Recent Comments [06-18]
Nate: Why I Hate: Liberals for War on Terror...I found myself reading and nodding along with most of your argument. I think the most telling thing was in the last election when Bush would call Kerry a liberal (a ridiculous claim against a man who supported the war in Iraq and had the same policy on gay marriage as Bush) and Kerry would get all offensive and deny it.I do not agree with your assessment of Israel, however. The point about Israel having no written rights is meaningless.
Many democracies function without constitutions (Britain comes to mind). You call it an apartheid, but that's a tough argument to make considering Israel is an extremely diverse country.
Where else in the Middle East are Muslim women allowed to vote? You call it Oceania, but Israel is not to blame for its security issues.
As soon as it declared independence, it was attacked from all sides. In 1967 and 1973, it was attacked by multiple Arab countries and after withstanding the onslaught, it pushed back troops and took territory.
It has been willing to trade territory for peace. In the 80s, it gave up the Sinai for peace with Egypt. Last year, it forced Israeli families from their homes in Gaza in order to make peace with Palestinians bemoaning the occupation (you talk about redressing the cause of terrorism and that sounds like it).
After giving up this land, Gaza began shelling Israel with rockets every single day. Still, Israel plans to give up the West Bank for a future Palestinian state.
I'm living in Israel right now and some things bother me about, but in general, I feel that it is a young country moving in the right direction.
john: American Capitalism: Raw, Rampant and Ruthless..."Disparity (wealth and income)doesn’t just happen. It is the result of social and economic policy deliberately enacted against the poor."
Not "deliberately", but rather "callously" and with "criminal indifference".
Capitalists have "bought into" a system in which social morality has no place. The only thing deliberate about capitalists is their drive to "make money" without expending useful or productive work.
You cannot find morality or social justice discussed in any text on the subject of capitalist economics.
john: Israel Unleashes Its Bloodlust for Vengeance Against the Palestinian People..."This incursion into Gaza is NOT just about the soldier"
That's for sure. This is about ethnic cleansing on a scale that surpasses Slobadon Milosevic.
Americans ought to be ashamed of supporting Israel.
john: Jewish Nationalism and the Zionist State...Palestinians have but one recourse, and that is to keep killing Israelis - preferably IDF and political leaders.
They can now see that Israel has embarked on their "final solution" -- which is to drive out or exterminate all Palestinians.
ryan: 60 Years of Propaganda: Poor Israel! Nasty Arabs!...It's about time we stopped being so condescending to the Palestinians. I mean, they are human beings! They are intelligent!
When you blame the Israelis for every problem the Palestinians have, it's like saying that Palestinians are completely unable to help themselves.
It's saying that having until recently been the highest international recipients of aid per capita, and after 13 years of the Palestinians Authority, Palestinians have not been able to make their lives one bit better.
Isn't that like saying that they are children who don't know better than to come in out of the rain?
It's about time that Palestinians stopped blaming everything on the Israelis and shifted at least some of the blame to where it really belongs: with their leaders.
imnotroger: Blasphemy: Christ Cartoons - A Response to Those Muhammad Cartoons...I may be stupid (I am not Christian), but I fail to see the point of these cartoons. The original Danish cartoons were in response to the hypocrisy of Islamic militants who have killed in the name of Islam, thinking that they will enter Paradise as martyrs.
What is the point of these?
If they are just retaliatory, then they miss the wit of the originals.
They only strive to insult.
The only exeption is Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ", which was intended to provoke, and preceeded the Danish catoons by over 10 years.
Keep trying........you may get relevant yet.
AND
Ed Strong: The Danish cartoons were not a response to Islamic hypocrisy. They were commissioned as a result of a children's book on Islam and the complete absence of Muhammad images.
You repeat your prejudice by coupling 'Islamic' with 'militants'. The western propaganda success.
How about militant christians such as Bush and his stupifying hypocrisy - killing tens of thousands to bring 'freedom' to Iraq?
There was nothing 'witty' about the Danish cartoons for a Muslim. You don"t find the Christ cartoons witty. "They strive to insult". That was the intention.
As a Jew - judging from so many of your comments - or a sympathizer, you'd be one of the first to scream outrage at cartoons which were anti-semitic. In fact, they are virtually impossible to find on the web - so successful is the 'Jewish Lobby'.
Examine your own prejudices before dismissing the principles of others.
Atlanticist: Europe Gives Bush the Finger...This was the second time within weeks that Bush described 9/11 as "just a moment" for Europe.
This comment offensive, wrong and explains why Bush is losing the few remaining supporters in Europe he has rather than getting any support for this policies. I blogged about it as well: link
I also explain why that journalist does not correctly quote the poll in question. Atlantic Review
R Anderson: Maureen Dowd: Velvet Elvis Diplomacy...Koizumi at Graceland...It appeared to me that when Pres. Bush attempted to cut off P.M. Koizumi as he burst into a rendition of "Love Me Tender", the Japanese leader rather skillfully switched to singing "Fools Rush In" with emphasis on the lyrics, "Wise men say, only fools rush in".
Could this have been a subtle slap at Pres. Bush by the prime minister who was obviously caught up in the moment?
Vigilante: World Cup: Footballers as Drama Queens - The "Professional" Dive...As long as soccer resolves its draws with a shootout tie-breaker, it is not the Beautiful Game. The Vigil
The Capt.: The Final Straw: US Soldiers Rape Girl, Murder Family, Then Burn Bodies...The Liberators turned into occupiers, occupiers turned into jailers and this has led to brutality.
Each incident turns into a great recruiting tool for terrorists.
The giant sized embassy being built in the Green Zone must really make the Iraqi people feel good about us. But the longer we stay the more these tragic events will surface. The Capt
pamela: Christianity: What a Load of Superstition!...I simply want to state one thing. It is truely sad that an individual who can spend this much time creating this, can not manage to (for one small second) open thier great mind to the fact there may be a GOD.
If just for one second the heart is opened, honestly, and God is allowed to enter, then he will never leave.
Once the feeling of God in your heart is present, there is no room left for doubt. Be it laziness, or my belief, fear, that you have not done so, you will be in my prayers very strongly. Thank you.
Stuart Wood: Live8: One Year on...Exposed as Farcical Theater for a Western Audience...Bob Geldof yesterday said that the world’s richest countries have failed to live up to promises they gave a year ago to end extreme poverty in Africa.
The Live8 concert Geldof organised did however manage to attract a lot of people into a park in London to raise awareness of Africa and influence the G8 leaders.
But a year on, did this concert achieve its objectives, or was it fundamentally flawed from the start?
I believe Live8 had a fundamental flaw. If the concert had invited a rich contingent of African artists/culture then I believe we would have moved on apace in the last 12 months but as Sir Bob Geldof recently cited on BBC’s Newsnight, we haven’t really. Geldof said that the performance on debt relief was good, aid OK, but trade ugly.
Trade is the only way Africa is really going to develop though. Africa needs to be invited into the global economic system of trading that has so far ignored it and they need to be listened to.
I believe it was an absolute disgrace that no African Bands were invited to attend Live8 last year. How are we going to understand and appreciate our fellow man/woman in Africa if we don’t even get the opportunity to listen to how they express themselves on the global stage?
A missed opportunity with the biggest gig in the world of 2005 and millions, if not billions, watching an homogenization of western culture.
This could have positively propelled the people of Africa, their respective cultures, and the continent as a whole, into the consciences of people across the world. Surely with all this mass media coverage of the event this would have in turn increased trade with African music industries…
It might even have had more of a meaningful impact at the trade talks...
If we don’t listen and engage with people then we have no human connection with them and lack a true sense of empathy toward them.
They, in Africa in particular, are reduced to an image on a TV and dehumanized to the point where an African life is not worth the same as a Western life.
When will this change? I suspect it depends how long we carry on with this arrogant sense of we know best and ignore the real issues of the people and don’t invite them to the table or for that matter the Gig!
Live8 and its message last year was devalued because its aim was to achieve mass attendance by pandering to populist opinion and taste. It could have been so much more however and could have engaged with these people, their issues, their voices and could have influenced people to engage with African issues, artists and cultures.
Let’s have another Live8 please but with a strong celebration of diverse African culture this time. Maybe then we can then start to develop both cultural and trade relationships and really start doing some good business together… Stuart Wood
robert: Israel Ready to Annihilate Palestinians: The World Shrugs Its Shoulders...The Bush administration said that Israel has the right to defend itself. Apparently Palestine does not.
The attack on the IDF camp and the kidnapping of a soldier came after weeks of Israeli shelling into Gaza, almost 100 civillian deaths, a third of them women and children.
The people of Gaza have nothing to loose by resisting the de facto imprisonment of the entire population. While violence is never an answer, what can the people do? They must resist in any way they can.
Until a settlement is imposed on both sides with a multinational force to keep the peace, there will be nothing but death and destruction for the next several generations.
The plight of the Palestinians is, in a word, hopeless.
Pierre: 60 Years of Propaganda: Poor Israel! Nasty Arabs!...Ok guys, No doubt that Israeli occupation can be nasty and it took you (Americans) a very long time to see that as opposed to us (French).
But it should not distract us from the heart of the issue here. Hamas is a terrorist organization that behaves in a terrorist way.
And yes, caring about the Palestinians should mean bashing Hamas. Their policy of launching rockets and kidnapping is not improving the lives of the desperate people living in the Strip.
Organizations and governments have to be judged on what they are able to deliver to their population. And Hamas just failed to deliver.
Heated rhetoric on Israel is one thing but it cannot change this fact: Hamas made the lives of millions of Palestinians worse.
john: Miami "Terror" Arrests Manufactured by FBI...This is what I suspected from the moment I saw the photos of the suspects, and heard the comments from their uneducated relatives - and the fact that there was an FBI provacateur in the act.
john: American Barbarians Full of Hate...America has never owned up to their barbaric nature as a people who have been aggressors from the day that the Puritans invaded New England.And by the way, it was common practice at one time for Americans to behead Indians to terrorize them into submission. And what was "shock and awe" but pure state sponsured terrorism.
israluv: Israel Unleashes Its Bloodlust for Vengeance Against the Palestinian People...True civillans did not take Shalit.. but the purpose for blowing up the bridges and roads was to hinder the possibilty of Hamas moving around and taking with them Shalit around freely.
This incursion into Gaza is NOT just about the soldier but to fight against the 1,000 Kassam rockets that have been blasted in Israel over the past year. Sabra Heart
imnotroger: Israel Ready to Annihilate Palestinians: The World Shrugs Its Shoulders...Brian Whitaker says that "this is all about racism".
That may be true, but, if this is the case, racism cuts both ways.
The Palestinians are being held responsible for the actions of Hamas, who in their very Charter, are dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews.
What is the legitimate response when your neighbor, who has aligned with your enemies, and who send hundreds of missile into your territory, and who abducts your citizens freely, refuses to acknowledge your right to exist?
Hamas' operates within crowded communities, shielded by thousands of civilians, who voted them into leadership, and who allow them to remain in their midst.
What would you do, if this was YOUR neighbor?
The destruction of infrastructure will undoubtedly cause further misery for thousands of Palestinians.The lesson learned? There is NEVER a lesson learned, is there?
john: Israel Unleashes Its Bloodlust for Vengeance Against the Palestinian People...So there must be another explanation for the fury of the Israeli junta in Tel Aviv. There is: genocide.
Yes, that is the underlying Israeli strategy. They want to destroy the Palestinian people in order to ensure the survival of their illegal state.
It has been the Israeli plan since the time that Hertzl's Zionism was hijacked by Weizman, ben Gurion, Begin, Shamir, Meir, Sharon, et al.
It is Israel's "final solution"! Does that sound familiar enough?
palestine lobby: Israel Ready to Annihilate Palestinians: The World Shrugs Its Shoulders...Brian Whitaker @ CIF asked this question:
"Can someone please explain the difference between a) abducting an Israeli soldier and holding him in Gaza, and b) abducting "enemy combatants" from Afghanistan and holding them in Guantánamo?"
Sure.
One is committed by subhuman raghead brown savages.
The other is committed by the most civilized, enlightened nation on earth.
That's the answer of hypocrites and bigots (plenty of whom post on this blog).
The real answer?One abduction is committed by a dispossessed, impoverished, brutalized, terrorized, utterly powerless population under constant bombardment by one of the world's most powerful military states which on a daily basis commits indiscriminate and wanton murder of civilians (ncluding hundreds of children) and imprisons thousands without charge or trial.
The abductee is in this case a member of that state's armed forces, NOT a civilian.
The abduction is therefore not an act of terrorism. As a member of that military, the soldier is fully implicated in that state's crimes.
The nominal ruling body of the people who abducted the soldier publicly proclaims its opposition to the action and sets out on actively searching for the soldier.
The other abductions (which are far, far more numerous) are committed by the world's most powerful state threatened by a few, disparate powerless individuals and small groups, a few of whom MAY be connected in some way to some vaguely defined form of terrorism.
The people targeted are taken in a wide indiscriminate sweep of individuals with vague connections to "terrorism" (which are usually proven worthless), they are held indefinitely without charge or trial, tortured, sometimes killed.
There is no clear implication on the victims' part of being a member of any violent group. And there is absolutely no official gov't condemnation of these actions whatsoever.
Oh, and there's one more important difference.
The name, face and family of the abducted soldier is publicized far and wide.
The names, faces and families of the abducted detainees are almost all invisible. When they do become visible, they're mostly treated with suspiction and contempt.
As I keep saying, this is all about racism.
middle east watch: 60 Years of Propaganda: Poor Israel! Nasty Arabs!...The hostility toward Israel in the region has been CAUSED by Israeli and zionist actions from Day 1.
Why don't you ask just why Israel generates so much hostility among millions of people in the region? They're all wrong and poor little Israel -- the most powerful state in the region, an aggressive imperialist apartheid state backed by the world's most powerful empire -- is an innocent little saint. Right.
As the new kid on the block in the region, it has always been the responsibility of Israel to engender goodwill in the region.
Neither the current state of Israel nor its pre-state precursors has ever ever cared about showing respect and friendship toward its neighbors. Ever.
It has never treated its neighbors with respect and friendship, it has never earned respect or friendship from its neighbors.
The hostility it has generated is richly deserved precisely because of its attitudes and actions toward the people of the region whom israeli consider to be inferior.
But self-examination has never been Israel's strong suit.
L. F. Graham: Cheney's Own Hang-Ups Explain His Worldview...Cheney and his fellow neoconist are snobbish ingrates who run around looking like the fools they really are, and have destroyed any form of government that is consistent with democracy.
While Cheney and other neocons may think of themselfs as important, they have not made one small ripple to help this country much less help it's future. The US as a business is bankrupt, and will stay that way.
Constipated "better than thou" fools like Cheney have cleaned the people's treasury. A country like any business can only run so long on credit.
To say that Cheney is a traitor is like giving the pious slacker a slap on the back. He is not just lazy at his job, he is very dangerous at it as well.
He has indeed endangered and weakened this nation, and will continue to do so until the people realize what a lazy shiftless bum they have hired.
robert: Following Saddam: Bush's Baghdad Palace...History, they say, repeats itself. This little episode reminds me of the Christian invaders of another era.
Almost a thousand years ago armies from France and England landed in Palestine and took control of Jerusalem, where they remained holed up for a hundred years, until Salahudin was able to draw them out for the slaughter.
The Crusaders of today are no more able to survive there than their predecesors. This is just a bump in the road.
rad: CBS Journalists' Deaths and Injuries in Iraq: Coverage "Cloying, Maudlin, Distasteful"...Excellent article, however, I believe that you are being a little too harsh in your assessment of the media being totally manipulated/controlled by the administration.
Overall they do skew towards being uncritcal, but there are reports which are very negative towards current policy.
If the media was as overtly supportive as you suggest, the public's opinion of this war and Bush's own approval ratings would not have plummeted as preciptiously as they have.
Ron: Zarqawi: America's Insatiable Appetite for Revenge...With 1/2 the country believing Jesus hates Islam and gays, the rest of us too busy buying ipods while becoming delinquent on our rents or mortages, I suppose Zarqawi's murder was like a well-played touchdown on the football battle field. You know us Americans... we all hate each other in the stadium until our team scores.
We are such idiots. How obvious is it that tons of drugs come onto our shores via the ports, yet we're supposed to feel safe that no WMD's will get through the Port Authority? Hahahahahaha.... oh, yeah - perhaps the drugs are okay since the "family" knows which containers they're on??
BTW, Bush renegged on the Dubai Ports deal because "the family" must have pressured him. Good for them!! Now that's a bloody organization that has some common sense. Too bad the "family" doesn't run the airports.
Great article.
richard chilton: Radical Feminism: The Cunt Warriors...Well said; the "three waves of feminism" - suffergettes, the 1960's and today, as was inferred but not stated by Ms Swift actually reflect a CLASS bias, which (in America) since the 1600's is a euphenism for "race."
Since 1968 Betty Dodson (www.bettydodson.com) has been championing the CUNT as the proper word to use when confronting this linguistic taboo.
Why i Am Not A "Vagina Warrior"
"I believe in the power of words. If you can't name something, it doesn't exist." Eve Ensler, 2001
I unabashedly support nearly all that Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues (VM), and founder of the V -Day organization, has accomplished since she first contemplated the "monologues" as early as 1993.
The play's success and formation of the V-Day Fund has
been a remarkable event in recent women's history, and i take pride in knowing i was of some influence "way back when."Eve and i first met in early 1982, when we co-founded an arts group that soon merged with Chelsea Against Nuclear Destruction, United! (CANDU!), the group she later credited with teaching her about community organizing.
Over 4,000 members and 30 local groups were in CANDU!, including churches and advocate organizations representing thousands
more.CANDU! made its decision-making through consensus, its most important decision. Elderly women once on the picket lines in the 1930's commingled with twenty somethings fresh out of college, and every option for nearly seven years was decided not by vote, but full agreement. Only one decision was blocked, and i reluctantly did so.
One man, livid with anger, told me afterwards how my objection severely tested his belief in consensus but he stayed. Years after CANDU! many said the experience was a highlight of their lives.
To capitalize upon themes that audiences identified with VM Ensler founded in 1998 the V-Day Fund, and many of us "0l' timers" were thrilled. The concerns that VM/V-Day tackles - sexual and domestic violence, rape, battery, incest and genital mutilation - are among the most basic of all brutalities.
V - Day's process maximizes local participation, outreach and impact, where 90% of funds remain in the community while the (now) international reach of the national Fund assists predominately grassroots groups throughout the United States, Eastern Europe, Muslim Asia, Latin America, Australia and Africa.
In eight years the national Fund has raised and distributed over $35 million dollars to over 1,000 organizations, while over 6,000 local performances of VM has raised and distributed millions more.
In 2003 Ensler invented the concept of a "Vagina Warrior," a term with some properties that resonate among several ancestral cultures, most notably the sub-continent of India.
In her 2004 essay "Vagina Warrior" - an Emerging Paradigm, an Emerging Species, Ensler argues for incorporating "VW" into everyday practice across both cultures and societies: in the past three years she retooled V -Day to provide local groups with Vagina Warrior awards to deserving women, with over 1,000 given, and in 2005 co-authored with photographer Joyce Tenneson a pictorial book about "VW" as an aesthetic/marketing tool.
My problem with "Vagina Warriors" is just that, its invention, without full cognizance of what has been unleashed in its use.
For many years now I have lived on an Indian Reservation, where for generations the U. S. Government forbid Indigenous language.
Among many ancestral North American Aboriginal societies the process of "naming things," whether of people, objects or events was and continues to be a collective process of reticence and caution.
Both then and now, Native Americans recognized and acknowledge the elocutionary power in spoken words: to name something gives a presence of being to a given form.
Thus, a name is not only an identifiable subject, it integrates a living entity, interchangeable in Native thinking with both the seen and unseen worlds, a spiritual modality in everyday life.
As the epigram atop this essay relates, both Ensler and I believe in the power of words.
The controversy over VM's performances has shown many cultures and societies are not yet ready to accept public discussion of the Vulva, a woman's external anatomy named for both the clitoris and entrance of the vagina.
If confusion remains over use of these three terms in poljte conversation all over the world, to add an implied threat of "Warrior" linguistically sends a message opposite to which Ensler aspires to, namely cultural hubris and intimidation, not resolutions of conflict through celebration of womanhood.
Since it has been noted elsewhere that Ensler's use of the "Vagina" is in fact, poetic license for these terms, were she in her numerous public statements to actually use ALL of these terms, including "cunt" in various contexts, then as an artist and activist i could readily accept the totality efforts.
The fact that she has not only shyed away from the use of "cunt" in nearly all public renderings BUT its declaration in VM, and insists on propagating the term "Warrior" as the dominant image of an effort to eradicate violence against women and girls.
I champion Ensler's work but must decline ever being a "Vagina Warrior."