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Read today's Snooze Journal, but read Shirley first

The Sunday News Journal is filled with unusually--even for them--inane and overtly bizarre articles today, so when you pick up a copy, (after you read about UD going back to the national championship if you really must) turn to the editorial page and start with Shirley Vandever's "Can you prove who you are if necessary?"

It's pretty much the only sane piece in the whole rag. Thanks, Shirley. (Unfortunately for me, proving who I am would require KNOWING who I am, which is a concept that readers of this blog know I continue to struggle.)

Then, for the masochistic among you, go across the page to the far left column (wonder if they put "Our View" on that side on purpose?) to read "Private contractors belong under military codes of discipline."

Apparently, the Blackwater incident in Iraq was the first indication that the News Journal (or most political innocents) had that the US regularly uses PMCs ("private military companies," which is the correct term) for all those little jobs that our much-reduced and overstressed military either can't take care of or should not touch for reasons of international law.

In point of fact, since two South Africans--Eeben Barlow and Lafras Luitingh--created the first modern, corporately organized mercenary company ("Executive Outcomes") in the late 1980s/early 1990s, PMCs have become a reliance for US foreign policy interventionism.

The largest and (before Iraq) best-known of these outfits is MPRI (Military Personnel Resources Inc.), started by retired US Army Major-General John Singlaub of Iran-Contra fame. MPRI, for example, was contracted by our State Department in the mid-1990s to train the Croatian Army to take on the Serbs during the original Bosnia crisis. Not only did MPRI train the Croats, there are photos and credible accounts of "advisors" riding along during the infamous "Croatian blitzkrieg" that threw the Serbs back out of much of Bosnia. President at the time? Clinton (just for the record).

MPRI also holds the contract for most public school ROTC programs; those guys you see in uniform are military retirees for the most part (which is why they are allowed to wear the uniform) in the private pay of MPRI.

MPRI, along with Georgia-based Airscan, manages (the extent of involvement varies from year to year) and helps control local dissent in the Cabinda region of Angola, a tiny detached part of the country that is one of our major non-Middle Eastern oil producers. There are, at any given moment, roughly 16,000 American, British, Ukrainian, Polish, and South African mercenaries under indirect control of our State and Commerce Departments. Ironically, when then-VP Al Gore visited Angola in the mid-1990s to convince the government there to stop using Executive Outcomes as a mercenary force it was NOT because EO had a horrible human rights abuse record (although it did), but so American and British companies could take over the business.

The Vining Corporation has traditionally (back to the 1970s, I think) trained the Saudi National Guard.

You cannot place contractors under US military regulation when they are operating in an at least sovereign nation (like Iraq supposedly is) because that would essentially be declaring extraterritoriality. Such operations come under the law of the nation the contractors operate in, or under international laws and conventions regarding mercenaries. To place them under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, when many or even most of the employees are not US nationals, is again to assert that Papa Sam knows best and his preferences can overturn all other considerations.

Two final notes before we go on to other idiocies: (1) Nowhere will you ever be able to find Joe Biden on record against the use of American mercenaries prior to the Bush administration, even though the practice started in the early 1990s at the latest; and (2) No, I haven't left you all the links you need to track down the information here. A primary Libertarian tenet is to stand on your own two feet, which in this case means do your own research if you purport to care about the topic. Google any of the key names or terms that I have given you and you will find plenty to go on.

Meanwhile....

Try the local section for "Del. kids in poverty face woes."

Here we learn that to the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the News Journal, they have "defined poor children as those living in families earning 200 percent of the federal poverty threshold, currently about $41,300 for a family of four." OK so let me get this straight: you're poor if you are living at 200% of the poverty line? Then what the hell is the poverty line useful for indicating? Forget that oxymoron for a moment and discover:

Like [study co-author William] O'Hare, [Cari] DeSantis [Secretary of DE Dept of Services for Children, Youth, and Their Families] has found an 'erosion of the sense of community' in Delaware. She said it may be due to a combination of population growth, migration and the mix of homeowners and renters in Wilmington. 'All of those things contribute to underming a sense of community and a sense of safety,' she said.


You have to wonder if NJ reporter Hiran Ratnayake, who wrote this story, ever talked with fellow reporter Summer Harlow, who wrote the front-page story "Cultures in Conflict" that describes outright racism and fear between the African-American and Hispanic populations of northern Delaware. Among the jewels of this article, consider these:

Margaret Neal hates what has happened to the mini-mart in her neighborhood. Aisles once stocked with potato chips and chocolate bars now share space with sweet Mexican pastries, Goya beans and Jumex juices.... "All they've got is Mexican stuff, and that bothers me because it pushes out the other stuff that maybe I was buying," said the 24-year-old, who grew up in the Sparrow Run neighborhood.

Tamweer Siddiqui, who owns the Sparrow Run All-Stop and beleives he provides a good balance of Hispanic and non-Hispanic products, said he's seen the cultural clashes....

Harold Stith, chairman of the Sparrow Run residents council, said his objections arent't based on racist stereotypes, [but] Sparrow Run, even with its reputation as a drug haven, he said, would be better off if the Latinos hadn't moved in.

"[Black] people don't like them living next door," she [Neal] said. "Maybe they're being racist. A lot of people say it's because they're here illegally, and also people say a lot of them are sex offenders."

Margareta Neal worries what it will mean that Latinos, not blacks, now are the contry's largest minority group. "America is diverse, but I feel like if we start tending to the Mexicans, they're going to forget about us," she said. "I shouldn't have to compensate for them when I was here first."


Actually, it's a very interesting article, and I can't wait for the people who maintain that only Caucasians can be racists to get hold of it.

Then take in the other front-page piece, Leslie Pappas' "Struggling to live the middle-class dream," which relies heavily on a Brandeis University report that contends that

America's middle class did not emerge by itself, the report argues: America created its middle class in the years after World War II through a series of innovative policy decisios that helped people build wealth and get ahead.


Thus, capitalism and industrial productivity did not create the middle class, government programs did. Who knew?

The report defined middle class "as a family of four earning between $40,000 and $120,000 a year" and looked at five major categories: "assets, education, housing, budget and health care, and setting an optimum level for each." (Optimum level based on what, by the way?)

Here's the conclusion, more or less:

Less than a third of middle-class families were solid in three or more of the five categories, the analysis found. Some middle-class families were at risk because of inadequate savings, others lacked health insurance, some had bought more of a house than they could really afford, others were living paycheck to paycheck. If one member of the household suddenly became illor lost his job, such families could find themselves under water.


Unsurprisingly, the Brandeis report thinks that the problem will be resolved by "a national policy that says we are consciously building a middle class."

Not that you'd expect any incisive analysis from the Snooze J, but this is ridiculous. Let's see, society is responsible that middle-class people don't save, bought houses that were too expensive, and lived paycheck to paycheck. Nothing about the choices that those people made (like those now requiring a mortgage bail-out paid for by those of us who didn't do it).

You see, according to Brandeis and the NJ the problems of the middle class are all caused by society and must be resolved through government spending. What's interesting is that in one article a family of four making $41,000 is poor, but in a different section of the paper that same family is middle class. Who edits this crap, anyway?

Then there is the "Wind power contract huddle is Monday" story by Aaron Nathans in the Business section, whose page three continuation is entitled, "Wind: UD professor says wind proposal is 'bad deal' for Del.," has the following:

University of Delaware Professor Ed Ratledge said he hopes 'nothing' comes out of Monday's contract. 'I frankly don't think Delmarva should sing any contract with them [Bluewater],' said Ratledge, who is Director of the Center for Applied Demography and Survey Research. 'I wonder if the state actually has the authority to make them do that anyway. I think it's a bad deal for the citizens.'


No mention of why Ratledge opposes the program, what data he cites, or what sort of relationship his center has with Delmarva Power--just another Snooze J failure to actually investigate the news it reports. No wonder that on page two of the Business section, under "UD lags in patent licensing, annual study reports," says,

The study is the latest to acknowledge that UD has been slow to promote cutting-edge start-up companies and the commercialization of university research....


I could go on, but at that point I'd have to respond to this idiocy on an almost word for word basis.

Is this the inevitable consequence of having no competition among newspapers in this state?

Comments

Brian Shields said…
One issue I had with the article stating the poor have problems (well, duh) is that the article blames the state for those problems. What it is really saying is that the state government is failing poor people in those four categories, the most laughable being 'family structure.'

Now, I'd consider myself a poor person. I'm a 27 year old Del-Tech student working at Dominos to survive while living with my in-laws, who need financial assistance due to illness. I work with other poor people, and you see a wide range of society while making deliveries. You see everything from trailer parks and gov't subsidized housing to wealthy developments and middle class developments trying to look wealthy (which to me look ghastly, but that's besides the point).

I see a systemic failure among people who live below standard, so to speak. They are either satisfied, or have accepted their situation. I asked one co-worker the other day why he, at age 54, wasn't going to Del Tech to try to better himself. His answer wasn't age or time crunch related. "I make enough to get by, and that's all I need."

My in laws are the same way, living off one Wal-Mart income, as long as they can get by, is ok by them.

I know students who won't take advantage of the SEED program, for no particular reason, deciding to work at a minimum wage or slightly higher position. Dear God WHY?!?

I mean, I know it's not a particularly Libertarian position to advise people to take advantage of a government funded program, but if someone was sitting in the mud, and offered you a hand to get out, would you refuse and sit there?

That's where Democratic minded people fail. Some people can't be helped despite themselves. You can offer a hand out of the mud, but some will refuse it and be content sitting in the puddle. The government cannot help everyone. Some don't want to be helped.
Brian,
I think your views, like mine, make you a pragmatic Libertarian.
Brian Shields said…
That fits. What's the point in being idealistic? Nothing is ever ideal.

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