This Week:

How About That Reader Response?

Nygaard Notes on the World Wide Web?

The International Bicycle Fund
The Killing Fields in Iraq
Stop the Reroute of Highway 55; Upcoming Events
Social Security Brain-Teaser

Greetings,

This is kind of a catch-all Nygaard Notes; maybe because I was on vacation for a week and had time to think about some of this stuff. So, a couple of notes about the Notes, and then some action things for people to do, and then a little brain-teaser for you to ponder.

A note about the brain-teaser: I present it as a game, but this is really a major issue that I grapple with often. I hope some of you have some ideas about it. Please send them along if you do.

Welcome to our new subscribers. I have mentioned that Nygaard Notes, through no fault of my own, has gone beyond being just a Minnesota thing, with readers cropping up in several other states around the nation. It just occurred to me that Nygaard Notes is now INTERnational, with one reader in Canada! Who'da thunk it? Every new reader gets my welcome letter which includes an index of all previous Notes; if you would like an updated index, just let me know. I''ll have my staff get right on it.

That's all for now; my staff has to go to bed, because I've got a long day tomorrow.

Hey! No Nygaard Notes Extra! this week. Whaddaya know?

Nygaard

How About That Reader Response?

Reader Michael recently sent along this comment: "An idea for Nygaard notes: How about reader response space?" Hmm, I responded. I never really thought about it. Now I am thinking about it. I do get quite a few responses to the Notes, but I have always assumed that they were intended for me, and not for publication. Maybe I've been wrong all these many months. How about if the rest of you readers out there send me a note with your thoughts on the subject. If enough people want it, I'll give it a try. How would it work? How much space to give? Etc, etc, etc? All of these questions will be answered in the standard arbitrary Nygaard way, whenever I get around to it.

Send in those comments!

Nygaard Notes on the World Wide Web?

Reader Anthony recently suggested that I crank up a website with back issues of Nygaard Notes on it. "These should be archived," he said. He's not the first one to say this, and it's not a bad idea. I'll probably start working on this in the next few weeks, as soon as I can delude myself into thinking that I have enough time to do it. I am handicapped by the fact that, at the moment, I know almost literally nothing about how to set up a website. I'm sure I can figure it out, but if any of you readers out there have some skills and would like a little project to work on, let me know.

The International Bicycle Fund

I know that some of you readers are into bicycles, and since I have worked quite a bit as a professional bicyclist (courier variety) the following message from the Rethinking Tourism Project caught my eye and I thought I would pass it along:

"International Bicycle Fund (IBF) is a non-profit organization that assists economic development projects utilizing bicycles. It sponsors educational bicycle programs to Tunisia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mali, Senegal, Guinea, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Cuba. For more details write to: International Bicycle Fund, 4887 Columbia Drive South, Seattle WA 98108-1919 USA Email: ibike@ibike.org Or visit their website at: www.ibike.org

The Killing Fields in Iraq

It is no exaggeration to say that the crimes against the people of Iraq now exceed the crimes committed during the time of the infamous "killing fields" of Pol Pot's Cambodia. According to the BBC, "some 1.2 million people are believed to have been killed at the hands of the Khmer Rouge" in the 1970s. According to the International Action Center, in a report from February 26th of this year, "The hideous toll [of UN sanctions] is more than one and a half million people dead, half children under the age of 5." That's only an estimate, but the rough number is supported by various observers around the world, including the United Nations itself. The killing has continued unabated, so the number continues to grow.

Since the United States has always taken the lead in imposing and maintaining the sanctions against Iraq, every American citizen bears significant responsibility for this incredible crime. With that introduction, here is an upcoming action that local folks should know about:

On Saturday, August 14th, the Iraq Peace Action Coalition is sponsoring a NOON event to PROTEST 9 YEARS OF SANCTIONS AND WAR ON IRAQ.

Get yourself over to Hennepin Avenue and Lagoon Avenue in the Uptown area of Minneapolis at noon on the 14th. If you can't go, tell some friends to go, or send some money to support the anti-sanctions effort. For more info, call CISPES at 872-0944.

In addition, there is an "Interfaith Yugoslavia/Iraq Vigil" held every Wednesday from 5-6 pm at the Marshall Avenue/Lake Street Bridge between Minneapolis and St. Paul. Sponsored by the Friends for a Non-Violent World, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, and others, this event "remembers the suffering caused by U.S. bombs in Yugoslavia and Iraq and calls for a non-violent way to peace." For more information on this, call 612-321-9787.

For those of you not in the Twin Cities, I recommend that you check out the website of the Iraq Action Coalition at: http://iraqaction.org/ Not only do they have lots of information about the issue itself, with lots of quotes, facts, and context, but they have information on what is going on around the country, and a button so you can email them and find out about the latest organizing activities in YOUR area. If all else fails, you can send them some money to carry on their essential work.

The impact of the sanctions war on the people of Iraq is well-documented on this site, with special sections on the sanctions' effects on children, health care, the environment, the economy, families, education, women, and more.

Stop the Reroute of Highway 55; Upcoming Events

One of the more important (and interesting!) ongoing mobilizations in the Twin Cities is the effort to stop the planned re-routing of Minnesota Highway 55, plans for which call for the cutting of a swath through the heart of Minnehaha Park and a Dakota sacred site. This project began evolving about a million bureaucratic years ago, actually before the birth of some of the activists currently involved in the energetic resistance to this truly dreadful idea.

There are a number of reasons why this public works project has taken on an importance that goes beyond the simple building of a highway, as important as that may be. The reroute plan has become a symbol of the lack of respect that our institutions traditionally have shown, and still show, to indigenous peoples throughout the land. The commitment of public resources to renovate this highway in the service of our car-based, sprawling metropolis is a metaphor for the misplaced priorities of American society as a whole at the turn of the century. The cutting down of unknown numbers of trees in one of Minnesota's best-known and most-used parks appears to many as a slap in the face to Minneapolis' reputation as a livable, resident-friendly city.

These are some of the reasons why there has been an ongoing encampment at the site for almost one full year, and why there have been numerous acts civil disobedience, and why there have been extreme responses from the various police forces in the state (some of the largest in the state's history, I'm told), and why energy, money, and bodies are coming from far and wide to support the ongoing resistance.

There are two significant events coming up that would be ideal to attend as an introduction to the site and the issues behind it.

This Sunday, August 8th, there will be the 2nd Annual Social PowWow. Grand Entry is at 1 pm. Please bring a dish to share for the feast at 5 pm. Directions: Take Highway 55 (Hiawatha Ave.) south to 54th Street and go left at the light. Go past one driveway and take the second driveway on the right that goes down to a stop light and the Bureau of Mines buildings. The Camp is on the left, and you will see the parked cars.

• This coming Tuesday, August 10th, in honor of the one year anniversary of The Occupation of Highway 55, the longest protracted road demonstration and stoppage in our nations history, there will be a celebration at the encampment. 4pm till dusk. Bring food to share. There will be a feast/potluck, Thunder Nation Drum Group, stories shared from the last year, a video and photo presentation, and music. Directions same as above.
• Every Thursday at 5 pm there is a rally at the Princess Depot in Minnehaha Park.

For more information on these events, or anything else, contact: Jim Anderson, Cultural Chairman of the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community, at(612) 910-0730.

If you are not familiar with at least the basics of this issue, you're missing something important. Here are three websites to look at:

• The more-or-less official "Stop the Reroute of Highway 55" site can be found at http://www.freenet.msp.mn.us/org/stop55/
• I sort of prefer the "unofficial" site that can be found at http://members.aol.com/noreroute/Highway_55_occupation.html
• Callahan's site has day-to-day news updates. Go to http://www.robworld.net/stop_the_reroute/detour/index.html

Social Security Brain-Teaser

There have been many articles in the paper in recent weeks about "protecting" or "setting aside" the Social Security Trust Fund. Congress even talks about putting the Trust Fund into something called a "lock box" in order to put an end to "decades of raids on the Social Security trust fund." All of this is total lunacy, and it even made a Social Security fanatic like me scratch my head and say, "Huh? Did I miss something?"

If any of you have read any of these articles, please try to forget everything you read and read the following quote from economist Dean Baker, writing in the Economic Reporting Review of May 31st, published by the group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting:

"In fact, there has never been a single dollar 'raided' from the Social Security trust fund, nor has Congress ever improperly spent money collected for Social Security on other programs. The Social Security trust fund has been building up a large surplus over the last 15 years in order to help defray the cost of the baby boom generation's retirement. According to the law, this surplus is lent to the federal government. In exchange the Social Security fund receives interest-bearing government bonds."

[Editor's note: I feel a need to clarify what bonds are: The procedure known as "buying bonds" can also be thought of as "loaning money." When you "buy a bond" from the government, this means that, in effect, you are loaning the government money. The government "sells bonds" as a way of borrowing money. So remember to translate as you read about bonds: When the government "borrows" from the Trust Fund, that means that it sells bonds to the Trust Fund. When the Trust Fund "loans" to the government, that means that it buys bonds from the government.]

OK, back to Baker:

"Unless the government defaults on these bonds when the trust fund begins to draw on them in approximately 15 years, the Social Security system will have received back every dollar paid into it. Under President Clinton's proposal to put a large portion of projected future surpluses into the trust fund, the trust fund will actually get more back than it lent to the government (even counting interest).

"It is true that the government has financed part of its deficits with the money lent by the Social Security trust fund, but this is exactly what the law provides for. This deficit spending has absolutely no impact on the financing of Social Security. If the government had run surpluses every year since Social Security had been in existence, so that it never had to borrow money from Social Security (or anyone else) to meet its annual outlays, the program's finances would be in exactly the same condition as they are at present.

"Unless the government is in a position where it may have to default on its debt, something that no serious analyst has suggested, how or whether the government spends the money it borrows from Social Security is irrelevant to the program. In this way, Social Security is just like Chase Manhattan, Ross Perot, or anyone else who holds government bonds. Unless the government defaults on its debt, their financial situation is not affected by what the government does with the money it has borrowed.

"It is extremely misleading to imply...that government deficits have somehow jeopardized the future health of the Social Security program."

Here's the brain-teaser (which I pose to my readers in hopes that I will get some ideas back to help me figure it out!):

It is implausible to imagine that there is a grand conspiracy between politicians and reporters to misinform the public on this fairly basic economic point. Therefore, I encourage Nygaard Notes readers to think for a moment and see if you can come up with a plausible reason why this fundamentally false point is reported in the corporate media essentially unanimously and without correction, to the point where it becomes the basis upon which much of the current political debate stands.