La, la, la, la, la, la, lah

I'm not sure how to title a post that Blogger/Blogspot won't let me put in a title for.

Everyone's having that problem. (The gangs all here at C.I.'s.) You can't type in the "Title" box. Why? Ask Blogger/Blogspot. Ask them about even more nonsense they're dumping on everyone. So everyone's flown in tonight and we've been yacking and yacking, it's not that often that we are all together. We agreed no more than two people blogging at once. We didn't want everyone blogging at the same time because of the fact that we'd all be talking and those blogging would end up talking and spend forever on a post.

You know that's never been a problem for me!

Paul Simon's campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd. He did that in Iowa.

A friend of C.I.'s at NPR notified that NPR has covered the Australia news. C.I. didn't say they hadn't. C.I. was referring to newspapers. But NPR did a blog on the news that Brendan Nelson admitted oil was a reason for the illegal war (control of the oil) and NPR did, indeed, blog on it yesterday. You can click here for Tom Regan's take. (Tom Regan was not the friend calling. The friend calling was a lot higher up than Tom Regan.)

Now The Baltimore Sun did cover it in an editorial entitled "Iraq, down under" that ran yesterday (I'm going through C.I.'s phone messages -- with permission -- because I didn't know what I'd write about tonight):

There was a time when pundits liked to argue that only lunatic conspiracy theorists could imagine that the war in Iraq was about the oil. Yesterday, Australia's defense minister said it was about the oil. And he said it was because of that oil that Australian soldiers would have to stay on in Iraq and keep fighting.
"Energy security is extremely important to all nations throughout the world, and of course, in protecting and securing Australia's interests," said Brendan Nelson. "The Middle East itself, not only Iraq but the entire region, is an important supplier of energy oil, in particular, to the rest of the world."

If the title option was working, I would name the title of this post after Reuter's news that 6 US troops have died:

Six U.S. troops were killed in Iraq in the past two days, mostly victims of roadside bombs in Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Saturday.
Overnight, a mortar killed seven members of a family in Baghdad as they slept on their roof, police said. Constant power outages force Iraqis to often sleep on the roof of their homes to try and escape sweltering summer temperatures inside.
The military said four soldiers were killed by roadside bombs in Baghdad, three on Friday and one on Thursday, and that two Marines were killed in combat in the western Anbar province on Thursday.

C.I.'s just sat down next to Betty, so that's it for me. Betty's working on her drafts and if C.I.'s over there, she's probably read to read something so let me wind down and go listen. (Her drafts are never bad. Betty just worries too much and strives for perfection. Not me!)

Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Friday, July 6, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces the death of another US soldier, the US military flacks turn out to say "no" to withdrawal, Ehren Watada's pre-trial motions hearing is set to begin, Iraqi refugees face restrictions from one formerly open Western nation, US outlets play "Brendan Nelson who?", and more.

Starting with news of war resistance. Today, at Fort Lewis, pretrial motions were supposed to be heard in the court-martial of Ehren Watada. If the judge allows the court-martial to begin, it will start July 23. Yesterday, in San Francisco, a rally was held by supporters for the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq whose February court-martial ended in a mistrial call over the objection of the defense. Tim Ryan (KCBS) noted Ying Lee's statements on why a retrial should not be taking place, "As the first military officer in the US military to refuse to be sent to Iraq, he said the war is unconstitutional, it's illegal, it violates the Nurember principles and it violates the rule of law."

In other news of war resister, don't say this too loudly, we don't want to shock The Nation, but there's another war resister who's gone to Canada. Now The Nation, the AP and a whole lot of media want to pretend that war resisters just don't exist. So let's all speak in whispers because, otherwise, we might give them all heart attacks (or at least dirty drawers). Ross Spears, 19 years-old, in Canada from his Virginia military base. Michael Bhardwaj (Canada's CBC) reports on Spears decision and notes Ross Spears' attorney, Kourosh Farrokhzhad "is hoping Canada will fulfill its obligation to protect people who are wrongfully persecuted for their beliefs or their actions." Spears has settled in Ottawa as has US war resister James Burmeister who was noted in Monday's Iraq snapshot.


There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Ross Spears, Jared Hood and James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Care, Kyle Huwer, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty-one US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.

Joel Bleifuss deserves much credit for already having covered the issue of Iraq Veterans Against the War but he's also written "The New Children's Crusade" (note, that link is being given by a friend with In These Times and it's not working currently -- hopefully, it will work shortly) which opens with a look at Vincent J. Emanuele returning home to Chesterton, Indiana. I don't have time to hear the article read over the phone. We'll note it in Monday's snapshot.

Regardless, Iraq Veterans Against the War are completing their summer base tour. Showtime is filming the tour for a documentary. The last dates are: the Naval Sub Marine Base in Groton, CT on July 6th at 7:00 pm; and Fort Drum in NY on July 8th at 4:00 pm. They have really given their all and if you are in those areas, you should show your support by attending and you can hear about the efforts to surpress and silence them -- none of the efforts have worked. Last Friday, Adam Kokesh, Nate Lewis, Mike Blake, Sholom Keller and Steve Mortillo were harrassed at Fort Jackson for the crime of t-shirting with an alleged intent to be fully dressed. Saturday went smoothly, but Sunday was another story Kokesh, Lewis and Liam Madden. Writing at his site, Adam Kokesh discusses the July 1st arrest at Fort Benning which "is an open post, anyone with proper ID is allowed on base" but Nate Lewis and Liam Madden were arrested for approaching the gate on foot (not entering the base) and:

We raced to the gate and got there just in time to see Nate and Liam getting loaded into cruisers. One of the cops came out to where we were standing and explained "they had been arrested for protesting," and told us that if anyone crosses the line "in protest," they will be arrested. We have this on tape. Then the press showed up and wanted a statement, so I waited until they were set up and put a mic on me, and gave a statement to them and for the record to the documentarians who were with us, and our own camera for safety. I changed by shirt so it would be clear I was not protesting and went across to ensure that Liam and Nate were, "afforded the full protection of the law." You can see a video of that here.
Fortunately, Michael Blake stepped up and dealt with all of the press that came and really did a great job presenting our side of the story as opposed to the Army spokeswoman's story, which only identified me as a "third unidentified protestor." We've really seen some stupid coverage over this. (But that all pales in comparison to the lie the Marine Corps told about Liam Madden's response to the plea bargain that, "they were dropping the case because they had 'received sufficient indication' from Madden that he would no longer wear his uniform when engaged in political activities. They also determined that his statements did not warrant futher action.)

Further action? As a second Republican (Pete Domenici) has joined Richard Luger in calling for an end to the illegal war , Rick Lynch, who not all that long ago while being billed as "Maj. Gen." was also billed as "spokesperson," issues his own statement. CBS and AP report Rick Lynch says that there can be no withdrawal of US forces because that would leave "a mess" in Iraq which begs the question what term does Lynch think currently describes Iraq? The Getty Images photo with the story reports that the newly designed camo (2004) is really intended for both a younger person and a much thinner person. Study the photo and wonder if Lync's camo is the footy-pajamas version. If you doubted the overgrown boys who let others do the fighting weren't being sent out 'on point,' click here for the nonsense Maj. Gen Benjamin Mixon repeated on CNN.

Less attention, in the US, has been given to the remarks of Australia's Defence Minister Brendan Nelson. On Day Two, Kathy Marks (Independent of London) reports, "The Australian Defence Minister, Brendan Nelson has admitted that oil was a major factor in the government's decision to keep troops in Iraq, a unexpectedly frank confession that sent political commentators into a tizzy." Marks also notes that only 1000 Australian troops are in Iraq (Green Zone), the other 600 are "in the region." Rod McGuirk (The Scotsman) cites Hugh White ("Australian defence analyst") who judges the remarks as, "In the kind of washing machine of different arguments that they've been tossing around, the oil one has come to the surface, so to speak, accidentally." As to the clampdown in this country, it has nothing to do with the press refusing to allow some of those against the war early on to cry, "We were right!" No, the silence has everything to do with the fact that such a remark by a sitting member on the government of a coalition government should immediately trigger an international investigation because a war of choice on another country to take control of their resources is a war crime.

As the US government strong arms the puppet, Nouri al-Maliki, to push through the theft of Iraqi oil in the form of oil legislation that would turn over as much as 70% of the profit from Iraqi oil to foreign corporations, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) interviewed Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein (first woman to be president of a national union in Iraq, president of Electrical Utility Workers Union) and Faleh Abood Umara (of Federation of Oil Unions). From the interview:

AMY GOODMAN: Explain the law.
FALEH ABOOD UMARA: [translated] According to Article 111 of the Iraqi Constitution, which states that the oil and gas of Iraq are owned by the Iraqi people and they have the right to control it. But when you look into the details of the law, many of the articles of the law actually conflict with this preamble of the law, the most important point of which is the issue of the production-sharing agreements, which allows the international oil companies, especially the American ones, to exploit the oil fields without our knowledge of what they are actually doing with it. And they take about 50% of the production as their share, which we think it's an obvious robbery of the Iraqi oil.
We also object to the procedure by which these companies are given the contracts for exploiting the oil, because it allows the granting of the contracts with the aid of foreign advisers. We demanded that it's actually the Iraqi experts that need to be consulted with regards to the granting of the contracts.
In brief, there is hardly an article in the law that actually benefits the Iraqi people. But they all serve American interests in Iraq. And we know well that the law was actually written here in the United States, with the help of James Baker and Ms. Rice and the experts from the IMF. And it serves the interests of the American government and not the Iraqi people.
We're still negotiating with the Iraqi parliament and the Iraqi government, and we succeeded in halting the discussion of the law in the parliament until next October. And we hope that we will manage to modify some of the articles of the law. As regards to the strike, we actually declared victory last week.

and:

HASHMEYA MUHSIN HUSSEIN: [translated] It's more stable than other places in -- like in Baghdad, because they handed the security over to Iraqi forces security and the British forces were redeployed to the outskirts of the city. But the situation in Iraq, in general, and Basra, just like any other part of Iraq, suffers from the situation. It's not very good, especially economically. We have about 65% unemployment rate, and nine million Iraqis live in poverty. The services are really bad, especially electricity. So for every hour of electrical current, we have six hours of black out, and sometimes they skip the actual hour of electrical current. And this is really an adverse situation, because it's really hot and humid in the south.
AMY GOODMAN: And how did that compare under Saddam Hussein?
HASHMEYA MUHSIN HUSSEIN: [translated] The electrical situation was better under Saddam. At least during the night you would have a constant electrical current. And this situation is such, because of the sabotage and exploding the power stations in the center of Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: How has life changed for women in Iraq, in Basra, where you are?
HASHMEYA MUHSIN HUSSEIN: [translated] As a part of the Iraqi society, they suffer like everybody else, but also there were laws that were issued under the occupation that specifically targeted women, especially Law No. 137, which canceled the old civil law and delegated all issues that have to do with civil law to the local communities and religious communities, religious authorities. We took this very seriously and went out in demonstrations until the new law was canceled, but it was reintroduced through the new constitution, and we now demand the cancellation of this article.
As far as women's rights are concerned, women are not completely suppressed. As you can see, I am right here in front of you. And we have 25% of the parliament members who are women, and we seek, we hope that it will soon become 40%. And this is a result of our struggle and determination that women in Iraq will have their rightful place.

Goodman also interviewed Iraq poet and novelist Sinan Antoon and we'll note that next week. Turning to some of today's reported violence . . .

Bombings?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports that American planes destroyed three houses in "Al-Medea'ain area (south of Baghdad)," a Kirkuk roadside bombing that wounded two police officers and "two unknown missiles were launched upon Tisaeen Al-Jadeeda in downtwon Kirkuk and one of them hit one of the houses damaging it and injuring one resident in the area." Reuters notes 7 people (from the same family) from a mortar attack in Baghdad, 1 dead from a Baghdad roadside bombing, 1 Iraqi police officer killed by a hand grenade in Mosul (another wounded), and a Samawa roadside bombing that claimed 4 lives.


Shootings?Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 7 people were shot dead in Baghdad, an Iraqi soldier shot dead in Hawija and, in Mosul, a husband and wife were shot dead as they attempted to run from unidentified assailiants.


Corpses?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 5 corpses were discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes 2 corpses discovered in Mahmudiya.

And today the US military announced: "One MNC-I Soldier died of wounds received during combat operations in western Baghdad on Thursday." 3592 is now the total number of US service members to die in the illegal war since it began.

On PBS' NOW with David Brancaccio, which begins airing this week's new episode tonight in many markets (check local listings), they provide an update on Nour al Khal, an Iraqi translator, who has been attempting to receive asylum in the US. There are an estimated 4 million Iraqi refugees, internal and external. Karl Ritter (AP) reports that Sweden, one of the few Western countries that has been welcoming in the past, is now "tightening its asylum rules and will forcibly deport Iraqis who are denied refuge" after having received an estimated 18,000 "since 2006."


democracy nowamy goodman
mcclatchy newspapers
now with david branccacio
adam kokeshliam maddeniraq veterans against the war

Short post

Right now, I don't even want to write. I am so angry at The Nation for pulling their last minute stunt and costing us all hours and hours of time Tuesday night and Wednesday morning that went into:

"Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you must have a penis"
"Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis"
"Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis"
"Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis"
"Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis"
"Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis"
"Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis"
"Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis"
"Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis"
"Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis"

The thing is wonderful. We did a great job. Maggie was reading it to me over the phone today. She called and asked if I'd read it? I told her I never wanted to read it, that took up too much of our time. She then proceeded to read it all (and it's long) over the phone to me. I was in the bathtub, soaking. Ava and C.I., after we finished what was pretty much the final draft, got asked to/stuck with, create a new opening because we really felt that was the weakest part. We need a grabber. I know no one wanted to put pressure on anyone because we were all tired, exhausted, rubbing our eyes, you name it. But it needed a really strong opening and what we had just wasn't cutting it. It needed their wit and their ability to just grab you from the beginning.

I was curious about that, about how it opened. (Jim posted it here for me Wednesday morning, by the way. Jim, Dona and C.I. got our passwords and posted the feature at all sites so the rest of us could get a little sleep.) But not so curious I even wanted to boot up the computer.

When Maggie read the opening they wrote, wait, let me put that in. Here's their opening:

The 2007 year for The Nation was kicked off at the end of December with a January 1, 2007 issue. The cover pictured Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson. For reasons still unclear, except a possible deficiency that makes anything beyond the obvious impossible, the fifty-five-year-old, be speckled, John Denver-like mayor was depicted shirtless, sporting chest hair, flashing his manly pits at the readers, while both arms were thrown straight in the air and, did we mention, his hands were clad in boxing gloves.
For those who missed the obvious, Rocky Anderson was portrayed as Rocky because, after all, what's lefter than Sylvester Stallone? The Nation, intentionally or not, was telegraphing to one and all that they could "cowboy up" as well as any Bully Boy in the White House. Any who couldn't grasp the non-subtle point had only turn to page 25.

That was so much better than what we had and we knew they could pull it off. It wasn't fair to ask but it was needed. And they pulled it off. When Maggie read the opening to me, I stopped her and made her read it again.

I asked Ava and she said, "We had no idea of what we were going to write and grabbed that issue" (we quote a book review from it in the feature) "and still had no idea. I don't know if we were even looking at the cover at that point. And there was a period where I honestly wadded the issue up and tossed it at C.I. We were laughing, this wasn't 'I'm hitting you with a magazine.'
At some point, we uncrumpled it and C.I. said, 'Did you notice this cover?' and I really hadn't. We're staring at it and we finally had the opening. We wrote it quickly and weren't sure the others" (Ty, Jim, Jess and Dona were editing the final draft and also trying to punch it up in places) "would even like it. We were expecting it to be one of those times when Jim says 'almost, but try again.' Maybe it was how late it was, but they were laughing when they read it and Jim said it was perfect."

We're all so tired. Wally and C.I. are out on the road speaking about Iraq. Wally's young, that's his excuse. C.I. just keeps going and going and going . . . Like the TV commercial.

On the Mavis Staples review I'm working on. I'm not working on it right now. I'll start early on Saturday. I'm just so not in writing a thing. I don't even want to be online right now, to be honest. I'm older than Wally (many years) and I don't bounce back from an all nighter so quickly especially since I was working Monday and Tuesday. Long days. I get done Tuesday and head straight to C.I.'s and that's when I get the word that The Nation has a response to our feature. The one we'd already worked two weeks on and stayed up late finishing Monday night. I cursed, groaned and probably stamped my feet. That was such nonsense on their part to wait until the last minute and pull that crap. That was so like a Friday government information dump.

So that's where I'm at tonight. Still wiped out. But proud of what we wrote. And that we managed to pull it out.


Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" and note the commentary at the end, well said:

Thursday, July 5, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, Australia says the illegal war was all about oil, the US military announces more deaths of US service members, IVAW continues their bus tour to get the word out and let's all try to be real about the draft during Vietnam because it never effected "all" to begin with -- though that nonsense keeps stripping women of their earned recognition for their role in the peace movement.

Australia's Defence Minister Brendan Nelson, once seen as a 'rising star' on the political scene, garnered plenty of attention today after his interview with Australia's ABC in which he said oil was the reason for the illegal war. BBC notes: "This is thought to be the first time the Australian government has admitted any link between troop deployment in Iraq and securing energy resources." While Al Jazeera reports, "Australia has admitted for the first time that securing the supply of oil is a key motive for its involvement in the US-led war in Iraq." Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, has already issued a denial but not before the opposition leader Kevin Rudd declared, "When Mr Howard was asked back in 2003 whether this was had anything to do with oil, Mr Howard said in no way did it have anything to do with oil. This Government simply makes it up as it goes along on Iraq." If Howard's party (Liberal Party) loses this year's election, Rudd would become Prime Minister. (Rudd is the leader of the country's Labor Party.)

On the Iraq oil law/theft of oil, CBS and AP report, "Iraq's Shiite and Kurdish leaders on Thursday were trying to overcome a Sunni Arab boycott of the Cabinet of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which threatens to hold up a key new oil law. The United States is pressing hard for passage of the long-delayed oil law".


Turning to war resistance. Joshua Key's The Deserter's Tale continues to garner strong reviews. The latest is Hannah Morong's "How one soldier got out of Iraq" (ISR) which concludes: "The book's strength is its simplicity. It tells the story of an ordinary soldier, and by doing so, tells us more than we can ever learn from broad statistics. Because Josha Key's experiences are so typical of soldiers, the book shows how ordinary soldiers view life in Iraq, and the potential for those soldiers to turn against the war." To set the tone for later in the snapshot, we'll note this from Key's book, The Deserter's Tale (pp. 209-210):


A Canadian psychiatrist told me that you never truly emerge from post-traumatic stress disorder, that you simply learn to live with it.There are certain things that I avoid these days, such as alcohol and crowds, because I fear they will trigger more of my own blackouts. I know that thousands of American soldiers have abused drugs or committed suicide after returning home from war. It would be easy to follow in the steps of many in my own family and drown my shame and my sorrows in alcohol. Alcohol, however, could lead to the very problem of suicidal depression that have plagued vets for generations.

Key is not the only war resister who has told their story in book form. Another is Camilo Mejia whose Road from Ar Ramaid: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia came out in May. Writing for The Progressive Media Project (part of The Progressive), Camilo reflects on this time of year, July 4th, and wonders:

Is it patriotic to support a war that our president launched on false premises and that has turned into a disaster?
Or is it patriotic to oppose that war?
I had to face this question while in uniform.
Back in 2003, when I fought in Iarq, my infantry unit was going out on combat missions without bulletproof vests and without basic radio equipment. For a while, we even had to suspend patrols because we didn't have enough water to hydrate ourselves. After 10 months of deployment and five months of combat without a purpose, I made the agonizing decision not to return to the war. A few months later, I publicly denounced the war and vowed that I would no longer fight in it. That got me a 12-month sentence in a U.S. Army jail, demotion to the lowest rank and a bad-conduct discharge from the service. I have no regrets. Today, our young men and women in the military still find themselves in the role of occupiers, in a war that to this very day remains unjustified, a war that seems to be helping only U.S. companies like Halliburton that have profited from it.


Saying "no" to the illegal war is not something done or being done just by one or two people. There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Jared Hood and James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Care, Kyle Huwer, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty-one US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.

If the Key passage looks familiar it's because it was noted on Tuesday but other things prevented the follow up. Helen Redmond (CounterPunch) addresses the issue of combat traumas (such as PTSD) from a historical perspective and notes, "After the war ended, Vietnam vets forced the Veterans Administration to address the mental health issues of returning soldiers. In 1980, post-traumatic stress disorder finally became a 'real' diagnosis and was included in the American Psychiatric Association's official manual of mental disorders. Without the organizing of soldiers, together with the anti-war movement, the psychological trauma of war (PTSD) would have been conveniently forgotten once again. Those who run the war machine have always sought to ignore, downplay or deny the irrefutable fact that war profoundly damages the human psyche. How could they continue to recruit fresh troops if it were widely known, discussed, and taken seriously that almost every soldier will experience PTSD to some degree? That for some, they will be psychiatrically disabled for life, or become addicted to drugs to cope with the flashbacks and fear, perhaps unable to work and unable to enjoy the freedom they supposedly fought for." At the middle of last month, Anne Hull and Dana Priest (Washington Post) offered the latest update to their ongoing series on the topic of veterans and care by examing Joshua Calloway who returned from Iraq to find himself in a "locked-down psychriatic ward at Walter Reed Army Medical Center" and his struggle both for treatment and to get his injuries certified so that he could receive the disability pay he deserved, his very long struggle. As Pauline Jelinek (AP) reported this week, 1 (800) 948-8523 is the toll free number for the Wounded Soldier and Family Hotline (set up in response to the public outcry following the reporting of Hull, Priest, ABC's Bob Woodruff and others).

That issue and others have been raised (and continue to be raised by Iraq Veterans Against the War who are concluding their summer base tour. Showtime is filming the tour for a documentary. The tour (or this leg of it) is winding down. The next scheduled event is today, a fundraiser in NYC on July 5th at 7:00 pm; followed by the Naval Sub Marine Base in Groton, CT on July 6th at 7:00 pm; and concluding at Fort Drum in NY on July 8th at 4:00 pm.

Throughout the tour, the US military has harassed (or maybe they were just 'funnin') with trumped up arrests over the very pressing legal issue of to t-shirt or not to t-shirt and in the first or second degree. Adam Kokesh, Liam Madden and Nate Lewis were arrested at Fort Benning most recently and Bob Audette (The Brattleboro Reformer) quotes Madden stating, "There's no reason we should have been arrested for trespassing. I don't see how it's trespassing to approach a gate on an open port" and Madden vows that the arrest aren't going to stop IVAW. Again, the bus tour is concluding (or this leg of it). Showtime is filming it for a documentary. If you're able to attend any of the last stops, please consider doing so.


Today, Joshua Partlow (Washington Post) reports that the number of corpses discovered in Baghdad for the month of June was 453 and that "was 14 percent higher in June than in January [321], according to unofficial Health Ministry statistics." Michael Schwartz (CounterPunch), addressing The Lancet study which revealed that over 655,000 Iraqis had died since the start of the illegal war, observes, "These figures sound impossible to most Americans. Certainly 300 Iraqis killed by Americans each day would be headline news, over and over again. And yet the electronic and print media simply do not tell us that the U.S. is killing all these people. We hear plenty about car bombers and death squads, but little about Americans killing Iraqis, except the occasional terrorist, and the even more occasional atrocity story." Remember that point for the last section of the snapshot. Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted today, "The Justice Department has announced it will seek the death penalty if an accused former soldier is convicted of committing rape and murder in the Iraqi town of Mahmoudiya last year. Steven Green is accused of raping and murdering fourteen-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi and killing her two parents and five-year-old sister. Two soldiers have already been sentenced to jail terms in the case." The two are sentenced are James P. Barker and Paul Cortez. A question worth asking is whether the declaration is an attempt to influence a potential jury pool? Would some jurors who would vote to convict be so willing to convict if it meant the death penalty? Josh White (Washington Post) reported on the move on Wednesday noting that the March 12, 2006 crimes were "one of the worst homicide cases of the war. Green is accused of plotting the attack with three other U.S. soldiers in the hotly contested Mahmudiyah area south of Baghdad."

Also on Wednesday, T. Christian Miller (Los Angeles Times) reported on the topic of contractors in Iraq noting that while the escalation means 160,000 US service members are now in Iraq, over "180,000 civilians -- including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis -- are working in Iraq under U.S. contracts . . . The total number of private contractors, far higher than previously reported, shows how heavily the Bush administration has relied on corporations to carry out the occupation of Iraq". The big p.r. push (of which that article is not a part of) is to 'humanize' and put a 'friendly face' on the contractor issue with big money being spent by various companies to work that friendly press until they go beyond 'friendly' (wait for the second date).

Turning to Iraq where the the US military announced yesterday, "One Task Force Lightning Soldier was killed when a helicopter went down in Ninewah Province, July 4."


Bombings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad bombing that left three police officers wounded, a Baghdad bombing that claimed 15 lives (twenty-seven wounded) "near Al Baghdadi restaurant," and a Baghdad bombing that killed one person. Reuters reports the fifteen dead in the bombing near the restaurant climbed to 17 and the count on the wounded is now twenty-five. Reuters notes a Yusufiya bombing that claimed the lives of 2 Iraqi soldiers,

Shootings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad bank robbery resulted 1 guard killed with two others and two civilians kidnapped, a police officer shot dead in Baquba, five security guards were wounded in Baquba, and a Kirkuk bombing that claimed 1 life and left four more wounded. Reuters notes 3 people shot dead in Samawa, 6 people shot dead in Ishaqi, and 1 Iraqi translator shot dead in Kut.


Corpses?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 24 corpses discovered in Baghdad, a severed head was discovered in Baquba while two corpses were turned over to the Baquba hospital (a man killed in a bombing and a man shot dead). Reuters notes five corpses discovered in Falluja (and that 16 was the number of corpses discovered in Baghdad Wednesday).

Today, the US military announced: "Two Multi-National Division - Baghdad Soldiers were killed and two other Soldiers were wounded when an explosive formed projectile detonated near their patrol during combat operations in a southern section of the Iraqi capital July 5."
ICCC total for US service members killed in the illegal war currently stands at 3590 since the start of the illegal war and 12 for the month of July thus far.

Turning to media criticism news, Norman Solomon (at CounterPunch) notes Peter Hart's "Transmission Accomplish" (in FAIR's Extra! pp. 11- 13) and explains, "Many of America's most prominent journalists want us to forget what they were saying and writing more than four years ago to boost the invasion of Iraq. Now, they tiptoe around their own roles in hyping the war and banishing dissent to the media margins." Those quoted in Hart's article include Tom Brokaw, Brian Williams, Katie Couric, Dan Rather, Eason Jordan and Gwen Ifill. (There are many more, those are the big names listed, there are smaller names and, of course, the usual right-wing nuts.) Solomon zooms in on Michael Gordon of the New York Times' justification, on CNN, for the bombing of an Iraq TV station (a war crime): "Let's unpack Gordon's rationale for a military attack on Iraqi broadcasters: They presented propaganda to viewers, aired triumphal images and touted the authority of the top man in the government, while an adversary was 'trying to send the exact opposite message.' By those standards, Iraqis would have been justified in targeting any one of the American cable news networks, especially Fox News Channel." [Note that in addition to Hart's article, the back cover of the May/June issue of Extra! also features Tom Tomorrow's This Modern World's "Great Moments in Punditry."]

On the subject of War Pornographer Michael Gordon, Greg Mitchell (Editor & Publisher) addresses Michael Gordon's nonsense Tuesday noting the push for war with Iran is exactly the same as Gordo's earlier push for war with Iraq, zeroes in on the man doing the PowerPoint presentation Gordo took notes for (Gen. Kevin J. Berner who "arrived in Iraq just a few weeks ago from his previous job, as special assistant -- to President Bush in the White House") and notes:

Meanwhile, he has written many articles more optimistic about the "surge" than most of his colleagues in the press. They reflect the view of the surge he stated on Charlie Rose's PBS show back in January (he was chastised by his editors then for speaking his mind too freely): "So I think you know, as a purely personal view, I think it's worth one last effort for sure to try to get this right, because my personal view, I think it's worth one last effort for sure to try to get this right, because my personal view is we're never really tried to win. We've simply been managing our way to defeat. And I think if it's done right, I think that there is the chance to accomplish something."

That comment in support of the escalation ('surge') is very interesting considering that when Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!, March 19, 2006) asked him about the illegal war his reply was, "Well, that's a policy judgment and a political judgment that's really beyond the scope of our book". On the issue of the bombing of the TV station, he attempted to blame his own remarks on Tommy Franks when Juan Gonzalez (Democracy Now!) questioned him. (Click here for how insane his Tommy Franks 'defense' was.)

And in WHAT A LOAD OF S**T news, Richard C. Paddock (Los Angeles Times) stumbles, fumbles and finally falls as he attempts to address why today is not the "60s" (for one thing, because it's 2007). Building on Tom Hayden's contention that the issue is the lack of draft (an issue too often cited and too often overrated), Paddock informs:

In the 1960s, the possiblity of being drafted at the age of 18 - before they could even vote in those days - compelled students to decide where they stood on Vietnam. Being summoned for a dehumanizing pre-induction physical brought home the reality of the war.

What? Is that how it played out? No, it's not how it played out for all. It played out that way for SOME MALES. Women are yet again left out the narrative. Women were leaders in the peace movement during the "60s" and, for the record, not one of them was threatened with the draft. This is the dumbest bit of crap that continues to get repeated about the student movement of the 60s and it is and was completely false. The draft wasn't a threat to women in college or high school. The draft really wasn't a threat to men in college because, as college students, they had a deferrment. (Just ask Dick Cheney.)

Mark Rudd (rightly) notes the issue of organizing skills (and how SDS is now addressing that). That is very real issue. But those of us who lived through the "60s" are very aware that fear "we will be drafted!" wasn't a worry to half of us and that the alleged fear wasn't a fear for a male college student. Organizing skills is the issue, not the lack of a draft. And this repeated nonsense totally strips away the very real activism that took place in middle schools (we called them "junior high" in those days) whose students were, at the least, five years from being eligable for a draft (a lifetime away, at that age). The draft primarily effected the working class and the poor. Though both categories were represented on college campuses across the country, they were always a smaller number of the student population. Those with no hopes of affording college worried tremendously about the draft and some did participate in various actions; however, colleges students then were primarily from the middle class and the upper class. (Hence the press backlash at the time about how 'spoiled' we allegedly were for protesting -- allegedly -- on our parents' -- they said father's -- dime back in the day.)

Economic class then was and now is an issue. The affluence of the '60s' for most Americans lucky enough to go to college is not as common today. Many more students today are required to work. As someone present, in real time, and not exiled or kicked out (as some commentators 'flashingback' today were) of the movement, let me repeat WOMEN WERE A LARGE PART OF THE PEACE MOVEMENT. Let me further repeat, WOMEN DID NOT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT BEING DRAFTED. It's a nice little comfort blanket for some men to drag around; however, it is not reality.

And before some dope wants to say, "Well . . . uh, the draft effected women . . . uh, because the men they dated . . ." Most college women dated men in college, their professors, or men much older and out of draft range. And that's not the issue being discussed, the issue Paddock is discussing is the threat of being drafted and the threat of "a dehumanizing pre-induction physical". I'm getting damn tired of seeing history rewritten so women are written out. No one who was there and hasn't blown their brains out completely on drugs would ever claim women weren't at least half (at least!) of the peace movement. Now maybe part of the problem today is that no slave labor pool exists because, certainly in the early days, the women were steered away from leadership roles, expected to fetch the coffee for the meetings, take notes, type, paint signs (and banners and posters) and run the mimeograph machines. So one could argue that the free slave labor that so many men built (or tried to) their names on in the early days of the peace movement no longer exists and that's slowed today's progress. But you should not be able to get away with claiming that it was fear of the draft or fear of a medical exam for the draft powering college activism. Is not and was not so.

Along with students being more likely today to hold down jobs while attending school, it's equally true that the economy is much worse than during the '60s' with real wages down and much more. In fact, we addressed all of this back in January at The Third Estate Sunday Review in "Roundtable:"

Jess: The high schoolers were furious at some of the comments. My point was, what is Anderson grading by when he says low turnout. Low turnout compared to what? Every thing starts somewhere. If he's expecting the 60s all over again, and many are, it needs to be pointed out that for White people, many of them, the 60s were a time of profit. There's a world of difference today. Billie sent in a thing just last week, to The Common Ills, an action in her area. She noted that she wished she could participate but she couldn't. As she explained, she's already taken off from work this month for the 3,000 mark, to protest the anniversary of Guantanamo and for a third action I forget. She's got kids. She's barely making ends meet. These are differences between then and now and they shouldn't be forgotten.Ava: And it's also true that there were more women, not in college, who could make the peace demonstations and marches in the sixties. They were homemakers. Homemakers still exist and a few of them exist that don't also hold down a job outside of the home. But that's another area effecting the turnouts. It's equally true that today's college set is not as prosperous as those in the 60s. Forget that college is higher now, significantly higher, we're not talking about inflation, we're talking about college rates sky rocketing, and a lot of students are struggling with work and school. When people ask why retired persons are so prominent in the peace movement today it is because they have the time. I won't say the money because fixed incomes and attacks on the safety net have ensured that's not the case. But they do have the time. People today work longer hours than they did in the 60s and, in terms of real wages, for less pay. If you're comparing what's going on today with what went on in the sixties, you're making a huge mistake. And someone could, in 1969, say, "I'm skipping work and if they fire me, I'll get a new job." Jobs are much scarcer.Jess: And that's the reality. And it's equally true that we're not coming off the civil rights movement as we oppose this war. People are not used to mass mobilization. We've got to relearn that.Dona: Relearn the wheel, as the feminist saying goes.

In addition, real important point: media coverage. There is the fact that All Things Media Big and Small continue to do a really poor job of treating Iraq as a war (legal or illegal) that the US is involved in (because the US started, of course). In addition to that, there is the HUGE difference in reporting today. Iraq, briefly, started out with the bulk of the reporters able to move about semi-freely and then, by 2004, holed up in the Green Zone, only going out with Iraqi troops (there are exceptions, I'm speaking overall). There was a word for that, remember? Embeds. Things have only gotten worse. The reporters are still in the Green Zone, still not leaving without military escorts. Things are so bad that the Green Zone is under attack these days (seriously since June of 2006). This is not Vietnam. Reporters are not traveling around the country. They are dependent (and this isn't a justification) on reports from officials. Word of mouth. Let's repeat, reports are largely reporting what they are told. Vietnam did allow for some to break from that. That is not the case today. And the issue of the media is the issue that, outside of Danny Schechter and a few others (Solomon's already noted addressing it in this snapshot) are willing to address.


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Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis

The 2007 year for The Nation was kicked off at the end of December with a January 1, 2007 issue. The cover pictured Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson. For reasons still unclear, except a possible deficiency that makes anything beyond the obvious impossible, the fifty-five-year-old, be speckled, John Denver-like mayor was depicted shirtless, sporting chest hair, flashing his manly pits at the readers, while both arms were thrown straight in the air and, did we mention, his hands were clad in boxing gloves.

For those who missed the obvious, Rocky Anderson was portrayed as Rocky because, after all, what's lefter than Sylvester Stallone? The Nation, intentionally or not, was telegraphing to one and all that they could "cowboy up" as well as any Bully Boy in the White House. Any who couldn't grasp the non-subtle point had only turn to page 25.

As Ava and C.I. noted in real time, and as Ruth noted this spring, that is where you would find a book 'review' by centrist Peter Bergen entitled "Waltzing With Warlords" which allegedly would address three books: Sarah Chayes' The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban; Ann Jones' Kabul In Winter: Life Without Peace in Afghanistan; and Rory Stewart's The Places in Between. Page wise, the smallest of three was the one written by Rory Stewart in . . . 2004. Reviewed for the January 2007 issue, a 2004 book. [An expanded version was published in May of 2006. Still far too old to qualify for a review in a January 2007 issue.] Why include a book that was three years old at this point? One of the many puzzling questions pertaining males the magazine has consistently raised in the last six months.

Our guess is when you want to cook the book 'review' against women, you'll go to any lengths. Centrist and pig Bergen opens his alleged book review reflecting on the obvious image for a war-torn Afghanistan:

I open it and step into a world far removed from the dust-blown avenues of Kabul, where most women wear burqas and the vast majority of the population live in grinding poverty.
At one end of a long room is a well-stocked bar tended by a Chinese madam who assesses us with a practiced calculus. In front of her are more than a dozen scantily clad smiling young Chinese women sprawled over a series of bar stools and couches.

What does that have to do with the three books? Not a damn thing. But Bergen wants his jollies and apparently feels everyone needs to know that he visits bordellos. How proud his parents must be! His former classmates, probably not at all surprised.

Having set the (low-brow) tone, Bergen quickly rushes to explain not all women, apparently, know their place. No, apparently, some women reach beyond their 'natural' abilities such as Chayes and Jones, both of whom are too 'emotional' to write about Afghanistan.

Bergen finds Chayes "angry," "disillusioned," prone to "a smidge of self-congratulations" and not at all trust worthy (". . . we have to take Chayes's word for it"). Bergen finds Jones even more of the text book example of the female 'hysteria' noting that she fell for "trope," that she, too, is "angry" (we're guessing most women Bergen's encounters are angry and that Bergen can find the reason for that just by looking in the mirror), that she suffers from a "tendency to see sinister conspiracies where they don't exist" (so irrational, those women), and much more! The funnin' never stops for Bergen.

Then it's time to turn to the male writer and all the troubles with (women) writers go out the window as Bergen informs us of "Stewart's beautifully written book," offering "picaresque stories, of adventures on the road is a critical point that is often overlooked by Westerners with dreams of transforming Afghanistan into a place where women enjoy equal rights" (killjoys!), "skeptical" (as opposed to the "disillusioned" Chayes), "erudite" and so, so much more.

The book 'review' is nothing but a pig going Oink-Oink-Oink! For those who know no better, Sarah Chayes is a Harvard graduate and a professional reporter who left NPR to live in Afghanistan and work to improve conditions in that country. While she was doing that, Bill Moyers didn't find her 'emotional' and, in fact, had her on as a guest for a lengthy segment of what was then Now with Bill Moyers where she spoke with David Branccacio. Journalists, including Amy Goodman, have interviewed Chayes since she has written her book and we're aware of no on air meltdowns.

In fact, most feel Chayes, a professionally trained and respected journalist, is a reliable source for what she observed with her own eyes while in Afghanistan. To assist gas bag Bergen, what Chayes does is considered reporting. That may be confusing in a new world disorder where 'reporters' are encouraged to run with official statements and given them complete weight -- even when they contradict with the journalist's own observations. Who, what, where, when -- the journalism basics -- are what Chayes covers and Bergen can't handle that kind of reality (from a woman) so he has to point out that, in a first-hand recounting, we [gasp!] are dependent upon the author's observations.

Ann Jones has contributed to The Nation before and, we're sure, is quite aware that there is no more damning phrase from that magazine than being said to possess "a tendency to see conspiracy theories." That is The Nation's equivalent of "Your mother!"

Not only is Jones an author, she's also a journalist and photographer -- with a doctorate as opposed to Bergen's B.A. and, we're sure, the B.S. he's more than earned from years of gas baggery. As for her alleged conspiracy theories, Nation Books only bestsellers, both by Gore Vidal, also argue the (true) narrative that, in the 90s, a proposed pipeline in Afghanistan trumped all other concerns for the US government. That's not a controversial theory to anyone but pigs who 'reported' for commercial TV 'journalism' (which is where Bergen hails from -- the lowest of all forms of journalism). Those not late to the party (that would be feminists) were calling out Afghanistan in the 90s while paid lobbyists were presenting PG-friendly versions of the country to Americans. Jones knows what she's writing about. Gore Vidal knows what he's writing about. The only one lost, intentionally or not, is Peter Bergen. [The February 25, 2007 "The Nation Stats" notes that Jones weighed in with a letter and that Bergen elected to ignore the bulk of it.]

That a three page plus book 'review' trafficking in the worst forms of sexism raised no flags to those in charge of the magazine goes a long, long way towards explaining how readers ended up with the first six months of The Nation this year.

Backstory, in the summer of 2006, a group of women journalists (some established, some emerging) asked to meet with C.I. C.I. knew most of them, who were welcome to come by anytime, but they wanted a scheduled meeting. At that point, Jess, Ava and Ty were already living with C.I. and Dona and Jim were there as guests (they, too, would soon be live in guests).Knowing several of the women who would be attending, Ava checked with the woman organizing the meeting to see if it would be okay to attend? It was more than okay and she was told she could invite anyone else.

The women wanted to lodge a formal complaint about The Nation which was ignoring women writers. Despite having a woman, Katrina vanden Heuvel, as editor and as a publisher, women were hearing tales of freelance pieces being dismissed quickly (and rudely) which had nothing to do with any journalism issue since the pieces would be picked up by other magazines. ("Snapped up," say Ava and C.I.) They'd been following it and they were tired of it. They wanted C.I. to track the issue at The Common Ills.

Jim, Dona and Ty came late to the meeting (Jess attended the full meeting) but were there for that and many other points. C.I.'s response was that The Common Ills focused on Iraq (at the request of members) and that, this far into 2006, it would require a great deal of work to go backwards at this point. (Despite that, C.I. wrote a column for Polly's Brew citing the 2006 statistics for women being published by The Nation.) But, C.I. offered, what if 2007 was charted? What if 2007 was charted and done so at The Third Estate Sunday Review? At which point Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava all readily agreed that they'd be happy to do that. With only full four months left in the 2006 year, the women agreed that was acceptable.

On December 24, 2006, in an edition steered by Ava and C.I., The Third Estate Sunday Review began tracking the number of males printed versus the number of women printed. All knew it would not be pretty. None expected it to be as bad as it was.

For one thing, we assumed when the feature entitled "The Nation Stats" began regularly appearing, The Nation would quickly move to address the imbalance. By that point, it was not at all uncommon for people with The Nation to e-mail The Third Estate Sunday Review and C.I. knows several people with the magazine. This, we wrongly thought, would not require much coverage to prompt quick improvement. During the six month review period (which ended Sunday), seven people with the magazine e-mailed The Third Estate Sunday Review. The online magazine (Third) was not an unknown quantity to all at the magazine.

The Nation fancies itself as the leading magazine of the left. Therefore, it should have not required anyone to chart the sorry numbers of women published when contrasted with the overly 'healthy' number of males.

In the early months, we would often arrive at the 3.8 or 3.7 males published for every one female. That women had 'leaped' to the one woman for every 3.4 males with a byline by the time our six month study concluded may be seen as some 'improvement.' It may also be seen as shocking considering that during this time, The Third Estate Sunday Review heard from seven with the magazine over a six month period.

As bad as the ratio is, more shocking is the hard numbers. Over a six month period, the 'weekly' (some issues are 'double' issues -- whether they have twice as many pages or the same as a so-called regular issue) published 255 male bylines and 74 female ones. (We've exempted one byline for reasons cited in our coverage -- links offered at the end. Look it up. One article is not counted and only one. Addressing why here will take this feature in another direction about the problem with who gets selected as an intern.) We stopped the count (Sunday) with the last June issue. July issues have since published, but for women to achieve equal presence in the magazine, the first issue of July would have had to begin publishing women, and only women, 181 times.

That the leading magazine of the left could reach that point says a great deal. That this could take place when a woman held both the position of editor and publisher says a great deal.

We were shocked, for instance, when the February 12, 2007 issue managed to feature only one female byline-- Elizabeth Holtzman, whose opinions on impeachment were quickly called out -- in the same issue -- by a male. An unqualified male, one could argue, since Holtzman had experience with impeachment due to her work during Watergate and the male had . . . musty academic b.s. We were appalled when the April 16, 2007 issue appeared with 12 bylines and not one, not one, was a woman's.

In May, we began sharing this feature was coming, that the six month study would run on July 4th. [Following FAIR's example of six months studies.] We shared that online, we shared that with various organizations (all but one had asked, the one that didn't was told only that we were far more concerned with The Nation's record of publishing women than we were with anything having to do with any other organization or outlet), and C.I., Ava and Elaine had shared it with friends at the magazine. That was in May.

We began working on the write up two weeks ago. That write up got trashed completely despite the fact that we'd worked ahead of time so that all sites would be able to post something on July 4th without having to give up their holiday. The write up got trashed because despite this feature being announced in May, despite the fact that the feature "The Nation Stats" began running at The Third Estate Sunday Review on December 24, 2006, neither the magazine proper nor anyone connected with it elected to contact us about this feature.

That changed on Monday. Kind of, sort of.

In a pattern well known to any member doing a site, when someone has a problem with something, they run straight to C.I. They rush to tattle to C.I. The e-mail has 12:24 stamped on it and we'll assume that was noon PST (no time zone is given). It was one of 18,342 e-mails waiting to be read in the public account on Tuesday. Jess was working the public account and came across a "woops" e-mail from The Nation and then passed by several pages of e-mails (Yahoo displays 25 e-mail messages per page) to find the original and figure out what the "woops" was about. In that e-mail, the noon one, he found that The Nation was finally commenting on a feature (which runs at The Third Estate Sunday Review, not The Common Ills) that began on December 24, 2006.

Jess was thirty minutes into a reply when Ava asked what he was so focused on. When she saw the e-mail, she said, "No way in hell does a man who wants to lecture C.I. and I on what women should do get a personal reply." A reply will go up at The Third Estate Sunday Review this weekend. The e-mail was meant to be "shared" ("pass on" was the term used) so it was shared with all participating in the writing of it. Whether the name was meant to be shared or not, we don't know. So we will leave him unnamed but, let's be clear, if a man with the magazine thinks he can lecture women on what they should do, we'd argue that goes a long way towards explaining some of the problems that allows 181 more males to be printed in a six month period than women.

We will not claim credit for the news that the issue of women is (finally) being addressed. (More on that in a minute.) We spent six months tracking it. We cannot make changes at the magazine. The magazine deserves credit for seeing the problem and addressing it (however late). By the same token, we will not take the blame for the number of women the magazine has run and find it laughable that a magazine which regularly boasts of its huge circulation numbers wants to attempt to pin the blame for their own failures on us.

The Nation advises, "On the subject of women and the magazine; you should also know that the magazine is more than aware of the imbalance, and has taken steps in the last several months to recruit and bring in more women writers. Between now and the Fall there are six new writers being added to our blogs, as well as new staff added to the editorial ranks."

Let's be clear, because we ran the above by the woman who organized the meeting last summer, that is largely nothing. Awareness may, in and of itself, be a good thing. But writers of print pieces receive more money than writers of 'online exclusives.' More to the point, our six month study focused solely on the print edition of the magazine. We did that for a number of reasons (including, we were warned ahead of time, of the website's tendency to make things that didn't turn out so good disappear -- as we all saw when a post on "American Idol" -- written while Congress was voting on the supplemental -- disappeared after, days later, Cindy Sheehan rightly called out adults who would rather focus on American Idol than the illegal war). But it has been clear even to the most dense that we were addressing the print edition. Nothing in The Nation's response above addressed the print edition.

"Blogs" are not print. Editorial staff doesn't mean more bylines for women. Nothing that is offered addresses the imbalance in print. The Nation goes on to inform us that, "Its worth noting, I think, the extent to which women ARE the leadership of the magazine -- from the editorial side (print, web, and almost all of our senior and executive editors) to the business side (President and the heads of advertising and fundraising) -- but there is an ongoing effort to bring in more women in to the magazine and the website."

More women are in leadership? Our generic response to that is to quote from Ava and C.I.'s "TV Review: Commander-in-Chief aka The Nah-Nah Sisterhood" (The Third Estate Sunday Review, November 20, 2005):
What really frightens us, besides the fact that a backlash only takes root when people who should know better applaud this junk, is an elitist attitude that seems to greet this show."We got our woman president!"
Consider us too grass-rooty but we don't see that as an end all be all. We weren't among the ones saying "At least we still got Martin Sheen on TV" so maybe we're missing it. But honestly, we'll take an Alice over a Commander-in-Chief. Give us working class women who pull together over a queen bee living a rarified life.We've never doubted that a woman could be president (and at some point will be). But we've never assumed that gender would be an answer. A woman who supports equality? Absolutely, that's a great thing. A woman who makes her way as an exception, backs up an agenda she doesn't believe in and does nothing to help other women? We don't see the point in applauding that.
It's a pertinent issue as two women are repeatedly named as potential candidates in the real world: Condi Rice and Hillary Clinton. If either woman (or both) runs, will we get the same giddy "It's a woman!" nonsense? Under no circumstance would either of us vote for Rice. We'd be reluctant to vote for Clinton considering her waffles on the issue of choice and her stance on the war. But will those issues be silenced in the giddy cry of, "It's a woman! It's a first!"
That's troubling.


Again, that is our generic response. Our specific response?

Is Katrina vanden Heuvel the editor and publisher or not? This is a point that's a bit hard for the e-mailer to grasp. (As evidenced as his attempts to slam our work.) The masthead says she is the editor and publisher. When she goes on TV, she is billed as the editor and publisher of The Nation. If she is indeed editor and publisher (yes, we know she is) then she bears the ultimate responsibility for what does and does not get printed. To repeat, our focus has been the print edition. What women do or do not do online has not been the scope of our study. We have never claimed it was. We have noted, in each "The Nation Stats," which issue or issues we were covering in that feature.

We will note this from The Nation, "I did want you to know as well that our July 12th issue is a double issue devoted entirely to Iraq. Two writers have completed a piece that is by far the largest collection of soldiers on the record about their experiences in Iraq done by any publication. It clearly depicts, we think, the horror of the war in Iraq, the illegality, and the extent to which soldiers were sent in unprepared and ill-equipped, and the toll that's taken. I would patently disagree that we have 'refused to cover Iraq as an ongoing illegal war,' and if I had the time for the research project I would quote piece after piece, on print and online, to make the point. The work of Jeremy Scahill, Joshua Kors and our lead edit from November of 05 come to mind as starting points. Regardless, I respect your opinion and wanted you to know that we do have a double issue coming out given over almost entirely to the war."

We are glad to know that an issue finally is devoted to Iraq. We do not claim credit for that although C.I. has led at The Common Ills (see "2006: The Year of Living Dumbly" for the first really hard hitting piece by C.I. and that issue has been addressed at The Common Ills regularly since). We're not really sure why the magazine feels the need to tell us that we are wrong (apparently patently) while also noting that there's no "time for the research project" which would prove us wrong?

We do not doubt that the magazine feels it has covered the illegal war seriously. We also do not doubt that they thought they were presenting women in equal numbers to men until we pointed the obvious culminating with the magazine running 181 more male bylines than female ones. Is it too much to point out the obvious? That the bylines mentioned in the quote above are male bylines? As Laura Flanders has rightly noted, women are being sidelined on the discussion of the illegal war in the media -- all media.

Again, the magazine wants to bring up what was online. We have repeatedly and clearly stated that we are covering the print edition in "The Nation Stats" and all sites (with C.I. leading) noting the Iraq coverage have regularly noted the difference between "online exclusives" and what makes it into print. We'll respond in full to that and other comments on Sunday.
We reject any claims of credit for any changes The Nation is discussing, addressing or considering. We also reject any blame for what the magazine has elected to print. We believe either credits us with more power than we have which is not us rejecting claims of our own power. Each of us has the power to be agents of change within our own lives. However, not being on staff at The Nation, we will not hog credit for needed changes that are (hopefully) now going to be made and we reject any blame for what has appeared in the magazine's print version.
We would further add that when the magazine wants to charge that writing at The Third Estate Sunday Review is "riddled with errors and inaccuracies," it's incumbent upon them to name them and not make baseless charges. Are there typos? There are. Are there factual errors? We're not aware of any and we're not really sure that, if there were, The Nation is any place to lecture on that topic having repeatedly refused to correct errors that made it into print. We'll provide at least one example of that (we've noted many at The Third Estate Sunday Review) on Sunday. Our numbers were not questioned so we'll assume The Nation has accepted those.


We have noted frequently that if our math is off, please e-mail. We have never received any e-mail about the numbers. On Sunday, we thought we were done when C.I. insisted that our number for the ratio had to be wrong. We redid it and it was. We corrected before it went up. Since our numbers may have been the only thing not challenged in the e-mail (our character appears to have been challenged, Ava and C.I.'s feminist status appears to have been questioned, etc.) we'll assume they are correct and note that anyone can check them out for themselves using the links posted at the end of this feature.

The Third Estate Sunday Review is composed of six people: Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I. C.I. has worked on every edition (only C.I. and Ava can make that claim). When the site started, the reason it started, was C.I. was speaking on an East Coast campus, Jim realized it was "C.I." and, after the talk (on Iraq, of course), approached C.I. and said, "You are C.I. of The Common Ills." Jim, Dona, Ty and Jess had spoken of doing a site. Ava rightly notes that she wasn't a planned participant. She was Dona's roommate and Dona brought her along. It is also true that, when Dona asked, everyone was for it. (Jess especially, he and Ava are now a couple.) Though C.I. helped on every edition (some pieces had no involvement from C.I. during those weeks), C.I. refused to be billed as part of The Third Estate Sunday Review noting, "It's your site." Over a year later, C.I. finally agreed. The writing is a group process with one exception.

Ava and C.I. do the TV commentaries. That is ironic since neither even thought we should do a TV piece in the very first edition of The Third Estate Sunday Review. During that first month, Ava and C.I.'s contributions to the TV reviews were what readers responded to. The e-mails would note a sentence or a paragraph and how much they agreed with it or how they'd never thought about it from that angle. ("Or complain," Ava and C.I. note.) Their jokes were always mentioned as well. Jim will admit he was the last to grasp what they were doing (a feminist take on TV -- "a," not "the"). By February 2005, even Jim grasped it and the TV commentaries were turned over to Ava and C.I.

They were not orginally credited for them, in February 2005, because we were doing group writing, believe in it, and they did not want the credit. The credit only went up when the others got tired of explaining, after being congratulated in e-mails or face to face by friends, parents or professors, that Ava and C.I. wrote those pieces. No one is prouder of the work Ava and C.I. do than are Jim, Dona, Ty and Jess. The TV commentaries are the calling card for The Third Estate Sunday Review. (Ava and C.I. are both groaning but we're putting this in.)

They are always the most popular feature any week. They have been linked to (when little else we've done ever has), they have been run in student and feminist papers, they have been run in three feminist publications by college women. On the latter, if any feminist organization thinks they can raise funds or merely pad out a collection with one of their TV reviews, Ava and C.I. have been all for it. In May, they did a commentary that got far too much attention for their comfort level. With the exception of a friend with PBS who phoned shortly after the piece went up [and a note was added to the commentary on that call], the response was all positive. It was also overwhelming for them (as Dona noted the first Friday of June in the gina & krista round-robin). They do not want to hear about the e-mails on their reviews. (Unless it's negative and then it's no problem with them.) With the May commentary, even shielding them from the e-mails wasn't enough because friends (close and distant) were calling them to sing the praises of that commentary.

They have repeatedly turned down interviews since requests first began coming in for those in the spring of 2005. That wasn't something Jim got because a write up somewhere would bring attention to the site. (It also took months of Dona pointing out to Jim that his encouraging praise -- "lavish," says Ava -- offered before Ava and C.I. were about to start work on that week's commentary was too much, raised the bar of expectations too high and freaked them out.) They have offered shorter commentaries since the overwhelming response in May. They will be returning to their epic commentaries shortly. (A review of a drama planned for this month will be their return.) But we say all of that to note that they are not attention seekers, they do need or want flattery and they try to keep their heads down and do the work required.

We value what they do, whether it's an in depth look or something they complete in 15 minutes. We say all that to note that we will never let stand some man questioning their feminist credentials.

When the man represents a magazine that has published 181 more males than women in a six month period you damn well better believe we won't let it stand or any 'suggestions' of what women should or should not say or should or should not write. Ruth was the most adament that this be included. As an over-sixty-years-old woman there at the start of the second wave of feminism in this country, she said there is no way she can tolerate silence with regard to that nonsense of "a man whose shown no known interest in gender equality suddenly rushing in to question two feminist's commitment." We will go into more detail on that Sunday. For now, we will note that no woman needs a lecture from any man about what women should do nor do they deserve to have their feminist qualifications questioned by anyone at a magazine that allows 181 more men than women to be published in a six month period.

Some at The Nation may enjoy writing The Common Ills because, if Ava reads it and it's a whine, she'll rip the whiner apart. Far be it from us to deny anyone their pleasure, even if it's mascochism. But this e-mail was directed to C.I. and we are all sick of that.

"Allow me to introduce myself, I'm another person in the room."-- Rhoda (Valerie Harper) speaking to Mary's (Mary Tyler Moore) date in "Today I Am A Ma'Am," written by Treva Silverman, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, episode two, first aired September 26, 1970.


Like Rhoda, we're all a little sick of it and for a number of reasons.

In addition to the public account there are two main accounts for members and there are also backup acocunts. The Common Ills gets more mail than any other site which is why Martha, Shirley, Eli, Ava and Jess help C.I. with the e-mails. Every site that sprung up, or Ruth's Report, did so because of The Common Ills. Before any other site started, we were all members of The Common Ills community and still are. As such, we are as sick as other members of people running to C.I. about something that's been written elsewhere. It strikes us as tattling and a "woops" doesn't change that. If people are doing that thinking it provides cover (due to C.I.'s policy on e-mails), it should be clear that, from now on, there is no cover when you run to C.I. to complain about the rest of us. In this case, the points were supposed to be "passed on." It doesn't matter whether they're supposed to be passed on or not from now on. If you run to C.I. to complain about us (as happens repeatedly), your e-mail is not about The Common Ills and you have no guarantee of privacy.

Redoing this already written feature meant that everyone had to give up their holiday time on what was a planned 'easy' day. [It also means Kat did not have the time to complete her review of Mavis Staples' latest CD. The plan for that is now to go up no later than Sunday morning.] Unlike The Nation, no one doing a site is paid for it. We run no ads, we beg for no money.

Stealing from the Mamas and the Papas, our approach has always been to be professional without being "professionals" (a subtly lost on some). All of us have busy lives. This isn't employment for any of us. We do it because we feel it needs to be done and because we enjoy it. We don't need to hear from those who refuse to take Iraq seriously and we will not put our own private lives on hold ever again.

In addition to announcing this piece publicly some time ago, we also noted a Labor Day piece. Let's be clear, only one thing will change the Labor Day piece from running. A last minute e-mail from The Nation will not change the Labor Day piece. We will be disclosing something that should have already been addressed in The Nation at length. If anyone wants that piece killed, they can address it (at The Nation) between now and the week before Labor Day. A last minute e-mail will not kill our piece or cause it to be rewritten. Only it running in the print edition of The Nation will. An e-mail saying, "It'll be out two weeks after Labor Day" will not result in us killing our piece or even rewriting it. Comments will not be added to it from a last minute e-mail. We will be using Labor Day for down time. If professional journalists are bothered by the feature (we're not sure they know what the scope is, we've attempted to keep that piece much more on the down low than this one), they have it in their power to pre-empt it only by addressing it themselves.

On what should have been a relaxed Fourth of July for us, we have instead had to do a conference call Tuesday evening about the e-mail and then spend six hours plus writing and debating this piece. If The Nation feels their e-mail hasn't been treated fairly, we don't feel it was fair to do the equivalent of a Friday government news dump on us at the last minute.

This feature was announced in May. "The Nation Stats" began running December 24, 2006. Writing us two days before the feature ran (correction, writing C.I.) appears to us to be nothing more than an end run around our announced and planned feature. To repeat, 7 with The Nation have written The Third Estate Sunday Review during the period that "The Nation Stats" has been running. No one ever raised any issues about that feature.

There is no legitimit claim that The Nation was unaware of the feature. The e-mail mentions not only C.I.'s "And the war drags on . . ." from last Thursday, it also appears to note the week before. In addition, both weeks, The Nation's attempted fundraiser (for rising print costs) were noted at The Common Ills only because The Nation e-mailed the public account. All of that (and more) goes to the fact that the both The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review are known quantities to The Nation by people other than friends of C.I., Elaine or Ava. In addition, Cedric heard last month from The Nation. And, of course, the Cindy Brady of the faux left long ago tried to both correct Elaine and share the new swear word he'd just learned. (Ava and Jess note that others with the magazine, not friends of any involved in the writing of this piece, have written The Common Ills -- with the coffee fetchers showing up in strong numbers beginning in January.)

That alone makes us question the sincerity of an e-mail that starts off so nice. By the time the e-mail begins asserting that The Third Estate Sunday Review's features and/or editorials are "riddled with errors and inaccuracies," we don't see it as a friendly e-mail. We'll assume the man needs time to 'research' that claim. In the meantime, we'll note we stand by what we have written. If there's an error (not surprising considering how much we write and how late we write it), we'll be happy to note it. We will not be noting that someone disagrees with a joke or an opinion. Those are not errors nor are they inaccuracies. In addition, C.I. gets called each Thursday about what's just gone into the new print edition of The Nation. C.I. also gets plenty of office gossip. If the man wants to challenge anything like that, feel free to do so. If it was conveyed by a friend at the magazine to C.I., we will note that.

But we will not ever again drop anything we have planned because someone shows up late to the party. And, again, we will be responding to the most offensive charge this Sunday as well as other points in the e-mail. If you make a charge such as "riddled with errors and inaccuracies," you need to back it up. We will note that, with few exceptions, none of our words of praise for The Nation has ever resulted in a thank you e-mail. Bad manners began showing up in large numbers in the summer of 2006. If they're suddenly desiring to become our e-mail buddies, a tip, charging that writing is "riddled with errors and inaccuracies" doesn't get anyone added to an I.M. buddy list.

Not only is no proof offered of that assertion, to make it one would presumably have to be very aware of our work. As C.I. has often said, "Well it's nice to be read."

We'll end as we began, with Pig Bergen. Ann Jones saw what was wrong with that article and publicly responded. A question worth asking is why no one at the magazine did? A better question worth asking is why Pig Bergen serves not only to announce the sexism that will be on display for the first six months of 2007 but also the slow creep of centrists into the magazine. The 'leading magazine of the left' should not attempt to present itself as such when it repeatedly runs centrists. The center is not the left, it is not even the faux left. For the record, Pig Bergen is, as noted by the magazine, a "senior fellow at the New America Foundation". The magazine fails to alert readers that the New American Foundation is a centrist organization.

We recently (and rightly) noted "Let Laura Be Laura" and we would also add Let The Left Be The Left. That will not result from The Nation's current fondness for centrists. There are plenty of left writers around who can and should be featured. The board of Bergen's organization includes such 'notables' as Fareed Zakaria, the safety czar Christy Todd Whitman and the charm free Francis Fukuyama. At a time when The Nation wants readers to be concerned about with reclaiming the Democratic Party, it's rather appalling that they also feel featuring centrists is what a left magazine does. (Not everyone with the magazine endorses the slow creep of the centrists which is how we first learned of it. "Slow Creep of the Centrist" is actually a phrase said to us by a writer for the magazine face to face.)

Ava and C.I. were in charge of the December 24, 2006 edition and that was the first week that a 2007 issue had arrived (January 1, 2007 issue). They immediately started up "The Nation Stats." "The Nation Stats" ran again in our December 31st edition (covering the magazine's January 8, 2007 issue -- a "double issue"). January 21st, we covered the January 22nd issue in "The Nation Stats." January 28th, "The Nation Stats" covered two issues since two arrived the same day for three of us participating in this feature. February 4th, we covered the Feb 12th issue in "The Nation Stats." February 11th we covered the February 19th issue in "The Nation Stats." February 25th, we coved the February 26th issue in "The Nation Stats." March 4th we covered the March 5th and March 12th issues of the magazine in "The Nation Stats." March 11th, we covered the March 19th issue in "The Nation Stats." April 1st, we covered the March 26th and April 2nd issues in "The Nation Stats." April 8th, we covered the April 9th and April 6th issues in "The Nation Stats." April 22nd, we covered the April 32rd and April 30 issues in"The Nation Stats." April 29th, "The Nation Stats" addressed the May 7th issue. May 20th, "The Nation Stats" covered four issues -- May 14th, May 21st, May 28th and June 4th. June 10th, "The Nation Stats" covered the June 11th and June 18th issue. On July 1st, we concluded a six month study of the number of male bylines versus female bylines in "The Nation Stats." All "The Nation Stats" with links should take you to the feature in question. Check our math. Check our figures. Non-subscribers can go to The Nation magazine, click on "past issues" and fact check us themselves. We think checking first is incumbent before making charges of errors.
-- The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim,

Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,

Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,

C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,

Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),

Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,

Ruth of "Ruth's Report"

Trina of Trina's Kitchen

Mike of Mikey Likes It!,

Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz,

and Wally of The Daily Jot


fairkatrina vanden heuvelsarah chayesann jonesthe nationfeminismtreva silvermanthe mary tyler moore showamy goodmanbill moyerslaura flandersthe third estate sunday reviewruths reportthe common illstrinas kitchenthe common illslike maria said pazkats kornersex and politics and screeds and attitudethe daily jotcedrics big mixmikey likes itthomas friedman is a great man