| Number 83 | August 25, 2000 |
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This Week:
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Greetings, Back to business this week after last week's appeal for funding. Checks are starting to come in, but it's too early to tell how much money will actually arrive. I considered having one of those big paper thermometers with the red ink showing how close we are to our target. But I don't really have a target, only the hope that enough readers are willing to support this particular brand of independent journalism to allow me to sustain it over the long term. Besides, where would I display the big thermometer? It's not like I have a big lobby to put it in. I am excited about some of the pieces that I am working on. I try to balance out the Notes between local news, international news, theory, and investigative things; I'm never sure if I have the right mix. But I take comfort from my belief that, although I can't please everyone, over the course of time most readers will find things of interest or importance. I appreciate the readers who have suggested topics and ideas for future editions of the Notes. I may not get to all of them (there are too many!) but your comments and suggestions help to shape Nygaard Notes and help to keep me on a good course. Welcome to the new readers this week. I look forward to your comments! ‘Til next week, Nygaard |
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Two T-shirts seen at the Minnesota State Fair:
I realize that these shirts could be seen as either amusing or offensive, depending on your perspective. In their own ways, I think both say a lot about life in Minnesota. |
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This Sunday morning, August 27th, I will be the guest on a great local radio show called RadioActive! Host Emmanuel Ortiz and I will be talking about money, wealth, income distribution, taxes, and all that sort of stuff. I spent some time this past winter and spring writing on the subject of wealth (Nygaard Notes #s 58-64) and received quite an interesting response. It seems that wealth is something like sex; it's everywhere, everybody thinks about it all the time, but if you talk about it in public a lot of people get upset. So now it's time to go on the radio and talk about it. Emmanuel is a Nygaard Notes reader, so he knows what he's getting into. And I know he doesn't shy away from getting into a little trouble when it's necessary! Local people who want to tune in can simply set their radio dial to 770 AM - that's KUOM, "Radio K: Real College Radio!" - from 9:30 to 10:00 on Sunday morning. For those of you who reside in other areas of the world, you can listen on the Web by going to http://www.radiok.org and clicking on the live broadcast command. (This requires RealAudio download.) |
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I am happy to announce that an additional SIX entrants to the annual(?) Z Magazine Free Subscription Giveaway will soon begin receiving their free subscriptions. Someone who wishes to be identified only as "one of the growing audience of enthusiastic readers" sent along sufficient funds to finance the new winners, and I appreciate their generosity very much. I also know that, beyond generosity, this reader has a keen understanding of the importance of independent media in this age of corporate media conglomerates and wishy-washy mass-market "alternatives." And this person acted on their understanding by putting their money where their mouth is to get Z into the hands of some new (or returning) readers. Thank you, Enthusiastic Reader, on behalf of myself, and the folks at Z, and (may I presume to say) on behalf of "Round 2" winners Aaron, Carol, Erik, Collier, and Bill, plus Erich and the students in the Social Justice Coalition at the University of St. Thomas. Congratulations, one and all! |
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I have in my possession a press release from the office of Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone on the subject of U.S. aid to Colombia. Nygaard Notes readers are aware that earlier this year the Senator fought to reduce the recently-passed military aid bill to Colombia and divert the funds to drug treatment here in the U.S. That battle was lost, and the aid was approved. Many promises were made by the administration that they would work to assure that the U.S. aid would not make the abysmal human rights situation in Colombia even worse. The press release that I have calls attention to a July 14th letter from Senator Wellstone to Secretary of State Madeline Albright (whom some Colombian activists derisively refer to as "Lady McDeath") basically saying that he doesn't think these promises are worth much. In his letter to Secretary Albright, the Senator said, "During the debate surrounding ‘Plan Colombia,' [the basis for the big aid package to the Colombian killers] the Administration and the Colombian government pledged to work to reduce the production and supply of cocaine while protecting human rights. The continuing reports of human rights abuses in Colombia confirm our grave reservations regarding the Administration's ability to effectively manage the use of the resources that will be provided while protecting the human rights of Colombian citizens." Wellstone's letter was prompted by a New York Times report of a massacre carried out by government-surrogate paramilitary forces in the town of El Salado in February, but that's just one of innumerable stories that could have prompted such a letter. Just last week, for example, U.S. papers carried the story of international outrage at the killing of 6 schoolchildren by the Colombian military. In his letter, Senator Wellstone put the following three questions to Secretary Albright:
It's impossible to know if the Senator believes that the United States government has any concern about human rights in Colombia beyond that demanded by public relations. But nonetheless, his efforts to hold the administration accountable to their rhetoric are something we should all support. It is hard to support something about which one is ignorant, of course. Readers of the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) would be ignorant of the Senator's efforts in this case, since neither Wellstone's letter nor Secretary Albright's response (if any) were deemed worthy of coverage in the state's most influential paper. I first read about it in a report from the Reuters News Service, then I got a copy of the press release from Wellstone's office. I'm fairly certain the daily paper has access to these same sources. The United States still considers Latin America to be this country's "back yard." So it must be fairly troubling to our "leaders" to see the Andean region in such turmoil. Over the past several months we have seen a Native-led coup in Ecuador, a stolen election by dictator/president Fujimori in Peru, a consolidation of the power of nationalist president Chavez in Venezuela, and an escalation of the already-explosive civil war in Colombia. Although there's not much about this sequence of events in the papers - and almost no attempt to look for the pattern and meaning in them - you can be certain that the vultures in the U.S. military and intelligence establishments are watching closely and licking their lips. If you think the main concern of the United States in the Andes is drug trafficking, then you may be in the majority but there is considerable reason to suspect that other forces are at work here. Consider that Venezuela is one of the top sources of U.S. oil in the world and that, in the words of the U.S. government "Chávez has won overwhelming support from Venezuela's poor, who constitute one-half of the population." Check out your maps; Venezuela is right next door to Colombia. Hmmm... Drugs, oil, and an indigenous nationalist president. Historically, this would be about time to send in the U.S. Marines, or at least the CIA. I'll have more to say about Venezuela in the coming months. In the meantime, I encourage you to contact Wellstone and tell him to keep pushing for more domestic drug treatment and less military aid to Colombia. Or call your own Senator and say the same thing. Wellstone's Washington number is 202-224-5641, his Twin Cities number is 651-645-0323. Or click here http://www.senate.gov/~wellstone/Contact_Paul/contact_paul.htm and send him an email. |
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Being a provincial newspaper, the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) often looks for the "local angle" in covering foreign or national events. That's why they always run stories on the Minnesota delegation to the Democratic National Convention, for example, or the Minnesota residents who died in the big plane crash. There has even been a series of stories recently (in the newspaper!) on a Minnesota woman who was one of the people in the "reality" show "Big Brother." The provincialism of the Minnesota media is kind of a joke around here. But this provincialism apparently has its limits, as the story of Lisa Gizzi and Mark McGuire illustrates. The people of Iraq have been suffering for almost ten years under perhaps the most brutal regime of economic sanctions and bombings ever imposed on a weak country by a strong one. Many noble people around the globe have been fighting against this for years. On July 12th, a group of six heroic Americans traveled to Iraq, where they are now in the midst of a two-month stay. Their purpose in going is to "witness, record, and partake in the experience of living daily life under the ten-year old embargo" imposed and enforced by the United States -- oops, I mean the United Nations (wink, wink). The trip is organized by Voices in the Wilderness, a U.S.-based solidarity group that has done fantastic work in opposition to the economic embargo for many years now. I am proud to say that two of the six members of the delegation are from Minnesota. Lisa Gizzi lives in St. Paul and Mark McGuire hails from Winona. Now there's a "local angle" for you. I've been scanning the Star Trib and the St. Paul Pioneer Press for a "Traveler's Diary," or a "Report from Iraq," or some other information on this amazing delegation with substantial roots right here in our own state. All I have seen is a two-sentence blurb buried in the "World News Digest" on August 7. The lack of reporting is not due to a lack of access; I've gotten several E-mails recently with moving and eloquent dispatches written by Lisa. And there is a special page on the Voices in the Wilderness website (www.nonviolence.org/vitw) devoted to the Basra delegation that includes dispatches from several of the travelers. I believe the Star Tribune has telephones, as well. War is Peace At the very time that Al Gore was bragging at the Democratic National Convention about the era of "peace and prosperity" in which we are living, Reuters news service reported that "U.S. and British planes bombed targets in northern Iraq Tuesday [August 15th], their third raid in five days." So now it's official: according to Al "Orwell" Gore, War is Peace. If you need any more incentive to cast a vote for Ralph Nader (or anyone else who is not a Republicrat), I'll be doing my best to supply it in the coming weeks. Gore can get away with this outrageous statement because our military attacks on Iraq are so routine by now that they don't even get reported in the daily papers. I would wager that the average American doesn't even know that we have been bombing Iraq on a regular basis since 1991. Somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred civilians have been killed by these U.S. and British bombs in the past couple of years. This is roughly three times the number of deaths as occurred in the recent sinking of the Russian submarine, which was reported on extensively in all the U.S. media. And, of course, estimates of the needless deaths caused by the sanctions regime range upwards of 1 million by now. One million innocent people sacrificed for...what? On the day that this issue of Nygaard Notes comes out, 250 more Iraqis will die as a result of these sanctions, according to the U.N.'s own figures. This happens every day. If you are upset that you know more about a Russian submarine crew whose fate is entirely out of your control than you know about the fates of millions of Iraqis whose fate is the result of your government's policies, then you may want to contact your local media and tell them you'd like them to publish regular reports from the Basra delegation, and that you are outraged at the lack of reporting on the U.S. military adventures in Iraq. Letters to the Star Trib can go to: Star Tribune Or visit their website at www.startribune.com and go to "Contact Us." |