Blood borders

Blood borders offers an interesting take on the conflicts in the Middle East. Essentially we're seeing regional ethnic conflicts between ancient tribal areas .. for example Kurdistan is the home of the Kurdish peoples and spreads between Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and whatever the country is to the north. The Kurds in Iraq have managed to create for themselves an semi-autonomous region and at the same time the Turkish government has been squashing their Kurdish minority.

The borders in the Middle East, and in Africa, were drawn by outsiders during the Colonial times. In the case of the Middle East the borders were created following World War I when the Ottoman Empire crumbled to dust. The outsiders didn't have in mind the interests of the locals, but instead their interests was the most effective control of the region from the outside.

But the conflicts going on are trying to unravel the artificial borders, and let ethnic groups who clearly occupy given areas to have their own homelands. Except that there is this system of existing national borders which are being maintained.

A few years ago I had a map showing a similar situation in Europe. The European countries were made by gluing together formerly independent principalities or kingdoms or whatnot. The ETA separatist movement is sponsored by Basques who want their own homeland. There are dozens of other movements around Europe having the same idea, that old cultures in specific areas of Europe are being eclipsed by national identities they probably see as occupiers of their lands. That's the thinking which led to the Balkan Wars following the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

George W. Bush singing "Sunday, Bloody Sunday"

Did you think GW could sing? Neither did I. But here he is "singing" the song Sunday, Bloody Sunday. Enjoy.

From: video.google.com

Greg Palast and his work

Greg Palast is an American Journalist whose research and writing is so hot that he is unable to get published in America. Instead he works for a British newspaper.

This makes it tough when, as he describes in The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, that he has an important breaking story that needs to break in America. In that case it was November and December 2000, and as you may recall the election was in the process of being decided by the Supreme Court. The story he had, which needed to break, was that the 500 some odd votes in GW Bush's lead was only the tip of the iceberg. The truth was that the whole vote appeared to be rigged.

The story has been told in Fahrenheit 9/11, so I'll just repeat the essentials. Kathleen Harris, GW Bush's campaign chairman in Florida and also the Florida Secretary of State, was in an interesting position. As Secretary of State she oversaw the conduct of the election, an election in which she was the campaign charman of a major candidate. Florida denies the right to vote to any convicted felon living in the state, even after the person has served their time and probation. Therefore, as Secretary of State she was in charge of finding any felons on the voter roles, and purging them from the rolls. For the 2000 election the process was very broad and ended up mislabeling in the neighborhood of 50,000 African Americans as felons when they were not. Since African Americans tend to vote overwhelmingly for the Democrats, it's likely a large portion of those 50,000 voters would have, if allowed to vote, voted for Al Gore.

Clearly if this had broken in any significant way while the parties were arguing in Florida, the outcome might have been very different. Yet, Greg Palast was unable to get the story published in America, except for an early version of the story on the salon.com website.

Palast comes to Journalism with an interesting background. He had formerly been an Economist, and had been trained in Economics by Milton Friedman (the eminent free-market economist). As a Journalist his background in Economics enables him to grasp complex stories, digging into the details, and come out with a descriptive style suited to lay audiences. He is also very much a muckraker, and seems to enjoy that role. If he lived in Russia he'd be dead by now.

Review: Farenheit 9/11

Michael Moore got his start in movies with muckraking pseudo-journalism, and he's only gotten better at this gig in the fifteen years since Roger and Me was released. In Farenheit 9/11 Moore has seemingly mastered the art of this type of story-telling, and has timed its release perfectly for the greatest effect in this years election cycle (late June, 1 month before the conventions).

Also of interest to viewers of this movie should be The Official Fahrenheit 9/11 Reader by Michael Moore. This book presents all the fact-checking behind the movie. The movie, after all, is a non-stop whirwind of facts that were not well covered by the mainstream media. Much of the movies claims clearly are shocking to most of the audience, but to those of us who have been researching the truth for awhile none of the claims were at all outrageous.

The movie makes a series of assertions which will not be a surprise to readers of this web site. In fact the movie is pretty mild compared to the various assertions that were available for Moore to make in the film. On the other hand, a purely factual movie would not have been so gripping emotionally, and as we know the emotions are much stronger than the mind.

In this movie we witness the horror of the September 11, 2001 attack not directly through watching the airplanes hit the building, but indirectly through the eyes and anguish of the people on the scene. Their horror and overwhelm at watching people leaping to their deaths is very moving. And, as typical of the rest of the movie, the viewer is shifted from that horror to watching what President Bush was doing at that same moment. Namely, making a visit to a elementary school classroom, having just come off a month-long vacation during which he was briefed that al Qaeda was planning an attack using airplanes. Upon being told of airplanes hitting the World Trade Center did the President immediately leap into action? No, he sat there for many minutes listening to the teacher conducting the reading program. People were dying in the streets of Manhattan, and the President did "nothing" for several minutes. Of course, one wonders, what could he have done anyway?

Very emotionally moving and serves to underscore Moore's theme. That this President is a bufoon, that the wrong man was given the Presidency, and that this President's policies have led America greatly astray.

The entire movie is in this vein. Going back and forth between shocking images primarily of the fighting in Iraq, fact-telling, and humor. In one gross-out scene we see Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz's favored grooming techniques. Moore must have excellent access to the camera-persons in the news media, for he shows dozens of short clips of the People of Power in moments of embarrasing humanity. Such as the makeup artistry in the moments before appearing on television (hence Wolfowitz's gross grooming techniques).

Some of the facts are interesting, so I will briefly recount them:

• On September 13, 2001 a large number of private airplane flights were sent across the U.S. to collect high level Saudi's and ferry them out of the country. In the movie this point isn't carefully laid out, and many of the reviewers think that Moore is claiming all aviation was still canceled at the time these flights were ferrying Saudi's out of the country. Craig Unger, who is featured prominently in Moore's movie, is the source of this information and in his book House of Bush, House of Saud details that these flights happened while private aviation was still grounded. Most of these flights were on private aircraft, not commercial, and had to be approved by the White House. What's alarming is that many of these Saudi's were members of the bin Laden family, and in general many of them should have been of interest to the FBI for questioning. Yet none of them were detained for questioning, and the White House is complicit in ferrying them out of the country.
• In the infamous flap over George W Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard, he spent a year of that time AWOL. During that AWOL period he was suspended from service. The Bush Administration released his service records in an attempt to prove that George W had done his service, and on the sheet detailing Bush's suspension from service one name was blacked out of someone else who had been suspended at the same time. However Moore already had a copy of that document, and in his copy the name was not blacked out. That name? James R. Bath, who went on to become a financier, handling the investment activities of Saudi Royals in Texas, one of whom is Osama bin Ladens half-brother. Some of those investments were in the string of failed businesses which George W Bush ran into the ground before going into politics (just like his father). Moore claims the link between the Bush and bin Laden families was formed soley through the James R Bath connection.
• George H W Bush's involvement in The Carlysle Group is detailed at some length. This company is a major world conglomerate, largely specializing in Defense Industries. It has on staff many former world leaders such as John Major and George H W Bush. George W Bush had worked briefly for this company as well. The bin Laden family had been a major investor in the Carlysle Group, and coincidentally the Carlysle Group was holding a meeting in Washington DC on September 11, 2001. The bin Laden family pulled out of the Group shortly after the attacks. This company is very secretive and steeped in controversy.

A question asked over and over again is Why are we attacking Iraq? The Iraqi's clearly had nothing to do with the September 11, 2001 attacks, yet on September 12, 2001 President Bush and others told Richard Clarke in no uncertain terms to find justification to attack Iraq (Against all Enemies). Moore proposes that it is the oil, of course, since Iraq has the second largest reserves of oil in the world (behind the Saudi's).

A little side story to the oil deal is the Oil Pipeline which had been proposed to go through Afghanistan. Central Asia has a large reserve of Oil, but there is no good way to get it to the ocean and thus on the world market. The straightest route is through Iran, but taking the pipeline through Iran would be dangerous to American interests and thus the pipeline has to take a different route. But none of the other routes were particularly interesting either. The agreement reached in the mid 1990's was to take the pipeline through Afghanistan and Pakistan, which meant that business negotiations were being conducted with the Taliban even while the Taliban was "harboring" Osama bin Laden who was known at that time to be conducting terrorist attacks against the U.S. such as the bombing of our embassies and of the U.S.S. Cole.

And who was placed into power in Afghanistan? Harmid Karzai, an advisor to the oil pipeline deal with Unocal which would have gone through Afghanistan. And what has been the major accomplishment of the Karzai government? Finalizing the agreements to route the pipeline through Afghanistan. And who else was involved with those negotiations? Why, a who's-who of the George W Bush Administration.

Michael Moore and his work

Michael Moore (http://www.michaelmoore.com/), the guy who conceived of and did Roger and Me, has gone on to become a liberal political commentator, actor, author, activist, and standup comic. His trademark tactic is intrusive butting into the affairs of the rich and mighty, in the guise of a normal guy with normal guy concerns.

Will they ever trust us again? Is a book reprinting the letters Michael Moore has received from thousands of U.S. soldiers and their families. They talk of rage and disgust, betrayal, hating the job they're doing, and more. The question Michael Moore asks through this book is, after this betrayal by the government, who will trust us?

Fahrenheit 9/11: The most controversial movie you could imagine being unveiled during a Presidential campaign. It recounts the fiasco of the last Presidential election, including discussing the highly probable outright fraud that disenfranchised tens of thousands of black Floridians in a flawed purging of "felons" from the voter rolls. It shows gutwrenching footage of the September 11, 2001 attacks, and then later more gutwrenching footage of our soldiers fighting in Iraq. He lays the case very well that the war in Iraq is a fallacy, that it is a huge distraction from the real "enemy" and more. See this movie!

Bowling For Columbine: Set in the time shortly after the Columbine "massacre" (in case you've forgotten, two high school kids went a little gun-nutty and shot up their high school killing a bunch of students), he uses the movie to explore the culture of gun violence in America.

For example, Littleton Colorado is also the home of a Lockheed Martin plant which makes guidance systems for nuclear missiles. Interesting contrast that is, to put side by side high school kids massacring each other next to the construction of nuclear missiles.

Most of the movie is spent considering why Americans kill each other at a higher rate than any other democracy in the world. Other countries have the same level of gun ownership, but not the same murder rate. Why?

Awful Truth-Complete Seasons 1 and 2: This is a TV series which Michael called The Peoples Republic Of Television. Through the TV show he covered various current events in his signature guerrilla video style, always staying close to humanity all the way. The result is hilarious and at the same time thought provoking.

In the beginning there was a free press. Well, not really, but it sounded good. By the end of the millennium five men who controlled the worlds media, and we ate their crap up with a spoon. Yet there was one man who operated outside their control. He and his crew were known as the Peoples Democratic Republic of Television (PDRTV). Their mission: to bring the people The Awful Truth.

For example, during the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton, he hired a bunch of actors to dress up in Puritan costume and lead fake witch trials on the streets of Washington DC. In another show he interviewed a young man who was being denied a life-saving operation (pancreas transplant) by Humana, and otherwise he was at risk of dieing every day. In covering the interview he gave a brief overview of Humana's financial and profit status, executive compensation, bonus plans for employees that deny health coverage, and then proceeded to stage a fake funeral outside Humana's headquarters in Louisville, KY.

To honor the murder of Matthew Shepard, he got a Winnebego, painted it pink, called it the Sodomomobile, and with a crew of gay and lesbian cohorts took a road trip through states where "sodomy" is against the law aiming to break as many laws as they could in every one of the states.

Roger and Me: Michael Moore's seminal movie released in 1989, during the height of the Reaganomics disaster. The movie covers Michael's attempts to get an interview with Roger Smith, the Chairman of General Motors, to explain why they chose to close 11 assembly plants in the Flint Michigan area.

Stupid White Men Michael Moore's screed against "Thief-in-Chief" George Bush's power elite, hit No. 1 at Amazon.com within days of publication. Why? It's as fulminating and crammed with infuriating facts as any right-wing bestseller, as irreverent as The Onion, and as noisily entertaining as a wrestling smackdown. Moore offers a more interesting critique of the 2000 election than Ralph Nader's Crashing the Party (he argued with Nader, his old boss, who sacked him), and he's serious when he advocates ousting Bush. But Moore's rage is outrageous, couched in shameless gags and madcap comedy: "Old white men wielding martinis and wearing dickies have occupied our nation's capital.... Launch the SCUD missiles! Bring us the head of Antonin Scalia!... We are no longer [able] to hold free and fair elections. We need U.N. observers, U.N. troops." Moore's ideas range from on-the-money (Arafat should beat Sharon with Gandhi's nonviolent shame tactics) to over-the-top: blacks should put inflatable white dolls in their cars so racist cops will think they're chauffeurs; the ever-more-Republicanesque Democratic Party should be sued for fraud; "no contributions toward advancing our civilization ever came out of the South [except Faulkner, Hellman, and R.J. Reynolds]," because it's too hot to think straight there; Korean dictator Kim Jong-il "has got to broaden himself beyond porn and John Wayne" by watching better movies, like Dude, Where's My Car? (which contains "all you need to know about America"). Whatever your politics, Stupid White Men should make you blow your stack. --Tim Appelo

Dude, Where's My Country? The people of the United States, according to author and filmmaker Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine, Stupid White Men), have been hoodwinked. Tricked, he says, by Republican lawmakers and their wealthy corporate pals who use a combination of concocted bogeymen and lies to stay rich and in control. But while plenty of liberal scholars, entertainers, and pundits have made similar arguments in book form, Moore's Dude, Where's My Country? stands out for its thoroughly positive perspective. Granted, Moore is angry and has harsh words for George W. Bush and his fellow conservatives concerning the reasoning behind going to war in Iraq, the collapse of Enron and other companies, and the relationship between the Bushes, the Saudi Arabian government, and Osama bin Laden. But his book is intended to serve as a handbook for how people with liberal opinions (which is most of America, Moore contends, whether they call themselves "liberals" or not) can take back their country from the conservative forces in power. Moore uses his trademark brand of confrontational, exasperated humor skillfully as he offers a primer on how to change the worldview of one's annoying conservative blowhard brother-in-law, and he crafts a surprisingly thorough "Draft Oprah for President" movement. Refreshingly, Dude, Where's My Country? avoids being completely one-sided, offering up areas where Moore believes Republicans get it right as well as some cutting criticisms of his fellow lefties. Such allowances, brief though they may be, make one long for a political climate where the shouting polemicists on both sides would see a few more shades of gray. Dude, Where's My Country? is a little bit scattered, as Moore tries to cram opinions on Iraq, tax cuts, corporate welfare, Wesley Clark, and the Patriot Act into one slim volume--and the penchant to go for a laugh sometimes gets in the way of clear arguments. But such variety also gives the reader more Moore, providing a broader range of his bewildered, enraged, yet stalwartly upbeat point of view. --John Moe

Downsize This! Who says the left wing doesn't have a sense of humor? Maybe it doesn't, but documentarian Michael Moore sure does--Exhibit A was Roger & Me; B was the ill-fated TV Nation; and C is 1997's print skirmish Downsize This! Moore's politics are rabidly liberal, populist, and anti-big business--about what you'd expect from the former editor of Mother Jones. While this restricts his audience to Americans on the left side of the aisle, for them Downsize This! will be a chance to point and laugh hysterically (if ruefully) at the clique of rich white guys who run everything. Moore is at his best as a prankster, whether it's trying to see if Pat Buchanan will take a campaign donation from the John Wayne Gacy Fan Club (yes) or whether he can have Bob Dornan committed to an insane asylum based on his bizarre behavior (no, but it was close). Moore is one of our sharpest satirists, and Downsize This! makes one wish he would write a "Sorry State of the Union" every year. But only if it doesn't cut into his moviemaking--that's too big a price to pay. --Michael Gerber

Moore M-Michael Moore Collectors Set 3pk

Noam Chomsky and his work

In my college years I had a thought, for awhile, to take a Minor in Linguistics, but changed my mind over how far into the future graduation would have been delayed. Still, I took some Linguistics classes, some of whom which centered on Linguistic theories by a controversal researcher by the name of Noam Chomsky. Imagine my surprise several years later to learn that he's also a controversial politics researcher, making a profession of saying the King has no clothes (or in this case, those who typically hold power in the U.S. government).

Noam Chomsky: Distorted Morality - America's War on Terror?

Any time you hear anything said very confidently, the first thing you should as is 'Wait a minute, is that true?'

This is a lecture given at Harvard University in the context of early 2002. The September 11, 2001 attack had occurred, the war in Afghanistan had occurred, but the main justifications leading the world to agree to attack Iraq had not yet begun in earnest. The two part thesis is:

1. We are all total hypocrites around the war on terror. Note the meaning of hypocrite, namely those who apply standards to others which they refuse to apply to themselves.
2. The first thesis is so obvious, it takes effort to miss it.

The first question to answer is, "what is terrorism". Rather than go into an hour long lecture on defining terrorism, he turns to a definitive source, the U.S. government (in the guise of a 1984 U.S. Army training manual)

Terrorism is the calculated use of violence, or the threat of violence, to produce goals that are political or ideological in nature.

A reasonable definition, yes? But, wait, there's more.

Most of the lecture he spends describing actions by the U.S., Israeli, British and a few other governments which certainly fill the definition of Terrorism. Generally these events are not reported in the press, hence do not enter the public record of generally known events, and thus get sidelined as historical events. In other words, this is the model that history is written by the winners of the battle. In this case it is the U.S. government (and related governments) which is the Master and controlling the outcome of the world politics game, and it is the U.S. government (and related governments) who are writing history and controlling what is reported which will become the written history.

For example he outlines a series of events in 1985, a year that was a high point in terrorist activities:

1. A car bombing in Beirut, outside of a mosque. Timed to happen just as people were leaving prayers, so that it would cause the most damage. Target? A Muslim Sheik. Perpetrators? The CIA, approved by William Casey.
2. The Iron Fist operations in southern Lebanon carried out by the Shimon Peres government. This was an illegal act, because of a U.N. resolution ordering Israel to leave southern Lebanon. There was widespread kidnapping, torture, and murder of Lebanese there, clearly fitting the definition of terrorism.
3. A few days before Shimon Peres came to Washington DC to declare, with President Reagan, denouncements of terrorism, Israel launched an attack against Tunisia. They bombed and killed many civilians. So that the U.S. military wouldn't have to notify Tunisia of the attack, the 7th fleet was withdrawn from the area.

These events didn't receive much coverage in the press, and are not discussed in the public eye as terrorist events. Instead what's given as examples of terrorism in 1985 is the hijacking of a TWA flight, and the hijacking of the Achilles Lauro (in which attack Leon Klinghoffer was killed).

In the war against Afghanistan, October 2001, he quotes President Bush as an example of this kind of terrorist act. Namely, "We will keep bombing you until you hand over Osama bin Laden". In other words, we (the U.S.) will keep terrorizing you (Afghanistan) until you do as we say. Later we saw this repeated again in the attack on Iraq, spun as "Shock and Awe", which is simply a niceified phrase for Causing Terror.

Is it at all rational to, as he points out, make a war on terror? War, by its very nature, causes terror. Thus, by making war actions such as invading countries and engaging in battle, you are using Terror to "defeat" Terrorism. Doesn't this strike you as insane?

Instead of the official definition of terror given above, he offers this:

Terrorism is acts of Terror that 'they' do to 'us'

If you think about it, this is the way Terrorism is presented in the mainstream press, and by the public statements of government officials and others in places of power. But, is this really terrorism? Isn't the above definition closer to what terrorism is? Why is the honest definition of terrorism not what is being addressed by governments?

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Manufacturing Consent

The video serves as a great introduction to Noam Chomsky, his work, and the controversies. Set in the context of the release of the original version of his book, Manufacturing Consent, it shows excerpts of interviews of him from all periods of his life and work. The video presents not just the message he has been speaking and writing for decades, but also a capsule portrait of what life is like for a controversial intellectual who has human frailties. Finally, the video gives a good introduction to the political result which Chomsky would wish for the world, namely collectivist work on small scale institutions (e.g. the Kibbutz model).

Much of the material presented circles around how the Media is used to channel the interests of the Masses, diverting them from meddling in the affairs of the Elite who are governing Society.

He gives the example of England in the 1600's. The printing press had just been developed, and was being used to create the popular media. One result was a great turmoil in beliefs and ideas, the spawning of political movements, and more. In the midst of the turmoil, in 1660, he quotes an historian as saying:

They have made the people thereby so curious and so arrogant that they will never find humility enough to submit to a civil rule.

They, the ideas being pushed through the nascent popular press of the day, was being printed by unchecked media outlets and, in other words, making it so that the elite could no longer rule their people. His claim is that in the centuries since, the media outlets are more and more controlled, so that the message reaching the masses is more and more controlled, so that the masses are ruled by the elite.

Is Democracy just a game for the elite? Is it proper and correct for the masses to be marginilized and controlled?

"Propoganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship" - Noam Chomsky

Propoganda is the old word for the manufacturing of consent. In other words, the dissemination of ideas and stories that are purposely constructed to control the resulting beliefs held by the masses who watch and consume those stories.

Public Opinion by Walter Lipman: This book, written in the 1920s, is referred to as a seminal work in democratic theory and the role of media in shaping opinions. In the book it is said "the manufacture of consent is a revolution in the practice of democracy".

The major decisions of life are controlled and in the hands of a very small and narrowly focused group of individuals. They may not act in a formal cabal that fits a conspiracist model, but they have common interests nonetheless. Namely, profit and the commonly held idea of how to create that profit.

The propoganda model he presents is the result of studying the structure of the media in how it operates. It has these roles in society:

• The selection of topics in the political debate both in the world and the U.S.
• The distribution of concerns or channeling whatever is the current topic of concern that's supposed to be in the public eye right now.
• Forming the emphasis on one story over another.
• The framing of issues as they are presented to the public, so that the public always receives events predigested for them by experts.
• The filtering of information through choosing what to publish.
• And the bounding of debate.

In other words, the media acts to determine, select, shape, control and restrict the public debate of the masses. It may appear there is a healthy debate going on between the news media and the political class, but where is the public in that debate? How can the public make their views known and addressed when it is the media that is presenting the questions? And not just presenting the questions, but writing the description of the answers.

By way of example the video goes over the history of East Timor, and to contrast it with the events in Cambodia at the same time. The East Timorese were a former Portuguese colony that was let go by Portugal during the 1970's. Rather than being allowed to govern themselves, East Timor was invaded by Indonesia, the invasion funded by the United States, arms and armor provided by the United States, a big massacre conducted using the U.S. provided arms, and why?

In Cambodia, by contrast, there were two periods of death and destruction. Before 1975, while the U.S. was still active in Vietnam, Cambodia was being "secretly" bombed by the U.S. causing a great deal of death. After the U.S. "withdrew" from Vietnam, Cambodia fell into a cycle of violence led by the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot, resulting in the deaths of several hundred thousand people. In the first phase of Cambodia's violence, that perpetrated by the U.S., very little coverage (next to zero) of the events appeared in the mainstream media such as the NY Times. After the Khmer Rouge took over to conduct their violence, there was massive coverage.

At the same time, both happened in 1975, East Timor was being subjugated by Indonesia using U.S. provided arms and assistance. Very little coverage of the East Timor events appeared in mainstream media such as the NY Times. What is the difference in coverage? Well, Pol Pot's Cambodia received 1170 column inches in the NY Times, while East Timor received 70. Yet both countries suffered a similar amount of massacring of its citizens at the exact same time.