Splitsville

Are Government Agencies Acting as Trade Organizations - FCC, FDA, EPA?

Wow - something I agree with instapundit on... The FCC issue.

Very interesting to see who supports the recent FCC ruling to expand media ownership and the empty 'talking points' language they use. One should be extremely suspicious of their motives: payback for campaign support (and/or future support). Bush, going against many Republicans in the house, is threatening his first veto. Amazing.

Another example of how completely bought elections are, and the effectively direct relationship between big corporate donors (in this case huge media conglomerates) and their politicians. We, individuals, voters, have been left out of the picture.

Its stunning how complacent the public is - there was a time when people were inherently skeptical of huge corporations. People had an understanding that they were out only for themselves - the public be damned. This is completely missing now (if not inverted - kids with Nike tattoos on their foreheads and all). People have been massaged by 50 + years of commercial propaganda images like Exxon's happy birds on a pristine Alaskan shoreline, and media that avoids the issue, because it is the issue.

Often people will associate supporting big corporations with patriotism. Meanwhile, these same companies are busy avoiding taxes, paying 30% less than they did 20 years ago. Hmmm. Can you say state budget shortfall, less medical care, education cuts, and fewer police?

Another good example of a compromised agency was shown in a report on NOW last Friday about the tuna industry's relationship with the FDA. That's right - sometimes this shit can kill you, people in your family, and your kids.

These examples of government agencies becoming, effectively, trade organizations for industries is of course the exact opposite of what they should be doing: protecting citizens from the profit blind, sometimes dangerous practices of our most powerful corporate interests.

BBC Bashing

We're going to have to talk about all this BBC bashing, some of which is likely justified, some political preference. All media has its issues. But to blanket condemn such a major source that does some very good work (and bad work) is counter productive. Recent reports on Liberia were excellent mostly for the context they provide. The history and background sections are something you rarely find in other sources.

Also, criticizing an organization because of its political slant is not the same as criticizing it for its poor reporting - they are not one and the same. An organization with a content scope that huge is bound to have its share of crap, but political viewpoint is another matter.

We're in a period where truly critical reporting is being seen as anti-American. Actually, our press are just now starting to act only a little less like an auxiliary PR arm for the White house. People should "take the pain" of critical reporting but then think "you know, that's what they should be doing".

Exactly.

Barrel of Monkeys

Ad Jamming - A nice example of "culture jamming" - experimental audio that uses radio ads as source material. They are giving the CD's away and slipping some of them in between other CD's in legit stores. Great fun. We need so much more of this. For more on culture jamming see adbusters.

Speaking of Odor - Ford SUV's are spewing even more crap than before out of their rear ends. For more on this see the Detroit Project.

Guardian May Go Stateside - Hey, a real liberal US newspaper. Of course, the Brits had to do it... More from the Guardian UK.

Funny Smells and Recognizing the Terrorist Within

Looks like I may start to smell worse than usual if I don't stop using our "terror" language against us. Doesn't sit so well when it's pointed back in our direction, does it? This does not mean we should not prosecute a "War on Terror" in some form, just that we should understand that when we use such rhetoric that we, too, may fall victim to our own accusations. We're not pure, and it wouldn't be the first time.

My "American Soldiers Terrorize Iraqis" post was prompted by the ABC News report last week that showed soldiers threatening an old man with running over his house and fields with tanks if he didn't give up those suspected of launching mortar attacks. OK. What am I supposed to do with this information? What would my conservative colleagues suggest? Write it off as the ravings of one loose cannon? No, there are other examples. Accept it as appropriate behavior? Not a chance. Liberal network reporting? Alright, but it still happened, regardless of the source. What I did is get pissed. Pissed that we have people behaving that way. MY country's military. That's right, its's not a Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld military. Not a Republican military. It's an American military. Other Americans may not be upset by this event, but this American is.

This does not mean I think there is some kind of equivalence between the American soldier and terror attacks as commonly portrayed in the media. It does mean that we can be perceived this way, and that we have, historically, behaved in ways that can be described as terrorist. An honest assessment of evil always admits a bit of that same evil within. This is something most conservative christians should know, but rarely admit. Failure to acknowledge that we too may be capable of behaving like our most hated enemy exhibits a blindness that amounts to a fatal Achilles heel. We have to know what we are capable of - and not deny it - in order to keep it in check.

If you missed the debate, check out the lengthy comments, as well as Irl's note about Democrats smelling and other offenses. Glad I'm not a Democrat in any ordinary sense of the word, but I think I'll shower nonetheless, just as a precaution.

Americans Terrorize Americans Who Support Americans

Recent news reports show that generally the left and especially Democrats smell...and I mean bad. This report was followed up by another report that quoted a leading expert who concurred that 5 out of every 6 liberals approached the smell of skunk musk.

In other news Iraqis are incredibly grateful for the US role in protecting the majority of the population. One Iraqi official was quoted as saying, "I don't understand why the American left is trying so hard to discredit President Bush. Thank God for America."

Old Europe continues to hold the US hostage because of "hurt feelings" surrounding the US stance on tyrants. French officials said, "We know Iraq had a brutal regime that violently oppressed its people and sheltered terrorists, but they [US] didn't include us in their discussions. After all we know best and if the US doesn't recognize this then we'll do everything in our power to thwart them. Of course if they should succeed then we will expect to be included in anything that might benefit us."

All Americans should be ashamed of the recklessness of the left in pursuit of their goal to discredit anyone who doesn't agree with them.

American Soldiers Terrorize Iraqis

News reports late this week aired a report showing a U.S. soldier threatening to "drive over your fields and run over your houses" with tanks if Iraqi's didn't reveal the identities of those accused of firing mortars at them earlier in the week.

This is not an isolated incident, and not something any of us should want to see our soldiers doing. It is also a form of terror.

Yes our soldiers are stressed and under fire, but to indiscriminately interrogate and terrorize civilians doesn't go very far in demonstrating our ‘good intentions’. In fact it plays out on the micro scale to the worst of the criticism of our unilateral, power hungry ambitions.

Some would say harsh times call for harsh measures. But such simplistic notions do not belie the fact that our actions may undermine our intentions (assuming the true intentions of the Bush administration are worthy).

The situation in Iraq makes itself worse by our insistence that we handle it unilaterally. Having our way means there are more attacks on our soldiers who are trained to kill other soldiers, not to stabilize regions and engage in "nation building" amongst civilians.

The behavior of our military engenders hostility among even among those who would appreciate our removing the remnants of the previous regime, and generates sympathy for those targeting our forces. Many are tied, arrested, taken away, and then returned without charges. Not a great example of due process for a would-be democracy.

Earlier interviews this week confirmed the view of at least some of the soldiers, one of whom said "I don't care" about the people of Iraq any more. And who can blame them after being misled about the nature of their mission and its length?

While other nations, India for example, are willing to send troops and some are offering varying forms of assistance, our forces are stretched, with few available to provide relief or to stand in reserve.

The offers for assistance are mostly predicated on the U.S. working multilaterally, but our refusal to work in the spirit of international cooperation (a spirit sorely lacking in our recent foreign policy) has got us backed into a corner, with offers of assistance left on the table.

Our arrogance and hubris are denying us the international assistance we require to be successful.

The actions of some of our soldiers are embarrassing at best. It appears they are taking after their Commander in Chief. He says "bring 'em on", encouraging attacks on our overworked soldiers, increasingly disillusioned with their role as an imperialistic occupation force.

All Americans should be ashamed and angry at the misuse of our armed forces, pressed into a situation where threats of terror tactics are acceptable for a country ostensibly in a war against terror.

Global Warming is Gonna Get Ya

I feel like Fox News pundit Alan Colmes (just better looking and not so centrist). All my friends are conservatives (OK most). One of them, a fine painter with aerodynamic calves, sent me an article this morning, the implication of which was that global warming is not all it's cracked up to be. I turned off-white. Even if that's the case, shouldn't we be careful, conservative even? Here's an excerpt of my reply:

It's to the benefit of the politicians to promote the anti-global warming myth - paid for, researched and written by those who benefit from polluting. But it's not in the interests of constituents to parrot their specious views.

Unless you are a captain of industry or a major shareholder there's not much in it for you, other than party loyalty, to argue that global warming is not a threat. Because even if it just 'might' be (with all the emissions and nastiness it can't be good), then its best to take, yes, the conservative approach and be careful - rather than trying to say nothing is happening so big companies who care nil about us, our air, our future, can continue to defecate on the world.

I'm not blindly anti-capitalist or anti-business (I'm an investor, after all). I just think we have let purely profit driven interests run unchecked, without a strong counterbalance of what's best for communities, health, and the future of the natural world. This is a value that, I think, we'll be forced to contend with in the future because of major negative effects - just as we were forced to suddenly and forcefully deal with terrorism: it will show up and kick us in the ass. In many places - small towns where many of the children have cancer directly related to emissions for example - it already has. These and other incidents are our distant early warning.

Meanwhile, the Emissions Protection Agency is busy ignoring bi-partisan clean air proposals (not all Republicans are anti-environment).

Arguing that the evidence for global warming is not convincing is a red herring, meant to distract from the actual position that "we are protecting the interests of industries that pollute and we are not interested in the environment or community health". As I frequently argue, just freaking say it.

Conservative Group Challenges Administration's Secrecy on Energy Policy

Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, is challenging in court efforts to keep secret meetings VP Cheney had with energy industry insiders while drafting the country's energy policy. Larry Klayman, the head of Judicial Watch, was a guest on NOW last night.

This is just another in a series of efforts of the Bush administration to be intensely secretive, and to delay investigations as long as possible.

I'm always contending that we need to be critical of our own and I heartily encourage criticism of the left. The rank and file conservative very often equates dissent with a lack of patriotism (I see it as the opposite). Regarding secrecy, Klayman notes:

If you're a conservative, you believe that the individual, the citizen, has rights. That's the fundamental principle of being a conservative. That the government is not all powerful and is not like Big Brother and gets to hide things from you and make decisions for you.

While Klayman admits they may have nothing to hide, he also mentions this document discovered from Chevron:

[Chevron asks] "We'd like you to relax the restrictions on doing business with the terrorist state of Libya." That was right before 9/11. Now are those the kinds of things that administration doesn't want the American to see? The American people to see? Let's be out with it. And let's debate it.

My guess is that this is this is what they are trying to hide. It's a no brainer. It's so close to being transparent now, we should just come out with it. We live a plutocratic representative democracy - whoever pays the most gets the most "representation". The voting part is PR and propaganda, paid for by those who want to effect policy. It is wholly corrupt and anti-democratic.

Texas Redistricting -- A Clash of Political Titans NOT!

'Missing' Democrats Found in Oklahoma

I applaud Dean's video! It illustrates how ridiculous Texas politics have become...or maybe they were always this way.

I didn't see much of an exchange between the speaker and the panel but that's probably due to the format.

After watching the video Jim Morrison immediately appeared in my frontal lobe singing, "This is the End...."

Texas Redistricting Hearings Video

Alt7 went to the Texas Senate Redistricting Hearings yesterday. Here's an entertaining exchange we witnessed:

Texas Redistricting Hearings Video (QuickTime 11 MB)

Savage Hatred

MSNBC show host Michael Savage was fired this week for engaging in the following exchange:

SAVAGE: So you're one of those sodomists. Are you a sodomite?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I am.
SAVAGE: Oh, you're one of the sodomites. You should only get AIDS and die, you pig. How's that? Why don't you see if you can sue me, you pig. You got nothing better than to put me down, you piece of garbage. You have got nothing to do today, go eat a sausage and choke on it. Get trichinosis. OK, do we have another nice caller here who's busy because he didn't have a nice night in the bathhouse who's angry at me today? Get me another one, put another sodomite on.... I don't care about these bums. They mean nothing to me. They're all sausages.

This is endemic of the state of cable "news" - or rather news as entertainment and titillation. In its effort to out fox Fox news it scraped the bottom of the barrel, hiring a well known racist and bigot to host a show.

Not far behind is Joe Scarborough, former congressman, reactionary, and wannabe O'Reilly.

Unfortunately, the fragile promise of cable news has died in an inglorious appeal to our lower natures. Hatred has replaced journalism on our cable news networks.

'Ban smoking in public' -- Hell Yes!!!

The US needs to learn from the United Kingdom...

A total ban on smoking in public places moved a major step closer today. The Government's leading medical adviser Sir Liam Donaldson said he wanted it outlawed in all pubs, bars, restaurants and workplaces.

For more see the Evening Standard.

Liberian Facts

Liberia is one of many "nations" in chaos in Africa. It has been reported that 300 civilians have died recently in fighting.

Size: 96,320 sq km (slightly larger than Tennessee Population: 3,288,198 (July 2002 est.) Infant mortality rate: 130.21 deaths/1,000 live births (2002 est.) Life expectancy at birth:  female: 53.33 years (2002 est.)                                              male: 50.33 years Total fertility rate: 6.29 children born/woman (2002 est.) Religions: indigenous beliefs 40%, Christian 40%, Muslim 20% Population below poverty line: 80% Unemployment rate: 70% Telephones: main lines in use: 6,700 (2000) Radios: 790,000 (1997) Internet users: 500 (2000)

For more facts see the CIA Factbook.

More Porno...

Dean's essay on political porno is brilliant, however, let's not leave out the likes of Gore Vidal, Arianna Huffington, and Michael Moore.

Political prurient interest is not limited to any particular ideological zealot.