24.12.10
nucular games in a nuclear world
It seems some of the background in this case has been left out - namely, that the CIA had previously (and unwittingly) provided other states with detailed blueprints for nuclear weapons - specifically, information key to constructing the high-explosive lens and positioning them around the plutonium sphere that sits at the center of nuclear weapons.
There are allegations that some designs were previously provided as part of a CIA sting operation, and that certain key components were mis-drawn on the blueprints - but this latter fact was apparently known to the recipients - see NYT Reporter James Risen in "State of War." Excerpted here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk...
However, Iran has no capacity to construct plutonium cores - that tends to require a dedicated reactor - technically:
"Weapon-grade plutonium (WGPu)-plutonium that typically contains 6 percent or less of the isotopes Pu-240 and Pu-242, isotopes that makes design of nuclear weapons increasingly more difficult. WGPU is created when U-238 is irradiated in a nuclear reactor for only a short period of time."
In order to make a powerful nuclear weapon that can fit on a missile, it is generally thought necessary to use tritium as a booster - technically:
"To fission more of a given amount of fissile material, a small amount of material that can undergo fusion, deuterium and tritium (D-T) gas, can be placed inside the core of a fission device. Here, just as the fission chain reaction gets underway, the D-T gas undergoes fusion, releasing an intense burst of high-energy neutrons (along with a small amount of fusion energy as well) that fissions the surrounding material more completely. This approach, called boosting, is used in most modem nuclear weapons to maintain their yields while greatly decreasing their overall size and weight."
(Technologies Underlying Weapons of Mass Destruction, December 1993, OTA-BP-ISC-115)
The key point here is that Iran has neither Pu-239 nor tritium generating capabilities (unlike perhaps the other nuclear powers - Israel, Pakistan, and India) - and hence is no more of a "nuclear threat" than Iraq was, despite the hype.
Why does this matter? It means that the U.S. claims about the need to protect Europe from assault with ballistic missiles from Iran "tipped with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons" is just as implausible as similar claims about Iraqi WMD potential. The only reasons such claims are being floated is to justify the grotesque expense of a useless "missile defense shield" - something neocons have been pushing ever since the 1980s, but now with Obama's support. Insane.
This also raises another question regarding the current Swiss case: who ultimately provided these designs? Consider the following Risen excerpt:
"Operation Merlin has been one of the most closely guarded secrets in the Clinton and Bush administrations. It's not clear who originally came up with the idea, but the plan was first approved by Clinton. After the Russian scientist's fateful trip to Vienna, however, the Merlin operation was endorsed by the Bush administration, possibly with an eye toward repeating it against North Korea or other dangerous states."
Did they perhaps try this scheme a second time, with the same results?
More to the point, Switzerland is in a rather strange position with regards to nuclear energy, being something of a large investor in nuclear power concerns. See this from the Swiss ambassador (Aug 2008)
"On India’s nuclear deal with the US, Mr Dreyer said that his government recognised the importance of nuclear energy for India’s economic growth, but his country had not decided whether it would support the deal in the nuclear suppliers group (NSG) meeting later this month. “Government of Switzerland is very much in favour of India developing nuclear energy but it is also concerned about problem of non-proliferation,” he said talking to the media on Friday."
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...
The actual nature of the deal with India is that it violates the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The U.S. Congress tried to sidestep this issue by saying the deal only applies to India's "civilian reactors", not to its military reactors (the ones engaged in irradiating U238 to create P239 for use in weapons production). Note also that India and Pakistan refuse to sign the NPT, and the U.S. won't pressure them to.
The terms of this deal are strange indeed:
"In a major success for India’s nuclear ambitions, the 46-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on September 6, 2008 granted it a crucial waiver enabling India to carry out nuclear commerce and ending 34 years of isolation which started after the 1974 Pokharan nuclear tests. The decision to grant India a waiver is unprecedented in the history of the NSG since India has neither signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) nor the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)."
Now, Iran - which has signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty - is again being portrayed as a nuclear weapons threat. This is a ridiculous assertion, not backed by any reliable evidence - much like the false claims about Iraqi WMDs. They have no means of producing plutonium - something the U.S. won't discuss. Also, under the NPT terms, Iran has a right to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group and sell enriched uranium to countries with nuclear power stations.
As far as Assange and Wikileaks, that looks more and more like some kind of covert propaganda campaign - for example, the 'leaked' diplomatic cables from Arab states urging military action against Iran?
"The fact of the leaks is not necessarily a bad thing," said Laipson. "It is part of the way Iran gets the message that within the region that they will look to the United States and outside to protect them. Iran does not want us to have such a robust presence in the region."
That would be Ellen Laipson, Member, President’s Intelligence Advisory Board - supporting the Wikileaks agenda? Strange days indeed.
The real goals, as usual, probably have more to do with the U.S. desire to control fossil fuel production and sales in the Middle East and Central Asia, and keep Iran from delivering natural gas to India via a trans-Pakistan pipeline - much as the real goals in Iraq were all about the control of Iraqi oil output.
Given this state of affairs, it's no wonder the U.S. State Department or the CIA doesn't want to see the Swiss bring up Operation Merlin or anything related to it.
There are allegations that some designs were previously provided as part of a CIA sting operation, and that certain key components were mis-drawn on the blueprints - but this latter fact was apparently known to the recipients - see NYT Reporter James Risen in "State of War." Excerpted here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk...
However, Iran has no capacity to construct plutonium cores - that tends to require a dedicated reactor - technically:
"Weapon-grade plutonium (WGPu)-plutonium that typically contains 6 percent or less of the isotopes Pu-240 and Pu-242, isotopes that makes design of nuclear weapons increasingly more difficult. WGPU is created when U-238 is irradiated in a nuclear reactor for only a short period of time."
In order to make a powerful nuclear weapon that can fit on a missile, it is generally thought necessary to use tritium as a booster - technically:
"To fission more of a given amount of fissile material, a small amount of material that can undergo fusion, deuterium and tritium (D-T) gas, can be placed inside the core of a fission device. Here, just as the fission chain reaction gets underway, the D-T gas undergoes fusion, releasing an intense burst of high-energy neutrons (along with a small amount of fusion energy as well) that fissions the surrounding material more completely. This approach, called boosting, is used in most modem nuclear weapons to maintain their yields while greatly decreasing their overall size and weight."
(Technologies Underlying Weapons of Mass Destruction, December 1993, OTA-BP-ISC-115)
The key point here is that Iran has neither Pu-239 nor tritium generating capabilities (unlike perhaps the other nuclear powers - Israel, Pakistan, and India) - and hence is no more of a "nuclear threat" than Iraq was, despite the hype.
Why does this matter? It means that the U.S. claims about the need to protect Europe from assault with ballistic missiles from Iran "tipped with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons" is just as implausible as similar claims about Iraqi WMD potential. The only reasons such claims are being floated is to justify the grotesque expense of a useless "missile defense shield" - something neocons have been pushing ever since the 1980s, but now with Obama's support. Insane.
This also raises another question regarding the current Swiss case: who ultimately provided these designs? Consider the following Risen excerpt:
"Operation Merlin has been one of the most closely guarded secrets in the Clinton and Bush administrations. It's not clear who originally came up with the idea, but the plan was first approved by Clinton. After the Russian scientist's fateful trip to Vienna, however, the Merlin operation was endorsed by the Bush administration, possibly with an eye toward repeating it against North Korea or other dangerous states."
Did they perhaps try this scheme a second time, with the same results?
More to the point, Switzerland is in a rather strange position with regards to nuclear energy, being something of a large investor in nuclear power concerns. See this from the Swiss ambassador (Aug 2008)
"On India’s nuclear deal with the US, Mr Dreyer said that his government recognised the importance of nuclear energy for India’s economic growth, but his country had not decided whether it would support the deal in the nuclear suppliers group (NSG) meeting later this month. “Government of Switzerland is very much in favour of India developing nuclear energy but it is also concerned about problem of non-proliferation,” he said talking to the media on Friday."
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...
The actual nature of the deal with India is that it violates the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The U.S. Congress tried to sidestep this issue by saying the deal only applies to India's "civilian reactors", not to its military reactors (the ones engaged in irradiating U238 to create P239 for use in weapons production). Note also that India and Pakistan refuse to sign the NPT, and the U.S. won't pressure them to.
The terms of this deal are strange indeed:
"In a major success for India’s nuclear ambitions, the 46-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on September 6, 2008 granted it a crucial waiver enabling India to carry out nuclear commerce and ending 34 years of isolation which started after the 1974 Pokharan nuclear tests. The decision to grant India a waiver is unprecedented in the history of the NSG since India has neither signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) nor the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)."
Now, Iran - which has signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty - is again being portrayed as a nuclear weapons threat. This is a ridiculous assertion, not backed by any reliable evidence - much like the false claims about Iraqi WMDs. They have no means of producing plutonium - something the U.S. won't discuss. Also, under the NPT terms, Iran has a right to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group and sell enriched uranium to countries with nuclear power stations.
As far as Assange and Wikileaks, that looks more and more like some kind of covert propaganda campaign - for example, the 'leaked' diplomatic cables from Arab states urging military action against Iran?
"The fact of the leaks is not necessarily a bad thing," said Laipson. "It is part of the way Iran gets the message that within the region that they will look to the United States and outside to protect them. Iran does not want us to have such a robust presence in the region."
That would be Ellen Laipson, Member, President’s Intelligence Advisory Board - supporting the Wikileaks agenda? Strange days indeed.
The real goals, as usual, probably have more to do with the U.S. desire to control fossil fuel production and sales in the Middle East and Central Asia, and keep Iran from delivering natural gas to India via a trans-Pakistan pipeline - much as the real goals in Iraq were all about the control of Iraqi oil output.
Given this state of affairs, it's no wonder the U.S. State Department or the CIA doesn't want to see the Swiss bring up Operation Merlin or anything related to it.
17.12.10
more lessons, still
Paul Krugman writes about:
Wall Street Whitewash
The financial crisis has provided a teachable moment, all right, but not the one first expected.
His last 2 sentences are:
Never mind relearning the case for bank regulation; what we learned, instead, is what happens when an ideology backed by vast wealth and immense power confronts inconvenient facts. And the answer is, the facts lose.
W in the Middle
New York State
Paul, the lesson was - and still is - there for the learning. But you've got to lose the ideological lens.
Your last couple of sentences could've been a conservative's observation instead of a liberal's - except about ObamaCare or global warming, instead of banking.
The non-ideological lesson should be:
> That things go down in a market faster than they go up (except toward the peak of a bubble), is because the dynamic is different. Investing begets greed begets fear begets panic. And this has been the case, for a long time.
> What's different now are two things:
1. We can make things go up and down faster, using computers.
2. We can make things go up and down more often, using computers.
The first is simply running things on Internet time. The second is more insidious - it's like beating the surface of a still lake with a big paddle to create white water where there shouldn't be any. And then charging $50/day for whitewater raft rentals, instead of $10/day for canoe rentals.
With the second, financial folks no longer need big bubbles to grab the cash. They can simply keep skimming the false frothiness they create - even in a sideways market - to separate the small fish from their money.
False frothiness can take many forms.
> An overdraft fee that is several times the size of the average transaction - and engineered to trigger as many times as possible - for the same set of transactions.
> Put/call options that are several-times overpriced, because of the elegant self-consistency of Black-Scholes (i.e. if I falsely jiggle the market up and down, the price basis for options increases - which a broker can then use as evidence that options are a great investment, increasing the demand and the broker premium).
> Derivatives markets engineered - like option ARM mortgages - with exorbitant overcommissions, that become self-sustaining. Because of the army of willing brokers they enlist, who are willing to be the bad apple at the bottom of the transaction chain - while the banks point at their lawyers, rating agencies, and regulators, with the deniability borne of complexity, and say: "wewuzjustdoinwhattheysezwecoulddo".
But here's how badly we're not learning.
We'd had payday loans and company stores, for a long time.
Except now our banks are trying to attain the margin structure of payday lenders. And we continue to let them do so (there is hope - I saw the proposed fee structure for debit cards...a glimmer of daylight).
On the other hand, Walmart is the antithesis of the company store. Yet, we won't them obtain a bank charter, or sell to our poorest inner-city folks.
Go figure.
Wall Street Whitewash
The financial crisis has provided a teachable moment, all right, but not the one first expected.
His last 2 sentences are:
Never mind relearning the case for bank regulation; what we learned, instead, is what happens when an ideology backed by vast wealth and immense power confronts inconvenient facts. And the answer is, the facts lose.
W in the Middle
New York State
Paul, the lesson was - and still is - there for the learning. But you've got to lose the ideological lens.
Your last couple of sentences could've been a conservative's observation instead of a liberal's - except about ObamaCare or global warming, instead of banking.
The non-ideological lesson should be:
> That things go down in a market faster than they go up (except toward the peak of a bubble), is because the dynamic is different. Investing begets greed begets fear begets panic. And this has been the case, for a long time.
> What's different now are two things:
1. We can make things go up and down faster, using computers.
2. We can make things go up and down more often, using computers.
The first is simply running things on Internet time. The second is more insidious - it's like beating the surface of a still lake with a big paddle to create white water where there shouldn't be any. And then charging $50/day for whitewater raft rentals, instead of $10/day for canoe rentals.
With the second, financial folks no longer need big bubbles to grab the cash. They can simply keep skimming the false frothiness they create - even in a sideways market - to separate the small fish from their money.
False frothiness can take many forms.
> An overdraft fee that is several times the size of the average transaction - and engineered to trigger as many times as possible - for the same set of transactions.
> Put/call options that are several-times overpriced, because of the elegant self-consistency of Black-Scholes (i.e. if I falsely jiggle the market up and down, the price basis for options increases - which a broker can then use as evidence that options are a great investment, increasing the demand and the broker premium).
> Derivatives markets engineered - like option ARM mortgages - with exorbitant overcommissions, that become self-sustaining. Because of the army of willing brokers they enlist, who are willing to be the bad apple at the bottom of the transaction chain - while the banks point at their lawyers, rating agencies, and regulators, with the deniability borne of complexity, and say: "wewuzjustdoinwhattheysezwecoulddo".
But here's how badly we're not learning.
We'd had payday loans and company stores, for a long time.
Except now our banks are trying to attain the margin structure of payday lenders. And we continue to let them do so (there is hope - I saw the proposed fee structure for debit cards...a glimmer of daylight).
On the other hand, Walmart is the antithesis of the company store. Yet, we won't them obtain a bank charter, or sell to our poorest inner-city folks.
Go figure.
the left is a step short to even count
Neiman03
McKeesport, Pa
Democrats, liberals, and progressives -- whatever that ilk wants to call themselves -- cannot blame conservatives and true believers in government-is-always-the-problem for having lost the framing battle. The financial industry is getting away with all of this because the left seems too busy whining about the media or lamenting the lack of sophistication in the public. The left simply hasn't used its base in universities, among public servants, and among communities of color to match the militancy of the right -- at least not in recent years. At a time when public institutions are weaker than they've been in decades, we have a conservative movement that has convinced Americans are oppressed by public institutions. While individuals have never been more vulnerable to the whims and wild conduct of profit-seeking firms, conservatives, with the able assistance of an activist, conservative Supreme Court majority, have mobilized a movement which holds that it is their governments that are the main threat to their well being. Ever since GOP rent-a-mobs showed up at Florida election registrar offices to disrupt that state's recount, progressives have failed to match the vigor and ruthlessness of their opponents. Liberals keep bringing ping pong paddles to a street fight. I dearly respect Krugman, but I'm frustrated that his formidable abilities are not directed at inspiring the direct action we need, focused on the appropriate targets. Please someone help us to waken enough Americans to the fact that they're being played for suckers, again and again and again.
McKeesport, Pa
Democrats, liberals, and progressives -- whatever that ilk wants to call themselves -- cannot blame conservatives and true believers in government-is-always-the-problem for having lost the framing battle. The financial industry is getting away with all of this because the left seems too busy whining about the media or lamenting the lack of sophistication in the public. The left simply hasn't used its base in universities, among public servants, and among communities of color to match the militancy of the right -- at least not in recent years. At a time when public institutions are weaker than they've been in decades, we have a conservative movement that has convinced Americans are oppressed by public institutions. While individuals have never been more vulnerable to the whims and wild conduct of profit-seeking firms, conservatives, with the able assistance of an activist, conservative Supreme Court majority, have mobilized a movement which holds that it is their governments that are the main threat to their well being. Ever since GOP rent-a-mobs showed up at Florida election registrar offices to disrupt that state's recount, progressives have failed to match the vigor and ruthlessness of their opponents. Liberals keep bringing ping pong paddles to a street fight. I dearly respect Krugman, but I'm frustrated that his formidable abilities are not directed at inspiring the direct action we need, focused on the appropriate targets. Please someone help us to waken enough Americans to the fact that they're being played for suckers, again and again and again.
15.12.10
propaganda and a way to influence your emotions and behavior
U.S. Rethinks Strategy for the Unthinkable
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
The Obama administration wants to convey how to react to a nuclear attack but is worried about seeming alarmist.
Reactions:
Laughingdragon
California
Funny story...I was working at Sandia National Labs in Livermore, CA 1993-1996 as a technical information specialist/librarian and then acting librarian. And this is no secret...
One day, one of the secretaries came in to talk to me. And she said that she had boarded a plane, traveling as a private individual. And that, as the aircraft was ready to take off, someone came onto the plane and made a production of finding her and ordered her to deplane, while holding the plane and all the passengers. And that no one explained or said anything to her about it but they took her into the terminal and held onto her for awhile. Eventually they let her board the plane again and they let the plane and all it's passenger's take off. No one said anything to her and no one gave her an explanation. She was still slightly shook-up when she told me this and she asked me what I thought of it. Now I'd been a low level analyst in the military and I had known people on spoofing teams, the kind that test security on military bases so I told her then..."I don't know why but they were testing something. They chose you because you work here, at the lab, and if you wanted to make a fuss they could influence you not to. But I have no idea why." And that's where it lay. Until I saw what happened post 9/11.
My opinion, now, is that there were "civil defense" research projects going then to see just how docile people were. And what kind of reactions could be expected if the government wanted to order them around. And I don't like this nonsense about nuclear shelters and such, as protection from nuclear attack.
Because, you can bet your bottom dollar that if nuclear attack ever comes...you will be out there, unprotected and without refuge. Just as the people in New Orleans were under Hurricane Katrina.
Everything else is just propaganda and a way to influence your emotions and behavior.
pm
brooklyn
The Bush 9/11 tactics, TSA, and now this... I'm more angry than I could ever be afraid.
Community Gardens
Plum Tree
This sounds bad... Is this how he plans to stay in power? Perhaps the creation of a situation like this?
Maria
NY
I was a young elementary school girl and lived through those days. Marched out into the hall to stand in perfect silence, away from doors and windows. It created a backdrop of anxiety that it was possible we could be blown away at any time.
matt
long island
How interesting that this story coincides with Israel's announcement that its missile defenses will not protect civilian targets, only military ones. we are indeed cannon fodder.
Here is UPI story (copyright, I'm sure)
Israel general drops missile defense bombshell
by Staff Writers
Tel Aviv, Israel (UPI) Dec 14, 2010
Maj. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, commander of Israel's northern front, has dropped a bombshell by disclosing that the anti-missile systems the defense industry has developed are intended to protect the country's military installations, not its cities and civilian population.
"The residents of Israel shouldn't be under the illusion that someone will open an umbrella over the heads" in the event of a massive missile and rocket
attack by Israel's enemies, he declared in a speech Sunday at the University of Haifa.
"The systems are designed to protect military bases, even if this means that citizens suffer discomfort during the days of battle."
ShowMe
Missouri
The last straw!!! The lies that have been promulgated by many in government and the media make me believe that a little nuclear attack may be the strategy for the unthinkable, when free citizens of the USA are finally sheep-herded into complete control by the plutocracy.
chris leide
upstate NY
Other explosion results: Lots of good comments about the cold war, bomb shelters, and the need to recognize shelter should you see a blast in the distance. No one seems to be talking about other results nuclear explosions.
Many think that the next war involving nuclear weapons will not be ground attacks that devastate cities and parts of countries, but will be a few strategic atmospheric blasts sending electro-magnetic pulses (EMP's) that will disable computers and electronic systems, either in a smaller scale as explosions over the US or the Russia or China, or that may disable systems globally.
EMP's disable electronic devices. With computers and all things controlled by microprocessors, our known world may end. No micro waves ovens, no cars controlled by computers. No TV's, no sewer processing plants, no DVD players. No iPods, no government action. NO CELL PHONES!!!! The end might not come from radiation poisoning, or direct destruction from the actual explosions, but from our reliance on computers and micro processor that will be disabled by the EMP's.
Cities will go black, ships will founder at sea, and planes will fall from the sky.
It will be cold and dark in the hell that we created. Death will come slowly to many of us accustomed to modern conveniences.
Sorry for the gloomy future cast. Just analyzing well-known options that few seem to want to discuss.
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
The Obama administration wants to convey how to react to a nuclear attack but is worried about seeming alarmist.
Reactions:
Laughingdragon
California
Funny story...I was working at Sandia National Labs in Livermore, CA 1993-1996 as a technical information specialist/librarian and then acting librarian. And this is no secret...
One day, one of the secretaries came in to talk to me. And she said that she had boarded a plane, traveling as a private individual. And that, as the aircraft was ready to take off, someone came onto the plane and made a production of finding her and ordered her to deplane, while holding the plane and all the passengers. And that no one explained or said anything to her about it but they took her into the terminal and held onto her for awhile. Eventually they let her board the plane again and they let the plane and all it's passenger's take off. No one said anything to her and no one gave her an explanation. She was still slightly shook-up when she told me this and she asked me what I thought of it. Now I'd been a low level analyst in the military and I had known people on spoofing teams, the kind that test security on military bases so I told her then..."I don't know why but they were testing something. They chose you because you work here, at the lab, and if you wanted to make a fuss they could influence you not to. But I have no idea why." And that's where it lay. Until I saw what happened post 9/11.
My opinion, now, is that there were "civil defense" research projects going then to see just how docile people were. And what kind of reactions could be expected if the government wanted to order them around. And I don't like this nonsense about nuclear shelters and such, as protection from nuclear attack.
Because, you can bet your bottom dollar that if nuclear attack ever comes...you will be out there, unprotected and without refuge. Just as the people in New Orleans were under Hurricane Katrina.
Everything else is just propaganda and a way to influence your emotions and behavior.
pm
brooklyn
The Bush 9/11 tactics, TSA, and now this... I'm more angry than I could ever be afraid.
Community Gardens
Plum Tree
This sounds bad... Is this how he plans to stay in power? Perhaps the creation of a situation like this?
Maria
NY
I was a young elementary school girl and lived through those days. Marched out into the hall to stand in perfect silence, away from doors and windows. It created a backdrop of anxiety that it was possible we could be blown away at any time.
matt
long island
How interesting that this story coincides with Israel's announcement that its missile defenses will not protect civilian targets, only military ones. we are indeed cannon fodder.
Here is UPI story (copyright, I'm sure)
Israel general drops missile defense bombshell
by Staff Writers
Tel Aviv, Israel (UPI) Dec 14, 2010
Maj. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, commander of Israel's northern front, has dropped a bombshell by disclosing that the anti-missile systems the defense industry has developed are intended to protect the country's military installations, not its cities and civilian population.
"The residents of Israel shouldn't be under the illusion that someone will open an umbrella over the heads" in the event of a massive missile and rocket
attack by Israel's enemies, he declared in a speech Sunday at the University of Haifa.
"The systems are designed to protect military bases, even if this means that citizens suffer discomfort during the days of battle."
ShowMe
Missouri
The last straw!!! The lies that have been promulgated by many in government and the media make me believe that a little nuclear attack may be the strategy for the unthinkable, when free citizens of the USA are finally sheep-herded into complete control by the plutocracy.
chris leide
upstate NY
Other explosion results: Lots of good comments about the cold war, bomb shelters, and the need to recognize shelter should you see a blast in the distance. No one seems to be talking about other results nuclear explosions.
Many think that the next war involving nuclear weapons will not be ground attacks that devastate cities and parts of countries, but will be a few strategic atmospheric blasts sending electro-magnetic pulses (EMP's) that will disable computers and electronic systems, either in a smaller scale as explosions over the US or the Russia or China, or that may disable systems globally.
EMP's disable electronic devices. With computers and all things controlled by microprocessors, our known world may end. No micro waves ovens, no cars controlled by computers. No TV's, no sewer processing plants, no DVD players. No iPods, no government action. NO CELL PHONES!!!! The end might not come from radiation poisoning, or direct destruction from the actual explosions, but from our reliance on computers and micro processor that will be disabled by the EMP's.
Cities will go black, ships will founder at sea, and planes will fall from the sky.
It will be cold and dark in the hell that we created. Death will come slowly to many of us accustomed to modern conveniences.
Sorry for the gloomy future cast. Just analyzing well-known options that few seem to want to discuss.
6.12.10
Assange, Wikileaks & US
I don't think Assange has that many chances to survive into 2011. This is most unfortunate because whatever trace is left in people's minds about the image of the US is going to be blown into pieces. The world will turn cynical, I fear for much worse.
If we wanted a better course of action, we should have thought as if the Cold War were still going on. Then we should have thanked Mr. Assange in whatever terms, retired Mrs. Clinton for her request for spying on the UN officials, and returned to work by filling in whatever gaps wikileaks has been exposing in our whole system.
As for the justice coming from the Swedes, or our own private and self-appointed law enforcers (Amazon, PayPal, etc.), what more can I say? ...true to form.
Marianne Ny: Making an arse of Swedish law.
Written By: lprent - Date published: 4:28 pm, December 4th, 2010 - 66 comments
Categories: International, activism, us politics - Tags: julian assange, sweden, wikileaks
Categories: International, activism, us politics - Tags: julian assange, sweden, wikileaks
With all of the drama surrounding the Wikileaks release of US government diplomatic wires which I and others do not find surprising. What has been intriguing me more is the behavior of the Sweden’s director of public prosecutions, Marianne Ny. The available information on her charges and actions against Julian Assange, the founder and head of Wikileaks, indicates that she is driven more by the politics than any respect for the law. Assange’s current lawyer compares her to role of the infamous Beria in Stalins 1930′s show trials – and from what I can see I’d have to agree. Similarly I fail to see why Interpol is involved for such a minor charge
Apparently the charge is question is something pretty weird called “sex by surprise”
The facts of the case do not appear to be in any dispute by either side.
Why did Interpol accept it? There isn’t even an arrest warrant against Assange in Sweden. Apparently because Sweden’s director of public prosecutions, Marianne Ny claimed that Julian Assange had ‘fled’ to avoid answering questions. However the facts that have not been disputed by the Swedish prosecutor or her staff is that Julian Assange has made statements to both the police and the prosecutors after staying in Sweden to do so, was given permission to leave the country by the prosecutors, and has offered to answer questions in Britian including at the Swedish embassy.
Of even more concern is the conditions attached to the red notice. When it was issued on November 18th it requested that Assange would be
But it is pretty clear that Marianne Ny is not acting for the law in Sweden – she is using the law and the Interpol process on the flimsiest pretext. It is clear that you can’t call this rape despite what the prosecutors in Sweden say and has been blasted all over the US media.
Sure, Assange should probably answer more questions – if only to get this on again, off again, on again accusation settled. But there is no reason that cannot be done in the relative safety of the embassy in London. Since the charges do not carry a custodial sentence then there should be no reason to put Assange in prison to answer questions. That just makes him an easy to get at target for the various groups that are proposing to kill or imprison him on trumped up charges from countries like the US to which he owes no duty.
Bearing in mind the US policies of grabbing suspects from friendly states with poor legal systems and throwing them into concentration camps like Guantanamo Bay for interrogation, I can see why Assange would not want to put in the control of a show trial prosecutor like Ny.
Marianne Ny is just making an arse of Swedish law and holding it up as a laughing stock to the rest of the world.
BTW: If anyone is having problems accessing Wikileaks, then try this link
Apparently the charge is question is something pretty weird called “sex by surprise”
Assange’s London attorney, Mark Stephens, told AOL News today that Swedish prosecutors told him that Assange is wanted not for allegations of rape, as previously reported, but for something called “sex by surprise,” which he said involves a fine of 5,000 kronor or about $715.This would not be regarded as being rape here or apparently anywhere else apart from Sweden. Specifically in this case it appears to revolve around the use of condoms. I’d have to point out here (probably with too much information) that I was conceived because of a condom failure. Over the years I have had a few failures of condoms and failed to use condoms when I should have. It happens in the passion to the best of us. Fortunately I haven’t had the consequence of either issue or STD’s.
The facts of the case do not appear to be in any dispute by either side.
Assange arrived in Sweden on Aug. 11 to speak at a weekend seminar sponsored by the Social Democratic Party and arranged to stay at a Stockholm apartment belonging to the event organizer, a member of the branch of the party who would become one of Assange’s two accusers.While in Sweden Assange had sex with another woman a few days after meeting her at a function hosted by the first woman.
According to a police report obtained by the Daily Mail in August, she and Assange had sex, and at some point the condom broke. While she was apparently not happy about the condom breaking, the two were seen the next day at the seminar, and nothing appeared amiss.
The woman and Assange also reportedly had sex. According to the Daily Mail account, Assange did not use a condom at least one time during their sexual activity. The New York Times today quoted accounts given by the women to police and friends as saying Assange “did not comply with her appeals to stop when (the condom) was no longer in use.”The woman discovered that Assange had sex with both of them, and a few days later went to the police. This is where the legal system in Sweden gets somewhat strange and muddled.
Based on what was said to police, the on-call prosecutor, Marie Kjellstrand, decided to issue an arrest warrant on charges of rape and molestation, and the next day the story hit the Swedish paper Expressen and newspapers all over the world.The best information about what was going on comes from Melbourne barrister James D. Catlin, who acted for Julian Assange in London in October. Of course this is one-sided. However there appears to be nothing to contradict this in the media storm raging in Sweden with statements from the prosecutors or the woman or their lawyer.
Kjellstrand’s decision was overruled the following day by a higher-level prosecutor, Eva Finne, who withdrew the arrest warrant and said she did not see any evidence for rape allegations.
Then, on Sept. 1, a third prosecutor, Ny, re-opened the rape investigation, implying that she had new information in the case.
The women here are near to and over 30 and have international experience, some of it working in Swedish government embassies. There is no suggestion of drugs nor identity concealment. Far from it. Both women boasted of their celebrity connection to Assange after the events that they would now see him destroyed for.So why exactly is there a red notice lodged with Interpol over this? In the 188 countries that are part of Interpol, there are a bit over five thousand notices given each year for murderers, fraudsters, actual rapists, and other serious crimes. A crime that has a maximum penalty of USD715 and no potential jail time is a minor offense, and appears to be more a case of social ineptitude on both sides than anything else.
That further evidence hasn’t been confected to make the charges less absurd does Sweden no credit because it has no choice in the matter. The phenomena of social networking through the internet and mobile phones constrains Swedish authorities from augmenting the evidence against Assange because it would look even less credible in the face of tweets by Anna Ardin and SMS texts by Sofia Wilén boasting of their respective conquests after the “crimes”.
In the case of Ardin it is clear that she has thrown a party in Assange’s honour at her flat after the “crime” and tweeted to her followers that she is with the “the world’s coolest smartest people, it’s amazing!”. Go on the internet and see for yourself. That Ardin has sought unsuccessfully to delete these exculpatory tweets from the public record should be a matter of grave concern. That she has published on the internet a guide on how to get revenge on cheating boyfriends ever graver. The exact content of Wilén’s mobile phone texts is not yet known but their bragging and exculpatory character has been confirmed by Swedish prosecutors. Niether Wilén’s nor Ardin’s texts complain of rape.
But then neither Arden nor Wilén complained to the police but rather “sought advice”, a technique in Sweden enabling citizens to avoid just punishment for making false complaints. They sought advice together, having collaborated and irrevocably tainted each other’s evidence beforehand. Their SMS texts to each other show a plan to contact the Swedish newspaper Expressen beforehand in order to maximise the damage to Assange. They belong to the same political group and attended a public lecture given by Assange and organised by them. You can see Wilén on the YouTube video of the event even now.
Of course, their celebrity lawyer Claes Borgström was questioned as to how the women themselves could be essentially contradicting the legal characterisation of Swedish prosecutors; a crime of non-consent by consent. Borgström’s answer is emblematic of how divorced from reality this matter is. “They (the women) are not jurists”. You need a law degree to know whether you have been r-ped or not in Sweden. In the context of such double think, the question of how the Swedish authorities propose to deal with victims who neither saw themselves as such nor acted as such is easily answered: You’re not a Swedish lawyer so you wouldn’t understand anyway. The consent of both women to sex with Assange has been confirmed by prosecutors.
Why did Interpol accept it? There isn’t even an arrest warrant against Assange in Sweden. Apparently because Sweden’s director of public prosecutions, Marianne Ny claimed that Julian Assange had ‘fled’ to avoid answering questions. However the facts that have not been disputed by the Swedish prosecutor or her staff is that Julian Assange has made statements to both the police and the prosecutors after staying in Sweden to do so, was given permission to leave the country by the prosecutors, and has offered to answer questions in Britian including at the Swedish embassy.
Of even more concern is the conditions attached to the red notice. When it was issued on November 18th it requested that Assange would be
…held incommunicado without access to lawyers, visitors or other prisoners..Quite simply this looks like a politically motivated legal move to grab Julian Assange on a legal pretext, to shut him up, and to get moved to a country with a sympathetic prosecutor for extradition. I’d be extremely interested in finding out what communication has been going on between the conservative government in Sweden before and after the election on September 19th with the government in the US.
But it is pretty clear that Marianne Ny is not acting for the law in Sweden – she is using the law and the Interpol process on the flimsiest pretext. It is clear that you can’t call this rape despite what the prosecutors in Sweden say and has been blasted all over the US media.
Sure, Assange should probably answer more questions – if only to get this on again, off again, on again accusation settled. But there is no reason that cannot be done in the relative safety of the embassy in London. Since the charges do not carry a custodial sentence then there should be no reason to put Assange in prison to answer questions. That just makes him an easy to get at target for the various groups that are proposing to kill or imprison him on trumped up charges from countries like the US to which he owes no duty.Bearing in mind the US policies of grabbing suspects from friendly states with poor legal systems and throwing them into concentration camps like Guantanamo Bay for interrogation, I can see why Assange would not want to put in the control of a show trial prosecutor like Ny.
Marianne Ny is just making an arse of Swedish law and holding it up as a laughing stock to the rest of the world.
BTW: If anyone is having problems accessing Wikileaks, then try this link
3.12.10
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/dec/03/julian-assange-wikileaks
Fwoggie
I'll start the ball rolling with a question. You're an Australian passport holder - would you want return to your own country or is this now out of the question due to potentially being arrested on arrival for releasing cables relating to Australian diplomats and polices?
Julian Assange:
I am an Australian citizen and I miss my country a great deal. However, during the last weeks the Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard, and the attorney general, Robert McClelland, have made it clear that not only is my return is impossible but that they are actively working to assist the United States government in its attacks on myself and our people. This brings into question what does it mean to be an Australian citizen - does that mean anything at all? Or are we all to be treated like David Hicks at the first possible opportunity merely so that Australian politicians and diplomats can be invited to the best US embassy cocktail parties.
girish89
How do you think you have changed world affairs?
And if you call all the attention you've been given-credit ... shouldn't the mole or source receive a word of praise from you?
Julian Assange:
For the past four years one of our goals has been to lionise the source who take the real risks in nearly every journalistic disclosure and without whose efforts, journalists would be nothing. If indeed it is the case, as alleged by the Pentagon, that the young soldier - Bradley Manning - is behind some of our recent disclosures, then he is without doubt an unparalleled hero.
Daithi
Have you released, or will you release, cables (either in the last few days or with the Afghan and Iraq war logs) with the names of Afghan informants or anything else like so?
Are you willing to censor (sorry for using the term) any names that you feel might land people in danger from reprisals??
By the way, I think history will absolve you. Well done!!!
Julian Assange:
WikiLeaks has a four-year publishing history. During that time there has been no credible allegation, even by organisations like the Pentagon that even a single person has come to harm as a result of our activities. This is despite much-attempted manipulation and spin trying to lead people to a counter-factual conclusion. We do not expect any change in this regard.
distrot
The State Dept is mulling over the issue of whether you are a journalist or not. Are you a journalist? As far as delivering information that someone [anyone] does not want seen is concerned, does it matter if you are a 'journalist' or not?
Julian Assange:
I coauthored my first nonfiction book by the time I was 25. I have been involved in nonfiction documentaries, newspapers, TV and internet since that time. However, it is not necessary to debate whether I am a journalist, or how our people mysteriously are alleged to cease to be journalists when they start writing for our organisaiton. Although I still write, research and investigate my role is primarily that of a publisher and editor-in-chief who organises and directs other journalists.
achanth
Mr Assange,
have there ever been documents forwarded to you which deal with the topic of UFOs or extraterrestrials?
Julian Assange:
Many weirdos email us about UFOs or how they discovered that they were the anti-christ whilst talking with their ex-wife at a garden party over a pot-plant. However, as yet they have not satisfied two of our publishing rules.
1) that the documents not be self-authored;
2) that they be original.
However, it is worth noting that in yet-to-be-published parts of the cablegate archive there are indeed references to UFOs.
gnosticheresy
What happened to all the other documents that were on Wikileaks prior to these series of "megaleaks"? Will you put them back online at some stage ("technical difficulties" permitting)?
Julian Assange:
Many of these are still available at mirror.wikileaks.info and the rest will be returning as soon as we can find a moment to do address the engineering complexities. Since April of this year our timetable has not been our own, rather it has been one that has centred on the moves of abusive elements of the United States government against us. But rest assured I am deeply unhappy that the three-and-a-half years of my work and others is not easily available or searchable by the general public.
CrisShutlar
Have you expected this level of impact all over the world? Do you fear for your security?
Julian Assange:
I always believed that WikiLeaks as a concept would perform a global role and to some degree it was clear that is was doing that as far back as 2007 when it changed the result of the Kenyan general election. I thought it would take two years instead of four to be recognised by others as having this important role, so we are still a little behind schedule and have much more work to do. The threats against our lives are a matter of public record, however, we are taking the appropriate precautions to the degree that we are able when dealing with a super power.
JAnthony
Julian.
I am a former British diplomat. In the course of my former duties I helped to coordinate multilateral action against a brutal regime in the Balkans, impose sanctions on a renegade state threatening ethnic cleansing, and negotiate a debt relief programme for an impoverished nation. None of this would have been possible without the security and secrecy of diplomatic correspondence, and the protection of that correspondence from publication under the laws of the UK and many other liberal and democratic states. An embassy which cannot securely offer advice or pass messages back to London is an embassy which cannot operate. Diplomacy cannot operate without discretion and the
protection of sources. This applies to the UK and the UN as much as the US.
In publishing this massive volume of correspondence, Wikileaks is not highlighting specific cases of wrongdoing but undermining the entire process of diplomacy. If you can publish US cables then you can publish UK telegrams and UN emails.
My question to you is: why should we not hold you personally responsible when next an international crisis goes unresolved because diplomats cannot function.
Julian Assange:
If you trim the vast editorial letter to the singular question actually asked, I would be happy to give it my attention.
cargun
Mr Assange,
Can you explain the censorship of identities as XXXXX's in the revealed cables? Some critical identities are left as is, whereas some are XXXXX'd. Some cables are partially revealed. Who can make such critical decisons, but the US gov't? As far as we know your request for such help was rejected by the State department. Also is there an order in the release of cable or are they randomly selected?
Thank you.
Julian Assange:
The cables we have release correspond to stories released by our main stream media partners and ourselves. They have been redacted by the journalists working on the stories, as these people must know the material well in order to write about it. The redactions are then reviewed by at least one other journalist or editor, and we review samples supplied by the other organisations to make sure the process is working.
rszopa
Annoying as it may be, the DDoS seems to be good publicity (if anything, it adds to your credibility). So is getting kicked out of AWS. Do you agree with this statement? Were you planning for it?
Thank you for doing what you are doing.
Julian Assange:
Since 2007 we have been deliberately placing some of our servers in jurisdictions that we suspected suffered a free speech deficit inorder to separate rhetoric from reality. Amazon was one of these cases.
abbeherrera
You started something that nobody can stop. The Beginning of a New World. Remember, that community is behind you and support you (from Slovakia).
Do you have leaks on ACTA?
Julian Assange:
Yes, we have leaks on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a trojan horse trade agreement designed from the very beginning to satisfy big players in the US copyright and patent industries. In fact, it was WikiLeaks that first drew ACTA to the public's attention - with a leak.
people1st
Tom Flanagan, a [former] senior adviser to Canadian Prime Minister recently stated "I think Assange should be assassinated ... I think Obama should put out a contract ... I wouldn't feel unhappy if Assange does disappear."
How do you feel about this?
Julian Assange:
It is correct that Mr. Flanagan and the others seriously making these statements should be charged with incitement to commit murder.
Isopod
Julian, why do you think it was necessary to "give Wikileaks a face"? Don't you think it would be better if the organization was anonymous?
This whole debate has become very personal and reduced on you - "Julian Assange leaked documents", "Julian Assange is a terrorist", "Julian Assange alledgedly raped a woman", "Julian Assange should be assassinated", "Live Q&A qith Julian Assange" etc. Nobody talks about Wikileaks as an organization anymore. Many people don't even realize that there are other people behind Wikileaks, too.
And this, in my opinion, makes Wikileaks vulnerable because this enables your opponents to argue ad hominem. If they convince the public that you're an evil, woman-raping terrorist, then Wikileaks' credibility will be gone. Also, with due respect for all that you've done, I think it's unfair to all the other brave, hard working people behind Wikileaks, that you get so much credit.
Julian Assange:
This is an interesting question. I originally tried hard for the organisation to have no face, because I wanted egos to play no part in our activities. This followed the tradition of the French anonymous pure mathematians, who wrote under the collective allonym, "The Bourbaki". However this quickly led to tremendous distracting curiosity about who and random individuals claiming to represent us. In the end, someone must be responsible to the public and only a leadership that is willing to be publicly courageous can genuinely suggest that sources take risks for the greater good. In that process, I have become the lightening rod. I get undue attacks on every aspect of my life, but then I also get undue credit as some kind of balancing force.
tburgi
Western governments lay claim to moral authority in part from having legal guarantees for a free press.
Threats of legal sanction against Wikileaks and yourself seem to weaken this claim.
(What press needs to be protected except that which is unpopular to the State? If being state-sanctioned is the test for being a media organization, and therefore able to claim rights to press freedom, the situation appears to be the same in authoritarian regimes and the west.)
Do you agree that western governments risk losing moral authority by
attacking Wikileaks?
Do you believe western goverments have any moral authority to begin with?
Thanks,
Tim Burgi
Vancouver, Canada
Julian Assange:
The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free. In states like China, there is pervasive censorship, because speech still has power and power is scared of it. We should always look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that jurisdiction. The attacks against us by the US point to a great hope, speech powerful enough to break the fiscal blockade.
rajiv1857
Hi,
Is the game that you are caught up in winnable? Technically, can you keep playing hide and seek with the powers that be when services and service providers are directly or indirectly under government control or vulnerable to pressure - like Amazon?
Also, if you get "taken out" - and that could be technical, not necessarily physical - what are the alternatives for your cache of material?
Is there a 'second line' of activists in place that would continue the campaign?
Is your material 'dispersed' so that taking out one cache would not necessarily mean the end of the game?
Julian Assange:
The Cable Gate archive has been spread, along with significant material from the US and other countries to over 100,000 people in encrypted form. If something happens to us, the key parts will be released automatically. Further, the Cable Gate archives is in the hands of multiple news organisations. History will win. The world will be elevated to a better place. Will we survive? That depends on you.
I'll start the ball rolling with a question. You're an Australian passport holder - would you want return to your own country or is this now out of the question due to potentially being arrested on arrival for releasing cables relating to Australian diplomats and polices?
Julian Assange:I am an Australian citizen and I miss my country a great deal. However, during the last weeks the Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard, and the attorney general, Robert McClelland, have made it clear that not only is my return is impossible but that they are actively working to assist the United States government in its attacks on myself and our people. This brings into question what does it mean to be an Australian citizen - does that mean anything at all? Or are we all to be treated like David Hicks at the first possible opportunity merely so that Australian politicians and diplomats can be invited to the best US embassy cocktail parties.
girish89
How do you think you have changed world affairs?
And if you call all the attention you've been given-credit ... shouldn't the mole or source receive a word of praise from you?
Julian Assange:For the past four years one of our goals has been to lionise the source who take the real risks in nearly every journalistic disclosure and without whose efforts, journalists would be nothing. If indeed it is the case, as alleged by the Pentagon, that the young soldier - Bradley Manning - is behind some of our recent disclosures, then he is without doubt an unparalleled hero.
Daithi
Have you released, or will you release, cables (either in the last few days or with the Afghan and Iraq war logs) with the names of Afghan informants or anything else like so?
Are you willing to censor (sorry for using the term) any names that you feel might land people in danger from reprisals??
By the way, I think history will absolve you. Well done!!!
Julian Assange:WikiLeaks has a four-year publishing history. During that time there has been no credible allegation, even by organisations like the Pentagon that even a single person has come to harm as a result of our activities. This is despite much-attempted manipulation and spin trying to lead people to a counter-factual conclusion. We do not expect any change in this regard.
distrot
The State Dept is mulling over the issue of whether you are a journalist or not. Are you a journalist? As far as delivering information that someone [anyone] does not want seen is concerned, does it matter if you are a 'journalist' or not?
Julian Assange:I coauthored my first nonfiction book by the time I was 25. I have been involved in nonfiction documentaries, newspapers, TV and internet since that time. However, it is not necessary to debate whether I am a journalist, or how our people mysteriously are alleged to cease to be journalists when they start writing for our organisaiton. Although I still write, research and investigate my role is primarily that of a publisher and editor-in-chief who organises and directs other journalists.
achanth
Mr Assange,
have there ever been documents forwarded to you which deal with the topic of UFOs or extraterrestrials?
Julian Assange:Many weirdos email us about UFOs or how they discovered that they were the anti-christ whilst talking with their ex-wife at a garden party over a pot-plant. However, as yet they have not satisfied two of our publishing rules.
1) that the documents not be self-authored;
2) that they be original.
However, it is worth noting that in yet-to-be-published parts of the cablegate archive there are indeed references to UFOs.
gnosticheresy
What happened to all the other documents that were on Wikileaks prior to these series of "megaleaks"? Will you put them back online at some stage ("technical difficulties" permitting)?
Julian Assange:Many of these are still available at mirror.wikileaks.info and the rest will be returning as soon as we can find a moment to do address the engineering complexities. Since April of this year our timetable has not been our own, rather it has been one that has centred on the moves of abusive elements of the United States government against us. But rest assured I am deeply unhappy that the three-and-a-half years of my work and others is not easily available or searchable by the general public.
CrisShutlar
Have you expected this level of impact all over the world? Do you fear for your security?
Julian Assange:I always believed that WikiLeaks as a concept would perform a global role and to some degree it was clear that is was doing that as far back as 2007 when it changed the result of the Kenyan general election. I thought it would take two years instead of four to be recognised by others as having this important role, so we are still a little behind schedule and have much more work to do. The threats against our lives are a matter of public record, however, we are taking the appropriate precautions to the degree that we are able when dealing with a super power.
JAnthony
Julian.
I am a former British diplomat. In the course of my former duties I helped to coordinate multilateral action against a brutal regime in the Balkans, impose sanctions on a renegade state threatening ethnic cleansing, and negotiate a debt relief programme for an impoverished nation. None of this would have been possible without the security and secrecy of diplomatic correspondence, and the protection of that correspondence from publication under the laws of the UK and many other liberal and democratic states. An embassy which cannot securely offer advice or pass messages back to London is an embassy which cannot operate. Diplomacy cannot operate without discretion and the
protection of sources. This applies to the UK and the UN as much as the US.
In publishing this massive volume of correspondence, Wikileaks is not highlighting specific cases of wrongdoing but undermining the entire process of diplomacy. If you can publish US cables then you can publish UK telegrams and UN emails.
My question to you is: why should we not hold you personally responsible when next an international crisis goes unresolved because diplomats cannot function.
Julian Assange:If you trim the vast editorial letter to the singular question actually asked, I would be happy to give it my attention.
cargun
Mr Assange,
Can you explain the censorship of identities as XXXXX's in the revealed cables? Some critical identities are left as is, whereas some are XXXXX'd. Some cables are partially revealed. Who can make such critical decisons, but the US gov't? As far as we know your request for such help was rejected by the State department. Also is there an order in the release of cable or are they randomly selected?
Thank you.
Julian Assange:The cables we have release correspond to stories released by our main stream media partners and ourselves. They have been redacted by the journalists working on the stories, as these people must know the material well in order to write about it. The redactions are then reviewed by at least one other journalist or editor, and we review samples supplied by the other organisations to make sure the process is working.
rszopa
Annoying as it may be, the DDoS seems to be good publicity (if anything, it adds to your credibility). So is getting kicked out of AWS. Do you agree with this statement? Were you planning for it?
Thank you for doing what you are doing.
Julian Assange:Since 2007 we have been deliberately placing some of our servers in jurisdictions that we suspected suffered a free speech deficit inorder to separate rhetoric from reality. Amazon was one of these cases.
abbeherrera
You started something that nobody can stop. The Beginning of a New World. Remember, that community is behind you and support you (from Slovakia).
Do you have leaks on ACTA?
Julian Assange:Yes, we have leaks on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a trojan horse trade agreement designed from the very beginning to satisfy big players in the US copyright and patent industries. In fact, it was WikiLeaks that first drew ACTA to the public's attention - with a leak.
people1st
Tom Flanagan, a [former] senior adviser to Canadian Prime Minister recently stated "I think Assange should be assassinated ... I think Obama should put out a contract ... I wouldn't feel unhappy if Assange does disappear."
How do you feel about this?
Julian Assange:It is correct that Mr. Flanagan and the others seriously making these statements should be charged with incitement to commit murder.
Isopod
Julian, why do you think it was necessary to "give Wikileaks a face"? Don't you think it would be better if the organization was anonymous?
This whole debate has become very personal and reduced on you - "Julian Assange leaked documents", "Julian Assange is a terrorist", "Julian Assange alledgedly raped a woman", "Julian Assange should be assassinated", "Live Q&A qith Julian Assange" etc. Nobody talks about Wikileaks as an organization anymore. Many people don't even realize that there are other people behind Wikileaks, too.
And this, in my opinion, makes Wikileaks vulnerable because this enables your opponents to argue ad hominem. If they convince the public that you're an evil, woman-raping terrorist, then Wikileaks' credibility will be gone. Also, with due respect for all that you've done, I think it's unfair to all the other brave, hard working people behind Wikileaks, that you get so much credit.
Julian Assange:This is an interesting question. I originally tried hard for the organisation to have no face, because I wanted egos to play no part in our activities. This followed the tradition of the French anonymous pure mathematians, who wrote under the collective allonym, "The Bourbaki". However this quickly led to tremendous distracting curiosity about who and random individuals claiming to represent us. In the end, someone must be responsible to the public and only a leadership that is willing to be publicly courageous can genuinely suggest that sources take risks for the greater good. In that process, I have become the lightening rod. I get undue attacks on every aspect of my life, but then I also get undue credit as some kind of balancing force.
tburgi
Western governments lay claim to moral authority in part from having legal guarantees for a free press.
Threats of legal sanction against Wikileaks and yourself seem to weaken this claim.
(What press needs to be protected except that which is unpopular to the State? If being state-sanctioned is the test for being a media organization, and therefore able to claim rights to press freedom, the situation appears to be the same in authoritarian regimes and the west.)
Do you agree that western governments risk losing moral authority by
attacking Wikileaks?
Do you believe western goverments have any moral authority to begin with?
Thanks,
Tim Burgi
Vancouver, Canada
Julian Assange:The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free. In states like China, there is pervasive censorship, because speech still has power and power is scared of it. We should always look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that jurisdiction. The attacks against us by the US point to a great hope, speech powerful enough to break the fiscal blockade.
rajiv1857
Hi,
Is the game that you are caught up in winnable? Technically, can you keep playing hide and seek with the powers that be when services and service providers are directly or indirectly under government control or vulnerable to pressure - like Amazon?
Also, if you get "taken out" - and that could be technical, not necessarily physical - what are the alternatives for your cache of material?
Is there a 'second line' of activists in place that would continue the campaign?
Is your material 'dispersed' so that taking out one cache would not necessarily mean the end of the game?
Julian Assange:The Cable Gate archive has been spread, along with significant material from the US and other countries to over 100,000 people in encrypted form. If something happens to us, the key parts will be released automatically. Further, the Cable Gate archives is in the hands of multiple news organisations. History will win. The world will be elevated to a better place. Will we survive? That depends on you.
29.11.10
With Tom Geoghegan about the German Model
Thomas Geoghegan is the author of several must read articles, and a great book, Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life.
Cablegate: Ambassador labels mid-80s Britain as 'Dickensian'
that was the time of Thatcher-Reagan
Thursday, 31 October 1985, 14:21
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 08 LONDON 24287
E.O.12356: DECL: OADR
TAGS SOCI, PINS, UK
SUBJECT: URBAN VIOLENCE IN BRITAIN -- THE CHALLENGE
Summary
1. The race riots that rocked Britain in the mid-1980s inspired the then US ambassador to say the UK was unprepared for dealing with the impact of immigration and had looked on 'complacently' while America struggled with civil rights disturbances in the 1960s. Key passage highlighted in yellow.
2. Read related article
OF A RACIAL UNDERCLASS WORRIES THIS CONSERVATIVE SOCIETY
1. CONFIDENTIAL - ENTIRE TEXT.
2. SUMMARY. DEPRESSED AREAS IN SEVERAL OF THE U.K.'S INNER CITIES ERUPTED IN RIOTS IN THE PAST MONTH. THE BRITISH SEE MANY OF THEIR DOMESTIC WOES THROWN INTO HIGH RELIEF BY THE RIOTS AND THE SUBSEQUENT NATIONAL DEBATE ABOUT CAUSE, EFFECT, AND WHO IS TO BLAME. THE RIOTS HAVE HIGHLIGHTED:
--- THE LONG-TERM ECONOMIC MALAISE IN BRITAIN, WITH A HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT RATE AND A NEAR-COLLAPSE OF THE SMOKE-STACK INDUSTRIES IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND;
--- RACIAL TENSION BETWEEN WHITE BRITAIN AND THE BLACK AND ASIAN POPULATIONS WHO HAVE SETTLED IN THE U.K. SINCE THE 1950'S;
--- PERSISTENT PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL DISADVANTAGE IN AREAS OF THE INNER CITY, WHICH EXTEND TO HOUSING, EDUCATION, INCOME, AND EMPLOYMENT;
--- A VIGOROUS NEW DRUG CRACKDOWN WHICH IS INADVERTENTLY THREATENING THE UNEASY BALANCE BETWEEN POLICE AND COMMUNITIES IN MANY INNER CITY AREAS;
--- THE PROBLEM OF POLICING THE MULTI-ETHNIC INNER CITIES EFFECTIVELY AND SENSITIVELY WITH A NEARLY ALL-WHITE POLICE FORCE WHICH IS FACING NUMEROUS POLITICAL PRESSURES AT PRESENT;
--- THE LACK OF AN AGREED RESPONSE TO THE PROBLEM ON THE PART OF BRITAIN'S NATIONAL POLITICAL LEADERS.
ALL THE FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE RIOTS ARE AND HAVE BEEN PRESENT IN THE U.S., AND IN GREATER MEASURE, AND THE RIOT DESTRUCTION HERE IS ON A MUCH SMALLER SCALE THAN IT WAS IN THE U.S. URBAN UPHEAVALS OF TWO DECADES AGO. THE AMERICAN RESPONSE (EEO LEGISLATION, AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, GIVING MINORITIES GREATER AVENUES FOR POLITICAL EXPRESSION) RESULTED IN SIGNIFICANT CHANGES IN SOCIETAL STRUCTURE AND POLITICS IN THE U.S. IT REMAINS TO BE SEEN WHETHER THE BRITISH POLITICAL SYSTEM WILL PROVE FLEXIBLE ENOUGH TO MEET THE CHALLENGE THIS UNREST POSES. WITH THE AUTUMN CHILL COMING, THE RIOTS MAY HAVE ABATED, BUT WHEN THE WEATHER GETS WARM AGAIN, IF NOT BEFORE, THERE COULD BE A REPEAT OF THESE INCIDENTS. END SUMMARY
ARE THEY DEPRESSED BECAUSE THEY'RE DEPRIVED?
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3. HEADLINES IN THE U.K. IN THE PAST MONTH HAVE RECORDED CLASHES BETWEEN RIOTERS AND POLICE, THE KNIFING TO DEATH OF ONE POLICEMAN, AND CROWDS OF YOUTHS PELTING BRICKS, STONES, AND MOLOTOV COCKTAILS AT RIOT-SHIELDED POLICE IN THE DEPRESSED AREAS OF LONDON, BIRMINGHAM, LIVERPOOL, AND LEICESTER. FOUR YEARS AGO, AFTER SIMILAR SCENES IN THE BRIXTON NEIGHBORHOOD OF LONDON, LORD SCARMAN, THE JUDGE WHO HEADED A COMMISSION OF INQUIRY, FOUND THAT THE PRINCIPAL CAUSES OF THE RIOTS WERE: UNEMPLOYMENT, POOR HOUSING, LACK OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING PROSPECTS FOR YOUTHS, POOR RELATIONS BETWEEN THE COMMUNITY AND THE POLICE, AND AN INCREASINGLY LARGE NUMBER OF BLACKS WHO FELT ANGRY AND ALIENATED FROM A SOCIETY WHICH THEY PERCEIVED AS RACIST AND HOSTILE.
4. THE RIOT AREAS ARE SHARPLY MORE ETHNIC AND YOUNGER THAN THE POPULATION AS A WHOLE. THE OVERALL PERCENTAGE OF FAMILIES HEADED BY A WEST INDIAN, INDIAN, OR PAKISTANI IN BRITAIN IS 4.7 PERCENT, BUT IN THE HANDSWORTH AREA OF BIRMINGHAM, THE FIGURE IS 53.1 PERCENT. THERE IS ALSO A CONCENTRATION OF YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE RIOT AREAS; THE PERCENTAGE OF THE POPULATION THAT IS BETWEEN 16 AND 24 IN HANDSWORTH IS CLOSE TO 40 PERCENT, WHEREAS IN BRITAIN AS A WHOLE IT IS ABOUT HALF THAT.
5. MUCH OF THE SITUATION IN THE INNER CITIES WHICH SCARMAN POINTED TO AS CONTRIBUTING TO THE RIOTS OF 1981 HAS NOT CHANGED. IN FACT, THE PAST FEW YEARS HAVE SEEN THIS PICTURE GROW BLEAKER. UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES IN HANDSWORTH STAND AT OVER 30 PERCENT, AND IN TOXTETH IN LIVERPOOL, ANOTHER RIOT SITE, AT 47 PERCENT.
6. THE INNER CITIES HAVE THE HIGHEST NATIONAL RATES OF MENTAL HOSPITAL ADMISSION IN BRITAIN, THE HIGHEST PERCENTAGE OF SINGLE-PARENT HOMES (TWICE THE NATIONAL AVERAGE) AND THE MOST HOUSES DECLARED UNFIT FOR HUMAN HABITATION. FOR MANY THE PROSPECTS FOR ESCAPING UNEMPLOYMENT SEEM INCREASINGLY NON-EXISTENT; THE RATIO OF VACANCIES LISTED TO PEOPLE UNEMPLOYED WAS 1 TO 8 IN THE INNER CITIES IN THE DAYS OF THE FIRST BRIXTON DISTURBANCES, BUT THE FIGURE IS NOW 1 TO 491, ACCORDING TO A SEPTEMBER ARTICLE IN THE LONDON TIMES. JUNE FIGURES IN TOXTETH WERE 10,000 INQUIRIES FOR 126 VACANCIES.
IS THERE AN UNDERCLASS?
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7. A CRUMBLING INFRASTRUCTURE, HARD-CORE UNEMPLOYMENT, AND DISINTEGRATION OF THE SOCIAL FABRIC IN THE INNER CITIES IS NOT A NEW PROBLEM IN BRITAIN: DICKENS DESCRIBED THE SQUALOR, OVER-CROWDING, AND POVERTY IN BRITAIN'S CITIES OVER A CENTURY AGO. WHAT HAS CHANGED IS THAT THE PEOPLE AFFECTED ARE INCREASINGLY LIKELY TO BE MEMBERS OF MINORITY GROUPS. PARTICIPANTS IN THE RECENT RIOTS WERE BOTH BLACK AND WHITE, AND STILL MANY OF THE POOREST PEOPLE IN BRITAIN ARE WHITE, BUT THE NUMBER OF MINORITIES WHO ARE "AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HEAP" IS VASTLY OUT OF PROPORTION TO THEIR TOTAL NUMBERS IN THE POPULATION.
8. NATIONWIDE, THERE ARE STRIKING DIFFERENCES IN THE EXPERIENCES OF WHITES AND MINORITIES IN HOUSING, EDUCATION, EMPLOYMENT AND INCOME. A STUDY RELEASED LAST MONTH BY THE POLICY STUDY INSTITUTE, A WELL-RESPECTED GROUP, REVEALED THAT BLACKS AND ASIANS IN BRITAIN ARE ON AVERAGE FOUR TIMES AS LIKELY AS WHITES TO BE PASSED OVER FOR JOBS FOR WHICH THEY APPLY, A STATISTIC WHICH CANNOT BE ACCOUNTED FOR BY DIFFERENCES IN EDUCATION OR TRAINING. WITH COMPARABLE EDUCATION, THE SAME DIFFERENCE PERTAINS. AMONG PEOPLE WITH ONE OR MORE "O" LEVELS (ABOUT THE EQUIVALENT OF A U.S. HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA) THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IS 9 PERCENT FOR WHITES, 18 PERCENT FOR ASIANS, AND 25 PERCENT FOR BLACKS. THE PROSPECTS FOR THOSE WITHOUT THESE QUALIFICATIONS, AND IN AREAS THAT HAVE BEEN HIT HARDEST ECONOMICALLY, ARE EVEN BLEAKER.
9. BIRMINGHAM, THE SECOND LARGEST CITY IN BRITAIN AND UNTIL 15 YEARS AGO THE SECOND WEALTHIEST WHEN MEASURED BY AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD INCOME, IS NOW THE POOREST CITY IN THE U.K. IT LOST 1/3 OF ITS MANUFACTURING JOBS BETWEEN 1978 AND 1984, ACCORDING TO THE FINANCIAL TIMES REGIONAL SURVEY. IN THAT SORT OF ECONOMIC CLIMATE, BREAKING INTO THE JOB MARKET IS NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE, AND OF THOSE WHO LEFT SCHOOL AT 16 LAST SUMMER, ONLY 18 PERCENT OF WHITES, 16 PERCENT OF ASIANS, AND 5 PERCENT OF BLACKS HAD FOUND WORK AT THE END OF 6 MONTHS, ACCORDING TO THE DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT.
10. LIVERPOOL SIMILARLY HAS DECLINED DRASTICALLY IN RECENT YEARS. ACCORDING TO A SERIAL CASE STUDY OF THE AREA PUBLISHED IN THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER, THERE WERE 11,000 DOCKWORKERS EMPLOYED IN THE PORT OF LIVERPOOL IN 1972, BUT TODAY THERE ARE FEWER THAN 2,000. INDUSTRIAL PLANTS IN TOXTETH EMPLOYED 22,000 THAT YEAR, BUT NOW EMPLOY 2,000. UNEMPLOYMENT FOR LIVERPOOL AS A WHOLE IS 21 PERCENT, BUT IN CERTAIN POCKETS SUCH AS TOXTETH, THE RATE IS AT 70 PERCENT FOR ADULTS AND 96 PERCENT FOR YOUTHS. FOUR-FIFTHS OF TOXTETH'S CITIZENS RECEIVE SOME WELFARE BENEFITS. CLEARLY IT IS NOT ONLY NON-WHITES WHO FACE MAJOR OBSTACLES, BUT IT IS THE NON-WHITES WHO ARE MOST APT TO FIND THEMSELVES STYMIED AS MEMBERS OF AN ECONOMIC AND RACIAL UNDERCLASS.
11. DIFFERENCES IN HOUSING BETWEEN BLACKS AND WHITES ARE STRIKING. ACCORDING TO THE POLICY STUDIES INSTITUTE'S COMPREHENSIVE SURVEY "BLACK AND WHITE BRITAIN", BLACK HOUSEHOLDS ARE TWICE AS LIKELY AS WHITES TO SHARE A DWELLING. FOUR TIMES AS MANY ASIANS AND THREE TIMES AS MANY WEST INDIANS AS WHITES LIVE IN OVERCROWDED CONDITIONS, DEFINED AS TWO OR MORE PEOPLE TO A BEDROOM. OVER HALF THE PAKISTANI-HEADED FAMILIES IN BRITAIN LIVE IN HOUSES WITHOUT HOT WATER, INDOOR TOILETS, AND BATHS, WHEREAS THE FIGURE FOR WHITES IS 17 PERCENT.
12. THERE ARE DEEP DIFFERENCES IN THE MEASURED EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT LEVELS OF WHITES AND MINORITIES. CHILDREN OF WEST INDIAN PARENTS ARE FOUR TIMES AS LIKELY AS WHITE CHILDREN TO BE CLASSIFIED AS EDUCATIONALLY SUBNORMAL. AND FEW BLACK YOUNGSTERS GO BEYOND SECONDARY EDUCATION. THE PROBLEM, ACCORDING TO ONE ANALYST, IS NOT SO MUCH OUTRIGHT DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE BLACK CHILDREN AS "WELL-MEANING LOW EXPECTATION" ON THE PART OF TEACHERS. TEACHERS DECIDE SUBCONSCIOUSLY THAT THE CHILDREN ARE LIKELY TO BE FAILURES AND GIVE UP ON THEM, LEAVING THEM TO MARK TIME IN REMEDIAL EDUCATION UNTIL THEY CAN LEAVE SCHOOL AT 16.
13. THE AVERAGE WAGE FOR BLACKS IN BRITAIN REMAINS 20 POUNDS LESS PER WEEK THAN FOR WHITES. ASIANS EARN 18 POUNDS LESS, ACCORDING TO THE COMMISSION FOR RACIAL EQUALITY, AND THIS STARTS FROM THE LOW NATIONAL AVERAGE FOR WHITES OF ONLY 139 POUNDS PER WEEK.
14. FROM BEHIND THESE STATISTICS EMERGES A PICTURE OF AN ALIENATED THIRD-WORLD NATION WITHIN BRITAIN, AN UNDER-CLASS OF THE DEPRIVED, THE HOPELESS, AND THE DISPOSSESSED, IN LARGE PART BUT BY NO MEANS ENTIRELY MADE UP OF MINORITES.
WHO ARE THE RACIAL MINORITIES?
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15. UNTIL RECENTLY, MOST IN THE U.K. BELIEVED THEY LIVED IN A RACIALLY HOMOGENEOUS SOCIETY. BRITONS LOOKED ON RELATIVELY COMPLACENTLY WHILE AMERICA STRUGGLED WITH RACIAL ISSUES IN THE 1960'S: "WE DON'T HAVE SUCH TROUBLES HERE". THE ONE ACERBIC EXCEPTION CAME IN 1968, WHEN ENOCH POWELL, A CONSERVATIVE M.P., MADE A NOTORIOUS SPEECH IN WHICH HE PREDICTED "RIVERS OF BLOOD" IN THE STREETS IF THE TIDE OF ASIAN AND AFRICAN IMMIGRANTS WAS NOT STEMMED. HOWEVER CRUDELY AND UNACCEPTABLY TO MOST OF HIS AUDIENCE, HE HAD PUT HIS FINGER ON A PROBLEM; BRITAIN APPEARS UNPREPARED TO DEAL WITH THE PROFOUND CHANGE IN THE COMPLEXION OF ITS SOCIETY WHICH HAS BEEN BROUGHT ABOUT BY AN INFLUX OF IMMIGRANTS. THEY CAME FROM THE COMMONWEALTH AT FIRST, AND WERE FOLLOWED BY IMMIGRANTS RECRUITED FROM THE CARIBBEAN TO FILL WORLD WAR II LABOR SHORTAGES. IMMIGRATION GREW AS TROUBLES AFFLICTED ONE POST-COLONIAL TERRITORY AFTER ANOTHER IN THE 50'S AND 60'S. THOSE WHO WANTED TO MOVE COULD USE THEIR COMMONWEALTH PASSPORTS, A POSSIBILITY WHICH WAS REDUCED BY CHANGES IN THE LAW IN THE LAST DECADE.
16. STILL, THERE ARE ONLY ONE MILLION BLACKS AND BROWNS IN BRITAIN, OUT OF A POPULATION OF 54 MILLION, AND BY NOW HALF OF THESE ARE BRITISH-BORN. BUT THEIR OUTSIDER STATUS PERSISTS. THEY ARE STILL DISPROPORTIONATELY STUCK AT THE THE LOWER END OF THE PAY SCALE, IN SHIFTWORK AND PART-TIME WORK. OF THOSE IMMIGRANTS AND THEIR CHILDREN IN THE U.K. WHO HAVE FOUND WORK, 50 PERCENT ARE ESTIMATED TO BE OVERQUALIFIED EDUCATIONALLY FOR THE WORK THEY DO, ACCORDING TO THE BOOK "STAYING POWER: A HISTORY OF BLACK PEOPLE IN BRITAIN", BY PETER FRYER.
17. BRITAIN HAS ALWAYS BEEN A STRATIFIED SOCIETY, WITH EACH NEW GENERATION INHERITING THE CHARACTERISTICS AND ATTITUDES THAT PRESERVED THE CLASS STRUCTURE AND ITS OWN PLACE WITHIN IT. AS SUCH IT WAS ILL-PREPARED TO IMPORT AND ASSIMILATE MILLIONS WHO WERE OUTSIDE OF THIS FAMILIAR WORLD ORDER, AND WHO IN MANY CASES HAD THEIR OWN CULTURAL TRADITIONS AND DID NOT ASPIRE TO SLIDE HORIZONTALLY INTO THE BRITISH SYSTEM. MANY BRITONS FEAR THE CONFUSING CHANGES THAT THE IMMIGRANTS HAVE HELPED BRING INTO THEIR FORMERLY BOUNDED AND ORDERLY WORLD. THEY VIEW THE NEW-COMERS WITH SUSPICION AND WORSE.
18. POPULAR PRESS REPORTING OF THE RECENT RIOTS HAS REFLECTED THE RABBLE-ROUSING RACISM WHICH IS STILL EASY DISCOURSE IN MODERN BRITAIN. TABLOIDS DESCRIBE THE "ZULU-STYLE WAR CRIES" OF THE RIOTERS AND RE-CYCLE THE COMMENTS OF WHITES CALLING THEM "BARBARIANS" AND "ANIMALS". BUT LIFE IS NOT SO SIMPLE; AT LEAST A QUARTER OF THE YOUTHS IN THE MOB AT TOTTENHAM, AND ONE HALF OF THOSE WHO APPEARED BEFORE THE MAGISTRATE SUBSEQUENTLY, WERE ESTIMATED TO BE WHITE. BOTH BLACK AND WHITE YOUTHS ARE NOW CHARGED WITH THE MURDER OF THE POLICE CONSTABLE AT TOTTENHAM. THE PUBLIC HOUSING NEAR MOST OF THE RIOT LOCALES IS MORE INTEGRATED THAN WAS THE CASE IN THE U.S. IN THE 60'S; BROADWATER FARMS, THE PUBLIC HOUSING DEVELOPMENT AT THE CENTER OF THE RIOTS IN LONDON'S TOTTENHAM AREA, HOLDS APPROXIMATELY A 50/50 RACIAL MIX.
19. IN ADDITION TO THE DIFFICULTY THE LARGER WHITE POPULATION IS HAVING IN ABSORBING IMMIGRANT POPULATIONS (THERE IS NO 'MELTING POT' TRADITION IN BRITAIN), THERE ARE TENSIONS BETWEEN RACIAL GROUPS AMONG THE IMMIGRANTS. THE TWO GROUPS WHICH HAVE IMMIGRATED IN THE LARGEST NUMBERS ARE ASIANS (PRIMARILY INDIANS AND PAKISTANIS) AND AFRO- CARRIBEANS. THE BLACK IMMIGRANTS ARE SAID TO RESENT THE RELATIVELY MORE PROSPEROUS ASIANS. THE ASIANS, WHO TEND TO BE THE ONLY SHOPKEEPERS LEFT IN THE INNER CITIES, HAVE BEEN ESPECIALLY HARD HIT BY THE LOOTING AND BURNING THAT HAS TAKEN PLACE DURING THE RIOTS. THE ONLY TWO CIVILIAN FATALITIES AS THE RESULT OF THE RIOTING HAVE BEEN TWO ASIAN BROTHERS, KILLED WHEN THEIR STORE IN HANDSWORTH WAS BURNED TO THE GROUND AFTER THEY WERE LOCKED IN. PRESS ACCOUNTS NOTED THAT THEIR STORE WAS THE PLACE THAT MOST OF THE LOCAL RESIDENTS CASHED THEIR WELFARE CHECKS, AND THUS TO SOME OF THE RIOTERS THE STORE MAY HAVE SYMBOLIZED THE SYSTEM AGAINST WHICH THEY WERE LASHING OUT.
20. IT IS PERHAPS POSSIBLE TO OVERSTATE THE RIVALRY BETWEEN ETHNIC GROUPS IN BRITAIN. THIS RIVALRY DOES HAVE PARALLELS IN U.S. CITIES, SUCH AS THE RESENTMENT CERTAIN BLACKS EXPRESSED AGAINST CUBANS IN THE MIAMI RIOTS, AND IT HAS SIMILAR CAUSES.
21. BLACKS COMPLAIN THAT THEY ARE LESS LIKELY TO BE GIVEN WHAT FEW FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE FOR SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENTS IN THE CITIES. (SINCE 1981 CENTRAL GOVERNMENT HAS ALLOCATED ONLY 200,000 POUNDS FOR THIS PURPOSE TO THE RIOT AREA OF HANDSWORTH, IN SPITE OF THE SCARMAN REPORT, WHICH EMPHASIZED HOW EFFECTIVE SUCH GRANTS WOULD BE IN REHABILITATING THE RIOT AREAS.) THESE COMPLAINTS ARE SUPPORTED BY STATISTICS; OVER 50 PERCENT OF APPLICATIONS FOR GRANTS FOR SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT (INNER CITY PARTNERSHIPS) WERE SUBMITTED BY BLACKS, BUT THEY ULTIMATELY RECEIVED ONLY 13 PERCENT OF THE GRANTS. ASIAN BUSINESSES FOUNDED WITH THESE GRANTS ARE ALMOST INVARIABLY FAMILY OPERATED AND RARELY EMPLOY BLACKS.
22. THERE IS LITTLE IN THE WAY OF A BLACK MIDDLE CLASS IN BRITAIN. THE ONLY ROLE MODELS THAT BLACK PEOPLE HAVE IN THE ESTABLISHMENT ARE MUSICIANS, SPORTS FIGURES, AND A HANDFUL OF T.V. JOURNALISTS, AS THERE ARE NO NATIONAL LEADERS, NO MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT, AND ONLY ONE LOCAL GOVERNMENT LEADER WHO IS BLACK (AND EVEN HE WAS NOT ELECTED DIRECTLY IN THE STYLE OF U.S. MAYORS). ASIANS, BY CONTRAST, DO HAVE ROLE MODELS IN BUSINESS AND COMMERCE, AND THEY HAVE THEIR OWN RELIGIOUS AND COMMUNITY LEADERS. THUS, ALTHOUGH THEY ARE NOT FULLY ACCEPTED INTO BRITISH SOCIETY, ON THE WHOLE ASIANS ARE "PART OF THE SYSTEM", AS ONE OBSERVER PUT IT.
THE POLICE: ARE THEY THE PROBLEM OR THE ANSWER?
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23. THE ROLE OF THE POLICE, AND THE RISING PRESSURES ON THEM TO RESPOND TO SUCCESSIVE SOCIETAL CHALLENGES IS WORRISOME TO MANY HERE. FIRST IRA TERRORISM, THEN POLICING THE MINERS' STRIKE, AND NOW THE INNER CITY STRIFE HAVE STRETCHED THEM DANGEROUSLY THIN. MEANWHILE, THE POLICE FORCES WHICH ARE NOW BEING ASKED TO CONTAIN THE URBAN UPHEAVALS ARE OFTEN LESS THAN ONE PER CENT BLACK OR ASIAN (OVERALL, 700 MINORITY POLICE OUT OF A FORCE OF 120,000, ACCORDING TO NEWSPAPER SOURCES. LAST YEAR, HOWEVER, OF 1208 TRAINEES IN THE LONDON METROPOLITAN POLICE, 36 BELONGED TO MINORITY GROUPS, A HIGHER PERCENTAGE THAN IN PREVIOUS YEARS AND ABOUT IN PROPORTION TO POPULATION. A WELL-PUBLICIZED STUDY PREPARED BY THE INSTITUTE FOR RACE RELATIONS FOR THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON CRIMINAL PROCEDURE AND PUBLISHED IN 1979, CHARACTERIZED MANY OF THE POLICE IN BRITAIN AS RACIALLY INSENSITIVE, AND ALLEGED THAT MANY OF THEM USE DEROGATORY LANGUAGE WHEN REFERRING TO MINORITIES, THAT THEY STEREOTYPE BLACKS AS PIMPS AND LAYABOUTS, AND THAT THEY CONSISTENTLY APPLY MORE PRESSURE AND AGGRESSION IN ENCOUNTERS WITH BLACK CI|IZENS THAN THEY WOULD WITH WHITES. THE NEGATIVE IMAGE OF THE POLICE THAT THIS STUDY HELPED CREATE IS ONE FACTOR THAT MAKES THE PRESENT RECRUITMENT OF MINORITIES INTO THE POLICE SO DIFFICULT.
24. A RECENT BBC TELEVISION PROGRAM COMPARED THIS SITUATION TO THAT IN THE NEW YORK POLICE FORCE, IN WHICH 40 PERCENT OF LAST YEAR'S TRAINEES WERE BLACK, AS A RESULT OF INTENSIVE RECRUITMENT EFFORTS AND, MORE PROFOUNDLY, A RETHINKING OF THE ROLE AND RELEVANCE OF THE POLICE IN THE CITIES. NOTHING ON THIS SCALE IS CONTEMPLATED HERE, ALTHOUGH THERE HAVE BEEN SOME HALF-HEARTED ATTEMPTS TO BOOST RECRUITMENT OF MINORITIES, AND THE HOME SECRETARY HAS NOW URGED THE METROPOLITAN POLICE TO HIRE MORE BLACKS.
25. ONE MUST ALSO NOTE, HOWEVER, THAT THE POLICE FORCE HAS BEEN THE ONLY INSTITUTION TO TAKE THE 1981 SCARMAN REPORT TO HEART, AND REAL CHANGES HAVE OCCURRED SINCE THEN. POLICE NOW TAKE TRAINING IN CULTURAL SENSITIVITY AND RACE RELATIONS, AND THE CONCEPT OF COMMUNITY POLICING (GETTING THE POLICEMAN COMFORTABLE AND FAMILIAR WITH THE PEOPLE ON HIS BEAT, AND THE PEOPLE USED TO THE PRESENCE OF THE POLICE) HAVE MADE PROGRESS IN IMPROVING THE CLIMATE ON THE STREETS. PERHAPS IT IS IRONIC THEN, THAT IT WAS POLICE ACTIONS IN TWO INSTANCES WHICH APPEAR TO HAVE SPARKED THE RIOTS. THE FIRST WAS THE ACCIDENTAL SHOOTING IN SEPTEMBER OF A MIDDLE-AGED BLACK WOMAN, OCCASIONED WHEN POLICE BROKE DOWN THE DOOR OF HER HOUSE AND BURST IN, LOOKING FOR HER SON ON A WEAPONS CHARGE. THE SHOOTING HAS LEFT HER A PARAPLEGIC, AND HAS FOCUSSED RESENTMENT AGAINST WHAT IS SEEN AS POLICE HEAVY-HANDEDNESS. THIS INCIDENT WAS FOLLOWED CLOSELY BY THE DEATH OF A BLACK WOMAN DURING A SEARCH OF HER HOME. ALTHOUGH SHE DIED OF HEART FAILURE, HER FAMILY HAS CHARGED THAT THE POLICE WHO WERE CONDUCTING THE SEARCH DELIBERATELY IGNORED HER PLEAS FOR MEDICAL ATTENTION AND ALLOWED HER TO DIE UNNECESSARILY FOR WANT OF AN AMBULANCE.
26. POLICE HEAVY-HANDEDNESS IS CITED REPEATEDLY AS A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR TO THE RIOTS. TWO SOCIOLOGISTS WHO EXPLORED THE ROLE OF THE POLICE IN THE INNER CITIES IN A MONOGRAPH PUBLISHED THIS SUMMER CONCLUDED THAT THE POLICE WERE IN FACT CONSTANTLY MAKING THEIR PRESENCE FELT TO YOUTHS IN THE HANDSWORTH AREA, BY FREQUENTLY STOPPING THEM AND QUESTIONING THEM. THE AVERAGE RATE AT WHICH YOUTHS WERE STOPPED FOR QUESTIONING WAS FIVE TIMES PER YEAR, FOR BOTH BLACKS AND WHITES. WHAT WAS PARTICULARLY STRIKING WAS THAT ALTHOUGH THEY WERE STOPPED AT THE SAME RATE, BLACK YOUNGSTERS DISTRUSTED THE POLICE MUCH MORE, AND THEIR ATTITUDES WERE FAR MORE OFTEN HOSTILE. IT IS INEVITABLE THAT POLICE WILL HAVE TO BE ACTIVE IN NEIGHBORHOODS WITH HIGH CRIME RATES AND A HIGH PERCENTAGE OF YOUTH (THOSE STATISTICALLY MOST LIKELY TO COMMIT CRIMES). IT IS JUST AS INEVITABLE THAT ENCOUNTERS UNDER THOSE CIRCUMSTANCES WILL CREATE STRAINS. BUT IT IS ALSO TRUE THAT MANY BLACKS ARE LASHING OUT AT THE POLICE, WHO SYMBOLIZE A SYSTEM WHICH THEY FEEL IS HOSTILE TO THEIR INTEREST.
27. THE GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO THE RIOTS HAS BEEN TO CALL FOR MORE SWEEPING POLICE POWER, AND AUTHORIZATION OF THE USE OF TEAR GAS AND PLASTIC BULLETS IN RIOT CONTROL (THE SAME PLASTIC BULLETS WHOSE USE IS BEING SO HOTLY CONTESTED IN NORTHERN IRELAND, WHERE THEY HAVE ON SOME RARE OCCASIONS CAUSED DEATH). THE CONSERVATIVES, AS THE "LAW AND ORDER" PARTY, HAVE MADE THEIR PRINCIPAL RALLYING CRY FOR DEALING WITH THE RIOTS A PLEDGE FOR INCREASED SUPPORT FOR THE POLICE, UNDER PRESSURE FROM THEIR RIGHT AND MUCH OF THE MIDDLE CLASS IN BRITAIN, THE "DECENT WORKING PEOPLE."
28. NONETHELESS, THE POLICE HAVE REACTED IN FRUSTRATION TO THE CHARGES THAT HAVE BEEN LEVELED AGAINST THEM. IN AN EMOTIONALLY CHARGED GATHERING LAST WEEK, THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE METROPOLITAN BRANCH OF THE POLICE FEDERATION, THE RANK AND FILE ACCUSED THEIR LEADERS OF COWARDICE, SAYING THAT THEY WERE AFRAID OF MAKING TOUGH DECISIONS FOR FEAR OF POLITICAL OR PROMOTIONAL CONSEQUENCES. THE POLICE ON THE BEAT COMPLAIN THAT THE BRAKES ARE PUT ON THEM BY THEIR SENIOR OFFICERS AND BY LOCAL POLITICIANS. IN TOTTENHAM, THE FIRST RIOT IN THE U.K. MAINLAND IN WHICH GUNS WERE USED AGAINST THE POLICE, AND WHERE ONE POLICEMAN WAS KILLED AND 163 INJURED, THE POLICE WERE RESTRAINED FROM GOING INTO THE AREA EARLY ON TO MAKE ARRESTS. THIS, POLICE CLAIM, WAS BUT A CONTINUATION OF AN OFFICIAL "HANDS-OFF" POLICY WHICH HAS FRUSTRATED THEM SINCE ITS INCEPTION AFTER SCARMAN, AND WHICH THEY BELIEVE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE HIGH CASUALTY RATE THAT FOLLOWED.
29. AT THE MEETING LAST WEEK, JOHN NEWMAN, A CONSTABLE AND CHAIRMAN OF THE METROPOLITAN BRANCH OF THE POLICE FEDERATION, DEMANDED AND WAS GRANTED A "THOROUGH REVIEW OF POLICY AND TACTICS" BY METROPOLITAN COMMISSIONER SIR KENNETH NEWMAN.
30. MINORITY AND OPPOSITION LEADERS HAVE COMPLAINED THAT THE POLICE ONLY WANT STUDIES OF THE ISSUES THAT SUIT THEM, AND NOTE THAT THE GOVERNMENT AND THE POLICE HAVE REFUSED TO CONDUCT AN INDEPENDENT INQUIRY INTO THE TRIGGERING INCIDENTS OF TWO OF THE RIOTS.
THE POLITICS OF RACE
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31. THE THEME OF HOME SECRETARY HURD'S SPEECH AT THE ANNUAL CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE IN EARLY OCTOBER, DIRECTED AT MINORITIES, WAS PARAPHRASABLE AS "YOU HAVE THE RIGHTS, NOW EXERCISE SOME RESPONSIBILITY". THE REALITY SEEMS TO BE THAT THESE RIGHTS APPEAR ALL TOO THEORETICAL, AT BEST, TO MOST OF BRITAIN'S MINORITIES.
32. MINORITY VOTERS, ESPECIALLY CARIBBEAN BLACKS, HAVE VOTED FOR THE LABOR PARTY SO CONSISTENTLY THAT THE CONSERVATIVES AND THE ALLIANCE HAVE LARGELY WRITTEN THEM OFF, AND LABOR HAS TAKEN THEM FOR GRANTED.
33. THERE ARE SOME STIRRINGS OF CHANGE. LABOR IS GROPING WITH PLANS TO GIVE BLACKS SPECIAL RIGHTS WITHIN THE PARTY STRUCTURE, A NUMBER OF ETHNIC ASIANS ARE TENDING TOWARDS THE ALLIANCE, AND SOME SUCCESSFUL BLACK AND ASIAN BUSINESSMEN FLIRT WITH THE TORIES. MEANWHILE, LEGISLATION ON THE U.S. MODEL ALLOWING GOVERNMENT TO WITHDRAW CONTRACTS FROM FIRMS THAT DO NOT EMPLOY A CERTAIN PERCENTAGE OF MINORITIES WAS RECENTLY PROPOSED BY THE HOME OFFICE. THIS PROPOSAL IS CONTROVERSIAL AND UNLIKELY TO BECOME LAW BECAUSE OF QUESTIONS ABOUT THE FAIRNESS AND EFFECTIVENESS OF SUCH MEASURES. NEVERTHELESS, THE RIOTS MAY HAVE FORCED THE PROBLEMS OF RACIAL MINORITIES BACK NEAR THE TOP OF THE AGENDA. ONE JOURNALIST INTERVIEWING AN ANGRY YOUTH ON THE STREETS OF HANDSWORTH CALLED THE RIOTS POINTLESS, BUT THE YOUNG MAN COUNTERED "OH, YEAH? HOW DO YOU FIGURE THAT? SOMETHING WILL BE DONE." AND HE MAY BE RIGHT.
PARTY POLITICS: TOO LITTLE DONE, AND THAT TOO LATE
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34. THE BROAD REACTION AMONG CONSERVATIVES TO THE RECENT RIOTS WAS SPLIT: THE HARD-LINE GOVERNMENT SUPPORTERS RESISTED CAUSAL EXPLANATIONS LINKING POVERTY AND DEPRIVATION WITH THE URBAN UPHEAVALS AND DESCRIBED THE RIOTS AS MERE "CRIMINAL OPPORTUNISM". THIS POSITION WAS PORTRAYED BY THE OPPOSITION AS A SELF-INTERESTED ATTEMPT BY THE TORIES TO WRIGGLE FREE OF THEIR PART OF THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR BRITAIN'S CONTINUING ECONOMIC DOLDRUMS AND THEIR RESULTS. OTHER MORE LIBERAL TORIES PARTIALLY CONCURRED WITH THESE SENTIMENTS; THEY CLAIMED THAT THE RIOTS PROVED WHAT THEY HAD BEEN SAYING, I.E. THAT THE GOVERNMENT'S PRIORITIES HAD TO BE RE-EXAMINED AND THE HARD LINE REVISED. PRIME MINISTER THATCHER'S ARGUMENT THAT THE WORKINGS OF AN UNFETTERED FREE MARKET WILL, IF LEFT ALONE, CREATE JOBS TO RENEW BRITAIN HAS BEEN RIDICULED BY THE OPPOSITION PARTIES, WHICH ASSERT THAT UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES THREATEN BRITAIN'S CITIES WITH HOSTILITY AND ALIENATION THAT LAISSEZ-FAIRE ECONOMICS CANNOT RESOLVE. MRS. THATCHER'S RESPONSE TO THE RIOTS WAS TO PLEDGE MORE EQUIPMENT AND MANPOWER FOR THE POLICE, BUT HOME SECRETARY HURD HAS ALSO ACKNOWLEDGED THAT THE RIOT CAUSES MUST BE TREATED TOO. THE OPPOSITION HAS OFFERED NO CONCRETE SOLUTIONS OTHER THAN THE PRESERVATION AND ENHANCEMENT OF THE WELFARE STATE, WHILE ALLIANCE AND LABOR LEADERS MUST WELCOME THE FACT THAT THEY ARE NOT CURRENTLY IN POWER AND HAVING TO DEFEND THEIR OWN RECORDS IN THE GLARE OF THE BURNING CITIES.
35. THE CONSERVATIVES STRESS THE SIGNS OF ECONOMIC UPTURN THAT OCCASIONALLY ARISE, SUCH AS NEW FIRMS TAKING UP RESIDENCE IN BIRMINGHAM AND LIVERPOOL. THE FIRMS WHICH THEY ARE REFERRING TO DO HAVE A POSITIVE EFFECT ON ECONOMIC STATISTICS, BUT IN GENERAL ARE HIGH-TECH, CAPITAL-INTENSIVE INDUSTRIES THAT EMPLOY RELATIVELY FEW PEOPLE AND THOSE, HIGHLY SKILLED, ACCORDING TO A CONGRESS OF BRITISH INDUSTRIES STUDY. THUS THEY HAVE LITTLE EFFECT ON THE INNER CITY UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEMS.
36. THE TORIES HAVE MADE THE REINING-IN OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT SPENDING ONE OF THEIR PRIME TECHNIQUES FOR REDUCING TOTAL GOVERNMENT SPENDING. IN PARTICULAR PUBLIC SECTOR CAPITAL BUDGETS HAVE BEEN SEVERELY CUT FROM 3.6 BILLION POUNDS IN 1979 TO 2.2 BILLION POUNDS IN 1986. WHEN COMBINED WITH THE SALE OF COUNCIL HOUSING TO ITS TENANTS, THE PUBLIC HOUSING STOCK HAS BEEN REDUCED BY ONE-THIRD DURING A PERIOD IN WHICH FUNDS FOR HOUSING RENOVATIONS HAVE NOT INCREASED IN REAL TERMS. SCARMAN'S RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENTS IN HOUSING HAVE BEEN ALMOST ENTIRELY IGNORED.
37. EDUCATIONAL REFORMS SUGGESTED BY SCARMAN INCLUDED MORE AND BETTER NURSERY EDUCATION, MORE TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE NEEDS OF MINORITY CHILDREN, PROGRAMS TO TEACH ENGLISH TO IMMIGRANTS, AND BETTER LINKS BETWEEN PARENTS AND SCHOOLS. NONE OF THESE HAS BEEN FUNDED. IN FACT, ACCORDING TO THE FINANCIAL TIMES, DESPITE A STATIC NURSERY-AGE POPULATION IN BRITAIN, THE OVERALL CAPITAL SPENDING FOR NURSERY EDUCATION HAS FALLEN FROM 41 POUNDS PER CAPITA TO 24 POUNDS SINCE 1981.
38. SCARMAN RECOMMENDED THAT "POSITIVE DISCRIMINATION" MIGHT BE NEEDED TO REDRESS THE EMPLOYMENT AND EDUCATIONAL GAPS BETWEEN WHITES AND MINORITIES. (POSITIVE DISCRIMINATION IS BETTER KNOWN IN THE U.S. AS AFFIRMATIVE ACTION.) NO CENTRAL GOVERNMENT ACTION RESULTED FROM THESE SUGGESTIONS, ALTHOUGH PROGRAMS WERE ADOPTED AT THE LOCAL LEVEL IN SOME AREAS.
WHAT ABOUT THE ROLE OF BRITAIN'S NEW DRUGS CRACKDOWN?
39. SEVERAL PAPERS HAVE SUGGESTED THAT EFFORTS AFTER THE LAST RIOTS TO FORGE LINKS BETWEEN POLICE AND THE COMMUNITY BY INCREASING POLICEMEN'S SENSITIVITY TO THE COMMUNITIES THEY PATROL HAVE RESULTED IN THE POLICE GOING "SOFT ON CRIME." FOR EXAMPLE, THE POLICE ARE IN A DELICATE POSITION WHEN THEY ATTEMPT TO ENFORCE ANTI-MARIJUANA LAWS IN AFRO-CARIBBEAN COMMUNITIES, WHERE RASTAFARIANS SEE MARIJUANA AS AN IMPORTANT RITUAL SUBSTANCE. INTERFERENCE WITH THIS TRADITION IS LIKELY TO BRING TROUBLE DOWN UPON THE HEAD OF THE OFFICER WHO IS SO BOLD AS TO STEP IN. AT THE VERY LEAST HE INVITES CHARGES OF CULTURAL INSENSITIVITY. MEANWHILE, IN MANY AREAS DRUG SALES HAVE BECOME THE ONLY RELIABLE SOURCE OF INCOME AND ADVANCEMENT FOR YOUNG BLACK GO-GETTERS.
40. IN THE PAST YEAR, HOWEVER, THE U.K HAS FOCUSSED ON THE DAMAGE WHICH DRUG USAGE AND ITS ATTENDANT CORRUPTION CAUSE, MINDFUL OF U.S. PROBLEMS, AND IT IS ADOPTING IN A WHOLESALE FASHION U.S. ANTI-DRUG TECHNIQUES. AS PART OF AN OVERALL POLICY WHICH INCLUDES LONGER SENTENCES FOR DRUG DEALERS, AND NEW TECHNIQUES TO SEIZE PROFITS FROM DRUG SALES, THE POLICE HAVE BEEN PRESSED TO CRACK DOWN ON DRUGS, AND THIS NEW DRUGS OFFENSIVE MAY HAVE BEEN ONE OF THE SPARKS THAT FINALLY KINDLED THE TINDERBOX CITIES. BIRMINGHAM'S RIOTS WERE PRECEDED BY TWO MAJOR RAIDS RIGHT IN THE NEIGHBORHOODS WHICH WERE SOON TO BE THE SCENE OF THE DISTURBANCES. THE HOME OFFICE HAS BEEN RELUCTANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE ANY CONNECTION BETWEEN THE DRUGS SWEEP AND THE ERUPTION OF THE RIOTS, BUT A BRIGHT LABOR M.P. FROM BIRMINGHAM TOLD US, WITHOUT IN ANY WAY IMPLYING THAT DRUG DEALERS CAN BE ALLOWED FREEDOM TO OPERATE, THAT HE KNOWS THE CONNECTION IS EXPLICIT. THUS, IT APPEARS THAT THE POLICE ARE CAUGHT ON THE FRONT LINES ENFORCING A NEWLY VIGOROUS AND GENERALLY POPULAR ANTI-DRUGS POLICY, BUT ARE ALSO TRYING TO CATCH UP WITH THE IMPACT THAT IT AND OTHER SOCIAL PROBLEMS ARE HAVING ON BRITAIN'S CITIES.
CONCLUSION
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41. THE RIOTS MAY HAVE FORCED BRITAIN'S POLITICAL LEADERS TO EXAMINE THEMSELVES AND DETERMINE SUBSEQUENT ACTION TO REDRESS SOME VERY REAL AND THUS FAR INTRACTABLE PROBLEMS. BUT IN THE MEANTIME WE ARE LIKELY TO SEE MORE RIOTING AHEAD, WHICH WILL PUT EXTRA STRAINS ON THIS CAUTIOUS, SLOW-TO-CHANGE SOCIETY. WHILE THE ONSET OF WINTER MAY INHIBIT STREET VIOLENCE, SPRING CANNOT BE FAR BEHIND.
SEITZ
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 08 LONDON 24287
E.O.12356: DECL: OADR
TAGS SOCI, PINS, UK
SUBJECT: URBAN VIOLENCE IN BRITAIN -- THE CHALLENGE
Summary
1. The race riots that rocked Britain in the mid-1980s inspired the then US ambassador to say the UK was unprepared for dealing with the impact of immigration and had looked on 'complacently' while America struggled with civil rights disturbances in the 1960s. Key passage highlighted in yellow.
2. Read related article
OF A RACIAL UNDERCLASS WORRIES THIS CONSERVATIVE SOCIETY
1. CONFIDENTIAL - ENTIRE TEXT.
2. SUMMARY. DEPRESSED AREAS IN SEVERAL OF THE U.K.'S INNER CITIES ERUPTED IN RIOTS IN THE PAST MONTH. THE BRITISH SEE MANY OF THEIR DOMESTIC WOES THROWN INTO HIGH RELIEF BY THE RIOTS AND THE SUBSEQUENT NATIONAL DEBATE ABOUT CAUSE, EFFECT, AND WHO IS TO BLAME. THE RIOTS HAVE HIGHLIGHTED:
--- THE LONG-TERM ECONOMIC MALAISE IN BRITAIN, WITH A HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT RATE AND A NEAR-COLLAPSE OF THE SMOKE-STACK INDUSTRIES IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND;
--- RACIAL TENSION BETWEEN WHITE BRITAIN AND THE BLACK AND ASIAN POPULATIONS WHO HAVE SETTLED IN THE U.K. SINCE THE 1950'S;
--- PERSISTENT PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL DISADVANTAGE IN AREAS OF THE INNER CITY, WHICH EXTEND TO HOUSING, EDUCATION, INCOME, AND EMPLOYMENT;
--- A VIGOROUS NEW DRUG CRACKDOWN WHICH IS INADVERTENTLY THREATENING THE UNEASY BALANCE BETWEEN POLICE AND COMMUNITIES IN MANY INNER CITY AREAS;
--- THE PROBLEM OF POLICING THE MULTI-ETHNIC INNER CITIES EFFECTIVELY AND SENSITIVELY WITH A NEARLY ALL-WHITE POLICE FORCE WHICH IS FACING NUMEROUS POLITICAL PRESSURES AT PRESENT;
--- THE LACK OF AN AGREED RESPONSE TO THE PROBLEM ON THE PART OF BRITAIN'S NATIONAL POLITICAL LEADERS.
ALL THE FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE RIOTS ARE AND HAVE BEEN PRESENT IN THE U.S., AND IN GREATER MEASURE, AND THE RIOT DESTRUCTION HERE IS ON A MUCH SMALLER SCALE THAN IT WAS IN THE U.S. URBAN UPHEAVALS OF TWO DECADES AGO. THE AMERICAN RESPONSE (EEO LEGISLATION, AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, GIVING MINORITIES GREATER AVENUES FOR POLITICAL EXPRESSION) RESULTED IN SIGNIFICANT CHANGES IN SOCIETAL STRUCTURE AND POLITICS IN THE U.S. IT REMAINS TO BE SEEN WHETHER THE BRITISH POLITICAL SYSTEM WILL PROVE FLEXIBLE ENOUGH TO MEET THE CHALLENGE THIS UNREST POSES. WITH THE AUTUMN CHILL COMING, THE RIOTS MAY HAVE ABATED, BUT WHEN THE WEATHER GETS WARM AGAIN, IF NOT BEFORE, THERE COULD BE A REPEAT OF THESE INCIDENTS. END SUMMARY
ARE THEY DEPRESSED BECAUSE THEY'RE DEPRIVED?
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3. HEADLINES IN THE U.K. IN THE PAST MONTH HAVE RECORDED CLASHES BETWEEN RIOTERS AND POLICE, THE KNIFING TO DEATH OF ONE POLICEMAN, AND CROWDS OF YOUTHS PELTING BRICKS, STONES, AND MOLOTOV COCKTAILS AT RIOT-SHIELDED POLICE IN THE DEPRESSED AREAS OF LONDON, BIRMINGHAM, LIVERPOOL, AND LEICESTER. FOUR YEARS AGO, AFTER SIMILAR SCENES IN THE BRIXTON NEIGHBORHOOD OF LONDON, LORD SCARMAN, THE JUDGE WHO HEADED A COMMISSION OF INQUIRY, FOUND THAT THE PRINCIPAL CAUSES OF THE RIOTS WERE: UNEMPLOYMENT, POOR HOUSING, LACK OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING PROSPECTS FOR YOUTHS, POOR RELATIONS BETWEEN THE COMMUNITY AND THE POLICE, AND AN INCREASINGLY LARGE NUMBER OF BLACKS WHO FELT ANGRY AND ALIENATED FROM A SOCIETY WHICH THEY PERCEIVED AS RACIST AND HOSTILE.
4. THE RIOT AREAS ARE SHARPLY MORE ETHNIC AND YOUNGER THAN THE POPULATION AS A WHOLE. THE OVERALL PERCENTAGE OF FAMILIES HEADED BY A WEST INDIAN, INDIAN, OR PAKISTANI IN BRITAIN IS 4.7 PERCENT, BUT IN THE HANDSWORTH AREA OF BIRMINGHAM, THE FIGURE IS 53.1 PERCENT. THERE IS ALSO A CONCENTRATION OF YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE RIOT AREAS; THE PERCENTAGE OF THE POPULATION THAT IS BETWEEN 16 AND 24 IN HANDSWORTH IS CLOSE TO 40 PERCENT, WHEREAS IN BRITAIN AS A WHOLE IT IS ABOUT HALF THAT.
5. MUCH OF THE SITUATION IN THE INNER CITIES WHICH SCARMAN POINTED TO AS CONTRIBUTING TO THE RIOTS OF 1981 HAS NOT CHANGED. IN FACT, THE PAST FEW YEARS HAVE SEEN THIS PICTURE GROW BLEAKER. UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES IN HANDSWORTH STAND AT OVER 30 PERCENT, AND IN TOXTETH IN LIVERPOOL, ANOTHER RIOT SITE, AT 47 PERCENT.
6. THE INNER CITIES HAVE THE HIGHEST NATIONAL RATES OF MENTAL HOSPITAL ADMISSION IN BRITAIN, THE HIGHEST PERCENTAGE OF SINGLE-PARENT HOMES (TWICE THE NATIONAL AVERAGE) AND THE MOST HOUSES DECLARED UNFIT FOR HUMAN HABITATION. FOR MANY THE PROSPECTS FOR ESCAPING UNEMPLOYMENT SEEM INCREASINGLY NON-EXISTENT; THE RATIO OF VACANCIES LISTED TO PEOPLE UNEMPLOYED WAS 1 TO 8 IN THE INNER CITIES IN THE DAYS OF THE FIRST BRIXTON DISTURBANCES, BUT THE FIGURE IS NOW 1 TO 491, ACCORDING TO A SEPTEMBER ARTICLE IN THE LONDON TIMES. JUNE FIGURES IN TOXTETH WERE 10,000 INQUIRIES FOR 126 VACANCIES.
IS THERE AN UNDERCLASS?
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7. A CRUMBLING INFRASTRUCTURE, HARD-CORE UNEMPLOYMENT, AND DISINTEGRATION OF THE SOCIAL FABRIC IN THE INNER CITIES IS NOT A NEW PROBLEM IN BRITAIN: DICKENS DESCRIBED THE SQUALOR, OVER-CROWDING, AND POVERTY IN BRITAIN'S CITIES OVER A CENTURY AGO. WHAT HAS CHANGED IS THAT THE PEOPLE AFFECTED ARE INCREASINGLY LIKELY TO BE MEMBERS OF MINORITY GROUPS. PARTICIPANTS IN THE RECENT RIOTS WERE BOTH BLACK AND WHITE, AND STILL MANY OF THE POOREST PEOPLE IN BRITAIN ARE WHITE, BUT THE NUMBER OF MINORITIES WHO ARE "AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HEAP" IS VASTLY OUT OF PROPORTION TO THEIR TOTAL NUMBERS IN THE POPULATION.
8. NATIONWIDE, THERE ARE STRIKING DIFFERENCES IN THE EXPERIENCES OF WHITES AND MINORITIES IN HOUSING, EDUCATION, EMPLOYMENT AND INCOME. A STUDY RELEASED LAST MONTH BY THE POLICY STUDY INSTITUTE, A WELL-RESPECTED GROUP, REVEALED THAT BLACKS AND ASIANS IN BRITAIN ARE ON AVERAGE FOUR TIMES AS LIKELY AS WHITES TO BE PASSED OVER FOR JOBS FOR WHICH THEY APPLY, A STATISTIC WHICH CANNOT BE ACCOUNTED FOR BY DIFFERENCES IN EDUCATION OR TRAINING. WITH COMPARABLE EDUCATION, THE SAME DIFFERENCE PERTAINS. AMONG PEOPLE WITH ONE OR MORE "O" LEVELS (ABOUT THE EQUIVALENT OF A U.S. HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA) THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IS 9 PERCENT FOR WHITES, 18 PERCENT FOR ASIANS, AND 25 PERCENT FOR BLACKS. THE PROSPECTS FOR THOSE WITHOUT THESE QUALIFICATIONS, AND IN AREAS THAT HAVE BEEN HIT HARDEST ECONOMICALLY, ARE EVEN BLEAKER.
9. BIRMINGHAM, THE SECOND LARGEST CITY IN BRITAIN AND UNTIL 15 YEARS AGO THE SECOND WEALTHIEST WHEN MEASURED BY AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD INCOME, IS NOW THE POOREST CITY IN THE U.K. IT LOST 1/3 OF ITS MANUFACTURING JOBS BETWEEN 1978 AND 1984, ACCORDING TO THE FINANCIAL TIMES REGIONAL SURVEY. IN THAT SORT OF ECONOMIC CLIMATE, BREAKING INTO THE JOB MARKET IS NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE, AND OF THOSE WHO LEFT SCHOOL AT 16 LAST SUMMER, ONLY 18 PERCENT OF WHITES, 16 PERCENT OF ASIANS, AND 5 PERCENT OF BLACKS HAD FOUND WORK AT THE END OF 6 MONTHS, ACCORDING TO THE DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT.
10. LIVERPOOL SIMILARLY HAS DECLINED DRASTICALLY IN RECENT YEARS. ACCORDING TO A SERIAL CASE STUDY OF THE AREA PUBLISHED IN THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER, THERE WERE 11,000 DOCKWORKERS EMPLOYED IN THE PORT OF LIVERPOOL IN 1972, BUT TODAY THERE ARE FEWER THAN 2,000. INDUSTRIAL PLANTS IN TOXTETH EMPLOYED 22,000 THAT YEAR, BUT NOW EMPLOY 2,000. UNEMPLOYMENT FOR LIVERPOOL AS A WHOLE IS 21 PERCENT, BUT IN CERTAIN POCKETS SUCH AS TOXTETH, THE RATE IS AT 70 PERCENT FOR ADULTS AND 96 PERCENT FOR YOUTHS. FOUR-FIFTHS OF TOXTETH'S CITIZENS RECEIVE SOME WELFARE BENEFITS. CLEARLY IT IS NOT ONLY NON-WHITES WHO FACE MAJOR OBSTACLES, BUT IT IS THE NON-WHITES WHO ARE MOST APT TO FIND THEMSELVES STYMIED AS MEMBERS OF AN ECONOMIC AND RACIAL UNDERCLASS.
11. DIFFERENCES IN HOUSING BETWEEN BLACKS AND WHITES ARE STRIKING. ACCORDING TO THE POLICY STUDIES INSTITUTE'S COMPREHENSIVE SURVEY "BLACK AND WHITE BRITAIN", BLACK HOUSEHOLDS ARE TWICE AS LIKELY AS WHITES TO SHARE A DWELLING. FOUR TIMES AS MANY ASIANS AND THREE TIMES AS MANY WEST INDIANS AS WHITES LIVE IN OVERCROWDED CONDITIONS, DEFINED AS TWO OR MORE PEOPLE TO A BEDROOM. OVER HALF THE PAKISTANI-HEADED FAMILIES IN BRITAIN LIVE IN HOUSES WITHOUT HOT WATER, INDOOR TOILETS, AND BATHS, WHEREAS THE FIGURE FOR WHITES IS 17 PERCENT.
12. THERE ARE DEEP DIFFERENCES IN THE MEASURED EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT LEVELS OF WHITES AND MINORITIES. CHILDREN OF WEST INDIAN PARENTS ARE FOUR TIMES AS LIKELY AS WHITE CHILDREN TO BE CLASSIFIED AS EDUCATIONALLY SUBNORMAL. AND FEW BLACK YOUNGSTERS GO BEYOND SECONDARY EDUCATION. THE PROBLEM, ACCORDING TO ONE ANALYST, IS NOT SO MUCH OUTRIGHT DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE BLACK CHILDREN AS "WELL-MEANING LOW EXPECTATION" ON THE PART OF TEACHERS. TEACHERS DECIDE SUBCONSCIOUSLY THAT THE CHILDREN ARE LIKELY TO BE FAILURES AND GIVE UP ON THEM, LEAVING THEM TO MARK TIME IN REMEDIAL EDUCATION UNTIL THEY CAN LEAVE SCHOOL AT 16.
13. THE AVERAGE WAGE FOR BLACKS IN BRITAIN REMAINS 20 POUNDS LESS PER WEEK THAN FOR WHITES. ASIANS EARN 18 POUNDS LESS, ACCORDING TO THE COMMISSION FOR RACIAL EQUALITY, AND THIS STARTS FROM THE LOW NATIONAL AVERAGE FOR WHITES OF ONLY 139 POUNDS PER WEEK.
14. FROM BEHIND THESE STATISTICS EMERGES A PICTURE OF AN ALIENATED THIRD-WORLD NATION WITHIN BRITAIN, AN UNDER-CLASS OF THE DEPRIVED, THE HOPELESS, AND THE DISPOSSESSED, IN LARGE PART BUT BY NO MEANS ENTIRELY MADE UP OF MINORITES.
WHO ARE THE RACIAL MINORITIES?
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15. UNTIL RECENTLY, MOST IN THE U.K. BELIEVED THEY LIVED IN A RACIALLY HOMOGENEOUS SOCIETY. BRITONS LOOKED ON RELATIVELY COMPLACENTLY WHILE AMERICA STRUGGLED WITH RACIAL ISSUES IN THE 1960'S: "WE DON'T HAVE SUCH TROUBLES HERE". THE ONE ACERBIC EXCEPTION CAME IN 1968, WHEN ENOCH POWELL, A CONSERVATIVE M.P., MADE A NOTORIOUS SPEECH IN WHICH HE PREDICTED "RIVERS OF BLOOD" IN THE STREETS IF THE TIDE OF ASIAN AND AFRICAN IMMIGRANTS WAS NOT STEMMED. HOWEVER CRUDELY AND UNACCEPTABLY TO MOST OF HIS AUDIENCE, HE HAD PUT HIS FINGER ON A PROBLEM; BRITAIN APPEARS UNPREPARED TO DEAL WITH THE PROFOUND CHANGE IN THE COMPLEXION OF ITS SOCIETY WHICH HAS BEEN BROUGHT ABOUT BY AN INFLUX OF IMMIGRANTS. THEY CAME FROM THE COMMONWEALTH AT FIRST, AND WERE FOLLOWED BY IMMIGRANTS RECRUITED FROM THE CARIBBEAN TO FILL WORLD WAR II LABOR SHORTAGES. IMMIGRATION GREW AS TROUBLES AFFLICTED ONE POST-COLONIAL TERRITORY AFTER ANOTHER IN THE 50'S AND 60'S. THOSE WHO WANTED TO MOVE COULD USE THEIR COMMONWEALTH PASSPORTS, A POSSIBILITY WHICH WAS REDUCED BY CHANGES IN THE LAW IN THE LAST DECADE.
16. STILL, THERE ARE ONLY ONE MILLION BLACKS AND BROWNS IN BRITAIN, OUT OF A POPULATION OF 54 MILLION, AND BY NOW HALF OF THESE ARE BRITISH-BORN. BUT THEIR OUTSIDER STATUS PERSISTS. THEY ARE STILL DISPROPORTIONATELY STUCK AT THE THE LOWER END OF THE PAY SCALE, IN SHIFTWORK AND PART-TIME WORK. OF THOSE IMMIGRANTS AND THEIR CHILDREN IN THE U.K. WHO HAVE FOUND WORK, 50 PERCENT ARE ESTIMATED TO BE OVERQUALIFIED EDUCATIONALLY FOR THE WORK THEY DO, ACCORDING TO THE BOOK "STAYING POWER: A HISTORY OF BLACK PEOPLE IN BRITAIN", BY PETER FRYER.
17. BRITAIN HAS ALWAYS BEEN A STRATIFIED SOCIETY, WITH EACH NEW GENERATION INHERITING THE CHARACTERISTICS AND ATTITUDES THAT PRESERVED THE CLASS STRUCTURE AND ITS OWN PLACE WITHIN IT. AS SUCH IT WAS ILL-PREPARED TO IMPORT AND ASSIMILATE MILLIONS WHO WERE OUTSIDE OF THIS FAMILIAR WORLD ORDER, AND WHO IN MANY CASES HAD THEIR OWN CULTURAL TRADITIONS AND DID NOT ASPIRE TO SLIDE HORIZONTALLY INTO THE BRITISH SYSTEM. MANY BRITONS FEAR THE CONFUSING CHANGES THAT THE IMMIGRANTS HAVE HELPED BRING INTO THEIR FORMERLY BOUNDED AND ORDERLY WORLD. THEY VIEW THE NEW-COMERS WITH SUSPICION AND WORSE.
18. POPULAR PRESS REPORTING OF THE RECENT RIOTS HAS REFLECTED THE RABBLE-ROUSING RACISM WHICH IS STILL EASY DISCOURSE IN MODERN BRITAIN. TABLOIDS DESCRIBE THE "ZULU-STYLE WAR CRIES" OF THE RIOTERS AND RE-CYCLE THE COMMENTS OF WHITES CALLING THEM "BARBARIANS" AND "ANIMALS". BUT LIFE IS NOT SO SIMPLE; AT LEAST A QUARTER OF THE YOUTHS IN THE MOB AT TOTTENHAM, AND ONE HALF OF THOSE WHO APPEARED BEFORE THE MAGISTRATE SUBSEQUENTLY, WERE ESTIMATED TO BE WHITE. BOTH BLACK AND WHITE YOUTHS ARE NOW CHARGED WITH THE MURDER OF THE POLICE CONSTABLE AT TOTTENHAM. THE PUBLIC HOUSING NEAR MOST OF THE RIOT LOCALES IS MORE INTEGRATED THAN WAS THE CASE IN THE U.S. IN THE 60'S; BROADWATER FARMS, THE PUBLIC HOUSING DEVELOPMENT AT THE CENTER OF THE RIOTS IN LONDON'S TOTTENHAM AREA, HOLDS APPROXIMATELY A 50/50 RACIAL MIX.
19. IN ADDITION TO THE DIFFICULTY THE LARGER WHITE POPULATION IS HAVING IN ABSORBING IMMIGRANT POPULATIONS (THERE IS NO 'MELTING POT' TRADITION IN BRITAIN), THERE ARE TENSIONS BETWEEN RACIAL GROUPS AMONG THE IMMIGRANTS. THE TWO GROUPS WHICH HAVE IMMIGRATED IN THE LARGEST NUMBERS ARE ASIANS (PRIMARILY INDIANS AND PAKISTANIS) AND AFRO- CARRIBEANS. THE BLACK IMMIGRANTS ARE SAID TO RESENT THE RELATIVELY MORE PROSPEROUS ASIANS. THE ASIANS, WHO TEND TO BE THE ONLY SHOPKEEPERS LEFT IN THE INNER CITIES, HAVE BEEN ESPECIALLY HARD HIT BY THE LOOTING AND BURNING THAT HAS TAKEN PLACE DURING THE RIOTS. THE ONLY TWO CIVILIAN FATALITIES AS THE RESULT OF THE RIOTING HAVE BEEN TWO ASIAN BROTHERS, KILLED WHEN THEIR STORE IN HANDSWORTH WAS BURNED TO THE GROUND AFTER THEY WERE LOCKED IN. PRESS ACCOUNTS NOTED THAT THEIR STORE WAS THE PLACE THAT MOST OF THE LOCAL RESIDENTS CASHED THEIR WELFARE CHECKS, AND THUS TO SOME OF THE RIOTERS THE STORE MAY HAVE SYMBOLIZED THE SYSTEM AGAINST WHICH THEY WERE LASHING OUT.
20. IT IS PERHAPS POSSIBLE TO OVERSTATE THE RIVALRY BETWEEN ETHNIC GROUPS IN BRITAIN. THIS RIVALRY DOES HAVE PARALLELS IN U.S. CITIES, SUCH AS THE RESENTMENT CERTAIN BLACKS EXPRESSED AGAINST CUBANS IN THE MIAMI RIOTS, AND IT HAS SIMILAR CAUSES.
21. BLACKS COMPLAIN THAT THEY ARE LESS LIKELY TO BE GIVEN WHAT FEW FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE FOR SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENTS IN THE CITIES. (SINCE 1981 CENTRAL GOVERNMENT HAS ALLOCATED ONLY 200,000 POUNDS FOR THIS PURPOSE TO THE RIOT AREA OF HANDSWORTH, IN SPITE OF THE SCARMAN REPORT, WHICH EMPHASIZED HOW EFFECTIVE SUCH GRANTS WOULD BE IN REHABILITATING THE RIOT AREAS.) THESE COMPLAINTS ARE SUPPORTED BY STATISTICS; OVER 50 PERCENT OF APPLICATIONS FOR GRANTS FOR SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT (INNER CITY PARTNERSHIPS) WERE SUBMITTED BY BLACKS, BUT THEY ULTIMATELY RECEIVED ONLY 13 PERCENT OF THE GRANTS. ASIAN BUSINESSES FOUNDED WITH THESE GRANTS ARE ALMOST INVARIABLY FAMILY OPERATED AND RARELY EMPLOY BLACKS.
22. THERE IS LITTLE IN THE WAY OF A BLACK MIDDLE CLASS IN BRITAIN. THE ONLY ROLE MODELS THAT BLACK PEOPLE HAVE IN THE ESTABLISHMENT ARE MUSICIANS, SPORTS FIGURES, AND A HANDFUL OF T.V. JOURNALISTS, AS THERE ARE NO NATIONAL LEADERS, NO MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT, AND ONLY ONE LOCAL GOVERNMENT LEADER WHO IS BLACK (AND EVEN HE WAS NOT ELECTED DIRECTLY IN THE STYLE OF U.S. MAYORS). ASIANS, BY CONTRAST, DO HAVE ROLE MODELS IN BUSINESS AND COMMERCE, AND THEY HAVE THEIR OWN RELIGIOUS AND COMMUNITY LEADERS. THUS, ALTHOUGH THEY ARE NOT FULLY ACCEPTED INTO BRITISH SOCIETY, ON THE WHOLE ASIANS ARE "PART OF THE SYSTEM", AS ONE OBSERVER PUT IT.
THE POLICE: ARE THEY THE PROBLEM OR THE ANSWER?
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23. THE ROLE OF THE POLICE, AND THE RISING PRESSURES ON THEM TO RESPOND TO SUCCESSIVE SOCIETAL CHALLENGES IS WORRISOME TO MANY HERE. FIRST IRA TERRORISM, THEN POLICING THE MINERS' STRIKE, AND NOW THE INNER CITY STRIFE HAVE STRETCHED THEM DANGEROUSLY THIN. MEANWHILE, THE POLICE FORCES WHICH ARE NOW BEING ASKED TO CONTAIN THE URBAN UPHEAVALS ARE OFTEN LESS THAN ONE PER CENT BLACK OR ASIAN (OVERALL, 700 MINORITY POLICE OUT OF A FORCE OF 120,000, ACCORDING TO NEWSPAPER SOURCES. LAST YEAR, HOWEVER, OF 1208 TRAINEES IN THE LONDON METROPOLITAN POLICE, 36 BELONGED TO MINORITY GROUPS, A HIGHER PERCENTAGE THAN IN PREVIOUS YEARS AND ABOUT IN PROPORTION TO POPULATION. A WELL-PUBLICIZED STUDY PREPARED BY THE INSTITUTE FOR RACE RELATIONS FOR THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON CRIMINAL PROCEDURE AND PUBLISHED IN 1979, CHARACTERIZED MANY OF THE POLICE IN BRITAIN AS RACIALLY INSENSITIVE, AND ALLEGED THAT MANY OF THEM USE DEROGATORY LANGUAGE WHEN REFERRING TO MINORITIES, THAT THEY STEREOTYPE BLACKS AS PIMPS AND LAYABOUTS, AND THAT THEY CONSISTENTLY APPLY MORE PRESSURE AND AGGRESSION IN ENCOUNTERS WITH BLACK CI|IZENS THAN THEY WOULD WITH WHITES. THE NEGATIVE IMAGE OF THE POLICE THAT THIS STUDY HELPED CREATE IS ONE FACTOR THAT MAKES THE PRESENT RECRUITMENT OF MINORITIES INTO THE POLICE SO DIFFICULT.
24. A RECENT BBC TELEVISION PROGRAM COMPARED THIS SITUATION TO THAT IN THE NEW YORK POLICE FORCE, IN WHICH 40 PERCENT OF LAST YEAR'S TRAINEES WERE BLACK, AS A RESULT OF INTENSIVE RECRUITMENT EFFORTS AND, MORE PROFOUNDLY, A RETHINKING OF THE ROLE AND RELEVANCE OF THE POLICE IN THE CITIES. NOTHING ON THIS SCALE IS CONTEMPLATED HERE, ALTHOUGH THERE HAVE BEEN SOME HALF-HEARTED ATTEMPTS TO BOOST RECRUITMENT OF MINORITIES, AND THE HOME SECRETARY HAS NOW URGED THE METROPOLITAN POLICE TO HIRE MORE BLACKS.
25. ONE MUST ALSO NOTE, HOWEVER, THAT THE POLICE FORCE HAS BEEN THE ONLY INSTITUTION TO TAKE THE 1981 SCARMAN REPORT TO HEART, AND REAL CHANGES HAVE OCCURRED SINCE THEN. POLICE NOW TAKE TRAINING IN CULTURAL SENSITIVITY AND RACE RELATIONS, AND THE CONCEPT OF COMMUNITY POLICING (GETTING THE POLICEMAN COMFORTABLE AND FAMILIAR WITH THE PEOPLE ON HIS BEAT, AND THE PEOPLE USED TO THE PRESENCE OF THE POLICE) HAVE MADE PROGRESS IN IMPROVING THE CLIMATE ON THE STREETS. PERHAPS IT IS IRONIC THEN, THAT IT WAS POLICE ACTIONS IN TWO INSTANCES WHICH APPEAR TO HAVE SPARKED THE RIOTS. THE FIRST WAS THE ACCIDENTAL SHOOTING IN SEPTEMBER OF A MIDDLE-AGED BLACK WOMAN, OCCASIONED WHEN POLICE BROKE DOWN THE DOOR OF HER HOUSE AND BURST IN, LOOKING FOR HER SON ON A WEAPONS CHARGE. THE SHOOTING HAS LEFT HER A PARAPLEGIC, AND HAS FOCUSSED RESENTMENT AGAINST WHAT IS SEEN AS POLICE HEAVY-HANDEDNESS. THIS INCIDENT WAS FOLLOWED CLOSELY BY THE DEATH OF A BLACK WOMAN DURING A SEARCH OF HER HOME. ALTHOUGH SHE DIED OF HEART FAILURE, HER FAMILY HAS CHARGED THAT THE POLICE WHO WERE CONDUCTING THE SEARCH DELIBERATELY IGNORED HER PLEAS FOR MEDICAL ATTENTION AND ALLOWED HER TO DIE UNNECESSARILY FOR WANT OF AN AMBULANCE.
26. POLICE HEAVY-HANDEDNESS IS CITED REPEATEDLY AS A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR TO THE RIOTS. TWO SOCIOLOGISTS WHO EXPLORED THE ROLE OF THE POLICE IN THE INNER CITIES IN A MONOGRAPH PUBLISHED THIS SUMMER CONCLUDED THAT THE POLICE WERE IN FACT CONSTANTLY MAKING THEIR PRESENCE FELT TO YOUTHS IN THE HANDSWORTH AREA, BY FREQUENTLY STOPPING THEM AND QUESTIONING THEM. THE AVERAGE RATE AT WHICH YOUTHS WERE STOPPED FOR QUESTIONING WAS FIVE TIMES PER YEAR, FOR BOTH BLACKS AND WHITES. WHAT WAS PARTICULARLY STRIKING WAS THAT ALTHOUGH THEY WERE STOPPED AT THE SAME RATE, BLACK YOUNGSTERS DISTRUSTED THE POLICE MUCH MORE, AND THEIR ATTITUDES WERE FAR MORE OFTEN HOSTILE. IT IS INEVITABLE THAT POLICE WILL HAVE TO BE ACTIVE IN NEIGHBORHOODS WITH HIGH CRIME RATES AND A HIGH PERCENTAGE OF YOUTH (THOSE STATISTICALLY MOST LIKELY TO COMMIT CRIMES). IT IS JUST AS INEVITABLE THAT ENCOUNTERS UNDER THOSE CIRCUMSTANCES WILL CREATE STRAINS. BUT IT IS ALSO TRUE THAT MANY BLACKS ARE LASHING OUT AT THE POLICE, WHO SYMBOLIZE A SYSTEM WHICH THEY FEEL IS HOSTILE TO THEIR INTEREST.
27. THE GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO THE RIOTS HAS BEEN TO CALL FOR MORE SWEEPING POLICE POWER, AND AUTHORIZATION OF THE USE OF TEAR GAS AND PLASTIC BULLETS IN RIOT CONTROL (THE SAME PLASTIC BULLETS WHOSE USE IS BEING SO HOTLY CONTESTED IN NORTHERN IRELAND, WHERE THEY HAVE ON SOME RARE OCCASIONS CAUSED DEATH). THE CONSERVATIVES, AS THE "LAW AND ORDER" PARTY, HAVE MADE THEIR PRINCIPAL RALLYING CRY FOR DEALING WITH THE RIOTS A PLEDGE FOR INCREASED SUPPORT FOR THE POLICE, UNDER PRESSURE FROM THEIR RIGHT AND MUCH OF THE MIDDLE CLASS IN BRITAIN, THE "DECENT WORKING PEOPLE."
28. NONETHELESS, THE POLICE HAVE REACTED IN FRUSTRATION TO THE CHARGES THAT HAVE BEEN LEVELED AGAINST THEM. IN AN EMOTIONALLY CHARGED GATHERING LAST WEEK, THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE METROPOLITAN BRANCH OF THE POLICE FEDERATION, THE RANK AND FILE ACCUSED THEIR LEADERS OF COWARDICE, SAYING THAT THEY WERE AFRAID OF MAKING TOUGH DECISIONS FOR FEAR OF POLITICAL OR PROMOTIONAL CONSEQUENCES. THE POLICE ON THE BEAT COMPLAIN THAT THE BRAKES ARE PUT ON THEM BY THEIR SENIOR OFFICERS AND BY LOCAL POLITICIANS. IN TOTTENHAM, THE FIRST RIOT IN THE U.K. MAINLAND IN WHICH GUNS WERE USED AGAINST THE POLICE, AND WHERE ONE POLICEMAN WAS KILLED AND 163 INJURED, THE POLICE WERE RESTRAINED FROM GOING INTO THE AREA EARLY ON TO MAKE ARRESTS. THIS, POLICE CLAIM, WAS BUT A CONTINUATION OF AN OFFICIAL "HANDS-OFF" POLICY WHICH HAS FRUSTRATED THEM SINCE ITS INCEPTION AFTER SCARMAN, AND WHICH THEY BELIEVE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE HIGH CASUALTY RATE THAT FOLLOWED.
29. AT THE MEETING LAST WEEK, JOHN NEWMAN, A CONSTABLE AND CHAIRMAN OF THE METROPOLITAN BRANCH OF THE POLICE FEDERATION, DEMANDED AND WAS GRANTED A "THOROUGH REVIEW OF POLICY AND TACTICS" BY METROPOLITAN COMMISSIONER SIR KENNETH NEWMAN.
30. MINORITY AND OPPOSITION LEADERS HAVE COMPLAINED THAT THE POLICE ONLY WANT STUDIES OF THE ISSUES THAT SUIT THEM, AND NOTE THAT THE GOVERNMENT AND THE POLICE HAVE REFUSED TO CONDUCT AN INDEPENDENT INQUIRY INTO THE TRIGGERING INCIDENTS OF TWO OF THE RIOTS.
THE POLITICS OF RACE
---------------------
31. THE THEME OF HOME SECRETARY HURD'S SPEECH AT THE ANNUAL CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE IN EARLY OCTOBER, DIRECTED AT MINORITIES, WAS PARAPHRASABLE AS "YOU HAVE THE RIGHTS, NOW EXERCISE SOME RESPONSIBILITY". THE REALITY SEEMS TO BE THAT THESE RIGHTS APPEAR ALL TOO THEORETICAL, AT BEST, TO MOST OF BRITAIN'S MINORITIES.
32. MINORITY VOTERS, ESPECIALLY CARIBBEAN BLACKS, HAVE VOTED FOR THE LABOR PARTY SO CONSISTENTLY THAT THE CONSERVATIVES AND THE ALLIANCE HAVE LARGELY WRITTEN THEM OFF, AND LABOR HAS TAKEN THEM FOR GRANTED.
33. THERE ARE SOME STIRRINGS OF CHANGE. LABOR IS GROPING WITH PLANS TO GIVE BLACKS SPECIAL RIGHTS WITHIN THE PARTY STRUCTURE, A NUMBER OF ETHNIC ASIANS ARE TENDING TOWARDS THE ALLIANCE, AND SOME SUCCESSFUL BLACK AND ASIAN BUSINESSMEN FLIRT WITH THE TORIES. MEANWHILE, LEGISLATION ON THE U.S. MODEL ALLOWING GOVERNMENT TO WITHDRAW CONTRACTS FROM FIRMS THAT DO NOT EMPLOY A CERTAIN PERCENTAGE OF MINORITIES WAS RECENTLY PROPOSED BY THE HOME OFFICE. THIS PROPOSAL IS CONTROVERSIAL AND UNLIKELY TO BECOME LAW BECAUSE OF QUESTIONS ABOUT THE FAIRNESS AND EFFECTIVENESS OF SUCH MEASURES. NEVERTHELESS, THE RIOTS MAY HAVE FORCED THE PROBLEMS OF RACIAL MINORITIES BACK NEAR THE TOP OF THE AGENDA. ONE JOURNALIST INTERVIEWING AN ANGRY YOUTH ON THE STREETS OF HANDSWORTH CALLED THE RIOTS POINTLESS, BUT THE YOUNG MAN COUNTERED "OH, YEAH? HOW DO YOU FIGURE THAT? SOMETHING WILL BE DONE." AND HE MAY BE RIGHT.
PARTY POLITICS: TOO LITTLE DONE, AND THAT TOO LATE
--------------------------------------------- -----
34. THE BROAD REACTION AMONG CONSERVATIVES TO THE RECENT RIOTS WAS SPLIT: THE HARD-LINE GOVERNMENT SUPPORTERS RESISTED CAUSAL EXPLANATIONS LINKING POVERTY AND DEPRIVATION WITH THE URBAN UPHEAVALS AND DESCRIBED THE RIOTS AS MERE "CRIMINAL OPPORTUNISM". THIS POSITION WAS PORTRAYED BY THE OPPOSITION AS A SELF-INTERESTED ATTEMPT BY THE TORIES TO WRIGGLE FREE OF THEIR PART OF THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR BRITAIN'S CONTINUING ECONOMIC DOLDRUMS AND THEIR RESULTS. OTHER MORE LIBERAL TORIES PARTIALLY CONCURRED WITH THESE SENTIMENTS; THEY CLAIMED THAT THE RIOTS PROVED WHAT THEY HAD BEEN SAYING, I.E. THAT THE GOVERNMENT'S PRIORITIES HAD TO BE RE-EXAMINED AND THE HARD LINE REVISED. PRIME MINISTER THATCHER'S ARGUMENT THAT THE WORKINGS OF AN UNFETTERED FREE MARKET WILL, IF LEFT ALONE, CREATE JOBS TO RENEW BRITAIN HAS BEEN RIDICULED BY THE OPPOSITION PARTIES, WHICH ASSERT THAT UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES THREATEN BRITAIN'S CITIES WITH HOSTILITY AND ALIENATION THAT LAISSEZ-FAIRE ECONOMICS CANNOT RESOLVE. MRS. THATCHER'S RESPONSE TO THE RIOTS WAS TO PLEDGE MORE EQUIPMENT AND MANPOWER FOR THE POLICE, BUT HOME SECRETARY HURD HAS ALSO ACKNOWLEDGED THAT THE RIOT CAUSES MUST BE TREATED TOO. THE OPPOSITION HAS OFFERED NO CONCRETE SOLUTIONS OTHER THAN THE PRESERVATION AND ENHANCEMENT OF THE WELFARE STATE, WHILE ALLIANCE AND LABOR LEADERS MUST WELCOME THE FACT THAT THEY ARE NOT CURRENTLY IN POWER AND HAVING TO DEFEND THEIR OWN RECORDS IN THE GLARE OF THE BURNING CITIES.
35. THE CONSERVATIVES STRESS THE SIGNS OF ECONOMIC UPTURN THAT OCCASIONALLY ARISE, SUCH AS NEW FIRMS TAKING UP RESIDENCE IN BIRMINGHAM AND LIVERPOOL. THE FIRMS WHICH THEY ARE REFERRING TO DO HAVE A POSITIVE EFFECT ON ECONOMIC STATISTICS, BUT IN GENERAL ARE HIGH-TECH, CAPITAL-INTENSIVE INDUSTRIES THAT EMPLOY RELATIVELY FEW PEOPLE AND THOSE, HIGHLY SKILLED, ACCORDING TO A CONGRESS OF BRITISH INDUSTRIES STUDY. THUS THEY HAVE LITTLE EFFECT ON THE INNER CITY UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEMS.
36. THE TORIES HAVE MADE THE REINING-IN OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT SPENDING ONE OF THEIR PRIME TECHNIQUES FOR REDUCING TOTAL GOVERNMENT SPENDING. IN PARTICULAR PUBLIC SECTOR CAPITAL BUDGETS HAVE BEEN SEVERELY CUT FROM 3.6 BILLION POUNDS IN 1979 TO 2.2 BILLION POUNDS IN 1986. WHEN COMBINED WITH THE SALE OF COUNCIL HOUSING TO ITS TENANTS, THE PUBLIC HOUSING STOCK HAS BEEN REDUCED BY ONE-THIRD DURING A PERIOD IN WHICH FUNDS FOR HOUSING RENOVATIONS HAVE NOT INCREASED IN REAL TERMS. SCARMAN'S RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENTS IN HOUSING HAVE BEEN ALMOST ENTIRELY IGNORED.
37. EDUCATIONAL REFORMS SUGGESTED BY SCARMAN INCLUDED MORE AND BETTER NURSERY EDUCATION, MORE TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN THE NEEDS OF MINORITY CHILDREN, PROGRAMS TO TEACH ENGLISH TO IMMIGRANTS, AND BETTER LINKS BETWEEN PARENTS AND SCHOOLS. NONE OF THESE HAS BEEN FUNDED. IN FACT, ACCORDING TO THE FINANCIAL TIMES, DESPITE A STATIC NURSERY-AGE POPULATION IN BRITAIN, THE OVERALL CAPITAL SPENDING FOR NURSERY EDUCATION HAS FALLEN FROM 41 POUNDS PER CAPITA TO 24 POUNDS SINCE 1981.
38. SCARMAN RECOMMENDED THAT "POSITIVE DISCRIMINATION" MIGHT BE NEEDED TO REDRESS THE EMPLOYMENT AND EDUCATIONAL GAPS BETWEEN WHITES AND MINORITIES. (POSITIVE DISCRIMINATION IS BETTER KNOWN IN THE U.S. AS AFFIRMATIVE ACTION.) NO CENTRAL GOVERNMENT ACTION RESULTED FROM THESE SUGGESTIONS, ALTHOUGH PROGRAMS WERE ADOPTED AT THE LOCAL LEVEL IN SOME AREAS.
WHAT ABOUT THE ROLE OF BRITAIN'S NEW DRUGS CRACKDOWN?
39. SEVERAL PAPERS HAVE SUGGESTED THAT EFFORTS AFTER THE LAST RIOTS TO FORGE LINKS BETWEEN POLICE AND THE COMMUNITY BY INCREASING POLICEMEN'S SENSITIVITY TO THE COMMUNITIES THEY PATROL HAVE RESULTED IN THE POLICE GOING "SOFT ON CRIME." FOR EXAMPLE, THE POLICE ARE IN A DELICATE POSITION WHEN THEY ATTEMPT TO ENFORCE ANTI-MARIJUANA LAWS IN AFRO-CARIBBEAN COMMUNITIES, WHERE RASTAFARIANS SEE MARIJUANA AS AN IMPORTANT RITUAL SUBSTANCE. INTERFERENCE WITH THIS TRADITION IS LIKELY TO BRING TROUBLE DOWN UPON THE HEAD OF THE OFFICER WHO IS SO BOLD AS TO STEP IN. AT THE VERY LEAST HE INVITES CHARGES OF CULTURAL INSENSITIVITY. MEANWHILE, IN MANY AREAS DRUG SALES HAVE BECOME THE ONLY RELIABLE SOURCE OF INCOME AND ADVANCEMENT FOR YOUNG BLACK GO-GETTERS.
40. IN THE PAST YEAR, HOWEVER, THE U.K HAS FOCUSSED ON THE DAMAGE WHICH DRUG USAGE AND ITS ATTENDANT CORRUPTION CAUSE, MINDFUL OF U.S. PROBLEMS, AND IT IS ADOPTING IN A WHOLESALE FASHION U.S. ANTI-DRUG TECHNIQUES. AS PART OF AN OVERALL POLICY WHICH INCLUDES LONGER SENTENCES FOR DRUG DEALERS, AND NEW TECHNIQUES TO SEIZE PROFITS FROM DRUG SALES, THE POLICE HAVE BEEN PRESSED TO CRACK DOWN ON DRUGS, AND THIS NEW DRUGS OFFENSIVE MAY HAVE BEEN ONE OF THE SPARKS THAT FINALLY KINDLED THE TINDERBOX CITIES. BIRMINGHAM'S RIOTS WERE PRECEDED BY TWO MAJOR RAIDS RIGHT IN THE NEIGHBORHOODS WHICH WERE SOON TO BE THE SCENE OF THE DISTURBANCES. THE HOME OFFICE HAS BEEN RELUCTANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE ANY CONNECTION BETWEEN THE DRUGS SWEEP AND THE ERUPTION OF THE RIOTS, BUT A BRIGHT LABOR M.P. FROM BIRMINGHAM TOLD US, WITHOUT IN ANY WAY IMPLYING THAT DRUG DEALERS CAN BE ALLOWED FREEDOM TO OPERATE, THAT HE KNOWS THE CONNECTION IS EXPLICIT. THUS, IT APPEARS THAT THE POLICE ARE CAUGHT ON THE FRONT LINES ENFORCING A NEWLY VIGOROUS AND GENERALLY POPULAR ANTI-DRUGS POLICY, BUT ARE ALSO TRYING TO CATCH UP WITH THE IMPACT THAT IT AND OTHER SOCIAL PROBLEMS ARE HAVING ON BRITAIN'S CITIES.
CONCLUSION
----------
41. THE RIOTS MAY HAVE FORCED BRITAIN'S POLITICAL LEADERS TO EXAMINE THEMSELVES AND DETERMINE SUBSEQUENT ACTION TO REDRESS SOME VERY REAL AND THUS FAR INTRACTABLE PROBLEMS. BUT IN THE MEANTIME WE ARE LIKELY TO SEE MORE RIOTING AHEAD, WHICH WILL PUT EXTRA STRAINS ON THIS CAUTIOUS, SLOW-TO-CHANGE SOCIETY. WHILE THE ONSET OF WINTER MAY INHIBIT STREET VIOLENCE, SPRING CANNOT BE FAR BEHIND.
SEITZ
28.11.10
Black Friday Shopping vs. Protesting Airport Irradiation: 1-0
Karen Garcia
New Paltz, NY
Two days ago, there were images of anguished and angry people on the news. One segment was of the Irish people, carrying signs and protesting continuing austerity and tax breaks for corporations and bank bailouts. Another clip was of a crowd of Americans in a similar mass wave of emotion.
But the Americans weren't protesting their corrupt government. They were shoving and pushing each other in their quest to be one of the fortunate few to score a $200 flat screen TV from China.
It echoed the scene from Orwell's "1984" in which Smith hears a commotion on the street and momentarily rejoices in the false hope that a popular uprising against The Party has finally begun. But it turns out to be only group of shoppers fighting over a few cheap saucepans in a sidewalk market.
I have been encouraged that not only columnists like Frank Rich, Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert have been writing about American social injustice and class disparity - but that a large number of commenters have voiced the need for a rebellion against our own Big Brother-like government. It may not happen next year, or even in ten or twenty years, but it's bound to happen. The current system cannot hold.
As Eric Blair, aka Orwell, wrote in his dystopian masterpiece: "Until they become conscious, they will never rebel. And until after they have rebelled, they cannot become conscious."
May the long national coma come to an end before it's too late.
New Paltz, NY
Two days ago, there were images of anguished and angry people on the news. One segment was of the Irish people, carrying signs and protesting continuing austerity and tax breaks for corporations and bank bailouts. Another clip was of a crowd of Americans in a similar mass wave of emotion.
But the Americans weren't protesting their corrupt government. They were shoving and pushing each other in their quest to be one of the fortunate few to score a $200 flat screen TV from China.
It echoed the scene from Orwell's "1984" in which Smith hears a commotion on the street and momentarily rejoices in the false hope that a popular uprising against The Party has finally begun. But it turns out to be only group of shoppers fighting over a few cheap saucepans in a sidewalk market.
I have been encouraged that not only columnists like Frank Rich, Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert have been writing about American social injustice and class disparity - but that a large number of commenters have voiced the need for a rebellion against our own Big Brother-like government. It may not happen next year, or even in ten or twenty years, but it's bound to happen. The current system cannot hold.
As Eric Blair, aka Orwell, wrote in his dystopian masterpiece: "Until they become conscious, they will never rebel. And until after they have rebelled, they cannot become conscious."
May the long national coma come to an end before it's too late.
25.11.10
Ranging from pathetic to self-righteous indignation, there are still voices supporting Bush's invasion of Iraq
Berlin Efforts to Prevent Iraq Invasion
Classified Papers Prove German Warnings to Bush
By Klaus Wiegrefe
A classified document obtained by SPIEGEL shows notes from a meeting between a top German diplomat and Condoleezza Rice just weeks before the Iraq invasion. It indicates steps by the German government to prevent the war and undermines claims in George W. Bush's memoir that Gerhard Schröder indicated he would support the president should the US go to war.
Gerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer made every effort they could. The German chancellor and foreign minister spared no effort with their appeals, whether in public or private, in small groups or with the eyes of the entire world upon them. In the end, though, it was all for naught. Then-United States President George W. Bush wouldn't allow anyone to change his mind. He was dead set on launching a war against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and thereby bringing "freedom," as he put it, to the Middle East. It was a freedom that Bush described as " God's gift to mankind."
Over time, however, this would-be gift from God has grown to become the biggest foreign-policy disaster in US history since the Vietnam War. The war in Iraq and its subsequent occupation has cost more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians and over 4,000 American soldiers their lives. Washington's credibility has been severely damaged, and Iraq will remain a trouble spot for the foreseeable future.
It is facts like these that have helped stoke the outrage since Bush recently published his memoirs, "Decision Points," in which he claims that Schröder -- the very man who won re-election in 2002 in large part based on his opposition to the war -- assured him in January 2002 that Germany would support the United States if it decided to go to war against Iraq. For his part, Schröder was quick to deny Bush's comments, claiming instead that "(t)he former American president is not telling the truth."
SPIEGEL has now obtained a previously secret copy of notes taken from a conversation in February 2003 marked "Classified Information -- For Internal Use Only." At that time, in was just a matter of weeks before US soldiers invaded Iraq. Klaus Scharioth, a Berlin-based state secretary in the German Foreign Ministry, had flown to Washington in the hope of still having a chance of changing the minds of Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser at the time, and other high-ranking members on the National Security Council.
Costs of War 'Higher than Political Returns'
According to the notes -- all in German -- the meeting amounted to 90 minutes of verbal blows, which primarily stemmed from Rice's "relatively rigorous and uncompromising" defense of the US position. The same notes indicate that Scharioth didn't budge an inch toward Washington, either. In retrospect, though, they document a high point in German diplomatic history, because the objections and predictions put forward by Berlin on that Tuesday have turned out to be legitimate and correct.
The crux of the German argument was that the political costs of a war in Iraq would be "higher than (the) political returns." While Rice predicted that Iraq would take advantage of the "opportunities for reconstruction" like the ones Germany enjoyed after 1945, the delegation from Berlin countered that the rapid establishment of a democracy in Baghdad was "not (to be) expected."
The Germans also predicted that the real beneficiary of a war in Iraq would actually be Iran, and that a US-led attack would further complicate efforts to reach a solution in the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Likewise, they prophesized that going to war would precipitate a "terrorist backlash." Scharioth stressed that it was important "to win over the hearts and minds of the Muslim elite and youths," according to the notes, and that this was "not to be achieved" by going to war. He also added that doing so would greatly increase the danger of prompting an "influx to Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism."
Saddam Has 'Always Misled, Hidden and Stalled'
This remarkable conversation was held just a few days after the now-infamous speech that then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell delivered in New York before the UN Security Council. Powell had presented what he apparently considered to be proof that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. But Berlin sensed that the evidence in no way substantiated Powell's claims.
With his speech, Powell wanted to convince the Security Council to give a green light to war. Less than three months earlier, the Security Council had passed Resolution 1441, which threatened Iraq with "serious consequences" if it was found to have committed any "material breach" of arms-control sanctions. Since the end of 2002, inspectors with the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had been conducting searches in Iraq for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons -- though obviously without any success.
During this time, the Americans were growing impatient because they wanted to launch their attack before the onset of the heat and sandstorms accompanying the warmer months of the year. This, in turn, prompted Rice to push for action in a conversation with Scharioth. She argued that "everything had been tried"* over the last 12 years but Saddam Hussein has "always misled, hidden and stalled."*
In response, Berlin called for the inspections regime to be intensified and for the inspectors to be given more time. Chancellor Schröder even teamed up with then-French President Jacques Chirac and then-Russian President Vladimir Putin, forging an alliance on the Security Council, of which Germany was a non-permanent member in 2003. Rice justifiably complained that the Germans were apparently pursuing the goal of "preventing the United States from going to war."*
In the end, none of it helped. The United States went to war without any backing from the United Nations. On March 20, 2003, the bombing of Baghdad signaled the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. And, from there, destiny ran its course.
* Please note that the asterisk following a quotation indicates it was translated from the German classified document and may differ slightly from the original, verbatim English quote.
This article originally appeared in German on SPIEGEL ONLINE's history portal, einestages.de.
Translated from the German by Josh Ward
Classified Papers Prove German Warnings to Bush
By Klaus Wiegrefe
A classified document obtained by SPIEGEL shows notes from a meeting between a top German diplomat and Condoleezza Rice just weeks before the Iraq invasion. It indicates steps by the German government to prevent the war and undermines claims in George W. Bush's memoir that Gerhard Schröder indicated he would support the president should the US go to war.
Gerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer made every effort they could. The German chancellor and foreign minister spared no effort with their appeals, whether in public or private, in small groups or with the eyes of the entire world upon them. In the end, though, it was all for naught. Then-United States President George W. Bush wouldn't allow anyone to change his mind. He was dead set on launching a war against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and thereby bringing "freedom," as he put it, to the Middle East. It was a freedom that Bush described as " God's gift to mankind."
Over time, however, this would-be gift from God has grown to become the biggest foreign-policy disaster in US history since the Vietnam War. The war in Iraq and its subsequent occupation has cost more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians and over 4,000 American soldiers their lives. Washington's credibility has been severely damaged, and Iraq will remain a trouble spot for the foreseeable future.
It is facts like these that have helped stoke the outrage since Bush recently published his memoirs, "Decision Points," in which he claims that Schröder -- the very man who won re-election in 2002 in large part based on his opposition to the war -- assured him in January 2002 that Germany would support the United States if it decided to go to war against Iraq. For his part, Schröder was quick to deny Bush's comments, claiming instead that "(t)he former American president is not telling the truth."
SPIEGEL has now obtained a previously secret copy of notes taken from a conversation in February 2003 marked "Classified Information -- For Internal Use Only." At that time, in was just a matter of weeks before US soldiers invaded Iraq. Klaus Scharioth, a Berlin-based state secretary in the German Foreign Ministry, had flown to Washington in the hope of still having a chance of changing the minds of Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser at the time, and other high-ranking members on the National Security Council.
Costs of War 'Higher than Political Returns'
According to the notes -- all in German -- the meeting amounted to 90 minutes of verbal blows, which primarily stemmed from Rice's "relatively rigorous and uncompromising" defense of the US position. The same notes indicate that Scharioth didn't budge an inch toward Washington, either. In retrospect, though, they document a high point in German diplomatic history, because the objections and predictions put forward by Berlin on that Tuesday have turned out to be legitimate and correct.
The crux of the German argument was that the political costs of a war in Iraq would be "higher than (the) political returns." While Rice predicted that Iraq would take advantage of the "opportunities for reconstruction" like the ones Germany enjoyed after 1945, the delegation from Berlin countered that the rapid establishment of a democracy in Baghdad was "not (to be) expected."
The Germans also predicted that the real beneficiary of a war in Iraq would actually be Iran, and that a US-led attack would further complicate efforts to reach a solution in the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Likewise, they prophesized that going to war would precipitate a "terrorist backlash." Scharioth stressed that it was important "to win over the hearts and minds of the Muslim elite and youths," according to the notes, and that this was "not to be achieved" by going to war. He also added that doing so would greatly increase the danger of prompting an "influx to Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism."
Saddam Has 'Always Misled, Hidden and Stalled'
This remarkable conversation was held just a few days after the now-infamous speech that then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell delivered in New York before the UN Security Council. Powell had presented what he apparently considered to be proof that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. But Berlin sensed that the evidence in no way substantiated Powell's claims.
With his speech, Powell wanted to convince the Security Council to give a green light to war. Less than three months earlier, the Security Council had passed Resolution 1441, which threatened Iraq with "serious consequences" if it was found to have committed any "material breach" of arms-control sanctions. Since the end of 2002, inspectors with the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had been conducting searches in Iraq for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons -- though obviously without any success.
During this time, the Americans were growing impatient because they wanted to launch their attack before the onset of the heat and sandstorms accompanying the warmer months of the year. This, in turn, prompted Rice to push for action in a conversation with Scharioth. She argued that "everything had been tried"* over the last 12 years but Saddam Hussein has "always misled, hidden and stalled."*
In response, Berlin called for the inspections regime to be intensified and for the inspectors to be given more time. Chancellor Schröder even teamed up with then-French President Jacques Chirac and then-Russian President Vladimir Putin, forging an alliance on the Security Council, of which Germany was a non-permanent member in 2003. Rice justifiably complained that the Germans were apparently pursuing the goal of "preventing the United States from going to war."*
In the end, none of it helped. The United States went to war without any backing from the United Nations. On March 20, 2003, the bombing of Baghdad signaled the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. And, from there, destiny ran its course.
* Please note that the asterisk following a quotation indicates it was translated from the German classified document and may differ slightly from the original, verbatim English quote.
This article originally appeared in German on SPIEGEL ONLINE's history portal, einestages.de.
Translated from the German by Josh Ward
24.11.10
Why are we inept in wars, becuase we learn history from Hollywood?
eva c.
california
The thing about global history and the Russians is this: most Americans don't comprehend that the bulk of the soldiering in WWII was done by Soviet forces.
That is: Seven out of eight Nazi soldiers killed in WWII died fighting the Soviets.
But because we don't teach that fact in US schools, most Americans falsely believe that the US did the bulk of the fighting in Europe, and they thereby believe that the US is far more capable than it is, or ever was.
Simple-minded Steven Spielberg films like "Saving Private Ryan" that vastly overstate US contributions (though are men were indeed heroic), while omitting entirely the Soviet contribution, are to blame for failing to tell the real story of WWII, which was the Ostfront, and the inhuman and yet heroic sacrifice of Russians, Ukrainians, Kazakhs, etc. fighting under the monstrous Stalin.
So, thanks in part to that 'genius' Spielberg, we get the American delusion that brought us Afghanistan II. The sick part is Spielberg actually doesn't understand the Soviet contribution, yet he's hailed in DC and Hollywood as some kind of historian. I preferred when he made "Jaws" - it was fantasy, but it didn't sell itself as anything more.
california
The thing about global history and the Russians is this: most Americans don't comprehend that the bulk of the soldiering in WWII was done by Soviet forces.
That is: Seven out of eight Nazi soldiers killed in WWII died fighting the Soviets.
But because we don't teach that fact in US schools, most Americans falsely believe that the US did the bulk of the fighting in Europe, and they thereby believe that the US is far more capable than it is, or ever was.
Simple-minded Steven Spielberg films like "Saving Private Ryan" that vastly overstate US contributions (though are men were indeed heroic), while omitting entirely the Soviet contribution, are to blame for failing to tell the real story of WWII, which was the Ostfront, and the inhuman and yet heroic sacrifice of Russians, Ukrainians, Kazakhs, etc. fighting under the monstrous Stalin.
So, thanks in part to that 'genius' Spielberg, we get the American delusion that brought us Afghanistan II. The sick part is Spielberg actually doesn't understand the Soviet contribution, yet he's hailed in DC and Hollywood as some kind of historian. I preferred when he made "Jaws" - it was fantasy, but it didn't sell itself as anything more.
20.11.10
Bob Herbert, an honest journalist, quotes:
'The Pew Hispanic Center: in the year following the official end of the Great Recession in June 2009, foreign-born workers in the U.S. gained 656,000 jobs while native-born workers lost 1.2 million. But even as the hiring of immigrants picked up during that period, those same workers “experienced a sharp decline in earnings.”'
Karen Garcia
New Paltz, NY
When a poll shows that 80 percent of Americans are just fine with being groped and x-rayed by $10-an-hour TSA workers in the name of "safety," I'd say that people are not just in denial. They're in such despair that they've become numb. Unless the results of the survey are bogus (and that is entirely possible), we have not only given up on the American dream. We have given up on feeling human.
Of course, the denial starts at the very top. President Obama seems to think people care about bipartisanship and "the tone" - whatever that is. I shudder to think he is concerned about ordinary people losing sleep over the lack of civility in Washington. Does he really think we elected him to embrace Republicans? Does he really not get what his job description is?
Those blessed polls also showed that only three percent of Americans considered the Afghanistan War to be their priority in the midterm elections. Naturally, it's the economy and jobs that have people worried - not a faraway war that never touches them directly. So, we are kicking the can down the road for another three years before even thinking of ending th.at debacle. Have you noticed that 2014 seems to be a magic number? It's the same year the real meat of the Health Reform Act takes effect, too. Right after the elections - again. Surprise, surprise.
Forget the Republicans - they are traitors to all but their rich friends. Their only interest is keeping themselves in power and making sure the owners of most of the wealth in this country can keep what they have. Mayor Bloomberg boasts that New York City is a "luxury town." His corporate nominee for schools chancellor has bragged she takes cabs everywhere. Yet a photo in The Times showed her getting into a chauffeured limousine. These people have so much power and money, they have no need for shame.
I really don't understand Americans. In France, the people went on strike when the retirement age was raised to 62. In Britain, they rioted when university tuition was raised. A millionaire member of the House of Lords was forced to resign when he made a Barbara Bush-like statement that the common people as well-off as ever. In Hong Kong, citizens took to the streets when business tycoons offered to shell out $16 million apiece to contribute to the country's social security system. The people would rather the bigshots be taxed directly to avoid a conflict of interest. Can you imagine the Forbes List billionaires or the Koch Brothers offering to help cash-strapped Americans? Me neither.
Maybe it's because we are such an immense, culturally diverse nation that we can't find common cause. Maybe change has to start at the local level because Washington has become so irrelevant to our daily lives. Maybe we should shut off the TV and get involved in our communities to regain our humanity. Or, we could all head out to airports next Wednesday whether we have tickets or not, and protest the government violations of our Fourth Amendment rights. It has to start with us, or it won't happen at all.
Matt Connolly
Boston
We spend more on education than any other nation yet the performance of the students is still falling. More teachers, less teachers, more hours, less hours, longer years, shorter years, new techniques, old techniques it all comes down to the same result: overall educational standards are dropping.
Your solution more money will add to the deficit which you bemoan as an additional burden on the kids being born today while guaranteeing nothing will change. Even had we had a smart pill we could give to the kids today that would make them all bright, it would still be 16 years to wait for the results. So preaching education won't cut it.
The truth is America has become a fat tired Sumo wrestler. It's put on too much weight to be a contender anymore. The sad fact is there is no solution as long as we think war is the answer, use mercenary troops, and ignore our continual battles (America has fought in more wars since WWII than the rest of the nations of the world added together) then we have no hope.
Right now we use our most creative minds thinking up ways to kill people or to come up with money betting scams in our financial industry. It is not the way it was supposed to be.
Franz
Aachen, Germany
Forget the dream to get the lost jobs back.
One key aspect of Globalization is, that it creates value from the regional separation of producers and consumers. Production costs of standard goods are reduced by a transfer of production to countries with low wages, while the revenues remain high by selling the goods in the shops of rich countries. That is exactly was has happened between the USA and China.
On the short term, this system produces huge profits for the international companies that are managing it. On the long term, it is only useful for the new production regions. The sure loser are the workers and engineers of the old, former production region. Initially, they can buy cheaper goods and feel wealthier. This is a sweet poison, that the US middle class is now recognizing too late. It is only logical, that after some time they lose their jobs and purchasing power. This process ist almost impossible to revers once it has taken place.
If a country like the USA, would now perform a radical turn and handicap the import of "globalized" goods with tariffs, the first thing happening would be a crash of the stock markets. Secondly, international trade would break down, because other countries would react with counter measures. Everybody would increase tariffs to protect their home markets. Most goods would get a sharp increase of prices and almost all complex production processes would be interrupted and stand still. In other words, the world would fall in the worst imaginable economic crisis.
There are ways to improve the current situation, but they are all painful and take time. Most important is a strong political will and a social consensus to do a u-turn and to bear its consequences. This is what has happened in Germany 8 years ago and now starts to show some fruits. There were tax increases, reductions of wages, investments in education, and painful adjustments of the social services. For the USA I am not optimistic within the next 5 years, because the necessary political and social consensus is nowhere to see. Instead, there is a risk of sharp social conflicts with a radicalization of internal politics.
Lynn
CT
I live in a town where due to budget overruns, our new middle school was left with an empty library/media center. That's right, it's almost December and there are still no books, no shelving, and no furniture for 5th and 6th graders. Our re-elected Republican state senator bragged on his campaign mailer that he saved the district $425,000 on the cost of building the school. Where? The toilets constantly overflow, the drinking water in fountains is warm, the sinks dribble water to wash your hands, the intercom system doesn't work, the main office and library still have cement floors, mismatched used furniture is in the classrooms and falling apart, doors don't work, lockers are already broken, electrical outlets in the classroom malfunction, lights constantly burn out, there is no playground equipment so students stand around on recess, the internet doesn't work on classroom computers, and the white boards in most of the classrooms still can't be used (most likely due to the obvious electrical problem). You'd think parents would be protesting in front of town hall or the school. You'd be wrong. Did I mention that due to our mayor refusing to increase our education budget we laid off teachers and aides, now have pay to play sports teams, reduced school library hours (if you have a school with a functioning library), and our classroom size went from an average of 19 to 26. I live in a Republican strong-hold where our Republican mayor has kept property taxes lower than surrounding towns. During education budget discussions a small group of parents protested in favor of an increase in front of town hall. The majority of parents said they didn't want their taxes increased $100 a year to pay for the needed increase. One even remarked that our teachers were overpaid. How much should we pay them? Thirty thousand a year was her reply. Ignorance is no longer bliss but inexcusably stupid and destructive. We've had 3 bomb scares in the last 2 weeks at our high school and intermediate school. One third of the students are overweight, with a majority of those downright obese. There are few sidewalks for children to walk or ride their bikes on, our roads have potholes, and five teenage drivers/passengers were killed last year due to alcohol use or speeding. But hey, we have low taxes.
I've just sold my home. We'll be moving to a town with much higher taxes, but one where a quality public education is a priority for the residents. Where learning is not just valued, but supported and encouraged and children are given the necessary tools to compete and succeed in the 21st century.
IfAtFirst
New York, NY
Human societies decline as a consequence of the cultures they choose to adopt. Cultures are based on ideas. Americans chose to enthusiastically embrace an incomplete eighteenth century idea called the 'Invisible Hand Theory.'This theory is incomplete because it failed to think through what competition really is and what the consequences are. Competition is survival and once in the market place there is no choice for a business but to seek to dominate that market by selling the goods or services that offer the best value for money. This is known as commanding the price point. This pressure to command the price point results in a downside. Production costs need to be constantly monitored and driven down wherever possible to maintain or achieve price point pole position. This will result in a constant search to find the best opportunity costs. The larger the business the more ability it has to do this. Today large corporations are responsible for 50% of the world's output of good and services. Today these corporations scour the planet looking for the lowest wages they can pay, the least environmental pollution restrictions and the governments that are best at rigging national and international markets to further the sales of businesses operating on their territory. The executives of businesses are, therefore, so absorbed in chasing price point they fail to see the consequences of their actions. Why should they if it appears to personally benefit them with the enormous rewards they can engineer for themselves? They fail to see that not only are they causing a collapse in demand in developed economies subjected to job outsourcing. They fail to see that polluting the planet will ultimately kill off human societies ability to survive. This in brief is why the Invisible Hand Theory is an incomplete theory and why Americans need to smarten up and recognize it as such.
Desertstraw
Bowie Arizona
1. I challenge anyone to tell us where we can create the number of new jobs that we need to go back to full employment. Technology is eliminating jobs everywhere and the technology is getting better. Let him consider 3D printing and robotics which will reduce the number of manufacturing jobs even when we stop much of the importing. These technologies are making it cheaper to manufacture here than import from cheap labor countries. 2. The American educational system was destroyed by the middle class not by the bean counters. When I was a boy way back when we had a quality educational system and public institutions like City College and U.C. Berkley were better than the best ivy league schools, public education was controlled by elites not the electorate. As control of education changed the middle class elected to "protect" their own children. The first indication of change was symbolic, high school football coaches were paid more than the teachers and even the principals. Then the voters used their power to lower standards, they could not have their children with low grades, which would keep them out of better colleges, or heaven forbid fail, it would damage their pysches. So we got grade inflation. Then the middle class undermined the value of education by telling their children that they themselves, auto workers and truck drivers, made more money than their teachers. Finally the middle class made a Faustian deal with the government, it would allow the Viet Nam war if we had "guns and butter" and draft exemptions for college students. Colleges seeing a way to expand obliged by lowering standards so that people could keep their draft exemptions.
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves," We the people of the U.S. are responsible for our mess. There will always be predators around like the Wall Street crowd to take advantage but they exploit not initiate opportunities. The recent bubbles were caused by the public desire to make money the easy way.
Changing how government acts is easy, it takes one or two elections. Changing the values that we live by is much harder.
Wack
chicago
I am first generation immigrant but this is what i feel about avg Americans: They are extremely misinformed about rest of the world specially the other industrialized nations. They still don't believe that those nations have better health indicators than USA at 1/3rd costs. They don't know that many of these so called socialist countries are more competitive than USA on all rankings. So called western Europe has more companies in top 500 than USA. And those companies do extremely well even without outsourcing and providing much better vacation, benefits and first world salaries to their employees.
Rules like filibuster are setup so that no major change can be accomplished in favor of avg Americans which puts a dent in wealth of super-rich (Lieberman blocking public option or buying in of Medicaid is a great example of that). Top 1% knows that in a democracy, then can not rule against the will of other 99%. So they are trying their best to divert the attention to whatever sticks: skin color, false war in name of security and above all socialism. Unless and until other people unite or the Manchurian army of these right wing could see thru this plan of super-rich, there is no hope.
barbara
nyc
It doesn't take very much to look around and see significant cultural shifts perpetuated by business. Democracy is a catch word empty of real content.
Information is largely generated by marketing. Journalism as noted by the recent Ted Koppel article has been replaced by opinion. Television has always been driven by $ but the support for populist shows has simply moved a political dialog into the realm of tabloid. Perhaps those politicians who seem entrenched in this kind of public interface are those who embody those characteristics. What we see mirrored back to us in a Sara Palin and Glen Beck is the face of a talk show.
We now market everything through the media and see the business model increasingly in the public sector.
We are told this is done to reduce costs. But we have also lost the notion of a public sector and the value of what it is to be a citizen. Any issue is about $. The public sector was put in place to counter the business machine. What has happened to our that? What is good for America is not a priority, consumer protection a dirty word. Business is entrenched in politics. So if business is the driving force, how has that impacted on our current state, Republicans?
Consider the losses driven by business interests: War! Trade agreements and outsourcing that work against
the American worker, our dilemma with immigrant labor.
Corporations have created the malling of America (I remember my mother complaining about how many new malls were being built in her neighborhood. She said in a few
years, they will be all be empty. What a waste!) and a decrease of small business (how many Rite Aides does any community need?)
Large corporations control the product marketing, material, production and retail. Along the way, this process has impacted on every part of our lives. We are increasingly a captive market, sheep. We sign contracts for the smallest of services and pay fees for canceling all of which have nothing to do with the ordinary consumer except to fine those least able to pay. Read the small print.
We are consuming a life style that is largely untenable....one bent on fast food, entertainment, vast amounts of stuff often plastic that is made to be outdated and marketing that prices for status. The marketing is directed at the masses who are clearly over their head.
All in all the government, and a public that is struggling to protect whatever is seems to have left is
being shifted away from what is necessary for its integrity and well being...education, public service...
protection of the environment and all of those things I may have missed that have to do with values.
In finding solutions, we need to pay attention to the bigger picture.
John Kerr
San Francisco
The United States had a free lunch for 30 years after the Second World War, with little competition. Returning service men were hard working and ambitious. They studied things like engineering and propelled the country for decades as "can do" Americans. We had an abundance of cheap energy and cheap food. They created Silicon Valley and were succeeded their by a generation of creative people, often immigrants.
Now we are faced with competing with a new world of highly educated and motivated technicians, much like our fathers, and we have to earn our way in the world. We won't achieve it by griping in the New York Times. Among other things we have to deal with:
-whether we want to grow to 400 and 500 million people so we have to create 150,000 jobs each month just to stand still.
-how do we motivate our citizenry to educate themselves at all levels in technical subjects so we can compete? We have too many lazy students with no goals in life who can't put sentences together.
-How do we get our brightest to invent, design and make things instead of joining the hoard of over-paid quick buck artists on Wall Street?
Why is Germany doing better than us? First they have fewer mouths to feed with no population growth. Second, they have a better educated and trained population selling sophisticated equipment to developing countries. Third, they have negotiated trade agreements that allow them to sell where American goods are shut out. Fourth, they highly tax gasoline to reduce the need to import endless oil. Fifth, they lack a financial center like Wall Street or the City that drain the brain pool. Sixth, the country lives within its means and people don't spend money they don't have. Seventh, they never stop training their workers, who often work for mid-sized, specialized industrial companies.
Their is no free lunch. Going back to the days when unskilled, unionized workers live like the upper middle class is not going to happen.
Our country needs to stop whining and improve the way we do things. There no longer is a free lunch.
Karen Garcia
New Paltz, NY
When a poll shows that 80 percent of Americans are just fine with being groped and x-rayed by $10-an-hour TSA workers in the name of "safety," I'd say that people are not just in denial. They're in such despair that they've become numb. Unless the results of the survey are bogus (and that is entirely possible), we have not only given up on the American dream. We have given up on feeling human.
Of course, the denial starts at the very top. President Obama seems to think people care about bipartisanship and "the tone" - whatever that is. I shudder to think he is concerned about ordinary people losing sleep over the lack of civility in Washington. Does he really think we elected him to embrace Republicans? Does he really not get what his job description is?
Those blessed polls also showed that only three percent of Americans considered the Afghanistan War to be their priority in the midterm elections. Naturally, it's the economy and jobs that have people worried - not a faraway war that never touches them directly. So, we are kicking the can down the road for another three years before even thinking of ending th.at debacle. Have you noticed that 2014 seems to be a magic number? It's the same year the real meat of the Health Reform Act takes effect, too. Right after the elections - again. Surprise, surprise.
Forget the Republicans - they are traitors to all but their rich friends. Their only interest is keeping themselves in power and making sure the owners of most of the wealth in this country can keep what they have. Mayor Bloomberg boasts that New York City is a "luxury town." His corporate nominee for schools chancellor has bragged she takes cabs everywhere. Yet a photo in The Times showed her getting into a chauffeured limousine. These people have so much power and money, they have no need for shame.
I really don't understand Americans. In France, the people went on strike when the retirement age was raised to 62. In Britain, they rioted when university tuition was raised. A millionaire member of the House of Lords was forced to resign when he made a Barbara Bush-like statement that the common people as well-off as ever. In Hong Kong, citizens took to the streets when business tycoons offered to shell out $16 million apiece to contribute to the country's social security system. The people would rather the bigshots be taxed directly to avoid a conflict of interest. Can you imagine the Forbes List billionaires or the Koch Brothers offering to help cash-strapped Americans? Me neither.
Maybe it's because we are such an immense, culturally diverse nation that we can't find common cause. Maybe change has to start at the local level because Washington has become so irrelevant to our daily lives. Maybe we should shut off the TV and get involved in our communities to regain our humanity. Or, we could all head out to airports next Wednesday whether we have tickets or not, and protest the government violations of our Fourth Amendment rights. It has to start with us, or it won't happen at all.
Matt Connolly
Boston
We spend more on education than any other nation yet the performance of the students is still falling. More teachers, less teachers, more hours, less hours, longer years, shorter years, new techniques, old techniques it all comes down to the same result: overall educational standards are dropping.
Your solution more money will add to the deficit which you bemoan as an additional burden on the kids being born today while guaranteeing nothing will change. Even had we had a smart pill we could give to the kids today that would make them all bright, it would still be 16 years to wait for the results. So preaching education won't cut it.
The truth is America has become a fat tired Sumo wrestler. It's put on too much weight to be a contender anymore. The sad fact is there is no solution as long as we think war is the answer, use mercenary troops, and ignore our continual battles (America has fought in more wars since WWII than the rest of the nations of the world added together) then we have no hope.
Right now we use our most creative minds thinking up ways to kill people or to come up with money betting scams in our financial industry. It is not the way it was supposed to be.
Franz
Aachen, Germany
Forget the dream to get the lost jobs back.
One key aspect of Globalization is, that it creates value from the regional separation of producers and consumers. Production costs of standard goods are reduced by a transfer of production to countries with low wages, while the revenues remain high by selling the goods in the shops of rich countries. That is exactly was has happened between the USA and China.
On the short term, this system produces huge profits for the international companies that are managing it. On the long term, it is only useful for the new production regions. The sure loser are the workers and engineers of the old, former production region. Initially, they can buy cheaper goods and feel wealthier. This is a sweet poison, that the US middle class is now recognizing too late. It is only logical, that after some time they lose their jobs and purchasing power. This process ist almost impossible to revers once it has taken place.
If a country like the USA, would now perform a radical turn and handicap the import of "globalized" goods with tariffs, the first thing happening would be a crash of the stock markets. Secondly, international trade would break down, because other countries would react with counter measures. Everybody would increase tariffs to protect their home markets. Most goods would get a sharp increase of prices and almost all complex production processes would be interrupted and stand still. In other words, the world would fall in the worst imaginable economic crisis.
There are ways to improve the current situation, but they are all painful and take time. Most important is a strong political will and a social consensus to do a u-turn and to bear its consequences. This is what has happened in Germany 8 years ago and now starts to show some fruits. There were tax increases, reductions of wages, investments in education, and painful adjustments of the social services. For the USA I am not optimistic within the next 5 years, because the necessary political and social consensus is nowhere to see. Instead, there is a risk of sharp social conflicts with a radicalization of internal politics.
Lynn
CT
I live in a town where due to budget overruns, our new middle school was left with an empty library/media center. That's right, it's almost December and there are still no books, no shelving, and no furniture for 5th and 6th graders. Our re-elected Republican state senator bragged on his campaign mailer that he saved the district $425,000 on the cost of building the school. Where? The toilets constantly overflow, the drinking water in fountains is warm, the sinks dribble water to wash your hands, the intercom system doesn't work, the main office and library still have cement floors, mismatched used furniture is in the classrooms and falling apart, doors don't work, lockers are already broken, electrical outlets in the classroom malfunction, lights constantly burn out, there is no playground equipment so students stand around on recess, the internet doesn't work on classroom computers, and the white boards in most of the classrooms still can't be used (most likely due to the obvious electrical problem). You'd think parents would be protesting in front of town hall or the school. You'd be wrong. Did I mention that due to our mayor refusing to increase our education budget we laid off teachers and aides, now have pay to play sports teams, reduced school library hours (if you have a school with a functioning library), and our classroom size went from an average of 19 to 26. I live in a Republican strong-hold where our Republican mayor has kept property taxes lower than surrounding towns. During education budget discussions a small group of parents protested in favor of an increase in front of town hall. The majority of parents said they didn't want their taxes increased $100 a year to pay for the needed increase. One even remarked that our teachers were overpaid. How much should we pay them? Thirty thousand a year was her reply. Ignorance is no longer bliss but inexcusably stupid and destructive. We've had 3 bomb scares in the last 2 weeks at our high school and intermediate school. One third of the students are overweight, with a majority of those downright obese. There are few sidewalks for children to walk or ride their bikes on, our roads have potholes, and five teenage drivers/passengers were killed last year due to alcohol use or speeding. But hey, we have low taxes.
I've just sold my home. We'll be moving to a town with much higher taxes, but one where a quality public education is a priority for the residents. Where learning is not just valued, but supported and encouraged and children are given the necessary tools to compete and succeed in the 21st century.
IfAtFirst
New York, NY
Human societies decline as a consequence of the cultures they choose to adopt. Cultures are based on ideas. Americans chose to enthusiastically embrace an incomplete eighteenth century idea called the 'Invisible Hand Theory.'This theory is incomplete because it failed to think through what competition really is and what the consequences are. Competition is survival and once in the market place there is no choice for a business but to seek to dominate that market by selling the goods or services that offer the best value for money. This is known as commanding the price point. This pressure to command the price point results in a downside. Production costs need to be constantly monitored and driven down wherever possible to maintain or achieve price point pole position. This will result in a constant search to find the best opportunity costs. The larger the business the more ability it has to do this. Today large corporations are responsible for 50% of the world's output of good and services. Today these corporations scour the planet looking for the lowest wages they can pay, the least environmental pollution restrictions and the governments that are best at rigging national and international markets to further the sales of businesses operating on their territory. The executives of businesses are, therefore, so absorbed in chasing price point they fail to see the consequences of their actions. Why should they if it appears to personally benefit them with the enormous rewards they can engineer for themselves? They fail to see that not only are they causing a collapse in demand in developed economies subjected to job outsourcing. They fail to see that polluting the planet will ultimately kill off human societies ability to survive. This in brief is why the Invisible Hand Theory is an incomplete theory and why Americans need to smarten up and recognize it as such.
Desertstraw
Bowie Arizona
1. I challenge anyone to tell us where we can create the number of new jobs that we need to go back to full employment. Technology is eliminating jobs everywhere and the technology is getting better. Let him consider 3D printing and robotics which will reduce the number of manufacturing jobs even when we stop much of the importing. These technologies are making it cheaper to manufacture here than import from cheap labor countries. 2. The American educational system was destroyed by the middle class not by the bean counters. When I was a boy way back when we had a quality educational system and public institutions like City College and U.C. Berkley were better than the best ivy league schools, public education was controlled by elites not the electorate. As control of education changed the middle class elected to "protect" their own children. The first indication of change was symbolic, high school football coaches were paid more than the teachers and even the principals. Then the voters used their power to lower standards, they could not have their children with low grades, which would keep them out of better colleges, or heaven forbid fail, it would damage their pysches. So we got grade inflation. Then the middle class undermined the value of education by telling their children that they themselves, auto workers and truck drivers, made more money than their teachers. Finally the middle class made a Faustian deal with the government, it would allow the Viet Nam war if we had "guns and butter" and draft exemptions for college students. Colleges seeing a way to expand obliged by lowering standards so that people could keep their draft exemptions.
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves," We the people of the U.S. are responsible for our mess. There will always be predators around like the Wall Street crowd to take advantage but they exploit not initiate opportunities. The recent bubbles were caused by the public desire to make money the easy way.
Changing how government acts is easy, it takes one or two elections. Changing the values that we live by is much harder.
Wack
chicago
I am first generation immigrant but this is what i feel about avg Americans: They are extremely misinformed about rest of the world specially the other industrialized nations. They still don't believe that those nations have better health indicators than USA at 1/3rd costs. They don't know that many of these so called socialist countries are more competitive than USA on all rankings. So called western Europe has more companies in top 500 than USA. And those companies do extremely well even without outsourcing and providing much better vacation, benefits and first world salaries to their employees.
Rules like filibuster are setup so that no major change can be accomplished in favor of avg Americans which puts a dent in wealth of super-rich (Lieberman blocking public option or buying in of Medicaid is a great example of that). Top 1% knows that in a democracy, then can not rule against the will of other 99%. So they are trying their best to divert the attention to whatever sticks: skin color, false war in name of security and above all socialism. Unless and until other people unite or the Manchurian army of these right wing could see thru this plan of super-rich, there is no hope.
barbara
nyc
It doesn't take very much to look around and see significant cultural shifts perpetuated by business. Democracy is a catch word empty of real content.
Information is largely generated by marketing. Journalism as noted by the recent Ted Koppel article has been replaced by opinion. Television has always been driven by $ but the support for populist shows has simply moved a political dialog into the realm of tabloid. Perhaps those politicians who seem entrenched in this kind of public interface are those who embody those characteristics. What we see mirrored back to us in a Sara Palin and Glen Beck is the face of a talk show.
We now market everything through the media and see the business model increasingly in the public sector.
We are told this is done to reduce costs. But we have also lost the notion of a public sector and the value of what it is to be a citizen. Any issue is about $. The public sector was put in place to counter the business machine. What has happened to our that? What is good for America is not a priority, consumer protection a dirty word. Business is entrenched in politics. So if business is the driving force, how has that impacted on our current state, Republicans?
Consider the losses driven by business interests: War! Trade agreements and outsourcing that work against
the American worker, our dilemma with immigrant labor.
Corporations have created the malling of America (I remember my mother complaining about how many new malls were being built in her neighborhood. She said in a few
years, they will be all be empty. What a waste!) and a decrease of small business (how many Rite Aides does any community need?)
Large corporations control the product marketing, material, production and retail. Along the way, this process has impacted on every part of our lives. We are increasingly a captive market, sheep. We sign contracts for the smallest of services and pay fees for canceling all of which have nothing to do with the ordinary consumer except to fine those least able to pay. Read the small print.
We are consuming a life style that is largely untenable....one bent on fast food, entertainment, vast amounts of stuff often plastic that is made to be outdated and marketing that prices for status. The marketing is directed at the masses who are clearly over their head.
All in all the government, and a public that is struggling to protect whatever is seems to have left is
being shifted away from what is necessary for its integrity and well being...education, public service...
protection of the environment and all of those things I may have missed that have to do with values.
In finding solutions, we need to pay attention to the bigger picture.
John Kerr
San Francisco
The United States had a free lunch for 30 years after the Second World War, with little competition. Returning service men were hard working and ambitious. They studied things like engineering and propelled the country for decades as "can do" Americans. We had an abundance of cheap energy and cheap food. They created Silicon Valley and were succeeded their by a generation of creative people, often immigrants.
Now we are faced with competing with a new world of highly educated and motivated technicians, much like our fathers, and we have to earn our way in the world. We won't achieve it by griping in the New York Times. Among other things we have to deal with:
-whether we want to grow to 400 and 500 million people so we have to create 150,000 jobs each month just to stand still.
-how do we motivate our citizenry to educate themselves at all levels in technical subjects so we can compete? We have too many lazy students with no goals in life who can't put sentences together.
-How do we get our brightest to invent, design and make things instead of joining the hoard of over-paid quick buck artists on Wall Street?
Why is Germany doing better than us? First they have fewer mouths to feed with no population growth. Second, they have a better educated and trained population selling sophisticated equipment to developing countries. Third, they have negotiated trade agreements that allow them to sell where American goods are shut out. Fourth, they highly tax gasoline to reduce the need to import endless oil. Fifth, they lack a financial center like Wall Street or the City that drain the brain pool. Sixth, the country lives within its means and people don't spend money they don't have. Seventh, they never stop training their workers, who often work for mid-sized, specialized industrial companies.
Their is no free lunch. Going back to the days when unskilled, unionized workers live like the upper middle class is not going to happen.
Our country needs to stop whining and improve the way we do things. There no longer is a free lunch.
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The list of countries that Woodrow Wilson the "League of Nations" peace-lover invaded is longer than almost any other US president's:
Mexico
China
Nicaragua
Panama
Dominican Republic
Haiti
Cuba
Guatemala
Honduras
Phillipine
Yugoslavia
the U.S.S.R.
Major General Smedley Butler, the 4-star Marine general who was the most decorated soldier in US history, had this to say about Wilsonian "idealism:"