Third Estate Sunday Review

The Third Estate Sunday Review focuses on politics and culture. We're an online magazine. We don't play nice and we don't kiss butt. In the words of Tuesday Weld: "I do not ever want to be a huge star. Do you think I want a success? I refused "Bonnie and Clyde" because I was nursing at the time but also because deep down I knew that it was going to be a huge success. The same was true of "Bob and Carol and Fred and Sue" or whatever it was called. It reeked of success."

Sunday, December 16, 2012

National Intelligence Council attacks safety net

Monday the National Intelligence Council was pimping their organization's new report "Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds" (PDF format warning, click here). The report bills itself as "the fifth installment in the National Intelligence Council's series aimed at providing a framework for thinking about the future." If you're wondering, "who?," they helpfully explain:

The National Intelligence Council supports the Director of National Intelligence in his role as head of the Intelligence Community (IC) and is the IC’s center for long-term strategic analysis.
Since its establishment in 1979, the NIC has served as a bridge between the intelligence and policy communities, a source of deep substantive expertise on intelligence issues, and a facilitator of Intelligence Community collaboration and outreach.
The NIC’s National Intelligence Officers -- drawn from government, academia, and the private sector -- are the Intelligence Community’s senior experts on a range of regional and functional issues.

The "Global Trends" is a yearly report and supposedly just intel. But it's not.

First, owing to the likely growth of revenues dedicated to funding pensions, health-care, and other entitlements in the West to care for aging populations, younger generations will feel a growing sense of inter-generational inequality.

Along with endorsing fracking, the report attacks 'entitlements.' Not just above but elsewhere.

In an "Iraq snapshot" this week, the attack was noted and a member of the administration informed C.I. that she had misread the report. The only real attack, C.I. was told, came from the report including an essay that New Marxist Review had published. C.I. responded by asking where that 'magazine' published and whether or not she and the official had both been asleep for a number of years?

She didn't misread the report; however, a White House official did.

The New Marxist Review 'article'?

That was written by the intelligence community. Your first clue to that, if you read closely, is that the NMR editor (an unnamed woman in the report -- there is no such real magazine, by the way) ran an essay contest to note the 210 anniversary of Marx's birth.

Why would someone go with 210 as opposed to 200?

That's a good question. A better one is when was Marx born? 1818.

210 years after would be 2028.

Which is why the report uses that year, it's not a typo.

In 2028, the Editor of the New Marxist Review launched a competition for the best short essay on the meaning of Marx and Communism 210 years after Marx’s birth in 1818. To her surprise, the journal was flooded with thousands of submissions. She was having a hard time sifting through the piles and selecting a winner, but she found one that pulled together many of the recurring themes. The essay made the case that Marx isn’t dead but is instead thriving and doing better in the 21st century than anybody could have imagined just 15 or 20 years ago. The following are excerpts from that essay.

This 'essay' -- that trashes entitlements -- was written by the national intelligence community.

So desperate is their lust to kill off Social Security and Medicare that they created a fictional magazine which in the future publishes a (poorly written) essay in which a 'Marxist' celebrates the end of 'entitlements.'

Those in charge of the spy community don't just want to spy on you, they want to gut the safety net.

A functioning US press would be covering that, would be asking who wrote the 'essay' and where the intelligence community gets off attempting to dictate policy?

But, as we learn each year, we don't have a functioning press in the United States.

Things to watch for

The prison-industrial complex in the United States is built on greed. More arrests are needed to fill those prisons -- those privatized prisons that have become such big business.

There's a new wrinkle that may be emerging. Several cities across the country are considering doing with jails what has been done with prisons: Outsourcing, privatizing.

Is that really the way the population wants to go? For-profit jails? Jails controlled by people not working with law enforcement, underpaid and undertrained hourly employees?

Pay attention in your community to see what's going on. Big cities and small towns are both being lobbied by big business to hand over their jails to privatization.

Senator Murray fights for veterans rights

Senator Patty Murray (above) is the Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. Last week, she took to the floor of the Senate to fight for veterans and, fortunately, the Senate passed the bill. (The House may not, see "Is an important bill really about to die in the House?") Her office issued the following:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Murray Press Office

Thursday, December 13, 2012

(202) 224-2834

Murray Bill to Provide Fertility Treatment to Veterans Passes Senate

Senate takes major step forward in finally ending the ban on providing In Vitro Fertilization services to veterans and their families

Passage comes at a time when more servicemembers are suffering catastrophic injuries to reproductive organs

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray, Chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs’ Committee, passed her Women Veterans and Other Health Care Improvement Act of 2012, through the U.S. Senate by unanimous consent. Murray’s bill builds upon previous law to improve VA services for women veterans and veterans with families and ends the ban on in vitro fertilization (IVF) services at VA to help severely wounded veterans start families. After passing the Senate, the bill will now move on to the House of Representatives where Rep. Rick Larsen has introduced a companion version of the bill (H.R.6527).

Senator Murray made the following statement after the bill passed the Senate:

“This is a major victory for veterans and their spouses, and for their dreams of starting a family. This bill will give veterans that have suffered catastrophic reproductive injuries the ability to access In Vitro Fertilization without having to pay tens of thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs. It also brings the VA in line with what military families are offered.

“Providing this service is a cost of war and part of the commitment we make to care for our servicemembers and veterans when they return home. I’m hopeful that now that this bill has passed the Senate without a single objection the House can also move forward and pass the bill before the end of this year. There is absolutely no reason we should make these veterans, who have sacrificed so much, wait any longer to be able to realize their dreams of starting or growing their families.”

Earlier, today Senator Murray delivered the following remarks before calling for the Senate to pass the bill by unanimous consent. During her speech, Tracy Keil, whose story is described in Murray’s speech watched from the Senate Gallery.

Senator Murray’s floor remarks:

Thank you, M. President.

I come to the floor today to request unanimous consent for S. 3313, the Women Veterans and Other Health Care Improvement Act of 2012, which is unanimously supported by the Members of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

M. President, this legislation not only builds upon previous laws to improve VA services for women veterans and veterans with families --

But it also brings a new focus to the need for VA to do more to help women veterans and the spouses of male veterans access assistance for one of the most impactful and serious wounds of these wars - reproductive and urinary tract trauma.

As many of you know, the nature of the current conflict and the use of improvised explosive devices leaves servicemembers far more susceptible to these injuries.

In fact, Army data shows that between 2003 and 2011 nearly 2,000 servicemembers have suffered these battle injuries.

Like so many of our veterans, these men and women come home looking to return to their lives, to find employment, and so often to start a family.

Yet what they find when they go to the VA is that the fertility services available don’t meet their complex needs.

In fact, veterans suffering from these injuries find that the VA is specifically barred from providing more advanced assisted reproduction techniques such as In Vitro Fertilization – or IVF

They are told that despite the fact they have made such an extreme sacrifice for our nation we cannot provide them with the medical services they need to start a family.

Veterans like Staff Sergeant Matt Keil – and his wife Tracy, who is here with us today.

Staff Sergeant Keil was shot in the neck while on patrol in Ramadi, Iraq on February 24th 2007, just 6 weeks after he married the love of his life – Tracy.

The bullet went through the right side of his neck, hit a major artery, went through his spinal cord, and exited through his left shoulder blade.

Staff Sergeant Keil instantly became a quadriplegic.

Doctors informed Tracy her husband would be on a ventilator for the rest of his life, and would never move his arms or legs.

Staff Sergeant Keil eventually defied the odds and found himself off the ventilator and beginning a long journey of physical rehabilitation.

Around that same time, Tracy and her husband started exploring the possibilities of starting a family together.

Having children was all they could talk about, once they adjusted to their new normal.

With Staff Sergeant Keil’s injuries preventing him from having children naturally, Tracy turned to the VA for assistance and began to explore her options for fertility treatments.

Feeling defeated after being told the VA had no such programs in place for her situation, Tracy and Staff Sergeant Keil decided to pursue IVF through the private sector.

While they were anxious to begin this chapter of their lives, they were confronted with the reality that Tricare did not cover any of the costs related to Tracy’s treatments -- because she did not have fertility issues beyond her husband’s injury.

Left with no further options, the Keil’s decided this was important enough to them that they were willing to pay out-of-pocket – to the tune of almost $32,000 per round of treatment.

Thankfully, on November 9, 2010, just after their first round of IVF, Staff Sergeant Keil and Tracy welcomed their twins Matthew and Faith into the world.

Tracy told me,

“The day we had our children something changed in both of us. This is exactly what we had always wanted, our dreams had arrived.

“The VA, Congress and the American People have said countless times that they want to do everything they can to support my husband or make him feel whole again and this is your chance.

“Having a family is exactly what we needed to feel whole again. Please help us make these changes so that other families can share in this experience.”

I have heard from these severely injured veterans and while the details of these stories vary, the common thread that runs through them all is that these veterans were unable to obtain the type of assistance they need.

Some have spent tens of thousands of dollars in the private sector – like Tracy and her husband -- to get the advanced reproductive treatments they need to start a family.

Others have watched their marriages dissolve because the stress of infertility, in combination with the stresses of readjusting to life after severe injury, drove their relationship to a breaking point.

Any servicemember who sustains this type of serious injury deserves so much more.

The bill I am here asking to pass today will give VA broad authority to offer advanced fertility treatments to the most severely wounded veterans, their spouses, or surrogates.

It also gives VA the authority to determine how best to offer these benefits.

It reverses this troubling barrier to care and will bring the VA in line with the military which provides these services to this same groups of servicemembers.

This is common sense legislation that we should pass without delay.

In fact, the NY Times recently ran an editorial on this bill and said,

“In more than a decade of combat overseas, the military and V.A. have continually had to adjust to the challenges of new traumas with new treatments, as with the epidemic of brain injuries and post-traumatic stress. Adapting the V.A. health system to better meet reproductive-health needs should be part of that response. It is one compassionate way to fulfill the country’s duty to wounded veterans.”

They also noted that even this Congress should be capable of a bipartisan agreement to pass it.

M. President, I couldn’t agree more.

And I can’t think of any reason why all Republicans and Democrats wouldn’t join us today.

This is about giving veterans who have sacrificed everything -- every option we have to help them fulfill the simple dream of starting a family.

It says that we are not turning our back on the catastrophic reproductive wounds that have become a signature of these wars.

It says to all those brave men and women that didn’t ask questions when they were put in harm’s way, that we won’t let politics get in the way of our commitment to you.

M. President, we can’t let this bill get bogged down in the obstruction that has become typical of this body.

This is too important to delay with procedural tactics.

The VA has an obligation to care for the combat wounded.

That should include access to the care they need.

And our women veterans deserve this, our male veterans deserve this, and our military and veteran families deserve this.

Thank you M. President.

I’d now like to offer a unanimous consent request for passage of S. 3313, the Women Veterans and Other Health Care Improvement Act of 2012.

###

Matt McAlvanah

Communications Director

U.S. Senator Patty Murray

202-224-2834 - press office

202--224-0228 - direct

matt_mcalvanah@murray.senate.gov

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Schools push students to for-profit prisons (WW)

Repost from Workers World:

Schools push students to for-profit prisons

By Betsey Piette on December 13, 2012 » Add the first comment.

While U.S. corporations seem unwilling to cut into their profits to provide living-wage jobs for millions of unemployed youth, for-profit prisons are finding new ways to jail them.
Concern has been growing over the widespread pattern of funneling students out of schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice system. The practice usually targets impoverished or otherwise disadvantaged youth, especially students of color. So-called educators employ “zero-tolerance” policies that criminalize minor infractions of school rules.
Across the U.S., reports are surfacing that this trend is accelerating.
The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating schools in Meridian, Miss., for their policies of calling police whenever administrators want to discipline students. Police have arrested children as young as 10 years old.
The resulting DOJ lawsuit against the district found that the arrests happen automatically. It doesn’t matter what the children do or whether their actions even warrant arrest. The police simply arrest all children referred to them through the schools.
Once within the juvenile court system, these youth may be incarcerated for days without a hearing and denied basic constitutional rights. The DOJ found that Meridian’s long-time systemic abuse punishes students “so arbitrarily and severely as to shock the conscience.” (Colorlines.com, Nov. 26)
Attorneys with the Southern Poverty Law Center started to investigate Meridian in 2008 when reports surfaced of “horrific abuse” of youth in detention centers. They found that 67 percent of the youth warehoused there came from the Meridian school system.
The young people had been denied access to lawyers. Many did not know what they were arrested for. All the students who were jailed or expelled for minor infractions were youth of color. Meridian’s population is 61 percent African American.
What infractions warranted calling the police? In eighth grade Cedrico Green was put on probation for getting into a fight. After that any minor infraction — if he were a few minutes late or broke the school dress code — landed him back in the juvenile detention center. Green estimates “maybe 30” times.
The DOJ lawsuit found that students were incarcerated for “dress code infractions such as wearing the wrong color socks or undershirt, or for having shirts untucked; tardiness; flatulence in class; using vulgar language; yelling at teachers; and going to the bathroom or leaving the classroom without permission.” (huffingtonpost.com, Oct. 25)
Policy benefits for-profit prisons
On Oct. 31, Corrections Corporation of America, the largest for-profit prison/immigrant detention center operator in the U.S., was invited to participate in a lockdown and drug sweep of Vista Grande High School in the town of Casa Grande, Ariz.
Students were lined up against walls and locked in the school, while teams of police using drug-sniffing dogs searched classrooms and student lockers. While unwarranted search for drugs has become routine in many U.S. schools, this was the first raid in which for-profit prison agents participated. Two CCA canine units were involved.
Vista Grande High School Principal Tim Hamilton admitted he was unaware of any particular drug use at the school. His desire was to send a “message to kids.” The raid resulted in the arrest of three students for alleged possession of minor amounts of marijuana. (PRWatch.org, Nov. 27)
In 2011, CCA grossed $1.7 billion from its operations that include more than 92,000 prison and immigrant detention “beds” in 20 states. Most of the revenue for warehousing prisoners and immigrant detainees came from per-diem, per-prisoner rate contracts with local, state and federal governments.
School-to-prison pipeline targets students of color
Since the 1970s, rates of school discipline — suspensions, expulsions and even arrests — have doubled. Current education policies give school administrators carte blanche to decide which students they will educate and which ones they will remove. More often than not the students who are not chosen end up in the juvenile prison system.
Students of color are most often the target of these arbitrary disciplinary disparities. African-American students are nearly three times and Latino/a students nearly one-and-a-half times as likely to be suspended as white students. (naacpldf.org/case/school-prison-pipeline)
Students of color tend to receive harsher punishments than white students for engaging in the same conduct. Segregated schools where students of color predominate are the most likely to use push-out policies and employ the harshest disciplinary policies.
Schools should be places where children go to be educated, not to be fast-tracked into an increasingly for-profit prison system. Our youth need education not incarceration, and we all need a system that puts people’s needs before profits.

Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Highlights

This piece is written by Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix, Kat of Kat's Korner, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz, Ruth of Ruth's Report, Marcia of SICKOFITRADLZ, Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends, Ann of Ann's Mega Dub, Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Wally of The Daily Jot. Unless otherwise noted, we picked all highlights.

"Is an important bill really about to die in the House?" and "Icky Vicky Nuland and her lust for oil" -- most requested highlights by readers of this site.

Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Symbolic Value" -- Isaiah's latest comic on how somethings have symbolic value but others apparently don't.

"Toaster oven in the Kitchen" -- Trina offers some basic uses for this kitchen appliance.

"Whitney: Fix it or axe it," "5 men," "scandal 'blown away'," "How to ruin a sitcom in season two,"
"Birds of Prey," "Arrow," "Thoughts on NBC's Revolution," "Mid-season finales?" and "Nikita 'Sideswipe'" -- Betty, Ann, Rebecca, Marcia, Stan and Mike cover TV.

"A really bad interview" and "Jackman, Jolie, Netflix" -- Ann and Stan on Scott Pelley's bad interrview.

"Jane Mayer's an idiot," "Greenwald makes an idiot of out World Can't Wait," "About those super hero movies . . .," "Ultimate Honky Jane Mayer" "I'm talking Matt Damon," "Films," "Drones and a bad movie"and "Movies" -- Betty, Ann, Kat, Marcia, Mike, Elaine and Stan on movies.

"THIS JUST IN! IT TAKES A LOT TO GET HIM OFF!" and "He protects some children from predators" -- Wally and Cedric on the Drone War.

"By all means, let's worry about Psy's hurt feelings" and "THIS JUST IN! HE COMFORTS PSY!" -- Barack comforts the man who called for the death of US soldiers and their families.

"Screw the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame" and "Further thoughts on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame" -- Kat weighs in on the latest nominations.

"Jefferson warned us" -- Elaine on the sad state of government decay.

"Barack The Magnificent" -- Isaiah dips into the archives.

"Do you trust wait staff you piss off?" -- Elaine asks how you handle service problems?

"Susan Rice's going to need another charm offensive," "I did not order this Rice," "Go with Kerry" and "THIST JUST IN! IT'S STILL ALL ABOUT SNARLY!" and "Does she know how to fade into the background?" -- Ruth, Mike, Wally and Cedric on the next Secretary of State.

"All the liars" -- Betty on the Cult.

"oh, look, it's old whore noam chomsky" -- Rebecca on the disappointing.

Sunday, December 09, 2012

Truest statement of the week

(if you think we're not still at war in Iraq, I can introduce you to some military families who are still posting love-you-be-safe letters to that particular delivery code)

-- a parenthetical aside from William Rivers Pitt, "Until They All Come Home" (Truthout).

[Ty note: Thank you to Alissa and John for e-mailing to point out the quote was credited wrongly to "Williams River Pitt" and not William Rivers Pitt. Our mistake, thank you to the readers for catching it. 12-10-2012.]

Truest statement of the week II

In their reflexive circling of the wagons around United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice, the U.S. Black Misleadership Class reveal a total absence of political or moral values beyond the narrow pursuit of group prestige through proximity to imperial power. Even the dashiki-wearers among them care not a whit for Africa, whose rape and depopulation has been the focus of Rice’s incredibly destructive career. Rice’s intimate involvement in the murder of six million Congolese, her frenzied campaign to bomb and blockade Sudan, her successful instigation of regime change and race war in Libya, and her bloody-handed role in the ongoing torture of Somalia – all this means nothing to the vacuous and fawning class that claims to represent Black America.

Believing their own prestige to be entwined with Rice’s fortunes, her Black boosters embrace an abettor of genocide and endless military interventions as one of their own – and indict themselves.

-- Glen Ford, "The Shameless Vacuity of Susan Rice's Black Boosters" (Black Agenda Report).

A note to our readers

Hey --

Another Sunday.

First up, we thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
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),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's K itchen,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.

And what did we come up with?

Truest statement of the week

William Rivers Pitt for a parenthetical.

Truest statement of the week II

Glen Ford on the endorsers of Susan Rice.

Editorial: The superflous American media

A profession so stupid, they're destroying their own jobs.

TV: The real ugly

Ava and C.I. take on Revolution.

The Bionic Woman Season One

There are two more to more to come. We appreciate the e-mails reminding us of the failure to continue the series. The problem was always this piece. Season one was the weakest season of The Bionic Woman. Now that we've said it, the rest should progress nicely.