The story began long long ago in a galaxy far way. Now, eons later, even Princess Leia and Darth Vader are friends of sorts. They are sitting at a bar and R2D2 is serving the drinks. Both are drinking Alderaan Ruge a very rare and expensive liqueur. There are however still pockets of villainy and stupidity in the far reaches of the galaxy. George, yes that George is strapped to a gurney in the corner of the room.
George: Where am I?
Darth: The Death Star
Princess Leia: Yes, THE DEATH STAR, you are strapped to a gurney on THE DEATH STAR. I'm Princess Leia and this is Ani, uh I mean Darth Vader. Mister Vader to you. We have some questions for you George.
George: I'm the Comander see, I don't have to answer questions that's one of the neat things about being the president. I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation.
A mind probe is summoned, the needles are extended to their full length and the prick is about to get pricked. I'd also like to report that Darth would probably smile and scowl from time to time if he could. It will help if you understand that he experiences the same emotions that prompt others to scowl or to smile. The same emotions that lead others to frown or to giggle. Darth would have scowled upon hearing his childhood name, and he might very well be smiling or perhaps even giggling when he says.
Darth: Oh you'll answer my questions George, that is one of the neat things about being a Sith Lord.George: Why am I here?
Leia and Darth ignore him.
Leia: The probe doesn't seem to be working, it's not registering any content.
Darth: The diagnostics indicate it's functioning normally. Puzzling.
George repeats: Why am I here?
Darth: You're here because, to use the earth's venacular, you're a bad motherfucker, and believe me I know something about bad motherfuckers.
At an unknown location Yoda is practicing his latest moves when suddenly he stops, "There is a disturbance in the force, he says. I fear for the 23rd letter in the alphabet, but that makes no sense. Yoda, somewhat perplexed, returns to his light sabre practice.
Darth: What should we do with him?
Princess Leia: Well we know he's a liar. We know he searches for non-existent weapons of mass destruction. He invades unarmed countries. He doesn't listen to his dad. He says lots of really stupid shit. He's been building weapons of mass destruction himself. He lacks respect for royalty (remember Leia is a Princess and Darth Vader a Lord) can you believe he recently trashed the Queens Garden and refused to eat her food. He also has a thing for Tony Blair, and frankly I just don't like his looks. I'm thinking maybe the trash compacter.
Darth: Leia, your dark side is certainly showing tonight. I suppose we could just give him to Jabba the Hutt as a gift. I've grown quite fond of the Alderaan Ruge and Jabba is the only known source. (for the sake of clarity let me add that's a known known as opposed to an unknown known)
George: I didn't do anything, let me go.
Princess Leia: Give it a rest Chimp.
Darth: Chimp
Princess Leia: Yes a term I picked up listening to an earth news station. I think it is a term of endearment.
George: But
Princess Leia and Darth in unison: Just shut the fuck up George
George: Everyone is starting to use that word when they talk about me John Kerry said I fucked up Iraq.
Darth: I'm not surprised you fuck up damn near everything you touch.
George continues trying to speak but soon begins gasping for breath.
Princess Leia: Stop Darth you're choking him, we don't want him dead, yet.
Darth: Oh alright, but tell him to quit his whining.
Princess Leia: So lets see it's either the compacter or a bribe for Jabba. What did the mind probe reveal?
Darth: Not a damn thing.
Princess Leia: Nothing, hmm.
George: Please I just want to go home I'm the President you know? I have an important meeting with the Republican National Committee they're going to get me reelected.
Leia: I thought I told you to shut up. The RNC is nothing but a wretched hive of scum and villainy. You have enough problems George, I wouldn't be worrying about a meeting with the RNC if I were you.
Leia: Where were we. Oh yes what to do with him.
Darth: We could...
Darth's voice trails off. His breathing is audible. He would be giggling here if he could.
Princess Leia: You mean? He's weak willed, manipulated by neocons, stupid...
Darth: Yes, the mind probe confirmed all that.
Princess Leia: You're thinking of using the power of the force, your fancy Jedi mind tricks.
Darth: Yes
Princess Leia: I don't see why it wouldn't work. I'm sure we could find something constructive for him to do and maybe help the planet earth at the same time. Let's give it a try.
Darth walks over and releases George from the Gurney.
Darth: It's your lucky day.
George: It's my lucky day.
Darth: You don't want to invade unarmed countries and have impure thoughts about Tony Blair.
George: I don't want to invade unarmed countries and have impure thoughts.
Darth: You've been a terrible president.
George: I've been a terrible president.
Darth You don't want to be president anymore.
George: I don't want to be president anymore.
Darth: You'll resign and move back to Texas.
George: I'll resign and move back to Texas.
Darth: Move along.
George takes the next shuttle to earth and promptly resigns the presidency. A grateful nation celebrates, and George moves back to the Crawford ranch. Every once in a while he looks over at Laura and says, "tell me again why I resigned the presidency."
Laura happier than she has been in many years smiles.
Laura: You don't really need to know.
George: I don't really need to know.
Laura: You have some chores to do.
George: I have some chores to do.
Laura: Move along.
Sunday, December 21, 2003
Sunday, October 05, 2003
Titties And Asses
A candidate named Arnold said please
I've gropped some it's true I'm a tease
Herr Hitler I admire
It's he lights my fire
Not the titties and asses I squeeze
I've gropped some it's true I'm a tease
Herr Hitler I admire
It's he lights my fire
Not the titties and asses I squeeze
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
The Crime Of The Century:
A Never-Ending "War Against Terrorism"
by Thom Hartmann
During this lull in the fighting between the 2002 election cycle Iraq conflict and the soon-to-come 2004 election cycle conflict, it's a good time to (anonymously) sit in a library or bookstore and browse "The Turner Diaries" and Gore Vidal's "Perpetual War For Perpetual Peace."
The former was the inspiration for Timothy McVeigh; the latter includes his self-written eulogy. Together, they show how terrorist McVeigh choose the wrong administration - and terrorist Osama bin Laden, by luck of the draw, chose the right one - to harm American democracy.
The Turner Diaries is an apocalyptic novel that opens with a convenience store robbery and ends with an Armageddon-style worldwide holocaust leaving only white Anglo-Saxon Protestants standing. The government of the United States responds to a terrorist attack (the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma) by cracking down on dissent, expanding the power of the Executive Branch, and shredding constitutional civil rights protections. White "patriots" respond by declaring war against the government that had once tried to take away their guns. Thus begins the cycle of violence that ends with the ultimate worldwide war, a vision straight out of the Book of Revelation.
But Tim McVeigh's expectation of a repressive federal reaction to his right-wing terrorism ran into a snag: Bill Clinton knew the difference between a rogue nation and a rogue criminal.
Like every President since George Washington, Bill Clinton knew that nations only declare war against nations. While armies deal with rogue states, police deal with criminals, be they domestic or international.
Like Germany's response to the Red Army Faction, Italy's response to The Red Brigades, and Greece's response to the 17 November terrorist group (among others), Clinton brought the full force of the criminal justice system against McVeigh, and even had Interpol and overseas police agencies looking for possible McVeigh affiliates. The result was that the trauma of the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing was limited, closure was achieved for its victims, the civil rights of all Americans were largely left intact, and the United States government was able to get back to it's constitutionally-defined job of ensuring life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for its citizens.
Every President from Washington to Clinton understood the logic expressed by our founders when James Madison, on April 20, 1795, wrote: "Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
"In war, too," Madison continued, "the discretionary power of the Executive [Branch of Government] is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war...and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
Although numerous recent presidents have declared "wars" on abstractions like poverty, illiteracy, drugs, and a variety of other social ills, all were well aware that these so-called "wars" were, in truth, just politically useful rhetoric. Real war can only be declared by one nation against another: it's not possible to declare a war against an abstraction.
The crime of 911 has been often cited to rationalize the loss of civil liberties and the ongoing traumatizing of the American people with daily "Terror Alerts" and a never-ending "war on terror."
But 911 wasn't an act of war, because it wasn't done against us by a nation. It was, instead, a crime, perpetrated by a criminal and his followers.
It was a horrific crime, certainly. A crime that required strong, swift, and sure response. A crime that other nations, corporations, and individuals may have abetted and must be held accountable for both domestically and in the international venues of the United Nations and the International Criminal Court. A crime deserving a thorough investigation (which has yet to begin).
But Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda are not nations. Bin Laden was a criminal, and his group was a Middle Eastern sort of mafia with terrorist ambitions, initially funded by Poppy bin Laden, who was coincidentally a business partner with Poppy Bush. And, according to most of the world's police and intelligence agencies, Osama is dead (or dying) and his organization is in tatters.
To continue using our military against a criminal organization will only compound the horrific crime of 911, because armies aren't particularly good at police work.
It's time to restore civil liberties to Americans; reign in an Executive Branch intoxicated by warfare; and hand over to American and international police agencies the very real and very big job of dealing with the remnants of al Qaeda around the world, and prevent a recurrence of 911 by investigating who was involved and how they pulled it off in the first place.
Anything less will simply perpetuate this crime of the century.
Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is the author of "Unequal Protection: The Rise Of Corporate Dominance And The Theft Of Human Rights" and hosts a nationally syndicated daily radio talk show on the i.e. America Radio Network. www.thomhartmann.com and www.ieamericaradio.com This article is copyright by Thom Hartmann, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached.
by Thom Hartmann
During this lull in the fighting between the 2002 election cycle Iraq conflict and the soon-to-come 2004 election cycle conflict, it's a good time to (anonymously) sit in a library or bookstore and browse "The Turner Diaries" and Gore Vidal's "Perpetual War For Perpetual Peace."
The former was the inspiration for Timothy McVeigh; the latter includes his self-written eulogy. Together, they show how terrorist McVeigh choose the wrong administration - and terrorist Osama bin Laden, by luck of the draw, chose the right one - to harm American democracy.
The Turner Diaries is an apocalyptic novel that opens with a convenience store robbery and ends with an Armageddon-style worldwide holocaust leaving only white Anglo-Saxon Protestants standing. The government of the United States responds to a terrorist attack (the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma) by cracking down on dissent, expanding the power of the Executive Branch, and shredding constitutional civil rights protections. White "patriots" respond by declaring war against the government that had once tried to take away their guns. Thus begins the cycle of violence that ends with the ultimate worldwide war, a vision straight out of the Book of Revelation.
But Tim McVeigh's expectation of a repressive federal reaction to his right-wing terrorism ran into a snag: Bill Clinton knew the difference between a rogue nation and a rogue criminal.
Like every President since George Washington, Bill Clinton knew that nations only declare war against nations. While armies deal with rogue states, police deal with criminals, be they domestic or international.
Like Germany's response to the Red Army Faction, Italy's response to The Red Brigades, and Greece's response to the 17 November terrorist group (among others), Clinton brought the full force of the criminal justice system against McVeigh, and even had Interpol and overseas police agencies looking for possible McVeigh affiliates. The result was that the trauma of the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing was limited, closure was achieved for its victims, the civil rights of all Americans were largely left intact, and the United States government was able to get back to it's constitutionally-defined job of ensuring life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for its citizens.
Every President from Washington to Clinton understood the logic expressed by our founders when James Madison, on April 20, 1795, wrote: "Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
"In war, too," Madison continued, "the discretionary power of the Executive [Branch of Government] is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war...and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
Although numerous recent presidents have declared "wars" on abstractions like poverty, illiteracy, drugs, and a variety of other social ills, all were well aware that these so-called "wars" were, in truth, just politically useful rhetoric. Real war can only be declared by one nation against another: it's not possible to declare a war against an abstraction.
The crime of 911 has been often cited to rationalize the loss of civil liberties and the ongoing traumatizing of the American people with daily "Terror Alerts" and a never-ending "war on terror."
But 911 wasn't an act of war, because it wasn't done against us by a nation. It was, instead, a crime, perpetrated by a criminal and his followers.
It was a horrific crime, certainly. A crime that required strong, swift, and sure response. A crime that other nations, corporations, and individuals may have abetted and must be held accountable for both domestically and in the international venues of the United Nations and the International Criminal Court. A crime deserving a thorough investigation (which has yet to begin).
But Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda are not nations. Bin Laden was a criminal, and his group was a Middle Eastern sort of mafia with terrorist ambitions, initially funded by Poppy bin Laden, who was coincidentally a business partner with Poppy Bush. And, according to most of the world's police and intelligence agencies, Osama is dead (or dying) and his organization is in tatters.
To continue using our military against a criminal organization will only compound the horrific crime of 911, because armies aren't particularly good at police work.
It's time to restore civil liberties to Americans; reign in an Executive Branch intoxicated by warfare; and hand over to American and international police agencies the very real and very big job of dealing with the remnants of al Qaeda around the world, and prevent a recurrence of 911 by investigating who was involved and how they pulled it off in the first place.
Anything less will simply perpetuate this crime of the century.
Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is the author of "Unequal Protection: The Rise Of Corporate Dominance And The Theft Of Human Rights" and hosts a nationally syndicated daily radio talk show on the i.e. America Radio Network. www.thomhartmann.com and www.ieamericaradio.com This article is copyright by Thom Hartmann, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached.
Saturday, April 26, 2003
Emporer Bush
Is Bush taking lessons from Julius Caesar? Apparently so. When Caesar's short but bloody conquest of the Celtic tribes led to the founding of the Roman province of Gaul (modern France) in 52 B.C. he divided the country into three parts. Well-connected sources tell us that Bush plans to divide Iraq into three parts as well: Premium, regular and unleaded.
Editor's cut by Katrina vanden Heuvel at the The Nation
Editor's cut by Katrina vanden Heuvel at the The Nation
Monday, April 21, 2003
Here, Look At This
Is it possible for me to go to a bookstore and leave without a book? I'm starting to think it's not. I enjoy perusing the shelves taking down one book and then another. Reading the flap, holding it, turning a page or two, perhaps taking the book to a comfortable chair and reading a chapter. It is a special moment when a book captures my interest. Sharing the experience with others is like the bloom on a flower a definite plus. Tim, Chris and I descend on the 21st South Barnes and Noble and no sooner through the door than each of us begins gravitating towards his own favorite section, coming together occasionally to discuss our finds and share a moment. This sometimes leads to taking a book off the shelf and handing it to another. Look at this, I think you'll find it interesting. Chris hands me William Gibson's latest Pattern Recognition
"I've heard this is very good," I say.
"Read the flap," he says, I do.
"Damn, I will have to buy this, but not today."
"I think I'll buy it when it comes out in paperback, or perhaps I'll just pick up a copy at the library. It will be a while before I can read it though," he says.
His stack of books to read is nearly as high as mine. Later I return the favor, handing him a book with the exhortation to check it out. Sometimes like today it degenerates into a silly game of picking a book at random and handing it to whoever is nearest. Followed by the take a look at this you'll find it interesting comment, a smile, and walking away. I always find something to buy. I don't always buy something, but I always find something I want to buy. I spot an interesting title The Best American Essays of the Century. I'm fond of the essay form. Hmmm Twain, Hemingway, William James, Vladimir Nabokov, Annie Dillard. Shelley has spoken fondly of Dillard essays, oh and look a favorite of mine John Updike an essay from 1993. Interesting title "The Disposable Rocket" I take a seat and start to read
It's just a feeling. The space in front of me empty moments ago is now occupied. I look up, Tim extends his arm handing me a book. I take it unable to resist. You'll find it interesting he says, smiles and walks away. I set it aside, the moment broken, but a decision made. I will not be leaving the store without this collection of essays. As we walk to the front of the store to complete my purchase I'm tempted to pick up a book at random and hand it to the first stranger I encounter with an admonition; look at this I think you'll find it interesting. The urge passes. I make it through the checkout and home. I finish the Updike piece I'd started. I like it. Is it possible for me to go to a bookstore and leave without a book?
"I've heard this is very good," I say.
"Read the flap," he says, I do.
"Damn, I will have to buy this, but not today."
"I think I'll buy it when it comes out in paperback, or perhaps I'll just pick up a copy at the library. It will be a while before I can read it though," he says.
His stack of books to read is nearly as high as mine. Later I return the favor, handing him a book with the exhortation to check it out. Sometimes like today it degenerates into a silly game of picking a book at random and handing it to whoever is nearest. Followed by the take a look at this you'll find it interesting comment, a smile, and walking away. I always find something to buy. I don't always buy something, but I always find something I want to buy. I spot an interesting title The Best American Essays of the Century. I'm fond of the essay form. Hmmm Twain, Hemingway, William James, Vladimir Nabokov, Annie Dillard. Shelley has spoken fondly of Dillard essays, oh and look a favorite of mine John Updike an essay from 1993. Interesting title "The Disposable Rocket" I take a seat and start to read
Inhabiting a male body is much like having a bank account; as long as it's healthy, you don't think much about it. Compared to the female body, it is a low-maintenance proposition: a shower now and then, trim the fingernails every ten days, a haircut once a month. Oh yes, shaving — scraping or buzzing away at your face every morning. Byron, in Don Juan, thought the repeated nuisance of shaving balanced out the periodic agony, for females, of childbirth. Women are, his lines tell us,Condemn'd to child-bed as men for their sins
Have shaving too entail'd upon their chins, —
A daily plague, which in the aggregate
May average on the whole with parturition.
From the standpoint of reproduction, the male body is a delivery system, as the female is a mazy device for retention. Once the delivery is made, men feel a faint but distinct falling-off of interest. Yet against the superhuman frenzy to deliver his goods: he vaults walls, skips sleep, risks wallet, health, and his political future all to ram home his seed into the gut of the chosen woman. The sense of the chase lives in him as the key to live. His body is, like a delivery rocket that falls way in space, a disposable means. Men put their bodies at risk to experience the release from gravity.
When...
It's just a feeling. The space in front of me empty moments ago is now occupied. I look up, Tim extends his arm handing me a book. I take it unable to resist. You'll find it interesting he says, smiles and walks away. I set it aside, the moment broken, but a decision made. I will not be leaving the store without this collection of essays. As we walk to the front of the store to complete my purchase I'm tempted to pick up a book at random and hand it to the first stranger I encounter with an admonition; look at this I think you'll find it interesting. The urge passes. I make it through the checkout and home. I finish the Updike piece I'd started. I like it. Is it possible for me to go to a bookstore and leave without a book?
anarchism
Liberty without socialism is greed, socialism without liberty is tyrrany.
-Chris
_________________________________________________________________
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I love pot
Cannabis, the third most popular recreational drug after alcohol and tobacco, could win a new role as the aspirin of the 21st century, with growing evidence that its compounds may protect the brain against the damaging effects of ageing.
Saturday, April 12, 2003
Got Ya
Telephone conversation between George Bush and Al Jazeera after the recent unpleasantness in Baghdad.
AJ: George
G: Yes, who is this? How did you get this number?
AJ: Never mind about that. This is Al Jazeera
G: Al who. Is that you Gore?
AJ: No George, this is Al Jazeera the television network
G: You guys still around I uh I mean what do you want?
AJ: George, we just want you to know that we are willing to let bygones be bygones.
G: Yeah, well okay.
AJ: George we have new GPS coordinates.
G: GPS what?
AJ: GPS coordinates of our new location so there will be no more mistakes.
G: You've got my attention.
AJ: Are you ready to write down the coordinates.
G: Ready
AJ: Okay here they are Latitude: 38.898556 degrees Longitude: -77.037852
G: Hey thanks I got ya.
AJ: George
G: Yes, who is this? How did you get this number?
AJ: Never mind about that. This is Al Jazeera
G: Al who. Is that you Gore?
AJ: No George, this is Al Jazeera the television network
G: You guys still around I uh I mean what do you want?
AJ: George, we just want you to know that we are willing to let bygones be bygones.
G: Yeah, well okay.
AJ: George we have new GPS coordinates.
G: GPS what?
AJ: GPS coordinates of our new location so there will be no more mistakes.
G: You've got my attention.
AJ: Are you ready to write down the coordinates.
G: Ready
AJ: Okay here they are Latitude: 38.898556 degrees Longitude: -77.037852
G: Hey thanks I got ya.
Wednesday, April 09, 2003
Anti-War Songs
All the songs listed below are available for download by following the link. Those with "Download" are the direct links others require additional steps to download.
Last updated: 04/30/03
Joyce Anderson Filled With Love* Download
Beanie The Singing Dog Beanie For Peace Download
Beastie Boys- In A World Gone Mad *Download
James Blundell Back It Up*
Everton Blender Bush and Saddam (reggae)Download
jonatha brooke War* Download
Billy Bragg - The Price of Oil *Download
Chumbawamba - Jacobs Ladder (not in our name) *Download
Paula Cole My Hero, Mr. President * Download
Crucial Crew We Want Peace No More War (original ragga riddim_demo)* Download
Zach de la Rocha and DJ Shadow March of Death *Download
dreas bells of war '03
Pat Flashman No More War DUB Download
Michael Franti Bomb The World & Bomb The World Armegeddon Version * Download
Ani di Franco - Self Evident * Download
Fredwreck Down With U.S. Download Dirty — Download Clean — Download Instrumental
Alan Fletcher Perfectly Comfortable * Download
Sergent Garcia Stop Da War Download Spanish/French Bio Sergent Garcia
Green Day Life During Wartime * Download
CodePINK For Peace by Pat Humphries and Sandy Opatow * Download
Donots & Anti-Flag * Lyrics by Justin SaneDownload
Andrei Hauk Descendent Download
Jynkz We Don't Want Your War * ( video and mp3) Download
John KasperWe're the Enemy *
Lenny Kravitz / Kadim Al Sahir We Want Peace*
LATO under AVOCADO CLUB VETO LIVE from BAGDAD & BAGDAD NOT IN MY NAME!* Download 44kHz
Live What Are We Fighting For* (not an official site)
Little Big Men Mr Bush, You Are Not The President Of This WorldDownload Alternate Download
John Mellencamp - To Washington * Download
OutKast B.O.B* Download
REM The Final Straw *
Stephan Smith, The Bell * Download
Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam Peace Train *
TVSMITH Not In Our Name* Download
John Trudell Bombs Over Baghdad* Download
Saul Williams Freestyle Live in No Man's Land (Not in My Name) Download
Additional Sources for Anti-War Songs
Not In Our Name Music site
Protest Records
Centre for Political Song
Anti-War Songs (comprehensive not just the current war)
Anti-War Songs From Germany
* Lyrics to most of the songs are in this text file.
Here are some popular tunes are with new anti-war lyrics.
Everybody Must Get Bombed Bob Dylan Rainy Day Woman apparently revised and now called
World's Ruler It's Paradise to the tune of Cheeseburger in Paradise by Jimmy Buffett
Dubya Can't Wait to the tune of Friday I'm In Love by The Cure
Last updated: 04/30/03
Joyce Anderson Filled With Love* Download
Beanie The Singing Dog Beanie For Peace Download
Beastie Boys- In A World Gone Mad *Download
James Blundell Back It Up*
Everton Blender Bush and Saddam (reggae)Download
jonatha brooke War* Download
Billy Bragg - The Price of Oil *Download
Chumbawamba - Jacobs Ladder (not in our name) *Download
Paula Cole My Hero, Mr. President * Download
Crucial Crew We Want Peace No More War (original ragga riddim_demo)* Download
Zach de la Rocha and DJ Shadow March of Death *Download
dreas bells of war '03
Pat Flashman No More War DUB Download
Michael Franti Bomb The World & Bomb The World Armegeddon Version * Download
Ani di Franco - Self Evident * Download
Fredwreck Down With U.S. Download Dirty — Download Clean — Download Instrumental
Alan Fletcher Perfectly Comfortable * Download
Sergent Garcia Stop Da War Download Spanish/French Bio Sergent Garcia
Green Day Life During Wartime * Download
CodePINK For Peace by Pat Humphries and Sandy Opatow * Download
Donots & Anti-Flag * Lyrics by Justin SaneDownload
Andrei Hauk Descendent Download
Jynkz We Don't Want Your War * ( video and mp3) Download
John KasperWe're the Enemy *
Lenny Kravitz / Kadim Al Sahir We Want Peace*
LATO under AVOCADO CLUB VETO LIVE from BAGDAD & BAGDAD NOT IN MY NAME!* Download 44kHz
Live What Are We Fighting For* (not an official site)
Little Big Men Mr Bush, You Are Not The President Of This WorldDownload Alternate Download
John Mellencamp - To Washington * Download
OutKast B.O.B* Download
REM The Final Straw *
Stephan Smith, The Bell * Download
Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam Peace Train *
TVSMITH Not In Our Name* Download
John Trudell Bombs Over Baghdad* Download
Saul Williams Freestyle Live in No Man's Land (Not in My Name) Download
Additional Sources for Anti-War Songs
Not In Our Name Music site
Protest Records
Centre for Political Song
Anti-War Songs (comprehensive not just the current war)
Anti-War Songs From Germany
* Lyrics to most of the songs are in this text file.
Here are some popular tunes are with new anti-war lyrics.
Everybody Must Get Bombed Bob Dylan Rainy Day Woman apparently revised and now called
World's Ruler It's Paradise to the tune of Cheeseburger in Paradise by Jimmy Buffett
Dubya Can't Wait to the tune of Friday I'm In Love by The Cure
Friday, April 04, 2003
Everything's Just Ducky
This missive to Mr. Tom Ridge, the fellow with five crayons in his tool kit, has been been making its way through cyberspace. If anyone knows the orignial source I'd like to give credit where credits due.
To: Dept. of Homeland Security
Dear Sirs:
I am writing to you for further instructions to what the next step is for me to take in protecting my family from possible attacks by terrorists.
I have my duck taped....now what?
To: Dept. of Homeland Security
Dear Sirs:
I am writing to you for further instructions to what the next step is for me to take in protecting my family from possible attacks by terrorists.
I have my duck taped....now what?
Thursday, April 03, 2003
Tuesday, April 01, 2003
A Fixer-Upper
Fools Post Dispatch, Washington D.C.— Lynne and Dick Cheney held an unusual joint press conference today to announce they are selling their Villa in the South of France. Fuck the French said Dick under his breath. Lynne smiled. Asked where they would now spend their winters they said they had their eyes on a Palace somewhere in Iraq. It's a fixer-upper said Lynne, but it really has potential. Dick said it is "so damn" nice, he then smiled. They left arm-in-arm.
There are other important stores on Dick and Lynne today. Links here
There are other important stores on Dick and Lynne today. Links here
Sunday, March 30, 2003
There Is No End To This
"There's no end to this. What we are dealing with is guerilla warfare. Are we prepared to obliterate the whole country. You can call it 'Search and Destroy' or 'Seize and Destroy'— Either way it's 'Destroy and Destroy'. There is no good way to end it. — John Irving "A Prayer for Owen Meany" p.408
Saturday, March 29, 2003
Whose side is the media on?
http://www3.sympatico.ca/sr.gowans/side.html
By Stephen Gowans
Asking whose side the media are on is like asking whether moustaches are in vogue in Saddam Hussein's inner circle. The answer is obvious, unless your blind. But the question is rarely ever asked that way. Instead, it's often asked this way: Are (or following the everyday convention of treating "media" as singular, Is) the media biased?
Media critic Norman Solomon calls the media an echo chamber -- it echoes what those deemed important have to say: presidents, secretaries of state, prime ministers, CEOs. These are the people conventional wisdom tells us run the affairs of state and run the economy and so are supposed to have views which it is the job of the media to make known. The rest of us aren't supposed to have views, except on such matters as who should be voted off the island, and if we do have views on weightier matters, they're apparently of little moment. The editor of a major British newspaper was asked why his paper had presented Tony Blair's views on war with Iraq repeatedly but not those of prominent antiwar critics, like Noam Chomksy and Scott Ritter. He said the reason was that Blair is in charge and Chomsky and Ritter aren't.
That's one reason why the media is an echo chamber for leaders. Another is that presidents and prime ministers and CEOs have press offices and PR consultants whose job it is to get their views into the press and to keep others out. Ordinary people don't have that. Dissidents don't have that. So the media reports what the president of the US says, what the vice-president says, what the Pentagon says, what Tony Blair says, and every once in a while newspapers run an op-ed by an anti-war critic, or hire a token columnist who can be relied on to present dissenting views, but day after day Bush and Tony Blair and Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell know they can get their side of the story across, and people like Chomksy and Scott Ritter and anyone else who question those views isn't going to get the same coverage, if indeed they get any coverage at all.
That's a problem, for people the media gravitates towards have an interest in putting forth views that are often untruthful, but the media hardly ever questions them, and when they do, they do so in circumlocutious ways. In an October 22 Washington Post article, staff writer Dana Milbank pointed to a "presidential tradition of embroidering key assertions," adding "for Bush, facts are malleable," and noting that the administration's statements on Iraq have been "dubious, if not wrong." What's more, Milbank pointed out that Bush is guilty of "distortions and exaggerations," chalking it up to "presidential embroidery [being] a hoary tradition." For the plainspoken--who you won't find writing for the Washington Post--this reduces to a simple sentence: Bush, like all presidents, lies freely, and he's been lying about his reasons for starting a war with Iraq.
Bush's lies rely on repetition--and the media's acting as his echo chamber--to persuade. That's one of the fundamental tenets of propaganda. The Nazis practised it. If I repeat a lie long enough, people will believe it. Hitler even said the bigger the lie, the better. People expect you to tell little lies, but they never expect you to be so audacious as to tell a big lie, because that's something they don't do themselves, so they're more likely to believe a big lie than a little one. That was Hitler's view. John R. MacArthur of Harpers, quoting then Vice-President George H.W. Bush's press secretary, Peter Teeley, put it this way: "PR practitioners say it's easy for politicians to have their way. 'You can say anything you want...and 80 million people hear it.' If it happens to be untrue, 'so what. Maybe 200 people read [the correction] out of 2,000 or 20,000.'"
Right now, most people who have been following coverage of the war will tell you that Iraq fired Scud missiles into Kuwait, proving that Saddam had been hiding banned weapons all along. That's what the media reported. They'll also tell you that a chemical weapons factory was discovered, another instance of Saddam's duplicity. That too the media reported. Now, it turns out, that neither assertion is true. How many know? It's the original claim that sticks.
After wars are fought, we often find out later that the justifications were fabricated. By then it's too late. Clinton and Blair told us 100,000 Albanian Kosovars had been murdered by Serb forces, and that Yugoslavia needed to be bombed to stop a genocide. Because the media acts as an echo chamber, reinforcing the views of those in charge, that's what everyone believed. Many still do. The media didn't say, "Hold on, maybe this isn't true. Maybe we should check, or at least think about what's being said. It's not as if we haven't been lied to before about reasons for going to war." Instead, what they said is, "Jamie Shea is holding another press conference in which he's going to reveal some more shocking stories about the depravity of the Serbs. Let's go."
After 78-days of bombing, we found out that all the bodies that were supposed to be there, weren't there. There wasn't a genocide. Moreover, almost all of the deaths that Milosevic was indicted for happened after the bombing. NATO leaders told a lie, and not a small lie, but one of those big lies that Hitler said ordinary people would be more likely to believe. A whole lot of people were killed unnecessarily. But NATO got what it wanted. It got a Quisling government in Belgrade. Investors got to snap up what were once collectively or social-owned assets at fire sale prices. Now, prices are skyrocketing and unemployment is soaring. You don't hear about that. The press doesn't report on how economic "reforms" are making life miserable for ordinary Serbs, and how people are worse off. They don't send anybody to Belgrade to find out why Zoran Djindjic was hated and had little support. Instead, glowing tributes are written about him because he was "pro-Western." One of the provisions of the Rambouillet Accords was that Kosovo would have to adopt free market economics, which is really what "pro-Western" means -- surrendering markets, labor, and resources to Western investors. What has free market economics to do with quelling ethnic conflict? Nor have reporters been sent to Kosovo to find out why the United States has built Camp Bondsteel, a huge military base. (US troops are like cockroaches -- once you've got them, there's no getting rid them.) And they don't report on how Serbs, Jews and Roma have been driven out of Kosovo by ethnic Albanians. That would raise too many questions. Does NATO only care about ethnic cleansing when it provides a pretext to seize control of another country to convert its economy to free-market principles? If not, why is it that now that Serbia has been annexed to the Western economy, NATO doesn't care about ethnic cleansing, and the press doesn't report it?
Matthew Rothschild, the editor of the Progressive magazine, says that the White House acts as the media's foreign assignment editor. It's not in the White House's interest for the media to pay attention to Serbia now. So the White House ignores Kosovo, and because it ignores Kosovo, the media does too. If Bush says, Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction, the media reports on that. If he says, North Korea is developing nuclear weapons to threaten the United States, the media reports on that. Soon Bush will tell us that Iran--which nobody in the media thinks much about now--is a threat, and the media will report on that, too. The press doesn't decide what to report on. It lets whoever is in the White House tell them.
Another reason the press emphasizes a certain point of view is because its owners have a certain point of view. Media owners are naturally going to promote their own perspective, not necessarily through direct interference in the day to day editorial decisions of their operations (though that sometimes happens), but through the selection of editors who share the same values, or know their jobs depend on expressing those values. Media owners have the point of view of wealthy people who own and control the economy, which is what they are: wealthy people who own and control part of the economy. NBC, for example, is owned by General Electric, a major Pentagon supplier, with an interest in war. They share that view with people like Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld. Accordingly, they're not on the side of organized labor. They're not on the side of communists in Cuba or leftists in Venezuela or land reform in Zimbabwe. They're not for the redistribution of income or for robustly funded public schools or for free education through university or for socialized medicine. And they're not for foreign regimes that close their doors to US investment. Neither are their newspapers, magazines and networks. Instead, they're on the side of investors and bondholders and CEOs (which is what media owners are) and they're for tax cuts and free trade and open markets abroad, and they're for more defense spending and less social spending. These are the things that benefit the class interests of media owners. A veteran journalist in Canada recently complained that newspapers don't reflect the views of average people. But the people who own newspapers and run them aren't so concerned about reflecting the views of average people, as they are with reflecting their own views.
Still, much as we rail against media bias, expecting the media to be unbiased is unreasonable. No one can be unbiased. Everyone has a point of view or a set of interests or constraints that make them see the world in certain ways, or seek to present the world in certain ways. Even so, there's an expectation that if the media isn't unbiased, it should strive to be.
Some people expect an unbiased press can be created through vigilance. FAIR and Media Lens, two excellent left-wing media analysis groups, work to bring media bias to the attention of editors. They assume media bias is remediable, and that if enough people point out the biases, media coverage will change. That's a Quixotic view.
Others insist on "balance" as the road to the absence of bias. Pro-Israelis like to attack any news story that casts the Israeli army in an unfavorable light as "unbalanced" and therefore "biased" and--in extreme versions of the criticism--as the work of an anti-Semite, if it doesn't at the same time cast Palestinians in dark and menacing tones. Pro-Israelis say I'm biased because my writing on Palestinians and Israel is unbalanced. I don't produce a criticism of Palestinians for every criticism I produce of Israel. By this standard, criticizing the Nazi invasion of Poland would be biased if some equal criticism were not also directed at the Poles. Many critics of war in Iraq have also adopted a kind of balanced approach to their criticism of George Bush's war-making: it must be accompanied by an equally fervent (and often more fervent) denunciation of Saddam Hussein. Cleaving to this standard would have meant that anyone who criticized Mussolini for invading Ethiopia would also have had to condemn the Ethiopian dictator Haille Selassie. What had Selassie being a dictator to do with the reasons Mussolini invaded Ethiopia? What has Saddam Hussein being a dictator to do with the real reasons the US has invaded Iraq?
For pro-Israelis, balance is a way of apologizing for Israeli actions. The reasoning goes like this: What Israel did is undesirable, but Palestinians do undesirable things too, so Israel's actions are justifiable. This is in the same vein as: "I don't know why North Americans criticize Israel for its behavior in historic Palestine. Europeans settled North America by driving the Indians into reservations. Why should Israel be criticized for doing much the same to Palestinians?" A balanced approach would note that while Israel is engaged in ethnic cleansing in Palestine, European settlers were the original ethnic cleansers. This is silly.
The idea of balance rests on the painfully obvious observation that every story has many sides. The absence of bias, according to this view, means taking a neutral position that acknowledges all, or at least two, of the sides. If 300 legal scholars said that the American attack on Iraq is illegal and two, produced by the White House, said it wasn't, a balanced story would acknowledge both views, without making too much of the fact that 300 are one side and only two on the other. This is hardly unbiased, for it puts the two on an equal footing, when clearly they're not.
It seems more useful to ask not whether this newspaper or that is balanced, but to ask whose side it is on. The answer is almost always that it isn't on your side, unless you're a CEO or make your living from investments or plan wars for the Pentagon. Some newspapers and some networks are more open about whose side they're on. Some make no bones about being robustly conservative; others fly the flag unashamedly. This infuriates those who cling to the view that objectivity is an ideal that should be strived for. But I don't think we should be bothered about newspapers taking a certain point of view. They're only making plain what otherwise would be obscured. Media that make no secret of their point of view can be dealt with. You know what side they're on, and while you might not like it, you know what you're dealing with. More troubling are newspapers, magazines and networks that make a pretence of being balanced and objective.
One of the best of these is Canada's The Globe and Mail. Where the country's more openly reactionary and Pro-Israeli chauvin Asper chain will run headlines about the invasion of Iraq that read "Worse day of the war" (making clear whose side it's on), or "Our cause is just and we will prevail" (doing the same), The Globe and Mail is rarely so openly jingoistic. But the bulk of the newspaper's coverage will come from an American perspective, based on Pentagon briefings and State Department briefings and White House briefings, and the views of Canada's CEO's will be reliably reported (Canada should support Washington unquestioningly, they say -- profits depend on it.) And while it has one or two left wing columnist--a sop to demands to produce the illusion of balance--its stable of columnist is otherwise thoroughly right-wing, pro-war and pro-US. It's only in comparison to its robustly right wing competitors that it appears unbiased.
Railing against the media for being pro-war, pro-business and pro-intervention--while cathartic--is like railing against a leopard for having spots. That's the nature of media owned and controlled by those who have an interest in war and pro-business policies and growing inequality. Railing against the outcome of media owner's pursuing their class interests won't change their class interests -- or the pursuit of them. Of course, the media should be challenged for alleging to be neutral, but demanding that it be neutral is demanding too much. Neutrality and impartiality are unattainable.
A better course is to seek out media that are on our side, which is to say, on the side of people who work for a living, and would benefit from free education and free healthcare and will bear the burden of paying for war, through their taxes and through their own bodies or those of their sons and daughters, while Dick Cheney and the class he represents makes off with the booty. Media on our side aren't impartial, neutral or unbiased either, but so what? What matters is whose side they're on.
By Stephen Gowans
Asking whose side the media are on is like asking whether moustaches are in vogue in Saddam Hussein's inner circle. The answer is obvious, unless your blind. But the question is rarely ever asked that way. Instead, it's often asked this way: Are (or following the everyday convention of treating "media" as singular, Is) the media biased?
Media critic Norman Solomon calls the media an echo chamber -- it echoes what those deemed important have to say: presidents, secretaries of state, prime ministers, CEOs. These are the people conventional wisdom tells us run the affairs of state and run the economy and so are supposed to have views which it is the job of the media to make known. The rest of us aren't supposed to have views, except on such matters as who should be voted off the island, and if we do have views on weightier matters, they're apparently of little moment. The editor of a major British newspaper was asked why his paper had presented Tony Blair's views on war with Iraq repeatedly but not those of prominent antiwar critics, like Noam Chomksy and Scott Ritter. He said the reason was that Blair is in charge and Chomsky and Ritter aren't.
That's one reason why the media is an echo chamber for leaders. Another is that presidents and prime ministers and CEOs have press offices and PR consultants whose job it is to get their views into the press and to keep others out. Ordinary people don't have that. Dissidents don't have that. So the media reports what the president of the US says, what the vice-president says, what the Pentagon says, what Tony Blair says, and every once in a while newspapers run an op-ed by an anti-war critic, or hire a token columnist who can be relied on to present dissenting views, but day after day Bush and Tony Blair and Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell know they can get their side of the story across, and people like Chomksy and Scott Ritter and anyone else who question those views isn't going to get the same coverage, if indeed they get any coverage at all.
That's a problem, for people the media gravitates towards have an interest in putting forth views that are often untruthful, but the media hardly ever questions them, and when they do, they do so in circumlocutious ways. In an October 22 Washington Post article, staff writer Dana Milbank pointed to a "presidential tradition of embroidering key assertions," adding "for Bush, facts are malleable," and noting that the administration's statements on Iraq have been "dubious, if not wrong." What's more, Milbank pointed out that Bush is guilty of "distortions and exaggerations," chalking it up to "presidential embroidery [being] a hoary tradition." For the plainspoken--who you won't find writing for the Washington Post--this reduces to a simple sentence: Bush, like all presidents, lies freely, and he's been lying about his reasons for starting a war with Iraq.
Bush's lies rely on repetition--and the media's acting as his echo chamber--to persuade. That's one of the fundamental tenets of propaganda. The Nazis practised it. If I repeat a lie long enough, people will believe it. Hitler even said the bigger the lie, the better. People expect you to tell little lies, but they never expect you to be so audacious as to tell a big lie, because that's something they don't do themselves, so they're more likely to believe a big lie than a little one. That was Hitler's view. John R. MacArthur of Harpers, quoting then Vice-President George H.W. Bush's press secretary, Peter Teeley, put it this way: "PR practitioners say it's easy for politicians to have their way. 'You can say anything you want...and 80 million people hear it.' If it happens to be untrue, 'so what. Maybe 200 people read [the correction] out of 2,000 or 20,000.'"
Right now, most people who have been following coverage of the war will tell you that Iraq fired Scud missiles into Kuwait, proving that Saddam had been hiding banned weapons all along. That's what the media reported. They'll also tell you that a chemical weapons factory was discovered, another instance of Saddam's duplicity. That too the media reported. Now, it turns out, that neither assertion is true. How many know? It's the original claim that sticks.
After wars are fought, we often find out later that the justifications were fabricated. By then it's too late. Clinton and Blair told us 100,000 Albanian Kosovars had been murdered by Serb forces, and that Yugoslavia needed to be bombed to stop a genocide. Because the media acts as an echo chamber, reinforcing the views of those in charge, that's what everyone believed. Many still do. The media didn't say, "Hold on, maybe this isn't true. Maybe we should check, or at least think about what's being said. It's not as if we haven't been lied to before about reasons for going to war." Instead, what they said is, "Jamie Shea is holding another press conference in which he's going to reveal some more shocking stories about the depravity of the Serbs. Let's go."
After 78-days of bombing, we found out that all the bodies that were supposed to be there, weren't there. There wasn't a genocide. Moreover, almost all of the deaths that Milosevic was indicted for happened after the bombing. NATO leaders told a lie, and not a small lie, but one of those big lies that Hitler said ordinary people would be more likely to believe. A whole lot of people were killed unnecessarily. But NATO got what it wanted. It got a Quisling government in Belgrade. Investors got to snap up what were once collectively or social-owned assets at fire sale prices. Now, prices are skyrocketing and unemployment is soaring. You don't hear about that. The press doesn't report on how economic "reforms" are making life miserable for ordinary Serbs, and how people are worse off. They don't send anybody to Belgrade to find out why Zoran Djindjic was hated and had little support. Instead, glowing tributes are written about him because he was "pro-Western." One of the provisions of the Rambouillet Accords was that Kosovo would have to adopt free market economics, which is really what "pro-Western" means -- surrendering markets, labor, and resources to Western investors. What has free market economics to do with quelling ethnic conflict? Nor have reporters been sent to Kosovo to find out why the United States has built Camp Bondsteel, a huge military base. (US troops are like cockroaches -- once you've got them, there's no getting rid them.) And they don't report on how Serbs, Jews and Roma have been driven out of Kosovo by ethnic Albanians. That would raise too many questions. Does NATO only care about ethnic cleansing when it provides a pretext to seize control of another country to convert its economy to free-market principles? If not, why is it that now that Serbia has been annexed to the Western economy, NATO doesn't care about ethnic cleansing, and the press doesn't report it?
Matthew Rothschild, the editor of the Progressive magazine, says that the White House acts as the media's foreign assignment editor. It's not in the White House's interest for the media to pay attention to Serbia now. So the White House ignores Kosovo, and because it ignores Kosovo, the media does too. If Bush says, Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction, the media reports on that. If he says, North Korea is developing nuclear weapons to threaten the United States, the media reports on that. Soon Bush will tell us that Iran--which nobody in the media thinks much about now--is a threat, and the media will report on that, too. The press doesn't decide what to report on. It lets whoever is in the White House tell them.
Another reason the press emphasizes a certain point of view is because its owners have a certain point of view. Media owners are naturally going to promote their own perspective, not necessarily through direct interference in the day to day editorial decisions of their operations (though that sometimes happens), but through the selection of editors who share the same values, or know their jobs depend on expressing those values. Media owners have the point of view of wealthy people who own and control the economy, which is what they are: wealthy people who own and control part of the economy. NBC, for example, is owned by General Electric, a major Pentagon supplier, with an interest in war. They share that view with people like Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld. Accordingly, they're not on the side of organized labor. They're not on the side of communists in Cuba or leftists in Venezuela or land reform in Zimbabwe. They're not for the redistribution of income or for robustly funded public schools or for free education through university or for socialized medicine. And they're not for foreign regimes that close their doors to US investment. Neither are their newspapers, magazines and networks. Instead, they're on the side of investors and bondholders and CEOs (which is what media owners are) and they're for tax cuts and free trade and open markets abroad, and they're for more defense spending and less social spending. These are the things that benefit the class interests of media owners. A veteran journalist in Canada recently complained that newspapers don't reflect the views of average people. But the people who own newspapers and run them aren't so concerned about reflecting the views of average people, as they are with reflecting their own views.
Still, much as we rail against media bias, expecting the media to be unbiased is unreasonable. No one can be unbiased. Everyone has a point of view or a set of interests or constraints that make them see the world in certain ways, or seek to present the world in certain ways. Even so, there's an expectation that if the media isn't unbiased, it should strive to be.
Some people expect an unbiased press can be created through vigilance. FAIR and Media Lens, two excellent left-wing media analysis groups, work to bring media bias to the attention of editors. They assume media bias is remediable, and that if enough people point out the biases, media coverage will change. That's a Quixotic view.
Others insist on "balance" as the road to the absence of bias. Pro-Israelis like to attack any news story that casts the Israeli army in an unfavorable light as "unbalanced" and therefore "biased" and--in extreme versions of the criticism--as the work of an anti-Semite, if it doesn't at the same time cast Palestinians in dark and menacing tones. Pro-Israelis say I'm biased because my writing on Palestinians and Israel is unbalanced. I don't produce a criticism of Palestinians for every criticism I produce of Israel. By this standard, criticizing the Nazi invasion of Poland would be biased if some equal criticism were not also directed at the Poles. Many critics of war in Iraq have also adopted a kind of balanced approach to their criticism of George Bush's war-making: it must be accompanied by an equally fervent (and often more fervent) denunciation of Saddam Hussein. Cleaving to this standard would have meant that anyone who criticized Mussolini for invading Ethiopia would also have had to condemn the Ethiopian dictator Haille Selassie. What had Selassie being a dictator to do with the reasons Mussolini invaded Ethiopia? What has Saddam Hussein being a dictator to do with the real reasons the US has invaded Iraq?
For pro-Israelis, balance is a way of apologizing for Israeli actions. The reasoning goes like this: What Israel did is undesirable, but Palestinians do undesirable things too, so Israel's actions are justifiable. This is in the same vein as: "I don't know why North Americans criticize Israel for its behavior in historic Palestine. Europeans settled North America by driving the Indians into reservations. Why should Israel be criticized for doing much the same to Palestinians?" A balanced approach would note that while Israel is engaged in ethnic cleansing in Palestine, European settlers were the original ethnic cleansers. This is silly.
The idea of balance rests on the painfully obvious observation that every story has many sides. The absence of bias, according to this view, means taking a neutral position that acknowledges all, or at least two, of the sides. If 300 legal scholars said that the American attack on Iraq is illegal and two, produced by the White House, said it wasn't, a balanced story would acknowledge both views, without making too much of the fact that 300 are one side and only two on the other. This is hardly unbiased, for it puts the two on an equal footing, when clearly they're not.
It seems more useful to ask not whether this newspaper or that is balanced, but to ask whose side it is on. The answer is almost always that it isn't on your side, unless you're a CEO or make your living from investments or plan wars for the Pentagon. Some newspapers and some networks are more open about whose side they're on. Some make no bones about being robustly conservative; others fly the flag unashamedly. This infuriates those who cling to the view that objectivity is an ideal that should be strived for. But I don't think we should be bothered about newspapers taking a certain point of view. They're only making plain what otherwise would be obscured. Media that make no secret of their point of view can be dealt with. You know what side they're on, and while you might not like it, you know what you're dealing with. More troubling are newspapers, magazines and networks that make a pretence of being balanced and objective.
One of the best of these is Canada's The Globe and Mail. Where the country's more openly reactionary and Pro-Israeli chauvin Asper chain will run headlines about the invasion of Iraq that read "Worse day of the war" (making clear whose side it's on), or "Our cause is just and we will prevail" (doing the same), The Globe and Mail is rarely so openly jingoistic. But the bulk of the newspaper's coverage will come from an American perspective, based on Pentagon briefings and State Department briefings and White House briefings, and the views of Canada's CEO's will be reliably reported (Canada should support Washington unquestioningly, they say -- profits depend on it.) And while it has one or two left wing columnist--a sop to demands to produce the illusion of balance--its stable of columnist is otherwise thoroughly right-wing, pro-war and pro-US. It's only in comparison to its robustly right wing competitors that it appears unbiased.
Railing against the media for being pro-war, pro-business and pro-intervention--while cathartic--is like railing against a leopard for having spots. That's the nature of media owned and controlled by those who have an interest in war and pro-business policies and growing inequality. Railing against the outcome of media owner's pursuing their class interests won't change their class interests -- or the pursuit of them. Of course, the media should be challenged for alleging to be neutral, but demanding that it be neutral is demanding too much. Neutrality and impartiality are unattainable.
A better course is to seek out media that are on our side, which is to say, on the side of people who work for a living, and would benefit from free education and free healthcare and will bear the burden of paying for war, through their taxes and through their own bodies or those of their sons and daughters, while Dick Cheney and the class he represents makes off with the booty. Media on our side aren't impartial, neutral or unbiased either, but so what? What matters is whose side they're on.
Friday, March 28, 2003
An Easy War
Bush administration officials now say they never promised an easy war -- but the record shows otherwise Cakewalk via Salon and my two cents worth
Richard Perle said when we asked
That support for Saddam was long past
We'll shock him
Then awe him
I know that he'll quickly collapse
Christopher Hitchens promised no war.
An intervention is all then we score
Emancipation I say
Will come in just days
I'm right now it's the left I deplore
Dick Cheney said we are not lacking
We'll send Republican Guards packing
They'll just step aside
It'll be a free ride
For Saddam a well deserved whacking
Donald said we never will veer
The course of the war is quite clear
We'll send in the tanks
On that you can bank
Saddam will run when we're near
Dub said Iraq I promise you this
Saddam will be gone I insist
I'll drop some JDams
I will get my man
If you don't survive you'll be missed
Richard Perle said when we asked
That support for Saddam was long past
We'll shock him
Then awe him
I know that he'll quickly collapse
Christopher Hitchens promised no war.
An intervention is all then we score
Emancipation I say
Will come in just days
I'm right now it's the left I deplore
Dick Cheney said we are not lacking
We'll send Republican Guards packing
They'll just step aside
It'll be a free ride
For Saddam a well deserved whacking
Donald said we never will veer
The course of the war is quite clear
We'll send in the tanks
On that you can bank
Saddam will run when we're near
Dub said Iraq I promise you this
Saddam will be gone I insist
I'll drop some JDams
I will get my man
If you don't survive you'll be missed
Thursday, March 27, 2003
Iraqi Supporters in New York
New York (Faux News)&mdash The Pentagon is reporting pockets of Iraqi supporters on the ground in Manhattan. They won't be a big problem Major General McDonald said, it is a case of onesy's and twoseys. Observers on the ground in New York however are reporting nearly 400. There my be some casualties, many were seen lying on their backs. Some are saying they are just protestors a contention being hotly disputed by the military. This is not good. A route that should be taking minutes to negotiate is taking hours, said one official. The chief problem is that our flanks are exposed to irregulars complicating matters. One hundred and forty of the "Iraqi supporters" have been taken into custody. When asked by a reporter on the scene if they would be considered prisoners of war an official scoffed; "they were not even wearing uniforms they are clearly illegal combatants."
Wednesday, March 26, 2003
Bay of Basra?
Bay of Basra?
LiberalOasis has a baaaad feeling about Basra.
Rumsfeld briefing yesterday afternoon, a reporter posed an ominous question:
Mr. Secretary, there is reported to be a popular uprising in Basra, but the popular uprising apparently is not only targeting some of the Iraqi forces but also some of the coalition forces Can you comment?
Rumsfeld didn’t answer directly, but the questioner seems to be on to something.
LiberalOasis has a baaaad feeling about Basra.
Rumsfeld briefing yesterday afternoon, a reporter posed an ominous question:
Mr. Secretary, there is reported to be a popular uprising in Basra, but the popular uprising apparently is not only targeting some of the Iraqi forces but also some of the coalition forces Can you comment?
Rumsfeld didn’t answer directly, but the questioner seems to be on to something.
The Final Straw
REM
The Final Straw
As I raise my head to broadcast my objection
As your latest triumph draws the final straw
Who died and lifted you up to perfection?
And what silenced me is written into law.
I can't believe where circumstance has thrown me
And I turn my head away
If I look I'm not sure that I could face you.
Not again. Not today. Not today.
If hatred makes a play on me tomorrow
And forgiveness takes a back seat to revenge
There's a hurt down deep that has not been corrected
There's a voice in me that says you will not win.
And if I ignore the voice inside,
Raise a half glass to my home.
But it's there that I am most afraid,
And forgetting doesn't hold.
It doesn't hold. Now I don't believe and I never did
That two wrongs make a right.
If the world were filled with the likes of you
Then I'm putting up a fight. Putting up a fight.
Putting up a fight. Make it right. Make it right.
Now love cannot be called into question.
Forgiveness is the only hope I hold.
And love-- love will be my strongest weapon.
I do believe that I am not alone.
For this fear will not destroy me.
And the tears that have been shed
It's knowing now where I am weakest
And the voice in my head. In my head.
Then I raise my voice up higher
And I look you in the eye
And I offer love with one condition.
With conviction, tell me why.
Tell me why.
Tell me why.
Look me in the eye.
Tell me why.
more anti-war songs
The Final Straw
As I raise my head to broadcast my objection
As your latest triumph draws the final straw
Who died and lifted you up to perfection?
And what silenced me is written into law.
I can't believe where circumstance has thrown me
And I turn my head away
If I look I'm not sure that I could face you.
Not again. Not today. Not today.
If hatred makes a play on me tomorrow
And forgiveness takes a back seat to revenge
There's a hurt down deep that has not been corrected
There's a voice in me that says you will not win.
And if I ignore the voice inside,
Raise a half glass to my home.
But it's there that I am most afraid,
And forgetting doesn't hold.
It doesn't hold. Now I don't believe and I never did
That two wrongs make a right.
If the world were filled with the likes of you
Then I'm putting up a fight. Putting up a fight.
Putting up a fight. Make it right. Make it right.
Now love cannot be called into question.
Forgiveness is the only hope I hold.
And love-- love will be my strongest weapon.
I do believe that I am not alone.
For this fear will not destroy me.
And the tears that have been shed
It's knowing now where I am weakest
And the voice in my head. In my head.
Then I raise my voice up higher
And I look you in the eye
And I offer love with one condition.
With conviction, tell me why.
Tell me why.
Tell me why.
Look me in the eye.
Tell me why.
more anti-war songs
Sunday, March 23, 2003
Perpetual Check
Politically inspired fiction by Stephen Elliot
At night the world is a sandstorm. Like a light brown gauze over your face blocking the black velvet sky. We call it the edge, Anterim, Jordan, the Angor hotel. Here is where boats cross in the desert. Rusted buses bring troops and Shields to the border of Mesopotamia, heading into Iraq two days after the fighting has already started. These square dark hulls with their Argonauts, their windows cracked, their crazed cargo of idealists and warriors. A month ago the buses were clean, British double-deckers, like the kind you tour London in. We watch them now and shake our heads, our feet heavy on the earth, our clothing soaked in dull clay...
continued here
At night the world is a sandstorm. Like a light brown gauze over your face blocking the black velvet sky. We call it the edge, Anterim, Jordan, the Angor hotel. Here is where boats cross in the desert. Rusted buses bring troops and Shields to the border of Mesopotamia, heading into Iraq two days after the fighting has already started. These square dark hulls with their Argonauts, their windows cracked, their crazed cargo of idealists and warriors. A month ago the buses were clean, British double-deckers, like the kind you tour London in. We watch them now and shake our heads, our feet heavy on the earth, our clothing soaked in dull clay...
continued here
Michael Moore's Oscar Acceptance Speech
ACCEPTANCE SPEECH Whoa. On behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and
Michael Donovan from Canada, I'd like to thank the Academy for this. I
have invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us, and
we would like to ? they're here in solidarity with me because we like
nonfiction. We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We
live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects
a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending
us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fictition of duct
tape or fictition of orange alerts we are against this war, Mr. Bush.
Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And any time you got the Pope
and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up. Thank you very > much.
Nader calls Bush `dictator'
DEFEATED IN 2000, HE DENIES CANDIDACY ALLOWED GOP TO TRIUMPH
By Kaye Ross
Mercury News
Ralph Nader said his 2000 presidential candidacy -- which some say siphoned off votes that could have meant a Democratic victory -- is not to blame for President Bush or his war.
The war in Iraq developed instead, he said, from ``a messianic militaristic determination turned by a closed mind, facilitated by a cowering Congress and opposition Democrat Party and undeterred by a `probing' press.''
Bush is acting ``in effect as a selected dictator,'' Nader told the Mercury News in an interview Friday. The president has not listened to any of the many retired admirals, generals and foreign-policy experts who have warned against the war, Nader said. And the stated reasons for going to war ``have either been disproved or greatly distorted,'' he said.
The greatest danger will come, Nader said, after the war has been won. Bush, whom he called ``a hit-and-run president,'' will not stick with the difficult, protracted process of rebuilding Iraq and making it democratic, he said.
The warring factions Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has held at bay will dissolve into Shiite Muslims against Sunni Muslims against secular Baath Party loyalists, and Kurds fighting invading Turks, he said.
``For a cheap political advantage, the administration will destroy freedoms and civil rights, undermine our economy and destroy the position of the United States in the world,'' Nader said.
But it's not his fault, he said. In fact, people could just as easily blame David McReynolds, the Socialist Party candidate in 2000, for giving the key state of Florida to Bush, he noted. McReynolds polled 622 votes in the state, and Democratic Vice President Al Gore lost by 537 votes. Nader, who ran as the Green Party candidate, got 97,488 votes.
``When people ask me this, I say, `What would you have me do?' '' Nader said. ``Everybody has a right to run for office.''
The Art Of War
"So to win a hundred victories in a hundred battles is not the highest
excellence; the highest excellence is to subdue the enemy's army
without fighting at all."? Sun Tzu The Art of War
excellence; the highest excellence is to subdue the enemy's army
without fighting at all."? Sun Tzu The Art of War
From Jesus to Jack Daniels
Great satire from Salt Lake City Weekly
Divine Calling
George and his "imaginary friend" look for evil-doers.
by D. P. Sorensen
Presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer announced today that God has taken up residence in the White House. “This should lay to rest all the doubt out there about where our Lord and Savior stands on the issue of Iraq,” said the obviously elated Mr. Fleischer. “God has informed President Bush in a private meeting that He is on our side. He said that He had never taken a shine to that Saddam Hussein fellow and was glad the United States was going to quote ‘whack him’ unquote.”
When reporters tried to question Mr. Fleischer as to God’s exact whereabouts in the White House, the cagey, balding spokesman had a quick response: “Surely you must know the Creator can’t be pinned down. He is omnipresent. He’s here, there and everywhere, though He seems to have a thing about the Lincoln bedroom.”
White House insiders say First Lady Laura Bush is not happy about the Lord hanging out at the White House. She has reportedly complained to friends that the president only has eyes for the Lord, and sometimes sits for hours with a beatific expression on his face. Laura tells friends it reminds her of the days when he’d get sloshed on Jack Daniels and stare at a football game on TV. At first Laura described God as Dubya’s “invisible friend” or “imaginary playmate.” These days, according to reports, she calls him “Harvey,” after the invisible six-foot-tall rabbit in the Jimmy Stewart movie.
The First Lady on several occasions has confided to close friends that she is increasingly frustrated with her husband’s “faith-based initiatives,” which are programs run by religions rather than the federal government. After a night out with the girls in a posh Georgetown watering hole, Laura was overheard saying, “I’d like to see some faith-based initiatives in our bedroom.” Friends have encouraged Laura to get in contact with Dr. Phil, who is scheduled to do a show called “My Husband is More Interested in God Than Me.”
Highly placed sources in the White House reveal that the First Lady is not the only casualty of her husband’s infatuation with the Almighty. The president is now totally oblivious to White House staff, whom in happier times he liked to horse around with or play pranks on. Jorge Menudo, a sous chef in the White House mess, smiled as he recalled how the president used to unscrew the cap on the salt shaker, and then collapse in laughter after Vice President Cheney, whose heart condition requires a low-salt diet, would empty the entire shaker on his chicken-fried steak. On other occasions, the president would sneak into the staff dormitory and short-sheet a few beds, or fill assorted shoes with Colgate shaving cream. By all accounts, the president’s favorite prank was sneaking up on the French ambassador and giving him a wedgie.
According to Mr. Menudo, those care-free days are no more. “President Bush fired my friend Arnie, who has been the White House barber for 30 years. He called Arnie an evil-doer after he took a little too much off the sides. And after Mr. Bush almost choked to death on that pretzel, the poor waiter was whisked off to an undisclosed location by the CIA.”
These days, instead of horsing around with the White House staff, Mr. Bush takes long walks on the South Lawn with the Creator of the Universe. On rare occasions, Bush and “Harvey” (the Secret Service has adopted the First Lady’s mocking moniker as the code word for the Lord) will head out to the local mall, where the president likes to try on baseball caps and look for evil-doers on the escalator.
When the president appears on public occasions, observers have noticed that he now wears a tiny earpiece. There is speculation that God is telling Mr. Bush what to say, using a celestial wavelength almost impossible for evil-doers to intercept. Some observers think the divine prompting via the earpiece explains the president’s propensity for verbal gaffes, such as his comment in February of 2000 that “there is madmen in the world, and there are terror.”
In an exclusive interview, the First Lady told City Weekly she longs for the days when George preferred Jack Daniels to Jesus. “I wish he’d go back to booze. He used to get drunk and pick a fight. Now he’s got religion and wants to start a war.”
Divine Calling
George and his "imaginary friend" look for evil-doers.
by D. P. Sorensen
Presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer announced today that God has taken up residence in the White House. “This should lay to rest all the doubt out there about where our Lord and Savior stands on the issue of Iraq,” said the obviously elated Mr. Fleischer. “God has informed President Bush in a private meeting that He is on our side. He said that He had never taken a shine to that Saddam Hussein fellow and was glad the United States was going to quote ‘whack him’ unquote.”
When reporters tried to question Mr. Fleischer as to God’s exact whereabouts in the White House, the cagey, balding spokesman had a quick response: “Surely you must know the Creator can’t be pinned down. He is omnipresent. He’s here, there and everywhere, though He seems to have a thing about the Lincoln bedroom.”
White House insiders say First Lady Laura Bush is not happy about the Lord hanging out at the White House. She has reportedly complained to friends that the president only has eyes for the Lord, and sometimes sits for hours with a beatific expression on his face. Laura tells friends it reminds her of the days when he’d get sloshed on Jack Daniels and stare at a football game on TV. At first Laura described God as Dubya’s “invisible friend” or “imaginary playmate.” These days, according to reports, she calls him “Harvey,” after the invisible six-foot-tall rabbit in the Jimmy Stewart movie.
The First Lady on several occasions has confided to close friends that she is increasingly frustrated with her husband’s “faith-based initiatives,” which are programs run by religions rather than the federal government. After a night out with the girls in a posh Georgetown watering hole, Laura was overheard saying, “I’d like to see some faith-based initiatives in our bedroom.” Friends have encouraged Laura to get in contact with Dr. Phil, who is scheduled to do a show called “My Husband is More Interested in God Than Me.”
Highly placed sources in the White House reveal that the First Lady is not the only casualty of her husband’s infatuation with the Almighty. The president is now totally oblivious to White House staff, whom in happier times he liked to horse around with or play pranks on. Jorge Menudo, a sous chef in the White House mess, smiled as he recalled how the president used to unscrew the cap on the salt shaker, and then collapse in laughter after Vice President Cheney, whose heart condition requires a low-salt diet, would empty the entire shaker on his chicken-fried steak. On other occasions, the president would sneak into the staff dormitory and short-sheet a few beds, or fill assorted shoes with Colgate shaving cream. By all accounts, the president’s favorite prank was sneaking up on the French ambassador and giving him a wedgie.
According to Mr. Menudo, those care-free days are no more. “President Bush fired my friend Arnie, who has been the White House barber for 30 years. He called Arnie an evil-doer after he took a little too much off the sides. And after Mr. Bush almost choked to death on that pretzel, the poor waiter was whisked off to an undisclosed location by the CIA.”
These days, instead of horsing around with the White House staff, Mr. Bush takes long walks on the South Lawn with the Creator of the Universe. On rare occasions, Bush and “Harvey” (the Secret Service has adopted the First Lady’s mocking moniker as the code word for the Lord) will head out to the local mall, where the president likes to try on baseball caps and look for evil-doers on the escalator.
When the president appears on public occasions, observers have noticed that he now wears a tiny earpiece. There is speculation that God is telling Mr. Bush what to say, using a celestial wavelength almost impossible for evil-doers to intercept. Some observers think the divine prompting via the earpiece explains the president’s propensity for verbal gaffes, such as his comment in February of 2000 that “there is madmen in the world, and there are terror.”
In an exclusive interview, the First Lady told City Weekly she longs for the days when George preferred Jack Daniels to Jesus. “I wish he’d go back to booze. He used to get drunk and pick a fight. Now he’s got religion and wants to start a war.”
Saturday, March 22, 2003
True Or False ?
Saddam, The Media and Us:
Test Your Knowledge
By Michel Collon
In 1991, the mainstream media in Europe as well as in the US funneled an accumulation of media lies intended to convince public opinion to support a war against Iraq. Today, many European governments have distanced themselves from Bush's tactics. Can we assume that the European media will tell us the whole truth right now? Have they subjected all the information that has been trotted out over the last twelve years to a critical evaluation? Here is a media test.
Answer the following questions:
1. Saddam was punished starting from the moment he invaded Kuwait in 1990.
TRUE FALSE
2. Saddam is solely responsible for the murderous Iran-Iraq War (1980-1998).
TRUE FALSE
3. Saddam willfully gassed 5,000 Kurdish civilians in Halabja.
TRUE FALSE
4. Saddam possesses the most dangerous weapons in the world (Bush, January 2003).
TRUE FALSE
5. The West ought to eliminate Saddam because he is a tyrant.
TRUE FALSE
6. Saddam is incapable of being a model for any society.
TRUE FALSE
7. Saddam was an instrument used by the USA, and it's out of the question to consider him to be an anti-imperialist.
TRUE FALSE
8. But it would be good, all the same, if we got rid of Saddam.
TRUE FALSE
9. All the same, it is impossible to support Saddam!
TRUE FALSE
10. Finally, shouldn't one say "Neither Bush nor Saddam"?
TRUE FALSE
1. Saddam was punished starting from the moment he invaded Kuwait in 1990.
FALSE: The US Congress first decided to impose an embargo against Iraq in 1989 after he had made an appeal to the countries of the Middle East to unite in order to become more independent of the USA.
Why have the mainstream Western media carefully hidden the history of Kuwait? It had always been part of Iraq. But British colonialists granted it independence in 1920 "in order to weaken Iraq and to deprive it of access to the sea" (quoted from a letter written by the British governor at the time). No country in the region recognized this separation. And all the successive Iraqi regimes have sought ways to regain this lost province.
2. Saddam is solely responsible for the murderous Iran-Iraq War (1980-1998).
FALSE: It’s true that Saddam unleashed this war, unfortunately, after Iranian provocations, one of which was the attempted assassination of Tariq Aziz. It was Iran’s leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini, who refused to sign a peace treaty and made the war last eight years.
But most important here is the diabolical strategy of the United States: divide and conquer. The US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said that he hoped that this war "would last as long as possible and that the greatest possible number of people die on both sides." In fact, the USA never tolerated a Middle Eastern state that had the means to resist Israel, and it has attacked Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinians… And Iraq has faithfully supported the Palestinians.
3. Saddam willfully gassed 5,000 Kurdish civilians in Halabja.
DOUBTFUL: Let us recall the numerous media lies that were launched in 1991 when the USA and Europe attacked Iraq: incubators supposedly stolen by the Iraqi army from Kuwait City, the oil lake attributed to Saddam (but which was in reality the work of the US army) the alleged torture of Western pilots who were taken prisoner, the nonsense about the "fourth largest army in the world" presented as if it were a threat to all of us…. All of these charges collapsed (see Attention, médias! Les mediamensonges du Golfe, EPO, Bruxelles, see http://www.freeflights.net/carl1/attmedia.htm).
As far as Halabja is concerned, in the January 31, 2003 edition of The New York Times, Stephen C. Pelletiere, a CIA officer in charge of following this war, and professor of the U.S. Army War College, refuted Bush, pointing out that 1) the gassing occurred by mistake during a battle between the Iraqi and Iranian armies; and 2) it was almost certainly the work of the Iranian army, the only one that possessed this type of gas (cyanide-based) used in the battle. His conclusion: "There may be justifications for invading Iraq, but Halabja is not one of them."
Whatever one may think of it, what would people say if Cuba bombed Washington because the United States had committed serial war crimes, attempted to assassinate Castro and to invade the island, and had accumulated weapons of mass destruction in Guantanomo Bay?
4. Saddam possesses the most dangerous weapons in the world (Bush, January 2003).
FALSE: Israel clandestinely acquired and illegally possesses 200 nuclear warheads, and denies it and refuses any inspection. Israel has imprisoned Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli engineer who was courageous enough to reveal the existence of this nuclear arsenal. This is the great taboo for the Western media. Why must Iraq, a sovereign state, disarm itself when Israel threatens the entire region?
But the greatest danger comes from the USA itself, which has used nuclear weapons (Hiroshima), chemical weapons (Vietnam – Agent Orange) and bacteriological weapons (Cuba). Today, the USA refuses to commit itself to not using nuclear weapons, even against a non-nuclear country. Under the pretext of a "threat." Hitler was also claiming to be "threatened" by Poland.
It's worth noting that even in 1991, when he was attacked by the West, Saddam did not use chemical weapons.
5. The West ought to eliminate Saddam because he is a tyrant.
HYPOCRITICAL: The United States has supported and still supports the worst dictators on the planet: Mobutu, Pinochet, all the dictators in Latin America, and Turkish generals…. because they serve the United States' economic interests.
The true objective of the USA was defined in July 2002 by one of Bush's close aides, Senator Lugar: "[W]e are going to run the oil business. We are going to run it well, we are going to make money; and it's going to help pay for the rehabilitation of Iraq because there is money there."
Esso, Shell and BP rank among the TOP 15 multi-national corporations. Before 1958, they colonized and pillaged Iraq. Driven out by a revolution of national liberation, they have never stopped wanting to recapture the second largest oil reserves in the world. And they want to oust their French and Russian competitors (Total and Lukoil, respectively). Washington wants to use total blackmail to control the energy supplies of its rivals: Europe and Japan.
The United States' economy is in bankruptcy: imports exceed exports by $450 billion per year. It is holding up only because of German and Japanese loans. And by confiscating petro-dollars from the Middle East, thanks to corrupt emirs and sheiks they impose on puppet states in the Gulf.
6. Saddam is incapable of being a model for any society.
ANSWER: Saddam represents the Iraqi nationalist bourgeoisie, which drove British colonialists out of the country in 1958. Because of this, he presents two different faces.
On the one hand, he certainly does not represent a "model for society" for those who advocate a socialist society and democracy as the only means of assuring the well being of the entire population.
But, compared to the other regimes in the Middle East, his balance sheet is much more positive: instead of pouring petro-dollars back into US multi-national corporations, he used them — and all Western observers have recognized this — to develop education, health care and, in general, the economy of his country.
Iraq is also the only secular state in the Middle East. In his administration, it is not unusual to see women holding important positions, and men working for them. Compare that to the other neighboring countries…
7. Saddam was an instrument used by the USA, and it's out of the question to consider him to be an anti-imperialist.
ANSWER: We must start with facts, with economic reality. The aggravation of the crisis and the global economic war push the multi-national corporations of wealthy countries to leave the capitalist class in each third-world country nothing more than crumbs from the cake. They know how to take complete control of a strategic country, with its enterprises, and its raw materials.
In order to survive, the local bourgeoisie often has no recourse other than opposing imperialism. Its resistance has the effect of involving the largest part of the population in the struggle. However, in order to resist a planetary threat which is today represented by the United States and its allies, it is in the interest of the people that the anti-imperialist front be as large as possible.
What is the principal contradiction in Iraq today? That between the country and the threat of imperialist occupation. To bring another conflict into the foreground, the one between the Iraqi bourgeoisie and its population, plays into Bush's hands.
Imagine a man and his wife having a fight. A thief appears who wants to seize their property and set fire to their home. Which task has priority? Continuing the argument or putting out the fire?
8. But it would be good, all the same, if we got rid of Saddam.
ANSWER: Good for whom? At this moment, Saddam represents the independence of his country, that is to say the right to refuse to give oil away for free to multi-national corporations. Any "imported" leader — whether he is brought in by bombs or by blackmail — will be a puppet. To say "we must replace Saddam", amounts, in the current balance of power, to letting the ruling class of the United States and Europe do whatever it wants.
To replace rebels with puppets is the global strategy of re-colonization. Condoleezza Rice, Bush's Secretary of State, stated: "Saddam's Iraq as well as Arafat's Palestinians need new leaders … capable of leading reforms as in Serbia and in Afghanistan." Let's take a look at the results. In Afghanistan, ten ministers out of sixteen carry a US passport, and President Karzaï is a hired hand of the US multi-national oil company, Unocal. In Serbia, the price of a loaf of bread has gone from four to thirty dinars; the cost of electricity has increased fourfold, depriving people of electric power as well as heating (170,000 families in Belgrade alone). The IMF has demanded that 800,000 workers be let go from firms before privatizing everything for the exclusive benefit of multi-nationals.
Such made-in-the-USA "democratic leaders" are spearheading the re-colonization of the world. It is a merciless process for the country's workers and farmers.
9. All the same, it is impossible to support Saddam!
ANSWER: The first question for any anti-imperialist is: Must everything possible be done to prevent the United States from completely dominating the world, yes or no? The answer is of course, yes. Because, if we let the balance of power deteriorate further to their advantage, it will result in a new fascism that will threaten all the peoples of the world.
When Hitler and Mussolini were menacing the world, it was necessary to support all those who resisted them. Including, for example, the Ethiopian dictator, Haile Selassie, who opposed the Italian invasion.
Is it then necessary to support the resistance of the Iraqi people and their leaders against invasion? The answer is also yes.
After Iraq, Bush will seize Iran, Syria, or even Saudi Arabia. If Washington completely controls the Middle East (and the other great strategic regions: Central Asia, the Caucasus, Central Africa, Maghreb, the northern part of Latin America…), the balance of power will be even more disadvantageous during the next wars planned by Bush.
And when the USA occupies a region, the conditions of the struggle become much worse for all the people living there, whether it's the struggle for the right to eat, the struggle for democracy, for the environment or for the solidarity of peoples. A US military occupation is the worst of catastrophes for these various peoples, and for the balance of power in the world. If Iraqi leaders resist US imperialism, is it a good thing to do for their people? Yes.
A Communist Iraqi fled Saddam and took Algerian citizenship. He returned in April 2002 with our mission as an "Inspector of Peace," and stated clearly: "Today, my duty as a Communist is to defend my country and its raw materials from the USA. With the present regime, if necessary. As soon as the threat has been neutralized, it will be up to the Iraqi people to decide whether to transform the regime or to replace it. To let wealthy countries decide instead is merely paternalistic colonialism."
The imperialist countries advocate the suppression of the sovereignty of third-world states in order to justify their rapacious interference, and they are able to threaten all people who resist globalization. But the right to sovereignty is something acquired by the anti-colonial struggle, and it is necessary to preserve it.
This is why the global interest of peoples is to support the countries and leaders who resist seizure by the United States. This does not imply approval of all of their actions, past or present, nor the rest of their political program. But its counter-productive to place such criticism in the foreground at the moment when Bush is looking for a way to swing international public opinion in his favor.
10. Finally, shouldn't one say "Neither Bush nor Saddam"?
ANSWER: This is what the dominant tendency in the Left in Europe has been inclined to say for the last twelve years, and it has borne extremely negative consequences.
In 1991, under the slogan of "Neither Bush nor Saddam," it said "no" to war but "yes" to an embargo against Iraq. In reality, it was another form of warfare: and soon there were two million victims.
In 1995 and 1999, with the slogan of "Neither NATO nor Milosevic," it approved (and in some cases even demanded) NATO bombardments. It was a prelude to imposing an IMF government and a NATO occupation in Kosovo, which today lives under a reign of terror led by the Albanian mafia and the ethnic cleansing of the national minorities: Serbs, Roma, Jews, Muslims, Turks, etc.
In 2001, with "Neither Bush nor the Taliban," they shut their eyes to the neocolonial occupation of Afghanistan, whose goal is to construct a US pipeline and the installation of military bases in the heart of Central Asia. We have heard "Neither Sharon nor Arafat" many times.
Tomorrow, we will hear more "Neither … nor …" propositions when Washington attacks Iran, Korea, Colombia (where a war has already started), the Philippines or other countries. It will always be done with the same humanitarian pretexts; it will always be done with media lies to demonize those who put up resistance. Now is the time to return to the true fundamental position of the Left, which must of necessity be anti-colonialism: the aggressor and the victim of aggression must never be put on the same footing; the war propaganda and media lies disseminated by the ruling class must be unmasked; and most of all, the hidden economic interests behind each war must be denounced.
Subsequently, the only possible anti-imperialist position is to say "no" to the global war and to support the resistance people put up against it. The "Neither … nor …" proposition is condemned to paralysis. The "Neither … nor …" proposition prevents the growth and unification of resistance to US imperialism.
Translated by Milo Yelesiyevich
Test Your Knowledge
By Michel Collon
In 1991, the mainstream media in Europe as well as in the US funneled an accumulation of media lies intended to convince public opinion to support a war against Iraq. Today, many European governments have distanced themselves from Bush's tactics. Can we assume that the European media will tell us the whole truth right now? Have they subjected all the information that has been trotted out over the last twelve years to a critical evaluation? Here is a media test.
Answer the following questions:
1. Saddam was punished starting from the moment he invaded Kuwait in 1990.
TRUE FALSE
2. Saddam is solely responsible for the murderous Iran-Iraq War (1980-1998).
TRUE FALSE
3. Saddam willfully gassed 5,000 Kurdish civilians in Halabja.
TRUE FALSE
4. Saddam possesses the most dangerous weapons in the world (Bush, January 2003).
TRUE FALSE
5. The West ought to eliminate Saddam because he is a tyrant.
TRUE FALSE
6. Saddam is incapable of being a model for any society.
TRUE FALSE
7. Saddam was an instrument used by the USA, and it's out of the question to consider him to be an anti-imperialist.
TRUE FALSE
8. But it would be good, all the same, if we got rid of Saddam.
TRUE FALSE
9. All the same, it is impossible to support Saddam!
TRUE FALSE
10. Finally, shouldn't one say "Neither Bush nor Saddam"?
TRUE FALSE
1. Saddam was punished starting from the moment he invaded Kuwait in 1990.
FALSE: The US Congress first decided to impose an embargo against Iraq in 1989 after he had made an appeal to the countries of the Middle East to unite in order to become more independent of the USA.
Why have the mainstream Western media carefully hidden the history of Kuwait? It had always been part of Iraq. But British colonialists granted it independence in 1920 "in order to weaken Iraq and to deprive it of access to the sea" (quoted from a letter written by the British governor at the time). No country in the region recognized this separation. And all the successive Iraqi regimes have sought ways to regain this lost province.
2. Saddam is solely responsible for the murderous Iran-Iraq War (1980-1998).
FALSE: It’s true that Saddam unleashed this war, unfortunately, after Iranian provocations, one of which was the attempted assassination of Tariq Aziz. It was Iran’s leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini, who refused to sign a peace treaty and made the war last eight years.
But most important here is the diabolical strategy of the United States: divide and conquer. The US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said that he hoped that this war "would last as long as possible and that the greatest possible number of people die on both sides." In fact, the USA never tolerated a Middle Eastern state that had the means to resist Israel, and it has attacked Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinians… And Iraq has faithfully supported the Palestinians.
3. Saddam willfully gassed 5,000 Kurdish civilians in Halabja.
DOUBTFUL: Let us recall the numerous media lies that were launched in 1991 when the USA and Europe attacked Iraq: incubators supposedly stolen by the Iraqi army from Kuwait City, the oil lake attributed to Saddam (but which was in reality the work of the US army) the alleged torture of Western pilots who were taken prisoner, the nonsense about the "fourth largest army in the world" presented as if it were a threat to all of us…. All of these charges collapsed (see Attention, médias! Les mediamensonges du Golfe, EPO, Bruxelles, see http://www.freeflights.net/carl1/attmedia.htm).
As far as Halabja is concerned, in the January 31, 2003 edition of The New York Times, Stephen C. Pelletiere, a CIA officer in charge of following this war, and professor of the U.S. Army War College, refuted Bush, pointing out that 1) the gassing occurred by mistake during a battle between the Iraqi and Iranian armies; and 2) it was almost certainly the work of the Iranian army, the only one that possessed this type of gas (cyanide-based) used in the battle. His conclusion: "There may be justifications for invading Iraq, but Halabja is not one of them."
Whatever one may think of it, what would people say if Cuba bombed Washington because the United States had committed serial war crimes, attempted to assassinate Castro and to invade the island, and had accumulated weapons of mass destruction in Guantanomo Bay?
4. Saddam possesses the most dangerous weapons in the world (Bush, January 2003).
FALSE: Israel clandestinely acquired and illegally possesses 200 nuclear warheads, and denies it and refuses any inspection. Israel has imprisoned Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli engineer who was courageous enough to reveal the existence of this nuclear arsenal. This is the great taboo for the Western media. Why must Iraq, a sovereign state, disarm itself when Israel threatens the entire region?
But the greatest danger comes from the USA itself, which has used nuclear weapons (Hiroshima), chemical weapons (Vietnam – Agent Orange) and bacteriological weapons (Cuba). Today, the USA refuses to commit itself to not using nuclear weapons, even against a non-nuclear country. Under the pretext of a "threat." Hitler was also claiming to be "threatened" by Poland.
It's worth noting that even in 1991, when he was attacked by the West, Saddam did not use chemical weapons.
5. The West ought to eliminate Saddam because he is a tyrant.
HYPOCRITICAL: The United States has supported and still supports the worst dictators on the planet: Mobutu, Pinochet, all the dictators in Latin America, and Turkish generals…. because they serve the United States' economic interests.
The true objective of the USA was defined in July 2002 by one of Bush's close aides, Senator Lugar: "[W]e are going to run the oil business. We are going to run it well, we are going to make money; and it's going to help pay for the rehabilitation of Iraq because there is money there."
Esso, Shell and BP rank among the TOP 15 multi-national corporations. Before 1958, they colonized and pillaged Iraq. Driven out by a revolution of national liberation, they have never stopped wanting to recapture the second largest oil reserves in the world. And they want to oust their French and Russian competitors (Total and Lukoil, respectively). Washington wants to use total blackmail to control the energy supplies of its rivals: Europe and Japan.
The United States' economy is in bankruptcy: imports exceed exports by $450 billion per year. It is holding up only because of German and Japanese loans. And by confiscating petro-dollars from the Middle East, thanks to corrupt emirs and sheiks they impose on puppet states in the Gulf.
6. Saddam is incapable of being a model for any society.
ANSWER: Saddam represents the Iraqi nationalist bourgeoisie, which drove British colonialists out of the country in 1958. Because of this, he presents two different faces.
On the one hand, he certainly does not represent a "model for society" for those who advocate a socialist society and democracy as the only means of assuring the well being of the entire population.
But, compared to the other regimes in the Middle East, his balance sheet is much more positive: instead of pouring petro-dollars back into US multi-national corporations, he used them — and all Western observers have recognized this — to develop education, health care and, in general, the economy of his country.
Iraq is also the only secular state in the Middle East. In his administration, it is not unusual to see women holding important positions, and men working for them. Compare that to the other neighboring countries…
7. Saddam was an instrument used by the USA, and it's out of the question to consider him to be an anti-imperialist.
ANSWER: We must start with facts, with economic reality. The aggravation of the crisis and the global economic war push the multi-national corporations of wealthy countries to leave the capitalist class in each third-world country nothing more than crumbs from the cake. They know how to take complete control of a strategic country, with its enterprises, and its raw materials.
In order to survive, the local bourgeoisie often has no recourse other than opposing imperialism. Its resistance has the effect of involving the largest part of the population in the struggle. However, in order to resist a planetary threat which is today represented by the United States and its allies, it is in the interest of the people that the anti-imperialist front be as large as possible.
What is the principal contradiction in Iraq today? That between the country and the threat of imperialist occupation. To bring another conflict into the foreground, the one between the Iraqi bourgeoisie and its population, plays into Bush's hands.
Imagine a man and his wife having a fight. A thief appears who wants to seize their property and set fire to their home. Which task has priority? Continuing the argument or putting out the fire?
8. But it would be good, all the same, if we got rid of Saddam.
ANSWER: Good for whom? At this moment, Saddam represents the independence of his country, that is to say the right to refuse to give oil away for free to multi-national corporations. Any "imported" leader — whether he is brought in by bombs or by blackmail — will be a puppet. To say "we must replace Saddam", amounts, in the current balance of power, to letting the ruling class of the United States and Europe do whatever it wants.
To replace rebels with puppets is the global strategy of re-colonization. Condoleezza Rice, Bush's Secretary of State, stated: "Saddam's Iraq as well as Arafat's Palestinians need new leaders … capable of leading reforms as in Serbia and in Afghanistan." Let's take a look at the results. In Afghanistan, ten ministers out of sixteen carry a US passport, and President Karzaï is a hired hand of the US multi-national oil company, Unocal. In Serbia, the price of a loaf of bread has gone from four to thirty dinars; the cost of electricity has increased fourfold, depriving people of electric power as well as heating (170,000 families in Belgrade alone). The IMF has demanded that 800,000 workers be let go from firms before privatizing everything for the exclusive benefit of multi-nationals.
Such made-in-the-USA "democratic leaders" are spearheading the re-colonization of the world. It is a merciless process for the country's workers and farmers.
9. All the same, it is impossible to support Saddam!
ANSWER: The first question for any anti-imperialist is: Must everything possible be done to prevent the United States from completely dominating the world, yes or no? The answer is of course, yes. Because, if we let the balance of power deteriorate further to their advantage, it will result in a new fascism that will threaten all the peoples of the world.
When Hitler and Mussolini were menacing the world, it was necessary to support all those who resisted them. Including, for example, the Ethiopian dictator, Haile Selassie, who opposed the Italian invasion.
Is it then necessary to support the resistance of the Iraqi people and their leaders against invasion? The answer is also yes.
After Iraq, Bush will seize Iran, Syria, or even Saudi Arabia. If Washington completely controls the Middle East (and the other great strategic regions: Central Asia, the Caucasus, Central Africa, Maghreb, the northern part of Latin America…), the balance of power will be even more disadvantageous during the next wars planned by Bush.
And when the USA occupies a region, the conditions of the struggle become much worse for all the people living there, whether it's the struggle for the right to eat, the struggle for democracy, for the environment or for the solidarity of peoples. A US military occupation is the worst of catastrophes for these various peoples, and for the balance of power in the world. If Iraqi leaders resist US imperialism, is it a good thing to do for their people? Yes.
A Communist Iraqi fled Saddam and took Algerian citizenship. He returned in April 2002 with our mission as an "Inspector of Peace," and stated clearly: "Today, my duty as a Communist is to defend my country and its raw materials from the USA. With the present regime, if necessary. As soon as the threat has been neutralized, it will be up to the Iraqi people to decide whether to transform the regime or to replace it. To let wealthy countries decide instead is merely paternalistic colonialism."
The imperialist countries advocate the suppression of the sovereignty of third-world states in order to justify their rapacious interference, and they are able to threaten all people who resist globalization. But the right to sovereignty is something acquired by the anti-colonial struggle, and it is necessary to preserve it.
This is why the global interest of peoples is to support the countries and leaders who resist seizure by the United States. This does not imply approval of all of their actions, past or present, nor the rest of their political program. But its counter-productive to place such criticism in the foreground at the moment when Bush is looking for a way to swing international public opinion in his favor.
10. Finally, shouldn't one say "Neither Bush nor Saddam"?
ANSWER: This is what the dominant tendency in the Left in Europe has been inclined to say for the last twelve years, and it has borne extremely negative consequences.
In 1991, under the slogan of "Neither Bush nor Saddam," it said "no" to war but "yes" to an embargo against Iraq. In reality, it was another form of warfare: and soon there were two million victims.
In 1995 and 1999, with the slogan of "Neither NATO nor Milosevic," it approved (and in some cases even demanded) NATO bombardments. It was a prelude to imposing an IMF government and a NATO occupation in Kosovo, which today lives under a reign of terror led by the Albanian mafia and the ethnic cleansing of the national minorities: Serbs, Roma, Jews, Muslims, Turks, etc.
In 2001, with "Neither Bush nor the Taliban," they shut their eyes to the neocolonial occupation of Afghanistan, whose goal is to construct a US pipeline and the installation of military bases in the heart of Central Asia. We have heard "Neither Sharon nor Arafat" many times.
Tomorrow, we will hear more "Neither … nor …" propositions when Washington attacks Iran, Korea, Colombia (where a war has already started), the Philippines or other countries. It will always be done with the same humanitarian pretexts; it will always be done with media lies to demonize those who put up resistance. Now is the time to return to the true fundamental position of the Left, which must of necessity be anti-colonialism: the aggressor and the victim of aggression must never be put on the same footing; the war propaganda and media lies disseminated by the ruling class must be unmasked; and most of all, the hidden economic interests behind each war must be denounced.
Subsequently, the only possible anti-imperialist position is to say "no" to the global war and to support the resistance people put up against it. The "Neither … nor …" proposition is condemned to paralysis. The "Neither … nor …" proposition prevents the growth and unification of resistance to US imperialism.
Translated by Milo Yelesiyevich
Readers Are Crazy Bastards
I've been keeping a list of my reading since 1980 and consider keeping the list a little bit crazy though reading through it brings back fond memories, not only the books, but what I was doing at that time of my life. Here is a fellow that has been keeping a list since 1974 that makes me look like a piker. He keeps track of number of books read 2032. Total number of pages 446102. The average length of each book 219.5 pages. The average time to read a book 5 days and average reading per day 44.33 pages. He keeps individual years, longest books, most frequently read authors, amazon sales rank. In addition he has a comprehensive set of charts and graphs quite remarkable. It looks like he has been slowing down a bit in recent years so perhaps I'll make a race of it. I won't however be adding charts and graphs to my list, that would just take away from my reading time.
Thursday, March 20, 2003
Dupes
PATRIOT, n.
One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.
-Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.
-Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
Junior Bush
Iraq has a leader Saddam
Who's trying to dodge all our bombs
He says Junior Bush
Will land right on his tush
Bush says Saddam soon will be gone
Who's trying to dodge all our bombs
He says Junior Bush
Will land right on his tush
Bush says Saddam soon will be gone
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
Today I Weep For My Country
"Today I weep for my country," said West Virginia Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd. "No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. ... Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned.
"We flaunt our superpower status with arrogance," Byrd said, adding: "After war has ended the United States will have to rebuild much more than the country of Iraq. We will have to rebuild America's image around the globe."
I'm The King
George submitted this poem to the Poets for the War site but it lost out to this go figure.
Never Misunderestimate Me
by George W. Bush
I'll take your Nukes
Your bugs your gas
I'll take it all
Shove it up your ass
You mess with me
You pay the price
Say good-bye Saddam it's paradise
You had your chance
You scorned inspections
I asked real nice
I asked you twice
You headed in the wrong direction
And now it ends
Your buds and you
I'll take your scuds
and do away with you.
The score now settled
My dad avenged
I love the taste
Of sweet revenge.
Now a word to those
Who dared to say
Oh George do it our way
I've got your names
I won't forget
I've put you on a short short list
We're almost there the job half done
I hope you get the gist
Enemy combatants it'll be fun
My name is George
I am the King
My name is George
I am the King
My name is George
I am the King
My name is George
I am the King
Never Misunderestimate Me
by George W. Bush
I'll take your Nukes
Your bugs your gas
I'll take it all
Shove it up your ass
You mess with me
You pay the price
Say good-bye Saddam it's paradise
You had your chance
You scorned inspections
I asked real nice
I asked you twice
You headed in the wrong direction
And now it ends
Your buds and you
I'll take your scuds
and do away with you.
The score now settled
My dad avenged
I love the taste
Of sweet revenge.
Now a word to those
Who dared to say
Oh George do it our way
I've got your names
I won't forget
I've put you on a short short list
We're almost there the job half done
I hope you get the gist
Enemy combatants it'll be fun
My name is George
I am the King
My name is George
I am the King
My name is George
I am the King
My name is George
I am the King
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Morality
Ted is addressing Tony Blair but of course what he says applies equally to George W. Bush
Ted Honderich: Security one week. Morality the next.
It's enough to turn the stomach It is cant to say Saddam is responsible for a war about to happen, when you are massing armies and about to attack
Ted Honderich is Grote Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University College London
Ted Honderich: Security one week. Morality the next.
It's enough to turn the stomach It is cant to say Saddam is responsible for a war about to happen, when you are massing armies and about to attack
Ted Honderich is Grote Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University College London
The Value Of An American Life
When saying "we're all Palestinians" really means something
Imagine, if you will, that Washington wanted to demonize Israel. The death of Rachel Corrie, a young American who died after an Israeli bulldozer ran over her as she tried to protect Palestinian homes in Rafah, would have been splashed across the front-page of every newspaper. We'd know who she was, where she went to school, who her parents were, what her aspirations were, what her college marks were. But as it is, Rachel Corrie's death will be quickly forgotten, if it were even noticed, and the script will continue as the script-writers in Washington have written it: Sharon is a man of peace defending Israel from Palestinians, who are terrorists and would-be suicide bombers consumed by irrational hatred of Jews.
Imagine, if you will, that Washington wanted to demonize Israel. The death of Rachel Corrie, a young American who died after an Israeli bulldozer ran over her as she tried to protect Palestinian homes in Rafah, would have been splashed across the front-page of every newspaper. We'd know who she was, where she went to school, who her parents were, what her aspirations were, what her college marks were. But as it is, Rachel Corrie's death will be quickly forgotten, if it were even noticed, and the script will continue as the script-writers in Washington have written it: Sharon is a man of peace defending Israel from Palestinians, who are terrorists and would-be suicide bombers consumed by irrational hatred of Jews.
Sunday, March 16, 2003
Texas Clowns
I thought all the clowns left Texas when Bush assumed office. Not so.
via
Talk of war with Iraq has sparked an atmosphere of tension and anxiety. And it may be to blame for a brawl that broke out at the rodeo Thursday night.
With some 15,000 to 20,000 folks at the rodeo drinking beer and having fun, things can get a little out of hand at times. It happened when a tape of Lee Greenwood's song Proud To Be An American was playing. Some rodeo fans were standing and others were sitting down. Felix Fanaselle and his buddies chose to remain seated.
"This guy behind us starts yelling at us (because) we're not standing up," said Fanaselle. "He starts cussing at us, telling us to go back to Iraq."
The 16-year-old said the man seated behind him started spitting at him and spilling his beer on him and his friends.
"By the end of the song, he pulled my ear. I got up. He pushed me. I pushed him," said Felix. "He punched me in my face. I got him off me."
When the dust settled, Fanaselle had been handcuffed and released. He and John McCambridge were cited for "mutual combat" and fighting in public. That's a $200 fine. Fanaselle's lawyer says you don't have to stand for a country and western song.
via
Thursday, March 13, 2003
Cruel Fictions
New York March 13 2003—U. N. Inspector Hans Blix announced the destruction of Iraq's 42nd Al-Soumoud missile today. This he said is good news it is the meaning of disarmament. Hans further reported that although much has been accomplished the inspections have been going more slowly than he would like. He attributes this to the poor quality of western intelligence. Many leads provided by the Americans have led nowhere some even seem to have been fabricated, with that in mind the U.N. beginning today will adopt the Dirk Gently method of detection. Dirk Gently, perhaps the best known detective in the world has theorized that everything in the universe is interconnected. Applying that theory U. N. Inspectors will be stationed all over Iraq and instructed to randomly pick individuals to follow. If the theory is correct they will eventually find any Weapons of Mass Destruction that exist. "Dirk's methods have never failed in the past, said Hans." "We are confident they will succeed this time." Americans pooh-poohed the announcement. "Thinking Dirk Gently's methods can solve these problems is a cruel fiction," said Donald Rumsfeld. " Last time Gently's methods were employed all that happened was that a cat died.
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Smoking Gun
Al-Taji, Iraq—Iraqis: "Smoking gun" made with duct tape purchased at Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart has been accused of providing aid and comfort to the enemy. Administration officials today reported that Wal-Mart has shipped an undisclosed number of rolls of duct tape to Iraq to be used in their remotely piloted aircraft (drones) program. The aircraft that the United States believes could be used to spread chemical weapons was made of balsa wood and duct tape A spokesman for Wal-Mart blames Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge. Ever since he told Americans to put away the duct tape our sales have been falling. We counted on a reliable market and the administration failed us. They have no one to blame but themselves. John Ashcroft said, "we have identified the employees who packed and shipped the material and they have been declared enemy combatants. They are traitors, simple as that."
Disclaimer: This story was obtained from Iraqi officials and unnamed administration sources both known to play fast and loose with the truth.
A slightly different version of this story can be found here
Wal-Mart has been accused of providing aid and comfort to the enemy. Administration officials today reported that Wal-Mart has shipped an undisclosed number of rolls of duct tape to Iraq to be used in their remotely piloted aircraft (drones) program. The aircraft that the United States believes could be used to spread chemical weapons was made of balsa wood and duct tape A spokesman for Wal-Mart blames Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge. Ever since he told Americans to put away the duct tape our sales have been falling. We counted on a reliable market and the administration failed us. They have no one to blame but themselves. John Ashcroft said, "we have identified the employees who packed and shipped the material and they have been declared enemy combatants. They are traitors, simple as that."
Disclaimer: This story was obtained from Iraqi officials and unnamed administration sources both known to play fast and loose with the truth.
A slightly different version of this story can be found here
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
What The Fuck?
For this first time since 1998 Garry Kasparov was not the winner at the Linares Super Grandmaster tournament. Not only didn't he win but his loss to Radjabov was awarded the best game prize.
Kasparov's outburst over beauty prize in Linares
Justice should be blind, but should beauty? At the closing ceremony the prize for the most beautiful game went to Kasparov-Radjabov. The teen's win over the #1 was a landmark moment, but Radjabov had a losing position and it took a "??" move from Kasparov to create the upset. Kasparov erupted at the ceremony and went after the journalists who had voted. Who was wrong?
Bush Is Out Of Control
In 1963 I was in the army going through my basic training at Fort Ord California. We had a fellow in our platoon, Johnson was his name, that had I real problem marching in step. We seldom made it anywhere but that the sergeant would bark, Johnson god damn it left, left, left right left. Johnson was a good sort. Everyone liked him, but he made it difficult to get where we were going without a stumble or two along the way. We always reached our goal though in spite of Johnson. George reminds me of Johnson, but the George version of Johnson would be screaming that the rest of us were out of step with him. He would be bullying his friends trying to get them to march at his cadence. If bullying didn't work he would try bribery the result would of course be chaos.
The U.N. is irrelevant says the administration, and they're right, but they are wrong about the reason. They claim is that the U.N. is irrelevant because it doesn't agree with the U.S. on the issue of Iraq, but it is the U.S. that is making the choice to bypass the U.N. It is the U.S. that will make the U.N. irrelevant, but why? If the threat from Iraq were imminent that would be one thing, but no one really believes that. Everyone recognizes that Iraq may become a threat in the future, but are not much of one today. If the argument were that the U.N. has shown that they are nothing but appeasers and can never make the right decision that would be a reason to discount them. The U.N. is slow and unweildy and deliberate to a fault at times but willing to act in the face of imminent threats. One need look no further than Iraq in 1991. The whole world participated. George Bush is admired by the right for his resoluteness, but he has demonstrated that resoluteness is exactly what he lacks. He called for regime change last summer, after having locked the Secretary of State in a bunker somewhere. He then appeared to come to his senses and suggest that all Saddam had to do was disarm, but it was all a cheap trick. Face it disarmament without regime change would never satisfy this adminsistration, and that was the big lie repeated over and over. It is the lie George repeated again at his recent press conference. It is the lie some in America and the World continue to believe the lie of disarmament. Bush is right you could never be 100% sure. Well I don't want to spoil the party, but you can change the regime and still not be 100% sure that you've removed those who would commit terror. It would have been better if Bush had just stuck to his lie, Saddam is months away from a nuclear weapon, I'm sorry we cannot wait. That would have caused damage to the world, it would have I think been a mistake but the path he has followed will be far worse. He wavered pretended to be satisfied with disarmament, pretended to make the world a partner, all the while knowing no matter how much it appeared Saddam was cooperating he could and would come back to the argument that he can't be trusted, that we must have regime change. Bush is an absolutist; he wants certainty. As Hans Blix said in a recent news conferecne to a reporter who pushed him on the issue of compliance with 1441. "you'll find that there are many questions in this world that shouldn't be answered with yes or no. " He's right circumstances change it is necessary to adapt to the changes. So Bush plays his game, and inevitably the lies and obfuscations begin to see the light of day. The claims of Iraq gassing their own found to be suspect. The aluminum tubes really were not meant for a centrifuge. The purchase of uranium from Africa was a fraud. The U.K. dossier was a joke. The world paid attention to the reports the inspectors provided. They disliked being duped. So they resist, and the world is in crisis not because of terror but because of American arrogance in the person of George Bush, of Donald Rumsfeld, of Richard Perle, the list is a long one. The administration says all they have to do is support us and all will be well, but that would be even worse. It would truly make the U.N. irrelevant. How can you be relevant if you buckle under the pressure of the worlds new bully. How can the U.N. be taken seriously if all the U.S. has to do is bully, and bribe and the world goes along. So the tragedy that is about to occur is not Iraq, but what it will do to the world. How it will affect the future of the U.N. How it will affect future relations between the major powers. The real loss will be a world that works together as partners, not one bribed and bullied into compliance. A bully is not a leader, a liar is not a leader, George Bush has failed both us and the world by not being a leader. Perhaps it was more than we could have hoped for, perhaps he is simply in over his head. Did you see the look on Ari's and Condi's faces at the recent press conference? A plan any plan would have been better than his insincerity, his waffling. The cynical game he played. The failure is manifold he not only failed us internationally but failed us at home. He, and I think rightly was opposed to a separate department of Homeland Security, but looking at polls and unwilling to take the hits he was receiving at the hands of the Democrats he waffled again. Rather than fix the FBI, the CIA, Immigration and other departments that should be solving the worst of the security flaws he buckled. He saw an opportunity not to create a Department of Homeland Security, but to institutionalize fear in our country. Fear he would use to steal our civil liberties. Fear he would use to deflect our attention from other important issues. So again not only did he shirk his international repsonsibilites but he shirked his responsibility to the citizens of the United States. He may win the battle, but the damage he will cause may well be catastrophic, and he doesn't even know it.
The U.N. is irrelevant says the administration, and they're right, but they are wrong about the reason. They claim is that the U.N. is irrelevant because it doesn't agree with the U.S. on the issue of Iraq, but it is the U.S. that is making the choice to bypass the U.N. It is the U.S. that will make the U.N. irrelevant, but why? If the threat from Iraq were imminent that would be one thing, but no one really believes that. Everyone recognizes that Iraq may become a threat in the future, but are not much of one today. If the argument were that the U.N. has shown that they are nothing but appeasers and can never make the right decision that would be a reason to discount them. The U.N. is slow and unweildy and deliberate to a fault at times but willing to act in the face of imminent threats. One need look no further than Iraq in 1991. The whole world participated. George Bush is admired by the right for his resoluteness, but he has demonstrated that resoluteness is exactly what he lacks. He called for regime change last summer, after having locked the Secretary of State in a bunker somewhere. He then appeared to come to his senses and suggest that all Saddam had to do was disarm, but it was all a cheap trick. Face it disarmament without regime change would never satisfy this adminsistration, and that was the big lie repeated over and over. It is the lie George repeated again at his recent press conference. It is the lie some in America and the World continue to believe the lie of disarmament. Bush is right you could never be 100% sure. Well I don't want to spoil the party, but you can change the regime and still not be 100% sure that you've removed those who would commit terror. It would have been better if Bush had just stuck to his lie, Saddam is months away from a nuclear weapon, I'm sorry we cannot wait. That would have caused damage to the world, it would have I think been a mistake but the path he has followed will be far worse. He wavered pretended to be satisfied with disarmament, pretended to make the world a partner, all the while knowing no matter how much it appeared Saddam was cooperating he could and would come back to the argument that he can't be trusted, that we must have regime change. Bush is an absolutist; he wants certainty. As Hans Blix said in a recent news conferecne to a reporter who pushed him on the issue of compliance with 1441. "you'll find that there are many questions in this world that shouldn't be answered with yes or no. " He's right circumstances change it is necessary to adapt to the changes. So Bush plays his game, and inevitably the lies and obfuscations begin to see the light of day. The claims of Iraq gassing their own found to be suspect. The aluminum tubes really were not meant for a centrifuge. The purchase of uranium from Africa was a fraud. The U.K. dossier was a joke. The world paid attention to the reports the inspectors provided. They disliked being duped. So they resist, and the world is in crisis not because of terror but because of American arrogance in the person of George Bush, of Donald Rumsfeld, of Richard Perle, the list is a long one. The administration says all they have to do is support us and all will be well, but that would be even worse. It would truly make the U.N. irrelevant. How can you be relevant if you buckle under the pressure of the worlds new bully. How can the U.N. be taken seriously if all the U.S. has to do is bully, and bribe and the world goes along. So the tragedy that is about to occur is not Iraq, but what it will do to the world. How it will affect the future of the U.N. How it will affect future relations between the major powers. The real loss will be a world that works together as partners, not one bribed and bullied into compliance. A bully is not a leader, a liar is not a leader, George Bush has failed both us and the world by not being a leader. Perhaps it was more than we could have hoped for, perhaps he is simply in over his head. Did you see the look on Ari's and Condi's faces at the recent press conference? A plan any plan would have been better than his insincerity, his waffling. The cynical game he played. The failure is manifold he not only failed us internationally but failed us at home. He, and I think rightly was opposed to a separate department of Homeland Security, but looking at polls and unwilling to take the hits he was receiving at the hands of the Democrats he waffled again. Rather than fix the FBI, the CIA, Immigration and other departments that should be solving the worst of the security flaws he buckled. He saw an opportunity not to create a Department of Homeland Security, but to institutionalize fear in our country. Fear he would use to steal our civil liberties. Fear he would use to deflect our attention from other important issues. So again not only did he shirk his international repsonsibilites but he shirked his responsibility to the citizens of the United States. He may win the battle, but the damage he will cause may well be catastrophic, and he doesn't even know it.
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