Tristero

Saturday, April 12, 2003

Blogging Remains Light  

Meetings continue and I have a little critter with stomach flu. Hopefully by Sunday evening...
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 8:23 AM

Tim Judah: W A R Spells Relief  

Writing in the New York Review of Books, Tim Judah reports from Baghdad and tells us: "Odd as it may seem, once the bombardments started in the early hours of March 20 the city seemed to breathe a huge sigh of relief."

My, oh my, how original! How true! The city breathed relief! Must be that new asthma prescription.

Usually, the New York Review knows better than to leave bushwah like this uneditied.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 8:22 AM

Thursday, April 10, 2003

Blogging Light For The Next Few Days  

Meetings going on all day for the rest of the week.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 6:45 AM

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

 

I've been outed! Here's what happened.

As some of you know, I am a composer and have written quite a few works of which the best-known is Voices of Light. You can read all about it at my music site and if interested it order it from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.All you need to know here is that it was inspired by and is often performed with Carl Dreyer's great silent film, The Passion of Joan of Arc (also available here).

When I started blogging, I decided to use a pseudonym but not obsess too much over it. If I got outed, fine, but I didn't want to plug my music on the blog. I wanted to talk about other things, including other people's music.

Now, for a long time, I've admired some of the bloggers listed at the left. Among my favorites, but I like them all a lot, are Atrios and CalPundit. If you don't know their work, go now and see how enjoyable and exciting blogwriting can be: they are both very different. I can't say how glad I am they're doing what they're doing. I've learned enormously from both of them.

A while back, when Atrios started to pass the hat, I thought what the hey, this guy is loads of fun to read and well, I lost ten bucks suffering through the last Michael Bay abomination, the least I can do is buy Atrios a present.

So, I look at his Amazon Wish List. He wants a $4000 flat screen tv. Ummm...no.

I see he seems to like both weird and classical music. My kind of fellow, sez I, lemme get him the Shostakovitch Symphony set and then I thought hey! y'know, maybe he'd enjoy my music. I asked him to post the cd to to his wish list so now somewhere in the meat representation of the blogosphere, Atrios now has both cd's, which amuses me no end.

By the way, the flat screen tv is no longer listed (!) but there are plenty other things to get the dude, including just giving him moolah. He has done an extraordinary job and the community in comments that he's built up is also a pleasure. Drop somethin' nice into his tip jar and keep the fellow blogging. I just did again.

Hokay, so Kevin Drum at CalPundit has been consistently interesting and enjoyable. I've watched with fascination as he worked through his ideas and gradually abandoned his support for the war. He's always more than scrupulous in his thinking, even when I disagree, and very careful and intelligent. We've exchanged emails on bunches of subjects, some of which I've posted.

So yesterday, I'm looking at a ten question interview someone did with Kevin and see he also likes classical music. Well, I'd just followed up on one of Kevin's strong recommends, The Age of Sacred Terror, and thought the book was fantastic. Y'know I should really write and thank him and maybe I can give him a gift... Imagine my surprise when he wrote back:

Hey!  This is amazing!
 
I should have recognized your name long ago, but for some reason I didn't make the connection.  Not only do I like classical music, but I also like Carl Dreyer.  My parents wrote (and recently published) the only full length English language biography of Dreyer, a book that we spend a year in Denmark researching in 1967.  (Well, not "we" exactly; we kids just tagged along.)  Dreyer has been a background presence in my life for almost as long as I can remember.

I was agog. I've always wanted to write "I was agog" and mean it. And I certainly do! I wrote back:

Oh my God. I have their book! It was excellent, excellent! Is it possible that we, ie your parents and I, spoke? We may have. I have such a poor memory for anything outside music. I can't believe you met him.

Now there's a coincidence (cue the twilight zone guitars)...

It really is an excellent bio of the filmmaker, who led a complicated, somewhat tragic life. At the moment, it's buried in a huge pile of research for three projects (!) and I haven't been able to dig it out. I recall that they mentioned me which was very kind. Kevin has since written and said that his mother and I have exchanged correspondence. Gotta look it up.

So that was that. I go over to Kevin's blog a little later and whoa! There's the story! I was amazed he had thought it fit to post and to say such nice things.

A little later and I'm over at Eschaton and...omigod...Atrios has blogged me! and is saying nice stuff!

A couple hours later I start getting email from friends and some fan letters. It's a day later and they're still coming in. So thanks, fellas! I really didn't expect or seek any mention, but I'm totally grateful.

I started to think about this, the eerie coincidence and that I found myself politically simpatico with folks who like my art. I've found it difficult to compose recently because of the state of the world. Perhaps a little woo-woo like this should be interpreted as a good omen that it's time to compose again. Then, I had an idea for a piece...


posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 4:05 PM

Stupid Security Awards  

Via a friend, this article has the skinny on who has the dumbest security ideas. Creepy and funny.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 2:25 PM

The Best Laid Plans  

I promised to report on calpundit and my remarkable coincidence. Life caught up. A little later today. Have to go out right now!

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:59 AM

Oh, Yeah, Now I Remember  

For months, I've been having flashbacks of a cartoon cover about war in the Middle East from a long, long time ago. Maybe Atlantic Monthly? And, well, I'm pretty sure here's what it prompted that cover:

In the wake of the oil shocks of the 1970s, [Former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia] Mr. Akins says, a "screwy idea" was floated to American newspapers and magazines outlining a U.S. takeover of Arab oil fields.

"Then I made a fatal mistake," Mr. Akins tells the magazine. "I said on television that anyone who would propose that is either a madman, a criminal, or an agent of the Soviet Union."

A short time later, Mr. Akins was told that the "madman" was his own boss, Mr. Kissinger, who reportedly had introduced the proposal during a senior background briefing.

Mr. Akins was fired a short time later.

Hmm... I wonder if poor Christopher Hitchens remembered this after he switched sides? Gosh I hope not. It would lead me to drink if I was he and suddenly realized that I was endorsing the policies of a man I had indicted for war crimes.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 7:53 AM

Tuesday, April 08, 2003

Bush's Message: Strong and Clear (And All Lies)  

What can one say when the paper of record prints unfiltered trash from Bush's mouth and no longer bothers to find even one token expert to bring the reader back to reality?

"I hear a lot of talk here about how, you know, we're going to impose this leader or that leader," the president declared, as he and Mr. Blair stood behind a pair of lecterns. "Forget it. From day one we have said the Iraqi people are capable of running their own country. That's what we believe. The position of the United States of America is, the Iraqis are plenty capable of running Iraq, and that's precisely what's going to happen."

Oh, please. Some of us remember the Loya Jirga in Afghanistan (even though Bush completely forgot about the country when he submitted his budget) where the Afghans "chose" Hamid Karzai. It was the most shameless manipulation of an election result since...well, you know when. And how, pray tell, are the Iraqis gonna chose "their leader" with American troops swarming around? What if they choose a leader who runs on an Islamist platform that demands the immediate expulsion of American troops? What if they decide to elect the Baath party? What if the government goes the way of the"inexperienced" democracy of the Turks?

Saddam Hussein clearly now knows I mean what I say...People in Iraq will know we mean what we say when we talk about freedom.

They don't give too hoots when "we" talk about freedom. How much freedom is there really at the business end of a tank? How much freedom did the UN have? As for personal stuff, where again are all those nuclear weapons Saddam had lying around? Where are the vast stockpiles of chemo? What about when you said that a change of behavior would equal regime change and would not require military action? What about the easy victory you and your slimy advisers promised with mass surrenders?

This is trash talk. As for "success" in Iraq, that will be measured not by military dominance but by falling interest in Wahabbism and bin Ladenism. And of course by no further attacks against US citizens. I'm taking bets now.

Iraq is one more misbegotten mess that someone with superhuman competence will have to clean up when Bush slithers back to Crawford.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 11:08 PM

A Very Courageous Woman  

From Common Dreams via Shock and Awe comes the story of Angelica Amaya, one woman against the war who stood up to 1000 prowar demonstrators.

Indeed, Bravery comes in many forms in this terrible war. The soldiers are brave, the reporters are brave, and so are the dissenters. Yes, the Iraqi civilians are brave too and their soldiers, I'm sure, have behaved bravely, whether they stood and fought or chose to desert or just go home.

Bravery has been demonstrated by all.

So people, for God's sakes can we stop the slaughter NOW and go on to something that requires real bravery? Like preventing any further bloodshed on Bush's watch?

What more will it take for those in a position to stop this thing to get it? People are dying and not only don't they need to, but also whenever someone dies or gets hurt, our collective future - US, Iraq, and the rest of the world - gets profoundly more dangerous?

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 6:25 PM

One More Geographically-Challenged Bushite  

Eric Alterman alerts us to this one:

WHERE IN THE WORLD
       ARE GEORGE AND ARI?
       
       Not the Geography Presidency:
       
       Announcing President Bush’s latest Summit with Tony Blair, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer accidentally said last week that Bush would be visiting Dublin. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he quickly apologized, saying the trip was really to Belfast. “I was not a geography major.”

That's an understatement. But wait, there's more!

Yesterday, White House staff members made another faux pas: Official credentials and schedules for the trip declared in bold letters that it is “the Trip of the President to Belfast, Ireland.” Belfast is in Northern Ireland, and is part of the United Kingdom. The distinction has been the root of strife in the region for decades .
       
       These are the most powerful men in the history of the world. Could anything be scarier?

Since you ask, Eric....

If, and, yeah I know, really this is a preposterous notion, but IF a US president believed he was called by God to lead his country to remake the Middle East, that would be scarier. Yeah, I know, I know when pigs...Oh my God! Winged porker at three o'clock closing fast!
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 5:47 PM

Latest List of Uk/US Casualties  

Again, via The Agonist, a list of the poor kids who died in this terrible war. And kids they are.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 4:01 PM

Air Travel Down 10 Percent  

The Agonist passes on some stratfor info that air travel is down 10% due to the war plus SARS. That sounds majorly bad. I'm pretty sure no one bothered to war game a middle east war PLUS a new pandemic and its combined effect on the world economy. One more reason not to poke around looking for trouble.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 3:55 PM

Report From Kandahar, Afghanistan  

It sounds like an awful situation

...the Taliban is not only determined to remain a force in this country, but is reorganizing and reviving its command structure.
There is little to stop them. The soldiers and police who were supposed to be the bedrock of a stable postwar Afghanistan have gone unpaid for months and are drifting away.


At a time when the United States is promising a reconstructed democratic postwar Iraq, many Afghans are remembering hearing similar promises not long ago.


Instead, what they see is thieving warlords, murder on the roads, and a resurgence of Taliban vigilantism.


``It's like I am seeing the same movie twice and no one is trying to fix the problem,'' said Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghanistan's president and his representative in southern Kandahar. ``What was promised to Afghans with the collapse of the Taliban was a new life of hope and change. But what was delivered? Nothing. Everyone is back in business.''
Karzai said reconstruction has been painfully slow -- a canal repaired, a piece of city road paved, a small school rebuilt.


``There have been no significant changes for people,'' he said. ``People are tired of seeing small, small projects. I don't know what to say to people anymore.''

* * *

International workers in Kandahar don't feel safe anymore and some have been moved from the Kandahar region to safer areas, said John Oerum, southwest security officer for the United Nations.

* * *

The Red Cross, with 150 foreign workers in Afghanistan, have suspended operations indefinitely.

To be fair, the article does say that there is no draft under the present regime. That seems to be the main difference between the two. There was nothing about women's rights in this article.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 1:09 PM

You're Too Late, Rick  

Here's a prime example of something that never fails to shockinawe me. This is The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg in the current issue. Hertzberg's one of the good guys.

It’s possible to think of ways that this sandstorm of steel might have been averted. (The French proposal for delay followed by reproach was contemptibly unserious, but the idea of “coercive inspections”—which, as promoted for months by Jessica Tuchman Mathews, the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, would have entailed greatly expanded teams of inspectors, empowered to create “no drive” as well as “no fly” zones and to call in air strikes—was worth trying.) (emphasis added)

Indeed it was. In fact, it was the only sensible solution given the preposterous hornet's nest Bush had stirred up.

I first encountered Dr. Mathews' proposals on February 13. I wrote her a letter that day expressing my appreciation. I then contacted everyone I could think of - my senators, reporters, bloggers, politically connected friends - and begged them to read her paper "Iraq: What Next?" When I didn't get a response, I often sent a follow-up. I wrote to a contact at cnn urging them to interview her. It's possible that I even wrote to Hertzberg.

Of course, I never heard back. After all, what do I know?

The next time I found a major mention of her ideas was in the last week before the bombs began to fall. Some commentators were beginning to take her seriously. By then, the situation had spiralled completely out of control.

Dr. Mathews is a widely respected expert in the area of disarmament. She helped put together the 1441 inspection regime. When it could have mattered, her ideas were ignored, completely excluded from serious consideration in the public arena. For the life of me, I will never understand why.

Meanwhile, I encountered numerous articles saying that "liberals" had no alternatives to war. Everytime I saw one of those articles, I looked up the email and fired off a letter urging them to read "Why Iraq?"

While she was being ignored, who were the "alternative" voices to the Perle, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Bush that were all over the media? Why, Janeane Garofalo, Martin Sheen, Michael Moore. What's wrong with them? Simple. While all of them have educated themselves on the issues, they are first and foremost entertainers. They can't sit down opposite, say Charlie Rose and Wolfowitz, and hold their own. In serious discussions, they are lightweights no matter how intelligent, articulate, and informed they try to be. Now to their credit, some of them made the point that they were there only because the media was interested in having them appear. The media wasn't interested in "unknown" qualified experts was the clear implication. Nevertheless, there they were, while great ideas from people opposed to Bush couldn't get a decent airing.

Dammit, Hertzberg, what on earth took you and every other journalist of integrity so long to find sensible alternatives to Bush's mad plans when I, a half-educated amateur, could locate them and grasp their importance the moment I heard them?

Forgive the outburst, but this has me steamed. Mathews is smart, articulate, and no one's fool. She's just one tiny example of a wider problem. Okay, The New Yorker didn't catch on, fair enough. But why did not a single major media outlet give her a microphone after an initial op/ed in the Washington Post and an NPR interview (which was hijacked in part by a phone call from William Kristol)? I am not a conspiracist by nature, so the only answer I can come up with is that since no one else chose to speak about her, any given journalist thought her ideas were unimportant. Rather than take the trouble to read the reports from ceip.org and make up their own minds, they just ignored the few people, like me, who have no standing but felt motivated to tell them about it.

This brings up a larger issue, bordering on epistemology. There is a very dangerous tendency to trust the judgement of wise men, both inside the government and the press. What makes this so dangerous?

There are no wise men (or women). There are only smart ideas. The only way to grasp reality and respond sensibly to it is to engage those ideas and ignore the messenger. The first person who asserted that two and two always make four was, I'm sure, a loser and a jerk. But it's a very good idea and ultimately, what did his acceptability in the finest circles of Greek society matter in comparison?

The principle of engaging the idea, not the messenger, has always been honored more in the breach, but pathologically so these days. Remember last year around this time when Bush was not going to bother to go through the UN? He wouldn't listen to anyone who voiced an objection. But suddenly, Brent Scowcroft wrote an op/ed and there's George on his ranch saying, "There are smart people telling us to look at the UN. We need to listen to them and we will." Scowcroft said nothing that dozens of others hadn't already said. But since he was one of his father's wise men, they paused, revised their plan, and brought out their new improved product in the fall.

It was all theater, of course, but the important point in this context is Bush's attribution of authority with its subsequent abrogation of responsibility for thinking through a problem himself. This dynamic is Bush's style, the style of someone who refuses to accept the Bible for what it obviously is, namely allegory, but instead persists in the delusion that it is an immutable document that must be accepted at what his wise men tell him is its literal meaning. Reason is shortcircuited and if something goes wrong, well hey, that was what the wisest men in the country advised and I stand by them.

This happens in the media as well, both to promote a bad idea or, conversely, to deep six an inconvenient one. Thus, "everyone" knows that Wolfowitz and Perle are, "whatever their politics," some of "the most brilliant foreign policy analysts" in the country. How do they know this? I have no idea. I'll take a wild stab that it's because of their numerous appointments, awards, etc.

But wait a minute...Has anyone read what they've written? The lapses in logic are so glaring, the biases so blatant that the foolishness of the ideas leaps off the page. And the more one reads, the more one gets the distinct impression that whatever else they may know, they don't know the first thing about the Middle East or an appropriate foreign policy approach to the all but intractable issues there.

As for their exalted reputation, what does it matter if they speak nonsense? Linus Pauling, a brilliant chemist, was obsessed with vitamin c as a cure-all. The idea is idiotic, even though the man who promoted it was a Nobel Prize winner. In fact, regarding Wolfowitz's and Perle's credentials, when you take the trouble to examine them, many are positions from organizations that are set up not to analyze policy, but to propagate ideologies. A "neo-con solution" to the Middle East? What nonsense! That's like feminist math, the premises are so screwy that screwy results are almost inevitable.

The reverse is also true. Clinton? He's a philanderer and a liberal (sic), why listen to him on Korea? Huh? The reason to listen is because he's studied the problem deeply and he can evaluate enormous amounts of data and craft a response. Does that mean we should trust him? Hell, no! Never! Every idea has to be evaluated, over and over again. That's the point. You never bow to an authority, but you ignore good ideas at your peril.

I think that many people believe they are not qualified to judge such weighty, complex issues as foreign policy. They are 100% right, of course.

But with the Bushites, that is beside the point. Anyone with a reasonable amount of intelligence can read, say, Perle and Feith's A Clean Break and spot the obvious lapses in logic and its foolish conclusions. It is quite a different matter entirely for a novice to engage a genuine expert like, say, Kenneth Pollack, who advocated a war on Saddam, but not the way Wolfowitz and Perle wanted it. To critique Pollack requires hard knowledge: it's been done convincingly, but only by other experts. To demolish Perle, on the other hand, requires merely the ability to think clearly.

I suppose what I am arguing for is an engaged, active, and informed skepticism on the part of reporters, talk show hosts, etc. to any and all subjects. An article or a show should never be an opportunity for an incompetent, secretive screw-up like Dick Cheney to present his views or actions. It should be an opportunity for him to defend them against responsible, probing questions. Incredibly, except for the weakest kind of confrontation, or the most useless, you can't find this in the US media. They have been browbeaten into submission.

I've just finished a marvelous book called The Age of Sacred Terror. It has some useful things to say about this last point. But for now:

Basta.

[NOTE: I've revised, and extended, an earlier post of this material.]
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 8:09 AM

Egyptian Friend of US Believes Bush is "Deranged."  

And anyone who thinks this fellow is alone in thinking so is also deranged.

During the last year, I travelled a good deal around the US and the world. I went to South Africa, Europe, and Australia. The views expressed in this NY Times article come as no surprise to me or to anyone who's been listening to thoughtful people anywhere. The article is a profile of a former aide to Anwar Sadat of Egypt, Mr. Aboulmagd. According to the Times, he is considered one of Egypt's top intellectuals and he is quite an Americanophile, familiar with American political history and our Constitution.

"To most people in this area, the United States is the source of evil on planet earth. And whether we like it or not, it is the Bush administration that is to blame."

When speaking of President Bush and his administration, Mr. Aboulmagd uses words like narrow-minded, pathological, obstinate and simplistic. The war on Iraq, he said bluntly, is the act of a "weak person who wants to show toughness" and, quite frankly, seems "deranged."

* * *

If the Iraq war comes to be seen as an American war against Islam, he added, President Bush may be partly to blame. "He believes he was chosen by the Almighty to fulfill a Christian mission," Mr. Aboulmagd said. "Or at least he was made to believe that by the people around him."

It's a commonplace tactic in the US to dismiss this as a reflexive, ubiquitous anti-Americanism. This is a seriously misinformed conclusion. As mentioned before, in all my travels around the world, I never encountered anti-Americanism, but I did find plenty of people who spoke of Bush with open contempt. They were, for the most part, much more familiar with Bush policies and actions than many Americans I know.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 7:33 AM

Thin Ice  

Patrick Farley has a very fine little playlet worth reading.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 7:07 AM

Hawash Update  

Wired has some more information. Basically, Hawash will be held until the end of the month. His congressman is requesting more information. As outrageous as this case is, it is only one of 44 cases where the Justice dept has held a "material witness" without showing public cause or charging them.

If ever there was an argument for quadrupuling the education budget, this is it. Obviously, wherever John Aschrcoft went to school, they had an inadequate American History program.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 7:00 AM

Young Churchhill Is Not Very Well Liked  

Political Strategy has the skinny. Bottom line: a thoroughly unbiased polling technique determined that Bush is hated three times as much as Clinton was. Must be quite a disappointment for Fearless Leader.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 12:37 AM

Krugman on Regime Change  

Once again, he's focused on precisely the creepiest part of the GOP agenda:

Last week John Kerry told an audience that "what we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States." Republicans immediately sought to portray this remark as little short of treason. "Senator Kerry crossed a grave line when he dared to suggest the replacement of America's commander in chief at a time when America is at war," declared Marc Racicot, chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Notice that Mr. Racicot wasn't criticizing Mr. Kerry's choice of words. Instead, he denounced Mr. Kerry because he "dared to suggest the replacement of America's commander in chief" — knowing full well that Mr. Kerry was simply talking about the next election. Mr. Racicot, not Mr. Kerry, is the one who crossed a grave line; never in our nation's history has it been considered unpatriotic to oppose an incumbent's re-election.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 12:14 AM

Monday, April 07, 2003

They Shoot Liberals, Don't They?  

And so it begins.

David Neiwert has documenting all the violent tactics of some pro-war thugs. Now, the police are firing on demonstrators. There were teamsters who witnessed it. They too were injured and thought it was a misuse of force.

Do you think it will stop me from demonstrating? No, but my kid stays home next time.

This is a national disgrace.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 2:38 PM

Amnesty Working on Hawash Case  

I just heard from a friend at Amnesty International that they are working on the Michael Hawash case, which has started to attract major news coverage. Whether or not he is guilty is not the issue. He should not be held without charge or held without the ability to speak out.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 1:18 PM

Wise Words From Bill Moyers  

From an interview in Salon:

Yeah, I think we are in a very disturbing period. I've never seen anything like it. I've lived through the Depression, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, the rise of the conservative movement, the nuclear age, all of these changes. I've never seen anything like this.

* * *

What's your assessment of George W. Bush's character?

I never pay much attention to the character of a president...A president is there to make the best decisions for all of us that he can, and we should judge him by his decisions...[Bush], whatever his character, is making choices whose winners are primarily the people who can win, the people who are ahead, at the expense of the people who are not. His character is not the issue to me. His policies are.

* * *

You're saying that George W. Bush is a dangerous president.

This is a presidency that is fundamentally changing the nature and character of American government. It's the most anti-government administration of my lifetime. I believe in our collective responsibility. I grew up in an America where that made a difference to my parents, made a difference to my community, made a difference to my culture. You have to go back to Warren G. Harding to find an administration that so opened the doors to its cronies to come in and exploit the public resources. That's very troubling.

* * *

I'm deeply troubled by the lack of debate in the country, by the suppression of dissent, by the secrecy... this is becoming the most secretive administration in American history, much more so even than during the Civil War.

Cheney last week was given full power by Bush to classify everything he wants. This is very troubling; this is a man who's indifferent to democracy, if not hostile to it. He's certainly hostile to transparency. He allows the energy industry to come in and write his energy bill, he talks to them about the oil fields in Iraq, yet all the records are closed. The main reason behind what they're doing with secrecy is to make it very difficult to follow their footprints on the policies that the first Bush and second Bush administrations are making.

* * *

I think democracy is in danger. I think democracy is gasping at the moment. The money people primarily determine who runs and wins in both parties...I do believe that the oxygen is going out of democracy. Slowly, but at an accelerating pace, the democratic institutions of this country are being bought off or traded off or allowed to atrophy. Political participation is one of them. There simply isn't any way for political candidates to engage in a true debate that people can watch and respond to. We don't hear many ideas anymore, just sound bites. Democracy is in great difficulty right now, and this troubles me about our country.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 1:10 PM

Oh God, mother, blood! Blood!  

The following is from an immensely interesting transcript of Barbara Bush on an ABC-TV morning show. She was asked if she and her husband, the former president, watch television.

"He sits and listens and I read books because I know perfectly well that - don't take offense - that 90 percent of what I hear on television is supposition, when we're talking about the news. And he's not, not as understanding of my pettiness about that. But why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many, what day it's going to happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Oh, I mean, it's, not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? And watch him suffer."

From a Jimmy Breslin column via The Horse.

When I read this, I couldn't help but remember another mother/son combination:

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 12:33 PM

Acknowledging My Sources And Why I'm Doing This  

On this blog, I have never, to the best of my knowledge, posted a fact or even a personal opinion without attribution. If someone thinks otherwise, please write me and I will look at it and, if necessary, update it immediately and apologize.

When compiling the material that I post here, I have a script that allows me to grab the url of the article and allows me to append various excerpts from the article. On occasion, if I've been referred to a site from a blogger, I have forgotten to include that blogger's name in an acknowledgement and, given the amount that I blog, even forgotten where I first saw mention of the article. Usually, however, I've added some comment like "via Atrios" with a link.

I think this falls under the rubric of inconsideration more than anything else. As I've gained more experience, this has happened less and less, but it still might happen. I apologize for any lapses of attribution to bloggers of links that I've found on your sites and followed. Again, I have never, and will never, post an article or someone else's opinion without attribution. If I make a mistake, it will be corrected and attention will be called to that mistake.

I make no claims to original journalism here, as I'm not, and don't want to be, a journalist. The blog's purpose is twofold: 1. to alert interested readers to things that I think should concern them; and 2. serve as therapy during a time when people like myself, who are both sensitive and intelligent, have come under full scale intellectual assault. If I stumble across something to report, that's fine, but it's not my goal.

Regarding opinions and analysis, I say, with no immodesty, sarcasm or irony intended, that I wish that I wasn't so prescient as I have been. I am, at best, an amateur, and yet, with disturbing regularity, I've been able to perceive the profound dangers of the Bush administration with considerably more clarity and speed than the most decorated of pundits. Yes, there's a small sense of "gotcha" glee, but the overwhelming feeling I have is one of dread. What on earth has happened to critical analysis of foreign policy and the news if a reasonably smart, but admittedly inexperienced, person can, and has, articulated the dangers we face better than the acknowledged experts?

Believe me, I would like nothing better than to be wrong. But I've been proven correct a disconcerting amount of the time. I've concluded that, at least since September 11, 2001, American policy analysts are not paying close attention, or not connecting the dots. If they were, then bizarre notions like preemptive, unilateral war and the flowering of Iraqi democracy via US conquest - to name just two remarkably stupid ideas - would have been ridiculed rather than considered fodder for intellectual debate in our op-ed pages.

Some thoughtful, intelligent friends who don't agree with me have countered that since these "ideas" are of concern to Bush, we must take them seriously no matter what we might their value to be. Nevertheless, I argue the opposite, that precisely because Bush takes them seriously, these extremist fantasies must be promptly and thoroughly discredited and denounced as the hogwash they are. A comparison:

There have been presidents, like Reagan, that consulted astrologers. Today, George Bush consults Paul Wolfowitz. There is no discernible intellectual difference in the methodology and the quality of the resulting policy reccommendations. True, astrologers gazed into crystal balls while Wolfowitz gazes at charts. But they both project their ideological and quasi-religious delusions onto the props they use. They both eschew empirical analysis. And both astrologer and Wolfowitz are wrong, always in their methodology and usually in their conclusions, more often than not.

It is my strong hope that soon I can once again turn to a "mainstream" source like the New York Times and find informed critical analysis outside a bi-weekly dose of Krugman. But until then, I'll be doing this, to a greater or lesser extent.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 11:28 AM

The Agony of Sean-Paul Kelley  

I came across this sad takedown of Sean-Paul Kelly's Agonist reporting. Apparently, he's been plagiarizing a lot of his war coverage from Stratfor, a pay site. Exactly how much has been plagiarized without attribution is unclear, but it brings up the whole copy/paste phenomenon of blogging.

First, whether it's one article or 100 or 1000, plagiarism is wrong, wrong, wrong. All of us involved in making things, whether they are relatively simple things like a news article or masterpieces like The Rite of Spring, deserve credit for our work and just compensation for it. In low budget areas like internet radio or the blogosphere, at the very least all of us deserve ample recognition. To deny credit, let alone deliberately hide credit, is terrible form.

Sean-Paul owes all of us an apology. I've donated to his site and I think he's done some great work. He's created some compelling maps and in general kept us all informed about the war in considerable detail, more, frankly, than I'm interested in following, but valuable nevertheless. I don't know all the reasons why he didn't credit stratfor and perhaps other sources, but I can guess that some are that he didn't want to get in trouble for copying so much stuff and he wanted to create the impression that his sources were more varied and extensive than they actually were, perhaps out of ambitions to advance his career. It is also possible that he is/was using more unique sources and that the stratfor material was plagiarized simply out of haste, as it confirmed his other sources and was pre-written.

I'm going to chalk it up to Sean-Paul's inexperience and hypomanic response to the war. As most of us on the left were turning away in disgust at the failure of the protests to stop Bush, and were horrified by the antiseptic pornography of the first bomb strikes over Baghdad, Kelley reacted with nearly 24 hour/day postings. As no one has accused him of making things up, The Agonist's archives will be an invaluable log of what we knew when we knew it. I think that Sean-Paul totally lost perspective along with his sleep (and this Sunday, his bachelorhood!).

Apparently, he and Stratfor have settled this amicably, with The Agonist permitted to post no more than two articles/day from them. If they can take this attitude, so can I, but it is a warning to all bloggers and in fact all users of copyrighted material to respect and credit the work of others and when in doubt, err on the side of attribution.




posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 11:08 AM

Sunday, April 06, 2003

Hawash Denied Bail  

Go over to TalkLeft and read the whole thing. Basically, he's being held without charge and his lawyers have been gagged. He has impeccable witnesses that vouch for his character. But even if he is a terrorist, he must be charged with a crime and not held incommunicado. This is outrageous.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 6:34 PM

Can Richard Perle Even Find Iraq On A Map?  

It's not an idle question.This is from the lead paragraph of a March 21, 2003 article by chickenhawk Richard Perle.:

Saddam Hussein's reign of terror is about to end. He will go quickly, but not alone: in a parting irony, he will take the UN down with him. Well, not the whole UN. The "good works" part will survive, the low-risk peacekeeping bureaucracies will remain, the chatterbox on the Hudson will continue to bleat. What will die is the fantasy of the UN as the foundation of a new world order.

Richard, Richard...The UN is not on the Hudson but on the East River.

This is the ignorant fool who is often described as "brilliant." This is the man behind the present Middle East strategy of the Bush administration.

So, inquiring minds want to know, Mr. Perle: do you know where Iraq is?
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 6:12 PM

Yoo Hoo! Georgie! Pyongyang Calling!  

Whenever I think about the idiocy of our lack of a coherent North Korea policy, I break out in chills. Now they're saying that the latest UN meeting (remember the UN?) was a "provocative act." And here's what they think of Bush's latest adventure:

North Korea said it would not recognise the authority of the Security Council, and has threatened to boost its defences, saying a strong military deterrence is the only way of preventing war with the US and protecting the country's security.

It has also said it had learnt a lesson from the US-led war on Iraq - that allowing disarmament through inspection did not avert, but instead sparked, war.

And what does Young Churchill think?

The North wants bilateral talks with the US to resolve the issue; Washington has insisted any discussions must take place in a multi-lateral framework.

And of course, all the other countries in the region say to George, look buster, it's your problem, you clean it up.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 5:05 PM

 

Atrios points to a story about the latest monkey business in Tennessee. You'd think they'd have had enough ridicule after Scopes, but no... Anyway, some thoughts I posted on his blog.


1. Evolution is a fascinating subject, but not w/in the context of creationism. It is a waste of time to give people holding such views the opportunity air their views as they are not scientifically qualified to make, let alone defend, interesting views.

2. The "debate" is really cover for an attempt to impose a dreary right wing religious agenda on our kids. They believe that evolution undermines morality. Don't ask me why: I've studied the controversy off and on for many years and have no idea what they're talking about. Nevertheless it is the moral agenda that must be engaged. The theoretical issues are besides the point.

3. Because of Inherit the Wind, the myth sprang up that the fundamentalist project in America had been entirely discredited by Darrow during the Scopes trial. Wrong. A wonderful book called Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion (which won a Pulitzer) puts some much needed perspective on the trial. I think the real story is far more interesting than the Tracy/March version. Bryan, to say the least, was an amazing man, as interesting as he was stupid. And Darrow was remarkable.

4. This controversy rears its ugly head on Slashdot once or twice a year. Nothing interesting is ever said in the comments but it did lead to an interesting book which I ordered. If you really want to investigate a the real issues in evolutionary theory, at least as of a few years ago, pick up Amazon.com: Books: Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution by Robert L. Carrol.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 4:32 PM

Weirder Than Whitewater  

Sent by a friend, this article below summarizes the extremely strange Bush/bin Laden connection. A few thoughts first.


I should say upfront that I am not a conspiracy theorist type. Yeah, Oswald acted alone and no, Vince Foster was not murdered. So as a matter of course, I am highly skeptical that there is any significant connection between the Bush's and the bin Ladens, let alone nefarious ones. I'm not saying there's no connection, but convincing me that there's something fishy going on will take a lot.


On the other hand, what you will read below is a matter of public record and has been for a very long time. It is quite striking that more has not been made of the remarkable overlaps in business interests/relationships between the two oil dynasties. This is far more troubling than anything that happened during the Whitewater investigation (an excellent history of which can ordered here). And yet, the story never gets any major coverage.


Apparently, Michael Moore is planning a movie, Fahrenheit 911, about the bin Ladens and the Bushes. On the one hand, it's great that there will be some high profile airing of the material. On the other hand, the implications of the story are so serious that they really should have the most dispassionate attention. Moore is, first and foremost, a showman, a talented one, but many have picked holes in his arguments. He will be a magnet for ad hominem criticism that will deflect attention from the real story.


I've annotated the article below in [brackets], to give those new to the story some perspective on some of the lesser known details.

Directors of one of the world’s largest armament companies are planning on meeting in Lisbon in three weeks time. The American based Carlyle Group is heavily involved in supplying arms to the Coalition forces fighting in the Iraqi war.

* * *

Top of the meeting’s agenda is expected to be the company’s involvement in the rebuilding of Baghdad’s infrastructure after the cessation of current hostilities. Along with several other US companies [including a subsidiary of Halliburton, Dick Cheney's company which nearly sank due to a bad business deal Cheney made], the Carlyle Group is expected to be awarded a billion dollar contract by the US Government to help in the redevelopment of airfields and urban areas destroyed by Coalition aerial bombardments.

The Group is managed by a team of former US Government personnel including its president Frank Carlucci, former deputy director of the CIA before becoming Defence Secretary. His deputy is James Baker II, who was Secretary of State under George Bush senior [and who was Bush's pointsman during the election 2000 recount]. Several high profile former politicians are employed to represent the company overseas, among them John Major, former British Prime Minister, along with George Bush senior, one time CIA director before becoming US President.

The financial assets of the Saudi Binladen Corporation (SBC) are also managed by the Carlyle Group. The SBC is headed up by members of Osama bin Laden’s family, who played a principle role in helping George W. Bush win petroleum concessions from Bahrain when he was head of the Texan oil company, Harken Energy Corporation - a deal that was to make the Bush family millions of dollars. Salem, Osama bin Laden’s brother [probably half-brother as bin Laden was one of 50-plus kids that his father had by at least 4 wives], was represented on Harken’s board of directors by his American agent, James R. Bath.

* * *

The Portugal News has been told by a reliable source that the Carlyle Group meeting in Lisbon will discuss the relationship between the Saudi Binladen Corporation (SBC) and Osama bin Laden.

Adnan Khasshoggi,'s name also came up in the article. Khasshoggi,, a Middle East arms dealer with ties to the bin Laden family, was recently mentioned in an article by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker. Hersh claimed that there is at least some evidence that Richard Perle (who is now described as a "luminary" by the beeb and the New Yorker) recently met with Khasshoggi, regarding a Post-Iraq business deal.

Again, what does it all add up to? Not much, perhaps, but it sure as hell looks a lot creepier and real than Whitewater ever did.


posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 3:43 PM

Some Useful Refs  

In a recent discussion, I realized that I didn't have any links up here to some very important articles. I assumed that most people knew about these or took the facts for granted. My wrong. So...

Here's an article from The Guardian that charts claims/counterclaims from the early days of the war.

As mentioned several times, one of the most eloquent documents from the last few months is this resignation letter by J. Brady Kiesling to Colin Powell, which was reprinted in the New York Review of Books. You can see it online at Freedom of Information Center and it's well worth the read.

The ombudsman for the Washington Post admitted that their lack of coverage of this letter was part of "a pattern in the news pages of missing, underplaying or being late on various blips with respect to public voices of dissent or uncertainty." To put it mildly, I think that's an understatement :-) Here's the link: Connecting the Blips (washingtonpost.com)
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 2:58 PM