Daily Ramblings:
Baby, Stop Crying ...02/28/2005 04:13:09 pm
Amusing to watch the response on DemocraticUnderground.com to the news of the resignation of the Lebanese puppet government. I'm copying extracts of their exchange here (if I posted the whole thing it would only be far more incoherent). One of them even makes a Dylan reference. It's a good idea to preserve it anyway, since the moderators have a tendency to delete threads that show their users in such a bad, and accurate light. (I don't know why I enjoy this stuff so much. I know it's a sin ... .)
peacebird (541 posts) Mon Feb-28-05 12:25 PM
Original message
Lebanon's government is to resign - BBC
"Lebanon's Prime Minister Omar Karimi has announced he and his government are resigning, two weeks after the murder of his predecessor Rafik Hariri."
ECH1969 (205 posts) Mon Feb-28-05 12:27 PM
Response to Original message
No don't give into Bush
Bleachers7 (1000+ posts) Mon Feb-28-05 12:33 PM
What does that mean?
It's amazing how Bush gets credit and blame for everything. This is a public uprising after the Syrians killed a Lebanese leader. This in my view is a positive development for the Lebanese. Hopefully they will be able to succesfully govern themselves.
Tom Friedman is correct about 1 thing. Democrats have to participate in what's going on in the ME. We cannot hope for it all to fail.Poppyseedman (361 posts) Mon Feb-28-05 12:49 PM
You may be right about civil war
Hopefully not.
As for a "constitutional arrangement", since the most current government was under Syrian control, does that hold a lot of water?
Lots of rogue states have a "constitution" most are about as worthless as TP
Capt_Nemo (1000+ posts) Mon Feb-28-05 12:55 PM
yeah rogue states like the Aggressor States of America
they have a constitution, alright...
The Stranger (1000+ posts) Mon Feb-28-05 01:19 PM
The Neocons are using this against Syria.
People power is virtually a quote from their campaign.
agitpropagent9 (150 posts) Mon Feb-28-05 01:16 PM
well i can see you've thought this through.
let's just propose a moratorium of any democratic movements anywhere in the world.
Just Me (1000+ posts) Mon Feb-28-05 01:18 PM
Yep. For several years I have been thinking this through.
Yes, indeed.
The neoCONs and their agenda for world domination/control has NOTHING to do with "freedom" or "democracy".
xavier86 (27 posts) Mon Feb-28-05 01:59 PMSometimes people benefit from good luck
PNAC has no control over this.{ed.: PNAC = "Project for a New American Century," the much demonized conservative think-tank} If they benefit from this, then it's just a bit of good luck for them.
Just because PNAC benefits, doesn't mean what's happening is a bad thing.
That my friend is irrational logic.
Just Me (1000+ posts) Mon Feb-28-05 02:03 PM
If they are involved in the assassination of Hariri and the country,...
,...falls into a civil war,...that is certainly a bad thing.
You don't seem to comprehend what the neoCONs are willing to do to execute their plan.
daleo (1000+ posts) Mon Feb-28-05 02:24 PM
Like the Bob Dylan song "Idiot Wind" says
"I can't help it if I'm lucky".theboss (1000+ posts) Mon Feb-28-05 02:03 PM
Oh well...in that case I should support puppet dictatorships
For the record, Democrats are in favor of Democracy.
Sweet Jesus.
(end of Democratic Undergound extract)
Well, "theboss" is right about that. (I wonder if he regrets doing those concerts for Kerry now?)
This Wheel's On Fire ...02/28/2005 01:58:02 pm
No need at all for Right Wing Bob to report this news here, but why the heck not? Lebanon's Syrian backed government resigns in the face of protests.
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- With shouts of "Syria out!," more than 25,000 flag-waving protesters massed outside Parliament on Monday in a dramatic display of defiance that forced the resignation of Lebanon's prime minister and Cabinet two weeks after the assassination of an opposition leader.
Cheering broke out among the demonstrators in Martyrs' Square when they heard Prime Minister Omar Karami's announcement on loudspeakers that the government was stepping down. Throughout the day, protesters handed out red roses to soldiers and police.
"It is the first victory, but it will not be the last," opposition leader and former information minister Ghazi al-Areedh told the crowd in a scene broadcast live around the Arab world.
You got that right, Ghazi.
The Times, They Are ...02/28/2005 11:23:07 am
Via LGF, two links to articles in the "Times," one New York and one UK, that together are as good a primer as any on the burgeoning battle of fanatical Islam and decadent secularism in Europe. From the NY Times, "More Dutch Plan To Emigrate As Muslim Influx Tips Scales."
Those leaving have been mostly lured by large English-speaking nations like Australia, New Zealand and Canada, where they say they hope to feel less constricted.
In interviews, emigrants rarely cited a fear of militant Islam as their main reason for packing their bags. But the killing of the filmmaker Theo van Gogh, a fierce critic of fundamentalist Muslims, seems to have been a catalyst.
"Our Web site got 13,000 hits in the weeks after the van Gogh killing," said Frans Buysse, who runs an agency that handles paperwork for departing Dutch. "That's four times the normal rate."
Mr. van Gogh's killing is the only one the police have attributed to an Islamic militant, but since then they have reported finding death lists by local Islamic militants with the names of six prominent politicians. The effects still reverberate.
The UK's Sunday Times Magazine probes more deeply than the Old Gray Lady, and while starting in the Netherlands, ultimately examines the problem Europe-wide, and conveys a sense of countries where voters are completely at odds with their own politicians and bureaucrats on the subject of Muslim immigrants, and where their own leaders are in turn at crossed purposes with the increasingly powerful EU bureaucracy. All in all, the only ones who seem to be focused on results are the radicalized immigrants and sons of immigrants themselves - who are moving in a very pointed direction.
"The young are open to everything," says Uzeyir Kabaktepe, the vice president of the Turkish Milli Gorus mosque in Amsterdam. "If you give them pure Koran, they become extremist. All doors close for them. 'Everything else is black,' they think, 'but I'm white and I'm going to paradise.' Those who see black and white think they are angels, they think they are flying. If a Dutchman speaks to them on the street, they think 'he's a Zionist' or 'he's a Satan'. We give the Koran, not pure, but with explanations. We make them debate with each other. We show them that some of the dark ones, the infidels, are religious people too."
The Moroccans, he says, are different. "They brought their ideas to Europe with them, and they don't budge," he claims. "Democracy for Arabs is Satanic, it's from the West, against God's word. Idiot imams came who said the Dutch and everything to do with them — schools, society — are devils. They said: get a second wife, from abroad, so the devils pay the social money for them ...
Safiyeh M, a Dutch Moroccan divorcee with two children, says there is "one little group that won't adapt. It's always 'damn Dutch, damn Jews, damn infidels'. They can't do anything in Morocco. They'd get squashed. So they try it here".
Political correctness and an unwillingness to face the problem continue to guide the EU government's attitude.
Opacity is an EU hallmark. Its Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia commissioned a report to analyse who was behind a wave of anti-Semitic attacks in 2002. When it found that most of the perpetrators were young Muslims of Arab descent, and "were only seldom from the extreme-right milieu", its methodology was questioned and it was shelved. Not much stomach for debate there.
It's safe to say that the glorious new 500 odd page EU constitution isn't likely to inspire a lot of solidarity and sense of shared fundamental values across Europe either. And what fundamental values are shared anyway?
Confusion abounds on issues with historic implications. The European Commission recently recommended that talks for Turkish membership of the EU should go ahead. Yet Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the chief architect of the proposed EU constitution, opposed this on the precise grounds that it was "incompatible with European culture, which is Christian".
Or was Christian. Europeans have largely opted out of Christendom at the time of both a new federalism and a Muslim challenge. The number of French who say they attend church regularly has shrunk to 7.7%. Though 90% of Italians call themselves Catholic, fewer than 30% go to Mass. In Spain, only 14% of young Spaniards are churchgoers, a 50% decline in less than four years. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Archbishop of Westminster, has said that Christianity in Britain is "almost vanquished".
Cardinal Adrianis Simonis of Utrecht believes that the "spiritual vacuity" of Dutch society has left the Netherlands open to an Islamic cultural takeover. "Today we have discovered that we are disarmed in the face of the Islamic danger," he said recently. He linked this to "the spectacle of extreme moral decadence and spiritual decline" that Europe offered to young people.
Not so much a brave new world, but a new world in which you're going to have to be very brave.
Or there's always New Zealand.
Buckets Of Rain ...02/27/2005 05:48:09 pm
I always say, when you're talking about bad news for the left, it's best to pile it on. You thought the election was over? Contrary to some of the moonbats out there who probably still think they can overturn Ohio and get Kerry in the White House, the truth may be that we'll find out Bush won even bigger. The New York Post summarizes the situation in an editorial today. After getting into the real possibility that the state of Washington's Democratic governor will be forced to step down due to voting fraud, they talk about happenings in the cheesehead state (where Dylan was playing on election night).
Similar issues are at play in Wisconsin, a state John Kerry "won" by about 11,000 votes. Many Republicans believe that the Bush campaign really won Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes. Questionable — in some cases criminal — behavior has been documented:
* In Milwaukee, five Democratic campaign staffers, including Sowande Omokunde, the son of Rep. Gwen Moore, and Michael Pratt, the son of former acting mayor Marvin Pratt, will stand trial on felony charges of criminal damage to property, for slashing the tires of GOP get-out-the-vote vans.
* The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel found a discrepancy of 7,000 more ballots cast than there were records of people having actually voted. Curiously, the city has refused to let the paper examine questionable same-day voter-registration cards.
* Multiple state and federal official inquiries — including the FBI's — have been opened to examine Milwaukee's situation as well as other electoral oddities across the state.
62 million popular votes, 4 additional seats in the Senate, 4 more in the House, and perhaps in reality 296 electoral college votes.
Although highly instrumental, Right Wing Bob cannot of-course claim all the credit.
The Boys Were All Plannin' For A Fall ...02/27/2005 05:05:16 pm
In just one more crack as the pressure continues to mount on despicable Middle East despots, Syria deals the the six of diamonds.
You Ain't Goin' Nowhere ...02/27/2005 04:32:27 pm
The book "What's the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won The Heart Of America," by Thomas Frank, came out before last November's election, but has been much consulted in its aftermath by liberals seeking to find an explanation for their overwhelming rejection by the national electorate in 2004. Loosely speaking (and based on my reading of reviews since I haven't read the book) Frank seems to be positing that Republicans have fooled the people of America's heartland into voting against their real best interests (in particular economic), by disingenuously using issues once summed up by Howard Dean as "guns, God and gays."
In this lengthy and fascinating answer to that book in the magazine First Things, James Nuechterlein takes apart Frank's thesis and explains why liberals embracing this theory of American politics will simply be pushing the Democratic party further into the downwardly spiralling whirlpool in which it is currently floundering. The really rather steady decline of the party of Roosevelt, Kennedy and Robert Byrd is traced by Nuechterlein back to around the time Dylan was recording Nashville Skyline.
Starting with Richard Nixon’s narrow capture of the White House in 1968, Republicans have won seven of ten presidential elections. (They had lost seven of the previous nine.) More significantly in terms of party standing, their marginal pickups in the House and Senate that year presaged their eventual emergence by the 1990s as the majority party in Congress. For those of us who grew up in a political America in which Democrats dominated Congress as a matter of course, it is stunning to note that Democrats are today numerically weaker in the House than they have been since the days of Harry Truman and in the Senate since before the Great Depression.
To sum up (though the whole article is worth reading) Democrats have been stuck in a basically Depression era mindset that served them well in the thirties, forties and fifties but is simply out of date, and out of step with the way ordinary Americans now view themselves.
Politics in America, in Frank’s analysis, used to be—and still ought to be—the way the Populists of the 1890s and progressive interests up into the 1960s imagined it: the liberal masses—workers, farmers, and all but the cream of the middle class—arrayed against the conservative economic elites.
The problem is that American society and the American economy have long ago moved on, and the old classes are either not recognizable, or demographically completely altered - notwithstanding how nostalgic the American left is for the bad old times. To the extent the Democrats have a message that appeals to the "poor," it actually is being heard and they are getting a majority of those votes. Unfortunately for the Dems however, the United States is not a poor country.
Democrats go wrong not because they have forgotten the lessons of FDR and the New Deal, but because they have not sufficiently put those lessons behind them. Ours is the least class-ridden society in the Western world. The political economy of the 1930s is not America’s historical paradigm; it is its great exception. Democrats, of course, are not entirely ignorant of that. They now address themselves to middle-class interests, but their middle class is still a working class that simply has a few more dollars in its pocket. They have not fully learned the lesson of exceptionalism: that America is the quintessential bourgeois society. We are, for better and worse, middle class and middlebrow right down to our bones. And their failure to see that is what’s the matter with the Democrats.
And of-course this is not even to touch on issues of foreign policy, and the deficit in credibility on issues of national security that the Democrats have possessed (and fairly steadily reinforced) since the post-Vietnam era.
All in all, if I wasn't already a conservative in today's America, I'd be mightily confused and depressed by all this. Kind of like how an anti-Israel Dylan fan must feel when they first hear Neighborhood Bully.
Your Old Road Is Rapidly Agin' ...02/26/2005 09:15:08 pm
Can't help but like this column by former British Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, in the Guardian (from Feb 19, but I just discovered it): Bloggers Will Rescue The [UK] Right. He first describes how the democratization of information through the internet has affected the American political scene:
Mainstream TV can no longer say what it wants without fear of correction. Online diaries, written by teachers, soldiers and numerous other people with real knowledge of subjects, are fact-checking ill-informed broadcasters. The bloggers have already toppled two of American TV's biggest names.
...
This is just one of the ways in which the internet has strengthened the American right. Last year's Bush-Cheney campaign used information technology to build the largest ever volunteer political army. Visitors to GeorgeWBush.com were invited to join email lists that offered regular information on everything from gun ownership to school prayer. The Bush campaign collected 7.5 million email addresses and amassed 1.4 million volunteers.You would also expect this electronic revolution to be good for the Democrats, but the American left's relationship with the internet has been disastrous. The internet has sunk a knife into Bill Clinton's moderate Democratic party. Mainstream business people were Clinton's principal funders, simultaneously approving and driving his centrism. But the Democrats' new paymasters are the 600,000 computer users who, in 2004, supported Howard Dean's bid for his party's presidential nomination. Dean energised an unrepresentative group of voters with a stridently anti-war message. Electronic money powered Dean's campaign, and all of the other contenders for the Democratic crown soon pandered to his base.
The Democrats' problem has only worsened since. The dailykos.com site of a Democratic consultant gets 500,000 hits a day. That site's memorial to four American contractors murdered in Iraq was "screw them". Hatefulness also pours out of the popular websites of Michael Moore and MoveOn.org.
He goes on to say how this growing phenomenon will yet change politics in Britain also, and how the "metropolitan elites" should be shaking in their boots. I do hope he's right.
Chimes Of Freedom ...02/26/2005 05:02:04 pm
It seems fitting after the last post to highlight some news today: President Mubarak orders direct presidential elections in Egypt.
This comes little over a month since President Bush named Egypt in his State Of The Union speech as one of the places that should do more to move towards democracy, and a couple of days after Condoleeza Rice cancelled her planned visit to Cairo, over the jailing of opposition leader Ayman Nour.
While it's premature to pop champagne corks with regard to Egypt, anyone who thinks that any of this would be happening with Saddam Hussein still in power is wilfully blind.
Where Teardrops Fall ...02/26/2005 01:09:15 pm
Today is the twelfth anniversary of the 1993 attack by Islamofascist terrorists on New York's World Trade Center. Six people were killed, and more than a thousand injured. The terrorists neverthelesss failed in their plan to cause the bombed tower to topple, which would have killed untold thousands.
New York's governor Mario Cuomo reacted: "We all have that feeling of being violated. No foreign people or force has ever done this to us. Until now we were invulnerable." A few days later, President Clinton visited New Jersey. The FBI and other international law enforcement agencies pursued the individuals involved in the bombing. Several individuals were arrested, were afforded full rights under the U.S. legal system, and were tried, convicted of various charges, and sentenced to jail terms.
In October of 1993, 18 U.S. soldiers were killed in action in Somalia. American forces were withdrawn shortly afterwards. In his 1996 declaration of war against Americans, Osama Bin Laden said:
... when tens of your solders were killed in minor battles and one American Pilot was dragged in the streets of Mogadishu you left the area carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you. Clinton appeared in front of the whole world threatening and promising revenge , but these threats were merely a preparation for withdrawal. You have been disgraced by Allah and you withdrew; the extent of your impotence and weaknesses became very clear.
On August 7th, 1998, American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were attacked with bombs by Islamofascist terrorists. 224 people were killed and 4,500 people were injured. Four individuals were eventually convicted of crimes relating to these bombings and were sentenced to life without parole in October of 2001.
In October of 2000, the U.S.S. Cole was attacked with a bomb by Islamofascist terrorists at a port in Yemen - killing 17 American sailors. President Clinton said, "If, as it now appears, this was an act of terrorism, it was a despicable and cowardly act. We will find out who was responsible and hold them accountable."
On September 11th, 2001, Islamofascist terrorists returned and successfully destroyed New York's World Trade Center. Nearly 3000 people were killed - a fraction of those who were in the towers when they were hit, thanks to a heroic evacuation effort led by New York firefighters - 343 of whom were crushed to death in mid-rescue by the collapsing buildings.
Four days later, at a memorial service in Washington's National Cathedral, President Bush told those listening, "This conflict was begun on the time and terms of others. It will end in a way and at an hour of our choosing."
By December of 2001, Afghanistan's Taliban regime was decisively toppled by combined U.S. military and Afghan rebel efforts. In October of 2004, Afghanistan held a free Presidential election, bringing democracy to a Muslim nation of nearly 20 million people.
In March of 2003, U.S. forces, along with British and Australian, attacked Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Among his innumerable crimes against his own people and others, Saddam Hussein regularly paid $25,000 to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, so perpetuating a hopeless conflict that was used to inspire Islamofascist terrorists worldwide. By April, Saddam's regime was eliminated. In January of 2005, Iraq held a free election for a national assembly, bringing democracy to another Muslim nation of approximately 20 million people, while millions more still under tyranny in the Middle East looked on.
Though, like any recounting of history, this is a selective list of events since that first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, I think the test of its relevance is whether it reflects the underlying march of events since that day. I believe that it does. The march of events has not yet ended, of-course.
So, just a moment's pause in memory of those first World Trade Center victims.
What Can I Do For You? ...02/25/2005 09:30:10 pm
If Right Wing Bob could force his enemies to do one thing, it would be ... to read Victor Hanson's latest column. And to keep reading it and reading it, until they can prove to me that they fully understand it by repeating every point he makes in their own words.
And in my other fantasy, Sony remixes and remasters Saved, and it reveals itself as the masterpiece that it is.
Quit Your Low Down Ways ...02/25/2005 12:41:02 pm
Received a pretty little comment this morning on an old page, from somone in the UK who had searched for tragedy+hollis+brown on Google, and found my counter-review of Mike Marqusee's review of Dylan's Chronicles (Life Is In Mirrors, Death Disappears.)
Only an American psycho who claims to love Dylan could
also advise voters to support the international war
criminals Bush and Chaney {sic}. Keep your idiot wind up your
anus and take down your site before someone else does it
for you.As I believe that amounts to a threat of some kind of denial-of-service or hack attack, I'm reporting it to the relevant service providers. His IP (213.40.3.66) comes from a company in the UK called the Internexus Group that provides internet services to businesses, so it seems likely he was doing this from a work place. The name and email address he left can't be regarded as genuine, of-course. I'll only say that someone who would seek to deny people the freedom to simply write their opinion on politics and Dylan deserves any trouble he gets himself into. No one stopped Mike Marqusee and nobody's going to stop Right Wing Bob.
World Gone Wrong ...02/24/2005 11:50:04 am
Ward Churchill, preaching and encouraging terrorism, via Michelle Malkin (with audio clips).
Question from audience: You mentioned a little bit ago, ‘Why did it take a bunch of Arabs to do what you all should have done a long time ago,’ that’s my question.
And as a white man standing here in your midst from a fairly liberal/conservative/middle of the road background—and I tell people I’m so far left I’m coming up on the rigt—and I’d like you to respond to, why shouldn’t we do something and how could we move so they don’t see us coming?
Churchill: I’m gonna repeat that, tell me if I got that right: Why shouldn’t we do something and how do you you move so they don’t see you coming.
As to the first part, not a reason in the world that I could see. I can’t find a single reason that you shouldn’t in a principled way—there may be some practical considerations, such as do you know how (laughter from audience)—you know, often these things are processes. It’s not just an impulse. And certainly it’s not just an event. And the simple answer, although it probably should be more complicated, but I’m not being flip and giving the simple answer, is: You carry the weapon. That’s how they don’t see it coming.
You’re the one…They talk about ‘color blind or blind to your color.’ You said it yourself.
You don’t send the Black Liberation Army into Wall Street to conduct an action.
You don’t send the American Indian Movement into downtown Seattle to conduct an action. Who do you send? You. Your beard shaved, your hair cut close, and wearing a banker’s suit.There’s probably a whole lot more to it, you know that. But there’s where you start.
This event apparently took place in Seattle in August of 2003. If anyone's counting, that's 23 months after some three thousand people were murdered by Arab terrorists in America. Eleven hundred of them, we found out yesterday, will never be identified from the pulverized remains that so many dedicated people have worked so hard with over the past three and half years.
They're Planting Stories In The Press ...02/24/2005 10:26:12 am
The Drudge Report has linked to a story in Brit music mag NME, "breaking the news" that Dylan made some disparaging remarks about current popular music. It was also picked up in a lot of other outlets. In fact, he made those remarks in 2001 to Robert Hilburn in the LA Times. They have apparently been a part of his tour program for several years. The quote that excited them was this:
I know there are groups at the top of the charts that
are hailed as the saviours of rock'n'roll and all that,
but they are amateurs, They don't know where the music
comes from . . . I was lucky. I came up in a different
era. There were these great blues and country folk artists
around, and the impulse to play 'those sounds' came to me
at a very early age. I wouldn't even think about playing
music if I was born in these times.A lefty website called Arts & Opinion is currently posting what I'm assuming is the full tour program interview here (I don't personally possess an original copy of this program - though I figure I'll acquire one in April when I next plan to see Dylan live). I believe this "interview" is actually an amalgam of various interviews, selectively edited to appear in Dylan's tour program. I think I can identify both LA Times and USA Today interview segments in there, and maybe Rolling Stone too. (Anyone have more precise knowledge to share?)
The NME doesn't quote it, but in the tour program Dylan goes on to make this astute observation also:
I don't think what we call pop music today is any
worse than it was. We never liked pop music. It never
occurred to me in the 50s that Bing Crosby was on the
cutting edge 20 years before I was listening to him. I
never heard that Bing Crosby. The Louis Armstrong I heard
was the guy who sang Hello, Dolly! -- I never heard him do
West End Blues.What's interesting to me is what has been selected, presumably with Dylan's input, out of the big piles of possible interview fodder, to appear in the tour program that gets sold at each of his concerts. The full text is not long, so it doesn't seem valid to assume that any particular part is carelessly included. Rather, they probably started with something much longer, and edited it down to just the parts that they (or Dylan) wanted to keep.
In that context, I would think it's significant that this relatively large segment is included:
BOB: I'm not sure people understood a lot of what I was
writing about. I don't even know if I would understand
them if I believed everything that has been written about
them by imbeciles who wouldn't know the first thing about
writing songs. I've always said the organized media
propagated me as something I never pretended to be . . .
all this spokesman of conscience thing. A lot of my songs
were definitely misinterpreted by people who didn't know
any better, and it goes on today.
Q: Give me an example of a song that has been widely
misinterpreted.
BOB: Take Masters Of War. Every time I sing it, someone
writes that it's an antiwar song. But there's no antiwar
sentiment in that song. I'm not a pacifist. I don't think
I've ever been one. If you look closely at the song, it's
about what Eisenhower was saying about the dangers of the
military-industrial complex in this country. I believe
strongly in everyone's right to defend themselves by
every means necessary . . .That's just about the only song where Dylan has felt compelled to explain its meaning and take on those who misinterpret it. He's done it repeatedly, in fact. Despite this, it continues to be taken as a straightforward anti-war song, just as Dylan says - including by many fans cheering lustily each time he plays it in concert, thinking of their favorite Republican as he sings the line "I hope that you die." You could make a strong argument that the song is therefore a failure on some level. But I find it interesting that this gets addressed - out of so many other possible issues - in Dylan's tour program.
Too Dead For Dreaming ...02/23/2005 07:44:35 pm
So Hunter S. Thompson is dead. And his desire was for his remains to be blasted out of a cannon. Though not every news source is reporting it, apparently an element of that last wish was that Mr. Tambourine Man should be playing as his ashes get blown to the sky.
I do not question the poetry of it all, but I do note a shared trait of most of the stories on his suicide. It is that thing which they all in common lack: any hint of surprise. A 67 year old man, well regarded by his peers, believed by many to have talent in abundance, decided to put a shotgun to his head and pull the trigger. Is it not worthy of any question? The initial stories, in particular, reported the news like they would report anyone else's death from a long illness. I know Thompson's reputation, but still, is it such a given that a human being should kill himself?
From today's ABC story, a quote from someone who worked with Thompson, namely Douglas Brinkley:
"I think he made a conscious decision that he had an incredible run of 67 years, lived the way he wanted to, and wasn't going to suffer the indignities of old age," Brinkley said in a telephone interview from Aspen. "He was not going to let anybody dictate how he was going to die."
No one except himself, that is. A man decides that he cannot live even one more day. Tomorrow will bring no new twists, no new possibilities, no further potential for anything of value, not pleasure nor hope, nor any good at all.
He had been married for all of two years to a woman named Anita. He had children and grandchildren.
Raise the shotgun; pull the trigger. Hooray for Hunter, everyone seems to say. Going out on his own terms. Blood and bone scattered in a room, for his son and grandson to discover.
Hooray for Hunter.
Addendum: It is now being reported that his weapon of choice was a 45-caliber handgun, not a shotgun as previously stated in the press. His widow's tolerant and kind comments about Hunter in the linked piece speak very well ... of her.
Heartland ...02/23/2005 04:14:05 pm
Right Wing Bob found himself stranded without access to the internet for a long President's Day weekend. Aside from the unspeakable tragedy of missing a "pre-sale event" on tickets for upcoming Dylan shows in my neighborhood, it was educational in a variety of ways. Firstly, I realized that I must never let it happen again. Under any circumstances. Secondly, I discovered with a thump that a whole world exists out there where people don't get their news from the internet every day (if at all), and indeed only turn on the TV news to see the weather forecast and, possibly, the sports news.
Of-course I had already realized, intellectually, that this world existed, but seeing it actually manifesting itself before my very eyes was altogether different. There are actually people who can carry on their lives completely oblivious to the latest Eason Jordan or Ward Churchill stories (let alone what Larry Campbell is doing). If you used a word like the "blogosphere" to them, you might as well be conversing about some obscure geological sediments in the Yucatan. It's not just that it's not relevant to their lives: it is something which they could never conceive of becoming relevant. On a scale of 1 to 100 - where a sale on paper towels at the local megamart might rate a relevance of 60 - happenings in the blogosphere would rate perhaps a 0.000001. And this is not a subset of people defined by a geographic area (though it seems likely that they are more common in the geographic heartland) but they can live and move amongst you, even in urban environments. So it's more of a virtual heartland, where somehow the latest buzz on Free Republic, or the latest growing cacophony on Little Green Footballs, or the most recent outrage from the Daily Kos - are all equally non-existent.
And more power to them. If everyone cared intensely about the same things, to the same extent, there would be bloody riots every day. Check out, for instance, well, anywhere where there are bloody riots going on. It happens when some issue becomes of such overriding importance that ordinary life is set aside in favor of going to the streets and confronting those with an opposite point of view on that issue. Fortunately, that is not happening in the USA in February 2005. If everyone was as intense on opposite sides of the political divide as are the political bloggers, it no doubt would be happening (and I take comfort from the fact that my side of the argument is better armed).
It occurred to me that this virtual heartland of people who don't hang on every scrap of news is divisible into at least three types, in terms of how they decide to cast their vote in an election. First, there are those who simply don't vote. More power to them too, if they consider that they don't know or care enough about the issues and are of the opinion that politicians are not relevant to their lives. Second, there are those who simply vote based on how their Daddy voted, or based on prejudices acquired early in life. Virtually nothing could make them vote for a member of the other party, no matter how much the parties may have changed over the years. LESS power to them - they are a lead weight on the political process. Though we have to live with them, we should not continue making registration and voting increasingly easy and effortless- it only encourages these types, who are the least motivated voters.
Third, there is the type who helped win the election for Dubya in 2004, and are probably decisive in any presidential election. These are people for whom the news is a background hum at best, and in the place of rigorous critical analysis of the issues, they make something more akin to a gut decision at election time. This is not because they are stupid, but simply because this is how they prioritize their daily lives. In the absence of a political issue actually rolling down their street and flattening their house, it is not of urgent interest to them. They figure it's for others to spend their time on those things. The politicians get paid for it, after all. Yet, they believe it's important to come to some decision at election time and cast their vote - especially during a presidential election. Since they don't pay attention to every little issue that comes up, it is all the more important to these people to elect someone whom they feel they can trust to take care of whatever it is that might come up. Hence, their decision is heavily weighted towards issues of character. And, since they don't spend a whole lot of time watching long speeches and reading columns, they're going to judge character based on first impressions, and then on major impressions over time. It's not that far different to how they might pick a mechanic or a doctor. (Who really researches the background of those individuals, crucial though they are to the smooth running of your life? The truth is that you try one, you either feel good about the experience or not, and you make your decision to stick with them, or look elsewhere, based on that impression.)
As much as it infuriates political junkies to hear politicians repeat things over and over again, this is the audience they have in mind. If these people don't have the TV on the first time you say something, maybe they'll have it on the 30th or 40th time you say the very same thing.
George W. Bush obviously had this trait down - he stayed on message, and got his message out to anyone with ears to hear. However, this alone is not enough. John Kerry also had a message, and largely stayed on it. It's no good if these gut-check voters smell a rat. When it came to Dubya, the mainstream media, Michael Moore, Dan Rather, were all screaming "rat!" Countless ads were run questioning his character, competence, and honesty. He cheated with the National Guard, he was in bed with the Saudis, and on and on and on - no need to retread here. These voters just filed that with the rest of the background hum, and decided that Dubya was in fact just what he appeared: a regular and decent man with the best intentions for the country and the determination to fulfill his committments.
Now, with the election over, come these secret tapes. The real story with these tapes is of-course that there is no story. Talking candidly to a trusted friend, unaware that he was being recorded, Dubya turns out to be the same guy - some years younger - as the current occupant of the Oval Office. The differences between George W. Bush in private, years ago, and President Bush in public, now, are at most of tone (off-the-cuff and unguarded), and not of substance. The gut-checking-virtual-heartland voters are vindicated (if it were necessary). Bush is exactly the man they judged him to be in the short time they devoted to making up their minds.
Of-course, living their lives as they do, they will be completely unaware of the story of the tapes, and so unaware of their vindication. They rush off contentedly to the mega-mart for the cut-price paper towels, and just assume they made the right decision with their vote in November, and that the guy in the Oval Office is doing his job and is in actuality as decent as they thought him to be.
For once, they could read RightWingBob.com. But I guess it's too much to ask ...
Under The Red Sky ...02/17/2005 05:29:08 pm
A few things that you might have missed:
The mission in Afghanistan continues in the kind of focused, "leaning forward" fashion that has thankfully characterized military action in the W years. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda hold outs who like to think of the wintertime as a chance to rest and regroup are not getting much chance to warm their toes by the fire.
Leaping from CH-47 Chinook helicopters hovering just above the jagged, snow-covered mountains that ring the Korangal Valley, Marines from both India and Lima Companies inserted into different parts of the valley; they quickly cordoned and searched several houses believed to be hideouts for mid-level Taliban and HIG leaders and fighters.
“We flew in fast and low and jumped off just outside one of our main target’s house,” said 2nd Lt. Caleb Weiss, a Lima Company platoon commander. “They couldn’t have had more than a few moments to react to having entire platoons dropped on their heads.”
The Marines charged into the village and quickly established a presence, preventing the possibility of their targets escaping. The Marines then detained several men suspected of being members or supporters of anti-government forces without having to fire a single shot.
...
“Regardless of how difficult the terrain and weather might be, we have the training, equipment and commitment to take the fight to those continuing to sponsor and conduct terrorist activities in the Kunar Province and that is precisely what we are doing. We are not going to sit around and worry about them exploiting the local populace and attacking us. We are going to keep them worried about us bringing the attack to them,” said (Lt. Col. Norm) Cooling.If insurgents hiding there were distressed to see the arrival of the Marines, many residents of Korangal happily welcomed the Marines and Navy Corpsmen of the Battalion. With the assistance of Afghan doctors, soldiers from the Asadabad Provincial Reconstruction Team, and female military police officers from the 58th MP Co., 25th Infantry Division, they distributed winter coats, medication and offered medical help to nearly 500 sick villagers and their children throughout the Korangal area.
Meanwhile Mark Steyn wrote an incisive column on United Nations thuggery and systemic child rape in the poor nations where they're on the ground "helping." And he makes this concise comparison between the benefits to disadvantaged peoples provided by UN stewardship and long term intervention versus the benefits of being attacked by the good 'ol USA:
The folks that have been under the UN wing the longest - indeed, the only ones with their own permanent UN agency and semi-centenarian "refugee camps" - are the most comprehensively wrecked people on the face of the earth: the Palestinians. UN territories like Kosovo are the global equivalent of inner-city council estates with the blue helmets as local enforcers for the absentee slum landlord. By contrast, a couple of years after imperialist warmonger Bush showed up, Afghanistan and Iraq have elections, presidents and prime ministers.
That suggests an interesting theory as to why Saddam Hussein continued to let the world believe he had WMD stockpiles. He figured it was the shortest route to lead his people to democracy. (Maybe someone should check his video collection for "The Mouse That Roared.") It'll all come out at the trial, anyway.
Lest the preceding two items buck you up excessively, here's some ice cold water. Thanks to a phenomenon known as Electromagnetic Pulse, a nuclear device, exploded at sufficient altitude above the continental United States, "could instantly transform this country from an advanced 21st Century society to an 18th Century one." The damage would be to electrical systems and electronic equipment generally.
A specially appointed commission recently reported on the risks of such an event to the U.S. Congress.
The panel was charged with “assessing the threat to the United States from an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack.” It concluded that the EMP effects of such an attack at altitudes between 40 and 400 miles above this country could so severely disrupt, both directly and indirectly, electronics and electrical systems as to create a “damage level…sufficient to be catastrophic to the Nation.” Worse yet, the commission concluded that “our current vulnerability invites attack.”
The EMP Threat Commission recommends steps be taken urgently to reduce that vulnerability by protecting electrical, water, telecommunications and other infrastructures against the crippling effects of electromagnetic pulse. The same needs to be done with our military which is also woefully unprepared for EMP attack.
You may read the executive summary of the report here(pdf). Of-course this kind of attack was always a possibility during the Cold War era, but it was considered to be deterred by the overall "mutually assured destruction" equation with the Soviet Union. In the words of the report:
What is different now is that some potential sources of EMP threats are difficult
to deter—they can be terrorist groups that have no state identity, have only one or a few
weapons, and are motivated to attack the US without regard for their own safety. Rogue
states, such as North Korea and Iran, may also be developing the capability to pose an
EMP threat to the United States, and may also be unpredictable and difficult to deter.
Certain types of relatively low-yield nuclear weapons can be employed to
generate potentially catastrophic EMP effects over wide geographic areas, and designs
for variants of such weapons may have been illicitly trafficked for a quarter-century.
So bear this stuff in mind next time you're restocking the bunker.
Original text copyright © 2005 by RightWingBob.com
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