Politics

This editorial from Ha’aretz, while actually about the Fox News network’s approach to reporting the war in Iraq, could very well apply to the majority of U.S. media these days.

With effective, rapid and decisive rewriting of history, there is an impression that the network has erased past relations between Iraq and America. It is difficult to find any mention of the fact that the U.S. armed Iraq in its war against Iran in the 1980s, or that it turned a blind eye when Saddam Hussein brutally put down a 1991 uprising with chemical weapons after the first Gulf War. The argument about the connection between Saddam’s regime and Al-Qaida and the attack on the Twin Towers has disappeared, and the “axis of evil,” which also included Iran and North Korea, has evaporated. There’s practically no mention of the stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction and how they were hid from the UN inspectors as being the official reason for the war. There’s no reference to the American economic interests in Iraqi oil wells. Every operation to take over the wells and prevent their sabotage was altruistic, for the sake of the Iraqi people and preservation of its assets and resources.

Sometimes I think the only thing really standing in the way of a truly Orwellian society is our ability to find other sources of news and information via the Internet and form our own opinions. If all I got was the official propaganda, I’d probably be fairly satisfied with the world right now. Heh.

Okay — so everyone on the ‘net is linking to the pictures of Saddam’s statue in the middle of Baghdad getting yanked down by Iraqi citizens, helped by U.S. Marines.

Yes, it’s wonderful. It’s a high point for the campaign. Many Iraqis are thrilled. But this isn’t the end.

This exchange between Doc Searls and Shelley Powers, and this post from Phil capture my feelings on this precisely. What happened today was certainly a momentous and important event — but things won’t be “over” for a long time to come.

©2003 Bill DeOre (via Kung-Foo.tv)

There’s an excellent posting from Dru Blood today entitled “The Importance of Dissent“.

Many people are tempted to stop protesting now that the war is in full swing. Many other people debate the effectiveness of the usual protest tactics — what does bocking traffic or holding demonstrations here in U.S. cities do to stop the conflict in Iraq? However, these are important issues, and shouldn’t stop, for two reasons.

Firstly, we must continue to express our discontent with the tactics undertaken by our goverment. To stop now, to shrug our shoulders and go home, is just admitting defeat. We can’t change anything by staying in our homes and ignoring it, and when our government isn’t truly representing us anymore — well, to quote the Declaration of Independence, “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall most likely effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Secondly, if we do nothing, we’re giving up our right to assemble, and in a day and age when more and more of our rights are disappearing, that’s a dangerous thing to do voluntarily. From Dru:

What protestors are doing is very important to the preservation of free speech. It might be annoying, it might be condemnable, it might even piss people off. But, damnit, it’s absolutely crucial that people continue to exercise their right to assemble and agitate peacefully as much as possible. If no one did, how easy would it be to erode that right and/or take it away altogether? In fact, many people say that there has already been a great deal of erosion in the right to assemble, considering protestors are forced to get parade licenses and have to work with the government and the police prior to being “granted” the right to assemble. There’s actually a great deal of red tape involved in exercising your right to assemble peacably, and that, I’m pretty sure, is different from the way it was during the Viet Nam war….which was the last time that protests were as large and as coordinated as they are now.

So… brave freedom fighters ? I guess that’s open to interpretation. However, protestors of any ilk are certainly doing a very important thing for the continuation of democracy. We are exercising muscles that, if left unused, could very possibly atrophy, leaving our democracy damaged and ineffective.

The mother of one of the members of politically conscious band Spearhead was recently questioned by Army officers about her son’s “un-American” activities. During the interview they displayed photos of her son at peace rallys, records of his travels, a list of people he worked with at the band’s management office, and revealed that her daughter — currently serving in the military, and deployed in the Gulf — had had her CD’s confiscated.

“She’d spoken in an interview about her daughter who has been deployed in the Gulf, and her son who is in this band Spearhead,” says Spearhead frontman Michael Franti. “They showed her a picture of her son wearing a t-shirt that said ‘Unfuck the world’ on the front, and ‘Dethrone the Bushes’ on the back. They told her that was an un-American statement. She said, ‘That’s free speech,’ and they said, ‘Well, things are changing these days.'”

(via RandomWalks)

Snippets from the Toronto Star’s Iraq War Index:

• \$850 billion: Estimated military spending in the world in 2002.
• 50: Percentage spent by U.S.
• 0.0015: Percentage spent by Iraq.
• 1 in 6: Chance the U.S. bombed Iraq on any given day last year.
• 98: During the first Gulf War, the reported “success rate” (or percentage of accurate strikes) by Tomahawk cruise missiles.
• 10: Pentagon’s estimated “success rate” after the war ended.
• 92: Between Sept. 14, 2002 and Feb. 7, 2003, percentage of news stories airing on NBC, ABC and CBS that originated directly from White House, Pentagon or State Department.
• 236,202: The number of times Osama bin Laden was mentioned in international media reports between Sept. 11, 2001 and Sept. 11, 2002.
• 57, 667: The number of times Osama bin Laden was mentioned between Sept. 11, 2002 and today.
• 66,648: The number of times Saddam Hussein was mentioned between Sept. 11, 2001 and Sept. 11, 2002.
• 225,147: The number of times Saddam Hussein was mentioned between Sept. 11, 2002 and today.
• 13: Percentage of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 who could find Iraq on a map prior to the war.
• 1: Number of countries that have used nuclear weapons against another country.

(via Stavros)

Most of the political camps have released their fundraising numbers, and Daily Kos has posted a quick summary:

1. Edwards: \$7.4 million
2. Kerry: \$7 million
3. Gephardt: \$3.6 million
4. Lieberman: \$3 million
5. Dean: \$2.6 million

The rest of the candidates are too embarrassed to release their numbers until they absolutely have to (April 15th).

Lots of interesting back and forth in the comments thread to that post, too. From the looks of it, the three top contenders right now are (in no particular order) Dean, Edwards, and Kerry. So far, between Dean and Kerry, I’d definitely go for Dean, but I really should take a closer look at Edwards to see what I think of him.

Sidenotes:

• Dean managed to beat his fundrasing goal by around 70%. Very impressive showing.
• Kerry’s site doesn’t seem to load in Safari. Might impact the “mac vote” (which, I’m sure, is a demographic that all the presidential contenders are worried about).