Kent State - 35 years ago today

Photo by John Filo, May 4, 1970

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio
(Neil Young; Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young)

One soldier

A photograph posted at the Democratic Underground website.
". . . he observed mutilation of the dead, trophy photos of dead Iraqis, mass roundups of innocent noncombatants, positioning of prisoners in the line of fire—all violations of the Geneva conventions. His own buddies — decent, Christian men, as he describes them — shot unarmed prisoners." From an interview with an Army reservist posted at the Online Journal website.

Do it in the name of Heaven, you can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing, come the judgement day.
On the bloody morning after, one Tin Soldier rides away.

Strange days indeed

Does anyone agree with me that we've seen some seriously creepy stuff lately?
George Bush and the bald man fetish.
Rush Limbaugh and 'Abu Ghraib Day' -- "The Democrats, that is who we need to get presents for. One thing, have you thought about handcuffs? . . . A whip. You know, to go along with the handcuffs . . . you might give them a little pyramid game, something that is in the shape of a pyramid . . . Jumper cables. A pair of jumper cables . . . Give them a German shepherd . . . Obviously, at the top of the gift list has to be women’s underwear . . . remember all of the pictures of Abu Ghraib prisoners with bags on their heads, with eye holes cut out. Give them some of those. Those are cheap. Go to the grocery store, get groceries, then give them the empty bags with the eye holes cut out . . . Then, of course, there is a leash. A leash can be found at any pet store and it goes along with the German Shepherd that you are going to give away to a democrat here as they celebrate the one year anniversary of Abu Ghraib Day . . . We forgot, a water board would be a great gift. For some libs, if you could find a naked Iraqi inflatable insurgent doll that would be a thrill . . . "
Laura Bush and George's most memorable hand job: ". . . Laura had jabbed at her husband for not reading books, had suggested he was no powerhouse in bed, and had encouraged everyone in the room . . . to envision George W. Bush pulling on the penis of a horse. . ."
Pat Robertson and how judges are a worse threat than AlQaeda because the US has "controlled" AlQaeda but so-called liberal judges "are destroying the fabric that holds our nation together".

This explains it

So this is why the Bush administration was in such a panic to confirm the Bolton nomination -- ABC News: Global Nuclear Meeting Opens
I suspect Bolton was supposed to make a big splash at this conference.
The US delegation told the conference that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is "facing the most serious challenge in its [35-year] history. We must confront the challenge". But the fearmongering didn't generate the coverage in the US media which Bolton's first appearance leading the US delegation at a major UN conference would have garnered.
Now logically, one might assume that the US is talking about Pakistan, whose top nuclear scientist sold nuclear technology to rogue states.
Or about how Israel, India and Pakistan need to be brought onside with the treaty.
Or about the danger posed by the old Russian nukes and the risk that they will be sold to terrorist groups or nations.
Or about North Korea, which was the first country ever to pull out of the treaty two years ago and now says it has already built nuclear weapons.
Nope, none of the above.
It's Iran of course. Ooooohhh!
The buildup to declaring war on Iran has started, kicking off with the attempt to bully the UN into demonizing Iran instead of continuing to try to negotiate. So the theoretical danger of Iran must be inflated, while the incidents and issues listed above are minimized. So much for world leadership.

Don't get your tits In a wringer

Women beware: Can you trust your mammogram? Thousands of women across Canada are screened on equipment of questionable quality
This kind of health scare story really annoys me -- the story is NOT about the trustworthiness of the mammograms or the quality of the machines, in spite of the subhed. Its actually about whether or not mammogram machines have been accredited by the Canadian Association of Radiologists.
The article does not list any missed diagnoses or false positives, even by the radiologists who are complaining. There is not a single oncologist who is quoted as blaming a poor mammogram for a missed diagnosis -- in fact, there aren't any interviews with oncologists at all. Instead, the article includes a lot of complaints from mammogram clinic operators about how the accreditation process is unnecessarily costly, difficult, and inflexible.
What concerns me is this: a mammogram is one of the most unpleasant medical procedures that women undergo -- plainly, it hurts, and the test requires that the pain be repeated at least four to six times, and while the pain is brief, its is pretty intense (men, think of the first burst of pain you experience when kicked in the balls, and you'll be about right) Women will seize on just about any excuse to avoid this test, so even the possibility that the equipment might be defective and therefore the test useless might be enough to convince some women not to bother. But the story doesn't identify any machines anywhere in the country as actually defective at all -- some may be, of course, but the article doesn't give us any clue about this.
Its hardly the kind of health panic story which justifies front page treatment in the Globe and Mail -- unless its the Saturday edition of a slow Canadian news week, and you want a lot of women who are out shopping to see the big, black headline and buy the paper.

They're coming now for the teenage girls . . .

It's starting.
Remember the German anecdote about how first they came for the communists and then they came for the Jews etc, etc, and then they came for me?
Well, first, the Christian Right came for the gays. They spent four years racheting up the attacks, and now have established the anti-gay hatefest as the mainstream, conventional view in American culture.
Next, they're starting on the teenage girls. And they're obsessed with sex, again. I wonder if maybe they are thinking - or hoping, in a secret wishful-thinking wetdream kind of way - that all teenage girls are really just lusting to emulate the Britney Spears baby-Lolita act and only the Christian right can stop them
This week the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act was approved in the House of Representatives. And the Republicans were incensed that Democrats would even try to amend the bill. Not only does the bill violate a Supreme Court ruling that requires such laws to include alternatives, it also actually endangers teenagers who are impregnated by incest.
But danger to teenage girls is not a concern of the Christian right. They also don't want teenage girls to be vaccinated against the human papilloma virus, which causes cervical cancer. Why? Because the Christian right is thinking, in a secret wishful-thinking wetdream way, that then these young girls might think the vaccination is a license to have sex. And better they should continue to risk dying than that they should think that having premarital sex is OK.
And certainly they should never be permitted to chose abortion on their own, even if they are so young that a pregnancy is a serious health risk. A 13-year-old foster child and frequent runaway was prevented this week from terminating her pregnancy when the Florida Department of Children and Families took her to court -- the very agency which is supposed to be protecting her. In court, a witness from the DCF was babbling about her risk of "post-abortion syndrome", but then had to admit that this so-called condition isn't recognized by the AMA or the APA. The case may well turn into another Schiavo media storm, too. Newsweek writes "The clash raises the prospect of another showdown between Florida state agencies and the judiciary. And yet again, a vulnerable individual lies powerlessly in the middle."
And who will be next? Should we have a pool?
High school science teachers aren't much of a target anymore because they have already mostly given up on teaching evolution whether its still in their textbooks or not. So maybe the next devils will be all those librull college perfessers.
Or how about immigrants -- the Minutemen are going after Mexicans in particular, but why be chosey, just go after them all!
Or how about a group which no one has thought of targeting since the Reagan administration. I'm talking about those lower-middle class people who live in cities (and who often vote Democrat -- there are the places where most of the vote suppression occurred in the last election.) They're already been marginalized as their factory jobs disappeared, their streets deteriorated, they lost their health care benefits, and their schools turned into dumps. But this is the group whose children are needed in the military, so if they can be demonized than a draft aimed at them could be brought in with much less uproar. Just a thought.

War crimes

Remember how the Pentagon was able to contract out the torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib by saying how "private contractors" couldn't be charged with any military crimes?
Well, now the news is starting to come out about the other crimes these contractors were committing -- embezzelment, fraud and murder. U.S. contracting firm accused of bilking millions and running wild in Iraq The "running wild" part in the headline makes it sound like they were just having loud parties; actually, they were killing people for the fun of it.
I blogged about this a year ago, when I said "various news reports over the last couple of months indicate that mercenaries from all over the world are also flooding into Iraq as well, to act as "security" for all of the private contractors there. Its a new gold rush for thugs of all kinds . . ."
Can you imagine how Iraq has suffered under these yahoos? And can you imagine the depth of anger and disgust they feel toward the American occupation which inflicted these people on their country?

I heart blogs

One of the greatest things about blogs is how easy it is now to keep up with my own personal breaking news. No, I don't mean CNN's red banners -- I'm talking about the stuff that is important to me, the latest news about stories I am interested in. This changes week to week, of course, but lately these are the blogs I check frequently, usually daily:
To keep up with the Arar case I rely on POGGE, and for general Canadian news, Blagh and Gazetteer.
For the latest on the progress of the Bolton nomination I check Steve Clemons' Washington Note
For the latest on Iraq, Antiwar.com is comprehensive -- this site is usually updated by mid-evening each day. And for indepth on Iraq politics, Juan Cole.
For the latest on the Microsoft anti-gay policy switch, I use AMERICAblog
For the most recent news about the republican attempt to end social security: Talking Points Memo
To keep up to date on hate crimes and militias and racist organizations, I use Orcinus.
For general all-round great commentary, the choices are legion -- Frog, Liberal Oasis, Eschaton, Kos, Hullabaloo, Billmon, Blogging of the President, Gilliard, All Spin, Seeing the Forest . . .

Good, bad, ugly

Good:
Liberals strenghten in Ontario.
Bad:

By Brian Gable of the Globe and Mail

Ugly:

The so-called "last helicopter" out of Vietnam.

Just one damn thing after another

Pete's comment in my Gore post speculates on another historical accident -- the near-election of Henry Clay as President in 1844, instead of James Polk, meaning there would likely have been no Mexican American war, possibly no Civil War, etc etc.
This brings up the whole fascinating discussion of Alternative History. Someone once described history as "just one damn thing after another". Once we all get over the childish belief that god or the pope or the telephone company is actually running things and therefore everything that happens is by fate or plan, then we can realize that the specific sequence of things we call history was not inevitable at all. And then we can analyze the extent to which our history was either accidental or purposeful, for the clues it may provide as to how our future can be directed.
For example, it could be argued that Churchill being PM of Britain during WWII was a happy accident of history, resulting from the resignation of King Edward VIII in 1936, who, if he had been king in 1939, might well have been stubborn enough to pick Lord Halifax to form a government instead of Churchill (even King George wanted Halifax but was willing to be disuaded by Chamberlain).
Then again, however, an argument for purposeful direction could also be made, that because Churchill continued to serve in the House of Commons throughout the 20s and 30s, when lesser men might well have quit politics after such a disasterous term as First Lord of the Admiralty during WWI, so therefore Churchill put himself in the right place at the right time to become PM when England needed him most.
When historians look at the first quarter of the 21st Century, I wonder what will be considered an accident, and what might turn out to be purposeful direction.
The main theme, I think, will be the analysis of the decline and fall of the United States as the world's economic and political leader. Whether this will be ascribed to the disasterous outcome of the historical accident of 911 or to the disasterous outcome of the lurking neocons who waiting to seize on such an opportunity to start unwinnable wars will depend, I suppose, on whether it is the Chinese or the Europeans who will be writing this story. History, of course, is always written by the winners.

The best President they never had

Robert Stanfield was often described as the best prime minister Canada never had.
Well, I think its fairly clear that the United States also has a near-miss best president. There have been lots of losing presidential candidates in the US over the last 50 years, from Hubert Humphery to Bob Dole. But the one that stands head and shoulders above the rest, the one they missed by a single vote, was Al Gore.
His recent speech, An American Heresy, just demonstrates again how much they missed. Gore has a rare political ability to frame issues in a way the media and the public accept without even recognizing who is doing them this service -- the politics of fear speech, the global warming speech, the ideological Bushspeech. Now, he is doing it again with the heresy speech:

. . . if the justices who formed the majority in Bush v. Gore had not only all been nominated to the Court by a Republican president, but had also been confirmed by only Republican Senators in party-line votes, America would not have accepted that court's decision. Moreover, if the confirmation of those justices in the majority had been forced through by running roughshod over 200 years of Senate precedents and engineered by a crass partisan decision on a narrow party line vote to break the Senate's rules of procedure—then no speech imaginable could have calmed the passions aroused in our country. As Aristotle once said of virtue, respect for the rule of law is "one thing." It is indivisible. And so long as it remains indivisible, so will our country. But if either major political party is ever so beguiled by a lust for power that it abandons this unifying principle, then the fabric of our democracy will be torn. The survival of freedom depends upon the rule of law. The rule of law depends, in turn, upon the respect each generation of Americans has for the integrity with which our laws are written, interpreted and enforced.

Yes, Al, that's exactly what is at stake.

Great moments in Canadian blogging

RossK points us to this great post on a blog I had not read before called Inside the Hotdog Factory CEO stands for Cheat Every One. Hotdog's Matt St. Amand writes: "My question is -- when C.E.O.s have finally succeeded in laying off the entire North American economy, forcing everyone to become a McJob holding Wal-Mart wage slave, who the fuck will be able to afford your products? Are former Ford employees going to buy Fords? Are Hewlett-Packard employees who have been screwed around by HP going to buy HP products? Are people with no jobs, or poverty-level waged jobs, going to be able to afford anything? Maybe when that time comes, the corporations will begin importing consumers. C.E.O.s -- may you pierce a testicle sitting on your golden billfolds."
And when you have finished this one, click back to Ross to read "When Wingnuttery Knocks" about the Minutemen who are going to be protecting Amerca's northern border from the poutine-crazed Canadians. Ross says "bring 'em on! . . .we could take care of these Minutemaid Men in about, well, 15 minutes, by massing our own homegrown, hockey stick-assisted V-group within spitting distance of the line on our side of the border in southern Manitoba. We could call it 'The McSorely Project', fronted by the man himself, with chief lieutenants Dave Semenko and Todd Bertuzzi. Of course, the head of the propaganda unit will be a guy Bill O'Reilly will go absolutely bonkers over, Dave 'Flapping Gums' Williams."

If it limps like a duck . . .

"Bush didn't become a nobody overnight last night. But he did become a smaller, less imposing figure, with a weaker grasp on the nation's political agenda."
LiberalOasis sums up the Bush press conference last night.
I didn't watch it, because I just cannot stand the smug drawl he uses to state the bleedin' obvious -- like, Listen up, yu-all jest can't expect the sky to turn red right away, because its blue (heh-heh) but Ah beleeve red is on th' march.
(I don't know how Jimbobby does it -- I just can't write with a drawl!)
But apparently he didn't say much of anything except he has to kill social secutiry to save it, and isn't it too bad that gas prices are high. I did hear some admiring commentator talking about how courageous he was to admit that he couldn't do anything about that and really, its all Clinton's fault.
Funny, I don't think the public will be too impressed.

Ah ha!

Just as I suspected: Poll puts Liberals in front: Martin's wait-for-Gomery campaign appears to strike a chord with voters
The story says the liberals are coming back because people support Martin's idea of a January election. Well, yes.
But I also think the pollsters are underrating the positive impact of the Liberal/NDP alliance (which, between them, got 52 per cent of the vote last year), and the anger at Harpers 'deal with the devil' insult. Far down in the story comes this sentence "Liberal supporters are twice as likely to switch to the NDP as to the Conservatives, the poll found."
If Harper lets loose with a few more religious-toned insults to both the NDP and the Liberals, he won't pick up anybody this time around.

Missing the chance

Anglican bishops call moratorium on same-sex blessings
This is sad news -- the Canadian Anglican bishops have missed an opportunity for leadership.
And of course, while slapping gay people in the face, they also include the meaningless pat on the back -- the article ends with a sentence about how the bishops "affirmed the place of gays and lesbians in the church, offering thanks for their contribution to its life and witness."
Oh really -- how Christian of them.
The bishops have made it very clear that the place of gays in the Anglican church is out in the hallway, where they are welcome to put a few dollars into the collection plate but cannot actually come into the santuary and sit with all the "real" Anglicans.