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A Poverty of Compassion
[Editor's Note: Longtime DCP commenter, Christy Cole, submitted the following article on the proposed changes to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Section 8 Housing regulations and what it will mean to the nearly quarter of a million people who are currently enrolled in this program. Ms. Cole's thoughtful, informative and well-written article is an outstanding example of the important role that citizen journalism has to play in a vibrant and informed democracy. Thank you, Ms. Cole, for your essay. We are pleased and proud to print your fine work on this blog.]
I would like to say right off I advocate changes to the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Section 8 Housing system. Working at a Section 8 Housing complex has made me understand that the program itself is not only enormous to administer, but like any other program, can be susceptible to fraud, overspending, and simple mismanagement. But, it is also a program that saves the lives of entire families every day in America. And throughout its history, it has saved many, many families from the hard and life-threatening reality of life on the streets.
However, the new bills before Congress are a two-fold plan for disaster. Eric Alterman helps us understand why:
Last month, Congress began hearings on two bills -- one each in the House and Senate -- that threaten to reorient federal assistance away from the families who need it most. Specifically, the legislation would double Section 8's existing median income cap to 60 percent, thereby allowing families who earn more to qualify for these vouchers.
It also removes rules which ensure that families in serious need receive the most assistance. Under the new measure, local housing authorities are free to award up to 90 percent of their vouchers to applicants who qualify under the raised income cap -- allowing them to grant the majority of vouchers to families who earn more and therefore pay more of the rent.
From someone who does see a need for change, I believe the name of this plan should be, "Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater." This is about as cruel and Dickensian as our government can get, and undercuts the very reason the program exists in the first place.
If 90% of the vouchers are allowed to go to those with higher incomes, it means those in the 'very poor' category will get squeezed out of public housing. The ones who need help the most will be forced into the streets. The first shot in this new War on the Poor, is aimed directly at some of America's most vulnerable citizens: single mothers, children, the elderly, and handicapped persons.
Alterman:
Low-income housing advocacy groups and some members of Congress say that HUD's proposals will essentially decimate its own program and unduly target the very people it's supposed to help most. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), the impacts of the changes would be enormous: low income families in need of vouchers will invariably be passed over by cash-strapped housing authorities who will tend to horde their funds by giving the vouchers to families who make more money. Housing authorities have lost $2 billion in HUD funding over the past four fiscal years and are in the midst of a serious budget crunch.
It's as if HUD figured out the worst possible solutions to low income housing problems and crammed them into one bill," says Linda Couch, NLIHC's deputy director. "The administration's goal here is clearly to save cash. And it's at the expense of the people who need housing the most.
Who makes up the bulk of those housing assisted? Minorities do, and since they make up the bulk of those who are housing assisted, the passage of this bill could likely cause a racial meltdown within the
system.
Alterman:
The people most in need of HUD's assistance are often black and Hispanic families, who account for 53 percent of all vouchers a year, according to a recent Poverty and Race Research Action Council (PRRAC) study. Executive Director Philip Tegeler says the proposed legislation could create a scenario where housing authorities are denying vouchers to poor minorities while giving them to slightly better off white families in order to preserve their already depleted coffers. If the legislation moves forward, PRRAC predicts that the 131,000 families of color served by Section 8 could quickly be cut in half, and over the next decade, hundreds of thousands of vouchers would be shifted away from poor black and Hispanic applicants to less impoverished whites.
"This lifting of the current income targeting is not race neutral. And so the bill ends up having serious civil rights consequences," Tegeler says. He also points to the serious implications of another aspect of HUD's proposal which would give housing authorities more power in determining whether Section 8 families can move out of a particular neighborhood -- a process called "portability." The proposed restrictions will make it much harder for black and Hispanic families to move from ghettoes into areas with more opportunity, further entrenching segregation in cities that are already carved up by color lines."
This is a disaster only Jim Crow could love. Think of it as a weapon of societal mass destruction. Not surprisingly HUD's position is this: it will give people more "options", but HUD's spokeswoman Donna White fails to delineate why those "options" are better. My guess is that families will be having the option between eating and shelter.
Ms. White disagrees that the proposal will push lower-income people out of the program:
"The bottom line is now they have options. If you make 32 percent of the median income in your area, why should you be cut out of the program?" she states. "We think that by giving the housing authorities more options, more flexibility, as opposed to having follow strict guidelines, housing authorities will be better able to help the families in their area."
Ms. White makes further claims that this increased flexibility could help cut down on waiting lists for vouchers, which can last up to five years in major cities, according to HUD.
Alterman continues:
HUD's argument, however, does not impress a number of members of Congress who are opposed to the bill. A May 17 Congressional hearing before the House Financial Services Committee provoked decided and bipartisan opposition from numerous members, including Barbara Lee (D-California), Julia Carson (D-Indiana) and Christopher Shays (R-Connecticut). Shays was one of 20 members of Congress who wrote a letter on Apr. 29 urging the House Appropriations Committee to boost funding for Section 8.
"While it is clear we need to take steps to reform the Section 8, we can't forget how successful the program has been," Shays said in an email response to AlterNet. "I'm eager to work with the Financial Services Committee to craft responsible legislation, but am concerned [the bill] simply passes the buck to the local housing authorities."
As I said, I, too, believe in changing the system to get better results, but not like this.
This two-fold regulation change does nothing to help solve any of the real problems now facing HUD. It will likely have the opposite effect. Letting those with more income into the program will result in dramatically increasing both short and long-term costs because those squeezed out will still need help of some sort. Setting time limits (with exemptions for elderly and handicapped) is one way to immediately address HUD's short term issues. However, simply throwing people into the streets because there is no profit in housing them is not only a cruel system, it is completely the reverse of what HUD is supposed to do, and is the antithesis of why Section 8 Housing was developed in the first place.
If the House and Senate let this regulation change come into effect, it will indeed be further proof that our government no longer cares about mercy, or dare I say, compassion. It will be just yet another testament to the cruelty that is attendant to this administration's utter lack of compassion, and its seeming creed of "Poor people be damned".
The image of American children starving on our own streets may not bother them, but I simply do not think my fellow patriots will allow this to happen.
So I asking you now, please call your senators and your representatives and tell them how you feel about the changes proposed to HUD's Section 8 Housing program.
Our words, our voices and our actions together, may be the only chance we have to avert an impending disaster.
--Christy Cole
No wonder - this is SO embarrassing
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON (AP) - About 40 percent of Americans say they consider talk show host Bill O'Reilly a journalist - more than would define famed Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward the same way, according to a poll conducted this spring.
Only 30 percent said Woodward, who broke the Watergate story with Carl Bernstein, was a journalist. More than a quarter said talk show host Rush Limbaugh was one, while one in five said they considered newspaper columnist George Will to be a journalist.
Poll respondents were simply asked, ``Please tell me if you think (the individual named) is a journalist or not?'' The question made no specific reference to differences between reporters and commentators.
read the rest at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5072198,00.html
http://silencedmajority.blogs.com/silenced_majority_portal/
Canada's Ambassador to US says:
``Don't think you are doing any favors to us by trying to open the United States market for Canadian drugs because you are not. If you are doing that, you are doing it for your own reasons and you are avoiding dealing with the fundamental question of your drug pricing.''
Last month, House Democrats outlined a health care agenda that would permit the importation of prescription drugs from Canada and other nations, subject to safety regulations, and would give Medicare authority to negotiate lower prices with drug manufacturers in this country.
Article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5072217,00.html
(Senate is debating this resolution right now- check CSPAN 2)
The cynical part of me wants to say "How scared are the 'Pugs? Scared enough to do something Clintonesque in order to look better." "How scared are the 'Pugs? Scared enough to pass an anti-lynching resolution-the kind that failed in the Senate 200 times in the last century.
BUT I want to focus on the fact that there are some senators in both parties who are willing to speak the truth about terrorism in our country & in our history.
The resolution is symbolic & does not make lylnching a federal offense. On the other hand, it's farther than the Senate has gone before.
The senate just voted - a voice vote - nobody's vote was recorded-
JK is about to speak. It's great to see him again. He commented on the voice vote & asked why the res. does not have 100 sponsers in the Senate? Why are we having a voice vote? He's raising alot of important questions.
Link for my post:
US Senate moves to apologize for lynchings
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-06-13T204721Z_01_N13695046_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-USA-CONGRESS-LYNCHING-DC.XML
CSPAN 2 - Barack Obama points out that today's legislation is important, but we also must we must give this kind of attention the issues & the violence that continue to block the civil rights of many people (paraphrase)
America is still talking about lynchings.
It's just amazing .. must be morbidly fascinating to outsiders, like places where women are not allowed to drive cars.
Speaking of Saudi Arabia, I just read in an article on El-Baradai (being given a 3rd term on the International Atomic Energy Commission) that Saudi Arabia doesn't have to have weapons inspections - as long as they say there is nothing to inspect! Yet Bolton thought El-Baradai (who is Egyptian) was too easy on Iran - the usual double standard.
Also ironic - Michael Jackson has a lengthy trial for child molestation but it's ok to torture boys at Guantanamo.
Italians voted not to relax law on assisted fertility and this was touted as a victory for the Vatican on women's choice issues, yet two things are hardly mentioned: 1) the turnout was only 25% and 50% or more is needed for it to go to Parliament and 2) recent polls show that the majority of Italians continue to favor separation of church and state.
We are not the only country where the lines between religion and state are becoming blurred, the only country with biased & corporate-controlled media, or with erosion of labor unions and safety net programs and social infrastructure including education & healthcare. It's all a matter of degree. We've become the developed country that the others dread following the fate of though. We seem to be the first decending the slope.
& did I read right? The only black person on the Supreme Court voted against stacking juries with nonminorities?!
Although the resolution already passed, the senators will continue to speak. Haven't heard the Pugs yet, but (so far), instead of promoting themselves, the Dems are telling the stories of people who were lynched, alone or in groups, presenting the injustices & the effects on the friends & relatives of the victims. They are showing something of the scope of the terror-- it wasn't just a Southern problem-- Black men were lynched in Colorado, Indiana, and in most other states.
Posted by: aimzzz at June 13, 2005 07:44 PM
This is a good thing. I think there are some from the religious right that are promiting these apologies. I am pretty sure of it. Which doesn't make it a bad idea, but keep that in mind.
promoting.
Truth Shall Prevail
I hope that there is no one in America who isn't sorry lynchings ever happened. Even here in western Washington there have been some recent cross burnings, which is unbelievable.
Here is another place for compassion and also realistic programs, as this is not something for America to be proud of:
More Young Children Going Hungry in US
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/061305HA.shtml
Not My President,
I agree. The reason I think the religious right may be promoting it is because I have seen material that there is a group of them (these are men I truly respect) that are influential in some of the recent apologies. Congress has, or is planning to make a similar apology to Native Americans.
Truth and Not My Prez:
I am proud that we can still be amazed that poverty and hunger still exists in America, and I am ashamed that still nothing is done to eradicate it completely.
I am shocked that there seems to be an attitude that condemns the poor in a nation whose leaders purport serving a just and "compassionate" God.
Yet, I am proud that we can still feel, even with all the numbness created by a media onslaught that obscures stories like these.
I am ashamed that not more is said about this.
And, I am shocked that there are still Americans, poor, hungry and losing hope by the minute socially and economically, who still support the Administration because they feel they can still "make it"?
Does anybody have the heart to tell them that with current policies the way they are, the likelihood of "making it" grows lesser by the day?
Yes, apologies to minorities may ring kind of hollow, however well-intensioned - if at the same time, there aren't enough jobs or food or healthcare - yet we have a President who campaigned by talking about "ownership" for minorities and who had high-level supporters who embezzled tribes out of millions, who in front of a large group of minority journalists demonstrated that he didn't know what "trival sovereignty" meant!
http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/bushvideos/v/bushismtribal.htm
or
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blbushanimations.htm
Gosh, I think it is time for the Walking Eagle story.
Fe. The men I am talking about that are probably behind this are truly good men. It is a handful only of them. They indeed do not think poverty is a good thing. They are trying to start from the root up, I believe. There are relatively few of them, and they may have been able to persuade Congress to make these apologies, because, as well intentioned as these few men are, there are many more who saw a chance to appease all of the religious right and thicken their smoke screen.
But the men asking for it, as I said, are few, and very sincere. It does work for a opportunist right to promote it through Congress, it looks like there is less corruption in government that way. Of course, we know it isn't true, they are using this like they use everything else.
Great piece, Christy! Thanks.
This just in:
* * * MEDIA ALERT * * *
1. TIME AND PLACE FIXED FOR THURSDAY RALLY
2. NEW BRITISH DOCUMENTS LEAKED
1. Hearings and Rally
On Thursday June 16, 2005, Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and other Congress Members will hold a hearing on the Downing Street Minutes and related evidence of efforts to cook the books on
pre-war intelligence. (Time and place yet to be determined.)
Later on the same day at 5:00 p.m. ET in LafayetteSquarePark, in front of the
White House, a large rally will support Congressman Conyers who plans to deliver
to the White House a letter addressed to President Bush and signed by over
500,000 Americans and at least 94 Congress Members. The letter asks the President to respond to questions raised by the Downing Street Minutes.
Among those speaking at the hearings will be: Joe Wilson, Former Ambassador
and WMD Expert; Ray McGovern, 27-year CIA analyst who prepared regular Presidential briefings during the Reagan administration; Cindy Sheehan, mother of fallen American soldier; John Bonifaz, renowned constitutional lawyer and co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org.
Among those speaking at the rally will be: Congressman Conyers and various
other Congress Members, Cindy Sheehan of Gold Star Families for Peace, John
Bonifaz of AfterDowningStreet.org, Ray McGovern former CIA analyst, Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange, Rev. Lennox Yearwood of Progressive Democrats of America, Stephen Cleghorn of Military Families Speak Out. More information, and flyers promoting the rally, are available at www.afterdowningstreet.org
Flyers to print, copy, and distribute widely:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/downloads/rally.pdf
LOCAL RALLIES PLANNED AROUND COUNTRY
Supporters of this campaign are independently organizing rallies on Thursday
at locations around the country.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/modules....article&sid=211
2. New Documents
AfterDowningStreet.org has made available additional secret documents leaked
from the British government.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/modules....article&sid=205*
Statements from leaders of the AfterDowningStreet.org Coalition:
"The UK Iraq War documents provide a roadmap for U.S. investigators, the media
and Congress. Shame on them if they become complicit in the coverup and do
not pursue them. It is time to interview current and former intelligence officials
about whether they were asked to 'fix' the intelligence, whether intelligence
was designed to convince people to support the already planned war or whether
intelligence was intended to provide real information about whether Iraq was
a threat. Public opinion has turned against the war -- it is now safe to report
the truth."
Kevin Zeese of Democracy Rising
"George Bush may think that his lone 'accountability moment' was last November's election, but as these new documents show that he planned all along to invade Iraq and lie as needed, his real 'accountability moment' may be yet to come -- in the form of a House of Representatives Resolution of Inquiry into impeachable offenses. That resolution cannot come to soon for Veterans For Peace or for the people of Iraq, whose deaths and suffering demand justice.
Mike Ferner, Veterans for Peace
"Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) is committed to continue to organize
at the grassroots level with this coalition to demand Members of Congress introduce a Resolution of Inquiry directing the House Judiciary Committee to launch a formal investigation into whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of
Representatives to exercise its constitutional power to impeach George W. Bush.
Citizens from across the country will be on the ground in WashingtonDC this
Thursday at the hearing and rally to demonstrate their resolve."
Tim Carpenter, Director of PDA
"My son was killed and my family destroyed by a war in Iraq that was premeditated and prefabricated. My son was killed by people in power who wanted this invasion and occupation at all costs. Anyone who lied to us about this invasion should be brought to justice. I am heart broken and devastated that my son was already a dead man by July 2002, if not sooner. We didn't even know. We had no way of knowing that our leaders were planning to engage in this massive subversion of the United States Constitution. I urge every person in this country with courage and integrity to rise up and demand that the truth be finally exposed
to the light and that those in power who are responsible, including the President
of the United States, be held accountable under the rule of law."
Cindy Sheehan, Gold Star Families for Peace
AfterDowningStreet.org is a rapidly growing coalition of veterans' groups,
peace groups, and political activist groups, which launched on May 26, 2005,
a campaign to urge the U.S. Congress to begin a formal investigation into whether
President Bush has committed impeachable offenses in connection with the Iraq
war.
[Hearing about Michael Jackson reminded me of this snippet I saw a couple of days ago. Also ties in w/ DiAnne @ 06:56 PM.]
Cavuto Redux - The Foxnewsified Bush Interview [[near bottom of page]]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html
~snip~
Who wants to talk about that messy war in Iraq, or the Downing Street Memo? Not Neil Cavuto, Fox News executive, anchor, commentator and Bush campaign contributor.
_________________________
I don't know anything about Fox News people, but this short list of Cavuto’s credentials show exactly how far Fox will go for a Fair & Balanced interview.
Cavuto nailed Bush relentlessly with the hard stuff, demanding the truth: "Do you think you get a bum rap in the media on the economy?"
Ordinarily I’m too restless to spent time on this kind of story—not much we don’t already know here—
But the next part somehow wormed its way into my conscious mind. Look at how Cavuto accounts for the lack of enthusiasm re Bush’s Social Security scam
... the president's [Social Security] push, soon as he began his second term, times almost to the week with the approach of the Michael Jackson trial. And I have a view -- and it could be crazy -- and the president readily admitted maybe it was -- that this fixation on the Michael Jackson trial, even in your show right now, takes away from the attention that maybe the president wanted afforded his program on Social Security."
OK—here’s a Fox News executive with enough of whatever would cause both Fox & BushCo pick for him the big interview. What kind of analytic process would lead to this explanation on Bush’s SS flop? Only denial could lead someone to cast so far for so little… and then to say it out loud… on national tv? Do people listen? What would he accomplish if they did?
Well, we should know soon enough. With no retrials or appeals, the trial will drop off the radar screen any second now. Based on Cavuto’s logic, the SS scam will take new wings any day now…
Thank you Fe and Karen.
HUD is a boring subject but i am always glad to see people are willing to keep with it because of the importance of such a program.
Excellent piece Christy.
For some reason Conservative Government uses what Magical Math trying to eliminate or reduce programs that do the most good.
The Section 8 reasoning is the same used for schools. Schools that dont do well lose their funding. In a Rational world, you would give more money to the schools not doing well, since they need help the most.
Now Section 8 will reduce money going to where its needed most, and move it upline to people that do not need it as much.
The American social System is being gutted, from schools to housing, food and infant programs to social security.
At some point, progressive leadership will need to engage. Not speeches, not showmanship, we need effective leadership and we dont have it yet.
Christy,
That was a great article you wrote. Great job!
Now, this is what Jackson had to say about poverty and the South. HE is trying to unite labor and civil rights to go to the South and get fair wages, healthcare, and a constitutional voting ammendment passed by Congress. He wants labor to lead the way so that those who are the poorest can organize and with Democrats or a Third party support this can be done. Of course all Republicans are welcome to support the cause too, as long as they support it by their votes and not just their rhetoric.
The American social System is being gutted, from schools to housing, food and infant programs to social security.
Toolmaker I believe thats it in a nutshell
Nice thread Christy...very well done.
I have occasionally worked on HUD projects...in many states it has been the law to include HUD housing in multi-family dwellings and a sin to see it being cut back.
Great post, Christy!
If you didn't see Krugman in the NYtimes today, it's very good:
One Nation, Uninsured
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: June 13, 2005
Harry Truman tried to create a national health insurance system. Public opinion was initially on his side: Jill Quadagno's book "One Nation, Uninsured" tells us that in 1945, 75 percent of Americans favored national health insurance. If Truman had succeeded, universal coverage for everyone, not just the elderly, would today be an accepted part of the social contract.
But Truman failed. Special interests, especially the American Medical Association and Southern politicians who feared that national insurance would lead to racially integrated hospitals, triumphed.
Sixty years later, the patchwork system that evolved in the absence of national health insurance is unraveling. The cost of health care is exploding, the number of uninsured is growing, and corporations that still provide employee coverage are groaning under the strain.
So the time will soon be ripe for another try at universal coverage. Public opinion is already favorable: a 2003 Pew poll found that 72 percent of Americans favored government-guaranteed health insurance for all.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/13/opinion/13krugman.html?ex=1119326400&en=72d5ecd649fa3662&ei=5070&emc=eta1
Christy:
Your thread hurts my heart in so many ways. I think about the jail system throughout just my state alone. How Then Governor Pete Wilson made a business out of the Prison Industrial Complex.
In our state, educating a poor child costs the taxpayers $6,000/student/year. (That's everyone contributing fractions of a dollar from their taxes) To incarcerate that same child as an adult costs taxpayers $64,000 per year.
As Arnuld would say, "Do the math."
Poverty has numerous consequences. Not the least of which, and the worst--lack of choice amongst those hardest hit. To watch the decimation of programs that help the poor through affordable housing, financial assistance, food stamps,and the worst insult--poor education which MARKS the nation's poor as "untouchable" by a short-memoried legislature--in the state and now in Congress--this hurts my heart and exacerbates already painful problems we face in our cities and towns in my neck of the woods.
Truth Shall Prevail--I do not condemn those people in Congress who truly DO have compassion, regardless of their party. I just wish the majority of those who don't would stop trying to figure a way out of their responsibility to our society on a humane level. In particular, that goes especially for those who demonize the poor--especially when there are so few who are gaining so much from the tax incentives that benefit those who need it the least.
I just looked at my last post & realized the sarcasm soesn't show through & parts don't make sense- I'll just say I was struck at the disconnect from the real world & the absence of logic leading the Fox announcer to the conclusion he ws tryinig to push. Maybe I'll be coherent another day :-p
June 14, 2005
Raped, Kidnapped and Silenced
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
No wonder the Pakistan government can't catch Osama bin Laden. It is too busy harassing, detaining - and now kidnapping - a gang-rape victim for daring to protest and for planning a visit to the United States.
Last fall I wrote about Mukhtaran Bibi, a woman who was sentenced by a tribal council in Pakistan to be gang-raped because of an infraction supposedly committed by her brother. Four men raped Ms. Mukhtaran, then village leaders forced her to walk home nearly naked in front of a jeering crowd of 300.
Ms. Mukhtaran was supposed to have committed suicide. Instead, with the backing of a local Islamic leader, she fought back and testified against her persecutors. Six were convicted.
Then Ms. Mukhtaran, who believed that the best way to overcome such abuses was through better education, used her compensation money to start two schools in her village, one for boys and the other for girls. She went out of her way to enroll the children of her attackers in the schools, showing that she bore no grudges.
Readers of my column sent in more than $133,000 for her. Mercy Corps, a U.S. aid organization, has helped her administer the money, and she has expanded the schools, started a shelter for abused women and bought a van that is used as an ambulance for the area. She has also emerged as a ferocious spokeswoman against honor killings, rapes and acid attacks on women. (If you want to help her, please don't send checks to me but to Mercy Corps, with "Mukhtaran Bibi" in the memo line: 3015 S.W. First, Portland, Ore. 97201.)
A group of Pakistani-Americans invited Ms. Mukhtaran to visit the U.S. starting this Saturday (see www.4anaa.org). Then a few days ago, the Pakistani government went berserk.
On Thursday, the authorities put Ms. Mukhtaran under house arrest - to stop her from speaking out. In phone conversations in the last few days, she said that when she tried to step outside, police pointed their guns at her. To silence her, the police cut off her land line.
After she had been detained, a court ordered her attackers released, putting her life in jeopardy. That happened on a Friday afternoon, when the courts do not normally operate, and apparently was a warning to Ms. Mukhtaran to shut up. Instead, Ms. Mukhtaran continued her protests by cellphone. But at dawn yesterday the police bustled her off, and there's been no word from her since. Her cellphone doesn't answer.
Asma Jahangir, a Pakistani lawyer who is head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said she had learned that Ms. Mukhtaran was taken to Islamabad, furiously berated and told that President Pervez Musharraf was very angry with her. She was led sobbing to detention at a secret location. She is barred from contacting anyone, including her lawyer.
"She's in their custody, in illegal custody," Ms. Jahangir said. "They have gone completely crazy."
Even if Ms. Mukhtaran were released, airports have been alerted to bar her from leaving the country. According to Dawn, a Karachi newspaper, the government took this step, "fearing that she might malign Pakistan's image."
Excuse me, but Ms. Mukhtaran, a symbol of courage and altruism, is the best hope for Pakistan's image. The threat to Pakistan's image comes from President Musharraf for all this thuggish behavior.
I've been sympathetic to Mr. Musharraf till now, despite his nuclear negligence, partly because he's cooperated in the war on terrorism and partly because he has done a good job nurturing Pakistan's economic growth, which in the long run is probably the best way to fight fundamentalism. So even when Mr. Musharraf denied me visas all this year, to block me from visiting Ms. Mukhtaran again and writing a follow-up column, I bit my tongue.
But now President Musharraf has gone nuts.
"This is all because they think they have the support of the U.S. and can get away with murder," Ms. Jahangir said. Indeed, on Friday, just as all this was happening, President Bush received Pakistan's foreign minister in the White House and praised President Musharraf's "bold leadership."
So, Mr. Bush, how about asking Mr. Musharraf to focus on finding Osama, instead of kidnapping rape victims who speak out? And invite Ms. Mukhtaran to the Oval Office - to show that Americans stand not only with generals who seize power, but also with ordinary people of extraordinary courage.
E-mail: nicholas@nytimes.com
With allies like Musharraf, who needs enemies.
From Rome to Islamabad to Colorado Springs, the old men are simply terrified of women who know their own mind, and are not afraid to use it.
Cyrano
Musharraf is a military dictator that we support pragmatically. I'm not surprised about him.
You're right about the old men.
So the time will soon be ripe for another try at universal coverage. Public opinion is already favorable: a 2003 Pew poll found that 72 percent of Americans favored government-guaranteed health insurance for all.
Posted by: NativeTexan4Kerry at June 14, 2005 01:36 AM
I hope this poll is right. I still remember 1994, when the Dems lost their control of Congress by pushing for universal healthcare - and the Republicans countered by labeling it socialist. America really let me down that year.
Posted by: Fe at June 14, 2005 02:26 AM
Fe, I know. I didn't get the thrust of your previous post until I reread it, and by then I had already posted my response. Sorry 'bout that!
:-D
The word rape came to me on a large scale after reading to the bottom of this thread a couple minutes ago. Rape comes in many forms. This administration has raped our economy, then they stick it to the poor, adding insult to injury.
Cyrano:
Ironic, isn't it? Send Laura on a pr trip to Afghanistan to show the world we are for equality for women, and those of other cultures and religion aren't, while supporting a leader who does this to women? You are right about the old men, and alot of younger ones suffer from the same attitude about women, they have not had the role models to be otherwise. The attitudes are the same in alot of American males as they are in Muslim countries. We just don't wear burkhas, and they don't wear cowboy hats.
"We just don't wear burkhas, and they don't wear cowboy hats."
Priceless.