This Week:

Quote of the Week

What Is Happening in Iraq? Tips for Staying Informed

"Proof" That Norm Coleman is on "A Crusade of Sorts"

High-Octane Fraud
The Key Fact about "Free Trade:" It's Not About "Freedom"

Greetings,

Thanks to all of you who wrote to me last week with all the helpful feedback on what to do about the Anglo-American aggression against Iraq.  I rely on feedback, so it was very helpful, indeed!  There's much more you could do, of course (in terms of stopping the war, that is).  I just offered a few ideas to get you started.  The important thing is that you do SOMETHING.  I offer a little follow-up this week.

As promised, Nygaard Notes has been a weekly for the past month (just like the old days!)  In fact, in a futile effort to "catch up," this week's issue is a Double Issue, as you can see.  I try not to do this too often, but sometimes I just get carried away.

Now that September is here, my schedule picks up again, so I want to alert you all that the publication schedule for the Notes will likely slow down to 2-3 times a month now.

In solidarity,

Nygaard

"Quote" of the Week:

On August 22nd Christian Coalition founder and televangelist Pat Robertson called for the United States to assassinate the democratically-elected president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.  Robertson linked Chavez - ludicrously - to "Muslim extremism all over the continent."  But Robertson's words are not the "Quote" of the Week.  That honor is reserved for the words of U.S. Secretary of "Defense" Donald Rumsfeld.  He was talking to reporters on August 23rd, and was asked if the assassination of Chavez had "ever been considered" by the U.S. military.  To this Donald Rumsfeld replied:

"Our department doesn't do that kind of thing.  It's against the law."

What Is Happening in Iraq? Tips for Staying Informed

Last week I talked about some things you might do to help stop the ongoing Anglo-American aggression against Iraq.  Afterwards I realized that I had assumed that people know enough about what is actually going on in that country to be motivated to try to change things.  That's not necessarily true, I think, especially for those who (like most people) rely on the daily media to shape their overall impressions about this situation.  I am not talking here about those who rely on Fox News, or the 700 Club.  I am talking about people who rely on the so-called "liberal media" - CNN, the New York Times, National Public Radio, etc.

The current military occupation of Iraq has been so sanitized in the U.S. press that I can't imagine how the people who follow it in "the news" could end up with anything but a seriously distorted impression of events in that country.

With that n mind, this week I would like to make a few suggestions about places to go to get more realistic information about what is happening in Iraq.  Most of them are on the Internet, although I'm sure there are paper versions of all of these, if people want to pay to see some of them.

Daily News

If you wanted to do a little thought experiment, you could try this: Completely turn off the Mainstream Corporate For-Profit Agenda-Setting Bound Media for two weeks, and instead take in your news about Iraq EVERY DAY for those two weeks from these four sources:

1. Check out the Weblog "Iraq Dispatches," written by Dahr Jamail. Jamail is an American independent journalist who went to Iraq after the invasion to bring attention to how the Iraqi people and US soldiers were being affected, and posts his reports at  http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/

2.  Also look at Electronic Iraq News at http://electroniciraq.net/news/   Click on "News and Analysis" and just skim the stories. It's one of the few places where you'll find news reports from IRIN, the Integrated Regional Information Networks, part of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

3.  A daily look at ZNet ( http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm ) will yield articles on Iraq by all sorts of people who you will not find in the corporate media.  As I write this, they have recent articles on Iraq posted by George Monbiot, Norman Solomon, Inter Press Service, TomDispatch, and others. (Large sections on the rest of the Middle East, and the rest of the world, make this site a daily treasure.)

4.  A daily trip to the English-language site of Al Jazeera might be worthwhile.  They often run stories by fairly mainstream news agencies, like Agence France-Presse, but much original analysis can also be found there.  http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage

At the end of your two weeks, I do not promise that you will have a handle of the "truth" of what is happening in Iraq.  But I'm fairly certain that you will have a different impression of the overall picture, and that this will be very useful in helping you ward off the serious misinformation and irresponsible framing that characterizes most of the coverage in the U.S. media in this area.

(Bonus daily news tip: Take the time to read anything you see by Robert Fisk ( http://www.robert-fisk.com/ ).  He's the best Western journalist working in the Middle East, in my opinion.  His dispatches remind me of the dispatches from Vietnam of reporter Wilfred Burchett, which were similarly indispensable at the time.)

History and Context

If you realize that you know very little about the background and context of U.S. relations with Iraq, it might be useful to take a little time to back off of the daily news reports and do a little reading.  Here are a few places to go on the Internet:

The Middle East Research and Information Project put out a report in December of 2002 called "Why Another War?  A Backgrounder on the Iraq Crisis."  This 16-page summary goes back to the coming-to-power of the Ba'th Party in 1968, and includes a very useful timeline of key events in the past 50 years of Iraqi history.  Find it at http://merip.org/iraq_backgrounder_102202/iraq_background2_merip.pdf

In January of 2003, Phyllis Bennis and the Institute for Policy Studies put out a report called "Understanding the U.S.-Iraq Crisis: A Primer."  The whole thing is 27 pages long, and it includes a three-page section on "The History of U.S.-Iraq Relations."

The Friends Committee on National Legislation has a special focus on Iraq.  Visit their site at http://www.fcnl.org/issues/issue.php?issue_id=35   and look at the "Background and Analysis" section.

If you haven't read accounts of the World Tribunal on Iraq that was held in Istanbul from the 23rd-27th of June (and I imagine many of you haven't, since it was essentially blacked out in the U.S. press), I recommend you go to the World Tribunal website and read some of the testimony
http://www.worldtribunal.org/main/ ?  (Click on "News" and "Testimonies")

"Proof" That Norm Coleman is on "A Crusade of Sorts"

On August 9, according to the New York Times, "The commission investigating the United Nations oil-for-food program in Iraq yesterday accused the former director, Benon V. Sevan, of accepting money from kickbacks in Iraqi oil sales..."  Or, as the Wall Street Journal put it, "An independent panel alleged corruption by two former United Nations officials," and "It remains unclear whether Mr. Sevan will face charges."

Note the key words here: "accused," "alleged," and "unclear."  Most of us understand what those words mean, and we also value the bedrock principle of any justice system, which is the principle of  "innocent until proven guilty."  However, most of us are not U.S. Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota, who is the chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate, and a man whom former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has said is leading "a crusade of sorts" against the oil-for-food program.

Here is Mr. Coleman's statement to the Star Tribune on August 9th, when informed of the reports of accusations and allegations against Mr. Sevan:

"The report today proves what my subcommittee learned in February: Benon Sevan was taking kickbacks from the former Hussein regime."

The report "proves" nothing of the sort.  (Mr. Sevan denies the charges).  What has been proven is that 12 years of sanctions against Iraq caused untold suffering and death in that country.  And drawing attention away from this monstrous reality is a large part of the point of Mr. Coleman's ongoing and cynical "investigation."

For more on the oil-for-food program itself, including the investigation, visit "Oil-For-Food Facts" at http://www.oilforfoodfacts.org/history.aspx
For another take on the oil-for-food investigation and Mr. Coleman, visit ZNet at:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=6861 or Media Matters at: http://mediamatters.org/items/200412070005

High-Octane Fraud

"In these times of high gasoline prices, spending more money for high-octane fuel that your car doesn't need is just a way of picking your own pocket.  In short, unless your engine is knocking, why buy a higher octane at a higher price than your car owner's manual recommends?"

Although those words could have been uttered yesterday, in fact that was a quote from Jodie Bernstein, Director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection, on September 17th, 1996.  Ms. Bernstein added that "Consumers may be paying as much as twenty cents a gallon more for premium gasoline, because of claims that it will make engines cleaner and cheaper to maintain."

These days, the difference is about 25 cents a gallon, but the point is the same: Consumers who pay more for high-octane gas are getting suckered.  This is not a trivial issue.  My back-of-the envelope calculations indicate that the result of this mis-spending by consumers is costing us about $5 billion a year.

The question is, why?  Where did millions of Americans get the idea that spending an extra 15 to 25 cents a gallon on gasoline will help them in some way?  If that were ever true, it hasn't been the case for at least the past 15 years or so.  Jacob Bournazian, an analyst with the Energy Information Administration in Washington, D.C., told the Washington Post earlier this month, "One of the biggest misconceptions of American consumers is that octane affects power, efficiency or performance - it's a bunch of baloney."  The reason is that "Cars made in the past 15 years have such highly refined computer controls that the engine will adjust to the grade of octane in the gasoline, even in cars sold as requiring premium gasoline."

So the question is: Why are cars being "sold as requiring premium gasoline?" The few stories that have run in the nation's newspapers on this issue have focused on the "save yourself some cash" angle.  The Star Trib's headline read, "Here's Fuel to Fill 'Er up and Save."  The St. Paul Pioneer Press headed their story, "Passing up the Premium."  This is typical of the "News You Can Use" approach to journalism, wherein editors and producers assume that the only thing people are interested in is how to act - as individuals - to protect themselves from the latest fraud or other corporate misbehavior.

The Washington Post was the only outlet that mentioned the reason why the irrational premium-purchasing behavior on the part of consumers persists.  Noting that some car manuals specify that their vehicle needs premium gasoline, the Post quoted an analyst who said that "carmakers perpetuate the premium fuel requirement because engines designed for that gas can achieve greater performance when powered by the high-grade fuel."  The analyst added that "It probably won't ever be noticed by most drivers.  But [the carmakers] can still have their claimed horsepower for their brochures."  In other words, it's all about selling people things they will never notice.  Welcome to modern advertising.  But it's not just carmakers.

"Oil refiners," added the Post, "make the most money from selling higher-grade gasoline because the higher cost to produce it is more than made up by the added charge to customers." (A spokesman for Sunoco would neither confirm nor deny this.)  The Post cited Fadel Gheit, an oil analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York, as saying that "Gas stations also benefit from higher margins on premium fuel."  And that's why, says Gheit, "It's to everybody's advantage to push the high-grade."

Everybody, that is, except those of us who drive cars.

OK, let's get back to the Federal Trade Commission's statement of 1996, the one I quoted at the beginning of this article.  At that time, the FTC was filing suit against Exxon, the largest oil company in the United States, charging that Exxon Corporation has misled consumers by making unsubstantiated advertising claims for Exxon gasoline. The ads, according to the FTC, claimed that switching to Exxon gasolines generally - or to Exxon 93 Supreme specifically - will make engines cleaner and significantly reduce auto maintenance costs.

Those claims were - and are - not true, and Exxon agreed to produce a free consumer brochure to be distributed to Exxon's 8,700 service stations nationwide that says "ordinarily, your car will not benefit from using a higher octane than is recommended in the owner's manual."

The settlement also barred Exxon "from making unsubstantiated claims about the engine cleaning ability of any gasoline or the effect of any gasoline on auto maintenance or maintenance costs."  Plus, Exxon had to "produce a 15-second television ad" that told consumers that the higher-octane gas that they had been pushing was worthless and a waste of money.  None of these ads ran in the Twin Cities, unfortunately.
At the time, the FTC lawsuit against Exxon was "the latest in a series of FTC actions challenging deceptive advertising claims for high octane fuel. Amoco Oil Company, Sun Company and Unocal Corporation have previously settled FTC charges in connection with superiority claims for their high octane gasolines."  That is, their lies.  Or, fraudulent claims.  You get the point.

As far as I can tell, none of the news stories I have quoted here got any of their facts wrong.  But I think they all got the story wrong.  As pump prices approach or pass three dollars a gallon, what is the story here?  Is it a story of smart consumers saving money by buying budget gas, as most newspapers would have you believe?  Or is it a story of fifteen years of ongoing corporate fraud that has cost consumers - so far - at least $75 billion?

The Key Fact about "Free Trade:" It's Not About "Freedom"

On August 2nd George W. Bush signed into law the Central American-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement, known as CAFTA-DR, or simply CAFTA.  It squeaked through the House of Representatives on a vote of 217 to 215, and the Senate vote was 55 to 45.  Reflecting the division among elites on the issue, it has been easier than usual to read criticism of the deal in the media.  In the past month, one could find headlines like "Job Loss to NAFTA Dims Enthusiasm for CAFTA" (Jackson, MS, Sun Herald, Aug 18), and "Elusive Prosperity Seen in CAFTA" (Washington Post, Aug 16).

Still, it is extremely rare to find a plain-language statement in the media of the key fact on this trade agreement.  So, here it is: The "Free Trade" agreement known as CAFTA does not promote free trade.  Or, rather, it selectively promotes freedom in some areas and actually restricts freedom in others.  The inconsistencies can be explained by looking at whose interests are being served.  That is, when "freedom" benefits powerful interests, then we see more "freedom" in the agreement.  However, when "freedom" benefits the lower classes - or, more accurately, when it seems to harm the interests of the powerful - then restrictions on "freedom" are written in to the agreement.

The two best examples of restrictions on "Free Trade" in the "Free Trade" agreement are things that aren't unique to CAFTA, but are very obvious here.  These examples are the reinforcement of "intellectual property rights" and the retention of restrictions on "professional services."

A hint of the reality of the CAFTA agreement was found in the Business section of the New York  Times on July 2nd, after CAFTA was passed by the Senate.  The headline read, "Drug Lobby Got a Victory in Trade Pact Vote."  The victory was described, accurately I think, as follows: "The work of [drug industry lobbyists] who represent what is arguably Washington's biggest and wealthiest lobby, appears to have succeeded in the Central American Free Trade Agreement.  The agreement would extend the monopolies of drug makers and, critics say, lead to higher drug prices for the mostly impoverished people of the six Latin American countries it covers."

That monopolies lead to higher prices - and not just in poor countries - is hardly as controversial as the Times makes it sound.  But let's leave aside for the moment the issue of drug prices.  The fact is - and it is a fact, I know of no one who argues on this point - that government-granted and enforced monopolies are restrictions on "free trade."  If the trade in drugs were truly "free," then countries would be free to develop their own versions of drugs and sell them at a tiny fraction of the cost of the patent-protected versions.  Several countries - among them Brazil and India - have shown the ability and intent to do just that, and CAFTA is designed, in part, to prevent that happening in the Caribbean region.

It's not just pharmaceuticals, either.  "Intellectual property rights" includes other restrictions on "free trade," like copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets.  There are other, already-existing treaties and agreements that govern intellectual property rights, but the Business Roundtable is happy that, in their words, CAFTA "provides longer terms of protection, stronger enforcement measures, and specific coverage of electronic and digital media."  Those are good things for Roundtable businesses - you'd recognize all your favorite multinationals on their membership list - because "Strong and comprehensive copyright protection and enforcement are important ingredients for robust economic growth and development."

Competition for Farm Workers, Protection for Dentists

CAFTA seeks to enshrine in law the principle of "freedom" for low-paid workers to compete with one another, while restricting the "freedom" of educated professionals from developing countries to compete with U.S. doctors, lawyers, etc.  Here's how it works:

In a 2003 paper called "Professional Protectionists: The Gains From Free Trade in Highly Paid Professional Services," published by the Center for Economic Policy and Research, economist Dean Baker stated,  "[W]hile recent trade agreements have effectively placed auto workers, textile workers and other manufacturing workers in direct competition with some of the cheapest labor in the world, highly paid professionals continue to work in a well-protected labor market."

The reason is that United States consumers save untold billions - and U.S. corporations make untold profits - by keeping wages as low as possible for jobs held by the less politically-powerful classes.  I'm talking about jobs like farm workers, cab drivers, restaurant kitchen staff - the bottom of the economic ladder.

Part of the way United Statesians keep wages low for these jobs is by bringing in foreign workers from developing countries who find such jobs very attractive relative to the options available in their own countries.  (And the options available in their own countries are controlled by rules set by the International Financial Institutions, like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which are in turn controlled by Washington.  Nifty, isn't it?)

One of the points of so-called "globalization" (of which CAFTA is a part) is to extend this sort of competition beyond the lowest-paid workers to the next-to-lowest-paid workers.  So CAFTA seeks to reduce barriers to trade in manufactured goods, which will make it easier for Central American workers to compete with manufacturing workers in the United States.  The result is that low-wage workers are "free" to compete with exploited workers everywhere.  That's the "Free" in "Free Trade."

Where there is no "Free" in "Free Trade" is in the area of professional services.  That is, the work done by doctors, lawyers, accountants, dentists, and so on.  U.S. consumers would save many tens of billions of dollars a year if the professional classes in the U.S. had the same "freedom" to compete with their Third World colleagues as the laboring classes do.  But they don't, because these classes have the political clout to protect themselves from such competition through the imposition of elaborate systems of licensing, accreditation, visas, prevailing wage laws, and so forth.  Now, if these systems were altered - that is, if more "freedom" were imposed on U.S. professionals - the billions that U.S. consumers would save, Baker tells us, "would be many times greater than from the reduction of remaining barriers to traded goods" that are the focus of agreements like CAFTA.

The possibility of such competition - that is, such "freedom" - scares the bejeebers out of the professional classes in the United States.  U.S. dentists, for example, were so scared that the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) was moved to release last month a statement with the title "CAFTA Is Not 'Anti-Dentist.'" (That was the actual title - honest!)

The statement reassured domestic dentists that "CAFTA will not ... affect U.S. states' professional licensing standards for dentists, doctors or other professionals..."  The statement explicitly stated that, when it comes to removing barriers to competition for professional jobs,  "[CAFTA] does not establish a hard obligation.  It merely requires that the Parties 'endeavor' to meet its terms 'as appropriate' for individual sectors.  As a 'best efforts' provision, it is not really amenable to enforcement through dispute settlement procedures."

Translation: "Relax, dentists!  If any dark-skinned foreigners were to ever try to use CAFTA rules to establish the right to freely compete with you or other U.S. professionals, they couldn't win, because we have avoided writing such rights and freedoms into this 'free trade' agreement."

I mentioned that this official statement from the U.S. government was titled: "CAFTA Is Not "Anti-Dentist."  It's understood that what they mean is that "CAFTA Is Not "Anti-U.S. Dentist."

I think it's time for a little perspective: The median expected salary for a typical dentist in the United States  is $114,310 per year.  The median income for farm workers is between $5,000 and $7,500 per year.

Regardless of its name, the Central American-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement is not about "freedom," any more than the various other "free trade" agreements are about "freedom."  These agreements are about power.  As such, it is no surprise that freedom is expanded when it is the freedom of the powerful to exert their power, and that freedom is limited when it is the freedom of the rest of us to challenge that power.  Perhaps a more accurate name for this agreement would be the Central American-Dominican Republic Power Relations Reinforcement Agreement.  But that doesn't sound as good, does it?