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(from Fern Hill)
... thanks to wood s lot Those that read this regularly know that I also do an Internet webcast every other Monday from my living room called TestingTesting. Although TestingTesting is primarily a music show, we do have some spoken word and had a local poet, Barton Cole, on the show over a year ago reading his poetry. In addition to his poems, he read one of his favorites - Fern Hill. After he started reading it the TestingTesting House Band started improvising along with the poem. The poem ended and the music continued and then Barton came in on harmonica. It was a magic moment. Here is the RealAudio link to hear Barton's reading of Fern Hill:
If the link doesn't work for you you can go to the TT Download RealAudio page for instructions on how to make it work. Barton became a regular on the show after his Fern Hill show. He does a regular spoken word piece he calls "Commentary from the Wires". His piece on our recent IAC Benefit Concert (we do get out of the living room occasionally) was great. Check it out. Check out the other acts. Check out our other shows. And Halloween is coming up. Some of our overly Christian friends seem to be having a problem with this harmless annual event. This is what I think of that.
One of the reasons we have such difficulty perceiving our current conditions is our aversion to this single word: fascism. While there is no hesitation by politicians to draw parallels with the Holocaust to justify whatever foreign adventure appeals to them, or for the media to make similar analogies at the drop of swastika on a wall, we seem only able to understand -- or even mention -- the climax of fascism rather than its genesis. Why this reluctance? Perhaps it is because we are much closer to the latter than to the former.
In any case, it is one of the most dangerous forms of political myopia in which to indulge. Italians, who invented the term fascism, also called it the estato corporativo: the corporatist state. Orwell rightly described fascism as being an extension of capitalism. It is an economy in which the government serves the interests of oligopolies, a state in which large corporations have the powers that in a democracy devolve to the citizen. Today, it is no exaggeration to call our economy corporatist, which has been described by British academics R.E. Pahl and J. T. Winkler as a system in which the government guides privately owned businesses towards order, unity, nationalism and success." thanks to Ethel the Blog Our theme for the day is Keystone Cops. Thanks to SmirkingChimp.com Every day, things get a bit worse - and where is George? Bush was kicking off his newest initiative, "Friendship Through Education," in which American students are being recruited to reduce international tensions by finding Muslim pen pals. "We're here talking about how we can best conduct a war against evil, and you can play a part," Bush told students at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School in northeast Washington. "You can be an integral part of that by establishing friendship." Watching Bush on CNN, I couldn't shake the thought that the president was inexplicably channeling Hillary Clinton, in her most cloying, annoying "It Takes a Village" incarnation. What else could account for his spending hours on his pen pal initiative at an elementary school, on a morning when his administration, and thus the country, seemed scarily out of control?
In the New York Times alone, his health and human services secretary, Tommy Thompson, had been pilloried by public health officials for bungling the deadly anthrax scare (the Times charged him with "missteps, miscues and misstatements"); spokesman Ari Fleischer was quoted contradicting himself about whether the U.S. mail is in fact safe; and top officials described a high-level meeting they'd held to address the fact that, despite the creation of a Cabinet-level Homeland Security position, the homeland had never been quite so insecure. Welcome to the Bush leagues! Can't anyone here do their job? For the first time since Sept. 11, the Bush high command is being criticized for its handling of the terror crisis — and many of the complaints are coming from Bush partisans worried about an appearance of confusion and drift. Bush's conduct of the Afghan war continues to earn high marks, even from top Democrats. But several administration officials and other Bush sources grumble that the White House has bungled the anthrax crisis with a mishmash of confusion, mixed messages and grudging disclosure.
"We look like we don't have our act together," one key Bush source grumped. "The impression is being left we may not know what we're doing." A "mishmash of confusion, mixed messages and grudging disclosure" sounds just like America's New War. Reassuring words from Ridge: we'll get anthrax guy, 'I hope' Tom Ridge, the administration's point man on the anthrax scare, had a message Thursday for any terrorist spreading the bacteria through the nation's mail. "We'll get him," he said defiantly into TV cameras.
Then he mumbled beneath his breath, "I hope." Reassuring words from the Pentagon: um, anyone have any good ideas? The Pentagon appealed to Americans on Thursday to send in bright ideas on thwarting terrorism, announcing an unusual, open competition to speed the winners into use. The Defense Department said it was looking for help in "defeating difficult targets, conducting protracted operations in remote areas and developing countermeasures to weapons of mass destruction."
The goal was to find concepts that can be developed and fielded in 12 to 18 months, a blink of an eye compared with standard Pentagon acquisition and deployment procedures. So, tell me one more time...Just what is the bloated military budget buying us?
Long live xenophobia!
Profiles Encouraged Suddenly to our right, on the sidewalk, we saw two "Mideastern looking men," as we all now say. They were 25 or 30 years old, dressed in jeans and windbreakers, and they were doing something odd. They were standing together silently videotaping the outside of St. Pat's, top to bottom. We watched them, trying to put what we were seeing together. Tourists? It was a funny time of day for tourists to be videotaping a landmark--especially when the tourists looked like the guys who'd just a few days before blown up a landmark. We watched them. After a minute or so they finished taping St. Pat's and turned toward where we were. We were about 20 feet away from them, and we eyeballed them hard. They stared back at us in what I thought an aggressive manner: a deadeye stare, cold, no nod, no upturned-chin hello. They stared at us staring at them for a few seconds, and then they began to videotape Rockefeller Center. We continued watching, and I surveyed the street for a policeman or patrol car. I looked over at the men again. They were watching me. The one with the camera puts it down for a moment. We stared, they stared. And then they left. They walked away and disappeared down a side street.
Let me tell you what I thought. I thought: Those guys are terrorists.
No one likes "racial profiling," "ethnic profiling," "religious profiling." But I see it this way: If groups of terrorists took out two huge buildings and part of the Pentagon and killed 5,000 people and then decided to unleash anthrax and it emerged that those terrorists were all middle-aged American blond women who tend to dress in blue jeans and T-shirts and like to go by Catholic churches and light candles, I would be deeply upset not only because the terrorists had done what they'd done. I would also be upset because they were just like me! I fit their profile! I look like them! I act like them! Everywhere I went people would notice me and give me hard looks and watch what I was doing. I would feel terrible about this. But you know what else I'd do? I'd suck it up. I'd understand. I wouldn't like it, but I'd get it, and I'd accept it. I just bet she would understand. Yesterday I listened to a talk radio host taking calls after reading excerpts from this column. Xenophobe after xenophobe called in and agreed we needed to watch "these people". "We shouldn't be letting these people into the country." "They're aggressive. One almost ran me off the road the other day." "They're not like us." It's easy to support racial profiling when it's not your race being profiled. But wait! I'm sure that Ashcroft and Ridge (our homegrown religious thought police) will get around to the rest of us soon enough. It makes you proud to be an American. US 'surprised' by Taleban tenacity
The US Pentagon has admitted that it is taken aback by the tenacity of the Taleban as the US bombing campaign continues into its third week. thanks to BookNotes Lets see...The Ahghans were able to defeat Russia in ten years of fighting and the Pentagon didn't notice? They thought they would just roll over for the US? It's the same arrogant mind set we saw in Vietnam. After all, we were just fighting a bunch of gooks in pajamas. What kind of threat could that be? Here is some more background on how we got into this mess and how we are busy making new messes we don't even begin to comprehend. All wars have unintended consequences. No matter how cautious generals and political leaders are, war sets in motion waves of change that can alter the currents of history. More often, generals and political leaders are not troubled by long-term side effects; they are sharply focused on achieving a victory and war's aims. The result is that the unseen and unintended occur, at times as a bitter riptide which overwhelms the original rationales for engaging in armed combat.
This unpredictable cycle of action and reaction has thwarted U.S. policy in southwestern Asia for 50 years. It began with attempts to contain the Soviet Union and control the oil-rich fields of the Persian Gulf, and continues today in the popular assault in Afghanistan to destroy the al-Qa'ida terrorist network. In that half century, nearly every major initiative led to an unexpected and sometimes catastrophic reaction, for which new military remedies were devised, only again to stir unforeseen problems. The cycle, regrettably, may be repeating again. thanks to BookNotes
There are many ways to view the conflict between the United States and Osama bin Laden's terror network: as a contest between Western liberalism and Eastern fanaticism, as suggested by many pundits in the United States; as a struggle between the defenders and the enemies of authentic Islam, as suggested by many in the Muslim world; and as a predictable backlash against American villainy abroad, as suggested by some on the left. But while useful in assessing some dimensions of the conflict, these cultural and political analyses obscure a fundamental reality: that this war, like most of the wars that preceded it, is firmly rooted in geopolitical competition. thanks to Ethel the Blog This is a personal account of what it is like to live in the West Bank under Israeli occupation.
For the last three days I have spent much of my time doing one of three things: First, I have been watching Bethlehem Television as the lines of breaking news flashed on the screen. (We announce the death of ... Citizens: Beware when walking in the streets or in your homes, there are Israeli snipers in the hills. We announce the death of our sister ... Citizens: Stay away from the area of Bab AL-Ziqaq, Israeli tanks are headed there. We announce the death of 16-year-old ... There are a large number of wounded, area hospitals request doctors who are able to come assist. We announce the death of ... ) This is just part of the succession of announcements that occurred in the space of about two hours. thanks to BookNotes
The real battle lines Only hours after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Republican Representative Curt Weldon went on CNN and announced that he didn't want to hear anyone talking about funding for schools or hospitals. From here on, it was all about spies, bombs and other manly things. "The first priority of the U.S. government is not education, it is not health care, it is the defence and protection of U.S. citizens," he said, adding, later: "I'm a teacher married to a nurse -- none of that matters today." But now it turns out that those frivolous social services matter a great deal. What is making the U.S. most vulnerable to terrorist networks is not a depleted weapons arsenal but its starved, devalued and crumbling public sector. The new battlefields are not just the Pentagon, but also the post office; not just military intelligence, but also training for doctors and nurses; not a sexy new missile defence shield, but the boring old Food and Drug Administration. thanks to SmirkingChimp.com And Dan Gillmore has a column on our favorite monopolists. Entertainment control freaks have an ally in Microsoft Also Thursday, as you may have heard, a large software company based in Redmond, Wash., is holding a coming-out party for Windows XP. This is Microsoft's next-generation operating system, and one piece is potentially just what the entertainment moguls ordered. How so? The Windows Media Player software built into Windows XP contains copy controls for audio and video content using Microsoft's proprietary media format, called WMA. Many companies are planning to use WMA for their distribution, given how ubiquitous it will be once millions of XP-configured PCs have been sold. That latest version of Media Player, which I recently downloaded, comes with a remarkable user license. It says, in part: ``You agree that in order to protect the integrity of content and software protected by digital rights management (`Secure Content'), Microsoft may provide security related updates to the OS Components that will be automatically downloaded onto your computer. These security related updates may disable your ability to copy and/or play Secure Content and use other software on your computer. If we provide such a security update, we will use reasonable efforts to post notices on a Web site explaining the update.''
In other words, Microsoft asserts the right to remotely change your PC's configuration and otherwise muck with your system. What's a reasonable effort to post notices? Who knows? There is no way in hell that I will be going to XP. thanks to Dan Gillmore
Dutch animator Han Hoogerbrugge's short shockwave pieces are amazing. Wave your mouse around, most are interactive. thanks to MetaFilter The World According to the United States of America
 Those Aussies are at it again! thanks to Ethel the Blog LPs had much more space than CDs to do cover art. It could be good, it could be bad. This site shows what the younger generations have missed. thanks to BookNotes Blogging to be light today. Getting web projects done and geting ready for another TestingTesting concert. Wacka! Wacka! (More about that soon.) Go to the following for their excellent links on events and stuff:
Ethel the Blog They will keep you amused.
The following has links to many news stories painting a very different picture of the Kandahar raid than that painted by the Pentagon. American defeat in Kandahar raid on 10/18/01?
A growing number of articles in the overseas press, from Israel, India, Russia, and of course from Afghanistan and Arab sources, suggest that the US special forces raid in Kandahar on 10/18 was considerably less than the complete success it has been portrayed to be in the US media: thanks to Unknown News
E-mail Keeps Congress Open congress.org makes it easy to e-mail your elected representatives. Put your Zip in the box below and you get a page with your national elected representatives. It shows their key votes and gives you links to information about your elected representatives (and one appointed representative). There is a link to a form that emails your message and contains special requirements such as a required subject heading. There is also a link to a similar page for your state representatives. There are also links to local media.
Insult and injury in Afghanistan Speaking at the FBI headquarters a few days later, President Bush said, “This is our calling. This is the calling of the United States of America. The most free nation in the world. A nation built on fundamental values that reject hate, reject violence, rejects murderers and rejects evil. We will not tire.” Here is a list of the countries that America has been at war with — and bombed — since World War II: China (1945-46, 1950-53), Korea (1950-53), Guatemala (1954, 1967-69), Indonesia (1958), Cuba (1959-60), the Belgian Congo (1964), Peru (1965), Laos (1964-73), Vietnam (1961-73), Cambodia (1969-70), Grenada (1983), Libya (1986), El Salvador (1980s), Nicaragua (1980s), Panama (1989), Iraq (1991-99), Bosnia (1995), Sudan (1998), Yugoslavia (1999). And now Afghanistan. Certainly it does not tire — this, the Most Free nation in the world. What freedoms does it uphold? Within its borders, the freedoms of speech, religion, thought; of artistic expression, food habits, sexual preferences (well, to some extent) and many other exemplary, wonderful things. Outside its borders, the freedom to dominate, humiliate and subjugate — usually in the service of America’s real religion, the “free market.” So when the U.S. government christens a war Operation Infinite Justice, or Operation Enduring Freedom, we in the Third World feel more than a tremor of fear. Because we know that Infinite Justice for some means Infinite Injustice for others. And Enduring Freedom for some means Enduring Subjugation for others.
The International Coalition Against Terror is a cabal of the richest countries in the world. Between them, they manufacture and sell almost all of the world’s weapons, they possess the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction — chemical, biological and nuclear. They have fought the most wars, account for most of the genocide, subjection, ethnic cleansing and human rights violations in modern history, and have sponsored, armed and financed untold numbers of dictators and despots. Between them, they have worshiped, almost deified, the cult of violence and war. For all its appalling sins, the Taliban just isn’t in the same league.
Polls show support for the military action in Afghanistan topping 90 percent. But that still means millions of Americans oppose it. The Web allows them to find one another easily and organize with an efficiency like never before.
During the Vietnam War, organizing a nationwide peace movement took years. During the Gulf War, months. This time, it's taken days. thanks to wood s lot Some peace related web sites:
Muslim Peace Fellowship
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright.
but there is no joy in Mudville -- Mariners 3 - Yankees 12 Spring training in February.
Our Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfield, likened recent events to the beginning of a pool game where the player breaks the balls and and they careen around the table. Where they stop, nobody knows. Our international pool balls are still careening but it might be useful to look at some history and how it might relate to current internal events. A CIA propaganda apparatus aimed at the American people
The following events involving CIA propaganda aimed at the American people occurred years ago. However, some of the events' same participants and their ideological heirs are around today wielding their influence on Congress, the president and the public. One participant, Oliver North, now hosts a war stories program on Fox network. This is a little slice of history worth remembering. thanks to Ethel the Blog Pentagon Proposed Pretexts for Cuba Invasion in 1962 In his new exposé of the National Security Agency entitled Body of Secrets, author James Bamford highlights a set of proposals on Cuba by the Joint Chiefs of Staff codenamed OPERATION NORTHWOODS. This document, titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba” was provided by the JCS to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962, as the key component of Northwoods. Written in response to a request from the Chief of the Cuba Project, Col. Edward Lansdale, the Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba. These proposals - part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose - included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, developing a fake “Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,” including “sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated),” faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a “Remember the Maine” incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage. Bamford himself writes that Operation Northwoods “may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government.” You can view a pdf file of the original proposals:
Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense How does Operation Northwoods relate to today's events? William Pitt: 'The man behind the curtain' In the early months of 1962, General Lyman Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs under Kennedy, wanted a war. Part of a cabal of extreme right-wing anti-communist Cold Warriors within the Pentagon, General Lemnitzer believed Kennedy had gone soft on communism and Castro. Kennedy had put any and all provocative action against Cuba on hold, and ordered only the gathering of intelligence data.
For, General Lemnitzer, this was totally unacceptable. Further frustrated by the fact that Castro himself had failed to do anything that would demand an invasion of Cuba, General Lemnitzer and his cabal planned an operation called Northwoods. Bluntly, this operation called for acts of terrorism within the United States perpetrated by agents of the United states loyal to Lemnitzer. One thing is certain. Every agency tasked with the care and protection of this nation failed in their duty on September 11th, and thousands of Americans died as a result. The justification for the billions of dollars in budgetary allocations these agencies receive from our tax dollars has disappeared in a ball of flaming dust. Unless and until this catastrophe is set right, these agencies will no longer deserve our trust or our money.
One thing is certain. Every agency tasked with the care and protection of this nation failed in their duty on September 11th, and thousands of Americans died as a result. The justification for the billions of dollars in budgetary allocations these agencies receive from our tax dollars has disappeared in a ball of flaming dust. Unless and until this catastrophe is set right, these agencies will no longer deserve our trust or our money. thanks to SmirkingChimp.com So just what is the man behind the curtain doing? The previous article and the next article take the current situation to some disturbing places. Are they to be taken at taken at their face value? Time will tell. What has not been explained to the American people is the reason why 35,000 Army Reservists and 65,000 National Guard have been called up. It is to maintain internal checkpoints. It has nothing to do with the external "War on Terrorism." All of these people are being trained at the US Army School of Urban Control at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. CNN actually showed an urban training mock-up, what they're training on, and what the new Internal Security checkpoint is going to look like. It was mighty sinister looking. There was a barrier that went across the road. To the right was an elevated shed like structure, elevated perhaps fifteen feet in the air. It had a small second story that was open. On it was a sign that read "Homeland Security Internal Checkpoint." There were sandbags and the wooden arm that crossed the road read "100% ID Checked." Then there was a small shed to the right with a small barbed wire area behind that. On this structure was a sign, which read, "All citizens not having proper identification will be detained. All foreign nationals will be detained. All citizens who are deemed to be acting in a suspicious manner will be detained." At each of these posts there will be six armed Army or National Guard reservists with M-16's with full field kit. On top of the structure to the rear, the open structure on top, there's a man with a machine gun emplacement. They showed the actual mockup used for training purposes. They had new uniforms. They weren't in their regular uniforms. It's a new gray uniform with a gray helmet and a visor so you can't see their eyes. The only thing you can see is from their lips down because they said that's "to prevent any retribution" from people who don't like this new idea.
This uniform looked exactly like the Imperial Storm Troopers from "Star Wars" except instead of white, it was gray. All the helmets have little transceivers so they can communicate with each other. There will be six guards at each internal security checkpoint. And there's another warning on the inside of the barbed wire enclosure, "Any detainees attempting to escape will be shot." It was a yellow and red sign inside the detainment area. thanks to Ethel the Blog
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