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Saturday, March 08, 2003

From the Bitter Shack:

Yesterday, at the top of the front page of The New York Times, there was a story of 15 Israelis killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber.

Today, way back on page A8 of The New York Times, a small story about 11 Palestinians killed when Israelis stormed a refugee camp. Children were killed in both cases.

Are Israeli lives worth more? More newsworthy? Is a suicide bombing any more or less heinous than killing innocent refugees in retribution? As bc noted yesterday, when Palestinians kill, it's terrorism. When Israelis kill, it's justice. The NYT doesn't come out and say that, but its placement of stories on the topic speaks volumes.

posted by Jenny at 2:08 AM |

Friday, March 07, 2003

*head in hands*

The Bush administration plans to double the amount of logging permitted in Sierra Nevada national forests over the next decade. Apparently the war between the Bush family and the spotted owl is long from finished. And the way they're selling it is...it's going to protect all of us from forest fires!

More at the San Francisco Gate.

posted by Jenny at 1:53 PM |

Krugman can always be counted on:

Last week The Economist quoted an American diplomat who warned that if Mexico didn't vote for a U.S. resolution it could "stir up feelings" against Mexicans in the United States. He compared the situation to that of Japanese-Americans who were interned after 1941, and wondered whether Mexico "wants to stir the fires of jingoism during a war."

Incredible stuff, but easy to dismiss as long as the diplomat was unidentified. Then came President Bush's Monday interview with Copley News Service. He alluded to the possibility of reprisals if Mexico didn't vote America's way, saying, "I don't expect there to be significant retribution from the government" — emphasizing the word "government." He then went on to suggest that there might, however, be a reaction from other quarters, citing "an interesting phenomena taking place here in America about the French . . . a backlash against the French, not stirred up by anybody except the people."

And Mr. Bush then said that if Mexico or other countries oppose the United States, "there will be a certain sense of discipline."

These remarks went virtually unreported by the ever-protective U.S. media, but they created a political firestorm in Mexico. The White House has been frantically backpedaling, claiming that when Mr. Bush talked of "discipline" he wasn't making a threat. But in the context of the rest of the interview, it's clear that he was.

Moreover, Mr. Bush was disingenuous when he described the backlash against the French as "not stirred up by anybody except the people." On the same day that the report of his interview appeared, The Financial Times carried the headline, "Hastert Orchestrates Tirade Against the French." That's Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House of Representatives. In fact, anti-French feeling has been carefully fomented by Republican officials, Rupert Murdoch's media empire and other administration allies. Can you blame Mexicans for interpreting Mr. Bush's remarks as a threat to do the same to them?

posted by Jenny at 9:34 AM |

It's a long shot, but I'm willing to try it. I haven't always been completely down with the policies of this pope, but given the leaps and bounds the church has made, I seem to like him anyway. WorkingforChange is helping us all ask him to go to Baghdad to stave off the war. Go ahead and click to send him (or his minions, or whoever reads his inbox) a quick letter--I'm sure if they get a critical mass of emails, he might actually hear about it.

posted by Jenny at 9:13 AM |

Playing catch-up

I wasn't aware Bush was going to be giving a press conference (his eighth, compared to the 30 and 58 that Clinton and Bush the Elder respectively gave at this point in their presidencies), but the Cursor has a good rundown of the proceedings. Sorry I can't add more here, am fighting a killer headache. Blame the Fulbright fairy...

posted by Jenny at 9:03 AM |

Lying Media Bastards has a great post up on the "capture" of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Lots of links, points to consider, and more.

posted by Jenny at 8:42 AM |

hahaha, it works, it works!

posted by Jenny at 8:29 AM |

okay, quick archive test. pay this no mind.

posted by Jenny at 6:12 AM |

Hurry up and sign MoveOn's emergency petition to the Security Council, opposing the push for war--they're still accepting signatures, and last I heard, they needed 250,000 more. Get going!

posted by Jenny at 1:13 AM |

Thursday, March 06, 2003

WARSAW – A reality show that is only too real has transformed daytime Polish TV in recent weeks and kept millions glued to their screens. Starring an Oscar-nominated film producer, the country's prime minister, and one of Poland's most respected anti-Communist dissidents, live coverage of parliamentary hearings into influence peddling is tearing the veil from an allegedly tight-knit group of rich and powerful Poles accused of corruptly controlling the country.

Some of you may not know that my undergraduate major focus was European Politics--needless to say, as I wrote a paper partly on Poland's shaky transition to democracy, this news was of particular interest to me. One of the interesting ways to analyze Central European countries' transitions from the Soviet era is to examine how the fledgling governments chose to expose and try those who had served the previous authoritarian regimes. The former East Germany is often considered to have dealt with this problem most constructively; those who have not done such a hot job of exposing the Soviet sympathizers among the nomenklatura (bureaucracy) and elected political officials seem to have had more difficulty in making the shift to a good old free-market democracy. (Fellow social science nerds, please contact Garton Ash's History of the Present for details...sadly, my memory is not as it once was on these matters, being that I have been intellectually railroaded by Foucault, beguines and beghards, and the modern machinations of Bush & Co.)

posted by Jenny at 3:36 PM |

*shudder* Unsurprisingly, Thom Hartmann hits the nail on the head with his discussion of corporate ownership of the vote. Now, following the installation of touch-screen voting machines in Florida, companies with connections to Cheney & Co will have access to votes following the constitutional law which treats corporate entities as citizens. Oh yeah, and somebody already got fired for pointing out that the system could be rigged. Click here, it's all in the article.

posted by Jenny at 2:59 PM |

This is so wrong on so many levels, I won't even start.

Jewish settlers are offering special "terror tours" of the West Bank and Gaza, in which tourists will be trained to fire weapons and participate in mock fights with Arab militants.

The four-day excursion will include aerial tours of "terrorist" enclaves and a chance to sit in the cockpit of a fighter-plane capable of delivering nuclear bombs.

"There's a lot of the 'wow' factor, like going up in an army helicopter and firing machine guns," organiser Jake Greenwald told BBC News Online, "but it is also aimed at training people in how to deal with a terrorist situation".

Mr Greenwald said it was also a way of attracting thrill-seekers to Israel at a time when tourism is suffering because of the violence with the Palestinians.

...

He said that while people might think the tour was "a bit strange", there was a serious message in teaching "teamwork in the face of an emergency".

He said so far more than 20 people - including a judge, doctors, and a Middle East lecturer - have signed up from the United States, at a cost of $5,500 each.

More.

posted by Jenny at 2:44 PM |

Should the United States use force to remove Saddam Hussein from power?

Senate Majority Leader Frist has a poll on his website...go vote!

Via Lying Media Bastards.

posted by Jenny at 12:40 PM |

Okay, this is it. After this I'm going to lunch and then sequestering myself with research and NO INTERNET CONNECTION. But first, via veiled4allah: this prayer was deemed so offensive that two lawmakers stepped off the chamber floor when it was given in the Washington State House of Representatives...

We open this session of House of Representatives in the name of Allah the one God of Abraham, God of Moses, God of Jesus, and God of Mohammed, peace be upon them all. . . . We ask Allah or God to bless the state of Washington so it may continue to prosper and become a symbol of peace and tranquility for people of all ethnic and religious backgrounds. We pray that Allah may guide this House in making good decisions for the people of Washington.

At this time, we also pray that America may succeed in the war against terrorism. We pray to God that the war may end with world peace and tranquility.

The representatives' reasons for walking out and more here. Way to go religious tolerance.

posted by Jenny at 3:24 AM |

Just go. It's a nice shot in the arm.

posted by Jenny at 3:09 AM |

But while the companies hope to cash in on an American-controlled Iraq, the push to remove Saddam Hussein hasn't been driven by oil executives, many of whom are worried about the consequences of war. Nor are Vice President Cheney and President Bush, both former oilmen, looking at the Gulf simply for the profits that can be earned there. The administration is thinking bigger, much bigger, than that.

"Controlling Iraq is about oil as power, rather than oil as fuel," says Michael Klare, professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and author of Resource Wars. "Control over the Persian Gulf translates into control over Europe, Japan, and China. It's having our hand on the spigot."

Mother Jones has a great article up on the oil question and the 30-year history of the current administration's policy of the Middle East, stemming from the oil crises of the 1970s. Check it out!

posted by Jenny at 2:58 AM |

Some great articles on the man...and probably the best at explaining why so many of my generation just broke down and cried last week.

The Unfathomable Goodness of Fred Rogers

It's Such a Good Feeling: Fred Rogers 1928-2003

I've got to get a tribute up and running soon...

posted by Jenny at 1:34 AM |

This just in:

A chemical plant which the US says is a key component in Iraq's chemical warfare arsenal was secretly built by Britain in 1985 behind the backs of the Americans, the Guardian can disclose.

Documents show British ministers knew at the time that the £14m plant, called Falluja 2, was likely to be used for mustard and nerve gas production.

More.

posted by Jenny at 1:15 AM |

"A Reich and a Wrong Way to Protect the U.S."

Inspired by reader mail, Utne reviews the similarities between the Department of Defense's Patriot II and Germany's 1933 "Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich", which effectively ended democracy in the Third Reich and established the legal dictatorship of Hitler. An excerpt from the History Place:

Just before the vote, Hitler made a speech to the Reichstag in which he pledged to use restraint.

"The government will make use of these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures...The number of cases in which an internal necessity exists for having recourse to such a law is in itself a limited one." - Hitler told the Reichstag.

He also promised an end to unemployment and pledged to promote peace with France, Great Britain and the Soviet Union. But in order to do all this, Hitler said, he first needed the Enabling Act.

Get better acquainted with Patriot II at the Center for Public Integrity...

posted by Jenny at 1:06 AM |

Just discovered at Alternet: James Carroll at the Boston Globe provides a list of setbacks encountered by Bush & Co this month. Just in case you were beginning to get jaded...

posted by Jenny at 12:34 AM |

One more choice link from Body and Soul, this time in regards to the recent Kristof editorial in the Times on the "liberal media" and "conservative Christians". Check out the commentary, see for yourself.

posted by Jenny at 12:25 AM |

"Is this a goddamn joke?"

Many thanks to Ashleigh for clueing me in on this choice ditty...Thank goodness I live in Europe, where the only trash I hear is unintelligible techno...

Update: You know, I just have to shake my head in disgust at the turn country music is taking. Growing up as a kid listening to Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins, and Patsy Cline, I never would have expected the potential of country music to become a mouthpiece of a warring elite and chief tool in the disinformation and pro-war mobilization of tons of U.S. citizens...kind of makes you want to reopen that debate on "Murder on Music Row".

posted by Jenny at 12:13 AM |

Wednesday, March 05, 2003

Well, if there were any doubts about the "liberal media"...

Cable news has ''acted as if the decision to invade Iraq has already been made, and have in effect seen it as their job to prepare the American public for the coming war,'' New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote last week. ''Some media outlets -- operating in an environment in which anyone who questions the administration's foreign policy is accused of being unpatriotic -- have taken it as their assignment to sell the war, not to present a mix of information that might call the justification for war into question.''

Says Greg Mitchell, editor of Editor & Publisher: ''The press woefully underplayed the anti-war movement until recently. Now coverage is growing, of the large marches at least. But I still don't see the kind of regular day-to-day coverage that was common during, say, the nuclear freeze movement of the early 1980s. That's the true test of taking dissent seriously.''

...

Of 414 stories on the Iraqi question that aired on NBC, ABC and CBS from Sept. 14 to Feb. 7, Tyndall says that the vast majority originated from the White House, Pentagon and State Department. Only 34 stories originated from elsewhere in the country, he says.

Similarly, a check of major newspapers around the country from September to February found only 268 stories devoted to peace initiatives or to opposition to the war, a small fraction of the total number.

More.

Update: You know, every week I find great stuff written by folks in Texas. So all of you out there eager to stereotype us as war-mongering cowboys, take a hint. From MySanAntonio:

In terms of sheer pornographic value, the drive to war makes an oversexed president playing footsie with an intern seem like hard-core compared to PG-13. What's a cigar and a lie compared to the prospect of bombs piercing bunkers, rockets shuddering straight up into the sky, journalists embedded like so many sperm in the phalanxes of the seeds of victory?

Pornographers, though, can be found guilty of disseminating their scenarios. What accounting for the media? Can the Fourth Estate's role in delivering useful information to the American public — the very heart of its protection under the First Amendment — have become any more compromised? How exactly has mainstream journalism allowed itself in these past months to be yoked into shifting blame for the horror of 9-11, and failure to find Osama bin Laden, to salivating over an attack on Saddam Hussein's half-starving Iraq?

When the techno-slaughter actually begins, followed by the inevitable reprisals and widening of this "pre-emptive" strike into ongoing global war (see again "1984"), on whose hands will the bloodstains indelibly remain if not those of the media?

Almost every newspaper in this country, every TV station, every network, every newsmagazine, is producing a stream of jingoistic material perhaps unparalleled in American journalistic history. Hundreds of reporters have by now gone through Pentagon-created "boot camps" to prepare for coverage, basically psy-ops indoctrination of the press by another name. From 500 to a thousand journalists, print and broadcast, are currently being "assigned" to units, and limited access is already part of the agreement.

posted by Jenny at 11:50 PM |

*shakes head*

In Ohio: "Kent police field complaint about busty snow woman."

Via Body and Soul, with this choice quote:

Why do some people think anything that has to do with women is pornographic? Does their only experience with breasts come through pornography?

posted by Jenny at 11:35 PM |

George Smith's article over at the Village Voice is interesting, if a little scary. He analyzes the leaflets the US military is dropping over Iraq, "warning everyone in the region that the air force is going to blow their heads clean off."

Oh yeah, almost forgot. If you'd like to see these babies for yourself, the leaflets are "colorfully displayed" (with English translations) at Central Command.

Update: Naomi Klein on the Pentagon's Voilà moment...

posted by Jenny at 11:29 PM |

Oooh, here are some good quotes to kick things off. First of all, one from the patron saint of the little red cookbook, Fred Rogers:

We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say "It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem." Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes. -- Fred Rogers

And, along those lines, here's an excerpt from a peace rally speech by 13-year-old Charlotte Aldebron (via Brooke):

When people think about bombing Iraq, they see a picture in their heads of Saddam Hussein in a military uniform, or maybe soldiers with big black mustaches carrying guns, or the mosaic of George Bush Senior on the lobby floor of the Al-Rashid Hotel with the word "criminal." But guess what? More than half of Iraq's 24 million people are children under the age of 15. That's 12 million kids. Kids like me. Well, I'm almost 13, so some are a little older, and some a lot younger, some boys instead of girls, some with brown hair, not red. But kids who are pretty much like me just the same. So take a look at me -- a good long look. Because I am what you should see in your head when you think about bombing Iraq. I am what you are going to destroy.

If I am lucky, I will be killed instantly, like the three hundred children murdered by your "smart" bombs in a Baghdad bomb shelter on February 16, 1991. The blast caused a fire so intense that it flash-burned outlines of those children and their mothers on the walls; you can still peel strips of blackened skin -- souvenirs of your victory -- from the stones.

posted by Jenny at 1:58 PM |

Tuesday, March 04, 2003

so...welcome to my blog. I'm still in the process of formatting images and tables the way I like it, plus configuring the archives, so if things look a little hodgepodge for the next couple of weeks, it's because they are. In time I shall create more pages and add a menu to them.

posted by Jenny at 8:20 AM |