Op-Ed
I knew there was a war on against cancer and, oh yeah, drugs, illiteracy, poverty, crime and, of course, terror, and that many arenas — sports, religion, business and politics, to name a few — are often portrayed as war without the body bags. But I was still surprised to read recently in the New York Times that we’ve opened up a fat front:
“It is a scene being repeated across the country as schools deploy the blood-pumping video game Dance Dance Revolution as the latest weapon,” the Gray Lady informed us, “in the nation’s battle against the epidemic of childhood obesity.”
Enough already! If I were an overweight kid, would I want Braveheart in my face? My impatience here reaches into the language center of the American brain, or at least the media brain. When chubby 9-year-olds are inspiring the language of Guadalcanal and 9/11, maybe as a nation it’s time to rethink our rhetorical default settings. Maybe it’s time to stop regarding every challenge, danger, obstacle, mystery and fear we encounter as a military operation, to be won or lost. We should at least be aware we have a choice in the matter.
“It is a scene being repeated across the country as schools deploy the blood-pumping video game Dance Dance Revolution as the latest weapon,” the Gray Lady informed us, “in the nation’s battle against the epidemic of childhood obesity.”
Enough already! If I were an overweight kid, would I want Braveheart in my face? My impatience here reaches into the language center of the American brain, or at least the media brain. When chubby 9-year-olds are inspiring the language of Guadalcanal and 9/11, maybe as a nation it’s time to rethink our rhetorical default settings. Maybe it’s time to stop regarding every challenge, danger, obstacle, mystery and fear we encounter as a military operation, to be won or lost. We should at least be aware we have a choice in the matter.
The corporate media in the United States will not allow a real peace candidate any time or substantive or respectful coverage. It will slander and mock and, above all, ignore. Then it will find people outside the media to quote as saying that they don't believe the candidate is "viable." The ideal spokespeople to make this announcement will be those perceived to agree with the peace candidate - that is, leaders of the peace movement. Then the story will be made to look like the media is reporting on who the public calls "viable," rather than determining who is viable and imposing that on the public. This is basic, fundamental electoral manufacturing of consent. And yet, every election, the peace movement plays along.
In this article from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, a CODE PINK activist is quoted as follows:
"'Dennis is saying all the right things, but I just worry that he isn't getting the exposure that he needs and that he is not being taken seriously,' said [Rosalie] Yelen. She hasn't settled on a candidate to support but says she likes former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards' stance on poverty."
In this article from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, a CODE PINK activist is quoted as follows:
"'Dennis is saying all the right things, but I just worry that he isn't getting the exposure that he needs and that he is not being taken seriously,' said [Rosalie] Yelen. She hasn't settled on a candidate to support but says she likes former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards' stance on poverty."
28 April 2007
Mr. George Tenet
c/o Harper Collins Publishers
10 East 53rd Street 8th Floor
New York City, New York 10022
ATTN: Ms. Tina Andredis
Dear Mr. Tenet:
We write to you on the occasion of the release of your book, At the Center of the Storm. You are on the record complaining about the “damage to your reputation”. In our view the damage to your reputation is inconsequential compared to the harm your actions have caused for the U.S. soldiers engaged in combat in Iraq and the national security of the United States. We believe you have a moral obligation to return the Medal of Freedom you received from President George Bush. We also call for you to dedicate a significant percentage of the royalties from your book to the U.S. soldiers and their families who have been killed and wounded in Iraq.
Mr. George Tenet
c/o Harper Collins Publishers
10 East 53rd Street 8th Floor
New York City, New York 10022
ATTN: Ms. Tina Andredis
Dear Mr. Tenet:
We write to you on the occasion of the release of your book, At the Center of the Storm. You are on the record complaining about the “damage to your reputation”. In our view the damage to your reputation is inconsequential compared to the harm your actions have caused for the U.S. soldiers engaged in combat in Iraq and the national security of the United States. We believe you have a moral obligation to return the Medal of Freedom you received from President George Bush. We also call for you to dedicate a significant percentage of the royalties from your book to the U.S. soldiers and their families who have been killed and wounded in Iraq.
The John Edwards haircut won’t go away. The Republicans resurrected it most recently in their second debate, when former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckaby said, in a quote that the national wire service story called “the most memorable sound bite of the night,” “we’ve had a Congress that’s spent money like John Edwards at a beauty shop.” Republicans have been focusing on symbolic character attacks since Nixon branded George McGovern, who’d flown 35 B-24 bomber missions in World War II, “the candidate of acid, amnesty and abortion.” They’ve been branding their opponents as limousine liberals of questionable masculinity since Nixon’s Vice President, Spiro Agnew, called anti-war critics “an effete corps of impudent snobs.” If the attacks aren’t adequately answered, too often they work.
And we've been right. The first of the five "benchmarks" in the war funding bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on May 10 requires Iraq to pass an oil law.
The law has long been drafted, and it opens up two-thirds of Iraq's oil to ownership by foreign corporations (widely expected to be dominated by U.S. corporations). Congress Members who voted against the bill, including Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Rep. Lynn Woolsey are speaking out against this as theft of Iraq's oil:
If that sounds familiar, it's because the peace movement has been saying it for five years. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win.
Oil workers in Iraq are threatening to strike over this proposed law. And the Iraqi government is listening.
We have a chance to listen too, because from June 4 to June 29, Iraqi labor leaders will be touring the United States to talk about this issue.
The labor movement in the United States is supporting our brothers and sisters in Iraq. Here's an explanation of how the draft oil law privatizes the oil: PDF. This summary was prepared by U.S. Labor Against the War.
The law has long been drafted, and it opens up two-thirds of Iraq's oil to ownership by foreign corporations (widely expected to be dominated by U.S. corporations). Congress Members who voted against the bill, including Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Rep. Lynn Woolsey are speaking out against this as theft of Iraq's oil:
If that sounds familiar, it's because the peace movement has been saying it for five years. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win.
Oil workers in Iraq are threatening to strike over this proposed law. And the Iraqi government is listening.
We have a chance to listen too, because from June 4 to June 29, Iraqi labor leaders will be touring the United States to talk about this issue.
The labor movement in the United States is supporting our brothers and sisters in Iraq. Here's an explanation of how the draft oil law privatizes the oil: PDF. This summary was prepared by U.S. Labor Against the War.
The Democrats think they can smell victory in 2008. A failed war, a polarized economy and a bumbling, unelected White House autocrat---what could bode better for a change of power?
But there's a deeper question, importantly asked by radio talk host Laura Flanders in her book BLUE GRIT ( http://www.lauraflanders.com/ ). Are the Democrats---and the left---savvy, concerned and hip enough to recapture young and working Americans? Can they generate the excitement and commitment to win back national power in a way that can also bring meaningful change?
Or will they remain stuck in what Flanders calls "the penthouse party way of doing things?"
From her popular perch at Air America, Flanders has been demanding that the Democratic Party return to its roots. Her BLUE GRIT cuts to the class core of a party that's been smug, bloated and out of touch. "Democrats and national advocacy groups share a habit of thinking that centralizing money and then shipping out last-minute organizers works. It doesn't."
But there's a deeper question, importantly asked by radio talk host Laura Flanders in her book BLUE GRIT ( http://www.lauraflanders.com/ ). Are the Democrats---and the left---savvy, concerned and hip enough to recapture young and working Americans? Can they generate the excitement and commitment to win back national power in a way that can also bring meaningful change?
Or will they remain stuck in what Flanders calls "the penthouse party way of doing things?"
From her popular perch at Air America, Flanders has been demanding that the Democratic Party return to its roots. Her BLUE GRIT cuts to the class core of a party that's been smug, bloated and out of touch. "Democrats and national advocacy groups share a habit of thinking that centralizing money and then shipping out last-minute organizers works. It doesn't."
Congresswoman and House Judiciary Committee Member Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) has spoken up in support of impeaching President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Waters said she advocates impeaching Cheney first, which is the same approach taken by Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D., Ohio) in his bill, H. Res. 333. Waters has not yet cosponsored that bill.
Audio of Rep. Waters' statement:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/downloads/watersimpeach.mp3
Rush Transcript:
"I was a member of Congress and I experienced the attempt by the opposite side of the aisle to impeach President Clinton. President Clinton's impeachment was attempted because of the affair supposedly with Monica Lewinsky. And if in fact they could bring together articles of impeachment against the President of the United States because of infidelity, certainly we must understand that that pales in comparison to what this President has done.
Audio of Rep. Waters' statement:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/downloads/watersimpeach.mp3
Rush Transcript:
"I was a member of Congress and I experienced the attempt by the opposite side of the aisle to impeach President Clinton. President Clinton's impeachment was attempted because of the affair supposedly with Monica Lewinsky. And if in fact they could bring together articles of impeachment against the President of the United States because of infidelity, certainly we must understand that that pales in comparison to what this President has done.
The war maker’s conceit and cruelest lie is that he’s protecting the women and children. Now moms around the world have had enough of it and are stepping forward to save their children, and while they’re at it the human race itself, from this lie — even if it means being led away in handcuffs.
If George Bush’s devastating war ends sooner rather than later, it will be because those with the most serious stake in its cessation — the mothers with children caught in its maw, the dazed sane citizens around the world — get angry or desperate enough to disrupt the functioning of the military-industrial-media complex. Without such an effort, the war will grind along like a perpetual-motion machine.
If George Bush’s devastating war ends sooner rather than later, it will be because those with the most serious stake in its cessation — the mothers with children caught in its maw, the dazed sane citizens around the world — get angry or desperate enough to disrupt the functioning of the military-industrial-media complex. Without such an effort, the war will grind along like a perpetual-motion machine.
A New York Times editorial on May 7th is titled "The Soft Bigotry of Iraq," and begins:
"Whether out of blind loyalty or blind denial, most Congressional Republicans are prepared to back up President Bush's veto of the Iraq spending bill."
Whether out of blind loyalty or blind denial or corrupt corporate interests, the New York Times pretends to be writing only about Republicans, while building into its editorial the assumption that the Democrats, too, must retreat in the face of a veto. The Democrats, as we all need to be constantly reminded, are in the majority, yet the Times' editorial arrives at this as its penultimate sentence:
"The final version of the spending bill should include explicit benchmarks and timetables for the Iraqis, even if Mr. Bush won't let Congress back them up with a clear timetable for America's withdrawal."
"Mr. Bush" won't LET Congress pass a bill demanded by the vast majority of Americans? Why, because he might veto it again? If he vetoes enough of these war spending bills, Americans will get what they wanted anyway: he'll have to end the war.
"Whether out of blind loyalty or blind denial, most Congressional Republicans are prepared to back up President Bush's veto of the Iraq spending bill."
Whether out of blind loyalty or blind denial or corrupt corporate interests, the New York Times pretends to be writing only about Republicans, while building into its editorial the assumption that the Democrats, too, must retreat in the face of a veto. The Democrats, as we all need to be constantly reminded, are in the majority, yet the Times' editorial arrives at this as its penultimate sentence:
"The final version of the spending bill should include explicit benchmarks and timetables for the Iraqis, even if Mr. Bush won't let Congress back them up with a clear timetable for America's withdrawal."
"Mr. Bush" won't LET Congress pass a bill demanded by the vast majority of Americans? Why, because he might veto it again? If he vetoes enough of these war spending bills, Americans will get what they wanted anyway: he'll have to end the war.
Predictably, some critics have decried the current efforts by Rupert
Murdoch’s News Corp. to buy the Dow Jones company, which publishes The
Wall Street Journal. But let’s imagine the dynamics that might emerge if
Murdoch gains control of that newspaper.
Like viewers of his Fox News Channel, readers of The Wall Street Journal under Murdoch could look forward to jaw-dropping claims along the lines of “We invest, you decide.”
The Wall Street Journal would need to make some changes in order to be in sync with Murdoch-brand journalism. The Journal’s recent design make-over could provide a tidy framework for spreading the content of the editorial page to the rest of the newsprint pages.
But executives at News Corp. would swiftly face a dilemma. Investors and money managers -- prime demographic targets of The Wall Street Journal -- are apt to be intolerant of financial news reporting that’s unduly screened through an ideological mesh.
Like viewers of his Fox News Channel, readers of The Wall Street Journal under Murdoch could look forward to jaw-dropping claims along the lines of “We invest, you decide.”
The Wall Street Journal would need to make some changes in order to be in sync with Murdoch-brand journalism. The Journal’s recent design make-over could provide a tidy framework for spreading the content of the editorial page to the rest of the newsprint pages.
But executives at News Corp. would swiftly face a dilemma. Investors and money managers -- prime demographic targets of The Wall Street Journal -- are apt to be intolerant of financial news reporting that’s unduly screened through an ideological mesh.