The Fantasy Years
Jan 28 at 5:05pm by Jagwire X
Everyone should read The Fantasy Years. It’s a novel by Charles Baker about how America was lead astray by an assault on reality by right-wing (read neo-con) pundits. I’ve know about it for a while now but I haven’t gotten that far into as yet.
From the site:
The Fantasy Years is a novel about the magical effect a particular strain of popular politics has had on Americans throughout the 1990s. The blook is just as much about the forces that helped seed and shape extremist political views among the public as the end result of such views. Rush Limbaugh and right wing think tanks form the chorus, a handful of Americans muddling through the 1990s make up the cast.
Once again I recommend it to everyone interested in how we got from the Greatest Generation to where we are today.
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August 22nd 2006 - The Beginning of the End?
Aug 15 at 11:11am by Jagwire X
Bernard Lewis (aka. Bush’s Historian) the man who coined the term “clash of civilizations” is predicting that Iran will initiate a third world war or some sort of end of times conflict. You can read his absurdly bigoted, hypocritical and fanatical article on the Wall Street Journal op-ed site, August 22: Does Iran have something in store?.
As an extremely cogent counter balance I present this article by Brian Whitaker of The Guardian, World to End August 22nd.
Unsurprisingly, Bernard Lewis, brings religion into it. He demonizes the Muslim world making the bigoted claim that the Iranian President would happily allow his country and people to be destroyed because for him it’s a win-win situation. This is complete bullshit. It’s not in Iran’s best interest to allow a war of the magnitude suggested to start. It might be in the best interest of a certain few people here in the U.S. but I don’t think it’s in Iran’s. It certainly isn’t in the interest of the common man anywhere in the world.
None of the governments involved in Middle Eastern politics have my sympathy - this includes the United States. I don’t know about you but I’m tired of these power hungry lunatics trying to manipulate us through scare tactics, fundamentalism, and black/white world views. Screw it - don’t believe it, don’t buy it, don’t play it, don’t choose it!
It’s always the common man who suffers - the common man is who has my sympathy - not our taskmasters. And those who align themselves with the antiquated ideals of these nation states have my pity that they cannot see beyond the carrot being strung out in front of them. It’s up the common man to make sure we don’t get screwed over. No right, no left, no middle, just human.
Frankly we should all (and I mean everyone in the world) get over it (our differences, our greed, our violence, etc.) There are more than enough resources in the world for everyone to live quite happily - see Critical Path by Buckminster Fuller for a realistic scenario of how it can be accomplished. There’s no profit in it though.
Enlightened interdependence* is what we should strive for - anything else is just fucking stupid (in which case we, as a species, probably deserve to wipe ourselves out.) It is also, in fact, much easier to achieve enlightened interdependence, than to maintain an endless struggle. Hell whether we want to or not we are all already interdependent.
“The western hemisphere
And all inside
We learn
Who is murdering the innocent
They are children playing with guns
They are children playing with countries
Mining harbors, creating contras
The games they play
The lives they take
They bank their money in the country
They steal from the innocent
A colonial trait
That’s much too old
The banks, the lives
The profits, the lies
The banks, the profits
The lives, the lies
I would call it genocide
Any other word would be a lie”– Minutemen, From Double Nickels on the Dime
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Apocalypse Now!
Aug 3 at 10:10am by Jagwire X
There are some seriously crazy people in the world. Unfortunately a great many people of influence are counted among them. What we have here are power mad lunatics who want to push the world to the brink of war to facilitate the second coming of Christ. Sounds very Christian doesn’t it - actively condoning the murder of innocents. These people disgust me with their hypocrisy of claiming to be Christian while going so far against the basic teachings of Christ. I may not be a Christian but I know enough to know that this is just plain wrong (moral, ethically and every way possible.)
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What freedom is worth to Republicans
Dec 8 at 6:06am by Anonymous
So the Republicans are pushing the message of their “positive” campaign? The Democrats, they claim, are the party of protest and pessimism, filled with people who “hate” Bush for the sake of hatred. I guess the RNC has no choice but to go with an oversimplified message to an electorate of who already sees the world in such uncomplicated terms. They would have to be simpletons in order to support the RNC after it declared war on the common sense of the world by attacking Iraq. The Republicans certainly declared war on international peace-seeking institutions and the goodwill of our allies. But this is of little consequence to them. Liberals, like foreigners, didn’t vote for Bush in 2000 and aren’t likely to in 2004, so to hell with them, they figure. But Bush and his devious advisers have made the conscious decision to be president for the (less than) half of the country that voted for him.
The rank-and-file moral simpletons who support Bush blindly need to take a good look at the Republican Party to see how positive it really is. Go the the RNC website and look at how much space is devoted to questioning Democratic candidates not on the basis of policy or philosophy but in issues of relevance to Democrats. For example, questions are asked about whether Dick Gephardt, John Edwards, and Joe Lieberman are “true friends of labor.” What should that matter to Republicans? Republicans are confirmed enemies of labor. Just look at how they insisted the Department of Homeland Security offer only non-union jobs. What business do the Republicans have parsing out the subtleties of one Democrat’s labor stance versus another?
More sneering and innuendo filed headlines on the GOP site: “Kerry Whopper Watch” (you can hear echoes to what they did to Al Gore in 2000),”Howard Dean, unpasteurized”, “Edward’ Trial Lawyer Gold Rush” (trial lawyers are all evil–as opposed to corporate lawyers, I suppose). The purpose of these meddling articles is to make sure the moral simpletons have the tools to undermine the credibility of legitimate Democratic candidates, and of course, feel good while doing it. That way, when they get in discussions with a Democrat or call in to a radio show, it’s a fill-in-the-blank political argument. The talking points don’t elucidate policy or political differences. The talking points brand candidates and slander them. This is negative not only to the candidates but the democratic process (as the rise to power of any fascist in history could tell you.)
Republicans love to crow on and on about freedom. Freedom, oh, how they love that word! Any criticism of Bush and what do you get? Some red-white-and-blue clad moron giving you a loud and angry defense of “freedom.” But we truebelievers in America, understand that with freedom comes responsibility. Freedom for us is not just a flag-sticker slapped on the back of a SUV while someone else’s poor and dark-skinned children are led into a shooting gallery overseas. No, for us, the true value of freedom is priceless. And for the Republicans, what is freedom worth? Well, it’s worth GOPoints. That’s right, you can sign up to be a TeamLeader on the GOP site. In exchange for calling talk radio shows, newspapers and TV stations to tell them what a marvelous job Bush has been doing you can earn GOPoints that can be redeemed for GOP bumper sticker (75 points), water bottle (125 points), coffee mugs (165), or windbreakers (375). Each, of course, silk-screened or stitched in red, white, or blue. So you see, the Republicans have succeeded in trivializing politics to the point that citizens are literally trading away their rights and responsibilities for a handful of political Marlboro Miles. This is where Bush’s fund raising money is going. This, and of course untold behind-the-scenes slander and personal destruction campaigns against any candidate who steps near the Democratic nomination.
In terms of trinkets, the Democratic Party must seem like a real rip-off. All they do is ask for money and fight tooth and nail to offer the only hope of restoring sanity to the nation. And yet, to the RNC, Democrats are simply “Bush-haters.” Their anger is to be held at a distance, examined, questioned. Not at all, like the 8 years of blinding rage directed at Clinton. The level of disrespect shown to Bill Clinton – legitimately elected, by the way – tells you a lot about the hysterics Republicans resort to.
I remember quite well in the 1990s asking Clinton haters what was so bad about him. What I got was replies like this, “I wouldn’t let that man inside my house let alone the White House.” Okay, but why? “I can’t even get started on why I hate him.” Okay, well, I have time. Tell me, I said.
Inevitably the argument came down to the vague crime of “what he symbolized.” And for them that was enough.
As for Bush, there is nothing symbolic about his criminality. It’s fact after fact.
The voters struck from the rolls in Florida. Ripping up the Kyoto Accord. The handling of Sept. 11th intelligence. Exacerbating the bad economy and shifting burdens away from those who can most easily shoulder them to those who can’t. Alienating allies. Trying to undermine the 40-hour workweek. Trying to allow Big Media to further consolidate. Fomenting hatred against any nation that disagrees with the White House. A reckless, idiotic foreign policy. An unnecessary war. No bid contracts. Americans dying for his lies. Exposing a CIA spy. And we have to justify our hatred of this? We have to play nice? Hah. The Republican strategy of manipulating the discourse to where we feel uncomfortable about being negative is downright post-modern. It defies conventional logic. And yet it’s their best hope of blunting our legitimate anger. That fact of the matter is, Bush and the Republicans in power bear a sizeable responsibility for the negative state this country is in. They compound violence with violence; fear with fear and I can’t help but wonder if it is because fear is at the heart of Bush and his cronies. Of that paranoid, xenophobic, greedy, powermad mindset. The essence of a bully is a coward and the Republicans through their manipulations, distortions, misrepresentations, scares, lies, false alarms, accusations, bullying, and posturing are the biggest cowards around these days. But we believers in democracy, we legitimate and idealistic heirs to the Founding Fathers, are not afraid. We won’t be dragged down into the darkness the Republicans count on for their success.
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Loyalty to the Truth or Loyalty to the GOP?
Jul 19 at 5:05pm by Anonymous
If, as former White House counsel John Dean explained a few weeks ago in an interview, there is “no chance” the Republican house would impeach Bush for lying to the American people, the nation has transcended mere blind partisan politics and entered a time of living fiction. This is the same Republican Party whose members badgered and hounded President Clinton until he was caught in a lie. His prosecutors, the legions of right-wing radio listeners, organizations dedicated to unearthing damaging material on Clinton’s past, showed a disgust for immorality in the White House. But when Clinton’s impeachment came, the vast majority of Americans refused to march on Washington demanding his removal from office. In fact a few went so far to march in his support. Americans, both for and against President Clinton, knew in their hearts, if not minds, that the question he was asked should have never been asked because it involved his personal life; not his public life.
Now, the situation has reversed. We have an unelected president who lies to the American people and the world, sacrifices innocent American and Iraqi lives to create a distraction from his disastrous ineptitude at home. This president can’t poke his head out in public without an angry crowd forming.
Still, the Republicans are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. The Republicans I know, the little rank and file footsoldiers who spent the late 1990s jeering at President Clinton, can’t defend Bush themselves. Something about American commonsense knows a high crime from a misdemeanor. No group, except possibly for American soldiers and Iraqi civilians, can feel as betrayed as Bush’s reluctant pre-war WMD believers. They shouted that anyone who stood against the war was a yellow, cowardly Quisling. They said any argument against the war represented pin-headed, politically-correct handwringing.
Now, of course, even if WMD were found it would be hard to prove they were of an imminent threat to US troops. So we continue to ask where are the WMDs? Where is justification for this elective war?
Yet, there is still no call for his impeachment.
If nothing else, we need no more proof that the witchhunt to bring down President Clinton had nothing to with moral outrage and everything to do with undermining the legitimacy of an elected president. Rightwing radicals who feel so sure about themselves they can seek to bring down an elected US president are an unsettling group. They feel like “the consent of the governed” means an expensive PR effort and spin job to deflect criticism. They have a religious conviction in their own arrogance and supremacy. They have no ideal other than the consolidation of power.
But what of their political strategy that depends so heavily on lies? What personal friend of yours would forgive such constant lies? What business partner? Most Americans parents don’t tolerate lies from their children. Why makes excuses for it from a Bush?
The lies, if tolerated by the American people, or the Republicans in Congress say a lot about our country today. For the people, you could say we live in a fact-free culture of images, of sensation. (Think of the images of Bush’s aircraft landing versus the realities it masked). One where lies, assertions, spin and advertising language go unchallenged. For the Republicans in Congress, it says party loyalty means more than truth, more than justice, more than integrity. In fact, integrity for them is measured by uncritical loyalty. In this way they are more akin to a street gang or crime family than a political party. Of course, in a healthy society both street gangs and crime families are considered a public problem to be rehabilitated or prosecuted.
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The price of “freedom”?
Apr 24 at 10:10pm by Jagwire X
Check out some of the results of our foreign policy: Iraq Body Count
Really great stuff. I guess this is what a “benevolent global hegemony” looks like.
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PNAC and The New Militarism
Apr 12 at 12:12pm by Jagwire X
Current policy, it seems, is being made by certain intellectuals and politicians who have been moving towards a new vision of American militarism for many years.
One of the focal points for this movement has been the think-tank group “Project for the New American Century”. They have been openly calling for a renewed militaristic expansion of “American interests” around the world. Basically, they feel that the US military is the glue that holds the world together; or, rather, should be.
But don’t take my word for it. Read their “Statement of Principles” on their own website, written in 1997.
It clearly foreshadows the current “preemption” policy, and reliance on military might as a foreign policy tool. Note the names who signed this statement. You may recognize a few.
Also see their 1998 letter to President Clinton, urging him to invade Iraq, where they conclude:
“We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.”
Sounds familiar. Again, notice the list of names at the bottom.
These people finally have the stage, and are implementing strategies that they have long written about, but never had the opportunity to put into practice. Bush, and 9/11, have given them that opportunity.
Again, don’t just take my word for it. For example, see this portrait of PNAC that goes over much of the same ground I do. It’s from a mainstream source: Were Neo-Conservatives’ 1998 Memos a Blueprint for Iraq War?
Of course, you can always “Google it”, as they say.
Try: “PNAC“, or “Project for the New American Century“, or even “neo-conservatives” (a moniker that some of these new century types go by).
It is my belief, and the belief of others within the antiwar community, that this agenda needs to be opposed. It’s humanitarian price is too high, and it’s methodology severely misguided.
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