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Bumvertising

An item pulled off the Seattle P-I caught my eye because of the headline: 'Bumvertising stirs debate.' I suppose that immediately buttresses the claim to fame of Seattleite Ben Rogovy, who asserts to have invented the term. He's certainly popularized it, appearing as radio fodder for weeks now, and graduating next week to the big Daddy of quirk, John Stewart. But more interesting than the name is the concept of hiring the homeless to advertise, and the socioeconomic dynamics of what Rogovy is doing.

It's rather clear from his website description that he's not exactly winning the "hand up, not hand out" award. You don't get the sense of caring or even interest in who's holding his signs, but I don't suppose the typical CEO gives much thought to his employees either, so it's not like exploitation on the cheap is limited to temping the homeless.

Where Rogovy does it it's legal, so there's really only an ethical question at stake: is it taking advantage of people begging on the street to use them as billboards for money? Although I'm pretty sensitive to the treatment of the homeless by the community, I'm pretty sure I don't have a problem with it. Should he give the people more money, and think of them as something besides 'derelicts?' You bet. Is this anything more than a transient (!) business relationship between a homeless person and a guy running about two years two late on the internet poker thing? No. And besides, you do see fully employed people standing out their in sandwich boards or waving "Free gordita" signs at cars. Sure they're getting paid at least minimum wage, but they have to do more than sit where they always sit, and beg for change like they normally do. That's not much of a gig.  (Or maybe it is, in Portland).

This isn't the first time someone's involved the homeless in advertising, speaking of Portland. Two years earlier, Andre Jehan of Pizza Schmizza (Rogovy, take note of the superior business model) gave homeless people free pizza and beverages, plus cash in order to hold a sign. The move generated even more publicity two years ago than Rogovy's less elegant idea, which makes it odd that the P-I wouldn't even bring it up in the new story--especially since they ran an article themselvses. An interesting criticism is here; Schmizza should have done more than Jehan did if they really wanted to help the homeless. On the other hand, two people enter into whatever contracts they like, and it's not clear what other charitable pursuits Jehan and Schmizza are involved  in.

The more salient criticism in my mind is the aesthetic and commercial overload they create downtown. Every good "country boy goes city" movie of the 50s has a guy sitting on his hotel windowsill or walking the streets of the big down, dazzled to distraction by the lights. And usually later in the film, disillusioned by the glamour the lights take on a garishness and pervasiveness that creates a kind of urban anomie.

Deep philosophy aside, I might be tempted to grab a slice of what really is pretty good pizza. I'm still having trouble remembering Rogovy's company name.  Point, pizza.

--TJ

PS--As long as we're talking about the underbelly of Seattle life, three cheers to a federal judge for letting the strip clubs flow from the faucet of naughtiness once again in Seattle. A 17-year moratorium on stripatoriums has ended. This is one area where Oregon, particularly Portland, is a national leader--so feel free to come down and take notes, Seattle entrepreneurs! Stumptowners like Bush if it's being pushed in your face for a dollar while you drink microbrews and play video poker. And speaking of exploitation for tips...

DR CAFTA as Counterterrorism

If you followed the links in my post on the possible trouble brewing between the Minutemen and Latino gangs in Southern California, you may have been surprised by the international scope and political history of Mara Salvatrucha (aka MS 13), the most dangerous gang in America.

But Robert Clifford, head of the new national task force, says "no single law-enforcement action is really going to deal the type of blow" necessary to dismantle the gang. No one is more interested in busting up MS-13 than leaders of the Latino community, who live with the fear and fallout of the gang's savage actions.

MS-13 got started in Los Angeles in the 1980s by Salvadorans fleeing a civil war. Many of the kids grew up surrounded by violence. Del Hendrixson of Bajito Onda, a gang-outreach program, remembers an MS-13 member who recounted one of his earliest memories: guarding the family's crops at the age of 4, armed with a machete, alone at night. When he and others reached the mean streets of the L.A. ghetto, Mexican gangs preyed on them. The newcomers' response: to band together in a mara, or "posse," composed of salvatruchas, or "street-tough Salvadorans" (the "13" is a gang number associated with southern California). Over time, the gang's ranks grew, adding former paramilitaries with weapons training and a taste for atrocity. MS-13 eventually adopted a variety of rackets, from extortion to drug trafficking. When law enforcement cracked down and deported planeloads of members, the deportees quickly created MS-13 outposts in El Salvador and neighboring countries like Honduras and Guatemala.

(emph. mine)

In the scores of articles I've read regarding MS 13 over the years, the gang's "civil war" roots in El Salvador are often mentioned, but never detailed beyond the serious nature of it's paramilitary background and capability.  Perhaps it's because law enforcement is disinterested in the political.  Perhaps it's because noone wants to expose the strange fruit that ripened after Reagan's secret war.  But that's what we're dealing with.  Sandinistas and FMLN, their descendants and recruits, with clear memories and unhealed wounds from Negroponte's death squads. 

Records also show that a special intelligence unit (commonly referred to as a "death squad") of the Honduran armed forces, Battalion 3-16, trained by the CIA and the Argentine military, kidnapped, tortured and killed hundreds of people, including U.S. missionaries. Critics charge that Negroponte knew about these human rights violations and yet continued to collaborate with the Honduran military while lying to Congress.

Critics charge alot more than the records revealed. 

Many of these death squads hunted down leftist rebels and suspected supporters in the countryside, killing their victims, and occasionally wiping out whole villages. One well-known death squad that still operates currently in Central America is the El Salvadorian-based Sombra Negra ("Black Shadow" in Spanish).

In El Salvador, the death squads achieved notoriety for the murder of Archbishop Óscar Romero and the murders of four American nuns. This prompted great controversy and outrage in the U.S., because of the death squads' widely-alleged ties to El Salvador's U.S.-supported government.

Remember the heady days of Iran Contra?  While half the nation was apalled that we were doing business with Iran, and the other half was defending Reagan and Oliver North, I was stunned to hear of our involvement in the horrors of Central America (where I lived for part of my childhood and always promised to return).   

In 1987, CIA Station Chief, John Stockwell delivered this scalding accounting of America's activity abroad.  Read it for all the gory details; it's important background, and possibly Stockwell went over the top. 

For my purposes, just a few points.  Regardless if it was 10s of thousands or 100s of thousands murdered in the brutal manners detailed by Stockwell, the rejuvinated remnant, Mara Salvatrucha, must be profoundly anti-American.  Most studies estimate the gang's presence in the US between 10 and 20 thousand members.  I submit that that is a seriously low estimate.  Between 2000 and 2004 we deported over 20,000 criminals to Central America.  It's naive to believe, given the situation here and there, that a very high percentage of these deportees were not Mara Salvatrucha, which every current report suggests is growing faster than any other domestic gang.  As an aside, it's been reported that an MS 13 member's greatest fear is deportation, because  the government sponsored Sombra Negra, the Salvadoran death squad, is still active.  Some criminals have been executed upon arrival for having the wrong tattoo.  Meanwhile, many Central American officials have asked us to curtail the deportations because they exacerbate the problem there. 

Here MS 13 is classified as a gang.  In Central America it is also called a gang, but that seems like a flawed description.  In Central America the gang is estimated to have over 250,000 members, of which 40,000 are incarcerated.  At some point this organization should receive a status removed from our basic understanding of a gang.  Gangs have their internal politics, but they work on a profit motive, gangster capitalism.  America is the country they hate to love.  But MS 13 has other motives:

In recent weeks, authorities have made strides against MS-13: a gang leader accused of orchestrating a December bus bombing in Honduras that killed 28 people was arrested in Texas in February...

Another attack on a bus involved a group of men, triangulated around the blocked vehicle,  and opening fire with machine guns until all the passengers were dead.  This isn't gangster capitalism; these sort of attacks have a political message.  MS 13 is more than a gang, and it's reasonable to assume America is the country they love to hate.  It is a terrorist organization, and should be classified accordingly. 

Which is why this interesting angle on DR CAFTA made my cynical head spin.  CAFTA is about security:

Passage of CAFTA matters for reasons that have less to do with the price of beets in Montana and more with international terrorism, the projection of soft power, and the ominous trajectory of South American politics. [...]

Even today we are inclined to blanch at the idea that free trade agreements should be passed into law in order to accomplish things that have nothing to do with economics. But the Bush administration believes, at home and abroad, that everything has to do with economics. Zoellick: "Free markets, development, opportunity, and hope are the best weapons against poverty, disease, and tyranny." Bush: "By transforming our hemisphere into a powerful free trade area, we will promote democratic governance, human rights, and economic liberty for everyone."

I know, I know, this rhetoric is distasteful considering the mess in Iraq, but here we're talking about trade, not war, and in light of my above revelations...  Surely, this is just corporatist spin, right?

And the definition of enrichment goes far beyond mere trade. William Cohen, Clinton's defense secretary (and no Contra apologist), knows "the roots of democracy are not deep and [Central American] economies need to grow. In our own backyard we might have a breeding ground for terrorists." John Murphy, VP for Latin America at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, warns of a CAFTA defeat "that will be seen as a kick in the teeth to Latin America. And that will harm not just on trade but anti-terrorist and anti-narcotic efforts." [..]

The idea that we might have a national security imperative in ramming CAFTA through a recalcitrant Congress can only be reinforced by the following battery of scheduled meetings among the CAFTA nation leaders: International Relations Committee chairman Henry Hyde; House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security chairman Harold Rogers; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The DEFSEC is pushing a trade agreement?  I think this makes sense.  It's not a new angle to me (Capitalism should do the marching), but I admit to being blindsided by it, so I reserve the right to jump ship without notice. 

I have a well-read acquaintance who is convinced that we are engaged in the ultimate clash of civilizations, a war to the death with Islam and all things anti-American.  Oh, how I hate the effects of fear mongering.  But, this friend, while thinking the neocons see the big picture correctly, envisions a better approach to "calming the natives."  He thinks it should be economic and humanitarian.  Yeah, he's a Christian and he believes if you love your enemies you may have better luck with them.  I bet he'd like this approach to CAFTA.  It even has strict environmental regulations, and John Kerry is promising to patch it up for us. 

This is the second time in a week, I've found something to agree with in the GWOT.  I'll drink to that.

-- Zap

Pointing Fingers on Oil-For-Food

Hoping to use revelations about UN mismanagement and blind-eye monitoring in the oil-for-food program with Saddam, Senate Republicans like Norm Coleman (the Investigations Subcomittee Chair) continue to point to news of the scandal as indications that John Bolton's nomination for ambassador should be approved. Coleman and the GOP have concentrated on the UN failures to control the program in their reporting; the Democrats have their own view of things--and neither surprisingly or without cause, the finger of blame ends up back on GW.

The Guardian's coverage is a little gleeful in the diversion away from the UN and Europe as the sole incompetents/profiteers in the whole messy business. Knight-Ridder covers a broader view of the Subcommittee's findings and prints some angry denials, but doesn't offer some of the starker excerpts from the report itself. The Guardian complies:

In fact, the Senate report found that US oil purchases accounted for 52% of the kickbacks paid to the regime in return for sales of cheap oil - more than the rest of the world put together.

"The United States was not only aware of Iraqi oil sales which violated UN sanctions and provided the bulk of the illicit money Saddam Hussein obtained from circumventing UN sanctions," the report said. "On occasion, the United States actually facilitated the illicit oil sales.

The report is likely to ease pressure from conservative Republicans on Kofi Annan to resign from his post as UN secretary general.

The new findings are also likely to be raised when Mr Galloway appears before the Senate subcommittee on investigations today.

Note that last program reminder, there: Galloway will go almost on trial tomorrow, although without fear of getting hauled off to jail afterwards. This is clearly some pump priming from the Guardian, and includes the hopeful(ly naieve) view that the pressure of conservative Republicans  might--short of being predicated by their removal-- ease.  Nonetheless, that's Senate material they're quoting, and framed by the assuredly fiery "what about your glass house" testimony by Galloway, it is possible that Coleman's quest will be temporarily muted.

Reuters, like many stories from the last day or so,  concentrates on the Russian angle, mentioning the BayOil facilitation only in the very last line. The Russians are surely pissed, and of course the French wouldn't ever miss an opportunity to turn around and point the finger at us--which of course in the grand scheme here is fairly appropriate.

It's doubtful that anyone will come out smelling like roses, although with control of the microphone it's likely that the UN-Russian connection will become the GOP meme, ignoring both Bay Oil and the general US complicity in the whole affair.

And their solution to this mess is John Bolton? The guy who pushed the yellowcake story (pp 6-7)  through his office and into State of the Union infamy? That same Waxman letter to Christopher Shays from March with the Bolton yellowcake findings, also just happens to review the administration's report on oil-for-food profiteers. Strangely, the US companies are redacted, replaced by "US Company." The CIA sought to block the release of the names of those companies. Hmmm...wonder why.

--TJ