Nam Jun Paik, 1932-2006

Avant Garde video sculptor Nam Jun Paik has passed on.

Thanks for stretching the medium video and electronics beyond what many dreamed possible- into introspection and beauty.

State of the Union's Bankruptcy

While the Oil Industry has benefited with record profits due to limiting supplies and expanding prices across the board under The Administration, the State hasn't quite had the same luck. The Bush Administration's annual budget has grown over the past 5 years to record expenditures, and with his record tax cuts ["make them permanent!" they cry], the State has been borrowing record, and harrowing, sums of cash from foreign interests. $188 billion in the first quarter of 2006, in fact.

Even the tax-reform, arch-conservative tax reformist group The Heritage Foundation is neigh too pleased with this.

I, for one, am excited for the State of the Union address tomorrow night. I'm sure he'll point out just how wonderful our financial condition has become under his watch.

$1,073 A Second

$1073 every second.

That's how much money in profits Exxon Mobile made last year. The highest profit level in corporate history.

I'm glad that the Peak Oil crisis is good for some.

Ear Wax

A friend sent me this news story about the difference between "wet" and "dry" earwax. No big deal, right? Some quirky, bizarre story about a strange bodily function few of us ever think about.

Then, via Tbogg, I see this: Incredibly, the reprehensible Debbie Schlussel had decided to use this story as "evidence" supporting her racist anti-native agenda:

Stolen Land?: Earwax, B.O. More Proof "Native" Americans Not Native

Today's New York Times details a Japanese scientific on earwax and body odor in Asians vs. Europeans and Africans. There is actually an "earwax gene" in DNA that determines this.

But the paper glosses over the most important finding. The study found that Europeans and Africans tend to have wet ear wax, sweat more, and have more under arm body odor than Asians, who have dry ear wax and don't sweat much. But the study also found that "Native" Americans have dry ear wax and body odor similar to Asians, proving they migrated here from Asia.

So whom did THEY steal the land from? Somebody else, obviously. Yet, no "Dances With Wolves" and "Into the West" from Hollywood about that.

Now, Schlussel got hit by "liberal" commenters on her website, who pointed out how asinine this line of reasoning is, for various reasons, mostly based on something called "science," or at least "history."

Schlussel, however, has amended her post, and included this darling little preamble, to supplant all "Liberals!" from having anything valid to add to the argument:

***To all the liberal idiots who've left dumb, insulting comments on this entry, as directed by similarly intellectually-challenged lefty websites, I'm well aware Indians came here over the Bering Strait, which you'd realize if you actually bothered to read what I wrote below in this entry. I simply quoted the NYTimes that this was yet more proof. Yet, there is no proof they were the first here. And even if they were, this is yet more proof that they originated in ASIA. Hello? . . . This is yet more evidence that we did NOT steal THEIR land. It means it was not THEIRS to begin with.***

Cute, Ms. Debbie. Very cute way to reason your way out of this.

It's frightening that she feels so enabled to take absolutely any piece of information and use it to buttress her moronic ideology, no matter how dubious or tenuous the connection is. Here, that this somehow counts as "evidence" that white people should not feel any remorse for two hundred years of the calculated cultural destruction of the original Americans.

It's not a question of entitlement to the land- it's a question of the bizarre practice of the right simply assuming the right to dominate all aspects of entitlement. We are great because we say we are great- look at all this evidence in support of that. We have earwax and B.O.

Good job, Debbie.

The Unintended Part I: Iran

[The first of two interesting news items from today, both which exhibit the Law of Unintended Consequences.]

Guess who is absolutely pleased that the US has gotten stuck in a thusfar unsuccessful occupation of their neighbor state Iraq? Guess who feels both threatened by the invasions of two major neighborstates, Iraq and Afganistan, but benefits from America's inability to succeed on either front?

New-US-Enemy-Number-One, the Iranian Government!

NOT long after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq in 2003, a top aide to L. Paul Bremer III, then the head of the American occupation authority there, excitedly explained that Iraq had just become the front line in Washington's effort to neutralize Iran as a regional force.

If America could promote a moderate, democratic, American-friendly alternate center of Shiite Islam in Iraq, the official said, it could defang one of its most implacable foes in the Middle East.

Iran, in other words, had for decades been both the theological center of Shiite Islam and a regional sponsor of militant anti-American Islamic groups like Hezbollah. But if westward-looking Shiites — secular or religious — came to power in southern Iraq, they could give the lie to arguments that Shiites had to see America as an enemy.

So far, though, Iran's mullahs aren't feeling much pain from the Americans next door. In fact, officials at all levels of government here say they see the American presence as a source of strength for themselves as they face the Bush administration.

In almost every conversation about Iran's nuclear showdown with the United States and Europe, they cite the Iraq war as a factor Iran can play to its own advantage.

"America is extremely vulnerable right now," said Akbar Alami, a member of the Iran's Parliament often critical of the government but on this point hewing to the government line. "If the U.S. takes any unwise action" to punish Iran for pursuing its nuclear program, he said, "certainly the U.S. and other countries will share the harm."

Iranians know that American forces, now stretched thin, are unlikely to invade Iran. And if the United States or Europe were to try a small-scale, targeted attack, the proximity of American forces makes them potential targets for retaliation. Iranians also know the fighting in Iraq has helped raise oil prices, and any attempt to impose sanctions could push prices higher.

In addition, the Iranians have longstanding ties to influential Shiite religious leaders in Iraq, and at least one recently promised that his militia would make real trouble for the Americans if they moved militarily against Iran.

All of those calculations have reduced Iranian fears of going ahead with their nuclear program — a prospect that frightens not just the United States, Europe and Israel, but many of the Sunni Muslim-dominated nations in the region, including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

...
The hard-line conservative, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was elected in June to replace Mr. Khatami, has joined the religious leadership in a policy of confrontation.

With the Americans stuck fighting a protracted, murky war in Iraq, the Iranians felt they were in a position to defy the West even over the nuclear issue.

A Western diplomat based in Tehran said that Iran's recent behavior has been infuriating, an apparent effort to undermine the diplomatic process. The envoy said that in August, when Europe was about to offer what it called a compromise, the Iranians balked even before seeing the proposal.

"Before we even met, they said: 'We know what's in it. We know what we are looking for is not there,' " the diplomat said, insisting on remaining anonymous so as not to antagonize Iranian authorities.

The West has tried to push back, but Iran has barely budged. Part of the reason, the diplomat said, is that "what was seen as power then may be seen as weakness now," referring to the American presence in Iraq.

Well, that went well.

Promoting democracy in the Mideast, one invasion at a time.

The Unintended Part II: Border Patrol

The second of two interesting news items from today, both which exhibit the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Border Patrol.

What happens in America when rogue groups pressure government into a full-thrust of somewhat disorganized border patrols on our souther border? What happens when they work to close the border, with fence posts and drunken vigilantes, in order to lock illegals out, without understanding the economic and social incentives?

Thus arises the "Paradox" of a winter clampdown on the border based on lobby-actions and vigilante groups: It turns out that the more we try to lock them out, the more we're actually just locking them in:

Traditionally, many of the migrants who crossed the border illegally to plant and harvest return home to Mexico by the time the winter fog unfurls over California's farm belt, emptying towns such as Parlier.

That annual migration has slowed dramatically in the past few years as tougher border enforcement has prompted fears of capture and persuaded many immigrants to stay put -- even if there is little work in the U.S.

Jorge Garcia, 26, left the Mexican state of Michoacan two years ago to join two cousins and a brother working the grapevines around this town just south of Fresno. Like roughly half the men and women who work the fields in the United States, he came illegally.

He had hoped to go home during the winter, after the vines were pruned. Now, the fruit stands scattered around this town of 12,000 are empty and shuttered, and there's little for him to do.

"Going home is too expensive and dangerous," he said.

Garcia and others like him choose to live meagerly through the winter rather than risk capture or death when they try to return. He shares a house with friends and family members, hoping to get through the cold months by doing odd jobs in town.

...
Other research suggests a trend. In 1998, about 45 percent of the nation's farmworkers said they'd spent time out of the country within the previous year, according to the National Agricultural Workers Survey. By 2002, 28 percent of farmworkers in the country said they'd spent time outside the U.S., the survey said.

The Border Patrol increased enforcement following the 2001 terrorist attacks, catching 905,065 people in 2003, 1,139,282 in 2004 and 1,171,305 last year.

More border patrol agents along stretches that are easier to cross have pushed immigrants into rugged desert and mountain areas. A record 415 people died crossing the border illegally in the fiscal year that ended in September, according to the Border Patrol. The previous high was 383 deaths in 2000.

Some examples of the drop in migrant crossings are dramatic.

From November 24, 2003, to January 11, 2004, 141,412 immigrants entered Nogales, Mexico, from Arizona, according to Mexican authorities. That fell to 61,981 between November 2004 and January 2005. Between November 1 and December 14, that number fell to fewer than 18,000.

"Once people come over, they don't go back because they don't want to risk being caught," said Rogelio Fernandez, a doctor and the associate director of the Parlier Family Health Center, which serves mostly farmworkers.

University of California-Davis labor economist Phil Martin calls it the "paradox of tougher enforcement."

"You actually get more people to stay," he said.

The problem isn't tougher enforcement- the problem is the thinking by these groups on the right that tougher enforcement is the only solution. Because it's not. In fact, it shows a severe lack of vision and insight to this issue- and a certain ironic glow: the more groups like the Minute Men try to shut down the border, with rhetoric of racism, the more they actually force these groups to stay.

Where as, if a border control solution were enacted with a reasonable economic and social plan or vision, the situation would be stymied. If we had ways to track, hire, and tax this group of people, we'd be a hell of a lot better off.

Oh well. I guess the gun nuts who want to close the border just really really like having these groups of illegals around. Otherwise, you'd think they'd want to find ways to help them to leave...

The Future is Here

Although, I'm not talking about flying cars and pyramid hats.

I'm talking about Peak Oil. With one comprehensive study, we have travelled forward in time- we now live approximately in August of 2007, in Peak Oil time- accellerating toward that moment where our oil reserves and oil consumption rates peak- and prices skyrocket, and economies halt, and blahblahblah...

Word just came out that Kuwait, long regarded as home to some of the world's largest reserves of petroleum, may possess only half the amount of oil reserves that it officially has been stating for many years.

According to a restricted report issued by the authoritative industry newsletter Petroleum Intelligence Weekly (PIW), internal Kuwaiti records reveal that the nation's oil reserves are far below the officially stated amount of about 99 billion barrels. Kuwait's reported 99 billion barrels, if they were really there in the ground, would make up about 10% of world's reported oil reserves.

The PIW report is based upon data circulating within the top echelons of the Kuwait Oil Co. (KOC). KOC is the upstream arm of state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp. KOC has primary responsibility for conducting exploration, drilling and production from Kuwait's oil fields. The PIW report claims that Kuwait's remaining proven and nonproven oil reserves total about 48 billion barrels, or 51 billion fewer barrels than previously advertised.

By way of comparison, the estimated remaining proven oil reserves for the United States total about 22 billion barrels. Estimates for the North Sea are about 17 billion barrels. So a downward adjustment of 51 billion barrels by the Kuwaitis leaves a good deal more than twice what remains in the United States, and three times what is in the North Sea.

Yet another way of stating the matter, and in a macro sense, the amount of estimated world oil reserves just fell by 5%. This 5% drop in reserves is the equivalent of almost 20 months worth of total cumulative worldwide oil production and consumption, based on the current world oil use of about 84 million barrels per day. From the standpoint of the world reaching the absolute Peak Oil point, we now live in August 2007, not January 2006. And as the Mogambo Guru would say, "Thanks a hell of a lot, guys."

Here's the really wonderful news: because the Kuwaitis had overestimated their reserves by 100%, we must cast a serious eye of discretion on all of the stated oil reserves and discoveries.

Are the Other Books Being Cooked?

The news out of Kuwait highlights the point that most, if not all, of the estimates published by member nations of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) are similarly without merit. In all likelihood, all of the OPEC member nations have chronically overstated their reserves. The ominous implication is that we are confronting the reality that the world has a lot less oil than we thought and that a peak in global oil output must occur sooner than even some of the most pessimistic predictions.

The news about the Burgan oil field lends credence to the opinions of investment banker Matthew Simmons, who has made a career working with the companies that form the industrial backbone of the oil industry. For the specific arguments of Simmons, you should read his exceptionally well-written book Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, published in June 2005. In preparing and writing his book, Simmons reviewed hundreds of technical papers written about the Saudi oil fields, interviewed many people with firsthand knowledge of Saudi oil production, and visited a number of important oil sites in Saudi Arabia. Based on this, Simmons makes a solid case that Saudi Arabia faces an imminent downturn in oil production. And because Saudi Arabia has always been considered the "swing producer" to the world, and thus the price-setting supplier to the world's oil-based economy, any production shortfalls would have severe and immediate econom ic, political, and military impacts.

Using the "Hubbert linearization" method on publicly available reserve data and production figures for Saudi Arabia, it appears that the Saudis have produced 105 billion barrels of oil out of an ultimately recoverable reserve base of about 180 billion barrels. Much of this production came out of the ground in the past 25 years. Thus, the Saudis are now at about 55-60% of their ultimate recovery and a state of irreversible decline cannot be very far behind.

The implications for the global economy of a decline in Kuwaiti oil exports, let alone Saudi production, are indeed serious. If the world oil supply fails to expand proportionally to the increasing demands of China and India, as well as to growing demand from the West and Japan, then the upward pressure on oil prices will be inexorable. As we have said so many times before in Whiskey & Gunpowder, and in other Agora Financial publications, we can expect to see the price of oil climb.

For the oil producers, an upward price trend will be good news in some respects and come as compensation, for at least a few years, for declining output. Swelling coffers of revenue from oil sales may even cushion some nations against economic collapse, which will be likely when oil prices begin their long-term increase to stratospheric levels.

Grab your [solar powered] hoverboards and wraparound sunglasses, kids.

Because when it comes to Peak Oil time, the future is now.

Censored News 2005

Common Dreams.org has released their annual list of Project Censored's most censored, blocked, and underreported news stories of 2005.

Number 1:

1. White House Erodes Open Government

While the White House has expanded its ability to keep tabs on civilians, it's been working to curtail the ability of the public—and even Congress—to find out what the government is doing. One year ago, Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., released an 81-page analysis of how the administration has administered the country's major open government laws. The report found that the feds consistently "narrowed the scope and application" of the Freedom of Information Act, the Presidential Records Act and other key public-information legislation, while expanding laws blocking access to certain records—even creating new categories of "protected" information and exempting entire departments from public scrutiny. When those methods haven't been enough, the administration has simply refused to release records—even when requested by a congressional subcommittee or the Government Accountability Office. Given the news media's interest in safeguarding open government laws, one wonders why these findings weren't publicized far and wide.

Source: "New Report Details Bush Administration Secrecy" press release, Karen Lightfoot, Government Reform Minority Office, posted on www.commondreams.org, Sept. 14, 2004

The list is full of the underreported society we've found ourselves in. An interesting note- much of the list details a media system which neglects the story- making them complicit in the events themselves.

Taking Hearts and Minds

The US Army likes The Administration's rhetoric of winning the hearts and minds of the population of the states that they occupy. But it just doesn't seem to be working. And for every heart and mind they think they've won, another insurgent rises.

So they've got a new tactic. You'll like this one. When they can't win the hearts and minds of the insurgency, they take their family members instead:

The U.S. Army in Iraq has at least twice seized and jailed the wives of suspected insurgents in hopes of "leveraging" their husbands into surrender, U.S. military documents show.

In one case, a secretive task force locked up the young mother of a nursing baby, a U.S. intelligence officer reported. In the case of a second detainee, one American colonel suggested to another that they catch her husband by tacking a note to the family's door telling him "to come get his wife."

The issue of female detentions in Iraq has taken on a higher profile since kidnappers seized American journalist Jill Carroll on Jan. 7 and threatened to kill her unless all Iraqi women detainees are freed.

...
Iraq's deputy justice minister, Busho Ibrahim Ali, dismissed such claims, saying hostage-holding was a tactic used under the ousted Saddam Hussein dictatorship, and "we are not Saddam." A U.S. command spokesman in Baghdad, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, said only Iraqis who pose an "imperative threat" are held in long-term U.S.-run detention facilities.

But documents describing two 2004 episodes tell a different story as far as short-term detentions by local U.S. units. The documents are among hundreds the Pentagon has released periodically under U.S. court order to meet an American Civil Liberties Union request for information on detention practices.

In one memo, a civilian Pentagon intelligence officer described what happened when he took part in a raid on an Iraqi suspect's house in Tarmiya, northwest of Baghdad, on May 9, 2004. The raid involved Task Force (TF) 6-26, a secretive military unit formed to handle high-profile targets.

"During the pre-operation brief it was recommended by TF personnel that if the wife were present, she be detained and held in order to leverage the primary target's surrender," wrote the 14-year veteran officer.

"Too Hedonistic"

Paul Weyrich, arch-conservative voice coming out of the Free Congress Foundation, has some things to say about the results of the recent election in Canada:

"The people of Canada have become so liberal and hedonistic that the public ethic in the country immediately could not be reversed," Weyrich says in an email analysis to allies.

"It will take time. But with leadership it well may be possible to change the public ethic."

The culturally conservative organization compared Harper's victory in Canada to the election of Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, an extreme right-wing, pro-life legislator, to the position of governor of Massachusetts, a liberal state which has legalized gay marriage.

Weyrich did not return phone calls to expand on his analysis. It was posted on the Free Congress Foundation website and, like a pre-election missive, was emailed to Canadian journalists in Washington by a liberal organization that has battled Weyrich's group on Supreme Court nomination fights here.

...
"My pessimistic friend said that inasmuch as Harper's is a minority government, Harper could do almost nothing to encourage the country to adopt a more reasonable view of the United States and to correct some premises of Cultural Marxism, which Canadians have espoused, such as same-sex marriage and abortion-on-demand," he wrote.

The solution, he said, would be for Harper to pack the Canadian courts with conservatives.

In other words- the Canadian culture, too "hedonistic" for redemption, must be forced into alignment with proper values and methods.

It is interesting that the method he's espousing is to flex legal muscle and force culture into alignment by stacking control of the courts.

The only reason I bring Weyrich up at this point in time, in terms how American liberals can view the situation, is that these comments are useful in understanding what has happened with American culture- to an extent. Rather than only stocking the courts with ideologues [though, the upcoming vote on Alito is certainly evidence of that], conservatives in America began this process by infiltrating media outlets and well-funded groups- primarily evangelical christian organizations. They started doing this years ago- funding, investing, and building these connections in order to force culture into a new direction- away from "hedonism" and into percieved proper moral codes.

Great. It's nice when the perfect democratic model does everything it can to restrict your ability toward any choice. Tons of fun. Good luck, friends in the north...

Not Rebuilt

Guess how this story ends up:

A strong Category 3 hurricane strikes the below-sea-level city of New Orleans; the levees break, designed by the US Army Corps of Engineers to withstand a Cat 3 storm, the levees show signs of poor construction. Thousands are killed, but millions upon millions are heartbroken by the deep racism and neglect which the storm uncovers.

The president, who had previously rushed to the centers of storm-wrecked towns in Florida, flies overhead, 3 days later. His political cohorts call for immediate aid, for the "red tape to be cut."

Was the red tape cut? How successful has the president's plan been in getting aid to the affected- in rebuilding the city - in investigating the causes of the flood and the inept governmental emergency response?

Rather than cutting the red tape for the investigation, The Administration has added more- stonewalling investigators, refusing to answer questions or turn over documents.

In terms of the rebuild process, rebuilding commissions are heavily weighted toward Admin cronies- which is, of course, the core problem that led to an inept response to the emergency in the first place.

With all that red tape cut, with all those lofty promises, why has so little been accomplished?

Nearly five months after Hurricane Katrina swamped New Orleans, President Bush's lofty promises to rebuild the Gulf Coast have been frustrated by bureaucratic failures and competing priorities, a review of events since the hurricane shows.

While the administration can claim some clear progress, Bush's ringing call from New Orleans's Jackson Square on Sept. 15 to "do what it takes" to make the city rise from the waters has not been matched by action, critics at multiple levels of government say, resulting in a record that is largely incomplete as Bush heads into next week's State of the Union address.

The problems include the slow federal cleanup of debris in Mississippi and Louisiana; a lack of authority for Bush's handpicked recovery coordinator, Donald E. Powell; the shortage and poor quality of housing for evacuees; and federal restrictions on reconstruction money and where coastal communities can rebuild.

With the onset of the hurricane season just four months away, there is no agreement on how to rebuild New Orleans, how to pay for that effort or even who is leading the cross-governmental partnership, according to elected leaders. While there is money to restore the city's flood defenses to protect against another Category 3 hurricane, it remains unclear whether merely reinforcing the levees will be enough draw residents back.

New strains emerged this week when Bush aides rejected a plan by Rep. Richard H. Baker (R-La.) to set up a government corporation that would buy back the mortgages of storm-damaged homes around New Orleans. Instead, the government limited the use of $6.2 billion in grants to the rebuilding of 20,000 homes destroyed outside federally insured flood zones.

Dismayed state and local officials said the president's approach does not provide help for an additional 185,000 destroyed homes. They warned that the federal government's halting recovery effort is undermining, at a critical juncture, the confidence of homeowners, insurers and investors about returning.

There's a lot of corrupt activity with this Administration. There's CIA leaks, leading to the first federal indictment of a top-level Administration staff member in generations [that is still ongoing!]; there's wire-tapping, which has yet to be proven as anything other than inefficient, unnecessary, and illegal activity; there's very tight connections between Republican officials, including the President, and one of the worst fund-scandals in recent political US history; there's the likelihood that top-level officials designed a torture program against international law.

There's a lot of sleaze in The Administration.

But of all of this- the persistent mismanagement during the duration of the Katrina crisis exhibits the worst crime- that The Administration does not care; and that they are incapable of taking positive action; and that they are willing to sell out every political connection they can and never willing to take action.

This is madness.

Filibuster of Alito...?

CNN's Breaking News banner says that John Kerry is calling for a fillibuster of Alito. Internally, the Democrats are divided on this- and at least two Dems have stated their intention to vote Yes to Alito.

Could Get Nasty. But kudos to Kerry- keep the pressure on.

The Shredder

The President denies that any photos taken that feature him and Jack Abramoff [who raised over $100,000 in campaign funds, making him a Bushy "Pioneer"], are to be discounted because he "doesn't really know him" and that "it's part of the job" to take lots of pictures with people you don't know.

So why is The White House so adamant about scrubbing official GOP photographs taken with Bush and Abramoff? If it's so casual, they may as well just release them, let us see how unfriendly they are to one another, and move on. Instead, they're using the Enron method of destruction of the files...

Good system.

Newstands

Aravois' thoughts on that fascinating story blogger Glenn Greenwald broke yesterday:

The Bush Administration opposed legislation that would have given them the very power they now claim they needed, power they now claim they didn't have under FISA. It's because they didn't have this power, they now claim, that they had to break the law and spy without a warrant. But this law would have given them much of the legal power they wanted. Yet they said they didn't need it, and worse yet, that the proposed legislation was likely unconstitutional. But now we know they did it anyway.

...
So Bush chose to break the law when he had an alternative. And what's worse, this suggests that Bush feared the Supreme Court would never let him spy on Americans the degree to which he wanted, the court would find it unconstitutional, so that's why Bush never sought the change in the law proposed in 2002 - Bush thought it would have been struck down by the Supreme Court. So Bush chose to break the law in order to circumvent the Supreme Court enforcing the US Constitution.

Basically, a decent wrap of of this issue. At the center of it is The Administration's hypocrisy on this issue- they currently claim the need for this spying capability was so urgent and so restricted that it must be enacted immediately, and secretly- yet they'd already terminated amendments which would have given them the legal capability to do just this- on constitutional concerns.

But now, wait a couple years, hopefully your Supreme Court takes a sudden and dramatic lurch to the right...

This story could be incredible. It's quite an amazing story broken by a blog. And Atrios points out that this story will be hitting your traditional news media... Tomorrow morning. In the Washington Post and the LA Times.

Stonewalling the Investigation: Katrina Edition

If there's one thing The Administration loves to do in the aftermath of great tragedy and political malfeasance, it's stonewalling the investigation. The latest- the Senate investigation into the dismal efforts of the federal government in the aftermath of Katrina:

The White House is crippling a Senate inquiry into the government's sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina by barring administration officials from answering questions and failing to hand over documents, senators leading the investigation said Tuesday.

In some cases, staff at the White House and other federal agencies have refused to be interviewed by congressional investigators, said the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. In addition, agency officials won't answer seemingly innocuous questions about times and dates of meetings and telephone calls with the White House, the senators said.

A White House spokesman said the administration is committed to working with separate Senate and House investigations of the Katrina response but wants to protect the confidentiality of presidential advisers.

"No one believes that the government responded adequately," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. "And we can't put that story together if people feel they're under a gag order from the White House."

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the committee's Republican chair, said she respects the White House's reluctance to reveal advice to President Bush from his top aides, which is generally covered by executive privilege.

Still, she criticized the dearth of information from agency officials about their contacts with the White House.

"We are entitled to know if someone from the Department of Homeland Security calls someone at the White House during this whole crisis period," Collins said. "So I think the White House has gone too far in restricting basic information about who called whom on what day."

She added, "It is completely inappropriate" for the White House to bar agency officials from talking to the Senate committee.

Fortunately

Today's Fortune is:

Put to the test daily by the present political leadership.

Misleading V. Factually False

Here's a good one: Alberto Gonzales says that criticism against The Administration's illegal NSA spying is "misleading:"

Gonzales cautioned his listeners about critics and journalists who have mischaracterized details about the program. "Unfortunately, they have caused concern over the potential breadth of what the President has actually authorized," he said.

The attorney general's appearance at the law school is part of a campaign by the Bush administration to overcome criticism, often by attempting to redefine the program.

On Monday at Kansas State University, Bush said the program should be termed a "terrorist surveillance program" and contended it has the backing of legal experts, key lawmakers and the Supreme Court.

As Atrios says, the fact that The Administration continually redefines what this program is and what it does, and the legality of it, without ever providing any explanation that satisfies the question of why they'd do something illegally, when they have every capability of doing it legally under the FISA court, comes down to this: they're up to something. They've been misleading us the whole time, and continue to distract and redefine without explaining.

Glenn Greenwald [again via Atrios] takes them to task in a piece titled "The Administration's new FISA defense is factually false:"

By that time, the Administration had already been engaging in eavesdropping outside of the parameters of FISA, and yet the DoJ itself was expressing serious doubts about the constitutionality of that eavesdropping and even warned that engaging in it might harm national security because it would jeopardize prosecutions against terrorists. Put another way, the DoJ was concerned that it might be unconstitutional to eavesdrop with a lower standard than probable cause even as the Administration was doing exactly that.

Two other points to note about this failed DeWine Amendment that are extremely important:

(1) Congress refused to enact the DeWine Amendment and thus refused to lower the FISA standard from "probable cause" to "reasonable suspicion." It is the height of absurdity for the Administration to now suggest that Congress actually approved of this change and gave it authorization to do just that -- when Congress obviously had no idea it was being done and refused to pass that change into law when it had the chance.

(2) DeWine's amendment would have lowered the standard for obtaining a FISA warrant only for non-U.S. persons -- whereas for "U.S. persons," the standard would have continued to be "probable cause." And, DeWine's amendment would not have eliminated judicial oversight, since the Administration still would have needed approval of the FISA court for these warrants.

That means that, in 2 different respects, DeWine's FISA amendment was much, much less draconian than what the Administration was already secretly doing (i.e., lowering the evidentiary standard but (i) eliminating judicial oversight, and (ii) applying these changes not just to non-U.S. persons but also to U.S. persons). Thus, Congress refused to approve -- and the DoJ even refused to endorse -- a program much less extreme and draconian than the Administration's secret FISA bypass program.

This has extremely significant implications for the Administration's claims made yesterday through Gen. Hayden as to why it was necessary to bypass FISA. The Administration's claim that the "probable cause" component of FISA was preventing it from engaging in the eavesdropping it needed is the opposite of what it told Congress when refusing to support the DeWine Amendment. And its claim that Congress knew of and approved of its FISA-bypassing eavesdrop program is plainly negated by the fact that the same Congress was debating whether such changes should be effectuated and then refused to approve much less extreme changes to FISA than what the Administration secretly implemented on its own (and which it now claims Congress authorized).

The Administration is stuck with the excuse given by Gen. Hayden yesterday as to why it had to eavesdrop outside of FISA, but that excuse is plainly contradicted by these events and by the Administration's own statements at the time.

[all emphasis is Greenwald's].

Atrios' wrap of up this:

He points out that in 2002 Senator DeWine proposed the legislation which would've amended the FISA law to lower the burden necessary from probable cause to reasonable suspicion (one caveat, for non-US persons only), precisely what our constitution-challenged former NSA head was claiming was why they "had to" break the law. He also claimed they sought such changes but Congress wouldn't give it to them.

The kicker? The Bush Justice Department opposed the law on constitutional concerns.

Let's recap the Bush talking points as they've been shot down.

The program was some super-technology thing! Not true.

The program was necessary because the FISA court doesn't allow them to act fast enough. Not true.

The program was necessary because Congress wouldn't let us lower the necessary burden . Not true - they opposed a similar measure themselves.


Once again, all we're left with is:

They wanted to spy on whoever they wanted to without any oversight or accountability.

That's it.

So which is it? Are we to belive the "misleading" criticism, or are we to believe the "facts" that Greenwald has presented- which state, simply, that the misleading party in this whole affair has been... yes...

The Administration.

Surprise, surprise.

How To Screw a Nation or Two

The lesson plan is simple. First- identify your target based on past history. Fabricate reasons for hatred; stew with deep fear and anxiety among your populace from recent horrible attacks. Maintain fear and anxiety at all times among your populace.

Invade.

Now- here's where it gets really good.

Neglect to make any plans for your post-invasion strategy. Hire a bunch of your pals- cronies, if you will- who have little-to-no experience in the field for which they're hired. Pay them handsomly. Even in so doing- hire too few. In fact, avoid over staffing in every department at every juncture- to be sure you don't create redundant jobs, it's advisable to simply hire to few people, pay them twice as much to do two jobs, neither of which they can, and overexert whatever resources you possibly can. Including, but not limited to: the armed forces, general morale, your checkbook, the patience levels of your electorate. Continue neglecting any and all costs, while overpaying to [again] crony companies who bill you fraudulently, making everybody involved exhorbitantly rich.

And in this exclusive one-time offer: it's not only thier country that's wrecked- it's yours, too! Those foreign debts will be haunting your electorate for generations! Make them feel okay about that- make those foreign-debt-levied tax cuts ultra-permanent!

Congress Did It!

The Administration pulls out one of their handful of effective but sleazy political tricks in defense of their domestic spying program: Congress knew about it.

You may remember this particular defense from, oh, only a few months ago, when The Administration tried to pin the failure of the Iraq war on the decision making process of Congress, claiming that Congress had access to all the information they'd had, and that Congress was acting completely without influence of The Administration. This, of course, was completely wrong:

A congressional report made public yesterday concluded that President Bush and his inner circle had access to more intelligence and reviewed more sensitive material than what was shared with Congress when it gave Bush the authority to wage war against Iraq.

Democrats said the 14-page report contradicts Bush's contention that lawmakers saw all the evidence before U.S. troops invaded in March 2003, stating that the president and a small number of advisers "have access to a far greater volume of intelligence and to more sensitive intelligence information."

Lies! Lies! Lies!

In today's rehash of "pass the blame" The Administration's noble Captain works the words... thusly:

Mr Bush insists war powers passed by Congress after the 2001 terrorist attacks give him the legal right to use the NSA to tap into email and phone conversations citizens have with suspected al-Qa'ida operatives.

"I'm not a lawyer, but I can tell you what it means: it means Congress gave me the authority to use necessary force to protect the American people, but it didn't prescribe the tactics," Mr Bush said.

While Democrats and some Republicans question if the snooping without warrants is legal, Mr Bush counters that he briefed Congress.

"It's amazing that people say to me, 'Well, he's just breaking the law'. If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?" he said.

Boy, that's a great question. I'm sure that documents coming in the future will corroborate this claim wonderfully. If, in fact, members of Congress were consulted, each one that took the position that setting up a boundless entrapment scheme to net bad intelligence without a warrant, particularly when getting a warrant for exactly these cases from FISA has been denied only 5 times in its history, and can be done retroactively by 72 hours with probable cause, each Congressman who took this position needs to be removed from office.

It seems to me that The Administration is using this tactic here for two purposes: 1) to pass the blame down, and 2) to attempt to dissuade the larger issue, which is that their goal is to claim endless Presidential powers. By claiming that they've "consulted" with Congress, Bush and Co shrewdly reduce the impact of that argument.

The bigger questions in this issue are very simple, regardless of the argument that these guys are trying to usurp unchecked Presidential Powers.

• Was this wire-tapping program itself in violation of the laws set up in support of the FISA court?
• Had the FISA court been consulted, and had focused searches been done, would they have issued the warrants? And, since this is likely, why would the Government knowingly avoid the legal court set up to handle exactly these cases?
• Was the scope of this program focussed so sharply that no collateral, innocent citizens were unduly tied up in this?
• Has the information gathered been so vitally important that, in retrospect, we, as a culture, collectively concede it is a necessary program?

None of the answers to these questions, and countless, better questions, fall in the favor of The Administration. They violated the laws, they did so knowingly, and they did so without need, and without benefit.

Rove wants 2006 to be the year of "national security" for Republicans. Tied with Rove's own [ongoing] participation into The Plame Affair, the NSA spying program makes for quite a menu of items on the republican platform. Their version of "national security" is playing incompetant, crony-protecting C.Y.A., outing undercover intelligence operatives for political tomfoolery, and claiming boundless rights to spy on anybody- as much as they please.

Boy. I feel much more secure this year than last. Phew.

Outsourcing The Dirty Work

Overseas, the investigation into the secret CIA flights through Europe to secret prisons in the Eastern Bloc and across the globe deepens. And nobody's coming out looking good in this one:

EUROPEAN governments knew that so-called CIA "torture flights", some of which landed in Edinburgh, were taking place, investigators said today.

The head of a European investigation into the transportation of terrorist suspects also said that evidence pointed to the existence of a system of "outsourcing" of torture by the US and that it was highly likely that European governments knew of it.

But Swiss senator Dick Marty said there was no formal evidence so far of the existence of clandestine detention centres in Romania or Poland as alleged by the New York-based Human Rights Watch. Mr Marty's comments follow accusations fired at the Scottish Executive that it knew about torture flights landing at Edinburgh and other Scottish international airports.

The SNP said the Executive had turned a blind eye to the situation and published pictures of alleged CIA planes at Edinburgh Airport. The party also compiled a dossier which lists in detail the planes and the dates on which they landed while allegedly operating for front companies of the CIA.

Today Mr Marty said: "There is a great deal of coherent, convergent evidence pointing to the existence of a system of 'relocation' or 'outsourcing' of torture."

[Bush's own relationship to outsourcing is complicated: in 2004, one of his more highly-trusted economic advisors, who had penned much of Bush's economic speeches, claimed that, in the long run, moving American jobs overseas to third world, non-regulated countries, really wasn't a bad thing. I'm sure that those who lose the jobs were pretty excited to hear that news.]

The American moral outrage over their country's practice of outsourcing torture [both to brutalist foreign countries where torture is the norm and to private contractors working directly with intelligence, and military personel] is still lacking. Of course, if the opposition were to intimately tie this outrage into the embattled presidency, they'd have a long list to consult.

And it's no surprise that some, if not many, of the European nations are complicit in this. But the European population at least seems to recognize that these programs are reprehensible, and that their leadership must face at least some form of political accountability. Hopefully, Americans decide that, among all of the ridiculously bad ideas this Administration has forced upon the world in their name, torture is among one of the worst.

Domestic Spying: Academic Edition

[Whoops... bad typo in the title...]

In several states, some version David Horowitz' misnamed "acedemic bill of rights" legislation is getting a considerable hearing. This legislation's stated goal is to end any rights infringement by "activist professors" against their students for political reasons. But in states like Colorado, where Gov. Owens tried in 2003 to push through a literal quota to force more conservative professors into the system, under the banner of Horowitz' concept [Horowitz himself quickly distanced himself from this effort].

This concept is simple: to Conservatives, the Acedemic elite represent a population of Liberals, oppressive and cruel to their students because of political views. Conservatives, you see, must always be the victim- they always have it harder, must fight longer, must endure more stress, woe, and pain. They are constant participants in Nietzsche's "slave morality." They, with apparently no fear of irony, disparage of the Acedemic Liberal Elite and their oppressive theory, while crafting theory which leads to war with seemingly no end.

The system they use in this issue is similar to many systems they use. They want to expose "far left" professors and have them removed, then they want to replace them with conservative figureheads. Expose, undermine, and supplant. It's the same idea they're using in the court system against "activist judges." That's the way they want this to work- it's like a slow-motion coup.

And it all starts with Exposure. The first step: Make your conservative students into tiny mercenaries- spying on their teachers at all times, and pay them for it. Make them invested in the movement- activist and combatative.

Don't believe me?

An alumni group dedicated to "exposing the most radical professors" at the University of California at Los Angeles is offering to pay students $100 to record classroom lectures of suspect faculty.

The Web site of the Bruin Alumni Association also includes a "Dirty Thirty" list of professors considered by the group to be the most extreme left-wing members of the UCLA faculty, as well as profiles on their political activities and writings.

UCLA Chancellor Albert Carnesale on Thursday denounced the campaign as "reprehensible," and school officials warned that selling or distributing recordings of classroom lectures without an instructor's consent violates university policy.

News of the campaign prompted former Republican congressman James Rogan, who helped lead impeachment proceedings against former President Bill Clinton in the U.S. House of Representatives, to resign from the group's advisory board.

"I am uncomfortable to say the least with this tactic," Rogan, now a lawyer in private practice in California, said in an e-mail resignation made public by the Los Angeles Times. "It places students in jeopardy of violating myriad regulations and laws."

...
Jones told Reuters that he is out to "restore an atmosphere of respectful political discourse on campus" and says his efforts are aimed at academics who proselytize students from either side of the ideological spectrum, conservative or liberal.

Wow. What a great idea to "restore an atmosphere of respectful political discourse." This is Orwellian doublespeak. The goal isn't to restore that atmosphere- the goal is to inflame into conservative homogony.

Atrios notes, as well, that none of this would be a national issue if the media weren't so willing to take and run with any conservative-minded story. But of course they just can't resist.

Pinkie Swear, too

Updating/appending/commenting on this earlier post on the recent Bin Laden Tape.

In that post, I show some [lots of] skepticism as to the authenticity of the tape. Frankly, I still am skeptical. The fact that the CIA and other US officials have verified that they believe the voice on the tape belongs to OBL himself only does so much to alleviate my concerns... if it does anything at all.

But I thought that this piece is interesting:

WASHINGTON -- The White House said a new audiotape shows Osama bin Laden is "on the run," but counterterrorism experts said it instead pointed up an embarrassing fact for President George W. Bush: It appears bin Laden is alive and well four years after Sept. 11.

More than that, some counterterror analysts pointed to parallels in a 2004 bin Laden tape where he offered a similar "truce" to European leaders, only to have the London subway bombings take place about a year later.

U.S. officials said yesterday that they had picked up no increased "chatter" signaling an imminent attack inside the United States, despite bin Laden's threat that a strike is in the works.

The Department of Homeland Security said it has no plans to raise the national terror alert level of yellow, the middle step of five.

The CIA confirmed the voice is bin Laden's and believes the audiotape was made recently, a senior administration official said. The al-Qaida leader refers to Bush's alleged desire to bomb Al-Jazeera television, first reported on Nov. 22.

In the tape, bin Laden said "it's only a matter of time" before another attack on the United States, but offered a "long-term truce" with unspecified terms, something the White House flatly rejected.

"We do not negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business," said Bush spokesman Scott McClellan.

Firstly, I do not recall any specific tape or any specific coverage of Bin Laden offering a "truce" to the UK. I have vague recollections that a tape released sometime way back when stated something to the effect of: If the UK decides not to support the US any more, than Al Qaeda won't bomb them. Of course, the UK didn't stop, and they were in fact attacked in the summer of last year.

To me, that's hardly a truce offering. I still doubt that Al Qaeda would simply have just not carried out the attack without massive mobilization from other potential sponsor nations. In other words, it seems to me that the scenario where Al Qaeda just says "Hey, you know what? We've decided to be nice now, on our terms," it's just too good to be true. They do not stand to benefit from that- at least to my knowledge.

However, it is very possible that I'm wrong here. So I'm willing to state that- hey. I may be wrong. I'm also willing to remain skeptical.

The article also shows that this demonstrates a supposed weakness for The Administration- that American's feel that with UBL still floating around, that this President hasn't done by us too good no more.

I think that's probably true. But what a shame, really. In October of 2004, during the very last stretch of the presidential elections, a Bin Laden tape mysteriously arose [and cryptically said to the American public that it didn't matter which president we selected- both were terrible choices and would lead to continued jihad]. Kerry blames this tape for a huge last minute dip in his votes- suddenly, the "security-minded" were again triggered to remember all those times Bush and The Administration blathered about 9/11 for the previous 3 years. Bush was braced by this, and ultimately won.

Unfortunately, there wasn't enough of this thinking back then. Tons of us were screaming: "If you hadn't frickin' gone to war, and hadn't have blown the whole G.W.o.T. when you abandoned Afghanistan, we wouldn't have this guy!"

But it was to Bush's advantage then to have the spector of Bin Laden floating around the room. And The Adminstration knew it. Everybody knew it. And if it takes the public an extra year to realize that the constant haunting of Osama Bin Laden is truly not a good thing for us [it always was, see, a good thing for Bush], then so be it. But it's pretty ridiculous. And we've gone through a hell of a year, 2005, to get to that point.

Lastly- a quick comment on Scotty Mac's rebuttal to Bin Laden:

"We do not negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business," said Bush spokesman Scott McClellan.

As though we're the Wal-Mart to their small-town business. And apparently, by virtue of the fact that, well, they're still up and running, and that our efforts only further their anger, I'd say we need to change our business model.

And it is a horrific slide in language from 4 years ago. Remember our bold president? The "Dead or Alive" President? That manly Texan that half the country wanted to drink beers with because they thought he was capable of living up to that nonsense?

Whoops.

Not "Dead or Alive," any more. We've moved from the angry Wild West Cowboy to the socially awkward Cubical Worker.

Raping the Marlboro Man

Another Brokeback post. There's a reason for all these Brokeback posts- but the primary reason is that I loved the film.

To recap: before The General had seen the film, we said this:

And it is a self-contained non-debate- not one person in this article says that the film was ever considered, or in its current form, deserving, of an NC-17 rating. Yet the supposition that it somehow culturally deserves one seeps through the article.

The article itself seems to exist solely in a world where the only possibility for homosexuality would be a stern, adults-only rating- preserved in the queer-cinemas; insulating the average American from the possibility of having to deal with the subject matter. If the same story were heterosexual, it could fly with a PG-13. But GAY?!?! Slap it with the Showgirls treatment!

And that is exactly why the source material for the film is brilliant, and why the film is so promising to me. Annie Proulx's series of Wyoming Stories, Close Range, in which Brokeback appears as a short story, do just this. The goal is to resist this sense of over-simplification. Her stories crack through the veneer of how people percieve Wyoming and the citizens of the West. They crack that western mindset of machismo and present characters dealing with specific troubles and conflicting truths. They remove the factor of insulation, through choice or trauma. Brokeback, in particular, deals so delicately with a guarded secret of the west [and of course, by extention, this entire country]- that yes, homosexuals exist even in the most barren, isolated, and difficult landscapes in the country, despite our continued attempts to contain and deny it.

Back then, Brokeback was controversial to some [conservatives] because it was rated a lowly R for its, presumed, as they hadn't seen it yet, strong gay sexual content. But what they were really after was a deeply humanizing gay film. Because for them, any attempt to allow humanity into the life of The Other is a reprehensible act of treason, a secularist, propagandist attempt to turn the world queer and into sin. It's not the movie they hate, its the fact that it exists: an effort to turn gays into normal people. This tradition of hatred and exclusion is strong in humanity- and certainly has been in our country.

But Brokeback [yes, Lons, still shorthanding it, if only to spite you] is a particular threat to American hetero identity, because it is a quoteunquote "Western." It seeks to humanize and really emotionally explore that most manly of American worlds: the Cowboy's world.

What is controversial about Brokeback? Well, in the movie, not much. It's a sweet, very sad film.

But to these guys it's controversial because it undermines that most precious hideout of American Masculinity- the west. The Christian-White-Hetero-Rich Man has felt like they've been under fire from that roving gang of Queers through all other metaphoric landscape in the country in the past few years. And now, some Hollywood scum has gone and turned cowboys queer. And if they can do that, then hell. It's all over. Might as well everybody just turns gay and rots in hell. And you don't have any control over it: once you see the movie... you turn to "The Other Side."

Don't believe me?

The Rape of the Marlboro Man, by World Net Daily's own David Kupelain:

"Brokeback Mountain," the controversial "gay cowboy" film that has garnered seven Golden Globe nominations and breathless media reviews – and has now emerged as a front-runner for the Oscars – is a brilliant propaganda film, reportedly causing viewers to change the way they feel about homosexual relationships and same-sex marriage.

And how do the movie-makers pull off such a dazzling feat? Simple. They do it by raping the "Marlboro Man," that revered American symbol of rugged individualism and masculinity.

We all know the Marlboro Man. In "The Marketing of Evil," I show how the Philip Morris Company made marketing history by taking one of the most positive American images of all time – the cowboy – and attaching it to a negative, death-oriented product – cigarettes.

Hit the pause button for a moment so this idea can completely sink in: Cigarette marketers cleverly attached, in the public's mind, two utterly unrelated things: 1) the American cowboy, with all of the powerful feelings that image evokes in us, of independence, self-confidence, wide-open spaces and authentic Americanism, and 2) cigarettes, a stinky, health-destroying waste of money. This legendary advertising campaign targeting men succeeded in transforming market underdog Marlboro (up until then, sold as a women's cigarette with the slogan "Mild as May") into the world's best-selling cigarette.

It was all part of the modern marketing revolution, which meant that, instead of touting a product's actual benefits, marketers instead would psychologically manipulate the public by associating their product with the fulfillment of people's deepest, unconscious needs and desires. (Want to sell liquor? Put a seductive woman in the ad.) Obviously, the marketers could never actually deliver on that promise – but emotional manipulation sure is an effective way to sell a lot of products.

The "Marlboro Man" campaign launched 50 years ago. Today, the powerful cowboy image is being used to sell us on another self-destructive product: homosexual sex and "gay" marriage.

Gonna hit that pause button likes like The K-Man says.

He's establishing the quite interesting point of psychological appeal with advertising. Here, he's pinned the toxicity of the situation onto advertisements. Literally toxic- he's established a link between the masculine psyche and the cowboy, an image which Marlboro exploited greatly.

But he's also operating with a second social toxicity- "'gay' marriage." He literally can't even bring himself to the posibility that those two words would exist side-by-side without quotes around one of them.

...
Yes, the talents of Hollywood's finest are brought together in a successful attempt at making us experience Ennis's suffering, supposedly inflicted by a homophobic society. Heath Ledger's performance is brilliant and devastating. We do indeed leave the theater feeling Ennis's pain. Mission accomplished.

Lost in all of this, however, are towering, life-and-death realities concerning sex and morality and the sanctity of marriage and the preciousness of children and the direction of our civilization itself. So please, you moviemakers, how about easing off that tight camera shot of Ennis's suffering and doing a slow pan over the massive wreckage all around him? What about the years of silent anguish and loneliness Alma stoically endures for the sake of keeping her family together, or the terrible betrayal, suffering and tears of the children, bereft of a father? None of this merits more than a brief acknowledgment in "Brokeback Mountain."

What is important to the moviemakers, rather, is that the viewer be made to feel, and feel, and feel again as deeply as possible the exquisitely painful loneliness and heartache of the homosexual cowboys – denied their truest happiness because of an ignorant and homophobic society.

Thus are the Judeo-Christian moral values that formed the very foundation and substance of Western culture for the past three millennia [three millennia...? You mean, "western culture " includes Greek Love?- GS] all swept away on a delicious tide of manufactured emotion. And believe me, skilled directors and actors can manufacture emotion by the truckload. It's what they do for a living.

Co-star Jake Gyllenhaal realized the movie's power to transform audiences in Toronto, where, according to Entertainment magazine, "he was approached by festival-goers proclaiming that their preconceptions had been shattered by the film's insistence on humanizing gay love."

"Brokeback Mountain," said Gyllenhaal, "is that pure place you take someone that's free of judgment. These guys were scared. What they feared was not each other but what was outside of each other. What was so sad was that it didn't have to happen like that." But then, said the article, Gyllenhaal jumped to his feel and exclaimed triumphantly: "I mean, people's minds have been changed. That's amazing."

Changed indeed. And that's the goal. Film is, by its very nature, highly propagandistic. That is, when you read a book, if you detect you're being lied to or manipulated, you can always stop reading, close the book momentarily and say, "Wait just a minute, there's something wrong here!" You can't do that in a film: You're bombarded with sound and images, all expertly crafted to give you selected information and to stimulate certain feelings, and you can't stop the barrage, not in a theater anyway. The visuals and sound and music – and along with them, the underlying agenda of the filmmakers – pursue you relentlessly, overwhelming your emotions and senses.

And when you leave the theater, unless you're really objective to what you've experienced, you've been changed – even if just a little bit.

Cinema is propaganda immersion. Everytime you enter a cinemaplex, you are subjected to a little bit of the ultraviolence- Alex-style- and you have absolutely no choice in the matter. In fact, once the projector turns on, because of the magical, manipulating, and more-often-than-not evil powers of the producers of cinema, you will lose all capability of proper judgement and personality. Only in certain cases has this propagandist's tool been used for good, right, Mr. K?

But understand, o-reader, you lack any capability of judgement. And you are not- indeed, can not- ask the right questions when you see a film. You, my friends, are mindless masses- dolts- who pay for your own toxic immersions in cinema. And you don't know what you're getting into:

Do we understand that Hollywood could easily produce a similar movie to "Brokeback Mountain," only this time glorifying an incest relationship, or even an adult-child sexual relationship? Like "Brokeback," it too would serve to desensitize us to the immoral and destructive reality of what we're seeing, while fervently coaxing us into embracing that which we once rightly shunned.

All the filmmakers would need to do is skillfully make viewers experience the actors' powerful emotions of loneliness and emptiness – juxtaposed with feelings of joy and fulfillment when the two "lovers" are together – to bring us to a new level of "understanding" for any forbidden "love." Alongside this, of course, they would necessarily portray those opposed to this unorthodox "love" as Nazis or thugs. Thus, many of us would let go of our "old-fashioned" biblical ideas of morality in light of what seems like the more imminent and undeniable reality of human love in all its diverse forms.

...
Ultimately, propaganda works because it washes over us, overwhelming our senses, confusing us, upsetting or emotionalizing us, and thereby making us doubt what we once knew. Listen to what actor Jake Gyllenhaal, who plays Jack, told the reporter for Entertainment magazine about doing the "love" scenes with Heath Ledger:

"I was super uncomfortable … [but] what made me most courageous was that I realized I had to try to let go of that stereotype I had in my mind, that bit of homophobia, and try for a second to be vulnerable and sensitive. It was f---in' hard, man. I succeeded only for milliseconds."

Gyllenhaal thinks he was "super uncomfortable" while being filmed having simulated homosexual sex because of his own "homophobia." Could it be, rather, that his conflict resulted from putting himself in a position, having agreed to do the film, where he was required to violate his own conscience? As so often happens, he was tricked into pushing past invisible internal barriers – crossing a line he wasn't meant to cross. It's called seduction.

In fact, even co-star Jake Gyllenhall could not avoid this. He had no choice in the matter. He went queer.

Sorry Jake, you're going to hell.

This is how the "marketers of evil" work on all of us. They transform our attitudes by making us feel as though our "super uncomfortable" feelings toward embracing unnatural or corrupt behavior of whatever sort – a discomfort literally put into us by a loving God, for our protection – somehow represent ignorance or bigotry or weakness.

...
As I said at the outset, Hollywood has now raped the Marlboro Man. It has taken a revered symbol of America – the cowboy – with all the powerful emotions and associations that are rooted deep down in the pioneering American soul, and grafted onto it a self-destructive lifestyle it wants to force down Americans' throats. The result is a brazen propaganda vehicle designed to replace the reservations most Americans still have toward homosexuality with powerful feelings of sympathy, guilt over past "homophobia" – and ultimately the complete and utter acceptance of homosexuality as equivalent in every way to heterosexuality.

If and when that day comes, America will have totally abandoned its core biblical principles – as well as the Author of those principles. The radical secularists will have gotten their wish, and this nation – like the traditional cowboy characters corrupted in "Brokeback Mountain" – will have stumbled down a sad, self-destructive and ultimately disastrous road.

So there you have it.

Brokeback Mountain is indeed not about star-crossed-lovers, it is not about the overwhelming, confusing, terrifying possibility of a love so powerful that it disrupts everything you know about the world. It is not about a love between two people who, under every social circumstance and code, are prevented from engaging in their love. In Romeo & Juliet, this is possible. [I should point out that in R&J, both characters are way underage, and behaving completely recklessly. I suppose that's fine with Mr. K.]

But in the lesser-known Romeo & Tybalt... No go.

It's interesting that Mr. K then, in his essay "rapes" the Marlboro Man. He spent the entire intorduction of his essay essentially setting up the premise that the Marlboro Man himself "rapes" the Cowboy- that the pyschologically damning practice of advertisement infused the all-powerful masculine image of the cowboy with toxic smoke. The Marlboro Man is the image of toxicity. And suddenly, at the end, he is revered, victimized, lamented.

All because of some emotional gay sex.

But see, it's this one last thriving image- the Cowboy- the Free West, the struggle for Rugged Individuality. All of this has been suddenly, by Mr. K's estimate, turned Queer. And we all were suckers to it, too simple-minded to maintain our composure under great cinematic duress. And once we, the audience, let that imagery get lost, then all of our culture is condemned to distruction.

This, of course, is patently moronic. Our culture is doing just fine.

Mr. K discusses Ennis' neglect of his family- the shambles of his life, and how the film does not cover these topics. I'm not exactly sure what he's talking about. Ennis' life sucks. There is not one person in the film who escapes unscathed from the emotional decisions his character makes. All the devastation in the film comes from the environment of emotional isolation. Had Mr. K really watched the film, instead of looking for the gay-mind-beam, me might have noticed Alma's restricted life; and how she chooses to divorce him and build her family around a responsible, centered man. He might applaud her strength, her wish to build that "central family unit."

But what I'm saying is this: in the film, no action or choice exists without consequences for these characters. And that, in itself, is exactly what makes the film brilliant.

I guess Mr. K lost that. He was too busy wearing his tinfoil gay-beam protecting and munching his Jujubes, wanting desperately to get home to his computer so he could report to the world how close he came to being swallowed up by the propganda of the Evil Other Side, and how heroically he survived to tell the tale.

Pinkie Swear

Osama Bin Laden says he's gonna get us. But if we're nice, then he pinkie swears that he'll be nice too:

Al-Qaida is making preparations to attack the United States again but offering a truce “with fair conditions,” the terrorist group's leader, Osama bin Laden, purportedly says in an audiotape aired Thursday by Arab news network Al-Jazeera.

The tape’s release came days after a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan that was targeting bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, and reportedly killed four leading al-Qaida figures, including possibly al-Zawahri’s son-in-law. There was no mention of the attack on the segments that were broadcast.

It was the first purported tape from the al-Qaida leader in more than a year — the longest period without a message since the Sept. 11, 2001, suicide hijackings in the United States.

Al-Jazeera said the tape was made in December, and the speaker refers to an alleged comment by President Bush about bombing the Qatar headquarters of Al-Jazeera, which was first reported in the British press on Nov. 22.

He also refers indirectly to the July 7 bombings in London that killed 56 people and to poll numbers that showed a fall in Bush’s popularity, as occurred in late 2005.

The voice on the tape said he was directing his message to the American people after polls showed that “an overwhelming majority of you want the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq but (Bush) opposed that desire.”

So old UBL [The Fox News Version of "Osama"] wants a truce now, does he? Well. He doesn't know who he's messing with! We're the red, white, and frickin' BLUE! We don't truce with nobody!

The fact that we haven't heard from Osama Bin Laden for a year, and that the events that he supposedly refers to are slanted toward American political identity and apparently not toward any of his own followers really makes this tape seem, well, let's just say, "fishy." It's no secret that The Administration likes to stoke the flames of Osama-fear whenever favorability ratings get low, and Bushy did just dip below 40% again.

But to be honest, the media warfare that the US has to put up is complicated beyond simply propagandizing either the American electorate or the rural factions of our enemies. It's much more likely that the US would find a message like this highly desirable to have on the airwaves simply because it creates social message-confusion. The more confusing and contradictory messages that seep through on all sides of this war on terror, the better for the parties that are fighting it.

It's simply not likely that Bin Laden would concede to any kind of "truce." In fact, a truce with who- and how is it crafted? It's almost more difficult to imagine what kind of political mechinations would have to be in place for Bin Laden's so-called truce to even operate. Essentially, entire nations would have to mobilize in unison to bring extremist practitioners under one operative umbrella; and some negotiating party would have to be discovered- and who exactly do you think we're going to send to the mountainous region of Tora Bora? Jimmy Carter? Or to Indonesia, or to Mogadishu, or where ever Bin Laden really is, if he really is anywhere? Whoever we sent, you think their intention is to allow our negotiators to live? Do you think ours would be to let them live?

Not a chance.

And frankly, we all know that Al Qaeda has been itching to attack again. Anybody who doesn't think there's a plot or 10 out there to attack the US again is foolish.

It's not that I don't believe this tape is genuine. It's just that I don't believe the message. What I mean by that is this: if the tape is in fact genuine, then I don't believe the speaker. They have no intention of forging a truce alliance with us, and there's no point in even pretending that they do. But it's also advantageous for that tape to be a plant and psych-ops teams are shrewd enough to get this material out into the world. Hell, it can't be all that hard.

Al Jazeera should do an in-depth investigation into the sources of these tapes. They are known to appear in their mail bins without a return address, etc. But it'd be, of course, very interesting to discover who these things come from. I, honestly, have no speculation as to who that might be. But it's win-win either way: If they're coming from terrorists, we can track down the terrorists. If it's not- then hey, we know that too.

-----
Updated late at night:
Appended a post Here, with slightly different thoughts.

Conflict Assessment

And in Other News:

The highly regarded and admirable Human Rights Watch has released its 2006 assessment, including some valuable information which should be obvious, but apparently isn't, about the net-result from US santioned torture of detainees: that torturing the enemy inflames them and does more to raise awareness for terrorist recruiters than to deter new recruits. In other words- when we torture our enemy, more people hate us for it:

"In the course of 2005, it became indisputable that US mistreatment of detainees reflected not a failure of training, discipline or oversight, but a deliberate policy choice," Human Rights Watch said in a sweeping critique in its annual report. "The problem could not be reduced to a few bad apples at the bottom of the barrel."

The group said the US's detainee practices, along with the accusations that torture has possibly taken place at secret camps, had, together with what it said was a tendency of some Europeans to put business ahead of rights concerns, produced a "global leadership void" in defending human rights.

...Human Rights Watch suggested that a special counsel be named to investigate abuses, and that Congress establish an independent inquiry panel.

The group has long focused its reports on countries considered the world's most repressive, and its latest report lists abuses in countries including Nepal, Uzbekistan and Sudan.

But the report criticised the US because of its predominant role and its history of championing human rights abroad. "Any discussion of detainee abuse in 2005 must begin with the United States, not because it is the worst violator but because it is the most influential," the report said.

The prisoner abuse scandals of recent years have harmed US efforts to advocate democracy and to promote respect for rights abroad, the group said. "These human rights violations generate indignation and outrage that spur terrorist recruitment."

The organisation also criticised three insurgent groups in Iraq - al-Qaeda, Ansar al-Sunnah and the Islamic Army - for targeting civilians with car bombs and suicide bombers in mosques, markets and bus stations.

But The Administration was having none of it. And Scott McClellan came back with punches a-flyin:

The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said he rejected this description of the US.

"When a group like this makes some of these assertions, it diminishes the effectiveness of that organisation," he said. "It appears to be based more on a political agenda than facts.

"The United States does more than any country in the world to advance freedom and promote human rights."

Cute, Captain McClellan, very cute.

What is particularly amusing is when one assesses The Administration's stance that disagreeable reports "harm the organization's credibility" by seeking corroborating evidence to their stated missions.

Let me give you an example. On the same day that Human Rights Watch [an independent, international organization] released their 2006 assessment of the condition and cause of human rights, the US Federal foreign aid organization, USAid, which is a completely US-centric, governmental group, released theirs, concerning the state of Iraq:

An official assessment drawn up by the US foreign aid agency depicts the security situation in Iraq as dire, amounting to a "social breakdown" in which criminals have "almost free rein".

The "conflict assessment" is an attachment to an invitation to contractors to bid on a project rehabilitating Iraqi cities published earlier this month by the US Agency for International Development (USAid).

The picture it paints is not only darker than the optimistic accounts from the White House and the Pentagon, it also gives a more complex profile of the insurgency than the straightforward "rejectionists, Saddamists and terrorists" described by George Bush.

The USAid analysis talks of an "internecine conflict" involving religious, ethnic, criminal and tribal groups. "It is increasingly common for tribesmen to 'turn in' to the authorities enemies as insurgents - this as a form of tribal revenge," the paper says, casting doubt on the efficacy of counter-insurgent sweeps by coalition and Iraqi forces.

Meanwhile, foreign jihadist groups are growing in strength, the report said.

"External fighters and organisations such as al-Qaida and the Iraqi offshoot led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are gaining in number and notoriety as significant actors," USAid's assessment said. "Recruitment into the ranks of these organisations takes place throughout the Sunni Muslim world, with most suicide bombers coming from Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region."

The assessment conflicted sharply with recent Pentagon claims that Zarqawi's group was in "disarray".

The Administration's response?

I suppose we're still waiting for that.

Open to a Quiver

KANAB - After unanimously endorsing a conservative think tank's resolution supporting the "natural family," Kanab's City Council is coming under fire - naturally.

Gay-rights advocates and even some residents are scolding city leaders for embracing a nonbinding proposal that:

l Labels marriage between a man and a woman as "ordained of God."
l Sees homes as "open to a full quiver of children."
l Envisions young women "growing into wives, homemakers and mothers and . . . young men growing into husbands, home builders and fathers."

Valerie Larabee, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of Utah in Salt Lake City, finds such language archaic and offensive.

"It doesn't address what the landscape of the American family looks like today," she said Tuesday. She said the concept of family "has evolved in a lot of different ways, and it is sad when government discriminates against the rights of families."

Kanab waitress Marina Johnson, a single mother of three, agrees, arguing that the resolution stigmatizes those who fall outside its limiting language.

"It should not matter if a couple is gay or single or what their religious affiliation is or whether they believe in God," she said. "It is not right that [someone's partner] be denied medical benefits just because they are not married in the traditional way."

Instead, she says, "people should be allowed to do the right thing and take care of the people they love."

But Kanab Councilman Anthony Chatterley backs the measure "wholeheartedly."

"I support the values, hopes and goals stated in the resolution," he said. Kanab "is a strong, family-oriented community. It always has been, and we would like to see this continue."

Carol Sullivan voted for the resolution - pitched by the conservative Sutherland Institute - last week when it was introduced by Mayor Kim Lawson. But the council's sole woman did so with some reservations.

"I saw no reason to vote against it because it is nonbinding," she said, noting that no one spoke out against it. "But I did wonder why it should be a government issue."

Sullivan also sees some of the resolution's language as "chauvinistic."

"It kind of made me feel like the odd one out . . . the square peg in a round hole. But that's how it is when you're the only woman on an all-male council."

"Chauvinistic?" No, that language is downright ridiculous. And, though it's impossible to really judge Ms. Sullivan for her vote, which she registered according to her own perception and needs, she does say three things that are of use to examine: A) that she wondered why the government should be involved; B) that she was the only woman on the council, implying a certain pressure or relegation of her perception anyway; and C) that she, in the end, voted for the bill because it was "nonbinding." Just because a ridiculous law doesn't make something criminalized doesn't mean it has no negative effect on community members.

It's actually really bizarre- it's practically language pulled from Samuel Richardson's Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, published in 1740. As the subtitle might suggest, Pamela is something of a behavioral propaganda piece instructing teenaged girls of the lower class to preserve their virtue by withholding their sexual wares until a proposal- not just a proposal, but one with an adequate financial gain- from a suitor. It also carries the disturbing subplot instruction that you should fall in love with this suitor only after the proposal has been made, and certainly after he has molested you several times, attempted rape several times, bound you, kidnapped you, and kept you hidden from society in the attic of his country home. It is, in retrospect, a kind of premonitory tale of Stockholm's Syndrome.

Pamela was also wonderfully mocked, as all social engineering crapfests must be, by Henry Fielding, writer of the masterpiece Tom Jones, in his genious novella Shamela.

And, as Henry Fielding exposes all that is culturally corrupt about Shamela, wouldn't it be nice if, say, Hurricane, Utah adopted a mocking definition of the family unit?

Not likely to happen. Once, while staying in Hurricane with a group of 12 travelling Tibetan monks, I went to the local dairy-queen knock off in neighboring La Verkin for some snacks. Hurricane is a truly beautiful small town on the entrance to the stunning red-rock formations in Zion National Park- one of the most striking and underknown national parks in the country.

I ordered my strawberry shake and some deep fried mushrooms [which were fantastic]. While the 15 year old girl who took my order bossed around the 11 year old kid in the back preparing the frier, I read some of the fliers posted on the wall, to get a feel for local events, etc. One or two for the local high school's upcoming band fundraiser, one church social announcement, and about 10 for a local candidate for Washington county Sheriff. The Noble Candidate's entire platform relied on 2 points: he vowed to refuse jurisdiction to any county case to any federal agent, including FBI, CIA, NSA, Homeland Security, and most importantly, the ATF; and he vowed to make the county a "UN-Free Zone," whatever exactly that means.

No worries. Just waiting for my 'shrooms. The girl brings out my strawberry shake. The second she turned her back on the kitchen, the kid in back pulls out a Gameboy from his pocket. Blip, bloop- diddlywow!

The girl hears it and whips around: "What'd I tell you! Back to work, you rat!"

As she turns around so fast, a glint of light off metal catches my eye. She closes her fingers around the handle of an overly large handgun- a pistol stuck into the back of her jeans.

"I hate when I have to bring you to work!"

"Well, can I go home then?"

"NO!"

She turns to me. She hasn't smiled once. "Uhm. Can I get these things in a box or something?" I say, "You know. To go. Got... some monks I need to check on."

She glowers at me. Her hand is still behind her- I imagine her fingers too-sensually rubbing the grip, the handle. The kid just keeps playing Gameboy.

"Yah." She returns, shoves my mushrooms in a paper back with a plastic tub of ranch. "Take it easy."

"Thanks," I say. I shuffle out the door. On the way, thinking about this scene, I sneak into the box and grab one of those mushrooms. Damn. Damn that was a good fried mushroom.

True story.


So yeah. I doubt that Hurricane will be very excited about satirizing the city-level politics of neighbor-city Kanab any time soon. Guess that duty will be left up to us.