Op-Ed
"Dad, did you know the governor of Illinois was arrested?"
Well, no. This was last week. I was in Denmark, visiting my daughter, and this was my first news from Crazy Land in a while. It's dangerous to go online when I'm traveling. I learned, among other things, that my governor, Rod Blagojevich, was taped discussing the sale of the president-elect's old Senate seat because it's "a bleeping valuable thing. You just don't give it away."
No way. Not in this economy.
But even though I felt no real surprise at that or anything else I eventually returned home to — flying shoes, collapsing Ponzi schemes, a federal report documenting waste and ineffectiveness in the reconstruction of Iraq (who would have guessed?) — I was nevertheless blindsided by the cumulative effect of the week's news. All it took was a week of expatriate perspective to see how surreal, how nuts, American normal has become.
Well, no. This was last week. I was in Denmark, visiting my daughter, and this was my first news from Crazy Land in a while. It's dangerous to go online when I'm traveling. I learned, among other things, that my governor, Rod Blagojevich, was taped discussing the sale of the president-elect's old Senate seat because it's "a bleeping valuable thing. You just don't give it away."
No way. Not in this economy.
But even though I felt no real surprise at that or anything else I eventually returned home to — flying shoes, collapsing Ponzi schemes, a federal report documenting waste and ineffectiveness in the reconstruction of Iraq (who would have guessed?) — I was nevertheless blindsided by the cumulative effect of the week's news. All it took was a week of expatriate perspective to see how surreal, how nuts, American normal has become.
Sunday morning, before dawn, I read in the New York Times that “the
Pentagon is planning to add more than 20,000 troops to Afghanistan” within
the next 18 months -- “raising American force levels to about 58,000” in
that country. Then I scraped ice off a windshield and
drove to the C-SPAN studios, where a picture window showed a serene
daybreak over the Capitol dome.
While I was on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” for a live interview, the program aired some rarely seen footage with the voices of two courageous politicians who challenged the warfare state.
So, on Sunday morning, viewers across the country saw Barbara Lee speaking on the House floor three days after 9/11 -- just before she became the only member of Congress to vote against the president’s green-light resolution to begin the U.S. military attack on Afghanistan.
While I was on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” for a live interview, the program aired some rarely seen footage with the voices of two courageous politicians who challenged the warfare state.
So, on Sunday morning, viewers across the country saw Barbara Lee speaking on the House floor three days after 9/11 -- just before she became the only member of Congress to vote against the president’s green-light resolution to begin the U.S. military attack on Afghanistan.
On October 22, 2008, I recorded a talk I had with Salam Talib, who is a computer engineer and journalist from Iraq and who is now studying in San Francisco. He has worked with US independent journalist, Dahr Jamail, and other independent journalists as an interpreter and fellow reporter on the conditions in Iraq that ordinary people have faced during the US military occupation. Dahr Jamail is the author of "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq."
When I met a person by the name of Zaineb Alani, I learned that I have been mispronouncing 'Salam Talib'as I made the following audio recordings for the radio program. Saying his name with a long 'a' after the 'l' and a long 'i' after the second 'l' is incorrect, according to Ms. Alani.
The audio for the WCRS 102.1 and 98.3 LP FM program that aired in late October or early November of 2008 is divided into four parts. You can find the audio portals below, after the paragraphs of text.
Here are some questions and some notes I developed as I put together the radio program. Please go to tomover.com and offer your ideas and whatever else you want to express.
When I met a person by the name of Zaineb Alani, I learned that I have been mispronouncing 'Salam Talib'as I made the following audio recordings for the radio program. Saying his name with a long 'a' after the 'l' and a long 'i' after the second 'l' is incorrect, according to Ms. Alani.
The audio for the WCRS 102.1 and 98.3 LP FM program that aired in late October or early November of 2008 is divided into four parts. You can find the audio portals below, after the paragraphs of text.
Here are some questions and some notes I developed as I put together the radio program. Please go to tomover.com and offer your ideas and whatever else you want to express.
I know, I know, Bush liberated the Iraqis. But when will we liberate them from Bush's liberation? Well, ideally, the American people will rise up tomorrow and force Congress to cease funding the occupation and to vote an immediate and complete withdrawal with a veto-overriding supermajority, not to mention impeaching Bush and Cheney. I raise that possibility not so much because I've been drinking as because long-term movements for systemic reform require awareness of what we're missing. If we ever replace a Congress dominated by money, media, and parties with one loyal to us the people, it will be because we tragically realize what so very easily could have been.
The war regroups. What if Barack Obama, as he pursues his pragmatic strategy that so far seems to be 10 parts “reassurance” (to the defense and financial establishment) to one part “change,” is really finished with his anti-war base for the next four years?
I don’t know if this is true, but his early moves in the game are gasp-inducing in the extreme: Hillary Clinton and Rahm Emanuel “still refuse to renounce their votes in favor of the (Iraq) war,” Jeremy Scahill writes in The Guardian U.K. And then, of course, Robert Gates, Bush’s own secretary of defense, will keep his job, and James Jones, retired commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Europe, will become national security advisor, creating what starts to look like a serious war cabinet.
I feel a bad case of betrayal coming on.
“What ultimately ties Obama’s team together,” Scahill writes, “is their unified support for the classic U.S. foreign policy recipe: the hidden hand of the free market, backed up by the iron fist of U.S. militarism to defend the America First doctrine.”
I don’t know if this is true, but his early moves in the game are gasp-inducing in the extreme: Hillary Clinton and Rahm Emanuel “still refuse to renounce their votes in favor of the (Iraq) war,” Jeremy Scahill writes in The Guardian U.K. And then, of course, Robert Gates, Bush’s own secretary of defense, will keep his job, and James Jones, retired commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Europe, will become national security advisor, creating what starts to look like a serious war cabinet.
I feel a bad case of betrayal coming on.
“What ultimately ties Obama’s team together,” Scahill writes, “is their unified support for the classic U.S. foreign policy recipe: the hidden hand of the free market, backed up by the iron fist of U.S. militarism to defend the America First doctrine.”
I know, I know, Bush liberated the Iraqis. But when will we liberate them from Bush's liberation? Well, ideally, the American people will rise up tomorrow and force Congress to cease funding the occupation and to vote an immediate and complete withdrawal with a veto-overriding supermajority, not to mention impeaching Bush and Cheney. I raise that possibility not so much because I've been drinking as because long-term movements for systemic reform require awareness of what we're missing. If we ever replace a Congress dominated by money, media, and parties with one loyal to us the people, it will be because we tragically realize what so very easily could have been.
The debate among progressive activists and commentators in recent weeks has tended to range from the leave-Obama-alone-and-he'll-fix-everything position to the stage-a-protest-at-Obama's-house-for-the-next-month position, including numerous stances in between those extremes. What all these positions share is acceptance of the incredible shift of power from Congress to the White House that we have seen in just the last eight years. It is in these concluding moments of the Bush-Cheney era that Congress's coffin is being constructed just outside our window, and I'm afraid that the peace and justice movement is picking flowers to bring to the funeral.
Seventeen years and three wars later, the ghosts of Operation Desert Storm — the cancers, the chronic headaches and dizziness, the fibromyalgia, the ALS and so much more that have stalked returning vets, whose medical claims have been denied, ignored, relegated to the paper shredder — have just gotten a reality upgrade.
“The extensive body of scientific research now available consistently indicates that Gulf War illness is real, that it is the result of neurotoxic exposures during Gulf War deployment, and that few veterans have recovered or substantially improved with time.”
Thus concludes the 452-page report of the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses, presented last week to Veterans Affairs Secretary James Peake. Suddenly the government has several hundred thousand medical claims emanating from a few months in 1991 it has to start taking seriously — and that’s the easy part.
“The extensive body of scientific research now available consistently indicates that Gulf War illness is real, that it is the result of neurotoxic exposures during Gulf War deployment, and that few veterans have recovered or substantially improved with time.”
Thus concludes the 452-page report of the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses, presented last week to Veterans Affairs Secretary James Peake. Suddenly the government has several hundred thousand medical claims emanating from a few months in 1991 it has to start taking seriously — and that’s the easy part.
Statement from the Steering Committee for the Prosecution for War Crimes of President Bush and His Subordinates
Never before has a president pardoned himself or his subordinates for crimes he authorized. The closest thing to this in U.S. history thus far has been Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence. Bush is widely expected to follow that commutation with a pardon. Not only did Libby work for the White House, but he was convicted of obstruction of justice in an investigation that was headed to the president. Evidence introduced in the trial, including a hand-written note by the vice president, implicated Bush, and former press secretary Scott McClellan has since testified that Bush authorized the exposure of an undercover agent, that being the crime that was under investigation.
Never before has a president pardoned himself or his subordinates for crimes he authorized. The closest thing to this in U.S. history thus far has been Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence. Bush is widely expected to follow that commutation with a pardon. Not only did Libby work for the White House, but he was convicted of obstruction of justice in an investigation that was headed to the president. Evidence introduced in the trial, including a hand-written note by the vice president, implicated Bush, and former press secretary Scott McClellan has since testified that Bush authorized the exposure of an undercover agent, that being the crime that was under investigation.
On Friday, columnist David Brooks informed readers that Barack
Obama’s picks “are not ideological.” The incoming president’s
key economic advisers “are moderate and thoughtful Democrats,”
while Hillary Clinton’s foreign-policy views “are hardheaded and
pragmatic.”
On Saturday, the New York Times front page reported that the president-elect’s choices for secretaries of State and Treasury “suggest that Mr. Obama is planning to govern from the center-right of his party, surrounding himself with pragmatists rather than ideologues.”
On Monday, hours before Obama’s formal announcement of his economic team, USA Today explained that he is forming a Cabinet with “records that display more pragmatism than ideology.”
The ideology of no ideology is nifty. No matter how tilted in favor of powerful interests, it can be a deft way to keep touting policy agendas as common-sense pragmatism -- virtuous enough to draw opposition only from ideologues.
Meanwhile, the end of ideology among policymakers is about as imminent as the end of history.
On Saturday, the New York Times front page reported that the president-elect’s choices for secretaries of State and Treasury “suggest that Mr. Obama is planning to govern from the center-right of his party, surrounding himself with pragmatists rather than ideologues.”
On Monday, hours before Obama’s formal announcement of his economic team, USA Today explained that he is forming a Cabinet with “records that display more pragmatism than ideology.”
The ideology of no ideology is nifty. No matter how tilted in favor of powerful interests, it can be a deft way to keep touting policy agendas as common-sense pragmatism -- virtuous enough to draw opposition only from ideologues.
Meanwhile, the end of ideology among policymakers is about as imminent as the end of history.