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December 30, 2004
Well, Hey, We Never Promised You a Rose Garden
Here's a brilliant suggestion:
Speaking by telephone from his home in Vermont, Mr. Leahy, who is the ranking Democrat on the foreign operations subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, urged that a portion of the largely unspent $18 billion for Iraq reconstruction be re-directed for Asian relief efforts.
That's great, let's just roll the money from an earlier unkept obligation... Maybe some of the money promised but also not delivered to the earthquake victims in Bam (one account has only $17 million delivered out of a promised one billion) could be included while we're at it.
Who cares, anyway? All that is necessary is the creation of the perception that we're as generous as we're rich while there's media attention on the story. It's not like many people will be asking questions about the promised aid / reconstruction / elections a month or two from now...
The New York Times editorial on this subject has a reference to a poll, which I had also remarked upon in an earlier column, that shows that "most Americans believe the United States spends 24 percent of its budget on aid to poor countries." The true number is actually under quarter of 1 percent. And that number hides the fact that most of this "aid" goes to bolstering regimes that we need for our imperial network, like Israel and Columbia. I find this a very telling example of the success of the propaganda system.
Posted by zeynep at 11:05 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Disasters, Natural and Not
I'm back, with heartfelt thanks to Justin for a suberb 10 days of blogging.
I'm following the Tsunami coverage with outrage and sadness. The onset of the disaster may be "natural" but how we prepare and react to such events is deeply political. The most obvious point is the lack of a Tsunami warning system in the Indian ocean like the one that exists in the Pacific. Now that more than a hundred thousand have perished, such a system will probably be installed quickly -- highlighting the horrific nature of what has happened. This need not have been this way.
On the other hand, I don't know what to say about our government's pathetic response to this disaster. It's quite possible that the tsunami has killed more Americans than the 9/11 attacks. Imagine if Bush had continued clearing brush in his ranch through mid-September in 2001? That's seems to have happened now:
Wednesday's appearance by the president was his first since the tsunami struck Sunday. Bush spoke out a day after a White House spokesman deflected repeated questions about why the vacationing president, devoting much of his time to bicycling and clearing brush, had not been more assertive in the wake of such a massive tragedy
Also, we have such a large military presence in the region that, of all nations, we are uniquely positioned to do a lot. A disaster of this nature is one of the few things a military the size of ours is actually good for. Some of the carriers in the region have been diverted to the area, which is a good beginning. Much more is needed.
P.S. I've been away from television, so have very little idea of the coverage. Then I read this. Can they really be this shameless?
Posted by zeynep at 10:15 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
December 28, 2004
A million missing black people?
[From Justin again - last post. Readers, thank you for the thoughtful comments over this past week. You are a sharp and very nice bunch. Readers who don't read the comments section, please do, particularly yesterday's, as they have useful links and info.]
This story came from the LiP people who do a 'media picks' weekly mailing.
You have heard of the Lancet study that conservatively estimates that the US killed 100,000 in Iraq. You have heard of the UN figures that suggested in 1996 that excess mortality due to the US sanctions against Iraq was around 500,000 children. A study published in the American Journal of Public Health estimates that: "over 886,000 deaths could have been prevented from 1991 to 2000 if African Americans had received the same care as whites."
Quoting from the Washington Post article on the topic:
The study estimates that technological improvements in medicine -- including better drugs, devices and procedures -- averted only 176,633 deaths during the same period. That means "five times as many lives can be saved by correcting the disparities [in care between whites and blacks] than in developing new treatments," Steven H. Woolf, lead author and director of research at Virginia Commonwealth University's Department of Family Medicine, said in a telephone interview.
Another quotable quote from the study is this: "The prudence of investing billions [of dollars] in the development of new drugs and technologies while investing only a fraction of that amount in the correction of disparities deserves reconsideration."
It would have been easy enough to guess this result. Consider that:
1) The US has no public health care system, and leaves some 50 million people with no health insurance;
2) Even in the absence of statistics about those 50 million, knowing that the black population is at the bottom of the US economic pyramid, one would be on firm ground guessing that a large percentage if not a majority of that 50 million were black;
3) People without health care will die of conditions and diseases that would not kill people who have health care, and;
4) The numbers involved really are quite large - tens of millions of people.
As a result it should not be so shocking that close to a million people died unnecessarily over 10 years for lack of health care.
Despite all that I was taken aback by the figure.
I hope others are as well.
Posted by justin at 10:29 AM | Comments (1)
December 27, 2004
Tsunami
[from Justin]
It is hard to say something about something so terrible. It's not really a moment for a political blog. If I was around there I would just try to find some way to join the aid effort. I have heard on the news that cash is the best way to help from far away. I don't know what the best organizations are to give to - anyone with good suggestions please make them in the comments section.
Posted by justin at 11:28 AM | Comments (6)
December 25, 2004
And Merry Christmas to you, too, Mr. Vanunu
Do you remember Mordechai Vanunu? Zeynep has mentioned him before. He spent 18 years in jail for revealing to the world that Israel has a nuclear arsenal. He was released with many ridiculous restrictions on him. He was then re-arrested. And then released again. So on Christmas Eve, Israel decided to give this courageous man the Christmas gift of re-arresting him yet again on his way to prayer in Bethlehem.
Posted by justin at 11:44 PM | Comments (3)
December 24, 2004
Merry Christmas, Embera Katio. Now get out of the way, please.
[From Justin again]
On December 20, 2004, one of the indigenous peoples of Colombia, the Embera Katio of the river Sinu region, signed an agreement with the Colombian government in which the latter promised that the fundamental rights of the Embera would be respected during the construction of a big hydroelectric project that the Embera have been fighting, the Urra dam (Urra being the company building the dam). The government signed its irst agreement with Urra in 1998, and in the Embera's latest communique they said: "Six years later we are still suffering the effects of this mis-named 'development'".
The government's strategy has been the typical one for the stronger party: drag out the negotiations and establish facts on the ground. The Embera's negotiators faced a government team without any real power to make decisions. The impacts of the dam continued to affect the people - the company continued to act with utter irresponsibility. And paramilitaries have disappeared and killed Embera leaders in the past, most notably Kimy Pernia Domico (disappeared in 2001).
In frustration, a delegation from the Embera peacefully occupied the grounds of the Colombian Environment and Development Ministry in Bogota a few days ago. Their demands are simple: they want a genuine independent environmenal audit of the impacts of the dam and they want the company's license suspended if the impacts are shown to be severe. Their assembly of 372 people, which includes 185 children, was forced by a group of 200 police to leave the grounds. The police ordered them to get on buses and return to their reserves, but they refused and marched to the offices of the national indigenous organization, ONIC. They are now engaged in a tactic that indigenous throughout Colombia frequently use, called the 'permanent assembly'. They are camping out in Bogota until some action on their demands occurs. For their trouble, they have been surrounded by the riot police - essentially besieged. Drop a Christmas letter over to the Colombian authorities...
Presidencia de la República: Dr. Álvaro Uribe Vélez, Cra. 8 No..7-26, Palacio de Nariño, Santa fe de Bogotá. Fax: (+57 1) 566.20.71 E-mail: auribe@presidencia.gov.co ; http://www.presidencia.gov.co/correo/formulario.php
Vicepresidencia de la República: Dr Francisco Santos Email:fsantos@presidencia.gov.co
Ministro de Minas y Energía: Dr. LUIS ERNESTO MEJIA CASTRO, Transversal 45 No. 26-86 Bogotá. Teléfono (57-1) 324 5262. Email: minas.energia@minminas.gov.co
Ministro de Protección Social: Dr. Diego Palacio Betancourt.Carrera 13 No. 32-76 Piso 22 Bogotá D.C. Teléfono 57-1-3365066 Fax 57-1-3360182. Email: Dpalacio@minproteccionsocial.gov.co
Procuraduría General de la Nación: Dr. Edgardo José Maya Villazón. Carrera 5 No. 15-80 Santa Fe de Bogotá. Fax: (+57 1)342.97.23. E-mail: reygon@procuraduria.gov.co anticorrupcion@presidencia.gov.co
Defensoría del Pueblo: Dr. Volmar Antonio Pérez Ortiz. Calle 55 No. 10-32 Bogotá. Fax: (+571) 640 04 91.E-mail:secretaria_privada@hotmail.com
Ministerio del medio ambiente, vivienda y desarrollo territorial: Ministra Sandra Suarez. Email: direccion@minambiente.gov.co
Posted by justin at 02:22 PM
December 23, 2004
Savings and Clone
[From Justin again. Sorry about yesterday's absence. I'll spare you the explanation, a banal tale involving inexperienced internet users, pop-up windows software nobody (purposely) asked for, insidious viruses, and destroyed registries.]
The other day I said I can't fill Zeynep's shoes, but today I am going to blog on something that Zeynep would be more likely to blog about than I would on any given day. It's called 'Savings and Clone', a company that prepared a cloned cat for a woman whose cat died a natural death after 17 years. The cat, 'little nicky', was sold to Julie (whose full name won't appear because she fears cloning opponents) for $50000. The story from the CBC ends with the following:
Genetic Savings and Clone, which has cloned five cats since 2001, said it hopes to make the world's first genetically cloned dog by next May.
They expect the market for dogs to be much more lucrative.
Other companies have already created cloned mice, rabbits, goats, pigs, horses and prize cattle, which sell for about $20,000 US each.
Animal-rights activists and others condemned Genetic Savings and Clone, pointing out that thousands of unwanted cats are euthanized each year in the United States.
"It's morally problematic and a little reprehensible," said David Magnus, co-director of the Centre for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford University.
"For $50,000, she could have provided homes for a lot of strays."
I have to confess that I don't remember the source - it's either Bertrand Russell or Gandhi - but one of them said that a major problem of our civilization is the idea that because we can do a thing, we should do it. I am not sure why this sort of thing makes me uneasy, to be honest. I would be interested in readers' views on it all. The argument made in the article about the contrast between the treatment of strays and the expensive cloning is certainly appropriate. But there is something more. Maybe it's something about a civilization that is callous to mass death from hunger, preventable disease, aerial bombardment, and firepower, but tries to defeat death by a combination of technology and business, wrapped up in a pithy package called 'Savings and Clone'?
I thought I would bring it up here, since Zeynep has a topic called 'morality'.
Posted by justin at 11:30 AM | Comments (7)
December 21, 2004
The Disappeared Mayor and the Person of the Year
[From Justin again]
Since I can't fill Zeynep's shoes, let me try to offer something on Colombia. Ah, Colombia, that place of drug cartels, Marxist guerrillas, and paramilitary killers, that playground of US imperialism, where the helpless hapless population is trapped between all these vicious actors - right?
Well, no. Not quite, anyhow.
At least in this sense. Colombia's population is not helpless. Instead, it is moving. Colombia's movements are extraordinary. Considering the opposition that is arrayed against them, the amount of military hardware that the United States has set upon them, and the paramilitary savagery that has plagued them, their resilience and continuing strength has been outstanding. I have good friends who predicted in 2000 that if Plan Colombia (a plan to supply the Colombian government with billions in military aid, mostly in the form of US helicopters to protect planes to do aerial fumigation - otherwise known as chemical warfare - against peasants, called 'narcotraffickers' or 'narco-guerrillas' in common parlance. Its principal effect was to displace those peasants so that multinational corporations and big landlords could take over their lands, for speculation and for megaproject schemes and fantasies) took its course the social movements would be exterminated in 4-5 years. Here we are 4-5 years later and, while the paramilitary massacres against unionists and movement leaders have certainly been vicious, movements remain.
Among the most remarkable of these movements is Colombia's diverse indigenous movement. Colombia's constitution of 1991 is probably second only to Venezuela's 1998 constitution in its recognition of indigenous rights. Meanwhile the Colombian government and paramilitaries continue to do their best to follow the unbroken 500 year pattern of dispossession and extermination against the indigenous peoples, ignoring the decent intentions of the constitution.
But the indigenous not only resist, they have also become the ethical and political guide of the other movements in the country. In the midst of such an incredibly repressive context, they managed to organize a march of indigenous dignity with tens of thousands marching to the public square in Cali which they filled to overflowing.
Not only did they do this, organizing openly and publicly despite all the threats, but they foiled every attempt at repression against them. In the days leading up to the march, in late August, one of the most remarkable leaders of the movement, Arquimedes Vitonas, was kidnapped. I wrote about the kidnapping at the time. Another one of their leaders, Alcibiades Escue, was arrested and jailed on the most preposterous charge of 'paramilitarism' - a leader of a movement most victimized by paramilitaries accused of 'paramilitarism' by a government that arms and deploys those paramilitaries.
Well, before the march, the 'indigenous guards', trained and disciplined indigenous activists who 'guard' their communities with only their moral authority (symbolized in the batons they carry) traveled to Caguan from Northern Cauca to rescue Arquimedes Vitonas, and succeeded. After the march, a group of indigenous guards went to the prison where Alcibiades Escue was being held and brought him back to indigenous territory after the government dropped their outrageously false charges.
The march was remarkable in other ways. Instead of making demands of the government, the indigenous people put forward a political proposal for a different kind of country, moving forward from the gains of the constitution of 1991. Then they proceeded, as some other indigenous movements have done, to move that proposal forward.
In this context, the decision on the part of Colombia's national newspaper, El Tiempo, to make Arquimedes Vitonas the person of the year, might seem odd. El Tiempo is an establishment paper. Why would it make a leader of indigenous resistance its person of the year? Perhaps because Arquimedes was kidnapped and released by FARC, and El Tiempo, like the rest of the Colombian establishment, wants to use the moral authority of the indigenous against the guerrillas. But the indigenous never play that game. Even when the FARC refuse to respect their autonomy, they do not allow themselves to be used as tools of the counterinsurgency.
But the reason is not unrelated. The fact is that the indigenous movement is a fact which, by virtue of its moral and political strength, cannot be ignored. With the March (called the Minga for Life) they were on the Colombian stage, putting Colombia's corrupt president and elite to shame. Repression could easily backfire politically. But if El Tiempo's recognition of Arquimedes was an attempt at co-optation, it won't work either. Instead, like the many other awards won by the innovative development programs and experiments in local democracy championed by the indigenous, it will simply be used as another platform where this remarkable movement can make its voice heard.
I can say this for sure. They might both be establishment outlets, but El Tiempo has much better taste in person of the year than Time Magazine.
Posted by justin at 11:12 PM | Comments (1)
December 20, 2004
"The prisoners will never tell the truth... [the guards] are trained to shoot in the air, not at prisoners."
[From Justin again]
An interesting story by Reed Lindsay of the UK Observer, republished in the Toronto Star, where I spotted it.
Lindsay appears to have done something that is relatively rare. First of all, he went to the place he's reporting about. Second, he covered a topic, a massacre of prisoners in a country under occupation, that doesn't serve established power. Third, he talked to some of the people affected, and presented some of the things they said. In other words, it seems as if a reporter for a mainstream outlet acted as an actual journalist should, and in the process unearthed a horrific story that is very telling about Haiti today.
Here you have a prison, called the Titanic, in which over a thousand people are locked up. One of them says "Everyone in the Titanic is Lavalas" - Lavalas, for readers who don't know, is the political party that is being liquidated by the paramilitary government that was installed early this year by a US-Canada-France coup. Thousands have been killed by this government since the coup and the slaughter is ongoing. Lindsay didn't do a great job of writing the story, but a reader can put a comprehensive story together from what he gathered: police and guards went from cell to cell and massacred the prisoners, then had the bodies dumped in mass graves. Lindsay didn't finish the job and find the graves - he says no one wanted to show him because they feared reprisals, which is quite possible, and I don't want to impugn Lindsay by implying that he didn't do the best he could. If there had been this kind of reporting when it was really needed, during the coup, intensely, and especially on television, things might have worked out differently (that of course speaks to why reports like this can come out now, and are framed in such a way as to make readers wring their hands and say 'gee, haiti sure is awful').
This is all taking place in order to destroy Lavalas, the democratic and popular movement in Haiti that was the target - Aristide wasn't the target - of the coup in February. And Lavalas has to be destroyed for reasons of pure racist contempt for democracy, for the same reasons Haiti has never been given a chance to develop on its own in the 200 years since Haitians waged the first successful slave revolt in history. Lindsay's story even suggests a bit of this.
If I were going to impugn Lindsay, however, I would have some basis to do so. I suppose he had to do this kind of thing to get the story published, but after some serious investigative work unearthing the story of the massacre and discussing the various sources and the different kinds of evidence and testimonies he gathered, Lindsay goes to great lengths to quote official sources discrediting the testimonies.
He quotes the warden: Penitentiary warden Sony Marcellus dismissed the prisoners' accusations as lies and exaggerations. "The prisoners will never tell the truth," said Marcellus. The guards "are trained to shoot in the air, not at prisoners. They would never fire on prisoners in this way."
But that is not nearly as bad as this sentence, a blight on the whole story and, if taken seriously, ought to serve as an indictment of Lindsay himself: Still, evidence that more than seven people were killed at the penitentiary has gone no further than the testimony of prisoners and anonymous sources. (Why didn't you get some evidence, Reed? Oh, you did? Then why do have to discredit your own story? My own feeling is Lindsay didn't write the sentence, but some editor inserted it as a sop to 'objectivity'.)
Lindsay's implied solutions, which come from the United Nations, also deserve at least some contempt (though the contempt should flow from the UN to Lindsay). Again, in the midst of reporting on the conditions in the prison and the evidence of the massacre, he adds context about the lack of resources for a good prison system.
Last February, former soldiers swept across the country, setting fire to police stations and freeing 3,500 prisoners from the penitentiaries in the armed revolt that toppled Aristide. Since then, the prison population has quickly shot back up to nearly 2,000, but with a much reduced capacity as many cells were destroyed.
Dyotte said the U.N. offered $50,000 (U.S.) to repair broken cells and the Canadian government promised to chip in with materials from its own penitentiary system and furniture from the Port-au-Prince embassy. Dyotte said the U.N. also offered $15,000 to buy beds, mattresses and furniture for the women's penitentiary in Port-au-Prince. All these offers of help were turned down by Claude Theodat, director of Haiti's penitentiary system. Theodat refused to be interviewed.
Interesting, isn't it? The paramilitaries freed all those who Aristide's regime had jailed, then turned around and jailed thousands of Lavalas people. The article states that of the 1,100 people in the Titanic prison, 17 have been convicted of any crime.
So what does the United Nations propose?
A couple of thousand bucks to build more prison capacity, of course!
Posted by justin at 07:46 PM | Comments (1)
December 19, 2004
"So you lied?" "I said it."
[Hello all. Justin here. Zeynep has already introduced me so I will just launch into today's blogging rant. Please do grill me though, since one of the coolest things about Zeynep - and Rahul - is their willingness to entertain all kinds of left heresies. In addition to being an 'ever-globalist' I am a radical, interested in social movements, but I don't think social movements can grow or succeed unless we are willing to be brutally honest, starting with ourselves. So brutal honesty is most welcome in the comments section. See you there.]
Tom Hurndall is one of the two activists from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) who, like several thousand Palestinians since 2000, was murdered by the Israeli army.
The hearings on his death have been telling. Because I'm still reading Anthony Hall's 'American Empire and the Fourth World', I can't help but think that they showcase the nature of warfare by colonists against indigenous peoples and the whole nature of American-style warfare, warfare in which internationals like Tom Hurndall and Rachel Corrie became 'collateral damage': killing them was not the intent of the Israeli army, it was just irrelevant.
This is shown by the dialogue recorded in the trial of Idier Wahid Taysir, the Sargeant who is being tried for manslaughter. Taysir told the court the following:
"I told him that I did what I'm supposed to; anyone who enters a firing
zone must be taken out. [The commander] always says this".
The story, reported in the Guardian, continues:
Sgt Taysir told the army investigators he had opened fire at Mr Hurndall because the Briton was on the edge of the security zone, carrying a weapon and wearing camouflage clothing.
In fact, he had not entered the closed zone, had no gun and was wearing a bright orange jacket.
The prosecutor asked the sergeant if Mr Hurndall had a weapon.
Sgt Taysir replied: "No. That's the truth."
"So you gave a false report to the company commander?" the prosecutor
asked.
"I did not give a false report. He might have had a weapon under his
clothing. People fire freely there. The [Israeli army] fires freely in Rafah."
The prosecutor continued: "But you told him that you saw a weapon?"
"Right."
"So you lied?"
"I said it."
The prosecutor then asked: "After that, you also reported that the man fired in the air and at you, right? Why did you report that he fired at you?"
The sergeant replied: "Because I had already fired without getting
approval [from the company commander]. Everything was under pressure and a result of fear. They tell us all the time to fire; that there is approval. All the troops [in Rafah] fire without approval at anyone who crosses a red line."
There are a number of things to be drawn from all this, lessons about the nature of military organizations and their ethic of secrecy, for example, and its incompatibility with democracy. But instead I want to just draw your attention to the nature of standing Israeli military orders in Rafah. In Taysir's words: "I did what I'm supposed to; anyone who enters a firing zone must be taken out." The phrase from the Vietnam War internal documents that that Chomsky has cited recently is "anything that flies against anything that moves." There's also the quote by Powell about how the US declared open season on MAMs (military-age-males) in Vietnam. The US has declared open season on MAMs (marriage-aged-males) in Iraq. In Fallujah, they first refused to let people out, and then proceeded to treat everyone who didn't leave as a military target.
I don't like the loose use of the term 'genocide', but this is a genocidal method of warfare. What other descriptor is appropriate for these 'free-fire zones'? The result of this kind of warfare, developed above all in the Americas and especially the US, was the genocide of the indigenous peoples (t)here.
Hitler himself modeled his East European campaigns on the US genocide of the indigenous peoples, as Ward Churchill documents in the book linked above. So long as 'free-fire zones' persist anywhere in the world, we won't be able to say that horrific chapter of human history is closed.
Posted by justin at 03:10 PM | Comments (3)
Another Trip, Another Guest
I know it's a bit unfair of me to run off to another country before I managed to get together my Venezuela observations but ... here it is...
I'll be travelling to Mexico City and San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas for the next 10 days. I'll be back blogging before the new year. As usual suggestions and recommendations about what to do and where to go are very welcome.
In the meantime, the blog will be hosting the ever-globalist Justin Podur of the Killing Train. Grill him about Haiti, Palestine, Canada, Congo, even Canuckistan...
Posted by zeynep at 06:16 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
December 18, 2004
First They Came for the Muslims...
A Cornell University study finds that support for placing special serious restrictions on Muslim-Americans' civil liberties correlates with strength of religious belief and exposure to television news:
The survey showed that 27 percent of respondents supported requiring all Muslim-Americans to register where they lived with the federal government. Twenty-two percent favored racial profiling to identify potential terrorist threats. And 29 percent thought undercover agents should infiltrate Muslim civic and volunteer organizations to keep tabs on their activities and fund-raising....
While researchers said they were not surprised by the overall level of support for curtailing civil liberties, they were startled by the correlation with religion and exposure to television news.
What's next? A debate on whether all Muslims should be required to wear a crescent at all times?
Posted by zeynep at 11:05 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
December 17, 2004
Let Me Condescend to You, My Dear Arab Friends
Here's Thomas Friedman, lamenting how the Bush administration is apparently holding up the third "Arab Human Development Report":
So I eagerly awaited the third Arab Human Development Report, due in October. ... I waited. And I waited. But nothing.Then I started to hear disturbing things - that the Bush team saw a draft of the Arab governance report and objected to the prologue, because it was brutally critical of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the Israeli occupation. This prologue constitutes some 10 percent of the report. While heartfelt, it's there to give political cover to the Arab authors for their clear-eyed critique of Arab governance, which is the other 90 percent of the report. [emphasis mine]
Everything else aside, don't you love this kind of Condescension Special to Those Who Bravely Carry the White Man's Burden that Friedman seems to practice with the same ease as breathing. It's not possible that a bunch of Arab intellectuals and activists really, really wanted to register their "brutal criticisms" of Israel's settler colonial occupation and the U.S.-led war on Iraq. It's just cover.
And to make sure that the depth of the insult is not missed by anyone, he deigns to add that the criticisms were "heartfelt".
Posted by zeynep at 12:07 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
December 16, 2004
How Propaganda Works
Let me follow up on the last post with a small example of one method by which propaganda works: through journalists' use of the "objective voice" to describe the very motives which they should be questioning. This from the Post:
The Bush administration's effort to build a system for defending the country against ballistic missile attack suffered an embarrassing setback yesterday when an interceptor missile failed to launch during the first flight test of the system in two years.
Certainly, there is more to be said on why "missile defense" is a first strike weapon. And, certainly, there is more to be considered in terms of the role of corporate profiteering in such project. But note how the above graph cuts the discussion: the Bush administration's effort to build a system for defending the country.
Once that framework is presented and accepted, all criticisms look silly. What's a few billion in an effort to defend the country? So a few tests fail. So a few well-connected corporations make a buck. It's an effort to defend the country. A piece that starts like that mainly reinforces the propaganda system, no matter how critical the rest of the contents.
Posted by zeynep at 12:28 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
December 15, 2004
"Missile" "Defense" "Shield": Who's Kidding Who?
Here's a great example of how the administration is furthering its belligerent capacities under the pretext of concern for the safety of Americans: the so-called "missile defense shield" project.
If you had any questions about what this is all about, here's the kicker -- they don't even test this system in bad weather. In other words, it's guaranteed not to work in bad weather so they don't even try.
An attempt to launch an interceptor missile as part of the U.S. missile defence shield failed early Wednesday in the first test of the system in nearly two years.The Missile Defense Agency said the ground-based interceptor automatically shutdown "due to an unknown anomaly" shortly before it was to be launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean.
...
In earlier tests, missile interceptors had a record of five-for-eight in hitting target missiles.Wednesday's test had been put off several times because of bad weather, and a malfunction of a recovery vessel not directly related to the equipment being tested, The Associated Press reported.
What on earth could there be use for a system that only works sporadically, and only under conditions of your of own choosing? Offense, of course, because you choose when to attack -- and, unlike defense, it's okay if only one out of your four offensive moves succeeed.
You see, we are developing the capacity to threaten strikes from space. That way, less worries about armies, occupations, foreign bases, military recruiting, etc. All those headaches that may potentially limit the scope their imperial ambitions.
I think this is a great example of the success of the propaganda system. Journalists keep repeating a "defense shield" is being developed, tested and somehow not performing well when a four year old child can figure out that this is clearly an offensive system.
The progressive critique has usually concentrated on the corporate boondoggle nature of such projects but I think that's also missing the mark. Not to say the money being made isn't a factor in these decisions, but the real issue is something much more serious and much more dangerous for the very existence of the planet.
Posted by zeynep at 12:02 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
December 14, 2004
Back and Thanks
I'm back. Trying to catch up with news, I was encouraged to learn that steroids in baseball is the issue to take on if you want to be taken seriously:
Sen. John McCain, the straight-talking Republican who often challenges the GOP establishment, has taken on a headline-grabbing issue — steroids in baseball — and generated talk of a presidential bid in 2008.
Good to be back to such political and moral courage. By the way, did Iraq sink while I was gone? I mean the country that we are occupying? One could be confused, if one relied on media coverage. Most news about it seems to be in the format of "bombing in city ____ in Iraq has killed __ people." Replace name and number, republish, repeat. Name this enterprise journalism.
I'll start posting my Venezuela observations shortly. Meanwhile, a heartfelt thanks to Jonathan Scwhartz for making the blog a place I wanted to keep coming back to read -- while I was gone. In fact, I was kind of tempted to ask him blog a bit more:-) For those who got used to his, ahem, sick sense of humor, continue checking out Tiny Revolution.
Posted by zeynep at 11:08 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
December 13, 2004
Dear Afshari Family: If There's Anything Else We Can Help With, Just Let Us Know! Signed, The US Government
(This entry posted by Jonathan Schwarz)
Via Doug Henwood's mailing list, here's a story about the federal government firing a married Iranian immigrant couple from their OSHA jobs. Aliakbar and Shahla Afshari are 18-year residents of the US with three children (one born here), and both worked for OSHA for almost a decade. They were told they'd failed new "secret background checks":
No explanations were offered and no appeals allowed... They have been told they were fired for national security reasons that remain secret. When their lawyer requested the documents used to justify the action, he was told none existed.
Okay, the US is taking on tinges of a Kafka-esque nightmare. So what else is new? Well, my eye was caught by this:
Robert C. Creese, a professor of engineering who was Mr. Afshari's doctoral adviser at West Virginia University, described Mr. Afshari as a pacifist who was appalled by the devastation wrought by Iran's decade-long war with Iraq. Mr. Afshari's younger brother was killed by mustard gas in that conflict.
Wow, we've really done right by the Afsharis! First we give Saddam Hussein a green light to invade their country (talking point #5 here), later on we fire them, and in between we help Saddam kill Aliakbar's brother. Hopefully we can draft the Afshari children soon, then make them invade Iran and kill their grandparents.
No need to thank us, Afshari family, we will say modestly. We're just doin' our job.
Posted by jonathan at 06:16 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 12, 2004
Sanctions Apologists Vs. Math
(This entry posted by Jonathan Schwarz)
If you believe there's anything significantly wrong here, please comment below or write me at tinyrevolution*at*yahoo*com.
Supporters of the sanctions on Iraq will never admit the sanctions should, according to international law, have been lifted years ago. In fact, as I said earlier, they will never even notice this is an issue.
BUT -- they have been dragged, kicking and screaming, to admitting the sanctions had a horrific effect on Iraqis. (By conservative estimate, 350,000 children died.) Fortunately, they have a fallback position. I'll give you one guess what it is.
Well, you guessed right. IT WAS ALL SADDAM'S FAULT. It's amazing the things that are all Saddam's fault. He's probably also responsible for global warming and the cruel cancellation of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Here's a representative sample of this perspective:
Saddam Hussein's regime always had enough resources to provide the Iraqi population with adequate food, medical care, and other necessities -- and this was especially true after the Iraqi regime finally agreed to institute the UN-run oil-for-food program after 1997. It simply chose to divert these resources to other uses...
Theoretically, this could be so. But let's leave the realm of theory and enter reality.
According to the CIA's final WMD report, the Iraqi regime received -- via smuggling, manipulation of the Oil for Food program, etc. -- $10.9 billion in illicit oil revenue from 1990 to 2003. The Senate Governmental Affairs investigations subcommittee calculated it differently, at $21.3 billion.
Let's assume this money provided no benefit to Iraqis generally. Saddam just took the money and ate it. (In fact, this isn't true -- even Saddam constructing monstrous edifices to his own ego would put money in the pockets of any Iraqis doing the monstrous-edifice construction.)
We'll also assume this money would otherwise have been used for the well being of Iraqis. (Again, not so: under properly functioning sanctions, this money would mostly not have gone to Iraq AT ALL.)
Now let's do some calculations, using figures from the CIA World Factbook. These numbers aren't exact for many reasons, but it gives us an idea of the scale of the situation.
AMOUNT STOLEN
CIA: $10.9 billion
Senate: $21.3 billion
YEARS UNDER SANCTIONS (mid-1990 to mid-2003)
13
IRAQ POPULATION
25.4 million
IRAQ PER CAPITA INCOME (2004)
$1,500
$10,900,000,000 divided by 13 divided by 25,400,000 equals:
$33.01 EXTRA PER IRAQI PER YEAR
$21,300,000,000 divided by 13 divided by 25,400,000 equals:
$64.51 EXTRA PER IRAQI PER YEAR
Thus, Iraqi per capita income would have increased by either:
33.01 divided by 1500 equals 2.2 percent; or
64.51 divided by 1500 equals 4.3 percent
So, that's the argument by sanctions apologists. That's the difference between 350,000 children living and dying.
Iraqi per capita income is $1533/1565 = 350,000 children alive, every single one
Iraqi per capita income is $1500 = all 350,000 children dead
You can judge for yourself how likely this is. For my part, I'll just say: thank god we put those sanctions on. If Iraqi income had been much higher, there'd be so many Iraqi children we wouldn't have space on earth to put 'em all.
Posted by jonathan at 06:28 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
December 11, 2004
"Heart of Darkness": Prescient Masterpiece of World Literature, Or Airy-Fairy Egghead Nonsense Like All Books Everywhere?
(This entry posted by Jonathan Schwarz)
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is a remarkable book. I'd have to check, but I may be the first person to point this out. (I also think the Mona Lisa is a fine painting. I don't care whether anyone agrees with me or not.)
If you haven't read it, the book takes place in the late 1800s, and is mostly a story told by a British seaman named Marlow. He's such a famous literary creation that Raymond Chandler named his central character, the detective Philip Marlowe, after him.
Marlow tells a tale of traveling to the Congo to work for "the Company." He travels up river to the interior, where he meets Kurtz. Kurtz is one of the Company's stars... but in the interior, he has indulged in insane violence and "unspeakable rites." He lives in a house surrounded by stakes topped by the heads of decapitated Congolese.
There are two things that are revelatory about the book. Or at least, they're revelatory for those who haven't been on the receiving end of European colonialism.
First, those engaged in colonial endeavors always feel the world is full of darkness. To these people, the "heart of darkness" is located in the lands they colonize. Heart of Darkness subtly says: No. The heart of darkness is everywhere people are -- but definitely it's part of colonialism. The last sentence of the book, describing the Thames, is:
The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky -- seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.
In other words, England, then the heart of the "civilized" world, is also a heart of darkness.
Second, and most relevant for us today, Heart of Darkness examines how colonialists always believe they're doing something wonderful for the people they're colonizing. (See: the White Man's Burden.) Here's how Marlow describes Kurtz's writings about uplifting the natives:
The peroration was magnificent, though difficult to remember. It gave me the notion of an exotic Immensity ruled by an august Benevolence. It made me tingle with enthusiasm. This was the unbounded power of eloquence -- of words -- of burning noble words.
Specifically, Kurtz had written:
"By the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power for good practically unbounded."
Of course, it doesn't work out that way. At the end of Kurtz's philanthropic blather, he has scrawled this:
"Exterminate all the brutes!"
Nevertheless, as Marlow explains, colonialists must hold onto the idea they're doing something wonderful and good:
"The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea -- something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to..."
So, is Heart of Darkness just a dumb 100 year-old book, totally irrelevant to the present? Or... does it have something extremely important to say about today's America, something we'd better pay attention to RIGHT NOW?
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Trent Lott:
I ask Mississippians of all faiths to pray for all our coalition forces and the Iraqi people as they engage in an intense but noble battle against what is nothing but sheer evil.
-- Trent Lott, March 27, 2003We went in there to free those people.
-- Trent Lott, April 15, 2003If we have to, we just mow the whole place down, see what happens.
-- Trent Lott, October 28, 2003
Posted by jonathan at 03:04 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
December 10, 2004
"I Don't Expect To Get Anything From The Kurds... They're Not Going To Be There," Said Saddam
(This entry posted by Jonathan Schwarz)
Yesterday Kevin Drum mentioned a CBS story about Social Security that interviewed a man on the street named Tad DeHaven. CBS apparently said he "could be the poster child for Social Security reform." DeHaven mournfully told the camera, "I don't expect to get anything from Social Security. I don't consider it in terms of my long term planning. It's not going to be there."
A problem, Drum mentions, is that DeHaven is not just some guy, as he was presented. He's a long time advocate of Social Security privatization. He worked for the Heritage Foundation, Cato, and now is employed by the National Taxpayers Union. Yup, just a regular fellow off the street, who happened to write a book called "War Between the Generations: Federal Spending on the Elderly Set to Explode."
So DeHaven forgot to finish what he was saying. It should have been: "I don't expect to get anything from Social Security. It's not going to be there... because lots of people like me are paid lots of money to make sure it's not."
Posted by jonathan at 06:26 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
December 09, 2004
Nice Liberals: AAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHH!
(This entry posted by Jonathan Schwarz)
Part I of the continuing "NL:A!" series can be found here.
I once was a certain type of nice American liberal. Perhaps you yourself have encountered this type. It is the type that reads the New York Times, often listens to NPR, and enthusiastically voted for Bill Clinton. The type has good intentions. The type wants the best for all. But the type has the unmatched ability to miss the WHOLE FUCKING POINT OF EVERYTHING.
If this type had a giraffe living in its kitchen, it would not see it. Instead, the type would sit there, carefully reading the day's New York Times story about awful people in third world countries with giraffes living in their kitchens. What's wrong with these people? the type would think. How can they allow giraffes to live in their kitchens? From time to time the type would wonder why their house smells so musky lately, and why all the food on high shelves mysteriously disappears.
This type of nice liberalism is on full display now, regarding the various ways Iraq evaded the UN sanctions and sold oil during the nineties.
On the one hand, there's the frothing right wing. They demand that Kofi Annan's head be delivered to Dick Cheney, so Cheney can make a goblet out of his skull. On the other hand, there are well-researched articles in nice liberal publications. The articles delve into the minutiae of the issue, and report back the truth: that the sanctions "leakage" was always known by everyone, including the US, and consciously ignored. Good examples can be found here and here. See also a piece by Joy Gordon in the December issue of Harper's (not online).
These articles tell us all about the height, weight, and mating habits of giraffes in Indonesia. Which is interesting. But maybe the nice liberal publications could, just once, mention the giraffe IN OUR KITCHEN.
(Please note: I'm not blaming the authors of these pieces, which are excellent. They did the best they could. The problem lies much deeper, in the liberal squishy willingness to allow the right to control the terms of all debate.)
That giraffe in our kitchen is the fact that the sanctions on Iraq were not supposed to be there in perpetuity. According to the relevant UN resolutions, the sanctions would be lifted when Iraq was disarmed of WMD. We now know Iraq met these requirements in 1991, or arguably 1995 at the latest. (Details on request.)
This is not some minor point. The sanctions -- as the US government intended -- killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. This includes, at a rough estimate, 350,000 children.
120 World Trade Centers full of children. That's a big damn giraffe.
And I don't make the World Trade Center comparison lightly. Because -- as even the Bush administration believes -- the 9/11 attacks were in retaliation for the sanctions (plus our troops in Saudi Arabia). A "senior administration official" even argues that without our nineties policy toward Iraq, Osama bin Laden would just be hanging out, telling boring stories about his days in the Khyber Pass.
To make the story even more gruesome, we also know the Clinton administration ignored repeated peace feelers from Iraq during the nineties. But that shouldn't be surprising -- as the US government has repeatedly said, our only interest was in ousting Saddam. The sanctions helped, in our minds. So we had to bloviate constantly about the WMD as a pretext.
Thus, hand in hand with Saddam, we spent almost thirteen years strangling the people of Iraq. Leading us right to the terrifying world we live in today.
So as a former nice liberal, let me plead with my former compatriots: open your eyes. There are lots of giraffes in our house. They're multiplying and getting bigger. And giraffes can even kill lions, with just one kick.
UPDATE: In comments, Erica asks whether I'm familiar with the Phil Ochs song "Love Me, I'm a Liberal."
Erica! Not only do I know it, in spring, 1999 I wrote a new verse for it:
When Clinton went to Guatemala
He was right to say we'd been wrong
A million are dead now in Baghdad
I'm beginning to have some real qualms
But let's talk about those bastards in Belgrade
Those fuckers, they've GOT to be bombed
Love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal
As you can see, I can't go a day without using profanity.
Posted by jonathan at 03:50 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
December 08, 2004
Imad Khadduri In The Virtual House
(This entry posted by Jonathan Schwarz)
I highly recommend the new blog of Iraqi nuclear physicist Imad Khadduri. Khadduri's site is at http://abutamam.blogspot.com -- "Abu Tamam," because his son's name is Tamam.
Khadduri was educated in the US and England, then returned to Iraq for several decades until he escaped to Canada with his family in 1998. I'm a great admirer of his book Iraq's Nuclear Mirage. It's part autobiography, part relentless criticism of the WMD sham, and all fascinating.
I've previously mentioned Khadduri on my site, here, here, here, here, and here. But there's no reason to go through all that. Just go to his site, bookmark it, and start reading it regularly.
Be forewarned, though: particularly if you're American, it may be an uncomfortable experience. I don't agree with everything Khadduri says, but certainly hearing his perspective has been bracing and necessary for me. It was his book that made me aware that if you listed the people responsible for killing the most Iraqis, Saddam Hussein would be in SECOND place. Due to the relentless sanctions the US insisted on during the nineties, the honor of Most Iraqis Killed goes to Bill Clinton.
Posted by jonathan at 06:29 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 07, 2004
Dear New Yorker: You Are "Said To" Be A Better Magazine Than This
(This entry posted by Jonathan Schwarz)
The New Yorker article I just mentioned is by Jeffrey Goldberg. Goldberg is... well, he's lots of things. But in particular, he's someone with a tendency to source his writing to no one nowhere. In that article alone, he managed to give six instances of things "said to" be true.
1. "[The 1983] suicide bombings, in Beirut, of the United States Marine barracks and an apartment building housing a contingent of French peacekeepers... occurred just twenty seconds apart; a third part of the plan... is said to have been jettisoned when the planners learned that the Italians were sleeping in tents."
2. "[Hezbollah] publishes newspapers and magazines and owns a satellite television station that is said to be watched by ten million people a day."
3. "According to both American and Israeli intelligence officials, [Hezbollah] maintains floating "day camps" for terrorist training throughout the Bekaa Valley; many of the camps are said to be just outside Baalbek."
4. "In the past year, Hezbollah has also been stockpiling rockets for potential use against Israel. These rockets... are said to be moved by truck from Syria, through the Bekaa Valley, and then on to Hezbollah forces in South Lebanon."
5. "...according to intelligence officials, [Hezbollah's] operatives, with the help and cover of Iranian diplomats, have been making surveillance tapes of American diplomatic installations in South America, Southeast Asia, and Europe. These tapes, along with maps and other tools, are said to be kept in well-organized clandestine libraries.
6. "The eight members of Hezbollah's ruling council are said to meet in the Dahiya once a week."
If I'd turned this in to my ninth grade English teacher, she would have circled each of these in red and written "unclear, weak -- avoid passive voice." At the end she would have written, "usually the overuse of the passive voice indicates you're covering something up."
I know this is a crazy, utopian dream... but I would like the New Yorker, particularly when it publishes journalism about matters of life and death, to be as rigorous as my ninth grade English teacher.
Posted by jonathan at 07:20 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
"Keep People In The Mood Of Suffering"
(This entry posted by Jonathan Schwarz)
One thing that makes me vomit (figuratively) is anyone who's obsessed with his or her "group"'s suffering. Obviously we should remember horrible events of the past -- but only as examples of what all people are capable of, not to prove "we" are righteous victims and "our" "enemies" are pure evil.
The irony is that every horrible event of the past has been carried out by people who justify their hideous actions on the basis that THEIR GROUP HAS BEEN VICTIMIZED. (See: Hitler, Adolf.) The people they massacre later often support leaders who use their group's genuine victimization as justification for awful actions of their own. (See: IsraeI, if you really want, but I don't recommend it. Better to see: The Soviet Union's justification of its post-WW II subjugation of Eastern Europe.) It's a perpetual motion machine of human misery.
So you really need to keep an eye on politicians who play the victim card. And they do it constantly -- because it's one of the time-tested paths to power. In fact, politicians become concerned if their chosen herd shows signs of letting go of feelings of victimization.
This was expressed with admirable honesty by Hassan Fadlallah, the news director of Hezbollah's satellite channel Al Manar. Al Manar, Fadlallah explained in a 2002 New Yorker article, is "trying to keep the people in the mood of suffering." According to the article, one weekly Al Manar show is called "Terrorists" and "airs vintage footage of what it terms 'Zionist crimes.'"
Boy, thank god our leaders are completely different from Hezbollah.
Republican National Convention: "September 11... September 11... September 11... September 11... September 11... September 11... September 11... September 11... September 11... September 11... September 11... September 11... September 11... September 11... September 11, 2001"
Posted by jonathan at 06:30 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
December 06, 2004
I Was Right! Right! Right!
(This entry posted by Jonathan Schwarz)
Oh, how I love being right.
I was once talking to my friend Bob Harris about why some people feel driven to find out as much as possible about the world. It doesn't make much sense if you're not under immediate threat, because no matter how much you learn, any positive effect you can have on the world is tiny. I told Bob I do it so when I'm killed by nuclear terrorism, I can shout -- just before I transform into a small puff of water vapor -- "I understand EXACTLY why this is happening!"
I bring this up because I've had a theory for some time, and it has been proven so so right. The fact that I was right makes no difference to anything, and certainly doesn't make the world better. Yet I find it deeply satisfying.
The theory was based on a standard behavior of extremists on both "sides" of any dispute. Such extremists seek out the most threatening statements by the other side's extremists. They then publicize the threatening statements. This is to make the case to their "side" that the other "side" as a whole is implacably evil. And you better support your side's extremists, because they're the only ones who take this terrible threat seriously.
Note that none of this has to involve lying. The extremists can choose real, but unrepresentative statements.
A truly sophisticated example of this is the odious MEMRI. As you probably know, MEMRI combs through the Arab press for vicious anti-Semitism, insane conspiracy theories, etc. Then they translate it and regurgitate it into the hungry mouths of the media's baby birds.
So... my longtime theory was, the same thing was happening with one very specific statement by my favorite extremist on our side, Ann Coulter. Coulter, when she was able to take time out from her demanding career as a whippet-impersonator, famously wrote:
We should invade [Arab] countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.
And it turns out -- if you will forgive my shameless, capitalized self-adulation -- I WAS RIGHT. Sheldon Rampton, a beautiful human being who co-runs PR Watch, has discovered
a fundamentalist, pro-jihad Muslim web site which... contains Ann Coulter's column in its entirety, with bold, red letters highlighting the sentence which reads, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."The webmaster comments on Coulter's column by saying, "We told you so. Is anyone listening out there? The noose is already around our necks. The preparation for genocide of ALL Muslims has begun... The only safe refuge you have is Allah."
Dear lord, I'm so happy. Have I mentioned that I was right?
Posted by jonathan at 07:52 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
December 05, 2004
And On The Seventh Day, The Lazy Guest Host Mostly Just Posted Links
(This entry posted by Jonathan Schwarz)
1. I have been intensely enjoying Semitism.net, the website started by Andrew Schamess, a doctor in Western Massachusetts. (I learned of it via Juan Cole.) Here's some of the site's self-description:
What is Semitism.net? A view from the Jewish left... A main focus right now is the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and Jewish opposition to the occupation. An additional aim of Semitism.net is to help build bridges between the Jewish and Muslim communities. The site can host multiple blogs. I hope to feature posts from bloggers living in Israel and in the occupied territories, and from Arab and Jewish voices in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Yes, my kind of peoples.
I particularly liked a recent post about Juan Romagoza, a Salvadoran doctor (and Schamess' former boss) who started La Clinica del Pueblo in Washington, DC.
Schamess speaks of Romagoza running into a man on the street in Washington whom Romagoza knew from El Salvador -- because the man was part of the military squad that tortured him. Emily Post really has no pointers for this awkward situation. But apparently Romagoza "took him into the clinic, gave him work to do, and helped him get over the trauma of the war."
Schamess jumps off from this to provide these wise words:
Paulo Friere said that it is the task of the oppressed to liberate not only themselves, but also the oppressor. The oppressor is so entrapped by his own need to control everything, that he cannot see things for what they are, cannot speak the true words needed for liberation. I find this very true of dominant classes - we are obsessed with self-protection, insulating ourselves from injuries, intrusions and chance events. We consider this our prerogative, regardless of who pays the price. Our media and our politics consist of a monologue that justifies our dominance and largely drowns out divergent voices.
2. Some time ago I came across Lawrence of Cyberia, the site of a former translator and analyst for the British counterpart to the National Security Administration. (She now lives in Maryland with her family.) The site focuses mostly on one of her professional interests, the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Besides being damnably well-written, the LOC is beautifully designed. In this sense, IT MOCKS ME and my own monstrous site.
Go there now. In particular, don't miss "Why Haaretz is a Piece of Crap."
3. I want to believe that all leaders in every country are repellent sociopaths. This saves me valuable thinkin' time that I can then use to defeat the insect overlords of Halo 2. Unfortunately, there are occasional exceptions to my leader belief, and I resent this.
One such exception is Avraham Burg, former speaker of the Israeli Knesset. Via Lawrence of Cyberia I came across this interview with him. Of course, the fact the he has become an exception is connected to the fact he's no longer the Knesset speaker:
"My attempt to seize the center and my refraining from going all the way to the end with my views made me a cosmetic candidate lacking true positions. So in the final analysis, the lesson I drew was that in such a difficult period, I have to speak my truth unvarnished. If there is no other choice, I prefer to lose over truths than to be elected for emptiness."
Posted by jonathan at 11:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 04, 2004
No Reasonable Person Is Suggesting Nothing Be Done About The Danger America Will Be Attacked By Giant Squirrels
(This entry posted by Jonathan Schwarz)
I am a fan of the New York Times' tendency to designate what is and isn't "reasonable." For instance, in a recent editorial they explained that "no reasonable person is suggesting that nothing be done" about Social Security.
So, it turns out I'm not reasonable. Either that, or I'm not a person. Because I will stand before you today and "suggest" that nothing be done about Social Security.
You probably already agree. So we can all be unreasonable (or inhuman) together. But if you're a believer in the desperate need to do something about Social Security, just let me know, and I'm happy to explain it in all its gloriously boring detail. I took a wrong turn in life and unfortunately learned an enormous amount about this, Earth's dullest subject.
Or... you can just skip a step and take my word for it. Seriously, this would save everyone a bunch of time. If you're wavering, let me remind you how all the same people now furrowing their brows and agreeing something needs to be done about Social Security, were the same people agreeing we had to do something about the danger of Iraq's WMD. And let me tell you -- the threat we face with Social Security is every bit as terrifying as the one we faced with Iraq.
It really is quite a power, this ability to determine who's reasonable and who isn't. I suspect the New York Times could write "No reasonable person suggests we shouldn't eat at least some of our young," and 80% of America's Ivy League graduates would agree.
UPDATE: Here are some examples of the New York Times helping us understand what reasonable people believed about Iraq's WMD:
William Safire, "Irrefutable And Undeniable," February 6, 2003
Defenders of Saddam Hussein demanded absolute smoking-gun proof of illegal Iraqi possession of terror weaponry...To their surprise, Colin Powell made the case, with a half-dozen smoking guns, of a huge Iraqi cover-up...
Reasonable people take as a clear indication of underlying crime such activity as lying about that crime, suborning perjury about it in others, and intimidating scientific witnesses.
But unreasonable or fearful or self-interested people... do not want to find the crime that would necessitate war.
Elizabeth Bumiller, "President Notes Dissent on Iraq, Vowing to Listen," August 17, 2002
[A senior administration] official also said that there was increasing evidence that Iraq possessed or had sought to build chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, although there was still much the administration did not know. "But this is just not something that reasonable people would disagree about," the official said.
Posted by jonathan at 11:59 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
December 03, 2004
¡Hola!
First things first. Absolutely no smoking in the comments section, no matter what Jonathan says.
I will try to post more later, but a brief update now. I spent the day in the barrios, the shanty-towns in the hills, visiting newly-formed small health clinics and later a large, PDVSA (Petróleos de Venezuela) subsidized community development center. The small neighborhood clinics are wonderful, and badly needed. The clinics may be among of the most important things Chavez initiated, and they obviously also greatly help increase his political popularity. I was a bit mixed about the larger development, which included a textile and a shoe factory, sustainable (so it said) farm, sports fields, larger clinics, supermarkets etc. The "work" portion, textile and shoes, clearly depended on PDVSA subsidies. ¿How long can that go on? ¿How can one best use the current windfall from the $45 a barrel oil -- the same condtition that is breaking the backs of many other third world countries? ¿Can Chavez and his administration find a sustainable way out ot he desperate poverty so many here live under?
I will report back as often as I can, but expect the bulk of my observations for after I return. I am also taking lots of pictures which I may be unable to post (or download) before I return. We will see. Meanwhile, feel free to leave your recommendations about where to go and what to do!
Posted by zeynep at 05:44 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
In My Culture, We Cut Off Books' Spines And Put Them On Spikes As A Warning To Others
(This entry posted by Jonathan Schwarz)
So Gerald Allen, a state representative in Alabama, wants to prohibit libraries from using public money to buy books that "recognize or promote homosexuality." Such books already on the shelves would be destroyed.
In an interesting twist, however, Allen does not want to burn the offending books, like the Nazis did. He wants to take them all home so he can furtively examine them late at night with the door to the bathroom locked.
Whoops -- sorry, no, my mistake. Actually, Allen suggests that rather than burning the books, they'll just "dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them."
So, this makes me wonder... clearly there are people everywhere who want to suppress books, but could it be they express this differently from culture to culture?
1. European Fascists: Book Cremation
2. Southern Religious Fundamentalists: Book Burying
3. Ancient Egyptian Authoritarians: Book Mummification, with a retinue of dozens of librarians and editors sealed in the tomb with the books to accompany them to the afterlife
4. Close-Minded Pirates: Book Burial At Sea
5. Totalitarian Uruguayan Rugby Players Trapped In Andes: Book Cannibalism, in which books are eaten by other, more deserving books
Posted by jonathan at 08:28 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
December 02, 2004
Thank God Our Leaders Are Completely Different From Saddam Hussein
(This entry posted by Jonathan Schwarz)
I'm obsessed with the idea that America's leaders have a worldview alarmingly similar to Saddam Hussein (see here, here, here, here, here and here), Osama bin Laden (here and here) and the most hardline Iranian ayatollahs (here and here).
What's exciting about guest posting here is I can impose my peculiar fixation on a whole new group of people. So let's get started!
According to Out of the Ashes by Andrew and Patrick Cockburn, Saddam Hussein was recorded telling his senior commanders this shortly after the invasion of Kuwait in 1990:
"This decision to invade Kuwait we received almost ready-made from God. Our role is simply to carry it out."
Thank God George Bush is completely different from Saddam. In the sense he's eerily similar:
[Mahmoud] Abbas said that at Aqaba... Bush told him, "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did..."
Next, Out of the Ashes explains why no one around Saddam advised him that his decision "ready-made from God" might not be such a hot idea:
"In that circle, the safest course is always to be ten percent more hawkish than the chief," says one veteran Russian diplomat long stationed in Baghdad. "You stay out of trouble that way."
This is, of course, exactly the same as the atmosphere within the upper reaches of the US government -- not just now, but for decades. You could find a million examples, but here's one in which Seymour Hersh explains our 1993 bombing of Baghdad for their purported assassination attempt against George HW Bush:
In interviews over the summer, many past and present American intelligence officials expressed little surprise that the Clinton Administration had predicated the bombing of Baghdad on such conflicting and dubious evidence. One C.I.A. analyst explained, "Of course nobody wants to say, 'There's nothing to it, Mr. President,' especially when other guys are pushing it. The President asks the intelligence analysts for the bottom line: Is this for real or not? You can't really lose by saying yes." That hard-line attitude—"hanging tough" in a crisis—has marked many of America's intelligence failures since the beginning of the Cold War.
Finally, here's another quote from Out of the Ashes, about occurrences in Iraq as Saddam consolidated power in the late seventies:
The body of one senior leader was returned to his house in Baghdad in a pickup truck. The body showed signs of torture. A note attached to the corpse said the leader had died of a heart attack...
Boy, things sure have changed:
One senior source inside the Iraqi Assistance Centre, the organisation set up by the coalition to compensate Iraqis for loss or death, yesterday claimed that US military doctors routinely wrote "heart attack" on the death certificate of prisoners who had died from other causes, sometimes during interrogation.
Yes indeed. Thank god our leaders are completely different from Saddam Hussein.
Posted by jonathan at 08:04 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
I Am Already Drunk With Power, Among Other Things
(This entry posted by Jonathan Schwarz)
Dear everyone,
While Zeynep is in Venezuela, seeing what the country is like before America gets around to invading it, I'm going to be guest posting here. I'm a writer and a friend of Zeynep's. Much of what I say will also appear on my site, A Tiny Revolution. I swiped the name from "Funny, But Not Vulgar", a 1945 essay by George Orwell about comedy, in which he said:
A thing is funny when... it upsets the established order. Every joke is a tiny revolution.
Also good is this part:
It would seem that you cannot be funny without being vulgar... For it is not only sex that is "vulgar". So are death, childbirth and poverty... And respect for the intellect and strong political feeling, if not actually vulgar, are looked upon as being in doubtful taste. You cannot be really funny if your main aim is to flatter the comfortable classes: it means leaving out too much. To be funny, indeed, you have got to be serious.
The whole thing is worth reading, and weirdly resonant today. Of course, Orwell was writing about an empire that was collapsing around his ears, whereas Americans don't live in an empire, and even-if-we-do-so-what-it's-
not-going-to-collapse-ever-because-it's-completely-different-from-all-other- empires-in-history.
Anyway... is Zeynep gone? She is?
Okay! You call everybody and I'll get my older brother to buy some beer. He totally said he'd get beer for us the next time Zeynep went out of town. Just don't smoke in the comments section. I don't know why, maybe the drapes absorb it, but she can always smell it even if it's like ten days later. AND NOBODY THROW UP AND TRY TO HIDE IT IN THE TRACKBACKS. Rahul, I'm looking at you.
Posted by jonathan at 11:42 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Off I Go
I think that if I also post about the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster, after the last posting about AIDS and Sudan, the readers of this blog will stop reading... Or just start screaming as soon as they even see the orange/pink background color in the distance. Honestly, I don't mean to write about horrors all the time, but you know how it happens.
So, Jonathan of the Tiny Revolution will be guest blogging for about 10 days -- while I go off to see if there's any good news anywhere.
I'll be in Venezuela:-)
I'll try to log on and post from there but I have no idea what the conditions will be like.
See, Jonathan also writes about the scary stuff but he's funny. So, have fun and enjoy and we'll catch up when I get back, if not before.
Posted by zeynep at 09:25 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
December 01, 2004
Wondering how the Holocaust Happened? You Can Stop.
The biggest supplier of cheaper AIDS drugs, India, may be forced to withdraw from the market because of "Intellectual Property Rights" (read Profits not Human Rights) regime that India has to comply with by the New Year:
NEW DELHI, Nov 26 (IPS) - As India moves to meet a New Year's Day deadline to comply with the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) regime of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) the cheap, generic anti-AIDS drugs that this country is famed for could be a thing of the past....
Shiva who is attached to the Voluntary Health Association of India (VHAI), a leading health NGO, said Indian pharmaceutical companies that specialise in cheap generics drugs could face legal action, initiated by the WTO, if they continued to manufacture and sell them after Jan. 1, 2005.
''The TRIPS regime (in the WTO structure) has been identified as one of the worst international trade regimes and resistance to it in developing countries has come from farmers, public interest and human rights minded social action groups, as well as drug and health activists,'' Shiva told IPS.
I could have written more about intellectual property rights and the cruel, profit-driven legal regime, but let's cut to the chase. This is a four-and-a-half month old baby. His name was Bongani. Do you have children? Nieces, nephews or cousins? Ever say hi to the neighbor's kids?
He's dead. His mother had AIDS. She's dead too. A short course of AZT would have helped him avoid becoming infected with the disease and given him a chance to join the estimated 15 million AIDS orphans. A few hundred dollars a year, at the generic Indian prices, could have kept his mother alive too. Instead, he became an addition to the more than 20 million people who have already died. Thirty-eight million people worldwide are currently infected with HIV/AIDS, two-thirds of them in Sub-Saharan Africa.
You've heard it before: how did the Holocaust happen; how could people let a thing like that occur; could it even happen again; how can we grasp the enormity of the Holocaust...
Well, this is how it happens. Dehumanization of the victim plus indifference, and all you need is a spark.
It's happening under our watch. And we're worse than the people who let it happen; at least they could claim the Nazis would have killed them too if they resisted. They could claim a legitimate fear for their lives. All we have is our inhumanity, indifference and our unwillingness to tell a few big pharmaceutical companies they'll have to put up with a cut from their obscene profits and let our governments know that we would like a bit of money spent on saving millions of lives instead of say, some big boondoggle project or a special tax-break for this or that big corporation.
Happy World's AIDS Day, otherwise known as 23 shopping days left until Christmas.
Posted by zeynep at 03:35 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack