Left I on the News  

The liberal media

• "In Retreat, Bush Says U.S. Will Win War on Terrorism" - New York Times
• "Bush Backtracks on Terrorism Remark" - Washington Post
• "Bush Recants, Says Terror War Will Be Won" - AP

The ironic part of the story was the Democrats responded during the one day when Bush was claiming this "war" could not be won. They were quick to go on the offensive, claiming that not only could the "war" be won, but they were just the people to lead the fight. And the irony is that, for once in his life, George Bush was actually correct. That doesn't mean that he, any more than Kerry and Edwards, have a clue as to what to do about it. "Terrorism" has been a tactic employed by people of widely varying political beliefs since time immemorial, and it seems likely it will continue to exist for the foreseeable future. But the "war on terror," which really means the "war on militant Muslims," will never end as long as the U.S. continues to dominate the Middle East, and in particular as long as Israel continues to occupy Palestine and oppress the Palestinian people. And neither Bush nor Kerry have any plans to change that situation.

Convention news you didn't see

He forgot to mention that his "faith-based reality" has brought an end to the lives of more than a thousand Americans, more than ten thousand Iraqis, and hundreds of others. So I guess "fantasy" doesn't really describe it either. Harsh reality is more like it. And the harsh reality is also that there are millions of Americans who are just like Baldwin (except they're probably better actors).

Political humor of the day

"As I think about his [George Bush's] leadership, I think of the courage it took for our Commander in Chief to land on an airstrip in the dark of night, a world away, to be with our troops on Thanksgiving."

- Bernard Kerick, ex-Police Commissioner of New York City

Even if Bush was in danger when he visited the Baghdad airport, which I doubt since there were probably 10,000 soldiers guarding the mess hall and the airport surroundings when he arrived, is it really courageous to slink into Baghdad Airport in the dead of night for a photo-op with a plastic turkey and a small group of hand-picked soldiers? Personally I'd call it irresponsible, or just plain foolish. Not to mention the danger he probably put thousands of soldiers in as they pulled extra duty protecting his visit.

There is, by the way, a word for a creature who in the dead of night slinks into places where food is served, and then disappears when the sun comes up. It's "cockroach." Why, it even shares four letters with the word "courage." Perhaps that's what confused Mr. Kerick.

Freedom of choice

The "independent" media

"Sen. John McCain tended to his political base Sunday night: the entire national media. The maverick Arizona Republican, once (and future?) presidential aspirant and press secretary's dream hosted a hyper-exclusive 68th birthday party for himself at La Goulue on Madison Avenue, leaving no media icon behind. Guests included NBC's Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert, ABC's Peter Jennings, Barbara Walters, Ted Koppel and George Stephanopoulos, CBS's Mike Wallace, Dan Rather and Bob Schieffer, CBS News President Andrew Heyward, ABC News chief David Westin, Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons, CNN's Judy Woodruff and Jeff Greenfield, MSNBC's Chris Matthews, CNBC's Gloria Borger, PBS's Charlie Rose -- pause here to exhale -- and U.S. News & World Report publisher Mort Zuckerman, Washington Post Chairman Don Graham, New York Times columnists William Safire and David Brooks, author Michael Lewis and USA Today columnist Walter Shapiro. They and others dined on lobster salad, loin of lamb, assorted wines, creme brulee, lemon souffle and French tarts.

"One guest, who asked not to be identified, described invitees as 'the Journalistic Committee for a Government of National Unity.' After singing 'Happy Birthday' to McCain, many of the guests -- Russert, Borger and Shapiro, among others -- cabbed to Elaine's, where Zuckerman hosted a mob scene that included Fox's Bill O'Reilly, PBS's John McLaughlin and New York Gov. George Pataki."

Unconventional wisdom about Republican convention speakers

"It fills me with profound respect for being an American."

And, in other Republican convention speaker analysis, we note that "war hero" John McCain became a prisoner of war when he was shot down over North Vietnam, bombing a lightbulb factory.

One war criminal, and one of the foremost defenders of killer cops in the country. Both universally portrayed in the corporate media as "moderates," "reasonable" men.

Followup: Just a further note on Rudy Giuliani's "honesty." Here's a line from his speech last night, referring to John Kerry: "He even, at one point, declared himself an anti-war candidate." Don't I wish (not that I would have believed it, but at least it would have been some concession on his part to the power of the antiwar movement). The last time John Kerry was "anti-war," my hair was a lot darker and there was a lot more of it (his doesn't seem to have changed).

Followup NYC march coverage

Vast Anti-Bush Rally Greets Republicans in New York
"A roaring two-mile river of demonstrators surged through the canyons of Manhattan yesterday in the city's largest political protest in decades, a raucous but peaceful spectacle that pilloried George W. Bush and demanded regime change in Washington.

"On a sweltering August Sunday, the huge throng of protesters marched past Madison Square Garden, the site of the Republican National Convention opening today, and denounced President Bush as a misfit who had plunged America into war and runaway debt, undermined civil and constitutional rights, lied to the people, despoiled the environment and used the presidency to benefit corporations and millionaires.

"The protest organizer, United for Peace and Justice, estimated the crowd at 500,000, rivaling a 1982 antinuclear rally in Central Park, and double the number it had predicted. It was, at best, a rough estimate. The Police Department, as is customary, offered no official estimate, but one officer in touch with the police command center at Madison Square Garden agreed that the crowd appeared to be close to a half-million."

Followup: "Liberal" PBS (the News Hour) iis running a feature today (Monday) describing a "mammoth" march that was "two miles long," but still goes with the ludicrous "tens of thousands" of demonstrators, even while (later in the report) citing the figures of the organizers and the police.

One more note from yesterday that hadn't caught my eye - the "unofficial police estimate" is actually described in several articles this way: "one law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, put the crowd at 120,000." What on earth is the credibility of such a statement that a newspaper would even print it? Who was this guy, a cop standing on a corner? What was his basis for making this statement? At least I watched the whole march on C-SPAN, and I say a half million, so why don't the papers quote me as "one observer, speaking on condition of anonymity, put the crowd at 500,000"?

Olympics-related Quote of the Day

"It is funny that we boycotted the 1980 Games [in Moscow] in support of Afghanistan, and now we're bombing Afghanistan."

- Carl Lewis, winner of nine Olympic gold medals, accusing George Bush of exploiting the Athens Games for his own political advantage

Crowd estimates

Bloomberg is, as I write this, the one news source which actually reports UfPJ's estimate of 400,000 people marching. The Times does admit this was "the largest demonstration ever at a political convention." All I know is that C-SPAN broadcast the march from in front of Madison Square Garden, and there was a solid mass of densely packed people marching past the Garden from 9 a.m. (Pacific time) until 1:30 p.m., a full four-and-a-half hours. There were one heck of a lot of people; I would have thought a half-million or more easily. Definitely enough to qualify as "hundreds of thousands," and definitely enough to suggest that articles describing "tens of thousands" of protesters are not just making conservative estimates, but are doing so very deliberately to minimize the importance of the event, recent "mea-not-so-culpas" from the Times and Post about their misreporting of the news leading up to the invasion of Iraq notwithstanding.

The highlight of the C-SPAN coverage was the fact that one of its cameras was apparently situated in front of a large Fox News billboard, leading to "Fox News sucks" being the most commonly heard chant all day. A highlight, but unfortunate on two counts - first, Fox News may be bad, but it's only marginally worse than CNN, MSNBC, the Times, the Post, and the rest of the corporate media, and second, because it somewhat masked the overwhelming antiwar character of the march. But it was still fun to hear. :-)

Followup: Much later, the Times changes its headline, and one word in the story, from "tens of thousands" to "hundreds of thousands," still with no actual estimate. I conclude this was in response to massive call-ins to the Times about their absurd number, since no new information was available to the Times in the interim. The story, scummy in the extreme, has paragraphs three through seven devoted to arrests and similar mishaps, with additional coverage devoted to comments by Republican delegates. As is typical, not one word or quote from an actual protest organizer, someone who managed to bring hundreds of thousands of people into the streets.

If anything, the Post is worse. They too have updated their story, so that it now reads "Over 200,000 Turn Out to Protest Bush in New York," but after covering that topic for all of one sentence (!), the entire remainder of the article is devoted to coverage of a speech by Dick Cheney, with a grand total of one more sentence about the protests which are the subject of the headline.

I saw only NBC Nightly News of the various networks. They had pretty decent footage and coverage from two different reporters of the march itself, and emphasized the antiwar nature of the event. But on numbers, they first reported the 400,000 estimate of the organizers, then noted the police estimate of 120,000 (a completely absurd estimate for anyone with two eyes), and then reverted back to referring to "tens of thousands" in the rest of their report.

Here are those "tens of thousands" (there are probably that many in this one picture; according to NBC the march stretched for 45 (!) blocks):

More mass graves vanish, this time in Kosovo

And today, a little more of the truth about the mass graves of Kosovo has emerged (full story only available to subscribers):

"The war crimes tribunal in The Hague is 'beginning to panic' over its case against former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic according to a Vancouver detective sent to unearth mass graves in Kosovo and a Canadian filmmaker who documented the exhumations.

"'I would think they'll have a tough time with the charge of genocide with only 5,000 bodies,' said retired Vancouver detective sergeant Brian Honeybourn. 'It seems as though The Hague is beginning to panic.'

"Mr. Milosevic's trial is to resume next week with the former Serbian dictator defending himself against charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. Former Canadian Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour made history when she laid the charges -- the first against a head of state -- as the tribunal's special prosecutor.

"Calgary filmmaker Garth Pritchard and Sgt. Honeybourn are critical of Ms. Arbour, now UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and her claims that the Serbs, directed by Mr. Milosevic, murdered as many as 200,000 civilians during its ethnic cleansing of Kosovo.

"The alleged massacres were used by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Western leaders as justification for their bombing campaign and intervention in Kosovo, and were regularly and routinely reported as fact on television networks such as the CBC and CNN, as the West backed the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) against the Serbs.

"'This was a massacre that never happened,' Mr. Pritchard maintains.

"Sgt. Honeybourn and forensic team leader Brian Strongman echoed Mr. Pritchard's doubts that the genocidal massacre by the Serbs ever took place.

"'I can't say that there weren't 200,000 bodies because I wasn't covering the entire country,' said Sgt. Honeybourn.

"'But I never saw any sign of anything like 200,000. If there were that many, then why did they have us exhuming single graves? The biggest mass grave we examined contained about 20 and there was another one of 11. But mostly our nine-member team worked on single graves.'

"In the six weeks Sgt. Honeybourn spent digging up fetid graves in Kosovo during the sweltering summer of 1999, the Canadian team exhumed 86 bodies."

Had enough yet?

"And after listening to this steady anti-Bush drumbeat for the past several months, even the most devout progressives (among whom I place myself) may start to feel as if they've heard much of this sermon a hundred times before. Where are Saddam's weapons of mass destruction? All right already. We were lied to and manipulated by government scare tactics. You keep picking at that scab and it'll never get well. In fact, it can start to get a little annoying."

And, on the domestic front, it is only the constant repetition of "this sermon" which has caused papers like the Post and the New York Times to finally admit the tiniest extent of their own culpability in being "lied to and manipulated," and only a continuing repetition of that sermon has any chance of seeing such behavior change in the future, as well as any chance of having the American public see through it the next time it occurs (which, basically, is daily, whether the subject is Iraq, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, or a host of other subjects).

New York Times undercuts its own credibility

How does anything Bush says "undercut" the accusations of the Not-Too-Swift Boaters? George Bush doesn't know any more or less than I do about what happened to John Kerry in Vietnam (ok, actually it's probably less, since I read the papers and he doesn't). His opinion about whether those accusations are true or false has not the slightest relevance, and certainly doesn't "undercut" the accusations, which have already collapsed entirely on the weight of the facts piled on top of them.

Destroying the city in order to...destroy it

"The core of the city around [the shrine], a destination of longing for millions of Shiite Muslims, is so mauled that American commanders debate which famously ruined wartime cityscape Najaf now resembles most.

"The damage to Najaf is the consequence of an urban setting for battle, a woefully overmatched enemy and an American military doctrine that unites terrifying firepower with almost zero tolerance for casualties in its own ranks.

"'If we take fire from it, we destroy the whole building,' an Army commander said Thursday."

American deaths in Iraq pass 1000

The total amount of all people killed by this war and occupation is, of course, much higher, and is overwhelmingly composed of innocent Iraqis slaughtered by the invaders.

Followup: Incidentally, how sick is it that a lot of people are sitting around waiting for the "1000th death" to occur so they can write about it? Very sick. "How do you ask someone to be the 1000th person member of the U.S. armed forces to die for a mistake?" Troops out NOW!

Looking for terrorists? Try Miami.

Well, today, that small victory became even smaller as four of the men were pardoned by the outgoing Panamanian President, and three of them immediately boarded a plane for Miami, terrorist central. The Washington Post sheds some light on the story:

"Bush administration officials denied any role yesterday in the politically fortuitous pardon of four Cuban exiles by the outgoing Panamanian government. Three of the exiles -- who were convicted in connection with a plot to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro at a summit of Latin American leaders in 2000 -- were immediately flown to Miami.

"In Panama, speculation was rampant that the Bush administration, indirectly or not, had pressured Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso to pardon the exiles in her waning days in office. Panama's next president, Martin Torrijos, a social democrat who will take office on Sept. 1, said he disagrees with the pardons. Cuba severed diplomatic relations with Panama in response."

"Venezuela had sought one of the activists -- Luis Posada Carriles -- because he had escaped from a Venezuelan jail where he had faced charges of planning the 1976 bombing of a Cuban jetliner that killed 73 people. Posada, 74, is not a U.S. citizen, and it is not clear whether he left Panama. Posada has also claimed credit for having planned and directed six Havana hotel bombings in 1997 that killed an Italian tourist and injured 11 other people.

"The other three men -- Gaspar Jimenez, Pedro Remon and Guillermo Novo Sampol -- have U.S. passports and arrived in Miami yesterday.

"New Times, a Miami newspaper, said U.S. law enforcement records say that Jimenez, 69, helped kidnap Cuba's consul to Mexico in 1977 and killed a consular official, and that Remon, 60, was identified as the triggerman in the slaying of a pro-Castro activist and a Cuban diplomat. Novo, 65, was convicted in the United States in the late 1970s of taking part in the 1976 assassination of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier. He was acquitted on appeal but served four years in prison for lying to a grand jury."

Iraq - more deadly for Americans in 2004 than in 2003

Free speech inanities

Meanwhile, CNN is reporting that the city and UfPJ have agreed on a new rally site at Union Square Park. In the course of that article, we are told that "in her decision Wednesday, Justice Jacqueline Silbermann ruled that for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) could not use Central Park because the city did not have enough time to ensure public safety and protect the park from damage." I dealt with the "not enough time" issue in the previous paragraph, but now we have to ask a second question - if there wasn't "enough time" to "ensure public safety" in the middle of Central Park, how is it that there apparently is enough time to ensure public safety in the much more exposed location of Union Square?

The denial, or restriction, of free speech based on such trivial and ludicrous assertions should be cause for outrage on every editorial page, and from every public figure, in the United States. It should be the subject of discussion on every talk show that pretends to be discussing political issues. Suffice to say, it isn't (although there are exceptions).

Poverty in the U.S.

Bush ads as dumb as Bush

Spending priorities in NYC

In contrast, New York City will be spending $78 million to have its police force "protect" the RNC delegates from the people, of which a whopping $28 million will be borne directly by the people of New York City (the rest comes courtesy of the rest of us generous taxpayers). And that figure, by the way, is just the figure for New York City police; we can assume that plenty more is being spent by other armed representatives of the government.

Political humor of the day

"Some people are surprised that Kerry is here and not on Meet the Press. I've met the press, and he's not missing anything."

- Jon Stewart, prior to interviewing John Kerry two nights ago

Unclear on the concept

"Israel only knows how to suffer. We don't know how to be happy. Every time we have a happy day like this, it is a victory over terrorism and the suffering that dominates our lives."

The U.S. follows the Israeli example

Now it appears the U.S. (and its flunkies in the "Iraqi National Guard") are applying the same strategy in Iraq, as we learn courtesy once again of Knight-Ridder's reporter on the spot, Hannah Allam:

"In what could be a grim foreshadowing of the massive demonstration, violence at a smaller gathering Wednesday killed two Sistani supporters and wounded five outside a U.S. base in the southern holy city. Observers at the scene, including an Iraqi man working for Knight Ridder, said Iraqi police fired on the unarmed demonstrators as they approached the base chanting for an end to the bloodshed."

"The day before, gunfire from the same base killed eight people and wounded 56 others who were taking part in what appeared to be a peaceful demonstration supporting al-Sadr."

"A mortar barrage hit a mosque filled with Iraqis preparing to join his march, killing 27 people and wounding 63."

Putting that $50,000 in perspective

"During yesterday's Informative Roundtable Pedro Saez Montejo, first secretary of the Party in City of Havana, quantified the damage inflicted on Cuba by Hurricane Charley at more than one billion dollars, a figure that could grow even larger.

"Saez noted that Charley's significant impact on the economy of the western part of the island can principally be summed up by its damage to more than 70,000 homes and thousands of hectares of cultivated land, plus grave effects on the electricity (1,400 poles, 28 high-tension towers and 291 transformers brought down), water and telephone services. In the two Havana provinces the damage includes 798 educational centers, 312 health centers, 60 sports installations and 63 cultural ones.

"More than 31,000 homes in the capital were affected, 469 of them being totally destroyed. Juan Contino, president of the city government, stated that 852 people are still in temporary accommodation. He estimated that more than 8,000 trees were brought down and more than 500,000 cubic meters of rubble collected, but the volume is enormous and the task is not as yet over. There will be another popular mobilization next weekend to continue with this labor.

"Ivan Ordaz, first secretary of the Party in Habana province, said that there are still 12,690 evacuees, and an estimated 3,127 economic installations and 41,236 homes damaged. Communications have been restored in 6,000 of the approximately 8,150 services affected, while 48% of consumers in the province have power."

Who is fighting in Najaf?

There is, however, at least one American reporter who has recently been in the shrine and who courageously remains in Najaf, reporting from the front lines (the "other side" of the front lines, that is) - Knight-Ridder's Hannah Allam. Read her latest report from Najaf, and you'll find not a single word about the alleged "Iraqi" forces who are closing in on the Imam Ali shrine. The real battle, as we all know (well, all of us but most of the mainstream media), and as Allam describes in detail from the front lines, is being fought by U.S. AC-130 gunships, U.S. tanks, and American snipers.

And in a report just filed, Allam reports on the detention this morning of all foreign journalists (including herself) by the Najaf police (they have since been released):

"At the station, Najaf Police Chief Ghaleb Hashem al Jazairi told journalists they were detained because the Dubai-based satellite television channel al Arabiya had reported that Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, the most prominent Shiite Muslim cleric in Iraq, would arrive in Najaf Thursday to lead a demonstration.

"The chief said his forces were unprepared for the news to go out Wednesday night and that as a result at least two Iraqis who arrived early for Sistani's march were killed during clashes with police. [Ed. note - no explanation by the police chief why two Iraqis who came to town to "march" needed to be killed]

"Some officers also blamed reporters for inciting violence against government institutions such as the police and armed services.

"'We were attacked by 14 mortar shells tonight and we expect more, so you're going to stay with us in this room to see what we go through,' one officer told the journalists crowded in the chief's office."

Incidentally, there is also a massive assault in Fallujah occuring right now, involving planes and tanks, and resulting in the usual death and destruction. Not that you'd know it from the U.S. media, after all, there aren't any Swift Boats taking part in the attack.

Iran rocks!

Fakin' it

Debating the undebatable

"You accused your fellow veterans of terrible atrocities and, to this day, you have never apologized. We served honorably in Vietnam and we were deeply hurt and offended by your comments."

Preaching "democracy"

"'I'm the commander,' he told journalist Bob Woodward for the book, Bush at War. 'See, I don't need to explain -- I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation.'"

"You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier." (Governing Magazine 7/98, from Paul Begala's Is Our Children Learning?

"'I told all four that there are going to be some times where we don't agree with each other, but that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator,' Bush joked." CNN.com, December 18, 2000

"'A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it,' [Bush] said." Business Week, July 30, 2001

Quote of the Day

"Underneath the shrill exchange of insults, there is almost absolute consensus. It looks as though even if Americans vote for Kerry, they'll still get Bush. President John Kerbush or President George Berry.

"It's not a real choice. It's an apparent choice. Like choosing a brand of detergent. Whether you buy Ivory Snow or Tide, they're both owned by Proctor & Gamble.

"This doesn't mean that one takes a position that is without nuance, that the Congress and the BJP, New Labor and the Tories, the Democrats and Republicans are the same. Of course, they're not. Neither are Tide and Ivory Snow. Tide has oxy-boosting and Ivory Snow is a gentle cleanser."

- Arundhati Roy, in a speech given in California two weeks ago and broadcast yesterday on Democracy Now!

"Ordinary Americans have been manipulated into imagining they are a people under siege whose sole refuge and protector is their government. If it isn't the Communists, it's al-Qaeda. If it isn't Cuba. it's Nicaragua. As a result, this, the most powerful nation in the world - with its unmatchable arsenal of weapons, its history of having waged and sponsored endless wars, and the only nation in history to have actually used nuclear bombs - is peopled by a terrified citizenry, jumping at shadows. A people bonded to the state not by social services, or public health care, or employment guarantees, but by fear."

"Each of the Iraqi children killed by the United States was our child. Each of the prisoners tortured in Abu Ghraib was our comrade. Each of their screams was ours. When they were humiliated, we were humiliated. The U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq - mostly volunteers in a poverty draft from small towns and poor urban neighborhoods - are victims just as much as the Iraqis of the same horrendous process, which asks them to die for a victory that will never be theirs.

"The mandarins of the corporate world, the CEOs, the bankers, the politicians, the judges and generals look down on us from on high and shake their heads sternly. 'There's no Alternative,' they say. And let slip the dogs of war."

Mathematically challenged CNN

Justice delayed?

The intriguing part of the story is this:

"The U.S. military judge hearing the Abu Ghraib abuse said Tuesday that prosecutors have until Sept. 17 to convince him that top military intelligence commanders should not be forced to testify under a grant of immunity.

"Prosecutors argued against a defense request for such testimony on the grounds that the commanders might be charged themselves and a grant of immunity would complicate any case against them."

Israel contemplates acknowledging that up is up

"The Justice Ministry on Tuesday confirmed a report by Haaretz that the attorney general has recommended to the government that it should 'thoroughly examine' the possibility of formally applying the Fourth Geneva Convention - which governs the treatment of civilians in occupied territory - to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"The team was appointed by Attorney General Menachem Mazuz to examine the implications of the International Court of Justice's July 9 ruling on the separation fence.

"Mazuz believes that the ruling requires Israel to apply the convention in the territories.

"If the team's recommendation is accepted, it would represent a U-turn in the consistent policy of all previous Israeli governments, which has been not to apply the Geneva Convention to the territories. Israel's position is that there was no recognized sovereign in these areas before 1967, so they are not 'occupied territory' as defined in the convention."

Slandering Che

Of course the article, despite being about the city where Che was captured and executed, never mentions the role of the CIA in that execution. While we're slandering Che, we certainly wouldn't want to tell the truth about the CIA.

More about Che with lots of links here.

"At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality."

- Che Guevara, Man and Socialism in Cuba

Political humor of the day

"I'm a reporter, Jon, and my job is to spend half the time repeating what one side says, and half the time repeating the other."

- Rob Corddry on the Daily Show, making precisely the point Left I on the News did yesterday in the post below this one.

Where are the Swift Boats taking us?

Now there are several interesting stories here, although of course they're not the ones that are being told, for the most part. One is about the Bush campaign and its allies, and how they will stop at absolutely nothing in their quest for power, with no lie too big to be told. The second is about John Kerry, and about how a man who once evidently exhibited tremendous personal courage in saving another man's life, is now running a campaign for President absolutely bereft of the slightest sign of courage of any sort. And the third is about the media, which didn't hesitate to jump start this controversy by repeatedly broadcasting for free the slanderous ad which started the controversy, and which now that the charges and the accusers have been proven beyond the slightest doubt to be scurrilous in the extreme, still insists on presenting the story as a "he said, she said" story, when in reality it should be presented as a "he lied, she told the truth with lots of evidence to back her up" story.

But all that being said, the worst part of this episode is something else entirely. There are very real, very important things going on in the world. Israel, with full approval from the U.S., is busy ripping up the so-called "road map" (and further stomping on the remains of international law in the process) by enlarging its settlements in the West Bank. The U.S. is bombing Najaf, Fallujah, and many other places on a daily bais, killing Iraqis by the score. In Afghanistan, similar things are happening, and we barely know about it. A new law just went into place revamping the overtime laws in the U.S. The economy continues its downward slide, and oil prices continue to climb. All of these things could and should be covered more extensively on the news, and discussed at length on the talk shows. Instead, day after day, hour after hour, we get saturation coverage of the Swift Boats. And everytime you hear someone talking about the subject, just ask yourself the simple question - what aren't they talking about because they're spending time on this crap?

Don't spend it all in one place

The latest excuse for denying free speech

"An Arab-American organization and an anti-war group lost a bid on Monday to hold a joint civil rights rally in New York's Central Park two days before the Republican convention.

"A federal judge refused to order New York City to grant a rally permit because he said the two groups failed to provide property damage control plans for a gathering expected to draw about 75,000 people on the park's Great Lawn on Saturday."

Followup: A second article on the denial notes that the judge "noted that the case highlights the intersection of the public interest to peacefully assemble and the preservation of a "unique pastoral oasis amid a towering urban setting." Or, put a different way, the interesection of the right of members of the public to peacefully assemble and protest government policies, vs. the all-important and ultimately decisive right of a handful of other members of the public to play frisbee (or whatever else people do on the Great Lawn on Saturday).

U.S. out of Afghanistan - NOW!

"U.S. soldiers sprayed a pickup with bullets after it failed to stop at a roadblock in central Afghanistan, killing two women and a man and critically wounding two more people, the latest in a string of civilian deaths at the hands of U.S. forces."

Will there be no violence or no killing in Iraq or Afghanistan if U.S. troops are withdrawn? Probably not, but violence and killing continues in almost every country in the world at some level, U.S. troops or not. But this is a good time to remind readers of something I have written about here and here - "every year 17 million children under the age of 5 will die, not as victims of terrorism but as victims of undernourishment and preventable diseases" (actually that's a quote from a speech given at the U.N. by Felipe Perez Roque, Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs). And as I wrote then:

"Imagine a world in which several hundred billion dollars were spent on public health or nutrition instead of war. Instead of killing thousands of innocent people, millions of lives could be saved (and, quite probably, the threat from terrorism reduced at the same time). If only Halliburton were in the health-care business."

Quote of the Day

"A vote for me is a vote for Ralph Nader...and vice-versa."

- Patti Smith, responding to a fan at last night's concert who said "I'm voting for you" after Smith asked the audience who they were voting for.

I've seen criticism of Smith because, unlike the 2000 election, she's not supporting Ralph Nader, and has become a tacit "ABB'er," although she mostly just encourages people to vote. Are her politics 100% identical to mine? No. Does that stop me from thinking that she is both a great musician, a great artist, and the kind of person I wish there were a lot more of? Certainly not. Patti Smith rocks!

Added: I do want to add a comment on one thing Smith said last night, because it points to a general lesson. Noting that she (and probably most of her audience) didn't really support either Bush or Kerry, she said "Well, they're all corrupt anyway." This is a very common thought among people who either aren't very political, or who are but whose politics aren't really well thought out, "Being corrupt" isn't the problem with John Kerry (or George Bush). Both of them, especially Bush, certainly have lots of friends (and even Vice-Presidents!) who are corrupt, but the fundamental problem with Kerry (and Bush) is that he is a firm believer in imperialism, a warmonger who won't hesitate to use the military power of the United States to crush the aspirations of people around the world, and to bend the world to the needs of the U.S. ruling class.

Misreading the news

Civilians killed in Falluja air strike
A US bombing raid on the Iraqi town of Falluja has left five people dead and wounded six, while two US soldiers have been killed near Samarra city.

A journalist from Falluja, Abu Bakr al-Dulaimi, told Aljazeera on Friday that four Iraqi women were among the wounded when US warplanes bombed a milk factory in the town west of Baghdad in an overnight raid.

Venezuelan opposition can't stand the heat

"Venezuela's opposition threatened on Friday to boycott regional elections following President Hugo Chavez's referendum win, which they say was fraudulent but which international observers say appeared legitimate.

"Opponents of the left-wing, populist leader said electoral authorities rigged Sunday's vote so Chavez would triumph, making it pointless for them to compete in a September 26 poll to elect state governors and local mayors.

The opposition controls the governorships of seven of Venezuela's 23 states and many of the 337 mayor's posts, including metropolitan Caracas. An opposition boycott of the regional elections could concede these posts to pro-Chavez candidates."

Jesus Torrealba, spokesman for the opposition Democratic Coordinator coalition said the opposition faced "committing suicide or being killed" in next month's polls.

The Olympics as microcosm

"For sprinters Lamin Tucker and Hawanatu Bangura, the fastest man and woman in Sierra Leone, just getting to the Olympic Games is a major achievement.

"They have scrounged running spikes from retiring athletes, trained by themselves without stop-watches, and have not had the money to compete outside their war-torn country this year.

"As the only two athletes in their team, they have no chance of a medal, but will run for pride against some of the biggest stars from the richest sporting nations.

"Despite countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia coming to the fore on the track, most African athletes' experiences mirror those of Tucker and Bangura.

"Africa's performance at the Olympics often appears a microcosm of the continent's problems, with a lack of investment and infrastructure holding back great potential.

"Of the first 200 medals won in Athens, just three went to the continent, and two of those went to a Zimbabwean swimmer who lives and trains in the United States.

"Most African nations have never won a medal in their Olympic history."

What's up (or down) with gasoline?

U.S. out of Iraq - NOW!

And my question is - how can anyone with two eyes to read the paper, or two ears to listen to the news, possibly think that whatever happens after U.S. troops are withdrawn, it would be worse than what is happening right now? Every single day brings news of Iraqis killed by Americans - 77 killed in Najaf by U.S. bombs today, a few days ago 165 killed in five different cities, and so on. While the count of U.S. dead creeps up at two or three per day toward a thousand dead, the Iraqi bodies continue to pile higher and higher at a far faster rate, probably moving toward 20,000 if the truth were known. Does this killing have anything to do with "weapons of mass destruction," alleged terrorist threats to the U.S., getting rid of that "evil-doer" Saddam Hussein, "freeing the Iraqi people," or any of the myriad of excuses given for the invasion of Iraq? Of course not. It has to do with just one thing - the U.S. wanting to ensure that it's own choice of "leader" takes control in Iraq (and, of course, the reasons why they want to do so).

Stop the slaughter! U.S. out of Iraq now!

Quote of the Day

"I can't be the only person put off by the tag line we're now seeing on John Kerry bumper stickers and lawn signs. It reads: 'Kerry/Edwards. A stronger America.' A stronger America? A stronger America? The last thing this country or this world needs is a stronger America. I can think of a lot of other things I'd like to see first. How about a smarter America? Or a wiser America? Heck, I'd settle for a saner America. One with more moral courage. A fairer America. More equitable. Less arrogant. Less obsessed with materialism. More just, more committed to democracy and peace, less prone to violence. I'd even settle for an America that doesn't embarrass me when I travel elsewhere in the world.

"America doesn't need more strength. It's got too much already. We're too muscle-bound for our own good. All our guns and material goods are making us stupid and lazy when it comes to solving our problems. We use only hammers, and therefore see all problems as nails. But there's a lot of things hammers can't do. A strong dose of humility, and a wider selection of tools, would do us a lot of good.

"So would a president that doesn't see our problems as stemming from a lack of strength."

- Geov Parrish, writing at Working for Change

Political humor of the day

"They practiced marksmanship by firing AK-47s at targets of Osama bin Laden and Barney, the purple dinosaur."

On a more serious note, it is interesting to note who these Iraqis are who are being trained to assault the shrine (allegedly, anyway; I'm highly skeptical that such a thing will happen):

"The battalion is a deliberately motley collection that is eight months old. U.S. trainers drew its members from the five exile opposition groups that joined with the U.S.-led military forces that toppled the government of Saddam Hussein. [Ed. note - a rather misleading statement, as if these groups had the slightest thing to do with the actual invasion. "Supported" would be far more accurate than "joined with."]

"Each of the groups was asked to contribute 120 men: the two Kurdish parties, the Iraqi National Congress headed by Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi National Accord headed by current Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite group then based in Iran.

"Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress provided the core, a pickup team of fighters hastily assembled in the Kurdish-held north of Iraq and flown south during the war, when Chalabi's star still burned brightly in the Pentagon. Today, about half the battalion is Kurdish, a disproportionate share, in part because volunteers from the Shiite party chose to step down rather than fight Iraqis in Fallujah, according to one adviser. Others dropped out as the battle for Najaf loomed."

Under the radar

"The Pentagon has urged Congress to authorize $500 million for building a network of friendly militias around the world to purge terrorists from 'ungoverned areas' - and warned Muslim clerics against providing 'ideological sanctuary' to radicals.

"Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a key architect of the Iraq war, told the House Armed Services Committee Tuesday the money would be used 'for training and equipping local security forces - not just armies - to counter terrorism and insurgencies.'

"The strategy has already been tried in Afghanistan, where US special forces managed to forge alliances with some tribal warlords, who became instrumental in bringing down the Taleban government in 2001 and keeping its remnants at bay, said US military experts."

Of course, U.S.-backed "militias" (hardly a new idea, and I doubt Wolfowitz thinks so) never engage in terrorism themselves, right? Sure, tell that to the Colombians, the Salvadorans, the Nicaraguans, and a host of other people around the world.

I've got a better idea for using $500 million to fight terrorism. Let's take every Israeli occupier of the West Bank and Gaza and build them a new house in Israel. Or fly them back to Russia or Brooklyn or France or whereever they came from. As an added benefit, that will just be a one-time expense, unlike Wolfowitz's plan.

Iraqi Olympians against the invasion

"'Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign,' Sadir told SI.com through a translator, speaking calmly and directly. 'He can find another way to advertise himself.'

"Ahmed Manajid , who played as a midfielder on Wednesday, had an even stronger response when asked about Bush's TV advertisement. 'How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women?' Manajid told me. 'He has committed so many crimes.'

"To a man, members of the Iraqi Olympic delegation say they are glad that former Olympic committee head Uday Hussein, who was responsible for the serial torture of Iraqi athletes and was killed four months after the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003, is no longer in power.

"But they also find it offensive that Bush is using their team for his own gain when they do not support his administration's actions in Iraq. 'My problems are not with the American people,' says Iraqi soccer coach Adnan Hamad . 'They are with what America has done in Iraq: destroy everything. The American army has killed so many people in Iraq. What is freedom when I go to the [national] stadium and there are shootings on the road?'

"Sadir, Wednesday's goal-scorer, used to be the star player for the professional soccer team in Najaf. 'I want the violence and the war to go away from the city,' says Sadir, 21. 'We don't wish for the presence of Americans in our country. We want them to go away.'

"Manajid, 22, hails from the city of Fallujah. He says coalition forces killed Manajid's cousin, Omar Jabbar al-Aziz , who was fighting as an insurgent, and several of his friends. In fact, Manajid says, if he were not playing soccer he would 'for sure' be fighting as part of the resistance.

"'I want to defend my home. If a stranger invades America and the people resist, does that mean they are terrorists?' Manajid says. 'Everyone [in Fallujah] has been labeled a terrorist. These are all lies. Fallujah people are some of the best people in Iraq.'"

Followup: In a shocker nearly as big as the Iraqi soccer team reaching the quarterfinals, this story has now reached the rotation on CNN Headline News. Well, Sports Illustrated is part of Time-Warner, but this still is quite a surprising development.

Sadr vs...who?

Silly question of the day: news articles continually refer to Sadr and his militia in their "hideout" in the Imam Ali Shrine. Is it really a "hideout" when everyone knows where you are?

Economy doing well

"LONG BEACH - The number of postcards mailed by the public last week to register interest in 3,000 part-time longshore positions at local ports will dwarf initial projections, officials say.

"A spokesman for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union estimates that at least 300,000 cards were turned in between Aug. 11 and Friday, the three-day window given by the union to potential applicants.

"The part-time longshore jobs are coveted because they pay a high starting wage ($20.66 an hour) and because the jobs can lead to entry into the strong longshore union."

He has...he hasn't

"Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr accepted a peace plan Wednesday to end fighting in Najaf that would disarm his militiamen and remove them from a holy shrine where they are hiding out, according to an al-Sadr spokesman. However, al-Sadr wanted to negotiate how the deal would be implemented."

Peaceful protest in America

"Minutes before the city announcement on Tuesday [that various commercial establishments were offering discounts to people wearing a "Peaceful Political Activist" button] , four women were arrested while [peacefully!] protesting Bloomberg's refusal to give peace groups the permit to rally in Central Park.

"The women, from a group called Code Pink, were trying to unfurl a banner from a hotel window across the street from the mayor's press conference. They were never able to display their message, but police said the banner read: 'You say welcome, we say where? Central Park."'

"Two of the women, Danielle Ferris, of Manhattan, and Andrea Buffa, of Oakdale, Calif., were awaiting arraignment on Wednesday on misdemeanor charges including reckless endangerment. The two other women were released without being charged."

"They were charged with reckless endangerment, unlawful posting of advertising and disorderly conduct."

In defense of the Olympics

Sports, like culture (movies, theater, literature, and yes, even TV), are one of the treasures of humanity. In some future socialist world, where productivity increases are actually used to decrease the length of the work week instead of just putting more and more people out of work, people will be able to use their leisure time to participate even more in sports, along with other cultural activities. Indeed, part of that vision can be seen today - it's no accident that socialist Cuba is always near the very top of the list of Olympic medals won per capita.

Sure, there are problems with the Olympics, and there has definitely been over-commercialization of them (although the current games seem remarkably free of that problem), and there are problems of jingoism ("U-S-A, U-S-A"), but all that notwithstanding, the Olympics, and amateur sport in general, is something to be celebrated, not denigrated. And that goes for all the sports, not just running and swimming and other "hard-core" sports. A lot of people like to snicker at events like rhythmic gymnastics or synchronized swimming or beach volleyball or a host of other things. All I can say is, no matter what event you think is "silly," you try it. You think that sport X doesn't embody your particular definition of athleticism? Try it once and think again.

And if you're a political activist, as many of us are, there are even direct lessons to be learned. Results rarely come quickly. They come after years of dedication, hard work, frustration, disappointment. The athletes with the gold medals around their neck? The activists who achieve something? Those are the ones who stuck with it, and didn't give up, even though success wasn't immediate.

Capitalism is absurd

Followup: Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect elaborates at much greater length and detail on this subject.

Unclear on the concept

"Mayor Michael Bloomberg, already under fire for his tough stance against anti-GOP protest groups, Monday suggested that First Amendment rights of free speech and free assembly are 'privileges' that could be lost if abused.

"'People who avail themselves of the opportunity to express themselves ... they will not abuse that privilege,' he said at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. 'Because if we start to abuse our privileges, then we lose them, and nobody wants that.'"

Headline evolution

Followup: Knight-Ridder surprises me with a headline and lead almost as good as the one in Granma. The headline: "Venezuela defeats recall." The subhead: "Effort to challenge president's term ends in failure by a wide margin." The lead: "Bolstered by a stunning victory in a hotly fought recall referendum, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez on Monday vowed that he would carry on with his leftist 'revolution' and urged Washington to 'respect' his government."

More followup: Nothing to do with headlines, but an interesting eyewitness account of election day in Caracas here.

Tariq Ali interviews Hugo Chavez

"I don't believe in the dogmatic postulates of Marxist revolution. I don't accept that we are living in a period of proletarian revolutions. All that must be revised. Reality is telling us that every day. Are we aiming in Venezuela today for the abolition of private property or a classless society? I don't think so. But if I'm told that because of that reality you can't do anything to help the poor, the people who have made this country rich through their labour and never forget that some of it was slave labour, then I say 'We part company'. I will never accept that there can be no redistribution of wealth in society. Our upper classes don't even like paying taxes. That's one reason they hate me. We said 'You must pay your taxes'. I believe it's better to die in battle, rather than hold aloft a very revolutionary and very pure banner, and do nothing ... That position often strikes me as very convenient, a good excuse ... Try and make your revolution, go into combat, advance a little, even if it's only a millimetre, in the right direction, instead of dreaming about utopias."

By the way, in case this isn't clear, I am not implying that agreement with Chavez's analysis leads one to vote for Kerry. I doubt Chavez thinks so, although I don't believe he's made any explicit comment on the U.S. election. I do think one could interpret his remarks that way, and regardless of the U.S. election, it's still an analysis that's well worth thinking about.

Biotech illusions

Chavez wins in a landslide

"With 94 percent of electoral rolls counted, 58 percent of voters cast ballots against removing Chavez from office, said National Electoral Council President Francisco Carrasquero."

"Opposition leaders claimed the same margin of victory as Chavez, saying the official results were a fraud engineered through the use of electronic voting machines."

Here's an amusing news twist to the story. Reuters says "Chavez, dressed in a red shirt, appeared on the balcony of his Miraflores presidential palace in downtown Caracas on Monday and led hundreds of supporters in singing the national anthem before dawn." The Voice of America describes what is presumably the same event this way: "Leading his supporters in a partisan folk song, President Chavez appeared at four-thirty in the morning on a balcony at the Miraflores presidential palace." So evidently the national anthem is a partisan folk song.

Talking up the economy

The San Jose Mercury News has repeatedly been guilty of the same thing. Today's lead headline in the Business section is a case in point: "Valley job losses at four-year low." And what is the spin the Mercury News applies to this bit of news in the subhead? "Latest figures show local economy recovering." Here's the news on which they base this recovery: "Santa Clara County's loss of 3,700 jobs in July, a month that often sees payroll declines because of summer school closings, left economists encouraged that Silicon Valley remains in a modest recovery." When losing 3,700 jobs is a sign of a recovery, watch out for the recession, it'll be a doozy.

Exercise for the reader

And who was this "father"? Well, to begin with we know something about the "settlement" in which he lives illegally:

"The settlement of Itamar, where the shootings took place, has been a flashpoint for violence throughout nearly four years of conflict. Located just south of the volatile Palestinian city of Nablus, Itamar is known as one of the most hard-line of the West Bank settlements, populated mainly by ultra-nationalist Jews who insist they will never relinquish land they believe is theirs by biblical birthright.

"Human rights groups have repeatedly documented instances of settlers from Itamar and its outposts destroying Palestinian olive groves and beating and shooting at farmers from nearby villages."

Venezuela update

"In all...the government this year is spending more than $4.5 billion, nearly 20 percent of its budget, on education. That is equal to 6.1 percent of gross domestic product, Mr. Istúriz said, about twice the percentage of last year.

"Much of the money comes from Pdvsa. Rafael Ramírez, minister of energy and mines, recently said $1.7 billion from Pdvsa's $5 billion capitalization budget now financed social programs. About $600 million is being spent on education and health care programs, another $600 million is going toward agriculture and $500 is being spent to build homes and a highway and to finance other infrastructure projects.

"Another $2 billion in revenues is forming a development fund to pay for megaprojects like a hydroelectric plant, a state airline, power stations and sugar industry plants."

Headline of the day

"Syria rebuffs IDF chief on Golan Height withdrawal"

"Syria will not take seriously Israeli offers to pull out of the Golan Heights unless they are backed by moves on the ground or an open commitment to withdraw, an advisor to the Syrian information minister said Friday.

"Ahmad Haj Ali was responding to comments by Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon, who told the Yedioth Ahranoth newspaper Friday that there was no military reason why Israel could not withdraw to the border Israel shared with Syria before the 1967 Six-Day War.

"Haj Ali was not impressed by Yaalon's comment, telling The Associated Press: 'We don't give such statements any weight unless they are associated with a serious move [toward peace] and with international guarantees.'

"'Whoever is willing to make peace should return the land to its owners and withdraw immediately or declare that openly and clearly,' he added."

Quote of the Day

"Get from your paper supplier the thinnest sheet in the inventory, and you won't succeed in wedging it between the Republican and the Democratic position on the nature of our strategic objectives in Iraq."

- William F. Buckley, writing in praise of John Kerry's recent statements about Iraq

Lies of the Times, revisited

"This line in such an article in today's New York Times:

"'In Iraq, the transfer of sovereignty has led to some reduction in American casualties.'

"The facts are, however, ahem, contrary. In the first three weeks of July, there have been 43 American military fatalaties, vs. 42 in all of June, for a rate of 2.09 per day in July vs. 1.67 in June. That's a 25% increase in the fatality rate.
...
"A 'reduction in American casualties'? Not on your life. And certainly not on the lives of those who continue to die in Iraq, day after day."

"An article on July 21 about President Bush's campaign plans for the rest of the summer referred imprecisely to the trend in American military casualties in Iraq after the transfer of sovereignty there on June 28. From the transfer date to the date on which the article was written, casualties increased compared with the same length of time before the transfer; they did not show 'some reduction.'"

Privatization (and profit-skimming) continues apace

"Stretched thin by troop deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan and security needs at home, the Army has resorted to hiring private security guards to help protect dozens of U.S. military bases.

"To date, more than 4,300 private security officers have been put to work at 50 Army installations in the United States, according to Army documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

"The work was awarded to four firms -- two of which got the contracts without having to bid competitively. The contracts are worth as much as $1.24 billion."

"[Using] a law intended to aid impoverished Alaska Natives...two five-year contracts worth as much as $1 billion went to two small Alaska Native firms with little previous security experience. The firms, which operate under special contracting laws enabling them to avoid competitive bidding, subcontracted part of the work to two of the country's largest security firms: Wackenhut Services Inc. and Vance Federal Security Services."

Both Wackenhut and Vance are well-known strike-breaking outfits.

Prison horror stories

Via TalkLeft, the story of a 76-year-old man who has just been freed from a Texas prison after spending 41 years behind bars for a crime he didn't commit (a robbery! 41 years!). Why was he in prison? He confessed after the sheriff and his deputies broke his hand and threatened his life. We're told that the sheriff and his deputies "used physical force to extract confessions, often crushing prisoners' fingers between jail cell bars," so it's rather unlikely this man was (or is) the only similarly unjustly imprisoned person. Of course, it wasn't just the cops who did him in; the entire "justice" system was part of the deal. The convicted man "probably did not see a lawyer until he stood before a judge in the case."

You already guessed he was black, didn't you?

This morning, Democracy Now! broke an entirely different story, this one about a Louisiana man, who was just exonerated after he "only" spent five years in prison, but he was on death row, awaiting death after being convicted of a crime in which DNA found on the mask of the murderer did not match his! He was the "115th death row inmate to be exonerated in the past 25 years."

You already guessed he was black, too, didn't you? Of course you did.

Puppets without strings

"Most people on the left scoff at the idea that June 28 was anything but a symbolic gesture, and that Iraq now has anything remotely resembling sovereignty. Left I on the News (see many posts below) certainly broadly shares that view. However, contrarian that I am, I have to say I think it isn't quite so simple. Iraqi leaders, even appointed ones, even ones who have been on the payroll of the CIA, do have minds of their own, probably more so than George Bush. They may, for example, want to at least appear to act independently of the U.S. to boost their own standing with the Iraqi people in preparation for future elections."

"Sixteen of Najaf's 30-member provincial council resigned in protest at the US-led assault on the Najaf as fighting between the Mahdi Army loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr and US occupation forces entered its eighth day.

"'We have decided to resign due to what has befallen Najaf and all of Iraq from the hasty US invasion and bombardment of Najaf,' the council said in a statement to the press.

"The council's resignations came several hours after the deputy governor of Najaf resigned in protest against the US offensive on the city.

"'I resign from my post denouncing all the US terrorist operations that they are doing against this holy city,' Jawdat Kadam Najim al-Kuraishi, deputy governor of Najaf, said on Thursday morning.

"On Thursday evening, the director of tribal affairs at the Iraqi Interior ministry announced his resignation through Aljazeera and said he could no longer work with the interim government in good faith given the 'carnage and barbaric aggression of the US-led forces in Najaf'."

And then there's this, which did appear in Knight-Ridder papers:

"In open defiance of Allawi, Iraqi Vice President Ibrahim al-Jaafari, one of the country's most influential Shiite politicians, called for U.S. troops to leave An-Najaf in remarks aired on the Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera."

Meanwhile, back in America, the real puppets continue to perform on TV. I just listened to Anderson Cooper on CNN questioning an Al Sadr spokesperson, asking him why his fighters were continuing to fight considering they were fighting Iraqis and not Americans. Cooper looks like he's from this planet, but evidently looks are deceiving.

Mission accomplished - hearts and minds won

Just a few bad apples? A handful of "foreign fighters"? No, the entire Iraqi people is resisting the American occupation:

"In the south-eastern city of Kut, at least 75 people were killed in US air raids and fighting between Iraqi police and Sadr's Mahdi Army, the Health Ministry said. A further 44 died in clashes in Baghdad, and 25 in the fighting in Najaf. Elsewhere, 14 people were killed in the southern town of Amara and seven in Diwaniya."

Sudan - the next invasion?

Left I on the News hits 100,000

Cutting bait

But here's the strange part of the story. It is said that as part of the "deal," Hamdi will have to renounce his U.S. citizenship and move to Saudi Arabia. Now, considering the state of the world, if the U.S. government really thought he is or ever was a danger to them (or us), wouldn't he be a lot more dangerous in Saudi Arabia? Even though it is claimed he will have to agree to "some monitoring by Saudi officials," surely there is a reasonable chance that he would manage to sneak into Iraq and join up with the resistance and end up killing U.S. soldiers.

The plain fact of the matter is, the U.S. government doesn't think this man is dangerous, and never did. His arrest and imprisonment without charges and virtually without rights was just part and parcel of the overall assault of civil rights in this country. And, of course, to no one's surprise, we're told "he may have to agree not to sue the federal government over whether his civil rights were violated." Right. They can hold him responsible for crimes he didn't commit, but God forbid we should hold them responsible for crimes they did commit. Well, I agree, suing is inappropriate anyway. How about we just throw Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft into jail for two years, in solitary confinement without the right to consult a lawyer, and then in two years we'll say "oops, our bad" and let them out?

The Post: Mea not so culpa

The U.S. is in control in Baghdad...not

Think again - the U.S. forces aren't even safe in their own headquarters. Four days ago: "A series of at least 10 explosions echoed throughout central Baghdad on Saturday night. Their cause was not immediately apparent. The blasts appeared to be targeting the fortified Green Zone enclave that houses the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi interim government buildings."

Yesterday:

"Rocket-propelled grenades and mortars have hit the headquarters of US-led occupation forces in Baghdad.

"Reporting from the eastern al-Rustamiya district, Aljazeera sources said the attack on Tuesday was carried out at the same time as a similar raid on the Ministry of Culture.

"Anotherbomb targeted a US convoy travelling in a street next to the Palestine and Sheraton hotels.

"During the nighton Monday, Iraqi resistance fighters fired a dozen mortars at central Baghdad's Green Zone compound housing the interim Iraqi government and the US and British embassies, Aljazeera's correspondent reported."

Credit to Politics in the Zeros for the Al-Jazeera link.

Change happens

And from the Guardian comes this story, which caught my attention as one of those rare American soccer fans (and ex-player, actually). We're told there's been a huge increase in gay football (a.k.a. soccer a.k.a. "footie") fans, with gay bars packing them in on football night, and gay football leagues on the rise. A story just on the subject of "gay people are regular human beings" probably wouldn't have been worth mentioning here, even if it was an interesting story, but this in particular caught my eye:

"The FA [Football Association]...is very enthusiastic these days about talking about gays and football. It held a summit on homophobia in the sport this summer and Lucy Faulkner, the FA's head of ethics and sports equity, is at pains to point out that homophobic abuse on the pitch is a disciplinary offence. This season will be the first time in which the FA has been open about this policy - indeed it has made a short film about Stonewall FC to be displayed on its website as part of its 'Football for all' programme." [For American readers, "FC" stands for "Football (Soccer) Club," and Stonewall FC is presumably a gay team]

As for Alan Keyes and Missouri voters, they're headed for the dustbin of history. Change happens. Right-wing resistance can slow it down, but it will never stop it.

By the way, as I write this, the opening event of the 2004 Olympics is taking place, with the U.S. women's soccer team facing the Greek team (U.S. leading 1-0 as I write this). Still more evidence of change happening.

Make that 2-0 3-0. :-)

Exposing CIA agents

"One would think that a former CIA spy might be appalled by reports that a White House official had publicly exposed the identity of an undercover agent, especially as an act of political retaliation against the agent's spouse. The blatant politicization of intelligence is, or should be, anathema to any professional spy—or prospective CIA director.

"But Goss waved off the whole business. In an interview with his hometown paper [from last October], the Herald-Tribune of southwestern Florida, Goss said the uproar was the result of 'wild and unsubstantiated allegations, which are being obviously piled on by partisan politicians during an election year.' There was no need to mount an investigation, he said, because there was no evidence of 'willful disclosure' (though how he reached that conclusion without an investigation, he didn't say). Then, in a jab against Bush's favorite target, Bill Clinton, Goss cracked, 'Somebody sends me a blue dress and some DNA, I'll have an investigation.'"

Incidentally, the reason I mentioned all the reporters' names in the previous paragraph is to make a point. These are all veteran Washington reporters. The fact that the House Select Committee on Intelligence, which Goss chairs, as well as the corresponding Senate Committee, declined to investigate the Plame affair is well-known to all these reporters and is clearly relevant to the story; it's not just some obscure fact dug up by Slate. The omission of this aspect of the story is just one more demonstration of the way political stories in the mainstream media are never framed as "politician X vs. the truth," they are always framed as "Democrats vs. Republicans." Democratic politicians haven't raised Goss' handling of the Plame affair yet, so for the news media, it doesn't exist.

Followup: Billmon has a lot more on Goss.

U.S. vs. human rights

"The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention attached to the UN High Commission for Human Rights sent a report to the United States outlining the reasons why it considers that the five Cuban political prisoners of the empire are being arbitrarily detained."

Free the Five!

Venezuela update

Are all the peaceful paths blocked?

Regrettably, it has been demonstrated that the referendum is a failure; it will never be a solution in Venezuela. Nothing will be resolved on August 15 in Venezuela. People who still have hope on the recall referendum wrongly believe that Chavez is capable of giving leeway. That is not the way to go. It will fail. It is not consistent with Latin American idiosyncrasy."

Nobody works to get rid of Chavez

"I am working to get rid of Chavez. We will be able to get rid of him through violent means. They are the only means we have."

If Chavez leaves by force, then what?

"We cannot get rid of Chavez and enter immediately into democracy. Chavez has not only destroyed Executive Power, but Legislative Power too, as well as other State institutions. It takes a transitional stage, of two to three years, in order to set the bases of the Law. During the transitional period, a scholarly body that will set up the democratic bases of the future must govern the country."

A Constitutional Assembly?

"No. The day that Chavez is toppled, the National Assembly as well as Supreme Court must be shut down. All the chavista institutions must disappear after Chavez leaves office."

U.S. to world - "Submit or die"

"Condoleezza Rice, the US national security adviser, said at the weekend there was a new international willingness to confront Tehran, but declined to rule out unilateral action if others did not go along.

"That will fuel speculation in Tehran and elsewhere that the Bush administration may resort to force, with or without Israel, ahead of November's election. Options include 'surgical strikes' or covert action by special forces.

"'I think we've finally got the world community to a place, the IAEA to a place, that it is worried and suspicious,' Ms Rice said in one of a string of interviews with CNN, Fox News and NBC television. She vowed to aim some 'very tough resolutions' at Iran this autumn. 'Iran will either be isolated or it will submit,' she said."

Left I stands corrected

"The fact that Kerry believed, and still believes, that the United States had the right to invade Iraq even if the allegations against it were true doesn't seem to bother Moore, which presumably means that when Kerry decides to invade Iran, or North Korea, both of whom may well have nuclear weapons (or be on the way to having them), Moore will have no objections."

"Senator John Kerry said Monday that he would have voted to give the president the authority to invade Iraq even if he had known all he does now about the apparent dearth of unconventional weapons or a close connection to Al Qaeda."

And for those who actually believe that Kerry will be quicker to withdraw troops from Iraq than Bush, there's a bit of bad news for you too. While Kerry "set a goal of reducing the number of troops in Iraq by next summer," "his senior foreign policy adviser, James P. Rubin, told reporters, 'Senator Kerry made very clear he was talking about goals.'"

Wall St. Journal: "The rich are getting richer"

"Hotel revenue at luxury hotels was up 11 percent in the first five months of 2004, but only 3 percent at economy chains. At high-end stores like the famed Neiman-Marcus, spending on such things as gold and diamond cocktail rings was up 13.5 percent the first quarter. At low-end stores like Wal-Mart, 'same store' sales were up just 2.2 percent.

"Sales of luxury automobile lines like Lexus, BMW and Cadillac have climbed in the double digits. Lower-tier brands such as Dodge, Pontiac and Mercury saw either sales declines or increases only in the low single digits.

"The same article contained a chart on who has gotten the most from the Bush tax cuts. The bottom 20 percent got less than 0.1 percent of the total cuts, the top 20 percent, 76.9 percent. The next lowest 20 percent got 2.1 percent of the total, the next higher 20 percent claimed 13.1 percent."

Venezuelan referendum approaches

The general consensus of observers is that Chavez (and the Venezuelan people) is headed for a victory. But if he does, whether it's by a small margin or even by a large one, which appears definitely possible, look for the United States and its handmaiden media to cry "foul!", accuse Chavez of winning by demagoguery if not outright fraud, etc. Unlike the case with Cuba, the United States has limited economic options, because it needs (or at least wants) Venezuelan oil, but they have a host of military, political, and subversive options, and if Chavez wins this election, they will be all the more frantic to employ those options before the changes in Venezuela become irrevocable. A defense of the right of Venezuelan people to determine their own destiny, free of interference by the United States, is very much on the agenda at this time.

Here's a prediction I feel absolutely confident in making - the very next words out of George Bush's mouth, and most likely John Kerry's too, on the subject of Venezuela, will be a lie.

Bush speaks with non-forked tongue

"Bush also said high taxes on the rich are a failed strategy because 'the really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway.'"

Instant runoff voting coming to San Francisco

Particularly if you're not familiar with instant runoff voting (IRV), the article is well worth reading, but I'll quote one part of it here because it offers an interesting historical perspective that I suspect most readers are unaware of:

"The method of voting is used in Australia, Ireland and London. Its history in the United States, however, is limited to the 1975 mayoral contest in Ann Arbor, Mich.

"Though the Republican candidate had beaten his Democratic rival in the first round with 49% of the vote to her 40%, she squeaked to victory in a re-tally after the left-leaning Human Rights Party candidate was eliminated. Those voters had chosen the Democrat second. Shortly after that election, Republicans placed a successful measure on the ballot to repeal the system."

Well, now we know what happened to Ronald Reagan

"People who spent most of their lives in jobs that involve little brain work appear more likely to eventually develop Alzheimer's disease, according to new study findings released Monday." (Source)

Right-wing nutjob quotes of the day

"The battle is for us, but the victory is for God."

- Alan Keyes, announcing his candidacy for Senate in Illinois

And in a quote picked up from Atrios, and which wasn't actually said today, but just heard about, this gem:

"The gay community has infiltrated the very centers of power in every area across this country, and they wield extreme power...hat agenda is the greatest threat to our freedom that we face today. Why do you think we see the rationalization for abortion and multiple sexual partners? That's a gay agenda."

- U.S. Rep. Tom Coburn, Senate candidate in Oklahoma

One of these two men is already a member of Congress, the other has run for President twice, both are running for Senate, and the population of the United States is 293 million. Is this really the best we can do?

Who'da thunk it, part II

"A team of international observers will monitor the presidential election in November, according to the U.S. State Department."

Still, it's one heck of an interesting development. Who knows, maybe next the mainstream U.S. media will actually mention the name of Greg Palast.

Who'da thunk it?

"Iraq has issued an arrest warrant for Ahmad Chalabi, a former governing council member, on money laundering charges and another for Salem Chalabi, the head of Iraq's special tribunal, on murder charges, Iraq's chief investigating judge said Sunday." (Source)

Next up, an indictment of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and a host of others as war criminals? A man can dream...

Meanwhile, in other Iraqi legal news, Iraq has closed down the Al Jazeera office for 30 days, and Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib says "They have been showing a lot of crimes and criminals on TV, and they transfer a bad picture about Iraq and about Iraqis." Jesus, there wouldn't be a local TV news station left broadcasting in the United States if they stopped showing crimes and criminals. In Iraq, of course, the existence of "criminals" (by which the Interior Minister really means the resistance) is the central reality of Iraq; only on "happy talk" stations like Fox News is it even conceivable to ignore that reality. Evidently the Iraqi government believes that if we all just go through the looking glass and pretend there is no resistance (and stop reporting on it, for heaven's sake), that there will be no resistance. The resistance, however, as well as the Iraqi people as a whole, surely know that is a fantasy.

Confusing polls with reality

Hiroshima day

Ten thousand children played in the playground
Swinging on the swings, didn't hear the sound
Of the single plane that flew overhead
The third shift workers were just going to bed
There was a flash of light and a rumbling noise
And gone in a flash, parents, girls and boys

Ten thousand mothers were boiling rice
A thousand POW's were rolling dice
Hoping they'd survive this terrible storm
When each young man in his uniform
Vanished in the air in the blink of an eye
One moment they lived, the next they all die
Hiroshima, Hiroshima

Ten thousand chickens were sitting on eggs
Heads in their wings, resting their legs
Ten thousand farmers were looking at their fields
Planning the harvest, guessing at yields
Dreaming of life after the war
The next second they weren't living no more
Hiroshima, Hiroshima

Ten thousand lovers made lover to each other
Each one of them thinking they might not get another
Living so long with death everywhere
Much more than one person alone can bear
But there wasn't time for a final kiss
Who could've known it would end like this
Hiroshima, Hiroshima

A hundred thousand people were living their lives
Grandparents, children, fathers and wives
Now they're just shadows on the street
In such a quick burst of incredible heat
Now listen to them talk about doing it again
From whence came the souls of these terrible men
Hiroshima, Hiroshima

Unfair and imbalanced

By the way, will these veterans who are busy denouncing John Kerry's war record do a follow-up ad denouncing George Bush's war record (or lack thereof)? I can't wait for that one.

Or, how about a follow-up ad denouncing John Kerry for committing war crimes? Instead of denouncing him for opposing the Vietnam War when he returned, as this ad does, how about denouncing him for participating in war crimes? Granted, he's a petty criminal next to big-time war criminals like George Bush, Bill Clinton, the other George Bush, Ronald Reagan, and the rest, but at least that would be a supportable charge. Of course, the men in this ad participated in the same war crimes, and are probably still proud of it to this day, so somehow I doubt we'll be seeing that ad either.

I missed my birthday!!!!

I started Left I a year ago with a post about undercounted deaths in Iraq because, while there were a number of excellent liberal and progressive blogs (see the recommended blog list at right for some of them), there were virtually none that I would describe as "left" or radical. I think I managed to find a grand total of one that was even so far "left" as to be urging its readers to vote for Nader rather than choosing up sides in the Democratic primary, and none that would cover subjects like capitalism, Cuba, Palestine, North Korea, etc. None who would be willing to be accused of being a "supporter of Saddam" by challenging such conventional wisdom as the existence of mass graves in Iraq containing hundreds of thousands of bodies, as I did exactly one year ago today (to be vindicated in my judgement this July by the British government).

Well, it's one year (and four days!) later, and I'm happy with what I've accomplished so far. I've done less media criticism per se than I expected to do (as indicated by the title of the blog), and more of just criticism of capitalism and the U.S. government than I expected, but things develop as they do and I just follow my nose. I don't try to cover everything, rather I cover things where I think I have a particular insight or just something to say (as well as sometimes just drawing readers' attention to a story that has appeared elsewhere that I thought worth reading), and I hope I've accomplished that. There are a number of "real left" blogs now, as there weren't a year ago, but I think this blog still serves a function, and I have every intention of continuing it.

So happy birthday to me!

"Turning the corner"...and heading south

The U.S. population is increasing by around 2.7 million people per year, with 1.9 million of those in the age range 20-64. This means that it takes an estimated 158,000 jobs per month just to stay even with population growth (other estimates put that figure at 170,000). Saying that 106,000 jobs per month is "adding jobs" is like saying you're making more money when you get a salary raise of 2% in a year that inflation was 6%.

Subliminable advertising

"What a revolting devopment this is..."

Actually, it could be worse. Going along with the trend in "naming rights," the sign could read "This bill-signing brought to you courtesy of Lockheed-Martin." Or perhaps they'll just go whole hog and bid for naming the bill itself. Why pretend this is the "Defense" Appropriations Bill when it has little or nothing to do with "defense"? Why not just call it the "Lockheed-Martin Appropriations Bill"? Or the "Halliburton Appropriations Bill," if they bid more for the naming rights?

Israeli tales

It seems the Palestinians aren't the only ones suffering at the hands of the Israelis. BBC World last night had the story (which, curiously enough, you will not get any hits for on either Google or Yahoo News) about an Israeli ring of "organ snatchers." No, they aren't actually physically attacking people, any more than the U.S. forces poor people into the military. They just let the economy do that. And just so in this case, where Israelis are using their money to exploit poor Brazilians and having them sell their organs (kidneys, probably exclusively) in return for some shekels, with the transplants being performed in South Africa. All of this is, as you probably realize, highly illegal, not to mention completely immoral.

Strangely, the BBC World piece shown last night describes the story as I have done so above - an Israeli-operated ring, buying organs from Brazilians and transplanting them into Israelis. However the BBC story linked above (the BBC World story isn't online) presents things differently - it suggests that both Brazilians and Israelis are selling their kidneys to be transplanted into people of other nationalities; the only person mentioned in the story is an Iraqi (!). Time will tell if this disparity in stories in clarified, or if this story disappears into the ether.

Followup: A commenter steers me to the fact that this story was broken in the New York Times in May by Larry Rohter. That story is only online to subscribers, but I found another article on the subject which includes this interesting paragraph:

"Recently, investigative reporter Larry Rohter of The New York Times tracked the illicit trade from the slums of Brazil to upscale clinics in Durban, South Africa, and came up with some startling revelations. It involved two retired police officers, one an Israeli and the other Brazilian, who procured organ 'donors' in Recife, where poverty is rampant beyond belief. There, the Brazilian would induce persons willing to sell kidneys at US$6,000 to make a trip to Durban where the organ transplant was done. The two have since been jailed on organ trafficking charges, and investigations are continuing in South Africa. But because of Jewish religious injunctions that prohibit 'desecration of the body', many Israelis who are desperate to have transplants pay handsomely for them."

Quote of the Day

"They [our enemies] never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

- George Bush, signing the "Defense" Appropriations bill

George Bush is a liar

Reagan, as I've said before, still harbors illusions in his father, and certainly harbors illusions in the "system" itself. But he writes a great indictment.

His conclusion is interesting, and telling:

"Come November 2, we will have a choice: We can embrace a lie, or we can restore a measure of integrity to our government. We can choose, as a bumper sticker I spotted in Seattle put it, SOMEONE ELSE FOR PRESIDENT."

Followup: David Sirota and Christy Harvey chime in with perhaps the definitive, cross-linked reference of the evidence that the Bush administration knew very well that they were misleading America and the world in making the case for the invasion of Iraq.

Knight-Ridder knighted

"Strobel says their conclusions came from a lot of extra digging and source-building they were forced to do without the red-carpet access to high-level officials that some of the nation's top media outlets enjoy.

"'Knight Ridder is not, in some people's eyes, seen as playing in the same ball field as the New York Times and some major networks,' Strobel says. 'People at the Times were mainly talking to senior administration officials, who were mostly pushing the administration line. We were mostly talking to the lower-level people or dissidents, who didn't necessarily repeat the party line.'

"Those sources, Knight Ridder Washington Editor Clark Hoyt adds, were 'closest to the information.'

"'I'm not saying we didn't have any top-level sources,' Strobel says, 'but we also made a conscious effort to talk to people more in the bowels of government who have a less political approach to things.'"

Health care advertising, and other opportunities for "choice" under Capitalism

Then, cleaning out some old files (specifically, a file of old bills from PG&E), I came across a priceless letter (eBay potential, perhaps?) from back in 1997 from none other than Enron, urging me to enroll in the "Enron Earth Smart Power" plan as my supplier of electricity. I was guaranteed that all my energy would come from "non-nuclear, non-coal sources" and that a full 50% would come from "renewable sources like wind and solar power." Well, they certainly had an abundant supply of hot air and bullshit. They guaranteed me all the above, plus "the same rate for two full years," but by April, 1998, just a few months after the letter arrived, they had dumped the entire plan.

Questions for the Day

Why is it that when there are alleged threats to "interfere with the election," the government starts talking about postponing the election, but when there are alleged threats to financial centers in New York, the government tells us that the most important thing we can do is to "go about our business as usual"?

Followup: Just listened to a few minutes of Pat Buchanan "debating" (I use the word loosely) Julian Borger ("Democratic strategist") on the question of the latest "terror warning." Buchanan says you have to err on the side of caution, what if a bomb had gone off Monday morning at the IMF building, killing hundreds of people because they hadn't been told not to come to work? But people were specifically told to come to work!!!! I heard New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg saying precisely that on TV. So Buchanan is just, how can I put this politely, full of shit. If they really want to "err on the side of caution," they would have to tell people not to come to work today, tomorrow, or any day until "the war on terror is over."

And speaking of "full of it," Atrios notes that after Tom Ridge said, in announcing the latest "threat," "the kind of information available to us today is the result of the president's leadership in the war against terror," the Washington Post proceeded to make the preposterous editorial claim that "In his statement, Mr. Ridge stayed away from politics." Well, just now on MSNBC, the anchor (I forget her name), after showing Howard Dean's statement of the other day (implying that there was politics involved), proceeded to make the same definitive assertion. Echoing Tom Ridge's claim that "We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security," she simply asserted that as fact as a way to close off discussion of the issue.

Bumper sticker wisdom

As far as Fascism and Nazism, the distinction between the two is probably lost on most people, and I think the bumper sticker writers are just trying to sneak in an extra "ism" to get extra credit, so they can claim war ended four things and not just three. And somehow, I doubt that the fact that the key turning point in the war is widely seem to be the battle of Stalingrad, and the role that Communists played there, as well as in the French resistance, is lost on the writers (and displayers) of this bumper sticker.

But the strangest entry is the last, Communism. Which war was it exactly that defeated Communism? The Korean War? The Vietnam War? That war against the Soviet Union or China that seems to have escaped my attention? The Bay of Pigs? Surely they don't mean the "Cold" War, because the whole point of this bumper sticker is to glorify war, real war, the kind where people shoot at each other and drop bombs on each other and kill each other. And while "war" may have been a metaphor for the competition between the Soviet Union and the Western powers, it certainly shouldn't be confused with "real" war. So which war was it?

Two new blogs

John Kerry, rewriting history