Clippings for 19 November 2009

Understanding Our Hollow Centrist
Joe Conason comments for Truthdig.com: "The puzzling thing about politicians of either party who claim to be "centrist" or "moderate" is how much they sometimes sound like party-line right-wing Republicans. Distinguishing among these species of politicians can be almost impossible during the current struggle over health care reform, especially when a senator like Blanche Lambert Lincoln of Arkansas tries to explain herself."

This Is George Bush's Recession: Why Doesn't Anybody Talk About That?
Joshau Holland writes for AlterNet: "In October, Barack Obama told a San Francisco audience about what it was like trying to deal with an economy he’d inherited in smoking ruins last January. “I'm busy … cleaning up somebody else's mess,” he said. “We don't want somebody sitting back saying, you're not holding the mop the right way… That's a socialist mop." As the audience applauded the line, Obama challenged Republicans to 'Grab a mop, let's get to work.'"

Obama's Profile in Courage, or Cave-In?
Ray McGovern writes for Truthout: "'It took a lot of courage on Kennedyís part to defy the Pentagon, defy the military - and do the right thing,' said Col. Larry Wilkerson, USA (ret.), according to Robert Dreyfuss in his recent Rolling Stone article 'The Generalsí Revolt.' ... Wilkerson, who was chief of staff at the State Department (2002-2005) and now teaches at George Washington University, was alluding to President John F. Kennedyís courage in 1962, when he faced down his top generals and refused to bomb Cuba and risk nuclear war."

Recommended Video: Bagram Prison Exposed

 New from Robert Greenwald, this video interviews two brothers and former prisoners at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, who give their testimony about the harsh abuse they witnessed while being captured. Their tale is an example of just how difficult and complex the situation in Afghanistan is.



Rumsfeld Decision Let Bin Laden Escape: Senate Report
Andrew Gully reports for Agence France-Press: "Osama bin Laden was 'within the grasp' of US forces in late 2001 but escaped because then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected calls for reinforcements, a hard-hitting US Senate report says.  The report, set for release Monday, is intended to help learn the lessons of the past as President Barack Obama prepares to announce a major escalation of the conflict, now in its ninth year, with up to 35,000 more US troops."

Recommended Audio: Scahill and Olbermann on Blackwater: Murderous Crusaders for Christ
In the window below, see frequent AlterNet contributor, Jeremy Scahill, discusses Blackwater on Keith Olbermann's show.  If you missed it last Tuesday, be sure to check out Jeremy's piece on the shady mercenary firm's secret war in Pakistan.



Fraud Hits Disabled Veterans
Jim Wyss reports for the Miami Herald: "Millions of dollars worth of government contracts designated for service-disabled veterans are being siphoned off by fraud and abuse, according to a recent government report.  In a case-study of 10 firms, including one Florida company, the Government Accountability Office found ineligible companies had won about $100 million worth of contracts earmarked for service-disabled veteran-owned companies. The 'program is vulnerable to fraud and abuse, which could result in legitimate service-disabled veterans losing contracts to ineligible firms,' according to the report, which was presented to Congress last week."

Colbert Conservatives and Military Waste
David Sirota writes for Truthdig: "Pop quiz—name the political leader who said the following: 'We must be willing to pull the plug before sinking more dollars into weapons that do not provide what our warriors need.' Now name the leader who said this: '[W]e cannot track $2.3 trillion in [Pentagon spending]. ... We maintain 20 to 25 percent more base infrastructure than we need to support our forces, at an annual waste to taxpayers of some $3 billion to $4 billion. ... There are those who will oppose every effort to save taxpayers’ money. ... Well, fine, if there’s to be a struggle, so be it.' I’m willing to bet many self-described 'conservatives' guessed Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich. I would make that wager based on the enraged response to my recent column about government data showing that our waste-ridden, $600-billion-a-year defense budget will cost about seven times more than the health care legislation currently before Congress."

White House's Ties to Health Care Industry Deeper Than Visitor Records Show
Daniela Perdomo reports for AlterNet: "In August, the Associated Press asked the Obama White House -- which has promised to be the most transparent administration 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has ever seen -- to release information on all communications between top staff and health care industry bigwigs. The call went unanswered, so in September the AP downgraded its request to a log of health care-related visits to those same top White House officials. On Wednesday, the White House released records of 575 such visits since Jan. 20. It catalogs meetings with 22 top Obama aides including chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and senior advisers Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod, and Pete Rouse."

Give Thanks to Kathleen Sebelius for Saving 47,000 Women
George Lakoff comments for Truthout: "Cost-benefit analysis can kill. The failure to distinguish statistics from arithmetic can kill. In the current debate over mammograms, the number of women projected to be at risk of death due to cost-benefit analysis is about 47,000.  That is the approximate number the United States Preventive Services Task Force projected to die if its recommendations on scaling back mammograms had been accepted. It is their number, if you do the arithmetic, which they apparently did not."

Books, Not Bombs
Amy Goodman writes for Truthdig.com: "California campuses have been rocked by protests this past week, provoked by massive student fee increases voted on by the University of California Board of Regents. After a year of sequential budget cuts, faculty and staff dismissals and furloughs, and the elimination of entire academic departments, the 32 percent fee increase proved to be the trigger for statewide actions of an unprecedented scale. With President Barack Obama’s Afghanistan war strategy—which, according to one leak, will include a surge of 35,000 troops—soon to be announced, the juxtaposition of education cuts and military increases is incensing many, and helping to build a movement."

Charter Schools Excacerbate Ethnic, Racial and Class Divisions while Feeding into a Politics Public Meltdown
Danny Well reports for The Daily Censored: "In a study of ethnic and class stratification in fifty-five urban and fifty-seven rural charter schools in Arizona done for the Education Policy Analysis, a nonprofit think-tank some ten years ago, researchers noted that nearly half the charter schools studied exhibited evidence of substantial ethnic separation (Cobb and Glass 1999, 1). They concluded that subtle exclusionary practices among charter schools, including initial parent contacts and the provision of transportation, had an appreciable affect on ethnic and racial segregation in charter schools:"

State Charter Schools Program Is 'Out of Control'
Tony Kennedy writes for the Minneapolis-St. Paul StarTribune: "Minnesota's charter school movement, which sparked a national rethinking of public schooling nearly two decades ago, has been infected by an out-of-control financing system fueled by junk bonds, insider fees and lax oversight. State law prohibits charter schools from owning property, but consultants have found a legal loophole, allowing proponents to use millions of dollars in public money to build schools even though the properties remain in the hands of private nonprofit corporations."

Learning How to Count to 350
Rebecca Solnit writes for TomDispatch.com: "Next month, at the climate change summit in Copenhagen, the wealthy nations that produce most of the excess carbon in our atmosphere will almost certainly fail to embrace measures adequate to ward off the devastation of our planet by heat and chaotic weather. Their leaders will probably promise us teaspoons with which to put out the firestorm and insist that springing for fire hoses would be far too onerous a burden for business to bear. They have already backed off from any binding deals at this global summit."

Purloined E-Mails Don’t Change the Facts
Eugene Robinson writes for Truthdig: "Stop hyperventilating, all you climate change deniers. The purloined e-mail correspondence published by skeptics last week—portraying some leading climate researchers as petty, vindictive and tremendously eager to make their data fit accepted theories—does not prove that global warming is a fraud. If I’m wrong, somebody ought to tell the polar ice caps that they’re free to stop melting."

The Real Scandal Over Climate Change Isn't About Hacked Emails But the Media's Coverage
Alex Steffen writes for World Changing (via AlterNet): "There's been a lot of talk recently about the "hacked climate emails." Long story, short: Hacker steals email, posts. Wingnuts take some lines out of context, claim they show a cover-up, cry conspiracy. Scientists refute, in detail. Media covers "controversy." Driven by talk radio and oil money, the whole thing escalates into a scandal."

‘The Family’ Behind Proposed Ugandan Law that Would Execute HIV+ Men
Stephen Webster writes for The Raw Story: "The African nation of Uganda is weighing a bill that would impose the death penalty on HIV positive men who have committed what it calls 'aggravated homosexuality.' As if that were not shocking enough, a U.S. author is claiming that a secretive group of American politicians appear to be a driving force in seeing the proposal become law.  The Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009, heavily supported by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, was first read in October, triggering a wave of condemnation. According to the gay blog Queerty, Joann Lockard, public affairs officer at the Kampala, Uganda embassy, said the law would 'constitute a significant step backwards for the protection of human rights in Uganda.'"

Libraries Dying for Bandwidth — Where's the Fiber (and Cash)?
Nate Anderson writes for Ars Technica: "Most of America's libraries make it a part of their mission to offer Internet access to anyone in the community, but a severe bandwidth crunch is hobbling those efforts. That's one of the conclusions reached by the American Library Association, which says that 59.6 percent of American libraries 'report their connectivity speed is inadequate some or all of the time to meet patrons' needs.'"

Net Neutrality at Home Is Key to Promoting Democracy Abroad, say White House, State Department
Marvin Ammori reports for the Huffington Post: "If we as a nation don't preserve Network Neutrality at home, we undermine our diplomacy goals and pro-democracy initiatives abroad. So say senior officials at the State Department and the White House, who spoke Thursday at an academic conference organized by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Their comments came just days after President Obama praised Net Neutrality during his visit to China and attributed some of his electoral success to the Internet."

Telcos to FCC: Give Us Billions, but Don't Make Us Share Lines
Matthew Lasar reports for Ars Technica: "It was a report that went right to the roots of United States broadband policy, so it should come as no surprise that it's getting hammered by the telecommunications industry. Harvard's Berkman Center study of global broadband practices, produced at the FCC's request, is an 'embarrassingly slanted econometric analysis that violates professional statistical standards and is insufficiently reliable to provide meaningful guidance,' declares AT&T. The study does does nothing but promote the lead author's "own extreme views," warns a response from Verizon Wireless. Most importantly, it "should not be relied upon by the FCC in formulating a National Broadband Plan," concludes the United States Telecom Association."

Clippings for 19 March 2009

We Are Entering a New Political Era, and We Need an Educated Public to Deal with It.
Doug Keeger writes for AlterNet: "Like China during the Cultural Revolution, the cultural shift in the United States over the last thirty years has created a significant void in the talent required to shift this country into the 21st economy. Clearly, we stand at a crucial point in our history as a nation. We are a house divided by race and economics but, most importantly, divided by those who mistrust the very institutions that were created to protect us."

AIG Bonus Scandal -- Bernanke and Fed Signed Off
Sharona Coutts reports for ProPublica: "Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke knew of AIG's retention bonus plans well before the controversy erupted this week, CEO Edward Liddy told a congressional panel (PDF) today. Liddy also said several AIG executives have agreed to forgo their retention bonuses."

A.I.G. Using "Suicide Strategy" to Push Bonuses
Matt Renner writes for Truthout: "As nationwide populist anger boils after the news that hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars may be given to employees of the insurance-giant-turned-government-liability American Insurance Group (A.I.G.), President Obama promised to try to block what he described as an 'outrage' Monday, but a group of former regulators said the administration must get even tougher in A.I.G. Economics and law Professor William K. Black, a famous figure in the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s for his role as a senior regulator who fingered the then speaker of the House and 'The Keating Five' for doing favors for bankers, has been a vocal critic of the bailout programs, which began during the Bush administration. In an interview with Truthout, Professor Black said that A.I.G. is using a 'suicide strategy' to hold the government hostage and keep the bailout funds flowing."

The Real AIG Scandal
Eliot Spitzer, Slate Magazine: "Everybody is rushing to condemn AIG's bonuses, but this simple scandal is obscuring the real disgrace at the insurance giant: Why are AIG's counterparties getting paid back in full, to the tune of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars?"

The False Idol of Unfettered Capitalism
Chris Hedges writes for Truthdig.com: "When I returned to New York City after nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans, I was unsure of where I was headed. I lacked the emotional and physical resiliency that had allowed me to cope as a war correspondent. I was plagued by memories I wanted to forget, waking suddenly in the middle of the night, my sleep shattered by visions of gunfire and death. I was alienated from those around me, unaccustomed to the common language and images imposed by consumer culture, unable to communicate the pain and suffering I had witnessed, not much interested in building a career."

Former Guerrillas Win Power in El Salvador
Catherine Bremer reports for Reuters in the Independent UK: "El Salvador's former Marxist guerrillas, who fought one of the bitterest conflicts of the Cold War, finally won power through the ballot box after a tight election victory over their right-wing civil war foes. After years as a peaceful opposition party, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, cashed in on fatigue over the ruling party's 20 years in office and fears of the world economic crisis to narrowly take yesterday's presidential election."

Recommended Audio: El Salvador's President-Elect Seeks Close Ties with the U.S.
New America Media: "Editor’s note: On the Ides of March, a day known for military might, democractic freedom prevailed on Sunday, as the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) became the first leftist party in the history of El Salvador to clinch the presidential election. By 10 p.m., it became clear to Salvadorans and to the world that the former guerrillas had ended more than 130 years of oligarchy and military rule over this tiny Central American nation of 7 million. In the streets, thousands of red-shirted sympathizers chanted “Si, Se Pudo!” (Yes, We Could), as they celebrated the victory of Mauricio Funes, the man who brought an end to the 20-year rule of the Nationalist Republican Alliance party (ARENA.) Funes captured 51 percent of the vote, defeating ARENA candidate Rodrigo Avila."

The Ongoing Occupation of Iraqi Artists
Dahr Jamail writes for Truthout: "For centuries, artists, writers, and intellectuals have been meeting in Baghdad's teahouses over tulip-shaped glasses of sweet lemon tea, cigarettes, and shisha pipes. A car bomb detonated near one of the oldest teahouses a year-and-a-half ago, causing massive destruction around the area. When it reopened recently, Mohammed Al-Mumain, a 59-year-old biology teacher resumed his visits there. The portly, jovial teacher brought tea for my colleague and I before settling to talk, 'The mind needs art and education. I come here because the lamp needs electricity. The lamp of my mind, like that in all of us, needs to discuss and review life continually. That feeds me. When I come here I feel like a teenager again. All that I need, the old culture along with the new, I find here.'"

Time for Real Workplace Democracy-- not the Phony Company Version
Jim Hightower writes for the Hightower Lowedown: "Last October, Home Depot cofounder Bernie Marcus blew a gasket, spewing outrage in all directions. 'This is the demise of civilization,' he exploded. 'This is how a civilization disappears. I'm watching this happen and I don't believe it!' Bernie's outburst came during an hour-long conference call with various other corporate executives and their political operatives. The purpose was to collect industry funds for a campaign to kill a piece of legislation called the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Yes, the spark that ignited Bernie's fury, the hellish horror that he insisted would produce America's Armageddon, was a simple labor bill, and he was demanding that the corporate powers rally to save civilization as they know it."

Southern Oligarchy and the Labor Unions
Joseph B. Atkins writes in The Progressive Populist: "Cheap labor. Even more than race, it's the thread that connects all of Southern history - from the antebellum South of John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis to Tennessee's Bob Corker, Alabama's Richard Shelby and the other anti-union Southerners in today's US Senate. It's at the epicenter of a sad class divide between a desperate, poorly educated workforce and a demagogic oligarchy, and it has been a demarcation line stronger than the Mason-Dixon in separating the region from the rest of the nation."

Republican Temper Tanturm Hurts Kansas Schools, Kids
From our friends at Kansas Jackass: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again...ad nauseum. This seems to be the mantra of the Republicans in the Kansas Legislature. We've seen it with the coal bill, now we're seeing it with K-12 funding. Angry over the Governor's line-item veto of their draconian cut to public education -- and really still smarting about the Kansas Supreme Court's decision going all the way back to 2005 -- Republicans in the Kansas House Appropriations committee voted again yesterday to cut money from the 2009 budget for local school districts."

KS Republicans Jeopardizes Federal Recovery Funds for Education
Kansas Jackass writes: "Yesterday (Tuesday 17 March), members of the Kansas Republican Party let their desire to cut the education budget of the state of Kansas override their common sense and put in jeopardy monies intended for Kansas schools allocated by the federal government in the recently signed economic recovery bill."

Immigrants Face Detentions, Few Rights
Michelle Roberts reports for The Associated Press: "America's detention system for immigrants has mushroomed in the last decade, a costly building boom that was supposed to sweep up criminals and ensure that undocumented immigrants were quickly shown the door. Instead, an Associated Press computer analysis of every person being held on a recent Sunday night shows that most did not have a criminal record and many were not about to leave the country - voluntarily or via deportation."

The Pope's Immoral Message on AIDS in Africa
Matthew Rothschild writes for The Progressive: "The Pope is in Africa, and in his infinite wisdom, he showed the utmost ignorance on the urgent subject of the AIDS epidemic."

Americas: Celebrating Women's Day
Eduardo Avila reports for Global Voices: "Bloggers from across Latin America also commemorated International Women's Day with posts about the day which is celebrated every March 8 throughout the world. Some also took the opportunity to reflect on some of the issues facing women, but also featured initiatives that are working to alleviate some of these problems."

Enough with Cramer's Apologies; Fix CNBC
John Nichols writes for The Nation: "Coming off the "meltdown smackdown" inquisition of CNC cheerleader Jim Cramer by Comedy Central's Jon Stewart, a great new campaign has been launched to "Fix CNBC!" Truth be told, CNBC may be beyond repair.

Sign a petition and demand that CNBC to stop acting like a PR firm for Wall Street and instead fulfill its journalistic obligation to the truth.

Clippings for 3 December

Click on title to read complete articles.

20th World AIDS Day Observed
Towleroad offers a roundup of coverage of the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day, including a video message from UNAIDS Executive Director Dr. Peter Piot and the construction of the first memorial to people with AIDS in New York City. In related news, President-elect Barack Obama pledged to keep the current focus on global AIDS relief, while boosting U.S. strategies to stop the spread of the virus. "We must also recommit ourselves to addressing the AIDS crisis here in the United States, with a strong national strategy of education, prevention and treatment, focusing on those communities at greatest risk," Obama said.

A World of Trouble Awaits Obama
Ben Smith and Bill Nichols writes for Politico.com: "Picking the people was the easy part. President-elect Obama and his new national security team will now turn to a world full of vexing, linked problems on every continent, and tricky, early choices. From the speed of withdrawal from Iraq to the speed of investment in Afghanistan, from Kashmir to Moscow, Obama will make some of his most important choices early. Here are some of the toughest."

Will Obama Stay the Course
Robert Scheer writes for Truthdig.com: "I do so want to believe that Barack Obama is on the right track. His brain is big, his style fresh, his pronouncements both logical and compelling, and it does feel good to have a president-elect elicit universal respect rather than make the world cringe."

Barack Obama's Kettle of Hawks
Jeremy Scahill writes for The Guardian UK: "Barack Obama has assembled a team of rivals to implement his foreign policy. But while pundits and journalists speculate endlessly on the potential for drama with Hillary Clinton at the state department and Bill Clinton's network of shady funders, the real rivalry that will play out goes virtually unmentioned. The main battles will not be between Obama's staff, but rather against those who actually want a change in US foreign policy, not just a staff change in the war room."

Beyond the Bailout State: Roosevelt's Brain Trust vs. Obama's Brainiacs
Steve Fraser writes for TomDispatch.com: "On a December day in 1932, with the country prostrate under the weight of the Great Depression, ex-president Calvin Coolidge - who had presided over the reckless stock market boom of the Jazz Age Twenties (and famously declaimed that 'the business of America is business') - confided to a friend: 'We are in a new era to which I do not belong.' He punctuated those words, a few weeks later, by dying."

Chevron in the White House
Amy Goodman writes for Truthdig.com: "President-elect Barack Obama introduced his principal national-security Cabinet selections to the world Monday and left no doubt that he intends to start his administration on a war footing. It is revealing that his choice for national security advisor is a director of Boeing, a weapons manufacturer, and Chevron, an oil giant."

Paulson and Bernanke Spread the Wealth Around
Dean Baker writes for Truthout: "During the campaign, Barack Obama provoked a media flurry and right-wing outrage over his comment to Joe the Plumber about 'spreading the wealth around.' They told us that this view was contrary to the American Way, that this was socialism. Given all the concern over Obama's ideas about spreading the wealth, it is remarkable how little attention is being given to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke's much more ambitious effort to spread the wealth."

Treasury Rebuffs Watchdog's Request for more Oversight of Bailout
Paul Kiel reports for ProPublica: "The first big report from the Government Accountability Office on the $700 billion bailout is a pretty mild affair. Given that TARP is just 60 days old, the watchdog office says it’s too soon to assess the impact of having pumped billions into the country’s banks. And since the Treasury Department is still working at getting its special bailout section, the Office of Financial Stability, off the ground (it had about 48 full-time employees as of late last month and Treasury hopes to have as many as 200), the GAO report is mostly full of recommendations on how Treasury can streamline and improve the entire process."

End of the Road: If the Auto Industry Is Dead What Does that Mean for the Workers?
Mark Brenner and Jane Slaughter write for Labor Notes: "n the 1980s Chevrolet proclaimed itself the “Heartbeat of America.” Today many would say that the American auto industry qualifies for life support. Last November, General Motors announced that it was cutting 25,000 jobs and closing up to 12 factories by 2008."

A Consensus Emerges: Build, and Build Big
Eric Lotke writes for The Campaign for America's Future: "Everybody is saying the same thing. Stimulus plans don't mean tax rebates worth a few tanks of gas and a restaurant dinner. Stimulus plans mean new roads and bridges, aid to states so they won't lay off nurses and teaching assistants, and a down payment on a new energy economy with windmills and commuter rail."

Confronting the Terrorist Within
Former Community Bridge guest, Chris Hedges writes for Truthdig.com: "The world is far more complex than our childish vision of good and evil. We as a nation and a culture have no monopoly on virtue. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when viewed from the receiving end, are state-sponsored acts of terrorism."

Observers Cite Clinton's Human Right Commitment
Elizabeth Moore reports for Newsday: "Clinton's 'women's rights are human rights' speech, and her work on international women's rights and rural development causes, may make her the cabinet member who has the most in common with Obama's own mother, Ann Dunham, an early champion of the same kinds of projects advancing women's economic development and microcredit for the poor."

In Courtroom Showdown, Bush Demands Amnesty for Spying Telecoms
David Kravets writes for Wired.com: "The Bush administration on Tuesday will try to convince a federal judge to let stand a law granting retroactive legal immunity to the nation's telecoms, which are accused of transmitting Americans' private communications to the National Security Agency without warrants."

Is Gay the New Black?
This Associated Press article looks at the controversy over whether the marriage-rights fight should be compared to the struggle for black civil rights, with some saying "gay is the new black," and others refusing to even acknowledge gays as a minority group. "Civil rights have come much further than gay rights," said Emil Wilbekin, a black gay man and the editor of Giant magazine.

Recommended Audio: Plunder Trailer
"News Dissector" Danny Schechter investigates our economic calamity in the upcoming feature documentary 'PLUNDER,' based on his recent book. Want to support this film? Write Dissector@mediachannel.org



Get Ready to Pay More for the Web
Stacy Bradford writes for Smart Money: "In times like these, surfing the Web might seem like one of life's cheaper entertainment options. But the next time you fire up your home computer, consider this: If some Internet service providers get their way, the meter could be running while you're shopping, emailing or reading news reports like this one."

Recommended Audio: CounterSpin for November 28
This week on CounterSpin: Bailing out the Big Three. GM, Ford and Chrysler are on the brink of total failure, we're told. In a season of corporate bailouts of all sorts, this one is meeting more resistance—in part because union autoworkers, we're told, are making too much money. Mark Brenner of Labor Notes will join us to talk about it.

Also on CounterSpin today, with Democrats poised to take more power in Washington, is there really a plan in the works to muzzle right-wing talk radio? Steve Rendall of FAIR and CounterSpin will join us to dispel some of the myths surrounding the Fairness Doctrine.

Saving the lives of our children

8 June 2007.
by Christopher E. Renner

Today we have discussed in detail the issue of HIV/AIDS. After 25 years this disease is still treated as a taboo subject in general US culture with nearly 40,000 new HIV infections occurring each year in the US. No one needs to be infected with HIV in 2007 and yet it is still happening. People still believe you can get it from toilet seats or by touching a HIV+ human. Why do these beliefs continue to persist in the information age?

The answer is simple: as a nation we fail our children and young adults daily because instead of providing scientific and medically valid information, we have political leaders toeing the ideological line of religious fanatics. As a result, young people today are more at risk of infection not only of HIV, but a broad spectrum of antibiotic resistant sexuality transmitted infections (STIs) because of sexphobic religious leaders and their followers.

Sex education is critical in providing young people with the information and skills they need to make responsible, informed choices about their sexual and reproductive lives. While parents are and should be the foremost sexuality educators of their children, many would like help from schools and community-based organizations. Currently no federal program is dedicated to supporting age-appropriate, medically accurate sex education that emphasizes the benefits of abstinence and educates young people about contraception and prevention of sexually transmitted infections, despite the proven effectiveness of such programs. The lack of a federal program leaves many sex education decisions in the hands of state governments.

Across the country, state legislatures continue to offer sex education legislation. Last year, 28 states, spurred on in large part by religious reactionaries, have introduced 115 bills that attempt to determine what students will or won’t learn about human sexuality. While several states introduced positive measures that will enforce responsible and comprehensive sex education programs, many states introduced bills that would prevent abortion-providing agencies from teaching sex education in schools and would prioritized funding to agencies that did not provide abortions or contraception.(1)

But the vilest treat of all is how the media has ignored the Waxman Report. In 2004, Rep. Henry Waxman (D — CA), released a report about the state of abstinence-only sexuality education which the Bush administration and the fanatics in the Religious Right has force upon not only the US public education system but tied to development aid across the world.

The report examined school-based sex education curricula used by programs funded under Special Projects of Regional and National Significance Community-Based Abstinence Education (SPRANS), the fastest-growing source of federally funded abstinence education. Since 1996, nearly $1 billion in state and federal funding, under three funding streams, has been spent on abstinence-only education that denies young people information about contraception beyond failure rates. Another $170 million in federal funds was spent in FY 2005, despite a lack of evidence supporting the effectiveness of this approach.(2)

The report found that the curricula used by more than two-thirds of government-funded abstinence-only programs contain misleading or inaccurate information about abortion, contraception, genetics, and sexually transmitted infections:

• The abstinence-only program “Me, My World, My Future” states, "Tubal and cervical pregnancies are increased following abortions." According to obstetric textbooks, previous abortions are not correlated with ectopic pregnancies.
• “Choosing the Best, The Big Talk Book” states, "[R]esearch confirms that 14 percent of the women who use condoms scrupulously for birth control become pregnant within a year." In fact, when used correctly and consistently, only two percent of couples who rely on the latex condom as their primary form of contraception will experience an unintended pregnancy.
• “Why kNOw” states, "Twenty-four chromosomes from the mother and 24 from the father join to create [a fetus]." Human cells are actually comprised of 46 chromosomes; 23 from each parent.
• “WAIT” Training incorrectly states that HIV can be transmitted through tears and sweat. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), HIV is only transmissible through blood, semen, and vaginal secretions.(1)

The Waxman report also found that many abstinence-only curricula even go so far as to blur the line between religion and science, and treat gender stereotypes as scientific fact. It found that these curriculums:

• grossly underestimate the effectiveness of condoms and other contraceptives in preventing pregnancy and STIs;
• make false claims about the physical and psychological risks of abortion;
• offer misinformation on the incidence and transmission of STIs;
• replace scientific facts with religious views and moral judgments; and
• distort medical evidence and basic scientific facts.(2)

In the past 10 years, Congress has wasted more than $1 billion on dangerous abstinence-only programs that deny teenagers vital information about birth control and responsible decision-making — while approximately 750,000 U.S. teens become pregnant and four million get a sexually transmitted infection each year. And right now, our federal government is spending another $176 million on these dangerous programs. Programs that do not work!

It's time to stop wasting money. The vast majority of parents support responsible, comprehensive sex education, and that's what the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act is all about. The REAL Act will provide funds for medically accurate, age-appropriate sex education in schools. H.R. 1653/S. 972 legislation introduced by Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Chris Shays (R-CT), and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), will appropriate funds for programs that provide age-appropriate, medically accurate information on the values of abstinence and the health benefits and side effects of all contraceptives and barrier methods as a means to prevent pregnancy and reduce the risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV/AIDS.

The vast majority of parents in the United States support responsible sex education. A study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2004 reveals that parents want schools to do more in the way of preparing their children for real life. In addition to the basics of reproduction, information about HIV/AIDS and other STIs, and messages about abstinence, all of which are standard in comprehensive sex education classes, parents want the following topics to be covered by sex educators: correct use of condoms, other forms of birth control, how to get tested for STIs, and the emotional consequences of becoming sexually active.(3)

In a 2001 poll of 1,750 registered voters, 85 percent agreed that all students should receive age-appropriate information about contraception and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. Seventy percent of these voters strongly agreed (Lake, Snell, Perry & Associates, 2001).(4)

America's leading medical and public health experts support responsible sex education, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Nurses Association, and the Society for Adolescent Medicine, as well as leading public health experts and educators like the American Public Health Association.

You can join this effort by telling Congresswoman Nancy Boyda and Senators Brownback and Roberts to support the REAL Act. You can also sign an on-line petition at:

http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/rrr/petition.asp

We need responsible people to speak out against the culture of fear and dis-information of the Religious Right for the lives of our youth and the future health of our nation. HIV/AIDS can be prevented. We can dramatically reduce the health risk to all young people by provide accurate, medically sound education. It is time we threw off the yoke of religious fanaticism and became the a nation whose health policy is founded on fact, not fiction.

Sources:
1. Planned Parenthood, http://www.saveroe.com/issues/sex-education/misinformation-abstinence-only, accessed June 7, 2007.
2. Guttmacher Institute http://www.guttmacher.org/media/inthenews/2004/12/03/index.html, accessed June 7, 2007.
3. National Public Radio /Kaiser Family Foundation /Harvard University Kennedy School of Government 2004 Poll "Sex Education in America
4. Lake, Snell, Perry & Associates and Deardouff & Associates/The Media Company Nationwide. (July 2001) Survey of 1750 Registered Voters Nationwide. Presentation for Planned Parenthood Action Fund.