Posted on by lhl

Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood.

But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or 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 to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.

It works the same in any country.

— Hermann Goering, Nazi leader, at the Nuremberg Trials

Posted on by lhl

Bring Back the Body Count:

So let us bring back the body count. If we must kill, let us kill as one human being to another, recognizing the full humanity of our victims. Without a body count, our nation becomes more of a robotic killing machine. As we dehumanize Iraqis, we slip even further into our own dehumanization. Let us bring back the body count, if only to recover our own sense of responsibility to the world’s people, to history, to our own humanity.

In between the embeds, the “touching” human interest stories, and of course, the constant stream of military press releases briefings, it can become awfully easy to forget that war comes down to killing people. Saddest of all may be if our soldiers forget.

Posted on by lhl

And You Said Terrorism Wasn’t Communism:

Reuters is reporting that Oregon Senator John Minnis (R) has introduced legislation that would make any person who “plans or participates in an act that is intended, by at least one of its participants, to disrupt” business, transportation, schools, government or free assembly a “terrorist”. Penalty for those who protest in the streets and block traffic would include being branded as a terrorist and automatically sentenced to between 25 years and life in prison.

If Patriot Act II (DSEA-2003), I will seriously be considering packing bags. It’s insane. And no one’s stopping these people.

Sardonicus in the comments:

If democracy worked in this country, then “Senator John Minnis has introduced legislation that makes protesters into terrorists” would be a strict synonym of “Senator John Minnis looks forward to spending more time with his family immediately after the next election, because after a stunt like this he couldn’t get elected dogcatcher.” No free people should stand for this bullshit for a second.

If democracy worked in this country…

Posted on by lhl

pt in the Agonist Open Thread

I AM AMAZED.

This is ostensibly a sophisticated group here and yet no-one, NOBODY, has remarked on the 4th post in this thread purporting to tell the story of Jessica within an overall discussion of media.

Within that post I quote: “Under the watchful eyes of more than 40 murderous gunmen, the 19-year-old supply clerk laid in Saddam Hussein Hospital suffering from at least one gunshot wound and several broken bones.”

By contrast, this is what her family says: “Gregory Lynch said that he and his wife had spoken to her at the hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, and that – contrary to media reports – she had “no multiple gunshot wounds or knife stabs.”

These reports of Lynch suffering multiple gunshot wounds are baldface propaganda lies. This war is simply overflowing with such propaganda. Lies such as got us into this war (the Niger forgery, e.g.), which given our history is not that unusual (TonkinGulf, e.g.), and the Bush administration, some members of the media, and not merely a few members of the general populace think it’s ok if we lie our way through it.

I feel sorry for the kid, Lynch. She had no easy way to find a job in W. Va. where she grew up so she followed her siblings into the military being offered no alternative. Middle class and upper class kids don’t face this dilemma, this Sophie’s choice between risking your life and making a living, but she did and she paid the price. And now the Faux network and their ilk are making money off the results of her dilemma with false stories about her treatment at the hands of the supposed Iraqi monsters. They could care less about her or the monsters; it’s all about audience ratings. And so they hype her injuries and her hardships and build her into this week’s 15 minute hero.

If you really want to understand the depths into which America is now sinking check this out. I can recall stories about flying the flag upside down as a protest for years. Gun advocates, they call themselves 2nd amendment supporters, have done this without much trouble. There is a protocol for flying the flag upside down: it signals distress. But in today’s climate of hyper-patriotism it is obviously cause for attempted murder. The anger of the patriots has been unleashed (I think this is a proxy for class warfare like the hardhat attacks against student demonstrators during the Viet Nam war). It is illuminating though to see the depth of the anger that lies barely beneath the surface of our placid, happy society. People are ready to kill over disagreements about whether or not we should be dropping bombs on other countries. We are seeing the symptoms of a sick society bubbling to the surface now in America. What is the real cause of this anger? It can’t be the upside down piece of cloth in and of itself. It is what America means to various Americans, as SYMBOLIZED by that piece of cloth. And I would submit that turning a piece of cloth upside down is not the same as attacking others with baseball bats or whatever these thug’s weapons were.

So we stumble into an uncertain future because of a handful of arrogant, ignorant men (and one woman) surrounding this undereducated, psychologically warped president. A mommy’s boy who was so challenged by his daddy’s success that he bacame enthralled to the devil alcohol and who now has eschewed this devil by bowing before a god he imagines has chosen him to lead us through these difficult times. Life is definitely stranger than fiction; it would be hard to imagine a more pathetic character than our president at this hour, captive to vaulting egos, without a clue as to how the world works beyond our shores.

So, on topic, do not expect American media to be any more trustworthy than al jazeera during times like these. Check out a variety of sources and do not buy any take completely. Be skeptical of everything any military source delivers and think about the money behind the various news entities. BBC is generally good, their reporters properly skeptical by training. AFP and Le Monde are good. In the US we’re down to the NY Times and the Washington Post, both supporters of the war to begin with but increasingly questioning the results thus far. The Guardian is good. There are lots of others I check daily but they all run some dogma. It’s difficult at times like these because they demand that we all make a choice. overall though I think the overall level of discourse is notches below what it was during the Viet Nam war. This is regrettable and, IMO, indicative of an overall diminution of democratic norms.

Meanwhile, watch the Lynch story get played out over the next few weeks, possibly some late-night appearances, capped off with an eventual made-for-TV movie, and then promptly forgotten as she and the majority of the population continues to get poorer and poorer while the rich dine.

Weblogs and Newspeak

Posted on by lhl

This Register article: Anti-war slogan coined, repurposed and Googlewashed… in 42 days is worth it’s own post. Some very worthwhile issues brought up, and it also highlights the need to move beyond Google and into contextual searches. KartOO of course, is one example of how this might work (HTML version), although my interest recently has been about establishing local context via personal trust networks.

This doesn’t help the masses though if they don’t have a digital identity with which to establish a trust network from… Hmm, well, requires more thought…