Thursday, February 28, 2002.
Michael Moore steps into the ring against Bill O'Reilly. And the winner is...partial transcript
Damn! I wish I could go to the opening of Kanji, Kritters, & Kute Girls: Paintings by Yumiko Kayukawa at Roq la Rue Gallery in Seattle tomorrow night.
"Toys are intriguing, and I want to see what I can do with them. On a deeper level, they represent one way that society socializes its young..." David Levinthal... Blackface (1995/1998, Polaroid Ektacolor ER prints, 24 x 20 inches each). A slideshow presentation that is part of a selection of Works by David Levinthal at Conner Contemporary Art.
Now a favorite source for information about what is going on in the Middle East, The DEBKA File comes under scrutiny for its reliability here: DEBKA File
An atrocity more often than not overlooked(see:book not published in Japan) and one the Japanese scarcely admit to, (see: refuting charges, unsuccessfully) The Rape of Nanking was not only a horror story of great magnitude, but it is also an early example of the uses of chemical and biological agents for experiments in killing,
The Other Holocaust This "hidden" atrocity can be further studied in the documents cited at further readings and for history: Rape of Nanking Wednesday, February 27, 2002.
What's this? Palestinians and Israelis living peaceably together? Such an oasis of peace as you describe . . .
news flash! Judge Orders Cheney Records Release
Tuesday, February 26, 2002.
Arab software company makes new game where players kill Israelis with rocks; claim it's a non-violent game because Israelis are servants of Satan, and not really human.Under Ash free download! Have fun killing Israelis. via Fark.com
Not exciting reading. Not a call to arms. But a well-wrought debate on globalization and world poverty that is central to issues confronting us. Are global poverty and inequality getting worse?
The worms in the applesRotten to the Core
Monday, February 25, 2002.
Endgame Research Services
a project of the Public Information Network
The oil floats to the top of the cesspool, and here is Jeff writing to George
In reference to an earlier post by Tiffany Tomkinson about another black man in Seattle killed by cops, I give you Surrounded, by Geov Parrish. Within this story you will find more details about how one black man with no gun was surrounded by 10-12 police officers and shot to death.
I'm sorry, you're telling me 10-12 cops can't take down one man without murdering him? Geov is not the only one to be reminded of the incident concerning a "mentally ill man after he shoplifted at a Safeway" who was also shot to death after being surrounded by police. Did you know the officer who shot and killed that man won the "Officer of the Month" award? In Washington, D.C. last year a man shooting into the White House was stopped by arguably the best-trained police force in the world: the Secret Service. They stopped him by shooting him in the leg.
As the six-month anniversary of the September 11th attacks approaches, and as Bush's War on Terror continues unabated, we would do well to consider carefully the definition of victory. In the days after the Towers fell, we were promised the heads of Osama bin Laden and his followers. We were told our enemies attacked us because they despised our freedoms. We were promised the nation would become a safer, more secure place. redefining the threat
He may or may not be your cup of tea, but here he is speaking about himself: Noam Chomsky on Anarchism, Marxism & Hope for the Future
Sunday, February 24, 2002.
Whoa
Subj: trademark infringement Date: 1/10/2002 8:17:23 AM Pacific Standard Time From: Ovens.Jan@t... To: forcescan2@A... Pat, this is further to our telephone conversation of January 9, 2002 regarding products identified on the Forces Canada Internet site that were infringing on a registered trademark held by the Government of Canada. The flag symbol is a global identifier of the Government of Canada It is used to identify federal institutions and is protected under the Trademarks Act (Section 9 (1)(n)(iii) of the Act). The flag symbol was approved and entered as an official mark of the Government of Canada on the Trademarks Register held by the Canadian Trademarks Office, which is part of the Canadian Intellectual Property Office at Industry Canada, on 30 September 1987. As discussed, there is evidence that Forces Canada Internet site is advertising on the World Wide Web bearing the flag symbol of the Government of Canada. You are advised that your organization must take immediate corrective action with respect to infringement of this trademark. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. Jan Ovens Federal Identity Program Does this happen anywhere else?...an identity program? slashdot Menlo...without a browser...this is truly sad..no leader..i am feeling exposed
Note: If you go to Menlo site (menlo ) you will see plaintive cry for a browser. If anyone posting or reading here can cut a CD and stick a Mac browser on it, write Menlo at drmenlo at well.com and ask for his address so you can mail it to him. He can post only prose (no pics) at cafe or library or wherever he hangs out.
Two U.S. aircraft landed Feb. 21 in Georgia, likely setting the stage for a new U.S.-led counterterrorism operation against al Qaeda and Chechen militants in the Pankisi Gorge. A U.S. military presence in Georgia -- in addition to the deployment in Afghanistan -- will dramatically weaken Russia's strategic positions along its southern borders and push Russian forces out of former Soviet states in the Caucasus and Central Asia. [more] via Stratfor.com
see too:Russia angry Along streets ornamented with shrines to blue-skinned Hindu gods, cows, sacred in Hinduism, forage unfettered. Five times a day, the muezzins' calls to prayer sound from the minarets of the 135-year-old Darul Uloom seminary that is famed throughout the Islamic world and teaches the form of Islam known as Deobandism. But while the Deobandis of India, and India's 130 million Muslims in general, have embraced India's secular Constitution and religious diversity, the Deobandis of Afghanistan and Pakistan sought to impose their fundamentalist brand of Islam by force. [ more] NY Times, reg req'd. see too: Deobandis & terrorism Saturday, February 23, 2002.
Kirsten, please note I didn't refer to you personally when I said 'have a problem? . . . get science, etc.'--this was to any wayward readers who wandered over here from Ken Layne or something. Kirsten Anderson is--to all you in the world who weren't aware--one of the coolest underground art figures in Seattle, and deals routinely with the likes of Dan Clowes, Chris Ware (heard last nite on "This American Life"--very funny) and Mark Ryden, among many more. I am also very honored that she has agreed to move her blog over to my domain: viva Thumbmonkey!
Kirsten, you rock, and please accept my deepest apologies if you thought my acid was directed at you--it wasn't.
WOW!
Dr Menlo ripped me a new one! I'd never heard of Bjorn before- and I never said I agreed with him, I was just facinated by what he was saying and thought it was very interesting thought fodder. Anyway to all outraged Samizdaters, I humbly stand down. I shall go "get myself some science" now.... Gravely, Miss Anderson
Afghan refugees sold into prostitution; indentured servitude flourishes; scenes from a slave auction Pakistan’s slave trade
Howard Clifford... Family in camp "apartment". From the Camp Harmony Exhibit at the University of Washington. "...In the spring of 1942, just months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, more than 100,000 residents of Japanese ancestry were forcefully evicted by the army from their homes in Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona and Alaska, and sent to nearby temporary assembly centers. From there they were sent by trains to American-style concentration camps at remote inland sites where many people spent the remainder of the war. This exhibit tells the story of Seattle's Japanese American community in the spring and summer of 1942 and their four month sojourn at the Puyallup Assembly Center known as 'Camp Harmony.'"
Look out, Internet sextrepreneurs: John Aschroft wants you to serve hard time.
In explicit terms, the attorney general told Congress this week that hardcore sex sites would no longer be selling peeks at balloon-breasted babes. "I am concerned about obscenity and I'm concerned about obscenity as it relates to our children," Ashcroft said in his first appearance before the House Judiciary Committee. Is 36 C acceptable? or, say: this lass?
WASHINGTON — American tobacco companies have violated sanctions against Iraq for years by sending billions of cigarettes into the country, often with the aid of a terrorist organization, the European Union has alleged.
The allegations, made in recent filings in U.S. District Court in New York, were the latest salvos in a civil racketeering lawsuit against R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris by the European Community and 10 member nations. The suit accused tobacco companies of running a global and decades-long cigarette smuggling operation that robbed national treasuries of billions of dollars in tax revenue and became a money-laundering vehicle for criminal organizations. [ more] Friday, February 22, 2002.
While Kirsten Anderson's credentials in the world of outsider art are superlative, I'm afraid she was done in a bit on the cuckolded side by falling for a side of baloney like that espoused by an economist writing about science--i.e., Bjorn Lomborg.
For a quality debunking, I defer to Grist Magazine, who offers up real and actual scientists to talk about the matters Lomborg 'discusses.' The only thing 'brave' about Bjorn Lomborg is his ability to take his retardation public. You got a problem with that? Email me your arguments and our distinguished panel of science fans and citizens of earth will respond. And for Buddha's sake, get yourself some science, why don't you? WEAPON OF MASS INSTRUCTION
"THE PROFITS OF DOOM"
"Matt Ridley celebrates Bjorn Lomborg, the environmentalist brave enough to tell the truth — that the end is not nigh..." Interesting article on how maybe we're not as fucked as we think.
"Do not believe falsehoods about American cruelty. See for yourselves! Select representatives to come forward and observe the treatment they will receive. Then these representatives can return and guide you to safety. You will receive food, water, clothing, and medical treatment..." Leaflet 509 from Psychological Warfare in World War II. "...selected propaganda leaflets used during World War II to influence Japanese soldiers serving in Japan and the Philippines, as well as Japanese civilians."
The starving children of Iraq The Left is not Alway Right
Thursday, February 21, 2002.
Issandr El Amrani
Cairo, Egypt Feb. 14, 2002 Photo: Issandr El Amrani More than eight months after he was sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of illegally accepting foreign funds, sullying Egypt's image abroad, and embezzlement, Egyptian human-rights activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim walked free—pending a retrial—on Feb. 7. Ibrahim's seven-month trial, which began in November 2000, and his subsequent imprisonment, led international human-rights organizations and Western governments to express concern that the country was backtracking on political reforms. Local activists, who had long warned that the government was strangling civil society with tacit Western approval, were silenced by his arrest. [more] America has made military tribunals acceptable.
It is always useful to know who the enemy is and how we know we have won the war against terrorism Otherwise, we are likely to label just about anything and anyone we dislike as terrorists or terrorism to justify our actions.
thanks Al: I blog therefore I am. Wednesday, February 20, 2002.
About bitterlemons.org
Bitterlemons.org is a website that presents Israeli and Palestinian viewpoints on prominent issues of concern. It focuses on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and peace process, but other, related regional issues are also discussed. It is produced, edited and partially written by Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian, and Yossi Alpher, an Israeli. Its goal is to contribute to mutual understanding through the open exchange of ideas. It aspires to impact the way Palestinians, Israelis and others worldwide think about regional issues. Bitterlemons.org is directed toward the interested public and policymakers in the region and elsewhere. Each weekly edition of bitterlemons.org is posted on our website. Readers can obtain a free subscription by entering their email address in the space provided on the home page or by writing to subscribe@bitterlemons.org. bitterlemons.org As an example of this on-line discussion, The French have recently offered a proposal for resolving the Palestinain/Israeli deadlock in the region, for which see an evaluation and discussion of French peace proposal I find this site useful in that it offers views from both sides rather than simply feeding into pre-conceived notions.
Gays Caused Enron Collapse, sez Christian newspaper editor
The push for same-sex domestic partnerships in Fortune 500 companies has put those companies in a position where they are "promoting" homesexual behavior while doing business in regions where homosexual behaviour is illegal. This guys says it created a slippery slope where accounting firms began to selectively obey laws.
How To Tell Japs From The Chinese (LIFE Magazine, December 1941). "...In the first discharge of emotions touched off by the Japanese assaults on their nation, U.S. citizens have been demonstrating a distressing ignorance on the delicate question of how to tell a Chinese from a Jap. Innocent victims in cities all over the country are many of the 75,000 U.S. Chinese, whose homeland is our stanch ally. So serious were the consequences threatened, that the Chinese consulates last week prepared to tag their nationals with identification buttons. To dispel some of this confusion, LIFE here adduces a rule-of-thumb from the anthropometric conformations that distinguish friendly Chinese from enemy alien Japs." From Posters from World War Two - curriculum for the course Japanese American Internment at the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences at San Francisco State University.
Anyone expressing surprise at the supernova-like explosion of Enron and its accounting firm Arthur Andersen must have been roommates in a cave with Osama bin Laden. Eight or nine years ago, Newt Gingrich and the Contract With America laid the very groundwork by which Enron and Arthur Andersen could perpetrate their gigantic fraud on the public.
The benign-sounding Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 would enable corporations and their accountants to dodge investor lawsuits. [link] Tuesday, February 19, 2002.
The response to this New Scientist story, on the newstands since the beginning of the month, has been a collective shrug. 'Anthrax, schmanthrax, that's so three months ago...'
::Debora MacKenzie, New Scientist: The Insider
Terry Jones on the potential Bombing of Iraq in the Observer newspaper:
"To prevent terrorism by dropping bombs on Iraq is such an obvious idea that I can't think why no one has thought of it before. It's so simple. If only the UK had done something similar in Northern Ireland, we wouldn't be in the mess we are in today..." Read the rest of the article at http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,651594,00.html
The Abraham Lincoln Wing - A Specialized Collection of United States Essays & Proofs. Part of the Peter Schwartz collection at the Museum of United States Essays & Proofs. "...dedicated to the study and appreciation of early U.S. postage and revenue stamp design, as seen through the actual handiwork of the designers and engravers essays and proofs."
Tariq Ramadan: The Muslim Martin Luther?
The author of "To Be a European Muslim" discusses terrorism, the problem of Saudi Arabia and whether Islam can peacefully coexist with the West. [link] Monday, February 18, 2002.
Permit THIS!
"The City of Seattle's refusal to grant a permit to organizers for November 30, 2001 �Ethe second anniversary of the 1999 WTO Ministerial conference in Seattle, led to our creation and first victory. We sought and were granted a federal injunction requiring the City of Seattle to issue a Special Event Permit so people could peacefully gather and rally in Westlake Park on N30, 2001!
"Tuvalu is sinking, man!"
--Ryan Parker, whom we most fervently hope will be joining us soon.
Complete Collapse of North Atlantic Fishing Predicted
"The entire North Atlantic is being so severely overfished that it may completely collapse by 2010, reveals the first comprehensive survey of the entire ocean's fishery.Stop the Hog Farm: Go Veg.
W-o-T® Me Worry? According to a report in a Lebanese daily as related by Ha'aretz, CIA director George Tenet reportedly asked President Mubarak not to oppose a US attack on Iraq, reportedly stating during his visit to Egypt Saturday that the US has already decided to take this next step. The scenario reportedly involves the US demanding that Iraq allow the return of arms inspectors, fully expecting Iraq to defy the ultimatum and open itself to a massive attack The Guardian 'But former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter writes that Iraq has already called Bush's bluff, by showing a willingness to discuss the issue of inspectors, and raising the question as to whether a U.S. call for them "has been merely rhetorical".' CommonDreams [via Cursor, as are many of these links] The New York Times yesterday had Colin Powell rejecting Iraqi assurances on arms inspectors as, well, rhetoric.
"...While American patriotism proudly celebrates its armed forces' power and victories, Europe's diverse loyalties and identities are formed by a war-weary pessimism thoroughly grounded in our history: Wars can be just, certainly those fought in self- defense can; but they can be bloody useless, too. This pessimism may shade, potentially, into appeasement, yet its roots are real. They explain European reluctance to intervene quickly in Bosnia — a deplorable reluctance, in hindsight — and the present refusal to join arms with the United States against Iraq.However, what this argument does not explain is why the US after Vietnam should not be as war-weary and -wary as Europe. A European FmH reader wrote to suggest that this is because wars have been fought on European but not US soil; could that really be the difference, when most of the living European adult population is as remote in time from the last pan-European ground war in 1945 as the US is in space. I'm convinced one has to turn instead to temperamental differences. The cowboy strain in American psychology -- both rugged individualism and cocky adventurism -- born of having had a frontier to push against for most of our history, has been an important difference, especially when the yahoos off the ranch are the same people managing the interests of Big Oil. Indeed, European warnings about the rift in the Atlantic alliance that would be caused by an attack on Iraq don't seem to give Dubya pause. Neither does criticism of an Afghan-style intervention by even a key Iraqi resistance leader, reports the Christian Science Monitor. In fact, 'President Bush and his top aides now seem to welcome, even to egg on, the sharp differences prompted by Mr. Bush's determination to expand his battle against what he calls "evil" regimes', suggested yesterday's New York Times. Bush relishes his dark, struggle-against-evil worldview, says this Washington Post foreign policy analyst who found that Bush had picked the brains of grim foreign correspondent Robert Kaplan months before 9-11. 'Many Republicans criticized the Clinton administration for entering peacekeeping operations without having an exit strategy. It's ironic, perhaps, that this administration seems to be waging war without any exit strategy other than moving to the next battlefield. The war could become, as in the Orwell novel 1984, a permanent state of being. "War is Peace," the Ministry of Truth slogan read in the novel.The administration jackasses are so enamored of their grandiose anti-axis-of-evil mission that a set of new campaign ads will suggest, in essence, that supporting Democrats aids the terrorists. ABC via MetaFilter Meanwhile, David Corn asks in The Nation, US mis-strikes: mistakes or war crimes? That's a provocative question, the sort of query that few, if any, reporters at the Pentagon briefing room are going to toss at Rummy. Nevertheless, it's a question that may bear consideration as new details emerge about the latest US mis-strikes. Corn and others in the progressive/alternative press have, of course, been raising such questions all along. But now the mainstream press, as well, is revisiting 'collateral damage' as war coverage takes a negative turn, reports the Washington Post Sunday, February 17, 2002.
This article is going to remind you of the classic three-card monty, wondering where the money gets shifted to. But here is the scam operator and how he moves with his organization--and note how Enron enters too, along with many government offices.(s)the money pit
Selected quotations from a Monitor Breakfast with Arthur Levitt Jr., former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on the Enron debacle [link]
The Spirit of Terrorism
by Jean Baudrillard Terrorism is immoral. The event of the World Trade Center, this symbolic challenge is immoral, and it answers a globalization that is immoral. Then let us be immoral ourselves and, if we want to understand something, let us go somewhat beyond Good and Evil. As we have, for once, an event that challenges not only morals, but every interpretation, let us try to have the intelligence of Evil. The crucial point is precisely there: in this total counter-meaning to Good and Evil in Western philosophy, the philosophy of Enlightenment. We naively believe that the progress of the Good, its rise in all domains (sciences, techniques, democracy, human rights) correspond to a defeat of Evil. Nobody seems to understand that Good and Evil rise simultaneously, and in the same movement. The triumph of the One does not produce the erasure of the Other. Therefore, here, death is the key (to the game) not only the brutal irruption of death in direct, in real time, but also the irruption of a more-than-real death: symbolic and sacrificial death - the absolute, no appeal event. This is the spirit of terrorism. Never is it to attack the system through power relations. This belongs to the revolutionary imaginary imposed by the system itself, which survives by ceaselessly bringing those who oppose it to fight in the domain of the real, which is always its own. But (it) moves the fight into the symbolic domain, where the rule is the rule of challenge, of reversal, of escalation. Thus, death can be answered only though an equal or superior death. (Terrorism) challenges the system by a gift that the latter can reciprocate only through its own death and its own collapse. found thru open brackets
Designs for Democracy: 200 Years of Drawings from the National Archives. "...an exhibition of nearly 125 design drawings selected from the vast holdings of the National Archives and Records Administration and its Presidential Libraries."
North Africans (Moors) demand apology from Spain! This should make your day. Who invaded whom? via Ken.Layne blog.
Saturday, February 16, 2002.
Can the US be defeated?
"Those who have argued that America's war on terror would fail to defeat terrorism have, it turns out, been barking up the wrong tree. Ever since President Bush announced his $45bn increase in military spending and gave notice to Iraq, Iran and North Korea that they had "better get their house in order" or face what he called the "justice of this nation", it has become ever clearer that the US is not now primarily engaged in a war against terrorism at all.
Documents provided by The Smoking Gun prove that Ken Lay (Enron president) and G.W. Bush have had a long-standing relationship, despite the Bush claims to the contrary. G.W. Bush & Ken Lay
Drug Reform Coordination CommitteeNoam Chomsky on the American War on Drugs
Friday, February 15, 2002.
Remembering the Family Farm: 150 Years of American Prints. "...examines the material culture of the American farm as documented by prints of farm implements, barns, silos, and other outbuildings."
I sat on this one for a while now. It is so friggin far out--a god-like attempt to extend how we will fight in the future. Though this plan is not yet in place or operable, the writer, nonetheless, prepared this report at a reputable place and, if it was not a possibility, he would have been tossed out. Who'll stop the rain? We will if it suits our needs
On 9-9-01 - just two days before Osama Bin Laden's attack on the US - the NY Times published a lengthy and chilling article about Osama Bin Laden by reporter John Burns. Some time after 9-11, the Times SCRUBBED this article, replacing it with a completely different article that Burns wrote on 9-12. Both articles discuss a 2-hour videotape by Bin Laden that intelligence agencies first saw in June 2001, but ignored until September. Why was the 9-9 article scrubbed? Read it yourself - we've UNSCRUBBED it. We believe it demonstrates the GROSS NEGLIGENCE of the CIA, NSA, Justice Department, and the White House in the events leading to 9-11. These agencies had MANY warnings, but the people at the top IGNORED them, at a cost of over 3,000 lives and billions of dollars. ALL OF THESE SCREWUPS REMAIN IN THEIR JOBS!!! We demand a Blue Ribbon Commission on 9-11 and a thorough housecleaning - not a Congressional Coverup!
[more] Thursday, February 14, 2002.
Hemp? Not if you want to get high, anyway. But if hemp isn't a drug, why is the DEA treating it like heroin This Bud's Not For You
The Betrayal of Capitalism via The New York Review of Books
Wednesday, February 13, 2002.
Tuesday, December 18, 2001Iran's Rafsanjani suggests nuclear attack on Israel
shameless self-promotion alert:
I'm on KPFK tonight at 5:45pm PST talking about child slavery in the chocolate industry. You can listen live online. Just in time to wreck your Valentine's Day.
We hate it when people have more than us.
Study shows that people will risk thier own security to "punish" those who are percieved to have more than us- especially if they have an "unfair" gain. Subjects could "take away" others wealth but only if they would give up some of their own money..and most did.
Posted by Miss Anderson for the venerable Dr. Menlo:
"Hello Harbingers! Quickly now: You are all my heroes. I have been completely bowed over by the response to the Samizdat so far but the list on the left, I hope, is far from complete--please take it upon yourselves to recommend others you think would like to participate, or you are welcome to recommend yourself (drmenlo@well.com). As my browser seems to be broke (but email working fine, and ftp, too), I may be limited to the background for a short stretch, but I am sure you will all be beautiful while I'm gone. In response to Al Jensen's post a while back: an email list for the harbingers is in the works--shall we talk openly here? I dunno . . . maybe . . . harbingers? (Also, all are welcome to come up with alternate templates.) To JP: I definitely have some ideas about the subject you brought up, but some of them I will only elaborate on via email . . . Here's a question I would be interested in seeing the harbingers answer: If, as Unknown News and others have pointed out, the CIA plays an influential role in the doings of the Corporate Media--what if the CIA has caught on to blogs? What blogs, in your estimation, are most likely to be run by spooks? Also, I would love to do a Samizdat episode of "Women We Love"--my list is long! So, I know I'm forgetting something (oh yea--at least 2 people I invited didn't receive their original invite so there is a list of these people, too, and I don't know if they didn't get it or just didn't accept it) but the email list is coming soon (Mr. Planet!)--until then, thank you all again for participating and also a benificent nod to all you wonderful viewers out there as well for coming around--this blog, and this domain, will only continue to get better and launch your savvy rocket-jets in ways you can't even imagine . . . Until then--your obdurant servant, Dr. M. (p.s. if anyone can email me a public ftp addy for a Mac explorer 5.0 [or anything better browser-wise for an old Mac and old OS] I would be forever grateful--drmenlo@well.com)"
Big Brother is watching you read
Increasingly, the government is demanding that bookstores reveal what books their customers have purchased. Bookstore owners and privacy advocates say that's scarier than a Stephen King novel [more] Tuesday, February 12, 2002.
Sassy 12 year old girl has been holding bake sales and car washes to buy bullet proof vests for police dogs. Though recently told she can't raise funds for law enforcement agencies- she is appealing and trying to change the law so people can donate money as long as they have no financial gain in the transaction...a vested interest so to say (d'oh!)....she says: "People are going to have a hard time saying no to kids and dogs." Right on, chica.
Gang Life in East LA. Photographs and text by Joseph Rodriguez. "...I see Los Angeles as a post-modern Wild West where everyone has a gun and they use it. It is an uncontrolled and slightly scary place, a land of dreams and beauty, playing by its own rules. My aim in photographing gang life in Los Angeles has been to get to the core of violence in America, not just the physical violence against one another, but the quiet violence of letting families fall apart, the violence of segregation and isolation."
Feb. 8, 2002 | PARIS -- In a new book, "Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth," two French intelligence analysts allege the Clinton and Bush administrations put diplomacy before law enforcement in dealing with the al-Qaida threat before Sept. 11, in order to maintain smooth relations with Saudi Arabia and to avoid disrupting the oil market. The book, which has become a bestseller in France but has received little press attention here, also alleges that the Bush administration was bargaining with the Taliban, over a Central Asian oil pipeline and Osama bin Laden, just five weeks before the September attacks. The authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, see a link between the negotiations and Vice President Dick Cheney's energy policy task force, with its conclusions that Central Asian oil was going to become critical to the U.S. economy. Brisard and Dasquie also claim former FBI deputy director John O'Neill (who died in the attack on the World Trade Center, where he was the chief of security) resigned in July to protest the policy of giving U.S. oil interests a higher priority than bringing al-Qaida leaders to justice. Brisard claims O'Neill told him that "the main obstacles to investigating Islamic terrorism were U.S. oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia." The book's authors interviewed
Monday, February 11, 2002.
To understand Enron better, we should know more about American history. Then we will see that Enron Is Merely the Latest Chapter In the History of American Scams
Sunday, February 10, 2002.
They Still Draw Pictures: Drawings made by Spanish children during the Spanish Civil War, circa 1938. "...over 600 drawings made during the Spanish Civil War by Spanish school children, both in Spain and in refugee centers in France, rendered in pencil, crayon, ink, and watercolor."
Enron? Nader is glad you asked
BEIRUT, LEBANON - A heated diplomatic campaign waged by the United States and Israel against Iran and its Lebanese protégé, Hizbullah, could have an unintended and potentially destabilizing backlash, as is noted in the huge arms buildup
Saturday, February 09, 2002.
A behind the scenes look into the making of a recent epic of American journalism:
In the Newsroom, Nerves of Steel
Gone With the War? hopes for a return to the honesty and realism of classical 19th-century Western liberalism:
"Over the last few months we have heard a litany of politically correct lamentations: The orcs were too predictably dark in Lord of the Rings, fiction which employed a "good" North and West against an "evil" East and South. The Somalians of Black Hawk Down were all black, their American opponents nearly all white. The photo of the three white firemen at Ground Zero should be transmogrified, through sculpture, into representations of people of color. A new word - "Islamophobia" - is needed to capture a spreading hatred toward those of Middle Eastern descent. And on and on. Footage of the burning Twin Towers became increasingly rare on our television screens - lest it inflame Americans. And perhaps it was also deemed unwise in that regard to show too often the pictures of the 19 terrorists, lest someone derive that they were all male Middle Easterners, or surmise that their comrades in Cuba were not really POWs. Yet after September 11, such cosmetic efforts at political correctness have been both recognized and jeered at by the general public. Conventional wisdom suggests that the present conflict will not affect much the underlying and entrenched ideas beneath this daily Orwellian assault. But I am not so sure."
bitter lemons is a website that presents Israeli and Palestinian viewpoints on prominent issues of concern. This week's edition is on Israeli proposals for unilateral separation. A Palestinian view: Another form of occupation and an Israeli view: It's time for a serious public debate.
There is much I dislike about Edward Said (not referring to his literary scholarship), and I have found him frustrating over the recent past because he expresses full contempt for Arafat, seems to believe he knows what is best but offers not much other than a return to 1967 borders (the Right of Return? Jereusalem?), but he is an important voice in the discussion of the mess that is the Middle East, and for that reason, I post this piece by Edward Said on Arafat & the state of the State of Israel
Philippine Arrest Offers Clues to Web Of Asian Terrorists. As attention in the America-Strikes-Back® Show shifts to the role of Islamic insurgencies in Southeast Asia, I wonder whether the US notion about a global conspiracy of terrorists, reflected in stories like this from the Washington Post, is largely a self-serving fantasy-land misreading of local movements. In an earlier iteration of the same pathology of American thought, it is clear in retrospect that there really was never a global conspiracy of Communism to dominate the world; rather Marxist ideology and alignment with foes of the West was a convenient and inspiring peg on which local self-determination movements hung their hat. Makes me wonder whether shaping bin Laden and al Qaeda's image into that of global masterminds of terrorism is actually going to drive local insurgents to forge new links to their heroic figurehead, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. I haven't seen much to indicate the contrary, that other 'terrorist' groups are running scared, chastened by the ferocity of US resolve.
A related point by Michael Kinsley: 'The more things you call terrorism, the fewer you are likely to wipe out.' Slate And The Progressive's editor Matthew Rothschild comments:
'There was something almost pathetic about George W. Bush's attempt to make his fight against terrorism akin to the fight against the Nazis. And, from Toronto Star columnist Thomas Walkom [via wood s lot]: The war against terrorism is a brilliant construct. It may not have been started by George W. Bush, but it certainly works to his advantage. Also noticed by wood s lot, from Stephanie Salter in the SF Chronicle [via CommonDreams]: Bush: All War All the Time --[All right, enough already, Eliot, they get the picture...]
Action Alert: Ann Coulter could be dismissed as a contemptible idiot if her message wasn't so insidious. The writer's letter (he, and I, suggest you do something similar) makes it clear what's at stake. Dear Members of the American Conservative Union Foundation:
How To Marry a High-Quality Woman -- I hope this is a send-up to lampoon the Aryan ethic, but unfortunately I think it's a for-real Neonazi guide to propagating the master race by finding true love, romance and domination over your Nazi dream goddess. For example:
'State Openly that You Want to Be a Patriarch. Say things like, "I want to have at least four kids, and I want my wife to stay home while they're young," or "I'm looking for a High-Grade Woman to have my kids, none of this messing around stuff; I don't play the dating game." Say it simply and definitely, in a way that closes the door to questions. If a feminazi starts yelling, who cares. Extremely good-looking men actually have a disadvantage dating high-quality women because they're assumed to be promiscuous or carrying a disease. She's seen the Jew values on TeeVee and the phony "sexual double standard" myth is burned into her head, so it's only reasonable of her to be suspicious of you.' [via the null device]Full of a pitiful and horrifying blend of xenophobia, grandiosity and whining inferiority complex.
Timothy Feresten... Industrial Interior and the Michigan Central Railroad Station in Detroit, MI. Modern ruins photographed by Timothy Feresten.
Patten lays into Bush's America
Fury at president's 'axis of evil' speech Jonathan Freedland in Brussels Saturday February 9, 2002 The Guardian Chris Patten, the EU commissioner in charge of Europe's international relations, has launched a scathing attack on American foreign policy - accusing the Bush administration of a dangerously "absolutist and simplistic" stance towards the rest of the world. As EU officials warned of a rift opening up between Europe and the US wider than at any time for half a century, Mr Patten tells the Guardian it is time European governments spoke up and stopped Washington before it goes into "unilateralist overdrive". [more]
Ronald Dworkin in the New York Review of Books asks and answers:
"What has al-Qaeda done to our Constitution, and to our national standards of fairness and decency? Since September 11, the government has enacted legislation, adopted policies, and threatened procedures that are not consistent with our established laws and values and would have been unthinkable before. On October 25, Congress passed the "USA Patriot Act" with only one dissenting vote in the Senate and sixty-six in the House.... [more] Friday, February 08, 2002.
Newly released documents show assorted wierd British plots for foiling Hitler. I was very excited about this one:
"The now declassified documents also show that British agents developed a one-man midget submarine to target enemy shipping." Until I thought about it. I guess the submarine was to be midget, not the pilot. Rats.
President George W. Bush's State of the Union address on January 29, 2002 was the first in many years to focus primarily on foreign policy. Despite widespread accolades in the media and strong bipartisan support in Congress, a careful examination of the language and assumptions in the address raise disturbing questions about the direction of U.S. foreign policy under the current administration. Deconstructing George W. Bush:
A Critical Analysis of the 2002 State of the Union Address Thursday, February 07, 2002.
Bush uses simplicity to obfuscate
A former Clinton speechwriter explains how the simple terms in Bush's State of the Union were carefully crafted to create false impressions of his policies. (Some presidents have paraphrased Churchill; Bush paraphrases Goldilocks. Over and over and over again.)
"From Fox TV's repeated camera shots of U.S. troops watching the game from Kandahar (at 4 a.m. local time?), to Budweiser ads with the Clydesdale horses bowing to the Statue of Liberty, patriotism and warfare and corporate branding were very much considered interchangeable, all part of a spectacle suffused with smarmy jingoistic bullshit."
Bush's Sickening Super Bowl Propaganda, by Geov Parrish
That's what I'm talking about...
Freak tries to break into cockpit, pilot clocks him with an axe.
At least a dozen individuals, not to mention the Todd M. Beamer Foundation, are seeking a trademark for "Let's roll" and variations such as "America Let's Roll" and "Are you ready? Let's roll!"
`Let's Roll' Trademark Battle Is On
From the Digital Journalist... Requiem. By The Photographers Who Died In Vietnam and Indochina.
Most experts agree that the Caspian Basin and Central Asia are the keys to energy in the 21st century. Said energy expert James Dorian (Oil & Gas Journal, 9/10/01), "Those who control the oil routes out of Central Asia will impact all future direction and quantities of flow and the distribution of revenues from new production."
America wants the region under total US domination. [more] Wednesday, February 06, 2002.
Nukes In Space
"The proposed 2003 budget for NASA was announced on Monday and would direct $125 million to a new program in nuclear powered space exploration, while cutting funds for human spaceflight and axing missions to Pluto and Jupiter's moon Europa."
And now for something completely different....
Corny article about Enrons disturbing Star Wars fetish. Thanks to Fark.
Bush Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
No comment.
LIFE Covers by Larry Burrows: 1958-1968, including the wonderful Geisha Bowling (September 11, 1964) and one of LIFE's most famous covers, Vietnam War Victim (November 8, 1968). From Compassionate Photographer: A Tribute to Larry Burrows. "...Larry Burrows covered the war in Indochina for LIFE magazine for nine years under conditions of repeated and extraordinary danger. A Brit, he was driven by a personal commitment to record 'the suffering and sadness that war brings.'"
Enron, Afghanistan, Oil all mix well together via Bushwatch. We did not (my guess) go into Afghanistan for the oil. But we are staying for it.
In my [the writer's] own field of physics, we make a distinction between applied physics, which is motivated by some social need, and pure physics, the search for knowledge for its own sake. Both kinds of physics are valuable, but not everything pure is desirable. In seeking to deploy a national missile defense aimed at an implausible threat, a defense that would have dubious effectiveness against even that threat, and that on balance would harm our security more than it helps it, the Bush administration seems to be pursuing a pure rather than applied missile defense—a missile defense that is undertaken for its own sake, rather than for any application it may have in defending our country.
[more] an eloquent argument by a physicist in The New York Review of Books on how a missle defense would anger our allies and fail to do what its proponents claim it would do. Tuesday, February 05, 2002.
OOPS!
The Smithsonian has torqued off a benefactor who is now withdrawing her $38 million "donation" because she doesn't get to tell the curators what to put in an exhibit dedicated to profiling individuals who have made a great impact on American society. Her suggestions included Martha Stewart and Dorothy Hamill (!?). For once I applaud the Smithsonian. I'm sure they'll fuck up again shortly.
iSee is a web-based application charting the locations of closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance cameras in urban environments. With iSee, users can find routes that avoid these cameras - paths of least surveillance - allowing them to walk around their cities without fear of being "caught on tape" by unregulated security monitors.
The past several years has seen a dramatic increase in CCTV surveillance of public space. Video cameras peer at us from the sides of buildings, from ATM machines, from traffic lights, capturing our every move for observation by police officers and private security guards that often act with very little public or legislative oversight. While the effectiveness of these devices in reducing crime is dubious at best, recent cases of misuse by public and private authorities serve to question the appropriateness of video monitoring in public space.
Political Caricatures of the Hawaiian Kingdom, 1875-1905. "...a portion of the political caricatures and cartoons which were published during a pivotal period in Hawaii's history. Most of the prints, appearing prior to the overthrow and continuing through the annexation of Hawaii, were extracted from the American magazines, Puck and Judge."
You know many of these people by name. What they have in common is Big Bucks and more on the way through the war on terrorism: Meet the Carlyle Group
Monday, February 04, 2002.
The Sudan, one of the poorest countries in the world, and the largest country in Africa, is potentially a source for more oil than even that which is in Saudi Arabia. One hitchj" the Northern part of the country consists mostly of Muslims identifying with Arab states and oppossed in an endless civil war with the South, a section that is mostly Christian and identifying with Africa. Now America is to intercede because of all the terrorists that are claimed to be there. And the oil.Oil, The Sudan, human rights & terrorism
see too: slouthsudanfriends.org and: More Southern Sudan of interest also is the investment of American companies, congress, and SEC (now under fire for Enron): American policy, oil, and Sudan
The evolution of "human rights" and the United nations and why in part because of the U.S. it lacks teeth to enforce these rights:Human (and minority) Rights
Sunday, February 03, 2002.
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Freedom Fighter's Manual. "...In the early 80's the CIA published a sabotage manual and distributed it throughout Nicaragua. The anti-Sandanista pamphlet is full of tips on bringing down the infrastructure of the country."
LAST week, the US government announced that it was building the biggest-ever war machine. Military spending will rise to $379billion, of which $50billion will pay for its "war on terrorism". There will be special funding for new, refined weapons of mass slaughter and for "military operations" - invasions of other countries. Of all the extraordinary news since September 11, this is the most alarming. It is time to break our silence. [ more] Saturday, February 02, 2002.
...there will be factional conflicts among this elite, and a degree of free debate will be permitted; but no one outside the privileged circle will be allowed to govern or influence state policy. Dissidents will be marginalized -- usually by "the people" themselves. Deprived of historical knowledge by an impoverished educational system designed to produce complacent consumers, not thoughtful citizens, and left ignorant of current events by a media devoted solely to profit, many will internalize the force-fed values of the ruling elite, and act accordingly. There will be little need for overt methods of control.
The rulers will often act in secret; for reasons of "national security," the people will not be permitted to know what goes on in their name. Actions once unthinkable will be accepted as routine: government by executive fiat, the murder of "enemies" selected by the leader, undeclared war, torture, mass detentions without charge, the looting of the national treasury, the creation of huge new "security structures" targeted at the populace. In time, this will seem "normal," as the chill of autumn feels [ more] via Moscow Times.
There have been a lot of misplaced tears in the Affair Enron. The employees were shafted, no doubt about it. But the shareholders?
I didn't hear any of them moan when Enron stock shot up through the roof when the company, joined by a half dozen other power pirates, manipulated, monopolised and muscled the California electricity market a year ago. All together, Enron and half a dozen others skinned purchasers for more than $12bn in excess charges. That's the calculation of Calfornia's utility watchdog as presented to federal regulators in a damning petition for refunds. Enron: Not the Only Bad Apple Friday, February 01, 2002.
Enron and the American Indian: "It is about values – about positive, community-building values. It is about whether major corporations and institutions in today's society will develop and sustain covenants that safeguard their peoples.
A good question: would Indians do it differently? Better yet: Are we doing it differently?" [more ]
ANGERED BY SNUBBING, LIBYA, CHINA,
SYRIA FORM AXIS OF JUST AS EVIL Axis of Evil members, however, immediately dismissed the new axis as having, for starters, a really dumb name. "Right. They are Just as Evil... in their dreams!" declared North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. "Everybody knows we're the best evils... best at being evil... we're the best." With the criteria suddenly expanded and all the desirable clubs filling up, Sierra Leone, El Salvador, and Rwanda applied to be called the Axis of Countries That Aren't the Worst But Certainly Won't Be Asked to Host the Olympics; Canada, Mexico, and Australia formed the Axis of Nations That Are Actually Quite Nice But Secretly Have Nasty Thoughts About America, while Spain, Scotland, and New Zealand established the Axis of Countries That Be Allowed to Ask Sheep to Wear Lipstick.
Among the many defects of President Bush's order for military commissions to try suspected al-Qaeda members or supporters is that it lumps together at least four categories of persons who have distinct sets of rights under either domestic or international law. The four categories of persons subject to trial by military commissions under the President's order are: (1) prisoners of war captured in Afghanistan; (2) unlawful combatants arrested in Afghanistan or elsewhere in the world outside the United States; (3) illegal aliens in the United States or aliens who came to the United States legally —as with student or visitor visas—but with the alleged purpose of engaging in terrorism; and (4) legal aliens with permanent resident status who are accused of engaging in terrorist acts.
As written, the order violates, in different ways, the rights of all four categories; it recalls Clemenceau's famous comment about the Dreyfus case that "military justice is to justice as military music is to music." Military Tribunals On Trial A carefull reasoned piece which concludes that the U.S. under the Bush administration is not likely to do away with the military tribunals but offers some suggestions that would make them less onerous to the world. |
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More Progressive BlogsAtriosBlah3 Bush Wars CalPundit Conceptual Guerilla Daily Kos The Hamster Kicking Ass LiberalOasis MaxSpeak Nathan Newman Orcinus Neal Pollack Rebecca's Pocket Scoobie Davis Talking Points Memo This Modern World UggaBugga Uppity Negro Whiskey Bar Oliver Willis To see how many US and UK soldiers Bush has killed in Iraq with his lies, click here. Cost of the War in Iraq
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