Monday, December 31, 2007

IT TAKES STEPHEN KING TO WAKE UP CNN? Sleaze, tease & news. In 2007, the need to know the dirty secrets of celebrities drowned out the real headlines [CNN.com] 9:55:35 PM    comment []

James Moore: For 2008: A Star-Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere. "What the United States does best is to understand itself. What it does worst is to understand others." - Carlos Fuentes As another year begins, many of us are involved in contemplating not just the behavior and principles of our country but, indeed, it's very fate. We wonder if we are too far gone down a fast-running river to ever get back to the spot where the view was glorious. The elegant language of our constitution was written with the energy produced by British oppression. Unfortunately, after independence was established, we began our own history of oppression. The near genocide of Manifest Destiny gave us cultural, economic and racial control of the continent while we also set about the business of importing slaves to carry all of our burdens. More than a century passed before women were given the vote and the African descendants of those slaves were not afforded their full constitutional rights until almost two hundred years after their ancestors had stepped onto American soil shackled in chains. As poorly as we failed our founding principles, America did, ultimately, change. Courageous individuals forced us to confront national hypocrisies. People voted, protested, debated, read, campaigned, and we reached an honorable consensus. Our democracy was alive and vibrant and, although it might take an absurd amount of time for achievement, we were heading in the direction of a just democracy. If we did not believe in the results we at least honored the processes that formed our society. We were involved and invariably the best ideas and candidates seemed to prevail. Where are we now? Our modern era of cynicism and disenfranchisement appears to have begun with the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. All of our postwar prosperity and optimism took a shot to the head in Dallas but we pressed on through the Civil Rights struggle and the Vietnam War. Sadly, we began to realize that our government and leaders could be quick and facile liars. Vietnam was a tragedy years before they acknowledged our misguided policies and meaningless deaths. Eventually, Watergate meant even the most sacred of offices was not averse to grand deceits and when President Ford pardoned President Nixon many felt the fix was in and justice was a ghost. The ensuing years gave us Iran-Contra and the Tower Report, which was a voluminous white wash of what was almost certainly a guns for drugs operation used to illegally fund a group of thugs trying to overthrow the Nicaraguan government. The lie about Monica seemed nearly precious when placed in the context of all the others we had grown numb to hearing. Almost every candidate for public office since World War II has promised to lower our taxes and still provide us great government services and we allowed ourselves to be convinced. We have now stopped believing in almost anything. Our disenfranchisement has become nearly voluntary. The historic Iraq War and domestic spying lies of the Bush administration have spawned an era of cynicism without equal in our democracy. If they were caught, lying used to cause politicians their careers. Karl Rove has taught us all that it is presently nothing more than a conventional political tool. Anyone who gets caught simply lies in a louder voice without bothering to deny. Truth-tellers get swift boated and the liars win elections. We don't even trust the technology that delivers vote counts because we know that software can be manipulated by the politically ambitious. Americans are not confident they even know what happened in their recent past with either the elections or the wars. We have been spun to dizziness. Demographers, statisticians, and pollsters rant about how few people turn out to take part in the electoral process. Don't they understand why? We used to be the people who the world counted on to do right and risk the consequences. The mistakes of our government were not reflective of the heart of our people. But the stars and stripes have been transformed from a symbol to a brand. Are we now nothing more than a business, a military-petro-chemical-political complex? Whatever we might be we find the U.S. citizenry as disengaged and cynical as it has ever been just as China is rising. They hold billions of dollars in Wal-Mart inventory, an almost incalculable amount of our debt, and maybe even our fate. Our wan dollar has reached historic lows as Wall Street greed mongers bundle bad loans and sell them to equally greedy investors in foreign lands. We may know where we are now but do we have any idea where we want to go? Do we want to honor the language of our founding document? America was always more about becoming than it was being. In 2008, maybe we can raise our flag again guided by principle rather than political expediency. There might be a leader who calls us to serve and to sacrifice and heal, and who deserves our support. The image is fading but we can still see it through the distant haze. As weakened as the colors are they still have meaning and value and we can know them again if we are sufficiently determined. Let's just go in that direction and find our flag. Let's keep believing there's a star-spangled banner waving somewhere. [The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com] 9:52:51 PM    comment []

23/6 Recalls The Year In Recalls. 2007 may be remembered as the year our safe and happy playtimes were jeopardized by trusted toys like Thomas the Tank Engine, Dora the Explorer, even Barbie and Batman. Millions of toys were recalled after it was discovered they were decorated with lead paint from Chinese factories. Other toys contained tiny magnets that could destroy a child's digestive track. And some products, like the infamous Aqua Dots, were found to have traces of date rape drugs. [The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com] 9:47:40 PM    comment []

Rip. Mix. Burn. Go. To. Jail?. The recording industry now says its a crime to rip an mp3 of a CD you bought. I[base ']m not kidding. [Rolling Stone : National Affairs Daily] 3:41:57 PM    comment []

William Fisher: 2007: Yes, Virginia, There is Some Good News. The year is racing to a close. Lamentably, it's going out with a Bhutto Bang. Almost as pathetic as this cruel assassination is the wisdom spewed out by our presidential wannabes. Funny how they all morphed into instant Pakistan Pundits to continue their endless pandering to those who will bundle themselves up to venture out into the chill air of Iowa and New Hampshire to cast their primary ballots. My vote for the most pathetic goes to Mike Huckabee, who was in charge of Arkansas' foreign policy during his years as the Republican governor of this historically Democratic state. Rev. Huckabee suggested that after Bhutto's assassination the United States should, "have an immediate, very clear monitoring of our border, and particularly to make sure, if there's any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country. We just need to be very very thorough in looking at every aspect of our own security internally." Right on, Mike. Gotta watch those Paki terrorists turning up in California to pick lettuce. That comment struck just the right tone to end a year filled by consequential events too numerous and too depressing to catalog here. Suffice it to say that, for a journalist, 2007 was a very good year. "If it bleeds, it leads," was the year's press mantra. And there was more than enough bleeding to keep all of us scribblers very busy. During 2007, I wrote several hundred pieces of news and opinion. Almost all of them reported bad news -- imperial wars, government incompetence and intransigence, thousands of dead civilians, soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, tens of thousands more seriously wounded, poverty ignored, populations displaced, preventable diseases not being prevented, the toxic extremism of fundamentalist clerics and their followers of all faiths. And on and on. You get the picture. But, at the risk of being called a Pollyanna, let me give you the good news. And, yes, for Americans at least, there was some good news. Despite our government's efforts to re-create 1984, we Americans continued to live in the freest country in the world. Free to think, write, speak, organize, get involved, associate with whomever we wish, worship or not worship. Our courts may be filled with judges we disagree with, but Chief Justice Roberts is not under house arrest. Our legislators may be the world's most talented Kabuki dancers, but they still read our letters and take our phone calls, and occasionally even do what we pay them to do. Our president may think he's King, but next year, he'll leave office peacefully and say nice things about his successor. We should be grateful for all these blessings, but they are all macro blessings. The really good news happens and keeps happening at a totally unreported, but far more meaningful, level: Ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Like my 60-plus cousin-in-law, who learns to knit so he can make a blanket for his first grandchild. Like the mother of a friend's cleaning lady, who works three jobs so her daughter can get to college. Like the neighbor who just shows up year after year to plow the snow off a friend's driveway and never asks for a penny. Like the friend who organizes farmers to get our town to appreciate the benefits of local agriculture. Like the local psychotherapist who gives up her Thanksgiving Day to distribute food to our less fortunate neighbors. Like the hundreds of volunteers who show up to work phone banks or lick postage stamps to support their chosen candidates for town supervisors, local judges or county commissioners. Like the retired UN official who turns her acreage into a refuge and recovery center for our county's orphaned, abandoned, abused or injured wildlife. Like the retired college profs who spend hours mentoring kids who have no role models. Like the management consultant who shares her "happy gene" with a depressed widower and gives him a new life. There are millions of these kinds of acts of kindness. They happen every day in every American town and city. We rarely hear about any of them. They are the acts of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. They are the real threads that hold the fabric of our country together. As long as they continue, we can be hopeful. As long as they continue, 2008 may yet turn out to be a good news year. Read more New Year's posts from HuffPost bloggers [The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com] 3:39:11 PM    comment []

Blackwater Too Hardcore For International Mercenary Association. The International Peace Operations Association, which is the trade association for mercenaries inspired by the efforts of mercenary group Executive Outcomes to end the Sierra Leone Civil War, has parted ways with Blackwater. Apparently Blackwater doesn't want to follow the group's conduct code, the "set of ethical and professional guidelines for companies in the peace and stability operations industry." Initially Blackwater, a member in good standing since 2004, agreed to be reviewed by the group after the accusations that the company killed 17 Iraqis in Baghdad last month. Now they don't want to be reviewed. I've read a bunch of liberal books recently that touch on mercenaries and their politically threatening overtones: The End of America, Blackwater, and the Shock Doctrine. [The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com] 1:39:35 PM    comment []

Robert Fisk deplores how the media has trotted out "the 'good-versus-evil' donkey ... to explain the carnage in Rawalpindi," citing some critical passages from Tariq Ali's earlier essay 'Daughter of the West,' as an antidote to hagiography now surrounding 'a flawed a feudal princess.' [Cursor.org] 1:23:59 PM    comment []

"Democracy is the best revenge," proclaims Benazir Bhutto's son, as he along with Bhutto's husband, "Mr. 10 percent," as caretaker, extend family control of the Pakistan People's Party into a third generation, treating the party, in Tariq Ali's view, like "a family heirloom" and dimming prospects for democracy. [Cursor.org] 1:18:07 PM    comment []

James Mulvaney: Benazir as Princess Di: Death Becomes Her. It looks like the American backed Plan B for Pakistan is to re-establish the dynasty. The US government should have long ago gotten over its puerile crush on Benazir Bhutto. She was a "democrat" the way Boris Yeltsin was a democrat: steal while you are in power, blame evil forces when you get caught. She was twice removed from office on reliable corruption charges and went into self imposed exile in 1998. But she charmed the west with luminous dark eyes and a winning smile. Even though she wore glasses she was smart in a sexy, exotic way that makes Christiane Amanpour a network hottie. And Benazir worked the corridors of power in Washington and Whitehall; a western seductress wrapped in eastern robes. The political alternatives in Pakistan were never very attractive. The realities on the ground made it clear that the combination of competing tribes and cultural clashes precluded benign democracy. The military has to have more power than in the Jeffersonian model; nuclear war with India is always a possibility; Afghan warlords treat the border like a hop scotch pitch. And, in recent years, the domestic forces that seem intent on some kind of Islamic nihilism are growing stronger and stronger. The generals who became the public face of Pakistan were a generally smarmy looking lot, dark faced with severe mustaches, beribboned uniforms and gold military glasses. Their command of English was never quite strong enough to satisfy western television watchers. Plus, they were shorter than our generals. To the western eye they looked crooked, therefore Benazir must be right. Even during her exile Benazir blamed political opponents, saying that the corruption charges, including the ones that sent her cabinet minister husband to prison for eight years were slander (never mind that his political nickname was "Mr. 10 percent). Now in death she becomes Princess Di, the saintly beauty whose perfection caused her demise. And who are we in London and Washington to deny this lady her one last wish? We would be smart guys if we did. Her will nominates her 19 year old son as heir to the political throne. Bilawal Zardari is a good looking kid, speaks good English. He could be, it is suggested the subcontinent's latest Rajiv Ghandi who took over his family's political machine and become a third generation prime minister. Before going teary, let's look at a couple of obvious differences: Rajiv Gandhi was a grown up, a 40 year old airline pilot when he took up the political mantel. Bilawal is still in school and plans on running the nation from his dorm in Oxford, England, kind of like a bi-continental round of Dungeons and Dragons computer games. Indira Gandhi had her ups and downs but was a tough politician. Benazir never had the breadth of support that Gandhi had. The utter gall of naming the kid the successor but nominating his ex-con dad as his temporary stand-in is mind boggling. The political kettle is aboil in Pakistan, just as it has been for most of the country's history. Whether the elections go on, are postponed or canceled, the military will remain in power until well after our next elections. The important goal for the west is to keep the fundamentalists away from the nuclear stockpile and start fertilizing the fields for the next new leader one who doesn't have the baggage of the son and grandson of martyrs. [The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com] 1:06:37 PM    comment []

Eye on the Tiger. READ THE WHOLE ITEM Related Entries December 30, 2007 Axis of Dixie December 30, 2007 Bhutto’s Son Inherits Her Party December 29, 2007 Hillary’s Hindsight December 29, 2007 Sensational Strategy December 28, 2007 Footage of Bhutto Attack Released [Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines] 10:23:52 AM    comment []