I sent a letter asking
Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) to run for President in 2008 (he's the senator who gave the
excellent speech about warrantless wiretapping). I wonder what sort of response letter I will get. I hope he's thinking of that sort of strategy already (some of his recent moves have put him in the spotlight, which may be an early play for position). He'd be much better than
Senator Hilary Clinton (D-NY) whom the press has been touting as the most likely Democratic candidate at this far out date.
I leave for
Mashup Camp Sunday morning. It should be fun and I expect to learn a bunch of stuff. I'll need a ride back from the Airport on Wednesday at about 1800. I would be interested in going out to dinner while in Albuquerque that evening. I'm going to cross-post this section to
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socorro_carpool.
A really interesting interview with Jennifer S. Granick, Executive Director of the Center for Internet and Society.
http://www.mondoglobo.net/?p=162"Fair use has a posse, but our posse needs some cash."
Patriot Search:
http://blog.outer-court.com/patriot/Today I finished the book I'd been reading:
War Made Easy: How Presidents And Pundits Keep Spinning Us To Death by Norman Solomon. Overall it was good, though a few sections seemed a bit lighter than they should have been. The book was "left-leaning" in that its message was "The government and media are continually lying to us and we need to do something about it," but all of his arguments were well documented and generally showing objective journalism. He didn't go into any plans for doing something about it though. Here are some quotes I found interesting:
For us the war is a nuisance. For them the war is a matter of life-and-death. They are prepared to die for their country. We are prepared to die for our country too--if it were attacked--but not for the mere pleasure of destroying theirs. This is why they have the advantage of morale.... ...self-deception has been the characteristic of our leadership in this war from its beginning.
--I.F. Stone Polemics and Prophecies (1972)
If you walk through life needing everybody to love you, you will never do anything.
--Eartha Kitt quoted in New York Times, May 13, 1983
If I.F. Stone were alive today, he would no doubt be subjected to epithets such as "self-hating Jew" and "anti-Semite." Instead of trying to refute critiques of Washington-backed Israeli policies, it's much easier to equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism--a timeworn way of short-circuiting real debate on issues by claiming that bigotry is behind calls for adherence to basic standards of human rights. The ongoing threat of the "anti-Semitic" label helps to prevent U.S. media coverage from getting out of hand. There's no doubt that journalists understand critical words about Israel to be hazardous to careers. "Our gutlessness, our refusal to tell the truth, our fear of being slandered as 'anti-Semites'--the most loathsome of libels against any journalist--means that we are aiding and abetting terrible deeds in the Middle East," longtime foreign correspondent Robert Fisk wrote in the Independent (April 17, 2001). While anti-Semitism is a reality in the world--and, like all forms of racial, ethnic, and religious bigotry, should be unequivocally opposed--the effectiveness of such opposition is undermined by those who cry wolf, using charges of anti-Semitism as a weapon in a propaganda arsenal to defend Israel's Policies.
--Norman Solomon from War Made Easy.
To boosters of U.S. military intervention, the United States will triumph if only it is willing to show enough resolve. But the U.S. government's problems in Iraq after the invasion, as in Vietnam, were far from extrinsic to the basic realities--and the actual merits--of the war itself. The eagerness of so many supposed beneficiaries of American intervention to eject the occupiers was pivotal, not coincidental; it corresponded to the weakness of the U.S. warmakers' position in multiple, concentric ways. The spiraling problems encountered by the outsiders--whether manifested as military adversity or hostile propaganda in the occupied country--revolved around an absence of legitimacy. At the core of the war's long term lack of viability (or "winnability") was the hollowness of Washington's claims, not the least of which were the pretensions of benevolence and zeal to foster a new democratic government for the benighted land. In short, good puppets were hard to find--and local people were so difficult to train as reliable military proxies to lift the burdens of the stymied U.S. troops--because the entire war project rested on a collapsible platform of falsehoods.
--Norman Solomon from War Made Easy.
Why, of course, the people don't want war.... But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.... [V]oice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they arte being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
--Hermann Goering, in a statement made to G.M. Gilbert, a psychologist who interviewed him in prison during the Nuremburg war-crimes tribunal, April 18, 1946
When a country--particularly a democracy--goes to war, the tacit consent of the governed lubricates the machinery. Silence is a key form of cooperation, but the warmaking system does not insist on quietude or agreement. Mere self-restraint will suffice.
--Norman Solomon from War Made Easy.
There remains a kind of spectator relationship to military actions being implemented in our names. We're apt to crave the insulation that news outlets offer. We tell ourselves that our personal lives are difficult enough without getting too upset about world events. And the conventional war wisdom of American political life has made it predictable that most journalists and politicians cannot resist accommodating themselves to expediency by the time they first missiles are fired. Conformist behavior--in sharp contrast to authentic conscience--is notably plastic.
"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices," Voltaire wrote. The quotation is sometimes rendered with different wording: "As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities."
Either way, a quarter of a millennium later, Voltaire's statement is all too relevant to this moment. As an astute cliche says, truth is the first casualty of war. But another early casualty is conscience.
When the huge news outlets swing behind warfare, the dissent propelled by conscience is not deemed to be very newsworthy. The mass media are filled with bright lights and sizzle, with high production values and lower human values, boosting the war effort. And for many Americans, the gap between what they believe and what's on their TV sets is the distance between their truer selves and their fearful passivity.
Conscience is not on the military's radar screen, and it's not on our television screen. But government officials and media messages do not define the limits and possibilities of conscience. We do.
--Norman Solomon from War Made Easy.
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