micah holmquist's irregular thoughts and links |
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Welcome to the musings and notes of a Cadillac, Michigan based writer named Micah Holmquist, who is bothered by his own sarcasm. Please send him email at micahth@chartermi.net. Holmquist's full archives are listed here.
Archives
Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution) Aljazeera.Net English Blogs that for one reason or another Holmquist would like to read on at least something of a regular basis (always in development) Thivai Abhor |
Friday, December 31, 2004
Monday, December 27, 2004
Saturday, December 25, 2004
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Bill O'Reilly used part of his radio show yesterday to explain that Democrats want to get rid of the Electoral College so that Hillary can win with "urban minority cabal." This is a shocking scoop by America's greatest journalist and I'm sure he will soon be explaining how they could do this if they had anything approaching the ability to create such change. *** *** *** There is no possible justification for Weatherman '69 (Raymond Pettibon, 1989) not being out on DVD. I must see this film, just as a I must all other films that feature Sonic Youth as a terrorist group. Monday, December 20, 2004
So Rummy's been getting some shit for not personally signing the death letters sent to the parents of the brave men and women who work each day and night to keep us safe from Iraqis and other assholes stealing our freedom as we pass them by on the streets. Fuck that! Anybody who complains about Rummy not taking the time to merely sign a letter should ask themselves if they know where this is heading. Next they'll want him to read the letters and then care about the people too stupid to avoid the military. It would never fucking end! MEMO TO PARENTS OF SERVICE MEMBERS: Despite what people like to say, the vast majority of people in the United States of America care only slightly more about your children than they, and in you, do Afghans and Iraqis. Sunday, December 19, 2004
Friday, December 17, 2004
Saturday, December 11, 2004
This is why Scott Peterson should fry Staff Sgt. Johnny M. Horne Jr., one of our "American heroes" off "perserving freedom," kills "a severely wounded Iraqi teenager" and as a result "pleaded guilty" yesterday "to one count of unpremeditated murder and one count of soliciting another soldier to commit unpremeditated murder." He gets, three fucking years! That might seem light, but do keep in mind that Horne wanted "put" the Iraqi fuck "out of his misery." I'm sure he'd feel the same way about his fellow Americans. Friday, November 19, 2004
Not blogging at any sort of regular rate is lots of fun. That said, please do check out my latest pieces, "A President to Reelect," "Let's Complete 'The Emperor's New Suit'" and "Protect the Right to Hunt Iraqis." While you are at it, I suggest reading Mark Hand's "The Greensboro Massacre" and Dahr Jamail's story on civilain deaths in Fallujah. Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Friday, November 05, 2004
REHNQUIST'S TUMORS, RUMORS OF SOLIDARITY: FROM THE RAPE CAME THE VINE (DELORIA, JR. CONTRIBUTIONS) by Richard Oxman...with deep acknowledgement to (Shawnee) Prof. Glenn T. Morris (1) This article is dedicated to the passing of Dr. Evon Z. Vogt, Jr. and Njuma Ekundanayo. When I go around in America and I see the bulk of the white people, they do not feel oppressed; they feel powerless. When I go amongst my people, we do not feel powerless; we feel oppressed. We do not want to make the trade...we must be willing in our lifetime to deal with reality. It's not revolution; it's liberation. We want to be free of a value system that's being imposed upon us. We do not want to participate in that value system. We don't want change in the value system. We want to remove it from our lives forever...We have to assume our responsibilities as power, as individuals, as spirit, as people... -- John Trudell, Dakota poet and musician and former national director of AIM (1980) "We need to be a movement again, able and willing to make each others struggles our own." -- Ricardo Levins Morales, "Beyond the Election" (ZNet, October 28) . Although cancer incidence is decreasing (in some instances) among whites, it continues to increase dramatically among American Indians and Alaska Natives 'cross the board. Since World War II, and even more strikingly so within the past twenty years, nearly every American Indian and Alaska Native community has experienced suffering and death from this dread disease in their family members. Native cancer patients continue to have the poorest survivorship from cancer five years after diagnosis when compared with other minority, poor, and medically underserved populations. Vine Deloria Jr.'s Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties: An Indian Declaration of Independence was released in 1974. The Standing Rock Sioux scholar had already demolished colonizing constructions of U.S. Indian law and policy in works such as Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto and We Talk, You Listen. BtToBT broke new ground for addressing our domestic oppression. Yet, today, U.S. revolutionary/progressive attention on defusing oppression/decolonizing primarily focuses on abominations abroad, not the genocide within our backyards. If the prototypical playing fields for minorities are not level, it can be said that the protest fields respecting the oppressed are truly lop-sided, acutely angled. The mantras of The Left must be more inclusive. And they must move from the "one half dozen, six of the other" mentality to setting priorities which are beneficial to one and all. It does matter which progressive cause we're working on. But more on that below. Clearly, the intellectual, political and cultural development of scores of indigenous and nonindigenous scholars/activists was rooted in Vine Deloria, Jr.'s writings/speeches. Taiaiake Alfred, James Anaya, Jeanette Armstrong, Duane Champagne, Ward Churchill, Tim Coulter, Frank Ducheneaux, Kirke Kickingbird, Winona Laduke, Wilma Mankiller, Russell Means and virtually every student/teacher of American Indian policy and law in the U.S./Canada today have acknowledged their debt to the former professor of history at the University of Colorado-Boulder. (2) On this thirtieth publication anniversary of BtToBT I ask the reading public to humbly acknowledge their ignorance regarding Indian affairs, and vow to support indigenous causes, reordering their progressive priorities. After all the ideological, political and cultural schisms created by the U.S. government across Indian country, it's hard for even many Indians to have a clear vision of their roots and best interests, let alone expect non-indigenous citizens to sift through the philosophical/political confusion sown. Yet we must make the attempt, for ongoing injustice vis-a-vis Native Americans dooms us all. (3) Deloria was troubled by the potential for American Indian activists to copy the tactical mistakes of civil rights organizations where "activism has been substituted for power itself." There was the prospect of "a quicksand of assimilationist theories which destroy the power of the group to influence its own future" that horrified him; he warned against piecemeal, reformist change co-opting a larger (required) structural confrontation. Most people of color today seem to want unimpaired opportunity to participate coequally in U.S. society, to rise above their marginalization. But for American Indians both the root of dissatisfaction and the remedies they seek are significantly different. That is a distinction that Vine Deloria, Jr. addressed, one that is lost on too many activists today. Averting our eyes overseas in lieu of dealing with abominations occuring right under our noses is a grave error on more than one count. Where the needs/desires of Native Americans differ significantly from the aspirations and rights of other disenfranchised/marginalized groups, one can find a window of opportunity for confronting leftist concerns all along the spectrum. I will now attempt to give us a lift, a boost through that opening. Broken Treaties has four distinct/related sections. The first (chaps. 1,9 and 10) deals with the roots of disaffection of indigenous people vis-a-vis U.S. law and policy, the second addresses the eye-opening abominations associated with the legal doctrines of discovery, domestic dependency and plenary power, the third focuses on the Indian Reorganization Act and the Indian Claims Commission horrors (through astute analysis), whereas the fourth explores the international character of indigenous nations. Respecting the last section, Glenn T. Morris notes: "He had the foresight and temerity to compare indigenous nations in a coequal light with other existing nations and states around the globe; he welcomed the application of international law (especially the Convention against the Crime of Genocide), as well as a reinstallation of the treaty-making process between indigenous peoples and the U.S. government." (4) The idea was not only for indigenous activists, academics and technicians to challenge colonial conventions, but to reconceptualize...everything. My hope is that non-indigenous readers also will --out of a sense of humility-- acknowledge that they do not really know what has been coming down with regard to Indians...and do a little research, kind reconsideration of much that's taken for granted. For our mutual benefit. For "dismantling the master's house" (5) necessitates an understanding that just as John Marshall and the Supreme Court of this land began the process whereby the Indian race could be exterminated "with singular felicity, tranquilly, legally, philanthropically, without shedding blood, and without violating a single principle of morality in the eyes of the world" (as per Tocqueville), the U.S. destroys many others --routinely-- with great respect for the laws of humanity. (6) And confronting the 1831 legitimizing of our theft/genocide (noted above and directly below) will go a long way toward keeping this nation from rationalizing/allowing abominations directed toward non-indigenous people. To wit, one should note that whereas attacking/exposing the case of Johnson v. M' Intosh(whereby the U.S. Supreme Court engaged in a self-serving justification of empire building) necessarily sets the stage for our confronting other forms of our abominations domestically and abroad, trying to deal with horrors overseas or other domestic injustices first will leave indigenous people out in the cold...as usual. Decolonizing the Indian population must necessarily impact on the fate of, say, Palestinians. There is no question about that. However, making inroads for the victims of Isreali aggression can easily ignore the plight of Native Americans. A DC soup kitchen --while arguably essential-- will not affect malnutrition on the Rez, but enabling Red Nations to feed themselves (by forcing the courts to acknowledge the illegitimate roots and unjust reasoning which form the foundation of our domestic genocide, and return Indians' landbase by honoring our treaties with them) will inevitably/immediately impact on Afro-Americans and others. Putting "reparations" on the table for discussion vis-a-vis Blacks will not put food in anyone's mouth anytime soon. But undermining our unctuous, unique brand of domestic colonialism --implemented against a variety of indigenous peoples-- would surely lead to crises concerning "good laws" (which are considered beyond challenge), and create a turmoil in this land that would lead to everything from a new voting dynamic for DC residents to making agribusiness subsidies available to the proverbial man on the street. At least a portion of the 30.5 billion dollars --part of what's expended on our dying, Whitened Great Plains area*-- perhaps. *See my article on the Buffalo Commons proposal for an elaboration of this (http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/oxman10202004/). It's easy enough for the well-intentioned soul to side with Native Americans when a clearcut abomination is PR'd onto their activist plate by a demo here or a showdown there. It's quite another thing to have one's curiosity piqued respecting important nuances of injustice, and make an effort to understand the singular perspective of a given marginalized group. In the case of Native Americans, making the effort can be highly instructive, very worthwhile. I'd go as far as saying obligatory. Mandatory, if we are to have insight into what it means when some say our nation is rotten to the core, and demand significant change. This is not the place for me to delineate how the nationhood status sought by Native Americans incorporates a different sense of nation than what Westerners use as a definition. Sovereignty itself must be defined very differently than what has been handed down by Machiavelli, Bodin and Hobbes (with political constructs based on the notion that human beings are naturally enemies to one another)...if we are to have an inkling respecting Native American perceptions/thinking. As Deloria points out "Self-government is not an Indian idea." (7) This is the place and time, however, to invoke Frantz Fanon question of whether or not we want to --whether we want others to-- "stay in...place" or "put an end to the history of colonization." (8) We must --for the first time, for most-- look directly into the Eyes of Our Beast, and review our own progressive, malignant behavior. What are we doing when we address the injustices of Israeli settlers in the Occupied Territories, and neglect Occupied America (9) with its settler state mentality and laws on the books which violate international norms? It seems to me I've been hearing an awful lot about UN Security Council Resolution 242 over the years relative to ILO Convention No. 169, Article 1,Section 3 (10). In short, the semiotics involved in the latter contribute to the long Euro-tradition of semantically holding people down, furthering what Taiaiake Alfred describes as "colonization of the mind," a phenomenon every bit as deadly as subjugation by other means. We're not just talking about the obvious effects of routinely running across terms like savage, primitive, barbarous, primitive, barbarous, ignorant, pagan, infidel and heathen. In James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me, we can see how the routine language of school textbooks reinfoces mendacity through direct application of marginalizing words (which often have particular legal and political connotations). It is also apparent how the sins of semantic omission contribute, using European culture as a constant point of departure. This is crime of a different order than the despicable naming of baseball teams in Cleveland and Atlanta. Debilitating imagery and sickening subliminal messages aside, subjugating indigenous languages and systems of meaning by European ones is of profound importance, overlooked/dismissed by too many indigenous and non-indigenous authorities alike. We're talking here about entire worldviews which evolved over tens of millenia being eradicated. Which brings me back to the Supreme Court decision alluded to above, and Chief Justice John Marshall (who one would have expected more from considering his direct experience with, and lifelong approval of, Indians...outside the Court). The ten terms of the Rehnquist Supreme Court in which indigenous interests lost 82 percent of their cases had their roots in Johnson v. M'Intosh. David Getches documents that this definitive/defiant record of defeat is far worse than that of any other SC litigant group, including that of incarcerated criminals claiming that their convictions should be overturned. (11) Regardless, both indigenous and non-indigenous lawyers (and others) need to rise above the fiction that Indian law and related U.S. policies have been derived from objective decision-making and legitimate legal precedent. Marshall himself, in his last years, admitted that he used the "doctrine as a starting point for the development of an American law of continental real estate and colonialism." (11) In 1831 the Supreme Court was fighting for its life, a white cell/red cell battle ensuing with political tensions generated by the Executive Branch (Andrew Jackson) and states' rights congressional members threatening to marginalize the Court...if it didn't play ball. But that's simply diseased history that festooned the Body Politic with cancer. What's to be done today? For starters, Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, a Native American equivalent of a Plessy v. Ferguson and Dred Scott legal combo, could be put to bed. To wit, since those latter decisions reinforced American apartheid vis-a-vis Afro-Americans for almost six decades, why not at least put an indigenous equivalent to Brown v. Board of Education (the legal antidote to Plessy) on the boards, to encourage self-determination? (12) Any political figure who doesn't support your request to honor this proposal pro-actively should be handed his/her walking papers. It can be handled as a litmus test of sorts. For moving in this direction is also addressing the issues of racism, sexism, aegism, militarism and many others of concern to Euro-America. (13) It can certainly be the rallying point cried out for in Ricardo Levins Morales' "Beyond the Election" quoted above. When citizens become outraged about atrocities at places like Abu Grahib, it would do us all good if we were well-grounded in the foundations for such abominations, foundations which we can do something about immediately. To wit, the "moral exclusion" which Edward Said and Susan Opotow address, whereby "groups are perceived as outside the boundary in which moral values, rules and considerations of fairness apply," (14) can be superimposed on our view of Euro/Indian dynamics today. Morally it is mandatory. In doing so, we, then, have the opportunity to force the hand of all politicians respecting relations with Native Americans, and extrapolate benefits abroad. Paolo Freire, the late revolutionary pedagogist, is known to have said, "You don't have to follow me. You have to reinvent me." Deloria would surely agree. I am only obliged to add that we must be courageous enough to embrace what has been --up until now-- politically unthinkable. It's particularly difficult because so much is mired in subliminal (idiotic) semiotics. As Morris underscores in Chapter Five of Native Voices: American Indian Identity & Resistance, the operation of all settler state governments "requires construction of a normalized or 'correct' language, the use of which establishes the standard for acceptable discourse. The 'correct' language becomes a kind of code within the settler society that is reinforced in law, policy, and the educational system." The caucasian collective unconscious is a factor. "Unconscious" is right. The irreparable damage being wrought by our collective rationalizations for control/expansion over indigenous peoples must come to an end. Reform-minded activists should continue their work, perhaps, but (simultaneously) address the question of why there's been no significant change in the status of Native Americans to date. Then, just maybe, another approach may rear its sweet, challenging head. Robert Porter offers an antidote to what he calls "colonization amnesia." His "Path of Indigenization" urges all indigenous peoples to "recapture and refocus their indigenous consciousness" (15). Taiaiake Alfred embraces Porter's fundamentals, and underscores the importance of "the imperative of respectful, balanced coexistence among all human, animal, and spirit beings, together with the earth." (16) I submit that this is not just for the indigenous. That crucial balance --so natural for traditional Native Americans-- has been lost in Euro culture, and is about to be buried forever...for all of us. The circle of interdependency has many parts, and we need Native Americans and like-minded others to show us how to respect the power and dignity of each of those elements. We must overcome what we have been taught from birth: That indigenous civilization, development and culture was deficient, that the settler states' "higher standards" were needed, and were justifiably imposed. That is not going to be easy for citizens who have been indoctrinated about how particular U.S. interests are universal interests. The Chosen People have frozen people...out of the loop. Yet, there is a window of opportunity here for both reformers and revolutionaries. If one assumes that Rehnquist's thyroid is plagued by anaplastic carcinoma --a particularly ugly form of the disease-- perhaps we get fundamentally serious here, and locate that aperture. The fact that William's court is the longest one to go without a new member since the early 1800s is interesting, but not particularly arresting for me, threats of replacements notwithstanding. Nor is the symbology involved in the red versus white blood cell business, nor imagery connected to the thyroid regulating energy in the body. That there's a parallel between the twenty some-odd thousand Americans succumbing to the disease annually and the projected increase of 20,000 troops being called up for Iraq is neither here nor there for me. What does pique my interest is that healing remains one of the major strengths of tribal religions. The same religions that decisions like Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association served to undermine throughout the years. Perhaps the Indians could have helped Rehnquist. The opening I alluded to above, the window, the aperture...asks us to honor the integrity of what Native Americans have to offer us 'cross the board. Healing is just one aspect. It follows as the Day the Night, that a realization of indigenous land rights "serves to undermine or destroy the ability of the status quo to continue to imposing a racist, sexist, classist, homophobic, militaristic order on non-Indians." (17) We all have tumors of one kind or another. We certainly all will attempt to play chess with Death, given the opportunity. And no one gets out of here alive. In what must be the strangest conclusion--yet, arguably, the most appropriate-- to an article that I've ever written, I urge all readers to review the DVD deathbed tirade of Remy Girard's professor (at the beginning of Denys Arcand's The Barbarian Invasions). It's the one about the atrocities committed against Indians in the 15th/16th century New World. Then, consider embracing Indigenous causes for the purpose of moving in requisite solidarity tomorrow. For our own health, our own spiritual survival...if for no other reason. Try an Alternative Treatment for our Collective Cancer. Until the New Tomorrow. (1) Morris' "Vine Deloria, Jr., and the Development of a Decolonizing Critique of Indigenous Peoples and International Relations" was invaluable in the writing of this article. He is director of the Fourth World Center, a research center focusing on indigenous issues locally, regionally, and globally. (2) See footnote #15 from the above article in Native Voices: American Indian Identity & Resistance, edited by Richard A. Grounds, George E. Tinker and David E. Wilkins (University Press of Kansas, 2003), p. 136. (3) I recommend the works of Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen on this count, particularly those highlighted in my recent article on the Buffalo Commons proposal http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/oxman10202004/. Winona LaDuke's writing addressing the radioactive colonization of North America, and Churchill's pieces on the same subject are highly instructive; clearly, no one's safe from what we've directly subjected the Indians to throughout the years. I'd say a recent piece by Jamie Wilson of the UK Guardian on climate change (http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=72&ItemID=6553) is a must-read. (4) Morris' Vine Deloria, Jr. article, op. cit., p. 101. (5) From Audre Lorde's Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde (Freedom, CA: Crossing Press, 1984), p. 112: "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change." (6) Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), p. 355. (7) Vine Deloria, Jr. and Clifford Lytle, The Nations Within: The Past and Future of American Indian Sovereignty (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984) pp. 13-15. Footnotes, #s 169 and 170, in Morris' work, op. cit., elaborate on much of this. (8) Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove, 1965). (9) Rodolfo Acuna's book on the History of Chicanos (Occupied America, published by Longman in 2000) is a good supplementary read in this context. (10) Article 2 of the UN Charter requires "respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force...." This, of course, respecting the Middle East. Great. I'm only asking why we don't see that by banging the doors down in our own backyard we'll be making advances overseas too. Why it isn't clear that if we discuss (let alone stop) the genocide on these once-pristine shores, there is less likelihood that U.S. troops will be coralled for disgusting duty abroad. See p. 122 in the Morris article cited above for further elaboration, paying special attention to the footnotes. (11) Tim Coulter, Director of the Indian Law Resource Center, notes that U.S. claims to aboriginal land are not, in the main, legal claims at all, but only political positions taken by the federal government which the Supreme Court refuses to question. See Robert T. Coulter, "A History of Indian Jurisdiction," in Rethinking Indian Law (New York : Committee on Native American Struggles of the National Lawyers' Guild, 1982), p. 8. The footnotes associated with Morris' essay, pp. 113-115, support this view definitively. The source for Getches' words is on p. 143. (12) Vine Deloria, Jr. and Clifford Lytle, The Nations Within: The Past and Future of American Indian Sovereignty (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), pp. 13-15. (13) See an article of mine which underscores this point: http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/oxman10202004/. Ward Churchill's "I Am Indigenist" essay (in From A Native Son) --cited there-- is the definitive take on this count. (14) See Susan V. Opotow, "Moral Exclusion and Injustice: An Introduction," Journal of Social Issues, vol. 46 (1990), pp. 1-20. Said's Culture and Imperialism makes the same point. (15) Delineated on p. 130 of Morris' essay. (16) See the sources for much of this on p. 152 of Morris' essay. (17) From the Churchill essay cited above (note #13), p. 525. ------------------------ Richard Oxman, Director of the Center for Indigenous Action of Los Gatos, California, can be reached at rmoxman@yahoo.com. Saturday, October 30, 2004
I'm having computer problems so this may be my last post for at least a little bit. I'm also dealing with a serious bout of depression. That may also delay postings. RE Bin Laden's message, what's the big deal? It isn't as if people in the U.S. give a shit about what he says or anything. RE this stupid fucking election, it is notable that people are so passionate about it despite the similarities of the two candidates on the most important issues. Why is this? I suspect that it has to with both Bush and Kerry supporters doing a lot of projection. Kerry supporters see Bush as stupid, which he may or may not be, but if he is, he isn't making policy. Bush supporters, on the other hand, see this as their chance to erase the experience of "Vietnam" from the popular collective memory. Hence the desire to say that Kerry's comments about the war (why are by far the most honorable part of Kerry's record) were wrong without refuting. They want to project the message that criticizing Uncle Sam is always wrong. Oh, in case, it wasn't clear, I endorse the presidential ticket of Ralph Nader and Peter Camejo. No, it won't make any difference, but no single vote will and thus voting is a waste of time unless you are doing for entertainment.
Thursday, October 28, 2004
"It Is Either There or Here, and Better Them Than Us: A Pro-War Political Myth" doesn't include, "Bush has talked about the differences between a 'pre-September the 11th' approach and his 'post-September the 11th' method, so it is ironic that the 'flytrap' theory makes the "pre-September the 11th' error of thinking the U.S. can be safe from 'terrorism.'" Tuesday, October 26, 2004
War criminal president Kerry "I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as president," John Kerry writes in an October 22 column that appeared in The Des Moines Register. Does this mean he will commit "war crimes" as president, just as he did as a soldier? Well, that isn't what he is trying to convey. Monday, October 25, 2004
Sunday, October 24, 2004
Friday, October 22, 2004
Fuck this pastor shit, Bush wants to be God. If He says something, you believe it is true or you are wrong. Thursday, October 21, 2004
Certain lyrics from Suzanne Vega may just sum up the current political culture of the United States of America: They only hit until you cryWOW Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Matt Drudge writes: UPDATE: CNN's Tucker Carlson, Jon Stewart Feuding...I am shocked and outraged at the stupidity of people. Monday, October 18, 2004
Saturday, October 16, 2004
Friday, October 15, 2004
The FOX News Channel had a segment on Ralph Nader's campaign this morning where a Democratic partisan and a GOP partisan were allowed to give their opinion. One said Bush would win and Nader had nothing to do with that. The other said Kerry would win despite Nader. I'm having trouble deciding if it would be better if the people responsible for this segment knew they were perpetuating the two-party system in an absurd fashion or if they didn't. Thursday, October 14, 2004
With "Ghosts of the White House" (http://www.whitehouse.gov/ghosts/), it becomes clear that even a Godly Christian man like President George W. Bush has fallen to demonic activity. Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
High Fidelity (Stephen Frears, 2000) is a great movie but it makes me feel bad about myself. "These people are so cool. I'm a fucking loser," runs through my head. Self-esteem problems are hardly distributed fairly. I doubt Bush has problems with self-esteem and he's waged an invasion to protect the U.S. from weapons of mass destruction and then failed to protect "equipment and materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons" (Irqin Arieff, The Scotsman, October 12). Monday, October 11, 2004
Notes on the production of "reality" It is telling that a group of rightist owned telly stations planning to air an anti-Kerry documentary is news, but the fawning coverage the mainstream media gives both Bush and Kerry is considered a given. In other words, if you had any doubts about your "real" choices are supposed to be, you should just drop them and leave. This is only one of numerous examples of the mainstream media acting to reinforce the binary politics of the United States. In the process, they create what is widely perceived as "reality." *** Team Bush is also good at creating the reality they desire, and they haven't been shrieking from this important task in recent days. In Friday night's debate, Bush responded to a question about who he would pick for the Supreme Court with: I really don't have -- haven't picked anybody yet. Plus, I want them all voting for me.Does Bush know what Dred Scott v. Sanford was about? Does he think the 13th Amendment was unnecessary? This should be a fairly significant story. Here you have the prez showing great ignorance of one of the most important Supreme Court decisions ever in and making the case for a literal interpretation of the Constitution in part by criticizing a decision that was a literal reading of that document, and nobody cares. No wonder Bush was able to convince people Saddam was a "threat." Speaking of that matter, yesterday on Fox News Sunday, Condoleezza Rice said: ...Saddam Hussein had an insatiable appetite for weapons of mass destruction. He had an unflinching hatred for the United States. He had every reason to cooperate with our enemies. This was a gathering and growing threat, and it was time to take care of it."[G]rowing threat"? "[G]rowing threat"? "[G]rowing threat"? Bush, Rice and the rest of the crew never proved there was any threat beyond the mere possibility that anybody with Saddam's money and resources could, if they decided they really wanted to, begin to think about attacking the United States. There was no "threat," if that word is defined in a conventional manner. The fact that no "mainstream" journalist will point this out shows them to be nothing but a pitiful group of hack enablers. What should be equally disturbing, but somehow isn't to me, is the way in which Team Bush has created ridiculously utopian goals for public consumption and yet manage to ridicule a political opponent who goes along with these goals as not supporting them. In a Matt Bai's moderately hagiographical profile of Kerry in yesterday's New York Times Magazine, the Great John Kerry is presented as saying: 'We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance,'' Kerry said. ''As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.''This doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Terrorism exists in singularities and so as long as it exists, it will be more than a nuisance, unless of course Kerry is more wedded to the latter part of these words. (Besides, how can he ignore the myriad of ways in which prostitution and illegal gambling are destroying the very fabric of the sprit that makes America great?) Team Bush's response to this is laughable. CNN writes: >Bush campaign Chairman Marc Racicot, in an appearance on CNN's "Late Edition," interpreted Kerry's remarks as saying "that the war on terrorism is like a nuisance. He equated it to prostitution and gambling, a nuisance activity. You know, quite frankly, I just don't think he has the right view of the world. It's a pre-9/11 view of the world."If you can create your own reality, why bother with the commonly accepted one? It will just be full of unpleasant things that go bump in the night. *** I'd criticize Team Kerry for creating their own reality, something they most certainly want to do, as well, but they are so bad at it that it isn't worth doing. Sunday, October 10, 2004
There's a whole lot of things this blogger could write about, but why would anybody want my opinions and comments when they can have the opinion of Noah McCullough, a 9-year-old Presidential history whiz kid/youth journalist with a true talent for memorizing and regurgitating dates and political slogans? McCullough is brillantly correct when he says, "I don't think we should bash any President of the United States, any sitting President of the United States. You can discuss how you disagree, but you shouldn't attack them like Sen. Kerry and his surrogates have been doing." I wonder how he'd react to my criticisms of Bush. Saturday, October 09, 2004
I was writing a post yesterday morning when my mouse gave out. It has been replaced by one of these "optical" slave rodents. If you want to look cool while setting up your new mouse, follow my example and finish Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Multitude (The Penguin Press, 2004) in your downtime. It is a compelling work, but still very flawed. *** My beloved Spartans beat Illinois, 38-25, earlier today. Hopefully I'm wrong about this but I see the defense getting picked apart on big play after big play when they go up against better offenses. *** Thursday, October 07, 2004
Tonight's question on Anderson Cooper 360 is, "Should President Bush admit he made a mistake when he said that Saddam Hussein had WMD?" Who cares? I really just don't get the mindset of people who want an apology on this but don't care about... Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
A little faggott bitch named Paul Bremer is now saying America didn’t have enough troops in Iraq. What a pussy! Can’t he see the Iraqi towel head fucks being killed? Doesn’t that count for anything? No, I guess it doesn’t in the warped little minds of liberal communist postmodernist Kerry supportin' leftists. Monday, October 04, 2004
The rambles of your humble blogger with a cold My latest Press Action piece has a pretty self-explanatory title, "Afghans, Iraqis and Other Non-Americans Exist for Our Amusement Was the Debate's Real Message." *** Speaking of the debate, Bush has gotten a lot of play out of mocking Kerry's "global test" remark, but those cheering Bush for standing up for American whatever always seem to not point out this part of Bush's justification for invading Iraq: ...I went to the United Nations. I didn't need anybody to tell me to go to the United Nations. I decided to go there myself.So one of the reasons for invading Iraq was to back up the word of an international body called the United Nations Security Council. Some sort of test presumably was at work. Actually it is more likely that Bush doesn't really mean what he said and it just part of the plethora of justifications that they have used. Yesterday, on CNN's Late Edition, host Wolf Blitzer and Condoleezza Rice wer involved in the following exchange: BLITZER: Let's talk about some of the things that the president said at the debate because some of them seem to be a little bit sloppy, got repetitive, as you well know.Rice isn't expected to use the same reasoning when it comes to say Saddam Hussein, for reasons relating to the fact that she didn't really mean what she said here. On the "global test" issue, Rice said a lot, including: ...I don't know how you pass a global test, given that, by the way, you couldn't even get consensus on the fact that, after Saddam Hussein had defied the international community for all of those years, that it was time to do something.This would be a lot more interesting if Team Bush had ever showed a need to do something in Iraq. Oh, but I forget, this, like just about everything else coming from Team Bush, because it served an immediate need. On a related note, John Hawkins asks today, "If America's troops trust George Bush to fight the war on terrorism, shouldn't you? No, because I can make up my own opinion about the "war on terrorism" and because I seriously question the critical thinking ability and/or use of critical thinking of any person who signs up to be part of the U.S. military. Saturday, October 02, 2004
Friday, October 01, 2004
I want to see a presidential candidate say, "under my administration the economy will be so good that no person will have to stay with an abusive partner or parent, because they fear leaving means living in poverty." It would represent a fundamental break with the mindless pseudo-utopianism that dominates campaigns now. Thursday, September 30, 2004
I'm not watching tonight's debate (why put quotes around the word when it magnificently represents the event) because I don't want to be incited into destroying the television. UPDATE: I gave in and watched. I'm glad I did because, when you get right down to it, 90 minutes of "I can fight a better 'war on terror'" is what life is about. I could say a lot, but what sticks out is that Bush actually said Negroponte plays a role in decision making for Iraq. I'm not shocked that this is the case, just that Bush said it. 10:56 p.m. 09/30/04 Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Via Oread Daily, here's an interesting collection of statements on the status of women in Afghanistan. *** *** Monday, September 27, 2004
Sunday, September 26, 2004
Michigan State 30 Indiana 20. Indiana was up 20-7 at halftime yesterday. The second half went better. *** I recently had a dream where I awoke up from sleep and was alarmed that Chris and Bubba, my beloved stuffed primates of over 20 years, weren't on my bed. I went looking for them and was relieved to find them sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me to pour cereal and milk for them. Saturday, September 25, 2004
Friday, September 24, 2004
"The death toll from flooding in north-western Haiti in the wake of tropical storm Jeanne has risen to more than 1,000, local and UN officials say," the BBC writes (September 23). Thursday, September 23, 2004
Laura Ingraham (townhall.com, September 22) on the evil of athletes who are cursed with not being from America being happy that their team won even if their opponent is from the U.S. of A! Ingraham's piece is the funniest thing produced this week that didn't come from someone who doesn't have the job of pretending to be in charge of a country. I mean what is it going to take to get these stupid non-Americans to recognize reality and hate themselves because they are not Americans. Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
President Bush's United Nation speech today was fine comedy: Since the last meeting of this General Assembly, the people of Iraq have regained sovereignty. Today, in this hall, the Prime Minister of Iraq and his delegation represent a country that has rejoined the community of nations.I wonder why they left. Also, saying Iraq is now sovereign is like saying Iraq was democratic under Saddam. Monday, September 20, 2004
CBS says it cannot verify the Bush National Guard documents. This doesn't speak well for journalism at CBS, but a far more damning fact about the entire joke of a mainstream news media is that this is a bigger story than the failure of any reporters at these institutions to question the claims from the Bush Administration that Saddam's regime posed a threat to the God's favorite country. Sunday, September 19, 2004
Notre Dame beat Michigan State, 31-24, yesterday. This was the fifth straight football game between these teams decided by 7 points or less. That said, Michigan State played an awful game, giving up six turnovers. Saturday, September 18, 2004
Lovely and happy Iraq needs a new national anthem Iraq is all smiles now and the future, according to a report in Friday's Guardian by Gary Younge, things have long been expected to just keep getting better and better: President George Bush was warned in July that Iraq could descend into all-out civil war, according to a classified estimate which summarised the views of a number of US intelligence agencies.Patrick Cockburn had this to say in today's Independent: Where freedom was promised, chaos and carnage now reign. A suicide bomber in a car blows himself up in the heart of Baghdad killing 13 people. Air raids by US near the city of Fallujah kill scores more. And so ends one of the bleakest weeks in Iraq's grim recent history.It is high time the Iraqis suck it up and get their act together by adopting Steve Earle's "Some Dreams" as their new national anthem, because Iraqis need to thinking along the lines of: 'Cause some dreams don't ever come trueThere you have it! Friday, September 17, 2004
Thursday, September 16, 2004
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
Monday, September 13, 2004
Alex and Emma (Meathead, 2003) isn't a great movie but the sequence towards the end where Emma (Kate Hudson) goes back to her dresser to get some additional undergarmets is wonderful. Sunday, September 12, 2004
Saturday, September 11, 2004
Your humble blogger obsserved a sign with the above statement less than nine hours ago in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Friday, September 10, 2004
the party party has Bush singing "Sunday Bloody Sunday." *** In an AP story from yesterday, Robert H. Reid writes: American warplanes struck militant positions in two insurgent-controlled cities Thursday and U.S. and Iraqi troops quietly took control of a third in a sweeping crackdown following a spike in attacks against U.S. forces.*** "US forces launched new attacks yesterday in the towns of Fallujah and Tal Afar, which they say are havens for foreign militant fighters, killing at least 30 Iraqis, according to doctors," Luke Baker writes in today's The Age. "Doctors in Fallujah said at least eight people were killed and 16 wounded. Doctor Rafi Hayad said half of those killed and injured were children. In Tal Afar, a town west of Mosul, which the US says is a haven for foreign militants crossing from Syria, doctors said at least 17 people were killed and 51 wounded in heavy fighting." *** " A senior U.S. Army general who investigated the abusive treatment of prisoners in Iraq said yesterday that the CIA may have avoided registering up to 100 detainees in U.S. military facilities, a number far higher than the eight cases that Army officials had previously cited," Bradley Graham and Josh White write in today's Washington Post. "The disclosure by Gen. Paul J. Kern at a Senate hearing stunned lawmakers, who grew more aggravated as they heard Kern and another general involved in the probe describe their own unsuccessful efforts to obtain documents from the CIA about the unregistered prisoners, known as 'ghost detainees.' The Geneva Conventions generally require countries to register prisoners so their treatment can be monitored by the International Committee of the Red Cross." Thursday, September 09, 2004
At least we are safe! "In the first attack late on Tuesday, US jets fired several missiles on Falluja, killing four people and wounding 11 others. A hospital spokesman said that a child and an elderly man were among the dead," Aljazeera.net writes today. In another story published today, the AP writes: While America mourns the deaths of more than 1,000 of its sons and daughters in the Iraq campaign, far more Iraqis have died since the United States invaded in March 2003. No official, reliable figures exist, but private estimates range from 10,000 to 30,000 killed across the nation."Iraqi officials demanded to know yesterday why so little international attention was being given to their numerous dead as the US mourned the death of 1,000 soldiers since the invasion of Iraq," Patrick Cockburn writes in today's Independent. Wednesday, September 08, 2004
"The number of US military personnel killed in Iraq reached 1,000 yesterday," Luke Harding and Sophie Arie write in today's Guardian, but, according to AFP, Uncle Sam's finest aren't bothered by this number (September 7): "There's one word you have to push back at them. Gettsburg: 63,000 killed in a single day," said Sergeant Kimberly Snow, 35, from Ohio, refering to the US civil war battle.Yeah, if 63,000 people didn't die in a single day, it is NOT a tragedy. *** "A British soldier was charged yesterday with the murder of an Iraqi civilian, the first to appear before a criminal court since the invasion of the country," Richard Norton-Taylor writes in today's Guardian. "Kevin Lee Williams, 21, a trooper with the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, appeared at Bow Street magistrates court in London, charged with the murder of Hassan Said on August 3 last year in Ad Dayr, southern Iraq." *** "A U.S. air strike on the city of Falluja late yesterday killed 17 civilians, including three children, and wounded six others, hospital officials said," The Star writes in a September 2 report, which was based on reports from the AP and Reuters. Tuesday, September 07, 2004
Mike Gaddis of THG News gives yet another reason to not have kids: A five-year study run by Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction proves what many in the scientific community have always suspected: having children significantly lowers the IQ of both male and female parents.I would say that kids also prevent a person from doing as much reading and critical thinking as they would before, but then the cynical realist in me kicks in. BTW, I do enjoy playing with the children that my cousins have, but I am more than happy that they are not mine whenever they have to be taken care of. Monday, September 06, 2004
"Three years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the terrorist threat to the United States and its allies remains as serious as ever, despite an intense, multipronged assault on al-Qaida, according to senior U.S. officials, diplomats and counterterrorism experts," Warren P. Strobel of Knight Ridder Newspapers writes (September 3). Saturday, September 04, 2004
Friday, September 03, 2004
I was disappointed that I didn't see Lee Greenwood at the Republican National Convention. I do blame Bush, but then again Bush did inform me that Americans ended slavery: Americans... should never be surprised by the power of liberty to transform lives and nations. That power brought settlers on perilous journeys, inspired colonies to rebellion, ended the sin of slavery, and set our Nation against the tyrannies of the 20th century. We were honored to aid the rise of democracy in Germany and Japan and Nicaragua and Central Europe and the Baltics -- and that noble story goes on. I believe that America is called to lead the cause of freedom in a new century.As an act of protest even more powerful than what I did yesterday when I sang "Luka" during the big speech, I will refuse to give a reply to this statement. It doesn't deserve one and anybody who cheered or thought it made sense is an idiot and/or looking forward to the time in their life when they can take history classes. *** I don't know what exactly to say about the bumper sticker combination I saw today. One sticker said "Only Christ Is The Answer." Right below it, there was another bumper sticker featuring the U.S. Navy logo and "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of those who threaten them." *** Ralph Nader on "corporate socialism" (Washington Post, July 18, 2002) *** Thursday, September 02, 2004
Bush is set to give his big acceptance speech in less than 24 hours. I'd like for there to be some problems with the power. Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Michelle Garcia and Mary Fitzgerald write in today's Washington Post: Police repulsed anarchists, gay activists and other protesters across Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, arresting 560 people as they tried to block traffic and many as they simply walked on sidewalks. The action prevented what was to have been a major show of civil disobedience outside Madison Square Garden on the second night of the Republican convention.The United States of America in 2004. Tuesday, August 31, 2004
I get so giddy when faced with good comedy I could spend the rest of my life typing "HA" and wouldn't sum up how great this is. Monday, August 30, 2004
Sunday, August 29, 2004
Reuters (August 29) writes: A U.S. soldier expected to plead guilty to charges of abusing Iraqi prisoners told a German magazine he deeply regretted his actions but said the abuses were encouraged by military intelligence services.God Bless America! Saturday, August 28, 2004
Just an observation "Conservative" talk radio hosts tend to take it as a given that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is right, while their "liberal" counterparts tend to take it as given that they are wrong. Friday, August 27, 2004
As may or may not be clear, I am burned out on this blog and plan to take a different approach to postings till the thrill comes back. *** The Bush Network Link Engine is a new project where surfers can add anti-Bush links to a big list. What's the point? It is a good way to waste time. *** It would take a long time before I got around to asking Rummy what he thought of his surroundings. *** *** Support democracy by not supporting the Democrats (Yoshie Furuhashi, August 26) Thursday, August 26, 2004
Must listen and other matters Run, do not walk, to sleater-kinney.net and check out their "Sights and Sounds" section for the mp3 of the revamp of "Rocking in the Free World" they did with Pearl Jam live in concert on April 6, 2003. The music is the same. The lyrics have updated to reflect events following the original writing of the song. It is nothing short of brillant. *** "The smell of burnt flesh filled the air and blood smeared the deserted streets of Najaf's Old City on Wednesday after heavy US air strikes on Shiite militia positions around Iraq's revered Imam Ali shrine," AFP writes (August 25). *** "A report by a panel reviewing Pentagon detention operations criticizes top officials, but fails to address government policy that may have led to the mistreatment and torture of detainees, Human Rights Watch said today," writes HRW (August 24). *** Here's the Army's report on Abu Ghraib (August 25). *** Will Dunham of Reuters writes (August 25): An Army general has acknowledged for the first time that U.S. forces tortured Iraqis at the Abu Ghraib jail and his report said a colonel who headed the military intelligence unit at the prison could face criminal charges.That appears to be it for today. Wednesday, August 25, 2004
RE yesterday's post on Uncle Sam's abuse of prisoners, I suspect that virtually nobody would believe that incidents of abuse and torture happened if not for the Abu Ghraib pictures. At the same time, I suspect that many of the same people won't believe anything happened that wasn't photographed. *** In today's Boston Herald, J.M. Lawrence writes: Bellingham history teacher fired from teaching current events because he asked seniors to write about photos of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners hit school officials with a federal lawsuit yesterday, accusing his bosses of censorship...This makes me sad for more than one reason. *** Stefan C. Friedman's article in Monday's New York Post, "Radicals Plot Bad Weather," says that the NYPD is tracking five groups in preparation for next week's anti-RNC protests including the Earth Liberation Front, Refuse & Resist and International A.N.S.W.E.R. It also says law enforcement is worried about former members of the Weathermen getting involved. This bit is hilarious: Originally called "The Weathermen," the anarchist organization came into existence in June 1969 as a radical splinter group of the Students for a Democratic Society.What is there to say? *** The National Progress Fund's "Bush-Nader, '04" commercial is a disgusting political ad. Like other NPF ads, it is dishonest and showcases a refusal to talk about anything but the clichéd horse race. *** Adam Kotsko on his thesis, which will look at how Jacques Derrida, John Milbank and Slavoj Žižek view Christianity. *** This is yet another sampling of your humble blogger's former bookmarks. And while we are at it, here are a few final ones... for now. |