1) Although America seems now quite taken with the brave political protesters of Iran, until very recently, the country talked quite seriously about killing hundreds of thousands of them in a military invasion because they could, at some point, develop nuclear weapons, which they could then possibly use against the United States, although it wouldn’t make any sense for them to do so, and would guarantee retaliation from the United States in the form of nuclear hell. But I am very pleased that this popular uprising has inspired the news media to cover Iran like it was made up of actual people.

2) It’s a little frustrating that while the American public seems to be on the side of the protesters, there still seems to be a real disconnect. Americans seem to want the Iranian people to have what we Americans want, not what the Iranian people want for themselves. Americans have already decided that our brand of Free Election Democracy is what is best for all people everywhere, no matter what they may think they want (although they do, when not in this mode, acknowledge that the American political system is riddled with corruption, and doesn’t actually represent the will of its citizens). Thinking that you know what’s best for someone else, without pausing to think that maybe they know what’s best for themselves is part of this “American arrogance” we sometimes hear about. Not entirely our fault, we’re propagandized into thinking this since the time we are very young.

3) I’m really not sure what me and my fellow Americans should do if we truly want to help the Iranians. To be honest, I haven’t heard much in the way of Iranians asking for help. Clearly, all of the heavy work and sacrifice will have to be done in Iran by Iranians. Even worse, any public support by Americans can help the Iranian government to paint the protesters as Western puppets and claim that the whole movement is just another sneaky American regime change plot. I salute the folks who are providing telecommunications help (getting around censorship, etc.), but this may be a case where taking to the streets and marching outside in solidarity might do real harm.

4) Obviously, no one knows how this is going to turn out. At this point, it seems like either the government will crack down hard, and force an end to the protests through violence and fear. Or the schisms among political players and authority figures will grow wider, giving the protesters continued breathing room to keep the pressure on. But I don’t see this ending well for the protesters unless Supreme Leader Khamenei gets ousted, or his rivals (in the Iranian theological apparatus) become powerful enough to frighten him into calling for a new election.

5) Fun fact: did you know that the US is still occupying Iraq and Afganistan? If you watched the mainstream news, you might have forgotten.

Wrote an article about American torture on the Axis of Justice website here. Nothing groundbreaking, but I think it puts it all into a simple framework and slices up the torture apologists pretty well (figuratively speaking). If I thought my audience on that site had the interest/attention span, I would have made it much longer, more in-depth, and would’ve spent more time on Obama’s mounting complicity in the torture regime (or at least letting the criminals get off scott-free), and on the BushPlus Super Unconstitutional Powers he is giving himself. Clearly, President HopeChange’s real ideology is pragmatism. I’ve heard a few skeptical lefties say that maybe Obama is playing the long game, that he’s biding his time and advancing his schemes when prudent. And maaaybe that’s possible… But my guess is that if you want to see Obama unleash a wide array of progressive action, you’re going to need to get yourself and a few million of your closest friends to organize, put the pressure on, and make him do it.

About, damn, a year ago, I posted an article about an upcoming video game that might have some troubling, racist imagery. Actually, my article was about how depressing it was that hundreds of video game fans seemed completely unwilling or unable to see how any aspect of the game could possibly be seen as racist. One of the few valid points on their behalf was “the game’s not even out yet, everyone’s getting all upset about a trailer for the game. The game itself might be way different.

So, the game (Resident Evil 5) has been out for weeks now, and here’s an article by a guy who played the game and discusses the game’s depiction of race and ethnicity. Thorough and thoughtful. And only a little nerdy.

I was pretty energized by this video from a recent Bill Moyers Journal. It’s about how people in Boston are organizing with the support of an organization called City Life/Vida Urbana to fight against impending foreclosures and evictions of their homes.

I thought the video did a great job of showing people learning about their legal rights, working to help each other out, and fighting against the deceit of the banks that got them (and us) into this financial crisis in the first place. It’s good to see people saying “we won’t let you take our neighbor’s home” instead of just letting the corrupt lenders throw them out because they think they have no other choice.

The Bill Moyers page also has some good resource links for people who want to get involved, or who are in danger of losing their homes right now. Click for those.

Awesome.

4th-Grader Questions Rice on Waterboarding

In her first public appearance since leaving the White House, Condoleezza Rice had to defend herself from accusations of war crimes from a 9-year old. My hat goes off to you, young Misha Lerner.

Misha’s mother claimed that his original question was “If you would work for Obama’s administration, would you push for torture?”, but The Man made him tone it down to more of a “are the things that Obama is saying about your administration’s interrogation techniques hurting your feelings?” type thing.

Cue right-wing nutjobs blaming the whole thing on his liberal terrorist parents, and sending the boy death threats at school in 3… 2… 1…

Best headline I’ve read in a while:

U.S. defense chief: Military strike won’t halt Iran nuke program

Implies that the US is not going to invade Iran during the Obama administration. Of course, then he goes on to talk about sanctions, which can do just as much damage. Damn, I went and made myself sad.

From Matt Taibbi:

The reason the [right-]winger crowd can’t find a way to be coherently angry right now is because this country has no healthy avenues for genuine populist outrage. It never has. The setup always goes the other way: when the excesses of business interests and their political proteges in Washington leave the regular guy broke and screwed, the response is always for the lower and middle classes to split down the middle and find reasons to get pissed off not at their greedy bosses but at each other…

But actual rich people can’t ever be the target. It’s a classic peasant mentality: going into fits of groveling and bowing whenever the master’s carriage rides by, then fuming against the Turks in Crimea or the Jews in the Pale or whoever after spending fifteen hard hours in the fields. You know you’re a peasant when you worship the very people who are right now, this minute, conning you and taking your shit. Whatever the master does, you’re on board. When you get frisky, he sticks a big cross in the middle of your village, and you spend the rest of your life praying to it with big googly eyes. Or he puts out newspapers full of innuendo about this or that faraway group and you immediately salute and rush off to join the hate squad. A good peasant is loyal, simpleminded, and full of misdirected anger. And that’s what we’ve got now, a lot of misdirected anger searching around for a non-target to mis-punish… can’t be mad at AIG, can’t be mad at Citi or Goldman Sachs. The real villains have to be the anti-AIG protesters! After all, those people earned those bonuses! If ever there was a textbook case of peasant thinking, it’s struggling middle-class Americans burned up in defense of taxpayer-funded bonuses to millionaires.

Sometimes a blogger’s most powerful work can be found in their comments section instead of their post. In an already interesting post by Amanda Marcotte about psychology and American eating habits, the comment threads turns to feminist angles on the subject, in which Marcotte knocks this one out of the park:

Treating women like they are their bodies is the purest form of objectification. It’s why women are judged primarily by their weight and the number of penises that have touched them instead of things like what they think and what they do. It’s why so many people find contraception and abortion repulsive, because they indicate that a woman is control of her body, and not just a passive piece of flesh. It’s why female pleasure is considered suspect—because it reminds people that there’s a subjective being inside that flesh, one who experiences what her body does, one who controls it. We prefer to equate a woman with her body.

Feeling that your body belongs to you is a male privilege, and I fully intend to claim it.

What happens if I click on this
repeatedly?

Awesome.

Imagine there’s this guy you know, who totally wronged you and messed up part of your life. Did some real damage. It was a long time ago, you survived and have moved on. You haven’t talked to the guy in years, but he unsubtly calls you names to other people behind your back, says lots of terrible things about you. Also tells people how badly he’ll “fuck you up” one of these days.

Then, all of a sudden, he approaches you in a rational way, says he wants things to be right between you. He’s not offering apologies or wanting to make up for his past actions, but he seems to want peace between you going into the future.

Part of you thinks that this is a wonderful development, having this terrible weight lifted. And part of you is deeply cynical; he’s magically changing his ways overnight? Your response, then, is to take sort of a “wait and see” attitude. Words are words. You’re open to this reconciliation, but you’ll believe it when his actions start backing it up.

Of course, this is yet another of my attempted international relations analogies, regarding Obama’s recent video statement to Iran. It’s the first act of US diplomacy in Iraq in several decades*. And to my surprise, it uses the exact phrase I’ve heard from every savvy Middle Eastern scholar, journalist, or intelligence analyst about Iran: “mutual respect.” The Iranian experts I’ve heard all say that Iran wants the US to deal with it as an equal, not as a disobedient child. They want to negotiate differences between the two states on terms of “mutual respect” (of course, the fact that Obama promises “mutual respect” one week after renewing economic sanctions on Iran does weaken things a bit).

So finally, this seems like a reasonable foreign policy, “hey, let’s try to talk things out instead of massacre each other”. But already, the conservatives have their “appeasement” knives sharpened. “Our enemy is Evil! We cannot talk to Evil! This is just as bad as England giving the Sudetenland to the Nazis in the 1930s.” I’ve noticed their angry/snarky/gleeful pronouncements that Iran’s response has been “lukewarm” to Obama’s groundbreaking move. Which again, looking at my anaolgy above, is a pretty fucking reasonable response. The US overthrew the Iranian government in the 1950s and supported their dictator until almost the 1980s. Less than a decade ago, the US president called them part of an “Axis of Evil” (after, history has now forgotten, Iran actually tried to help the US fight Al Qaeda shortly after 9/11), and when Iran, presumably frightened by the US show of power in Iraq, secretly offered open negotiations with the United States, Dick Cheney essentially told them to fuck off.

So Iran’s not dancing in the streets just because Barack Obama spent three minutes in front of a video camera and hit the right rhetorical notes. Which both infuriates and pleases the war-monger neocon crowd. The fact that these “inferior” people from a “lesser” nation aren’t falling down to kiss our feet because we deigned to talk to them is as offensive as if they were rubbing fresh shit on Grandmother’s wedding dress. But with this new offense, they have one more ball of muck to hurl at Obama as they try to heave him off his pedestal, so that does put a spring in their vicious step.

I truly hope that this is the beginning of some sort of talks and settlement between the US and Iran. As the Iraq war and economic collapse have show, the US simply does not have the force, power, or money to push everyone else around anymore. It would be nice of the US government didn’t continue to use bombs and terror in their continued efforts to deny reality (even if history shows that this is far, far too much to hope for).

—
*well, unless you count secretly selling the Iranians weapons in exchange for hostages “diplomacy”.

(okay, the obvious pun title for this was something like “Hypocritic Oath”. But I didn’t go there, see? Everyone pat my back)

Apparently, when some Americans see shitty doctors, they complain to their friends and neighbors. Sometimes they are so upset about the way their doctor behaved, or the lack of medical help they received, they go to websites that rate doctors and give the offender poor ratings. What are these poor, beleagured doctors to do, when faced with the consequences of their own actions?

Docs seek gag orders to stop patients’ reviews

Yes, some docs are responding by refusing to treat people until they’ve signed an agreement not to post negative things about said doctor on the internet. “What’s that? You’ve felt like shit for weeks, finally were able to schedule an appointment with my office, and took a day off from work that you can’t really afford to come see me? Sign this form or I won’t even point a stethoscope in your direction, asshole.”

There is one tiny bit of validity to the doctor’s concerns: people are usually more passionate about complaining than about praise. So Dr. X is more likely to get criticized on a doctor rating site than praised, and that could be hurtful to his ego and business. But thems the breaks, Dr. X! You do stuff, people will react to that stuff, and you’ve got to deal with it.

The worst thing about this to me, is the treatment of human health like a commodity and medical care as a contract. Sure, says Capitalism, if you don’t want to sign the waiver, find another doctor. But you go to the doctor when you’re sick. It’s not like the imaginary free market, where competitors are fiercely battling to sell you the greatest product at the lowest price. You often don’t have the time to browse, research, haggle, etc., cuz you’re fucking ill!

Thankfully, this does not seem to be common, yet. Out of a nation of zillions of doctors, it seems that only 2000 (”only”?) are using this service (provided by the complete pricks at “Medical Justice, Inc.”). And I am also very pleased to read that one of the offending websites, RateMDs.com, has started a “wall of shame” page, to list doctors who are using these “gag contracts”. It also looks like the issue is starting to get a little traction in the media, so hooray for that.

In conclusion, don’t get sick. Ever.

“My wallet doesn’t care about bipartisanship– it cares about having motherfucking MONEY IN IT.”

-Get Your War On guy

In related news, the comic that helped me keep sane post-9/11, Get Your War On, closed its doors (panels?) on Inauguration Day. Let’s all raise our clip art champagne glasses for a toast.

Guess it’s time to retire one of my alternative LMB logos.

(yeah, I pretty much stole it from Shepard Fairey, but how could I resist?)

What can I say about Bush that I haven’t said here in fury, disgust or tears many, many times over the past eight years? Iraq, Afghanistan, and Katrina are just the most memorable of his murderous, global fuck-ups. The idiot who thinks he’s the wise man, the puppet who thinks he’s running the show, the horror-movie slasher who thinks he’s the valiant hero. And it’s unlikely that he, or any of his cronies/enablers will ever face a moment’s justice or lose a lick of sleep over what they’ve done.

So I am thankful as a motherfucker that the Bush administration is out of office starting tomorrow. Some of them will return to positions of power, and we’ll need to watch our asses for that. But many of them will leave for pointless lives of comfort as college professors, corporate board members, consultants, and professional speakers.

But I fear that too many people, across the nation and world, have projected their deepest hopes onto Obama. People see in him what they want to see, think that he believes in all the same things they do, and think that his agenda for the nation mirrors their own. And while I’d love to believe that Barack Obama will do all sorts of wonderful, positive things, I can’t help but remember the similar excitement, hope and belief in “change” that came with the inauguration of Bill Clinton. The Bill Clinton who bombed Iraq, Somalia, and Kosovo, cut welfare, instituted Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, signed the Defense of Marriage Act, maintained the harsh sanctions against Iraq that may have killed half a million Iraqi children, and championed NAFTA and the WTO. I can’t help but notice that Barack Obama has stocked his cabinet with many of the same faces we saw during the Clinton administration, and I can’t help but be fairly cynical.

Suffice it to say (for now) that I suspect that Obama will maintain many of the long-term “America first” and “corporations first” policies that make the world hate our citizens and grind our citizens into defeated, obese poverty, and that if we want to see anything positive come out of the Obama administration, whether he’s a saint or a charlatan, we will have to force him to do so via massive popular pressure.

More soon.

Israel Declares Victory in Gaza

Hamas Declares Victory in Gaza

So let’s say I have a man chained up in my basement. Had him there for many months. Then, one day I come down to the basement to give him his daily gruel ration, and out of nowhere, he comes at me with a broken bottle. Do I have a right to defend myself?

Of course I do, I’m a human being, and I always have a right to defend myself.

But, at the same time, I shouldn’t be fucking imprisoning people against their will in my basement dungeon.

I’ve seen a lot written already about Israel’s invasion of Gaza, nearly all of it from the pro-Israeli point of view. Many supporters are immediately aggressive, declaring Israel’s “right to defend itself”, and demanding that you put yourself in the shoes of an Israeli who is being attacked by Hamas rockets. What’s astounding is that those same people seem utterly incapable of putting themselves in the shoes of a Palestinian who’s lived his whole life under Israeli occupation, has spent the year starving under Israeli’s harsh economic sanctions, and is currently cowering from Israeli bombs. This isn’t even about right and wrong, or picking sides; if you want to actually understand the situation, you should strive to see it from all points of view.

And that’s where my previous not-particularly-good analogy comes up. Most news reports I’ve seen about the Israeli invasion would skip the whole “man keeping other man chained and imprisoned” part of my story and jump straight to the “disheveled maniac surprises and attacks homeowner” part. Which I think you’d agree, leaves out a bit of relevant background.

Of course, Hamas and other Palestinian militants are not white knights, and Israel is not the bogeyman. There’s enough blood between them to give everyone’s hands a good coat. And in everyone’s defense, the vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians want a peacefully-negotiated two-state solution to their long years of strife. But in the end, the Israeli occupation of Palestine is clearly, clearly wrong to anyone who cares to look into it. For years, people have been calling Gaza “the world’s largest outdoor prison”. Columnist Eric Margolis now calls the Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel “a prison riot, writ large”. No, it’s not “right” to shoot at innocent civilians. But what would you do? If you were the man in my basement, what would you be willing to do to get free?

I also have to point out some of the cynical politics going on here. I believe that Israel launched this attack now because they felt that they had to do so before their supporter George W. Bush left office (although I have yet to see any evidence that Barack Obama will be anything less of a backer than American leaders past). I also believe that part of the timing of this attack is due to upcoming elections within Israel; the current leadership wants to look strong to the voters, and wash the taste of their horriffic and humiliating 2006 war with Hezbollah from everyone’s palates.

And finally, I have to point out that the US blocked a UN resolution calling for a cease-fire between the Israelis and Palestinians during this new war. And the US gives about $3 billion a year to Israel. And Israel uses large chunks of that money to buy weapons from the US. Which it then uses to continue the occupation of Palestine.

Why do they hate us again?

Apparently right-wing blog-o-nut Michelle Malkin is trying to spin her own “war on [holiday]” franchise (given the massive success of the Fox Corps’ “war on Xmas”), trying to stir up her masses about the way that liberal elites want to make everyone feel guilty for the things they love. I bring you the War on Thanksgiving! It’s tiresome stuff, cherry-picking Thanksgiving news items that conservative folks will choose to see as ridiculous examples of PC run amok.

To be fair, there is much more cultural conflict regarding Thanksgiving than there is for Christmas. The “war on Christmas” stuff was always bullshit, manufactured indignation that department store chains would say “happy holidays” instead of “merry Christmas”, as though people actually celebrated several different holidays during this time period (the bastards!). But Thanksgiving does raise the specter of several centuries of horrible/duplicitious/genocidal relations between white settlers and Native Americans. And as most modern Americans behave as though Native Americans have ceased to exist, bringing up the ghastly actions that led to the state of our current nation, can seem like nothing but an exercise in pointless guilt tripping.

But let me know re-re-repost my traditional Thanksgiving history info (based upon this article from Lip Magazine). Apparently I’ve been warring on Thanksgiving for some years now.

1621- “The First Thanksgiving”
November 1777- The Continental Congress declares a day of Thanksgiving to thank God for an American military victory over a powerful British general.
July 1861- Confederate Congress declares a day of Thanksgiving to thank God for their victory over the Union in the First Battle of Bull Run
April 1862- President Lincoln declares day of Thanksgiving to thank God for the Union victory over the Confederacy at Shiloh
September 1862- Confederate Congress declares a day of Thanksgiving to thank God for their victory over the Union in the Second Battle of Bull Run
August 1863- President Lincoln declares day of Thanksgiving to thank God for the Union victory over the Confederacy at Gettysburg
December 1865- President Johnson establishes a national Thanksgiving holiday to celebrate the Union victory in the Civil War
October 1931- President Hoover becomes the first president to actually make a rhetorical connection between the national holiday of Thanksgiving and the pilgrims

In other words, Thanksgiving was first the “thanks, Indians, for helping us colonists survive in your harsh New World” feast. Then, for around 240 years, Thanksgiving was a string of unrelated “thank you, God, for letting us slaughter the people who disagreed with us” days. Then for another 60+ years, it was the “thanks, God, for letting the North beat the South in the Civil War” holiday. And now, for the past 70, it’s been the Indian & Pilgrim thing again. Well, the Pilgrim thing coupled with pleasant/unpleasant family reunions and the baking of turkeys, pies and casseroles.

On top of that, a post on the Hullabaloo blog by “poputonian” from a few years back argued the 1621 “first Thanksgiving” in New England was preceded by a group of Spanish settlers who had a feast to thank god near what today is El Paso, Texas, in the year 1598. The event seems completely unconnected to the Puritans’ Thanksgiving, or to the known evolution of the holiday myth, but it seems worth mentioning just the same. If poputonian is right, then the “first Thanksgiving” may have been a Spanish affair several decades before the one that we have come to know.

So I guess I have several points here:

- “tradition” is not tradition (although it’s pretty easy to rile people up if you pretend that “tradition” is being challenged).
- holidays are not static traditions that are handed down over the centuries, they evolve and are sometimes intentionally shaped by people with goals and agendas.
- people tend to “give thanks” in celebrations like this due to a combination of survival, religion, and victory.
- the American “creation myth” of Thanksgiving has happy proto-Americans at peace with their Indian neighbors is pretty galling, what with the bigotry and genocide, and ongoing invisibility of Indians today.

LMB Radio 11-13-08

- I’ll try to do this show weekly– unless I have nothing worth saying
- I talk about Prop 8 and try to comprehend the anti-gay mindset
- Obama = Clinton II?
- Joe Scarborough is a dickhead (but you already knew that, or are thinking “Joe who?”)
- song by P.O.S.

A number of conservative bloggers and RNC operatives have started a new website to figure out how to rebuild the Republican party after it’s decisive defeat in the 08 election. The site is, not surprisingly, RebuildTheParty.com. The most excellent part of the site is Ideas.RebuildTheParty.com. On this page, anyone who registers with the site can propose solutions, or vote on solutions submitted by other users.

So far, some of my favorite suggestions include:

- Give all Red Blooded Americans a pair of Truck Nuts for their F150’s!
- scratch backwards B into own face
- be more gay
- eat shit and die

The best part is that anybody can propose “solutions” and post them on this site.

I think you know what to do.

I’m going to go ahead and call the election for Obama at 11:37am PST.

Eh, who cares if I’m wrong, I’m just a blogger.

I actually recorded a short podcast this morning, but it was so scattershot and disorganized that I decided not to waste you guys’ time by uploading it and encouraging you to listen. I’ll put together something better post-election.

Speaking of the election, I’d say that Californians should get out there and vote against Prop 8. That’s the one that says that gay people aren’t really human, and therefore don’t deserve the right to get married that real humans do. That’s not actually written anywhere in the text of the bill, but that’s the ugly, unspoken core of it. If you’re against the dehumanization of your fellow man, this is a bill you want fucking killed. And sadly, the polls say that this one will be very close, thanks to the dark forces of Jesus.

As for the rest of it, y’all know that things are going to be grim in the future, no matter which guy is elected president. You can’t expect to be saved by the government, corporate America, the media, technology, “hope” or “change”. All we’ve really got is each other, and we’re a mixed bag at best. Many of us are going to have to lean on each other hard just to get through the coming months and years, so let’s do our best to take care of each other.

LMB Radio 10-19-08

I’m actually going to try to do a short show every week now. We’ll see how that goes. My track record these past few years have been… not good.

Mostly me talking about Campaign 2008 and American electoral politics in general. It’s one big culture war, basically. Also, one song by the new Zack de le Rocha project, “One Day as a Lion”.

I have this great idea for an anti-McCain “ad”, but I have no time and no video editting equipment to make it. If anyone’s interested, drop me a line and I’ll spill.

I do love the Bush economic bailout plan. “We’re gonna take $700 billion and give it to this guy. He’s real smart. He’ll fix it.”

That is really, really, really not a plan. A plan has a “and then we’re gonna to this” and a “and next we’ll do this”, and sometimes a “and if that part doesn’t work, then we’ll do this other thing instead.” A plan involves planning, with beginnings and middles and ends. “We’re gonna give this guy $700 billion” is missing quite a few steps.

Well, okay, the Bush plan does have a Step 2: “then the smart guy will buy a bunch of the bad companies.” Funny story there, though. That Smart Guy? Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson? He used to run Goldman Sachs. Y’know, one of those big investment banks that’s about to tumble through the floorboards. He’s the guy who’s supposed to save us.

So yeah, we’re all pretty fucked.

A friend of mine pointed out this Bush quote to me yesterday:

I’m a strong believer in free enterprise, so my natural instinct is to oppose government intervention. I believe companies that make bad decisions should be allowed to go out of business.

Under normal circumstances, I would have followed this course. But these are not normal circumstances. The market is not functioning properly

No, the market is working exactly as it should. “Free enterprise” doesn’t mean “things always go great”. Under free market capitalism, sometimes the economy tanks. Which is brutal, but we don’t even live under capitalism in this country. We live in some sort of crazy, rigged, old boys’ plutocracy, where the hyper-rich are guaranteed diamond-studded bandaids for their tiniest papercuts, the middle class are dangling over their threadbare safety net, and the poor can fuck off and die.