A Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 10:38 PM
0 comments
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Stewart and Colbert rally thousands to 'restore sanity'
Doug Stanglin
On Deadline (USA Today)
Oct 30, 2010
Update 6:21 p.m. ET: Comedian Jon Stewart held a news conference later with reporters after the "Rally to Restore Sanity" at the National Press Club . Asked how he thought the media would react to his pointed barbs, he said: "Don't care."
"Our currency is not this town's currency," he said. "We're not running for anything. We don't have a constituency. We do television shows for people who like them."
Asked if they accomplished what they wanted,he replied: "We're proud of ourselves. For us, the success was the execution of the idea and the intention."
Update at 5 p.m. ET: We've added new photos to our gallery of today's rally. Take a look.
Update 4:30 p.m.: USA TODAY's Lindsay Deutsch and Marisa Kendall send these reflections from people as they head home:
* "Coming in, I didn't really know what to expect. I think it was better than I expected. There was good music, good comedy, and I think Jon Stewart's message in the end was really powerful," said Seth Sangboner, 32, of Washington, D.C.
* "I'm a little bit choked up after listening to Jon Stewart talk," said Hy Alvarah, 28, who works for the Human Rights Campaign, the largest U.S. gay civil rights organization. "He covered all the things we're missing in life, not just sanity and reasonableness. I was moved to tears. You expect that from politicians and preachers, not a comedian."
* "The number of people who just wanted to get together and spend time being American was great. I mean, R2D2 was there," said Ben Byers, 25, of Washington, D.C.
* "I think this was historic. To have Ozzy on stage with Cat Stevens, that's not something you think you'd see in a lifetime," said Steve Dugas, 54, of Westford, Mass. "I'm most afraid that the point is going to be lost on people. I want the sanity of just being able to have a dialogue, giving respect to all points of view."
Update 3:14 p.m.:The rally just ended with I'll Take You There, performed by Mavis Staples, The Roots, John Legend, Yusuf Islam (the former Cat Stevens), Tony Bennett and Jeff Tweedy, plus "a 7-year-old girl," Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and all the correspondents.
But before it ended, Stewart had his personal moment of sanity. Here are excerpts from his speech:
So what exactly was this? I can't control what people think this was, I can only tell you my intentions. This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith or people of activism, or to look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument, or to suggest that times are not difficult and we have nothing to fear. They are and we do.
But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies. But unfortunately, one of our main tools in delineating the two broke. The country's 24-hour politico-pundit- perpetual-panic conflictinator did not cause our problems, but its existence makes solving them that much harder.
The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems, bring them into focus, illuminating issues -- or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire, and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden unexpected dangerous
flaming ant epidemic. If we amplify everything, we hear nothing. …
Not being able to distinguish between real racists and tea partiers, or real bigots and Juan Williams or Rick Sanchez, is an insult not only to those people, but to the racists themselves who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate. Just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe, not more. ...
That being said, I feel strangely, calmly good, because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us through a funhouse mirror, and not the good kind that makes you look slim and maybe taller, but the kind that gives you a giant forehead and maybe an ass shaped like a month-old pumpkin. We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is, on the brink of disaster, torn by polarizing hate. …
The truth is, we work together to get things done every damn day. The only place we don't is here, or on cable TV -- but Americans don't live here or on cable TV. ... We know that as a people if we're going to get through the darkness and back into the light, we have to work together. ...
And sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn't the promised land, it's just New Jersey, but we do it anyway.
Update 3 p.m.: Our Jessica Durando just ran into Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington in the press area and asked her about media organizations that had banned employees from attending the rally because they viewed it as political.
"It doesn't make any sense to be agnostic about sanity," said Huffington, who sponsored buses to Washington. "The rally is not political. It's not partisan. Contrived objectivity does not serve journalism."
Huffington also said the rally "helps us recognize we can have big disagreements as a country without demonizing opponents."
Update 2:40 p.m.: Now the keynote speech. Stewart, looking like a politician, began: "Ladies and gentlemen, what is reason?" Only to be interrupted by Colbert, who took the stage as the "formidable opponent." They set up, side-by-side, suit-and-tie, debate-style on the stage: Reason vs. fear.
Stewart got Colbert to be afraid of "corbomite" -- a fictional explosive lifted from a Star Trek episode. "You just got scared by something that is not real," Stewart said.
"Maybe so, Jon, but not all the things that I or my fellow Americans are afraid of are made up. What about Muslims?"
"There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. Most of them did not (attack us)," Stewart said.
"So you are saying there is no reason at all to be afraid of Osama bin Laden?" Colbert asked.
"There are a lot of Muslim people who you might like," Stewart said, and brought out basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who is way too tall for the two to high-five.
Kareem made the point, "No matter whatever religious position someone plays, we're all on the same team."
Later, Colbert used news clips to highlight dangers: sex offenders, water, sleep, bees, terror, pandemics, guns, gay marriage, militias.
"Most of those fears are overblown," Stewart said. "They will never come true. And even if they do, the American people will come together to solve them."
Colbert: "Oh no. the American people can't come together on anything. They can't stand each other."
Update 2:25 p.m.: Though the rally was meant to parody political rallies, there was an unmistakable political feeling in the crowd. Miguel Mendoza, 59, of Woodstock, Va., called himself "pro president." He told our Doug Stanglin he came to the rally with his wife and children because he is "tired of the Tea Party having taken over the discussion. There's other people that believe in the government."
Kathy Ellis, 51, of Boise, Idaho, told Jessica Durando she flew in because she "wanted to be around like-minded people.... We're blue girls in a red state." She said the event was like Woodstock without the nudity. "We need to take the polarization out of politics. Hope is still alive, and we are here to signify that."
Update 2:15 p.m.:Colbert and Stewart faced off in song, comparing their patriotic bona fides:
Colbert: America is perfect and there's nothing to fix, my PIN code is 1776, Americans will deep fry anything, and that is why I sing …
Stewart: I embody the spirit of the founders I know, cause I watched John Adams on the HBO. You can tax all my cash to help a stranger, but I'll sue city hall if they put up a manger ...
And the chorus: It's the greatest, strongest country in the world, the greatest strongest country in the world ...
Stewart: For all the men and the women and the genders in between, there's no one more compassionate then me ...
Colbert: My roll of toilet paper used up 67 trees...
Both: From gay men who like football to straight men who like Glee ... There's no one more American than me."
Update 1:40 p.m.: A head-on musical train collision set the tone, with Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam's Peace Train carrying the sanity banner against Ozzy Osbourne's fear-mongering Crazy Train. The two dueled onstage until they tired of the battle and stormed off together. The middle-of-the-road solution: The O'Jays took the stage and called on the crowd to board their Love Train. Stewart convinced Colbert it also has some fear: "STDs? Heartbreak? That is scary."
Update 1:25 p.m.:The rally attracted people of all ages. Zac Bishop, 16, came with his mother, Fran, from Arizona, instead of going to Disneyland.
"I trust John Stewart more than CNN or MSNBC," he said. "It's the people starting a rally on their own. It's a movement of the people." Fran added: "Tolerance. I guess that's what its about."
Alex Boyle, 77, of Chevy Chase, Md., told USA TODAY's Marisa Kendall that his son encouraged him to participate. "The turnout is fabulous, and I hope it sends a strong message that we're about to make a terrible mistake on Tuesday if the polls are right."
Update 1:10 p.m.: Stephen Colbert just emerged from a capsule similar to the one used to rescue the miners in Chile. He's in a Captain America- like suit, shouting m "Chi, Chi, Le, Le."
Update 1 p.m.:"Are you ready to restore sanity?" Stewart yelled. Then: "No littering. Let's leave this place cleaner than we found it."
Stewart has urged people to send donations to the trust that maintains the National Mall.
"As I look out here, I see we have over 10 million people," he joked, adding that the crowd is a perfect demographic makeup of the nation. "73% white, 14% black and the rest other, which is perfect."
Update 12:55 p.m.:Our Jessica Durando just ran into Daily Show correspondent John Oliver backstage. "It's mind-blowing how many people turned out," he said. "Let's hope it's funny."
As Oliver checked his lines, he admitted to feeling some anxiety that the show will not translate to such a huge crowd. "Objectively, we think it's going to be pretty funny," he said. "We've been doing shows all week, and it's become very real."
Update 12:40 p.m.: Stewart insists the rally is not political, and many in the crowd embrace his call for "reasonableness."
"I'm really glad this is an optimistic rally. All the other ones are serious. We can just laugh and realize that things aren't so bad," Brian Steele, 19, a student at George Washington Universit,y told USA TODAY's Sara Newman.
Agreed Drew Sarton, 30, of Birmingham, Ala.: "Of all the political rallies, this one makes the most sense. Common sense has been lost. All other rallies are self-aggrandizing."
Update 12:25 p.m.:USA TODAY's Lindsay Deutsch ran into a lucky couple who was flown to the rally and stayed in a Marriott courtesy of Oprah Winfrey.
Ernesto Iglesias and Nicole Anasenas from New York City, were at The Daily Show when Oprah said she would send the entire studio audience to the rally. They brought their 5-month-old baby, Lorenzo, to the rally. He wore a rally towel as a bib.
Iglesias, 35, actually forced Anasenas to go with him to the taping: "It was one of those things. You always tell yourself, 'I never win these things,' then ..." About Lorenzo, he said, "We're here to keep him afraid or sane until he is about 22. We live in the city, so maybe he has to be more fearful."
Anasenas was enjoying the crowd. "It's nice to be around people who more or less share our beliefs. The best sign I've seen says, 'I may not agree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler.' "
Update 12:15 p.m.:John Legend and The Roots are performing now. Stewart is expected around 1 p.m. Other entertainers expected to appear include musician Sheryl Crow, actor Sam Waterston and comedian Don Novello, who years ago played Father Guido Sarducci on Saturday Night Live.
Update noon: The rally is starting. You can watch it at C-SPAN and Comedy Central. And here's a photo gallery that we will be updating through the day. Check back often.
Update 11:40 a.m.: The Mall is bristling with clever signs, USA TODAY's Doug Stanglin reports. Among them:
* The only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- and spiders
* Stand united against signs
* This is my sign
* Rednecks for Obama. Louisiana chapter
* My wife thinks I'm walking the Appalachian trail
* Paul Revere was an anchor baby
* Tea parties are for Mad Hatters
* I'm somewhat irritated about extreme outrage
Update 11:30 a.m.: D.C. -area metro stations are jammed as thousands try to get to the Mall for the rally. Hundreds of people are waiting in line to buy tickets at several suburban Virginia stations, with many bailing out to hail cabs.
At the East Falls Church station in Virginia, about six miles from Washington, two trains passed through completely filled, USA TODAY's Jessica Durando reports. Waiting on the platform, Shane Carlson, 29, said, "We flew from Minnesota to be funny for three hours." The neon yellow sign he holds says, "You're in the matrix."
Some people are managing to squeeze onto trains. Durandoalso talked to Lee Walzer on a train at the Rosslyn station in Arlington, Va., a stop away from D.C. The 47-year-old from Arlington urged people going to the rally to also vote Tuesday.
"It's nice that people are going down to a rally, but if people don't go out and vote on Tuesday, it's not going to preserve the gains and goals that most people going to the rally presumably have," Walzer said. "It's an impressive-sized crowd. It makes you wonder if the enthusiasm of the Republican Party is true. The election results may look different."
A vendor displays badges for sale at the
CAPTION
By Kate Patterson, USA TODAY
Original post: Jon Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity" may have started out for some as a satirical retort to Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally at the Lincoln Memorial, but it is turning into a political event, whether the organizers want it or not.
The best proof: Pundits, media stars and political analysts, some a mite miffed at the interloper from Manhattan, have weighed the meaning of it all, questioning whether jokester Stewart has gone too far and will undercut his appeal by appearing too political, The Washington Post notes.
Some Democrats worry that the extravaganza will take liberals away from the final weekend get-out-the-vote push before Tuesday's midterm elections.
Whatever happens, early signs are that it will be a big draw near the steps of the U.S. Capitol on the National Mall. The "Rally to Restore Sanity" Facebook page lists 230,000 people as saying they will be there and another 100,000 "maybes."
Huffington Post impresario Ariana Huffington leased 200 buses to bring rally goers down to D.C. free from Manhattan. Even Oprah has given a thumbs up.
Travelers from New York who waited too late found Amtrak fully booked for Friday evening and Saturday morning. Even NBC's Andrea Mitchell tweeted that she couldn't get a seat home Friday night.
Some dedicated rallygoers got a jump on Halloween and dressed for the occasion Saturday on the National Mall.
CAPTION
By Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images
Oddly, it is not really clear what will take place today near the steps of the U.S. Capitol on the National Mall.
At his "Rally to Restore Sanity" website, Stewart puts it this way:
Ours is a rally for the people who've been too busy to go to rallies, who actually have lives and families and jobs (or are looking for jobs) — not so much the Silent Majority as the Busy Majority. If we had to sum up the political view of our participants in a single sentence … we couldn't. That's sort of the point.
As for how he plans to fill the noon to 3 p.m. ET rally, Stewart says only that there will be "guests."
On Deadline will be keeping tabs from the National Mall all morning, so check back here for frequent updates.
On Deadline (USA Today)
Oct 30, 2010
Update 6:21 p.m. ET: Comedian Jon Stewart held a news conference later with reporters after the "Rally to Restore Sanity" at the National Press Club . Asked how he thought the media would react to his pointed barbs, he said: "Don't care."
"Our currency is not this town's currency," he said. "We're not running for anything. We don't have a constituency. We do television shows for people who like them."
Asked if they accomplished what they wanted,he replied: "We're proud of ourselves. For us, the success was the execution of the idea and the intention."
Update at 5 p.m. ET: We've added new photos to our gallery of today's rally. Take a look.
Update 4:30 p.m.: USA TODAY's Lindsay Deutsch and Marisa Kendall send these reflections from people as they head home:
* "Coming in, I didn't really know what to expect. I think it was better than I expected. There was good music, good comedy, and I think Jon Stewart's message in the end was really powerful," said Seth Sangboner, 32, of Washington, D.C.
* "I'm a little bit choked up after listening to Jon Stewart talk," said Hy Alvarah, 28, who works for the Human Rights Campaign, the largest U.S. gay civil rights organization. "He covered all the things we're missing in life, not just sanity and reasonableness. I was moved to tears. You expect that from politicians and preachers, not a comedian."
* "The number of people who just wanted to get together and spend time being American was great. I mean, R2D2 was there," said Ben Byers, 25, of Washington, D.C.
* "I think this was historic. To have Ozzy on stage with Cat Stevens, that's not something you think you'd see in a lifetime," said Steve Dugas, 54, of Westford, Mass. "I'm most afraid that the point is going to be lost on people. I want the sanity of just being able to have a dialogue, giving respect to all points of view."
Update 3:14 p.m.:The rally just ended with I'll Take You There, performed by Mavis Staples, The Roots, John Legend, Yusuf Islam (the former Cat Stevens), Tony Bennett and Jeff Tweedy, plus "a 7-year-old girl," Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and all the correspondents.
But before it ended, Stewart had his personal moment of sanity. Here are excerpts from his speech:
So what exactly was this? I can't control what people think this was, I can only tell you my intentions. This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith or people of activism, or to look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument, or to suggest that times are not difficult and we have nothing to fear. They are and we do.
But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies. But unfortunately, one of our main tools in delineating the two broke. The country's 24-hour politico-pundit- perpetual-panic conflictinator did not cause our problems, but its existence makes solving them that much harder.
The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems, bring them into focus, illuminating issues -- or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire, and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden unexpected dangerous
flaming ant epidemic. If we amplify everything, we hear nothing. …
Not being able to distinguish between real racists and tea partiers, or real bigots and Juan Williams or Rick Sanchez, is an insult not only to those people, but to the racists themselves who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate. Just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe, not more. ...
That being said, I feel strangely, calmly good, because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us through a funhouse mirror, and not the good kind that makes you look slim and maybe taller, but the kind that gives you a giant forehead and maybe an ass shaped like a month-old pumpkin. We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is, on the brink of disaster, torn by polarizing hate. …
The truth is, we work together to get things done every damn day. The only place we don't is here, or on cable TV -- but Americans don't live here or on cable TV. ... We know that as a people if we're going to get through the darkness and back into the light, we have to work together. ...
And sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn't the promised land, it's just New Jersey, but we do it anyway.
Update 3 p.m.: Our Jessica Durando just ran into Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington in the press area and asked her about media organizations that had banned employees from attending the rally because they viewed it as political.
"It doesn't make any sense to be agnostic about sanity," said Huffington, who sponsored buses to Washington. "The rally is not political. It's not partisan. Contrived objectivity does not serve journalism."
Huffington also said the rally "helps us recognize we can have big disagreements as a country without demonizing opponents."
Update 2:40 p.m.: Now the keynote speech. Stewart, looking like a politician, began: "Ladies and gentlemen, what is reason?" Only to be interrupted by Colbert, who took the stage as the "formidable opponent." They set up, side-by-side, suit-and-tie, debate-style on the stage: Reason vs. fear.
Stewart got Colbert to be afraid of "corbomite" -- a fictional explosive lifted from a Star Trek episode. "You just got scared by something that is not real," Stewart said.
"Maybe so, Jon, but not all the things that I or my fellow Americans are afraid of are made up. What about Muslims?"
"There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. Most of them did not (attack us)," Stewart said.
"So you are saying there is no reason at all to be afraid of Osama bin Laden?" Colbert asked.
"There are a lot of Muslim people who you might like," Stewart said, and brought out basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who is way too tall for the two to high-five.
Kareem made the point, "No matter whatever religious position someone plays, we're all on the same team."
Later, Colbert used news clips to highlight dangers: sex offenders, water, sleep, bees, terror, pandemics, guns, gay marriage, militias.
"Most of those fears are overblown," Stewart said. "They will never come true. And even if they do, the American people will come together to solve them."
Colbert: "Oh no. the American people can't come together on anything. They can't stand each other."
Update 2:25 p.m.: Though the rally was meant to parody political rallies, there was an unmistakable political feeling in the crowd. Miguel Mendoza, 59, of Woodstock, Va., called himself "pro president." He told our Doug Stanglin he came to the rally with his wife and children because he is "tired of the Tea Party having taken over the discussion. There's other people that believe in the government."
Kathy Ellis, 51, of Boise, Idaho, told Jessica Durando she flew in because she "wanted to be around like-minded people.... We're blue girls in a red state." She said the event was like Woodstock without the nudity. "We need to take the polarization out of politics. Hope is still alive, and we are here to signify that."
Update 2:15 p.m.:Colbert and Stewart faced off in song, comparing their patriotic bona fides:
Colbert: America is perfect and there's nothing to fix, my PIN code is 1776, Americans will deep fry anything, and that is why I sing …
Stewart: I embody the spirit of the founders I know, cause I watched John Adams on the HBO. You can tax all my cash to help a stranger, but I'll sue city hall if they put up a manger ...
And the chorus: It's the greatest, strongest country in the world, the greatest strongest country in the world ...
Stewart: For all the men and the women and the genders in between, there's no one more compassionate then me ...
Colbert: My roll of toilet paper used up 67 trees...
Both: From gay men who like football to straight men who like Glee ... There's no one more American than me."
Update 1:40 p.m.: A head-on musical train collision set the tone, with Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam's Peace Train carrying the sanity banner against Ozzy Osbourne's fear-mongering Crazy Train. The two dueled onstage until they tired of the battle and stormed off together. The middle-of-the-road solution: The O'Jays took the stage and called on the crowd to board their Love Train. Stewart convinced Colbert it also has some fear: "STDs? Heartbreak? That is scary."
Update 1:25 p.m.:The rally attracted people of all ages. Zac Bishop, 16, came with his mother, Fran, from Arizona, instead of going to Disneyland.
"I trust John Stewart more than CNN or MSNBC," he said. "It's the people starting a rally on their own. It's a movement of the people." Fran added: "Tolerance. I guess that's what its about."
Alex Boyle, 77, of Chevy Chase, Md., told USA TODAY's Marisa Kendall that his son encouraged him to participate. "The turnout is fabulous, and I hope it sends a strong message that we're about to make a terrible mistake on Tuesday if the polls are right."
Update 1:10 p.m.: Stephen Colbert just emerged from a capsule similar to the one used to rescue the miners in Chile. He's in a Captain America- like suit, shouting m "Chi, Chi, Le, Le."
Update 1 p.m.:"Are you ready to restore sanity?" Stewart yelled. Then: "No littering. Let's leave this place cleaner than we found it."
Stewart has urged people to send donations to the trust that maintains the National Mall.
"As I look out here, I see we have over 10 million people," he joked, adding that the crowd is a perfect demographic makeup of the nation. "73% white, 14% black and the rest other, which is perfect."
Update 12:55 p.m.:Our Jessica Durando just ran into Daily Show correspondent John Oliver backstage. "It's mind-blowing how many people turned out," he said. "Let's hope it's funny."
As Oliver checked his lines, he admitted to feeling some anxiety that the show will not translate to such a huge crowd. "Objectively, we think it's going to be pretty funny," he said. "We've been doing shows all week, and it's become very real."
Update 12:40 p.m.: Stewart insists the rally is not political, and many in the crowd embrace his call for "reasonableness."
"I'm really glad this is an optimistic rally. All the other ones are serious. We can just laugh and realize that things aren't so bad," Brian Steele, 19, a student at George Washington Universit,y told USA TODAY's Sara Newman.
Agreed Drew Sarton, 30, of Birmingham, Ala.: "Of all the political rallies, this one makes the most sense. Common sense has been lost. All other rallies are self-aggrandizing."
Update 12:25 p.m.:USA TODAY's Lindsay Deutsch ran into a lucky couple who was flown to the rally and stayed in a Marriott courtesy of Oprah Winfrey.
Ernesto Iglesias and Nicole Anasenas from New York City, were at The Daily Show when Oprah said she would send the entire studio audience to the rally. They brought their 5-month-old baby, Lorenzo, to the rally. He wore a rally towel as a bib.
Iglesias, 35, actually forced Anasenas to go with him to the taping: "It was one of those things. You always tell yourself, 'I never win these things,' then ..." About Lorenzo, he said, "We're here to keep him afraid or sane until he is about 22. We live in the city, so maybe he has to be more fearful."
Anasenas was enjoying the crowd. "It's nice to be around people who more or less share our beliefs. The best sign I've seen says, 'I may not agree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler.' "
Update 12:15 p.m.:John Legend and The Roots are performing now. Stewart is expected around 1 p.m. Other entertainers expected to appear include musician Sheryl Crow, actor Sam Waterston and comedian Don Novello, who years ago played Father Guido Sarducci on Saturday Night Live.
Update noon: The rally is starting. You can watch it at C-SPAN and Comedy Central. And here's a photo gallery that we will be updating through the day. Check back often.
Update 11:40 a.m.: The Mall is bristling with clever signs, USA TODAY's Doug Stanglin reports. Among them:
* The only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- and spiders
* Stand united against signs
* This is my sign
* Rednecks for Obama. Louisiana chapter
* My wife thinks I'm walking the Appalachian trail
* Paul Revere was an anchor baby
* Tea parties are for Mad Hatters
* I'm somewhat irritated about extreme outrage
Update 11:30 a.m.: D.C. -area metro stations are jammed as thousands try to get to the Mall for the rally. Hundreds of people are waiting in line to buy tickets at several suburban Virginia stations, with many bailing out to hail cabs.
At the East Falls Church station in Virginia, about six miles from Washington, two trains passed through completely filled, USA TODAY's Jessica Durando reports. Waiting on the platform, Shane Carlson, 29, said, "We flew from Minnesota to be funny for three hours." The neon yellow sign he holds says, "You're in the matrix."
Some people are managing to squeeze onto trains. Durandoalso talked to Lee Walzer on a train at the Rosslyn station in Arlington, Va., a stop away from D.C. The 47-year-old from Arlington urged people going to the rally to also vote Tuesday.
"It's nice that people are going down to a rally, but if people don't go out and vote on Tuesday, it's not going to preserve the gains and goals that most people going to the rally presumably have," Walzer said. "It's an impressive-sized crowd. It makes you wonder if the enthusiasm of the Republican Party is true. The election results may look different."
A vendor displays badges for sale at the
CAPTION
By Kate Patterson, USA TODAY
Original post: Jon Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity" may have started out for some as a satirical retort to Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally at the Lincoln Memorial, but it is turning into a political event, whether the organizers want it or not.
The best proof: Pundits, media stars and political analysts, some a mite miffed at the interloper from Manhattan, have weighed the meaning of it all, questioning whether jokester Stewart has gone too far and will undercut his appeal by appearing too political, The Washington Post notes.
Some Democrats worry that the extravaganza will take liberals away from the final weekend get-out-the-vote push before Tuesday's midterm elections.
Whatever happens, early signs are that it will be a big draw near the steps of the U.S. Capitol on the National Mall. The "Rally to Restore Sanity" Facebook page lists 230,000 people as saying they will be there and another 100,000 "maybes."
Huffington Post impresario Ariana Huffington leased 200 buses to bring rally goers down to D.C. free from Manhattan. Even Oprah has given a thumbs up.
Travelers from New York who waited too late found Amtrak fully booked for Friday evening and Saturday morning. Even NBC's Andrea Mitchell tweeted that she couldn't get a seat home Friday night.
Some dedicated rallygoers got a jump on Halloween and dressed for the occasion Saturday on the National Mall.
CAPTION
By Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images
Oddly, it is not really clear what will take place today near the steps of the U.S. Capitol on the National Mall.
At his "Rally to Restore Sanity" website, Stewart puts it this way:
Ours is a rally for the people who've been too busy to go to rallies, who actually have lives and families and jobs (or are looking for jobs) — not so much the Silent Majority as the Busy Majority. If we had to sum up the political view of our participants in a single sentence … we couldn't. That's sort of the point.
As for how he plans to fill the noon to 3 p.m. ET rally, Stewart says only that there will be "guests."
On Deadline will be keeping tabs from the National Mall all morning, so check back here for frequent updates.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 10:30 PM
0 comments
At Washington Rally by Two Satirists, Thousands — Billions? — Respond
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and BRIAN STELTER
The New York Times
October 30, 2010
WASHINGTON — It was an early sign that this was not an ordinary political rally: the organizers put the crowd estimate at somewhere between 10 million to 6 billion.
And on the mall, the signs were equally zany. “This is a good sign,” said one sign. “I like Ice Cream,” said another. And a man dressed as a bear wore a t-shirt saying, “Free Bear Hugs.”
Still, it is perhaps a measure of the volatility of American politics that a television comedy show was able to tap something deep among American voters, who turned out in the tens of thousands on Saturday to add their voices to a national political debate that some said had left them behind.
The crowds flooded the National Mall for the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear,” an overwhelming response to a call by Jon Stewart, the political satirist whose comedy show commands a broad, youthful audience of politically engaged Americans. The turn-out clogged traffic, and filled subways and buses to the point of overflow.
And though it was billed as a gathering for civility — a party on a sunny Saturday for people to enjoy thoughtful conversation — for participants it was a serious political affair. Some were canvassing for votes. Others were searching for a message they felt had been lost by Democrats since President Obama was elected in 2008.
"We don’t have any place to turn," said Michelle Sabol, 41, a jewelry designer from Pittsburgh who was wearing a grey cap with a carpenter’s level sewn on top. "Why are these Democrats running away from Obama’s accomplishments? It’s a kick in the gut."
She said that Mr. Stewart and his compatriot, Stephen Colbert, whose show, “The Colbert Report,” airs after Mr. Stewart’s, voiced the bitterness and frustration she felt.
"We came because we feel like this is a safe place to be reasonable," she said.
The rally seemed to be channeling something deep — a craving to be heard and a frustration with the lack of leadership, less by Mr. Obama, some participants said, than by a Democratic party that they saw as timid, fearful, and failing to stand up for the president’s accomplishments.
“I’m proud of Obama, but the Democrats in Congress, they’re just running for cover,” said Ron Harris, a lawyer from Laguna Beach, Calif., who came to celebrate his 64th birthday. “They should be arguing his case.”
He added, “They couldn’t sell bread to a starving mother if God was standing next to them.”
A group of Washington residents printed bumper stickers that read "Give Change a Chance" and handed them out near the National Gallery of Art.
Carol Newmyer, 55, said the bumper stickers were meant to remind people that President Obama has "only had 18 months to turn around a mess."
She said she would go to a Democratic phone bank later in the afternoon to help with get-out-the-vote efforts. "I want to see the heart and soul of the Democrats that elected Obama come out and vote again," she said.
The National Parks Service does not provide estimates of the size of crowds at rallies on the National Mall, but Mr. Stewart estimated the crowd at 10 million. And Mr. Colbert offered his own guess in a Twitter message that read,” "Early estimate of crowd size at Rally: 6 billion. "The rally drew young and old from all over America. A group of students from the University of Kentucky had driven nine hours overnight, and slept in a rest stop by the highway in Maryland to attend. They said the rally made them feel connected.
“We want to say, ‘We exist,’” said Jonathan Erwin, 20, an architecture student. “We have a voice. Jon Stewart is only the enabler.”
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 5:01 PM
0 comments
Enough Game-Playing
Editorial
New York Times
October 29, 2010
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have been suspended for four weeks, about as long as they were on. The more protracted the impasse, the harder it will be for the parties to get back to the negotiating table. More delay only plays into the hands of extremists.
Both sides are at fault. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has refused President Obama’s request to extend a moratorium on construction in the Jewish settlements for a modest 60 days. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has refused to negotiate until building in the settlements stops.
We think the burden is on Mr. Netanyahu to get things moving again. The settlements are illegal under international law, and resuming the moratorium, which expired on Sept. 26, will in no way harm Israel’s national interest. But Mr. Abbas also has to recognize that the issue has become a distraction from the main goal of a broader peace deal. The two leaders must not squander this chance.
Back at the table, their first order of business can be setting the borders of the new Palestinian state. Land swaps were always going to be part of a peace deal, and there is little mystery about what the final map would look like. Once the borders are drawn, it will be clear which West Bank settlements would belong to Israel, and Israel can then resume building in those places.
President Obama made a very generous — too generous, we believe — offer to Israel, to get Mr. Netanyahu to extend the moratorium. It included additional security guarantees and more fighter planes, missile defense, satellites. Mr. Netanyahu still refused, insisting that the hard-line members of his coalition would never go along. He then added to the controversy by proposing that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Many Israelis worry that he is putting too many obstacles in the way of a deal and raising unnecessary questions about Israel’s already accepted identity.
The Palestinians say his demand is intended to negate their insistence on a right of return for Palestinian refugees of the 1948 war — a core peace issue along with borders, security and Jerusalem — before any negotiation takes place. Like borders, there is a compromise to be had on the refugee issue, involving compensation and a limited number of Palestinian returnees. Prejudging it right now is too much.
Palestinians are grasping for another route. The current favorite: asking the United Nations to declare their independent state. That would dangerously fuel tensions. Israeli soldiers would still be in the West Bank and so would 120 Jewish settlements with 500,000 settlers. Palestinians would not have free access to Jerusalem. Seeking a United Nations declaration would alienate Washington and other diplomatic players.
We agree with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. She told the American Task Force on Palestine, an advocacy group that supports peace: “There is no substitute for face-to-face discussion and, ultimately, for an agreement that leads to a just and lasting peace.”
Enough game-playing. Mr. Netanyahu should accept Mr. Obama’s offer and be ready to form a new governing coalition if some current members bolt. Arab states need to do more to nudge Mr. Abbas back to the table and give him the political support he will need to stay there.
Israelis might dismiss the Palestinian threats to go to the United Nations as theatrics. Today they might be. But the Israelis cannot bet on the infinite patience of the Palestinian people — or the international community.
New York Times
October 29, 2010
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have been suspended for four weeks, about as long as they were on. The more protracted the impasse, the harder it will be for the parties to get back to the negotiating table. More delay only plays into the hands of extremists.
Both sides are at fault. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has refused President Obama’s request to extend a moratorium on construction in the Jewish settlements for a modest 60 days. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has refused to negotiate until building in the settlements stops.
We think the burden is on Mr. Netanyahu to get things moving again. The settlements are illegal under international law, and resuming the moratorium, which expired on Sept. 26, will in no way harm Israel’s national interest. But Mr. Abbas also has to recognize that the issue has become a distraction from the main goal of a broader peace deal. The two leaders must not squander this chance.
Back at the table, their first order of business can be setting the borders of the new Palestinian state. Land swaps were always going to be part of a peace deal, and there is little mystery about what the final map would look like. Once the borders are drawn, it will be clear which West Bank settlements would belong to Israel, and Israel can then resume building in those places.
President Obama made a very generous — too generous, we believe — offer to Israel, to get Mr. Netanyahu to extend the moratorium. It included additional security guarantees and more fighter planes, missile defense, satellites. Mr. Netanyahu still refused, insisting that the hard-line members of his coalition would never go along. He then added to the controversy by proposing that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Many Israelis worry that he is putting too many obstacles in the way of a deal and raising unnecessary questions about Israel’s already accepted identity.
The Palestinians say his demand is intended to negate their insistence on a right of return for Palestinian refugees of the 1948 war — a core peace issue along with borders, security and Jerusalem — before any negotiation takes place. Like borders, there is a compromise to be had on the refugee issue, involving compensation and a limited number of Palestinian returnees. Prejudging it right now is too much.
Palestinians are grasping for another route. The current favorite: asking the United Nations to declare their independent state. That would dangerously fuel tensions. Israeli soldiers would still be in the West Bank and so would 120 Jewish settlements with 500,000 settlers. Palestinians would not have free access to Jerusalem. Seeking a United Nations declaration would alienate Washington and other diplomatic players.
We agree with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. She told the American Task Force on Palestine, an advocacy group that supports peace: “There is no substitute for face-to-face discussion and, ultimately, for an agreement that leads to a just and lasting peace.”
Enough game-playing. Mr. Netanyahu should accept Mr. Obama’s offer and be ready to form a new governing coalition if some current members bolt. Arab states need to do more to nudge Mr. Abbas back to the table and give him the political support he will need to stay there.
Israelis might dismiss the Palestinian threats to go to the United Nations as theatrics. Today they might be. But the Israelis cannot bet on the infinite patience of the Palestinian people — or the international community.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 4:59 PM
0 comments
Mr. Mubarak's reversal
Editorial
The Washington Post
Saturday, October 30, 2010; A18
WHEN HE met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in September, President Obama brought up the need for "a vibrant civil society, open political competition, and credible and transparent elections in Egypt," according to a White House summary. It was a well-timed intervention: Egypt's parliamentary elections are scheduled for next month, and a broad pro-democracy movement is pressing for reforms, beginning with the regime's acceptance of domestic and international poll monitors.
Since then Mr. Mubarak has done exactly the opposite of what the president asked. Not only has his government rejected monitoring of the elections, but it has launched a crackdown against opposition movements and the media. More than 260 activists of the Muslim Brotherhood, which won 20 percent of the seats in the last parliamentary election, have been arrested. A leading opposition journalist, Ibrahim Eissa, was fired from the editorship of a newspaper, and a television show he hosted was canceled - moves he attributed to government pressure. Seventeen private television channels have been shut down, and the permits of companies that have enabled live broadcasts of street protests were revoked. The government also imposed new restrictions on text messaging, which has been used by opposition media and organizers.
Mr. Mubarak's tightening sharply contrasts with his behavior during Egypt's last major election season, in 2005. Then he loosened controls on the media, introduced a constitutional amendment allowing the first contested election for president, and released his principal secular challenger from jail. He did all this under heavy pressure from then-President George W. Bush, who had publicly called on Egypt to "lead the way" in Arab political reform.
Egypt's backsliding is not Mr. Obama's fault. But Mr. Mubarak's actions reflect a common calculation across the Middle East: that this U.S. president, unlike his predecessor, is not particularly interested in democratic change. Mr. Obama has exhibited passion on the subject of Israel's West Bank settlements; he and his top aides have publicly pressured, and sometimes castigated, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. If the president is similarly troubled by Mr. Mubarak's defiance, he has yet to show it.
To be sure, lower-level administration officials have spoken up. "These issues of human rights and democracy are vitally important to us," Assistant Secretary of State Michael H. Posner said at a press conference earlier this month in Cairo, during which he discussed the media and election monitoring issues. But Egypt's rulers are used to brushing off State's admonitions. If Mr. Obama is serious about what he said to Mr. Mubarak - and he should be - he will have to give it the same priority and personal attention that he gives to Israel's transgressions.
The Washington Post
Saturday, October 30, 2010; A18
WHEN HE met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in September, President Obama brought up the need for "a vibrant civil society, open political competition, and credible and transparent elections in Egypt," according to a White House summary. It was a well-timed intervention: Egypt's parliamentary elections are scheduled for next month, and a broad pro-democracy movement is pressing for reforms, beginning with the regime's acceptance of domestic and international poll monitors.
Since then Mr. Mubarak has done exactly the opposite of what the president asked. Not only has his government rejected monitoring of the elections, but it has launched a crackdown against opposition movements and the media. More than 260 activists of the Muslim Brotherhood, which won 20 percent of the seats in the last parliamentary election, have been arrested. A leading opposition journalist, Ibrahim Eissa, was fired from the editorship of a newspaper, and a television show he hosted was canceled - moves he attributed to government pressure. Seventeen private television channels have been shut down, and the permits of companies that have enabled live broadcasts of street protests were revoked. The government also imposed new restrictions on text messaging, which has been used by opposition media and organizers.
Mr. Mubarak's tightening sharply contrasts with his behavior during Egypt's last major election season, in 2005. Then he loosened controls on the media, introduced a constitutional amendment allowing the first contested election for president, and released his principal secular challenger from jail. He did all this under heavy pressure from then-President George W. Bush, who had publicly called on Egypt to "lead the way" in Arab political reform.
Egypt's backsliding is not Mr. Obama's fault. But Mr. Mubarak's actions reflect a common calculation across the Middle East: that this U.S. president, unlike his predecessor, is not particularly interested in democratic change. Mr. Obama has exhibited passion on the subject of Israel's West Bank settlements; he and his top aides have publicly pressured, and sometimes castigated, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. If the president is similarly troubled by Mr. Mubarak's defiance, he has yet to show it.
To be sure, lower-level administration officials have spoken up. "These issues of human rights and democracy are vitally important to us," Assistant Secretary of State Michael H. Posner said at a press conference earlier this month in Cairo, during which he discussed the media and election monitoring issues. But Egypt's rulers are used to brushing off State's admonitions. If Mr. Obama is serious about what he said to Mr. Mubarak - and he should be - he will have to give it the same priority and personal attention that he gives to Israel's transgressions.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 4:45 PM
0 comments
Wikileaks Docs Underestimate Iraqi Dead
By John Tirman
October 30, 2010 "AlterNet" Oct, 26, 2010 -- The nearly 400,000 documents on the Iraq War released by Wikileaks last Friday has stirred an unusual flurry of attention to the persistent brutalizing of civilians during the war, a topic forsaken by the major news media when the conflict was raging. But the English-language newspapers provided with the documents in advance -- the New York Times and the Guardian (London) -- are again misunderstanding the scope of the war’s mayhem.
The revelations about the U.S. military turning a blind eye to abuse of detainees and the rampaging of private security contractors, most of them American firms like Xe (aka Blackwater) are disturbing, to be sure, if not exactly surprising. The pattern of American commanders’ misleading statements or outright dishonesty, which Wikileaks’ release of documents from the Afghanistan war last summer already amply demonstrated, is now becoming a military tradition. But the headlines, for once, focused on the death tolls of civilians. This is refreshing, since the Times and other major news media in the U.S. have only grudgingly addressed Iraqi suffering, and even then in peculiarly misinformed ways.
For all their value, the newly leaked documents will, unfortunately, reinforce the lower estimates of Iraqi mortality. The reports raise the number of civilians killed by about 15,000 over the estimate of Iraq Body Count (IBC), a London-based NGO. IBC’s count, however widely cited, is accumulated by scanning mainly English-language news media reports. It’s a crude method, given that not all deaths are reported in the news media, the number of reporters and their interests change over time, and most of the press was stuck in Baghdad during the most severe violence in 2004-07. IBC itself acknowledges that they are probably low by a factor of two, meaning their count should be 200,000 and the new data would make that at least 215,000. Even then, IBC does not count “insurgents” or security forces, or non-violent deaths that are attributable to the war.
The news reports stirred by Wikileaks’ documents accepted the low IBC count as the baseline and did not bother to suggest that other, more credible estimates have been much higher. The lead story in the Times said that the new count “suggest numbers that are roughly in line with those compiled by several sources, including Iraq Body Count.” Those “several” other sources, likely the U.N. office in Baghdad and the Brookings Index compiled by Michael O’Hanlon (which the Times runs as a regular op-ed), use roughly the same method as IBC and the military, so it is hardly validating to find them in agreement. The Associated Press stories were also using the low numbers.
Counting casualties is a tricky business, especially in the midst of a nasty sectarian war that was essentially enabled by an occupying force. The methods used by IBC and the others are “passive” surveillance: they rely on reporting (from journalists, morgues, and now soldiers) that is not able to capture more than a fraction of all fatalities. For example, only those killed who are not immediately known (and taken by family) go to a morgue. As noted, journalists were mainly in Baghdad, but most violence occurred elsewhere. And the information released by Wikileaks are from U.S. soldiers in their “after action” reports, meaning that they had to be involved in or near to the violence, and had to report it correctly (identifying the dead as civilians, not all insurgents, and they were wont to do), if indeed they did so at all. Other violence would go unreported.
The most important point here is that by using passive surveillance, one never knows what deaths are being missed. The Times admitted these shortcomings: “The reports were only as good as the soldiers calling them in.” But it still left the impression that the death toll likely stood at about 115,000 civilians.
There were other estimates, of course, which relied on a proven method in epidemiology, a population-based survey in which qualified researchers would visit randomly selected households and ask questions to gauge the level of killing. Several such surveys have been taken in Iraq. Two, in fact, used this method at almost exactly the same time -- in mid-2006 -- with one managed by researchers at the John Hopkins School of Public Health (and commissioned by a program I run at MIT), and the other by the Iraqi Ministry of Health. Both found much higher numbers, although the surveys’ data do not agree in some important respects. Still, the Hopkins survey found 650,000 “excess deaths” from the war, including violent and non-violent causes, with the MoH at 400,000. And both were done well before the violence and other impacts -- a crippled health care system, poor hygiene, etc. -- took many more lives. Both measured all Iraqi deaths, not just civilians, especially important in a conflict where the line between civilian and “insurgent” is often blurry.
The most authoritative review of all the mortality estimates -- passive and active -- appeared in the professional journal Conflict and Health in March 2008, and concluded that population-based surveys are superior (for the reasons discussed here), and that “of the population-based studies, the [Hopkins] studies provided the most rigorous methodology.” The passive reporting, these experts agree, suffers from under-reporting and inability to capture indirect deaths, and thereby called into question the estimates of IBC, the Brookings index, the U.N. office in Baghdad, and other such efforts.
There is also the matter of corroborating evidence, which typically is overlooked. Two pieces in particular are powerful. The first is the number of displaced Iraqis, estimated between 3.5 and 5 million. Hundreds of interviews of those in Syria and Jordan suggest nearly all fled because of violence in their neighborhoods. No war has produced more than about a 10 to 1 ratio of displaced to dead, and in most wars the ratio is about 5 to 1 or narrower. The 5 to 1 ratio would translate into at least 700,000 deaths in Iraq.
The second and less reliable number is the overwhelming number of widows, some from earlier wars, which the Iraqi government has variously estimated at about 750,000.
The evidence, then, is rather clear and compelling. Something like 700,000 or more Iraqis have been killed either through direct or “structural” violence in the period since the U.S. invaded more than seven years ago. The number could easily be as high as a million. Most were killed by other Iraqis, or the deplorable conditions that wars wreak and persist in Iraq.
Do the numbers matter? Are 115,000 less morally onerous than a million? Well, yes. But that is not the point here. The major news media in this country supported the invasion. It’s an embarrassment that the war was not only fought on false premises that they in effect promoted, but that the consequences have been so devastating, with more fatalities than were attributed to Saddam Hussein.
What else explains this negligence apart from stubborn unwillingness to learn the science of conflict mortality? Possibly, they fear a right-wing backlash or government opprobrium. But this cowardice has its consequences, too. For more than a year, the Republicans have woven a victory narrative about Iraq, and arguing that shaky case is easier with the lower mortality figures. Whether the American public cares about the deaths of others is a debatable proposition. But the media’s negligence surely serves to make the next invasion easier.
John Tirman is Executive Director of MIT's Center for International Studies.
October 30, 2010 "AlterNet" Oct, 26, 2010 -- The nearly 400,000 documents on the Iraq War released by Wikileaks last Friday has stirred an unusual flurry of attention to the persistent brutalizing of civilians during the war, a topic forsaken by the major news media when the conflict was raging. But the English-language newspapers provided with the documents in advance -- the New York Times and the Guardian (London) -- are again misunderstanding the scope of the war’s mayhem.
The revelations about the U.S. military turning a blind eye to abuse of detainees and the rampaging of private security contractors, most of them American firms like Xe (aka Blackwater) are disturbing, to be sure, if not exactly surprising. The pattern of American commanders’ misleading statements or outright dishonesty, which Wikileaks’ release of documents from the Afghanistan war last summer already amply demonstrated, is now becoming a military tradition. But the headlines, for once, focused on the death tolls of civilians. This is refreshing, since the Times and other major news media in the U.S. have only grudgingly addressed Iraqi suffering, and even then in peculiarly misinformed ways.
For all their value, the newly leaked documents will, unfortunately, reinforce the lower estimates of Iraqi mortality. The reports raise the number of civilians killed by about 15,000 over the estimate of Iraq Body Count (IBC), a London-based NGO. IBC’s count, however widely cited, is accumulated by scanning mainly English-language news media reports. It’s a crude method, given that not all deaths are reported in the news media, the number of reporters and their interests change over time, and most of the press was stuck in Baghdad during the most severe violence in 2004-07. IBC itself acknowledges that they are probably low by a factor of two, meaning their count should be 200,000 and the new data would make that at least 215,000. Even then, IBC does not count “insurgents” or security forces, or non-violent deaths that are attributable to the war.
The news reports stirred by Wikileaks’ documents accepted the low IBC count as the baseline and did not bother to suggest that other, more credible estimates have been much higher. The lead story in the Times said that the new count “suggest numbers that are roughly in line with those compiled by several sources, including Iraq Body Count.” Those “several” other sources, likely the U.N. office in Baghdad and the Brookings Index compiled by Michael O’Hanlon (which the Times runs as a regular op-ed), use roughly the same method as IBC and the military, so it is hardly validating to find them in agreement. The Associated Press stories were also using the low numbers.
Counting casualties is a tricky business, especially in the midst of a nasty sectarian war that was essentially enabled by an occupying force. The methods used by IBC and the others are “passive” surveillance: they rely on reporting (from journalists, morgues, and now soldiers) that is not able to capture more than a fraction of all fatalities. For example, only those killed who are not immediately known (and taken by family) go to a morgue. As noted, journalists were mainly in Baghdad, but most violence occurred elsewhere. And the information released by Wikileaks are from U.S. soldiers in their “after action” reports, meaning that they had to be involved in or near to the violence, and had to report it correctly (identifying the dead as civilians, not all insurgents, and they were wont to do), if indeed they did so at all. Other violence would go unreported.
The most important point here is that by using passive surveillance, one never knows what deaths are being missed. The Times admitted these shortcomings: “The reports were only as good as the soldiers calling them in.” But it still left the impression that the death toll likely stood at about 115,000 civilians.
There were other estimates, of course, which relied on a proven method in epidemiology, a population-based survey in which qualified researchers would visit randomly selected households and ask questions to gauge the level of killing. Several such surveys have been taken in Iraq. Two, in fact, used this method at almost exactly the same time -- in mid-2006 -- with one managed by researchers at the John Hopkins School of Public Health (and commissioned by a program I run at MIT), and the other by the Iraqi Ministry of Health. Both found much higher numbers, although the surveys’ data do not agree in some important respects. Still, the Hopkins survey found 650,000 “excess deaths” from the war, including violent and non-violent causes, with the MoH at 400,000. And both were done well before the violence and other impacts -- a crippled health care system, poor hygiene, etc. -- took many more lives. Both measured all Iraqi deaths, not just civilians, especially important in a conflict where the line between civilian and “insurgent” is often blurry.
The most authoritative review of all the mortality estimates -- passive and active -- appeared in the professional journal Conflict and Health in March 2008, and concluded that population-based surveys are superior (for the reasons discussed here), and that “of the population-based studies, the [Hopkins] studies provided the most rigorous methodology.” The passive reporting, these experts agree, suffers from under-reporting and inability to capture indirect deaths, and thereby called into question the estimates of IBC, the Brookings index, the U.N. office in Baghdad, and other such efforts.
There is also the matter of corroborating evidence, which typically is overlooked. Two pieces in particular are powerful. The first is the number of displaced Iraqis, estimated between 3.5 and 5 million. Hundreds of interviews of those in Syria and Jordan suggest nearly all fled because of violence in their neighborhoods. No war has produced more than about a 10 to 1 ratio of displaced to dead, and in most wars the ratio is about 5 to 1 or narrower. The 5 to 1 ratio would translate into at least 700,000 deaths in Iraq.
The second and less reliable number is the overwhelming number of widows, some from earlier wars, which the Iraqi government has variously estimated at about 750,000.
The evidence, then, is rather clear and compelling. Something like 700,000 or more Iraqis have been killed either through direct or “structural” violence in the period since the U.S. invaded more than seven years ago. The number could easily be as high as a million. Most were killed by other Iraqis, or the deplorable conditions that wars wreak and persist in Iraq.
Do the numbers matter? Are 115,000 less morally onerous than a million? Well, yes. But that is not the point here. The major news media in this country supported the invasion. It’s an embarrassment that the war was not only fought on false premises that they in effect promoted, but that the consequences have been so devastating, with more fatalities than were attributed to Saddam Hussein.
What else explains this negligence apart from stubborn unwillingness to learn the science of conflict mortality? Possibly, they fear a right-wing backlash or government opprobrium. But this cowardice has its consequences, too. For more than a year, the Republicans have woven a victory narrative about Iraq, and arguing that shaky case is easier with the lower mortality figures. Whether the American public cares about the deaths of others is a debatable proposition. But the media’s negligence surely serves to make the next invasion easier.
John Tirman is Executive Director of MIT's Center for International Studies.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 4:35 PM
0 comments
Some Israelis Hoping for A GOP Win, But Will History Repeat Itself?
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 3:59 PM
0 comments
Naked conspiracy
Ackerman says ‘first class team’ of 5 Jewish, pro-Israel congressional chairs has ‘major, major, major influence’ on Obamaby
on October 29, 2010
The Forward's Nathan Guttman has a fine piece of reporting up about how the Israeli right is hoping that the Congress will change hands next week. The best part of the piece is where the Congressional Democrats protest, Hey we love Israel just as much, even more! Read this with your eyes open. I know, that's hard. The juice comes at the end.
And tell me, will Gary Ackerman have to eat his words, or lose his job, ala Rick Sanchez and Helen Thomas? Will Howard Berman, Henry Waxman, Sander Levin, or Barney Frank speak a word of criticism? Will the Obama administration?
And you ask why the Obama administration folded on settlements? Our politics are broken.
A Congressional Democratic staff member pointed also to the impact a switch to a Republican majority could have on coordination between the White House and Congress. Recently, the administration has worked closely on Iran sanctions legislation with Howard Berman, the Democratic chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. At the request of the White House, Berman delayed a vote on sanctions legislation, despite Republican pressure, until the administration completed international consultations that led to a United Nations resolution on this issue. It is not clear if Florida Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is expected to chair the committee if her party wins the majority, would act in the same way.
Citing the sanctions bill as an example, New York Democrat Gary Ackerman, argued that Israel’s best bet for addressing any concerns about Obama’s policy would be for Democrats to retain power. “I’m not saying that if the Republicans take the House it would be doomsday for Israel, but if they want positive influence on the White House, that’s us,” said Ackerman, who chairs the subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Ackerman and other Jewish Democrats point to the forceful criticisms they conveyed to the White House when they thought that Obama was leaning too hard on Israel.
“If you need the president, you need us as chairs of the committees,” Ackerman said as he listed what he called the “first-class team” of Jewish pro-Israel Democrats who chair key House committees: Berman at Foreign Affairs, Barney Frank at Financial Services, Henry Waxman at the Energy and Commerce committee, Sander Levin at Ways and Means, and Ackerman himself in his role as head of the Middle East subcommittee. “We are all pro-Israel and we all have major, major, major influence in the executive branch.”
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 3:55 PM
0 comments
Republicans urge Obama to prevent Palestinian state recognition
As Congressional midterm elections approach, Republican representatives call on US president not to reward 'Palestinian behavior,' warn UN resolution on Palestinian state would hurt peace efforts
Yitzhak Benhorin
Yedioth Internet/Israel News
10.30.10
WASHINGTON – Republican members of the House of Representatives have written a letter to US President Barack Obama in which they urge him to veto any attempt to pass a Security Council resolution recognizing a Palestinian state, which they said would predetermine the results of peace negotiations.
A UN resolution would cause serious damage to peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, they said.
The Republican representatives are blaming the president of causing the Palestinians to threaten to turn to the UN by publicly demanding Israel to halt settlement construction.
The letter was sent following recent reports on a Palestinian plan to turn to the UN for a vote on the establishment of a Palestinian state should direct talks reach a dead end.
It is estimated that the republicans will win a majority in the House of Representatives Tuesday at the Congressional midterm elections.
The letter noted that Israel's decision to halt West Bank settlement construction for 10 months was not only a gesture of goodwill meant to encourage the Palestinians to resume negotiations, but was extremely unpopular with many in Israel.
It was stated that the Palestinians never conditioned direct talks with a freeze of settlement construction.
The republicans said that a UN resolution regarding a Palestinian state would have a devastating effect on peace prospects. By turning to the UN the Palestinians are trying to avoid meeting their commitments and advancing negotiations with Israel, they said. "The US must not reward such behavior," the letter noted.
They also called Obama to support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's demand from the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Yitzhak Benhorin
Yedioth Internet/Israel News
10.30.10
WASHINGTON – Republican members of the House of Representatives have written a letter to US President Barack Obama in which they urge him to veto any attempt to pass a Security Council resolution recognizing a Palestinian state, which they said would predetermine the results of peace negotiations.
A UN resolution would cause serious damage to peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, they said.
The Republican representatives are blaming the president of causing the Palestinians to threaten to turn to the UN by publicly demanding Israel to halt settlement construction.
The letter was sent following recent reports on a Palestinian plan to turn to the UN for a vote on the establishment of a Palestinian state should direct talks reach a dead end.
It is estimated that the republicans will win a majority in the House of Representatives Tuesday at the Congressional midterm elections.
The letter noted that Israel's decision to halt West Bank settlement construction for 10 months was not only a gesture of goodwill meant to encourage the Palestinians to resume negotiations, but was extremely unpopular with many in Israel.
It was stated that the Palestinians never conditioned direct talks with a freeze of settlement construction.
The republicans said that a UN resolution regarding a Palestinian state would have a devastating effect on peace prospects. By turning to the UN the Palestinians are trying to avoid meeting their commitments and advancing negotiations with Israel, they said. "The US must not reward such behavior," the letter noted.
They also called Obama to support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's demand from the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 3:27 PM
0 comments
Income disequilibrium
The top 74 Americans earned an average of $518 million in the economic troubling year of 2009. Top 1 percent earned 14 percent of all earnings in 2009 versus 11 percent in 1989.
The disappearing middle class in the United States is a troubling consequence of the culmination of economic and political policies of many decades. There is a sense, and probably why so much frustration is out in the country, that the once comfortable life of being middle class is slowly slipping through our hands. The American public senses something is amiss with the economic system and clearly is not happy. When we look at income data from the Social Security Administration records, we realize that even in years that Americans have suffered greatly, the wealthiest in our country actually became a lot richer. The jump is incredible and begs the question that in a year where millions lost their jobs and witnessed collapsing home values how was it possible for a few to make hundreds of millions of dollars and sometimes billions of dollars? Let us first examine the income data for this elite group.
Social Security provides data on taxes paid by each income group. This is a great way to view the cutoff points for many Americans. The top bracket is reserved for those making $50 million a year or more:
Source: Social Security Administration
I find the above data fascinating. In 2008 we had 131 Americans earning $50 million or more and the average amount earned was $91 million. In 2009 however the group shrank to 74 and the average was up to $518 million. How someone could earn half a billion dollars in this economic calamity begs the question of how people are earning their money. We know, that there are many hedge funds on Wall Street, many as opaque as night that makes money betting on the failure of U.S. economy. A few well known hedge funders have come out with their giant bets on the subprime industry and made billions of dollars. Yet this bet was not free or purely free market play. On the other side of the bet, the companies and banks that should have failed were bailed out by taxpayers. In other words, this was a rigged system that had a societal cost and those that won big really provided no service to the country. In fact, they were the fuel that kept the housing bubble going longer and longer because someone was willing to bet on the failure of Americans. Ironically it is the failed American public that is paying the big bet payoff.
The above chart is only one corner of our economy with major problems. Many of the top earners in the U.S. now have little to do with producing anything of value. Many are simply glorified gamblers and manipulators of government policy. Think of the bailouts of Goldman Sachs through AIG. This didn’t need to occur yet it cost taxpayers billions of dollars for this move. The rich are getting richer but it is at the cost of the working and middle class. It would be one thing if the economic pie was growing for everyone else. It isn’t. How so? Just look at total wage compensation for the following years:
So overall, the amount subject to Federal income taxes in 2009 fell for the aggregate of the country yet shot up for the wealthiest in the country. It would be one thing if this was increasing and was increasing across the middle class. To the contrary, over the past decade wages for middle class families have remained stagnant and the latest Census data shows that the average median household income in the U.S. is $50,000 and that is a drop of $2,000 from the previous year.
The last time we saw this kind of income inequality was in the year that brought on the Great Depression. Yet after the crash of 1929 the rampant embezzlement from Wall Street was reigned in to a certain degree. Today, that massive fraud not only continues but rewards those at the top at the expense of all others. American worker productivity has gone up over the last decade but wages have not. Companies say they operate in a free market but they don’t. China artificially keeps its currency low and U.S. policymakers complain but what can you do to your largest creditor that allows you to finance your new plutocracy? The public is starting to follow the money and not the rhetoric.
Here is an interesting break down of where things have gone:
2009
Top 1 percent: Begins at incomes greater than $200,000
Total earnings share of all country: 14%
1989
Top 1 percent: Begins at incomes greater than $100,000
Total earnings share of all country: 11%
The above is crucial because it shows the growing plutocracy in the country. I would go further back but the data on the Social Security site only goes to 1989. If we go further back the inequality only grows. The top 1 percent in 2009 earned 14 percent of all income (and this is only the income that is subject to Federal taxes but we know with the multitude of loopholes, not all is subject to pay or even that the government knows about).
Unless something is done to address the flaws in the system, we are going to see that the number one export provide by the United States is our middle class.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 3:22 PM
0 comments
Road to Corporate Serfdom
by Ralph Nader
CommonDreams.org
Saturday, October 30, 2010
It was Bill Clinton’s campaign strategist, James Carville, who in 1992 created the election slogan: “It’s the Economy, Stupid.” For the 2010 Congressional campaigns, the slogan should have been: “It’s Corporate Crime and Control, Stupid.”
But notwithstanding the latest corporate crime wave, the devastating fallout on workers, investors and taxpayers from the greed and corruption of Wall Street, and the abandonment of American workers by U.S. corporations in favor of repressive regimes abroad, the Democrats have failed to focus voter anger on the corporate supremacists.
The giant corporate control of our country is so vast that people who call themselves anything politically—liberal, conservative, progressive, libertarian, independents or anarchist—should be banding together against the reckless Big Business steamroller.
Conservatives need to remember the sharply critical cautions against misbehaving or over-reaching businesses and commercialism by Adam Smith, Frederic Bastiat, Friedrich Hayek and other famous conservative intellectuals. All knew that the commercial instinct and drive know few boundaries to the relentless stomping or destruction of the basic civic values for any civilized society.
When eighty percent of the Americans polled believe ‘America is in decline,’ they are reflecting in part the decline of real household income and the shattered bargaining power of American workers up against global companies.
The U.S. won World War II. Germany lost and was devastated. Yet note this remarkable headline in the October 27th Washington Post: “A Bargain for BMW means jobs for 1,000 in S. Carolina: Workers line up for $15 an hour—half of what German counterparts make.”
The German plant is backed by South Carolina taxpayer subsidies and is not unionized. Newly hired workers at General Motors and Chrysler, recently bailed out by taxpayers, are paid $14 an hour before deductions. The auto companies used to be in the upper tier of high paying manufacturing jobs. Now the U.S. is a low-wage country compared to some countries in Western Europe and the trend here is continuing downward.
Workers in their fifties at the BMW plant, subsidizing their lower wages with their tax dollars, aren’t openly complaining, according to the Post. Not surprising, since the alternative in a falling economy is unemployment or a fast food job at $8 per hour.
It is not as if we weren’t forewarned by our illustrious political forebears Fasten your seat belts; here are some examples:
Thomas Jefferson—“I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
Abraham Lincoln in 1864—“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. …corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.” (1864)
Theodore Roosevelt—“The citizens of the United States must control the mighty commercial forces which they themselves call into being.”
Woodrow Wilson—“Big business is not dangerous because it is big, but because its bigness is an unwholesome inflation created by privileges and exemptions which it ought not to enjoy.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt—“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.”
Dwight Eisenhower, farewell address—“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
And, lastly, a literary insight:
Theodore Dreiser—“The government has ceased to function, the corporations are the government.”
Are you, dear reader, the same now as you were when you began reading this column?
CommonDreams.org
Saturday, October 30, 2010
It was Bill Clinton’s campaign strategist, James Carville, who in 1992 created the election slogan: “It’s the Economy, Stupid.” For the 2010 Congressional campaigns, the slogan should have been: “It’s Corporate Crime and Control, Stupid.”
But notwithstanding the latest corporate crime wave, the devastating fallout on workers, investors and taxpayers from the greed and corruption of Wall Street, and the abandonment of American workers by U.S. corporations in favor of repressive regimes abroad, the Democrats have failed to focus voter anger on the corporate supremacists.
The giant corporate control of our country is so vast that people who call themselves anything politically—liberal, conservative, progressive, libertarian, independents or anarchist—should be banding together against the reckless Big Business steamroller.
Conservatives need to remember the sharply critical cautions against misbehaving or over-reaching businesses and commercialism by Adam Smith, Frederic Bastiat, Friedrich Hayek and other famous conservative intellectuals. All knew that the commercial instinct and drive know few boundaries to the relentless stomping or destruction of the basic civic values for any civilized society.
When eighty percent of the Americans polled believe ‘America is in decline,’ they are reflecting in part the decline of real household income and the shattered bargaining power of American workers up against global companies.
The U.S. won World War II. Germany lost and was devastated. Yet note this remarkable headline in the October 27th Washington Post: “A Bargain for BMW means jobs for 1,000 in S. Carolina: Workers line up for $15 an hour—half of what German counterparts make.”
The German plant is backed by South Carolina taxpayer subsidies and is not unionized. Newly hired workers at General Motors and Chrysler, recently bailed out by taxpayers, are paid $14 an hour before deductions. The auto companies used to be in the upper tier of high paying manufacturing jobs. Now the U.S. is a low-wage country compared to some countries in Western Europe and the trend here is continuing downward.
Workers in their fifties at the BMW plant, subsidizing their lower wages with their tax dollars, aren’t openly complaining, according to the Post. Not surprising, since the alternative in a falling economy is unemployment or a fast food job at $8 per hour.
It is not as if we weren’t forewarned by our illustrious political forebears Fasten your seat belts; here are some examples:
Thomas Jefferson—“I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
Abraham Lincoln in 1864—“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. …corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.” (1864)
Theodore Roosevelt—“The citizens of the United States must control the mighty commercial forces which they themselves call into being.”
Woodrow Wilson—“Big business is not dangerous because it is big, but because its bigness is an unwholesome inflation created by privileges and exemptions which it ought not to enjoy.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt—“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.”
Dwight Eisenhower, farewell address—“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
And, lastly, a literary insight:
Theodore Dreiser—“The government has ceased to function, the corporations are the government.”
Are you, dear reader, the same now as you were when you began reading this column?
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 3:16 PM
0 comments
George Bush Thought 9/11 Plane Had Been Shot Down on His Orders
Memoirs reveal former US president gave order to shoot down any hijacked planes before United Airlines flight 93 crashed
by James Meikle
The Guardian/UK
Friday, October 29, 2010
George Bush initially believed the only plane not to reach its intended target during the 11 September ttacks had been shot down on his orders, according to leaks from the former president's memoir of his two terms in office.
[George Bush initially thought United Airlines flight 93 had been shot down in Pennsylvania. (Photograph: Jason Reed/Reuters)]George Bush initially thought United Airlines flight 93 had been shot down in Pennsylvania. (Photograph: Jason Reed/Reuters)
Bush reveals that he gave the order for any further suspected hijacked planes to be shot down after the first aircraft were flown into the World Trade Centre in New York during the 2001 terror attacks.
He at first thought the crash of United Airlines flight 93 in Pennsylvania had resulted from this instruction, although it later emerged that passengers had stormed the cockpit as hijackers flew the plane towards the Capitol building in Washington.
The memoir, Decision Points, is due to be published on 9 November, in the aftermath of the US midterm elections, and Bush is already lined up for interviews on the Oprah Winfrey and NBC Today shows.
The Drudge Report website says the very personal book opens with the line: "It was a simple question: 'Can you remember the last day you didn't have a drink?'" as Bush deals with the well-known issue of his alcohol consumption.
His drinking has previously been said to have come to an end when he woke up with a hangover following his 40th birthday celebrations.
In a chapter about stem cell research, he describes receiving a letter from Nancy Reagan detailing a "wrenching family journey", but says: "I did feel a responsibility to voice my pro-life convictions and lead the country toward what Pope John Paul II called a culture of life."
Bush goes on to describes an emotional July 2001 meeting with the Pope, who had Parkinson's disease, at the pontiff's summer residence.
The Pope reportedly recognised the promise of science but implored Bush to support life in all its forms.
At the pontiff's funeral in 2005, Bush - after a reminder from his wife, Laura, that it was a time to "pray for miracles" - said a prayer for the ABC news anchor Peter Jennings, who had cancer.
The book is said to stay clear of criticising Barack Obama, and a source told the Drudge Report: "You will find the president strong, loving life, and ultimately at peace with the decisions he made."
by James Meikle
The Guardian/UK
Friday, October 29, 2010
George Bush initially believed the only plane not to reach its intended target during the 11 September ttacks had been shot down on his orders, according to leaks from the former president's memoir of his two terms in office.
[George Bush initially thought United Airlines flight 93 had been shot down in Pennsylvania. (Photograph: Jason Reed/Reuters)]George Bush initially thought United Airlines flight 93 had been shot down in Pennsylvania. (Photograph: Jason Reed/Reuters)
Bush reveals that he gave the order for any further suspected hijacked planes to be shot down after the first aircraft were flown into the World Trade Centre in New York during the 2001 terror attacks.
He at first thought the crash of United Airlines flight 93 in Pennsylvania had resulted from this instruction, although it later emerged that passengers had stormed the cockpit as hijackers flew the plane towards the Capitol building in Washington.
The memoir, Decision Points, is due to be published on 9 November, in the aftermath of the US midterm elections, and Bush is already lined up for interviews on the Oprah Winfrey and NBC Today shows.
The Drudge Report website says the very personal book opens with the line: "It was a simple question: 'Can you remember the last day you didn't have a drink?'" as Bush deals with the well-known issue of his alcohol consumption.
His drinking has previously been said to have come to an end when he woke up with a hangover following his 40th birthday celebrations.
In a chapter about stem cell research, he describes receiving a letter from Nancy Reagan detailing a "wrenching family journey", but says: "I did feel a responsibility to voice my pro-life convictions and lead the country toward what Pope John Paul II called a culture of life."
Bush goes on to describes an emotional July 2001 meeting with the Pope, who had Parkinson's disease, at the pontiff's summer residence.
The Pope reportedly recognised the promise of science but implored Bush to support life in all its forms.
At the pontiff's funeral in 2005, Bush - after a reminder from his wife, Laura, that it was a time to "pray for miracles" - said a prayer for the ABC news anchor Peter Jennings, who had cancer.
The book is said to stay clear of criticising Barack Obama, and a source told the Drudge Report: "You will find the president strong, loving life, and ultimately at peace with the decisions he made."
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 3:13 PM
0 comments
Worldwide Concentration of Wealth: Middle East
Capgemini U.S. LLC In Collaboration with Merrill Lynch Wealth Management
Regional Facts: Middle East
The rate of growth in the size and wealth of the Middle East's HNWI population was slower than in other regions, largely due to the impact of the Dubai crisis and the modest performance of key drivers of wealth.
* In 2009, Middle East HNWI population and wealth grew by only 7.1% and 5.1% respectively.
* The United Arab Emirates (UAE) lost around 19% of its HNWI population in 2009, mainly due to the crisis in Dubai and the significant fall (-48.0%) in real estate prices.
* In the Middle East, HNWI holdings of real estate dropped to 23% of all investments from 25% in 2008 as hotspots such as Dubai experienced a major slump in demand.
* Foreign currency investment was much greater in the Middle East (20% of alternative investment allocations) than the global HNWI average (13%) as HNWIs in the region sought to hedge against local currency fluctuations.
* Middle East HNWIs dedicated 21% of their real-estate portfolios to farmland and undeveloped property in 2009, far more than the 14% average, largely because undeveloped land has been in such high speculative demand during the real-estate boom in recent years.
* Real GDP contracted 2.7% in the UAE in 2009, while it remained relatively flat (0.2%) in Saudi Arabia.
* Market-capitalization growth was relatively modest in Saudi Arabia and the UAE in 2009 (29.2% and 16.6% respectively).
Regional Facts: Middle East
The rate of growth in the size and wealth of the Middle East's HNWI population was slower than in other regions, largely due to the impact of the Dubai crisis and the modest performance of key drivers of wealth.
* In 2009, Middle East HNWI population and wealth grew by only 7.1% and 5.1% respectively.
* The United Arab Emirates (UAE) lost around 19% of its HNWI population in 2009, mainly due to the crisis in Dubai and the significant fall (-48.0%) in real estate prices.
* In the Middle East, HNWI holdings of real estate dropped to 23% of all investments from 25% in 2008 as hotspots such as Dubai experienced a major slump in demand.
* Foreign currency investment was much greater in the Middle East (20% of alternative investment allocations) than the global HNWI average (13%) as HNWIs in the region sought to hedge against local currency fluctuations.
* Middle East HNWIs dedicated 21% of their real-estate portfolios to farmland and undeveloped property in 2009, far more than the 14% average, largely because undeveloped land has been in such high speculative demand during the real-estate boom in recent years.
* Real GDP contracted 2.7% in the UAE in 2009, while it remained relatively flat (0.2%) in Saudi Arabia.
* Market-capitalization growth was relatively modest in Saudi Arabia and the UAE in 2009 (29.2% and 16.6% respectively).
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 3:01 PM
0 comments
Worldwide Concentration of Wealth
What the Figures Say
By DANIEL RAVENTÓS
CounterPunch
October 29 - 31, 2010
Studies on poverty and the poor abound but studies on wealth and the wealthy are not so plentiful. Around the world, university departments of Sociology, Politics, Philosophy and Economics, academic publications in the social sciences, a host of government departments, statistical institutions, a lot of city councils, periodical publications, international organisms, and so on, churn out vast quantities of reports, studies, doctoral theses, statistics and articles on the most incredible aspects of poverty. Some are good and useful. The well-known spokeswoman and founding member of ATTAC, Susan George, sums up the situation with no little sarcasm. "The poor? Let them eat the research!"
The rich are better protected from awkward investigations that might expose in any well-documented way the increasingly greater inequalities that are made possible and encouraged by the political and economic design of our societies. In some countries of Europe, even where the banks have been the most reckless in their lending policy, blame for the crisis is shifted to the workers in the name of "high labour costs". The next step is to rebuild the banks' loan reserves at the expense of the workers with new policy and laws permitting private companies and the public sector to cut wages, sack workers at will, scale back pensions and slash social spending. This has only deepened the social divide and is nothing short of class war. However these moves are dressed up (the impossibility of doing anything different, economic realism (sic), or even, surreally, as left-wing policy), the economic policies of the last few weeks are designed to benefit the rich with a counterpart logic of further privation and inroads on the already precarious living conditions of the poor and the working classes.
Since data on the rich are so scant, documents like the annual report published by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini on wealth and its deforciants are of unquestionable interest when it comes to finding out about the present state of things. The very well-known company Merrill Lynch was acquired two years ago by the Bank of America for 44,000 million dollars. Capgemini, a company that is rather less famous than Merrill Lynch, with more than 90,000 employees around the globe and a declared gross income of 8,400 million euros in 2009, states that it provides consultancy, technological and outsourcing services. Merrill Lynch and Capgemini work for the rich. It is not surprising, then, that they need to have good knowledge of the main target of their business. Hence they produce annual reports on the situation of the rich and their wealth, providing extremely interesting data. The last available report on world-wide wealth was that recently published by the two companies in 2010, offering data from 2009 and previous years. They have also published an "Asia-Pacific Wealth Report". The data discussed below come from these two reports and the world report from 2009.
The Merrill Lynch and Capgemini reports offer definitions of the rich on whom their reports are based. Some are designated as HNWIs (High New Worth Individuals), while others are UHNWIs (where the U stands for Ultra). The former are those who have assets of over a million dollars not counting primary residence, collectibles, consumables, and consumer durables. Hence these reports aim to assess what the rich have in terms of ready cash and assets that are easily and rapidly turned into cash. The same definition applies to the Ultra-HNWIs but their assets start from 30 million dollars. These definitions make it clear that they refer to people of a much greater effective wealth than the starting level of one or thirty million dollars, as adding the excluded assets would show.
According to the Merrill Lynch and Capgemini definitions there were 8.8 million HNWIs in the world in 2005, a figure that rose to 9.5 million in 2006 and 10.1 million in 2007. In 2008, with the onset of the economic crisis, the figure dropped to just below 2005 levels, with 8.6 million HNWIs around the world. By 2009, it had risen again to 10 million, almost the same as in 2007, the year before the crisis. In these years, the joint wealth of these individuals worldwide was 33.4 trillion dollars in 2005, 37.2 trillion in 2006, 40.7 trillion in 2007, falling to 32.8 trillion in 2008. In 2009, with the crisis now full-blown, it rose again to 39 trillion. To grasp what these quantities really mean, it might be instructive to consider that they equal some three times the GDP of the United States and, depending on the year, between 30 or 40 times that of Spain. In a word: spectacular.
The select group of the Ultra-HNWIs consisted in 2009 of only 93,100 people scattered around the planet. Around one in every 75,000 people in the world is an Ultra-HNWI. One interesting datum is that they account for 35.5% of the total wealth of the HNWIs, while representing only 0.9% of this group. In other words, these world champions of wealth have assets worth 13,845,000,000,000 dollars - more or less the GDP of the whole of the European Union.
According to the most recent data, from 2009, some 53.5% of the all the HNWIs in the world are concentrated in the United States (almost 2.9 million), Japan (almost 1.7 million) and Germany (861,000). Australia boasts the not-inconsiderable figure of 174,000 HNWIs for the same year, which situates it in eleventh place on the world’s rich-list.
How will the crisis affect this wealth? It will be interesting to see what Capgemini and Merrill Lynch make of the 2010 data. For the time being, it would not be unreasonable to expect that, after the first stumble, it will be all wine and roses. There are two points that support this assertion. First, the forecast made by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini is that by 2013, the HNWIs will have managed to accumulate fortunes (recall this excludes primary residence, collectibles, consumables, and consumer durables) of the order of 48.5 trillion dollars, which if the pundits of these two companies get it right, will multiply the worldwide HNWI wealth by almost 60% in five years. For the moment, 2009 was a good year for the rich. The second point comes from the 2010 report exclusively devoted to the rich of the "Asia-Pacific" region. The most interesting figures from this report show that by 2009 the wealth accumulated by this set of HNWIs also rose to recover the 2007, pre-crisis levels, while their numbers increased by 25.8% and their joint wealth by 30.9% vis-à-vis the previous year. In 2009, Japan concentrated 54.6% of all the HNWIs in the region and 40.3% of their wealth.
The Merrill Lynch and Capgemini report concludes, "Around the globe, then, the creation of HNWIs and wealth is likely to depend heavily on the success each country has in managing the nascent economic recovery while driving expansion and handling ongoing domestic and global challenges in financial conditions." To put it more bluntly, in the words of Michael Hudsonn, this means "using the bank crisis (stemming from bad real estate loans and negative mortgage equity, not high labor costs) as an opportunity to change the laws to enable companies and government bodies to fire workers at will, and to scale back their pensions and public social spending in order to pay the banks more." Nothing less than class war.
Daniel Raventós can be reached at: daniel.raventos@gmail.com
By DANIEL RAVENTÓS
CounterPunch
October 29 - 31, 2010
Studies on poverty and the poor abound but studies on wealth and the wealthy are not so plentiful. Around the world, university departments of Sociology, Politics, Philosophy and Economics, academic publications in the social sciences, a host of government departments, statistical institutions, a lot of city councils, periodical publications, international organisms, and so on, churn out vast quantities of reports, studies, doctoral theses, statistics and articles on the most incredible aspects of poverty. Some are good and useful. The well-known spokeswoman and founding member of ATTAC, Susan George, sums up the situation with no little sarcasm. "The poor? Let them eat the research!"
The rich are better protected from awkward investigations that might expose in any well-documented way the increasingly greater inequalities that are made possible and encouraged by the political and economic design of our societies. In some countries of Europe, even where the banks have been the most reckless in their lending policy, blame for the crisis is shifted to the workers in the name of "high labour costs". The next step is to rebuild the banks' loan reserves at the expense of the workers with new policy and laws permitting private companies and the public sector to cut wages, sack workers at will, scale back pensions and slash social spending. This has only deepened the social divide and is nothing short of class war. However these moves are dressed up (the impossibility of doing anything different, economic realism (sic), or even, surreally, as left-wing policy), the economic policies of the last few weeks are designed to benefit the rich with a counterpart logic of further privation and inroads on the already precarious living conditions of the poor and the working classes.
Since data on the rich are so scant, documents like the annual report published by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini on wealth and its deforciants are of unquestionable interest when it comes to finding out about the present state of things. The very well-known company Merrill Lynch was acquired two years ago by the Bank of America for 44,000 million dollars. Capgemini, a company that is rather less famous than Merrill Lynch, with more than 90,000 employees around the globe and a declared gross income of 8,400 million euros in 2009, states that it provides consultancy, technological and outsourcing services. Merrill Lynch and Capgemini work for the rich. It is not surprising, then, that they need to have good knowledge of the main target of their business. Hence they produce annual reports on the situation of the rich and their wealth, providing extremely interesting data. The last available report on world-wide wealth was that recently published by the two companies in 2010, offering data from 2009 and previous years. They have also published an "Asia-Pacific Wealth Report". The data discussed below come from these two reports and the world report from 2009.
The Merrill Lynch and Capgemini reports offer definitions of the rich on whom their reports are based. Some are designated as HNWIs (High New Worth Individuals), while others are UHNWIs (where the U stands for Ultra). The former are those who have assets of over a million dollars not counting primary residence, collectibles, consumables, and consumer durables. Hence these reports aim to assess what the rich have in terms of ready cash and assets that are easily and rapidly turned into cash. The same definition applies to the Ultra-HNWIs but their assets start from 30 million dollars. These definitions make it clear that they refer to people of a much greater effective wealth than the starting level of one or thirty million dollars, as adding the excluded assets would show.
According to the Merrill Lynch and Capgemini definitions there were 8.8 million HNWIs in the world in 2005, a figure that rose to 9.5 million in 2006 and 10.1 million in 2007. In 2008, with the onset of the economic crisis, the figure dropped to just below 2005 levels, with 8.6 million HNWIs around the world. By 2009, it had risen again to 10 million, almost the same as in 2007, the year before the crisis. In these years, the joint wealth of these individuals worldwide was 33.4 trillion dollars in 2005, 37.2 trillion in 2006, 40.7 trillion in 2007, falling to 32.8 trillion in 2008. In 2009, with the crisis now full-blown, it rose again to 39 trillion. To grasp what these quantities really mean, it might be instructive to consider that they equal some three times the GDP of the United States and, depending on the year, between 30 or 40 times that of Spain. In a word: spectacular.
The select group of the Ultra-HNWIs consisted in 2009 of only 93,100 people scattered around the planet. Around one in every 75,000 people in the world is an Ultra-HNWI. One interesting datum is that they account for 35.5% of the total wealth of the HNWIs, while representing only 0.9% of this group. In other words, these world champions of wealth have assets worth 13,845,000,000,000 dollars - more or less the GDP of the whole of the European Union.
According to the most recent data, from 2009, some 53.5% of the all the HNWIs in the world are concentrated in the United States (almost 2.9 million), Japan (almost 1.7 million) and Germany (861,000). Australia boasts the not-inconsiderable figure of 174,000 HNWIs for the same year, which situates it in eleventh place on the world’s rich-list.
How will the crisis affect this wealth? It will be interesting to see what Capgemini and Merrill Lynch make of the 2010 data. For the time being, it would not be unreasonable to expect that, after the first stumble, it will be all wine and roses. There are two points that support this assertion. First, the forecast made by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini is that by 2013, the HNWIs will have managed to accumulate fortunes (recall this excludes primary residence, collectibles, consumables, and consumer durables) of the order of 48.5 trillion dollars, which if the pundits of these two companies get it right, will multiply the worldwide HNWI wealth by almost 60% in five years. For the moment, 2009 was a good year for the rich. The second point comes from the 2010 report exclusively devoted to the rich of the "Asia-Pacific" region. The most interesting figures from this report show that by 2009 the wealth accumulated by this set of HNWIs also rose to recover the 2007, pre-crisis levels, while their numbers increased by 25.8% and their joint wealth by 30.9% vis-à-vis the previous year. In 2009, Japan concentrated 54.6% of all the HNWIs in the region and 40.3% of their wealth.
The Merrill Lynch and Capgemini report concludes, "Around the globe, then, the creation of HNWIs and wealth is likely to depend heavily on the success each country has in managing the nascent economic recovery while driving expansion and handling ongoing domestic and global challenges in financial conditions." To put it more bluntly, in the words of Michael Hudsonn, this means "using the bank crisis (stemming from bad real estate loans and negative mortgage equity, not high labor costs) as an opportunity to change the laws to enable companies and government bodies to fire workers at will, and to scale back their pensions and public social spending in order to pay the banks more." Nothing less than class war.
Daniel Raventós can be reached at: daniel.raventos@gmail.com
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 2:59 PM
0 comments
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Tea party's Judson Phillips defends essay attacking congressman for being Muslim
By Amy Gardner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 28, 2010; 10:28 AM
The founder of one of the country's most prominent tea party organizations said in an interview Wednesday that he stands by an Internet column in which he urged the defeat of U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat, because he is Muslim.
"If you read the Koran, the Koran in no uncertain terms says some wonderful things like, 'Kill the infidels,' " said Judson Phillips, the founder of Nashville-based Tea Party Nation. "It says it on more than one occasion. I happen to be the infidel. I have a real problem with people who want to kill me just because I'm the infidel."
Phillips came under fire Wednesday after publishing a column through Tea Party Nation's Web site in which he urged voters in Minnesota's 5th Congressional District to support independent candidate Lynne Torgerson over Ellison. Phillips said in the column that Ellison's Muslim faith as well as his liberal voting record and his support for sending federal funds to "terrorists in Gaza" were reasons to vote him out of office.
"There are a lot of liberals who need to be retired this year, but there are few I can think of more deserving than Keith Ellison," Phillips wrote. "Ellison is one of the most radical members of congress. He has a ZERO rating from the American Conservative Union. He is the only Muslim member of congress. He supports the Counsel for American Islamic Relations, HAMAS and has helped congress send millions of tax dollars to terrorists in Gaza."
Phillips, whose group came to prominence last spring as the organizer and host of a tea party convention in Nashville at which Sarah Palin was the keynote speaker, was quickly condemned by Democrats and liberal commentators.
In a statement late Wednesday, Ellison said, "I issue a call to civility, and urge Americans to reject the divisive rhetoric of Republican Tea Party leaders like Judson Phillips, including calls for my defeat solely because of my religion."
"Whether or not they can prove that Rep. Ellison has 'helped congress send millions of tax' to Gaza, or whether the Congressman or the Council on American-Islamic Relations supports Hamas, that's besides the point. Because all Muslims are anti-American, right? Right?" wrote Jamil Smith at The Maddow Blog. "Being a Muslim, per the Tea Party Nation, is now a disqualifying characteristic for being a member of Congress."
Ryan Rudominer, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement, "The Tea Party has featured congressional candidates that dress up as a Nazi, have ties to a criminal biker gang, have called for the violent overthrow of government, and now the leadership is disgracefully telling voters to vote against someone solely on the basis of their religion. The American people will reject this reckless Right Wing extremism that has unfortunately been embraced by the Republican Party."
Phillips inaccurately described Ellison as the only Muslim in Congress, but he corrected himself in an interview Wednesday, noting that Ellison was the first Muslim but is now one of two. He defended his essay and said he believes more people agree with him than not.
"I'm not one who accepts the infallible interpretation of the Bible, but my understanding is that this is a central tenet of Islam," Phillips said. "If you're a member of any group that advocates killing me because you don't happen to agree with me, that causes me a problem. Also, when Ellison was elected, he made a big deal about his beliefs. When he was sworn in, he insisted on being sworn in on Thomas Jefferson's copy of the Koran. Did you know that?"
Phillips's comments keeps alive the conversation about the role of racism and bigotry within the tea party movement. According to a broad canvass of 647 local tea party groups conducted this year by The Washington Post, 11 percent of organizers say President Obama's race, religion or ethnic background is very important or somewhat important to their members' participation in the movement.
As Election Day approaches - and with many close races featuring tea party-backed candidates - the role of race and ethnicity has flared up elsewhere. In Nevada, tea party candidate Sharron Angle is under fire for running television ads in which she accuses her opponent, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid, of encouraging illegal immigrants to enter the country. Although Angle has said her ads are not necessarily about Latin American immigrants - "Our northern border is where the terrorists came through" - her ads feature dark-skinned Latinos and a border station in El Paso.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 28, 2010; 10:28 AM
The founder of one of the country's most prominent tea party organizations said in an interview Wednesday that he stands by an Internet column in which he urged the defeat of U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat, because he is Muslim.
"If you read the Koran, the Koran in no uncertain terms says some wonderful things like, 'Kill the infidels,' " said Judson Phillips, the founder of Nashville-based Tea Party Nation. "It says it on more than one occasion. I happen to be the infidel. I have a real problem with people who want to kill me just because I'm the infidel."
Phillips came under fire Wednesday after publishing a column through Tea Party Nation's Web site in which he urged voters in Minnesota's 5th Congressional District to support independent candidate Lynne Torgerson over Ellison. Phillips said in the column that Ellison's Muslim faith as well as his liberal voting record and his support for sending federal funds to "terrorists in Gaza" were reasons to vote him out of office.
"There are a lot of liberals who need to be retired this year, but there are few I can think of more deserving than Keith Ellison," Phillips wrote. "Ellison is one of the most radical members of congress. He has a ZERO rating from the American Conservative Union. He is the only Muslim member of congress. He supports the Counsel for American Islamic Relations, HAMAS and has helped congress send millions of tax dollars to terrorists in Gaza."
Phillips, whose group came to prominence last spring as the organizer and host of a tea party convention in Nashville at which Sarah Palin was the keynote speaker, was quickly condemned by Democrats and liberal commentators.
In a statement late Wednesday, Ellison said, "I issue a call to civility, and urge Americans to reject the divisive rhetoric of Republican Tea Party leaders like Judson Phillips, including calls for my defeat solely because of my religion."
"Whether or not they can prove that Rep. Ellison has 'helped congress send millions of tax' to Gaza, or whether the Congressman or the Council on American-Islamic Relations supports Hamas, that's besides the point. Because all Muslims are anti-American, right? Right?" wrote Jamil Smith at The Maddow Blog. "Being a Muslim, per the Tea Party Nation, is now a disqualifying characteristic for being a member of Congress."
Ryan Rudominer, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement, "The Tea Party has featured congressional candidates that dress up as a Nazi, have ties to a criminal biker gang, have called for the violent overthrow of government, and now the leadership is disgracefully telling voters to vote against someone solely on the basis of their religion. The American people will reject this reckless Right Wing extremism that has unfortunately been embraced by the Republican Party."
Phillips inaccurately described Ellison as the only Muslim in Congress, but he corrected himself in an interview Wednesday, noting that Ellison was the first Muslim but is now one of two. He defended his essay and said he believes more people agree with him than not.
"I'm not one who accepts the infallible interpretation of the Bible, but my understanding is that this is a central tenet of Islam," Phillips said. "If you're a member of any group that advocates killing me because you don't happen to agree with me, that causes me a problem. Also, when Ellison was elected, he made a big deal about his beliefs. When he was sworn in, he insisted on being sworn in on Thomas Jefferson's copy of the Koran. Did you know that?"
Phillips's comments keeps alive the conversation about the role of racism and bigotry within the tea party movement. According to a broad canvass of 647 local tea party groups conducted this year by The Washington Post, 11 percent of organizers say President Obama's race, religion or ethnic background is very important or somewhat important to their members' participation in the movement.
As Election Day approaches - and with many close races featuring tea party-backed candidates - the role of race and ethnicity has flared up elsewhere. In Nevada, tea party candidate Sharron Angle is under fire for running television ads in which she accuses her opponent, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid, of encouraging illegal immigrants to enter the country. Although Angle has said her ads are not necessarily about Latin American immigrants - "Our northern border is where the terrorists came through" - her ads feature dark-skinned Latinos and a border station in El Paso.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 6:06 PM
0 comments
U.S. bishop’s words spur Vatican-Jewish spat
October 27, 2010
ROME (JTA) – The Vatican and the Jewish world are at odds over a U.S. bishop's rejection of a biblical rationale for Israel as a Jewish state.
Greek-Melkite Bishop Cyrille Salim Bustros of Newton, Mass., said at an Oct. 23 news conference that for Christians, "the concept of the promised land cannot be used as a base for the justification of the return of Jews to Israel and the displacement of Palestinians."
Bustros was presenting the final document, or "Message," of a monthlong Vatican synod of Middle Eastern bishops.
The advent of Jesus, he said, meant that Jews "are no longer the preferred people, the chosen people; all men and women of all countries have become the chosen people." Bustros added that "sacred Scripture should not be used to justify the occupation by Israel of Palestine."
His remarks sparked condemnation from Israel and Jewish organizations. The Anti-Defamation League protested what it called "shocking and outrageous" comments.
"By stating that God's Covenantal promise of land to the Jewish people 'was nullified by Christ' and that 'there is no longer a chosen people,' Archbishop Bustros is effectively stating that Judaism should no longer exist," ADL National Director Abe Foxman wrote in a letter to the new Vatican official in charge of Catholic-Jewish relations, Cardinal-elect Kurt Koch. "This represents the worst kind of anti-Judaism, bordering on anti-Semitism."
Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon expressed "disappointment," saying the synod had been "hijacked by an anti-Israel majority."
The Vatican's chief spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, responded to the criticism by distancing the synod from Bustros' remarks. He said Monday that personal comments by individual synod participants "should not be considered as the voice of the synod in its entirety."
The final "Message" was the only text that expressed the approval of the full synod, he said. The Message mainly dealt with the plight of Christians in the Middle East, but it devoted a section to Israel and Jews.
Calling for a furthering of Jewish-Catholic dialogue, it also condemned anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism, noted "the suffering and insecurity in which Israelis live," and affirmed Israel's right to live at peace within its "internationally recognized borders." But it also noted "the impact of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the whole region, especially on the Palestinians who are suffering the consequences of the Israeli occupation: the lack of freedom of movement, the wall of separation and the military checkpoints, the political prisoners, the demolition of homes, the disturbance of socio-economic life and the thousands of refugees."
The Message also said "recourse to theological and biblical positions which use the word of God to wrongly justify injustices is not acceptable." It said, "With all this in mind, we see that a just and lasting peace is the only salvation for everyone and for the good of the region and its peoples."
ROME (JTA) – The Vatican and the Jewish world are at odds over a U.S. bishop's rejection of a biblical rationale for Israel as a Jewish state.
Greek-Melkite Bishop Cyrille Salim Bustros of Newton, Mass., said at an Oct. 23 news conference that for Christians, "the concept of the promised land cannot be used as a base for the justification of the return of Jews to Israel and the displacement of Palestinians."
Bustros was presenting the final document, or "Message," of a monthlong Vatican synod of Middle Eastern bishops.
The advent of Jesus, he said, meant that Jews "are no longer the preferred people, the chosen people; all men and women of all countries have become the chosen people." Bustros added that "sacred Scripture should not be used to justify the occupation by Israel of Palestine."
His remarks sparked condemnation from Israel and Jewish organizations. The Anti-Defamation League protested what it called "shocking and outrageous" comments.
"By stating that God's Covenantal promise of land to the Jewish people 'was nullified by Christ' and that 'there is no longer a chosen people,' Archbishop Bustros is effectively stating that Judaism should no longer exist," ADL National Director Abe Foxman wrote in a letter to the new Vatican official in charge of Catholic-Jewish relations, Cardinal-elect Kurt Koch. "This represents the worst kind of anti-Judaism, bordering on anti-Semitism."
Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon expressed "disappointment," saying the synod had been "hijacked by an anti-Israel majority."
The Vatican's chief spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, responded to the criticism by distancing the synod from Bustros' remarks. He said Monday that personal comments by individual synod participants "should not be considered as the voice of the synod in its entirety."
The final "Message" was the only text that expressed the approval of the full synod, he said. The Message mainly dealt with the plight of Christians in the Middle East, but it devoted a section to Israel and Jews.
Calling for a furthering of Jewish-Catholic dialogue, it also condemned anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism, noted "the suffering and insecurity in which Israelis live," and affirmed Israel's right to live at peace within its "internationally recognized borders." But it also noted "the impact of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the whole region, especially on the Palestinians who are suffering the consequences of the Israeli occupation: the lack of freedom of movement, the wall of separation and the military checkpoints, the political prisoners, the demolition of homes, the disturbance of socio-economic life and the thousands of refugees."
The Message also said "recourse to theological and biblical positions which use the word of God to wrongly justify injustices is not acceptable." It said, "With all this in mind, we see that a just and lasting peace is the only salvation for everyone and for the good of the region and its peoples."
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 5:55 PM
0 comments
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
How the Wars Are Sinking the Economy
by Linda Bilmes
The Daily Beast
October 27, 2010 | 1:40am
Nobel Prize recipient Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard budget guru Linda J. Bilmes are revising their original $3 trillion war cost estimate. As Bilmes reports, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are at least 25 percent costlier than previous projections.
As Election Day draws near, it's pretty clear: Voters are worried about jobs, the budget deficit and the rising national debt.
But behind those issues—behind the ads and candidates' speeches, behind the rhetoric about "out-of-control" government spending—there lurks a hidden, less-talked-about issue: the cost of the ongoing wars.
Already, we've spent more than $1 trillion in Iraq, not counting the $700 billion consumed each year by the Pentagon budget. And spending in Iraq and Afghanistan now comes to more than _WalmartAd_$3 billion weekly, making the wars a major reason for record-level budget deficits.
Two years ago, Joseph Stiglitz and I published The Three Trillion Dollar War in which we estimated that the budgetary and economic costs of the war would reach $3 trillion.
Taking new numbers into account, however, we now believe that our initial estimate was far too conservative—the cost of the wars will reach between $4 trillion and $6 trillion.
For example, we recently analyzed the medical and disability claim patterns for almost a million troops who have returned from the wars, and, based on this record, we've revised our estimate upward to between $600 billion and $900 billion—a broad specter, yes, but certainly also a significant upward tick from our earlier projection of $400 billion to $700 billion, based on historical patterns.
Similarly, our estimates for the economic and social costs associated with returning veterans can be expected to rise by at least a third—the staggering toll of repeated deployments over the past decade.
Article - Bilmes War A US Army soldier takes up position with a machine gun while taking part in a patrol in Zari District of Kandahar province on October 23, 2010. (Massoud Hossaini, AFP / Getty Images)
The Bush administration not only vastly underestimated the cost of the wars but cut taxes twice—in 2001 and 2003—just as we were ramping up the war effort. This was the first time in U.S. history that a government cut taxes while also appropriating huge new sums to fight a war. And the consequence is that the wars added substantially to the federal debt.
Between 2003 and 2008—before the financial crisis unfolded—the debt rose from $6.4 trillion to $10 trillion, and, at least one-quarter of this increase was directly attributable to the wars, first in Iraq and then in Afghanistan.
We have already spent more than $1 trillion in Iraq… and weekly—yes, weekly—spending in Iraq and Afghanistan now comes to more than $3 billion.
For example, in March 2003—the month of the Iraq invasion—oil prices hovered just under $25 per barrel. Immediately afterward, however, prices started to soar, reaching $140 a barrel five years later. Add to that: for Americans, the war-spending left us with much less wiggle room domestically to deal with the financial crisis.
In the run-up to the election, people have expressed concerns about the debt and the deficit, as well as the huge ongoing burden of funding the conflict, and the constraints they exert on the size of the economic stimulus package.
Here is what we know: the legacy of the wars will continue to drag the economy down.
The long-term costs of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan will be higher than previous wars because of higher survival rates, greater incidence of PTSD and other mental-health disorders. Additionally, a higher percentage of veterans are claiming disability benefits, and far more veterans have served multiple tours of duty.
Taken in context, history shows that the cost of caring for war veterans typically peaks 40 years after a conflict ends. The peak year for paying out disability claims to World War I veterans didn't occur until 1969; the peak for paying out World War II benefits was in the 1980s, and we have not yet reached the peak cost for Vietnam veterans. Even the Gulf War of 1991, which lasted just six weeks, now costs more than $4 billion a year in veterans' disability compensation.
Hundreds of thousands of veterans have already been treated in VA medical facilities; and many will require care for the rest of their lives. Half-a-million people plus have filed for disability compensation. And the total lifetime cost of providing for these veterans is likely to tally between $600 billion and $900 billion, as mentioned above. But of course, even these huge numbers _WalmartAd_don't include the economic costs that are borne by veterans and their families, in terms of diminished quality of life, lost employment and long-term suffering.
We will also to need to find billions of dollars to replace vehicles, weapons and other equipment that will never be repatriated.
It is this spending (and the accompanying debt) that will one day need to be paid, that is truly haunting the November elections. We just don't care to connect the dots. Iraq and Afghanistan cast a long shadow. We will be living with their legacy for decades.
Linda J. Bilmes is a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She is co-author with Joseph Stiglitz of the New York Times bestseller The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict. Bilmes has written extensively on financial and budgetary issues in newspapers, magazines and academic journals including the New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Financial Times.
The Daily Beast
October 27, 2010 | 1:40am
Nobel Prize recipient Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard budget guru Linda J. Bilmes are revising their original $3 trillion war cost estimate. As Bilmes reports, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are at least 25 percent costlier than previous projections.
As Election Day draws near, it's pretty clear: Voters are worried about jobs, the budget deficit and the rising national debt.
But behind those issues—behind the ads and candidates' speeches, behind the rhetoric about "out-of-control" government spending—there lurks a hidden, less-talked-about issue: the cost of the ongoing wars.
Already, we've spent more than $1 trillion in Iraq, not counting the $700 billion consumed each year by the Pentagon budget. And spending in Iraq and Afghanistan now comes to more than _WalmartAd_$3 billion weekly, making the wars a major reason for record-level budget deficits.
Two years ago, Joseph Stiglitz and I published The Three Trillion Dollar War in which we estimated that the budgetary and economic costs of the war would reach $3 trillion.
Taking new numbers into account, however, we now believe that our initial estimate was far too conservative—the cost of the wars will reach between $4 trillion and $6 trillion.
For example, we recently analyzed the medical and disability claim patterns for almost a million troops who have returned from the wars, and, based on this record, we've revised our estimate upward to between $600 billion and $900 billion—a broad specter, yes, but certainly also a significant upward tick from our earlier projection of $400 billion to $700 billion, based on historical patterns.
Similarly, our estimates for the economic and social costs associated with returning veterans can be expected to rise by at least a third—the staggering toll of repeated deployments over the past decade.
Article - Bilmes War A US Army soldier takes up position with a machine gun while taking part in a patrol in Zari District of Kandahar province on October 23, 2010. (Massoud Hossaini, AFP / Getty Images)
The Bush administration not only vastly underestimated the cost of the wars but cut taxes twice—in 2001 and 2003—just as we were ramping up the war effort. This was the first time in U.S. history that a government cut taxes while also appropriating huge new sums to fight a war. And the consequence is that the wars added substantially to the federal debt.
Between 2003 and 2008—before the financial crisis unfolded—the debt rose from $6.4 trillion to $10 trillion, and, at least one-quarter of this increase was directly attributable to the wars, first in Iraq and then in Afghanistan.
We have already spent more than $1 trillion in Iraq… and weekly—yes, weekly—spending in Iraq and Afghanistan now comes to more than $3 billion.
For example, in March 2003—the month of the Iraq invasion—oil prices hovered just under $25 per barrel. Immediately afterward, however, prices started to soar, reaching $140 a barrel five years later. Add to that: for Americans, the war-spending left us with much less wiggle room domestically to deal with the financial crisis.
In the run-up to the election, people have expressed concerns about the debt and the deficit, as well as the huge ongoing burden of funding the conflict, and the constraints they exert on the size of the economic stimulus package.
Here is what we know: the legacy of the wars will continue to drag the economy down.
The long-term costs of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan will be higher than previous wars because of higher survival rates, greater incidence of PTSD and other mental-health disorders. Additionally, a higher percentage of veterans are claiming disability benefits, and far more veterans have served multiple tours of duty.
Taken in context, history shows that the cost of caring for war veterans typically peaks 40 years after a conflict ends. The peak year for paying out disability claims to World War I veterans didn't occur until 1969; the peak for paying out World War II benefits was in the 1980s, and we have not yet reached the peak cost for Vietnam veterans. Even the Gulf War of 1991, which lasted just six weeks, now costs more than $4 billion a year in veterans' disability compensation.
Hundreds of thousands of veterans have already been treated in VA medical facilities; and many will require care for the rest of their lives. Half-a-million people plus have filed for disability compensation. And the total lifetime cost of providing for these veterans is likely to tally between $600 billion and $900 billion, as mentioned above. But of course, even these huge numbers _WalmartAd_don't include the economic costs that are borne by veterans and their families, in terms of diminished quality of life, lost employment and long-term suffering.
We will also to need to find billions of dollars to replace vehicles, weapons and other equipment that will never be repatriated.
It is this spending (and the accompanying debt) that will one day need to be paid, that is truly haunting the November elections. We just don't care to connect the dots. Iraq and Afghanistan cast a long shadow. We will be living with their legacy for decades.
Linda J. Bilmes is a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She is co-author with Joseph Stiglitz of the New York Times bestseller The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict. Bilmes has written extensively on financial and budgetary issues in newspapers, magazines and academic journals including the New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Financial Times.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 7:42 PM
0 comments
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Pentagon in Charge of Aid to Israel?
Republicans considering transferring Israeli security aid budget from State Department to Pentagon, in order to ensure it continues while enabling them to stop money flow to other countries
By Yitzhak Benhorin
October 26, 2010 "YNet" - -WASHINGTON - In the days leading up to the United States Congress mid-term elections, senior Republicans are contemplating transferring the annual foreign aid responsibilities, provided these days to Israel from the State Department's foreign aid budget, to the hands of the Pentagon.
According to advocates of this proposal, disconnecting Israel from the foreign aid's law will guarantee the continued support while also allowing the Republicans to take control of the foreign aid budget and the money flow to other countries.
Israel is the biggest beneficiary of US foreign aid in its current formant. A couple of years ago, the Bush administration approved a 30 billion dollar aid budget to Israel, spreading out over a decade.
Since signing their peace agreement back in 1979, Israel and Egypt have received most of US foreign aid budget, which is approved every year by each of the Two Houses of Congress.
Eric Cantor, the only Jewish Republican serving in the US House of Representatives, has recently told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), that the House of Representatives, headed by the Republican Party, will work towards stopping the American aid to countries who do not operate according to American interest.
This means that there is a possibility that the House of Representatives will not approve the foreign aid budget submitted by the Government.
Israel is looking into it
Cantor said that a big part of the US dilemma surrounding this issue is due to the fact that Israel is part of the overall foreign aid budget, and not a separate one. He goes on to mention that hopefully some kind of separation can be made when it comes to the tax payers' money going to Israel.
Only eight days before the congress mid-term elections, there seems to be a growing chance of a power shift from a Democratic to a Republican majority in the House.
Cantor explains that taking Israel out of the Sate Department's annual budget will allow the US to continue protecting the security aid given to Israel, even if the rest of the foreign aid budget will be frozen due to a conflict between the Democratic president and a Republican House of Representatives.
If the Republicans win the upcoming elections, there will be more Tea Party right-winged representatives supporting tax cut-backs and strict foreign aid policy. Some of them have already stated that they intend to vote against foreign aid.
Israeli officials are looking into the issue, even if at this point it's only a proposal and not a practical discussion. Such a separation in the foreign aid budget might not be good for Israel, and may tie her down more when it comes to American interest and hurt her independence.
By Yitzhak Benhorin
October 26, 2010 "YNet" - -WASHINGTON - In the days leading up to the United States Congress mid-term elections, senior Republicans are contemplating transferring the annual foreign aid responsibilities, provided these days to Israel from the State Department's foreign aid budget, to the hands of the Pentagon.
According to advocates of this proposal, disconnecting Israel from the foreign aid's law will guarantee the continued support while also allowing the Republicans to take control of the foreign aid budget and the money flow to other countries.
Israel is the biggest beneficiary of US foreign aid in its current formant. A couple of years ago, the Bush administration approved a 30 billion dollar aid budget to Israel, spreading out over a decade.
Since signing their peace agreement back in 1979, Israel and Egypt have received most of US foreign aid budget, which is approved every year by each of the Two Houses of Congress.
Eric Cantor, the only Jewish Republican serving in the US House of Representatives, has recently told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), that the House of Representatives, headed by the Republican Party, will work towards stopping the American aid to countries who do not operate according to American interest.
This means that there is a possibility that the House of Representatives will not approve the foreign aid budget submitted by the Government.
Israel is looking into it
Cantor said that a big part of the US dilemma surrounding this issue is due to the fact that Israel is part of the overall foreign aid budget, and not a separate one. He goes on to mention that hopefully some kind of separation can be made when it comes to the tax payers' money going to Israel.
Only eight days before the congress mid-term elections, there seems to be a growing chance of a power shift from a Democratic to a Republican majority in the House.
Cantor explains that taking Israel out of the Sate Department's annual budget will allow the US to continue protecting the security aid given to Israel, even if the rest of the foreign aid budget will be frozen due to a conflict between the Democratic president and a Republican House of Representatives.
If the Republicans win the upcoming elections, there will be more Tea Party right-winged representatives supporting tax cut-backs and strict foreign aid policy. Some of them have already stated that they intend to vote against foreign aid.
Israeli officials are looking into the issue, even if at this point it's only a proposal and not a practical discussion. Such a separation in the foreign aid budget might not be good for Israel, and may tie her down more when it comes to American interest and hurt her independence.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 11:47 PM
0 comments
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- 2012-12-02
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- 2013-03-03
