GLOBALIZE THIS!

Saturday, April 10, 2004

WE DON'T NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS

Or do we?

Cheney: "you can't negotiate with them, there's no treaty at the end of the day here."

Ari Fleischer: "the United States government does not and will not negotiate."

Bush: "It's hard to negotiate -- stop terror. You either stop terror or you don't stop terror. It's not -- oh, yes, they understand, they know our feelings, they do, yes. "

Bush: "You can't talk to them, you can't negotiate with them."

Bush: "No nation can negotiate with terrorists."

Al Jazeera: "Talks are under way with Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militiamen and supporters have taken up arms against occupation forces in Iraq."

(Just browsing AJ this evening, trying to see past the US reporting and find out more about the Iraq uprising).

BBC: "The US declared a truce in Falluja."

Gee, that sounds like negotiating to me.

**UPDATE: To be clear, it is not always wrong to negotiate with terrorists, as Roger Fisher and William Ury will attest. It depends on the costs and benefits of our next best alternative to a negotiated settlement. The rhetoric of "we do not negotiate with terrorists" is valuable to the Bush administration as tough talk, but if taken to heart could create a whole host of new problems in ending the violence in Iraq and ending generic terrorist aggression against the US.

¶ 4/10/2004 12:00:15 AM

Friday, April 09, 2004

THANK G-D WE LIBERATED THIS KID

Let the seeds of democracy sprout forth.

¶ 4/09/2004 11:46:04 PM

Wednesday, April 07, 2004

INNOVATIVE NONPROFIT IN WASHINGTON, DC

Today I want to let you know about an innovative nonprofit organization in Washington, DC: Shaw EcoVillage.

Since 1998, SEV has trained hundreds of at-risk kids to be leaders in improving their neighborhoods through environmentally sustainable economic development. SEV is helping the environment and helping build strong communities by helping kids.

Through its Chain Reaction Youth Bike Shop and Eco-Design Corps programs, SEV is making a substantial impact on the youth and the urban environment in Washington, DC.

Chain Reaction promotes alternative transportation and youth development while adding to the economic base of underserved communities in DC. Through Chain Reaction, SEV provides a constructive outlet for kids through its after-school Earn-A-Bike and Going Places summer camp programs, and through employment and skills training in the youth-run bike shop. Chain Reaction is also recycling bikes—to keep waste out of landfills and incinerators, and to keep people moving on affordable transportation. The bike shop helps thousands of customers each year keep on pedaling, all while kids gain the confidence and self esteem earned through hard work and enterprise.

Eco-Design Corps empowers high school students to take charge and participate in the development of urban space. Working in teams, these youths receive micro-grants to develop and implement urban design projects in central DC. Past and ongoing EDC projects include building green roofs and installing rain barrels around the city that recycle water, increase green space, and reduce pollution from storm run-off; building community gardens to grow fresh fruits and vegetables for homeless shelters; building pedestrian bridges to help commuters link up human-powered and public transportation; and helping preserve historical landmarks and developing a cultural history tour of the Shaw neighborhood, once the “Harlem of Washington, DC.”

I have been volunteering with Shaw EcoVillage for the past three years, and am continually amazed watching the organization grow and the kids transforming the neighborhood before our very eyes. While youth, staff and volunteers working with Shaw EcoVillage have made a huge impact to date, the demand for SEV’s programs and services is strong and outpacing our capacity to provide them.

We have the potential to do much, much more, and today I want to ask you to join our team by making a contribution toward our goal of raising $50,000 to move into a new, bigger facility where we can have the space to serve more kids, to expand our programming, and to keep growing in our work of helping build strong, sustainable communities by helping kids. Your support is essential to our mission:

$150 provides one youth all the resources to participate in our Earn-A-Bike program (including the bicycle and a helmet)

$100 provides the opportunity for one kid to participate in our Going Places summer camp

$75 buys seedlings for three planting beds in our community garden

$50 builds and installs one rain barrel

$25 provides snacks for one week of after school programs

Please contribute online here or contact Noel Petrie: sev.noelpetrie@verizon.net.

Thank you.

¶ 4/07/2004 06:27:49 PM

Tuesday, April 06, 2004

WALL STREET WANTS MORE BUSH

WSJ.com:

The stock market reacted positively to Friday's strong jobs report, especially growth-sensitive Nasdaq...The explanation for the stock rally after the jobs report is twofold. Despite its many flaws, the jobs report has become a key election issue -- the stronger the report, the better the chances for President Bush's re-election -- and this election will likely determine the taxation of equities, high or low, for years to come.

Show Wall Street what you want, and what America needs.

¶ 4/06/2004 03:45:15 PM

WATERGATE FELON ON BUSH ADMINISTRATION

John Dean, overheard this morning on Democracy Now!: "The Bush administration is redefining the word hypocrtical."

Dean is plugging his new book: "Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush."

¶ 4/06/2004 02:05:18 PM

'INSOURCING' INSUBSTANTIAL, INANE

Rather than facing the serious issues raised by offshore outsourcing, Republicans have opted to muddy the waters of the debate with a quizzical new addition to the trade lexicon: 'insourcing.'

According to GOP spin doctors, "insourcing is the movement of foreign jobs to the United States" through foreign direct investment.

While FDI in the US really has little to do with the offshoring debate, it also has little to do with creating American jobs.

It turns out, most FDI in the US is used by foreigners to acquire already existing establishments in the US (thus reclassifying previously existing jobs as 'insourced'), often in the form of a change in ownership in stock. In this sense, 'insourcing' is the flip side of the coin to persistent and mounting US current account deficits, which requires foreigners to purchase more and more American assets to finance our appetite for imports.

Rob Scott hasthe low down on jobs from 'insourcing':

Between 1991 and 2001, foreign multinationals acquired firms employing 4.1 million workers. However, only 274,000 workers were employed in the newly established U.S. companies owned by foreign firms, for an average of 25,000 jobs per year over this period.

¶ 4/06/2004 11:12:30 AM

Monday, April 05, 2004

WOW

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS: China goal: $100 billion in auto exports by 2010
Reuters / April 05, 2004

BEIJING -- China aims to export as much as $100 billion in cars and automobile components a year by 2010, more than 20 times last year's figure, state media said Monday.

"Our short-term goal is to increase automobile and component exports to $15 billion to $20 billion next year," the China Daily quoted Vice Minister of Commerce Wei Jianguo as saying.

China's automotive exports rose more than a third last year to $4.7 billion, with $400 million of that coming from sales of whole vehicles, the newspaper said.

By 2010, China would export $70 billion to $100 billion worth of cars and components, Wei said.

"China is likely to become the component supply center for international auto manufacturers in the future," Wei said.

The government would encourage the development of as many as 10 large-scale "automobile and component exporting bases" and allow mergers and acquisitions to create big multinational companies, Wei said without elaborating.

Foreign car and component companies have poured into China, tapping both a booming domestic market for autos as well as a vast pool of cheap labor that has helped companies cut manufacturing costs.

Delphi Corp. has invested about $500 million in more than a dozen factories in China that supply joint ventures for Volkswagen AG and General Motors.

Other foreign players include Delphi chief rival Visteon Corp, Honeywell International and Siemens AG, among others.

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Wonder where those $100 billion in auto exports will be going...

¶ 4/05/2004 11:34:04 AM

BILL SAFIRE PUTS WORDS IN MY MOUTH

Safire writes: Doves opposed to the overthrow of Saddam — who had earlier argued that attacking Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan would lead to quagmire — have found a bellicose rationale for their antiwar stance.

First off, Bill, no one in the world, Mother Jones reader or otherwise, believed it was wrong to go after Al Qaeda--the terrorist perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks on NYC and WDC--anywhere they may brood in the world.

The problem is Saddam Hussein had jack to do with 9/11. So when Bush decided to lead America into a war in Iraq, a pre-condition of which was to so contort and manipulate public sentiment over 9/11 so as to displace America's collective anger from Al Qaeda to Saddam, reasonable-minded people everywhere were left shaking their heads in bewilderment. After all, Saddam's threat had bee mollified for the good part of a decade. (Thanks to almost continual bombing and enforcement of no fly zones by the USAF and the RAF).

Hawks, Safire tells us, replied, "You never understood it's all one war." In their self-deluded world, I'm willing to concede they probably believe this. However, back in the real world, Bush's excursion in Iraq really has distracted us from the war against terrorism. Witnesses before the 9/11 commission testified that the Pentagon pulled out special forces troops from Afghanistan (elite operatives previously employed in hunting Bin Laden) and deployed them to Iraq. Now more than 150,000 troops, billions of dollars of expenditures, and who knows how much military hardware was diverted to the Persian Gulf; Bush has lost OBL, and American troops and their private sector counterparts are being slaughtered and publicly mutilated in Iraq by the very same general population Bush told us would welcome americans with outstretched arms as liberators.

Safire is right about one thing. Who did what prior to 9/11--whether the administration was too slow to develop and implement a terrorism strategy--is really a non-issue, politically speaking. (Excepting of course if we find evidence of deliberate attempts to hide impending attacks). What is the issue is how Bush pulled the Iraq bait and switch, manipulated America's emotional reaction to 9/11, and used the war as a foil to achieve a laundry list of conservative objectives unrelated to the war on terror. For this, Bush should be drawn and quartered--POLITICALLY SPEAKING.

¶ 4/05/2004 08:32:06 AM