This article exposes some of the past sins of the IRD. Diane Knippers, whom I quoted in an earlier article, features here. She died of cancer some time ago. However, her corrupt witness to the world is carried on by others.
Via the Sideshow I read Dave Neiwert's detailed analysis of the right-wing funding behind groups like the Institute on Religion and Democracy.
So IRD has resurfaced and reinvented itself yet again, this time around hoping to ride the media wave of the backlash against the consecration of an openly gay Episcopal bishop.
IRD has a history that ought not to be forgotten. It's most disastrous accomplishment came in the mid-1980s, when Dianne Knippers -- now the group's president -- was just a "researcher" on its staff. Somewhere I've still got files on this with photocopies of all the relevant articles. If I can dig these out, I'll type them in. For now, here's a less-detailed account from memory:
The IRD began in a splash of Cold War rhetoric and anticommunist manifestos in 1983. It's first -- and only -- publicity coup came with a Reader's Digest article and 60 Minutes appearance in which the group alleged that the World Council of Churches was little more than a wing of a global conspiracy promoting Soviet-style communism. (Among the article's allegations: the WCC had ties to those radicals in the African National Congress -- when it came to South African apartheid, the IRD was on the wrong side of history.)
The real battleground for the IRD wasn't against international communism, but against domestic political foes of its conservative founders and funders. The Cold War, for IRD, was merely a proxy for their partisan struggle to portray American liberals -- implausibly -- as complicit in the sins of Soviet-style communism. It was, in other words, a kind of neo-McCarthyism.
Their strategy was to undermine support for what they saw as politically liberal religious institutions, particularly the National Council of Churches and the mainline Protestant denominations associated with it. Their favorite tactic was to try to identify these denominations with alleged communist subversives -- whether those be Marxist-influenced liberation theologians, anti-apartheid activists, relief workers or environmentalists. Any religious group that dared to speak of assisting or empowering the poor was, in the eyes of IRD, suspect, and probably "communist."
But despite its massive financial support, IRD's basic incompetence -- its lack both of PR savvy and intellectual firepower -- kept the group from having any real influence. While the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute and many of the other groups funded by Richard Scaife, et. al., prospered, the IRD sputtered in obscurity.
Only once did its influence have any significant real-world impact, and that ignoble incident became a black mark from which it took IRD years to recover. They got people killed.
During the 1980s, you'll recall, the United States did not regard all terrorists as "evil-doers." Some, like the contras of Nicaragua, we regarded as "freedom fighters." In support of such freedom fighters, IRD staffer Diane Knippers set her sights on CEPAD (an English-language site here, I think the Nicaragua site is down), a relief and development agency coordinated by the evangelical churches of Nicaragua.
CEPAD originated in response to the earthquake that devastated much of Nicaragua in 1982. The driving force behind CEPAD was a medical doctor and Baptist minister named Gustavo Parajon. He and his American-born wife, Joan, were also commissioned as missionaries by the American Baptist Churches.
CEPAD ran a network of medical clinics for the poor, as well as a successful literacy campaign. That literacy work had won the admiration and support of Nicaragua's president, Daniel Ortega, and his Sandinista regime.
Ortega's praise of CEPAD gave Knippers what she saw as an opening. The evangelical churches were not supporters of the Sandinistas, but Knippers portrayed CEPAD -- and therefore the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society -- as "guilty" by association. She wrote of CEPAD as a communist front, part of a supposed Soviet beachhead in Nicaragua.
No one in this country paid much attention, but the contras did. CEPAD's clinics became targets for their paramilitary terrorists. Knippers had place evangelical missionaries -- doctors and nurses -- and the poor people they served in the crosshairs of terrorists.
Ron Sider, a Mennonite professor at an American Baptist Seminary and head of Evangelicals for Social Action, pleaded with IRD to correct its reporting on CEPAD. Sider invited IRD staff to travel with him and a delegation of prominent conservative evangelicals to Nicaragua where they could meet with the Parajons and other leaders of CEPAD. There, Sider insisted, they would see for themselves that these were not "communists," but medical missionaries, preaching and demonstrating the Christian gospel.
With several evangelical gatekeepers involved in the delegation, and with mainstream evangelical publications like Christianity Today closely following the dispute, IRD had no choice but to agree to the trip. Then, at the last minute, they backed out and refused to go.
CEPAD was vindicated and IRD suffered a devastating embarrassment. They were, rightly, perceived as an unreliable source of information -- closed-minded ideologues were were willing to attack others on the basis of irresponsibly flimsy evidence.
It took IRD years to recover from the CEPAD Affair. And just when they were getting back on their feet, along came the revolutions of 1989 and the end of the Cold War -- which took the wind out of their favorite tactic.
The group has spent most of the past decade trying to piggy back on the evangelical "renewal" movements within the mainline denominations. IRD has long attacked "liberalism" within these Protestant traditions, and that liberalism is also a worry for many in these renewal movements, but ultimately these groups are a bad match for IRD. The renewal movements succeed precisely to the extent that they are marked by a revivalistic spirit. That revivalism is inescapably inclusive and revolutionary. IRD's whole shtick is to be exclusive and reactionary. Reinventing itself as IRD/Renew ain't gonna work.
(NOTE: In the interest of full disclosure, I worked for Ron Sider from 1992-2000 on the staff of ESA, and continue to work with him on occasional projects at the seminary where he teaches.)
Friday, June 22, 2007
US plans to open prison in Afghanistan
He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, 'Grant me justice against my opponent.' For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, 'Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'" And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"
Luke 18:2-8
Washington Post reports that the US is planning to build a prison in Afghanistan, and to move some Gitmo detainees there. The White House says that this isn't meant as an alternative to Guantanamo. The White House has lied countless times, since before the beginning of the war.
Americans should do as the wronged widow did. Keep going before our government, the unjust judge who neither fears God nor respects people. God will someday grant justice to those that our government has wronged, and we'd better be on the right side when that happens.
WASHINGTON -- The United States is helping build a prison in Afghanistan that would take some prisoners now at Guantanamo Bay, but the White House said Friday that it was not meant as an alternative to the detainee facility in Cuba.
The Bush administration wants to close Guantanamo Bay and move its terror suspects to prisons elsewhere, but says no decision about the status of the facility is imminent. White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said the United States has released about 80 of some 375 detainees, and hopes to transfer several dozen Afghans back to Afghanistan in the near future.
"America does not have any intention of being the world's jailer," Perino said, adding that the administration wants other nations to take their prisoners back, and treat them humanely, but not let them back on the battlefield.
She said President Bush has directed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to work with her counterparts around the world to try to repatriate the detainees to their home countries, make sure that they are held safely and treated humanely and that they are not allowed to perpetrate acts of terrorism.
The Guantanamo Bay prison, set up in 2002 to house terror suspects captured in military operations, mostly in Afghanistan, has been a flash point for criticism of the Bush administration at home and abroad.
Human rights advocates and foreign leaders have repeatedly called for the shutdown of Guantanamo, and the prison is regarded by many as proof of U.S. double standards on fundamental freedoms in the war on terrorism.
Some of the detainees come from countries that are U.S. allies, including Britain, Saudi Arabia and Australia. Each of those governments raised complaints about the conditions or duration of detentions, or about the possibility that detainees might face death sentences.
Senior administration officials said Thursday that a consensus is building for a plan to shut the detention center and transfer detainees to one of more Defense Department facilities, including the maximum-security military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Perino would not comment on whether detainees were headed to Kansas.
Bush's national security and legal advisers had been scheduled to discuss the move at a meeting Friday, the officials said, but after The Associated Press reported it, the White House said the meeting would not take place that day and no decision on Guantanamo Bay's status is imminent.
Three senior administration officials spoke about the discussions on condition of anonymity because they were internal deliberations.
Perino said the meeting was canceled "very late" on Thursday because it was determined that a "meeting wasn't necessary at this time."
"There was going to be a meeting in which Guantanamo detainee issues were discussed today, but that has been taken off the schedule," Perino said Friday. "That doesn't mean that people don't continue to work on what the president has asked them to do, which is work towards getting that facility closed."
Expected to consult soon, according to the officials, were Rice, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace.
Wal-Mart equivocates on LGBT rights (ie, it leaves its employees out to dry)
By Marc Gunther, Fortune senior writer
June 22 2007: 11:30 AM EDT
NEW YORK (FORTUNE) -- Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, has decided to curb its support of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) organizations after conservative Christian groups threatened a boycott, and after some of its own employees expressed disapproval.
The move comes a year after Wal-Mart (Charts, Fortune 500) had put on a gay-friendly smile. The company joined the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. It sponsored the annual convention of Out & Equal, a group that promotes gay rights in the workplace and sells gay-themed jewelry in stores.
Jury awards $2M to ex-Wal-Mart worker
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"We are not currently planning corporate-level contributions to GLBT groups," said Mona Williams, the company's senior vice president of corporate communications. Individual stores can still donate to gay groups.
By way of explanation, Ms. Williams cited a policy adopted last fall saying that Wal-Mart would not make corporate contributions "to support or oppose highly controversial issues" unless they directly relate to the company's ability to serve its customers.
How significant is the pullback? Williams says it does not signal any less support for its GLBT employees or for Wal-Mart Pride, a network of gay employees at the company. She's an executive sponsor of the group, which was sanctioned in 2005. "We certainly don't feel that it's a retrenchment," she said.
Others can't help but see it that way. After Wal-Mart explained its decision to a meeting of about 50 Pride members, one contacted FORTUNE to express disappointment.
"I thought the company was moving in the right direction," this employee wrote in an email. "But last week changed everything. Pulling funding from GLBT organizations is a slap in the face to gay employees and it sends a very clear message. Diversity within Wal-Mart is only partially inclusive." "They're catering to their conservative base," the employee added, in a phone conversation.
Interestingly, gay-rights groups were more understanding. Selisse Berry, the executive director of Out & Equal, said: "Wal-Mart continues to engage on the issue of worker equality, and we will support them in that...This is a marathon, not a sprint, and so long as Wal-Mart keeps its doors open, we hope to give them encouragement." Wal-Mart had donated $60,000 to Out & Equal.
The Human Rights Campaign, America's largest gay-rights group, also says it will continue to work closely with Wal-Mart. "With a company as large as Wal-Mart, it's not going to happen as fast as many of us would like," says Daryl Herrschaft, who oversees the HRC's workplace project.
Wal-Mart supported the gay chamber, an organization of more than 24,000 gay- and lesbian-owned businesses, for the first time last year. (Other corporate backers include IBM, Wells Fargo, Motorola and American Express.) The chamber's president, Justin Nelson, did not return a call seeking comment.
Several sources told FORTUNE that Wal-Mart now intends to work harder to educate its own employees about GLBT issues - something it had been advised to do before aligning itself publicly with gay-rights groups.
Last year, when anti-gay groups picketed stores, store managers weren't prepared to explain the company's position. Leaders of Wal-Mart Pride say most of its members work in and around the company's Bentonville headquarters, so they have been unable to muster allies in the field.
On June 9, Wal-Mart Pride members made a presentation to more than 500 employees at one of the company's Saturday morning meetings, which are used to rally the company around business goals. "The presentation was warmly received," Williams said.
Still, some members of the group had hoped that Wal-Mart would by now have taken a major step towards workplace equality by offering health care benefits to the domestic partners of its GLBT employees. More than half of FORTUNE 500 companies do so.
The lesson here may be that it's hard to find a middle ground when it comes to gay rights in the workplace. A company either believes in workplace equality for all, and is willing to stand up and say so, or it doesn't.
It's pretty clear where Wal-Mart stands
June 22 2007: 11:30 AM EDT
NEW YORK (FORTUNE) -- Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, has decided to curb its support of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) organizations after conservative Christian groups threatened a boycott, and after some of its own employees expressed disapproval.
The move comes a year after Wal-Mart (Charts, Fortune 500) had put on a gay-friendly smile. The company joined the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. It sponsored the annual convention of Out & Equal, a group that promotes gay rights in the workplace and sells gay-themed jewelry in stores.
Jury awards $2M to ex-Wal-Mart worker
More from FORTUNE
Private equity IPOs unfazed by tax man
Plugged-in: Wal-Mart shuns gay groups
Right phone, right time
FORTUNE 500
Current Issue
Subscribe to Fortune
Video More video
CNN's Jonathan Mann visits a Wal-Mart to see how they are taking an Earth-friendly approach. (May 4)
Play video
"We are not currently planning corporate-level contributions to GLBT groups," said Mona Williams, the company's senior vice president of corporate communications. Individual stores can still donate to gay groups.
By way of explanation, Ms. Williams cited a policy adopted last fall saying that Wal-Mart would not make corporate contributions "to support or oppose highly controversial issues" unless they directly relate to the company's ability to serve its customers.
How significant is the pullback? Williams says it does not signal any less support for its GLBT employees or for Wal-Mart Pride, a network of gay employees at the company. She's an executive sponsor of the group, which was sanctioned in 2005. "We certainly don't feel that it's a retrenchment," she said.
Others can't help but see it that way. After Wal-Mart explained its decision to a meeting of about 50 Pride members, one contacted FORTUNE to express disappointment.
"I thought the company was moving in the right direction," this employee wrote in an email. "But last week changed everything. Pulling funding from GLBT organizations is a slap in the face to gay employees and it sends a very clear message. Diversity within Wal-Mart is only partially inclusive." "They're catering to their conservative base," the employee added, in a phone conversation.
Interestingly, gay-rights groups were more understanding. Selisse Berry, the executive director of Out & Equal, said: "Wal-Mart continues to engage on the issue of worker equality, and we will support them in that...This is a marathon, not a sprint, and so long as Wal-Mart keeps its doors open, we hope to give them encouragement." Wal-Mart had donated $60,000 to Out & Equal.
The Human Rights Campaign, America's largest gay-rights group, also says it will continue to work closely with Wal-Mart. "With a company as large as Wal-Mart, it's not going to happen as fast as many of us would like," says Daryl Herrschaft, who oversees the HRC's workplace project.
Wal-Mart supported the gay chamber, an organization of more than 24,000 gay- and lesbian-owned businesses, for the first time last year. (Other corporate backers include IBM, Wells Fargo, Motorola and American Express.) The chamber's president, Justin Nelson, did not return a call seeking comment.
Several sources told FORTUNE that Wal-Mart now intends to work harder to educate its own employees about GLBT issues - something it had been advised to do before aligning itself publicly with gay-rights groups.
Last year, when anti-gay groups picketed stores, store managers weren't prepared to explain the company's position. Leaders of Wal-Mart Pride say most of its members work in and around the company's Bentonville headquarters, so they have been unable to muster allies in the field.
On June 9, Wal-Mart Pride members made a presentation to more than 500 employees at one of the company's Saturday morning meetings, which are used to rally the company around business goals. "The presentation was warmly received," Williams said.
Still, some members of the group had hoped that Wal-Mart would by now have taken a major step towards workplace equality by offering health care benefits to the domestic partners of its GLBT employees. More than half of FORTUNE 500 companies do so.
The lesson here may be that it's hard to find a middle ground when it comes to gay rights in the workplace. A company either believes in workplace equality for all, and is willing to stand up and say so, or it doesn't.
It's pretty clear where Wal-Mart stands
Widen the immigration funnel: Current, limiting proposals in Congress don't make sense
The foreigner who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the foreigner as yourself.-- Leviticus 19:34
Thomas Kostigen, writing for Marketwatch's ethics column, has this to say.
SANTA MONICA, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- It's pretty clear that we need to let more immigrants into the U.S. and change our policies over who gets in, why and when.
At the same time, our thinking about immigration needs to break borders and become global, because the immigration debate here is really a global issue about the fate of the U.S. economy in the world and who is going to support it in the future.
Some states such as Texas and California are concerned about the loss of immigrant workers affecting their economies. But this is small potatoes compared to the competition being mounted to the U.S. as a whole from China and India.
Instead of scratching our heads about how high some stupid fence should be on the Mexican border we should be trying to figure out how we can better co-op a deal with Mexico for its work force now that the North American Free Trade Agreement is in shambles.
Still, there are already millions of immigrant workers in this country who have been here for years and who we can't just kick out without dire financial consequence to them and us. It's time to admit this, check them in, move them to the back of the customs and immigration lines and move on.
It's important to highlight the point of moving them to the "back of the line" because so many people have gone and done the right thing to get into this country legally. Many of these people are skilled workers. And as BusinessWeek recently pointed out in an article, many of these "waiting" are more educated and skilled. They are also more fed up with the immigration system and are moving elsewhere in the world to work.
The immigration funnel needs to become wider at both ends, and needs to take into account people at all levels of the economic spectrum. We as a country can afford to take on more people the right people with the right skill sets that will allow the U.S. to progress, innovate and prosper.
We are the richest nation on the planet by far. We consume more than anyone else, and waste more than anyone else, twice as much in fact. Our scraps are what some nations exist on.
Thinking like blockheads
The current proposals in Congress are weak propositions. Having people leave the country and re-enter and limiting the amount of time guest workers can stay before they must return home, again for a set period of time, are weird ideas and pretty bad ones at that.
Take the one where guest workers can stay for three years and then are mandated to go back to their home country for a year or more before being allowed to return to the U.S. I know there are studies that show most guest workers end up going back to their home countries. They come here to work, save money and then return to their native lands to live more prosperously.
I'm just not buying that this is the mindset of the typical immigrant worker in the U.S. And how much can one really save in just three years when he or she is making a few dollars an hour?
Once people get a taste of what they can earn, how they can live and prosper in this country, why oh why would they want to go back to wherever it is they were forced to leave originally?
This rationale is odd. We should be looking to encourage people to come here, grow and prosper. As it stands, our ethic is skewed: Come here, be nice, do a good job, make some money, then get the hell out. Huh? Or is it: Just don't come here at all? Or is it: If you are already here and we catch you, you're a goner maybe even a felon?
None of this creates incentives for anything good. It's about time we started creating a system based on rewards for people who want, really want, to come here and do the right thing rather than make policy based on consequence.
By the looks of it, no policy will be made at all. This is a shame. We have an opportunity to set a fresh direction and tone that can be shown and held out to the world with a new immigration policy. We should seize it and prove to the world just how great our country can be based on a will to do good for people.
Thomas Kostigen, writing for Marketwatch's ethics column, has this to say.
SANTA MONICA, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- It's pretty clear that we need to let more immigrants into the U.S. and change our policies over who gets in, why and when.
At the same time, our thinking about immigration needs to break borders and become global, because the immigration debate here is really a global issue about the fate of the U.S. economy in the world and who is going to support it in the future.
Some states such as Texas and California are concerned about the loss of immigrant workers affecting their economies. But this is small potatoes compared to the competition being mounted to the U.S. as a whole from China and India.
Instead of scratching our heads about how high some stupid fence should be on the Mexican border we should be trying to figure out how we can better co-op a deal with Mexico for its work force now that the North American Free Trade Agreement is in shambles.
Still, there are already millions of immigrant workers in this country who have been here for years and who we can't just kick out without dire financial consequence to them and us. It's time to admit this, check them in, move them to the back of the customs and immigration lines and move on.
It's important to highlight the point of moving them to the "back of the line" because so many people have gone and done the right thing to get into this country legally. Many of these people are skilled workers. And as BusinessWeek recently pointed out in an article, many of these "waiting" are more educated and skilled. They are also more fed up with the immigration system and are moving elsewhere in the world to work.
The immigration funnel needs to become wider at both ends, and needs to take into account people at all levels of the economic spectrum. We as a country can afford to take on more people the right people with the right skill sets that will allow the U.S. to progress, innovate and prosper.
We are the richest nation on the planet by far. We consume more than anyone else, and waste more than anyone else, twice as much in fact. Our scraps are what some nations exist on.
Thinking like blockheads
The current proposals in Congress are weak propositions. Having people leave the country and re-enter and limiting the amount of time guest workers can stay before they must return home, again for a set period of time, are weird ideas and pretty bad ones at that.
Take the one where guest workers can stay for three years and then are mandated to go back to their home country for a year or more before being allowed to return to the U.S. I know there are studies that show most guest workers end up going back to their home countries. They come here to work, save money and then return to their native lands to live more prosperously.
I'm just not buying that this is the mindset of the typical immigrant worker in the U.S. And how much can one really save in just three years when he or she is making a few dollars an hour?
Once people get a taste of what they can earn, how they can live and prosper in this country, why oh why would they want to go back to wherever it is they were forced to leave originally?
This rationale is odd. We should be looking to encourage people to come here, grow and prosper. As it stands, our ethic is skewed: Come here, be nice, do a good job, make some money, then get the hell out. Huh? Or is it: Just don't come here at all? Or is it: If you are already here and we catch you, you're a goner maybe even a felon?
None of this creates incentives for anything good. It's about time we started creating a system based on rewards for people who want, really want, to come here and do the right thing rather than make policy based on consequence.
By the looks of it, no policy will be made at all. This is a shame. We have an opportunity to set a fresh direction and tone that can be shown and held out to the world with a new immigration policy. We should seize it and prove to the world just how great our country can be based on a will to do good for people.
EPA dithers, but may impose stricter smog limits in Midwest
Cities and states are showing progress in ridding the skies of smog, but the federal government declared Thursday that much of the nation's air is too dirty to breathe safely.
New rules proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could triple the number of counties in violation of federal standards for ground-level ozone, commonly known as smog.
The new violators would include much of the Midwest and parts of Illinois that never before faced limits on dirty air. Chicago, which just met standards for the first time, the Tribune reported last month, would fail again under the proposed rules.
The latest push to tighten national air pollution standards reflects a growing view among scientists that it takes less smog than previously thought to trigger asthma attacks and contribute to early deaths. Curbing the allowable amount of pollution could reduce the number of children with lung problems by 65 percent, according to the EPA.
In a replay of past battles over environmental regulations, the proposed changes face intense opposition from business groups that contend tougher smog limits would cost too much. Some scientists and advocates, meanwhile, say the new rules wouldn't be stringent enough to protect the public.
Business lobbyists visited the White House at least twice in recent weeks to urge Bush administration officials to back off. In response, Stephen L. Johnson, the EPA administrator, said the agency will accept comments on alternative proposals, including a business-backed bid to keep the current standard.
"The current standard is insufficient to protect public health," Johnson said repeatedly at a news conference. "I recognize that others don't agree with that, and I want to provide an opportunity for them to provide comments on which we can make an informed decision."
Smog is a mix of chemicals emitted mainly from car tailpipes, diesel engines and the smokestacks of coal-fired power plants. It can lead to shortness of breath, chest pains and lung inflammation.
Enforcement of the current standard, first proposed in 1997 by the Clinton administration, was delayed for years by legal challenges from business groups. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected the opponents' claims and upheld the EPA's authority to base air-quality standards on public health, without considering economic concerns.
Under the agency's latest proposal, the allowable level of smog would drop to between 70 and 75 parts per billion, down from the current standard of 85 parts per billion. The EPA also will consider a limit as tough as 60 parts per billion, advocated by pediatricians, environmental groups and a panel of scientists that advises the agency on children's health issues. A final decision is expected in March.
Environmental groups welcomed the proposal but expressed concerns about the agency's invitation for comments about keeping the existing limit.
"Why is EPA dithering? Evidence points to the secret hand of the White House," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch.
Recent research indicates that hundreds of thousands of children nationwide would be spared from lung problems if the limit was set at 70 parts per billion, according to the EPA. The number of smog-related deaths would be cut in half.
Business groups contend the proposed changes would cost billions but offer few, if any, health benefits.
"There are parts of the country that won't be able to do anything to meet this standard," said Jeffrey Holmstead, former chief of the EPA's air division, now a lawyer advising businesses on environmental issues.
Chicago and most of the Midwest met the current smog standard faster than predicted, mostly due to a federal clampdown on pollution from power plants, cars and trucks.
If the new rule takes effect, virtually every part of the region except Iowa and Minneapolis-St. Paul would be considered too dirty. In Illinois, violators would include Macoupin, McLean, Peoria, Randolph, Sangamon and Winnebago Counties.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
In the Amazon, giving blood but getting nothing
One issue in indigenous peoples' rights and genetic research is taking genetic samples for research use (from individuals, or the flora or fauna in their area). The individuals or tribes aren't compensated. If a company were to do this, and use that genetic material to turn a huge profit, then that clearly calls for fire and judgment.
However, this particular case is less clear. The company is apparently not for profit. The tribe they collected samples from, the Karitiana, found them selling samples for $85 on the web, but that probably only covers shipping (blood has to be chilled).
The company claims they followed all procedures around informed consent. This claim is clearly crap. It's the same thing as the Spanish reading the requeirimento to the Aztecs in Spanish. The Karitiana had no understanding of Western customs or economics at that time. If they did, they should have asked for compensation. This company seems to be a non-profit, so if they couldn't give compensation, they should just have done without.
They claim, by the way, that the researchers promised medicine, but the researchers probably promised to send medicine if anyone fell sick from their blood being drawn.
KYOWÃ, Brazil: As the Karitiana Indians remember it, the first researchers to draw their blood came here in the late 1970s, shortly after the Amazon tribe began sustained contact with the outside world. In 1996, another team visited, promising medicine if the Karitiana would just give more blood, so they dutifully lined up again.
But that promise was never fulfilled, and since then the world has expanded again for the Karitiana through the arrival of the Internet. Now they have been enraged by a simple discovery: their blood and DNA collected during that first visit are being sold by an American concern to scientists around the world for $85 a sample.
They want the practice stopped, and are demanding compensation for what they describe as the violation of their personal integrity.
"We were duped, lied to and exploited," Renato Karitiana, the leader of the tribal association, said in an interview here on the tribe's reservation in the western Amazon, where 313 Karitiana eke out a living by farming, fishing and hunting. "Those contacts have been very injurious to us, and have spoiled our attitude toward medicine and science."
Two other Brazilian tribal peoples complain of similar experiences and say they are also seeking to stop the distribution of their blood and DNA by Coriell Cell Repositories, a nonprofit group based in Camden, New Jersey. They are the Suruí people, whose homeland is just south of here, and the Yanomami, who live on the Brazil-Venezuela border.
Coriell stores human genetic material and makes it available for research. It says the samples were obtained legally through a researcher and approved by the National Institutes of Health.
"We are not trying to profit from or steal from Brazilians," Joseph Mintzer, executive vice president of the center, said in a telephone interview. "We have an obligation to respect their civilization, culture and people, which is why we carefully control the distribution of these cell lines."
Like a similar center in France that has also obtained blood and DNA samples of the Karitiana and other Amazon tribes, Coriell says it provides specimens only to scientists who agree not to commercialize the results of their research or to transfer the material to third parties.
The indigenous peoples of the Amazon are ideal for certain types of genetic research because they are isolated and extremely close-knit populations, allowing geneticists to construct a more thorough pedigree and to track the transmission of illnesses down generations.
The practice of collecting blood samples from Amazon Indians, though, has aroused widespread suspicions among Brazilians, who have been zealous about what they call "bio-piracy" ever since rubber seedlings were exported from the Amazon nearly a century ago. The rise of genome mapping in recent years has only exacerbated such fears.
Debora Diniz, a Brazilian anthropologist, argues that the experience of the Karitiana and other tribes shows "how scientists still are ill prepared for intercultural dialogue and how science behaves in an authoritarian fashion with vulnerable populations."
The core of the international debate that has emerged here, though, has to do with the concept of "informed consent." Scientists argue that all the appropriate protocols were followed, but the Indians say they were deceived into allowing their blood to be drawn.
"This is sort of a balancing act," said Judith Greenberg, director of genetics and developmental biology at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health. "We don't want to do something that makes a whole tribe or people unhappy or angry. On the other hand, the scientific community is using these samples, which were accepted and maintained under perfectly legitimate procedures, for the benefit of mankind," she said.
The Indians themselves, however, respond that at the time the first blood samples were drawn, they had little or no understanding of the outside world, let alone the workings of Western medicine and modern capitalist economics.
Francis Black, the first researcher to take blood samples here, died recently, so it is impossible to obtain his account. But officials of the National Indian Foundation, or Funai, the Brazilian government agency that supervises tribal groups, said that his presence on the reservation here violated procedures specifically aimed at protecting Indians from outsiders.
"We would never have authorized such a thing," Osmar Ribeiro Brasil, who has worked at the agency's regional headquarters in Porto Velho since the 1970s, said of the blood collection. "There is no record of any research permission request either here or at our headquarters in Brasília."
For the reporting of this article, all the required procedures were followed. Funai authorized the visit here and sent an official to accompany a reporter and a photographer. But that official did not sit in on the interviews here or coach the Indians in their responses.
In he case of the 1996 expedition, permission to enter the reservation was obtained, but only to film a nature documentary, Funai officials said. Once on the reservation, however, a Brazilian doctor accompanying the film crew, Hilton Pereira da Silva, and his wife began conducting unauthorized medical research, Funai officials and residents of the reservation said.
"If anyone is ill, we will send medicine, lots of medicine," is what Joaquina Karitiana, 56, remembers being told, which soothed her worries. "They drew blood from almost everyone, including the children. But once they had what they wanted, we never received any medicine at all."
Dr. Pereira da Silva was not available for comment. But in a statement that he issued in response to complaints about his work, he said he had explained the purposes of his research "in accessible language" and had promised that "any possible benefit of any type that results from research with this material will revert in its entirety to those who donated."
As a result of the legal pressures that the tribe and Funai have brought, Brazilian institutions that had collected blood samples have returned them to the tribes. But entities abroad have resisted, saying both that they acted properly and that there are no profits to be shared with the Indians.
"They want money, and we have not made any money," Mintzer of Coriell said. "I don't know of anyone who has made any money from this."
The Karitiana say that includes them. Antonio Karitiana, the village chief, said that health care, sanitation and housing were precarious, and that transportation was deficient. Any money obtained from Coriell or a lawsuit would be invested "for the benefit of the entire community," he said.
"We don't want that blood back, because it is contaminated now," said Orlando Karitiana, 34, a tribal leader. "But these blood samples are valuable in your technology, and we think that every family that was tricked into giving blood should benefit."
The religions of some other tribal groups, however, regard human tissue as important or nearly sacred. The Yanomami, for example, say they want the blood samples returned to them intact.
"A soul can only be at rest after the entire body is cremated," said Davi Yanomami, a leader of the group. "To have the blood of a dead person preserved and separated from the remainder of the body is simply unacceptable to us."
But Francisco Salzano, one of Brazil's leading geneticists, with more than 40 years of experience in the Amazon and dealing with indigenous peoples, argues that it is acceptable to brush aside such concerns.
"If it depended on religion and belief, we would still be in the Stone Age," he said in a telephone interview from his office at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.
"None of these samples have been used in an unethical manner," Salzano added. As for the question of informed consent, he added, "That is always relative."
However, this particular case is less clear. The company is apparently not for profit. The tribe they collected samples from, the Karitiana, found them selling samples for $85 on the web, but that probably only covers shipping (blood has to be chilled).
The company claims they followed all procedures around informed consent. This claim is clearly crap. It's the same thing as the Spanish reading the requeirimento to the Aztecs in Spanish. The Karitiana had no understanding of Western customs or economics at that time. If they did, they should have asked for compensation. This company seems to be a non-profit, so if they couldn't give compensation, they should just have done without.
They claim, by the way, that the researchers promised medicine, but the researchers probably promised to send medicine if anyone fell sick from their blood being drawn.
KYOWÃ, Brazil: As the Karitiana Indians remember it, the first researchers to draw their blood came here in the late 1970s, shortly after the Amazon tribe began sustained contact with the outside world. In 1996, another team visited, promising medicine if the Karitiana would just give more blood, so they dutifully lined up again.
But that promise was never fulfilled, and since then the world has expanded again for the Karitiana through the arrival of the Internet. Now they have been enraged by a simple discovery: their blood and DNA collected during that first visit are being sold by an American concern to scientists around the world for $85 a sample.
They want the practice stopped, and are demanding compensation for what they describe as the violation of their personal integrity.
"We were duped, lied to and exploited," Renato Karitiana, the leader of the tribal association, said in an interview here on the tribe's reservation in the western Amazon, where 313 Karitiana eke out a living by farming, fishing and hunting. "Those contacts have been very injurious to us, and have spoiled our attitude toward medicine and science."
Two other Brazilian tribal peoples complain of similar experiences and say they are also seeking to stop the distribution of their blood and DNA by Coriell Cell Repositories, a nonprofit group based in Camden, New Jersey. They are the Suruí people, whose homeland is just south of here, and the Yanomami, who live on the Brazil-Venezuela border.
Coriell stores human genetic material and makes it available for research. It says the samples were obtained legally through a researcher and approved by the National Institutes of Health.
"We are not trying to profit from or steal from Brazilians," Joseph Mintzer, executive vice president of the center, said in a telephone interview. "We have an obligation to respect their civilization, culture and people, which is why we carefully control the distribution of these cell lines."
Like a similar center in France that has also obtained blood and DNA samples of the Karitiana and other Amazon tribes, Coriell says it provides specimens only to scientists who agree not to commercialize the results of their research or to transfer the material to third parties.
The indigenous peoples of the Amazon are ideal for certain types of genetic research because they are isolated and extremely close-knit populations, allowing geneticists to construct a more thorough pedigree and to track the transmission of illnesses down generations.
The practice of collecting blood samples from Amazon Indians, though, has aroused widespread suspicions among Brazilians, who have been zealous about what they call "bio-piracy" ever since rubber seedlings were exported from the Amazon nearly a century ago. The rise of genome mapping in recent years has only exacerbated such fears.
Debora Diniz, a Brazilian anthropologist, argues that the experience of the Karitiana and other tribes shows "how scientists still are ill prepared for intercultural dialogue and how science behaves in an authoritarian fashion with vulnerable populations."
The core of the international debate that has emerged here, though, has to do with the concept of "informed consent." Scientists argue that all the appropriate protocols were followed, but the Indians say they were deceived into allowing their blood to be drawn.
"This is sort of a balancing act," said Judith Greenberg, director of genetics and developmental biology at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health. "We don't want to do something that makes a whole tribe or people unhappy or angry. On the other hand, the scientific community is using these samples, which were accepted and maintained under perfectly legitimate procedures, for the benefit of mankind," she said.
The Indians themselves, however, respond that at the time the first blood samples were drawn, they had little or no understanding of the outside world, let alone the workings of Western medicine and modern capitalist economics.
Francis Black, the first researcher to take blood samples here, died recently, so it is impossible to obtain his account. But officials of the National Indian Foundation, or Funai, the Brazilian government agency that supervises tribal groups, said that his presence on the reservation here violated procedures specifically aimed at protecting Indians from outsiders.
"We would never have authorized such a thing," Osmar Ribeiro Brasil, who has worked at the agency's regional headquarters in Porto Velho since the 1970s, said of the blood collection. "There is no record of any research permission request either here or at our headquarters in Brasília."
For the reporting of this article, all the required procedures were followed. Funai authorized the visit here and sent an official to accompany a reporter and a photographer. But that official did not sit in on the interviews here or coach the Indians in their responses.
In he case of the 1996 expedition, permission to enter the reservation was obtained, but only to film a nature documentary, Funai officials said. Once on the reservation, however, a Brazilian doctor accompanying the film crew, Hilton Pereira da Silva, and his wife began conducting unauthorized medical research, Funai officials and residents of the reservation said.
"If anyone is ill, we will send medicine, lots of medicine," is what Joaquina Karitiana, 56, remembers being told, which soothed her worries. "They drew blood from almost everyone, including the children. But once they had what they wanted, we never received any medicine at all."
Dr. Pereira da Silva was not available for comment. But in a statement that he issued in response to complaints about his work, he said he had explained the purposes of his research "in accessible language" and had promised that "any possible benefit of any type that results from research with this material will revert in its entirety to those who donated."
As a result of the legal pressures that the tribe and Funai have brought, Brazilian institutions that had collected blood samples have returned them to the tribes. But entities abroad have resisted, saying both that they acted properly and that there are no profits to be shared with the Indians.
"They want money, and we have not made any money," Mintzer of Coriell said. "I don't know of anyone who has made any money from this."
The Karitiana say that includes them. Antonio Karitiana, the village chief, said that health care, sanitation and housing were precarious, and that transportation was deficient. Any money obtained from Coriell or a lawsuit would be invested "for the benefit of the entire community," he said.
"We don't want that blood back, because it is contaminated now," said Orlando Karitiana, 34, a tribal leader. "But these blood samples are valuable in your technology, and we think that every family that was tricked into giving blood should benefit."
The religions of some other tribal groups, however, regard human tissue as important or nearly sacred. The Yanomami, for example, say they want the blood samples returned to them intact.
"A soul can only be at rest after the entire body is cremated," said Davi Yanomami, a leader of the group. "To have the blood of a dead person preserved and separated from the remainder of the body is simply unacceptable to us."
But Francisco Salzano, one of Brazil's leading geneticists, with more than 40 years of experience in the Amazon and dealing with indigenous peoples, argues that it is acceptable to brush aside such concerns.
"If it depended on religion and belief, we would still be in the Stone Age," he said in a telephone interview from his office at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.
"None of these samples have been used in an unethical manner," Salzano added. As for the question of informed consent, he added, "That is always relative."
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
World Refugee Day - Episcopal Public Policy Network action alert
The foreigner who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the foreigner as yourself.-- Leviticus 19:34
Every year on June 20 the world recognizes and honors the courage and strength of refugees. World Refugee Day was designated by the United Nations to focus world-wide attention on the plight of refugees, their will to survive, and on the contributions they make in their new communities.
Iraq is now home to one of the world’s largest populations of internally displaced persons. The UN reports that every day 2,000 Iraqis are displaced. There are over 2 million Iraqi refugees and many are in imminent danger, particularly because they are a targeted religious minority or are associated with the U.S. involvement in Iraq. The continuing war in Iraq has brought much pain and suffering to Iraqis and to our military – this is a bipartisan effort that directly addresses one aspect of the painful consequences of the conflict.
What the US Can Do
The United States resettles more refugees than any other country in the world. Still, the total number resettled is just a fraction of all refugees. What is really troubling is that the U.S. did not even come close to reaching the government ceiling set for total refugee admissions during the last two years. When refugee admission numbers are not fully used in any fiscal year, opportunities to rescue desperate persons are lost. Presently, we are faced with a crisis for Iraqi refugees that must be addressed by our Congress.
Speak Out
Today, Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) introduced the Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act calling on the U.S. government to offer resettlement to at-risk persons in Iraq and the surrounding region.
Click here to contact your Senators and urge them to support the Kennedy-Smith bill that recognizes the United States has an obligation to bring relief to Iraqis seeking refuge.
Refugee Resettlement and the Episcopal Church
Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM) is the Church’s resettlement program that has provided an array of services to refugees for over 60 years. EMM expects to assist a number of Iraqi refugees who have no hope of returning to Iraq with resettlement in the coming months. You can add your voice to this urgent cause by contacting your Senators and urging them to support a US commitment to assist Iraqi refugees.
Every year on June 20 the world recognizes and honors the courage and strength of refugees. World Refugee Day was designated by the United Nations to focus world-wide attention on the plight of refugees, their will to survive, and on the contributions they make in their new communities.
Iraq is now home to one of the world’s largest populations of internally displaced persons. The UN reports that every day 2,000 Iraqis are displaced. There are over 2 million Iraqi refugees and many are in imminent danger, particularly because they are a targeted religious minority or are associated with the U.S. involvement in Iraq. The continuing war in Iraq has brought much pain and suffering to Iraqis and to our military – this is a bipartisan effort that directly addresses one aspect of the painful consequences of the conflict.
What the US Can Do
The United States resettles more refugees than any other country in the world. Still, the total number resettled is just a fraction of all refugees. What is really troubling is that the U.S. did not even come close to reaching the government ceiling set for total refugee admissions during the last two years. When refugee admission numbers are not fully used in any fiscal year, opportunities to rescue desperate persons are lost. Presently, we are faced with a crisis for Iraqi refugees that must be addressed by our Congress.
Speak Out
Today, Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) introduced the Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act calling on the U.S. government to offer resettlement to at-risk persons in Iraq and the surrounding region.
Click here to contact your Senators and urge them to support the Kennedy-Smith bill that recognizes the United States has an obligation to bring relief to Iraqis seeking refuge.
Refugee Resettlement and the Episcopal Church
Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM) is the Church’s resettlement program that has provided an array of services to refugees for over 60 years. EMM expects to assist a number of Iraqi refugees who have no hope of returning to Iraq with resettlement in the coming months. You can add your voice to this urgent cause by contacting your Senators and urging them to support a US commitment to assist Iraqi refugees.
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