News Release Archive - 2009

RICHARD WOLFF
Wolff is author of the new book Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It.

He said today: “Since the 1970s, U.S. employers stopped paying their workers rising real wages even as worker productivity kept rising. Over the previous century, U.S. workers’ real wages had risen together with their productivity. …

“Workers had two choices: give up the [American] Dream of sending kids to college, buying good health care, enjoying retirement, living decently, or else borrow to pay for those things. Desperate to live the dream, to be ‘successful,’ to do what every advertisement advised, U.S. workers went on a 30-year borrowing binge. First they borrowed with the collateral of their homes (if they owned homes). When that was not enough, the credit card industry arose to make unsecured (no collateral) consumer loans. By 2006, U.S. workers’ families had multiple members working multiple jobs and staggering under mortgage, auto, and credit card loans that their stagnant incomes could no longer sustain. What collapsed in 2008 was an American economy built in good part on a house of credit cards because employers stopped paying rising wages for rising worker productivity.

“First, credit card companies took advantage of stagnant wages to push credit cards way beyond what working families could sustain. Today, credit card companies are cutting back consumer credit and raising fees to save themselves from financial ruin. The economic crisis whose recovery requires more spending on goods and services (that provide jobs) is thus worsened by credit card companies whose actions reduce spending. Meanwhile, real wages are not rising to once again relieve workers of the need to borrow. So unemployment worsens, foreclosures grow, and the underlying causes of the economic crisis go unattended.”

Wolff is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is currently a visiting professor in the Graduate Program for International Affairs at the New School University in New York City.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

JO COMERFORD
Comerford, executive director of the National Priorities Project, said today: “Wednesday, October 7, marks the eighth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Our analysis find that, to date, U.S. military operations in Afghanistan have cost U.S. taxpayers $228 billion, $60.2 billion of which was spent in FY 2009 alone. Monthly costs in Afghanistan during FY 2009 averaged $5 billion, up from $3.5 billion per month in FY 2008.

“In FY 2010, U.S. military spending for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is projected to be $130 billion, which would mean we’ll hit $1 trillion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in March.

“Cumulatively, funding was split between the two U.S. wars at a 70/30 ratio, with the majority of U.S. dollars going to operations in Iraq. In FY 2010, this ratio is projected to shift, with Afghanistan war spending accounting for over 50 percent of total costs.

“The numbers are staggering: $228 billion in Afghanistan war spending equals 800,000 four-year university scholarships for U.S. students. For different locales, $228 billion means $469.1 million from Boston, Massachusetts taxpayers — the equivalent of healthcare for 140,600 people in Boston; $1.5 billion from folks in Alameda County, California, which equals 4,341 affordable housing units for them; or $89.2 million from people in Evanston, Illinois, which equals 1,372 elementary school teachers for their kids.”

See “Cost of War Counters” for Afghanistan, Iraq and combined — as well as “tradeoffs,” which lets you see how much cities, states and congressional districts have spent on the wars and what that money could have gotten: CostOfWar.com.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Wednesday, October 7, marks the eighth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

MEDEA BENJAMIN
JODIE EVANS
ANN WRIGHT
Benjamin, Evans and Wright are just back from Afghanistan. Benjamin and Evans are co-founders of the women’s peace group CODEPINK. See the blog here.

Wright, a former State Department diplomat and retired Army colonel, helped re-open the U.S. embassy in Kabul in 2001; this was her first trip there since then.

NORMAN SOLOMON
Solomon recently wrote the piece “Starting Another Year of War in Afghanistan.”

Executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, Solomon — recently back from Kabul — is the author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.

KATHY KELLY
DAN PEARSON
Kelly and Pearson are with the group Voices for Creative Nonviolence. They just wrote the piece “Alternatives to war in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” which states: “Eight years have passed and the war in Afghanistan, now costing the U.S. $4 billion per month, has spilled over into neighboring Pakistan. The Obama administration has taken the liberty of combining the two countries into a single theater of operations with the epithet ‘AfPak.’ Obama is now considering alternatives to a major military escalation in Afghanistan and a further acceleration of drone strikes in Pakistan is top on the list.

“We traveled to Northern Pakistan in May and June of this year to gain an understanding of the consequences for the people on the receiving end of such drone strikes. There is no reason to believe that any new strategy that includes the use of military force in Afghanistan or Pakistan will do anything but aggravate the already widespread animosity toward the U.S.

“Plans that promise to provide peace and security by eradicating ‘the bad guys’ may accomplish short-term ‘successes’ by locking up or killing armed resisters. But military establishments aren’t set up to ameliorate the long-term and desperate grievances that afflict impoverished people and give rise to support for militant groups of resisters.

“According to conservative estimates, 33 percent of Pakistan’s population of 170 million live below the poverty line, and nearly 75 percent live on less than $2 a day. In Afghanistan, 70 percent of the population lives in desperate poverty and 54 percent of children under the age of five are stunted.

“Meanwhile, U.S. drone attacks continue, in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Using ‘eyes in the skies’ by piloting Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs or drones), the U.S. analysts can see and attack suspected Taliban fighters, along with anyone else who might happen to be in the vicinity. But the UAVs won’t help us understand the acute need for humanitarian relief, diplomacy, negotiation and dialogue in a region already overwhelmed by attacks, counterattacks, bloodshed and death.”

Protests are planned in front of the White House today, which could result in scores of arrests, see here.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Dr. Margaret Flowers and Dr. Paul Hochfeld will lead a delegation of physicians to the White House on Monday to seek a place at a meeting between President Obama and an estimated 50 doctors who have been invited by the White House to show their support for his health insurance plan.

MARGARET FLOWERS, M.D.
also via Mark Almberg
Dr. Margaret Flowers, a Maryland pediatrician and congressional fellow for Physicians for a National Health Program, said today: “The current health reform being written in Congress, particularly that being put together in the Senate Finance Committee (which is literally being written by the former vice president of WellPoint, a large insurer), will not be universal and will not control health costs. It will not stop medical bankruptcies and foreclosures due to medical debt. It will not end the suffering and preventable deaths. It will not produce a health care system that uses our health care dollars wisely.”

She continued: “We have a simple solution that will end the suffering and save lives: expanded and improved Medicare for All. Most Americans and most physicians support such a measure, but this solution is being excluded. The White House is once again excluding those who advocate for real health reform.”

PAUL HOCHFELD, M.D.
Hochfeld, an Oregon emergency medicine physician, producer of the film “Health, Money and Fear” and a member of “Mad as Hell Doctors,” said today: “In a brash move, the White House is again demonstrating the exclusion of those who advocate for real health reform. … At the end of August, in response to the heated Town Halls and the opposition to health reform, Physicians for a National Health Program and the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care sent letters to President Obama requesting a meeting. As the legislation that Congress was putting together was falling apart, we asked, again, to work with the president for real health reform. It would be a win for the people in America and a win for the president. Yet, he refused to meet with us.

“In early September, a group of physicians representing the Oregon Chapter of PNHP, known as the Mad As Hell Doctors, also wrote to the president. On September 8 they left Oregon in a Care-a-van, stopping in towns along the way to speak out for single payer and hear what people had to say. They asked for a meeting with the president upon their arrival in Washington. Again, the president refused. Thousands of people sent letters to the White House asking the president to meet with the Mad As Hell Docs, and yet, again, he refused. The only response they received was a request to stop sending so many emails.

“On September 30, the Mad As Hell Docs arrived in Washington, D.C. and held a rally in Lafayette Park in front of the White House. Doctors from across the country attended. They told the crowd why they believed, based on their years of practicing medicine and the stories they heard during their tour about the unimaginable suffering and deaths, that single payer is the solution. Their voices were not heard in the White House — or were they?”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

This Friday, October 2, the World March for Peace and Nonviolence kicks off in New Zealand, marking the start of the world’s first six-continent peace march calling for the elimination of wars, nuclear weapons and violence of all kinds.

Launched by the international organization World Without Wars, the World March has been endorsed by Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter, the Dalai Lama and other Nobel Peace Prize winners, Sarah Obama (President Obama’s Kenyan grandmother), thousands of organizations including Mayors for Peace, Abolition 2000, Veterans for Peace, Code Pink, and more than a million people, including writers Noam Chomsky and Eduardo Galeano and celebrities Yoko Ono, Cate Blanchett and Viggo Mortensen.

Chomsky brings the ideals of the World March back to the principles of Gandhi, whose October 2 birthday was chosen as both the International Day of Nonviolence and the day the March begins its 93-day journey around the world. “The World March for Peace and Non-Violence is a wonderful idea,” says Chomsky, “a fitting commemoration of Gandhi’s legacy on the centenary of his birth… It could hardly be more timely, and should serve as an inspiration to those who seek to fulfill the noble ideals that Gandhi’s life and work symbolized in ways that are rarely approached.”

In the U.S., the march kick-off will be marked by dozens of events around the country, including:

* The formation of a human peace symbol in Santa Monica, California;
* An interfaith blessing ceremony at the New York Harbor; and
* An environmental peace walk in Richmond, Virginia.

Between November 30 and December 3, 2009, the international marchers will visit several U.S. cities (beginning in New York City), including Washington, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

For more information, including a complete list of events, visit World March USA (national) and the World March (international).

Contact: Nicole Myers (212) 580-8029, press@worldmarchusa.net

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

GARETH PORTER
Porter recently wrote the piece “U.S. Story on Iran Nuke Facility Doesn’t Add Up,” which states: “The story line that dominated media coverage of the second Iranian uranium enrichment facility last week was the official assertion that U.S. intelligence had caught Iran trying to conceal a ‘secret’ nuclear facility.

“But an analysis of the transcript of that briefing by senior administration officials that was the sole basis for the news stories and other evidence reveals damaging admissions, conflicts with the facts and unanswered questions that undermine its credibility.”

Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in U.S. national security policy and author of the book Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

DAVE ZIRIN
Sportswriter Zirin just wrote the piece “Obama’s Olympic Error,” which states: “To greater or lesser degrees, the Olympics bring gentrification, graft and police violence wherever they nest. … It’s also difficult for Chicago residents to see how this will help their pocketbooks, given that [Chicago Mayor Richard] Daley pledged to the International Olympic Committee that any cost overruns would be covered by taxpayers.

“This is why a staggering 84 percent of the city opposes bringing the Games to Chicago if it costs residents a solitary dime. Even if the games were to go off without a hitch — which would happen only if the setting was lovely Shangri-La — not even half the residents would support hosting the Games.”

Zirin is the author of Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and Promise of Sports and the newly published A People’s History of Sports in the United States. He is the host of XM Radio’s “Edge of Sports Radio.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

ADRIENNE PINE
Pine is assistant professor of anthropology at American University, has done extensive research on Honduras and has been blogging about recent events.

She said today: “The coup regime is imposing a horrific crackdown on democracy and the Honduran people — on freedom of assembly, on freedom of speech, on the few remaining independent media outlets. This coup regime is showing itself to be nothing other than a fascist dictatorship.

“The U.S. government has to stop sitting idly by — or worse, actually criticizing the democratically elected Manuel Zelaya — while this goes on. The attacks on the Brazilian embassy by the coup regime amount to a declaration of war.” Pine is author of the book Working Hard, Drinking Hard: On Violence and Survival in Honduras.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Dr. BARBARA BLAYLOCK, Dr. MICHAEL HUNTINGTON, via Fiori Cippoletti
Blaylock and Huntington are part of the “Mad as Hell Doctors” who left Oregon in early September in a “Care-A-Van” traveling across the U.S.

They will be holding a rally in Washington’s Lafayette Park from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Wednesday, September 30.

A retired primary care internist now living in Rockville, Maryland, Blaylock said today: “I’m mad as hell because health care in America has become a web of business entities. It’s focused on [making] a profit instead of doing what’s right for all of us. There are no quick fixes, but a single-payer model would reduce administrative waste, free patients to choose their own doctors and facilitate job mobility.”

A radiation oncologist from Oregon, Huntington said today: “Americans aren’t getting the information they need to make an educated decision about healthcare. The reality is that a single-payer healthcare system has been working in other countries for decades and it can work here. But there’s so much misinformation, so much undue corporate influence, that the truth doesn’t penetrate.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

For updates and links to the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, see here.

PAIGE CRAM
Cram is communications coordinator for the National Lawyers Guild, which just put out the statement “NLG Observes Improper Use of Force by Law Enforcement at the G-20.”

SOREN AMBROSE
Ambrose is development finance coordinator of ActionAid International (based in Nairobi, Kenya). He is able to explain and examine G-20 policies, especially their effects on poorer countries and people around the world.

CHARLES McCOLLESTER
McCollester, author of The Point of Pittsburgh: Production and Struggle at the Forks of the Ohio, is a retired professor of industrial and labor relations at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He recently wrote the piece “There are plenty of reasons to protest the G-20: The global economic system has deindustrialized America, despoiled the Earth and marginalized working people everywhere” for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167