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28NOV2003
The Nation's David Corn is Awarded The Woodstein!*
Ed. note: Davis Corn is recognized by the Geeze as 2003's journalist of the year - for breaking
the CIA agent outing story
A White House Smear, followed up with
CIA Leak Is Big Trouble For Bush, and for his Little-noticed cover-up: 9/11 story (below).
For those two stories alone David could have earned the Woodstein!
David is also recognized for his reporting of Ann Coulter outing herself on
the Chris Matthews Show - See Hard Ball Transcript.
Previous to the self-outing of Ann Coulter, David was in the write place at the write time
enough to have reported an otherwise disgusting Ann Coulter Religious War story.
The 9/11 cover-up and the Outing of
Valerie Plime stories also had an element of disgust, but in this business someone hasta
sort out the garbage.
As news stories go, it's rare that garbage piling up without proper
disposal ever has a happy ending - as we saw in the Lottery winners saved by garbage
strike story: "The Chicago area's garbage strike was a nuisance for many, but now it smells sweet
to two lottery winners who tossed their $10.5 million ticket prematurely." Realizing their
lottery ticket already thrown away might have been a winner, and because of the labor dispute
the garbage hadn't been picked up, a Chicago family was able to rescue their ticket before it wound
up in the land fill.
That's a good story, but it ain't the kind of work that merits a Woodstein!
Ann Coulter's Religious War
By DAVID CORN - The Nation
Republicans and conservatives say the darnest things.
First, Ann Coulter. Don't think I am obsessing over here just because this is my second mention of her
in two weeks. (See below). I don't recall having written about her madness before
these latest strikes. But it was hard to resist returning to the subject after reading an account of a
lecture she delivered to the impressionable minds of Northwestern University. She took the predictable
potshots at liberals. And then she proclaimed that the war on terror is a "religious war."
She explained, in a way:
"This is a religious war, not against Islam but for Christianity, for a Christian nation. When this
nation was founded, there was nothing like it. Our founders said there is a God and we are all equal
before God. The ideal of equality and tolerance is like nothing that has ever existed in the world
before. That, too, is a Christian value. The concept of equality, especially when it comes to gender
equality, was not invented by Gloria Steinem. It was invented by Jesus Christ. As long as people look
long enough, they will always come to Christianity."
Are equality and tolerance historical Christian values? (Note she does not bother to use the more
PR-friendly and inclusive phrase "Judeo-Christian values.") Ask the victims of the Inquisition or the
Crusades. America's Christian founders may have preached equality, but they hardly practiced it. See
slavery. Did the "ideal of equality and tolerance" only appear with the birth of the United States?
Check out the preceding Age of Enlightenment. (Locke celebrated a state of nature in which people were
happy, tolerant, free and equal.) And Jesus invented feminism? Then why did the "Christian nation" of
the United States deny women the right to vote? Why has the Catholic Church refused to ordain female
priests? Why do certain fundamentalist Christians insist that women submit to their husbands?
And where currently is this tolerance that Coulter speaks of? Her Christian supremacist comrades - such
as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell - blast away at Islam and other religions. General William Boykin, a
top Pentagon official, derided Islam while giving talks before evangelical Christians. And when
George W. Bush last week commented that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, fundamentalist
Christians howled in protest. The Reverend Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of
Evangelicals and a frequent visitor to the White House, said, "The Christian God encourages freedom,
love, forgiveness, prosperity and health. The Muslim god appears to value the opposite. The
personalities of each god are evident in the cultures, civilizations and dispositions of the peoples
that serve them." How's that for tolerance?
Robertson has even accused Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Methodists of representing "the spirit of
the Antichrist" and repeatedly called Hinduism "devil worship." And Coulter showed little tolerance when
she wrote of anti-American Muslims in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, "We should invade
their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."
Plenty of Christian leaders, of course, are tolerant and equality-minded. Some support a gay
bishop. (And some of my best friends are Christians!) But the history of Christianity shows that this
religion has created a big tent that can accommodate mass-murdering bigots and courageous freedom-loving
champions of equality. It is foolish, ahistorical, and wrong for Coulter to assert that Christianity
equals equality and tolerance. After all, is she a fan of liberation theology?
One should not get too exercised about Coulter's uninformed view of history. But her remarks represent
the fervent desire of Christian supremacists to transform the war against al Qaeda into a titanic
religious battle. Thank God most mainstream churches--including the one based in Rome - do not see it
that way. Perhaps they have learned from the past.
Now, we turn to the GOP. Rather than theologize the war, the Republican National Party and its chairman
Ed Gillespie have politicized it. There's nothing wrong with that. Bush's conduct of the war on
terrorism and his actions in Iraq should be electoral issues. He should run on his record, and there
would be nothing unfair about GOPers telling voters to vote Republican if they're satisfied with
developments in Iraq and encouraged by Bush's handling of the terrorist threat. But that's not what the
Republicans are doing. In its latest - and much-noticed - television ad, the Republican Party
claims, "Some are now attacking the President for attacking the terrorists... Some call for us to
retreat, putting our national security in the hands of others."
That's not true. Bush has not generally been criticized for going after the terrorists who attacked the
United States. The critics have argued that the war on Iraq did not target al Qaeda. That's why ret.
General Anthony Zinni, ret. General Wesley Clark, ret. General John Shalikashvili, Senator Bob Graham
and other non-peace-movement types opposed it. Even now, as Bush and his aides claim the war on Iraq is
the central front in the war on terrorism, his chief military commanders there say that U.S. troops are
primarily fighting Ba'athist remnants, not al Qaeda terrorists and other jihadists who might have
slipped into Iraq. And the major Bush opponents - such as the leading Democratic presidential
candidates - do not call for "retreat" or to place U.S. national security "in the hands of others." They
have urged that the United States partner up with other nations to deal with the mess in Iraq.
Gillespie and Coulter are just making things up - the past, the present, whatever. I wonder, if they
were able to clear drafts of their ads and speeches with the world's most famous carpenter's son, what
would Jesus do? [ORIGINAL TEXT]
The smoking gun on finding Ann Coulter out, and completely out of it and full of it was in her remarkable
state of mind that could make up reality gleaned from existent facts; i.e., the sun rises in the east and
sets in the west, which is perceived to be fact. In reality, herewith defined is that the sun doesn't
move at all. The earth merely revolves in such a way on its own axis that the sun appears to be rising
or setting. The Ann Coulter logic operates with no consideration for sunlight or for which side of the
Matrix she's on.
While even David Manning knew it was true that George C. Scott "stunned Hollywood in 1971" for being
the first person ever to refuse an Academy Award, as it was reported by
Coulter (who the Geeze has recognized as not
your average cunt), George C's refusal to accept the award was because of how "liberals - especially
those in Hollywood - are conspiratorial traitors" - In fact, George refused the Oscar
because he considered such awards as "demeaning" and he had dismissed the Oscar ceremony as
a "two-hour meat parade."
Ann Coulter Goes to the Movies
By DAVID CORN - The Nation
Don't read this if you like Ann Coulter.
Don't read this if you want to believe Ann Coulter gets her facts straight.
The other night I was enlisted to appear on MSNBC's Hardball to discuss the controversy over the CBS
miniseries on Ronald and Nancy Reagan. On the other side was Coulter, the over-the-top-and-over-the-edge
conservative author whose latest book literally brands all liberals as treasonous. Conservatives and
Republicans have howled that the Reagan movie was a travesty, complaining it portrays Reagan as out of
it in the White House and callous toward AIDS victims. On air, I noted that since the movie, as far as
I could tell, does not detail how Reagan had cozied up to the apartheid regime of South Africa, the
murderous dictator of Chile, and the death-squad-enabling government of El Salvador, it indeed has a
problem with accuracy. But the miniseries' true sin seems to be its schlockiness. The available clips
make it look like Dynasty meets Mommie Dearest set in the White House.
Coulter started more restrained than usual, though she predictably bashed Hollywood liberals for trying
to undermine the historical standing of a president they despised by resorting to trashy revisionism.
Perhaps she even had a point. Who could tell what the producers were aiming at? But then she jumped the
tracks. She claimed that the movie Patton was made by Holly-libs with "hatred in their hearts" for
George S. Patton, the brilliant but erratic World War II general. These filmmakers "intended to make
Patton look terrible," she maintained, but because they produced an accurate work, the movie ended up
making "Patton look great and people loved him."
Was Patton a left-wing Hollywood conspiracy that backfired? Host Chris Matthews immediately challenged
her in his subtle fashion: "You are dead wrong." He pushed her for proof, and she replied, "That is why
George C. Scott turned down his Academy Award for playing Patton." Coulter was suggesting that Scott had
spurned his Oscar because the filmmakers plan to destroy Patton's image by portraying the general "as
negatively as possible" had gone awry.
Matthews wasn't buying. "Who told you that, who told you that?" he shouted. Her Oracle-like
response: "It is well known." She added, "Why did you think he turned down the award, Chris? You never
looked that up? It never occurred to you?"
Matthews retorted, "Because he said he wasn't going to a meat parade, because he didn't believe in
award ceremonies." And Matthews was right. Following the show, I took Coulter's advice and did look it
up. I found a 1999 obituary of Scott that noted he had stunned Hollywood in 1971 for being the first
person ever to refuse an Academy Award. He had explained his action by slamming such awards
as "demeaning" and he had dismissed the Oscar ceremony as a "two-hour meat parade." (Matthews
receives extra points for getting this quote correct.) Coulter had twisted this well-documented
episode into yet more proof that liberals - especially those in Hollywood - are conspiratorial
traitors.
After I described this exchange to someone who once worked with her, he said, "That's Ann. She lives
in her own world and she just makes things up." This interlude concerned a small matter. (Who knew we
would be debating one of my favorite movies?) But this minor dustup provided evidence to support a
serious charge. As Matthews remarked while wrapping up the segment, "Facts mean nothing to you, Ann." If
so, why continue to have her on?
[ORIGINAL TEXT]
The 9/11 Cover-up
By DAVID CORN - LA Weekly
It's fortunate for George W. Bush he has a mess on his hands in Iraq; otherwise, he might have to
worry about a significant cover-up coming undone.
As matters in Iraq rising American casualties, helicopter mishaps, and an abrupt Bush decision to
hand off political authority to an Iraqi body to be named later have dominated the news, a tussle
between the independent commission investigating the 9/11 attacks and the White House did attract a
short burst of media attention. It was noted on front pages that the bipartisan 9/11 commission and
the Bush administration, after weeks of squabbling, had forged a deal regarding the commission's access
to intelligence briefings given to Bush before September 11, 2001. But the news reports generally did
not fully explain what was at stake.
The White House had refused to turn over this material to the House and Senate intelligence committees
when they were conducting a joint investigation of 9/11, and Bush took the same position with the 9/11
commission. But when the commission headed by former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean, a moderate
Republican appointed to the panel by Bush raised the prospect of subpoenaing the documents, the Bush
team worked out a compromise. It is permitting the 10-member commission limited access to these
intelligence reports, known as the President's Daily Brief (PDB). (It helped that family members of
people killed on 9/11 had protested the White House's lack of cooperation.) The arrangement was
unprecedented; this is the sort of stuff administrations fight to the death to keep secret. But 9/11
is different. Two Democratic commissioners (former Senator Max Cleland and former Representative
Timothy Roemer) and the Family Steering Committee, an association of 9/11 relatives, though, blasted
the agreement for imposing tight restrictions on how the commission can use information and, most
importantly, on what it can tell the public about the material it is allowed to see.
The accord was a partial victory for a Bush White House that has been trying hard to conceal a key slice
of the 9/11 tale: what Bush knew of the pre-9/11 intelligence warnings that al Qaeda was planning a
strike against the United States, and what Bush did (or did not do) in response to these warnings. And
the White House's deal with the commission could well enable the administration to maintain this
stonewalling.
Some background: While the World Trade Center ashes were still glowing, Bush and his aides told the
public that they had had no reason to suspect this type of horrific attack was about to occur. Yet, as
the final report of the joint inquiry of the House and Senate intelligence committees notes, for years
the intelligence community had collected information reporting that terrorist outfits, including al
Qaeda, were interested in mounting 9/11-like attacks that is, hijacking airliners and crashing them
into high-profile targets in the United States. U.S. intelligence services, the Pentagon, and the
Federal Aviation Administration during the Clinton and Bush II years apparently did not take action
in response to these reports. That was a systemic failure. Bush has never addressed it publicly, but
if pressed he could blame the bureaucrats at the CIA, the Defense Department and the FAA for ignoring
clear-and-present hints.
Bush is more vulnerable regarding warnings about al Qaeda that were sent to the White House during his
first eight months in office. In May 2002, media reports revealed that the August 6, 2001, PDB had
included material regarding Osama bin Laden's interest in hijacking airliners. That caused a brief
controversy for Bush. And in September 2002, the House and Senate intelligence committees disclosed
that an early July 2001 intelligence warning had noted, "We believe that [bin Laden] will launch a
significant terrorist attack against the U.S. and/or Israeli interests in coming weeks. The attack
will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests.
Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning."
The questions are obvious. Was this dramatic July warning shared with Bush and his top advisers? If so,
what did they do? And what did the August 6 PDB presented to Bush actually say? How did Bush react
to it?
Such queries are not necessarily difficult to resolve. To fulfill its mission, the 9/11 commission
ought to provide the answers. But the Bush administration, to date, has acted to stop such answers
from reaching the public. When the August 6, 2001, briefing hit the headlines 18 months ago, National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice pooh-poohed it and told reporters that the PDB had contained merely a
general warning about al Qaeda. And when the House and Senate intelligence committees revealed the
existence of the July 2001 warning, the Bush administration refused to allow the committees to say
whether this warning had been passed to Bush and his national security advisers. It would only let
the committees report that the warning had been furnished to unnamed senior government officials.
With these actions, the White House blocked the public from learning what Bush had been told about the
al Qaeda threat in the weeks before 9/11, and it hid information that could cause Americans to wonder if
Bush might have not reacted to the warnings with sufficient vigor. But the preliminary evidence is that
the White House has been protecting itself. According to the House and Senate intelligence committees'
final report on 9/11, the committees were told by an intelligence community representative that an
August 2001 intelligence report included information that bin Laden wanted to conduct attacks in the
United States, that al Qaeda members had been residing and traveling to the United States for years and
had apparently maintained a support structure here, that bin Laden was interested in hijacking
airliners (to trade for prisoners), that the FBI had discerned patterns of activity consistent with
preparations for hijackings, and that bin Laden supporters were planning attacks in the United States
with explosives.
That sure is different than a general warning about al Qaeda. Did this information appear in Bush's
August 6, 2001, PDB? The committees are not in a position to say, but their staff has told reporters
they strongly believe some if not all of this material was included in the PDB. That suggests that
Rice misled the public about this briefing and that Bush had been presented with more than a routine
warning about al Qaeda. And one Democratic senator on the committee told reporters (including me) that
the July warning the one noting a "spectacular" attack loomed had indeed gone to senior White House
officials and the president.
The current battle over Bush's PDBs is important. They can show what Bush knew before 9/11 about al
Qaeda's designs. They can provide a foundation for evaluating finally whether he and the federal
government acted responsibly and reasonably in the weeks and months before the attacks. Which is one
reason why anyone with an inquiring mind should be suspicious of a deal that does not provide the
commission unfettered access to these reports and that grants the White House the possible means to
protect a serious but little-noticed cover-up. [MORE]
David Corn is the Washington editor of The Nation.
*The Woodstein! year begins and ends on Thanksgiving Day, from year to year.
LOU DOBBS TONIGHT - CNN
Ed. note: We have never been great fans of Lou Dobbs, who for reasons we think he doesn't
understand is a perpetuator of the status quo. He sleeps with the likes of Dan Pipes. What else
can we say? While he's shown no change of heart where fairness toward Palestinians is concerned, and
mostly he's an apologist for the Bush White House and the neocon-corporate-fascists, it does appear
that he has awakened ever so slightly to the reality of "globalization" and it's impact on life
for ordinary Americans.
An excerpt - Lou Dobbs and former U.S. Ambassador to China, James Sasser:
DOBBS: "This is where -- now what do you do with a poor fellow like me, ambassador? I don't like high
deficits. I don't like exporting jobs. And I think we ought to have a responsible, fair trade policy
that does not result in such an inequity in the relationship.
"And I sure don't like our overseas competitors in this world trade system holding, as they do, $2.5
trillion worth of claims on American assets."
SASSER: "Well, Lou, that's just -- that's just the way the cookie crumbles these days. And the truth is
that American corporations operating in China make larger profits in China than they do any other
foreign country in this world."
While we've only posted the James Sasser sequence, the entire
Thanksgiving Day broadcast is very much worth the read, even to see/hear/read Lou Dobbs catchin' on:
Thanksgiving Stunner: U.S. Continues To Lose Textile Jobs To Foreign Markets; China Agrees To Buy Large
Quantities Of U.S. Made Auto Parts
ANNOUNCER: This is a special holiday edition of LOU DOBBS TONIGHT for Thursday, November 27. Sitting in
for Lou Dobbs, Kitty Pilgrim.
KITTY PILGRIM, HOST: Good evening. Tonight, "Exporting America," our special report on the alarming
trend of sending American jobs overseas. It's an effort to save money for companies because foreign
labor is cheaper. But it's a big business practice that carries an enormous cost to the American
economy.
More than two million American jobs have been exported in the last two years alone. The United States
trade deficit with China is currently at record levels, and Americans are buying tens of billions of
dollars worth of overseas products every month.
Tonight, we'll hear from Commerce Secretary Don Evans about the Bush administration's plans to stem
the flood of American jobs offshore. And former U.S. Ambassador to China, James Sasser, talks about
America's trade relationship with China and what that means for millions of out of work Americans.
He will join us.
And some good news. Some American companies are fighting to keep American work workers on the job.
We begin tonight with what many call the global race to the bottom. Major retailers are in competition
to sell their products at the lowest possible price no matter what the cost to the American worker. Too
often, the so-called race to the bottom is leaving the American worker in last place.
[SNIP]
PILGRIM: Our next guest says the White House has accused China of unfair trade practices, including
currency manipulation and blocking U.S. exports to China for its own political reasons, to use China
as a scapegoat for economic problems in this country.
James Sasser is a former U.S. ambassador to China, also a former senator from the state of Tennessee.
Lou Dobbs recently spoke with the ambassador and began by asking him about the growing trade dispute
with China and what he would propose as a solution.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMES SASSER, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO CHINA: We've got to make a decision about where we're going. I
mean, the United States over a period of a number of years has been the chief advocate of free trade,
has been the chief advocate of globalization and now, when it starts biting us, we start crying about
it.
And that's just one of the effects of globalization.
LOU DOBBS, HOST: Well...
SASSER: The European countries are hit even harder than it's hit us.
DOBBS: I guess, when you're in pain, should you cry? Should you not, when there's a problem that is
reaching crisis proportions, not deal with it, I guess is my question to you.
You mentioned $100 billion in purchases in U.S. securities, both debt and equity. Further purchases by
Japan. They're not doing us any favors there, as you well know, ambassador. Those are claims on
ownership of U.S. assets. That's not...
SASSER: No, no.
DOBBS: That's not particularly great.
SASSER: Well, no. These -- they're parking a lot of the money that's going from the U.S. to China and
to Japan is being parked in the federal treasury. The federal treasury uses those bonds to finance the
deficit, which keeps interest rates low here.
DOBBS: This is where -- now what do you do with a poor fellow like me, ambassador? I don't like high
deficits. I don't like exporting jobs. And I think we ought to have a responsible, fair trade policy
that does not result in such an inequity in the relationship.
And I sure don't like our overseas competitors in this world trade system holding, as they do, $2.5
trillion worth of claims on American assets.
SASSER: Well, Lou, that's just -- that's just the way the cookie crumbles these days. And the truth is
that American corporations operating in China make larger profits in China than they do any other
foreign country in this world.
DOBBS: That's just -- that's just awful, but what about the people who are losing their jobs? At what
point do -- well, I mean, we don't just simply say the cookie crumbles here. We've got to go a little
farther than that, Ambassador.
SASSER: I agree with that. But we are the author of our own misfortunes here.
DOBBS: I take full responsibility. You can blame me personally. What I'm crying out for here,
Ambassador, is a solution because it cannot, can it, go on?
SASSER: Well, I'm not the wisest man in the world. I don't know what the solution is. But the
economists tell us that over time, globalization will level out. It's going to be a very, very
painful process, I think, to absorb these vast labor markets in China and India and Mexico.
DOBBS: Well, as I look around...
SASSER: But that's the direction we're headed.
DOBBS: Well, it may be the one we're headed but I kind of react when people tell me that we don't have
control of our own destiny in this country.
As one that's been responsible for shaping that destiny, I'd just like to get from you a sense of what
in the world is so spectacular about having Wal-mart as the fifth largest importer of Chinese goods?
What is so spectacular about the outsourcing of American jobs?
What is so spectacular about raising all of these barriers to U.S. exports, at the same time pushing
down wage levels in this country?
This doesn't sound to me like it has a happy ending when it levels out.
SASSER: Well, now Lou, you're making a very passionate and strong argument there. I would question
some of your facts.
DOBBS: Let's go.
SASSER: China, for example, has joined the World Trade Organization. They are busy now, lowering
tariffs, which is causing vast unemployment in the Chinese-state-owned industries. They have 200
million people in their country unemployed, and they have to create 20 million jobs every year.
So I feel badly about our workers, but there are workers in other countries that have severe problems
as well.
DOBBS: Not to put too fine of a point on it...
SASSER: If you think our problems are bad, wait till
you see the Europeans'. I mean, they've been running these double digit unemployment rates now for
years.
DOBBS: Ambassador, not to put too fine a point on it, the fact is I care about those American jobs
before I care about the Chinese. I care about American capital before I worry about European capital.
And I can't for the life of me understand why American lawmakers and policy makers wouldn't have that
set of priorities to begin with.
SASSER: Well, Lou, it has been the American multinational corporations who have pushed
globalization.
It's American multinational corporations that wanted the trade pact with Mexico. It's American
multinational corporations that wanted to force open the China market with WTO.
When I say we've done it to ourselves to a certain extent, we have. But this is the way the world
works now.
DOBBS: The way the world works...
SASSER: We cannot wall ourselves off.
DOBBS: Ambassador, I wouldn't have us wall ourselves off for anything. We're the farthest thing from
being walled off.
But when we start tearing up the working -- hard working men and women of this country where their
jobs, the jobs, the average pay is declining, where those jobs are fewer, where we are giving up on
the issue of tariffs. The president, this administration, as you know, a huge decision to make on
whether or not to lift those tariffs on steel or face retaliation from the European Union.
At what point do you say, the pain is too great for Americans...
SASSER: I think...
DOBBS: ... and put that as a priority?
SASSER: I think that's a statement for Americans to make for themselves and to make it through their
lawmakers.
DOBBS: Don't you think this should be at the forefront amongst the top issues for our Democratic
candidates and this president to deal with in this election year?
SASSER: Oh, I most assuredly do.
DOBBS: Ambassador, you and I have just reached absolute agreement on an issue. Ambassador James
Sasser, it's always good to talk with you. Thank you for being here.
SASSER: Lou, good to talk to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE - MORE CNN TRANSCRIPT)
[SNIP]
BIG BREASTED BALLERINA SUES BOLSHOI - UPDATE
Anastasia Volochkova is sought back wages and "moral damage" compensation after her firing by the ballet company, which said she was too heavy for male dancers to lift.
Sophia Kishkovsky reports in the New York Times that a Moscow court ruled on Wednesday that the
Bolshoi Theater must reinstate Anastasia Volochkova, the glamorous ballerina.
"I've had to endure much in all these legal processes, but on the other hand it shows that in our
country there's a law that defends the rights of performers," Ms. Volochkova said Wednesday on Russian
television.
Leaving the Tverskoi courthouse earlier in the day, her lawyer, Lev Zubovsky, called the decision a
triumph of the labor code.
The court also awarded Ms. Volochkova 190,000 rubles (about $6,500) in back pay and damages. Salaries
at the Bolshoi are small, but soloists receive substantial payment for each performance. She had sued
for one ruble in moral damages, saying she did not want to take money from the state - the theater is
overseen by the Ministry of Culture - but just wanted to make a point.
The Bolshoi had no comment. Its lawyer, Dmitry Lobachyov, said it might appeal the decision. "We regard
it as unjust," he said.
Despite the ruling, Ms. Volochkova said she was not hopeful of a fast return to the Bolshoi stage.
Russia's Labor Ministry had recommended in September that the Bolshoi take Ms. Volochkova back. The
theater ignored the instruction and said it would take her back only if compelled and only as a
formality.
The Bolshoi fired Ms. Volochkova on Sept. 16 after she turned down a new contract. Bolshoi officials
accused her of being unwieldy onstage, both too tall and too heavy for male soloists, who, they said,
refused to dance with her. Ms. Volochkova has said that she weighs 109 pounds. She was measured at 5
feet 6 inches tall by The New York Times, but she refused to be weighed. She said the Bolshoi was
simply wanted an excuse to fire her.
Although she has her fervent fans, her detractors accused Ms. Volochkova, who has blond fashion-model
looks, of being an outsider who influenced the Bolshoi's administration with the financial support her
admirers gave the company.
Reports at the time quoted Anatoly Iksanov, the director of the Bolshoi Theater, as saying that Ms.
Volochkova's longtime partner, Yevgeny Ivanchenko, had been injured while dancing with her and quit the
theater before a scheduled performance with her in "Swan Lake" in September. She contended that he was
forced out.
The culture minister, Mikhail Shvydkoi, had told the newsmagazine Itogi that if reinstated Ms.
Volochkova should not expect leading roles and would have to settle for the role of fourth swan
in "Swan Lake" and a salary of just over $50 a month.
Ms. Volochkova has spent the last several months performing across Russia. She gave two performances at
a huge concert hall in the Kremlin. Among her dance partners was indeed Mr. Ivanchenko. Reviewers said
he lifted her with ease. The show, called "Stairway to Heaven," depicted, she said, the life of an
artist, "the lawlessness, the intrigues, life backstage, not just life onstage." [MORE]
Full Text of Freedom And Security Speech By Al Gore
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Wal-Mart's Big City Blues
By DAN LEVINE - The Nation
Having plundered America's countryside and suburbs for decades, Wal-Mart is now setting its sights on
unfamiliar urban territory: a grassy lot in Hartford, Connecticut. But as the mega-corporation expands
out of America's conservative strongholds, it must contend with a phenomenon it hasn't previously
encountered--an opposition armed with a living-wage ordinance.
Forging a countermovement to the retailer's one-step-from-welfare wage policy, activists have
successfully pushed living-wage ordinances in 110 cities and counties across the country since the
mid-1990s, most often in Northern, urban areas--like Hartford--and in California. Typically those laws
require companies seeking city contracts, property tax abatements or other public subsidies to pay
their employees a living wage, which can come to several dollars above hourly minimum-wage rates.
Other big-box developers have made a mockery of similar guidelines. When politicians in St. Paul,
Minnesota, granted Target Corporation a $6.3 million subsidy in 2001 to redevelop a downtown department
store, the city council simply waived its own living-wage policy. But in Hartford, a coalition of
progressive advocacy groups is determined not to let Wal-Mart secure the same sort of pass.
Wal-Mart has not sought a property tax break in Hartford, but the city's housing authority owns the
meadow where the store will sit. And the living-wage ordinance covers real estate deals, according to
the coalition, which includes the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 371, ACORN and the state
Working Families Party, among other organizations. It is a natural campaign to launch, because the
unions and community groups advancing living-wage ordinances are usually part of the same crowd that
opposes construction of new Wal-Mart stores. Their task is a difficult one: convincing unfriendly city
officials to make the mega-retailer abide by the law.
And the corporation did its groundwork in Hartford, lining up a segment of community leaders to support
the development before the plans became public. So shifting focus from prohibition of a Wal-Mart store
to regulation of its labor standards is a significant change in strategy for an anti-big-box campaign.
It is a shift that acknowledges how hard it is to convince residents of a depressed city to oppose the
lure of economic development.
"If it's a question of nothing versus Wal-Mart, that's sort of a losing battle for us. So the question
is: Should Wal-Mart provide living-wage jobs and [affordable] health benefits, or not?" says Jon Green,
director of the Working Families Party in Connecticut. "That's a different kind of question
than, 'Should there be nothing, or should there be a massive retail development?' Politically, we think
that's a better wedge for us."
Wal-Mart's vital statistics are remarkable. Annual sales ($244 billion) comparable to the gross domestic
product of Austria. Plans to open a new Supercenter every two days. No unionized American workers.
The last bit is one of Wal-Mart's keys to profitability. By keeping wages close to subsistence level,
the Arkansas-based retailer offers low prices that draw herds of gleeful shoppers away from the
competition. Little wonder the company dispatches squads of unionbusters whenever its happy "associates"
breathe the phrase "living wages."
But ubiquitous as it seems, Wal-Mart operated none of its Supercenters (giant structures that include
grocery stores) in urban areas at the end of 2001. And more than half of those existing stores could be
found in one region: the eleven states of the Old South, according to a study by Retail Forward, an
industry analysis group. California had none. To maintain its fantastic growth rate, Wal-Mart is
beginning to target territory that it had previously neglected.
In Hartford--an economically depressed city with a 73 percent Puerto Rican and African-American
population--the retailer plans to break ground by the end of July on a 165,000 square-foot store;
without a supermarket, at first, but with enough room to build one in the future. A massive effort
to build forty Supercenters is under way in California. Key to the activists' success is explaining
the hidden societal costs of allowing an unregulated Wal-Mart into town. Since workers don't make enough
money to afford company health insurance, taxpayers end up footing the bill by subsidizing Medicaid
coverage and other economic assistance.
Hartford's economic development chief says his office looked at the city's living-wage ordinance but
decided it was moot. Why? Wal-Mart indicated their wages would be high enough to comply. As a backup,
city lawyers argue that the ordinance doesn't apply to the corporation, because it only covers city
land, not city housing authority land. Never mind that the city manager appoints the authority's entire
board.
Living-wage campaigns are geared specifically toward companies like Wal-Mart. It would be devastating if
activists who have already achieved victory in 110 localities let skittish politicians eviscerate their
hard-won ordinances. [MORE - The Nation]
See L.A.Times Three Part Series
An Empire Built on Bargains Remakes the Working World
Scouring the Globe to Give Shoppers an $8.63 Polo Shirt
Grocery Unions Battle to Stop Invasion of the Giant Stores
Also see Wal-Mart is the Machine!
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The Matrix, and more...
The Matrix - 1999 * The Matrix Reloaded - 2003 * The Matrix Revolutions - 2003 (Pre-publication Order)
The CIA Infiltration of the Left
What next? THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT BEGINS - MoveOn.org
Also see 24SEP2003 Draft Hillary 2004 Update
Click HERE  if you missed yesterday's overnight news.
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