... we would have seen a noose around that neck.
April 30, 2007
April 24, 2007
Slogans for Dummies
Do you know what the popular anti-war slogan “Bush lied; my son died” means? If you do, you are, believe it or not, a member of some kind of intellectual elite.
Put simply, the Americans who are outside the said "intellectual elite" interpret the slogan this way: “Bush said my son wasn’t going to die, but he did.” Let’s call that the A version of the slogan. These people fail to see that the slogan actually means: “Bush’s lies gave rise to a war, in which my son died.”
The important point is that the basic slogan sounds nonsensical to the people in the A group. Their plausible-sounding objection to the slogan is this: “In a war, some soldiers are going to get killed. That is the reality of warfare. So it is unfair to call Bush a liar.”
I think this is really more serious than a simple misunderstanding. It hints at the enormity of the task facing the progressive movement, because it shows that the basic presuppositions of a large part of their potential audience are different than their own presuppositions. This potential audience is so backward politically that it has failed to perceive the chain of events, so clear to us, that led from the lies of Bush and his cronies to the war in Iraq.
Put simply, the Americans who are outside the said "intellectual elite" interpret the slogan this way: “Bush said my son wasn’t going to die, but he did.” Let’s call that the A version of the slogan. These people fail to see that the slogan actually means: “Bush’s lies gave rise to a war, in which my son died.”
The important point is that the basic slogan sounds nonsensical to the people in the A group. Their plausible-sounding objection to the slogan is this: “In a war, some soldiers are going to get killed. That is the reality of warfare. So it is unfair to call Bush a liar.”
I think this is really more serious than a simple misunderstanding. It hints at the enormity of the task facing the progressive movement, because it shows that the basic presuppositions of a large part of their potential audience are different than their own presuppositions. This potential audience is so backward politically that it has failed to perceive the chain of events, so clear to us, that led from the lies of Bush and his cronies to the war in Iraq.
April 16, 2007
US aggression is nothing new!
Some conspiracy theorists are fond of the idea that US aggression against the rest of the world was the product of a so-called "Secret Government" that came into being after the Second World War. Some of these people are simply naive and misinformed. The rest, neither naive nor misinformed, are in fact highly worldly and knowledgeable. They know very well that (a) the criminal atrocities of the United States began long before the last world war, and that (b) the scale of those crimes has been several orders of magnitude larger than the relatively minor crimes that these individuals choose to enumerate.
So, why do they do it? Why do they try to minimize the spatial and temporal dimensions of American criminality? The answer should be obvious: (a) as long as their audience has the impression that the crimes began at a relatively recent period, it can easily be kept under the illusion that the United States was “good” prior to that time, and that the recent deviation can be corrected within the system; and (b) as long as people do not know the actual scale of the crimes and their systemic nature, they can be kept under the illusion that the crimes were the work of a few “bad apples.” To cite a recent news item, the revelation about the murder of some hundreds of Korean refugees by American soldiers during the Korean War serves to reinforce the false impression that this was somehow an aberration peculiar to a particular situation in a particular war. It was not. Even in that war, it was not peculiar to that situation. America’s wanton bombardment of Korea killed hundreds of thousands of Koreans who had nothing to do with the war. And the criminality began long, long, before the Korean War…
Simon Bolivar, the liberator of several South American countries, was one of the early targets of American aggression. Nearly two hundreds years ago, he had to detain two US frigates who were carrying a shipment of arms to the Spanish! Yes, the US was trying to keep South America subject to Spanish colonialism! Bolivar complains: “What brothers are these that fail to recognize our independence even after Europe has done so?” At about the same time, he wrote in a letter that “The United States of North America seems destined by providence to plague [Latin] America with misery in the name of liberty.” Nearly two hundreds years have passed, yet those words could have been written yesterday!
So, why do they do it? Why do they try to minimize the spatial and temporal dimensions of American criminality? The answer should be obvious: (a) as long as their audience has the impression that the crimes began at a relatively recent period, it can easily be kept under the illusion that the United States was “good” prior to that time, and that the recent deviation can be corrected within the system; and (b) as long as people do not know the actual scale of the crimes and their systemic nature, they can be kept under the illusion that the crimes were the work of a few “bad apples.” To cite a recent news item, the revelation about the murder of some hundreds of Korean refugees by American soldiers during the Korean War serves to reinforce the false impression that this was somehow an aberration peculiar to a particular situation in a particular war. It was not. Even in that war, it was not peculiar to that situation. America’s wanton bombardment of Korea killed hundreds of thousands of Koreans who had nothing to do with the war. And the criminality began long, long, before the Korean War…
Simon Bolivar, the liberator of several South American countries, was one of the early targets of American aggression. Nearly two hundreds years ago, he had to detain two US frigates who were carrying a shipment of arms to the Spanish! Yes, the US was trying to keep South America subject to Spanish colonialism! Bolivar complains: “What brothers are these that fail to recognize our independence even after Europe has done so?” At about the same time, he wrote in a letter that “The United States of North America seems destined by providence to plague [Latin] America with misery in the name of liberty.” Nearly two hundreds years have passed, yet those words could have been written yesterday!
The quiet disappearance of bees
Surely it must be more than just a coincidence to see two news stories on the same day about the disappearance of honey bees in Canada and bumblebees in Britain:
Theory: Cellphone radiation killing honeybees?
Scientists fear flight of Britain's bumblebees
The investigation of the reason or reasons for the disappearance of these species is still at the purely speculative stage. What I do know is that each summer I see fewer and fewer of many different kinds of insects than the year before. I hope there are a lot of other people who are as alarmed by this as I am.
Theory: Cellphone radiation killing honeybees?
Scientists fear flight of Britain's bumblebees
The investigation of the reason or reasons for the disappearance of these species is still at the purely speculative stage. What I do know is that each summer I see fewer and fewer of many different kinds of insects than the year before. I hope there are a lot of other people who are as alarmed by this as I am.
April 11, 2007
April 05, 2007
The "innocent sailors" were spies!
"We gathered intelligence"
That's why Tony "Bliar" Blair was in such a tizzy to get them out, and it is also why the spies themselves were confessing to everything -- so they could get out. Their official mission (anti-smuggling) was just a cover and an instrument for their real mission (gathering information from fishermen and others about Iranian activities in the area).
Update: British spies being tortured in Iran.
Whose lawlessness?
The following was my reply to an editorial in a major newspaper that bemoaned the supposed weakness of the UN in dealing with the recent standoff between Iran and the UK:
Dear Editor,
Re "Weak UN stand fails Iran captives" (Editorial, April 3)
In the lawless world we live in, it is interesting that mainstream Western newsmedia only notice the lawless behaviour of the underdogs.
George W. Bush invaded Iraq because Saddam had threatened to kill his father, and now your newspaper offers that invasion an imprimatur of legality.
Israel invaded and for all practical purposes destroyed Lebanon, and yet the Western newsmedia did not appear to find anything illegal in that. After all, two Israel soldiers had been kidnapped. According to our newsmedia, that was justification enough.
Caught between the lawless and criminal behaviour of Western and Western-supported governments and the blindness of the Western newsmedia, it would be strange and immoral if threatened countries did not take the law into their own hands.
Dear Editor,
Re "Weak UN stand fails Iran captives" (Editorial, April 3)
In the lawless world we live in, it is interesting that mainstream Western newsmedia only notice the lawless behaviour of the underdogs.
George W. Bush invaded Iraq because Saddam had threatened to kill his father, and now your newspaper offers that invasion an imprimatur of legality.
Israel invaded and for all practical purposes destroyed Lebanon, and yet the Western newsmedia did not appear to find anything illegal in that. After all, two Israel soldiers had been kidnapped. According to our newsmedia, that was justification enough.
Caught between the lawless and criminal behaviour of Western and Western-supported governments and the blindness of the Western newsmedia, it would be strange and immoral if threatened countries did not take the law into their own hands.
April 04, 2007
President Ahmadinejad exchanges jokes with UK sailors
President Ahmadinejad exchanges jokes with the freed British sailors
I wonder if the five Iranian hostages held by the US in Iraq will also be in a mood for exchanging jokes when (and if) they are released. Somehow, I doubt it...
April 03, 2007
What gives us the right to treat (other) animals this way?
Undercover film footage taken by the Canadian Coalition for Farm Animals shows laying hens with feathers rubbed off from constant rubbing against their cages
Update: An activist reader has emailed me a list of links and webpages about humane animal husbandry and related subjects. I have taken a brief look at some of the pages, and they seem to be quite informative and consciousness-raising. However, I take no responsibility for what you may see on some of these websites. Please note the brief descriptions of the sites as guidance, and use your own judgement. The descriptions were also provided by the said reader.
http://www.themeatrix.com/
AWESOME videos for all ages.
http://www.meat.org/
Hard to watch the truth - adults only
http://www.organicconsumers.org/index.htm
Organic Consumers Union - Get newsletter
http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/AgainstFactoryFarming
Please join and use your voice !
http://www.sustainabletable.org/
Find local farms to support- a must read site.
http://www.farmaid.org/
http://www.localharvest.org/
buy local PLEASE
http://www.certifiedhumane.com/
Humane farming for animal well being
Strict standards and caring people.
http://www.sierraclub.org/factoryfarms/resources/
http://www.nodowners.org/
Critical activism for the worst of farm animal abuse
http://www.compassionoverkilling.org/
Helping animals have a human voice
http://www.aspca.org/
Doing some of the most important work on the planet
http://www.peta.org/
The Ones Unafraid !!! Support them please
Wonderful undercover work ! See the videos.
http://www.farmsanctuary.org/
Amazing people doing amazing work
http://www.factoryfarm.org/
Great Site- Great Org
http://www.stumbleupon.com/tag/factory-farming/
Lots of Links
The Husbandry Institute focusus on creating consumer demand and fostering distribution of and access to sustainable meat. Their Ask for Change! campaign consists of a wallet-sized card with two simple questions you can ask your waiter, and on the other side, some tougher questions you can ask your butcher or other meat buyer who ought to know the answers. The cards, together with the fact sheet, provide information about the ramifications of each question, and why they are important.
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