Bombing Middle East countries is good for oil business
cor
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: THE CALAMITY HOWLER #43
Date: 17 Feb 2005 01:55:27 -0600
From: Albert Krebs <avkr
THE
CALAMITY HOWLER
February 17, 2005 Issue # 43
"Sometimes an intended epithet can be turned to good advantage.
In the sole surviving issue of the Decatur, Texas TIMES, one finds
the way Populists not only accepted the label `calamity howler'
but insisted that they had ample reason to howl and would continue
to howl until their objectives had been attained."
- THE POPULIST MIND, edited by Norman Pollack
EDITOR\PUBLISHER; A.V. Krebs
E-MAIL: avk...@earthlink.net
TO RECEIVE: Send name and address
WORLD'S TOP TEN OIL COS.
SHOWED $100 BILLION
PROFIT IN 2004, MORE MONEY
THAN THEY CAN SPEND
JAD MOUAWAD
New York Times
February 12, 2005
Born from the megamergers of the 1990's, the world's giant oil companies
have delivered on their promise. They have cut costs, increased returns
and raised profits to records. Now, flush with cash, they find
themselves in a paradoxical position --- they are making more money than
they can comfortably spend.
Thanks to crude prices that averaged $41 a barrel in New York last year,
the world's ten biggest oil companies earned more than $100 billion in
2004, a windfall greater than the economic output of Malaysia. Together,
their sales are expected to exceed $1 trillion for 2004, which is more
than Canada's gross domestic product.
But even as fears of shortages grow throughout the world and prices
remain high, the cash-rich oil companies are not pouring a large portion
of their money into their basic business: drilling for oil. Indeed, oil
executives, in their second straight year of rising profits, are finding
that too much money is chasing too few oil fields. Instead, they are
giving much of their cash back to shareholders.
For example, Exxon Mobil, the world's largest publicly traded oil
company, earned more than $25 billion last year and spent $9.95 billion
to buy back its own stock; Royal Dutch/Shell Group, whose revisions to
its oil reserves have left many investors wary, pledged to hand out at
least $10 billion as dividends to shareholders this year.
And BP, which earned $16.2 billion in 2004, will return as much as $23
billion to its investors this year and next, mostly as dividends. At the
same time, it is cutting capital expenditure for the first time in at
least four years, to $14.1 billion in 2005 from $14.4 billion last year.
Other oil companies, like the French giant, Total, plan to report
results next week. Altogether, profits in 2004 for the top 10 companies
jumped by more than 30% from the previous year, when they totaled $80
billion.
Still, oil executives bristle at the suggestion that they are not
investing enough and point to new operations in places like Angola or
Kazakhstan. Exploration in those places underscores the trend of West
Africa and the Caspian Sea taking over from North America and the North
Sea as a main focus of exploration and growth for oil companies.
Executives also remember that only six years ago, crude oil futures were
trading below $15 a barrel --- a third of today's levels. That is a
lesson no one is ready to forget.
"We're a cyclical business," David J. O'Reilly, chief executive of
ChevronTexaco, the second-largest American oil company, said in a
telephone interview, "and at the high end of the cycle it makes sense to
get the company in good shape and strengthen our balance sheet.
"History tells us that what goes up also goes down."
Lord Browne, BP's chief executive, said oil companies were doing their
job. "Investment is going in, a lot of reserves are being developed," he
said in an interview in London. "Looking at the percentage of oil
profits reinvested, rather than the amount of cash invested, gives a
skewed perspective. I think you have to think of the dollar value."
One reason exploration spending is declining is quite simple --- there
is less oil left to drill for in places that are open for exploration,
like North America or the North Sea, while the bulk of the world's known
reserves, mainly in the Middle East, are mostly shut off to foreign
investors.
"If they had attractive things to invest in, they'd be investing their
little heads off," said Gerald Kepes, a managing director at PFC Energy,
a consultancy based in Washington. "Twenty-five years ago, if prices had
risen to $45 a barrel, you would have seen everyone in the United States
drop everything, jump in a pickup truck, and drill in their backyards.
The fact that you don't see this today says a lot. These kinds of easy
opportunities have largely dried up."
Last year, the larger integrated oil companies spent about 24% of their
cash on dividends, 12% on share buybacks, and 12% on paring debt, Mr.
Kepes said. Less than half of their cash, or 46%, went into capital
spending.
As a share of exploration and production expenses, spending on
exploration has declined over the last decade, and now accounts for
about 20% of the total, compared with about 30% in 1991, according to
PFC.
"The very easy money-making investments are gone," said Fatih Birol, the
chief economist at the Paris-based International Energy Agency. "The
problem isn't that there's not enough oil. It's there's not enough
opportunities to find oil."
Mr. Birol said that two-thirds of the wells drilled worldwide from 1997
to 2003 were in North America, where production is falling, while the
Middle East accounted for two percent of global investments.
Early successes in Alaska and in the British and Norwegian areas of the
North Sea, both regions developed in the late 1970's and 1980's, are
giving way to mature and declining operations in these areas as oil
reserves slowly dry up.
At the same time, the Persian Gulf region, which holds the bulk of the
world's proven reserves of conventional oil, remains mostly off limits
to international investors. In one way or another, Saudi Arabia, Iran,
Iraq, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates limit access to international
companies.
High oil prices are not a guaranteed boon for oil companies. When oil
prices are low, oil executives are courted by commodity-rich countries
to develop national resources. But when prices rise, governments have a
tendency to rethink their contracts and seek higher royalties.
That is happening in Venezuela, which is reviewing its operating
agreements with foreign oil companies; it is also happening in Russia,
where the government is assuming more control of the country's oil
industry.
"The net effect of $50-a-barrel oil is to reduce opportunities," said
Paul Sankey, an analyst with Deutsche Bank in New York. "Large profits
make governments think that they're not taxing sufficiently enough."
For example, the Russian government collects most of the profits when
oil prices rise above $25 a barrel. Some countries --- including Kuwait,
Angola and Iran --- put limits on the gains foreign companies can make
if prices rise above a certain level. In many production-sharing
agreements, for example, oil companies agree to a revenue cap, so that
when prices rise, producers must reduce their volumes.
"The industry would much rather have lower oil prices and more stability
and a more sustainable environment," Mr. Sankey said. "Record prices
mean record revenue, but also too much attention for an industry that
basically likes to remain out of sight."
Heather Timmons contributed reporting from London for this article.
GEORGE W. BUSH SEEKS
ADDITIONAL $81.9 BILLION,
MOSTLY FOR FORCES IN IRAQ
ERIC SCHMITT
New York Times
February 15, 2005
President Bush sent to Congress on Monday a request for $81.9 billion in
additional spending to cover the costs of military and intelligence
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, tsunami relief in Asia, a revamping
of the Army, and new death benefits for families of service members
killed in combat.
The White House announced the broad outlines of its request for this
year nearly three weeks ago, saying about $75 billion would go to
military activities, mostly for the Army. The rest would be devoted to
reconstruction costs, mostly in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the activities
of the State Department and other agencies, including the new Director
of National Intelligence.
But it was not until Monday that the administration gave Congress a
detailed wish list, which includes $12 billion to repair or replace
tanks, helicopters and other weaponry damaged or destroyed in
Afghanistan and Iraq; $5.7 billion to train and equip Iraqi military and
police officers, and $5 billion to speed the restructuring of Army
brigades.
"The majority of this request will ensure that our troops continue to
get what they need to protect themselves and complete their mission,"
Mr. Bush said in a statement. About $36.3 billion would cover military
operations and about $6.2 billion would go for intelligence and other
activities.
The nonmilitary money requested includes $950 million to help areas
affected by the December tsunami in the Indian Ocean; $658 million to
help build a United States Embassy in Baghdad; and money for the Darfur
region in western Sudan, where a two-year conflict has left tens of
thousands of people dead and more than two million displaced.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who is to testify this week on the
Pentagon's $419.3 billion budget for fiscal 2006, which starts October
1, and on the request for extra funds this year, is expected to face
sharp questioning from lawmakers in both parties. Members of Congress
have criticized the administration for using the supplemental budget
request to finance the war. Supplemental budgets often do not receive as
much scrutiny and often do not include the same amount of detail as
regular budget requests.
On Capitol Hill, the Blue Dog Coalition, 35 moderate and conservative
Democrats known as fiscal and military hawks, criticized the
administration's approach for financing the Iraq and Afghanistan
operations. "The Blue Dog Coalition recognizes that we must support our
troops, but the Congress cannot continue to write blank checks," the
group said.
But many Republicans dismissed the complaints. Representative Jerry
Lewis, a Californian Republican who is chairman of the House
Appropriations Committee, said his panel would begin considering the
supplemental request next month, and he expressed hope that Congress
could send Mr. Bush a bill by April.
The Pentagon scheduled and then canceled a news conference on Monday to
discuss details of the request. The White House later issued a four-page
statement citing highlights. Congressional aides provided additional
information from the formal detailed request.
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican on the Appropriations
Committee, said military death benefits would increase to $100,000, from
$12,000. Life insurance coverage for the troops would also increase, to
$400,000, from $250,000. The increases will be retroactive to October
2001 for those killed in combat zones, she said in a statement.
The request would provide $250.3 million for establishment of the Office
of the Director of National Intelligence and "other projects, including
construction of a new facility to house the O.D.N.I., expanded National
Counterterrorism Center, and other intelligence community elements." The
document said additional details about the office and intelligence
matters were contained in a classified annex.
The request also authorized the Pentagon to provide financing for the
establishment of a regional training center in Jordan. "The center will
provide counterterrorism, special operations, border control, civil
defense, emergency/first responder and other training and preparation
for regional security forces," the document said. "The U.S. government
would provide funding to construct and outfit the training center; it
would subsequently be owned and operated by the government of Jordan."
Also included in the request is $400 million in two funds that will
provide economic aid or security assistance to countries "that are
fighting with the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan but can ill
afford the costs of purchasing defense articles and materials,"
according to Joseph Bowab, a deputy assistant secretary of state for
resource management. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will have
authority over the spending and decide which countries receive money and
how much.
Of the administration's supplemental budget request, $6.3 billion is
earmarked for the State Department and foreign operations. Afghanistan
will receive $2.2 billion in those State Department funds for
counternarcotics programs, reconstruction aid and training for the
military police.
Countries involved in seeking peace in the Middle East will be rewarded
as well, including $200 million for the Palestinian territories, in
addition to the $150 million requested in the 2006 budget, and $200
million for Jordan. The supplemental also includes requests of $780
million for United Nations peacekeeping operations in Haiti, Burundi,
Ivory Coast and the Darfur region in Sudan.
As the Bush administration sought more spending for military operations
in Iraq, Congressional Democrats held a session on Monday aimed at
exposing what they characterized as widespread waste and fraud in the
handling of contracts for the reconstruction there.
One former official of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq,
Frank Willis, described a "wild West" atmosphere with lax accounting
over billions of American dollars, often packaged in crisp new $100
bills. "There was leakage, no doubt," said Mr. Willis.
Elizabeth Becker, Carl Hulse and Steven R. Weisman contributed reporting
for this article.
BRAND BOYCOTTS, BRAIN DRAINS,
BIG DEBTS AND LOW SAVINGS: THE
U.S. HAS A FIGHT ON ITS HANDS
JANET BUSH
(London) Independent on Sunday
February 6, 2005
:
As the Bush administration muses on whether its blueprint for
democratisation has been so successful in Iraq that it should now be
applied to Iran, it might be worth considering how much this might cost
the U.S. in the long term. War is extremely expensive in itself: the
U.S. racked up huge budget deficits in the 1960s because of prolonged
campaigns in Korea and Vietnam which left it highly vulnerable.
America's fiscal health is also suffering now, and in spades.
But there are other, perhaps less obvious but potentially even more far-
reaching, costs to America's pre-emptive doctrine of foreign
intervention. Last week, an online survey by Brandchannel asked nearly
2,000 brand and advertising executives to name their top global names.
America dominated: Apple, courtesy of the spectacular success of its
iPod, was in first place, Google in second and Starbucks in fourth. But
there was also Ikea in third and, the surprise of all surprises, a new
entrant - Al-Jazeera.
It is no wonder the executives pounced on the Middle East station that
has become a byword for fear, because it is the station of choice for
Osama bin Laden's broadcasts to the world as well as for the
transmission of footage of the gruesome
deaths of kidnapped Westerners. But Al-Jazeera's presence also points to
more deep-seated and alarming consequences for America stemming from its
"war on terror".
Its foreign policy not only involves expenses that have contributed
mightily to a federal deficit heading for five per cent of U.S. GDP; it
also makes America unpopular, and that costs, too. During 2003, the U.S.
Pew Global Attitudes Project found an intensifying "fear and loathing of
the U.S." due to the war in Iraq. Meanwhile, a Eurobarometer survey of
EU countries found that as many people rated the U.S. as significant a
threat to world peace as Iran. In four countries, it was viewed as more
menacing than Iraq or North Korea.
It is not surprising that poll after poll has shown consumers turning
their backs on US brands as a protest against the administration's
policies. So great is the concern over this that an organisation called
Business for Diplomatic Action has set out to counter the damage being
done to U.S. multinationals. Keith Reinhard, President of BDA, says: "If
we were looking at the U.S. as a brand, we'd say it is time to
relaunch."
Consumer boycotting is just one problem; another was highlighted by
Microsoft's Bill Gates at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos. He
noted that the tough new U.S. visa regime introduced in response to 9/11
has caused a fall in the
number of foreign computer science students coming to America. This
decline is so severe that it threatens to undermine America's pre-
eminence in the global software business.
The U.S. is highly dependent on foreign talent. Between 1985 and 2000,
more than half of U.S. PhDs in science and engineering were awarded to
overseas students from China, India, South Korea and Taiwan. But now, as
a result not only of visa bureaucracy but the rapidly improving
universities and business schools outside America, the U.S. is failing
to attract its usual quota of talent. In 2004, American universities
suffered their first decline in international student enrolment since
the early 1970s (as the Vietnam War reached its unhappy denouement).
A survey in November 2004 by the Association of American Universities
reported declines in international enrolment in advanced engineering
programmes, and nearly 50% said enrolment in business schools had
fallen.
Late last year, Adam Segal, a senior fellow in Chinese studies at the
Council on Foreign Relations, bemoaned the fact that American research
is increasingly concentrated on the fields of defence and homeland
security and the space (weapons) programme.
Writing in Foreign Affairs magazine, he said; "Research driven by
scientific curiosity rather than specific commercial applications is
under-funded, depriving the economy of the building blocks of future
innovation."
It may appear a rather old-fashioned view, but it does seem intuitively
to be the case that countries which do not make things the rest of the
world wants to buy --- whether it is widgets or stunning haute couture -
don't, in the end, thrive economically. The U.S. has a record trade
deficit partly because Americans buy so much and buy so much from
abroad. They have not saved so little since the
Great Depression of the 1930s.
In 2003, household debt increased four times faster than the U.S.
economy as a whole. The average student credit card debt, it has been
reported, rose by 46% between 1998 and 2000. Meanwhile, personal debt is
now an extraordinary 130% of disposable income, up by nearly one third
since the mid 1990s. In other words, people owe more than they earn. So
imports are booming.
Exports are not. For one thing, America has been running down its
manufacturing capacity steadily for several years. Employment in
manufacturing has been dropping, too.
Instead of responding to its ballooning trade deficit by making more,
innovating and reining back consumption, the U.S. generally tends to
blame others: China's exchange rate is too low, its tariff barriers too
high, its workers badly paid and so
there is "unfair competition".
Or the U.S. boosts the bottom line through creative accounting, not
creativity, as in the case of Enron. Or it uses marginally legal
wheeling and dealing, as Citigroup appears to have tried to do in the
eurozone government bond market to steal
competitive advantage.
America has been at the top of the global economic tree for so long that
it has become mightily complacent. It is not only getting the
fundamentals of a successful economy wrong; it doesn't appear to realise
it and is actively exacerbating its vulnerabilities.
While the mighty American Eagle turns his beady gaze on Tehran, the
chickens are thundering in to roost at home.
WHAT WE DON'T KNOW
ABOUT 9\11 HURTS US
ROBERT SCHEER
Los Angeles Times
February 15, 2005
Would George W. Bush have been reelected president if the public
understood how much responsibility his administration bears for allowing
the 9/11 attacks to succeed?
The answer is unknowable and, at this date, moot. Yet it was appalling
to learn last week that the White House suppressed until after the
election a damning report that exposes the administration as woefully
incompetent if not criminally negligent.
Belatedly declassified excerpts from still-secret sections of the 9/11
commission report, which focus on the failure of the Federal Aviation
Administration to heed multiple warnings that Al Qaeda terrorists were
planning to hijack planes as suicide weapons, make clear that this
tragedy could have been avoided.
For the last three years, administration apologists have tried to make
the FAA the scapegoat for the 9/11 attacks. But it is the president who
ultimately is responsible for national security, not a defanged agency
that is beholden to the industry it allegedly monitors.
The terrible fact is that the administration took none of the steps that
would have put the protection of human life ahead of a diverse set of
economic and political interests, which included not offending our
friends the Saudis and not hurting the share prices of airline
corporations.
The warnings provided by intelligence agencies to the FAA were far
clearer and more specific than suggested by Condoleezza Rice's testimony
before the 9/11 commission when she reluctantly conceded the existence
of a presidential briefing that warned of impending Al Qaeda attacks.
Rice had dismissed those warnings as "historical," but according to the
newly released section of the 9/11 report, an astonishing 52 of the 105
daily intelligence briefings received by the FAA --- and available to
Rice --- before the September 11 attacks made specific reference to Al
Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
Given this shocking record of indifference on the part of the
administration, it is politically understandable that it tried to
prevent the formation of the 9/11 commission in the first place, and
then for five months prevented the declassification of key sections of
the final report. Commission members, including its Republican chairman,
Thomas Kean, stated in the past that there was no national security
concern that justified keeping those sections of the report from the
public.
And let's be clear: The failure to fully disclose what is known about
the 9/11 tragedy is not some minor bureaucratic transgression. Not since
the Soviets first detonated an atomic bomb more than half a century ago
has a single event so affected decision-making in this country, yet the
main questions as to how and why it happened remain mostly unanswered.
Even worse, what we do know calls into question our government's
explanation that a diabolical international terrorist conspiracy
exploited our liberal, naive society.
What has emerged, instead, is a portrait of an often bumbling terrorist
gang allowed to wreak havoc because the top tiers of the administration
were so indifferent to the alarms, which former CIA Director George
Tenet described so graphically: "The system was blinking red."
Had the business-friendly administration put safety first and ordered a
full complement of air marshals into the air, over the obscene
objections of airlines loath to give up paid seats, nearly 3,000 people
might not have died that day. And had the president of the United States
taken some time from his epic ranch vacation that August to order a
nationwide airport alert, two bloody wars abroad, as well as an all-out
assault on civil liberties in this country, probably would not have
happened.
Instead, an administration that resisted spending the tens of millions
required to fortify airline security before 9/11 is nearing the
$300-billion mark on Afghanistan and Iraq. And declassified documents
have unmistakably said the latter had nothing to do with 9/11.
Meanwhile, those countries that at least indirectly did, most notably
"allies" Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, have been let off the hook.
Indeed, the 9/11 commission was not allowed to get near that story: It
is an unnoticed but startling truth that the basic narrative on the
tragedy derives from the interrogations of key detainees whom the 9/11
commissioners were not allowed to interview. Nor were they permitted to
even take testimony from the U.S. intelligence personnel who
interrogated those prisoners.
When the truth and governmental transparency are arbitrarily trumped by
the invocation of national security, the public is simply incapable of
making informed decisions on the most crucial decisions we face ---
starting with whom we elect as our commander in chief.
SISTER DOROTHY STANG
KILLED IN BRAZIL AN UNFLINCHING
ADVOCATE PEASANTS' DEFENDER
TYCHE HENDRICKS
San Francisco Chronicle
February 16, 2005
An American nun who was gunned down in the Brazilian jungle Saturday is
being remembered by family members and friends around Northern
California for her commitment to social justice and environmental
protection.
In the Bay Area and across the globe, the life and death of Sister
Dorothy Stang are being compared to legendary Amazonian
rubber-tapper-turned- environmentalist Chico Mendes, who was slain for
his activism in 1988.
Stang, 74, was laid to rest Tuesday in the frontier town of Anapu,
Brazil, her adopted home, three days after she was ambushed en route to
a community meeting in a remote region known for land battles and
lawlessness.
"They stopped her car, and she got out and they were pointing guns at
her, " said Sister Joan Krimm, a lifelong friend. "So she took out her
Bible and said, 'This is my weapon,' and started reading to them."
The gunmen fired at least six bullets into her body at close range,
according to Brazilian reports.
Stang received her bachelor's degree from Notre Dame de Namur University
in Belmont in 1964 after joining the Roman Catholic order of the Sisters
of Notre Dame de Namur in her native Ohio.
She became a missionary to Brazil almost four decades ago, but
maintained close ties to her religious congregation in the United
States. Several local nuns who had visited her humble Amazon home say
Stang was loved and respected by those she worked with.
Sister Terry Davis, who works for the Catholic diocese in Stockton,
remembered a visit with Stang five years ago in Anapu, along the
Trans-Amazon Highway ("a two-lane red dirt road," said Davis) in the
state of Para, where clear-cutting is steadily encroaching on the
fragile ecology of the rain forest.
Stang was raising funds to build a parish church, Davis said, but she
was also engaged in a fervent battle to protect peasants facing eviction
by cattle barons and timber companies. Her pleas to the government, in
the face of a rash of death threats, went unheeded, Davis said, and may
have led her enemies to feel free to kill her.
"She had a soft voice that belied her will of steel," Davis said. "She
was an extremely strong woman who wouldn't be silenced ... ever ...
about anything. They finally silenced her for good because they couldn't
silence her in life."
Brazilian authorities --- stung by accusations of indifference to
Stang's reports of death threats against herself and other activists ---
said they would increase the number of police and environmental officers
in the area and might call upon the army to help crack down on
landholders who have improperly laid claim to swaths of forest.
The day of the killing, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva ordered a
high-level investigation into the murder, according to reports.
Battles over land on the Brazilian frontier go back 150 years but have
escalated in recent decades as roads have made the rain forest more
accessible, said Richard Norgaard, a UC Berkeley professor of energy and
resources who has worked in Brazil.
The government gave land to peasants who would clear and homestead it,
said Norgaard. But big ranchers would routinely run the poor off their
land, employing gunmen to threaten them and their supporters, he said.
"It's the same process as what happened to Chico Mendes," who was shot
to death near his home by members of a landowning family who were
angered by his efforts to preserve the forest and protect the livelihood
of small-scale rubber tappers, said Norgaard. "(Stang) knew all the time
that it was risky. Others in Brazil's liberation theology movement have
been assassinated again and again."
Marlene DeNardo, a close friend and former nun, served alongside Stang
in Brazil for a dozen years and today runs the graduate program at the
University of Creation Spirituality in Oakland, a New Age institute
founded by theologian Matthew Fox. DeNardo said Stang was not deterred
by the dangers she faced.
"I would say, 'Be careful,' and she would say, 'We have to worry about
the Brazilian people, they're the ones who are vulnerable.' She had this
incredible courage," said DeNardo.
Stang's sister, Norma Stang, who lives in Sacramento, said "Dot," as she
was known to loved ones, developed her feeling for nature and farming as
a child.
"We used to gripe about having to pull weeds, but we lived off the land,
and Dad taught us how important the land was," said Norma Stang. She
said her sister got her determination and fearlessness from their Air
Force colonel father.
"My sister was no saint," said Norma Stang. "She is a martyr, but she
was a human being, and bull-headed as they come."
While Norma Stang remembers a bossy older sister, that toughness ---
combined with her unassuming exterior --- served Stang well in the
rugged, lawless environment in which she lived.
"The higher-ups (in Brazil) just saw this little old lady in tennis
shoes and thought, 'How much can she do?' " she said. "I think that's
why she lived as long as she did."
But Norma Stang said she believes her sister became a more visible
target after she received an environmental award from the Brazilian Bar
Association in December and appeared on Brazilian television.
Although the Brazilian government has vowed to bring the killers to
justice, Riordan Roett, a Latin America expert at Johns Hopkins
University, said he doubts if much will change in the Amazon, in spite
of Stang's visibility as a U.S. citizen.
"Tragically, she will not be the last," he said. "The government says
they're going to investigate, but they didn't really deal with the Chico
Mendes case, so it's difficult to see how they're going to pull this one
together."
At the Notre Dame de Namur center in Belmont, nuns who knew Stang are
planning a memorial service for her later this month.
Chronicle news services contributed to this report.
Sister Dorothy Stang R.I.P.
BOOK REVIEW:
"GOD'S POLITICS,"
RIGHTEOUS ANGER
STEVEN WALDMAN
Washington Post
February 15, 2005
GOD'S POLITICS
Why the Right Gets It Wrong
and the Left Doesn't Get It
By Jim Wallis (Rayo). 384 pp
Jim Wallis requests that he not be called a leader of the "religious
left." When I first read this plea, I figured that Wallis --- who is
religious and on the left --- was making a tactical decision: The term
"religious right" has become pejorative and he doesn't want the same
thing to happen to his team.
As it happens, Wallis has a more interesting explanation for why he
doesn't like the term. He has lots of problems with his fellow liberals.
He rails against "secular fundamentalists" and New Age gurus, hard-line
pro-choicers and lefties who pursue "innocuous spiritualities" while
attending "Zen/Christian retreats."
It's Wallis's critique of the secular left as well as the religious
right that makes this such an important book. After toiling as an
anti-poverty crusader and magazine editor for many years, Wallis hit his
stride in the 2004 campaign by challenging the religious conservative
monopoly on political God-talk. Now there is a debate over the nature
and role of the religious left, and God's Politics is a seminal
contribution to the timely discussion.
The most thrilling parts of the book for Democrats will be Wallis's
attacks on Bush and conservatives --- because his sound bites come from
the Bible. Instead of quoting Paul Krugman or the Children's Defense
Fund, he quotes Jesus and the Old Testament prophets. The problem with
religious conservatives is not that they invoke religion too much, but
that they practice "bad theology," he argues. He notes that although
religious conservatives focus on homosexuality and abstinence, Jesus and
Isaiah and Micah had much more to say about poverty and economic justice
than sexual impropriety.
Therefore, he writes, the Bush administration's tax policies reflect a
"religious failure." And also: "An enormous public misrepresentation of
Christianity has taken place. . . . [M]any people around the world now
think Christian faith stands for political commitments that are almost
the opposite of its true meaning. How did the faith of Jesus come to be
known as pro-rich, pro-war and only pro-American?"
His attack on the Iraq war goes beyond making the obvious but often
forgotten point that Jesus preached nonviolence. Reflecting on prison
torture, Wallis challenges religious conservatives to view Abu Ghraib
through the lens of their own views about the sinful nature of man: "The
Christian view of human nature and of sin suggests that we are fallible
creatures and thus not good at empire. We cannot be trusted with
domination, becoming too easily corrupted by its power and too often
succumbing to repression in defending it." In other words, good
Christians should be wary not only of war but of imperialism as well.
But those liberals expecting to find Al Franken with a clerical collar
may be disappointed --- or challenged --- by Wallis's critique of the
left. He firmly rejects the idea that Bush invokes religion too much.
"From the Anti-Defamation League, to Americans United for the Separation
of Church and State, to the ACLU and some of the political Left's most
religion-fearing publications, a cry of alarm has gone up in response to
anyone who has the audacity to be religious in public.
These secular skeptics often display an amazing lapse of historical
memory when they suggest that religious language in politics is contrary
to the 'American ideal.' The truth is just the opposite. . . . [M]any of
the most progressive social movements in American history ---
anti-slavery, women's suffrage, the fight for child labor laws and the
civil rights movement -- had overt religious roots and motivations."
He also criticizes the antiwar activists for not showing enough concern
about evil tyranny, Democratic Party officials for excluding
anti-abortion views, anti-poverty activists for denying the ruinous role
of family breakdown and civil libertarians for remaining mum about
cultural pollution.
There are some serious divisions on the liberal side over social issues.
White liberal Protestants, for example, tend to be for abortion rights
and gay rights, while African Americans and Hispanics are more
conservative on abortion and generally oppose gay marriage. Wallis, who
personally opposes abortion and the gay marriage ban, seeks to bridge
these gaps; for example, he suggests that both groups could support
efforts to reduce the number of abortions not by legal restrictions but
by policies aimed at preventing teen pregnancies --- a proposal that
seems obvious and yet never quite happens because of the polarizing
politics of abortion.
In a way, Wallis's rhetoric ends up being less Jesse Jackson than
President Bill Clinton. On nearly every issue, he triangulates a
theologically grounded New Democrat philosophy.
The chief disappointment of this book is that although Wallis pledges to
be a "prophetic voice" willing to criticize friends and enemies alike,
he fails to honestly grapple with why the religious left has been so
impotent.
He deals effectively with the left's failures on two of the defining
moral issues of our time --- war and cultural decline. "It must be
admitted that the peace movement sometimes does underestimate the
problem of evil,'' he writes, "and in doing so weakens its authority and
message." And his angry attacks on Hollywood for the sex and violence on
TV would make William Bennett beam.
But on an equally important issue --- poverty --- he fails to tell an
important part of the story. He has a nice "third way" riff about how
liberals have been too lax and conservatives too strict, but he writes
as if this were a new concept --- rather than one at the heart of the
1990s battle over welfare reform. A Republican Congress and a Democratic
president in fact agreed to put aside that false choice between
compassion and toughness and pass welfare reform --- and Wallis and most
of the religious left opposed it.
I don't particularly blame him for being wrong about welfare. Lots of
people were, and he and others had a legitimate concern about the plight
of the neediest. But he doesn't even mention the fight or show any
self-awareness about the misguided approach of religious progressives.
Despite that flaw, God's Politics is an important political book and an
important spiritual book. Religious conservatives love doing battle with
a comparatively easy mark like the ACLU or some atheist who's trying to
take "under God" out of the pledge of allegiance. Wallis poses a more
substantial threat -- a battle not between religion and secularism but
between two different visions of faith.
Steven Waldman, editor in chief and co-founder of Beliefnet, a
multifaith spirituality and religion Web site
SNUBBING KYOTO:
OUR MONUMENTAL SHAME
LAURIE DAVID
Los Angeles Times
February 11, 2005
Next Wednesday, in the enormous glass-paneled European Union Parliament
building in Brussels, hundreds of men and women will gather to mark the
start of a new era. A similar celebration will be held in Toronto,
another in Casablanca and others in Tokyo, New Delhi, Rio de Janeiro,
Paris, Auckland and Mexico City, among other places.
In each of these cities, people will be celebrating an unprecedented
international treaty that's going into effect that day. It is the
product of eight years of work and it has brought 141 countries
together. It represents exactly the kind of broad global undertaking
that idealists all over the world have been striving for since the end
of World War II: a massive, worldwide plan to address a terribly
pressing problem confronting the entire planet.
The treaty is the Kyoto Protocol, a collective response to the greatest
security crisis in the world --- global warming.
But one country will not be celebrating. The United States. Even though
almost all European countries are on board, and even though Russia is on
board and even though China is on board, the United States, in an act of
supreme irresponsibility, is standing on the platform watching the train
leave the station. (The only other industrialized nations that have
failed to join the protocol are Monaco and Australia.)
This is particularly egregious when you consider that the United States
would be by far the most significant participant. That's because it is
the single biggest polluter on the planet, accounting for about
one-quarter of the world's greenhouse gases.
Why won't the United States take part? Because the Bush administration
refuses to believe in science and refuses to ask for responsible
leadership from its giant corporate backers. Instead, genuflecting to
the coal, oil and automobile lobbies, our country continues to act like
a superpower bully that does what it wants, when it wants and how it
wants --- deadly consequences be damned.
The rules that apply to the rest of the world, the administration in
effect is saying, need not apply to us. International agreements ---
whether they involve the International Criminal Court, the Kyoto
Protocol or the Geneva Convention --- should not be allowed to bind the
hands of the most powerful nation on Earth. On that point, at least, the
U.S. is are consistent.
At a time when international cooperation is more important than ever,
it's hard to overstate just how out of step the United States is with
the rest of the world. Instead of providing leadership, we are standing
in the doorway of the future blocking an eminently reasonable attempt at
self-preservation.
Few people bother to deny the problem anymore. British Prime Minister
Tony Blair, for instance, noted the "emerging consensus" on climate
change at the Davos conference last month.
But the U.S. energy industry continues to spend millions on lobbyists
and propagandists in an effort to spread doubt and confusion on the
subject. The industry, instead of putting money into research and
development to come up with the renewable energy technologies
desperately needed to secure both our national security and its own
economic future, has mounted a relentless campaign to discredit the
truth.
Of course, corporate America would not have the power to torpedo
common-sense solutions to an imminent threat were it not for the
complicity of our elected officials. Take Sen. James M. Inhofe
(Rep.-Oklahoma), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee.
He has been so hypnotized by enormous campaign contributions from the
energy industry that he actually had the chutzpah to say that "global
warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."
And what's Michael Crichton's excuse? His latest best-selling novel,
State of Fear, offers up the delusional notion that global warming is
the creation of environmental groups looking to boost their profile and
fill their coffers. This is like arguing that the link between smoking
and cancer was dreamed up by oncologists, radiologists and funeral home
directors. Unfortunately, Crichton's sophomoric fiction may be the only
thing many Americans read on global warming.
The truth is that the jury is no longer out; there is no more room or
time for confusion, doubt or skepticism. Global warming is real and
rapidly altering our weather, our economy and our world. The 1990s were
the hottest decade in the last 1,000 years, according to the Natural
Resources Defense Council. Nine of the 10 hottest years on record
occurred after 1994, according to the United Nations' World
Meteorological Organization.
The arctic ice sheet has shrunk 20% since 1979. And bears are coming out
of hibernation a month early, throwing off their entire life cycles.
The can't-do crowd in our industry and our government continues to claim
that anything we do to control emissions will hurt our economy
unacceptably. Get real!
The Kyoto Protocol is not the be-all to ending global warming, but it is
an important first step. And we are spitting in the eye of the rest of
the world by refusing to be part of it.
Laurie David is a trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council and
co-founder of the Detroit Project, a not-for-profit campaign that
pressures automakers to produce fuel-efficient cars.
KYOTO PROTOCOL DEBUTS
SHOULD RELIGION HAVE A VOICE ???
SALLY BINGHAM
San Francisco Chronicle
February 16, 2005
Every mainstream religion has a mandate to care for creation. We were
given natural resources to sustain us, but we were also given the
responsibility to act as good stewards and preserve life for future
generations.
Mounting scientific evidence suggests that we are damaging the earth and
that our continued inaction will disproportionately harm the poorest
among us. We have heard the scientists, whom we view as modern-day
prophets, tell us that excessive amounts of greenhouse gases from
burning fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, are the likely cause for the
current changes in climate. Even the Pentagon has called global warming
a major threat to global security, raising the specter of millions of
climate refugees and wars over water and other resources.
Yet, our dependency on foreign oil is increasing. Without cooperative
action around the world, scientists tell us that our rapidly changing
climate could create a global crisis. If the United States continues our
current "wait and see" approach, it will be far too late to take action.
The moral and ethical implications of these impending global changes are
not lost on the religious community. While our nation emits more
greenhouse gases than any other, we are also one of the only developed
countries to reject the Kyoto Protocol --- an international treaty
designed to reduce global-warming pollution. The Kyoto Treaty goes into
effect today without the participation of the United States. This is not
a responsible position for the world's richest nation and sole
superpower.
It is particularly important for us to recognize that the poorest
countries will feel a disproportionate negative impact from global
warming. Yet these are the countries that can least handle disruptions
to their food and water supplies. And, unlike the wealthier nations,
they are the least able to pioneer solutions.
There is some good news, however. Six New England governors and five
premiers of eastern Canadian provinces signed a regional climate action
plan to reduce global warming emissions across the region. The governors
of California, Oregon and Washington are working on a plan for our
region that may include similar goals. A number of cities have set
reduction goals for themselves.
But there is bad news as well. In addition to not signing the Kyoto
Protocol, the United States has not shown any leadership in finding real
global solutions. Each passing day is jeopardizing our future.
If the United States had sent an interfaith coalition of clergy to the
Kyoto Protocol meetings to address global warming, we would be
participating in this historic treaty. Once the religious community
became aware of the dire global situation, we began collaborating. We
have only just begun to make our position known, but we are loud, active
and everywhere.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has written a statement on
climate change responding to Pope John Paul II's concerns that climate
change will adversely affect people.
His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, leader of the Greek
Orthodox Church, has declared environmental degradation a sin.
The Franciscan order of Roman Catholic priests has called for action on
global warming and the Anglican Church is writing a response to climate
change.
The Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the 30 million-member national
Association of Evangelicals said, "There are significant and compelling
theological reasons why environment should be a banner issue for the
Christian right."
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, recently announced that
the Church of England is embarking on a green revolution, rolling out
eco-friendly policies. One thousand clergy and congregational leaders in
35 states recently signed a statement that expressed disagreement with
the present position of our government on climate change.
The united voice of the faith community is heartening, as there are few
subjects where such a diverse group sings in unison. Our political
leaders should learn this hymn.
The Rev. Sally Bingham, an Episcopal priest at Grace Cathedral in San
Francisco, is executive director of the Regeneration Project
http://www.TheRegenerationProject.org
A SORRY SITUATION
SALLY JENKINS
Washington Post
February 12, 2005
I'm sorry. I would like to apologize. For what, that I can't say. Sorry.
I know I've disappointed my family and my friends, who must remain
nameless, with my actions, which for legal and self-promotional reasons
are better left vague and unspecified. For that I am sorry. Sorrily,
very sorry.
My lawyer, agent and publicist as well as my accountant have all
counseled me that I should be sorry, so I am, very, and though I am
honestly not apologetic, I have come straightforwardly before you today
to say that I'm sorry. There is, as you know, an ongoing investigation.
For that I'm very, very sorry. Don't ask why. My chief counsel feels
that I am not at liberty to say, given everything that is going on. But
the answers are there, if you look for them, in the blanks.
Nevertheless, I am here to face this thing head on. I've always felt
that I am a stand-up person, and that's why I'm sitting here before you
today. I know I have much to regret. How much, I can't really say. But
we all know how much water has gone over the dam, and that things have
happened, absolutely, and so I am sorry. But I think all that is behind
us.
Look: I'm sorry this thing is tied up in the courts. I'm sorry my
counsel has advised me not to talk about the various matters for which I
am apologizing -- if, in fact, I did them at all, which I'm not saying I
did: sorry.
How sorry am I? I wish I could visit the home of every single person I
let down and say it to them directly: I'm really, really sorry. But I
just can't do that. To have the stamina it would take to visit all those
homes I would have to use performance-enhancing drugs.
Which, if I did it, would make me very, very sorry.
I think I'm a good person. And rightfully so. Sure I'm not perfect ---
nobody is --- but you'd like to think you are the kind of player who,
when you do something wrong, says, 'I'm sorry.' I think the people who
are closest to me, who truly know me, know what kind of person I am. And
please, all I ask is that you leave my friends, my family, out of this.
They've been through enough.
Furthermore, I would like to say I'm sorry to my teammates, who have
stood by me, even when they didn't know exactly who I was. At this
point, I can't confirm positively that, as it's legally inadvisable.
Still, I think they all know my track record, if they look hard enough
for it. I'm very sorry. I know that I have been a distraction to them,
especially the ones who have been bad-mouthing me behind my back. It's
not easy to have to come out here and apologize, as I imagine some of
them are going to discover.
I know my conduct has also cost me the goodwill of my fans. I have a
long road back, and may never regain my standing or product placement.
For that, I truly am sorry.
I would also like to apologize to my employer, who brought me into this
great organization, and paid me so well, and has given me invaluable
advice and so many useful euphemisms. They've shown their unwavering
trust in me by certain omissions and sub-protections in my contract. By
way of proof of that I'd like to read you this guaranteed clause.
Section III, clause 4 (b) 2:
"Player GIAMBI, JASON further warrants that he no longer does that bad
thing we all know he used to do, and further assures that he will not do
said thing ever again and if he does this contract will be null and
void, releasing the NEW YORK YANKEES MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL CLUB INC.
from any and all aforesaid obligations, on account of how he knows he
shouldn't do that thing that we're talking about in this section."
But I'm not a quitter. And there's no rephrasing that. I'm just going to
work my butt off and go on about my business, because I'm a player with
certain work habits, as has been documented in federal proceedings, the
transcripts of which are sealed and which I've been cautioned against
commenting on.
Mainly, I would like to say 'I'm sorry' because my advisors have
instructed me that it can be a versatile and useful public statement,
one that has bailed out small children and certain former presidents of
the United States.
I say, "I'm sorry," when what I really mean is "I'm sorry [that I'm in
trouble]."
So I'm here to say "I'm sorry," and you can fill in the rest.
I'm sorry [I got caught].
I'm sorry [Steinbrenner's making me do this].
I'm sorry [I can't punch one of you in the face].
I'm sorry [that you think steroids are cheating, you lazy self-righteous
civilians. Ever seen a ball coming at your head so fast it looks like a
sun spot?]
I thank you all for coming today, and I'm sorry. I would like to leave
you with one last thing. It's a small poem, written for me by my
spiritual advisor, Mr. David Von Drehle:
S is for the steroids I allegedly injected
O means only I can take the blame
R and R is what I took when detected
Now Y can't you just let me play the game?
FBI AGENT WARNED MLB OF
STEROID USE TEN YEARS AGO
ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 15, 2005
An FBI agent says federal investigators warned Major League Baseball
about ten years ago that some of its players were using steroids, but
baseball executives failed to act on the information, the N.Y. Daily
News reported.
In Tuesday's editions, the Daily News reported that a special agent in
Ann Arbor, Michigan, told baseball security chief Kevin Hallinan that
Jose Canseco and other players were using illegal anabolic steroids.
"I alerted Major League Baseball back in the time when we had a case,
that Canseco was a heavy user and that they should be aware of it,"
Special Agent Greg Stejskal told the Daily News. "I spoke to the people
in their security office, Hallinan was one of the people I spoke to."
Stejskal also told the newspaper there wasn't much baseball could do at
the time since MLB and the players' union didn't have steroid testing
program or disciplinary actions in place until 2002.
Baseball officials denied they were told of steroid use, and Hallinan
told the Daily News, "It did not happen. Not with this guy, not with
anyone else."
The agent told the paper that the FBI's investigation in the 1990s
centered in Michigan and dealt with weightlifters and bodybuilders, but
that the probe spread to California, Florida, Canada and Mexico.
"There's very little question the use of steroids was very widespread in
baseball," Stejskal told the newspaper. "And Major League Baseball, in
effect, they didn't sanction it, but they certainly looked the other
way."
The report comes just after the release of Canseco's book, Juiced: Wild
Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big, in which he
details his steroid use and accuses several former teammates of using
them, too.
MLB recently adopted a tougher steroid-testing program that will suspend
first-time offenders for ten days and randomly test players year-round.
Last week, Yankees star Jason Giambi made his first public comments
since it was reported he told a federal grand jury in 2003 that he took
steroids for at least three seasons.
"When I went into that grand jury, I told the truth," he said.
The New York Times reported that in December 2001, when the Yankees were
drawing up Giambi's free-agent contract, they included a reference to
steroid use in an initial draft. The Times said agent Arn Tellem asked
that all references to steroids be dropped, and that the Yankees agreed.
A.V. Krebs contributes a regular column "Calamity Howler" to the
bi-monthly The
Progressive Populist. Sample copies of the paper and subscriptions can
be
obtained at P.O. Box 487, Storm Lake, Iowa 50588 or at
http://www.populist.com