< Archives: 2006 September

Bush Response to Critics: ATTACK!

September 29th, 2006 - by: danny

Bush Response to Critics: ATTACK!

HEADLINE IN THE INDEPENDENT, LONDON

“Britain becomes ‘never, never land’ as personal debt runs out of control”

Britain’s “buy now, pay later” consumer culture has led to unprecedented levels of personal debt. A precarious situation – especially if house prices crash. Hamish McRae: Till debt us do part? Rate rises will test our ability to live with credit”



BUSH STRATEGY FOR 2006: BASH DEMS ON TERRORISM
PRO-TORTURE BILL PASSES SENATE
WHAT THE WARS COST

The 2006 election campaign is underway. The Bush Administration is already recycling its 2002 and 2004 attack the Democrats strategy. The message point is simple and of course simplistic: “Democrats are SOFT on terrorists.” Heeere’s W:

“Bush Calls Democrats ‘Party of Cut-and-Run’

They know that the best defense is a good offense. Here’s the headline in the LA TIMES:

“Bush Lashes Out at the Democratic Party

The President defended the wars in Iraq and on terrorism while denouncing the Democrats.

Here is a comment on the war being defended by the big Man from his former Coalition mate and toady, friend Tony’s former Foreign Secretary, on BBC:

“Mistakes made in Iraq, says Straw

Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has described the current situation in Iraq as “dire”.

THE WORLD’S MOST SELF-IMPORTANT NETWORK

Here’s CNN reporting last night on the Situation Room:

l. Bob Woodward says Iraq War is worse than we think.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/28/60minutes/main2047607.shtml

RELATED – NY TIMES

A new book by Bob Woodward, the Washington Post reporter and author, describes a White House driven by dysfunction and division over the war.

2. Analyst William Schneider says that the Republicans are losing support from people who believe the war is a key issue because they are losing confidence in the White House.

3. CNN runs another bang bang battle story from embedded reporter Michael Ware who glorifies marines fighting bad guys, Marine says we will fight as long as it takes. Wolf Blitzer praises the journalists and the Marines in its aftermath in another outbreak of CNN style neutrality.

4. CNN quotes the man on top: “I will not withdraw even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me.” Barney is the Presidential Dog.

5. For balance, there is an interview with Al Franken who blasts not the war but corruption in Iraq. Blitzer says Franken may be running. Wolf: Franken is running. He moved back to Minneapolis and moved his Air America show there. He has made no secret of his Senatorial ambitions.

“May be running?” Please.

TRAINING THE IRAQI POLICE

This program been offered up repeatedly as an example of “progress,” a “good story” that goes untold. The Washington Post took a close look. Their conclusion:

“The hallmarks of this administration continue to be incompetence, corruption, fraud, dishonesty, denial, coverup….add stupidity of the media….and gullibility of a lot of American voters.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/

AR2006092702134.html

WHAT DOES THE IRAQ FIASCO COST?

The Boston Globe reports (via Undernews)

BRYAN BENDER, BOSTON GLOBE A new congressional analysis shows the Iraq war is now costing taxpayers almost $2 billion a week – nearly twice as much as in the first year of the conflict three years ago and 20 percent more than last year – as the Pentagon spends more on establishing regional bases to support the extended deployment and scrambles to fix or replace equipment damaged in combat. The upsurge occurs as the total cost of military operations at home and abroad since 2001, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, will top half a trillion dollars, according to an internal assessment by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service completed last week.

The spike in operating costs — including a 20 percent increase over last year in Afghanistan, where the mission now costs about $370 million a week — comes even though troop levels in both countries have remained stable. The reports attribute the rising costs in part to a higher pace of fighting in both countries, where insurgents and terrorists have increased their attacks on US and coalition troops and civilians.

Another major factor, however, is “the building of more extensive infrastructure to support troops and equipment in and around Iraq and Afghanistan,” according to the report. Based on Defense Department data, the report suggests that the construction of so-called semi-permanent support bases has picked up in recent months, making it increasingly clear that the US military will have a presence in both countries for years to come.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/09/28/cost_of_iraq_war_nearly_2b_a_week/

NATO IN DEEPER

WP–NATO Agrees to Lead Allies in All Afghanistan –

http://letters.washingtonpost.com/W8RT03A59B69D1484F27F3388AC3D0

SENATE PASSES BUSH TERROR BILL: How did we sink so low in just 6 years?

Mike Whitney proposes an answer:

In a 253 to 168 “party-line” vote, the congress repealed habeas corpus and approved the torturing of prisoners in American custody. It is breathtaking assault on human rights and personal liberty and puts the United States well-outside the community of civilized nations.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15143.htm

COMMENT BY RABBI ARTHUR WASKOW:

“The vote to strip out the anti-Habeas provision lost 48-51. It would have taken only 41 Senators to filibuster the bill to death – and what bill in the entire history of the Senate more deserved a filibuster?

Years from now, after more people have been tortured, the Supreme Court may follow the clear statement of the Constitution that Habeas Corpus may be suspended only during invasion or insurrection – but judging from previous votes of the present Justices, they may uphold this law by a 5-4 vote.

This law is second in despicability only to the protection explicitly given slavery in the original Constitution of the United States. I am ashamed that to my grandchildren I am bequeathing an America so defiled.

This coming Monday, Jews who are observing Yom Kippur in traditional form will read the stories of ten great rabbis who were tortured to death by the Roman Empire. It is a cautionary tale about all Empires.

IRAN: THE NEXT CRISIS – PAUL ROGERS

A beleaguered Bush administration could engineer pre-election tensions with Tehran

http://venus.opendemocracy.net/t/3459/38637/2296/0/

TURMOIL IN SOUTH AFRICA

Martin Plaut writes: “South Africa has entered the most difficult political period since the end of apartheid in 1994. At the heart of the crisis is the question of the future direction of the country.

President Thabo Mbeki will be stepping down in 2009, but the battle for succession has already begun. The political coalition that has supported him is on the verge of fracture. South Africa’s political turmoil is a concern not only for South Africans. The country plays a pivotal role on the continent, and Mbeki has carved out a position as a regional peacemaker and global player. Pretoria also figures prominently in U.S. plans for Africa. How South Africa handles this watershed crisis, in other words, will have serious regional and global implications.

http://fpif.org/fpiftxt/3552

NEW UN SECRETARY GENERAL?

The Mail and Guardian reports:

“Doubts surround frontrunner for top UN post Ban Ki-Moon, the frontrunner in the race to become the next United Nations secretary general, defended himself on Thursday against accusations that he was too weak to hold the post. The South Korean foreign minister was top in the first two straw polls but there was unease among diplomats that he might not be forceful enough to restore the organisation’s battered reputation.

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Tracking the World of Media

September 29th, 2006 - by: danny

Tracking the World of Media

From PBS’s new media blog, MEDIASHIFT

” The Case for Citizen Ownership of the Los Angeles Times

Host Mark Glaser makes the argument that the Los Angeles public could take charge of their greatest journalistic asset and make the business thrive in a new media world where readers are taking control in so many ways.

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2006/09/

newspapershiftthe_case_for_cit.html

SINGAPORE BANS ECO MAGAZINE

“Singapore has banned the Far Eastern Economic Review magazine after it failed to comply with media regulations, the government said. Singapore revoked approval for the Hong Kong-based magazine to be circulated in the city-state because the publication failed to appoint a legal representative and pay a SGD 126,000 (EUR 62,400) security bond.

Both requirements are among tighter restrictions that Singapore imposed in August on five foreign publications: the Review, Newsweek, Time, the Financial Times and the International Herald Tribune. The government had said in August that the five publications would be reclassified as ‘offshore newspapers,’ and must comply with legal provisions governing such media.

Under Singaporean law, an offshore newspaper must obtain a permit to circulate domestically and must appoint a person within the country to accept any notice or legal process on behalf of its publisher. It must also submit a SGD 200,000 (EUR 99,000) bond with the government.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/print?id=2505945 – AP, ABC News

ATTACKING THE 911 TRUTH MOVEMENT’

Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com

Why the “9/11 Truth” movement makes the Left Behind series read like Shakespeare.

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/42181/

PAUL KRASSNER ON THOMAS RICKS ON JERRY RUBIN

” As a co-founder of the Yippies (Youth International Party) with Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin in 1967, I observed how they were able to manipulate the media to further their antiwar mission. If you gave good quote, you got free publicity. Furthermore, in a tactic borrowed from the CIA, if you presented newsworthy street theater, the media manipulated itself.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your agenda, that kind of behavior has a way of backfiring. And so I was both amused and annoyed by an item in the “Inside the List” column by Dwight Garner in the August 13 edition of The New York Sunday Times Book Review. He wrote:

“Thomas Ricks, the senior Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, has a book on the hardcover nonfiction list this week–his ‘Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq’ (Penguin Press) makes its debut at No. 1. Ricks’s book got a boost from strong reviews and from appearances on both ‘The Charlie Rose Show’ and NPR’s ‘Fresh Air,’ where Terry Gross interviewed him on two successive days.

Ricks is a fleet, vivid writer, but he’s also got a gift for radio. On Fresh Air, he filled the air with analogies that were funny, sad and apt, sometimes all at once. George Bush and his team were like ’60s radicals. (‘They really were going to, kind of, “groove on the rubble,” as Jerry Rubin used to say. They were going to tear it down and see what happened.’)”

Of course, glibness is not necessarily a virtue. “Has it come to this?” asks anthropologist and Yippie archivist Samuel Leff. “With the Iraq war now an obvious catastrophe, Ricks is comparing the Bush gang’s mindless destructiveness to ’60s radicals like Rubin? The destruction of democracy, then and now, emanated from a radical Oval Office. Richard Nixon put thugs to work breaking the noses of protest leaders, from Abbie Hoffman (successful) to Daniel Ellsberg (unsuccessful).”

Ricks is a great reporter and his book FIASCO should be widely read. But as Krassner points out he knows nothing about the 60′s Movements. And take that from another co-founder of YIPPIE – as Paul Krassner will acknowledge – none other than your news dissector.

I WANT MEDIA: Rupert Murdoch’s Next Move – Blogging?

News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch is profiting from the power of people generating content through his ownership of MySpace, writes Robert Young. “I’m going to bet that Murdoch’s next move is to acquire a blogging platform.” Also: Will MySpace soon
be worth $15 billion?

http://featured.gigaom.com/2006/09/27/rupert-murdoch-blogging/

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Forum: Books and Films of Value

September 29th, 2006 - by: danny

Forum: Books and Films of Value

DXM writes:

“As I have discussed with you, and periodically on The Geeze, I never trusted that Danny Pearl’s death was at the hands of the obvious bad guys, and have blamed it on the same crowd as who killed Pat Tillman, Margaret Hassan and Nick Berg.

BOOK OF INTEREST:

?Big-Box Swindle illustrates how mega-retailers are fueling many of our most pressing problems, from the shrinking middle class to rising pollution and diminished civic engagement. The book is far more than a critique, however. The second half offers an inspiring account of how a growing number of communities and independent businesses are effectively countering the chains and rebuilding their local economies.

http://www.bigboxswindle.com

TRAILER TO SEE: AMERICAN BLACKOUT

http://www.gregpalast.com/mailing/link.php?URL=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5hbWVyaWNhbmJsYWNrb3V0LmNvbS8=&Name=&EncryptedMemberID=ODgzMw==&CampaignID

=35&CampaignStatisticsID=12&Demo=0&Email=foerstel@aol.com)

Last night on the way home, I passed by a local synagogue. An old man on the street shouted out at me:”Are You Jewish.” I nodded as he grabbed me and pulled me inside. “We need a tenth for our minyan,” he told me. Translation: They could not pray unless there were ten men in the room.

I am not religious, but was felt compelled to help out and found myself in a small stuffy room with 9 older men who would soon be reading verses in Hebrew from a prayer book. I realized how little I know about the orthodox rituals. I do not understand Hebrew and watched the men dovening (bowing) as they read praises to G-D that I couldn’t really appreciate. I was surprised that there was only one younger man present just few days before the final High Holy Day next Monday, Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.

In a weird way, it reminded me of a mosque I visited in Morocco where another religion in another language I can’t speak follows its own rituals. Clearly for me, being Jewish is more of a cultural orientation than a religious one, and I doubted that the men who welcomed me into their midst would approve of my outlook. To them I was a needed body, that’s all. But I was moved by the lonely discipline of the worshippers.

Other Jews in Israel certainly would not approve of the work of one of their greatest poets whose work is influenced heavily by this tradition.

I read this on the RAIN newsletter email.

Aharon Shabtai who is considered one of the greatest poets in Hebrew, could not publish his latest poem against the war on Lebanon in any “Israeli” paper. He wrote this poem during the first week of the war. It is in the form of a prayer and supplication raised so that the occupation army may lose the war.

“In time of war
I side with the villages
with the mosques
in this war
I side with the Shiite family
with Sour (Tyre)
with the mother
with the grandfather
with the eight kids in the mini van
with the white silken headscarf”.

In the name of the beautiful books I read
in the name of the kisses I kissed
May the army be defeated

http://www.jerusalemiloveyou.net/

NOTHING TO WATCH: HERE’S TRAFFIC IN INDIA

http://e.ccialerts.com/a/tBFHFeyAHi236AkTOYUAFlgH3r3/tvwk3

I am off to Newburyport MA for their great small town film festival. IN DEBT WE TRUST has been chosen to open the annual grass roots event tonight at 7 and I am pleased to have been invited to say a word or two. It is amazing how film festivals have proliferated throughout America.

Next week, I will be showing the film at the Rochester Institute of Technology and Notre Dame in Indiana.

Have a great weekend. Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org

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