Billmon:

As I recall, a few months back various lefty bloggers were debating the political impact of media consolidation, with the majority opinion seeming to be that it was no big deal.

Guess again.

Pest Control

There are about 20,000 NATO troops where none should be and now NATO Wants Reinforcements in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has changed the front. It made peace with its eastern tribes and lets them support the Pashtun fighters, i.e the Taliban, in Afghanistan. Undistrubed by Pakistani military interference (and maybe even supported by ISI, the Pakistani military intelligence service), those hardcore fighters will now really start their offensive.

Cont. reading: Expanding and Ending the Engagement

In February 2003, Bush released a first National Strategy for Combating Terrorism. It included a quite long part on the central conflict in the Middle East, acknowledging its role in the motivation of Al-Qaida (emph. add.):

Finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a critical component to winning the war of ideas. No other issue has so colored the perception of the United States in the Muslim world.

Cont. reading: Change in Course

(Did you donate? Read here why you probably should.)

News & views …

Billmon:

Strategery

With the labor day weekend over, the U.S. election season officially began today.

In any normal election system a significant win for the opposition party should be secure, but I have my doubts about the outcome here.

Most Senate and House seats are save for the current occupant either through gerrymandering or overwhelming general political leaning of the local constituency. Only a few races will be really competitive. This concentrates the big money and the big fraud to very small spots of the country.

Karl Rove, the best campaign manager ever, will try every dirty trick in his books to keep the edge. Where those tricks do not work, he will invent new ones.

Even the NYT editors fear election fraud through manipulated electronic voting machines.

It’s hard to believe that nearly six years after the disasters of Florida in 2000, states still haven’t mastered the art of counting votes accurately. [..]

Against this, the Democrats do not shown the will ,l and thereby not the unity, to go for a decisive fight. Rove’s strategy to highlighting a "need to fight" by comparing the Iraq war to a fight against fashism, stalinism, slavery or whatever, is successful because the Democratic Party in general does not even show the will to fight for the power at home.

Conyers, as head of the House Judiciary Committee with supena power is THE nightmare for everyone in the White House, the Pentagon and the AEI. This nightmare gives motivation to the Republicans to win beyond any the Democrats might have.

Yes, there would be a bit more spoil and some K-Street money flowing to them. But then, it would be their task to clean up the mess in Iraq and the huge domestic consequences of the deflation of the housing bouble. Why strive for that job?

So my prediction for some two month form now, is the popular going massively to the Democratic party candidates. But the decisive votes in some curious races will somehow turn out to keep a Republican majority in the House as well as in the Senate.

What is Your take?

Haaretz: Tenders issued for hundreds of homes in W. Bank settlements

In the largest wave of new settlement construction activity approved by the Olmert government since it came into office, the Housing Ministry issued tenders Monday morning for the construction of 690 new housing units in the territories
[…]
The Yesha Council of Jewish Settlements, for its part, said the building plans were "too little too late."
[…]
According to a recent Haaretz report, the Ministry of Justice has formulated a decision proposal according to which no illegal outposts in the West Bank would be evacuated. Instead, the state would legitimize the outposts and provide them with government funding ..

In a renewed fighting effort, the propaganda battalion of U.S. forces in Iraq today revealed its latest product.

It announced (drumroll) the No. 2 al-Qaida leader in Iraq arrested:

Cont. reading: No Blockbuster

Open Thread for news & views and more than one-liners …

by conchita

I have been writing various versions of this post in my mind for some time. Now a confluence of events and influences have made it time for the words to reach the screen. In making this post i will be borrowing from other commenters here, in particular from citizen’s thread "Revolutionary" and "Scarcity" written in response to b real’s recommendation to read Bookchin’s Listen Marxist!. To be truthful, i am feeling a bit disingenuous doing this because i have not been able to make the time yet to read the entire thread or "Listen Marxist!". However, what citizen wrote resonated strongly and provoked extended discussion – the thread here is well over 48 printed pages and it extends to LeSpeakeasy.

The essence of citizen’s look at Bookchin’s definition of revolutionary is captured in his closing:

Cont. reading: Great Peace

Billmon:

That Old Time Religion