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Evolving
Empire: Chalmers Johnson on Bush's Major Troop Realignment
Susie Bright and Susan Brison on Pornography and Larry Flynt
Are Hundreds of Sex Workers Coming to New York for the RNC?
Evolving Empire: Chalmers Johnson on Bush's Major
Troop Realignment
President Bush announced plans Monday to recall as many
as 70,000 troops from military bases in Europe and Asia -
not Iraq and Afghanistan - as part of a global rearrangement
of forces. We speak with scholar and author Chalmers Johnson,
his latest book is Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy,
and the End of the Republic. [includes rush
transcript]
President Bush announced plans Monday to recall as many as
70,000 troops from military bases in Europe and Asia as part
of a global rearrangement of forces.
- President Bush, speaking at the Veterans of Foreign Wars
Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, August 16, 2004
President Bush speaking yesterday at the Veterans of Foreign
Wars convention in the battleground state of Ohio.
In one of the biggest shifts of US forces since the Cold
War, the repositioning is to unfold gradually over seven to
10 years and cut the 230,000 overseas U.S. service members
by one-third.
The general outlines of the redeployment plan have been known
for months - namely pulling troops out of Germany and South
Korea, bringing most of them home, and establishing a series
of forward operating posts in Central Asia.
The administration would build training camps and smaller
bases mainly in the former Soviet satellites of Eastern Europe
that could be used for rapid deployments to the Middle East
in a bid to make the military more flexible. The realignment
drew criticism from former NATO commander Wesley Clark who
said the plan "will significantly undermine U.S. national
security."
The realignment is expected to have the greatest impact in
Germany where 30,000 troops will be withdrawn along with the
thousands of local jobs that depend on US forces.
Bush said his goal was to ease the burden on U.S. troops,
but the plan offered no immediate relief to the 125,000 U.S.
troops now in Iraq and nearly 20,000 in Afghanistan. Nevertheless,
the announcement gave the president a chance to talk about
bringing troops home at a time when his opponent, Sen. John
Kerry, has pledged to substantially reduce U.S. troop levels
in Iraq.
- President Bush, speaking at the Veterans of Foreign Wars
Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, August 16, 2004
- Chalmers Johnson, a leading scholar of Asia and US-Asian
relations and the founder of the Japan Policy Research Institute.
He is author of The "Sorrows of Empire: Militarism,
Secrecy, and the End of the Republic and Blowback: The Costs
and Consequences of American Empire.
Susie Bright and Susan Brison on Pornography and
Larry Flynt
Two weeks after our interview with Hustler magazine publisher
Larry Flynt, we host a debate on pornography with Susie Bright,
a former Salon.com columnist and author of Mommy's Little
Girl: Susie Bright on Sex, Motherhood, Pornography, and Cherry
Pie and Susan Brison, professor of Philosophy at Dartmouth
and author of Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self.
Two weeks ago we interviewed the controversial publisher
of Hustler magazine. Flynt is known for publishing an image
of a woman being put through a meat grinder, for putting feminist
icon Gloria Steinem on a wanted poster and depicting women
in a manner that many people say is outright demeaning and
encourages violence against women.
At the same time, Flynt is also known as a fierce defender
of free speech and the first amendment. His personal victory
at the Supreme Court, defending the first amendment is well-known.
On the program, we spoke with Flynt about President Bush,
his lawsuit against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the
Clinton impeachment hearings and more. We then moved on to
the issue of women's rights and the exploitation of women.
An excerpt of our interview with controversial publisher
of Hustler magazine, Larry Flynt. It was broadcast August
3rd. Soon afterwards we received a large number of responses
from our listeners and viewers around the country - Many were
concerned that Democracy Now! had interviewed Larry Flynt.
Today on Democracy Now! we host a debate on pornography.
- Susie Bright, author of Mommy's Little Girl: Susie Bright
on Sex, Motherhood, Pornography, and Cherry Pie, former
Salon.com
columnist, and series editor of Best American Erotica.
- Susan Brison, professor of Philosophy at Dartmouth, author
of Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self and an
article last week in the San Francisco Chronicle magazine
entitled "The Torture Connection."
Are Hundreds of Sex Workers Coming to New York for
the RNC?
The New York Daily News last month reported that sex workers
from around the country will be flying in to New York for
the Republican National Convention. We speak with the director
of the Sex Workers Project about labor and sex workers' rights.
The New York Daily News reported
last month that sex workers will be flying in from around
the country for the Republican National Convention.
The article begins:
"With thousands of Republicans set to invade the city
this summer, high-priced escorts and strippers are preparing
for one grand old party.
"Agencies are flying in extra call girls from around
the globe to meet the expected demand during the Aug. 30-Sept.
2 gathering at Madison Square Garden.
"We have girls from London, Seattle, California, all
coming in for that week," said a madam at a Manhattan
escort service. "It's the week everyone wants to work."
But for sex workers here in New York, what does the Convention
really mean? In a city famous for cracking down on strip clubs
under former Mayor Rudy Guiliani, many sex workers are worried
about being targeted by the police during the RNC.
- Juhu Thukral, director of the Sex
Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center. Last year,
the Project published a report called "Revolving
Door: An Analysis of Street-Based Prostitution in New York
City." The report documented sex workers experience
with high levels of unreported violence, police harassment
and violence, homelessness and lack of access to vital services.
Now the Sex Workers Project is compiling a report on the
problems indoor sex workers face in New York.
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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