Iraq by the Numbers

from MeteorBlades at Kos

655,000: Iraqi deaths a Johns-Hopkins study attributed to the war nine months ago.

2770: Iraqi civilians killed in May 2007, according to government reports. (Actual figure unknown because the Iraqi government refuses to share its data with outside agencies that could verify totals.)

1.9 million: Estimated Iraqis displaced within the country.

2.35 million: Estimated Iraqi exiles outside the country in January 2007.

18,000: Iraqi doctors who have fled the country since March 2003.

25%: Iraqi children who are malnourished (May 2006).

$60-$95 billion: Total cost of Iraq war and aftermath calculated by Paul Wolfowitz in February 2003.

$600 billion: Money Congress has allocated for direct costs of the war and occupation so far.

$140,000: Estimated cost per minute of the war and occupation in 2007.

$2 trillion: Total direct and indirect costs of war and occupation (through 2010) calculated by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Blimes in January 2006.

6,000-10,000: Estimated number of U.S. troops whose injuries have included brain trauma.

30%: Estimated percentage of troops who develop serious mental problems within three or four months after returning from Iraq.

Why are so many Americans in prison?

Glenn C. Loury asks, and answers, in the Boston Review.

198 Methods of Nonviolent Action

From A Force More Powerful

The Methods of Nonviolent Protest and Persuasion

Formal Statements
1. Public Speeches
2. Letters of opposition or support
3. Declarations by organizations and institutions
4. Signed public statements
5. Declarations of indictment and intention
6. Group or mass petitions

Communications with a Wider Audience
7. Slogans, caricatures, and symbols
8. Banners, posters, and displayed communications
9. Leaflets, pamphlets, and books
10. Newspapers and journals
11. Records, radio, and television
12. Skywriting and earthwriting

Group Representations
13. Deputations
14. Mock awards
15. Group lobbying
16. Picketing
17. Mock elections

Symbolic Public Acts
18. Displays of flags and symbolic colors
19. Wearing of symbols
20. Prayer and worship
21. Delivering symbolic objects
22. Protest disrobings
23. Destruction of own property
24. Symbolic lights
25. Displays of portraits
26. Paint as protest
27. New signs and names
28. Symbolic sounds
29. Symbolic reclamations
30. Rude gestures

Pressures on Individuals
31. "Haunting" officials
32. Taunting officials
33. Fraternization
34. Vigils

Drama and Music
35. Humorous skits and pranks
36. Performances of plays and music
37. Singing

Processions
38. Marches
39. Parades
40. Religious processions
41. Pilgrimages
42. Motorcades

Honoring the Dead
43. Political mourning
44. Mock funerals
45. Demonstrative funerals
46. Homage at burial places

Public Assemblies
47. Assemblies of protest or support
48. Protest meetings
49. Camouflaged meetings of protest
50. Teach-ins

Withdrawal and Renunciation
51. Walk-outs
52. Silence
53. Renouncing honors
54. Turning one’s back

The Methods of Social Noncooperation

Ostracism of Persons
55. Social boycott
56. Selective social boycott
57. Lysistratic nonaction
58. Excommunication
59. Interdict

Noncooperation with Social Events, Customs, and Institutions
60. Suspension of social and sports activities
61. Boycott of social affairs
62. Student strike
63. Social disobedience
64. Withdrawal from social institutions

Withdrawal from the Social System
65. Stay-at-home
66. Total personal noncooperation
67. "Flight" of workers
68. Sanctuary
69. Collective disappearance
70. Protest emigration (hijrat)

The Methods of Economic Noncooperation: Economic Boycotts

Actions by Consumers
71. Consumers’ boycott
72. Nonconsumption of boycotted goods
73. Policy of austerity
74. Rent withholding
75. Refusal to rent
76. National consumers’ boycott
77. International consumers’ boycott

Action by Workers and Producers
78. Workmen’s boycott
79. Producers’ boycott

Action by Middlemen
80. Suppliers’ and handlers’ boycott

Action by Owners and Management
81. Traders’ boycott
82. Refusal to let or sell property
83. Lockout
84. Refusal of industrial assistance
85. Merchants’ "general strike"

Action by Holders of Financial Resources
86. Withdrawal of bank deposits
87. Refusal to pay fees, dues, and assessments
88. Refusal to pay debts or interest
89. Severance of funds and credit
90. Revenue refusal
91. Refusal of a government’s money

Action by Governments
92. Domestic embargo
93. Blacklisting of traders
94. International sellers’ embargo
95. International buyers’ embargo
96. International trade embargo

The Methods of Economic Noncooperation: The Strike

Symbolic Strikes
97. Protest strike
98. Quickie walkout (lightning strike)

Agricultural Strikes
99. Peasant strike
100. Farm Workers’ strike

Strikes by Special Groups
101. Refusal of impressed labor
102. Prisoners’ strike
103. Craft strike
104. Professional strike

Ordinary Industrial Strikes
105. Establishment strike
106. Industry strike
107. Sympathetic strike

Restricted Strikes
108. Detailed strike
109. Bumper strike
110. Slowdown strike
111. Working-to-rule strike
112. Reporting "sick" (sick-in)
113. Strike by resignation
114. Limited strike
115. Selective strike

Multi-Industry Strikes
116. Generalized strike
117. General strike

Combination of Strikes and Economic Closures
118. Hartal
119. Economic shutdown

The Methods of Political Noncooperation

Rejection of Authority
120. Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance
121. Refusal of public support
122. Literature and speeches advocating resistance

Citizens’ Noncooperation with Government
123. Boycott of legislative bodies
124. Boycott of elections
125. Boycott of government employment and positions
126. Boycott of government departments, agencies, and other bodies
127. Withdrawal from government educational institutions
128. Boycott of government-supported organizations
129. Refusal of assistance to enforcement agents
130. Removal of own signs and placemarks
131. Refusal to accept appointed officials
132. Refusal to dissolve existing institutions

Citizens’ Alternatives to Obedience
133. Reluctant and slow compliance
134. Nonobedience in absence of direct supervision
135. Popular nonobedience
136. Disguised disobedience
137. Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse
138. Sitdown
139. Noncooperation with conscription and deportation
140. Hiding, escape, and false identities
141. Civil disobedience of "illegitimate" laws

Action by Government Personnel
142. Selective refusal of assistance by government aides
143. Blocking of lines of command and information
144. Stalling and obstruction
145. General administrative noncooperation
146. Judicial noncooperation
147. Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by
enforcement agents
148. Mutiny

Domestic Governmental Action
149. Quasi-legal evasions and delays
150. Noncooperation by constituent governmental units

International Governmental Action
151. Changes in diplomatic and other representations
152. Delay and cancellation of diplomatic events
153. Withholding of diplomatic recognition
154. Severance of diplomatic relations
155. Withdrawal from international organizations
156. Refusal of membership in international bodies
157. Expulsion from international organizations

The Methods of Nonviolent Intervention

Psychological Intervention
158. Self-exposure to the elements
159. The fast
a) Fast of moral pressure
b) Hunger strike
c) Satyagrahic fast
160. Reverse trial
161. Nonviolent harassment

Physical Intervention
162. Sit-in
163. Stand-in
164. Ride-in
165. Wade-in
166. Mill-in
167. Pray-in
168. Nonviolent raids
169. Nonviolent air raids
170. Nonviolent invasion
171. Nonviolent interjection
172. Nonviolent obstruction
173. Nonviolent occupation

Social Intervention
174. Establishing new social patterns
175. Overloading of facilities
176. Stall-in
177. Speak-in
178. Guerrilla theater
179. Alternative social institutions
180. Alternative communication system

Economic Intervention
181. Reverse strike
182. Stay-in strike
183. Nonviolent land seizure
184. Defiance of blockades
185. Politically motivated counterfeiting
186. Preclusive purchasing
187. Seizure of assets
188. Dumping
189. Selective patronage
190. Alternative markets
191. Alternative transportation systems
192. Alternative economic institutions

Political Intervention
193. Overloading of administrative systems
194. Disclosing identities of secret agents
195. Seeking imprisonment
196. Civil disobedience of "neutral" laws
197. Work-on without collaboration
198. Dual sovereignty and parallel government

Source: Sharp, Gene. The Politics of Nonviolent Action (3 Vols.), Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973. Provided courtesy of the Albert Einstein Institution.

Keeping the Constitution Undefiled

Left and Right agree: it's the precedent, stupid. Watch the video. A thoughtful discussion on the teevee, for a nice change.

The problem, in a nutshell

Dick

Cheney, that is.

Do Not Mix Incarcerex with the Constitution or Common Sense

h/t Andrew Sullivan

Decling Wages Means Increased Poverty?

Imagine.

Read the brief report here.

Veterans and Homelessness

A new Congressional Research Service report, via the indispensable Secrecy News. (Scroll down for PDF link).

So far, 300 who served in Afghanistan or Iraq are homeless, with more than 1,000 more at risk. At least fifteen percent with a serious psychiatric disorder. And remember that most of our men and women have not come home yet, of course, and that after Vietnam it was often a full decade before Vets found themselves homeless. . . . .

Being poor is people surprised to discover you're not actually stupid.

Being poor is hoping the register lady will spot you the dime.

Being poor is feeling helpless when your child makes the same mistakes you did, and won't listen to you beg them against doing so.

Being poor is a cough that doesn't go away.

Being poor is making sure you don't spill on the couch, just in case you have to give it back before the lease is up.

Being poor is a $200 paycheck advance from a company that takes $250 when the paycheck comes in.

Read it all here, via Ezra.

The State of Iraq, from the NYT

I See You

Some words from former President Clinton's commencement address:

In the central highlands in Africa where I work, when people meet each other walking, nearly nobody rides, and people meet each other walking on the trails, and one person says hello, how are you, good morning, the answer is not I’m fine, how are you. The answer translated into English is this: I see you. Think of that. I see you. How many people do all of us pass every day that we never see? You know, we all haul out of here, somebody’s going to come in here and fold up 20-something thousand chairs. And clean off whatever mess we leave here. And get ready for tomorrow and then after tomorrow, someone will have to fix that. Many of those people feel that no one ever sees them. I would never have seen the people in Aceh in Indonesia if a terrible misfortune had not struck. And so, I leave you with that thought. Be true to the tradition of the great people who have come here. Spend as much of your time and your heart and your spirit as you possibly can thinking about the 99.9 percent [that all humans are biologically indistinguishable from one another]. See everyone and realize that everyone needs new beginnings. Enjoy your good fortune. Enjoy your differences, but realize that our common humanity matters much, much more.

Mark Twain's _The War Prayer_

The Challenge

Living on Food Stamps. Sometimes there's a lot of month left at the end of the money. Many researchers now refer not to hunger, but to “food insecurity,” defined by the Census Bureau as “not always having access to enough food to meet basic needs.” It is widespread. The USDA estimated that more than 35 million Americans lived in food insecure households in 2005, which were insecure on average for six months during the year. According to Second Harvest, a national network of emergency food providers, in 2005 over 25 million Americans used a soup kitchen (which provide eat-in prepared meals), a food pantry (which provide bags of free groceries to take home), or ate in a shelter supplied by their food distributors over the course of the year. That’s about 4 million separate people in any given week; at least 9 percent of the population that couldn’t afford food. It’s almost 15 percent in big cities. About one-third were children, and 11 percent were elderly. One-third of the non-elderly adults in need were employed at the time of their survey, and about half of all food recipients had income above 130 percent of the poverty line, making them poor enough to need help but probably not poor enough to qualify for food stamps. About one-third did receive food stamps (although nationwide only about half of all those who are eligible actually receive them; in some cities it’s as low as one in four), but they reported that their monthly supply lasted only about 2.5 weeks

Insanely Cool

Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait

(hat tip Daily Dish)

No Better than Ezra

You're on your own, unless you're among the educated elite:

I tend to think it's easier to not see the lack of mandatory paid vacation and holiday as much of a problem if you're a highly educated, white collar worker, and even easier if you're a stay-at-home, freelance writer. It will simply never be true for you that the minimum is your reality.

But that doesn't mean it's not true for others. According to the CEPR study (pdf), about a quarter of workers don't get any paid vacation or holidays. If you make less than $15 an hour, that number jumps to 31%. If you do get paid vacation, on average, you get 12 days of it a year. That's less than the statutory minimum in every advanced country save Japan and Canada, and I'd bet the average in both countries well outpaces the average here.

And it's not just vacation days. Nearly half of all private sector workers get no paid sick days. In the bottom quarter of US workers, 80% are deprived -- and this is exactly the group that can't afford to take an unpaid sick day. And so far as family values go, only one in three workers has paid sick days they can use to care for ill children.

Fallwell's Dead

Here's his legacy, from The Navy Times:

Navy veteran David Miller said that when he checked into the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Iowa City, he didn’t realize he would get a hard sell for Christian fundamentalism along with treatment for his kidney stones.

Miller, 46, an Orthodox Jew, said he was repeatedly proselytized by hospital chaplains and staff in attempts to convert him to Christianity during three hospitalizations over the past two years.

He said he went hungry each time because the hospital wouldn’t serve him kosher food, and the staff refused to contact his rabbi, who could have brought him something to eat.

There more.

The Poverty Business

The poor pay more:

In recent years, a range of businesses have made financing more readily available to even the riskiest of borrowers. Greater access to credit has put cars, computers, credit cards, and even homes within reach for many more of the working poor. But this remaking of the marketplace for low-income consumers has a dark side: Innovative and zealous firms have lured unsophisticated shoppers by the hundreds of thousands into a thicket of debt from which many never emerge.

Federal Reserve data show that in relative terms, that debt is getting more expensive. In 1989 households earning $30,000 or less a year paid an average annual interest rate on auto loans that was 16.8% higher than what households earning more than $90,000 a year paid. By 2004 the discrepancy had soared to 56.1%. Roughly the same thing happened with mortgage loans: a leap from a 6.4% gap to one of 25.5%. "It's not only that the poor are paying more; the poor are paying a lot more," says Sheila C. Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Read the rest.

Yowza

Go play the clip HERE. You heard me, go. . . . . .

Homeless People Count

A terrific new report from Picture the Homeless. Get it HERE