Know your Enemy

Read the transcript of the latest Al Qaeda tape. These guys aren't stupid. Like Goebbels, they know all about the big lie. The problem is, with the kind of incompetence and invective so prominent at the highest levels of our government, lies like this sound reasonable. Bin Laden (if he's still alive) has no illusions about his goal. He wants to rule the world. Basically, he wants him and his fellow lunatics to take the place of corporations and governments at the pinnacle of power. But because of the way that western governments and multinational corporations do business, he can easily claim to be acting in the interest of the downtrodden. We're giving him ammunition for his propaganda with every day that genocide continues in Darfur or malaria goes untreated in Malawi. It doesn't matter that a jihadist world government would usher in a holocaust unlike the world has ever seen. So long as the west has the resources to fix world problems, without actually doing so, the jihadist manifesto will sound like a good alternative to desperate people.

Bedazzled by Stars

It seems that as long as someone has stars on their lapel, their word gets taken as gospel truth. It just seems to me that there's too big of a bubble placed around diplomats and top brass for them to get any real idea of what the deal is. Instead of listening to them, maybe we should start taking the word of actual soldiers at face value. I know many of them think things are working, and I certainly can't contradict them from my apartment in Cambridge. But I can offer the view of people like Alex Horton who make a lot of sense. Maybe the soldiers who say they're making a difference and we've "turned the corner" in Iraq are right. I'd love to believe it, because whatever the reactionaries say, no American has a defeatist agenda except the sleeper cells. No one wants to see Iraq end up as another failed state. But then, there might not be anything we can do about it. Improvement in isolated areas is not enough.

If you still use Yahoo. . .

Stop.

Calm Like a Bomb

So I went to see Rock the Bells yesterday, on Randall's Island in NYC. I'm no fan of the Big Apple, and I'll spare you the details of my trip to and from. Suffice it to say that, despite the heat, humidity, and long line for water, the show was a blast.

Of course the reason I went to Rock the Bells was to see Rage Against the Machine. And as the brilliant reporters at Fox News discovered earlier this year, Rage love controversy. But Zack and Rage, unlike so many self-righteous reactionaries and government cheerleaders, stand up for what they believe in and do so consistently. The real reason Fox hates Rage is not because, as uber-reactionary Ann Coulter puts it, "they think they can shoot the president," but because they hold all people to the same standard and don't think anyone is above or below the law. Rage would avoid a lot of controversy if they would just admit that American lives are worth more than African or Iraqi or Vietnamese lives. Of course, Rage being consistent in their beliefs and all, I'm not holding my breath for that.

Oh, and the quote in question, in full text, is below courtesy of Wikipedia who got it from MTV:

"...if the same laws were applied to U.S. presidents as were applied to the Nazis after World War II [...] every single one of them, every last rich white one of them from Truman on, would have been hung to death and shot - and this current administration is no exception. They should be hung, and tried, and shot. As any war criminal should be. But the challenges that we face, they go way beyond administrations, way beyond elections, way beyond every four years of pulling levers, way beyond that. Because this whole rotten system has become so vicious and cruel that in order to sustain itself, it needs to destroy entire countries and profit from their reconstruction in order to survive - and that's not a system that changes every four years, it's a system that we have to break down, generation after generation after generation after generation after generation.... Wake up."

Man, if only I had a billion dollars. . .

. . . I could get away with murder like Bechtel.

Having worked as a laborer for most of my adult life (the exception being a summer spent in the blissful air conditioning of the University Library) let me tell you, if you screw up a couple times, you're gonna get yelled at. Do it again and you get thrown off the work site. And I've never heard of a company getting out of responsibility for all the defects in its contracted work as part of a deal to avoid criminal charges. But then, I guess I never had $1,000,000,000 to throw around (of course, it's just 1/15th of the total cost of the Bechtel contract) after someone died from my shoddy work. Incidentally, we now know what a human life is worth to a multinational corporation (at least when they fear prosecution).

Why do these self-styled patriots hate America?

Usually I try not to attack groups that are obviously trying to help wounded soldiers failed by their government. However, Blackfive seems to have forgotten that we're all Americans, whether Democrat, Republican, Communist or Corporatist. We all have certain rights, and if you're going to attack someone, do it for their words, their actions and not their political allegiance. Calling people who want to see fewer Americans die policing a civil war "cut-and-run, pro-losing protester" (as opposed to "stay-and-die, pro-stagnation cheerleaders?") is just being an asshole.

A little old lady, presumably living in a in a predominantly "stay the course" community, hung her flag upside down in protest. Sure, I don't like that, because it is a legitimate symbol of distress, a visual SOS. On the other hand, given that our executive branch is criminally insane and blatantly hypocritical while our congress is full of spineless ninnies I think distress is the right emotion to feel. Would I hang the flag upside down? Hell no. But it's not the most disrespectful thing I've seen done to the flag. I've seen Hummer Patriots (those who drive the least fuel efficient cars and who balk at the idea of personal sacrifice, while sporting half-a-dozen yellow ribbons and a big "support our troops" T-shirt) who drive 80mph down the highway with those little window flags flapping wildly, getting torn to shreds. I've seen gravel pits that leave a massive flag displayed on a mound of dirt, exposed to the elements. I've seen countless examples of a flag going up and being left to shred, fade, and deteriorate. And that's all from armchair patriots. That's a hell of a lot more disrespectful than flying Old Glory upside down to protest the failure of our country to live up to its founding principles.

One last thing. How American is it to have a "patriotic and political expression policy" for a community? I thought we welcomed diversity here. Oh wait, if you're a "stay-and-die cheerleader" then you only welcome diverse opinions identical to your own. The shoe on the other foot pinches, eh?

How are we fighting this war?

Forgive me for being a little rusty on my modern military strategy. I studied it, but somehow missed the part where you capture the enemy and then let him go. All this time I thought the purpose of patrolling the streets in Iraq and detaining insurgents and militia members was to keep them from fighting and killing innocent Iraqis and coalition troops. Apparently it's really to give them a little R&R before they move on to the next town.

You know, a little bird once told me that we have the best military in the country. Now I've met a lot of soldiers and I think they are the best, true citizen-soldiers who are well trained and carry out their orders no matter what the opposition. But someone higher up clearly has their head so far up their ass that it's coming back out the other side.

One Paradox of Neo-Conservatism

Neoconservatism as an ideology supports two concepts which have, so far, been mutually exclusive. On the one hand, they trust the free market to provide all services, including providing military equipment in times of war. They also support pre-emptive strikes to protect the national (and ideological) interest, keeping our military in a war footing. Yet private corporations have yet to prove they can effectively supply our military and our government has yet to prove that it can hold them to task. Maybe it's time some things stayed in the public sector.

Fatah Vs. Hamas in the Octogon, live on pay-per-view!

Small Wars Journal, whose archives I frequently used in college, has a great article on the upcoming rematch between the evil (Hamas) and the corrupt (Fatah) in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. I agree with their evaluation: Fatah might possibly reform itself, might possibly tiptoe the fine line between accepting Israeli and American help and being condemned for "collaborating," might be able to form a coherent security force, might be able to oust Hamas and restore some semblance of normalcy to the Palestinian territories.

I doubt it though. The New Republic article I cited June 28 is the more likely scenario. No matter what expatriate Palestinians might say, those living in the territories are broken down into clans, and organizations like Fatah only merit marginal allegiance. Hence, even when one group or another declares a cease-fire, attempted attacks on Israeli targets do not stop. If the Al-Aqsa brigades are off this week, Islamic Jihad would be happy to pick up the slack. That is, assuming that all the Al-Aqsa members got the memo.

Happy 4th of July!

Hopefully you broke some noise ordinances and fireworks laws at some point last week. I know I did.

I don't much go for Mallard Fillmore (the reactionary, disgruntled duck) but one strip from last week cracked me up. To paraphrase: "I don't know what's worse: that we celebrate Independence Day with fireworks made in an oppressive country like China, or that their fireworks are safer than their dog food and toothpaste."

China is a big problem, and we need to address it sooner rather than later.

Palestine: 1920-2007

This week's The New Republic has a great article on the end of Palestine (free signup required to access full article).

Reasons to forego that Masters in Library Science

Once again, the real journalists over at Wired have brought attention to the abuses of power our government gets away with on a daily basis. The whole National Security Letter thing, by which the FBI can "request" private information about individuals without getting a court authorization, scares me pretty bad. They've been using them indiscriminately to illegally obtain phone, library and email records, and so far it seems only the Librarians have been standing up to them. Let me say this: if the FBI looks up my library records (which they might have; I've been to Israel which is technically in the Mideast and still can't get on a plane without extra scrutiny) they would find some sketchy-sounding books. Last semester I took out Che Guevara's "Guerrilla Warfare", a book called "Small Wars" by a 19th century British army major, and at least four other books with "guerrilla" right in the title. I'm sure that, looking at my internet records, they'd find that I read military and defense-oriented blogs, and my reading on Wikipedia might turn up searches for Cordite and Gelagnite, both WWI-era explosives. They don't seem to need much evidence to do what they want, so for all I know they've already tapped my phone.

Of course that's paranoid. I know that. But then, considering that I do get "randomly" selected for extra screening every time I fly (and I'm a scrawny little white Jew, by the by) I wonder what else about me they check. I mean, if they're willing to take a couple of Librarians to court, what else might they do? Not only that, there's apparently a 5-year jail term for speaking out when such a thing does happen to you. So we may never know how many people stood up to the lawbreakers. It's a tragedy. (or is that travesty?)

You can't lick this Dick

It's official: Dick Cheney is still a hypocritical scumbag. The same guy who leaked the identity of a covert CIA operative for political gain is now refusing to let the National Archives inspect his office and review his handling of classified materials. Get this: the NA is doing this on the orders of Bush, and Cheney's rationale for refusing is that the VP office is not part of the executive branch! It'd be funny if it wasn't so sickening.

It's too bad the Democrats are spineless ninnies, because if there was ever a need for an impeachment, it's now. It should start with Bush, and not stop until every single administration official has testified under oath about all the laws they've defied and all the lies they've told to keep their jobs. Send 'em all to jail, for a long long time. And not club fed either, I want to see these guys end up at Sing Sing with Tyrell for a room mate. It'd restore my faith in justice to see a few rich old white guys in with the victims of racial profiling.

Fight Authority

I'm a member of a public interest lobbying group called "Downsize DC' (here) and, although I don't agree with everything they do, I appreciate their willingness to address the hard issues that miss with the mainstream media. Exhibit A: what did the government do on September 11, 2001, after the attacks took place? What was the response? Some widows from New Jersey asked, and here is a full-length documentary on their odyssey. It's surreal, but well done and non-partisan.

Full disclosure

There's been a lot of discussion about the extent to which bloggers are considered members of the press. I took some journalism classes last year, and if my fellow students in those classes are indicative of the greater population of journalistic professionals, then I'm not entirely sure that I want to be considered a member of that fraternity. Besides, I live in a part of the world where things rarely explode and have no intention of traveling to one where they do. I'm not much of a reporter. Although having the protections of one would be nice.

What I do is read way too much news and way too many history books. So, for reasons of narcissistic self-gratification, I intend to regurgitate some of the better bits of reporting with selected bits from the better history books. And if anything interesting happens in New England, well, I just might happen to be in the area.

If you're looking for wishy-washy, feel-good, lets-hold-hands-and-sing-"kumbaya" liberal perspective, you won't find it. You also won't find the arrogant, anti-intellectual, god-chose-me neo-conservative perspective. I don't trust the government any more than I trust mob rule or the corporatocracy. I just think there's better ways to do everything, and we as Americans have always been good at improvising and improving. Hence our position on the precipice. If we hadn't done so well to get here, we wouldn't have so far to fall if we screw up now.