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From Freedom Fries to Funerals...

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| Mon Dec. 19, 2005 4:43 PM PST

The new issue of Mother Jones magazine is now online!

Here's a sampling of what's inside:

In "The Three Conversions of Walter B. Jones," Robert Dreyfuss details how the conservative congressman from North Carolina who coined the term "freedom fries" turned against the Iraq war. (Read it.)

Daniel Duane wonders why, with gang violence on the rise, a proven anti-gang strategy known as the "Boston Miracle" is being dissed by the L.A.P.D., the FBI, and Congress. (Read it.)

Nir Rosen journeys to the madrasas and streets of Pakistan, where students learn to hate in the name of love. (Read it.)

JoAnn Wypijewski considers our rules of war and finds them dangerously unclear. (Read it.)

And Chris Bachelder argues that The Jungle, Upton Sinclair's underrated classic about the meatpacking industry in Chicago, is due for a critical reappraisal. (Read it.)

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VAWA passage is a victory for women's rights advocates

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| Mon Dec. 19, 2005 1:29 PM PST

Following up on Mother Jones' recent special report on domestic violence, Ann Friedman notes that Congress's reauthorization on Saturday of the Violence Against Women Act is being hailed as a victory by women's rights advocates. As one activist says, "There was a sustained level of drama, trying to figure out if...desperately-needed programs were going to make it in. I guess Santa decided he was going to be beneficent." Read the full story and find out what provisions made it into the final bill here.

The human faces of the Iraq war

—By

| Mon Dec. 19, 2005 1:16 PM PST

New at Mother Jones:

Four photojournalists who elected not to "embed" with US troops take an unflinching look at the human faces of war-ravaged Iraq. (LINK)

Tom Engelhardt wonders why the anthrax attacks of October 2001 have all but disappeared from public and media memory. (LINK)

In an interview, international lawyer Philippe Sands tells how the Bush administration has tried to wreck the global rules-based system--against the United States' interests. (LINK)

Chinese government continues to brutalize Falun Gong practitioners

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| Mon Dec. 19, 2005 10:36 AM PST

In the latest reported incident of the Chinese government's crackdown on its citizens who practice Falon Gong, two women in Hebei Province were beaten, stunned on the breasts with a stun baton, and raped by police officers. Other female detainees report that they have been stripped naked, beaten, kicked in the breasts and genitalia, raped, and subjected to vaginal probes with stun batons. Pregnant women and nursing mothers have reported similar treatment by the Chinese police.

Torture, murder, and psychological abuse are all said to have been perpetrated on Falon Gong practitiioners, and many are said to have disappeared, never to be seen again.

Falon Gong was outlawed by the Chinese government in 1999, when then-Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin declared it the number one enemy of the Communist party. It is estimated that between 70 and 100 million people in China practice Falon Gong, which is not a religion, per se, but rather, a spiritual practice loosely based on Buddhism and Taoism, and which is referred to by its detractors as a cult. Falon Gong-related human rights abuses have been verified by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the U.S. Department of State.

The Elusive Quest for Balance

Thu Dec. 15, 2005 1:09 PM PST

Let's look at a recent column by NPR ombudsmen Jeffrey Dvorkin tallying up guests from think tanks who've appeared on NPR shows. Here's the data, and a bit of his commentary (bold text is mine):

American Enterprise – 59 times

Brookings Institute – 102

Cato Institute – 29

Center for Strategic and Intl. Studies – 39

Heritage Foundation – 20

Hoover Institute – 69

Lexington Institute – 9

Manhattan Institute – 53

There are of course, other think tanks, but these seem to be the ones whose experts are heard most often on NPR. Brookings and CSIS are seen by many in Washington, D.C., as being center to center-left. The others in the above list tend to lean to the right. So NPR has interviewed more think tankers on the right than on the left.

The score to date: Right 239, Left 141.

You see these sorts of tallies all the time, and for all sorts of reasons they always have to be taken with a huge grain of salt. Decisions about who's left or right or center is obviously highly dependent on where the judge stands. (Here's a blurb from The Nation describing Brookings as "center-right.") And as the policy debate "center" has shifted rightward, previously staid, neutral institutions have come to be characterized as "left."

But this one is really interesting: do you see how Dvorkin describes CSIS and Brookings as "center or center-left"—and then all the sudden in the final count they are just plain left? Only calling Brookings left—which a sentence before he essentially described as "center"—could he make the count look remotely fair. Now over at TAPPED, Garance Franke-Ruta suggests that this imbalance was supposed to be corrected by Center for American Progress. Maybe. But the truth of the matter is that if groups like Cato and the AEI get that much air—88 NPR visits combined—we should hear from places as left as the Institute for Policy Studies on a more regular basis. And the last time I remember seeing Phyllis Bennis on any sort of broadcast was on MSNBC's Donahue in the fall of 2002.

Our Embassy in the North

Thu Dec. 15, 2005 12:52 PM PST

Canada's ruling (and somewhat disgraced) Liberal Party is facing a special election to determine whether it will keep its control of the government or not. It's a very testy time in Canada, and not the sort of moment for an American Ambassador to wade into another country's domestic politics.

But that, of course, is exactly what the Bush administration's man in Ottawa, David Wilkins, has done, calling out Canada's incumbent Prime Minister, Paul Martin, for criticizing U.S. policies, and suggesting that the U.S. won't remain a punching bag for much longer. (Martin has not held his tongue on Iraq or, perhaps more seriously, the long-going softwood lumber controversy.) Josh Marshall and Matt Yglesias have more, with both making the point that, since the Bush administration is so despised around the world, this could paradoxically end up helping out the Liberal incumbents.

While that dust-up has gotten a good deal of attention on the other side of the border, and a smattering of play down here, there an admittedly smaller indication that our embassy has forgotten that diplomatic is synonymous with delicate, judicious, polite, politque, etcetera. Curt Stone, the U.S.'s environmental counselor in Canada, has also managed to write off Canadian opposition to U.S. drilling in ANWR as electorally motivated by asking "Is it Really About the Caribou?"—and making it pretty clear that he thinks it is not. The left-leaning Toronto Star wrote up the controversy last month:

"I am surprised a diplomat would do this," said [Canadian] Environment Minister Stephane Dion. "It is not according to the rules.

"I am surprised a diplomat would express such cynicism."

Ottawa has long opposed oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska because of its feared effects on migrating caribou on which Canadian Gwitchin First Nations depend for food and clothing.

A bilateral agreement to protect the caribou was signed in 1987. The Canadian position has remained unchanged.

It seems that Stone stopped blogging after Thanksgiving, but not before attacking the Kyoto Protocol and other climate change measures. Of course the U.S. Embassy claims that Stone's writings only represent himself. But isn't that a rather flimsy cover? He's a diplomat, for chrissakes—by definition he represents the entire United States.

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191,000 Hate Crimes a Year

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| Wed Dec. 14, 2005 11:26 AM PST

Via Ampersand, Dave Neiwert had a post a few weeks ago pointing to a new Bureau of Justice Statistics study showing that the number of hate crimes in the United States vastly exceeded the totals reported to the FBI by far. The report estimated that there were an average of 191,000 hate crimes per year—between 19 and 31 times higher than the FBI's numbers. Moreover, only 44 percent of all hate crimes were ever reported to the police. 84 percent involved violence.

Why are hate crimes so underreported? Neiwert suggests it could be because of the rise of violence against immigrants, many who are here either illegally—and are afraid of being deported by going to the police—or, perhaps, are "guest workers" who would rather get on with their lives and not have any trouble with law enforcement. Either way, though, Neiwert's characterization of hate crimes as "acts of terrorism directed at entire communities of people" seems perfectly apt, and it's pretty obvious that the problem is massive.

Healthcare worker "conscience clause" expanding

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| Wed Dec. 14, 2005 8:51 AM PST

In the latest case reflecting the healthcare worker "conscience clause" movement, a California appeals court has ruled in favor of doctors who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian patient. Guadalupe Benitez filed a sexual orientation discrimination suit against the physicians at a women's clinic in San Diego for refusing to artificially inseminate her in 2000.

The details of the case are complex. The plaintiff says that when she first went to the clinic, the doctor she saw told her she could not inseminate her because her religious beliefs did not permit her to perform such a procedure on a gay person. According to Benitez, the doctor told her there was another doctor in the clinic who could perform the procedure. Benitez then underwent almost a year of tests, exams, and surgeries, only to be told she could not be inseminated at the clinic because of the religious beliefs of all of the staff members.

One of the pending legal questions is whether Benitez was denied the procedure because she was a lesbian or because she was unmarried. California law protects citizens from discrimination by businesses on the basis of sexual orientation, but not on the basis of marital status. The doctors' attorney is claiming that the decision was based on Benitez's marital status, but the plaintiff's attorney confirms that Benitez was told that the procedure could not be done because of her homosexuality.

The appeals court ruled in favor of the doctors on the grounds of protecting religious liberty.

Meanwhile, throughout the country, pharmacists continue to refuse to sell certain products to women because of the pharmacists' religious beliefs. Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Dakota have passed laws allowing pharmacists to refuse to dispense emergency contraceptive drugs. Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin have introduced legislation that would allow pharmacists to refuse to provide services. Only three states--Missouri, New Jersey, and West Virginia--have introduced legislation that would require pharmacists to fill prescriptions.

Emergency contrapceptive pills contain high doses of of the hormones that are found in regular contraceptive pills. Emergency contraceptives can delay ovulation and prevent fertilization, and--in some cases--prevent implantation. Wal-Mart led the way by refusing to sell emergency contraceptive pills, and then other retail outlets followed by giving their pharmacists the option to use a conscience clause to opt out of filling ecp prescriptions.

It isn't just emergency contraception that is being denied women, however. Pharmacists who are opposed to any artificial means of birth control are using the conscience clause to refuse to fill regular birth control prescriptions. Aside from the obvious fact that birth control pills, patches, and devices are legal in the United States, birth control pills are also prescribed to treat certain disorders, such as irregular menstrual periods, acne, endometriosis, and severe premenstrual syndrome. Women whose mothers or grandmothers had ovarian cancer may be given birth control pills to protect them from the disease.

And finally, though condoms are frequently sold at the pharmacy counter, we do not hear about American pharmacists' refusing to sell them, nor do we hear about an expansion of the conscience clause that would permit checkout staff to refuse to ring up condom purchases.

Counting the dead in Iraq

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| Tue Dec. 13, 2005 7:41 AM PST

For the first time, George W. Bush has announced to the American people the approximate number of Iraqi civilians killed since the beginning of the war. 30,000, more or less, is the number he used, and that number is certainly enough to provide reason to grieve for the families of the victims, and for the nation at large. But is 30,000 an accurate number? Many do not think so.

The Lancet Study, conducted by the medical journal and led by a staff member of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, extrapolated a total of approximately 100,000 dead from its research. Last fall, when the Lancet Study was published, another group, Iraq Body Count, put the estimate at around 15,000, and today, its website indicates a maximum number of 30,892. Iraq Body Count is composed of activists and academicians, and is a respected group.

The Lancet study has been criticized for including all "excess deaths," from illness and accident. A larger criticism was that the researchers drew heavily on the population of war-ravaged Falluja, thereby spiking the projected numbers beyond reason. On the other hand, the Iraq Body Count study, which requires a death to be overtly connected to war violence, uses a death count only if it has been confirmed by two independent news organizations. The Iraq Body Count group acknowledges that many, if not most, of the deaths go unreported by the media, and therefore the actual number of Iraqi dead is likely to be much higher than what it is reporting.

Though we do not know--and will most likely never know--the number of Iraqi civilians who have died in the war, it seems clear that the current number of 30,000 is inaccurate, and perhaps very inaccurate. General Tommy Franks' now famous statement, "We don't do body counts," has turned out to be true in more ways than one. Not only do we not have an accurate count, but--more significant, perhaps--the American news media does not even talk about the deaths of Iraqi civilians. Anti-war rhetoric also often excludes Iraqi civilian deaths, and concentrates only on the deaths of American soldiers. To complicate matters even more, there is the additional task of figuring which of the Iraqi casualities are the result of action by U.S. forces, and which are the result of the activities of insurgents.

It will be interesting to see what kind of public discussion Bush's statement on 30,000 deaths produces.

Daddy, what did you do in the War on Christmas?

—By

| Mon Dec. 12, 2005 4:05 PM PST

I have written before that certain Christians have taken Christ out of Xmas and then blamed the rest of us for taking Christ out of Christmas, and I have also written about the insanity of certain Christians focusing on what Wal-Mart clerks say during the holiday season, rather than on the decidedly non-Christian way that Wal-Mart conducts business.

Now we are told that liberals are waging a War on Christmas, but none of the liberals I know has enlisted or taken up arms. I am all for inclusion, and believe that Muslims and Jews should have their holidays respected, that Kwaanza should be acknowledged, and that Buddhist, Hindu, athiest, agnostic, Unitarian, and other festivus-for-the-rest-of-us citizens do not need for others to assume that they are Christian.

The argument that these particular Christians make is that since 76% of Americans claim to be Christian, the other 24% need to go along with "Merry Christmas," manger scenes in public places, and public school Christmas pageants. It is an interesting issue because most secular people (for lack of a better term) observe Christmas. They decorate Christmas trees, exchange Christmas gifts, and send Christmas cards. Like it or not, Christmas has become a holiday for Christians and non-Christians alike.

There is a difference, however, between decorating a tree and doing a play about a Bible story. Though I personally wish to fight no war against Christmas, I will fight one to preserve the separation of church and state. Christmas pageants are for Christian churches, as are manger scenes. I figure the rest of us have a right to celebrate a more secular Christmas. After all, historians are sure that Jesus was not born on December 25. And people from all parts of the world were celebrating right after the winter solstice--complete with yule log, evergreen tree, holly, and mistletoe--for centuries before Jesus was born. The early Christians simply took a holiday that already existed and tacked Christmas onto it. One would be justified, in fact, in saying that Christians have appropriated a traditional holiday, made it their own, and forced it on everyone else.

Bill O'Reilly, a general in the fight against the War on Christmas, tells us that a lot is at stake--that the War on Christmas is part of a "secular aggressive agenda" that includes "legalization of narcotics, euthanasia, abortion at will, gay marriage." All that from "Happy Holidays." Fox news anchor John Gibson has even written a book called The War On Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday is Worse Than You Thought. O'Reilly has listed on his website a variety of retail outlets and how they are using, or not using, the word "Christmas," so that his disciples will know where to shop. Jerry Falwell has threatened to file suit against any organization that spreads false information about how schools and public organizations can say about Christmas.

This is, of course, the new way of fighting in America. Declare war on some entity and then swear that that entity has delared war on you. The idea that American Christians--who own the White House, Congress, the FCC, and the so-called War on Terror--are a persecuted group is enough to make me wade into a tub of eggnog.