As a reminder, GEO and LEO are planning a noon rally today on the Diag:
“Campus Equity Week
RALLY FOR FAIR TREATMENT of U of M EMPLOYEES
Fight for Lecturers’ Job Security
Fight against Proposed health Care Cutbacks
Fight Undergrad tuition Hikes
Diag — Noon
Wednesday, Oct. 29th”
Why Are We Back in Vietnam? ask Frank Rich in a New York Times Op-Ed piece this Monday, discussing the nature of journalism in wartime. Luckily, there’s still Frontline and Nightline, two television shows Rich singles out for their truth-telling. And to make Frontline even more appealing, their program on Iraq is available to watch online via streaming video on their snappy website.
“A TV news venue that the administration spurns entirely, by contrast, stands a chance of providing actual, fresh, accurate information. There have been at least two riveting examples this month. Ms. Rice, Mr. Powell and Mr. Rumsfeld all refused to be interviewed for an Oct. 9 PBS “Frontline” documentary about the walkup to the Iraq war. Yet without their assistance, “Frontline” nonetheless fingered Ahmad Chalabi as an administration source for its pre-war disinformation about weapons of mass destruction and the Qaeda-Saddam link. It also reported that the administration had largely ignored its own state department’s prescient “Future of Iraq” project — a decision that helped lead to our catastrophic ill-preparedness for Iraq’s post-Saddam chaos. “Frontline” didn’t have to resort to leaks for these revelations, either: the sources were on-camera interviews with Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, our first interim leader in Iraq, and Mr. Chalabi himself.
The administration officials who stiffed “Frontline” habitually do the same to ABC’s “Nightline.” Ted Koppel explains why in a round-table discussion published in a new book from the Brookings Institution Press, “The Media and the War on Terrorism”: “They would much rather appear on a program on which they’re likely not to get a tough cross-examination.” On Oct. 15, the week after the “Frontline” exposed, the White House was true to form when asked to provide a guest for a “Nightline” exploring the president’s new anti-media media campaign. But later in the day, the administration decided to send a non-marquee name, Dan Bartlett, its communications director. Mr. Koppel, practicing the increasingly lost art of relentless follow-up questioning, all but got his guest stuttering as he called him on half-truth after half-truth. Mr. Bartlett tried — but soon failed — to get away with defending a litany of prewar administration claims and insinuations: that the entire American contribution to rebuilding Iraq would be only $1.7 billion; that Iraqi oil income would pay for most of the reconstruction; and that the entire war would proceed as quickly as a cakewalk.
…
At the tender age of six months, the war in Iraq is not remotely a Vietnam. But from the way the administration tries to manage the news against all reality, even that irrevocable reality encased in flag-draped coffins, you can only wonder if it might yet persuade the audience at home that we’re mired in another Tet after all.”
LSA Senior, activist extraordinaire, and my friend Jackie Bray turned 21 Monday and I promised I would post about it. Well, here it is, I’d link to scandalous photos and quotes, but they’re not forthcoming. Yes, this website has been reduced to a gossip sheet.
I’ve been told the Ann Arbor News printed the letter to the editor I wrote with Ben King about the YMCA site on October 7th last Sunday. If printing it nearly a month after I wrote it wasn’t enough, they leave off Ben’s name. I’d also link to a copy of the letter as it appears in print, but I can’t seem to find it on the Ann Arbor News website.
“The burden is on you, the upper-middle class.”
Whoa Ari, let’s not be too revolutionary. As a disclaimer, Ari’s something of a friend of mine, but hey, being biased is what I do. Here’s some more excerpts from his column this week in the Daily:
“I have a confession to make. I have a soft spot for the fire-starting anarchists in the Earth Liberation Front. Shocking how a beef-eating, leather-coat-sporting chap like myself can giggle approvingly at ELF antics, but hey, revolution makes for strange bedfellows.
Some raise their fists in support, some cry on about ecoterrorism and some need an explanation. The ELF is a loose network of militant environmentalists that has been known to set fire to under-construction high-income houses and vandalize and incinerate SUVs whose gas consumption is rapidly destroying our environment as well as funding the Saudi terrorist regime, a loyal ally of the Bush-Cheney junta.
…
What I hope the ELF can do is make SUV drivers feel as if they have been vilified, as if their precious Ford Explorer is in itself a criminal waiting to be executed by the vigilante squad because of its lethal effect on the rest of us. Ditto for the developers; their actions not only kill the landscape, but their conformist dreams are killing our nation’s middle class.
Perhaps it’s unfair that SUV owners would have to live in fear of the ELF. Well, when I owned a car, I had to live in fear because I was constantly flanked by these tanks that could kill me with one soft collision, because I couldn’t afford an SUV’s high cost. SUV drivers don’t like the taste of fear? Neither do I. … “
In other news, does anybody want to apply to serve on Ann Arbor’s Cool Cities Advisory Group?
AFSCME 3800, which represents 1,800 clerical workers at the University of Minnesota, is on strike, that University’s first in over 40 years. Both sides seem preparing for a long battle: the Union is soliciting strike funds via Paypal on the web, and is making arrangements to help their members stay clothed, fed, and housed without paychecks. Also, former Daily editor Nick Woomer is sitting in a University building in solidarity with the workers.
For more information:
> AFSCME 3800 Website
> UWorkers.org (student supporters’ website)
> Sit-in Webcast
Thursday’s Greenbelt Discussion makes the Ann Arbor News “In Brief” section:
“Greenbelt forum at U-M Thursday
University of Michigan student groups are sponsoring a public forum on the Greenbelt proposal, urban sprawl and affordable housing in Ann Arbor from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Thursday at the Michigan Union Ballroom.
The speakers will be Ann Arbor Mayor John Hieftje; Margaret Dewar, a U-M professor of urban planning; Rick Hills, a U-M law professor; Mike Garfield, director of the Ecology Center of Ann Arbor; and Matt Lassiter, a U-M professor of history. There will be time for participants to ask questions on Proposal B. The event is free and open to the public.”
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