UNDERNEWS

UNDERNEWS
AUG 30, 2005
FROM THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
EDITED BY SAM SMITH
Since 1964, Washington's most unofficial source

E-MAIL: mailto:news@prorev.com

1312 18th St. NW #502 Washington DC 20036
202-835-0770 Fax: 835-0779

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WORD
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SHEPARD SMITH: You’re live on FOX News Channel, what are you doing?

MAN: Walking my dogs.

SMITH: Why are you still here? I’m just curious.

MAN: None of your fucking business.

SMITH: Oh that was a good answer, wasn’t it? That was live on
international television. Thanks so much for that. You know we
apologize.

http://thepoliticalteen.com/video/noneofyourfuckingbiz.wmv

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PAGE ONE MUST
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CHAVEZ PLANS DISCOUNTED FUEL TO AMERICA'S POOR

HECTOR CARREON, LA VOZ DE AZTLAN, VENEZUELA - The Mexico City newspaper
that has been covering the Reverend Jesse Jackson's visit to Venezuela,
El Universal, is reporting that President Hugo Chavez is offering
gasoline and heating fuel at very low and affordable prices to the poor
and needy in the USA.

Hugo Chavez said yesterday that he will be apportioning 1.5 million
barrels of oil daily at 40% less than market price through the
Venezuelan government own Citgo in the USA.

Citgo will refine the oil into gasoline and heating fuel and make it
available to the unemployed, the poor and old folks who find it
difficult to heat their homes in the winter. . .

President Hugo Chavez said that he estimates that his offer will benefit
from between 7 to 8 million needy Americans. He added that his embassy
in Washington D.C. has already received 140 applications for the program
because Americans are being "defrauded" and "gouged" by greedy U.S. oil
companies like Chevron and others.

Chavez plans to implement the program through 8 refineries and 14
thousand gas stations that Citgo owns in the USA.

http://www.aztlan.net/chavez_gas_for_poor.htm

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CRIME REPORT
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KPMG OFFICIALS INDICTED IN AMERICA'S BIGGEST SCAM EVER

CARRIE JOHNSON, WASHINGTON POST - Federal prosecutors yesterday unsealed
conspiracy charges against eight former KPMG LLP officials and a lawyer
accused of helping wealthy clients evade billions of dollars in taxes in
what authorities called the largest criminal tax fraud case in history.

The charges are expected to be the first in a wave of actions against
professionals who profited from aiding high-net-worth customers shield
income from the Internal Revenue Service during the economic boom,
prosecutors said. The tax evasion deals, which required the
participation of accountants, lawyers, investment bankers and their
wealthy clients, cost the government at least $2.5 billion.

The indictment of the individuals occurred as a federal judge yesterday
approved a deal to defer prosecution of KPMG itself. At a Washington
news conference, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales acknowledged that
the government had considered "collateral consequences," including the
fate of 18,000 employees, in striking the $456 million pact with the
accounting firm over its role in marketing the tax shelters. . .

IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson said the tax avoidance schemes amounted
to a "direct assault" on the American tax system and enriched already
wealthy clients and KPMG partners.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/29/AR2005082900822.html


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LATIN AMERICA
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CHAVEZ CALLS ROBERTSON A TERRORIST, WANTS TO EXTRADITE HIM

REUTERS - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday his government
would take legal action against Pat Robertson and potentially seek his
extradition after the U.S. evangelist called for Washington to
assassinate the South American leader. . . "I announce that my
government is going to take legal action in the United States . . . to
call for the assassination of a head of state is an act of terrorism."
Chavez said in a televised speech. . . He said Venezuela could seek
Robertson's extradition under international treaties and take its claim
to the United Nations if the Bush administration did not act.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N2886425.htm

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LABOR
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NO LABOR SOLIDARITY IN NORTHWEST AIRLINES STRIKE

HARRY KELBER, LABOR EDUCATOR - Refusing to accept concessions that would
eliminate 2,000 jobs and cost them $176 million in reduced wages and
benefits, 4,430 mechanics at Northwest Airlines went on strike on Aug.
20.

The strikers, members of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association,
an independent union, were immediately replaced by 1,500 temporary
mechanics whom the airline had hired and trained over several months at
a cost of more than $100 million, as part of an 18-month plan, not only
to reduce labor costs, but to restructure their jobs for greater
efficiency.

Northwest had threatened that unless its employees made wage and benefit
concessions totaling $1.1 billion, it would seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy
protection, an action taken by United Airlines, U.S. Airways and several
smaller airlines.

Thus far, the carrier has obtained $265 million in wage cuts from its
pilots and $35 million from salaried employees. AMFA members, who are
paid $36.39 an hour, balked at paying the $176 million that the airline
had demanded as their share of the concession package.

Northwest, the fifth largest in the airline industry, has about 38,000
employees, including the striking mechanics. It announced it would be
paying its replacements — and any striker who returned to work — a
$27.17 hourly rate, about a 25 percent drop from the mechanic's rate
before the strike. The airline said that its terms for a contract were
not subject to negotiation.

"Northwest wanted a strike, and now they have one," said O. V. Delle
Femina, the national director of the mechanics' union. The strike was
called after a 30-day cooling-off period, required by the Railway Labor
Act, which also covers airlines, had expired. There was no indication
when talks between the company and the union would resume.

AFL-CIO unions at Northwest ordered their members to cross the picket
lines and remain on the job. The International Association of
Machinists, whose members include baggage handlers and other ground
personnel, had a special reason to weaken the strike, since the AMFA had
beaten it in a representation election at Northwest. Pilots and flight
attendants also did not honor the picket lines. . .

With little support from unions and the public, AMFA is relying on a
significant increase in cancellations and flight delays due to poor
servicing of Northwest's aircraft to force the airline to negotiate a
fair contract.

Even if it succeeds in terminating the strike, the airline still remains
financially strapped and as yet unable to raise the $1.1 billion it
needs to avert bankruptcy.

The AMFA is a small, independent union that the AFL-CIO's Machinists and
a few other unions detest. Is that a good reason to deny these strikers
our support, when they are fighting to prevent the loss of 2,000 of
their 4,430 jobs and a wage concession of $176 million? What message
will labor's enemies get if union members help Northwest bust this
justified strike?

Is labor solidarity no longer in fashion?

http://www.laboreducator.org/nwair.htm

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ON THE JOB WITH FRANKLIN SCHNEIDER

FRANKLIN SCHNEIDER, WASHINGTON CITY PAPER - These days I work as a
writer at a technology company in the D.C. area. When my new boss came
on, it was made known through office back channels that each person in
the department was expected, like primates laying meat at the feet of a
new alpha male, to visit him in his office for an "asset assessment"
session.

When I finally got around to meeting with him- I'd been the last one to
schedule - he was sitting at his desk looking at a stack of papers. From
his expression, they might have been autopsy photos, but as I drew near
I saw they were printouts of some of my articles.

After a few preliminary questions, he said that the first thing he
wanted me to do was to draw up a spreadsheet documenting my creative
process.

At first, I was confused. "You mean my writing process? Like,
introduction, thesis, body, conclusion?" I asked.

"No, no, you're thinking too small," he said. "I want you to formalize
your actual creative process in a spreadsheet." The idea, he said, was
to create a step-by-step blueprint that anyone (read: my eventual
replacement) could use to produce an idea, any idea. He gave me an
example. "Let's say that the first step is getting a 'notion,' probably
from some media source. Next, you have to hone that 'notion' into a
'concept.' Once you have a 'concept,' you have to laterally build it up
or something. Get the idea?"

I was speechless. Creativity for Dummies, in the form of an Excel
spreadsheet. Was this so different from medieval alchemy? I'd seen the
guy he wanted to bring in - a born bean-counter whose idea of creativity
was probably to market books as doorstops - and I was sure that once I
made the creativity blueprint, once I commodified the one contribution I
had to make, I'd be given the boot. . .

Read a human-resources manual today. Whereas the field used to be about
health plans and 401(k)s, now all the talk is about the Myers-Briggs
personality profile, Jungian archetypes, loyalty contracts, ways to
interpret body language. The next frontier of loss reduction, of control
and efficiency, is the individual.

At my present job, we have after-hours jamborees every Monday, and the
weekly announcements end with a passive-aggressive disclaimer along
these lines: "Participation is not required, but attendance will be
taken." Week after week, some grinning consultant prods us into
reluctant, insincere camaraderie as the stony-faced VPs look on.
Role-playing, song-and-dance routines, comedy improve - they do it at
Harvard Business School, so it must work.

During these little hoedowns, I always make a point of surveying the
faces of my co-workers. Young or old, senior or entry-level, sales or
creative, they exude glum resignation, a flash of resentment now and
then. It's the expression of someone being forced to sing naked at
gunpoint.

At another jamboree, we had to form circles and toss oranges back and
forth to each other in order to hone our "multitasking and management"
abilities. As the ringleader VP circulated among the chaos, gleefully
clapping her hands, the guy next to me was muttering about all the work
he had to do; he was months behind, with a deadline hanging over his
head, and they had him playing catch.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/cover/2005/cover0826.html


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BUSH'S SECRET DINNER WITH THE PRESS

DAN FROOMKIN, WASHINGTON POST - About 50 members of the White House
press corps accepted President Bush's invitation last night to come over
to his house in Crawford, eat his food, drink his booze, hang around the
pool and schmooze with him -- while promising not to tell anyone what he
said afterward. It's something of a Bush tradition, a way of saying
thank you to journalists for whom an extended stay in the Crawford area
is anything but a vacation. . .

I'm told that several reporters expressed squeamishness about last
night's event, particularly as the press-pool vans drove by antiwar
protester Cindy Sheehan's "Camp Casey" site. And later, a small handful
watched askance as the rest fawned over Bush, following him around in
packs every time he moved. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/08/26/BL2005082600706_pf.html



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BUSHWHACKS
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BUSH REGIME DRAFTS PLAN TO WRECK NATIONAL PARKS

NY TIMES EDITIORIAL - Recently, a secret draft revision of the national
park system's basic management policy document has been circulating
within the Interior Department. It was prepared, without consultation
within the National Park Service, by Paul Hoffman, a deputy assistant
secretary at Interior who once ran the Chamber of Commerce in Cody,
Wyo., was a Congressional aide to Dick Cheney and has no park service
experience.

Within national park circles, this rewrite of park rules has been met
with profound dismay, for it essentially undermines the protected status
of the national parks. The document makes it perfectly clear that this
rewrite was not prompted by a compelling change in the park system's
circumstances. It was prompted by a change in political circumstances -
the opportunity to craft a vision of the national parks that suits the
Bush administration. . .

Mr. Hoffman's rewrite would open up nearly every park in the nation to
off-road vehicles, snowmobiles and Jet Skis. According to his revision,
the use of such vehicles would become one of the parks' purposes. To
accommodate such activities, he redefines impairment to mean an
irreversible impact. To prove that an activity is impairing the parks,
under Mr. Hoffman's rules, you would have to prove that it is doing so
irreversibly - a very high standard of proof. This would have a
genuinely erosive effect on the standards used to protect the national
parks.

The pattern prevails throughout this 194-page document - easing the
rules that limit how visitors use the parks and toughening the standard
of proof needed to block those uses. Behind this pattern, too, there is
a fundamental shift in how the parks are regarded. If the laws
establishing the national park system were fundamentally forward-looking
- if their mission, first and foremost, was protecting the parks for the
future - Mr. Hoffman's revisions place a new, unwelcome and unnecessary
emphasis on the present, on what he calls "opportunities for visitors to
use and enjoy their parks.". . .

Mr. Hoffman would explicitly allow the sale of religious merchandise,
and he removes from the policy document any reference to evolution or
evolutionary processes. He does everything possible to strip away a
scientific basis for park management. His rules would essentially
require park superintendents to subordinate the management of their
parks to local and state agendas. He also envisions a much wider range
of commercial activity within the parks.

In short, this is not a policy for protecting the parks. It is a policy
for destroying them.

The Interior Department has already begun to distance itself from this
rewrite, which it kept hidden from park service employees. But what Mr.
Hoffman has given us is a road map of what could happen to the parks if
Mr. Bush's political appointees are allowed to have their way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/29/opinion/29mon1.html

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OTHER NEWS
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STATES RESTRICT ABORTIONS

Ceci Connolly, Washington Post - This year's state legislative season
draws to a close having produced a near-record number of laws imposing
new restrictions on a woman's access to abortion or contraception. Since
January, governors have signed several dozen antiabortion measures
ranging from parental consent requirements to an outright ban looming in
South Dakota. Not since 1999, when a wave of laws banning late-term
abortions swept the legislatures, have states imposed so many and so
varied a menu of regulations on reproductive health care.

Three states have passed bills requiring that women seeking an abortion
be warned that the fetus will feel pain, despite inconclusive scientific
data on the question. West Virginia and Florida approved legislation
recognizing a pre-viable fetus, or embryo, as an independent victim of
homicide. And in Missouri, Gov. Matt Blunt (R) has summoned lawmakers
into special session Sept. 6 to consider three antiabortion proposals.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/28/AR2005082800981.html


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ANOTHER WHISTLEBLOWER IS PUNISHED

WASHINGTON POST - A high-level contracting official who has been a vocal
critic of the Pentagon's decision to give Halliburton Co. a
multibillion-dollar, no-bid contract for work in Iraq was removed from
her job by the Army Corps of Engineers, effective Saturday. Bunnatine
Greenhouse was told last month by corps commander Lt. Gen. Carl Strock
that she was being removed from the senior executive service, the top
rank of civilian government employees, because of poor performance
reviews. . . Greenhouse went public last year with her concerns over the
volume of Iraq-related work given to Halliburton by the corps without
competition. She told Congress that the independence of the corps'
contracting process had been compromised.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/5583741.html

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CONFUSED SIGNALS FOR THE YOUNG IN SWAZILAND

REUTERS - The king of Swaziland’s daughter was whipped by a palace
official at a party of teenage virgins ahead of a festival where more
than 50,000 maidens are available to become her father’s 13th wife,
media said on Sunday. Princess Sikhanyiso, 17, told the Times of
Swaziland a palace official whipped girls, including beauty queen Miss
Swaziland, at the party as a punishment after they refused to turn down
the music. She was pictured showing her bruises. Thousands of
bare-breasted virgins will dance for Africa’s last absolute monarch in
Monday’s Reed Dance ceremony, which King Mswati III has used to choose
new brides.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_30-8-2005_pg9_1

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BOOKSHELF
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WAR MADE EASY
How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death
Norman Solomon

JULES SIEGEL, BOOKS@ARTS - "War Made Easy" should really be subtitled
"War reporting doesn't just suck, it kills." It makes you feel like
demanding a special war crimes tribunal for corporate media executives
and owners who joined the roll-up to Shock and Awe as non-uniformed
psywar ops. To be sure, this would raise the issue of whether or not
following orders might suffice for the defense of obedient slaves such
as Mary McGrory and Richard Cohen who performed above and beyond the
call of duty.

"He persuaded me," she gushed the morning after Powell spoke at the
United Nations. "The cumulative effect was stunning." In the same
Washington Post edition Richard Cohen wrote, "The evidence he presented
to the United Nations -- some of it circumstantial, some of it
absolutely bonechilling in its detail -- had to prove to anyone that
Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but
without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool -- or possibly a
Frenchman -- could conclude otherwise."

Solomon demonstrates how this kind of peppy pre-war warm-up degenerates
into drooling and heavy breathing once the killing begins. As if
observing a heavy metal computer game, the pornographers of death
concentrate on the exquisite craftsmanship and visual design of the
murder machines, and the magnificence of the fiery explosions they
produce.

"When the Gulf War's massive bombardment began," he writes, "a CNN
correspondent remarked on the 'sweet beautiful sight' of bombers leaving
runways in Saudi Arabia. CBS correspondent Jim Stewart told viewers
about 'two days of almost picture-perfect assaults.'"

Los Angeles Times reporter Jacques Leslie was invited onto a helicopter
to watch a B-52 strike in Vietnam. "Suddenly gray clouds took shape on
the ground in front of us and billowed to a height of a thousand feet or
more," Leslie later wrote in a memoir. "I was surprised to feel so
little: no horror, no pain, just marvel at the dubious wonders of
technology. Had men been killed beneath the smoke? Did they mean
anything to me? I knew I should be appalled, but I felt only numbness:
it was like watching people die on television."

http://www.cafecancun.com/bookarts/war_made_easy/

ORDER
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0471694797/progressiverevieA/

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FURTHERMORE. . .
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MAGGIE MULVIHILL, BOSTON HERALD - Gov. Mitt Romney, who has comforted
the grieving loved ones of soldiers killed in Iraq and promoted National
Guard recruitment, said he has not urged his own sons to enlist - and
isn't sure whether they would. The Herald posed the question as Romney
- a potential 2008 White House contender and backer of President Bush's
Iraq policy - was honored by the Massachusetts National Guard after he
signed a bill extending pay for state workers on active duty. "No, I
have not urged my own children to enlist. I don't know the status of my
childrens' potentially enlisting in the Guard and Reserve," Romney said,
his voice tinged with anger.

http://news.bostonherald.com/localPolitics/view.bg?articleid=99837

JON STEWART TAKES ON CHRSTOPHER HITCHENS
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/08/25.html#a4634