And this is why its a party now

Stirling Newberry on BOP has a pretty good analysis of why the Cindy Sheehan story is so big right now:

The real story is that the Neo-cons have just lost the 'everyman' narrative. Before 'everyman' was an enraged patriot - angered at 911, and angry that such a villian as Saddam was left unpunished. The loss of that narrative is what makes Cindy Sheehan a story, or rather, what makes her story a story . . . Never have fewer Americans supported Iraq . . . only recently has the option of 'withdrawal all' been the largest single preferred choice. Most damningly - the 'has made the US safer' number is sinking like a stone. Since the Bushite program was 'connect everything to 911', this means that the political line of support that he relies on, is now fraying to a thread. What this means is that 'cut and run' is now the growing wave of consensus. The people who want to send more are now a tiny minority, the people who want out are a majority . . .

It strikes me there is a horrendous disconnect growing, and its going to happen quite differently from the way the Vietnam war protests happened. In the New York Times, Bob Herbert writes about the Bush administration's increasingly blatant lying:

Administration types and high-ranking members of the military have recently been teasing the media and the public with comments that are designed to give the impression that substantial numbers of American troops could be brought home next year. Not only are these comments hedged with every imaginable caveat - if the transition to a permanent government goes smoothly, and if the Iraqis prove capable of providing their own security - but they are coming at a time when the U.S. is planning to increase American troop strength in Iraq in anticipation of elections scheduled for December.

Like, what are they THINKING? Don't they realize that people will notice? With Vietnam, the protests began with the young people facing the draft, who said that America's leaders were lying about the war. It was several years before their parents realized that the kids were right.
This time, the protests are beginning with the parents, who are mostly people who grew up during Vietnam themselves, and who already know that governments can lie.

The party this summer is in Crawford

Norman Lear, Tom Hayden, and Gary Hart, among many others, are blogging today on The Huffington Post blog about Cindy Sheehan's Crawford vigil. Its a Sheehan-fest.
AfterDowningStreet.org manager David Swanson writes:

. . . Crawford, Texas, is where the party is. By calling it a party I don't mean to make light of the seriousness of the mission or the horrible grief of Cindy Sheehan and other military families there to protest this war. Rather, I mean to say that through the sadness and the hardships and the thunderstorms, it comes through on every voice my telephone line has carried from Camp Casey that no one will leave there without having been enriched with a sense of solidarity. . . . Going to Crawford will be fun. It will also be effective. At this point, Bush's stubborness is influencing his stupidity. He doesn't think that he, the President!, should have to speak to anyone he doesn't feel like speaking to. This is a very bad PR move for him -– at least as long as Camp Casey continues to grow. An arrest will be a disaster for Bush. A growing crowd through the month will be a disaster for Bush. His only way out -– given his refusal to meet with Cindy -– is to hope that people get tired and go away. Don't let Bush off the hook. Join Cindy in Crawford. You'll love her and the people with her, and they will welcome you as family.

It reminds me a bit of the Terry Schiavo pilgrims -- perhaps the teenage girls will have "Peace" on the tape across their mouths, rather than "Life", though "Life" would also be appropriate, I think.

Great line of the day

Well, its a little more than one line, but I think its pretty good.
Here's the setup. In What Will We Have Wrought? Digby notes a "shameful column" by the Washington Post's David Ignatius which makes the "increasingly common rightist argument" that someday things will probably work out in Iraq so everything the US did will have been right in retrospect. As Digby then says

Similar logic would have one believe that because Czechoslovakia is now a thriving democracy, the invasion of Hitler in 1938 was all for the best. And hey what's 30 years of human suffering? Eventually things will probably get better --- as long as the "national identity" survives. Dear God. This argument reveals something very fundamental about the way that the war hawks see this as a game of Risk rather than a catastrophic upheaval in which actual human beings are being killed and maimed and in which the everyday lives of those who live on that piece of land are affected in the most consequential ways possible. Who but the most arrogant, spoiled, pampered, elitist American could write such a thing?[emphasis mine]

Happy happy joy joy

This news story - Congressman: U.S. Intel Knew 9/11 Plotters - quotes a Republican congressman saying that defense intelligence officials identified four of the 9/11 hijackers in 1999, but didn't tell the FBI about them.
And the Republicans are just thrilled -- now they can finally blame 9/11 on Clinton!

Nobody asks why

Juan Cole points to this story by an embedded reporter in Iraq -- he is from a Massachusetts newspaper and was reporting on a Massachusetts national guard unit.
Now, Cole didn't point this out, but see if you notice what I noticed:

During my first night at [Forward Operating Base]Speicher, Col. Francis McGinn received a midnight phone call and raced off. A Humvee patrolling the perimeter of the base had taken small arms fire, and had been unable to locate its origin. Two Apache helicopters were scrambled and were above the scene in four minutes. Despite using their advanced night vision equipment, they were also unable to locate the enemy. Nothing causes an Army base commander in Iraq to lose more sleep. "My first priority is avoiding a catastrophic event,'' the 42-year-old McGinn, a Braintree resident, said. "For example, an insurgent penetrating the base perimeter at night wearing a suicide vest of explosives.'' Promoted to colonel on June 9, McGinn is responsible for overseeing a sprawling base in hostile territory. Tikrit is the hometown of Saddam Hussein.

Did you notice? The colonel of this unit thinks his most important job is just to protect his men. So basically, I wonder what good are they doing there? Why are they there at all?
Its a question which nobody seems to be asking, either in the army or in the media.
I think this is another indication that the military is just marking time in Iraq, waiting for the politicians to come to their senses and trying to survive until they can all go home.
And later on, the reporter describes a grim little vignette about how the colonel went to visit the family of an Iraqi interpreter who had been killed by insurgents.

We were being watched, and [Sgt.] Carrigan knew why. ‘‘Every home we stop at, the insurgents will come by some time over the next few days, drag the men outside, threaten all, and beat some,'' he said. ‘‘They will try and find out if we were just questioning them, or are they cooperating with us?''

So what good it did do for these American troops to visit this family? It just brought them more trouble. But again, nobody asked.

Bring it on, Raquel!

Another good one from Tom Burka - "Bush To Determine Scentific Curriculum Of American Schools Based On His Own Experiments"

The White House announced today that President Bush would henceforth determine the scientific curriculum to be taught in America's schools. The announcement came immediately after Bush endorsed the teaching of intelligent design. President Bush apparently wants to adopt a modified pre-Copernican view of astronomy, to start. "This whole notion that the universe does not revolve around our great nation, our great planet, seems kind of crazy," he told reporters yesterday. Bush was also skeptical about what he called "the notion of gravity." "I'm uncomfortable with teaching our children that bodies are attracted to each other," he said. "That seems like an unwholesome idea to put into children's heads, don't it?" He speculated that objects fall to the ground because "God wants them to." Dr. James Dobson, founder of the rightwing Christian group Focus on the Family, applauded Bush's plans to eliminate scientists from science. "It just puts all four of my humours into complete harmony," he said. Critics were less sanguine, however. "If George Bush is for teaching intelligent design in schools," said Professor and biologist Byron Glick, "it proves that there isn't any."

And I presume that the geology curriculum will consist of One Million Years BC? Well, the boys sure will like that.

Great line of the day

Juan Cole posts Joke of the Day: "They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it's worked for over 200 years and we're not using it anymore."

'They forfeit. Cool.'

"That sound you hear is the 'pop' of several billion Chinese and Indian economic planners getting simultaneous erections . . . " begins Kung-Fu Monkey's brilliant blog post 'The President and Intelligent Design'.
He continues

Here you are, Tsui or Sanjay, looking at a new cenury . . . In which only the most intellectually nimble countries, best able to master new information technologies and couple them with manufacturing bases with high levels of technical training, will survive. And you're looking at that big bastard across the ocean, the US of A. First to build the Bomb. First to master the secrets of the atom. First to build the semiconductor. First and only tribe of humans who actually put men on the GODDAM MOON, to have stepped on another rock in space. Decoders of the human genome, the VERY BOOK OF LIFE !!! How will we ever stop -- Wow, they forfeit. Cool. . . .
[The radical rightists] strip away the idea that there is indeed a rigorous scientific process through which certain non-negotiable physical truths can be ascertained. They have suffused the county with an intellectual laziness and a terrifying narcissism. Opinion has been enshrined as superior to fact. No longer need a person take into account the way the world works when forming their worldview -- they can instead hunt down "facts" and "theories" which support their own comfort zone . . . You wouldn't trust your children to an airplane pilot who did that, or a Scoutmaster. If your doctor said "You know what, we're going to blow off all the currently available research and treat your child's cancer with a completely untested, never scientifically proven bit of guesswork which, however, reinforces my world-view. Because what does science really know?" you'd be pulling out of the parking lot before he finished the sentence. But when it's public policy, it's OKAY? . . . this is bigger than budgets, or how to fight wars, or how to manage our environment or resources, because where we stand on facts, reason, science, that informs every other decision we make in all those fields and every other. This is what determines whether societies live or die. Again, our motto at Kung Fu Monkey: "Everybody who wants to live in the 21st century over here. Everybody who wants to live in the 1800's over there. Good. Thanks. Good luck with that."

Thanks to James Wollcot for the link.
UPDATE: A commenter on the Kung Fu Monkey blog said about this post "Creationism is God's way of ensuring that somebody other than the US will be running the world by the end of this century."

Vancouver Three: political martyrs

So the Vancouver Three prosecution isn't political, eh?
The prosecution's own words prove it is.
Here, as quoted by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connelly is why the DEA went after Marc Emery. And it has nothing at all to do with a few seeds. It's aimed at taking Emery DOWN. It's personal and it's political. And pathetic. DEA boss Karen Tandy said:

Today's arrest of Mark (sic) Scott Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture magazine and the founder of a marijuana legalization group, is a significant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the U.S. and Canada, but also to the marijuana legalization movement . . . Hundreds of thousands of dollars of Emery's illicit profits are known to have been channeled to marijuana legalization groups active in the United States and Canada. Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on.

And here is how Connelly describes the impact of that statement

In their search for proof that Bigfoot exists, researchers ought to take hair samples from the Washington, D.C., offices of Drug Enforcement Administration boss Karen Tandy. Tandy has left giant footprints on the drug prosecution of Vancouver, B.C., mail-order pot entrepreneur, and B.C. Marijuana Party founder, Marc Emery. With an ill-advised statement politicizing the case that also misspelled Emery's first name, the DEA boss may help transform a publicity seeker into a Canadian martyr. Seeking to stop his extradition to the United States -- where he faces charges of trafficking in marijuana seeds -- Emery's legal team could use Tandy's words to telling effect: Their client is being prosecuted for his beliefs.

Well, yes, he is. And that's exactly what Canadians are beginning to realize.

Watch your mouth!

Don't say it! Don't, for the love of humanity . . . oh . . . too late . . . she said it: Rice: Insurgency Losing Political Steam
Every time some American political or military leader announces the insurgency is getting weaker, last throes, whatever -- there immediately follows an uptick in suicide bombs, police executions, random shootings, and attacks on US military.

No more mocking 'honouring' Aboriginals

Steve Gilliard points to this Driftglass post which discusses the Illinois reaction to a recent NCAA ruling barring the use of Aboriginal stereotypes in mascots and team nicknames at NCAA championship events.
It is the best reply I have ever read to all the whining we hear whenever anyone suggests that an Aboriginal team name or mascot should be changed -- and just about every Canadian city has at least one.

"But we can still mock the Coloreds, right? Sorry, not 'mock'. Didn't mean 'mock'. What's that other word? 'Honor'! Yeah...that's it.
. . . the University of Illinois ' the Fighting Illini ' has a mascot, 'Chief' Illiniwek, who gambols festively around in fake war paint and fake headdress to get the kinder fired up at football games . . . Various members of the alumni and student body cannot understand why anyone would find having a fake Chief offensive. The love their lil' mascot. He dances so damned purdy and delights the children with his funny, Injun antics. Various other members of the human race cannot understand how alumni, students and the Board of Trustees - degree-holders all - can possibly be such fucking, racist morons. Petitions were filed. Protests were staged. Embarrassing local and national stories were written...and it didn't matter one little bit . . .
And there is nothing quite so bile-churning as seeing a fat-assed, pasty-white Archie Bunker with a diploma and an ill-fitting suit lecture Native Americans on what they should and should not find offensive. After all, ordering brown people around, and killing as many of them as necessary to get the job done when they forget their place and start getting uppity...this is the White Man's Burden. We've got a hundred million ungrateful sand niggers to kill or 'democratize' or Manifest Cuisinart or 'globally struggle against' or whateverthefuck brand name we’re using to market our Saint Petro’s Crusade to the rubes this week...so where the Hell do these red devils get off screwing with the White Man’s Privilege of making them dance by proxy for the White Man’s amusement.
. . . I swear, these people are just hopeless. A different and impregnably ignorant species. From flying the American Swastika as a sign of Southern Pride to shit like this, they burn with a bright, white flame for the good, old Antebellum days of Caucasian License to do whatever they damned well please. Like the water empires of a different age – these self-contained racist niche-ecologies, large and small, never ever change without a boot in the ass. As long as bigots are free to keep handing down the reigns to the Sons of Bigots unmolested, simple appeals to conscience and humanity will always fail. Their consciences are damaged – perhaps irreparably -- and in their hierarchy of humanity, they believe that God or Evolution or Daddy (who is a little bit of both) has placed them at the very tippy-top of the apex, and that "good”, “bad” and “hateful” are whatever they decide they are.

Yes, we've seen the same arguments and excuses across Canada when anyone dared to suggest that a team's Aboriginal-based name might be just a bit, well, insulting? demeaning? unacceptable? dare I say, racist? - unless its a team representing a reserve school or an Aboriginal organization or the team is more than half Aboriginal kids.
And don't tell me "well, then we have to change all the names because maybe the Irish are upset about the "fighting Irish" type of names, too." Yes, so go ahead and change these names too, if you want. But that other ethnic groups may also be upset about other derisive nicknames is hardly an argument against changing the Aboriginal names.
And don't tell me "well, the [Aboriginal organization/students] said they didn't mind!" Oh yeah, I'm sure they don't feel any pressure at all when the local radio talk show host or the mayor or the school board chair calls them up and says "Everybody wants to keep the name XXX and it would cost a lot to change it now and people would be really pissed off, so you don't mind us keeping it, do you?"
It takes leadership just to go ahead and change it, just because its the right thing to do.

The Oops! Award

And the winner of this week's Oops! Award goes to: President's Council on Service and Civic Participation.
A link on Eschaton led me to Roger Ailes blog, where I found this little gem: "A spokesman for the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation said that neither the council nor Bush had any way of knowing that the person they were honoring was a condemned multiple murderer."

Answering a scurrilous charge

RossK in 'Defusing The Google Bomb' resents anyone calling Canadians "gutless" (as some mixed-up BC politician apparently did recently). Ross says:

. . . calling us, the Canuckistani People, gutless is a scurrilous charge that cannot go unchallenged. To whit:
Was it gutless when we went to Afghanistan to fight the real terrorists?
Was it gutless when we did not go to Iraq to kill people that were not?
Was it gutless to say no to a thoroughly offensive missile defense program?
Was it gutless when we had the guts to pass a same sex marriage law?
Are we gutless because we still protect our pension funds?
Are we gutless because we can still go to any hospital in the country?
Are we gutless because we still have a social safety net?
Are we gutless because we still have (a few) public institutions that serve the public?

Right on, Ross! And I might add, are we gutless because we have the fearless Gazetteer posting truth to power?

Great line of the day

First it was Global War on Terror (GWOT)
Then it was Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism (GSAVE)
Then it was Global War on Terror (GWOT) again.
But now, Billmon has the best one yet:
"War of Heroic Action against Terrorism for the Future of a United Christian Kulture -- WHATtheFUCK"

Good Better Best

Good


Non Sequitur

Better


Ann Telnaes

Best


Cam Cardow