The Hackenblog

Wish I’d seen this earlier:

“Here in California, Sam Farr, Bob Filner, Diane Watson, Pete Stark, Mike Thompson, John Tierney, Linda Sanchez, Mike Honda, Grace Napolitano, Jackie Speier, George Miller and Zoe Lofgren have all taken bold antiwar positions in the past. If you live in any of these districts, call, announce yourself as a constituent and tell them you support them voting no tomorrow. Leave a message if the office is closed (which it almost certainly is).

“Sam Farr (202) 225-2861
“Bob Filner (202) 225-8045
“Diane Watson (202) 225-7084
“Pete Stark (202) 225-5065
“Mike Thompson (202) 225-3311
“John Tierney (202) 225-8020
“Linda Sanchez (202) 225-6676
“Mike Honda (202) 225-2631
“Grace Napolitano (202) 225-5256
“Jackie Speier (202) 225-3531
“George Miller (202) 225-3201
“Zoe Lofgren (202) 225-3072

“And of course, Lynn Woolsey, Maxine Waters and Barbara Lee have been outstanding leaders in the caucus on war-related issues over the years, even back when being progressive on foreign policy was like screaming in the wilderness. If any of these are your Representative, call today and tell them how important it is that they cast their votes against the supplemental when they vote on Tuesday.

“Lynn Woolsey (202) 225-5161
“Maxine Waters (202) 225-2201
“Barbara Lee (202) 225-2661″
State blogs coordinating to stop passage of the war supplemental, by Leighton Woodhouse, Calitics, June 15, 2009

Barbara Lee was the only No vote on the Patriot Act in 2001. So if she’s saying say No to the War Supplemental, it’s a NO GO for sure. I have very few heroes, but Barbara Lee is in the top three.

And at a church, no less.

“KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) – A Kansas doctor who was a controversial provider of so-called ‘late-term’ abortions was shot and killed at his church on Sunday, local media reported.

“The Wichita Eagle newspaper reported that 67-year-old George Tiller, a longtime target of anti-abortion activists, was shot to death as he walked into services at Reformation Lutheran Church.

“Police are searching for a white male who fled the scene after shooting Tiller with a handgun, local media reported.”

~snip~

“Tiller’s clinic in Wichita has been the site of mass protests by anti-abortion groups and was bombed in 1985. Tiller was shot and wounded by an abortion opponent in 1993.”
Kansas abortion doctor shot dead at church: report, Reporting by Cynthia Osterman, editing by Anthony Boadle, Reuters, May 31, 2009 (also of note)

Don’t like somebody? Shoot ‘em! It’s the way we live now!

“In an interview on Tuesday evening with the German television program ‘Frontal 21,’ on channel ZDF Professor Manfred Nowak, the United Nations Rapporteur responsible for torture, stated that with George W. Bush’s head of state immunity now terminated, the new government of Barack Obama was obligated by international law to commence a criminal investigation into Bush’s torture practices.”
UN Rapporteur: Initiate criminal proceedings against Bush and Rumsfeld now, by Scott Horton, Harpers, January 21, 2009 (via)

This is what the world has been waiting for. Let’s do it.

I didn’t. Talk about the end of an era.

“In 2004, Rees announced that the strip (Get Your War On) would end with the Bush administration, and with Barack Obama assuming the U.S. Presidency on January 20, the cartoonist is doing just that.”

~snip~

“The Bush years are almost over and so is “Get Your War On.” Is it a relief? Is it sad?

“It’s bittersweet. I fantasize about Bush and me going into business together, maybe starting a record label? I think that could be really fun. He probably knows a lot of people in the record industry, which would help. (I assume he knows people in the record industry because he was President and the President knows everybody.)

“What were you doing on election night, 2008?

“Hiding under my sofa. After they called it for Obama, I went to a party.”

~snip~

“What’s next for David Rees?”

“I have no idea. Fortunately, the entire economy is collapsing, so it should be really easy to find a job….
David Rees Talks “Get Your War On”, by Alex Dueben, Comic Book Resources, January 13th, 2009

I haven’t read GYWO in years, but now I think I’ll miss it.

“Once one of the largest Jewish communities in the Middle East, Baghdad Jews have now nearly vanished while the country has been consumed by sectarian war.”

~snip~

“Iraq’s Jewish community dates from biblical times. According to Charles Tripp’s History of Iraq, the country was home to 117,000 Jews in 1947.”
Reminiscences of old Baghdad by one of last Jews, Reuters, November 9, 2008

I didn’t know there were any Jews left in Baghdad.

“Pakistani intelligence sources report that Siddiqui was in Pakistani detention until the end of 2003 and that her son Suleman fell ill and died during that time. It is known that terrorism suspects often spend a period of time in the country before being turned over to the Americans. According to the Asian Human Rights Commission, there are 52 secret prisons in the country, into which thousands of Pakistanis are believed to have disappeared since the beginning of the war on terrorism.

“A number of other prisoners held at Bagram Air Base, the site of the most important US detainee camp in Afghanistan, say they heard a woman screaming. Some claim two women were there. The woman was nicknamed the ‘gray lady of Bagram.’

“Elaine Whitfield Sharp, an attorney who has represented the family since 2003, is convinced that Siddiqui was classified as a high-level prisoner and spent five years in a so-called ‘black site’ in Bagram — in one of these notorious black holes in the legal system.”
‘The Most Dangerous Woman in the World’, by Juliane von Mittelstaedt, Der Spiegel, November 27, 2008

If we’re still giving thanks for anything, we can include that we are not the gray lady of Bagram.

I’ll be thankful when Obama ends the war on terrorism and the U.S. stops kidnapping, torturing and raping in the name of truth, justice and the American way.

But right now I just feel sick enough to throw up.

“LONDON (Reuters) – Taliban leader Mullah Omar on Monday urged U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan to withdraw or face a similar defeat to occupying Soviet troops a generation ago.

“In a rare message, posted on militant websites and monitored by the U.S.-based SITE intelligence group, Omar offered a bargain to the U.S.-led forces that drove the Taliban from power in 2001 but are now fighting a fierce insurgency by the Islamist militia.

“‘Reconsider your wrong decision of wrong occupation, and seek a safe exit to withdraw your forces,’ said the message, which the Taliban said came from Omar.

“‘If you leave our lands, we can arrange for you a reasonable opportunity for your departure,’ he said, adding that the Taliban posed no harm to anyone in the world.”
Taliban’s Omar offers deal to U.S. on withdrawal, Reuters, September 29, 2008

Haven’t we been looking for this guy as long as we’ve been looking for his son-in-law? And he just pops up and sends us a message? Weird. Even for me, this is weird.

Where has Dr. Aafia Siddiqui been for the past five years? And what’s been happening to her?

“On August 5, US newspapers carried the story of the capture of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman who was trained in neuroscience here in the United States. Typical of the stories was this one in the NY Times. The report was fairly neutral, but there were some gaps in the coverage which seemed a little puzzling. Dr. Siddiqui was brought back to the US and charged in a New York federal district court for the crime of shooting at FBI agents. There was no other terrorism related charge, yet she was identified as someone who worked closely with Al Qaeda. Rather curious, don’t you think?

~snip~

“‘Ridley has been running a campaign called Cage Prisoner for the release of a mysterious female prisoner who has been held at the Bagram airbase in Afghanistan in total isolation and regularly tortured for five years.

“‘The unknown female prisoner, known as the Prisoner No. 650 or the Grey Lady of Bagram, was brought to the world attention after Ridley read about the woman in a book by fellow Briton Moazzam Begg, a former Gitmo and Bagram prisoner. In his book, Enemy Combatant, Beg talks of a woman’s endless screams for help as she was tortured. Beg first thought he was imagining his wife’s screams.

“‘”We now know the screams came from a woman who has been held in Bagram for some years. And she is Prisoner No. 650,” Ridley disclosed at a recent Press conference in Pakistan.

“‘And I strongly suspect that Prisoner No. 650 is none other than Dr Aafia Siddiqui. It is quite possible that her captors decided to end her isolation after the Pakistani Press and activists like Yvonne Ridley began increasingly talking about the Prisoner No. 650 and how she was tortured and abused physically, mentally and sexually for the past four years.’”
A New Low, Cab Drollery, August 17, 2008 (via)

A new low does not begin to describe five years of torture under the aegis of the United States. What the hell is going on here? Please read the whole post and spread the word about this. My hands are shaking too much to write more about it.

Update 091808: Aafia Siddiqui’s Son has been detained, but no one know what happened to him for the past three years in Afghanistan either. This situation gets more disturbing with every new piece of information, but we need to know how bad it was and punish whoever is responsible, which might be the United States government.

Update 111808: Pakistani woman called mentally unfit for U.S. trial because she was tortured for five years.

Honestly! If you really want to know what’s going on in the world, you have to read the Asia Times.

“GORI, Georgia (Reuters) – Georgia called for a ceasefire on Saturday after Russian bombers widened an offensive to force back Georgian troops seeking control over the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

“President George W. Bush said Russian attacks on Georgia marked a ‘dangerous escalation’ of the crisis and urged Moscow to halt the bombing immediately.

“Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told Bush the only solution was for Georgian troops to quit the conflict zone.”
Georgia calls for ceasefire in South Ossetia, by Matt Robinson, Reuters, August 9, 2008

Well, this is horrible, and here’s some background you might have missed:

Don’t panic, this is from 2002:

“As Georgian troops began their ‘anti-terrorist’ operation in the Pankissy Valley last week, an alleged Russian air strike against a village in the valley made Georgian-Russian uneasy relations dangerously hostile. In reference to the incident, Georgian President Edward Sheverdnadzhe demanded an apology from Russia to normalize damaged relations, while the Georgian ambassador to the United Nations accused that country of state terrorism. The sudden escalation of hostility between the two neighboring countries reflects the growing sense of insecurity of Russia since the deployment of American “military advisers” in Georgia. It also indicated Georgia’s increasing boldness in its relations with Russia, stemming from its expanding military relations with the United States, a growing power in the Caucasus and Central Asia.”
Georgia and Russia square off, by Hooman Peimani, Asia Times, September 3, 2002

But closer to the present…

“The Caucasus Republic of Georgia, as nations go, is not apparently a major global player. Yet Washington has invested huge sums and organized to put its own despot, Mikhail Saakashvili, in the presidency in order to close a nuclear North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) iron ring around Russia.

“US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited the capital Tbilisi and made sharp statements against Moscow for supporting the separatist Georgian states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in essence blaming Moscow for an imminent war Washington has incited in order to bring Georgia into NATO by the December NATO summit.”

~snip~

” The underlying issue is the fact that since the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991, one after the other former members as well as former states of the USSR have been coaxed and in many cases bribed with false promises by Washington into joining the counter organization, NATO.”

~snip~

“Although the United States has trained several crack Georgian units in the past few years, the fighting effectiveness of all other elements is uncertain. There are no trained sergeants, and troop morale is running low. Only about 50% of the military equipment is operational, and coordinated operations in adverse conditions are impossible.”

~Ah, but here’s the crux of the matter:~

“However, Georgia under Washington’s man, strongman President Mikhail Saakashvili – a pretty ruthless dictator as he recently showed against domestic opposition – refuses to back off its provocative NATO bid.

“Georgia is also a strategic transit country for the Anglo-American Caspian oil pipeline from Baku in Azerbaijan through Georgia to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. As well, the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline has been key to Azerbaijan as an alternative to the control of the Russian state monopoly Transneft in order to convey its oil and gas resources toward the West. The entire Caucasus is part of what can be described as a new Great Game for control of Eurasia between Washington and Russia.

“As the Moscow Times sees it, ‘One way to disrupt Georgia’s NATO aspirations would be to heat up the conflict in Abkhazia to a level that would make it unacceptable for the Western alliance, which acts by the consensus of all members, to offer membership. Georgia’s leadership could be escalating tensions in hope of prompting Abkhazia and Russia to make a move that would leave the West with no chance but to intervene.”
A war waiting to happen, by William Engdahl, Asia Times, July 16, 2008

Where there’s oil, there’s trouble.

And also:

“Last week, the gloves finally came off the Dmitry Medvedev presidency in Russia. It had to happen sooner or later, but few would have expected this soon. It was crystal clear US President George W Bush administered a diplomatic snub to Medvedev on the sidelines of the Group of Eight (G-8) summit meeting at Hokkaido, Japan.

“Bush characterized him patronizingly as a ’sharp guy’ soon after they met in Hokkaido on July 9, but that was after making sure Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice proceeded to Prague and signed a deal just the previous day to install a US radar system as part of its missile defense system in Central Europe.

“If Medvedev’s core mission in Hokkaido was to underscore Russia’s growing role in the world arena as a power with which the West has to contend, Bush acted as if he couldn’t care. The US was also plainly dismissive of Medvedev’s proposal at the G-8 for a pan-European security system that would include Russia. Medvedev expressed his ‘dismay’ on hearing about the Prague deal. As if to rub in the snub, Rice proceeded from Prague to Bulgaria, where the US has for the first time established a military base, and then on to Georgia to discuss its plans of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

“While in Tbilisi, she called for international mediation to stop violence spilling over in Georgia’s beakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abhkazia, which have been sources of rising tensions, with Georgia accusing Russia of trying to annex the regions. To carry matters further, the US began a joint military exercise with Georgia codenamed Immediate Response 2008, near Tbilisi, which will continue through the month of July.”
Russia’s energy drive leaves US reeling, by M K Bhadrakumar, Asia Times, July 19, 2008

And any secret deals or promises of aid from the bush administration to Georgia are out the window. Or should be, but bush might be like his dad and leave a Somalia-like mess for his successor. Poor, Georgia. They just didn’t know not to go out on a limb during an election year. Because whether the U.S. intervenes or not, lots of people are going to die and none of them will be named Bush or Cheney.

Why do the Republicans need the Cold War so much? Why? I thought they wanted it gone more than life itself. And yet they’re doing everything they can to resurrect it. Obviously the U.S. needs more conflict so the bush mafias can rule through fear. They sure can’t govern through consent worth a damn.

(Whew…blogging like this really wears me out. No wonder I don’t do it anymore.)

This email was forwarded to me from a reliable source. The original sender’s son, who was stationed there, confirmed that they have almost nothing in their library:

“I am now on active duty again and have deployed to Iraq for the second time. I am assigned to 1st Marine Logistics Group as the Camp Commandant of Camp Al Taqaddum. “TQ” is just west of Baghdad on the northeast corner of Lake Habbaniya. It is a large sprawling base that is home of several thousand Marines, Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen.

“We have a modest library on the camp and they are in need of more books. The library staff really wants copies of the Commandant’s Reading List and other books and DVDs that would be of interest to young men and women 18-30. College prep books would also be welcomed.
Books may be sent to:

“Sabine Glascoe
“KBR/MWR (B6)
“APO AE 09381″

from an email from my pals, Carol and Ted.

I don’t have anything on the Commandant’s Reading List, but I can certainly send a few things from Amazon and glean a little from my stacks as well. Please feel free to cross-post or let me know it’s a hoax, which would surprise me very much.

Although I’m kind of wondering about this now, because this site has the same text, but a different origin. I sent an email to the Sabine, let’s see if I get an answer.

So the email’s not bouncing and here’s what a googlefication of Sabine Glascoe turns up, so maybe it’s okay. I’ll weed some books and send them on the off chance it is.

If something new turns up, I’ll post it here.

I loathe American irony, but I found this apt:

Voter Registration in all 50 States. Ginger doesn’t want to hear you didn’t know how to register to vote. She knows baby is muuuuuch smarter than that.

“We work directly with members of the United States Military, corporations, and the general public to provide portable media to active troops in order to boost morale and keep our men and women in uniform culturally tuned-in. We gather, organize, and send entertainment material such as comic books, DVDs, CDs, books, magazines, MP3 players, and game systems to our Heroes.

“Heroes4Heroes is a Dallas, Texas based 503c non-profit corporation(pending). Just like our troops, we do this because we believe in the cause. You can contact Scott Hinze (Media Relations, Founder), Dallas Pollei (Military Relations, Founder) or Chris McCroskey (Fund Raising, Founder) with any questions or special gifts.”
Heroes4Heroes

I know where those Green Lantern floppies are going now.

Send DVD’s, CD’s, video games and comics to:

Heroes4Heroes
9905 Boston Harbor Drive
Aubrey, TX 76227

But usps.com sez it’s:

9905 BOSTON HARBOR DR
PROVIDENCE VILLAGE TX 76227-8522

So I wonder.

“The 42-count grand jury indictment alleges Mr Siljander lied about lobbying senators on behalf of the Missouri-based Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA).

“The indictment alleges the charity sent about $130,000 (£66,000) in 2003 and 2004 to accounts in Peshawar, Pakistan, that Gulbuddin Hekmatyar had access to.

“It alleges the charity paid Mr Siljander $50,000 that was stolen from a US development agency.”

“Mr Siljander was a congressman from 1981-1987 and served one year as a US delegate to the United Nations.” Appointed by Ronald Reagan, too.
US politician on al-Qaeda charge, BBC News, January 16, 2008

The jokes practically write themselves on this one.

I got to wake up with a sore throat, but that just means I’m getting it out of the way for the rest of 2008.

And since it IS 2008, I can post this again!

Journal of Bloglandia, because Blogtopia (y!sctp!) was taken.

and

The Journal of Women on Comics, women read comics and write great things about them.

I haven’t said anything about Benazir Bhutto’s death because I have and had very mixed feelings about what her return to Pakistan might actually mean. I am sorry she died and the unspeakable way she died, but I have a less than glowing opinion of her due to reading The Economist every week she was in power in the 90s and reading Richard Reeves excellent book: “Passage to Peshawar: Pakistan: Between the Hindu Kush and the Arabian Sea,” which gives much background on why and how General Zia got to power and stayed in power in Pakistan. As I recall, three or four horrendously wealthy landowning families, the Bhuttos are one of them, have always had all the power in Pakistan, except when the military grabbed it. I’m probably naïve, but ruling nobility and democracy don’t usually get along so well. Although in some cases, like Spain after Franco, the formerly exiled nobility make it look okay. But Spain, even under the Franco regime, was more developed and ready to rejoin the West and democracy than Pakistan is, was and might ever be.

And Ms. Bhutto’s government in the 90s was messy. She might have come to power through some kind of elections, but she ruled like pasha and didn’t have much traction with the people when she was removed from the prime ministership for alleged corruption (again, as in 1988) in 1996.

I don’t pretend to know what the solution for Pakistan is, but I was and am still sure it wasn’t Benazir Bhutto or any member of the Bhutto family. They are part of Pakistan’s feudal, backward, xenophobic, intolerant, paranoid problem, not it’s forward-looking democratic solution. If there is one; Pakistan might end up a military-backed theocracy and there’s not a damn good, bad, or indifferent thing the U.S. can do about it. Other than offer every woman in Pakistan whose family will send her a first-class full scholarship education and citizenship in the U.S. But we don’t offer that to our own women, so probably that’s not going to happen.

If real darkness descends on Pakistan, it’s not really the U.S.’s fault, but then again the U.S. really didn’t try to actually improve things there. As Richard Reeves points out, the U.S. will put up with any kind of monster as long as it’s our kind of monster. Which is why my stupid country supported General Zia in the 80s to support the mujahideen and has supported General Musharraf to fight the mujahideen in the 00s. Our foreign policies definitely make our own problems for our U.S. and then our government makes even more problems trying to solve them (sometimes militaristically, see Iraq, Panama and Haiti).

So, I’m sorry for Ms. Bhutto’s murder, but I never thought she was Pakistan’s savior. I’m not sure there is a one for that poor country until the mullas are pried off the educational system for the poor, which means Pakistan would have to make an educational system for the poor, women are emancipated and educated, and the U.S. stops propping up vampires like Zia, Musharraf, and, yes, to a lesser extent, the Bhutto family.

And that, other than to highly recommend Mr. Reeves’s book, is all I have to say on this subject, which is why comments are off.

Happy new year, everyone, better days a’comin’, please God, haven’t we suffered enough?

Even if it’s Hillary, even though Bill recently said the US should leave some troops in Iraq to protect the Kurds from the Turks (also here), which is one the worst ideas I’ve heard in a long time. Nothing against the Kurds or Turks, but I’d rather leave diplomats and NGO aid and development agencies and money we can more or less keep track of there and work with the rest of the world on it. I mean, hopefully next year and beyond, the US can become a country in the world and not a world in a country.

However, if a Republican is inaugurated next year, we can just kiss everything that matters good-bye anyway:

“The religious right—in the form of its umbrella organization the Arlington Group, formed in 2002—is certainly split and unenthusiastic about the presidential candidates. Pat Robertson has endorsed Giuliani; Richard Land, the head of the Southern Baptist Convention, has said he could never vote for Giuliani and would consider backing a third-party candidate if Giuliani is nominated. So the unanimity on Bush’s behalf we saw in 2000 and in 2004 will likely be gone. But as far as policy is concerned, the Christian right has only one overriding goal: a promise from candidates that they’ll appoint ’strict constructionist’ judges. And every one of the candidates, Giuliani included, has made that promise resoundingly and repeatedly, in public and presumably in private. As recently as November, Giuliani told the conservative Federalist Society that ‘we need judges who embrace originalism’ and vowed that he would appoint justices in the mold of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.[8]

“That, above all, is what the Christian right needs to hear. It is well worth remembering that when the next president is sworn in, John Paul Stevens will be three months shy of his eighty-ninth birthday. It seems unlikely that he would be able to outlast a Giuliani or Romney or Huckabee or McCain presidency. One more judge like John Roberts or Samuel Alito will mean not only the probable end of Roe v. Wade but of affirmative action (sharply curtailed already), efforts at school desegregation (school systems have resegregated to a surprising extent in recent years), and many other progressive social goals. All of the four major Republican candidates have vowed to see to these outcomes. Paradoxically, the personally pro-choice Giuliani, if elected, could go down in history as a hero to the Christian right—the president who finally ended Roe—in a way that even Ronald Reagan has not.”
How the Republicans Have Become Prisoner of Their Own Ideology, Naked Capitalism, December 29, 2007

Gah! C’mon, Dems! It’s crunch time! (It has been for awhile, but that’s moot now.)

Remembering Molly Ivins.

And it might never stop hurting.

“It was Keynes, too, who anticipated and helped prepare for the ‘craving for security’ that Europeans would feel after the three decades of war and economic collapse that followed the end of the Gilded Age. Thanks in large measure to the state-provided public services and safety nets incorporated into their postwar systems of governance, the citizens of the advanced countries lost the gnawing sense of insecurity and fear that had dominated and polarized political life from 1914 through the early Fifties and which was largely responsible for the appeal of both fascism and communism in those years.

“But we have good reason to believe that this may be about to change. Fear is reemerging as an active ingredient of political life in Western democracies. Fear of terrorism, of course; but also, and perhaps more insidiously, fear of the uncontrollable speed of change, fear of the loss of employment, fear of losing ground to others in an increasingly unequal distribution of resources, fear of losing control of the circumstances and routines of one’s daily life. And, perhaps above all, fear that it is not just we who can no longer shape our lives but that those in authority have lost control as well, to forces beyond their reach.”
The Wrecking Ball of Innovation, a review of Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life, by Robert B. Reich. Review by Tony Judt, NYT Review of Books, December 6, 2007

This isn’t an easy read, but I highly recommend it. Not only are we living in interesting times, we’re living in vicious times, too.

I’ve always liked and respected Robert Reich, but after I read his first post-Clinton book, I could not help but think he was something of a lamb among wolves, or maybe just Border Collies with OCD, in the Clinton administration. This review doesn’t change my opinion.

“In the early 1980s, Gray, who teaches European thought at the London School of Economics, was the most capable defender of Friedrich von Hayek as a social philosopher rather than just a propagandist for free-market policy. But he later became decidedly critical of any notion that the future belonged to liberal democracy. In 1989, as the Soviet Union was reforming itself out of existence, he wrote that this would not inaugurate ‘a new era of post-historical harmony’ but rather ‘a return to the classical terrain of history, a terrain of great-power rivalries, secret diplomacies, and irredentist claims and wars.’ Over the following decade, he advanced a critique of globalization that sounded, at times, profoundly anticapitalist, if by no means Marxian.

“Such an ideological itinerary seems like a calculated effort to lose friends. But whatever its twists and turns, Gray’s thought has in fact been remarkably consistent, with his journalistic writings simply framing, in the most provocative possible way, theses that have accumulated in more sedate works like ‘Enlightenment’s Wake’ (1995) and ‘Two Faces of Liberalism’ (2000). His latest book, ‘Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia,’ treats fundamentalist Islam and Western triumphalism as similar and related phenomena. This argument revisits themes Gray developed in ‘Straw Dogs,’ a volume of pensées originally published in 2002 and now reissued in paperback by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

“‘Humanity’ does not exist,’ he announced in ‘Straw Dogs.’ ‘There are only humans, driven by conflicting needs and illusions, and subject to every kind of infirmity of will and judgment.’ This may be the key to all of Gray’s thought, and it is no accident that he echoes Margaret Thatcher’s famous statement that there is no such thing as society. (As she put it, ‘there are individual men and women, and there are families’ — but nothing else.) The irreducible plurality of human ‘needs and illusions,’ Gray argues, means it is utopian to imagine that any single kind of political or social order could ever be good for everyone. ‘If there is such a thing as spontaneous social evolution,’ he writes in ‘Black Mass,’ ‘it produces institutions of many kinds.’

“Alas, conservatives have completely lost track of this crucial point, at least by Gray’s lights, which is why ‘traditional conservatism ceased to exist’ at some point over the last few decades. What has emerged instead is a faith that the marketplace and the values of liberal society are universal in principle, if not yet in geographical distribution. Resistance is futile. And if people in benighted lands resist anyway, the use of military power can force the pace of progress.”
What Price Utopia?, by Scott McLemee, NY Times, November 25, 2007

Progress? What progress?

Or not.

“In Iraq itself, we have succeeded in destroying a formerly prosperous and secular country, and creating the largest refugee problem in the modern Middle East: 4m Iraqis have now been forced abroad.

“Elsewhere in the Middle East, the US attempt to push democracy in the region has succeeded in turning Muslim opinion against its old client proxies – by and large corrupt, decadent monarchies and decaying nationalist parties. But rather than turning to liberal secular parties, as the neocons assumed they would, Muslims have everywhere lined up behind those parties that have most clearly been seen to stand up against aggressive US intervention in the region, namely the religious parties of political Islam.

“Last week, the Islamic world showed us the sort of gesture that is needed at this time. In a letter addressed to Pope Benedict and other Christian leaders, 138 prominent Muslim scholars from every sect of Islam urged Christian leaders ‘to come together with us on the common essentials of our two religions.’ It will be interesting to see if any western leaders now reciprocate.”
A lesson in humility for the smug West. Many of the western values we think of as superior came from the East and our blind arrogance hurts our standing in the world, by William Dalrymple, October 14, 2007

What an unlucky time for so many people.

There has got to be a better way to fight the war on terror:

“In the UK:

“A man who had gone into a diabetic coma on a bus in Leeds was shot twice with a Taser gun by police who feared he may have been a security threat.

“In Maine:

“A powdered substance that led to a baggage claim being shut down for nearly six hours at the Portland International Jetport was a mixture of flour and sugar, airport officials said Thursday.

“Fear is winning. Refuse to be terrorized, people.”
More war on the unexpected, Bruce Schneier, November 22, 2007 (Original War on the unexpected post)

“I’d like everyone to take a deep breath and listen for a minute.

“The point of terrorism is to cause terror, sometimes to further a political goal and sometimes out of sheer hatred. The people terrorists kill are not the targets; they are collateral damage. And blowing up planes, trains, markets or buses is not the goal; those are just tactics. The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act.

“And we’re doing exactly what the terrorists want.

“We’re all a little jumpy after the recent arrest of 23 terror suspects in Great Britain. The men were reportedly plotting a liquid-explosive attack on airplanes, and both the press and politicians have been trumpeting the story ever since.

“In truth, it’s doubtful that their plan would have succeeded; chemists have been debunking the idea since it became public. Certainly the suspects were a long way off from trying: None had bought airline tickets, and some didn’t even have passports.

“Regardless of the threat, from the would-be bombers’ perspective, the explosives and planes were merely tactics. Their goal was to cause terror, and in that they’ve succeeded.

“Imagine for a moment what would have happened if they had blown up 10 planes. There would be canceled flights, chaos at airports, bans on carry-on luggage, world leaders talking tough new security measures, political posturing and all sorts of false alarms as jittery people panicked. To a lesser degree, that’s basically what’s happening right now.

“Our politicians help the terrorists every time they use fear as a campaign tactic. The press helps every time it writes scare stories about the plot and the threat. And if we’re terrified, and we share that fear, we help. All of these actions intensify and repeat the terrorists’ actions, and increase the effects of their terror.”
What the Terrorists Want, Bruce Schneier, August 24, 2006

A man who had gone into a diabetic coma on a bus in Leeds was shot twice with a Taser gun by police who feared he may have been a security threat.

They tasered an unconscious guy? WTF?

I am so sick of candidates and nominees for high office being okay with waterboarding.

Is anyone who’s ever been waterboarded going to say it’s okay? I doubt it.

Is anyone who’s almost drowned going to say waterboarding is okay? Again, I doubt it.

Are any of these candidates and nominees for high office going to offer to voluntarily be waterboarded and then say it’s okay? I really fucking doubt it.

Giuliani Leaves Door Open to Waterboarding, ABC News, October 25, 2007

That should cause it to be outlawed immediately.

Could my country please get some counseling? Or at least try to remember the Golden Rule? It’s really very simple if you think about it for 2 seconds.

Grrrrrrrr.

”So it turnes out we really are at war—a long war, a global war, a war for our civilization.

“It is a war to save our democracy.

“Each one of us needs to enlist. We have no one to spare.” (pg 153)

Conclusion: The Patriot’s Task, The End of America, by Naomi Wolf, Chelsea Green, 2007, ISBN 978-1-933392-79-0

Resist the Fascist Shift! This book gives you all the information to do your part, whatever your part is, because everyone’s part adds up. I was pleased to notice a few days ago that this is one of the most wished for books at Amazon.com. Make someone happy, buy them this book. I salute Chelsea Green for publishing it.

Spiel redux: Everyone should buy 2 copies and give one away. Give one to someone you love or just think needs a wake up call. It’s been adding up over the years, I hadn’t realized, but Naomi Wolf lays it all out for us.

This book is a deal at Overstock.com. Or you can be a really big hero and buy it from Chelsea Green, they could probably use the dough. GM

”We in America are used to a democratic social contract in which there is agreement about the rules of the game: When Congress demands an answer, for instance, the President does not simply refuse to pick up the phone. So we keep being startled when the steps of the democratic interplay are ignored: ‘He can’t do that!’ It’s time to notice that they are playing a different game altogether.” (pg 144)

Chapter 11: Subvert the Rule of Law,” The End of America, by Naomi Wolf, Chelsea Green, 2007, ISBN 978-1-933392-79-0

Spiel redux: Everyone should buy 2 copies and give one away. Give one to someone you love or just think needs a wake up call. It’s been adding up over the years, I hadn’t realized, but Naomi Wolf lays it all out for us.

This book is a deal at Overstock.com. Or you can be a really big hero and buy it from Chelsea Green, they could probably use the dough. GM

”The Bush team is trying to move ‘Treason’ from its narrow Constitutional definition to a looser definition. The smear of treason has a long, ugly—and unfortunately time-tested—history of use by mid-twentieth-century dictators, as do the accusations of sabotage and espionage. The Bush administration has started to use the notion of treason in its Stalinist sense: as a weapon designed to harass critics and to frighten opposition leaders.” (pg 133)

Chapter 10: Cast Criticism as “Espionage” and Dissent as “Treason,” The End of America, by Naomi Wolf, Chelsea Green, 2007, ISBN 978-1-933392-79-0

Spiel redux: Everyone should buy 2 copies and give one away. Give one to someone you love or just think needs a wake up call. It’s been adding up over the years, I hadn’t realized, but Naomi Wolf lays it all out for us.

This book is a deal at Overstock.com. Or you can be a really big hero and buy it from Chelsea Green, they could probably use the dough. GM

”If you have not heard much about these two cases, it may be because CBS and AP management, understandably, do not want to jeopardize their imprisoned staff further.

“But image what it means today to be the head of CBS News or AP—and know that you can’t get one of your reporters a fair trail, let alone get him or her out of jail. Yes, all this happened in a country far away. But do these arrests have no ripple effect in our own nation? Does that act of state terror not send a message to the community of journalists here at home—even if just in the form of information gossip? And if one were a reporter ofr such and organization, would one not be hesitant—if only unconsciously—to write something that might enrage the administration and jeopardize ones’ colleague further?

“In a closing society, reporters start to get hurt more directly.” (pg 120)

“Blogging has to lead the way, because this is the access pint for citizen journalism. But bloggers must take their impact far more seriously, becoming warriors for truth and accountability: Citizens have to start to produce reliable samizdat. Opinion is important, but opinion alone is oitally inadequate when the ground of truth itself is under assault. Bloggers must become rigorous and fearless documentarians and reporters—not just to critique the news, but also to generate the news. Citizens in every venue must now apply to their work the accuracy and accountability that news editors have traditionally expected of their writers and researchers. The locus of the power of truth must be identified no in major news outlets but in you. You—not ‘they’—must take responsibility for educating your fellow citizens.” (pg 131)

Chapter 9: Restrict the Press, The End of America, by Naomi Wolf, Chelsea Green, 2007, ISBN 978-1-933392-79-0

Spiel redux: Everyone should buy 2 copies and give one away. Give one to someone you love or just think needs a wake up call. It’s been adding up over the years, I hadn’t realized, but Naomi Wolf lays it all out for us.

This book is a deal at Overstock.com. Or you can be a really big hero and buy it from Chelsea Green, they could probably use the dough. GM

”Universities keep alight the campfires of free speech, so it’s not surprising that Bush supporters seem to have a strategy to target critics on campus. In California, a bill called SB5, the ‘Student Bill of Rights,’ seeks legally to ‘balance’ classroom discussion. David Horowitz, of the well-funded right-wing Center for the Study of Popular Culture, drafted a model of this law. His version has found supporters in Congress. (On May 1, 1933, the Nene Studentenrecht law was passed in Germany, aimed at using student organizations to align universities with the values of the National Socialist state.)” (pgs 106 & 107)

“In times of pressure, citizens can soon tell ‘which way the wind is blowing.’ Individuals realign themselves and their views. Shortly after this furor (Kevin Barrett at WI State 200), Stanley Fish, now a professor of law at Florida International University, wrote and op-ed for the The New York Times that argued that professors who introduce partisan ideas in their lectures deserve to be fired. Academic freedom, he wrote, does not include the right to express such views in the classroom. (Martin Heidegger wrote and essay in 1933, ‘The Self-Assertion of the German University.; Supporting Nazi views of purpose of the academy, Heidegger argued that ‘academic freedom; was a passé notion that should be expelled from the German university.)” (pg 108)

“This pressure on students and academics worked in Chile in the early 1970s as well. Chilean students had been among the few who still dared to march, hold meetings, pass out flyers, and create posters attacking Pinochet after his military coup. But Pinochet purged nonaligned academics and university administrators and put his own military officers in those positions. He closed down whole departments, gutted some university program, and moved others to new locations. He made it clear that student life was now under new management: that of his cronies. It was obvious to Chilean academics that they had to support the Junta or give up their careers.” (pgs 109 & 110)

Chapter 8: Target Key Individuals, The End of America, by Naomi Wolf, Chelsea Green, 2007, ISBN 978-1-933392-79-0

Spiel redux: Everyone should buy 2 copies and give one away. Give one to someone you love or just think needs a wake up call. It’s been adding up over the years, I hadn’t realized, but Naomi Wolf lays it all out for us.

This book is a deal at Overstock.com. Or you can be a really big hero and buy it from Chelsea Green, they could probably use the dough. GM

”In 2002, I began to notice that almost every time I sought to board a domestic airline flight, I was called aside by the Transportation Security Administration and given a more thorough search. When this was happening on nine flights out of ten, I asked the officials about the special search. They told me that the search was due to the quadruple ‘S’ that routinely came up on my boarding pass. There are several reasons why one might receive a quadruple ‘S’ on one’s boarding pass if one doesn’t fit a terrorist profile: buying a ticket at the last minute, for instance, or paying in cash. But those circumstances didn’t apply to me. I kept asking, but not getting real answers.” (pg 93)

Chapter 7: Arbitrarily Detain and Release Citizens, The End of America, by Naomi Wolf, Chelsea Green, 2007, ISBN 978-1-933392-79-0

Spiel redux: Everyone should buy 2 copies and give one away. Give one to someone you love or just think needs a wake up call. It’s been adding up over the years, I hadn’t realized, but Naomi Wolf lays it all out for us.

This book is a deal at Overstock.com. Or you can be a really big hero and buy it from Chelsea Green, they could probably use the dough. GM

”Since 2000, there has been a sharp increase in U.S. citizen groups that are being harassed and infiltrated by police and federal agents, often in illegal ways. A 2006 ACLU report notes that police departments in California had infiltrated antiwar protests, political rallies, and other constitutionally protected gatherings and were secretly investigating them, even though the California state constitution forbids this.

“But that was just the beginning. A Defense Department program called Talon created a database of ‘anti-terror’ information about peaceful U.S. citizen groups and activities. Talon included details of antiwar groups’ planning meetings in churches; a church service for peace in New York City; even details of the meetings of such all-American groups as Veterans for Peace. The Defense Department even had e-mails that had been forwarded to it by people who had pretended to be members of the groups. Some of the groups were placed in a this database with the rationale that while they weren’t violent yet, they might become so. Jen Nessel of the Center for Constitutional Rights said, ‘We have absolutely moved over into a preventive detention model—you look like you could do something bad, you might do something bad, so we’re going to hold you.’” (pgs 90 & 91)

Chapter 6: Infiltrate Citizens’ Groups, The End of America, by Naomi Wolf, Chelsea Green, 2007, ISBN 978-1-933392-79-0

Spiel redux: Everyone should buy 2 copies and give one away. Give one to someone you love or just think needs a wake up call. It’s been adding up over the years, I hadn’t realized, but Naomi Wolf lays it all out for us.

This book is a deal at Overstock.com. Or you can be a really big hero and buy it from Chelsea Green, they could probably use the dough. GM

”With these early steps in place, people start to restrict their own activities voluntarily. They start to think twice about bulk-e-mailing the ‘Impeach George Bush’ meassage, or checking Amnesty International’s Website to see what Iraqis with relatives held in U.S.-run prisons are saying, or sending information about the Professor Ward Churchill controversy to a friend.

“In that atmosphere, dissent stifles itself before it can develop. Surveillance leads to fear and fear leads to silence.

“And silence is un-American.” (pg 88)

Chapter 5: Surveil Ordinary Citizens, The End of America, by Naomi Wolf, Chelsea Green, 2007, ISBN 978-1-933392-79-0

Bloggers take note, and the next time someone tells you to STFU, tell them it’s un-American to STFU.

Spiel redux: Everyone should buy 2 copies and give one away. Give one to someone you love or just think needs a wake up call. It’s been adding up over the years, I hadn’t realized, but Naomi Wolf lays it all out for us.

This book is a deal at Overstock.com. Or you can be a really big hero and buy it from Chelsea Green, they could probably use the dough. GM