Greatest Canadian is socialist Tommy Douglas

Canadians choose force behind their Medicare system as greatest


During his 42 years in politics, Tommy Douglas was largely responsible for establishment of central banking, old age pensions, unemployment insurance, and universal Medicare.

Tommy Douglas (1904–1986) was chosen in mass voting sponsored by the CBC to be the Greatest Canadian. The competition was rough, including hockey great Wayne Gretzky and the late inspirational folk hero Terry Fox. Fox came in second. Click here to read all about the finalists and the months-long series of programs leading up to last night's final selection.

As President Bush visits Ottawa today, he should take note of the message ordinary Canadians have sent through this selection. First, public social benefits make for a strong country, even one in the shadow of a behemoth. It is asinine for a conservative even to suggest Canadians would prefer our health-care-for-the-rich system over their own. Also, all of the finalists in this process represented some sort of caring, inspiration, betterment of mass politics, and/or "going against the grain" of conventional wisdom or entrenched interests.

We appreciate the fine opportunity we have here in Bangor, Maine to watch Canadian television (CBC). It can be very refreshing. Thanks to Adelphia for providing it over the last 1 1/2 or so years.

Lies of the state

Assume anything that is said by US military spokesmen, Ayad Allawi included, is false until independently proven true. Likelihood is it isn't.


Here are some of the civilians the Americans didn't see, but who were put out of their home in Fallujah nonetheless.


Shrapnel from an American grenade thrown into his home tore through this insurgent.


Do not look at the man behind the curtain! Instead see how commendable efforts by some of our soldiers mean "...all Americans can take heart in the proud traditions our military upholds every day, traditions that speak to the core of this nation's values: reaching out to people in need, regardless of where they call home." (Dennis McCafferty, "Above and Beyond", USA Weekend, November 26–28, 2004)

The media environment concerning the recent US-led attacks on Sunni cites and towns -- and even the whole situation in Iraq -- is outrageous and dishonest. Twenty years from now students will be studying this propaganda environment in an effort to figure out how so many good people remained so quiet during such an intense program of atrocities committed in our name.

This Kim Sengupta story from the Independent and posted on Counterpunch sums up actual reports from people who managed to flee the attacks:

Allegations of widespread abuse by US forces in Fallujah, including the killing of unarmed civilians and the targeting of a hospital in an attack, have been made by people who have escaped from the city.

They said, in interviews with The Independent, that as well as deaths from bombs and artillery shells, a large number of people including children were killed by American snipers. US forces refused repeated calls for medical aid for injured civilians, they said.

Contrast that to the media ear-pulling our military spokespeople are doing while the scribes from the steno pool busily copy every word:

GEN. SATTLER on Nov. 12: we have one group of 30 civilians who came out who were taken and moved to a humanitarian assistance area. And the only other civilians -- we had one civilian who was injured, a family of three who was picked up by Iraqi security forces and brought out, and then the approximately 300 that I mentioned earlier that are a combination, we feel, of civilians from Fallujah and possibly some fighters embedded with them. And that is the only families -- the only civilians we've come across.

GEN. SATTLER on Nov. 18: The only people who are out moving around -- we'll see them walk out with a white flag -- and I'm sure you've seen those -- who will come in to pick up water and food, and then we follow them back to where they're going to make sure they're not taking that water and food back to a number of insurgents who are destitute and running out of both luck and food and water. If they take it back to a family, then we ensure that we provide proper assistance to that family.

Contrast again to more reports from the ground:

DAHR JAMAIL on Nov. 23: Doctors in Fallujah are reporting there are patients in the hospital there who were forced out by the Americans," said Mehdi Abdulla, a 33 year-old ambulance driver at a hospital in Baghdad, "Some doctors there told me they had a major operation going, but the soldiers took the doctors away and left the patient to die." He looks at the ground, then away to the distance.

DAHR JAMAIL on Nov. 28:...most Fallujans have been unable to reach the main hospital due to ongoing fighting and most being too afraid of detainment by soldiers or Iraqi National Guardsmen to seek medical help. The ambulances returned to Baghdad.

The rest of Dahr's posts often are so sickening -- reports of use of poisonous gas, artillery against moving persons, soldiers dumping bodies in the river, and an utterly terrified population afraid to even light a candle at night -- sometimes I can barely read them.

Below are a few more references. If young American soldiers can be convinced they are battling "Satan", the dehumanization process is complete.

US denies need for Falluja aid convoy
The Guardian; Rory McCarthy, Baghdad; Monday, November 15, 2004
"US military chiefs said yesterday that they saw no need for the Iraqi Red Crescent to deliver aid inside Falluja because they did not think any Iraqi civilians were trapped there. 'There is no need to bring [Red Crescent] supplies in because we have supplies of our own for the people," said Colonel Mike Shupp of the marines...'"

Hunting 'Satan' in Falluja hell
BBC News; Paul Wood, Falluja; Tuesday, November 23, 2004
"Lt Malcolm was a good chess player. He looked like any other young marines officer: skinny, shaven-headed, although with a quite beaky nose. 'A lot of the marines that I've had wounded and killed over the past five months have been by a faceless enemy. But the enemy has got a face. 'He's called Satan. He's in Falluja. And we're going to destroy him'. But to his officers in the briefing he said: 'There's nothing out there that will defeat us'".

ICRC decries humanitarian situation
The following is an extraordinary release from the International Committee of the Red Cross. It displays balance, but the blatant violation of the 1st Geneva Convention -- prevention of treatment of sick and injured by US-led forces -- must not be escaping notice.

Iraq: Civilians must be spared and the sick and wounded treated
Geneva (ICRC)

The ICRC reminds all those involved in the armed confrontations in Iraq that international humanitarian law prohibits the killing or harming of civilians who are not directly taking part in the hostilities.

It calls upon all fighters to take every feasible precaution to spare civilians and civilian property and to respect the principles of distinction and proportionality in all military operations.

Deeply concerned about reports that the injured cannot receive adequate medical care, the ICRC urges the belligerents to ensure that all those in need of such care – whether friend or foe – be given access to medical facilities and that medical personnel and vehicles can function without hindrance at all times.

Thousands of Iraqi civilians, including women, children and elderly persons, have fled the fighting in Falluja and taken refuge in the surrounding areas. Many of these displaced people need assistance in the form of food, water, shelter and medical care. They should be allowed to return home safely as soon as possible.

The ICRC remains committed to pursuing its humanitarian work in Iraq and urges all parties to facilitate the passage of its aid convoys and the delivery of its neutral assistance to civilians affected by the conflict.

Time to pray.

Canadians protest war crimes

StopWar.ca has organized protests against Bush's November 30 visit to Ottawa



This is a short excerpt of a letter sent to Citizenship and Immigration Minister Sgro by a Canadian group called Lawyers Against the War:

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

The Honourable Judy Sgro, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Citizenship and Immigration
Ottawa Canada K1A 1L1
Tel: 1 613 954 1064
Fax: 1 613 957 2688
Minister@cic.gc.ca
sgro.j@parl.gc.ca

Dear Minister Sgro;

Re: President George W. Bush proposed November 30th 2004 visit to Canada.

We wrote to Prime Minister Martin on November 19 2004 protesting the invitation of President Bush to Canada on the grounds of the President’s flagrant commission of the most serious crimes against international law...As that letter indicates, many of the crimes of which President Bush stands accused are crimes under Canadian law, specifically under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act.

We are writing to you now to remind you that these crimes render President Bush inadmissible to Canada under our immigration laws. Because responsibility for the operation and enforcement of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act lies with you and your Ministry, we are calling on you to advise the Prime Minister of this fact and to insist that he rescind this invitation out of respect for our laws....

Maybe Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales has produced a secret memo explaining how the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act do not render President Bush "inadmissible" to Canada.

Bunker buster defunded

You know the Republicans are feeling budget trouble when Congress won't rubber stamp Bush's nukes



The Robust Earth Penetrator (illustration) and related programs were deleted in the massive budget bill passed by Congress over the weekend.

Our Congressional representatives have acted in accordance with our pleas of August 6 for them to stop the Administration's determined pursuit of new "usable" nuclear weapons. Walter Pincus reported Tuesday in the Washington Post that

...it was a Republican, Rep. David L. Hobson of Ohio, who lead the successful effort to keep the programs out of the omnibus appropriations bill adopted Saturday. Hobson, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water development, oversaw dropping the money from an appropriations bill in June, and House-Senate conferees accepted that action in Saturday's bill.

It should be noted that during our August 6 action, we thanked members of Congress who courageously supported deleting the bunker buster funds. Please see a pdf-format copy of the handout we distributed that day. At that time we wrote the we applauded "action in June where the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee courageously removed all the funds for new nuclear weapons in the House version of the energy and water appropriations bill (HR 4614)".

We again give the same thanks to Representative Hobson and those members who now have made the deletion stick.

Pincus does go on to quote the positive reaction of arms control advocates, and gives the rationale for opposing these dangerous and unnecessary weapons, writing, "the existence of lower-yield weapons -- sometimes called "mini-nukes" -- would ultimately increase the likelihood of war".

A victory perhaps even bigger than the elimination of the bunker busters in this budget action is the cold stop of the effort to build a new facility for production of plutonium pits for bombmaking. Although this deletion was small ($7 million), it stops dead in its tracks the proposed $4 billion Cold-War-throw-back construction program.

This remark of Hobson's was also in the Pincus story:

[Hobson] said that the $9 million Bush request to study ideas for new low-yield weapons had been redirected into studies of "current technologies to make existing warheads more robust and easier to maintain without more testing." Hobson added he had been against developing smaller-yield weapons "that someone might use," and instead wants the nuclear labs to employ modern technology to make "more reliable replacements" for the current warheads.

While we clearly agree with the remark that nukes that someone might use should not be built, it seems some equivalent money will be spent in other sanctums of nuclear horror. Our work to prevent nuclear war can hardly be considered over.

ANWR to be toast in the 109th Congress

At least some parts of the Energy Bill will poke through in 2005


President Bush and Veep Cheney promise that scenes like these will be more common in the Alaskan arctic

With peak oil descending on America like a ton of bricks, the 2004 election appears to have tipped the balance against the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Wampum has a detailed political analysis specifically on the ANWR issue. The writer's Democratic strategy conclusion near the end of this piece is quite interesting:

Democrats need to decide what they want to do about ANWAR. One option is to stand, fight, and lose on the narrow issue of ANWAR. Another option is to try to add provisions that will make the inevitable drilling more environmentally friendly.

My preferred option is to present a comprehensive energy plan as an alternative to the Republican bill and then allow the Republican majority to pass what it will.

The comprehensive plan should set out a road to energy independence for the United States. It should reject the false choice between economic growth and environmental protection and find ways to do both by creating new industries concerned with environmental protection and clean up.

It should be forward looking by calling for investment in new energy technologies such as hydrogen. It should combine new sources of energy with more efficiency and conservation. It should be practical and easily explained.

If any plan can meet those goals, I, for one, am fully prepared to compromise within the party on any specific item (ANWAR, nuclear power, CAFE standards, Gulf drilling, or whatever) to be able to agree on a comprehensive alternative to the Republican plan.

If we take that route, Democrats will not only win elections when the public tires of ineffective Republican policies, but will also have a mandate to enact a set of policies upon attaining power.

My own gut feeling is that the energy picture is going to blow wide open. Political resistance to oil drilling will pretty much vanish. Saving ANWR from greedy, Cheney-connected interests will not be possible. So I agree with the Wampum writer -- compromise with an aim to ameliorate environmental damage while limiting the theft and corruption normally associated with energy extraction seems wise at this juncture.

See also: this analysis posted by Bob at Howlings. ANWR's best friend may be the water-polluting chemical MTBE, as it has so far gummed the works for the Energy Bill.

Republicans embarrass themselves

Tax-return-privacy-gate has Republicans in retreat


Ernest Istook (R-OK): "I didn't write it; I didn't approve it; I wasn't even consulted. My name shouldn't be associated with it, because I had nothing to do with it, and didn't even know about it until after the bill was done and was filed."

This thing is just delicious. With all of the power and glory of their new perceived voter mandate, Republicans in both the House and Senate of the United States Congress are running away from their own taxpayer anti-privacy provision like a herd of elephants with their tails between their legs.

According to a story in the New York Times, Representative Ernest Istook, the Republican from Oklahoma who occupies the Chairmanship of the House Appropriations Committee, "was responsible for the insertion of the tax provision in the 3,000-page, $388 billion legislation that provides financing for most of the government".

Read that story, then read the actual language they passed along with the massive bill, as quoted by Josh Marshall. See if you think the "tempest in a teapot" denials by those responsible for the lawmaking process are credible:

Hereinafter, notwithstanding any other provision of law governing the disclosure of income tax returns or return information, upon written request of the Chairman of the House or Senate Committee on Appropriations, the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service shall allow agents designated by such Chairman access to Internal Revenue Service facilities and any tax returns or return information contained therein. (emphasis added)

Marshall has an extensive thread going on this issue, of which the latest posting is here.

The Washington Post has a page A1 story today. This is fun to watch!

Priorities of the newly-ratified mandarins

What's the first thing the Republicans want to do post-election? Buy back the presidential yacht, of course!


USS Sequoia: "When President Carter announced that Sequoia would be sold, crew members said they were devastated. 'We cried, it was as though a member of the family died.'"

The taxpayers will be asked to cough up $2 million to buy the USS Sequoia in the spending bill now before the lame-duck Congress. However the current owners say this symbol of wealth and privilege is "not for sale".

Taxpayer privacy under attack
Not only do the Republicans want to spend on luxury, they want to give their staffers the right to pour over our tax returns. Here is an exchange from Meet the Press this morning between Tim Russert and Senator John McCain:

MR. RUSSERT: In the House version of this spending bill, there was a provision which said that the Appropriations Committee should have access to taxpayers' tax returns. How did that happen?

SEN. McCAIN: What happens here is that they slap these omnibus bills together--as you mentioned, this one's nine bills that we should have passed separately--nobody sees them or reads them. It was a 1,630- page document yesterday that was presented to us sometime in the morning, and we voted on it in the evening. The system is broken, and everybody, of course, wanted to get out of town, understandably.

MR. RUSSERT: Why should Congress have access to citizens' tax returns?

SEN. McCAIN: According to--Senator Stevens' explanation on the floor last night was that two staffers put in this provision and no one knew about it until another Senator Conrad staffer discovered it.

MR. RUSSERT: What was their motive?

SEN. McCAIN: That should--you know, I don't know. I can't imagine. But the fact that our system is such that that would ever be inserted and passed by the House of Representatives--if there's ever a graphic example of the broken system that we now have, that certainly has to be it.

Gee, nobody now knows how or why this could've happened. Unnamed "staffers" are to blame. It'll require a separate measure to delete it, which Senator Frist promised to "take care" of.

Update: More on tax return privacy here.

Intelligence Bill
This is in some ways an enjoyable spectacle. The 911 reforms, being shepherded by Maine's puppy-dog Senator Susan Collins, can't be passed because of a deep anti-immigration split on Bush's right side. Seems the "moderate" Republicans are quite in favor of illegal immigrants having the legal right to a driver's license.

Bloodletting at the CIA

Promises of nonpartisanship were lies and there will be no more telling the public the truth about anything else


Michael Scheuer is the senior intelligence analyst who created and advised a secret CIA unit for tracking and eliminating bin Laden since 1996. He wrote the book Imperial Hubris under the pseudonym "Anonymous".

Newly minted DCI Porter Goss, now ratified by the election result, has revealed his tool set for disciplining his CIA subordinates. Contrary to promises of non-partisanship sworn before Chairman Pat Roberts and the rest of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Goss has staffed up his office with Republican hatchetmen. And the first to pay the price will be those agency employees who spoke in public about the disasters befalling this country due to manipulation of intelligence, like Michael Scheuer who is already out.

"There will be no more 'Imperial Hubris' books," said an intelligence official quoted in the article linked above. "The word is out: The place is under lockdown."

The bloodletting since last weekend has included two senior spook managers.

Call the latest shakeup "perception management", where Bush will now "hear even fewer contradictions to his judgments".

See also this story and these comments by former intelligence officer and agency critic, Mel Goodman.

US attacks in Iraq: legitimate?

In a recent piece on truthout.org, Aggressive War: Supreme International Crime, Marjorie Cohn argues forcefully that the United States has committed a variety of war crimes in the recent attack on Fallujah. She writes, "The Americans destroyed the Nazzal Emergency Hospital in the center of town. They stormed and occupied the Fallujah General Hospital, and have not agreed to allow doctors and ambulances go inside the main part of the city to help the wounded, in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions".

Ms. Cohn describes this basic tenet of international law:

The only two situations where the UN Charter permits the use of armed force against another state is in self-defense, or when authorized by the Security Council. Iraq had not invaded the U.S., or any other country, Iraq did not constitute an imminent threat to any country, and the Security Council never sanctioned Bush's war. Bush and the officials in his administration are committing the crime of aggression.

I generally agree with Ms. Cohn's conclusion that the March 2003 US attack on Iraq was a breach of international law. Furthermore, like Noam Chomsky, I believe that according to the Nuremberg Principles, acts subsequent to the initial Aggression also are war crimes "...when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime."

But I want to bring up for discussion one, two postings by Juan Cole.

The first of these refers to the horrific killing of a wounded Iraqi by a US Marine, in a mosque. Intense reaction has occurred throughout the Arab world, with much of the coverage underlining outrage over the "war crime" represented by this incident.

Cole points out, however, that UN Security Council resolutions were passed unanimously since the March 2003 invasion and conquest of Iraq. Most important is UNSCR 1546, recognizing the interim government of Iraq. I'm left wondering how to interpret the legality of "subsequent acts" under Nuremberg given post facto resolutions that seemingly legitimate the activities of the US military.

Professor Cole is a blogger I admire and respect greatly. His point is that the "legitimacy" of US forces operating in Iraq, flows from the authority conferred by UNSCR 1546. Cole writes:

Let me just clarify my comments. First of all, I did not say that the Iraq war was a legitimate war. It was not. It violated the charter of the United Nations. What I said was that the role of the US military and other multinational forces in Iraq is now legitimate because it was explicitly sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council. This is true. Many readers appear to have forgotten all about UN SC Resolution 1546 (2004), which was adopted unanimously. Here is what the Security Council said about the issue at hand:

9. Notes that the presence of the multinational force in Iraq is at the request of the incoming Interim Government of Iraq and therefore reaffirms the authorization for the multinational force under unified command established under resolution 1511 (2003), having regard to the letters annexed to this resolution;

10. Decides that the multinational force shall have the authority to take all necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq in accordance with the letters annexed to this resolution expressing, interalia, the Iraqi request for the continued presence of the multinational force and setting out its tasks, including by preventing and deterring terrorism, so that, interalia, the United Nations can fulfill its role in assisting the Iraqi people as outlined in paragraph seven above and the Iraqi people can implement freely and without intimidation the timetable and program for the political process and benefit from reconstruction and rehabilitation activities;

11. Welcomes, in this regard, the letters annexed to this resolution stating, interalia, that arrangements are being put in place to establish a security partnership between the sovereign Government of Iraq and the multinational force and to ensure coordination between the two, and notes also in this regard that Iraqi security forces are responsible to appropriate Iraqi ministers, that the Government of Iraq has authority to commit Iraqi security forces to the multinational force to engage in operations with it, and that the security structures described in the letters will serve as the for a for the Government of Iraq and the multinational force to reach agreement on the full range of fundamental security and policy issues, including policy on sensitive offensive operations, and will ensure full partnership between Iraqi security forces and the multinational force, through close coordination and consultation...

So, the Marines at Fallujah are operating in accordance with a UNSC Resolution and have all the legitimacy in international law that flows from that. The Allawi government asked them to undertake this Fallujah mission.

To compare them to the murderous thugs who kidnapped CARE worker Margaret Hassan, held her hostage, terrified her, and then picked up a butcher knife, grabbed her by the hair, held her head back, and cut her throat completely through the spinal cord as she screamed with increasing difficulty, is frankly monstrous. The multinational forces are soldiers fighting a war in which they are targeting combatants and sometimes accidentally killing innocents. The hostage-takers are terrorists deliberately killing innocents. It is simply not the same thing.

Cole qualifies his sense that the US Marines are a "legitimate" force in Iraq with the notion that the initial invasion violated the UN Charter. I do not accept that UNSCR 1546 sweeps away the illegality of the initial UN Charter violation. This doesn't seem to be the Professor's exact point and I do not think he wants to absolve the US of bona fide war crimes. However, I'm just not sure you can separate activities "legal" under UNSCR 1546 from those illegal because the invasion was illegal. Perhaps 1546 is itself illegal.

Margaret Hassan
Furthermore, on the sickening Margaret Hassan matter, I don't think we know exactly who killed her. I fully agree with Juan Cole that this act was monstrous. However, take a look at this story by Robert Fisk. Fisk writes,

...when it percolated through to Fallujah and Ramadi that the mere act of kidnapping Hassan was close to heresy, the combined resistance groups of Fallujah -- and the message genuinely came from them -- demanded her release.

So, incredibly, did Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda man whom the Americans falsely claimed was leading the Iraqi insurrection, but who has definitely been involved in the kidnappings and beheadings. Other abducted women were freed when their captors recognised their innocence.

But not Margaret Hassan, even though she spoke fluent Arabic and could explain her work to her captors in their own language. If anyone doubted the murderous nature of the insurgents, what better way to prove their viciousness than to produce evidence of Margaret Hassan's murder?

What more ruthless way could there be of demonstrating to the world that the US and Interim Prime Minister Iyad Alawi's tinpot army were fighting "evil" in Fallujah and the other Iraqi cities?

The situation unleashed by the United States in Iraq is so murky that it is not hard to imagine Ms. Hassan's death came at the hands of people wishing to de-legitimate resistance to US aggression while building an image of white-hatted Marines riding in to clean up these horrible people. Professor Cole may have fallen into a bit of a trap here.

Update 23:20: As'ad AbuKhalil has posted today bewildered by the Fisk piece I just cited. The Angry Arab appears to be in full concurrence with Professor Cole on the likely Al-Qa`idah/Zarqawi pedigree of the killers. "They are defaming her on their websites already? And it would not be the first time that they would kill an innocent person). Zarqawi and Al-Qa`idah by the way found ways to justify not only their killing of innocent civilians, but also of innocent civilian Muslims", writes As'ad.

Operation Iraqi Freedom

America makes war in Iraq

This just cannot be!? Can it? Not my country! Sadly, yes



In a dispatch quoted below, an AP photographer describes a harrowing journey fleeing American wrath against the city of Fallujah in Iraq.

"I decided to swim ... but I changed my mind after seeing U.S. helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river."

He watched horrified as a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross. Then, he "helped bury a man by the river bank, with my own hands."

"I kept walking along the river for two hours and I could still see some U.S. snipers ready to shoot anyone who might swim. I quit the idea of crossing the river and walked for about five hours through orchards."

Somehow this evokes scenes of the worst totalitarian discipline against people trying to flee communist Eastern Europe during the Cold War. How can they call it freedom?

Fallujah story disconnect

The embeds tell the attacker's story



And that story spells s - u - c - c - e - s - s.

My evaluation is that the military and its embeds are not in fact telling the whole story. Click that photo above for a whole lot more. This is a bloody mess. Bodies are strewn everywhere. The hospitals are full of "propaganda".

See also: As'ad AbuKhalil's Angry Arab News Service.

Bloodletting of Fallujah civilians

This is beyond the pale. John Pilger is right -- 911, the US elections, and now Fallujah demonstrate a media-driven normaliztion of the unthinkable. Please see medialens.org for extraordinary additional details about the official and corporate-media distortions Pilger cites, which he says serve to make all this unthinkable killing thinkable. Sadly, I must agree with Pilger.

Outrages old and new

We must increase the protest


US bombing of villages in SE Asia, c. 1970

Update note 7/17/2005: The image originally posted here was being linked to a vile anti-Muslim post on a bulletin board, so I have taken it down.
US bombing of Fallujah, Iraq, November 2004

The spring of 1970 was formative for me. At our high school in Minnesota, a large portion of the student body defied an order from the school administrators and walked out of school in protest of the invasion of Cambodia and the killings of student protesters in Ohio and Mississippi.

Today the foreign outrages being committed in the name of the United States of America are beginning to look an awful lot like those committed during the dark days of Spring 1970.

Back in those very different times, newspaper columnist Pete Hamill, then of the old New York Post, wrote:

There are four dead Americans on the campus of Kent State University -- gunned down by other Americans. Tear gas seeps through the air of a half-dozen other campuses. Mass rallies are building....

From Indochina we hear news as we have for so long from Peter Arnett of the Associated Press. The forces of what is laughingly called "the Free World" are moving into Cambodia -- burning and shooting and destroying.

Kids from Iowa are asked to distinguish between Cambodians and Vietnamese. Artillery is fired at moving human beings. The B-52s fly from our privileged sanctuaries in Thailand to churn up the Earth. Here we come, Cambodia, stick with us and let us give you freedom -- at 17 rounds a second.

Sound familiar? In Fallujah, Fall 2004, US military theory is the opposite, yet exactly the same as it was in 1970. Instead of driving civilians into urban areas in order to depopulate the countryside, Fallujah -- a major city the size of Saint Paul, Minnesota -- has been depopulated in order to expose the resistance within. But thousands of innocent civilians are still there. And many tens of thousands among those who left are now refugees. This adds up to a colossal humanitarian crisis -- "Catastrophic Conditions", according to Aljazeera.

A report in today's Observer further lays out the madness, stating that "Civilians are paying the price in Falluja":

With [the bitter urban war] has come the awful realities for civilians. 'Anyone who gets injured is likely to die, because there's no medicine and they can't get to doctors,' said Abdul-Hameed Salim, a volunteer with the Iraqi Red Crescent. 'There are snipers everywhere. Go outside and you're going to get shot.'

Rasoul Ibrahim, who fled Falluja on foot with his wife and three children on Thursday morning, said families left in the city were in desperate need. Doctors at Falluja's hospital said there had been an increase in typhoid cases. 'There's no water. People are drinking dirty water. Children are dying,' Ibrahim told aid workers in Habbaniya, a makeshift refugee camp 12 miles to the west of Falluja where about 2,000 families are sheltering. 'People are eating flour because there's no proper food.'

Pile on top of that the intentional destruction of hospitals and at the hands of the US military. According to reporter Jackie Spinner of the Washington Post, embedded with the Marines near Fallujah,

The U.S. military was ... vetting the doctors and staff at the hospital to make sure there were no insurgents among them. One of the persistent problems for the military -- and this was the case last April -- was the misreporting of civilian dead and wounded by the propaganda machines at the hospitals. The Marines secured this hospital first, in part, to make sure that civilians had access to medical care during the offensives.

Apparently they had doctors arrested and handcuffed. But even more importantly, don't we have to wonder if the military's statement concerning propaganda relayed by Ms. Spinner is propaganda 180 degrees in the opposite direction? According to another Aljazeera story, "US troops are preventing a Red Crescent convoy of emergency aid from reaching helpless residents inside Falluja, a spokeswoman says".

It is difficult to reconcile stated US military policy that is supposed to ensure civilians have access to medical care when they are prevented from getting to the hospital. And these reports do not square with what US military spokespeople are saying:

Q General Sattler, Barbara Starr from CNN. Sir, if I could impose upon you to step closer to the mike so we could be very sure to hear you. I'd like to ask you to address in as much detail as you can the current humanitarian situation inside Fallujah. When will you allow the Red Crescent to go in? What is the medical situation, the ability to get food and water and other humanitarian assistance to the civilians that are left in the city?

And as you clear these houses and streets, we are seeing pictures, of course, of significant damage to homes and cars. Your plans for making restitution to the civilian population?

GEN. SATTLER: As soon as the security situation permits, the Iraqi interim government already has the humanitarian -- and I will obviously let the prime minister's representative discuss this -- already has the humanitarian supplies completely lined up and ready to come into Fallujah.

MR. AL NAKIB: Well, we already sent 14 trucks yesterday. It's very well-equipped with the medicine and humanitarian stuff in it, and blood and many things that the civilians will need. And we are going to send some more -- it's already been prepared -- with a group of doctors and personnel who's going to take care of the situation over here in Fallujah. And I believe if the general is (over ?) he will give us the green light tomorrow, we will be ready to bring all this equipment over here and we will start immediately.

GEN. SATTLER: Barbara, I'd like to also stress that we have one group of 30 civilians who came out who were taken and moved to a humanitarian assistance area. And the only other civilians -- we had one civilian who was injured, a family of three who was picked up by Iraqi security forces and brought out, and then the approximately 300 that I mentioned earlier that are a combination, we feel, of civilians from Fallujah and possibly some fighters embedded with them. And that is the only families -- the only civilians we've come across

They're talking like it is a different world than is being reported from the scene. Who is more reliable? The US military or multiple sources from foreign media?

My own opinion: Right now I just can't buy the statements of the military of my own country or it's Iraqi puppet. If they think squelching reportage of civilian casualties emanating from hospitals is more important than the gross catastrophe facing those civilians...arrrrgggghhhh, that just seems so sick to me.

There is apparently some theory in this about destroying the naysayers to supposed US democratic purposes in Iraq. But like in Indochina three and a half decades ago, US planners have run up against a people who will not submit to liberation at gunpoint. The sympathies of the vast majority of Iraqis are clear -- they want the US out -- and the flames of vengeance are being fanned by the current US attacks. Pretty soon, there will be no issue for young American troops in distinguishing fighters and civilians -- every Iraqi who loves his or her country will have been made into a fighter.

Iraq gut check?

Nope. Neocon agenda not moving toward reality-based policy


Bush policy to prefer death and destruction, as illustrated by hospitals and mosques flattened along with hundreds killed in the US-led offensive against Fallujah, Iraq (BBC photo)

Juan Cole posted recently a piece written by an interesting establishment figure. In this piece, American Options in Iraq, author William R. Polk comes to the same conclusion I have promoted for a long time: the United States should withdraw from Iraq as quickly and as rationally as possible. Any other other course will lead to political, economic, and human disaster. Polk, a former member of the US State Department's Policy Planning Council, responsible for the Middle East, after demolishing options wrought with danger that he calls "stay the course" and an Iraqi version of "Vietnamization", writes:

The third option is to choose to get out rather than being forced. Time is a wasting asset; the longer the choice is put off, the harder it will be to make. The steps required to implement this policy need not be dramatic, but the process needs to be affirmed and made unambiguous. The initial steps could be merely verbal. America would have first to declare unequivocally that it will give up its lock on the Iraqi economy, will cease to spend Iraqi revenues as it chooses and will allow Iraqi oil production to be governed by market forces rather than by an American monopoly. If President Bush could be as courageous as General Charles de Gaulle was in Algeria when he admitted that the Algerian insurgency had "won" and called for a "peace of the braves," fighting would quickly die down in Iraq as it did in Algeria and in all other guerrilla wars. Then, and only then, could elections be meaningful. In this period, Iraq would need a police force but not an army. A UN multinational peacekeeping force would be easier, cheaper and safer than creating an Iraqi army which in the past destroyed moves toward civil society and probably would do so again, probably indeed paving the way for the "ghost" of Saddam Hussein....

In such a program, inevitably, there will be set-backs and shortfalls, but they can be partly filled by international organizations. The steps will not be easy; Iraqis will disagree over timing, personnel and rewards while giving the process a chance will require American political courage. But, and this is the crucial matter, any other course of action would be far worse for both America and Iraq. The safety and health of American society as well as Iraqi society requires that this policy be implemented intelligently, determinedly and soon.

The unwritten line here is that this Iraq thing is going to kill America and Iraq if we follow the Bush neocons down this endless tunnel where no light is visible at all, as the pointless destruction of Fallujah indicates.

There is no evidence President Bush will show any interest in this kind of gut check. Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service reports on hawk-preferred policy directions recommended for the recently-ratified neocon regime:

An influential foreign-policy neo-conservative with longstanding ties to top hawks in the administration of President George W Bush has laid out what he calls "a checklist of the work the world will demand of this president and his subordinates in a second term."

The list, which begins with the destruction of Fallujah in Iraq and ends with the development of "appropriate strategies" for dealing with threats posed by China, Russia and "the emergence of a number of aggressively anti-American regimes in Latin America," also calls for "regime change" in Iran and North Korea.

The list's author, Frank Gaffney, the founder and president of the Centre for Security Policy (CSP), also warns that Bush should resist any pressure arising from the anticipated demise of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to resume peace talks that could result in Israel's giving up "defensible boundaries."

While all seven steps listed by Gaffney in an article published Friday morning in the 'National Review Online' have long been favoured by prominent neo-cons, the article itself, 'Worldwide Value', is the first comprehensive compilation to emerge since Bush's re-election Tuesday....

"Indeed, the president laid claim squarely to the ultimate moral value -- freedom -- as the cornerstone of his strategy for defeating our Islamofascist enemies and their state sponsors, for whom that concept is utterly (sic) anathema."

To be true to that commitment, policy in the second administration must be directed toward seven priorities, according to Gaffney, beginning with the "reduction in detail of Fallujah and other safe havens utilised by freedom's enemies in Iraq"; followed by "regime change -- one way or another -- in Iran and North Korea, the only hope for preventing these remaining 'Axis of Evil' states from fully realising their terrorist and nuclear ambitions."

Third, the administration must provide "the substantially increased resources needed to re-equip a transforming military and rebuild human-intelligence capabilities (minus, if at all possible, the sorts of intelligence 'reforms' contemplated pre-election that would make matters worse on this and other scores) while we fight World War IV, followed by enhancing "protection of our homeland, including deploying effective missile defences at sea and in space, as well as ashore."

Fifth, Washington must keep "faith with Israel, whose destruction remains a priority for the same people who want to destroy us (and ... for our shared 'moral values) especially in the face of Yasser Arafat's demise and the inevitable, post-election pressure to 'solve' the Middle East problem by forcing the Israelis to abandon defensible boundaries."

Sixth, the administration must deal with France and Germany and the dynamic that made them "so problematic in the first term: namely, their willingness to make common cause with our enemies for profit and their desire to employ a united Europe and its new constitution -- as well as other international institutions and mechanisms -- to thwart the expansion and application of American power where deemed necessary by Washington."

Finally, writes Gaffney, Bush must adapt "appropriate strategies for contending with China's increasingly fascistic trade and military policies, (Russian President) Vladimir Putin's accelerating authoritarianism at home and aggressiveness toward the former Soviet republics, the worldwide spread of Islamofascism, and the emergence of a number of aggressively anti-American regimes in Latin America", which he does not identify.

Unfortunately, the neocon Middle East policy arc Lobe describes is locked in. Any other mode of thinking would force admission of error and undermine covert US purposes: develop military bases while controlling the region's still substantial energy reserves (with the world as a whole now entering an era of resource decline) -- including most importantly the ability to run the spigot for economic rivals like Europe, Japan, China, and S. Korea.

World players will seek alternatives. The S. Koreans recently entered an oil deal with Kazakhstan, the Chinese another with Iran. The Bush team intends to keep up the tension in all of these areas. Who is next on the hit list?

Real Time with Sully update

Please see previous post about Chomsky & Sullivan on Real Time

Thanks to Rodger Payne, here is a link for a complete transcript of last Friday's HBO Real Time with Bill Maher. This transcript includes the gem of an interview Maher had with former Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming earlier in the show than the Chomsky segment. Does Simpson understand comedy? Sadly, no.

Meanwhile, James Wolcott noticed something unusual right at the end as the credits were rolling:



Yes, that is uber-blogger Andrew Sullivan handling his hind end on camera. Not sure I'll be able to get this picture out of my mind very quickly, so I thought I'd share the discomfort.

Peak oil thinker Matt Savinar on Duke Skorich

My favorite in liberal radio talk is the Duke Skorich Show heard on KUWS, 91.3 FM, Superior, Wisconsin. I want to send a big thank you to Duke and co-host Patty McNulty for making the most vital radio of our age. Do tune in (on the internet from the link above, if you are not within range of Duluth-Superior) Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings at 6:00pm Eastern time.

Tonight, Duke ran a fantastic and alarming program on peak oil with Matt Savinar. Matt runs Life After the Oil Crash, a site I have read in the past, but for which I have gained new appreciation. Highly recommended. Do read Matt's letter dated 10/20/2004 and posted on the index page.

Here is a list of recent Deep Blade Journal posts on oil, peak oil, and the failure of energy issues to make it into the presidential campaign:

Campaigns fail on energy

Oil price rocket

World oil peak now?

Bush has post-oil-peak plan

Another day, another oil dollar

Veep debate lacked energy

Over pulling sour crude

BBC: "Something very odd has happened"

Finance ministers deeply rattled by oil situation: Oil dominates agenda at G7 meeting in Washington, DC; communiqué includes recommendation to conserve fuel

Baiting Noam Chomsky

Andrew Sullivan flew into a snit on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher


Chomsky gave Bill Maher an excellent interview Friday evening. Maher allowed enough time and space for a good airing of important truths concerning Iraq and US foreign policy.

Following the taped Chomsky interview, gay conservative uber-blogger Andrew Sullivan during Maher's panel discussion lit into what Chomsky said with angry venom. Later, he had no trouble finding anti-Chomsky bait to reference on his site. Sullivan is an immature snarler with little critical facility and no honesty concerning views he attributes to Noam Chomsky. His arguing technique is to screech "liar, liar, liar". It's pathetic.

Check out this post and also this one.

Sullivan thinks that these impressive-looking essays railing against Chomsky's intelligence ("America's Dumbest Intellectual" Stefan Kanfer, City Journal, Summer 2002) and character ("...the veils of fanciful rhetoric and careful implication are pulled back and the bloody intentions of the author come through in clear and undisguised language and in all their horrifying banality..." Diary of an Anti-Chomskyite, October 9) support his notion that Chomsky is "the most poisonous intellectual in America".

Okay, fine. Sullivan and these varied writers are abhorred by Chomskian dogma like the principle of universality -- America should apply to itself the same standards it requires of others. It is their choice to swim with the school of American exceptionalism with its rejection of notions of "moral equivalence". It's a popular school. And what Chomsky said in the Maher interview is certainly poisonous there. In my opinion, poisoned that school should be.

Please take the time to read through the transcripts below and tell me if you don't think what Chomsky said to Maher is a sincerely moral position and a reasonable assessment of the criminal nature of the aggression against Iraq, while Sullivan presents arguments like a jingoistic pig.

BILL MAHER: ...I have never had a guy requested more of me in twelve years of doing two shows – every kid wants Noam Chomsky – and we've got him today. Please welcome, Professor Noam Chomsky. (applause)

BILL MAHER: So professor, I'm not kidding, over the last twelve years, on three different networks, people, especially young kids, request you, when they first did it I didn't even know who you were.

BILL MAHER: All right, let me ask you this – It seems to me that the most religious people, are also, at least in this country, the most super-patriotic. Isn't there an inherent conflict there? I mean, if you're truly religious and you believe in God – I mean Jesus is not an American, I assume...

NOAM CHOMSKY: ...just the favorite philosopher of Americans...

BILL MAHER: Isn't it impossible to be truly Christian and also to love one country – even if it's your own – more than every other country.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Depends on how you understand your religion. Religions have taught all sorts of things in the past, from the most horrible to the most elevated. So you pick and choose.

BILL MAHER: Yeah, but Christ doesn't say, "love your country". He doesn't say, "American life is more important than other life". And I would imagine that a lot of people who call themselves Christian in this country believe.

NOAM CHOMSKY: If they do...there are plenty of things you can read in the gospels that are certainly not believed by George Bush and his associates. Are they helping the poor? Did they read the descriptions in the gospels of the hypocrite – the person who refuses to apply to himself the same standards he applies to others? We can go on and on...(applause)

BILL MAHER: Well, I could, but I don't want to go to Gitmo. (laughter)

BILL MAHER: Um, we're about to blow the unholy hell out of Fallujah. Don't you think it's too late? Don't you think it's just going to get more infected the more we pick at it?

NOAM CHOMSKY: The invasion of Iraq was simply a war crime. A straight out war crime. (applause)

NOAM CHOMSKY: If we don't want to be hypocrites in the sense it's condemned in the Bible, we'll apply to ourselves the judgment of the Nuremberg Tribunals, for example, which said that aggression – invasion – is the supreme international crime, which includes within it all subsequent crimes, including all those which are taking place now. So when they invade Fallujah, which I suppose they will after having driven out all the population, they'll probably smash the place up. It'll add to the enormous casualty lists, which may be in the range of 100,000 by now, maybe more, maybe less. And there's more to come.

BILL MAHER: Why do you think we did Iraq? What is the bottom-line reason? I assume you don't think the reasons given were the real reasons.

NOAM CHOMSKY: I think that the polls taken in Baghdad explain it very well. They seem to understand the United States invaded Iraq to gain control over one of the major sources of the world's energy, right in the heart of the world's major energy-producing region; to create if they can a dependent client state; to have permanent military bases; and to gain "critical leverage" – I'm quoting Zbigniew Brzezinski – to gain critical leverage over rivals – the European and Asian economies...

NOAM CHOMSKY: It's been understood since the second world war that if you have your hand on that spigot – the source of the...main source of the world's energy, you have what early planners call "veto power" over others....Iraq is also the last part of the world where there are vast, untapped, easily-accessible energy resources. And you can be sure that they want the profits from that to go primarily to US-based multinationals, and back to the US Treasury and so-on – not to rivals. There are plenty of reasons for invading Iraq.

BILL MAHER: Now, President Bush always says "the world is better off without Saddam Hussein. And I haven't agreed with that. I think the people who were in his rape rooms are better off without Saddam Hussein. That's a far cry...from the whole world. Ah, during the cold war, we selfishly backed any tyrant who was on our side that would have stopped who we thought was the greater ill of communism. Why don't we have that same selfish doctrine with this man? Because certainly we know, somewhere in government must know, that Saddam Hussein would never have allowed a power rival, even if it was a terrorist organization in Iraq. He actually would have been a bulwark for us.

NOAM CHOMSKY: ...Remember, the US supported Saddam Hussein. And that means the people now in office or their immediate mentors, supported him in ways that have absolutely nothing to do with cold war, or with the war with Iran. The support went on after the war with Iran was over; it went on after the Berlin wall fell. In fact it even went on after the first Gulf War when the first Bush Administration authorized Saddam to crush a Shiite uprising, which probably would have overthrown him. It's certainly true that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein, and also without the people who supported him through his worst atrocities, and are now telling us about them. The fact of the matter is, if it hadn't been for the sanctions, which devastated the society and killed hundreds of thousands of people, it's very likely that the Iraqis themselves would have sent Saddam Hussein to the same fate as other brutal monsters, also supported by the people now in Washington, like Ceausescu in Romania or Suharto in Indonesia, or Marcos, a whole string of others, quite a rogues gallery. And probably Saddam would have gone the same way.

BILL MAHER: Professor, I wish I had all night to talk to you. I hope you do this again. Please keep thinking outside the box. I know it's lonely there [Chomsky shrugs], but stay the course. Thank you... (applause)

After the interview, Andrew Sullivan sitting on Maher's in-studio panel, jumped in with a variety of agitated comments. As is typical when a hater hears a presentation by Chomsky, Sullivan launched a ferocious appeal to ridicule in his fallacious attempt to refute Chomsky's statements. I won't type all this out, but here's a lot of it, including a couple of interjections from Maher and a couple of excellent comments from actor/comedian and panel member D.L. Hughley. Former US Representative Pat Schroeder also appeared on the panel, but added little to this segment of the show.

ANDREW SULLIVAN: What? [Sullivan grimaces] He thinks that in the discussion of Saddam Hussein we should raise the issue of Nuremberg trials for the United States? [audience members shout "yes"] Well, yes [Sullivan displays dismissive gesture towards audience].

ANDREW SULLIVAN: Welcome to the world view of the far left, in which the United States is the source of evil, and Saddam Hussein is a source of good....

ANDREW SULLIVAN: I do not believe that the United States is on a par with those regimes...and Chomsky does...

BILL MAHER: He has a right to his opinion.

ANDREW SULLIVAN: [becoming unglued] He doesn't have a right to besmirch freedom and democracy in the world and support tyranny and dictatorship...There are no two ideas...there is either freedom or there is not, there is either democracy or there is not....

ANDREW SULLIVAN: If the United States wanted to invade and get oil supplies, we could invade and control purely the oil fields. We could control and get all the oil we want. This is nonsense, he knows its nonsense...I assume he's smart enough to know he's lying.

D.L. HUGHLEY: ...This country has never taken a good look at itself, it's policies, and what those policies mean to people around the world...now I don't agree...I feel like I'm living in the greatest country in the world, I feel like I have the greatest family in the world, but to say they haven't done some fucked up things, family and country, is idiotic....

ANDREW SULLIVAN: Of course.

D.L. HUGHLEY: ...and we need to be like we always tell other people to do...what they tell black people to do, is pull yourself up by your bootstraps and accept responsibility for the shit that you've done.

BILL MAHER: [to Sullivan] You started off this show...giving me a big lecture...[crosstalk] wait a second about giving people their due. And then you say, "I hope he knows he's lying", "I hope he's smart enough to know he's lying". What if I said that about your half? What if I said, "I hope they know they're smart enough to know they're lying, but they're not because they're dumb goobers".

ANDREW SULLIVAN: [with smug air of superiority] ...There are some views, people who support the Soviet Union, as Chomsky did for so long. Who've supported tyranny in all sorts of places like Chomsky has done. Who've lied consistently as Chomsky has done; who do not deserve fundamental respect....

ANDREW SULLIVAN: For example, he claimed 100,000 dead in Iraq. No one believes that....

BILL MAHER: That was in the paper...I read that too....

ANDREW SULLIVAN: ...If you look at that analysis it is absolutely riddled with exaggerations...

BILL MAHER: ...First of all, neither one of us knows how many are dead in Iraq...

ANDREW SULLIVAN: We have a pretty good idea it could never be near that amount...

BILL MAHER: So the Pentagon, they could never be lying, so Chomsky has to be a liar...I mean give me a break.

ANDREW SULLIVAN: [with childlike affectations] You don't have to believe the United States is perfect to believe it has been a force for good in the world. There are millions and millions of people in this world ... who are living free because of this country. And and and and to denigrate this country as a source of evil, which is his view, or the tool of forces beyond our control is wrong in my view. It's immoral, in my view. And it's one of the reasons the left has lost it's ability to persuade people...

Enough. Sullivan is obviously so immature it's amazing he gets hundreds of thousands of hits per day. His attack is ad hominem, attributing to Chomsky views he clearly does not hold.

The matter of the 100,000 war dead in Iraq is telling. This is Sullivan's big proof that Chomsky lies. In fact Chomsky was quite careful when he spoke about these recently-released casualty figures. He indicated that the actual number may be more or less, but that it it resonable to discuss 100,000. See this story in today's Guardian for a discussion showing that the 100,000 figure is defensible, despite the fact it has been criticized.

Sullivan should take a hard look at his own references. The writers he cites (see links above the transcript) are tortured windbags, but at least they quote Chomsky much more accurately. Sullivan cites a blog self-described as "dedicated to the permanent and total discrediting of the work of noam chomsky and his fellow travelers. VIVA LA COUNTERREVOLUTION!" Here, the author, stupefied with Chomsky hatred (just amazing that a guy would want to focus his blogging talents like this), quotes and critiques What Uncle Sam Really Wants, a book-length electronic collection assembled by Z magazine more than a decade ago.

The Cold War provided that too. No matter how outlandish the idea that the Soviet Union and its tentacles were strangling the West, the "Evil Empire" was in fact evil, was an empire and was brutal. Each superpower controlled its primary enemy -- its own population -- by terrifying it with the (quite real) crimes of the other.

Are those the words of someone who "supported tyranny", as Sullivan claims? Of course that is ridiculous and this whole exercise is asinine. I blame Sullivan for forcing me to it. Jerk.

Ohio stolen?

Greg Palast thinks so; cs watched an Ohio polling place that did not live up to the media image of crushing lines



Fellow blogger and Ohio resident cs, a good friend of Deep Blade Journal, has put up an extensive post describing many troubling facets of last Tuesday's vote in that state. It's full of personal insights and voluminous references.

I believe that the major point here is not that the 2004 election is tainted with illegitimacy in the same manner as the 2000 election, but that the US election infrastructure and process is severely broken in many places and swaths of the population are stealthily denied their civil rights. The lesson is for the future now, not the present. It is shameful, given the 2000 debacle, that demands for fixing these flaws are not heard 100-fold louder. We have no one to blame but ourselves if we allow this to continue into the future.

The major national media will present a coronation story that will follow Bush through inauguration. It is our responsibility to oppose Bush's lies about everything from the horrific death and destruction he is visiting upon Iraq to the dismantling of social security he is proposing.

Purification and renewal

Values code for Christian-based protofascism mobilized Bush voters


Gay marriage served as the voter wedge for Bush, coded under the rubric of "high moral values"

We really didn't see this coming, not with this much force. Now that it hit us over the head, a general alarm should sound. After this election, it is clear that the population of deluded fundamentalist reactionary Christians is growing and reaching majority status in vast areas of our country. They seek to usher in an era of protofascist purification and renewal. Through the disturbing elections of 1980, 1984, 1988, 2000, I never felt things were tipping this way in the sense of an overwhelming mass movement. But now I fear we may be entering such an era.

David Neiwert at Orcinus has a wealth of amazing material on these undercurrents, including an outline of the proper progressive response -- we must reject coded messages suggesting that we now must "heal" from the divisive electoral struggle.

Neiwert quotes the insufferable Bill Bennett, who was quick to issue this call for purification:

I have long advocated a stronger tie between politics and the virtues. Last night it was evident that the American people agree...Having restored decency to the White House, President Bush now has a mandate to affect policy that will promote a more decent society, through both politics and law. His supporters want that, and have given him a mandate in their popular and electoral votes to see to it. Now is the time to begin our long, national cultural renewal ("The Great Relearning," as novelist Tom Wolfe calls it) — no less in legislation than in federal court appointments. It is, after all, the main reason George W. Bush was reelected.

Neiwert goes on to report an email anecdote he received that reveals some very important indications of red-state mood:

My 11 year old daughter in the 6th grade was the ONLY student to wear a Kerry/Edwards button to school, out of 729 students in her middle school. Her classmates ridiculed her, told her to get the hell away from them, and kicked at her desk all day to separate her from them. They even told her she was not a "Christian" because she supported Kerry. They told her that Kerry was gay because he supported gay marriage. Today was even worse. They gloated, jeered and sneered at her from the minute she stepped out of the car to the minute she was picked up from school. They did not have to kick her desk because she intentionally moved it away from them.

Very extensive additional material appears at Orcinus.

See also Under the Same Sun. Zeynep includes this disturbing analysis under the heading "Gays are the New Jews":

Here's what's happening in a nutshell: a proto-fascist administration is whipping up support and clouding the political picture by aggressively targeting an already despised, small minority that is, for the most part, expressing no other wish than to assimilate as who they are. Many members of that minority are already relatively integrated into the existing power structure. Most are not poor or marginal but wish for not much more than being accepted into the existing institutional structures: the very structures that many progressives spend their lives fighting to change (for example, the military). Yes, the obvious analogy is the Jews in pre-WWII Germany.

The anti-gay amendments that have just passed are comparable to the 1935 Nuremberg Laws in their function, if not their scope and final intent. These laws were passed in 1935, stripping Jews of many of their basic civic rights and erecting impassable barriers to the increasing assimilation of the Jewish minority into Germany.

Undoubtedly, supporters of these anti-gay measures do not see themselves as the new Nazis. Of course not. Participants in a pogrom by definition do not see their actions as wrong. Likewise, voters for Bush seemingly were untroubled by the contradiction of his supposed high moral values and torture of Arab/Muslim prisoners under his administration's care. What could be in store for gays and other undesirables if these trends are allowed to continue?

Whacked upside the head

Strange. After months of doubt, on the last day I finally felt like Bush was gonna be out of here.

There is no doubt I wanted Kerry to win. Am I right about the "unimaginable horrors" a second Bush term will bring? I don't know, we'll see. The prospect had gripped me with fear. I guess I was just like practically every one else in this election – all of us voting our fears, whether it be fear of terrorism, gay marriage, liberalism, environmental destruction, the Patriot Act, or a million other things to be afraid of.

If you ask what depresses me most, it is that Bush has been ratified by the American people with a majority of the popular vote. This is terribly sad. Are the people who see President Bush as a strong, consistent, decisive leader of high moral values just deluded? After all, the record of duplicity and lies from his administration along with the destructive war these lies incited are in front of everybody's face.

So I think yes, a lot of Bush enthusiasts are not paying attention to reality. And their fervor shows marks of a protofascism. Bush plays to emotions and uses people's emotions to lie to them.

The Republicans just out did the Democrats in every way. Anybody But Bush (ABB) -- while a defensible position -- was far from the best tack those interested in removing the Chimperor could have taken. When Nader announced in February, I wrote:

Kerry is dragging so much baggage, was another big NAFTA supporter, and is so sullied by apostasy to the anti-war cause that every respectable campaigner should take a long hard look at this limp noodle, telcomm-industry-connected insider before leaping to support him on an "anybody but Bush" theory.

The theory itself—that Kerry is the best carrier of "anybody but Bush" — may be wrong. Steve Perry at Bush Wars is a very perceptive guy. Those in this crowd should have a look at this and evaluate your thinking.

Perry hits the nail. Fevered Democrats flocked to Dean because he mussed on Bush a little, now to Kerry because he supposedly looks more "electable". They are deluded. The National Guard thing may end up working in Bush's favor as the delusional crowd was pulled by magnetism to what they saw as a "chest full of medals" — but who is really the limpest noodle — at exactly the wrong time.

Now we'll have to deal with it.

Origins of suicide bombing

Bin Laden gives motives for his crimes in recent tape


BBC photo: Beirut 1982

Everyone like me who will vote Kerry/Edwards in this election must understand what we will be getting if they win. The Cowboy Letters provide some glimpses into the violence underlying our politics -- and the perceived justifiability of that violence. Justice depends on perspective.

Note in particular the position outline of Kerry/Edwards from National Jewish Democratic Council. This is tough, reactionary stuff attributed to our candidates. Also recall the debates. In one post I quote John Edwards at length around his justification for Israel's response to violence perpetrated against them. "What are the Israeli people supposed to do?" Edwards said in the veep debate.

Now Juan Cole has a post on the Towers of Beirut that looks at the origins of modern Mideast violence from an entirely different perspective. The scene -- the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. If you don't care to pick up Chomsky's Fateful Triangle and try to plow through the chapter on "Peace for Galilee", Cole provides an excellent primer on this ruthless Israeli action. Cole writes,

The invasion killed some 18,000 persons, half of them innocent civilians. During this period Sharon turned the task of guarding the disarmed and helpless Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps over to his allies, the fascist Phalangist paramilitary. The latter promptly murdered hundreds of defenseless Palestinians.

One of the 9/11 hijackers, Ziad Jarrah, was a Lebanese Sunni who was 8 when the Israelis invaded his country and wrought so much destruction. He obviously was deeply traumatized by the experience.

The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 was a wanton act of aggression and destruction that ended up radicalizing the Lebanese Shiites and leading them to develop the technique of suicide bombing. A majority of Israelis was disgusted with the war, and in the aftermath Sharon was politically marginalized for two decades. Somehow he has managed to rehabilitate himself and now pursues his agenda of killing without any let or hindrance.

Cole describes how the latest bin Laden tape has revealed the early conception of the 911 attacks stem from these times. Pictures of Beirut under Israeli bombardment (as seen above) ought to be eerily familiar to Americans saturated with 911 images.

No, the 911 attacks were not justified and did not bring justice for those harmed in the brutal Israeli and American occupations of Arab lands that have continued and escalated over the years since 1982. But at least for a moment should we not try to see the effects of US/Israel policy from the eyes of those underneath it? Why should Americans and Israelis be even the least bit surprised when those they attack choose to respond with violence? America does so just about as the first resort.

Is it too much to ask of Kerry & Edwards, or Bush & Cheney for that matter, to consider that the most belligerent actions are those most likely to be returned in kind? If we want to be "safer", we ought to recognize this simple truth.