I was too busy and intent on running my own mouth, as my Mother would have said, to pay attention before, but have just read it.

I will use it lots in the days and weeks to come.  

Mariam, one my projects this year is to reach a wider audience. I used to have op-ed submissions taken seriously and occasionally put up by the Chicago Tribune but that just stopped abruptly in 2003; no explanation...it was just over. I was permitted to do weekly 1 and a half minute (talk about concision) radio commentaries for an NPR affiliate in Northern Illinois in 1999 and 2000; they never got mad at me until I criticized PBS in one of my 90-second orations. I worked for a big mainstream "civil rights" agency for years...it was all about trying to be nice and respectful to get stories in the "mainstream" media and I did nice polite but honest and tough-minded reports showing that the city of Chicago was torn by deep racial disparities that still very much related to the problem of racism. Generally speaking, the reports would be page one in black media and there would be speaking invites on black radio but the boosterish civic-whitewashers of the corporate communications structture just didn't want to take it seriously. It was time to stop kissing corporate media's butt. If I had to pick one single institution in American life for destruction and radical reconstruction, I'd start with the corporate war and (more than) entertainment media...I used to go to antiwar meetings in Chicago and say "why aren't you targeting Tribune Towers" (also used to suggest surrounding The Boeing Corporation's HQ, in Chicago since 1999). I have no interest in converting right-wing trolls but I do insist that they behave respectfully and at least try to make reasoned cases for their (I think) noxious positions. No personal insults (like "Historian, Ha!") tolerated here.

preaching to the chior here, Rudy excepted, for the most part.

I thought most people who had bothered to know anything about the workings of the Government/Corporation marriage had either figured out for themselves or from Noam Chomsky, that the plan for the ownership, otherwise known as looting, of the world´s resources had been mapped out for control from the United States, with the powerful of Europe aligning themselves with the new Emperor of the new Empire long before us peasants knew any thing about it. That is THE MONSTER, that club of the rich and powerful white men from Europe and the United States running the world to enrich and aggrandize themselves. The rest is just detail.

That most of these resources are in the Southern Hemisphere where they are inhabited by lots of darker hued folk does not matter because the wmc (whitemensclub) has the bigger guns. That is the way it has always worked, at least according to the ¨intellectuals¨ who have made themselves comfortable by justifying to the rest of us what the wmc does.

A testament to the success of said intellectuals is the article cited by cyrano, Richard Seymour´s THE CONTORTIONS OF THE LEFT.

It starts out with NO PRINCIPLED OBJECTION TO IMPERIALISM!

Michael Ignalieff reckons we EITHER FIGHT EVIL WITH EVIL OR WE SUCCUMB! Don´t we SUCCUMB with either side of this equation?

Oh! I get it, this is the Scarlet O´Hara faction of the left...IT IS EASIER TO STEAL FROM THE POOR AND POWERLESS THAN FROM THE RICH AND POWERFUL...AND ARMED! RIGHT!

Martin Ames attackes Noam Chomsky with THE MORAL EQUIVALENCE LINE JUST DIDN´T WORK. ANTI-AMERICANISM DOSEN´T IMPRESS ME AS A VERY RATIONAL POSITION.

He seems to have the same problem Rudy does with understanding you must, if you claim any moral ground, oppose the policies of a governing body intent on murder and mayhem, without necessairly opposing the people governed, and if you become ¨them¨ then you are two gangs fighting over spoils and no rules apply.

Chris Hitchens reckons the left is guilty of ¨fascist sympathies¨and blamed Noam Chomsky and the anti-globalisation movement for spreading anti-Americanism.

FASCIST SYMPATHIES? I was sure that being LEFT meant that one is opposed to the marriage of government and corporation that is the tool of imperilism and the wmc. But maybe I am wrong....I admit I have a problem with all the titles thrown around today.

INTRESTING ASIDE..... The RIGHT attacks NC to try and obfuscate his message, classic ¨kill the messenger¨. The LEFT attacks NC to try and give more weight to a spurious argument.

Paul Berman reckons the ¨left¨should simply ¨behave correctly under the circumstances¨. AhHa! here we have absolute proof of how well the population has been trained. Even people who are supposed to know it is a shit sandwich are scarfing it down like it´s caviar! 

SO, PAUL, KEEP ON KEEPING ON. IT IS NECESSARY. THANKS. 

         

Oh, and I recommend seeing the whole speech by Chomsky that the segment Paul quoted is taken from. It aired on DemocracyNow about a week ago. He talks about a lot of issues, from Latin-America to Baghdad. Highly recommended. A good chunk of it is available in text-form at chomsky.info as well. Pangaea Oslo, Norway

First of all a good post, as always, Paul. I'd take this opportunity to comment on Bush's socalled new strategy in Iraq. So what is "new"? Well, he's sending more troops. New? No. The level of occupiers have steadily increased. He talked about training more Iraqis quislings as the US tries to establish a client army. New? No. They've tried that all along. I guess there is some progress, but not a great deal. Then he implicitly said that foreign corporations will take control of Iraq's oil wealth. Well, duh, we knew that all along was the aim. Hardly new. Sad to see it almost realised, but that's a different matter. Then he said the US occupiers had to strict restrictions. Aha. A hint of something new. Well, more of the same really. The occupation is violent enough. A quarter million Iraqis dead because of the invasion isn't enough blood on Bush's hands. He wants more. Like the Dracula he is. Send in more troops, and let them be even more brutal, oppressive and violent. Oh yeah, and they can't be prosecuted either for their crimes. Beautiful democracy isn't it? But at last a hint of something that actually is new, at least a bit. He wants to go to war with al-Sadr Mehdi army. Not a good move, obviously. This will further enrage the Shias, and stir up even more sectarian violence. So why is the US doing this? Two reasons I belive. (1) The US wants to be the only armed group in Iraq. They don't want competition. Obviously also a part of destroying the resistance (which they will never manage); (2) As long as there is sectarian violence the US can use that as reason for them staying. We've already heard it, same story as in Vietnam. If we leave, the country will fall apart and people will start killing eachother US-style. The truth of course, is that the US has created the civil war in Iraq (probably for this very reason). So to finish, there was nothing new in Bush's "new" strategy for Iraq. As we all expected, at least me. "More of the same" is his idea of "new". It's just rhetoric, lies and misinformation as always. How can you tell Bush is lying? He opens his mouth. And a small comment on Hussein's execution. There is no judgement hard enough for that man (as with Bush). To kill him is the easy solution, he will suffer no more. Better to throw him in a dark hole somewhere and let him suffer a bit. I'm opposed to death penalty in principle, so even monsters like Hussein and Bush should not be executed. But if you first are going to have executions, Bush should be standing next to Hussein in that room with a rope around his neck. He is a worse criminal than Hussein was. And yes, I do mean that. I better stop before this turns into a 5000-word essay. But I'd like to recommend reading the US-Iraqi relations piece over at the National Security Archives, together with some of the most important documents. It's quite revealing. I've read a fair bit of FOIA documents lately, and all US action in the region revolves around oil. you can hardly find a document that discusses the Middle East without putting it in context of oil, usually explicitly. It all goes back to the infamous 1945 State Department document about Middle East (okay, Saudi) oil that is viewed as "a stupendous source of strategic power and one of the biggest material prizes in history". Pangaea Oslo, Norway

Street wrote: It took a whole militantly heiarchical societal and imperial village to grow a George W. Bush. Paul, lol, it grew it like a wart, a cancer on our civilization. Another problem we face also is the number of them -- growing warts-- as there are warts that grew on the left too if you take for example the unbelievable Christopher Hitchens.. Recently David Peterson emailed "the contortions of the left" Richard Seymour, as it specially adressed the [sic] positions of some leftist on the war on "Islamofascists", it seem some weak brains have swallowed hate speeches..

No Paul, I did not address your concerns. It wasn't adequate. It appears you have no tolerance for idiocy.

Rudy, you should probably just step away from this blog. This is an unacceptable comment. That's two or maybe three abusive and offensive comments from you in two days. First you unacceptably called one of this blog's commenters an anti-Semite when you had absolutely no basis for doing so. You were reasonably told to apologize for doing so but you could not bring yourself to do that. You also refused or otherwise failed to address any of the reasonable arguments explaining why your comment was not only offensive but absurd. And now this sort of infantile and unacceptable abuse. If you can't behave in a personally and morally accountable fashion toward the blog host and commenters, then you should hit the Internet highway running, Rudy. I have zero tolerance for this sort of stuff.

Historian? Ha!