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.
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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 |
Sunday, February 29, 2004
The Haitian example Jean Bertrand Aristide is out, Boniface Alexandre is in and conditions might be better. (But maybe they aren't.) Oh yeah, Team Bush is probably quite pleased. "President Aristide resigned," the Aristide of the United States said today. "I would urge the people of Haiti to reject violence, to give this break from the past a chance to work. And the United States is prepared to help." This represents a huge change in U.S. policy towards Haiti, which historically has been based on trying to control Haiti, a stance that doesn't appear to have changed recently. But Bush is a man of his word, so we all have to assume that things will be different this time. I suspect what we see here is an example of how the U.S. would prefer to handle all of these disputes. Destabilize a country with a leader who "needs" to be replaced -you listening Hugo?-, broker a deal and allow a government that is in line with U.S. interests, and knows what the punishment for not doing Uncle Sam's business, to come into being. Then they can dance in the Oval Office or whatever Bush and friends like to do when celebrating. See, it all works out fine for everyone! UPDATE: Was the U.S. behind Aristide's resignation? Jim Defede, Carol Rosenberg and Martin Merzer of The Miami Herald write: Ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide claims he ''did not resign'' and was ''kidnapped'' by U.S. diplomatic and military officials, U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters told The Herald on Monday...Agence France-Presse writes: A man who said he was a caretaker for the now exiled president told France's RTL radio station the troops forced Aristide out.The radio program Democracy Now says: Multiple sources that just spoke with Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide told Democracy Now! that Aristide says he was "kidnapped" and taken by force to the Central African Republic. Congressmember Maxine Waters said she received a call from Aristide at 9am EST. "He's surrounded by military. It's like he is in jail, he said. He says he was kidnapped," said Waters. She said he had been threatened by what he called US diplomats. According to Waters, the diplomats reportedly told the Haitian president that if he did not leave Haiti, paramilitary leader Guy Philippe would storm the palace and Aristide would be killed. According to Waters, Aristide was told by the US that they were withdrawing Aristide's US security.Here's the transcript of Amy Goodman's interview with Maxine Waters on Democracy Now In a Taipei Times piece entitled "The fire this time in Haiti was US-fueled," Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University says the White House "appears to have succeeded in its long-time goal of toppling Aristide through years of blocking international aid to his impoverished nation." In a related story, Patrick Markey or Reuters writes: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called U.S. President George W. Bush an "asshole" on Sunday for meddling, and vowed never to quit office like his Haitian counterpart as troops battled with opposition protesters demanding a recall referendum against him.An "asshole" he is, but perhaps one still in the minors. 2:47 p.m. 03/01/04 Aristide "was not kidnaped," Powell said yesterday. In a story published yesterday, Steven Dudley of The Boston Globe writes: An accusation in a Miami courtroom last week that President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was personally involved in drug-trafficking apparently gave the United States more leverage to persuade Aristide to leave the country, diplomats in Haiti said yesterday.In another March 1 story, Ron Howell of New York Newsday writes: The departure of Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a victory for a Bush administration hard-liner who has been long dedicated to Aristide's ouster, U.S. foreign policy analysts say.One question that Aristide needs to be asked is if he feels he faces the possibility of retaliation for speaking out. It seems odd, but by no means beyond the realm of possibility, that he would be removed and detained, but allowed to say whatever he wanted. Then again, I suppose if government officials and reporters were not able to contact him, an even bigger scandal would appear to be going on. *** Hey Haiti, Uncle Sam will tell you what to do so just shut the hell up! 9:22 a.m. 03/02/04 Saturday, February 28, 2004
We don't care about democracy, says Uncle Sam Well, unless you want to say Arabs are inherently different from other races of people, which goes against the party line, you can scratch that one off the list of still standing reasons for invading Iraq as Team Bush has all but said they don't believe it. Armed insurgents in Haiti, who may be a proxy army of the United States, seek to overthrow elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. This situation could have terrible results, if it hasn't already. How has the U.S. responded? By backing up democracy? By threatening to intervene in defense of democracy? Yeah right. Even as Team Bush promotes democracy for the Middle East, They make it clear they don't care about it in Haiti. Asked on Thursday about whether Aristide should stay in office, good cop Powell said Aristide "is the democratically elected president, but he has had difficulties in his presidency, and I think as a number of people have commented, whether or not he is able to effectively continue as president is something that he will have to examine. I hope he will examine it carefully, considering the interests of the Haitian people." How the end of Haitian democracy would impact democracy in the Caribbean is not discussed for reasons that you will just have to guess. Personally I’m worried about tyranny coming to Puerto Rico, and you know what that would mean. Hit a rough spot and democracy has apparently failed, if the Bush Administration wants it to fail. Michigan State 67 Penn State 42 Yawn *** In last Sunday's Observer, Mark Townsend and Paul Harris write: Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..[sic]More on the fun that might soon happen. *** *** *** *** To paraphrase Van Halen, don't tell me what John can do. *** *** *** Speaking of the good Christian freedom fighter patriots of Grand Rapids, yesterday in that town, which isn't nearly as monolithic as the story I just linked to would have you believe, I saw a "I'll Fight for Freedom" bumper sticker on some SUV. I wonder if it belongs to Jan Scott: At a school trip to an ice skating rink in downtown Grand Rapids, three mothers said they, too, were cheering for the amendment. "Gay marriage goes against God's plan for a man and a woman to join together," said Jan Scott, a mother of six and a member of the Revenna Baptist Church. "Homosexuals are disillusioned by lies from Satan."God Damn that Satan and Bless that Bush! *** more freedom*** Here are interviews with Ken Auletta, Albert Brooks, Dave Chappelle, David Cross, Larry Flynt, Spalding Gray, Michael Hudson, Neal Pollack and Brian Vaughn. UPDATE: Here are interviews with Roy Ayers, Barry Blaustein, Margaret Cho, Michael Davis, Janeane Garofalo and Neal Pollack. 5:14 p.m. 02/29/04 UPDATE #2: Here are interviews with Terry Jones and Craig Thompson. 6:51 p.m. 03/01/04 Friday, February 27, 2004
Micah Holmquist's Press Action piece "Bush to Seek Reelection" is worth a read, IMHO. *** In a story about concerns that that the Oscars might feature some political comments, Agence France Presse informs us that, "[l]ast year, liberal US documentary maker Michael Moore scandalised Hollywood and America when he lauched [sic] a vitriolic attack on US President George W. Bush for waging war in Iraq." That seems to be a bit much but then there's this obvious lie: At the 1993 Oscars, [Tim] Robbins and [Susan] Sarandon caused a sensation by slamming then president Bill Clinton over the treatment of AIDS-infected Haitian refugees detained at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.Laughable. Everybody knows that no one on the left ever criticized Bill Clinton. *** I'm baffled by lost-in-racism.org, a project of asianmediawatch.net that attempts to argue that Lost in Translation is racist. The character Bob and Charlotte aren't supposed to be perfect and are in fact highly flawed people who we shouldn't be shocked to find out are prejudiced. Then there's this: The theme of traveling in a foreign land was not essential to the film.Save for the metaphor that gives the film a greater meaning than that embedded in the narrative, that's correct. *** Mark I. Pinsky of The Orlando Sentinel says there is increased interest in Mary Magdalene. *** *** Is seethepassion.com really needed? *** jpost.com writes: Shas leader MK Eli Yishai has demanded that Mel Gibson's new film, "The Passion of the Christ" be banned from screening and distribution in Israel.Talk about something that would inspire anti-Semitism. *** Matt C. Abbott says Hollywood hates God *** *** modernist and post-modernist views *** *** Thursday, February 26, 2004
"You take my college money and you turn that goddamn AC on buddy!" I'd planned to post a tribute to Bill Hicks, who passed away on this day in 1994, but time got away from me and it will have to wait for another day. *** Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Press Release True Catholic TraditionalistSociety Mel Gibson Shakes Hands with the Devil to Take the Unsuspecting on a Trip to Hell The True Catholic Traditionalist Society calls upon Mel Gibson to immediately renounce soul damning ecumenicalism and to publicly and incontrovertibly state that salvation without membership in the Church is impossible and then spend a lot of time in the Confessional. Furthermore we call up all Catholic traditionalists to boycott Gibson until Gibson denounces all heresy. Gibson directed and produced the new film The Passion of the Christ, which documents the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ. The filmmaker intends for viewers of the picture to understand "the enormity of [the] sacrifice" of Christ, but in promoting the picture Gibson has
According to a story by Bob Baker and William Lobdell that first appeared in the January 30 edition of The Los Angeles Times, "Gibson's production company... is courting the [Christian] market by hiring several Christian marketing companies to work various segments of the potential audience. The best known is a Vista, Calif., company called Outreach Inc." Outreach Inc. describes itself as "a non-denominational ministry that works with all Bible believing Christian churches that embrace traditional Christian theology." There is no mention of the necessity of belong to the one true Church on either the homepage of Outreach Inc. or on the site this group of heretics have set up specifically to promote The Passion of the Christ. The producers of the film have also screened the The Passion of the Christ to "churches" that are not part of the One True Church, according to an article in the January 31 edition of the radical leftist British newspaper The Guardian. (It cannot be ruled out that some of these outfits may even explicitly reject the One True Church. These same "churches" are already planning to use this movie to spread their falsehoods. There is the risk that many will go from merely being disobedient to God to actively working against Him! Like the members of The True Catholic Traditionalist Society, Gibson practices traditional Catholicism. We reject that Vatican II was infallible and condemn the many errors and heresies of John Paul II. We affirm the true and infallible traditional teachings of the Catholic Church, knowing that the Dogmas of Faith should never change. We are adherents and members of One True Church. Most importantly, we understand, "Outside the Church there is no salvation." Non-members go directly to purgatory or whatever the hell we believe in. These facts are clear to all who can read as each appears on no less than 19% of the pages of the Bible. Gibson was a follower of these truths until very recently. His Latin public service advertisements for us consistently rank amongst the most popular PSAs done for any group in a dead language. In an interview with The New Yorker last year, Gibson says salvation can only come through membership in the Church. "There is no salvation for those outside the Church." And, more recently Gibson has said that his wife, a heretic of the Episcopalian variety, will not be saved.
What explains Gibson's change of heart and embrace of Satan? We have to believe that, like many men before him, Satan's promise of a little gold in his pocket has corrupted him so that he now rejects God's message. While we pray that Gibson returns to the fold, this example shows how just how dark and evil Lucifer really is. This fallen angel seeks to capture us at every point in our lives. From the pits of hell he probably saw Gibson making a movie that would bring people to Salvation and decided to tempt Gibson. It is only through God's One True Church that we can defeat this evil. Tuesday, February 24, 2004
(cliched sportswriter bullshit) It wasn’t the first time this season Michigan State looked left for dead. Trailing Michigan, 52-40, it looked like a repeat of the loss to Illinois two weeks earlier. Or the loss to Kansas, or Duke, Oklahoma, Kentucky, UCLA, Syracuse, Wisconsin and Purdue. It looked like this MSU team was incapable of winning the big game. Oh they would make it look close, but they couldn’t win. The team that Magic Johnson promised would bring MSU its third national championship could not do that or much of anything else. Not this time. When it mattered –the final 11 minutes- Michigan State played their best ball of the season in Ann Arbor, scoring 32 points and holding Michigan to 17. The crowd primed on "Hail to the Victors" went home, having seen MSU prevail, 72-69. (/cliched sportswriter bullshit) Tremendous game. Kelvin Torbert most likely was the difference. He scored 15 of his 18 points in the second half. Never doubt Izzo. There was a beautiful moment in the second half when Michigan missed a shot and four Spartans surrounded the basket, each closer to the ball than anybody from Michigan. *** Funny how I can write economically about sports with far more ease than I can when the topic is more serious, or even my inability to write without including more words than I probably should include. Grey Tuesday *** "If Aristide must fall," I suspect that investors from the U.S. will look slightly more favorably upon the country. *** *** *** CovenantNews.com and openconfrontation.com are Christian fundamentalist sites that are "interesting." Via the latter, I came across bushrevealed.com. *** *** I take it that Frank doesn't support animal rights. *** "In its effort to relieve overstretched U.S. troops in Iraq, the Bush administration has hired a private security company staffed with former henchmen of South Africa’s apartheid regime," Marc Perelman writes in Forward. *** "’The Passion’ Poses a Unique Problem for Messianic Jews," says Max Gross of Forward. *** Jews for Jesus on The Passion of the Christ *** " Day by day, the nation's capital is becoming a fortress, turning a city known for graceful beauty into a virtual armed camp. In response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, federal security agents along with their counterparts in the Washington, Maryland and Virginia governments began a huge effort to build permanent safeguards for the capital area's most important buildings and monuments," Michael Janofsky writes in a New York Times story dated February 21. *** UPDATE: GOD BLESS PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH FOR STANDING UP TO THOSE HOMOSEXUALS IN A POSITIVE MANNER! 6:56 P.M. 02/24/04 UPDATE #2: Norma Sherry on men of God *** "According to organisations connected with film, theatre, music, opera and dance, new American immigration and visa policies are making it extremely difficult, sometimes impossible, for foreign artists of all sorts to come to the US to perform and show their work," James Verini writes in the February 18 edition of The Guardian. *** *** *** Three cheers for Jap militarism *** God Bless America 9:56 a.m. 02/25/04 UPDATE #3: "Ten months after their 'liberation', Iraqi women have only just started to leave their houses to carry out ordinary tasks such as taking their kids to school, shopping or visiting neighbours. They do so despite the risk of kidnapping or worse. It is women and children who bear the brunt of the absence of law and order, the lack of security and the availability of weapons," Haifa Zangana writes in last Thursday's Guardian. "Ten months on, most women graduates are still unemployed. Seventy-two per cent of working Iraqi women were public employees, and the public sector is in tatters. Other workers are suffering too." *** *** *** LOL 11:25 a.m. 02/25/04 Monday, February 23, 2004
The problem with this democracy or why the fact that Nader could be a "spoiler" shows there are bigger concerns than electing the non-Bush Ralph Nader is running for president again. From the look of the media, Nader's big campaign issue will be whether or not he can prevent the democratic nominee from beating George W. Bush. I for one am furious at Nader for messing up the nice fun binary political system that has served us so well. Actually, in case the sarcasm wasn't clear, no I'm not. The two-party system is a sad joke and if these enraged Democrats who are so furious about Nader running and ruining their chance of beating Bush should be, especially after 2000, pushing for electoral reform so that the impact of third-party candidates is lessened. More importantly, isn't it odd that, despite how much they dislike Bush, none of these Democrats seem to think Bush shouldn't be running. Apparently a non-stop festival of war and corporate cronyism is a record that needs to be considered, but Nader is beyond what's acceptable. Essentially what the Nader shouldn't run crowd is saying that the U.S. not only has a two-party political system but that it should have a two-party political system. (When will be the right time to run?) If that's their view of "democracy" in the Uncle Sam's land, fine. But don't expect me to be satisfied by the "solutions" that come from such a limited vision. UPDATE: The above grafs were more of a rant than most posts on this blog are. It sharply put forward my opinion on one of the main issues related to Nader's candidacy, but was not a complete assessment. For the record, I think Nader running as an independent, as opposed to as the candidate of the Green Party, is problematic because it lessens the potential for leaving behind institutions, and Nader is delusional if he thinks he could actually win. Nader's gambit of not running on social issues is interesting, but I'm doubtful if it will pay off politically or ethically. Most importantly, while I think there is merit to Nader's critique of corporate power, I suspect that the "war on terror" will be the biggest issue in this campaign and I'm doubtful that Nader's criticisms of it will be particularly to the point. 2:35 p.m. 02/23/04 UPDATE #2: Last night I watched CSPAN's broadcast of Nader's responses yesterday to questions from reporters. Unlike more mainstream prez candidates Nader neither looks particularly happy nor talks as if his election would solve most of the problems they want to solve. These qualities, along with the realities of the electoral system, probably ensure that Nader will never gain much popular support. *** It would be such a shame if Kerry isn't elected. Such a shame. It might be the worst moment ever, and I do mean ever. 8:48 a.m. 02/24/04 Sunday, February 22, 2004
We care a lot like Faith No More Once upon a time Al Haig was at least as much the Secretary of State as he was a punch line and the policy of the U.S. government was that fighting terrorism and protecting human rights were not one in the same, and that the former was more important. Now, however, the U.S. knows better and fighting terrorism and promoting human rights, freedom, democracy and all sorts of other good things is seen as mutually inclusive activities. This change hasn't been the result of a linear change. As Rodger A. Payne has noted, Bush campaigned in 2000 on the idea that the U.S. military should only be used to defend U.S. interests, not human rights as Bush said the Clinton Administration had done. At the same time, the Persian Gulf War in 1991, which was run by the current president's father, in the words of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire (Harvard University Press, 2000), "presented the United States as the only power able to manage international justice, not as a function of its own national motives but in the name of global right." The exact course that U.S. policy took to achieve this change isn't as important as that beyond any doubt it became part of the rhetoric of the "war on terror" at the very start of that "war." This past November 6 Bush said: Liberty is both the plan of Heaven for humanity, and the best hope for progress here on Earth.Or so the Bush Administration wants us to believe. Too bad they can't make this argument with any sort of consistency. In the same speech, Bush says, " For the Palestinian people, the only path to independence and dignity and progress is the path of democracy." And, two days ago, the Haig of today said, "We hope other governments, too, like Syria, will realize that chemical weapons and other WMD programs won’t make their countries safer, their people more prosperous, or their own hold on power more secure. To the contrary. It goes in the other direction." Lady Liberty cares about the second half of her name just enough so as to give those who are deemed to be the antithesis of what it wants tips on how to maintain their power. It isn't just in rhetoric that the Bush Administration has problems carrying through on promoting freedom. In a statement from Monday, the International Institute for Strategic Studies writes: President George W Bush’s administration has on many occasions, since 11 September 2001 argued that when governments respect both the rule of law and human rights, the contribute to a world where terrorism cannot thrive. For this reason, as well as the US commitment to the promotion of its values, the US claims that it will not relax its vigilance when it comes to the advancement of human rights. However, since 11 September there are many examples that suggest the US has compromised its stance in the sphere of human-rights promotion, as it searches for military bases, intelligence cooperation and political support in the struggles against terrorism.Kim Sengupta of The Independent has more on the IISS's findings. A February 18 report by Carl Conetta of the Project on Defense Alternatives makes it clear that the U.S. military has worked to keep knowledge of how many civilians have been killed by the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq from impacting public discourse. If Bush and friends actually cared, they would want to know what impact their actions were having and they would want others to know as well. After all, it was Bush who, in the same November 6 speech quoted above, said, "Successful societies limit the power of the state and the power of the military -- so that governments respond to the will of the people, and not the will of an elite." Saturday, February 21, 2004
Two examples of why Bill Hicks would not be pleased with the world and other notes Ten years ago this Thursday, February 26, the brilliant Bill Hicks passed away. Two examples of why Hicks would not be pleased... -As noted yesterday, there's this story: Jeremy Hinzman said he could barely stomach chanting "kill we will" during basic training and, as a Quaker, he didn't want to shoot anybody. But it was the thought of serving U.S. interests in Iraq that made the 82nd Airborne Division specialist flee to Canada last month.This is they type of thing that could have been avoided if Hinzman have heard Hicks scream about the military, "Aren't you a bunch of hired killers? Shut Up! You are thugs and when we want you to kill a bunch of brown people - we'll let you know!" (Chuck Simmins says hang Jeremy Hinzman. That seems a just a bit extreme to me.) -In Thursday's New York Post, William Neuman writes: Replicas of the nails used to hang Jesus on the cross have become the red-hot official merchandise linked to Mel Gibson's controversial new movie, "The Passion of the Christ.""A lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks," Hicks once said. "Do you think when Jesus comes back he ever wants to look at a fucking cross? It's kinda like going up to Jackie Onassis with a rifle pendant on. 'Just thinking of John, Jackie, just thinking of John. Just thinking of John, baby.'" *** Time may change my opinion but I think "The commercial war" is one of my better posts. *** I need to move. *** *** "The largest object to be discovered in the Solar System since Pluto was found in 1930 was spotted by a sky survey on Tuesday," NewScientist.com news service writes yesterday. "Tentatively called 2004 DW, the object lies beyond Neptune in the mysterious Kuiper Belt. This shadowy belt is a collection of primordial icy bodies which circle our Sun and are thought to be the remnants of planetary formation." *** "Confronting problems on critical fronts, the CIA recently removed its top officer in Baghdad because of questions about his ability to lead the massive station there, and has closed a number of satellite bases in Afghanistan amid concerns about that country's deteriorating security situation, according to U.S. intelligence sources," Greg Miller and Bob Drogin of The Los Angeles Times write in yesterday's edition. "The previously undisclosed moves underscore the problems affecting the agency's clandestine service at a time when it is confronting insurgencies and the U.S.-declared war on terrorism, current and former CIA officers say. They said a series of stumbles and operational constraints have hampered the agency's ability to penetrate the insurgency in Iraq, find Osama bin Laden and gain traction against terrorism in the Middle East." *** J Hoberman's "With God, and the Constitution, on His Side" is a fascinating look at the controversy that surrounded The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988. UPDATE: Michigan State 66 Next up, a road game against Michigan on Tuesday. *** That somebody got paid to write this is sad. *** In a February 4 story for The Dartmouth about a speech given by Lewis Lapham, Rebecca Leffler writes: Lapham proceeded to equate the war on terror to "declaring a war on an unknown enemy, an abstract noun. It's like declaring a war on lust." Thus, Lapham said, there is a great deal at stake in the upcoming election, which he referred to as an "urgent moment of national identity."While I certainly agree with the first part, this election doesn't seem all that important since it doesn't appear like it will lead to a change in course as far as the "war on terror" is concerned. This, on the other hand, seems to be on target: Late in his speech, Lapham stunned the crowd when he said: "The government in Washington does not bear any good will to the American people." He also spoke somewhat condescendingly of news anchor Peter Jennings, saying: "You have to think of Jennings along the lines of Donald Duck. If you understand that, it won't upset you."*** I'd like to believe that the Iraqi Resistance Solidarity Network is a joke. 2:16 p.m. 02/21/04 Friday, February 20, 2004
Advice to the Department of Defense's Information Ministers Josh Marshall has posted the Department of Defense's Talking Points - Iraq's WMD: February 12, 2004" (PDF) for all to see and not be impressed. The DOD ought to say, "We invaded Iraq to stop the threat posed Saddam. Everybody knows Saddam was a threat, or at least they ought to since, amazingly enough, you in the press didn't challenge that contention prior to the invasion. What we don't understand is your change of heart. Don't you still love us? The American people love us!" UPDATE: And now for some odds and ends... In a February 15 New York Times story on the evangelization efforts of Southern Baptists in New York City, David D. Kirpatrick writes: ...New York may also present the ultimate test of the Southern Baptists' evangelism. To many evangelical Christians and more than a few New Yorkers themselves, the city occupies a special place as something close to an American Babylon, perhaps the least Christian and most secular metropolis in the country. "I don't know if I thought of it as Sin City, but I knew it wasn't the closest place to God," Mr. Rourk said, diplomatically.I have no idea how anybody could reconcile a loving God with this eternal damnation. The concept of "free will" sounds nice, but why does God give a damn about it? Isn't it a bit odd that an all-powerful God would be bound by the constraints that humans face when dealing with other humans? (Of course, all of this just assumes that God has a good answer for, "why bother with creating anything?") *** This past February 15 was the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in New Jersey, Chris Newmarker reports in a February 16 AP story. *** yet another reason to not vote for John Kerry *** "Jeremy Hinzman said he could barely stomach chanting 'kill we will' during basic training and, as a Quaker, he didn't want to shoot anybody. But it was the thought of serving U.S. interests in Iraq that made the 82nd Airborne Division specialist flee to Canada last month," Julia Oliver writes in yesterday's The Fayetteville Observer. *** Why not ethnic cleansing for Iraq? It isn't like Uncle Sam cares what happens to those poor fucks or anything. "We only don't kill them all," Sam says, "because we are smart enough to know that would make us look bad." *** In a Wednesday story, the AP writes: The Bush administration is considering a major shift in its plan for transition to Iraqi self-rule, possibly extending and expanding the U.S.-appointed Governing Council so it can take temporary control of the country on July 1, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday.LMDL (laughing my disgusted laugh) 4:51 p.m. 02/20/04 Thursday, February 19, 2004
Acceptable risk: kudos to Rummy and quit insulting my intelligence On February 10, when asked "What does this devastating bombing today say about their ability to do that when you've trained tens of thousands of policemen to stop such attacks?" Rummy said perfect security is not obtainable: ...look at any city on the face of the Earth. Everyone's against homicide, and yet in every city -- major city on the face of the Earth, homicides occur every week...I suspect this was just a way to avoid answering a question, but Rummy deserves credit for implicitly acknowledging that the rhetoric of the Bush Administration, which Rummy is a part of, is wrong when it puts forward absolute security as an obtainable goal. The question that should arise from this is, what risk is acceptable? It won't be put forward or discussed, at least in part due to the near certainty that if it were, it would give the Democrats an easy, but unfair, way of saying that Team Bush is weak on security. But to just blame it on "politics" is to ignore the ways in which the Bush Administration uses this rhetoric to justify specific actions. When Bush says that as a result "of September the 11th, 2001, I will not take risks with the lives and security of the American people by assuming the goodwill of dictators," he is saying that invading Iraq was justified because not doing so meant taking a risk with Saddam while ignoring that he takes risks every day with all sorts of dictators. The Bush Administration, I suspect, believes that the general public and the mainstream media either doesn't care or can't/won't see this distortion. I suspect Bush and friends are right. *** *** The Bush campaign... claims... that Bush has proved himself as a competent and daring "war president." And yet his actions in Iraq, and the vicious attacks against anyone who disagrees with his administration's logic, give many veterans serious pause.I'm sure God is getting ready to punish Webb. Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Those WMDs once again In Saturday's edition of the Australian newspaper The Age, Mark Forbes writes: Intelligence agencies told the Federal Government in the weeks before the Iraq war that some of the Bush Administration's claims justifying an invasion were exaggerated, according to one of Australia's most senior intelligence officials."The head of the Defence Intelligence Organisation, Frank Lewincamp, has told a Senate committee he was the principal source for a report in Saturday's Age on assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," Brendan Nicholson writes in tomorrow's edition of The Age. "...Mr Lewincamp told a Senate committee last night that he recognised some of his statements in The Age's story. He said he did not make all the statements in the article." A little later in the story: Mr Lewincamp said he did not make and would never make some of the statements attributed to the official in the report.It be interesting to know what the U.S. government told Australia. A news.google.com search for "Frank Lewincamp" does not turn up any sources outside of Australia, FWIW. Tuesday, February 17, 2004
The sport of trying to make sense of the "war on terror" The threat posed by "the terrorists" and weapons of mass destruction has been said to have been so great that the U.S. needed to invade Iraq and set up a new government in that country. One could be excused for being shocked by a report on 60 Minutes this past Sunday, which revealed that there is plenty of reason to believe that security at "the nine nuclear weapons factories and research labs" in the U.S. is not anywhere near what it should be: ...a recent investigation by the government's General Accounting Office found that... security at these sites is inadequate.In fairness to the Department of Energy, which is responsible for security at these plants, it isn't as if there was a Cold War or anything. (I haven't been able to find the GAO report but POGO has done work on this topic.) While a similar lack of interest in the dangers of weapons of mass destruction in a case where greater interest would not lead to another war on the part of the Bush Administration has been noticed before, perhaps there is a reasonable explanation for this. It might have been necessary to divert valuable resources to the effort to make sure the invasion happened. "A joint British and American spying operation at the United Nations scuppered a last-ditch initiative to avert the invasion of Iraq," Peter Beaumont, Martin Bright and Jo Tuckman write in an important story in Sunday's Observer. (More on this story can be found here.) Or those resources could have been put into making sure Bush doesn't read everything. In the February 12 edition of USA Today, John Diamond writes: A classified U.S. intelligence study done three months before the war in Iraq predicted a problem now confronting the Bush administration: the possibility that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction might never be found.It would be an error to think that the answer would lie in unglamorous possibilities. A desire to crackdown on porn could be the culprit. Officials said the appointment of Bruce A. Taylor, who worked in the department during the heyday of its anti-porn efforts in the late 1980s and early '90s, shows that Justice is serious about cracking down on porn after what critics called lax enforcement by the Clinton administration...In addition to being an overture to the Christian Right, a new effort against pornography to get the support of people who have noticed the lack of porn in post-apocalyptic stories and concluded that the utopian possibilities of this period must be tied in with that. Then again, maybe the explanation is that securing nuclear weapons sites doesn't amount to war and thus isn't any fun for George and the boys. *** The rest of this post is an attempt to clean out bookmarks and may lack in the area of organization. *** Bush spent some time with the people of NASCAR over the weekend. This would be preaching to the choir if not for how ungodly those musical types can be. *** "British soldiers called hooded Iraqi detainees by footballers' names as they kicked and beat them, The Independent on Sunday has been told," Andrew Johnson and Robert Fisk write in Sunday's Independent. *** "Iraq's U.S. administrator suggested Monday he would block any move by Iraqi leaders to make Islamic law the backbone of an interim constitution, which women's groups fear could threaten their rights," Robert H. Reid of the AP writes. *** John Dean doesn't think much of Bush's commission to look into WMD intelligence. *** "The White House is declining to make public the financial histories of the commissioners President Bush appointed to investigate U.S. intelligence failures," Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times writes. *** Jonathan Yardley on James Baldwin *** *** In a story from Friday, Gary Schaefer of the AP writes: Near where the atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima, the faces of the victims silently appear and fade on a wall of television monitors in a relentless display of the attack's terrifying human toll.*** "Iraq's deposed dictator Saddam Hussein is unlikely to stand trial for at least another two years, the Guardian has learned," Rory McCarthy writes in yesterday's Guardian. "The Iraqi special tribunal for crimes against humanity is months away from hearing its first case, and when the trials begin in October or November the first defendants to appear will be high-ranking Ba'ath party officials." *** Tessa DeCarlo of The New York Times profiles Sophie Crumb. *** Mahmood Mamdani's "Why the US practises double standards" is a bit weak on dates and, much more importantly, implies that the U.S. did not support authoritarian rightist regimes prior to Reagan's presidency. *** The Central Intelligence Agency and terrorists that are part of "the terrorists" *** Larry David's "My War" is entertaining, and I say that as someone who does not like Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm. (I strongly dislike the former, FWIW.) *** *** *** "Christians, Let's Take Back Our Nation" *** Jeff Jarvis is apparently unable or unwilling to see that "terrorism" and the U.S. are connected in ways that go beyond being adversaries. I just hope we can survive what Jarvis calls "Mexican soccer holligans." *** "The teenagers of Ardoyne talk about suicide in the most shockingly matter-of-fact way, recalling the friends who have killed themselves. Many also talk of how they often think of killing themselves," David McKittrick writes in today's Independent. "The Northern Ireland war is supposed to be over but this tough north Belfast Catholic ghetto goes on counting its dead, with young people continuing to go to early graves because of the remnants of paramilitarism." Militarism is always dangerous due to its ability to become the one thing it should not be, a way of life. At the same time, events in Haiti show the fallacy of believing that an outside force is capable of entering and forcing a solution upon societies that have no resolved on their own. (This idea shows up in a variety of place, including the argument that democracy in Iraq will lead to democracy throughout the Arab world and Slavoj Zizek's in many ways brilliant Welcome to the Desert of the Real (Verso, 2002). Sometimes a society has to sort its self out. *** With remarkable speed, renting videotapes has become passé. Instead, buying DVDs has become popular. You can play them anywhere, on portable devices, in the minivan, on your laptop. You can burn copies with a computer or digital recording device. And DVDs are comparatively cheap. By the time you go to Blockbuster, rent a movie, and pay the late fees on the video you forgot to return, you're half way to owning a DVD. Driving to a video store—twice—to deal with a single movie is a supremely inconvenient transaction.I don't understand people. *** Bryan Curtis of Slate on "The roots of Bush's Daytona strategy" *** The BBC writes (February 10): Foreign troops must target traffickers if Afghanistan is to win its war on drugs, a senior UN official says.Mother Jones has more. *** Jane Mayer on "What did the Vice-President do for Halliburton?" *** Here are some interviews with Gilbert Achcar, Kathy Acker, Sami Al-Deeb, Theodore W. Allen, Tariq Ali, Isabel Allende, Martin Amis, David Aguilar, Gregg Araki, Hanan Ashrawi, Sherman Austin, Anthony Aziz, Jean Baudrillard, Greg Bear, Walden Bello, Peter Berger, William Blum, Neve Campbell, John Carlos, Margaret Cho, Larry Clark, Sofia Coppola, Roger Corman, Ernest Crichlow, Barry Crimmins, Clare Danes, Gretta Duisenberg, Johanna Drucker, Umberto Eco, Ntone Edjabe, Barbara Ehrenreich, Carl Elliott, Norman Finkelstein, Joe Gage, Neil Gaiman, John Gerassi, Paul Giamatti, Terry Gilliam, Adam Goldberg, Fe'lix Guattari, Che Guevara, Günter Grass, Michael Hardt, Louise Hassing, Peter Hedges, Edward Herman, Jaime Hernandez, Christopher Hitchens, Michael Hudson, Eric Idle, Fredric Jameson, Ben Katchor, Sam Keith, Paul Krassner, Nancy Kress, Jean Laplanche, Geert Lovink, Rahul Mahajan, Sarat Maharaj, Mike Marqusee, Ray McGovern, David Meggysey, Russ Meyer, Evo Morales, Tom Morello, Johan Norberg, Tim O'Brien, Patton Oswalt, John Pilger, Melinda Rackham, George Ritzer, Edward W. Said, Danny Schechter, Hideaki Sena, Wallace Shawn, R.U. Sirius, Sam Smith, Annie Sprinkle, David Suzuki, Serj Tankian, Alex Villar, Sarah Vowell, Malcolm X, Michael Yates, Patrice Zappa and Slavoj Zizek UPDATE: Tom Izzo once again shows himself to be a class act. From today's Lansing State Journal, Joe Rexrode looks at Shannon Brown and "Spartan fast break: A weekly wrap-up and look ahead." *** Robert Chalmers profiles Randy Newman in this past Sunday's Independent: A front of cynicism - in the music, as in the man - conceals a smouldering rage at injustice and bigotry. In 1972 he released his study of US foreign policy, "Political Science": "No one likes us, I don't know why/We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try/But all around even our old friends put us down/ Let's drop the big one and pulverise them/ Asia's crowded and Europe's too old/Africa is far too hot and Canada's too cold/And South America stole our name/Let's drop the big one, there'll be no one left to blame us..."Maybe Rummy attended too many Lakers games. Newmans's official site, randynewman.com, features a journal. "The wind is howling outside my window and I must take it to the streets," he says. *** "As the violence continued in Iraq yesterday, the head of the American occupation administration admitted the US was waiting for the United Nations to find a way out of the impasse on handing over power to Iraqis. Speaking on two American talk shows, Paul Bremer admitted the US was now pinning its hopes on the UN, an organisation it had written off as irrelevant at the time of the invasion of Iraq. Rejected by the Americans and forced to flee Iraq last year after two bombings, the UN is suddenly back in the frame in Iraq," Justin Huggler writes in yesterday's Independent. *** "Plans to plough up to €2bn (£1.3bn) a year of EU cash into defence and security research were presented yesterday, raising the prospect of Europe spending as much as the US Department of Homeland Security," writes Stephen Castle in today's Independent. *** "Tony Blair's plan to lower the burden of proof for prosecuting terrorists and gangland criminals will lead to innocent people being sent to prison, the head of the body that reviews miscarriages of justice has warned," Robert Verkaik writes in yesterday's Independent. "Professor Graham Zellick, the new chairman of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), said the move would mean a return to the flawed convictions of the 1970s and 1980s." Brendan O'Neill of Spiked has more on Britain's defense of freedom, as does the BBC. *** Peter M. Nichols looks at some movies that have just made it to DVD in today's New York Times. I'm amazed that Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar (1954) is only available as a region 2 DVD. I mean I know the French love Ray, as they should, but that doesn't excuse the rest of us. *** Michael E. Grost's "Classic Film and Television homepage" is worth a look if the subject matter described in the title interests you. Grost argues that the study of auteurs and genres are can got together in "Auteurism and Genre Studies." What's interesting about this is I, a younger person, never doubted this and in fact consider some of the great genre projects such as Charlie Chaplin's mutual shorts, John Ford's The Searchers (1956) and Jean-Luc Godard's À bout de souffle (1960) to be the work of auteurs. Could there be a conflict? Yes, of course, but given the similarities of the recording material and the source material, there is plenty of room for overlap. *** In today's New York Times, Marc Lacey writes: It was 10 years ago that members of Rwanda's ethnic Hutu majority went on a rampage, killing their countrymen in a 100-day fury that left bodies strewn along roadsides, floating down rivers and piled up in churches, stadiums and schools. An estimated 800,000 people, Tutsis and moderate Hutus, died in the frenzy of ethnic animosity, fueled by an extremist government known for the motto "Hutu Power."*** Human cloning may still be a long way off, Stephen S. Hall reports in today's New York Times. *** I wish I could make sense of this. *** riverbend marks the Amiriyah Shelter massacre, which happened 13 years ago. *** In an AP story from this past Friday, Ken Guggenheim writes: The Bush administration is hampering efforts to improve intelligence by clinging to the false hope that weapons of mass destruction may be found in Iraq, the former chief U.S. weapons inspector said Thursday.*** *** "Most members of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council no longer support the Bush administration's plan to choose an interim government through caucuses and instead want the council to assume sovereignty until elections can be held, several members have said," Rajiv Chandrasekaran writes in today's Washington Post. They want more power. Fancy that. I suspect they will "their way." (more) *** *** The first is to expand the Governing Council from 25 to 100 members to make it more representative.*** The Feminist Majority Foundation is calling on people to "Send a message to the Bush Administration that the recent move to cancel current family laws and to place family law under the jurisdiction of Islamic (sharia) law [in Iraq] is unacceptable." There is undoubtedly something unsavory about feminists, or anyone else from the outside, trying to make sure that Iraq turns out as they want it to. At the same time, such a process is going on, so those who attempt to move things into a better direction are arguably not the cause of the problem so much as they are a product of U.S. control of Iraq in the same way that a vaccine is a product of a disease. It wouldn’t exist if not for which it is designed to ameliorate or destroy. *** "U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that almost all of the Iraqi defectors whose information helped make the Bush administration's case against Saddam Hussein exaggerated what they knew, fabricated tales or were 'coached' by others on what to say," Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay of Knight Ridder write in a story from Saturday. (If that link is expired, you can try to find the story by clicking here.) *** In Sunday's New York Times, Elaine Sciolino writes: RAN is embroiled in one of the most serious crises it has faced since clerics seized the palaces of kings in Tehran and declared an Islamic republic a quarter century ago.*** *** "Aid agencies have warned of a humanitarian crisis in Haiti, which is on the brink of a civil war between rebel forces and armed supporters of the president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide," Tash Shifrin of The Guardian writes today. "In a joint statement, 15 UK and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), including ActionAid and Oxfam, have warned that the economy is collapsing, with a threat to food supplies as transport breaks down exacerbated by a doubling in the price of petrol." *** "[M]ob rule" exists in the Haitian city of St Marc, according to Gary Younge's first-hand report in Saturday's Guardian. *** "Haitian rebels seeking to topple President Jean-Bertrand Aristide have brought in reinforcements from the neighbouring Dominican Republic, including an alleged former death squad leader [Louis-Jodel Chamblain] and a former police chief [Guy Philippe] accused of fomenting a coup, according to witnesses," Ian James writes in yesterday's Guardian. "The rebellion, which broke out nine days ago in Gonaives, 70 miles (112km) northwest of Port-au-Prince, has so far killed some 50 people. Although the rebels are still thought to number less than Haiti's 5,000-member police force, their ranks have been strengthened by paramilitary leaders and police living in exile in the Dominican Republic." *** ...Haiti is one of those places where the news is usually either bad, or very bad. At present, amid an upsurge in violent attempts to unseat President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, it falls into the latter category. Looked at up close, Haiti is a deeply depressed, deeply dysfunctional society. Its people live, for the most part, in abject poverty. Two-thirds of the 3.6m workforce has no formal jobs and no skills. About half the 8m population is illiterate; less than 70% complete primary education. Average life expectancy is 52 years; only 3.7% make it to 65 or over, and HIV/Aids infection rates are rising. Haiti has few natural resources; its economy is mainly agricultural. Its budget is in deficit and its external debt runs into billions of dollars. Haiti receives a mere $120m in annual economic aid. Britain chips in £125,000.One could hope that this insignificance could open up a space for Haiti to develop and solve its own problems, but the simple fact is that self-sufficiency is impossible. Control and neglect may lead to different results, but either way the story is sad. 4:25 p.m. 02/17/04 UPDATE #2: It wasn't beautiful but Michigan State beat Purdue 62-55 tonight. *** Somebody needs to tell Jeff Shelman that even the best of Tom Izzo's teams looked left for dead at some point. *** Ward Sutton's cartoon "Bush Answers Questions With More Questions" is highly inaccurate. The press doesn't point out that Bush is dodging their questions. *** Joy Press of The Village Voice invasive t.v. programs From the same publication, Cynthia Cotts on capaigndesk.org and J. Hoberman on The Magnificent Ambersons *** "The Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, yesterday angrily accused the United States of being behind a 2002 coup and of helping continuing opposition attempts to overthrow him," Alexandra Olson writes in tomorrow's edition of The Independent "Mr Chavez said the US Government was providing millions of dollars to Venezuelan groups." I love this part of Olson's article: A visit to Venezuela on Monday by Peter DeShazo, US deputy assistant Secretary of State for western hemisphere affairs, was part of the campaign "to try to destabilise Venezuela", Mr Chavez said. The US official urged the election authorities not to use technicalities to invalidate petitions demanding a recall referendum that could lead to a new presidential election.Listen you stupid spics, it is not enough to have a democracy. You have to do it our way! 10:04 p.m. 02/17/04 |