http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3200
Action Alert
ABC, Washington Post push well-worn 'crisis' myths
10/19/07
When the first baby boomer filed for Social Security, ABC News and the Washington Post's Dana Milbank led the pack in media scaremongering--pushing the widely disputed myth of a pending crisis while dismissing the less alarmist views espoused by many economists.
At the top of ABC's October 15 World News with Charles Gibson, the anchor declared this a "day of reckoning," later calling it "one of this country's greatest challenges." Correspondent David Wright called the first baby boomer filing for benefits "the raindrop that's about to become a tsunami," and warned that "paying for the baby boom's retirement may leave the next generation high and dry." The Post's Milbank (10/16/07) went further, claiming that baby boomers "will begin to bankrupt the nation."
The crisis claims in each report were more or less the same. According to ABC's Wright, "In 10 years time, Social Security will be paying out more in benefits than it takes in in taxes. And about the time the last of the baby boomers retires, the system will go bankrupt." As Milbank put it, "As the boomers retire, Social Security will go into the red in 2017 and become insolvent 24 years later, according to the system's trustees."
This rhetoric is profoundly misleading. Social Security has built up a massive surplus in order to pay for the long-anticipated retirement of the baby boomers. As FAIR reported in 2005 (Extra!, 1-2/05):
The Social Security Administration predicts the program will be able to fully pay all promised benefits through 2042, when most baby boomers will be dead--even using pessimistic assumptions about future economic growth. Annual productivity growth is forecast by SSA at only 1.6 percent through 2078; in the years 1913-1990 (including the Great Depression), it grew by about 2.3 percent, a rate that would more than wipe out any future shortfall (2004 Social Security Trustees' Report; The World Economy, OECD, 2001).
But for most of the media, no such context is allowed. The sole economic expert who appeared on ABC was David John of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, who likened the situation to a "horror movie." Milbank chided a Social Security commissioner for "whistling past the graveyard of entitlement insolvency" because he had the temerity to say, "There's no reason to have any immediate panic." Milbank even suggested that young people are "more likely to believe in UFOs than in receiving their Social Security checks"--a claim based on a misleading poll (Extra!, 3-4/97). Milbank offered the usual prescription--namely, "painful changes everybody knows will be needed."
But "everybody" does not agree with this assessment.
A few weeks ago, former Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan--whose word the media usually takes as a kind of gospel--told Tim Russert on Meet the Press (9/23/07) that there was no urgent Social Security crisis at all. "Social Security is not a big crisis," Greenspan explained. "We're approximately 2 percentage points of payroll short over the very long run. It's a significant closing of the gap, but it's doable, and doable in any number of ways."
Renowned Princeton economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (New York Times, 12/7/04) has similarly debunked the notion that Social Security is heading into a crisis. The long-term financing of Social Security is "a problem of modest size....It's not at all hard to come up with fiscal packages that would secure the retirement program, with no major changes, for generations to come."
Dean Baker of the Center for Economic & Policy Research has written frequently about the overhyping of the system's long-term financial shortfall. (See Baker's co-authored book with Mark Weisbrot, Social Security: The Phony Crisis, 1998, and Baker's blog Beat the Press.)
ABC's Wright segued neatly from misleading about the problem to distorting the solution: "Of course, it's perfectly obvious how to fix it, either raise taxes or cut benefits. The politicians have been unwilling to do either." What is "perfectly obvious" is that in 1983, the Social Security Commission chaired by Alan Greenspan did raise taxes and cut benefits to create the surplus that now exists to pay for the retirement costs of baby boomers (American Prospect, 1/14/05).
With Americans' hard-earned Social Security money on the line, there is an urgent need for journalists to provide the public with accurate information, based on solid economic analysis. Yet instead of taking cues from economists, the media have decided to base their coverage on hyperbole from right-wing think tanks.
ACTION:
Encourage ABC and the Washington Post to stop inaccurate fear-mongering about Social Security, and expand their coverage to include experts who argue against the claims of an imminent Social Security "crisis."
CONTACT:
ABC News:
Email: abcnews.storyideas@gmail.com
Host of ABC World News with Charles Gibson
Email: charles.gibson@abc.com
Executive Director of News Programming Andrew Kalb
Email: Andrew.l.kalb@abc.com
Director of News Coverage Peter Salinger
Email: Peter.salinger@abc.com
Washington Post:
Columnist Dana Milbank
Email: milbankd@washpost.com
Ombudsperson Deborah Howell
Email: ombudsman@washpost.com
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007
Rep. Stark's remark sets off GOP furor
Ever notice that when a congressman/woman appears to wake up and start telling it like it so obviously is, someone will call him and what he/she's saying "outrageous and delusional"? What's great about this is the media attention didn't cause an apology, but a continuation of stated reality.--Pete
Washington Post
The debate in Congress about children's health insurance was surprisingly bloodless, with only an occasional charge of "socialized medicine" from Republicans or "heartlessness" from Democrats.
Then Rep. Pete Stark, D-Fremont, grumbled at Republicans: "You don't have money to fund the war or children. But you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president's amusement."
Clips instantly hit YouTube, and GOP reaction was furious. The National Republican Congressional Committee called it "an outrageous and delusional tantrum."
Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, declared that Stark "dishonors not only the commander in chief, but the thousands of courageous men and women of America's armed forces." He called on Stark to apologize.
The 18-term congressman, however, responded only by calling those who voted to deny children health care "chicken hawks."
Washington Post
The debate in Congress about children's health insurance was surprisingly bloodless, with only an occasional charge of "socialized medicine" from Republicans or "heartlessness" from Democrats.
Then Rep. Pete Stark, D-Fremont, grumbled at Republicans: "You don't have money to fund the war or children. But you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president's amusement."
Clips instantly hit YouTube, and GOP reaction was furious. The National Republican Congressional Committee called it "an outrageous and delusional tantrum."
Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, declared that Stark "dishonors not only the commander in chief, but the thousands of courageous men and women of America's armed forces." He called on Stark to apologize.
The 18-term congressman, however, responded only by calling those who voted to deny children health care "chicken hawks."
Thanks For The Memories
Quotes from the heyday of CREEM magazine (when I learn who said what, I'll post that, too!):
"CREEM Magazine was the only game in town. Lester (Bangs) was king....Ben was great too."
"When we found out that we were going to appear in CREEM we knew we had arrived."
"It was a pretty witty read. It was pretty funny that magazine."
"It's about time you realized that people actually BELIEVE what they read in that rock ' n' roll rag of yours!"
"I was named Punk Of The Year in the very first CREEM readers poll. I would never assume to threaten the true king of the punks..."
"CREEM Magazine wasn't just a monthly zine to some of us - it was a Pop Culture religion!" (to me as well--Pete)
"CREEM Magazine was the only game in town. Lester (Bangs) was king....Ben was great too."
"When we found out that we were going to appear in CREEM we knew we had arrived."
"It was a pretty witty read. It was pretty funny that magazine."
"It's about time you realized that people actually BELIEVE what they read in that rock ' n' roll rag of yours!"
"I was named Punk Of The Year in the very first CREEM readers poll. I would never assume to threaten the true king of the punks..."
"CREEM Magazine wasn't just a monthly zine to some of us - it was a Pop Culture religion!" (to me as well--Pete)
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
In Iran, Putin Warns Against Military Action
By NAZILA FATHI and C. J. CHIVERS
NYT Article Here
TEHRAN, Oct. 16 — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said at a summit meeting of five Caspian Sea nations in Iran on Tuesday that any use of military force in the region was unacceptable. In a declaration, the countries agreed that none would allow their territories to be used as a base for military strikes against any of the others.
“We should not even think of making use of force in this region,” Mr. Putin said.
Mr. Putin’s comments and the declaration come at a time when the United States has refused to rule out military action to halt Iran’s nuclear energy program, which it believes masks a desire to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says its program, including the enrichment of uranium, is solely for peaceful purposes.
Asked this morning about Mr. Putin’s remarks, Tony Fratto, the deputy White House press secretary, played them down, saying simply, “That sounds like a good policy.”
And later, Tom Casey, the deputy State Department spokesman, said, “I think the president’s made clear, and U.S. policy’s been consistent, that we’re pursuing a diplomatic path with respect to Iran.” He noted that Russia had joined in several unanimous votes at the United Nations Security Council demanding that Tehran end any uranium-enriching activities.
Mr. Putin arrived in Tehran on Tuesday for meetings with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and leaders from three other Caspian Sea nations that have rich oil and gas resources, promising to use diplomacy to try to resolve the international debate over Iran’s nuclear program.
Later he had a meeting with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in which he said he had expressed a desire for “deeper” relations between the countries, Reuters reported.
Mr. Putin was the first Kremlin leader to travel to Iran since 1943, when Stalin attended a wartime summit meeting with Churchill and Roosevelt. His statements, which were consistent with his past positions cautioning against military action against Iran, were nonetheless stark in their setting and firmly emphasized his differences with the United States over the extent of Iran’s threat and the means to counter it.
“Not only should we reject the use of force, but also the mention of force as a possibility,” Mr. Putin said.
Russia has blocked a third set of sanctions against Iran at the United Nations that were intended to persuade Tehran to stop enrichment activities, which Western nations fear could lead to the development of nuclear weapons. Mr. Putin has emphasized the need for further dialogue and working through the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure that Iran’s nuclear programs were for peaceful purposes.
He has further called into question the concerns of the United States, France and other European countries about Iran, saying that while he sought transparency in its nuclear program he had not seen clear evidence of any Iranian intention to make nuclear weapons.
In spite of Mr. Putin’s strong statements and the evident show of solidarity among the five countries bordering the Caspian Sea — Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, as well as Russia and Iran — significant regional tensions remain, particularly about the division of the sea’s main resource, oil.
Iran and the Soviet Union once had agreements for sharing its resources, including a water boundary. Before 1991, each country took 50 percent of the oil and gas from the sea.
But since the Soviet Union collapsed, the successor governments in the newly independent Caspian nations have quarreled over where their sea borders should be drawn.
Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have expressed interest in building pipelines under the sea, which would allow Central Asian governments to bypass Russian pipelines as they ship their resources to the West. Russia opposes the idea, which would break its monopoly, citing environmental concerns.
In the absence of a multilateral agreement and mutually accepted borders, the Caspian nations are developing the oil resources as they see fit, although analysts have said that the absence of clear borders has limited the sector’s development.
“The division of the sea is not less important than the nuclear program,” said Ahmad Nateq Nouri, a former speaker of the Iranian Parliament, in a report carried by the Fars news agency.
But the issue of Iran’s nuclear program overshadowed the others. Mr. Putin’s remarks also underscored a longstanding unease in the Kremlin with what it has regarded as a creeping American military presence in Central Asia, a region once solely under Moscow’s control.
Since the terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001, the Pentagon has built a military base in Kyrgyzstan to support operations in Afghanistan, and has expanded its collaboration with Azerbaijan, including underwriting improvements to a former Soviet airfield there. It also has an agreement allowing military transport planes en route to Afghanistan to refuel in Turkmenistan, a country that has made neutrality a cornerstone of its foreign policy.
The American presence and collaboration in the region have alarmed Moscow, while Washington’s potential access to improved airfields in two countries bordering Iran — Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan — has fueled speculation that the airfields could support actions against Tehran.
Mr. Ahmadinejad intimated as much in his statements on Tuesday. “On many issues we have reached final agreement, but we also need collective cooperation,” he said. “The goal is to keep the sea clear of military competitions and keep foreigners out of the region.”
Although Mr. Putin and Mr. Ahmadinejad were resolute, their statements appeared to have more political than military significance, and were not a departure from the status quo. The United States does not have existing agreements with any Caspian nation to launch attacks on another. Rather, the Pentagon has negotiated limited bilateral agreements in the region that allow for flights to Afghanistan through local airspace, refueling, emergency landings and the like.
Moreover, with American military assets assembled in Iraq and other Persian Gulf nations, and aircraft carriers and submarines in the region as well, it was not clear that any of the Caspian countries would be essential for a raid on Iran.
The Caspian meeting also concluded without a clear agreement on territorial demarcation. The leaders said in the declaration that the sea would be used for peaceful purposes and its issues would be resolved by the coastal nations.
Mr. Putin and Mr. Ahmadinejad discussed the completion of a nuclear power plant that Russia has been building in the southern Iranian city of Bushehr. Russia has given various reasons for delays in completing the plant and delivering fuel for the start-up. Brushing that aside, Mr. Ahmadinejad told Mr. Putin that Iran was willing to have Moscow build two more plants in Bushehr, the ISNA news agency reported.
Mr. Putin was received by the Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, at the Tehran airport, according to state-run television. Mr. Putin, who had flown from Germany, where he met Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday, went ahead with the trip despite a report of a possible assassination plot against him in Iran.
Iran is counting on Russia and China, which have important trade ties with Iran, to use their veto power to oppose another round of sanctions in the Security Council. Russia has voted for two sets of sanctions, but has said that it will not support a third set without convincing evidence that Iran had a program to build nuclear weapons.
In addition to the nuclear power plants and business ties, Moscow has a long record of military collaboration with Iran, which relies on Soviet-era and Russian weapons and supplies for its armed forces. The Russian president’s visit appeared to underscore the many levels of bilateral ties.
Mr. Putin said the two countries planned to cooperate on space, aviation and energy issues, and suggested that the tensions with the West over Iran’s nuclear program had provided Russia a unique role. “Russia is the only country that is helping Iran to realize its nuclear program in a peaceful way,” he said.
Nazila Fathi reported from Tehran, and C. J. Chivers from Moscow. Brian Knowlton contributed reporting from Washington.
NYT Article Here
TEHRAN, Oct. 16 — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said at a summit meeting of five Caspian Sea nations in Iran on Tuesday that any use of military force in the region was unacceptable. In a declaration, the countries agreed that none would allow their territories to be used as a base for military strikes against any of the others.
“We should not even think of making use of force in this region,” Mr. Putin said.
Mr. Putin’s comments and the declaration come at a time when the United States has refused to rule out military action to halt Iran’s nuclear energy program, which it believes masks a desire to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says its program, including the enrichment of uranium, is solely for peaceful purposes.
Asked this morning about Mr. Putin’s remarks, Tony Fratto, the deputy White House press secretary, played them down, saying simply, “That sounds like a good policy.”
And later, Tom Casey, the deputy State Department spokesman, said, “I think the president’s made clear, and U.S. policy’s been consistent, that we’re pursuing a diplomatic path with respect to Iran.” He noted that Russia had joined in several unanimous votes at the United Nations Security Council demanding that Tehran end any uranium-enriching activities.
Mr. Putin arrived in Tehran on Tuesday for meetings with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and leaders from three other Caspian Sea nations that have rich oil and gas resources, promising to use diplomacy to try to resolve the international debate over Iran’s nuclear program.
Later he had a meeting with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in which he said he had expressed a desire for “deeper” relations between the countries, Reuters reported.
Mr. Putin was the first Kremlin leader to travel to Iran since 1943, when Stalin attended a wartime summit meeting with Churchill and Roosevelt. His statements, which were consistent with his past positions cautioning against military action against Iran, were nonetheless stark in their setting and firmly emphasized his differences with the United States over the extent of Iran’s threat and the means to counter it.
“Not only should we reject the use of force, but also the mention of force as a possibility,” Mr. Putin said.
Russia has blocked a third set of sanctions against Iran at the United Nations that were intended to persuade Tehran to stop enrichment activities, which Western nations fear could lead to the development of nuclear weapons. Mr. Putin has emphasized the need for further dialogue and working through the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure that Iran’s nuclear programs were for peaceful purposes.
He has further called into question the concerns of the United States, France and other European countries about Iran, saying that while he sought transparency in its nuclear program he had not seen clear evidence of any Iranian intention to make nuclear weapons.
In spite of Mr. Putin’s strong statements and the evident show of solidarity among the five countries bordering the Caspian Sea — Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, as well as Russia and Iran — significant regional tensions remain, particularly about the division of the sea’s main resource, oil.
Iran and the Soviet Union once had agreements for sharing its resources, including a water boundary. Before 1991, each country took 50 percent of the oil and gas from the sea.
But since the Soviet Union collapsed, the successor governments in the newly independent Caspian nations have quarreled over where their sea borders should be drawn.
Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have expressed interest in building pipelines under the sea, which would allow Central Asian governments to bypass Russian pipelines as they ship their resources to the West. Russia opposes the idea, which would break its monopoly, citing environmental concerns.
In the absence of a multilateral agreement and mutually accepted borders, the Caspian nations are developing the oil resources as they see fit, although analysts have said that the absence of clear borders has limited the sector’s development.
“The division of the sea is not less important than the nuclear program,” said Ahmad Nateq Nouri, a former speaker of the Iranian Parliament, in a report carried by the Fars news agency.
But the issue of Iran’s nuclear program overshadowed the others. Mr. Putin’s remarks also underscored a longstanding unease in the Kremlin with what it has regarded as a creeping American military presence in Central Asia, a region once solely under Moscow’s control.
Since the terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001, the Pentagon has built a military base in Kyrgyzstan to support operations in Afghanistan, and has expanded its collaboration with Azerbaijan, including underwriting improvements to a former Soviet airfield there. It also has an agreement allowing military transport planes en route to Afghanistan to refuel in Turkmenistan, a country that has made neutrality a cornerstone of its foreign policy.
The American presence and collaboration in the region have alarmed Moscow, while Washington’s potential access to improved airfields in two countries bordering Iran — Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan — has fueled speculation that the airfields could support actions against Tehran.
Mr. Ahmadinejad intimated as much in his statements on Tuesday. “On many issues we have reached final agreement, but we also need collective cooperation,” he said. “The goal is to keep the sea clear of military competitions and keep foreigners out of the region.”
Although Mr. Putin and Mr. Ahmadinejad were resolute, their statements appeared to have more political than military significance, and were not a departure from the status quo. The United States does not have existing agreements with any Caspian nation to launch attacks on another. Rather, the Pentagon has negotiated limited bilateral agreements in the region that allow for flights to Afghanistan through local airspace, refueling, emergency landings and the like.
Moreover, with American military assets assembled in Iraq and other Persian Gulf nations, and aircraft carriers and submarines in the region as well, it was not clear that any of the Caspian countries would be essential for a raid on Iran.
The Caspian meeting also concluded without a clear agreement on territorial demarcation. The leaders said in the declaration that the sea would be used for peaceful purposes and its issues would be resolved by the coastal nations.
Mr. Putin and Mr. Ahmadinejad discussed the completion of a nuclear power plant that Russia has been building in the southern Iranian city of Bushehr. Russia has given various reasons for delays in completing the plant and delivering fuel for the start-up. Brushing that aside, Mr. Ahmadinejad told Mr. Putin that Iran was willing to have Moscow build two more plants in Bushehr, the ISNA news agency reported.
Mr. Putin was received by the Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, at the Tehran airport, according to state-run television. Mr. Putin, who had flown from Germany, where he met Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday, went ahead with the trip despite a report of a possible assassination plot against him in Iran.
Iran is counting on Russia and China, which have important trade ties with Iran, to use their veto power to oppose another round of sanctions in the Security Council. Russia has voted for two sets of sanctions, but has said that it will not support a third set without convincing evidence that Iran had a program to build nuclear weapons.
In addition to the nuclear power plants and business ties, Moscow has a long record of military collaboration with Iran, which relies on Soviet-era and Russian weapons and supplies for its armed forces. The Russian president’s visit appeared to underscore the many levels of bilateral ties.
Mr. Putin said the two countries planned to cooperate on space, aviation and energy issues, and suggested that the tensions with the West over Iran’s nuclear program had provided Russia a unique role. “Russia is the only country that is helping Iran to realize its nuclear program in a peaceful way,” he said.
Nazila Fathi reported from Tehran, and C. J. Chivers from Moscow. Brian Knowlton contributed reporting from Washington.
Reflections by Cuban President Fidel Castro on Che Guevara
Published Oct 14, 2007
Reprinted from the Oct. 8th front page of Granma.
I make a halt in my daily struggle to bow my head in respect and gratitude to the exceptional combatant who fell in combat on Oct. 8th, forty years ago; for the example he passed on to us as leader of his Rebel Army Column, crossing the swampy grounds of the former provinces of Oriente and Camagüey, while being chased by enemy troops.
He was the liberator of the city of Santa Clara and the mastermind of voluntary work; he accomplished honorable political missions abroad and served as messenger of militant internationalism in East Congo and Bolivia. He built a new awareness in our America and the world.
I thank him for what he tried and failed to do in his home country, because he was like a flower prematurely severed from its stem.
He left to us his unmistakable literary style. He was elegant, swift and true to every detail of whatever happened to cross his mind. He was a predestinate, but he didn’t know it. He still fights with us and for us.
Yesterday, we commemorated the 31st anniversary of the killing of all passengers and the crew of a Cubana airliner blown up in mid-air, and we are on the threshold of the tenth anniversary of the cruel and unjust imprisonment of the five Cuban anti-terrorist heroes.
We likewise bow our heads in respect to them all.
It was with great emotion that I watched and heard the commemoration ceremony on TV.
Fidel Castro Ruz
Oct. 7, 2007
Articles copyright 1995-2007 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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Reprinted from the Oct. 8th front page of Granma.
I make a halt in my daily struggle to bow my head in respect and gratitude to the exceptional combatant who fell in combat on Oct. 8th, forty years ago; for the example he passed on to us as leader of his Rebel Army Column, crossing the swampy grounds of the former provinces of Oriente and Camagüey, while being chased by enemy troops.
He was the liberator of the city of Santa Clara and the mastermind of voluntary work; he accomplished honorable political missions abroad and served as messenger of militant internationalism in East Congo and Bolivia. He built a new awareness in our America and the world.
I thank him for what he tried and failed to do in his home country, because he was like a flower prematurely severed from its stem.
He left to us his unmistakable literary style. He was elegant, swift and true to every detail of whatever happened to cross his mind. He was a predestinate, but he didn’t know it. He still fights with us and for us.
Yesterday, we commemorated the 31st anniversary of the killing of all passengers and the crew of a Cubana airliner blown up in mid-air, and we are on the threshold of the tenth anniversary of the cruel and unjust imprisonment of the five Cuban anti-terrorist heroes.
We likewise bow our heads in respect to them all.
It was with great emotion that I watched and heard the commemoration ceremony on TV.
Fidel Castro Ruz
Oct. 7, 2007
Articles copyright 1995-2007 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php
site promotion
Page printed from:
http://www.workers.org/2007/world/fidel-che-1018/
From Sam Smith, American Hero
We have, of course, been trained to think of our own leaders as normal, sane people. That these destroyers of land, lives and the ecological balance of the earth are wise and honorable men and women engaged in noble and difficult tasks...
But ask yourself this:
Is it normal to kill millions of innocent people in the name of a freedom they will never live to know?
Is it normal to let the young and the ill suffer so you can support a military budget so huge that $30 billion a year simply can't be accounted for?
Is it normal to lock up nearly two million citizens -- the most of any country ever -- many of them for simply preferring marijuana over such legal drugs as vodka and cigarettes?
Is it normal, because of one's draconian penal system, to remove the franchise from one out of every seven black men?
Is it normal to damage the health of a planet for better 4th quarter profits?
Consider that the use of nuclear weapons as well as other forms of mass destruction presently depends upon the will of a brutal egomaniac in Belgrade, a terminal dipsomaniac in Moscow, and a felonious serial sociopath in Washington. This, my friends, is not normal.
But ask yourself this:
Is it normal to kill millions of innocent people in the name of a freedom they will never live to know?
Is it normal to let the young and the ill suffer so you can support a military budget so huge that $30 billion a year simply can't be accounted for?
Is it normal to lock up nearly two million citizens -- the most of any country ever -- many of them for simply preferring marijuana over such legal drugs as vodka and cigarettes?
Is it normal, because of one's draconian penal system, to remove the franchise from one out of every seven black men?
Is it normal to damage the health of a planet for better 4th quarter profits?
Consider that the use of nuclear weapons as well as other forms of mass destruction presently depends upon the will of a brutal egomaniac in Belgrade, a terminal dipsomaniac in Moscow, and a felonious serial sociopath in Washington. This, my friends, is not normal.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Re: Gore's Nobel "Peace" Prize
Remember, campers, Kissinger has one, too.
It obviously has nothing to do with peace.
It obviously has nothing to do with peace.
Bush Joins Ahmadinejad In Denying A Holocaust: Should Armenia Bomb Key U.S. Sites?
By BRENDAN COONEY
http://www.counterpunch.org/cooney10122007.htmlIn light of President Bush's opposition to a resolution that would acknowledge the Armenian genocide, the question must be considered as to whether he is a madman who cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons.
Should Armenian allies adopt a preemptive approach and bomb strategic North American sites?
U.S. press reports of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denying the Nazi genocide have been a flashpoint of the popular perception here that he is either insane or a beast. In either case, he is someone who must be attacked before he can obtain nuclear weapons.
When Ahmadinejad is asked these days whether the Nazi holocaust occurred, he says historians need to conduct more research. It is an answer that bears an uncanny resemblance to that of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when asked about the Armenian holocaust.
In this clip, when Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) asks Rice if there is any doubt in her mind that the murder of 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923 constitutes a genocide, she says, "I think that the historical circumstances require a very detailed and sober look from historians, and what we've encouraged the Turks and the Armenians to do is to have joint historical commissions that can look at this, to have efforts to examine their past, and in examining their past to get over their past."
This is akin to saying the Jews and Germans should get together and study this question of atrocities, and then for them both to get over it. "Lots of people are coming to terms with their history," Rice adds.
She goes on to say that she doesn't think the United States weighing in would help the process of reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia. Well, there's an answer Ahmadinejad might wish to consider next time a goofy "60 Minutes" guy asks him for his Holocaust position: "I don't think me giving an answer would help the Jewish healing process."
Why is there such a runaway-mad perception in the United States that Ahmadinejad is a runaway madman? It's because Vice President Dick Cheney and others in the Administration want to attack Iran, and they are flailing around for a casus belli.
The propaganda campaign against Ahmadinejad is working on two layers, like the trompe l'oeil of an improbable masterpiece. In the background we see hues of a kook with violent intent. Logic fades as we're beguiled by the colors; we forget that there are probably plenty of leaders around the world whose views would affront us, and that we normally don't bomb for beliefs. In the foreground are strokes outlining purported actions. These are things he hasn't just thought but done, such as the supplying of weapons that are killing our boys and girls in uniform. There's blood on his hands! We're already at war with him! The painting becomes vivid, and all sense is lost, as are recollections of the original crime of invading and occupying a sovereign nation.
In simple terms, the propaganda war seeks to prove two things: This is a bad person, and this is a person who has done bad things. One attacks a mode of thought, the other a mode of action. On the mode-of-thought level, Ahmadinejad is portrayed as guilty of two things: he wants to wipe Israel off the map, and he denies that the Holocaust occurred. Ahmadinejad's defenders dispute both, and they point to issues of context and translation. On the mode-of-action level, he is charged with supporting "terrorism" in Iraq with money and weapons.
It is hard to watch all the documentaries showing how we were duped five years ago and think that it could ever happen again, let alone so soon afterward. The pretext for invading Iraq was seen as a flimsy lie by nearly everyone in the world except the ideologically tiny island of people living in the United States. The propaganda washed like a tsunami over the minds of everyone on that island. And don't blame the hoi polloi. Journalists and "intellectuals" were the first to be swept away.
Now the Administration is seeking to disprove that infamous Texas slogan: "You can fool me, but you can't get fooled again."
Already the "intellectuals" have been suckered. Columbia University President Lee Bollinger called Ahmadinejad a "petty and cruel dictator" to his face and suggested he was "astonishingly ignorant." This from a man astonishingly ignorant of the fact that Iran's unelected commander-in-chief, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, holds more power than its elected president, Ahmadinejad.
In Iraq, it was the supposed existence of weapons that might or might not be used against the United States that caused our leaders and citizens to support an invasion. A mighty thin veil for naked aggression. Now we're sifting through Ahmadinejad's speeches for attitudes that might predispose him to act in a certain way if he obtains weapons in a few years and is re-elected in 2009 though he's not even the commander-in-chief? How thin can the veil get?
What about Turkey's denial of the Armenian holocaust? Do we even know who the leader of Turkey is, let alone if his eyes are too close together? No, no. We need Turkey right now to keep our occupation well-fed, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates reminded us yesterday. We can talk history another day.
But just like the Jews protesting Ahmadinejad's speech at Columbia University last month, the Armenians see the relevance of discussing history now. And if Bush and his crew continue to deny their genocide, they could take a page from Cheney's playbook and say that here is a lunatic country that must be stopped. It is a holocaust-denying nation that is considerably further along in its development of nuclear weapons than even Iran and more than anyone else has demonstrated a willingness to use them.
Could the friends of Armenia paint this into a picture that makes bombing the United States seem like the only sane solution? Nah, the only ones who would buy a painting like that are living all alone on a little island.
Brendan Cooney is an anthropologist living in New York City. He can be reached at: itmighthavehappened@yahoo.comMonday, October 15, 2007
Sunday, October 14, 2007
William Blum: The Anti-Empire Report
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2007-10/11blum.cfm
ZNet Commentary
The Anti-Empire Report, October 13, 2007
By Bill Blum
If not now, when? If not here, where? If not you, who? I used to give thought to what historical time and place I would like to have lived in. Europe in the 1930s was usually my first choice. As the war clouds darkened, I'd be surrounded by intrigue, spies omnipresent, matters of life and death pressing down, the opportunity to be courageous and principled. I pictured myself helping desperate people escape to America. It was real Hollywood stuff; think "Casablanca". And when the Spanish Republic fell to Franco and his fascist forces, aided by the German and Italian fascists (while the United States and Britain stood aside, when not actually aiding the fascists), everything in my imaginary scenario would have heightened -- the fate of Europe hung in the balance. Then the Nazis marched into Austria, then Czechoslovakia, then Poland ... one could have devoted one's life to working against all this, trying to hold back the fascist tide; what could be more thrilling, more noble?
Miracle of miracles, miracle of time machines, I'm actually living in this imagined period, watching as the Bush fascists march into Afghanistan, bombing it into a "failed state"; then Iraq: death, destruction, and utterly ruined lives for 24 million human beings; threatening more of the same endless night of hell for the people of Iran; overthrowing Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti; bombing helpless refugees in Somalia; relentless attempts to destabilize and punish Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Gaza, and other non-believers in the empire's god-given mission. Sadly, my most common reaction to this real-life scenario, daily in fact, is less heroic and more feeling scared or depressed; not for myself personally but for our one and only world. The news every day, which I consume in large portions, slashes away at my joie de vivre; it's not just the horror stories of American military power run amok abroad and the injustices of the ever-expanding police state at home, but all the lies and stupidity which drive me up the wall. I'm constantly changing stations, turning the TV or radio off, turning the newspaper page, to escape the words of the King of Lies and the King of Stupidity -- those two twisted creatures who happen to occupy the same humanoid body -- and a hundred minions.
Nonetheless, I must tell you, comrades, that at the same time, our contemporary period also brings out in me a measure of what I imagined for my 1930s life. Our present world is in just as great peril, even more so when one considers the impending environmental catastrophe (which the King of Capitalism refuses to confront lest it harm the profits of those who lavish him with royal bribes). The Bush fascist tide must be stopped.
Usually when I'm asked "But what can we do?", my reply is something along the lines of: Inasmuch as I can not see violent revolution succeeding in the United States (something deep inside tells me that we couldn't quite match the government's firepower, not to mention their viciousness), I can offer no solution to stopping the imperial beast other than: Educate yourself and as many others as you can, increasing the number of those in the opposition until it reaches a critical mass, at which point ... I can't predict the form the explosion will take.
I'm afraid that this advice, whatever historical correctness it may embody, is not terribly inspiring. However, I've assembled four wise men to add their thoughts, hopefully raising the inspiration level. Let's call them the "patron saints of lost causes".
I.F. Stone: "The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing -- for the sheer fun and joy of it -- to go right ahead and fight, knowing you're going to lose. You mustn't feel like a martyr. You've got to enjoy it."
Howard Zinn: "People think there must be some magical tactic, beyond the traditional ones -- protests, demonstrations, vigils, civil disobedience -- but there is no magical panacea, only persistence."
Noam Chomsky: "There are no magic answers, no miraculous methods to overcome the problems we face, just the familiar ones: honest search for understanding, education, organization, action that raises the cost of state violence for its perpetrators or that lays the basis for institutional change -- and the kind of commitment that will persist despite the temptations of disillusionment, despite many failures and only limited successes, inspired by the hope of a brighter future."
Sam Smith: "Those who think history has left us helpless should recall the abolitionist of 1830, the feminist of 1870, the labor organizer of 1890, and the gay or lesbian writer of 1910. They, like us, did not get to choose their time in history but they, like us, did get to choose what they did with it. Knowing what we know now about how these things turned out, but also knowing how long it took, would we have been abolitionists in 1830, or feminists in 1870, and so on?"
Anti-Semitism. Don't settle for imitations. "The cleanliness of this people, moral and otherwise, I must say, is a point in itself. By their very exterior you could tell that these were no lovers of water, and, to your distress, you often knew it with your eyes closed. ... Added to this, there was their unclean dress and their generally unheroic appearance. ... Was there any form of filth or profligacy, particularly in cultural life, without at least one Jew involved in it? ... nine tenths of all literary filth, artistic trash, and theatrical idiocy can be set to the account of a people ... a people under whose parasitism the whole of honest humanity is suffering, today more than ever: the Jews."
Now who can be the author of such abominable anti-semitism? a)Hasan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon; b)John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy"; c)Osama bin Laden; d)Jimmy Carter; e)Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran; f)Norman Finkelstein, author of "The Holocaust Industry".
Each one has been condemned as anti-Semitic. Are you having a problem deciding? Oh, excuse me, I forgot one -- g)Adolf Hitler.[1] Does that make it easier? I'll bet some of you were thinking it must have been Ahmadinejad.
The Webster's Dictionary defines "anti-Semite" as "One who discriminates against or is hostile to or prejudiced against Jews." Notice that the state of Israel is not mentioned.
The next time a critic of Israeli policies is labeled "anti-semitic" think of this definition, think of Adolf's charming way of putting it, then closely examine what the accused has actually said or written.
It may, however, be past the time for such a rational, intellectual pursuit; ultra-heated polarization reigns supreme with anything concerning the Middle East, particularly Israel.
In March, at a conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington, one of the speakers, an American "Christian Zionist", asserted: "It is 1938, Iran is Germany and Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler." The audience responded with a standing ovation, one of seven for his talk.[2]
Then, in May, former Israeli Prime-Minister and current Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu declared that "It's 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs. ... [While Ahmadinejad] denies the Holocaust he is preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state."[3]
Not to be outdone in semi-hysterical propaganda, Israel's president, Shimon Peres, has compared an Iranian nuclear bomb to a "flying concentration camp".[4]
So why hasn't Iran at least started its holocaust by killing or throwing into concentration camps its own Jews, an estimated 30,000 in number? These are Iranian Jews who have representation in Parliament and who have been free for many years to emigrate to Israel but have chosen not to do so.
For your further apocalyptic enjoyment here are a couple more of Zionism's finest envoys speaking about Iran. Former Speaker of the House in the US Congress, Newt Gingrich: "Three nuclear weapons is a second Holocaust. We have enemies who are quite explicit in their desire to destroy us. They say it publicly, on television, on Web sites. [They are] fully as determined as Nazi Germany, more determined than the Soviet Union, and these enemies will kill us the first chance they get."[5]
And Norman Podhoretz, leading neo-conservative editor of Commentary magazine, in an article entitled "The Case for Bombing Iran": "Like Hitler, [Ahmadinejad] is a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism. ... The plain and brutal truth is that if Iran is to be prevented from developing a nuclear arsenal, there is no alternative to the actual use of military force -- any more than there was an alternative to force if Hitler was to be stopped in 1938."[6]
Though so often condemned, Hitler actually arrived at a number of very perceptive insights into how the world worked. One of them was this: "The great masses of the people in the very bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously and purposely evil ... therefore, in view of the primitive simplicity of their minds, they more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big."[7]
Ahmadinejad arrived in New York September 24 to address the United Nations. At Columbia University he was introduced by the school's president as a man who appeared to lack "intellectual courage", had a "fanatical mindset", and may be "astonishingly undereducated".[8] How many people in the audience, I wonder, looked around to see where George W. was sitting.
"If I were the president of a university, I would not have invited him. He's a holocaust denier," said Hillary Clinton, once again fearlessly challenging the Bush administration's propaganda.[9]
The above is but a small sample of the hatred, anger, and stupidity spewed forth against Ahmadinejad for several years now. A number of people on the American left, who should know better, have joined this chorus. I therefore would like to repeat, and update, part of something I wrote in this report last December, which was entitled "Designer Monsters".
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a man seemingly custom-made for the White House in its endless quest for enemies with whom to scare Congress, the American people, and the world, in order to justify the unseemly behavior of the empire. The Iranian president, we are told, has declared that he wants to "wipe Israel off the map". He has said that "the Holocaust is a myth". He held a conference in Iran for "Holocaust deniers". And his government passed a new law requiring Jews to wear a yellow insignia, à la the Nazis. On top of all that, he's aiming to build nuclear bombs, one of which would surely be aimed at Israel. What right-thinking person would not be scared by such a man?
However, like with all such designer monsters made bigger than life during the Cold War and since by Washington, the truth about Ahmadinejad is a bit more complicated. According to people who know Farsi, the Iranian leader has never said anything about "wiping Israel off the map". In his October 29, 2005 speech, when he reportedly first made the remark, the word "map" does not even appear. According to the translation of Juan Cole, American professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History, Ahmadinejad said that "the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." His remark, said Cole, "does not imply military action or killing anyone at all"[10], which of course is what would make the remark sound threatening.
At the December 2006 conference in Teheran ("Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision"), the Iranian president said: "The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon, the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom."[11] Obviously, the man is not calling for any kind of violent attack upon Israel, for the dissolution of the Soviet Union took place peacefully.
Moreover, in June 2006, subsequent to Ahmadinejad's controversial speech, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated: "We have no problem with the world. We are not a threat whatsoever to the world, and the world knows it. We will never start a war. We have no intention of going to war with any state."[12]
As for the Holocaust myth, I have yet to read or hear words from Ahmadinejad saying simply, clearly, unambiguously, and unequivocally that he thinks that what we know as the Holocaust never happened. He has instead commented about the peculiarity and injustice of a Holocaust which took place in Europe resulting in a state for the Jews in the Middle East instead of in Europe. Why are the Palestinians paying a price for a German crime? he asks. He argues that Israel and the United States have exploited the memory of the Holocaust for their own purposes. And he wonders about the accuracy of the number of Jews -- six million -- allegedly killed in the Holocaust, as have many other people of all political stripes, including Holocaust survivors like Italian author Primo Levi. (The much publicized World War One atrocities which turned out to be false made the public very skeptical of the Holocaust claims for a long time after World War Two.) Ahmadinejad further asks why European researchers have been imprisoned for questioning certain details about the Holocaust. Which of this deserves to be labeled "Holocaust denial"?
The conference gave a platform to various points of view, including six members of Jews United Against Zionism, at least two of whom were rabbis. One was Ahron Cohen, from London, who declared: "There is no doubt whatsoever, that during World War 2 there developed a terrible and catastrophic policy and action of genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany against the Jewish People." He also said that "the Zionists make a great issue of the Holocaust in order to further their illegitimate philosophy and aims," indicating as well that the figure of six million Jewish victims is debatable. The other rabbi was Moshe David Weiss, who told the delegates: "We don't want to deny the killing of Jews in World War II, but Zionists have given much higher figures for how many people were killed. They have used the Holocaust as a device to justify their oppression." His group rejects the creation of Israel on the grounds that it violates Jewish religious law in that a Jewish state can't exist until the return of the Messiah .[13]
Another speaker was Shiraz Dossa, professor of political science at St. Francis Xavier University in Canada. In an interview after the conference, he described himself as an anti-imperialist and an admirer of Noam Chomsky, and said that he "was invited because of my expertise as a scholar in the German-Jewish area, as well as my studies in the Holocaust. ... I have nothing to do with Holocaust denial, not at all." His talk, he said, was "about the war on terrorism, and how the Holocaust plays into it. ... There was no pressure at all to say anything, and people there had different views."[14]
Clearly, the conference -- which the White House called "an affront to the entire civilized world"[15] -- was not set up to be a forum for people to deny that the Holocaust literally never took place at all.
As to the yellow star story of May 2006 -- that was a complete fabrication by a prominent Iranian-American neo-conservative author, Amir Taheri.
Ahmadinejad, however, is partly to blame for his predicament. When asked directly about the Holocaust and other controversial matters he usually declines to give explicit answers of "yes" or "no". I interpret this as his prideful refusal to accede to the wishes of what he regards as a hostile Western interviewer asking hostile questions. The Iranian president is also in the habit of prefacing certain remarks with "Even if the Holocaust happened ... ", a rhetorical device we all use in argument and discussion, but one which can not help but reinforce the doubts people have about his views. However, when Ahmadinejad himself asks, as he often has, "Why should the Palestinians have to pay for something that happened in Europe?" he does not get a clear answer.
In any event, in the question and answer session following his talk at Columbia, the Iranian president said: "I'm not saying that it [the Holocaust] didn't happen at all. This is not the judgment that I'm passing here."
That should put the matter to rest. But of course it won't. Two days later, September 26, a bill (H. R. 3675) was introduced in Congress "To prohibit Federal grants to or contracts with Columbia University", to punish the school for inviting Ahmadinejad to speak. The bill's first "finding" states that "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for the destruction of the State of Israel, a critical ally of the United States."
That same day, comedian Jay Leno had great fun ridiculing Ahmadinejad for denying that the Holocaust ever happened "despite all the eye-witness accounts".
How long before the first linking of Iran with 9-11? Or has that already happened? How long before democracy and freedom bombs begin to fall upon the heads of the Iranian people? All the charges of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, along with other disinformation, are of course designed to culminate in this new crime against humanity.
I wonder, in discussing these matters, if I'm running the risk of once again being called "anti-Semitic" by some Internet readers. No one is safe from such charges these days. It should be noted that Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, was accused last year of anti-semitic behavior by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency of New York and the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, important members of the Israel lobby. The accusation was based on a highly egregious out-of-context reading of some remarks by Chavez.[16] One doesn't have to be particularly conspiracy minded to think that this was done in collusion with Bush administration officials. As the Reagan administration in 1983 flung charges of anti-Semitism against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, led by Daniel Ortega, who heads it again today.[17] Stay tuned. Daniel, watch out.
One final thought. On the Democratic Party's failure to stand up to the Bush fascist tide. Here, from the first-person account of a German living under Hitler in the 1930s, his observation about the leading German political party, the Social Democrats, the Democratic Party of its time: The Social Democrats, he wrote, "had fought the election campaign of 1933 in a dreadfully humiliating way, chasing after the Nazi slogans and emphasizing that they were 'also nationalist'. ... In May, a month before they were finally dissolved, the Social Democratic faction in the Reichstag had unanimously expressed their confidence in Hitler and joined in the singing of the 'Horst Wessel Song,' the Nazi anthem. (The official parliamentary report noted: 'Unending applause and cheers, in the house and the galleries. The Reichschancellor [Hitler] turns to the Social Democratic faction and applauds.')"[18]
Burma It's not that I can't give United States foreign policy any credit when credit is due (please send me examples of the good deeds I've overlooked), but the raison d'être of this report is to try to help readers understand how US foreign policy works, waking people up and making them smell the garbage. American officials are now saying all the right things in support of the protesting Burmese monks. They condemn the Burmese leaders. They have announced new sanctions against the military regime and have called upon the Security Council to consider further steps. "Americans are outraged by the situation," said Bush at the UN last week. But we must remember that all this costs the United States nothing. There's no oil involved. Israel has not yet accused the monks of anti-semitism. There's no issue of terrorism involved, though the government has tried to raise the issue of "terrorism" to win Washington's support. The monks have not made any socialist or anti-imperialist demands. There are no American bases whose removal they've called for. No Burmese troops have been helping the US in Iraq or Afghanistan. Neither Halliburton nor Blackwater has a presence in Burma. In short, nothing that would oblige Washington to compromise, once again, on its alleged principles.
NOTES [1] Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1971, original version 1925), Vol. 1, chapter 2, pp 57-8; chapter 4, p.150
[2] The Forward (Jewish newspaper in New York), March 16, 2007 http://www.forward.com/articles/pastor-hailed-bibi-dissed-pollard-rejected-whil/
[3] Haaretz.com (Israeli newspaper), http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/787766.html
[4] Ibid.
[5] The Jerusalem Post, January 23, 2007
[6] Commentary Magazine (New York), June 2007
[7] "Mein Kampf", op. cit., Vol. 1, chapter 10, p.231
[8] Washington Post, September 25, 2007, p.1
[9] Washington Post, September 25, 2007, p.6
[10] Informed Comment, Cole's blog, May 3, 2006 www.juancole.com/2006/05/hitchens-hacker-and-hitchens.html For a word-by-word breakdown of Ahmadinejad's remark, in Farsi and English, see: Global Research, January 20, 2007, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=NOR20070120&articleId=4527
[11] Associated Press, December 12, 2006
[12] Letter to Washington Post from M.A. Mohammadi, Press Officer, Iranian Mission to the United Nations, June 12, 2006
[13] nkusa.org/activities/Speeches/2006Iran-ACohen.cfm; Telegraph.co.uk, article by Alex Spillius, December 13, 2006; Associated Press, December 12, 2006
[14] Globe and Mail (Toronto), December 13, 2006
[15] Associated Press, December 12, 2006
[16] Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, www.fair.org/index.php?page=2805
[17] Holly Sklar, "Washington's War On Nicaragua" (1988), p.243
[18] Sebastian Haffner, "Defying Hitler" (English edition, New York, 2000), pp.130-1
William Blum is the author of: Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2 Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire. Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at
ZNet Commentary
The Anti-Empire Report, October 13, 2007
By Bill Blum
If not now, when? If not here, where? If not you, who? I used to give thought to what historical time and place I would like to have lived in. Europe in the 1930s was usually my first choice. As the war clouds darkened, I'd be surrounded by intrigue, spies omnipresent, matters of life and death pressing down, the opportunity to be courageous and principled. I pictured myself helping desperate people escape to America. It was real Hollywood stuff; think "Casablanca". And when the Spanish Republic fell to Franco and his fascist forces, aided by the German and Italian fascists (while the United States and Britain stood aside, when not actually aiding the fascists), everything in my imaginary scenario would have heightened -- the fate of Europe hung in the balance. Then the Nazis marched into Austria, then Czechoslovakia, then Poland ... one could have devoted one's life to working against all this, trying to hold back the fascist tide; what could be more thrilling, more noble?
Miracle of miracles, miracle of time machines, I'm actually living in this imagined period, watching as the Bush fascists march into Afghanistan, bombing it into a "failed state"; then Iraq: death, destruction, and utterly ruined lives for 24 million human beings; threatening more of the same endless night of hell for the people of Iran; overthrowing Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti; bombing helpless refugees in Somalia; relentless attempts to destabilize and punish Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Gaza, and other non-believers in the empire's god-given mission. Sadly, my most common reaction to this real-life scenario, daily in fact, is less heroic and more feeling scared or depressed; not for myself personally but for our one and only world. The news every day, which I consume in large portions, slashes away at my joie de vivre; it's not just the horror stories of American military power run amok abroad and the injustices of the ever-expanding police state at home, but all the lies and stupidity which drive me up the wall. I'm constantly changing stations, turning the TV or radio off, turning the newspaper page, to escape the words of the King of Lies and the King of Stupidity -- those two twisted creatures who happen to occupy the same humanoid body -- and a hundred minions.
Nonetheless, I must tell you, comrades, that at the same time, our contemporary period also brings out in me a measure of what I imagined for my 1930s life. Our present world is in just as great peril, even more so when one considers the impending environmental catastrophe (which the King of Capitalism refuses to confront lest it harm the profits of those who lavish him with royal bribes). The Bush fascist tide must be stopped.
Usually when I'm asked "But what can we do?", my reply is something along the lines of: Inasmuch as I can not see violent revolution succeeding in the United States (something deep inside tells me that we couldn't quite match the government's firepower, not to mention their viciousness), I can offer no solution to stopping the imperial beast other than: Educate yourself and as many others as you can, increasing the number of those in the opposition until it reaches a critical mass, at which point ... I can't predict the form the explosion will take.
I'm afraid that this advice, whatever historical correctness it may embody, is not terribly inspiring. However, I've assembled four wise men to add their thoughts, hopefully raising the inspiration level. Let's call them the "patron saints of lost causes".
I.F. Stone: "The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing -- for the sheer fun and joy of it -- to go right ahead and fight, knowing you're going to lose. You mustn't feel like a martyr. You've got to enjoy it."
Howard Zinn: "People think there must be some magical tactic, beyond the traditional ones -- protests, demonstrations, vigils, civil disobedience -- but there is no magical panacea, only persistence."
Noam Chomsky: "There are no magic answers, no miraculous methods to overcome the problems we face, just the familiar ones: honest search for understanding, education, organization, action that raises the cost of state violence for its perpetrators or that lays the basis for institutional change -- and the kind of commitment that will persist despite the temptations of disillusionment, despite many failures and only limited successes, inspired by the hope of a brighter future."
Sam Smith: "Those who think history has left us helpless should recall the abolitionist of 1830, the feminist of 1870, the labor organizer of 1890, and the gay or lesbian writer of 1910. They, like us, did not get to choose their time in history but they, like us, did get to choose what they did with it. Knowing what we know now about how these things turned out, but also knowing how long it took, would we have been abolitionists in 1830, or feminists in 1870, and so on?"
Anti-Semitism. Don't settle for imitations. "The cleanliness of this people, moral and otherwise, I must say, is a point in itself. By their very exterior you could tell that these were no lovers of water, and, to your distress, you often knew it with your eyes closed. ... Added to this, there was their unclean dress and their generally unheroic appearance. ... Was there any form of filth or profligacy, particularly in cultural life, without at least one Jew involved in it? ... nine tenths of all literary filth, artistic trash, and theatrical idiocy can be set to the account of a people ... a people under whose parasitism the whole of honest humanity is suffering, today more than ever: the Jews."
Now who can be the author of such abominable anti-semitism? a)Hasan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon; b)John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy"; c)Osama bin Laden; d)Jimmy Carter; e)Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran; f)Norman Finkelstein, author of "The Holocaust Industry".
Each one has been condemned as anti-Semitic. Are you having a problem deciding? Oh, excuse me, I forgot one -- g)Adolf Hitler.[1] Does that make it easier? I'll bet some of you were thinking it must have been Ahmadinejad.
The Webster's Dictionary defines "anti-Semite" as "One who discriminates against or is hostile to or prejudiced against Jews." Notice that the state of Israel is not mentioned.
The next time a critic of Israeli policies is labeled "anti-semitic" think of this definition, think of Adolf's charming way of putting it, then closely examine what the accused has actually said or written.
It may, however, be past the time for such a rational, intellectual pursuit; ultra-heated polarization reigns supreme with anything concerning the Middle East, particularly Israel.
In March, at a conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington, one of the speakers, an American "Christian Zionist", asserted: "It is 1938, Iran is Germany and Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler." The audience responded with a standing ovation, one of seven for his talk.[2]
Then, in May, former Israeli Prime-Minister and current Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu declared that "It's 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs. ... [While Ahmadinejad] denies the Holocaust he is preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state."[3]
Not to be outdone in semi-hysterical propaganda, Israel's president, Shimon Peres, has compared an Iranian nuclear bomb to a "flying concentration camp".[4]
So why hasn't Iran at least started its holocaust by killing or throwing into concentration camps its own Jews, an estimated 30,000 in number? These are Iranian Jews who have representation in Parliament and who have been free for many years to emigrate to Israel but have chosen not to do so.
For your further apocalyptic enjoyment here are a couple more of Zionism's finest envoys speaking about Iran. Former Speaker of the House in the US Congress, Newt Gingrich: "Three nuclear weapons is a second Holocaust. We have enemies who are quite explicit in their desire to destroy us. They say it publicly, on television, on Web sites. [They are] fully as determined as Nazi Germany, more determined than the Soviet Union, and these enemies will kill us the first chance they get."[5]
And Norman Podhoretz, leading neo-conservative editor of Commentary magazine, in an article entitled "The Case for Bombing Iran": "Like Hitler, [Ahmadinejad] is a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism. ... The plain and brutal truth is that if Iran is to be prevented from developing a nuclear arsenal, there is no alternative to the actual use of military force -- any more than there was an alternative to force if Hitler was to be stopped in 1938."[6]
Though so often condemned, Hitler actually arrived at a number of very perceptive insights into how the world worked. One of them was this: "The great masses of the people in the very bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously and purposely evil ... therefore, in view of the primitive simplicity of their minds, they more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big."[7]
Ahmadinejad arrived in New York September 24 to address the United Nations. At Columbia University he was introduced by the school's president as a man who appeared to lack "intellectual courage", had a "fanatical mindset", and may be "astonishingly undereducated".[8] How many people in the audience, I wonder, looked around to see where George W. was sitting.
"If I were the president of a university, I would not have invited him. He's a holocaust denier," said Hillary Clinton, once again fearlessly challenging the Bush administration's propaganda.[9]
The above is but a small sample of the hatred, anger, and stupidity spewed forth against Ahmadinejad for several years now. A number of people on the American left, who should know better, have joined this chorus. I therefore would like to repeat, and update, part of something I wrote in this report last December, which was entitled "Designer Monsters".
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a man seemingly custom-made for the White House in its endless quest for enemies with whom to scare Congress, the American people, and the world, in order to justify the unseemly behavior of the empire. The Iranian president, we are told, has declared that he wants to "wipe Israel off the map". He has said that "the Holocaust is a myth". He held a conference in Iran for "Holocaust deniers". And his government passed a new law requiring Jews to wear a yellow insignia, à la the Nazis. On top of all that, he's aiming to build nuclear bombs, one of which would surely be aimed at Israel. What right-thinking person would not be scared by such a man?
However, like with all such designer monsters made bigger than life during the Cold War and since by Washington, the truth about Ahmadinejad is a bit more complicated. According to people who know Farsi, the Iranian leader has never said anything about "wiping Israel off the map". In his October 29, 2005 speech, when he reportedly first made the remark, the word "map" does not even appear. According to the translation of Juan Cole, American professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History, Ahmadinejad said that "the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." His remark, said Cole, "does not imply military action or killing anyone at all"[10], which of course is what would make the remark sound threatening.
At the December 2006 conference in Teheran ("Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision"), the Iranian president said: "The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon, the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom."[11] Obviously, the man is not calling for any kind of violent attack upon Israel, for the dissolution of the Soviet Union took place peacefully.
Moreover, in June 2006, subsequent to Ahmadinejad's controversial speech, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated: "We have no problem with the world. We are not a threat whatsoever to the world, and the world knows it. We will never start a war. We have no intention of going to war with any state."[12]
As for the Holocaust myth, I have yet to read or hear words from Ahmadinejad saying simply, clearly, unambiguously, and unequivocally that he thinks that what we know as the Holocaust never happened. He has instead commented about the peculiarity and injustice of a Holocaust which took place in Europe resulting in a state for the Jews in the Middle East instead of in Europe. Why are the Palestinians paying a price for a German crime? he asks. He argues that Israel and the United States have exploited the memory of the Holocaust for their own purposes. And he wonders about the accuracy of the number of Jews -- six million -- allegedly killed in the Holocaust, as have many other people of all political stripes, including Holocaust survivors like Italian author Primo Levi. (The much publicized World War One atrocities which turned out to be false made the public very skeptical of the Holocaust claims for a long time after World War Two.) Ahmadinejad further asks why European researchers have been imprisoned for questioning certain details about the Holocaust. Which of this deserves to be labeled "Holocaust denial"?
The conference gave a platform to various points of view, including six members of Jews United Against Zionism, at least two of whom were rabbis. One was Ahron Cohen, from London, who declared: "There is no doubt whatsoever, that during World War 2 there developed a terrible and catastrophic policy and action of genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany against the Jewish People." He also said that "the Zionists make a great issue of the Holocaust in order to further their illegitimate philosophy and aims," indicating as well that the figure of six million Jewish victims is debatable. The other rabbi was Moshe David Weiss, who told the delegates: "We don't want to deny the killing of Jews in World War II, but Zionists have given much higher figures for how many people were killed. They have used the Holocaust as a device to justify their oppression." His group rejects the creation of Israel on the grounds that it violates Jewish religious law in that a Jewish state can't exist until the return of the Messiah .[13]
Another speaker was Shiraz Dossa, professor of political science at St. Francis Xavier University in Canada. In an interview after the conference, he described himself as an anti-imperialist and an admirer of Noam Chomsky, and said that he "was invited because of my expertise as a scholar in the German-Jewish area, as well as my studies in the Holocaust. ... I have nothing to do with Holocaust denial, not at all." His talk, he said, was "about the war on terrorism, and how the Holocaust plays into it. ... There was no pressure at all to say anything, and people there had different views."[14]
Clearly, the conference -- which the White House called "an affront to the entire civilized world"[15] -- was not set up to be a forum for people to deny that the Holocaust literally never took place at all.
As to the yellow star story of May 2006 -- that was a complete fabrication by a prominent Iranian-American neo-conservative author, Amir Taheri.
Ahmadinejad, however, is partly to blame for his predicament. When asked directly about the Holocaust and other controversial matters he usually declines to give explicit answers of "yes" or "no". I interpret this as his prideful refusal to accede to the wishes of what he regards as a hostile Western interviewer asking hostile questions. The Iranian president is also in the habit of prefacing certain remarks with "Even if the Holocaust happened ... ", a rhetorical device we all use in argument and discussion, but one which can not help but reinforce the doubts people have about his views. However, when Ahmadinejad himself asks, as he often has, "Why should the Palestinians have to pay for something that happened in Europe?" he does not get a clear answer.
In any event, in the question and answer session following his talk at Columbia, the Iranian president said: "I'm not saying that it [the Holocaust] didn't happen at all. This is not the judgment that I'm passing here."
That should put the matter to rest. But of course it won't. Two days later, September 26, a bill (H. R. 3675) was introduced in Congress "To prohibit Federal grants to or contracts with Columbia University", to punish the school for inviting Ahmadinejad to speak. The bill's first "finding" states that "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for the destruction of the State of Israel, a critical ally of the United States."
That same day, comedian Jay Leno had great fun ridiculing Ahmadinejad for denying that the Holocaust ever happened "despite all the eye-witness accounts".
How long before the first linking of Iran with 9-11? Or has that already happened? How long before democracy and freedom bombs begin to fall upon the heads of the Iranian people? All the charges of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, along with other disinformation, are of course designed to culminate in this new crime against humanity.
I wonder, in discussing these matters, if I'm running the risk of once again being called "anti-Semitic" by some Internet readers. No one is safe from such charges these days. It should be noted that Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, was accused last year of anti-semitic behavior by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency of New York and the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, important members of the Israel lobby. The accusation was based on a highly egregious out-of-context reading of some remarks by Chavez.[16] One doesn't have to be particularly conspiracy minded to think that this was done in collusion with Bush administration officials. As the Reagan administration in 1983 flung charges of anti-Semitism against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, led by Daniel Ortega, who heads it again today.[17] Stay tuned. Daniel, watch out.
One final thought. On the Democratic Party's failure to stand up to the Bush fascist tide. Here, from the first-person account of a German living under Hitler in the 1930s, his observation about the leading German political party, the Social Democrats, the Democratic Party of its time: The Social Democrats, he wrote, "had fought the election campaign of 1933 in a dreadfully humiliating way, chasing after the Nazi slogans and emphasizing that they were 'also nationalist'. ... In May, a month before they were finally dissolved, the Social Democratic faction in the Reichstag had unanimously expressed their confidence in Hitler and joined in the singing of the 'Horst Wessel Song,' the Nazi anthem. (The official parliamentary report noted: 'Unending applause and cheers, in the house and the galleries. The Reichschancellor [Hitler] turns to the Social Democratic faction and applauds.')"[18]
Burma It's not that I can't give United States foreign policy any credit when credit is due (please send me examples of the good deeds I've overlooked), but the raison d'être of this report is to try to help readers understand how US foreign policy works, waking people up and making them smell the garbage. American officials are now saying all the right things in support of the protesting Burmese monks. They condemn the Burmese leaders. They have announced new sanctions against the military regime and have called upon the Security Council to consider further steps. "Americans are outraged by the situation," said Bush at the UN last week. But we must remember that all this costs the United States nothing. There's no oil involved. Israel has not yet accused the monks of anti-semitism. There's no issue of terrorism involved, though the government has tried to raise the issue of "terrorism" to win Washington's support. The monks have not made any socialist or anti-imperialist demands. There are no American bases whose removal they've called for. No Burmese troops have been helping the US in Iraq or Afghanistan. Neither Halliburton nor Blackwater has a presence in Burma. In short, nothing that would oblige Washington to compromise, once again, on its alleged principles.
NOTES [1] Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1971, original version 1925), Vol. 1, chapter 2, pp 57-8; chapter 4, p.150
[2] The Forward (Jewish newspaper in New York), March 16, 2007 http://www.forward.com/articles/pastor-hailed-bibi-dissed-pollard-rejected-whil/
[3] Haaretz.com (Israeli newspaper), http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/787766.html
[4] Ibid.
[5] The Jerusalem Post, January 23, 2007
[6] Commentary Magazine (New York), June 2007
[7] "Mein Kampf", op. cit., Vol. 1, chapter 10, p.231
[8] Washington Post, September 25, 2007, p.1
[9] Washington Post, September 25, 2007, p.6
[10] Informed Comment, Cole's blog, May 3, 2006 www.juancole.com/2006/05/hitchens-hacker-and-hitchens.html For a word-by-word breakdown of Ahmadinejad's remark, in Farsi and English, see: Global Research, January 20, 2007, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=NOR20070120&articleId=4527
[11] Associated Press, December 12, 2006
[12] Letter to Washington Post from M.A. Mohammadi, Press Officer, Iranian Mission to the United Nations, June 12, 2006
[13] nkusa.org/activities/Speeches/2006Iran-ACohen.cfm; Telegraph.co.uk, article by Alex Spillius, December 13, 2006; Associated Press, December 12, 2006
[14] Globe and Mail (Toronto), December 13, 2006
[15] Associated Press, December 12, 2006
[16] Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, www.fair.org/index.php?page=2805
[17] Holly Sklar, "Washington's War On Nicaragua" (1988), p.243
[18] Sebastian Haffner, "Defying Hitler" (English edition, New York, 2000), pp.130-1
William Blum is the author of: Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2 Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire. Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Thoughts of Rudy Giuliani
"Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."
--Rudy Giuliani
--Rudy Giuliani
Lewis Black weighs in on non-issues
This video is protected by fair use law for the purposes of criticism, comment and/or reporting.
Such use is non-commercial in nature, and all rights revert back to the original author.
Marion Jones demonized by big business sports
Published Oct 13, 2007
Marion Jones was the first woman to ever win five Olympic medals. In stellar performances, Jones, one of the best track-and-field athletes in the world, won these prizes at the Sydney summer games in 2000.
But no matter how high she rose and how much she accomplished, Jones was not immune from the racism faced by athletes who are from oppressed communities. Having been singled out by the federal government in an investigation into BALCO, a company that made or supplied performance-enhancing drugs to athletes, she became the first athlete to be convicted in this case.
On Oct. 5, after being constantly hounded, harassed and intimidated for years, Jones pleaded guilty to perjury to federal agents about use of performance-enhancing substances. She faces imprisonment. On Oct. 8, Jones turned in her hard-earned medals to Olympics officials.
The media have relentlessly pursued and vilified Jones in the most callous way, whipping up racism and sexism in the process.
Worn down by the unrelenting pressure, Jones tearfully announced that she was retiring from track and field, which she loves.
But there is much more to her situation than the official story.
The Olympics, although touted as a fair-playing field where the best world athletes show their skills and compete, is big business. Billions of dollars are at stake. Corporations invest millions to reap billions. The 11 top sponsors of the Sydney Olympics, which included McDonald’s, Nike and Coca-Cola, paid a total of $605 million.
From 2002 to 2006, the International Olympics Committee took in nearly $4 billion, much of it from corporate sponsors. Other funds come from broadcasting rights and licensing fees.
Networks pay millions of dollars for exclusive broadcasting rights; NBC alone is expected to pay $894 million to show the 2008 games in Beijing.
But the athletes are paid nothing. They are regarded as workers, as a means to make mega-profits for the International Olympics Committee and its corporate backers. The IOC, a reactionary body that has profited from the athletes’ labor, seeks to maintain absolute control over all of the world games’ participants. It has no sympathy for the athletes. At any moment, the IOC can quickly turn against them.
Yet every athlete trains for years for these games. Athletes are pressured to push themselves to their maximum endurance, to compete at the most intense level, and to do anything to get an edge over their competitors—at all costs, even endangering their own health, all in order to bring home Olympic gold.
It is widely known that the use of performance-enhancing drugs, including steroids, is rampant throughout the sports world at every level, especially at the top. This phenomenon is worldwide. The Olympic Games are no exception. These drugs which bring in massive profits for the big pharmaceutical companies are readily available, even through the internet.
This is what sports competitions under capitalism look like.
Misplacing blame
Articles copyright 1995-2007 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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It is the athletes from oppressed communities who face the most scrutiny, no matter how talented, wealthy, or adored by their fans. They are in the greatest danger of government prosecution and ostracism by the sports industry for any alleged infraction.
Olympic medalists Ben Johnson and Justin Gatlin are among other Black athletes who have been penalized for allegedly using performance enhancers.
Baseball great and home-run leader Barry Bonds has also been targeted in the BALCO scandal, and may very well be indicted in the near future. He has already been tried and convicted in the media.
The corporate media play a major role in perpetrating the denigration of players of all sports. Instead of looking at the intense pressures athletes are constantly under, news agencies, reporters and sports columnists go on the offensive and try to break them down. They especially malign players from the oppressed communities, whether they’re participating in baseball, football, basketball or the Olympics.
It is an outrage that Marion Jones has been vilified by the media.
Where is the justice here? One of the greatest women athletes of all time has been forced into retirement. Her spirit has been broken. She is financially ruined. And she faces prison.
There should be sympathy, solidarity and respect shown for her.
Those who make enormous profits from the Olympics and all sports, those who pressure young athletes to win at all costs, those who use and then discard and denigrate them—this is who should take the blame for a situation they created.
What’s really needed is for the profit motive to be taken out of sports, including these world games, and for the athletes to be treated with high regard.
Articles copyright 1995-2007 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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Friday, October 12, 2007
Colbert Announces '08 Candidacy for President, Seeks Nomination of Both Parties
By Adam Howard
Posted on October 12, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/howard/65081/
This summary comes from Editor & Publisher:
Appearing on Larry King's CNN show Thursday night, Stephen Colbert was accused by the host of using the publication of his new book as a platform to run for president. Colbert happily confirmed this, saying that he would seek the nomination from both parties.
When King said this was a "cop out," Colbert, host of his own talk show, The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, said that it actually demonstrated true "courage" because "I could lose twice."
He said he would run on a state by state basis, perhaps starting in his native state, South Carolina, as a "favorite son."
He would not say that he was unimpressed by the current crop of candidates -- but did allow that Fred Thompson's campaign slogan should be, "Do Not Disturb."
When King had asked, with a thumb pointing up, if he planned to run for the top office, Colbert said, "You mean God? No, dial it down one notch." He said the presidency was the only one for him since "I am not a bridesmaid."
But he also disclosed that he really is two different people, Stephen Colbert and-- Stephen Colbert. So it was impossible to say which one was throwing his hat in the ring -- at least in South Carolina.
His book is titled "I Am America (and So Can You!)."
Adam Howard is the editor of PEEK.
© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/howard/65081/
Thank you, Dan Rather
By Leslie Griffith, HuffingtonPost.com
Posted on October 8, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/64744/
Thank you Dan Rather. It's balls to the wall time, and as a fellow Texan, you sure came through.
As an investigative journalist who worked as both a reporter and anchor for the San Francisco Bay Area's highest rated newscast for 22 years, I can only say what happened to you nationally was also happening locally. You were told to conform to a Republican agenda or shut up. When you refused to march in step, you got Bush-whacked.
I read your brief and I know the drill. The erosion was slow and many of us barely noticed the small chiseling away of who and what we once were. Anchors and reporters depend on high ratings. If ratings fall in television, people get fired. In the months following 9/11, the President's approval rating was 86 percent, and that's when many in commercial journalism lost their way. To disagree or even ask a disagreeable question regarding the President and his decisions was interpreted as disloyal by many media corporations.
But now we have learned. Get the trashcan ready to catch the chips, because the chisel is swinging back the other way and we as journalists are about to regain our voices and America's trust. Dan -- the Man -- as we call him in Texas is reminding the media conglomerates how it is supposed to work. News and those who report it are not supposed to be for sale. Dan remembers, and he's about to explain it to us on a national scale, but first some explanations from my field of vision as to how we got here.
In January 2003, President Bush delivered his State of the Union address. Osama bin Laden turned into Saddam Hussein, and Afghanistan turned into Iraq. The press knew this was a bait and switch, but fearing reporters and anchors might appear unpatriotic, the corporate media made it clear that even if George W. Bush played twister in the nude while a few sheets to the wind instead of going to constitutional law classes at Yale, we were not allowed to talk about it.
Viacom and CBS, according to Dan, wanted to curry favor with the White House. There are very few media conglomerates that didn't. Cox Broadcasting banned the Dixie Chicks from radio stations because their lead singer made a remark under her breath criticizing the president! Not wanting to appear unpatriotic, the town criers did not cry out. Many corporate media reporters became stenographers, not reporters on that State of the Union day. Those in television journalism, particularly those working for a Fox affiliate, were not allowed to ask questions that could be perceived as unpatriotic, and every question was seen as unpatriotic. Monarchs and dictators don't allow questions. They also destroy those who speak ill of them. "Scooter -- Valerie." "Rove -- Anyone." Blackwater was running around in the name of the United States shooting first and asking questions later like third world rebels, and back at home, Fox became the fastest growing network with fearless leaders who believed in not only reporting the news but spinning it as well.
Just seven years ago, I looked up from my desk and saw my image on the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour as our staff of independent journalists was described as the best local news in the country. But war broke out and the Internet took off and all over the country local news ratings dropped as viewers turned to the national networks for news from the war fronts. Contrary to all logical thinking, local reporters looked at their retirement plans and their kids in college and promptly puckered their lips on the behinds of corporate media and smooched. If my kids were still in college I would not have the courage to write this now. In response to fewer viewers, local television panicked into a downward spiral and many a trusting viewer decided to go elsewhere. Corporate media was demanding reporters adapt to the point of our own extinction.
Morphed into propaganda machines -- cheerleaders with pompoms -- it was heartbreaking to watch the demise and media corporations always bass-akwards responses. With two wars on two fronts they decided to go "Local." Only local news. The war and the profound implications of it were relegated to 30 second stories buried deep into the newscast. (they don't need to know about that.--but there's a grass fire up the road!) If that's not manipulation, I don't know what is.
Here are some other sad results of this corporate bullying toward some of the best journalist in the country:
Anchors and reporters stopped asking why. The corporate media demanded nationalism without skepticism, believing ratings would fall further if reporters did their jobs.
Anchors and reporters starting taking their stories from satellite feeds coming directly to their desks and then standing in front of a chroma key delivering a story they did not collect and sometimes did not write. If viewers think every newscast looks the same that's why. It is.
Anchors and reporters allowed chroma key pictures of conflict areas to appear behind them giving viewers the false impression they were on the scene of the conflict instead of demanding to be sent there. Some could not even point out on the map behind them where the conflict was.
Anchors and reporters allowed management to hire entertainment reporters and producers. It's cheaper to entertain than to inform because an informed public makes wakes from slumber and makes noise.
Anchors and reporters began allowing precious hours meant for journalism to be filled with helicopter shots of the latest grassfire, traffic jam, or car chase, ala O.J.
Anchors and reporters allowed news directors and sales people to dictate their "look." Good journalism does not have a "look."
Anchors and reporters did not fight back when their investigative pieces were dropped. Managers feared losing advertising dollars and reporters acquiesced.
Anchors and reporters and producers agreed to story counts. Tell the story no matter how complicated in thirty seconds -- throwing random and massive amounts of information at viewers without context.
Anchors and reporters started wearing American flags on their lapels. Some of whom never voted in any election.
Anchors and reporters began using genetically altered language: "War on Terrorism," without explaining that many people in the world think Americans are the terrorists.
Anchors and reporters started referring to the United States government as "We."
Anchors and reporters were handed press releases regarding corporate "mishaps" and began reading them verbatim. Like so: "Blank Oil Company had an explosion today; shelter in place, close the doors and windows, and don't go outside. However, the 'You've Got To Be Kidding Me Oil Company' says everything is fine."
Anchors and reporters agreed to report news that was already reported in newspapers and radio. Doing their own stories or advancing others creates controversy and potential lawsuits, betraying the sacred oath of corporate cronyism.
Anchors and reporters agreed to be physically altered in photographs, and airbrushed with make-up like playboy bunnies, as the media corporations ignored the news and invested in High Definition -- hoping a grassfire on HD might look like news.
Anchors and reporters started advertising. "If you liked that story there will be more at six." "If you want to get more information go to www. you're_an_idiot.com. Makes you just want to scream: I'm here now; tell me now!
Anchors and reporters allowed producers to lead with Annie Nicole Smith instead of the "Scooter" Libby trial -- making it clear that all sense of proportion and good judgment had been lost.
Corporations in this country are always a reflection of those in the White House. This White House is the Wild West, and corporations, even those who are charged with helping the public gain knowledge, are mining for gold. But now, when we had almost given up, Dan put his holster on.
Leslie Griffith has been a journalist in newspaper, radio and television for 25 years. Griffith is currently working on a book about corporate censorship of the media called Shut-up and Read.
© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/64744/
Great Moments In Homeland Security
SNAFU-ED - Dover is a town in Morris County, in the New York metro area. Three Dover aldermen have inspecting gumball machines over fears that terrorists could use them to poison children. It seems the biggest fears is over unlicensed machines. Aldermen Frank Poolas, Jack Delaney and Michael Picciallo have found over 100 of them. According to Delaney, in many cases there's no way of knowing who's filling the machines. "There's just no record of anything."
Whoa...
Whoa...
Spy vs. Spy: Episode 1, "Paranoia Squared"
Apparently, the CIA watchdog office is the subject of a CIA investigation for actually doing its job. Ya can't write this shit, campers!--Pete
WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 — The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, has ordered an unusual internal inquiry into the work of the agency’s inspector general, whose aggressive investigations of the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation programs and other matters have created resentment among agency operatives.
A small team working for General Hayden is looking into the conduct of the agency’s watchdog office, which is led by Inspector General John L. Helgerson. Current and former government officials said the review had caused anxiety and anger in Mr. Helgerson’s office and aroused concern on Capitol Hill that it posed a conflict of interest.
The review is particularly focused on complaints that Mr. Helgerson’s office has not acted as a fair and impartial judge of agency operations but instead has begun a crusade against those who have participated in controversial detention programs.
Any move by the agency’s director to examine the work of the inspector general would be unusual, if not unprecedented, and would threaten to undermine the independence of the office, some current and former officials say.
Frederick P. Hitz, who served as C.I.A. inspector general from 1990 to 1998, said he had no first-hand information about current conflicts inside the agency. But Mr. Hitz said any move by the agency’s director to examine the work of the inspector general would “not be proper.”
“I think it’s a terrible idea,” said Mr. Hitz, who now teaches at the University of Virginia. “Under the statute, the inspector general has the right to investigate the director. How can you do that and have the director turn around and investigate the I.G.?”
A C.I.A. spokesman strongly defended the inquiry on Thursday, saying General Hayden supported the work of the inspector general’s office and had “accepted the vast majority of its findings.”
“His only goal is to help this office, like any office at the agency, do its vital work even better,” said Paul Gimigliano, the spokesman.
Current and former intelligence officials said the inquiry had involved formal interviews with at least some of the inspector general’s staff and was perceived by some agency employees as an “investigation,” a label Mr. Gimigliano rejected.
Several current and former officials interviewed for this article spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the inquiry.
The officials said the inquiry was being overseen by Robert L. Deitz, a trusted aide to the C.I.A. director and a lawyer who served as general counsel at the National Security Agency when General Hayden ran it. Michael Morrell, the agency’s associate deputy director, is another member of the group, officials said.
Reached by phone Thursday, both Mr. Helgerson and Mr. Dietz declined to comment.
In his role as the agency’s inspector general since 2002, Mr. Helgerson has investigated some of the most controversial programs the C.I.A. has begun since the Sept. 11 attacks, including its secret program to detain and interrogate high value terrorist suspects.
Under federal procedures, agency heads who are unhappy with the conduct of their inspectors general have at least two places to file complaints. One is the Integrity Committee of the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency, which oversees all the inspectors general. The aggrieved agency head can also go directly to the White House.
If serious accusations against an inspector general are sustained by evidence, the president can dismiss him.
Both those routes avoid the awkward situation officials describe at the C.I.A. and preserve the independence of the inspector general.
But one intelligence official who supports General Hayden’s decision to begin an internal inquiry said that going outside the agency would “blow things way out of proportion.”
A report by Mr. Helgerson’s office completed in the spring of 2004 warned that some C.I.A.-approved interrogation procedures appeared to constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, as defined by the international Convention Against Torture.
Some of the inspector general’s work on detention issues was conducted by Mary O. McCarthy, who was fired from the agency last year after being accused of leaking classified information. Officials said Mr. Helgerson’s office was nearing completion on a number of inquiries into C.I.A. detention, interrogation, and “renditions” — the practice of seizing suspects and delivering them to the authorities in other nations.
The inspector general’s office also rankled agency officials when it completed a withering report about the C.I.A’s missteps before the Sept. 11 attack — a report that recommended “accountability boards” to consider disciplinary action against a handful of senior officials.
When the report was made public in August, General Hayden took the rare step of pointing up criticisms of the report by the former intelligence director, George J. Tenet and his senior aides, saying many officials “took strong exception to its focus, methodology and conclusions.”
Some agency officers believe the aggressive investigations by Mr. Helgerson amount to unfair second guessing of intelligence officers who are often risking their lives in the field.
“These are good people who thought they were doing the right thing,” said one former agency official. “And now they are getting beat up pretty bad and they have to go out an hire a lawyer.”
Agency officials have also criticized the length of the inspector general’s investigations, some lasting more than five years, which have derailed careers and generated steep legal bills for officers under scrutiny.
The former agency official called General Hayden’s review of the inspector general “a smart move.”
Since taking over at the C.I.A. in 2006, General Hayden has taken several steps to soothe anger within the agency’s clandestine service, which has been buffeted in recent years by a string of prolonged investigations.
He has brought back two veteran agency operatives, Steven R. Kappes and Michael J. Sulick, both of whom angrily left during the tenure of Porter J. Goss, the C.I.A. director, to assume top posts at the spy agency. He also supported the president’s nomination of John A. Rizzo, a career agency lawyer and someone well-respected by covert operatives, to become the C.I.A’s general counsel.
Mr. Rizzo withdrew his nomination to the post last month in the midst of intense opposition from Senate Democrats.
“Director Hayden has done a lot of things to convince the operators that he’s looking out for them, and putting the I.G. back in its place is part of this,” said John Radsan, who worked as a C.I.A. lawyer from 2002 to 2004 and is now a professor at William Mitchell College of Law.
Mr. Hitz and other former C.I.A. officials said tensions between the inspector general and the rest of the agency were natural. Conflicts most often arise when the inspector general reviews the actions of the agency’s directorate of operations, now known as the National Clandestine Service, which recruits agents and hunts terrorists overseas.
“The perception is like in a police department between street cops and internal affairs,” said A. B. Krongard, the agency’s executive director from 2001 to 2004.
Resentment of the inspector general’s work has also at times extended to the agency’s general counsel’s office, whose legal judgment is sometimes second-guessed by after-the-fact investigations. “In some of our reports, we were quite critical of the advice given by the general counsel,” Mr. Hitz said.
The C.I.A., created in 1947, had an in-house inspector general selected by the director starting in 1952 who investigated failed operations like the Bay of Pigs invasion against Cuba in 1961.
But that position was viewed as lacking clout and independence, and in 1989, partly in response to the Iran-contra affair, Congress created an independent inspector general at the agency, appointed by the president and reporting to both the director and to Congress.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Danger of wider war
U.S. targets Iran, blames Iraq
Published Oct 10, 2007 11:54 PM
The Pentagon’s plans for a massive attack on Iran are hardly a secret. For months the major corporate media in the U.S., Britain, France and other countries have described the ominous plans, the thousands of bombing targets already selected, and the hundreds of ships, warplanes and missiles arrayed just offshore. Half the ships in the U.S. Navy are now off the coast of Iran.
While the threat of war is growing, it is important to take note of a shift in the stated U.S rational or justification for an unprovoked, criminal attack.
During the late summer a whole series of articles in the U.S. media described Vice President Dick Cheney as “urging strikes on Iran.” The media coverage reached a fever pitch of demonization and insult in September during the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to New York to address the United Nations.
But the carefully choreographed propaganda hype about the threat of Iran developing a nuclear weapon suffered a severe blow when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) concluded that Iran’s nuclear program was of a civilian nature and that Iran has neither the intention nor the capabilities to develop nuclear weapons. On Aug. 21, Iran finalized a work plan with the IAEA to provide answers to a number of outstanding questions regarding its past nuclear activities.
Iran’s research and development of nuclear energy is clearly allowed under international law. It is at such an early stage of development that all efforts to claim that Iran poses a nuclear threat have been refuted. Iran has insisted that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Despite its constant clarifications, however, the U.S. government has continued to openly threaten a massive strike against the Islamic republic’s nuclear research facilities and its entire industrial base.
Another WMD scam
Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, says Iran does not currently pose a threat to the international community and has called for more efforts to push forward dialogue.
ElBaridei has also gone public with his warnings against the Pentagon’s war plans: “I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons.”
An article in the London Guardian on Sept. 18 headlined: “Drift into war with Iran out of control, says U.N.,” said, “The U.N.’s chief weapon’s inspector yesterday warned against the use of force against Iran in what U.N. officials said was an attempt to halt an ‘out of control’ drift to war.” Other publications around the world ran headlines that ElBaradei warned against a showdown with Iran on the nuclear issue
Since these statements the U.S. corporate media has tried to vilify ElBaradei as pro-Tehran and accused him of overstepping his authority.
The IAEA’s work with Iran also blocked U.S. efforts to impose far more injurious sanctions through the U.N. Security Council. Many feared that a new U.N. resolution would be utilized as authorization for military action.
Russia and China opposed additional sanctions, claiming that such measures could place in jeopardy Iran’s cooperation with the IAEA. Washington was forced to postpone any action in the U.N. Security Council against Iran until at least November.
Nevertheless, Washington continues to line up its imperialist allies. An Oct. 1 article in the London Independent was headlined: “U.S. plan for air strikes on Iran ‘backed by Brown.’” Gordon Brown is Britain’s new prime minister.
On Sept. 16 Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner of France declared: “We have to prepare for the worst—the worst is war.” Last month the new French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said after visiting Bush that the world had “a catastrophic alternative: an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran.”
The setback for the Bush administration on the U.N. front has not stopped the Pentagon’s plans. Instead it has changed the script.
New rationale for an attack
Articles copyright 1995-2007 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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The New Yorker magazine ran a long article in its issue dated Oct. 8 headlined “Shifting Targets: The Administration’s Plan for Iran,” by journalist Seymour Hersh, well-known for his foreign policy articles containing “insider information,” including Pentagon and White House leaks. Hersh describes how the Bush administration has redefined the war in Iraq as a “strategic battle between the United States and Iran.”
Every problem that the U.S. occupation forces face in Iraq is blamed on Iran.
There is wide speculation that the reason Gen. Peter Pace was replaced as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was based on his publicly stated view in February that he saw no firm evidence of Tehran supplying weapons to Shiite militias inside Iraq.
Pace was replaced by Adm. Michael Mullen, formerly U.S. chief of naval operations. Mullen was in charge of coordinating naval war games in 2006 and 2007 off the Iranian coastline. Mullen said he considers it “unacceptable that Iran is providing U.S. enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan with capabilities that are hurting and killing U.S. troops.” (Inside the Pentagon, June 21)
Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, is always willing to repeat the White House’s line on the U.S. occupation’s “success” in Iraq while blaming Iran for its catastrophic failure. Speaking to a group of reporters on Oct. 5 at a U.S. military base 20 miles from the Iranian border, Petraeus once again claimed that Iran was giving Iraqi militia groups advanced weaponry and guidance: “They are responsible for providing the weapons, the training, the funding and in some cases the direction for operations that have indeed killed U.S. soldiers.”
U.S. military officers have repeatedly presented what they say as evidence of Iranian-produced arms, including a new concave design in improved explosive devices. The latest generation of IEDs is called explosively formed projectile bombs. The key components of these EFPs are copper discs, rolls of electrical wire, plastic pipes for casings, ball-bearings and batteries. These simple projectiles are capable of penetrating the armor of 60-ton Abrams tanks.
IEDs account for 70 to 80 percent of the U.S. deaths in Iraq. Instructions on building IEDs are readily and widely available, even on the internet. Iraq has tens of thousands of highly educated engineers, technicians, scientists and machinists. The idea that Iraqis lack technical expertise or that Iraqi resistance fighters would need to import these weapons from Iran is ridiculous. Every resistance struggle is able to develop effective low-tech weapons. As a popular insurgency grows, so does the wide application of useful technology.
But to acknowledge that there is overwhelming opposition to the U.S. occupation in Iraq is to acknowledge that the U.S. war is not winnable.
The real danger is that U.S. imperialism, unwilling to accept the inevitable, will escalate the war to other countries. The insatiable hunger of the capitalist class to control the rich resources of the entire region drives them recklessly forward. The international movement that has organized wide opposition to the horrendous devastation of U.S. war in Iraq must more seriously mobilize opposition to the growing danger of a far wider war against Iran.
Articles copyright 1995-2007 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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Please Remember Me
October 11, 1978
The infamous Nancy Spungen was found dead of multiple stab wounds in the Chelsea Hotel while next to a sleeping Sid Vicious.
Man, drugs are fun.
from Crawdaddy
The infamous Nancy Spungen was found dead of multiple stab wounds in the Chelsea Hotel while next to a sleeping Sid Vicious.
Man, drugs are fun.
from Crawdaddy
Why ‘Socialism’ Evokes No Fear...
...in folks long removed from 50's era cultural programming.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20071011_why_socialism_evokes_no_fear/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20071011_why_socialism_evokes_no_fear/
Posted on Oct 11, 2007
By Joe Conason
Once among the most frightening epithets in American political culture, “socialized medicine” seems to have lost its juju. Today that phrase sounds awfully dated, like a song on a gramophone or a mother-in-law joke or a John Birch Society rant against fluoridated water.
Yet despite that antique quality, the old buzzwords appear regularly in columns, press releases and speeches. Rudolph Giuliani, Mitt Romney and the rest of the Republican presidential pack run around squawking about socialism whenever anyone proposes health care reform. Syndicated columnist Robert Novak warns that the federally financed, state-run Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is essentially a socialist conspiracy. So does President Bush, who has vetoed a modest increase in that program’s funding because he doesn’t want to “federalize health care.”
Although the red threat still triggers an autonomic reaction among GOP true believers, the rest of the country no longer twitches to that high-pitched, far-right whistle. Most polls not only show enormous majorities favoring extension of coverage to every child, but substantial support for a radical change in how we pay and administer health insurance—including the possibility of a single-payer system.
Why doesn’t the traditional propaganda work any more? Perhaps the demise of the Soviet Union and the withering of communism in China have had a delayed effect on public attitudes here. Both the Russians and the Chinese have turned more capitalist than the West, abandoning their former systems without substituting modern protections. The ex-Communists are more of a threat to the health of their own societies than to us. Most Americans may also have noticed that corporate bureaucracy and corruption, which figure largely in the present health care system, are not preferable to government bureaucracy. Doctors who used to wail about the dangers of Medicare have learned how unpleasant it is to deal with dozens of insurance companies, each creating different rules to cut costs and deny care. So have their patients.
This corporate model is more expensive and less efficient than the government plans that provide care in every other industrialized nation.
And most Americans may have learned by now that such systems prevail in Western countries that aren’t normally categorized as “socialist,” including the United Kingdom, Japan, Spain, Canada, Germany, France, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. All these nations manage to provide their citizens with high living standards, industrial and technological innovation, and broad political and economic freedom, even after 50 years of national health insurance.
Meanwhile, the credibility of conservatives has diminished steadily. These days they cannot even achieve clarity on the meaning of their favorite cliches. For instance, the president hates “federalized health care,” but sponsors a Medicare prescription drug program that wastes hundreds of billions on drug companies and private insurers. Right-wing definitions no longer seem so clear, either. When the government awards a billion dollars in sweetheart mercenary contracts to a wealthy Republican family in Michigan, that’s “private enterprise.” But when the government helps a struggling middle-class family in Maryland send its children to the doctor, that’s creeping socialism.
Conservative ideology’s declining relevance is again encouraging the politics of personal destruction. That must be why right-wing voices on the Internet, talk radio and the Fox News Channel have launched a nasty attack on the family of Graeme Frost, a 12-year-old Maryland boy who appeared in a Democratic radio commercial endorsing the SCHIP program. He and his younger sister, both victims of a terrible car accident that left the little girl with permanent brain damage, have both needed federal assistance because their parents were unable to afford private insurance. Certain conservative bloggers and pundits, seeking to prove that the Frost family is too affluent to qualify for SCHIP assistance, have harassed them, their neighbors and their co-workers. They have spread myths and lies about the family, their house and the schools that their children attend. And they have made repeated telephone calls to the Frost home, demanding answers to questions about their personal finances.
It doesn’t seem to occur to any of these strict Christian moralists that the Frosts have enough trouble trying to care for their disabled daughter, or that the state of Maryland, under the SCHIP regulations, has determined that the Frost children are fully eligible for the help they obviously need. Let us not hear again from these mean-spirited people about “family values” or “compassionate conservatism.”
Such is the devolution of conservatism in our time—from a philosophy concerned with overweening state authority to a movement that bullies children in the name of freedom.
Joe Conason writes for the New York Observer.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Tawn Mastrey Passes, Slash Sends Message
(from Paul "The Lobster" Wells)
Via Kava's Radio Soup
Tawn Mastrey is most famous for her tenure at KNAC in L.A., but we all remember her from KSJO, 1975-1979. Long Live Rock and Long Live Our Memories Of Tawn. I adored her.--Pete
In a hotel room near the MSP airport. Two months ago on August 7th (See below), I made a plea for help for my fellow radio maverick, Tawn Mastrey, on my website http://www.sfbayradio.com That was followed by an urgent press release from her sister, Cara Mastrey distributed to the radio mailing lists that my colleagues in the industry subscribe to. A donor, sadly, was not found in time.
Today, I was honored to join the family and friends of Tawn for her Memorial Service at a funeral home in Minneapolis. I spoke representing those in the radio and music business who loved Tawn and passed along the condolences of those I've spoken to in the last few days. I was in LA, and fittingly on-the-air at KNAC.com when I got the news on Wednesday morning. I was there to help get the ball rolling for benefits to help save Tawn's life and cover the costs of care for her recovery. A letter from Slash is below, and was read at the ceremony by Tawn's beautiful and talented sister, Cara.
On October 2nd, Tawn lost her life as a result of liver failure due to an undetected and dormant for decades Hepatitis C infection. There is no cure. Because of the concurring factors of no insurance, a need for a rare blood type match of a liver or the donation of a piece of a living donors healthy liver (a relatively new procedure that grows a new liver in the recipient and the 100% re-growth of the donor's organ) AND the lack of a sense of urgency on the part of some who heard the news, Tawn's fight ended in a needless early release from this mortal existence. All in music and radio who knew her will miss her spirit, her love of music, her laugh and a true friend with a big heart. In Tawn's memory, her sister Cara and many of us will continue the fight for organ donations and Hep C awareness. visit http://www.tawnmastreybenefit.com for details as they happen.
Please feel free to email me if you'd like to volunteer for efforts including benefit concerts being planned in Los Angeles, San Francisco / San Jose, Minneapolis-St. Paul and other actions.
May 10,000 lives be saved in Tawn Mastrey's name.
Peace,
Paul “The Lobster” Wells
Slash’s email
> Yes, I would like u to say that "Tawn was my hero,
> she fought harder than anybody to support my band
> Guns n Roses back when nobody else wanted to have
> anything to do with us & helped put us on the map
> along with a lot of other young bands during that
> period. She was a true blue maverick who was
> fearless & spoke her mind when it came to things she
> believed in. She had a huge heart & loved life &
> everything about it. She was a lot of fun to be
> around, with her anything was possible. Without
> Tawn, It is the end of an era, I've never met
> anybody else like her & seriously doubt I ever will.
> Tawn, we will miss u terribly, but I know that your
> in a better place where u are needed for whatever
> reason right now, & most importantly, there will be
> no more suffering. Love u, Slash."
Via Kava's Radio Soup
Tawn Mastrey is most famous for her tenure at KNAC in L.A., but we all remember her from KSJO, 1975-1979. Long Live Rock and Long Live Our Memories Of Tawn. I adored her.--Pete
In a hotel room near the MSP airport. Two months ago on August 7th (See below), I made a plea for help for my fellow radio maverick, Tawn Mastrey, on my website http://www.sfbayradio.com That was followed by an urgent press release from her sister, Cara Mastrey distributed to the radio mailing lists that my colleagues in the industry subscribe to. A donor, sadly, was not found in time.
Today, I was honored to join the family and friends of Tawn for her Memorial Service at a funeral home in Minneapolis. I spoke representing those in the radio and music business who loved Tawn and passed along the condolences of those I've spoken to in the last few days. I was in LA, and fittingly on-the-air at KNAC.com when I got the news on Wednesday morning. I was there to help get the ball rolling for benefits to help save Tawn's life and cover the costs of care for her recovery. A letter from Slash is below, and was read at the ceremony by Tawn's beautiful and talented sister, Cara.
On October 2nd, Tawn lost her life as a result of liver failure due to an undetected and dormant for decades Hepatitis C infection. There is no cure. Because of the concurring factors of no insurance, a need for a rare blood type match of a liver or the donation of a piece of a living donors healthy liver (a relatively new procedure that grows a new liver in the recipient and the 100% re-growth of the donor's organ) AND the lack of a sense of urgency on the part of some who heard the news, Tawn's fight ended in a needless early release from this mortal existence. All in music and radio who knew her will miss her spirit, her love of music, her laugh and a true friend with a big heart. In Tawn's memory, her sister Cara and many of us will continue the fight for organ donations and Hep C awareness. visit http://www.tawnmastreybenefit.com for details as they happen.
Please feel free to email me if you'd like to volunteer for efforts including benefit concerts being planned in Los Angeles, San Francisco / San Jose, Minneapolis-St. Paul and other actions.
May 10,000 lives be saved in Tawn Mastrey's name.
Peace,
Paul “The Lobster” Wells
Slash’s email
> Yes, I would like u to say that "Tawn was my hero,
> she fought harder than anybody to support my band
> Guns n Roses back when nobody else wanted to have
> anything to do with us & helped put us on the map
> along with a lot of other young bands during that
> period. She was a true blue maverick who was
> fearless & spoke her mind when it came to things she
> believed in. She had a huge heart & loved life &
> everything about it. She was a lot of fun to be
> around, with her anything was possible. Without
> Tawn, It is the end of an era, I've never met
> anybody else like her & seriously doubt I ever will.
> Tawn, we will miss u terribly, but I know that your
> in a better place where u are needed for whatever
> reason right now, & most importantly, there will be
> no more suffering. Love u, Slash."
Quote of the Day
When interviewed by a proudly racist group from Mississippi, Jena, Louisiana Mayor Murphy R. McMillin said,
For those who need background at this late point, look up "The Jena Six".--Pete
"I am not endorsing any demonstrations, but I do appreciate what you are trying to do. Your moral support means a lot".Moral support from immoral bigots. As Clive Stafford Smith said, "The immoral has become so mundane."
For those who need background at this late point, look up "The Jena Six".--Pete
Monday, October 08, 2007
San Francisco Mayor Calls War On Some Drugs "A Total Failure"
KCBS, SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom proclaimed the
nation's war on drugs a total failure and insisted the crime rate would
go down if the government spent money on treatment as opposed to jailing
people with drug problems. "If you want to get serious, if you want to
reduce crime by 70% in this country overnight, end this war on drugs,"
he told reporters at City Hall. "You want to get serious, seriously
serious about crime and violence end this war on drugs."
The mayor maintained local jails are overcrowded with people
incarcerated for drug offenses, taking up room that could be used to
hold more violent criminal offenders. He said violent criminals with
lengthy felony records are being turned loose, too often. . .
In a ten-minute tirade about the drug war's failure, Newsom told
reporters that most politicians - including those in his own party -
just don't have the guts to admit the obvious.
"It's laughable that anyone could look at themselves with a straight
face and say 'oh, we're really succeeding.' I mean it's comedy. And as I
say, shame on my party, the democratic party, because they don't have
the courage of their private thoughts, because we don't want to appear
weak on this topic," Newsom said.
The mayor said the 'politicizing' of the illegal drug use issue prevents
a discussion about real solutions to the drug epidemic. . .
The mayor insisted, however, that he wasn't calling for the legalization
of all drugs - just a recognition that the current approach isn't
working.
"I'm not saying (legalization). I'm saying get real about it," he
explained. "So what does that mean? Well, it means a lot of things. It
means this war on drugs is an abject failure."
http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_277214611.html
nation's war on drugs a total failure and insisted the crime rate would
go down if the government spent money on treatment as opposed to jailing
people with drug problems. "If you want to get serious, if you want to
reduce crime by 70% in this country overnight, end this war on drugs,"
he told reporters at City Hall. "You want to get serious, seriously
serious about crime and violence end this war on drugs."
The mayor maintained local jails are overcrowded with people
incarcerated for drug offenses, taking up room that could be used to
hold more violent criminal offenders. He said violent criminals with
lengthy felony records are being turned loose, too often. . .
In a ten-minute tirade about the drug war's failure, Newsom told
reporters that most politicians - including those in his own party -
just don't have the guts to admit the obvious.
"It's laughable that anyone could look at themselves with a straight
face and say 'oh, we're really succeeding.' I mean it's comedy. And as I
say, shame on my party, the democratic party, because they don't have
the courage of their private thoughts, because we don't want to appear
weak on this topic," Newsom said.
The mayor said the 'politicizing' of the illegal drug use issue prevents
a discussion about real solutions to the drug epidemic. . .
The mayor insisted, however, that he wasn't calling for the legalization
of all drugs - just a recognition that the current approach isn't
working.
"I'm not saying (legalization). I'm saying get real about it," he
explained. "So what does that mean? Well, it means a lot of things. It
means this war on drugs is an abject failure."
http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_277214611.html
Post-Constitutional Amerikkka
DC GOVERNMENT, FEDS JOIN TO SUPPRESS PROTEST IN CAPITAL
AFTER DOWNING STREET - Three activists who were arrested at a press conference near Lafayette Park appeared in Washington D.C. Superior Court yesterday where they were given a trial date of January 3 and face a six-month prison sentence.
Adam Kokesh of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Tina Richards of Grassroots America, and Ian Thompson of the A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition where arrested during a press conference near Lafayette Park where the National Park Service deployed mounted police and a SWAT team to disrupt it. The press conference was called to display the lawful way to apply posters in response to almost $40,000 in postering fines levied against the ANSWER Coalition.
Ian Thompson: "As an attorney and anti-war activist, I am outraged that the government arrested and charged me and my co-defendants with crimes when we were simply exercising our free speech rights under the First Amendment. I am being charged with 'assaulting a police officer' for merely picking up a bucket of wheat paste. This prosecution is not only a waste of time, but also of taxpayer dollars. It is part of the Bush administration's plan to criminalize dissent and curtail the constitutional rights of people who speak out against the illegal war on Iraq ."
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