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And, yes, I DO take it personally: 06/22/2008 - 06/29/2008
Mandy: Great blog!
Mark: Thanks to all the contributors on this blog. When I want to get information on the events that really matter, I come here.
Penny: I'm glad I found your blog (from a comment on Think Progress), it's comprehensive and very insightful.
Eric: Nice site....I enjoyed it and will be back.
nora kelly: I enjoy your site. Keep it up! I particularly like your insights on Latin America.
Alison: Loquacious as ever with a touch of elegance -- & right on target as usual!
"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it."
- Noam Chomsky
Send tips and other comments to: profmarcus2010@yahoo.com

And, yes, I DO take it personally

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Juan Cole on David Addington

i've noticed that professor cole is becoming much less reticent to mince words...
David Addington, Cheney's legal capo, can't say whether he authorized waterboarding because he is afraid that al-Qaeda might be watching C-Span.

Al-Qaeda is this crew's excuse for everything that they always wanted to do before there was any al-Qaeda.

speaking for myself, i no longer see al-qaeda as an "excuse"... i see it as a deliberate bush administration creation there for the sole purpose of justifying endless war...

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Friday, June 27, 2008

Let's get on with the economic melt-down and the financial collapse

a follow-on from the previous post about the dow jones free-fall...
So much for that second-half rebound.

Truth be told, that was always more of a wish than a serious forecast, happy talk from the Fed and Wall Street desperate to get things back to normal.

It ain't gonna happen. Not this summer. Not this fall. Not even next winter.

This thing's going down, fast and hard. Corporate bankruptcies, bond defaults, bank failures, hedge fund meltdowns and 6 percent unemployment. We're caught in one of those vicious, downward spirals that, once it gets going, is very hard to pull out of.

Only this will be a different kind of recession -- a recession with an overlay of inflation. That combo puts the Federal Reserve in a Catch-22 -- whatever it does to solve one problem only makes the other worse. Emerging from a two-day meeting this week, Fed officials signaled that further recession-fighting rate cuts are unlikely and that their next move will be to raise rates to contain inflationary expectations.

and then there's that $142 a barrel oil...
Oil leapt to a new record high above $142 a barrel on Friday, extending gains after surging nearly 4 percent in the previous session, as tumbling global stock markets helped to trigger a wider commodities rally.

U.S. light crude for August delivery was $1.70 up at $141.34 a barrel by 8:12 a.m. EDT, off a record high of $142.26.

London Brent crude was $1.39 up at $141.22, off a record high of $142.13.

World stocks fell to a three-month low as a fast deteriorating global inflation picture intensified concerns over the outlook for corporate profits, hastening the rush of investors' funds into commodities.

i don't wish anyone any pain, but, c'mon... the house of cards is tumbling down and i'm sick and tired of watching those who continue to profit the most scrambling to preserve their super-rich, elite status at the expense of the peasantry...

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Thursday, June 26, 2008

Dow down 358 points - the financial collapse continues in slo-mo

all the shit our media has been feeding us about "the worst being behind us" is strictly that - shit...
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 358.41 points, or 3.03 percent, to 11,453.42, its lowest level of the year, after a discouraging report predicted trouble ahead for some of the nation’s biggest brokerage firms.

The early sell-off in the financial sector helped push the blue-chip index down, and then accelerated late in the day. The index slipped below its value at the height of the Bear Stearns collapse, a moment that many investors thought would be the bottom of a painful year in the markets.

bring in on... let's get it the hell over with...

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The real "disorder" is NOT being traumatized by war

juan cole quotes george carlin...
[T]hanks to the lies and deceits surrounding [Vietnam], I guess it's no surprise that [what was called shell shock in WWI was now] called post-traumatic stress disorder. Still eight syllables, but we've added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder.

I'll bet you if we'd of still been calling it shell shock, some of those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I'll betcha. I'll betcha.'

and adds some thoughts of his own...
I have concluded that Carlin was right about that issue. Being traumatized by war is not a disorder. In fact, if you are not traumatized by the sight of body parts flying all around you as you are splattered with the blood of people you know, then you would have a disorder. Why not just say "war-traumatized" ? Or better yet, "war-scarred" ? The PTSD phrase has the unfortunate effect of making it seem abnormal for people to be negatively affected by wartime violence.

just another instance of how susceptible we are to being quietly and subtly brain-washed by those intent on making war a never-ending feature of our lives...

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Key Bush administration figures begin war crimes trials

the magazine cover i'm waiting for...

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Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Yes, it's ANOTHER travel day

light posting...

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Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Russ Feingold describes the pending FISA bill as an "impeachable offense" and says he will filibuster

from democracy now...

“One of the Greatest Intrusions, Potentially, on the Rights of Americans Protected Under the 4th Amendment”–Sen. Feingold Blasts Telecom Spy Bill


here's some of the meat...
SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: Well, this is a great blow to the rights of the American people. And much of the publicity has been about a very important aspect: giving these telephone companies immunity that cooperated with the President’s illegal program. We think that should be decided based on current law, not some kind of a retroactive immunity. But that’s essentially what this bill does.

But you know what? Even worse are the provisions of the bill that will make it very easy for the government to essentially suck up the communications, all communications of Americans that go overseas, whether it’s an email or a text message or a phone call to a daughter, junior year abroad, or a child who’s in Iraq or a reporter or a business associate. This is one of the greatest intrusions, potentially, on the rights of Americans protected under the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution in the history of our country.

And unfortunately, it’s going to go through with the help of some Democrats. So this is a very, very sad day for our Constitution and for our rights, and it’s not justified by the terrorism issue, because we do not have any problem at all with going after anybody that we have reasonable suspicions about. It has to do with sucking all this information into a huge database in a way that is very intrusive on the privacy of all Americans.

[...]

The President takes the position that under Article II of the Constitution he can ignore the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. We believe that that’s absolutely wrong. I have pointed out that I think it is not only against the law, but I think it’s a pretty plain impeachable offense that the President created this program, and yet this immunity provision may have the effect not only of giving immunity to the telephone companies, but it may also allow the administration to block legal accountability for this crime, which I believe it is.

[...]

AMY GOODMAN: Senator Feingold, explain exactly what you think is an impeachable offense.

SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: Well, you know, this is one of the things that’s been debated over the centuries, but I believe that when—it has to do with the rule of law and the very structure of our system of government, in other words, not just the issue that many have been concerned about, misleading the country into war, the Iraq war. That was a terrible thing, and, you know, some say that’s an impeachable offense. But to me, when the law is clear, when it’s absolutely clear that there is a clear statute and the President creates his own idea of a law and says he doesn’t have to follow the duly elected laws of the land, to me, that’s right at the core of what the founders of this country meant when they talked about high crimes and misdemeanors.

[...]

AMY GOODMAN: Senator Feingold, will you filibuster this bill?

SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: We are going to resist this bill. We are going to make sure that the procedural votes are gone through. In other words, a filibuster is requiring sixty votes to proceed to the bill, sixty votes to get cloture on the legislation. We will also—Senator Dodd and I and others will be taking some time to talk about this on the floor. We’re not just going to let it be rubberstamped.

AMY GOODMAN: Would you filibuster, though?

SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: That’s what I just described.


hey, russ... when is your buddy, chris dodd, going to speak out publicly...?

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Richard Clarke puts "terrorist attacks will help my candidate" comments in their proper perspective

finally, somebody with the common sense and the proper qualifications to offer an intelligent critique weighs in on the total nonsense that's being bandied about out there...

from think progress...

Yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) distanced himself from chief strategist Charlie Black’s comments that a terrorist attack would be a “big advantage” to the McCain campaign. “If he said that, and I do not know the context, I strenuously disagree,” McCain told reporters.

Later in the day on MSNBC, former counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke told Keith Olbermann that if McCain was serious in his outrage, he should fire Black immediately. He also criticized Black for basically encouraging terrorists such as Osama bin Laden to manipulate American politics.

speaking with keith olbermann, richard clarke nails charlie black and john mccain to the wall...

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Monday, June 23, 2008

Terrible news for those who need to eat in Afghanistan

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from an independent source...
A UN spokesman for WFO stated in a press conference that they have stopped food aid in Afghanistan due to attacks launched by the Taliban militants against logistic convoys in Paktika, Ghazni and Maydan Wardak provinces. He added that last week Taliban militants attacked a convoy of fifty-four trucks carrying logistic supplies and they have stolen a truck laden by approximately forty-five tones of food supplies.

as if the afghan people need any more bad news...

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CBS News no longer stations a single full-time correspondent in Iraq

as a reprise to yesterday's post, this is the reality our media are choosing to ignore...

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from the nyt...
Getting a story on the evening news isn’t easy for any correspondent. And for reporters in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is especially hard, according to Lara Logan, the chief foreign correspondent for CBS News. So she has devised a solution when she is talking to the network.

“Generally what I say is, ‘I’m holding the armor-piercing R.P.G.,’ ” she said last week in an appearance on “The Daily Show,” referring to the initials for rocket-propelled grenade. “ ‘It’s aimed at the bureau chief, and if you don’t put my story on the air, I’m going to pull the trigger.’ ”

Ms. Logan let a sly just-kidding smile sneak through as she spoke, but her point was serious. Five years into the war in Iraq and nearly seven years into the war in Afghanistan, getting news of the conflicts onto television is harder than ever.

“If I were to watch the news that you hear here in the United States, I would just blow my brains out because it would drive me nuts,” Ms. Logan said.

According to data compiled by Andrew Tyndall, a television consultant who monitors the three network evening newscasts, coverage of Iraq has been “massively scaled back this year.” Almost halfway into 2008, the three newscasts have shown 181 weekday minutes of Iraq coverage, compared with 1,157 minutes for all of 2007. The “CBS Evening News” has devoted the fewest minutes to Iraq, 51, versus 55 minutes on ABC’s “World News” and 74 minutes on “NBC Nightly News.” (The average evening newscast is 22 minutes long.)

CBS News no longer stations a single full-time correspondent in Iraq, where some 150,000 United States troops are deployed.

what the f%*& is WRONG with my country...?

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Lockheed Martin - "Our hiring patterns nationwide ... are totally unaffected by the state of the economy"

the glorious benefits - to some - of endless war...
The big defense company Lockheed Martin of Bethesda [MD] has nary a concern about the national economic downturn. It is hiring -- not laying off -- employees.

"Our hiring patterns nationwide and in the Washington area are totally unaffected by the state of the economy," said Ken Disken, senior vice president for human resources.

meanwhile, for the REST of us...
Renee Warren, 49, a Gaithersburg waitress who has been staying home to take care of her disabled husband, saw her lights go dark recently because she couldn't pay her electricity bills, which have reached $400 a month.

"It's just ridiculous," Warren said. "You can't live. I can't even get shoes for my husband, clothes, the things we need because of the bills."

The sagging national economy is widening the gap locally between people who work for the giant base of consulting and technology firms that rely on the government for revenue and lower- and middle-income people in jobs exposed to the downturn, such as retail and construction.

what's the message in this...? aw, c'mon... repeat after me...

I. LOVE. WAR.

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So much for the naive belief that increasing Saudi oil output will help reduce gas prices

many years ago, a san francisco city alderman running for re-election offered this visually arresting quote: "it's time to grab the bull by the tail and look facts in the face"...

folks, the u.s. economy - nay, the GLOBAL economy - fell off the cliff some months ago... it may be a long, lo-o-o-ong way down, and it may be happening in slo-mo, but the fact is, we be headin' do-o-o-own, and no amount of carefully staged p.r. stunts like the saudis announcing that they're increasing oil output is going to make a single goddam bit of difference...

be sure to check the last sentence...

Oil prices fluctuated Monday as traders shrugged off a pledge by Saudi Arabia to increase its production and the dollar gained strength in Europe.

Saudi Arabia said Sunday it would produce more crude oil this year if the market needs it. The kingdom announced a 300,000 barrel per day production increase in May and said before the start of the meeting in Jeddah that it would add another 200,000 barrels per day in July, raising total daily output to 9.7 million barrels.

The announcement had already been factored into oil prices, analysts said.

"The meeting was mildly positive but it wouldn't really deliver anything that would give a heavy correction in oil," said Mark Pervan, a senior commodity strategist at the ANZ Bank in Melbourne, Australia. "They pledged production increases that the market thought was base case."

the only possible thing that could change the disaster scenario that's playing out right now is some sort of deus ex machina intervention, but the magnitude of such an intervention and the unimaginable sums of money necessary to accomplish it, are now too great for even the super-rich elites to cough up... besides, why should they...? money is still overflowing their coffers like the mississippi out of its banks... (yeah, i know... that last one was a really bad and, trust me, completely unintentional pun...)

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Sunday, June 22, 2008

Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows"

i was first introduced to leonard cohen during my time in vietnam in the late 60s... judy collins did a lot of his songs in what was certainly a more appealing voice than cohen's gravelly near-monotone... however, no one is a better interpreter of cohen than cohen himself... he's dark, he's often grim, and he's a truth-teller...

Everybody Knows

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"Find these people, take 'em out and SHOOT them ... I'll pay for the bullets"

fascism, pure and simple...



It all started early on June 10th 2008, when anti-war activist, Mark Dice appeared on Fox News to explain why he and others are sending letters to US troops in Iraq. Later that day, radio talk show host Michael Reagan called for his listeners to track down and murder Mark Dice. After Dice downloaded the show's free podcast and posted the 3 minute and 21 second clip on YouTube, Reagan filed a copyright infringement claim to remove the clip in an attempt to prevent it from circulating.

On Friday June 13th Dice received a call from Reagan's producer demanding the clip be removed, claiming they hold the copyright, and Dice explained that it falls under fair use laws, and the clip is evidence of a crime. Reagan also removed the entire hour of his show from his podcast directory so others can't download that part of his show and hear his statements. Hour number two of the June 10th show is now missing from the directory, located here.

Reagan's statements were made after he heard that Dice and others were sending letters and DVDs to troops stationed in Iraq which support the idea that U.S. officials allowed the 9/11 attacks to happen on purpose and aided in their execution for political leverage. According to a 2006 Scripts Howard News Service poll, 36% of Americans believe this.

Reagan's statements were made June 10th and came to Dice's attention a few days later. Dice immediately filed a report with the FBI, the FCC, and is considering legal action against Reagan. He is demanding that Reagan be fired immediately. "Calling for the murder of someone because you disagree with their political stance is absolutely unacceptable, un-American, and illegal," says Dice.

Radio America, which syndicates Reagan's show, told Dice that no disciplinary action will be taken.

Reagan called Dice and apologized but Dice says, "The Pandora's box that Reagan has opened can never be closed. The ramifications of his threats and suggestions are enormous and frightening. In an age where a few clicks of a keyboard can result in anyone's home address being found, his comments open the door for stalking, vandalism, and worse."

"What kind of a country have we become when a radio host with millions of listeners can call for the murder of someone, and not lose their job?" Dice asks. "He didn't say that he hoped I am killed, or that he thought I should be killed, he specifically said I should be found and shot, and that he would pay for the bullets. This is a violation of California's penal code 422."

death threats are death threats, right...? RIGHT...?

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Is threatening to attack and kill your political opposition a form of vote manipulation?

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this is soo-o-o-o-oooo wrong... and where the hell are the leaders of the african nations and the rest of the world community...?
Only five days before Zimbabwe’s presidential runoff election, the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai announced Sunday that he was pulling out of the race because armed forces backing President Robert Mugabe have made it clear that anyone who votes for Mr. Tsvangirai faces a real possibility of being killed.

At a news conference, Mr. Tsvangirai, who leads the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, or M.D.C., said he was unwilling to ask the party’s supporters to go to the polls on Friday “when that vote will cost them their lives.”

Mr. Tsvangirai’s decision came on a day when governing party youth militia armed with iron bars, sticks and other weapons beat his supporters as they sought to attend a rally for him in Harare.

it's a tragedy that tsvangirai is pulling out, but, given the circumstances, also seems to me to be a display of true leadership...

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Iraqi deaths: "... bombing to death everyone in Pittsburgh ... or Cincinnati ... & the survivors are not going to be pro-American any time soon"

this is the nightmarish reality of iraq...

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juan cole chronicles the horrific results of our illegal war in iraq and laments that a death toll of well over one million rates nary a blip on our home television screens, yet we collectively wring our hands over the disasters in iowa, missouri, myanmar, and wisconsin...
By now, summer of 2008, excess deaths from violence in Iraq since March of 2003 must be at least a million. This conclusion can be reached more than one way. There is not much controversy about it in the scientific community. Some 310,000 of those were probably killed by US troops or by the US Air Force, with the bulk dying in bombing raids by US fighter jets and helicopter gunships on densely populated city and town quarters.

In absolute numbers, that would be like bombing to death everyone in Pittsburgh, Pa. Or Cincinnati, Oh.

Only, the US is 11 times more populous than Iraq, so 310,000 Iraqi corpses would equal 3.4 million dead Americans. So proportionally it would be like firebombing to death everyone in Chicago.

The one million number includes not just war-related deaths but all killings beyond what you would have expected from the 2000-2002 baseline. That is, if tribal feuds got out of hand and killed a lot of people because the Baath police were demobilized or disarmed and so no longer intervened, those deaths go into the mix. All the Sunnis killed in the north of Hilla Province (the 'triangle of death') when Shiite clans displaced from the area by Saddam came back up to reclaim their farms would be included. The kidnap victims killed when the ransom did not arrive in time would be included. And, of course, the sectarian, ethnic and militia violence, even if Iraqi on Iraqi, would count. And it hasn't been just hot spots like Baghdad, Basra, Mosul and Kirkuk. The rate of excess violent death has been pretty standard across Arab Iraq.

As for the Iraqis killed by Americans, like the 24 civilians in Haditha, the survivors are not going to be pro-American any time soon. The US can always find politicians to come out and say nice things on a visit to the Rose Garden. But the people. I don't think the people are saying nice things in Arabic behind our backs.

The wars of Iraq-- the Iran-Iraq War, the repressions of the Kurds and the Shiites, the Gulf War, and the American Calamity, may have left behind as many as 3 million widows. Having lost their family's breadwinner, many are destitute.

[...]

ypically 3 persons are wounded for every one killed. In Iraq, I suspect it is higher, because US bombings and guerrilla bombings are such a big part of the violence. But let us be conservative.

That would mean 3 million Iraqi wounded in the past five years.

Equivalent to 33 million Americans wounded, that is, the entire state of California crippled or in bandages.

As for the displaced (i.e. homeless), they amount to a startling 5 million persons. There were 1.8 million internally displaced in January of 2007, and by December it had risen to 2.4 million. There are 2.3 million externally displaced, 2 million of them in Jordan and Syria.

In fact 5 million displaced persons is almost the entire population of nearby countries such as Jordan or Israel! 5 million is about the number of Jews in Israel, for instance. In absolute numbers, that is how many Iraqis are living in some other country or some other province, having lost their homes.

[...]

40% of Iraq's middle class is outside the country.

[...]

5 million displaced Iraqis would be like 55 million displaced Americans, or the equivalent of everybody in California and New York combined

American commentators peculiarly lack a social dimension to their analyses. So if PM Nuri al-Maliki sends some troops up to Mosul and the guerrillas there lie low for a while, that is "progress" and "good news." Well, maybe it is, I don't know.

I do know that the apocalypse that the United States has unleashed upon Iraq is among the greatest catastrophes to befall any country in the past 50 years. It is a much worse disaster over time than the Burmese cyclone or the Mississippi floods.

You won't see it on television very much these days.

as professor cole says in conclusion...
God have mercy on them (Allah yarhamhum).

indeed...

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