The Daily Dystopian

Saturday, September 13, 2003

The New Disappeared

AlterNet reports on the absence of mainstream media coverage on our wounded troops:

There are no pictures of wounded soldiers undergoing painful and protracted physical rehabilitation. There are no visuals of worried families waiting for news of their sons or daughters...

"There have been no feature news stories on television focusing on the wounded," Liz Swasey, director of communications at the Media Research Center (MRC), a conservative media watchdog group..."While there have been numerous reports of soldiers getting wounded, there have been no interviews from hospital bedsides," she pointed out. The Alexandria, Va-based MRC...monitors all major nationally televised and print news broadcasts and maintains "the nation's largest video news archive," Swasey said.

"The war was televised and sold as a sanitized war with minimal US casualties," said John Stauber, co-author of the recently released book, "The Weapons of Mass Deception," in an email exchange. "Showing wounded soldiers and interviewing their families could be disastrous PR for Bush's war"...

dystopia 12:44 PM - [Link]
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International Community Supports Deluxe Occupation

Fascinating read by Meron Benvenisti in Ha'aretz:

The Palestinians managed to survive thanks to the international aid, but as usual in these cases, the beneficiary of the international community's rallying to the rescue was their Israeli enemy. Moreover, the contributing states' humanitarian enlistment became a safety net, enabling Israel to impose a deluxe occupation in the West Bank--total military domination with no responsibility for running the life of the occupied population, and no price tag attached.

Had Israel been required to fulfill its commitment as an occupying power, it would have had to pay NIS 5-6 billion a year just to maintain basic services for a population of more than three million people. But it created an international precedent--an occupation fully financed by the international community...Israel isn't even required to display minimal politeness and gratitude to the donor states for their generosity in providing the economic safety net. Indeed, the greatest contributor--the European Union as a body and European states individually--are treated with contempt and condescension: pay up and shut up, or we'll accuse you of anti-Semitism.

dystopia 12:21 PM - [Link]
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Baked Alaska

Nicholas Kristof's been hanging out way up north, and sends this report via the NY Times:

Skeptics of global warming should come to this Eskimo village on the Arctic Ocean, roughly 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle. It's hard to be complacent about climate change when you're in an area that normally is home to animals like polar bears and wolverines, but is now attracting robins.

A robin even built its nest in town this year (there is no word in the local Inupiat Eskimo language for robins).

My God. A local says:

"The weather is different, really different," said 92-year-old Nora Agiak..."We're not getting as many icebergs as we used to. Maybe the world moved because it's getting warmer."

And the official word:

Alaska has warmed by eight degrees, on average, in the winter, over the last three decades, according to meteorological records. The US Arctic Research Commission says that today's Arctic temperatures are the highest in the last 400 years, and perhaps much longer.

The US Navy reports that in areas traversed by its submarines, Arctic ice volume decreased 42 percent over the last 35 years, and the average thickness of ice below water declined 4.3 feet. The Office of Naval Research warns that "one plausible outcome" is that the summer Arctic ice cap will disappear completely by 2050.

This is serious, folks. You do know that, don't you?

dystopia 11:51 AM - [Link]
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Today in Dystopian History: September 13

1513: Vasco Nunez de Balboa was the first European to see the Pacific Ocean.

1597: Fr Pedro de Corpa was clubbed to death at the Tolomato mission in Georgia.

1635: The Massachusetts General Court banished Separatist Roger Williams.

1643: After inciting Indian wrath, New Amsterdam Gov Willem Kieft sought help from the Council of Eight.

1663: A conspiracy between black slaves and indentured servants was betrayed in Gloucester County, VA.

1759: The British defeated the Marquis de Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham.

1814: The British were defeated in the Battle of Baltimore.

1847: Gen Winfield Scott led US forces in the Battle of Chapultepec.

1858: Oberlin College students freed a fugitive slave from slave catchers.

1862: Gen Robert E Lee's battle plans were found by Union soldiers near Frederick, MD.

1863: Crew members from USS Rattler were captured by Confederates while attending church at Rodney, MS.

1864: Admiral Farragut reported that 22 torpedoes had been removed from Mobile Bay.

1883: Free-grass cattlemen began cutting fences at Mabel Doss Day's ranch in Texas.

1934: During the Great Textile Strike, the governor of Rhode Island wired President Roosevelt, saying that "drastic action must be taken."

1939: The sunken USS Squalus was salvaged.

1942: On Guadalcanal, the Japanese began attacking US forces in the Battle of Bloody Ridge.

1943: German Panzers penetrated the US line and captured Persano, Italy.

1943: The realignment of Tule Lake began; after taking a questionnaire, "loyal" Japanese-American internees were moved to other camps.

1951: US Army troops began an assault at Heartbreak Ridge.

1960: The FCC banned payola.

1971: In Attica, NY, 10 prison guards and 39 convicts were killed when state police stormed the prison.

1980: A chemical dump was the suspected cause of mystery illnesses in the Frayser area of Memphis.

1989: George W Bush attended a Harken board meeting, discussing measures "in the event that the NYSE...should make an inquiry concerning unusual trading activity."

1994: President Clinton signed a $30 billion crime bill that made 58 more offenses subject to the death penalty.

1996: Susan McDougal returned to jail on contempt charges for refusing to testify before the Whitewater grand jury.

1996: CIA agents were evacuated from northern Iraq as the US prepared to attack.

1997: The University of California Student Association passed a resolution condemning Nike's abusive labor practices.

2000: After deregulation, electricity bills in California had jumped 20% in a year.

2002: The Florida election board rejected Janet Reno's request for a manual recount of primary votes.

dystopia 10:15 AM - [Link]
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Friday, September 12, 2003

Wounded Troops Billed for Hospital Food

Dunning our damaged ones, per the St Petersburg Times:

After a grenade exploded inside his Humvee in Iraq, Marine Staff Sgt Bill Murwin was treated at a military hospital in Germany and spent four weeks at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. Part of his left foot was amputated.

His medical care was free, but the government billed him $243 for the food.

Then, just three days after he received his first bill for the hospital food in Germany, he got a stern letter saying the bill was overdue. It warned that his account would be referred to a collection agency.

dystopia 4:03 PM - [Link]
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Illegal Trading Appears Rampant

According to a Yahoo! News update on the mutual fund scandal, Bank of America fired 2 execs yesterday:

Illegal trading occurs in at least one out of every six mutual fund families and costs investors about $400 million a year...

The practice of "late trading" is so rife that individual shareholders lose about a nickel for every $100 invested in international funds, and over half a penny in domestic funds...certain to bolster New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's claims that the mutual fund industry is rigged against small investors.

In addition to losses from late trading, individuals lose an estimated $5 billion a year from short-term traders, or "market timers," who legally exploit international- and small-cap stock funds at the expense of long-term shareholders. Zitzewitz and other academics estimate that 90% of mutual funds allow big clients to market time.

dystopia 3:34 PM - [Link]
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On Bill Moyers Tonight

Don't miss a rare event--a nationally-televised look into the unanswered questions of 9/11 and related issues.

dystopia 3:09 PM - [Link]
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Help Save a Life

I cleared 42 square centimeters of mine-infested land today. You can, too--it only takes a second, once a day.

dystopia 2:46 PM - [Link]
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Today in Dystopian History: September 12

1609: Henry Hudson began exploring the river that bears his name.

1675: The Abenaki attacked John Wakely's farmhouse in Maine, killing 7.

1814: The British were repulsed by local militia in the Battle of North Point.

1847: The US Army began the Battle of Chapultepec with an artillery barrage.

1860: American William Walker was executed by a Honduran firing squad for invading the country with his private army.

1861: Confederate forces attacked Cheat Summit Fort.

1861: The Siege at Lexington, MO, began.

1874: US troops fought Kiowa and Comanche Indians in the Battle of Sweetwater Creek.

1910: The first woman police officer in the US, Alice Stebbins Wells, joined the LAPD.

1918: In the Battle of St Mihiel, the US Army used tanks for the first time.

1931: A white woman was allegedly beaten and assaulted by Hawaiian and Japanese men.

1932: Unemployed people marched on grocery stores and seized food in Toledo, OH.

1941: The Coast Guard cutter Northland captured the first hostile ship in the war.

1944: The Morgenthau Plan was presented to a horrified Winston Churchill at the Second Quebec Conference.

1945: In Japan, Gen Douglas MacArthur banned the Black Dragon society.

1958: The first integrated circuit was successfully tested.

1958: The Supreme Court ordered integration to proceed at Little Rock high schools.

1960: Catholic candidate John Kennedy addressed Protestant ministers in Houston, "I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me."

1974: Boston schools began court-ordered busing.

1974: High school students walked out in protest when the Kanawha County, WV, school board began removing controversial textbooks.

1982: The first dump trucks loaded with PCBs drove to a landfill near Afton, NC, in the state's poorest county.

1986: Joseph Cicippio, acting comptroller at the American University in Beirut, was kidnapped.

1996: Senate Republicans blocked ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

1996: The US moved an aircraft carrier and Stealth fighters into position against Iraq.

1997: Sen Jesse Helms opposed a hearing on Gov William Weld's (R-MA) nomination as ambassador to Mexico.

2001: Article V of the NATO agreement was invoked for the first time in response to the 9/11 attacks.

2002: A civil fraud verdict against California gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon's investment firm was reversed.

2002: Three former Tyco executives were indicted on fraud charges, accused of looting hundreds of millions from the company.

2002: In speech at the UN, President Bush said the US would go it alone if other nations didn't agree to help oust Saddam Hussein.

dystopia 2:11 PM - [Link]
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Thursday, September 11, 2003

For GOP, a High-Priced Pitch

The Hill reports that some House Republicans are uneasy about GOP fundraising and spending:

Several key House Republicans have voiced concerns over the amount of money that their fundraising arm has already spent so early in this election cycle...

In particular, some Republicans are questioning more than $26 million in payments to InfoCision, a telemarketing company that has drawn criticism in recent years for its fundraising tactics and high operating costs...

During the first six months of this year, the NRCC paid InfoCision $23 million for its services. Some $18 million of that was paid to recruit new donors. The effort yielded 230,000 new donors for the committee’s fundraising database, NRCC officials said.

A June 16 article in the Washington Post said:

In contrast to some telemarketing companies, InfoCision works exclusively for conservative groups. In the 1990s, it turned down an overture from Bill Clinton's campaign...

dystopia 4:19 PM - [Link]
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White House/Exxon Linked in Memo

Greenpeace turned up a very interesting e-mail among documents obtained through FOIA requests:

In the email, Myron Ebell of the Exxon-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute writes to Phil Cooney, a senior official at the White House Council for Environmental Quality. He describes his plans to discredit an EPA study on climate change through a lawsuit. He states the need to "drive a wedge between the President and those in the Administration who think that they are serving the president's interests by publishing this rubbish." He notes his group is considering a call for the then-head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Christine Todd Whitman, to resign, and openly suggests that she'd make an appropriate "fall gal" if the administration is serious about getting back into bed with conservatives opposing action on climate change...

That statement, and the cosy, conspiratorial tone of the document was enough to make Richard Blumenthal, State Attorney General of Connecticut, and G Steven Rowe, State Attorney General of Maine, demand an investigation by US Attorney General John Ashcroft into whether Cooney or other officials in the Bush administration solicited the Competitive Enterprise Institute's filing of the new lawsuit, as the memo certainly makes it appear.

dystopia 3:54 PM - [Link]
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Media Lose Access to Information

Shutting off the public's right to know, via Ohio.com:

The reporter, for example, was offered no facts about the drive-by shooting.

The detective, still sorting out the details, said if it turned out to be anything, it would be posted on the media information line--a recorded phone message the department set up last year.

By late that night, though, the police line made no mention of the drive-by shooting, so the newspaper reported nothing.

In other words, whatever may have happened that day, it was the Police Department--not the newspaper--that determined it wasn't news.

dystopia 3:18 PM - [Link]
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Today in Dystopian History: September 11

1773: In a letter to Josiah Quincy, Benjamin Franklin wrote, "There never was a good war or a bad peace."

1776: In the Staten Island peace conference, Britain's only offer was that, if the rebels laid down their arms, they might await the generosity of the King.

1777: Gen George Washington was forced to retreat in the Battle of Brandywine.

1782: The second Siege of Fort Henry began.

1789: Alexander Hamilton was the first Secretary of the Treasury.

1814: The US Navy defeated the British in the Battle of Plattsburgh.

1842: Mexican Gen Adri�n Woll, with a force of 12,000 men, captured San Antonio.

1851: In the Christiana Riot, abolitionists skirmished with a Maryland posse hunting fugitive slaves.

1857: In the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Mormons and Paiutes attacked a wagon train.

1861: President Lincoln revoked John Fremont's emancipation proclamation for Missouri.

1916: The bombing trial of labor activist Warren Billings began in San Francisco.

1941: Groundbreaking ceremonies for the Pentagon were held in Arlington, VA.

1941: President Roosevelt ordered the US Navy to shoot German or Italian warships on sight.

1941: Charles Lindbergh charged that "the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt administration" were trying to involve the US in the war.

1942: The first Japanese-American inmates arrived at the Topaz internment camp in Utah.

1953: The first Sidewinder missile was test-fired.

1957: A major plutonium fire occurred at the Rocky Flats nuclear complex.

1970: The Ford Pinto was introduced.

1973: Chilean President Salvador Allende was killed during a US-backed coup led by Gen Augusto Pinochet.

1975: The House Intelligence Committee released CIA estimates in the Yom Kippur War, which said Egyptians and Syrians were not heading for a military offensive against Israel the day before the war began.

1990: President Bush claimed that 120,000 Iraqi troops with 850 tanks were moving south in Kuwait.

1997: The US Army admitted that sexual harassment existed throughout the Army.

1998: Congress released Ken Starr's report with graphic details of President Clinton's sexual misconduct.

1999: President Clinton finally cut off US arms sales to Indonesia due to the violence in East Timor.

2001: The NRO had scheduled a simulation to explore emergency response issues created if a plane struck a building.

2001: ISI Gen Mahmud Ahmed, a friend of Mohammed Atta, was meeting with the chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees when the 9/11 attacks began.

2001: Employees of Israel-based Odigo, with offices in NYC, were warned of an imminent attack 2 hours before the first plane hit.

2001: NPR's David Welna reported that, according to Congressman Ike Skelton, the CIA director had warned of a possible imminent attack on the US, "so this is not entirely unexpected."

dystopia 2:17 PM - [Link]
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Bush Administration Lobbies for Chemical Industry

Common Dreams NewsWire reports on the unholy alliance:

The Journal story and the report released today by Environmental Health Fund are based on a series of internal government documents that lay out a multi-agency effort by the EPA, State Dept, Commerce Dept and USTR to weaken EU chemical policy reforms on behalf of the chemical industry.

"This report paints a chilling picture of how the Bush Administration is intervening in the regulatory process of sovereign nations at the behest of the industry. As these documents show, the US government essentially operated as a branch office of the chemical industry"...

The new EU chemicals policy--called REACH, for Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals--would require industry to provide basic health and environmental data for the tens of thousands of chemicals currently on the market that have never been properly evaluated.

These untested and unregulated chemicals are accumulating in human body tissue and breast milk. Research indicates that exposures to even low doses of certain chemicals can result in profound but subtle effects including birth defects, reproductive disorders, and neurological abnormalities.

dystopia 9:42 AM - [Link]
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Wednesday, September 10, 2003

Today in Dystopian History: September 10

1565: Huguenot Capt Jean Ribault's ships wrecked in a hurricane en route to attack the Spanish at St Augustine.

1607: George Kendall was arrested for sowing discord in Jamestown, and later executed.

1608: John Smith was elected president of the Jamestown council.

1683: Susquehanna chief Keketappan sold William Penn half of his lands.

1772: New Regulations for Presidios were issued by King Charles III of Spain, changing the settlement pattern of Texas.

1775: An American schooner was sent to Tybee Island to watch for a ship bringing 7 tons of powder for the Royalists.

1776: Nathan Hale volunteered as a rebel spy.

1777: The Continental Congress appointed a committee to prepare recommendations that the states commence taxation.

1813: Commodore Perry and his naval force defeated the British in the Battle of Lake Erie.

1832: In the Bank War, President Jackson declared his intention to remove federal deposits from the Bank of the US.

1846: Anti-Mormon "regulators" used cannon fire to drive Mormon families from their homes in Nauvoo, IL.

1894: United Daughters of the Confederacy was founded.

1897: In the Lattimer Massacre, 19 Pennsylvania coal miners were shot to death by a posse of deputies.

1913: The first paved coast-to-coast US highway, the Lincoln Highway, opened.

1915: William Sanger was convicted of distributing birth control literature.

1945: Gen Douglas MacArthur dissolved the Imperial general headquarters in occupied Japan and imposed censorship on radio and print press.

1948: An American woman accused of being Nazi wartime radio broadcaster Axis Sally was indicted for treason.

1962: The Supreme Court ruled that James Meredith be admitted to the University of Mississippi.

1969: CBS news correspondent Marvin Kalb was wiretapped, by order of the Nixon administration.

1975: A station wagon exploded near Wichita, KS; in the wreckage, the FBI found the AR-15 rifle later used as key evidence against Leonard Peltier.

1984: The FCC changed a rule to allow broadcasters to own up to 12 AM and 12 FM radio stations; the previous limit was 7 of each.

1996: The US prepared to attack Iraq.

1997: Sen Jesse Helms (R-NC) rewrote key parts of a bill to give tobacco companies top priority in filing claims against Iraq.

2001: 4,516 put options were purchased on American Airlines stock.

2001: San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown received a warning from his "security people at the airport" to be cautious about air travel.

2001: Attorney General John Ashcroft, in his final budget request for the coming year, asked for increased spending on 68 programs, none involving counterterrorism.

2002: A statewide primary in Florida exposed major flaws in the new voting system.

dystopia 10:36 AM - [Link]
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Tuesday, September 09, 2003

9/11 Families Condemn Ashcroft Tour Stop in NYC

Via the Common Dreams NewsWire, the 9/11 families suspect that the GOP is using the anniversary of the tragedy for political gain:

Organizers of the vigil, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, say they planned the public event as a silent vigil because of their growing concern about the politicization of the day.

"We've seen the deaths of our loved ones used to justify misguided and unrelated policy at home and a war abroad in Iraq," said Andrew Rice whose brother was killed in the Towers. "Now, with the Republican National convention planned just before the anniversary next year so that it flows seamlessly into the commemoration events, I am worried that my brother's death is being exploited for political purposes. We are calling on all political leaders to respect the anniversary as day of mourning and reflection, not a back drop for their campaigns."

dystopia 3:30 PM - [Link]
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Biggest Growers Pocket 71% of Subsidies

Yahoo! News reports on figures released today by the Environmental Working Group:

The biggest American farmers received 71 percent of US farm subsidies since 1995, environmentalists said on Tuesday in a report that could fuel the fight in Congress for tighter limits on farm supports.

Activists say mammoth payments to large operators gives them the cash to out-bid their smaller neighbors for land and equipment. The result is higher operating costs, they say, but no improvement in farm income...

"The ability of the family farmer to survive and make a living is plummeting," said Chuck Hassebrook of the Center for Rural Affairs in Walthill, Nebraska. "Farm programs are doing as much to subsidize large farmers as to drive smaller farmers out of business."

dystopia 2:44 PM - [Link]
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Charging Laid-Off Employees for References?

Was just lurking over at DU when I saw something that made me holler out loud--yet another example of Corporate America striving to plumb ever greater depths:

A poster, laid off from Verizon Wireless last year, reports that prospective employers are being asked to pay $10 to $15 before Verizon will verify her former employment. Which they usually won't, of course. She's still unemployed.

Another poster reports that her job includes checking references for prospective employees and that she's also been asked to pay--there's more than one company charging for verifications.

I'm guessing those $15 calls are being answered somewhere in India. Ya think?

dystopia 1:21 PM - [Link]
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Today in Dystopian History: September 9

1692: 6 women were convicted of witchcraft in Salem.

1739: A slave revolt took place in Stono, SC.

1753: The first steam engine arrived in the colonies.

1836: Abe Lincoln applied for a license to practice law.

1850: Congress adopted the Compromise of 1850.

1861: Capt Sally Tompkins was the Confederate Army's only female commissioned officer.

1863: Union forces captured Chattanooga.

1864: Union Gen Benjamin Butler proposed exchanging POWs unfit for service.

1877: The US Army failed to trap the Nez Perce at Yellowstone.

1891: The first strike by black plantation workers in the South failed.

1901: The cornerstone was laid for the new NYSE building at 18 Broad Street in NYC.

1919: Over 1,000 Boston police went on strike.

1930: The State Department recommended more restrictions on immigration.

1940: Contracts were awarded for 210 new vessels for the US Navy, including 7 battleships and 12 carriers.

1942: A Japanese seaplane bombed Oregon.

1944: Conscientious objector Corbett Bishop was arrested for leaving a Civilian Public Service Camp.

1945: US troops began returning from Asia in Operation Magic Carpet.

1957: President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act.

1957: Nashville police stood guard as 19 black first graders entered 6 white public schools; later that day, the Hattie Cotton School was dynamited.

1959: The Atlas ICBM was declared operational.

1964: A dynamite blast attributed to the KKK rocked the home of a black minister in McComb, MS.

1971: Prisoners seized control of the Attica Correctional Facility, near Buffalo, NY.

1980: The FCC approved a plan for low-power TV stations.

1980: Gay Vietnam vet Leonard Matlovich won reinstatement after being discharged from the Air Force.

1985: President Reagan announced limited economic sanctions against South Africa.

1986: American educator Frank Reed was taken hostage in Lebanon.

1993: After a Somali attack on a US-Pakistani bulldozer crew, US Cobra helicopters fired into a crowd, killing nearly 100 people.

1994: An agreement was reached with Cuba, allowing a minimum of 20,000 immigrants to the US per year.

1994: The DOL announced stepped-up enforcement of Hot Goods provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

1996: The Clinton administration proposed measures to tighten airport security.

2001: President Bush was presented with detailed war plans to overthrow al-Qaida.

2001: Afghanistan's Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud was assassinated.

dystopia 12:03 PM - [Link]
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Monday, September 08, 2003

The Rise of the Machine

The Texas Observer peeks beneath the rock it crawled out from under:

Fast-forward almost 100 years. In Austin, Texas, home to the Public Integrity Unit of the Travis County District Attorney, a grand jury is empanelled. Its mission is to investigate one of the most audacious electoral efforts seen in Texas since Lyndon Johnson stole the 1948 US Senate election from Coke Stevenson. The inquiry revolves around whether business leaders and Republicans--including possibly US House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Sugar Land)--conspired to break state law to funnel corporate cash into local elections. At the center of the scheme is the Texas Association of Business (TAB), which purports to represent business and chambers of commerce, but in reality has become a de facto appendage of the Republican Party.

Although Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle launched his inquiry in December 2002, TAB lawyers have prevented a complete airing of the facts, delaying the grand jury's work with a series of appeals. While the full picture of the multi-million-dollar operation has yet to be revealed, what is beyond dispute are the results of the machine's activities. In 2002, for the first time in 130 years, Republicans won a majority of seats in the Texas House. These winning candidates did not resemble your grandmother's GOP. By systematically marking for elimination moderate Republicans in contested primaries, the TAB and DeLay furnished a right-wing majority guaranteed to elect their anointed candidate for Speaker of the House, Tom Craddick (R-Midland). What transpired in the legislative session that followed is public record. Under Craddick, wielding his Republican majority like a cudgel, the Texas House passed legislation that saved their corporate patrons hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars.

dystopia 4:50 PM - [Link]
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Army's Chemical Disposal Program Lacks Leadership

So says the GAO in a scathing report released Friday. Government Executive reports:

The Army's chemical demilitarization program is in "turmoil" because of poor leadership and management, government auditors announced in a report released Friday.

Under its Chemical Weapons Convention obligations, the United States was supposed to destroy 45 percent of its chemical weapons stockpile by April 2004, but Pentagon officials last week said they would ask officials from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to extend that deadline to December 2007...

The report said that a lack of overall strategy had led to widespread failure across the demilitarization program, including safety concerns, environmental problems, public anxiety and budget shortfalls. The preliminary estimates for the total cost of the program have been raised by $1.2 billion, according to the report.

Sounds about right.

dystopia 3:59 PM - [Link]
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The El Mercurio File

There's another big anniversary coming up on September 11; 30 years ago on that date the Nixon administration helped overthrow the democratically-elected government of Chile, which was replaced by almost 20 years of Pinochet's brutal military dictatorship.

Peter Kornbluh uses recently-declassified documents to analyze the USA's role in the coup, in the Columbia Journalism Review:

The ethics charges against Edwards are likely to receive a boost from a careful analysis of formerly secret US documents that shed considerable new light on CIA covert media operations in Chile. Since 1975, when a special congressional committee chaired by Idaho Senator Frank Church issued its report, Covert Action in Chile: 1963-1973, it has been no secret that the CIA provided significant funding to El Mercurio, put reporters and editors on its payroll, and used the paper, in the committee's words, as "the most important channel for anti-Allende propaganda." But with the declassification of thousands of CIA and White House records at the end of the Clinton administration, the history of the "El Mercurio Project" emerges in far greater detail.

dystopia 3:34 PM - [Link]
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Mad in the USA

Small and mid-size manufacturers are also suffering fallout from the export of American jobs, per AlterNet:

More than 1,000 people attended a rally a few weeks ago in Connecticut to demand fair trade and denounce the sweatshop buying habits of big retailers like Wal-Mart. The speakers were passionate, the crowd pumped. But this rally differed from the usual fair trade gatherings in one key respect: It was not organized by labor, student, or environmental groups. It was organized by an alliance of small and mid-sized manufacturers.

"The major retailers and big manufacturers are doing us in," explained rally-organizer Fred Tedesco, owner of Pa-Ted Spring Co in Bristol. "They're destroying small- and medium-sized businesses. They're destroying jobs. They're destroying the middle class...That's the dirty secret of this whole thing"...

The retailers' cost-cutting strategies have precipitated 34 consecutive months of US manufacturing job losses and an unprecedented crisis among thousands of small firms, like Tedesco's, which make parts for large companies that have abandoned their domestic operations. Tedesco believes job losses will accelerate over the next year as corporate decisions made this year cascade through the economy. Next on the chopping block, he says, are more white-collar jobs in computer programming, insurance, and accounting.

Economic fallout from the export of American jobs was also discussed on Bill Moyers a week or two ago:

In fact, over the next 15 years, 3.3 million white-collar jobs are predicted to go overseas--jobs now held by middle class workers who've traditionally been the backbone of the American economy...

BROWN: And it's not just the individual worker who's hurt when service jobs disappear, according to Shirley Turner. What's going on, she says, is a "hollowing out" of America that erodes the tax base and weakens the economy.

TURNER: Because this is money that's being exported and we receive no tax dollars in return for that. Not one penny is collected by the state government or the county or local government or even the federal government. So at a time when we're experiencing deficits on every level of government it just makes no sense that we continue down this path.

Found a disgruntled citizen making an interesting point at CIO:

If a small business owners hire people who do not have the right to work in US they save money (lower wages, no SS tax). But there is a risk--if caught they have to pay huge fines. Why is it any different when the unauthorized worker telecommutes from India, China etc...? I remember, when I was telecommuting from Brooklyn to Jersey City, I still WORKED IN NJ and PAID NJ TAXES.

dystopia 2:54 PM - [Link]
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Clouds in Silicon Valley

Some paid a higher price for progress than others, and more than 200 of them (or their survivors) are suing IBM because of it, per the NY Times:

Rudy Rubio's wife, Suzanne, also worked at the IBM complex here in the heart of Silicon Valley. "She worked in a clean room," said Mr Rubio, referring to the high-tech, supposedly pristine environment in which chips and disks are fabricated.

The pristine environment is for the sake of the products, which can be ruined by even a speck of dust. At the same time, the hazardous chemicals used in the process are capable of doing devastating physical damage to the workers.

Mrs Rubio learned she had cancer in 1987 and underwent a modified radical mastectomy, on her right breast. Soon after surgery she was put back to work in the same environment, working with the same toxic chemicals. Still experiencing discomfort from the surgery, Mrs Rubio complained to her bosses that her right arm had begun to hurt. An IBM medical history sheet dated Nov 16, 1987, said she was "advised to move her trays to the left side" and continue doing her work with her left arm.

Lawyers for the Rubio family said she continued working in clean rooms throughout 1988 and 1989. During that time, they said, she was exposed to a "witches' brew" of foul chemicals. In 1990 cancer was again diagnosed, and this time it spread through much of her body. She died on Jan 19, 1991. She was 36.

dystopia 1:54 PM - [Link]
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Today in Dystopian History: September 8

1565: Pedro Menendez de Aviles founded St Augustine, the oldest surviving European settlement in the US.

1636: The General Court of Massachusetts established Harvard College.

1664: New Amsterdam was surrendered to the British.

1755: British forces defeated the French and Indians in the Battle of Lake George.

1760: The surrender of Montreal completed the British conquest of Canada.

1780: British Gen Charles Cornwallis began his invasion of North Carolina.

1781: American troops routed the British in the Battle of Eutaw Springs.

1810: The Tonquin left NYC with 33 employees of Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company on board.

1847: US troops under Gen Winfield Scott defeated the Mexicans at the Battle of Molino del Rey.

1852: Susan B Anthony attended her first women's rights convention, at Syracuse.

1854: The cornerstone was laid for the NY State Asylum for Idiots in Syracuse.

1863: Confederate Lt Dick Dowling thwarted a Union naval landing at the Battle of Sabine Pass.

1892: An early version of the Pledge of Allegiance appeared in the Youth's Companion.

1900: The Great Hurricane hit Galveston, TX, killing at least 6,000 people.

1926: The League of Nations voted unanimously to admit Germany as a member.

1934: A fire on board the liner Morro Castle killed 133.

1939: A limited national emergency was declared by President Roosevelt.

1945: With with the arrival of US troops in South Korea, the elected government was crushed and a military government established under Gen John Hodge.

1951: A peace treaty was signed in San Francisco by the US, Japan and 47 other nations, officially ending WWII.

1958: The US escorted supply ships to rebel islands during the second Taiwan Strait crisis.

1965: Filipino and Mexican farmworkers went on strike against grape growers in Delano, CA.

1974: President Ford granted Richard Nixon an unconditional pardon for all federal crimes committed while in office.

1980: Republicans called for a Senate investigation into leaks about the new Stealth bomber.

1983: The police chief of Manhattan Beach, CA, created panic by sending letters to 200 McMartin Preschool parents.

1996: Okinawans voted overwhelmingly to reduce the US military presence in their country.

1997: AOL bought CompuServe.

2000: The Assistant Secretary of the BIA apologized for the agency's legacy of racism and inhumanity.

2002: The NY Times reported that Iraq had "embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb" by trying to buy "specially designed aluminum tubes."

dystopia 11:32 AM - [Link]
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