People Before Profit blog

Chicano Moratorium Aug. 29: 1970 and 2004

Fri, 27 Aug 2004 04:12:00 +0000

The massive Aug. 29 demonstration in New York against the Bush agenda will be a historic event for our nation. For me and my generation of Chicanos, Mexican Americans, it very much brings to mind another historic Aug. 29 in 1970, when over 25,000 of us with our allies marched through the East Los Angeles barrios against the Vietnam War, in the National Chicano Moratorium.

Our march was brutally attacked by the police and people were killed, including the leading Latino journalist of that era, Ruben Salazar, just as white students at Kent State in Ohio and African American students at Jackson State in South Carolina had been attacked earlier that year. We kept on fighting after that attack, as did the student, peace and African American movements of the day, until the president who waged the war was removed from office and our military was pulled out of Vietnam.

In 2004 much more than in 1970, we are marching together, not separately, and we have the support of the people of the whole world. The kind of repression we faced in those times is not likely today, but precautions are necessary. There are other key parallels and differences that we would do well to keep in mind.

By 1970, growing numbers of U.S. people had turned against the war. But that was not enough to stop it. Much more had to be done: the draft had to be changed and stopped, the bombings opposed militantly, and not only the colleges but the high schools had to be organized. Young people began returning from the war and joining the protests. Then they began to oppose fighting while in the service and before they went in. It was only after Nixon was removed from office that the end came in sight, and even then the pressure had to continue.

Our Chicano Moratorium was different from much of the peace movement of that day in that we focused on the working class neighborhoods whose youth were dying in that war at twice the rate of the overall population. Before our Aug. 29 national mobilization we marched in the barrios of over 20 cities in the Southwest and Midwest. Today’s peace movement is rooted in neighborhoods, and the largest unions in the country have taken a stand against the Iraq war. Even so, more and bigger demonstrations are needed. A massive get out the vote effort to defeat Bush is needed in all of our neighborhoods on Nov 2. Our moratorium movement had to take on the problems of the war alongside of the overall problems of our communities. Our Chicano movement for peace addressed the issues of racism and economic justice much more than the overall peace movement did. Today’s peace movement is taking on this broader approach, but there could be greater awareness of what is at stake globally. When we oppose Bush’s military policies, Iraq is a priority, but so are Haiti, the preemptive strike doctrine, corporate globalization, global warming, use of nuclear weapons, increased military spending, global deployment of our military, weapons in space. We must oppose the draft, and the profiling of minority and poor youth for military recruitment.

One of the great strengths of our youthful movement of 1970 was that progressives of previous generations gave us tremendous support: Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta of the Farmworkers, and other well-known activists in our communities like Ralph Guzman, Bert Corona, Chole Alatorre, Corky Gonzalez, Polly Baca, Tony Rios, Irene Tovar, Rev. Antonio Hernandez, Fr. Juan Romero, Julia Mount, Celia Rodriguez, Esteban Torres and many more. They knew that each generation had to develop its own methods to organize for peace amongst its peers.

We had weaknesses, glaring ones. Males dominated the podium, we were unnecessarily nationalist minded and anti- or non-political. I think it would have been possible to be stronger and less vulnerable to attack if pro-peace politicians like Reps. Ed Roybal and George Brown (who donated the office space for our committee) as well as City Councilman Tom Bradley had been involved. Besides Cesar Chavez, other pro-peace unionists like Dolores Huerta and the UAW’s Paul Schrade could have been asked to speak. Such weaknesses undoubtedly still impact today’s movement, but there is much improvement.

Back in 1970 our slogan was “Raza si! Guerra no!” (Our people yes! War no!). Today it is “Raza humana si! Guerra no!” (Human race yes! War no!).

Let me re-emphasize: back then to end the war it was necessary to remove the war president. The same holds true today.

Rosalío Muñoz was chair of the Aug. 29, 1970, National Chicano Moratorium. He is currently an organizer for the Southern California district of the Communist Party USA. He can be reached at rosalio_munoz@sbcglobal.net.

How to win: a call of conscience

Fri, 13 Aug 2004 07:18:00 +0000

Twenty years ago, I stood before the Democratic Convention in San Francisco, a candidate for the presidency of the United States, to speak of the hopes and dreams of Americans who, lacking voice in their everyday lives as well as the political process, took an apathetic attitude toward voting. That night I challenged the party to expand its center, to make room for America’s working poor, our struggling middle class, those at the bottom who were and are the heart of the multi-ethnic, multi-issue Rainbow Coalition — the organization that spurred my 1984 presidential campaign.

In 1984, we registered 2 million new voters. In 1986, we helped return the U.S. Senate to the Democrats. In 1988, we helped elect newly empowered candidates, including New York City Mayor David Dinkins, Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder and others in cities, counties and states across the nation.

The strategy of expanding the center, enfranchising all of America, worked for Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. Remember, the elder Bush and Sen. Bob Dole got more white votes alone than Clinton. But Clinton got more white, Black, brown and Asian votes than they did — and he won.

Yet if the ’84 and ’88 elections empowered the disenfranchised, the 2000 election showed their vulnerability. In that calamity for democracy, Florida alone dumped 179,000 votes — 54 percent of them cast by African Americans. Nationwide, nearly 2 million votes went uncounted. Half of them were Black, according to data from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and Harvard University’s Civil Rights Project.

Is it any wonder that, four decades after the Selma march and four years after that flagrantly stolen 2000 election, some 8 million to 10 million African Americans are not registered to vote? According to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, 936,000 remain unregistered in New York; 600,000 in Georgia; 550,000 in Texas; 530,000 in North Carolina; 380,000 in Illinois; 500,000 in New Jersey; 475,000 in Virginia; 600,000 in Florida, 400,000 in Mississippi; 300,000 in South Carolina; and 300,000 in Louisiana.

As the Democrats … mobilize support for John Kerry and John Edwards, we must also mobilize the disenfranchised. We must register them; we must see that they vote; we must make sure every vote cast is counted.

Simple math demonstrates: Even granting the 20 states Al Gore won in 2000 leaves the Democrats 10 electoral votes short. The South is problematic: John Edwards came to the Senate in 1988 with 42 percent of the white vote — and 92 percent of the Black vote. No progressive candidate of the South wins on white votes; 85 to 90 percent of the Black vote is essential. This year’s wild card, Ralph Nader, makes every vote crucial. …

I met with civil-rights and political leaders to strategize around mobilizing and protecting the vote. This fall we will return to Florida, the scene of the crime, and to precincts across the nation, exercising our collective strength, protecting our franchise.

I said in San Francisco 20 years ago: “This is not a perfect party. We are not a perfect people. Yet, we are called to a perfect mission. Our mission: to feed the hungry; to clothe the naked; to house the homeless; to teach the illiterate; to provide jobs for the jobless; and to choose the human race over the nuclear race.”

Today we issue a call of conscience, of expansion, healing, unity and redemption. We can win. Leadership can part the waters, lift the boats stuck at the bottom, and redirect our nation toward the Promised Land. Together, with a message of healing and hope, we can re-open the “one big tent” that is America at its best.

The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. is founder and president of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. This article originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, July 23.

Black Harvest to showcase new films

Sun, 01 Aug 2004 05:53:00 +0000

CHICAGO – Five Chicago-based movies are part of this year’s Black Harvest Film Festival scheduled here Aug. 7-19 at the Gene Siskel Film Center. Of the 18 features and six shorts, all but one will be Chicago premieres.

“This year will be the best because we have a larger number of features than past festivals,” said Marty Ruben, associate director of programming, citing films from Kenya, South Africa and Burkina Faso.

The Film Center, named for the late movie critic who for many years bantered with Roger Ebert on “Siskel & Ebert,” has been sponsoring the Black Harvest Festival for 10 years. It is located at 164 N. State Street. Call (312) 846-2800 for tickets, festival passes and membership, or log on to www.siskelfilmcenter.org.

Prescription for a sick health care system

Sun, 01 Aug 2004 05:41:00 +0000

Book Review

Health Care Meltdown: Confronting the Myths and Fixing Our Failing System By Robert H. LeBow, M.D. Alan C. Hood Co., 2004 Softcover, 304 pp., $15.00

“America is the only developed nation that fails to guarantee access to needed care for all its citizens and the only advanced country that permits someone to go bankrupt because of poor health.” Thus, Dr. Robert LeBow, a community health clinic physician of 30 years’ experience, immediately draws the reader’s attention to two of the most salient but least known characteristics of health care in the U.S. – its uniqueness and destructiveness.

LeBow criticizes American health care as “a disorganized overly complex creature that robs people of their health, their money, and their dignity.” It is a system driven by “self interest and the pursuit of profit,” that has turned millions of uninsured middle-class Americans into “health care beggars,” with hundreds of thousands more pushed into personal bankruptcy. This is despite the fact that we spend more on health care than any other country in the world.

LeBow observes that the U.S., unlike other advanced nations, treats health care as an economic commodity, not a public good or human right. The market decides who gets what care, leaving more than 40 million Americans without health insurance and 50 million others underinsured. The former depend on charity care. The latter dig deeper into their pockets to pay excessive insurance premiums, deductibles, and co-payments, enriching stockholders, or go without care.

Cost and lack of access to health care largely explain the American health care system’s rank at 37th in the world by the World Health Organization in the year 2000. In contrast, LeBow notes that “Every [other] developed country … has made a genuine effort to assure that every person living in that country has health care coverage (not just access).”

Control of our health care system, LeBow observes, is in the hands of a “Gang of Four”: pharmaceutical companies, the insurance industry, hospitals, and organized medicine. These vested interests have maintained control through often repeated myths and outright lies about the state of health care in the U. S. and other advanced nations.

We are told that the market is the solution to our health care problems. After all, the market is the American way, and the U. S. has the best health care system in the world (for those who can pay). We are told that other health care systems do not offer a solution because they have led to rationing, waiting lists, loss of choice, and, of course, that horror of all horrors – socialism.

LeBow criticizes our emphasis on the individual rather than the value of community. He underscores our “human responsibility to one another,” declaring that “health care in America has evolved today beyond the capabilities of ‘personal responsibility’ at least when it comes to the issue of financing.”

LeBow proposes a universal health coverage plan that puts everyone – young, old, healthy, sick, rich, and poor – in the same risk pool, the same plan, with health coverage separated from employment status. Insurance premiums, co-payments and deductibles would be eliminated. He further proposes that the system be funded through progressive taxation, much like Canada’s single-payer system, which covers 99 percent of Canadians.

The Canadian system is offered only as a suggestion by LeBow, who also proposes simply expanding Medicare coverage to every American. Whichever system is chosen, he reminds us that 60 percent of all health care expenses in the United States are already paid by the government, with Americans certainly not receiving a good return on their money. Universal health coverage would be a giant step forward and away from the fragmented, costly, profit-driven leviathan that now passes for health care in the U.S. Perhaps most importantly, it would establish health care coverage as a right for every American.

The struggle to establish health care as a right in this country is inherently tied to other movements, including living wage and full employment struggles. Success requires undoing decades of right-wing propaganda and lies, educating people about the real state of health care in the U.S., and how the problem has been handled in other nations. LeBow’s book is a valuable contribution to that end.

The author can be reached at pww @ pww.org.

McCarthyism rears its ugly head

Sun, 01 Aug 2004 05:37:00 +0000

Back in the 1950s, the House Un-American Activities Committee was running wild. It was blacklisting journalists, militant unionists, authors, playwrights and anyone who opposed the Korean War or signed the Stockholm Peace Pledge to outlaw the atomic bomb.

It reached into the heartland as well. An active unionist by the name of Roy Webb, who worked at the American Motors plant in Milwaukee, took a petition into the plant asking workers to sign against the atomic bomb. Spearheaded by the foreman, hysteria rang out. Several workers grabbed Webb and bounced his back down 44 concrete steps, from the third floor to the first floor, breaking his spinal cord. This kind of hysteria was rampant, and people were frightened to speak out.

Meanwhile, the McCarthy Internal Security Committee invaded Hollywood, conspiring with studios like Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Progressive and pro-union screenwriters, directors, actors and other film talent were viciously redbaited, blacklisted and jailed. The most famous case became known as the Hollywood Ten.

Today, we have in our government a group of people who profess to represent democracy but in reality are of the same ilk as the fascist-like politicians of the ’50s. Then it was the Korean War, today it is the war in Iraq.

The Patriot Act is horribly curtailing our civil liberties. It violates many parts of the Bill of Rights.

The Bush administration has created an atmosphere in which government officials and corporations feel they can violate the First Amendment with impunity. One example of that was Disney’s refusal to distribute Michael Moore’s film “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

Greg Palast, author of the bestseller, “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy,” commented, “When the fat cats at Disney put the kibosh on Moore’s new film, they did more than censor an artist. Gagging Moore is only the latest maneuver in suppressing some most uncomfortable facts: the Bush administration’s killing off investigations of Saudi Arabian funding of terror including evidence involving the bin Laden family in the United States. I know because of my investigative team at BBC television and The Guardian in Britain. I wrote and filmed the original reports on which Moore’s new documentary are based.”

Palast outlined documents that FBI agents withheld about the bin Laden family. Articles he had written on the Saudi/Al Qaeda connections are front-page news in Britain and worldwide, but not in the U.S., he noted. Why? he inquired.

He concluded, “Go ahead Mr. Mickey Mouse mogul, censor the guy in the baseball cap, let the movie screen go dark, spread the blindness that is killing us. Instead show us fake fly-boys giving the ‘mission accomplished’ thumbs up … Tube news in the USA is now thoroughly Fox-ified and kow-tows to the prevaricating pronouncements of our commander in chief.”

Now that Moore found a way to distribute his film, and “Fahrenheit 9/11” has turned out to be a blockbuster, many may feel this point is moot. The system works, some may conclude.

But the attempt to censor this movie, and the slander Moore has faced with its release, are all part of a dangerous drive towards a fascist America.

The American people stopped such drives in the ’50s and we can stop them again now. Get the word out to your friends and neighbors to vote out this fanatical right gang. Demand that our troops be brought home now. Stop the slaughter of our troops and the Iraqi people. Peace now.

John Gilman is a longtime peace and justice activist in Milwaukee, Wis. He was summoned twice before HUAC and appeared in his WWII uniform. A highly decorated veteran, Gilman told the committee that they themselves were un-American. He can be reached at johngilman @ aol.com.

Attention must be paid

Sun, 01 Aug 2004 05:36:00 +0000

In Arthur Miller’s classic play, “Death of a Salesman,” aging traveling salesman Willy Loman pleads for his job with the son of the man who hired him and is about to fire him. Exasperated and fearful, Willy shouts that “promises were made across this desk!”

To no avail. Willy is out and as his world unravels, he suffers a breakdown and commits suicide in a desperate, futile hope his family can collect on his insurance.

The parallels between Willy Loman’s heart-breaking plight and that facing millions of American retirees is striking, disturbing and by no means exaggerated. Indeed, promises that once were made to millions of workers who helped build their companies (and this country) are now being broken with impunity. The stiff, cold, corporate rationales are:

“We have to cut benefits to remain competitive.”

“We have to make the numbers, increase shareholder value, boost the bottom line.”

And what of the many who suddenly find themselves without health care and quite possibly in a menacing and uncertain future, without pensions as well? Are they supposed to emulate Willy Loman, climb in their cars and smash themselves to smithereens? Are they to end their lives as sacrificial lambs on the altar of Darwinian capitalism?

Don’t think that if the current trend continues there won’t be a significant increase in the number of suicides of retirees at the end of their financial rope. My fellow Minnesotan, Sinclair Lewis, wrote in 1935 with bitter irony and astounding prescience, “It Can’t Happen Here.” But of course it can and in fact it already is. It must be stopped. Now.

The media have paid only sporadic attention. But, as Willy Loman’s sad and beleaguered wife, Linda, declares while watching her husband plunge into the depths of despair and financial ruin, “Attention must be paid.” The very lives of American retirees are now in peril as never before.

Companies are seeking to reduce oreliminate health care benefits for retirees 65 and over if they are on Medicare. And, if corporate lobbyists get their way in Congress and major changes are made in the ERISA laws, retirees also might lose their pensions. It can’t happen here? Think again, especially if George W. Bush receives a second term as president.

Retirees must face up to some other hard facts. Eleven years ago, 46 percent of large companies guaranteed health care benefits. Today, only 28 percent of large firms assist retirees with health care benefits, and overall, only 11 percent of companies do. Those who believe Medicare will take care of them in retirement must realize Medicare typically covers only about half of a retiree’s costs, so most retirees must purchase supplemental insurance, not an easy task for many.

If there is wholesale cutting of retirees’ health care benefits and pensions, this nation might well experience a social upheaval not seen since the days of the Great Depression. With the once-sacred social contract and safety net being shredded before their eyes, retirees facing the economic abyss would have nothing to lose by demanding fundamental changes in the nation’s governmental and economic systems.

Indeed, one can envision (hope for?) massive marches on Washington by the retirees of today and tomorrow, like the civil rights marches of the 1960s, to confront those who refused to act on their behalf, and on corporate headquarters as well. The very foundation of capitalist America would be shaken.

However, the future for retirees is not entirely bleak. The Ad Hoc Coalition to Restore Retirement Security, an all-volunteer organization, has been formed to generate public, presidential candidate and congressional action on this problem. It is a highly diverse mixture of just about every type of retiree you can imagine in terms of age, gender, race, nationality, geography, political affiliation, type of former employer, former occupation and retirement activity.

But the members of the Ad Hoc Coalition are united in their purpose: to make business and industry keep their promises so that retirees may enjoy the fruits of their labor in their “golden” years. After all, retirees are in large part the ones who built their companies to be what most of them are today: golden.

Ad Hoc Coalition members know they occupy the moral high ground on this issue. They know they are fighting for what America is supposed to be all about.

They are setting the example for the retirees of today and tomorrow by refusing to lie down and play dead in the face of those in business and government who place corporate concerns above human worth and dignity.

Retirees should contact their senators and representative in Congress and urge them to promptly enact legislation ensuring that retirees will receive their hard-earned, well-deserved pensions and health care benefits without delay, interruption or revocation.

“Attention must be paid.”

Willard Shapira, of Minneapolis, is a volunteer with the Ad Hoc Coalition to Restore Retirement Security. He can be reached at wshapira @ aol.com.

Lies, videotape, and democracy

Sun, 01 Aug 2004 05:34:00 +0000

I want to point out how two pieces of popular technology have contributed to the exposure of the lies and attempted cover-up of the misdeeds of two U.S. presidents, and to urge you to use your vote to oust Bush in 2004.

President Richard Nixon insisted on tape-recording all confidential conversations with his closest associates. This simple recording method did him in, in spite of all attempts to cover up his actions. The tapes were the main source of information (the “smoking gun”) used against him by federal investigators, and the uproar finally drove him out of office.

In George W. Bush’s case, the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners was digitally photographed and videotaped. The brutality and torture exposed by the digital images and videotapes sparked an outraged and ongoing outcry to find out who is responsible for such inhuman atrocities. Bush and Cheney are doing everything in their power to avoid any blame. Here again, tapes have provided an arsenal of weapons in the hands of investigators. Where it will all end is a matter for speculation, but the images are ammunition for all critics of the Bush war policy.

Behind all of this is the all-American concept that no one – not even the president in office – is beyond the law and democratic process. This fundamental concept has been fought for mainly by the U.S. working class, ever since our nation became independent of British domination through a hard-fought people’s revolution. The concept has been fought for in many ways short of revolution – in the courts, through free speech movements, workers’ strikes, even civil war to abolish slavery, and the ongoing struggles of native American Indians seeking compliance with treaties our government has repeatedly violated.

President Bush and his colleagues are trying to evade the Geneva Conventions, which were ratified by the U.S. Congress. These people argue that the president is not bound by such protocols. They claim he is free to do what he and only he thinks best. They say enemy combatants (the term they like to bandy about and apply to whoever they want) are not protected by the rules of Geneva. Neither are the prisoners held at the U.S. base in Guantanamo, Cuba, nor many held within the U.S., as well.

I doubt that Bush and colleagues will ever face a world tribunal. Nonetheless we should be optimistic, based on the wide discussions taking place about these issues involving all Americans, from elementary school children to college students, at the workplace, and beyond. The popularity of the film “Fahrenheit 9/11” – effectively using a variety of videotapes the public never saw before – is an indication of the ferment. This is a heartwarming development. These things tell us that masses of people are involved and engaged, and that only they can speak for the American people – not George W. Bush. Bush’s speeches do not fool many people, and he certainly is not carrying out the American values he claims to represent.

The 2004 elections offer us an open door to express ourselves. I sincerely hope that U.S. voters take full advantage of their voting power and use it to send President Bush back to Crawford, Texas. I look forward to being able to say the tapes helped drive him from office.

Lorenzo Torrez is chair of the Communist Party of Arizona. He can be reached at lptorrez @ aol.com.

Two scenarios. Which one is more believable?

Sun, 01 Aug 2004 05:32:00 +0000

Here are two scenarios. Which one makes more sense?

SCENARIO ONE:

Jack phones his buddy Joe. JOE: (answering the phone): Yeah. JACK: Hey, Joe, it’s me, Jack. JOE: Been a while, man. What’s up? JACK: How’d you like to put the spring back in that rusty ol’ rump a yours? JOE: Love it, man. Whatcha got? JACK: You and me go to Afghanistan and open a jail. JOE: Open a jail? You kiddin’ me? JACK: Nah. For real, man. We help out Uncle Sam. Get a house, collar some Talibans, give ’em a good you know what, turn the info over to the Marines and come out heroes. JOE: I’m itchin’ for some action like that, but where’s the money? JACK: We ain’t doin’ it for money, but for the good old U.S. of A. — and for the kicks. JOE: Well, I sure could use the kinda money they’re payin’ over there. I can’t dig it up over here. Dry as a bone dollar-wise. JACK: Well, I figure, if we play it right, Uncle Sam might just be grateful enough to cough up some a that dough that’s goin’ to those private contractors. I really miss those days when I was a Green Beret. I gotta get back into the action, but I need your help. You with me? JOE: Okay, man, I’ll give it a shot. But I sure hope we don’t hit a dry well.

SCENARIO TWO:

Scene: A soundproof, secure room in the basement of the Pentagon. One of the undersecretaries of defense, whose profile is lower than low — we’ll call him Dan — has summoned a “get-the-dirty-job-done” assistant, whose name no one knows, not even the undersecretary.

DAN: We’ve got a problem, Bill. BILL: That’s not my name, sir. DAN: What’s the difference? Don’t interrupt me! BILL: Yes, sir. What’s the problem, sir? DAN: We’ve got to get more information out of those Afghani Talibani we capture. We tried to squeeze it out of ’em, but that damned International Red Cross keeps nosing around to make sure we don’t violate the Geneva Conventions. Might as well turn the damned prisons in Kabul into country clubs. Gives the boss a headache, so he asked me to deal with it. BILL: I see what you mean, sir. DAN: Well we had an idea. Suppose we get a few Rambo types who aren’t in the military, send ’em over there to collar some of those Talibanis and wring their necks till they tell us what we want to know. Since those guys are not military, and we don’t know anything about ’em — if you get my drift — we don’t have to worry about that damned Geneva Convention baloney. BILL: Sounds good to me, sir. DAN: And if they get caught, they say they were just trying to give us a hand in the war on terrorism — on their own, you understand, on their own. You can’t get more patriotic than that, right? Sacrificing a nice easy life here at home to go over there in the heat and danger, all for flag and country. Brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. BILL: Chokes me up too, sir. DAN: Now, do you know anybody who might take charge of an operation like that? BILL: Well, sir, as a matter of fact I do. There’s a fellow who used to be a Green ... DAN: Uh, uh, uh, stop there! Don’t tell me anything about him. We have nothing to do with this operation, remember? I just want to leave it in your hands, Ben. BILL/BEN: Bill, sir, not Ben, and it’s not that either, but ... DAN: Whatever. This is hush-hush of the highest hush. You get me? BILL/BEN: I certainly do, sir. My lips are sealed. But what about money, sir? DAN: What money? BILL/BEN: Money we’ll have to pay them, the team that’s going to ... DAN: Don’t you worry about that, Bob. We’ve got plenty socked away for just such contingencies. Tax-free, you might say. (Both men laugh.)

So which scenario seems more believable – one or two? Offhand you might feel that number two rings the credibility bell. After all, number one is simply outrageous: a team of gung-ho guys establishing their own prison in Kabul for no other reason than to help fight terrorism. With no resources other than their own. And no profit to boot. But when you think about it, if number one comes after number two, they’re both believable!

Especially now that the leader of the real-live “Rambos” hauled into an Afghan court insists that he has been in regular contact, “five times a day, every day,” with the office of none other than Donald Rumsfeld himself, and that he has tapes to prove it.

Apparently the Pentagon’s hush-hush apparatus is not hushy enough when your hushee is left twisting in the wind.

Seymour Joseph is an activist in Brooklyn, N.Y. He can be reached at pww @ pww.org.