With time on my hands, I spent the afternoon flipping between Aljazeera English, CNN, CBC Newsworld and CTV Newsnet in between loads of laundry.
At around 4 pm EST, I watched live footage of a pro-Mubarak bus being driven backwards 50 metres or so into a thick throng of helpless non-violent anti-Mubarak demonstrators, all filmed by the CBC from a hotel balcony a few hundred metres away.
The bus rocked up and down, corner to corner as it rolled over the people. I would guess 20 or 30 casualties from that alone. The Egyptian army is standing down. This is a bloody mess:
6:41pm A former general in the Egyptian intelligence services tells Al Jazeera, "I expect the army will act to remove Mubarak from power ... Mubarak is ready to burn the country".
6:37pm Cairo resident tells Al Jazeera that he witnessed police officers trying to bribe porters and security guards in his apartment building. They we...re asked to go and beat up anti-government protesters in Tahrir Square.
Lisa Laflamme sounded scared. A Radio-Canada cameraman got pummelled by the pro-Mubarak thugs. Anderson Cooper and his CNN team, plus Aljazeera English reporters beaten and forced to report from afar. And yet, I was able to tune it out for a couple of hours and get excited at the Habs beating the Panthers. Life in the 21st Century.
I was a reluctant FB joiner at first. I have known it to cause weird, unintended social faux-pas between people innocently updating their friends' pages with manoevres that turn into clumsy - and very public - rebukes. Plus, the site owners surely love to exploit human frailty with their seductive games and doodads that cull our personal data to feed marketing engines for advertisers.
Still, I have stuck it out with this devil I know because it remains a useful tool for cheaply keeping up with scatter-shot friends and family whom I otherwise risk ignoring completely.
But when they continually allow a nasty page to propagate the damaging message that rape is a trivial, laughable matter, I can't fathom what they are thinking. I wasted no time in reporting "It isn't r.a.p.e.... It's SURPRISE SEX (:" to the FB administration through their internal reporting tool, only to look in shock at the number of people who purportedly "like" the page (currently, 42+ thousand). But wait - how does a moronic page like that get all those deluded people "liking" it without getting shut down? Turns out it has been up with that mind-blowingly offensive title for over three and a half months since it was first reported to the FB administrators!
Well, one of those people who spotted it and flagged it offensive months ago is fed up with waiting. So what action did Facebook user Yasmin Rebelle take? You guessed it: she started up a reaction group on FB called: We Demand the Deletion of "It isn't r.a.p.e.... It's SURPRISE SEX. (:"
Damn straight, Yasmin. I am with you, and I hope any readers of this blog are too. I also have committed myself to deleting my FB account if they don't smarten up and do as this new group requests by this Friday. And I hope any FB users out there are willing to join me. Because it isn't so much that some unthinking juvenile lunkhead created the page in the first place. The problem is the gatekeepers at Facebook are not doing their jobs to shut it down.
Facebook is a very powerful message propagator, and though it is rightly and wonderfully open to all who wish to express their opinions, the owners of the site have a responsibility to stop harmful attitudes like this one from spreading. Because the page creator is calling on others to view rape as something less than the revolting, violent crime that it is, and they need to be reined-in. To wit:
From: "Jacobon, Terry" [name changed] To: randboro@yahoo.ca Sent: Thu, June 3, 2010 3:56:46 PM Subject: From Terry Jacobson [name changed] of the [MAJOR ESTABLISHED US NEWSPAPER]
Dear Scott in Montreal:
Hi. I’m a reporter for the [MAJOR ESTABLISHED US NEWSPAPER], and I’m writing under deadline about the media coverage of the BP oil spill.
May I have a comment from you, for inclusion in my piece, about exactly *what* you think Anderson is doing right? What is he telling the world that others aren’t?
To include your quote, I’ll need your real name, and I assume your hometown is Montreal.
And I like Canada. I don’t think your government is sorry-ass. At least not always. Mine, well . . .
Terry Jacobson Media Editor/Writer [MAJOR ESTABLISHED US NEWSPAPER]
Re: From Terry Jacobson [name changed] of the [MAJOR ESTABLISHED US NEWSPAPER] From: Randboro To: "Jacobon, Terry" [name changed]
Sorry to get back to you so late. I am not typically an avid consumer of US media, although I have plenty of access to it. I usually focus on issues in my own country, plus (as a die-hard Habs fan) hating the Flyers, of course!
I cross-posted the dailykos diary to my own blog, btw, at randboro.blogspot.com. My name is Scott Murray and yes, I do live in Montreal. Quote me at will, if that helps you.
The thing Anderson did right yesterday was he communicated effectively to his audience, and took them by the hand so even a Tea Party stalwart could understand that in the case of BP, something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Given that the medium is the message, an iconic telejournalist like Cooper is a medium unto himself, so when he came down from the mountain to discover corporations are selfish and heartless, that in itself is a powerful message, regardless of the numerous ways in which his basic reporting habits are wanting.
What Cooper did a good job of, was he dismantled the cone of silence (to some degree, at least) that BP is attempting to place on the media. That he got some workers to voice their concerns despite BP's attempts to stifle all comment was probably the most impressive part for me. He could easily have taken it a bit further, and called out BP for not supplying full protection from the fumes for all clean-up workers - like the people they showed in the stock video cleaning up the Exxon Valdez disaster.
Watching again tonight, I found myself wondering why he doesn't get an expert in mechanical engineering / physics / fluid mechanics on the program, instead of lamely shrugging and saying he isn't qualified to judge what they are actually looking at from the live feed. C'mon, you're CNN, get some experts to weigh in! That's Writing and Reporting 101 stuff (with his staff and budget, only his ego could possibly be getting in the way of doing this, no?)
Plus, while those three oil-basted birds make great symbols of the carnage, I can't help thinking that an oceanographer would be a big help in explaining the long-term consequences to the food chain. That, to me, is the biggest long-term scary-scary outcome of all this; and it demands serious consideration by the media on the whole. Maybe Cooper and his producers are pacing themselves, and first dealing with the current #1 priority of their viewers, but who knows? I fear that long-term, the massive shock to oceanic biodiversity will be the legacy of this disaster, more than just the loss of fishermen's livelihoods. Like Vonnegut's Ice-9.
You should read up on the 1990s' collapse of the Newfoundland cod fisheries to get a bead on what Louisiana and other Gulf states may have to look forward to, economically. In that case, it was government mismanagement that took the brunt of the blame (and here I thought it was the insatiable worldwide demand for McDonald's Filet-o-Fish sandwiches).
I like the [MAJOR ESTABLISHED US NEWSPAPER]. Great legacy. Best of luck to you.
Full credit to Anderson Cooper. In one hour this evening, he did more to awaken his countrymen to the horrors of unchecked neo-liberal corporatism than a thousand indie-film docs on Monsanto, GM or Enron combined.
Having been riveted by Cooper's 360 show during the aftermath of the disastrous Haiti earthquake earlier this year, I felt certain he would have the best daily on-the-ground coverage available from the Gulf of Mexico, where the unfettered oil leak contamination is worsening daily.
I was not disappointed. Unlike most broadcast journalists, Cooper does not shirk to use his considerable status and reach to effectively and boldly tell the story, and to hold the powerful to account. Tonight he did just that.
This evening's show was intelligently and unrelentingly critical of the callous reaction of British Petroleum to the growing Gulf of Mexico oil-spill catastrophe that they created but cannot seem to stop.
Cooper is completely in his element when reporting on the ground from a crisis situation. Back in the territory where he made his name five years ago by tirelessly covering the devastation and abysmal federal response to Hurricane Katrina, Cooper is now setting his sites on this huge multinational corporation (British Petroleum) overdue its comeuppance for generations of being everything rotten about Big Oil that the makers of There Will Be Blood tried hopelessly to tell us. And the wily Cooper knows precisely when, where and how hard to throw his punches for maximum effect.
Just for perspective's sake, BP is the fourth-largest corporation in the world. Its market capitalization at the end of last year stood at 181 billion USD, a figure that surpasses the GNP of entire nations, including Slovakia, Morocco and Chile.
And Anderson Cooper had at 'em. With few new developments today, save for yet another spectacular mishap on BP's part in containing the leak, Cooper stoically gave their CEO Tony Hayward full benefit of the doubt in trying gamely to understand his off-the-cuff explanation for clean-up workers' health complaints as being almost certain cases of food poisoning.
Together with Dr. Sanjay Gupta (who himself was most endearing in his chemically-challenged attempts at describing hydrocarbons as things "surrounded by hydrogen molecules"), Cooper efficiently swatted away Hayward's dubious food poisoning claim by pointing out these numerous sufferers of teary-eyed dizzyness and nausea didn't all eat at the same diner, after all. He also got Dr. Riki Ott to go on camera explaining what long-term effects (including increased cancer rates) she's documented from protected Exxon Valdez clean-up workers.
Next, Cooper got a couple of today's Gulf Coast clean-up workers on camera, even though they were scared of being fired for going against the non-disclosure agreements they'd signed with BP in order to obtain their $12 an hour clean-up jobs. They were speaking out about the lack of timely pay for services; about the lack of protective gear for their personal well-being (in particular, face masks); about the fact they felt they couldn't speak up for what they thought was right because of the waivers they were forced to sign. Cooper remarked on the irony of a British company stifling the free speech of American citizens.
In truth, it could just as easily have been an American or Japanese or Indian company, of course. But the historical precedent must rankle for any American with a passing knowledge of their country's founding history, especially with Hayward doing such a fabulous job of re-enacting King George III in every way that matters.
Not done there, Cooper did everything but hold his hat in his hand, humbly begging for anyone from BP to come onto his show for an interview, while explaining that there has been no shortage of direct invitations to do so. Then, in the last few minutes of his broadcast, a live meter reading of the estimated gallons of oil gushing into the Gulf was prominently displayed in the bottom-right corner of the screen. The figure increased at a rate of about nine gallons per second, with well over 34 million gallons already disgorged.
As the show ended, I realized something more significant than Katrina is now unfolding before us. Unbelievably, I wonder if we mightn't be looking back someday, remembering this time as the beginning of the end of Big Oil.
...if not the end of Big Business itself. In conjunction with Obama's bold words today, one can only assume that some kind of significant change in American capitalism is afoot.
Sometimes it's good to lighten the load a bit. The Schoolhouse Rock series was the epitome of the 1970s' effort to make good use of television's educational possibilities. If nothing else, it brings back fond memories. I was tickled pink to find my personal favourite among a slew of them on youtube:
Maybe ol' Jim Flaherty could look into using something like this for his project to educate Canadians on the world of finance (I heard them musing about it on CBC Radio One early this morning - link anyone?)
Of course, Flaherty might be wise to sign-up the whole Harper cabinet for remedial Finance 101 first (himself included). How big is that deficit projected to be this week now?
Some interesting word choices on the part of Globe & Mail reporter Campbell Clark in this piece about Ignatieff ruling out the coalition question:
The Conservatives still insist a coalition is one of Mr. Ignatieff's secret schemes – and it's not yet clear if ruling out will help de-fang the issue for the Liberals, or simply bring more attention to it.
If it became clear in an election campaign that the Liberals might be able to win government, but not a majority, Mr. Harper would use the coalition attacks to argue that only a Conservative majority would stop the NDP and Bloc from gaining a hand in running the country.
(emphasis mine)
Seems like Mr. Clark (or some editor) has the inside track on what the Conservative war-room would do, and is happy to trot out their talking points rather matter-of-factly, as if the numerous "secret schemes" of Michael Ignatieff's were a matter of public record, and the Conservatives are merely insisting this is "one of" them. So where is the attribution for that? Seems like somebody's bias is showing.
I don't know if the revolution will be televised, but it sure as hell is being tweeted to the nth degree. It's pretty amazing to be able to read witness accounts unfolding in real time.
The below video is prefaced with the tweet: "Basijis breaking into homes in Tehran, terrorizing ppl, psychological warfare". I won't say who because other tweets beg us not to publish the names of Twitterers in Iran since government forces are using that to identify them.
Once again, a new communication technology takes centre stage to redefine our world.
There is power in a factory Power in the land Power in the hands of the worker But it all amounts to nothing If together we don't stand There is power in a union --Billy Bragg
Being a life-long Quebecker and Habs fan, I have been an avid reader of the Gazette's Habs Inside/Out blog site since its inception a few years ago. They built an excellent and successful online community very quickly by providing informed round-the-clock reporting, together with an open forum for commentary. This was of course all leveraged off the parent newspaper's existing sports reporting infrastructure and access to the club.
Long-time Gazette columnist (and prolific HI/O blogger) Mike Boone was rightly proud of their achievements recently:
Speaking of how hard-working and indispensable we are, Google Analytics calculates Habs Inside/Out had 2,383,333 page views in February – up from 1,180,013 in February, 2008.
That's a 102 per cent increase.
And comScore MediaMetrix credits Habs Inside/Out with 92,000 unique visitors in January – up from 40,000 a year ago. That's a 130 per cent jump.
Are we great or what
Yeah Mike, that's great. But evidently not great enough to actually pay some of the people you've tapped to provide content. One of the regular posters on the site's Other Wing page - one of the people whose content has helped draw up those hit counts - has decided to take a stand on behalf of her profession, and stop providing that content free of charge:
I write here as an unpaid volunteer, and I've been having some serious second thoughts about what that means for others. I've noticed the increase in ads supported by the site, and earlier this week Mike Boone posted stats on the number of site visits, which are up more than a hundred percent over last year. In short, the Gazette makes money from HI/O. So, in an age when my professional colleagues in the newspaper business are struggling to keep their jobs and keep their papers viable, a site like Inside/Out could be an important source of work for them. Therefore, I believe it's wrong for me to undermine the work they depend upon for their livelihoods by providing content for nothing.
Mainly for that reason, I am withdrawing from The Other Wing.
Good for you, J.T. As I wrote in the comments on her final post, there is a difference between providing comments and being a featured (published) poster. As the latter, there is a greater benefit to the publisher, and it competes in the same space as paid professionals. Add to that, J.T. has an established career in media as a CBC radio broadcaster in Newfoundland. Content from a pro like herself has added value based on her training, abilities and experience.
For J.T. to be expected to provide free content is no different from expecting a plumber to fix your pipes for nothing more than positive word of mouth - no matter how much they may enjoy their work.
If you want to send J.T. some love, she has a thoughtful site where she writes on her own terms: The H does NOT stand for Habs.
And Harper is a fool for taking the bait. Here is The National Post's Don Martin on Harper's comment of the whole incident:
To use his first spontaneous media appearance of the campaign to declare Mr. Dion the most unworthy of the two candidates for prime minister based on a minute of misunderstanding is not the most flattering reaction for the prime minister.
In the end the incident they hoped to use to define Mr. Dion as a confused ditherer may actually provide more telling insight into the character of Stephen Harper.
As for Mr. Duffy? Heck, this isn't even the first time this week he's been a total jerk, and Ms. Elizabeth May was stellar in calling him on it:
CTV has some better assets at their disposal than Duffy. If there was ever a time for fresh blood, it's now. Duffy, I know you're not reading this, but let me tell you something: I studied journalism under Lindsay Crysler, Enn Raudsepp, Rod McDonnell and a host of other painstakingly ethical professors at Concordia University in the 80s and early 90s. This sort of thing would have given me a failed grade and censure from the department. You have a national audience. Canada deserves better than this from its biggest commercial television network.
Host Mike Finnerty and the gang will be broadcasting from a popular local eaterie with the candidates. As of last Friday, the Conservatives were planning to send Minister of International Trade Michael Fortier in to pinch-hit for Mustaque Sarker, effectively denying listeners the chance to hear their actual CPC candidate go toe to toe with his rivals on english radio.
Since that's the case, I wonder: Will the Liberals' Justin Trudeau impress us avec ses abilites to change back et en avance dans la same sentence jusqu'au le point of headache-inducing distraction? Will the Bloq's Vivian Barbot and the NDP's Costa Zapirofolous show up? Tune in to Daybreak, 98.5 FM and find out.
Well Ingrid Hein will certainly be there. Listen in on the live feed here.
You won't have to try hard to read between the lines of this CP report on Layton's appearance, wherein he proves that he has the requisite two sides of one mouth to live up to our current Prime Minister's standard.
REGINA - Jack Layton says the NDP's reputation for fighting the establishment and championing the underdog is intact despite his refusal to allow the Green Party a podium at the televised debates.
The New Democrat leader is on the defensive over the decision to exclude Green Party Leader Elizabeth May from the Oct. 1 event.
At a Regina coffee house, Layton told a breakfast crowd of cheering supporters that the NDP won't "let the old interests and powerful sectors" stand in the party's way.
But later, he defended excluding May by saying she had already endorsed Liberal Leader Stephane Dion for prime minister.
Layton also tried to shift responsibility for the decision to the television networks that will host the event.
Some NDP supporters at a Monday night rally in Vancouver expressed shock at the party's stand.
As for Peevey Stevie, after whining on and on yesterday about how unfair it would be to have to face May, he's evidently decided that's not the right side of the issue to be on after all, and today is shutting his yap on the matter (looks like he already winded himself apologizing for his pooping puffin problems).
And we thought the American election was entertaining? Heck, we've even got "Scandalpedia" now (courtesy of the Grits).
Shorter Peevey Stevie: Oh the horrifying injustice of it all! Oh boo hoo... Oh it's so unfair what those Big Bad Green Meanies want to do to me... Don't they know I'm a very strong, strong leader? Oh why must they be so unfair?!?
And then the media "Consortium" humbly bows down to His Mightiness and grants the sulky power-tripping democracy-hating Strongman his wish. Disgusting.
What a sad day for democracy in Canada. Here's May's reaction (per the Globe and Mail):
Ms. May claimed Mr. Harper is concerned that Greens are stealing votes from Conservatives, pointing to the riding of Guelph where their party polls show the Greens are up at the expense of the Tory candidate.
When asked directly about Mr. Harper's prediction that she will endorse Mr. Dion, Ms. May replied: “We know he's had a stylist who also is billed as a clairvoyant working for him, I wonder if that's what he's basing this on,” she said. “I don't know how to respond to something so absurd.”
Fight, Elizabeth May, fight.
4:40 PM UPDATE: I see from the CBC story that Layton and Duceppe also vetoed the debates if May was going to be there. What is this? An old-boys club mentality? Is there collusion going on here? Doubtful. But this just shows how powerful a good idea can be when the men on top of their little kingdoms feel it's more convenient to silence their critics than to face them. And they will make their platitudes about the great democratic institutions of this country while doing so. Count on it.
5:00 PM UPDATE JimBobby Sez is equally outraged, and sez so rather succinctly:
Nevermind that polls have consistently shown that 77% of Canadians want the Green leader in the debates. Nevermind that 660,000 Canadians voted Green in 2006. Nevermind that the Green Party is one of only parties to receive federal funding. Nevermind that Canadian taxpayers shell out over $1 million a year to the Greens. Nevermind that the Greens run candidates in all provinces.
Nevermind democracy, you wimp chickenshit bastards.
Today is a dark day for Canadian democracy. The blame goes squarely to Harper, Layton and Duceppe. I will not watch the debates between these tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumbasses. Craven cowards who used their collective might to thwart democratic debate. Bastards! Dirty, rotten, chickenshit bastards!
And her party isn't agitating for Quebec separation either I might add...
It's really quite astounding - the lengths we in the Green Party of Canada have to go to to get the mass media to include our leader in the nationally televised debates for the upcoming election.
Not only did we register a domain name ages ago as a rallying point for democracy loving Canadians to help us petition the TV bigwigs for a seat at the table...
Now we are taking the unprecedented step of hiring a lawyer to press the case to the CRTC.
Former party leader Jim Harris said the Greens won't hesitate to resort to court action if current leader Elizabeth May isn't allowed to participate.
"We're going to allow the broadcasters the chance to do the right thing," Harris said at a news conference.
"This is pre-emptive, to say, 'If you do not do as you should, then there will be legal consequences."'
If the group of major broadcasters that organize the debates refuse to give May a spot, Harris said the party will file a complaint to the CRTC.
Should the federal broadcast regulator rule against the Green party, a judicial review of the decision will be sought, he said.
The party said the broadcast consortium - which includes CBC Radio Canada, CTV, Global Television and TVA - exercises "carte blanche control" over who participates in the debates, but lacks clear criteria for inclusion.
Harris said it would be a "very good thing" to have laws spelling out the rules for inclusion in the debates.
"We should have criteria such as major support in polls across the country, such as running in all ridings, these are pretty simple criteria, objective criteria, and yes, we should have them," said Harris.
And how do the Harper Conservatives respond? By their own novel (read:"twisted") logic, the GPC's Elizabeth May cannot be present alongside the Liberals' Stephane Dion since they don't hate each other as badly as the Conservatives would like. From the CBC report:
The federal Conservatives are seeking to block May from the debates, citing a deal struck by May and Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion where they agreed not to run candidates against each other in their respective ridings.
"You can't have one leader onstage that has already endorsed the candidacy of another and signed an electoral co-operation agreement," Harper spokesman Dimitri Soudas said.
"When it comes to the debate, they can have May or they can have Dion," he said. "But they can't have both."
It has been a normal practice in the past for political parties to occasionally not run candidates against rival parties' leaders.
To present such a laughably ridiculous argument must mean the Cons are really scared of what might become of a truly formidable opponent like May taking Harper on in front of a live TV audience.
Here's another good reason to include the Green Party of Canada: how many other parties grew their support by 100% since receiving 4.5% of the votes tallied in 2006?
And how's this for a good reason to include Elizabeth May: as the only female leader of a national party, maybe it would be nice to see some diversity up there, eh?
Or can't four white guys handle it?
If you think they can, why don't you make your opinion known to all the major Canadian TV media by signing our petition and helping us fight for democracy in this country. After all, we know that's what most Canadians want to see!
And if you're interested in making your voice heard over at the CRTC, here's where you can do that.
Today saw the sad spectacle of Andre Boisclair's past-due resignation as leader of the Parti Quebecois. It's a sad day for federalists as well, since he didn't have the good sense (unlike Paul Martin Jr.) to resign promptly on election night; which only served to drive fresh nails into the the separatist movement's coffin with every day of pointless hesitation.
But perhaps saddest of all is this little piece of ugly journalism buried within the Gazette's political obituary of the man:
Boisclair faced tough questions over his admitted use of cocaine while a cabinet minister and, as Quebec's first openly gay political leader, also faced questions about his homosexuality during the election campaign.
(Emphasis mine) What a bizarre thing to say. While I agree about the cocaine part (heck, I called that one back in 2005), I am completely confounded about the rest of that sentence. What sort of questions did he face about his homosexulity, so craftily juxtaposed in the sentence structure here as to subtly equate it with cocaine use? Think about it. No one would write that he "faced questions about his orientalness" or: "his lack of legs", or: "his asthma", or what have you...
And all day that's been there. I would have thought some editor would have retracted that line by now but it's been there for at least 15 hours! Let's see if it makes it into the print version. I'm ashamed for them.
- 30 -
Update:(May 9, 09h23 EDT) The offending bit was not included in either Philip Authier's front page story, nor Hubert Bauch's analysis of the print version.
No, this Toronto Star piece is not rampant speculation; nor has its authenticity been denied by the Kennedy camp. In fact it's bloody well been put up on Stéphane Dion's own campaign website:
The outlines of a political alliance that could overtake Liberal leadership frontrunner Michael Ignatieff at next month's convention are beginning to take shape.
"There have been discussions between Dion and ourselves, not with Ignatieff," said Holland. "There have been informal conversations about the need to work more closely together. ... Stéphane's strength is in Quebec and it's francophone, Gerard Kennedy's support is more among anglo Canadians. Their policies work well together. It's a natural fit."
The Kennedy camp hasn't yet seen fit to post anything about this on their site, as far as I can click. Nevertheless, this is not good news for Ignatieff. And correct me if I'm wrong, but if Dion was serious about some kind of an alliance with Bob Rae (also mentioned in the Star piece) why on earth would he jeopardize that by posting this story on his own site? I mean, where does this leave Bob?
I honestly didn't think the U.S. media machine was capable of providing lucid and critical commentary like this anymore. (This is for you, Mum.)
It's ten minutes and 28 seconds of sheer courage. Edward R. Murrow reborn? Too damn bad I can't tune in MSNBC's Countdown.
For those who can't make the YouTube thingy work (or don't have high-speed), here's the full transcript.
OLBERMANN: Finally tonight, a special comment about President Clinton‘s interview. The headlines about it are, of course, entirely wrong. It is not essential that a past present bullied and sandbagged by a monkey posing as a newscaster finally lashed back. It is not important that the current president‘s portable public chorus has described his predecessor‘s tone as crazed. Our tone should be crazed. The nation‘s freedoms are under assault by an administration‘s policies can do us as much damage as al Qaeda. The nation‘s marketplace of ideas is being poisoned by a propaganda company so blatant that Tokyo Rose would have quit.
Nonetheless, the headline is this: Bill Clinton did what almost none of us have done in five years—he has spoken the truth about 9/11 and the current presidential administration. “At least I tried,” he said, of his own efforts, “to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. That‘s the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They had eight months to try, they did not try, I tried.”
Thus in his supposed emeritus years, has Mr. Clinton taken forceful and triumphant action for honesty and for us. Action as vital and courageous as any of his presidency. Action as startling and as liberating as any, by anyone, in these last five long years.
The Bush administration did not try to get Osama bin Laden before 9/11. The Bush administration ignored all the evidence gathered by its predecessors. The Bush administration did not understand the daily briefing entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” The Bush administration did not try.
Moreover, for the five years, one month, and two weeks, the current administration and in particular the president has been given the greatest pass for incompetence and malfeasance in American history.
President Roosevelt was rightly blamed for ignoring the warning signs, some of them 17 years old before Pearl Harbor. President Hoover was correctly blamed for, if not the Great Depression itself, then the disastrous economic steps he took in the immediate aftermath of the stock market crash. Even President Lincoln assumed some measure of responsibility for the Civil War, though talk of Southern secession had begun as early as 1832.
But for this president. To hear him bleat and whine and bully at nearly every opportunity, one would think someone else had been president on September 11, 2001 or the nearly eight months that preceded it.
That hardly reflects the honestly nor manliness we expect of the executive. But if his own fitness to serve is of no true concern to him, perhaps we should simply sigh and keep our fingers crossed until a grown-up takes the job three Januarys from now.
Except for this: After five years of skirting even the most inarguable facts that he was president on 9/11, he must bear some responsibility for his and our un-readiness, Mr. Bush has now moved on, unmistakably and without conscience or shame, towards rewriting history, and attempting to make the responsibility entirely Mr. Clinton‘s.
Of course, he is not honest enough to do that directly. As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he is having it done for him by proxy.
Thus, the sandbag effort by Fox News Friday afternoon.
Consider the timing: The very weekend the National Intelligence Estimate would be released and show the Iraq war to be the fraudulent failure it is-not a check on terror, but fertilizer for it.
The kind of proof of incompetence, for which the administration and its hyenas at Fox need to find a diversion, in a scapegoat.
It was the kind of cheap trick which would get a journalist fired—but a propagandist, promoted—promise to talk of charity and generosity; but instead launch into the lies and distortions with which the authoritarians among us attack the virtuous and reward the useless.
And don‘t even be professional enough to assume the responsibility for the slanders yourself; blame your audience for e-mailing you the question.
Mr. Clinton responded as you have seen.
He told the great truth untold about this administration‘s negligence, perhaps criminal negligence, about bin Laden. Mr. Clinton was brave.
Then again, Chris Wallace might be braver still. Had I, in one moment, surrendered all my credibility as a journalist, and been irredeemably humiliated, as was he, I would have gone home and started a new career selling seeds by mail.
The smearing by proxy, of course, did not begin Friday afternoon. Disney was first to sell-out its corporate reputation, with “The Path to 9/11.” Of that company‘s crimes against truth one needs to say little. Simply put: Someone there enabled an authoritarian zealot to belch out Mr.
Bush‘s new and improved history.
The basic plot-line was this: Because he was distracted by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Bill Clinton failed to prevent 9/11.
The most curious and in some ways the most infuriating aspect of this slapdash theory, is that the right wingers who have advocated it—who try to sneak it into our collective consciousness through entertainment, or who sandbag Mr. Clinton with it at news interviews—have simply skipped past its most glaring flaw.
Had it been true that Clinton had been distracted from the hunt for bin Laden in 1998 because of the Lewinsky nonsense, why did these same people not applaud him for having bombed bin Laden‘s camps in Afghanistan and Sudan on Aug. 20, of that year? For mentioning bin Laden by name as he did so?
That day, Republican Senator Grams of Minnesota invoked the movie “Wag the Dog.”
Republican Senator Coats of Indiana questioned Mr. Clinton‘s judgment.
Republican Senator Ashcroft of Missouri—the future attorney general
echoed Coats.
Even Republican Senator Arlen Specter questioned the timing.
And of course, were it true Clinton had been distracted by the Lewinsky witch-hunt, who on earth conducted the Lewinsky witch-hunt?
Who turned the political discourse of this nation on its head for two years?
Who corrupted the political media?
Who made it impossible for us to even bring back on the air the counter-terrorism analysts like Dr. Richard Haass, and James Dunegan, who had warned, at this very hour, on this very network, in early 1998, of cells from the Middle East who sought to attack us here?
Who preempted them in order to strangle us with the trivia that was, “All Monica All The Time?”
Who distracted whom?
This is, of course, where, as is inevitable, Mr. Bush and his henchmen prove not quite as smart as they think they are.
The full responsibility for 9/11 is obviously shared by three administrations, possibly four.
But, Mr. Bush, if you are now trying to convince us by proxy that it‘s all about the distractions of 1998 and 1999, then you will have to face a startling fact that your minions may have hidden from you.
The distractions of 1998 and 1999, Mr. Bush, were carefully manufactured, and lovingly executed, not by Bill Clinton, but by the same people who got you elected president.
Thus, instead of some commendable acknowledgment that you were even in office on 9/11 and the lost months before it, we have your sleazy and sloppy rewriting of history, designed by somebody who evidently read the Orwell playbook too quickly.
Thus, instead of some explanation for the inertia of your first eight months in office, we are told that you have kept us “safe” ever since—a statement that might range anywhere from zero, to 100 percent, true.
We have nothing but your word, and your word has long since ceased to mean anything.
And, of course, the one time you have ever given us specifics about what you have kept us safe from, Mr. Bush, you got the name of the supposedly targeted tower in Los Angeles wrong.
Thus was it left for the previous president to say what so many of us have felt; what so many of us have given you a pass for in the months and even the years after the attack: You did not try.
You ignored the evidence gathered by your predecessor. You ignored the evidence gathered by your own people. Then, you blamed your predecessor.
That would be a textbook definition, sir, of cowardice.
To enforce the lies of the present, it is necessary to erase the truths of the past. That was one of the great mechanical realities Eric Blair, writing as George Orwell, gave us in the book “1984.”
The great philosophical reality he gave us, Mr. Bush, may sound as familiar to you, as it has lately begun to sound familiar to me.
“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution, is persecution. The object of torture, is torture. The object of power is power.”
Earlier last Friday afternoon, before the FOX ambush, speaking in the far different context of the closing session of his remarkable Global Initiative, Mr. Clinton quoted Abraham Lincoln‘s State of the Union address from 1862.
“We must disenthrall ourselves.”
Mr. Clinton did not quote the rest of Mr. Lincoln‘s sentence. He might well have.
“We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country.”
And so has Mr. Clinton helped us to disenthrall ourselves, and perhaps enabled us, even at this late and bleak date, to save our country.
The free pass has been withdrawn, Mr. Bush.
You did not act to prevent 9/11.
We do not know what you have done to prevent another 9/11.
You have failed us-then leveraged that failure, to justify a purposeless war in Iraq which will have, all too soon, claimed more American lives than did 9/11.
You have failed us anew in Afghanistan.
And you have now tried to hide your failures, by blaming your predecessor.
And now you exploit your failure, to rationalize brazen torture which doesn‘t work anyway; which only condemns our soldiers to water-boarding; which only humiliates our country further in the world; and which no true American would ever condone, let alone advocate.
And there it is, sir. Are yours the actions of a true American?
I‘m Keith Olbermann, good night and good luck.
Now who in Canada could you see being this tough on Stephen Harper?
The following is from a petition put up by Canwest Global. The link was sent to me by a friend who works on the newscast of the affiliate in question. For reasons only the CRTC can explain, the station is not available on any satellite services offered in Quebec. I edited some of the more eye-rolling parts out of the prepared letter (below) before putting my own name to it. You can probably guess which parts are my own.
CRTC
Dear Ms. Rhéaume;
Re: Broadcasting Notice of Public Hearing CRTC 2006-5
I live in the province of Quebec and I can tell you that it is a disappointment to me that Bell Sympatico does not carry CKMI-TV, the regional Global Television station that serves Quebec City, Montreal, and Sherbrooke.
CKMI produces and broadcasts the only local and regional morning show, providing traffic, weather, news and community information (3 hours daily) for the benefit of viewers in the three Quebec cities served by CKMI. It is regrettable that English-language satellite subscribers in Quebec are denied access to this and other unique English-language programming.
Local and regional programming is expensive and its viability is dependent entirely on access of the television station and its advertising clients to the unique audiences served by the station. I believe that the current rules not requiring satellite services to carry this local station undermine the economic viability of the station, which is important to our community.
In particular, I consider their local news coverage to be a highly valuable asset to this community; and one which I presently am unable to receive via UHF due to poor reception in my corner of Montreal.
Furthermore, as a television viewer who currently relies on the antennae - and is contemplating other choices for television reception - I was quite disappointed to learn that I am unable to view this channel unless I subscribe to Videotron cable, or erect an expensive and ugly outdoors antennae.
Please give satellite subscribers access to CKMI-TV.
Sincerely,
Scott (in Montreal)
c.c. Mr. Pat Button Vice President, Marketing Bell ExpressVu 100 Wynford Drive Toronto, On Email: Pat.button@bell.ca
Mr. Jim Cummins Vice President, National Operations Star Choice Communications 2924, 11th Street N.E. Calgary, Ab.M Email: Jim.Cummins@starchoice.com
Ms. Maria Mourani M.P. mourama@parl.gc.ca
The Hon. Irwin Cotler P.C., M.P. Cotler.I@parl.gc.ca
Ms. Marlene Jennings M.P. Jennings.M@parl.gc.ca
The Hon. Jean C. Lapierre P.C., M.P. Lapierre.J@parl.gc.ca
Ms. Vivian Barbot M.P. Barbot.V@parl.gc.ca
The Hon. Stephane Dion P.C., M.P. Dion.S@parl.gc.ca
The Hon. Lucienne Robilliard P.C., M.P. robill@parl.gc.ca
Ms. Christiane Gagnon M.P. gagnoc1@parl.gc.ca
Ms. Sylvie Boucher M.P. Boucher.S@parl.gc.ca
Mr. Daniel Petit M.P. Petit.D@parl.gc.ca
Mr. Luc Harvey M.P. Harvey.L@parl.gc.ca
Ms. Josee Verner M.P. Verner.J@parl.gc.ca
Mr. Serge Cardin M.P. Cardin.S@parl.gc.ca
Mr. Christian Ouellet M.P. Ouellet.C@parl.gc.ca
Ms. France Bonsant M.P. Bonsant.F@parl.gc.ca
These folks put on a high quality newscast that covers the local community at least as well as the competition. The anchor, Jamie Orchard, was a colleague of mine at Concordia, and I can vouch for her as an intelligent and extremely competent journalist. Apparently, CKMI's reporters sometimes experience bewilderment from interviewees who have never even heard of the station. It just doesn't make sense not to include them in the package of roughly 8 gazillion channels - especially considering CKMI includes programming put together right in our own backyard. So click on the link and sign your name if you agree.
In lieu of yesterday's shooting spree at Dawson College, I couldn't agree more with the Amazing Wonderdog's conclusion that to have or not to have a long-gun resistry is not the question.
The real issue is how this nutcase slipped through the background checks and obtained this weapon. All the registries in the world are useless if they can't do what they're designed to, which is to control who can own guns.
That's certainly what I was thinking. I also can't believe the jerk's web host allowed all the crap he posted to stay up, until today anyway. Nor can I believe that a video game re-enacting the Columbine shootings even exists, and is available on the market (sorry but I can't bear to put up a link to that right now).
Suburbia tends to breed more than its share of bored, screwed-up kids. And it will keep doing so, especially when the parents / guardians don't love their kids enough to goddamn pay attention to them and listen to them. Like Marilyn Manson said:
Michael Moore: Do you know that on the day of the Columbine massacre, the US dropped more bombs on Kosovo than any other day?
Marilyn Manson: I do know that, and I think that's really ironic, that nobody said 'well maybe the President had an influence on this violent behavior' Because that's not the way the media wants to take it and spin it, and turn it into fear, because then you're watching television, you're watching the news, you're being pumped full of fear, there's floods, there's AIDS, there's murder, cut to commercial, buy the Acura, buy the Colgate, if you have bad breath they're not going to talk to you, if you have pimples, the girl's not going to fuck you, and it's just this campaign of fear, and consumption, and that's what I think it's all based on, the whole idea of 'keep everyone afraid, and they'll consume.'
Michael Moore: If you were to talk directly to the kids at Columbine or the people in that community, what would you say to them if they were here right now?
Marilyn Manson: I wouldn't say a single word to them, I would listen to what they have to say and that's what no one did.
Even though Gill was reportedly a Manson fan himself, it seems he didn't get the message somehow. So don't try to blame Manson - or the goths, for that matter. They aren't the problem.
Instead, look in the mirror and think about what kids you pick(ed) on in school. Think about who you humiliated just to get a cheap laugh and a high-five from your friends so you could try to boost your own fragile self-esteem. Think about the strange co-worker you joke about behind his back because he's an oddball. And most of all, if you're a government bureacrat issuing gun ownership certificates, please - for all our sakes - think about that silicon chip that might be inside that person's head, and how the last thing we all need is for it to switch to overload when they've got access to deadly weapons.
Amazing - as CathiefromCanada points out: something has changed if a twit like George Will is finally realizing what anyone with a marginal understanding of history and war concluded years ago: that terrorism is a law-enforcement issue that won't go away by bombings/invasions. I guess the warmongering all came out of Bushco's "9/11 changed everything" mentality, which conveniently set out to deny the viability of any historical context to today's world. Can the U.S.A. finally start to get over it? Dare we begin to hope that 9/11 might soon be put into proper perspective?
The person who sent me this link swears it's become the most popular screen saver in the U.S.A. Well it's hours of fun for a girl or a boy, I'll say that much. Click and drag for acceleration.
