A Word From the Wise - Tim Wise's Blog: August 2004 Archives

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August 18, 2004

What's a little fraud between friends?

Remember the last time you tried to get a loan, perhaps for a car, or a house, or just a new credit card, for that matter, but your credit score was too low to allow you to qualify? Maybe you had been late with previous loan or credit card payments. Maybe not even that late--a week or so, perhaps twice in the past year? The idea, of course, is that you were too big a credit risk, and that extending you yet more credit might result in some kind of loss to the company or bank extending it to you...

Well, it's nice to know that some folks "creditworthiness" and lack of honesty isn't held against them--at least, if their name is Halliburton.

According to the New York Times: (I won't post the link 'cuz you have to register to read their stuff anyway)

"The Army reversed a decision late Tuesday to withhold payment on 15 percent of future payments to the Halliburton Company on its contracts in Iraq and Kuwait, giving the company more time to resolve a billing dispute.

The Army had said earlier Tuesday that it had decided that starting Wednesday it would withhold 15 percent of payments on future bills from the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root because it had not issued paperwork justifying its costs. But the Army later indicated it would continue to reimburse the company in full."

Government contractors normally cannot be paid more than 85 percent of their invoices until they fully account for their costs. Twice this year, the Army set this rule aside for Halliburton as the company cataloged its costs and explained how it was billing the government. The most recent reprieve expired Sunday.

This is, of course, far more significant than paying credit card bills late...it's tantamount to you being contracted to build a house for someone, and then not being able to explain the costs, and the homeowner saying, "gee, that's ok, just keep building, and I'll keep paying...it's all good."

No, no it's not...not really

Posted by timwise at 06:04 AM | Comments (0)

August 17, 2004

Internalized Racism and the "Model Minority"

Amidst the regular conservative blather about how Asian Pacific Americans have "made it" in the U.S. (the subtext being that blacks and Latinos should be more like Asians, and stop griping about racism), the ongoing discrimination faced by Asian Pacific Americans and Pacific Islanders often gets overlooked, despite its prevalence. So too, the destructive, internalized racism that sometimes mutates throughout the APA community (and amongst Asians in Asian nations themselves), as the result of the ubiquity of white supremacy as a cultural, political and economic force.

This fantastic piece discusses a disturbing trend--and resistance to it--whereby some Asian youth are opting for plastic surgery to "fix" their eyelids, making them appear more Caucasian as a result. Just as with rhinoplasty for Jews who weren't "white enough," and skin bleaching among blacks and even continental Africans who desire to fit in with dominant standards of beauty, this phenomenon indicates that no matter how "model" a given minority may be (at least in the eyes of cynical racists seeking to use the model group for their own purposes), white supremacy still does what it has always done: define the "other" as inferior...a process that not only effects the minds of whites, but even those who are its targets. Especially those, in fact, as it is much more difficult to effectively colonize those who haven't first taken to thinking of themselves as inferiors first.

Posted by timwise at 02:01 PM | Comments (0)

Big Chief W explains tribal sovereignty with his usual flair

During the Q&A period after his speech to journalists of color at a recent conference, the President was asked about tribal/national sovereignty for indigenous persons in the U.S. and what the concept means in the 21st century. With any number of tribal nation issues to choose from (fishing and land rights, criminal justice treatment of indigenous persons, inadequate BIA services, mining and mineral rights, etc), surely the leader of the free world would have a plethora of things to say. Well, not exactly. Instead, the exchange went like this, verbatim:

"What do you think tribal sovereignty means in the 21st century?" (Asked by a Native-American editor from a Seattle newspaper)

Bush's Answer:

"Tribal sovereignty means that -- it's sovereignty...I mean, you're a -- you're a -- you've been given sovereignty and you're viewed as a sovereign entity."

Glad we've got someone as sharp as this guy to clear everything up for us.

Here is a full story about Bush's incoherent presentation to the UNITY conference. Worth the read.

Posted by timwise at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

August 14, 2004

Taliban falling? What year is this?

Back to the Future for a second...today we learn that "The Taliban seems to be falling apart" in Afghanistan. But wait...I thought we defeated the Taliban almost three years ago? Wasn't that the Administration's claim? That they had defeated the evil Taliban after 9/11? Now it appears that they are just beginning to fully crack, having retained loyalty and control over large sections of the nation all this time...

And yet even the story today makes clear that when it comes to to deepening fissures between Taliban figures and the public, and what that means for the unfolding resistance to U.S. domination of the country:

According to Major Scott Nelson...

"That fissure is widening -- we see that. Specifically what that means we're still looking into it," he said.

Glad we cleared that up

Posted by timwise at 07:35 AM | Comments (0)

You know things are bad when your own toadies are starting to hate you

Amazing. Only the U.S. could manage to piss off and alienate our own hand-picked boot-licking lackeys...and indeed, we have apparently done so in Iraq, as explained in this story from al-jazeera.

Posted by timwise at 07:15 AM | Comments (0)

President AWOL

Here's a great column from Jeff St Clair over at Counterpunch, detailing all the sordid details of President Bush's military "service" (which is to say, how he went AWOL, pulled strings to avoid combat, scored barely above idiot on his flight exam, but somehow was allowed to fly planes with the TX Air National Guard anyway, etc.) Makes for good reading, and provides some context for Ws duplicity.

Of course, the fact that Bush effectively dodged the draft in Vietnam is just about the only good thing he ever did. At least it kept him from killing Vietnamese (something Kerry can't say), but to dodge it while supporting the war is an especially putrid form of hypocrisy (see Dick Cheney, Dan Quayle, William Bennett, etc)

Posted by timwise at 05:19 AM | Comments (0)

August 13, 2004

Articles About Tim Wise

Article about Wise debate with Dinesh D'Souza at SF State University, 1996

Teen Speak article on Wise, "Confronting Racism"

University of Idaho article about Wise speech, 2004

Article in Boston University paper (2003) about Wise speech on Affirmative Action

Article from Washington State University (2002) on Wise speech re: racism in education

San Diego State article on Wise speech, November 2003

Posted by timwise at 12:59 PM | Comments (0)

Speeches by Tim Wise

An MP3 of Tim Wise's 2003 speech at All Saints Church, Pasadena, CA

October 2001 speech (real media) at University of New Mexico, on "Racial Scapegoating, Before and After 9/11"

Real Audio debate on affirmative action with Tim Eyman, conservative activist in WA State, 1998 at University of Washington

Real Media Video of debate on aff action with Tim Eyman at UW-Seattle, 1998

Audio Only - (Real Audio) Debate on Affirmative Action with Dinesh D'Souza, at Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA (1996)

Video Version (Real Media) Debate with Dinesh D'Souza at Evergreen, 1996

Posted by timwise at 12:36 PM | Comments (0)

Links to Articles by Tim Wise

In response to several requests, and to make these easily findable from my blog, here are links to all of my articles online. Some of the pieces on ZNet are also found, in slightly different form in the Alternet archive.

MY ZNET COMMENTARY ARCHIVE (Lots and lots of articles from 1999 to the present)

ADDITIONAL Z PIECES (Not Part of the Commentary/Sustainer System)

No Ribbons, No Flags, No Fireworks: An Open Letter to Pro-War Americans

We are All Collateral Damage Now: Reflections on War as Mental Botox

The Moral Calculus of Killing: "Precision Bombing" and the American Definition of "Innocence"

Of Lies, Liberation and American Self-Delusion

Liberation or Libation? Media Images, State Propaganda and "Happy Iraqis"

Parable of the Bad Samaritan: Some Reflections on Collateral Damage Control

The Same, Only Different: Reflections on the Myth of American Exceptionalism

Snatching Victory from the Jaws of Defeat: The Supreme Court and the Future of Affirmative Action

Cleaning up the Funk: Commencement Speech at Grinnell College, 2003

For Black History Month, Remember the True MLK