great article, the anti-empire report

“The people can have anything they want. The trouble is, they do not want anything. At least they vote that way on election day.” - Eugene Debs, American socialist leader, early 20th century

Why was the primary vote for former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich so small when anti-Iraq war sentiment in the United States is supposedly so high, and Kucinich was easily the leading anti-war candidate in the Democratic race, indeed the only genuine one after former Senator Mike Gravel withdrew? Even allowing for his being cut out of several debates, Kucinich’s showing was remarkably poor. In Michigan, on January 15, it was only Kucinich and Clinton running. Clinton got 56% of the vote, the “uncommitted” vote (for candidates who had withdrawn but whose names were still on the ballot) was 39%, and Kucinich received but 4%. And Clinton, remember, has been the leading pro-war hawk of all the Democratic candidates.

I think much of the answer lies in the fact that the majority of the American people—like the majority of people all over the world—aren’t very sophisticated politically, and many of them aren’t against the war for very cerebral reasons. Their opposition perhaps stems mainly from the large number of American soldiers who’ve lost their lives, or because the United States is not “winning”, or because America’s reputation in the world is being soiled, or because a majority of other Americans express their opposition to the war, or because of George W.’s multiple character defects, or because of a number of other reasons you couldn’t even guess at. Not much especially perceptive or learned in this collection.

I think there are all kinds of intelligence in this world: musical, scientific, mathematical, artistic, academic, literary, mechanical, and so on. Then there’s political intelligence, which I would define as the ability to see through the bullshit which the leaders and politicians of every society, past, present and future, feed their citizens from birth on to win elections and assure continuance of the prevailing ideology.

to further clarify that, he goes on to point out what the “liberal” media has said about iraq…

“This war [in Iraq] is the most important liberal, revolutionary U.S. democracy-building project since the Marshall Plan. ... it is one of the noblest things this country has ever attempted abroad.”—Thomas Friedman, much-acclaimed New York Times foreign-affairs analyst, November 2003[7]

“President Bush has placed human rights at the center of his foreign policy agenda in unprecedented ways.”—Michael Gerson, columnist for the Washington Post, 2007[8]

The war in Iraq “is one of the noblest endeavors the United States, or any great power, has ever undertaken.”—David Brooks, New York Times columnist and National Public Radio (NPR) commentator (2007)[9]

If this is what leading American public intellectuals believe and impart to their audiences, is it any wonder that the media can short circuit people’s critical faculties altogether? It should as well be noted that these three journalists are all with “liberal” media.

And when Hillary Clinton says in the January 31 debate with Barack Obama: “We bombed them [Iraq] for days in 1998 because Saddam Hussein threw out inspectors,” and the fact is that the UN withdrew its weapons inspectors because the Clinton administration had made it clear that it was about to start bombing Iraq ...

give it a read.  interesting stuff.

must see…

Yes, we removed a tyrannical and hated dictator from Iraq, but we permitted security there to collapse, leading to death, carnage and displacement. We issued lofty rhetoric about promoting freedom around the globe but gave unconditional support to military rulers and dictators in Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere to crush domestic opposition. We tortured and humiliated Muslim men in Abu Ghraib and have held hundreds of Muslims in Guantanamo for years without charges.

With this record, how can it possibly come as a surprise that, in the words of the intelligence community, “we live in a heightened threat environment”?

read the article here.

yeah, yeah, i’m a day behind what’s new?

Seventh Tuesday Topic - Tuesday, 1 May 2007

The United States Congress passed a bill last week limiting war funding and calling for substantial withdrawal by next March.
President Bush is expected to veto. It is also expected that there are insufficient votes to override this veto, and this will lead to negotiations on a compromise bill.
Do you trust those who are against the war in the US Congress to stick to their policies and stand up for peace? If not, do you find any wholly political solutions likely or viable for the short-term in ending the Iraq War?

i’ve been hearing that this bill was a political move by the democrats.  to which i say, “well, duh”.  *everything* is a political move in congress.  they’re...politicians, surprise!   

“Do you trust those who are against the war in the US Congress to stick to their policies...” heh, that’s rather a trick question, as 99.9% of those who are “against the war” were okay with the war when they voted to give bush the power to use military force if he deemed necessary.  do i expect them to stick to their policies?  of course, because their policies change with the wind, so again, a trick question.  if the american people shift their view to a decidedly pro-military solution, you can bet that the politicians will do the same.  if the american people suddenly discover that GAY MARRIAGE causes people to BURN THE FLAG and ABORTION leads to ATTACKS ON CHRISTIANS and the DESTRUCTION OF CHRISTMAS and, let’s not forget the SHARK ATTACKS being the reason for all the MISSING WHITE WOMEN, the politicians in washington will jump on those particular bandwagons and forget all about iraq for the moment.  we’re a soundbyte culture with the attention span of fleas, so no, i don’t expect any wholly political solutions that are viable in the short-term, because we can’t stay focused on the issue long enough.  i, also, don’t expect any wholly diplomatic solutions as, we’ve a lack of actual diplomats at this time.

so i’m strolling through the houston chronicle (which i’m interested to see has now added comment-ability to their news stories - woot!  way to make it easier to pass misinformation!) and i come across this story:

April 27, 2007, 11:34PM
Perry’s border comments questioned
He tells paper in Pittsburgh some who came to Texas had al-Qaida ties and were arrested

By PEGGY FIKAC
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

AUSTIN — With the Texas House poised to consider a border security bill and state budget writers deciding how much to spend on the effort, Gov. Rick Perry told a Pittsburgh newspaper that some border-crossers with al-Qaida ties have been apprehended.

“The information that we have is that there have been individuals who have crossed, and some that have been apprehended, that have ties back to the al-Qaida network,” Perry told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on a trip to the city to speak at a Boy Scouts dinner.

“I don’t get confused that with the lack of manpower and the lack of resources that the federal government has made available that you can cross the border, and you can cross the border with enough frequency and with enough items to create a lot of havoc,” he said.

[read the rest here]

and all i could think was “wow.  just wow.” this man is our governor

and a comment left states:

“It’s a well-known fact (garnered from a CIA report issued in - I believe late 2005/early 2006) that Al-Quida is using the Mexican border as a port of entry, and attempting to pass themselves off as Mexicans. One Al-Quida member was arrested at around that time.”

where do they get this information?!  if you try to do a google search on “terror border us mexico”, the only stories which support that statement come from right-wing, generally anti-immigrant sites.  there is nothing to back up the claim that “some individuals with al aqaeda ties have been apprehended crossing the mexican border”.  at least, not that i can find.  i *can* find information such as:

A study by the conservative Nixon Center, a Washington, D.C.-based foreign policy think tank, found that of 373 suspected or convicted terrorists with links to al-Qaida who resided or crossed borders in Western Europe or North America since 1993, none had entered North America from Mexico. In contrast, the center found that 26 had used Canada as a host country.

[read the rest here]

you just have to wonder about these “cia reports”, etc.  that no one can point to specifically.