It's all in how you tell it.

In today's Washington Post, there was an article by Glenn Kessler analyzing what the recent Russian-Georgian War really said about Russian power. One thing Mr. Kessler wrote caught my eye:

"After Georgian forces moved into the separatist enclave of South Ossetia early this month, Russian troops attacked Georgian military installations and moved close to Georgia's capital before partially pulling back. This week, Moscow recognized the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a move the United States and European nations condemned as undermining Georgian sovereignty."

It is in Mr. Kessler's choice of language that we see how major newspapers and television networks in this country are constructing the dialogue of a "New Cold War". Georgian soldiers, artillery, and aircraft did not suddenly attack South Ossetia and destroy the city of Tskhinvali. They instead simply "moved into" a "seperatist enclave".

Well in that case, Serbia "moved into" a "seperatist enclave" in Kosovo, and China "moved into" a "seperatist enclave" in Tibet.

I like Joe Biden's stance on Labor issues. But this op-ed from Common Dreams makes a good case for why he's a bad choice in the area of foreign policy.

Having experience in international affairs does not mean you have experience practicing good judgment. Both Biden and McCain have terrible judgment on Iraq. If Barack Obama continues to alienate his base by appealing to pro-war interests, he will lose this election.

Howzabout a round of Caucasians, on me....

Boy, war is dumb. I mean, I think someone needs to make a movie called "This dumb war." This film could be about any war, so perhaps it should be set in some kind of surrealist or fantasy setting. Either way, it should just get the point across that war is absolutely stupid, and no matter what country a person lives in, no matter how advanced their culture supposedly is, anyone and everyone is susceptible to the odious social forces that bring about, and are brought about by, war.

So... why exactly is there a war being fought in the Caucasus region of Central Asia? Because of longstanding tensions emanating from the desire of practically every little ethnic group to have their own country? Because "The West" can't seem to keep from supporting governments hostile to Russia? Because Russia is a big bully?

I think all these reasons probably fit into the equation. But the immediate cause was the President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili - by no means a friend of democracy as he claims, but instead a little neo-con inspired autocrat - throwing his country headlong into armed conflict with a superpower. Only a complete imbecile would take a country like Georgia (which is nearly half the size of the U.S. State with the same name) to war against one of the most powerful militaries on earth. And only someone so clearly inspired by non-realist thinking, again this brings to mind neo-conservatives, would honestly think the United States or the European Union would risk a massive World War-type confrontation over a speck of shit country in one of history's most fought over regions.

Yet... this is war, and as I said with war comes stupidity. Both John McCain and Barack Obama have issued statements condemning the war as being caused by Russian aggression. I mean, really.... Russia is the aggressor? Any more so than Georgia? What is with Americans and their need to take sides, to form good/evil dichotomies out of situations that are terribly complex? If the Russians are the bad guys, why are all the refugees in South Ossetia heading to Russia for protection? Why are they so terrified of Georgian troops? I mean, the Russians aren't saints, and they are definitely taking advantage of this situation to make sure Georgia is divided and weakened, but what would our Neo-con/Neo-Liberal foreign policy establishment prefer? For the Georgians to do to South Ossetians or Abkhazians what the Serbs did to Kosovo?

But some do in fact think this stupid war (yet another in a history of stupid, stupid wars) is our business. I do not understand this mentality. It is pervasive here in Washington, however, where bureaucrats and think tankers create their own abstract realities of how the world should be, and look to politicians in both major political parties to use the United States military as a way to do it. They really love telling Americans how essential it is to take one side or another in some war that has nothing to do with anything happening in the U.S.A. Of course, the moment someone suggests to these "freedom-loving" apparatchiks that they themselves abandon their cooshy lives in DC's many suburbs, or it's recently gentrified urban yuppie-nests, they cringe. Because giving up that kind of luxury when some poor sclub from Tennessee can go on your crusade's for you...

...that would be stupid.

Hiroshima - Never Forget

Crisis averted?

According to David Ignatius, the United States is not planning to bomb Iran anytime soon. In fact, the Bush Administration is going to announce the creation of a U.S. interests section in Tehran, the first official American diplomatic in Iran since the 1979 revolution.

It may be too early to breathe a sigh of relief, of course, because this type of "realistic", diplomacy-based foreign policy thinking does not fit into the history of the current American Presidential administration. Nonetheless, Ignatius is a well connected columnist in Washington. If what he writes is true, there may not be a war with Iran after all.

(PHEW!)

What's my identity?

I am currently reading "War is a force that gives us meaning" by Chris Hedges. In it he argues that war is a powerful social intoxicant, because it produces for humans a wide range of emotions that give us a sense of direction and meaning in life. Hedges, who has first hand experience with the horrors of battle, makes the point that it is precisely war's horrid brutality that makes us hate it and love it.

Hedges' argument about emotional intensity corresponding to a need for meaning in one's life interests me. When people enter into social arrangements which are bad, such as the social arrangements necessary for the prosecution of war, do they do so because in spite of any negative consequences, being involved in a bad situation still gives them a sense that they are involved in something? Perhaps this explains why people stay in bad relationships. It probably even explains addictions; not just to drugs and alcohol, but also to work or shopping.

Just a thought.

Army recruiters threaten teenagers to increase enlistment numbers

"Beat those swords into ploughshares, then beat those ploughshares into grenades."

Barack Obama's Op-ed in last Monday's New York Times, along with his visits to Iraq and Afghanistan have apparently done well for his popularity in the United States. His call for a 16-month phased withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq is certainly going to gain him support amongst voters, the majority of whom finally see the U.S. presence in that country for what it is: the result of an ideologically driven program to decieve the American people into engaging in an imperialist nation-building exercise that reaped benefits only for political hacks and the military industrial complex.

Sadly, however, Obama isn't about to abandon nation-building as a way of spending American tax dollars. Instead of bringing the troops home in 16 months, he makes very clear that he seeks to "redeploy our combat brigades" in order to meet "our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven." He also has no desire to actually end our involvement in Iraq either:

"After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and , so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces.... I would consult with commanders on the ground and the Iraqi government to ensure that our troops were redeployed safely, and our interests protected."

How is maintaining enough troops in Iraq to go "after any remnants of Al Qaeda", not just in that country but in "Mesopotamia", (a region that feasibly could include Syria, Jordan, and Iran) an end to the war? What does he mean when he refers to "our interests" being "protected"?

This is a case of beating your swords into plowshares, and then beating those plowshares into grenades. Mr. Obama is making a politically expedient move: Assuage the anti-war voices in the United States by calling for a supposed withdrawal from Iraq, while also trying to appear strong in the face of the enemy, whoever that happens to be if he gets elected.

Then there is the issue of "our broader strategic goals" in Afghanistan and Pakistan. What Obama and sadly most Americans, who still view this conflict as the "good war", do not realize is that like any front in the "War on [insert euphemism]", the war in Afghanistan will never be "won" because you cannot ever destroy an idea. In the case of Afghanistan, that idea is a historical tradition: Resistance to foreign occupation. Like the unforgiving terrain of that nation, Afghanis are unforgiving towards outsiders who come bearing arms. From as far back as Alexander the Great, to the Mongol conquests, further on to the occupations by the British and the Russians (later the Soviet Union), no one has ever really held Afghanistan. It is a nation of nations; different languages, ethnicities and tribes, each supported by a foreign interest hoping on stabilizing the country enough to extract the valuable gas and oil deposits common through central Asia. Obama's clear shortsightedness in hoping to "win" a war there is based on a typical lack of historical thinking.

Also, beyond pragmatism, the U.S./NATO invasion of Afghanistan was no less immoral than the invasion of Iraq. The number of Afghanis who have died as a result of the anti-Taliban/Al Qaeda campaign has by now far exceeded the number of people killed in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. President Bush, acting without consideration for diplomatic alternatives, and exploiting the anger and fear of the U.S. population, as well as their ignorance of their government's long history of foreign interventions, attacked a country full of people who had never threatened them. Bush, and his cabal of neo-con advisers, convinced voters that finding Osama Bin Laden would be as simple as it looks in war movies and commando-oriented video games. The United States government thought, just as in Iraq, that invading a country and altering its political landscape would be a cakewalk since all human beings desire an American style of "freedom." The past 7-years of resistance in Afghanistan have proven that idea wrong.

Now that war has spilled over into Pakistan, a nation that is tacitly an American ally. Obama sites this nation as an Al Qaeda "safe haven". What does he propose to do about it? Pakistan's new government is unhappy with America's actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and may not cooperate with anti-terror operations. How does he propose to deal with that? More unilateral action?

Obama ends his op-ed with the words "it's time to end this war." But really, it's a deception: The war will go on, regardless of who's elected President, or to Congress, or whatever. Our constant state of war, that fuels the military industrial complex, will continue to eat up our tax dollars. And our healthcare, infrastructure, and educational systems (not to mention our debt and trade deficits) will suffer for it.

A Union Story by David Macaray

A Call to Arms

A war with Iran is looking ever more likely. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, is going to Israel to disuss ideas over strategy, with the Israelis saying they'll attack if the United States does not.

A war with Iran benefits no one but the war industry and those in Washington who make their money as the mouthpieces of the the war machine. By attacking Iran, the United States will be forcing itself into another endless war, and will increase the chances that yet another massive terrorist attack will happen on American shores. Israel's security, for which this war would be fought, to which every presidential candidate must make a commitment in order to get elected, is not the problem of the United States but of the citizens of Israel.

So this is a call to arms. More and more polls show that Americans are tired of endless war and it's time to put that resentment into action. Right now, there is legislation on the floor of the House of Representatives granting our know-it-all president the power to "initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by, inter alia, prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran’s nuclear program."

This bill is called resolution HR 362 and has already gained 170 co-sponsors. A similar Senate resolution, SR 580 is also being proposed for committee. We have to stop these bills from passing. Log on to the Just Foreign Policy website and send in their form letter. Just confirm your zip code and hit the "Go" button, and they'll tell you who your representative is, in the event you don't know. Or contact your House Rep and Senators on your own. However you want to do it, just take some action!!!!

Apart from contacting Congress, the time has come to stop acting as if that is our only means of political expression. We need to start thinking of ways of taking politics out of the formal sphere of capitol buildings, statehouse, and lobbyists offices, and putting it into new informal spheres: the streets, our workplaces, parks, art-houses, theaters. The wars being fought now in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the war that could be soon fought with Iran, will not be ended by people elected into a rigged system. It will be ended when Americans finally say, "ENOUGH!" and stop the war machine from moving forward.

NOTE:

Here's something off A Just Foreign Policy's blog. Israel's recent military exercise in the Mediterranean, meant to warn the United States of their desire for action, may just be a bluff. Check it out!

Reason #1

Reason #2

Reason #3

....That there won't be any "change" happening in 2008.

That is, unless, we all decide to get on the streets and put some monkey-wrenches in the gears of their machine....

Apparently the Politics & Prose bookshop doesn't like sponsoring people with differing viewpoints then them:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/06/AR2008060603066_pf.html

Back in February, I wrote a little piece regarding the F-22 Raptor, and how it represents the power the War industry has here in the District. Today Christopher Preble of the CATO institute (yes, yes, the very paleo-conservative CATO institute), wrote a piece that goes more into the waste of building the fighter in the first place. One statement he makes is particularly telling:

"The F-22 is an exceptional aircraft, but it faces only a hypothetical enemy in a future war that may never occur. The Air Force hasn't even deployed F-22s to Iraq or Afghanistan, since they're not well suited to the battles being fought there. The F-22's armor is too light even for small-arms fire, which forces it to drop its ordnance from high altitude. That increases the likelihood of civilian casualties, which make it harder, not easier, to win the support of Iraqis who remain deeply skeptical of American intentions."

So why the hell is the U.S. Taxpayer spending money on such a piece of crap? Probably because even though the overall manufacturing sector that used to provide high paying jobs to American workers has dwindled, weapons manufacturing still provides jobs. Jobs that are by nature dependent upon politicians looking to get votes. Never mind that it's a job constructing a death machine that no one will ever use.

I've generally never been a fan of Lyndon Johnson. But James Carroll's op-ed in today's Boston Globe really throws a new perspective on the man.

Forty Years After Vietnam: A Reckoning.

I couldn't stop myself...

....it made me laugh....


see more crazy cat pics

Can he become even more Palpatine-ish?

Crooksandliars.com get's it right: Dick Cheney "sincerely doesn't give a f*ck what you think."

Perhaps I'm taking a pretty unpopular spin on this whole scandal regarding Eliot Spitzer's sexual improprieties, but here goes....

Eliot Spitzer should face no criminal charges for sleeping with a prostitute. In fact, he shouldn't have even resigned as Governor of New York. If this country were sane, which it is not, prostitution would be legal and regulated in every state in the union, and lonely middle-aged men, or women, with marital problems (like Spitzer) would be able to visit as many prostitutes (male or female, straight or gay) as they wanted provided they could pay for it and provided those prostitutes were consenting adults who had passed a state mandated STD test.

Spitzer resigned, of course, because he was a hypocrite in his personal life. But unless someone tells me this young women he slept with was underage at the time, or that he raped her, then there is no reason that should affect his political position. This whole scandal was a political assassination. Spitzer was targeted because he was the only man with power investigating corrupt business practices on Wall Street.

Yeah, this pretty much sums up my feelings:

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/03/16/89-saint-patricks-day/

A typical winter morning for me, meaning I woke up late and took forever to get ready. To save some time, I decided to pick my breakfast up on the way to work. There's a Manhattan Bagel shop down the street from my job where breakfast with coffee is less than 5 bucks. I've been going to this place for nearly a year now. I don't even have to tell them what I want, they just say it for me: "Egg and Provolone on Pumpernickel, yeah?"

It was the same this morning. I smiled and said thank you, then walked over to their coffee machines and poured myself a cup of hazelnut coffee. My friend Alex introduced me to it a while ago, and like him, I became hooked quickly.

I poured myself a cup and moved over to the payment line. After I'd paid, whilst putting my change back into my wallet, I heard a customer to my right say "Oh FORGET IT! I'm going someplace where the goddamn people speak English!" I looked over and saw this well dressed man angrily put his drink back into the display cooler he'd gotten it from. I realize now I must have been staring at him with a puzzled look, wondering how he could think the guy behind the counter wasn't speaking English (I've been ordering food from this same dude for a year, remember). The man then looked at me, his face expressing a need to find solidarity with his indignation. "Can you believe this place?", his eyes ask me.

I looked back at my change, shook my head and uttered, "Fuck you, asshole."

He left the shop. I don't know if he heard me say the words or not. I don't care if he did or didn't, or if it offended him. He ruined my morning.

Classic Flash Cartoon

One of the funniest things ever created for the Internet.

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/wab/band/

It's cold out.

As of 9:18 AM, it is 23 degrees (F) outside. That's -5 degrees for you metric types.

I HATE WINTER.

I just found out about this awesome website. It's the creation of journalists dedicated to transparency, and seeks to publish leaked documents that expose government and corporate wrongdoing. Check it out:

Wikileaks

Now we're back where we've begun....

The War Department (what some call the "Defense" Department) has decided not to ask Congress for the necessary funding to halt production of the F-22 Raptor. The reasons for this are purely political. The Raptor is the most advanced, and most expensive, fighter jet ever built. Each individual plane has cost (based on the total amount of money spent during it's entire development and procurement phase) roughly 360 million dollars. The United States is involved in two wars and yet the Raptor has never flown a combat sortie in either. The only excuse for this monumental waste of taxpayer dollars is that the project employs people in 40 states. No politician is likely to lose an election by calling for increased spending on war. Few could ever hope, however, to hold on to their positions in Congress by calling for a reduced military budget.

War lobbyists, like all lobbyists, aren't concerned with who is in power. In fact one of the most ardent opponents of the Iraq war, John Murtha of Pennsylvania, is a major recipient of campaign contributions from, and a major advocate for, the war industry. Back in October, it was reported that Hillary Clinton had received more contributions from weapons companies' employees than any other candidate. Hillary was definitely the winner, Barack Obama and John Edwards have also recieved big chunks of war money. This is how Washington works of course. Those who lobby recognize where the political wind is blowing, and begin making contributions in that direction. And this is precisely the reason that things will not change in this city for a very long time.

Hmm.... "Change."

That's a big word these days. Everybody wants it, and it seems to have become the keyword of the 2008 Presidential Election. But what do people mean when they say it? I'm not sure what the Republicans want to change. They are the embodiment of the selfish paternalism and corporatism of the past 20 years. They function pretty blatantly as a tool for the ultra-rich. They claim to want small government, but spend insanely. They claim to protect free markets, yet openly facilitate no-bid contracting. I can go on, but do I have to?

And Democrats? Change? Well they definitely want it. But instead of truly looking at what needs to change for the future, most of the party faithful are holding on to visions of their past. Liberals, if one observes the primary campaigns of their leading candidates, desperately want to feel good about their government again. Both of the major Democratic contenders are where they are because they are marketed as throwbacks to our supposedly glorious past. Hillary Clinton's candidacy is a result of her base's positive memories of the her husband's administration, and Obama has been compared to JFK and Lincoln so many times (and yes, Lincoln was a Republican but it seems Democrats claim his legacy as their own anyway) that I forget what year I'm in.

These comparisons to the past are convenient for the campaigns. They illicit immediate positive emotional responses: Our past was good, we should look back to that. This mentality, however, totally ignores the real lesson we should be taking from our past, which is how not repeat all the mistakes we’ve made.

I’m not sure why progressives attach themselves to JFK. His foreign policy was rather disastrous. Apart from beginning our direct military involvement in Vietnam, the man, through the CIA, approved of the training of foreign mercenaries to overthrow the government of Cuba. His legacy was “saved” when he faced down the Soviets a year later in the Cuban missile crisis, but would a reluctant Khrushchev have made such a provocative move had Kennedy not provided him with clear evidence that the United States intended to invade the only Soviet ally in the western hemisphere?

And what of Bill Clinton, the real reason most of Hillary’s supporters think she should be President? He pulled UN inspectors out of Iraq in 1998 and bombed the hell out of it, even though there was no evidence then that Iraq was producing WMD’s. He, like Bush, was absolutely convinced that Saddam was the next Hitler. Though Clinton didn’t invade the country outright, he did with the help of the UN and Tony Blair impose a sanctions regime on the country that was beyond draconian. Iraq was prohibited from purchasing everything from water-purification systems to pencils. A UN report in 1996 estimated that 500,000 Iraqis had died since 1991 as a result of chronic shortages in food and medicine. In 1999, When then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was asked by a reporter if the deaths of all those people worth keeping Saddam in check, she answered yes.

When you look at it historically, the actions of these leaders provided a historical precedent for the actions of the Bush Administration. If we as a country really want to change the direction that we're going in, we need to start analyzing our history in a critical and honest way. But beyond that, we must also dismantle the structures of power that will not allow for new ideas to take hold and prevent the disasters of the past.

As long as the United States government is employing people in 40 states to produce weapons, there will be no political incentive for politicians to make peace instead of war. As long as weapons manufacturers make billions off of long-term contracts, they will be able to dole out campaign contributions in amounts far exceeding the anti-war movements coffers, thus keeping things as they are. Until this structure can be dismantled our government will be controlled by these manufacturers, who profit from the killing of the world's poorest. Remember, you can't build a bomb without using it, and you can't build one without spending money that could otherwise go to feed the hungry, clothe the needy, and cure the sick.

The times change, like record shops....

A story:

It was the summer of 2002. I had just returned from Europe where for the last three weeks I had been relentlessly seeking out vinyl records. I had made the decision during my time in Holland that I was going to become a vinyl geek and simply put there are no shortage of good music shops on the continent. Utrecht, the city I lived in, had at least 4. Anyway, when I got back to the states all I wanted to do was find vinyl. I found several stores via the phone book and searched them out. The most incredible and the only one I even remember was Orpheus in Clarendon.

Orpheus was awesome because (1) it had a pretty incredible selection of used and new vinyl, and (2) it was run by the weirdest looking dude I'd ever seen: A hippy who always seemed to be wearing the same denim shirt and pants every time I went in, and who was known locally for never wearing socks or shoes over his hideously unmanicured feet. His hands weren't that much better. I figured at some point in his life someone had told him about the beauty of nail clippers, but he had decided to ignore this advice in order to more closely resemble Gollum.

...to each their own, right?

Well now Orpheus is closing. I haven't been back there in a long time, mainly because I never replaced my record player after it broke three years ago, and hence didn't see a point to purchasing new vinyl. But I rode by there on my bike today and saw the "Everything must go!" sign and my heart sank.

I mean, what will replace it? Seeing how the Clarendon area is developing the space will probably be rented out to some asshole who wants to open a boutique of some kind. You know, the kind of place that sells handbags. Or pants. Fashionable pants. Made of dead cow skin. The kind of place that necessitates that you call it a "boo-TEEK", which will annoy the shit out of me because I hate that word. And when people tell me about how awesome the new store in Clarendon is I will cringe. I will cringe because I will remember how years ago I walked into that space, which smelled of mildew and hippy feet, and bought a used copy of Motorhead's "Overkill" that rocked my balls off so much I never wanted to listen to the CD version again, hence finally forcing my conversion to music snobbery. I will cringe because it will remind me that Arlington is now, and will forever be, populated by soul-less, workaholic automatons that DO NOT ROCK. I will cringe because one more part of the world that was unique won't be there anymore, and one part of me will be gone with it.

The Sanctions Trap by Scott Ritter

Kucinich is out.

Dennis Kucinich has bowed out of the Democratic Primaries. He said he will not endorse another candidate. Neither will I.

Dennis' candidacy teaches all of us a sad lesson. If you want to get nominated for President in the United States, you've pretty much got to be a foot soldier for business associations, the war industry, and the pro-Israel lobby. You'd think that organized labor, the anti-war movement, civil libertarians, and mainstream environmentalists would flock behind a candidate who has so forcefully supported them in the past, but they are so locked into supporting candidates who are "electable" that they sacrifice everything they are fighting for in hopes of maybe getting a voice. That Ron Paul has been so successful at getting votes from traditionally leftist anti-war voters is only further proof that there really isn't a "Left" in this country anymore.

935 lies (so far) and counting.....

Report details administration lies.

SHOWS I'M IN!!!

The Good Woman of Setzuan
By Bertolt Brecht
Performances – March 27 – April 20, 2008

AND

The Oresteia
Freely adapted from the original by Aeschylus
Performances – May 8 – June 1, 2008

At the Constellation Theatre Company!!
Check out the website for ticket info.

********

Garbage Day...

Anybody notice how it's not really cold outside? I mean, it's chilly, but it's not the type of cold I feel is typical of January. Then I read in the Express this morning that the Antarctic ice sheet is melting faster then expected (though still a long way from melting completely), and I think to myself "I need to buy some land up in the Blue Ridge mountains.... Could be valuable beach front property one day."

The Brazilian sun, for those that don't know, is not the same sun that rises above the rest of the world. That sun is at the center of a solar system, and the earth revolves around it. That sun is responsible for the various seasons on earth, that sun is both warm and cold. The Brazilian sun is a special sun that rises from the earth only for Brazil, and lays upon this country the unbearable heat found only at our planet's core.

Seriously, it's hotter than me, nude, with chili sauce.

********

Conversations with my family here are very interesting. Everybody has an opinion on everything, and they relate these ideas to you at the exact same time as everybody else. My ears work overtime while I'm here to take in all the information. Considering I can't hear very much over all the clamor, I should probably consider learning how to lip-read.

Also, I have new family members. My cousins are marrying and popping out children at an amazing rate. So watch out, United States of America, Brazilians are breeding. Soon they'll be looking to buy just as many stupid products as we do.