Cuban Americans are assessing the potential impact of a new White House policy on relations with their homeland. The Obama administration has eased travel restrictions and increased the amount of money Americans can send to their relatives in Cuba. Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett reports.
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On Tuesday, February 8, protesters in Cairo began sleeping in front of the parliament building a short walk from Tahrir Square, the center of the protests. Their protest, like its twin in Tahrir, quickly exploded into a semi-permanent encampment, complete with graffiti. At the end of the video, one of the parliament protesters bears a street sign that used to say “Maglis el-Shaab” or “People’s Assembly” street – now it just says “People’s Street.”
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Al Jazeera speaks to Hossam El-Hamalawy, a blogger and activist from Cairo, on the strikes set to sweep Egypt.
Continue reading …Oh, the irony. The Politico interviewed several GOP representatives who opted out of their Congressional health care plans, and discovered they’re all having second thoughts about that whole ‘repeal and replace’ thing. If it’s not the cost of individual insurance that’s getting them steamed, it’s the pre-existing conditions. But talk to some of the 16 freshman lawmakers who have declined their government health benefits, and you’ll hear a different side of the story — about tough out-of-pocket expenses, pre-existing conditions and support for health reforms that would help those who struggle with their coverage. As they venture into the free market for health insurance, these lawmakers — many of whom swept into office fueled by tea party anger over the health care law — are facing monthly premiums of $1,200 and fears of double-digit rate hikes. The experience has caused some of them to think harder about the “replace” part of the “repeal and replace” mantra the GOP has adopted regarding the health care law. “I have a niece who has pre-existing conditions, and I worry about her if she was ever to lose her job,” said Florida Rep. Richard Nugent, one of the freshman lawmakers who declined federal health insurance benefits. Every single House Republican voted to repeal the health care law last month. “I can simply, honestly say that this is going to impact my wife and I to a fairly serious degree, like it would any average American out there,” said first-time Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois. Walsh’s wife has a pre-existing condition and will need a procedure in the coming months, but because he declined federal benefits, they’re paying for it out of pocket. Meanwhile, Walsh is contributing to a health savings account to cover his expenses. “It’s a cost we will feel, a cost I will have to pick up. I won’t turn down benefits because I have something to fall back on or because I’m independently wealthy,” he said. Before I boo-hoo too hard for them, I remember they’re being paid $174,000 per year to represent their constituents. But even at that level, $1,200/month is a solid chunk of change, and the limits to Health Savings Accounts won’t cover surgery or even medications for some people. As always, it’s about the pre-existing conditions. Nugent, a former sheriff, doesn’t receive federal employee benefits, choosing instead to purchase a Blue Cross Blue Shield plan for retired county employees, which he said costs about $1,200 a month for his family. Still, he said, his niece’s experience has contributed to his support for ending coverage bans on pre-existing conditions. “One of the key components with the ‘replace’ [bill] was to make sure we take care of people who have pre-existing conditions ,” he said. But don’t be fooled by that. Republicans’ best plan for people with pre-existing conditions is to shove them into high-risk pools where they can pay ten times what the base rate is for coverage. Wendell Potter says lobbyists and policy representatives from the Big 5 for-profit health insurers are meeting nearly weekly to form a strategy to weaken or eliminate the consumer protections in the Affordable Care Act. In other words, they’re fine with the mandate, but the consumer protections have to go. Think on that when you hear Republican lawmakers get on their oh-so-high horses about “market-based solutions”. Their idea of market-based solutions is to bankrupt people who have the misfortune of getting sick while profiting on the healthy. They hate the medical loss ratio requirements, they hate the limits on rate spreads under the new law (3 times the base rate, maximum), and they hate not being able to cap costs. There are flaws in the bill, and it’s true that it doesn’t drive down the cost of health CARE. This is because we have this whacked up system where health providers are for-profit, health risk pool providers (insurers) are for-profit, and they rely upon innovation to drive profit margins up, rather than health risks down. Nevertheless, Republicans are discovering the truth: The status quo is unsustainable, unaffordable, and discriminatory. Now what will they do about that? And how will they appease their angry hordes of Tea Party members being stoked daily via email and fear campaigns?
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The fact that Egyptian workers are on strike across the country may be a more worrying development for the government. Behind the scenes, negotiations are under way between a committee of “wise men” and the government to agree on a transition. But despite those talks, Al Jazeera’s Ayman Mohyeldin, says the deadlock between the government and the protesters looks set to continue.
Continue reading …On the one hand there is vice-president Omar Suleiman, and on the other young activist Wael Ghonim You only have to hear and see the two men for a few minutes to understand what is at stake in Egypt. On the one hand there is vice-president Omar Suleiman, with his clipped moustache and beautifully cut suits. Clearly intelligent, but also inherently slippery, his words are intended to be reassuring, but every now and then there is a hint of menace. He may well be less wily and less in control than he likes to appear, as our story today on the state of negotiations suggests, but this is still the face of a survivor, a fixer, and a believer in the authority over others of old foxes like himself which his own body language so obviously conveys. Look at the other face, that of Wael Ghonim, the young activist who has some claim to have triggered the Egyptian uprising with his Facebook postings. It is almost bashful, even shy. There is no guile there. His insistence on the diverse nature of the protest movement and his refusal to grab at a leadership role show a pleasing modesty. His honesty in admitting that his own hopes had not initially included the removal of President Mubarak, his care to underline the fact that he was not ill-treated while in detention, and the emotion he displayed when shown pictures of some of those who died in Tahrir Square – all these speak of an open heart and an open mind. His appearance on television on Monday night is certainly one reason why protesters went to Tahrir Square on Tuesday in such numbers. On the very day when the old regime was hoping the revolution would run out of steam, it instead gathered fresh strength. But Tahrir is now as much a cul-de-sac politically as it has become physically. It cannot be abandoned by the protesters because it is symbolically too important, yet just being in Tahrir is not enough. On the other hand, the regime cannot clear the square by the use of force because that would be the wrong kind of victory for them. Some protesters now want to march to parliament or to the headquarters of state TV . They may do so, but the real struggle is now as much about information as location. In a quasi-authoritarian society like Egypt most people did not believe in the government-controlled media in any simple way. And they knew that they could expect little in the way of authenticity or sincerity there. But they studied it nevertheless for coded versions of what was happening. Now a stronger parallel media may be emerging, at the same time as those sections of the old media which had a degree of independence are getting bolder, and cracks are appearing even in the monolithic face of regime stalwarts like Al-Ahram. The return of al-Jazeera to the Egyptian airwaves this week, a concession the regime almost had to make, will reinforce this process. Suleiman’s first reaction was to try to seize control of the political narrative. With his allegations of foreign interference, he attempted to portray the protesters as innocents being used by malign outside forces. With his accounts of harmonious encounters with opposition groups, implying a general agreement on how to proceed was just round the corner, he tried to suggest a process of reconciliation was well under way. With his constant references to the president’s wishes, and his juggling with paper committees, he tried to project a non-existent consensus on the need for Mr Mubarak to remain. Not everything Suleiman has to say is wrong, but the version of events which he, and the regime more generally, offer is tendentious. The fact that it is now so contested is a hopeful development. The allegations about army mistreatment of protesters which we report today, for instance, could shift popular understanding about the real position of the military and affect events in a way not possible before. The people of Egypt can now look from one face to another and decide on their own which they are most ready to trust. Hosni Mubarak Egypt Protest Middle East guardian.co.uk
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Given recent news that Al Gore personally recruited Keith Olbermann to join Current TV as its “Chief News Officer” (I don't know either), readers may be wondering: what value could the former vice presiodent have possibly seen in Olbermann? Though we're not expecting confirmation from Current TV, here's one possibility: like Olbermann, Gore is a routine violator of Godwin's Law. Perhaps the former MSNBC host's penchant for Nazi comparisons impressed a man who, though he's an expert at comparing people with whom he disagrees to genocidal fascists, can't hold a candle to Olbermann's knee-jerk Nazi references. Which is not to say that Gore hasn't tried. Ed Driscoll recalls this description of one of Gore's books: In his 1992 book Earth in the Balance, he wrote that “today the evidence of an ecological Kristallnacht is as clear as the sound of glass shattering in Berlin.” He repeatedly refers to the unfolding “ecological holocaust” and invokes Martin Niemoller’s famous quote (“When the Nazis came for the Communists, I remained silent; I was not a Communist. … When they came for the Jews, I did not speak out; I was not a Jew. …”) to label himself and other environmentalists “the new resistance.”In An Inconvenient Truth and in interviews, Gore sticks to his guns. He quotes Churchill’s warning about the gathering storm of fascism and declares: “The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequence.” “And if you don't agree with him,” writes Driscoll, ” you're a digital brownshirt .” [T]oday Al Gore upped the ante. He coined a new term for the Internet critics of his positions: digital brownshirts. Yes, yes, it’s over the top. But it’s not the sentiment that raises eyebrows, it’s the position of the person who’s saying it. We don’t expect presidential candidates past or present to indulge in Usenet flame-war lingo. We don’t expect serious party elders to call the other side Nazis, and for good reason: it’s obscene. The brownshirts were evil. The brownshirts kicked the Jews in the streets and made the little kids put their hands on their heads as they stumbled off to the trains. The brownshirts were not interested in refuting arguments. They were interested in killing the people who dared argue at all. If Gore thinks his political opponents are like Nazis, he apparently fancies himself a contemporary Winston Churchill : Mindful of his British audience, Gore said the fight to cut carbon dioxide emissions will require a leader with the fortitude of Winston Churchill, who steered Britain through four years of hardship, bombings and economic deprivations to victory against the Nazis. “Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilization in World War II,” he said. “We have everything we need except political will, but political will is a renewable resource.” But regular NewsBusters readers are surely unimpressed. After all, even these three examples can't compare to the ubiquitous invocations of the Third Reich by Gore's newest employee to describe, well, lots of people. Recipients of Olbermann's Nazi treatment have included: – Fox News , – George W. Bush , – Bill O'Reilly , – George W. Bush (again), – Kenneth Starr , – George W. Bush (once again), – Glenn Beck , – George W. Bush (and again), – Attorney Floyd Abrams , – George W. Bush (starting to see a pattern?), anddial – Ground Zero mosque opponents . With a resume like that, it's no wonder Gore wanted him on board. He'll fit in nicely at Current.
Continue reading …The Right Word: Fox bites back at the ‘über-left’ Guardian | Sadhbh Walshe
February 9, 2011 No Comment
While Hannity schmoozes Rummy, Beck unmasks the TSA staff behind the Egyptian revolution, and O’Reilly reads the Guardian? Coups abounded on Fox news this week – in the form of high-profile exclusive interviews and startling revelations about community organisers. Bill O’Reilly Bill O’Reilly was delighted with himself for having conducted what he believes must be the most watched interview ( view clip ) of all time with President Obama on Super Bowl Sunday. He did take issue with some of the media reaction, however, and particularly singled out none other than the “über-left British newspaper the Guardian” (mentioned several times throughout the broadcast) for Michael Tomasky’s suggestion that his constant interruptions of the president could be seen as “rude and blustery” . Despite the mixed reaction, though, O’Reilly believes his interview has lent legitimacy to Fox News Corporation (FNC) that it may have previously lacked. There are a lot of people all over the world who all they know about FNC is from what they read in the Guardian newspaper in London or some crazy thing like that. So I wanted to show them that, you know, we are a responsible agency and I truly believe we are the most powerful news agency in the country right now. And I wanted to get president Obama’s feeling on that and I don’t know if he was genuine or not. O’Reilly discussed the interview with all his regular commentators: Juan Williams, Brit Hume, Bernie Goldberg and Mary Katherine Hamm. And they all thought he did a fine job. Hamm thought it was strange that anyone could think O’Reilly was rude because he interrupted the president 20 times in 15 minutes, to which O’Reilly responded, “Oh, the Guardian was outraged.” Bernie Goldberg was troubled by how the media covered the interview like it was a boxing match or the “battle between Godzilla and Rodin, you know, a battle of the Giants” that “needed to have a winner”. They did have a winner. The fix was in. The winner was going to be the president no matter what happened, and you know the Guardian goes “Ooh, O’Reilly was brusque.” The Guardian is insane, of course, but it is reflective of the far left. They agreed that overall the interview was a win-win for both parties: Obama got to show off his likeability in front of a huge audience and O’Reilly managed to come off as “reasonable” in front of a huge audience. What was noteworthy, perhaps, in the hour-long analysis was the revelation that President Obama apparently watches the O’Reilly Factor and that the host of the O’Reilly Factor, apparently, reads the Guardian. Sean Hannity Hannity had his own big exclusive this week, having nabbed the first spot on Donald Rumsfeld’s non-apology tour. Predictably enough, he provided the former secretary of defence with a sympathetic environment in which to set about turning into unknowns what we thought we knew about recent history ( view clip ). Hannity appeared a little unnerved in the opening moments of the interview when Rumsfeld spoke warmly of both former President Kennedy, who he said was the “most charismatic” president he had ever met, and former President Clinton, who offered him some kind words of support during the Abu Ghraib scandal. But perhaps in deference to the new era of civility, Hannity gritted his teeth and got on with it. They moved quickly onto more comfortable terrain such as the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, the weapons of mass destruction that have yet to be located and whether or not America is less safe now that we have an administration that refuses to say bad things about Muslims. Regarding Abu Ghraib, Rumsfeld declared it was a terrible thing to have happened on his watch. He feels very badly about it. It was bad for our nation’s prestige around the world, our military’s morale and it emboldened our enemies, but it wasn’t his fault and there’s no way he could have known about it. Regarding weapons of mass destruction, Rumsfeld claimed that the international community, as well as the United States, knew that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and he suggested that it’s possible the weapons were either destroyed or sent to another country before the US invasion. So, presumably, like Osama Bin Laden they are still out there somewhere waiting to be found. The two old friends shared a chuckle about Guantánamo Bay, which the secretary of defense described in his book as the “least worst place to live”. The heartbreaking thing about Guantánamo, according to Rumsfeld, was that for whatever reason, the administration was incapable of persuading people that prisoners weren’t being tortured there. Evidently, all that video footage we’ve seen of prisoners shackled at their hands and feet, blindfolded and kneeling in the hot sun; all the logs detailing waterboarding sessions and force feeding, sleep deprivation and stress positions that were applied to detainees in US custody were not outrageous in themselves but merely a public relations failure. Hannity raised no objections to any of these misstatements and the pair closed out the interview by criticising the non-Fox media for the biased reporting during the Bush presidency, which tarnished America’s image abroad. It was almost a relief to switch over to the Glenn Beck programme. Glenn Beck Not one to be outdone by the lack of an attention grabbing exclusive, Glenn Beck seized the opportunity ( view clip here ) to expose the patterns that connect community-organising groups in America with the move to overthrow the democracy that does not yet exist in Egypt. The community-organising groups that Beck is referring to are a diverse bunch that includes the UAW, the steel workers, the Tides Foundation, MoveOn.org, any religious groups, any green groups, anything that George Soros or Van Jones has anything to do with, the SCIU, the AFL-CIO, Code Pink and La Raza. Beck declares (as he has, ad infinitum, in the past) that all these groups are working together to “end the western way of life as you and I understand it”, though he does acknowledge that their individual goals may differ. They may disagree on exactly what the new way of life will be – for example, Van Jones, he wants a new green utopia; another one might want a communist utopia; but they’ll work that out later. People that are in some of these really radical communist or socialist, Marxist, “Mexican first” groups that are aligned here may want to give the southern half of the United States back to Mexico. But differences aside, one thing Beck is willing to “die on his sword for” is that they are unanimous in their support for the Egyptian revolution. Now, this might be OK if Beck believed that there was any chance of the Egyptian revolution having a similar outcome to the American revolution, but he doesn’t hold out much hope because he feels the Egyptian people are just not of the same calibre as their more worthy American counterparts. The regular people in Egypt – I’m sorry they might be nice people, but they are not the people of the American Revolution – and I have been trying to make this point that you have to be much different, even than we are, to be able to have revolution and to have it end the way it ended here. Their concept of freedom is different than yours. Let’s not be judgmental and say that it’s … No, I’m going to be judgmental – it sucks compared to our idea of freedom! And what is even more worrying is that while everyone has been distracted by the goings-on in Egypt, no one seemed to notice that the TSA airport screeners were granted union rights last week, a move Beck believes is “potentially disastrous for the country” because it provides the unions with more members and more money, which can be “spent overseas organising revolutions” and nothing good will ever come of that. Democracy will rise up? Really? Sounds beautiful. Democracy, the people’s movement for democracy. Well, that sounds even better. It sounds almost Chinese, doesn’t it? I feel very confident that the workers in Egypt will absolutely thrive under a new government formed by these guys [the radical extremists in Egypt] and supported by these guys [community organisers in the US]. It’s going to be fantastic! Well, time will tell. In the meantime, as his ratings plummet, it’s at least providing Beck with new material. Barack Obama US politics Fox News Fox US television Talk shows Egypt Middle East Glenn Beck Protest George Bush Saddam Hussein Iraq Guantánamo Bay Torture Sadhbh Walshe guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …If multiculturalism is dead, what do its critics propose to replace it with?
February 9, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Britain’s new Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron, joined in what is becoming an increasing right-wing chorus in Europe proclaiming the failure of multiculturalism , coming shortly on the heels of German chancellor Andrea Merkel’s similar proclamation in October. This, of course, pleases the cultural warriors at Fox News, especially John Bolton, who was on Greta Van Susteren’s show last night proclaiming how right Cameron is. For the sake of argument, let us concede at least that multiculturalism has developed some important flaws over the years, some of which the conservatives have identified. What none of these critics have explained, however, is what system of racial ethics they would champion in lieu of multiculturalism. If multiculturalism is dead, what do they propose we replace it with? Remember: As I’ve explained many times, multiculturalism — a concept first proposed by the father of modern anthropology, Franz Boas — was specifically a direct reaction against white supremacism, and eventually overthrew it as the dominant American worldview. Most American critics are coy about what they would replace it with — though of course, there are some Nativists who are not : they want to resurrect the white-supremacist ethos that was dominant in America for much of the first half of the 20th century and before. Nonetheless, it was a concept tailored for America — in part because of the national “melting pot” that has been our history, and in part because Boas saw it as a specifically democratic ethos. This may go a long way in explaining why the Europeans are continuing to struggle with it. Consider, for instance, Cameron’s chief rationale invoking what he calls “state multiculturalism”: “State multiculturalism is a wrong-headed doctrine that has had disastrous results. It has fostered difference between communities,” the Conservative leader said in a speech. “And it has stopped us from strengthening our collective identity. Indeed, it has deliberately weakened it.” Cameron defined “state multiculturalism” as “the idea that we should respect different cultures within Britain to the point of allowing them – indeed encouraging them – to live separate lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream.” But that’s the root of the problem, isn’t it? Arriving immigrants in Europe are never treated — either legally or culturally — as real citizens , full participants in the society and culture. You can claim French citizenship, but if you’re Muslim, no one in France treats you as a Frenchman. Europeans have been distinctly slow — indeed, expressly reluctant — to assimilate their arriving immigrants, and this has ultimately driven the arriving cultures into insular enclaves, for their own self-protection and sustenance. It’s not so much that multiculturalism has failed in Europe as that Europeans have distinctly failed at being multicultural — in many regards because of their own deeply embedded racial and cultural attitudes about arriving immigrants and their own native ethnic identities. And now, they’re blaming that failure on the arriving immigrants instead of taking a good hard look in the mirror. Sort of like the people like John Bolton, who made similar remarks about American immigrants. He also made a claim typical of revisionist right-wing jingoes: BOLTON: I think it’s absolutely fundamental in a country like ours, where we have always welcomed immigrants, we have insisted that they all go into the melting pot. That’s simply historically false — at least, prior to the arrival of multiculturalism after 1950. Look, for instance, at how we treated Asians for years: We denied them citizenship and the right to naturalize as citizens until after World War II, forcing thousands of Asian immigrants to exist here in a kind of political limbo that only their children were able to climb out of, thanks to birthright citizenship (and yes, the Nativists of that era worked to deny those Asian-American immigrants that right, too, back then). Moreover, it was a commonly held belief that Asians could never become “real Americans” — “oil and water never mix” was the oft-heard explanation for this belief — because they were deemed too “alien” to ever become full-blooded Americans and full participants in our society. Indeed, the term “illegal alien” was devised to describe Asian immigrants after the passage of the 1924 Immigration Act — an expressly racist piece of legislation dubbed the “Asian Exclusion Act” (it forbade all further immigration from Asia) and the foundation upon which our modern immigration laws rest even today. These views were based on the prevailing racial ethos of those times. It has been only since the rise of multiculturalism after 1950 as the gradually prevailing ethos that America began not only recognizing but welcoming immigrants of all races and ethnic backgrounds — and actually assimilating them. Before multiculturalism, all immigrants faced real difficulties, and nonwhite immigrants in particular were kept out of the “melting pot” almost entirely. So this again begs the question: If David Cameron thinks multiculturalism is a failure, what does he propose to replace it with? Does he favor the right-wing approach that ultimately favors white supremacy? Or does he have some hithero-unknown system of racial ethics in mind? The rest of the world would like to know.
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It is midnight in Egypt and protesters remain camped out on the streets of Cairo. But the fact that workers are on strike across the country may be a more worrying development for the government. We continue our live blogging for February 10, as protests enter the 17th day in Egypt.
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