IMPERIAL HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE EAST

by Maps of War





















Who has controlled the Middle East over the course of history? Pretty much everyone. Egyptians, Turks, Jews, Romans, Arabs, Persians, Europeans...the list goes on. Who will control the Middle East today? That is a much bigger question.

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WHAT TO DO ABOUT IRAN?

by Ivan Eland, Consortium News




The conventional wisdom for dealing with Iran is demanding repeatedly that the Iranians end their uranium enrichment program, and slapping on new sanctions.

Although the December 2006 United Nations Security Council sanctions that banned countries from exporting nuclear and missile materials and technology to Iran probably were prudent, widening the sanctions outside the nuclear and missile areas is a mistake.

Broadening the sanctions changes their main purpose from being instrumental to being merely punitive. Although any kind of sanction is prone to evasion, an instrumental embargo which attempts to deny Iran the materials and technology needed to make a nuclear weapon and to deliver long distances via a missile could at least slow Iranian acquisition of such ingredients, or raise the price to do so.

A comprehensive ban on weapons sales, cutting off loans to the Iranian government, and freezing the assets of important Iranian individuals and institutions have little to do with keeping Iran from getting nuclear and missile materials and technology. Thus, widening the measures beyond this narrow purpose turns sanctions into punitive symbolism.

Such punishment seems misplaced when no conclusive proof yet exists that Iran has an illegal nuclear weapons program. Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has a right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. Although there are reasons to suspect that Iran has an illegal nuclear weapons program, it has not been proven.

Unfortunately, permanent members of the U.N. Security Council—their own sizeable nuclear arsenals being their major qualification for membership in the body—seem in the eyes of many nations to be hypocritical for seeking to deny Iran a nuclear capability.

The United States’ credibility was further reduced when it cut a deal to provide nuclear fuel and technology to India, a state with nuclear weapons which has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Also, the United States provides billions in assistance to its allies Israel and Pakistan, both nuclear weapons states which have also spurned the treaty.

For these reasons, U.S. leadership in the U.N. Security Council to punish the Iranians for ostensibly legal activities creates a “rally-around-the-flag” effect in Iran. Although not as pronounced as it would be if the United States were to conduct air strikes against Iran, sanctions do allow the Iranian regime to create an external enemy in order to win more support from Iran’s restive, youthful population, which is disaffected with the Iranian government’s austere Islamic rule.

Moreover, any broader measures intended to commercially isolate Iran from the world would be a move toward shutting off the very ideas that could eventually topple the despotic regime. Ideas subversive to the regime’s hold on power accompany Western products and technologies into Iran.

Even many opponents of U.S. military action against Iran approve of broader sanctions as an apparent substitute for war. History shows, however, that sanctions can instead lead to war. Once the punitive road is selected, when sanctions fail—as they often do—to have the desired effect on the target country, pressure for military action can intensify.

Two examples spring immediately to mind. When stringent financial sanctions against the Panamanian regime of Manuel Noriega embarrassingly failed to depose him, President George H.W. Bush then felt overwhelming pressure to oust him militarily—which he did, through an invasion of Panama in 1989.

That same president went to war with Saddam Hussein in 1991, when the most comprehensive and grinding sanctions in world history failed to compel Saddam to withdraw Iraqi troops from Kuwait. Thus, starting down the road of broader punitive sanctions may lead ultimately to war with Iran.

Instead, Iran should be given positive incentives to forgo its nuclear weapons program. If the Iranians forswear their uranium enrichment efforts, the United States should offer to reintegrate Iran into the world, economically and politically, and sign a pact pledging not to attack that nation.

Given that Iran lives in the vicinity of a nuclear Israel, and has other potentially hostile neighbors, even this offer may not make the Iranians willing to give up their nuclear program.

As the United States accepted and deterred a nuclear China in the 1960s, when radical Mao Zedong was at its helm, it may ultimately have to accept and deter, with the world’s most potent nuclear arsenal, a nuclear Iran.

History shows that when countries get nuclear weapons they usually moderate their behavior—for example, China, India, and Pakistan have become more responsible internationally after going nuclear. Like the governments in these other countries, the first aim of the Iranian regime is to survive and stay in power. Threatening a superpower with thousands of warheads would put that important goal at risk.

In sum, a strategy of negotiation with positive incentives, and deterrence if that fails, is superior to broad, punitive sanctions that only make the autocratic Iranian regime stronger.

Ivan Eland is Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute and Assistant Editor of The Independent Review. Dr. Eland has been Director of Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, Principal Defense Analyst at the Congressional Budget Office, Evaluator-in-Charge (national security and intelligence) for the U.S. General Accounting Office, and Investigator for the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

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The Grim Reaper Settles Down in Iraq

by Malik Isasis









Last year Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad estimated that 655,000 Iraqis were killed since the U.S. invasion in March 2003. The British and US governments publicly criticized the report on its methodology. The corporate media while under reporting the violence and deaths, also criticized the report as an over estimation.

On March 27, 2007 The Independent reported that government advisers had agreed that the two universities had in fact, used sound methods in its estimation. The British Ministry of Defense, Roy Anderson stated that the universities' methodology in the study was 'robust.'

Researchers now say that the real number lay between 392,979 and 942,636.

Death of a City

655,000 is a significant number of people to meet an untimely death. The population of Washington D.C. is approximately 550,000 people. Now imagine, if every single person in Washington D.C. was killed off, or in Seattle where the population is 550,000.

A whole city has been killed off.

Millions more are leaving Iraq for neighboring countries. The violence is suffocating and slowly bleeding the life out of Iraq’s middle, and educated classes.

Iraq has become a quicksand of death and destruction with no end in sight. While the bloodletting takes center stage, behind the curtains, oil conglomerates rob the country of its natural resources.

Media Critic on Why It’s Only Getting Worse

by Jeff Cohen



Selected excerpts from “Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media,” by Jeff Cohen:


I know TV news better than I ever wanted to. I started appearing as a guest on CNN in the 1980s when it was the only news channel on cable. But CNN attracted competitors, as others saw how easy and relatively cheap it could be to spatter “news” across 24 hours. Over the years, I’ve been a pundit on all three such channels: I got my feet wet at CNN, waded halfway in at Fox News, where I appeared each week for five years—and then became completely submerged at MSNBC, where I was a producer and pundit until terminated for political reasons three weeks before the Iraq war.

What I found inside cable news was a drunken exuberance for sex, crime and celebrity stories, matched by a grim timidity and fear of offending the powers-that-be—especially if the powers-that-be are conservatives. The biggest fear is of doing anything that could get you, or your network, accused of being liberal.

I also found in cable news a passion for following the media pack (sometimes resembling a lynch mob)—whether in pursuit of a sex scandal or war. And a fear of finding yourself alone, asking questions no one else is asking.

Cable news is in the business of entertainment, using traditional Hollywood genres to attract viewers: lurid crime drama (O.J., JonBenet, Laci Peterson), sex farce (Clinton/Lewinsky), suspense thriller (Beltway sniper), war (with special theme music and graphics).

Once upon a time, TV news put journalists on camera. Today, cable news has on-air “talent”—who are “cast,” not just hired. A Walter Cronkite would have big trouble getting a job today in TV news. But an actor? No problem. CNN a few years ago cast a former actress from “NYPD Blue” as one of its “Headline News” anchors. At Fox News, where lip gloss and blond hair go further than a background in journalism, I could find no proof to the charge that executives reviewed audition tapes of potential female anchors with the sound turned off.

* * *

Schooled in the protocols of cable news, the Bush administration brilliantly exploited the medium’s worship of live events. When I was at MSNBC in 2002/2003, I witnessed producers nearly orgasm at word that the White House would soon be serving up a photo-op or briefing. Upon hearing of these events—called “pressers”—all else is put on hold to assure that the second the administration event starts, MSNBC and the other news channels are ready to air it live.

Team Bush might schedule a White House press secretary’s briefing ("the president stands tough against terrorism") ... followed by a Pentagon briefing ("war on terror is on track") ... followed by an afternoon speech from President Bush in front of a patriotic flag backdrop and cheering handpicked crowd ... followed by a briefing on the latest terrorism arrest or scare from the Justice Department or Homeland Security. Through its ability to dictate the rhythms of the news day, the White House’s often singular view of reality would air at length in near monologue fashion.

As I sat at my MSNBC desk watching Bush or a top associate carry on, I knew painfully well that my network would not be following the administration event with a critical view, no matter how dubious or manipulative were the official claims. To do so—to practice actual journalism—might prompt the dreaded charge of “liberal bias.”

Dominance of the media agenda bred contempt at the White House for facts and journalism. In a conversation with author Ron Suskind during this period, an anonymous senior Bush adviser dismissed journalists and others of “the reality-based community”—explaining, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality ... we’ll act again, creating other new realities.”

And actual journalism might undermine the “show.” Stars might refuse to appear on your channel. Big “gets” from the White House would be found only on rival programs.

When Phil Donahue toughly interviewed big-name guests, MSNBC execs were petrified that the VIPs would be offended and not make return engagements. They’d complain that Phil was “badgering” the guests. “Access is everything in Washington,” Phil later told a reporter. “If you’re the executive producer at one of the big news shows and you piss off Karl Rove, you’re not going to get Condi or Rummy or any of those guests who would legitimize your show as a serious, important program.”

* * *

On MSNBC’s “Donahue,” we once booked foreign policy critic Ramsey Clark as an in-studio guest. The former U.S. attorney general denounced Bush’s Iraq policy. Soon after, I was told it wasn’t supposed to happen; MSNBC bosses had Clark on some sort of blacklist.

* * *

Not all “weapons experts” got it wrong before the Iraq invasion. In the last months of 2002, Scott Ritter told any audience or journalist who would hear him that Iraqi WMD represented no weapons threat to our country. “Send in the inspectors,” urged Ritter, “don’t send in the Marines.”

It’s telling that in the run-up to war, no American TV network hired any on-air analysts from among the experts who questioned White House WMD claims. None would hire Ritter.

Inside MSNBC in 2002, Ritter was the target of a smear that he was receiving covert funds from Saddam Hussein’s government. The slur, obviously aimed at reducing his appearances, insinuated that Ritter’s views were not genuine and heartfelt, but procured. The “covert funding” charge surfaced repeatedly at MSNBC, especially when we sought to book Ritter as a guest on “Donahue.”

The irony is that MSNBC at the time regularly featured another commentator who would soon be receiving covert government funds. The covert funder was the Bush administration, specifically its Education Department—which, beginning in 2003, paid pundit Armstrong Williams nearly a quarter-million dollars to promote Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act. The Bush team broke its promise to fully fund the Act but kept faith with the pundit. When I repeatedly debated Williams at MSNBC, I had no idea he’d become part of a No Pundit Left Behind program.

* * *


TV’s big broadcast networks were no more open to critical voices than cable news, as illustrated by FAIR’s study of the nightly newscasts on CBS, NBC, ABC and PBS in the week before and the week after Colin Powell’s bellicose U.N. Security Council presentation on Iraqi WMD. Powell’s February 2003 speech was built on obvious exaggerations and falsehoods. But nightly news viewers would have been largely clueless. Of the 393 people interviewed about Iraq during those crucial weeks, only three were antiwar advocates. That’s a fraction of 1 percent—a nondebate, at a time when polls showed half the country opposing a rush to war.

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DEEP FRIED REVOLUTION

by Malik Isasis












Exotic southern food was spread out on the floor in bowls: deep fried catfish, flapjack cornbread, spicy black beans, rice, yams, fruit and collard greens. Six of us sat Indian-style around the food on the floor. My friends Lin and Amber decided that they wanted to get some of their closest friends together over some soul food and discuss, “What would it take to make a better world?”

The 8 questions that were posed to the group were:

1. What would it take to make a better world?
2. What is the role of the individual in a social movement?
3. Is social evolution, or revolution possible?
4. What would be the elements of such a movement?
5. What’s wrong with the current social political climate?
6. What would the structure and goals of a social (R)evolution look like?
7. What would the core values of such a movement be?
8. Where do we start?


There was one person amongst us who’d witnessed many of the great empowerment movements of the 60s and early 70s that included the Gay Rights Movement, Women’s Movement, Civil Rights Movement, and Vietnam Anti-War Movement. His observation was that the United States educational system not only churns out worker bees, but teaches complacency, and obedience and that if there were to be a revolution, the overthrow of a political system, there would have to be an evolution, of how we teach children, and how we teach.

Everyone had insightful things to say about some of the root causes of political and social decay, for instance, the youngest person at the meeting discussed the culture of consumption, which convinces people to buy things that they don’t need, therefore, keeping them in debt and staying in jobs they hate.

The most powerful argument discussed by all was the culture of individualism in America, which fragments family and communities. Rugged individualism, which is defined as a belief in the importance of the individual and the virtue of self-reliance and personal independence over community, was the American fallacy used in the expansion of the country. This mythos is still a very influential philosophy in American culture, just look as Bush's governance.

If everyone is an individual, it is easier to divide and conquer dissent among the people.

Pro-active rather than Reactive

I would like to hear from you about your ideas in response to the 8 questions. How do we create a more responsive, pro-active revolution, which addresses the political disparity between the people and the political machinery?

Please write and I’ll post your ideas and comments. If you have a very long critique, email them to me at malikisasis@yahoo.com. I hope to hear from you.

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SYMPATHY FOR BEGINNERS

by Malik Isasis






















Sympathy is defined as the capacity to share feelings, the ability to enter into, understand, or share somebody else’s feelings. The lack of this emotion in Bush’s and Cheney’s emotional repertoire and the abundance of apathy has resulted in mass death and destruction, political corruption and pathological lying.

We know that Bush and Cheney can love; they love their family and their close friends—although they are known for throwing the friends overboard if they need to lighten the load of the perennial boat that’s up the creek without a paddle. They can usually break through their narcissism briefly, but only for the people they love. For the rest of us…well, we get the finger.

I have used so many analogies of Bush’s narcissism that it’s difficult to think of more creative ones.

Bush is like a child with two teddy bears and he is asked to share one of them with another child who doesn’t have one.

“No!” Baby Bush says.

Okay, this is normal—this is fine, there are some children who are naturally selfish, however, this is the point in which the parents step in and teach one to share with others because it’s the right thing to do, and two, because it’s embarrassing as hell to have a child who won’t share an extra teddy bear with another child in front of another parent. This lesson is often reinforced all throughout the formative years, right? This builds sympathy.

Apathy, the inability to feel normal or passionate human feelings or respond emotionally, is built in several ways, but the way it was built in George Bush’s scripted life was through his failure at every profession he has pursued. He failed in school and ended up in Yale and in Harvard; he failed as an oilman, but somehow ended up a millionaire. He failed as a businessman but somehow became the owner of a professional baseball team; he failed at being a politician but ended up governor of Texas and eventually the President of the United States.

There’s nothing in Bush’s aristocratic narrative to suggest greatness—quite the opposite, but there is a common thread and that is Bush’s father picking up the broken pieces left in Bush’s destructive wake. Bush senior always made sure his baby boy was a success. As I said before, Bush senior has failed Bush junior because Bush junior was never allowed to feel the failure, and develop an emotional connection to it and grow from it, rather Bush senior protected his son from what most of us struggle with frequently, and that is failure, disappointment and sometimes success. It is failure and disappointment which grounds us—of course these feelings aren’t pleasant, but they make us better people because we can enjoy the moments of success when they come around.

Bush has a distorted view of the world in which he operates. He has slipped on banana peels all the way up the ladder of success, and doesn’t even appreciate the hired hands that catch him when he falls.

During the Republican Party absolute power hold for some six years, they and the corporate media have offered their breasts for Bush to suckle on, to coddle his narcissism—they were just like Pop: he break things, steal things and kill people and someone else pick up the pieces.

Since the Democratic Party took hold of Congress and is starting to hold Bush accountable for his decisions with subpoenas, he is acting out like an undisciplined child, claiming Executive Privilege, left, right and center. Of course it makes sense that he would cry privilege, right? What else does he know? If the Democrats hold true to their word, Bush for the first time will have to account for his failure and like the rest of us, he will have to spend sometime with those feelings.


From the mouth of babes

Here is an email sent to me by a friend. I think Bush and the Republican Party can learn a lot about love and sympathy from these 4-8 year children in this questionnaire.


A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, "What does love mean?"
The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:

"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore.
So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love."
Rebecca- age 8

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different.
You just know that your name is safe in their mouth."
Billy - age 4


"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other."
Karl - age 5

"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs."
Chrissy - age 6

"Love is what makes you smile when you're tired."
Terri - age 4

"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK."
Danny - age 7

"Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more.
My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss"
Emily - age 8

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen."
Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,"
Nikka - age 6 (we need a few million more Nikka's on this planet)

"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday."
Noelle - age 7

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well."
Tommy - age 6

"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling.
He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore."
Cindy - age 8

"My mommy loves me more than anybody
You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night."
Clare - age 6

"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken."
Elaine-age 5

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford."
Chris - age 7

"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day."
Mary Ann - age 4

"I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones."
Lauren - age 4

"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you." (what an image)
Karen - age 7

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross."
Mark - age 6 (gotta love that one)

"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget."
Jessica - age 8

And the final one -- Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge.
The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.

The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife.

Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.

When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said,
"Nothing, I just helped him cry"

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IRAQ & WASHINGTON'S SYSTEMIC FAILURE

by Robert Parry, Consortium News

















George W. Bush and Dick Cheney may deserve the most blame for the Iraq War, but a core reality shouldn’t be missed: the four-year-old conflict resulted from a systemic failure in Washington – from the White House, to congressional Republicans and Democrats, to an insular national news media, to Inside-the-Beltway think tanks.

It was a perfect storm that had been building for more than a quarter century, a collision of mutually reinforcing elements: aggressive Republicans, triangulating Democrats, careerist journalists, bullying cable-TV and talk-radio pundits, hard-hitting and well-funded think tanks on the Right versus ineffectual and marginalized groups on the Left.

“Tough-guy-ism” from Washington's armchair Rambos had become the capital's controlling ideology, especially after the 9/11 terror attacks. In part, the Iraq War could be viewed as a macho parlor game of one-upmanship gone mad, with very few daring to be called unmanly or un-American.

The war that has killed some 3,200 U.S. soldiers and possibly hundreds of thousands of Iraqis also can be traced to conflicting self-interests, pitting what makes sense for Washington insiders against what’s best for the broader American public and especially military families.

For the politicians and the think-tankers who wanted the invasion, the war was a win-win-win. They amassed greater power and influence; they had the vicarious thrill of dispatching armies into battle; their friends lined up for the gravy train of war profits and the chance to buy up lucrative oil fields.

While cashing in politically and financially, the insiders knew, too, that the human price would be paid by other people’s children and the dollar costs would be passed to future generations. In Washington, a pro-war stance in 2002 and early 2003 was nearly all upside, almost no downside.

However, for those who were sent to fight and for their families, the balance sheet was different. They suffered the casualties, the fear, the uncertainty, the heartbreak. But these two groups – the war’s architects and the troops – rarely crossed paths, representing two disparate social classes.

While American soldiers and their loved ones worried about actual death, what mattered most in Washington was political self-preservation.

Even though many in Washington understood the grave risks behind Bush’s invasion, it made more sense to join the pro-war herd. Even if the war went badly, there would be very little danger of career-threatening recriminations because too many important people were in the same position. There was safety in numbers.

The worst that might happen is that you’d have to make a muted mea culpa a few years later while shifting the blame away from yourself onto someone – say, Donald Rumsfeld – for his incompetent execution of the plan.

Ugly Names

By contrast, there was a risk if you stood up to Bush’s pro-war juggernaut in 2002 and early 2003. You’d get called ugly names; your career would suffer; you’d be treated like a pariah. Just ask the Dixie Chicks, former weapons inspector Scott Ritter and Al Gore.

Though fear of ostracism didn’t compare with the dangers faced by the troops, it’s noteworthy on this fourth anniversary of the war how few Washington insiders dared ask tough questions – and how few of those who helped mislead the nation into this foreign policy catastrophe paid any serious price.

President Bush may be a lot less popular but he’s still in the White House as is Vice President Cheney. Bush’s national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was elevated to Secretary of State. Other war architects, such as Elliott Abrams and Stephen Hadley, got promotions within the National Security Council.

Even the most notorious Iraq War screw-ups – former CIA director George Tenet, Gen. Tommy Franks and pro-consul Paul Bremer – got Medals of Freedom, the highest civilian honor that can be bestowed by the President.

Most pink slips went to officials who were not sufficiently enthusiastic about the Iraq War, from early skeptics like Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill to later doubters like Secretary of State Colin Powell. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld did get fired, but only after he sent the President a memo on Nov. 6, 2006, suggesting a phased military withdrawal. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Gates's Hearing Has New Urgency."]

The most significant accountability exacted on Washington insiders was Election 2006 when voters booted the Republicans from control of the House and Senate and replaced them with Democrats, who have restored some semblance of checks and balances. But even there, it’s not yet clear whether the change will be meaningful or just cosmetic.

The future may still be dominated by Iraq War supporters. All announced Republican presidential candidates, including Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, are backers, and Democratic front-runner, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, voted to give Bush the power to invade Iraq and still doesn’t favor a complete U.S. military withdrawal.

Clinton personifies the Democratic Party’s instinct for “triangulation,” the avoidance of principled stands in favor of nuanced positions that are calculated to be least offensive to the greatest number of people.

Whatever the Democrats who supported Bush’s war resolution say now, the most powerful motive behind their decision was the consultant-driven advice that a yes vote was the safest political choice. Indeed, a no vote was viewed by many Democratic consultants as political suicide for their clients.

In a way, Washington can be compared to a dysfunctional family with the Republicans playing the abusive husband and the Democrats the abused wife, who only recently has begun to speak up for herself.

Unaccountable Media

Yet, while Washington’s political hierarchy has changed only marginally in the past four years, the national news media has experienced even less accountability.

With the exception of New York Times reporter Judith Miller whose career imploded over her WMD credulity and Washington Post columnist Michael Kelly who died in a vehicle accident in Iraq, the disastrous Iraq War has caused little shake-up in the line-up of national pundits and top journalists.

One could even argue that the wrongheaded Washington pundits are more deeply entrenched today than they were when the invasion was launched on March 19, 2003. Today’s “smart” pundit position on Iraq is to have supported the invasion four years ago but to now complain about poor follow-through.

The few journalists and pundits who were skeptical about the invasion have gotten little reward for their foresight and courage. Washington’s powerful insider crowd generally regards them as “ideologues” or “partisans” who were only correct because their irrational hatred of Bush brought them to the right conclusion by accident.

In the up-is-down world of Washington, it was considered an act of courage to join the pro-war herd; conformity was independence; limited second thoughts about the war are now a sign of wisdom.

The national news media also has undergone very little structural change in the past four years. The Right continues to pour hundreds of millions – even billions – of dollars into building media outlets and creating content, from print to radio to TV to the Internet. This investment gives the Right a huge advantage in defining issues and setting the agenda.

Meanwhile, American liberals and progressives have yet to make anything close to that kind of commitment in terms of media infrastructure. [For more on this phenomenon, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.]

One of the few liberal broadcast initiatives, Air America Radio, already has undergone bankruptcy reorganization, and progressive Internet sites are mostly expected to somehow fend for themselves.

Yet, while it may be true that only limited progress has been made in reinvigorating the U.S. political/media structure, it can’t be denied that a significant change has occurred in public awareness of the problem.

Perhaps the most hopeful sign is that many Americans now understand how little the Washington insiders – whether in political office or in the news media – deserve to be trusted. That skepticism, if it is combined with serious demands for change, could be the start of a rebirth for the American Republic.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

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THE NAMESAKE

a film review by Malik Isasis

















On Saturday evening the weather was pretty miserable. Raining and cold, this is typical winter weather in Seattle, so I thought that I’d stay in and try to write. I sat for what seemed like an eternity in front of my computer screen, rereading and rewriting the same two paragraphs of some fictional work over and over again. This wasn’t working. I had no inspiration. No big deal, par for the course as they say. This is the life of a writer.

My phone rang. It was my friend Wazhma. She was calling to check in—is what she said, I say she was bored.

“I was calling to see what was up with you. Check in.” She said.

“I’m writing…trying to write. It’s more like I’m sitting on my ass, staring at my monitor.” I said.

“Anything exciting going on with you?” She asked. She asks me this question a lot, and I always feel obliged to say something fantastical, but I usually respond by saying, “No, things are pretty unremarkable since last we spoke. I’m still trying to make sense of my life.”

Eventually Wazhma got down to the crux of why she was calling.

“I was thinking I wanted to see a movie. There’s a South Asian Women’s Film Festival going, and I wanted to see the documentary, The Beauty Academy of Kabul.

Wazhma is originally from Afghanistan, born and raised part of her life in Kabul as a matter of fact.

“It starts at 7:30pm.”

I looked over at the clock: 8:15 PM.

“It’s like 8:15. I think you missed that one.” I said.

“I know. It’s been like this all day. Everything that I wanted to do, I missed out on because it’s just one of those days. I still want to see something.”

I suggested the film, The Namesake. The next screening was starting at 9:45pm and it was already 8:50, raining, and Saint Paddy’s Day. Traffic was miserable.

En Route to the theatre, Wazhma received a phone call.

“I got to take this, it’s my dad.” She answered the phone. After a moment she said into the phone.

“Dad, I’m sorry but I’m heading in the opposite direction. I’m heading north. If you’ve told me earlier, I would’ve been able to meet up with you…okay, bye.”

“Everything’s okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, he’s at the airport. His plane was delayed for an hour and he wanted me to come down and hang out with him for about 45 minutes.”

“Aww, that’s sweet.”

“He’s just bored—wants to kill some time.”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, I guess.” She said.

Okay, alright…on with the film review

Mira Niar’s 2001 film, Monsoon Wedding dealt with familial strife, deep dark secrets like molestation, a young Indian-American man who is cuckolded even before he exchanges vows that would bring his would-be bride to America. Nair is not afraid to air some dirty laundry. One does not go to Nair’s films for escapism; you must be prepared to do some work. Her stories are usually not so much plot driven, as they are character studies and personal journeys. Her overarching themes in most of her films deals with transitioning from South Asian culture to Western culture, and the sometimes-costly effects of assimilation on the different generations. This was a theme in her 1991 film Mississippi Masala concerning the transitioning of an Indian man’s love for his native Uganda and the realization that he can no longer go back home.

The thread of intercontinental transition picks up where Monsoon Wedding left off.

Ashoke Ganguli (Irrfan Khan), a meek young man hiding behind a huge pair of glasses, lies comfortably in a bunk in a dilapidated train, reading a novel by one of his favorite Russian novelist, Nikolai Gogol. It is 1974 and Ashoke is a student in Calcutta. As he tries to read an older gentlemen engages him in conversation about life in between swigs from his metal flask. The older gentleman, somewhat sauced, encourages Ashoke to get away from the books and travel, see the world.

Ashima (Tabu) is a young singer whose parents have been grooming her for marriage for what seems like most of her life. Just as a side note. The actress Tabu is a beautiful, full-figured woman with that je ne sais quois. It is hard to take your eyes off of her when she is on the screen. However, she transcends her beauty to render an emotionally present character with depth, dignity and vulnerability. When the young scholar Ashoke, now living in America, comes to the home of Ashima in India, we see their parents negotiating as if the two were cattle.

Ashima who’d turned down dozens of proposals, was sure she would this one. She told her young sister to watch and take note. She leaves her bedroom and on the way comes across Ashoke’s shoes near the door. She studies them for a moment, reading “Made in America” in the inner soles. Today it would read made in China, or Mexico, but I digress. She slides her feet into the shoes and walks around in them. It is at this moment, even without seeing him, she decides that she would accept this proposal.

The young couple leaves India for New York City, where it is dead of winter. Ashima is miserably homesick and is overwhelmed by her new surroundings. She writes home that one can get gas 24 hours a day, you do not have to boil the water and there is hot and cold water in the bath. In one scene that is both funny and heart breaking, Ashima fixes herself breakfast. A bowl of cereal, Rice Crispies. In an effort for comfort, she spoons a nice helping of red curry powder and nuts into the bowl of dry cereal and munches away.

It is winter in New York and Ashoke and Ashima are strangers in a strange land. They aren’t even friends, just a possibility. It is the coldness and the foreign culture, which brings them physically closer, and results in the conception of their son, Gogol Ganguli (Kal Penn).

While in the hospital, a hospital administrator stops by the room with paperwork stating that he needs the name of the baby for the birth certificate, without it the baby cannot be discharged from the hospital. The couple explains to the bureaucrat that they have to await a letter from the baby’s grandmother with the boy’s name. They ask if they could use a temporary name until the name arrives. The bureaucrat naturally rejects the idea. Ashoke and Ashima then gives the baby the temporary name of Gogol. At the age of four, young Gogol decides that he wants his temp name, Gogol, permanently. The name Gogol would haunt the young boy throughout his formative years. This would change as Gogol goes through four years of the American Baptism known as high school.

The couple also has a daughter Sonia, shortly after Gogol who’s played by Ms Nair’s own daughter, Sahira Nair.

The couple takes the kids back home to visit family and the Taj Mahal. It is in this particular moment that we see Ashoke and Ashima stare at each other with the deepest kind of love. There are no words necessary. This is another moving moment.

The story shifts focus from Ashoke and Ashima, to Gogol, who now is a professional architect and has changed his name to his permanent name, Nehil, in which he was warned would be bastardized into Nick. Nick’s assimilation is fully complete with an attractive white girlfriend (Jacinda Barrett) and the distancing from his culture and his parents, which is most heartbreaking after spending so much time with the parents.

Ashoke is the type of father I would have loved to have growing up. He was a man with great dignity and wisdom in his quiet advice. Everything that he did was in the service of his family. He was a gentle soul. He was graceful. He is the type of father I would like to be if I had children. Nair has a gift for these archetypes. In Mississippi Masala and in Monsoon Wedding, the fathers were all very vulnerable men who were not afraid of expressing their fears and pain to their wives. They weren't afraid to need their wives. Rarely is this trait portrayed in men in American cinematheque.

Although the movie runs at two hours and two minutes, many aspects of the film are rushed like Gogol’s girlfriend Maxine and his subsequent Indian wife, Moushumi (Zuleikha Robinson), even Gogol’s development and self-actualization. Ashoke and Ashima were so breathtakingly realized that supporting characters seemed thinly sketched.

The Namesake to me was about regret, missing opportunities, but redemption through being in the moment with those you love.

Movies to me are about moments, and this film has many moments. I measure films by how much they make me reflect. How long they stay with me long after leaving the theatre. This film made me think briefly of Wazhma’s father who, only a couple of hours before called up his daughter and asked to spend some time with her as he awaited for his plane to depart from the airport. It made me think of my own father, whom I never knew. It also made think of what type of father I would like to be.


GRADE: B

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Why Does The Times Recognize Israel's 'Right to Exist'?

by Saree Makdisi





















'AS SOON AS certain topics are raised," George Orwell once wrote, "the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: Prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse." Such a combination of vagueness and sheer incompetence in language, Orwell warned, leads to political conformity.

No issue better illustrates Orwell's point than coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the United States. Consider, for example, the editorial in The Times on Feb. 9 demanding that the Palestinians "recognize Israel" and its "right to exist." This is a common enough sentiment — even a cliche. Yet many observers (most recently the international lawyer John Whitbeck) have pointed out that this proposition, assiduously propagated by Israel's advocates and uncritically reiterated by American politicians and journalists, is — at best — utterly nonsensical.

First, the formal diplomatic language of "recognition" is traditionally used by one state with respect to another state. It is literally meaningless for a non-state to "recognize" a state. Moreover, in diplomacy, such recognition is supposed to be mutual. In order to earn its own recognition, Israel would have to simultaneously recognize the state of Palestine. This it steadfastly refuses to do (and for some reason, there are no high-minded newspaper editorials demanding that it do so).

Second, which Israel, precisely, are the Palestinians being asked to "recognize?" Israel has stubbornly refused to declare its own borders. So, territorially speaking, "Israel" is an open-ended concept. Are the Palestinians to recognize the Israel that ends at the lines proposed by the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan? Or the one that extends to the 1949 Armistice Line (the de facto border that resulted from the 1948 war)? Or does Israel include the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which it has occupied in violation of international law for 40 years — and which maps in its school textbooks show as part of "Israel"?

For that matter, why should the Palestinians recognize an Israel that refuses to accept international law, submit to U.N. resolutions or readmit the Palestinians wrongfully expelled from their homes in 1948 and barred from returning ever since?

If none of these questions are easy to answer, why are such demands being made of the Palestinians? And why is nothing demanded of Israel in turn?

Orwell was right. It is much easier to recycle meaningless phrases than to ask — let alone to answer — difficult questions. But recycling these empty phrases serves a purpose. Endlessly repeating the mantra that the Palestinians don't recognize Israel helps paint Israel as an innocent victim, politely asking to be recognized but being rebuffed by its cruel enemies.

Actually, it asks even more. Israel wants the Palestinians, half of whom were driven from their homeland so that a Jewish state could be created in 1948, to recognize not merely that it exists (which is undeniable) but that it is "right" that it exists — that it was right for them to have been dispossessed of their homes, their property and their livelihoods so that a Jewish state could be created on their land. The Palestinians are not the world's first dispossessed people, but they are the first to be asked to legitimize what happened to them.

A just peace will require Israelis and Palestinians to reconcile and recognize each other's rights. It will not require that Palestinians give their moral seal of approval to the catastrophe that befell them. Meaningless at best, cynical and manipulative at worst, such a demand may suit Israel's purposes, but it does not serve The Times or its readers.

And yet The Times consistently adopts Israel's language and, hence, its point of view. For example, a recent article on Israel's Palestinian minority referred to that minority not as "Palestinian" but as generically "Arab," Israel's official term for a population whose full political and human rights it refuses to recognize. To fail to acknowledge the living Palestinian presence inside Israel (and its enduring continuity with the rest of the Palestinian people) is to elide the history at the heart of the conflict — and to deny the legitimacy of Palestinian claims and rights.

This is exactly what Israel wants. Indeed, its demand that its "right to exist" be recognized reflects its own anxiety, not about its existence but about its failure to successfully eliminate the Palestinians' presence inside their homeland — a failure for which verbal recognition would serve merely a palliative and therapeutic function.

In uncritically adopting Israel's own fraught terminology — a form of verbal erasure designed to extend the physical destruction of Palestine — The Times is taking sides.

If the paper wants its readers to understand the nature of this conflict, however, it should not go on acting as though only one side has a story to tell.


Saree Makdisi, a professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA, writes frequently about the Middle East.

Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times

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THE WEATHERED WALL

by Malik Isasis
















If the Occupation of Iraq was going swimmingly, would Americans be against it? Are we against the occupation because we are losing it, or are we against it because the occupation is immoral?

Bush has boldly demanded $105 billion to keep funding the bloodletting in the Iraq Occupation—no strings attached. Earlier, the Democratic Party attached benchmarks such as time lines, training and equipment requirements for soldiers to the funding bill. However, the Republican Party blocked the requirements.

Bush then threatened a veto if the Democratic Party attached any benchmarks that would require troops to be properly equipped and trained before being shipped out to kill and occupy Iraqis.

Both the Democratic Party and the corporate media have been enablers who’ve allowed President Bush to gallop across the grassy hills on his white horse fighting imaginary windmills. Bush and Cheney’s misadventure has laid waste to hundred of thousands of lives, and for what? The security of Israel? Corporate Imperialism? Oil? What?

Why hasn’t the corporate media suggested that the politicians in the Republican Party are obstructionists? After all it is they who are blocking votes and filibustering legislation to protect Bush and the corporate raiders. The obstructionist tag was readily thrown around in the corporate media like a hot potato as reporters and pundits parroted Republican talking points against Democrats.

Democratic Party Illness

The Democratic Party leadership speaks with a fork-tongue about the Iraq occupation. The Democratic leaders are adding billions of dollars onto Bush’s war supplemental for brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder for returning soldiers. Either they support the war, or they do not. If the Democrats want to stop brain injuries and post traumatic stress disorder, they need to stop the occupation and its escalation and now is as good a time as ever. However, the Democrats don’t have the heart to stand up to the Republican hate machine. They can not bear being called unpatriotic and that they don’t support the troops.

In this bizzaro world, sending troops to get their heads and limbs blown off is actually, supporting them; spending trillions of dollars like monopoly money on an occupation while simultaneously giving billions in tax cuts is good for the American economy.

The full cost of September 11, 2001, will probably be most remembered by future historians for the mass delusion perpetrated on the U.S. citizenry by a small cult of neocons; and how the protective firewall, the Democratic Party, failed due to the inner-sickness of constantly needing Republican approval.

The Democratic Party has internalized Republican’s hatred of them, and this hatred by the Republicans has manifested itself in the Democrats as constantly seeking validation from Republicans. For example, Democrats often cite Republican politicians when they come out against the Iraq Occupation, to validate their position.

Republicans frame American values as exceptional and anything short of this view, is well, communism. Neocon political operative and wordsmith Frank Lutz, the man who gave us the slogan, “War on Terror” has told Republicans:

"Americans love being told we’re the best, that we’re number one. We will do anything—ANYTHING—to remain number one, and will oppose anything that undermines our superiority. It is essential in any discussion of trade to declare that we are 'the greatest economic power in the world' and that 'we will remain the greatest economic power in the world only so long as we continue to do business with other nations.'"

Even though the polling shows that Americans prefer the Democrats take a harder line against the Occupation of Iraq and against Bush and the Republicans, the internalized self-loathing triggers only paralysis.

We are stuck with a despotic Republican Party, and a Democratic Party who can not hold its self-loathing coalition together to be an effective oppositional force against a tyrannical executive branch.

The Republican Party is most definitely responsible for the Occupation of Iraq and the resulting massacre of lives, however, the Democratic Party’s paralysis is equivalent to their keeping the getaway car running, while the Republicans are robbing the bank.

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COWBOY UP

by Malik Isasis


















George W. Bush is playing a game of chicken with a brick wall, and we are all in the backseat—without seatbelts. Since the invasion and now the occupation of Iraq, various degrees of the same Iraq plan has been ineptly executed and failed. Bush’s new concoction-of-a-plan, will fail because it has already failed several times over the past four years of the Iraq Occupation.

As I said before, it doesn’t really matter whether his Iraq plan fails, or what the American people think because Bush doesn’t give a shit. He is the Boy King, and yes I do mean that in the most offensive way. The role of the U.S. President is that of a chief diplomat but Bush has neither the temperament nor the emotional maturity, which is why he’s such an effective meat puppet for Cheney and Cheney’s neocons. They write the script and he sticks to it like an idiot savant.

From Cowboy to Warrior President

Bush’s chief political mercenary and advisor, Karl Rove, dressed his political dummy up as a fighting, but folksy cowboy. Roved helped Bush over the years with character development, stressing the need to use the most simple of syntax, or maybe Rove decided to turn what was an intellectual defect, into a positive political attribute—calling it regular-folk, talk. This proved successful enough that it conned at least half of the American population, who agreed that intellect and reality-based diplomacy was elitist.

Bush didn’t nickname Rove Turd Blossom for nothin’.

Rove and the neocons retooled Bush after the Iraq invasion and occupation, reprogramming him as Warrior President, which proved successful. Since the American cultural narrative of war is sold as heroic, the goal of the neocons: keep reminding the American people that we are at war…at every opportunity.

“I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign-policy matters with war on my mind.”

Although being a war president is no longer popular with the American people, the war president narrative continues to con the Battered-Wife syndrome Democratic Party and the corporate media.

Cowboy up

It is clear that both the Democrats and Republicans serve the same false idol, big business, though the Democrats are less malevolent than their Republican counterpart; they the Democrats are so frightened and careful of being called political heretics that they have become paralyzed, despite having power imbued to them by voters to do something. It is in this inaction that the Democrats fit the description of the Florentine Itailan Poet, Dante Aligheiri’s passage, “The hottest place in hell are reserved for those who in a time of great crisis maintain their neutrality.”

The corporate media glorified George Bush as a cowboy—encouraging him; even in the midst of his contempt for them, they praised his stubbornness. Now as George Bush and company goes on the road with their Barnum and Bailey’s Three Ring Circus of Blood and Guts tour toward Iran, the corporate media is the master of ceremony, selling us the same old shit.

Don’t believe the hype.

Cowboys only exist in rodeos.

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LIBERTY LOVES JUSTICE

by Malik Isasis
























George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, The Republican Party and Cheney’s cabal of neocons have looked under the skirt of Lady Liberty and copped a feel—no, scratch that, they out right molested Lady Liberty while in pursuit of a narrow, ideologically-driven agenda that has cost the United States its credibility on every level.

There was a time when the United States called out other countries on their human rights violations—I should preference this statement, United States has always had a horrible track record with human rights, concerning US citizens of color or minority populations, with that said, at least when they spoke out on the international stage against other countries for torture, they could not be called hypocrites.

What a difference, absolute power makes.

We are now the hypocrites

Imagine if the United States called China to the carpet for its human rights violation, and China hit back with calling the United States hypocrites and bullet-pointing their criticism of the US with pinpoint accuracy. Well, it happened.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang stated on March 7, 2007 of a U.S. State Department 2006 Human Rights Report, that “The US government has no right to depict itself as a human rights watchdog, a view that is generally agreed by public opinion of the international community," Qin said. "We suggest the US should reflect on its own human rights problems, and stop interfering in the internal affairs of other countries on the pretext of human rights," said the spokesman. “ (more comments here).

The U.S. State Department 2006 Human Rights Report can be read here. Interestingly enough, out of the 196 countries in the report, the United States has left itself out of the report for the very things it blames others for doing.

The United States government has disappeared foreign nationals, and detained them outside of the United States territory in secret Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A) prisons in Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and yet unknown Eastern European countries. Read the harrowing account of Marwan Jabour, here. In these proxy prisons, prisoners are being tortured, as defined by the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The very reason these people are being held in proxy is because the United States has laws against torture, and places like Jordan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, do not.

In a January 18, 2007 Senate Judiciary Hearing, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said to the panel of senators:

“The Constitution doesn’t say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn’t say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended” except in cases of rebellion or invasion.”

Investigative journalist Robert Parry wrote in response to Gonzales’ statement that it was “one of the most chilling public statements ever made by an Attorney General.”

Habeas Corpus is a common law, which basically states that a person has a right to fight unlawful imprisonment and/or arbitrary State detention. On October 18, 2006, Bush signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 [Public Law 109-366, 120 stat. 2006] that was passed by the 109th Republican Congress. This act gave Bush the ability to call foreign nationals and U.S. citizens, “enemy combatants” and detain them indefinitely without the Writ of Habeas Corpus, the ability to address one’s imprisonment through the courts.

As discussed in an earlier post, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 also laid rest to, The Posse Comitatus Act which effectively gave Bush the ability to use the U.S. military against U.S. citizens within U.S. borders. Senator John Warner, Republican added the amendment title the John Warner Defense Appropriations Act [House Resolution 5122].

The United States can no longer criticize Israel, not that the government does, however if it were to criticize Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians, it would ring hollow due to the fact that we too, occupy Arab people.

The United States under the governance of George Bush and his Republican cabal have lead the United States down the road of despotism, so when we criticize others for their human rights violations, we look foolish—idiotic, even.

The wheels coming off of the Bush’s death machine.

With yet another convicted felon in the ranks of the Administration, the wheels are coming off Bush’s death machine. The Bush Public Relations Administration can no longer hide their perversions from the public with its fancy tap dancing. In fact, they’ve stayed on stage too long and look pathetic, trying to lie their way from under the weight of their ineptitude.

The Democratic Party is so overwhelmed with Republican indiscretions from the Constitution, and morality, where would they start? With Hurricane Katrina? War Profiteering? Unlawful wiretaps on Americans? Illegal Iraq war and occupation? Lying to Congress? Torture?

I submit we, the United States of America, become the 197th country on that list in the Human Rights Report 2006.

More on Habeas Corpus

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COLONIZING NATIVES SINCE 1500

by Malik Isasis

















Here I was, like many of my progressive brethren, screaming from the roof tops in the spirit of the doomed Greek beauty, Cassandra about the wicked ways of the Bush Administration but who the hell am I, to go against centuries of tradition?

My ancestors were taken against their will from the west coast of the African continent and brought to the shores of the New World and colonized along with the Native American Indian—twin holocausts, if you will.

Think about it—all that land traded sometimes for alcohol, but mostly just annexed, violently —and what about four hundred years of free labor from the Africans to make America one of the most prosperous countries ever? The cheap Chinese immigrant labor that helped complete the transcontinental railroad system. Who the hell am I, to go against centuries of tradition?

Manifest Destiny

Manifest Destiny was a phrase that expressed the belief that the United States was destined to expand from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean; it has also been used to advocate for or justify other territorial acquisitions. Maybe this explains the last 57 years of perpetual state of war we are in--starting with Korea 1950-53, Indonesia, 1950-53, Guatemala 1950-53, Congo 1964, Cuba 1959-61 Vietnam 1961-73, Peru 1965, Laos 1964-73, Cambodia 1969-70, Lebanon 1982-83, Grenada 1983, El Salvador 1980, Libya 1986, Nicaragua, Bosnia, Iraq 1990-current. It’s our Manifest Destiny.

Iraq has many rich natural resources, mostly, oil—we want it, and so it’s our destiny to get it, right? I mean it’s ours; all we have to do is keep breaking the spirit of the natives, divide and conquer—have them kill one another off by supporting one side over the other—like the Dutch did in Rwanda.

Bush is brilliant. I get it now.

He’s going to duplicate this plan in Iran, and maybe Syria, if he has time. While the natives will be busy killing each other off, we can scoop up their natural resources. This has worked for centuries, who the hell am I, to go against centuries of tradition?

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THE LONG DARK ROAD

by Malik Isasis
























H.E. "Bud" Cummins Little Rock: neutralized
Carol Lam San Diego: neutralized
Kevin Ryan San Francisco: neutralized
John McKay Seattle: neutralized
David Iglesias Albuquerque: neutralized
Daniel Bogden Las Vegas: neutralized
Paul Charlton Phoenix: neutralized
Margaret Chiara Grand Rapids: neutralized

Recently, eight federal prosecutors were fired from their posts by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales due to ‘performance-related issues.’

The nation's 94 U.S. attorneys, the chief federal prosecutors in their respective cities or geographic regions, are generally appointed at the beginning of a president's term, and barring serious misconduct, serve until the end of his tenure or until they choose to leave voluntarily.

The rash of firings of US Attorneys by the Bush Administration has brought attention to the fact that politicians do not read the laws in which they pass. The Democrats were ruefully awakened upon discovering that the Republican 109th Congress and the White House slipped in a little amendment [Public Law 109-177, Title V Miscellaneous Provisions; Section 502, Interim appointment of United States Attorneys] in the USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act that allows Bush to fire US Attorneys and replace them with interim political appointees, indefinitely—circumventing the senate confirmation process. Since the passage of this bill, some reported, 12 US Attorneys have been fired by the Bush Administration.

As per usual with this Administration, their response to Democratic Senators in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing was the middle finger. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty stated, "U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President-- they come and go for lots of reasons… We don't really believe we are obligated to set forth a reason or cause."

The ‘performance-related’ issues that Attorney General Gonzales cites as the reasons for the mass firings, interestingly enough, involved the prosecutors, prosecuting corrupt Republican politicians (see here).

Randy Duke Cunningham, Republican Congressman, was prosecuted by Carol Lam for bribery.

A senior Justice Department official acknowledged yesterday that a top federal prosecutor in Arkansas was removed to make room for a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove, but he said that six other U.S. attorneys were fired for "performance-related" issues -- either gracious or taking one for the team, H.E. "Bud" Cummins said, “It’s been a great honor to serve.... I appreciate President Bush giving me this opportunity to serve in this exciting time.”

The fired attorneys are all unusually silent, resigning with dignity, or is it fear of retribution by the Bush Administration?

How are Attorney Gonzales and the Justice Department measuring performance? All the attorneys were appointed by Bush and approved by the Senate. Did the attorneys break an unspoken rule by going after corrupt Republican officials?

The Washington Post cited, “Nearly all of the dismissed prosecutors had positive job reviews, but many had run into political trouble with Washington over immigration, capital punishment or other issues, according to prosecutors and others. At least four also were presiding over high-profile public corruption investigations when they were dismissed.”

This story went almost completely unnoticed in the corporate news; it was stillborn upon the onslaught of the love-lorn astronaut, Britney Spears, and Anna Nicole Smith, around-the-clock coverage though out January and February.

The Sickness

The neocons had built up political immunity around the perception that they were the party of national security; sure it was folklore, but it worked; this immunity protected the Republicans and the neocon cabal for six years of their absolute power grab in the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government. Hurricane Katrina, the collapse of the Iraq Occupation, and the recent discovery of the treatment of injured soldiers at the Walter Reed Medical Facility, has ended that immunity George Bush and the Republican Party enjoyed, but at this point, it really doesn’t matter because they really don’t really give a shit. Do they?

I have written in past columns that Bush grew up in a household that relieved him of personal responsibility--in fact, rewarded his failures and social pathologies with unparalleled business and political opportunities.

This narcissism forms the basis of his governance. Bush knocks over an expensive vase and then blames it on gravity. In the Iraq Occupation, Bush blames terrorists, the Democratic Party, Iran, and Syria for the failure of the occupation—everyone but himself. This inability to acknowledge failure or mistakes is in line with his upbringing and privileged life as an aristocrat, who’s fronting as a cowboy.

The corporate media has taken over on the enabling role by allowing George W. Bush to play dress up.

I have also written in past columns the destructive flaw in the Republican Party’s top-down, hierarchical structure, unlike the Democratic Party, which is more of a fractured coalition. What makes Republicans dangerous is their willingness to fall in line when ordered. It is a militant party, which is why they are able to stay on message so succinctly. They listen, even if it’s against their own interests. They vote, even if it is against their own interests. The elders of the party has elevated ideology to religiosity, where members blindly follow orders, regardless of reality.

A man, who takes no responsibility, and a group of political sheeple, makes for an incredible disaster, which is what we have now, an incredible disaster and a Constitutional crisis.

An Incredible Disaster

"'If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country? And how do you, then, enforce a quarantine?' Bush asked at a news conference. 'It's one thing to shut down airplanes. It's another thing to prevent people from coming in to get exposed to the avian flu. And who best to be able to effect a quarantine?' Bush added. 'One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move. So that's why I put it on the table. I think it's an important debate for Congress to have.'"

Notice how Bush stressed the use of the military? It is apparently the only diplomatic tool he is comfortable in using.

That speech was the basis of George Bush asking for more power back in 2005;the power was to give him the ability to commandeer the federal and state National Guard to use inside of the United States. Bush’s request gathered more steam after Hurricane Katrina and the media began repeating rumors of sniping and looting.

Last October, the 109th Republican Congress gave George W. Bush his wish by passing the John Warner Defense Appropriation Act for Fiscal Year 2007, which effectively gives George W. Bush the ability to use the United States Military against United States citizens.
This bill, entitled the John Warner Defense Appropriation Act for Fiscal Year 2007 (H.R. 5122.ENR), contains a provision, (Section 1076) which allows the President to:

“...employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to...
restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States..., where the President determines that,...domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order; suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy...”

The Republican Congress has effectively ended a law past just after the Civil War in 1878 called The Posse Comitatus Act which generally prohibits Federal military personnel and units of the United States National Guard under Federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress.

Read the Rise of Hitler, note that Hitler rose to power using democracy, through the political and legal institutions of Germany. How could Nazi Germany happen? We are witnessing the seeds of despotism, right here in America.

Why did Bush ask for more power to maintain public order? Is it to suppress protestations and put down insurrection for when he does something illegal?

The words president determines in the Warner Act should give us all pause. Bush has made good on every power he has asked for, from the 2002 authorization to invade Iraq, the ability to bypass the Congress for recess appointments, to the USA Patriot Act.

Will the Real Democratic Party Please Stand Up?

Apparently, the Republican Party is willing to sell off our Democracy for ideology and corptocracy.

The past six years have been a long dark road for the United States; a lot of damage has been done to this country by a handful of cultists who have raped and pillaged. More than ever, we need the fractured coalition that is the Democratic Party to grow up and take charge of the political infrastructure. We gave you the power in November 2006 to take control, so it’s okay, to do what we sent you to Washington, D.C. to do, without timidity.

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BUSH FAMILY'S PROSECUTOR GAMES

by Robert Parry





George W. Bush learned at least one lesson from his father: You want your federal prosecutors to be team players who will throw a political elbow or two when the White House needs some help.

When George H.W. Bush faced a tough reelection battle in 1992, his administration tried to destroy Bill Clinton by implicating him in criminal investigations. But those plans collapsed when federal law enforcement officials, including a U.S. Attorney in Arkansas, resisted what they saw as improper White House political pressure...read more.

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THE NEW MILLINIUM MINSTREL SHOW

by Malik Isasis


















I visited one of my favorite weblogs, Racialicious, to get my weekly fix of the “intersection of race and pop culture.” The editor, Carmen Van Kerckhove discussed a website she came across called, Hot Ghetto Mess to which she writes:

There’s a web site called Hot Ghetto Mess (contains some NSFW pics). I’m not sure how to describe the site - it’s basically a collection of photos of ridiculous-looking (almost all black) people. People with bad hairdos, questionable fashion, etc.

It’s just a web site - harmless enough, right? Well, it turns out that BET is planning to turn the site into a TV show and is currently soliciting videos from consumers.

I visited Hot Ghetto Mess, and it was indeed, a hot mess. The website is an extension of a cultural 20-car pile up, that begun with the daytime tabloid television talk show pioneered by Phil Donahue but reformatted for exploitation of the poor by Jerry Springer.

Although Hip-hop represents a very small part of African-American culture; It has come to represent 100% of African-American culture, and a large percentage of mainstream pop culture, but it is the corporate gangsta-rap—the misogynistic, machismo, hypervigilant, and conspicuous consumption side of hip hop that is driving the corporate music industry.

This corporate hip-hop is The New Millennium Minstrel Show, where instead of white men wearing black face, African-Americans’ black faces are adorned with gold, or diamond encrusted grillz, false fronts on their teeth, have a look.

In this corporate world of hip-hop, the culture of pimping has been sanctioned. The genre has created a false sense of empowerment for urban youth who see images of scantly-clad women with stacks of money in their hands, while the rap artists pours some sort of alcoholic beverage over her face and body. Every rap video must contain this particular scene; there is also the obligatory scene with the nice car with big shiny rims.

This is empowerment for urban youth in the new millennium, a black face that is so insidious, it has set back a generation of youth.

I love hip-hop, however, it’s like being in an abusive relationship.

Hot Ghetto Mess

Before entering the site of Hot Ghetto Mess there is a caption that reads: “If you are not completely appalled, then you haven’t been paying attention.” The editor, Jam Donaldson, goes on to state: My mission with this site is to usher in a new era of self-examination. And because I am proud member of the black community, they are my priority.

I’m not quite so sure that the black community is priority number one here--maybe priority four or five, priority one appears to be a high-tech pimping scheme using exploitation to make money. Donaldson is selling “ghetto gear”—tee-shirts that read, “we got to do better,” she’s selling a Hot Ghetto Mess DVD, and has a link to My Space promoting the new television show on the television station BET.

The Raunch Culture

The African American women on the website posing—more accurately, parroting what they see in the rap music videos is definitely distasteful. This black raunchiness is no different than say “Girls Gone Wild”—white raunchiness if you will.

The Raunch Culture, simply put, is the objectification of women and their sexuality; turning women into sexual caricatures—usually portraying women as hypersexual—like in those rap music videos and in those “Girl Gone Wild” videos.

Appropriating vs. Culture

Ms Van Kerckhove over at Racialicious, called the people on the Hot Ghetto Mess “ridiculous-looking” with “bad hairdos and questionable fashion.” Ms Van Kerckhove’s statement is conjecture, by whose standard is she using to judge? The ghetto culture is a subculture with its own cultural standards of beauty and social engagement. Just like the Punk subculture, Goth subculture or the Japanese Anime style known as Ganguro in Japan; Ghetto subculture is legitimate and emanates out of the life experience of poverty.

What is at issue is the exploitation. Folks like Jam Donaldson, the editor at Hot Ghetto Mess, makes money by creating minstrel shows out of people’s willingness to make fools of themselves, under the guise of saving her people.

She’s a snake oil salesman.

The fact that Black Entertainment Television, a Viacom subsidiary, is developing a show for mass appeal is where the corporate appropriation of culture deepens stereotypes, the damage is that it limits the imagination of the children who consumes the programming, continuing the endless cycle of misogyny and distorted hypersexuality. These blackface images, which are a subculture, are then beamed around the world, and are often taken as a 100% representation of African American culture.

Ms Donaldson, is contributing to a generation worth of intellectual damage, with her traveling New Millinium Minstrel Show.




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