"All the Stones the Builders Rejected" 
(And some days it takes more Stones than others...) Where Mythical Bestiary meets Contemporary Culture and Chews On Its Leg Until Covered with Slobber.
Showing posts with label Bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bush. Show all posts
The 12 Billion Dollar Misunderstanding
"There were mistakes made in Iraq." Jeb Bush
Here's my personal favorite, a grifter's dream as no direct violence was involved, just a gym bag and a straight face: How the US Sent $12bn in Cash to Iraq, and Watched It Vanish
Complicity, or, the Willing (and Unwilling) Executioners in Uganda-- and Grand Rapids
But what's one more genocide? More than a thousand people are dying every week in Northern Uganda, in the concentration camps they've been herded to by their beneficent government-- "three times the death rate in Darfur."
It goes without saying that the proposed laws affecting gays in Uganda are monstrous, bugfuck crazy. Friendly heterosexuals and simple humanity are outlawed as well-- the law "also criminalizes failure to report relevant offenses." "Citizens, including health workers and civil society organizations" are compelled "...to report anyone they suspect of being homosexual." Right-wing American churchmen profess to be embarrassed by their Ugandan protegees, and that bunch swallows camels and strains at gnats without a blush.
This new murder in the heart of Uganda is just a reminder that Amin never acted alone. The thing is, we have a fantasy that the Bad Man went away and all the bad went with him. We tell our children a bedtime story that Hitler killed the children, Amin chopped up the women, some guy Stalin turned the poets into little mounds in the snow. But not us, not us! One of these days, some scholar will add up how many innocent people G.W. Bush killed to stop Saddam Hussein from killing innocent people. The historian Lucy Dawidowicz had a neat phrase, "Cain in corporate embodiment", a phrase Erik Prince might want to invoke when Blackwater (I mean, "Xe") has its day in court.
Without their admiring executioners, your average genocidal maniac is just some nut yelling on a street corner, a frustrated lurker in parking lots. Should we, as a critic asked of Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners, "separate the Germans from the Nazis"? Does cutting out a cancer guarantee that it hasn't spread?
"The more frightening question is why and how so many chose to follow Hitler. I do not necessarily mean the German people, per se, but the thousands of bureaucrats, managers, and soldiers who physically carried out The Final Solution, knowing exactly what this entailed and what it signified. Hitler seized the opportunity offered by the political and social situation to institutionalize his personal evil...without followers, millions of Jews (and Cambodians and Indians and so forth) could not have died. The evil that is so hard to face goes well beyond Hitler to a place that no one could truly wish to discover." (Diane L. Schirf)
I've known a few Holocaust survivors, tattoos on their arms. The only Nazi I ever met, an engineer with the Luftwaffe, told me they heard about the genocide "but they were the kind of crazy stories you hear in the military, nobody took it seriously". How much do I pretend not to know about what we enabled in Cambodia and Chile, how many old folks and babies and dogs and cats were torn to shreds and reported as "collateral damage" in my lifetime, how much of that was done for my "security", a favor I neither asked nor wanted?
It goes without saying that the proposed laws affecting gays in Uganda are monstrous, bugfuck crazy. Friendly heterosexuals and simple humanity are outlawed as well-- the law "also criminalizes failure to report relevant offenses." "Citizens, including health workers and civil society organizations" are compelled "...to report anyone they suspect of being homosexual." Right-wing American churchmen profess to be embarrassed by their Ugandan protegees, and that bunch swallows camels and strains at gnats without a blush.
This new murder in the heart of Uganda is just a reminder that Amin never acted alone. The thing is, we have a fantasy that the Bad Man went away and all the bad went with him. We tell our children a bedtime story that Hitler killed the children, Amin chopped up the women, some guy Stalin turned the poets into little mounds in the snow. But not us, not us! One of these days, some scholar will add up how many innocent people G.W. Bush killed to stop Saddam Hussein from killing innocent people. The historian Lucy Dawidowicz had a neat phrase, "Cain in corporate embodiment", a phrase Erik Prince might want to invoke when Blackwater (I mean, "Xe") has its day in court.
Without their admiring executioners, your average genocidal maniac is just some nut yelling on a street corner, a frustrated lurker in parking lots. Should we, as a critic asked of Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners, "separate the Germans from the Nazis"? Does cutting out a cancer guarantee that it hasn't spread?
"The more frightening question is why and how so many chose to follow Hitler. I do not necessarily mean the German people, per se, but the thousands of bureaucrats, managers, and soldiers who physically carried out The Final Solution, knowing exactly what this entailed and what it signified. Hitler seized the opportunity offered by the political and social situation to institutionalize his personal evil...without followers, millions of Jews (and Cambodians and Indians and so forth) could not have died. The evil that is so hard to face goes well beyond Hitler to a place that no one could truly wish to discover." (Diane L. Schirf)
I've known a few Holocaust survivors, tattoos on their arms. The only Nazi I ever met, an engineer with the Luftwaffe, told me they heard about the genocide "but they were the kind of crazy stories you hear in the military, nobody took it seriously". How much do I pretend not to know about what we enabled in Cambodia and Chile, how many old folks and babies and dogs and cats were torn to shreds and reported as "collateral damage" in my lifetime, how much of that was done for my "security", a favor I neither asked nor wanted?
Follow the Shoe: Will Bush Ever Stand Trial in the People's Court?
Is anyone else worried about what's happened to Muntadhar al-Zaidi, the shoe-throwing journalist still in "detention" in Iraq? This is, after all, the land where habeas corpus went to die, and no one's seen or heard from him other than second-hand reports from his brother in the week before Christmas. We don't really know what "detention" means to the people holding the keys. We don't know if he "tripped and fell down the stairs" or if his arm really was broken in the arrest. The New York Times itself can't make up it's mind whether he's been tortured by the cops or handled with kid gloves because the Whole World is Watching.
Funny how a government that can't keep the electricity running found a definition for his crime with record efficiency: "aggression against a foreign head of state during an official visit... an offense that carries a prison term of between five and 15 years under Iraqi law, for throwing his shoes at Bush on December 14."
His lawyers might make a case for diminished capacity, PTSD, (Al-Zaidi has been covering the widows and orphans of Iraq, been kidnapped once and arrested twice) but that would erase the meaning of al-Zaidi's quixotic gesture, like that killer last line of Mark Twain's "The War Prayer": "It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said." What I'm hoping for is five years minus time served, compensation if he has indeed been abused while in detention-- and a guarantee of a free pair of custom-made shoes for life. If he ever visits Kalamazoo, his money's no good here. This heartfelt anger was political theater that turned the propaganda of professionals, their jet planes and "Mission Accomplished" signs, into tinkling brass.
I love the man. "This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog! This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq!" What most commentators have missed is that technology has made our leaders as remote from any consequence of their actions as any ancient autocrat. Somebody (I thought it was Bertrand Russell, but I can't find the quote) said of Khruschev and Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis: "If they say 'live', we shall live; if they say 'die', we shall die." This is an unhappy thought for a culture that can grant an utter fool the power of a god, and puts our entire species at the whim of distant torturers. Predator planes, satellite spies, the NSA's erosion of privacy and the Army's research into robot soldiers are become so commonplace that this power to murder and ruin is now in a hundred hands instead of a few. Who would begrudge a man who has seen too many dead children the throwing of a shoe?
"Now the movements of nations have become like a huge slow solemn dance of the elephants, random power swaying in unpredictable directions, their movements obscured by a stifling rain of paper, pastel forms in octuplicate, programmed tapes, punch cards. Through this low rain, in the shadowy patterns of the dance, scurry a half a billion bureaucrats, each squealing self-important orders. Beneath the wrinkled gray legs, ten thousand generals squat, playing with their war game toys. The billions of mankind sit in the huge gloomy reaches of the stands, staring without comprehension... and because tension and waiting can only be sustained so long, they can make their own little games and charades in the stands, the charades of art, sex, money, power and random murder."
-- John D. MacDonald, A Deadly Shade of Gold.
Mr. al-Zaidi appears to have been a gentle soul who specialized in human interest stories about widows and orphans. The popinjay he targeted is responsible for three times as many innocent deaths as were killed on 9/11, spent money that would make a Nero or Caligula blush-- and still professes not to know what the fuss was about. That he is insulated from shame is no surprise; I've never seen a crime that a Bush couldn't wriggle out from under, from banking for Nazis to drug running by the Contras to... Good luck pinning one down with the sword of Justice; they must be covered in protective slime like a catfish.
Will there, should there be, a commission to investigate crimes committed by the Bush administration? President Obama is playing his cards close to the chest, and too many members of Congress are guilty of aiding and abetting. You won't see an American standing trial in the Hague as long as Kissinger's still alive, but an independent "truth commission", like the ones in South Africa, might be nice.
When frothing near the ceiling about seeing the whole crew in leg irons, I have to keep reminding my friends that incompetence isn't punishable by law. They remind me that George Bush left so many fires burning in his wake, it could be years before anyone got around to pursuing the firebug. This in itself is a kind of brilliance, like those beasts that escape their pursuers by defecating. Someday, perhaps, with the wheels of Justice grinding very slow, but exceedingly small.
How the Boss Made a Monkey Out of Me
The recent headlines about chimps who outperform college students at mental math are somewhat misleading. It's not that these were super chimps, or moronic freshmen. Boxer and Feinstein, two female chimps named for California's senators, played a memory game that asked them to compare numbers and choose the larger number of two sets of objects. Their human opponents-- here's what made the difference-- "were not allowed to count or verbalize as they worked, and they were told to answer as quickly as possible. Both chimps and humans typically answered within 1 second. And both groups fared about the same."
Comparing sets of numbers resembles a task primates might have to perform in nature: grabbing as much as you can before the hyenas chase you away, or the po-pos arrive, whichever comes first. Taking language away from the humans put us on a level playing field with the other primates. "I think of this more as using non-human primates as a tool for discovering where the sophisticated human mind comes from," explains Jessica Cantlon of Duke. "I don't think language is the only thing that differentiates humans from non-human primates, but in terms of math tasks, it is probably the big one," she said.
The snatch-and-grab-it instinct tells us a lot about why so many right wing cranks reject taxation, and vote against their own self interest to support the Republican party while the infrastructure turns to shit around them. Kim Stanley Robinson does the math in his novel Forty Signs of Rain:
“The average surplus value created by American workers is thirty-three dollars an hour.... Sixty four thousand three hundred and fifty dollars a year, generated by the average worker in surplus value.”
".... What's the average income?" Edgardo asked. "Thirty thousand?.... Call it thirty, and what's the average taxes paid?.... Call it ten. So let's see. You work every day of the year, except for three lousy weeks. You make around a hundred thousand dollars. Your boss takes two thirds, and gives you one third, and you give a third of that to the government. Your government uses what it takes to build all the roads and schools and police and pensions, and your boss takes his share and buys a mansion on an island somewhere. So naturally you complain about your bloated inefficient Big Brother of a government, and you always vote for the pro-owner party."
“.... It's a matter of what you can see," [Frank] suggested. "You see your boss, you see your paycheck, it's given to you. You have it. Then you're forced to give some of it to the government. You never know about the surplus value you've created, because it was disappeared in the first place. Cooked in the books.... The only things people understand are sensory. We’re hard-wired to understand life on the savannah. Someone gives you meat, they’re your friend. Someone takes your meat, they’re your enemy. Abstract concepts or statistics just aren’t as real as what you see and touch. People are only good at what they can think out in terms of their senses. That’s just the way we evolved.”
Comparing sets of numbers resembles a task primates might have to perform in nature: grabbing as much as you can before the hyenas chase you away, or the po-pos arrive, whichever comes first. Taking language away from the humans put us on a level playing field with the other primates. "I think of this more as using non-human primates as a tool for discovering where the sophisticated human mind comes from," explains Jessica Cantlon of Duke. "I don't think language is the only thing that differentiates humans from non-human primates, but in terms of math tasks, it is probably the big one," she said.
The snatch-and-grab-it instinct tells us a lot about why so many right wing cranks reject taxation, and vote against their own self interest to support the Republican party while the infrastructure turns to shit around them. Kim Stanley Robinson does the math in his novel Forty Signs of Rain:
“The average surplus value created by American workers is thirty-three dollars an hour.... Sixty four thousand three hundred and fifty dollars a year, generated by the average worker in surplus value.”
".... What's the average income?" Edgardo asked. "Thirty thousand?.... Call it thirty, and what's the average taxes paid?.... Call it ten. So let's see. You work every day of the year, except for three lousy weeks. You make around a hundred thousand dollars. Your boss takes two thirds, and gives you one third, and you give a third of that to the government. Your government uses what it takes to build all the roads and schools and police and pensions, and your boss takes his share and buys a mansion on an island somewhere. So naturally you complain about your bloated inefficient Big Brother of a government, and you always vote for the pro-owner party."
“.... It's a matter of what you can see," [Frank] suggested. "You see your boss, you see your paycheck, it's given to you. You have it. Then you're forced to give some of it to the government. You never know about the surplus value you've created, because it was disappeared in the first place. Cooked in the books.... The only things people understand are sensory. We’re hard-wired to understand life on the savannah. Someone gives you meat, they’re your friend. Someone takes your meat, they’re your enemy. Abstract concepts or statistics just aren’t as real as what you see and touch. People are only good at what they can think out in terms of their senses. That’s just the way we evolved.”
What I'm Reading: Clive James Cultural Amnesia
Came back Sunday night from the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, much too over-stimulated and inspired by many meetings to give a coherant account of the experience: I saw this one, heard that one, developed a little crush on another, bumped into this one or saw such-and-so a mighty one from a distance drinking overpriced scotch in the hotel bar. I expect the anecdotes and insights will come dribbling out bit by bit as I have time to process them.
Here is one such: the comic book artist Matthew Dow Smith and I had an informal gripe session about why some "superstar" artists who shall remain nameless turn into shitheels. I compared notes from my own experience watching medieval graduate students evolve into professors and my own brief encounters with the famous (in my experience, famous persons most deserving of reknown have been the least pretentious, and showed the most curiosity about the world around them.) It costs so little-- seconds really-- to show noblesse oblige to someone farther down the ladder than yourself, and pays off down the road by spreading good will. He was interested in my ideas about the "poison mentor", the false friend and father figure who uses the apprentice instead of teaching them, a type who causes at least as much damage in society as the overly-analyzed "devouring mother".
All this is prologue to saying that Cultural Amnesia is a very generous book, by which I mean Mr. James has crammed so much good thought and bonhomie into this collection, you can browse just one or two of the essays and come away with passages that will keep your wheels turning for a week. Cultural Amnesia is a collection of original essays concerning the violence of the past century, a handful of people who did their best to stave off the darkness, and favorite writers off Mr. James' shelves. I plan on giving it to my more thoughtful former students as a friendly introduction to the larger world of humanistic thought and why it matters, as generous a gift as the Durants' Story of Civilization. A long time ago, a casual recommendation by a professor when I was a teen led me to Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory and the works of Joseph Campbell, and when I came across them years later, took me miles from where I started. Cultural Amnesia is that kind of resource. This is how we are nutured by those who have gone before, rather than exploited.
Slate magazine has a selection of some of the essays here, enough perhaps to make you buy a copy and keep it on your shelf for reading with your morning coffee. I got mine as a birthday present and read it through the summer, starting with characters I was already familiar with, and then more slowly from A-Z. Someone in the old Whole Earth News recommended this approach when reading new reference books: start by reading the entries on a subject you already know something about, and if it's good, start working your way in deeper.
It's like a really good buffet from a generous host. This morning I dipped into "Hegel" and "Keats" and found enough in there to have me muttering to myself the rest of the day. Here are a few bites from James' essay on Adolf Hitler:
"Some of the last aphorisms written by the great Robert Musil were devoted to summarizing the pathogenic nature of Hitler. Beautifully crafted statements, they had no effect on Hitler whatsoever.... a sufficient concentration of violence could neutralize any amount of culture, no matter how widely diffused."
"It may seem unfair to condemn intellectuals who conspire to undermine vulgar democracy in favor of a refined dream for failing to foresee the subsequent nightmare. And Moeller was only one among many. But there were too many: That was the point. Too many well- read men combined to prepare the way for a pitiless hoodlum who despised them, and they even came to value him for being a hoodlum: for lacking their scruples, for being a drum of nature."
If that doesn't take the piss out of the neo-conservative "intellectuals", the Podhoretzs, Kristols and Abrams who have enabled Bush the past several years, who are now foisting Rudolph Guliani on us, nothing will-- their self-love is adamantine.
My President Staged a Coup, and All I Got Was This Lousy Orange T-Shirt
The gentle journey jars to halt,
The drifting dream is done;
The Deadly, that we thought were dead,
Stand waiting, every one.
(Walt Kelly, For Lewis Carroll and the Children)
The political news, to be frank, has been so unrelentingly ghastly as to render me speechless for some weeks. Instead, I've retreated happiily to spending my creative time in the 12th century with Eleanor of Aquitaine, researching, drawing and writing an eight page web comic for submission to DC's Zuda comics project. Now I emerge from my marmot hole to find Bush still posturing (if a bit stiffly), and Cheney still grabbing more and more power for the Executive, his delayed revenge for the Church committee's reining in the CIA. Al Qaeda thrives in the environment created for them by a clumsy America. Gonzales is gone, but Michael Mukasey can't quite bring himself to say that a president can't break the law. These things anger us, but we cannot claim surprise; these are all cases of a scorpion acting like a scorpion, true to its nature.
Worse than these, perhaps, is the Congress' inability to put the brakes on an monarchist president. They don't have the votes, even for something as clear cut as Bush's veto of health insurance for poor children while spending billions in Iraq. How, then, will they find enough members to understand what's at stake in Bush's suspension of habeas corpus, rendition and torture without hindrance, domestic spying without judicial oversight? This mealy-mouthed generation of Democrats cannot rebel without asking permission first, or apologizing afterwards.
"Trust me", says the scorpion when he asks the frog for a ride across the river, and then when he stings the frog, the frog is naive enough to profess surprise. Again and again, President Bush has told the Congress, "Trust me to know what I'm doing," ignored their edicts, and used "signing statements" (more than all other presidents combined) to make bold his intention to do exactly what he wanted to do in the first place. Is this not "contempt of Congress"?
Wake me when they're ready to recognize that Bush's coup has reached the level of "treason, high crimes and misdemeanor". We cannot impeach the creature for simple incompetence-- that's the American people's fault, in voting for him-- but how can it be that this popinjay has skated over the law again and again, without breaking the ice?
The drifting dream is done;
The Deadly, that we thought were dead,
Stand waiting, every one.
(Walt Kelly, For Lewis Carroll and the Children)
The political news, to be frank, has been so unrelentingly ghastly as to render me speechless for some weeks. Instead, I've retreated happiily to spending my creative time in the 12th century with Eleanor of Aquitaine, researching, drawing and writing an eight page web comic for submission to DC's Zuda comics project. Now I emerge from my marmot hole to find Bush still posturing (if a bit stiffly), and Cheney still grabbing more and more power for the Executive, his delayed revenge for the Church committee's reining in the CIA. Al Qaeda thrives in the environment created for them by a clumsy America. Gonzales is gone, but Michael Mukasey can't quite bring himself to say that a president can't break the law. These things anger us, but we cannot claim surprise; these are all cases of a scorpion acting like a scorpion, true to its nature.
Worse than these, perhaps, is the Congress' inability to put the brakes on an monarchist president. They don't have the votes, even for something as clear cut as Bush's veto of health insurance for poor children while spending billions in Iraq. How, then, will they find enough members to understand what's at stake in Bush's suspension of habeas corpus, rendition and torture without hindrance, domestic spying without judicial oversight? This mealy-mouthed generation of Democrats cannot rebel without asking permission first, or apologizing afterwards.
"Trust me", says the scorpion when he asks the frog for a ride across the river, and then when he stings the frog, the frog is naive enough to profess surprise. Again and again, President Bush has told the Congress, "Trust me to know what I'm doing," ignored their edicts, and used "signing statements" (more than all other presidents combined) to make bold his intention to do exactly what he wanted to do in the first place. Is this not "contempt of Congress"?
Wake me when they're ready to recognize that Bush's coup has reached the level of "treason, high crimes and misdemeanor". We cannot impeach the creature for simple incompetence-- that's the American people's fault, in voting for him-- but how can it be that this popinjay has skated over the law again and again, without breaking the ice?
Why We Invaded Iraq, with apologies to Lewis Carroll
Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee agreed to rig a battle
For Tweedle said Saddam Hussein ignored his righteous prattle;
Just then, down flew some Saudi gents,
Shrub’s papa used to diddle,
Which frightened all the people so,
They put Dum in the saddle.
M.F., with apologies to Lewis Carroll
Clinton Finally Bares Her Teeth; Unfortunately, She Bit a Democrat
Barack Obama has distilled exactly what is wrong with President Bush's policy towards terrorism: "He is fighting the war that the terrorists want us to fight. Bin Laden and his allies know they cannot defeat us on the field of battle or in a genuine battle of ideas. But they can provoke the reaction we have seen in Iraq, a misguided invasion of a Muslim country that sparks new insurgencies and ties down our military."
That should have been the headline lead, the Democratic talking point, and was, for about fifteen seconds. Both John Edwards and Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq war, although Edwards says he didn't inhale. If Obama's statement is true, and the history books sure are leaning that way, then Edwards and Clintons were Bush's dupes, and Obama wasn't. Since they can't refute him, they had to find some verbal misstep that they could jump on that would distract from and discredit everything else he said.
"As president, I would deploy at least two additional brigades [6,000 troops] to Afghanistan to reinforce our counter-terrorism operations and support NATO's efforts against the Taliban.... I would make the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional, and I would make our conditions clear: Pakistan must make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan." (As a Geography teacher, I know this one; I looked it up in October, 2001. The area Bin Laden disappeared into -- after they let him escape at Tora Bora-- covers about the same square acreage as Colorado.) "If we have actionable intelligence bout high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will."
Nope, we're not going to talk about that either. The television analyst is a pack animal, as easily distracted as an Airedale puppy in a rubber ball factory, and they've almost all lost the scent. They are entertaining themselves now by covering the "he-said-no-he-didn't-gotcha" forays of Hillary Clinton, ignoring Obama's main points and instead calling him "irresponsible" and "reckless" for saying he'd talk-- dear God, not that!-- to unfriendly leaders like Castro and Chavez in his first year of office... not during the second year, as Hillary said she would.
The pundits were so enthralled to be covering gossip instead of ideas, that The Daily Show was able to put together a montage of self panickers calling this a "Slugfest", "Clash of the Titans", "Heavyweight Bout", topped by Wolf Blitzer's panting, "It got ugly and it got ugly fast."
No, Hillary is not the devouring dragon-witch-queen from Sleeping Beauty, as desperately portrayed by the right-- hell, if she wins the nomination, I'm going to have to hold my nose and vote for her-- but these are Republican tactics, unworthy and . Tracy Flick, your life is calling.
That should have been the headline lead, the Democratic talking point, and was, for about fifteen seconds. Both John Edwards and Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq war, although Edwards says he didn't inhale. If Obama's statement is true, and the history books sure are leaning that way, then Edwards and Clintons were Bush's dupes, and Obama wasn't. Since they can't refute him, they had to find some verbal misstep that they could jump on that would distract from and discredit everything else he said.
"As president, I would deploy at least two additional brigades [6,000 troops] to Afghanistan to reinforce our counter-terrorism operations and support NATO's efforts against the Taliban.... I would make the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional, and I would make our conditions clear: Pakistan must make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan." (As a Geography teacher, I know this one; I looked it up in October, 2001. The area Bin Laden disappeared into -- after they let him escape at Tora Bora-- covers about the same square acreage as Colorado.) "If we have actionable intelligence bout high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will."
Nope, we're not going to talk about that either. The television analyst is a pack animal, as easily distracted as an Airedale puppy in a rubber ball factory, and they've almost all lost the scent. They are entertaining themselves now by covering the "he-said-no-he-didn't-gotcha" forays of Hillary Clinton, ignoring Obama's main points and instead calling him "irresponsible" and "reckless" for saying he'd talk-- dear God, not that!-- to unfriendly leaders like Castro and Chavez in his first year of office... not during the second year, as Hillary said she would. The pundits were so enthralled to be covering gossip instead of ideas, that The Daily Show was able to put together a montage of self panickers calling this a "Slugfest", "Clash of the Titans", "Heavyweight Bout", topped by Wolf Blitzer's panting, "It got ugly and it got ugly fast."
No, Hillary is not the devouring dragon-witch-queen from Sleeping Beauty, as desperately portrayed by the right-- hell, if she wins the nomination, I'm going to have to hold my nose and vote for her-- but these are Republican tactics, unworthy and . Tracy Flick, your life is calling.
It's Not About the Fired Attorneys; It Was About Stealing the 2004 Election
Does anyone else think Alberto Gonzales looks like the young Peter Lorre in M? Or the unctuous "Dr. Einstein" in Arsenic and Old Lace?
Gregory Palast, the BBC and PBS Now are tracking a Republican program that used junk mail to challenge, delay and block likely Democratic voters in Ohio and Florida. The program was also used to challenge black university students and oops, keep active duty servicemen from voting in 2004. The GOP sent thousand of pieces of junk mail to registered voters in black neighborhoods, marked "Do Not Forward", and then used the undelivered mail to challenge the addressee on Election Day 2004. This included mail to students at their (predominantly black) college addresses in August, and soldiers who had left for Iraq and Afghanistan.
Who ran it, and how high did it go? A person of interest is Tim Griffin, chief of communications for the Bush-Cheney campaign and protege of the lovely and talented Karl Rove, who was appointed US Attorney for Arkansas but then conveniently resigned two hours after John Conyers asked the BBC to send him the documentation for its story.
The popular press still hasn't picked this up. They're still focused on the simpler storyline of Alberto Gonzales as clumsy liar-- but this is the big story, the thread that leads into our generation's surrender to corruption. This is what I think Conyers, Leahy and Spector-- and Kennedy, on the Senate end-- are tugging at like crabgrass.
They Won't Quit. They CAN'T Quit.
So the Senate's going to pull an all nighter; it seems the least they can do, considering the sleepless nights imposed on Iraquis and the untenable position of our troops. The Democrats proposed a pull out starting in 120 days. The Republicans threatened a filibuster. The Democrats, in a bit of jiu jitu, said, fine,let’s sit up all night and talk about it.
The Texans think this is silly, a "slumber party": aid and comfort to the enemy, support our troops, wait until September, you know the drill. Does anyone else feel that the Arabs and the Texans truly deserve each other? The odious Lieberman, standing tall with Mitch McConnell and McCain, thinks this is a terrible idea, all this fussin', 'sides, all this commotion might upset Marse' George. At least one of the soldiers thinks the members of Congress ought to serve a rotation: "they don't have to do anything, they just come hang out with me and go home at the times I go home, and come stay here 15 months with me." Update: The timetable didn't get the 60 votes needed to pass, but it did win 52 votes, up from 39 votes a non-binding withdrawl resolution got last year.
John Mc Cain, bless his heart, keeps talkin’ ‘bout the "chaos": “Failure will lead to chaos, withdrawal will lead to chaos.... I believe that a withdrawal, or a date for withdrawal, will lead to chaos in the region.” The chaos is already here, John. They've already followed us home: George Bush's invasion of Iraq was a recruiting bonanza for al-Qaeda. Sigh... always the last to know.
Carl Levin, one of our senators from Michigan since forever, just wants this open-ended commitment to end: "What we have is a glass called Iraq that has a hole in the bottom, and whatever we put into Iraq, goes right through that hole." I've been puzzled by the dead enders like William Kristol or the mad monk Norman Podhoretz . I'm infuriated by the administration's willingness to keep throwing good lives after bad.
But they will not, they cannot, stop the war in Iraq. All the twenty-years olds in the world will not be enough to feed that maw. To quit would be to admit that everything they've done, and the dollars and the lives they spent, were a waste. We will be in this war until the grownups take the wheel away from the crazies, and then for the next thirty years, Bush and Kristol and the rest will blame the grownups for "losing" Iraq, because we weren't willing to spend a thousand lives more.
The Texans think this is silly, a "slumber party": aid and comfort to the enemy, support our troops, wait until September, you know the drill. Does anyone else feel that the Arabs and the Texans truly deserve each other? The odious Lieberman, standing tall with Mitch McConnell and McCain, thinks this is a terrible idea, all this fussin', 'sides, all this commotion might upset Marse' George. At least one of the soldiers thinks the members of Congress ought to serve a rotation: "they don't have to do anything, they just come hang out with me and go home at the times I go home, and come stay here 15 months with me." Update: The timetable didn't get the 60 votes needed to pass, but it did win 52 votes, up from 39 votes a non-binding withdrawl resolution got last year.
John Mc Cain, bless his heart, keeps talkin’ ‘bout the "chaos": “Failure will lead to chaos, withdrawal will lead to chaos.... I believe that a withdrawal, or a date for withdrawal, will lead to chaos in the region.” The chaos is already here, John. They've already followed us home: George Bush's invasion of Iraq was a recruiting bonanza for al-Qaeda. Sigh... always the last to know.
Carl Levin, one of our senators from Michigan since forever, just wants this open-ended commitment to end: "What we have is a glass called Iraq that has a hole in the bottom, and whatever we put into Iraq, goes right through that hole." I've been puzzled by the dead enders like William Kristol or the mad monk Norman Podhoretz . I'm infuriated by the administration's willingness to keep throwing good lives after bad.
But they will not, they cannot, stop the war in Iraq. All the twenty-years olds in the world will not be enough to feed that maw. To quit would be to admit that everything they've done, and the dollars and the lives they spent, were a waste. We will be in this war until the grownups take the wheel away from the crazies, and then for the next thirty years, Bush and Kristol and the rest will blame the grownups for "losing" Iraq, because we weren't willing to spend a thousand lives more.
SUPPORT H.R. 333: THE IMPEACHMENT OF DICK CHENEY
Here are the gory details, the supporting documents for the impeachment of Vice-President Richard Cheney for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Dennis Kucinich has been dismissed by the media as a "fringe" candidate of the loony left, even though this action is eminently sane compared with the prevarications of the Congressional leadership. I myself have called him a "vegetarian vampire" and considered him too twee for the blue collar vote, even though his support for polka and kielbassa (and cute third wife) should prove his bona fides as a populist, when compared with Bush's playing cowboy on a hastily remodeled pig farm with a manslaughter suspect.
So far these 14 Representatives support H. R. 333, Articles of Impeachment Against Dick Cheney:
Yvette Clarke
William Lacy Clay
Keith Ellison
Bob Filner
Jesse Jackson Jr.
Hank Johnson
Dennis Kucinich
Barbara Lee
Jim McDermott
Jim Moran
Jan Schakowsky
Maxine Waters
Lynn Woolsey
Albert Wynn
Speaker Nancy Pelosi's phone number is (202) 225-0100, but as the daughter of a Baltimore politician, she thinks impeachment a waste of time . The House Judiciary Committee can be contacted here.
Dennis Kucinich has been dismissed by the media as a "fringe" candidate of the loony left, even though this action is eminently sane compared with the prevarications of the Congressional leadership. I myself have called him a "vegetarian vampire" and considered him too twee for the blue collar vote, even though his support for polka and kielbassa (and cute third wife) should prove his bona fides as a populist, when compared with Bush's playing cowboy on a hastily remodeled pig farm with a manslaughter suspect.
So far these 14 Representatives support H. R. 333, Articles of Impeachment Against Dick Cheney:
Yvette Clarke
William Lacy Clay
Keith Ellison
Bob Filner
Jesse Jackson Jr.
Hank Johnson
Dennis Kucinich
Barbara Lee
Jim McDermott
Jim Moran
Jan Schakowsky
Maxine Waters
Lynn Woolsey
Albert Wynn
Speaker Nancy Pelosi's phone number is (202) 225-0100, but as the daughter of a Baltimore politician, she thinks impeachment a waste of time . The House Judiciary Committee can be contacted here.
THE SYSTEM WORKS, FOR WELL-CONNECTED WHITE MEN FROM CONNECTICUT
"Speaking as friends, we hope that our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man." Dick Cheney regarding Lewis "Scooter" Libby, June 5, 2007.
No surprise here that Libby was pardoned, and lest we get too sanctimonious, let's not forget the Clinton pardons for Bill's brother Roger and Hillary's brother Hugh. I won't waste my breath sputtering over the pardon, which is of course scandalous. More interesting is whether this pardon sparks a debate over our two-tier justice system, or a great national shrug. It's not as if Bush's standing can get any lower in the polls, and it's not as if Congress is actually going to impeach anyone over this.
The people in charge of the Democratic party now belong, for the most part, to the same social class as the Republicans. And although the poorest among us have things a tiny bit easier under Democratic administrations, that social class doesn't do Hard Time unless one of them is caught with a dead girl or a live boy,
In a better world, we would see a presidential candidate using the Libby pardon to talk about the forgotten men in prison. If there are 2 million Americans in prison, that's a city as big as Houston or Chicago. And in the best of all possible worlds, we will have no more public sanctimony about the American justice system, unless we're talking about what it MIGHT be.
What Muppet Are You?
You are Scooter.
You are a loyal, hardworking person, better known
as a doormat.
SPECIAL TALENTS:
Going for stuff.
LEAST FAVORITE MOVIE:
"Go For Broke!"
QUOTE:
"15 seconds to showtime."
LAST BOOK READ:
"300 New Ways to Get Your Uncle to Get You a
Better Job "
NEVER LEAVES HOME WITHOUT:
Coffee, clipboard, and Very Special Guest Stars.
No surprise here that Libby was pardoned, and lest we get too sanctimonious, let's not forget the Clinton pardons for Bill's brother Roger and Hillary's brother Hugh. I won't waste my breath sputtering over the pardon, which is of course scandalous. More interesting is whether this pardon sparks a debate over our two-tier justice system, or a great national shrug. It's not as if Bush's standing can get any lower in the polls, and it's not as if Congress is actually going to impeach anyone over this.
The people in charge of the Democratic party now belong, for the most part, to the same social class as the Republicans. And although the poorest among us have things a tiny bit easier under Democratic administrations, that social class doesn't do Hard Time unless one of them is caught with a dead girl or a live boy,
In a better world, we would see a presidential candidate using the Libby pardon to talk about the forgotten men in prison. If there are 2 million Americans in prison, that's a city as big as Houston or Chicago. And in the best of all possible worlds, we will have no more public sanctimony about the American justice system, unless we're talking about what it MIGHT be.
What Muppet Are You?
You are Scooter.
You are a loyal, hardworking person, better known
as a doormat.
SPECIAL TALENTS:
Going for stuff.
LEAST FAVORITE MOVIE:
"Go For Broke!"
QUOTE:
"15 seconds to showtime."
LAST BOOK READ:
"300 New Ways to Get Your Uncle to Get You a
Better Job "
NEVER LEAVES HOME WITHOUT:
Coffee, clipboard, and Very Special Guest Stars.
High School Scholars Petition Bush to Obey the Law
When President Bush attended a photo op June 25th with the 2007 Presidential Scholars-- a high school boy and girl from every state and territory-- he was confronted with a petition signed by 50 of them calling for an end to the use of torture and the restoration of habeas corpus for the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
The hand-written letter read in part, "We do not want America to represent torture. We urge you to do all in your power to stop violations of the human rights of detainees, to cease illegal renditions, and to apply the Geneva Convention to all detainees, including those designated enemy combatants."
The White House Press Secretary said "The president enjoyed a visit with the students, accepted the letter and upon reading it let the student know that the United States does not torture and that we value human rights."
According to the website Newshounds , Anderson Cooper's program on CNN was the only broadcast to mention the incident.
The hand-written letter read in part, "We do not want America to represent torture. We urge you to do all in your power to stop violations of the human rights of detainees, to cease illegal renditions, and to apply the Geneva Convention to all detainees, including those designated enemy combatants."
The White House Press Secretary said "The president enjoyed a visit with the students, accepted the letter and upon reading it let the student know that the United States does not torture and that we value human rights."
According to the website Newshounds , Anderson Cooper's program on CNN was the only broadcast to mention the incident.
Does TIAA-CREF Hate America?
Okay, has anyone else noticed that the customers targeted by TIAA-CREF in their commercials-- "people in the academic, medical, cultural, and research fields"-- are the citizens most likely to be targeted as political enemies of the Bush administration? What does this MEAN?
As a Dog Returneth to Its Vomit, Part... I've Lost Count
Ah, there's nothing like vaudeville. Every time I think the Bush vaudevillians can no longer astonish me, when I think they've run out of tricks, one of them makes my jaw drop in delight and astonishment yet again.
Paul Wolfowitz, a principal architect of our success in Iraq, has for the past two years been serving as president of the World Bank. He might have retired from the public eye, lying doggo in the bushes, as it were, but Lo!
It seems that Mr. Wolfowitz's lady friend, Shaha Riza, herself a former communications advisor at the World Bank, has, in the words of The Washington Post, "done exceptionally well in terms of salary in the last 18 months." Miss Riza left her $132,660 job at the bank about six months after Mr. Wolfowitz became her boss, in order to avoid any hint of impropriety or conflict of interest. In September 2005, she went to work for Karen Hughes at the State Department.
All well and good-- until it was revealed that she's still getting a six-figure paycheck from the World Bank... AND she was promoted to a managerial-level just before she left... AND instead of a $20,000 raise for the promotion, she somehow received a $47,340 raise...
So THIS year-- still working at State, not the World Bank-- Riza ANOTHER raise of $13,500, bringing her up to $193,590, which is $7,000 more, net, than the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice makes gross.
How does he do it? How does the man consistently make a shambles of everything he touches? How does this fifth column saboteur disguise his depredations as mere incompetence? What audacity! What arrogance! What a body count!
I hear the drums speak! They signal one another in the jungle night... they say the elephants are restless... they say that the other employees at the World Bank are very angry... the drums say the career employees are already unhappy with the one known as "Wolfie"... they fear his vengence will be terrible... they are sharpening their knives...
The poor schlub. And to think, he only went into this career for the chicks.
UPDATE: Mr, Wolfowitz says he's terribly sorry, and that it won't happen again.The White House says they still love him. His staff still doesn't like him. The State Department says Miss Riza has been working at Foundation for Freedom since September (but Foundation for Freedom still gets its money from State.) Me, I'd be much more sympathetic towards such a "painful personal dilemma" if it had occured on a shoestring budget.
AFTER BUSH, THE DELUGE
Steven Clemons (a friend of a friend to whose expertise I defer when teaching Middle Eastern politics to America's youth) has an entry on his blog called "What Will the Blowback from Iraq Look Like in the Decades to Come?"
Quoting a report from the Federation of American Scientists: "It is estimated that in total (including those displaced prior to the war) there may be two million Iraqi refugees who have fled to Jordan, Syria, and other neighboring states, and approximately two million Iraqis who have been displaced within Iraq itself."
If you'll allow me an understatement, it's going to take a while for that bruise to go down.
Mr. Clemons starts with an analogy between Bush's invasion of Iraq and our present relationship with Iran: "To a certain degree, the realities in Iran today were shaped by America's misguided, interventionist regime change success there in helping to overthrow Iranian President Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 and installing Shah Reza Pahlavi."
Almost every television bloviator I've seen omits this basic truth when talking about Iran; it's the elephant in the room that we all need to talk about when we talk about why the Middle East hates us. It's not "America bashing"; it's just the way things are. Certainly the Islamic world is a mess, and a great deal of that is the fault of her own people-- but politicians who deny any American culpability in the crisis are no better than bullying children who refuse to take responsibility for the mess they've made. They are doing us no favors.
Read more here.
Quoting a report from the Federation of American Scientists: "It is estimated that in total (including those displaced prior to the war) there may be two million Iraqi refugees who have fled to Jordan, Syria, and other neighboring states, and approximately two million Iraqis who have been displaced within Iraq itself."
If you'll allow me an understatement, it's going to take a while for that bruise to go down.
Mr. Clemons starts with an analogy between Bush's invasion of Iraq and our present relationship with Iran: "To a certain degree, the realities in Iran today were shaped by America's misguided, interventionist regime change success there in helping to overthrow Iranian President Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 and installing Shah Reza Pahlavi."
Almost every television bloviator I've seen omits this basic truth when talking about Iran; it's the elephant in the room that we all need to talk about when we talk about why the Middle East hates us. It's not "America bashing"; it's just the way things are. Certainly the Islamic world is a mess, and a great deal of that is the fault of her own people-- but politicians who deny any American culpability in the crisis are no better than bullying children who refuse to take responsibility for the mess they've made. They are doing us no favors.
Read more here.
Forget About Bringing Sexy Back, I Want You to Stop Calling Me a Traitor
I can't believe I'm posting the lyrics to a pop/country song, either, at least one more recent than Hank Williams, Sr. But I turned in to watch the Police on the Grammies and was profoundly moved by the Dixie Chicks performing this song, and I hope the audience realized the context of what they were seeing and hearing. This is as good a "Fuck, Yeah!" moment as you get outside of fiction or the stage, and the best one we've had since Stephen Colbert praised Our Peerless Leader at the Washington Correspondants dinner last year. Besides, it gives me an excuse to post a picture of (sigh) Natalie Maines. (It's those broad cheekbones, I know it is.)
Dixie Chicks: "Not Ready To Make Nice"
Forgive, sounds good.
Forget, I'm not sure I could.
They say time heals everything,
But I'm still waiting
I'm through with doubt,
There's nothing left for me to figure out,
I've paid a price, and i'll keep paying
I'm not ready to make nice,
I'm not ready to back down,
I'm still mad as hell
And I don't have time
To go round and round and round
It's too late to make it right
I probably wouldn't if I could
Cause I'm mad as hell
Can't bring myself to do what it is
You think I should
I know you said
Why can't you just get over it,
It turned my whole world around
and i kind of like it
I made my bed, and I sleep like a baby,
With no regrets and I don't mind saying,
It's a sad sad story
That a mother will teach her daughter
that she ought to hate a perfect stranger.
And how in the world
Can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they'd write me a letter
Saying that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over
I'm not ready to make nice,
I'm not ready to back down,
I'm still mad as hell
And I don't have time
To go round and round and round
It's too late to make it right
I probably wouldn't if I could
Cause I'm mad as hell
Can't bring myself to do what it is
You think I should
I'm not ready to make nice,
I'm not ready to back down,
I'm still mad as hell
And I don't have time
To go round and round and round
It's too late to make it right
I probably wouldn't if I could
Cause I'm mad as hell
Can't bring myself to do what it is
You think I should
Forgive, sounds good.
Forget, I'm not sure I could.
They say time heals everything,
But I'm still waiting
***
UPDATE: They won every award they were nominated for.
Our Every Choice Is Hateful. What, Then, Must We Do?
I am wholly sympathetic with those who want the troops out of Iraq yesterday-- but I want some third alternative to "get out now" and "escalate".
Here is my reason: our country (in spite of my feeble protest) invaded a foreign country, caused the murder of thousands of innocent people and destroyed billions of dollars worth of other people's infrastructure. Having committed these crimes, do we now leave the mess for other people to clean up-- like a certain frat boy has done all his life?
Isn't that why we hated Tom and Daisy Buchanan? "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures... and let other people clean up the mess they had made." There's a reason why that book contains one of the most powerful metaphors ever written to explain America.
Is this George Bush's ultimate triumph as the Antichrist, to make good people in his likeness? Even the people who despise him? "Gee, sorry we killed your cat and your baby and trashed your house, Iraq, guess we better leave now, this party's no fun anymore, still friends?"
This, to me, would be as monstrous as the invasion. Now those of us against the war will do the job that Bush can't bring himself to do, but he will happily spend the rest of his life blaming those antiwar killjoys for ruining his master plan. There's a psychological reason Bush supporters accuse us of hating America, of "wanting the terrorists to win." Psychically, they cannot afoord to admit to themselves that George W. Bush has been the best recruiting tool al-Qaeda ever had. And that they were his enablers.
The men (and women) who ordered this war, and their enablers, should be removed from office and put far away from power, where they can never hurt anyone again-- but the evil that men do lives after them. What, Then, Must WE Do?
Here is my reason: our country (in spite of my feeble protest) invaded a foreign country, caused the murder of thousands of innocent people and destroyed billions of dollars worth of other people's infrastructure. Having committed these crimes, do we now leave the mess for other people to clean up-- like a certain frat boy has done all his life?
Isn't that why we hated Tom and Daisy Buchanan? "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures... and let other people clean up the mess they had made." There's a reason why that book contains one of the most powerful metaphors ever written to explain America.
Is this George Bush's ultimate triumph as the Antichrist, to make good people in his likeness? Even the people who despise him? "Gee, sorry we killed your cat and your baby and trashed your house, Iraq, guess we better leave now, this party's no fun anymore, still friends?"
This, to me, would be as monstrous as the invasion. Now those of us against the war will do the job that Bush can't bring himself to do, but he will happily spend the rest of his life blaming those antiwar killjoys for ruining his master plan. There's a psychological reason Bush supporters accuse us of hating America, of "wanting the terrorists to win." Psychically, they cannot afoord to admit to themselves that George W. Bush has been the best recruiting tool al-Qaeda ever had. And that they were his enablers.
The men (and women) who ordered this war, and their enablers, should be removed from office and put far away from power, where they can never hurt anyone again-- but the evil that men do lives after them. What, Then, Must WE Do?
President Snerd
Edgar Bergen: Are you listening, Mortimer?
Mortimer Snerd: Uh... Happy Valley?
Edgar Bergen: That's right, yes. Now, just try to imagine it. Can't you just close your eyes and see it?
Mortimer Snerd: Well, I can't see very good with my eyes closed. My eyelids get in the way.
Edgar Bergen: Well, you create a picture in your mind's eye.
Mortimer Snerd: Oh.
Charlie McCarthy: That's not easy for him. His mind gets in the way.
I went down to the demonstration...
To get my fair share of abuse
Singing, "We're gonna vent our frustration
If we don't we're gonna...
Write a VERY Strongly Worded Letter. And wear funny Third World hats. You just see if we don't.
One hundred people showed up, at the corner of Michigan and Park in Kalamazoo for a rush hour protest against escalation of the war in Iraq. There were only five catcalls from the passersby: "Get a life!", "Go Bush!", "Get a Job!", "I have family members in the service!" and "Pray for your president!" Compared with driver response when the war began, there was almost constant horn honking, waving and calls of support. The local chain newspaper's account gives the false impression that opinion was evenly divided. I was there, bubeleh, with my freak memory in tow, and counted five voices and one inarticulate howl gainst us, but more than one hundred in agreement with the protest. This distortion is to be expected from a newspaper that endorsed Bush twice.
I was there, waving a "No More Troops" sign, but I never quite fit in at a demonstration. They're almost always organized by non-violent groups, and I'm not opposed to violence; I'm just against such a badly-run war. Odd that this trash fire in Iraq was lit by men who were too proud to fight in Vietnam.
I'm skeptical about the efficacy of street protest as a 21st century tactic. Did we accomplish anything tonight, chip away at the mountain, or only lubricate the machine and make everyone feel better? Why not protest in Portage, a stronghold for Bush?
The news cameras were there, and a reporter for the no-longer-local chain newspaper, but like Prufrock's mermaids, I do not think that they will sing to me. There were war veterans there, and mothers of soldiers, and college professors, and at least one genuine Iraqui whose family is still trapped-- never mind them, find me a white guy with dreadlocks and a laundry list of causes I can talk to.
Do we need a "Clean for Gene" manifesto for protestors? Shall we request formal attire or work clothes, to cut down on the exhibitionism of the spiritual clog-dancers in the crowd? Media coverage of these events will almost use their antics to trivialize opposition to the war. They mean well, Barbara Ehrenrich may think they're adorable, I myself will happily discuss shamanism and tantric sex at the coffee shop after the protest, dance buck naked like the Ringtailed Nonesuch at Carnival time, but don't let yourself be made to look the fool when life and death are at stake and a grotesque mass murdering clown, George W. Bush, masquerades as a serious person.
There are 100 earnest, aching people there who don't want any more lives to be wasted. I watch the news cameraman scan the crowd and, as always, I see him focus the longest on the person wearing the funniest hat.
Singing, "We're gonna vent our frustration
If we don't we're gonna...
Write a VERY Strongly Worded Letter. And wear funny Third World hats. You just see if we don't.
One hundred people showed up, at the corner of Michigan and Park in Kalamazoo for a rush hour protest against escalation of the war in Iraq. There were only five catcalls from the passersby: "Get a life!", "Go Bush!", "Get a Job!", "I have family members in the service!" and "Pray for your president!" Compared with driver response when the war began, there was almost constant horn honking, waving and calls of support. The local chain newspaper's account gives the false impression that opinion was evenly divided. I was there, bubeleh, with my freak memory in tow, and counted five voices and one inarticulate howl gainst us, but more than one hundred in agreement with the protest. This distortion is to be expected from a newspaper that endorsed Bush twice.
I was there, waving a "No More Troops" sign, but I never quite fit in at a demonstration. They're almost always organized by non-violent groups, and I'm not opposed to violence; I'm just against such a badly-run war. Odd that this trash fire in Iraq was lit by men who were too proud to fight in Vietnam.
I'm skeptical about the efficacy of street protest as a 21st century tactic. Did we accomplish anything tonight, chip away at the mountain, or only lubricate the machine and make everyone feel better? Why not protest in Portage, a stronghold for Bush?
The news cameras were there, and a reporter for the no-longer-local chain newspaper, but like Prufrock's mermaids, I do not think that they will sing to me. There were war veterans there, and mothers of soldiers, and college professors, and at least one genuine Iraqui whose family is still trapped-- never mind them, find me a white guy with dreadlocks and a laundry list of causes I can talk to.
Do we need a "Clean for Gene" manifesto for protestors? Shall we request formal attire or work clothes, to cut down on the exhibitionism of the spiritual clog-dancers in the crowd? Media coverage of these events will almost use their antics to trivialize opposition to the war. They mean well, Barbara Ehrenrich may think they're adorable, I myself will happily discuss shamanism and tantric sex at the coffee shop after the protest, dance buck naked like the Ringtailed Nonesuch at Carnival time, but don't let yourself be made to look the fool when life and death are at stake and a grotesque mass murdering clown, George W. Bush, masquerades as a serious person.
There are 100 earnest, aching people there who don't want any more lives to be wasted. I watch the news cameraman scan the crowd and, as always, I see him focus the longest on the person wearing the funniest hat.
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