Colorado's Iran Pension Fund Divestment Campaign Runs Into Road Bump: People on State Pensions Successfully (to date) Organize Against It. (Also see Jan 3, Jan 6 blog entriess on the same subject below)
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A Short-lived Victory - Facing Public Opposition, Iran-Pension Fund Divestment Supporters Change Tactics
It was a bitter cold morning on January 16 when `Friends of PERA’ – – a lobbying group watchdogging the interests of state pension fund recipients (present and future) in Colorado - held its meeting. But that didn’t stop a large crowd – 60 or 70 people, some from as far away as Steamboat Springs – some 150 or so miles across two major mountain passes – from making the trek.
The news seemed hopeful at first and was greeted by clapping and cheers marking the end of one stage of a campaign and the beginning of another, somewhat murkier phase.
It was announced that a bill to be sponsored by State Representative Joe Rice (D-Littleton) and State Senator Steve Ward (R-Littleton) to introduce a pro-Iran-divestment bill had died. Both Rice and Ward are both active duty military (Ward with the Marines, Rice with the Army) officers in Iraq. The initial deadline for submitting bills has passed with no bill introduced. It is possible to introduce late bills but Sandy Green, CRSEA president, had received word that that the initiative was unlikely. So the lobbying effort spearheaded by Friends of PERA and the Colorado Retired State Educators Association to oppose legislation in the state legislature mandate PERA to divest from companies doing business in Iran had struck a chord. The proposed bill seemed dead in the water.
The First Time She Was Called `A Dog', `The Wrong Profession'
This comes after an active statewide campaign targeting legislators to oppose such a bill. It had been successful enough to turn a fair number of state legislators against supporting the bill. The bill's supporters became worried about such strong public opposition and that it could backfire, especially against the Jewish groups that are spearheading the effort locally and so they dropped the idea of goig the legislative route. This was a clever move, that in no way means their campaign is over, just that it has changed tactics. The same goals could be achieved other ways, through a governor's executive order (as it was in other states to bypass local legislative and popular resistance) or by the pension fund itself taking the matter into its own hands (thus reducing the long term impact) without legislation. Without Rice and Ward's bill, it appears that with the legislative approach having been abandonned, that one of these other tacts will be considered. More on this as it evolves.
What can be said is that Coloradoan's receiving state pensions have won a small victory of sorts in protecting their pension benefits - and the benefits of future retirees. They are learning how to use their political muscle and do so in a hostile political environment, one in which Democrats and Republican legislators alike, or many of them, look upon public sector employees with something approaching contempt. In a state where what is called the Tabor Amendment has put serious limits on state spending and in a state where corporate taxes and taxes on mining and drilling are notorious low, the state's $40 billion PERA pension fund is a tempting target and the tasks ahead for Friends of PERA and CRSEA will be many.
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That was the first time I was called `a dog' , a PERA pension recipient wrote from Steamboat Springs
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Both Friends of PERA and CRSEA mobilized their membership and supporters to oppose this legislation. The campaign was so successful that Sandy Green, CRSEA president was told by a state legislator who had received some calls, to `call off her dogs’ . "That was the first time I was called a dog" a PERA pension recipient wrote from Steamboat Springs. The intemperate canine reference came from Rep. Joshua Penry, his special way of showing his appreciation for citizen imput. Penry, considered `a rising star' in the state's Republican Party - whatever that means - has recently come out to endorse Mitt Romney for president.
The campaign also got under the skins of the proposed bill sponsors Rice and Ward. When asked by a constituent why he was targeting the state's pension fund, Rice replied to a woman who had served the greater community of Colorado for thirty years `Maybe you chose the wrong profession'. Sweet. Ward, like Rice, busy serving his country in the biggest single debacle in US foreign policy history, the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, did take time to send a touching email note to Friend of PERA members back in Denver which read as follows:
"Greetings from Iraq where Iranian-supplied weapons are killing Americans. They have been especially adept at supplying EFP's - Explosively Formed Penetrators - these are IEDs on steroids. EFP's are the most powerful IED's that our forces have to deal with, and the most deadly"
Ward was, it seems, trying to tell those of us not in the line of fire I suppose, just how tough is the US military occupation of Iraq - that has resulted in perhaps a million deaths and 6 million refugees (4.5 million in surrounding countries, 1.5 million internal refugees). He'd like to blame the problem of the occupation on the Iranians as if it were they and not 150,000 or so US troops were responsible for the Iran debacle. Besides, the Iran-is-supplying-EFPs-to-Iraq argument has one little kink in its intellectual armor. While Iran has been accused almost daily of this in our country's media since last summer, the fact remains that the evidence that Iran is supplying these devices has yet to be proven. No independent sources have verified the US military claims on this score and in Congressional testimony the charges have been made with no backup evidence.
2.
The Great EFP Scam
I have put together some sources on the great EFP scam as I call it and will continue to collect these materials.(click here and here) . The claim was first made several years ago by our dear President. It was so outlandish that the next day, General Pace, then Joint Chiefs of Staff head, had to formally deny it. The pattern - of claiming Iran is behind the EFP explosions in Iraq - a claim made by the US military but no one else - but with no independent supporting evidence began 4 years ago. The congressional testimony of different generals, Condoleeza Rice and Robert Gates since have all been large on allegations, small on evidence, but by now `the evidence' matters little. The media, as it did before the Iraq invasion, picked up the theme as something approaching the word of God. It speaks well for the adage - that if one repeats a lie most often enough - people will believe it. But the proof is not there.
The pace of the accusation of Iran's EFP complicity in Iraq picked up significantly last summer and since then it has been taken on as nothing short of a mantra. The EFP mantra came at a rather curious time. In February of 2007, the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran was already to go to press. This is the study supported by 16 US intelligence agencies that Iran suspended what plans it had to develop nuclear weapons already in 2003. But the report didn't surface for another nine months. As the claim that Iran is feverishly working to develop nuclear weapons was long the lynch pin of Bush's campaign to target and attack Iran, the publication of the NIE findings did not sit well with the President nor his vice president. The NIE report did nothing less than pull their main rationale for going to war against Iran out from under them causing something of a credibility crisis.
Remove `the Iranian nuclear threat' from the table and Bush's entire Middle East policy of building a united front against Iran - a kind of renewed Bagdad Pact - comes unglued. Curiously the news that Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapons policy rather than relieving Israel and its more zealous US supporters, actually deeply upset and confused the Jewish state's leadership that has been lobbying Bush against the conclusion of the NIE report. You'd think the reduction of an Iranian nuclear threat would make Israel's feel a little safer, but apparently not.
If one follows the arguments raised by supporters of Iran pension fund divestment one sees a similar shift. Earlier on in the campaign, 2006 till mid 2007, the Iranian nuclear weapons threat was carted out, with Jewish organizations and supporters raising the specter of `1939' suggesting that Iran, with its soon nuclear weapons arsenal, was about to launch war against the whole Middle East. The NIE report undercut the traction of such apocalyptic visions and the need to find another tact, the great Iranian EFP threat to Iraq. Interesting how, the Bush Administration held up the publication of the NIE report - it didn't appear till November - just long enough to create a new excuse for going to war.
Governor Ritter Takes the Bait, Meets with Ward and Rice in Iraq
One should never forget the political power of the military in the state of Colorado. It’s there everywhere from the missile programs at Lockheed Martin just outside of Denver to the Air Force Academy and Peterson Air Force Base and Ft. Carson in Colorado Springs, to the missile silos still in operation north of Greeley to the plans to expand army facilities at the expense of local farmers in SE Colorado to the complex of aviation and computer technology companies – many with military contracts all over the Front Range. Just how the military exercises its political influence in the state is not entirely clear, but that it weighs in on virtually all levels is clear to anyone who has lived in Colorado for any fair chunk of time. And it comes through in the politics of Democrats and Republicans like. The Pentagon casts a long shadow and few are those who will challenge it – even in more liberal Boulder and Denver.
Not even the state’s liberal governor can escape its influence. To touch base with his military constituency Governor Bill Ritter took a trip in mid December to visit units of the Colorado National Guard stationed in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Not long before Colorado Governor Bill Ritter left for Iraq, he delivered the Democratic radio address of the week. His remarks included some comments about the war in Iraq:
“Americans want government that works and not one that continues to follow a failed strategy -- especially in Iraq. Democrats and a bipartisan majority of Americans want to end the war in Iraq, to bring our troops home as quickly as possible. At the same time, there are major security and international concerns that need a fresh look and new strategies - not the stay-the-course approach we hear from the Republican candidates”
If you study these remarks, their substance reveals little. They are purposefully vague, meant to please both Ritter’s substantial anti-war constituency on the Front Range on the one hand and the state’s powerful military interests on the other.
Ritter's trip was carefully staged. Prior to leaving overseas he met with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Although `commander and chief’ of the Colorado National Guard units in Iraq, this actually means little as in Iraq those forces take their orders `the little one’ in Washington. Most of the trip comes off as a kind of photo-op. An exciting ride in a Blackhawk helicopter to give the appearance that Ritter was seeing `the real war’. Many pictures with Coloradoans serving overseas. Very little time spent outside Bagdad’s Green Zone or US military bases.
For those interested, one of the local tv stations put together a slide show of Ritter on his journey. It is nothing special, Ritter shaking hands with a sergeant who hails from Adams County (just n. of Denver,) Ritter in non-descript (of course) places in both countries. While in Iraq he met with Joe Rice and Steve Ward and seemed to accept their arguments about the great Iranian EFP threat to Iraq. It appears that it was at that time that Ritter was persuaded to support Iran-pension-divestment initiative and join Rice and Ward's legislative push.
Divesting From Iran: A Militarist Campaign in the name Human Rights
The Iran-pension fund-divestment initiative here in Colorado is a part of a national effort to get state pension funds to divest from companies doing business with Iran. Although there are a variety of forces involved with different focuses and rationales (see below, Jan 3, Jan 6 blog entries) the main organizing initiative in Colorado came from Colorado’s mainstream Jewish Community which pushed the legislation hard and seemed to have key in setting up the legislative initiative. A position paper by the Jewish Community Relations Council (discussed below) spelled out their position, mostly concerned with Iran’s tensions with Israel. This legislative drive came on the heels of legislation in the last session of the legislature to get the pension fund, PERA, to divest from companies doing business with Sudan because of the tragedy unfolding in Darfur Province.
Divesting from Iran has nothing short of mobilized the mainstream Jewish Community in this country. Colorado is no exception where the campaign has the full and active backing of the Jewish Community Relations Council - an umbrella organization for 26 Jewish Organizations, among them AIPAC, the ADL. For the past two years targeting Iran has been a central focus of both national and statewide AIPAC conventions. And these groups are pushing the Bush Administration for a full court press against Iran, including military action.
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For the past two years targeting Iran has been a central focus of both national and statewide AIPAC conventions
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While these Jewish organizations view their anti-Iranian attitudes through largely Israeli lenses, there are other forces pushing the divestment campaing, among them the nation's most ardent neo-conservatives. Just after the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan Administration Cold Warrior, formed a program called Divest Terror. It is a spin off of the Center for Security Policy, one of the most right-wing think tanks in the nation. Gaffney understood well that divestment campaigns - which traditionally had been launched by liberal and left groups against unscrupulous governments like South Africa - could be turned on their heads, and in the name of `freedom' (the Milton Friedman variety), could be used to target Bush Administration political global adversaries.
At the time, pro-Israeli supporters (of the Netanyahu variety) were expressing growing concern about plans to boycott Israel in certain ways. One such campaign, targeting Caterpillar, the company whose logos is `go the extra mile for the kids', that makes the military tractors used to bulldoze Palestinian homes in the West Bank to make way for Israeli settlements, had just gotten underway and seemed to be gaining traction. One of the great political coups of AIPAC and like organizations was to shift this growing global divestment-boycott sentiment away from Israel's illegal occupation of the 1967 territories to first, the Sudan and now Iran. It is yet another manifestation of the strange alliance between traditionally liberal Jewish groups (like the ADL), neo-conservative hawks and Christian fundamentalists (who also support divestment).