The Fish Is Always the Voice of Reason

2003-11-20T08:54:00.000-08:00

A surgical strike, if your doctor performs surgery with his golf clubs.

2003-11-20T08:49:00.000-08:00

I'm Alexander Hamilton. Bow down before me!

2003-11-20T08:47:00.000-08:00

The Department of Not Learning From History. Officially, the Bush regime claims to respect the history/traditions/humanity of the Iraqi people, but apparently they tolerate the soldiers on the ground treating them like subhuman ragheads.

2003-11-19T09:19:00.000-08:00

This will make them like us!

2003-11-19T09:16:00.000-08:00

Open Letter to GIs in Iraq

"So here is my message to you. You will do what you have to do to survive, however you define survival, while we do what we have to do to stop this thing. But don't surrender your humanity. Not to fit in. Not to prove yourself. Not for an adrenaline rush. Not to lash out when you are angry and frustrated. Not for some ticket-punching f***ing military careerist to make his bones on. Especially not for the Bush-Cheney Gas & Oil Consortium."

2003-11-19T09:06:00.000-08:00

The World According to Bush. Pretty much what I've always suspected... Thanks to Choices for Women for bringing this to my attention.

2003-11-19T07:39:00.000-08:00

Farmers in India accuse the Coca Cola Company of being a blight on local agriculture and ecology.

I recall reading somewhere that Coke and products like it are "the cigarettes of the future." It is hard to think of any product--except, of course, cigarettes--that is harder to defend. My brother, a long time soda drinker, quit soft drinks and lost 40 pounds without any other diet/exercise/lifestyle changes. For more reasons to kick the habit, click here. Or here.

Try drinking the the official beverage of the human race, or the official beverage of a significant part of the human race.

2003-11-17T12:43:00.000-08:00

Why talk radio is right-wing turf. It's the simplicity of the message, according to the author. Perhaps, but that's not all, in this blogger's opinion. Right-wing ideology appeals to the reptilian brain, which governs "feeding, fighting, flighting, and fornicating." Why otherwise would communism, which also boasts a rather simplistic worldview in its elements, be such a dismal failure in its attempt to capture the human imagination, while fascism reincarnates again and again? Think about it.

2003-11-17T11:56:00.000-08:00

An attempt to accurately account for U.S. casualties in Iraq, based upon U.S. government sources, it says.

Now for Iraqi casualties. Ted Rall claims that roughly 44 Iraqi civilians are dying per day, eight more than the daily average for Saddam Hussein at the top of his game.

Ted Rall makes yet another (sarcastic) comparison of Iraq with Vietnam. I have another difference which, so far, I haven't heard anyone point out. In Vietnam, the U.S. had parties with whom it could conceivably negotiate. No such thing exists in Iraq.

2003-11-14T07:52:00.000-08:00

Is there such a thing as too much Bush-hatred? For reasons other than mental/physical/spiritual health, I mean?

2003-11-14T07:50:00.000-08:00

More parallels between Iraq and Vietnam. This article (once again from the British press) argues that the main difference is that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating faster than did Vietnam.

2003-11-13T08:06:00.000-08:00

More intolerance of dissent in dubya's America. These people have actually fought in wars, unlike some people.

2003-11-13T07:59:00.000-08:00

The "new America." Can anyone confirm this stuff? The article seems pretty anecdotal, but cops, and the powers that be, have never quite behaved as advertised. And of course Americans are more willing than ever to ignore shady, police state tactics so long as they are used on people who are somehow not like oneself.

2003-11-13T06:41:00.000-08:00

Commentary from Tom Laughlin, star of the Billy Jack films of the 1970s. Scoff if you must, but Laughlin has many interesting things to say on the parallels between the 1954 CIA-backed coup (at the behest of United Fruit) in Guatemala, and the current situation in Iraq.

"The incontrovertible facts presented here will show you, in a way that is literally crucial for every American if they want to remain free and vote intelligently, how people in the highest levels of power in our Government, including the White House, lie and manipulate Public Opinion – “engineer consent in a democracy” -- to convince the American people we must go to war “In the Interest of National Security” and to keep America safe, when in reality that war is being waged for a secret political agenda or for the benefit and profits of a private corporation."

Discovering this site caused me to become interested in reviewing the Billy Jack films. I've seen "Billy Jack" multiple times, and have just finished watching "The Trial of Billy Jack." They are almost embarassing to look at now, but there is also a guilty pleasure in returning to a time when right and wrong was so clear... In "Trial," the Indian shaman goes into quite a bit of detail about the "shadow," which some of you would recognize as a Jungian concept. In brief, the shadow is the side of yourself that you prefer not to acknowledge, and often attack fiercely when you see it in other people. The self-righteous sixties/seventies radicalism of the Billy Jack movies is a sort of shadow side for me, and I'm sure I could be very ironic and funny in mocking it, but I think I'll pass. I wish Mr. Laughlin luck in his continuing efforts to fix what appears to be an irreparably broken world.

2003-11-12T13:02:00.000-08:00

Bush vs. Reality. History shows that reality usually wins. I thought these guys believed in objective truth. Perhaps Bush and his handlers should familiarize themselves with the following quote from commy-pinko-sickie science fiction author Philip K. Dick:

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away."

2003-11-12T12:49:00.000-08:00

What should we call it now? America's East Bank?

"It's funny, but we often hear the War Party bloviating about how the current conflict is like World War II – yeah, but which side are we? It is positively eerie that a real life American general sounds like nothing so much as a German officer in some World War II movie set in occupied France:

'Zere vill be reprisals!'"

Yep, we're in the same boat as Israel now, but do we really *want* to be?

2003-11-12T07:56:00.000-08:00

Kit, editor of PaperFrog.com, writes about changing his fonts, and his aging eyesight. Having turned forty some time ago, I would agree that the year is definitely a biological milestone. AS much as I tried to convince myself that age is a state of mind, I started to notice that muscles and joints were not quite as resillient as before. Amazingly enough, my eyesight is as good--that is to say bad--as ever.

In spite of that, I have to wonder whether our subconscious is programmed by the "dominant paradigm" to sabotage us at a certain age. Could we, like Alobar and Kudra of Tom Robbin's brilliant novel Jitterbug Perfume, simply learn how not to die? Most religions and philosophies agree on one point: such thought is the height of folly and blasphemy. But maybe that's part of the problem. And if we are all going to die anyway, what's the harm of a little denial?

2003-11-11T13:07:00.000-08:00

I've always been a closet John Cougar Mellencamp fan, back to the days when he was just John Cougar, and all my friends thought he was uncool. Now that he's written the bitingly political, antiwar, anti-Bush song, "To Washington," I'm making my fondness public. Visit his site, buy his new album.

2003-11-11T08:08:00.000-08:00

Nader is once again planning to make a serious bid for the presidency. I'll confess to the fact that I did vote for Nader in 2000. And no, I do not feel that my vote--or that of any other Nader supporter--gave the election to the shrub. In no state that Gore won or lost was the Nader vote in any way decisive. If anything, I would place the blame on all those liberal, Jewish retirees in Florida who couldn't get enough of Buchanan.

That being said, I will not vote for Nader if he runs again. I do not regret voting for him in 2000. It was worth it to have the feeling, once in my pathetic life, of voting for someone out of idealism. Bungee jumping was also an experience I would not have wanted to miss. But both are once in a lifetime experiences, and they're going to stay that way. I am now officially registered as a Democrat, and I plan to vote for Kucinich in my state's primary,or possibly Sharpton if he's still around. Sharpton seems to have matured a lot since his rabble-rousing, Tawana Brawley days. After these candidates inevitably lose the nomination, I will vote for any candidate the Dems nominate, unless it's Lieberman, which I can't see happening.

2003-11-11T06:40:00.000-08:00

Why avoiding the draft will be much more difficult this time around. It looks like the fascism left-wing radicals and other alarmists have been saying is "just around the corner" for decades now really is just around the corner.

2003-11-11T06:31:00.000-08:00

The good news: Europeans don't judge the U.S. strictly on the misdeeds of the Bush Administration.The bad news: Columbine is much more influential in forming their opinions.

"Apparently, if such awards are any indication, when Europeans think of America, they're not just thinking of Ben Affleck and J. Lo, or even the Bushes' military exploits in the Middle East. They're thinking of children shooting each other."

2003-11-11T06:22:00.000-08:00

A challenge to classical left-wing demonology: The CIA as the voice of reason and probity.

"While the nation's attention is focused on the slow-motion deterioration of Iraq, the White House for months has been at war on the home front -- clashing repeatedly with the CIA in a rare series of public disagreements. They've fought over intelligence that seemed to predict the 9/11 terrorist attacks. They've fought over whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. They've fought over a seemingly vindictive White House leak that identified an undercover CIA agent."

2003-11-07T07:33:00.000-08:00

Don't speak of the dead.

"When the body of US soldier Artimus Brassfield was flown to the military mortuary at Dover, Delaware, there were no TV pictures of a flag-covered coffin and hero's salute - the White House has banned media coverage at the base. But can Bush's efforts to hide the body bags quell growing public disquiet over the death toll in Iraq?"

I found this link on Choices for Women, a forum on Delphi. This forum, I assume, was originally intended to deal with issues concerning the Pro-choice movement, but is also an excellent site for discussion of other issues of interest to activists of all kinds. Even those who, like me, are ambivalent about the abortion thing.

2003-11-06T11:59:00.000-08:00

The coalition of the rational: People we used to refer to as "establishment types" who see the sheer insanity of the Bush administration's single minded focus on Iraq as the source of all evil. It is truly frightening to consider just how free of rational justification of any kind Bush's war is.

2003-11-06T08:20:00.000-08:00

Is Syria Next?

"Shortly after 9/11, the government received an extraordinary gift of hundreds of files on Al Qaeda, crucial data on the activities of radical Islamist cells throughout the Middle East and Europe and intelligence about future terrorist plans. These dossiers did not come from Israel or Saudi Arabia, whose kingdom appeared more concerned at the time with securing safe passage for members of the bin Laden family living in the United States, but--as Seymour Hersh revealed in the July 28 New Yorker--from Syria. One CIA analyst told Hersh, 'the quality and quantity of information from Syria exceeded the agency's expectations.' Yet, the analyst added, the Syrians 'got little in return for it.'"

2003-11-06T06:50:00.001-08:00

Iraq made last ditch attempt to avoid war. Suckers.

2003-11-06T06:50:00.000-08:00

2003-11-06T06:35:00.000-08:00

Richard Perle urges an end to the Franco-German relationship. What is it about France that so infuriates the neoconservatives? I suspect that it is an effort on the part of these ivory tower intellectuals (sorry for the awful cliche, but it fits) to connect with the supposed anti-intellectualism and aesthetic cluelessness of "regular guys." Everyone knows that real American he-men are supposed to regard everything French--food, wine, art, etc-- as somehow effeminate and "faggy." Never mind that the French are also supposed to get more (heterosexual) sex than most Americans could ever dream of getting.

Also, making fun of the spotty French military record helps to take attention away from the fact that most of these neoconservatives have no claim to any physical courage or military experience whatsoever, and probably couldn't even fix their own flat tires.

2003-11-05T11:54:00.000-08:00

Why they hate us, part one of a continuing series.

"The US army does not keep a count of Iraqi civilians killed in such incidents, but the hostility they create towards the occupation goes a long way to explain why guerrilla war is becoming endemic in this part of the Iraqi countryside."

More stuff our press doesn't tell us. Would you want to live under these conditions? What if, say, the Canadians, or worse, the French invaded the U.S. to free us from the current illegal, criminal regime. Would you shrug off curfews, "accidental" attacks upon/deaths of civilians, etc. for any reason or rationalization from the occupiers? Just asking.

2003-11-05T07:12:00.000-08:00

I had some commentary for this piece by John Cuckman in Counterpunch, but I somehow lost it.It is too frustrating to reconstruct it, but I thought the article was important enough that I would post the link anyway. A choice quote:

"A general military action against terror is an insane concept, too destructive and unfocused to have predictable results. You cannot fight beliefs or grievances with armored divisions. You can only have vengeance that way, but vengeance can hardly be called policy and is unworthy of a great power claiming high ideals."

2003-11-04T12:09:00.000-08:00

More news stories in the mainstream U.S. media are discussing the wounded who are coming home. For anyof us who are close to males who are, or soon will be, of military age, this is a very painful topic. Perhaps it shouldn't be part of the debate over the war. I certainly wouldn't want to do anything to increase the suffering of these men and their families, which must be great. My right-wing friends (I do have a few, you know) will probably cite these stories as examples of "negativism" on the part of the "liberal media" toward the war.

As incredible as it seems, Bushites really do see themselves as an oppressed, heretical minority in a world utterly hostile to their beliefs and values, rather like the Cathars during the Albigensian crusade. One of these aforementioned friends of mine, when he found out I was going to an antiwar rally, told me he expected CNN to "pan over the same section of the crowd over and over again so it would seem like there were more people."

That being said, I note that most of these stories are very careful to note that the wounded soldiers have not changed their (positive) attitudes toward the war. I see this as a studious effort on the part of these media outlets themselves to avoid being seen as making an antiwar statement. Anyway, I would be curious whether these soldiers will feel the same way a year from now, or five years. This is a perfect example of the dilemma faced by the antiwar movement: we are in the position of telling these men they sacrificed themselves for a lie, and as always, the truth hurts.

2003-11-04T11:38:00.000-08:00

Just in case you thought that nothing is funny anymore.

"President George W Bush will be facing a new terror threat during the month of November, the threat of being sat on a spike, covered in petrol and set on fire, to the cheers of hostile village crowds throughout England. Bonfire night (November 5th) is traditionally celebrated by burning effigies of Guy Fawkes and by kids letting off explosives in the street, but this year Bush (and maybe even Tony Bliar) have garnered enough public outrage that the festivities will take on a new twist, against them."

It also includes this nifty Hermann Goering quote:

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger."

It is such a perfect description of Bushism that one has to wonder whether someone made it up for the occasion. Like many red-blooded American males of a certain age, I nurse a minor league obsession with Hitler and the Nazis, and I've not heard this one before.

2003-11-04T08:09:00.000-08:00

The government and press obscure the truth about the wounded in Iraq:

"And the government apparently has tamed the press, too. So far the press has shown an amazing lack of curiosity about the fate of Americans wounded in Iraq. The modern U.S. press seems to have adopted as its mantra: "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.""

Both these institutions must operate under the assumption that most Americans are too stupid and oblivious to notice what is going on in front of their eyes, even if it smacks them on the nose with a (so to speak) rolled-up newspaper.

2003-11-04T07:46:00.000-08:00

Why do we have to go to foreign newspapers to find out things like this?

"In the US today, there are nearly 44 million people in her position - without medical insurance in a country that does not guarantee basic healthcare - and the crisis is deepening. In the three years since George Bush took office, the ranks of the uninsured have risen by 10%, or four million people. The government will pay if you are destitute but not if you earn enough to keep above the poverty line - about $18,000 (£10,600) for a family of four. In theory, employers are supposed to provide health insurance but more opt not to, and buying cover individually is either very expensive or impossible if you have a "pre-existing condition". "

Do we have a free press, or not?

2003-11-04T07:41:00.000-08:00

Another article comparing Iraq to Vietnam:

"Unlike Vietnam, America has no way out of Iraq without paying a heavy strategic price. Indeed, the American withdrawal from Vietnam was a serious strategic defeat that may have prolonged the cold war, but somehow America learned many lessons from its defeat and went on to defeat communism and become a sole superpower.

In contrast, withdrawing from Iraq prematurely will undermine America's stature in the Middle East as a mobile superpower that can support allies and defeat enemies. Withdrawal from Iraq as a result of mounting and endless casualties will make coming back for future militarily intervention impossible politically. "

The Iraqi war on the surface seems to illustrate the contention that we never learn from history. But in reality, it illustrates the fact that certain people never intended to learn from history, and did everything in their power to make the rest of us forget it. It is clear that this was the intention all along; why otherwise the derogatory references to "post-Vietnam syndrome" for the past three decades?

2003-11-03T07:29:00.000-08:00

More from Salon: plans to reinstate the draft are quietly being undertaken.

"Increasingly, however, military experts and even some influential members of Congress are suggesting that if Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's prediction of a "long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan proves accurate, the U.S. may have no choice but to consider a draft to fully staff the nation's military in a time of global instability."

2003-11-03T07:19:00.000-08:00

Green Beret Georg-Andreas Pogany charged with cowardice for refusing to do his job as an interrogator for U.S. forces (excuse me, "the coalition of the willing") in Iraq. Questions no one seems to be asking: what does his job as "interrogator" involve that would tax his courage? What is the story behind the mangled Iraqi body?

2003-10-31T07:49:00.000-08:00

Says Camille Paglia:

"This Iraq adventure is a political, cultural and moral disaster for the United States. Every sign was there to read, but the Bush administration is run by blinkered people who are driven by ideology and who do not feel the largeness of the world and its multiplicity of religions, ethnicities and customs."

One way to look at this war is as our own insularity coming back to bite us in the ass. It is hard to imagine that Bush would have had the support that he did if Americans didn't automatically regard foreigners as funny people in funny clothes, ranting and raving about funny gods. Once again, you'll need Salon membership to read this in its entirety, and this interview alone is *almost* worth it.

2003-10-31T07:13:00.000-08:00

Justin Raimundo compares and contrasts the war in Iraq with the Vietnam war. For those of us who have some memory of the Vietnam era, it is easy to simply regard the current war as Vietnam II. The differences and similarities Raimundo points out are quite surprising:

"The language of this conflict is very much the same – except that the positions are oddly reversed, with the rhetoric employed by the U.S. resembling that of the Communists. As the U.S. undertakes the "reconstruction" of Iraq, while finding itself the target of a growing guerrilla insurgency, our official propaganda recalls that of the pro-Soviet "liberators" of Afghanistan – and Vietnam – who crowed that Red Army tanks were bringing "education" to the illiterate masses and smashing the "oppression" of women."

In this context, it is interesting to recall that most of the neoconservatives behind this war started out as old leftists, Trotskyites, etc. Hmm.

2003-10-30T11:14:00.000-08:00

"Patriotic" posts his recollection of counter-protesting the October 25 antiwar demo in Washington. There are intelligent people with good senses of humor and open minds who, for one reason or another, continue to support Bush and his war. You'll be pleased to know that "Patriotic" is not one of them.

Says "Patriotic:"

"Displays of anti-capitalism, sexism, racism, and anti-semiticism were not reported."

I wonder what he means by that, but I'm big enough not to mention that the correct usage is "antisemitism," not "antisemiticism." On the other hand, maybe I'm feeling small and petty. It's worth noting that he gives no examples to support these outlandish charges.

2003-10-30T07:00:00.000-08:00

More Bush administration stupidity/cupidity. Killing endangered species in order to save them.

"What we have here is more of the ivory tower, laissez-faire bushwa that substitutes for thinking in this corporatized administration. Their assertion is that if America's pet industry, circus companies, fur and skin purveyors, and safari firms were able to – ahem – "harvest" a big bunch of these already endangered animals each year, these corporations would pay harvest fees for each animal taken, thus allowing governments in these impoverished countries to funnel the money into better conservation programs for the animals that survive."

I'm familiar with this conservative/libertarian faith that free market forces--in other words, greed--can solve all the ills of humankind. The only reason people don't regard it with the same bemused contempt with which they view other one-size-fits-all "solutions to the world problem" is that a lot of very plausible criminals can gain a lot of money and power from it.

2003-10-30T06:42:00.000-08:00

The hypocrisy of the whole "support our troops" thing made manifest here. Our troops are being killed, mutilated, and cheated out of what is rightly theirs on false pretexts that the perpetrators themselves can't even agree upon. Talk about stupid criminals...

Then there are the 15,000 plus Iraqis we "liberated" but never mind...

2003-10-29T07:55:00.000-08:00

2003-10-29T06:58:00.000-08:00

2003-10-29T06:56:00.000-08:00

Does anyone miss the days when we had conspiracy theories? Now we have real, verifiable conspiracies. Actually, "conspiracy" may be a misnomer since these schemes are conducted quite openly, with the tacit agreement of all "mainstream" voices to ignore their very existence, or to dismiss the possibility without even bothering to engage the ideas.

Here, we have an article telling us what we should and could have known all along: that this latest war in Iraq was planned before the Bush administration had taken power, and that it was part of a larger plan to make the world safer and more convenient for certain powerful figures who now hold high positions in the current administration:

The President's Real Goal in Iraq

2003-10-28T13:05:00.000-08:00

Hello. Welcome to my antiwar blog. I doubt that anything I have to say is terribly unique. The idea for this blog came to me as I was attending one of the major actions against the war in either Washington or San Francisco this past weekend, I'll leave it to you to guess which coast I'm from.

This was the first demonstration of any kind I've attended in well over twenty years. In the past, I attended demonstrations as an expression of youthful angst, or to impress my peers or potential sexual partners. Now I'm no longer youthful, no longer in need of new sexual partners, and I couldn't possibly care less what my peers think. I'm just furious at the lying weasel in the White House, and--most of all--those who use him to push forward their agenda behind the scenes.

I don't believe that this blog will make a difference, any more than the demonstrations do. In my opinion, both actions are forms of therapy--efforts to make oneself feel better about something one can do little or nothing about. And in that spirit, I present this link:

http://salon.com/news/feature/2003/10/27/antiwar/index_np.html

You'll need to be a Salon member to read this in its entirety. The main point is that the antiwar movement chooses not to offer a positive program on the Iraq war because few in this movement can imagine having the power and influence to accomplish any goals they might have. The author of the article obviously thinks this is bad. Maybe it is, but it is also probably a realistic assessment of the situation...

Most Americans will not listen to the antiwar movement because they feel that antiwar people do not "support our troops." Antiwar folk logically counter that they are the ones who in reality "support our troops" because they don't want them fighting an unjust, illegal, pointless war. But this subtle logic is lost on most people. Can the message penetrate? Probably, but things will have to get much, much worse, and the last people who thought "worse is better" were German communists in 1932. Look it up.