Friday, December 02, 2005

Be sure to check out Mike's comments on the Democracy Now! items by visiting his site Mikey Likes It! I've got a few things to note this evening.

National Guard Offering $1,000 Recruiting "Finders Fee" (Democracy Now!):
Faced with dwindling recruiting numbers, the Army National Guard is offering a finder’s fee to soldiers who can enlist new recruits. This according to a report in USA Today. The Guard Recruiter Assistant Program, launched this week in five states, offers National Guard members rewards of $1,000 dollars for enlisting a recruit and an additional $1,000 dollars if the recruit shows up for basic training. The National Guard says recruiting has fallen 20% short of its goal this year.

This is a bit like Subway offering their employees bonuses for every new hire they can scare up.
The military trains people to recruit. It spends a lot of money on that. It also pays people who hold the job of recruiter.

Justice Dept.: Delay Redistricting Plan Violated Voting Act (Democracy Now!):
A memo obtained by the Washington Post shows lawyers at the Justice Department concluded a controversial Texas redistricting plan spearheaded by indicted Congressmember Tom Delay violated the Voting Rights Act. The memo argued the redistricting plan illegally diluted the voting influence of minorities in several Texas congressional districts. The memo said: "The State of Texas has not met its burden in showing that the proposed congressional redistricting plan does not have a discriminatory effect." Texas lawmakers approved the plan anyway, the memo says, because it stood to increase the number of elected federal Texas Republicans. Following the plan's approval in 2003, Republicans gained five seats in the following year's congressional elections. The redistricting plan is currently being challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Congressmember Delay is facing state charges of money laundering and conspiracy in connection with state elections.

The "violated" the Voting Rights Act. They broke the act. They packed the districts in to formations that were beneifical to them. It didn't matter if it was beneficial to voters because it's all about them and them getting ahead. It's as though you agreed to play Go Fish and mid-game, they decided you'd play Gin instead. Their lack of character is demonstrated in their eagerness to sell out tradition while screaming that tradition must be respected.

Yesterday, the online topic was race. In this community, four members weighed in. I want to note Cedric's because I think it's strong writing.

"Race" (Cedric's Big Mix):
So we're all supposed to write about race today. Everyone in the community. It's a web project and here I thought I was done with homework a long time ago.
I told C.I. that I would be happy to write about it but that I might not have anything anyone wanted to hear. C.I. said, "Even better. Be true to you."
Is this the day where the web purges the guilt for being white-white-white every other day of the year?
Will we see "fab post! hat tip to . . ." nonsense all over the net?
Rebecca wrote something brave. In it she talked about the ways Whites can aid racists. It was brave, it was Rebecca. But maybe some White person will write a "moving post" about Rosa Parks and it will gather steam all over the net and we'll once again here how wonderful the net is and how brave.
I don't expect much from it.
I'd love to be wrong but we can't talk about racism online.
We're not supposed to. We're supposed to look the other way.
Certainly if the net was racist, people of color would be shut out.
Oh wait, we are.
There's a token voice they include on their blog rolls and we're all supposed to be happy about that.
"One of us made it!"
Today is apparently Black day.
Women get ready because you're day will be coming soon.People of color and women get a day or two each year.
Otherwise it's white-white-white male-male-male.
So today a lot of people will get to feel good about themselves and sleep easy knowing that they did "their part."
Or maybe they'll kid themselves that because they blogged on TD Jakes/TD Jokes they're down with the peeps. You have to be pretty white to think TD Jokes speaks to African-American liberals.
But hey, you looked in the paper, you saw a Black man and thought, "I'll write about this!"Didn't matter that he's got nothing to say to the left. Doesn't matter what he preaches because us Blacks just love our preachers, right?

I like Danny Schechter's writing and wish I took the time to note it more but this was sent to me and ended up in the trash folder for spam. I almost missed it. If you've already seen it, well now you get to see it again.

"WAR ON THE MEDIA: 'Don't Bomb Us'" (Danny Schechter, BuzzFlash):
For some time, Mediachannel.org and other outlets have been reporting on the Bush Administration's contempt for the media and its attempts to manage and spin coverage.
Writing in this week's Nation, John Nichols and Robert McChesney catalogue the various strategies that have been deployed, charging, "with its unprecedented campaign to undermine and, where possible, eliminate independent journalism, the Bush Administration has demonstrated astonishing contempt for the Constitution and considerable fear of an informed public."
But would it actually attempt to "take-out" media institutions and kill or otherwise silence journalists? Would it bomb a TV station? How far will this government go?
We know that other governments have shown little restraint. An Indonesian and a Russian journalist were poisoned on airplanes in high profile cases. Others have been "disappeared," killed, jailed and tortured. Groups like Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation of reporters compile the cases and regularly call for justice.

And tonight, instead of a peace quote, I want to excerpt C.I. on Dexter Filkins, the Green Zone, et al. I think it's really important that people are aware that "reporting" isn't what they might think. The reporters are like chickens on a corporate farm, piled one on top of another, no free ranging, confinded in the Green Zone.

"Democracy Now: Sami Rasuli, Arun Gupta, Jose Serrano; Margaret Kimberley, Robert Parry, Danny Schechter" (The Common Ills):
Lastly, a number of e-mails came in regarding Dexter Filkins & John F. Burns' "For Once, President and His Generals See the Same War" in the New York Times this morning. All want to know why no comment? I can imagine few things worse in the morning than having to read through Dexy's "reporting" (his "award winning" "reporting").
What do I think of the article after reading it? I think it's a real shame that Burns' attached his once formidable name to this nonsense. They do not "see the same war," the Bully Boy and the generals (note that I didn't say "his"). That flies in the face of not only logic but public record. (See Seymour Hersh's" Up In The Air: Where is the Iraq war headed next?" in The New Yorker to name the most recent example.) Sunning themselves in the Green Zone, Dexy and Burns think they're on to something. What?
Fakery? It's not reporting. With their team of black t-shirt clad bodyguards escorting them through the Green Zone (Dexy reportedly still packs his own heat), hiding behind stringers who risk their lives (and may get a brief obit if they die, otherwise they'll get nothing but "end credits"), they lie to readers each and every day. LIE.
That's the only word for it since no article notes "We're trapped in the Green Zone! We can't leave without a military escort!" That's they're choice, they chose to be embedded in the Green Zone from day one. So tell the truth already. Quit letting readers think that you're traveling through Iraq when you're hiding in the safety of the Green Zone that's not so safe now and supposedly is about to get a great deal less safe.
The Green Zone section of Baghdad is in danger of being lost. One of the few areas the American military controlled. And safe from the Green Zone, the embedded reporters have never told you how out of control other areas in Iraq are. If Americans had known a year ago, two, that "reporters" "in Iraq" for the mainstream media were Green Zone confined and why, it would be a lot harder for Bully Boy to spin Operation Happy Talk.
Today Dexter Filkins and John F. Burns disgrace themselves and their profession yet again by carrying water for the administration, pretending to be journalists who do more than report from their hotels in the Green Zone (a sub-section of Baghdad, they can't even roam through Baghdad freely) and spinning wildly even though public record refutes their nonsense.










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Wednesday, November 30, 2005

House Republicans move to split up the 9th Circuit

Be sure to check out Mike's comments at Mikey Likes It! because we're offering our take on the same issues.

"Target: the 9th Circuit (The Republican war on the judiciary continues)" (The Common Ills):
Note Sander's last sentence, "They are now attempting to destroy the judiciary system, which will have profound implications for the future of this country." (The article's from the latest issue of the magazine and it's not available online at present.) Why note the last sentence? Zachary Coile's "A quiet move in House to split the 9th Circuit" (San Francisco Chronicle):

A little-noticed provision in the massive House budget bill would fulfill the longtime goal of conservatives to split the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, creating a new 12th circuit appellate court and allowing President Bush to name a slate of new federal judges.
Conservatives long have claimed that the Ninth Circuit is too liberal, and that reputation was reinforced by the court's 2002 ruling that reciting the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.
But legal observers say the outcome of such a split is likely to be a more liberal court making decisions for California, Hawaii, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands and a more conservative court serving seven other Western states now part of the Ninth Circuit -- Alaska, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Arizona.

[. . .]

And who would pack the newly created circuit? (You know the answer.) It's thought that one of the states effected would be Oregon. (We have several members in Oregon.) Oregon hasbeen very active with measures that Bully Boy's Justice Department has opposed. For instance, Oregon's physician-assisted suicide. From CNN's "Federal judge upholds Oregon assisted-suicide law" (April 17, 2002):

In his ruling, Judge Robert E. Jones criticized U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft for seeking to nullify the state law, saying he "fired the first shot in the battle" and had sought to "stifle" a debate on the matter through a Nov. 6 directive.Jones ordered the federal government to halt any efforts to prosecute Oregon physicians, pharmacists and other health-care providers who participate in assisted suicide of terminally ill patients under Oregon's law.

How bothered is the Bully Boy's Justice Department over this law? When the Ninth Circuit upheld Oregon's law, the Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court. The case that began as Ashcroft v. Oregon became Gonzales v. Oregon and the Court heard testimony on it in October. (Oral arguments before the Court can be found here.)

C.I. and I were talking on the phone and C.I. brings this up and I had no idea. I asked, "What are you talking about?" I hadn't heard anything about it. This is pretty big and I'm really surprised that I hear it over the phone. I read the main sections of more than one daily paper, I follow the news.

At first, C.I. had to read the article from the San Francisco Chronicle over the phone to me because I still couldn't believe that a) the Republicans would be that sneaky and b) that the national media wouldn't be all over this story.

I know, I should know better when it comes to the national media.

But C.I. has a Bernie Sanders quote at the start and what Congress member Sanders is saying is accurate. They change the rules, they make them up and they cheat. Which is how they could think it was "normal" to try to sneak something like this into a budget bill.

What they can do by playing by the accepted rules, they attempt to force through via covert means. That's today Republican Party.


US Paying Iraqi Media to Publish US-Authored Reports (Democracy Now!):
The Los Angeles Times is reporting the US military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish American-written articles favorable to the U.S. presence in Iraq. The Times reports articles written by U.S. military "information operations" are translated into Arabic and then placed in Iraqi newspapers with the help of Washington-based defense contractor the Lincoln Group. The articles are presented to an Iraqi audience as unbiased news accounts written by independent journalists. The Lincoln Group's contract is worth up to $100 million dollars over five years. A senior Pentagon official commented : "Here we are trying to create the principles of democracy in Iraq. Every speech we give in that country is about democracy. And we’re breaking all the first principles of democracy when we’re doing it."

The same administration that put Armstrong Williams on the payroll and wanted to start an office to put out false information is now seen to be planting Operation Happy Talk (to use C.I.'s term) stories in the Iraqi press.

Think about that. They lied us into war. The mainstream media won't report reality on Iraq and couldn't if they wanted to because, like Dexter Filkins, they're all stuck in the Green Zone.
They can't walk around. They can't see things with their own eyes.

So who do you really think these stories are for? I'm sure they're partly for Iraqis but I'm willing to bet that they are also for Americans. For the press over there to read from the safety of the Green Zone (some via their translators) and to travel back over here via blowback.


Supreme Court to Hear New Hampshire Abortion Case (Democracy Now!):
And the Supreme Court will hear arguments today that observers expect to shed new light on Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ views on abortion. The case deals with a New Hampshire parental notification law that an Appeals court ruled was unconstitutional. The case will be heard as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to consider the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito. Twenty years ago, Alito said there was no constitutional right to abortion.

Mike and I both agreed that Ruth was right when she said she was sick of hearing male pundits explain why abortion wasn't an important issue (statistically it hardly ever comes up). I guess if it's not your body at stake, you're a little more willing to cede rights? I don't want to hear another man on TV or on radio tell us how unimportant abortion is, or how the Supreme Court decides so many other issues, or any other nonsense.

I'll applaud Democracy Now! for having women like Kim Gandy come on and speak. But I'm not too pleased with some of the other left media because it wasn't just the mainstream that gave these male pundits their platform.

Roe v. Wade is based upon the right to privacy. Overturn Roe and you're overturning all of our rights to privacy because that is the goal. Conservative "thinkers" have been very clear on that. If they get their way, women will have no say over their bodies (though their husbands, if they're married to men, will). That's all reproductive rights, not just abortion. It will also effect same-sex relations because that's a privacy right as well as Lawrence v. Texas found.
If Lawrence falls, give up any expectation to any form of privacy in your own home for any reason.

All those (presumably straight) male pundits never felt the need to bring up Lawrence. Without Roe's foundation in privacy rights, you've just lost one of the strongest Court arguments for the right to privacy.

The same press that won't explore this (or explore the attempts to split up the 9th Circuit) will take down dictation as Bully Boy goes into more of his nonsense about "stay the course" and about how we have to be over there. We have to be over there, apparently, because he lied us over there. That makes sense, actually. Withdrawing the troops would pull away the one excuse he loves best: whenever his actions are questioned, he wraps himself in the flag and starts whining that tough questions (the core of a democracy) will undermine his mission.

His mission is apparently to see more people die in Iraq.

"Peace Quotes" (Peace Center):
War would end if the dead could return.
Stanley Baldwin











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Tuesday, November 29, 2005

"It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not stake their own"

Be sure to check out Mike's Mikey Likes It! for his take on the Democracy Now! items.

Time Magazine Reporter Testifies in CIA Leak Case (Democracy Now!):
This update on the CIA leak case - the Washington Post is reporting Karl Rove's defense team is hoping the testimony of a reporter from Time Magazine might help Rove escape indictment. On Sunday Time revealed that its reporter Viveca Novak had agreed to testify about a conversation she had last year with Rove's attorney Robert Luskin. A person familiar with the investigation told the Washington Post that Luskin cited his conversations with Novak in persuading Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald not to indict Rove in late October. So far Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff Lewis Scooter Libby is the only administration to be indicted over the outing of Valerie Plame's identity as an undercover CIA operative.

What's the deal with Time? It's a weekly, not a daily. But already they've got two "reporters" who've had to testify in this leak case. First there was Matt Cooper, the little boy with beliefs as long as he didn't have to go to prison. Now there's Viveca Novak. Novak's a popular name on the list. But there's plenty of others including Bob Woodward and Judith Miller.

Is anyone else bothered that so many reporters received the leak and didn't cover the fact that the White House was leaking? It's a nice setup that exists today if you're the administration. But when the press whines that they aren't trusted, they better start figuring out what excuse they'll offer to the shouts of "Plamegate!"

Big names (Woodward & Miller) and no names (Cooper & V. Novak), they all make the very exclusive list of "reporters" willing to cover up for the adminstration instead of covering the administration.

The press has bristled at being called lap dogs but the jingle-jangle of the tags on their dog collars make it hard to hear their latest excuses.

Greenpeace Disrupts Blair Speech About Nuclear Energy (Democracy Now!):
In Britain, members of Greenpeace disrupted a speech of Prime Minister Tony Blair's in which he launched an energy review which could lead to new nuclear power stations. The Greenpeace activists climbed into the roof above the podium and unfurled a banner saying: "Nuclear: Wrong Answer." They also dropped stickers onto the delegates below them.

You know what this made me think of? When the New York Times' Felicity Barringer pimped for the nuclear industry with her article that gave lots of space to pro-nuclear positions and tried to pass three twerps off as a groundswell.

If you missed it Felicity Barringer felt she was unfairly critiqued by C.I. C.I. printed her response (with her permission). That's nicer than I would be. C.I.'s attitude was, "I've had my say, she can have her say." Her say was woefully short on the facts and spun even more than her article did.

If your new to this site, C.I. and I have been friends for years. I know C.I. doesn't argue "opinion." Letting FB have her say was perfectly in keeping with C.I. What did C.I. think about her reality-free spin? Even a best friend can't find that out. Privately, C.I. just repeated what got posted at the site, that at least FB was willing to take her comments public unlike other reporters who gripe in e-mails.

My opinion of FB? It must be nice to marry into job security.

In the real world, the less secure world, Monica Benderman's still tackling the hard issues. When I was substituting for Rebecca, I posted about Monica and her husband Kevin. My opinion? He was found guilty because the administration will take no criticism. (Wonder if they have a spot for FB?) Monica's not going to fade away and, when Kevin finally has a his freedom, I bet he won't be silent either.

"How Do You Save a Country?" (Monica Benderman, The Ruminations on America Project)
How do you trust a country that cannot keep its word?
How do you trust a country that allows decisions to be made by leaders not elected for their integrity, but because their beliefs were accepted by "the party" that chose them to be their candidate, and "the party" had enough money to finance the campaign?
How do you trust a country that says it supports you for standing for what it believes in, and then turns its back on you unless you sing your own praises, and publicize your accomplishments, and tell your supporters how wonderful they are for the warm feelings they give you?
How do you trust a country that allows a soldier who refuses to participate in war crimes to be sent to prison for 15 months, and allows a slap on the hand for soldiers who burn bodies, desecrate religious material and openly abuse a culture they do not understand?
How do you trust a people when there are those who believe that the greatest way to protest the indiscretions of our administration is to commit flagrant, planned indiscretions of their own?

That's a powerful essay Monica Benderman has written. I hope you check it out. Monica Benderman is one of those voices you won't hear in the New York Times (check out C.I.'s "Other Items" from this morning). Monica Benderman's essay reminded me of a quote by H.G. Wells.

"Peace Quotes" (Peace Center):
A time will come when a politician who has willfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not stake their own.
H.G. Wells






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Monday, November 28, 2005

In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?"

Remember to check out Mike's comments at Mikey Likes It! because we've picked the same two items from Democracy Now!

UK investigates Shootings by Private Contractors in Iraq (Democracy Now!)
The British Foreign Office is investigating allegations that private contractors with the defense company Aegis have randomly shot at Iraqi cars. According to the Telegraph newspaper, a video recently appeared on a site affiliated with Aegis that contained four clips of an unidentified gunman shooting at cars in Iraq. In one clip a Mercedes is fired on at a distance of several hundred yards before it crashes in to a civilian taxi. One Iraqi Interior Ministry officials confirmed such shootings occur. He said: "When the security companies kill people they just drive away and nothing is done... I would say we have had about 50-60 incidents of this kind."

England's investigating and I'm not sure how many people will assume "British company, England's investigation . . . Uh oh, England's in trouble!"

"Shameless in Iraq" (Naomi Klein, The Nation):
Good news out of Baghdad: the Program Management Office, which oversees the $18.4 billion in US reconstruction funds, has finally set a goal it can meet. Sure, electricity is below prewar levels, streets are rivers of sewage and more Iraqis have been fired than hired. But now the PMO has contracted with British mercenary firm Aegis to protect its employees from "assassination, kidnapping, injury and"--get this--"embarrassment." I don't know if Aegis will succeed in protecting PMO employees from violent attack, but embarrassment? I'd say mission already accomplished. The people in charge of rebuilding Iraq can't be embarrassed, because clearly they have no shame.
In the run-up to the June 30 underhand (sorry, I can't bring myself to call it a "handover"), US occupation powers have been unabashed in their efforts to steal money that is supposed to aid a war-ravaged people. The State Department has taken $184 million earmarked for drinking water projects and moved it to the budget for the lavish new US Embassy in Saddam's former palace. Short $1 billion for the embassy, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said he might have to "rob from Peter in my fiefdom to pay Paul." In fact, he is robbing Iraq's people, who, according to a recent study by Public Citizen, are facing "massive outbreaks of cholera, diarrhea, nausea and kidney stones" from drinking contaminated water.

The reason for the quote above is to make sure we all get that the Pentagon, United States, was over awarding contracts. Aegis wouldn't be there, British company or not, without having been awarded a contract by the Pentagon.

C.I. and I were talking about this on the phone today. We wondered how that story would play because although we love Naomi Klein's writing, we're aware that if you don't watch or listen to Democracy Now! (or read) and you don't read either The Nation or The Guardian, you might not be aware of the work she's done explaining the occupation. If you've depended on the US mainstream media, you could read the headline and think, "Oh England's in trouble!" I know I have a few readers who are new to Democracy Now!, The Common Ills, et al. So I want to be sure we're all on the same page.

Al Jazeera Demands Answers from Bush Administration (Democracy Now!)
The director-general of the Arabic tv network Al-Jazeera has demanded Washington respond to reports that President Bush wanted to bomb the network's headquarters in Doha. Last week the Daily Mirror cited a secret British memo revealing that Bush told Tony Blair last year of his desire to bomb the news outlet. The Bush administration has described the Daily Mirror's report as "outlandish." Officials at Al Jazeera are now questioning whether the U.S. might have been targeting the network when it bombed its bureaus in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Baghdad in April 2003. The attack in Iraq killed Al Jazeera's correspondent Tariq Ayub. Ayub's widow, Dina, said she is now considering suing the U.S. government for her husband's death. She said "America always claimed it was an accident. But I believe the new revelations prove that claim was false or at least not trustworthy." Meanwhile in Britain a ban remains in place on all media outlets from disclosing the contents of the secret memo. But a member of parliament - Boris Johnson - has vowed to publish the memo and risk jail time if anyone leaks him the document.

A network is the topic of a bombing discussion by two world leaders. Is there a reason that the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune aren't digging deeply into this story? This isn't news? A former football player is busted and that's all I heard about walking through the airport Sunday. I'd pass a TV set, that was the big talk, someone had a radio on, that was the story. I get in the cab, that's the story on the radio.

I'm not really sure what the fate of a football player has to do with our world. I'm also shocked by the gossip passing as "reporting" on that. I don't want to make that the focus but I do want to point out that there's been no trial.

But to the press, this is a news story to focus on. For some reason, a discussion about attacking a news network isn't.

It's similar to how they can't find the anti-war voices even at this late date. If you missed C.I.'s
"NYT: 'Even Supporters Doubt President As Issues Pile Up" (Kate Zernike)," the New York Times still wants to do stories about people who supported the war only now they've maybe changed their minds. Apparently that paper is allergic (still) to the voices speaking out against the war before the invasion.

(Also check out Danny Schechter's "WAR ON THE MEDIA: 'Don't Bomb Us.'")

"Peace Quotes" (Peace Center):
In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?
St. Augustine









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Saturday, November 26, 2005

Too long on a variety of topics

No, I didn't post yesterday. That was for a number of reasons.

1) Rebecca was very busy Friday and had already asked if I'd be posting something other than the headlines we all worked on Friday (which I'll include later in this post). She had no time to post anything but was making time to get that up at her site.

2) People are knocking themselves out in this community to get things up at their sites. That's one reason C.I. and I proposed that we all work on headlines so that everyone would have an entry they could post. Betty, to give one example, is beating herself up because she was still editing when she finally posted her Wednesday entry and she used the wrong tense of a verb due to changing the sentence at the last minute and not reading over it. She hates the entry she wrote, though everyone I've spoken to loves it, and she's someone I see as under pressure. I spoke about this while we were all on the phone together Friday. I decided to put my words into action.

3) We all love The Common Ills and C.I. can make it look so easy. That's partly because C.I. will toss out sleep. C.I.'s always been an insomiac and is used to doing without sleep. The standards set at The Common Ills are high ones and people try their best to match those standards. I know Cedric does not have the time he's making for his site. Forget burnout, though that is always a danger, people need to take time for themselves. I stressed that repeatedly on the phone. (C.I. backed me up with talk of the creative well running dry if you didn't refill it.)

4) There are few Saturday entries from this community. There are times when Kat and C.I. are the only ones posting anything on Saturday. That's partly due to the fact that we work hard and long on The Third Estate Sunday Review. But it's also true that a lot of people have already put in all the time they have at their sites already. To use Cedric again, he's working full time, he's very active in his church and he also . . . I was going to say "does volunteer work" but what started as volunteer work (visiting some older members of his church) is not "work" to him. He really enjoys visiting with Three Cool Old Guys. Add in the fact that he's attempting to have a dating life and Cedric's an example of someone who's giving all he has and then some.

5) I am with a friend for the holidays (C.I.) and to break away to post last night instead of enjoying time catching up and having fun would go against everything I was speaking of on the phone yesterday.

6) This is an explanation, it's not an apology. There's a lot of apologizing going up at other sites (and I've done it as well). Kat's motto ("It is what it is") should be embraced. With everyone attempting to find time to post, there's not also time for guilt trips. There are ten sites in this community. If you don't find new content (or content new to you) at one, you should check out another a site. (As well as check out non-community sites that are permalinks.) Seth's gone through a very busy patch and he posted this week. He took the time to do an apology. I honestly wish he wouldn't have done that. I read it and felt like he was beating himself up. He obviously wishes he had time to blog more. There's no need for him to beat himself up. Just accept that you're not ever going to be able to do all the things you should do and when you are able to post, talk about whatever it is that you want to talk about.

7) Which is an issue because a lot of people feel that they don't have five days worth of commentary. They feel that, for instance, Rebecca's already covered what they might have said.
Professional op-ed writers usually do two columns a week tops. They also, or some of them, take lengthy vacations. C.I. brought up that issue as well to reassure people that if they didn't feel they had anything to add, they didn't have to post something.

8) I'm lucky. When I filled in for Rebecca, I didn't know what I was doing. C.I. talked me through my first post and one thing I wanted was a "structure." I have that here for most posts. I note some news items, add a sentence or paragraph of commentary, end with a peace quote. My structure is very similar to Mike's (who also was a big help, everyone was, but I did rely repeatedly on C.I. and Mike to talk me through while posting). What Kat or Cedric do is much different than what I do. They write about topics that have happened to them and that means figuring out what you want to say as well as how you want to say it. Kat's gotten some e-mails complaining about her lack of album reviews. One month she only contributed one album review. (After the complaining e-mails, she made the decision to only do one for November because no one shames Kat and good for her.)

Kat's creating with those reviews. She's not writing, "The first track is . . . The second track is . . ." Nor is she doing a paragraph review which has become so popular in too many publications. There is a lot of thought going into her reviews and a lot of creating. People wanted her to do her own site and she has done that. To expect that she will be able to do her own site and also write several CD reviews a month is expecting a lot.

9) Betty breaks my heart with the creative struggle she goes through with each chapter at her site. Add in that she's gone from being irritated at Thomas Friedman's columns to being outraged by them to the point that she can't read one in a single sitting and there's a lot of pressure on her. She really doesn't need the outside pressure of "Thomas Friedman writes two columns a week and you're only writing one chapter a week."

The story of Betinna is one, that as Thomas Friedman has become more vicious in his columns, Betty's been tempted to rush through. She has that plotted out. But when his vicious slams outrage her, she has to check her own response and remember where Betinna is in the story.

She's doing all of that while working a full time job and parenting her children. She doesn't need any more pressure.

Like Ava and C.I., she's very tough on her on her own work. But where Ava and C.I. will trash one of their reviews, if it's brought up, they don't give it any thought unless someone brings it up.

I did a test yesterday with Ava and C.I. separately. Jim didn't think it would turn out the way it did. I wasn't surprised. I pulled quotes from three of their reviews and read the quotes to them separately. I presented it as something amusing I'd read that I wanted to share. They laughed with me when I read them. They both were surprised to learn it was from their reviews.

They both immediately said, "Oh well Ava/C.I. must have written that." They truly don't know their reviews. (And are quick to credit the other with any praise that resulted from their joint efforts.) They know the points they make. But if you read just a section of their reviews to them, they wouldn't recognize it if it was a small section.

That's because they write them, under intense pressure, and are done with them. They don't go back and reread them. Betty does go back and reread her chapters. After she does that, she's full of criticism about how she might have worded something differently. When there's a repost at The Third Estate Sunday Review, she'll usually ask for at least two or three changes. Last week, they wanted to post her latest but she said she didn't have it in her to make the changes needed.

She also has e-mails asking her to critique the columns themselves. If you're missing the fact that the columns themselves are critiqued, you're only reading them on the most literal level.
But she's getting a number of e-mails about that and often ones pointing out that since the Times moved to premium content, she's now one of the few people regularly covering Thomas Friedman. Hear me on this, she doesn't need any additional pressure.

Ava and C.I. don't do that and that's why despite the pressures they have doing those TV reviews, they're able to take the pressure while writing and then leave it behind. They walk away from those reviews after they're written.

"Prison Break Tease" has resulted in the largest outpouring of e-mails to The Third Estate Sunday Review. A large number have been the usual praise that their reviews rightly deserve. But it's also resulted in a large number of ignorant e-mails. I don't mean people who disagree which is fine with either them. Their reviews are opinion pieces. People are free to disagree. But a large number of e-mailers are unable to digest what's in the review.

A swarm of e-mails have come in saying, "You said Prison Break would be cancelled and it's a hit!" They never wrote that. They said it teased the audience and if didn't start becoming more forthcoming, it was in danger of losing the audience that had tuned in for the premiere. They also noted that a friend with the show had told them that episode four gets the plot moving.

As two people repeatedly felt the need to, repeatedly, write, in one week, with false claims about what the review stated, Ty got upset and wrote back suggesting that they read the review a little more closely. It was a nice e-mail (we've all seen it except for Ava and C.I.). That only enraged the two more. So Jess, Ty, Dona and Jim composed a joint e-mail. Again, no luck. Then Dona had finally had it (as comments came indicating that Ava and C.I. would be stalked and hunted) and fired off an angry e-mail telling them exactly where they could go. That stopped those two but the e-mails that come in disagreeing are sometimes very violent with crude, vulgar threats about what would be done to Ava and C.I.

Their attitude for some time, Ava and C.I.'s, has been that they're too busy to read the e-mails. Good or bad comments, they don't have the time to read. Jess will sometimes summarize the ones with nonthreatening (negative) critiques and the ones agreeing (with the reviews) but they don't have the time to read the e-mails and, after their reviews are posted, they are done with them.

Betty's now starting to get similar hate e-mails. Along with the usual threats are racist remarks. I told Betty stop reading the e-mails. All the e-mails, stop reading them. It's upsetting her too much. Ava was once freaked out by an e-mail from someone claiming to be stalking Ava and C.I. because it mentioned a blouse or sweater that she did in fact own. After that, Ava decided she didn't need the grief from reading the threatening e-mails.

Betty's computer time is usually late at night, when she's put the kids to bed. Nonsense about knowing where she lives joined with threats of what you are going to do to her are twice as scary late at night. She has to worry about not only herself, but her children as well.

So I suggested to Betty that she not read her e-mails for the rest of the year. If someone's got a question for her that needs answering and they don't receive a reply, too bad. She was concerned about ignoring an e-mail from a community member. If you're a member and you have something you need to say to Betty, please do it through the gina & krista round-robin. Gina and Krista have a letters section to their round-robin and they say they're happy to print anything from a member and that if it requires a comment from Betty, they'll call her and get a comment.

Adam Nagourney of the New York Times felt he got a threatening e-mail when a person stated that he hoped one of Nagrouney's children died in a (future) war. That's not a threatening e-mail. If that appeared threatening to Nagourney, he's never gotten a threatening e-mail. It wasn't a kind statement to make, but it wasn't threatening.

The threatening ones to Betty have now gone beyond threatening her with physical harm and now include her children. Those are threatening e-mails with specific threats and they need to stop. Because they haven't, Betty is under no obligation to read her e-mails or even check her account. So if someone who's been writing those e-mails stumbles across this post (especially the asshole with the hunting knife he's named "Pete"), you're not being read. No one cares to read you.

10) Due to all the above, I've asked everyone to try to find a way to reduce some of the pressures that they have placed upon themselves. That includes Wally who always intended to write a line or two only and was striving for five days a week tops but is now putting pressure on himself to do more than that. The Daily Jot is just fine as it was intended to be originally.

I had a lot of fun with a friend yesterday. I won't apologize for that and encourage others not to as well. That's not to discredit the importance of any reader I may have (I have readers, The Common Ills has members). It is what it is (Kat's motto). I hope anyone visiting can embrace that; however, if you can't, then you probably shouldn't be reading anything at my site to begin with.

One of the pressures has been with tagging posts and, especially, with the time put into attempting to make sure they are read. C.I. did multiple tags in an entry this morning and I did ask, "What did you write yesterday?" C.I.'s feelings were that a note re: Scott Shane was attached to the bottom and although it's going to be included in an earlier post, it should be tagged in this one. Which led C.I. to also tagging for the sites in the community. I can support tagging for the community (and will do so here, it's really easy, I just grab the tags from a post by Kat or Rebecca).

But everyone's under enough pressures without adding to them. To carry this a step forward, that means you as you read. We all make mistakes. Learning from them is wonderful and something to strive for. Obsessing over them is pointless. So, since holidays are always a tense time, if something happened this week that you realize was a mistake on your part, figure out a way to make ammends and a constructive way to respond next time. After all, it's not as though you've launched an illegal war that's taken the lives of countless people from various countries.

(If Bully Boy is one of my readers, I am shocked. But contact me, Bully Boy, I'll set up some therapy sessions for you and we'll see if we can't get to the bottom of your bellicose manner.)

On the topic of therapy, the New York Times has a front page article by Benedict Carey entitled "The Struggle to Gauge a War's Psychological Cost." The article is, obviously, attempting to measure the "psychological" cost. "Capt. William Nash, a Navy psychiatrist" is quoted and I'm troubled by his quote and the reliance upon him to represent the therapuetic community. He is not the only medical professional quoted, but he is the one the article leads with and the one they relay on for the first ten paragraphs.

"You have to help them reconstruct the things they used to believe in that don't make sense anymore, like the basic goodness of humanity."

That's a statement from Nash. While I myself believe in "the basic goodness of humanity," it is not my job to convince any patient of that belief, whether they once believed in it or not. Troops seeking counseling are trying to make sense of their experiences (usually traumatic). This can be a transformative moment for them. It's not my job (or right) to set out to return them to a belief they once held. It is my job to aid them.

His statements (combined) strike me as simplistic and the sort of thing one might have found much earlier in this country from proponents of "the sleep cure." Perhaps Nash is attempting to state that he assists them in reconstructing the past so that they can reconcile the past with their new experiences? That's not how his statements read in total.

It's not the job of a therapist to "return" someone to where they were. A grieving parent, to use an example, does not need to return to a happier time. He or she needs to process the loss and to reach conclusions about their current status. Such a parent certainly doesn't need me aiding them to see "the basic goodness in humanity." Again, I believe in such goodness, but that is my belief and it's really not pertinent to their therapy.

Whether Nash is advocating a quick fix or not, that is how it comes off in this article. To expect that a quick fix can be given to a trauma and that the patient can then be sent back into life as they were "before" is a denial of therapy as it is understood today.

In previous eras, shock therapy, lobotomies and other "cures" promised quick fixes and the returning to "normal." A trauma, by it's very definition, is not something that leaves you. To imply otherwise is to reject the very nature of therapy. You can be assisted in dealing with a trauma but ask any parent who's lost a child, to stay with that theme, and they will tell you that, no, they have not gotten "over" it.

At another point, another military therapist offers that, "The idea is simple. You have a lot more credibility if you've been there, and soldiers and marines are more likely to talk to you."
Some. Some are. However, some will seek out therapists who have not been there because they complain of their issues being dismissed for whatever reason. I would agree that the it's more likely that a majority are more comfortable discussing a trauma that occurred while serving with someone who has served; however, a significant minority would feel exactly the opposite.

There is a conclusion implied by the article, in my opinion, that "everything's okay and it's all being dealt with now." I'm not seeing anything to support that in the article other than some good p.r. Since the issue of violence towards others and suicide is mentioned, I am very curious as to what is being done for the family members?

Has the military improved the resources available to family members? It needs to. People who go to war and come back transformed effects the families involved.

The best section of the article, in my opinion, is the following:

Yet for returning service members, experts say, the question of whether their difficulties are ultimately diagnosed as mental illness may depend not only on the mental health services available, but also on the politics of military psychiatry itself, the definition of what a normal reaction to combat is and the story the nation tells itself about the purpose and value of the soliders' service.

That is a large issue and beyond the scope of the article. What is not beyond the scope of the article is interviewing therapists beyond the military establishment. C.I. wrote an entry this morning that dealt with the Times' issues of "balance." (Great entry, read it if you haven't.)
As a therapist myself, I would have been very interested in reading some evaluation or critique of the military therapy from outside the official voices and from outside the military.

A very long entry at a time when I'm suggesting everyone give themselves time to breathe. So I'll slap my own wrist and work towards my own goals in the next entry. I'll also thank C.I. and others present for listening to various paragraphs to make sure this post has some clarity.

Now here are the headlines we all worked on yesterday:

We've composed the following twelve headlines dealing with , , , , , , , the , the , and other topics.

1) From Dahr Jamail's MidEast Wire (Iraq Dispatches):
Monday in Iraq, US troops fired on a car in Ba'qubah, killing five, two adults and three children. The US military states that they feared the car "booby-trapped." The family had been returning from visiting relatives when a US convoy approached. The car was fired on from the front and the back. One Iraqi was quoted as saying, "The ones who brought in the Americans are at fault. Those who support them are at fault. All of them are at fault. Look at these. They are all children. All of them of are children. They killed them. They killed my entire family."

2) In the United States the Associated Press reports that Cindy Sheehan returned to Crawford, Texas Thursday and joined what some estimates say were 100 protestors and other estimates say as many as 200.
Cindy Sheehan stated, "I feel happy to be back here with all my friends ... but I'm heartbroken that we have to be here again," said Sheehan, who hoped to arrive earlier in the week, but was delayed by a family emergency. "We will keep pressing and we won't give up until our troops are brought home."

3) Since Sheehan and others last gathered at Camp Casey I and Camp Casey II, laws have been passed to prevent further gatherings in Crawford -- "local bans on roadside camping and parking." As protestors returned this week, they were advised they could be arrested. Among those arrested Wednesday were Daniel Ellsberg and US diplomat Ann Wright. Democratic Underground has a report from Carl who was also arrested Wendesday. Carl reports that "The entire [arrest & booking] process took 3.5 hours." Carl advises that the vigils will also take place on Christmas and New Year's Eve as well as that "Donations to the Crawford Veterans For Peace can be mailed to P. O. Box 252, Crawford, Texas, 76638-9998."

4) As the participation of psychologists and psychiatrists in the "BISQUIT" program and other 'interrogation' work raises ethical and professional questions today, CounterPunch is reporting that in WWII, United States anthropologists participated with the Office of Strategic Services in attempts to determine means to destroy the Japanese. David Price reports, in what is a clear betrayal of the profession, anthropologists were instructed "to try to conceive ways that any detectable differences could be used in the development of weapons, but they were cautioned to consider this issue 'in a-moral and non-ethical terms'." Price notes "Ralph Linton and Harry Shapiro, objected to even considering the OSS' request ­ but they were the exceptions."

5) In legal news, as the prison industry has switched to a profit making business, prisoners have found themselves located far from relatives. The distance has proved profitable for long distance companies. The Center for Constitutional Rights argued in court Monday on behalf of "New York family members who pay a grossly inflated rate to receive a phone call from their loved ones in state prisons." CCR notes:

The lawsuit, Walton v. NYSDOCS and MCI, seeks an order prohibiting the State and MCI from charging exorbitant rates to the family members of prisoners to finance a 57.5% kickback to the State. MCI charges these family members a 630% markup over regular consumer rates to receive a collect call from their loved ones, the only way possible to speak with them. Judge George Ceresia of the Supreme Court of New York, Albany County, dismissed the suit last fall, citing issues of timeliness.

6) In other legal news, Cynthia L. Cooper reports for Women's enews that November 30th the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. At issue in this case, is whether or not bans on reproductive freedom enacted by state legislatures must take effect before they can be legally challenged or whether they can be challenged as soon as they are passed. The standard up to now has been that laws can be challenged as soon as they are passed. Cooper notes:

By changing the legal standard for when an abortion restriction can be challenged in court, anti-abortion laws could quickly entangle women across the country, without directly overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that held that states could not criminalize abortion in all circumstances.

7) The Guardian of London reports on a Rutgers University study that has found "[g]lobal warming is doubling the rate of sea level rise around the world, but attempts to stop it by cutting back on greenhouse gas emissions are likely to be futile." Professor Kenneth Miller tells The Guardian's Ashraf Khalil, "This is going to cause more beach erosion. Beaches are going to move back and houses will be destroyed." This comes as the Climate Conference is gearing up to take place in Montreal from November 28th to December 9th. United for Peace and Justiceis issuing a call for action:

This fall let's mobilize a nationwide, grassroots education and action campaign leading up to mass demonstrations in Montreal and throughout the U.S. on Saturday, December 3rd. Help gather signatures for the Peoples Ratification of the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty (http://www.unitedforpeace.org/www.kyotoandbeyond.org), which will be presented in Montreal. Join Climate Crisis: USA Join the World! (http://www.unitedforpeace.org/www.climatecrisis.us) as we call for:
USA Join the World by Ratifying the Kyoto Protocol
Support and Export Clean, Safe, Non-Nuclear Energy Alternatives
End Government Subsidies for Oil and Coal Corporations
Dramatically Strengthen Energy Conservation and Fuel Efficiency Standards
A Just Transition for Workers, Indigenous and Other Communities Affected by a Change to Clean Energy
Defend the World's Forests;
Support Community-Run Tree Planting Campaigns

8) With Congress out of session due to the holidays, a number of organizations are attempting to inform the public of pending legislation. The Bill of Rights Defense Center warns to "[e]xpect a vote [on the renewal of the Patriot Act]after Congress returns on December 12th." Of the bill, Lisa Graves of the ACLU states:

The Patriot Act was bad in 2001, and despite bipartisan calls for reform, it's still bad in 2005. Instead of addressing the real concerns that millions of Americans have about the Patriot Act, the Republican majority in Congress buckled to White House pressure, stripping the bill of modest yet meaningful reforms. Congress must reject this bill.

Both the ACLU and the Bill of Rights of Defense Center are calling for grass roots action.
Also asking for action is NOW. Congress failed to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act.You can make your voice heard via NOW's take action page. On their page, you have the option of e-mailing your representatives and/or signing a petition that NOW will present to Congress on December 5th.

9) Meanwhile, as November winds down, American military fatalities have reached 76 for the month, with the Department of Defense reporting 50 Americans wounded thus far this month. The total number of American military killed in Iraq, official count, has reached 2105. Scripps Howard News Service reports that, "U.S. commanders on the ground have already launched plans to close bases and withdraw troops in the coming year, according to two congressmen who returned from Iraq this week." The two congress members are John Kline and Mark Kennedy (Republicans, Minn.).

10) In other Congressional news, Ari Berman reports for The Nation that John McCain is in the midst of makeover. Meeting with The Arizona Republican Assembly in August, McCain slapped some new war paint on as McCain supported the teaching of so-called "intelligent design" side by side with evolution, the state's "ban on gay marriage that denies government benefits to any unmarried couple," hailed Ronald Reagan as "my hero" and was observed "strenuously defending . . . Bush's Iraq policy."

For those who have forgotten, McCain attended Mark Bingham's funeral. Bingham was one of the passengers of Flight 93 on 9/11 hailed in immediate media reports. As the days wore on, Bingham appeared to disappear from many reports. Mark Bingham was gay. Whether that resulted in a "downgrading" by some in the media has been a source of speculation for some time.

11) Focusing on the media, at The Black Commentator, Margaret Kimberly addresses the issue of Bob Woodward, tying him and his editor to the journalistic behaviors of Judith Miller and her editors:

Miller, Sulzberger, Woodward and Bradlee are at the top of the corporate media food chain, and their behavior tells us why Americans aren't being told anything they ought to be told. Woodward uses his access to make a fortune writing about the Supreme Court or various presidential administrations. If a journalist's priority is writing best selling books based on the amount of access gained with the powerful, then truth telling goes out the window.

12) Also addressing the very similar behaviors of Miller and Woodward are Steven C. Day at Pop Politics, Ron Brynaert at Why Are We Back In Iraq?, and Arianna Huffington at The Huffington Post. Though still vocal on Judith Miller and weighing in with the "latest," CJR Daily still can't find a connection between the "journalistic" styles of Judith Miller and Bob Woodward. In their most recent 'Judy report', CJR Daily ponders the question of why did Miller go to jail when Scooter Libby and his people maintain that they released her from confidentiality claims. Covering old news and working themselves into another lather over Miller, CJR Daily wonders "Why did Ms. Miller go to jail?" and maintains the question "has never been fully answered." The question has indeed been answered.

Whether CJR Daily approves of or believes the argument of Miller, Floyd Abrams, et al, is beside the point. For the record, the answer has been given many times. The argument was that Miller needed more than a form signed possibly under duress. Abrams and others have long been on the record explaining that they sought a release other than the form. In the front page report, Sunday October 16, 2005, Don Van Natta Jr., Adam Liptak and Clifford J. Levy reported:

She said she began thinking about whether she should reach out to Mr. Libby for "a personal, voluntary waiver."
[. . .]
While she mulled over over her options, Mr. Bennett was urging her to allow him to approach Mr. Tate, Mr. Libby's lawyer, to try to negotiate a deal that would get her out of jail. Mr. Bennet wanted to revive the question of the waivers that Mr. Libby and other administration officials signed the previous year authorizing reporters to disclose their confidential discussions.
The other reporters subpoenaed in the case said such waivers were coerced. They said administration officials signed them only because they feared retribution from the prosecutor or the White House. Reporters for at least three news organizations had then gone back to their sources and obtained additional assurances that convinced them the waivers were genunie.
But Ms. Miller said she had not gotten an assurance that she felt would allow her to testify.

Again, from the front page New York Times story on . . . October 16, 2005. Though this was not the first reporting on Miller's position, this front page story of the Times was commented in great detail including at CJR Daily here and here. The latter time by the same writer who now wonders "Why did Ms. Miller go to jail?" Repeatedly hitting the designated pinata with articles focusing on her conduct while reducing the conduct of Bob Woodward to asides (whispered asides?) doesn't appear to make for brave "watchdoggery."

Democracy Now! has a special presentation today. The headlines above were composed by The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim, Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review, Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills), Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz, Betty Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man, Wally of The Daily Jot and Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix. Thanks to Dallas for his help with links and tags.

////

No peace quote today. I'll close with Mike's new motto:

The Common Ills community is important and the Common Ills community is important to me. So I'll do my part for the Common Ills community.










Posted by at

Friday, November 25, 2005

Peace is sleep when you're tired

I'm in a different time zone so technically, I'm not as late in posting as it looks. I'll also add that C.I. was working on an entry and wanted input.

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving.

I know that's not always possible. I was lucky to spend it with a friend (C.I.) and I know that there are others who've lost their parents or other family members and the holidays can be depressing.

Even if you're surrounded with friends and family, it can sometimes be depressing.

I think the longer you're out of touch, the more depressing it can sometimes be. Some people worry about their weight or their relationship status or their job or any number of things that they feel will be judged.

Sometimes, though not always, those expectations of judgement are inner expectations. There was a woman who was miserable at the table today. I spoke with her after and she felt everyone was focused on the breakup she'd just gone through. Though the breakup was traumatic to her, I can honestly say that I hadn't heard one word of it.

What I had heard was how great the woman's hair looked and how wonderful the choice of wine she brought was.

Before anyone worries that I take my profession to every gathering, I don't. I had never met the woman before and I don't do instant therapy. We ended up on the same couch (I probably should have typed "sofa" to avoid therapy implications) and she brought the subject up.

After we spoke, she became much more outgoing and appeared to enjoy herself.

The point of sharing that (were she someone I did therapy with, I wouldn't share) is that many times we think everyone's noticing something or talking about something, but it's just going on in our heads. So carry that into next month if you attend any get togethers next month.

I'm also late because I was looking for the post at The Common Ills and couldn't find it. C.I. used an early draft that had been saved. The time was changed to reflect the time it was posted but C.I. forgot to change the date so it posted on Monday. It's being fixed now and I'll provide a link to it.

Again, I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.

I'm not doing tags tonight. I really don't like doing them but do them at Rebecca's request. Technorati doesn't read my tags and yesterday I e-mailed them pointing out that their automated reply stating I would receive a reply in a few business days arrived on October 25th.
That's a month ago now.

I thought I was having problems with my tags not being read by their devices. But being at C.I.'s, I've seen that's nothing compared to the trouble it is for C.I. C.I. has to publish and republish and republish again just to get Technorati to read the tags (while repeatedly pinging them). I'd heard about this but sitting there and talking to C.I. while this was going on, I got how much of a problem it was. In the mornings, for instance, C.I.'s used to posting both Times entries at the same time. Instead, they have to be published individually, twenty to thirty minutes apart. If they aren't, they aren't read.

Cedric was read at first and then, for no reason, Technorati stopped reading his tags. Wednesdays posts by Betty, Kat and Mike are tagged and their sites are usually read (they manually ping) but they're not showing up.

I'm starting to agree with Jim that it's a bunch of "crap."

C.I. does extensive tags by subjects and people. It is a huge headache (and C.I.'s very vocal while hunting them down).

Blogger is the program everyone in the community uses. It is supposed to automatically ping (if you set it up to). All sites are set up to. However, Technorati doesn't recognize the automatic pings. So members are having to be manually ping. (Mike manually pinged four times on Wednesday and it still never read him despite the fact that he also published and republished repeatedly.)

Should Technorati ever reply to any of my e-mails, I'll note it here. But I'm done tagging unless they can explain what I need to do that's not being done. (I'm following all their instructions.)
For almost two months now, I've tagged every post and they've never once recognized the tags.
I've also informed them (in three e-mails) that Rebecca's tags aren't read either. This despite the fact that she even has a Technorati code at her site on the right hand side of the page.

Rebecca's always attempting to figure out ways to help the community. This was a good idea but Technorati has never read Wally's tags. Right now Seth has tagged a post. Technorati reads only some of those tags.

I told C.I. that, my opinion, the posts should just be tagged (at The Common Ills) with "The New York Times" or "Democracy Now!" Anything else isn't worth it when some posts aren't being read and when it took four hours of publishing and republishing today just to get the first two posts read (eight hours after the fact).

If Technorati can iron out the bugs, I'll go back to tagging. But I know members who have been tagging and haven't had their tags read (despite manually pinging) are upset. I know Jim's arguing that tags are a waste of time. I know C.I.'s feeling has always been, "I don't want to tag but if it will help traffic to the other sites, I will do it."

So I think I'll be raising the issue Saturday night/Sunday morning when we're all working on The Third Estate Sunday Review. My vote will be the same as Jim's, it's not worth it.

It's benefitted Kat (while her tags were being read by Technorati). It's been a pain in the ass for The Common Ills to hear C.I., Ava and Jess talk (due to the visitors who are not of the left but are discovering the site via tags and writing nonsense e-mails). My attitude prior, and this was Rebecca's as well, is that if just Kat benefits from it, great. But Kat and I spoke Monday and she's honestly feeling bad that she's benefitted while others haven't.

The whole point of this is, if you're a community member and you're enjoying the tags, e-mail me or Rebecca to make a case for tags. Otherwise, I think they'll be dropped soon. If not this weekend, then shortly after. Again, if I hear from Technorati about the issue and it can be fixed, that's great. However, having waited patiently for a reply in the "next few business days" for over a month, I'm not expecting a reply.

Here's the link to C.I.'s entry. That's the only one I'm doing tonight. But I will include Mike's motto:

The Common Ills community is important and the Common Ills community is important to me. So I'll do my part for the Common Ills community.

At dinner, I was asked about the motto. Someone wondered if it was a pledge? No. There are three reasons for it. One, is the tag issue. A second reason is because of an e-mail request. The third reason Mike will go into (I believe on New Year's eve). But it's not a pledge. You'll see it at other sites and here. (Hopefully, I'll remember to post it repeatedly.)
Posted by at

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

"You can't separate peace from freedom"

Mike and I picked our topics tonight so be sure to check out his thoughts on the two items from Democracy Now! by visiting his site Mikey Likes It!


CIA Told Bush of No Iraq-Al Qaeda Links Ten Days After 9/11 (Democracy Now!)
A new article by investigative journalist Murray Waas in the National Journal says President Bush was notified ten days after the 9/11 attacks U.S. intelligence had no evidence linking Iraq to al Qaeda or the attacks. According to several current and former government officials, little evidence has emerged to contradict the assessment. One former high-level official said : "What the President was told on September 21 [2001], was consistent with everything he has been told since -- the evidence was just not there." The Bush administration has so far refused to release the briefing, not even as a redacted document. Administration officials subsequently ignored the intelligence assessments in favor of those that alleged Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons and ties to Al Qaeda. One of the key proponents of this theory was then-undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith. In the margin of one of Feith's reports, Vice President Dick Cheney wrote: "This is very good indeed ... Encouraging ... Not like the crap we are all so used to getting out of CIA."


Rebecca covered this in "bully boy lied, people died." Mike and I both felt she covered it and wondered what we could add?

What strikes me is that most people who are Common Ills members will think "no sh*t" and most on the left in general will as well. But there is a significant number of people who, despite being exposed to one lie after another,


Remember that moment in A Few Good Men when Jack Nicholson explodes and start screaming, "You can't handle the truth!" I'm wondering how many of those who refuse to face the truth about the Bully Boy can't handle it?


If that's the case, I think some are predisposed to block the truth and they will never be reached. They deal by suppressing. But what of the others?


I think a lot of people bought the propaganda that the mainstream media fed us: Bully Boy's a great leader, Bully Boy's brave, Bully Boy's selected by God.



Now the mainstream media defenders would say, "That was never presented as fact!"
But it was repeated repeatedly. Tim Russert asking Laura Bush if she felt God had picked Bully Boy. A right-winger on the show weighing in that yes, God had.


This nonsense was told and retold.


Defenders can argue "As opinion, not as fact!" But the opinions the mainstream media presented on Bully Boy were fawning with the occassional "Well . . ." The serious critics of this administration have had a difficult time getting airtime.


The propaganda mode was quite effective but truth does come out. Now that it's come out on the Bully Boy, I think there are people who are suppressing but that there are also people trying to reconcile the propaganda they were sold with the reality that they are now being exposed to.


I think more discussion and more truth can reach that subgroup but Mike thinks I'm being "too generous to a bunch of sheep." He may be right.


British Newspapers Threatened in Al Jazeerah Memo Case (Democracy Now!)
The British government has threatened to sue newspapers that publish contents of a leaked memo in which President Bush allegedly discusses bombing the Arabic satellite network Al Jazeerah. The government says it would take action under the Official Secrets Act, which makes it illegal come into the possession of government information without lawful authority. The British newspaper Daily Mirror disclosed the memo Tuesday. The paper based its a report on a confidential Downing Street memo that claimed Bush told British Prime Minister Tony Blair in April 2004 that he wanted to attack Al Jazeera's headquarters in Qatar. Blair allegedly talked Bush out of the strike, fearing revenge attacks. The Daily Mirror says it will comply with the government's threat against publication. But Daily Mirror editor Richard Wallace said : "We made [the government] fully aware of the intention to publish and were given 'no comment' officially or unofficially. Suddenly 24 hours later we are threatened under section 5 [of the secrets act]." Two British civil servants have been charged in connection with the leak.


Again, Common Ills community members are thinking "no sh*t" because this isn't shocking. The Bully Boy wasn't the kind, caring, inspirational leader the propaganda mode promoted. He is a petty, vindictive, small minded man. His answer to everything appears to be to threaten. He does that with opponents, with the media, with other countries. Aljazeera has been a target of their rage for some time.


So it's hardly surprising that a Bully Boy would offer a plan to bomb the network. That's how he deals with things. And death has little value to him. His sister died when he was a child and instead of dealing with, he was spared the details. You can see a similar attitude today with his refusal to attend funerals for the fallen, the ones who died from his lies.

He ignores reality and all of his life that has been the biggest problem for him: reality slapping him in the face. When it does, he rages and blames instead of taking a self-inventory.


I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving. Let me do shout outs to Wally who blogged this morning about "the rules." Let me note Cedric who did a great mix tape last night.
Let me note Betty who called a few minutes ago ready to pull out her hair but determined to finish her latest chapter and get it up at her site. And let me note Kat who's blogged today and yesterday as well. And lastly but not leastly, let me note Seth who blogged today. Happy Thanksgiving to all of them and to you as well.

"Motto" (Mikey Likes It!):
The Common Ills community is important and the Common Ills community is important to me. So I'll do my part for the Common Ills community.

"Peace Quotes" (Peace Center):
You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.
Malcolm X














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"You grab peace and don't let go"

Wally e-mailed me to wonder if I thought "Wednesday" would count if he posted early this morning? I do. But I had forgotten about the time change.

I did take a nap after I got off the flight. But I forgot in terms of posting that although it wouldn't be midnight where I was, for people who might check this site, it might be "Wednesday" when I posted.

This is my Tuesday post. It's still Tuesday where I am.


"Hillary, You're Not Listening" (Jeff Cohen, The Huffington Post):
"Part of my job is being a good listener," Hillary Clinton wrote, in the first line of her letter received today. As a New Yorker, I'm represented by Hillary in the U.S. Senate. Along with her two-page fundraising letter, I received a four-page "2005 Critical National Issues Survey."
But something was missing -- something Hillary obviously doesn't want to hear about: IRAQ.
Nowhere in the letter or the questionnaire was that four-letter word.
Hillary's first question asked me to rank nine issues in their "order of importance." Iraq wasn't on the list. Nor was there a place I could add an issue she'd somehow forgotten about.
The problem is she hadn't forgotten the war. She simply doesn't want to hear about one of the biggest issues dividing our country, draining the federal budget, destabilizing the Middle East, undermining international law and institutions, and spreading fear and hatred of our country.
When national polls show that 54% or more of Americans want our troops withdrawn promptly from Iraq, and 60% believe it was a mistake to have sent troops in the first place, imagine how huge the majorities are for those propositions in Hillary's home state of New York.

I agree with Cohen completely. It reminded me of Ava & C.I.'s TV review.

"TV Review: Commander-in-Chief aka The Nah-Nah Sisterhood" (Ava & C.I., The Third Estate Sunday Review):
What really frightens us, besides the fact that a backlash only takes root when people who should know better applaud this junk, is an elitist attitude that seems to greet this show."We got our woman president!"
Consider us too grass-rooty but we don't see that as an end all be all. We weren't among the ones saying "At least we still got Martin Sheen on TV" so maybe we're missing it. But honestly, we'll take an Alice over a Commander-in-Chief. Give us working class women who pull together over a queen bee living a rarified life.We've never doubted that a woman could be president (and at some point will be). But we've never assumed that gender would be an answer. A woman who supports equality? Absolutely, that's a great thing. A woman who makes her way as an exception, backs up an agenda she doesn't believe in and does nothing to help other women? We don't see the point in applauding that.
It's a pertinent issue as two women are repeatedly named as potential candidates in the real world: Condi Rice and Hillary Clinton. If either woman (or both) runs, will we get the same giddy "It's a woman!" nonsense? Under no circumstance would either of us vote for Rice. We'd be reluctant to vote for Clinton considering her waffles on the issue of choice and her stance on the war. But will those issues be silenced in the giddy cry of, "It's a woman! It's a first!"
That's troubling.

I had a pretty easy flight. After the flight, I took a shower and a nap. So it really doesn't seem as late to me as it should. To me, it's still Tuesday.

I'm not sure if I noted this from Mike last night or not: "The community is important and the community is important to me. So I'll do my part for the community."

As everyone who comes to this site knows, Mike and I go over the same headline stories from Democracy Now! each day. So check Mikey Likes It! for Mike's take.

Iraqi Leaders Call for Troop Withdrawal Timetable (Democracy Now!)
In Iraq, Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni leaders have issued a joint communiqué calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S troops. The New York Times reports this marks the first time Iraq's political factions collectively called for a withdrawal timetable. The communiqué was released during a reconciliation conference held under the auspices of the Arab League. Attendees included Iraqi president Jalal Talabani. The leaders also condemned attacks on Iraqi civilians, government institutions and oil installations, and called for the release of all detainees held without trial. They said Iraq's opposition had a "legitimate right" of resistance but condemned terrorism and acts of violence, murder and kidnapping.

They want us out. That's not a surprise to anyone who's paid attention. This has been addressed many times before. It just doesn't seem to get addressed seriously by the press. I know many people who are unaware of it and won't believe it when I tell them. Less so in the last few months. But there's this idea that we're "helping." We're not helping with the public services being restored (after over two years). We're not helping with the "peace." The only thing we're doing is inflaming tensions. The troops need to come home now.

Pentagon Docs: White Phosphorous Is A Chemical Weapon (Democracy Now!):
New evidence has emerged that the U.S. military used chemical weapons during the assault on Fallujah a year ago. Last week the Pentagon confirmed for the first time that it used white phosphorous as a weapon to attack Iraqi fighters. But the Pentagon rejected claims that white phosphorous is a chemical weapon. White Phosphorous is often compared to napalm because it combusts spontaneously when exposed to oxygen and can burn right through skin to the bone. While the Pentagon is denying white phosphorous is a chemical weapon, a newly uncovered Defense Department document, reveals that is just how the military described it when Saddam Hussein allegedly used it a decade ago. A declassified 1995 Pentagon intelligence document reads QUOTE "Iraqi forces loyal to president Saddam may have possibly used white phosphorous chemical weapons against Kurdish rebels." Meanwhile a British commander has admitted that he trained his troops in using white phosphorus as a weapon. Until now the British government has maintained it used white phosphorous but only for tactical purposes.

The New York Timid, and Scott Shane, had an article in Monday's paper that should embarrass the paper and Shane. In it, they alleged that it wasn't a weapon based upon . . . the military stating it wasn't. To them. Documents prove otherwise, as do treaties. The paper of record should be embarrassed.

I'm staying at C.I.'s for Thanksgiving and, no, we didn't watch Nightline. If you did and for some reason are feeling down, check out C.I.'s "The end of a (bad) era."

"Peace Quote" (via passenger seated next to me on the plane):
You grab peace and don't let go. People try to stomp it out. You have to clutch it to your heart and soul, give life to it with your every breath.












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