Saturday, March 29, 2003

World Gone Mad "You know the world's gone mad when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the USA of arrogance and the German's don't want to go to war!" 1:20:45 AM    comment [] World Gone Mad: Name That invasion! Operation Rioting Ogre Operation Smoldering Whip Operation Red Wombat Operation Sweet Baby Jesus Operation Ready-for-CNN Turban Operation Ejaculating Rottweiler Operation Unpredictable Liberty Operation Incredibly Expensive Fire Operation Tense Mullah I wonder if they consult the American Military Operation Name Generating Device down Washington way? The good names, after all, must all be taken, or copyrighted or something. Yeah, in a world gone mad that's probably how they do it. 1:12:34 AM    comment [] Letters From the Editor: Re: A World Gone Mad   (Jay Machado) Jim: I certainly have a lot of respect for (and pity for) the guys on the front lines -- the regular troops on both sides of the fence. The fedayeem and Saddam's hard core army, the ones killing civilians, using them as shields and such: they can hang those bastards high. As to the press being liberal, that is an old sawhorse I no longer believe. Because the major media has fallen right into line on this on in exchange for the right to be on the frontlines with cameras. In the print media, you may be right, there is a *little* more dissent. Where I read the most scathing criticisms is of course, on sites like alternet. And of course these opinions are marginalized by the mass media. We are of tree hugging radicals, and somehow un-American for opposing the war. There are some new laws afoot that would effectively make some forms of anti-war protesting forms of "aid and comfort to the enemy", punishable by law. Our rights are in danger of slowly fading away. They are being attacked on many fronts. "All part of our master plan," whisper the Gnomes of Zurich. And there is much to criticize, if you ask me. Our numbnut-in-chief, in one of the most amazing foreign policy debacles in HISTORY, has managed to single handedly reverse long time alliances, breaking treaties, turning friends into foes, and isolating the US from the greater world community, in the process bankrupting an enormous amount of goodwill that the United States has accumulated (and rightfully so: we are a pretty good-hearted people) over the years. It's going to take a long time before the world forgets how badly we are behaving I am sure we disagree on a great number of issues, Jim. But I do love this country, and what it stands for at it's best. I support our men and women (and dolphins!) abroad. But I thoroughly oppose this war. Not because Saddam deserves to stay in power: he's thoroughly despicable and I will shed no tears for his passing. My reasons are, I think, more practical. I know there is much more going on here than simply ridding the world of old Saddam. The events now being set in motion will reverberate for many many years. Technology has put lethal technologies in ever smaller packages. We are breeding whole new generations of foreigners that will hate the US for what it is doing (and will be doing) to their respective countries. Many will die in days to come. Here and abroad. This war will come here to America in some form or other. And no lessons will have been learned -- and the old familiar cycles of death and destruction will continued, with newer, deadlier technologies of death at our disposal. The cynic in me has to point out that there is a surplus of human beings upon the earth right now. Maybe these coming wars are a way of doing a little housecleaning. Sick and twisted thinking, but I know if I can think it in passing with disgust, there is some sick little fuck in a position of power somewhere who can think it and say to himself: "hmm, two birds, one stone". God bless us, and help us all. 1:08:32 AM    comment [] World Gone Mad: An Excerpt from Kim Jong II's Secret Blog 3:39 am Dear diary. Bush still doesn't get it. I tried making my feelings clear but he's too busy ignoring me, he is such a jerk. Everything in his life is just Saddam, Saddam, Saddam and I am sick of it. On the plus side, I think my hair looked pretty good today. Also I went frolicking at Paektu Mountain and the rainbow came out again. After dinner some of my subjects sang me a song because I invented Outer Space. 1:06:59 AM    comment [] Losing the Peace   (Jason Vest)   Despite the sanguine way George W. Bush and his chamberlains talk about a post-war Iraq, senior military officers are worried: According to recent unpublicized U.S. Army War College studies being read with increasing interest by some Pentagon planners, "The possibility of the United States winning the war and losing the peace in Iraq is real and serious." And that's especially true if occupation force soldiers are not retrained to be "something similar to a constabulary force" and imbued with the understanding that "force is often the last resort of the occupation soldier." The War College studies explore in detail a troubling paradox: While all experts agree that stabilizing post-Saddam Iraq would be a protracted endeavor, "the longer a U.S. occupation of Iraq continues," one of the studies notes, "the more danger exists that elements of the Iraqi population will become impatient and take violent measures to hasten the departure of U.S. forces." * * * Yet Bush and some of his top advisers have consistently preached that laying the foundation for post-blood-and-sand Iraq really won't be that much of a chore. In a recent speech to the American Enterprise Institute, Dubya's tone was upbeat as he rattled off a succinct post-Saddam checklist for the U.S. Army: Deliver medicine to ailing Iraqis, hand out emergency rations, destroy weapons, secure Iraq from those who would "spread chaos" internally, and mind the oil fields – but not for "a day more" than necessary. * * * … at a time when the U.S. Army is a case study in multitasking – fighting the Global War on Terrorism (or GWOT, in Milspeak), keeping watch on the Korean peninsula, peacekeeping in the Balkans, chasing Islamic rebels in the Philippines, saddling up for more action in Colombia, to name but a few chores – a number of military professionals are quietly venting spleen about how disingenuous they believe the Bush administration is being with the public about post-war Iraq.   (SOURCE: “Losing the Peace”, alternet) 1:04:37 AM    comment [] World Gone Mad: Chaos is Part of the Plan   "Chaos in the Middle East is not the Bush hawks' nightmare scenario--it's their plan." This is a fascinating and disturbing article by Josh Marshall for next month's Washington Monthly, released early due to recent events.   A selected quote: “In their view, invasion of Iraq was not merely, or even primarily, about getting rid of Saddam Hussein. Nor was it really about weapons of mass destruction, though their elimination was an important benefit. Rather, the administration sees the invasion as only the first move in a wider effort to reorder the power structure of the entire Middle East. Prior to the war, the president himself never quite said this openly. But hawkish neoconservatives within his administration gave strong hints. In February, Undersecretary of State John Bolton told Israeli officials that after defeating Iraq, the United States would "deal with" Iran, Syria, and North Korea. Meanwhile, neoconservative journalists have been channeling the administration's thinking. Late last month, The Weekly Standard's Jeffrey Bell reported that the administration has in mind a "world war between the United States and a political wing of Islamic fundamentalism ... a war of such reach and magnitude [that] the invasion of Iraq, or the capture of top al Qaeda commanders, should be seen as tactical events in a series of moves and countermoves stretching well into the future.” This is a long article, and well worth taking the time to read it. All will be made abundantly clear. 1:02:01 AM    comment [] ART ALERT: Naoto Hattori   The reality of living in a world gone mad informs the surreal sensibilities of artist Naoto Hattori. Beautiful stuff, very attractive site. 1:01:00 AM    comment [] Letters from the Editor: Love and Its Discontents   (Jay Machado) Bill: Loving someone is never the wrong thing to do. When you strip away all the ego and grasping and pain that almost inevitably comes later, what you are left with is the essence of what it means to be human -- the very best that you had/have in you to give. I managed to stay fairly friendly (after a time) with quite a few of my exes. This relationship shit is a high wire act of gargantuan proportions. After that initial rush of la-la-la-love passes you are generally left with a hunka hunka burning doo doo. It brings out the best -- and the worst -- in all parties involved. Primal fears, unresolved psychological hangups, it all comes streaming out of the monster closet.  Here in the west we place such a tremendous burden on the love thang, expecting that one thing to be our one stop happy shop. In my humble experience it just ain't so. I'm not so sure they didn't have it right in the old days when marriage was a social contract to run a household effectively, and if you were lucky you ended up enjoying your partner in a more personal way. The concept of romantic love as the central force in a relationship is a fairly recent concept I think: think back to the crusades when the troubadours wrote poems and sang songs of unrequited love. That's when it all started to go wrong! Although there is certainly a place for all the ga ga goo goo sentiment. It just needs to be tempered with common sense. Easier said than done when one is in the throes of a relationship.    "Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then." (Katherine Hepburn) You said: "I should/I wish I could hate her but I am still sick in that area."  Nah! That's just your dark side talking trash. You should love her as best you can right now, forgive her, forgive yourself, and know that you guys cared for each other and hopefully somewhere down the road you can regain some of the impulse that led you to become friends. In the meantime, you got to have sex with her. You bastard.   Sensitively yours, Jay 1:00:24 AM    comment [] Art Alert:  Art of the Revolution In a world gone mad, revolutions often seem downright sensible. You get to march around, make new friends, and change the course of history. And look, you can decorate your hovel with lovely revolutionary art to show your solidarity with the cause. I especially dig the Chinese ones. Viva la revolution! (Ain’t I a stinker?) 12:53:25 AM    comment [] Eloquence   (Colin Powell) During an address to the World Economic Forum, Secretary of State Colin Powell was asked a somewhat long and involved question by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, which ended with the following interrogative: And would you not agree, as a very significant political figure in the United States, Colin, that America, at the present time, is in danger of relying too much upon the hard power and not enough upon building the trust from which the soft values, which of course all of our family life that actually at the bottom, when the bottom line is reached, is what makes human life valuable? Secretary Powell delivered a lengthy response to the former Archbishop's question, in the midst of which came the eloquent line quoted in the example above: The United States believes strongly in what you call soft power, the value of democracy, the value of the free economic system, the value of making sure that each citizen is free and free to pursue their own God-given ambitions and to use the talents that they were given by God. And that is what we say to the rest of the world. That is why we participated in establishing a community of democracy within the Western Hemisphere. It's why we participate in all of these great international organizations. There is nothing in American experience or in American political life or in our culture that suggests we want to use hard power. But what we have found over the decades is that unless you do have hard power -- and here I think you're referring to military power -- then sometimes you are faced with situations that you can't deal with. I mean, it was not soft power that freed Europe. It was hard power. And what followed immediately after hard power? Did the United States ask for dominion over a single nation in Europe? No. Soft power came in the Marshall Plan. Soft power came with American GIs who put their weapons down once the war was over and helped all those nations rebuild. We did the same thing in Japan. So our record of living our values and letting our values be an inspiration to others I think is clear. And I don't think I have anything to be ashamed of or apologize for with respect to what America has done for the world. (Applause.) We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we’ve done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home to seek our own, you know, to seek our own lives in peace, to live our own lives in peace. But there comes a time when soft power or talking with evil will not work where, unfortunately, hard power is the only thing that works.   Via the interesting people archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ 12:51:15 AM    comment []

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