Tristero
Saturday, February 07, 2004
J. Edgar Hoover Redux
What next, E. Howard Hunt and The Plumbers?In what may be the first subpoena of its kind in decades, a federal judge has ordered a university to turn over records about a gathering of anti-war activists.
In addition to the subpoena of Drake University, subpoenas were served this past week on four of the activists who attended a Nov. 15 forum at the school, ordering them to appear before a grand jury Tuesday, the protesters said.
Federal prosecutors refuse to comment on the subpoenas.
In addition to records about who attended the forum, the subpoena orders the university to divulge all records relating to the local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, a New York-based legal activist organization that sponsored the forum.
The group, once targeted for alleged ties to communism in the 1950s, announced Friday it will ask a federal court to quash the subpoena on Monday.
"The law is clear that the use of the grand jury to investigate protected political activities or to intimidate protesters exceeds its authority," guild President Michael Ayers said in a statement.
Representatives of the Lawyer's Guild and the American Civil Liberties Union said they had not heard of such a subpoena being served on any U.S. university in decades.
Those served subpoenas include the leader of the Catholic Peace Ministry, the former coordinator of the Iowa Peace Network, a member of the Catholic Worker House, and an anti-war activist who visited Iraq in 2002.
They say the subpoenas are intended to stifle dissent.
"This is exactly what people feared would happen," said Brian Terrell of the peace ministry, one of those subpoenaed. "The civil liberties of everyone in this country are in danger. How we handle that here in Iowa is very important on how things are going to happen in this country from now on." ...
He said the case brings back fears of the "red squads" of the 1950s and campus clampdowns on Vietnam War protesters.
Atrios Loses His Temper
He had just read this article about the destruction of the educated class in Iraq and he lets the liberal hawks have it, big time:There's a cancer in our press right now, and it's going to continue to grow and grow. Even now anti-war critics, despite being ABSOLUTELY RIGHT, are being marginalized because for some reason in order to criticize the war you have to have been for it to begin with. I have no idea why this makes any sense, but there it is. It's aided and abetted by the "liberal hawks" who for the most part seemed to just want to prove they have bigger testicles than the rest of us. But, why the hell should anyone listen to them? They were wrong, and I don't really care about reading their tortured essays of self-evaluation. The issue isn't simply that they were wrong, but they were wrong in a particular offensive manner. They, too, for the most part encouraged the marginalization of war critics with their smarmy condescending "we know best" tone. You know what, guys, it ISN'T ALL ABOUT YOU. Stop with the narcissistic navel-gazing. The consequence of your crap wasn't a wee bit of embarassment at cocktail parties, it was this.Indeed. It is an utterly disgraceful situation, in which those who were wrong to begin with still have the American media's microphones and cameras while those who knew better are completely ignored.
But it is not only necessary to protest the fact that anyone is still listening to those who were wildly wrong and looked the other way when Bush was giving every indication of being incompetent and reckless. What's also important is that we understand how liberal hawks could have been so wrong in their thinking. I've blogged before about what I think is an intellectual crisis among liberals. It is rooted, I suspect, in some of the inherent contradictions of liberalism. Ironically, the seemingly optimistic notion that the US can substantially improve things in the world by exercising its force is in fact a dangerously misguided notion that just as often, if not frequently, makes things worse.
Liberals somehow need to articulate a vision that is not tainted by the slightest hint of American exceptionalism, yet at the same time provides Americans an cohesive vision for acting responsibly and humanely in the world. The standard categories for foreign affairs philosophies -idealism, realism, isolationsim, interventionism- are woefully inadequate as intellectual positions. We need a new paradigm, and we need it fast. Otherwise, we will continue to see decent-minded people seduced into supporting insanely misguided ventures like the Bush/Iraq War.
Friday, February 06, 2004
Why Do We Need Iraq's Oil
When we go plenty of it spewing out of toilets in Texas?WMD Investigation Will Be A Whitewash
Dave Neiwert has the gory details of WMD investigating committee co-chair Laurence Silberman's disgusting career as a right wing extremist hit man. Here's some of what Dave says (links at his site to specifics):On [Silberman's] track record:And of course, they won't conclude their report until long, long after the presidential election.
-- Playing a central role in the "October Surprise" scandal by serving as the Reagan team's main contact with the Khomeini faction in Iran.
-- Overturning the Iran-Contra conviction of Oliver North on specious grounds.
-- Threatening colleague Abner Mikva: "If you were 10 years younger, I'd be tempted to punch you in the nose."
-- Trying to overturn the independent counsel statute on behalf of a Federalist Society colleague, Ted Olson (currently the Solicitor General), in a ruling shortly overturned by the Supreme Court on an 8-1 vote.
-- Conspiring with another Federalist Society colleague, David Sentelle, to have Robert Fiske replaced as the Whitewater special counsel with Kenneth Starr.
-- Blocking the Clinton legal team's attempts to track down the leaks emanating from Starr's office and blocking any attempts at discovery in the matter.
-- Accusing Clinton of "declaring war on the United States" by trying to shield Secret Service agents from being forced to testify against Clinton.
WSJ Forgets About Daniel Pearl
Heartbreaking story by Mariane Pearl, with a wrenching picture from her wedding day.One More Totally Awesome Hubble Image
The Black, or Evil, Eye Galaxy.
Read all about it here and then sign the petition to Save the Hubble from Bush.
Iraq: Still in the dark
Al Jazeera tries to shed some light on the subject:Ten months after the occupation of Iraq in April 2003, the electricity service has still not been fully restored.
The Iraqi capital, Baghdad, still suffers irregular electricity flow. Each district in the capital has to live without electricity for at least six hours a day.
The situation is in stark contrast with what happened after the 1991 Gulf War which�left the main Iraqi electrical power stations in ruins.
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It took the then Iraqi government three months to restore electricity to its pre-war level.
"The Iraqi government used to import heavy equipment along with spare parts enough for three years in advance. Warehouses were built far away from electrical power stations, so�this extra equipment�survived the 43 days of bombing" said Imad Khadduri, the Iraqi nuclear scientist who worked for Iraq 's nuclear programme from 1968 to 1998.
When the war ended in 1991 the nuclear programme came to a halt and all its engineers and technicians were moved to organisations assigned to rebuild the country's infrastructure. "We managed to restore electricity in only three months", �he said.
�However this time there are a different set of problems preventing the US authorities in Iraq from restoring Iraq 's electricity production.
"There are actually�many obstacles." Khadduri told Aljazeera.net.
"First of all, Iraqi power plants are German, Russian, and French made, but the US are insisting on assigning technicians from the US company Bechtel to assess Iraq 's electrical power stations. Second, they are insisting on buying equipment from Bechtel, while�the main�stations in Iraq are not made in USA ."
"They are not making use of the experience Iraqi�technicians possess in their own country's infrastructure."
Imad Khadduri, Iraqi nuclear scientist
He said the US authorities were not allowing Iraqis to ask technical assistance from the companies�that built their electrical stations, allegedly because they belonged to countries that opposed the US war on Iraq .
Khadduri blames US companies for angering Iraqi technicians and engineers by employing Asian labour, while Iraqis are jobless, "They are not making use of the experience that Iraqi technicians possess in their own country's infrastructure."
They are neglecting them and bringing in foreign labour. It costs a lot of money and wastes time in�training�them to understand the nature of Iraqi electrical power stations", he said.�
New Kind of Science Is Online
I bought Wolfram's book and have always wanted to study it, but it's very daunting after the first few chaps. Perhaps this complete online version will make it easier to approach. In any event, it's just wonderful that he's made the entire thing available for free.Bush's Poll Numbers Sink Lower
They are still not low enough:President Bush's public support dropped sharply over the past month, especially among older voters, political independents and people in the Midwest, an Associated Press poll found.
And for the first time, more voters in this poll's two years of tracking the question said they would definitely vote against Bush than said they would definitely vote for him.
Bush's approval rating stood at 47 percent in the AP-Ipsos poll taken in early February, down from 56 percent approval just a month ago. Half, or 50 percent, said they disapproved in the latest poll.
Good Guys In The News
Congrats to Josh Marshall who got a well-deserved mention in one of Krugman's best and most hard-hitting columns:Let's start with the case of the missing W.M.D. Do you remember when the C.I.A. was reviled by hawks because its analysts were reluctant to present a sufficiently alarming picture of the Iraqi threat? Your memories are no longer operative. On or about last Saturday, history was revised: see, it's the C.I.A.'s fault that the threat was overstated. Given its warnings, the administration had no choice but to invade.And doubleplus congrats to Dave Neiwert at Orcinus for this terrific profile about his blog and career. I hope I am not being presumptuous in expressing the wish that Dave gets an opportunity to get his superb work published and heard in the most widely circulated media available. He is, as Frank Zappa once said of Nicholas Slonimsky, one of the Real People, which was Zappa's highest compliment:
A tip from Joshua Marshall, of www.talkingpointsmemo.com, led me to a stark reminder of how different the story line used to be. Last year Laurie Mylroie published a book titled "Bush vs. the Beltway: How the C.I.A. and the State Department Tried to Stop the War on Terror." Ms. Mylroie's book came with an encomium from Richard Perle; she's known to be close to Paul Wolfowitz and to Dick Cheney's chief of staff. According to the jacket copy, "Mylroie describes how the C.I.A. and the State Department have systematically discredited critical intelligence about Saddam's regime, including indisputable evidence of its possession of weapons of mass destruction."
Currently serving intelligence officials may deny that they faced any pressure � after what happened to Valerie Plame, what would you do in their place? � but former officials tell a different story. The latest revelation is from Britain. Brian Jones, who was the Ministry of Defense's top W.M.D. analyst when Tony Blair assembled his case for war, says that the crucial dossier used to make that case didn't reflect the views of the professionals: "The expert intelligence experts of the D.I.S. [Defense Intelligence Staff] were overruled." All the experts agreed that the dossier's claims should have been "carefully caveated"; they weren't.
And don't forget the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, created specifically to offer a more alarming picture of the Iraq threat than the intelligence professionals were willing to provide.
Can all these awkward facts be whited out of the historical record? Probably. Almost surely, President Bush's handpicked "independent" commission won't investigate the Office of Special Plans. Like Lord Hutton in Britain � who chose to disregard Mr. Jones's testimony � it will brush aside evidence that intelligence professionals were pressured. It will focus only on intelligence mistakes, not on the fact that the experts, while wrong, weren't nearly wrong enough to satisfy their political masters. (Among those mentioned as possible members of the commission is James Woolsey, who wrote one of the blurbs for Ms. Mylroie's book.)
The most fully developed fruit of his concern with the deterioration of American conservatism is Rush, Newspeak and Fascism: An exegesis, a long essay that traces the contours of fascism and argues that in its wink-wink, nudge-nudge flirtation with the extreme right wing, and in its embrace of language as a tool of power, the modern conservative movement may be inadvertently nurturing an homegrown fascism.On a personal level, both Josh and Dave have been more than gracious whenever I've written to them, even when I've disagreed. When Dave says in the article, "I like the fact that blogging opens up journalism to average people," he means it; he has always taken seriously my amateur efforts to understand and research the issues that concern me and helped me study them in a more careful fashion. Let's hope that his 3500/day fans soon get the pleasure of seeing his work even more widely read.
As an expert on conspiracy theories, he's assiduous about his analogies, and critical of liberals who are too cavalier with theirs. "Bush isn't Hitler," he says. "A better comparison is to the mainstream conservatives in Germany who saw the Nazis as a useful bulwark against liberalism; fascism was a fringe movement there until it was enabled by corporatist conservatives. If we go around willy-nilly calling Bush Hitler, it muddies the water."
Myth Making In Action
I've been meaning to mention Michael B�rub�'s excellent blog for some time now, but have gotten sidetracked for one reason or another over the past month. I want to talk about some of his excellent essays on postmodernism and other things, which he links to, but right now, I'll just mention this post, which links to an article Michael wrote about a student he had who gradually adopted the role of the "conservative voice of reason" in his literature class. Michael's article is fascinating; the class becomes increasingly polarized against the student and the student becomes more and more provocative in his opinions until he ends up defending the utterly indefensible. No doubt Michael is right that the student ended up believing he was the victim of the political correctness "pandemic" on college campuses. To say the least, such a conclusion simplifies a far more complex situation.What would make an extremely interesting read would be the impressions of the other classmembers, if they could be gathered up, Rashomon-like, and published along with Michael's article.
GOP Adulterer Sponsors Anti-Marriage Amendment
Why do Republicans have such contempt for the sanctity of marriage?State Sen. Bill Stephens, sponsor of a proposed amendment to Georgia's constitution that would ban gay marriage, is in no position to defend the "sanctity of marriage," his former wife told Southern Voice this week.Stephens denies that "there any allegations of extra-marital affairs." That, folks, is a non-denial denial. Notice he didn't deny the affairs (plural).
The woman, who asked that her name not be published, said she and Stephens were married for 15 years and had two sons before the couple split in 1991, in part because she heard persistent allegations that he was having an extramarital affair.
The rest of the article is worth a squint. Very amusing.
Thursday, February 05, 2004
Classical Music On iPods, et al
Greg Sandow highlights some of the hassles:Using the iTunes "power search," I looked for recordings by Maria Callas, the greatest opera singer of modern times. I found many tracks, but Callas doesn't actually sing on all of them; when she was in recordings of complete operas, her name had been entered as "artist" on every track, even on those where she doesn't sing. But then many of her CDs didn't show up at all, because her name hadn't been listed as the artist�.�.�. and, going back to Beethoven, there were piano sonata recordings by the drop-dead legendary pianist Artur Schnabel where the listings didn't even show which track was from which sonata [I confirmed both examples. It makes purchases all but impossible, except of complete recordings.]...Worse, unless you edit them together, movements that are contiguous have a 1/4 second pause inserted. I have yet to figure out a way around this without going through hoops.
Typically a classical piece has several movements, separate musical sections that show up on recordings as separate tracks. What you want, when you put classical music on your digital player, is to see the tracks grouped together under the name of the composition, and then all the compositions listed under the name of their composer.
But these digital gadgets don't think that way, and when you put classical music on them, the complications--trust me--can get truly frightening. The iPod, at least, has a separate "composer" category, which helps a little, though there's still no way to search composer tracks by composition, and if you buy a competing digital player you don't get any listing for composers at all. By some stroke of luck, I bought an iRiver player, which, I discovered, lets me treat it like a computer hard drive, organizing music by files and folders. That means I can give Beethoven a folder of his own, with subfolders for each of his works--though I have to type all the information in myself. Aargh.
The O'Neill Documents
In case you're interested, and they do make compelling reading, some of the documents that make up the sourcing for Ron Suskind's important book, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill are available online here.Canada Sends A Message To Bush
But look at the fine print: 15% of Canadians support Bush. Oh well. They'll learn.
Image courtesy Pacific Views
Wednesday, February 04, 2004
One More Scandal: Medicare Bill Bribery
It looks like at least they're making a semblance of caring about it.investigation almost two months ago into allegations Rep. Nick Smith was offered a bribe to vote for the Medicare prescription drug bill.
It was the first public acknowledgment the committee was looking into the matter, following public statements suggesting it was not.
On the night of the Medicare vote in November, Republican leaders worked hard to persuade Smith, a fiscally conservative Republican from Michigan who opposed the $400 million price tag of the measure, to support the bill. In the end, he did not. (Full story)
Days later, however, he wrote in a column on his Web page that he was offered financial support for the campaign of his son, Brad, to succeed him when he retires at the end of this term.
After Republican leaders denied Smith was bribed, he recanted his allegation.
Since the charge became public in November, Democrats have been openly critical of GOP leaders and the ethics committee for not looking into the bribery charge.
Roy Moore For President
Mac-a-ro-nies has the skinny on it. You remember Roy, right? The Ten Commandments fetish freak? Tactically, it would be a Good Thing for him to run, but it would be more than embarassing, especially overseas, if he actually got any votes.The 9/11 Candidate
Digby's take on Bush's upcoming campaign strategy is so right that it saves me many ascii characters worth of effort so go and read him now. He summarizes the GOP tactic thus:"When America was attacked, George Bush knew what to do. He kept you safe."Digby's has it nailed. So how do the forces of reason respond to something like this? Here's some possibilities:
1. He didn't keep us safe! Bush is to blame that the attack succeeded. Let's not forget: We suffered the worst attack by foreigners since 1812 on Bush's watch. He was warned that bin Laden was dangerous and chose to ignore those warnings in pursuit of Star Wars. The buck stops with Bush.
2. Follow Walter Russell Mead's advice to See Bush's Strong Hand -- and Raise the Ante:
To win the White House back, it may not be enough for Democrats to go along more or less reluctantly with Bush's war policy. They may need to articulate an even tougher policy against our terrorist enemies and the countries that aid them. For example, Democrats in Congress could introduce a bill to make it harder for immigrants from countries that condone terror to enter the United States. Or one that would make it easier for the families of terror victims to sue, say, European and Middle Eastern banks and other companies that have done business with terrorist organizations. They could announce a strategy for the war on terror that is more comprehensive than anything the Bush administration has offered � and they could attack the administration for lacking a strategy for victory.3. After 9/11, any president would have swiftly retaliated against bin Laden.* But a competent president would have sought out genuine multilateral involvement and never "expanded" the "war on terrorism" to Iraq. Instead, s/he would have concentrated on nation building within Afghanistan, rather than essentially ignoring the place as it slid back into anarchy, as Bush as done.
4. This election will be decided on how incompetent folks think Bush is, nothing else. His lack of skill and character was on ample display on September 11, 2001 and Democrats should not be afraid to show the country what he was really like that day.
And not only on 9/11: on every single day that Bush has been in the Oval Office or before, Bush has disgraced himself, and his country, by going AWOL, by shady business deals, by trading on rich kid privileges he doesn't deserve, by gratuitous and sadistic cruelty, and by lying through his teeth. The Democratic candidate (AND the entire party; it can't be just the candidate) must focus on Bush's utterly disgraceful record consistently, ruthlessly, and inexorably in order to win.
And win he must.
*Not that I agree that the Afghani/Bush War was a good idea -it fit perfectly into our enemies' game plans and schedule, which is, as Clausewitz and others remind us, not what a clever statesman or military leader should do - but political realities meant that no US president could have avoided massive military retaliation for 9/11.
Whoa
Lotsa nuts in Georgia these days and they ain't pecans:Georgia House Minority Leader J. Glenn Richardson told a gathering of lawyers and journalists Saturday that he will introduce a bill to require all 159 Georgia county courthouses to display the Ten Commandments...
Richardson said he is undaunted by the potential cost of defending court challenges. If the state could pay several million dollars to defend its redistricting map, he said, then why not spend money to defend the Ten Commandments?...
In Georgia, the issue has played out in several county courthouses. The ACLU is challenging a Ten Commandments display at the Barrow County courthouse and is set to go in front of a federal judge this week in the case.
Richardson's proposal could be the next battle at the Capitol over separation of church and state.
Georgia garnered national headlines last week over a proposal to expunge the word "evolution" from the state's school curriculums...
Richardson called separation of church and state "a fable."...
Richardson said that he's confident a majority of the House will support his proposed bill, though he's not sure he'll be able to get it to the floor for a vote...
Neil Kinkopf, a Georgia State University law professor and panelist at Saturday's meeting, reminded the audience that Jews and Christians -- and even Christian denominations -- disagree over how to translate the Ten Commandments from the original Hebrew. It's "not some monolithic thing," Kinkopf said.
"How do you display the Ten Commandments in a way that doesn't take a theological position?" Kinkopf asked.
Richardson said Saturday that he had not heard that there was more than one translation of the Ten Commandments.
But reached Monday, he defended the King James Version of the document as the basis for the Mayflower Compact and English common law, which became the foundation of American law.
"The translation most commonly designated as King James is the version that played the role in the history of the formation of this country," Richardson said...
On Monday, Richardson added, "There has been, as everyone knows, an assault on our religious and historical freedoms by attempting to deny the role God played in the formation of our history as a nation. We should not shy away from it, but should make our history public and teach it," Richardson said.
He called the role the Ten Commandments played in the founding of this country a "fact."
Gerald R. Weber, legal director of the Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the issue is clear to him.
He said while the ACLU hasn't seen the bill, "it certainly rings of unconstitutionality." [emphasis added]
Quote Of The Day
"My job isn't to assess the government's information and be an independent intelligence analyst myslef. My job is to tell readers of the New York Times what the government thought about Iraq's arsenal."Judith Miller, New York Times "investigative" reporter as quoted in The New York Review of Books (currently on newsstands but not yet online).
This comes from an important article by Michael Massing entitled "Now They Tell Us" which recounts the history of how the American press totally caved in to Bush and refused to give equal time to those who doubted the wmd lies the Bush administration was pushing.
[UPDATE] The article is now online. Go here and read all about it.
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
Mingering Mike
A truly wonderful story about a terrific outsider artist and his entirely fake records. Here's one of the covers courtesy Boing Boing:
More Great Science From Hubble
Oxygen and carbon streams from planet outside our solar system:Carbon and oxygen have been observed streaming off an extrasolar planet for the first time by researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope.And this kind of incredible knowledge is what Bush wants to cut so Halliburton can mine Mars, maybe someday, somehow in the future? Jeebus.
The study is likely to add important insight into the nature and evolution of extrasolar planets, which are notoriously difficult to observe. It may also provide a model for understanding our own planet's evolution, as the Earth may have been too puny to hold onto its original atmosphere.
"It's a very intriguing and suggestive observation," says Sara Seager, an astronomer who studies extrasolar planets at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, US. "If confirmed, it will provide a nice constraint to understanding the upper atmosphere of this extrasolar planet."
Sign the petition to Save the Hubble.
Monday, February 02, 2004
Bush Sinks Lowers In Polls
It's still not low enough:In a nationwide survey, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry now leads President George W. Bush 51 � 43 percent according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Looking at the Democratic primary, the Kerry juggernaut has rolled up 42 percent, 30 points higher than any other Presidential primary contender.
Jury Duty
So no posts until tonight, tomorrow.Seraphiel's Daily Cartoon Roundup
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Sunday, February 01, 2004
Bush's Poll Numbers Are The Lowest They've Been
But they're still not low enough by half:While Kerry is enjoying his bounce in the polls, Bush�s approval rating is at an all-time low in the NEWSWEEK poll, slipping to 49 percent (with 43 percent approving). Almost half (49 percent) do not want to see the president reelected in the fall (compared to 45 percent who do), which represents a slight improvement in his favor over last week, when 52 percent didn�t want to see him re-elected (44 percent did).
For the first time in the NEWSWEEK poll, a majority (54 percent) believes the Bush administration misinterpreted intelligence about Iraq. But a majority (51 versus 41 percent) also believes Bush did not willfully lie to the public. And despite claims by a former weapons inspector that Iraq had no illegal cache of weapons, half (49 percent) of those polled still believe Saddam Hussein�s regime played a direct roll in the September 11 terror attacks and a majority (55 percent, down from an even larger majority of 71 percent last summer) still believe Iraq had banned weapons prior to the war. More than half (55 percent) feel the U.S. did the right thing in going to war with Iraq, down from 62 percent in December.
Seraphiel's Daily Cartoon Roundup
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