Left I on the News  

Two recommendations for the reading list

Celia Hart writes about what's happening in Venezuela from the point of view of a Cuban revolutionary.

Stan Goff, one of the founding members of Military Families Speak Out, writes about his experiences debating a key neo-con supporter of the invasion of Iraq, and in doing so lays out an extremely clear view of what the invasion was all about.

Movies no one has ever seen

I'll start with two of my favorites which just happen to be on TBS today, which is what started me thinking about this. Blast From The Past is a great fish out of water story, starring Christopher Walken as a professor who takes his wife (Sissy Spacek) into a fallout shelter at the height of the Cold War when he thinks the atom bomb has been dropped. They bear and raise a son, Adam (Brendan Fraser) who, 30 years later, emerges into what he thinks is a post-apocalyptic world and meets Alicia Silverstone. The second movie I'm recommending, Galaxy Quest, stars Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver as two Star Trek-type TV stars, who, along with the rest of their crew, become involved in a real-life outer-space adventure, much to their surprise. Hijinx ensue in both movies.

OK, your turn. Remember, no movies that have been nominated for Academy Awards, no movies that have been in anyone's top ten, no top grossing movies of all time, just movies you think most people have never seen or even heard of.

Open thread

Greatest Antiwar & Political Songs Update

Songs most recently added shown in Bold

Antiwar Songs
Alice's Restaurant - Arlo Guthrie
The Band Played Waltzing Matilda - The Pogues
Blowin' in the Wind - Bob Dylan, Peter Paul & Mary, others
Bomb the World - Michael Franti & Spearhead
Bring the Boys Home - Freida Payne
Bullet the Blue Sky - U2
Civil War - Guns N Roses
Cops of the World - Phil Ochs
Down by the Riverside - traditional
Eve of Destruction - Barry McGuire
Fixin' to Die Rag - Country Joe & the Fish
Fortunate Son - Creedence Clearwater Revival
GI Movement - Holly Near
Give Peace a Chance - John Lennon
Hang in There - Holly Near
Happy Christmas (War is Over) - John Lennon
Hiroshima - David Rovics
I Ain't Marchin Anymore - Phil Ochs
If I Had a Rocket Launcher - Bruce Cockburn
If You Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next - Manic Street Preachers
Imagine - John Lennon
Kill for Peace - The Fugs
Killing in the Name - Rage Against the Machine
Life During Wartime - Talking Heads
Masters of War - Bob Dylan, others
99 Red Balloons - Nena
No More Genocide - Holly Near
Ohio - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
One Tin Soldier - Coven
The Price of Oil - Billy Bragg
Radio Baghdad - Patti Smith
7 O'Clock News/Silent Night - Simon & Garfunkle
Sky Pilot - The Animals
Three-Five-Zero-Zero - Hair
Two Tribes - Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Universal Soldier - Donovan, Buffy Ste. Marie
Unknown Soldier - The Doors
Waist Deep in the Big Muddy - Pete Seeger
War - Edwin Starr
We Hate To See Them Go - Malvina Reynolds
We Seek No Wider War - Phil Ochs
What's Going On? - Marvin Gaye
What's So Funny About Peace, Love, and Understanding? - Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe
Where Have All the Flowers Gone? - Joan Baez, others
Sunday, Bloody Sunday - U2
Who Would Jesus Bomb? - David Rovics
With God on Our Side - Bob Dylan, Neville Brothers

Other Political Songs
Acres of Clams - Charlie King
Beds are Burning - Midnight Oil
Biko - Peter Gabriel
Bread and Roses - traditional
Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?
Bush It! - Darryl Cherney & the Chernobles
The Death of Rachel Corrie - David Rovics
Deportee - Woody Guthrie, Judy Collins, Joan Baez
Earth First! - Darryl Cherney & the Chernobles
The Ghosts of Mississippi - Darryl Cherney & the Chernobles
Hurricane - Bob Dylan
The Internationale
I Wish I Kew How It Would Feel to Be Free - Nina Simone
Joe Hill - Joan Baez, Alfred Hayes
Love Me, I'm a Liberal - Phil Ochs
Mississippi Goddamn - Nina Simone
Money's Too Tight - Simply Red
MTA - Kingston Trio
A Partisan - Leonard Cohen, Joan Baez
Peace Train - Cat Stevens
People Have the Power - Patti Smith
Power to the People - John Lennon
The Preacher and the Slave - Joe Hill
The Rebel Jesus - Jackson Browne
Resistance - David Rovics
Ringing of Revolution - Phil Ochs
The Revolution Starts Now - Steve Earle
Solidarity Forever
Spanish Bombs - The Clash
Steelworker Blues - Darryl Cherney & the Chernobles
Strange Fruit - Billie Holiday
Strike a Blow Against the Empire - David Rovics
Take Away My Name - Darryl Cherney & the Chernobles
Talking Union - Pete Seeger
The Times They Are A-Changin' - Bob Dylan
Union Maid - Woody Guthrie, Judy Collins
Volunteers - Jefferson Airplane
Washington Bullets - The Clash
We Can Be Together - Jefferson Airplane
We Shall Overcome
When the Ship Comes In - Peter, Paul, & Mary
Which Side Are You On? - Pete Seeger
Won't Get Fooled Again - The Who
World in Their Pocket - Malvina Reynolds
You've Got to be Carefully Taught - South Pacific

The missing word

Officials Report Lack of Intelligence on Iranian Weapons
"While convinced that Iran is 'vigorously' pursuing programs to produce nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, U.S. intelligence has few sources of reliable information on the Islamic republic's illicit arms activities, according to current and former intelligence officials and Middle East experts."

The missing word, of course, is "alleged."

Open racism in America

"The views expressed on the program are not those of MSNBC. Having said that, it was unfortunate that these remarks were telecast on MSNBC. We sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended by these remarks."

Think about the subtle implication of MSNBC's remarks, which suggest that there are people who might not be offended by calling Arafat's wife a "fat pig," calling Palestinians stinking, filthy animals, and advocating mass murder. And sadly, of course, they are right in that. But they still owe an apology (and lots more) to everyone, and not just to the segment of their audience which has a shred of decency.

Medical aid for the people of Fallujah

I get multiple appeals each day - donate money to this, protest that, etc. I don't repost them here, even though I support virtually all of them, because I've never viewed my blog as a substitute or even a significant supplement to the efforts that various groups make to spread the word about those causes, and also because I know if I did, I could quickly have a blog which was nothing but such appeals. Nothing wrong with such a blog, by the way, but it wouldn't be this one.

However, today I'm making an exception for an urgent appeal from Codepink, relaying an urgent request from well-known independent journalist Dahr Jamail who is organizing an effort to aid the refugees of Fallujah:

"I have just come from a refugee camp in Baghdad with families from Fallujah. The suffering is beyond description. It's worse than anything you've read or anything I've written so far.

"This is a humanitarian crisis. They need medicines for their camp and the other camps immediately. We have an organization set up of doctors who can distribute the medicines and supplies. BUT WE NEED THEM NOW! THIS CANNOT WAIT!"

Solidarity, Dahr

Update: On Flashpoints! radio tonight, Code Pink's Medea Benjamin reported that in less than a day they have raised $16,000 out of their $20,000 target which they will be wiring immediately to Iraq (actually to Jordan where the medical supplies will be purchased). And they haven't even got the check I mailed in today! A human delegation, comprised of family members of soldiers killed in Iraq as well as family members of people killed on 9/11, will be going to Iraq on Dec. 27 to bring more supplies; their goal is $100,000. So don't stop giving!

Silly thought for the day

Now if you want a really good grilled cheese sandwich, instead of one you can auction off to a sucker for $28,000, try this recipe which recently won the "greatest grilled cheese sandwich in America" contest. I just happen to have met the woman who created it recently, which is what led me to try it out. Delicious! By the way she won $10,000 and a trip to California. Not quite $28,000, but a lot more well-deserved!

Election roundup

Meanwhile, "A U.S. team led by Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said the Ukrainian government had rigged the election." Isn't it amazing how they could reach such a conclusion so quickly, while at the same time the U.S. "establishment" could so quickly reach a conclusion that the U.S. election hadn't been rigged? I'm not saying the Ukranian election was or wasn't "rigged," I have no idea, but one certainly wonders what evidence that Sen. Lugar has in his possession. Shouldn't George Bush be condemning him for "jumping to conclusions"? Amusingly enough, one of the pieces of "evidence" which has been making the rounds in the media is the claim that "exit polls Sunday night had given Yushchenko a large lead." Yet here in the United States, the media has been all over the "bloggers" who had the nerve to tout exit polls showing Kerry was leading early on election day, and now have the nerve to use those exit polls as suggestive evidence for election fraud.

If the U.S. government, or Sen. Lugar, want to look for offenses to democracy, why don't they start right here in the U.S.? How about in San Diego, where a judge has refused to order the counting of all ballots that were cast for write-in candidate Donna Frye. It seems some voters (probably enough to make a difference in the election) went to the effort to write in Ms. Frye's name but failed to "darken the adjoining oval," and the board of elections is considering those to be invalid votes. Evidently those voters were just practicing their penmanship; they didn't really intend to indicate their preference for Ms. Frye in the election. Does anyone care to conjecture what would happen if such a thing happened in Venezuela, or Cuba, or any other country on the U.S. hit list? Why, it's probably grounds for an invasion! But here in the "world's greatest democracy," it passes without a peep; the League of Women Voters, who to their credit did initiate this legal effort, isn't even going to appeal the judge's decision, nor has Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger been heard from regarding this outrage going on in his state.

Followup: Via The Sideshow, I learn that Greg Palast is on the case:

"This reporter was unable to reach Senator Lugar regarding the inconsistency of official election results and exit polls in the USA; the intimidation of minority voters in Florida and Ohio; nor the failure to count two million ballots cast, half by African-American voters, in America's first post-democratic election held earlier this month.

"Eastern bloc observers noted that balloting in Ohio, New Mexico and Florida did not meet Ukrainian standards, but applauded America's attempt to restore democratic institutions after the overthrow of elected government in 2000."

Quote of the Day

"George Bush is the president. He makes the decisions. Speaking as one American, wherever he wants me to line up, just tell me where. And he'll make the call."

- Dan Rather, Sept. 17, 2001, on the David Letterman show

Moral values

The hydra-headed insurgency

"There is a growing conviction among some foreign observers and American intelligence experts -- though apparently not yet in the Pentagon -- that what is happening now in Iraq is not just the reaction to the American occupation by a small group of 'dead-enders' (as suggested by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld) or a spontaneous insurgency.

"Indeed, these observers believe that the suicide bombers, the roadside bombs and the attacks on Iraqi police and other so-called 'collaborators' in Mosul and the Sunni towns in the Tigris valley are part of an organized guerrilla war planned by Saddam Hussein prior to the invasion. Even the widespread looting, and the attacks on water and electricity and petroleum facilities are being carried out by former members of his security forces."

"While U.S. official pronouncements about rebel leaders have focused on Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, rebel fighters and others who escaped the U.S. assault on Fallujah say the real power there was wielded by Omar Hussein Hadid, a mid-30s Iraqi electrician whose religious fervor drew suspicion from Saddam Hussein's agents long before U.S. forces invaded Iraq."

Headline of the Day

"Sharon promises to help Palestinians with their election" (Source)

Left I Logo - another request for my readers

Euphemisms

Proud to be an American?

Followup: I am reminded that there is a bit of erroneous nomenclature in this post. To most scientists, evolution per se is a simple fact. Darwin's explanation for evolution is the theory of natural selection. However, I think it's accurate to say that to most people, the "theory of evolution" encompasses both of these things (the facts and their explanations), probably more so the former than the latter, and "the theory of evolution" is the way the question was formulated by Gallup.

More followup: A long interesting post on creationism at Manic Net Preacher.

Like Rolling Stone

-- A reader participation post --

No, there's no "a" missing from that headline. Here's the idea. Rolling Stone magazine, as most you probably know, just released its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. But there are lots of songs not on that list. Antiwar songs. Political songs in general. And so we here at Left I on the News, with the able assistance of our hundreds of readers, are going to remedy that injustice, and create our own lists of the Greatest Antiwar and Political Songs of all time. I haven't decided how many songs will end up on the list, and whether we'll go with two separate lists (one for antiwar, the other for "other" political songs) or just one (by the way, by "political" we mean progressive politics - Ballad of the Green Berets won't be making it on this list).

I'll start the list here. Readers will add their own nominations (putting "AW" for antiwar or "P" for "other" political to indicate the category) in the comments. Periodically I'll purge the comments and add the nominated songs to the main list. At some point we'll close nominations and begin the voting.

Songs should be considered on the basis of lyrics and music. If you ever need lyrics, by the way, just Google "name of song lyrics" and you'll find multiple sources on the web for practically any song.

If you want to leave a "general" comment, feel free to do so. If you leave a nomination comment, please put just that information into the comment, so that when I add the nomination and delete the comment, nothing else will be lost. At this point, please just nominate; don't advocate for a song.

Here we go! Songs listed in alphabetical order so as not to reveal my own prejudices (other than in the inclusion of these songs, but I'm sure there are many important songs I've missed). Interestingly enough, three of these songs made the top 15 in the Rolling Stone list.

Followup: Incidentally, at the moment I'm not quite sure how I'm going to pull off the voting. Right now my only thought is to have emailed ballots and tabulate them by hand (or with some sort of script). I have the ability to put up "polls" on the website, but those are limited to ten choices which won't work. If any reader has any ideas or wants to volunteer to put up some sort of online balloting page (in a week or two), email me privately.

More followup: Just found this very much related and informative page.

Still more followup: People, people, people. Maybe you don't want to read all the comments, but please at least read the list of already nominated songs below before adding your own and duplicating something on the list!

Still more followup:Oh. My. God. I've just read through the actual Rolling Stone list and found that there isn't a single song by Talking Heads on the list! And I speak as someone who thinks that every single song on the Stop Making Sense album belongs on the list! We have our work cut out for us to rectify this injustice!

And furthermore:I don't mind peole nominating any song you want; it's a good way for all of us to learn about things we haven't heard of. But I consider myself a fairly well-read (and well-heard?) guy, so in most cases, if I've never even heard of the song I'm probably not going to add it to the list of final nominees, on the grounds that it's a song that's so obscure it's never going to garner enough votes anyway. Also, and I'm sure you all recognize this, there are many songs whose character is ambiguous. For example, "We Gotta' Get Out of This Place" by the Animals, which is not an antiwar song, sort of became an anthem of soldiers in Vietnam who took its title literally and agreed with it. But I'm not adding it to the list. Or take "Born in the USA." It's a song that tells of a man who has killed "yellow people" in Vietnam, has had friends killed there, is having trouble getting a job, etc. But is it an antiwar song? I think you only hear it that way if you're antiwar yourself. Many people who are pro-war could tell similar stories about their lives. Heck, Ronald Reagan even used the song in his re-election campaign; I doubt he would have done that with "Masters of War." Or take "Life During Wartime," which I did nominate, because it's one of my favorite songs. It tells the story of people fighting a revolution, sort of a Weather Underground story. Is it an antiwar song? I'm sure that's arguable. So anyway, the point is, a lot of these decisions aren't clear-cut, and I'll try to sort it all out the best I can.

Songs most recently added shown in Bold

Antiwar Songs
Alice's Restaurant - Arlo Guthrie
The Band Played Waltzing Matilda - The Pogues
Blowin' in the Wind - Bob Dylan, Peter Paul & Mary, others
Bomb the World - Michael Franti & Spearhead
Bring the Boys Home - Freida Payne
Bullet the Blue Sky - U2
Civil War - Guns N Roses
Cops of the World - Phil Ochs
Down by the Riverside - traditional
Eve of Destruction - Barry McGuire
Fixin' to Die Rag - Country Joe & the Fish
Fortunate Son - Creedence Clearwater Revival
GI Movement - Holly Near
Give Peace a Chance - John Lennon
Hang in There - Holly Near
Happy Christmas (War is Over) - John Lennon
Hiroshima - David Rovics
I Ain't Marchin Anymore - Phil Ochs
If I Had a Rocket Launcher - Bruce Cockburn
If You Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next - Manic Street Preachers
Imagine - John Lennon
Kill for Peace - The Fugs
Killing in the Name - Rage Against the Machine
Life During Wartime - Talking Heads
Masters of War - Bob Dylan, others
99 Red Balloons - Nena
No More Genocide - Holly Near
Ohio - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
The Price of Oil - Billy Bragg
Radio Baghdad - Patti Smith
7 O'Clock News/Silent Night - Simon & Garfunkle
Sky Pilot - The Animals
Three-Five-Zero-Zero - Hair
Two Tribes - Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Universal Soldier - Donovan, Buffy Ste. Marie
Unknown Soldier - The Doors
Waist Deep in the Big Muddy - Pete Seeger
War - Edwin Starr
We Hate To See Them Go - Malvina Reynolds
We Seek No Wider War - Phil Ochs
What's Going On? - Marvin Gaye
What's So Funny About Peace, Love, and Understanding? - Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe
Where Have All the Flowers Gone? - Joan Baez, others
Sunday, Bloody Sunday - U2
Who Would Jesus Bomb? - David Rovics
With God on Our Side - Bob Dylan, Neville Brothers

Other Political Songs
Acres of Clams - Charlie King
Beds are Burning - Midnight Oil
Biko - Peter Gabriel
Bread and Roses - traditional
Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?
Bush It! - Darryl Cherney & the Chernobles
The Death of Rachel Corrie - David Rovics
Deportee - Woody Guthrie, Judy Collins, Joan Baez
Earth First! - Darryl Cherney & the Chernobles
The Ghosts of Mississippi - Darryl Cherney & the Chernobles
Hurricane - Bob Dylan
The Internationale
I Wish I Kew How It Would Feel to Be Free - Nina Simone
Joe Hill - Joan Baez, Alfred Hayes
Love Me, I'm a Liberal - Phil Ochs
Mississippi Goddamn - Nina Simone
Money's Too Tight - Simply Red
MTA - Kingston Trio
A Partisan - Leonard Cohen, Joan Baez
Peace Train - Cat Stevens
People Have the Power - Patti Smith
Power to the People - John Lennon
The Preacher and the Slave - Joe Hill
The Rebel Jesus - Jackson Browne
Resistance - David Rovics
Ringing of Revolution - Phil Ochs
The Revolution Starts Now - Steve Earle
Solidarity Forever
Spanish Bombs - The Clash
Steelworker Blues - Darryl Cherney & the Chernobles
Strange Fruit - Billie Holiday
Strike a Blow Against the Empire - David Rovics
Take Away My Name - Darryl Cherney & the Chernobles
Talking Union - Pete Seeger
The Times They Are A-Changin' - Bob Dylan
Union Maid - Woody Guthrie, Judy Collins
Volunteers - Jefferson Airplane
Washington Bullets - The Clash
We Can Be Together - Jefferson Airplane
We Shall Overcome
When the Ship Comes In - Peter, Paul, & Mary
Which Side Are You On? - Pete Seeger
Won't Get Fooled Again - The Who
World in Their Pocket - Malvina Reynolds
You've Got to be Carefully Taught - South Pacific

Cultural thought for the day

So, any theater people in my audience? Tim Robbins, are you out there? I gladly offer up this idea for just 10% of the gross, which I will of course donate to an appropriate cause. Plus another 10% for Riverbend, naturally. If not an actual Broadway or off-Broadway or touring play, this could at least be used by antiwar groups to put on their own presentation. It would obviously take some work to sort through her blog, and pick out a combination of her most political posts with her most personal ones (many of which are the same, like her recent description of a visit to the house of a relative who was sheltering refugees from Fallujah), but I really think it would be worth it. I envision a narrator off to the side, reading Riverbend's words, with silent action depicting the events taking place in the background.

Any takers?

Rethinking a famous quote

By the way, I don't mean to suggest that Kerry's 1971 testimony to Congress wasn't courageous, and important as well. The VVAW were a very important component of the antiwar movement, and Kerry was certainly a key member of VVAW. But I do think it's important to realize how ingrained such national chauvinism is.

The power of Left I

And hey, if they're lucky, and everything goes well, the people of Fallujah might even be back in their houses by then. At least, the ones whose houses are still standing.

U.S. vs. Venezuela - the world weighs in

"Using tear gas and water cannons, riot police officers dispersed hundreds of rock-throwing protesters on Friday after thousands of people had gathered peacefully to demonstrate against the presence of President Bush at a weekend summit meeting here.

"Protest organizers said 30,000 people took part in the late morning march, which followed a convoluted route through downtown streets, far from the actual site of the conference in a remote convention center surrounded by a mountain range."

Headline: "Venezuela's Chavez gets rock star welcome in Spain"

"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez received a rock star welcome in Spain on Sunday as he opened a new chapter in bilateral relations that had cooled under Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's predecessor.

"Chavez's first act after arriving was to go to Madrid's Atocha station, scene of two of the four train bombings on March 11, to pay homage to the victims of the worst attacks in modern Spanish history.

"There he was mobbed by media and hundreds of supporters, many waving Venezuelan flags and chanting 'Chavez, friend, the people are with you.'"

Followup: It gets worse:

"About 15,000 Colombian security forces — backed by warplanes, helicopters, battleships and two submarines -- will safeguard Bush's four-hour trip to discuss the nation's war on drugs. That is the same number of American troops deployed in the Fallujah offensive in Iraq."

"An elaborate state dinner tonight for US President George W. Bush was scrapped after US and Chilean officials failed to agree on security measures at the presidential palace."

Fidel and Kerry agree

"Fidel Castro says the emergence of an Osama bin Laden videotape just ahead of the U.S. presidential election seemed to have been 'arranged' to help President Bush."

"Sen. John Kerry believes the videotape of Osama bin Laden that appeared days before the Nov. 2 election cost him the presidency."

No, I make absolutely nothing of this, just noting the curious coincidence. For sure, there is nothing else whatsoever in common between these two men, one of them a mediocrity, the other one of the greatest political figures of the last century.

Spending priorities

The slogan "Money for education (health care/jobs/housing/etc.) not for war!" has never had more relevance. Every single time a city holds a hearing on cutting spending for yet another service, someone (or lots of someones) should be sure to make this point, loud and clear. It simply can't be repeated enough (not that wars of aggression would be acceptable even if there was enough money to pay for "guns and butter," but making sure people realize the connection is a good first step).

Your boss hopes you die...

"A nationwide push to make workers bear a bigger share of their rising medical bills is spurring Americans to do what their employers had hoped: spend less on drugs, cut down on doctor's visits and shop more smartly for less expensive care.

"But this prescription for the ailing health care system also has produced some unexpected side effects. Many workers are making concessions at the doctor's office, at work and at home that could compromise their health, happiness and financial security.

"Some are postponing doctor's visits until their symptoms are serious. Some are stretching drug prescriptions -- or not taking the drugs at all. Some are staying in jobs they hate because they're desperate to keep their health insurance. And with medical bills rising far faster than paychecks, some are saving less for retirement."

America, the "greatest health care system in the world." Not.

"Iraqis are better off now than before the invasion"

"Acute malnutrition among young children in Iraq has nearly doubled since the United States led an invasion of the country 20 months ago, according to surveys by the United Nations, aid agencies and the interim Iraqi government.

"The new figure translates to roughly 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from "wasting," a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein.

"Iraq's child malnutrition rate now roughly equals that of Burundi, a central African nation torn by more than a decade of war. It is far higher than rates in Uganda and Haiti."

"Iraqi health officials like to surprise visitors by pointing out that the nutrition issue facing young Iraqis a generation ago was obesity. Malnutrition, they say, appeared in the early 1990s with U.N. trade sanctions championed by Washington to punish the government led by President Saddam Hussein for invading Kuwait in 1990.

"International aid efforts and the U.N. oil-for-food program helped reduce the ruinous impact of sanctions, and the rate of acute malnutrition among the youngest Iraqis gradually dropped from a peak of 11 percent in 1996 to 4 percent in 2002."

Washington Post calls for an end to "passivity" in U.S. policy towards Venezuela

The Post, ignoring the repeated democratic elections and the increased participation of the actual people (imagine that!) in the governing of the country, describes Venezuela as a place where democracy is not "thriving." A telling point in the motivation for this policy comes in the very first sentence of the relevant section:

"The likely focal point of trouble is Venezuela, a country of 25 million that supplies the United States with 13 percent of its oil."

The editorial goes downhill from there. Here's the next sentence:

"In August, after months of heavy-handed governmental actions to influence the outcome, President Hugo Chavez survived a recall referendum; since then his supporters have gained control of 21 of 23 states, as well as the capital, in local elections."

Sunk low enough? The Post continues:

"Those triumphs have prompted the erratic former military rebel to accelerate what he calls his 'Bolivarian revolution' -- a push toward authoritarian rule at home and a deepening alliance abroad with Cuban leader Fidel Castro and other antidemocratic movements."

The conclusion makes it clear that the Post is intent on following George Bush into lack-of-self-awareness-land. In one sentence, they talk about how Chavez "has adopted Mr. Castro's practice of portraying the United States as an enemy bent on imperial intervention in Venezuela," and in the very next sentence they quote Condoleezza Rice as saying Chavez is "a real problem" and how we need to "mobilize the region" to "pressure him," and then in the very next sentence the Post urges the Bush administration to "end [its] passivity." "Imperial intervention"? Where on earth would Chavez get that crazy idea? U.S. involvement and support for the coup against Chavez? Not even worth mentioning in this editorial. Wouldn't want to give the readers the impression that the U.S. is anything less than noble in its actions and intentions.

Make no mistake about it. Whatever minor divisions cropped up during the election, from Iran to North Korea to Venezuela, the ruling class is throwing itself wholeheartedly behind the Bush agenda.

Eyewitness Fallujah

Remember that "weapons handover" in Baghdad a while ago?

"Insurgents attacked a U.S. patrol and a police station, assassinated four government employees and detonated several bombs. One American soldier was killed and nine were wounded during clashes that also left three Iraqi troops and a police officer dead."

"The U.S. soldier was killed when his patrol was ambushed in Baghdad early Saturday, coming under a barrage of small arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs, the military said."

By the way, it's now Nov. 20. Has anyone else noticed that all the talk has been about elections "in January." With January less than six weeks away, isn't it curious there hasn't been any mention of an actual date for these elections? Or, for that matter, any actual announced candidates?

Hannah Allam and her friends

"My 26th birthday party was perfect...Stars glittered over the Baghdad hotel where I blew out the candles on a cake decorated by my four closest Iraqi friends...A year later, only one of those friends is still alive.

"Two of the Iraqi friends at my birthday party were shot to death at point-blank range as they drove home one spring night.

"Two weeks later, American soldiers opened fire on the third friend, an Iraqi television reporter who was speeding to the scene of a mortar attack. His last gasps were broadcast on live TV. I couldn't work for weeks.

"The fourth friend fled Iraq after receiving death threats."

Followup: My suspicions were quite unfounded; the Mercury News was saving the article for the front page of its Sunday edition. Evidently they found it just as significant and interesting as I did.

Throw a shoe, go to heaven

"Hundreds of Iraqi troops backed by U.S. forces stormed a Sunni Muslim mosque in Baghdad after Friday prayers, killing four people and wounding at least nine, witnesses and an influential group of Sunni clerics said.

"The Iraqi troops raided the Abu Hanifa mosque in the Sunni district of Aadhamiya, firing percussion grenades and damaging the doors, the Muslim Clerics Association said.

"They opened fire when furious worshippers began to chant 'Allahu Akbar' (God is Great) and tried to beat back troops by throwing shoes at them -- a grave insult in Islam."

Followup: Flashpoints radio tonight carries a report (scroll to Friday, Nov. 19 entry) from independent reporter Dahr Jamail in Iraq, featuring audio and eyewitness reports from inside the mosque where the slaughter occured. The two key points in Jamail's report are these: first, this wasn't just any old mosque, but the most important Sunni mosque in Iraq, and arguably in the Sunni world, and second, the eyewitness (who happens to be Jamail's translator who just happened to be worshipping in the mosque at the time) reports that it was definitely U.S. troops who led the way into the mosque and did the killing, with their Iraqi "support" definitely secondary in the operation.

More followup: Jamail's written report on the incident is here.

One city down (literally), three (at least) to go

Claim #1: "U.S. military officials suggested that Zarqawi might be in the northern city of Mosul."

Claim #2: "A U.S. intelligence source said that while much of Zarqawi's organization was based in Fallujah, he apparently divided his time mainly between Baghdad and Ramadi."

My surprise of the week occured two nights ago watching Aaron Brown's NewsNight on CNN. The reporter presenting a piece, who was clearly not American (I believe I remember she was from the BBC), actually used the infamous phrase - "destroying the city in order to save it" - about Fallujah. She didn't, however, point out that pretty much the same thing could be said about the entire country, and the tens of thousands of its citizens who were killed in order to "save" them.

Becoming numb to war crimes

The shocks just keep coming

"A U.S. Marine commander in Fallujah is warning it may be some time before it is safe for residents to return to the Iraqi city, after nearly two weeks of fighting there to flush out insurgents. And U.S. forces may have to remain in the city if Iraqi forces prove unable to keep it from falling back into rebel hands."

Health care in America

Bizarre moment of the day

(Excerpts)

I can't believe the news today
Oh, I can't close my eyes and make it go away
How long...
How long must we sing this song?

Broken bottles under children's feet
Bodies strewn across the dead end street
But I won't heed the battle call

And the battle's just begun
There's many lost, but tell me who has won
The trench is dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart

And it's true we are immune
When fact is fiction and tv reality
And today the millions cry
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die

Rose-colored glasses at the Associated Press

"The number of people filing new applications last week for unemployment benefits dipped last week, offering a hopeful sign for recovery in the nation's labor market.

"The Labor Department reported Thursday that new claims for unemployment insurance dropped by a seasonally adjusted 3,000 to 334,000 for the week ending Nov. 13. That was the lowest level since the end of October."

Now here's the press release from the Department of Labor itself:

"In the week ending Nov. 13, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 334,000, a decrease of 3,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 337,000. The 4-week moving average was 338,250, an increase of 1,000 from the previous week's revised average of 337,250."

"Thursday's report also showed that the more stable four-week moving average of jobless claims, which smooths out week-to-week fluctuations, rose by 1,000 last week to 338,250. Hurricanes that had ripped through the Southeast had resulted in a rise in filings for unemployment benefits in recent weeks."

Shooting the messenger

"The videotaped shooting of a Fallujah combatant by a U.S. Marine has evoked strong emotions in the Arab world and on Capitol Hill.

"Texas Democrat Sylvestre Reyes says it's time to rethink the presence of embedded reporters in combat zones. During a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee, Reyes compared it to a football game, saying 'we don't want to know everything that's going on on the field.' Reyes says this is not censorship. In his words, 'We should not be providing the Al-Jazeera the kind of propaganda they've had the last couple of three days.'"

For those who still, inexplicably, harbor illusions that Colin Powell is a "moderate"

"The United States has intelligence indicating Iran is trying to fit missiles to carry nuclear weapons, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said.

"Powell partially confirmed claims by an Iranian opposition group that Tehran is deceiving the United Nations and is attempting to secretly continue activities meant to give it atomic arms by next year.

"'I have seen intelligence which would corroborate what this dissident group is saying,' Powell told reporters Wednesday as he traveled to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Santiago. 'And it should be of concern to all parties.'

"Pressed by reporters on the intelligence reports, Powell said the intelligence indicates that Iran 'had been actively working on delivery systems' capable of carrying a nuclear weapon.

"Powell said there is no evidence to suggest that Iran has developed the technology to make a nuclear weapon, but suggested that the regime is working to adapt missiles for nuclear warheads."

Moving on from criticizing Powell to criticizing the media (AP in this instance), note the claim that Powell's statement "partially confirms" the claim that Iran intends to have nuclear weapons "by next year," even though nothing that Powell says even remotely confirms that; he specifically says there is "no evidence" they have nuclear weapons technology.

It's essential to keep repeating that Iran has not only the right, but indeed the obligation to develop whatever weapons it feels it needs to defend itself against the most aggressive, voracious, well-armed superpower the world has ever known, the only one who has not only used nuclear weapons against other human beings but has repeatedly, throughout the last fifty years, threatened to do so again. If anyone wants to work to make the world safer and more "stable," they should be raising their voice against the nuclear (and conventional) arsenals of the United States.

The killing fields of Fallujah

"Women and children were allowed to leave the doomed city, but all males 'of fighting age' were turned back if they tried to leave.

"You have to ask: turned back for what purpose?

"If the goal was to capture potential guerrillas, here were the men and boys trying to leave, offering themselves up to be arrested, investigated, interrogated and even held in detention. But instead of this, they were turned back to face the coming attack (this action in itself was a major violation of the Geneva Conventions, which require armies to allow non-combatants to leave the scene of fighting). If they were really fighters, did it make sense to send them back into Fallujah where they could pick up weapons and possibly kill U.S. soldiers? If the goal was to capture insurgents, then these unfortunates would simply have to be captured later, accomplishing the same thing, but under much more dangerous circumstances for both them and for their U.S. attackers.

"Clearly the real goal all along was something else: to kill them all-insurgents, potential insurgents, and any other 'fighting age' males (that included little boys as young as 15!) unlucky enough to be residents of Fallujah.

"That such horrors are going on in our name should be no surprise. This war was never about 'liberation.' It is about conquest.

"That so little is being said about it here in the U.S. is a crime."

Iraqi "sovereignty"

U.S. vs. Europe

"European children are consistently better educated; the United States would rank ninth in the EU in reading, ninth in scientific literacy, and 13th in math. Twenty-two percent of American children grow up in poverty, which means that our country ranks 22nd out of the 23 industrialized nations, ahead of only Mexico and behind all 15 of the pre-2004 EU countries. What's more horrifying: the statistic itself or the fact that no American politician to the right of Dennis Kucinich would ever address it?

Big talker

""A 100 per cent of the city is secure."

- Colonel Michael Regner, operations officer for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Fallujah

So long, it's been nice to know ya'

"Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot said yesterday his government will stick to its withdrawal schedule from Iraq, despite an appeal by the United States to keep its troops there as long as needed.

"'We leave Iraq by the middle of March. That is the decision. That decision still stands,' Bot told foreign correspondents.

"In Budapest, the Hungarian Parliament yesterday rejected a government proposal to extend the stay of 300 non-combat troops in Iraq by three months until March 31."

Foreign fighters in Fallujah

Quickly overlooked by the corporate media was the fact that the invasion of Fallujah was motivated primarily by "expelling foreign fighters"; indeed, the puppet Allawi said the attack would be called off if the "people of Fallujah" gave up the mythical Zarqawi (who conveniently "escaped," or so they say). Will that media, or the Democrats, point out the rather startling disconnect between the claimed reason for the assault on Fallujah and the truth? Not likely, no more than they pointed out the disconnect between the claim that Iraq was invaded to rid the world of the threat of Iraqi WMD and that reality.

Massachusetts now and then

Things definitely have changed; as I noted the other day, even George Bush now pays lip service to support for civil unions. But things haven't changed as much as one might hope. The Massachusetts legislature is still locked in battle over gay issues, albeit now over the issue of gay marriage rather than discrimination. Indeed, this was a major issue in the battle for the State Senate seat in the very district where the wedding took place, and the pro-gay marriage candidate lost. So the battle is far from over, even in Massachusetts.

Some things definitely don't change. The last time I flew into Massachusetts, in April 1996, I arrived in a snowstorm, one of the latest major snowstorms on record. This weekend I again arrived in a snowstorm, one of the earliest major snowstorms in many years.

Another language lesson

Now I will concede that at the moment the soldiers walked into this mosque, it is possible that this Iraqi was cleverly lying on top of a rifle such that it couldn't be seen. Possible, albeit highly unlikely, since someone in the group knew that this wounded individual had been lying there since the day before, and therefore was presumably in no kind of shape to do much of anything; judging from his appearance in the footage, he probably hadn't even moved since the previous day. But in any case, after he was shot and killed, surely within seconds someone walked over to the body and could easily discover that he was in fact unarmed. Therefore the news reports, continuing to this day, which refer to the prisoner as "apparently unarmed" are complete nonsense, and clearly designed to mislead the listener into thinking there is still some confusion on this point, which is impossible. This Iraqi was not "apparently unarmed," he was unarmed. If there is any question, the question is about the state of mind of the soldier who did the shooting, not the physical state of the dead Iraqi.

And on that point there isn't much confusion either. Even if the prisoner was armed, the laws of war only allow him to be shot if he posed a danger to the soldiers. But the soldier who shoots him quite clearly does not say "he's going for his gun" or anything like that. What he says is, "he's breathing," i.e., still alive. That is his entire motivation for shooting and killing this wounded prisoner.

Memories of Colin Powell's finest moment

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, Colin.

Addendum: Lawrence of Cyberia discusses Powell's role in helping to promote prevent democratic elections in Palestine.

Addendum 2: Just one memory of a minor episode in the life of Powell's apparent successor in the job of Secretary of De-lies, Condo-lie-zza Rice.

Innumeracy in Fallujah

• Headline: "Reconstruction could cost the U.S. tens of millions of dollars"
• Assertion: "The reconstruction effort in Fallouja will require tens of millions of dollars in U.S. funds to compensate residents for damaged property and to rebuild large parts of the city damaged by weeks of U.S. airstrikes and street-by-street fighting."
• Second assertion: "The project seems likely to dwarf the large-scale rebuilding scheme in the southern city of Najaf, where damage was estimated at $500 million after a Marine offensive in August ousted Shiite Muslim militiamen."

The reality, of course, is that "tens of millions" is what they plan to spend, most of which will funnel into the pockets of Halliburton and other war profiteers, and that in the end, the rebuilding of Fallujah will be on a par with the reparations the U.S. was going to pay Vietnam after that war - one more forgotten promise.

Water wars

"If there is anything that should fuel the outrage of the antiwar movement, it is surely the destruction of Fallujah and the war crimes being inflicted by US commanders on its civilian population, who are now being denied the most basic and essential source of life, water.

"This is not the first time that US forces have cut water supplies, something explicitly forbidden under Article 14 of the second protocol of the Geneva Conventions, which reads as follows:

'Starvation of civilians as a method of combat is prohibited. It is therefore prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless for that purpose, objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population such as food-stuffs, agricultural areas for the production of food-stuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works.'

"Water supplies to Tall Afar, Samarra and Fallujah have been cut off during US attacks in the past two months, affecting up to 750,000 civilians. This appears to form part of a deliberate US policy of denying water to the residents of cities under attack. If so, it has been adopted without a public debate, and without consulting Coalition partners. It is a serious breach of international humanitarian law, and is deepening Iraqi opposition to the United States, other Coalition members, and the Iraqi interim government."

The voice of...the opposition?

"He is a teetotaling Mormon, a former Capitol Hill police officer who opposes abortion and was a cosponsor of the constitutional amendment banning flag-burning...Yet for all that, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada...is about to become the new Senate minority leader." (Source)

Quote of the Day

"What I really like about the President is his wonderfully uncluttered mind."

- Tony Blair, after meeting yesterday with George Bush

Today's thought to ponder

Sanctions and genocide

"With astonishing nonchalance, CIA operative and former UN Chief Weapons Inspector Charles Duelfer made a remarkable admission. Explaining the central conclusions of his report on Iraq at a Senate hearing on Oct. 8, Duelfer testified that Iraq had destroyed its stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and dismantled its nuclear program in 1991, immediately after the first Gulf War.

"'Astonishing' because between 1991 and 2003, more than one million Iraqis-half of them children under the age of five, according to international humanitarian aid organizations-had died as a direct result of the U.S./UN sanctions and blockade inflicted on their country. The deadly sanctions were officially explained as a means to force Iraq to give up its weapons of mass destruction. Now Duelfer admits to the world, the weapons that were used to justify such a genocidal policy had ceased to exist months after the sanctions were put in place."

"The consequences of shutting down foreign trade for a country like Iraq were entirely predictable and long recognized by Washington policy makers. Their intent was to inflict pain on the Iraqi people as a whole.

"The sanction regime brings to mind the words of President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 when describing the imperialist blockade against revolutionary Russia: 'The one who chooses this economic, peaceful, quiet, lethal remedy will not have to resort to force. It is a painful remedy. It doesn't take a single human life outside the country exposed to the boycott, but instead subjects that country to a pressure that, in my view, no modern country can withstand.'"

During the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S. destroyed all of Iraq's water purification plants. In the decade of sanctions that followed, it was the prevention of importation of chemicals and equipment which would have allowed those plants to be rebuilt that was the primary cause of the deaths of more than a million Iraqis. The one fact Becker neglects to mention is that the United States knew in advance this would happen. The destruction of the water plants (and other civilian targets) during the first Gulf War was not just a war crime, combined with the sanctions it was a deliberate act of genocide.

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out Quote of the Day

"Intrusive judicial oversight and second-guessing of presidential determinations in these critical areas can put at risk the very security of our nation in a time of war."

- soon-to-be-ex-Attorney General John Ashcroft (Source)

Open thread

A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

As it turns out, even if you believe that polls mean anything, that was a highly misleading spin, since in the one poll in question (and since when does one poll mean that much?), a grand total of 22 percent selected "moral values" as their deciding issue, but that barely edged out the economy (20 percent), and if you combined terrorism (19 percent) and Iraq (15 percent), which the President certainly does at every possible opportunity, you find that 34 percent felt that "terrorism and Iraq" was the decisive issue, a full 50 percent more than checked "moral values." I'm leaving aside the question of why someone would poll using such a nebulous concept as "moral values" which every respondent could decide for themselves what it meant.

But, as it turns out, you shouldn't even believe that much, as is demonstrated nicely in another poll (yes, a poll refuting the value of polls!) from the Pew Research Center. It seems that when voters in this poll were given a list of items to pick from, "moral values" was the most popular choice at 27 percent, followed by Iraq at 22 percent and the economy at 21 percent. But when they were simply asked to name their top issue without the assistance of a list to influence their choices, Iraq was picked by 27 percent, the economy by 14 percent and moral values tied with terrorism at only 9 percent.

Wouldn't you like to know who commissioned, and who designed, the original poll, on which so many words of "conventional wisdom" have now been spilled?

Quote of the Day

"I still don't understand these people's mentality. Do they think they can really win?"

- 2nd Lt. Shawn Gniazdowski, 23, of Chesterland, Ohio, referring to the insurgents in Fallujah, and evidently having inherited his commander-in-chief's complete lack of self-awareness or sense of irony.

Dancing on Arafat's grave

Not to leave the field to the Israeli ambassador alone, a BBC correspondent then appeared and referred to Arafat as a man who had "killed thousands of Israelis." Not "responsible for the death of," which is at least arguable, but "killed."

Britain reports on human rights

"Buyers of British arms and Britain's close allies in the 'war on terror' are named as being among the worst abusers of human rights in a government report published yesterday.

Surprisingly, the misnamed Palestinian Authority (misnamed because it has authority over next to nothing) is also listed as a key "human rights abuser." Why? "The Palestinian Authority does not act to stop terrorism with sufficient energy." I wonder why they don't criticize the Allawi "government" in Iraq (who has about as much authority as the PA) for their failure to stop "terrorism" with "sufficient energy" as well. The human rights abuses of the Israeli government of depriving millions of Palestinians of basic human rights seems to have been omitted from this "human rights" report, which is so bold (truly, compared to the U.S. government) as to say that "Israel's policy of targeted assassination is illegal." Not that they're going to do anything about it, mind you.

No mention of Britain's role in depriving 100,000 Iraqis of the right to life, either, apparently.

The price of...something

"Eighteen U.S. troops have been killed and 178 wounded in action since the start of the assault on Fallujah, the U.S. command said Thursday. Five allied Iraqi troops have also been killed and 34 wounded.

"The U.S. military announced the figures as commanders in Fallujah estimated that some 600 insurgents have been killed in the offensive, which began Monday night. The commanders cautioned that the number was a rough estimate."

9/11...was not the "price of freedom"

Interestingly enough, what I assume to be more or less the same exhibit was recently at the National Museum of American History, but as far as I can tell, that version of the exhibit did not include any 9/11 references.

Of all the stories out of Fallujah, here's the strangest...

"Insurgents set up checkpoints 35 miles northwest of Baghdad on a main road to Al-Fallujah, stopping cars in search of foreigners. A Knight Ridder correspondent in a white Peugeot was pulled over by masked gunmen at one of the checkpoints. He was released after showing the rebels an ID card with his birthplace marked as Al-Fallujah."

Quote of the Day

"The second thing Rumsfeld said made me think he was reading my mind:

'Rule of Iraq assassins must end...'

I couldn't agree more: Get out Americans."

- Riverbend, the Baghdad Burning blogger

Quote of the Day

""I just don't want American troops to be in Iraq, period. My feelings are can we just all get out?"

- Madonna (Source)

Gay rights (and wrongs)

On KPFA yesterday, during a discussion on "the election and gay rights," one of the participants said something I very much agree with, in the context of people criticizing S.F. Mayor Gavin Newsom for his actions (I'm paraphrasing here) - "Do you think if it weren't for the gay marriages that happened in San Francisco (and Massachusetts and elsewhere), that we would even be discussing civil unions, nevertheless have a situation where someone like George Bush actually endorsed them (nevermind the fact that he didn't really mean it)?"

"Gay marriages" are a convenient whipping boy. What it comes down to is one group of people, who curiously tend to oppose "big government," insisting that government impose their morality (and I use that term loosely) on everyone. And, of course, they pick on the weakest link. Most of these people are just as opposed (in principle!) to co-habitation, abortion, birth control, and lots more; they just know that proposing a Constitutional amendment banning co-habitation, which makes as much sense as one banning gay marriage, is too much a minority position. Let's not forget that it was "activist judges" who struck down many of the laws against fornication, not legislatures, and George Bush and his crowd oppose "activist judges" (by which they mean judges who interpret the Constitution and laws in ways differently than the Bush crowd).

So, in honor of Pastor Martin Niemoller, we update his famous quote:

First they came for the gays, but I was not gay, so I said nothing.
Then they came for the fornicaters, but I was not a fornicater, so I said nothing.
Then they came for women obtaining abortions, but I was not a woman, so I said nothing.
Then they came for the people practicing birth control, but my wife was past reproductive age, so I said nothing.
Then when they came for me, because I continued to express "heretical" ideas, but there was no one left to stand up for me.

Isn't the inscription on the T-shirt below right (two of which I sent to the happy couple when they actually got married several months ago) completely self-evident? (If you want one for yourself or to help someone else celebrate a marriage, here's the link, courtesy of Politics in the Zeros)

Sick of capitalism yet?

"When a deputy sheriff came to his door with a court summons, George Kneifel, a retiree in Union Mills, Ind., was mystified. His former employer was suing him.

"The employer, beverage-can maker Rexam Inc., had agreed in labor contracts to provide retirees with health-care coverage. But now the company was asking a federal judge to rule that it could reduce or eliminate the benefit.

"Many companies have already cut back company-paid health-care coverage for retirees from their salaried staffs. But until recently, employers generally were barred from touching unionized retirees' benefits because they are spelled out in labor contracts. Now, some are taking aggressive steps to pare those benefits as well, including going to court.

"In the past two years, employers have sued union retirees across the country. In the suits, they ask judges to rule that no matter what labor contracts say, they have a right to change the benefits. Some companies also argue that contract references to 'lifetime' coverage don't mean the lifetime of the retirees, but the life of the labor contract. Since the contracts expired many years ago, the promises, they say, have expired too.

"They have little to lose by trying. Typically, as such legal cases drag on, the employers save money as some of the retirees, who have to pay growing portions of their health-care costs, forgo costly care, drop out of the plans or die. If companies lose in court, the worst that happens is they have to resume paying benefits. They don't face punitive damages or penalties. And they may not have to resume benefits for those retirees who dropped out of the health plans.

"What's more, their earnings get a pop. That's because at the same time as they sue, employers typically announce reductions in the retirees' benefits. Doing so entitles them to lessen the liabilities carried on their books. Lower liabilities translate to higher earnings."

Another day, another hospital bombed in Fallujah with predictable consequences

"Warplanes have bombed a government clinic in the centre of Falluja as US ground forces engaged in pitched battles with fighters defending the city. Residents said the one-storey Popular Clinic which had been receiving wounded anti-US fighters and civilians was hit overnight as US-led forces pressed into the city.

"An Iraqi journalist, Abu Bakr al-Dulaimi, told Aljazeera that the overnight bombings which continued for more than 10 hours targeted everything in the city including the hospital, houses as well as cars. Al-Dulaimi said the hospital's staff, doctors and patients, have all fallen victim to the assault."

"Muhammad Abbud said he watched his nine-year-old son bleed to death at their Falluja home, unable to take him to hospital as fighting raged in the streets and bombs rained down on the Iraqi city. In the midst of a US onslaught and hemmed in by a round-the-clock curfew, he said he had little choice but to bury his eldest son, Ghaith, in the garden.

"'My son got shrapnel in his stomach when our house was hit at dawn, but we couldn't take him for treatment,' said Abbud, a teacher. 'We buried him in the garden because it was too dangerous to go out. We did not know how long the fighting would last.'

"Residents say scores of civilians have been killed or wounded in 24 hours of fighting since US-led forces pushed deep into the city on Monday evening."

The streets of San Francisco

My nominee for "chant of the night" was one I wasn't familiar with. It's an all-purpose chant, which can be used for virtually any issue:

Iraqi people under attack.
What do we do? Stand up! Fight back!
Palestinian people under attack.
What do we do? Stand up! Fight back!
Gay rights under attack.
What do we do? Stand up! Fight back!
Health care under attack.
What do we do? Stand up! Fight back!
[Insert whatever issue you like here, they're all pretty much under attack]
What do we do? Stand up! Fight back!

Political humor of the day

""The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved."

- John Ashcroft, in his resignation statement.

Now you see them, now you don't

"About 2,000 members of Iraqi security forces are fighting with the Americans, and it was too early to assess how well they were performing. Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top American commander in Iraq, said he anticipated that they would do well, but he acknowledged that some of the Iraqis - how many is uncertain - had failed to show up for the operation.

"'Some of these soldiers were on leave and just failed to return, but it did not have a significant impact on our plan,' he said."

As an interesting point of comparison, here's the report from the Los Angeles Times:

"Ten thousand U.S. troops and more than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers in tanks and on foot attacked this insurgent stronghold Monday night in a long-planned offensive aimed at ending guerrilla control of the city."

Followup: Knight-Ridder reports today that, of 2000 Iraqi troops expected to take part in the invasion, 200 have "resigned", and another 200 are "on leave." I'll bet American troops would like that deal; join the Army, and then take a "leave" when the battle is about to start. With 400 out of 2000, or one-fifth of all Iraqi troops confirmed missing, Donald Rumsfeld described this as "an isolated problem."

U.S. attacks the civilian population (alive and already dead) of Fallujah

The U.S., with its 500- and 1000-pound bombs dropping from the air, have turned Fallujah into a free-fire zone. You might think that everyone in town is an "insurgent." But even the U.S. military provides figures which show the opposite. They estimate there are 3,000 insurgents in Fallujah, and that 50 to 70 percent of the city's 200,000 residents have fled. So even assuming the best case, there are still 60,000 civilians left in Fallujah. And how is the U.S. attacking them besides for dropping bombs on them and depriving them of hospital care?

"U.S. troops cut off electricity to the city, and most private generators were not working. Residents said they were without running water and were worried about food shortages because most shops in the city have been closed for the past two days."

Followup: More details on the assault from Knight-Ridder:

"'You know, we're going to destroy this town,' Capt. Travis Barreto, 22, said, as he and other soldiers advanced in an armored vehicle.

"'I hope so,' replied the soldier sitting next to him.

"American warplanes bombed a makeshift cemetery in central Fallujah with strikes so forceful they unearthed the dead and scattered bodies throughout the area, several residents said."

A language lesson

"Bogeyman": "An imaginary monster." Nothing imaginary about the U.S. government's actions towards Cuba and Fidel Castro over the years, which include an invasion, numerous attempts to assassinate Fidel, a vicious economic blockade denounced by virtually the entire world, an official government policy which calls for "regime change" in Cuba, and lots more. "Bogeyman" indeed. "Very real antagonist bent on overthrowing the Cuban government" would be more like it.

Fallujah - some math lessons

"Allawi initially said 38 people were killed in the hospital seizure, but the U.S. military said no one was killed in the hospital operation. A military spokesman later gave a figure of 42 dead across the city since the Fallujah assault began. The spokesman, 1st. Sgt. Steven Valley, said the situation was "fluid" and information on casualties was difficult to pin down."

Here's the more interesting math lesson, buried in paragraph 22 of the article:

" A National Public Radio correspondent embedded with the Marines outside Fallujah reported desertions among the Iraqis. One Iraqi battalion shrunk from over 500 men down to 170 over the past two week - with 255 members quitting over the weekend, the correspondent said."

Here's another interesting math lesson from the article: 10<42. The alleged reason for the assault on Fallujah hospital, as noted in the post below, is that insurgents are "forcing the doctors there to release propaganda and false information." But in today's news, the U.S. military is claiming 42 killed, while "Doctors in Fallujah reported 10 people killed." Yes, you can see how that kind of "propaganda and false information" has to be stopped. We can't have those doctors exaggerating the number killed. Oh wait, we don't, that's the military. The "propaganda," of course, consists of the U.S. military describing the dead as "insurgents" (to a person), while the doctors have the audacity to describe the dead as "people."

The Fallujah assault begins with yet another war crime

Followup: And what is the justification used by the U.S. forces for attacking and seizing the hospital? Because it's "a refuge for insurgents and a center of propaganda against allied forces". By "refuge," they don't mean that insurgents are somehow using the hospital as some kind of center for organizing military attacks; since the hospital is isolated from the main city of Fallujah, that would be an absurd military strategy. What they mean is that Fallujans wounded by U.S. bombing, some of whom certainly are insurgents, are being treated in the hospital. And by "propaganda," they mean this: "American officials...have made little secret of their irritation with what they contend are inflated civilian casualty figures that regularly flow from the hospital - propaganda, they believe, for the Falluja insurgents." Which, even if true, is completely irrelevant, and not the slightest justification for attacking a hospital.

The U.S. military vs. the truth

"The fiercest U.S. air and artillery bombardment of Falluja in months destroyed a hospital, a medical warehouse and dozens of homes overnight, residents said on Saturday.

"A small hospital funded by a Saudi Arabian Islamic charity in the central Nazzal district was reduced to rubble. Only its facade, with a sign reading Nazzal Emergency Hospital, remained intact. Reuters pictures showed blue surgical cloths and empty medicine boxes amid earth and brick ruins. A nearby compound used by the main Falluja Hospital to store medical supplies was also destroyed, witnesses said. Hospital officials confirmed all its contents were ruined.

"The overnight bombardment was so intense that ambulances were unable to venture out, said Ahmad Khalil, a doctor at Falluja Hospital. Teams of volunteers had begun searching the rubble for dead and wounded. Hospital officials said two corpses were brought in on Saturday. Seven people, among them women and children, also arrived with serious wounds."

"An air strike [in Fallujah] after midnight smashed three 'barricaded fighting positions.'"

Was this an "accident"? It's worth recalling that, during the April siege of Fallujah, the Americans deliberately prevented access to Fallujah's main hospital, which lies across a bridge over the Euphrates from the main part of the city.

Liberals never learn

And, with history still teaching these kind of lessons in Iraq, Diamond (and, no doubt, Kerry and the Congressional Democrats too) press on with the same misguided approach in Iran. After talking about what a bad idea it would be for the U.S. to bomb Iran's nuclear facility, and the negative consequences such an action would have, Diamond then totally undercut himself by claiming that nuclear proliferation was the "greatest danger" we face, and that the bombing of Iran's nuclear facility could not be ruled out as part of "statecraft." Sounds so pleasant, doesn't it? Bomb your alleged enemies, and call it "statecraft."

Anyone with two brain cells to rub together can see that it is precisely the existence (or alleged existence, anyway) of nuclear weapons in North Korea which is giving the United States pause about attacking that country, and only (well, not "only," but definitely it's a big factor) the future existence of nuclear weapons in Iran which will keep them safe from attack by the United States. In both cases, nuclear weapons would be a stabilizing factor against the most dangerous, unstable regime in the world today, the one in Washington.

"Values voters"...

...think that employing antiseptic euphemisms like "mopping up" are perfectly appropriate when it comes to killing people.

...go to church and listen to sermons about the "right to life," but never once hear any reference in those sermons to the 100,000, or 30,000, or 15,000 (however many it is) Iraqis, most of them unarmed non-combatants, who have been killed by the U.S. invasion.

...think that a microscopic lump of stem cells is "precious life" that must be "protected" at all costs, but don't feel the same about the living, breathing human beings of Iraq.

...agree with Madeleine Albright's comment that the death of a half million Iraqi children from the results of the embargo was "worth it."

None of those things are my values, that's for sure. "Values voters" my ass.

And lest you Kerry voters feel too smug, let's remember that one of the few criticisms leveled by Kerry against Bush's prosecution of the war in Iraq was that he was too "soft," and should have flattened Fallujah back in April.

Fed up with talk of "values"?

Looking ahead...

Cheer up...
Your son was too young for Afghanistan.
And it's still a bit early for Iran-
But there's plenty of time for Syria...
And he'll definitely serve in North Korea!

Followup: Incidentally, Riverbend is being modest, or overly optimistic, about the prospects of her own country, Iraq. American children (sons and daughters) being born this very day probably have a 50-50 chance of serving in Iraq some day.

Quote of the day

"It's their government, it's their country. We're there at their invitation."

- George Bush, speaking about Iraq in yesterday's press conference

There are no "accidental" civilian casualties

"A National Guard F-16 fighter jet on a nighttime training mission strafed an elementary school with 25 rounds of ammunition, authorities said Thursday. No one was injured.

"The pilot of the single-seat jet was supposed to fire at a target on the ground three and half miles away from school, said Col. Brian Webster, commander of the 177th Fighter Wing of the New Jersey Air National Guard. He does not know what happened that led to the school getting shot up.

"The plane was 7,000 feet in the air when the shots were fired."

The "coalition"

All this talk repeatedly heard from U.S. military spokespersons and U.S. corporate media "reporters" and news anchors about how the "coalition" did this or "coalition forces" did that is just so much nonsense. Even members of the coalition in Iraq know better than to describe themselves in that way, and do their best to separate themselves from the Americans. Not, unfortunately, that it did the Black Watch any good today, with three of them killed and eight injured.

Quote of the Day

"Now we move forward to serve and to guard the country we love."

- Dick Cheney, a man who received five deferments during the Vietnam War and says he "had other priorities" than "serving" and "guarding his country."

"What do you mean we, white man?"

- Tonto

Kerrywatch - final edition

"In an American election, there are no losers, because whether or not our candidates are successful, the next morning we all wake up as Americans."

- John Kerry, in his concession speech

"On Wednesday, a U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded in a roadside bombing 12 miles south of the capital."

Even in defeat, Kerry can't keep his message straight:

"Now, more than ever, with our soldiers in harm's way, we must stand together and succeed in Iraq and win the war on terror."

Instant runoff voting...not so "instant"

"Wild charges"...proved

"In the weeks after the fall of Baghdad, Iraqi looters loaded powerful explosives into pickup trucks and drove the material away from the Al Qaqaa ammunition site, according to a group of U.S. Army reservists and National Guardsmen who said they witnessed the looting.

"The soldiers said about a dozen U.S. troops guarding the sprawling facility could not prevent the theft because they were outnumbered by looters. Soldiers with one unit — the 317th Support Center based in Wiesbaden, Germany — said they sent a message to commanders in Baghdad requesting help to secure the site but received no reply.

"The soldiers, who belong to two different units, described how Iraqis plundered explosives from unsecured bunkers before driving off in Toyota trucks.

"The U.S. troops said there was little they could do to prevent looting of the ammunition site, 30 miles south of Baghdad.

"'We were running from one side of the compound to the other side, trying to kick people out,' said one senior noncommissioned officer who was at the site in late April 2003.

"'On our last day there, there were at least 100 vehicles waiting at the site for us to leave' so looters could come in and take munitions.

"According to the four soldiers — members of the 317th Support Center and the 258th Rear Area Operations Center, an Arizona-based Army National Guard unit — the looting of Al Qaqaa occurred over several weeks in late April and early May."

"He and other soldiers who spoke to The Times asked not to be named, saying they feared retaliation from the Pentagon."

Counting votes

Note that in all these cases, if you look at the vote you will see "100% of precincts reporting," because the precincts did in fact report their touchscreen results.

I have no idea how widespread this trend is across the country, but it's certainly something to keep in mind in these days of close elections. Here in Santa Clara County, many ballot measures and individual races have yet to be decided because of these uncounted votes. Statewide, Proposition 72, which requires employers of more than 200 people to provide health insurance to its employees, is reported as failing with 100% of precincts reporting. But the "No" vote exceeds the "Yes" vote by only 160,000 votes, fewer than the number of uncounted votes in just one county.

American "justice"

"Our military has brought justice to the enemy, and honor to America."

- George Bush, in his acceptance speech today

Liberals and radicals

A liberal: Someone who looks at all the "crazy" things happening in the world - wars launched on completely bogus justifications, millions of people without health care in the richest country in the world, etc. - and thinks they are the irrational outcomes of a fundamentally rational system.

A radical: Someone who looks at the same things and thinks they are the rational outcomes of a fundamentally irrational system.

I'm not a liberal.

The bin Laden speech - more thoughts

Election thoughts - mine and yours

Secondly, I am depressed about the election result. Some may think that strange, considering I've made no secret of my antipathy for both Bush and Kerry, and the fact that I think their similarities (as expressed in the previous paragraph) are far greater and more important than their differences. Nevertheless, I recognize that the overwhelming majority of Americans, certainly the overwhelming majority (99+%) of American voters, felt differently, and felt there were significant differences between them and, feeling that, voted in a small but significant majority for Bush and all he represents. And that despite his gross ignorance, his massive incompetence, the corruption of his cronies, his appalling results in managing the war in Iraq and the economy at home, his huge budget deficits built up as a result of his generosity to the rich, the horrors of Abu Ghraib, and so on. In a world where the traditionally religious Spaniards have legalized gay marriage (or are about to, I forget where it stands), American voters overwhelmingly came down on the other side. In a supposedly progressive place like California, voters came down against a slight moderation of the "three strikes" law and against requiring WalMart to provide health care for its workers. So yes, I'm depressed. Not because of the result of the election so much as for what it tells me about my fellow Americans.

Just one point on the votes in California, where, with the exception of Prop. 62 the anti-third party initiative, virtually every position I took on the initiatives was the losing side. Why did things like three strikes modification and health care requirements fail? In my view, it was the result of the failure of the supposedly more liberal Democratic party to do anything about them (and, in the case of three strikes, quite the contrary, with Gray Davis and Jerry Brown opposing the modification). The only ads I saw on TV supporting the three strikes modification featured Joe Klaas, Polly Klaas' grandfather. Not a single prominent Democratic politician to my knowledge - not Boxer, not Pelosi, certainly not the right-wing Feinstein - was public in their support of this initiative (if indeed they did support it). Not a single one spoke out in favor of the health insurance initiative. I'm speaking here about public campaigning. Maybe in meetings of their supporters or when asked by reporters they supported it (or maybe they didn't), I don't know. But certainly I saw no evidence that the Democratic Party, in any form, spent one dime in support of any of the slightly progressive measures on the ballot.

Your turn... (in the Comments)

The very real victims of U.S. terrorism in Iraq

"'How is the situation in Falloojeh?' My father asked. We all knew the answer. It was terrible in Falloojeh and getting worse by day. They were constantly being bombarded with missiles and bombs. The city was in ruins. Families were gathering what they could and leaving. Houses were being demolished by tanks and planes. But the question had to be asked.

"'I hope everyone is ok...' I offered tentatively. Umm Ahmed focused for a moment on me and shook her head, 'Well, last week we buried our neighbor Umm Najib and her two daughters. They were sleeping when a missile fell in the garden and the house collapsed.'"

And her view of the role of Zarqawi coincides quite well with mine:

"Everyone here knows Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi isn't in Falloojeh. He isn't anywhere, as far as anyone can tell. He's like the WMD: surrender your weapons or else we'll attack. Now that the damage is done, it is discovered that there were no weapons. It will be the same with Zarqawi. We laugh here when we hear one of our new politicians discuss him. He's even better than the WMD - he has legs. As soon as the debacle in Falloojeh is over, Zarqawi will just move conveniently to Iran, Syria or even North Korea.

"As for the 'peace talks' with Falloojeh - they never existed. They've been bombing Falloojeh for several weeks now. They usually do the bombing during the night, and no one is there to cover the damage and all the deaths. It's only later we hear about complete families being buried alive or shot to death by snipers on the street."

Halloween special

Quotes of the Day

"The philosophy of the 'Bush doctrine' is in essence force. It advocates the United States should rule over the whole world with overwhelming force, military force in particular...The troubles and disasters the United States has met do not stem from the threats by others, but from its own cocksureness and arrogance."

- Qian Qichen, former vice premier of China (Source)

"I completely disagree with those who see a need to decide the matter [the control of Fallujah by "insurgents"] through military action. The coalition's handling of this crisis is wrong. It's like someone who shoots at his horse's head just because a fly has landed on it. The fly escapes and the horse is dead."

- Appointed Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawer (Source)

Subliminal bias

And of course it's not just the all caps, and the large sans-serif typeface, but the word as well - "carnage." That's a word typically reserved for events involving massive amounts of death and destruction, and sadly, in today's world, three dead and 32 injured doesn't qualify. In all of 2004, the word "carnage" has appeared in the Mercury News only 22 times, and of those only five described serious events, rather than sports events or other trivia. The train bombing in Spain which killed 192, a massacre in Pakistan which killed 42, etc. There have been dozens of days just this year in which Israelis have killed more than three Palestinians, and hundreds of days in which more than three Iraqis have been killed; not one of those was described with the word "carnage" by the Mercury News, nor have any of the occasions on which dozens of Palestinians or hundreds of Iraqis have died. Indeed, the article itself notes that, during the month of October, 165 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces - that's an average of three a day. By the standards of today's article, that should be described as "an entire month of carnage," but of course it isn't.

And it is with systematic, and sometimes very subtle, bias like this, that the attitudes of Americans are built up and reinforced.

As an interesting side note, the actual article was written by a Los Angeles Times writer, and in the LA Times, the headline is the much more neutral and informative "Teen Suicide Bomber Kills 3 in Tel Aviv."

Osama speaks

Here's a section I could have written myself:

"Oppression and the intentional killing of innocent women and children is a deliberate American policy. Destruction is freedom and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and intolerance.

"This means the oppressing and embargoing to death of millions as Bush Sr did in Iraq in the greatest mass slaughter of children mankind has ever known, and it means the throwing of millions of pounds of bombs and explosives at millions of children - also in Iraq - as Bush Jr did, in order to remove an old agent and replace him with a new puppet to assist in the pilfering of Iraq's oil and other outrages."

And just one more excerpt:

"So I say to you, over 15,000 of our people have been killed and tens of thousands injured, while more than a thousand of you have been killed and more than 10,000 injured. And Bush's hands are stained with the blood of all those killed from both sides, all for the sake of oil and keeping their private companies in business."

Delusional liberals

"Okay, Kerry isn't everything you wished he would be. You're right. He's not you! Or me. But we're not on the ballot - Kerry is. Yes, Kerry was wrong to vote for authorization for war in Iraq but he was in step with 70% of the American public who was being lied to by Bush & Co. And once everyone learned the truth, the majority turned against the war. Kerry has had only one position on the war - he believed his president.

"President Kerry had better bring the troops home right away. My prediction: Kerry's roots are anti-war. He has seen the horrors of war and because of that he will avoid war unless it is absolutely necessary."

To make that concrete, Kerry (and other Democrats) could have insisted that their authorizing vote not become effective until U.N. inspectors had completed their work, and then would only become effective if the inspectors certified either that there were prohibited weapons of mass destruction, or that Iraq was actively interfering with their efforts and therefore they would never be able to certify Iraq as WMD-free. Something along those lines. Or even, God forbid, until the U.N. Security Council voted to authorize an invasion. You know, some sort of "global test." They didn't do anything like that, however, and any claim that Kerry or anyone else who voted for that resolution "will avoid war unless it is absolutely necessary" is just nonsense.

To further illustrate his delusional nature, Moore continues:

"There's a reason Bush calls Kerry the Number One Liberal in the Senate - THAT'S BECAUSE HE IS THE NUMBER ONE LIBERAL IN THE SENATE! What more do you want? My friends, this is about as good as it gets when voting for the Democrat. We don't have the #29 Liberal running or the #14 Liberal or even the #2 Liberal - we got #1! When has that ever happened?"

Netflix update, Halloween notes

NFI, just passing on what I think is a good deal and a great way to view political (and other) movies, new and old, that you would have a hard or impossible time seeing otherwise.

Last night for Halloween, I decided to go for a horror flick, so I selected Bush's Brain, the movie about Karl Rove. It was mediocre at best, I learned next to nothing. Definitely not recommended.

Funny note of the evening - answering the door and passing out candy, at one point there was Michael Jackson. "Scariest costume I've seen all evening," said I. "It could be worse, it could be George Bush," replied one of the 10-year-olds at my door. Out of the mouths of babes.

More good election news

"In Venezuela, preliminary results showed candidates loyal to leftist President Hugo Chavez sweeping at least 18 of 23 state governorships and winning the influential Caracas mayor's post.

"It was a crushing defeat for an opposition demoralized by the president's victory in an August referendum.

"Encouraged by his win and others for the left in the region, Chavez proclaimed on Monday 'the revolution is here to stay,' and that 'Latin America's great people are rising up.'"

An election recommendation

How safe is Iraq?

Elections in January? Sure. Which January did you have in mind?

California ballot measures - some thoughts

• Yes on 66: Limitations on "Three Strikes" - I've been totally disgusted by the spectacle of the last three California Governors - Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gray Davis, and Jerry Brown - appearing on TV to denounce the proposed modification of the notorious three strikes law, preying on the fears of Californians by raising the spectacle of tens of thousands of "convicted murderers and rapists" being set free to roam the streets. On that grounds, every serious crime should carry with it a life sentence, shouldn't it? Remember, these "convicted murderers and rapists" were in fact "roaming the streets" until they stole a loaf of bread or committed some other non-violent and non-serious felony. The current law is an outrage, but frankly, I find the attitude of these three Governors even more outrageous.


• No on 71: Stem Cell Research - Do I support stem cell research? Of course. Do I support government-funded scientific research of all kinds? Definitely. What I don't support is government handouts to big corporations, or scientific research in which the government pays the costs (i.e., take the risks) and private companies reap the benefits, something that has happened repeatedly in recent years. I'm guessing that every single significant advance in recent years, whether it be stem cell research, AIDS drugs, etc., has occured because of government funding, but time after time the end result gets patented and privatized. Here's one of the things that firmed up my thinking - seeing John Doerr's name as one of the sponsors of a TV commercial supporting 71. John Doerr is one of the biggest venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, and according to a recent article is now worth $38 billion thanks to his personal investment in Google. If this $3 billion investment in stem cell research is such a "good deal" for the people of California, why doesn't John Doerr fund it and reap the benefits?


• Yes on 72: Health care coverage - I just saw Arnold on TV calling this a "job-killer." Evidently he prefers "people-killing," which is precisely what the lack of health care coverage (and the resulting lack or diminished access to health care) does to people, as study after study has shown. Of course, Schwarzenegger's point does have a certain validity, which is why "socialism in one state" (or even decent health care benefits in one state) can never work - the only real solution to this problem is proper health care coverage on a national level, and businesses which are run for people's benefit rather than profit. In other words, Prop. 72 is just one more Ace bandage attempting to hold together a rotten system, but it's one that's definitely worth supporting anyway.


• No on 69: Expanded DNA sampling - heck, why stop there? Why not implant a GPS transceiver in every person suspected of anything, or better yet, everyone. How about a camera on every street corner of the country? I know, I know, we're already moving in that direction. Let's not rush it.


• No on 63: Mental Health Taxes - A bandaid I will not support. Do I support higher taxes on the rich? Yes. Do I support proper government funding of mental health programs? Of course. But a dedicated tax for a specific purpose? I don't find that a good idea under capitalism or socialism. How about a ballot proposition to withhold California's share of the federal budget that goes to fighting the war in Iraq, and dedicating that to mental health programs? That I might support. How about electing a legislature which prioritizes spending on things like mental health instead of building prisons and highways?


• No on 62: The anti-third party initiative - A system where third parties are largely excluded from the actual election and confined to the primaries? No thanks. At first blush, you can make an argument that this measure might actually help third parties - get three Democrats, two Republicans, and a Green on the ballot in the primary, and the Green might even make the final two. My suspicion, however, is that if that is remotely in the cards, the "party bosses" will get together and pre-select their candidate, making the selection process even less democratic than it is today. The system is also outrageous for the same reason as the previous "open primary" system was thrown out. Imagine a Democratic incumbent, and two Republican challengers. This system allows Democrats to go to the polls and vote for the less electable Republican, so their candidate will have an easier time in the final election. Very democratic. Not. What I find amusing, and reprehensible, is the repeated references by supporters to how this proposition will help ensure the election of "moderate" candidates. Who says that's a desirable thing (even if the argument is true, which is questionable)? Who died and left them boss? The electoral system shouldn't be biased for or against anyone.


• No on 64: Lawsuit limitations - the people who want to limit lawsuits by "non-injured" parties are the people who are injuring us all by doing things like polluting the environment, things that they know that any single person would be hard-pressed to prove that they were personally harmed by, even when society as a whole has been.

Other left-wing analysis: Whatever It Is, I'm Against It weighs in, as does Politics in the Zeros.