Politics

Politically, I’m very liberal — about as far left as one can go without sliding into Libertarianism.

News, not propaganda

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Jon Dennis, deputy news editor of the Guardian Unlimited web site said: “We have noticed an upsurge in traffic from America, primarily because we are receiving more emails from US visitors thanking us for reporting on worldwide news in a way that is unavailable in the US media.”

The American public is apparently turning away from the mostly US-centric American media in search of unbiased reporting and other points of views. Much of the US media’s reaction to France and Germany’s intransigence on the Iraqi war issue has verged on the xenophobic, even in the so-called ‘respectable’ press. Some reporting has verged on the hysterical — one US news web site, NewsMax.com, recently captioned a photograph of young German anti-war protesters as “Hitler’s children”.

Mr Dennis said: \”American visitors are telling us they are unable to find the breadth of opinion we have on our web site anywhere else because we report across the political spectrum rather than from just one perspective.

This surprises me not at all. Many of the links I’ve either found or have been pointed to over the last months that actually contained information have come from overseas, where they’re not filtered through US economic and political interests. The ‘net really is changing the way we as Americans see both the world and ourselves, and I’m quite glad to be around for the shift. Maybe, eventually, we’ll be able to see ourselves as a global culture — I think things like this are the beginning step.

No, really, it's not propaganda

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Whether or not you’re old enough to remember seeing them in theaters (I’m not), you may very likely know about the old MovieTone newsreels that used to be shown in theaters before movies. Well, it looks like they’re going to be back, in the form of short films created by soldiers currently overseas.

“We fell on this idea of recreating films that looked like and were the length of the old Movietone forms of the 1940s,” said Marine Lt. Col. Jim Kuhn, military producer for the undertaking called the Movietone Newsreel Project. Kuhn says the objective is to put together a short film that combines the commentary of real-life soldiers with the kind of footage civilian journalists would be unable to get.

The planned films based on the Iraq conflict mark the military’s second attempt to create a modern, government-sponsored version of the wartime Movietone, a short-film format that was popular among studios in the days before television news broadcasts were widely available. The first effort by the Navy and Marines, titled Enduring Freedom, was based on footage collected from troops in Afghanistan.

Enduring Freedom was not without its Hollywood flourishes, including the fast pace of an action movie and a soundtrack reminiscent of a happy-ending scene in a big-budget drama. O’Connor, a former producer of Marines recruitment ads, says the films are crafted as documentaries and “are not propaganda.”

I may not remember Movietone newsreels, but I do remember when I could go to see a movie and actually be able to see a movie. Now, in addition to all the commercials and ads before we even get to the trailers, we get government sponsored and produced propaganda as well?

Pardon me if I’m not jumping up and down for joy.

Beastie Boys: In a World Gone Mad

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The Beastie Boys have released an anti-war protest in the form of a rap track, freely avaible to download from their website, called “In a World Gone Mad“. Not their best work, admittedly, but interesting nothenless. While artists like Ani DiFranco have kept the “protest song” alive, the Beastie Boys are the first big group (no offense meant at all to Ani fans!) I can think of to do something like this.

Okay, they’re no Dylan. Still, it’s something.

Lyrics below, courtesy of Blogcritics…

In a world gone mad it’s hard to think right
So much violence hate and spite
Murder going on all day and night
Due time we fight the non-violent fight

Mirrors, smokescreens and lies
It?s not the politicians but their actions I despise
You and Saddam should kick it like back in the day
With the cocaine and Courvoisier
But you build more bombs as you get more bold
As your mid-life crisis war unfolds
All you want to do is take control
Now put that axis of evil bullshit on hold
Citizen rule number 2080
Politicians are shady
So people watch your back ’cause I think they smoke crack
I don’t doubt it look at how they act

In a world gone mad it’s hard to think right
So much violence hate and spite
Murder going on all day and night
Due time we fight the non-violent fight

First the ‘War On Terror’ now war on Iraq
We?re reaching a point where we can?t turn back
Let’s lose the guns and let’s lose the bombs
And stop the corporate contributions that their built upon
Well I?ll be sleeping on your speeches ’til I start to snore
‘Cause I won’t carry guns for an oil war
As-Salamu alaikum, wa alaikum assalam
Peace to the Middle East peace to Islam
Now don’t get us wrong ’cause we love America
But that?s no reason to get hysterica
They’re layin’ on the syrup thick
We ain’t waffles we ain’t havin’ it

In a world gone mad it’s hard to think right
So much violence hate and spite
Murder going on all day and night
Due time we fight the non-violent fight

Now how many people must get killed?
For oil families pockets to get filled?
How many oil families get killed?
Not a damn one so what?s the deal?

It’s time to lead the way and de-escalate
Lose the weapons of mass destruction and the hate
Say ooh ah what’s the White House doin’?
Oh no! Say, what in tarnation have they got brewing??!!!!???!!
Well I?m not pro Bush and I’m not pro Saddam
We need these fools to remain calm
George Bush you?re looking like Zoolander
Trying to play tough for the camera
What am I on crazy pills? We?ve got to stop it
Get your hand out my grandma’s pocket
We need health care more than going to war
You think it’s democracy they?re fighting for?

In a world gone mad it’s hard to think right
So much violence hate and spite
Murder going on all day and night
Due time we fight the non-violent fight.

Osama bin Captured?

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There are rumors running around right now about the possibilty that Osama bin Laden might have been captured by Pakistan and US intelligence services somewhere in Pakistan.

Is it true? Who knows — it could be a leak of real information, or it could just be crazy rumormongering. What I’m pretty damn sure of, though, is that whether or not it’s true, there’s no way that it would be officially announced until sometime after Bush has sent the first few missile barrages into Iraq. Bush has done too good of a job of moving the blame of 9/11 from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein, and bringing bin Laden back into the spotlight — especially as a captive — would likely do more harm than good to Bush’s push for war.

In the words of William Greider of the The Nation:

By relentless repetition, Bush and his team accomplished an audacious feat of propaganda — persuading many Americans to redirect the emotional wounds left by 9/11, their hurt and anger, away from the perpetrators to a different adversary. According to a New York Times-CBS News survey, 42 percent now believe Saddam Hussein was personally responsible for the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. In an ABC News poll, 55 percent believe Saddam provides direct support to Al Qaeda. The Iraqi did it, let’s go get him. As a bogus rallying cry, “Remember 9/11” ranks with “Remember the Maine” of 1898 for war with Spain or the Gulf of Tonkin resolution of 1964 for justifying the US escalation in Vietnam.

If bin Laden is still free, well then, no big surprise, he’s been that way for a while now. If he’s been captured, though, you can bet that he’ll be sitting in a deep, dark hole until Bush is certain that bringing him out to parade before the cameras would be sure to do him more good than harm.

(Via Tom Tomorrow)

Safe abortion in jeapordy

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Meg reminds us that in the midst of all the brouhaha in Iraq and Korea, things are still downright scary here at home.

With legislation that would impose sweeping new restrictions on abortion seemingly headed toward approval by the Senate this week, the assault on women’s reproductive freedom has reached an ominous turning point.

Although billed as a narrow attack on one particular late-term abortion procedure, the measure’s imprecise wording would criminalize the use of the safest and most common pre-viability abortion method used after the first trimester, namely dilation and evacuation. The bill would thereby replicate a key defect that caused the Supreme Court to reject a similarly worded state law in 2000. Moreover, the bill omits an exception in cases where the mother’s health is in jeopardy, ignoring the Supreme Court’s insistence that such an exception is a constitutional requirement for any abortion regulation.

It may be too late to do much about this, but we can hope that it will get struck down if it gets contested and goes to the Supreme Court — though at the moment, it looks like the bill’s backers are counting on a newly conservative Supreme Court to rule in their favor by the time the case makes it that far. Not encouraging, in the least.

Love me, love my country

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I found this post from Dave Winer today, which definitely raised my eyebrows.

Our European allies say we don’t need to go to war. But what do they say to the families whose kids are going there to die? They say that they love the American people but hate our government. They don’t understand the US. Read the Constitution. Check out the first three words. It’s our government. You can’t like us and not like our government, and vice versa.

This seems to me to be completely off base. In fact, the first thing to pop into my head after reading this was, “Sorry — but Bush is not my President.”

Not My President

Yes, the Constitution of the United States begins with “We the people….” The thing is, not only did I not vote for Bush, but “we the people” didn’t vote for Bush either. It’s well known at this point that though he got the Electoral College votes to put him in office, the popular vote was not for Bush.

But — even if that were not the case (and it is a moot point, not to mention one that’s been beat to death many times over) — why must an appreciation of a people equate to appreciation and condoning of that people’s government? That doesn’t make any sense to me, for many reasons.

One of the great things about being an American is the right to disagree with our government. I can look at the decisions my government is making, decide for myself whether or not I agree with them, and voice my approval or dissent without fear of reprisal or retribution (at least that’s the theory, though some recent events have called that into question — just another reason why I am dissatisfied with the current government — but I digress…). I can do things like state that Bush is “not my President,” a technically false statement that does a good job of indicating my displeasure with Bush’s tactics, without having to hide behind a false identity, or worry about secret police knocking on my door. Given that that is the case here in America, and one of the things that we pride ourselves on — why in the world would we deny that right to others?

This “love me, love my country” attitude is, in all honesty, kind of frightening to me. If we’re really so fired up about how great our country is, and how everyone really should be just like us (whether or not they want that…), shouldn’t we allow others the same rights we allow ourselves? Such as the ability to appreciate America and Americans while having difficulties with where the present administration is taking us?

A question for Dave — you state that “you can’t like us and not like our government, and vice versa”. Turning that around, does that mean that because you dislike the decisions of France, Germany, and Russia, that you now dislike the French, Germans, and Russians en masse? Or that because you dislike what Saddam is doing, that you dislike all Iraquis? I don’t really think that that is the case, but it’s the same attitude, and it’s one that worries me.

Gun control 2003

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This is just frightening.

U.S. Department of Justice has threatened to criminally prosecute California’s top firearms official over the state’s continued use of a federal databank to hunt down illegal gun users, The Chronicle has learned.

Federal authorities believe the list of convicted felons, drug dealers, suspected terrorists, spouse beaters, illegal immigrants and others should only be used to help gun dealers determine if someone is allowed to buy a gun, not police investigating other gun-control violations.

(Via MeFi)

Welcome to Earth, meet the leaders

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An e-mail from a Newsday reporter who spent a week in Switzerland at the World Economic Forum:

The world isn’t run by a clever cabal. It’s run by about 5,000 bickering, sometimes charming, usually arrogant, mostly male people who are accustomed to living in either phenomenal wealth, or great personal power. A few have both. Many of them turn out to be remarkably naive — especially about science and technology. All of them are financially wise, though their ranks have thinned due to unwise tech-stock investing. They pay close heed to politics, though most would be happy if the global political system behaved far more rationally — better for the bottom line. They work very hard, attending sessions from dawn to nearly midnight, but expect the standards of intelligence and analysis to be the best available in the entire world. They are impatient. They have a hard time reconciling long term issues (global wearming, AIDS pandemic, resource scarcity) with their daily bottomline foci. They are comfortable working across languages, cultures and gender, though white caucasian males still outnumber all other categories. They adore hi-tech gadgets and are glued to their cell phones.

Welcome to Earth: meet the leaders.

(Via Daypop)

Credibility Gap

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The Bush Credibility Gap: The Photographic History of the Bush Administration Putting Its Mouth Where Its Money Isn’t

Very interesting just on its own, but take a moment to note the web address — this is coming from the House of Representatives server, and was created by the Democrats in the Appropriations Committee. In other words, this isn’t just some random Bush-basher airing his griefs. These are very specific Bush-bashers!

Tongue-in-cheek comments aside, it’s nice to see something like this coming from the Democrats on Capitol Hill. Mayhaps we’re starting to see a hint of Democratic backbone again?

(Via Dori Smith)