Op-Ed
A Roseland, Indiana, city council member orders police to remove a fellow city council member. The police escort him out, shove him down on his face and pound his head. Onlookers either cheer, do nothing, joke, behave as if all were normal, or yell at others to let the police do their jobs. Not a single person protests. Only the one victim is hauled off in the police car. No one jumps in and shouts "Before this becomes Nazi Germany, arrest me too!"
A University of Florida student asks inconvenient questions of a U.S. senator. Police tackle him and shoot him with a taser. Onlookers, including the senator, either cheer, do nothing, joke, behave as if all were normal, or yell at others to let the police do their jobs. Not a single person seriously protests. Only the one victim is hauled off to jail. Fascist-friendly media outlets love the story because the senator is a Democrat, but they don't tell the story right. Progressive media outlets don't tell the story, even though they would tell it right, because the senator is a Democrat.
A University of Florida student asks inconvenient questions of a U.S. senator. Police tackle him and shoot him with a taser. Onlookers, including the senator, either cheer, do nothing, joke, behave as if all were normal, or yell at others to let the police do their jobs. Not a single person seriously protests. Only the one victim is hauled off to jail. Fascist-friendly media outlets love the story because the senator is a Democrat, but they don't tell the story right. Progressive media outlets don't tell the story, even though they would tell it right, because the senator is a Democrat.
The abyss between “crime against humanity” and “we’ll have to look into this” may be all but unfathomable — deep as a mass grave — but sometimes we have to trust the process.
I fear that democratic progress is a mouse’s progress: justice — sanity — in tiny nibbles. This past Sept. 11, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed a law that seems to promise this sort of progress — to evaluate the scope of an acute, ongoing, manmade calamity — and I find myself trying to curb my sense of impatience that it doesn’t do more.
The law authorizes the state to educate returning vets and National Guardsmen on their rights, as well as available testing and treatment, if they think they’ve been exposed to hazardous substances overseas, in particular, depleted uranium. It also sets up a task force through the Illinois Veterans Association to study the health effects of such exposure.
I fear that democratic progress is a mouse’s progress: justice — sanity — in tiny nibbles. This past Sept. 11, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed a law that seems to promise this sort of progress — to evaluate the scope of an acute, ongoing, manmade calamity — and I find myself trying to curb my sense of impatience that it doesn’t do more.
The law authorizes the state to educate returning vets and National Guardsmen on their rights, as well as available testing and treatment, if they think they’ve been exposed to hazardous substances overseas, in particular, depleted uranium. It also sets up a task force through the Illinois Veterans Association to study the health effects of such exposure.
As police officers were torturing a University of Florida student with a taser in the back of a lecture hall as punishment for asking inconvenient questions of Senator John Kerry, the Senator chose not to order them to stop. Rather he calmly mumbled his non-answers to the questions and even joked about the young man's inability to come up on stage. Later, Kerry posted a statement on his website in which he chose not to answer the student's questions in a serious way, but rather expressed with full muddledness that he was for arresting the student before he was against it and even expressed concern that the police might have somehow been hurt.
Kerry's exquisite sense of timing was also on display in late 2004 when he speedily conceded an election that had been widely expected to witness Republican election fraud, many reports of which had already come in. I've been wanting to ask Kerry the same thing this student asked (why the hell he conceded so fast) ever since that day. On November 8, 2004, I published on Counter Punch a lengthy lament over Kerry's betrayal of all those prepared to fight for an honest recount, which included these points:
Kerry's exquisite sense of timing was also on display in late 2004 when he speedily conceded an election that had been widely expected to witness Republican election fraud, many reports of which had already come in. I've been wanting to ask Kerry the same thing this student asked (why the hell he conceded so fast) ever since that day. On November 8, 2004, I published on Counter Punch a lengthy lament over Kerry's betrayal of all those prepared to fight for an honest recount, which included these points:
Osama bin Laden has once again managed to occupy the stage and to insist on his relevance to the story of September 11, 2001. In his most recent video message, released by Reuters a few days before the sixth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, bin Laden voiced some typically absurd statements, calling on Americans to embrace Islam and so forth.
What is really worth noting in bin Laden's message, however, is not the message itself, but the underlying factors that can be deduced from it. First, bin Laden wished to convey that he is alive and well and thus the US military efforts have failed miserably.
Second, his reappearance - a first since October 2004 - will be analyzed endlessly by hundreds of "experts" who will inundate widespread audiences with every possible interpretation - the fact that he looked healthy, that he dyed his beard, that he dressed in Arab attire as opposed to a military fatigue and a Kalashnikov by his side, that he read from a paper and so on.
What is really worth noting in bin Laden's message, however, is not the message itself, but the underlying factors that can be deduced from it. First, bin Laden wished to convey that he is alive and well and thus the US military efforts have failed miserably.
Second, his reappearance - a first since October 2004 - will be analyzed endlessly by hundreds of "experts" who will inundate widespread audiences with every possible interpretation - the fact that he looked healthy, that he dyed his beard, that he dressed in Arab attire as opposed to a military fatigue and a Kalashnikov by his side, that he read from a paper and so on.
When Martin Luther King Jr. publicly referred to “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government,” he had no way of knowing that his description would ring so true 40 years later. As the autumn of 2007 begins, the reality of Uncle Sam as an unhinged mega-killer haunts a large minority of Americans. Many who can remember the horrific era of the Vietnam War are nearly incredulous that we could now be living in a time of similarly deranged official policy.
Despite all the differences, the deep parallels between the two war efforts inform us that the basic madness of entrenched power in our midst is not about miscalculations or bad management or quagmires. The continuity tells us much more than we would probably like to know about the obstacles to decency that confront us every day.
The incredulity and numbing, the frequent bobbing-and-weaving of our own consciousness, the hollow comforts of passivity, insulate us from hard truths and harsher realities than we might ever have expected to need to confront -- about our country and about ourselves.
Despite all the differences, the deep parallels between the two war efforts inform us that the basic madness of entrenched power in our midst is not about miscalculations or bad management or quagmires. The continuity tells us much more than we would probably like to know about the obstacles to decency that confront us every day.
The incredulity and numbing, the frequent bobbing-and-weaving of our own consciousness, the hollow comforts of passivity, insulate us from hard truths and harsher realities than we might ever have expected to need to confront -- about our country and about ourselves.
Six years it has been. Six years so very long ago, and six years still very short.
A child born that terrible blue sky morning prepares this September to head off to school. A freshman made suddenly aware the meaning of real terror after living only in terror of her first days at high school is now an upperclassman at college. A sixteen acre hole in the heart of a nation slowly fills with concrete and rebar, a sky-scraping phoenix soon to rise from the ashes.
Six years in which so very much is different, and six years in which too much is the same.
We all remember where we were and what we felt on the morning of September 11th, 2001, when calamity glided down upon us out of a clear blue sky. We remember the feelings of fear and trembling, of sadness and loss. Most of all we remember the images, the so many awful images indelibly seared on our souls.
A child born that terrible blue sky morning prepares this September to head off to school. A freshman made suddenly aware the meaning of real terror after living only in terror of her first days at high school is now an upperclassman at college. A sixteen acre hole in the heart of a nation slowly fills with concrete and rebar, a sky-scraping phoenix soon to rise from the ashes.
Six years in which so very much is different, and six years in which too much is the same.
We all remember where we were and what we felt on the morning of September 11th, 2001, when calamity glided down upon us out of a clear blue sky. We remember the feelings of fear and trembling, of sadness and loss. Most of all we remember the images, the so many awful images indelibly seared on our souls.
It evokes a tragedy that marks an epoch. From the outset, the warfare state has exploited "9/11," a label at once too facile and too laden with historic weight -- giving further power to the tacit political axiom that perception is reality.
Often it seems that media coverage is all about perception, especially when the underlying agendas are wired into huge profits and geopolitical leverage. If you associate a Big Mac or a Whopper with a happy meal or some other kind of great time, you’re more likely to buy it. If you connect 9/11 with a need for taking military action and curtailing civil liberties, you’re more likely to buy what the purveyors of war and authoritarian government have been selling for the past half-dozen years.
Often it seems that media coverage is all about perception, especially when the underlying agendas are wired into huge profits and geopolitical leverage. If you associate a Big Mac or a Whopper with a happy meal or some other kind of great time, you’re more likely to buy it. If you connect 9/11 with a need for taking military action and curtailing civil liberties, you’re more likely to buy what the purveyors of war and authoritarian government have been selling for the past half-dozen years.
It's hard to keep up with the crazed weather. As I write, a heat wave has killed over 50 people in the Midwest and South, with temperatures reaching 112 degrees in Evening Shade, Arkansas. Torrential storms have flooded Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, and South Dakota. California has its second largest wildfire ever. Texas and Kansas are battening down for new storms, while still recovering from last month's floods, along with Oklahoma, which is now getting flooded again. A few weeks before, a massive rainstorm closed down the New York City subways. That doesn't count over 2,000 dead and millions displaced in India and Bangladesh floods, runaway forest fires in Greece, the hottest-ever temperature in Japan, or unprecedented melting of Arctic icecaps. Tomorrow the weather will ricochet off the charts someplace else.
Are you here to communicate your own view, that of the White House, or both?
Please name all the people with whom you have had communications in preparing for this testimony.
What does the White House expect from your testimony?
Are you submitting a written report to this Congress? Did you ever plan to do so? What changed your mind?
Are you submitting a written report to the White House? Why not?
Are you aware that the President is required by law to submit a written report on progress in Iraq to this Congress by September 15th? Have you been or do you expect to be involved in the preparation of that report?
Are you aware that it is a felony to intentionally mislead or defraud the Congress, for example in the manner the White House did in making its case for this war in 2003?
Do you feel completely free to speak openly and honestly with us here today?
What do you believe is the ultimate goal of the current occupation of Iraq?
Do you believe that goal can ever be achieved?
How long would you estimate it would take?
Please name all the people with whom you have had communications in preparing for this testimony.
What does the White House expect from your testimony?
Are you submitting a written report to this Congress? Did you ever plan to do so? What changed your mind?
Are you submitting a written report to the White House? Why not?
Are you aware that the President is required by law to submit a written report on progress in Iraq to this Congress by September 15th? Have you been or do you expect to be involved in the preparation of that report?
Are you aware that it is a felony to intentionally mislead or defraud the Congress, for example in the manner the White House did in making its case for this war in 2003?
Do you feel completely free to speak openly and honestly with us here today?
What do you believe is the ultimate goal of the current occupation of Iraq?
Do you believe that goal can ever be achieved?
How long would you estimate it would take?
I spent a day meeting with Congress Members and their staffers, urging them to end the occupation of Iraq, and having them tell me they would never "defund our troops." In the evening I watched Paul Haggis's new film "In the Valley of Elah." I walked out stunned, shaken, far more angry than I'd been, and convinced that we shouldn't be asking Congress Members to end the occupation, we should be asking them to watch this movie. If any Congress Member were to watch this movie and allow another dime to "fund our troops" we would at least be clear in our duty to have that individual locked up for the safety of those around them.