Well, folks, it's been another surrealistic day in Lake Bush Begone (don't we wish!). This morning, heard a report that stunned and appalled me - and I thought nothing about this administration could do that any longer.
JOHN ASHCROFT, in essence, just provided strong evidence that the Bush administration is playing out an apocolyptic religious delusion. Ashcroft appeared at a meeting of the militant fundie group "STAND FOR ISRAEL". This is a Zionist Christian organization dedicated to supporting Israel - not because of its open-minded embrace of Judaism, but because Zionist are a subgroup of the "Rapturists," who all believe that the end times are here and that for them to all be beamed successfully up to heaven in the Rapture, certain "prescribed" events must first happen. Among these events is the securing of Israel by the Jews (none of whom will be included in the Rapture!), the battle of Babylon (ie. modern Baghdad) and Armageddon (when Bush uses nukes?). At this meeting, where Ashcroft - a Pentecostal, another Rapturist sect - was given a long and thunderous applause, the lead speaker declared the Palestinians "the enemy."
Here's the NPR link:
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1218227
So we have Ashcroft, whose nomination was approved SOLELY on his reassurance that his religious issues would not enter into anything, all but officially declaring that he is a Zionist and anti-Palestinian - and by extension, anti-Muslim.
For more information about the Rapturists and the Bush administration, see "Marching on Babylon:"
http://newsinsider.org/seal/marching_on_babylon.html
PUBLIC REJECTS MAINSTREAM NEWS IN FAVOR OF ONLINE SOURCES - WITH LIBERAL GUARDIAN OUTSTRIPPING CNN AND BBC!
Record-breaking numbers of people have deserted mainstream TV/radio news sources and fled to sources less riddled by propaganda. Guardian became the number one source of online news - with CNN and BBC trailing. Well, CNN/NBC/CBS, et al, it just proves that you can't fool all the people all the time, and now it seems you're fooling damn few, despite your phony polls, and all your "patriotic intimidation" is doing is driving your viewers - and ultimately, your revenue - into the Internet Hills.
I think it's a particular hoot that people use AOL as a server - but, from what I have learned from many sources, they view its simple-minded jinogistic "news" as a joke and bypass if for sources like Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,928230,00.html
Speaking of mainstream news versus reality.....
Australian Rupert Murdoch Appoints Himself America's "Patriotism Policeman"
…..and wins himself a place in our docket as one of the first official Media War Criminals
When Peter Arnett was fired, it was not because NBC initially wanted to let him go. It was because of the massive, well-organized "Freeper" letter/email/phone-in campaign launched against Arnett in response to an aggressive, well-organized attack on Arnett by FOX news, owned, of course by Aussie Rupert Murdoch. FOX slammed Arnett as unpatriotic (coming from an Aussie outfit, we should be impressed?), and paraded belligerent hawk pundits and military sound byters on its various shows to blast Arnett, classic knuckledragging, Rush Limbaugh style.
Now Murdoch is using another one of his stable of US media outlets to attack the "unpatriotic": His newspaper, the "New York Post." I hear the Post not only slammed Arnett, it accused the New York Times of being pro-Saddam simply because they have on occasion made an attempt to present balanced coverage of the war..
So what do you suppose Murdoch's motivation is for appointing himself and FOX America's patriotism police? Easy! Murdoch's big dream is to have a global media empire, dominated by his DirecTv satellite network. . Now he is setting his sights on Iraq - ripe for "reconstruction" and FOX media dominance. So, it certainly is in his interests to promote the war, and he is using his media empire both directly (FOX's blatant, belligerent propaganda) and indirectly (using his media to attack other media that dares to question the war).
Here's an excerpt from the article "Murdoch's Empire-building for his Sons and Heirs" from the UK's "Telegraph":
"DirecTV, with its 10m subscribers, is one of the few single pieces that can stitch Murdoch's businesses together into something cohesive. The last time around, News Corp. had grand plans to float a new subsidiary called Sky Global Networks. Counting DirecTV, Sky Global would have reached 23m subscribers worldwide through its various entities, including its stakes in Britain's BSkyB, Hong Kong-based StarTV, and satellite ventures in Latin America and Italy. The creation of a satellite-TV business as a separate public entity would follow the pattern set when News Corp. spun out Fox Entertainment Group to house its American studio and television businesses."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2002/12/22/ccsiklos22.xml
I suspect Murdoch wants to establish his empire in the wake (on the skirttails?) of Bush's empire building...taking his act first into Iraq, then Iran, Syria, Korea, Indonesia...all the places Bush will invade if he is given a blank check by America. Regulation has dogged DirecTV But in a post-war reconstruction zone, regulation is typically nonexistent. In coming weeks, expect Murdoch via his media holdings, to attack and in any way possible undermine, any other media companies that don't go along with the Bush program. In exchange, Murdoch has undoubtedly been promised - or hopes to win - a giant piece of the post-war pie. Perhaps the first "installment" has already been paid, via the destruction of much of Iraq's existing media infrastructure.
So I hereby "officially" declare Rupert Murdoch a media war criminal. Think I'm kidding? There is a movement now afoot to file war crimes charges against key media organizations and even specific media figures in the Hague, and to fight to make the gross misuse of media to promote bloodletting and fuel atrocities a recognized 21st century war crime. The Newsmax and RADIO CLEAR execs, with their stable of hatemongering, atrocity-promoting rightwing radio hosts and columnists, will also probably face charges should the movement press ahead.
RESCUING 'SNOW WHITE'
Was the Jessica Lynch Story a Pentagon PR Concoction?
Did anyone else notice how scrubbed, pink-cheeked and clean-haired Ms. Lynch looked in all the photos after 10 days in captivity, wounded no less? Did you also notice that the entire "discovery" of Lynch's whereabouts was based on an Iraqi man who just happened to speak perfect English running up to some US troops with info that included, allegedly, even the hospital room number.? Or that Lynch was not a combat soldier - she was a clerk...? Or that Bush has wrung every drop of PR out of the story that can possibly be wrung (this mornings news banner across the bottom of the NBC screen repeatedly proclaime "Bush overjoyed by rescue of POW."
I kept thinking this story reminded me of something - then it came to me. Remember the story about the two "Christian missionaries" rescued in another daring operation in Afghanistan, right when Bush needed a good "evil Taliban" story. Those girls bore a remarkable resemblance in both age and looks to Ms. Lynch. So did the credibility-stretching nature of their rescue story (they both also looked remarkably scrubbed and rosy-cheeked for damsels in distress.
Even assuming the whole story is true, From a purely political standpoint, I find the scenario a classic example of the Bush mentality. Just as the affirmative action case is argued before Bush's 5 rightwing bigot justices (Scalia being the ringleader), the Special Forces guys allegedly move heaven and earth to go in and rescue the white woman, Jessica Lynch - whilst leaving the black and Hispanic women, also captured, to their fate. I suspect the whole drama was designed to appeal to the white rednecks who make up the Bush core constituency and whose fantasies of macho heroism are easily pandered to. It also was a convenient antidote (American heroes!) to the growing evidence that many American soldiers are not behaving in a heroic manner, to say the least, as the civilian death count rises.
War and the Great White Disinformation Machine
Check out this great essay in The Black Commentator, one of the best online news and commentary sources around: "Adjunct and mostly fraudulent clichés and phrases such as free trade, human rights and democracy are appended to racist policies to lend an aura of "universal" legitimacy to what in essence amount to little more than universal deception. Notions of supremacy constructed on the quicksand of fantasy and virtual reality, survive only because of the unprecedented, brute military and economic power that prop them. The oft-repeated assertion that America has now become the sole and unchallenged global superpower deliberately omits one crucial caveat: the validity of this claim exclusively applies to white America. The color of unchallenged global power is thus distinctly white and it is in this context that White America is discussed here. Any feeling of "belonging" to that power among non-white Americans will therefore remain emphatically illusory. " Dr. Kweli Nzito in "The Black Commentator"
http://www.blackcommentator.com/35/35_analysis.html
On a lighter note....
A fellow activist journalist sent me the following note this AM:
IF BUSH DECIDES TO INVADE POLAND
SHOULD WE STILL SUPPORT OUR TROOPS?
My response:
Absolutely!! And we should either ban all Polish sausage or rename it Freedom Sausage!
CS
RED CROSS IRAQ REPORT: Power to 7 Hospitals Damaged, Water Treatment Plants Down, Hundreds Injured in small towns, Resources Strained
Red Cross Update: Power and water to seven hospitals damaged, constant work to try to repair; hundreds. Fighting near the town of Hillija alone appears to have killed scores of men, women, and children, and injured about 280. The hospital there is struggling to care for growing number of wounded.
Getting water to various areas is an ongoing challenge. The RC has resorted to rented trucks. The situation will get much, much worse as the temperatures soar to 100, as predicted this coming week. Meanwhile water treatment plants throughout the war zone are, in most cases operating at only 40-50% capacity.
http://www.helpicrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/iwpList4/D240C5C0293C5839C1256CFC004BA1F4
April 2 Bush Administration Lie Fest (a daily ritual)
LIE: Victoria Clarke, the Pentagon's favorite liar, informed the press today that the "first shipments of US food aid to Iraq" would be arriving in Iraq in the next day or two and be unloaded.
TRUTH: As Clarke tossed out her big fat fibs, across town at the State Dept., the spokesman proudly stated how the first food aid to Iraq from the US would be loaded in the next day or two - in GALVESTON, TX. And head out for Iraq soon. And, unlike the banner announcement running across the bottom of the screen on network news shows, it is NOT 600,000 tons - it is 28,000. Slight disparity, eh?
LIE: The port at Umm Qusar is the only possible way to get a good ship into Iraq and right now, it has mines in it.
TRUTH: The Kuwait port is available - its only problem has been that its jammed with US military vessels, and no one wants to bother with accommodating a humanitarian vessel.
LIE: There is no immediate humanitarian aid crisis.
TRUTH: There was an immediate humanitarian aid crisis BEFORE the war, due to the ongoing problems caused by UN sanctions. Now, with most of Southern Iraq reduced to 40% water treatment capacity at best, and a month now elapsed since the last oil-for-food supplies came into the country, and 400,000 Kurds now considered refugees, how can anyone with an ounce of common sense - let along a half-ounce of compassion - not realize there IS a crisis. I firmly believe that Bush is intentionally roadblocking aid (all the while lying about it…"Check's in the mail") because he wants to reduce the Iraqis to a state of desperation.
LIE: Most Iraqis have 6-8 weeks worth of food stocked up.
TRUTH: Again, an ounce of common sense! As we have seen in the US during severe storm disasters, when a community rushes out and stocks up for even a few days, the stores shelves, overnight, are BARE. How can anyone imagine a country reduced to food rationing as a way of life could even scrape together 6-8 DAYS of rations for 22 million people, let alone 6-8 weeks?. As I said in an earlier installment, most middle class American families could not pull together the means stock 6-8 weeks worth of food without some hardship. But, as ever, Bush and Co relies on the gullibility and lack of common sense of the American public and esp. of the American press.
On the evening of 4/02, , Donald Rumsfeld looked like a defeated man....haunted, in fact. I suspect they know they have stepped into it up to their armpits not. Ari Fleischer's voice noticebly thinned on the word "win" when he said the usual propaganda line "There is no doubt that we will win."
Prediction: I expect a head somewhere near the top of the Bush cartel to roll soon - "resignation," forced or voluntary - as, eupemistically speaking, the crew begins to select bodies to throw out of the life boat.
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