Africa Famine: World's Richest Countries Guilty of 'Wilful Neglect' | Common Dreams

The world's richest countries are guilty of "wilful neglect" in failing to fund appeals to save millions of Africans from falling into famine, aid agencies said on Wednesday.

by Mike Pflanz, Nairobi

Less than a fifth of the £650m urgently needed for the Horn of Africa has been pledged, Oxfam said, with the response from most of Europe "surprisingly slow".

An internally displaced Somali girl attends classes at a Muslim Madrasah (Islamic school) outside a makeshift classroom at the Halabokhad IDP settlement in Galkayo, northwest of Somalia's capital Mogadishu, July 20, 2011. (REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya) "There has been a catastrophic breakdown of the world's collective responsibility to act," said Fran Equiza, Oxfam's director in the Horn of Africa.

"Several rich governments are guilty of wilful neglect as the aid effort to avert catastrophe in East Africa limps along.

"The warning signs have been seen for months, and the world has been slow to act. By the time the UN calls it a famine it is already a signal of large scale loss of life."

Aid agencies have taken out full-page advertisements in newspapers and launched appeals on television and radio, as 11 million people across Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia face the threat of starvation.

In Britain, more than £21m has been donated by private individuals, and the Government has promised £90m in fresh funds for drought relief.

"It is time for the world to help but sadly the response from many countries has been derisory and dangerously inadequate," said Andrew Mitchell, the International Development secretary. "Britain is playing its part, with help for more than two million people across the Horn of Africa. Now others must do the same." European Commission figures show that Britain is already the largest funder of European aid projects to Somalia, pledging £24m in 2011 even before the current crisis hit.

Sweden, the next largest EU donor, gave £11m. Germany has promised £4.3m in new money for the current crisis, and Spain has made what Oxfam called "an initial contribution".

Japan said yesterday that it was donating £3.2m to the appeal. Aside from Kenya, Ethiopia and Sudan, no African country has offered any funds.

France was "strong on words", Mr Equiza said, but had not promised any funding at all for the drought appeals.

The US announced a fresh injection of £18m yesterday, to buy food mostly for Somali refugees in Kenya and Ethiopia, and for people in the country's north.

Mark Bowden, the head of the UN's operations in Somalia, said as he announced the first official famine in Africa since Live Aid that "tens of thousands" of people had already died.

"I'm not going to say it's not going to deteriorate further, it will," he said in Nairobi, Kenya's capital and the headquarters of the aid effort across the Horn of Africa.

"Even if the world starts acting as must, now, lives will be lost. But there are many more lives that can be saved if we see the level of response that is desperately needed."

Aid workers point out that weather reports and famine early warning systems operating in Somalia had predicted extreme shortages of food as long ago as January.

"The announcement of a famine across much of east Africa is as tragic as it is predictable," said Jeremy Hulme, chief executive of the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad.

The single biggest factor in tipping people in the Horn of Africa towards famine has been the loss of their livestock, their only source of food, wealth and income.

"It's scandalous that we're seeing this avoidable tragedy unfolding across the region," Mr Hulme added.

"Once again our belated response is a vast operation to feed the starving, having failed to protect their livelihoods."

The 10 Scariest GOP Governors: Bringing a Radical Right-Wing Agenda To a State Near You | | AlterNet

The 2010 election saw a right-wing sweep of many state governor's races, and those governors haven't been shy about pushing their conservative shock treatment.

July 6, 2011 |

Photo Credit: Future Atlas

Ranking the worst Republican governors is next to impossible. Since the Tea Party sound and fury swept the Class of 2010 into power in swing states and even true-blue states like New Jersey, it's been more like a horse race between the main contenders. One will propose a law that seems so terrifying it could never make it through the legislature, let alone be topped. Then it passes, and in the blink of an eye another state's trying to outdo it.

These governors all have some things in common. Most of them were elected in 2010 while progressive turnout was depressed and conservative anger, particularly the virulent anti-government type springing from the Tea Party movement, spilled over at the polls. Many of them took over swing states from Democratic administrations. Most of them did not run on promises to take away collective bargaining from workers, slash pensions and health care and outlaw abortion. Instead, they focused on jobs—and, admittedly, their own solution to creating jobs, which is, of course, cutting taxes.

A year or more into their terms, taxes have been cut, the wealthy are doing fine, and working people, particularly immigrants and women, are struggling. The promises of jobs have given way to Shock Doctrine-style cuts, attacks on unions, public services, and voting rights. Since it can be hard to keep up with the moves by different governors around the country, we've compiled a list of the 10 scariest GOP governors and their proposals.

Who knows what target will be next? Will someone attempt to give fetuses voting rights, or perhaps decree that employees should pay employers for the privilege of working?

Lest you think we're unfairly picking on the Republicans, we've thrown in honorable mention for a couple of Democrats in the nation's biggest blue states who seem to have taken a page from our right-wing friends.

But first, how about a few governors you may have missed?

10. Robert Bentley, Alabama. Bentley has been one of the quieter governors among the new class, but his lack of Chris Christie-like bluster has allowed some of Alabama's scarier provisions to sneak by unnoticed. A dermatologist who was accused of using his title “Dr.” on the ballot to sway voters, Bentley is also an evangelical Christian who declared on the day of his inauguration that “anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother."

No word if undocumented immigrants who happen to be Christian are his brothers. Alabama passed the nation's most restrictive immigration law just last month, surpassing Arizona's SB 1070 as the worst place in the country to be an undocumented immigrant—or be mistaken for one. The bill, HB 56, was called a “wish list of restrictionist immigration provisions at the state law level,” by Kevin Johnson, dean of the law school at the University of California, Davis.

The bill not only makes it a crime for undocumented immigrants to be in the state, but attempts to criminalize every aspect of their existence. It requires schools to ask students about their immigration status, and bans undocumented students from state universities; it makes it illegal to rent housing to immigrants, and allows police to ask for papers using “reasonable suspicion.” HB56 also makes contracts that undocumented people sign unenforceable—so if employers do break the law and hire immigrant workers, they can treat them as badly as they like without fear of repercussions. And that's just one possibility.

9. Nikki Haley, South Carolina. Nikki Haley, daughter of immigrants, is South Carolina's youngest governor, its first woman, and its first person of color. So we should be proud, right?

Not so much.

Haley defeated the good ol' boys on the campaign trail despite rumors of a sex scandal, mostly by outflanking them to the right. She used her status as the child of immigrants to tout a new, extreme anti-immigration bill, and took to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal to decry a decision by the National Labor Relations Board that Boeing was not able to circumvent its union workers by building new planes in non-union South Carolina. “It's called capitalism,” she wrote.

It's actually called union-busting. Boeing decided to move the assembly line to South Carolina after repeated strikes by the union workers in Washington State, and the NLRB ruled that the statements by company executives made it clear the move was in retaliation for union activity. Which is illegal.

Haley pushed for a picture ID law that would require voters to show ID at the polls before voting. In a state with a long history of disenfranchising people of color, the requirement, which makes it difficult for those without drivers' licenses to vote, brings back unpleasant memories.

Haley made national news before she'd even won her primary, but these days the news close to home isn't so good for her. “I believe she is the most corrupt person to occupy the governor’s mansion since Reconstruction,” John Rainey, a longtime Republican power broker told Corey Hutchins at the Nation. She's been replacing the old boys she promised to sweep out with confidantes and campaign contributors, and the only jobs she's created so far have been for close allies. Yet Sarah Palin-like, she remains popular on the national scale and appears to have far-reaching ambitions.

8. Jan Brewer, Arizona. It's Barack Obama's fault that we have Jan Brewer. Janet Napolitano was governor of Arizona, a popular Democrat in the state that gave us John McCain and Barry Goldwater. When she was tapped to become the new Homeland Security secretary, a border state with boiling-hot tension over immigration was left in the hands of the former Secretary of State, a Republican who went on to sign into law SB 1070, the “Papers Please” law that spawned the copycats in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina and other states around the country.

Brewer likes to talk about the violent crime immigrants are responsible for, claiming “beheadings” despite absolutely no evidence, let alone links to immigrants, and blaming them for nearly every crisis her state (and the country) face.

She's also signed a law that aims to prevent unions from using member dues to fund political activity, and just for good measure cut funding for children's health care. She cut more than $72 million from health services, spearheaded a bill to eliminate KidsCare, the state's Medicaid program for children (though that failed, she pushed through an enrollment freeze on the program), and proposed eliminating the Early Childhood Development and Health Board. (Twenty-three percent of Arizona's children live in poverty).

In the interest of fairness, it is worth pointing out that Brewer has vetoed some of the more extreme bills coming out of the Arizona legislature this year. A “birther” bill that would have required candidates for office to submit a “circumcision certificate” or a “baptismal” certificate if the “long form” birth certificate constantly demanded of President Obama was unavailable was too much even for Brewer. And after the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Brewer shot down a bill that would allow guns on “public pathways” close to state schools. State Senator Kyrsten Sinema told the Daily Beast, though, that it's all part of a plan where legislators pass bills to satisfy extremist primary voters, and Brewer, who is not up for re-election, vetoes them.

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Why Eating Meat Could Give You Diabetes | | AlterNet

Research is showing that exposure to certain pesticides and other toxic chemicals could cause diabetes.

July 6, 2011 |

The following article first appeared in Mother Jones. For more great content from Mother Jones, sign up for their free email updates here.

The United States has one of the highest diabetes rates in the developed world—and the malady is spreading faster here than it is in most other rich nations, a recent Lancet study (registration required) found.

I've always associated our diabetes problem with the steady rise in sweetener consumption since the early '80s, triggered by the gusher of cheap high-fructose corn syrup that opened up at that time. But another culprit may be contributing, too: exposure to certain pesticides and other toxic chemicals. A new peer-reviewed study published in the journal Diabetes Care found a strong link between diabetes onset and blood levels of a group of harsh industrial chemicals charmingly known as "persistent organic pollutants" (POPs), most of which have been banned in the United States for years but still end up in our food (hence the "persistent" bit—they degrade very slowly).

The ones with the largest effect were PCBs, a class of highly toxic chemicals widely used as industrial coolants before being banished in 1979. Interestingly, the main US maker of PCBs, Monsanto, apparently knew about and tried to cover up their health-ruining effects long before the ban went into place. Organochlorine pesticides, another once-ubiquitous, now largely banned chemical group, also showed a significant influence on diabetes rates.

The researchers identified a group of 725 diabetes-free elderly Swedes and tracked them for five years, studying the level of POPs in their blood. Thirty-six of them ended up contracting Type 2 diabetes—and the ones who did had significantly higher POP levels than the ones who didn't. The researchers stress that the study's sample size is small, but their findings build on other recent data suggesting a POP/diabetes connection. Evidence for such a link is "piling up," David Carpenter, head of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany, told Reuters.

Decades after the banning of most POPs, are Americans still routinely exposed to them? Evidently, yes. Levels are declining, but they remain significant. In a 2010 study published in Environmental Health Perspectives, researchers found traces of a range of them in food procured in Dallas supermarkets. In a long article pivoting off of the study, Scientific American's Emily Elert wrote:

Recent studies sketch a complex profile of legacy contaminants in U.S. food—a profusion of chemicals in trace amounts, pervasive but uneven across the food supply, occurring sometimes by themselves, but more often in combination with others. Included are DDT and several lesser-known organochlorine pesticides as well as industrial chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which were used until the late 1970s in electrical equipment.

How are these awful chemicals sticking around and still causing trouble decades after being banned? POPs accumulate in the fatty tissue of animals—and transfer to the animals that eat them, including humans who eat meat and fish. In industrial animal farming, livestock are often given feed that includes animal fat, which helps POPs hang around in the food chain. "We feed the cow fat to the pigs and the chickens, and we feed the pig and chicken fat to the cows," one expert told Elert. The widespread practice of feeding "poultry litter"—chicken feces mixed with feathers, dead chickens, and feed remnants, including beef products—to confined cows is another way these toxins keep cycling though the food chain. Why would the meat industry engage in such feeding practices?

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By Greta Christina

Do atheists misunderstand religion? Or do believers still misunderstand atheists?

July 6, 2011  |  

 

 Do atheists really misunderstand religion?

I read the recent piece in Tikkun by Be Scofield, "5 Myths Atheists Believe about Religion" (reprinted on AlterNet as "5 Things Atheists Have Wrong About Religion"), with a fair degree of both trepidation and curiosity. Trepidation... because my experience has been that, when believers write about atheists, they usually get it laughably and even insultingly wrong. Curiosity... because there are things the atheist community sometimes gets wrong, about religion and other topics, and I thought I might get some insight into stuff I might not have seen. I don't think atheists are perfect -- believe me, I am well aware of how imperfect we are -- and I'm willing and even eager to look at things we might be missing.

But when I looked at these "myths" that atheists supposedly hold about religion, I was more than a bit baffled. Because none of these "myths" looked anything like myths to me. Instead, they looked like... well, like differences of opinion. At best, they were simply areas of disagreement: controversial topics, matters of subjective opinion, semantic squabbles. At worst, they were red herrings, bafflegab, even complete misrepresentations of atheists' actual positions.

So let's look at these supposedly "ill-informed beliefs about religion." And then let's look at the assumption of religious privilege that underlies them... and at how religious believers defend this privilege by taking on the mantle of oppression and victimhood.

5. Liberal and Moderate Religion Justifies 

Religious Extremism

This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. This is not a "myth" atheists have about religion, or a "mistake" we make about it. This is a topic on which believers and many atheists disagree. And it's a topic on which Scofield seems to be entirely missing the point.

The point is not that liberal and moderate religion justifies religious extremism. The point is that liberal and moderate religion justifies religion. It justifies the whole idea of religious faith: the idea that it's entirely reasonable, and even virtuous, to believe in invisible supernatural entities or forces for which there is no good evidence.

And atheists think that religion is a bad idea. At the very least, we think it's a mistaken idea. Many of us even think it's an idea that, by its very nature, does significantly more harm than good.

Now, many atheists do think that liberal and moderate religion provides intellectual cover for the more extreme varieties... again, because it makes the whole idea of religion and religious faith seem reasonable and legitimate. I happen to think that myself. But even these critics aren't saying that Unitarianism is some sort of gateway drug to fundamentalism. We aren't saying that the entire well of religion is poisoned because of the hateful, extremist versions of it, and that therefore liberals and moderates ought not to participate in it. We're saying that the entire well of religion is poisoned because it's wrong. And we're saying that liberal and moderate religion justifies that wrongness.

If you disagree about whether religion is wrong... fine. We can have that conversation. But don't say that the very idea of atheism -- namely, that we don't think there's a god or a supernatural world -- is a "myth" that atheists have about religion. It's ridiculous. And it trivializes the actual myths that many people hold about other religions or the lack thereof.

4. Religion Requires a Belief in a Supernatural God

Sigh.

This one makes me want to facepalm my hand right through my skull.

Because it's taking a fairly minor disagreement over semantics, and treating it as a substantive difference over content, and indeed an accusation of willful ignorance.

For the overwhelming majority of people who use the word, "religion" means "belief in supernatural entities or forces with some effect on the natural world." It most typically means "belief in a god or gods"; even when it doesn't, it almost always means "belief in the supernatural." Souls, angels, ghosts, Heaven, gods, goddesses, reincarnation, karma, the spirit of the earth, a conscious creative and guiding force in the universe, etc. -- for the overwhelming majority of people who use the word, that's what "religion" means.

And when atheists criticize religion, that's what we're talking about.

Are there secular Jews? Materialists who follow a Buddhist philosophy and meditation practice? Non-believers who participate in the Unitarian community? Yes. Of course. But -- and I cannot say this strongly enough -- when atheists are talking about religion, THAT'S NOT WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT. Most of us don't care about it. Light a menorah; go to a Unitarian picnic; meditate until your eyes roll back in your head. We don't care. As long as you don't think there's any god, or any soul, or any afterlife, or any sort of supernatural anything... we don't disagree with you. And we couldn't care less. Some of us even rather like it. It's the "belief in the supernatural" part that we think is mistaken. It's the "belief in the supernatural" part that many of us think does harm.

In fact, many of us atheists are secular Jews and materialist Buddhists and non-believing Unitarians and whatnot. Many secular Jews/ materialist Buddhists/ non-believing Unitarians/etc. also identify as atheists. And many of them are just as critical of the religious parts of religion -- i.e., the supernatural belief parts -- as those of us who don't have any cultural or philosophical affiliation with a religious tradition.

And yes, atheists also understand that some "religious" people have re-defined the word "God" into such vague, abstract terms that the guy becomes unrecognizable by most people who believe in him. We understand that some "religious" people have re-defined the word "God" as the creative principle in life, or the power of love in the universe, or that which by definition cannot be understood or defined, or something along those lines. We often find it incredibly annoying: we're trying to have a conversation about God as most people understand the concept, and the modern theologians come along with their deepities and vague abstractions, and totally confuse the issue. Plus, many of us strongly suspect that these abstract definitions only apply when nobody is looking, and that a more supernatural definition comes into play when the atheists go away.

But again, when we're talking about religion and God, that's not what we're talking about. We don't care about your vague, convoluted, abstract deepities, except insofar as they confuse the issue. If you don't believe in a supernatural God... then we think you're an atheist. As Richard Dawkins said to the queen of vague theology, Karen Armstrong, "Tell the congregation of a church or mosque that existence is too vulgar an attribute to fasten onto their God, and they will brand you an atheist. They'll be right."

I suppose that, every time I critique religion, I could instead type the entire phrase, "belief in supernatural entities or forces with some effect on the natural world." You know why I don't? Because I'm a good writer. I'm trying to be concise. And instead of using a thirteen-word noun phrase, I'm using the word "religion," the way that it's used and understood by the overwhelming majority of people who use it.

So the next time you read an atheist critique of religion, please just do a "search and replace" in your head. If you insist on re-defining "religion" as "belief in supernatural entities or forces with some effect on the natural world... or some sort of cultural/ philosophical affiliation with a tradition of said belief, regardless of any actual belief"...then the next time you read an atheist critique of religion, just zap out the second part of that clause in your head. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the first part.

And please stop acting as if a semantic difference over a word whose definition is basically agreed on by almost everybody somehow constitutes willful ignorance on the part of atheists.

3. Religion Causes Bad Behavior

And yet again: This is not a "myth" atheists have about religion. This is not a "mistake" we're making about religion. This is a point of disagreement. This is a topic on which many atheists disagree with believers.

And unless you're going to actually make a case for why your side is right, I am, respectfully, going to maintain my position.

It's certainly true that, when atheists critique religion, many of us often point to specific harms that have been inspired by religion, or that have been rationalized by it. But we don't end our analysis there. (Or at least, most of us don't.) We understand that people do bad things inspired by all sorts of ideas: political ideology, patriotism or other tribal loyalty, protecting one's family, etc. We even understand that the harms done in the name of religion have multiple causes, and that greed/ fear/ hunger for power/ etc. are a big part of it. The point we're making isn't, "People do bad things and justify them with religion." Or even, "People do bad things directly inspired by religion."

The point is that the very nature of religion itself -- the very nature of a belief in the supernatural -- is, in and of itself, harmful, and is more likely to both inspire and rationalize terrible harm than other kinds of ideas.

I don't have space here to make this argument in its most complete form. (I've made a more thorough argument elsewhere.) So here's the quick- and- dirty two-minute version: Religion is ultimately dependent on belief in invisible beings, inaudible voices, intangible entities, undetectable forces, and events and judgments that happen after we die. It therefore has no reality check. And it is therefore uniquely armored against criticism, questioning, and self- correction. It is uniquely armored against anything that might stop it from spinning into extreme absurdity, extreme denial of reality... and extreme, grotesque immorality.

Any other ideology or philosophy or hypothesis about the world is eventually expected to pony up. It's expected to prove itself true and/or useful, or else correct itself, or else fall by the wayside. With religion, that is emphatically not the case. Because religion is a belief in the invisible and unknowable -- and it's therefore never expected to prove that it's right, or even show good evidence for why it's right -- its capacity to do harm can spin into the stratosphere.

That's my argument. That's the argument made by many other atheists.

And if you're going to respond to this argument, you can't simply say, "Nuh uh."

You can't just say, as Scofield does, that "the real source of bad behavior... is human nature, not religion"... and leave it at that. If you do -- as Scofield does -- then you're simply asserting the point you're trying to prove. Scofield is saying here, "Many atheists say religion causes bad behavior, but the real cause is human nature." And he apparently expects us to reply, "Oh. Well, that settles it. Never mind, then."

And we're not going to do it. Many atheists -- again, myself included -- have actually made a case for why human nature alone is not responsible for the terrible harms done by religion. We have actually made a case for why religion itself bears at least part of the blame. And you don't get to say, "Many atheists disagree with believers about this... therefore, these atheists don't understand religion." A disagreement is not a myth. If you think we're making a mistake here, you need to make a case for why we're wrong.

2. Atheists are Anti-Religious

I will confess that I'm confused by this one. Scofield seems to be conflating two different points into one: (a) religion doesn't have to mean belief in God, or even belief in the supernatural; and (b) not believing in religion doesn't necessarily mean being opposed to it.

So I'll take them one at a time.

(a): Asked and answered. See above, #4: Religion Requires a Belief in a Supernatural God.

(b) Yes, we understand that. We understand that many atheists don't think religion is inherently harmful. We understand that many atheist activists choose to focus their activism in areas other than opposing religion, such as creating a safe and supportive atheist community, or fighting for separation of church and state. (In fact, most of the more confrontational, anti-religion atheist activists I know of -- myself included -- heartily support these efforts, and even engage in them ourselves.) We understand that some atheists are involved in the interfaith movement, and are willing and even eager to work with religious believers and organizations on issues they have in common. We even understand that some atheists and atheist activists see religion as essentially neutral, or benign, or even a positive force.

I'm not familiar with this purported "silent majority" of religion-loving atheists Scofield is talking about... but atheists are well aware of these differences within the atheist community. Look at the many debates we have about confrontationalism versus diplomacy, fighting religion directly versus creating a positive image of happy atheism, etc. We're aware of these differences. We spend a great deal of time hashing them out. A great, great deal of time. Perhaps rather more time than we ought. We thank Scofield for his concern... but he's really not telling us anything new.

Frankly, I'm a little puzzled as to why "atheists are anti-religious" is even on this list. It's not even a myth atheists supposedly have about religion. It's a myth we supposedly have about other atheists. But in any case, it's pretty easy to dismiss. It's simply not true.

1. All Religions are the Same and are 'Equally Crazy'

Boy howdy, did Scofield get this one wrong.

I take this one a little personally, since it's a direct response to something I wrote on AlterNet. And it's a gross misrepresentation of what I wrote. To the point where I'm tempted to think it's deliberate. However, I'm going to give Scofield the benefit of the doubt that he failed to give atheists. I'm going to assume that this was not a case of willful, malicious ignorance. And I'm going to spell out my point again, as plainly as I possible can.

I did not say that all religions were equally crazy, full stop, end of discussion. In fact, the entire point of this piece was that the question of whether all religions are equally crazy was a complicated one, without a single simple answer. The entire point was that the answer to this question depended on how you defined the word "crazy." On the one hand, all beliefs in the supernatural are equally out of touch with reality, since the supernatural doesn't exist and there's not a scrap of good evidence suggesting that it does... but that, on the other hand, there really are significant differences between different religions, and specifically that older religions have had more time to smooth out the rougher, more out-of-touch-with-reality edges of their doctrines, and have adjusted better to social norms (or have shaped society to adjust to their own norms.)

Scofield made a point of quoting me at length on the first point. And he made an equal point of completely ignoring the second one.

So I will make this very, very clear, as clear as I possibly can:

Atheists are aware that different religions are different.

And we still think they're all wrong.

There are a handful of atheists who don't believe in gods, but who still believe in some sort of supernatural something. But the overwhelming majority of atheists don't believe in any sort of supernatural world. We get that different religions are different -- but we still think they're all wrong. We get that some religions are more disconnected from reality than others -- but we still think they're all disconnected from reality. We get that some religions do more harm than others -- but many of us still think they all do some amount of harm. We're not as pissed off at, say, the United Church of Christ as we are at, say, the Catholic Church -- but we still think they're worshipping an invisible creator-god who turned himself into his own human son and sacrificed himself to himself in order to forgive humanity for sins he created us with the desire to commit. And we think that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

(And yes, once again, when we say "religion," most us mean "belief in the supernatural." I've already responded to that point, and I fervently hope I never have to respond to it again in my life. An almost certainly fruitless hope, I know.)

Again: This is not a "myth" that many atheists have about religion. This is a gross misrepresentation of a position that many atheists have about religion -- a position that has serious validity. The straw man version of this "myth" isn't a myth... because no atheist that I know of actually holds it. And the actual version of this "myth" isn't a myth... because it's not a misunderstanding of religion. It's a disagreement about it. Again: It's absurd to say that the fundamental difference between atheists and believers -- namely, whether there really is a god or a supernatural world, or whether that idea is a total misunderstanding of the nature of the universe based on an unfortunate convergence of cognitive errors -- is a "myth" that atheists have about religion. And saying it totally trivializes the actual myths that many people hold about religious affiliations that are different from their own.

Which brings me to my final point.

Poor, Poor Pitiful Me

Here's the thing. Bigoted myths about religions other than one's own are a reality. Examples: All Mormons are secretly polygamists. All Muslims are hateful extremists, seeking the violent overthrow of the Western world. Jews grind up babies and put them into Passover matzohs. Etc.

And there really are myths that some atheists have about religion and religious believers. I don't see them expressed very often by the thought-leaders in the movement, but I do see them pop up now and then in forums and comment threads and so on. Examples: Believers are stupid. Believers are sheep, incapable of thinking for themselves. Believers' morality is immature, based not on a sense of empathy and justice, but on fear of punishment and desire for reward. I've even seen atheists refer to believers as "rednecks" and "hicks" in comment threads about religion in the American South... and it's made me cringe. If Scofield had been talking about any these, I would have been uncomfortable, I would have been embarrassed, but I wouldn't have had a darned thing to say about it. Other than, "Yup. You got us there. Atheists can be jerks."

But when you take legitimate areas of dissent and disagreement that many atheists have with religion, and label them as "myths"?

You're trying to take on the mantle of oppression.

The reality, in the United States and most of the rest of the world, is that religion has a tremendously privileged status. Religion is deeply embedded into our culture and our laws. So much so that it's often invisible until it's pointed out. At which point -- as is so often the case with privilege -- those whose privilege is being critiqued tend to squawk loudly, and resist vehemently, and act as if a terrible injustice is being committed.

And the reality, in the United States and most of the rest of the world, is that atheists are the targets of significant bigotry and discrimination. Most Americans wouldn't trust an atheist. Most Americans wouldn't vote for an atheist. Atheist veterans get booed when they march in a Memorial Day Parade. Atheist groups get targeted with hysterical venom when they play "Jingle Bells" in a Christmas parade. Atheist bus ads and billboards -- even the ones simply saying that atheists exist and are good people -- routinely get protested, vandalized, and even flatly rejected or removed. Atheist high schoolers trying to organize student groups routinely get stonewalled by school administrations. Atheist teenagers get threatened and ostracized by their communities and kicked out of their homes. Atheist soldiers -- in the U.S. armed forces -- get prayer ceremonies pressured on them, get atheist meetings and events broken up, get judged for their fitness as soldiers based on their "spiritual fitness"... and get harassed and even threatened with death when they complain about it. Atheists lose custody of their children, explicitly because of their atheism. Bigoted myths about atheists abound -- myths that we're amoral, selfish, hateful, despairing, close-minded, nihilistic, arrogant, intolerant, forcing our lack of belief on others, etc. -- and many of us experience real discrimination as a result.

So it totally frosts my cookies when religious believers take legitimate areas of dissent and disagreement that many atheists have with religion... and equate them with bigoted myths. It is a classic example of privileged people defending their privilege by taking on the mantle of victimhood. It is a classic example of privileged people acting as if resistance to their privilege somehow constitutes misunderstanding, bigotry, and oppression.

Tikkun, the progressive Jewish magazine in which Scofield's "5 Myths" piece originally appeared, describes itself as "dedicated to healing and transforming the world," as well as "build bridges between religious and secular progressives by delivering a forceful critique of all forms of exploitation, oppression, and domination."
 

Neurontin Killed Our Husbands, We Believe

Posted by Martha Rosenberg

After being silent for more than six years, two women who say their doctor husbands died from undisclosed Neurontin risks have decided to speak out.
What began as “something deeply personal and private” in their lives has become their call for social justice, awareness and “protecting the health and safety of our loved ones,” say Debbie Alsberge of Seattle and Robin Briggs of Charlotte, NC.
Adverse reactions to Neurontin have been greatly underestimated and unreported Debbie Alsberge says she believes, harming unsuspecting families and their physicians. “We must have the full and accurate facts about a drug’s risks to make good decisions when family members consider treatment, especially with psychoactive drugs. We cannot do that if pharmaceutical companies are allowed to taint the outcome of clinical trials and bury the harmful evidence.”


Growing up in northern California, the son of a surgeon, Dr. Doug Alsberge practiced occupational medicine near Seattle. A devoted father of two sons, he enjoyed hiking,  sailing, swimming and golf and liked to write and play his acoustic guitar, says Debbie.
But when back pain from a pre-existing condition began to interfere with being able to stand for prolonged periods at work, Doug sought treatment from a pain specialist he sent his own patients to, says Debbie. The doctor gave him a narcotic analgesic and the recently approved Neurontin which was heavily marketed for pain, though only FDA approved for use in epilepsy. “There was nothing in the medical literature to alert his physicians that it might not be effective, or worse, cause further harm,” says Debbie.


Though off the narcotics, Doug’s entire demeanor continued to change on Neurontin. He was agitated, couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t sleep and had tremors says Debbie. The Alsberges attributed the symptoms to Doug’s bipolar disorder, diagnosed in the 1990’s. But whereas it had always stabilized with treatment before, this time, Doug went into a psychological free fall which began to affect his ability to work. His appearance degenerated, he stopped eating normally and police had to be called to the house for his emotional volatility.


“We didn’t know his extreme internal restlessness was akathesia, which is linked to suicide in medical journals, or that it was from Neurontin,” says Debbie. In his last, dark days, Doug drove for miles “searching for a knife to end his life,”  buying one at a nearby hardware store and another at a culinary store hours away. On Palm Sunday, April 13, 2003, in an apartment he had rented away from his family, Doug died of multiple, self-inflicted stab wounds to the chest. He was 52.
The death was “surreal, bizarre and horrific,” says Debbie. But it was only after she saw an article about Neurontin suicide links that she requested Doug’s pharmacy records and realized the increases in drug dosages correlated with his symptoms and personality change says Debbie. “I just stood there in the parking lot outside of the pharmacy holding the documents in stunned disbelief,” she remembers.

Dr. Douglas Briggs was a Princeton graduate who practiced family medicine near Charlotte, NC.  Dedicated to his patients, wife and two sons, he also coached soccer, headed the PTA, played tennis and ran in what sounds like a storybook existence. Nor did Briggs ever visit a psychiatrist or mental health professional.
But after back surgery, Briggs was also put on Neurontin for the pain it was widely marketed to treat. “Medicine had been Doug’s passion and his whole life” says his wife, Robin, a former nurse. “But after a few months on Neurontin, his bedside manner became curt. He stopped reading his journals and just lay on the couch. He had always been a stoic and he became whiny about his back ache. We had never fought and we began fighting. He became a different person.”

Doug was a conservative prescriber and grilled his Pfizer rep about Neurontin’s safety more than once, says Robin. He was so attuned to his responses to medications, when he took Vioxx before its dangers were known, he noted heart palpitations — and discontinued its use. A week later, Vioxx was pulled from pharmacy shelves for causing heart problems in some patients. But thanks to Neurontin-caused akathesia, Doug’s ability to detect his own mental changes on the drug disappeared. “He did not know his suicidal thoughts were drug-induced and not his own,” she says.

On Christmas day, 2004, after opening presents, Doug urged Robin and the boys to go to a movie. Hesitant to separate on a holiday at first, Robin says she remembered an “Oprah” show about how men should get the chance to be alone in the house, to unwind,  like women have, so the three went see Meet the Fockers. When they returned, they found Doug hanging in the foyer. He had been on Neurontin for 10 months. He was 54.
Like Debbie Alsberge, Robin Briggs’s “aha” moment came later. Two weeks after Doug’s funeral, a distraught patient literally drove up on the Briggs’ lawn saying he couldn’t accept the uncharacteristic suicide and demanded to know what antidepressant Dr. Briggs was on, says Robin. Even though she had been asked the question countless times, responding, “He wasn’t on an antidepressant, he just took Neurontin,” this time Robin says a light bulb went off in her head and she ran upstairs to the medicine cabinet to read the Neurontin patient information for the first time.

It did not list suicide as a side effect but it did list “emotional lability” recounts Robin. “So I called my sister who is a nurse and asked her to look up Neurontin in the nurse’s desk reference. In bold letters it said ’suicidal tendencies, sudden unexplained deaths and psychoses.’ I was sickened. Pfizer deliberately hid the risk from patients and doctors!”
The faith that Drs. Alsberge and Briggs and their doctors had in Neurontin for non-epilepsy indications didn’t just happen. It was the goal of a web of paid doctor lectures and peer selling, planted journal articles, phony medical education and rep visits to doctors that Pfizer (previously Parke-Davis and Warner-Lambert) conducted for years.
But even though Pfizer pled guilty to criminal marketing of Neurontin in 2004 and was found guilty again in 2010, it earned  $387 million from the drug in 2008. Who says crime doesn’t pay?
In just three years, Parke-Davis planted 13 ghostwritten articles in medical journals promoting off-label uses for Neurontin including a supplement to the prestigious Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine which Parke-Davis made into 43,000 reprints to mail to the journal’s “psychiatry audience” and to hand out by door-to-door sales reps. (”See, Doc –it says right here….”)

Even Scott Reuben, MD of Baystate Medical Center, termed the Bernie Madoff of medicine because he never conducted any of the clinical trials on which his conclusions were based, stumped for Neurontin. “Gabapentin would seem to be the ideal analgesic for managing acute and chronic pain following breast cancer surgery,” effused the researcher who was a paid member of Pfizer’s speakers bureau and recipient of five Pfizer grants in five years. In 2010, Reuben was sentenced in Federal Court to six months imprisonment.
In fact, the US Cochrane Group, which reviews healthcare interventions, is the only organization to retract phony Neurontin studies. The other studies still stand like legitimate medical literature, are still cited and no doubt fuel the continuing off-label sales.
After being presented with evidence of hundreds of Neurontin-linked suicides in 2005, the FDA added warnings to all epilepsy drugs in 2008. But not before Dr. Robert Temple, FDA’s Associate Director for Medical Policy for the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, both legitimized Neurontin’s off-label uses and blamed patients, not the drug, for suicides.

Referring to Neurontin’s popular pain, migraine, insomnia and bipolar uses without mentioning their lack of FDA approval, he told the Boston Globe, “These are the sorts of people who are complicated to think about because they tend to be at risk already.” Adverse event reports “can’t really tell you whether the suicidal event is because of the drug or despite the drug,” he added.
Meanwhile Debbie Alsberge and Robin Briggs, who both have a son in medical school, don’t want to see the tragedy of drug-induced suicides continue.
“Suicide has always been looked at as a choice, but for many people on psychoactive drugs, it’s a chemical path they are on and not a choice at all” says Robin Briggs. “My husband would be alive today if this information were available and not hidden.”

“Suicide is deeply stigmatizing and devastating. But when families stay silent, we cede power to corporations that put profit ahead of human lives and we become part of the problem,” says Debbie Alsberge. “In sharing my story of what happened to Doug, I take comfort in knowing this may help others to recognize the adverse effects of Neurontin and prevent the deaths of their loved ones. I urge other families to stand up, tell their stories and be counted.”

14 Propaganda Techniques Fox 'News' Uses to Brainwash Americans

There is nothing more sacred to the maintenance of democracy than a free press. Access to comprehensive, accurate and quality information is essential to the manifestation of Socratic citizenship - the society characterized by a civically engaged, well-informed and socially invested populace. Thus, to the degree that access to quality information is willfully or unintentionally obstructed, democracy itself is degraded.

It is ironic that in the era of 24-hour cable news networks and "reality" programming, the news-to-fluff ratio and overall veracity of information has declined precipitously. Take the fact Americans now spend on average about 50 hours a week using various forms of media, while at the same time cultural literacy levels hover just above the gutter. Not only does mainstream media now tolerate gross misrepresentations of fact and history by public figures (highlighted most recently by Sarah Palin's ludicrous depiction of Paul Revere's ride), but many media actually legitimize these displays. Pause for a moment and ask yourself what it means that the world's largest, most profitable and most popular news channel passes off as fact every whim, impulse and outrageously incompetent analysis of its so-called reporters. How did we get here? Take the enormous amount of misinformation that is taken for truth by Fox audiences: the belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that he was in on 9/11, the belief that climate change isn't real and/or man-made, the belief that Barack Obama is Muslim and wasn't born in the United States, the insistence that all Arabs are Muslim and all Muslims are terrorists, the inexplicable perceptions that immigrants are both too lazy to work and are about to steal your job. All of these claims are demonstrably false, yet Fox News viewers will maintain their veracity with incredible zeal. Why? Is it simply that we have lost our respect for knowledge?

The good news is that the more conscious you are of these techniques, the less likely they are to work on you. The bad news is that those reading this article are probably the least in need in of it.

1. Panic Mongering. This goes one step beyond simple fear mongering. With panic mongering, there is never a break from the fear. The idea is to terrify and terrorize the audience during every waking moment. From Muslims to swine flu to recession to homosexuals to immigrants to the rapture itself, the belief over at Fox seems to be that if your fight-or-flight reflexes aren't activated, you aren't alive. This of course raises the question: why terrorize your own audience? Because it is the fastest way to bypasses the rational brain. In other words, when people are afraid, they don't think rationally. And when they can't think rationally, they'll believe anything.

2. Character Assassination/Ad Hominem. Fox does not like to waste time debating the idea. Instead, they prefer a quicker route to dispensing with their opponents: go after the person's credibility, motives, intelligence, character, or, if necessary, sanity. No category of character assassination is off the table and no offense is beneath them. Fox and like-minded media figures also use ad hominem attacks not just against individuals, but entire categories of people in an effort to discredit the ideas of every person who is seen to fall into that category, e.g. "liberals," "hippies," "progressives" etc. This form of argument - if it can be called that - leaves no room for genuine debate over ideas, so by definition, it is undemocratic. Not to mention just plain crass.

3. Projection/Flipping. This one is frustrating for the viewer who is trying to actually follow the argument. It involves taking whatever underhanded tactic you're using and then accusing your opponent of doing it to you first. We see this frequently in the immigration discussion, where anti-racists are accused of racism, or in the climate change debate, where those who argue for human causes of the phenomenon are accused of not having science or facts on their side. It's often called upon when the media host finds themselves on the ropes in the debate.

 4. Rewriting History. This is another way of saying that propagandists make the facts fit their worldview. The Downing Street Memos on the Iraq war were a classic example of this on a massive scale, but it happens daily and over smaller issues as well. A recent case in point is Palin's mangling of the Paul Revere ride, which Fox reporters have bent over backward to validate. 

Why lie about the historical facts, even when they can be demonstrated to be false? Well, because dogmatic minds actually find it easier to reject reality than to update their viewpoints. They will literally rewrite history if it serves their interests. And they'll often speak with such authority that the casual viewer will be tempted to question what they knew as fact.

5. Scapegoating/Othering. This works best when people feel insecure or scared. It's technically a form of both fear mongering and diversion, but it is so pervasive that it deserves its own category. The simple idea is that if you can find a group to blame for social or economic problems, you can then go on to a) justify violence/dehumanization of them, and b) subvert responsibility for any harm that may befall them as a result.

6. Conflating Violence With Power and Opposition to Violence With Weakness. This is more of what I'd call a "meta-frame" (a deeply held belief) than a media technique, but it is manifested in the ways news is reported constantly. For example, terms like "show of strength" are often used to describe acts of repression, such as those by the Iranian regime against the protesters in the summer of 2009. There are several concerning consequences of this form of conflation. First, it has the potential to make people feel falsely emboldened by shows of force - it can turn wars into sporting events. Secondly, especially in the context of American politics, displays of violence - whether manifested in war or debates about the Second Amendment - are seen as noble and (in an especially surreal irony) moral. Violence become synonymous with power, patriotism and piety.

7. Bullying. This is a favorite technique of several Fox commentators. That it continues to be employed demonstrates that it seems to have some efficacy. Bullying and yelling works best on people who come to the conversation with a lack of confidence, either in themselves or their grasp of the subject being discussed. The bully exploits this lack of confidence by berating the guest into submission or compliance. Often, less self-possessed people will feel shame and anxiety when being berated and the quickest way to end the immediate discomfort is to cede authority to the bully. The bully is then able to interpret that as a "win."

8. Confusion. As with the preceding technique, this one works best on an audience that is less confident and self-possessed. The idea is to deliberately confuse the argument, but insist that the logic is airtight and imply that anyone who disagrees is either too dumb or too fanatical to follow along. Less independent minds will interpret the confusion technique as a form of sophisticated thinking, thereby giving the user's claims veracity in the viewer's mind.

9. Populism. This is especially popular in election years. The speakers identifies themselves as one of "the people" and the target of their ire as an enemy of the people. The opponent is always "elitist" or a "bureaucrat" or a "government insider" or some other category that is not the people. The idea is to make the opponent harder to relate to and harder to empathize with. It often goes hand in hand with scapegoating. A common logical fallacy with populism bias when used by the right is that accused "elitists" are almost always liberals - a category of political actors who, by definition, advocate for non-elite groups.

10. Invoking the Christian God. This is similar to othering and populism. With morality politics, the idea is to declare yourself and your allies as patriots, Christians and "real Americans" (those are inseparable categories in this line of thinking) and anyone who challenges them as not. Basically, God loves Fox and Republicans and America. And hates taxes and anyone who doesn't love those other three things. Because the speaker has been benedicted by God to speak on behalf of all Americans, any challenge is perceived as immoral. It's a cheap and easy technique used by all totalitarian entities from states to cults.

11. Saturation. There are three components to effective saturation: being repetitive, being ubiquitous and being consistent. The message must be repeated cover and over, it must be everywhere and it must be shared across commentators: e.g. "Saddam has WMD." Veracity and hard data have no relationship to the efficacy of saturation. There is a psychological effect of being exposed to the same message over and over, regardless of whether it's true or if it even makes sense, e.g., "Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States." If something is said enough times, by enough people, many will come to accept it as truth. Another example is Fox's own slogan of "Fair and Balanced."

12. Disparaging Education. There is an emerging and disturbing lack of reverence for education and intellectualism in many mainstream media discourses. In fact, in some circles (e.g. Fox), higher education is often disparaged as elitist. Having a university credential is perceived by these folks as not a sign of credibility, but of a lack of it. In fact, among some commentators, evidence of intellectual prowess is treated snidely and as anti-American. The disdain for education and other evidence of being trained in critical thinking are direct threats to a hive-mind mentality, which is why they are so viscerally demeaned.

13. Guilt by Association. This is a favorite of Glenn Beck and Andrew Breitbart, both of whom have used it to decimate the careers and lives of many good people. Here's how it works: if your cousin's college roommate's uncle's ex-wife attended a dinner party back in 1984 with Gorbachev's niece's ex-boyfriend's sister, then you, by extension are a communist set on destroying America. Period.

14. Diversion. This is where, when on the ropes, the media commentator suddenly takes the debate in a weird but predictable direction to avoid accountability. This is the point in the discussion where most Fox anchors start comparing the opponent to Saul Alinsky or invoking ACORN or Media Matters, in a desperate attempt to win through guilt by association. Or they'll talk about wanting to focus on "moving forward," as though by analyzing the current state of things or God forbid, how we got to this state of things, you have no regard for the future. Any attempt to bring the discussion back to the issue at hand will likely be called deflection, an ironic use of the technique of projection/flipping.

In debating some of these tactics with colleagues and friends, I have also noticed that the Fox viewership seems to be marked by a sort of collective personality disorder whereby the viewer feels almost as though they've been let into a secret society. Something about their affiliation with the network makes them feel privileged and this affinity is likely what drives the viewers to defend the network so vehemently. They seem to identify with it at a core level, because it tells them they are special and privy to something the rest of us don't have. It's akin to the loyalty one feels by being let into a private club or a gang. That effect is also likely to make the propaganda more powerful, because it goes mostly unquestioned.

In considering these tactics and their possible effects on American public discourse, it is important to note that historically, those who've genuinely accessed truth have never berated those who did not. You don't get honored by history when you beat up your opponent: look at Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln. These men did not find the need to engage in othering, ad homeinum attacks, guilt by association or bullying. This is because when a person has accessed a truth, they are not threatened by the opposing views of others. This reality reveals the righteous indignation of people like Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity as a symptom of untruth. These individuals are hostile and angry precisely because they don't feel confident in their own veracity. And in general, the more someone is losing their temper in a debate and the more intolerant they are of listening to others, the more you can be certain they do not know what they're talking about.

One final observation. Fox audiences, birthers and Tea Partiers often defend their arguments by pointing to the fact that a lot of people share the same perceptions. This is a reasonable point to the extent that Murdoch's News Corporation reaches a far larger audience than any other single media outlet. But, the fact that a lot of people believe something is not necessarily a sign that it's true; it's just a sign that it's been effectively marketed.

As honest, fair and truly intellectual debate degrades before the eyes of the global media audience, the quality of American democracy degrades along with it.

Why Is Jerry Falwell's Evangelical University Getting Filthy Rich off Your Tax Money?

How taxpayers are funding the world's biggest Christian evangelical university.

June 29, 2011   

By Bill Berkowitc

 

One might think that a private, decidedly conservative, and totally evangelical Christian University, that was founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, who was openly critical of government programs, would spurn federal dollars.

Au contraire mon ami.

"I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!" - The Rev. Jerry Falwell, America Can Be Saved.

This year, the 40th anniversary of Liberty University, Rev. Falwell's dream -- now being looked after by his son Jerry Jr. -- has become a reality thanks in large part to America's taxpayers.

Founded by Falwell in 1971, Liberty University, which according to its website is "the largest and fastest growing Christian Evangelical university in the world" and "the largest private university in Virginia," is "celebrating 40 Years of Training Champions for Christ."

Liberty U. receives massive government aid

During the last fiscal year alone, Liberty received about $445 million in federal financial aid money, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Over the past few years, Liberty University has raked in so much taxpayer money from the federal government that is now ranked among the top ten universities in the United States receiving federal dollars. It is also Virginia's top recipient of federal money.

In a 2009 piece for RH Reality Check titled, "Why is the Federal Government Supporting Evangelism?" Eleanor J. Bader pointed out that LU's [Jesse] Helms School of Government "crows that it turns out 'Christ-centered leaders, able to apply God's word in every area of life.' What's more, LU's webpage showcases its mission, promising students an 'action-oriented curriculum dedicated to world evangelism and repudiation of political correctness.'

"Not sure what that means? The site explains: 'A strong commitment to political conservatism, total rejection of socialism, and firm support for America's economic system of free enterprise.'"

Since it doesn't get much more religiously oriented than Liberty University, a fair question to ask is: Should a private sectarian institution be receiving federal funds?

"The short answer is that it would be difficult -- if not impossible -- to challenge the government grants going to Liberty students," Rob Boston, Senior Policy Analyst with Americans United, told me in an e-mail exchange. "This can be difficult area of the law. The Supreme Court has always been more lax on aid to religious colleges than it has been on aid to secondary schools. In years past, the court has held that tax aid cannot go to institutions deemed 'pervasively sectarian' but that such aid was permissible for those schools that were judged to be 'religiously affiliated.' This test has begun to erode at the high court, however, under the conservative majority. Complicating the matter is that the fact that many conservative legal scholars argue that Pell Grants are actually aid to the student, not the school -- an argument that has been embraced by the Supreme Court's conservative bloc."

"The rapid growth of Liberty's online program has fueled the increased reliance on federal aid dollars," said Robert Ritz, LU's executive director of financial aid Lynchburg, Virginia's The News & Advance recently reported. In addition to 12,000 students on campus, the University enrolled nearly 52,000 students online last year.

"It has ballooned," said Ritz of Liberty's financial aid volume. "In some categories, I've seen us rank no. 3 nationally, or in the top ten. It's because of our size and the growth." According to The News & Advance, "In the span of a year, Liberty's experienced about a 56 percent spike in federal student aid, from $284 million in 2008-2009 to $445 million in 2009-2010, according to Department of Education data compiled by The News & Advance. (LU calculates the total aid at $432 million and $277 million, still a 56 percent increase.)"

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5 WikiLeaks Revelations Exposing the Rapidly Growing Corporatism Dominating American Diplomacy Abroad

By Rania Khalek

One of WikiLeaks' greatest achievements has been to expose the exorbitant amount of influence that multinational corporations have over Washington's diplomacy.

June 21, 2011  |  

 

One of the most significant scourges paralyzing our democracy is the merger of corporate power with elected and appointed government officials at the highest levels of office.  Influence has a steep price-tag in American politics where politicians are bought and paid for with ever increasing campaign contributions from big business, essentially drowning out any and all voices advocating on behalf of the public in

Millions of dollars in campaign funding flooding Washington's halls of power combined with tens of thousands of high-paid corporate lobbyists and a never-ending revolving door that allows corporate executives to shuffle between the public and private sectors has blurred the line between government agencies and private corporations.  

This corporate dominance over government affairs helps to explain why we are plagued by a health-care system that lines the pockets of industry executives to the detriment of the sick; a war industry that causes insurmountable death and destruction to enrich weapons-makers and defense contractors; and a financial sector that violates the working class and poor to dole out billions of dollars in bonuses to Wall Street CEO's. 

The implications of this rapidly growing corporatism reach far beyond our borders and into the realm of American diplomacy, as in one case where efforts by US diplomats forced the minimum wage for beleaguered Haitian workers to remain below sweatshop levels.

In this context of corporate government corruption, one of WikiLeaks' greatest achievements has been to expose the exorbitant amount of influence that multinational corporations have over Washington's diplomacy. Many of the WikiLeaks US embassy cables reveal the naked intervention by our ambassadorial staff in the business of foreign countries on behalf of US corporations. From mining companies in Peru to pharmaceutical companies in Ecuador, one WikiLeaks embassy cable after the next illuminates a pattern of US diplomats shilling for corporate interests abroad in the most underhanded and sleazy ways imaginable.

While the merger of corporate and government power isn't exactly breaking news, it is one of the most critical yet under-reported issues of our time. And WikiLeaks has given us an inside look at the inner-workings of this corporate-government collusion, often operating at the highest levels of power. 

It is crystal clear that it's standard operating procedure for US government officials to moonlight as corporate stooges. Thanks to WikiLeaks, here are five instances that display the lengths to which Washington is willing to go to protect and promote US corporations around the world.

"The short answer is that it would be difficult -- if not impossible -- to challenge the government grants going to Liberty students," Rob Boston, Senior Policy Analyst with Americans United, told me in an e-mail exchange. "This can be difficult area of the law. The Supreme Court has always been more lax on aid to religious colleges than it has been on aid to secondary schools. In years past, the court has held that tax aid cannot go to institutions deemed 'pervasively sectarian' but that such aid was permissible for those schools that were judged to be 'religiously affiliated.' This test has begun to erode at the high court, however, under the conservative majority. Complicating the matter is that the fact that many conservative legal scholars argue that Pell Grants are actually aid to the student, not the school -- an argument that has been embraced by the Supreme Court's conservative bloc."

"The rapid growth of Liberty's online program has fueled the increased reliance on federal aid dollars," said Robert Ritz, LU's executive director of financial aid Lynchburg, Virginia's The News & Advance recently reported. In addition to 12,000 students on campus, the University enrolled nearly 52,000 students online last year.

"It has ballooned," said Ritz of Liberty's financial aid volume. "In some categories, I've seen us rank no. 3 nationally, or in the top ten. It's because of our size and the growth." According to The News & Advance, "In the span of a year, Liberty's experienced about a 56 percent spike in federal student aid, from $284 million in 2008-2009 to $445 million in 2009-2010, according to Department of Education data compiled by The News & Advance. (LU calculates the total aid at $432 million and $277 million, still a 56 percent increase.)"

The most puzzling and ironic tidbit in the cable is the US ambassador's bewilderment at the "conflation of USG-GOT interactions and what is ostensibly a commercial sale between private firms," which he complains is "an unwelcome, but unsurprising degree of political influence in this transaction." The accusation that inappropriate political influence exists among the Turkish government and a private airline is laughable considering that the US State Department is the one pitching the sale on behalf of a private firm.

The cable goes on to say, “We probably cannot put a Turkish astronaut in orbit, but there are programs we could undertake to strengthen Turkey’s capacity in this area that would meet our own goals for improved aviation safety. In any case, we must show some response to the minister’s vague request if we want to maximize chances for the sale.”

In November of last year, Saudi Arabia announced a deal with Boeing to buy more than $3.3 billion worth of airliners, a deal that WikiLeaks reveals was preceded by years of intense lobbying by American officials of the highest order.

In late 2006, then President George W. Bush wrote a personal letter he had hand-delivered to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, practically begging the king to buy as many as 43 Boeing jets to modernize Saudi Arabian Airlines and 13 jets for the Saudi royal fleet.

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