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U.S. news media: A security zone for Israel

One phrase -- "security zone" -- sums up an entire era of media spin about Israel's 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon.

When Israel completed its pullout in late May, most U.S. news outlets remained in sync with the kind of coverage that they've provided for more than two decades. In March 1978, the U.N. Security Council demanded unconditional Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. Ever since, the flagrantly illegal -- and brutal -- military occupation has been shrouded by a thick media haze in the United States.

All through history, of course, occupiers have come up with benign-sounding buzzwords to put a lofty gloss on their iron boots. But journalists aren't supposed to adopt the lexicon of propaganda as their own.

Unfortunately, dozens of major American newspapers and networks have continued to matter-of-factly use the preferred Israeli fog words -- "security zone," "buffer zone" and "buffer strip" -- to identify the area in Lebanon long occupied by Israel.

McCaffrey's wars

No sane person believes in the "War on Drugs" anymore. This implies, of course, that our nation's affairs are being directed by madmen, but you knew that anyway. Besides, there are signs that sanity may be seeping slowly through the halls of Congress. Three times the Clinton-Gore administration has tried to push through a billion-plus aid package for the Colombian military and security forces. Twice Congress has rejected the White House request. Reports from the Hill this week suggest that there's more than an even chance the Senate may once again deliver a rebuff to White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey.

McCaffrey, recently accused by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker of having been involved in war crimes in 1991 at the end of the war in Iraq, has been the most conspicuous advocate for deepening U.S. military involvement in Colombia. In the general's comic-book scenario, the cocaine and opium that undermine America is being cultivated by Colombian peasants under the supervision of communist narco-traffickers, who use their drug profits to buy guns to undermine Colombia's government. Send down money and advisers to

Social (In)Security

AUSTIN, Texas -- Remember the saying, "Don't shoot 'til you see the whites of their eyes"? In the matter of privatizing Social Security, this translates to, "Don't sign on until you've seen the details in ink."

Of course, if we had any details of George W. Bush's plan to partially privatize Social Security, this would be an easier column to write. Which is exactly why you won't see him filling in the blanks anytime soon.

Our first consideration is: Is this move necessary?

The much-ballyhooed bankruptcy of the Social Security system is based on the unlikely premise that the economy will grow no faster than 1.7 percent a year. (It did better than that during the Great Depression.) For the past three decades, the economy has grown at twice that rate.

But let's assume the laws of economic gravity have not been repealed, the "new economy" is not the discovery of perpetual motion and capitalism will behave like capitalism. We need to do something about Social Security, particularly given the demographic bulge of the baby boomers, who will begin retiring in 2011.

Abuse at Carswell Prison is for real

AUSTIN, Texas -- This is a story about the Federal Medical Center Carswell, a women's prison hospital on the outskirts of Fort Worth. It should not be read with breakfast.

Kathleen Rumpf of Syracuse, N.Y., is part of the Catholic Workers movement, probably the most formidable people of conscience in this country. She has been arrested more than 100 times during a lifetime of activism for peace and justice.

Rumpf also ran a prison ministry in Syracuse, where she exposed a hideous local practice: "the Jesus Christ" -- stretching out naked prisoners and shackling them to the bars, a la Christ on the cross. "60 Minutes" did a piece about it, and a lawsuit ended the practice. Suffice it to say that Rumpf knows about prisons.

"I am used to abuse," she said last week. "I am used to roaches and rats; I've seen guards who are buffoons and guards who are mean. I have never seen anything like the corruption and cruelty at Carswell Women's Prison Hospital.

"I couldn't believe it as I lived it. The mind control is amazing -- they keep repeating, 'You're getting the best medical care available in any community.'"

Virtual Commandments of the dot.com faith

Inside the temples of true believers, ardent faith has a way of prevailing. And so, in the Dot-Com year of 2000, vast numbers of followers seem eager to fulfill a sacred digital future.

Implicit and largely unspoken, the virtual Ten Commandments of Dot-Comity are now widespread:

For a good time (and political favors), call . . .

AUSTIN, Texas -- The corporations might as well write the names of state governments up on the bathroom walls: "For a good time, call Bush and the Texas Lege. They're easy! They're cheap!"

The Washington Post broke a fascinating story last week about the utility industry's funneling millions of dollars into two phony grass-roots organizations in order to stop Congress from deregulating utilities. Congress may be up for sale, as we have seen time and again, but the utilities prefer to be deregulated in state capitols, where they get so much more bang for their campaign-contribution buck. Part-time legislators from Pierre, S.D., to Austin (the Texans meet for 140 days once every two years), are so much less likely to understand the arcane details of fair rate-setting than the full-timers in D.C.

Off-leash! Dog politics

These days, when we're in Berkeley, Calif., Barbara Yaley and I load up Jasper, a 10-month old border collie/lab/terrier mix, and head down University, over I-80, and onto what was once a proud garbage dump, then, North Waterfront Park, and now, Cesar Chavez Park. It's one of the most beautiful vantage points in the Bay Area. Due west across the water is the Golden Gate Bridge, then, swinging one's gaze south, the towers of downtown San Francisco, the Bay Bridge, and due east, the Berkeley hills.

Seventeen acres of this pleasing expanse are available to off-leash dogs, an incredible achievement of Berkeley dog lovers who spent about seven years of delicate political maneuvering to secure, last year, "pilot project status" for the off-leash area. To win it, they had to surmount fierce opposition from the Audubon Society, the Sierra Club and the Citizens for an East Shore State Park, eager to seize the acreage of Cesar Chavez Park and add it to their domain. State parks in California have never yet held off-leash areas.

Easy access to guns causes children's deaths

"I come to you today, two days after what would have been her seventh birthday." -- Veronica McQueen, mother of the girl who was shot to death by a 6-year-old classmate in Michigan this February, addressing Million Mom Marchers.

Slogan of the march: Enough Is Enough.

Legislative goals of the marchers:

  • Licensing and registration of handguns.
  • Background checks for gun buyers.
  • Requiring manufacturers to put trigger locks on guns.
  • A one-per-month limit on handgun purchases.

      • The 30,000 gun deaths a year in this country are not a consequence of our lack of common sense; they are a failure of our political system. The system does not work on this (and most other issues) -- and not because the anti-gun-control forces are stronger than the pro-gun-control forces, or because the anti-control people are more passionate about the issue, or because they are single-issue voters. It doesn't work because of money.

    No closure on disenfranchisement

    On the one hand, the calls for "closure," "finality" and national unity. On the other, Justice John Paul Stevens' bitter summation: "in the interests of finality, however, the majority (of the U.S. Supreme Court) effectively orders the disenfranchisement of an unknown number of voters whose ballots reveal their intent, and are therefore legal votes under (Florida) state law, but were for some reason rejected by the ballot-counting machines ... Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the law."

    Overcoming the hazards of media monoculture

    After the "Love Bug" virus struck millions of computer hard drives, many news outlets attributed the magnitude of the damage to overwhelming reliance on the same type of software. Suddenly, in the digital world, steep downsides of technical conformity were obvious. But such concerns should also extend to the shortage of variety in media content.

    Reporting on the worst virus attack in PC history, Time blamed "the perils of living in a monoculture." The newsmagazine explained: "Security experts have long warned that Microsoft software is so widely used and so genetically interconnected that it qualifies as a monoculture -- that is, the sort of homogeneous ecosystem that makes as little sense in the business world as it does in the biological."

    The practical benefits of diversity suggest a question that's long overdue: What's the sense of monoculture in mass media?

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