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Sat, 15 Nov 2003 15:31:50 GMT |
George W. Bush: Sauron or Palpatine?
I've been watching the appendices that come with the DVD of "Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring" (which was the first DVD I bought after we got our new player). There's one very interesting comment that Tolkien's whoe view is that people of many different kinds have to work together. There's no single hero, and the entire epic is multi-cultural and pluralistic.
On the other side, the side of Evil, we have Sauron, a single leader with a single culture (or anti-culture) which he intends to impose on the entire world.
Where does George W. Bush fit into this dichotomy -- embracing the world community or go-it-alone Super Power domination?
I'm really surprised Republicans haven't complained about Star Wars episodes I and II. Here we have a conspiring politician who stages non-wars to gain power, suppress civil liberties, and set up a military dictatorship. Hasn't anyone else worked out that this is exactly what Dubya is up to? I wonder how close to the actual Bush George Lucas will come in episode III?
Then there's always:
7:44:48 PM 
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George W. Bush: Sauron or Palpatine?
I've been watching the appendices that come with the DVD of "Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring" (which was the first DVD I bought after we got our new player). There's one very interesting comment that Tolkien's whoe view is that people of many different kinds have to work together. There's no single hero, and the entire epic is multi-cultural and pluralistic.
On the other side, the side of Evil, we have Sauron, a single leader with a single culture (or anti-culture) which he intends to impose on the entire world.
Where does George W. Bush fit into this dichotomy -- embracing the world community or go-it-alone Super Power domination?
I'm really surprised Republicans haven't complained about Star Wars episodes I and II. Here we have a conspiring politician who stages non-wars to gain power, suppress civil liberties, and set up a military dictatorship. Hasn't anyone else worked out that this is exactly what Dubya is up to? I wonder how close to the actual Bush George Lucas will come in episode III?
Then there's always:
7:44:48 PM
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May 6, 2003
Today's war news:
U.S. detainees policy criticized [CNN]
US troops 'encouraged' Iraqi looters [| Media Workers Against War |]
New 'civilian' Iraq overseer L. Paul Bremer is a bigger hawk than the man he replaces (2 May 03) [Radio Free USA]
Hawks in doves' clothing (3 May 03) [Radio Free USA]
Soldiers fear 'Afghan Vietnam' (4 May 03) [Radio Free USA]
Day of the Long Knives -- Tony Blair moves against his highest profile party critic...
Labour suspends Galloway. George Galloway is suspended from the Labour Party over remarks he made in a TV interview during the Iraq war. [BBC News | Front Page | UK Edition]
Labour suspends Galloway. 4.45pm: George Galloway has been suspended from the Labour party pending 'internal party investigations', its general secretary announced today. [Guardian Unlimited]
Why weren't the inspectors allowed to finish their work? Their "replacements" are failing...
IAEA Hopes to Probe Possible Looting at Iraqi Plants [NPR News (Audio)]
U.N. wants to investigate Iraq nuclear looting -- U.S. not returning calls (5 May 03) [Radio Free USA]
Is life better now in Iraq....
Iraq: Amnesty International urges Bush and Blair to intervene in relation to "disappeared" [Amnesty International News]
While Bush ignores the international community...
Suits and nukes. As you may not have heard, the folks who signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty are meeting this week in Geneva, Switzerland. They're scratching their heads over why the treaty has utterly failed to stop non-nuclear states from going nuclear (like India and Pakistan and Israel and Korea) as well as failing to force the nuclear-capable states to disarm. [Feature Stories from Greenpeace]
And a plea from the real oppressed people facing weapons of mass destruction...
The meaning of life. Comment: Justice, peace and prosperity will never be achieved in the Middle East until governments and the media learn to value all human lives equally, writes Anas Altikriti. [Guardian Unlimited]
7:15:20 PM
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May 6, 2003
Today's war news:
U.S. detainees policy criticized [CNN]
US troops 'encouraged' Iraqi looters [| Media Workers Against War |]
New 'civilian' Iraq overseer L. Paul Bremer is a bigger hawk than the man he replaces (2 May 03) [Radio Free USA]
Hawks in doves' clothing (3 May 03) [Radio Free USA]
Soldiers fear 'Afghan Vietnam' (4 May 03) [Radio Free USA]
Day of the Long Knives -- Tony Blair moves against his highest profile party critic...
Labour suspends Galloway. George Galloway is suspended from the Labour Party over remarks he made in a TV interview during the Iraq war. [BBC News | Front Page | UK Edition]
Labour suspends Galloway. 4.45pm: George Galloway has been suspended from the Labour party pending 'internal party investigations', its general secretary announced today. [Guardian Unlimited]
Why weren't the inspectors allowed to finish their work? Their "replacements" are failing...
IAEA Hopes to Probe Possible Looting at Iraqi Plants [NPR News (Audio)]
U.N. wants to investigate Iraq nuclear looting -- U.S. not returning calls (5 May 03) [Radio Free USA]
Is life better now in Iraq....
Iraq: Amnesty International urges Bush and Blair to intervene in relation to "disappeared" [Amnesty International News]
While Bush ignores the international community...
Suits and nukes. As you may not have heard, the folks who signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty are meeting this week in Geneva, Switzerland. They're scratching their heads over why the treaty has utterly failed to stop non-nuclear states from going nuclear (like India and Pakistan and Israel and Korea) as well as failing to force the nuclear-capable states to disarm. [Feature Stories from Greenpeace]
And a plea from the real oppressed people facing weapons of mass destruction...
The meaning of life. Comment: Justice, peace and prosperity will never be achieved in the Middle East until governments and the media learn to value all human lives equally, writes Anas Altikriti. [Guardian Unlimited]
7:15:20 PM
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May 6, 2003
Two-Edged Swords
Ever since the Vietnam War forced me first to break the draft law and then into voluntary exile in Sweden, I've been much more patriotic about my home state of California than about the United States. In fact, it seems as if most people waving American flags, like Oliver North, do it to cover the fact that they want to subvert the Constitution.
As Samuel Johnson wrote: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
But the end of the Cold War co-inciding with the Clinton presidency did bring with it a sense that the United States was headed in the right direction again. There was more co-operation with the international community, and the wars that were launched were to help people, in Bosnia and Kosovo, and (at least the effort was right) in Somalia, with little financial gain for Washington or American capitalism.
But when George W. Bush took power with the help of the Supreme Court, the peaceful world was not for him. He craved conflict, empire, a return to the good old days of the Cold War. Now we have an economic recession, a divided United Nations, and encouragement of dictators to violate human rights and violations of American constitutional freedoms, all in the name of fighting terrorism. Not to mention the illegal war against Iraq, where protecting the oil ministry is more important than preserving the cultural heritage of civilization and where peaceful demonstrators are fired upon by their "liberators".
And still no weapons of mass destruction....
One of the most idiotic aspects of all this is the wave of hatred from the right against anyone who disagrees with the Dreams of Empire. First it was Germany who questioned the lack of evidence of any connection between al-Qaida and Saddam. Then it was France, which refused to accept a UN resolution that would have let the US go to war at will (and over the objections of the weapons inspectors).
The most idiotic side of it all has been the renaming of "French Fries" as Freedom Fries at various locations, including apparently the US Congress. Dear Fellow Americans....it isn't the French who have named them "French Fries" (they call them pommes frites). they have no idea that is what we call them, and couldn't care less if we call them something else. As a protest it is totally empty.
More serious have been the individual boycotts of French restaurants in the US. Even if the owners, like most Americans, are against the war, depriving them of income to protest the actions of the French government is not just silly, it's unfair. And the boycott of France does not seem total among the Bushites:
Pastry chef flown in on Iraq mission (6 May 03) [Radio Free USA]
I have boycotted French products in the past. As a local patriot, I tend to drink Californian wines here in Sweden, even though they are over-priced (by the producers) and for some reason the white wines are virtually ruined by oak-taste additives. When France resumed nuclear tests in the Pacific a few years ago, I gladly stopped buying French wines.
But now the situation is the reverse. Yesterday when I went to the state liquor store, instead of my usual mass purchase of Golden Gate Chardonnay, I bought the French wine Prince Oliver (which has the advantage of not tasting like an oak tree). I suppose this will continue now for the time being. Even if Dubya has declared victory, the oppression will continue. Prisoners will continue to be kept without charges in Guantanamo. Iraq will continue under US occupation rather than UN administration.
Lord knows where the next invasion will be.
And despite the declarations of victory, Mullah Omar, Osama bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein remain at large.
5:05:44 PM
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May 6, 2003
Two-Edged Swords
Ever since the Vietnam War forced me first to break the draft law and then into voluntary exile in Sweden, I've been much more patriotic about my home state of California than about the United States. In fact, it seems as if most people waving American flags, like Oliver North, do it to cover the fact that they want to subvert the Constitution.
As Samuel Johnson wrote: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
But the end of the Cold War co-inciding with the Clinton presidency did bring with it a sense that the United States was headed in the right direction again. There was more co-operation with the international community, and the wars that were launched were to help people, in Bosnia and Kosovo, and (at least the effort was right) in Somalia, with little financial gain for Washington or American capitalism.
But when George W. Bush took power with the help of the Supreme Court, the peaceful world was not for him. He craved conflict, empire, a return to the good old days of the Cold War. Now we have an economic recession, a divided United Nations, and encouragement of dictators to violate human rights and violations of American constitutional freedoms, all in the name of fighting terrorism. Not to mention the illegal war against Iraq, where protecting the oil ministry is more important than preserving the cultural heritage of civilization and where peaceful demonstrators are fired upon by their "liberators".
And still no weapons of mass destruction....
One of the most idiotic aspects of all this is the wave of hatred from the right against anyone who disagrees with the Dreams of Empire. First it was Germany who questioned the lack of evidence of any connection between al-Qaida and Saddam. Then it was France, which refused to accept a UN resolution that would have let the US go to war at will (and over the objections of the weapons inspectors).
The most idiotic side of it all has been the renaming of "French Fries" as Freedom Fries at various locations, including apparently the US Congress. Dear Fellow Americans....it isn't the French who have named them "French Fries" (they call them pommes frites). they have no idea that is what we call them, and couldn't care less if we call them something else. As a protest it is totally empty.
More serious have been the individual boycotts of French restaurants in the US. Even if the owners, like most Americans, are against the war, depriving them of income to protest the actions of the French government is not just silly, it's unfair. And the boycott of France does not seem total among the Bushites:
Pastry chef flown in on Iraq mission (6 May 03) [Radio Free USA]
I have boycotted French products in the past. As a local patriot, I tend to drink Californian wines here in Sweden, even though they are over-priced (by the producers) and for some reason the white wines are virtually ruined by oak-taste additives. When France resumed nuclear tests in the Pacific a few years ago, I gladly stopped buying French wines.
But now the situation is the reverse. Yesterday when I went to the state liquor store, instead of my usual mass purchase of Golden Gate Chardonnay, I bought the French wine Prince Oliver (which has the advantage of not tasting like an oak tree). I suppose this will continue now for the time being. Even if Dubya has declared victory, the oppression will continue. Prisoners will continue to be kept without charges in Guantanamo. Iraq will continue under US occupation rather than UN administration.
Lord knows where the next invasion will be.
And despite the declarations of victory, Mullah Omar, Osama bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein remain at large.
5:05:44 PM
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© Copyright 2003 GlobalWatch: Notes from the Swedish.
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| AlterNet | | 2:02PM UTC |
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 Call Me a Bush-Hater. Sneering, jeering, bad manners, hideous diplomacy, threats, demands, lies, arrogance, bluster, tax cuts for the rich. And you wonder why we think he's a lousy president?
The Scalping Party. The Tiger Force atrocity in Vietnam was the third major war crimes revelation in the last few years to encounter apathy in the media and indifference from Washington.
A Double Standard for Heroes?. Jessica Lynch and Shoshanna Johnson underwent nearly identical ordeals in Iraq. But only the white soldier's story made the cover of Time magazine.
Indian Americans Enter the Matrix. The Bollywoodization of American popular culture has long been underway. But with the appearance of a South Asian in 'The Matrix Revolutions,' a new era has begun.
An Object Lesson in Investing. Here's what happens to your hard-earned money when it enters the giant money-skimming machine we call the stock market.
The Rev in the Race. Understanding Al Sharpton's standing as a reputed black leader requires an understanding of recent history. Understanding Sharpton the Presidential candidate requires delving a bit further into the past.
Killer Cure. Everyone wants Medicare to cover prescription drugs, right? Not so fast.
The Professor Takes the Gloves Off. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman tells how he found his voice, why Bush makes him miss Nixon, and why he insults Fox News whenever he can.
The Truth About the Green River Killer. Gary Ridgway should have been caught a long time ago. His choice of victims had everything to do with why he wasn't.
Personal Voices: Apology to the American Worker. I actually thought Nike and Adidas and Delta and Sara Lee were American companies run by American employees. I admit, I was confused.
Why Aren't We Winning the Indie Movie Race?. Just a decade ago it felt like the indie movie scene could become a haven for multiculturalism. Now it's just as white as the blandest Hollywood studio. What happened?
What's Health Insurance, Mom?. At 7, my daughter should be fretting over the well being of her favorite stuffed animals -- not the fates of her uninsured parents.
Listening to Veterans. We will soon be welcoming home the first of another generation of emotionally damaged veterans. How can we appropriately honor them without glorifying war?
Freedom and Security. The sacrifice of civil liberties for the appearance of greater security is a mistake that leaves future generations with little hope for freedom.
P. Diddy and Hip Hop's Tattered Garments. Hip-hop fashion kings need to take a hard look at the labor conditions that prevail in the factories where their clothes are made.
Billboard Politics. U.S. government propaganda doesn't convince Iraqis -- so why do Americans fall for it?
The 'Thing' Economy and the 'Care' Economy. A truly moral economy would reconcile our desire to prosper with our deepest moral and spiritual impulses.
Memo To Arnold: Educate, Don't Incarcerate. Unlike Davis, California's governor-elect is no slave to the powerful prison guard union -- so maybe he can afford to do the right thing.
Sarah Jones' American Dream. In her latest piece, the acclaimed playwright takes on the roles of 10 immigrants to weave a story of racism and xenophobia in the era of homeland security.
Shock Troops of the Right Wing. Censoring television movies, overturning court decisions, halting construction projects -- just what will conservatives do next?
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| Greenpeace | | 3:04PM UTC |
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Rainbow Warrior on Toxic Patrol in India. The Greenpeace sailing vessel the Rainbow Warrior is currently anchored off the coast of Alang, India. Alang is the site of the world's largest shipbreaking yard. Greenpeace is planning to conduct "toxic patrols" of ships which are here waiting for scrapping. A team of experts will do a survey and take samples to determine what type of toxic materials are on board before the ships are beached and the actual scrapping starts. Shipbreaking is an enormous danger for people and the environment. Greenpeace is the only organization in the world fighting for the 100,000 people working in this industry and for the environment they live in.
UK's own ghost ship found in India. There's outrage in the UK! The US is sending its "ghost fleet," complete with asbestos and toxic chemicals, for dismantling in England. The UK government has said the ships will have to go back. A British court has put a halt to any dismantling. Permits have been revoked. But meanwhile, in India, guess what Greenpeace's ghost-busting toxic patrol has found?
What would you do to save the tallest trees?. In Tasmania, Australia, they have these trees, that are... tall. OK, a lot of trees are tall, but these are the tallest hardwood trees in the world. We're talking trees taller than a 25-story building and 400 years old. Some people look at trees like this and they just think, "wow". Other people, they look at these trees and they think, "Wow, I could cut that down, chop it up, feed it through a wood chipper, and sell it to these companies in Japan!" And that is just what they are going to do, unless we can stop them.
Click here to find out how.
When scientists and policy makers meet. Before any major international meeting there are advance meetings to lay the groundwork. A lot of the decisions finalised at the main meeting are often made at these meetings - months before the big one.
Today was the start of one of the more important of these meetings, the ninth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice to the Convention on Biological Diversity. That's SBSTTA-9 and the CBD to you insiders, and it will be going on in Montreal all week.
Year one of the Prestige oil spill. The Prestige oil tanker sank on November 13th, 2002. But this Thursday marks not the one year anniversary of an accident, but year one of a decade-long disaster. Despite this, criminally little has been done to prevent the recurrence of a similar catastrophe.
Japanese whaling fleet ready to depart. Greenpeace has learned that five vessels will set forth shortly from Shimonoseki in Japan, perhaps as early as Friday, to hunt whales once again. They continue to do so despite a worldwide moratorium on commercial whaling, under the false pretence that their purpose is "research."
US Toxic 'ghost fleet' not wanted in the UK. Two former US Navy ships are now crossing the Atlantic for scrapping in the UK. Contaminated with toxic waste, the failure of the US to clean them up at home has caused outrage in Europe. But have a closer look at the issue of shipbreaking: putting toxic vessels out of sight and out of mind is the rule rather than the exception -- and the recipients are usually developing countries.
EU waters down chemicals reform. Important new laws in Europe have been announced this week to address the current flawed and inadequate rules governing chemicals harmful to health and the environment. While the new laws represent a step forward, heavy chemical industry lobbying and scare-mongering have significantly weakened the proposal already.
France reclaims toxic ship. After being caught illegally exporting ships containing hazardous waste to Turkey, the French military has seized a former french aircraft carrier they had sold for scrapping. This high seas tale exposes again the underhand tactics and cost cutting of some sections of the shipping industry at the expense of the environment and workers' health.
Hidden hazards revealed in Disney products. Tests by independent scientists have revealed that toxic 'gender bending' chemicals are found in everyday children's products like Disney pyjamas. These chemicals can damage the developing foetus and young children; they should not be found in products you put your kids into every night.
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