Trade protectionism of the worst sort

The U.S. fights a losing battle when it seeks to stop New Core
countries like Brazil from confronting a mounting AIDS crisis within
their ranks. Joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) means you
respect patents, but a medical emergency clause seems reasonable enough
to me here. What Brazil does today, expect India, Russia, and China,
three countries with even bigger crises, to do tomorrow.

June 23, 2005

Brazil's Right to Save Lives

Editorial, New York Times

Brazil has the best anti-AIDS program of any developing country.
It has a model prevention effort and was the first poor country to
provide free AIDS treatment to all who need it, a program countries
around the world are now beginning to emulate.

It has been able to afford this because Brazilian labs make
copycat versions of expensive brand-name drugs. Brazil can freely copy
any drug commercialized before 1997, when the country began to respect
patents on medicines, a requirement for joining the World Trade
Organization. But newer AIDS medicines are still imported and are
expensive, and Brazil is spending two-thirds of its antiretroviral
budget on just three of these drugs.

The government is now contemplating measures that would allow
Brazilian labs to copy these drugs. Brazil's health ministry has asked
the manufacturers of the drugs to voluntarily license Brazil to make
copies. They have refused, and Brazil is threatening to break the
patents and pay the holders a reasonable royalty, as W.T.O. rules
require ...

Full text at
nytimes.com/2005/06/23/opinion/23thu3.html

The new "China price" on oil

Buying the PC company from IBM is one thing, buying UNOCAL (refining
and distribution, or "downstream" oil company) is quite another. This
bid probably fails, but it is a sign of things to come.

Chinese Oil Producer Makes Bid For Unocal

CNOOC's Unsolicited Proposal Tops Price Accepted From Chevron

By Gary Gentile

Associated Press

Thursday, June 23, 2005; Page D01

LOS ANGELES, June 22 -- China's third-largest oil producer made an
unsolicited $18.5 billion bid Wednesday for oil-and-gas company Unocal
Corp., which has already agreed to be acquired by Chevron Corp. for
$16.6 billion.

Unocal acknowledged the offer from state-run CNOOC Ltd., an
affiliate of China National Offshore Oil Corp., to buy the company for
$67 a share in cash. Unocal, based in El Segundo, Calif., said it would
evaluate the bid but that its board's previous recommendation to
shareholders to accept the Chevron offer remained in place ...

Full text at:
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/22/AR2...

Ignatius gives Rice her due

Passed on to me by Mike Bussio:

Here is the opening:

Rice's Useful Rhetoric By David Ignatius Wednesday, June
22, 2005 Speeches don't change the world, but they sometimes put down
markers for policymakers and help ordinary folks understand what's
going on. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's speech in Cairo this
week about Middle East democracy struck me as one of those important
yardsticks. The initial take on Rice's speech focused on her evaluation
of the democratic progress of other nations -- of Egypt, Saudi Arabia,
Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, specifically. She pressed those
countries to reform their political systems, while noting that local
reformers must lead and define the agenda and set the pace of change.
Amen.

But an overlooked aspect of Rice's speech was that it established
guideposts by which to measure the policy of the United States. She
enunciated a pro-democracy position so forcefully that if the Bush
administration deviates from it, or undermines its credibility through
belligerent, anti-democratic actions, it will be open to the charge of
hypocrisy . . .

Full text at
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/21/AR2....

A serious comparison point on Iraq

Passed on by that maven of the latest articles, Mohamed Ibn Guadi.

Vietnam vets in Iraq see 'entirely different war'

By Steven Komarow, USA TODAY Tue Jun 21, 7:19 AM ET

For the full article, see
usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-06-20-iraq-vietnam-vet...

Before dawn, the pilots digest their intelligence briefing with
coffee. The sun rises as they start preflight checks. Just after 7:30,
they start rotors turning on their UH-60A Black Hawk, and ease it
smoothly into the desert sky.

Chief Warrant Officers DeWayne Browning and Randy Weatherhead will
take off and land a dozen times this hot day, ferrying infantry troops
battling Iraq's insurgents in the Sunni Muslim heartland that Saddam
Hussein calls home.

Only if those young troops look closely, past the jumble of struts
and wires and into the obstructive flight helmets, will they notice
something odd: Browning's gray, nearly white moustache and telltale
furrows on Weatherhead's face.

Browning, 56, of Paradise, Calif., and Weatherhead, 57, of Elk
Grove, Calif., are grandfathers. They first flew combat missions in
Vietnam, before most of the soldiers in the current Army were born.
They and others their age are here with the National Guard's 42nd
Infantry Division, which includes some of the oldest soldiers to serve
in combat for the modern U.S. Army. Few soldiers or officers in the
military, other than the service's top generals, are as old.

If there are parallels between Iraq and Vietnam, these graying
soldiers and the other Vietnam veterans serving here offer a unique
perspective. They say they are more optimistic this time: They see a
clearer mission than in Vietnam, a more supportive public back home and
an Iraqi population that seems to be growing friendlier toward
Americans.

"In Vietnam, I don't think the local population ever understood
that we were just there to help them," says Chief Warrant Officer James
Miles, 57, of Sioux Falls, S.D., who flew UH-1H Hueys in Vietnam from
February 1969 to February 1970. And the Vietcong and North Vietnamese
were a tougher, more tenacious enemy, he says. Instead of setting off
bombs outside the base, they'd be inside.

"I knew we were going to lose Vietnam the day I walked off the
plane," says Miles, who returned home this month after nearly a year in
Iraq. Not this time. "There's no doubt in my mind that this was the
right thing to do," he says ...

My thanks to Mohamed Ibn Guadi in France.

The power of unconventional thinking

■"Where Would We Be Without Unconventional Thinking,"
advertisement by Barclays, New York Times, 21 June 2005, p. A7.

I can't resist one more dig at Friedman's "World is Flat" metaphor.
I come across this Barclays full-page color ad in the NYT, which
consists of a flat globe sitting on stand. It's the perfect image for
Friedman's book, much better than that weird art of ships going off the
edge of the world that was used in some hardcover versions.

And yet, the ad points out the against-the-grain metaphor that
Friedman ended up with when he sought to recast a "level playing field"
as a "flat world": the text of the ad starts with "Without
unconventional thinking, the world would still be flat and we'd still
be living in caves. Heck, we'd probably never have climbed down from
the trees in the first place."

It could have continued: "At Barclays we believe in providing our
clients with metaphors that don't create cognitive dissonance . . . "

Still, the whole "flat" metaphor did do a better job of disguising
the fact that Friedman was basically issuing a compilation of his op-ed
columns than the previous title "Longitudes and Attitudes" did.

Here's hoping I always stay slightly afraid of both my publisher and
my editor . . . so that I heed their advice.

The elections in the Mideast

■"Anti-Syrian Bloc Claims A Victory In Lebanese Vote:
Last Round of Elections; Alliance of Ex-Premier's Son Wins Majority of
Parliament Seats," by John Kifner, New York Times, 20 June
2005, p. A1.

■"Iran Moderate Says Hard-Liners Rigged Election: Investigation
Demanded; Conservative Mayor and Former President Are Seen in Runoff,"
by Michael Slackman, New York Times, 19 June 2005, p. A1.

■"Iranian Reform Party Hints That It Will Support Insider: A
reluctant move to stave off a popular hard-liner," by Michael
Slackman, New York Times, 20 June 2005, p. A8.

■"Iran's Leaders Warn Candidate Who Charged Vote Fraud: But
Rafsanjani Backs Inquiry, Too," by Michael Slackman, New York
Times, 21 June 2005, p. A3.

Decent signs from the two recent elections in the Big Banged Middle
East.

In Lebanon, the anti-Syrian forces seem to have captured the
parliament, securing the recent apparent gains of the "cedar
revolution" that had little to do with "democratizing" Lebanon (already
a decent democracy) and more to do with simply throwing the Syrians out
after their own SysAdmin role wore out its welcome (better than civil
war and better than Israeli occupation, but no longer needed now that
America is committed to fostering political change in the region).

In Iran, a fairly expected outcome: vote rigged just enough to make
sure run-off election would be a call between the former president
Rafsanjani and the hard-core conservative (but popular) mayor of
Tehran. Good news is that the reformist blocs are coalescing around
Rafsanjani as the lesser of two evils. To offer a comparison, it would
be like a 1968 U.S. presidential election where vote-rigging had kept a
Humphrey out of contention so that the choice would come down to a
Nixon versus a George Wallace. At this point, the Nixon is the better
choice.

The big question is whether this Nixon goes to "China" (here, the
U.S.) and what deals are possible. Many doubt Rafsanjani will deal at
all, but I'm far more optimistic. Anybody who can engineer such a
Nixon-like resurrection is not to be underestimated.

The numbers game in Iraq

■"Choose: More Troops In Iraq Will (Help) (Hurt): At
home, calls for an exit strategy. In Iraq, calls for more combat power,"
by John F. Burns, New York Times, 19 June 2005, p. WK1.

■"Marines See Signs Iraq Rebels Are Battling Foreign Fighters:
Insurgents may resent Jihadist violence against civilians," by
Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, 21 June 2005, p. A6.

We wanted Iraq bad and we got it bad. We opted for the fastest sort
of Leviathan war (smart choice), but then turned cheapskates on the
SysAdmin effort, and we continue to argue the wrong debate: it ain't
about who "lost" the war (it was won, decisively), but about who
bungled the peace and let the insurgency become so destructive. Back
home plenty of politicians want an exit strategy (Powell Doctrine
rearing its non-strategic head), so we can get out of Dodge as fast as
possible, presumably to schedule our return date with greater accuracy.
But the SysAdmin commanders in the field, who simultaneously battle a
die-hard insurgency while trying to nation-build, clearly want more
boots on the ground. Having alienated so much of the world in the
run-up to the war, the Bush administration is reduced to
"staying-the-course" pronouncements that spell q-u-a-g-m-i-r-e to many
American parents of soldiers in southwest Asia right now.

Frankly, the best news coming out of Iraq right now is the rising
frequency of red-on-red fire, meaning indigenous insurgents battling
foreign fighters. If the two sides cannot stay together, then the
legitimacy of the U.S.-led SysAdmin force presence is already gaining
significant ground. Ideally, we become part of the country's natural
immune system and it's the foreign jihadis that attract the most
attention. When our security becomes their security, the SysAdmin
effort begins to succeed for real.

Instead of trying to prove that we fought the war correctly, we
should instead be focusing on demonstrating our awareness that the
SysAdmin function is necessarily a multilateral affair that requires a
region-heavy effort to reintegrate the country in question back into
the international fold, otherwise we're just creating another Israel: a
pilot program surrounded by a plethora of failed regimes (and yeah, I
consider most Arab state-heavy regimes to be essentially "failed," as
in, they "fail" to get their populations connected up to the global
economy, much less prepare them for such a competitive environment.

Locating China in history: 4 new data points

■"Rape in China: A Nightmare For 26 Pupils," by Jim
Yardley, New York Times, 21 June 2005, p. A1.

■"Chinese Furniture Is In Such Demand, No Widow Is Safe: Men
Rudely Enter Homes And Induce Folks to Sell; 'More Wolves Than Meat,'"
by Karen Mazurkewich, Wall Street Journal, 20 June 2005, p. A1.

■"Chinese Bank Takes Lead In Privatizing: Stake by U.S. Bank Is
Seen as First Step," by David Barboza, New York Times, 18
June 2005, p. B3.

■"China's New Frontiers: Tests of Democracy and Dissent,"
by Howard D. French, New York Times, 19 June 2005, p. A6.

Yet another of my continuing efforts to locate China in past U.S.
history.

The first story of the frighteningly arbitrary power of teachers in
poor rural areas in China has an almost Dickensian quality to it. It's
"Oliver" in the worst way, proving that China's coastal regions may be
approaching a U.S.-like economic standard, but that there's still a
vast sea of inland population that's stuck in Appalachia-like
impoverishment, at best dating them in the range of 1920s America.
China will go majority urban around 2020, roughly a century after the
U.S. did. Expect a huge amount of political change to catch up with all
that social change in that timeframe.

The whole mania for scrounging up antique Chinese furniture so it
can be sold abroad speaks to an extreme compression of time in China: a
super-connecting economy finds buyers for the household goods of the
most disconnected (typically) rural poor. It's like these "raiders of
the lost folk art" are pillaging the country's past in real time, able
as they are to travel back in time simply by visiting the countryside
and preying upon the elderly there.

But China is also moving smartly into the present, showing more and
more signs that the government realizes that the best way to reform
banking is to have foreign banks buy into the system, bringing their
"new" rules (at least to the Chinese bankers) and their old money to
help transition the industry from the bad practices (and bad loans) of
the past. This simultaneously feels like the rise of better banking
practices in the U.S. during the Great Depression and the raging bank
mergers of more recent years.

And the final story has an almost 1970s California ring to it, as
political decision making is increasingly devolving to local
governments on economic development issues, and politicians there are
likewise turning to almost "proposition"-like polling methods to sound
out the public on how to move ahead. These politicians don't do it
because they want to per se, but because they've seen too many
provinces succumb to angry mob violence when the local population's
desires are routinely ignored by secretive and elitist
government-decides-all methods of economic planning. I mean, in one
instance we're talking about a local Communist Party official bringing
in a Stanford political scientist to oversee focus groups.

SARBOX for the non-profit world

■"In Sarbanes-Oxley Era, Running a Nonprofit Is Only
Getting Harder," by Carol Hymowitz, Wall Street Journal, 21
June 2005, p. B1.

Interesting article on how Sarbanes-Oxley, or the law that requires
corporations to engage in much more stringent bookkeeping after the
many corporate scandals associated with the tech crash, is having a
spillover effect in the non-profit world. The sense of a higher
standard of accountability being demanded nowadays is simply permeating
beyond its intended immediate audience, as the power of the new rules'
example spreads.

Such social dynamics only demonstrate the almost limitless
applicability of the software products brought to market by Enterra, the company with
which my own consultancy has partnered in a strategic alliance.

And yeah, we do intend on making money through this collaboration.
And we intend to do it the old-fashioned way, by pushing products we
really believe in.

Who's really winning the ideological struggle

■"Cheer Up Conservatives, You're Still Winning! The
right has walloped the left in the war of ideas," op-ed by John
Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, , June 2005, p. A1.

■"Rice Urges Egyptians and Saudis to Democratize," by
Steven R. Weisman, New York Times, 21 June 2005, p. A1.

■"Uzbek Ministries in Crackdown Received U.S. Aid," by C.J.
Chivers and Thom Shanker, New York Times, 18 June 2005, p. A1.

As always, an interesting and provocative op-ed from those Economist
guys with the godawful British names. This one underscores how Bush's
brand of core values conservatism continues to grow in strength across
the country, especially among the people making a lot of babies, which
tends to be the religious whites and the immigrant populations, both of
whom prefer clear and less ambiguous rule sets within which to raise
their families.

Yes, they say, Bush is spending a lot of money, but virtually none
is designed to redistribute wealth in society through government
programs. Plus, look at the last election, where seemingly the Dems had
everything going for them and still lost an election far less close
than the one that preceded it.

Honestly, thinking about 2008 reminds me of when one of the two NFL
conferences dominates the other for long stretches: the real contest
for president is most likely in the Republican primaries, not the
national election.

And you see this in foreign affairs: the Bushies are simultaneously
the realpolitik types who are unafraid to rely on dictators and the
Wilsonian types lecturing the Egyptian and Saudi leaderships on
becoming more democratic.

The U.S. foreign policy that emerged in The New Map Game earlier
this month was described by Alidade president Jeff Cares as a sort of
"Republican Carter" administration, and I honestly think that
description captures what most Americans will vote for in 2008: not too
aggressive, not so ambitious as Bush, but focused on encouraging
positive change that's defensible on moral grounds. I don't see the
Democratic contender yet who can deliver that, but I suspect there are
several on the Republican side who will.

It's so often a women's thing inside the Gap

■"The 11-Year-Old Wife," op-ed by Nicholas D.
Kristof, New York Times , 21 June 2005, p. A23.

Nick Kristof claims that two women die each day in Pakistan from
honor killings (basically sex outside the marriage getting you killed
in today's version of stonings, which, sometimes are still stonings).
It's one of those factoids you want to resist embracing, because it's
so hard to verify.

But there's no denying Pakistan's "hudood laws," which Kristof says
have been used to imprison "thousands of women who report rapes."
Here's the amazing standard: to verify a rape a women needs to have
four male witnesses to the act. Sounds like a good-old-rapist-boys law
that makes it impossible to ever catch one after the fact. The catch 22
is obvious: you can't get the four witnesses, so you, the woman, go to
jail for admitting having "illicit sex." If there is a better way to
scare females from ever reporting rapes, I haven't heard it. Such laws
have the effect of making rape legal in the society. So if a woman gets
too uppity in the business world or in family life or in stirring up
trouble in general, you rape her and knock her off her stride. And if
she complains she lands in jail.

Kristof tells the story of women in Pakistan who demonstrated for
equal rights. They were clubbed by police and dragged to the station.
The ringleader's fate was to be stripped naked in public.

Pakistanis are rightfully resentful that such headlines are the main
depictions of their society in the West, but they should target their
own political system for that anger. Bad people doing bad things will
happen anywhere, but bad laws that let them get away with it tend to be
defining features of the Gap, not the Core.

Flying cars: a beneficiary of the 9/11 rule-set reset?

■"Envisioning a Day When the Skies Will Teem With Air
Taxis: A new generation of small jets that fly where no airliner would
deign to go," by Matthew L. Wald, New York Times, 19 June
2005, p. A12.

One weird sidelight to the 9/11 attacks was how the resulting
rule-set reset on airport security torpedoed a lot of smaller regional
airports (I am reminded of my travel through Charlottesville airport
last week when the TSA security team consisted of 6 people to process
people in vast droves of onsies and twosies). It was the final nail in
the coffin for these struggling airports, who were collapsing under the
competitive pressure of the hub-ification of the American airline
industry, thanks to companies like Southwest (indeed, one of the key
choices for where we ended up living after our move was my demand that
we live near a SWA hub).

Well, all those hubs still leave a lot of America off-grid. I may
feel like the country is my giant commuter grid, but there are so many
places where you're really in the wilderness as far as air travel is
concerned (like most of Vermont we visited last weekend). There are 429
major airports in America, but a whopping 5,400 more with no scheduled
service at all.

To fix this gap, here comes the mico-jets of today, armed with
onboard satellites and computers that do the air traffic control for
smaller airports that have no such technology. The rubric for this
emerging suite of technologies is called the Small Aircraft
Transportation System, or SATS. We're talking jets designed for just 5
or 6 passengers.

Like so many answers that work best in "shrinking the Gap" (or gaps
within the Core), this is a small-but-beautiful approach. I can foresee
microloans for microjets for microairlines. And if it can be done here
in the Core it can be done in the Gap.

Jet power to the people!

Millennium challenged

■"Trade and Aid to Poorest Seen as Crucial on Agenda
for Richest Nations," by Celia W. Dugger, New York Times,
19 June 2005, p. A8.

■"A Timely Departure," editorial, New York Times,
19 June 2005, p. WK11.

■"Bush Aid Initiative for Poor Nations Faces Sharp Budget Cuts
and Criticism of Slow Pace," by Celia W. Dugger, New York Times,
17 June 2005, p. A8.

Tony Blair and Jeff Sachs and the ONE campaign want the U.S. to plus
up their development aid to Africa, but just pouring more money on the
problem is not the answer. The Old Core spends more than a quarter
trillion on ag subsidies to its own farmers each year, more than three
times the money it collectively provides the Gap in Official
Developmental Aid (ODA). The World Bank estimates that if all such
subsidies were removed and trade barriers eliminated, the in-kind
transfer to the Gap would be in the range of $100 billion in
income-just like that.

Who would you rather bet on? The corrupt governments of Africa or
the farm households there? Which do you think will get you a middle
class faster?

Meanwhile, Bush's Millennium Challenge Account remains challenged by
its own bureaucracy and Congress's penchant for slicing and dicing
foreign aid to death, earmarking as much as possible for pet projects
that favor their own voting districts (the bane of the U.S. Agency for
International Development these many decades now). The Account just
lost its director after just over a year or so in the job, and it's
only set up two accounts to date in Madagascar and Honduras. People
(and African governments) complain about the Account's strict
guidelines on corruption and the like, but its heart is in the right
place. Still, the NYT editorial is right: the MCA could learn plenty
from the World Bank's Fast Track program in speeding money to deserving
states.

How the Leviathan's insider status is maintained

■"An Office and a Gentleman: In Corporate Jobs, Old
Generals Find a Hero's Welcome," by Leslie Wayne, New York
Times, 19 June 2005, p. BU1.

The U.S. spends almost $80 billion a year on weapons, so guess how
hard it is for retired four-stars to find seats on big corporate boards
upon retirement. The "grey beards," as they are known inside the
military, become a powerful voice for the past, as they tend to
advocate for big, established programs that fit the wars they remember
from their command youth. Their powerful connections tend to create a
drag on change. Among this crowd, you find a lot of retired flags who
still argue vehemently for China-as-the-next-threat. Why? It fits the
model they grew up with. They spent most of their military careers
making such arguments for the Leviathan force.

You want to find the voices for the SysAdmin force, then talk to the
young officers just back from command in the Gulf. But they're about 20
years away from sitting on any corporate boards, so expect the
acquisitions community to put up one helluva fight to retain their
preferred Leviathan force structure for as long as possible.

I want my MTV Desi!

■"I Want My Hyphenated-Identity MTV: Videos conquered
America, and then the world. What's left? Something in between," by
Deborah Sontag, New York Times, 19 June 2005, p. AR2.

MTV already has channels in India, South Korea and China. Now
they'll have hybrid versions for second-generation Indians (MTV Desi),
Koreans (MTV K) and Chinese (MTV Chi) here in the states. Hip hop and
rap will figure prominently in all three channels. No surprise there,
as it's become the current young generation's preferred cultural
vehicle for expressing all the usual alienation and angst of growing up
in the modern world. The big distinction here is the stylized content
and the focus on the politics and sociology of identity. Make young
people feel like they belong, no matter the niche, and they don't
become angry, disassociated and desirous of change through violence.
Instead, they find their own way and on that basis feel a lot of
freedom, which-quite frankly-is far more about economics than it is
politics.

Again, recalling my piece in the Baltimore Sun a while back
regarding the ever-diversified face of globalization, this is yet
another example of why no one will confuse globalization with
Americanization in coming years.

To me this is also a clear indication of New Core status: when
you're so inside the Core's main economy (the United States) that MTV
gives your nationality its own hybrid channel.

What does "desi" stand for? One theory is "doctors earn significant
incomes."

Move over Carson Daly, here comes Niharika Desai.

...

David Geoge, via Tom's webmaster, interrupts...

"Desi" is not an acronym. It's a word that Indians use to refer to
Indians. DEH

19:30 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this

06/24/2005

Newt Gingrich: Today on the Rick Tyler Show - The Changing Dept. of Veterans Affairs

Today on the Rick Tyler Show

Rick Tyler,
Communications Director & Spokesperson for Newt Gingrich hosts a
one-hour weekly talk show Friday at 3:00 p.m. ET

LISTEN IN AT RIGHTALK.COM

06:59 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this

06/23/2005

John Edwards: 36 Million

Dear Friend,




Elizabeth and I believe strongly in the power and dignity of
hard work. I remember mornings before school when my dad would
sit at the kitchen table worrying over paper work and jotting
down notes. It wasn't the family bills; he was trying to improve
his math skills by watching public TV programs about probability
and statistics. He believed, as we do, that hard work should be
the means to a better life in America.




But 36 million Americans are impoverished today - that's 13
million more than there were thirty years ago - and many are
hard working men and women who simply cannot work their way out
of poverty. No one has all the answers, but one solution is
clear: we need to raise the minimum wage in America.




You can tell a lot about a nation's character by how its
leadership treats those who are struggling. It's a national
disgrace that our minimum wage is so low, and yet President Bush
and Republicans in Congress refuse to raise it. I've met single
mothers who work full time, some even hold down two jobs - but
each month they struggle to pay the bills, and they certainly
can't build assets or save up for a family crisis.




One stroke of bad luck could send them and their families over
the cliff.




That's why I've been working with grassroots organizations,
labor unions, elected officials, and other progressive allies to
fight for a higher minimum wage, and that's why I'm asking for
your support as we take this issue to the states. Next week we
will rally in Phoenix, Albuquerque, Lansing, Cleveland, and
Columbus to call for increases in the minimum wage. Please
ask your friends to
join us at these upcoming
events as we push for a ballot measure on this
all-important issue.




The Bush Administration and Republicans in Congress have blocked
efforts to raise the federal minimum wage. By taking the issue
directly to state ballots, we can go around the Republican
stonewall and give greater financial opportunity to millions of
working Americans. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia
have already enacted higher minimum wage rates over the last few
years, and Nevadans will vote on a statewide measure in 2006.
With your help, we can bring more states along.




Legislators take notice when grassroots organizations and
thousands of voters unite behind an issue. Let's make our voices
heard: encourage your
friends to join us as we restore dignity and hope to
hard working Americans.




Please also visit our
Web site to learn more about the fight for a fair minimum
wage, and check back next week to see footage from the events
mentioned above.




Your friend,




John

18:15 Posted in John Edwards | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Politics

06/20/2005

Elizabeth Edwards: Announcing The One America Bookcast

Dear Friend,





I want to thank you for your all of your thoughts and prayers
since I was diagnosed with breast cancer last November. I have
gained so much strength from all of your good wishes, and I am
pleased to report that my health is steadily improving. A few
weeks ago, I completed all of my treatment, and I have more
energy and feel better every day. My doctors are very optimistic
and they expect me to have a strong recovery.





During this process John and I constantly talked about how hard
it would be to face what we faced without having access to
health care or without our basic needs being met. Unfortunately,
many working Americans are still struggling to make ends meet;
the disparity between the two Americas is as great as ever. So I
would like to let you know about some of the things that John
has been up to lately. To shine a spotlight on the working poor,
John has traveled the country these past few weeks and talked
with working men and women who live in poverty every day. Their
stories are troublingly similar: they work as many hours as they
can, sometimes holding down more than one job, but they barely
scrape by each month. If one member of the family falls ill,
they have to choose between paying for treatment and paying for
food. That's not a choice any working family should ever have to
make.





Thankfully, there are talented, tireless individuals - like
Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Shipler - who are dedicated
to uniting our two Americas. In his book "The Working Poor,"
David writes: "No one who works hard should be poor in America."
John and I couldn't agree more.





David spoke with working men and women across the country to
discover how they live, why they are poor, and how we can do
better by them. Not only does David vividly portray their plight
- he deftly assesses the personal and societal shortcomings
behind it. David shows how poverty acts like an ecological
system: rising rents, low wages, bad credit, and malnutrition
are not isolated factors, but rather they interact and
exacerbate each other, creating a vicious cycle. This leads to
insurmountable debt and, worse, it crushes hope. Working
Americans should not have to struggle to survive, and until we
change our policies and our leadership, we will see our two
Americas drifting dangerously farther apart.





John and I think "The Working Poor" is a very accurate and
compelling portrayal of the poverty we've seen firsthand, and we
want as many people as possible to read this book. We are eager
to hear what you think about it so please visit our site and
post comments in our new Book
Forum. This week David will join the Forum to respond to
your comments, so be sure to check for that. Through the Forum
you can also download
our very first bookcast, in which John, David, and I
discuss "The Working Poor" and field your questions. We urge you
to read this book and offer your insights. To eradicate working
class poverty, we must understand how and why people are
struggling.





Thank you for your continued commitment to One America, and take
care.





- Elizabeth Edwards

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[NRSP Update] The Newsletter from Thomas P.M. Barnett - June 20, 2005

The Newsletter from Thomas P.M. Barnett
20 June 2005

Download at:

PDF: http://www.newrulesets.com/journals/barnett_20jun2005.pdf


Word: http://www.newrulesets.com/journals/barnett_20jun2005.doc

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http://www.bloggingthefuture.com/discuss/

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unsubcribe@newrulesets.com.

Thanks.


--
Critt Jarvis
Partner/Webmaster/Interlocutor
The New Rule Sets Project, LLC.
Email: Critt.Jarvis@newrulesets.com
www.newrulesets.com


Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog
www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog

The Newsletter from Thomas P.M. Barnett

www.newrulesets.com/newsletter.html

Blogging the Future
Blog: www.bloggingthefuture.com
Forum: www.bloggingthefuture.com/discuss/

13:17 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this

06/18/2005

[NRSP Update] Signposts- Sunday, June 19, 2005