Dark and interesting interview:

What I'm arguing in MP is that in our totally pacified world the only acts that will have any significance at all will be acts of meaningless violence. Already we have seen signs of this - random shootings, the lack of motive for Jill Dando's murder, suicide bombings that achieve nothing, as in Israel. As MP tries to show, even a political revolution may be pointless. All this, it seems to me, means that the main danger in the future will not be from terrorist acts that advance a cause, however wrong-headed, but from terrorist acts without any cause at all. Dr Gould in MP articulates all this more fluently than I can. I agree with him.

Can art be a vehicle for political change? Yes, I assume that a large part of Blair's appeal (like Kennedy's) is aesthetic, just as a large part of the Nazi appeal lay in its triumph of the will aesthetic. I suspect that many of the great cultural shifts that prepare the way for political change are largely aesthetic. A Buick radiator grille is as much a political statement as a Rolls Royce radiator grille, one enshrining a machine aesthetic driven by a populist optimism, the other enshrining a hierarchical and exclusive social order. The ocean liner art deco of the 1930s, used to sell everything from beach holidays to vacuum cleaners, may have helped the 1945 British electorate to vote out the Tories.

(via Abstract Dynamics)

I heard there were 55,000 people there . . . let's hope 55,000 people booing at him put a dent in that man's intractable arrogance. Sitting next to Giuliani at a baseball stadium wearing a New York team's baseball hat and he still gets booed by New Yorks' finest baseball fans . . . let that be a taste of what's in store for his ass at the GOP convention this fall.

The government needs to establish guidelines for canceling or rescheduling elections if terrorists strike the United States again, says the chairman of a new federal voting commission.

Such guidelines do not currently exist, said DeForest B. Soaries, head of the voting panel.

Soaries was appointed to the federal Election Assistance Commission last year by President Bush. Soaries said he wrote to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in April to raise the concerns.

"I am still awaiting their response," he said. "Thus far we have not begun any meaningful discussion." Spokesmen for Rice and Ridge did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Soaries noted that Sept. 11, 2001, fell on Election Day in New York City - and he said officials there had no rules to follow in making the decision to cancel the election and hold it later.

Events in Spain, where a terrorist attack shortly before the March election possibly influenced its outcome, show the need for a process to deal with terrorists threatening or interrupting the Nov. 2 presidential election in America, he said.

"Look at the possibilities. If the federal government were to cancel an election or suspend an election, it has tremendous political implications. If the federal government chose not to suspend an election it has political implications," said Soaries, a Republican and former secretary of state of New Jersey.


"Who makes the call, under what circumstances is the call made, what are the constitutional implications?" he said. "I think we have to err on the side of transparency to protect the voting rights of the country." [more]

. . . via BartCop.

"We can free videogames from the "dictatorship of entertainment", using them instead to describe pressing social needs, and to express our feelings or ideas just as we do in other forms of art. But if we want to express an alternative to dominant forms of gameplay we must rethink game genres, styles and languages. The ideology of a game resides in its rules, in its invisible mechanics, and not only in its narrative parts. That's why a global renewal of this medium will be anything but easy."

This is a very cool web site. I haven't played any of the games yet, though. They also have links to other activist games.

From Democracy Now:

Prvitera stood outside the recruitment center for over an hour. And then the police arrived. Within hours he was facing charges more serious than any US soldier is facing for their role in the actual prison abuse in Iraq. Previtera was charged with three crimes: disturbing the peace, possession of a hoax device and making a false bomb threat. If convicted he could face years in prison.

Also check out the pictures from the follow up protest

via Notes From Somewhere Bizzare

In a few key areas - electricity, the judicial system and overall security - the Iraq that America handed back to its residents Monday is worse off than before the war began last year, according to calculations in a new General Accounting Office report released Tuesday. [more]

If you ever get depressed, if you ever start to feel hopeless, just remember: The United States is just 4 percent of the world's population. I know we have all those guns and nuclear weapons and all those cell phones. But the truth is that the power of the people when it is organized overcomes whatever concentrations of money and military might there are.

We have seen this in history again and again, where governments that seemed all powerful, untouchable, that seemed to have total control of the country, suddenly you wake up one morning and the head of the government is on a plane fleeing the country, fleeing the Philippines with shoes. I admit it, every once in a while I have this fantasy. . . . I'm willing to chip in for the airfare.

There are wonderful signs of resistance all over the world, resistance to authority, resistance to governments, resistance to war. It makes me feel good when I pick up the paper and I see that seventeen Israeli pilots are refusing to fly missions any more.

You forget what power people have. Did you see that picture of that woman from Nigeria who was going to be stoned to death because of a sexual escapade? There was a worldwide protest against that, and the Nigerian government had to back down. People forget how powerful protest is, and how actually vulnerable these presumably powerful entities really are when people get together. We've seen this happen again and again in places where the all-powerful government wakes up in the morning and there are a million people in the streets, and that's it. [more]

. . . via the great BartCop, from which I also find the transcript to an exchange I heard part of earlier on liberal radio:

Moore Gives It To CBS

An exerpt:

Storm: "So this is satire and not documentary? We shouldn’t see this as..."
    
Moore: "It’s a satirical documentary."

     Storm: "Some have said propaganda, do you buy that? Op-ed?"

     Moore: "No, I consider the CBS Evening News propaganda. What I do is..."

     Storm: "We’ll move beyond on that."

     Moore: "Why? Let’s not move beyond that. Seriously."

     Storm: "No, let’s talk about your movie."

     Moore: "But why don’t we talk about the Evening News on this network and the other networks that didn’t do the job they should have done at the beginning of this war?"

     Storm: "You know what?"

     Moore: "Demanded the evidence, ask the hard questions-"

     Storm: "Okay."

     Moore: "-we may not of even gone into this war had these networks done their job. I mean, it was a great disservice to the American people because we depend on people who work here and        the other networks to go after those in power and say 'Hey, wait a minute. You want to send our kids off to war, we want to know where those weapons of mass destruction are. Let’s see     the proof. Let’s see the proof that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11.’"
    
Storm: "But-"
  
   Moore: "There was no proof and everybody just got embedded and everybody rolled over and everybody knows that now."

     Storm: "Michael, the one thing that journalists try to do is to present both sides of the story.    And it could be argued that you did not do that in this movie."

     Moore: "I certainly didn’t. I presented my side..."

     Storm: "You presented your side of the story."

     Moore: "Because my side, that’s the side of millions of Americans, (the majority) rarely gets told. This is just a humble plea on my behalf and not to you personally, Hannah. But I’m just saying to journalists in general that instead of   working so hard to tell both sides of the story, why don’t you just tell that one side, which is the administration,      why don’t you ask them the hard questions-"

     Storm: "Which I think is something that we all try to do."

     Moore: "Well, I think it was a lot of cheerleading going on at the beginning of this war-"

     Storm: "Alright."

     Moore: "A lot of cheerleading and it didn’t do the public any good to have journalists standing in front    of the camera going 'whoop-dee-do, let’s all go to war’. And, and it’s not their kids going to war.       It’s not the children of the news executives going to war-"

     Storm: "Michael, why don’t you do you next movie about networks news, okay? Because this movie..."

     Moore: "I know, I think I should do that movie."

     Storm: "...because this movie is an attack on the president and his policies."

     Moore: "Well, and it also points out how the networks failed us at the beginning of this war and didn’t do their job."

An unannounced five-minute, "furtive" ceremony, two days early, on half an hour's notice, in a "nondescript room" in the new Iraqi prime minister's office, under a blanket of security, with snipers on adjoining rooftops in the heavily fortified Green Zone, "before only a handful of Iraqi and U.S. officials and journalists." A few quick, polite lies (L. Paul Bremer III: "I have confidence that the Iraqi government is ready to meet the challenges that lie ahead"), a few seconds of polite clapping by the attendees. That was it. Sovereignty transferred. The end.

Other than L. Paul Bremer, not a significant American official was in sight, even though the President, Secretary of Defense, National Security Advisor, and Secretary of State were all in Turkey, not 90 minutes away. There were no representatives from other governments. No flags. No bands. No cheering crowds. No marching troops. No hoopla. Nothing at all. And two hours later, Bremer, the erstwhile viceroy of Baghdad, his suits and desert boots packed away, was on a C-130 out of the country.

dispatched by Tom

Political organizers: read this.

(I can't believe how many people think the economy is "good"!)

Having trouble keeping track of all the torture memos? I know I am. This guide from the NY Times might come in handy.

The National Security Archive at GWU is also collating all of the torture material that has come to light.

Intelligent people, and I assume that includes Kerry, must begin to challenge the basic premise behind the post-9/11 hysteria. Terrorists may be a growing threat, and we may be unprepared to deal with the challenges they pose, but they have no hope of destroying our society. Only we can do that.

By overstating the threat and overreacting to incidents, we not only give terrorists exactly what they seek, but we seem to create a panicked environment that clouds our judgment when it comes to intelligence, propels us into military adventures abroad and distorts our priorities at home.

Americans should demand a certain level of competence and accountability from their government to protect them, but the Bush (and Kerry) approach is not securing a peaceful future. In fact, the entire war on terrorism, based on the false assumption that it is a war for our survival, seems to be feeding hatred and aggravating the fault lines.

We need to rethink this problem, pure and simple, and Kerry needs to unburden himself from the conventional wisdom.

Otherwise, for many in the Islamic world, Kerry's adoption of the Bush administration's worldview and strategies merely reinforces the idea that the United States is indeed the problem, that there is a clash of civilizations that only might can resolve and that Islam will be an American target no matter who is president. If reducing terrorist attacks is the goal, I can't imagine more dangerous perceptions to foster.

The United States would be safer with a Democratic political platform that demonstrated fundamental disagreement about our current course.

It's tough in a campaign season to stop worrying about the polling booth and start thinking afresh about national security. So here is one final argument against Kerry's muscle-bound "me-too-ism," an argument rooted in domestic, not foreign, policy concerns: For young people energized by the Howard Dean campaign, for liberals and the silent majority, Kerry's carbon-copy campaign conveys the impression that political involvement doesn't matter. Whether you back Kerry, stay home, vote for Ralph Nader or stick with the Bush team, the result will be the same.

If revitalizing American democracy and reinforcing its most precious values are our key objectives, I can't imagine a worse message for a Democratic presidential candidate to be sending. [more]

In other words, 64% of Israeli Jews support ethnic cleansing:

A University of Haifa poll released Monday reveals that a majority of the Jewish public in Israel - 63.7 percent - believes that the government should encourage Israeli Arabs to emigrate from Israel.

The survey, conducted by the university's National Security Studies Center, also found that 48.6 percent of the Israeli Jews polled said the government was overly sympathetic to the Arab population.

Compared to similar polls conducted in 2001 and 2003, the current survey indicates an increase in the public's extremism.

The majority of Jewish respondents, 55.3 percent, said Israeli Arabs endangered national security, while 45.3 percent of those polled said they supported revoking Israeli Arabs' right to vote and hold political office. [more]

More disturbing news: Reuters reports that "Israel is considering moving settlers slated for evacuation from Gaza to expanded West Bank enclaves despite U.S. objections to the Jewish state cementing a hold on occupied land."

As many feared, this makes Sharon's "disengagement" from Gaza look like a pretext to gain a stronger foothold in the West Bank, akin to what Israel is accomplishing with the construction of its security barrier/apartheid wall.

Soldier of Fortune: "A third of George Bush's public speeches have been in a military venue, often in uniform. There is nothing this draft-dodging, Ivy League jock loves as much as playing commander-in-chief."

. . . I wonder if Peter Jennings will interview this author?

Evil is a word usually reserved for serial killers, Austin Powers villains, and kids who tear the legs off baby spiders.

But, a new poll shows a significant number of young Canadians would use "evil" to describe their U.S. neighbours.

In a telephone poll of 500 teens aged 14 to 18, more than 40 per cent of respondents saw the U.S. as an evil global force. Among French-Canadians, that number jumped to 64 per cent. [more]

Watch it, Canuckistan! We'll send another McDonald's to your neighborhood if you keep that lip up!

A Christian charity has accused the coalition authority in Iraq of failing to account for up to $20bn (nearly £11bn) of oil revenues which should have been spent on relief and reconstruction projects.

At the same time, the Liberal Democrats are demanding an investigation into the way the US-led administration in Baghdad has handled Iraq's oil revenues. The coalition is obliged to pay all oil revenues into the Development Fund for Iraq, but according to Liberal Democrat figures, the fund could be short by as much as $3.7bn.

Sir Menzies Campbell, Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman, said yesterday: "This apparent discrepancy requires full investigation". [more]

. . . is an investigation really necessary? We know who took the money. But better not look into it, lest someone tells you to "go fuck yourself."

1.3 Megs of Flash dedicated to "Bush the fascist and Blair the appeaser"

We're on the eve of destruction...

This week, after 20 months of doing nothing about North Korea's drive to build nuclear weapons, President Bush finally put a proposal—a set of incentives for disarmament—on the negotiating table. The remarkable thing is, the deal is practically identical to the accord that President Clinton signed with Pyongyang in 1994—an accord that Bush condemned and scuttled from the moment he took over the White House.

A senior US intelligence official is about to publish a bitter condemnation of America's counter-terrorism policy, arguing that the west is losing the war against al-Qaida and that an "avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked" war in Iraq has played into Osama bin Laden's hands.

It’s a stunningly scary scenario for those who work or play in the woods, yet it’s as real as the 9-foot hairy creature rumored to live in Southern Oregon’s forestlands.

Eco-terrorists have placed PVC bombs with mercury- detonators in the lock cans of metal gates that block access to forest roads to all those without keys, the story goes. Reach into the metal bell-like covering for the gate’s lock and, boom, there goes your hand.

And when a Washington state agency spokeswoman last week issued a warning about the bombs after saying a spate of such booby-trapped gates occurred around Medford, the gate bombs joined the Kentucky Fried rat as yet other bogus story the public won’t let go away.

"It’s an urban myth, as far as we can determine," said Frank Mendizabal, a spokesman for Weyerhaeuser Co., whose Western Washington lands were among several where the bombs were rumored to have been found. [more]

"Eco-terrorist" . . . soon to be followed by "Free Speech Terrorist," "Free and Fair Election Terrorist," "Human Rights Terrorist," "Anti-Genocide Terrorist," etc.

Last week, in order to help President Bush with his Rename the Food Stamps Program project, I held a contest. The results are here.

Well, if one doesn't feel paranoid enough, one will after learning that Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has built a bunker near his villa in Sardegna. The bunker is, apparently, big enough to house the entire Italian government Vips. Why build a bunker? Does Silvio know something we don't know? And isn't it a bit anti-democratic to be the head of the government and build a bunker for yourself and not for the rest of the people?
Anyway, Silvio built the bunker without asking the needed building permits. You know, the head of the country built his bunker illegally. But the left has regained political control in Sardegna and demands an explanation. Also, because it seems as if the tax payers are paying for the bunker's construction.

Berlusconi: "Il bunker in Sardegna? Me l'ha chiesto il Cesis"---Un bunker nella residenza estiva di Berlusconi----berlusconi si costruisce il bunker in Sardegna ---Berlusconi: «Lavori in villa solo per la sicurezza»--"Il bunker di Villa Certosa sede d'emergenza del governo"---

Any decent journalist would add a 'symbolic' in front of that 'sovereignty.'

The United States has spent more than $126bn on the war in Iraq, which will ultimately cost every American family an estimated $3,415, according to a new report by two thinktanks. On top of the war spending approved by US Congress to date, another $25bn is likely to be spent by the end of this year.

The report, published by the Institute for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy in Focus also counts the human costs.

As of June 16, before yesterday's nationwide attacks, up to 11,317 Iraqi civilians and 6,370 Iraqi soldiers or insurgents had been killed, according to the report, which is titled "Paying the Price: The Mounting Costs of the Iraq War."

The death toll among coalition troops was 952 by the same date, of which 853 were American. Some 694 were killed after George Bush declared the end of major combat operations on May 1 last year. Between 50 and 90 civilian contractors and missionaries and 30 journalists have also been killed, the report says.

[The number of lethal agents and munitions that posed a clear and present danger to America's interests... still holding at zero. However, the number of people who have organized and informed themselves about this criminal nonsense rises by thousands each day.]

This is Part I.

Nader: "Hey Michael, Where Were Your Friends?"

Moore: "He doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself. He's let himself be taken over by his own anger towards the Democrats…He's gone crazy."

I'm siding with Moore on this one . . . I voted for Nader in 2000 and still defend that decision: my state was won by Gore, I knew it would be won by Gore, and plus I was helping the Green Party (and all third parties) to be stronger in the future (to get that six percent, etc.). Most importantly, it was the Bush in Florida and Katherine Harris and the Supreme Court, et. al, who stole the election--not Nader's fault. This time, however, I think Nader is running just because he's a stubborn asshole.

What do Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn have to say on the issue?

Noam: “Voting for Nader in a safe state is fine. That's what I'll do. I don't see how anyone could read what I wrote and think otherwise, just from the elementary logic of it. Voting for Nader in a safe state is not a vote for Bush. The point I made had to do with (effectively) voting for Bush.”

Zinn: “I will vote for Nader because Mass. is a safe state. And voters in ‘safe states’ should not vote for Kerry.” He also notes, “I don't have faith in Kerry changing, but with Kerry there is a possibility that a powerful social movement might change him. With Bush, no chance.”

Nader also seems to have the GOP in Oregon on his side . . .

The movie is on less than half of the screens of it's competitors . . .

According to a recent feature story in The Tribune, administrators at Hillcrest High, with approval from the Jordan School District, have been prohibiting students from wearing anti-war T-shirts, out of concern that such displays might provoke violent reactions from pro-war students. [more]

"This question contained the first of [Jeremy] Paxman's Media Herd Clichés -- a banal idea mindlessly repeated by the media. There were several over the course of the 8-minute interview (with Noam Chomsky on BBC Newsnight, 19 May).

"In this case, the implicit idea is that leaders are primarily responsible for formulating and directing policy. Focusing on individuals in this way obscures the reality that destructive policies are deeply rooted in structures of power subordinating people to profit. This helps justify the media's failure to examine the consistent brutality of policy goals and means over many years and decades, and the kind of mass popular awareness and opposition that would be required to reform them.

"Focusing on individuals, particularly rogue 'bad apples,' promotes the idea that the status quo is fundamentally benign -- with Bush and Blair gone, all will be well under John Kerry and Gordon Brown (just as all was supposed to have been well under Clinton and Blair). In the real world, the institutions of power that dominate society remain unaffected by such minor alterations, providing little reason to expect significant positive change. Result: we keep focusing on, loving, hating and changing our leaders -- and the institutions pulling their strings keep bombing and exploiting Third World countries."

This is the most important concept that was (somewhat indirectly) presented in F9/11. George Bush was never capable of authoring and implementing the destructive and exploitative policies we now see at work. He is simply the doorman who greets and serves those who want to increase their profits and power.

Part One of the MediaLens commentary on Paxman's interview... and this is Part Two

The most intriguing story in Washington these days is a subterranean conflict that reporters cannot cover because some of them are involved. A potent guerrilla insurgency has formed in and around the Bush presidency--a revolt of old pros in government who strike from the shadows with devastating effect. They tell the truth. They explode big lies. They provide documentary evidence that undermines popular confidence in the Commander in Chief. They prod the media and the political community to ask penetrating questions of the Bush regime. Doubtless, these anonymous sources act from a mixture of motives--some noble, some self-interested--but in present circumstances one might think of them as "embedded patriots."

The business of leaks is an everyday thing in Washington and, arguably, the government could not function without them. It is a way to communicate official and unofficial information in a tentative fashion--nudging events in one direction or another without the need to take responsibility for what's communicated. Reporters participate enthusiastically in the traffic and call it "news." The process is sustained only because everyone can rely on the journalists' mock-heroic code of omertà: Never reveal the names of your secret sources--never--even if the revealed "information" turns out to be spurious.

But what has occurred during the past several months is not the normal commerce. A series of explosive leaks--closely held documents and well-informed tips--have altered the course of politics and might very well influence the outcome of this year's presidential election. Yet we don't know whom to thank. Who gave the Justice Department's "torture" memorandum to the Washington Post? Who provided the International Red Cross's letter of complaints on prisoner abuses to the Wall Street Journal? Who confirmed for the New York Times that Iyad Allawi, the newly appointed Prime Minister of Iraq, had supervised the CIA's terrorist bombing campaign in Baghdad a decade ago? Who informed U.S. News & World Report that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld had authorized the holding of a "ghost prisoner" in violation of international law? Who--someone close to the President?--leaked the "torture" memo written by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales? [more]

This type of thing . . . really turns me off of someone forever. How could anyone want the animal shelter system to kill faster? As it is, I couldn't walk into a pound without being overwhelmed with helplessness at all the doomed canine and feline faces. And Arnold wants to walk in, clap his hands together and announce, "OK! Here's what up little doggies and kitties! You're all being put to sleep! Sorry, maybe in the next life . . ." Then he gets out a cigar and lights it. Waiting in the car for him is Cruella DeVille . . . Bastard!

Government scientists must now be cleared by a Bush political appointee before they can lend their expertise to the World Health Organization, a change that a Democratic lawmaker said fits a pattern of politicizing science. [more]

John Stewart slaps down Dick Cheney's Iraq-Al Qaeda claims on the Daily Show.

Great column by Molly Ivins that skewers the lines being spewed by the Bush administration and the willingness of the media to lap 'em up.

I can take no credit for this... found it during my morning browse at What a Quiet Stiff.

a link re: Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi and Typical Housewives

Mr. Schwarzenegger, in an interview in the Bedouin-style smoking tent he has set up in the courtyard of the State Capitol here -- smoking is banned in state buildings -- made it clear that he expected a prominent role at the Republican National Convention in New York in late August.

[I doubled over in stifled laughter halfway through that paragraph]

'Whether I'm speaking, I'll leave that up to them,' said Mr. Schwarzenegger, a global celebrity who has emerged as perhaps the most intriguing new Republican face of the political season. 'If they're smart, they'll have me obviously in prime time.'

No one has ever accused Mr. Schwarzenegger, no matter what role he is in, of lacking self-confidence, and the governor himself knows that both his celebrity and his superhero screen image are at the core of his distinctive and so far successful political style. Asked to describe his governing philosophy seven months after toppling Gray Davis in California's recall election, he said, 'Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.'

He stopped himself. 'Wait a minute, that's Conan,' he said. 'I stepped out of character here for a second.'

The governor, his skin and hair the color of a tarnished brass bed [here, I fell out again], his pectoral muscles testing the strength of his shirt buttons, is clearly a man enjoying himself and at ease with power.

Flashing a jade ring as he talked, he ruminated on his introduction to government, in the 15-by-15-foot courtyard tent where he does much of his private business. It is decorated with rattan chairs, orchids, a humidor, a mirror, floor fan and books written by Mr. Schwarzenegger.

There was an expensive, half-burned cigar in a Baccarat crystal ashtray. The tent itself was placed precisely 20 feet from the doors leading to the governor's offices to comply with state smoking regulations.

Mr. Schwarzenegger said business lessons he learned in Hollywood applied directly to running the nation's most populous state. Success, he said, requires a combination of discipline, optimism, humor, a willingness to share credit and good cigars, and an ability to cut back-room deals.

He defended his practice of negotiating key sections of important legislation and the budget behind closed doors or in his smoke-filled tent...

[About a third of the article goes by. Then here's the nut in the last two 'graphs, a quirk of the NYT that I've pointed out in the past]

On fiscal matters, Mr. Schwarzenegger considers himself an old-school Republican determined to ferret out waste. No item is too minor to escape his attention.

For instance, since Mr. Schwarzenegger took office on Nov. 17, the toilet paper in the Capitol has been switched from two-ply to one-ply, a saving of thousands of dollars over the years. 'It's not anymore the two-ply,' he said. 'Because you know what? We're trimming. We're living within our means."

Orchids. Crystal ashtrays. Free cigars for the lobbyists. Hella bronzer. And one-ply tissue.

Yes, California will be just fine.

"It seems a little curious because the president made a pretty forceful presentation that he had nothing to hide," said AP General Counsel Dave Tomlin, when asked for his reaction to what the AP considers government stonewalling. "But we are not surprised." [more]

"Frankly, part of our problem," Wolfowitz said, "is a lot of press are afraid to travel very much. So they sit in Baghdad, and they publish rumors." [more]

. . . this from a guy who, when asked how many US soldiers had already died in Iraq, said "about 500"--which was more than 200 soldiers short. So when he talks about not knowing what you're talking about, he knows what he's talking about, right? Or does he? For the former remark, he gives his "deep regret".

. . . via BartCop.

I can't keep up with all the anti-Bush sites . . . perhaps NASA could help . . .

Remember this whenever the Bush Party Loyalists demand progressives to be "civil."

Should go without saying, eh? Who was it who said of this, "You don't remodel while your house is burning down"--?

Touting his program to rehabilitate ex-offenders in Cincinnati on Monday, President Bush put his arm on Tami Jordan's shoulder and called the convicted embezzler a "good soul" and an "inspirational person."

But the victims of Jordan's crime - a small, family-owned business in Fairfield that lost $308,170 to Jordan's deception - say she isn't rehabilitated and hasn't paid the court-ordered restitution.

"Of all the people in Cincinnati they could pick out as an example, and they picked her," said Susan Morin, the owner of Gorman Supply Inc. "She's on the front page of every paper, sitting with the most powerful man in the country, and I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to pay my bills next week. Is that fair? Where's my federal program?" [more]

From one con to another . . . this administration loves their cons. What? Chalabi convicted of a con? Well, that makes him qualified! Lookee here, mistuh, there are two types of people out there: the cons and the suckers, now which one you gonna be?

(via)

There are untold profits to be made from controlling the simplest and most vital ingredient of our survival: water.

The only question, from a profit standpoint, is why it has taken this long.

"You can't do anything without water," says Alan Snitow, co-producer and co-director of Thirst, a groundbreaking and provocative new film about the rush to privatize what the filmmakers rightly define as the very "essence of life." [more]

It looks like we have yet another miserable failure . . . perhaps this method towards censorship will work for them . . .

"Of the 842 U.S. service members who have died in Iraq since the invasion 15 months ago, 622 were killed by hostile fire, according to a Pentagon tally. The largest part of that combat death toll, 513, has come since President Bush's declaration on May 1 last year that major combat was over. These troops died at the hands of Iraqis and a sprinkling of foreign Arabs fighting the U.S. occupation and seeking to derail the Bush administration's plan to transform the country.

"Most of the 513 have died one or two at a time in roadside bombings or skirmishes too small to make headlines back in the States. But for those involved -- the soldiers who fell, the men and women who lived through the battle, the families left behind -- each casualty has been a large-scale tragedy, filled with their sweat, their rage, their courage, their blood and, ultimately, their tears."

Media Matters has more on this, along with lots of other goodies from prominent right wingers in the media.

We are faced in the 2004 election with an unusually retrograde Republican administration. It is presiding over one of the largest upward redistributions of wealth in U.S. history, one of the most serious challenges to civil liberties in half a century, and one of the most aggressive foreign policies in years, made more dangerous by Washington's status as the world's sole superpower. But beyond these distinctions, the Bush administration has been manipulating the political system to entrench its hold on power for years to come. Aside from stealing the 2000 presidential election, it has been gerrymandering Congressional districts to give it a lock on the House of Representatives. The only other time since 1933 that the Republicans have controlled both houses of Congress and the White House was in the first two years of the Eisenhower administration, but at least Eisenhower was checked by an unusually liberal Supreme Court. A Bush victory might give the Busheviks a firm hold on all three branches of government, and the power to make the conservative Supreme Court even worse, as new judges in the image of Scalia and Thomas will be appointed for life-time terms, with long-lasting implications.

Does this mean we should endorse Kerry? No. It is sometimes assumed that the question before us in this (or any) election is which candidate are we to endorse, where endorse means vote for, work for, provide funds for, and speak for. To endorse Kerry -- whatever its short-term benefits -- would come at an immense cost: We would be using our limited time to canvas for Kerry rather than on building radical movements; we would be expending our scarce financial resources on the corporate-backed Kerry rather than on cash-starved grassroots projects; and our message would be the false one of trust in Kerry rather than the radical truth that Kerry and the system are fundamentally flawed. In some extreme circumstances, endorsing a Kerry-type might be warranted. But that is not the issue before us. The question, rather, is what we should do for fifteen seconds on Election Day and what we should urge like-minded individuals to do on election day. That is, we can vote for Kerry without endorsing him. We can pull the lever for him (or punch out the hanging chad for him, or whatever) while still, in every other respect working for and speaking for radical change. [more]

Although written from an explicit socialist position, there's plenty in this essay that even non-socialists will find stimulating and useful.

Garofalo Sounds Off

. . . of course, it goes without saying that there are millions, if not tens, hundreds of millions of progressive men out there who look upon Janeane as THE perfect woman . . .

Me included, of course.

See also: Majority Report Radio, where Janeane splits open the radio waves weekdaily with her radical beauty, intelligence and wit. Ooh la la, one listen to her and instant mind-percolation. Forward male minds immediately know the future of the race when they see her; the little white guys start swimming frenetically, if only in circles. Goddess, she is. Yet down to earth, too. Plus fiery--don't forget fiery . . .

Janeane is my Eve, baby. Propagate wisely.

I was amused to learn about a new Bush administration goal: It wants to change the name of the Food Stamps Program (since it no longer uses stamps) and is soliciting suggestions from the public. I've taken a personal interest in this. Why? Because many years ago, in order to subsidize my symphony orchestra oboist habit, I worked for the Nassau County, New York Food Stamps Department.

Needless to say, I couldn't resist the challenge, and the new name I've come up with is "Leave No Stomach Behind."

But I think it's important to give Dubya a wide selection of creative names. So, as a public service, I challenge my readers to come up with some good names and post them in my comments. If I get suggestions from ten or more people, I'll even award a prize -- $10 in PayPal cash.

So please post your name suggestions in the comments section of this Rename The Food Stamps Program Contest post.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court ruled Monday that people do not have a constitutional right to refuse to tell police their names.

The 5-4 decision frees the government to arrest and punish people who won't cooperate by revealing their identity.

The decision, reached by a divided court, was a defeat for privacy rights advocates who argued that the government could use this power to force people who have done nothing wrong to submit to fingerprinting or divulge more personal information.

Police, meanwhile, had argued that identification requests are a routine part of detective work, including efforts to get information about terrorists.

The justices upheld a Nevada cattle rancher's misdemeanor conviction. He was arrested after he told a deputy that he didn't have to reveal his name or show an ID during an encounter on a rural road in 2000.

Yes, the same Loews which will be showing Fahrenheit 9/11 . . . why the sudden expansion from the economics of death to the movie business?

On May 1, 2004, Paul Rieckhoff delivered the Democratic response to the President's National Weekly Radio Address

Good morning. My name is Paul Rieckhoff. I am addressing you this morning as a US citizen and veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. I served with the US Army in Iraq for 10 months, concluding in February, 2004.

I'm giving this address because I have an agenda, and my agenda is this: I want my fellow soldiers to come home safely, and I want a better future for the people of Iraq. I also want people to know the truth.

War is never easy. But I went to Iraq because I made a commitment to my country. When I volunteered for duty, I knew I would end up in Baghdad. I knew that's where the action would be, and I was ready for it.

But when we got to Baghdad, we soon found out that the people who planned this war were not ready for us. There were not enough vehicles, not enough ammunition, not enough medical supplies, not enough water. Many days, we patrolled the streets of Baghdad in 120 degree heat with only one bottle of water per soldier. There was not enough body armor, leaving my men to dodge bullets with Vietnam-era flak vests. We had to write home and ask for batteries to be included in our care packages. Our soldiers deserved better. [more]

"In another Colorado campaign event yesterday, Mr. Kerry raised $500,000 in a fund-raiser at the home of Michael Goldberg, president of Aerolease International.

"Mr. Kerry invited writer Hunter S. Thompson to ride in his motorcade and brought three copies of Mr. Thompson's book about the 1972 presidential race, 'Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail.'

"'Just to put your minds all at ease, I have four words for you that I know will relieve you greatly,' Mr. Kerry said at the fund-raiser. 'How does this sound -- Vice President Hunter Thompson.'"

Ha ha, yes, how amusing. But really, John, what will you do as president?

"Kerry's defense plans might be a slam-dunk for the atherosclerotic set in the national security community, but here is the alternative that the senator offers to Democrats and people of liberal values in November:

• no plan to withdraw from Iraq, not even the kind of "secret plan" the late President Nixon offered on Vietnam, and no change in Afghanistan;

• continuation of Bush's preemption policy;

• a larger military with many more special operations units, plus accelerated spending on "transformation," which in today's defense jargon means creation of greater capability to intervene around the world on short notice;

• a new domestic intelligence agency and a vastly beefed-up homeland security program.

Kerry's defense advisors see much of this as innocuous rhetoric to protect the Democratic candidate's flanks from traditional conservative accusations of being soft on national security. At the same time, it represents a calculated strategy to "keep your head low and win."

In his stump speeches, Kerry stresses a spirited dose of alliances, the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and a return to what he calls an "America that listens and leads again." He roundly criticizes the Bush administration on Iraq, Afghanistan and homeland security. He promises as commander in chief that he will never ask the troops "to fight a war without a plan to win the peace."

All that is to the good. Yet when Kerry describes the contemporary world, and the challenges that the U.S. faces, he sounds just like the president, the vice president and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Terrorism, he says, "present[s] the central national security challenge of our generation." Preventing terrorists from "gaining weapons of mass murder" is his No. 1 security goal, and Kerry says he would strike first if any attack "appears imminent." The senator promises to "use military force to protect American interests anywhere in the world, whenever necessary." On May 27 in Seattle, he promised to "take the fight to the enemy on every continent" (I guess that probably doesn't include Antarctica)."

. . . is the new url for American Samizdat!

A belated big thanks to new Harbingers! Thank you: Sauceruney of Memetic Invasion, Mr. Spock of the LGF Quiz and The LGF Quiz Blog, Alec Kinnear of la vie viennoise and Susan of Easy Bake Coven!

Attn Harbingers: any one of you who doesn't have your own domain is welcome to a permanent address at amsam.org! Would you or anyone you know be interested in becoming a harbinger here? Let me know! (drmenlo@well.com) We'd love to have ya! Let's keep building this progressive coalition and ramp up our collective efforts to help unseat Bush this fall!

Please update your links and bookmarks! And thanks for reading!

. . . another great anti-Bush art site. I plan to compile a new category of links to anti-Bush art sites to put up on all my blogs--any recommendations? What are your favorites?

. . . this kid, here. He don't take orders alla time--he got attitude.

Aisle 5.


The kid looks, stops: "Conformity Camp! Fuck!" Within seconds he is marching . . .

"To improve the ability of intelligence personnel of the Department of Defense to recruit sources, it is necessary for Defense intelligence personnel, without having to divulge their affiliation with the Department or the U.S. Government, to approach potential sources and collect personal information from them to determine their suitability and willingness to become intelligence sources."


"The Pentagon has long had the authority to conduct intelligence within the United States to protect its military personnel or bases against an attack, according to experts. But, during the Vietnam War, a scandal broke out when it was revealed that military agents had spied on civilians as well as soldiers for their political beliefs instead of their threat to the Defense Department's security.

"Following the 1970 revelations of Christopher Pyle, then a graduate student at Columbia University, that the Pentagon spied against antiwar groups in the 1960s, Congress held hearings that resulted in recommendations that the Defense Department be barred from conducting domestic intelligence. But no new laws were created specifically prohibiting the practice.

"'The Pentagon gave [Congress] strong assurances they would not return to domestic spying on civilian political activity,' Pyle, now a professor at Mount Holyoke College, said by telephone Tuesday.

"In 1974, the Privacy Act (PL 93-579) was signed into law, requiring representatives from most government agencies -- including the Defense Department -- to identify themselves when they collect information on U.S. citizens and legal resident aliens, and to identify the purpose of their information collection.

"But language inserted in the Senate version of the intelligence authorization bill would exempt the Defense Department from those provisions, opening the door to an expanded authority to surreptitiously collect information on U.S. residents."

"It is [in regard to] the stopping of the machine that we seem to falter. For some reason, we have not understood clearly what the blueprint was when we recall and think about what happened in the Civil Rights Movement and the Labor Movement and the Women's Movement in [their] early manifestations. The one thing that all those movements had in common was that they stopped the machine.

"And until we stop the machine, and the way in which they hungrily pursue profit; until we tell them you will not turn another moment of profit until you deal with our spiritual bankruptcy as a nation; until you find a new code of honor in which to deal with the world, we will not tolerate any longer your banks, your institutions. We'll no longer tolerate your military interventions and your military impositions. And we are ready to put our bodies and our lives on the line to do that."

Harry Belafonte, who spoke at the 2004 Human Rights Awards Ceremony in San Francisco on June 10.

Despite all the high secrecy surrounding the briefing, a half-dozen different [9/11] family members were so horrified by voice evidence of the airlines' disregard for the fate of their pilots, crew and passengers that they found ways to reveal some of what they heard on those tapes, and also what they felt. To them, the tapes appeared to show that the first instinct of American and United Airlines, as management learned of the gathering horror aboard their passenger planes on Sept. 11, was to cover up.

The response of American's management on duty, as revealed on the tape produced at the meeting, was recalled by persons in attendance:

"Don't spread this around. Keep it close."

"Keep it quiet."

"Let's keep this among ourselves. What else can we find out from our own sources about what's going on?"

"It was disgusting," said the parent of one of the victims, herself a veteran flight attendant for United Airlines. "The very first response was cover-up, when they should have been broadcasting this information all over the place."


There's also a little more about Sibel Edmonds, who's now teamed up with Daniel Ellsberg:

"The whistleblower pair were protesting yet another delay by Judge Reggie Walton of the District Court of Columbia in determining whether Edmonds' closed session testimony to Congressional inquiries can be declared state secrets by U.S. Attorney General, John Ashcroft.

"In a statement, Edmonds called Ashcroft's legal moves anti-freedom of speech and anti-due process.

"Ellsberg's common cause with Edmonds is founded on his own battle to make public a top secret study of US decision-making in Vietnam, known as the Pentagon Papers."

I know, I know: this sounds very much like a call for class war. But the class war was declared a generation ago, in a powerful paperback polemic by William Simon, who was soon to be Secretary of the Treasury. He called on the financial and business class, in effect, to take back the power and privileges they had lost in the depression and new deal. They got the message, and soon they began a stealthy class war against the rest of society and the principles of our democracy. They set out to trash the social contract, to cut their workforces and wages, to scour the globe in search of cheap labor, and to shred the social safety net that was supposed to protect people from hardships beyond their control. Business Week put it bluntly at the time: "Some people will obviously have to do with less....it will be a bitter pill for many Americans to swallow the idea of doing with less so that big business can have more."

The middle class and working poor are told that what's happening to them is the consequence of Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand." This is a lie. What's happening to them is the direct consequence of corporate activism, intellectual propaganda, the rise of a religious orthodoxy that in its hunger for government subsidies has made an idol of power, and a string of political decisions favoring the powerful and the privileged who bought the political system right out from under us. [more]

didn't know about the alternate view
until I saw it with
the thirdredeye

"For 1984, his classic novel of totalitarianism, George Orwell created 'Room 101,' an interrogation room where a prisoner's deepest fears were to be realized and applied. Tier 1 in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, as the now-infamous photos indicate, was the Bush administration's Room 101 for the 'Arab mind,' and so the crown jewel of its global interrogation facilities; just as Guantanamo was the 'crown jewel' of the prison camps in its global Bermuda Triangle of injustice; just as the new appointed 'interim government' hidden within the ever-more fortified Green Zone in Baghdad and led by a prime minister and former CIA asset whose exile organization, we learned this week, once set off car bombs in downtown Baghdad, is now the crown jewel of "freedom and democracy" in the Middle East. This is our 'war against terrorism.' Talk about an Orwellian world."

from TomDispatch

As Pen-Elayne points out, religion's been in the news lately. Not only do you have your basic Baptist secession, but you have Bush seeking political favors from the Vatican. The latter inspired this poem:

Dubya's Plea
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Our Bishops need to do much more
To safeguard all that's good,
Said Dubya to the Pope when Dub
Was in the neighborhood.

The rest of Dubya's Plea is here and here.

Matthews:  According to the papers this week, there's three guys in the running right now.  They're all men.  They're all white guys, because it seems to be the list we go from anyway. 

Franken:  OK, white men.  So you're talking Edwards, Gephardt and Vilsack?  

Matthews:  No, Edwards, Gephardt and Clark still.

Franken:  Oh, Clark.

Matthews:  Clark is back in.  Vilsack seems to be out.

Franken:  Oh, I don't follow these as closely as you do.

Matthews:  Which of those three do you think is the most likely to be picked by the next convention? 

Franken:  I'd say Edwards is.  They have to make a sort of threshold choice, Edwards or not.  So I think that's a 50-50 on Edwards. 

Matthews:  That's very shrewd.  That's exactly where I think it is.  No, I really do think that's what he thinks, too.

Franken:  Thank you.  (LAUGHTER)

Matthews:  Fifty-fifty on Edwards.  Which way would you—if you were putting together the ticket, where would you go?

Franken:  I would go with Edwards.   I'll tell you why:  The job of the running mate is to make the case for the guy at the top of the ticket.  Well, who would you like to make the case for you other than one of the great trial lawyers in our country? 

Matthews:  So he's the up-up man.  He's the guy who's going to say, “I give you John Kerry. “ I think he complements more than supports.  I think he would be the regular guy, humble upbringing, son of a factory worker, a father who lost his job, a good thing to take that case to Ohio, places like that.

Franken:  Yes, absolutely. The two Americas. [more]

"I'm not bothered [by the danger] - nothing bothers me," said Mr Menefee, grinning. "The chances of something happening are the same here. I could step out of the door and get hit by a bus."

Wait... didn't I just read this "Well, I could die right here at home, so why not go where people are inclined to shoot me" rationaliztion?

"The only thing I'm really scared of is if I can't do it, can't get through basic [training]," Ms. Jordan said. "I guess I didn't want to be a small-town girl who figures she's not going to amount to much. I may not have my name in the stars, but I'll be part of something.

"You could get shot," she added, "going to the gas station."

Yes, in that restive ghetto that is Lyndon, Kansas...

Here's my Dump Bush Song Parody, to be sung to "Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush," It's perfect for Bush's next appearance in an elementary school classroom, don't you think?

Dump Bush Song
By Madeleine Begun Kane

We must defeat George W. Bush,
George W. Bush, George W. Bush.
We must defeat George W. Bush.
Vote Kerry this November.

Cheney and Bush are our nation's foes,
Our nation's foes, our nation's foes.
Cheney and Bush are our nation's foes.
Vote Kerry this November. ...

The rest of my Dump Bush Song Parody is here and also here.

Israel stealing land? The sun coming up in the morning?

How about a little, "Mr. Sharon, tear down this wall!"--?

Tim Elliott, a Chicago attorney who recently challenged the revision in a Texas federal courtroom on behalf of a bankrupt food distributor, said defining French fries as fresh vegetables defied common sense.

"I find it pretty outrageous, really," said Elliott, who argued that the Batter-Coating Rule is so vague that chocolate-covered cherries, packed in a candy box, would qualify as fresh fruit. [more]

"It turns out to be a really brilliant piece of work, and a film that members of all political parties should see without fail."

"The trip by the current US defence secretary, to pledge US support for Saddam Hussein (in 1983), marked one of the lowest points of the entire Reagan presidency, and symbolically represents the real legacy of the 'Great Communicator.' For Reagan was the president who allowed the US to secretly arm the Iraqi dictator with weapons of mass destruction, supported Iraq's military expansion, turned a blind eye to Saddam using chemical weapons against Iran, and thereby set in train the events that would lead to George W. Bush's disastrous decision to invade the country in 2003...

"'Saddam Hussein showed obvious pleasure with... Rumsfeld's visit... Rumsfeld told Saddam US and Iraq had shared interests in preventing Iranian and Syrian expansion. He said the US was urging other states to curtail arms sales to Iran and believed it had successfully closed off US-controlled exports by third countries to Iran.

"'Our initial assessment is that meeting marked a positive milestone in development of US-Iraqi relations and will prove to be of wider benefit to US posture in the region.'"

"The only thing I'm really scared of is if I can't do it, can't get through basic," Ms. Jordan said. "I guess I didn't want to be a small-town girl who figures she's not going to amount to much. I may not have my name in the stars, but I'll be part of something."

"The State Department is scrambling to revise its annual report on global terrorism to acknowledge that it understated the number of deadly attacks in 2003, amid charges that the document is inaccurate and was politically manipulated by the Bush administration," reports the LA Times.

The report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism," was released to much fanfare in late April and used to bolster claims that the Bush administration was winning the "war on terror." So much for that. The revised version will indicate that global terrorism has increased over the past year.

The St. Petersburg Times has confirmed the existence of the long denied flight of Saudis out of Tampa International Airport on September 13, 2001.

For added context, see this recent op-ed piece by Craig Unger, author of House of Bush, House of Saud, from the NY Times.

In a content analysis of CNN's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Nigel Parry writes:

Palestinians and Israelis continue to die because citizens of the US — the country that intervenes more than any other to perpetuate the status quo on the ground — are offered a grossly distorted account of events on the ground that gives them no real sense of the imbalance of power between the two sides in the conflict, no idea of the extent of the US role in the conflict, and little impetus to call for a more even-handed US foreign policy in the Middle East.

It is hard to quantify in absolute terms, but most regular readers of the extremely detailed Palestinian Center for Human Rights' Weekly Reports on Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories would be willing to make a safe guess that somewhere in the region of 98% of the violence perpetrated against all civilians in the conflict is violence perpetrated by Israel against Palestinian civilians, their property, and their land.

Consumers of the US media can be forgiven for concluding that the majority of violence is perpetuated by Palestinians against Israeli civilians, as this violence receives grossly disproportionate coverage.

In the same way that Serbian state television was considered complicit in Serbian war crimes by communicating a distorted view to its people of the decade-ago conflict in the former Yugoslavia, it is time that people begin to consider the culpability of the US media.

In the case of CNN's coverage of Palestine, the lie is one of omission. The effect of the majority of US news coverage is to promote an unbalanced view of who is perpetrating the violence, which has the potential to affect reality in disturbing ways. [more]

While I have misgivings about prosecuting media workers for the consequences of their reportage, the question that remains is how to hold the media accountable, particularly when they are inciting violence. Besides Serbia, we've recently seen this in Rwanda. And for anyone who hasn't been asleep for two years, we've also seen it in regards to how the American media banged the Iraq war drums.

What to do about this? My own conclusion is to start mobilizing for media reform, but still that strikes me as a bit of an amorphous prescription. Any other ideas?

"Going to where the silence is. That is the responsibility of a journalist: giving a voice to those who have been forgotten, forsaken, and beaten down by the powerful. It is the best reason I know to carry out pens, camers, and microphones into our own communities and out to the wider world."

Back in April I had the opportunity to hear Amy Goodman near the start of her tour promoting her new book, The Exception to the Rulers. As I'm sure virtually every one of my readers knows, Goodman is the host of the Pacifica radio (and TV) show Democracy Now!, the single best progressive news show on the air today.

"If you are opposed to war, you are not a fringe minority. You are not a silent majority. You are part of a silenced majority. Silenced by the mainstream media."

Goodman's book, written with her brother David, covers the full gamut of issues from her perspective as reporter and news anchor. Some of the chapters cover familiar territory - the media coverage of the invasion of Iraq, attacks on civil liberties with the PATRIOT act, the consolidation of the media. Other chapters cover events more associated with Goodman in particular, some about well-known events, like her coverage of the Nigerian dictatorship and the genocide in East Timor, and some about more uniquely personal events, like Goodman's appearance on the Sally Jessy Raphael show or her lengthy on-air interview of Bill Clinton ("hostile, combative, and even disrespectful" according to Clinton). Others deal with historical issues, like the coverup of the radiation deaths in Hiroshima by the New York Times.

"You have to ask the question: If we had state media in the United States, how would it be any different?" [A particularly appropriate question during this week of Reagan hagiography, I might add]

Whether you're reading about things you know, or things you don't, this book will add something to your understanding of those events. It's well-written, easy to read, and, as the pulled quotes sprinkled through this review hopefully show, filled with memorable phrases. It is also a wonderful gift book for your friends or relatives who maybe aren't so political, or aren't political at all, or are political but are more "centrist" and lacking a real understanding of how this country and its power structure operates. Because, although the book pulls absolutely no punches, it's still written in Goodman's generally mild-mannered tone in a way that inspires absolute confidence in what she writes (not to mention well-documented for the skeptics). And as an added bonus, as Goodman explained in her recent interview on C-SPAN's Booknotes, all profits from the book are going to Pacifica and local radio stations. What a deal! Read a good book, buy some presents that will influence your friends, and support a good cause at the same time.

You can watch or read the transcript of the Booknotes interview on the Democracy Now! website (upper right hand corner), read excerpts of the book, and get details of her book tour (see her if you have the chance).

Read this book! And if Democracy Now! isn't part of your daily listening habits - what's wrong with you? ;-)

I don't see how this will look good to either side--the right-leaning middle of the roaders will not like it that McCain said no, and all the lefties will wonder why the hell he was asked in the first place. Of course, if Kerry kneeled down and asked a turnip growing by the side of the road to be his running mate, I'd be voting for Kerry as well . . .

From an email I just received:

"This is a one time only ad that will run only in the NYTimes shortly..."

You know . . . I never thought I'd say this, but . . . GO, CIA!

No RNC Poster Collective is a small collective of friends with experience in graphic design and independent media. We came together with the goal of facilitating visual resistance against this summer’s Republican National Convention. We want to make protest beautiful and connect artists with organizations working against the RNC.

Our goal is to create a visual blitz in New York City against Bush and the Convention, and to blend art with politics in the finest New York style.

You know, Reagan's policies were cruel and unusual punishment to tens of thousands, to be sure, but when comparing him to GW on a personal level, this cover says it all.

From today's NY Times:

Iyad Allawi, now the designated prime minister of Iraq, ran an exile organization intent on deposing Saddam Hussein that sent agents into Baghdad in the early 1990's to plant bombs and sabotage government facilities under the direction of the C.I.A., several former intelligence officials say.

Dr. Allawi's group, the Iraqi National Accord, used car bombs and other explosive devices smuggled into Baghdad from northern Iraq, the officials said. Evaluations of the effectiveness of the bombing campaign varied, although the former officials interviewed agreed that it never threatened Saddam Hussein's rule. [more]

Terrorism: bad for them; ok for us.

Thankfully, this is history long gone by, so we need not find it relevant to current events. I only wonder if this operation had a cool name, ya know, something like "Operation Mongoose."

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, in a heated exchange with Mr. Ashcroft, asked him if he believed torture was ever justified. When he first declined to answer, Mr. Biden accused him of being evasive, and Mr. Ashcroft replied: "You know I condemn torture. I don't think it's productive, let alone justified."

But Mr. Biden persisted, saying: "There's a reason why we sign these treaties: to protect my son in the military. That's why we have these treaties, so when Americans are captured they are not tortured. That's the reason in case anybody forgets it."

Galerie St. Etienne, New York (June 8, 2004 - September 17, 2004). "...The Galerie St. Etienne's 2004 summer exhibition is given a slightly atypical slant by the forthcoming presidential election. An important component of the show is Sue Coe's new series, Bully: Master of the Global Merry-Go-Round, an examination of the Bush administration. It will come as little surprise to followers of Coe's career to learn that she is no admirer of George Bush (the 'bully' in her title). Like the work of the Weimar-era artists George Grosz and John Heartfield (with which it is paired), Bully is an impassioned protest against the abrogation of democratic and human rights. In these meticulously wrought, finely detailed small drawings, Coe documents what she perceives as the Bush administration's manifold failings."

Ronald Reagan was a conman. Reagan was a coward. Reagan was a killer.

In 1987, I found myself stuck in a crappy little town in Nicaragua named Chaguitillo. The people were kind enough, though hungry, except for one surly young man. His wife had just died of tuberculosis.

People don't die of TB if they get some antibiotics. But Ronald Reagan, big hearted guy that he was, had put a lock-down embargo on medicine to Nicaragua because he didn't like the government that the people there had elected.

Ronnie grinned and cracked jokes while the young woman's lungs filled up and she stopped breathing. Reagan flashed that B-movie grin while they buried the mother of three. [more]

See also: Planet Reagan, by William Rivers Pitt and 66 (Unflattering) Things About Ronald Reagan by the editor of the Nation, David Corn.

Of course, Reagan had many good qualities--i.e., he loved to read (unlike Bush the Minor). But he was also responsible for tens of thousands of deaths. He created homelessness. Etc. I never applaud anybody's death, but it is important to be reminded of the actual policies and actions of a man when he dies and not just the loss of his charming smile, eh?

As a nation, a distinct republic, the United States of America is relatively young. When we are taught its history in the republic’s public schools, we are left with the impression of a natural, inexorable march from “Discovery” in 1492 to “Freedom” in the 1770s. The glowing, pulsing arrow directing this march, we are told, was “Democracy”, codified in our federal constitution and born as a plump and smiling child to be nurtured by the Bill of Rights, the perfect mechanism of checks and balances, separation of church and state, and so forth. That child, however, was still-born, brain-dead, since its parents were all wealthy, white, rich, and male. The money behind the rebellion and the early years of the republic knew this. They also knew that freedom from the tyranny of monarchy — both present and future — required that the unwashed masses get and stay on board. They were in many ways, however, more terrified of the tyranny of the masses than they were of a tyrannical monarchy.

So The Child named “Democracy” was hooked up to a life-support system of myth and rhetoric, costumed, animated, and displayed whenever the masses got too organized and uppity. The hardest tasks the wealthy have faced are those of timing and script writing. For 230 years, you have to admit, they’ve done a pretty good job. The republic is still here, still serving wealth well. The question is whether they will decide to pull the plug on the kid. That decision will be the result of two critical calculations: (1) “is the republic secure enough in our hands?” and (2) “if not, do we still need the republic?”

[full essay]

Now that we know the truth behind how U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have been treating captured fighters (and captured innocent bystanders), it's time to revisit the case of John Walker Lindh, the so-called "American Taliban fighter" who is now serving 20 years in federal prison. For had Lindh pursued his case in court, instead of settling and getting slapped with a gag order, he might have exposed the whole prisoner abuse scandal two years ago, and spared the U.S. -- and a whole lot of abused or slain POWs -- the Abu-Ghraib fiasco. [more]

The spring of 2004 may prove to be a turning point not only in the history of America but also in that of the world. Until recently, Bush critics could hope the Iraq war would be an unfortunate but minor episode ahead of a long period of benevolent US global hegemony. Now that America's reputation for benevolence and irresistible power has been severely damaged, the US will be forced to settle for a far more modest role in the world than that sought by both neoliberals and neoconservatives. Whether Mr Bush is re-elected or not, his legacy is already apparent. [more]

Now that the Gipper has passed away, prepare yourself for the onslaught of the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project. It will be fierce.

It's ever fashionable in our political culture to be "hard," to be a "realist," to assert that certain goods, like the containment of Communism, justify whatever means are applied to attain them. We hear the same arguments now, about torture, about how "quaint" it is to believe anything other than that the righteousness of the aim redeems the act, however vicious and despicable that act.

I, of course, believe something else. Not to defend or justify Communism in any way, or those murderers responsible for 09.11: not in the slightest. But we are different, or we want to be. Aren't we? Don't we?

I believe Jones Griffiths' photographs function as a kind of moral litmus test. If you can contemplate them and still assert that what was achieved was fully worth the cost, I can only conclude that a part of you has died, whatever subtle module it is that makes you human.

"A US navy battlegroup is to make a 'show of force' in the oil-rich waters of the Gulf of Guinea, off West Africa, diplomats said Friday, as Washington hones plans to escape its dependence on unstable Middle Eastern supplies by securing more (read: getting its next fix from) African crude.

"The foray by a heavily armed carrier group into the waters off Nigeria, Sao Tome, Equatorial Guinea and other African oil producers comes at a time when fuel prices are topping the US political agenda and security crises in the Gulf region are pushing demands for greater diversification in energy supplies.

"An Abuja-based US diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity that the Gulf of Guinea was 'a place where there is not normally an American presence' and described the operation as 'a show of force.'

"'Operation Summer Pulse '04 (Who thought up that name? "Make it sound like reggae and the locals will greet us with their colorful antics and dance steps") aims to demonstrate the capabilities of the US navy; before we only had two or three operations involving aircraft carriers at any one time,' the anonymous gunboat promoter said, adding that seven carrier groups are to be deployed in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Guinea.

"'The navy wants, through this exercise, to demonstrate to the world that, even with all its current responsibilities, it can still position half-a-dozen aircraft carriers with all the neccessary support ships in the four corners of the world, at the same time,' he said."

In other words: "We're desperate and we have lots of guns." See archetypally related story: The Ballad of the Angry Armored White Man.

Fortunately, this nonsense will soon come to an end, and more folks/nations will express themselves in a true spirit of community and cooperation. The United States will benefit from doing the same.

(via City Comforts)

"The Detroit Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild is calling upon U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat from Detroit, to help in getting a special counsel appointed to 'investigate President George Bush and top members of his administration for conducting an illegal and catastrophic U.S. war of aggression against Iraq.'

"In a letter mailed to Conyers on May 18, the lefty lawyers laid out their case that the prez and his top minions committed numerous war crimes.

"'First,' states the letter, 'these officials conspired to start an unlawful war of aggression, justified by lies. Then they carried out their illegal conspiracy. It included unlawful killing of thousands of Iraqi civilians, destruction of civilian infrastructure, and use of weapons of mass destruction like cluster bombs and depleted uranium against the civilian population of Iraq. Throughout this conspiracy, they have implemented policies and practices for unlawful arrests, detention, interrogation, beatings, abuse, humiliation and torture, in violation of fundamental human rights protected by law.

"'As a result of their misconduct, the dangers of international terrorism have been severely inflamed, international friends and allies turned away, and the security of our people imperiled.'"

"The final Seawolf Class submarine, the Jimmy Carter (SSN 23), honors the 39th president of the United States. Carter is the only U.S. president to qualify in submarines. He has distinguished himself by a lifetime of public service, and has long ties to the Navy and the submarine force. He is a 1946 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, served as an officer aboard submarines while in uniform, and served as commander-in-chief from 1977-1981. Carter's statesmanship, philanthropy and sense of humanity have made him one of the most influential Americans of the late 20th century.

[Uh, he also won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. How utterly bizarre does that honor make this event seem?]

"Rosalynn Carter will serve as sponsor for the ship named for her husband. In a time-honored Navy tradition, Carter will break a bottle of champagne across the bow to formally name the submarine Jimmy Carter. [?!!]

"The Jimmy Carter is the third and final submarine of the Seawolf class. As the most advanced submarine in the Seawolf class, the submarine will have built-in flexibility and an array of new warfighting features that will enable it to prevail in any scenario, against any threat from beneath Artic ice to shallow water.

"Differentiating the Jimmy Carter from all other undersea vessels is its multi-mission platform (MMP), which includes a 100-foot hull extension to enhance payload capability. The MMP will enable the Jimmy Carter to accommodate the advanced technology required to develop and test new generation of weapons, sensors and undersea vehicles for naval special warfare, tactical surveillance and mine-warfare operations."

Slap a few hundred tons of rice and vegetable protein in this underwater SUV and save a few thousand lives in North Korea, rather than continue to tread this tired, tired road of shadow manuevers against forces that don't exist. The only military that could wage a conventional war against the United States is the United States. We are our greatest adversary. Or, rather, those who claim to lead but who really seek to increase their power and control over everyone for a profit are our greatest adversaries.

"George Tenet's announcement [of resignation] came amid new storms over intelligence issues, including an alleged Pentagon leak of highly classified intelligence to Ahmad Chalabi, an Iraqi politician. At the same time, a federal grand jury is pressing its investigation of the leak of a CIA operative's name, and El Presidente acknowledged he might be questioned in the case (and seek a private attorney, I read elsewhere in the paper).

"The CIA denied that Tenet's resignation was connected with any of the those issues. 'Absolutely not,' said Mark Mansfield, CIA spokesman."

Ab-solutely not! Just as a brightening sky in the morning has absolutely nothing to do with the rising of the sun.

Cursor is an excellent site and I'm honored the Samizdat is linked by them. I'm sure more than one of our harbingers could more than ably fill this role (reprinted from their site):

Read 'Em and Reap! Cursor is seeking an experienced editor/writer with a strong background in media, politics and post-9/11 issues for "Media Patrol." The position is 2-3 days a week and could become full time. Send a brief introduction and links to writing samples -- no attachments please -- to mediapatrol@cursor.org. Finalists will be contacted by mid-June.

The Pentagons New Map: It Explains why we are going to war and why we'll keep going to war"by Thomas Barnett of the US Naval War College will make you think.
So where do we schedule the U.S. military’s next round of away games?

Perpetual war as globalization writ large.

With Kerry as President, Our Work Would Be Just as Urgent

This is from the May/June edition of Draft NOtices, the COMD bimonthly newsletter. I'll give y'all the whole column, with some key take-home messages highlighted:

If you were thinking "relief" is spelled K-E-R-R-Y, think again. John Kerry could be just as bad on the issue of militarism — more specifically, the militarization of young people — as the previous several administrations.

Besides the fact that Kerry advocates enlarging the military (imagine spending more on war making than we already are!) and supports continuing the occupation of Iraq, Kerry has a plan for national service that could be an intermediate step in the direction of mandatory civilian/military service.

Over the years, various organizations and politicians have unsuccessfully championed the idea of universal national service, where people would have to choose between military and civilian duty. Military conscription alone has been used in this country during the Civil War, WWI, and most of the WWII-Vietnam period. Attempts to have the Supreme Court declare the military draft unconstitutional never succeeded, and the last draft was ended by Congress mostly because it was helping to fuel a more general social and political rebellion during the Vietnam War. The idea of a draft for civilian service has been even less popular and has never picked up enough support to make it through Congress.

The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), which was formed in 1985 to move the Democratic Party in a more conservative direction, is one organization that has promoted the idea of universal military/civilian national service. It claims to support only voluntary national service, but in its 1988 Blueprint, the DLC proposed making all existing federal financial aid for students contingent on them doing one or two years of military or civilian service "at subsistence wages."

The danger of such plans is that they are the starting points on a path that could lead to mandatory military/civilian service. The general strategy would work like this:

1. First you campaign to get the public used to the idea that they have an obligation to "serve," with little distinction being made between serving the government and serving humanity.

2. Next, you gradually make college financial aid and other "privileges" (like health care, low-income housing, etc.) contingent on doing government-dictated work assignments.

3. Finally, after getting people acclimated to the above, you introduce a universal civilian/military draft where "service" is no longer voluntary.

John Kerry, a member of the DLC, has been promoting a national service plan in his presidential campaign that seems to be following the first two steps described above. Following are excerpts from Kerry's plan that illustrate his thinking on the subject. Note that he includes the forcing of colleges to accept ROTC in the context of a "voluntary" national service program. (Full text is available at http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/natservice)

(II) A MANDATORY HIGH SCHOOL SERVICE REQUIREMENT. As President, John Kerry will ensure that every high school student in America does community service as a requirement for graduation. . . . Knowledge of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship — including the duty to serve your community — are as important to American adults as knowing how to read and do math. Combined with a curriculum that teaches students about democracy, citizenship and civic participation, this high school service requirement will be a rite of passage for every young person in the country. . . .

(VI) RECRUIT MORE AMERICANS TO THE MILITARY. The highest form of service is military service. America's military is having trouble recruiting and is increasingly relying on the reserves for active duty. John Kerry believes we must change that. The complicated missions we face and technologies we use depend on it. In a Kerry Administration, no university that receives federal aid will be allowed to ban the ROTC from their campus, except for religious reasons. And the ROTC scholarship program will be adequately funded so that students can attend the college of their choice. John Kerry will also make modernizing our GI benefits a top priority, because no program has been more successful increasing educational opportunities for veterans while also providing an incentive for the best and brightest to make a career out of military service.

Kerry's plan also proposes paying for 2-4 years of college tuition if high school graduates choose to do 1-2 years of national service. For the most part, this would be made possible by expanding the existing civilian service agency, AmeriCorps, and presumably, getting Congress to pass a very large increase in the AmeriCorps education benefit (currently under $5,000).

On the surface, expanding AmeriCorps and enlarging the education benefit for voluntary service is not a bad idea, but it's highly unlikely that the military would stand for this if it would create competition for recruiters. When AmeriCorps was established years ago, the Pentagon complained about the size of the education benefit that was proposed and succeeded in getting it reduced substantially to an amount that could not compete with the GI Bill.

In order to expand "voluntary" national service and not run afoul of the Pentagon, I believe Kerry would be more likely to resurrect the DLC's original proposal to make all federal student aid contingent on doing either military or civilian service. This is the intermediate step toward eventual universal, mandatory civilian/military service.

Even if a combined civilian/military draft were not the result, it's clear that Kerry is aligned with those who would impose militarism on schools and who believe that people have a duty to serve the state, as opposed to the other way around. If elected president, he could very well be the person who will sign a military draft bill if recruiting does not provide enough personnel for expanded military missions and a larger force size over the next few years.

When Democrats Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were elected, many people thought the "bad guys" were no longer in office, and we saw the typical phenomenon of peace and social justice activism losing strength and intensity. This is part of an unfortunate cycle that helps render our movements ineffective over the long term and results in more of the same crises that we strive to prevent (more wars, loss of ground on affirmative action, erosion of women's reproductive rights, increasing economic class disparity, etc.).

The lesson is this: vote for anybody-but-Bush if you wish, but no one should have any illusions about Kerry or the Democratic Party. Our only hope is that enough people realize that no matter what happens this November, we must commit to increasing — not decreasing — our activism!

As part of the ABB crew, that's the main thing I refuse to lose sight of: the sigh of relief we might breathe with the eviction of Junior Caligula will be extremely brief. What a Kerry presidency buys us is a few years where we can agitate and organize actively without the prospect of being frogmarched to Gitmo hanging over our heads, and a few years to clean up the mess that Junior Caligula and his chickenhawk fratboy pals have left for the nation. That's it, and to be honest, that's about all I was expecting from whomever became the Democrat party's nominee. Kerry is one of the more hawkish of the Democrats, and the Democrat party has no shortage of hawkish individuals in Congress. That's a fact of life that it is best to bear in mind.

As I've noted before, a viable progressive movement is next to nonexistent in the US. The beginnings of the necessary intellectual, financial, and grassroots infrastructure are there, perhaps for the first time in my lifetime. It will take a great deal of time, effort, and sacrifice for a viable progressive movement or as Billmon calls it, a Popular Front, to come to fruition. It certainly won't happen by chilling out and deluding ourselves into thinking that things are just dandy now that Kerry's in the house. For those of us who have dedicated our lives and efforts to various facets of the peace movement, November 2004 is only phase one. It's all uphill from there. But at least we'll have some momentum and time on our side. Let's use it wisely.

Word.