Was the Iraq war worth it? --UPI video

Although several of the respondents are clearly buying into the myth that the US presence is preventing greater instability, at least the UPI is asking people a question that remains mostly unspoken on American television news.

I'll miss this guy

George Carlin, May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008.

"There are no bad words. Bad thoughts. Bad intentions," he said. Yet, out of 400,000 words in the English language, there are seven: "That will infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war...."

They were shining there for you and me

or perhaps, "The Name of the Game" would have been more appropriate. I dunno, I like this one better.

BBC: Sweden approves wiretapping law

Sweden's parliament has approved controversial new laws allowing authorities to spy on cross-border e-mail and telephone traffic.

Glenn Greenwald:
Time Magazine uncritically prints Nancy Pelosi's "justifications" for the FISA "compromise":

The Congressional Democratic leadership explains that sacrificing the Fourth Amendment and the rule of law is necessary to win some more swing seats...

Nicole Belle, at Crooks n' Liars(via IOZ):

"Good God, is this why we elected a Democratic majority in 2006? So they can continue to enable the Bush administration as more and more independent sources have verified the criminality that we’ve claimed correctly all along? "

IOZ-

Yes.

In the above referenced post,Belle also writes:

John[Amato] mentioned our new coalition, Strange Bedfellows, earlier and I can’t reiterate more strongly the need to fight Blue Dogs like Steny Hoyer, so if you can donate, please do so. Think of the message it sends to Congress that we are willing to fight our own if they don’t represent us and our Democratic values the way they should.

I don't know about the details, but I wonder if that's true, because "Act Blue" sounds like an organization whose approach, starting with its very name, may antagonize voters in so-called "Blue-dog" districts, when outreach is needed. (I also think the views of those voters are often stereotyped, and therefore misunderstood, by people in the lefty blogosphere. Not everybody in the hinterlands is unreachable, any more than are all San Fransicans and Bostonians disappointed that Nader isn't running.) Then again that begs the question of whether abandonment of the democratic party altogether makes more sense that yet another attempt to fix it.

"I must not think bad thoughts"

via ż€₪ż€₪, aka "Shen shen"(I think.)

briefly(10June08)

BBC News: "Iraq's reconstruction probed" (video, 2:40)
here's one quote:

"The American public have little idea of the fraud and waste of their tax dollars. Seventy court cases are subject to a US gagging order, preventing discussion of the allegations against some of the biggest names in corporate America."

It's somewhat annoying to me that the BBC has disabled embedding of this video(posted on their channel at Youtube), but perhaps it's just as well if you haven't yet had a chance to see Rob Payne's excellent essay, "Road to Iran", directly below, as I don't want to distract you overmuch from it-- so go read it.

"Sijmadicandhapajiee"

the youtube verbiage reads:
Video clip for the song "Sijmadicandhapajiee" by Avion Travel and Paolo Conte
Author: Giuseppe Ragazzini (www.giusepperagazzini.com)
Sugar Muisc Production by Caterina Caselli

Torture, inc and other items

Jonathan Schwarz calls attention to a FAIR fundraiser; I visited, and saw this:
TV’s Low-Cal Campaign Coverage: How 385 stories can tell you next to nothing about whom to vote for"
By Jon Whiten (May/June 2008)

as you may know, FAIR stands for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. I think they shouldn't change their name, but maybe change their acronym to FEAR, as in FairnEss and Accuracy in Reporting, even if that doesn't make a lot of sense. Because maybe then more people would tune in, and give them lots of money as Jon Schwarz advises. Besides, we seem to live in an age in which fear is the key.


Mister Schwarz also has a post by Nell Lancaster of A Lovely Promise, "No Torture. No Exceptions. Just a Few Qualms."

When I saw this the first thing, greedily, that I thought was, "Oh, great. Now Nell Lancaster is going to be a big shot, and won't want to join my new group blog." (more about this later.)
Lancaster criticizes the group she discusses, RejectTorture.org, for making a primarily utilitarian argument against torture, and not discussing the humanitarian aspect. She does this within an otherwise approving context, although she also notes their tangentially humanitarian argument, that torture "betrays our values", and seems to dismiss that as an appeal to American exceptionalism*.

I wonder if the Reject Torture people are right to de-emphasize the humanitarian aspect, not because it isn't valid but because of how aggressive the right-wing noise machine in (seemingly) discrediting arguments against torture, and if as a consequence people are less likely to be reached by such an argument because it's tied in with the conditioned response of liberals and liberalism being self-indulgent exercises in feel-goodism.(I sound like Ned Flanders all of a sudden!)

But it also occurs to me that part of the problem is that Americans don't know too much about the robust street-fighting tradition of liberalism, denatured as it has become by corporate media insistence that Martin Luther King was just a guy who wanted to hug everybody and Malcolm X is just a movie you can order through Netflix. And then there's the tradition, well before the days of Jerry Falwell and the Left Behind series, of American religious figures fighting the good fight for abolition.

(Whistler Blue in ATR's comments mentions the National Religious Coalition Against Torture)


Elsewhere, Rob Payne in
"Indoctrination Nation" says
"We believe ourselves to be more civilized because we have car keys and unmanned drones."

And Chris Floyd has an excellent piece, referenced by Rob,"Outer Darkness: The Gulag Cancer Grows, State Terror Intensifies"


*which inevitably reminds me of Rob Payne, as well as why I wanted to ask her and Rob and 1-3 others to try a group blog I've been mulling over.

the Real News in Kentucky

5/25: Elsewhere, Barbara O'Brien of the Mahablog writes:

I believe I read somewhere that African Americans are the only voting demographic that never gave George Bush a majority of popular support, even during his glory days after 9/11. This, I believe, gives African Americans bragging rights as the smartest voting demographic.

Conversely, we might ask ourselves, Why are so many white voters so stupid? I’ll give that some thought.

A recent Newsweek poll suggests a “lurking racial bias in the American electorate,” Darman writes. Do tell. I’m not surprised by racism. I’m surprised people are surprised by racism.

I note that some people seem to have become a bit untethered of their common sense about this because of their support for one candidate or another. Avedon Carol for example-- whom I generally value-- seems to have developed a blindspot here(as well an unwillingness to admit she favors Clinton over Obama.)

In January, apropos of the NH primary results, she wrote:

"But I don't believe for a minute that Democrats said they were going to vote for Obama because it sounded acceptable but they were too racist to actually do it. I just don't."

Al Nakba at 60

So many words have already been written about the Palistinian-Israeli conflict I'm not sure what I can add. Earlier this week I had a discussion in the comments thread at Karmalised with Diane Warth about a one state versus a two-state solution, which you can see here, apropos of an LA Times op-ed she linked to. Our discussion was and is for naught of course, because neither scenario is anywhere around the corner.

May 15th is commemorated as the anniversary of the Nakba, "the catastrophe", or the forced expulsion of the Palistinians by the nascent Jewish state in 1948. Last week, of course, was the celebration of the 60th birthday of Israel, the other face of the same coin.

Even though 1948 is not exactly ancient history, there is already dispute about the historical record and what really happened. The events at Der Yessin in April of '48 are one example. (More recently the events at Jenin in 2002 are another.)

Here are links to two short films about Deir Yassin, the first[here] is a somewhat impressionistic documentary told from the P.O.V. of an elderly lady who was there, the second["Deir Yassin- what really happened?"] has a more conventional narrative that minimizes the massacre, although it also acknowledges that civilians were killed and the town was attacked by Jewish forces.


As I told Diane, a friend once asked me if I thought there would ever be peace in the middle east, and I told him it would happen when they ran out of oil and the US no longer felt the desire to meddle, although we may well go broke first and find ourselves simply unable to meddle when our Chinese I.O.U.'s get called in. I suppose I'm not exactly objective.

My impression is most Americans really believe our government does care about peace in the middle east, or at least want this to be the case, and hope our apparent missteps in fumbling for peace are just due to our bumbling Western ways being ill-suited for dealing with the inscrutable East, rather than some darker truth. Like-- for instance-- that maybe American exceptionalism and the Israeli myth of the chosen people are schizophrenically complimentary myths that have helped bind the US and Israel together, two nations both invested in denying how their existence came to be at the expense of other people who were already there.



Wikipedia, "The 1948 Palistinan Exodus",
Glenn Greenwald, Salon, "Finding Obama guilty of insufficient devotion to Israel"

Over the top? Sure, but so was Gloria Swanson

I suppose I'm avoiding discussing the real issues of the day, like the upcoming US-sponsored "cleansing" of Sadr city. It's too fucking depressing.

IOZ and Dennis Perrin like this video too. Auf wiedersehen fer now.

Alternate Focus:The rise and fall of Blackwater in Potrero

from Alternate Focus.(about 27 minutes)

NOW can we call her a monster?

I don't have a book of quotations handy, but I imagine somebody both cleverer and famouser than me has already observed that the things left undiscussed in a narrative are usually far more telling than the things spoken about.
Off the top of my head, the best I can do is Gershwin's line from Porgy and Bess:

The things you're liable
to read in the Bible,
They ain't necessarily so.

American politics is arguably like that. For example, I think about the controversy about Samantha Power calling Hillary Clinton a monster back around five or six weeks ago. Even though it was undoubtedly a spontaneous event(as you probably recall, Power tried to qualify it as off-the-record), but the various players in the Obama and Clinton camps and the media immediately knew how to respond to this, as if a script was ready, questioning Obama's judgment in selecting Power as an adviser, insisting Power apologize or resign, Obama dutifully apologizing for her remarks, etc.

I wondered how many people out there in Real-People-Land even paid any attention to the whole dustup. Not terribly many, I'm guessing. I also wondered, why precisely does Power feel Hillary is a monster? Should I automatically assume it's for reason x or y, and weren't other people curious about Power's reason(s)? I realize this is one of those mutually and tacitly agreed upon things, the rolling out of a familiar script by which to deflect the impertinent questions of people like me, as per the nonplussed onlookers at the parade when the naked emperor goes by.

I'm guessing the answer to my question wasn't necessarily that interesting, that it had to do with Clintonian campaign tactics, but that's not really my point. When the Clintons and Obamas and the TV press and the Powers respond in the preordained, scripted ways, it seems designed to avoid the question, because once you have Sam Power's answer, inevitably other persons with other reasons for regarding Hillary as monstrous might gain some scrutiny, and the next thing you know some of those brains out there in Real-People-Land might start ruminating, and that would be-- I don't know, monstrous.

Likewise, this afternoon I watched the nightly news, and it seemed as if people just stopped dying in Iraq and Afghanistan(just like Somalia), nobody objected to China hosting the Olympics, nobody lost their house, nobody was kidnapped in Colombia, and nobody was waterboarded or forced to evade questions about torture. The only thing worth discussing was the Pennsylvania democratic primary, the most important primary, the most important event ever, since Reagan freed the hostages or Grant surrendered to Lee at Appomattox. The world dutifully stood still. (And yes, this kind of sarcastic trope about a single event being made to dominate the news isn't original either-- just hard to resist.)

There was a sound bite of Hillary Clinton telling a crowd that with her 10 point win, she'd pulled ahead in the popular vote viz-a-viz Obama, and a chart graphic saying that Obama was ahead of her by 600,000 votes, but that Hillary was counting the disputed primary votes from Michigan and Florida, which Obama hadn't contested. The Penn primary, and various prognostications about which states Obama could win in the general election versus ones Clinton could win, was of course pretty much the whole news show. (I watched CBS, but I imagine the others were pretty much the same.)

I saw nothing about the ABC interview HRC gave (admittedly on Monday morning) with Chris Cuomo on Good Morning America-- I heard about that through Raw Story. (But if you knew about it, how could you not wonder about its impact?)

“I want the Iranians to know, if I am president, we will attack Iran,”( if they launch nukes against Israel), Clinton said. “I want them to understand that. … We would be able to totally obliterate them. That’s a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to understand that.”

Clinton said she hoped her stern warning would serve as a deterrent from Iran doing anything “foolish and tragic.”

The quote in the Reuters article is somewhat misleading, suggesting in parentheses that she immediately added "if they attack Israel."(But to be honest, in referencing the video above, it looks as if it's been edited to take some pauses out.)

Again I find myself wondering about the people out there in Real-People-Land. Does the sickness of this register with them? You wonder how many people are even aware and paying attention to this, trying to be good citizens and keeping up with the news while they drown in the soporific horse-race minutiae of who would be more likely to beat McCain in Colorado or Tennessee, eventually giving up on the sucker's game of trying to stay informed.

Some of the articles about this have titles that say Hillary says she will obliterate Iran, while others note the "would be able" and reproduce the quote more accurately. I can't help but be reminded of Kerry's "for then against" position and Bill Clinton's tortuous question about what the word "is" means. If you look at the real-life pacing of her words and her body language, she has unamiguously threatened to attack Iran if she's elected. I think that's a violation of international law, and I'm sure that Mrs it takes-a-village has frightened a lot of ordinary people in Iran, including kids, who are now aware that one of the leading candidates of the opposition party is just as demented as George W. Bush.

In one way, however, the follow up by Cuomo and Clinton was even more disgusting:

Cuomo: Is it difficult to reconcile the logic of a statement like that, with the realities of what it would be like to make that desicion?

HRC: It is. It's very hard. And that's why you hope to deter such behavior.

Boo hoo. Isn't it horrible, when you have to kill thousands of people cause their gummint don't act right, the toll it takes on you? Years ago whenever the Labour party in Israel capitulated to demands from the right that they start yet another offensive against the Palistineans, somebody once referred to the rationalizing speeches offered in the Knesset as "shooting and crying." Only Mrs Clinton seems more gleeful than a good liberal should be about it.

The things you're liable
to read in the Bible,
They ain't necessarily so.

Simon Jenkins:Despite Iraq, America's love affair with war runs deep

Independent(UK): Tough-talking Clinton vows to 'obliterate' Iran if it ever dares to attack US ally Israel

CNN's political blog: "Clinton: Iran would pay a 'very high price' for nuclear attack"

El Baradei interview(from 2007)regarding Iran's nuclear program[video]

Marketwatch: "Has Hillary's tough talk increased pain at the pump?"

Clark(Montana)Chronicle:Ron Paul: Clinton 'doesn't understand the presidency'

Dennis Trainor, Jr: "Hillary: I can do war bigger and better than Bush"

ABC News:"Pennsylvania's Six Week Primary Ends Tonight"
[original title of this ABC article on Tuesday:
Clinton on Iran Attack: 'Obliterate Them']

Talaam Acey: "True Lies"

Apropos of April being national poetry month, here's that Talaam Acey feller.

BBC- re the image of the US

I think it's interesting that the people they talked to in the middle east seem to have a more sanguine, no-BS view of the American presidential candidates than many people do over here. But then again they don't have to deal with Frank Luntz.

a postscript, 16 April: Reuters notes this fairly comprehensive poll by Zogby and the University of Maryland of middle eastern countries, which was released Monday: "Arab world sees U.S. in poor light"

Huh?

It looks like unintentional satire-- intentionally, I assume.

Mike Gravel leaves the democrats

On Wednesday Mike Gravel announced that he was leaving the Democratic party and joining the Libertarian Party, with the intent of securing their nomination for president. While I don't think Gravel is a real libertarian(and that's mostly a good thing), I can easily understand his sentiment when he says "I didn't leave the democratic party, the democratic party left me." (see video, above)

Although I don't entirely agree with his platform, to me the fact that he's nearly 78 is the only shortcoming Gravel presents as a viable candidate. Yes, he's an unpolished debater and very few people take him seriously, but those are separate matters.(I also like his sense of humor, as evinced by the rock-in-the-lake video.)

If you live in a solidly red state like I do, it makes very little sense to vote for the democrat when the GOP will win all your state's electors, but a vote for Cynthia McKinney of the Green Party, or Gravel should he secure the Libertarian nomination, is a meaningful way to vote against the war, and doesn't strike me as any more of a "wasted vote" here than voting for the democratic nominee, especially one who's already hemmed and hawed about withdrawing from Iraq by 2012, as both HRC and Obama have.

Perhaps even less of a "wasted vote," if you think about it. In the past the Libertarian Party has always made the ballot here in Texas in presidential years, but the Greens weren't on the ballot here in 2004. The dynamic is substantially different in a place like, say, Wisconsin or Pennsylvania.


Given Gravel's historically important role in defending an open society[video], you'd think the mainstream press would have told you about Gravel's announcement. I didn't see anything about it on TV, but both the Washington Post and New York Times dealt with it using the new 21st century style of burying news on the back pages: by only discussing the news in their blogs.

WaPo, here, and NYT, here.

a Prescott Bush interview

I posted this at roughly 70% of the standard youtube size to improve the so-so image resolution, but if you want the rest or the "full-size", it's here( part one), and part 2 is here.

Both are via a channel called "BBC propaganda news", which, presumably, is not related to the BBC. As most of you already know, Prescott Bush was a US senator and the current president's grandfather.

Dennis sings

God [darn] America

here, lazily, is the comment I left at ATR earlier tonight, apropos of a really nice post* by Bernard Chazelle referencing "the speech" Obama gave regarding Jeremiah Wright:

The speech was sheer BS-- he had a real chance to do what he does best, round off sharp edges, by saying Wright was right but the problem was in his vitriolic style, not the content. And if anybody in US politics today could have pulled that off, it was Obama.

Instead, he's playing Hillary's game and chasing the white swing voters who won't vote for him anyway, instead of being square with a slightly different demographic, the white swing voters who otherwise might vote for him.

What he accomplished instead was he demonstrated weakness. That when push comes to shove and sacred cows push, he'll let them shove him around, and will disavow his friends for votes.

In the past I've said I'll discuss thing/person/phenomenon x at greater length tomorrow, or the day after, without always following through. Nevertheless, this time I will follow up with a lengthier discussion in 24-48 hrs, tops.

*"the perils of truth-telling"— Bernard Chazelle

Salon has the text of the speech here, and the video is up on YouBiquitousTube, here.

More from The Real News and Winter Soldiers

Winter Soldiers: Clifton Hicks and Steven Casey

The Real News main site, and their Youtube channel.