December 31, 2002
Orwell A-Go-Go
Keen observers of the political scene have long noted the similarities between Orwell's fictional worlds and our non-fictional world. But while the fascistic bent in U.S. polity is nothing new, it seems to be accelerating of late. What's more, elements of this trend has even been noticed (if not named for what they are) by the mainstream media in the last few weeks. Let us briefly tot them up.
Welcome to Airstrip One. It's all war, all the time, for the rest of our lives. Not only is Iraq slated for destruction, but Mr. Rumsfeld assures us that the U.S. is perfectly capable of kicking North Korea's ass at the same time. Moreover, Narco News has reported, citing "reliable sources", that U.S. Marines will join the civil war in Colombia come February. And don't look now, but the job has not been finished in Afghanistan, and Iran appears to be next in line for U.S. carpet bombs.
Dubyathink. George W. may never have opened his mouth without practicing in Doublethink. But his quip that Iraq's arms declaration marked "a disappointing day for those who long for peace" may have been the capper. So, the U.S. spends as much on the military as the rest of the world combined, the U.S. is preparing for war on Jehova knows how many fronts, the U.S. has re-written its internal rules of engagement to a strike-first, nuke-first stance, the U.S. has vowed to invade Iraq without the consent of the international community, the U.S. has flooded the Middle East with arms since the end of the first Gulf War, etc., etc., etc.. Yet, it's Iraq that is disappointing those who long for peace. Okay.
Down the Hole. There's a website devoted to the contemporary Memory Hole phenomenon, first elucidated by Orwell. The idea, of course, is that officials pursue actions and make statements completely contradicting actions and statements of an earlier date -- sometimes even just a few days earlier. The mainstream media has not actually commented upon this phenomenon. But given that it happily regurgitates State Department rhetoric without comment, if one were to keep a clip file of all the stories concerning Iraq, let's say, one could easily hang the media with its own rope. Last year's striking example was the shift in Afghan war aims from capturing bin Laden dead or alive to overthrowing the Taleban. When that goal proved to be attainable, suddenly we were led to believe that that had been the goal all along. This year's best shift may have been the rearranging of potential actors to take part in the upcoming Iraq massacre. Throughout the Summer, and into the Autumn, the invasion was to have been undertaken by an international coalition comprised, presumably, of forces from all the world's countries. But on or about November 13 (check your local newspaper's web archive), the actors became a "coalition of the willing". Who forms this "coalition of the willing"? The U.S. and Britain, apparently.
Torturous Times. One recalls that Winston Smith was finally broken by unrelenting torture. The U.S. is using torture methods in interrogating suspected terrorists or sympathisers in Afghanistan ("rough tactics", the newspaper headline terms it). Not too surprising. But perhaps surprising that the Washington Post would up and denounce the practice.
Big Brother is Watching. First there was the PATRIOT act. Then there was the Feds' desire to snoop into library patrons' web surfing habits. Then there was Operation TIPS. Then there was Total Information Awareness. Now it comes out that the Bush Administration is going to lean on ISPs to help it "Secure Cyberspace" (that is to say, spy on users). Yeah, leave it to the party of "small government".
So is the United States truly sliding toward Fascism? Well, as Orwell argues in this blog's eponymous essay (and as should be readily apparent), it hardly matters to overseas victims of U.S. foreign policy: twelve million or so dead Native Americans; a half-million dead civilians in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, and Dresden; two million dead Koreans; five million dead Indochinese; a million dead Iraqis; tens of thousands of dead Central Americans; and so on. And as World history's premier gulag state, the massively disproportionate numbers of non-whites wasting away in the slammer probably also think things couldn't get much more repressive.
So it boils down to, then, is the U.S. government going to start imprisoning and whacking white, American dissidents? Probably not -- although it will certainly attempt to spook us into silence. But given that the repressive machinery of the State will not fall upon whites, that means our responsibility to speak and act out against the administration's foreign and domestic policies is so much the greater.
December 30, 2002
The Gift That Keeps On Giving
Mukilteo Beacon columnist Larry Simoneaux, in a December 21st piece entitled "Christmas In Afghanistan" discusses a friend's daughter's experiences in the 82nd Airborne division of some or other branch of the military. He says he's "reminded me of how lucky we are, as a nation, to have always had sons and daughters like" his friend's.
Leaving aside for now the blatantly illegal, immoral, and nonsensical invasion and subsequent occupation of Afghanistan (see my "War On Terror" Talking Points for a low-down), we, as a nation, have an awfully funny way of expressing our "gratitude".
Depleted Uranium is the waste product created from the production of fuel for nuclear reactors. A radioactive heavy metal, it sports a radioactive half-life of 4.5 Billion years. The United States fired off at least 300 tons of Depleted Uranium munitions during the first Gulf War, as well as something like 40 tons in the Balkans, and perhaps 500 tons in Afghanistan. Since it was never cleaned up, the radioactive particles are still there, blowing around, contaminating whatever it is they happen to come into contact with.
The cancer rate in southern Iraq has jumped by 1,800% since the Gulf War, and in a report from the field in Afghanistan in October of this year, the team was "shocked by the breadth of public health impacts coincident with the bombing." The report also speculates that Natural Uranium munitions, 100 times more radioactive than DU munitions, were used in Afghanistan, while a different study warns that Natural Uranium munitions will be used in the upcoming war in Iraq.
But let's assume that we don't care how many niggers get nuked, and focus on the Vets that we, as a nation, are so lucky to have serving us. Vietnam Veteran Doug Rokke, formerly the U.S. Army's DU team health physicist, has lamented that while the U.S. incurred only 760 immediate casualties in the Gulf War, there are now over 200,000 (more than a quarter of the total deployed) Vets who have filed Gulf War-related casualty claims -- the fabled "Gulf War Syndrome". The Department of Veterans Affairs has determined that in nearly 160,000 of these cases, the cause was Gulf War exposures and injuries.
What's more, the Pentagon claims that troops are not being given any new protection training for the upcoming war, and apparently will not be afforded much in the way of protective gear.
Now, uh, whose weapons of mass destruction are the major concern, here?
December 19, 2002
Apologies
Don't know how many people are regularly checking in here. But to all two or three of you, I'm sorry for the paucity of postings. I've actually got a lot of stuff I want to write about. But between having been sickly of late, and getting ready to go out-of-town for the Holy Days, and working, and other shit; have not gotten around to it. Hopefully soon.
In the meantime, get thee into the streets!
December 16, 2002
The Games War Criminals Play
The Bush administration wants us to believe that "disarming" Iraq is a direly urgent matter, that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction threaten regional and world peace. Yet, UN Weapons inspectors left Iraq in December of 1998, and Iraq has invaded precisely nobody in the interim. Has the matter been as urgent since then? If so (or, er, uh, if not), then why not let the inspectors finish their jobs now?
The Bush administration wants us to believe that "disarming" Iraq is a direly urgent matter. Yet, W. fingered Iraq as a spoke in the "Axis of Evil" last January, though didn't begin to really ramp up the sabre-rattling until September, because, according to White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, "...from a marketing standpoint, you don't roll out a new product in August."
The Bush administration wants us to believe that "disarming" Iraq is a direly urgent matter. Yet, while the war-talk died down in the run-up to the mid-term elections, as soon as they had finished, the New York Times was able to report that, "President Bush gave notice to the United Nations and to the American people today that the political season is over and that the time has come to disarm Saddam Hussein -- and that it may take war to accomplish that goal."
The Bush administration wants us to believe that "disarming" Iraq is a direly urgent matter. Yet, the coming invasion is scheduled for January or February, because this is the optimum time to fight a war in the Iraqi desert -- after which it becomes too hot to do so. The Administration recently begged us to believe that there is no "artificial timetable", though the deployment is more less complete. The U.S. can now strike whenever it has gained the political leverage necessary to do so, in other words. If there were truly no "artificial timetable", why not wait until the inspectors complete their jobs, and the Security Council reconvenes to take up the matter?
The Bush administration wants us to believe that "disarming" Iraq is a direly urgent matter. Yet, apart from Britain, nobody else in the world -- least of all the other countries in the region -- fear an Iraqi attack.
The Bush administration wants us to believe that "disarming" Iraq is a direly urgent matter. Yet it keeps trying to implicate Iraq in the September 11 attacks to increase popular support for the planned war.
The Bush administration wants us to believe that "disarming" Iraq is a direly urgent matter. Yet, despite the so-far smooth and uneventful inspection process, Bush insists that he is "not encouraged", and the war of words intensifies.
The Bush administration wants us to believe that it is concerned about Iraq's human rights record, yet sends arms to and otherwise supports those countries in the region -- Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey -- with human rights records as bad as or worse than Iraq's.
The Bush administration wants us to believe that the Iraq war is a matter of principle, yet is using economic and diplomatic carrots to achieve world support for the invasion.
In other words, the United States is playing games. The people of Iraq are the pawns of the U.S. war planners' great schemes.
The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development warns that "a war on Iraq will create a humanitarian catastrophe that 'could shame the world'." Medact and Internation Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, in a new report, warns that, "A US-led attack on Iraq could kill between 48,000 and 260,000 civilians and combatants in just the first three months of conflict, according to a study by medical and public health experts. Post-war health effects could take an additional 200,000 lives."
Additionally, international aid agencies warn that Saddam will use a new war as a pretext to initiate another bloody crack-down upon the Iraqi Kurds.
To the Bush and Blair administrations, it's just a game -- some "lines on the map". But those are people under those bombs, and should this war go forward, their blood will be on our hands, too.
What You Can Do: Write to the Managing Editor of the New York Times ("All the News That's Fit to Print") as well as of your local media "organs", asking for prominent coverage of the CAFOD and IPPNW/MEDACT reports, as well as ongoing coverage of the probable and (once the war begins) actual humanitarian consequences of war in Iraq. Then e-mail everybody in your address book, asking them to do the same. The more requests a newspaper or radio or television station receives, the greater the chance that it will honor the request. Yeah, it's not very exciting to sit there and compose letters. But grassroots organising is the key to changing policy -- and it's crucially important for all of us to become grassroots organisers now. The New York Times' address is: 229 West 43rd St., New York, NY 10036.
Very Clever, But...
...why aren't Pakistan and India skating on thin ice? Why isn't Israel skating on thin ice? Why aren't Russia, China, Britain, and France skating on thin ice? And of course, why isn't the United States (which, for god's sake, is openly threatening to use Nukes essentially whenever and wherever it wants) skating on thin ice?
Oh, right. None of them are members of the "Axis of Evil". Because, it's presumed, only "evil" states can be admitted to that particular club.
Fowl Play
As reported in the Chicago Tribune, the European Union has delivered a "bitterly disappointing" blow to Turkey, in failing to invite it to join the EU. Despite "a strong endorsement of the Bush administration", Europe was scared off by Turkey's high rate of inflation and "a poor human rights record".
As the U.S. and Britain gear up to blitz Iraq, in part because of its poor human rights record (uh, never you mind that the U.S. was a major enabler of the Beast of Baghdad, and is now trying to hide this fact), one can't help but wonder why Turkey would receive "a strong endorsement of the Bush administration".
Ironies abound, but let's start with a review of Turkey's human rights record. Throughout the '90s, Turkey was, after Israel and Egypt, the top recipient of U.S. military aid. At the time, it was conducting a campaign of true genocide against the Turkish Kurds, not only committing massacres and tortures, but outlawing the teaching of Kurdish in schools, confiscating Kurdish newspapers, shutting down radio stations, etc.. In other words, an attempt to eradicate the Kurdish people as a cultural entity. Both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have decried the situation, while The Terror Report of Turkey, 1980-2000 reveals the record in grisly detail.
So while the U.S. was supporting and arming Saddam's brutal repression of the Iraqi Kurds, it was at the same time providing support for Turkey's brutal repression of Turkish Kurds right across the border (and continued to do so even after it became politically useful to publicly champion the cause of the Iraqi Kurds -- although even then, the U.S. allowed Turkey to violate the Northern "No-Fly Zone" in crossing the border to bomb Iraqi Kurds several times during the '90s).
Today, in exchange for the use of Turkish territory to stage bombing runs in Iraq, the Washington Post reports that, "Turkey wants guarantees that the Iraqi Kurds will not establish an independent state, or even achieve a degree of autonomy that could awaken the crushed separatist dreams of Turkey's Kurdish minority." Of course, the Post doesn't explain how and with whose help the Turkish Kurds were crushed, but this much is plain for all to see: Iraq's sordid human rights record elicits U.S. bombs, while Turkey's equally sordid record elicits U.S. favours and "strong endorsements".
What You Can Do: If your newspaper carried this article, write a letter to the editor pointing up the hypocrisies of U.S. policy. And send a copy of the letter to the White House.
December 15, 2002
Trent Pulls A Boner
Let's see if we've got this straight. It's okay for toxic industries to site in the "black part of town". It's okay for the cops to shoot and kill a black man every month or so. It's okay to maintain an essentially race-based capital punishment system. It's okay for voters to discriminate against minorities (Prop. 187 in California, I-200 in Washington, for example). Sentencing disparities are okay, and it's okay for blacks to be incarcerated at levels far outpacing their population levels. It's okay for blacks to be left off voter rolls. Welfare "reform" is okay. Redlining is okay.
But as soon as the poor Senator opens up his mouth and slips out with what we all know he's always been thinking anyways, all hell breaks loose. And rather than actually discussing the issue, we're allowed only to speculate upon the potential political fallout.
But the bottom line remains that if we don't want racist politicians, we should stop electing them.
December 10, 2002
Quotebook
Yo, it's a whole bunch of cool/appropriate/whatever quotes. Much easier than writing up my own shitty commentaries! Newest quotes at the top.
"A grave danger represents itself. Two-fifths of the insurgents in the field are negroes. These men would, in the event of success, demand a predominant share in the government of the country . . . the result being, after years of fighting, another black republic." --Winston Churchill, 1896
"I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance that a great wrong has been done to the red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, a more worldly-wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." --Winston Churchill, 1937
"We insisted on reserving the right to bomb niggers." --British Prime Minister Lloyd George, 1932
"The UN can meet and discuss, but we don't need their permission." --White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card
"Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of 'patriotism' -- how passionately I hate them! How vile and despicable seems war to me!" --Albert Einstein
"Christianity is a good philosophy if you live it, but it's controlled by white people who preach it but don't practice it. They just organize it and use it any which way they want to. If the white man lived Christianity, it would be different. But I tell you, I think it's against nature for European people to live Christian lives. Their nations were founded on killing, on wars. France, Germany, the bunch of 'em. It's been one long war ever since they existed. And if they're not killing each other over there, they're shooting Indians over here. And if they're not after the Indians, they're after the reindeer and every other living thing they can kill, even elephants. It's always violence and war for the Christian." --Muhammad Ali, 1975
Doublethink
So, the argument goes something like, "We have a right to carpet-bomb Afghanistan in retaliation for September 11."
Okay. Let's leave aside the inconvenient facts -- none of the perpetrators were Afghan nationals, the Taliban offered to extradite bin Laden, the Security Council wasn't consulted, innocent civilians were wantonly killed, etc. -- for now, and just presume that it's a sensible position.
If the U.S. has such a right, does Nicaragua have a right to invade the United States? Does Haiti? Does the Sudan? Does Iraq? Does Vietnam? Does El Salvador? Does Korea? Does Guatemala? Does Japan? Does Greece? Does Libya? Does Panama? Does East Timor? For these countries, along with others almost too numerous to count, have all suffered terrorist atrocities either directly at the hands of the United States, or indirectly through U.S.-sent weaponry. Atrocities that, given the relative wealth and infrastructure levels of these (ahem, "dark-skinned") countries, caused far greater damage to their societies.
This seems such an obvious truth that it's almost embarrassing to even mention it. Yet, I can't count the number of times that bringing up this point has resulted in the cessation of an e-mail exchange. Is it that I'm supposed to automatically presume that we "don't count niggers" when speaking of the rights of human beings? But even if so, why couldn't just one person e-mail me back saying, "Hey, you seemed to have forgotten that we don't count niggers."? At least then I'd be up-to-speed, yeah?
Nothing Says "Happy Holidays!" Quite So Well As...
...the Forward Command Post, from JC Penny. "Take command of your soldiers from this fully outfitted battle zone. 75-piece set includes one 11½"H figurine in military combat gear, toy weapons, American flag, chairs and more. Assembled dimensions; 32x16x32"H. Plastic. 10 lbs. Ages 5 and up."
What, no British flag? No hookers? No play money to pass out to local warlords?
The title of this blog was pinched from the 1939 George Orwell essay of the same name. Written on the eve of the second World War, it reads as though it were written to-day. Dack provides a so-funny-it-hurts graphical illustration of the concept. In addition to this weblog, I'm currently maintaining a "War On Terror" Talking Points page as well as two links collections: one regarding the "War on Terror" and activism, the other regarding fallout from the Iraq War. Haven't been updating them lately, but they're perhaps worth a look nonetheless. If interested, you may also visit my homepage, or check out some things I've written in the past, or visit Eat The State!, a newspaper I help work on. My authorised biography, written by Mr. Robert E. Waddell of Everett, Washington, is (if I may say so) a helluva good read. If you need and/or want to get in touch with me, feel free to send an e-mail to any address you care to invent ("bovine-spongiform-encephalopathy", for example) c/o this domain name.
A word about comments. I prefer to let commenters have the last word, and therefore generally refrain from responding to comments. Contrary comments are most welcome -- though those that try to build an argument are much more appreciated than those that engage in ad hominem histrionics.
A word about comment-spam. This blog does utilise the invaluable mt-blacklist utility. However, the comment-spam is becoming so pervasive that several per day do slip through the cracks. It's kind of a pain in the ass to update the blacklist and de-spam more than once or twice a week, so please don't look too unkindly upon when you happen to run across some of it. Much obliged. If your comment gets blocked, let me know, and I'll help you get it posted.
Having been road-blocked by mt-blacklist, the spammers have turned to spamming Movable Type's TrackBack facility. So, all TrackBack functionality has been disabled on this blog. There were only four or five legitimate TrackBacks in the two-plus years of this blog's existence prior to their elimination, so it shouldn't be any great loss.
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News
- Antiwar.com.
- Common Dreams News Center.
- Cursor Media Patrol.
- Life After The Oil Crash.
- The War in Context.
Analysis - Anderson Valley Advertiser.
- Asia Times Online.
- William Blum.
- Noam Chomsky.
- CounterPunch.
- Robert Fisk.
- Naomi Klein.
- MediaLens.
- Monthly Review.
- John Pilger.
- Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan.
- Heather Wokusch.
- World Socialist Web Site.
- Z Magazine.
Blogs - The Anthropik Network.
- Baghdad Burning.
- Bitter Greens Journal.
- Clusterfuck Nation.
- Empire Notes.
- Feral Scholar.
- Iraq Dispatches.
- The Oil Drum.
- TomDispatch.
- Whiskey Bar.
By The Numbers - Contributions to Global Warming.
- Drug War Casualty Statistical Graphs.
- Farm Subsidy Database.
- Iraq "Coalition" Casualty Count.
- "Outsourcing The Pentagon".
- The Social Security Game.
- Terrorism Knowledge Base.
- "Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes".
Recommended Reading - "Behind The Invasion of Iraq", by The Research Unit For Political Economy. (Also available in hard copy from Monthly Review.)
- Blowback, by Chalmers Johnson.
- The Clash Of Fundamentalisms, by Tariq Ali.
- Confessions Of An Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins.
- Confronting The Third World, by Gabriel Kolko; and The Limits Of Power, by Gabriel Kolko and Joyce Kolko.
- Deterring Democracy and Year 501, by Noam Chomsky.
- Killing Hope, by William Blum.
- Late Victorian Holocausts, by Mike Davis.
- On War, by Howard Zinn.
- The Rise And Fall Of Economic Liberalism, by Frederic Clairmont.
- "Terrorism: Theirs And Ours" and "Roots of the Gulf Crisis", by Eqbal Ahmad.
- We Will Not Cease, by Archibald Baxter.
- The Wretched Of The Earth, by Frantz Fanon.
- "When you see somebody who hurts, put your arm around them and tell them you love them."
- "Do not let anyone mislead you."
- "Spending wisely means reducing wasteful spending."
- "Democracy is unfolding."
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