Duty to Warn

Sometimes bad things do get fixed. As part of a quick round-up at the old optimism corral, let's look at the current state of immigration law, which was plunged into disastrous cruelty by the Gingrich Congress in 1996.

It was a classic example of Mean Politics, nativist hysteria fanned by wildly exaggerated tales of illegal immigrants coming here to live on Easy Street on our generous American welfare payments, etc. Ever since then, civil libertarians who tried desperately to stop the bill at the time have had the sour satisfaction of saying, "We told you so -- we told you so."

Trust the broadcasting industry to recoil in horror at the prospect of more choices for the American people, who -- be it never forgotten -- actually own the airwaves this same broadcasting industry claims as its own.

In a shameful vote on April 13, just before the Easter recess, and after furious lobbying by the National Association of Broadcasters, the House of Representatives voted 274-110 to scuttle one of the few creditable rulings issued in recent years by the Federal Communications Commission. If the U.S. Senate concurs, Congress will have issued a brutal "No" to free speech and democratic communications, just as ruthlessly as any dictator sending troops into a broadcasting station.

The broadcasting lobby has been on a lobbying rampage ever since the FCC voted on Jan. 20 to authorize low-power, non-commercial FM with power anywhere from 1 to 100 watts. The new stations -- for which license applications have been pouring into the FCC -- have been available to non-profits and local educational associations, which would then be able to start broadcasting to their communities for as little as $1,000 in start-up costs.

Converging on the nation's capital in mid-April, thousands of protesters set out to do more than simply disrupt high-level meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Demonstrators were eager to help build a movement for economic justice that can prevail over those powerful institutions. But America's mainstream news outlets were ill-positioned to shed much light on the underlying issues.

The standard media lexicon is filled with buzzwords that snap together as neatly as Leggo plastic blocks. Terms like "economic reform," "free markets" and "eliminating trade barriers" appear with such frequency and assurance that they seem to be noting the only rational economic path for less-developed countries. In reporting on the World Bank and the IMF, as well as the kindred World Trade Organization, familiar media jargon has long depicted the wisdom of their "reform" edicts as a no-brainer.

AUSTIN, Texas -- It's got to stop! This continual flood of apologies plaguing our national political life has become a menace. Two, three times a day, they're out there apologizing for this, that or the other -- showing contrition, flaunting repentance, begging us to please forgive them.

I blame it all on John McCain, who has this disarming habit of admitting it when he's wrong. I didn't know him from a hole in the ground, but he called me a couple of years ago just to say, "You were right, and I was wrong." That was on the 1996 telecom deregulation act, about which I was right and he was wrong. But I'd never had a politician do that before, so it startled me considerably.

This sort of behavior led to McCain's reputation for being "authentic" -- particularly as compared to the gross stonewalling that has afflicted pols from Watergate through Monica. And that in turn led to the dread menace of "authenticity."

"Authenticity" is the chief political buzzword of the year. Who has it (Jesse Ventura) and who doesn't (George W. Bush and Al Gore) is a source of endless debate.

At the end of April, we'll have arrived at the 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, when the last fugitives clambered into helicopters at the U.S. Embassy compound in Saigon. Gays are planning a big march on Washington for April 30, but not, at least officially, to celebrate that setback for U.S. imperialism. Nonetheless, I hope some speaker in Washington that day will note that the Stonewall riot and gay liberation drew inspiration and fury from the antiwar movement, as did women's liberation. Environmentalism, too.

For years, the antiwar left was told to be embarrassed about the sixties, put through re-education rites designed to elicit the confession that "excesses" were committed, mistakes made. Of course, mistakes were made, starting with the failure to stop the war eight years earlier, in 1967. We misread the larger calendar. After Tet, after the May/June events in Paris, we thought revolution was around the corner. The Tet Offensive of 1968 remains one of the great moments of the 20th century, even though one can see in retrospect that Gen.

Capitalism, as we all know, is a dandy system for creating wealth, but it doesn't do squat for social justice. No reason to expect it to -- that's not its job. Its moral imperative is: "Buy low, sell high."

Of course, there are corporate chieftains with social conscience, and many companies do a great deal of good in their communities beyond providing employment and making good widgets. But as we are so often reminded by heroes like "Chainsaw Al" Dunlop, a CEO's job is to increase corporate profits on behalf of the shareholders, period.

Unregulated capitalism is not a pretty sight, which is why we have labor laws, environmental regulations, health and safety standards, unions, much-eroded consumer protection laws, and other checks on the system. Barring a few glitches, like the fact that corporations keep buying our government, this is not a bad deal for lots of us, and it's not capitalism's job to help those who don't have enough power to deal with the system.

It would be helpful, however (from a PR standpoint if nothing else), if corporations would quit picking on poor people in particular.

I know -- one more opinion on Elian Gonzalez and you're going to urp. This case has been sliced and diced from points of view legal, psychological, political and international. It involves family values, family law, the Cold War, the presidential campaign, civil disobedience, hysteria, Fidel Castro, allegations of psychological abuse and heartless manipulation of a small child for political purposes. And, of course, the usual array of fully merited charges against the media for exploitation, unseemly mob scenes, callous disregard for the child's fragile emotional health and other gross behavior.

So naturally everyone has an opinion about it. We have even heard from some people with enough common sense to come in out of the rain. Or at least to remember the basic rules: Never play poker with a man called Doc; never eat at a place called Mom's; and never get involved in a family fight. This custody battle is a lot sadder than "Kramer vs. Kramer.

AUSTIN, Texas -- We could be watching one of those rare etymological events ("etymology": the history of a particular word, the study of historical linguistic change), as the meaning of a word changes before our eyes. Sort of like watching a species evolve or a tectonic plate move in real time.

We now have a politics that is about money, of money, by money and for money. How long can it be before the word "politics" comes to mean money?

A perfectly charming example, reported by Tim Golden in The New York Times, involves the Clinton administration's sudden shift of policy on buying helicopters to use in the drug war in Colombia. Since 1996, the administration has taken the position that a rebuilt version of the Huey, the old Vietnam workhorse, would do nicely.

According to Golden, a group of powerful congressional Republicans have "almost an obsession" about sending the fancier Blackhawk helicopter, which costs five times as much -- $1.8 million for a Huey II, $12.8 million for a Blackhawk. So for four years they've been fighting over this, with the political implication that anyone who's against spending more money is "soft on drugs."

Oh Elian, we love you! We're the News Media. And you're incredibly special.

Many politicians, legal experts, psychologists, celebrities and pundits have wanted the world to know that they fervently desire what's best for you. We've been glad to put you on national television -- live if possible -- playing on a backyard swing set or holding your pet rabbit named "Esperanza." Hope for your future has become very important to us all.

Frankly, kids your age usually aren't interesting to those of us in the media profession. They may suffer from danger and deprivation, but the chances are slim that a spotlight will fall on their unimportant little lives. What afflicts their daily existence is apt to be too downbeat and humdrum for prime time. There's no tragic shipwreck or high-profile legal battle to recount, just ongoing social conditions. Kind of boring.

Across the country, many gays are smarting after a hefty slab of California's voters took the opportunity last month to say "no, absolutely not" to the notion of gay marriage. But the dismay is tempered by other gays asking, "Why did we ever want the sacred institution in the first place?"

Still militantly campaigning for gay marriage is Eric Rofes, who teaches in the department of education at Humboldt State. Rofes says it's now time to take the gloves off. "Some of us have grown impatient, and are no longer satisfied with strategies which fail to directly confront mainstream resistance to same-sex marriage. We may take up the tactics most necessary for social change but largely absent from a contemporary queer movement comprised almost entirely of suit-and-skirt lobbyists, splashy television advertisements and upscale, black-tie dinner banquets."