.. Ys'c'n all 'ave a relax - not religious
-=*=-
Preamble (long): 'Pure' logic would assure us, that as there are many more religions than anyone can 'reasonably' poke a stick at, then no so-called secular[1] state should concern itself with religion at all, let alone singling any particular one out.
Well, of course, 'pure' logic is not in play - or any sort'a proper logic at all when it comes to religion (aka belief without basis), and we have all of B, B & H making various claims to/about religion. Israel, as the 4th leg in our Anglo-Judaic democracy mess, seems to be inextricably entwined with religion (amongst other 'perversions.')
Speaking of perversions[2], as I've recently written, the three so-called Abrahmic variations ... Christianity, Islam & Judaism. ... each has an associated morality. The number-one commandment in each resembles "Thou shalt not kill!" There are other commandments, but no religion has a monopoly on morals. I have my own attempted formalisation the chezPhil morality (based on reflexive altruism, aka "The Golden Rule." Some basic moral tenets are no lies, no cheating, no theft and no murder. There're others, like love thy neighbour, say ...
I have heard it said that one cannot legislate morality, but it is claimed that we live in a society governed by laws. Although some laws might be asses, a reasonable wo/man would conclude that whatever laws we make should be just (—adj. 1 morally right or fair. [POD]) It is this word 'just,' and justice, that we now pursue.
Pseudo-quote:
GWBush, "G*d made me do it!"
Actual quotes:
Tony Blair, "I passionately believe ..."[4] (Haw! What 'peace process' can apply to 60+ years of killing to steal?)
John Howard, "... and according to the Judao/Christian ethic which is meant to govern conduct in this country ..."[5] (Haw! See above discussion on commandments.)
(Aside: Yes, Howard is gone, had to go; good riddance. But the replacement differs only in minor degrees - if at all.)
Funnily enough, in the current 'us v.s them' scenario, Christianity & Judaism are on 'our' side, and Islam on the 'other.' (Us good, them bad.) Indeed, it has been alleged, that Bush&Co are on a crusade, as well as pursuing murder for oil and a "Greater Israel" - say.
However, it is also widely acknowledged that they are all lying in their teeth, and have absolutely no 'right' on their side - except the hollow boast: "Might makes right." The hell it does!
So, (long story short:) any claim of 'separation of Church and State,' just as any claim that our so-called democracies follow the edicts of Judao/Christian ethics falls flat on its (bigoted![3]) face. Truth can be glimpsed, despite the venal MSM attempts at concealment. An what an awful, ghastly truth it is.
-=*=-
Preamble (summary): Not much of the above is new or surprising. That "All politicians lie" has come to be accepted, thanks - but "No, thanks!" to the non-small contributions made by Howard. That the US-led 'coalition of the killing' (illegally!) invaded Iraq with the intention of (brutally!) occupying it in order to steal (even if 'only' control over) oil, or that Israel is similarly pursuing the intention to steal land and water - should not seriously be in dispute. Sooo, Q: What's 'new?' - A: These two:
-=*=-
1. A review by "Economic Hit Man" Perkins of a new book "Right is Wrong" by Arianna Huffington.
2. A 2002 video possibly missed (thanks ICH), the BBC's "The Century of the Self," and some commentary by medialens.
The 1st, according to the review, summarises what's wrong (in the US, and following them, the wider world, with some few exceptions), and the 2nd lays out how the dreadful deeds described could be done.
Quote from the review:
«Her assessment of the current hijacking of a nation that emerged from World War II as the hero of freedom and the defender of democracy is insightful, eloquent, and shockingly informative. Most of the world -- outside the United States -- understands that the corporatocracy (those who run our biggest corporations and, through them, control the majority of our politicians) have not only emasculated us, but have sent us spinning toward global environmental disaster.»
[John Perkins/Exposing the Wrong Side of Right]
Quote from a medialens report on the video:
«"Politicians and planners came to believe that Freud was right to suggest that hidden deep within all human beings were dangerous and irrational desires and fears. They were convinced that it was the unleashing of these instincts that had lead to the barbarism of Nazi Germany. To stop it ever happening again, they set out to find ways to control the hidden enemy within the human mind." (The Century of the Self - The Engineering of Consent, BBC2, March 24, 2002)»
[Media Alert: The Unspoken Rule of Media Reporting]
What? Freud? I mean, we know the name ... but look at the next paragraph:
«It is a remarkable claim, and one that could only be taken seriously in a culture that has been largely stripped of political awareness. In fact post-1945 (like pre-1945) "politicians and planners" set out to +promote+ dangerous and irrational desires and fears in the service of profits and power, not peace. Similarly, far from setting out to "stop it ever happening again", post-war U.S. policies generated repetitions of Nazi-style barbarism throughout the Third World.»
[ibid]
And there, dear readers, you have it.
-=*end*=-
Epilogue: My title is "The Stations of the Cross," but this missive is not religious; I am myself irreligious (adj. lacking or hostile to religion; irreverent [POD]). But religion is one of the cards cynically in play, mainly as a disguise, a distraction - and as a 'weapon' of sheople®-control. The 'Ace' is hypocrisy, i.e. saying one thing and doing another. My discovery of the video provides a vital new-for-me part in the "Who, how & why?"
Quick summary:
1. WW2 ended not with a (peaceful) whisper, but with a (murdering) bang - actually two, the (criminal!) A-bombings of Japan.
2. Some Freudian/psychological theory was deployed, ostensibly to avoid any recurrence of the Nazi-catastrophe - but was 'subverted' to 'commercial' interests. (There have been two waves, the 2nd being the 'me generation' one.)
3. Corporations (mainly US) have come to dominate world commerce, not based on a fair price for anything, but rather what the market will bear (nothing too criminal in that, but see (4), next). Worth a separate thread is "The Washington Consensus," aka globalisation. But the 'news' here is basically all bad - except for the crooked, fat-cat beyond obscene avarice so-called élites.
4. The underlying basis is not freedom but fear, not 'rule of law' but criminality, not democracy but secret manipulations (no wonder the term sheople occurred to me.)
Fazit: New is (2). We the sheople are not only being lied to while being ripped off - but secretly manipulated (no surprise perhaps, but the method, along with misdirected motive is). Little is as it seems (disgusting lies via and by a venal and traitorous MSM), and worst, we appear to be headed over an excess-CO2 caused climate-crash cliff, aka greedastrophe®. As well as the Perkins review, I recommend reading the video description[6] and the three medialens reports[7,8,9]. One possible 'next step' for me is to find out more on the Freud angle.
-=*=-
Ref(s):
[1] secular adj. 1 not concerned with religion; not sacred; worldly (secular education; secular music). 2 (of clerics) not monastic. secularism n. secularize v. (also -ise) (-zing or -sing). secularization n. [Latin saeculum an age] [POD]
[2] pervert —v. 1 turn (a person or thing) aside from its proper use or nature. 2 misapply (words etc.). 3 lead astray from right conduct or (esp. religious) beliefs; corrupt. 4 (as perverted adj.) showing perversion. —n. perverted person, esp. sexually. [Latin verto vers- turn] [ibid.]
[3] bigot n. obstinate believer who is intolerant of others. bigoted adj. bigotry n. [French] [ibid.]
[4] This is 'a good one' from Blair:
«We have no option if we care about Israel, if we care about the plight of the Palestinians, if we care about the peace of that region, we have no option but to strive for the re-launch of that peace process and when I said earlier that I intend to do everything I could to advance it, I mean that. I went there once, I will go back again. I will give my time and commitment as much as it takes in any way that I can do to help. And I do it because I passionately believe that if this conflict is not resolved the consequences for Israel are dire, the consequences for the Palestinian people are terrible, but what is more the consequences for the world are disastrous.»
[Labour Friends of Israel]
All anyone can do, is shake their head; the utter hypocrisy is 'breathless.'
Anyone serious about ending the tragedy which is Israel could do so instantly and in a single stroke: give back all the stolen land to its proper owners, namely the cruelly dispossessed Palestinians.
[5] Here is a different bit from Howard:
«Around the world the undeniable fact is that the common element in all the acts of terrorism in recent years has been a perversion of the Muslim religion. I stress a perversion. Not a true practice of it, because Islam repudiates, as does Christianity and Judaism, terrorism and violence, but that's been a common thread and that is why it is reasonable to talk about extremism within the Muslim community without being accused of being prejudiced against Muslims. You don't have fundamentalist and evangelical Christians blowing up Trade Centres. You have criminal elements in all societies but what these people are doing is justifying their actions according to a religious belief. Now, that is just quite different and something that we have to confront in a sensible way.»
[Howard 060301/INTERVIEW WITH KARL STEFANOVIC]
Howard speaks to the 'manufactured' enemy, Islamo-fascism/extremism.
Anyone who thinks this is not 'dog-whistle' politics has not been paying attention.
In case anyone still needs proof, see Pape's "Dying to win."
[6] The Century of the Self
Adam Curtis' acclaimed series examines the rise of the all-consuming self against the backdrop of the Freud dynasty
Tuesday March 21st, 2006
«"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.
We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized."
- Edward Bernays»
[review/URL list]
[7] Media Lens critiques aspects of the film (1st bit already mentioned),
The Unspoken Rule of Media Reporting: The BBC's The Century of the Self
[8] - Part 2
[9] - Part 3
20 comments:
G'day Phil, a big hand for a fine piece which people should take time to read and contemplate.
The religion issue is very important. The appeal to ignorance, prejudice and fear exampled by Howard's dog-whistle about Islam is instructive. Elsewhere I did a review about the growing influence of religion in Australian politics and in my studies I have researched the work of the New Christian Right in trying to take over the Republican party in the US. And you have dealt with Blair. In the NCR matter recall my comment "it was the best of times, it was the end of times" to see the serious implications their influence has. Yet we see yet more "lack of a sense of irony" in recent claims about apocalyptic Moslems.
Oh, can't miss an opportunity to comment on Christians who try to justify a war of aggression. Sorry, a "humanitarian intervention" (or is it genocide?). If those Arabs would just let us do what we want to them, their oil and their land, all would be fine. Darned inconsiderate of them to object. Oh, the White Man's Burden!
Some material from Chris Floyd on articles by George Monbiot (on criminal New Labor) and Vincent Bugliosi (on trying the Crawford Caligula. Some interesting comments as well, Grandma Jefferson again is a highlight, partial extract:
I second anon's motion. If we are to have the faintest hope of restoring some semblance of Civilization, the value of human life, and the rule of Law, before which ALL stand equally, we can't begin by committing the same atrocities we profess to despise, however righteous it makes us all feel. Much as I loathe every one of these monsters, the global scale of their unspeakable crimes against humanity is such, that there is no real way to levy "justice" upon them. For that reason, IMHO, the only appropriate punishment would be stripping them of their blood money & power, everything they value, everything they have, or have wrung from the planet they've decimated, and keeping them all in solitary confinement, in a prison built just for them, until they die. All that, of course, after the due process of public proceedings, broadcast live across the planet, showing forth the complex tapestry of their depredations, one criminal at a time, that humanity may see the true face of evil, and learn something about how easily it takes over.
They are practiced in the arts of deception - and helped by people who do not want to see.
G'day Bob,
I'm on a bit of a restricted schedule today, so just time for the one article so far, namely your Floyd link on Monbiot and Bugliosi. Tend to agree with one commenter's "nice - but useless fantasy," would repeat his Q: "How about working out how we get out'a here," and agree that Grandma is spot-on (again). Also comment by tiny elvis is notable, and a chilly one from Sketchley. The latter's intent I assume is to draw attention to the mechanism whereby our system is being corrupted, as in justifying torture on the (totally spurious!) basis of "Sure it's not nice, even legal - but if it just saves one life?" - à la typical TV dramas.
The Israel lobby shows us what's possible; in our electoral systems, a small, well coordinated group can have a large (in the lobby case unjustified!) influence. Surely there are enough aware sheople who could counter the lobby, working for good instead of the Oh, so obvious evil?
G'day Phil, more on those religious fanatics that desire the end of the world.
In a perfect world, a reporter at last week's press conference with George Bush and Tony Blair would have asked Bush, in the should be forced to answer. Bush and other leading Republicans have lined up behind a growing movement of Christian Zionists for whom a European Antichrist figures prominently in an end-times scenario. So they should be forced to explain to the rest of us why they're courting the votes of people who believe our allies are evil incarnate. Could it be that the central requirement for their breathlessly anticipated Armageddon -- that the United States confront Iran -- happens to dovetail so nicely with the neoconservative war agenda?
At the center of it all is Pastor John Hagee, a popular televangelist who leads the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas. While Hagee has long prophesized about the end times, he ratcheted up his rhetoric this year with the publication of his book, "Jerusalem Countdown," in which he argues that a confrontation with Iran is a necessary precondition for Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ. In the best-selling book, Hagee insists that the United States must join Israel in a preemptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West. Shortly after the book's publication, he launched Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which, as the Christian version of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, he said would cause "a political earthquake."
But aways on the lookout for irony, what if this was to happen?
If Hagee thought that was possible he might really start bending the Crawford Caligula's ear. Although some consider CC won't need much convincing.
On the MSM ... and the NYTimes. Chris Floyd. Ted Rall.
Oh shock! Horror! The Bush administration might actually lie! But, as we have seen,, some journos are very happy to play along. Despite the stakes being so high.
G'day Phil, on a sunny Sunday how better to spend one's time than to look into the heart of darkness. It has to be done for to ignore what is happening is to sleep walk into the abyss.
First, more on fundamentalism and the unholy alliance of Christian fundamentalists with Zionists. There is some damning material in this which can be supported with a bit of research.
To Iraq and Tom presents a piece by Michael Schwartz - there are man-made disasters as well. For those who try too excuse the crime by recourse to the establishment of democracy in Iraq there is the following:
Occupation officials faced the same dilemma in the political realm. The original goal of the Bush administration was a stable, pro-Washington government, stripped of its economic and political dominance over Iraqi society, but a bastion of resistance to Iranian regional power. This vision, like its military and economic cousins, has long since disappeared under the weight of Iraqi resistance.
Take, for example, the two high profile Iraqi elections, celebrated in the mainstream American media as a unique Bush administration accomplishment in the otherwise relentlessly autocratic Middle East. Inside Iraq, however, they had quite a different look. It is important to remember that the United States initially planned to sustain its direct rule -- the Coalition Provisional Authority -- until the country was fully pacified and its economic reforms completed. When the CPA became a hated symbol of an unwanted occupation, planning shifted to the idea of installing an appointed Iraqi government, based on community meetings that only supporters of the occupation could attend. Full-scale elections would be postponed until winners fully supportive of the Bush agenda were assured. An outpouring of protest from the predominantly Shia areas of the country, led by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, forced CPA administrators to move on to an election-based strategy.
The first election in January 2005 delivered a sizeable parliamentary majority voted in on platforms calling for strict timetables for a full U.S. military withdrawal from the country. American representatives then forcefully pressured the newly installed cabinet to abandon this position.
The second parliamentary election in December 2005 followed a similar pattern. This time, the backroom bargaining was only partially effective. The newly installed prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, reneged on his campaign promises by publicly supporting an ongoing American military presence, which caused deep fissures in the ruling coalition. After a year of unproductive negotiations, the 30 Sadrists in parliament, originally a key part of Maliki's ruling coalition, withdrew from both that coalition and the cabinet in protest over the prime minister's refusal to set a date for the end of the occupation. Subsequent parliamentary demands for a date certain for withdrawal were ignored by both the government and U.S. officials. While Maliki continued in office without a parliamentary majority, the controversy contributed to the soaring popularity of the Sadrists and waning support for the other Shiite governing parties.
By early 2008, with provincial elections looming in November, there was little doubt that the Sadrists would sweep to power in many predominantly Shia provinces, most critically Basra, Iraq's second largest city and southern oil hub. To prevent this debacle, Iraqi government troops, supported and advised by the U.S. military, sought to expel the Sadrists from key areas of Basra.
The will of the people, not the people of Iraq, but those of the Bush administration.
Suffer the little children.
Chris Floyd on some very dark places.
The United States government is holding some 27,000 human beings in secret prisons around the world. The overwhelming majority of them are being held indefinitely, without charges, without rights, cut off from the outside world, and subject to "harsh interrogation techniques" (to use the prim locution for "torture" used by the Bush Administration and universally adopted by the American media).
Many of these captives are stuffed into holding pens in Iraq, including Abu Ghraib, which is still in operations despite the momentary torture-photo scandal of 2004 -- and despite Bush's earnest promise to Iraqis to tear down that hated symbol of Saddam's torture. Other captives are crammed into the holds of prison ships floating around the world. Still others languish in the torture chambers of the Bush Administration's Terror War allies -- despotisms, tyrannies, brutal kingdoms -- having been "renditioned" there by American agents, sometimes after being kidnapped, or sold into captivity by bounty hunters, or snatched up in mass sweeps or random grabs or simply for having the wrong name, the wrong face, the wrong color, the wrong religion.
In any civilized country, such facts would provoke banner headlines, marathon television debates, investigations, prosecutions and widespread public revulsion. It might have done so even in the United States not all that long ago. But the most recent encapsulation of these horrors -- from Clive Stafford Smith of Reprieve, speaking earlier this week on Democracy Now -- has caused scarcely a ripple. Even that is putting it too strongly; in the mainstream media, the news has been greeted with the usual iron curtain of silence.
Pepe Escobar - The Mosul Riddle
And a cleric is getting annoyed.
Back to the first article and "unscrupulous" is a word that springs to mind. Despite the death and destruction detailed above, some are pushing for more. And there influence is marked and dangerous.
Ever wonder why they resort to pressures and threats? The record is against them. The tragedy is that too many people lack the courage to defy them. The blood is also on their hands.
G'day Phil,
Jimmy Carter has let the cat out of the bag - or is that 150 Israeli nukes. Has some other interesting things to say as well - Chris Floyd and The Guardian.
And Uri Avnery on Olmert and the Syria talks.
People keep pushing the Iran attack idea.
As to claims as to what the latest IAEA report contains - best wait for the Board of Governor assessment before taking the word of unnamed sources and US officials. Also keep in mind that aside from the warmongering US a lot of noise comes from the nuclear armed and criminal state Israel. And see many articles I have linked here and elsewhere on the issue.
G'day Phil, I mantioned yesterday the need for caution when using unnamed sources, so keep that in mind when reading this. But also note the other material that has been provided on the matter.
NEW YORK - The George W Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months, an informed source tells Asia Times Online, echoing other reports that have surfaced in the media in the United States recently.
Two key US senators briefed on the attack planned to go public with their opposition to the move, according to the source, but their projected New York Times op-ed piece has yet to appear.
The source, a retired US career diplomat and former assistant secretary of state still active in the foreign affairs community, speaking anonymously, said last week that that the US plans an air strike against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The air strike would target the headquarters of the IRGC's elite Quds force. With an estimated strength of up to 90,000 fighters, the Quds' stated mission is to spread Iran's revolution of 1979 throughout the region.
Why not try diplomacy - well, according to this, diplomacy isn't very well.
The last seven years or so were difficult ones for Diplomacy. According to press reports, the mainstay of foreign policy began complaining of chest pains and nausea in 2001. In the lead-up to the Iraq War, Diplomacy sustained several shocks to the system, went into intensive care, and very nearly succumbed. But it was last week that its heart and soul finally gave up after a double-barreled assault by President George W. Bush and his presumptive successor John McCain.
The proximate cause of death was a pair of speeches. President Bush, talking before the Israeli parliament on May 15, declared that “some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.” Diplomacy, which had always maintained that negotiating with adversaries was the very lifeblood of international relations, suffered a stroke on hearing the president’s words.
The killing blow, however, came from John McCain. The Republican presidential candidate assailed Diplomacy in an effort to get at Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama. According to McCain, Obama doesn’t understand the “basic realities of international relations” because he favors sitting down and talking to people like Raul Castro in Cuba and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran. McCain’s words, and the possibility that he might bring such an attitude into the White House in 2009, were simply too much for Diplomacy.
Gathered around the deathbed in a last-ditch effort to revive the ailing patient, former secretary of state in the Reagan administration James Baker repeated his assertion from 2006 that “talking to an enemy is not in my view appeasement.” Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) was there as well to give a little pep talk : “This kind of political attack rhetoric masquerading as policy is exactly why we’re in such trouble around the world, why we’re less secure and our adversaries are stronger.” Christopher Hill, the administration’s point person on the nuclear talks with former “evil axis” nation North Korea, phoned in with a tribute to Diplomacy, but the reception was not good and the message probably didn’t get through.
These emergency interventions were not enough. Diplomacy stopped breathing, and the president overruled attempts by next of kin in the State Department to invoke extraordinary measures. With Diplomacy out of the way, the Bush administration has given indications that it will attack Iran before the end of the year. In others signs of Diplomacy’s passing, the administration continues to refuse to talk to Syria and maintains its policy of freezing Hamas out of any settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
There are internal links well worth reading including the latest from Tomdispatch (see below) and this.
Last week, one of us served as an expert witness before the Chicago City Council during its debate on a resolution opposing a U.S. military strike on Iran. In his usual direct political manner, Mayor Daley had his supporters on the Council stall the vote on the resolution, saying he was worried it would tie the hands of the next president.
"If Iran attacks Israel, we should sit back and not do anything?" Daley asked rhetorically. "They haven't attacked us, [but] they can attack everyone else? I have real problems with that."
Daley is wrong. The point of a resolution against a U.S. military strike on Iran -- a position that has already been embraced by more than 10 cities across this country -- is precisely that use of such a strike makes the danger of war more likely, not less. Opposing a military response does not mean we "sit back and not do anything." To the contrary, it means that the real possibilities for avoiding war -- diplomacy, multilateralism, genuine engagement, and more diplomacy -- move to the front burner of U.S. policy.
There's that diplomacy idea again. But you don't get to use all those wonderful weapons if you resort to diplomacy. Or kill lots of foreigners.
A reminder:
It's precisely because of the threat of a U.S. war against Iran -- a preventive war that would be illegal under international law, in violation of the UN Charter and the U.S. Constitution, and devastating to regional as well as U.S. security -- that many cities around the country are moving now to quell the bellicose rhetoric.
As the ongoing Iraq war demonstrates, the White House has already shown itself reckless, willing to choose war when it wasn't required, holding itself above the requirements of international law, and holding the American people and Congress in utter contempt. So, cities around the country, as well as counties, states and institutions across our nation, are moving to end the war in Iraq and to prevent a new war in Iran. (Go to www.citiesforpeace.org for more information about this trend.)
A U.S. "surgical" strike in Iran would be an act of war. Testifying in front of the City Council, one of us reminded the aldermen that such an attack would inflame anti-American sentiment throughout the Muslim world.
All those wonderful weapons ... they have created a monster ... Frida Berrigan from Tomdispatch on the Pentagon and what it has become. Recommended.
Beware the Military-Industrial Complex ... and be afraid.
G'day Phil, a bit of reading for you and others interested from someone hwho had an imoortant role in re the media. It is a preview of former WH press secretary Scott McClelland's upcoming book - and it is somewhat more candid than Doug Feith's gross self-justification.
A taster:
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a surprisingly scathing memoir to be published next week that President Bush “veered terribly off course,” was not “open and forthright on Iraq,” and took a “permanent campaign approach” to governing at the expense of candor and competence.
Among the most explosive revelations in the 341-page book, titled “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception” (Public Affairs, $27.95):
• McClellan charges that Bush relied on “propaganda” to sell the war.
• He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.
• He admits that some of his own assertions from the briefing room podium turned out to be “badly misguided.”
• The longtime Bush loyalist also suggests that two top aides held a secret West Wing meeting to get their story straight about the CIA leak case at a time when federal prosecutors were after them — and McClellan was continuing to defend them despite mounting evidence they had not given him all the facts.
• McClellan asserts that the aides — Karl Rove, the president’s senior adviser, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff — “had at best misled” him about their role in the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.
Enjoy. Some won't.
Hi Phil and Bob
Interesting that McClellan, so it seems, should be trying to put so much distance between himself and earlier elements of the Bush administration and even Bush himself. Perhaps he knows of something else that is to be revealed shortly; something he doesn’t want to be a part of. I look forward to a read of the book.
Back over at WD, as Bob has pointed out to me, the truth, or at least tiny bits of it, is starting to ooze from the edges of WD editors comments in response to Craig’s comments. Craig has managed to let a fair bit of the cat out of the bag but I wonder now if Reynolds has the guts to come clean and tell the entire truth.
Damian
Well, G'day, Phil and Bob and Damian, fancy meeting all of you here! Must be the religious overtones of this article.
I've written several posts about religion but not with the same effect.
Cheers.
G'day Phil, Damian and David, good to see the latter two drop in. It will be interesting to see if Fiona does follow through with a detailed response to Craig's post. I wil keep an eye on the situation. David, Phil's article contained a range of themes on which to hang a lot of material, even if I stretch a little. The media will be a focus of this post.
Before proceeding I make note of the detailing of the overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954. I have long used this as an example of how the US has operated. 40 years of suffering for Guatemalans to suit the bottom line of the United Fruit Company. Just do a spin job and away we go.
A follow up to a story I posted yesterday - the claim that US senators have been briefed of a plan to attack Iran in the next two months has been denied. Will keep an eye on the whole situation
Now to the media and a couple of pieces from Glenn Greenwald. The first is on Scott McClellan's book.
In a minimally rational world, this extraordinary passage, from the new book by Scott McClellan, would forever slay the single most ludicrous myth in our political culture: The "Liberal Media":
If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.
The collapse of the administration's rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. . . . In this case, the "liberal media" didn't live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.
Just consider how remarkable that is. George Bush's own Press Secretary criticizes the American media for being "too deferential" to the Government. He lays the blame for Bush's ability to propagandize the nation on the media's uncritical dissemination of the Republican administration's falsehoods. And most notably of all, McClellan actually uses cynical scare quotes when invoking the phrase which, in conventional political discourse, is deemed the most unassailable truth of all: The Liberal Media.
Keep saying "the liberal media" and some (too many)people will believe it.
The second is on news anchors and what a fine job they think they did in the run up to the war. Problem is, they have forgotten what their job is. It is not "Just tell us what to say and ...".
True democracy requires an informed electorate but when the media is corrupted and fails in its duty democracy itself becomes corrupted.
G'day Phil, first (and David might appreciate this) a story about religion. And Iraq. Fallujah, to be exact.
FALLUJAH, Iraq — At the western entrance to the Iraqi city of Fallujah Tuesday, Muamar Anad handed his residence badge to the U.S. Marines guarding the city. They checked to be sure that he was a city resident, and when they were done, Anad said, a Marine slipped a coin out of his pocket and put it in his hand.
Out of fear, he accepted it, Anad said. When he was inside the city, the college student said, he looked at one side of the coin. "Where will you spend eternity?" it asked.
He flipped it over, and on the other side it read, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16."
"They are trying to convert us to Christianity," said Anad, a Sunni Muslim like most residents of this city in Anbar province. At home, he told his story, and his relatives echoed their disapproval: They'd been given the coins, too, he said.
Fallujah, the scene of a bloody U.S. offensive against Sunni insurgents in 2004, has calmed and grown less hostile to American troops since residents turned against al Qaida in Iraq, which had tried to force its brand of Islamist extremism on the population.
Now residents of the city are abuzz that some Americans whom they consider occupiers are also acting as Christian missionaries. Residents said some Marines at the western entrance to their city have been passing out the coins for two days in what they call a "humiliating" attempt to convert them to Christianity.
A lot of Fallujans were given the opportunity of eternal life by the Americans in the past, so perhaps not all that sensible to be proselytizing.
On the media, a reminder of a very big example of misinformation.
"In 2001 painstaking postmortems of the Florida count, one by The New York Times and another by a consortium of newspapers, concluded that Mr. Bush would have come out slightly ahead, even if all the votes counted throughout the state had been retallied." Alessandra Stanley, New York Times, May 23, 2008 in a review of the HBO television movie, Recount
That's not true. The New York Times did not do its own recount. It did participate in a consortium. Here's what they actually said: "If all the ballots had been reviewed under any of seven single standards, and combined with the results of an examination of overvotes, Mr. Gore would have won, by a very narrow margin." Ford Fessenden And John M. Broder New York Times, November 12, 2001.
Read on and also keep in mind tricks before and during polling day.
Hand in glove, or how to make a motza from government experience.
But who cares? Robert Scheer on the torture report - Where is the outrage?
Indeed.
G'day Phil, more from Glenn Greenwald on the media or "the executives made us do it".
Jessica Yellin -- currently a CNN correspondent who covered the White House for ABC News and MSNBC in 2002 and 2003 -- was on with Anderson Cooper last night discussing Scott McClellan's book, and made one of the most significant admissions heard on television in quite some time:
JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think the press corps dropped the ball at the beginning. When the lead-up to the war began, the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings.
And my own experience at the White House was that, the higher the president's approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives -- and I was not at this network at the time -- but the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the president.
I think, over time...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: You had pressure from news executives to put on positive stories about the president?
YELLIN: Not in that exact -- they wouldn't say it in that way, but they would edit my pieces. They would push me in different directions. They would turn down stories that were more critical and try to put on pieces that were more positive, yes. That was my experience.
Chris Floyd on the Bushes, the Saudis and the bomb.
Did you hear the alarming story about a country led by draconian Muslim religious extremists acquiring enriched uranium for their nuclear plants -- plants which could be weaponized anytime in the future, putting weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Sharia law fanatics who repress women, chop off heads and throttle all dissent? What's more, they were given this weapons-grade material by a rogue nation led by a goonish tyrant who gained power only because he was the wastrel son of the former leader. Break out the regime change machinery right away; this evil must be stopped!
What's that? No, we're not talking about Iran getting souped-up nukestuff from North Korea. We're talking about George W. Bush's bestowal of enriched uranium on his pals and business partners, the Saudi royals, the most draconian religious tyrants in the world.
On those who aren't "part of the club" - Is the IAEA succumbing to pressure? Is the US corrupting the international system ... again?
Conscienceless ... and dangerous.
G'day Phil, more from Glenn Greenwald on the media, some good internal links.
House Judiciary Committee to have discussions with Scott McClellan.
Another account here - link this for some interesting comments, including this:
BREAKING NEWS ! ! ! Today President Bush issued a lifetime blanket pardon for the Vice President, Dick Cheney. Cheney, immediately sent secret service agents to pick up Scott McClellan. When Cheney was asked about the order to pick up McClellan he repelied, "Scott and I are old friends. We're going hunting.
McClellan with Olbermann - videos.
David Corn's view on McClellan.
Weekend reading (and viewing) and a hope that the Judiciary Committee does follow through.
G'day Phil, a late start to the week and another weekend gone and memories of when my siblings and I would go to the Saturday matinee at the nearest moving picture house. Oh the simplistic plots, the white hats and the black hats. Tom Engelhardt remembers but it seems some are getting confused about which hat they are wearing. es, the Crawford Caligula, star of his own imagination in role confusion.
Script writer Limp Dick and how he tried to pull the wool ...
Meanwhile, in the lobby, major players dutifully line up. Yes, another year, another AIPAC conference (G'day Craig) and the usual attendees.
Segue to Israel and the seeds of corruption. Chris Floyd and Uri Avnery.
Joschka Fischer sees possible Isreali attack on Iran ... soon.
Brzezinski and Odom on a sensible path on the Iran issue.
The problem is that some don't have room for sense, not when agendas are at play.
George Monbiot tries to arrest "Bonkers" Bolton. OK, he didn't succeed but:
GEORGE MONBIOT: Yes, he does. And he’s actually made a public statement concerning it. I would urge anyone who is in a position to do so to try to exercise a citizen’s arrest of any of the primary authors of the Iraq War. And I’m talking about Bush—that makes it very, very difficult, but it’s—there’s a higher chance obviously when he ceases to be president—Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Bolton, and over here in the United Kingdom, Tony Blair and some of his cabinet ministers. And I certainly intend to try to carry out a citizen’s arrest of either Blair or one of the other senior architects of the war here in the United Kingdom.
And what I found from this instance was that even if you don’t succeed in carrying out the citizen’s arrest, you are able to focus a great deal of attention on the issue and to ensure that people do not forget. This is not an ordinary political mistake which was committed in Iraq. This was the supreme international crime, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Those people were not killed in the ordinary sense; they were murdered. And they were murdered by the authors of that war, who are the greatest mass murderers of the twenty-first century so far.
So, keep trying and keep attention focused on the issue.
G'day Phil, a bit of reading - "The Corporate State and the Subversion of Democracy" - by Chris Hedges. It is prefaced thus:
Note: Chris Hedges gave this keynote address on Wednesday, May 28, in Furman University’s Younts Conference Center. The address was part of protests by faculty and students over the South Carolina college’s decision to invite George W. Bush to give the May 31 commencement address.
When it was announced in May that President Bush would deliver the commencement address, 222 students and faculty signed and posted on the school’s Web site a statement titled “We Object.” The statement cites the war in Iraq and the administration’s “obstructing progress on reducing greenhouse gases while favoring billions in tax breaks and subsidies to oil companies that are earning record profits.”
“We are ashamed of the actions of this administration. The war in Iraq has cost the lives of over 4,000 brave and honorable U.S. military personnel,” the statement read. “Because we love this country and the ideals it stands for, we accept our civic responsibility to speak out against these actions that violate American values.”
And this by Glenn Greenwald - a suitable companion piece.
While the spin is spun and attention is diverted there is destruction being wrought on the very fundamentals of the US system. But as long as the virus of Hitchens' disease flourishes, many will not notice.
G'day Phil, courtesy of Wikipedia, here is a quote from William Tecumseh Sherman:
I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting — its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers ... it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated ... that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation.
I recall someone in a blog in reply to the question that as he was so in favour of the Iraq war he did not join up and go and fight, his response was, as I recall, that he could achieve more at home. That being, on the evidence of his posts, to spin the spin and tell the lies to promote more murder. In the following article you will see the relevance of using the the word "murder" instead of "killing".
The article is from Tomdispatch and is a by Chris Hedges and is a reworking of the introduction of a book he has co-authored, "Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians".
Troops, when they battle insurgent forces, as in Iraq, or Gaza or Vietnam, are placed in "atrocity producing situations." Being surrounded by a hostile population makes simple acts, such as going to a store to buy a can of Coke, dangerous. The fear and stress push troops to view everyone around them as the enemy. The hostility is compounded when the enemy, as in Iraq, is elusive, shadowy and hard to find. The rage soldiers feel after a roadside bomb explodes, killing or maiming their comrades, is one that is easily directed, over time, to innocent civilians who are seen to support the insurgents.
Civilians and combatants, in the eyes of the beleaguered troops, merge into one entity. These civilians, who rarely interact with soldiers or Marines, are to most of the occupation troops in Iraq nameless, faceless, and easily turned into abstractions of hate. They are dismissed as less than human. It is a short psychological leap, but a massive moral leap. It is a leap from killing -- the shooting of someone who has the capacity to do you harm -- to murder -- the deadly assault against someone who cannot harm you.
The war in Iraq is now primarily about murder. There is very little killing. The savagery and brutality of the occupation is tearing apart those who have been deployed to Iraq. As news reports have just informed us, 115 American soldiers committed suicide in 2007. This is a 13% increase in suicides over 2006. And the suicides, as they did in the Vietnam War years, will only rise as distraught veterans come home, unwrap the self-protective layers of cotton wool that keep them from feeling, and face the awful reality of what they did to innocents in Iraq.
Sherman again: "War is all Hell."
From the Hell that has been created, another article on casualty figures.
And the man responsible for the war of aggression? Knock, knock. ... silence. "Seems that noboby is home."
"'This is the great war of our times. It is going to take forty years,'" [Bush told Engel]. "Bush said in forty years the world would know if the war on terrorism, and conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, had reduced extremism, helped moderates, and promoted democracy."
- Bush admits to Engel that going to war was a decision based on his personal instinct and not on any long-range strategy for the Mideast:
"I know people are saying we should have left things the way they were, but I changed after 9/11. I had to act. I don't care if it created more enemies. I had to act."
Substance addled, a life-long failure ...
A delusional sociopath.
In the above link there are further links which have been erratic. But there is contained within the last this:
“The problem is Olmert. This is a man who came to power on a promise that he was going to unilaterally define a Palestinian state. You can’t pressure democracies.”
Cough! Splutter!
But as the matter of occupations and Israel have been raised ...
"War is all Hell." "Occupations breed oppression."
Not new observations but some seem to have learning difficulties.
if 'war' is the answer ...
.. then some fool-idiot asked the wrong question
-=*=-
G'day Bob,
.. there are a couple of points (optimism) to be made.
1. To use a widely used fallacy, "everyone knows" - that the world changed on 9/11.
We watched the ghastly telecast for a while, until I commented to my near-and-dear: "Trouble." Then we turned it off.
2. Then, when your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like nails. And, to coin a phrase, GWBush 'pulled the trigger.' IMHO as usual and of course: the wrong trigger.
3. One'a your recent comments' (as usual terrific) links reports GWBush saying "that going to war was a decision based on his personal instinct."
4. Well, here's one that comments on that comment: "Every gut instinct he had was wildly off the mark and hideously damaging to all concerned."
5. There's been enough said about M/I/C/4-plexes (military, industrial, Congress, 4th estate (corrupt, venal MSM)), and one can never say (condemn) enough about 'murder for oil!' - but the only solution to (almost) all of our problems is - Ta Ra! - No More of the Same!
6. I think it was Menken who said "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong."
7. BUT: like some only having their murdering hammer (i.e. military), we only have but the one lever; and that lever is attached to our (putative) representative(s).
8. Sooo, my simple, neat solution is: we *must* convince (aka force) our representatives to represent *us* we the sheople®, instead of representing 'the big end of town,' say. How wrong can that be? (Don't all answer at once, and not always the same ones, please.)
9. To counter any cynical (but probably accurate) response of "But can we afford them," I would say we can't afford not to act as in my (8). The greedastrophe® looms ever closer, ever larger, ever more disastrous.
G'day Phil, comments deserving response, so ...
1. "Everything changed ...". I would like to see someone who uses this excuse explain, in detail, how everything changed, with comparisons drawn to pre-Sept 11 attacks.
Using the term is a symptom of Hitchens' disease.
2. Hammers and nails, exactly. And a mindset and they have the tools , they used them. Then there is the agenda. Just need "another Pearl Harbor".
And the biggest tool of all is?
3. 4. Group these as the Dowd article you linked is one of her better efforts and spot on ... and in line with my comment. And answers my question at end of 2.
5. Agreed. The previously linked Berrigan piece is on the money. A money and blood devouring monster.
6. Wise.
7. 8. & 9. We do what we can ... yes, representations to our "representatives". But who do they really represent. The power of the vote, as long as the system is not corrupt ... in the case of the US, well, there is all the evidence ...
And information - the MSM failures have been noted, they have too often been messengers for government. So we give another side and hope more and more people take note.
There are times when it would be good to be "in the room", such as when Dana Perino tried to dismiss Scott McClellan's assertions about WH misinformation. One could ask "Are you saying he was lying? And, if so, does this mean that WH officials are prone to lying." Perhaps if Stephen Colbert had been there.
Back to Modo's article:
It was not the fake casus belli that made Colin Powell's blood boil. What really disgusted him was that W and Dick Cheney used him, tapping into his credibility to sell their trumped-up war; that George Tenet failed to help him scrub his UN speech of all Cheney's garbage; and that W showed him the door so the more malleable Condi could have his job.
Such concerns when the abyss gets nearer.
no honour ...
.. among thieves
-=*=-
G'day Bob,
.. you mention Hitchens' disease, and we could play around with a little alliteration ('runs' in the family, say?) Also, that '9/11' might'a been pivotal. Whereas we can see that 9/11 was exploited, I don't see anything +ve to have come out of it at all (haw, but sadly). Fur shure, it enabled the US to go on a rampage - 1st rearranging some Afghani-sand (still ongoing, also with Aus, boo), then 'the biggie' - namely the murdering oil-theft predicated invasion of Iraq (possibly "Shockin' whore" coming to Iran next), and Israel 'unshackling' its military - all leading to the (mass)murdering of mostly innocent, charmingly called 'collaterals,' but the main lesson - for me - was discovering that all of that crime described in this para is nothing new.
Then, Powell. A so-called professional soldier; a general in fact.
The anti-wars had the feeling, that all was not as it had been made to seem. To deploy another qualifier, the lies we were getting, the main thrust of the pushed-paradigm propaganda, those lies were palpably false. I was on the 'sheople®'s lawn' before our 'new parliament house,' and I talked to some'a 'the heavies.' When put to the flame, a certain witness went shifty.
Back to Powell before the UNSC. He gave a power-point type presentation, one could imagine that what he said was just about as 'good' as it was ever gunna get. Recently, when Rudd 'called' B, B & H on the duplicitous excuses given, the Whitehouse liar-person - Ooops! (SBN2S[1]) - spokeswoman said:
«... saying "the entire world" agreed ... No-one else in the world, no other government, had different information and so we acted based on what was the threat that was presented to us. When the intelligence community presents you with their concerns, you'd better take them seriously," said Perino.»
[SBS]
(Note the erroneous, (risibly!) fallacious: «saying "the entire world" agreed». As the slightest of sops, the spies were not at all of any such collective view.)
-=*=-
We know now what happened, even if only in 'general' terms, because - like the cowards they all are, they (B, B & H and their ilk) all try to hide behind 'secrecy.'
1. They concocted a threat.
2. They projected that threat to scare us all into catatonic submission.
3. Like all 'good' (actually, of course, not 'just' bad but criminal) propaganda, they festooned it on some shreds of truth. Saying, for example, that Saddam had had, and had deployed - on his 'own' people, even - some poison. (They didn't say that the poisoning was done with some connivance or assistance from 'The West.' Oh, no.)
Back to Powell before the UNSC. If he didn't know that what he was telling us were lies then he was just sooo incompetent - but he did know, again and of course.
-=*=-
So now, Q: what have we got? A: Two,
1. One'a the top US military spokespersons tells us lies, in order to illegally invade Iraq, now been morphed into a brutal occupation, all premised on 'grand theft oil.' (Not just Powel, see the 935 lies, coming variously from the whole rotten lot.)
2. Worse, worser, worst: this behaviour (murder for spoil) has been going on for yonks.
-=*=-
This last is the key insight. It's been going on 'in plain sight,' at least since the (illegal!) A-bombing, the (illegal!) invasion of what remained of Palestine after 'allowing' the Zionists in (murder for land, water). What is disturbing, shockingly so, is that a) the sheople have been so deceived to think that this rampant, murdering criminality is somehow not 'just' acceptable but also normal(!!?), but further b) (I mean really daaarlings, 'the absolute pits') - that these murdering criminals claim some sort'a 'honour' whilst often quite literally up to their filthy, fat arses in hapless collateral's blood - or if 'stay at home' chicken-hawks, virtually supping on the collateral's cadavers.
-=*end*=-
Epilogue: I invite the faux-derision of right-wingnuts by deploying the word conspiracy. But call it what you will, the so-called elites, the ruling class of the US and Israel, together USrael, are actively practicing murder for spoil. Among the applicable qualifiers are dishonourable and criminal (add your own), and the number-one question is this: if they are sooo rich and sooo smart, why don't they (like the rest of us have to), just buy what they want?
And stop telling us lies, that goes for principals, accessory/enablers and AusBC/SBS alike.
-=*=-
Ref(s):
[1] SBN2S = Sorry, but not too sorry.
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