protect Americans,” take a moment before reading the U.S. media, and look to Venezuelanalysis first to get your bearings. Find it at: http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/.