Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, testifying before the Joint Economic Committee last week, commented that the 80 percent of the workforce represented by nonsupervisory workers has recently seen little, if any, income growth at all, virtually all growth going to the top 20 percent of supervisory, salaried, and other workers has.

The result of this, said Greenspan, is that the US now has a significant divergence in the fortunes of different groups in its labor market. “As I’ve often said, this is not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing,” Greenspan told the congressional hearing.

Had a Democrat said this, it would have immediately been branded “class warfare” by the right wing noise machine; but they were surprisingly silent when Greenspan declared the obvious.

Polite nods and then a quick segue back to Terri Shaivo….

washingtonpost.com
Legal Woes May Shut Down Kansas Schools

By JOHN HANNA
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 16, 2005; 1:45 PM

TOPEKA, Kan. — Still smarting from a fight over evolution, Kansas schools now face an almost unthinkable possibility: They might not reopen in the fall because of a political and legal battle over education funding.

The Kansas Supreme Court has ordered legislators to provide millions more in aid to schools by July 1. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has called a special legislative session for June 22 to act on the order.

Some Republicans who control the Legislature want to defy the court, arguing it cannot tell them exactly what to spend on anything. Their tough talk has educators and others worried the court will order schools to remain closed until legislators comply.

Such orders have been issued or threatened in other states, and a Kansas judge even told the state last year that it could not spend a penny on its schools until legislators fixed the funding system, a decision that would have kept classrooms closed _ and 445,000 students at home _ had the Supreme Court not put it on hold.

“It truly does seem to me to be the natural consequence,” said Dan Biles, an attorney for the State Board of Education.

Such a development would represent another embarrassment for the Kansas school system, which was ridiculed around the country in 1999 when the state school board deleted most references to evolution. The school system later reversed course. But now it is likely to adopt new science standards that are critical of evolution.

Michele Henry, a Topeka mother of two daughters, ages 7 and 9, said legislators need to provide enough money for schools.

“Other people are not allowed not to do their jobs,” said Henry, who is the president of the parent-teacher organization at her daughters’ school. “Their job is to fund education programs for our children.”

The Supreme Court’s directive June 3 came in a six-year-old lawsuit from Dodge City and Salina, where parents and administrators claimed Kansas spends too little money on education and distributes its aid unfairly, shortchanging poor children, minorities and struggling students.

In January, the Supreme Court said legislators had failed to do their duty under the Kansas Constitution to provide a suitable education for all children. But the justices were not specific about a fix.

GOP leaders pushed through a plan to increase state school aid by $142 million, or about 5 percent, while avoiding the tax increases that Sebelius and other Democrats saw as necessary.

The high court said that the plan was inadequate and that the increase for the next school year must be $285 million, or 10 percent. The court also said it could order much larger spending increases in the future.

Kansas’ Republican legislators, particularly conservatives, were furious.

“I think it’s high time we confronted the court,” said Rep. Frank Miller. “One thing we could do is just refuse to obey.”

Such rhetoric has some educators worried about the next school term.

“Families organize their lives around the school system,” said Andrea Ewert, a counselor at Hutchinson High School. “When school is in session, children don’t only have breakfast here but lunch here, and in many elementary schools, there are after-school programs to keep them in a safe environment.”

In a similar dispute in New York state, a master appointed by the state’s highest court recently said New York City’s schools need an additional $5.6 billion over the next four years. In New Jersey in 1976, the state’s highest court ordered schools to remain closed, successfully forcing legislators to improve funding. Threats from high courts in Arizona and Texas compelled legislators in those states to do the same.

“That is a remedy that clearly is within the court’s power,” said Michael Rebell, executive director of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, which sued over New York City’s education funding. “The threat is usually very effective.”

The Kansas court has not said what it would do if lawmakers defied the order.

“I would just as soon not learn the answer to that question,” said Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, a Republican.

___

On the Net:

Kansas Legislature: http://www.kslegislature.org

Kansas Supreme Court: http://www.kscourts.org

© 2005 The Associated Press

washingtonpost.com
Victim’s Parents Tour U.S. to Raise Money

By RACHEL LA CORTE
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 16, 2005; 1:16 PM

OLYMPIA, Wash. — When 23-year-old American Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza, she was protesting the impending demolition of a Palestinian home. More than two years later, Craig and Cindy Corrie say they are trying to carry on their daughter’s work.

In a bid to raise money to rebuild the bulldozed house and others nearby, the Corries have started a seven-state tour with Khaled and Samah Nasrallah _ one of two Palestinian families who lived in the house Rachel died protecting. On Friday, the tour comes to Rachel Corrie’s hometown of Olympia.

“Rachel, when she was in Gaza, wrote to us about her own thinking in terms of making a commitment to that place,” Cindy Corrie said. “She didn’t want to feel guilty when she left, knowing that she could come and go as she pleased. When she was killed, those words resonated with us.”

Rachel Corrie was killed in 2003, after Israel moved to raze a house under a decades-old policy of destroying the homes of Palestinian suicide bombers and gunmen. Khaled Nasrallah, an accountant for Palestine Airlines, said his family was not involved with terrorism.

An Israeli army investigation concluded that Corrie’s death was accidental. Officials said the driver of the machine could not see the woman — a claim activists have fiercely disputed and her parents are challenging.

At the time of her death, Craig Corrie was an actuary nearing retirement; his wife was a flutist and vocalist. Now, they travel the country to talk about their daughter and her cause. About a year ago, they joined up with the Rebuilding Alliance, an organization that helps rebuild Palestinian homes and schools.

In March, the Corries sued Caterpillar Inc., the maker of the bulldozer, arguing that the company knew its machines would be used to demolish homes and endanger people. Caterpillar said in its defense: “We have neither the legal right nor the means to police individual use of that equipment.”

The Corries are also pursuing claims in Israel against the Jewish state and its military.

Human rights groups have condemned the demolition of Palestinian homes as a violation of international humanitarian law. In February, Israel abandoned the policy, saying it was ineffective.

Israel has characterized the International Solidarity Movement, the group Rachel Corrie was working with when she was killed, as meddlers whose activism in some cases has amounted to abetting terrorism. Others argue that the young people who join these kinds of groups are naive.

“I think she just made bad decisions for herself,” said Keren Bar-nir, with the American Zionist Movement in New York. “I think it’s based on really extreme groups persuading people. The kids these days are so disillusioned.”

A scholarship has been created in Rachel Corrie’s name at her alma mater, Evergreen State University. And a one-woman play called “My Name is Rachel Corrie,” based on Rachel’s journals, letters and e-mails and directed by actor Alan Rickman, opened in London in April.

The Corries have become friends with the Nasrallahs, who witnessed Rachel’s death from a hole in their garden wall. The Corries traveled to the home, which was then still standing, to see the spot where she died. The house has since been demolished.

“Rachel had this relationship with our family and our children, so she stood to defend our children and to protect the principle of staying in your home,” Khaled Nasrallah said.

washingtonpost.com
Objector’s Iraq Stories Prompt 2 Probes

By SETH HETTENA
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 16, 2005; 2:08 PM

SAN DIEGO — Aidan Delgado says he once saw an Army master sergeant lash Iraqi children with a Humvee antenna. He says he watched a Marine send a youngster flying with a boot to the chest. And he says men in his unit hurled bottles at Iraqi civilians from a military vehicle.

Since he left the U.S. military in January as a conscientious objector, the former Army specialist has traveled the country, giving audiences a disturbing account of routine brutality he claims he saw during his year in Iraq.

His grisly roadshow has triggered two military investigations. It has also drawn a legion of critics who scrutinize his accounts for inconsistencies, suggest he is a liar and dismiss him as a darling of the far left. Some criticize him for waiting until he came home to report incidents.

“The time and place to have made these claims was while he was a soldier wearing a uniform over there,” said Steve Stromvall, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Reserves.

Wearing a black T-shirt with the word “Peace” in English, Hebrew and Arabic, Delgado punctuated a recent talk to about 50 people with slides of gruesome war images. One picture showed a bullet-shattered corpse in a partially open body bag.

“The point of showing this is not to shock you,” Delgado, 23, told his audience at the University of San Diego’s Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice. “We don’t have a really good sense of Iraqi civilians as human beings. It’s not part of the news coverage.”

Some of the pictures were taken by Delgado, whose tour of duty included six months at Abu Ghraib prison, where abuse of prisoners has already led to criminal charges and international outrage. Other shots were provided by fellow soldiers.

The 81st Regional Readiness Command in Birmingham, Ala., which oversees Delgado’s former unit in Florida, said it has launched an investigation into his claims. So has the Army Criminal Investigation Command in Fort Belvoir, Va.

Delgado said he has given a statement to an Army criminal investigator, who took copies of some of the grisly photos from his slideshow.

Emiliano Toro, a former sergeant who was Delgado’s supervisor in Iraq, said he was aware of the alleged incidents involving the children struck with the antenna and civilians hit with soda bottles. “I did see these things or I did hear about them,” he said.

Delgado said he did not file an official complaint with his commanders about what he saw because he felt they were part of the problem and because he feared retribution.

“I don’t want to ruin people’s lives over something they did in a horrible, stressful situation,” he said. “I do want people to know this is a part of war.”

The son of a U.S. diplomat, Delgado grew up in Thailand, Senegal and Egypt, where he learned to speak Arabic. He was a 19-year-old college student in Florida when he enlisted in the Army Reserves. He signed his service contract on the morning of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

He became a Buddhist before the Army activated his unit and sent him and 140 others in the 320th Military Police Company to Iraq in March 2003. Three months after arriving, he decided to turn in his weapon.

Back home in Sarasota, Fla., he resumed religious studies at New College of Florida. He has given free talks to audiences at high schools, college campuses and churches from Florida to California.

Delgado has aligned himself with the peace movement but has not joined the call for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops. He said occupation is better than allowing Iraq to slip into anarchy and even more bloodshed.

“If democracy comes out of this invasion, then there will be some good to it,” Delgado said. “But I just want people to know: Along that road there is going to be an enormous amount of brutality and bloodshed.”

© 2005 The Associated Press