the australian people under their reichsfûhrer howard have shown the world yet again that australia is the true heir to apartheid south africa
their yes to the fûhrer is a yes is a yes to child detention, a deeply racist foreign policy that conforms with what was called the white australian policy
its a yes to the belittling of the mind
it is a yest to fear
it is a yes to panic
it is a yes to being the slavish sons of american foreign policy following its every turn & abberation
as alabama noted the other day the left has failed in its work of pedagogy & only horror awaits
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 9 2004 12:00 utc | 3

mistah charley,
more of the same stuff can be found here: http://thepartyparty.com
another good mashup artist is Mark Vidler at: http://www.gohomeproductions.co.uk
He has done a tremendous job with ‘SHANNON STONE’ Shannon / The Rolling Stones Let The Music Play / Gimme Shelter / Honky Tonk Women / Sympathy For The Devil

Posted by: MarcinGomulka | Oct 9 2004 14:11 utc | 5

@rgiap The US has interfered in Australian political affairs before. It’s possible the Ozzies were collectively stupid enough to vote for Howard (after all, he’s presided over a real estate bubble that has everyone slavering with greed). Or maybe the results were stir-fried somehow (though w/o e-voting machines it is harder to falsify an election).
Let’s face it: my native land (UK), vbo’s adopted homeland (Oz), Japan, Saudi and Israel are nothing but aircraft carriers for US military projection. In exchange for this our “leaders” (poodles all, some more rabid than others) are supposed to get “protection”, whatever that means. It’s demeaning and shameful and maddening and Mafia-esque — so this is how it feels to be a Roman Province, and for Britons it’s deja bloody vu all over again.
@vbo all my sympathy. Life is indeed happier when we don’t spend it minutely examining the stinking posteriors of those who are sitting on us heavily, but try to crawl to some more comfortable location and focus our attention laterally rather than upwards. Being “political” means being angry a lot of the time — hurting one’s brain trying to understand the Byzantine corruption of palace intrigues and dirty fiscal dealings — and experiencing the daily grind of fighting losing battles (despite the chirpiness of such lovable cheerleaders as Howard Zinn). I have sympathy with anyone who wants to just quit.
But there are ways and ways to quit. One way to quit is the old strategy of dropping out of the system (as much as possible): reduce one’s use of fossil fuel to a minimum, refuse to participate in hyperconsumption, buy and sell used stuff rather than new, eat low on the food chain, try to support organic and local agriculture, engage in barter and exchange when possible, withdraw money from financial markets, ignore chain stores, etc. A conscious attempt to boycott the corrupt mechanisms of the empire, while never wholly successful (it’s a radical hegemony and it’s got us right where it wants us), is to my mind a way of making even withdrawal a political action in its own right…
Many will disagree vociferously (go ahead, I know most of the counterarguments and don’t deny their virtue)…

Posted by: DeAnander | Oct 9 2004 17:40 utc | 7

thank you deanander for the material
yes it was often called chile without blood
their complete & utter subjugation to the american will is a cause of great sadness
talka about ‘false conciousness’ – there appears to be no conciousness in australia at all
only the aboriginals possess – conciousness, will, desire, sense & realism
vbo – the only people who deserve to be connected with that country are aboriginals & immigrants like yourself
the rest do not deserve what is in physical terms – a majestic but brutal physicality
it is easy on days like this to develop an ayn randian hatred of the ‘people’ when witnessing how easily they can be coerced
the two goons of the press in australia murdoch & packer will be very pleased indeed
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 9 2004 17:57 utc | 9

There is a thing about these huge, lush, open, easily conquered territories – US, Australia –
These wide margins are going to make me sprawl out.
(rest of post deleted by author)

Posted by: Blackie | Oct 9 2004 18:53 utc | 11

I agree with the post quoting Hersh above. Lone ranger Bushie is very dangerous for the world.
I still cannot believe some of the Neocons and their PNAC bullshit haven’t been charged with treason.
I talked to my sister in Orlando and she said some real bullshit is going on in Florida. The Bushwack brothers are trying to steal Florida again. They are advertising about how much Fema is doing for Florida, yet, she said nothing is being cleaned up at a decent pace. Bushie is using Fema as a campaign commercial. She said the rich and the stupid are voting for Bushie.

Posted by: jdp | Oct 9 2004 20:34 utc | 13

Well, my post debate, ontological hair of the dog morning tonic comes in the form of Sartres “bad faith”.In some sense “boycotting corruption” can (in Sartres view) be seen as an antithesis of bad faith — an acceptance of ones own freedom, and the recognition that we are solely responsible for our own acts. The fact that (as you point out) it is is not easy to do, is our recommended dose of “anguish”.
This is important because (to go on with Sartre) our president and commander oblesk, has seen it fit to not only engage in bad faith himself, but to hawk it wholesale to the American public already primed for such snake oil consumption.
The overridding and swollen irony of this situation is that it in Sartreian bad faith, there is an anguished attempt to evade the responsibility that comes with this burdon of freedom, to conceal that freedom in some form of psychological determinism — to make the self like a thing. The grand irony, in this respect, is that FREEDOM itself is being iconified and objectified as the refuge of bad faith. The body politic has fueled this with a bonfire of fear, it has screamed FIRE in the theater of the anguished — and has presented freedom, strength, and persistance not as qualities of action but as the absolutist, deterministic face of God. A refuge of immobility as opposed to an opportunity for action.

Posted by: anna missed | Oct 9 2004 20:45 utc | 15

a sad day
philosopher & sometime colleague of louis althusser, jacques derrida died today & the
australians in another leap of faith in their
false conciousness have chosen to be yeat another soiled state of america
i no longer grieve for what will be but for what has been done & what hass led them there
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 9 2004 22:11 utc | 17

a country like australia is steeped in its racist genocidal history – & it has stayed true to that heritage
young countries like america & australia have a chance to reconcile what is wrong with them & see themselves anew & to be anew
america & australia have both gone through their history like a steamroller – not only have they never really looked back – never able to understand the present – they are doomed to fuck the future
& they fuck the future with such fury that you know their impotence is really the only card in their pack
they are sad & pathetic nations who destroy all that they touch. they are as their novelists suggest corrupt at conception
it is strange that both countries have within their own stomach – indians & aborigines who do have a real connection with both space & time in a very real way
they are the only culture within them that can really speak, really communicate & finanlly the only ones to really understand
we whites are but a sad & stupid people – what did yeats say – a rag on a stick – & we have shamed our heritage & we ruin our future
these countries pay for their absence of reconciliation because they can never never resolve the problems that lay deep at the core
what was it reich sd – that to get to eros you had to go through the death instinct – in these cultures they do everything to escape death but all they do is reproduce death
they are cultures without the joy of wonder – because for them wonder can be bough, or it can be projected on a wall, or it can be scribbled on the margins of some supreme court justice sadistic & sociopathic socratic discourse with himself
when julius & ethel rosenberd pissed themselves on the electric chair – roy cohn might have been getting an erection but in their fear, in their hope in their dream of a better world – they showed what commitment mean
treason to people like bush seems to me to be an honorable & in fact deeply dignified way of conducting a life. it is not so strange that those who have ‘really’ committed treason have been true sons of america – ames etc if you like they followed the consistencies of a particularly american logic
as i have tried to suggest to pat – like the death squads of colombia, el salvador & honduras – armed muslim fundamentalist – are a creation of a particularly american foreign policy
as rap brown once sd – violence is american as apple pie – & what atta & his colleagues in cretinism did was completely consistent with a certain idea of america
rigidity is the natural brother of corruption & this world is becoming more corrupt & more rigid. alabama has pointed out that it was like this before – except we are living through this – it is touching all our lives in a deeply distressing way
deanander & i can be forgiven our drolleries in face of our fear which is of course your fear but we are here to try to do away with the institution of fear. i hope we are trying to tear that institution down – brick by brick – breath by breath
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 9 2004 23:11 utc | 19

sorry

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 9 2004 23:12 utc | 21

Derrida is dead?
Nice reference to Nietzsche, above. When Kerry blurts something like “sanctions worked,” my head feels like it’s going to explode. Thus, Nietzche: “In their hearts they want simply one thing most of all: that no one hurt them. Thus do they anticipate every one’s wishes and do well unto every one.”
No Grand Politics, for sure. The only hope that peaks out of the darkness of Kerry’s herd-man obsequiousness is the moment that he denounced the War In Vietnam. I want to believe that his formative and brave rise to awareness was real and that this moment of his greatness still flickers even while he out-hawks Chimpy McFlightsuit.

Posted by: slothrop | Oct 10 2004 0:03 utc | 23

How weird that Howard campaign signs read “A Stronger Australia” and Kerry’s read “A Stronger America”

Posted by: b real | Oct 10 2004 0:25 utc | 25

Old story, but funny choice of words:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4756962/
According to a report Friday by The Washington Post, Woodward also claims that:
* Secretary of State Colin Powell felt Cheney and his allies — among them the undersecretary of defense for policy, Douglas Feith, and what Powell called Feith’s “Gestapo” office — had established what amounted to a separate government.

Posted by: MarcinGomulka | Oct 10 2004 2:04 utc | 27

sorry, Franks talked about Feith, and Colin meant Cheney is the ruler. That would make Feith … whom? The clown?

Posted by: MarcinGomulka | Oct 10 2004 2:10 utc | 29

Hey, about the Bush Bulge — ya know, the thing on the back that might be wired… another technology that looks rather like this is an electronically controlled dosage drip, you know, the metered drug drip devices used (mostly) by people with really serious chronic pain. The back would be an odd place to wear it — why not around the waist? actually same is true of a RF audio rig — why wouldn’t he have worn it around his waist on a belt of some kind instead of digging into his back like that?
Another theory: he’s no fool — he’s wearing Kevlar.
Jeez, I wish we had a spy in the White House who was quietly recording everything. Come to think of it, doesn’t real transparency in government require that the White House should be kind of like a reality show or Ozzie Osbourne’s family show? Shouldn’t we the people — who are paying the rent, after all, and all the salaries — be entitled to see what kind of people are running our country?
Now that’s a reality show that could be really interesting. I’d love to know how the rest of the crew talk to Little Boot when no outsiders are watching/listening.
BTW rgiap, a lot of native american folks call the whiteboy cultures the “Younger Cultures”. food for thought.

Posted by: DeAnander | Oct 10 2004 4:08 utc | 31

The American public schools start the processing early. The training for “factory” has to circumvent the child’s innate curiosity and desire to comprehend and construct his own foundation of knowledge, so that is the first skill to be destroyed. Soon the fledglings are only reservoirs, gaping mouths open to receive the meager nourishment their rich and vibrant minds desire. As their minds are starved and their capacity to think for themselves is crippled, the socialization and programming begins. Chldren are not allowed to express opinions or debate. They are not even allowed to talk amongst themselves, interpersonal reinforcement is verboten, someone may actually gives these children ideas or heaven forbid they might learn to think for themselves. Their emaciated psyches dart here and there, looking for any morsel of information and there is the state, the savior in the guise of teacher, filling the barren brain with platitudes and nationalistic jingo. That filling, that sensory pleasure of finally being fed is what drives American voters who are manipulated by the catch phrses and signal words that illicit those programmed responses. It takes an enormous amount of metacognition and self realization to see the effects of so many years of programmed responses being spoon fed to the populace. Unfortunately, many never have the energy or desire to feed themselves. Hence, the Bush voter has been poured and molded. Identical products churned out by the factory schools.

Posted by: SME in Seattle | Oct 10 2004 5:19 utc | 33

R’Giap
Mostly I have the utmost respect for your posts, poetry, and insights.
However, in regard to you comments re Howard’s re-election – I think you need a reality check with respect to Australian history and Australian people.
Yes, it is very disappointing that Howard was re-elected.
But please consider some realities.
While you are remembering General Giap, please consider that Howard was re-elected with the not inconsiderable backing of Vietnamese and other Asian migrants and 2nd and 3rd generation descendants (and Yugoslavs). Most Asian and other migrants know little (nothing actually) about Australian history, but Australia led the world from the late 19th century through the early part of the 20th century with social and political reform.
The White Australia policy was ditched a long time ago. Australia is now a multi-cultural society in a way that would seem inconceivable to Americans. Apartheid? Get real. There is no deeply racist foreign policy. Absolute bullshit.
The child detention policy is a big problem. Do you know anything of the racist and deplorable policies of every SE Asian country without exception?
In the 18th century, there were an number of killings of Aboriginal people (most notably Tasmania) – but this was not genocide of the scale of American natives (again Tasmania excepted).
Australia is a “client” state of US foreign policy. The same dynamics exist here as in the USA. Who controls the Fourth Estate?
The “fear” and “panic” issue might have influenced the previous election. This time – the criminal war was not even on the radar. The ALP are aware that if this was made an election issue then the USA would intervene as they have intervened in the past.
Just who are you excluding here? “the only people who deserve to be connected with that country are aboriginal & immigrants like yourself”. An Ayn Randian hatred of everyone except Aboriginals and disaffected Yugoslav communists?
But mostly, I don’t like this “we whites” bullshit. This is a cultural war not a racial war.

Posted by: DM | Oct 10 2004 11:53 utc | 35

dm
let me repeat it then australia has had, does have now & will have in the future a deeply raci!st foreing policy
there is no substantial difference in their racist policies from robert menzies to john howard. it is not a ‘mutticultural’ society. it is a society which absorbs others without in any real way accepting them. aceeptance is not just the appreciation of their culinary skills
australia has accepted since the fall of saifgon people who fled vietnam – largely peoiple who profited in one way or another from the war & from the americo-austral presence
the absorption of asians is borne of necessities that you do not speak as was the absorption of eastern & western european migrant after the second world war
they often live in unitegrated & isolated communities – adelaide & melbourne which i know very well are perfect examples of that
dm – you do not speak of the detention centres, the internment of children, you do not speak of their refugee policy, you do not speak of their inability to recognise what commission after commission on the aborigines has told them. they are completely incapable of even demanding pardon
their occupation of australia was terra nullis until the high court sd it wasn’t & even then bourgeois justice has tried to find ways to water that decision down
i disagree completely & there is sufficient evidence from manning clark onwards to a roger millis. it was in reamins essentially a genocidal practice towards the aboriginals. they have the highest infant mortality rate in the world, eye diseases, tuberculosis- they have been treated with a mixture of contempt & neglect
tasmania was not the only instant of massacres – new south wales, queensland northern territoty, western australia & even south australia have a scandalous history of systematic murder of aboriginal people. the history becomes clearer & clearer on this point
yes i hear that a geoffrey blainey & his revisionist pals would call this a black armband view of history but it is the history that is bening found more & more
so i feel quite clear in saying australia has earned its apartheid south africa heritage
you speak of the south east asian govts who ‘support’ australia – from their people i doubt that very seriouslly indeed from their people there is no question – the feel a distaste fro australia. i work with communities from south east asia here in france & their opinions are quite clear on the matter
dm it was not me but john howard who called himself the ‘deputy sherrif’ of the united states & that is exactly what he is – yes the australians supported the corrupt governments of indonesia & the phillipines, it accepted wholesale the occupation of timor. it supported the autocrats of singapore & malaysia. it accepted hong kong chinese after the chinese took it back & they had enough money
it is the country which has freely taken all the racist white people from south africa and zimbabwe (ex rhodesia) in the greatest numbers – more than any other country
yes it is a client state – what are american bases doing on your soil – basketweaving. except for a three year period 1972 – 1975 – there has been no independent foreign policy from the americans
deanander has offered links on the nature of us involvement in the coup of november 11 – & of the involvement of their intelligence agencies there can be no doubt. it is systematic & i would feel total. asio is a sub branch of the nsa. even the creation of asio was at the demand of the americans. dm the history on this is absolutely clear
the war is a war using fear & self interest & has been so since the americans & menzies used the infamous ‘petrov spy’ case in the fifties as a means of frightening the australian people. it was so until 1972 & then they invented other ways of frightening the people whioch serve theiors & the americans interests
but it seems to me that the australian people like to be frightened – to have the frisson of being important – they are not- not at all.. their 19th century politics will leave them on the dustbin of history
if violence is american as apple pie – then corruption is australian as a eucalyptus. from colonisation onwards – corruption either direct or implicit in all the states that make up australia has been present in a way unimaginable for people who do not know australia. queensland was run for over twenty years by a corrupt dutch reform evangalist who sold everything except the kitchen sink, in new south wales – premier after premier has been on the take, in melbourne bolte took monies from the underworld or their representatives in the world of business – it goes on & on
this is a young country but it is not an innocent one
still steel
i would counsel a reading of john pilger on this & other questions – this man who was a consequence of a particularly australian reality – a larrikan who served the interests of media & state has developed into a man whose deep compassion & ability to see through the mist of bullshit has given me some hope

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 10 2004 13:13 utc | 37

dm
you have spokn of the political reforms of the 19th & 20th century – no doubt there will be a mention of australia being the first place women got the vote but….
but the reality, the political realities of this ‘nation’ led them into the slaughterhouse of imperial politics as willing cannon fodder for the imperial cause
they were sacrificed, as the irish were sacrificed – you lost a genberation of men in 1914-18, with pigiron bob menzies as a japanese collaborator just up until the wsecond world war – your men were sacrificed in the imperial dollies of singapore, of new guinea, burma – on & on – then you were used as a comprador fighting force for the americans in korea – in all the counterinsurgency wars in south east asia, you were complici in the murder of over a million people in indonesia, you supported the corrup marcos right up until the end, you like dick cheney regarded – that greatest of humanists, nelson mandela, as a terrorist & did everything in your power to keep him in prison & from a free south africa developing. just ask anybody from south africa especially those with a political history what they think of australian foreign policy of which the people are responsible. they are not innocent. not at all
their meddling in zimbabwe has only accelerated the problems they already have
you support the brutal indonesian reign over timor & have done everything to blackmail this nation into following your demands
you are young but you are not innocent
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 10 2004 13:39 utc | 39

Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said Australia would be a nastier country with the government in control of the Senate.
“But I did predict it. Australians voted for it,” Senator Brown said.
“They will now see Telstra sold, the majority, we will see our indigenous people left off the agenda, we are going to see nastier legislation on civil liberties … and that nastiness, that Hansonite attitude towards people who are ‘other’ will express itself over the coming three years.”
theage.com.au

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 10 2004 14:54 utc | 41

dm
i’m not nuanced because at the end of the day the politics of oppression is not nuanced
i think there is sufficient historical analysis to bear out a clami of genocidal practice. i or pilger are not the only people to make this claim. the united nations itself on a number of occassions has sd what i have sd in more diplomatic (nuanced) words
on infant mortality – check the figures with the world health organisation – it speaks of the health situation for aboriginal australians as catastrophic. genocide & neglect. & neglect in this sense is really just another word for genocide
i know australia quite well dm & i know what segregated communities are – self selected or otherwise. a cartographer could situate ethnic quite esily on a map of any major australian city – it was so with the greeks, italians now it is true of the asians. that segregation in my mind constitutes a subtle but very real form of apartheid. there is no reconciliation in the australian soul. to anything.
you say the white australia, the ‘two wongs don’t make a white’ of arthur calwell – i am telling you that the deeper impulses af that statement are operative – as spoken by pauline hanson & as interpreted by thepolicies of the american puppet john howard – only two leaders of the labor party are clean in this regard – whitlam & hayden
the racism of australia is born deep into its foundation
if the aboriginals had fought as the maoris did there would have been no declaration of terra nullis
look australia was built as a prison & borne in hatred – that too is robert hughes thought in his magnificent book -‘the fatal shore’ – & it has remained one
as far as corruption goes – what i am saying is self evident – from petersen, askin wran, bolte kennet on & on from the gangster businessmen rupert murdoch & peter abeles. there has been a consistent & sometimes elaborate corruption of the legislative process
a young country is not an innocent country
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 10 2004 16:24 utc | 43

…That is to say, by voting for Kerry, do I merely serve the “perpetuation of existing society” (militarism, golbal economic elitism, etc.) and that a Kerry vote is thus “incompatible with consciousness of [society] itself”?
I feel like a filthy whore.

Posted by: slothrop | Oct 10 2004 17:22 utc | 45

Good reading – Interview with John Kenneth Galbraith. Here his final comment:
As he disappeared from sight he called out: ‘There’s just one more thing.’ His nurse brought down a car bumper sticker, with a picture of George Bush. The slogan was: ‘Some things were never meant to be recycled.’
and here the article: ‘Why is Blair in Bush’s gang?’ – William Keegan wanted some answers from John Kenneth Galbraith, but the famous economist was preoccupied with questions of his own

Posted by: Fran | Oct 10 2004 18:06 utc | 47

some War footage

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Oct 10 2004 18:43 utc | 49

DM, RGiap, I think you talk at cross purposes. One question is an absolute level of racism, the other is a relative one, right?
I’d like to contribute an anectode. Back in 1995, when France did its last nuclear tests, the backlash in Australian public opinion (and elsewhere) against France was massive, and you saw the same kind of anti-French fury that we have seen in the US in the past 2 years. I read a Sydney Morning Herald editorial back then (sorry, could not find it online despite a good search) that explained it as an outlet for all the frustration of the Australians: unable to critisize women, blacks (Aborigenes), asians, gays, the poor, etc… they suddenly found in the French a great outlet for all that pentup rage: rich, white, arrogant, unrepentant and not giving a damn about it… and they went for it with a vengeance.
This is just to say: – there is racism in Australia, as in the US and elsewhere (in France of course, in other Asian countries certainly); there is also a lot of frustration in the Western world (from not being able to express that racism openly and from a more general impression of lack of control over our lifes), which expresses itself in various ways, including voting for noxious but superficially attractive candidates like Le Pen or Bush (if you have not seen this great article, Spite the Vote go read it).
We should criticise racism within our (Western) societies, but probably not idealise other societies, because they are not better in that respect. Western racism gets so much more play because (i) Western countries are so much powerful and when they act on that racism it has had large scale consequences (ii) the Western world, or at least parts of it, does try to acknowledge this racism and fight it, and thus it becomes more of a public issue than in other societies.

Posted by: Jérôme | Oct 10 2004 19:00 utc | 51

Australian Social Trends 2002
Health – Mortality and Morbidity: Mortality of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
In 1998-2000, life expectancy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples was shorter by 21 years for males and 20 years for females, compared with the total population.
Ample texts, charts:
Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Similar large differences are seen in Britain, for the lower-class men who suffer from chronic unemployment. Also in the US, for Blacks who were born in the US. Recent immigrants have a life expectancy of 10 years more or so than installed people – for groups comparable on measures of employment, salary, no prison, etc.
The causes are hard to unravel, but the injustice is plain.
News snippet: Desmond Tutu is playing a judge in a play about Gitmo, off Broadway.
BBC

Posted by: Blackie | Oct 10 2004 19:26 utc | 53

remembereringgiap
your passion always moves me as do your frank admissions of your failing health. My wife is currently driving 1,350 km to be with her mother who is dying of a tumor. She will be the first of our parents to go and is the youngest of all four. If there is a God, he sure makes it hard to understand why these things happen. Not having much experience in these matters I can only hope that you find doctors who can make you better. I would also hope that you believe you will be better as that does make a difference.
Jérôme
Thank you for the link explaining why the NASCAR dads vote against their own interests. We foolishly want to believe people are rational. Sadly they often are not.

Posted by: dan of steele | Oct 10 2004 19:37 utc | 55

@rgiap desolated to hear of your fragile health. one rather dark consolation is that the end state of diabetes is merciful compared to many other exits; I have lost one friend by that route and her passing was peaceful and dignified, in her own home, a long sleep without any precipice or panic. there’s an old, hokey faux-country pop song popular in my younger years, and one verse of it has stuck with me ever since, banal as it may be, because of the real kick of truth in its tail:

Ev’ry gambler knows that the secret to survivin’
Is knowin’ what to throw away and knowing what to keep.
‘Cause ev’ry hand’s a winner and ev’ry hand’s a loser,
And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.

@jerome, all fingers crossed for your son’s recovery and no recurrence.
@dan one of my oldest friends (25 years and counting) has just discovered that her elderly mother has lung cancer that has metastasised to the bone. prognosis very poor. am bracing for the troubles ahead. I don’t know what your politics are around death and the dying of it, but I find myself (selfishly, for my own part, thinking ahead to my own eventual demise) thinking longingly of Doc Kevorkian. I wouldn’t put a cat or dog through the travails that the med mafia inflicts on so many dying people. but that’s probably a whole other thread, and possibly one so fraught and contentious as not to be worth starting.
BTW, Illich’s _Limits to Medicine_ or _Medical Nemesis_ might be interesting reading.
@dm re rgiap’s fulminations against Oz, I don’t think rgiap singles out Oz as worse than any other place — all colonial outposts share an essential mentality, from the US to Oz to S Africa to Israel. I assume that this mentality would be the same if the outpost were a Chinese one dominating an Anglo hinterland — certainly the behaviour of the Japanese during their brief imperial fling in Manchuria was in keeping with the colonial mentality. nor were the “older countries” of Europe any better — it is startling, in light of Belgium’s modest and civil reputation today, to remember the atrocities committed by King Leopold’s men in the Congo. and then there is Algeria, the shame of France. I need hardly comment on the record of of my own homeland (GB/UK) in India, Burma, Kenya etc. — Churchills’s comments on the utility of poison gas in suppressing native uprisings gall me with unbearable shame to this day.
no country holds a copyright on racism, arrogance, greed, delusion, etc. some countries (for reasons neatly outlined by Jared Diamond in _Guns Germs and Steel_) got a head start in the weapons-and-tech stakes, and managed to impose themselves on others, expanding their empires faster than others could expand theirs (those who were in the empire business, that is). I wonder what King Kamehameha would have done with gunpowder. I beware the Rousseauvian tendency to believe that the “noble savage” is inherently more pacifistic, enlightened, etc. than the white bullies who wrecked the noble savage’s life. some indigenous cultures appear to have been more peaceful, productive, and level-headed than others, but I note that many of these existed in resource-poor regions where there was little surplus to fight over… another huge topic that deserves a separate thread. at any rate, despite the severity of rgiap’s comments on Oz, I don’t think there is an implicit claim of superiority for France or any other country — when it comes to blood on the hands, it’s tough to pick a winner in the “Mr Colonial Universe” competition.
Interesting interviews with ordinary Europeans about their current views on America.

Posted by: DeAnander | Oct 10 2004 20:22 utc | 57

[damn, what happened there? my post got truncated. Comrade Slothrop, is this a hint? may I expect another visit from the unmarked sedan with the strangely bulky occupants?]
… committed by King Leopold’s men in the Congo. and then there is Algeria, the shame of France. no country has a copyright on racism, arrogance, greed, delusion, etc. some countries (for reasons neatly outlined by Jared Diamond in _Guns Germs and Steel_) got a head start in the weapons-and-tech stakes, and managed to impose themselves on others, expanding their empires faster than others could expand theirs (those who were in the empire business, that is). I really wonder what King Kamehameha might have done with gunpowder.
so ummm… I beware the Rousseauvian tendency to believe that the “noble savage” is inherently more pacifistic, enlightened, etc. than the white bullies who wrecked the noble savage’s life. some indigenous cultures appear to have been more peaceful, productive, and level-headed than others, but I note that many of these existed in resource-poor regions where there was little surplus to fight over… another huge topic that deserves a separate thread. at any rate, despite the severity of rgiap’s comments on Oz, I don’t think there is an implicit claim of superiority for France or any other country — when it comes to blood on the hands, it’s tough to pick a winner in the “Mr Colonial Universe” competition.

Posted by: DeAnander | Oct 10 2004 20:25 utc | 59

That was weird. I suspect a s’ware problem with MT (I assume this is an MT forum). I posted, scrolled down to my new post and found it truncated at “to remember the atrocities”… went back to recover the missing text, posted it, and Presto, when viewing the forum anew, the original post was no longer truncated! I wonder if this was a race condition between me and Jerome at exactly 4:22 and some number of seconds.
anyway, my apologies to all for the redundant text. verbose I admit to being, but repetitive I would prefer not to be 🙂

Posted by: DeAnander | Oct 10 2004 20:28 utc | 61

jérôme
i’m going to hold you to that – if you’re right i’ll pay a ticket for you to come & have a cafe at a terrase of my choice & if not you can buy me a coffee – an expensive cafe jérôme – in the bastille
deanander – comradely greetings after our terrible treatment at the hands of those bulky fellows who still rest in their sedan outside my studio. yr right & so is jérôme in not idealising or nationalk chauvinism but but i feel here & have thought for a very long time that france ‘lives’ its histories at some deeper level & accounts for all the sad & beautiful eyes you see on the metro – but i do mean it . yr homeland deanander is the opposite – in the sense it imagines a grandeur that has not existed for a very long time indeed – not since perhaps occupation of countries like australia
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 10 2004 20:45 utc | 63

bonsoir jérôme
i’ll do the nightshift
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 10 2004 21:57 utc | 65

Sorry. That would be Bud DAY, not May.

Posted by: Pat | Oct 10 2004 23:46 utc | 67

So, if the Army Times report is anything to go by, soldiers support Bush in greater numbers now than they did in 1999.
Wow.

Posted by: Pat | Oct 11 2004 3:14 utc | 69

Superman dies
12:30:02 ET: Veteran Hollywood reporter Nikki Finke has learned that actor Christopher Reeve is dead, according to sources close to the actor. He died suddenly Sunday. News of his death has not been reported publicly yet. His family will make an announcement Monday at the earliest. Reeve was just mentioned Friday in the second live presidential debate by John Kerry. Noting he was a friend of the paralysed Reeve, Kerry said he was in favor of further stem cell research because Reeve could walk again one day thanks to such science….

Posted by: dan of steele | Oct 11 2004 5:42 utc | 71

re Army Times survey
Propaganda – communications where the form and content is selected w/ the single-minded purpose of bringing some target audience to adopt attitudes and beliefs chosen in advance by the sponsors of the communication.
I have two friends that have been in Iraq and among current enlistees. One served in Iraq in ’91 and now works w/ Bring Them Home and Veterans For Peace. The other was there for the first year and has been lucky enough to be home w/ his wife and young son since December. Both assure me that there are large numbers of soldiers that have a pretty good grasp on what is going on and hold the current admin (esp Rumsfeld and Bush) accountable. My friend that recently returned guarantees that all his soldier buddies are supporting Kerry. And I haven’t followed the letters too closely on the Army Times or hack’s sites, nor Michael Moore’s letters from soldiers, but I would suspect that those openly critical are only the tip of the iceberg. I’d view the AT survey w/ a healthy skepticism, perhaps more of a recommendation than reflection.

Posted by: b real | Oct 11 2004 16:01 utc | 73

The world is starting to wonder what Bush is wearing beneath its jacket during the debates – here from “Der Spiegel”.
the picture

Posted by: Fran | Oct 11 2004 18:08 utc | 75

@Slothrop — was that my post you were quoting? I think you must have misinterpreted, if so — the reference to you was merely a continuation of the running joke from previous threads, not to be taken seriously: no deep meaning should be read into it. I enjoy your posts and would be disappointed if you disappeared, with or without the assistance of unmarked sedans. You’d be missed.

Posted by: DeAnander | Oct 11 2004 18:52 utc | 77

slothrop don’t go!

Posted by: Blackie | Oct 11 2004 19:14 utc | 79

slothrop
its just a running joke between deanander & myself – releasin the tension – as buddy gut might have sd
@pat – much as i’d like that quote to be my own it of course belongs to the greek derelict & philosopher, diogenes

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 11 2004 21:13 utc | 81

“And what of the Americans themselves? I’ve been re-reading Seymour Hersh’s stunning 1970 account of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. And there’s something about the casual attitude to death and cruelty in the way that Medina and Calley did their killings there that I find chillingly familiar.
The Americans have a professional army in Iraq, but it is becoming frighteningly casual about the way it kills women and children in Fallujah, simply denying that its air strikes are killing the innocent, and insists that all 120 dead in their Samarra operation are all insurgents when this cannot possibly be true. What about the latest wedding party carnage, another American “success” against terrorism? Because journalists can scarcely travel in Iraq any more, there is no longer any independent witness to this awful war. What is going on in Ramadi and Hilla and all the other cities where US forces carry out their brutal raids?
Tony Blair still thinks his hideous invasion was not a mistake. He still seems to believe in his own version of The Great War for Civilisation, just as my father once believed in it. And now I wonder what terrors this disaster holds in store for our future generations, who will also ask themselves if they can escape from history. ”
robert fisk

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 11 2004 22:59 utc | 83

Interesting article in WaPo about attititudes amongst Marines in Iraq:

The reality right now is that the most dangerous opinion in the world is the opinion of a U.S. serviceman,” said Lance Cpl. Devin Kelly, 20, of Fairbanks, Alaska.
Lance Cpl. Alexander Jones, 20, of Ball Ground, Ga., agreed: “We’re basically proving out that the government is wrong,” he said. “We’re catching them in a lie.

for the complete article: Marines in Iraq
and for a little fun, the Betty Bower’s report on the last debate:
Betty Bower’s news from the latest debate

Posted by: Siun | Oct 12 2004 2:01 utc | 85

vbo
I have seen many people gnaw their insides out with complaints of discrimination when faced with personal setbacks and failures. No one has ever offered me any high level board positions either.
I have also known many former communist country immigrants who complain that not enough is done for them, that nobody told them they could go here or there for additional assistance (courtesy of the almost 50% tax rate I pay on 90 hour working weeks). The problem is, for whatever it is worth, this is a capitalist society, not a nanny society.
The best that can be done anywhere, is to have laws against discrimination – which Australia does. Comparison with Turks in Germany is also a misrepresentation – but hey – it’s your fantasy.
R’giap is too far gone in his navel gazing. He is eating himself up with hate, angst, and puerile fantasies of dialectic materialism. His lack of nuance reminds me of Bush.
What was that Lennon Revolution song? People with minds that hate … ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow.
Hey – until now I didn’t really miss Billmon – but the general tone of this Blog is getting a bit tired. Alabama – we need you to spark things up a bit – can we have an intelligent debate about Greater Israel or Anarchy? Whatever happened to four legs good, outraged, floopmeister ?

Posted by: DM | Oct 12 2004 9:10 utc | 87

R’giap is too far gone in his navel gazing. He is eating himself up with hate, angst, and puerile fantasies of dialectic materialism. His lack of nuance reminds me of Bush. dm
if that is so & others believe it to be so – i will without recrimination – leave
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 12 2004 10:12 utc | 89

DM have you ever been an immigrant? And I don’t think doing business in some foreign country for any length of time..
Quote:
I have seen many people gnaw their insides out with complaints of discrimination when faced with personal setbacks and failures. No one has ever offered me any high level board positions either.
***
So I am imagining things? Where ever you go, from Parliament to a big government companies/departments etc. where ever you can smell big money for less work one can hardly count non-English surnames on fingers of one hand…if you know what I mean. It’s not only that they are owners of anything that makes big money in this country naturally because they came first . Lately they are selling to much of real estate and tourism business to Asians so I wonder what’s going to be catch in the end. They may just wait until next WW to confiscate everything from them like they did from Germans during WWII. Am I nasty ? I don’t want to be…Now I understand that English origin people here are majority but I don’t think that’s adequate proportion.
I am not grouching here about my specific position , I am talking generally.
Quote:
I have also known many former communist country immigrants who complain that not enough is done for them, that nobody told them they could go here or there for additional assistance (courtesy of the almost 50% tax rate I pay on 90 hour working weeks). The problem is, for whatever it is worth, this is a capitalist society, not a nanny society.
***
So for some reason you hate “former communist country immigrants” isn’t it?
C’mon DM. People you know are REFUGEES and Australia was FORCED by USA to take them in, because all the mess on Balkan was made by USA and it’s other Western allies (similar like case of Vietnamese and others). As for me and “new wave” of Serbs I know here we never had a chance to receive a fucking cent in any kind of benefits and we also are “fortunate” to pay 50% tax being doctors, engineers etc. Australia never was a nanny for us but mostly like step mother. I am not complaining , we are doing OK economically but there are other aspects of life too to consider. And I am afraid for the future cause I don’t like what I see where it’s going. I am worrying because I have children and grandchildren. And I intend to stay here and I would like them to stay here. I know some “capitalist societies” more human in social issues then most communist society. Like Sweden for example and as far as I understand like Australia used to be at some point…not any more and not under Howard and conservatives. I guess those were the days during Cold war. Now when there is no threat of communism who cares about social justice…we are going back to feudalism…
Quote:
“R’giap is too far gone in his navel gazing.”
***
Maybe a little bit …

Posted by: vbo | Oct 12 2004 10:26 utc | 91

& let me absolutely clear
the only thing i apologise
in my post are my terrible typing
some spelling errors & sometimes their
desire to say too much
on their thematic & subject concerns – i am not only not about to apologise but in a rather vain way i am proud of them
on the other hand dm you have not refuted with facts, details, statistics any of my claims but you can have the last word on the matter. you live there – you need the rational more than i
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 12 2004 10:29 utc | 93

jérôme
you & i
should be working
at this hour
actually
kind thoughts
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 12 2004 10:35 utc | 95

To Celebrate Columbus Day.

Posted by: beq | Oct 12 2004 14:01 utc | 97

Sorry. Sometimes I’m an impulsive sentimental liberal sissy. Especially after too much gin.

Posted by: slothrop | Oct 12 2004 17:08 utc | 99