by Anthony Ioven
Of all the troubling, right-leaning decisions made by the Supreme Court last week, the one that bothers me the most is this one:
It's bewildering that the Supreme Court's decision Monday to strike down a key provision of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law is being hailed in some quarters as a victory for free speech. The speech in question is contained in broadcast ads, which can cost upwards of several hundred thousand dollars a minute. This kind of speech is absolutely essential to winning elections, but it is free only if you can afford it, which is not only contradictory, but also profoundly un-democratic.
If we want our democracy to be conducted on an even playing field, we've got to stop falling for the right-wing fairy tale that spending money is a form of free speech. Real change can't happen in America until we level that playing field and take the money out of politics.
by Anthony Ioven
Can somebody please explain to me how this man, who has yet to even announce his candidacy, has so much appeal for these people, not to mention these people? |
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by Anthony Ioven
Hmmm...maybe Ahmadinejad isn't lying about the reasons for Iran's nuclear ambitions, as we've been led to believe.
And if he's not lying, what's our justification for a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities?
And by the way, as the only nation ever to use nuclear weapons to deliberately slaughter tens of thousands of innocents, how do we claim the moral authority to tell others who should and should not have nuclear weapons?
by Anthony Ioven
We're another step closer to the real Mission Accomplished. Maliki's cabinet just rubber-stamped the primary Iraqi benchmark — foreign control of Iraqi oil:
The Associated Press reports today: "Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's cabinet approved a U.S.-backed draft oil law and the Parliament is expected to start discussing it next week." The law, which institutes privileges for foreign companies at a level unseen anywhere else in the Middle East, has been challenged inside and outside Iraq. The Iraqi oil workers union went on a strike last month to protest the law.
And if Parliament rejects it (which they certainly should do unless they suffer from the same backbone deficiency as their American counterparts) what will Bush do, invade the country all over again?
by Anthony Ioven
Read all about it here.
by Anthony Ioven
Turns out neither Gore nor Bush won the presidency in 2000. All hail Cheney.
If you want a short and not-so-sweet example, read this, about the decision to deny detainees in the war on terror all legal rights.
Sure Powell and Rice were "incensed" when they found out about the policy when the rest of us did — on CNN. Question is, were they more offended by the denial of basic rights, or by the end-run Cheney just deftly ran around them?
There'll always be slugs like Cheney and Bush in government. They're not the problem. The problem is the basically good people, like Powell and Rice, who enable them.
Update: Much more info on Cheney here.
by Anthony Ioven
The Mayor of Kabul (sometimes laughingly referred to as the President of Afghanistan) is unhappy with his American string-pullers because they have "ignored Afghan advice for years."
I guess he doesn't understand the puppet/puppeteer relationship.
What is rasping against the grain of the Afghan Charlie McCarthy? Maybe this:
More civilians have been killed this year as a result of foreign military action than have been killed by insurgents.
by Anthony Ioven
Just when you think things can't get any worse in the Middle East:
New Palestinian cabinet sworn in
We now have two Palestinian governments and still no nation of Palestine.
The MSM pronounces the democratically elected Hamas as the bad guys here, but Robert Fisk asks a hell of a good question:
How do we deal with a coup d’état by an elected government?
by Anthony Ioven
The It Can't Happen Here crowd might want to check out the fourteen characteristics of fascism.
I'd add two more — an indifferent populace and a spineless opposition party.
by Anthony Ioven
A post on Tom Paine cites a number of polls that all point to a surprising conclusion — Americans are progressives at heart. For example:
67% want sex ed classes to include information on contraception
84% support an increase in the minimum wage
69% say the government should guarantee health care for all
76% would give up the Bush tax cuts to guarantee health care for all
So if Americans talk the progressive talk, how come we walk the conservative walk? Sez Tom Paine:
The answers are manifold. Skillful use of wedge issues by conservative politicians. Advantages in fundraising. Political gerrymandering. An establishment media that rarely asks hard questions. A war on terror that trumps pedestrian domestic concerns.
And let's not forget the biggie — money trumps popular opinion. To get the America we apparently want, we have to take money out of politics.
by Anthony Ioven
Americans never get tired of hearing how wonderful we are, and politicians never get tired of indulging us. But Mike Gravel won't grovel that way for votes:
He is the anti-candidate, pricking Americans' exaggerated opinion of themselves, an opinion that the other candidates, the media, and the schools constantly reinforce. Gravel thinks America can change only by dispelling its comforting myth of exceptionalism.
"Our leaders are promoting delusional thinking when boasting that the United States and Americans are superior to the rest of the human race. We are no better and no worse," he says, in a highly unusual pitch for a candidate.
Gravel says "we’re number one" is a hollow slogan when the United States is actually number thirty-seven in health care and when 30 percent of students fail to graduate high school...
Gravel's platform would make him a mainstream Social Democrat in Europe. But in America, he's seen as either confused or mad.
Right. Americans voted for the Adolescent in Chief twice, but Gravel is the confused one.
by The Guests of 604
Don't read this unless you have your blood-pressure medication handy:
Blackwater Heavies Sue Families of Slain Employees for $10 Million in Brutal Attempt to Suppress Their Story
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Permanent bases in Iraq? Don't call 'em that. Call 'em enduring camps. Joseph Goebbels would.
And in fact, those camps prove Bush was right about Mission Accomplished after all. But he was just being little less than forthright about what the mission actually is — the extension of "the American way of empire" to Iraq:
Because of some of the worst reporting on an important topic in recent memory, most Americans have lived out these last years in remarkable ignorance of what was actually being built in Iraq.
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And speaking of Mission Accomplished,there's no way we're going to allow those ungrateful Iraqi oil workers to ruin it:
But one [strikers'] demand overshadows even these basic needs — renegotiation of the oil law that would turn the industry itself over to foreign corporations. And it is this demand that has brought out even the US fighter jets, which have circled and buzzed over the strikers' demonstrations.
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Bush's circle of friends continues to widen. First it was Barney and lapdog Tony Blair, and now it's Albania.
Maybe in 2009, Georgie and Tony will run off to Albania together, and take Barney with them. I wonder if we have an extradition treaty with Albania...
by Anthony Ioven
According to an op-ed piece in today's Boston Globe, Medicare is "seriously flawed." Not because the for-profit health care industry that Medicare has to deal with is uniquely inefficient and expensive. Oh no. The reasons have more to do with those old ingrates who use it:
"It is well documented that retirees will undertake treatment as long as the value of that care is more than the co payment for which they are responsible."
"[A]ny change [to Medicare] that leaves the elderly worse off than before will lead to swift condemnation and ballot box reprisals by a large and vocal segment of the population."
Where's the outrage here? Not only are these old bastards taking advantage of relatively affordable co-payments to stay healthy, they actually vote, scaring away the politicians who might otherwise do the right thing — water-down Medicare. Sure it would leave the elderly worse off than before, but hell, we'll all save a few bucks on our tax bills.
Oh, and by the way, kick the Medicare crutch out from under these geezers and very shortly, they'll no longer be such "a large and vocal segment of the population."
Sicko...
by Anthony Ioven
Of all the posts marking the 40-year anniversary of the six-day Arab-Israeli war, you won't see many as direct and disturbing as this one. I'll post a small part of it here, even at the risk of again being called a racist and a nazi:
What can be said after 40 years of illegal occupation, after over 250,000 Israeli Jewish colonial settlers in the West Bank, after over 18,000 of our homes demolished, after causing massive economic dislocation (unemployment is at twice what it was for Americans during the Great depression), after over 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners now in Israeli jails, after over 10,000 fellow Palestinian civilians killed? What can be said after the remaining Palestinians are squeezed into shrinking ghettos after much of their best lands was confiscated?
Should we focus on the price the occupiers also paid (especially since the introduction of the phenomenon of suicide bombings 10 years ago). Should we focus on the price the world has paid including the unfolding tragedy in Iraq...
The connection between the Israelis' treatment of Palestinians and terrorism is the 800-pound gorrilla in the newsroom. Or maybe they just hate us for our freedoms.
Today also marks the 40th anniversary of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, which killed 34 US sailors. Twice during the attack, US warplanes took off in response to the Liberty's SOS, and both times the planes were recalled to their carrier by Washington.
This spectacularly bizarre incident has long been ignored by the US media. In fact, if it weren't for blogs, many Americans, including myself, would never have known the attack happened.
You can find links on both sides of the Liberty controversy here.
by Anthony Ioven
What if the Iraqi Parliament has the gumption to do what the American Congress can't bring itself to do — order American troops out of Iraq.
The parliament took a big step towards that goal today by passing "a binding resolution that will guarantee lawmakers an opportunity to block the extension of the UN mandate under which coalition troops now remain in Iraq when it comes up for renewal in December."
In spite of what war apologists want us to believe, Iraqis want us the hell out of their country. But...
[T]hree out of four [Iraqis] believe that if their government were to demand a timetable for withdrawal, Washington would ignore it...
No doubt. Regime change redux.
It's time Iraqis and Americans finally get it — we are never.leaving.Iraq.
by The Guests of 604
What the war on terror really needs is a good glossary. So let's see...if an Iraqi blows things up in Baghdad, he's an insurgent or a terrorist. But when a Kurd blows things up, he's a saboteur.
And Muslims who commit acts of violence in other countries are terrorists. But when a Kurd commits acts of terrorism in Turkey, he's a separatist.
Got that?
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No matter where you go...no matter what you do...Google may be watching.
But you know, folks with nothing to hide will barely mind. They'll just turn the other cheek.
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Maybe we can use Google to find out what happened to the town of Jenin. Or the rest of the invisible Palestinians, for that matter.
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Say what you will about the ACLU, I admire them for standing up for American values when no one else will. Latest case in point – Stopping the Torture Flights.
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The administration claims it's none of the public's business who visits Vice Present Cheney at his official residence. You and I may disagree, but still, statements like this are an overreaction:
I want to know when the Prince of Darkness comes to visit Mr. Cheney.
I mean, c'mon. I thought Cheney was the Prince of Darkness.
by Anthony Ioven
The verbal image that made the rounds on blogs this week was pretty bizarre, even for Bush. And I have to admit that I took the story with a few grains of salt, until I learned it was reported by the respected veteran journalist Georgie Anne Geyer:
Friends of [the president's] from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated "I am the president!" He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of "our country's destiny."
Scary stuff, on a couple of levels. But on the other hand, it underscores the American Dream — that in this country, even an idiot can grow up to be president.
Of course, it helps if your daddy was president before you. And if you're too dumb to notice that you're simply the pathetic puppet of Cheney & Co.
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UpdateAmerica.com
604.UpdateAmerica.com
June's Posts
Free Speech We Can't Afford
Hot to Trot for 2008
Iranians Going Nuclear
That Gleam in Cheney's Eye
And Speaking of Cheney...
President Cheney
Hizzonah Speaks
Palestinian Schism
Sound Familiar?
A Nation of Closet Liberals
The 'Myth of Exceptionalism'
The Problem with Medicare
The Never-Ending Six-Day War
What If . . .
American Idiocracy
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