World Cup Predictions

France and Senegal kick start the World Cup in a little less than 10 hours from now. I don't plan on writing much while the tournament is going on, but thought I'd relay my picks before things get started:

To advance past the Group Stage:
Group A - France, Denmark
Group B - Spain, Slovenia
Group C - Brazil, Turkey
Group D - Portugal, United States
Group E - Germany, Cameroon
Group F - Argentina, England
Group G - Croatia, Italy
Group H - Russia, Japan

Second Round:
Germany over Slovenia
France over England
Argentina over Denmark
Spain over Cameroon
Croatia over United States
Brazil over Japan
Turkey over Russia
Italy over Portugal

Quarterfinals:
France over Germany
Argentina over Spain
Brazil over Croatia
Italy over Turkey

Semifinals:
France over Argentina
Italy over Brazil

Final:
France over Italy

yeah, yeah...I'm not going out on a limb with these predictions, but I'm not alone in exercising caution. Things have changed a bit since I last wrote: Ireland will be without Keane, which will severely diminish their chances of going through the group stage and Zidane is out for probably 2 games, although I don't think that will be too costly for France.

If you can't tell, I've somewhat changed my tone on Italy (they will have problems, though) and Germany (injuries to Deisler, Nowotny, etc. are too much to overcome for a team that has been performing below expectations for some time now).

Check out the TV schedule; you can keep up with news from both Soccernet and the official World Cup site. CNNSI has a brief preview of the teams and groups here. Here's a list of players to watch, too, for all you greenhorns out there.

Goldberg's Bias

A couple of people have been asking me what I thought about Bernard Goldberg's recent book, Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News.

For the sake of time, here's my take on the book from an email I wrote to a colleague:

Bias has been at/near the top of the NY Times bestseller list for some time. Conservative book clubs are practically giving the book away for free. Goldberg is also getting a lot of press: over the past few weeks it seems like if you turned on any cable news program, he was there.

Anyway, it's interesting that someone can yell and scream about 'liberal bias' and, at the same time, basically get the royal treatment for his book tour and the attention of the entire media. Is there no irony here?

I got the book from my library and read through it in about 2 days, just to see what the big fuss is about. I'm biased (pun), of course, but the book is really nothing to sneeze about. It's pretty short and it's definitely a polemic; it is very anecdotal, full of ad hominems, and not supported with much evidence (when some points are supported, it's usually with rather blatant, right wing sources). Goldberg does raise some substantial points, but most seem to be a comment, from my perspective, on the generally dismal performance of journalists - not necessarily their 'liberal bias'.

Interestingly, though, most of the solid points he makes - about corporate control, the dominance of advertising/revenue in determining content, etc. - have typically been the critiques you most often hear from 'leftist' media critics.

In the end, it's amusing (but not surprising) that this book gets alot of attention when you've had some much better written and supported stuff coming from critics on the left for some time (especially by Ben Bagdikian, Bob McChesney, Mark Hertsgaard, John Nichols, Chomsky/Herman, et al.). All of these authors, of course, have largely been ignored by the mainstream media.

Steve Rendall and Peter Hart of FAIR wrote a mini-review of the book and pretty much echoed my reaction.

Chomsky vs. Bennett on CNN

I'm a little annoyed that I missed the "debate" between Noam "America Hater" Chomsky and Bill "Our Guide to Moral Clarity" Bennett on CNN's American Morning. I woke up just to catch it at 8:20am, as I was informed, but when Paula and team decided to throw on more "don't forget why we're killing Muslims" crap from Ground Zero, I switched off the tube. Apparently the debate happened some 10 minutes later.

You can't glean much from the transcript, except to say that it's impossible to have a serious, informed debate on television, as McLuhan claimed.

The one thing I did find amusing was that Bennett brought up Chomsky's supposed Khmer Rouge apologias. Even in such a short time period, he couldn't refrain from an attempt at character assassination. God bless him.

There's some backchat about the debate here and someone went to the trouble of doing an "analysis" of the debate here.

Patriotism and Journalism

Yesterday, Robert Jensen wrote a piece that was published in Newsday on how “Journalism Should Never Yield to ‘Patriotism’”. It’s a good article, although not terribly original for him, as it draws heavily from his excellent November speech I mentioned a few days ago. While he states what I perceive to be the obvious, the lapdogs in the corporate media seem to have totally dismissed such a premise, appropriately fulfilling their Gobbelesque role. Achin Vanaik had similar comments in a November piece from the Telegraph of India:

The finest, most honourable tradition of democratic, honest journalism demands that the premier commitment of journalists be to universal principles of human rights and justice which by their very nature must cut across all national loyalties. If this basic injunction of the classical Enlightenment concept of journalism and of the role of the intelligentsia was being observed, what we would be reading, seeing and hearing about September 11 and its aftermath would have been very different indeed from what we have had and are likely to continue having.

On a somewhat related note, I’m quite surprised that nothing Jensen has written since 9/11 is included in the recent lefty-collection of articles in September 11 and the U.S. War: Beyond the Curtain of Smoke, which, btw, you can read almost in its entirety online.

Bin Ladens Escorted out of US

When he was on the Daily Show a few months ago, Michael Moore mentioned something about a New Yorker article reporting that the Saudis got clearance to fly several members of the Bin Laden family out of the United States the week following Sept. 11.

I couldn’t believe the story he told and, after failing to locate it following a search at the New Yorker site, I concluded that Moore somehow got the details mangled, wound up misinterpreting something he read, or, worse, was citing second-hand information without double checking. After all, he does have a tendency of doing this.

Apparently I was wrong to assume such things. I finally ran across the story today, here, and it seems Moore was on target:

Around two dozen other American-based members of the bin Laden family, most of them here to study in colleges and prep schools, were said to be in the United States at the time of the attacks. The New York Times reported that they were quickly called together by officials from the Saudi Embassy, which feared that they might become the victims of American reprisals. With approval from the F.B.I., according to a Saudi official, the bin Ladens flew by private jet from Los Angeles to Orlando, then on to Washington, and finally to Boston. Once the F.A.A. permitted overseas flights, the jet flew to Europe. United States officials apparently needed little persuasion from the Saudi Ambassador in Washington, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, that the extended bin Laden family included no material witnesses. The Saudi Embassy says that the family cooperated with the F.B.I. The Saudi government has said that the family signed a statement officially disowning Osama in 1994, a year after the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. The Saudi government also stripped bin Laden of his citizenship, which resulted in self-exile to Sudan. When I asked a senior United States intelligence officer whether anyone had considered detaining members of the family, he replied, "That's called taking hostages. We don't do that."

The last line is particularly amusing. We don’t take hostages? What, then, do we call the detainees on Guantanamo?

Kill the Women and Children in Afghanistan?!?!

Buried in a story from Saturday’s Ithaca Journal comes this revelation from Matt Guckenheimer, an infantryman who recounted his recent stint in Afghanistan:

"We were told there were no friendly forces," said Guckenheimer, an assistant gunner with the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum. "If there was anybody there, they were the enemy. We were told specifically that if there were women and children to kill them."

Amazingly, this statement passes without comment in the article.

Further down, there also is this gem:

When he returned to the United States after spending a month either on missions or at the Bagram military base, Guckenheimer said, he remembered how alienated Americans are from each other. After living in a Third World country, where people he didn't know would smile or say hello to him on the streets, it was jarring to return home, where contact among strangers is mostly shunned.

"These people who lived through life, they seemed to be more grounded," he said. Coming home was like walking back into a "clueless" society where over-consumption is commonly regarded as the route to happiness, he said.

Interesting stuff. Not sure how credible Guckenheimer is, or if he has some kind of axe to grind, but if the revelations about being told to kill anyone, “specifically…women and children,” are accurate, then we may have ourselves some war crimes…

The Hitch: No longer the authentic voice of dissent?

Scott Lucas, who wrote one of the better pieces on the media's woeful performance following 9/11, writes in the recent edition of the New Statesman about "The dishonourable policeman of the left," Christopher Hitchens. Following his attendance at the recent Hitchens/Ali debate at a LRB panel discussion, Lucas concludes:

"The Hitch" is no longer an activist, no longer a participant in the real debates about power and who wields it, no more a source for thought. No, he is an industry, posing in trench coat with a cigarette dangling from his top lip, hailed as "one of the few remaining practitioners of the five-hour, two-bottle lunch". And, naturally, the most profitable industry is a monopoly. So he packages himself, surreally, not just as a policeman but the only policeman of "a radical left that no longer exists".

Some may suspect this declaration to be all about the Stalinist dictum of making sure Hitchens "keeps with the party line." But I don't think that's what's going on here.

Many folks didn't understand what the hell Hitchens was saying in the pseudo-debate he had with Chomsky in The Nation. While Reason calls him a "free radical," Ed Herman claims he's "sunk below the class we may call 'liberals'" and Justin Raimondo heaps him in with the "leftist glitterati."

Basically, he's been all over the place.

Is the man simply a political chameleon now? Is he merely reflecting values, not politics anymore, as he claims? Again, I don't think so. His analyses since 9/11 have ranged from being utterly absurd and childish to mere caricatures of the actual political environment. Something's going on here, and, as Lucas implies, it seems like it's much to do with ego.

AI's 2002 Report

Amnesty International released their 2002 report today. The Press Release accompanying the report opens up with this hard-hitting announcement: "The world has undoubtedly changed radically since 11 September. Yet many things remain the same: a disregard for human life and human dignity, as well as for economic, cultural and social rights; an escalation of old and festering situations such as the Middle East, Afghanistan and Colombia..." It went on to state the obvious, although seldom reported, fact that "a number of governments jumped on the 'anti-terrorism' bandwagon and seized the moment to step up repression, undermine human rights protection and stifle political dissent." See this cartoon for elaboration.

The report on the United States is available here. This is the summary:

The death penalty continued to be used extensively. There were reports of police brutality and unjustified police shootings and of ill-treatment in prisons and jails. Human rights groups and others voiced concern at the lack of public information given about the circumstances under which more than 1,200 people, mainly foreign nationals, were detained during investigations into the 11 September attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. Some detainees were held incommunicado in the initial stages of arrest. Congress passed wide-ranging ''anti-terrorist'' legislation, aspects of which were of concern to AI and other human rights groups. In November President Bush passed an order establishing special military commissions to try non-US citizens suspected of involvement in ''international terrorism'' which would bypass international fair trial norms. AI called for inquiries into several incidents involving the killing of civilians by US and allied forces during military action in Afghanistan and into the killing of hundreds of prisoners in Qala-i-Jhangi fort following an uprising.

I suppose I could drop in a "God Bless America" here, but that might be inappropriate.

The Palestine-Israeli Conflict

About two weeks ago, I mentioned that I was reading the book The Palestine-Israeli Conflict: A Beginner's Guide. I wound up finishing it yesterday and was generally impressed by the overall presentation, as well as the content relayed by both authors.

As I noted back then, the book was written half by Rabbi Dan Cohn-Sherbok and half by a Palestinian lawyer, Dawoud El Alami. Apparently, both teach at the University of Wales, Lampeter.

Each author’s half of the book provides a rather straightforward historical narrative of the conflict since the late 19th century. While both authors do a good job of presenting the arguments of each “side,” they seem to be fair in their writing and admit wrongs, even when they do damage to their own claims.

Beyond their initial writings, both authors engage in a singular round of exchange where they comment on the other’s writing. This is probably the best part of the book, as both sides seem to take the gloves off and get to the heart of their disagreements. The only critical comment of the book I have is that the exchange could have gone several rounds, and the book would have been the better for it. Overall, the conflict seems to be best grasped this way – in debate and dialogue – because then the specious arguments and, dare I say, propaganda of both sides are easily unveiled for factual and rhetorical fallacy.

To give a better glimpse into the book, I’ll present some of the more telling quotations from the debate part. While I don't mean this as a review, the quotes seem pretty useful in explaining the differing interpretations of the conflict and, I felt, were worth relaying:

Responding to El Alami’s questioning of “the moral legitimacy of Jewish settlement in Palestine,” Cohn-Sherbok discusses the persecution of Jews throughout the centuries, echoing the claims of early Zionists like Hess, Pinsker, and Herzl. Noting that the “Zionist cause was based on the recognition that Jews had been and no doubt would continue to be regarded as aliens in countries where they constituted a minority” and claiming that the “Jewish people would never be able to overcome anti-Semitism unless they had a state of their own,” he then cites the Holocaust and asks:

Is this not sufficient moral grounds for the Jewish quest to obtain a foothold in their ancient homeland? In attempting to persuade the British of the justice of their cause, Zionists recounted the terrible legacy of anti-Semitism as it evolved through the ages. The Jews had been oppressed simply because of their faith. They constituted a small, vulnerable minority in alien cultures. In the face of rising anti-Jewish agitation particularly in Eastern Europe these Zionist pioneers championed a Jewish homeland to safeguard the lives of their co-religionists. Was this truly an immoral act?

Concluding that “surely there are compelling reasons for Jewish immigration to the Holy Land,” he argues that the creation of a Jewish commonwealth was to allow Jews to “defend themselves from future hostility.”

Following his insistence of Israel’s "moral right to exist," Cohn-Sherbok seems to defend many of the developments since 1948 by arguing that Israel was protecting herself from “hatred and bloodshed” caused and fomented by Arab aggression. This is reflected perfectly in this statement: “since the creation of Israel over fifty years ago, Arab nations have repeatedly denied Israel’s right to exist…While Jews have sought peace with their neighbors, the Arabs have waged wars.”

Writing specifically about this defensive posture made necessary because of “Arab intransigence,” Cohn-Sherbok writes, in order to justify the repression and displacement of the indigenous Palestinian population:

One of the results of the war [of 1948] was Israel’s determination to protect itself from further aggression. Is it surprising, therefore, that the Israelis took steps to restrict the activities of Palestinian refugees living in their midst? Although Israel’s Declaration of Independence guarantees social and political equality to all its citizens, Israelis were ambivalent about the Arab population in the country. Could they be trusted? As events proved, the Arabs in Israel were a real threat to the stability of the country. Ben-Gurion was right that they were a dangerous presence.

Dawoud El Alami responds with multiple points to Cohn-Sherbok’s arguments, although from the very beginning of his response it is clear how he interprets things:

…the history of Jewish Palestine ended effectively in 137 CE. Until the middle of the 20th century, there had not been a Jewish majority in Palestine since that time over eighteen hundred years ago. In a kind of international aberration one of the most significant events of the twentieth century, involving the destruction and dispersal of a settled, indigenous population, has been based on a folk memory that, however vital to the cultural identity of the Jewish people, cannot possibly have entitled them to colonize an inhabited land at the very time when the rest of the world was turning against colonialism.

El Alami spends little time rationalizing or explaining the Arab aggression and what type of a role that has had in the conflict. His argument deals almost exclusively with the so-called “original sin” – the creation of Israel, the expulsion of Palestinians, and the colonization of Palestine – as the root cause of the conflict. Israel’s history is illegitimate in El Alami’s view, not because of some anti-Jewish bias, but because it is predicated on the destruction and uprooting of an entire society.

To the argument that the Holocaust justifies, in some way, the creation of Israel, El Alami directly responds:

I cannot accept that the dreadful events of the Second World War demonstrate the validity of the Zionist ambition. The creation of the apartheid state that is Israel represents the ultimate victory of the extreme separatist notions propounded by Nazism. Is not the very concept of a Jewish state the ultimate in discrimination? By definition the creation of a state based on religion and ethnicity in an inhabited land can only be achieved by a degree of ethnic cleansing. The state built by a people who have long been victims institutionalizes a form of ethnic and religious discrimination that would not be acceptable in any other modern state.

El Alami spends little time addressing what he would probably claim to be minor details. While the Israeli-Palestinian history has taken a winding course, the chief cause of the conflict is quite simple in his mind, which is indicated in his conclusion:

No one would wish to deny the Jewish people peace and security, but true security in the modern world will never be attained simply by creating a fortress, maintaining military superiority and arming civilians…rather it will be attained by establishing justice and recognizing that other peoples also have rights.

To summarize the book:

Cohn-Sherbok’s argument is that the creation of a Jewish state was justified and, in fact, an act of defense in response to centuries of maltreatment and anti-Semitism, especially the Holocaust. The creation of such a state has brought pain and mistreatment to others, but the blame for much of this lies with the aggressive and militaristic stance taken by Israel's Arab neighbors, which has precluded the arrival of peace, cooperation, or, even, the creation of a Palestinian state (perhaps to be carved out from other Arab nations).

El Alami’s argument is that the indigenous population of Palestine – which has largely been driven out of their homeland in an act of ethnic cleansing – should not bear the responsibility for the oppression of Jews over hundreds of centuries. Israel has no moral or legal right to exist as an exclusively Jewish state on land that was seized from individuals already established and living in Palestine during the late 19th and early-mid 20th centuries. El Alami does not call for the violent eradication of Israel, but instead calls for the recognition of equal rights for the indigenous Palestinian population, especially the rights of those refugees displaced since 1948.

Afghan Civilian Casualties: Does Anybody Care?

In Monday's Guardian, Jonathan Steele wrote about the "Forgotten Victims" of Afghanistan. The subtitle of his report from Herat was, "The full human cost of US air strikes will never be known."

How very true, and perhaps purposefully so. Noam Chomsky predicted in December, in one of his best analyses since 9/11, that the actual number of casualties - mostly "silent casualties," from famine - will "very likely...never be known, by virtue of a guiding principle of intellectual culture: We must devote enormous energy to exposing the crimes of official enemies, properly counting not only those literally killed but also those who die as a consequence of policy choices; but we must take scrupulous care to avoid this practice in the case of our own crimes, on the rare occasions when they are investigated at all."

Getting back to the Guardian report, Steele notes that "as many as 20,000 Afghans may have lost their lives as an indirect consequence of the US intervention." After explaining the three main effects of the bombing - "massive dislocation," a disruption in "aid supplies to drought victims," and an "upsurge in fighting" which, subsequently, worsened the refugee crisis - he finally concludes with the obvious: "the nameless graves...will slowly be forgotten."

Two Years Too Late?

The Washington Post reports today that the "Justice Department...will file suit in three Florida counties charging voting rights violations in the 2000 presidential election." About the only details revealed were that the "allegations include improper purges of voter rolls, 'disparate' treatment of minorities in the voting process, failures to provide required voter registration material in certain public places and inaccessible balloting for disabled voters."

Geesh, those are exactly the same things people were complaining about 2 years ago (although they were told, on multiple occasions, to either: shutup, stop whining, or stop lying). I suppose speculation is inappropriate, but I'm curious if the "purges of voter rolls" cited has anything to do with Greg Palast's reporting on the Choicepoint scandal.

Patriotism's Secret History

An article in this week's The Nation explores some of the historical roots to our most patriotic songs and symbols. In it, we find out that many of our most beloved patriotic themes were written by what we would today call "progressives," or, in some cases, "radicals":

Most Americans are unaware that much of our patriotic culture--including many of the leading icons and symbols of American identity--was created by artists and writers of decidedly left-wing and even socialist sympathies. A look at the songs sung at post-9/11 patriotic tribute events and that appear on the various patriotic compilation albums, or the clips incorporated into film shorts celebrating the "American spirit," reveals that the preponderance of these originated in the forgotten tradition of left-wing patriotism.

While I agree with Robert Jensen that we should "Say Goodbye to Patriotism," this article is still a useful corrective for those who think that red-blooded, god-fearing, and market worshippin' conservatives are the only ones capable of "true" patriotism.

What the hell did we go to war for, then?

Madeleine Bunting, in a commentary in today's Guardian, offers these thoughts on our "futile campaign" in Afghanistan:

Afghanistan offered the perfect solution to September 11 - a massive expiation of US anger and, more subtly, guilt. Dropping all those bombs felt doubly good: it was retaliation for a terrible crime, but also getting rid of an evil regime. The emotional rush was everything; whether the latter actually worked has fallen off most people's radar screen. They're not interested. The selective memory means that what is remembered is that a few women in Kabul threw off their burkas in November, not that many more women in northern Afghanistan have been raped since then in a wave of ethnic revenge against the Pashtun. Nor is anyone much interested that since the fall of the Taliban, the old lawlessness of highway looting and illegal road tolls has re-emerged. Or that in the past few months there have been at least two major conflicts between warlords - in Mazar-i-Sharif and in Gardez - as an uneasy truce awaits the results of next month's loya jirga.

She goes on to conclude that "the war was a crude and clumsy intervention which did little for the wretched Afghans, and even less for the struggle against terrorism."

Juxtapose Bunting's words with a story from the AP today, which quotes FBI Director Rober Mueller in a speech to the National Association of District Attorneys saying, "There will be another terrorist attack. We will not be able to stop it."

Well, goll-ee. With the FBI Director conceding that there's little, virtually nothing, that can be done to thwart a terrorist attack, perhaps we would like to recall Bush's words from September assuring the American people that we can and will go to the ends of the earth to stomp out terrorism. Such words were bald-faced lies back then, but perhaps these admissions (also by Cheney) that terrorism is, essentially, unstoppable will force people to reconsider whether waging (or at least threatening) war against the world is the course of action that will most protect Americans from blowback. Maybe responding to terrorism without committing terrorism would have been just as prudent, if not more so.

Similar Reactions to the "Warnings of 9/11"

I wouldn't use the word "vindicated," but it's nice to see that several folks have had similar reactions to the spasm of news that came out last week about prior knowledge regarding 9/11: the main body of criticism needs to be laid on the media's doorstep. One of the letters to the WSWS references the book The Forbidden Truth by Guillaume Dasquie and Jean-Charles Brisard. Sorry to say, but I didn't know anything about this book's title, although I am familiar with its revelations. There's some interesting information summarizing the book, at Practical Radical, Online Journal, and Peter Dale Scott's webpage at Berkeley.

Carter's Trip and Human Rights

Jimmy Carter’s trip to Cuba last week, and the ensuing controversy it caused, got swept to the side once all the commotion about “warnings of 9/11” kicked into high gear. The general range of opinion on his trip was quite caustic, especially coming from the right. At one point I jokingly mentioned to a colleague that Carter wasn’t going to be let back into the country. However, the vitriole mostly receded following Carter's un-censored, live speech to the Cuban people on TV. This unprecedented event was widely hailed by virtually everyone across the political spectrum.

Of particular interest was Walter Russell Mead’s article in the Wall St. Journal, urging readers to “Give Carter His Due.” Writing approvingly of the visit, he noted:

For 40 years, Castro has tried to turn the question of democracy and human rights in Cuba into a test of wills between Cuba and the United States. The U.S. is trying to impose its own imperfect model on Cuba, Castro cries, when our politicians and human-rights groups call for political and economic freedom on the island.

The U.S. model is far from perfect, Mr. Carter acknowledged, but then went on to tell the Cuban people that this is not about U.S. standards and models. Cuba's government violates the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he told the Cuban nation, as well as key documents on rights and democracy adopted by every other country in the Western Hemisphere. Mr. Carter went even further, pointing out that while the Cuban constitution guarantees free speech and political rights, Cuban law denies these rights to opponents of the regime.

Mead is right to scold Castro’s regime over its habits of suppression, as well as the limits it imposes on individual freedoms. And, of course, the disclaimer that “the US model is far from perfect” is accurate, although that’s somewhat of a phrase devoid of any real meaning. After all, who would claim any national model to be “perfect”?

Then, however, Mead invokes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This I don’t understand. The underlying assumption here is that while the US is "far from perfect,” at least we uphold these rights. And, tsk, tsk…Cuba doesn’t.

Hmm. While it may be that the US abides by this 1948 convention better than Cuba, we surely don’t abide by it in its entirety. Just take a look at the articles. Everything’s seemingly a-ok until you hit the mid 20s, specifically articles 23-26 [my emphasis, following]:

Article 23: “Everyone has the right to work…the right to equal pay for equal work…[as well as] just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.”

Article 24: “Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.”

Article 25: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services”

Article 26: “Everyone has the right to education…[which] shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages.”

To claim that these four articles are adhered to in the United States requires some stretch of the imagination. Sure, some are adhered to better than others, and much of this might hinge on the interpretation of each article, but it’s still quite easy to take issue with the implementation of all four: “Renumeration” to ensure “an existence worthy of human dignity” is a joke, as ~35 million people in America live below the poverty line, even with welfare and governmental aid; social services are a joke as well, especially in health care, where millions of Americans lack coverage and thousands die because of it; the 40 hour work week is a figment of the imagination (I won’t comment on America’s paltry assignment of holidays), with most households working 80+ hours, and individuals working closer to 50; while K-12 education is “free,” this hardly suffices the average worker, as the vast majority of employment opportunities require above and beyond that, even for “fundamental” training.

Some might say I am nitpicking here, but it seems hypocritical to chide another nation by invoking the UN Declaration of Human Rights when we fail to fulfill the spirit of each article.

Further down in the article, Mead spits out this gem:

Mr. Carter's human-rights diplomacy, undertaken in conscious contrast to the realpolitik of the Nixon years, seemed mushy and even wimpish to hard-line critics on first glance. Yet every American administration since his has made human rights a central element of its diplomacy. The Reagan administration, originally critical of Mr. Carter's human-rights-based criticism of pro-U.S. dictators, ultimately supported the "people power" insurrection of Corazon Aquino against the Marcos regime, as well as sanctions against the South African apartheid government.

You’ve got to be kidding me. Human rights as an element of diplomacy in the Reagan administration? I guess in some Orwellian world waging an illegal war on Central American countries through terrorist measures and funding, both covertly and overtly, some of the worst human rights violators in the world (as Ed Herman has noted, there's a direct link, historically, between US aid and human rights violations) constitutes an administration that supports “human rights.” To be fair, this is not a phenomenon confined to the Reaganites, although their abuses are easily documented.

Postfeminism, Inc.

Susan Douglas takes "postfeminism" to task in the recent edition of In These Times:

What the hell is postfeminism, anyway? I would think it would refer to a time when complete gender equality has been achieved. That hasn’t happened, of course, but we (especially young women) are supposed to think it has. Postfeminism, as a term, suggests that women have made plenty of progress because of feminism, but that feminism is now irrelevant and even undesirable because it has made millions of women unhappy, unfeminine, childless, lonely, and bitter, prompting them to fill their closets with combat boots and really bad India print skirts.

But to perpetuate this “common sense” about feminism and postfeminism requires the weekly and monthly manufacturing of consent. Postfeminism is, in fact, an ongoing engineering process promoted most vigorously by the right, but aided and abetted all along the way by the corporate media. Postfeminism is crucial to the corporate media because they rely on advertising.

Bingo. The point about advertising is particularly astute because I don't think the ridiculous levels of consumption in this country could be maintained if feminism hadn't been gutted of any relevant meaning. Amanda Fazzone's article in TNR a while back seemed to point out the obvious: the only avowed feminists in this country seem to be the women who are hotties. At least that's the impression TV and the media give ya.

Recently, as Douglas notes, the media has been pounding home the message that "feminism is bad for you" and making feminists out to be an unhappy lot that will grow old, lonely, and repentant before they know it (at least, it seems, all feminists aren't 'lezbos' anymore). The rise of "marriage friendly" dialogue, as well as the marriage incentives imposed by the right (of course, only if you're not gay), seem to be framing the ultimate message: settling down, punchin' out kids and consuming yourself into oblivion is really the only way to be happy. The implication that patriarchy is, in some perverted sense, intrinsic to happiness and (as a major bonus) the panacea to major social problems like poverty could not be a more welcome development for those people who wish it were still the 1950s.

East Timor's Independence

Well, East Timor finally gained its independence. CNN reports that the "half-island nation gained independence after 400 years of Portuguese rule and more than two decades of Indonesian occupation." The In-Depth page at CNN touts "East Timor's long struggle for self-determination and freedom" and notes that today "brings to an end...decades of occupation and violence."

Not surprisingly, both the article and "in depth" background fail to mention the US' support, both diplomatically and militarily, of the Indonesian invasion, occupation, and slaughter. The revelations, as reported by Agence France Presse in December, that "the United States offered full and direct approval to Indonesia's 1975 invasion of East Timor, a move by then-president Suharto which consigned the territory to 25 years of oppression [and] cost the lives of up to 200,000 East Timorese," are, conveniently, nowhere to be found. BTW, the AFP report was issued following the release of these documents.

Find out the real story about East Timor's ordeal from the East Timor Action Nework or ZNet. For a quick Q&A, go here.

Recent 9/11 Revelations Indict the Media Further

More “revelations” about intelligence activities prior to 9/11 seem to be coming out every couple of hours. Yesterday, the AP wrote that “exactly two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, a federal report warned the executive branch that Osama bin Laden's terrorists might hijack an airliner and dive bomb it into the Pentagon or other government building.” MSNBC reported that Bush was “expected to sign detailed plans for a worldwide war against al-Qaida two days before Sept. 11.” Today, the NY Times reports that the “F.B.I. had been aware for several years that Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network were training pilots in the United States and elsewhere around the world.” The Washington Post reports that Bush was briefed in early August on Bin Laden’s determination to strike the US.

Is this stunning news? Hardly. Again, the question: why does it take three-quarters of a year to produce such a flurry of information on, essentially, the fundamental context of 9/11? Shouldn’t we have known all of this by the end of September, at the latest?

Perhaps this will force us to consider how much our media matters to democracy, and how its recent performance has been destroying the very foundation of critical inquiry that this country was founded upon. I’m not gonna hold my breath, though.

Pre 9/11 Knowledge about Terrorist Threats

I don’t understand all the hubbub over the recent news that the Bush administration was warned about terrorist activity prior to 9/11. Well, duh. Just from memory, I can recall a multitude of news reports over last summer about “heightened alerts” and CIA warnings that Bin Laden was planning something major. Now, sure, virtually all of these reports were confined to the Middle East, but the line since 9/11 that intelligence agencies didn’t have substantial reports about possible activities on US soil and didn’t amplify their surveillance capabilities, at home and abroad (which had to provide some clues about an impending attack), was really, really hard to swallow.

What these revelations do seem to confirm, however, is the woeful state of journalism and the bankruptcy of the mainstream media in this country. This should not have been a story difficult to unearth, as much of the evidence has been lying around, in one form or another, since September. The fact that it takes 8 months for something like this to surface in the US highlights the media’s unwillingness to question official sources, and do any investigative reporting that will substantially challenge the corridors of power. Couple this with all the cheerleading and “cowing to patriotism” since 9/11, and you’ve got a case of serious neglect, willful ignorance, and perhaps criminal negligence on their part.

In his speech last night, Cheney basically said they weren't gonna ruffle too many feathers with an investigation. Of course this is utterly absurd, but it is quite consistent with the Bush cabal’s previous efforts to make their activities as transparent as lead. Other things that come to mind: How should we now interpret the request to avoid a thorough investigation back in January? What about this report? Will Cynthia McKinney get an apology from all those conservative pundits who attacked her for *gasp* having the audacity to call for a wider investigation weeks ago? (apparently not) Will those so-called conspiracy theorists receive any attention now? ...Even if they try to present themselves as serious “truth seekers” and pose relevant questions, not merely worst-case scenarios? What about someone like Mike Ruppert?

My immediate reaction to all of this was to shake my head: not because I couldn’t believe the story, but because this would not have been considered that big of a story if the media had been doing what they’re supposed to do all along.

A War for Oil?

Brendan O'Neill of Spiked fame takes a jab at the "war for oil theorists":

Rather than understanding the war and what is driving it, many of the opponents of the war have evaded the real issues - instead going for a one-size-fits-all explanation by wheeling out well-rehearsed arguments about the West's interest in oil...[Instead] It is a war with no clear strategic aims, carried out primarily for domestic and political purposes and to galvanise audiences at home and abroad. In this sense, the oil-critical opponents have completely missed the point...

One of the better points O'Neill makes is that those who buy the war-for-oil thesis run the risk of embracing a position that is actually an "expression of powerlessness in the face of big bad corporate interests," thus making them "more cynical of Western powers than critical of them."

Fair enough. His overall argument is useful in exposing the pitfalls of the leftist tendency of adopting the "economic determinist" worldview. However, the conclusion that the war in Afghanistan is being perpetuated because "everything is out of control" seems extraordinarily weak.

True, the war against Afghanistan came about partly because Al-Qaeda's amorphous structure meant there wasn't a clear adversary. But while 9/11 was a massive blow, there has been no credible reason or logic given for attacking that country. The war so far has clearly bypassed the rule of international law, and, quite frankly, has never even been justified, in any sense, with a show of evidence. Plus, considering the relationship the US has had with the Taliban, it's ridiculous to be triumphant about displacing them from power. To take the moral highground on that position - which the US has done, almost exclusively, because it's the only tangible "benefit" the war has brought - requires a distinct sense of historical amnesia.

In short, we did not go to war against Afghanistan solely for oil. O'Neill, like many, seems to accept the assumption that the US needed to strike a blow at someone, in order to maintain a sense of credibility, and assuage the grief at home. But accepting such a premise doesn't discount the "war for oil" thesis. Military planners, I would expect, can hold more than one idea in their mind at once and seem to have a historical tendency of using certain "noble" aims to mask the more insidious ones that would be less palatable for the American public. At base, oil is the prime reason for our involvement, and concern, with the "stability" of the Afghan country. The US and several related multinationals have a clear interest in making Afghanistan safe for their investments. 9/11 seemed to give us carte blanche to launch a campaign which would have been politically impossible, even though it was politically desirable, before September.

Israeli Settlements and the Threat of "Jewish Terrorism"?

B'Tselem released a report this past Monday on the impact of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. While the report acknowledges that the settlements constitute only 1.7% of the land, it claims that these Israeli municipalities have control over a whopping 41.9% of the entire West Bank. Titled, "Land Grab: Israel's Settlement Policy in the West Bank," the report goes as far as to compare the Israeli system of control with Apartheid in South Africa (a comparison that seems to grow more popular, each day).

Also check out the corresponding map of the West Bank, which Open Democracy has mirrored alongside Eyal Weizman's piece on the Politics of Verticality.

On a somewhat related note, War in Context made this conjecture following Noam Federman's arrest:

While some people will argue that many of the actions of the Israeli Defense Force amount to a form of "state-sponsored terrorism," as the promise of Palestinian statehood moves closer to becoming a political reality, the threat of Jewish terrorism - terrorism in the form of bombings and suicide attacks on innocent civilians - will steadily increase.

Should such "Jewish terrorism" become a reality, I wonder how the American media would respond. Would such a development paralyze them as much as the recent IDF incursions into the West Bank? How would they reconcile it with the reigning paradigm of the conflict?

On Football

Well, the end of the European football season came with Real Madrid's 2-1 win over Bayer Leverkusen in the UEFA Champions League Final. I watched the game on tape, and thought it was a pretty good display. Zidane's goal was friggin' awesome and his recent form bodes well for France in Korea/Japan. I actually thought Leverkusen played better but, as always, Real have this knack for capitalizing on their chances. I shudder to think what they're gonna be like with Sheva next year, if the rumors are correct. Or even Crespo.

On other football news, it seems that Mathis is as good as gone. Part of me is sad (I bet my nephew is crushed), but you can't stand in the way if Bayern come calling.

With the Cup rapidly approaching, England really seems to be in bad shape, especially with the recent loss of Gerrard, and possibly Dyer. Neville's absence, of course, hurts and who knows how effective Beckham will be coming off the broken metatarsal.

My favorites are still Argentina and France (like everyone else, it seems). Brazil is a wild card, Italy is bound to disappoint, and for some reason, I've been high on Germany recently. I have no clue which teams will 'surprise,' although an African team is usually a safe bet. Oh well, some 2+ weeks to go. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm gonna go without sleep for a month...

Beating the Drums of War

Michael Colby opens up his recent column on Counterpunch writing, "When it comes to what the Bush administration dubs 'rogue states,' its foreign policy goals look something like this: fabricate the evidence and then rattle the war sabers."

After discussing some of the niceties surrounding Carter's recent trip to Cuba, Colby then concludes:

Bush is playing a dangerous game of foreign policy politics, a game that undermines U.S. credibility, foments more hostility toward us, and panders to the right wing in the short term while threatening world security in the long term. I'd like to say that Bush should know better but, then again, he is the president who championed his sophomoric "Bush Doctrine" which idiotically paints the world in two convenient shades: white if you're with us, and black if you're against us.

Is it possible that truer words have ever been spoken?

All kidding aside, it's getting to the point where even the staunchest of Republican supporters should be shaking their heads at the wanton disregard this administration is showing for things like "evidence" and "truth."

It would be nice if this "saber rattling" didn't have consequences, but it plays directly into the proliferation and necessity of a nefarious unilateral policy: if we lose the ability to convince the world of our truthfulness or even-handedness in world affairs, then it's virtually impossible to forge the relationships necessary to build multilateral agreements and alliances that aren't predicated solely on aggrandizing American power.

Hmm. Part of me is now concerned that this may be part of the Bush plan...

Likud's Goal?

The decision by Likud to reject the creation of a Palestinian state should not be a surprise. The general population of Israel (nevermind the internal orientation of Likud) has lurched to the right, with a reported 46% calling for what amounts to ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population in a recent poll. Interestingly, this decision was reported (predicted?) back in January by the Saudi Arabian paper Arab News:

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Likud party has ruled out the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Likud’s Political Office, composed of former and current Likud ministers, legislators and senior officials, passed a resolution unanimously Tuesday, rejecting a statement made by Sharon last month in which he expressed support for the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state...

Ha'aretz supposedly reported the same thing at the time.

Also consider Martin van Creveld's warning a week or so ago in the Telegraph about Sharon's goal to "rid Israel of the Palestinians." The dream of the far right in Likud has always been the creation of Eretz Israel and it seems possible that the Israeli leadership will now choose to be patient and simply wait for the opportunity following a major terrorist strike or an attack against Iraq to "transfer" the population to Jordan, by force.

Alexander Cockburn said it best in the conclusion to his piece on Van Creveld's predictions: "We've been warned."

What I’ve Been Reading

A couple of people have been asking what I’ve been reading recently in my schizophrenic, six-books-at-a-time reading cycle. Well, here ya go:

*Empire by Hardt and Negri – A book that has been at the top of the chic list for some time now, at least in academic and pseudo-intellectual circles. Hardt and Negri provide several exceptional insights, especially in the way they leap frog off the Deleuze-Guattari theses. Much of the book, however, is unbelievably obtuse and that diminishes its ultimate utility. I kept asking myself after several chapters, “Now, how is this concept of 'Empire' remarkably different from Gramscian notions of the capitalist perpetuation of ‘hegemony’?”. In short, I felt that if the authors had toned down the language and avoided the overwhelming reliance on jargon, then the book would have been a much better read. Still, it seems that the book is destined to be discussed, so I suggest checking it out. Oh, and btw, if you want to give the metaphorical finger to the publishing industry, then download the book for free, here (as a PDF file).

*Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky - I recommend this book, wholeheartedly: for those who love Noam, and for those who despise him. The power of this book lies in its ability to explain Chomsky’s perception of the world in very simple terms. So, no need to get lost in the academic footnotes of Fateful Triangle, or the ad nauseum references to Nicaraguan death squads in Manufacturing Consent. The book is also quite fun to read, largely b/c the presentation is so informal, and often tinged with humor. And, finally, the book is probably worth it just for the footnotes, which are longer than the actual book (!). The editors really outdid themselves by hunting down the references that many probably thought were contrived by Chomsky.

*The Palestine-Israeli Conflict by Dan Cohn-Sherbok & Dawoud El-Alami - For those looking for a background on the Israel-Palestine conflict, I recommend this book. For a long time, I’ve been longing for a book that tries to present a balanced portrayal of the conflict. Well, this book does it by enlisting two authors: one from the Israeli "side," the other from the Palestinian. The book is divided into halves, and each author presents their point of view on the history of the conflict, as well as the moral blindspots. The spin is still there, from both sides, but in this format it doesn’t obfuscate as much as illustrate the fundamental issues of disagreement and dispute.

*Hidden Agendas by John Pilger – I got this book in London, largely because it’s difficult to get a hold of in the US. I’m only halfway through it, so can’t comment fully. Much of it is commentary on British politics, which I, unfortunately, don’t know nearly enough about. Think of Pilger as something like a mix between Alex Cockburn and Norman Solomon and that should give you a good idea of the writing style, as well as the political ideology.

*Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire – This is another book I picked up in London at a used bookstore owned by this lil ol' lady who obviously had anarchist leanings. God bless her. Hehe. Anyway, this book is awesome in the way it rips apart the ‘banking concept’ of education, as well as putting ‘dialogical’ teaching methods into some kind of context. Most of the book is theory – meaning it is not grounded in social-scientific ‘evidence’ – but the theory is rooted in (what I perceive to be) relevant anecdotes, and a relentless criticism of class conflict. Published in 1970, this is one of the books which inspired the ‘critical pedagogy’ movement. Freire died in '97, but he’s had a huge impact on Henry Giroux (someone I respect), as well as Peter McLaren. On a related note, I found Ivan Illich’s book Deschooling Society online, here.

*Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of its Heroes and its History by B.G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley – If you should happen to discuss the Vietnam War with any neo-con, then it is likely this book will get cited, at least once. So, I picked it up at the library and just started. Again, can’t comment too much, but it seems like the anecdotal holes it pokes are given too much weight. The actual findings of the book are quite useful, but they are distorted by the authors' habit of attributing too much significance to them - largely, it seems, to paint the war with the patriotism brush.

The Prize Won in Afghanistan?

The BBC reported this lil tidbit yesterday:

Afghanistan hopes to strike a deal later this month to build a $2bn pipeline through the country to take gas from energy-rich Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India...Mr Razim said Unocal was the 'lead company' among those that would build the pipeline, which would bring 30bn cubic meters of Turkmen gas to market annually.

...and Dawn reported a similar story last week, concluding that "Unocal, the US energy firm that led a consortium to construct Turkmenistan-Pakistan pipeline in 1997 but later pulled out of the project, quoting continued fighting in the war-torn Afghanistan, is likely to come forward once again along with a couple of other US firms once peace returned to Afghanistan."

It's nice to know that the fruits of war are starting to pay off, quite literally. For more background on Unocal, go here. Also check out the Pipeline Politics of Central Asia.

First Post

Well, this is my first attempt at 'bloggin'. I've been wary about venturing into this territory, largely b/c of the egoism it tends to instill, but thought that this would be a good side-project to complement my general link-collection. Stay tuned...