As Bush pats himself on the back for today's Iraq election, women in Iraq vote in black veils

I remember the First Gulf War and one of the images I remember most was that of women in bomb shelters with their children shouting out in defiance. The most memorable part of that image was the women's attire. They were dressed colorfully, in a proportion akin to women's dress in non-Islamic countries, without black robes covering everything but their faces.

Today, as I watched the images of women voting in Iraq, I noticed that all of them (at least the ones I saw) were in the black veils covering everything but their faces. Note the dress on the women in the AP picture to the left. They are all veiled, with no exception. The CNN website used this as its headline picture, but makes no mention of the women's dress. We are expected to take it as a given and expected not to remember that Iraqi women were not required to be veiled before the US invasion.

According to Houzan Mahmoud, an Iraqi writer living in the UK who wrote the linked editorial in the Independent, the election is a "cruel joke" for women. Women in Iraq have a choice between one enslavement or the other. Mahmoud claims that persecution of women in Iraq is up significantly since the US occupation and that while Saddam had bad intentions, none of them were directed against women as a group. This new group is enforcing their version of Islamic law against women at gunpoint.

Dress is the least of it. Women are increasingly the victims of honor killings for loving or marrying as they choose rather than how they are instructed. Professional women are targeted simply for being professional women.

As with Afghanistan, the Bush Administration is happy with a fundamentalist religious leadership in Iraq masked as democracy. The problem is that when the women themselves are masked, there is no democracy.

Little change in the GOP its beginnings

When it looked like the Bush administration was going to delay the 2004 election, I wrote an article stating entitled Bush No Lincoln. OK, maybe I was wrong. At the time, I was looking at the 1864 election, not the legislation Lincoln supported during his presidency. Here's a bit about the legislation of the Lincoln Administration:

The Morill Tariff Act was passed in 1861 and signed into law by Lincoln. This act was pushed by business interests and protected American manufacturers by taxing foreign goods making everything more expensive. While it helped big business, it hurt small businesses because it made raw materials more expensive. This is not so different from the Bush administration's tax cuts for the wealthiest. Big business is helped while consumers and small businesses have to contend with pitiful tax cuts and increased interest rates caused by the deficit.

The Homestead Act was passed in 1862. It provided anyone the ability to purchase 160 acres of unoccupied western land for $1.25 per acre. Sounds good, but I guess the concept of unoccupied is in the eye of the beholder because the Indians who lived, hunted and died there did not think their land was unoccupied. Additionally, since at the time, almost no one could afford $200, most of the land was purchased by speculators. Railroads got land for free. Big business getting special deals and freebies is the hallmark of the Bush administration.

The Contract Labor Law of 1864 was also put into place under the Lincoln administration. That allowed US companies to contract with foreign labor, which ended up being slave labor as foreign workers signed on as indentured servants for a year to pay the cost of their travel. Outsourcing to foreign workers is supported by the Bush administration as they have to repay the kindness of their largest donors no matter what the cost to US labor and to the foreign laborers who replace the Americans.

Maybe the Bush Administration is just a chip off the old block after all. The GOP hasn't changed from its beginnings, so when they thump their chests and call themselves the party of Lincoln, you can agree with them.

A People's Sad History and how it's no surprise that we ended up where we are today

I've been reading A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. I'm only up to the Populists in the 1890s, but get the message. Mr. Zinn argues that conventional history books given to gradeschool children hide the truth behind a veil of fake patriotism and lies by omission. We are filled with the idea that we are free and have opportunity so we will grow up to support the status quo of working people maintaining a wealthy elite to our own detriment.

According to Mr. Zinn, wealthy individuals and corporations have driven the realities of life on the North American Continent and surrounding islands since Christopher Columbus' right front toenail hit Haiti in 1492. It did not take long to begin, on page one of Mr. Zinn's book, Columbus' men have already begun the massacre of the sweet and hospitable Arawaks who greated them in Haiti. The invaders thought they were of a superior race entitled to take from inferiors and thought they were in the East Indies--begging the question of which group was the superior of the other.

Mr. Zinn then goes into the slavery issue, both of blacks and whites (not to mention women of all races and classes) in the 1500s - 1800s and describes how the elite worked to imbed racism into the minds of poor whites to keep them from ever uniting with the African slaves against rich whites and corporations. Apparently, African slavery started when the invaders could not bring enough gold back to Europe from North American to satisfy the royals and corporations that paid for the voyages. The invaders found that there was good money in the trade of human beings, so they made a business of it. To repay their investors and save face at home, they put innocent people through the terrible ordeal of being captured and forceably removed to another continent under deadly conditions and the humiliation of being sold on the block and forced into a strange and hostile culture. Then they branded them, both literally and verbally as the inferior race.

Indentured servitude started as a safety valve for Europe ridding it of the lowest, most desperate classes and convicted felons helping to keep the peace and the status quo. Poor whites having a hard time in Europe were either forced by the judicial system or conned into selling their freedom for a life of brutality and unending work in the New World on the promise that they would eventually be free.

Eventually, there were so many black slaves and indentured white servants in North American that they had to be pitted against each other so the rich whites could stay in control. Fear and people's natural propensity to want status over someone even lower in circumstance made it easy to pit classes and races against each other creating a complex stairstep hierarchy of classes below the elite, a white yeoman class, a free but poor working class, indentured servants and African slaves. This hierarchy kept people busy working to stay above the class below and kept everyone in their place.

If they could stay alive and sane during years of hard labor, indentured servants eventually became free, at least on paper. However, since they had no money or position, they often fell back into a sort of slavery as serf-like tenant farmers or city apprentices of the merchants and mechanics. Blacks waited generations for freedom, if you can call what they ended up with freedom.

Howard Zinn was not too impressed with all the talk of freedom and liberty that came out of the American Revolution. He saw the whole thing as a way to squash an increasingly politically aware and rebellious working class, getting poor workers and farmers to drop their class rebellion and unite with wealthy colonists only to become the footsoldiers who did most of the actual fighting in a war that basically benefited only the rich by removing the English who were controlling American markets and supressing American industry.

Due to some pretty bad working and living conditions that are never discussed in conventional gradeschool history books, there had been a rash of tenant and workingmen's riots in the colonies just before the Revolution, not to mention a increase in Indian insurrections as the natives were being driven further west off their ancestral homeland. Wealthy colonists were concerned about how they were going to keep order and power. To deflect workingmen's hatred from themselves to the English, wealthy American business and political leaders engaged in a campaign against the English in the papers and pamphlets that were the mass media of the time. Zinn shows the genius of the Revolutionary leaders as they gave the common folks just enough to keep their loyalty as the Revolutionary movement grew more conservative. The American colonial elite turned the tenant farmer rebellions of the 1750s and 1760s to the attractive promise of "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" of the Declaration of Independece to the elite controlled "life, liberty and property" of the Constitution.

The Constitution then, illustrates the complexity of the American system: that it serves the interests of a wealthy elite, but also does enough for small property owners, for middle-income merchants and farmers, to build a broad base of support. The slightly prosperous people who make up this base of support are buffers against the blacks, the Indians and the very poor whites. They enable the elite to keep control with a minimum of coercion, a maximum of law--all made palatable by the fanfare of patriotism and unity.

The Constitution became even more acceptable to the public at large after the first Congress, responding to criticism, passes a seriew of amendments known as the Bill of Rights. These amendments seemed to make the new goverment a guardian of the people's liberies: to speak, to publish, to worship, to petition, to assemble, to be tried fairly, to be secure at home against official intrusion. It was, therefore, perfectly designed to build popular backing fro the new government. What was not made clear--it was a time when the language of freedom was new and its realities untested--was the shakiness of anyone's liberty when entrusted to a government of the rich and powerful.

Well, now the language is old and the realities are well known. Bush is shown on film joking that his base is the elite and has no problem keeping reservists in Iraq far beyond their original time commitment and trashing the Bill of Rights. The administration has become so arrogant and the populace so complacent that leaders no longer believe they have to throw a bone to the underclasses to keep the peace. Lower class voting against class and personal interest has become commonplace as Bush has convinced poor whites, blacks and other minorities that he represents the Allmighty and placates them with the idea that at least they are morally superior to those liberal, secular, abortionist Democrats. It's a wonder how Bush won, though, when all the highly moral and holy (er than thou) folks who voted for him would never make the sexy and silly Desperate Housewives the most watched television show of the year.

Then, what of the Democrats? What did Kerry do for us? He abandoned us when vote fraud was clear even though he promised throughout his campaign (and directly to me one cold December night in Iowa) that he would stick around until the last vote was counted. He thinks he is preserving his position for 2008. What did Obama do for us? He voted in favor of the Rice nomination this week. He thinks he is setting the right tone for his junior year in the Senate. Wrong on both counts. John, you are already politically finished because the Democrats nominated you as their imagined best chance for victory. You proved them wrong, ignoring women, African-Americans, and your liberal roots in your campaign in an ill-thought-out attempt to win by looking pro-military and harmless to the corporate powers that be, sort of a Bush with a few more live brain cells.

Barack, we put you in the Senate to vote against nominations like Rice and other administration follies. We are not naive enough to fail to understand that this was some sort of a deal; Durbin votes against and you vote for to remain "untarnished" in your junior year. Nonetheless, we did not put you in the Senate by a huge margin for you to vote like Keyes would have. We want you to stay untarnished by speaking for us in your votes. We want you to vote to stop the war, the lying, the media purchasing, the bizarre religious connection to government.

John and Barack, we are sick of fake patriotism, hidden truths and crumbs thrown down from above. We want what we were promised from the beginning...a real life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

So far the people's history of the United States is pitifully sad and it is no surprise at all that we have ended up in the current mess.

More history and application to today later.

Beware of the Militaryindustrial Complex

Eisenhower said this as he was leaving the White House:

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

No, it wasn't said by some hippy Vietnam war protester running off to Canada. It was said by President Eisenhower, former General Eisenhower. He was in a postition to know. Too bad he's dead now because we can sure use some advice on what to do when the citizenry choses reality TV, Wal-mart junk put on credit cards, SUVs, iPods, and cell phones over knowledge.

A little math:

Bush + Militaryindustrial complex = Iraq
Bush + Militaryindustrial complex + Freedom a la Bush's 2005 Inauguration speech = Iran
Iraq + Iran = USA lost

"Like the photo of a naked little girl bathed in napalm and running down a road in Vietnam"

An Image from Iraq on Bush's Inauguration Day. I am sure this little girl was grateful for all the freedom and liberty he bestowed upon her as she watched her parents being killed. 

The Plan becomes evident on the sub-zero streets of Chicago

Today on my walk from the train to work in the freezing cold, I saw a young man selling Streetwise, the official newspaper of the homeless in Chicago. He did not look like your typical Streetwise salesman and I would have more expected to see his boyish face and alert eyes in front of the DePaul Center than at the Madison Street entrance of Union Station selling Streetwise. That sight brings me to my biggest concern about the Bush Dynasty. Bush and his henchmen don’t care about Social Security, Homeland Security, National Security, or Liberty in Iraq; what they really want is to break the middle class to re-create a cheap labor force of Americans.

The Iraq War has nothing to do with terrorism or security. The better target to end terrorism was in Afghanistan and that was abandoned quickly. It is now unequivocally clear that ousting Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with our national security. He had no weapons of mass destruction, no chemical or biological weapons. They probably knew it all along. The Iraq War was nothing but a money pit to enlarge the massive deficit caused by the tax cuts to the wealthiest among us.

Privatization of Social Security has nothing to do with saving the system from bankruptcy or privatization per se. The plan is to break the social contract of basic security from generation to generation created by the New Deal, so there is no safety valve for anyone in the event of old age or disability. The fact that it lines the pockets of investment companies is just the bonus.

The plan is to break the middle class of any security and hope it ever had. The problem (a problem to Bush folks anyways) is that the New Deal and subsequent labor, privacy, civil rights, employment and consumer laws helped American workers elevated themselves out of poverty. With the help of labor unions, the EEOC, the justice department, the NLRB, HUD, social security, universal public education and a basically safe and secure environment, American workers were the first in world history to make a living wage, feed and educate their families, buy more than adequate housing with some extras on the side. With the added benefit of available birth control, and yes, sometimes, abortion, they were able to control their family size to make everything more manageable. Wages and benefits went up and, the average American was no longer at the mercy of his or her employer.

One would think everyone would be happy with the situation. It created a new market for better than basic housing and expensive consumer goods. Companies, although paying more for labor, were doing great. So, what’s the problem? The problem from the point of view of the richest conservatives is that they don’t want a strong middle class. To them, all wealth belongs in their class, and even though the rich also became richer since the New Deal, they abhor the increased ability of the middle class to earn, save and be secure. A secure workforce is an expensive workforce, so as workers became secure, cheap labor had to be found outside of the country. There was also the added problem that a fine wealthy conservative family could not get a maid that spoke English.

As the third world grews more sophisticated, however, cheap labor from overseas becoame harder to find and manage. Concerned Americans started to notice the bad situations of cheap Third World laborers and protested unfair labor practices even when they have occurred outside of the country. Also, unfair labor practices of multi-national corporations with origins in the US increased anti-American feelings throughout the world. Cheap labor became less cheap and just plain old harder to deal with.

So, how is one to get back the cheap labor without all the hassle? Get it back in this country by creating a scared and desperate workforce afraid to seek higher wages and better benefits, strike to keep what they have or even complain. Break the unions, create huge deficits to end the social programs, promote wars and increase terrorism, and one of the best ways of keeping a population down, invoke religion. That is the best and oldest strategy for creating not only fear but acceptance of a bad situation.

As workers lose wages and benefits, they are able to purchase fewer of those luxury items. That problem is solved by promoting high interest credit under the guise of 0% for 3 months. Instant credit and instant debt also pushes people out of the middle class.

As people are pushed down the ladder, they also have problems educating their children. So, young men (and women) who belong in undergrad are selling Streetwise on the sub-zero streets of Chicago and Bush couldn’t be happier. In fact, he’s throwing a huge, expensive party this week to celebrate.

A Poll for John Kerry

John, the people have spoken. Time to stop campaigning and show a little statesmanship.

Should John Kerry run for the presidency in 2008?

Yes 15.61 % (652)
No 77.96 % (3257)
Maybe 6.44 % (269)

Total votes: 4178

I can think of a bunch of things you can do:

1. Speak out against the Iraq War and suggest to your fellow Senators that it is time to enforce the War Powers Act that was supposed to keep us out of quagmire wars like Iraq(Vietnam);
2. Save Social Security in the Senate by making it clear that Social Security is not in trouble except for the fact that it is being raided by Bush and his henchmen to pay for their immoral and wrong war based on lies;
3. Speak against the unconstitutional establishment of religion;
4. Use your investigation skills and experience to help stop election fraud; and
5. Help unite the Democratic Party under its progressive and YES, LIBERAL, principles. Those of us who worked hard for you did so because of your progressive liberal voting record.

My comments on Kirk's response to my letter re Social Security

Now we know the Orwellian buzzwords and short phrases they will use:

Strengthen the financial foundation of Social Security.
Sustainable System.
Keeps Social Security in tact for retirees and assures financial stability for younger workers.

Notice how he is only concerned that current retirees receive their full entitled benefits and those about to retire don't get the age raised on them. This is to placate AARP. He figures they won't fight so hard if their current membership is not affected. I hope he's wrong.

They will argue that the current system is not sustainable despite data proving that incorrect. Folks will get scared that there will be no social security at all when they are ready to retire, so they will figure that something is better than nothing. That was the mistake made during the debate over the Prescription Drug plan. Even AARP fell for the "make them think they are at least getting something" trick and was grossly sorry for it in the end.

If we try lengthy explanations to counter this nonsense, even if they are true, we will get bogged down, no one will have the time or patience to listen and everything they say will sound so easy to identify with. Yup, we're on to you Rep. Kirk thanks to George Lakoff.

So, we have to come up with our framwork for this issue. I am thinking that we have to appeal to the nurturing father half of the undecided voters by using phrases like:

*Respecting and taking care of our elderly.
*Strenthening our country by assuring financial well being and education for orphaned minors and the disabled.
*Fairness: Those who paid in, should get the benefit.

The good news is that they are already starting with the Orwellian terms, which according to Lakoff means that they know they are in trouble on this issue. Bush's campaign contributors in the financial sector must be demanding pay back...and so very soon after the election too. That's what happens when you sell your soul to the Devil. GB and our friend Mark Kirk should go to the theater more often...Damn Yankees for example.

Kirk's response to my inquiry re Social Security

December 31, 2004

Dear Ms. Gill:

Thank you for contacting me regarding Social Security reform. I appreciate your correspondence on this crucial issue.

Social Security is the most important federal senior program providing financial backing to millions of Americans who worked hard for their retirement. Our nation's seniors built their retirement security on a foundation of benefits earned throughout their career. Future retirees deserve the same confidence in a
solvent Social Security system.

President Bush indicated in his campaign that strengthening Social Security will top his second term agenda. In the coming months, I will carefully review the details of his proposals. As I review any proposed Social Security reforms, I will apply three key principles:
1. Current retirees must receive their full entitled benefits,
2. Americans about to retire will also receive full benefits without a change in the retirement age, and
3. Any reforms must strengthen the financial foundation of Social Security.

If a proposal does not fulfill the promise of these principles, I will not support it. Over the coming months, I will work with my colleagues in Congress to develop a sustainable system that keeps Social Security in tact for retirees and assures financial stability for younger workers.

Thank you for contacting me on this important issue. Please visit my website at www.house.gov.kirk or contact me again whenever issues of importance to you come before the Congress.
~Mark Steven Kirk
Member of Congress

Dog and Pony Show

I'm not sure where that phrase comes from but I think we had one today. Earlier I wrote about courage of those who objected to the Ohio vote, but now that I see the votes on the objection, I am pretty sure we were treated to a dog and pony show and nothing more. Michael Moore made Democrats cry in Fahrenheit 9/11 when he showed the joint session in 2000 and the congressmen and women were begging for a Senator to join in the motion. The Senate Dems could not let that happen again. So, probably, there was some sort of agreement allowing Boxer to join in the objection.

Every speech seemed to begin with the caveat that the speaker knew that the outcome would not change. Every speaker in the Senate knew he or she was going to vote against the resolution except Boxer who had to vote for because she joined. So, what we ended up with was a lot of venting from both sides and something Moore probably wouldn't even bother to put in his next movie.

An aside for all those speakers who started by assuring Bush he won: how do you expect to be taken seriously when you yourself are not committed to what you are saying? No one in the Senate was committed to the objection. Probably a few in the house were, but not many.

So, now the question is whether Congressional Democrats will be able to put on anything more than a dog and pony show for the next two years.

Republican Congressmen and Senators argue against voting rights--Waste of time--Was working for Kerry a waste of time? The need for courage of...

ones convictions....

I listened a bit to the debate in both the House and Senate this afternoon after the objection to the vote in Ohio. I did not hear everything but heard Republican after Republican say it was wrong to have a debate about voting rights. This is not surprising as they have been working hard to suppress the vote of the poor and minorities for years, so suppressing a mere discussion would be logical.

House Republicans did not even pay lip service to the importance of voter inclusion and went straight for the jugular, that Kerry conceded and debate was not only unnecessary, but inappropriate. The clear message from the House was that Republicans are proud of their work and have no long term concerns for the country. I sure hope Michael Moore is there to replay this talk in a future movie because it will never hit the mainstream press.

I must have really missed something in the Senate because they kept referring to the bad way in which the debate started.

Abundantly clear is that Kerry failed in leadership from start to finish and failed due to his own fear. Kerry was afraid to not go with the crowd, so he voted for the War Resolution and spent the entire first half of his campaign trying to explain that away. He failed to show courage with Russ Feingold and vote against the Patriot Act. Then, at the DNC, Kerry moved his campaign, not toward the women and minorities who should have been his base, but to old white men in "battleground states" starting the whole swift boat veterans debate. His lack of interest in the women's vote was the most suprising to me and I often wondered whether he was afraid of looking too feminine in his veteran, guy campaign. So, Bush was able to turn Vietnam around in his favor and against Kerry and that should have been impossible. Kerry again was afraid to use the strong language necessary to put an end to that ridiculous debate in favor of being a deserter and against getting metals for (ironically) heroism. I guess by that point, it was hard to imagine a Kerry with courage.

All the while, we grassroots campaign workers were on the ground trying to convince religious, poor, African American women in the slums of Racine that Kerry could speak for them. Heck, by the end, I didn't even believe it and I was just about Kerry Supporter No. 1 in Northern Illinois.

Finally, Kerry cannot muster up the strength to fight for his votes as he promised throughout the campaign that he would do. Barbara Boxer had to take it up for him today and even then his concession was thrown in our faces during the House debate.

Kerry sent us a letter yesterday urging our action, our courage to continue while telling us of his inaction and making excuses so we don't see his fear. I have seen dozens and dozens of folks in our district work hard to publicize the truth of the Ohio and Florida votes. These are people with courage of their convictions. I have seen even more folks work even harder against the war and the economic injustice Bush and friends intend to inflict upon us. These are people with courage of their convictions.

Lucky for us, there were others in Congress to step in where Kerry fear to tread. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones made the initial objection in the joint session and a wonderful speech in the house. I heard Sen. Barbara Boxer's initial speech on C-Span before the session, but missed her in the Senate as I was listening in on the House Session. Our very own Jr. Senator Obama spoke about the bi-partisan nature of the issue in his new effort to bring back some real govering to Congress.

Tubbs-Jones, Boxer, Obama and others showed courage in the face of adversity. Too bad I only could listen in on the radio, I would have liked to see for myself whether Kerry was sitting upright in his chair or hiding under his desk in the Senate chamber.

John, courage is a good thing! It keeps you from passing bad law and supporting a wrong war simply to avoid having to explain why and it's always easier to explain why you did something when you believe in it. Courage will be needed in Congress this year as the Democrats must stand their ground and make their own moves, not just echoing Republican tyranny. Too bad Kerry didn't lose his Senate seat too because we need someone with guts to sit in it.

Growth in Afganistan Poppy Harvest Can Help Taliban -- Another reason Kirk was wrong about the Iraq War

The LA Times reports today:

"The U.S. government estimates that poppy cultivation exploded from 150,000 acres in 2003 to 510,000 acres in 2004 — much higher than an earlier U.N. estimate of 324,000 acres. That works out to potential profits of up to $7 billion, says Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.), who follows counter-narcotics efforts from the House Appropriations Committee."

The LA Times article also quotes Congressional testimony of Robert B. Charles, assistant secretary of State for international narcotics and law enforcement, "that drug profits are 'almost definitely' funding the Taliban, which once banned opium farming, and possibly Al Qaeda as well." Charles also testified that drug profits have gone into attacks on US troops in Afganistan through warlords connected with Al Qaeda.

So, while we have been busy ridding the world of Saddam and all none of his weapons of mass destruction (not to mention lots of the weak, the sick, and women and children in Fallujah), profits from the Afgan opium trade are up by a far greater percentage than those of any American company whose stock I own.

The kicker for those of us here in the Illinois Tenth is that our representative, Mark Kirk, a strong proponent of the Iraq war, is very aware of the problem with opium profits funding attacks on US troops in Afganistan and possibly funding Al Qaeda. Maybe I missed it, but I don't remember Rep. Kirk mentioning it in any campaign speeches supporting Bush's cut and run in Afganistan in favor of the Iraq war. What Kirk did say, at least to me in his Spring 2004 sarcastic response to my objection to his war votes, was that the Iraq war was necessary to fight terrorism. In that letter he actually claimed that U.S. forces had found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq quoting Colin Powell's now embarrassing UN speech claiming that the Third Infantry found mobile weapons factories in Iraq.

In a January 2003 interview, Kirk said that his primary goal was to "help secure our country from attack by renegade regimes and the terrorists they sponsor." Why then, Representative Kirk, did you support pulling troups out of Afganistan and pushing them into Iraq while Afgani warlords and terrorists (remember those guys who really did bring down the twin towers?) grow rich with drug money and supply drug traffickers who bring heroin to our children in the US?