b,
a nation whose voters are so susceptible to an automated voice or a stranger phoning them up deserves whatever sort of mess it eventually elects.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Jan 1 2008 12:07 utc | 3

An Impure Place In The Middle Of Idolatry
PTSD, racism, child soldiers, untermenschen, the works.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=a12JnKt1Pwlc&refer=uk
Not letting kids be kids, you end up worse than you began with.

Posted by: shanks | Jan 1 2008 17:32 utc | 5

b and all,
Just a small note wondering what the status of typepad is with MOA posters. I had trouble again yesterday. Are others still having their posts withheld as spam sometimes? Is this creating more work for you b by having to put the posts back on that have been withheld?

Posted by: Rick | Jan 1 2008 18:13 utc | 7

I read here every day. I’ll try to give back a bit more in the coming year.
yeah bucky! please do. i am the queen of nothing comments (well, me and my true love ms beq). don’t be shy.

Posted by: annie | Jan 2 2008 6:04 utc | 9

Looking back over the past year, and in case you’ve forgotten how craven these jackals are:
Pesticides & Human Experimentation

Government Bush EPA approved experimentation using pesicides on babies & children.

Of course, not to mention they manipulate poor people into subjecting themselves to poison for money. I started noticing this in my own college paper. Seems it started under the Bush admin, giving cash for poor students as ginna pigs for research.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 2 2008 6:45 utc | 11

This Cryptome Crytpo AG is already known, but may be of interest. One wonders, for example, about the alleged link to the trial for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 903 (the Lockerbie disaster).

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 2 2008 7:47 utc | 13

“The Year In Evidence”
Well if this isn’t just a massive cataloguing of Bushco crimes for 2007 alone. Published by AfterDowningStreet.org, it categorizes a mind-numbing and infuriating list of the evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors of Bushco’s last year:
I say “mind-numbing” because, well, it’s almost like an immediate hit of “scandal fatigue”. A person could spend days just reading through all these links.
I clicked on one, almost at random, and came across the following:
Bush Family War Profiteering

Since this war on terror was declared following 9/11, the pay levels for the CEOs of the top 34 defense contractors have doubled. The average compensation rose from $3.6 million during the period of 1998-2001, to $7.2 million during the period of 2002-2005, according to an August 2006, report entitled, “Executive Excess 2006,” by the Washington-based, Institute for Policy Studies, and the Boston-based, United for a Fair Economy.
This study found that since 9/11, the 34 defense CEOs have pocketed a combined total of $984 million, or enough, the report says, to cover the wages for more than a million Iraqis for a year. In 2005, the average total compensation for the CEOs of large US corporations was only 6% above 2001 figures, while defense CEOs pay was 108% higher.
But the last name of one family, which is literally amassing a fortune over the backs of our dead heroes, matches that of the man holding the purse strings in the White House. On December 11, 2003, the Financial Times reported that three people had told the Times that they had seen letters written by Neil Bush that recommended business ventures in the Middle East, promoted by New Bridges Strategies, a firm set up by President Bush’s former campaign manager, who quit his Bush appointed government job as the head of FEMA, three weeks before the war in Iraq began.
Neil Bush was paid an annual fee to “help companies secure contracts in Iraq,” the Times said.
But Neil Bush is by no means the only Bush profiting from the war on terror. The first President Bush is so entangled with entities that have profited greatly that it’s difficult to even know where to begin. Bush joined the Carlyle Group in 1993, and became a member of the firm’s Asian Advisory Board.
The Carlyle Group was best known for buying defense companies and doubling or tripling their value and was already heavily supported by defense contracts. But in 2002, the firm received $677 million in government contracts, and by 2003, its contracts were worth $2.1 billion.
Prior to 9/11, some Carlyle companies were not doing so well. For instance, the future of Vought Aircraft looked dismal when the company laid off 20% of its employees. But business was booming shortly after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began, and the company received over $1 billion in defense contracts.
The Bush family’s connections to the Osama bin Laden’s family seem almost surreal. On September 28, 2001, two weeks after 9/11, the Wall Street Journal reported that, “George H.W. Bush, the father of President Bush, works for the bin Laden family business in Saudi Arabia through the Carlyle Group, an international consulting firm.”
As a representative of Carlyle, one of the investors that Bush brought to Carlyle was the Bin Laden Group, a construction company owned by Osama’s family. The bin Ladens have been called the Rockefellers of the Middle East, and the father, Mohammed, has reportedly amassed a $5 billion empire. According the Journal, Bush convinced Shafiq bin Laden to invest $2 million with Carlyle.
The Journal found that Bush had met with the bin Ladens at least twice between 1998 and 2000. On September 27, 2001, the Journal reported that it had confirmed that a meeting took place between Bush Senior and the bin Laden family through Senior’s Chief of Staff, Jean Becker, but only after the reporter showed her a thank you note that was written and sent by Bush to the bin Ladens after the meeting.
The current President’s little publicized affiliation with the bin Laden family goes back to his days with Arbusto oil when Salem bin Laden funneled money through James Bath to bail out that particular failed company.
Probably the most eerie report about this strange group of bedfellows is that on 9/11, the day that served as a kick-off for the highly profitable war on terror, Shafiq bin Laden attended a meeting in the office of the Carlyle Group, and stood watching TV with other members of the firm as the WTC collapsed.
The fact that so many Saudis, including many bin Ladens, were allowed to fly out of the country right after 9/11, while Americans were still grounded, has always seemed a bit strange to most people also, especially when nobody in the Bush administration was able to explain who gave permission for the flights.
About a month after 9/11, in October 2001, the Carlyle Group severed its ties with the Bin Laden Group, but the Bush family did not. In January 2002, Neil Bush took a trip to Saudi Arabia that was sponsored by the Bin Laden Construction Company and Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the same Prince who offered New York Mayor, Rudy Giuliani $10 million to help the 9/11 victims, a gesture that Rudy refused.
In the fall of 2003, Bush Senior finally resigned from the Carlyle Group as the accusations of family war profiteering grew louder. However, according to the Washington Post, he still retained stock in the firm and gave speeches on its behalf for a fee of $500,000.
Carlyle companies have also scored big in the Homeland Security bonanza. Federal Data Systems and US Investigations Services hold multi-billion- dollar contracts to provide background checks for airlines, the Pentagon, the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security. US Investigations used to be a federal agency, until it was privatized in 1996 and taken over by Carlyle.
Marvin and Jeb Bush are also highly successful members of the family war profiteering team. Marvin is a co-founder and partner in Winston Partners, a private investment firm, and Jeb is an investor in the Winston Capital Fund, which is managed by Marvin.
Winston Partners is part of the Chatterjee Group, which owned 5.5 million shares in a company called Sybase in 2001, a firm that had contracts worth $2.9 million with the Navy, $1.8 million with the Army and $5.3 million with the Department of Defense. All totaled, the federal procurement database listed the firm’s contracts that year as $14,754,000.
And, Sybase was not the only company delivering war profits to Marvin and Jeb. The portfolio of Winston Partners also included the Amsec Corp, which, in 2001, was awarded $37,722,000 in Navy contracts.
Marvin’s business partner, Scott Andrews, sat on the board of directors at AMSEC, and the company’s CEO was Michael Braham, who formerly worked for Paul Bremer, the leader of the Coalition Provisional Authority responsible for handing out contracts Iraq.
This is the same Paul Bremer who used Iraqi money from the Development Fund for Iraq to award 5 no-bid contracts to Dick Cheney’s cash cow, Halliburton, worth $222 million, $325 million, $180 million, and $194 million combined for the last two, according to a July 28, 2004, report by the CPA Inspector General Stuart Bowen, entitled, “Comptroller Cash Management Controls over the Development Fund for Iraq.”
As it turns out, Halliburton received 60% of all contracts paid for with Iraqi money. In a January 2005 report, Inspector Bowen concluded that occupation authorities accounted poorly for $8.8 billion in Iraqi funds, and said, “The CPA did not implement adequate financial controls.”
The President’s uncle, William (Bucky) Bush, is the most visible war profiteer on the team. He sat on the board of a major military contractor called Engineered Support Systems. Six months before the war in Iraq began, on September 16, 2002, CNN/Money Magazine called ESS one of “seven defense stocks that fund managers like,” and one fund manager said ESS was one of two companies that “would gain the most from a war from Iraq.”
As a director, Uncle William received a monthly fee and held stock options. In January 2003, before the Iraq war began, he owned 33,750 shares of stock, but a year later, in January 2004, he owned 56,251.
The fact that Uncle William had an inside line to the White House can hardly be disputed. On March 25, 2003, Bush asked Congress for funding, “to cover military operations, relief and reconstruction activities in Iraq, and ongoing operations in the global war on terrorism,” and the very next day, ESS announced a large order from the Army for its Chemical Biological Protected Shelter systems.
Uncle William has become a very rich man since his nephew took office. In January 2005, SEC filings show that he made about $450,000 by selling ESS stock. But he did even better the next year.
According to the Excess Report, through a series of defense contracts, ESS earnings reached record levels and set the stage for the sale of the firm to another defense contractor, DRS Technologies, in January 2006, and among the beneficiaries of the deal was Uncle William, who cleared $2.7 million in cash and stock off the sale.
Its time for Congress to stop the direct deposits of tax dollars into the Bush bank accounts. Lawmakers need to notify the White House that all funding for Iraq is done, other than what is needed for the immediate removal of our troops from this disgusting war profiteering scheme.
(For a detailed account of war profiteering by the Bush Family see Jeffrey St. Clair’s Grand Theft Pentagon.)
Evelyn Pringle is an investigative reporter. She can be reached at: epringle05@yahoo.com

And this is just ONE link out of a score of them, from ONE category out of SIXTEEN!
I just had to share it here in the hopes that we can help spread this around.
The blockquote above paints one of the best pictures I’ve ever seen of the group piracy, the sheer mass looting of the United States, that has taken place because of this gang. And they are, in fact, a gang, a crime syndicate.
Imagine what their political “opponents” could have done with this, IF THERE WERE ANY.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 2 2008 8:05 utc | 15

He is as guilty as sin, but after 22 years in the slammer, I believe that it’s past time to allow him to go to his chosen country.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 2 2008 9:02 utc | 17

The empire is starting to crumble from within. The Lakotah people secede from the USA

…The self-determination of the Lakotah now takes on powerful meeting as the Lakotah Freedom Delegation traveled to Washington D.C. and withdrew the Lakotah from their treaties with the United States Government. The ride becomes an outward expression of sovereign Lakotah rights and spirituality.
Tegihya Kte said, “We don’t want the government telling us what to do, we want to be free.”
Lakotah Freedom delegate and Cante Tenza leader Canupa Gluha Mani (Duane Martin Sr.) agreed, “The Lakotah withdrawal in Washington D.C. brings real protection for our people today, exactly the real protection Big Foot sought for his people then.”
We are the freedom loving Lakotah from the Sioux Indian reservations of Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana who have withdrawn from the constitutionally mandated treaties to become a free and independent country. We are alerting the Family of Nations we have now reassumed our freedom and independence with the backing of Natural,International, and United States law.

Posted by: Juan Moment | Jan 2 2008 10:24 utc | 19

Every time I see a story about cops doing good I want to think “most of them are good and it’s just a few bad apples” WE KNOW FROM APPLES EH? ….out rolls another story like this….you would think the Empire/police state would better control the media to keep us positive on the Gestapo…but that would be to logical, as Monolycus said long ago,(paraphrasing), ‘they want you to know these things’. They depend on it.
You knowing the nefarious things they do helps promote their authoritarian agenda. It’s systemic, and meant specifically to demoralize and defeat you. To terrorizes you. To give them power over you.
Both at home and abroad.
That they have cadres of U.S. Behavioral Specialists. To herd you into their mental gulag. Is their role.
I just got around to finishing John Deans book, Conservatives without Conscience, and as wikipedia says, “The book makes extensive use of the research into Right-wing Authoritarianism”.
And basically, that the “authoritarian” “social controller” personality is what drives them on all levels to be proactively as nasty and rough and most importantly, as creative in their destruction of liberal democracy as they can be. They are the ones who hate our freedom. Yhey are ‘Snakes in Suits’.
Both republican and democrat; a pecking order of cowards, Liars, snakes and thieves. And you must know your place in the order of things.
And at the top, hierarchically, as I have said before, we are all caught between a mafia and a elite cabal.
The former Nixon counsel John Dean explains a largely unknown 50 year academic study. The data shows that conservatives are much more likely to follow authoritarian leaders. In other words, they are followers, not leaders.
Which largely explains why the democrats do nothing, BECAUSE THEY ARE IN REALITY RIGHT OF CENTER CONSERVATIVES, and or complicit. Because the system has been set up since the seventies to methodically weed out progressives, unless they play their role as gatekeepers.
A little noticed news of late, of would-be Ford assassin, Sara Jane Moore now 77, was released on parole from a federal prison in California today. Moore tried to assassinate President Ford in 1975. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.
Sara Jane Moore, who tried to kill Ford in ’75, freed on parole

Sara Jane Moore, the self-styled radical who earned an infamous role in the parlous politics of 1970s America by trying to assassinate President Gerald Ford in San Francisco, was paroled Monday from a Bay Area federal prison after serving more than 30 years, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Prisons said.

Interesting factoids:
according to the SFGate (above)she was also working for the FBI at the time of the crime, as well as, a volunteer bookkeeper by proxy for the Symbionese Liberation Army e.g., Patty Hearst/”tania”.
But I digress, morally right or wrong left in her actions, she was correct about one thing, ‘Moore said that she was convinced at the time that the government had declared war on the left’.
Seemingly, unbeknownst to her, she saw at least that clearly at the time. They won that war too. And here we are today three decades later;no opposition to speak of still.
In recent interviews, Moore said she regretted her actions.
“I am very glad I did not succeed. I know now that I was wrong to try,” Moore said a year ago in an interview with KGO-TV.
I wonder what her nic on the Daily Kos gatekeeper will be…lol
This further, also explains, why there is no “opposition” to these crooks. Which means everyone is either in on the crime, or else those who would normally oppose are actually to scared to say anything. You know, who wants to get anthraxed, or stay out of small planes for the rest of their lives …
Generational incrementalism, and the ratcheting to the right.
Dean comes close in some ways at really getting at the root of the problem we face as a people – that individuals that lack a conscience in any form have taken control of the US government and its people. Dean uses the research of a social psychologist, Bob Altemeyer, to explain the traits of these individuals – authoritarians or people that have social dominance orientation, but stops short of what we are really dealing with – sociopaths or psychopaths. These sociopaths or psychopaths don’t care about you or me. They don’t have a conscience or an ability to empathize for others. They only care about keeping control and power.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 2 2008 11:26 utc | 21

Oil finally made 100 today:
Oil futures rise to $100 a barrel

Oil prices soared to $100 a barrel Wednesday for the first time ever, reaching that milestone amid an unshakeable view that global demand for oil and petroleum products will continue to outstrip supplies.

Posted by: b | Jan 2 2008 18:05 utc | 23

AFRICOM propaganda squad sighting
letter to the editor of the free-lance star in fredricksburg, virginia — Mission of AFRICOM misconstrued in op-ed

Regarding their recent op-ed [“The Pentagon should stay out of Africa,” Dec. 14], I am afraid Danny Glover and Nicole Lee are victims of misinformation about U.S. Africa Command.
AFRICOM is not part of a “U.S. military expansion,” nor will it involve placing many “American troops on foreign soil.” Rather, AFRICOM marks recognition of the growing importance of Africa and reallocates responsibility for U.S. security interests accordingly.
…
People might also be surprised to know that most U.S. military activities in Africa, even before AFRICOM, involve things other than “normal” military operations, such as support to HIV/AIDS education, environmental security cooperation, and community relations activities such as digging wells or building schools.
Duncan Lang Spotsylvania

not only does the letter read like straight PR — exactly how is creating & staffing a new combatant command not “expansion”? — the author fails to mention his occupation which, in the interests of fairness, contributes to the reader’s misinformation on the subject at hand.
from linked in:

Duncan Lang’s Experience
*Africa Desk Officer Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology & Logistics)
January 2001 — Present

Posted by: b real | Jan 2 2008 19:47 utc | 25

b real,
speaking of AFRICOM. Do you see that playing a role in the messy aftermath to the Kenyan election?

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Jan 2 2008 22:11 utc | 27

askod – there’s a strong u.s. interest in kibaki over odinga. see b’s “Foot In Mouth?” thread from a couple days ago & my comments there. while not necessarily AFRICOM — which has training wheels on for the time being and, anyway, CENTCOM still holds control over CJTF-HOA and that AOR — i’m sure that the u.s. has already played a role in events there. did they help rig the elections? there’s no proof yet that i’ve come upon, but the signals were there that they’d support kibaki whatever it took. kenya is a crucial player in u.s. interests. has very strong military relations w/ the u.s. and is a key buffer state — so far — against political islam. according to some experts, the only truly threatening AQ presence on the continent is in kenya.
on the role during and post-conflict, well, kibaki originally had the paramilitaries out, who were most likely trained by u.s. forces, given the large military-to-military training programs there but now the kenyan military has been deployed in some districts and it’s a good bet that, in addition to using u.s.-supplied equipment, the us — consultants at a minimum — are involved in at least some capacity. and it’s probably seen as too good of a real-time lab for counterterrorism (CT) and humanitarian assistance (HA) theory-into-practice operations.
AFRICOM itself is in no capacity to drive or supply anything at this point, from what i’ve read. a recent CSIS paper mentioned that the pentagon is now hedging on the oct 2008 date for a full standup.

Posted by: b real | Jan 3 2008 0:01 utc | 29

also, Africom is regional branding as in Disney LA/Paris/Orlando/Tokyo. Mickey, Donald & Goofy, say hello to sunny Africa.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Jan 3 2008 3:23 utc | 31

I’m starting to wonder if in resisting MSM ‘tools’, MoA don’t risk becoming ones too.
For a New Years Resolution, I’m going to try something on Open Threads. Every day I make an effort to talk with someone ‘on the street’. Half the time it doesn’t work,
but sometimes you get the craziest (good) conversations. So here’s a latest teaser:
Guitar Hero (Wii/XBox video game) is extremely addicting. Most people who are good musicians aren’t good at Guitar Hero, it’s different fretting. But there is at least one person who’s a practicing guitarist AND a world-class Guitar Hero points scorer!
I did not know that! : )

Posted by: Querna Voca | Jan 3 2008 7:56 utc | 33

This is what is propagandized as a “two state solution”
Jerusalem seeks Bush okay for IDF free hand in West Bank

Israel would like the U.S. to agree to a number of limitations on the future Palestinian state’s sovereignty. Israel wants Palestine to be completely demilitarized, and for Israel to be able to fly over Palestinian air space. Border crossings would be monitored by Israel in such a way that the symbols of Palestinian sovereignty would not be compromised, but Israel would know who was coming and going.
Israel is to propose the deployment of an international force in the West Bank and along the Philadelphi Route in Rafah, and would ask that a permanent Israel Defense Forces presence remain for an extended period in the Jordan Valley.
Jordan Valley ‘tripwire force’
According to Israel’s plan, a small Israeli force would be stationed in the Jordan Valley as a “tripwire force” that would act as a deterrent. Israel would also demand Palestinian agreement that in the case of an emergency Israel could deploy in essential areas of the West Bank to thwart a threat of invasion from the East.

Posted by: b | Jan 3 2008 12:40 utc | 35

w is pissed at Makasey for investigating the CIA tapes destruction

President George W. Bush tried to stop Attorney General Michael Mukasey from launching a criminal investigation into the Central Intelligence Agency’s destruction of tapes showing torture of a prisoner and has ordered top White House officials to stonewall the probe, Capitol Hill Blue has learned.
Bush is reportedly “livid” that Makasey went ahead with the investigation and even discussed firing the attorney general but senior administration officials talked the President out of taking an action that would add fuel to suspicions of a cover-up.
While the administration may put on a public face of cooperation, the White House will take a tough stance from prosecutors who will seek interviews with current and former administration officials who participated in a meeting where destruction of the videotapes was discussed.

Posted by: dan of steele | Jan 3 2008 22:35 utc | 37

dan re post §37 – by this stage of the game – this particular administration is so criminal, so treasonous – i do not trust in the least what is left of that torn & dirty rag they once called jurisprudence

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 3 2008 23:15 utc | 39

The fish in the Simpsons seem to be for real.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 4 2008 0:18 utc | 41

Not related to any other topic, but it is good for the spirit. Insider’s account of the latest workers’ strike in Egypt.
The Organiser

Posted by: Alamet | Jan 4 2008 0:49 utc | 43

Dahr Jamail on Iraq
A slap in the face for Parliament
(As an aside, Al Ahram’s Iraq correspondent cites the director of Iraq’s National Command Centre as saying, “that the Ministry of Interior lost 18,200 of its policemen this year, 60 per cent of whom died in Baghdad.”)

Posted by: Alamet | Jan 4 2008 17:50 utc | 45

Servility loves company. The NewYork Times happily announces:
Al Jazeera No Longer Nips at Saudis

(snip)
For the past three months Al Jazeera, which once infuriated the Saudi royal family with its freewheeling newscasts, has treated the kingdom with kid gloves, media analysts say.
The newly cautious tone appears to have been dictated to Al Jazeera’s management by the rulers of Qatar, where Al Jazeera has its headquarters. Although those rulers established the channel a decade ago in large part as a forum for critics of the Saudi government, they now seem to feel they cannot continue to alienate Saudi Arabia — a fellow Sunni nation — in light of the threat from Iran across the Persian Gulf.
The specter of Iran’s nuclear ambitions may be particularly daunting to tiny Qatar, which also is the site of a major American military base.
The new policy is the latest chapter in a gradual domestication of Al Jazeera, once reviled by American officials as little more than a terrorist propaganda outlet. Al Jazeera’s broadcasts no longer routinely refer to Iraqi insurgents as the “resistance,” or victims of American firepower as “martyrs.”
(snip)

Posted by: Alamet | Jan 4 2008 17:58 utc | 47

A few days ago on Open Thread 07-85, Uncle $cam posted a link concerning the increasing cost of food in the U.S. I followed his link with a discussion concerning how the cost of fertilizer (energy related) will have a significant impact on World food prices. Also, I discussed alternative ways to thinking about crop production. Below is an article on the upcoming food price crunch. To repeat the major point of my earlier discussion, the most significant factor to high yields is high nitrogen fertilizer. Corn and soy, top U.S. agricultural products, are especially high users of nitrogen fertilizer. I wonder if with high fertilizer prices, some producers may opt for lower yields – how much so may be dependent upon thinking of where the optimum point of return may be and how much total investment a producer is willing to make.
Forget oil, the new global crisis is food

Posted by: Rick | Jan 4 2008 22:18 utc | 49

on this day – meditating on the role of my sisters in this struggle i am reminded of the chinese slogan from the sixties –woman hold up half the sky
i realise that even tho i have been in for the long haul – i suffer from a certain impatience – & an inordinate addiction to action – & that what the indians taught us in their war against the english, what the algerians taught us in their war against the french & the vietnamese in their war against the united states – the demands of a very particular kind of patience – from where imagination comes & creates possibilities that empires cannot even contemplate. for example – giap’s use of bees, of the body odor of soldiers – i mean many natural & organic methods of opposition that ended up being implacable
we are living in times equally as dark as those of 1933 – 1945 – & fascism threatens us both in the day to day life, the present & the possible futures which are oppressively dark
we witness today how powerless the empire is against the events that are taking place all over the world – normally that would be consoling but the fact is that imperialism has also created monsters – that are both a part of its downfall & a concern for our futures
the abject love of absolutes – & the mullahs whether they are a huckabee a blair or a rudd give me the fucking creeps – they are like psychopaths from some d rate californian movie from the late 70’s – with their creepy love of god & all the anserw he possesses – what it reveals, rather nakedly – for all their talk – is that they are ethicless, for all their supposed morality they are deeply immoral when it comes to the suffering of others – deeply immoral & corrupt
& that corruption goes very deeply – that moral corruption is in fact the muscle of the military industrial complex
& it will take all the patience of our sisters in struggle to defeat it

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 4 2008 23:13 utc | 51

So the amerikan chickens are coming home to roost for Musharraf. The sadly named International Crisis Group has just put out a press release to Reuters urging the amerikan government to pressure the Pakistan Army’s new boss General Ashfaq Kayani to, in the interests of democracy, of course, flick Musharraf in that old Pakistani democratic tradition where the army picks the prez!
Why would the Pakistan Army listen to amerika? Well military aid of course; since silly George’s dumb dogs drove OBL into Waziristan, military aid to Pakistan is up to $11 billion and counting. That old amerikan democratic tradition of money talks, bullshit walks means they feel the $11 billion gives them the right to pick Pakistan’s prez.
Who the hell is the International Crisis Group anyway and if they are European why is the call coming from amerika?
The Reuters article tells us “The ICG, which has been highly critical of Musharraf and has influence within the U.S. Congress . .
Sooooo they have pull in Congress, that must mean they are a democrat think tank doesn’t it? Their obviously self penned wikipedia entry tells us amongst other blather “The International Crisis Group is an international, non-profit, non-governmental organization whose mission is to prevent and resolve deadly conflicts through high-level advocacy.” meaningless babble which drops a few allegedly left of centre non-amerikan political names.
So Spinwatch should help lets see:

. . .”ICG is also supported by various foundations (covering 43%) – Rockefeller, Ford, MacArthur, US Institute for Peace (established by Ronald Reagan), Carnegie, Sarlo Jewish Community Endowment Fund, Hewlett, etc. and private sector donors (16%).
In short, major mainstream American policy-oriented foundations, none of which are known for spending just a fraction of their millions of dollars on grants that could result in building a knowledge base about, say, peace by peaceful means, non-violence and reconciliation. Neither have they promoted studies of why violent conflict-management and so-called humanitarian interventions – e.g. Kosovo – have failed so miserably since the end of the Cold War – let alone promoted criticism of the only superpower’s reckless militarist, unilateralist policies these years.
But let’s imagine the ideal world in which, year by year, more and more government funds would come with no strings attached whatsoever. Are non-governmental people leading ICG?
No, they are not. Among its board members we find Gareth Evans President & CEO, Former Foreign Minister of Australia and Lord Patten of Barnes, former European Commissioner for External Relations, Co-Chairman. Two pro-Kosovo-Albanian Americans, Morton Abramowitz, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State and former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, Stephen Solarz, former U.S. Congressman. And George Soros. Among other names that catch the “independent, non-governmental” eye you find: ambassador Kenneth Adelman (US), Wesley Clark (former NATO-commander who lead the destruction of Yugoslavia in 1999) (US), Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Advisor to the President, Ruth Dreifuss, former President, Switzerland, Leslie H. Gelb, former President of Council on Foreign Relations, U.S.
Among other former-governmentals: Bronislaw Geremek, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Poland, Lena Hjelm-Wall?n, former Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister, Sweden, James C.F. Huang, Deputy Secretary General to the President, Taiwan, Fidel V. Ramos, former President of the Philippines, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, former Secretary General of NATO; former Defence Secretary, UK, Salim A. Salim, former Prime Minister of Tanzania and former Secretary General of the Organisation of African Unity, P?r Stenback, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Finland, Thorvald Stoltenberg, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Norway, Ernesto Zedillo, former President of Mexico; Martti Ahtisaari, former President, Finland, George J. Mitchell, former U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Denmark, and Mark Eyskens, former Prime Minister of Belgium.
In all fairness, there are also some business people, a novelist and a professor. But one can’t help being struck by a) the overwhelming presence of (former) politicians and diplomats, b) the virtual absence of people from academia with professional training in field conflict and peace work, and c) the degree of overlap between the governments that support the ICG and the governments these board member once served. . . .”

Soooo Stephen Solarz, Zbigniew Brzezinski and the inimitable George Soros, is that dem enough?
Not to mention big mobs of other claiming to be left of centre asshole self promoters fallen upon hard times eg Gareth never got to be Oz PM Evans, the scum who advocate the deaths of millions and call it progress.
So if this mob, trying to appear to be a non-governmental think tank, or policy wonk-out, or whatever, is calling for Mush’s ouster, does that mean they have also come to the conclusion that it was the General(Rtd.) who got B.B.?
Hard to say but they must have their suspicions cause otherwise they would be sticking with what they know in Pakistan. Sure they’ve lined up the ever lubed asshole of Mohammadmian Soomro to fill in. The whole thing reeks of amerikan intervention, by picking the normally irrelevant Pakistani Senate prez to make it sound soothing to amerikan voters, “Hey Mabel, that’s just like we do things back home!” because of course Mabel and Bob need to be thinking healthcare and “the economy stupid”, not empire when they go into the polling booth at the end of the year.
Former Sindh state governor Mohammadmian Soomro must think all his Ramadans have come at once, even if the current Sindh governor has pulled Soomro’s pix from the official site leaving only his own and Mushie’s on the extremely brief Soomro bio page. Soomro grabbed a short stint as prez during the delay when Mush was organising a supreme court full of justices prepared to bend the constitution back in November. The fact he’s a Sindh means that the Bhutto’s probably found him acceptable then, though I wonder if they do now? New PPP co-chair Mr ten percent, aka Asif Ali Zardari is unlikely to see this attempt to blindside his machinations in a positive light. As a main-chancer from way back who was always kept at arms length even before the corruption charges “He’s not quite top drawer, don’tcha know”, Zadari will recognise the danger in allowing Soomro another bite of the prez cherry. It wouldn’t matter if Soomro won the job in a bar raffle, after two cracks of the whip, he’s go to begin to believe the job is his, and, that he’s the best man for it.
The fact that neither amerika nor Mush have a problem with Soomro also tends to suggest that everyone has a piece of his ass and he may not be content to keep the seat warm for Bilawal Bhutto Zardari the younger, for just long enough to lose the peach fuzz.
The wheels within wheels, the machinations become that much more complicated as soon as an outsider such as amerika becomes involved.
What should be a straight last man standing contest between Musharraf, Zadari, Nawaz Sharif and hopefully for Pakistan, Imran Khan,just turns into a complicated and unsatisfying shadow dance where no one will accrue enough power to make a difference and see Pakistan through the crisis generated by Musharraf and amerika.
Most importantly when Pakistan becomes an abstract problem, a plaything for assholes such as the board of the International Crisis Group, all humanity is lost.
Fatima Bhutto daughter of Murtaza Bhutto, who was B.B.’s younger brother and who was likely assassinated on Benazir’s orders, reminds us of that humanity when she remembers her aunt here with a page titled:- “Farewell to Wadi Bua – Our family has lost enough.
Gary Leup also makes some important points about the danger and cruelty of foreign interference in Pakistan with this CounterPunch article Madness Compounding Madness Calls for Intervention in Pakistan
Leupp makes some good points although he makes the same assumptions as virtually all of the pieces written by Pakistani ex-pats, in that he sees the appeal of Islamic fundamentalism as something which needs to be countered.
We tend to overlook the simple truth that the majority of those Pakistanis getting their opinions published come from one or both categories of either middle class secular intellectuals or established Pakistani political entities. The secularists loathe the idea of religion making a comeback while the politicians oppose any new political force they aren’t a part of.
Yet when I speak to ordinary Pakistani shit-kickers, the halal slaughtermen, small shopkeepers and self employed tradesmen who make up NZ’s ex-pat Pakistani population many of them see something quite different.
They are non-violent ie they don’t want Pakistan’s political impasse to be resolved through war or revolution or so-called terrorism, but they do see the national religion Islam, as being an essential common thread which holds all Pakistanis together. – Sindh, Pashtun, Punjabi, Baluch and Wazir to name a few of the more than 200 ethnicities of Pakistan who came together because of religion. Whether the force they joined together to overcome was political greed, or rejection by the Indian majority fired up after a couple of hundred years of British divide and rule is irrelevant in 2007.
The state may be artificially created, and relatively new (50 years old) but it does have an identity internally and externally – a ‘brand’ if you will, and the bulk of the population are committed to that brand, those who aren’t presumably make up the 137 million Muslims currently residing in India. We tend to forget that with a population of 164 million souls the vast majority of whom follow Islam, Pakistan is indeed the second most populous Muslim nation on the planet – after Indonesia (pop 234,693,997), but India is the third largest population of Muslims.
Pakistan cannot possibly succeed if religion is discounted. Why else would the original inhabitants accept the post partition arrivals were it not for religion? After all India’s Muslim people still live a life of oppression and fear in India.
Despite the tough times the Sindh middle class is having at the moment from Reuters:

KARACHI (Reuters) – Pakistani businessmen are veterans of political crises, but this time they say it’s different.
From self-employed truck drivers to wealthy factory owners, no one can recall anything like the violence that shook Pakistan after last week’s murder of former premier Benazir Bhutto.
“This is the worst situation we’ve ever faced,” said Barkat Ali, surveying the charred remains of a petrol station and restaurant that he and his brother-in-law set up in Karachi four years ago.
“Right now, the security is present,” Ali added, peering over his spectacles at a few soldiers patrolling across the road in an industrial area of the country’s largest city. “But if they leave the area, the fear is there. It’s never happened before.”

It is unlikely many would swap their charred ruins for life in India. An old friend (a Hindu) from Gujarat State in India (Gujarat borders Pakistan) used to tell me stories of the desperate state of life being a Muslim in Gujarat. Whenever some disaster occurred for example in 2002 a train fire in Godhra, local Hindu political street bosses divert attention from the real cause by blaming Muslims.
The result was the Gujarat riots. Absolute chaos throughout Gujarat and south to Mumbai (Bombay) as huge gangs of Hindu thugs dragged Muslims from their homes and burned houses down, destroyed businesses and factories, raped and murdered Muslims. The toll from the train fire (58) can be found anywhere on the Inter-web, but the Gujarat riot death toll is much harder to ascertain. I finally found an interim figure in a BBC article which gives a toll of “790 Muslims and 254 Hindus were killed, 223 more people reported missing and another 2,500 injured.”
Of course many Hindu’s in India are appalled by the anti-Muslim pogroms, it was one of the primary reasons my friend left India, yet the oppression and religious division continues largely unabated. The most annoying thing about this is that Pakistan is always cast in a bad light as the cause of the problems between India and Pakistan, but the Pakistani government doesn’t stand by while enforcers from the ruling political Party murder relatives of Indian citizens. It was the Indian Army which oppressed the people of Kashmir and enforced unjust eviction orders on Kasmiri Muslim landowners so that Hindus from outside Kashmir could dominate the once burgeoning tourism industry, but still charlatans like William Dalrymple in the NYT seek to blame Pakistan’s leaders for everything short of murdering Jesus. In this case Benazir Bhutto for being the cause of regional tension and disputes.
Why doesn’t Dalrymple just say what he means, which is Bhutto was a Pakistani and all Pakistanis are Muslims, therefore no matter who far a Pakistani such as Bhutto crawls up the ass of amerikan corporate capitalists she will always be an evil Islamic blasphemer. Indians with their ‘quaint’ animism are currently seen as much less of a threat. Nobody talks of the war between Judeo/xtianity and Kali.
I betcha that will change in less that 50 years. Think about it, both India and China have national philosophies which have changed almost zero from their pantheist past. Both India and China are about to dominate the world’s trade and although India is seen as the ‘nice’ one by the west, in other words the Indian administrative infrastructure is seen as too corrupt and bumbling to pose a ‘real threat’.
That is now, as India leaps ahead economically it will regain the self confidence it needs to assert it’s own administrative methodology rather than rely on an imperfectly transplanted USuk one.
Then the elites of ‘the West’ are going to feel far more threatened by India than Pakistan’s current rather tenuous threat, (most oil resources are controlled by Islamic cultures, Pakistan is an Islamic culture therefore Pakistan is in cahoots with those who control oil resources who are ‘with us’ so they must be against us).
That’s the time when Pakistan will be promoted by the western capitalist media as the best thing since sliced bread as “they confront the Indo/Chinese menace”.
Of course the other alternative would be that the populations of ‘western capitalist’ nations confront their elites and say “we’re not gonna fall for the old foreigners are evil trick anymore. Sort yourselves out up there in the boardroom! (dream on).

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 5 2008 2:27 utc | 53

Fake Green
Nice, very nice analysis of what’s wrong with faux green cars:

According to Romm’s analysis, the math for hydrogen cars simply doesn’t work out. Burning coal to generate one megawatt-hour of electricity produces about 2,100 pounds of carbon dioxide. It follows that one megawatt-hour of renewable power can avert those emissions. Using that electricity to make hydrogen would yield enough fuel for a fuel-cell car to travel about 1,000 miles, Romm says. But driving those 1,000 miles in a gasoline- powered car that gets 40 miles per gallon would produce just 485 pounds of carbon dioxide. In this sense, Romm says, a vehicle powered by hydrogen fuel cells would indirectly create four times the carbon dioxide emissions of today’s most efficient gasoline cars.
And the numbers for the Hydrogen 7 are worse, because it burns hydrogen. Combustion produces thrilling torque, but it’s far less efficient than fuel-cell technology. Also counting against the Hydrogen 7 is the fact that it stores hydrogen as a liquid; chilling hydrogen and compressing it into liquid form consumes more energy than storing it as a compressed gas. “It’s safe to say this is a pointless activity,” Romm says. “BMW has managed to develop the least efficient conceivable vehicle that you could invent.”

Posted by: citizen | Jan 5 2008 4:05 utc | 55

file this under “new scramble for africa”
FT: Gazprom plans Africa gas grab

Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned energy group, is seeking to win access to vast energy reserves in Nigeria in a move that will heighten concerns among western governments over its increasingly powerful grip on gas supplies to Europe.
A senior Nigerian oil industry official, who declined to be named, said the company was offering to invest in energy infrastructure in return for the chance to develop some of the biggest gas deposits in the world.
The Russian move is part of a courtship that saw Vladimir Putin writing to Nigeria’s leader, Umaru Yar’Adua, last year to seek energy co-operation.
…
“What Gazprom is proposing is mind-boggling,” the Nigerian oil official told the Financial Times. “They’re talking tough and saying the west has taken advantage of us in the last 50 years and they’re offering us a better deal … They are ready to beat the Chinese, the Indians and the Americans.”
Gazprom representative Ilya Kochevrin confirmed the talks with Nigerian officials. “We made a decision to go global in terms of acquiring assets and developing strategy outside Russia. Africa is one of our priorities,” he said.
Any move by Gazprom to establish itself in Nigeria, long dominated by companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and ExxonMobil, would reinforce a global trend of state-backed energy companies challenging western rivals.

Posted by: b real | Jan 5 2008 5:34 utc | 57

b @ 58
“Local media reported that the Iraqi soldier killed the two men after he saw them flirting with women earlier in the day…”
Flirting… How cute. But that isn’t what the US spokespeople were denying to the local media. Aswat:

The U.S. side denied that this Iraqi soldier opened fire at U.S. servicemen because they sexually harassed an Iraqi girl (…)

And what the Iraqi street is saying is,
Iraqi soldier “Caesar” killed three American soldiers because they kicked and beat a pregnant woman

Posted by: Alamet | Jan 5 2008 18:24 utc | 59

#59,
Its taken at least 3 days for this story to make national news here (just on ABC tonight) but still no mention of any attack on a woman.

Posted by: anna missed | Jan 6 2008 2:23 utc | 61

Whoever stopped the Paris Dakar rally did the African and Arabian people a great favour. I am suprised it took this long the brit equivalent the East African Safari was finally de-registered by the World Rally Championship in 2003.
Why?
Well even in the 1960’s some whitefellas found the idea of racing through villages at speeds of over 150 kph a little shall we say murderous. The inhabitants of villages along the route of this pedestrian slaughter have ben trying to sabotage the rallies pretty much since the first one. Roadblocks of felled trees etc were common until central governments keen on the ‘publicity’ policed the routes only the locals mind, the drivers would be told that on no account were they to stop if they hit a pedestrian, lest some injury be done them I suppose.
There is a site called the Motorsport memorial which tries to commemorate those who have been killed as a result of motorsport.
For some peverse reason a few victims of the African rallies have been included. It is doubtful if the total deaths for each african natioin listed would account for one single year’s fatalities, but nevertheless some strange truths can be discovered. Kenya is running an abridged East African Safari Rally while the central government fights to get the event put back on the WRC calendar.
Here is the Kenyan Motorsport Memorial page. Nine of the deaths of ‘by-passers’ listed occured one day in 1978. I suppose that incident was so big it had to be included. it is worth noting that the names of Africans are rarely included, just the fact and date of their death. A mechanic working on the cars is killed, his name is listed but they don’t even list the name of the Kenyan policeman who was killed.
Now the details are much scarcer for Paris Dakar rally. The race usually goes through Algeria but there is no page for Algeria, Senegal has a page with a couple out of the tens maybe hundreds killed over the years listed. They tell us the person killed was a spectator but can’t tell us their name. Does that mean they just guessed he/she wasn’t an innocent passer-by. maybe the dead person was white so that qualified them as a spectator.
Libya frequently hosts Paris Dakar but they have no page. Mauritania has a page which lists the deaths of innocent by-standers from a couple of major ‘accidents’ in 1988 and 1998. It is likely once again that both of those were too big to ignore maybe they made it onto the TV screens of european rev-heads so just couldn’t be ignored. The far more frequent death of someone too slow (either too young or too old to get out of the way) is never acknowledged.
Mali also has a page with two separate fatalities of bystanders listed. Once again anecdotal ‘evidence’ over the years places the number of humans killed in mali far higher, I have no idea why these two were listed.
If amerika or France tries to blame AQ back in the countries who have been subjected to this arrogant incursion for the last half century, it will do wonders for recruitment.
It is worth noting that the mayor of Paris also got the shits with the rally and had it’s start moved out to Euro-Disney and no one called him a terrorist.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 6 2008 7:37 utc | 63

@Alamet #60
Interesting link, and I don’t disagree with the gist of it. Just as in the political sphere, people should internalize that the “market makers” in the economic sphere don’t always act with the best interests of the consumer in mind. We seem to think that everyone always takes care of us and nobody would do anything to deliberately harm our welfare (except for imaginary “terrorists”… those guys never stop thinking about ways to harm us).
Another reason that you will never hear much negative talk from market analysts is that it is THEIR JOB to maintain consumer confidence. That translates to a perpetual and phony optimism. It’s all right to discuss a recession after it is over, but to mention one while it is looming might cause the consumers to start watching their nickels and dimes and can exacerbate the effects.
But, yes, some folk are just malevolent. These would be the “enemy forces” alluded to in your link at #60, and the number of malevolent agents is not negligible. These are the guys who gave us rolling blackouts to elevate energy costs and increase their own market shares at the expense of the consumer. Sometimes, these folk do it just for the sheer hell of it.
These are the things that pop into my mind when I hear folk going on about “healthy competition” and the curative effects of free and open markets. It’s worse than snake oil they’re selling here.

Posted by: Monolycus | Jan 6 2008 8:47 utc | 65

On Sibel Edmonds in the London Times: For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets

A WHISTLEBLOWER has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets.
Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office.
She approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.
Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.
Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.
The name of the official – who has held a series of top government posts – is known to The Sunday Times. He strongly denies the claims.
However, Edmonds said: “He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives.”
…
The Turks and Israelis had planted “moles” in military and academic institutions which handled nuclear technology. Edmonds says there were several transactions of nuclear material every month, with the Pakistanis being among the eventual buyers. “The network appeared to be obtaining information from every nuclear agency in the United States,” she said.
They were helped, she says, by the high-ranking State Department official who provided some of their moles – mainly PhD students – with security clearance to work in sensitive nuclear research facilities. These included the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, which is responsible for the security of the US nuclear deterrent.
…
Edmonds also claims that a number of senior officials in the Pentagon had helped Israeli and Turkish agents.
“The people provided lists of potential moles from Pentagon-related institutions who had access to databases concerning this information,” she said.
“The handlers, who were part of the diplomatic community, would then try to recruit those people to become moles for the network. The lists contained all their ‘hooking points’, which could be financial or sexual pressure points, their exact job in the Pentagon and what stuff they had access to.”
One of the Pentagon figures under investigation was Lawrence Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst, who was jailed in 2006 for passing US defence information to lobbyists and sharing classified information with an Israeli diplomat.
“He was one of the top people providing information and packages during 2000 and 2001,” she said.
…
The senior official in the State Department no longer works there. Last week he denied all of Edmonds’s allegations: “If you are calling me to say somebody said that I took money, that’s outrageous . . . I do not have anything to say about such stupid ridiculous things as this.”
In researching this article, The Sunday Times has talked to two FBI officers (one serving, one former) and two former CIA sources who worked on nuclear proliferation. While none was aware of specific allegations against officials she names, they did provide overlapping corroboration of Edmonds’s story.
One of the CIA sources confirmed that the Turks had acquired nuclear secrets from the United States and shared the information with Pakistan and Israel. “We have no indication that Turkey has its own nuclear ambitions. But the Turks are traders. To my knowledge they became big players in the late 1990s,” the source said.

Posted by: b | Jan 6 2008 13:17 utc | 67

@DoS – Via the Brad Blog someone says Grossman.

While that “well-known senior” State Department official is not named by the paper, Australia’s Luke Ryland, who writes at a number of sites as “Lukery”, is perhaps the world’s foremost expert concerning the Sibel Edmonds story. Ryland has told The BRAD BLOG that the official, unnamed by the Times, is Marc Grossman.

Posted by: b | Jan 6 2008 19:25 utc | 69

Heads up: Peak Food

Posted by: Wolf DeVoon | Jan 6 2008 20:09 utc | 71

Jonathan Cook has an excellent summary of Ehud Barak’s “generous offer”. Details and machinations of the earlier Wye and Camp David “peace conference”, according to Cook, were studied by Olmert and Livni in preparation for Annapolis. Extracts of Barak’s “concessions” have now been acknowledged and printed Haaretz.

Posted by: ww | Jan 6 2008 21:01 utc | 73

Monolycus # 65,
The Smoking Debt Gun
and
The Trigger Man Wore A Suit
were the two posts that got me hooked on Sudden Debt. It’s economy analysis that views the people not as consumers/subprime borrowers/reckless buyers, but as ordinary people struggling to stay afloat while being robbed of options. Too bad the blogger isn’t a socialist. Or rather, too too too bad there doesn’t seem to be readily available socialist analysis similarly based in the material world, and making a case for structural change.

Posted by: Alamet | Jan 7 2008 0:08 utc | 75

Thanks to all for an illuminating thread. I found the contributions
of DID and b real regarding the Paris-Dakar rally to be very illuminating,
as also were many other posts here.
I must, alas, also agree with Tangerine’s comments on narcissism: I think of myself as a sort of lefty anarchist (a contradiction in terms,
of course) but have always had my salary paid by some “big government” or other. And with regard to Sarko, my “significant other” notes the upcoming nuptials between Sarko and Carla Bruni with disgust: I am merely amused.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 7 2008 8:52 utc | 77

a new gulf of tonkin incident in the hormuz straits

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 7 2008 16:46 utc | 79

united states justice commits another genocide in haditha

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 7 2008 18:18 utc | 81

U.S. academic Finkelstein meets top Hezbollah official in Lebanon

(snip)
“After the horror and after the shame and after the anger there still remain a hope, and I know that I can get in a lot of trouble for what I am about to say, but I think that the Hezbollah represents the hope. They are fighting to defend their homeland,” the Brooklyn-born Finkelstein told reporters.
(snip)

Posted by: Alamet | Jan 8 2008 0:29 utc | 83

Always smart, astute, insightful.
Gloria Steinem on gender and race (i.e. Obama and Hillary):

So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one? The reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects “only” the female half of the human race; because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a powerful woman; because racism stereotyped black men as more “masculine” for so long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as long as there aren’t too many of them); and because there is still no “right” way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what.
…
What worries me is that she is accused of “playing the gender card” when citing the old boys’ club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations.
What worries me is that male Iowa voters were seen as gender-free when supporting their own, while female voters were seen as biased if they did and disloyal if they didn’t.
What worries me is that reporters ignore Mr. Obama’s dependence on the old — for instance, the frequent campaign comparisons to John F. Kennedy, though Senator Edward Kennedy is supporting Senator Clinton — while not challenging the slander that her progressive policies are part of the Washington status quo.
What worries me is that some women, perhaps especially younger ones, hope to deny or escape the sexual caste system; thus Iowa women over 50 and 60, who disproportionately supported Senator Clinton, proved once again that women are the one group that grows more radical with age.
…

Wise words amidst the media frenzy.

Posted by: Hamburger | Jan 8 2008 10:03 utc | 85

informative interview w/ tim shorrock on kpfa’s against the grain today — “State of Spying”
audio archive should be up later today

Posted by: b real | Jan 8 2008 20:31 utc | 87

Did not see this link here:
Crooks and Liars » Sean Hannity Flees from Ron Paul Supporters

Ron Paul supporters were yelling ” FOX News Sucks” and chasing after Sean Hannity the other night. “Hey Hannity, how about an interview?” “We’re not falling for it anymore” “You suck Sean”…FNC shut out Ron Paul from their Republican Presidential forum on Sunday which angered many supporters of his campaign.

Great stuff.

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Jan 8 2008 22:26 utc | 89

fuck me dead
you can’t be much dumber than dobbs, lou dobbs
he’s got his proper der stürmer on cnn spewing hatred for the ‘other’
it really is a form of torture to watch these people – they are like efram zimbalist on crack – an eliot ness on narcotics
it’s like a bizarre form of cartoon where skin suddenly appears to be paper thin – something you could read rupert muroch’s wall st journal through – when t s eliot spoke of the “hollow men” – i don’t think he understood – how hollow

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 9 2008 0:35 utc | 91

where does cnn contract these people – they are really like figurines from some mexican sci-fi film & none more so than anderson cooper – but really the whole clan – i mean klan – they are as shaft would say – a sorry bunch of motherfuckers – who weep words far more easily & on order than madam macbeth clinton
they give new meaning to the word, horror

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 9 2008 1:03 utc | 93

uncle,
i would have thought cooper is too cretinous even for them

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 9 2008 1:31 utc | 95

After yesterday’s “authoritative polls” gave Obama a 10% lead in New Hampshire we wake up to find that Hillary has won there. Moreover, McCain beat Romney and Ron Paul failed to get 10% of the vote (which, Giuliani, just barely, did). So either the pollsters have once again been shown to be grossly incompetent (certainly a strong possibility) or we must contemplate this polemical video from BBV. In a sense it grieves me to post the BBV video, since it represents a (to my mind not irrational) vote of no confidence in the solidity of the cornerstone of American democracy, namely the integrity of the electoral process.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 9 2008 6:45 utc | 97

HKOL, Blitzer comes from their Zionist networks. I forget specifics, but prolly (as Uncle sez) someone recalls details. Was he editor of Jerusalem Post, or something along those lines.
I also heard Mike Malloy talking about CNN one night, when he was in serious disgust w/media mode. He said their Honchos openly discussed calling Pentagon for recommendations on what Generals to use. Also, guys strutting around newsroom openly discussing being CIA. Their other domestic journo, who is good when allowed to be – I forget her name, it’s unusual – & very likeable, bright, serious – is of Iranian descent, Brit. raised, an heiress, married to Jamie Rubin. (They cut her off of live reporting after she commented on the air on how crappy their war coverage was. She’d done good stuff from Afghanistan.) So, who cares who she’s married to? You do. He’s son of Robert Rubin, who runs Dem. Party & currently filling in as head of Citigroup.
But I like yr. idea for lapel pins identifying their patrons…

Posted by: jj | Jan 9 2008 9:06 utc | 99